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Myanmar obstructs reporters from covering crisis in Rakhine State

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 3 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Myanmar obstructs reporters from covering crisis in Rakhine State, 3 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58468752f.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.

Bangkok, November 3, 2016  Security officials in Myanmar should stop obstructing and harassing journalists attempting to report on the conflict in the country's northern Rakhine State, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The censorship comes amid widespread allegations of military abuses, including allegations of sexual violence, perpetrated as part of an intensified counterinsurgency campaign along the country's border with Bangladesh.

Border guards and military officers in mid-October blocked journalists and photographers from several news organizations, including The Irrawaddy, Myanmar Times, Democratic Voice of Burma, and 7 Day Daily, from traveling north of the state's Kyikanpyin police station to areas in the Maungdaw Township, where joint military-police security operations are underway, according to an October 21 news report from the independent newspaper The Irrawaddy.

Security officials told reporters they could not travel to the area because it was unsafe for journalists, the same report said. Military officials also ordered journalists to delete photographs they had taken of the aftermath of an October 9 attack on a border guard post that killed five police. The reporters refused to comply and drove back from the military checkpoint, declining to tell officers their names or the media outlets that employ them, the report said.

"Myanmar's democratically elected government should assert civilian control over its security forces and command senior officers to allow journalists to freely and safely report on the evolving crisis in Rakhine State," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative. "The best way to prove or disprove allegations of rights abuses is to allow independent media to probe the accusations. If the government truly has nothing to hide, then there is no need to restrict media access to the areas in question in northern Rakhine State."

Nongovernmental organizations, rights groups, and international media have all alleged that soldiers have committed rights abuses in security sweeps, including alleged arbitrary arrests, killings of unarmed civilians, arson, and the mass rape of women in blockaded areas of Maungdaw Township, news reports said. Reuters reported that "dozens of Rohingya Muslim women" had been raped or sexually assaulted by soldiers, based on interviews it conducted with victims and rights groups.

Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay has denied the reports, claiming the allegations are part of an insurgent "disinformation campaign."

Journalists who have probed the mass rape allegations have come under official fire. Fiona MacGregor, an investigative editor at the independent Myanmar Times, was singled out by Zaw Htay for being biased against the government and in favor of local Muslims soon after she reported, on October 27, allegations made by a local rights group that claimed security forces raped around 30 ethnic-Rohingya women in a single village on October 19.

The presidential spokesman also reposted comments made on social media by former minister of information Ye Htut calling for a police investigation into MacGregor and her newspaper's reporting on the allegations. MacGregor told CPJ she believed Zaw Htay sought to stifle reporting on the allegations.

On Monday, the Myanmar Times managers fired MacGregor for breaching company policy against damaging national reconciliation and damaging the paper's reputation by publishing the article alleging the mass rape of ethnic-Rohingya women and other opinion and analysis articles she had recently written about military and government actions in Rakhine State, MacGregor told CPJ.

Douglas Long, editor of The Myanmar Times, told CPJ by email that MacGregor was fired for violating employee obligations outlined in the company's handbook related to complying "with all reasonable and lawful instructions, policies, procedures and legal requirements." Long wrote, "The extent of direct government pressure [on the paper to fire MacGregor], if any, is unclear."

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Blogger detained amid escalating crackdown in Vietnam

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 4 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Blogger detained amid escalating crackdown in Vietnam, 4 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58468753fe.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.

Bangkok, November 4, 2016  Vietnamese authorities should immediately and unconditionally release blogger Ho Van Hai, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police in Ho Chi Minh City's Thu Duc district arrested Hai, a medical doctor popularly known by his Facebook moniker 'Ho Hai', on November 2, according to news reports.

A statement on Ho Chi Minh City's website said that Hai was accused of "spreading information and documents on the internet that are against the government of the Social Republic of Vietnam," news reports said. Nguyen Sy Quang, a spokesman for the Ho Chi Minh City police, told reporters that Hai had disseminated "distorted" information that caused the public to lose trust in the government, according to local reports.

Hai's personal blog and Facebook account were inaccessible on the day of his arrest, reports said.

Quang said police officials had been monitoring Hai's online activities before his arrest, and that his postings may have violated article 88 of the Penal Code that outlaws the dissemination of "propaganda" against the state. The official did not provide details or the subjects of the online postings in question. Convictions under the law, frequently leveled at dissidents and journalists, carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison.

"The arrest and detention of blogger Ho Van Hai underscores Vietnam's reputation as one of the world's worst jailers of journalists," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative. "Hai should be immediately and unconditionally released, along with all the other journalists wrongfully held behind bars for their writing in Vietnam."

Vietnam Right Now, an independent news site, reported that Hai had recently published articles about an environmental disaster, caused by a steel factory, along the country's central coast that has sparked a series of protests against the government's handling of the crisis. Another prominent blogger, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, was detained on October 10 and later charged under article 88 after she reported and campaigned on the same issue.

Hai's arrest comes amid an intensifying government clampdown on dissent that has targeted independent bloggers in particular. This year, three bloggers  Nguyen Huu Vinh, Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, and Nguyen Ngoc Gia  have been sentenced for their writing.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Proposed changes to Mexico's right to reply would increase burden on media

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 4 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Proposed changes to Mexico's right to reply would increase burden on media, 4 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58468754c.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.

Mexico City, November 4, 2016  The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today over proposed changes to Mexico's media regulations that could force the press to publish or broadcast more replies to news stories. The changes are due to be voted on by the country's Supreme Court November 7.

The draft ruling, viewed by CPJ, would broaden individuals' right to reply publicly to media reports. Currently, courts can demand that the press publishes or airs a correction or counter claim from individuals who say they have been harmed by false reporting. If at least eight of the 11 justices approve the ruling, the words in Article 3 of the law that grants the right to reply only for "inaccurate or false information" would be scrapped.

The proposed changes were drafted by Justice Alberto Perez Dayan, who argues in the draft that the current wording is unconstitutional because it does not address possible bias or prejudice by an author or publication, especially in a political context. According to the draft, during elections the power to demand that the press responds to a right to reply will be extended from the courts to include electoral bodies such as the National Electoral Institute and the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch.

"We are alarmed by the prospect of forcing the media to publish or broadcast replies to news stories under a broader set of parameters," said Carlos Lauria, CPJ's senior program coordinator for the Americas, in New York. "This could open the floodgates for politicians and others to demand space in newspapers whenever they feel slighted or aggrieved."

The draft ruling is based on a complaint filed in December 2015 by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, leader of the leftist Movement for National Regeneration (Morena) party, and Agustin Basave Benitez, then leader of the Party for the Democratic Revolution. In the draft ruling, the Morena party argues that individuals should have just as much freedom in contesting published or broadcasted information as the media have in spreading it.

Journalists consulted by CPJ and local and international press freedom groups say the proposal could be used to silence critical outlets and that it will leave the press vulnerable to lawsuits and pressure to provide more space in publications or broadcasts for individuals demanding the right to reply.

In a statement published November 2, the Inter American Press Association, an organization that represents the region's editors and publishers, said the ruling could lead to "prior censorship through a wave of lawsuits that would be filed by officials and political leaders."

Catalina Botero, a former rapporteur on freedom of expression at the Organization of American States, told CPJ the draft ruling contradicts the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' declaration of principles. The declaration states that "the arbitrary imposition of information and the imposition of obstacles to the free flow of information violate the right to freedom of expression." Botero, now dean at los Andes University's law school in Bogota, Colombia, told CPJ, "There is no objective criteria to define a grievance," and that "officials are obligated to tolerate [grievances] because they are subject to a higher level of public scrutiny."

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
TV reporter killed in Afghanistan

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 4 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, TV reporter killed in Afghanistan, 4 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58468755115.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.

New York, November 4, 2016  Naimatullah Zaheer, a reporter with the Afghan private television station Ariana News, was killed by roadside bomb today in the southern province of Helmand.

Zaheer and a group of local reporters were travelling to an area in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, where the Afghan military had fought with the Taliban the previous night, when their vehicle came under fire. Following advice from police, the group drove off the main road. Shortly thereafter, the journalists' vehicle hit an improvised explosive device (IED). The blast killed Zaheer and seriously wounded his driver, Abdul Mannaf, according to news reports. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

"The death of journalist Maimatullah Zaheer is a terrible reminder of the perils Afghan journalists risk to report the news," said Steven Butler, CPJ's Asia Program coordinator. "We call on the Afghan government to do everything it can to pursue those responsible for his death."

Zaheer worked with the Ariana News Television Networks for eight years and had reported on the security, social, political and cultural issues in Helmand province, according to a statement published by the TV network, which described him as "a dedicated and hardworking provincial reporter."

At least four journalists have been killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year. In June, David Gilkey, an American photographer for the US public broadcaster NPR and his Afghan interpreter, Zabihullah Tamanna, were killed by a rocket propelled grenade while traveling with an Afghan army unit. Nangarhar Radio and Television reporter Mohammed Zubair Khaksar and Radio Television Afghanistan reporter Yaqoub Sharafat were fatally shot by unknown gunmen in January and October respectively.

Afghanistan ranked seventh on CPJ's 2016 Impunity Index, which highlights countries where journalists are murdered and their killers go free. Over the past year, the Taliban has threatened and assaulted journalists. In January, a suicide bombing killed seven employees of the Afghan station Tolo TV. The Taliban had previously threatened journalists associated with the TV station with "elimination," CPJ reported at the time.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Independent Malaysian news website faces threats, harassment

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 8 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Independent Malaysian news website faces threats, harassment, 8 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584687577.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.

Bangkok, November 8, 2016  Malaysia's government should cease harassing independent news site Malaysiakini, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police have opened a criminal investigation into the website, and a government-linked pressure group has threatened to "tear down" the website's office.

Members of the pro-government "red shirt" group, shown here in a September 16, 2015, file photo, protested outside news website Malaysiakini's office in Kuala Lumpur on November 5. The group's leader had threatened to "tear down" its office two days prior. (Reuters/Olivia Harris)

Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar informed Malaysiakini's news editor, RK Anand, by text message on November 3 that police had launched an investigation into the news group's financing under section 124C of the Penal Code, a provision that criminalizes activities authorities deem "detrimental to parliamentary democracy," news reports said. Maximum penalties under the law allow for 15-year prison sentences, the reports said.

Khalid told the Malay Mail Online that Malaysiakini staff could be arrested under the 2012 Security Offences Special Measures Act, which carries the death penalty, contingent on the findings of the investigation. A special team, led by the federal Criminal Investigations Department, will be formed to conduct the probe, Malaysiakini reported. The website's staff have not been summoned by police, according to the site's founder and editor-in-chief, Steven Gan, who spoke with CPJ by telephone today.

"The notion that Malaysiakini's independent reporting could somehow be a threat, rather than boon, to Malaysia's democracy shows how contorted the government's priorities have become," CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative Shawn Crispin said. "We call on police to stop this politicized probe and for the government to cease threatening independent journalists."

The investigation comes amid local media reports that the U.S.-based Open Society Foundations (OSF) provided funds to Malaysiakini and local nongovernmental organizations, including the Bersih 5.0 group, which plans to stage a mass rally on November 19 to call on Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down over fraud allegations involving a state investment fund. Malaysiakini broke several stories on the politically sensitive scandal.

Gan told CPJ that Malaysiakini discloses its funding sources on its website and that the website received a one-off OSF grant in 2011 to produce video documentaries.

A pro-government group known as the "red shirts" on November 5 called for Malaysiakini's closure in a street protest held in front of the website's Kuala Lumpur office, news reports said. In a November 3 meeting with Malaysiakini editors, the group's leader, Jamal Yunos, threatened to "tear down" the website's office building if it did not sufficiently explain the purpose of the OSF grant. The protest was staged without incident, with a heavy police presence, news reports said.

Ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) politicians blamed George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, for contributing to Malaysia's sharp economic downturn during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis through his hedge fund's short selling of the local currency, the ringgit, in international money markets, reports said.

On October 15, the red shirt group assaulted, threatened, and forced three reporters from The Star newspaper to delete video footage they had taken of a confrontation between the "red shirts" and rival Bersih 5.0 supporters, according to press reports. The assailants repeatedly asked the reporters from The Star if any of them were affiliated with Malaysiakini, the reports said. CPJ research shows that journalists frequently come under attack while covering political street demonstrations in Malaysia.

CPJ honored Steven Gan with an International Press Freedom Award in 2000.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Russia: Chechen court to hear reporter's appeal of conviction on retaliatory charges

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 11 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Russia: Chechen court to hear reporter's appeal of conviction on retaliatory charges, 11 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58468758a.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.

New York, November 11, 2016  Chechen authorities should drop all charges against Zhalaudi Geriyev, a contributor to the independent regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel, and unconditionally release the journalist, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Chechen Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Geriyev's appeal on November 15, according to his editor.

Police detained Geriyev on April 16, while he was traveling to Chechnya's capital, Grozny. The Shali District Court on September 5 sentenced the journalist to three years in prison on charges of possessing drugs, according to his employer. His colleagues and supporters say authorities fabricated the charges to retaliate for Geriyev's journalism, his editor, Grigory Shvedov, told CPJ.

"We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Zhalaudi Geriyev, who has already spent seven months in jail on trumped-up charges in retaliation for his journalism," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "Chechnya is one of the most dangerous regions to be a journalist, and Geriyev is one of the courageous few to live and report independently from the republic."

Geriyev, who reported on human rights abuses and official corruption, was detained while on his way from Kurchaloi district to Grozny, where he planned to fly to Moscow for a media conference, Shvedov, Kavkazsky Uzel's editor, told CPJ. Geriyev's arrest came in the run-up to the September 18 parliamentary election in Russia, which coincided with the presidential vote in the Chechen republic.

Shvedov told CPJ on September 22 that Geriyev had complained to him prior to his arrest that he believed he was under surveillance and had been followed for several days while conducting interviews.

When officers took Geriyev off a bus headed to Grozny in April, they tied his hands with wire and tortured him by putting a plastic bag over his head and nearly suffocating him, according to his lawyer and testimony the journalist gave during his trial. He said police threatened him and questioned him about his work as a journalist.

The journalist was forced to confess to carrying and using marijuana; officers had planted 167 grams of the drug in his backpack, Geriyev said at the trial, according to Kavkazsky Uzel. At the September 5 hearing at Shali District Court, Geriyev retracted his written confession, saying it was made under duress. "I got a blow to the head and [was] shoved into a car. The bag with my ID, two telephones, and a laptop computer was taken away," Geriyev was quoted as saying during the trial.

The journalist's attorney, Alaudi Musayev, told Kavkazsky Uzel the indictment was "full of inaccuracies." Shvedov told CPJ that the case marks a turning point in the Chechen authorities' crackdown on free media. "This is the first case that was fully fabricated, and a reporter was charged with a crime formally unrelated to his journalistic activity. Until now, we have had cases of journalists [in Chechnya] who were prosecuted for being journalists. This sends a signal that the authorities are willing to take an extra step to silence independent voices," he told CPJ.

According to Shvedov, Geriyev is being held in Chernokozovo Prison. The prison, which is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Grozny, is known for the torture and beatings of inmates, according to Human Rights Watch. Geriyev's defense team appealed on September 9, according to Shvedov.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Indian journalist murdered in Bihar

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Indian journalist murdered in Bihar, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846875a39.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.

New York, November 14, 2016  Authorities in India's Bihar state should credibly investigate and swiftly bring to justice all those responsible for the murder of journalist Dharmendra Singh, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Three men on November 12 shot Singh, a reporter for the national, Hindi-language newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, near his home in Sasaram, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, Ajit Kumar, a local journalist and a friend of Singh's, told CPJ. Singh died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital in the city of Benaras, Kumar said.

Singh's colleagues said the journalist's work could have been the motive for his murder.

"[Singh] used to report fearlessly about the illegal stone-cutting that's [been] going on in the Sasaram district for years," Arun Pandey, political editor of Dainik Bhaskar in Patna, the state capital of Bihar, told CPJ. "Whenever the administration found a nexus between [police] officials and this stone-cutting mafia, Dharmendra used to write about it. So we think that it is because of his reporting that he lost his life." Pandey said that he and his colleagues at the newspaper did not know of any threats Singh might have received before his murder.

Kumar, Singh's friend, told CPJ that Singh's family told police investigating the crime that they believed that two jailed men who blamed the reporter for their convictions had ordered the murder: "Because he was a crime reporter, [Singh] had good relations with police officers. Criminals ... thought he was a police informer." Kumar said Singh had told police that one such man might try to harm him. Before Singh died, Kumar said, the journalist told his nephew that a jailed man who blamed the journalist's reporting for his conviction was responsible for the shooting attack.

"Courageous journalists like Dharmendra Singh play an important role in exposing crime and corruption," CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler said from Washington. "Swiftly bringing everyone responsible for killing Dharmendra Singh to justice would help show that journalists cannot be killed with impunity in India."

Pandey said that Dainik Bhaskar's management met PK Thakur, director-general of police in Bihar, to demand a speedy inquiry into Singh's death. Pandey said that the police chief promised that a special team would investigate the murder. A report in The New Indian Express newspaper said that MS Dhilon, superintendent of police in Rohtas district, would lead the investigation. Thakur didn't respond to phone calls from CPJ requesting comment.

At least one journalist in Bihar had been murdered for his work this year prior to Singh's death. Rajdeo Ranjan, a journalist for the Hindi-language, national newspaper Hindustan, was murdered in May, CPJ reported at the time. Ranjan's widow, Asha Devi, said she believed that her husband was killed for his reporting on a lawmaker jailed on charges including murder, illegal possession of firearms, and voter intimidation. At least 27 journalists have been murdered for their work with complete impunity since 1992, CPJ research shows. In a special report published in August 2016 report, CPJ found that those who report on corruption away from the major urban centers are at greater risk.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Two Myanmar journalists arrested on criminal defamation charges

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 14 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Two Myanmar journalists arrested on criminal defamation charges, 14 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846875bf.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.

New York, November 14, 2016  The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Myanmar authorities to release Than Htut Aung, chief executive of Eleven Media Group, and Wai Phyo, chief editor of the group's publication Daily Eleven. The journalists were detained November 11 and are being held in pretrial detention after being charged with criminal defamation, according to news reports.

Eleven Media Group's chief executive, Than Htut Aung, right, and chief editor Wai Phyo, are handcuffed in a police vehicle on November 11, over a criminal defamation case. (Romeo Gacad/AFP)

The Yangon regional government filed the defamation complaint, under the country's Telecommunications Law, after a post on Than Htut Aung's Facebook page alleged a chief minister was involved in corruption. The post provided further details to a November 6 opinion piece in Daily Eleven. Neither the article nor the social media post named the minister allegedly involved in corruption, and the Facebook post has been deleted, according to reports.

Chief Minister of Yangon Phyo Min Thein said in a press conference on November 9 that the Facebook post was intended to defame his "personal dignity" and that he denied the allegations made in it, according to news reports. He said he planned to consult with the Myanmar Press Council before bringing a separate lawsuit over the article in Daily Eleven. The council told The Myanmar Times it would try to persuade the minister to drop the case.

"We call on the Myanmar government to immediately release Than Htut Aung and Wai Phyo, and to withdraw the defamation charges against them. It's outrageous that journalists should be imprisoned without trial, under a democratically elected government that has promised more press freedom," said Steven Butler, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "Instead of using the Telecommunications Law to justify the persecution of journalists who speak unfavorably of government officials, Myanmar authorities should be reforming the country's outdated laws on defamation."

Than Htut Aung and Wai Phyo will remain in Insein prison until their court hearing on November 25, according to news reports. The journalists could face up to three years in prison if convicted under the Telecommunications Law, which covers defamation or disturbances spread over telecom networks.

CPJ sent a letter to the Myanmar government earlier this year, urging it to reform several of the country's restrictive press freedom laws.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Ecuador: Judge orders journalist's arrest for publishing confidential documents

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 15 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Ecuador: Judge orders journalist's arrest for publishing confidential documents, 15 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846875c13.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.

New York, November 15, 2016  An Ecuadoran judge last night approved an arrest warrant for journalist Fernando Villavicencio on charges of distributing emails sent by public officials, according to the journalist's lawyer. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities to revoke the warrant.

The charges relate to an October 2013 article Villavicencio wrote with fellow journalist Belen Palma for Ecuadoran news website Plan V that was critical of the government's legal battle with U.S. company Chevron. Alexandra Jaramillo, communications director at the attorney general's office, told CPJ the article contained confidential information and excerpts from emails sent by the attorney general to the president.

The publication of private communication is criminalized under Article 178 of Ecuador's new penal code, passed in 2014, and Article 202 of the previous penal code. The law includes an exception for public information but does not clearly define what that covers. Ramiro Garcia, a lawyer for Villavicencio, told CPJ that the article was published in the public interest.

Jaramillo said a preventative detention order was requested for Villavicencio because he has fled twice before when faced with charges, including a 2012 criminal defamation complaint filed by President Rafael Correa.

Villavicencio, who is now director of the news website Focus Ecuador, previously worked as an aide to former National Assembly representative Clever Jimenez, who was cited in the Chevron article. Jimenez faces charges of divulging protected information in email blasts and television interviews. The Plan V article's co-author, Palma, was not charged. If convicted, Villavicencio could face up to three years in jail.

"If sent to prison, Fernando Villavicencio would be imprisoned without a trial on the basis of charges that violate international standards of free expression," said Carlos Lauria, CPJ's senior program coordinator for the Americas. "Prosecutors should drop all charges against him immediately."

The case against Villavicencio began in 2013 when authorities searched the homes of the journalist and Jimenez, and removed computers and documents related to investigations into corruption, according to Focus Ecuador.

Villavicencio's wife, Veronica Sarauz, told CPJ the case was still open in May 2016, when an article by Villavicencio alleging corruption in the state oil company was published in Plan V. On June 11, Correa called on the attorney general's office to quickly prosecute the case against Villavicencio and Jimenez, according to an article in the state-run newspaper El Telegrafo.

Press freedom groups and relatives of Villavicencio, who recently announced his intention to run as an opposition party candidate for the National Assembly, say the charges demonstrate political prosecution. "There is a desire to silence Fernando as part of a government strategy to prevent further allegations of corruption from appearing, in addition to preventing Fernando from participating in the upcoming elections as a representative," his wife, Sarauz, said.

The prosecution of journalists for publishing leaked or confidential material violates international standards of freedom of expression, according to a 2010 joint declaration by the Organization of American States and the United Nations. The special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression at the U.N. and the special rapporteur for freedom of expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated that "journalists, media workers and civil society representatives, who receive and disseminate classified information because they believe it is in the public interest, should not be subject to liability unless they committed fraud or another crime to obtain the information."

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Ethiopian newspaper editor, bloggers caught in worsening crackdown

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 17 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Ethiopian newspaper editor, bloggers caught in worsening crackdown, 17 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846875d13.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.

Nairobi, November 17, 2016  Ethiopia should immediately release all journalists detained amid an intensifying crackdown on the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In recent weeks, Ethiopian authorities have jailed a newspaper editor and detained two members of the award-winning Zone 9 bloggers' collective, which has faced continuous legal harassment on terrorism and incitement charges. A fourth journalist has been missing for a week; his family fears he is in state custody.

Members of the Zone 9 blogging group. (Endalkachew H/Michael)

The crackdown on the media comes amid mass arrests following large protests that led the government to declare a state of emergency on October 9. Security forces have detained more than 11,000 people since the state of emergency was declared, Taddesse Hordofa, of the Ethiopian government's State of Emergency Inquiry Board, said in a televised statement on November 12.

"Silencing those who criticize the government's handling of protests will not bring stability," CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said from New York. "The constant pressure on Zone 9 bloggers with repeated arrests and court appearances is clearly designed to intimidate the remaining independent journalists in Ethiopia."

Ethiopia's Supreme Court on November 15 continued hearing prosecutors' appeal of a lower court's October 2015 acquittal of five bloggers from the Zone 9 collective on terrorism charges, campaigners reported on social media.

Security forces again detained Befekadu Hailu  a co-founder of the collective, which CPJ honored with its 2015 International Press Freedom Award  from his home on November 11, according to news reports. Authorities have not yet announced any new charge against the blogger. The Africa News Agency quoted Befekadu's friends saying that they believed he may have been arrested following an interview he gave to the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster Voice of America's Amharic service, in which he criticized the government's handling of the protests.

An Ethiopian journalist in exile in Kenya, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, told CPJ that Befekadu's criticism of the government's handling of protests in the Oromo and Amhara regions of Ethiopia on his blog may have also led to his detention.

When the terrorism charge against the bloggers was dismissed by the judge in October last year, Befekadu was informed that he would still face incitement charges, according to media reports. That case is still before the courts.

Ethiopian Information Minister Negeri Lencho did not respond to CPJ's calls and text messages seeking more information.

Security forces also detained another Zone 9 blogger, Natnail Feleke, on October 4 on charges he had made "seditious remarks" in a restaurant while criticizing security forces' lethal dispersal of a protest, according to diaspora news websites. He was released after three days with a caution, according to news reports.

Separately, a court in the capital Addis Ababa on November 15 sentenced Getachew Worku, the editor of the independent weekly newspaper Ethio-Mihidar, to one year in prison on charges of "defamation and spreading false information" in connection with an article published in the newspaper alleging corruption in a monastery, the Addis Standard news website reported.

Abdi Gada, an unemployed television journalist, has not been seen since November 9, family and friends told diaspora media. The journalist's family and friends told the Ethiopian diaspora opposition website Voices for Voiceless that they fear he is in state custody.

Ethiopia ranked fourth on CPJ's 2015 list of the 10 Most Censored Countries and is the third-worst jailer of journalists in Africa, according to CPJ's 2015 prison census.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Paragraph nine of this text has been corrected to reflect that Natnail Feleke was released on October 7. Paragraph four has been corrected to reflect that the Ethiopian Supreme Court heard an appeal against five Zone 9 bloggers.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
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Gambian journalist, broadcast executive held without charge

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 18 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Gambian journalist, broadcast executive held without charge, 18 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846875e105.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.

Abuja, Nigeria, November 18, 2016  Gambian authorities should immediately release a journalist and the head of the state-owned broadcaster who have been held without charge or access to their families or lawyers for a week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The arrests came in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled to take place on December 1.

Officers from Gambia's National Intelligence Agency (NIA) detained Momodou Sabally, director-general of the Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), and Bakary Fatty, a GRTS agriculture reporter, on November 8, and have kept them without access to their families or lawyers, according to media reports. Gambian journalists told CPJ that no charges have been filed against the two.

"If Gambia's intelligence service has compelling evidence that the head of the state broadcaster, Momodou Sabally, and agricultural reporter Bakary Fatty are guilty of any crime save journalism, let them produce it immediately or free them without delay," CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said from New York. "Credible elections depend on free media and journalists' ability to cover the process without fear of reprisal."

Two Gambian journalists in exile and a third still in Gambia, speaking to CPJ on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, told CPJ that authorities have given no reason for Sabally and Fatty's detention, and that the two have not seen a judge. The Gambian Constitution requires that anyone arrested or detained be brought before a court within 72 hours.

Gambian Information Minister Sheriff Bojang told CPJ that he did not know the reason for the arrests, and suggested that CPJ contact the inspector general of police. Calls to the publicly listed phone number for that office did not connect.

Local activists told the advocacy organization Human Rights Watch that they believe the arrests could be connected to the state broadcaster's airing of footage showing an opposition candidate's nomination ahead of presidential elections scheduled to take place on December 1. Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's wife held an agricultural event at the same time, according to media reports.

Gambian authorities detained at least two other journalists in the past week, according to media reports. On November 10, NIA agents detained Yunus Salieu, a journalist with the pro-government Daily Observer newspaper, and Alhagie Manka, an independent photojournalist, for using their phones to film supporters of President Jammeh and his ruling party on the same day Jammeh submitted his re-election nomination, media reports said.

Salieu was released on November 11, according to media reports. Manka was released on November 16, according to media reports.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Editor of human rights news website detained in China

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 28 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Editor of human rights news website detained in China, 28 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846875f29.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.

New York, November 28, 2016  Chinese authorities should immediately release Liu Feiyue, the editor and founder of the human rights news website Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch, known in China as Minsheng Guancha, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Liu's arrest occurred amid increasing efforts by China to silence journalists and bloggers who cover protests and human rights abuses.

On November 24, Minsheng Guancha reported that police in Suizhou city in China's central Hubei province told Liu's family that Liu had been "criminally detained" and "might be sentenced" for "subversion of state power." Minsheng Guancha also reported that Liu's family had not yet received written notification of his detention from police. Liu has been detained since November 16.

As founder of the human rights news website, Liu has been a target of past police harassment and surveillance, and during politically sensitive national events, he has previously been detained or placed under house arrest, according to reports. Recently, Liu was held briefly in late October ahead of a gathering of the Chinese Communist Party congress.

"China's frequent use of sweeping statutes such as 'subversion of state power' is evidence of its growing intolerance of reporting on political protests and human rights abuses," said CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney. "The authorities should release Liu Feiyue immediately and unconditionally."

Subversion charges are frequently used by the Chinese government to silence journalists and dissenting writers. "Subversion of state power" carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Founded in 2006, Minsheng Guancha, whose stated mission is "focusing on the lives of the underclass," reports on issues and stories that media outlets in China are often prohibited from covering, such as political protests, detentions of activists and writers, police abuse, and human rights violations. The website has been blocked in China since soon after its inception, according to writer Wu Yangwei, better known as Ye Du, a contributor to Minsheng Guancha and a friend of Liu's.

The Chinese government has recently intensified prosecution of online journalists who report on human rights abuses and protests. In June, police detained Lu Yuyu and Li Tingyu who cover protests on social media websites. In April, Wang Jing, a contributor to the human rights website 64tianwang was sentenced to nearly five years for "provoking trouble." 64tianwang's founder Huang Qi has been detained several times in the past few months and his home was ransacked by police in October.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Malaysia intensifies harassment of award-winning cartoonist

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 28 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Malaysia intensifies harassment of award-winning cartoonist, 28 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846876011.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.

Bangkok, November 28, 2016  Malaysian authorities should drop all criminal charges against award-winning cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, popularly known as Zunar, and cease harassing him for his work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Police on November 26 arrested Zunar under the Sedition Act on the charge his editorial cartoons insulted Prime Minister Najib Razak, according to press reports. Zunar has often satirized Najib, including by calling attention to allegations of corruption in Najib's management of a government development fund known as 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Authorities released Zunar on bail the following day pending the conclusion of the criminal investigation, reports said.

Zunar's arrest came a day after a pro-government mob linked to Najib's ruling United Malays National Organization disrupted and destroyed parts of an exhibition of his cartoons displayed at a literary festival in the northern Malaysian state of Penang, according to news reports.

Zunar said in a statement before his arrest that more than 30 pro-government "thugs" "verbally abused," "physically attacked," and "vandalized" his editorial cartoons on Friday in a public exhibition area of the festival. "The thugs demanded that I take down the exhibition and some of them proceeded to destroy my artworks," the statement said. Zunar said police who arrived on the scene were "unable to control the thugs" and that he was "fortunate" that members of the public at the festival came to his rescue.

"Rather than arresting and threatening one of Malaysia's most prominent cartoonists, authorities should instead identify and prosecute those responsible for this crude and egregious attack on press freedom," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative. "The government's harassment of Zunar has reached dangerous proportions. It should stop immediately."

News reports and CPJ research show that Najib has used the Sedition Act and other legislation to stifle critical reporting on the 1MDB scandal. Najib's government has been hit by allegations that as much as US$3.5 billion was inexplicably transferred from the development fund Najib created and oversees. Najib has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Zunar, a 2015 recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom Award, already faces nine charges of sedition for remarks he made on Twitter criticizing a court's decision to jail the country's main opposition leader last year. The tweets included an embedded cartoon that depicted Najib acting as a judge in the case. In other remarks on Twitter he referred to judges as "lackeys" of Najib's ruling party.

If convicted on all charges, Zunar could face a maximum sentence of 43 years in prison under the Sedition Act. Zunar filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of the Sedition Act that will begin hearings on January 24, according to a statement Zunar sent this month to rights groups and journalists, including CPJ. His sedition case will be heard after that trial is complete, the statement said.

A Malaysian appeals court ruled on November 25 that a clause of the Sedition Act which removes requirements for the prosecution to prove intent was unconstitutional because it violated the principles of free speech and equality under the law  rights protected in Malaysia's constitution, according to news reports. Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali said after the ruling that the government would appeal the decision, reports said. It wasn't immediately clear how the ruling would affect the charges against Zunar.

Authorities imposed a travel ban against Zunar in October that bars him from leaving the country ahead of his sedition trial, reports said. Zunar had frequently traveled internationally to exhibit his work, to speak at freedom of expression related events, and to receive a growing list of awards for his editorial courage in the face of persecution. He said in a statement he will challenge the travel ban in court.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Tajikistan suspends accreditation of six radio journalists

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 28 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Tajikistan suspends accreditation of six radio journalists, 28 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846876113.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.

New York, November 28, 2016  Tajik authorities should immediately reinstate the accreditation of six radio journalists suspended following a broadcaster's refusal to remove a story from its website, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

The Tajik Foreign Ministry on November 25 suspended the accreditation of six Dushanbe-based correspondents for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)'s Tajik service following the broadcaster's refusal to remove from its website a report on the appointment of the Tajik president's daughter to a senior Foreign Ministry position, according to the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster. RFE/RL's Tajik service, locally known as Radio Ozodi, the same day reported that Rukhshona Rahmonova, President Emomali Rahmon's daughter, had been appointed as a deputy head of a department of the Foreign Ministry, based on confirmation from a ministry official and the ministry's website. Similar reports appeared in local and regional media outlets.

RFE/RL reported that soon after their story ran, a ministry official phoned the Tajik service to request that it be removed from the broadcaster's website. The official threatened to revoke journalists' accreditation if the broadcaster did not comply. When the station stood by its reporting, six correspondents were summoned to the Foreign Ministry and were informed that their accreditation was suspended. No formal explanation was given, the broadcaster reported. RFE/RL said the six correspondents  Mirzonabi Kholikzod, Mardoni Muhammad, Abdulloh Ashurov, Muhammadvafo Rakhmatov, Amriddin Olimov and Shodmoni Yatim  did not work on the report that displeased the ministry. The suspension of their accreditation means that they cannot legally work as journalists in Tajikistan.

"Barring journalists from doing their work as retaliation for their employers' publication of a news item will not bury the news, but will call further attention to it," CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said. "We call on the Tajik Foreign Ministry to reinstate the accreditation of the six RFE/RL journalists immediately and to cease interfering with the media's ability to report events."

This is the second time in recent weeks that Tajik authorities have asked the broadcaster to censor reports on its website, which has been blocked in Tajikistan since 2015, RFE/RL's director of communications told the Moscow-based, regional news website Fergana today. On November 2, officials demanded that the station remove a news story on the U.S. State Department's warning to U.S. citizens about travel to the country because of potential terrorist threats.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
China detains publisher of human rights news website

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 29 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, China detains publisher of human rights news website, 29 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846876213.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.

New York, November 29, 2016  Chinese authorities should immediately and unconditionally release Huang Qi, publisher of the human rights news website 64 Tianwang, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police in China's southwest Sichuan Province detained Huang last night, amid an intensified crackdown on online journalists and bloggers who report on protests and human rights abuses.

Police detained Huang outside his apartment complex in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, according to media reports. More than 10 police officers then ransacked Huang's home and detained his mother, Pu Wenqing, who was in his apartment at the time of the search. Police later took Pu to her home in the nearby city of Neijiang. When Pu arrived, she found her residence had already been searched, according to media reports.

Pu Fei, a volunteer for 64 Tianwang, initially published news of Huang's detention on Twitter, but that tweet was subsequently deleted, according to the advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign in China. Pu Fei has not been heard from since, according to the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia. CPJ's phone calls to the Chengdu Public Security Bureau seeking more information about Huang's detention and Pu Fei's whereabouts went unanswered. Police have not announced any formal charges against Huang and have not confirmed that they have Pu Fei in custody.

"The arrest of Huang Qi signals a renewed effort to punish those who publish material the Chinese government does not wish to see made public," CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said. "We call on Chinese authorities to release Huang immediately and to cease jailing online journalists for reporting the news."

Huang founded 64 Tianwang in 1998 with Zeng Li, who was then his wife, as a missing-persons search service. The website gradually evolved to focus on covering issues not covered by China's mainstream news media, such as protests, allegations of government corruption and abuse of power, police brutality, and the detention of writers and activists. On November 23 and 25, 64 Tianwang reported that police had arrested demonstrators protesting the death of a petitioner they said had been beaten by government supporters. Before his detention, Huang told Radio Free Asia that such reporting "could bring him trouble."

Huang has been subjected to routine police harassment since he founded 64 Tianwang, which, according to Radio Free Asia, has been blocked in China since March 2003 and has frequently been attacked by hackers. In late October, police briefly detained him ahead of a gathering of the Chinese Communist Party Congress. Huang also served two prison sentences. He was jailed from 2000-2005 on charges of "subversion of state power" for articles posted on 64 Tianwang, and from 2008-2011 on charges of "illegally holding state secrets." Pu Fei, who has also been frequently harassed by police, was detained for two weeks in 2008 after Huang was arrested.

The Chinese government has recently stepped up efforts to prosecute online journalists who cover human rights abuses and protests. This month, police detained Liu Feiyue, founder of the human rights news website Minsheng Guancha, accusing him of subversion of state power. In June, police detained Lu Yuyu and Li Tingyu, who covered protests on social media websites. In April, Wang Jing, a contributor to 64 Tianwang, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for "provoking trouble."

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein jailed in Panama for criminal defamation

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 29 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein jailed in Panama for criminal defamation, 29 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846876313.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.

New York, November 29, 2016  Authorities in Panama should immediately release Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein, who has been detained since November 15, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Ornstein, a Panama-based journalist who runs the news website Bananama Republic, was arrested in relation to a 2012 criminal defamation conviction when he arrived at Panama City international airport, according to his lawyer, Manuel Succari.

Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein is detained in Panama over a criminal defamation case. (Kimberlyn David)

"Panamanian authorities should immediately release Okke Ornstein and work to remove outdated criminal defamation penalties from the legal code," said Carlos Lauria, CPJ's senior program coordinator for the Americas. "Laws that send journalists to prison for something they write or broadcast violate international standards of free expression."

Ornstein was convicted of criminal defamation on December 14, 2012 and sentenced to 20 months in jail after Monte Friesner, a Canadian, filed a complaint over a report by the journalist alleging that Friesner engaged in dubious business practices in Panama, according to news reports and court documents reviewed by CPJ.

Succari said an appeal was rejected in 2013. In 2015, the courts reissued an arrest warrant to keep the case active, although no attempt had been made to arrest Ornstein.

CPJ attempted to reach Friesner via Facebook messenger for comment, but did not immediately receive a response. Attempts by CPJ to reach the office of the Public Prosecutor in Panama for comment were unsuccessful.

The journalist's family said that Ornstein, who also reports for Dutch outlets and is a stringer for Al-Jazeera, has traveled in and out of Panama regularly since the 2012 conviction and a separate conviction a year later, without being stopped.

Ornstein's lawyer in the Netherlands, Channa Samkalden, told CPJ that Ornstein was convicted in the second criminal defamation case in 2013 and sentenced to 18 months in prison over reports about the environmental and business practices of a company in Panama. Samkalden said that Ornstein appealed the conviction in 2014. In 2015 a judge replaced the jail term with a fine. In November, a court overturned the appeal ruling and reinstated the prison term after Ornstein allegedly failed to pay the fine of US$3,500, Succari said, but added the journalist had not been formally notified of the change by the courts and is being held only on the 2012 conviction.

The business owners  Patricius Johannes Visser and Keren Visser  also filed a civil complaint in the Netherlands in December 2015, Samkalden said. Ornstein is appealing the default judgment in that case.

Ornstein's website, Bananama Republic, is currently unavailable. An August 15 post on its Facebook page said the website has been closed pending legal proceedings in the Netherlands.

"It is an extraordinary situation, given that Ornstein has been living in Panama without any problem since the convictions and has left and returned to the country on numerous occasions since then," his lawyer, Samkalden said.

Kimberlyn David, Ornstein's partner, told CPJ the journalist is "holding up really well, despite the fact the he knows it is a very challenging situation." She said Ornstein has been in touch with the Dutch embassy in Panama City.

Courts and lawmakers throughout the Americas have found that civil remedies provide adequate redress in cases of alleged libel and slander. For a comparative study of criminal defamation laws in the Americas, see CPJ's campaign, Critics Are Not Criminals.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This alert has been updated to attribute details of Ornstein's fine for the 2013 criminal defamation case to his lawyer, Succari, and to reflect that Ornstein is appealing a default judgment in the civil case brought by business owners Patricius Johannes Visser and Keren Visser.]

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Cartel plots to shoot at offices of Mexico's Zeta magazine

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 30 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Cartel plots to shoot at offices of Mexico's Zeta magazine, 30 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846876413.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.

November 30, 2016  The Committee to Protect Journalists urged authorities today to ensure the safety of journalists working at the Tijuana-based weekly Zeta. The Mexican magazine is currently under police protection after authorities learned of a plot by a cartel to attack the office.

Adela Navarro Bello, the director of Zeta, at the magazine's headquarters in 2011. Police are stationed at Zeta's office after a cartel plot to attack the magazine was discovered. (AFP/Ruben Victorio)

The Public Security Secretariat of Mexico's Baja California state notified Zeta's management on November 27 that investigators had discovered a plot by the Jalisco cartel in Tijuana to shoot at the offices of Zeta in the early hours, when no employees were around, according to Adela Navarro Bello, the director of Zeta and CPJ's 2007 International Press Freedom Awardee. The officers said the cartel postponed the plot when it was unable to find people to carry out the attack at the planned time.

Navarro Bello told CPJ that police are stationed outside the offices of Zeta.

"Mexican authorities have taken the correct first steps in identifying the threat against Zeta and providing staff with protection at their office," said Carlos Lauria, CPJ's Americas program director. "Mexico is one of the most dangerous places for journalists in the Americas and we call on authorities to continue to offer protection and to punish those behind the planned attack."

Investigators attributed the threat to a November 25 report in Zeta that listed the most wanted criminals in Baja California, according to an article in Zeta about the threat. The report included the photos and names of 10 people alleged to be leaders in the cartel.

Zeta is one of the only publications to regularly run investigations on organized crime, drug trafficking, and corruption in Mexico's northern states. The cost of Zeta's coverage of crime has been high: Hector Felix Miranda, co-founder of the magazine, was killed in 1988, and co-editor Francisco Ortiz Franco was murdered in 2004.

The Jalisco cartel is known in the state for its violence and expansion during recent drug turf wars. Criminal groups, including cartels, are responsible for more than 60 percent of journalist killings in Mexico, according to CPJ research.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Ugandan journalist Joy Doreen Biira charged with 'abetting terrorism'

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 30 November 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Ugandan journalist Joy Doreen Biira charged with 'abetting terrorism', 30 November 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584687664.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.

Nairobi, November 30, 2016  Ugandan authorities should immediately and unconditionally drop all charges against Kenya Television Network (KTN) reporter and anchor Joy Doreen Biira, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police detained Biira on November 27 after she reported on a deadly battle between police and a traditional monarch's royal guard, charged her with "abetting terrorism," and released her pending trial the following day, she and her lawyer told CPJ.

TV journalist Joy Doreen Biira walks out of the Kasese police station in Uganda, November 28, 2016. (Arne Gillis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Biira's lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, told CPJ that police accused Biira of circulating graphic photos of the aftermath of a battle between security forces and the royal guard of the king of the Rwenzururu Kingdom, a traditional monarch in the Rwenzori region of western Uganda, to a widely subscribed WhatsApp group. According to media reports, 62 people, including 16 policemen, were killed in the gun battle.

Biira, who is Ugandan but works in Kenya, had been in the area for a traditional wedding ceremony, Ugandan media reported. She posted video of the king's palace burning to Instagram and wrote about the event on Facebook. Police arrested her alongside four other people, including her husband, who also published images of the palace burning, Biira and Opiyo told CPJ.

"It is bad enough that Ugandan authorities desired to censor coverage of a newsworthy event, but the use of anti-terrorism laws to intimidate a journalist is a vast overreach," Angela Quintal, CPJ's Africa Program coordinator, said from New York. "Journalism is not terrorism. The state's charges against Joy Doreen Biira should be dropped without delay."

Uganda police spokesman Felix Kaweesi did not immediately return CPJ's phone calls seeking comment.

"We have fully cooperated with the police in their investigations and hope that in the end, they will find that all this was a mistake on their part," Biira told CPJ. "I am sure they will clear our names of the grave and ridiculous charges. My social media postings are public and do not constitute a violation of any law. As a professional and practicing journalist, I believe in the ethics of my profession. In this instant, I believe I held it to the highest possible standard."

Biira was allowed to return to Kenya yesterday. Her trial is expected to begin on December 8, her lawyer told CPJ. Under Uganda's 2002 Anti-Terrorism Act, the charge of "abetting terrorism" carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This text has been updated to correct the spelling of Nicholas Opiyo's name throughout.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
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.
DR Congo: Security Council urges all stakeholders to ensure upcoming polls are free and fair

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 December 2016 Cite as UN News Service, DR Congo: Security Council urges all stakeholders to ensure upcoming polls are free and fair, 5 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846b39240e.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.

5 December 2016 - Expressing concern over the political situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as in light of the upcoming elections the United Nations Security Council has called on all stakeholders to ensure that the polls are conducted in a free, fair, credible, inclusive and transparent environment.

In a Statement rad out in a formal meeting by the President of the Council, the 15-member body "called on the authorities to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially the right of peaceful assembly, and to exercise maximum restraint in their response to protests.

The statement also called on the opposition forces in the country "to show responsibility by ensuring the peaceful character of their demonstrations."

The Council further underlined the need for the Government and its national partners to accelerate preparations for the elections without further delays, including by expediting the update of the voter registry.

It further noted it remains concerned over the risk for destabilization of DRC and the region as a whole, as illustrated by the violence of 19-20 September 2016, in the absence of a swift and consensual resolution to the current political crisis, and called on the Government to hold accountable those responsible for the killings as well as all violations and abuses of human rights.

Also, the Council expressed deep concerns over humanitarian situation and persisting violence in eastern DRC, in particular, North Kivu province, and called on the Government to "end the threat" posed by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and all other armed groups operating in the central African country.

It is estimated that nearly 840,000 people have been displaced in North Kivu and more than 700 civilians have been killed since October 2014.

Further in the Statement, the Council also welcomed regional initiatives to promote peace, stability and democracy in the DRC as well as the reform of the governing mechanisms of the Peace, Security and Cooperation (PSC) Framework for the DRC and the region.

Also at today's Council meeting, Special Representative of the Secretary-General Maman Sambo Sidikou and the head of the UN mission in the country (MONUSCO) informed the members of the Council that the mission continued its engagement with the Government, political parties and civil society and that it has updated its contingencies and adjusting deployment to mitigate politically driven violence and to protect civilians, to the extent possible, within its available resources and in its areas of deployment.

However, Mr. Sidikou, added "these efforts may not be fully sufficient to mitigate or respond adequately to any major outbreak of politically-related violence," and underlined that it was political will of the main political actors that would determine how the existing tensions will be managed, and whether or not these degenerate into violence.

He also expressed caution at the deteriorating economic situation and its adverse impact on the stability of the country. "Socio-economic factors constitute an important potential trigger for violence in this period," he said.
Central African Republic: UN completes investigations into allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 December 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Central African Republic: UN completes investigations into allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, 5 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846b3c340d.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.

5 December 2016 - The United Nations announced today that it has completed an internal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Burundian and Gabonese peacekeepers deployed in Dekoa, Kemo prefecture, Central African Republic (CAR).

The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) interviewed 139 people and then investigated their accounts. 16 possible perpetrators from Gabon and 25 from Burundi have been identified through photos and corroborating evidence. Of the 139 victims, 25 were minors who asserted that they were sexually assaulted. Eight paternity claims have been filed, six of which were by minors.

The United Nations has shared the report with the Governments of Burundi and Gabon, which includes the names of the identified alleged perpetrators. It has requested that appropriate judicial action proceed in order to ensure criminal accountability.

Investigations began in April 2016, several days after the allegations were brought to the attention of the UN. They continued for more than four months and relied primarily on victim and witness testimony due to a lack of medical, forensic, or other physical evidence - the majority of allegations referred to incidents that had taken place between 2014 and 2015. All of the alleged perpetrators had been rotated out of the CAR before the allegations surfaced.

"Responsibility for further investigations lies with Burundi and Gabon," stated a noted to correspondents issued by the UN Spokespersons Office today.

The UN has requested a copy of the final national investigation reports to be issued within the next two weeks. If allegations are found to be substantiated and warranted, the commanding officers of the perpetrators will be prohibited from deployment in future peacekeeping operations.

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has strengthened prevention measures and reinforced outreach among communities and peacekeepers throughout the country to improve awareness and reporting on sexual exploitation and other forms of misconduct, particularly in high-risk areas.

The Mission regularly monitors conditions and behaviours of the mission's personnel and partners with other UN agencies and organizations throughout the CAR who provide psychosocial, medical, and legal assistance to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse.

In the note, the UN condemned in the strongest terms possible any acts of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by peacekeepers or other UN personnel and reaffirmed its commitment to ensure that perpetrators of abhorrent crimes are brought to justice.
Iraq: UN delivers live-saving medicines and medical supplies inside Mosul

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 5 December 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Iraq: UN delivers live-saving medicines and medical supplies inside Mosul, 5 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846b41540e.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.

5 December 2016 - United Nations health agencies have delivered critical medicines and medical supplies to treat almost 13,000 people in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where the Government forces have been staging a military campaign against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Da'esh) terrorists.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the agency and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) delivered medicines and supplies to treat both trauma injuries as well as antibiotics, medication for chronic conditions and reproductive health items.

The agency also reported that a primary health care centre, managed by the Ninewa Directorate of Health, is providing urgent medical services for more than 50,000 people in east Mosul but owing to limited health services in the area, the health centre is also serving nine other neighbouring suburbs with a total population of almost 150,000 people.

The health centre is served by seven doctors, including internal medicine specialists, general surgeons, paediatricians and an anaesthesiologist - but almost all work without pay, as volunteers. They see up to a thousand patients a day and about 10-15 have mortar shell injures.

People also require treatment for chronic diseases such diabetes, heart conditions, asthma and epilepsy.

The centre, however, faces considerable challenges, including water, fuel and power shortage and has been forced to close temporarily on several occasions over the past few weeks as a result of mortar shelling, said WHO.

The UN health agency has also provide ambulances to transport those injured to the nearest supported trauma stabilization point in eastern Mosul, before being taken to hospitals in Erbil (at least two hours away).
The human cost of Chad's war against Boko Haram

Publisher IRIN Author Ashley Hamer Publication Date 5 December 2016 Cite as IRIN, The human cost of Chad's war against Boko Haram, 5 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846c4344.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.

Ali Mboudou was at home with his children one night in late 2015 when Boko Haram militants entered his village. They came in trucks and on foot from many directions, heavily armed.

"We were surrounded. Everyone was a hostage," he tells IRIN via a translator.

"After two days, some of our men came together and we decided to escape. In the flight, eight people were caught, and the Boko Haram cut their throats. I saw some of the bodies."

Mboudou, 37, gathered his family and fled into the bush in the ensuing chaos.

As he relates the story, he sits back on his haunches in the hot sand, his crisp green jalabiya gathered between his knees. He runs a big hand over his closely shaven head.

The village Mboudou fled from was Blarigui, located in the remote swamplands of the Lake Chad Basin, close to Chad's border with northeastern Nigeria.

It took him a whole day to cross the various waterways, before he reached solid ground and relative safety outside the regional capital, Bol.

Now, alongside Mboudou, a crowd of up to 2,000 displaced people wait patiently for a small cash distribution from the World Food Programme beneath the scorching sun.

They are mostly Buduma, an ethnic group living across the myriad islands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger meet.

For the last seven years, the jihadi extremist group Boko Haram has eviscerated this region, uprooting 2.6 million people across four countries. An estimated 20,000 people have been killed in the group's brutal attempt to establish an Islamic caliphate in West Africa.

Lying 150 kilometres north of Chad's capital, N'djamena, Lake Chad is one of Africa's great and ancient lakes, sustaining rural communities on the edge of the Sahara for millennia.

Since the early 1960s, however, the lake is believed to have shrunk to a 20th of its original size, a decrease largely attributed to human water use and climate change.

As a result of the Boko Haram insurgency, 131,000 people are internally displaced from around the lake to makeshift camps scattered around the Chadian shoreline, competing for scarce resources with an already vulnerable host community.

In November 2015, Chad's government declared a state of emergency in the lake region, introducing restrictive anti-terror laws, as the disaster fuelled by the so-called Islamic State-linked jihadists spilled over from Nigeria.

Insurgents raided villages on the lake and mounted devastating multi-casualty suicide attacks, reaching as far as N'djamena.

Chad joined the launch of a regional task force supported by the United States and comprising some 8,700 soldiers from Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Benin to take on the insurgency and reclaim lost territory.

The outpost of Baga Sola became Chad's military stronghold in its fight to restore security around the lake.

Roads here are but tracks in sand and scrub. The region has only become accessible to humanitarian organisations in the last year. Up to one million people around the lake are still believed to be cut off entirely from aid, according to the UN.

You cannot travel north of Baga Sola to the Niger border without an armed military escort.

Decrepit Toyota pickups tear through the desert laden with soldiers, sacks of grain, and women clutching children. Camel and donkey caravans trudge steadily through empty dunes that in living memory were once covered with water.

Eight kilometres north of Baga Sola sprawls the tent and tarpaulin settlement of Dar es Salaam. The name means "place of peace" in Arabic.

It is temporary home to more than 6,500 refugees who escaped here over the last two years from attacks and military offensives in neighbouring Nigeria and Niger.

Fatou Hassan (not her real name), 26, lost most of her family in a raid by the jihadists on her village of Karanga, in Niger, in mid-2015.

She and a group of escapees piled into a wooden canoe, paddled all night, and then walked for days through the bush before reaching the Chadian border. It took a week for Fatou to make her way down the edge of the lake to Dar es Salaam.

Without relatives to help her, she decided to marry. But her husband, who had other wives, divorced her when she fell pregnant.

Fatou attempted suicide and begged to abort the baby, according to Serferbe Charlot, a psychologist with the medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres.

She began a counselling programme with MSF in the camp and brings her ecstatic baby girl to sessions with Charlot.

"She is a baby of Chad. I will stay here to raise her until the situation in Niger is calm because I cannot live through what I saw again," Fatou says.

Baga Sola, as the operational centre for Chad's offensive against Boko Haram, is also hosting a growing number of people who have allegedly surrendered from the jihadist-controlled areas since July.

Out of this group of more than 1,000 individuals, 70 percent are women and children, among them unaccompanied minors, according to UNICEF. Staff from the UN children's agency have been granted limited access by the Chadian military to assess the needs.

"Ninety-nine percent of these people are Chadians who have allegedly surrendered to the Chadian branch of the Multinational Joint Task Force at the border between Chad and Nigeria," explains Philippe Barragne-Bigot, UNICEF's representative in Chad.

"Focus group discussions and individual interviews revealed that most of the people who surrendered were directly or indirectly associated with Boko Haram."

Until the Chadian authorities define the status of these new arrivals, they remain under strict surveillance, with limited freedom of movement and without sustained humanitarian assistance.

In less than a decade, Chad has emerged as a crucial ally of France and the US in the so-called "war on terror" in central and West Africa, notes analyst Marielle Debos, who has just published a book on Chad's regional role.

"[Chad's military] has been praised for its effectiveness. But the Chadian forces also have a bad record: they are known in Chad and beyond the borders of Chad for a reputation for brutality and human rights violations," says (Marielle) Debos.

In 2014, at the height of the war in neighbouring Central African Republic, Chad was forced to withdraw its troops from the UN mission over accusations of extrajudicial killings and support for the Seleka rebels.

Since 2015, Chad's forces have played a lead role in the regional battle against Boko Haram, wrestling back swathes of territory from the militants, rescuing hostages, and bringing a degree of calm to communities on the eastern shores of the lake. But the jihadists, despite internal fracturing, are far from defeated.

And Chad's forces have also contributed to the displacement crisis by establishing a militarised "red zone" across much of the borderlands, and by relocating communities out of this area, according to Mohamed Zene, a government-appointed camp manager for Dar es Salaam.

Besides relative security, the government is not providing much more to support and resettle those displaced. The burden, instead, falls to international NGOs and the UN.

Access to the heart of the "red zone" - much of it islands on the lake where civilians are believed to need assistance - is controlled.

"Government restrictions have made it very difficult for human rights organisations and NGOs to access many parts of the Lake Chad region," explains Stephen Cockburn, deputy regional director for human rights group Amnesty International.

"Detailed information on Boko Haram attacks, potential abuses by armed forces and the humanitarian impact of the crisis is more difficult to come by than in neighbouring countries," says Cockburn.

"Local organisations who have collected information can also be scared to speak out, with threats of repercussions leading to self-censorship."

Chad is one of the poorest countries on earth. It ranked second to last out of 118 nations on the Global Hunger Index for 2016 and 185 out of 187 for the UNDP Human Development Index in 2015.

Yet the country hosts one of the world's largest refugee populations, with 360,000 people sheltering from decades of conflict in neighbouring Sudan, and some 100,000 refugees and returnees from CAR.

Governed by strongman Idriss Deby since 1990, Chad has an economy that revolved around oil production until the price crash in 2015 plunged it into profound recession.

Public service workers, including teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and some police have been on strike over unpaid salaries for almost three months.

State schools across the country have been closed since September, and public hospitals in the capital have all but ceased to function.

"Our situation in Chad is in crisis. Everything is totally blocked," says Younous Mahadjir, vice president for the association of trade unions in N'Djamena.

"The government decided unilaterally to impose austerity measures without consultation, and public workers have not been paid for months. It is a violation of workers' rights."

He says government critics are monitored and face threats and arrest, while peaceful public demonstrations are violently shut down by Deby's security forces.

More than nine million people across the Lake Chad region urgently need humanitarian assistance. The UN has appealed for $739 million to care for six million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. The Chadian component of the appeal, $98 million, is just 43 percent funded.

"The Lake Chad Basin crisis is one of the most acute emergencies in the world," the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, Toby Lanzer, has warned. "The situation of many affected communities has deteriorated beyond alarming levels."

Up on the remote northern tip of Lake Chad, a mere 40 kilometres from the Niger border, the needs remain huge.

Kaboulou Al Haji, chief of Moundi village, oversees another monthly cash distribution to families displaced by the violence.

The handouts, from the World Food Programme, consist of 6,000 CFA (around $10) per family member per month.

"The refugee people have been arriving here for a year. They outnumber our own community," Al Haji tells IRIN. "We are fishermen, and there is not enough fish to provide for these new people. Our markets are disrupted and no schools are open."
Afghanistan: Ghor's Education System Near Collapse

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Hassan Hakimi Publication Date 5 December 2016 Reference ARR 561 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghanistan: Ghor's Education System Near Collapse, 5 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846c6a34.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.

Mohammad was in the seventh grade of the Shaheed Abdul Haq high school when it shut down two years ago. He has been herding sheep ever since.

Mohammad cannot read or write, but says that this is not unusual among his peers.

"Here, students graduate from high school and they are still completely illiterate," he continued. "Most of the young people either join the police or the army or go to Iran to find work."

Mohammad may even get a graduation certificate, regardless of whether he ever returns to the school. Around 400 students were still enrolled at his school, 25 kilometres from Firoz Kooh city, with a staff of nine teachers and three assistants.

"The teachers get their salary without coming to school and teaching, and students pass without going to school and studying," he said.

An investigation by IWPR has revealed that the overwhelming majority of schools in the central Ghor province remain closed, although the education department has continued to pay salaries to absentee staff. Many children go through the system from grade to grade without attending school or passing any tests.

IWPR has previously highlighted the problem of so-called "ghost" schools in the lawless province. Little has been done to address this ongoing issue.

In some schools that are still operational, students said that standards were so low that they could graduate from class simply by attending school for a day or two each month.

Nasibullah, 16, is in the eighth grade at Quts high school, 12 kilometers north of Firoz Kooh.

He attends school for two days a month and cannot read or write.

Smiling, he said, "Go and ask our teachers how many days a month they come to school, and how many of them can't write and read like me."

His father Mohammad Sarwar, who works in the department of public health, said that Nasibullah was better off helping out at home than going to a school where he would learn nothing.

"When a teacher is illiterate, the officials have no control over the teachers, the teacher is present for one month a year, there are no books, discipline and administration, where and why should I send my son? Instead of sending him to school, I have sent him to work on the farm."

This is common practice amongst parents in Ghor. Gul Ahmad Osmani, head of the provincial department of labour, social affairs, martyrs and disabled, estimated that 60 per cent of the province's children were working instead of going to school.

"I have shared the problem of children being deprived of their right to education with Ghor's education department, but no action has yet been taken," he said.

Ghor provincial council member Mohammad Hasham Faizi said that the condition of education in the province was deeply concerning.

"Schools in Ghor are a good source of income for some people because principals and teachers of schools in the districts don't attend for months on end but still get their salaries," he said, adding that the danger was that "our next generation will be illiterate".

"Sixty per cent of schools in this province have been shut, especially during the last two years. But the students still pass from one grade to the other without attending school," Faizi continued.

Others put the figure still higher.

"Seventy per cent of the children of Ghor are deprived of the chance to go to school," said Khudayar Waqif, head of Ghor's civil society organisations. "Seventy per cent of schools, especially over the last two years, have been open in name alone.

"Students and teachers don't attend and their results are falsely reported every year," he continued. "Due to the lack of security and scarcity of staff, no attention is paid to education. All the schools in Chahar Sada, Pasaband, Du Lainah and Sharak are closed and most schools in Taywaraha, Saghar, Tulak and Dawlatyar districts."

Fazi noted that some purpose-built schools had simply never been inaugurated.

"Khwaja Ala high school, a two-storey building built two years ago, has not been used by even a single student," he added.

Other schools had been appropriated for use by state security forces. One girls' school in the centre of Pasaband district had been closed for several years and was now used as an Afghan National Army base.

Some institutions in more remote areas had been taken over by the Taleban to be used as camps for their fighters.

Abdul Majid, who lives in the village of Khafak in Charsada district, said that local Taleban had been cmaped out in their school for the last two years. He, like other local students, was working instead.

Local officials confirm that teachers continue to draw salaries without going to school.

Amir Jan Naseri, the head of Ghor's national directorate of security (NDS), said that his department had sent the governor's office a list of 182 schools, asking for these institutions to be investigated and the teachers' salaries stopped.

"We [will ]work with the local administration to open the closed schools," he said.

Juma Khan Hamdard, Ghor NDS deputy head, added, "A month ago I was in Pasaband district. [I was told that] 44 schools have been closed for the last two years. No students go to school. The teachers' salaries are claimed but wasted by the authorities of Ghor's education department, by teachers and various other people."

Mohammad Sadiq lives in Ghor city and is employed as a teacher at the Badqul secondary school in Char Sada district. He said that he still received his monthly salary even though he had not been to work for several years.

"All the teachers in this district are the same, they are teachers and get a salary, but don't go to schools. When I saw all teachers were like that, I followed them too," he said.

Another teacher, who asked not to be identified, said that he was supposed to be teaching at a high school in Dawlatyar district. He never attended, but was marked present.

"Some teachers are in Iran and some are even teachers in other provinces but still get paid their salary in Ghor," he said.

IWPR has seen documentary evidence of teachers employed in shuttered schools continuing to draw their salaries.

One document from Ghor's audit department, dated July 13, 2016, read, "Some schools in central and remote areas of Ghor province which were under the control of the Taleban were not monitored by the supervision team of Ghor's education department in [the last Islamic year] 1394 and were inactive, and these schools had no educational classes and services; however, the teachers were paid their monthly salaries.

The report noted that "money from the salaries of the teachers was also embezzled by the officials of the Ghor's education department. The same process continued in [the current Islamic year] 1395 as well".

IWPR has seen documentary evidence of teachers employed in shuttered schools continuing to draw their salaries.

One document from Ghor's audit department, dated July 13, 2016, read, "Some schools in central and remote areas of Ghor province which were under the control of the Taleban were not monitored by the supervision team of Ghor's education department in [the last Islamic year] 1394 and were inactive, and these schools had no educational classes and services; however, the teachers were paid their monthly salaries.

The report noted that "money from the salaries of the teachers was also embezzled by the officials of the Ghor's education department. The same process continued in [the current Islamic year] 1395 as well".

EDUCATION GOING BACKWARDS

The situation for women and girls in Ghor is even worse.

Insurgents have repeatedly kidnapped female teachers in the province, and although many girls were registered as in education the reality was very different.

"Eighty per cent of the schools in Ghor don't have even a single female teacher, but 40 per cent of the students registered in the education department are female," said Masooma Anwari, head of Ghor's department of women's affairs.

This meant that as girls got older, families were even more reluctant to send them to school to be taught by a male teacher.

Not a single female student in any of the seven districts of Ghor had taken the university entrance exam, she continued, which showed the extent of the problem.

Sibghatullah Akbari, head of Ghor's education department, agreed.

"Apart from Lal and Sar Jangal districts, Firoz Koh city and some other areas, girls are prevented from going to schools after the sixth grade due to these traditions," he added. "Over the last 15 years [since the fall of the Taleban], we have only been able to open two girls' schools in the whole of Pasaband district."

Abdul Hamid Natiqi, another provincial council member, said the public had to bear some responsibility for this situation due to their neglect of girls' education.

"Some don't let their daughters go to schools due to some unfortunate traditions, especially after the sixth grade. Ninety per cent of girls in Pasaban, Charsada, Dawlina, Shahrak and most girls in Firoz Kooh, and half in Taywarah and Tawalk districts don't go to school and their schools are closed - but teachers' salaries are given to officials, powerbrokers, and even the Taleban."

Ghor government spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi said that the vast majority of girls outside the main population centres were deprived of access to education.

He added that 58 schools had been closed this year, but the salaries of the teachers and the principals were still being paid.

"The reasons why children are deprived of the chance to go to school are insecurity, lack of interest or support of education, poverty, lack of buildings for students and lack of teachers and books," he said.

Akbari agreed that it was the poor security situation as well as a scarcity of resources that was robbing many children of their education. In the last three years, he added, 10,000 students had dropped out of school.

"Of the schools, 636 schools don't have buildings, not even tents or proper flooring, and 15 schools have been permanently closed. There are no textbooks for children in grades seven to 12. The province needs an extra 2,500 teachers. If there is no proper shelter, no security, no teachers, books or even drinking water then children will be deprived of their chance to go to school."

Asked why teachers employed at closed schools could not be transferred to other institutions, Akbari said that it was difficult to send staff from one district to the other in the absence of a decent trampsort sytem and when roads could be dangerous.

He said that his reports to Kabul had gone unheeded.

"We have sent documents regarding the current problems in Ghor's education system to the ministry of education, but the ministry has not done anything to solve the problems."

IWPR has seen a letter dated September 5, 2016 in which the provincial education department informed the ministry of the problems in the provincial system.

However, officials in Kabul said that they were unaware of the dire situation in Ghor.

Education ministry spokesman Mujib Mehrdad told IWPR, "This is the first time that I have heard that 70 per cent of children in Ghor have been deprived of an education."

He explained that teachers were allowed to draw their salaries for six months in areas with poor security where schools had been shut down. However, it was a criminal offence for teachers in more secure areas to be paid without going to work.

Mehrdad added that the ministry would send a delegation to Ghor to punish offenders.

This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

Copyright notice:  Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Blind Afghans Strive for Change

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Publication Date 5 December 2016 Citation / Document Symbol ARR 561 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Blind Afghans Strive for Change, 5 December 2016, ARR 561, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846c72b4.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.

Urunus Mahdi, a seven-year old from Badakhshan province, has big dreams.

"I want to go to university, with the help of my family, and become an astronaut," she told IWPR.

Urunus faces a particularly hard road ahead: she is blind. Despite her disability, she is currently top of her class and wants the government to help provide her with the opportunity to study abroad.

"I want to graduate from a foreign university and show people that we are not weak and work harder than even those who can see."

The UN estimates that more than 400,000 people in Afghanistan are blind and about 1.5 million have some form of visual impairment.

They face multiple challenges, not least a lack of state support. They are not automatically entitled to state benefits, unless they fall into the category of those registered disabled due to injuries sustained in war.

Afghanistan joined the international convention on the blind in 2012, which mandates it to support health services and education for people who were visually impaired.

However, there are only six schools for the blind operating across the country. Although they are supposed to get preferential treatment at university level, community advocates say that the government is failing to live up to these commitments.

Baqi Baryal, who represents blind people in the Senate, argued that the state was willfully misinterpreting Afghan law, which he said mandated that all disabled people should receive basic assistance and access to at least primary education.

"The commitments made by the government of Afghanistan in their various decrees relating to blind people have not been implemented," he continued. "For example, government-run institutes of higher education should allocate five per cent of places as well as foreign scholarships to blind people. In addition, government organisations are supposed to ensure that five per cent of their employees are blind."

The lack of support has led many blind people to fraudulently obtain papers proving that their disability was a result of war. This means that they can then draw a stipend of 900 US dollars a year.

Amina, a 19-year-old from the Kabul district of Dasht-e Barchi, told IWPR that she had been able to exploit contacts with some key officials to get these false documents.

"I studied till eighth grade at the school for the blind in Mazar-e Sharif, and currently just stay at home," she said, acknowledging that her actions had been wrong.

"Had I not been forced to do so, I wouldn't have committed such an immoral act."

Mahnaz, a 20-year-old from Balkh, also said that she had been left with no choice but to turn to fraudulent means.

She had only been able to stay in school until the sixth grade, and her repeated appeals to government offices for help in finding work had come to nothing.

"I got the disabled people's card from the ministry of labour, social affairs, martyrs and disabled, and so I can get the 900 dollars grant from the government," she said.

Mohammad Hamayoon, head of the organization for the blind in Mazar-e Sharif, acknowledged that many blind people managed to get war-wounded status so that they could draw this disability stipend - including himself.

Asked why someone in his public position was committing fraud, he said, "When I get a job and [a decent] salary, I will pay this money back to the government."

Jamila Afghan, the deputy head of the ministry of martyrs and the disabled, said that people who deceived the government in this way should face prosecution.

On the other hand, she said that the state could try to provide some support for people who were congenitally blind if changes were made to the law on martyrs and the disabled.

In addition, according to Abdul Fatah Ahmadzai, the spokesman of the ministry of labour and social affairs, "The government tries to help disabled people access treatment in the country or abroad through the Red Crescent and other international organisations."

ACCESS TO EDUCATION

Fahim Sharif, head of special training at the ministry of education, said that some 800 blind children were enrolled across six schools for the blind in Kabul, Balkh, Nangarhar, Ghazni, Khost and Farah. A school in Zabul had been closed due to the poor security situation.

Kabul's school for the blind, operating since 1979, was recently closed for two months after insurgents used its grounds to attack the neighbouring American University. A truck bomb outside the school's clinic badly damaged the premises and classes were temporarily suspended.

"The security condition of our country bothers us," said Maliha Hussaini, 17, a ninth grade student at the school. "There are explosions every day and we lose great students. [After] the suicide attackers entered our schools to attack the American University the government has not done anything to help us rebuild it."

The 220 students currently enrolled in the Kabul school have access to handicrafts and carpentry training as well as Islamic studies and Quran classes.

"We teach two fields from the first till twelfth grades at this school," said Roya, a graduate of the school who returned to teach there.

"One of the sections is vocational education and the other is computer and internet. In addition, there are other subjects too such as memorizing the holy Quran, after the graduation of which the students gain the honourary title of scholar."

School principle Khwaja Abdul Kabir Sadiqi said that nearly 200 students had graduated from her institution over the last five years, with 25 going on to higher education.

One of them is 20-year-old Elina, who is studying journalism at Kabul university. She said that she had not given up hope that she could recover her sight. Medical experts say that more than half of the visually impaired people in Afghanistan could see again with proper medical care.

"When I went to India for medical treatment, I was told that my eyes were also treatable," Elina said, adding that she didn't have the money to return to India. With government funding, she suggested, it might be possible for her to recover her sight.

She said that her only other request to the government was for them to honour their promises to the disabled community.

"The five per cent share of scholarships to disabled people has not yet been given and it should be implemented soon," she said.

Elina is one of three blind female journalism students at the university. Faculty head Mohammad Wahid said that they were "energetic and intelligent students and show a great deal of interest in their lessons".

He called on the government to help further by funding transport so that the students would find it easier to reach the campus.

Officials say that they are trying to arrange extra services for blind university graduates, such as language lessons to help them continue studying abroad.

Jamila Afghan, deputy head of the ministry of labor and social affairs, said, "We are trying to hold language courses for them so that they first learn foreign languages and then get scholarships."

But even a university education is no guarantee of finding work.

Zahra has a bachelor's degree but said that widespread social prejudice had prevented her from accessing employment.

"The reason I am unemployed is not that I can't work or I don't have a degree. The main reason is that the society and the working environment don't believe in my and other blind people's abilities and don't consider us to be able people."

Zahra argued that while a blind person might be restricted from some opportunities in life, this did not mean that they were entirely incapable.

With support from the government and other organisations, people like could achieve a great deal.

"A blind person can be a great teacher, journalist, counselor, and politician," she continued. "Unfortunately, nothing has been done in our country and working conditions have not been created so that blind people can support themselves and not be a burden on society."

This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

Copyright notice:  Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Youngsville, LA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 12/06/2016 --RedHawk Holdings Corp. (OTCQB:IDNG) ("RedHawk" or the "Company") announced today a consolidated net loss of $187,175 ($nil per share) on gross revenues of $499,280 for the three month period ended September 30, 2016. These first quarter results compare to a net loss $108,404 ($nil per share) on minimal revenues for the comparable three month period ended September 30, 2015.



The first quarter's results included a consolidated net loss from operations of approximately $140,000 which included charges of approximately $260,000 for new product incentive discounts offered to customers, approximately $70,000 of non-recurring legal fees and approximately $25,000 of non-cash charges. Exclusive of the new product incentive discounts and the non-recurring legal fees, the Company would have reported net income from operations of approximately $190,000 and cash flow from operations of approximately $215,000.



These sales discounts were offered to customers in connection with the Company's introduction of its branded generic pharmaceuticals and certain generic "specials" in the United Kingdom. While a small portion of these discounts are offered as a part of current distribution agreements, the Company believes much of these offered discounts will gradually decrease as its branded generic products and "specials" continue to gain market acceptance. "Specials" offered by the Company are unlicensed non-narcotic made-to-order or customized medicinal products.



The non-recurring legal fees for the three month period ended September 30, 2016, relate primarily to costs incurred in connection with unexpected due diligence matters pertaining to certain strategic transactions currently in process, costs and expenses incurred in connection with the continued pursuit of the resolution of certain regulatory matters, increased complexity in regulatory filings and costs and expenses incurred in connection with certain ongoing litigation claims against third parties.



The Company said, "During this first quarter of our 2017 fiscal year, we focused primarily on launching the operations of our pharmaceutical business unit. We are very pleased with the performance and efforts of our UK management group. This business unit has quickly attained profitability despite the higher than normal offered discounts. Further, as this business expands the introduction of its branded generic products and 'specials' into the United Kingdom market, we believe our pharma unit will continue to increase revenues as it attains greater market share and product awareness. While our pharmaceutical unit continues to focus on revenue growth, increased market acceptance, new product development and improved profitability, our medical device business unit has now launched SANDD, our needle destruction device."



"During the second quarter ending December 31, 2016, the manufacturing process of SANDD commenced. Initial marketing of our needle destruction device remains scheduled to start in the United Kingdom and certain Middle Eastern countries during this same three month period ending December 31, 2016. Expectations for the marketing of SANDD in the United States is still targeted to commence during the three month period ending March 31, 2017."



"Initial SANDD units are being manufactured and designed primarily for consumer use but do have limited commercial applications. During the three month period ending March 31, 2017, we expect to begin engineering and testing of a SANDD model more specifically designed for commercial applications. We believe this disciplined approach to launching our individual business units better prepares us to meet with unplanned market challenges as they arise."



"We continue to investigate several unexpected matters which came to our attention during the due diligence review of certain previously announced strategic transactions. While we remain optimistic that these matters will be resolved to our satisfaction, there can be no assurance as to when resolution may occur. Additionally, our legal advisors have been unable to resolve certain regulatory matters pertaining to Daniel J. Schreiber's position as a significant shareholder of the Company. Regulators remain concerned about the protection of the Company's shareholders and market transparency as long as Mr. Schreiber remains a 'significant shareholder.' We believe we have remedies available to resolve this situation and we have engaged counsel to begin pursuing these remedies."



About RedHawk Holdings Corp.

RedHawk Holdings Corp., formerly Independence Energy Corp., is a diversified holding company which, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in sales and distribution of medical devices, sales of branded generic pharmaceutical drugs, commercial real estate investment and leasing, sales of point of entry full-body security systems, and specialized financial services. Through its medical products business unit, the Company sells WoundClot Surgical - Advanced Bleeding Control, the Sharps and Needle Destruction Device, the Carotid Artery Digital Non-Contact Thermometer and Zonis. Its real estate leasing revenues are generated from various commercial properties under long-term lease. Additionally, RedHawk's real estate investment unit holds limited liability company interest in various commercial restoration projects in Hawaii. The Company's financial service revenue is from brokerage services earned in connection with debt placement services. RedHawk Energy holds the exclusive U.S. manufacturing and distribution rights for the Centri Controlled Entry System, a unique, closed cabinet, nominal dose transmission full body x-ray scanner.



Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements



This release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are all statements other than statements of historical fact. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "may," "can," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "projects," "targets," "intends," "likely," "will," "should," "to be," "potential" and any similar expressions are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from that projected or suggested herein due to certain risks and uncertainties. In evaluating forward-looking statements, you should consider the various factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements including those listed in the "Risk Factors" section of our latest 10-K report. Further, the Company may make changes to its business plans that could or will affect its results. Investors are cautioned that the Company will undertake no obligation to update any forward- looking statements.



Contact:

Media Contact:

Julie Calzone 337-235-2924

jcalzone@calzone.com



Company Contacts:

Thomas J. Concannon, CEO 908-625-7811

tom.concannon@redhawkholdingscorp.com



G. Darcy Klug, CFO 337-269-5933

darcy.klug@redhawkholdingscorp.com



Source: Uptick Newswire
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Taipei, Dec. 6 (CNA) A former White House official said on Tuesday that the recent call between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen () was an "important step" in the direction many Republicans have advocated for, but added that the move remains a "small step," during a visit to Taiwan.
Cambodian security guards clash with protesters pushing for the opening of Freedom Park in Phnom Penh, July 15, 2014.

Cambodias Freedom Park will soon be free no longer as the countrys Prime Minister Hun Sen plans to turn the 1.2-hectare plaza in central Phnom Penh into a commercial site.

On Tuesday Hun Sen said the decision to place the park in downtown Phnom Penh was a mistake because demonstrations at the site scared away tourists visiting the city.

We were wrong in the first place to have Freedom Park at the current location which is close to the historical site of Wat Phnom, he said during public remarks, referring to a famed temple. If there are demonstrations, tourists wouldnt want to visit it.

Also known as Democracy Square, the park was set up in 2010 as the designated venue for protests, and it has been the site of demonstrations over labor rights, land grabs and general protests against Hun Sen's 31-year rule.

While it is the designated protest zone, the park has been closed on occasion to demonstrators. It has also been the site of brutal beatings as pro-government thugs have attacked demonstrators defying its closure.

Freedom Park has proved to be a favorite rallying spot for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party and its supporters.

Wat Phnom is a Buddhist temple built in 1372. Standing at just higher than 88 feet, it is the tallest religious structure in Phnom Penh and is a focal point of the city.

Another tweak at the U.S.

The most likely place for a new Freedom Park is at the edge of the city. But Hun Sen also said he may move it in front of the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh. The park is already close to the American mission, about a six-minute walk from the embassy.

Freedom Park must therefore be relocated to outside [Phnom Penh], or if someone is not satisfied with its new location then it should be placed right in front of the U.S. embassy, he said.

It was the second time in as many days that Hun Sen has decided to tweak the United States publicly.

During a ceremony opening a new Coca-Cola bottling plant in Phnom Penh on Monday, he called the Washington two-faced for its criticism of Hun Sens ongoing crackdown on dissent, while post-election protests led to some arrests in the U.S.

A strategy to frustrate people

Am Sam Ath, a senior investigator for rights group Licadho, called the move a strategy designed to frustrate government critics.

I see it as a strategy to frustrate people who would like to express themselves, he said. Unless there is a clear explanation from the government about its intention to move Freedom Park to the new location, people will think that the government is paranoid about protests and demonstrations.

Future Forum Director and political observer Ou Virak told RFA that he believed greed may be at the heart of the move.

I think the government might be pressured by business people to consider relocating the Freedom Park as there are growing number of skyscrapers in that area, he said.

It would not be the first time that an area was grabbed for development by the Cambodian government in Phnom Penh.

The seizure of land for developmentoften without due process or fair compensation for displaced residentshas been a major cause of protest in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Myanmar.

In one of the most egregious land grabs, some 3,500 families were evicted from the land surrounding Boeung Kak Lake in the capital.

Reported by Thai Tha for RFA's Khmer service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
A purge of lawmakers in Hong Kong could weaken pro-democratic voices in the city's legislature, leaving it entirely under Beijing's control, amid an ongoing row over the use of swearing-in ceremonies to make political statements.



Two former members of the Legislative Council (LegCo), Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Leung, were last month stripped of their seats after losing a court case that argued their oaths of allegiance, taken on Oct. 12, were invalid.



But on Friday, the city's chief executive Leung Chun-ying filed a second lawsuit seeking the disqualification of four other pro-democracy members of LegCo, alleging that their oaths were also "improperly delivered."



Nathan Law, a former student leader of the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement, long-time social activist Leung Kwok-hung, independent candidate Edward Yiu, and Lau Siu-lai of Democracy Groundwork are now being targeted for dismissal.



Hong Kong's High Court ruled against Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Leung last month, formally barring them from taking up their seats after a high-level intervention from Beijing, and their appeal to the Supreme Court was also rejected.



The pair, both members of the pro-independence group Youngspiration, vowed allegiance to the "Hong Kong Nation" and carried banners saying "Hong Kong is not China" during their swearing-in ceremonies.



They also used a historical slur to refer to China, with Yau inserting swear-words into her oath.



But the standing committee of China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), intervened with a ruling that only "solemn and sincere" oaths would be accepted from public office-holders.



Thousands protest



Thousands took to the streets to protest against the NPC's intervention, which lawyers and civil rights advocates said undermined judicial independence in the former British colony.



On Monday, Hong Kong's finance chief John Tsang refused to take questions from the four LegCo members targeted in Friday's lawsuit, although chief executive Leung distanced himself from the move on Tuesday, saying it was done without his knowledge.



Democratic Party chairman and LegCo member Wu Chi-wai said he doesn't believe Leung's claim that he had no idea of Tsang's plan to snub the four lawmakers, saying that the government is now clearly in disarray ahead of elections for the city's next chief executive in March.



"I don't believe this," Wu said. "John Tsang has worked in government for so long, that I don't believe he would just come out and say something like this without going through some sort of decision-making process."



"The entire administration is internally breaking down and fracturing, and now we are starting to see signs of the internal power struggle manifest themselves," he said. "Nobody now believes that the forthcoming budget or annual executive's report can be relied upon."



Democracy Groundwork's Lau Siu-lai agreed.



"I think that it's now very clear to everyone that Leung Chun-ying has a power struggle on his hands now; people aren't stupid," he said. "They think that Leung Chun-ying is going back on a previous agreement [made with Tsang], and they will make their own judgement about how much to trust what he says."



The rift comes after Tsang announced he was seriously considering throwing his hat into the ring in the next race for Hong Kong's top job, which is decided by a 1,200 election committee hand-picked by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



Wider tensions



Meanwhile, relations between LegCo and Leung's administration are being strained to breaking point amid wider social tensions over the erosion of Hong Kong's traditional freedoms, which it was supposed to retain under the terms of the 1997 handover from Britain to China.



If the government succeeds in disqualifying all six lawmakers, the pan-democratic camp will retain its power to veto constitutional changes, but would be weakened when voting on any other business.



Since the failure of the 2014 Occupy Central movement to secure fully democratic elections for Hong Kong, support has been growing for the idea of independence, especially among younger people.



Democratic politicians won 29 out of 70 seats in September's LegCo elections. By-elections will soon be called to replace the two disqualified lawmakers, reducing the pan-democratic camp's numbers, at least temporarily.



In the past, pan-democrats have succeeded in blocking unpopular national security legislation as well as the 2014 proposals for electoral reforms that were slammed as "fake universal suffrage" by the Occupy Central movement.



Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.




Myanmars President U. Htin Kyaw, right, greets Malaysian Chief of Armed Forces Zulkifeli Mohd Zin at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Dec 5, 2016.

Malaysia is facing a backlash from Myanmars government following Prime Minister Najib Razaks appearance at a weekend rally in Kuala Lumpur during which he condemned violence against Rohingya Muslims as genocide.

Myanmar President U. Htin Kyaw and Commander-in-Chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing confronted the visiting chief of Malaysias armed forces on the issue during a meeting on Monday at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw, their offices said in statements issued Tuesday.

Hlaing told his Malaysian counterpart that no human rights violations had taken place against Muslim Rohingya,the Myanmar Times said in quoting from Hlaings statement.

During his meeting with Malaysian military chief Zulkifeli Mohd Zin, the Myanmar president discussed concerns over false news about violence in Maungtaw, a township in western Rakhine state where the Rohingya minority is concentrated, according to Htin Kyaws statement.

The president clarified the efforts of the new government in handling the Rakhine state issue in accordance with the existing laws and human rights standards and norms and measures being taken by the Rakhine State Advisory Commission and investigation commission, the statement said.

Zulkifelis visit was not to discuss the Rohingya issue but part of a travel program in the region prior to his retirement on Dec. 16, a Malaysian Defense Ministry official told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

In a message posted Tuesday night on Twitter, Najib said the rally to show solidarity for the plight of the Rohingya drew the attention of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and Malaysia was working with the Muslim world body to organize a meeting of foreign ministers from member-states to discuss the Rohingya issue.

At Sundays rally, the Malaysian prime minister criticized Myanmar for citing the non-interference clause in the charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which prevents members of the regional bloc from meddling in the domestic affairs of other member-states.

The rally occurred a day after Malaysia accused the Myanmar government of ethnic cleansing, and former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited a village in Rakhine where thousands of Rohingya had fled their homes.

Rakhine violence

Myanmars army has conducted security sweeps in the northern part of the state that borders Bangladesh, following deadly attacks on Burmese border-guard posts in early October, which authorities have blamed on Rohingya militants.

In the crackdown soldiers have been accused of committing extrajudicial killings, rape and arson in Rohingya communities. The military has denied committing any atrocities and has blamed the arson that has reportedly destroyed hundreds of homes on Rohingya.

The violence has caused thousands of Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh. On Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that thousands of Rohingya had crossed into southeastern Bangladesh to escape the violence in Rakhine.

The inter-agency coordination team, consisting of U.N. agencies and international NGOs with a presence in the district, is constantly assessing the humanitarian situation and has identified about 22,000 new arrivals since late November, IOM said in a statement.

Many of the new arrivals are in a vulnerable state and it is a priority to us that they get access to the available services, said the agency that has been coordinating humanitarian assistance to undocumented Myanmar nationals in Coxs Bazar district in Bangladesh since 2013.

Domestic backlash

Sundays rally saw Najib sitting on the same stage as Abdul Hadi Awang, president of the Pan-Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS)  a traditional rival of Najibs United Malay National Organization (UMNO) party.

On Monday, a coalition of Myanmar Muslim Civil Society Groups issued an open letter accusing Najib of exploiting the rally for his self-interest and political purposes.

In such a time, we are dismayed by poorly informed initiatives like the rally in Malaysia, which could further worsen the already difficult situation and be considered as a threat to the unity and stability of the ASEAN community.

We hereby reassert that the Muslim community in Myanmar does not take it as a religious persecution, but a controversial ethnic issue, the statement said.

Apart from the backlash from Myanmar, Najib is facing criticism at home for his appearance at the rally.

Questioning Najibs sincerity, members of opposition parties in Malaysia pointed to two motions, one in 2012 to condemn actions in Myanmar and another a week before the rally to discuss concerns over ethnic cleansing, being rejected by parliament.

As early as November 2012, MP Nurul Izzah Anwar called for an emergency motion regarding the Rohingya issue. Parliament should have debated it then. Why was it rejected, Malek Hussin, head of Parliamentary Affairs Office of the Opposition Leader told BenarNews.

On Nov. 24, a similar motion raised by opposition party National Trust Party was rejected by the speaker on the basis it would interfere with Myanmars sovereignty.

Reported by Hadi Azmi for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.


An ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugee stands in front of the Malaysian flag during a protest in Kuala Lumpur against the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, Dec. 4, 2016.

A coalition of Muslim civil society groups in Myanmar has condemned protests led by Malaysias prime minister against the Southeast Asian nations treatment of the stateless Rohingya minority group, which has been subject to a recent security crackdown in Rakhine state.

The groups took Muslim-majority Malaysias ruling United Malays National Organsation (UMNO) party to task over a Dec. 4 rally in the capital Kuala Lumpur, expressing disapproval of Prime Minister Najib Razaks participation in the protest for what they called political purposes, said the open letter dated Dec. 5.

The groups sent the letter to the Malaysian embassy and submitted a copy to Myanmars Ministry of Information and Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs.

We feel that Najib did this for his political interest, said Darli Myint a member of the civil society aid organization Social Alliance.

According to the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] charter, a country cant interfere in the internal affairs of another member state. What he did caused us concern about the broken unity of ASEAN. Thats why we released the statement.

Some in Myanmar believe that Najib Razak is using the Rohingya issue to deflect corruption allegations surrounding his involvement in the taking billions of dollars of public money from a state investment fund.

We find the rally led by Malaysian Prime Minister [Najib] was nothing but aiming at the political interest of Malaysias ruling party, the letter said. We affirm that the unfortunate situation facing Myanmar needs not, and should not, be exploited for self-interest and political purposes.

Muslims in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh staged demonstrations last week to protest State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyis failure to stop what they call genocide of the Rohingya who are at the center of the latest crackdown in the northern part of Rakhine State.

Security forces that swept into the area after a deadly raid on three border guard states on Oct. 9 have been accused of killing and raping Rohingya Muslims and burning down their homes as they searched for the attackers. The violence, which the armed forces have denied participating in, left nearly 90 dead and forced tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Myanmar Muslim groups also said they disapproved of Najibs linking of the situation to a religious cause.

We hereby assert that the Muslim community in Myanmar do not take it as a religious persecution, but a controversial ethnic issue, the letter said.

Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who chairs an advisory commission on Myanmar's Rakhine state, speaks at a press conference in Yangon, Dec. 6, 2016. Credit: AFP Deeply concerned

Myanmar views the 1.1 million Rohingya, most of whom live in Rakhine state, as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, though many have lived there for generations. They are denied citizenship and access to jobs, health care, and education. More than 120,000 Rohingya are currently living in refugee camps after being displaced by communal violence with Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.

The letter went on to say that the Myanmar government has taken steps to address the issue, including the appointment of former United Nations chief Kofi Annan to lead a Rakhine Advisory Commission to examine conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, and development issues in the divided and impoverished state.

President Htin Kyaw on Nov. 3 formed an investigative commission to examine the situation that led to the border guard station attacks and subsequent violence, as well as to verify allegations of rights abuses during security operations.

On Tuesday, Annan told a press conference in the commercial capital Yangon that he and the other members of the Rakhine Advisory Commission remain deeply concerned about reports of alleged human rights abuses.

Annan also cautioned that the use of the word genocide to describe the situation in Rakhine is a serious charge that requires legal review and not something that can be thrown around loosely.

We stressed in all our meetings that wherever security operations might be necessary, civilians must be protected at all times, and I urge the security services to act in full compliance with the rule of law, Annan wrote in a post on the website of the Kofi Annan Foundation.

We also stressed that security operations must not impede humanitarian access to the population, he said. We have been given the assurance that humanitarian assistance is allowed access and trust that all communities in need will receive the assistance they require.

Annan also said he met with Myanmars de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and military commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday to discuss reconciliation among Rakhine communities, citizen verification, freedom of movement, and the economic and social development of Rakhine.

During her meeting with the commission in the capital Naypyidaw, Aung San Suu Kyi appealed to the international community to give Myanmar time to resolve the problems in Rakhine, according to an announcement by the State Counselors Office.

Border Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Ye Aung and Immigration Minister Thein Swe also attended the meeting.



Reported by Kyaw Thu for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Armed men from Myanmar's Border Guard Force patrol Muse township in Myanmar's northern Shan state near the border with China, Nov. 22, 2016.

Talks between four ethnic armed groups and Myanmar peace officials about recent clashes in northern Shan state broke down on Friday in the latest blow to the civilian administrations efforts to forge peace and national reconciliation.

Government peace envoy Tin Myo Win and representatives from the governments Peace Commission were set to hold talks with officers from the Northern Alliancethe Arakan Army (AA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA)in Kunming, capital of southwestern Chinas Yunnan province.

The planned meeting has been cancelled because the negotiations were not successful, Col. Ta Hpone Kyaw of the TNLA told RFAs Myanmar Service. Tin Myo Win has returned home, and well be going back too.

Chinas foreign ministry had arranged for the two sides to meet, he said.

The country had deployed more soldiers and weapons along its border with Myanmars Shan state after the current round of hostilities began on Nov. 22. China has provided shelter and health services to about 3,000 Myanmar citizens who have fled the clashes, which have continued.

But while the Chinese and the Northern Alliance wanted all four ethnic militias to participate, Tin Myo Win said government representatives would meet separately with the groups, because even if a multilateral meeting were held, the KIA could not be included, Ta Hpone Kyaw said.

The Peace Commission has no plans to meet all four groups, Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay told RFAs Myanmar Service earlier.

Representatives from the Mongla militia and United Wa State Army were also present, though they had met earlier with Tin Myo Win.

We dont know exactly why [we couldnt all meet together], Ta Hpone Kyaw said. The Chinese side just told us there wouldnt be any talks, and we were told that even if the talks were held, the Myanmar officials wanted to talk more about signing the [governments] nationwide cease-fire agreement rather than the latest fighting in the border area.

I think they do not have enough authority to make any decisions, he said.

The negotiating table

Myanmars civilian government, which came to power in April, has made peace and national reconciliation its primary goal so that the country can put decades of civil war behind it and move forward with its political and economic development.

Myanmars de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is spearheading efforts to bring ethnic militias to the negotiating table and have them sign a nationwide cease-fire agreement (NCA) that eight groups signed with the previous government in October 2015.

She held the 21st-Century Panglong Conference in late August to bring the parties to the negotiating table, though no agreement was reached.

The KIA has not signed the NCA, and the three other ethnic armies were excluded from the Oct. 2015 pact because of their ongoing hostilities with Myanmars armed forces. Leaders from the KIAs political wing, however, joined the Panglong Conference in late August in what they called a show of goodwill.

The latest bout of hostilities in northern Shan state began when the Northern Alliance launched coordinated attacks on 10 government and military targets in the Muse township villages of Mong Ko and Pang Zai, the 105-mile border trade zone between Myanmar and China, and areas of Namhkam and Kutkai townships.

The ethnic militias have said that they engaged in the limited war in response to offensives by national army soldiers in the long-restive area. More than 10 civilians have been killed and 40 have been injured, as the fighting continues.

On Friday, Defense Minister Lieutenant General Sein Win moved that the lower house of parliament consider naming the Northern Alliance a coalition a terrorist organization because of its killing and injuring civilians and damaging infrastructure and public property.

Lawmakers, however, rejected the motion.

So far, more than 10 civilians have been killed, 40 have been injured, and thousands have fled their homes for safer places.

Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan (R) arrives at the airport in Sittwe in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Dec. 2, 2016. Credit: RFA Rakhine investigation commission formed

Northern Shan state meanwhile isnt the only region posing a challenge to the administrations goal of lasting peace.

Security forces in the northwestern part of Rakhine state are continuing their lockdown of the area following deadly attacks on three border guard posts in October that have been blamed on Rohingya Muslim militants.

Army soldiers have been accused of killing civilians, raping women and girls, burning down homes in Rohingya communities, and driving away tens of thousands of residents.

The office of President Htin Kyaw on Friday announced the formation of a 13-member investigative commission to examine the situation that led to the border guard station attacks and subsequent violence on Nov. 12-13 in Maungdaw as well as to verify the allegations of rights abuses during the security operations.

The commission, headed by Vice President Myint Swe, must submit a report of its investigation, including recommendations for the areas stability, to the president by Jan. 31, 2017.

Meanwhile, former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who is chairman of government-appointed commission looking into conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance, and development issues in the divided and impoverished state, faced protesters on Friday when he arrived in the state capital Sittwe for a visit.

He told reporters that the commission members will visit Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships in northwestern Rakhine on Saturday to see for themselves what has occurred there.

We have not had any indication that there will be restrictions on us, he said in response to a question. Obviously, we are not going to be there for a very long time, but were going to try to see as much as possible and to relate to as many people on the ground as we can.

Annan also said that he expects progress to be made with allowing humanitarian assistance into the area. So far, only Myanmar groups providing food and other necessities have been allowed into the security zone, while other international aid organizations have been kept out.

Security action should not impede humanitarian assistance to those in need, he said.

About 70 members of the Arakan National Party (ANP), which represents the interest of the ethnic Rakhine people in the state, lined the avenue from the airport into Sittwe on Friday to protest his visit, the second one he has made as head of the commission.

The ANC is demanding that the commission be dissolved, fearing that its three foreign members, including Annan, will automatically side with the Rohingya.

The Rakhine state government has already said that it doesnt recognize this commission, so why has it ignored their decision and is [now] moving forward? Tun Hla of the ANP asked RFA. Thats why we are protesting.

Protest leader Aung Ko Moe noted that Annan used the term Rohingya at a news conference in Sittwe during his first visit to the state in September, which encourages the Muslims and could lead to more problems.

Most people in Buddhist-majority Myanmar refer to the stateless Rohingya as Bengalis because they consider them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and discriminate against them, though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Annan and other members of his party met with state government officials and later held a closed-door meeting with town elders.

He plans to visit the conflict-ridden areas in Maungdaw township on Saturday. Almost 90 people have been killed in the crackdown and thousands of others have been forced to flee to Bangladesh.

Bigger fires of resentment

Aung San Suu Kyi took the international community to task on Friday, accusing it of stirring up further animosity between Buddhists and Muslims in northwestern Rakhine.

I would appreciate it so much if the international community would help us to maintain peace and stability, and to make progress in building better relations between the two communities, instead of always drumming up cause for bigger fires of resentment, Aung San Suu Kyi told Singapore broadcaster Channel News Asia during her visit to the city-state.

It doesn't help if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation, in spite of the fact that there were attacks against police outposts, she said.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Authorities in Chinas southwestern province of Sichuan have freed a second Tibetan linked to a self-immolation protest three years ago in Ngaba county, releasing him from Sichuans Mianyang prison on Dec. 4, sources said.



Kunme, a resident of Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) countys Meruma township, was escorted by police back to his home in Meruma, where he was welcomed by relatives and other members of his local community, a local source told RFAs Tibetan Service.



He is a member of the Gotse family in the townships second housing group, and his fathers name is Konchok Lodroe, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



One of a group of 20 local Tibetans detained on Dec. 3, 2013, Kunme had tried to stop security forces from taking a severely burned self-immolation protester, Konchog Tseten, away from the site of his protest, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



Tseten, a 30-year-old herdsman and father of two, later died on his way to a hospital, and authorities secretly cremated his remains, returning his ashes to his family without explanation.



After 11 months in detention, during which he was beaten and tortured, Kunme was convicted by the Ngaba County Peoples Court on a charge of homicide and was handed a three-year-term, RFAs source said.



Credit was given for the time already spent in custody, making him eligible for release this month.



A second detainee, a woman named Drolma Tso, was also freed from Mianyang on Dec. 4 after serving a three-year term for the same offense.



Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijings rule have continued in Ngaba and in other Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.



A total of 145 Tibetans living in China have now set themselves ablaze in self-immolations since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009, with most protests featuring calls for Tibetan freedom and the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.



Reported by Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.




The wreath of Vietnam Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong is seen placed next to a large portrait of Fidel Castro posted in front of the Cuban embassy in Hanoi as a solider stands guard, Nov. 28, 2016.

A pair of Vietnamese journalists were punished after one of them got drunk and posted a tirade critical of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro on his personal Facebook page, RFAs Vietnamese service has learned.

Journalist Phung Hieu was removed from his position at the Nha Vao & Cong Luan (Journalists & Public Opinion), newspaper after a post in which he criticized Castro for leading Cuba into poverty and isolation.

After 50 years ruling Cuba with dictatorship, conservativeness and blind worship of Marxism, Fidel Castrol has left behind an obsolete and poor Cuba, his post read. Hopefully, after his death, the Cuban people will integrate with the modern world.

Hieu took down his post after the suspension was announced, telling the BBC on Dec 2, that he wrote the post after a night of drinking.

According to the decision signed by Thuan Huu, chairman of the Vietnamese Journalists Association, the papers Editor-in-Chief Nguyen Ngoc Nien was suspended for a month for poor management of the news outlet.

The decision did not elaborate the specific wrongdoings that Nien committed, but on Dec 2, Hieu, who works in the papers Saigon office, was said to be suspended. No information was given on the length of the reporters suspension.

Nien told the BBC that: Hieu wrote this status to express his personal opinions which violate the (guided) general opinion so he was disciplined and suspended. Nguyen Ngoc Nien added: This not only affects Hieu but people above him.

His status told the truth, and there is nothing wrong with it

Freelance journalist Nguyen Dinh Am told RFA that the suspensions show the folly of reporting the truth in Vietnam, even if it is on a personal Facebook page.

His status told the truth, and there is nothing wrong with it, but it goes against the partys line, Nguyen Dinh Am said. That is it. There is no law applied in the case.

Journalists have come under increasing pressure in Vietnam where all media is controlled by the state, Nguyen Dinh Am explained.

Things has become more difficult recently, he said. You could write something a bit different from the partys line before, but the party has become stricter on this. One can be fired or suspended immediately if one says anything just that deviates even a little bit from the partys line.

Journalist Nguyen Thong who works for the state media outlet Mot The Gioi (One World) defended Phung Hieu.

I have read Phung Hieus status again, and I found nothing wrong, he said. He only told a bitter truth that people in our country do not want to recognize.

Phan Huu Minh, head of Vietnamese Journalists Associations inspection unit refused to comment on the suspensions.

Press repression

Vietnam rates 175th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders (RWB) press freedom index, and the one-party state frequently imprisons independent bloggers and citizen-journalists.

According to RWB, the Vietnamese Decree No. 72 restricts Internet use to personal information while abusing democratic freedoms is punishable by imprisonment under the criminal code. According to the organization, the vaguely defined offense allows the authorities to gag every kind of dissident.

In October Vietnamese authorities arrested popular blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, who writes under the pen name Mother Mushroom and is a co-founder the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers.

Also in October, an editor working for a state media outlet was fired when he apparently crossed the line on free expression by publishing excerpts from an exiled dissident who runs a popular blog on sensitive topics.

Nguyen Nhu Phong, the editor of state-run website PetroTimes, was fired and stripped of his press card "for committing wrongdoing in press activities, the Ministry of Information and Communications said in a statement at the time.

The ministry did not elaborate on the reason for Nguyen Nhu Phongs firing, but local journalists told RFA that the sacking came after excerpts of an interview with exiled blogger Nguoi Buon Gio also known as Bui Thanh Hieu.

Nguoi Buon Gio is one of Vietnams most well-known bloggers, who documents human rights violations through films, photos and short texts. He is a fellow of the Writers in Exile Program of PEN Germany, and now lives in Germany.

Reported by by Than Pham for RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
As disinformation and misinformation extend their global reach and influence, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) are teaming up to offer a new fact-checking resource.

Polygraph.info, a globally aware and nonpartisan website, is a timely response to the deluge of often false or misleading information confounding audiences around the world.

"Polygraph.info addresses the public demand for professionally verified information, and will power a range of RFE/RL and VOA news coverage that will report the truth," said RFE/RL President Thomas Kent.

"It separates fact from fiction, adds context, and debunks lies, blunting the destructive effects of disinformation and helping audiences make informed choices and decisions," said VOA Director Amanda Bennett.

Polygraph.info's team of RFE/RL and VOA journalists researches and analyzes statements from government officials and other high-profile individuals to assess their veracity. The site currently focuses on statements involving relations between Russia and the West, but its analysis will expand to other areas of the world.

VOA delivers news and information in more than 45 languages to a measured weekly audience of more than 236 million people. With 75 years of experience, VOA is a trusted source for accurate information about news events, freedom of expression, civil society, and change.



RFE/RL is a private, independent international news organization whose programs -- radio, internet, television, and mobile -- reach 27 million people in 26 languages and 23 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, and the Baltic states.

VOA and RFE/RL are two of the five networks of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent federal agency supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international media.

Media inquiries can be made to Bridget Serchak at VOA in Washington at bserchak@voanews.com or +1.202.203.4959.

In Europe, contact Joanna Levison at RFE/RL in Prague at levisonj@rferl.org or +420.221.122.080.
The Azerbaijani embassy in Washington will co-host a holiday party at U.S. President-elect Donald Trumps Washington hotel this month, news media reported on December 5.

The embassy will co-host the Hanukkah party celebrating religious freedom and diversity with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a collection of national Jewish groups.

The Jewish organization said it chose the Trump hotel because of its desirable central location in the U.S. capital.

Some ethics experts say the paid use of Trump properties by foreign governments poses a conflict of interest, since it can be seen as a way to try to influence the new president.

As a candidate, Trump slammed his opponent Hillary Clinton for her family foundations ties to foreign business. He promised to put his extensive business assets into a blind trust and let his children oversee his company to avoid conflicts of interest.

Financial disclosures show that Trump also remains as president of another high-profile property venture in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.

Based on reporting by Politico and Jerusalem Post


Reporters Without Borders called on Azerbaijan on December 5 to stop curtailing media freedom after what it said was the arrest and harassment of three journalists last week.

Authorities detained Afgan Sadykhov, editor of the website Azel.tv, on November 22 and charged him with "aggravated assault" after staging a violent confrontation between him and a woman, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog group said.

It said a similar pretext was used to arrest Teymur Kerimov, a journalist from the Kanal 13 website, on November 25 while he was reporting on water supply problems in a village for refugees from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Zamin Gadji, an opposition journalist with the newspaper Yeni Musavat, was summoned to a Baku police station on November 28 over a Facebook post in which he condemned the government's failure to solve four prominent murders.

The police accused him of "casting doubt on the country's social and political stability" and asked him to delete the post, which he refused to do. He was eventually released a few hours later.

Rights groups say trumped-up assault charges are often used to imprison outspoken journalists in Azerbaijan.

"The Azerbaijani authorities are so confident that they do not even take the trouble to vary their harassment methods," said Johann Bihr of Reporters Without Borders.


So now Vladimir Putin would have us believe that he is getting tired of his job.

Speaking to factory workers in Chelyabinsk yesterday, the Kremlin leader said he would like to "successfully complete his career."

He lamented that when he travels as president, he is confined to a bubble.

Instead, he said, he'd love to get out and see the sights like an ordinary Joe.

One has to wonder where he would like to go.

After all, since Putin has said that Russia's borders don't end anywhere, he probably thinks he could see the world without even leaving the country.

Or perhaps he'd like to visit Georgia, up close. Or Ukraine. Or the Baltics.

Maybe he even believes he would be welcome.

In reality, Putin was playing a predictable little mind game ahead of next year's presidential election.

He's pretending he doesn't really want to stay in the Kremlin to test the reaction in the elite and in the society.

He's feigning fatigue with power to make everybody worry about what happens if he really goes.

It's a psy-op worthy of the operative that he is.

Because Putin isn't going anywhere and he knows it.

That's part of the deal. Autocrats don't get to have a peaceful retirement.

Putin has made his bed. He's a prisoner of the Kremlin, like it or not.

Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page.
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
BRUSSELS -- European Union diplomats say EU leaders are highly likely to prolong economic sanctions on Russia through July 31, 2017, when they meet in Brussels for a summit next week.



Several EU diplomats close to talks on the sanctions have told RFE/RL that EU leaders might give a green light for the six-month extension of the sanctions without a discussion when they meet on December 15.



EU ministers or ambassadors would formally adopt the extension a few days later, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive geopolitical matter publicly.



The sanctions are currently set to expire at the end of January.



Speaking at an event on Ukraine in Brussels on December 6, the U.S. charge d'affaires to the EU, Adam Shub, said the United States is confident that "there will be no easing of sanctions until Russia fully complies with Minsk" -- a reference to a February 2015 agreement aimed to end the conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.



"I think that our European partners are on the same wavelength," he said.



Sanctions targeting Russias banking and energy sectors were first imposed in the summer of 2014, in response to Russia's seizure of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and support for the separatists.
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.
The woman who leads female volunteers in Iran's hard-line conservative militia, the Basij, has identified a new foe.

Minu Aslani has reportedly called the promotion of gender equality illegal and demanded that the country's powerful judiciary take action against people who speak out against such state-sponsored discrimination.

"These activities are in fact against our laws and the judiciary should take action," the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Aslani as telling reporters on December 2.

In the past, Aslani has condemned efforts to increase the number of women in parliament and opposed campaigns to curb domestic violence as perceived assaults on Iranian society and traditional family values. Pushing for greater female participation threatens to "distort" the identity of Iran's women, she has said.

The latest broadside against opponents of gender-based discrimination appears to be a volley aimed at allies of relative moderate President Hassan Rohani, who campaigned in 2013 on a pledge to fight second-tier status for women and is expected to seek a second term in 2017.

At the December 2 press conference, Aslani argued that gender equality was a Western concept that isolates women. "This is a path that has resulted in the solitude of women in the West," she said. "Unfortunately some people in this country are following the outdated Western example -- it is against human nature."

Aslani also criticized United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's eight-year-old UNiTE To End Violence Against Women campaign, which is aimed at raising awareness about violence against women and girls.

Aslani argued that the initiative -- which proclaims the 25th day of each month "Orange Day" -- suggests to women and girls that they should not grant their love and affection to their families.

"Why have authorities in our country given a commitment to the United Nations to achieve gender equality within the next 15 years?" Aslani asked reporters.

She appeared to be referring to a UN development agenda for global action for the next 15 years, ratified by member states in 2016, that highlights gender equality and women's empowerment as a key priority.

Aslani added that Iran should have a plan for women to be active in society while providing "emotional support" to their families. "Alongside social and economic activities, the main identity of a Muslim woman is centered on her role as a mother," she said.

She also complained that unnamed individuals in Iran have designed a questionnaire to gauge gender equality among various state bodies, adding that such activities were also "against the law and the judiciary should take action."

Aslani also criticized Iran's vice president for women's affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi, who has expressed commitment to gender equality and angered hard-liners with her efforts to promote women's rights. She recently tweeted to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25:

"...[W]hat has the vice presidency for women's affairs done for virtue in society?" Aslani asked.

Women's rights activists have sought to become more active and engage more thoroughly in Iran's religiously conservative society under Rohani's presidency. But they have faced pressure from hard-liners in control of key institutions who believe feminist ideas are a violation of Islamic principles.

In August, Amnesty International warned against a renewed crackdown against women's rights activists in Iran, saying that they were being treated as "enemies of the state."

In recent weeks, reports have said that as many as 20 women have been summoned and interrogated by the authorities for attending a seminar in Georgia on women's empowerment.

At least one of the seminar's attendees, photographer and women's rights activist Alieh Matlabzadeh, has been arrested.
QARAGHANDY, Kazakhstan -- The chief prosecutor in the central Kazakh city of Qaraghandy on December 6 requested sentences ranging from 10 to 14 years in prison for members of an alleged terrorist group.

Eight men who the authorities say are Islamic extremists went on trial in Qaraghandy on October 31.

The trial has been held behind closed doors at the Qaraghandy Regional Court.

The defendants were arrested in June and charged with the creation of a terrorist group and participation in its activities, as well as illegal possession of weapons.

Investigators say the group planned a series of terrorist attacks in the region, including an attack against a Russian radar station near Lake Balkhash.

One of the group's members had blown himself up when police tried to detain him.
ASTANA -- A Kazakh woman was hospitalized after she set herself on fire in front of the Prosecutor-General's Office in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, on December 6.

The Prosecutor-General's Office said that the woman, whom it identified as M. Rysmanova, poured gasoline on herself and set herself on fire around midday.

Authorities did not describe the extent of her injuries.

The Prosecutor-Generals Office said Rysmanova was protesting the conviction of her son, who was found guilty of illegal drug possession in June 2015 and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in jail in June 2015.

It said it has asked the trial court in the southern Zhambyl region to send the case materials so that Rysmanova's statements can be examined.

With reporting by zakon.kz
BISHKEK -- The Bishkek mayor's office has asked residents of the Kyrgyz capital to help identify and locate two young men it says roasted potatoes on the eternal flame at the city's memorial to World War II dead.

The mayor's office issued a statement on December 6 appealing to residents and promising not to disclose the identities of those who help track down "the vandals."

A video apparently shot on November 29 showed two men roasting potatoes on the eternal flame on Victory Square in downtown Bishkek. The video has circulated in the Internet since December 1.

WATCH: Men Roasting Potatoes Over Bishkek's Eternal Flame

The mayor's office said that it also asked police to find the men.

Police said preliminary investigations suggested the men may work at a parking area near Victory Square.

It was not clear what charges the men might face if caught.

Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union during World War II.

With reporting by Vecherny Bishkek
Demonstrators wave European flags on Kyiv's Independence Square. The front-runner in France's presidential election vows to lead that country out of the European Union.

Ukrainians fight -- and some ultimately die -- for the sake of a European future. A populist and antiestablishment wave spreads across a continent -- and across the Atlantic -- putting the very idea of a united Europe on life support.

December 2013 and December 2016. Then and now.

Oh what a difference a few years can make.

Then, European values were on the march in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Now they are in retreat in the very heart of the EU.

The road from the Euromaidan to Brexit to Marine Le Pen has been dizzying and depressing. And it has also become one of the dominant narratives of our time.

Adam Thomson, director of the European Leadership Network, wrote recently that with xenophobia, nativism, and populism on the rise, "Europes condition is more dangerous than at any time since the 1960s."

And lurking in the shadows of this disturbing story, of course, has been Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Putin didn't create the Western malaise that led to the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and the meteoric rise of Le Pen's National Front in France.

He didn't make Geert Wilders' Party of Freedom a front-runner in next year's elections in the Netherlands. And he didn't cause Matteo Renzi's government to fall after losing a referendum this weekend in Italy.

These developments are the results of the extended fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, the Eurozone crisis that followed it, the migrant crisis, and a working-class revolt by those left behind by globalization.

But Putin certainly has fed and exploited the Western malaise.

Mobilizing The Marginalized

Back in December 2013, as Ukrainians gathered on the Maidan, the Kremlin-backed Center for Strategic Communications published a report noting that there was a sizable constituency that felt marginalized -- both economically and culturally -- in the liberal West.

This constituency, the report said, favored traditional family values over feminism and gay rights.They preferred nation-based states rather than multicultural melting pots.

And in difficult economic times, Putin was in a unique position to exploit the coming antiestablishment wave.

The West's dispossessed and disenfranchised were a potential Trojan horse for the Kremlin.

Just days later, in his 2013 state-of-the-nation speech, Putin derided and vowed to oppose the West's "genderless and infertile" liberalism "that asks us to accept without question the equality of good and evil."

It was all a blueprint for undermining European unity and eroding transatlantic solidarity. It was a plan to divide and weaken the West and to free Russia from the rules-based international order.

Writing in Colta.ru at the time, political analyst Aleksandr Morozov claimed that Putin was "creating a new Comintern" aimed at "the maximum Putinization of the world" and establishing "an entirely new hegemony."

And toward this end, Moscow began intensifying its contacts with far-right parties in the West, including Le Pen's National Front in France and Jobbik in Hungary.

And it started using its international media assets to make the ground more fertile for their success.

"The Kremlin's concerted effort to establish networks of political influence has reached into Europes core," Alina Polyakova, deputy director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center and author of the book The Dark Side Of European Integration, wrote in a recent Atlantic Council report.

"These efforts were long ignored, overlooked, or denied by Western European countries. But they are now bearing fruit for the Kremlin."

And one of the reasons they are bearing fruit is because when Putin looked West, he thought he saw something familiar.

He saw an angry, disenfranchised, and humiliated working class that had been left behind by globalization and that believed its traditional values were being insulted.

And in this, he saw something reminiscent of Russia in the 1990s.

Just as the Russia of a quarter of a century ago was ripe for a tough-talking leader who rejected liberal orthodoxies and promised to restore national greatness, Putin thinks much of the West is ripe for this message as well.

And just as he turned resentment into power in Russia, he sought to turn that trick internationally.

Fiona Hill, co-author of the book Mr. Putin: Operative In The Kremlin, recently wrote that "one thing he does know well is how to gauge the national mood, play with emotions, and manipulate people. He also knows how to take the measure of individuals and exploit their flaws and weaknesses."

So as Peter Pomerantsev, author of the book Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible: Inside The Surreal Heart Of The New Russia, memorably put it, Putin has turned himself into the Che Guevara of the West's antiestablishment fringe.

Fear Of Europe

But Putin's backing of Europe's populist insurgency was also motivated by fear.

"The existence of Europe is a domestic problem for Russia," Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, author of the book Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning, said in a recent public lecture.

Because for all its flaws and problems, Europe presents a transparent and democratic model of governance close to Russia's borders that directly challenges the authoritarian kleptocracy in the Kremlin.

The EU also provides a consensual model of integration that is far more appealing than Moscow's, which is based on coercion.

And as those Ukrainians waving European flags on the Maidan showed three years ago, the EU has a magnetic pull on Russia's neighbors, undermining Putin's dream of a sphere of influence in the former Soviet space.

"As long as Putin is in power, they are not going to stop trying to undo the European Union," Snyder said.

So Putin appears to be winning the battle for now. But he should hold off on the victory dance.

Because antiestablishment anger is a double-edged sword and Russia isn't necessarily immune to the populist revolt currently sweeping the West.

And while in the West, the losers of globalization can vent their anger through the safety valve of the democratic process, in Russia they will have no place to go but the streets.

And when they do, it could get quite ugly for the Putin regime.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL
Russia is criticizing what it says has been the "more than modest" international reaction after two Russian Army medics were killed in what the Defense Ministry said was rebel shelling of a field hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov singled out the United States on December 6 for what he said was a muted reaction to the "tragedy" the previous day.

"We regret that the world community, including our partners in the United States, are reacting very modestly to the tragedy that unfolded with the attack on the field hospital," Peskov told reporters.

The Russian Defense Ministry said two female army medics, Nadezhda Durachenko and Galina Mikhailova, were killed and a third medic, Vadim Arsentyev, was seriously wounded.

A ministry spokesman claimed on December 5 that it was a planned attack and suggested that the coordinates of the hospital were given to rebels by a foreign power.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said any accusation that United States could have done so would be "completely false," adding: "We would never give coordinates to the Syrian opposition."

State-funded Russian media outlet RT said that in response to a request for comment, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the incident indicated that "all sides to the conflict in Syria are failing in their duties to respect and protect health-care workers, patients, and hospitals, and to distinguish between them and military objectives."

Russia's Defense Ministry said that statement was "cynical" and showed the organization was "indifferent to the murder of Russian medics in Aleppo."

Russia has backed the Syrian government throughout the more than five-year civil war and stepped up its support by launching a campaign of air strikes in September 2015.

With reporting by AP, TASS, Interfax, and RT
Russia and China on December 5 vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution pushed for by Western powers and calling for a seven-day truce in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Russia argued that the measure would allow rebel forces to regroup and should be postponed pending talks between Washington and Moscow scheduled for this week.

It was the sixth time Russia has vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria since the conflict started in 2011 and the fifth time China has blocked action.

"These kinds of pauses have been used by fighters to reinforce their ammunition and to strengthen their positions and this will only worsen the suffering of civilians," Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.

Russian Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov said earlier in the day that Moscow would start talks with Washington this week on the withdrawal of opposition forces from Aleppo following significant gains made by Russian-backed Syrian forces in recapturing rebel-held areas since mid-November.

"The concrete route and time frame for the withdrawal of all fighters from eastern Aleppo will be agreed upon," Lavrov said. "As soon as these routes and time frames are agreed on, a cease-fire can come into effect."

'Made-Up Alibi'

At the UN, Churkin argued that action by the Security Council should be postponed to allow time for those negotiations.

But U.S. officials said no agreement on withdrawal is near. Rebel forces have rejected calls for them to evacuate.

"That is a made-up alibi," Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michele Sison told the council.

"We have not reached a breakthrough because Russia has been more focused on preserving its military gains than helping Aleppo's citizens," she said. "We will not let Russia string along this Security Council while waiting for a compromise from the Russians that never seems to come."

Sison said the veto of the cease-fire resolution was "a death sentence for innocent men, women and children" in Aleppo.

The United Nations says more than 200,000 civilians might still be trapped in rebel-held areas of Aleppo, which are experiencing severe food and aid shortages.

British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft expressed surprise that China joined Russia in vetoing the resolution, which would have allowed humanitarian aid access while quelling violence throughout Syria by both rebel forces and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops.

Rycroft concluded Russia and China blocked the measure "because of their longstanding, misplaced faith in a despot who has killed nearly half a million of his own people."

Chinese UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi said the vote on the draft text should have been delayed to allow for more negotiations to reach a consensus on the council. He accused Rycroft of "poisoning" the atmosphere and "abusing" the forum with his remarks.

Had the resolution been adopted, it would have been a "fragile glimpse of hope" and allowed the UN to "save lives," French ambassador Francois Delattre said.

He accused Russia of having "decided to take Aleppo regardless of the human cost."

New Zealand UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who helped draft the resolution, said the failure to act was "deeply damaging to the council's reputation and catastrophic for the people of Syria."

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters


MOSCOW -- Plans to build a factory manufacturing condoms in a Russian village that bears the name of God are facing spirited resistance from local believers.

The factory near a monastery in the village of Bogolyubovo, situated about 180 kilometers northeast of Moscow in Russia's Vladimir region, was envisioned by local authorities as an opportunity to create 200 jobs.

But with construction under way, members of the monastery's congregation are opposing it on religious grounds.

On December 4, dozens of Orthodox activists -- an estimated 120 according to local media -- rallied outside the local government administration to demand construction be stopped, the latest salvo in a confrontation that began last month.

Dressed in fur coats and hats, the crowd of mostly elderly women chanted prayers, gripped icons and a large wooden cross , and held aloft colorful banners with slogans like "No condom manufacturing on a holy site!" and "Mother of God, save us from desecration!"

The dispute over the factory, which if completed will also manufacture diapers and adhesive bandages, came to national attention on November 22 when a small group of Orthodox believers submitted a petition against its construction. Bergus, the firm that owns the factory, said it was too late to change the plans, but agreed to meet the group on November 24.

Even this concession raised eyebrows at the influential Kommersant business paper, which saw the factory through the lens of Russia's drive to replace imports with local production. "What is surprising is not the protest of believers, but the fact that the owner of the enterprise and local authorities entered into talks with them," it wrote on December 5.

Pavel Spichakov, the managing director of KIT, a holding company of which Bergus is part, said the resistance encountered was "completely unexpected."

"I thought they would support the creation of jobs and tax revenue for the village," Spichakov told RFE/RL's Russian Service on November 26, two days after the meeting with the group.

Surreal footage of the meeting was posted online by local journalists. It shows activists opposing the use of condoms against sexually transmitted diseases, among other things. "Purity is the instrument against ugly diseases," one attendee is seen saying. "From Bogolyubovo, we should spread purity and holiness!"

Protesters are concerned that any personal hygiene items produced in their village of 4,500 might bear its name -- which translates roughly as "God Lovers. " The village carries the name of 12th-century Russian Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who built the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, a UNESCO protected site.

Several banners at the December 4 protest played on the names of the village and its region: "Russia is from Bogolyubovo" and: "Vladimir is not Sodom, and Bogolyubovo is not Gomorrah!"

Protesters also oppose the location of the factory, on the grounds of a shuttered brick factory in the vicinity of the Bogolyubsky Monastery. They say it backs onto a school as well.

Kirill Vasilyev, a journalist for the local news site Pro Vladimir who has covered the standoff, told RFE/RL's Russian Service that 15-20 active people were driving the protest.

"And many of them are not residents of the village of Bogolyubovo," he claimed on November 26. "They are from the monastery's congregation. Among the congregation there are many Muscovites, people from other regions."

Vasilyev claimed that the activists intended to collect the signatures of the majority of the villagers in order to stop the factory, but was skeptical they would manage that. "The people who we met on the street and the workers of the enterprise are either neutral or else say they are pleased that new jobs are being created."

"There used to be a brick factory here. It closed. People ended up without work. They have to travel to Vladimir now," he said, referring to the regional capital. "It's not far [it's 12 kilometers], but it's still not nice, according to them."

The Russian Orthodox Church has publicly remained neutral in the dispute, declining to support a side in what it sees as an issue that should be resolved locally. The church permits its adherents to use condoms, while noting, however, that "the deliberate refusal to have children because of selfish urges devalues marriage and is undoubtedly a sin."

Tatyana Fadeyeva, a Russian Orthodox activist leading the protest, opposed the factory on a number of points. "Why are condoms manufactured? To plan families. With the situation today our demography is not in the best shape. So such manufacture will not improve our demographics."

Asked about the jobs that would be lost if construction of the factory was halted, Fadeyeva said, "Then let's make a candy factory, let's make a factory for souvenirs, toys."

She said the village could also do more to take advantage of the "5 million, I think" people who pass through every year. "Let's do something that is spiritually good or good for our children."
WASHINGTON -- The number of new U.S. asylum applications by Russian citizens has jumped for the fourth straight year in 2016, reaching the highest level in more than two decades and more than doubling since President Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin for a third term.

Russian citizens filed 1,912 new U.S. asylum application in the fiscal year ending September 30, up 31 percent compared to 2015 and 164 percent since 2012, when Putin was again elected president following a four-year stint as prime minister, new official statistics show.

RFE/RL obtained the U.S. Department of Homeland Security data after filing a request under the Freedom Of Information Act.

While the data does not indicate the basis for applicants' persecution claims, immigration attorneys link this multiyear surge to policies in Russia seen as discriminatory toward sexual minorities, a squeezing of dissent during Putin's third term, and widespread corruption.

Anecdotal evidence and internal accounting from lawyers working with sexual minorities suggest a sharp rise in the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals from Russia seeking U.S. asylum since Putin signed a 2013 law banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" to minors.

The so-called "gay propaganda" law was widely denounced by Western governments and international rights groups as state-sponsored homophobia -- a charge the Kremlin rejects. Rights activists have also warned of increasing numbers of hate crimes committed against LGBT individuals in recent years.

Immigration Equality, the largest legal-advocacy group in the United States devoted to assisting LGBT individuals with immigration matters, says it received 245 inquiries from Russians interested in asylum by November this year, up from 199 inquiries in all of 2015.

"Clients report increased violence. We have a lot of clients that are coming to us because they've been targeted and have suffered some sort of physical attack in Russia," Pamela Denzer, the client programs director at the New York City-based organization, tells RFE/RL.

Russian prospective asylum seekers are also "concerned about the safety of their partners and children" and about "the Russian government targeting their families," Denzer says.

She adds that Immigration Equality has seen an uptick in inquiries by prospective asylum seekers from other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Georgia.

Fleeing Corruption

New York-based immigration attorney Alena Shautsova says she has handled roughly the same number of asylum seekers from Russia this year as in 2015 but that she is not surprised to hear that the overall number of applications spiked year-on-year.

She tells RFE/RL that her Russian asylum seekers this year have included LGBT individuals and entrepreneurs alleging they were targeted by corrupt officials. In one case, the client's mother worked at a state-owned aerospace company and was harassed over the person's studies in the United States, Shautsova says.

"The client's mother was questioned about the client's activities here," she says. "They basically told her to quit, or the child has to come back."

Shautsova says that this year she also took on two cases involving former businessmen who fled Russia because, they claimed, corrupt officials launched criminal cases against them in order to take over their companies. She adds that she had more than 10 other inquiries this year involving similar cases.

Russians Leaving Russia

The number of new U.S. asylum applications by Russians in 2016 was the largest in a single fiscal year since 1994, when the U.S. government received 2,127 applications from Russian citizens three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The EU remains a more popular destination for asylum seekers from Russia. First-time Russian applicants in the 28-country bloc in 2015 rose 30 percent year-on-year to more than 18,000, according to official EU statistics. That number was on pace to increase this year, with 11,465 applicants through the second quarter, according to the most recent available data.

Germany and Poland, easily reachable by train, are traditionally the preferred asylum destinations for Russians in the EU, with many applicants coming from Russia's restive North Caucasus region.

In the first 10 months of 2016, Germany received 10,172 first-time asylum applications from Russian nationals, according to German government data.

These upward asylum trends in the United States and the EU come amid what sociologists warn is a troubling outflow of human capital from Russia -- including highly educated, working-age citizens -- not reflected in official data.

Aleksandr Grebenyuk, co-author of a recent study on Russians' emigration trends, says that 500,000 to 600,000 Russians have moved abroad to reside permanently over the past five years. "That is several times greater than the figures that official [Russian government] statistics show us," he tells RFE/RL.

The study was published in October by a civil-society group founded by Putin's former finance minister and longtime associate, Aleksei Kudrin.

Grebenyuk adds that a majority of these emigres are motivated primarily by economic and employment considerations, as well a desire for a higher standard of living. "Political motives are of secondary importance," he says.
Russia's new information-security doctrine calls for the government to develop "a national system of managing the Russian segment of the Internet."



The doctrine took effect upon being published on December 6. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed it the previous day, superseding a similar doctrine dating from 2000.



The 17-page document broadly outlines the Russian government's perception of threats to its national interests and security in the information sphere and priorities for countering those threats.



Much of it discusses the need to counter the propaganda and recruitment efforts of terrorist organizations and to secure computers from cyberespionage and cybercrime.



The call for a system to "manage" the Russian Internet comes toward the end of the document and is not elaborated.



It may lead to concerns that Putin's government will seek to increase control over content and use of the Internet, despite past remarks in which he has said that state authorities should not restrict Internet freedoms.

Among the threats identified in the document are the expansion of the use of "informational-psychological influences" by foreign intelligence services "aimed at the destabilization" of various regions of the world, including Russia.



The new information-security doctrine comes as the governments of Western and former Soviet countries accuse Moscow of waging informational warfare and conducting cyberattacks. U.S. intelligence agencies accused Moscow of using both tactics in a bid to influence the U.S. presidential election last month.

'Spiritual And Moral Values'



The Russian document also cites "a tendency toward an increase of materials containing biased assessments of the state policies of the Russian Federation in foreign media."



It also asserts that Russian mass-media outlets endure "open discrimination" abroad and Russian journalists "often encounter obstacles aimed at keeping them from carrying out their professional activities."



The doctrine further asserts there has been increased informational activity targeting Russians, "particularly young Russians, with the goal of undermining traditional Russian spiritual and moral values."



It also calls for efforts to "neutralize informational-psychological activities aimed at disrupting the historical foundations and patriotic traditions association with the defense of the Fatherland," which is presumably a reference to what the Kremlin says are attempts to challenge the Soviet interpretation of the history of World War II.



Among the strategic priorities it mentions are protecting the information-security interests of Russian allies and blocking the activity of foreign states, organizations, and individuals aimed at undermining Russia's sovereignty or territorial integrity.

The doctrine also calls for "liquidating the dependence of domestic industries on foreign information technologies" and ensuring information security by developing effective Russian technologies.



Russian Internet and cybersecurity analyst Andrei Soldatov told RFE/RL earlier this month that the Russian government was actively cooperating with China "on the development of a new, second phase of the Internet-filtration system" aimed at enabling the government to monitor and filter online requests for information.

With reporting by RIA Novosti and Mir24.tv
A Russian judge has rejected a motion by lawyers for Aleksei Navalny to recuse himself from the retrial of the opposition activist.

Judge Aleksei Vtyurin announced his decision on December 6, the second day of hearings in the retrial of Navalny and co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov in the so-called Kirovles case.

Vtyurin then adjourned the trial until December 12, citing Navalny's absence from the court in the city of Kirov, nearly 800 kilometers northeast of Moscow.

In November, Russia's Supreme Court threw out a 2013 guilty verdict against Navalny and Ofitserov and sent the case back to the lower court.

Navalny, an anticorruption campaigner and vocal foe of President Vladimir Putin, was handed a five-year suspended sentence after the initial trial in the case, which he said was a politically motivated punishment for his opposition activity.

A key leader of large antigovernment protests in 2011-2012, Navalny was convicted of fraud in a separate case in 2014 and given a 3 1/2-year suspended sentence.

Based on reporting by Interfax and Rapsinews
Oksana Sevastidi, a 46-year-old shopkeeper from the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for high treason.

Although she was convicted and sentenced in March, Sevastidi's case only became widely known this month, after her desperate relatives contacted the Memorial human rights organization for help appealing the court's ruling.

Even more alarmingly, human rights lawyers say, Sevastidi is just one of at least 10 people similarly charged and sentenced by a secret court in Russia's southern Krasnodar region.

Sevastidi was convicted of sending two SMS messages in the first half of 2008 that the Russian government argued contained secret information about military movements in the direction of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia. Russia and Georgia fought a brief war over Abkhazia and a second Georgian region, South Ossetia, in August 2008, after which Moscow recognized both regions as independent.

Sevastidi still cannot quite believe what happened at her trial, which was held in the basement of the local Federal Security Service (FSB) branch under tight secrecy.

"The prosecutor didn't let me say a word in my own defense," she recalled in an interview with the website Meduza published on December 5. "Everything was done in one day: the arguments, the concluding statements, and the sentence. It was all very fast and mixed up, like in a dream. And as if through a shroud, I heard the words 'seven years.'"

The speed of the trial contrasted sharply with the pace of the pretrial proceedings. Sevastidi was arrested by the Krasnodar branch of the FSB in January 2015. She spent 14 months in pretrial detention, during which time prosecutors questioned her only twice. Her own defense attorney never visited her.

"When my mother called him, he hung up," Sevastidi told Meduza. "He turned his telephone off."

'A Lot Of Questions'

This month, the Memorial rights group helped Sevastidi hire defense attorney Ivan Pavlov, who specializes in treason cases. Last year, he successfully defended Svetlana Davydova, a woman from Vyazma who was accused of reporting Russian troop movements to the Ukrainian Embassy. The charges against Davydova were dropped for lack of evidence and the Prosecutor-General's Office sent her a written apology.

Pavlov is now trying to get permission to appeal Sevastidi's verdict, even though her initial attorney failed to meet the filing deadline.

"Sevastidi has filed a complaint with the Krasnodar Krai Chamber of Attorneys about her previous lawyer," Pavlov told RFE/RL's Russian Service. "In it, she confirmed that she asked him to appeal the sentence. Now our colleague will have to answer a lot of questions that are likely to come up among the members of the qualifications commission of the Chamber of Attorneys."

Pavlov said there were a lot of questions about Sevastidi's case. The text messages that she sent mentioned trains loaded with military hardware that were sitting at the Sochi train station. Pavlov said there was no attempt to hide the trains and people were photographing them.

"How could the experts determine their claim that information that everyone could see was a secret?" Pavlov said.

In addition, if the messages were sent in early 2008, why did prosecutors only investigate them in January 2015?

Moreover, Moscow has said it was caught by surprise by the outbreak of fighting in Georgia in August 2008.

"According to the Russian government, there were no preparations [for the August 2008 war], but this sentence, at the very least, says the exact opposite," Pavlov said. "Therefore, if the Russian government says there were no war preparations, then the justification of this sentence is all the more absurd."

Secret Trials

He is skeptical that the answers to these questions will ever emerge.

"I've been practicing law for 20 years," he said, "and I don't have any illusions about whether the organs in charge of criminal prosecutions are going to explain anything to anybody. There were no explanations in the case of Svetlana Davydova."

Pavlov said Sevastidi's case was not unique. The same Krasnodar court sentenced at least 10 people for treason or espionage between 2013 and 2016, lawyers with Pavlov's organization, Komanda 29, have determined, although they have not learned the full names of all the defendants. They have identified the convicting judge as Vladimir Kobzev.

"We do not know and maybe never will learn all the names and the circumstances of their detentions," Komanda 29 wrote in a recent report. "From the FSB basement where the courts are held, the defendants are sent to unknown locations and no one takes any further interest in them."

In November 2014, the court sentenced another Sochi resident, Yekaterina Kharebayeva, to six years in prison for espionage. Her defense lawyers also say the charges stem from an SMS she sent about the movement of Russian military equipment. Earlier this year, she was released and sent to Georgia as part of an exchange of convicted Russian and Georgian citizens.

"Who is being tried there right now, no one knows," the Komanda 29 report concludes. "Most likely, we will only learn the names after they turn up in a prison camp."
Tajikistan Restores Accreditation Of RFE/RL Journalists In Dushanbe

By RFE/RL's Tajik Service

DUSHANBE -- Authorities in Tajikistan have restored media accreditation to RFE/RL's correspondents in the Central Asian nation, 10 days after revoking their credentials over a report about a daughter of President Emomali Rahmon.

Six members of RFE/RL's Tajik Service returned to work in Dushanbe on December 6 after the Tajik Foreign Ministry reissued their accreditation on December 5.

Tajikistan had revoked their accreditation on November 25 after RFE/RL rejected the Foreign Ministry's demand that it remove a story on the appointment of Rahmon's daughter Rukhshona Rahmonova to head the ministry's International Relations Department.

RFE/RL said the report was based on a post on the Foreign Ministry's website that was further confirmed to the broadcaster by a source at the ministry.

RFE/RL officially protested the decision to revoke the accreditation, which RFE/RL President Thomas Kent called "a blatant attack on our ability to do our jobs as journalists."

Earlier in November, Tajik officials demanded the removal of a report on a U.S. State Department message warning American travelers about the risk of terrorist activity in Tajikistan. RFE/RL refused to remove that story, too.


ON MY MIND

Vladimir Putin played a little mind game yesterday when he suggested to factory workers in Chelyabinsk that he was tired of being president. And make no mistake.This was no off-the-cuff remark.Putin says things like this for a reason -- and the reason is obvious. Now he can watch and see how the elite reacts. Will speculation begin about a post-Putin Russia? Will would-be presidents start maneuvering? If so, Putin will know who is disloyal. Will people start panicking about instability? If so, Putin achieved the result he desired. It's a cute little psy-op. It's par for the course. And it's a sign that Putin's 2018 campaign has begun in earnest.

IN THE NEWS

Russia and China have vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution pushed for by Western powers and calling for a seven-day truce in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Ukraine is ready to join European Union talks on natural-gas issues with Russia, Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz said on its Twitter account.

Russia says it will hold talks with the United States on a complete rebel withdrawal from the Syrian city of Aleppo, where forces allied to the Syrian government have made sweeping advances.

Vladimir Putin has signed a new information-security doctrine for Russia.

The Russian Defense Ministry says two female Russian Army medics were killed on December 5 and a third medic was seriously wounded in what it said was the rebel shelling of a field hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta says it has uncovered substantial falsifications at 68 polling places in the Moscow suburb of Mytishchi during local and national legislative elections in September.

Vladimir Putin told factory workers in Chelyabinsk that he would like to complete his career and travel more.

WHAT I'M READING

Propaganda Paper Tiger

In a piece in Politico, Jack Shafer asks, Who's Afraid Of A Little Russian Propaganda?

"Once a society commits itself to the free-speech radicalism of something like the First Amendment, propaganda will automatically enter the media equation. We need to combat it the way we combat all bad ideas: with our vigilance and wit, knowing that we cant ever completely expunge it from the atmosphere," Shafer writes.

"Like its cousin, 'fake news,' propaganda has always been with us and always will be. By our best nonhysterical efforts, refuting propaganda with the diligence we fight cockroaches, we can hope to reduce propaganda's effect to that of background radiation. The truth loses battles but never the war."

Moscow On The Seine

Journalist Adam Plowright has a piece in Coda on "Where Putin wants you to pray in Paris."

Russia's Trump Obsession

MIkhail Khodorkovsky's web portal The Open Wall has a post up looking at Russia's obsession with Donald Trump.

Russia's Castro Fixation

Open Wall also has a post on how Russian television is reacting to Fidel Castro's death.

Russia's Embarrassing Aircraft Carrier

In his column for Bloomberg, Tobin Harshaw looks at the mishaps plaguing Russia's aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, in the Mediterranean.

"Russia continues to roll out some impressive weaponry in Syria, most recently the sophisticated S-400 air-defense system at its naval base at Tartus. This is only going to help its arms-exporting business, which hit a record $15 billion last year," Harshaw writes.

"But, unless the purpose was to show off the effectiveness of Russian ejector seats and tugboats, the Kuznetsov should have stayed home. Or, better yet, been sent to the graveyard. It's undoubtedly worth more as scrap metal than as a projection of Russian power."

Weaponizing The Internet

Maria Farrell, a writer and consultant on Internet governance, has a piece in Slate explaining "why Russia is using the Internet to undermine Western democracy."

Russia, she writes, "took the West's proudest, strongest, most transformational tool and helped to turn it against us. Internet jiujitsu, in the form of information war (what we used to call propaganda) and cyberwar (plain old hacking and sabotage), turned the energy of the networks against their creators."

Hack The Vote

Vox's Sean Illing has an interview with media historian Vasily Gatov on Russia's role in the U.S. presidential election.

And in a column for Project Syndicate, Harvard professor and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye asks, "Did Russia cross a line by interfering in the U.S. election?"

New SRB Podcast

The latest SRB Podcast, hosted by Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, looks at Rasputin: The Man And The Myth. Sean's guest is historian Doug Smith, author of the books Former People: The Final Days Of The Russian Aristocracy and Rasputin: Faith, Power, And The Twilight Of The Romanovs.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has called on the authorities in Turkmenistan to "immediately" release RFE/RL contributor Khudayberdy Allashov.

Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, urged Turkmen authorities "to ensure journalists safety in Turkmenistan," in a statement issued on December 6.

RFE/RL said in a statement earlier that Allashov was apprehended in Turkmenistans northern Dashoguz Province on December 3, when police officers entered his house, beat him, and rounded up his family.

Both Allashov and his mother were charged with possessing chewing tobacco, which, while illegal in Turkmenistan, is commonly consumed and not known to have led to arrests in the past.

Allashov's wife was told that he had confessed to possessing 11 kilograms of the product and could expect to be sentenced to seven years in prison.

She believes that if he confessed, it was under duress.

Allashovs arrest follows several cases which Mijatovic has previously raised with the Turkmen authorities.

In October, Soltan Achilova, an RFE/RL correspondent, was physically attacked, while threats to enforce a suspended jail sentence against another RFE/RL correspondent, Rovshan Yazmukhamedov, were made in November.

These cases came a year after another RFE/RL contributor, Saparmamed Nepeskuliev, was sentenced to three years in prison.

"We believe these charges are part of a targeted campaign intended to silence our Turkmen Service and intimidate the Turkmen people," RFE/RL President Thomas Kent said in a December 5 statement. "Over the last 18 months, our reporters have been arrested, held incommunicado, beaten, interrogated, threatened, and arbitrarily jailed, and we hold the Turkmen government responsible."

Rights groups say the authoritarian government of natural-gas-rich Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, stifles independent voices and tolerates little dissent.
Ukraine is ready to join European Union talks on gas issues with Russia on December 9, Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz said on its Twitter account on December 5.

"The talks will focus on the 'winter package' for the next winter," said Naftogaz chief Andriy Kobolev, adding that Ukraine may resume direct purchases of Russian gas if Moscow agrees on a number of Kyiv's proposals, including matters such as "price, terms of delivery, and, most importantly, on signing an additional agreement."

Kyiv has not bought gas directly from Russia for more than a year as a result of a breakdown in relations caused by Russia's forcible annexation of Crimea and backing of pro-Russia separatists in the east.

Naftogaz did not say which Ukrainian officials will take part in talks in Brussels.

The EU relies on Russia for about a third of its gas, with more than half of that transiting through Ukraine. The deterioration of ties between Moscow and Kyiv has increased the potential for disputes.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic has been acting as an intermediary between Russia and Ukraine in the gas negotiations, trying to minimize the risk of gas supply interruptions to Europe, especially in winter.

Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS
United Nations human rights experts have urged authorities in Kazakhstan to immediately release from prison two men who participated in a mass protest against land reforms.

A court in the western Kazakh city of Atyrau sentenced both Talghat Ayan and Maks Boqaev to five years in prison on November 28 after finding them guilty of inciting social unrest, spreading false information, and violating the law on public gatherings.

In a joint December 6 statement, the human rights experts said that Ayan and Boqaev "should have never faced prosecution for exercising their rights."

The experts included Michel Forst, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Maina Kiai, the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; and David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

"Such prosecution, reportedly tainted with procedural and due process violations, runs counter to Kazakhstans international commitments on human rights, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," the joint statement added.

Ayan and Boqaev have both claimed their cases are politically motivated.

They were detained in April in the center of Atyrau, where thousands of people had gathered to protest against a bill on land privatization and land leasing to foreigners.
Bar Sinister said:



I wonder how many Jews there are in those Chines banks. In fact I wonder how many Jews there are in any of the banks. I don't see too many Jewish names. Ditch banking? Here is a list of the world's largest banks. Top 100 Banks in the World I wonder how many Jews there are in those Chines banks. In fact Click to expand...

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Chart 5

Perhaps if they quit killing an lying all the time they would gain a few points with the global community instead of losing point to the degree that it is usless to say anything. That is probably their goal. That their useless supporters (you know who you are) would grow some balls they might be reined in before they get hit with a big stick, God's big stick for the creeps who might not get that point.Eze:39:21:And I will set my glory among the heathen,and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed,and my hand that I have laid upon them.So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity:According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them,and hid my face from them.Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian youth at a checkpoint in the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday.The suspect did not heed their call to stop, continued to move in their direction and at one point whipped out a knife and began running towards them. The forces opened fire at the terrorist, an Israeli police spokesperson told media . No Israelis were reported injured.A short video clip taken from a passing car appears to show the youth standing still, with his arms by his side, as a group of soldiers standing several feet away point their guns at him:Seriously that is as f*cked as ISIS is and Israel has been doing the same thing for 70 years almost. If that doesn't define insanity nothing ever will.Way to show off your Sherlock skills, or lack of them. How many in this list of banks are not Jewish??N.M. Rothschild , London - Bank of England ______________________________________ | | | J. Henry Schroder | Banking | Corp. | | Brown, Shipley - Morgan Grenfell - Lazard - | & Company & Company Brothers | | | | | --------------------| -------| | | | | | | | | Alex Brown - Brown Bros. - Lord Mantagu - Morgan et Cie -- Lazard ---| & Son | Harriman Norman | Paris Bros | | | / | N.Y. | | | | | | | | Governor, Bank | J.P. Morgan Co -- Lazard ---| | of England / N.Y. Morgan Freres | | 1924-1938 / Guaranty Co. Paris | | / Morgan Stanley Co. | / | / | \Schroder Bank | / | Hamburg/Berlin | / Drexel & Company / | / Philadelphia / | / / | / Lord Airlie | / / | / M. M. Warburg Chmn J. Henry Schroder | | Hamburg --------- marr. Virginia F. Ryan | | | grand-daughter of Otto | | | Kahn of Kuhn Loeb Co. | | | | | | Lehman Brothers N.Y -------------- Kuhn Loeb Co. N. Y. | | --------------------------  | | | | 8 | | | | Lehman Brothers - Mont. Alabama Solomon Loeb Abraham Kuhn | | __|______________________|_________ Lehman-Stern, New Orleans Jacob Schiff/Theresa Loeb Nina Loeb/Paul Warburg ------------------------- | | | | | Mortimer Schiff James Paul Warburg _____________|_______________/ | | | | | | Mayer Lehman | Emmanuel Lehman \ | | | \ Herbert Lehman Irving Lehman \ | | | \ Arthur Lehman \ Phillip Lehman John Schiff/Edith Brevoort Baker / | Present Chairman Lehman Bros / Robert Owen Lehman Kuhn Loeb - Granddaughter of / | George F. Baker | / | | / | | / Lehman Bros Kuhn Loeb (1980) | / | | / Thomas Fortune Ryan | | | | | | Federal Reserve Bank Of New York | |||||||| | ______National City Bank N. Y. | | | | | National Bank of Commerce N.Y ---| | | \ | Hanover National Bank N.Y. \ | | \ | Chase National Bank N.Y. \ | | | | Shareholders - National City Bank - N.Y. | ----------------------------------------- | | / James Stillman / Elsie m. William Rockefeller / Isabel m. Percy Rockefeller / William Rockefeller Shareholders - National Bank of Commerce N. Y. J. P. Morgan ----------------------------------------------- M.T. Pyne Equitable Life - J.P. Morgan Percy Pyne Mutual Life - J.P. Morgan J.W. Sterling H.P. Davison - J. P. Morgan NY Trust/NY Edison Mary W. Harriman Shearman & Sterling A.D. Jiullard - North British Merc. Insurance | Jacob Schiff | Thomas F. Ryan | Paul Warburg | Levi P. Morton - Guaranty Trust - J. P. Morgan | | Shareholders - First National Bank of N.Y. ------------------------------------------- J.P. Morgan George F. Baker George F. Baker Jr. Edith Brevoort Baker US Congress - 1946-64 | | | | | Shareholders - Hanover National Bank N.Y. ------------------------------------------ James Stillman William Rockefeller | | | | | Shareholders - Chase National Bank N.Y. --------------------------------------- George F. Baker- Published 1983 The J. Henry Schroder Banking Company chart encompasses the entire history of the twentieth century, embracing as it does the program (Belgium Relief Commission) which provisioned Germany from 1915-1918 and dissuaded Germany from seeking peace in 1916; financing Hitler in 1933 so as to make a Second World War possible; backing the Presidential campaign of Herbert Hoover ; and even at the present time, having two of its major executives of its subsidiary firm, Bechtel Corporation serving as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration.The head of the Bank of England since 1973, Sir Gordon Richardson, Governor of the Bank of England (controlled by the House of Rothschild) was chairman of J. Henry Schroder Wagg and Company of London from 1963-72, and director of J. Henry Schroder,New York and Schroder Banking Corporation,New York,as well as Lloyd's Bank of London, and Rolls Royce. He maintains a residence on Sutton Place in New York City, and as head of "The London Connection," can be said to be the single most influential banker in the world.J. Henry Schroder ----------------- | | | Baron Rudolph Von Schroder Hamburg - 1858 - 1934 | | | Baron Bruno Von Schroder Hamburg - 1867 - 1940 F. C. Tiarks | 1874-1952 | | | marr. Emma Franziska | (Hamburg) Helmut B. Schroder J. Henry Schroder 1902 | Dir. Bank of England | Dir. Anglo-Iranian | Oil Company J. Henry Schroder Banking Company N.Y. | | J. Henry Schroder Trust Company N.Y. | | | ___________________|____________________ | | Allen Dulles John Foster Dulles Sullivan & Cromwell Sullivan & Cromwell Director - CIA U. S. Secretary of State Rockefeller Foundation Prentiss Gray ------------ Belgian Relief Comm. Lord Airlie Chief Marine Transportation ----------- US Food Administration WW I Chairman; Virgina Fortune Manati Sugar Co. American & Ryan daughter of Otto Kahn British Continental Corp. of Kuhn,Loeb Co. | | | | M. E. Rionda | ------------ | Pres. Cuba Cane Sugar Co. | Manati Sugar Co. many other | sugar companies. _______| | | | | G. A. Zabriskie | --------------- | Emile Francoui Chmn U.S. Sugar Equalization | -------------- Board 1917-18; Pres Empire | Belgian Relief Comm. Kai Biscuit Co., Columbia Baking | Ping Coal Mines, Tientsin Co. , Southern Baking Co. | Railroad,Congo Copper, La | Banque Nationale de Belgique Suite 2000 42 Broadway | N. Y | __________________________|___________________________|_ | | | | | | Edgar Richard Julius H. Barnes Herbert Hoover ------------- ---------------- -------------- Belgium Relief Comm Belgium Relief Comm Chmn Belgium Relief Com Amer Relief Comm Pres Grain Corp. U.S. Food Admin U.S. Food Admin U.S. Food Admin Sec of Commerce 1924-28 1918-24, Hazeltine Corp. 1917-18, C.B Pitney Kaiping Coal Mines | Bowes Corp, Manati Congo Copper, President | Sugar Corp. U.S. 1928-32 | | | John Lowery Simpson ------------------- Sacramento,Calif Belgium Relief | Comm. U. S. Food Administration Baron Kurt Von Schroder Prentiss Gray Co. J. Henry Schroder ----------------------- Trust, Schroder-Rockefeller, Chmn Schroder Banking Corp. J.H. Stein Fin Comm, Bechtel International Bankhaus (Hitler's personal bank Co. Bechtel Co. (Casper Weinberger account) served on board of all Sec of Defense, George P. Schultz German subsidiaries of ITT . Bank Sec of State (Reagan Admin). for International Settlements, | SS Senior Group Leader,Himmler's | Circle of Friends (Nazi Fund), | Deutsche Reichsbank,president | | Schroder-Rockefeller & Co. , N.Y. --------------------------------- Avery Rockefeller, J. Henry Schroder Banking Corp., Bechtel Co., Bechtel International Co. , Canadian Bechtel Company. | | | | Gordon Richardson ----------------- Governor, Bank of England 1973-PRESENT C.B. of J. Henry Schroder N.Y. Schroder Banking Co., New York, Lloyds Bank Rolls Royce- Published 1976 The David Rockefeller chart shows the link between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,Standard Oil of Indiana,General Motors and Allied Chemical Corportion (Eugene Meyer family) and Equitable Life (J. P. Morgan).DAVID ROCKEFELLER ---------------------------- Chairman of the Board Chase Manhattan Corp | | ______|_______________________ Chase Manhattan Corp. | Officer & Director Interlocks|--------------------- ------|----------------------- | | | Private Investment Co. for America Allied Chemicals Corp. | | Firestone Tire & Rubber Company General Motors | | Orion Multinational Services Ltd. Rockefeller Family & Associates | | ASARCO. Inc Chrysler Corp. | | Southern Peru Copper Corp. Intl' Basic Economy Corp. | | Industrial Minerva Mexico S.A. R.H. Macy & Co. | | Continental Corp. Selected Risk Investments S.A. | | Honeywell Inc. Omega Fund, Inc. | | Northwest Airlines, Inc. Squibb Corporation | | Northwestern Bell Telephone Co. Olin Foundation | | Minnesota Mining & Mfg Co (3M) Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co. of NJ | | American Express Co. AT & T | | Hewlett Packard Pacific Northwestern Bell Co. | | FMC Corporation BeachviLime Ltd. | | Utah Intl' Inc. Eveleth Expansion Company | | Exxon Corporation Fidelity Union Bancorporation | | International Nickel/Canada Cypress Woods Corporation | | Federated Capital Corporation Intl' Minerals & Chemical Corp. | | Equitable Life Assurance Soc U.S. Burlington Industries | | Federated Dept Stores Wachovia Corporation | | General Electric Jefferson Pilot Corporation | | Scott Paper Co. R. J. Reynolds Industries Inc. | | American Petroleum Institute United States Steel Corp. | | Richardson Merril Inc. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. | | May Department Stores Co. Norton-Simon Inc. | | Sperry Rand Corporation Stone-Webster Inc. | | San Salvador Development Company Standard Oil of Indiana- Published 1976 This chart shows the interlocks between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York J. Henry Schroder Banking Corp., J. Henry Schroder Trust Co., Rockefeller Center, Inc., Equitable Life Assurance Society ( J.P. Morgan), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.Alan Pifer, President Carnegie Corporation of New York ---------------------- | | ---------------------- Carnegie Corporation Trustee Interlocks -------------------------- ---------------------- | | | Rockefeller Center, Inc J. Henry Schroder Trust Company | | The Cabot Corporation Paul Revere Investors, Inc. | | Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Qualpeco, Inc. | Owens Corning Fiberglas | New England Telephone Co. | Fisher Scientific Company | Mellon National Corporation | Equitable Life Assurance Society | Twentieth Century Fox Corporation | J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation- Published 1976 This chart shows the link between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Brown Brothers Harriman,Sun Life Assurance Co. (N.M. Rothschild and Sons), and the Rockefeller Foundation.Maurice F. Granville Chairman of The Board Texaco Incorporated ---------------------- | | Texaco Officer & Director Interlocks ---------------- Liggett & Myers, Inc. ------------------------------------ | | | | | L Arabian American Oil Company St John d'el Ray Mining Co. Ltd. O | | N Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. National Steel Corporation D | | O Brown Harriman & Intl' Banks Ltd. Massey-Ferguson Ltd. N | | American Express Mutual Life Insurance Co. | | N. American Express Intl' Banking Corp. Mass Mutual Income Investors Inc. M. | | Anaconda United Services Life Ins. Co. R | | O Rockefeller Foundation Fairchild Industries T | | H Owens-Corning Fiberglas Blount, Inc. S | | C National City Bank (Cleveland) William Wrigley Jr. Co H | | I Sun Life Assurance Co. National Blvd. Bank of Chicago L | | D General Reinsurance Lykes Youngstown Corporation | | General Electric (NBC) Inmount Corporation ** Source: Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence. Staff Report,Committee on Banking,Currency and Housing, House of Representatives, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, August 1976.ROTHSCHILD OWNED BANKS:Afghanistan: Bank of AfghanistanAlbania: Bank of AlbaniaAlgeria: Bank of AlgeriaArgentina: Central Bank of ArgentinaArmenia: Central Bank of ArmeniaAruba: Central Bank of ArubaAustralia: Reserve Bank of AustraliaAustria: Austrian National BankAzerbaijan: Central Bank of Azerbaijan RepublicBahamas: Central Bank of The BahamasBahrain: Central Bank of BahrainBangladesh: Bangladesh BankBarbados: Central Bank of BarbadosBelarus: National Bank of the Republic of BelarusBelgium: National Bank of BelgiumBelize: Central Bank of BelizeBenin: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Bermuda: Bermuda Monetary AuthorityBhutan: Royal Monetary Authority of BhutanBolivia: Central Bank of BoliviaBosnia: Central Bank of Bosnia and HerzegovinaBotswana: Bank of BotswanaBrazil: Central Bank of BrazilBritain: Bank of EnglandBulgaria: Bulgarian National BankBurkina Faso: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Burundi: Bank of the Republic of BurundiCambodia: National Bank of CambodiaCame Roon: Bank of Central African StatesCanada: Bank of Canada  Banque du Canada *****Cayman Islands: Cayman Islands Monetary AuthorityCentral African Republic: Bank of Central African StatesChad: Bank of Central African StatesChile: Central Bank of ChileChina: The Peoples Bank of China ********************************************Colombia: Bank of the RepublicComoros: Central Bank of ComorosCongo: Bank of Central African StatesCosta Rica: Central Bank of Costa RicaCote dIvoire: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Croatia: Croatian National BankCuba: Central Bank of CubaCyprus: Central Bank of CyprusCzech Republic: Czech National BankDenmark: National Bank of DenmarkDominican Republic: Central Bank of the Dominican RepublicEast Caribbean area: Eastern Caribbean Central BankEcuador: Central Bank of EcuadorEgypt: Central Bank of Egypt **********El Salvador: Central Reserve Bank of El SalvadorEquatorial Guinea: Bank of Central African StatesEstonia: Bank of EstoniaEthiopia: National Bank of EthiopiaEuropean Union: European Central Bank *************Fiji: Reserve Bank of FijiFinland: Bank of FinlandFrance: Bank of FranceGabon: Bank of Central African StatesThe Gambia: Central Bank of The GambiaGeorgia: National Bank of GeorgiaGermany: Deutsche BundesbankGhana: Bank of GhanaGreece: Bank of GreeceGuatemala: Bank of GuatemalaGuinea Bissau: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Guyana: Bank of GuyanaHaiti: Central Bank of Haiti *****Honduras: Central Bank of HondurasHong Kong: Hong Kong Monetary AuthorityHungary: Magyar Nemzeti BankIceland: Central Bank of IcelandIndia: Reserve Bank of IndiaIndonesia: Bank IndonesiaIraq: Central Bank of Iraq *****************************Ireland: Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of IrelandIsrael: Bank of IsraelItaly: Bank of ItalyJamaica: Bank of JamaicaJapan: Bank of JapanJordan: Central Bank of JordanKazakhstan: National Bank of KazakhstanKenya: Central Bank of KenyaKorea: Bank of KoreaKuwait: Central Bank of KuwaitKyrgyzstan: National Bank of the Kyrgyz RepublicLatvia: Bank of LatviaLebanon: Central Bank of LebanonLesotho: Central Bank of LesothoLibya: Central Bank of Libya *************Most Recently Added*********Uruguay: Central Bank of UruguayLithuania: Bank of LithuaniaLuxembourg: Central Bank of LuxembourgMacao: Monetary Authority of MacaoMacedonia: National Bank of the Republic of MacedoniaMadagascar: Central Bank of MadagascarMalawi: Reserve Bank of MalawiMalaysia: Central Bank of MalaysiaMali: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Malta: Central Bank of MaltaMauritius: Bank of MauritiusMexico: Bank of MexicoMoldova: National Bank of MoldovaMongolia: Bank of MongoliaMontenegro: Central Bank of MontenegroMorocco: Bank of MoroccoMozambique: Bank of MozambiqueNamibia: Bank of NamibiaNepal: Central Bank of NepalNetherlands: Netherlands BankNetherlands Antilles: Bank of the Netherlands AntillesNew Zealand: Reserve Bank of New ZealandNicaragua: Central Bank of NicaraguaNiger: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Nigeria: Central Bank of NigeriaNorway: Central Bank of NorwayOman: Central Bank of OmanPakistan: State Bank of PakistanPapua New Guinea: Bank of Papua New GuineaParaguay: Central Bank of ParaguayPeru: Central Reserve Bank of PeruPhilip Pines: Bangko Sentral ng PilipinasPoland: National Bank of PolandPortugal: Bank of PortugalQatar: Qatar Central BankRomania: National Bank of RomaniaRussia: Central Bank of Russia ***********************************************Rwanda: National Bank of RwandaSan Marino: Central Bank of the Republic of San MarinoSamoa: Central Bank of SamoaSaudi Arabia: Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency **************Senegal: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Serbia: National Bank of SerbiaSeychelles: Central Bank of SeychellesSierra Leone: Bank of Sierra LeoneSingapore: Monetary Authority of SingaporeSlovakia: National Bank of SlovakiaSlovenia: Bank of SloveniaSolomon Islands: Central Bank of Solomon IslandsSouth Africa: South African Reserve BankSpain: Bank of SpainSri Lanka: Central Bank of Sri LankaSudan: Bank of SudanSurinam: Central Bank of SurinameSwaziland: The Central Bank of SwazilandSweden: Sveriges RiksbankSwitzerland: Swiss National Bank ******************Tajikistan: National Bank of TajikistanTanzania: Bank of TanzaniaThailand: Bank of ThailandTogo: Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)Tonga: National Reserve Bank of TongaTrinidad and Tobago: Central Bank of Trinidad and TobagoTunisia: Central Bank of TunisiaTurkey: Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey ***********Uganda: Bank of UgandaUkraine: National Bank of UkraineUnited Arab Emirates: Central Bank of United Arab Emirates *****************United Kingdom: Bank of England ********************Mother Central Bank*********************United States: Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Bank of New York ******************************Vanuatu: Reserve Bank of VanuatuVenezuela: Central Bank of Venezuela ***************************************Vietnam: The State Bank of VietnamYemen: Central Bank of YemenZambia: Bank of ZambiaZimbabwe: Reserve Bank of ZimbabweIt can no longer be called a conspiracy theory, when you look at the cold hard facts.
Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia Inc., a Richmond-based advocacy group, said Monday that it joined the National Fair Housing Alliance and 19 similar organizations across the United States to file a discrimination lawsuit against Fannie Mae in federal district court in San Francisco.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, alleges that Fannie Mae fails to maintain its foreclosures (also known as real-estate owned or REO properties) in middle- and working-class African-American and Latino neighborhoods at the same level of quality it does for foreclosures it owns in white middle- and working-class neighborhoods.

As many as 41 properties in the Richmond area were investigated as part of the lawsuit.

Fannie Mae, a quasi-government organization that guarantees mortgage loans, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the lawsuit.

It is unclear what damages are being sought in the lawsuit.

According to its website, the mission of the Fannie Mae Property Maintenance team is to ensure the quality of our REO property-maintenance services, consistently producing best-in-class, market-ready properties and maintaining them until removal from our inventory.

The data supporting the federal lawsuit is aimed at showing a pattern of discriminatory conduct by Fannie Mae in the maintenance of its foreclosures, according to a statement released Monday by the housing alliance groups.

Over a four-year investigation in Richmond from 2010 to 2014, the local Housing Opportunities Made Equal  or HOME  organization, which was part of the initial investigation into Fannie Mae, claims it found results consistent with other cities investigated.

These problems are long-standing and were disappointed that they remain unaddressed and unresolved, said Heather Crislip, president and CEO of HOME. Fannie Mae must maintain their properties to the industry standard no matter where they are located.

Fannie Mae expects each propertys exterior to be maintained in compliance with local codes and ordinances year-round, as well as the exterior to look its best to remain competitive in the market, according to an overview of the investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Crislip said communities hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis are still struggling. We must ensure that neglect does not continue to inhibit a full housing recovery in our most vulnerable neighborhoods, she said.

HOME was part of a federal complaint filed against Fannie Mae in May 2015 alleging the same type of housing discrimination that led to the federal lawsuit.

Fannie Mae said at the time that the allegations have no merit.

We are confident that our standards ensure that properties in all neighborhoods are treated equally, and we perform rigorous quality control to make sure that is the case, Fannie Mae said in a statement issued in response to the complaint.

HOME and the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center in Dayton, Ohio, alongside the National Fair Housing Alliance, began the Fannie Mae investigation, surveying foreclosed properties in the Richmond and Dayton areas in 2010.

The investigation was later expanded to include the additional 18 fair housing organizations, culminating in data on 2,300 foreclosed houses in 38 metropolitan areas.

The current lawsuit includes data on properties surveyed from 2011 through 2015.

HOME has investigated a total of 71 properties in the Richmond area since 2010.

However, the methodology changed after the initial test, so the lawsuit includes information on 41 Richmond metro properties surveyed since 2013. While HOME investigated from 2010 through 2014, others investigated up until 2015.

During the past several years, the national alliance claims it notified Fannie Mae many times of its failure to maintain and market its foreclosed homes in communities of color to the same standards as foreclosed homes in predominantly white neighborhoods.

The fair housing groups allege that Fannie Mae-owned properties in predominantly white working- and middle-class neighborhoods are more likely to have the lawns mowed and edged regularly, invasive weeds and vines cleared, windows and doors secured or repaired, litter and trash removed, leaves raked, and graffiti erased from the property.
At L. Douglas Wilder Middle School, students are spending more time with hands-on learning activities. At Highland Springs High School, a greater emphasis was placed on remediation. And, in some of the Henrico County school districts more challenged schools, literacy labs were put in place to afford students more reading time and one-on-one guidance.

Those were some of the improvements Henrico school officials cited as ways they have undertaken to improve struggling schools during a town hall at Varina High School on Monday night before more than 120 people.

Despite those highlights, parents  some who attended with children in tow  peppered officials during a question-and-answer session with criticisms and suggestions about ways the school division could help its most challenged schools.

They included ones about combating student behavioral issues, students moving on from struggling middle schools into high school, budgeting for programs, and povertys correlation with performance.

Nekeshia Packer-Love, who has a son at Harold Macon Ratcliffe Elementary School, said after the forum that she has explored enrolling her son, who does well in school, into a private school or transferring him. If test scores, behavioral issues and the overall climate of the school arent improved by the end of the academic year, Packer-Love said, she will look to move her son.

Its a wait and see, she said, acknowledging that she would like to see how the schools new principal fares. Hes becoming frustrated, and I dont want all of this other stuff to negatively impact his ability to continue on that accelerated path.

Ratcliffe was one of the record number of schools in Henrico that were denied accreditation by the Virginia Department of Education this year seven of the 67 elementary, middle and high school schools in Henrico failed to meet the states measure of student achievement.

In addition to L. Douglas Wilder Middle, which has had its accreditation denied in each of the past three years, Elko, Fairfield and John Rolfe middle schools, as well as Glen Lea, Montrose and Ratcliffe elementary schools, were also denied for the first time.

In order for elementary and middle schools to become fully accredited, schools must earn pass rates of at least 75 percent on English reading and writing Standards of Learning tests, and at least 70 percent on math, science and history assessments. High schools must also meeting student graduation thresholds for full accreditation.

Of the seven Henrico schools that were denied accreditation, none met the necessary pass rates in English and just one Glen Lea met the benchmark in math, according to data from the Virginia Department of Education.

All of the schools that were denied accreditation met the necessary pass rates for history. And all but two schools  L. Douglas Wilder and John Rolfe  met the benchmarks for science.

Despite the record number of schools denied accreditation, school officials pointed to progress made between school years. For example, big gains have been made in math and science scores at L. Douglas Wilder Middle.

Maurice Vincent, who has children at John Rolfe Middle and George F. Baker Elementary, is still unconvinced that the school district is moving in the right direction.

There was no direct answer, Vincent said after Monday nights meeting. It wasnt anything concrete. I feel horrible leaving out here, but Im going to go home and do my part.

SOL scores dipped across Virginia after more rigorous tests were introduced in 2011.

A school can be partially accredited only for three consecutive years; otherwise they are denied or can apply for reconstituted status, which is one of the varying levels of partial accreditation.

The state approved six applications from Henrico schools seeking partial accreditation.

John Montgomery, the School Board member representing the Varina District who largely moderated the discussion, said after the forum that improving the schools will take a large-scale effort.
A Eurosceptic union is forming across Europe

6 December 2016The SpectatorOf all the barbs fired at us Brexiteers, the one thats irritated me most is Little Englander. The suggestion is that pro-EU people are broad-minded Europhiles while Brexiteers are petty nationalists who want to dismantle the Chunnel and while away our days drinking tea and slagging off Germans. It couldnt be more wrong. In fact, the most wonderful thing about Brexit  glorious, rebellious Brexit  is the new European unity it is forging. Far from giving an English two-fingered salute to the continent, the Brexit bug is helping bring the continent together, uniting peoples whove had a gutful of the technocrats.The overthrow of Matteo Renzi is 2016s latest ballot-box revolt against the new managerial elites. Protesting way too much, observers insist the vote against Renzis proposed reforms had little to do with the EU. Please. Yes, the referendum was narrowly concerned with the role of the Senate, and with giving more power to  guess who? Yep, Renzi: a new law would grant the Italian executive greater clout at the expense of parliamentary deliberation.But the Italian people knew very well that Brussels was backing Renzi, and that Renzi had become a kind of younger, better-looking stand-in for hapless Hollande in Merkels Brussels-loving oligarchical circle. And they know Beppe Grillos clownish Five Star Movement, which wants a referendum on the euro, is likely to be a major beneficiary of the beautiful turmoil they unleashed. And still they sent Renzi packing, because bruising Brussels is what European people do these days. We love it.One of the most striking things about Renzis referendum campaigning was the way he tried to paint himself as willing to stand up to the EU . He had a pop at EU austerity measures. He outlined a plan to save one of Italys oldest banks without following the EU rulebook on such matters. But it was all spectacularly unconvincing. Not least because, as one report put it, Brussels refuse[d] to play along and continued to throw its weight behind Renzi, knowing he is fundamentally a friend of the EU, unlike Grillo and others in this increasingly Eurosceptic country . That Renzi felt the need to pose as vaguely, mildly, Euro-critical is telling: politicians, even EU-backing ones, know that anyone who cosies up too closely to Brussels is likely to get Brexited.So the people of Italy join the people of Britain in rejecting the new bureaucrats. Benvenuto! And of course us Brexiteers were inspired by the early revolts of the Dutch and French against the EU Constitution, in 2005, and by the fighting Irish, who rejected both the Nice Treaty, in 2001, and the Lisbon Treaty, in 2008. In turn, we Brits, French, Dutch, Italian and Irish have emboldened Euroscepticism elsewhere. In Greece, so vilely mistreated by Brussels, 71 percent now have an unfavourable view of the EU . In Spain its on the cusp of 50 percent. EU favourability has fallen dramatically over the past year  by 17 percentage points in France; 16 in Spain. Behold the true unifying dynamic in Europe right now: Euroscepticism.Its a new European union. A union of scepticism, a union of people tired of technocracy who long for greater democratic control. The political class and many in the media grimace at the Brexit term Taking back control, thinking it speaks to the rise of a base neo-nationalism, when in truth it expresses a democratic yearning across Europe for more influence in politics, and for fewer filters and layers and commissions designed to dilute public opinion. This is not to say that all these peaceful revolts are the same, or equally good. Brexit  open, sceptical, confident Brexit  is nothing like the Freedom Party of Austria, which is fearful and often ugly. The French, Dutch and Irish revolts against Brussels were less complicated than the Italian revolt, because they were clearer expressions of anti-EU rebellion and no Grillo-style party milked them. Some revolts will go in a good direction, others in a dodgy one. But what binds them together is peoples hope that politics can be reclaimed from the starched committee rooms and courts of the technocratic class, and be brought crashing back down to the rowdy, wonderful court of public opinion.Ive never felt so connected with European people. The EU is a union only of elites. It isnt internationalism, its escapism: an institution designed to allow politicos and lawyers and well-fed activists to do politics far from the madding crowds of their own nation states. Its the cosmopolitanism of contempt, motored by distrust in the moral and political capacities of ordinary people. The new European union, the coming together around Euroscepticism, is a far truer cosmopolitanism. Its an expression of trust in ourselves, and by extension in our cousins across the continent. Its opposition to Brussels translates into a faith in ordinary people, be they French, Greek, Italian, Hungarian or British. It has great potential to bring solidarity to Europe, if only sniffy observers would stop defaming it.So the EUbrought Europeans together  in opposition to its own haughty, illiberal style. Eurosceptism could be the glue of a new politics and a new continent, one that values living, breathing, complicated democracy over the dead-hand of clapped-out technocrats and self-styled experts.
A native of Guatemala who was deported four times but continued to illegally re-enter the U.S. over the course of eight years has been sentenced by a federal judge in Alexandria to serve 14 months in prison for his most recent incursion.

Illegal re-entry into the United States is a serious offense, Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement. Unlawful re-entry after deportation or removal is an offense with significant cost to law enforcement that erodes the lawful immigration process. It is my hope that this sentence will promote respect for the law, provide just punishment, and serve to deter similar criminal conduct.

According to a case summary, Juan Abdel Belteton-Barrios, 46, first entered the U.S. in 1991 and applied for asylum in 1993. After being denied asylum in 1998, Belteton-Barrios was ordered to voluntarily deport, but he failed to follow the court order and remained undetected until his arrest for felony driving while intoxicated in June 2008.

After serving a prison term, Belteton-Barrios was deported back to Guatemala in October 2008. But he returned to the U.S. about seven months later and remained undetected until his arrest by U.S. Border Patrol agents in May 2015. He again was deported to his home country in September 2015, but entered the U.S. again for the third time in December 2015. He was immediately detected at the border and deported, officials said.

About one month later, Belteton-Barrios again tried to return to the U.S. and was detected by border patrol agents and immediately returned. Finally, in April 2016, Belteton-Barrios returned to the U.S. but was arrested in May.
Henrico police are investigating to determine if there is a connection between a shooting and a robbery in the East Highland Park area of the county.

About 11:05 a.m. Tuesday, Henrico police and fire personnel were called to the 1700 block of North Battery Drive for a shooting. There officers found a man with a gunshot wound.

The victim was taken to a local hospital, police said. His injuries are not considered life-threatening.

About 20 minutes later, a robbery was reported in the area of Austin and East Laburnum avenues, near Glen Lea Elementary School.
About 450 Virginia Dominion Power customers are without service after a tractor-trailer brought down a utility pole in Petersburg.

Both lanes of South Crater Road at East Wythe Street are closed while crews clean up the site and replace the utility pole.

Power is expected to be restored by 5 p.m., a Dominion spokewoman said.
If you follow these 3 stories I would suggest the US load up a bunch of military brass and Obama and put them in cuffs and put them all on a flight to Moscow so they can stand trial before being hanged as war criminals. I was wondering why it was even news that another hospital had been bombed. Now it is a bit clearer as this one was made up of Russian Medics and staff let alone targeting wounded soldiers.(in part)The terrorists used precision fire on the Russian Defense Ministry mobile hospital in Syria's Aleppo, they definitely had its exact coordinates, the Kremlin spokesman said Tuesday."Of course, it was precision fire. It confirmed the fact that the militants who shelled [the Russian Defense Ministry mobile hospital in Aleppo] had the exact coordinates," Dmitry Peskov said.Moreover, Russia would like to see a more accountable stance on the Aleppo hospital shelling from its Western partners."We regret that in fact Russia alone is trying to provide humanitarian aid to the civilians who're leaving eastern Aleppo trying to escape militant captivity. We would welcome a much more accountable position from our Western partners on this issue," Peskov said. On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that alleged Syrian opposition militants had shelled a Russian military hospital killing a combat medic and injuring two others in Aleppo. One of the injured later also succumbed to her wounds.Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201612061048216125-aleppo-delivered-fire-kremlin/ (in part)The Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders, or MSF) organization deeply regrets the deaths of Russian medical staff in an attack on a Russian mobile hospital in Aleppo, and reiterates that it is a violation of the rules of war, MSF Director of Operations Brice de le Vingne told Sputnik on Tuesday.MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that militants of the so-called Syrian opposition attacked a Russian mobile military hospital in Aleppo, killing two Russian military medics and wounding one. Local residents also sustained wounds. "We deeply regret the loss of health staff while carrying out their medical work. Such killings are devastating for the families, but also have an impact on the medical care available to communities at their time of greatest need  It is clear that shelling medics and their patients is completely unacceptable, and, whether done in a targeted or an indiscriminate attack, is a violation of the rules of war," de le Vingne said.De le Vingne stressed that the MSF condemns all attacks on civilians and breaches of the international humanitarian law perpetrated by all warring parties in Syria.Following the attack, Russian authorities said that Syrian rebels "had exact coordinates" of the hospital that means that those parties who support militants were also responsible for the deaths of Russian doctors. However, the US State Department denied giving coordinates of the Russian mobile hospital to the Syrian opposition.Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201612061048225581-msf-aleppo-hospital-attack/ I would suggest that planeload would go a long ways to mending ties with Russia and withe the world at large. Think of the 10 planes of Lawyers that would be following them if the above isn't enough reason in the first place.(in part)The Obama administration is trying to poison relations between Washington and Moscow before Trump's team comes to power, Andranik Migranyan, a Russian political analyst and professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told Radio Sputnik. These efforts will make it significantly harder for both countries to mend ties.Read more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201612061048218704-russia-trump-obama/ Throw Soros in as a free bonus, Russia already has a warrant out for him.
RADFORD  Radford University has placed four fraternities on interim suspension after investigating claims a juvenile goat had been abused.

School officials sanctioned Delta Chi, Sigma Pi, Pi Lambda Phi and Alpha Sigma Phi on Monday after consulting the chapters national offices and interviewing witnesses who had come in contact with the goat.

The suspended fraternities may not hold any events, including but not limited to meetings, social events (on or off campus) and any events that a reasonable person would consider a chapter event, a university statement said.

The animals whereabouts remained a mystery to Radford city police. Authorities have been searching for the goat for days, city spokeswoman Jenni Wilder wrote in an email. No one has been charged with a crime.

The investigation comes after an internet uproar that appears to have stemmed from a post via the Goats of Anarchy Instagram account. The post referred over the weekend to abuse of the goat but didnt name the fraternities, prompting a flurry of tips to the university and city officials.

Details on the abuse allegations were unavailable.

City zoning rules restrict where farm animals can go but do not outlaw them. Animals cannot roam free, and if they are tethered, they cannot enter a public place such as a street or sidewalk.

Animals are barred from Radford Universitys campus unless they are service animals. Radford fraternity houses are located off campus and arent subject to campus housing rules.

An online petition, started by a woman who appears to live outside Virginia and signed by many people outside the state, called for the goat to be freed.

Titled Free the Radford Frat goat, the petition alleged: It is highly suspected that the goat is being raised by pledges in order for them to then kill it as initiation into the fraternity.

The petitioner offered no evidence for the claim. The petition, which was closed after gathering more than 550 signatures  with the petitioner citing Radfords having suspended the four fraternities  said the owner of the Goats of Anarchy Instagram account would adopt and care for the goat.

The account is tied to a New Jersey-based nonprofit group of the same name that rescues and rehabilitates goats with special needs.

Goats of Anarchy has claimed to have adopted an abused goat in the past. When a group of Fayetteville, Ark., high schoolers allegedly used a goats horn to open a canned beverage, Goats of Anarchy posted that it had rescued the animal, according to a report from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
THE WALL OF SHAME

"The only thing [Trump's] mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c--k holster."

--STEPHEN COLBERT

"[Ivanka Trump] Your father is a racist birther. Steve Bannon an anti-Semitic opportunist. You and your husband are enabling hatred. F--- your shoes."

--BRADLEY WHITFORD

"Melania [Trump] is a hooker."

--JACOB BERNSTEIN

"And my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt."

"We have to, at the DNC, provide training. We have to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive, and how to shut their mouths if they're white."

--SALLY BOYNTON BROWN

"And to our detractors that insist that this march will never add up to anything: F--- you! F---you!

"Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House."

--MADONNA

"Barron Trump looks like a very handsome date-rapist-to-be."

--STEPHEN SPINOLA

"Barron [Trump] will be this country's first homeschool shooter."

--KATIE RICH

"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."

--MERYL STREEP

"There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality."

[That means we're almost positively living in a simulation, like a video game.]

--ELON MUSK

"When I would deny that there was a significant racist component in some of the politics on our side, it was because the people I hung out with were certainly not. When suddenly, this rock is turned over, there is this'Oh shit, did I not see that?'"

----------------------------

"In any other scenario, Hillary Clinton's lying about her emails, and her pay-for-play relationship with the Clinton Foundation would be disqualifying issues. The only reason they're not disqualifying is because Donald Trump is a fundamentally more repellent, dishonest figure."

--CHARLIE SYKES

"I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago... I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft."

--BRIAN WILLIAMS

"I'm here to tell you if you elect me governor of this state, I will end the civil war."

--TOM BARRETT

"I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done."

--RUTH BADER GINSBURG

"Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now, do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?"

--ROBERT DE NIRO

"The death of Andrew Breitbart disproves the adage that only the good die young."

--JULIAN BOND

"The National Institute of Health has said that it is a danger to women's health and safety of their families that for 30 years to be exposed to the prospects of pregnancy."

--GWEN MOORE

"[Tea Party Republicans] have acted like terrorists."

--JOE BIDEN

"Why did- Couldn't the President have said at that moment, way back in December of last year, 'no game playing. No hostage-taking. No terrorizing this country with the debt ceiling. I'm not going to negotiate with you guys. You can't play it that way.' Could he have done that?"

--CHRIS MATTHEWS

"[T]he tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor."

--WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL

"I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at [Obama's] pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."

--DAVID BROOKS

"I feel like calling her back and smackin' her around."

--FRED CLARK, DEMOCRAT

"The picture was of me, and I sent it."

--ANTHONY WEINER

"[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant."

--DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

"This is probably one of the worst times we've seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus. In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now theyre here to kill women."

--LOUISE SLAUGHTER

"The protesters have proven today that theyre not going away. It was a pretty rough night last night. You can imagine if people said, well, we just cant fight the power. Instead, this morning, they came by tens, by hundreds, by thousands. By midday today, it was easily more than 10,000, perhaps as many as 15,000 people on the square here in Madison. Not organized by anyone, just grassroots citizens who came out just like the Minutemen in 1776."

--JOHN NICHOLS

"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."

--MICHAEL MOORE

"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."

--DAVID LETTERMAN

"In 1933, [Hitler] abolished unions and that's what our Governor [Scott Walker] is doing today."

--LENA TAYLOR, Democrat State Senator

"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."

--CHUCK SCHUMER

"Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness."

--JOHN LEWIS

"I'm Rebecca Kleefisch. I performed fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorsed me and that's how I became lieutenant governor."

--SLY SYLVESTER

"Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? I mean, is it a nod to the Tea Party?"

--JOY BEHAR

"We cant just leave it up to the parents."

"[Military leaders] tell us that childhood obesity isnt just a public health issue; they tell us that it is not just an economic threat -- it is a national security threat as well."

--MICHELLE OBAMA

"Actually, I did not take part in [the assassination of Sarah Palin]. I led it."

--KATHLEEN PARKER

"[The repeal of ObamaCare is] a kind of creeping genocide."

--JESSE JACKSON

"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."

--DAN RATHER

"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.

"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."

--KEITH "Reagan's dead and he was a lousy President" OLBERMANN

"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."

--CHRIS MATTHEWS

"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil... I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."

--JOY BEHAR

"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."

--HARRY REID

"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."

--RICHARD DREYFUSS

"Because I live in the District of Columbia which is so predominantly Democratic, I am a registered Democrat. But I am an avowed neutral. And to put that into practice, I take my young daughter into the voting booth and she votes for me. She's now 14. We've been doing this since she was about age 4. She's now quite informed."

--BOB WOODWARD

"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."

"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."

--AARON SORKIN

"Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation, rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends."

--HARRY BELAFONTE

"[Christine O'Donnell is] a witch who doesn't masturbate."

--JOY BEHAR

"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns. You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."

--BILL MAHER

"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."

--BILL GATES

"NOT the 'whiteman's bitch'"

--IESHUH GRIFFIN

"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."

--SARAH SPITZ

"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."

--KING SAMIR SHABAZZ

"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this. "But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."

--PEGGY WEST

"Tell [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland. [The Jews] can go home. Poland. Germany."

--HELEN THOMAS

"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."

--PAUL McCARTNEY

"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."

--KATIE COURIC

"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."

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"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolaryou name it, any condition  is job-locking."

--NANCY PELOSI

"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"

--TOM HANKS

"The 'White Right' is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated.... Here are Christians praying for God to kill Barack Obama."

--LOUIS FARRAKHAN

"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century."

--JOE BIDEN

"Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."

--ROLAND MARTIN

"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."

--CHUCK SCHUMER

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."

--ED SCHULTZ

"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."

--JOHN KERRY

"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."

--BILL CLINTON

"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."

--TOM SHALES

"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"

--MAUREEN DOWD

"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

--DAVID LETTERMAN

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasnt lived that life."

--SONIA SOTOMAYOR

"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."

--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002

"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."

"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."

----------------------------

"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."

--WANDA SYKES

"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

--COLIN POWELL

"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."

--PAUL BEGALA

"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."

--BARNEY FRANK

"Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."

--JIM DOYLE, Liar

"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist."

--JOY BEHAR

"You know, I just want to say to her (Sarah Palin), just very quickly...F--- you."

--JON STEWART

"Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery?"

--WHOOPI GOLDBERG

"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."

--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."

--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD

"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."

--TED TURNER

"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"

--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL

"Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

--FELIPE CALDERON

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."

--AL GORE

"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."

--ROSIE O'DONNELL

"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"

--CHRIS ROCK

"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"

--BARBRA STREISAND

"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"

--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand

"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."

--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer

"I said what I said. I am not guilty."

--SADDAM HUSSEIN

"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."

--MICHAEL SCHIAVO

"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "

--BILL MOYERS

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."

--HOWARD DEAN

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."

--MICHAEL MOORE

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."

--JOHN KERRY

"F---ing retarded."

"[Republicans] can go f--- themselves!"

--RAHM EMANUEL

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."

--HILLARY CLINTON

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

--BILL CLINTON

"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."

--MICHELLE OBAMA

"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."

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"If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill."

----------------------------

"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but theres real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."

----------------------------

"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."

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"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."

----------------------------

"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."

----------------------------

"We're buying shrimp, guys."

----------------------------

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

----------------------------

"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."

----------------------------

"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if youre providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."

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"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

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"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

----------------------------

"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."

----------------------------

"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."

----------------------------

"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."

----------------------------

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death."

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"[T]he Cambridge police acted stupidly."

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"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

----------------------------

"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."

----------------------------

"Over the last 15 months, weve traveled to every corner of the United States. Ive now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

--BARACK OBAMA
Recently on the Senate floor, I recognized the extraordinary service of Admiral Cecil D. Haney, whose tenure as Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, at Offutt Air Force Base has come to a close. With it, Admiral Haney will end his 38-year career as an exemplary officer and outstanding leader in the U.S. Navy.

This nation owes him its deepest gratitude.

I first met Admiral Haney in 2013 when he was nominated to serve as commander of STRATCOM. Over the past three years, it has been my great pleasure to work with him, and I am grateful for his wise counsel and firm resolve to do what is best for America and for the men and women he leads.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter called STRATCOM the bedrock of Americas national security; Admiral Haney ensured that foundation remained firm. He was a strong advocate for modernization of aging nuclear infrastructure, no small task in a time of tight budgets. He worked closely with Congress. He gave clear-eyed assessments, such as the statement he delivered to the Senate Armed Services Committee last year that there is no margin to absorb risk in plans to modernize our nuclear enterprise.

Admiral Haney helped maintain congressional consensus on following through with our modernization commitments. All Americans should be grateful for this. Every day, our country relies on its nuclear forces to deter strategic attack on the United States and our allies.

Throughout his 38 years in the Navy, both Admiral Haney and his family made many sacrifices. These sacrifices are common to all who wear the uniform: dangerous missions, long deployments, time away from loved ones. Such burdens are a fact of life for our dedicated service members around the world.

This year, I was honored to spend Thanksgiving with some of those service members. At Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, I visited with Nebraskans from North Platte, Beatrice, Bellevue, McCook, and Omaha. These men and women had given up turkey dinners with family, and so much more, to protect our freedom.

Once again this year, I am teaming up with the American Red Cross to help Nebraskans show their appreciation to veterans, members of the military, and their families during the holiday season. Cards collected at my Omaha office through the Holiday Mail For Heroes Campaign will be delivered to current and former service members in local Nebraska communities: from those serving at Offutt Air Force Base to veterans at VFW posts across the state.

I hope youll join me in expressing gratitude for all these Nebraskans have done to make our country safer and stronger.

Over nearly four decades of dedicated service to our nation, Admiral Haney set a strong example for those under his command by faithfully discharging his duties. Countless service members do the same, every day, for the members of their unit and their community.

Please join me in thanking these faithful men and women.

Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week.
The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services revealed on Saturday it had inadvertently released two prison inmates from custody early.

Both men were convicted in Lancaster County this year and both had been retrieved and were back in prison by Saturday, Corrections spokesman Dawn-Renee Smith said in a news release.

The accidental releases come on the heels of the inadvertent early releases of hundreds of prison inmates in 2015 and a reworking of how discharge dates are calculated.

In the more recent early releases, Marcus Epp, 28, was sentenced on April 21 to about 2 years for third-degree domestic assault and for misdemeanor assault and theft. He was released on parole on Nov. 18 but should not have been eligible until April 2017. No new crimes by Epp were reported during his time out of prison, Smith said. Epp is listed in court records as a transient.

Robert Munsen, 50, of Lincoln, was sentenced May 11 to 1 years for one felony and one misdemeanor count of possession of methamphetamine. He is eligible for parole in January. Munsen is not known to have committed any new crimes while he was out, Smith said.

Both men were serving their sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary before their releases. Both are now at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center.

"The need for sentence adjustments was first identified on Thursday," Corrections Director Scott Frakes said in the news release. "The adjustments were made on new sentencing laws passed in 2015 and 2016. ... A review of all paroled and discharged inmates has been finalized to confirm that no additional adjustments are necessary.

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, said Frakes, who was hired by Gov. Pete Ricketts to clean up the state prison system after the accidental early releases and a host of other problems including overcrowding. We will investigate this incident to determine where the breakdown occurred and take appropriate action to address the issue, ensure public safety and maintain the publics trust in the states sentence calculation process.

Three months ago, the Corrections Department launched long-awaited sentencing automation software, saying it would reduce sentencing miscalculation errors.

Smith said both Epp and Munsen had sentences affected by new laws passed by the Nebraska Legislature in 2015 and this year. The new laws did not account for people sentenced for both misdemeanors and felonies, she said.

The Corrections Department has stepped up training of records management staff and worked to implement sentencing reforms and new sentence calculation practices, Smith said in the news release.

"Director Frakes is committed to being transparent with any challenges in the implementation of sentencing laws or errors in their application," she said. "Staff have proactively identified areas for improvement at NDCS in records management practices over the past two years."

The new automated sentence calculation system that went into use in September was estimated to cost $477,000 at the outset, and Frakes said then it would ensure greater accuracy.

The change to automation is a big deal, he said in September.

Hundreds of inmates were released early under the old system, and some were held longer than they should have been.

The problems were discovered in October 2014, with more surfacing in June 2015.
Debswana boosts diamond sales Debswana, a 50/50 joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government, recorded a 37.5% growth in rough diamond sales in the first nine months of 2022, statistics released by the Bank of Botswana showed Tuesday, driven by steady demand for...

AGC signs declaration of responsibility and sustainability principles with gold industry leaders Artisanal Gold Council Executive Director Dr. Kevin Telmer signed a Declaration of Responsibility and Sustainability Principles along with other gold industry leaders at the LBMA/LPPM Global Precious Metals Conference in Lisbon on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022...

Zijn Platinum appoints former SA finance minister as deputy chair Nkwe Platinum and South Africa Zijin Platinum, both wholly-owned subsidiaries of Zijin Mining, have appointed former South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni as a non-executive director and deputy chairperson of South Africa Zijin Platinum.

Saudi Arabia seeks support from Australian miners to diversify its oil-dependent economy Saudi Arabia is seeking support from Australian miners to support its $170 bn plan to build a mining industry, and diversify its oil-dependent economy this decade. Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar bin Ibrahim Al-Khorayef is in...
Partnership Africa Canada has accused Cameroon of trading in conflict diamonds from the troubled Central African Republic (CAR).

The non-governmental organisation claimed in a report that proceeds from the illicit diamond trade was being used to partially finance an almost three-year conflict.

Cameroon, which had porous borders, was said to be allowing conflict diamonds from the Central African Republic to cross over its borders and into the legal supply chain.

An internecine conflict broke out in CAR in 2013 when Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, causing retaliations by "anti-balaka" Christian militias.

Diamonds were used to fund opertions of the waring groups, a move that forced the Kimberley Process to ban the export of diamonds from the landlocked country.

However, the diamond watchdog partially lifted the ban this year.

Partnership Africa Canada urged the Kimberley Process to place Cameroon under special measures, which would require a tightening of internal controls within a three-month period.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) elected industry veteran Dione Kenyon as chair of its board of governors.

Kenyon, who recently retired as president and chief executive officer of the Jewelers Board of Trade, will take over the role from John Green, president and CEO of jewelry chain Lux Bond & Green, who remains on the board.

Barbara Dutrow, a geology professor at Louisiana State University, and Stephen Kahler, senior vice president of global sales for Swarovski Gemstones, were inducted as new members of the board.

Meanwhile, Glenn Nord, a former president of the GIA and a board member since 1983, was named governor emeritus.

The appointments were confirmed at the GIAs November board meeting at its headquarters in Carlsbad, California.




From my standpoint, a fully veiled woman scarcely has a chance at full integration in Germany, Angela Merkel previously said. Her statements on Tuesday appeared to expand that definition. Some partys members , including teens, clearly asked an explicit ban on face veils. A future ban would be enforced in places where it is necessary for our societys coexistence, including government buildings, schools and courtrooms, the chancellor said. Ms. Merkel won a 12-minute standing ovation at the conference on Tuesday. We are dealing with a world situation , and that is especially true after the American elections m in which the world must first sort itself out, she added. Ms. Merkel appealed for support as she enters the election campaign. People told me I must stand again, she told her party members. A firmly reference to the immigrants problem could help on election process.
British Columbia Ministry of Transportation

Metro Vancouver, B.C., gained more than 6.5 miles of rail rapid transit Dec. 2 with the opening of the Evergreen extension.

The extension will provide service between Coquitlam, Port Moody, Burnaby and Vancouver and carry an estimated 70,000 people per day by 2021.

The Government of Canada, the Government of British Columbia and TransLink funded the US$1.06-billion project. Now that construction is complete, TransLink will be responsible for operating the extension.

The province said round-the-clock efforts by people involved in the many aspects of the project allowed for the Evergreen extension to open approximately US$52 million and US$69.3 million under budget.

The 6.83-mile Evergreen extension runs fully separated from traffic. With seven stations that include bus connections, parking (Moody Centre, Coquitlam Central and Lafarge Lake-Douglas stations) and bicycle facilities. Evergreen will provide frequent and convenient SkyTrain service, connecting Coquitlam City Centre through Port Moody to Lougheed Town Centre in about 15 minutes. With the Evergreen extension now open to the public, Metro Vancouvers SkyTrain system, at nearly 60 miles, is the longest fully automated and driverless rapid transit system in the world.

The faster and more frequent service we can now offer provides more transportation choices and will help reduce road congestion and foster economic growth in the Northeast Sector. To ensure a smooth transition for customers, our outreach teams will continue to be out on the system today and for the next week, said Kevin Desmond, CEO of TransLink.
City of Ottawa

Ottawas O-Train Confederation Line Light Rail Transit (LRT) project team celebrated a milestone last week as its first light-rail vehicle (LRV) assembled in Canadas capital city began testing on the track between the systems Blair and Cyrville stations.

Vehicle testing along the alignment from the Blair Station to Tunneys Pasture will proceed until the O-Train Confederation Line officially launches in 2018. One of the initial tests is said to be related to dynamic envelope testing during which foam pads are affixed to the vehicle as it runs along the alignmentpowered by the Overhead Catenary System (OCS)to ensure adequate clearances are maintained from overhead wires, OCS poles and surrounding vegetation, officials say.

The O-Train Confederation Line is a $2.1-billion project that is jointly funded by the government of Canada, the province of Ontario and the city of Ottawa. The government of Canada is committing $600 million and the province of Ontario is allocating up to $600 million, representatives say. The city of Ottawa will also contribute as much as $161.5 million of its federal Gas Tax Fund transfers and $287 million of provincial gas tax transfers to the project. The remaining funds needed are set to come from development charge revenues and transit reserves.

This is great news for the City of Ottawa  we are one step closer to delivering an efficient and world-class transit option for commuters. Construction on the O-Train Confederation Line project supports our objectives of developing an integrated transportation network across Ontario that will help manage congestion, connect people to jobs and improve the economy and our quality of life, said Ontario Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca.

The private sector partner responsible for stage one of the project is the Rideau Transit Group. The 12.5-kilometre electric light-rail line will offer rapid transit between Blair Station in the east and Tunneys Pasture Station in the west and will connect to the O-Trains Trillium Line at Bayview Station. The route includes 13 stations and a 2.5-kilometre tunnel intended to minimize congestion in the downtown area.

Todays milestone is significant as the first light rail vehicle assembled in Ottawa undergoes testing, demonstrating that we are on track to delivering a first-class transit system to our residents in 2018. This is a celebration of all the work that has taken place to date and is a glimpse of the future of transit for our city, said Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.

Representatives say the need for assembly of the LRVs created approximately 100 jobs in the city of Ottawa.
Canadian stocks pushed higher Monday, extending recent gains as crude oil sustained last week's rally.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 42.65 points, or 0.28%, to 15,095, led by energy and tech stocks.

U.S. crude oil settled near $52 a barrel after the controversial Dakota Pipeline project was denied federal permits.

Oil prices jumped 12% last week.

Alberta will offer $500 million in royalty credits to Pembina and Inter Pipeline for their petrochemical projects.

Precision Drilling Corp. plans to spend only $109 million on capital expenditures in 2017, about half compared to this year.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
Dolly Parton is planning to hold a telethon on December 13 in Nashville, Tennessee to help the victims of the wildfires that have ravaged the Great Smoky Mountains. All of the proceeds from the telethon will go to the My People Fund that Parton announced last week. Additional details are expected to be announced soon.

Parton, who was born and raised in the Smoky Mountains, announced last week that the fund would provide $1,000 each month to families in Sevier County that have lost their homes due to the wildfires.

"We want to provide a hand up to those families who have lost everything in the fires," Parton stated when the fund was established. "I know it has been a trying time for my people and this assistance will help get them back on their feet."

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Entertainment News
Australia will on Wednesday release Q3 numbers for gross domestic product, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

GDP is expected to add 0.2 percent on quarter and 2.5 percent on year, slowing from the 0.5 percent quarterly increase and the 3.3 percent yearly gain in the second quarter.

Australia also will see November results for the Performance of Construction Index from AiG; in October, the index score was 45.9.

Japan will see preliminary October figures for its leading and coincident indexes; in September, their scores were 100.3 and 112.7, respectively.

Malaysia will provide October data for imports, exports and trade balance. In September, imports were worth 60.5 billion ringgit and exports were at 68.0 billion ringgit for a trade surplus of 7.6 billion ringgit.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Thomas Cook Group (TCKGY.PK,TCG.L) said that it will take full control of its UK retail store network, following notification by The Co-operative Group of the decision to exercise its option over its stake in their Joint Venture.

As per the terms of the JV agreement, Thomas Cook will purchase The Co-operative Group's 30 per cent stake and Central England Co-operative's 3.5 per cent stake for 50.0 million pounds and 5.8 million pounds, respectively, in cash. Following completion, which is expected in November 2017, Thomas Cook will own 100 per cent of the UK retail stores .

The JV was formed in October 2011 through the merger of the travel retail businesses of Thomas Cook, The Co-operative Group and Midlands Co-operative, (now Central England Co-operative). The JV currently has 764 stores in the UK across two brands: Thomas Cook and The Co-operative Travel. Thomas Cook retains the right to use the Co-operative Travel brand until November 2018.

The transaction is not expected to have a material impact on the Group's profit and loss account.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
U.K. shares retreated on Tuesday as a drop in prices of commodities such as crude oil and industrial metals weighed on commodity-related stocks, and Britain's financial watchdog proposed a clamp down on trading in contracts for retail financial spread betting products.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 6 points or 0.09 percent at 6,740 in opening deals after closing 0.2 percent higher on Monday.

Shares of BHP Billiton retreated 2 percent. The mining giant said it has submitted the winning bid to join with Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos in the Trion oil field in the Gulf of Mexico.

Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore declined 1-3 percent.

CMC Markets plunged 29 percent and IG Group Holdings lost 30 percent after the Financial Conduct Authority announced plans to tighten the regulation of CFD products.

Energy major Tullow Oil tumbled 3.5 percent as oil prices fell on data showing a rise in crude output in virtually major export region in November.

Wolseley shares slid over 1 percent after the plumbing and building materials supplier said it expects FY trading profit to be in line with analyst expectations at current exchange rates.

Imagination Technologies soared 10 percent after the company narrowed its first-half loss.

Low-cost carrier easyJet rose half a percent after unveiling its November passenger statistics.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
European stocks fluctuated on Tuesday, with a drop in prices of crude oil and industrial metals weighing on the resources sector while banking stocks traded mostly higher despite concerns about Italy's fragile banking system.

Investors continue to keep an eye on the latest developments in Italy after President Sergio Mattarella accepted Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's resignation, but asked him to remain in power until after the budget.

The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index was up 0.2 percent at 342.01 in late opening deals after rising 0.6 percent in the previous session.

The German DAX was moving up 0.1 percent and France's CAC 40 index was gaining 0.2 percent while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was marginally lower in choppy trade, dragged down by miners and energy stocks.

Banks traded mostly higher, with UniCredit, Commerzbank, BNP Paribas and Barclays rising 1-3 percent.

Imagination Technologies soared 10 percent in London after the company narrowed its first-half loss.

Energy major Tullow Oil tumbled 3.5 percent as oil prices fell on data showing a rise in crude output in virtually every major export region in November.

Miners BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore declined 1-3 percent.

CMC Markets plunged 29 percent and IG Group Holdings lost 30 percent after the Financial Conduct Authority announced plans to tighten the regulation of CFD products.

On a light day on the economic front, official data showed that German factory orders grew 4.9 percent month-on-month in October, reversing a revised 0.3 percent drop in September. This was the fastest growth since July 2014, when orders advanced 6.5 percent.

Final reading of Eurozone's GDP for the third quarter is slated for release later in the day.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
US President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to address the voters in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Tuesday night in the second leg of his "Thank You" tour, which takes him to predominantly those regions that helped him earn a surprise presidential election victory.

The first in a series of rallies was held last week in Cincinnati, Ohio - the site of one of Trump's rallies during the presidential campaign. Trump announced the key posting of retired Marine Corps general James N. Mattis as the new Secretary of Defense at that meeting.

He is expected to officially nominate Mattis at the Fayetteville gathering, Trump's spokesman Jason Miller told reporters.

Miller also released the President-elect's other stops in the "Thank You" tour.

The third event will be held at Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, at 7 PM Thursday.

And the next day, he will speak to his supporters at DeltaPlex Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at 7 PM.

During the campaign, Trump often outclassed his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton with the size of his rally audiences, which gathered thousands of his supporters.

He had originally planned to launch a weekend victory tour immediately after the election, but changed focus to building his transition team.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
In the summer of 2014, the Dakota Access Pipeline project was first introduced to the public as a 1,172-mile-long, underground oil pipeline for crude oil, that would begin in the oil fields of North Dakota, pass through South Dakota and Iowa, and end in Pakota, Illinois. Since then, there have been clashing opinions, on whether or not it is the ethical thing to do.

On Sunday December 4th, Army Corps of Engineers, under the Obama Administration put a halt to the DAPL. However, with president-elect Donald Trump, beginning his first term in office, this is not necessarily good news to those who oppose the pipeline. President-elect, Donald Trump has expressed his support for the DAPL, and many fear that this celebration is only temporary. So why should you still care?

Although many argue that there is no guarantee that a spill would occur, there have been times where spills have occurred due to a broken pipeline in North Dakota. In one instance in 2013, a Tesoro Logistics pipeline in North Dakota ruptured, spilling 865,000 gallons of oil onto a farm. In 2010, an Enbridge Energy pipeline spilled more than 843,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, resulted in a major cleanup that took years at a cost of over a billion dollars. For months Standing Rock Sioux, along with tribes all across the country have come together outside of the town of Cannon Ball, in North Dakota, to protest the pipeline. Hundreds have gathered from across the country, to protect the land. The basis of their argument stands on the belief that a major spill could impact not only the lands their ancestors lived on, but the environment, important structures and monuments sacred to its people, and overall have detrimental effects that would impact all people.

However, Energy Transfer, the firm responsible for the construction of the pipeline, says that they are not quite giving it up just yet. It argues that the it would only pump millions of dollars into local economies and create 8,000 to 12,000 construction job, although there is no evidence on whether these jobs would be permanent or temporary.

Farmers too are weighing in on the topic. On a profitability standpoint, easements paid would typically outweigh lost crop profit potential, but others do not think that the pros outweigh the cons. During the construction of the pipeline, many farmlands have been altered, and that has left farmers with a negative view of Transfer Energy. Because it requires the digging up of soil, and often times it is not restored to how it was found. The problem is that the rich topsoil is being returned, but is mixed with the clay loam and hard clay from underneath, which ultimately means bad news for farmers. A spill or leak would also destroy their crops and only create financial burdens.

Unfortunately, these groups of people would not be the only ones who would suffer consequences if president-elect Donald Trump decides to continue the building of the pipeline. Perhaps we can be thrilled that these efforts have caused change, but for now, we cannot know for certain if this change will be long term. Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. We have seen the environmental impacts that oil spills have had on the environment, the damage it has done to wildlife, and to humankind as well. These efforts to halt the pipeline have not been in vain, and there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The fight continues, and this should be something that all people should care about. Why wait until we see the irreversible effects of this error? Once the profits have all been washed away, and our resources depleted, it will be too late to care. So listen to the warnings, and educate yourselves, know that your voice and actions do make a difference, why not make that difference be one that everyone can benefit from and celebrate at the end of the day?
Jill Stein's recount challenge in the deep-blue Pennsylvania city did not change the number of votes netted by the candidates, except Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who improved her tally by five votes, A Philadelphia blog reports.

City Commissioner's Office recounted votes in 75 of Philadelphia's more than 1600 voting divisions in response to the recount appeal by more than 250 Philadelphia residents answering the call of Stein.

Green Party's presidential candidate has demanded a recount in three battleground states where Donald Trump won - Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania - alleging hacking or fraud.

The recount turned up no instances of fraud or hacking here, Billy Penn quoted City Commissioner Al Schmidt as saying Monday. Its difficult to hack voting machines that aren't connected to the internet, according to Schmidt.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
The Canadian dollar slipped against its major counterparts in the European session on Tuesday, following a decline in oil prices on fears about the impact of OPEC's deal to curb oil production.

Analysts say non-OPEC producers like the US and Canada may pick up the slack if Saudi Arabia and Russia cut output.

In fact, Russia and Saudi Arabia may flood the themselves before the deal kicks in next month.

Data released last week showed that Russian daily oil production averaged 11.21 million barrels per day in November, its strongest in almost 30 years.

The American Petroleum Institute will release weekly crude inventories data later in the day, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration will publish its official data on Wednesday.

Data from Statistics Canada showed that Canada's merchandise trade deficit narrowed to C$1.1 billion in October, the smallest since January 2016, from a record C$4.4 billion in September.

Imports fell 6.3 percent to C$44.7 billion in October, while exports increased 0.5 percent to C$43.6 billion.

The currency was higher against its major rivals in the Asian session, with the exception of the greenback.

The loonie declined to 0.9921 against the aussie, off its early 4-day high of 0.9858. The loonie is seen finding support around the 1.01 mark.

The loonie eased back to 1.4281 against the euro, not far from its early 6-day low of 1.4306. Continuation of the loonie's downtrend may see it finding support near the 1.45 region.

Figures from Destatis showed that German factory orders increased at the fastest pace in more than two years in October.

Factory orders grew 4.9 percent month-on-month in October, reversing a revised 0.3 percent drop in September. This was the fastest growth since July 2014, when orders advanced 6.5 percent. Orders were expected to rise 0.6 percent in October.

The loonie pared gains to 85.59 against the yen, from a high of 86.12 hit at 5:00 am ET. The next possible support for the loonie may be found around the 84.00 area.

Official data showed that Japan's labor cash earnings added just 0.1 percent on year in October.

That was shy of expectations for an increase of 0.2 percent following the downwardly revised flat reading in September.

The loonie reached as low as 1.3312 against the greenback, reversing from its early high of 1.3252. On the downside, 1.34 is possibly seen as the next support level for the loonie.

Data from the Commerce Department showed that the U.S. trade deficit widened roughly in line with estimates in the month of October.

The report said the trade deficit widened to $42.6 billion in October from $36.2 billion in September. Economists had expected the deficit to widen to $42.0 billion.

Looking ahead, U.S. factory orders and durable goods orders for October and Canada Ivey PMI data for November are due shortly.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
IntraLinks Holdings (IL) announced Tuesday morning that it has agreed to be acquired by Synchronoss Technologies Inc. (SNCR) for $13.00 per share, approximately $821 million.

IntraLinks gapped open sharply higher this morning and is now up 1.79 at $13.06 on strong volume. The stock has broken out of a 3-week trading range and has set a new high for the year.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
ATLANTIC SKIES: Stellar asterisms  eye-catching pretenders to the constellation throne and just part of the bigger picture

Most everyone, or at least most amateur astronomers, are familiar with the constellations in the night sky to some degree. Many, however, may not be familiar with the numerous asterisms in the night sky. What is the difference between a constellation ...
By SA Commercial Prop News

The drive for more corporate occupiers to locate in emerging markets remains strong, despite the widespread social, political and economic unrest in 2011, according to our latest research.

The need to revise the definitions of what constitutes an emerging market and identify which locations present the greatest opportunities were at the center of our findings. The classification of the BRIC nations as emerging is outdated; for many corporations, Brazil, Russia, India and China are now considered to be advanced, with Central and Eastern European markets perceived similarly.

At the other end of the spectrum lie the less developed and often more volatile frontier markets, such as Iraq, Libya, Syria and most of Sub-Saharan Africa, where operational risk is far greater, and there are more challenging barriers to entry.

However, often countries can no longer be categorized as emerging in their entirety, given that the levels of development in most capital cities often exceed those in second and third-tier cities. For example, remote areas of Canada and Russia, both developed nations, can pose significantly more operational challenges than the urban core. Emerging markets can therefore exist within the boundaries of stable countries, meaning that corporate real estate executives must consider sub-market characteristics when developing their location strategies.

Corporations are shifting their focus to the worlds east and south: for many companies, Africa, Asia, and Latin America are the current locations of choice for strategic medium-term expansion. However, the degree of variation and complexity within these broad regions means that a uniform approach is unlikely to be effective.

Our key conclusion is that widespread social, political and economic unrest will not deter companies from locating in challenging markets. However, in order to operate effectively in difficult territories, corporations must ensure they have the right strategies in place, striking a balance between risk control and getting things done.

Global unrest has raised questions as to what extent multinational corporations are equipped to operate in the more unstable, fringe markets. Clearly, the extent and nature of the disturbances has highlighted the need for corporations to carefully manage risk in areas of political and social instability. It seems that the opportunity presented by these markets can outweigh the risk if managed adequately.

It appears there will be a continued exploration of the opportunities presented by 'emerging' markets and perhaps a redefinition of their labels, albeit with corporations mindful of the challenges of entering and operating in these new frontiers.
By SA Commercial Prop News

Seen at the JSE listing, Thabo Dloti  Group Chief Executive for Liberty, Amelia Beattie  CEO Liberty Two Degress, Peter Moyo  Chairman of Liberty Two Degrees and Seelan Goobalsamy  CEO Stanlib Asset Management



Liberty Two Degrees (JSE: L2D), which owns Sandton City with Pareto Limited, today listed on the main board of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)  in the Diversified REITs sector.

An approximate R3.8 billion has been raised following today's listing, comprising R3 billion at listing price to invited investors, with R780 million from Liberty Group Limited using new policyholders funds, who subscribed at a 5% discount to the listing price.

The successful bookbuild process included blue chip institutions and real estate specialists, as well as an allocation to retail investors.

Amelia Beattie, Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Two Degrees said: Our journey to list Liberty Two Degrees on the JSE is a continuation of our legacy in innovation and investment leadership in property, dating back more than 40 years with the development of Sandton City.

ALSO READ: Healthcare Property holds benefits for Africa

This is a landmark listing in the South African market featuring super regional and regional assets that are co-owned and managed by an experienced team who have been associated with this portfolio for the last decade.

Listing this portfolio not only unlocks value for existing policyholders but also provides an alternative investment opportunity to investors and policyholders with an appetite for premium property assets in the listed environment.

Donna Nemer, Director of Capital Markets at the JSE said: The JSE is pleased to welcome Liberty Two Degrees to the property sector of the exchanges Main Board. Todays listing is the JSEs 17th this year and it brings the number of listed property sector companies on the JSE to 63 in total, of which Liberty Two Degrees becomes the 52nd to list on the Main Board.

The JSEs real estate sector had a market cap of about R731 billion and constitutes some 5.5% of the overall JSE market cap at the end of November 2016. From the perspective of investors, the property sector is proving to be an interesting one.

Thabo Dloti, Group Chief Executive of Liberty Holdings said the listing of a portion of our prestigious property portfolio is a proud moment for Liberty, and another milestone achieved in our strategy to deliver growth in alternative investment businesses.

Liberty Two Degrees consists of predominantly retail real-estate assets in South Africa, including Sandton City, Eastgate Mall and an interest in the popular Nelson Mandela Square.

Other interests held include Liberty Midlands Mall in KwaZulu-Natal, Liberty Promenade in Mitchells Plain in the Western Cape, Melrose Arch and the newly developed Botshabelo Mall near Bloemfontein.

Other contenders that have also listed this year include Western Cape based property group, Spear Reit, three Eastern European-focused listings  Greenbay Properties (May), Global Trade Centre (August) and Echo Polska Properties (September)  as well as UK-focused mall owner Hammerson, which debuted in September.
By SA Commercial Prop News

The catalyst for Sandtons dramatic growth was Sandton City shopping centre, which opened in 1973.



Sandton Central, without doubt, has become the most important business and financial node in South Africa, and plausibly sub-Saharan Africa.

It is home to many of South Africas largest corporates, the worlds top multinational companies, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the iconic Sandton City mall

In economic circles, the attractiveness and economic health of an area is measured by a simple guideline  the number of cranes which can be seen on the skyline. Right now, the Sandton Central skyline shows an impressive cluster of cranes, says Elaine Jack, City Improvement District Manager for Sandton Central Management District.



So, it may be difficult to imagine that less than 50 years ago Sandton didnt exist in name - where it stands today was largely a farming and smallholding community.

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Sandton was promulgated in July 1969 and at that time there were about 30,000 whites in the town and 15,000 horses, according to former town planner Barry Bristow.





And, while scarcely populated in the years before that, it has a rich, albeit largely uneventful, early history.



Greater Sandtons first residents were middle stone-age hunters who arrived around 30,000 years ago, establishing communities on the granite outcrops of Witkoppen, Lonehill and Norscot Koppies. About 10,000 years ago ancestors of the San people settled. Then, around four centuries ago, Bantu-speaking communities of the iron-age inhabited the rocky ridges of the area becoming Sandtons first industrialists, with an economy based principally on agriculture and metalwork.

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The first settlers moved to Sandton after Britain annexed Natal in 1843. Every original Voortrekker male settler who came to the South African Republic (later Transvaal, now Gauteng), was entitled to a farm of his own. Sandfontein was the farm area around Sandton. The Esterhuysens were a well-known Voortrekker family who lived on the farm Sandfontein, close to where Sandown High School is today, on the corner of Grayston and Rivonia drives.



A wave of urbanisation in the 1930s was driven by widespread poverty in South Africa as the world suffered one of its worst economic depressions. Many people abandoned rural lifestyles for opportunities in the industrial Witwatersrand.





The Southern Suburbs of Sandton were laid out quite early in the century and by the thirties they were well established as gentleman estate areas with most of the properties being one morgen or larger. At this stage they formed the northern suburbs of Johannesburg and in some cases extended beyond the boundaries of the city. The rural horsey lifestyle of Sandton led to the area being dubbed the Mink and Manure Belt and it was considered a desirable address.



During the 1940s and 50s Sandton became increasingly residential and wanted independence from the governments Peri-Urban areas Health Board, which had control over services such as water. The local population regarded themselves as an entity separate from Johannesburg.The first moves by Sandton to achieve independence from Johannesburg go back to the early sixties. When it was eventually promulgated as a municipality in 1969, its name formed from a combination of the names Sandtfontein, Bryanston and Sandown.



The first few years of Sandtons existence were dominated by the question of whether Sandton should remain a quite semi-rural dormitory town or be a more balanced entity with significant business and higher density residential components. Bristow reports that it split the town council apart.





In 1956 the Peri-Urban board had bought some large tract of land for municipal purposes  one of these being the 11 ha site in Sandown where the Civic Centre now stands. Of this, 3.4 ha was sold to the Transvaal Provincial Administration for the building of Sandown Primary School and in 1965 the land directly south of the Civic Centre area was allocated extensive retail and flat rights  the land then belonged to Mr Bob Edmunds, the chairman of Standard Bank, and was sold to property developers Rapp and Maister  now Liberty Properties  in 1968.



The first step in transforming Sandton from a farming community to a bustling business district came with Sandton City, which was developed and constructed by Rapp and Maister on this site during the early 1970s, opening for trade in 1974.



The rush of commercial space began in the mid to late 1980s when land in Sandton was cheaper than that in the Johannesburg CBD and could also offer a lifestyle with rolling lawns, fountains and low-density, affordable-to-own office space that could not be accommodated in the CBD.



The council agreed to approximately 200,000 square meters of office space  today the figure for central Sandton alone stands at more than 1.5-million square meters and is still growing.



Sandton is the second largest office node in South Africa, hot on the heels of the Johannesburg CBD. It has exceptionally high proportion of prime quality office space. Sandton Central is also said to be the epicenter of green building in Africa with what is possibly the highest number of certified green buildings of any business district. Unarguably, it is home to some of the continents finest contemporary business buildings.





Yet, even with its rapid development and new office and apartment towers on the rise, there are still charming traces of Sandtons relatively brief modern history to be found, like the little church under the pines in Stella Street, Sandown, right behind 138 West Street diagonally across the road from the Sandton Gautrain Station.



It was the first church in the district, inspired by Anna Notten (nee Wierda) who arrived with her parents and three sisters from Holland in 1887. Her father Sytze Wierda, was a distinguished architect who designed Amsterdams central railway station and was recruited to organise the public works department. The interdenominational churchs cornerstone was laid on 11 July 1925. Today, it stands among Sandton Centrals bustling high-rise buildings.
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Ana Matagitau Salevaga, from the village of Leauvaa, says so much has changed in Samoa and its not looking good for those who are not well-off.

Aged 45, Ana explains how high the cost of living has gotten in Samoa and it is affecting many families. She says that there is no leniency shown to familys who are already struggling to make a living.

So much has changed in Samoa, Ana explained.

One of the changes is the prices for everything in the shops; its so expensive. There doesnt seem to be any sort of leniency towards the people, especially for those who struggle.

Its not like back in the days when everything was a lot more affordable for our people.

Ana says that she misses the old days where you could get things at the shops for just a few cents.

Back then we could get some bread for just 10 cents, she said.

We could find things at the shops which were very cheap and it was a big help for families who didnt earn that much money.

There is nothing like that anymore. Right now a lot of people have to walk long distances just to see which shop sells goods at a lower price so that they can save a few cents.

She continued on to explain how there are many in Samoa who suffer the same way due to the high cost of living.

Many families are in the same boat, Ana said.

We have to deal with putting children through school; we have bills to pay and then taking care of the family every single day.

So with everything costing an arm and a leg these days, it makes life just that much harder for us. Some of my children are holding steady jobs right now but when they get their pay, its nowhere near enough. Even with a few of her children working employed jobs, Ana still says that with the high cost of living, their pay is still not enough.

My children would get paid on Friday and it will be finished before Sunday and thats the day we need money, she said.

The cost of living is ridiculous and many of us suffer because of it. My family also have a plantation to take some pressure off of those in the family who have jobs.

The plantation is also our way of dealing with the high cost of living. My advice to those families who struggle is to try their best to deal with the issues through their plantation.

On the other hand, I have a request for the government because they are the ones who deal with companies popping here and there.

I humbly ask the government to please help give the struggling families of Samoa some leniency when it comes to pricing the goods.
But chief raises concerns about impact on villagers

The Waterfront final plan was officially released and distributed yesterday at the Samoa Tourism Authority Samoa Cultural Village.

In launching the plan, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi praised the project born five years ago to seek tenders to improve the attractiveness of Apia.

We ask you to open your minds with the possibilities that can transform our existing city into an enjoyable and functional place that is well thought out and designed, he said.

More technical assessment and detailed designs will need to be undertaken before any of these ideas take place.

These illustrations allow us to visualise how we can raise the standard of our city and entertain different ideas for the four waterfront areas.

According to the Prime Minister, the waterfront plan provides a packaged implementation approach to develop the capital works.

This approach will allow potential investors and development partners to implement a defined package of works within a particular area.

The Government has already received interest from some of our development partners to develop parts of the waterfront in accordance with our principles and concept designs provided in the plan.

With the launching of the plan, I anticipate more interest and we will continue to work with all our stakeholders in implementing this plan and to create a waterfront that is attractive safe and unique giving all who visit Apia memorable experiences.

However, a chief from the village of Apia has raised concerns about the project.

While Lima Soifua Efu supports the initiative, he was more concerned about balancing of the cultural aspects of the village life with what the government wants.

Lima told the Samoa Observer there needs to be guidelines for tourists to follow when they are relaxing on the Waterfront beaches. His concern was mainly on young children who are exposed to tourists sun tanning on the beach almost naked. He also made reference to the number of crimes in Apia.

Our village covers Matautu all the way to Mulinuu, said Lima.

The impact of this project is big especially that it is in our village. I worry about girls who come and lie on the beach and our children are walking across from the road and seeing them in their bikinis.

How can our children feel safe when they see this infront of their own homes?

There are young youths who are roaming around town and if they came across such a view that will be another problem especially with the growing number of crimes in Apia that we hear on the news everyday.

A village boy who would come across a palagi lying there on the beach with little they wear they will probably watch them all day and go home when its darkthe effect is big and we need regulations for tourists to follow so we can protect our children and our people.

Lima said Samoa being a Christian country they follow Christian values.

If this is what the government wants then they have the responsibility to setup guidelines or rules to inform tourists of what to do and what not to do, he said.

We have to be mindful of our families in Savaii and the rural villages. We are not the only people that come to town  they too will come to Apia and if they see things like that I am worried that we are moving away from our own cultural values and our sacred ways.

Another area that Lima touched on is alcohol control. He said if Apia was to become the tourist hotspot there will also be a big demand in alcohol. This will compound problems already existing.

In reality they (clubs) dont close at 12, he said. They go up to 1 oclock and later than that and our concern is the need to control liquor and crimes.

How can we look at something big like this if we cannot control the current situation? How can we feel safe from more crimes despite having a great plan for our waterfrontwe are the people that are directly affected because we live here and we see the crimes and see the damages and our village gets the blame when they are people from around the island.

Lima said he is not against the initiative but emphasised that the cry for money should not be the reason to forget and lose our cultural values.

The matai added their concerns have been passed on to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. What he was told by the Ministry is they will try.

Trying is not good enough for us, he said.

They have to do it because trying is saying that they are considering it rather than doing it.

Tuilaepa recalled that there were 14 companies that bid for the waterfront project five years ago. The idea is for an interested company to work on improving the waterfront, funding it from their own money and after they recover their costs they hand over the project to government.

He explained that none of them offered an explanation of how they will fund the plan. Tuilaepa then wrote to them to explain this area in which none of them wrote back.

Later on a good Samaritan wrote to him asking about what happened to the project.

From then contacts was made with New Zealand High Commission and $10 million was injected into the project to kick start it.

The city plan is from Vaiala to Mulinuu and it will improve the public spaces, said Tuilaepa.

In 2012 after cyclone Evans, there were a lot of sand washed up infront of Aggie Greys and Cabinet then made the decision that no one can take the sand and that beach became the first part of the waterfront project.

We now also have kids playground infront of Tanoa Tusitala.

About the playground, Tuilaepa said he drove past it on Friday last week and saw a man and his girlfriend swinging on the swings.

As he made his way to the government building he decided to turn back keeping in mind that one of the swings had recently broke.

I went back and told him that the swings is not for couples, its for kids that are four years old. That is why we have arranged for people to look after it so that it will not be ruined.

Tuilaepa said just last month another good Samaritan offered to work on the plan for the area where the S.T.A. is and government building.

He said it was the Chinese and they will be given the plan to base their sketches on and for government to review it before it can go ahead.
There is no doubt about it. Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi and his government must be commended for a number of wonderful developments they have achieved for Samoa.

As a nation we have a come a long way both socially, economically and spiritually. Infrastructure-wise, the transformation has been nothing short of amazing.

From the days of dirt roads, no electricity, inadequate inter-island transportation, the one telephone at the post office where we used to stand in line to make a call to what we have today, we can only be grateful. And we are.

But we believe there is a need for caution to be exercised on the part of the government. We say this because looking at a number of infrastructural projects it has committed to and the reality of our economic prowess, it is certainly alarming.

Folks, dont get us wrong, all these projects are potentially sound for Samoa. We are talking about the multi-million-tala airport, the Apia Waterfront Development project, the Vaiusu Wharf and so forth. They are wonderful.

Lets not forget that someone once coined the phrase that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We would never raise a question if we did not believe our leaders of today need to exercise caution in watching our spending ever so prudently. The fact is a lot of these projects are being funded by aid money and loans. Someone will have to pay for it.

Which brings us to the question, are they the best way to spend money  or aid money in some cases? Do they necessarily have to cost millions of tala  especially in cases where we dont really need such elaborate structures? Is there not a way where costs can be kept to a minimum to reflect our economic capabilities as of now?

Most importantly, how will these projects reduce the growing number of beggars and children resorting to a life on the streets day and night driven by hardship, struggles and poverty we see today?

Now speaking of the rising foreign debt, some time ago, Prime Minister Tuilaepa told off former Member of Parliament, Lefau Harry Schuster, for raising the issue. According to Tuilaepa, the debt didnt just appear. It exists because of the governments good intentions to develop Samoa otherwise the development would be set back several years to 1985.

So for idiots and fools who dont understand this, Tuilaepa reassured Lefau there is nothing to worry about as government has got it under control.

Is that so? In 1982 when H.R.P.P came into power, the countrys foreign debt was $15million. Today, that has ballooned to more than a $1.5billion tala, possibly higher.

Should we be concerned? Absolutely. This debt will not suddenly disappear and someone will have to pay it. Our childrens children will be paying it in years to come.

Today, lets be reminded that Good intentions are not necessarily the best intentions. Good intentions are sometimes wrong, and evil. Believe it or not, good intentions are corruptible. We see this today. Take a look at the world around us; so many headaches and heartaches begin with good intentions. They begin with ideas that are meant to benefit people but in the end, they end up hurting more people. They end up killing people, causing unimaginable suffering.

Think about all the governments around the world.

No government ever gets into power on the promise to destroy its people. And yet thats precisely what they do when they are voted in. They become greedy so that they shut their minds, ears and eyes from the suffering of the majority.

In the process, they gather everything for themselves. Greed slowly but surely gets the better of them as they sweet talk their way with plenty of good intentions into our pockets.

Think about the churches. The church is such a wonderful idea, no doubt run by people filled with good intentions.

But whats the problem today? In some cases, those good intentions have been corrupted by greed so that all youre doing is robbing people  and God  of their dignity.

Now getting back Samoa and what it has become today. We have arrived at a season of the year where most Samoans return and we hear them talk about how Samoa has developed and how far we have come as a country. Its wonderful to hear. Who is not proud when our country and the development is being praised in that way?

But when was the last time we checked what would become of it in the future, given the rate the government is continuing today? What happens when our children will no longer be able to afford to pay this debt, when all these leaders of today are gone? Whats the future for them? That should be our priority.

But then again, thats what we think anyway?

What do you think?

Have a wonderful Wednesday Samoa, God bless!
Re: More cops suspended

Cabinet reinstated the Police Commissioner after the false charges were thrown out by the Court of law.

Then this just being suspended Superintendent and his cohorts had decided to overrule the Court of Law, ignored Cabinet decision, and had turned around and arrested the top police officer in the country being the Police Commissioner; and concocted new charges. Who does Leiataua Luatimu Samau think he is?

Mr. Law of Samoa?

This surely sounds like what it was from the beginning; police laid charges against the Director of Public Prosecution after she was involved in a traffic accident, then she turns around and concocted false charges against the Police Commissioner!

Exactly how stupid these two idiots are; they think they are the law.

All those dipsticks involved in the arrest of the Police Commissioner should be charged with mutiny.

Tofaeono Joe Hollywood
Samoa Colleges brightest student for 2016, Tauatua Taioalo, has dedicated her success to her father, former Police Commissioner, the late Lilomaiava Fou Taioalo.

The 16-year-old is the youngest and the only girl of Lilomaiava and Suititi Fou Taioalos seven children. With roots in the villages of Lalomanu, Matatufu and Magiagi, the Science student wants to become a Surgeon.

Among the many awards she won during yesterdays prize giving, she also won the Samoa Observer Award for Excellence in Writing.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Tauatua said one of the biggest challenges faced this year was coping with the sudden passing of her father.

He was my number one supporter in everything especially in education, she said.

It was at that time when everything seemed meaningless. I felt depressed and deprived of the will to do anything but I wasnt the only one to go through this there were my brothers and especially my mother.

However there was always God and honestly He has been there during every step of my journey with the help of my mother, my brothers and of course my friends.

But she has survived the hardship to come out on top.

Im so happy and I know my dad would be too, she said.

But God is so amazing and He always will be so all glory goes back to Him.

During her speech yesterday, she adviced everyone to put God first and everything will fall into place.

My advice to the students in the junior and upcoming senior classes of Samoa College, put God first in all the things you do and anything is possible, said Tauatua.

To the graduating class of 2016, Graduation is one of those steps that define a new chapter in life.

Its the ending of one era and moving on to the next (hopefully a more successful one)

We are gathered to applaud your achievements and hard work all throughout the year.

Your commitment, dedication and personal strive has contributed to your success and I therefore congratulate you all for your achievements throughout this academic year.

She also acknowledges the support of her family, friends and especially her mother and brothers.

Id like to thank my spiritual parents Rev. Letupu and Helen for everything and all the prayers youve done for me and my friends, she said.

Id also like to thank my mom Suititi Taioalo for being an amazing parent and to all my brothers.

This year had been one long roller coaster ride for it has been both thrilling and frightening but at least I spent it with the people whom I call my friends.

She went on to remind everyone that there will be challenging times but it will all depend on them.

There will be exhilarating and challenging times but they will be dependent on you and your determination, Tauatua said.

You will experience the highs and the lows in life, the difficult and the easy and unfortunately there may be times of too many difficulties and just not enough smooth sailing.

As you move to a new stage of life, you can steer yourself in any direction you choose but make sure you steer yourself in the right direction.

True and real success will be defined by how you handle both of these times.
Waiting around all year for the rain so that your family could get some water may be an impractical way to live, especially in Samoa where there is a lot more sun than rain.

Thats the way many families - with a few exceptions - live in the village of Leusoalii.

According to Lumaava Tauai, the only time there is water pressure is when it rains. But during sunny days, families have to go around looking for anyone with access to a water source so they could fill up their buckets, pots and water containers.

Lumaava describes it as a tough way to live.

My village really suffers when it comes to water, she told the Village Voice.

In all honesty, we have to wait till its raining before we can have running water here. The rest of the year when there is no rain then there is a shortage of water.

Just like the past few weeks where there was only sun and no rain. If there is a family who has access to a water source then everyone goes there with their buckets and other water storage containers to collect water.

She buried all pride as she admitted that her village needs help.

We really need help to fix our water pipes so that we could have reliable water, Lumaava said.

I also humbly request for any assistance for my village. If its just one or two water tanks for us to share then we will be forever grateful for your help.

Water problems have plagued my village for a while now. With Samoa being sunny throughout the year without any rain, we have to deal with scurrying around looking for water.

Even when water becomes available when it rains, it is not sanitary and causes some villagers to fall ill after drinking.

Water is very important and not having any water for our daily needs is very tough, Lumaava said.

Having no water, let alone having clean water to drink, means that we cant do a lot of our daily chores. Even the task of fetching water isnt easy.

The rare moments when we do have water, its not clean and it makes the children sick. That adds a lot more stress on the parents.

Asked how long this issue has plagued the village of Leusoalii, Lumaava said it has been this way for as long as she can remember.

I cant remember how many years this has been the case here in Leusoalii, she said.

Its been like this for as long as I can remember and waiting around for the rain is a ridiculous way to live; especially in Samoa where theres more sun than rain.

Im not sure if the village has sent a request to the government for some assistance to start using the government water and not the village pipes.

The only thing I heard was that an expert came to have a look and just said for us not to touch the water. Thats the last we heard from him.
Toosavili John Key

N.Z. Prime Minister

Resignation speech





Just a few days ago I marked the anniversary of my eighth year as Prime Minister and my tenth as leader of the National Party.

Such an occasion seems a fitting time to not only take stock of the past 10 years, but to look forward. Being leader of both the party and the country has been an incredible experience.

Along with my Cabinet and caucus colleagues, we steered the country through the global financial crisis which was arguably the worst recession since the Great Depression.

We have stood with Christchurch in the wake of the earthquakes - the greatest natural disaster to hit our country since 1931, and we have mourned the victims of the Pike River Mine disaster; one of the saddest days our small nation has endured in recent times.

During my time as Prime Minister the Government has positioned New Zealand so that our economy could harness the opportunities offered by a burgeoning Asia and a more connected world.

Reforms have been far reaching, including substantial changes to our tax, welfare, planning and labour laws, not to mention the successful partial sell-down of state companies, the considerable overhaul of our Justice, Security and Corrections agencies and, of course, trade liberalisation.

Ten years since I first became leader of the National Party, I believe we can look back on advanced race relations and real momentum in the Treaty settlement programme.

We also have a more confident, outward-looking and multi-cultural New Zealand that competes and succeeds on the world stage.

Throughout these years I have given everything I could to this job that I cherish, and this country that I love. All of this has come at quite some sacrifice for the people who are dearest to me - my family. For my wife Bronagh, there have been many nights and weekends spent alone, many occasions that were important to her that I simply could not attend.

My daughter Stephie and my son Max have transitioned from teenagers to young adults while coping with an extraordinary level of intrusion and pressure because of their father's job. I thank them for their tolerance. Bronagh and I are immensely proud of them.

My family has also had remarkable opportunities and experiences as we have met people and visited places from one end of our country to the other. We have celebrated alongside fellow Kiwis in their happiest times, and wept with them in their saddest. Simply put, it has, for me, been the most remarkable, satisfying and exciting time of my life.

But despite the amazing career I have had in politics, I have never seen myself as a career politician. I have certainly never wanted my success in politics to be measured by how long I spent in Parliament.

The National Party is in great shape. Bill English has told me that in all his years here, ours is the most cohesive Cabinet he has seen. And I personally am humbled and gratified that after eight years as Prime Minister, my personal support from the public remains high.

I absolutely believe we can win the next election. But I do not believe that, if you asked me if I was committed to serving out a fourth term, that I could look the public in the eye and say yes.

And more than anything else in my time here, I have tried to be straight and true with New Zealanders. I also believe that leadership change, for the right reasons and handled well, is good for a political party.

For all these reasons, I today told my Cabinet and caucus colleagues of my decision to step down as Leader of the National Party and as Prime Minister.

It is my expectation that on Monday 12 December National MPs will hold a special caucus meeting to select a new leader and later that day I will tender my resignation to the Governor-General.

This has been the hardest decision I have ever made and I do not know what I will do next. But for me this feels the right time to go.

It gives the Cabinet and caucus plenty of time to settle in with a new leader before heading into the next election with a proud record of strong economic management, a commitment to the most vulnerable in our society and lots of ideas to keep lifting New Zealanders up in the world.

It would be easy to say I have made this decision solely to rediscover the personal and family life I once had, and that is a factor, but it is one among many.

Over the years I have observed many leaders who, in a similar position, fail to take this step. I can understand why. It is a hard job to leave.

But, for me and the National Party, this is a good time to go. Party membership is high and the party is well-funded.

The caucus is talented and eager to serve, and one of the achievements of which I am proud is having built with my colleagues a Cabinet team that is capable, committed and cohesive.

That is a great legacy for National's next leader.

Just as I grasped the challenge of leadership so will a new leader.

Inevitably they will bring their own personality, emphasis and priorities to the role.This is part of the process that allows a long-serving government to keep delivering.

For my part I am confident the caucus has a number of individuals who would make a fine future PM. It is inevitable I will be asked who I will vote for at the caucus meeting on December 12.

Whoever the caucus elects will have my unwavering support, but if Bill English puts his name forward then I will vote for him.

For 10 years now Bill and I have worked as a team. I have witnessed first-hand his leadership style, his capacity for work, his grasp of the economy, his commitment to change and, most of all, his decency as a husband, as a father, as a friend, a colleague and as a politician.

Bill has, I believe, grown a great deal since he was last Party leader. Fifteen years on he has more experience and the party and political cycles are quite different.

I believe that National, under Bill's leadership, would win the election in 2017.

This is not the time to thank all of those who have made the past 10 years possible for me. But nor can I stand here without acknowledging Bronagh, Stephie and Max who have sacrificed a lot for me to have been able to do what the job demands.

No person in this role can succeed without the support of an enormous number of talented and dedicated individuals.

I thank my deputy Bill English, the Cabinet and caucus for their loyalty and energy and, of course, my wonderful staff, so well led by Wayne Eagleson, who have done more than I ever could have hoped or expected.

I also wish to thank and acknowledge our support partners ACT, United Future and the Maori Party without whom the strong and stable Government we have delivered would not have been possible.

I have no doubt my successor will look to build upon these relationships.

Last but not least, I wish to put on record my everlasting gratitude to the people of Helensville for electing me, and to the New Zealand public for their support, faith and encouragement. It has been my privilege to serve you all.

I have always believed that the test of a good Prime Minister is that he or she leaves the country in better shape than they found it. Over time, others will judge whether I have done that. All I can say is that I gave it everything I had.

I have left nothing in the tank.

Finally, while I intend to stay in Parliament long enough to avoid the cost and inconvenience a by-election would cause the good people of Helensville, I will at an appropriate time prior to the next election step down as an MP.

On that day, I shall walk from these buildings for the last time, a richer person for the experience and privilege of being here, and hoping and believing that New Zealand has been well served by the Government I led.
Australias Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, is in the country.

She is leading a high level delegation of Australian Parliamentarians to Samoa.

The delegation includes Senator Concetta Fierravanti  Wells, Minister of International Development and the Pacific and their respective Opposition counterparts, Shadow Foreign Minister, Senator Penny Wong; and shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Claire Moore.

They will meet with Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi and other key government officials to discuss a range of issues including regional stability, development challenges and emergency responses.

In Samoa, the delegation will highlight the climate change action Australia is taking and our increased investments in Samoa and the broader Pacific.

This includes the announcement of $1.4 million in funding for emergency bridges, a $1 million contribution to the Samoa Agribusiness Support Project led by the Asian Development Bank and $1 million to support the Samoa Family Health Association.

During the visit they will also sign new aid partnership agreements with Samoa and Vanuatu.

The visit highlights the strong Australia-Samoa relationship and Australias ongoing support through enabling economic growth, health, education and work on gender and disability.

Bishop was sworn in as Australia's first female Foreign Minister on 18 September 2013 following four years in the role of Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

She is also the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and has served as the Member for Curtin in the House of Representatives since 1998.

She previously served as a Cabinet Minister in the Howard Government as Minister for Education, Science and Training and as the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues.

Prior to this, Minister Bishop was Minister for Ageing.

Before entering Parliament Minister Bishop was a commercial litigation lawyer at Perth firm Clayton Utz, becoming a partner in 1985, and managing partner in 1994.

Minister Bishop graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Adelaide in 1978 and attended Harvard Business School in Boston in 1996 completing the Advanced Management Program for Senior Managers.
The Ministry of Police is being closely watched.

So assured the Associate Minister of the Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peseta Vaifou Tevaga.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Peseta said that since Prime Minister Tuilaepa took back the portfolio, they are closely monitoring the activities at the Ministry.

So much to the point Associate Minister Peseta now sits in Police executive meetings to be the ears of the Minister.

During the executives debriefing on Monday, Peseta was there  a practice that was not there before.

Im there on behalf of the Minister to listen to the weekly reports from different Police posts, Peseta told the Samoa Observer. If we are not there we will not know what is happening. I then report to the Prime Minister on Fridays about what is happening so that he does not miss out on anything happening in there and not be taken by surprise of any events.

So far, Peseta said it has been good. There are no major changes just that one and it is during those debriefings that I also advice the Ministry on focusing on their work and leave out what is not useful.

According to Peseta, Police officers are known for writing so many letters to the Prime Minister instead of addressing them to the Minister responsible for the Police.

To change this, he said he had encouraged the officers to talk to their seniors about internal matters that they can be resolved to save time. The Prime Minister is a busy man he has a lot to deal with, said Peseta.

But the problem is that we see is when something minor comes up this officer runs up to the Prime Minister to tell his story or write a ghost letter when its an internal matter that can be resolved.

I had advised the executives to talk with each of their divisions and deal with such issues because the Minister who is the Prime Minister is a busy man and save the important things for him to deal with.

The Associate Minister admits that the many internal differences within the Ministry needs to be stop.

He said some of the things being talked about is unnecessary while there are a lot of work that needs to be done.

Asked about the recent suspension, Peseta declined to comment.

He reiterated that the decision was from Cabinet and he had no knowledge of it.

I do not know if there are any more suspensions, he explained.

My role in here is to help carry some of the work load of the Prime Minister and be his ears in the Ministry of Police.
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated Mississippis Gulf Coast, where David Illich grew up and much of his family still lives. In the weeks and months after the catastrophic storm, the Escondido audiologist was overwhelmed by the generosity shown to his relatives and other storm victims by his patients, his friends and even strangers.

Thats when he came up with a way to thank some of this communitys neediest residents by giving them the gift of sound. With sponsorship from Palomar Health, he launched Hear for the Holidays, an annual essay contest that has since awarded state-of-the-art hearing aids to a dozen recipients, as well as less-expensive devices for more than 60 other people.

And this week, Illich and his wife, Kathleen, are in southern Mexico, helping to fit more than 1,500 poor children and adults with free hearing aids from the national organization So the World May Hear.

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Illich said being in the room when people begin to hear again, sometimes after many years of near-silence, is an experience that never gets old.

Theres nothing more beautiful in life than giving people back the ability to communicate, he said. When people lose their hearing they have no concept of what they lost. Its amazing when we can give back that love.

Illich, a past president of the California Audiology Association, said more than 325 million people worldwide have significant hearing loss and no access to help. In the U.S., the problem could soon reach crisis proportions as every day roughly 10,000 Americans turn 65.

And its not just older adults facing problems. One of the nations fastest-growing age groups with hearing damage is age 19 and under, because of teens heavy use of deep-insert ear bud headphones.

Although hearing aids can offer tremendous help to most users, theyre not covered by many insurance plans and their cost (up to $7,000 a pair) is out of reach for many.

Lots of these people are single moms who are working two or three jobs and who have set their own needs aside to care for others, Illich said. These are people who fall between the cracks. They make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford hearing aids.

Among those helped by Illichs Hear for the Holidays program is 2007 winner Devra Willett of Poway, 62, who was secretly entered in the contest by her sister and a coworker.

The longtime bartender and restaurant waitress was in danger of losing both jobs because she couldnt hear customers orders or when they called after her with a request. Because her hearing loss had been gradual, Willett said she didnt realize how it had affected her confidence, her relationship with her children and her comfort in public and group conversations.

The first day I put on my hearing aids, I thought the birds would fly right through the window and the plane overhead would crash. Oh my gosh I didnt realize how long Id gone without these sounds, she said. People dont realize how lonely you can become when you cant hear. I think if I had to choose between losing my sight or my hearing, it would be a toss-up, because when you cant hear you are so alone.

Illich, 60, grew up in Biloxi, Miss., and attended the University of Southern Mississippi, where he ended up taking classes in speech and hearing sciences on a whim. While looking for a science elective, one of his male classmates encouraged Illich to check out that department because it had the prettiest female students.

Although Illich didnt find his soulmate there, he did fall in love with the science of audiology and went on to earn his masters and doctorate in the field. He started his practice, Professional Hearing Associates, in Escondido in 1984 and is now chief of audiology for Palomar Health and Pomerado Hospital, as well as a contractor at Tri-City Medical Center.

Many of his patients are adults in their 40s to 60s, though he sometimes sees young people as well as the very old. He said people routinely put off getting their hearing checked and they will often make excuses for why they no longer talk on the phone, go to church or engage in family discussions.

Some have purchased inexpensive hearing aids and were so unhappy with the results they simply assume theres no hope. But the right fit and equipment can work miracles, he said.

Ive sat here in my chair and cried when I see it happen, he said. I had a couple in here in their 90s who were still very much in love but no longer talked because they couldnt hear each other. When they got their hearing aids, they were sitting here chatting up a storm like schoolkids again.

Each year, Illich receives about 15 to 25 essay applications for the Hear for the Holidays contest. A committee made up of himself and other audiologists, senior services workers, patients and emergency workers make the final selection for the prize, a set of Starkey Muse i2400 hearing aids. A handful of runners-up each year also received lower-priced and refurbished sets.

This years winner is Lorna Nanasca of Poway. She was secretly entered in the contest by her 32-year-old son, Rommel, who has spinal muscular atrophy and she is his full-time caregiver. Because she couldnt hear him when he called, Rommel would often have to call her cellphone or use a portable doorbell device to summon her from the next room. Lorna received her new hearing aids three weeks ago and said she cant believe the change.

Oh my god it changed a lot! I can hear everything, even the tick-tock of the clock on the wall. Its amazing and a luxury I could never have afforded myself, she said.

Another charitable effort that Illich supports is So the World May Hear, a charity started by Starkey founder Bill Austin in 1999. Starkey collects used and broken hearing aids from all over the country and refurbishes them for reuse in third-world countries. Over the past 17 years, it has sent teams of audiologists into the field to serve 775,000 people in more than 100 countries.

Because Illich and his wife  a second grade teacher at Reidy Creek Elementary  were raising two children, they werent able to go on these mission trips in the past, but they supported them with donations. Also, Illich collected used hearing aids for the cause, including 87 devices last May at Palomar Health. But with their kids now grown, the Illiches have embarked on their first mission trip this week in Mexico, with visits planned in Chiapas and the Yucatan.

They return on Friday and Illich said they plan to do many more such trips in the future, including a visit to Haiti next October where theyll fit hearing aids on children at two orphanages.

Willett, the 2014 winner, said shes not surprised that her audiologist is giving so much of his time and expertise to the charitable organizations.

He is the sweetest man and he gives it from his heart, she said. Its his passion to help people.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
The Del Mar City Council unanimously approved this week a salary increase for City Manager Scott Huth.

Huths 2 percent raise on his $203,000 salary will also come with a one-time, 4 percent bonus. Council members said on Monday that Huth deserves the pay raise for his leadership during a busy time at City Hall.

We feel that Scott has done a very good job, said Councilman Terry Sinnott, who was part of a subcommittee that conducted an evaluation of the city manager and recommended the raise.

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Huths salary is one of the lowest for a city manager in the county, according to a survey conducted by city staff. City managers in Solana Beach, Santee, Imperial Beach and Lemon Grove make less than Huth.

The councils general philosophy on compensation has been to keep positions within 5 percent to 7 percent of the regions median salary for those jobs, officials said.

Huths salary was about 8 percent short of the median salary of other city managers, which is roughly $221,600. The city manager in Carlsbad makes the most at $286,000 and the city manager in Lemon Grove makes the least, $175,000, according to the citys report.

The city manager credited his staff with helping to produce good work for the citys residents.

We do have a strong team made up of good staff members that support me in my role and we support each other, Huth said.

Del Mar is the smallest city in the county  about 2 square miles and a population of about 4,000 people  but it has big plans and a heavy workload. Its in the process of building a $17.8 million civic center complex, developing a short-term rental policy and considering building a police department.

City residents approved in the Nov. 8 election a half-cent sales tax increase that will help pay for various large public works projects, including undergrounding utility lines, adding amenities to the Del Mar Shores Park and streetscape improvements.

The city estimates that the sales tax hike will generate about $2 million in additional revenues.

Earlier this year, city employees also temporarily moved to an office building near the Del Mar fairgrounds as downtowns outdated City Hall was demolished to make way for the new civic center complex.

The South Fair office complex at 2010 Jimmy Durante Blvd. will be the citys headquarters for roughly the next two years while construction takes place.

Meeting at the temporary City Hall on Monday, Councilman Don Mosier said that running a small city does not necessarily mean its easier than running a bigger city.

Ive heard comments that Del Mar is such a small city, its easy to run, Mosier said. I think just the opposite is true. Del Mar has the same problems as cities of any size and we have a small staff  which actually makes it more challenging to run.

The City Council also credited Huth with keeping spending in check, which allowed the council to set aside $1.2 million in reserves this year and earmarking another $1.5 million for its capital improvement reserves.

Huths new salary will take effect Jan. 1.

edward.sifuentes@sduniontribune.com

@EdwardSifuentes
From Diego Garcia to San Diego, Navy Medicine West boasts 10 hospitals, two dental centers, 51 branch clinics and about 675,000 patients, making it one of the largest health-care networks on Earth.

And now it has a new skipper  Rear Adm. Paul D. Pearigen, chief of the Navy Medical Corps. He replaced Rear Adm. Bruce L. Gillingham during a Monday morning ceremony at the headquarters campus north of San Diego Naval Base.

Underscoring the importance of the post, Pearigen and Gillingham were joined on the stage by Navy Third Fleet commander Vice Adm. Nora W. Tyson and Navy Surgeon General Vice Adm. C. Forrest Faison III, along with Rear Adm. Michiya Sato, the Japan Self-Defense Forces Maritime Surgeon General, in the crowd.

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Navy West oversees the health care of sailors, Marines and their families in California, Washington, Hawaii, Guam, South Korea, Japan and Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean atoll that doubles as a major military base.

Lauded for his strong leadership since taking command from Faison in late 2013, Gillingham supervised a network that in recent years launched new hospitals at Camp Pendleton and Guam  plus a new clinic at Twentynine Palms Naval Hospital. He has received numerous awards for, among other achievements, boosting the cost-effectiveness of naval medical care.

Gillingham, now 57, graduated from Helix High School in La Mesa. He then received his undergraduate and medical degrees from UC San Diego and completed his surgical internship at the San Diego Naval Medical Center, which is situated at the edge of Balboa Park.

A pediatric orthopedic surgeon, Gillingham is slated to become both the first Navy Medicine chief quality officer and the deputy chief for readiness and health of the Navys Virginia-based Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, often shortened to BUMED.

Faison, the Navys top medical officer, on Monday praised Gillingham for epitomizing servant leadership, singling him out as a deeply caring physician and a steadfast commander who made both the nation and the Navy better because of his selflessness.

Its been a privilege to see all the great things that you have done, said Faison, 58.

Faison has asked Pearigen, the 12th chief of the Navy Medical Corps, to preserve the high standards of the services uniformed physicians while helming Navy Medicine West.

Like Tyson, the 55-year-old Pearigen is a native Tennessean who has long ties to the San Diego region. He directed a residency program at San Diego Naval Medical Center and ran Camp Pendletons hospital between 2009 and 2011.

Lets embrace together what lies ahead, Pearigen said in an address to his new command. Lets take on the new opportunities and challenges and make a difference.

cprine@sduniontribune.com
A senior enlisted Navy sailor admits he romanced his niece for nearly a year, but is battling rape allegations in a retrial that began Monday at the San Diego Naval Base.

Convicted through a general court-martial in 2014, Senior Chief Electricians Mate Jose D. Domingo is accused of repeatedly raping and groping his niece  now a Navy petty officer  during a 10-month span that ended in 2012.

At the time, Domingo served aboard the San Diego-based amphibious warship Rushmore and she was a civilian living in the community.

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Domingo drew an eight-year prison sentence and a dishonorable discharge but appealed, arguing that the military judges instructions to jurors failed to let them consider whether the sexual relationship was consensual.

On Dec. 29, 2015, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington, D.C., agreed. While noting the shocking nature of the case, the justices scrapped Domingos aggravated sexual assault and abusive sexual contact charges and remanded the matter back to San Diego.

In August, Rear Adm. Markham K. Trash Rich moved to reconvene Domingos general court martial on the two scrapped charges.

Prosecutors contend that Domingos relationship with his niece was not consensual. In his first trial, she testified that she rebuffed Domingos initial advances in 2011 and he stopped when she told him no.

When he later tried to have sex with her, however, she neither yelled no nor made an effort to physically stop him, the appellate judges ruled.

The niece testified that she quit resisting Domingo because she feared he would beat her. She also told jurors she initially didnt report the alleged incidents because relatives would blame her for the fallout, especially if Domingos wife divorced him.

The San Diego Union-Tribune does not name the victims of alleged sexual abuse.

Domingo countered that his niece kept visiting him in his home, accompanied him on chores and spent a least one evening in his house while his wife and children were absent  conduct he contends suggests consent.

Domingos adultery conviction tied to an incestuous relationship remains on the books.

Now assigned to the Navys Transient Personnel Unit in San Diego, his trial was delayed by procedural issues Tuesday morning but is expected to conclude by Friday, according to the Navy.

Domingos retrial is one of several particularly serious cases going through the military justice system in San Diego.

Assigned to the Navy amphibious warship Essex, Petty Officer Third Class Seth M. Brumfield is accused of viewing child pornography while on active duty in Bahrain in late 2015.

On Nov. 16, Richs replacement as the commander of Navy Region Southwest, Rear Adm. Yancy Lurch Lindsey, convened a general court martial against Brumfield. He was arraigned 14 days later and has pleaded not guilty.

Assigned to the guided-missile cruiser Mobile Bay, Seaman Third Class James L. Green, Jr. awaits a special court martial on resisting arrest and assault charges tied to an Oct. 1 incident at San Diego Naval Base, according to his charge sheet.

Green allegedly sped a car through a gate in wanton manner toward a guard before veering off into a U-turn and continuing through a stop sign to evade arrest. He has pleaded not guilty.

In the Marine Corps, on Nov. 29 a military judge at Miramar air station arraigned Sgt. T. A. Block of Wing Communications Squadron 38 on rape, assault and threat charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

The general court martial for a captain assigned to Marine Corps Recruit Depot also is slated to begin Dec. 19 there. Brian J. Waymel has pleaded not guilty to failing to obey an order, uttering false official statements, reckless driving, conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman and child endangerment.

His civilian attorney, Gary Barthel, did not return messages seeking comment.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
The Navys $4 billion guided-missile destroyer Zumwalt is slated to dock in San Diego on Thursday morning, following a slew of mechanical glitches that sidelined it for weeks in Virginia and Panama.

The most expensive and revolutionary destroyer ever built, the Zumwalt will homeport at the San Diego Naval Base.

Scheduled to undergo further modifications and testing, the Navy predicts it will be fully prepped for overseas deployments within a year.

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For Navy buffs who want to watch the Zumwalt arrive, officials recommend keeping their eyes peeled along the harbor from 10 a.m. to noon on Thursday.

The best places to view the destroyer include the Ferry Landing on Coronado, Shelter Island Shoreline Park and downtowns Embarcadero.

The Zumwalt left the MEC Shipyards Balboa complex in Panama on Nov. 30, following nearly two weeks of repairs to its lubrication coolers after the sleek and stealthy destroyer lost propulsion while transiting the Panama Canal.

It was a repeat of a September mechanical problem that waylaid the Zumwalt in Virginia, but Navy technicians insist that they have pinpointed the gremlins and that the mishaps caused no permanent damage to the vessel.

Slicing through waves like a switchblade and sculpted to sneak past enemy radar, the Zumwalt is the first in its class of experimental warships built to radically reshape how the Navy vies for control of the seas.

The Zumwalts advanced electrical system  with enough juice to power 10 conventional destroyers  was designed for futuristic sensors and weapons that have yet to be perfected, including lasers and electromagnetic railguns.

The only thing more impressive than the capabilities of the ship are the capabilities of its fine crew, said Capt. James A. Kirk, the Zumwalts skipper, in a press release.

Originally planned for a production run of 32 ships but dogged by rising costs and lengthy delays, the Pentagon has slashed the nearly $23 billion Zumwalt-class program to only three vessels.

The second ship in its class, the Michael Monsoor, should become fully operational in 2018, with the Lyndon B. Johnson reaching the same milestone three years later, according to the Navy.

cprine@sduniontribune.com
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto established a new marine biosphere reserve on Monday covering a broad area that includes the Coronado Islands near the U.S. border and Todos Santos Island, site of a famed surfing spot off the coast of Ensenada.

The newly designated Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve, located along the Baja California peninsula, is one of three new marine biosphere reserves decreed as Mexico hosted the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Cancun.

The area is a habitat for one out of three of the worlds species of marine birds, said Alfonso Aguirre, director of the Ensenada-based environmental group, Grupo de Ecologia y Conservacion de Islas, which has worked with local fishing communities to promote the designation.

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The decree now legitimizes the hard work done by civil society during so many years, with already tangible and relevant results, Aguirre said. He was was honored this month with the Midori Prize for Biodiversity for his work in protecting the islands.

The reserve, operating under Mexicos National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, is a protected area that is already operating, the [opposite] of a paper park, Aguirre said. The effort to restore the areas marine bird habitat has involved private organizations and government agencies in the United States and Mexico, he said, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Audubon Society.

Conservationists around the world are very happy, said Serge Dedina, Mayor of Imperial Beach and executive director of the environmental group Wildcoast. Traditionally, conservationists have focused on the Gulf of California, but what were learning is that the Pacific is equally important.

The Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve covers more than 2.7 million acres, an area that includes 21 islands and 97 islets and the surrounding marine areas that serve as a habitat for marine mammals and seabirds, as well as commercially important fish and shellfish.

Biosphere reserves promote sustainable growth and protect ecosystems through the establishment of strongly protected core zones, together with as buffer zones and transition zones.

The Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve complements protections already in place off the California coast. Now we have a chain of island conservation that extends from the U.S. all the way to Mexico, Dedina said.

A separate designation was made for the Pacific Biosphere Reserve, a 143-million acre area that include the Revillagigedo Archipelago off the tip of Baja California Sur.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
Investigators have found no evidence to corroborate a warning of a terrorist plot to bomb the Universal City Metro station, defusing fears of an imminent attack in the heart of Los Angeles sprawling public transit system, authorities said late Tuesday.

Federal investigators determined that the warning of a bombing called in on a tip line in Australia was not a credible threat. Law enforcement officials suspect the anonymous caller may have previously made threats that did not materialize, according to the FBI.

Investigators were working to identify the anonymous caller and FBI officials noted that those who provide false threats to police face prosecution.

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The bomb threat had put Metro Red Line riders on high alert after law enforcement officials released information about the potential attack Monday night.

On Tuesday, commuters were met by heavily armed deputies, dogs and bag searches, part of increased security visible across the Los Angeles County transit system.

1 / 6 The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department had extra security at the entrance to the Metro Red Lines Universal City station Tuesday after a report of a planned terrorist attack. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 6 L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti talks to Metro Red Line passengers on a train he boarded Tuesday at the Universal City station. Seeking to calm any nerves frayed by a report of a planned terrorist attack on the station, the mayor asked riders to please go about your business. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 6 A Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy and a bomb-sniffing dog stand near the entrance to the Metro Red Lines Universal City station Tuesday morning. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 6 Law enforcement agencies beefed up their presence at L.A. County Metro stations Tuesday in response to a report of a potential attack on the Red Lines Universal City station. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 6 L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti gets a hug from commuter Susan Rorke on the Metro Red Line on Tuesday. Garcetti rode the line to reassure passengers after a report of a potential terrorist attack on the lines Universal City station. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 6 An L.A. County sheriffs deputy checks a passengers bag near the entrance to the Metro Red Lines Universal City station. A report from an overseas tip line warned of a potential attack on the station Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

At the Universal City station, a sign warned riders they would not be allowed to use the Red Line subway system to downtown L.A. without their bags being searched.

Since early Tuesday, sheriffs bomb squad teams with K-9s have combed the station and other areas of the transit systems.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said beyond the visible presence, undercover deputies would be on trains across the system.

Speaking at the Universal City Metro station, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged that law enforcement was prepared and asked residents to be vigilant.

The eyes and ears of the people of Los Angeles are the most important force multiplier we have, said Garcetti, who rode for several stops on the Red Line.

Riders taking the Red Line from downtown to North Hollywood on Tuesday morning seemed unfazed by reports of a threat and eager to take Garcettis advice.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself, exclaimed one rider to a sparsely populated Civic Center station platform as he boarded a Purple Line train.

Uniformed deputies were not visible on a northbound Red Line train or at stops en route to Universal City, although McDonell said plainclothes officers would likely be riding trains as well. Deputies in full tactical gear, some carrying rifles and others flanked by dogs, were seen at the Universal City and North Hollywood stations.

The heavy security presence was calming to most riders. Before he boarded a Red Line train to Hollywood where he planned to visit the Walk of Fame, tourist Trudian Douglas Llewington said he was unconcerned.

It seems theres more than enough precautions being taken, said Llewington, of England.

As he waited for a downtown train from Universal City, Greg Averetta, 54, of Northridge, said he wasnt aware of a reported threat. Threats are a constant these days and he wasnt going to change his commute over something that could easily be a hoax, he said.

It seems to me that we get so many of these calls and complaints that its hard to figure out what true and not true, he said. Im not going to spend too much time worrying about it.

A few LAPD officers could be seen on horseback near the Hollywood and Vine station, and the boulevard was shut down between Argyle Avenue and Vine Street. The closure, however, was prompted by the scheduled premiere of Star Wars: Rogue One at the Pantages Theatre, not the reported terror threat.

That train stuff isnt as big as this, joked a security guard.

Times staff writer Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

richard.winton@latimes.com

james.queally@latimes.com

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UPDATES:

9:15 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional comments on the source of the threat.

8:15 p.m.: This article has been updated with comments from law enforcement sources that the threat was not found to be credible.

12:25 p.m.: This article has been updated with comments from Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Horace Frank and commuters.

10:50 a.m.: This article has been updated with comments from commuters.

This article was originally published at 9:05 a.m.
On the infamous date, 75 years ago, life changed, changed utterly.

After the first dots and dashes  Pearl Harbor attacked  hit the Chollas Heights radio tower, a terrible beauty, stealing from the great Yeats poem, was born.

I missed the combat, the rationing, the blackouts, but during the Cold War in this Navy town no kid could grow up ignorant of what was birthed that winter day in 1941. The trajectories of millions of families changed direction. Children then unborn would feel the convulsion of Pearl Harbor deep in their bones.

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You have your own precious Pearl story, of that Im sure. This happens to be mine:

On Dec. 6, my father was the 31-year-old editor of the Imperial Valley Post-Press, married with an infant daughter. His mother-in-law, recently widowed, was nearly paralyzed with grief on the family ranch near El Centro.

Within days of the attack, thanks to a friendship with an admiral, my father was a commissioned officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence hunting Japanese saboteurs in San Diego. (He didnt find any.) My mother and infant sister soon followed him from the desert to the coastal city 100 miles to the west.

Later in the war, my father would serve in the South Pacific on Adm. William Bull Halseys staff, working with a team of officers hed call the smartest men hed ever known. (Byron Whizzer White, the future Supreme Court justice, was among them.)

After V-J Day, my dad drew upon his war experience to cover the waterfront for the San Diego Daily Journal. In 1947, as my mother was in labor at the Coronado Hospital, the old man was banging out a front-page story for the afternoon edition. My arrival in the world wasnt news, but Navy Day was. In a wild flight of fancy, he led his story with a genetic link between Glenn Curtiss pioneering hydroplane, which flew into history on San Diego Bay in 1911, and its Navy offspring  planes such as the Hellcat, the Corsair and the Skystreak, which had recently clocked the world speed record.

When the Journal foundered in the early 50s, my dad jumped ship to Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. (Convair), a super-powerful player in what President Dwight D. Eisenhower would call the military-industrial complex. My fathers job for the next 20 years was to edit Convairiety, the colossal defense contractors glossy newsletter.

For years, he hung his leather sap, a memento of his short tour as a Navy gumshoe, on the inside door handle of his bedroom.

Every time we drove onto North Island  as a retired lieutenant commander, he enjoyed base privileges  his curt salute to the sentries reminded me that he had been in the Pacific like almost every Coronado man I knew.

My parents first San Diego address was a houseboat in Point Loma. My grandmother, alone in the Valley, soon sold her ranch and drove Highway 80 to be with my mother and sister. Needing more space, they took the ferry to Coronado and found an apartment for the duration of the war.

My mother had worked at the Imperial Valley courthouse, but in Coronado she did her bit for the war effort by volunteering at hospitals. She found her calling in life, later becoming the Coronado Hospitals medical records librarian, the keeper of the most intimate secrets of just about everyone on the Island.

During the war, my grandmother took the ferry to work at a Convair assembly plant, a far cry from the life her parents had pioneered in 1901 when they walked from Julian down the Banner Grade to the desert floor where the Colorado River had just been harnessed for irrigation.

Growing up in the long shadow of the war, how could I not be aware that Pearl was the galvanizing event in my familys history, the sole catalyst for our migration to San Diego and the reinvention of our lives?

Of course, its fitting that on Dec. 7 we focus on those who were there, their bravery and suffering and endurance. San Diego Union-Tribune reporters John Wilkens and Peter Rowe have gone many extra miles to perform the essential duty of remembering the sacrifice.

Worth highlighting, however, is Pearl Harbors reshaping not only of families but of the way Americans think about war.

To a critical mass of Americans, Vietnam was optional, arguably strategic but not absolutely necessary. There was no Pearl Harbor to rally the nation, no call to arms that spoke to every man, woman and child. The stark contrast with Pearl Harbor rubbed salt in the national division of opinion.

Only 9/11, that other infamous date, could compare with Pearl Harbor as an inarguable casus belli.

My Canadian wife, content for more than 20 years to float along with her green card, stared at the destroyed Twin Towers and vowed then and there to become a citizen.

Im an American now, she said to the TV.

She took her second-grade class to watch her take the oath of citizenship a couple of months later.

That was something, a family heirloom forged in a traumatic sneak attack.

But to be honest, the arc of our lives has remained largely unchanged by the amorphous War on Terror.

I kept working as a newspaperman, she as a teacher. We stayed in our house. Our undrafted son stayed on his career track. The war remains over there somewhere.

Seventy-five years ago Wednesday, on the other hand, millions of American families, seemingly the whole country, suddenly went into overdrive. Everyone was moving. And San Diego, which would grow exponentially during the war, was the California city where duty called most powerfully.

We were the steely eye of the storm, the staging ground for the making and wielding of terrible swift swords.

Never to be rivaled, one prays, a life-changing beauty was born that bloody winter day, 75 years ago.

No wonder that, for those of a certain age, Dec. 7 is San Diegos most deeply moving, most personally consequential, day of remembrance.

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

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logan.jenkins@sduniontribune.com
An analysis of graduate compensation has ranked UC San Diego fifth in the nation among public schools for alumni who earn more than $100,000 within 15 years of getting a degree.

The analysis by Money Magazine was published on Money.com and shows that UC San Diego was among the top affordable public schools when it comes to producing graduates who land high-paying jobs without having to attend graduate school.

The personal finance news and advice website used data from Payscale, an online salary, benefits and compensation information company,

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Money.com found that the average mid-career salary for a UC San Diego graduate is $106,000 and the average early career salary is $53,700.

The study factored in each schools cost to attend, which is $31,500 without aid at UC San Diego.

That factor helped place at the top of the list Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where the cost to attend is $26,148. The average mid-career salary for graduates there is $100,000, with the average early career salary is $58,100.

Michigan Technological University was second, with an average mid-career salary of $101,000 and an average early career salary of $63,100. The cost to attend was $28,300.

New Jersey Institute of Technology was third and and Missouri University of Science of Technology was fourth.

The only other California schools on the list of 11 were CSU Maritime Academy, which was ranked sixth, and UC Berkeley, which was 11th. Despite being outranked on the list because of its $33,400 cost, UC Berkeley had the highest-earning graduates. The average mid-career salary was $116,000 and the average early career salary was $60,300.

Not surprising, salaries were related to a graduates field of study. Money.com noted that research by the Georgetown Center for Education and Workforce found that the typical finance major from both private and public schools earn at least $100,000 at some point in his or her career. Engineers and food science majors have at least a 25 percent chance of earning six figures, the report found.

UC San Diego has more than 170,000 alumni with nearly 50,000 living in San Diego County. Many are CEOs of their own businesses, including J. Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute, Christopher Yanov of Reality Changers and Ashley Van Zeeland of Cypher Genomics.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

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Horton Elementary School in southeastern San Diego has come under fire for disciplining students for misbehavior by forcing them to hold a plank position on a hot blacktop surface, which the ACLU said amounts to corporal punishment.

An incident occurred in October when a ruckus erupted in the cafeteria after a student reportedly took a bathroom pass from an employees pocket. The school replaced open recess for fourth- and fifth-graders with structured exercising, including the plank or push-up position.

Some of the students parents were banned from campus for 14 days under threat of prosecution after they complained to the principal.

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The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties criticized the San Diego Unified School District, called for an apology, staff training and lifting on the parent ban in a letter sent to Superintendent Cindy Marten last week.

San Diego Unified disagrees that corporal punishment was used, rather Horton modified open recess for the students for three days as a result of unruly behavior displayed by students during the lunch period on Oct. 14, district spokeswoman Shari Winet said in a written statement.

District leadership is working with the parents and the principal to reach a resolution that satisfies everyone, said Winet, who noted that an investigation into the matter was under way before the ACLU sent its letter.

The rowdy lunchtime incident prompted staff to summon the principal, Staci Dent, who arrived at the cafeteria to find some students pounding on their desks or tables.

Instead of free play, the students engaged in PE-type activities including jumping jacks, squat holds, as well as holding the push-up position for 10 seconds, Winet said. The structured recess was an opportunity to reinforce the importance of safety and following directions, as well as engage in exercise.

According to the ACLU and parent complaints filed with the district, students were forced to get into a push-up or plank position, and hold the pose for a significant period of time, potentially as long as several minutes. Some developed blisters on their hands after they were forced to hold their hands against the scalding hot blacktop or face time in juvenile hall, according to the principals threats, the ACLU said in its letter to Marten.

Dent is on maternity leave. Her interim replacement did not return phone calls Monday.

In a report that aired Nov. 3, Dent told Channel 10 News the modified recess was meant to promote good behavior.

In clear conscious, I would have done it again, Dent told Channel 10. If I could have done anything differently, by all means I would have, should have and could have communicated more proactively with parents on what happened and the next steps.

After some Horton parents complained about the first incident, the punishment was repeated when school resumed after the weekend on Oct. 17-18.

Parents have said their repeated requests to meet with the principal were unsuccessful. An automated phone call to families informed them that the issue would be discussed at a meeting with parents on Oct. 28.

Parents became upset at the meeting when Dent ended the conversation and moved on to other topics.

The principal sent stay away letters to at least four parents informing them they were banned from campus for 14 days under a provision in the Penal Code. The letters threatened the parents with arrest and prosecution should they enter onto district property in the future and should they cause disturbance or disruption. A second letter informed parents the ban would be lifted if they attended one of several meetings to be held during the workday.

The ban has since expired, the district noted.

San Diego Unified made several unsuccessful attempts to speak with recipients of the stay-away letters to rectify the issue and lift the order sooner, Winet said.

In its report, Channel 10 aired images of blistered hands of some students. It also showed a video clip of the parent meeting with Dent.

One student who wore a cast on his arm aggravated his injury and required medical care; another reportedly became faint and one suffered nose bleeds due to heat, the ACLU said.

In its Nov. 28 letter to Marten, ACLUs senior staff attorney, Bardis Vakili, called on the district to reaffirm its commitment to comply with the statutory prohibition against corporal punishment; lift the ban on parents; and retrain staff on district policies that states law enforcement will not be asked to address school discipline issues, nor will the threat of law enforcement be invoked to compel compliance with disciplinary measures.

Whats more, the civil rights organization has recommended the district provide free medical exams and psychological counseling to any of the children subjected to the forced exercise.

The education of children is more likely to be successful when students, educators, and parents are all working together toward the same goal, Vakili wrote in his letter to Marten. Yet this incident has threatened to fracture some of the very relationships necessary to the educational success of these students.

Beyond the allegations of corporal punishment, Vakili said he was struck by struggles parents have endured.

What was really striking is that in this age when principal involvement in education is so critical, it appeared to us that parents, interested parents who wanted answers and werent getting them, were pushed away, he said. What may have been an error in judgment turned into parents rights issue.

The ACLU attorney in his letter encouraged San Diego Unified to use restorative justice to help offending staff members and the victims of the punishment. He praised the district for launching an investigation into the matter.

Education activist Sally Smith, who is a non-practicing attorney, said she helped parents register their complaints  handwritten in Spanish  with San Diego Unifieds office of civil rights.

They wrote up their complaints and I faxed them to the Office of Civil Rights, Smith said. The district is supposed to be fixing stuff, but the complaints keep coming in.

San Diego Unified and other districts have turned to restorative justice practices in recent years amid national reports that poor and minority students have been disciplined at rates that are disproportionate to their populations. Restorative justice seeks to resolve problems by having offenders and their victims discuss the impact of any violations and their appropriate consequences.

maureen.magee@sduniontribune.com

Twitter:@MaureenMagee
A group of students from Mission Elementary School in Oceanside grabbed their Chromebooks and marched into a room full of surprised school administrators Monday morning to show them how to write computer code.

The event was part of an Hour of Code, a global movement that aims to demystify computer science and teach kids the basics of coding. Its held annually during Computer Science Education Week  which this year is Dec. 5-11  and is supported by a broad coalition of partners including Microsoft, Apple, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the College Board.

In the Oceanside Unified School District, however, the kids did the teaching. After hijacking the administrative staff meeting, each student paired up with an adult and demonstrated how to use Scratch, a beginning programming system.

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I wanted this to be something where it was fun for kids and adults, said district Technology Director Terry Loftus, who coordinated the surprise. For the kids to be the teachers is really empowering.

To the uninitiated, coding can seem like an arcane art, but technology experts say it involves creativity, logic and problem-solving  the very skills that teachers emphasize in the classroom. For a generation of digital natives, coding is more intuitive than it is to many adults. And its one of the more popular school disciplines after visual and performing arts, according to hourofcode.com.

Students start early through programs such as Scratch, in which users drag and drop blocks of code to program interactive stories, games, and animation. That lays the groundwork for learning more advanced coding languages such as C++ or Java, Loftus said. It doesnt hurt that Scratch provides lessons through the lens of popular computer games and movies.

Ill show you the teaching part first, and then Ill show you how to really code, fourth-grader Sidney Lacroix, 9, told Oceanside Superintendent Duane Coleman. Do you want to do Minecraft?

As a matter of fact, that was on Colemans to-do list. Like many parents, he had watched his own daughters build structures and fight zombies in the digital game.

My two girls are always doing Minecraft, he said. I dont know what theyre doing, but it just looks really interesting.

Coleman started with the basics, learning how to make a chicken move a single space, and then run in a continual loop on-screen. Now the chicken looks wierd, moving that way, an on-screen prompt stated, so Lacroix showed Coleman how to drag blocks of code to make the poultry move randomly.

Nearby, fourth-grader Natalye Rodriguez, 9, showed Palmquist Elementary Principal Vicki Gravlin how to manipulate animation from the Disney movie Moana, about a Polynesian girl. Through Scratch, they worked together to plot a zig-zag course through the ocean to help the character catch fish.

And Jocelyn Hernandez, 10, worked with Jefferson Middle School Principal Christy Dayhoff to enable Moana to fight her adversaries. The most exciting part was the trial-and-error, they said.

We just do it, Hernandez said. We try and we try. And if we get it wrong, we try again.

As the hour concluded, the students said they were thrilled to reverse roles with adult educators.

It was great, teaching them, Hernandez said, beaming.

Lacroix, who noted that he had singled out the superintendent for his partner, said Coleman caught on quickly.

It was kind of easy for him, Lacroix said. I showed him how it works.

Coleman observed that his young partner had a certain advantage in the exercise.

The coding language is part of his language, Coleman said. And he was very patient with me.

Technical expertise in coding  as well as the intellectual skills of creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking that it instills  are crucial to the jobs of tomorrow, Loftus said. And bringing computer science into the classroom provides a platform for insruction in math, language and other traditional subjects, Coleman said.

Theyre not growing up with pencils and pens, he said. Theyre growing up with devices and learning how to manipulate technology. Its about engagement.

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan
California legislators sent a message to President-elect Donald Trump on Monday that the state is prepared to fight his administration on immigration issues.

The two chambers of the state legislature passed identical resolutions calling on Trump to develop humane immigration policies, to avoid mass deportation and to keep President Barack Obamas deferred action for childhood arrivals, or DACA, program.

State Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, introduced a bill Monday in the state legislature that would fund legal representation for noncitizens facing deportation. Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, introduced a bill that would train public defenders on immigration law and the potential consequences of criminal proceedings.

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The Senate condemns in the strongest terms bigoted, racist, or misinformed descriptions of the immigrant community that serve only to foment hatred and violence, the resolution says. The Senate supports a comprehensive and workable approach to solving our nations historically broken immigration system.

Unauthorized immigrants make up about one-tenth of Californias work force and contribute $130 billion annually to the states gross domestic product, according to the resolution.

The resolution passed 57 to 14 in the Assembly, with two Republicans  Brian Maienschein of San Diego and Catharine Baker of San Ramon  joining the chambers Democrats to approve it. In the Senate, 27 voted for the resolution, 3 voted against it and 10 abstained, according to Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leons office.

Maienscheins office did not return repeated requests for comment.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-South Gate, introduced the resolution with a metaphor about a boxer adjusting his stance. In a press conference later in the day, he said he wasnt worried about hurting Californias relationship with the federal government.

The president has promised on Day One that hes going to tackle the immigration issue, Rendon said. This is our Day One. Were doing the same thing.

Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, said in a telephone interview that while he has supported immigration reform, he couldnt support the resolution because of its combative tone.

The tone were doing this in is not beneficial to the state of California, Chavez said.

Assembly Republican leader Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley also took exception to the resolution.

Today, Democrats stole a page out of President-elect Trumps campaign playbook and pushed a rhetorical, divisive agenda designed to inflame tensions many of us seek to soothe, Mayes said in an emailed statement. California has the highest poverty rate in the nation, our roads our crumbling, and the cost of housing is double the national average. The campaign is over and its time to come together and move forward as Californians.

San Diegos new assemblyman, former San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria, cast his first vote in the state legislature in support of the resolution.

Our state and our nation are built upon the countless contributions of immigrants, Gloria said in an emailed statement. With todays passage of HR-4, the Assemblys message is clear: we stand with you and we will fight for you regardless of what may happen on the national level.

Returning assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, also supported the bill.

I promised the people of my district, which has one of the largest immigrant and Muslim refugee populations in the state, that I would fight for them, Gonzalez said. This resolution is simply an acknowledgement of my promise to them.

The two bills introduced Monday as part of the legislatures message on immigration were marked for urgency status, which means they require a two-thirds vote and would go into effect immediately upon enactment.

Huesos bill, called the Due Process For All Act, would broaden state funding for immigration legal counsel. Because immigration proceedings are considered a civil matter, those facing deportation do not have a right to a lawyer in the way that those facing criminal charges do.

Previous legislation created funding for legal services for unaccompanied minors from Central America and low-income residents eligible for naturalization or other immigration relief, such as the DACA program created by President Barack Obama that gives leniency to the children of unauthorized immigrants to stay in the country under certain conditions.

According to a fact sheet from Huesos office, 68 percent of those held in immigration detention facilities do not have legal representation, and detainees who have lawyers are more than five times more likely to succeed in challenging their deportation.

This bill will pretty much mean the difference between being able to stay in the country for some of these families or being torn away from their family and community, Hueso said during a news conference.

Huesos bill does not yet include the amount of money that would be set aside from the state. It would also create a fund that could accept donations toward covering court appointed attorneys in immigration court.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committees U.S./Mexico Border Program, said that the amount of money set aside will play a big role in the effectiveness of the bill. Rios said an immigration case can cost between $3,000 and $15,000 depending on its complexity.

Immigrant rights advocates welcomed the legislatures opening move on immigration.

When it comes to standing up for immigrants and refugees, the time for rhetoric is over, and the time to take action is now, the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium said in an emailed statement.

Now, more than ever, California must stand by its values of fairness and due process, and the many immigrants that call California their home, said Jennie Pasquarella, immigrants rights director at the American Civil Liberties Union of California. We know that, in an immigrant-rich state like California, we all prosper when immigrants prosper. The Legislatures investment in fairness and due process will no doubt ensure all of California prospers.
The long-controversial Regents Road Bridge, which has pitted neighbor against neighbor in University City for many years, suffered a major setback on Monday night when the San Diego City Council voted to remove it from planning maps.

Planned for decades, the $60-million bridge would have provided a second north-south route through the often-congested community that past city leaders considered crucial when they approved many dense housing projects for the area.

But a majority of the council, which voted 6-2 against the bridge on Monday after three hours of strident public testimony, said they doubted the bridge would reduce congestion and that environmental concerns about the project were too significant to move forward.

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It would have been built across Rose Canyon and the project was opposed by the Sierra Club and Coastkeeper.

Council members also said concerns about emergency response times without the bridge would be more effectively addressed by building additional fire stations in the area.

Building new roads through open space is not forward thinking, said Council President Sherri Lightner, whose district includes the area. It is a remnant of our urban sprawl past.

In addition to new fire stations, Lightner said solutions to University Citys congestion problems include a new trolley line under construction in the area, shuttles from UC-San Diego and rapid bus routes.

Councilman David Alvarez agreed with Lightner.

The world has changed in the last 25 years and people are getting around differently, he said. The evidence and the data shows there would be no significant impact, whether its public safety or how people get around the University City area.

Councilman Scott Sherman said both sides in the debate made strong arguments, but that he believes the bridge could actually worsen congestion because smart phone apps would direct people to the new road.

This road connector, I think, would take congestion off the freeways and put it through the neighborhood and wed have one more congested neighborhood and wed have a bunch of cars and a bunch of safety vehicles not going anywhere because they are sitting in traffic, he said.

Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, whose district is just south of the proposed bridge, voted against deleting it from planning maps.

She said community leaders in Clairemont and Mira Mesa should have been involved in the debate because the decision whether to build the bridge significantly affects them.

I really think it should have been a regional issue that was all planned altogether, said Zapf, adding that she saw both sides. This is one of the most difficult decisions Ive had to make here as a council member.

Councilman Chris Cate, who cast the other no vote, offered similar sentiments. Cates council district is southeast of the affected neighborhoods.

The bridge would connect two large segments of Regents Road that now dead end at the northern and southern edges of Rose Canyon. Without the bridge, Genesee Avenue is the only major north-south route through the area, which includes UC San Diego and UTC mall.

The council also on Monday deleted plans to widen Genessee from four to six lanes in the area, and a separate proposal to re-stripe the road to increase capacity.

A previous council in 2006 chose the bridge, which has been planned since 1959, as the best of seven proposed alternatives for relieving traffic in the area.

Former City Councilman Harry Mathis, who represented the area in the 1990s, said the council was making a mistake deleting the bridge.

He said the battle was less about smart planning and more about a clash between property owners in different parts of University City.

I think one thing thats been lost here is a balanced community, Mathis said. The people who live around Regents Road are what we call the haves and the people who live down under the influence of Genessee are the have-nots.

Mathis said deleting the bridge also threatens the future of the innovation economy in the area.

Other supporters of the bridge said the environmental sensitivity of Rose Canyon has been overblown, noting that significant train traffic already runs through the area.

Debbie Knight, executive director of the Friends of Rose Canyon, said the area remains a precious natural resource despite its impurity.

All we have left is our small open space park, she said, adding that the area serves as crucial wildlife habitat.

Knight also disputed contentions that the fight over the bridge is about selfish homeowners near the proposed bridge site trying to protect their property values.

She said evidence of that is support for deleting the bridge from Lightner, Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Barbara Bry, the council member who was elected last month to replace Lightner on Monday.

I dont consider that a small, self-interested group of homeowners, she said.

Lightner said two new fire stations are planned for the area, one in south University City and one on the UC-San Diego campus.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
State utility regulators will hold public hearings in San Diego County to collect testimony about a plan by San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to bill customers hundreds of millions of dollars in costs related to deadly wildfires nearly a decade ago.

Two hearings are scheduled Jan. 9 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, one at 2 p.m. and one at 7 p.m.

The hearings will allow ratepayers and consumer advocates to testify on the utilitys request to charge customers $379 million in expenses leftover from the 2007 firestorm that ravaged San Diego County.

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Three of those fires were caused by SDG&E power lines that were blown into vegetation, according to investigations. Two people died and more than 1,300 homes were destroyed by the Witch, Rice and Guejito fires in October 2007.

Investigations from the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection found that SDG&E failed to properly maintain the vegetation near the power lines.

SDG&Es failure to maintain clearances as required by General Order 95 directly led to the ignition of the Witch Fire, the commissions Office of Ratepayer Advocates said.

The office is seeking a change of venue when the commission considers the $379 million request  from the commissions San Francisco headquarters to San Diego, where the fire victims are located. Utility officials opposed the request, which has yet to be ruled on by regulators.

SDG&E has not admitted negligence related to the wildfires. The company also has defended its application to recover $379 million from customers.

The alleged involvement of SDG&E facilities in the ignitions of the three fires does not show that SDG&E acted unreasonably or imprudently, utility lawyers told the commission.

The two public participation hearings come in advance of five days of evidentiary hearings later in January in San Francisco. A decision on the recovery request is expected later next year.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
A Northern California lawmaker reintroduced legislation Monday intended to reform the state utilities commission, the powerful regulatory panel that has been under criminal investigation since 2014.

The bill from state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, would impose a series of changes at the California Public Utilities Commission that failed to make it through the Legislature this past summer or were vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year.

Hill said Senate Bill 19 combines elements of a bill he wrote earlier this year with those of another measure from former Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles.

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Both measures failed to pass the Legislature in the final minutes of the summer session even though Brown and Gatto had announced a deal in June to adopt many of the same reforms.

Brown, who vetoed six bills aimed at reforming the utilities commission in 2015, signed some new measures to improve regulatory oversight of the commission in September.

Were part-way there and we have to continue the effort, said Hill, who has been a leading critic of the commission since a natural gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno in 2010 and killed eight people. Its obvious there are still problems within the CPUC that need to be corrected.

Brown agreed to a spate of reforms in June, after a Gatto-introduced constitutional amendment to strip the commission of much of its regulatory authority passed the state Assembly with broad support.

The strongest changes in that agreement were included in two bills by Hill and Gatto that did not make it out of the state Senate in the final minutes of the legislative session last August.

In September, the governor signed five different commission-related bills that sought to increase transparency and make other improvements at the commission, and he said more needed to be done.

I am calling on the commission to use its existing authority to take immediate action, Brown said at the time. Together, these administrative reforms and legislative acts will bring much-needed improvement to the commission.

Brown spokesman Gareth Lacy declined to comment on the latest Hill legislation, but said, the governor continues to support the reforms he and legislators announced earlier this year.

Among other things, the new bill would allow people to take disputes over public records withheld by the commission to Superior Court. Current rules make the commission itself the first-level arbiter of its own public records decision.

Utility regulators have been criticized for failing to release documents requested under the California Public Records Act since the state Attorney Generals Office launched its criminal investigation in 2014. State agents have been reviewing backchannel dealings among regulators and utility executives, for possible improper influence.

The latest legislative proposal would prevent utility executives from serving on the commission for two years after leaving their job and says commissioners cannot hold a financial interest in a person or corporation subject to regulation by the agency.

Another key provision requires written consent from the Attorney Generals Office before the commission can contract with outside lawyers.

The commission is spending at least $12 million in public funds on private attorneys to respond to subpoenas and other document requests related to an ongoing criminal investigation into improper communications between regulators and utility executives.

Three months ago, the state auditor issued a report of commission practices, saying regulators had not guarded against the appearance of improper influence by utility executives and that they failed to fully disclose important communications between themselves and external parties.

The new Hill legislation also addresses the issue of spent fuel leftover from closed nuclear plants like the one at San Onofre, where more than 3 million pounds of toxic waste are scheduled to be buried for decades to come.

Specifically, it requires the commission to advocate before federal agencies for expedited relocation of the spent fuel.

The commission also would have to name an ethics officer to train commissioners and employees about potential conflicts of interest and provide confidential advice.

It would further create an internal auditor to review internal practices and a public adviser to help ratepayers participate in commission proceedings and process complaints from the public.

Gatto, who was chairman of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce until termed out of office this month, said Monday that he was grateful for the new legislation.

Im really thrilled that Sen. Hill is continuing the fight, he said. Its a fight that is very important to the longterm health, safety and pocketbooks of California consumers and ratepayers.

Jamie Court of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog applauded Hill for bringing the issues at the utilities commission back into the statehouse.

This is a second chance for Jerry Brown to get it right and do what he said he would do, Court said. These are important steps toward putting the public back into the Public Utilities Commission.

The Hill legislation would have to pass the Assembly and Senate before making its way to the Governors Office, where it would either be signed into law or vetoed.

Watchdog Videos On Now Sexual misconduct accusers worry deputy is being protected 6:16 On Now City funded $2-million waterfront bathroom 1:26 On Now Public water district charges customer for legal work, response to records request On Now Video: Tiny homes won't be reused amid housing, homeless crisis On Now Attorney General seeks documentation for Miss Middle East On Now Rep. Hunter probe covers possible fraud On Now Video: SDG&E delaying solar credit for some low-income housing tenants On Now Video: Former San Diego Junior Theatre teacher sentenced for sex with teen girl 0:24 On Now Video: Shelter volunteers believe they were fired for finding a dog a home 0:49 On Now McKamey Manor is leaving San Diego 3:35

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Dr. Ben Carson may be a fantastic neurosurgeon, but there is simply no reason for President-elect Donald Trump to assume he will be a capable, engaged secretary of housing and urban development. Its not just his stumbling performance as a Republican presidential candidate. Its that three weeks ago, when Carson was reportedly under consideration for secretary of health and human services, this is what his business manager said: His background didnt prepare him to run a federal agency.

Now perhaps running HUD isnt as daunting as being at HHS and overseeing the overhaul of the Affordable Care Act. But while housing secretary is not a high-profile position, HUD has arguably never been more important  and its housing policies arent serving large parts of America very well.

Instead of working with other federal agencies to aggressively encourage new construction of new housing to keep down the costs of rent and home ownership, HUD instead relies on subsidies to help poor families get housing. Unlike state programs that amount to long-shot lotteries that help a handful of residents, federal programs help 4.8 million households, according to a 2009 think tank report.

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But that still means three-quarters of low-income U.S. families facing housing distress go without assistance; most communities have long voucher waiting lists. And its not just poor people who are hurt by expensive shelter. In California and the Northeast, housing costs have grown so high that many middle-income families find themselves living paycheck to paycheck. This burden can be heavy even in cities with much less expensive regulatory climates. A Trulia survey, for example, found that Dallas residents spend more than half their income on housing, commuting and utilities.

The high cost of housing causes broader problems as well. Research by Jason Furman, chairman of President Obamas Council of Economic Advisers, shows the cost makes it more difficult for workers to move in search of better careers and thus damages productivity and promotes inequality.

So Americans need the next housing secretary to be much different than any weve had before: Someone who aggressively takes on an anti-housing status quo of heavy regulation and NIMBYism.

But whats also needed is someone who can reform a complacent agency thats often targeted by government watchdogs for indifferent performance. One example: The Section 8 rent-subsidy program was meant to help poor families escape impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods. Yet because landlords can and often do refuse to accept Section 8 vouchers, the program increasingly pushes its 2.2 million client families to, you guessed it, impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Every American should hope Dr. Carson does a great job because the stakes are high. Nevertheless, as the Bush 43 administration learned when it sent unqualified political operatives to oversee the U.S. occupation of Iraq and disaster resulted, expertise matters. In choosing a novice to run a vitally important federal department, Donald Trump is asking for trouble.

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The S.Ds jaywalking hot spots story (Dec. 4) raised the important issue that ticketing for jaywalking may not improve pedestrian safety. Community members of Pacific Beach have proposed a logical solution to improve safety on Garnet Avenue, one of the most dangerous corridors for motor vehicle-related pedestrian accidents in San Diego.

Letters and commentary policy

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We have petitioned the city of San Diego to adapt to the high foot traffic on Garnet by transforming the street into a weekly pedestrian mall. The two-block section of Garnet reported as having the highest rate of jaywalking citations in San Diego is the exact same two blocks we want to have a weekly farmers market.

Our application has been repeatedly denied by the same department that sends officers to write tickets there. The endless cycle of ticketing does not deter jaywalking and is not making pedestrians safer. Let the people walk.

Chris Olson

Pacific Beach

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Regarding UC wont assist federal agents in immigration actions against students (Dec. 1): The recent announcement by University of California President Janet Napolitano that system leaders will protect and defend students in the country illegally  and will advise campus cops to do the same - is Not the way to teach students that one of the essential tenets of a democratic society is that the public voluntarily obey the laws.

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy.

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E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com

Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor San Diego Union-Tribune P.O. Box 120191 San Diego, CA 92112-0191.

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I believe it is unethical to harbor students or any other group in this country illegally. We must remember we are a nation of laws and no one or group is above the law, especially institutions of higher learning.

The announced policy needs to be rescinded and the university president reprimanded or fired.

Charles Caldwell

Alpine

Lawmakers must have motive for challenging plans

Regarding Legislators gird for immigration battle (Dec. 6): Who are these people in public office that think they can ram their personal agendas down the throats of the public?

The idea of sanctuary cities and states should be decided by public vote and not by a small handful of left-wing liberals who, for personal gain, want to go against the federal government and our common-sense laws.

The public officials in California, including our governor, who recently made their announcement to fight the federal government regarding sanctuary cities, without the public approval, should all be investigated for personal gain in their actions .

James Jungnitsch

La Mesa

Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
With just days to go until the Electoral College will decide who will be president, one elector from a state that backed Donald Trump has taken to the pages of The New York Times to say he wont vote for Trump and to urge others to join him.

Christopher Suprun of Texas  a longtime Republican  explained in an op-ed Monday that he feels the president-elect isnt qualified for the job. He encourages other electors to vote their conscience, a move he describes as a legal right and constitutional duty.

Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he wrote. On Dec. 19, I will do it again.

The Dallas paramedic praised the leadership example set by George W. Bush and cited many reasons for why he wont support Trump, including his lack of foreign policy experience, some of his choices for administration jobs and his business dealings being a conflict of interest with his White House role.

Supruns Twitter account was immediately flooded with reactions both in favor and in opposition. Heres just a sample.

Alexander Hamiltons Federalist 68 essay is cited in the op-ed as justification for giving the power directly to the electors to determine if a candidate is truly qualified. That line will likely be good news to the so-called Hamilton Electors.

The Hamilton Electors consists of Democrat electors who seek to persuade Republican electors to change their vote from Trump to another qualified individual or abstain from voting. Suprun recommended Ohio Gov. John Kasich .

This is something we have to do as electors, organizer Polly Baca said of the Hamilton Electors. This is our responsibility.

Baca is an elector from Colorado. The official Hamilton Electors group is made up of a few other electors from Colorado and Washington state, according to interviews with Politico.

Despite a change.org petition with nearly 5 million signatures begging members of the Electoral College to cast ballots against Trump, the possibility of it actually happening is very unlikely.

To learn why, read the story we wrote about it last month:

No, we can't scrap the Electoral College or make it choose Clinton

Do you respect this electors decision to vote his conscience? Or do you believe the electors should stick to the popular vote in their states?

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
Ben Carson s remarkable career resume  neurosurgeon, published author, Republican presidential candidate  may soon include a Cabinet role: secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

In a tweet sent on Monday, Carson publicly accepted Donald Trump s nomination for the department that runs the nations rental assistance programs for low-income families, assists cities develop affordable housing and oversees loan programs to homeowners affected by the housing crisis.

If approved by the Senate, Carson will be the third African-American man chosen by a Republican administration to lead the department, which was created by Congress in 1965.

That Carson found a place within the administration hardly surprises anyone. After all, Carson backed Trump for president after the retired neurosurgeon himself dropped out of the race in the primaries.

But Carsons nomination doesnt come without its share of controversy or contention. Critics, including some Democrats, quickly noted Carsons lack of experience in running a government agency or in housing to lead HUD. Others pushed back against critics, calling the knocks a double standard on race politics.

House minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi , D-San Francisco, said in a statement that Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development.

Others were also quick to point out that as recently as last month when his name floated as a possible pick for secretary of education, Carsons aide said he had no interest in a Cabinet position because he had no government experience.

Critics also sneered at the idea that Carson was picked because he would be the first HUD secretary who actually lived in public housing. During the presidential campaign, Carson gave Trump a tour of blighted neighborhoods in Detroit and reportedly discussed housing.

One person ignited a fiery Twitter debate about race and politics with a tweet that said Carson was likely chosen by Trump because Ben kinda looks urban.

The question of his credentials for the post has been rebutted by Trump supporters and Republicans who say hes qualified given his background and rags-to-riches story of success.

Carson graduated from Southwestern High School in Detroit and went on to study at Yale and then at the School of Medicine at the University of Michigan. He later became one of the youngest doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to biographical information.

If confirmed, Carson would become the third African-American to hold the post under a Republican administration. The first to do so was Samuel Pierce in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan  whom the president once mistook for a mayor  and the second was Alphonso Jackson from 2004 to 2008 under George W. Bush.

Do you think Carson is qualified to be the next secretary of housing? Share your thoughts.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez
In the remote eastern province of Nuristan, Afghan authorities are appealing to local elders for help in preventing militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) from gaining new territory.

The move comes as fighters and their families seek new safe havens after recent U.S. and Afghan air strikes scattered the militants, aided by special forces ground operations.

Afghan authorities view Nuristan, a mountainous and forested province that borders Pakistan, as a potential new base for the self-proclaimed offshoot of IS. A series of high-profile attacks this year highlighted the insurgents desire to stoke sectarian tensions.

The prospect of an expanding IS has alarmed local officials as well as the U.S. military at a time when Afghan armed forces and their NATO allies are already struggling to handle a Taliban insurgency across much of the country.

Generally known by its Arabic name Daesh in Afghanistan, IS has so far largely been confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar, to Nuristans south. There it has clashed with other militants, including the Taliban, who have rejected it.

According to Afghan intelligence officials, an intense recent campaign of air strikes and raids by Afghan and U.S. special forces also pushed a lot of IS fighters out of Nangarhar and into neighboring Kunar Province.

Security officials reportedly gave weapons, ammunition, and other support to villages in Nuristan in a bid to foster defense against outsiders.

Hafez Abdul Qayum, the provincial governor, has held several meetings with local elders, who enjoy significant powers in a province where central government is weak.

"Whether it is the Taliban or Daesh, they are the most misguided people and the biggest destroyers of our religious values," Qayum, himself from Nuristan, told elders in Wama district. "Dear brothers, fighting against this menace is our biggest priority."

IS poses a fresh threat, according to Afghan security forces. By targeting the minority Shiite community, it risks making a dangerous insurgency led by the Taliban even harder to contain.

More than 30 people died in a suicide bombing claimed by IS at a Shi'ite mosque in Kabul.

The real power in Nuristan is widely considered to be the Qaomi Shura, or local elders' council. The province is seen as a natural buffer due to its singular culture, rugged mountain ranges, and lack of paved roads or electricity.

Security officials say they believe that if elders can be persuaded not to allow IS to settle, they will have a better chance of stopping its fighters from crossing from Pech Valley, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are also established.

IS fighters from different countries have found sanctuary in part of Kunar that includes an area known by U.S. troops as The Valley of Death, where they have lost dozens of soldiers.

The ongoing presence of Al-Qaeda was underlined in October, when a U.S. airstrike killed Farouq al-Qatari, the movement's top commander in the east.

So far, the IS presence is contained, as it seeks a foothold in an area hotly contested by other militant groups, and locals have been warned against giving help. But there is potential for its growth.

"They moved in with their families some months ago and only appear in mosques and do not roam around very often," said one official in Kunar, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. "They are trying to win local support and recruit young boys, the same method they used when they emerged in Nangarhar."

Regular drone strikes and special forces operations have hit IS hard this year in Afghanistan.

The United States refers to IS in Afghanistan as operationally emergent, which means capable of ordering deadly, high-profile attacks on civilian targets but posing a limited military threat.

General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has said IS suffered heavy casualties, with 12 top leaders killed and two dozen command and control facilities destroyed.

From nine districts, it now had sanctuary in only three.

However, Afghan officials fear that the IS offshoot, which they say includes extremists from Pakistan, could grow if fighters are pushed out of Iraq and Syria.

Officials worry that an unstable environment could allow militant groups to establish themselves in places where they would typically be shunned, and that religious affiliations could push some Nuristan residents to help IS fighters.

In Wama district, most residents are moderate Salafi followers, sharing an ideology similar to Wahhabism, the school of Sunni Islam from which Islamic State draws its religious ideology.

Taliban insurgents mainly follow the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam.

So far, locals have been quick to reassure visiting officials that such links will not influence them.

"Here, there is no place for Taliban or Daesh fighters. We don't want destruction and misery for our people," said Sheikh Gul Mohammad, an influential tribal figure.

Reporting by Hamid Shalizi for Reuters
With a single tweet, Donald Trump caused turbulence on social media and in Boeings stock price Tuesday by suggesting that the companys costs to build a new 747 plane to take the place of the existing Air Force One were out of control and that such an order should be cancelled.

Trump elaborated with reporters at Trump Tower where he said the Air Force One program was going to cost $4 billion: We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money, Trump said.

Boeings stock took a small dip immediately after Trump tweeted Cancel order! on Tuesday, but the company seemed to have recovered by early afternoon after issuing a statement that put a different dollar figure on the contract in question.

"We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States, Boeing said in a statement published on its site. We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer."

Air Force One, which is actually a fleet of airplanes the president takes for travel, is made up of several planes including a Boeing 747-200B jumbo jet, commissioned in 1990, that is set to be phased out and replaced for a much newer and more advanced plane, according to the New York Times. The Air Force has budgeted $102 million in the next fiscal year and $3 billion in the next five years for the replacement, the Times reported.

Trumps tweet caused mixed reactions on the social media site. Some pepole applauded the idea that Trump will rein in government spending while others criticized the potential damage it could cause on American businesses and jobs.

But the Trump-Boeing tweet story is more nuanced than some people may have grasped. Earlier in the day, Boeings CEO Dennis Muilenburg was quoted by the Chicago Tribune saying that he had concerns about Trumps impact on international trade with some of the companys biggest buyers, such as China.

At least a third of the 737s built in its Washington state facility last year were sold to China, Muilenburg said at an industry conference, according to the Tribune. But he also emphasized that about 90 percent of its workforce and 80 percent of its suppliers are based in the U.S.

Was that what prompted Trump to tweet about Boeing? Or was it a separate report by The Washington Post?

The Post is reporting that the Obama administrations and defense contractors are working on a deal to build F-16 military jets in India, which would make India the sole producer of the aircraft that the U.S. military is phasing out for its own use, but which other countries are interested in.

Both Lockheed Martin and Boeing have apparently made proposals to make the jets in that country, and if given the green light, some of those Lockheed Martin jobs would move from Texas to India.

The two companies have said it would not result in a net loss of American jobs.

Just exactly what kind of free trade policies Trump will put in place once he is sworn into office in January remains to be seen, but if his tweets offer any indication it is that they should not be taken lightly. If Trumps tweet can affect a companys stock price, what other impact can his words have on the U.S. or the world?

Please share your thoughts with us.

Three must-see storied that you can't miss!

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez
San Diego wineries, including Ramona Valley wineries, are the subject of a 10-page spread in a recent issue of San Diego Magazine suggesting that the countys beer industry should move over, because theres a new craft in town  wine.

Victor Edwards of Edwards Vineyard & Cellars at 26502 state Route 78 was honored as one of the top five Winemakers to Watch, representing the valleys wine industry.

The October issue of the magazine writes that Edwards produces notable Syrah and Petite Sirah from his three-acre vineyard set at 2,500 ft. in Ramona.

The article quotes Dave Clark, wine manager for the Wine Connection in Del Mar: I consider Victor Edwards to be the best in San Diego County, both as a grower and a winemaker. His Syrah/Petite Sirah Rose is also something to look forward to next spring  its deeply colored and full-bodied, yet delicious with a chill on it. I have Edwards in my personal cellar.

Edwards Vineyard & Cellars was quite honored by the recognition and hopes it helps draw more people up the hill to try our Ramona-grown wines, said Edwards.
At age 77, Edward Wager was long retired but still liked to generate a little extra income by rummaging for cans and bottles.

It was during that pursuit in a Pacific Beach alley that Wager became the target of a carjacker who ran him over with his own pickup and left him dead.

That was in 2001. Fifteen years later, San Diego police homicide investigators and Wagers daughter are still hoping for the tip that will lead to the killers arrest.

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They came together Tuesday in front of San Diego police headquarters to ask for help from anyone with information about the case.

My father didnt just die. He was brutally murdered, said Wagers daughter, Angel Castro, 56, of Clairemont. That persons still out there.

Were hoping somebody will come forward. Fifteen years ago, maybe they were young and didnt want to say anything. Now, theyre older.

She said Wager had worked hard since his mothers death during his childhood in Connecticut. As an adult in San Diego, he worked in maintenance for Evans Hotels for several decades before retiring.

He and his wife raised their three children in Clairemont. He served in the Army during the Korean War.

After retiring, he stuck to his early morning schedule of collecting recyclables from bar trash bins and alleys along his route, which included the Silver Fox bar in Pacific Beach, Castro said. He would return by 5 a.m., and she would swing by his house with coffee, then phone her brother to say their father was OK.

On Nov. 8, 2001, he wasnt home at 5 a.m. Castro called her brother and her husband, then heard news on her car radio about a fatal hit-and-run in Pacific Beach. Her husband called police, who confirmed the familys worst fears.

Homicide Lt. Mike Holden said Wagers body had been found about 2 a.m. in an alley off Grand Avenue. Police first thought he was a pedestrian hit-and-run victim, with injuries showing he had been dragged.

Police found Wagers pickup in Encanto three days later. Investigators believe he was carjacked and run over by the thief in Wagers truck.

Family members were devastated over Wagers death. Castro, who works for the San Diego city Parks and Recreation Department, said it was 10 years before she could force herself to drive through Pacific Beach.

If there was an arrest, she said, I could sleep better at night. I would know there is justice out there.

Holden said any piece of information about what happened in that alley might be what we need to solve this case.

Tipsters can call investigators at (619) 531-2293 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at (888) 580-8477 or www.sdcrimestoppers.org.

Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to an arrest in the case.
In response to the presidential election results, the San Diego school board passed a formal resolution Tuesday that reaffirms Californias second-largest districts commitment to the values of peace, tolerance and respect for multiple perspectives.

Board Vice President Richard Barrera and trustee John Lee Evans put the resolution on the agenda in response to Donald Trumps victory, and to promote the San Diego Unified School Districts upcoming Celebration of Light.

Similar resolutions have been passed up and down the state, including one by the Los Angeles school board last month, and a proposed resolution set to go before the Chula Vista Elementary School District board next week .

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San Diegos resolution addresses uncertainties and fears raised by Trump, and suggestions by the president-elect that protections for unauthorized immigrants put in place under President Barack Obama could be scrapped.

During the campaign, Trump promised to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. More recently, he suggested he would first focus on those immigrants who have committed crimes.

Under its resolution, the San Diego school board calls on Trump to reverse his position opposing Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which issued work permits and deportation reprieves to immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

The fears felt by some district students following the recent presidential election  fears that their friends, family, or loved ones are at risk of being harmed  pose significant barriers to their well-being and ability to learn, the document states.

Passed unanimously, the resolution directs the superintendent and district staff to take whatever steps necessary to maintain the safety and openness of the school community, and to document these steps in an action plan to be presented within 90 days.

In addition, the board calls on its general counsel to issue a legal memo to students and employees affirming the protections afforded immigrant students and their families under the 1982 Supreme Court decision in the matter of Plyler v. Doe, affirming the rights of undocumented students to access the same education as all students, and the 2011 memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security classifying schools as sensitive locations where enforcement actions are prohibited.

The resolution urges immigrant families who are eligible for citizenship, but have not yet applied, to do so before the pending cost increase on Dec. 23.

The resolution also serves as an invitation to the county to attend the Celebration of Light, an event to promote tolerance and civility, at 4 p.m. on Dec.14 at the Ballard Parent Center, 2375 Congress St.

maureen.magee@sduniontribune.com

Twitter:@MaureenMagee
JEFF FRANK

Staff Writer

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ESCONDIDO -- Whether by the government or the people, Escondidoresident Dan Owens good works dont go unrecognized in Russia.

Consider this tale from his last trip to the country in 1998.Owen had spent several weeks meeting with Russian officialsdiscussing possible large-scale efforts to send needed medicalsupplies from the United States. His visit attracted mediaattention, putting him on Russian television many times, hesaid.

As he prepared to leave the country, he was stopped by animmigration officer who said, Say, youre Mr. Owen. I saw you onTV. The officer pulled off his watch and handed it to Owen,saying, This is for all the Russian people that you helped.

If everyone in Russia reacts the same way when Owen returnsthere in May or June, hes going to have a lot of watches. With thecreation of the International Foundation to Support HumanitarianPrograms Inc. earlier this year, Owen plans to greatly expand hisalready considerable efforts to improve the lives of the Russianpeople.

Those efforts attracted more than the media spotlight. InFebruary the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the countrysequivalent of Parliament, awarded Owen the Jubilee Memory Medal,recognizing not only his humanitarian work, but also his service inWorld War II.

Owen flew 149 combat missions as a fighter pilot in theMediterranean theater, getting shot down three times. He received aSilver Star, two Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Crossand 24 air medals.

Officials from the Russian Foundation to Support HumanitarianPrograms formally presented Owen with the Jubilee medal at ameeting of the Escondido Kiwanis Club, of which Owen is amember.

They presented this medal as a symbol that they remember andrespect what he did in World War II, said Vladimir Petrosyan,president of the Russian humanitarian foundation, through atranslator. Dan Owen is very well known today in Russia becauseevery month he sends containers with medical supplies and clothesfor people in need.

Owen saw that need on his first trip to Russia in 1996. Visitinga hospital, he discovered terrible shortages of supplies, and evenfood for patients.

When I saw the hospital conditions, I couldnt believe it.Patients families have to bring in food or theyll starve todeath, said Owen. They didnt even have Band-Aids.

Since then, Owen has directed the delivery of more than $5million in medical supplies to Russia, according to Petrosyan. Thetwo men are working to coordinate efforts between their separatefoundations to accomplish even bigger things.

The foundation in the U.S. and the Russian foundation will be abridge of friendship and understanding between the two countries,"said Petrosyan.

Plans are to build hospitals, as well as housing projects forrefugees and other poor people who cant afford houses andcondos.

Its a huge mission, said Petrosyan.

Huge missions are nothing new for Owen, whose resume reads likesomething out of Forrest Gump.

Following his wartime service, he worked as a commercial airlinepilot, traveled the world as a photographer for media ranging fromthe Indianapolis Star to Associated Press and National Geographic,was an associate college professor and college vice president. Hesubsequently worked in politics, then in real estate, developinghotels and shopping centers.

He even spent 13 years in Guatemala City, where he operated ajade mine and opened a pair of restaurants called Dannys Pancakes,which he still owns.

Along the way he had dealings with luminaries such as JohnGlenn, Walt Disney and presidents John F. Kennedy and RichardNixon, he said.

Even at 78, Owens not slowing down. Before he goes back toRussia, hes traveling to Palau, hoping to develop a hotel andcasino on the Pacific island. He regularly speaks to local schoolsabout his wartime service and other adventures, showing offartifacts such as a shrunken head from the Amazon.

Hes bungee-jumped several times over the past few years and hadsigned up for a sky-diving class that he had to postpone afterbreaking his leg a few weeks back, slipping in a restaurant.

The injury wont interfere with his humanitarian efforts.

Im going over to open a housing project. Were getting readyto start sending clothing and food, said Owen. We want theRussian people to know there are people who care.

It appears many already do.

Contact Jeff Frank at (760) 740-5419 or jfrank@nctimes.com.

4/29/01
Pakistan's prime minister has given approval "in principle" to renaming a physics research center in Islamabad after pioneering physicist Abdus Salam, the first Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in a scientific discipline.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs office said on December 5 that he had asked the Education Ministry to submit formal paperwork to redesignate the National Center for Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University for President Mamnoon Hussains approval.



It would be called the Professor Abdus Salam Center for Physics.



The prime minister cited the "great contributions" of the winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics as "a major figure in...20th century theoretical physics."



Salam was also a senior science adviser to the Pakistani government from 1960 to 1974, and played a pivotal role in the development of nuclear energy and the atomic-bomb project in Pakistan.



But he left his homeland in 1974 to protest the Pakistani parliament's declaration that he and fellow members of the Ahmadiyya religious minority were non-Muslims.



Salam never returned to live in Paksitan but continued to engage with and advise academics from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.

He died in 1996.
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We knew Japan would declare war on us. We didnt know when or how, but we knew why.

Ever since 1931, the U.S. had been pressuring Japan to withdraw the army it had sent to conquer Manchuria and, eventually, all of China. America had tried exerting diplomatic pressure, but to no avail. The Japanese Imperial Governments primary goal was to become the conquering ruler of Asia.

When diplomacy didnt work, President Roosevelt reduced, then ended American export of machinery to Japan. When that didnt work, he stopped all sales of American oil. Even though its operations in China were running out of gas, Japan persisted. Finally the government froze Japanese assets in the U.S. Roosevelt knew how the Japanese would respond when he signed the order locking Japans wealth in American banks. This means war, he told his chief adviser.

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Washington expected a declaration of war from Tokyo, to be quickly followed by an attack on a distant base. In late November, 1941, the Defense Department ordered every military base in the Pacific to remain at high alert because hostile action with Japan was possible at any moment.

No one anticipated that, within a week, Japan would launch a massive, long-planned attack on our fleet before it even declared war.

However, readers of the Post knew that Japan was desperate and audacious enough to try something like it. Since 1939, theyd read articles by the Asian correspondent Hallett Abend, who chronicled the rising militancy in Japan. In the Post of March 4, 1939, he wrote, So Sorry for You,which discussed Japans vast security and espionage networks and the growing recklessness of its military. In August, he told readers how much Japan was willing to gamble on conquering China:

Japans foreign gold reserve, which in 1925 totaled about 2,000,000,000 yen, is now entirely exhaustedthe yen is so shaky that Americans, British, French, and Dutch banks in Shanghai will not accept Japanese currency. If Japan can succeed in carrying out her plans for grab in China, she may become one of the richest nations in the world within a decade. But there will be only very small profits, or no profits at all, so long as the Chinese continue their military resistance.

In April of 1941, he exploded the comforting myth that the Japanese would never have an effective air force because they simply couldnt fly.

Japanese mothers all carry their babies on their backs, you know. Heads wobble around so much in infancy that adult Japanese have no sense of balance. Very interestingbut nonsense, of course. The story is typical of the dozens of old wives tales going the rounds about the congenital unfitness of the Japanese as aviators. It is believed that the Air Military Academy trained more than 700 new pilots during 1940, with the probability of a much larger class this year. The present strength of the armys air force[and] the navysgives Japan around 6000 pilots. In September of last year, [Japan] had upward of 4000 efficient war planes. Since then she has been turning out about 250 planes a month, so that by the end of February of this year, allowing deductions for losses in China, Nippons war air fleet topped 5,000 planes. (Yes, The Japanese Can Fly, April 19, 1941)

In contrast, Abend admitted, there were no more than 7,000 military aircraftand 40% of these were sluggish trainer planes.

Japan had planned on building several thousand more planes in 1941. However

the shortage of alloy steels and the growing difficulty of importing machine tools has prevented this peak from being reached. The United States will sell Japan none.

As far back as 1939, Abend had given a surprisingly accurate picture of Japans attitude toward the U.S.

Japan is exasperated She finds herself baffled and checked by the two things she fears mostthe might of the American Navy in the Pacific, and the possibility of losing her vital trade with the United States. She must retain that trade at all costs. And she must not risk a collision with the American Navy. Yet, if she goes ahead and grabs everything she wants in the Far East, she will almost certainly risk trouble with our Navy.Japan has jockeyed herself into a position where it is almost necessary to have all or nothing. If she decides that the United States is the barrier to the coveted all, Japan is quite capable of provoking a war with us, just as an individual Japanese commits hara-kiri rather than confess to failure. America has studiously remained scrupulously neutral during more than two years of the China Japanese hostilities, even though American sympathies have been overwhelmingly on the side of the Chinese. This neutrality has been carried to the extent of continuing a trade in war materials and supplies with Japan. There is only one thing that would drive America to a reluctant abandonment of the neutral attitude. This would be deliberate and intolerable provocation on the part of Japan herself. (Japan Picks On Uncle Sam, November 25, 1939)

That deliberate and intolerable provocation arrived two years later, and left 2,402 Americans dead.

The next time an enemy struck at America, the fatalitiesall civiliansreached 2,996. This new enemy, though, hid his intentions even better than did Imperial Japan.
Bakersfield, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/06/2016 -- Stephen Hopkins was from Hampshire, England. He married his first wife, Mary, and resided in the parish of Hursley, Hampshire. They had three (3) children: Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles; all baptized there. It has long been claimed that the Hopkins family was from Wortley, Gloucester, but this was disproven in 1998 with the discovery of his true origins in Hursley.



http://mayflowerhistory.com/hopkins-stephen/



Stephen Hopkins went with the ship Sea Venture on a voyage to Jamestown, Virginia in 1609 as a minister's clerk, but the ship wrecked in the "Isle of Devils" (Bermuda). Stranded on an island for ten months, the passengers and crew survived on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. Six months into the castaway, Stephen Hopkins and several others organized a mutiny against the current governor. The mutiny was discovered and Stephen was sentenced to death. However, he pleaded with sorrow and tears. "So penitent he was, and made so much moan, alleging the ruin of his wife and children in this his trespass, as it wrought in the hearts of all the better sorts of the company." He managed to get his sentence commuted. Eventually the castaways built a small ship and sailed themselves to Jamestown. How long Stephen remained in Jamestown is not known. However, while he was gone, his wife Mary died. She was buried in Hursley on 9 May 1613, and left behind a probate estate which mentions her children Elizabeth, Constance and Giles.



Stephen was back in England by 1617, when he married Elizabeth Fisher, but apparently had every intention of bringing his family back to Virginia. Their first child, Damaris, was born about 1618. In 1620, Stephen Hopkins brought his wife and children Constance, Giles, and Damaris on the Mayflower (child Elizabeth apparently had died). Stephen was a fairly active member of the Pilgrim group shortly after arrival, perhaps a result of his being one of the few individuals who had been to Virginia previously. He was a part of all the early exploring missions, and was used as an "expert" on Native Americans for the first few contacts. While out exploring, Stephen recognized and identified an Indian deer trap. And when Samoset walked into Plymouth and welcomed the English, he was housed in Stephen Hopkins' house for the night. Stephen was also sent on several of the ambassadorial missions to meet with the various Indian groups in the region.



Stephen was an assistant to the governor through 1636, and volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637 but was never called to serve. By the late 1630s, however, Stephen began to occasionally run afoul of the Plymouth authorities, as he apparently opened up a shop and served alcohol. In 1636 he got into a fight with John Tisdale and seriously wounded him. In 1637, he was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. Early the next year he was fined for allowing people to drink excessively in his house: guest William Reynolds was fined, but the others were acquitted. In 1638 he was twice fined for selling beer at twice the actual value, and in 1639 he was fined for selling a looking glass for twice what it would cost if bought in the Bay Colony. Also in 1638, Stephen Hopkins' maidservant got pregnant from Arthur Peach, who was subsequently executed for murdering an Indian. The Plymouth Court ruled he was financially responsible for her and her child for the next two years (the amount remaining on her term of service). Stephen, in contempt of court, threw Dorothy out of his household and refused to provide for her, so the court committed him to custody. John Holmes stepped in and purchased Dorothy's remaining two years of service from him: agreeing to support her and child.



Stephen died in 1644, and made out a will, asking to be buried near his wife, and naming his surviving children.



BAPTISM: 30 April 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England, son of John and Elizabeth (Williams) Hopkins.

FIRST MARRIAGE: Mary, possibly the daughter of Robert and Joan (Machell) Kent of Hursley, co. Hampshire, prior to 1604.

SECOND MARRIAGE: Elizabeth Fisher on 19 February 1617/8 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, co. Middlesex, England.

CHILDREN (by Mary): Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles.

CHILDREN (by Elizabeth): Damaris, Oceanus, Caleb, Deborah, Damaris, Ruth, and Elizabeth.

DNA HAPLOGROUP: R1b-M269



Bakersfield, California General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Introduces New Geneology Asset Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



The Mayflower was hired in London, and sailed from London to Southampton in July 1620 to begin loading food and supplies for the voyage--much of which was purchased at Southampton. The Pilgrims were mostly still living in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands. They hired a ship called the Speedwell to take them from Delfshaven, the Netherlands, to Southampton, England, to meet up with the Mayflower. The two ships planned to sail together to Northern Virginia. The Speedwell departed Delfthaven on July 22, and arrived at Southampton, where they found the Mayflower waiting for them. The Speedwell had been leaking on her voyage from the Netherlands to England, though, so they spent the next week patching her up.



On August 5, the two ships finally set sail for America. But the Speedwell began leaking again, so they pulled into the town of Dartmouth for repairs, arriving there about August 12. The Speedwell was patched up again, and the two ships again set sail for America about August 21. After the two ships had sailed about 300 miles out to sea, the Speedwell again began to leak. Frustrated with the enormous amount of time lost, and their inability to fix the Speedwell so that it could be sea-worthy, they returned to Plymouth, England, and made the decision to leave the Speedwell behind. The Mayflower would go to America alone. The cargo on the Speedwell was transferred over to the Mayflower; some of the passengers were so tired and disappointed with all the problems that they quit and went home. Others crammed themselves onto the already very crowded Mayflower.



Finally, on September 6, the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, and headed for America. By the time the Pilgrims had left England, they had already been living onboard the ships for nearly a month and a half. The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, the only major problem was sea-sickness. But by October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous. Several times, the wind was so strong they had to just drift where the weather took them; it was not safe to use the ship's sails. The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York. The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands. All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees.



As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked. The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. On December 25, 1620, they had finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings.



The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap.



The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away.



About MayflowerHistory.com

MayflowerHistory.com, the Internet's most complete and accurate website dealing with the Mayflower passengers and the history of the Pilgrims and early Plymouth Colony. The website was first created back in 1994 (when the web was still mostly text!) as a simple, but complete, passenger list of the Mayflower. It has grown over the past twenty years as the author, historian Caleb Johnson, has researched and compiled material.



http://mayflowerhistory.com
Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/05/2016 -- Wind energy is the power extracted from wind using wind turbines. A wind turbine is a device that transforms the kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy. Wind energy is a renewable form of energy that is available in ample quantity and extensively. It is an alternative to fossil fuels which are depleting in quantity. Wind energy is the cleanest resource; it has neither toxic gas emissions nor greenhouse gas emissions. Wind turbines are connected to the network of electricity transmission. The onshore and offshore wind that is trapped is an inexpensive, competitive and significant source of energy. Wind energy contributed to 4% of the total global electricity usage in 2013.



The application of wind turbines is primarily in wind mills that are used to generate electricity. These wind turbines in wind mills can be used to avail off-grid electricity in the remote regions. It has been known to empower rural electrification initiatives. Three fourths of the small wind turbines are present in the remote regions of the world and are the only sources of energy. For instance, wind power systems are fuelling the telecommunication towers in the secluded places between Argentina and Chile. Another application of wind turbines is associated with the hybrids of wind and solar power generation devices. Wind and solar sources complement each other in changing climatic conditions. Wind turbines have vital applications in off-grid, low-power systems in which the storage of batteries is avoided. Wind turbines also have application in cathodic protection pipes in which its electric charge neutralizes the galvanic corrosion of pipes laid in reactive soils. Wind turbines are used to charge electric fences, yacht and boat batteries efficiently. Wind turbines have been used to pump water for decades, and they remain a significant application in both developed and developing economies. The end use industries of wind turbines can be broadly classified into industrial, commercial and residential. The industrial use can be further divided into power generation, agriculture, industrial automation, engineering and telecommunication. Despite being commercially niche market at present, wind turbines are expected to expand due to increasing government subsidies and incentive programmes on the use of wind energy.



Request Free Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-la-141



The global wind industry produced about 37,000 MW in 2013. Latin America, in particular, has provided the industry with an essential substitute growth market for wind power. In 2013, Latin America alone representedapproximately 45% of the installed capacity of North and South America combined. It was largely driven by the wind markets of Brazil and Mexico which can be regarded as the dual pillars of the Latin American market. The average price of wind energy contracts in Brazil is US$ 50/MWh and gives wind energy an edge over conventional fossil fuels there. This is a major driver for the wind turbine market in Brazil. The wind power in Mexico provides power to over 65,000 households and exports it to US. Food and beverage company, Nestle, had invested US$ 60.7 million in wind energy in Mexico, and employed wind energy for its 85% electricity requirement. The cumulative wind capacity in Mexico reached 1988 MW by the end of 2013 indicating a 31.4% growth rate. The installed capacity in 2013 was 76 MW in Argentina, 200 MW in Chile, 30 MW in Peru, 11 MW in Uruguay, and149 MW in Venezuela.



Strong wind resources, and rising electricity prices and energy demand are driving the demand for renewable energy higher. The Latin American industrial policies are effective as they have tailored depreciation tax policies which enable industries to actively partner with wind energy generators for their energy usage. Also, wind plants do not need to be in the vicinity of the end user and just need a connection to the Latin American power grids. Feed-in electricity tariffs have been introduced to motivate the use of renewable energy such as wind energy, solar energy, hydropower, thermal energy and biomass energy. This encourages investment in renewable energy as the government makes provisions for higher retail rates for electricity for the producers of new energy technologies.



Consistently declining monopoly in the Latin American electricity sector had paved way for wind turbine manufacturers. The current wind turbine market is competitive. Gamesa is the leading turbine supplier in Mexico and holds 73.5% of the market. It is followed by Vestas with 22% of the market contribution. GE is also a major turbine manufacturer with 4.5% market share in Mexico. Besides, the collapse of the Spain-based OEMs (Other Equipment Manufacturers) wind market has compelled companies to expand their business in Latin America.



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By 2015, Latin America is expected to have 3 GW of installed wind capacity annually, surging up to 4.3 GW by 2022. The manufacturers have to meet certain mandates on wind turbine components and their materials. It is a challenge for most OEMs to deliver high quality wind turbines while still ensuring an economical Latin American wind market.
Astronauts on long-duration flights experience visual impairments due to volume changes in cerebrospinal fluid, the clear fluid that helps cushion the brain and spinal cord while circulating nutrients and removing waste materials, according to a study led by Noam Alperin, professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Over the last decade, NASA scientists began seeing a pattern of visual impairment in astronauts who flew long-duration space missions.

The astronauts had blurry vision, and further testing revealed structural changes of their eyes (papilledema, globe flattening, choroidal folds) and optic nerves (sheath dilation, tortuosity and kinking), as well as signs of elevated intracranial pressure.

The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP) syndrome, was reported in nearly two thirds of long-duration mission International Space Station (ISS) astronauts.

Researchers previously believed that the primary source of the problem was a shift of vascular fluid toward the upper body that takes place when astronauts spend time in the microgravity of space.

But Prof. Alperin and co-authors recently investigated another possible source for the problem: cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

The CSF system is designed to accommodate significant changes in hydrostatic pressures, such as when a person rises from a lying to sitting or standing position. However, the microgravity of space presents new challenges.

On Earth, the CSF system is built to accommodate these pressure changes, but in space the system is confused by the lack of the posture-related pressure changes, Prof. Alperin explained.

To learn more about the role of CSF in spaceflight-induced visual impairment and eye changes, the team performed high-resolution orbit and brain MRI scans before and shortly after spaceflights for seven long-duration mission ISS astronauts.

The scientists compared results with those from nine short-duration mission space shuttle astronauts.

Using advanced quantitative imaging algorithms, they looked for any correlation between changes in CSF volumes and the structures of the visual system.

The results showed that, compared to short-duration astronauts, long-duration astronauts had significantly increased post-flight flattening of their eyeballs and increased optic nerve protrusion.

Long-duration astronauts also had significantly greater post-flight increases in orbital CSF volume, or the CSF around the optic nerves within the bony cavity of the skull that holds the eye, and ventricular CSF volume  volume in the cavities of the brain where CSF is produced.

Compared to short-duration astronauts, long-duration astronauts had significantly greater post-flight increases in globe flattening indices (p<0.00001) and optic nerve protrusion indices (p<0.00001), the authors said.

Long-duration astronauts also had significantly greater post flight increases in orbital CSF volume (p=0.005) and ventricular CSF volume (p=0.048).

There were no significant post flight changes of grey matter volume or white matter volume in either group.

The large post spaceflight ocular changes observed in ISS crewmembers were associated with greater increases in intra-orbital and intracranial CSF volume but not with interstitial brain tissue fluid volume.

This research provides, for the first time, quantitative evidence obtained from short- and long-duration astronauts pointing to the primary and direct role of the CSF in the globe deformations seen in astronauts with visual impairment syndrome.

Identifying the origin of the space-induced ocular changes is necessary for the development of countermeasures to protect the crew from the ill effects of long-duration exposure to microgravity, Prof. Alperin said.

If the ocular structural deformations are not identified early, astronauts could suffer irreversible damage. As the eye globe becomes more flattened, the astronauts become hyperopic, or far-sighted.

The findings were presented Nov. 28, 2016 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, IL.

_____

N. Alperin et al. Role of Cerebrospinal Fluid in Spaceflight-Induced Visual Impairment and Ocular Changes. Radiological Society of North America 2016 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, abstract # SSC11-04
World-renowned British physicist and cosmologist Prof. Stephen Hawking has been allowed to go home from the hospital. According to the Rome-based hospital, he was released after being admitted for two days for his health check.

According to an article published in Business Insider, Stephen Hawking, who was in Rome to attend a conference at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and met Pope Francis last Monday, was taken to Rome's Gemelli hospital on Thursday night.

Just recently, Stephen Hawking said that the human race is living through the most dangerous time in history. According to the Cambridge University physics professor, overpopulation, climate change and diseases are just some of the threats facing our planet.

He also said that people have developed technology that could destroy Earth, and people must 'retrain' for a new world where robots have replaced many everyday jobs.

The Guardian wrote why Stephen Hawking worries about the future of the planet Earth. "For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together," he said. "We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans."

Stephen Hawking further said that "Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. 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," he said. The world's famous physicist previously warned the world that robots could wipe out humanity and that leaving Earth is our only hope and that our days on Earth are numbered, reported Mail Online.

Meanwhile, Stephen Hawking suddenly felt ill while in Rome, which resulted in his hospital admission. The hospital, which is considered to be one of the best hospitals in Italy and where the popes are treated, said that Hawking was in a good condition and was on his way back to Great Britain.

It is important to note that Stephen Hawking, 74, suffers from motor neuron disease, speaks through a computer and travels with a staff that includes two nurses.
Roughly 600 patients were exposed to HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C after undergoing dental care.

The patients are now apprehensive after knowing that they being exposed to HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C after receiving dental care at the Wisconsin Veterans Affairs Medical Center. They are now anxious to find out if they are really infected.

Officials said earlier this week that a dentist at the Tomah VA Medical Center inappropriately re-used his personal dental tools instead of the required VA rules -- under the rules that stated that the dentist should be using disposable and sterilized equipment.

Acting medical director from the Tomah VA Center Victoria Brahm said that "It was purposeful that he was violating VA regulations. During all of the orientation, he used our equipment. He used it appropriately, so it was very purposeful from what we found in our investigation that he knew exactly what he was doing, and preferred to use his own equipment against the procedure."

In a report by the WEAU 13 News, the breach in protocol was revealed by the fill-in assistant. However, the dentist is not yet identified but expected to appear in front of a review board as he faces administrative proceedings. This is according to the spokesman for the Tomah VA, Matthew Gowan.

The facility hired the dentist in October 2015 and saw 592 patients. The patients are now notified this week that they may be exposed to HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.

Meanwhile, the VA is now offering free testing and a follow-up care. However, the results of their blood test will take more or less two to three weeks, according to Fox 13.

Gowan added that "The most important part is the actual risk of infection is low here -- it is out of an abundance of caution that we are doing this."

A Wisconsin congressman, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, now questioned why the dentist is not fired. He said that "This news is not just heartbreaking; it's outrageous. How can our veterans be treated so carelessly and where is the accountability? The individual in question has not even been fired a truly stunning show of bureaucratic impunity. 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," according to CNN.
The National Audit reveals that lots of patients with major strokes are put to risk because the NHS fails to give critical surgery. A research by the Royal College of Surgeons shows that out of 10 patients who suffer a "mini-stroke," four of them are not given the right treatment within two weeks.

According to The Telegraph, many of these "mini-stroke" patients wait for almost two months to be given a surgery that is supposed to be an urgent one in the first place. The other day, charities announced the variations across countries with the alarming rise of 10,000 needless strokes annually.

Almost 50,000 patients in the United Kingdom suffered transient ischaemic attack (TIA). The episode that is also known as "mini-strokes" can make a person have a temporary facial weakness, pins and needles and also speech problems.

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence says the operation known as Carotid Endarterectomy must be done to patients within two weeks after suffering the said symptoms. An audit in England and Wales though revealed that out of 4,250 patients who suffered mini-strokes, there are 43 percent who were forced to wait longer.

Four in ten patients suffering 'mini-strokes' do not get treatment in time https://t.co/9AhmaLOOkP  Telegraph Science (@TelegraphSci) December 4, 2016

Royal College today then called an urgent action by hospitals on the issue of delaying the agony felt by the patients that could cause devastating consequences to the patients. Many of these could have been easily avoided if they were taken with actions immediately.

Professor Ian Loftus, a consultant vascular surgeon, said that it is important for people to know the symptoms of stroke that includes blurred vision, slurred speech, a weak feeling on arms, legs or fave. Professor Loftus is the lead clinician for the National Vascular Registry (NVR), he encourages hospitals to change their ways if they are still practicing the act of prolonging the agony of the patients.
DUBUQUE (AP)  The mother of a Dubuque toddler who shot himself in the face has been given five years of probation.

Station KCRG reports that Raven Harris was sentenced Friday. Online court records say she also was given a suspended prison sentence of 10 years and a suspended fine of $1,000. She'd pleaded guilty to two state charges of child endangerment.

Police say the little boy, Jeremiah Horsley, was playing with the .45-caliber handgun Jan. 3 when it went off. The bullet went through his right cheek and through his left jaw before entering his left shoulder and exiting the back of his arm.

The child's father, Willie Horsley Sr., has been sentenced to one year of probation. He, too, pleaded guilty to child endangerment.
Buzz Aldrin, the second man to land on the Moon, was forced evacuated from the South Pole on Dec. 2, 2016, after his medical condition deteriorated. Find out how the 86-year-old astronaut is doing now.

In a statement released last Sunday, Buzz Aldrin shared details of his trip and unexpected medical ordeal at the South Pole. He shares that his forced medical evacuation was due to altitude sickness. But he is doing fine now.

As @TheRealBuzz is recovering I did want to let people know that he did make it to the South Pole which was his objective. Thnx for prayers! pic.twitter.com/jDWcq7PvU0  Christina Korp (@Buzzs_xtina) December 2, 2016

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin shares that although his trip to the South Pole was cut short, he was thankful that he was still able to experience what it would feel like to live on Mars (Antarctic conditions are said to be similar to those of Mars). He regrets though that he was not able to join the scientists in discussing their research about Mars.

According to Stuff.co.nz, Christina Korp, Buzz Aldrin's manager, shares in an update that Aldrin's lungs are still congested. Buzz Aldrin has to stay in the hospital at Christchurch, New Zealand, until his lungs clear up rather than go back home to the United States.

When the news spread that Buzz Aldrin was forced evacuated from the South Pole, many people were worried about his condition. In an interview with CNN, Scott Parazynski, Buzz Aldrin's friend and colleague and frequent visitor to the South Pole, speculated that the 86-year-old astronaut must have been suffering symptoms of altitude sickness, thus prompting his forced medical evacuation.

The South Pole has a 9,300-foot elevation and many visitors at the Amundsen-Scott station suffer from altitude sickness. High-altitude-related sickness like Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) and High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) are reported to be common to the new arrivals at the South Pole research station.

The most common symptoms of high-altitude sickness are headaches, fatigue, insomnia and shortness of breath. If the condition of high-altitude sickness worsens, patients may suffer from respiratory failure, cerebral edema, coma and, worst of all, death.

Fortunately, Buzz Aldrin was given immediate medical care and forced evacuated from the South Pole where horrible weather and long winters can prevent planes from going in and out the research station. After suffering from symptoms of altitude sickness, Buzz Aldrin is looking forward to spending Christmas with his family back home in Florida and adds that this would not be the last time people will see him.
Sacha Dench, Britain's own human swan, returns to the U.K. in style after her epic crossing of the Channel via a paramotor.

On her paramotor, Sacha Dench embarked on what is probably the longest female paramotorist journey ever, flying about 7,000 km in three months, as she follows the route of migratory swans. Kent Online noted that she is set to fly over the White Cliffs of Dover before she lands at the Channel Gliding Club in Whitfield at 11 a.m. on the Dec. 5. She is then going to continue her flight across several towns from Kent to London. So anyone who has their eyes peeled could spot her over in Canterbury, Swale, the Medway Towns and Gravesend.

According to The Guardian, 41-year-old Sacha Dench travels at only 35 mph and even flies in a v-formation with geese over Russia. However, her travels are not limited there. She also debated with hunters in Poland, and at a point even dislocated her knee, forcing her support teams to fit wheels to her craft.

Among her favorite memories throughout her journey, Sacha Dench said that she appreciated crossing Russia's Taiga forest, which is free of human habitation. She also saw the vastness of the tundra, which she said is among the most beautiful she has ever seen in a landscape. "They look like they could be from Mars," she shared.

Despite these seemingly great moments, there are also low points: among which included the disappearance of a tagged swan she was following -- realizing that it had already perished in the foul weather in Estonia. She explained that she has gotten quite attached to them as individuals.

After her long travel on her paramotor, Sacha Dench will continue her journey up the Thames to Downing street to present a WWT petition that calls on government action to restore wetlands and protect the swans by ensuring safe position of wind turbines, power cables and fighting illegal hunting.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Motivate, inspire, educate.

Those three words are the core message of Girls University, which bills itself as a leadership and enrichment academy for girls in grades 2 through 12 with after-school and summer programs as well as weekend workshops.

Located on Celebration Boulevard, the business opened its doors in August and hosted a Monday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony after recently joining the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce. Co-owner Chris Williams said the idea is to provide a safe haven where girls have a voice and the opportunity to reinforce what theyve learned in school.

We want it to be conducive beyond school, said Williams, a Lamar native.

Co-owner Ashli Smart is a big proponent of STEM (science, technology and engineering) as well as STEAM, which incorporates arts into the mix. She grew up in New Jersey and Ohio and earned a marketing degree from University of Maryland and a masters of science and information systems from Drexel University. As a full-time applications analyst at Sonoco, she said theres only a handful of women in her department, which has about 150 total analysts. She met Williams through her work with the Girl Scouts when Williams Columbia-based Tiny Techz company introduced STEM at a Girl Scouts event.

Williams earned a degree in computer information systems from USC and worked in corporate America for a decade before venturing into entrepreneurship, he said. In addition to his tech company, he also owns a ReMax franchise but finds himself inspired with leadership programs and found a kindred spirit in Smart. She said the after-school aspect is the focal point of Girls University, but she already is expecting a lot of interest for summer camps as sign-up registration for those begin in January. She also said "Girls Talk" workshops are slated for the second and fourth Sunday of each month and will showcase a speaker who will touch on topics ranging from career to relationship advice for girls 12 to 18 years old.

Victoria Commissiong, the assistant director of Girls University, said she wishes something similar to Girls University was around when she was in school, as she sees solid bonds forming among the 17 current students.

We want to make sure when they leave, Williams said, theyre better off than when they came here.

Smart said shes also excited about an American Girl doll camp slated for Christmas break and also noted that Girls University is available for birthday and private parties.

Girls University is located at 1249 Celebration Boulevard and is open from 2:30 to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday with tutoring available from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday. For more information, call 843-468-4710.
HARTSVILLE, S.C.  Very few people achieve the longevity that Millie Jackson has at Thornwell School for the Arts. She joined the Darlington County School District in 1966. She was a cafeteria operator when she retired in May.

Jackson was honored on Thursday with the dedication of the Millie Jackson Cafeteria at the school. Her 50 years of service to the school was recognized with a plaque and her portrait, both of which will hang in the school cafeteria.

Family, friends, co-workers and others joined in the occasion.

Jackson was praised for her service and positive influence she had on those she encountered on the job.

Lilkenya Jenkins, principal of Thornwell School for the Arts, said Jackson affected Thornwell families with her generosity and kindness to all children.

It is a privilege and an honor to give homage to a lady who has served this school district, and community for 50 years, said Charles Govan, a member of the Darlington County Board of Education.

Any day you get to work with Millie is a special day, said Pam Vaughan, Darlington County School District Food Service director.

Vaughan said Jackson always was a model employee and had impeccable character. She was always willing to learn and to train others. Her contributions were many.

Mary Ellen Parker, cafeteria manager at Thornwell, said Jackson trained her many, many years ago. She said Jackson might be leaving, but she is not gone. She said they can never replace Millie Jackson.

Superintendent Eddie Ingram said he has known only one other person who has worked at the same place for 50 years. He said that the relationships Jackson has formed over the past 50 years will never be forgotten.

Connell Delaine, chairman of the Darlington County Board of Education, encouraged Jacksons family to see that she has a good retirement. He said she did a monumental job at Thornwell.

After the unveiling of the plaque, Jackson said as she sat and listened to the words being said about her that she still couldnt believe they were talking about her.

I dont take this lightly, not one bit she said. I am so thrilled.

Her granddaughter Keiada Holmes said her grandmother told her Thursday morning before coming to the celebration, To be given this opportunity speaks more for my life, more than myself. In everything I do I teach my family when you honor God, he will honor you.
DES MOINES  Gov. Terry Branstad confirmed he will meet this week with President-elect Donald Trump amid growing speculation Trump will ask Branstad to serve as the U.S. ambassador to China.

Since Trumps Nov. 8 election victory, political observers and reporters have speculated Trump may offer the post to Branstad, who was a strong supporter of Trump during the general election and has a longtime working friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

This past weekend, a Bloomberg Politics report said Branstad is the frontrunner for the post.

Should Trump offer the U.S. ambassadorship to China and should Branstad accept, upon Branstads resignation, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds would be promoted to governor. She would become the states first female governor.

Branstad has touted Reynolds as a possible successor and says he keeps her involved in critical aspects of the administration. He said Monday he has not discussed with Reynolds the possibility of him resigning and her assuming the governorship, but he touted her preparedness.

I think shes very well prepared and has great leadership ability, Branstad said of Reynolds.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the state Republican Party, expressed confidence in Reynolds should she be promoted to governor in Branstads absence.

Ive been following Iowa politics a long time, and I have never seen a partnership where she has been included in so many aspects of the job, from the policy of the job to the campaigning to the moments when Iowans need to be encouraged, Kaufmann said. I think Kim Reynolds is as ready as any lieutenant governor weve ever had.

Should Branstad resign and Reynolds be promoted, she would be free to appoint a new lieutenant governor, according to Iowa law and confirmed by the state Secretary of States office. Reynolds and her lieutenant governor would serve the remainder of the term, which expires at the end of 2018.

Should that happen, possible lieutenant governor picks for Reynolds could come from current state department heads, including Debi Durham in economic development, who ran as a running mate to Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross in 2002, or Bill Northey in agriculture. Reynolds also could pick a member of the Iowa Legislature, where she served as a state senator in 2009 and 2010 before joining Branstad.

Branstad will be in New York from Tuesday through Thursday on a previously scheduled economic development trip. He confirmed Monday, during his weekly news conference, that at some point during the trip, he will meet with Trump.

As he has in recent weeks, Branstad deferred when asked whether he would accept the post if offered.

It hasnt been offered, and I love my job as governor, Branstad said Monday. This is my focus. Its my intent to continue to focus on this.

Branstad met recently with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in Washington, D.C., during a trip that also included visits with Iowas congressional delegation and top national Republicans.

Branstad said he discussed with Pence a desire for fewer federal government regulations on business. The governor said he expects to deliver a similar message to President-elect Trump.

Well talk about that and other subjects as well, Branstad said.

Trump plans to be in Iowa on Thursday for a rally as part of his victory tour. Branstad said he plans to be back in Iowa in time for the event.

ranstads son, Eric, will also meet with Trump during the New York trip, according to the governor. The younger Branstad served as state director of Trumps campaign during the election and organized events in Iowa.

Branstad is currently serving his sixth non-consecutive term and is the longest-serving governor in U.S. history.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CEDAR FALLS  The University of Northern Iowas 11th president will be Mark Nook.

Nook was unanimously selected by the Iowa Board of Regents Tuesday afternoon. He has been chancellor of Montana State University Billings since 2014.

The Iowa Board of Regents approved Nook for a three-year contract, and he will receive a salary of $357,110, plus additional benefits that include housing and transportation.

Nook, 58, is ready to hit the ground running. Though his appointment begins Feb. 1, 2017, the incoming president said he would begin to put together a transition team beginning Tuesday morning.

I think the one thing I bring is both breadth and depth of understanding of higher ed, said Nook, who has served as a senior vice president in the University of Wisconsin System, as interim chancellor at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and in a variety of roles at Southwest Minnesota State University.

Though UNI is larger than Montana State University Billings, which has an enrollment of about 4,400, Nook pointed to his experience in Wisconsin, where Stevens Point had an enrollment closer to 10,000, and noted that in the Wisconsin system, he oversaw 181,000 students as one of two vice presidents. UNIs enrollment is nearly 12,000.

Its nice to have that much breadth to draw on those varied experiences and look for new ways to look at things and challenge people, as Weve never done it that way. Well, yeah, lets think about that, Nook said.

Nook, who describes himself as just a kid from Iowa, grew up in Holstein, about 170 miles west of Cedar Falls on U.S. 20. He said part of his desire to work here was to get back to the Midwest roots he and his wife, Cheryl share, as well as their grandchildren who live in nearby Wisconsin.

Jim Wohlpart, one of the finalists and UNIs provost and executive vice president of academic affairs, has held the interim president position at UNI since July, when former UNI President Bill Ruud left to take a position as president of the small, liberal arts Marietta College in Ohio. Ruud announced his departure in May.

Iowa Regents Board President Bruce Rastetter said he hadnt had conversations with Wohlpart about his plans but hoped he would stay on as interim president until Feb. 1, when he would return to his provost duties. Nook said he would also like to talk to Wohlpart about his plans, but said his leadership style is not to come in and build his own team.

Nook said he learned about the position from a colleague and waited until the last day to apply for the job to both be sure he wanted the job and to provide the most thorough background. He said the moment it clicked that he wanted the job was in conversation with two UNI students who sat on the search committee board during his off-site interview in Minneapolis in November.

When he asked Regent Rachael Johnson and Student Body President Hunter Flesch what drew them to UNI, they said it was the community atmosphere. Nook said faculty offered the same sense of community.

I was done at that point; Im in. If you extend me the offer, Ill sign the contract tonight, he recalled thinking at the time.

Nooks appreciation of student and faculty input was something that helped the search committee and ultimately the Iowa Board of Regents select him. The other two finalists were Wohlpart and former Temple University President Neil Theobald.

When asked what put Nook over the top, Johnson  who was on both the search committee and is a regent  said simply, So many things.

She expanded later to add, I think one thing that really captivated me, especially as a student was that he was so student-centered, student-success focused, and really, I thought brought the ability to help move UNI forward.

Johnson said it was humbling to learn her input helped further sell Nook on the campus.

Nook was also the selection of the UNI faculty, who has provided input to United Faculty over the weekend. United Faculty President Joe Gorton said the search process and Nooks selection reflect well on the search committee.

I think the board and the committee deserve to be congratulated on a job well done. Their methods align closely with presidential search guidelines established by the American Association of University Professors, Gorton said in a statement.

He added the boards decision is consistent with the findings from our survey of UNI professors and instructors.

While Gorton noted the executive experience Nook has as a likely factor in him getting the position, he said its also important that he is eager to have a genuine collaboration with faculty.

Iowa Regents Board President Bruce Rastetter cited the experience Nook has currently as an executive at Montana State University Billings as something that helped the board select him.

They have roots here, went to Iowa State, understands Iowa, understands this university, understands how we can improve things and want to continue to make efforts that have happened in last few years but wed like to continue to see accelerated, Rastetter said.

He added that the board was looking for a strong leader for UNI to further the Cedar Falls campus down the path it is headed, to help grow enrollment and recruit from outside the state, as well as focus on UNIs premier programs like educating future educators.

Throughout his interview process on campus, Nook stressed that UNI needs to be seen as the college that educates Iowans for Iowa.

Iowa Regent President Pro Tem Katie Mulholland, who helped lead the presidential search committee, said she was pleased with the results of the committees work during the past several months.

What we were looking for was a match for what UNI is and aspires to be, and thats how we moved forward with our decision, Mulholland said.

The UNI presidential search committee has been meeting since August to name a successor to Ruud.

It initially looked at 46 applicants, which was narrowed in October to seven semi-finalists. Six of those semi-finalists interviewed at an off-site location in November, and four were selected as finalists. Three finalists ultimately came to campus last week to interview for the job.
BRITT  Tara Rochleau didnt adopt one soldier, she adopted 325 of them.

Ive adopted a solider before, Rochleau, of Britt, said of sending care packages during a soldiers deployment.

That desire to help a soldier was reignited after Veterans Day this year. Rochleau decided to expand it to an entire unit of soldiers through Adopt a US Soldiers Project Frontlines.

To me, its the least I can do. They risk their lives for our country and take time away from their families to do it, she said.

Especially as Rochleaus dad served in the Navy in the mid-1950s. He died in 2014. She also worked with veterans as a home health worker.

The military is near and dear to my heart, she said.

A one-time care package seemed like a good way for Rochleau to give back this year.

They can get a little something special from the states. Its pretty meaningful to them, she said.

Though putting together a care package for 325 soldiers was a big task. Her living room floor was covered with boxes of toothbrushes, hot chocolate packets, packages of gum and other odds and ends last week.

I put on Facebook Who wants to help me?, Rochleau said.

She immediately received offers of help from family and friends. She received boxes of toothbrushes from two local dental offices.

Letters came in from West Hancock Middle School students. Rochleau is the middle school nurse.

Its funny. I put in on Facebook and people jump right in, which is awesome, she said.

Rochleau was planning to send out the care package today so the soldiers receive it before Christmas.

I just wanted to be supportive, she said.

And she is already thinking about sending another care package next year.

For more information, visit adoptaussoldier.org.
MASON CITY  Samantha Teeter was a loving person whose life was cut short before she could be the person she wanted to be, her family said.

Teeter, 19, died from gunshot injuries Sunday afternoon at a Rochester, Minnesota, hospital. She had been shot early Friday in Mason City.

Her family was still in shock Monday, trying to comprehend the loss of a young woman they say died before she could get her life on track and realize her dreams.

Well never know the woman she wouldve become, ... said her father, Dave Teeter, of Mason City.

But, she wouldve been an amazing woman, said her brother, Jesse Teeter.

Dave, Jesse and Samanthas sister, Jill Buland, described the young woman as a compassionate person with a penchant for bringing home strays.

It started with animals when she was a child. Later, she regularly brought home friends to live with the family or to celebrate the holidays.

She cared about everybody, Buland said Monday evening. She couldve met you five minutes ago and she wouldve made you a priority.

Teeter loved to draw, listen to music, play with her nieces and nephews, and most of all, visiting with her 2-year-old son, Andre.

The child lives with Dave and Samanthas mother, Monica. Mother and son loved to play during visits at the familys home.

The last time she was here they piled leaves up by the slide and he would go down the slide into the pile of leaves from his swing set and then he chased her, or she chased him around in his little truck, Dave Teeter said.

She would go get down in the leaves and shes all covered in leaves and hes covered in leaves  They just had a blast.

Though her family says Samantha had struggled in recent years, she was trying to turn things around.

I just feel so bad her life got cut short, and probably for no reason whatsoever, her father said.

Police say Larry Whaley, 60, shot Teeter once in the head with a handgun shortly before 4 a.m. Friday at 116 17th St. S.E.

Whaley, who lived in the house, was charged Monday with first-degree murder. The charge has since been amended to second-degree murder.

He had previously been charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors re-filed the case after Teeters death.

At his court hearing on Monday, Whaley told Magistrate Judge Ronald Wagenaar he didnt understand why he faced the new charge of first-degree, premeditated murder.

He told the judge, It wasnt intentional.

The judge quickly reminded Whaley, who didnt have an attorney present, of his right to remain silent.

Police have not said what they believe led up to the shooting. No motive has been released.

Teeters family is leaving the investigation up to police.

They take comfort in her memory and that, last weekend, they were able to carry out Samanthas wishes to be an organ donor.

A 40-year-old woman and 29-year-old woman each got one of her kidneys, said Dave Teeter.

It was a positive thing to focus on, he said. As sad and as miserable as we were this weekend, we know that there were going to be several families out there that were going to have the best weekend, the best Christmas, of their lives.

Services for Samantha Teeter are pending at Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapels in Mason City.
CLEAR LAKE | A North Iowa woman police say bit someone during a custody dispute and forcefully pulled her infant from a car seat in Clear Lake has been re-sentenced.

Julie M. Rockwell, 35, of Meservey, was given a reduced jail sentence Monday, but now faces the possibility of prison if she violates her probation.

She was sentenced to 365 days in jail, with all but two days suspended, on the misdemeanor domestic abuse assault (second offense) conviction.

Rockwell also was given a suspended two-year prison sentence on the misdemeanor child endangerment conviction.

She was put on probation for two years and ordered to pay a $315 fine. A $625 fine for child endangerment was suspended.

She pleaded guilty to both charges last month and received 365 days in jail on each count, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

That sentence was vacated by District Associate Judge Karen Kaufman Salic at the request of Rockwell's attorney, Susan Flander.

Flander stated in a court document that her client filed a written plea of guilty but did not waive her rights to be present at sentencing and speak on her own behalf in court before sentencing was pronounced.

Rockwell was accused of biting someone in the back and yanking on the person's shirt during a dispute about 2 p.m. Aug. 9 in the 4000 block of 15th Street in Clear Lake, according to court documents. Police said she also forcefully pulled her child from the car seat.
While the ship was sea after departing from Maui, the tender platform on the starboard side opened, for reasons unknown, Princess Cruises said. The platform sustained damage and could not be closed.

According to the line, the platform is not part of the watertight integrity of the vessel but as result of it opening, the hull sustained minor localized damage, which has been secured. The captain said the ship is safe and secure, and he is updating passengers on a regular basis.

Passengers will receive a refund of 50% of their cruise fare and a future cruise credit equal to the amount of the refund. Princess will cover the costs of flying people back to San Francisco, including overnight accommodations and transfers as needed. Travel agent commissions are protected.

The incident occurred Saturday, on the 10th day of a 15-day cruise that left San Francisco Nov. 23. Following this cruise, Grand Princess will go into a previously scheduled drydock at Portland, Oregon.
OSAGE | The Mitchell County Compensation Board has recommended a three to four percent increase in 2017-18 salaries for elected county officials.

The board proposed the raises during its Tuesday, Dec. 6 meeting.

Auditor Lowell Tesch, Recorder Pat Skuster and Treasurer Pamela Meyer would all receive a three percent raise of $1,646, for total salaries each of $56,512.

County Attorney Mark Walk would receive a three percent increase in pay of $1,889, for an annual salary of $64,872.

Sheriff Greg Beaver would receive a four-percent raise of $3,020, which would increase his annual salary to $78,537.

Each supervisor  Shannon Paulus, Joel Voaklander and Stan Walk  will receive a three-percent raise of $$1,138, for an annual salary each of $39,087.

The chairman, elected annually, would receive an additional $100.

The Mitchell County Board of Supervisors still have to approve the proposed increases before the raises would go into effect in the upcoming fiscal year.

 Jim Cross
The ministrys transportation committee met on Monday and touched on possible measures to salvage debt-ridden and partially state-owned Yang Ming, which has recorded a loss of TWD13bn ($408m) in the first three quarters of this year.

Legislator Chen Ou-po of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) proposed that Yang Ming, which is 33% government-owned, can merge with state-owned TIPC, Taipei Times reported.

TIPC was established in 2012 to take over the port operation and management functions of Kaohsiung, Keelung, Taichung and Hualien.

Chen noted that it would be difficult for Yang Ming to merge with fellow container carrier Evergreen Marine as the latter is a privately-owned company, the local media reported.

The DPP legislator pointed out that Yang Ming has been in the red since 2009, and the ministry should hold people who used to be in the companys management positions accountable for their decisions that caused the losses.
FLOYD | Charline Johnson, 94, of Floyd, died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, at home.

A memorial service will be held 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016, at Grace United Methodist Church in Floyd, with Pastor Wendy Johannesen officiating. Internment will be at Oakwood Cemetery in Floyd.

A gathering of family and friends will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, at Hauser Funeral Home, Charles City, and continue one hour prior to the memorial service at the church on Thursday.

In lieu of flowers the family suggests that memorial contributions be made to the Grace United Methodist Church Repair Fund.

Hauser Funeral Home, Charles City, is in charge of arrangements.
Obi the parrotlet readies for takeoff. Wearing his mini protective goggles, he waits patiently for a signal: a decisive finger point to a target perch. The finger moves in a flash and so does Obi, right to the directed spot where he is rewarded with a seed. Such is a typical day for the good-natured bird, who is helping researchers to design the next generation of animal-inspired aircraft. The goggles are needed for eye protection because Obi has been flying through a sheet of laser light in a specially designed wind tunnel where the air is infused with tiny particles that are primed to scatter and track vortices produced by his wingtip flaps. A somewhat similar phenomenon happens when an airplane takes off and produces contrails. Stanford mechanical engineer David Lentink likened the particle "fog" to dry ice used at a concert. RELATED: Bird Wind Tunnel Built for Better Drone Flight "The airflow patterns generated by the bird's wings are traced by the fog, which is visible and recorded in the laser sheet," Lentink told Seeker. "In this way, we were able to measure the flow velocity in the wake of the bird."

Lentink's graduate student Eric Gutierrez made Obi's aviator goggles using lenses from laser safety goggles, 3D-printed sockets and veterinary tape. Out of all the birds recruited for the study, Obi was most comfortable wearing the goggles. The parrotlet also liked the seed rewards so much that he would "fly for food," even though he received other treats before each flight. Obi's efforts, outlined in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, shows three widely accepted models used to interpret the airflow generated by flying animals are inaccurate. "Based on the current literature and textbooks, I expected these vortices to be very smooth, like donut-shaped vortices blown by someone smoking a cigar," said. "The classic picture is that flying animals create lots of beautiful, well-organized vortex loops that peacefully flow downstream. Seeing them break up violently within 23 wingbeats was entirely unexpected." Lentink, lead author Gutierrez and their team are the first to document this dramatic breakdown that birds like Obi create when they flap their wings to achieve lift for flight. The researchers attribute their success to a super-fast laser and to the high-speed cameras that recorded airflow at 1,000 frames per second. The scientists are particularly interested in the dynamics of the bird's wingtip vortices, since these are key to lift. The tornado-shaped air results from the difference between higher air pressure over the wing and lower pressure below.

Since the accepted models explaining these vortices proved to be wrong, Gutierrez and his colleagues hope to contribute to a new model that could be used to predict the lift generated by flying animals. Bio-inspired robots are a specialty of Lentink and his students, who developed the first flapping robot that can take off and land vertically like an insect, as well as a swift-like robot with wings that deform as it swoops and glides. Lentink pointed out that flying animals are more efficient and maneuverable than even the slickest and most modern human-designed aircraft. The bar-tailed godwit, for example, weighs mere ounces, yet can fly nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand with ease. RELATED: This Bird Lives Nearly Its Entire Life in the Air "Birds can take off like a helicopter and fly fast and far like an airplane," Lentink said. He continued that "birds are great at flying in turbulent flow... found around trees and buildings, where aerial robots stall and crash. Bats and insects are also very accomplished flyers in their own right, so understanding how animals fly is a huge inspiration for inventing better flying robots." Geoff Spedding of the USC's Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering also gains inspiration from flying animals, and has studied bats and other critter flyers. Spedding told Seeker that he's "delighted that more sophisticated measurements are being applied to animal flight," thanks to the studies on Obi and other animals in Lentink's lab. "It is interesting to note that the key technology here is in the bird-safety-goggles," Spedding added. "These are ultimately what allow the motions close to the bird to be recorded. As a community, we always search for improved and more realistic descriptions of nature, and ways in which real-life can be simplified into a useful and practical model. This work will be relevant and helpful in this respect."
Researchers from the University of California Berkeley (UC) reported a surprising finding about animal welfare during war, in a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

The UC team found that the collapse of key institutions is the prime driver of wildlife declines during conflicts  more so than the weapons used during fighting.

The researchers pored over case studies of 144 armed conflicts  from all-out wars to smaller, militia-style uprisings  across the globe and came up with 24 of what they termed "distinct pathways linking armed conflict to wildlife outcomes."

They found that while chemicals, bombs and mines were indeed direct causes of wildlife declines, the most common link between conflict and poor outcomes for animals was the debilitation of key institutional groups.

For example, conflict can force park guards to flee the enforcement areas, the UC team found. When that happens, poachers can more easily take down animals that would otherwise have had a better chance at being protected from harm.

In a similar vein, when researchers and conservationists find it unsafe to visit certain locations, their work and resulting recommendations about wildlife habitats cannot easily be carried out.

RELATED: Tiger Nations to Set Up Anti-Poaching Network

The researchers did find the occasional positive effects of conflict on wildlife, though those tended to be poor outcomes for humans: People fleeing war zones, they noted, created a "refugee effect," in which wildlife was able to thrive where people once lived. The demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, they pointed out, allowed wildlife to prosper.

However, the researchers said, conflicts with negative outcomes for wildlife comprised the overwhelming number of cases they studied.

The UC scientists suggest conservationists should do their best to strengthen the groups that manage biodiversity hotspots both during conflicts and before they arise.

"Conservation biologists often assume that war is bad for animals, with little understanding of the context and processes involved," said the study's lead author, UC's Kaitlyn Gaynor, in a statement. "Such simplification overlooks the complexities of both war and conservation. Understanding the pathways that link conflict to environmental outcomes is critical to developing effective mitigation strategies."

WATCH VIDEO: Using Dozens Of Elephants To Save Rhinos
Marie Tussaud, the wax modeler behind one of London's most popular attractions, likely died of pneumonia, says a new study published in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine.



One of the first successful businesswomen of 19th century Europe and a pioneer of the cult of celebrity, Tussaud died in 1850 at the age of 89. Her death certificate only vaguely recorded "old age" as the cause of her demise.

According to her two sons, until a few days before her death, Madame Tussaud sat at the entrance of her exhibition - which now has branches in dozens of locations worldwide - to collect the public's shillings.

But this image of a strong, healthy woman in charge of her business until the very end is likely false.

"It was a family concern to depict a very efficient Madame Tussaud," first author Francesco Galassi, at the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, said.

"However, a re-analysis of the correspondence of her youngest son Francis tells a different story," he added.

A letter written by Francis to his father in 1848, two years before Madame Tussaud's death, reveals that Marie was "growing very feeble."

"At times she is very ill and she suffers from asthma which allows her no rest at night ... Her legs are bad like yours, and she has bunions that hurt her when she walks," Francis wrote.

RELATED: Mysterious Disease in Iconic Wyeth Painting Diagnosed

According to Galassi and colleagues Louise Baker, archivist at Madame Tussauds, Roberta Ballestriero, at the University of the Arts, London, and Frank Ruhli, at the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, a cardiorespiratory disease can explain fatigue and weakness, asthma and varicose veins.

"Heart failure, primary or secondary to pulmonary or systemic disease (eg. hypertension) would account for all of these symptoms," the researchers wrote.

They noted that an alternative diagnosis could be progressive lung diseases including emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, which could still have had consequences on the heart.

Further help with the diagnosis came from historical sources, which report that Tussaud's final illness lasted five days.

"This is suggestive of an infection, such as pneumonia, which is still common today with patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," Galassi said.

RELATED: Genetic Disorder Found in 15th Century Painting

Little is known about Marie Tussaud's life. Her memoirs are not of much help, since they appear to be a promotional effort for her museum rather than true accounts of her life.

Best known for modeling the fresh cut heads of the most famous victims of the French Revolution, Madame Tussaud was born Marie Grosholtz in Strasbourg, France, in 1761. She learned the craft of wax sculpturing from Phillipe Curtius, a physician and talented wax modeler. Marie and her mother moved to Paris with him and at his death in 1794 she inherited his entire collection of waxworks.

After marrying Francois Tussaud, Marie moved to the UK where she toured England, Ireland and Scotland for more than 30 years with her exhibition of waxworks. In 1835 she established her first permanent display in London's Baker Street with her famous likenesses, which included Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon.

Her self portrait, made in 1842 when she was age 81, is now on display at end of the exhibition.

Last week, the wax museum founded by Madam Tussaud announced that a new figure is in the works at the museum's London headquarters and will soon be added to its branches in Washington, D.C., New York and London.

Donald Trump's likeness will be in place by Inauguration Day on January 20, 2016.

WATCH: Why People Who Smoke Look Old
Koko backs Pres. Duterte's plan to liberalize PH economy

Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III made a statement on Tuesday backing the proposal of President Rodrigo Duterte to liberalize the country's economy to attract more investments and to strengthen the competition in the local market.

Pimentel made the statement following President Duterte's pronouncement last week that he is taking steps to open up the Philippine economy to new players and foreign investors - particularly in the power, energy and telecoms sectors - to limit corruption and protectionism.

He said the proposed charter amendments to the present constitution not only focuses on the country's shift to federalism but also aims to upgrade the country's economic policies.

"We must make sure the economy works for all Filipinos and not just a few families," said Pimentel.

Pimentel, President of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino - Lakas ng Bayan (PDP Laban), said he is carefully studying the proposal to change the 60-40 rule of 1987 Constitution which limits foreign investment in the country.

He said that allowing new players in the local market not only strengthens the competition but also eliminates monopoly and protectionism.

The Senate leader explained more competitors means cheaper and better products in the market.

During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru, President Duterte together with 20-member heads of state issued a joint statement committing to fight "all forms of protectionism."

The PDP Laban, which is led by President Duterte as Chair and Pimentel as President, has a Federalism Institute, which studies proposed amendments to the Constitution.
MASON CITY  Most of the North Iowa men who were stationed at Pearl Harbor 75 years ago are gone now, but their stories live on.

The survivors came back to lead enriching lives, getting married, getting jobs and providing for their wives and families.

But in addition to being at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, "the day that will live in infamy," as President Franklin Roosevelt described it, there's another thing most of them had in common. They were all kids.

Over the years, several of the survivors told their stories in interviews with the Globe Gazette. Today, in their memory and as a tribute to all who served, we share some of what they told us about what started out as an innocent Sunday morning.

Harlan Searle of Mason City died April 6, 2015, at the age of 93. He was a 19-year-old sailor serving with his older brother Erwin on the USS California when the attack occurred. Erwin died in the attack.

"A Japanese torpedo blew a 20-by-40 foot hole in the ship. Then a second torpedo hit, then a third and a fourth," Searle said. "I was down on the third deck so I didn't see anything until it was over.

"Water and diesel fuel were coming up and got up to my chest. There was a fellow from Iowa standing next to me. 'I guess this is it,' he said, and we shook hands. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital. To this day, I don't know who rescued me. I wish I did."

Searle served five more years in the Navy and summed up the totality of the war this way: "They started it and we finished it."

Searle said he was eating breakfast with Erwin when the bombing began.

"We went our separate ways and I never saw him again," said Searle. He had been in the hospital several days when he learned of his brother's death.

* * *

Jim O'Brien of Mason City died Aug. 7, 2011, at the age of 89. At the time of his death he was a past president of the Iowa Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.

On Dec. 7, 1941, he was a 19-year-old Marine.

"I was in the barracks," he said. "Once the bombs started falling, we spent almost four hours shooting at the planes from parade grounds. At the start of it the planes were flying very low, just over the barracks. There were about 700 of us shooting at them.

"Our orders were: If any plane flies over, take 'em down. And we did."

O'Brien said he enlisted in 1939 at the age of 18.

"I was afraid there was going to be a war and I wouldn't be in it. You know how kids that age think," he said. "Well, I got my war."

* * *

Mack Canterbury of Rake died Oct. 2, 2004, at the age of 82. He said he always had the feeling that the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a surprise to the U.S. government.

"We were sent to Pearl Harbor with an engineering company to build runways. There had to be a reason for that," he said.

Canterbury said he was in Schofield Barracks next to Wheeler Field, both close to where the attack occurred. "I heard an explosion that woke me up. I got up and looked out the window and saw a plane coming toward us.

"It strafed us but we couldn't do anything because we didn't have any ammunition. We had used it all up on the rifle range the week before."

* * *

Daniel Kelley, a native of Missouri, spent his later years in Mason City. He died March 16, 2011, at the age of 94.

Kelley was on the USS Curtiss and was eating bacon and eggs when the attack occurred. "For some reason, I remember that," he said.

"We heard a lot of booming going on. We didn't have any planes flying on Sunday. About that time, an alarm sounded and we heard the call. `Man your battle stations. This is not a drill.'"

* * *

In June 2001, the movie "Pearl Harbor" was showing in Mason City. The Globe invited Searle and O'Brien to see it and then share their thoughts about it.

Neither of them was too impressed with the love scenes in the movie  and O'Brien pointed out that the length of the entire movie was less time than the four hours he spent shooting at Japanese aircraft.

But O'Brien said the movie served a purpose.

"The idea is to keep alive the memory of Pearl Harbor  and to realize it can happen again," he said.
He sighed, struggling near tears. He waxed poetic about his flesh being torn, and of the high calling of art. He lashed out and stormed off.

In his first extensive interview since Fridays inferno at the converted warehouse he ran in Oakland, the leader of the Ghost Ship artists collective said Tuesday that he was incredibly sorry. But he rejected the idea that he is responsible for the deaths of the 36 people who perished in the flames during an electronic music show  and when he was pressed, the whole interview went off the rails.

Should I be accountable? I can barely stand here right now, Derick Ion Almena told interviewers on the NBC Today show as he stood outside the disaster scene sporting a fedora.

Im only here to say one thing, Almena said, that I am incredibly sorry, and that everything I did was to make this a stronger and more beautiful community, and to bring people together.

Almena, 47, avoided the public after the blaze broke out shortly before 11:30 p.m. Friday, and had been sighted only sporadically until he showed up Tuesday in front of the ruins at the corner of 31st Avenue and International Boulevard.

He was the leaseholder for the hulking warehouse, running it as a quasi-commune of artists called the Satya Yuga. And as details of his clashes with the law spilled out  a case involving a stolen trailer, his children briefly taken away by authorities, code violations  many have vented anger at him on social media.

Behind Almena, emergency workers picked through the rubble for more remains. The death toll of 36 makes the Ghost Ship fire the deadliest structure blaze in California since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire  and authorities were looking at an area with appliances as a possible source of ignition.

During his emotional six-minute interview with Today, Almena sighed heavily, defended his Ghost Ship as a noble dream, and angrily yelled at the shows hosts, Matt Lauer and Tamron Hall, when they grilled him on the accusation that he made a profit off poor artists who couldnt afford to live anywhere else. Current and former residents have said they paid anywhere from $500 to $1,500 a month to live in the building, which city officials say did not have permits as a residential or entertainment space.

I laid my body down there every night, Almena said. We put our children to bed there every night. We made music, we created art. It didnt start out as our home. It started off as an initial dream, an idea that we would have a facility and a venue that would host everything from at-risk youth to the gay community to artists that couldnt perform anywhere.

He added, Profit? This is not profit. This is loss. This is a mass grave.

Almena said that three years ago he signed a lease, and I got a building that was to city standards, supposedly. ... Im the father of this space.

Efforts to contact the owner of the building, Chor Ng, have been unsuccessful. Her daughter has told reporters that Ng did not know people were living in the building.

Im an honorable man, Im a proud man, Almena told the Today hosts, who were in their New York studio. Then, when asked if he was worried hed be criminally charged in the case, he snapped.

Id rather get on the floor and be trampled by the parents  Id rather let them tear at my flesh  than answer these ridiculous questions, Almena said. Im so sorry. Im incredibly sorry.

When he added, Im not going to answer these questions, Lauer cut in and declared the interview over. Almena then left the scene as other reporters tried to question him.

In an earlier quick interview with the TV network, Almenas wife, Micah Allison, said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is investigating the fire, had interviewed Derick extensively.

We have not been in any way hiding from this, Allison said.

Reactions to the interviews were swift and scornful on social media and in person from many who know Almena or have been following the tragedy.

Thats exactly a good example of who he is, said Shelley Mack, 58, who lived in the Ghost Ship from October 2014 to February 2015 and said she had frequent conflicts with the de facto landlord. Hes a whore for attention. He just couldnt resist doing an interview. And then he got mad because they were asking him direct questions  thats what happens.

She said Almena had run a hostile environment full of jury-rigged creations ripe for fire, but enticed artists and others to live there because rent was cheap and they didnt have much money.

Thats why people were there. It was a horror house. A death trap. He was terrible, Mack said.

Some who lived in the warehouse have said it was illegally tapping into power sources of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., but the company said Tuesday that it had no knowledge of that.

Bad wiring has been viewed all along as a possible cause of the blaze, given the buildings hodgepodge of makeshift hookups and exposed wires. On Tuesday, authorities told The Chronicle that the fire may have started in an area with several appliances.

Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern said emergency workers have been extra careful about removing debris from a rear part of the converted warehouse where there are telltale signs of extreme heat, so as not to disturb what could be evidence for determining the source of the ignition.

On that back wall, there was a 45-degree-angle burn, and they need to look at that area very carefully, Ahern said. And in that area is a toaster, a small refrigerator and slightly larger refrigerator, small and about four feet high, like one from the 1950s. Were not saying a refrigerator is the cause, were just saying thats the area where the ATF is looking.

Jill Snyder, special agent in charge of the ATFs San Francisco bureau, said she had brought in an electrical engineer to help in the probe and that her agents were looking at anything electrical. The rear area seems like the most likely source of ignition, she said, based on what firefighters saw when they fought the blaze, what witnesses said, and what the fire science of the probe is indicating.

However, she added, we do not have a cause determined right now.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley is also investigating the fire, and though she did not name the targets of the probe, she said charges could range up to murder.

Meanwhile, city firefighters and county sheriffs deputies said Tuesday that they have combed through 90 percent of the 160-by-48-foot building and dont expect to recover more victims. They hoped to have the structure completely searched by Wednesday.

Based on the areas that remain unsearched, I dont anticipate it going up, Battalion Chief Robert Lipp of the Oakland Fire Department said of the death toll.

The City Council is expected on Thursday to declare a state of emergency in Oakland, aimed at making its government and residents eligible for state and federal relief funds.

Officials said 35 of the victims have been identified, 30 of their families have been notified, and five more families were in the process of being notified. One person remains unidentified, they said.

Rain that is expected to roll in Wednesday night and pick up by the end of the week will not change the rate at which firefighters and deputies work their way through the rubble, said Oakland Fire Department Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton. Were going to be just as comprehensive, just as methodical, just as analytical to make sure were successful in a full recovery, she said.

For the past two days, family and friends of the victims have been visiting the fire scene in Oakland  but quietly, out of the limelight, and it has meant a lot to them, said Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Sheriffs Office.

Put yourself in their shoes: Youre hearing about what happened, theyre not as tuned in as the rest of the people watching the news in the morning, Kelly said. Their lives have been completely altered. Theyre not watching television, they dont know what the broader public knows. So they have pictures and images in their minds of what they think this place may look like, what may have happened.

When they get here theyre like, OK, I see it, I get it, I'm starting to wrap my mind around what this building looks like.

The reactions have varied from silence to weeping to fascination with the building, Kelly said. It runs the gamut.

Some of the victims, he said, sent texts to their parents as the flames closed in, saying they loved them and that they were about to die.

Memorials have spread around the area near the warehouse, with dozens of candles, bouquets and handwritten signs. Never forget ghost ship, said one. Another read, Party on for us friends, well see you shortly.

Many small pieces of purple paper with victims names were tied with ribbon to a fence.

Guillermo Lesh, a 49-year-old painter who once lived in the neighborhood, came to the memorial Tuesday to pay his respects.

It hits hard, he said. It's very disturbing. It's unreal.

Chronicle staff writers

Kimberly Veklerov and Vivian Ho

contributed to this report.

Kevin Fagan and Hamed Aleaziz are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com, haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron @Haleaziz
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A multiagency criminal probe took shape Monday as information emerged that the manager of a cluttered Oakland warehouse that erupted in flames Friday night, killing at least 36 people, had previously been investigated for stealing a trailer, having confrontations with visitors and holding illegal parties.

Derick Ion Almena, 46, the quirky, volatile leader of an artists collective known as Satya Yuga, is on probation for a misdemeanor conviction and could be the subject of an investigation into the fatal fire.

Almena, who disappeared immediately after the fire, finally spoke out as former residents accused him of ignoring obvious danger while running a slapdash art and residential operation inside the warehouse. The people who died in the tragedy were his figurative children, he told a reporter.







They are my children. They are my friends. They are family. They are my loves. They are my future, Almena told San Franciscos KGO-TV after he and his wife, Micah Allison, were approached Sunday at the Oakland Marriott City Center, where they had been staying. What else do I have to say?

Well leave no stone unturned, said Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley, who declared the warehouse a potential crime scene Monday. She said investigators are looking into charges that could range from murder all the way to involuntary manslaughter.

OMalley did not name any potential targets of the criminal probe.

Almenas history of run-ins with authorities includes a case involving a stolen trailer, numerous code violations and a lack of permits that would allow using the warehouse as a living or events space.

Almena ,managed the Ghost Ship artists collective and was allegedly responsible for alterations of the 10,000-square-foot building. The fire, one of the worst in California history, broke out during a concert and party on the second floor of the structure.

Officers had investigated at least one physical confrontation involving Almena on the premises, court records show. He had also been convicted of keeping stolen property  a trailer owned by an ex-landlord who had evicted him  at the warehouse.

In incident reports obtained by The Chronicle, Officer Josue Mora said he and Officer Richard Kane were called to the building on Jan. 2, 2015, to investigate an allegation that Almena had stolen a cell phone belonging to a friend of a performer after a New Years Eve party.

The officers found that Almena had complained about a condom being left out overnight and damage to an art piece during the party. When the confrontation turned physical, the friend of the performer started taking a video with his cell phone. Almena then allegedly snatched the camera from his hand, according to police reports.

In two separate petitions for restraining orders against Almena, both later denied, the performer and his friend said Almena had threatened to get a gun. They reported seeing a box of bullets in the building as well as bows and arrows. The documents did not say whether the officers investigated potential weapons inside the warehouse. Their body cameras were not activated at the time, the police reports said.

Two weeks after the party incident, Almena was arrested and jailed for two days when his former landlord found out he had stolen her Airstream trailer, according to an affidavit from Deputy Jeremy Lucha of the Alameda County Sheriffs Office. The woman had recently evicted Almena when she spotted her missing trailer parked outside the warehouse.

Almena was later ordered to pay restitution of $1,719 to the former landlord and a fine of $281 for receiving stolen property. He is currently serving three years probation, ending in 2019.

The building was considered a center of creativity by some and a chaotic, drug-infested firetrap by other residents, some of whom described Almena as an arrogant, charismatic narcissist who felt above the law.

Current and former residents said Almena could be vulgar and abrasive and often alienated tenants. A former nanny for his three children, Mariah Benavides, described Almena and his wife as organized hoarders.

Almena, who lived on the second floor of the Ghost Ship with his wife and children, was taking rent from as many as 18 tenants who lived in RVs and makeshift rooms on the bottom floor, residents and other acquaintances said.

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Almena was known for putting rambling messages and videos on his Facebook page, including rants referencing mass murderers and despots like Charles Manson, Pol Pot and Hitler.

He considered himself a realms creator and built structures out of found objects, antiques and other discarded material. There were numerous pianos and other debris allegedly blocking entrances to the warehouse.

Shortly after the fire, Almena was criticized after he posted what some considered an insensitive message on his Facebook page about 1:30 a.m. Saturday.

Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone, he wrote. 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.

Almena later wrote that he didnt know people had died in the fire when he posted the message and was heartbroken.

My goal has been nothing less than to create an environment for art and creativity in our community, he told NBC News. During this investigation, please continue to show support and compassion for those affected by this tragedy. The prayers of my family and I go out to the families of the victims.

Kimberly Veklerov and Peter Fimrite are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @KVeklerov, @pfimrite
A heartbreaking day of identifying bodies and searching for the cause of the deadly warehouse fire in Oakland ended Monday in a mass candlelight vigil on the shores of Lake Merritt where some mourners took out their frustrations on Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Schaaf was among hundreds of people who gathered around a white pagoda on the north side of the lake, where they listened to tearful speeches from people close to the victims and encouraging words from Oakland officials.

Several speakers at the vigil Monday broke down or fought tears. The supportive mood was broken however when Schaaf stepped up to the podium and was greeted by a chorus of boos

Its OK. This city is going to go through a lot of emotions and one of them is going to be anger, Schaaf said. Its my job to hear that and feel that.

The mourners hugged, cried and offered support for relatives and friends of the victims. Some people walked around holding Free Hugs signs. The crowd held aloft cell phones, plastic candles, glow sticks and other light sources, but generally avoided lighting candles in a show of deference to the fire victims.

We took a devastating hit and all we want to do is honor those people and not put any blame on anybody, said James Morales, 34, of Oakland, who got choked up thinking about the five friends he said he lost in the inferno. It was like the Oakland electronic music underground 9/11. The people, the artists, the musicians are what make Oakland so tight.

Thirty-six bodies have been found in the converted warehouse on 31st Avenue and International Boulevard, where dozens of partiers were trapped when a fire broke out Friday night during an electronic music performance by Golden Donna 100% Silk.

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Todd Glieden, 50, of Castro Valley, came to the lake to offer support for several friends who knew fire victims.

Look around us  the support is overwhelming, Glieden said. I think this shows the better part of Oakland for people who see so much bad.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
The search for the missing at a burned-out warehouse in Oakland grew only more somber Monday, as hope for survivors dimmed and the families and friends of those unaccounted for endured an agonizing wait.

Daniel Vega was among those at an Alameda County sheriffs substation near the scene of Friday nights fire at an electronic music show, hoping for news about his 22-year-old brother, Alex Vega. Hes not expecting the news to be good  hes all but certain Alex went to the show with his girlfriend, Michela Gregory, who was among the dead.

Its hard, Vega said between drags off a cigarette. Im trying to be the strong one.

UC Berkeley Professor Luba Golburt also wasnt optimistic about her former student Griffin Madden, who graduated last year after taking her 19th century Russian literature class and her seminar on Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

But I am checking the news incessantly, said Golburt, an associate professor in Slavic languages and literatures.

I cant say that its because Im hoping for the best. Thats probably not the case, she said.

Golburt said Madden was a passionate student and a joy to teach. We all remember him very fondly, she said.

The county coroners office confirmed at least 36 died in the fire. By late Monday, authorities had tentatively identified 33 victims and were in the process of notifying loved ones.

While the names of the missing have not been released publicly, many relatives and friends have spoken openly, recalling people whose absence will diminish their lives.

The sheriffs substation where Vega sought answers has become a gathering place for loved ones of the missing. Grief counselors, chaplains and American Red Cross officials are on hand.

Im an artist, one volunteer at the station said. This really hits home.

Juan Pablo Robles stopped by for any word he could get on a family member as well as a couple of friends who attended the show.

I called my cousin; he didnt answer, Robles said in Spanish, his eyes puffy and red. Some of my friends also didnt answer.

Jenna Lyons, Kurtis Alexander and Nanette Asimov are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com, nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno @kurtisalexander @nanetteasimov
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Google has long pursued a goal of running its global network of offices and data centers on nothing but renewable power.

The Mountain View company is not there yet. But its getting close.

On Tuesday, Google will announce plans to buy enough wind and solar power in 2017 to cover all the electricity the company will use, worldwide, over the course of the year.

The milestone does not mean that every Google facility will run on renewable power 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

With offices and data centers in nearly 60 countries, Google operates in some regions where commercial renewable power remains scarce. And the companys data centers must continue running even when the sun isnt shining and winds are calm. Large-scale energy storage to keep those centers humming at night is not yet cost-effective.

So in places where solar plants and wind farms are plentiful, such as Texas and Oklahoma, Google will buy more renewable power than it needs, to make up the slack. Any excess renewable power will then be sold back to the grid.

More for you Here's Why Solar Entrepreneurs Don't Go Off the Grid

Right now, were overbuying in certain regions, like the United States, but were not quite there in every part of the globe, said Neha Palmer, Googles head of energy strategy and infrastructure.

Weve been working on this from 2010, but this is just the beginning from our perspective, she said.

Google does not disclose the exact amount it spends on electricity. But the amount of renewable power Google plans to buy worldwide next year is considerable. In 2015, for example, the companys 13 data centers and offices in more than 150 cities used roughly as much electricity as all of San Francisco, Palmer said.

Google has become an aggressive buyer of renewable power, but it is far from alone.

A study released Tuesday by Advanced Energy Economy, a clean-energy business association, found that 71 percent of Fortune 100 companies have set their own targets to use more renewable power, improve sustainability or both. Companies as different as Walmart, Apple and General Motors have announced plans to one day get 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.

It helps that prices for wind and solar power have plunged. By Googles estimate, wind power prices have dropped 60 percent since 2010, while solar prices have tumbled 80 percent. In some locations, long-term renewable power purchase contracts are now cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels.

It becomes a lot more compelling if there isnt a price premium attached, said Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president of policy at Advanced Energy Economy. Now you can structure a deal and not pay more.

He doesnt expect corporate purchases of renewable power to stop under President-elect Donald Trump, who has questioned the reality of climate change and wants to revive the coal industry.

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This is corporate-led  it is not being led by the federal government, Woolf said.

Google has signed power purchase contracts for 2.6 gigawatts of renewable electricity. For comparison, a commercial nuclear reactor typically generates 1 gigawatt of electricity at any given moment.

The vast majority of Googles renewable power  about 95 percent  comes from wind farms, including the Golden Hills facility owned by NextEra Energy Resources in the Altamont Pass. But Google will likely add other technologies, including large-scale battery storage, as prices become more competitive, Palmer said.

We are very technology-agnostic, she said. What we are not is price agnostic. So if you see our portfolio, it really is driven by the price of technologies. Well see that mix change.

Google has also become a major investor in renewable power facilities, sinking nearly $2.5 billion into wind and solar projects in the United States, Europe and Africa. Those investments include the giant Ivanpah solar generating station in the Mojave Desert.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
F.P. Santangelos take on new Giants closer Mark Melancon should be music to the ears of Giants fans who spent this past season dreading the ninth inning.

A Nationals television broadcaster, Santangelo watched Melancon convert 17 of 18 saves after Washington traded for him at the deadline this year.

Hes almost boring, Santangelo said. Id go on the air joking, Yawwwwn, another Melancon save. He throws strikes. He pitches to feeble contact, not even weak contact. He breaks left-handed-batters bats left and right. His cutter breaks 2 feet right to left and hes got a 12-6 curveball.

Hes a nonadventurous closer, which Im sure Giants fans will love after what theyve been through.

The numbers tell a similar story and underscore why the Giants gave Melancon a four-year, $62 million contract, a record for a relief pitcher  at least until Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman sign.

Melancon has saved a majors-best 131 games over the past three seasons. Over the past two, he has converted 98 of 104 save opportunities.

More to Santangelos point, Melancon is extremely efficient.

The right-hander finished 2016 with an 0.897 WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched). Of the 16 major-leaguers who had at least 30 saves, only Chapman, Jansen and Zach Britton were better. Santiago Casillas was 1.190.

Melancon walked 12 this past season. In that same group of 30-save relievers, only Jansen issued fewer (11). Melancons high groundball rate fits the Giants defensively.

Historically in D.C. weve had Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure closers, Santangelo said. The fans never got used to that lights-out, 1-2-3 ninth inning. Melancon was the first guy we had like that since I got here in 2011.

The Giants can attest to that. They faced Melancon three times this year. Twice he saved 1-0 victories; the third time, he pitched in a non-save ninth inning. He faced the minimum nine batters in those three games; on June 20, he allowed a Brandon Belt single, then got Buster Posey to hit into the double play.

On the down side, Melancon has been a three-out closer. His longest saves have been four outs, and he has only four of those in his career. Manager Bruce Bochy often summons his closer in the eighth inning. One of the two men will have to adjust.

Also, Melancon is not a pup. He turns 32 in March.

Nor is Melancon a hard thrower in the mold of Jansen or Chapman.

Like future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera, Melancon relies mostly on a cutter, which averages 91 mph. This year, he threw it 63 percent of the time, according to Fangraphs. He also has a big overhand curveball (26 percent) and a traditional fastball (11 percent) that Santangelo said has a natural cut.

Nothing is straight, Santangelo said.

Former Giants outfielder Randy Winn was playing for the Yankees in 2010 when Melancon was just rising to the majors. Winn, now a Giants special assistant, said one particular Melancon pitch caught his eye.

Even then, his curveball stuck out to me, Winn said. I didnt see him a ton, but when you see a curveball that breaks like that, youre like, Whos that guy out there? Hes learned how to pitch off that. Thats what makes him so effective.

Hes not strictly a power pitcher. Guys who know how to pitch can figure out how to get guys out. Hes not a strikeout pitcher. Can he get strikeouts? Absolutely. But hes the type of guy whos going to be able to learn how to pitch even when he doesnt have his best velocity.

Chronicle staff writer John Shea

contributed to this report.

Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hschulman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hankschulman
CHARLESTON, S.C.  A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of a white former police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.

Cell phone video taken by a bystander that showed Walter Scott, 50, being shot in the back five times by Michael Slager was shown widely in the media and on the Internet and shocked the country, inflaming the national debate about how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers.

A panel of one black and 11 white jurors  who had seemed close to a verdict to convict on Friday, with apparently only one holdout  said Monday they were unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating more than 22 hours over four days.

Prosecutors said they intend to retry Slager, who also faces a trial in federal court next year on charges of depriving Scott of his civil rights.

Former patrolman Slager, 35, was charged with murder in the April 4, 2015, shooting of Scott. The presiding judge had said the jury could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

After the video went public, Slager was fired by the police department and charged with murder. Scotts family called for peace in the North Charleston community. Their calls for calm are believed to have helped prevent the kind of violence that erupted elsewhere when black men were killed in encounters with law enforcement.

Its the second time in recent weeks a jury has deadlocked in an officer-involved shooting. A mistrial was declared Nov. 12 when a jury in Cincinnati couldnt reach a verdict in the case of a former campus police officer who was also charged with shooting a black motorist.

Scotts mother and brother said outside the courthouse that justice will eventually prevail. Scotts family also called for peaceful protests.

Were not going to tear up this city, said Scotts brother, Anthony. Were not happy. But were not sad.

Scott was pulled over for having a broken taillight on his 1990 Mercedes and then fled the car. Family members have said he may have run because he was $18,000 behind on child support.
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Its called Deathtrap.

A fire inspector knocked on the door of the graffiti-splattered warehouse in West Oakland on Monday afternoon and told a tenant that the city was taking steps to prevent another terrible tragedy like the one that happened just five miles away at Ghost Ship.

He was there, he told The Chronicle, to look into a complaint filed about Deathtrap, a 6,600-square-foot warehouse on 28th Street that, its Facebook page showed, was converted into a live-work art studio. Facebook photos showed that Deathtraps interior looks strikingly similar to that of Ghost Ship, with wooden steps and dangling strings of lights, and that the place has served as an underground music venue.

And, public records show that the city was aware of the place. The last open complaint on the Deathtrap property was filed with the citys building inspection department in March 2011 for unpermitted alterations and damage from a vehicle. A subsequent filing shows the vehicle damage was repaired that September. Its unclear what city officials did to respond to the unpermitted alterations.

Clearly the place has operated for years. The tenant who spoke with the fire inspector declined to talk with The Chronicle. And the Deathtrap Events Facebook page  which listed a history of public events ranging from concerts to classes  was removed Monday.

For city inspectors concerned with fire, health and safety code violations, however, Deathtrap is one of dozens  perhaps hundreds  of live-work warehouses and buildings in the city where artists crowd together in often dangerous conditions like those found in the Ghost Ship warehouse at 31st Avenue and International Boulevard, where at least 36 people were killed in Fridays fire.

The inspector who showed up Monday at Deathtrap told the tenant he was educating property owners about their duty to bring buildings up to code, and warning tenants about unsafe living conditions. The city, he said to her, is trying to hold owners to a higher standard and to empower tenants, not displace them. He spoke to the woman for 20 minutes as a Chronicle reporter and photographer listened nearby. He never went inside the building. The place, he told The Chronicle, was his second stop that day.

Oakland officials have kept largely mum on whether they plan to change the citys code enforcement processes as a result of the Ghost Ship fire.

When asked at an afternoon news conference whether the city was changing its approach to code enforcement in the aftermath of the Ghost Ship blaze, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf responded: As of this moment, I cannot say I have knowledge of any changes with (code enforcement) operations.

She said the city is going to have outside experts assess its handling of the Ghost Ship complaint, as well as similar complaints with other buildings.

In Rhode Island, following a nightclub fire that killed 100 people in 2003, the governor ordered an inspection blitz of all places of assembly including nightclubs, theaters, restaurants and churches. There were over 1,000 in the state.

Whether the Ghost Ship fire will lead to similar scrutiny in Oakland is an open question.

City Councilman Noel Gallo has been outspoken about the problems with blighted properties in the Fruitvale neighborhood, which he represents and where the Friday fire occurred. He said that before the building burned, he had gotten into confrontations with the master tenant, Derick Ion Almena, about trash left on the sidewalk.

He yelled, he screamed, he said the space was safe and that we were picking on them  picking on the artists, said Gallo, who lives a block away from where Ghost Ship burned. Recalling those interactions, the city councilman shook his head in frustration.

Former Ghost Ship tenants describe the place as a cluttered menagerie of wood, furniture and electrical cords, with propane tanks hanging over entrance ways and exits blocked off. On Nov. 13 the city received complaints about blight and unpermitted construction at the building, and an inspector visited the site on Nov. 17 but was not able to gain access, city officials have said.

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Outrage over the disaster has forced Schaaf to walk a delicate political tightrope of showing that the city will quickly deal with problem buildings, while reassuring artists that they wont be subject to a sudden crackdown.

During her first few days in office, the mayor established herself as a patron and protector of the arts, riding around town in a fire-belching snail car and holding an inauguration party at the sprawling American Steel warehouse in West Oakland. Like other civic leaders, she has treated Oaklands arts scene as a point of pride and a means to attract investment: The massively popular First Friday gallery walk helped jump-start development in the citys trendy Uptown district, and the warehouse scene in West Oakland helped spawn a flourishing maker subculture.

On Tuesday, Schaaf will hold a news conference in East Oakland announcing a major philanthropic investment for Oaklands arts community, while first responders sift through the wreckage of Ghost Ship just blocks away.

Artists, meanwhile, say they fear that the fire could become an excuse for ramped-up enforcement that will only cripple their scene at a time when Oaklands real estate market is heating up.

Any time code enforcement comes through, the landlord sees an opportunity to kick people out, and convert the building into something that serves Oaklands new influx of renters, said Matt Hummel, a longtime player in Oaklands arts scene who also chairs the citys Cannabis Regulatory Commission. So the landlord comes in, tears out the Formica, puts in granite and raises the rents, and then no one can afford to live there anymore.

Chronicle staff writer Hamed Aleaziz contributed to this report.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
This calls for a toast.

The Chronicles front page from Dec. 6, 1933, covers the end of Prohibition and the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

Prohibition today was wiped from the Constitution, the story read. With a dash of ceremony, Utah late today wrote an end to the dry law in a decree that opened the doors of liquor shops in 18 states.

Almost half a dozen other states were completing plans for legalizing sale under their own laws. The remainder of the nation remained dry.

Prohibition had been in effect since 1918, and the Volstead Act passed in 1919 and gave federal agencies the means to target booze and the people who sold and consumed it.

Outlawing liquor was the noble experiment  and a failure on a grand scale. Organized crime rose to new heights. Billions of dollars in state and federal taxes were lost. Speakeasies boomed. The thirst for alcohol stayed strong.

Before Utahs vote took place, party planning was under way.

In a hurried effort to meet the demand and thereby thwart the bootlegger, the government today decided to allow large importations of American-type bourbon and rye whiskeys from Canada, the story read.

Is that you, Mayor? A headline on this 1933 front page features a name that has often graced The Chronicles front page the past six years: Edwin Lee. The Edwin Lee in 1933, however, was Edwin A. Lee, a professor and the director of vocational education at the University of California, not Edwin M. Lee, the current mayor of San Francisco. Sadly, our intense research could not determine whether 1933 Edwin Lee had a righteous mustache.

See more front pages: Go to SFChronicle.com/covers to search a database of hundreds of Chronicle Covers articles that showcase the newspapers history.

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)




San Franciscos police union is trying to mislead the public about a badly needed change to police procedure, and arbitrators must take that into account in settling the unions dispute with the Police Commission.

This summer, the Police Commission passed an update to the use-of-force policy, after a string of fatal officer-involved shootings that outraged the public. The new policy restricts officers from firing at moving vehicles unless the driver poses an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury to the public or an officer by means other than the vehicle.

Restricting the police practice of shooting at moving vehicles is a top priority for reform activists, and theres good reason to do it. There have been many situations when police shoot at drivers who are attempting to flee, rather than to inflict harm  leading to public outrage about the loss of life. Also, shooting at a moving vehicle greatly increases the danger for innocent bystanders in the area.

For all of these reasons, police agencies around the country have restricted the practice. Both the Department of Justice and President Obamas Task Force on 21st Century Policing also recommend the restriction.

Ad under fire SF police unions ad slamming proposed gun policy draws criticism

But the police union isnt impressed by the idea of following a national best practice, and it has released an advertisement that was designed to mislead the public about it.

The ad, which started running on local television stations on Friday, seeks to influence the public by pointing to the Bastille Day terror attack in Nice, France, in July, when a driver plowed down dozens of pedestrians with a cargo truck.

Using an extreme example to try to block a necessary reform would be bad enough. But the ad also falsely suggests that a 2003 incident in which police shot a San Francisco driver was the work of someone bent on running down pedestrians, too.

This kind of irresponsibility is a fine reminder that the Police Department needs real leadership  the kind that comes from a police chief. Unfortunately, Mayor Ed Lee still hasnt named a permanent replacement for Greg Suhr, who resigned in May after a sergeant fatally shot an unarmed car-theft suspect who was driving away from police. The next chief needs to understand that San Francisco cant afford to ignore necessary reforms, and the mayor needs to stop dawdling and pick this kind of candidate.
Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

The big fake news stories of 2016 were the polls. Most showed Donald Trump losing big in November, thus cable news ran countless renditions of the many ways Trump could not possibly win the necessary Electoral College vote. Getting the story utterly wrong should result in hand-wringing, hair-pulling and painful introspection in my profession; instead many in the news business have turned their hungry eyes on fake news disseminated on Facebook and Google.

Thats right. After a year of getting the story consistently wrong, journalism gurus are pointing to phony stories not produced by the mainstream media. After the election, the New York Times ran a piece about election day hoaxes, fake news and misinformation. An example: A GOP mayor in Georgia tweeted that Republicans vote on Tuesday, 11/8, but Democrats vote on Wednesday, 11/9. Hello, Gray Lady; it was a joke. How desperate do you have to be to include that tweet as an example of misinformation?
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SACRAMENTO  Contra Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson has agreed to pay a $45,000 fine levied by the states Fair Political Practices Commission over allegations he used his political campaign account for personal expenses.

Over a four-year period, Peterson spent more than $66,000 in campaign funds on himself, according to a settlement agreement with the commission that was made public Monday.

Peterson submitted a cashiers check to pay the fine, according to the settlement agreement, but the watchdogs board has to approve the settlement at its next board meeting Dec. 15. State law requires the fine to be paid from Petersons private funds, not his campaign accounts. The fine would go into the states general fund if the commissions board approves of the settlement.

Although I have fully reimbursed the committee for all of the personal expenditures, I make no excuses, Peterson said in a statement. I am humbled and embarrassed by my mistakes, for which I take full responsibility, and I apologize for my regrettable errors.

The commissions investigators found Peterson used $66,000 in campaign funds for personal use between 2011 and 2015 on meals, gas, clothes, movie tickets, hotels, phone bills, cash withdraws and other expenses. He also transferred money from the political account to his personal bank account, according to the settlement.

State law requires that campaign funds be used for a political, legislative or governmental purpose.

In all, Peterson made approximately 600 expenditures from the political account for his personal use. Those transactions were not recorded on the political committees statements, nor were the reimbursements Peterson was making to the committee.

Peterson contends that he considered the expenditures a loan from the Committee and that he always intended to repay the Committee, according to the settlement.

Peterson reimbursed the political account for about half of what he spent between 2011-2015, but not all of it was paid back until he was told his political account would be audited by the Franchise Tax Board in October 2015. After he was notified of the audit, Peterson reimbursed the campaign $33,000, according to the commission investigation.

After Peterson was notified of the audit, Peterson called the Fair Political Practices Commission and admitted to making personal expenditures with campaign funds between 2011 and 2015, according to the settlement.

Peterson was elected District Attorney for Contra Costa County in 2010 and re-elected to the post in 2014. He served as treasurer of his campaign committee until December 2015, when he hired a professional to oversee the committees books.

The commission also announced Monday a settlement with eBay for late filings required under the law for the companys lobbying.

If the commissions board approves of the settlement, eBay agreed to pay a $6,500 fine.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
Mozart finds his way out of the jungle (well, New York City, anyway) and onto a gondola in Venice as the third season of Amazons tuneful and sassy Mozart in the Jungle kicks off on Friday, Dec. 9.

Just making it to a third season is noteworthy these days, but when a shows third season is actually its best so far, you know youre tuning in to true quality.

The improbable hit was developed by Alex Timbers and cousins Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, based on the book by Blair Tindall, about the world of classical music and specifically the fictional New York Symphony.

The central players include hotshot young Mexican maestro Rodrigo (Gael Garcia Bernal), gifted oboe player Hailey (Lola Kirke), orchestra president Gloria (Bernadette Peters), former orchestra conductor Thomas (Malcolm McDowell), cellist Cynthia (Saffron Burrows), an extended and gifted supporting cast, and regular cameo appearances by real classical bigwigs, such as Joshua Bell, composer Nico Muhly, Placido Domingo, Lang Lang, Emanuel Ax, Gustavo Dudamel, Alan Gilbert and others.

This season finds the orchestra on strike and management  i.e., Gloria  refusing to budge. While several musicians find other jobs, including driving for Uber, Rodrigo has decamped to Venice to work with opera diva Alessandra (Monica Bellucci), known as La Fiamma, who hasnt sung in four years. Hailey is touring with the Andrew Walsh Ensemble, but soon gets canned by the prickly Walsh (Dermot Mulroney) and winds up hanging around Rodrigo and Alessandra.

Gianluca Pulcini / Gianluca Pulcini / Amazon Studios

The first half of the 10-episode season focuses on the orchestras frustration back in New York and Rodrigos attempts to tame the temperamental diva in Venice. Just as Rodrigos character bears an obvious resemblance to Venezuelan hot shot conductor Dudamel, La Fiamma is a modern-day Maria Callas  mercurial and terrified about her comeback and about her voice aging.

Rodrigos plan is to stage her comeback on a barge in the middle of a canal at night, which would horrify even a young, full-throated soprano. Damp air and outdoor acoustics do not make an ideal setting for a classical recital.

No matter, really. The scene is a masterpiece of great storytelling and television magic as La Fiamma offers several classical arias and a bit from Muhlys work in progress about a real-life tabloid scandal of several years back. (The idea of writing an opera based on a sleazy scandal isnt all that far-fetched, any more than, say, writing an opera based on Hitchcocks Marnie, which is on Muhlys real-life agenda.)

In case you think classical music is stuffy, rest assured the show is filled with sex, great comedy, a rollicking screwball food fight between Gloria and Rodrigo, and a mockumentary about the orchestra written and directed by Coppola and starring Schwartzman as filmmaker Bradford Sharpe (B. Sharp: get it?).

The episode, titled Not Yet Titled, follows the orchestra to Rikers Island, where it will perform for the inmates. The episode has moments of gentle satire, especially when the camera pans skyward to follow flying birds, and in so doing, hits us on the head with the obvious: that the bird can fly, but inmates are stuck behind bars.

But its also grounded in seriousness, as the orchestra plays only the music of Olivier Messiaen. Never mind that the late French composer is challenging for patrons whose musical tastes begin at Mozart and end once Schoenberg starts messing around with that whole 12-tone business: What about inmates who have never heard classical music at all?

Never underestimate people with no pretensions. Theres a reason Rodrigo has offered bits of Messiaen: While the composer was a prisoner of war after France fell to the Nazis in 1940, he composed Quartet for the End of Time, which was performed for the first time for an audience of prisoners and guards.

Of course, Messiaen also loved birds, the idea of birds, their ability to fly and most of all, their song, which he replicated in much of his music. Birds represented freedom to him, so as corny as it may be to film a gull sweeping across the sky over Rikers, its message is also honest and to the point.

The film was shot at Rikers itself with an audience of actual inmates, who embrace what they hear. It is moving beyond words.

But thats part of the dirty little secret of Mozart: As satirical and comic as it is, the series overflows with great music. There may be a few bars of Bach and Beethoven here and there, but there are also longer sections when absolutely nothing is going on onscreen except the performance of great music.

And not just classical music, either  Mozart is not elitist. Theres rock, experimental music, jazz, punk and, in the third season, a wonderful introduction to the career of Vitezslava Kapralova, a gifted and prolific composer who conducted both the Czech Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra during her brief life (she was only 45 when she died in 1940). The samples of her music performed by Haileys friend Lizzie (Hannah Dunne) effectively whet the appetite to hear more.

Garcia Bernal is the virtuosic energy at the heart of the series, but his performance is far from the only great one. Peters, McDowell, Kirke, Burrows and supporting players such as Wallace Shawn, Debra Monk and Mark Blum, not to mention Belluccis far-too-convincing diva, only add to the fun and richness of the series.

Mozart is hilarity in harmony with terrific writing and performances.

David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle and co-host of The Do List every Friday morning at 6:22 and 8:22 on KQED FM, 88.5 FM in San Francisco, 89.3 FM in Sacramento. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV

Mozart in the Jungle: Season three. All 10 episodes available for streaming on Amazon Prime on Friday, Dec. 9.
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Back in 1979, the Academy of Art listed a night class simply called Night Light. It was taught by San Francisco photographer Steve Harper once a week at 7 p.m. and would end at 10 p.m.  though sometimes it would go all night. Harper would teach students to use a tripod and leave the shutter open long enough to make night light as sharp as daylight.

Harpers class, said to be the first in night photography at any college in the country, soon made the Bay Area a destination for shooters of darkness, who eventually formed a loose collective called the Nocturnes.

This summer the Nocturnes turned 25, and their guru, Harper, died at age 85. Those two milestones will be honored in a tribute exhibition called Ascendancy: Steve Harper and the San Francisco School of Night Photography, which opens Thursday, Dec. 8, at RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco.

Steve was an advocate for night photography as a transformative experience, says Tim Baskerville, founder of the Nocturnes and curator of the exhibition. He would photograph anything from industrial sites to landscapes. It is amazing how something that was ugly during daylight hours would be transformed into a thing of beauty at night.

To curate the show, Baskerville sent out a call to Harper collectors, who include Michael Kenna, the well-known night photographer of the Golden Gate Bridge. Kenna loaned half the images in a show that amounts to 25 photos, ranging from urban grit in black-and-white to lush landscapes in Death Valley.

Whenever Harper had a show, he would commingle the work of his students among his own to help promote them, so that is how the tribute show is organized, Baskerville said.

There are a dozen prints by Nocturne members, including Baskerville of Vallejo, Lance Keimig of Boston and Troy Paiva of Redwood City. Their work ranges from under a full moon to inside the fog. There is a mix of razor-sharp black-and-whites and ethereal color prints  and you wont find an image of Christmas lights, fireworks or neon lights in the show.

Harpers work stands out among his disciples in that he shot self-portraits. For his signature image, taken in 1979, he went to Sutro Baths and held his dogs blanket above his head for 30 minutes. The wind blew the blanket to make him look like a ghost.

For another self-portrait, he set up his tripod and filmed himself in bed sleeping for four hours. As he tossed and turned in the long exposure, he came out looking like a skeleton.

Its the ultimate selfie, says Baskerville.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Instagram: @sfchronicle_art

Ascendancy: Steve Harper and the San Francisco School of Night Photography: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Thursday, Dec. 8, through Jan. 13. RayKo Photo Center, 428 Third St., S.F. (415) 495-3773. www.raykophoto.com
Theres an important position 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 employer that cultivates young talent in many fields. It is a steward of the future of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls community and the 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 July 2015. 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.

 Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier,

like the Globe Gazette, a Lee Enterprises newspaper
Oakland businesses donated food and beverages to victims families and others in need following the Oakland fire that has claimed 36 lives.

Blue Bottle Coffee, Whole Foods Market and Peets Coffee were among the businesses that have donated since the fire, said the Rev. Jayson Landeza of the Oakland Fire Department, as investigators and rescue crews scavenged the warehouse behind him.
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The 17-year-old San Francisco student killed in a catastrophic fire at an electronic music show in Oakland was the son of a deputy for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office  the agency in charge of recovering and examining bodies from the tragic scene, the boy's classmates confirmed Monday.

Draven McGill, a junior at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts who attended Friday's event, lived in Dublin, his friends said. His father, Phil McGill, works for the Dublin Police Department, which is staffed by the county sheriff's office. He previously worked in the coroner's bureau.

Draven, who was one of at least 36 people to perish in the Friday night fire at a warehouse that had been converted into the so-called Ghost Ship arts collective, was a member of the school's vocal department as well as the Pacific Boychoir Academy.

Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly said the loss deeply affected the department.

"That makes this much more personal," he said, describing the shock that went through the family-like office when he and his colleagues learned of Draven's death. "We were like, 'You gotta be kidding.' This hit us, too. It's hit every cross-section of society here in the Bay Area and all over the world."

On Monday, Draven's great aunt, Merlena Moore, arrived at the burned-out warehouse holding flowers.

"He was a sweet, loving young man taken from this earth too early," she said. "I just had to do something, had to give something."

Earlier in the day at the School of the Arts, Draven's friends cried and hugged each other, overwhelmed by the loss at the close-knit school.

Draven, a baritone in the school's choir, was "down to earth and he was really willing to try anything," said his friend, Kai Thomas.

He was impatient and lived in the moment, Kai said, always up for an adventure. Despite his training in classical music, Draven was a fan of rapper Biggie Smalls as well as EDM, or electronic dance music.

The teenager attended Friday's show with two friends, who survived after a dangerous escape down crumbling stairs.

One of the two, classmate Faelan Westhead, described the last hours he spent with his friend. It had been a beautiful scene on the second floor of the Ghost Ship, he said.

The three had arrived at about 10:45 p.m., and they soon saw what they thought was mist from a fog machine filter into the room, Faelen said. But within seconds, the crowd realized it was smoke and a quickly spreading fire.

As fear spread among those in the room. Faelen said he looked over at Draven. His friend's face was calm, even peaceful  an expression that was in sharp contrast to the growing panic that surrounded them.

Then the lights went out and people started screaming. It was pitch black, Faelan said.

He and his other friend headed for the rickety stairway that was the only route downstairs.

"The stairs were mostly gone by that point," he said. "We had to jump."

The high school junior is not sure how many people even tried to get down the stairs. Many people on the second floor, he said, appeared to feel safer staying put rather than heading into the smoke and fire below. While going down seemed like the wrong thing to do, he went anyway, he said.

"I was really sure I was going to die down there," Faelan said. "I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed."

He and his friend staggered to the exit about 20 feet away, but Draven wasn't with them when they made it outside. Faelan believes he might have stayed behind with the others.

They had gone to the event for the electronic dance music. But it wasn't the wild scene that many associate with such events, Faelan said.

The three friends had been sitting on couches, and the music was slow and experimental, he said. There were antique pianos scattered around the large room and several attendees would occasionally start playing music on one of them.

"Everybody sounded so talented," said Faelan, a world music student.

Faelan and several other students were struggling to absorb that they would never see their friend again.

"It's rough," said Gabriel Bibliowicz, also a baritone in the vocal program and student body president. "Every memory we have of him is so much bigger now."

They remembered how he arrived at the school as a freshman, his voice still high-pitched and as yet untouched by puberty. They still joked about that, years later, but Draven wasn't bothered by it.

"He didn't care about other people's opinions," said Julian Granados, who is 16 and also a junior at the school.

Julian and Draven were inseparable, always together, often raiding the refrigerator at Julian's house and getting into trouble for emptying the contents.

The two had met after Julian threw a binder at Draven during freshman-year Spanish class, drawing blood. Instead of becoming enemies, they became best friends.

"He was always there to talk to," said Julian, his lip quivering as he grappled for words to adequately describe Draven. "He wouldn't put you down."

In a letter to parents, school Principal Barnaby Payne said, "This is an incredibly unsettling and sad event  not only for the Asawa SOTA community, but especially for Draven's family. I am in contact with them, and will keep you informed of how we can provide support to them."

"We must rise to this occasion," Payne wrote, "and rally around each other with love, compassion and support."

Additional counselors were on hand at the school to help teachers and students cope with the loss.

"It is both painful and poignant that the victims' lives were lost while seeking community and connection through a shared love of art and creative expression," said interim Superintendent Myong Leigh. "We mourn especially deeply for our student, the fire's youngest victim, and with and for his family."

A former Ruth Asawa School of the Arts student, Johnny Igaz, remained listed as missing on Monday. Igaz, a DJ known as Nackt, was among the advertised performers at Friday's event. He graduated from the San Francisco high school in 1999.

As of Monday morning, authorities had recovered 36 bodies from the warehouse, and were not finished with their painstaking search of the wreckage.

"You always think it happens to someone else," Kai Thomas said. "Here I am having to talk about one of my friends."

Staff writer Hamed Aleaziz contributed to this story.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
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A music manager at Shazam, Jennifer Kiyomi Tanouye loved shows, people and colors as bright and lively as she was.

She was a real vibrant person, always smiling and going to concerts and stuff, said Anna Bleviss Whitlatch of San Francisco, a friend for nearly a decade.

Tanouye, 31, was one of at least 36 people who died in Friday nights fire at an Oakland warehouse known as the Ghost Ship. There, she was doing what she loved to do for fun: painting designs on peoples nails. Somewhere within the labyrinthine building, she had set up her Underground Nail Bar, which she took to parties everywhere.

She had recently taken up running and also found time to volunteer at Issues, a magazine store in Oakland, and at author parties and music festivals.

Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends, as well as all the victims of this tragedy, said the music companys chief executive, Rich Riley.

Tanouye was quirky and funny, said her friend Shayne Keator. He once told her about a fake art museum he called the Jejune Institute, and she quickly became obsessed with it, calling herself Jenny Jejune and naming her dog Jejune as well.

She was inseparable from the Pomeranian.

Jejune was kind of like the symbol of her, said Masha Pershay, a KQED intern and one of Tanouyes best friends.

Most of all, Pershay said, Tanouye was a great person.

She was always really helpful. Any time a friend had an emergency, she was just the kind of person you could call.

Chronicle staff writer Kim Veklerov contributed to this story.
The search for the missing at a burned-out warehouse in Oakland grew only more somber Monday, as hope for survivors dimmed and the families and friends of those unaccounted for endured an agonizing wait.

Daniel Vega was among those at an Alameda County sheriffs substation near the scene of Friday nights fire at an electronic music show, hoping for news about his 22-year-old brother, Alex Vega. Hes not expecting the news to be good  hes all but certain Alex went to the show with his girlfriend, Michela Gregory, who was among the dead.

Its hard, Vega said between drags off a cigarette. Im trying to be the strong one.

UC Berkeley Professor Luba Golburt also wasnt optimistic about her former student Griffin Madden, who graduated last year after taking her 19th century Russian literature class and her seminar on Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol.

But I am checking the news incessantly, said Golburt, an associate professor in Slavic languages and literatures.

I cant say that its because Im hoping for the best. Thats probably not the case, she said.

Golburt said Madden was a passionate student and a joy to teach. We all remember him very fondly, she said.

The county coroners office confirmed at least 36 died in the fire. By late Monday, authorities had tentatively identified 33 victims and were in the process of notifying loved ones.

While the names of the missing have not been released publicly, many relatives and friends have spoken openly, recalling people whose absence will diminish their lives.

The sheriffs substation where Vega sought answers has become a gathering place for loved ones of the missing. Grief counselors, chaplains and American Red Cross officials are on hand.

Im an artist, one volunteer at the station said. This really hits home.

Juan Pablo Robles stopped by for any word he could get on a family member as well as a couple of friends who attended the show.

I called my cousin; he didnt answer, Robles said in Spanish, his eyes puffy and red. Some of my friends also didnt answer.

Jenna Lyons, Kurtis Alexander and Nanette Asimov are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com, kalexander@sfchronicle.com, nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno @kurtisalexander @nanetteasimov
Steven G. de Polo / Getty Images / Steven G. de Polo / Getty Images

A 65-year-old man was identified by police Tuesday after he was struck and killed in a hit-and-run crash that also left a woman injured  one of three car wrecks that plagued San Francisco streets over the weekend, officials said.

Lanqing Dong, a resident of China, was struck and killed while crossing Valdez Avenue at Monterey Boulevard around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. A 64-year-old woman who was crossing the street with Dong was also hit and hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
A candlelight vigil was held Monday night in San Francisco for several transgender victims of the Oakland warehouse fire.

Several dozen people gathered at Harvey Milk Plaza at Market and Castro streets to mourn their transgender friends and relatives, most of whose deaths have not yet been confirmed.

Thirty-six bodies have been found in the converted warehouse on 31st Avenue and International Boulevard, where dozens of partyers were trapped when a fire broke out Friday night during an electronic music performance by Golden Donna 100% Silk.

The mourners Monday prayed next to dozens of candles laid out on an ornate tapestry surrounded by homemade signs with names of victims or people still missing. A rainbow-colored ribbon was draped over a railing behind the candles.

The fire was horrendous, said the Rev. Cameron Partridge, 43, a priest at St. Aidans Episcopal Church, and were realizing increasingly that there were a number of trans folks there that were part of our community.

Nobody knows exactly how many of their brethren were killed, said the Rev. Megan Rohrer, a transgender Lutheran pastor in San Francisco, because most people in the community use different names from whats on their birth certificates, which investigators use to identify victims.

Its not known if we will be able to identify all of the individuals, Rohrer said, adding that your tears will be my tears.

Tracy Garza, a board member at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, said the people living in the warehouse community known as the Ghost Ship were there mostly because they had no other affordable place to go where transgender people can live and thrive.

Its been a really, really difficult last few days, and its definitely meant so much to me that we can come together, that we can mourn, Garza said. Its sad that we are still faced with living like this in the 21st century. There is still so much more work to be done.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
Berkeley is supposedly a tolerant town, so one would think a pedestrian following what he thought were the right rules of the road could go unnoticed walking on the left side of a bike path.

Not so for the cabbie-cap-wearing, slow-riding angry cyclist who barked at me on the Ohlone Greenway near North Berkeley BART this week.

"This isn't Europe, pal!" the surly cyclist yelled.

It began as a normal day, power-walking in my sport coat and tie toward carpool at North Berkeley BART. With a lot of traffic on the Greenway, I thought, instead of all these bikes passing me blindly, I'd like to actually see them coming.

I began walking on the left side, facing bike-pedestrian trail traffic.

It seemed right to walk left.

This is especially important as Berkeley seems to possess more of those super-commuters who barrel down the Greenway with a cargo carrier and two kids all expertly attached to a custom roadbike that cost more than the 1986 VW Westfalia parked in their tree-lined driveway. They can't stop quickly, and they pedal faster than I drive.

For clarity, the Ohlone Greenway is a relatively wide paved path with a yellow line down the middle running underneath BART tracks and through urban areas in the East Bay. It's about 8 feet wide in most parts, with two lanes, and grass, mud, or shrubs on either side.

A man on an old beach cruiser bike trundled along right toward me, and as I hugged the left edge of the asphalt, he kept coming, not veering an inch from a head-on collision with me.

I finally jumped out of his way, to the right.

As he passed, he turned and yelled, "This isn't Europe, pal!"

He didn't have a Bronx accent, but he dressed like he was from there, and certainly embodied the stereotype of a rude New Yorker. (I'll add I've always found New Yorkers incredibly kind, but this guy was straight out of Hollywood casting).

It took me a minute to finally figure out that:

a) He was addressing me, and

b) That he actually thought I had done something wrong, worthy of his scolding.

Because I had been in a frustrated mood all morning anyway, I chose to let him have it.

I fired back something pithy like, "Ummmm... hey, shut up!"

And then I proceeded to feel bad about yelling back all day, like maybe he had a bad eye and didn't see me, or maybe I should have simply thanked him for his advice.

As I fixated on this angry exchange, I realized I had learned that pedestrians are supposed to walk facing traffic way back from my days as a Boy Scout. (Mind you, a tolerant, LGBT-friendly scout who worked to make Scouts more inclusive while still enjoying hoisting the American flag and tying knots).

Yes folks, the official Boy Scout manual encourages you to walk FACING traffic, so you can see vehicles coming.

We checked, and the State of California even encourages pedestrians to walk on the left, writing in a commuting guide for students that one should, "walk facing traffic" if there is no sidewalk.

What I couldn't determine is -- does this apply to bike/pedestrian trails, and even fire roads, and other places? Clearly, in Berkeley, at least one surly cyclist says it does not.

Turns out, the surly cyclist may have been right, at least if you ask the bicycle people. And, since pedestrians usually lose in a collision with a cyclist, I'm inclined to go with their advice.

Bike East Bay's Education Director, Robert Prinz, tells me, "There is some confusion as people are taught to walk against the direction of traffic when on a street with no sidewalk, but for shared bike/pedestrian paths it's a good idea for everyone, whether they are walking, biking, rollerblading, etc, to stick to the right side and then pass on the left."

But wait.

"There are some exceptions," Prinz admits, "like on portions of the Ohlone Greenway in Albany, or the Bay Bridge path, where a separate pedestrian lane exists."

Yep. There is actually a THIRD lane on some portions of the trail.

A white line separates the two bike lanes from the third, wider pedestrian lane.

And ostensibly, you should probably walk on the right side of this too, as you would a sidewalk (see the Rules for Walking gallery above).

Don't worry though.

If you do it wrong, a surly walker will likely offer you some "friendly" advice.

What do you say? Weigh in with the comments section.
Top tweet

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.

Actor George Takei, not exactly amused by a racist backlash after the mall in suburban Minneapolis hired an African American man, Larry Jefferson, to play Santa Claus.

Cleared for takeoff

Alaska Airlines can move forward with its takeover of Virgin America, the Burlingame airline with a hub at SFO. The Department of Justice approved the deal with the condition that Alaska scale back a marketing agreement with American Airlines. Alaska is paying $57 a share for Virgin, or $4 billion after accounting for debt and aircraft leases.

Stream on

Sirius XM Holdings, the satellite radio service controlled by pay-TV billionaire John Malone, has considered deals for Pandora Media and rapper Jay Zs Tidal as a way to expand into music streaming. Pandoras advertising model in addition to the streaming and ticketing is certainly an interesting angle, Mark Carleton, chief financial officer of Sirius XM parent Liberty Media Corp., said Tuesday at an investor conference in New York. Apple, which has its own paid music-streaming service, also reportedly eyed Tidal this summer.

The Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techbriefing
A San Francisco man, charged with taking part in the murder of the man who allegedly dragged a teenage relative into prostitution, won a federal appeals court ruling Monday barring evidence that he told a jailhouse deputy he was part of a gang.

Antonio Gilton is one of four people charged with murdering Calvin Sneed, 22, of Compton (Los Angeles County) in June 2012. Prosecutors said Sneed was a pimp who was exploiting and beating a 17-year-old girl who was the daughter of Giltons cousin, Barry Gilton, and Barry Giltons girlfriend, Lupe Mercado.

Sneed was shot from a passing car near the couples Bayview home. Antonio and Barry Gilton, Mercado and a family friend, Alfonso Williams, are defendants in the case.

Antonio Gilton refused to talk to police when he was arrested in July 2012 and invoked his right to speak to a lawyer. He was then taken to jail, where a deputy asked him during the booking process whether he was affiliated with a gang known as the Central Divis Playas, and he replied, Yeah, I hang out there, put me where Im from.

The deputy used Giltons response to determine where to place him in the jail, and federal prosecutors sought to use it as evidence of Giltons guilt in Sneeds murder as part of a racketeering enterprise  the gang he had been asked about. But a federal judge ruled the evidence inadmissible because Giltons right to remain silent had been disregarded, and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling Monday.

Since 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court has required officers interrogating suspects in custody to first give Miranda warnings, advising them of their right to remain silent and consult a lawyer. The warnings are not required for routine questioning when someone is being booked into jail, but the appeals court said the jailhouse questioning of Gilton didnt fall into that category.

Asking a murder suspect about gang membership is reasonably likely to elicit incriminating information, Judge Andrew Hurwitz said in the 2-1 ruling. Under California law, he said, a gang-related murder can carry a death sentence, and federal law also increases penalties for crimes committed to benefit a gang.

Judge Andrew Kleinfeld dissented, saying the deputy questioning Gilton was uninvolved in his prosecution and was properly furthering jail safety by separating members of rival gangs.

Giltons lawyer, Mark Goldrosen, said the same issue has arisen in other pending cases, including the cases of Giltons co-defendants, which are on hold during the prosecutions appeal. He said the ruling allows jail guards to ask about gang status during the booking process as long as the answers arent used as evidence.

The ruling protects the rights of defendants and allows for safety within the jail, Goldrosen said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
WILMINGTON, Del., Dec. 05, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Andrews & Springer LLC, a boutique securities class action law firm focused on representing shareholders nationwide, is investigating potential securities violation and breach of fiduciary duty claims against the Board of Directors of Immunomedics, Inc. (Immunomedics or the Company).



If you own shares of Immunomedics and want to receive additional information and protect your investments free of charge, please visit us at http://www.andrewsspringer.com/cases-investigations/immunomedics-class-action-investigation/ or contact Craig J. Springer, Esq. at cspringer@andrewsspringer.com, or call toll free at 1-800-423-6013. You may also follow us on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/company/andrews-&-springer-llc , Twitter  www.twitter.com/AndrewsSpringer or Facebook - www.facebook.com/AndrewsSpringer for future updates.

Andrews & Springer is a boutique securities class action law firm representing shareholders nationwide who are victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty or corporate misconduct. Having formerly defended some of the largest financial institutions in the world, our founding members use their valuable knowledge, experience, and superior skill for the sole purpose of achieving positive results for investors. These traits are the hallmarks of our innovative approach to each case our Firm decides to prosecute. For more information please visit our website at www.andrewsspringer.com. This notice may constitute Attorney Advertising.
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Hurricane Nicole unearthed an Atlantic Ocean "sea monster," according to a group of Bermudan fishermen who said they accidentally came face-to-face with a 14-pound lobster last weekend.

On Oct. 13, Category 3 Hurricane Nicole swept through Bermuda with an "exceedingly rare" intensity for the area, according to The Weather Channel. Two days later, Sanctuary Marine Bermuda, a small fishing guide service on the island, found a huge catch.

RELATED: Texas gar fisherman has amassed worldwide attention, records for his monster catches

"Hurricane Nicole blew in some sea monsters," the business captioned three photos of a man holding up the crustacean.

The post garnered a sea of more than 20,000 reactions, to which Sanctuary Marine Bermuda replied to and promised the lobster had been released back into the ocean. Video of the catch was also shared on the page, which showed the company's crews as they worked to remove a fish hook from behemoth.

RELATED: Photos: Texas family keeps world's largest rodent as indoor pet

Sanctuary Marine Bermuda's Capt. Matthew Jones and Tristan Loescher told The Washington Post they were fishing for snapper when they landed the "accidental" catch. Loescher is the man seen in the video, who jumped into the water to untangle and unhook the lobster.

Jones also told the Washington Post he has been fishing in Bermuda since he was a teenager and had never seen a lobster as big as his latest catch.

RELATED: 254-pound 'river monster' caught in waters dividing Texas and Oklahoma

Though the 14-pound lobster may be a first for Bermuda and Jones, a 1977, 44-pound catch in Nova Scotia is the heaviest "marine crustacean" in the Guinness World Records. However, the record-holder was an American of North Atlantic Lobster. Though the Bermudan catch was caught in the North Atlantic waters, it is classified as a Caribbean spiny lobster due to its lack of claws, according to The Weather Channel.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
In the mysteriously creepy world of Evolution, on a remote island that would have been perfect for Alcatraz Prison, there are no grown men or little girls  only women and pre-adolescent boys. The inhabitants occupy a few bleak buildings, and the only dish on the menu is a disgusting worm-like stew. What the hell is going on here?

Thats the central question of this aesthetically powerful horror film, which diabolically plays with themes of gender roles, ecological calamity, child exploitation, sexual boundaries and the nightmarish blend of dreams and reality. Almost every frame is open to interpretation, a nice way of saying that the narrative sometimes leaves us wanting, even as we fall under the movies eerie spell.
Kino Lorber

Fire at Sea, a mesmerizing documentary about the migration crisis in Europe, opens with a familiar device: cue cards that announce a serious problem, in this case the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been flooding Lampedusa, a microscopic Mediterranean island between Sicily and Africa. Over the past 20 years, at least 15,000 have perished trying to reach this fishing outpost, which refugees see as a gateway to Europe.

Yet after the gravity of the situation is spelled out and the cue cards fade, this remarkable film takes us to some surprising vantage points. We meet a young island resident, Samuele, who climbs a tree to while away the day and seems oblivious to the troubles around him.
Analysis of 2 Actimab-A Phase 1 clinical trials show that 42% of patients with low peripheral blast (PB) burden responded to Actimab-A while no patients with high PB burden responded to Actimab-A





Key threshold level for low PB Burden per PB Burden Hypothesis identified as 200 blasts/L



Actimab-A has progressed to Phase 2 trial as a monotherapy via two simple fifteen minute injections administered a week apart in patients below PB burden threshold

SAN DIEGO, Calif., Dec. 05, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT:ATNM) ("Actinium" or "the Company"), a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative targeted therapies for cancers lacking effective treatment options, announced today that results from its Phase 1 trial of Actimab-A were presented at the 58th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting (ASH) that is currently ongoing in San Diego, CA. Data from the previously conducted Phase 1 study pertaining to safety, efficacy and PB burden were highlighted during the poster session. Actimab-A is currently being studied in a 53-patient Phase 2 clinical trial as a monotherapy for patients newly diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) age 60 and above who are ineligible for currently used induction therapies. The Phase 2 trial is studying Actimab-A as a monotherapy administered via two fifteen minute intravenous injections of 2.0 Ci/kg/fraction of Actimab-A given a week apart. PB burden below 200 blasts/L will serve as an inclusion criteria and patients above this threshold will be administered hydroxyurea to reduce their peripheral blasts counts prior to Actimab-A administration. Results from the Phase 1 trial showed that patients with PB burden below 200 blasts/L who received a dose of 2.0 Ci/kg/fraction of Actimab-A saw a 50% response rate.

Actiniums PB burden hypothesis states that patients below the key threshold level of 200 blasts/L have an increased response rate to Actimab-A while patients above the key threshold are unlikely to respond. An analysis of 2 clinical trials with Actimab-A totaling 38 patients, of which 36 were evaluable, showed that 42% (8 of 19) of patients with blasts counts below 200/L responded to Actimab-A while no patients with blast counts above 200/L responded to Actimab-A. The Phase 1 trial was a dose escalation study using a 3+3 design. Dose escalation proceeded if dose-limiting toxicities (DLT) were seen in less than 33% of patients. Maximum tolerable dose (MTD) was not reached in the Phase 1 trial.

Dr. Joseph Jurcic, Director of Hematologic Malignancies and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and Principal Investigator of the study said, Older patients with AML, particularly those that have progressed from MDS, are difficult to treat and have very few treatment options since many have already received lower-intensity therapy with hypomethylating agents. The results from this Phase 1 trial were encouraging in regards to both the safety and efficacy of Actimab-A. We are particularly excited to have identified that patients with peripheral blasts below 200/L have higher response rates to Actimab-A and that we can reduce blast counts in patients above that level using hydroxyurea. Actimab-A has shown promise in older AML patients, including those previously treated for MDS--a population excluded from trials with most novel agents, including ongoing studies with other CD33-directed therapies. We look forward to continuing to study Actimab-A in the ongoing Phase 2 trial and potentially meeting this critical need.

Of the 18 patients in the Phase 1 trial, 28% (5 of 18) had objective responses (2 CR, 1CRp and 2 CRi). Amongst patients with objective responses, median response duration was 9.1 months (range, 4.1-16.9 months). At the 3 highest dose levels in the Phase 1 trial (1.0 Ci/kg/fraction - 2.0 Ci/kg/fraction) objective responses were seen in 33% of patients (5 of 15). Mean bone marrow blast reduction amongst evaluable patients was 66% with 57% of patients having bone marrow blast reduction of 50% or greater and 79% of patients (11 of 14) had bone marrow blast reductions after Cycle 1 of therapy. The Phase 1 trial enrolled patients newly diagnosed with AML who are age 60 and above who were administered Actimab-A in combination with low-dose Cytarabine. Median patient age was 77 with 67% of patients having prior myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) of which, 83% received prior therapy consisting of either hypomethylating agents (HMAs) or a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT).

A formal interim analysis will occur after 31 patients receive Actimab-A, which the Company expects to occur in mid-2017. The Company anticipates the Phase 2 trial to be complete by the end of 2017.

Actimab-A, given its benign toxicity profile combined with potent efficacy as evidenced by the results presented today along with its ease of administration via 2 injections, represents an exciting therapy for elderly patients with AML, said Sandesh Seth, Executive Chairman of Actinium. Due to our peripheral blast burden hypothesis and optimized Phase 2 protocol we have great excitement for the current Phase 2 clinical trial and future development pathways for Actimab-A.

About Actimab-A

Actimab-A, Actinium's most advanced alpha particle immunotherapy (APIT) product candidate, is currently in a 53-patient, multicenter Phase 2 trial for patients newly diagnosed with AML age 60 and above. Actimab-A is being developed as a first-line therapy and is a monotherapy that is administered via two 15-minute injections that are given 7 days apart. Actimab-A targets CD33, a protein abundantly expressed on the surface of AML cells via the monoclonal antibody, HuM195, which carries the potent cytotoxic radioisotope actinium-225 to the AML cancer calls. Actinium-225 gives off high-energy alpha particles as it decays, which kill cancer cells and as actinium-225 decays it produces a series of daughter atoms, each of which gives off its own alpha particle, increasing the chances that the cancer cell will be destroyed. Actimab-A is a second-generation therapy from the Companys HuM195-Alpha program, which was developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and has now been studied in almost 90 patients in four clinical trials. Actimab-A has been granted Orphan Drug Designation for newly diagnosed AML age 60 and above.

About Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative targeted therapies for patients with cancers lacking effective treatment options. Actinium's proprietary platform utilizes monoclonal antibodies to deliver radioisotopes directly to cells of interest in order to kill those cells safely and effectively. The Company's lead product candidate Iomab-B is designed to be used, upon approval, in preparing patients for a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, commonly referred to as bone marrow transplant. A bone marrow transplant is often the only potential cure for patients with blood-borne cancers but the current standard preparation for a transplant requires chemotherapy and/or total body irradiation that result in significant toxicities. Actinium believes Iomab-B will enable a faster and less toxic preparation of patients seeking a bone marrow transplant, leading to increased transplant success and survival rates. The Company is currently conducting a single pivotal 150-patient, multicenter Phase 3 clinical study of Iomab-B in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) age 55 and older. The Company's second product candidate, Actimab-A, is currently in a multicenter open-label, 53-patient Phase 2 trial for patients newly diagnosed with AML age 60 and over. Actimab-A is being developed to induce remissions in elderly patients with AML who lack effective treatment options and often cannot tolerate the toxicities of standard frontline therapies. Actinium is also utilizing its alpha-particle immunotherapy (APIT) technology platform to generate new drug candidates based on antibodies linked to the element Actinium-225 that are directed at various cancers that are blood-borne or form solid tumors. Actinium Pharmaceuticals is based in New York, NY. To learn more about Actinium Pharmaceuticals, please visit www.actiniumpharma.com and to follow @ActiniumPharma on Twitter please visit, www.twitter.com/actiniumpharma.

Forward-Looking Statements for Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. The forward-looking statements may include statements regarding product development, product potential, or financial performance. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual results may differ materially from those projected. Actinium Pharmaceuticals undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.




Burn Country: James Franco, Melissa Leo and Dominic Rains star in this crime thriller shot in Sonoma County.

Evolution: In this movie there are only women and boys. One boy sees a body in the ocean, and things really start to get weird.

Fire at Sea: Gianfranco Rosi, who escaped from Eritrea at the age of 13 in the 1970s, directs this documentary about life for African refugees on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Jackie: Natalie Portman plays the first lady, who looks back at her life during JFKs presidency, including the famous 1962 tour of the White House and the terrible day in Dallas in 1963 and its aftermath.

Lion: Dev Patel stars as a young man who grew up in Australia and returns to India to seek his family, from whom he was separated as a boy. Nicole Kidman plays his adoptive mother.

Mifune: The Last Samurai: Bay Area documentarian Steve Okazaki directed this tribute to the actor most famous for his roles in filmmaker Akira Kurosawa movies such as Rashomon and Seven Samurai.

Miss Sloane: Jessica Chastain stars as a powerful lobbyist who may take on more than she can handle in this film directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel).

Office Christmas Party: Horrible Bosses co-stars Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston reunite in this comedy, in which T.J. Miller of Silicon Valley fame also stars. Miller plays a man who throws a party to end all parties to prove himself to his sister (Aniston).

Old Stone: A taxi driver (Gang Chen) in China hits a motorcyclist and ends up in a bureaucratic nightmare because he gets a more severe punishment for aiding the victim.

 Leba Hertz
PHILADELPHIA  Bill Cosby on Monday lost one of the biggest legal battles leading up to his looming sex-assault trial when a Montgomery County judge ruled that prosecutors can tell jurors about damaging, decade-old testimony in which Cosby acknowledged offering drugs to women he wanted to seduce.

The decision means the once-sealed 2005 deposition that led District Attorney Kevin Steeles office last year to reopen the investigation and charge the entertainer can become a pillar of the evidence offered to try to convict him.

Cosbys lawyers argued that he agreed to the deposition  taken to resolve a lawsuit by his accuser, Andrea Constand  only because he had been promised by a previous district attorney that he would never be charged in connection with her claims.

But Judge Steven ONeill concluded that no such agreement existed.

There was neither an agreement nor a promise not to prosecute, he wrote, only an exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

ONeills six-page ruling marked a significant victory for prosecutors and the latest setback for the 79-year-old comedian-actor as he inches toward a trial the judge has said he wants to begin by June.

Cosbys lawyers declined to comment on the latest ruling. Steele praised it.

Allowing the jury to hear Mr. Cosbys deposition testimony is another step forward in this case and will aid the jury in making its determination, he said in a statement. Its important that we are able to present all of the evidence available.

Since he was charged last year with three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault, Cosby has lost on every issue he has raised with the court, including a bid to have the case thrown out based on the same purported 2005 oral agreement with then-District Attorney Bruce Castor.

Testifying at a hearing in Norristown, Pa., this year, Castor contended that he promised not to prosecute after concluding that Constands allegations that Cosby drugged and assaulted her in 2004 at his Cheltenham home were too weak to take to trial.

In doing so, Castor said, he hoped to force Cosby to testify in the civil suit Constand had filed by removing any reason for him to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

But ONeill, in his opinion, put Castors credibility under a microscope and found it lacking, noting that the former district attorney contradicted himself several times in statements to colleagues and reporters about the alleged agreement.
WASHINGTON  A fake news story prompted a man to fire a rifle inside a popular Washington, D.C., pizza place as he attempted to self-investigate a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring from there, police said.

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, N.C., was arrested Sunday at Comet Ping Pong on Connecticut Avenue in an affluent neighborhood of the nations capital, police said in a statement. No one was injured.

The restaurant attracted national attention after fake news stories stated that Clinton and her campaign chief ran a child sex ring out of the restaurant. The pizzerias owner issued a statement after the shooting denouncing the fake stories as false and malicious.

One of those people posting on the conspiracy theory is prominently connected to President-elect Donald Trumps transition team. Michael Flynn Jr. is an adviser to his father, Michael Flynn, whom Trump selected to serve as national security adviser.

Flynn Jr. has sent numerous posts on Twitter about the Pizzagate conspiracy theories. Flynn Jr., who has accompanied his father to presidential transition meetings inside Trump Tower and lists the presidential transition website as part of his Twitter bio, tweeted Sunday night that, Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, itll remain a story.

On Sunday, bartender Lee Elmore told news outlets, people in the restaurant began to panic as an armed man walked to the back of the restaurant. One of the hosts runs up and says did you see that guy? He had a big gun, Elmore said.

His demeanor was bizarre, in that if you come in to a place to eat, you ask for a host or grab a seat at the bar, Elmore said. Didnt make any eye contact, didnt talk with anybody.

Police say Welch told them he had come to the restaurant to self-investigate the fictitious online conspiracy theory that spread online during Clintons unsuccessful run for the White House. Upon arriving at the restaurant, he walked in the front door and pointed a gun toward an employee, who fled and contacted police, according to authorities.

Welch fired the rifle inside the restaurant, and rounds possibly hit the walls, door and a computer, all of which were damaged, police spokeswoman Karimah Bilal said.

Authorities set up a perimeter and arrested Welch safely, Interim D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said. Welch was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Police recovered an AR-15 rifle, a Colt .38 handgun, a shotgun and a folding knife. A telephone number listed for Welch in North Carolina was disconnected.
NEW YORK  President-elect Donald Trump, moving closer to filling his Cabinet, chose former campaign rival Ben Carson on Monday to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In a statement, Trump said he was thrilled to nominate Carson, describing the retired neurosurgeon as having a brilliant mind and being passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities.

Carson had been coy about joining the new administration, saying shortly after Trumps election victory that he wasnt certain hed fit into a Cabinet-style role. The discussion at that time centered on speculation that he might be selected to head the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services.

Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country, Trump said, and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans.

Carson would oversee a budget of nearly $50 billion that provides rental assistance for more than 5 million households. Demand for that assistance is high due to housing costs rising faster than incomes. HUD also promotes home ownership with the Federal Housing Administration underwriting about 1 in 6 mortgages issued in the U.S. The agency is also charged with enforcing federal fair housing laws.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said Carson has no credentials for the job and was a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice. She said the country deserves someone with relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters.

Carson was among the 16 Republican candidates who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination. He was a favorite of religious conservatives and a strong fundraiser, but his team burned through money quickly, and he failed to win any of the early primary contests.

Trump treated Carson harshly during the primary, saying he had a pathological temper. Still, Carson quickly endorsed Trump after he dropped out of the contest.

On Monday, Trump continued to receive visitors to the New York skyscraper that bears his name. His most surprising guest was Al Gore, the former vice president who endorsed Trumps Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the campaigns stretch run. Transition officials said early Monday that Gore would meet with Trumps daughter, Ivanka, about climate change, which is the former vice presidents signature issue.

But Gore said he also met with Trump directly and the two had a very productive conversation.

It was a sincere search for areas of common ground, said Gore, who did not detail what the men discussed. The president-elect has called climate change a hoax and has pledged to undo a number of regulations designed to protect the environment.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who declined to support Trump during the campaign, also visited the tower, telling reporters in the lobby he was there to discuss policy with senior aides and not meet with Trump.
Authorities have released the names of 24 of the 36 people known to have died in Friday nights fire at an event at a converted warehouse in Oakland known as Ghost Ship. In addition, the San Francisco school district identified a 17-year-old student as one of the victims, and friends and relatives confirmed the deaths of three other people. The victims are as follows:

Cash Askew,
Chelsea Faith Dolan was a vision of energy, music and creativity.

She made electronic music under the stage name of Cherushii. She hosted an underground radio program. She played eclectic electronic keyboard music. She performed at the Folsom Street Fair. She was a DJ, an audio remixer and a producer of dance music shows.

She also liked ice cream.

Dolan, a 33-year-old resident of San Francisco, was among the 36 people who died in Friday nights warehouse fire in Oakland during an underground music event.

Performing unusual music in unusual places was her calling.

This summer, her smiling face was featured on the cover of Reader, an alternative newspaper in Chicago, that declared her an unsung woman of electronic music. It called her a house experimentalist of San Francisco.

In the accompanying magazine story, Dolan said electronic music was not an easy field for women.

Lack of recognition is so discouraging, she said. In a culture as supposedly forward-thinking as electronic music, women are still so often invisible.

According to her mother, Colleen Dolan of San Rafael, she discovered as a toddler that she had a knack for music and for composing and playing melodies on the piano. She studied classical piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music before branching out into avant-garde electronic piano.

She also scooped ice cream for years at Fairfax Scoop, a boutique shop. The store created a small shrine in her memory in the front window.

Chelsea Faith has always been an extraordinary person, full of exuberant joy, her mother said. Her personality, intelligence, clothes, music and kindness were legendary.

Her daughter traveled to Japan at 15 and picked up the name Cherushii because it was so much easier to pronounce than Chelsea, Colleen Dolan said.

She performed in the band Easy Street and hosted a radio show on KALX, the UC Berkeley station. She performed frequently outside the Bay Area, particularly in Chicago and Berlin. Last year she released an album titled Far Away, So Close, and she had just completed recording another Cherushii album, which has yet to be released.

I hope one of her producer friends will make sure that happens, her mother said. Nothing Chelsea Faith did was ordinary. She was an adventurer, she was stellar in every way, and she will always be the star of our hearts.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VPR Brands LP, (OTC pink:VPRB ) announces today that it has recently filed a Trade Mark application, serial number 87251694, for the launch of its SAFRx Brand of packaging containers for the medical and recreational marijuana industry. The company has seen an increased demand among producers and sellers of cannabis for packages that comply with various state and child safety regulations. SAFRx Brand will produce compliant, functional and aesthetically appealing packaging for the cannabis market.



Kevin Frija, CEO of VPR Brands LP, said, "We are always looking for opportunities to better serve our existing customer base with products they need. Due to our rapid growth within the cannabis oil packaging segment, supplying tanks and cartridges, we believe it is a natural extension to offer packages and containers for dry leaf cannabis as well as edibles and to become a one-stop shop within the Cannabis industry supply chain. We believe there is a great opportunity for our SAFRx Brand products to become the go-to market leader.

SAFRx Brand packaging will focus on being child proof, smell proof, convenient and discrete. We will specialize in creating full branded and coordinated product packaging lines for licensed growers and extractors . Look for available SAFRx Brand packages as early as January 2017 on www.SAFRx.com.

About VPR Brands, LP:

VPR Brands is a technology holding company, whose assets include issued U.S. and Chinese patents for atomization related products including technology for medical marijuana vaporizers and electronic cigarette products and components. The company is also engaged in product development for the vapor or vaping market, including e-liquids. Electronic cigarettes (also known as ecigs) are devices which deliver nicotine through atomization, or vaping of e-liquids and without smoke and other chemicals constituents typically found in traditional tobacco burning cigarette products. For more information about VPR Brands, please visit the company on the web at www.vprbrands.com

Forward looking statements:

This news release contains statements that involve expectations, plans or intentions and other factors discussed from time to time in the Companys Securities and Exchange Commission filings. These statements are forward-looking and are subject to risks and uncertainties, so actual results may vary materially. The company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.
CHATSWORTH, Calif., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc. ("Provision"), a subsidiary of Provision Holding, Inc. (OTCQB:PVHO) announced today, that it has successfully installed an additional 200 3D Savings Center kiosks in retail partner locations. With this installation, Provision has opened new markets in Boston, Atlanta and Washington, DC while expanding its presence in New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle. The kiosks are now in approximately 700 locations in major markets.



This installation marks another major milestone for our rapidly evolving company, said Curt Thornton, President and CEO of Provision. We are very excited about this latest installation because it extends our footprint into new demographic markets representing new advertising prospects. We believe that with each new milestone, we increase our value to our retail partner, their consumer brands and our shareholders.

Provisions 3D Savings Center Kiosks generate eye-popping, three dimensional, holographic videos. The 3D Savings Center kiosk contains Provisions patented and award-winning 3D holographic display and has proven to generate a great deal of attention from retail customers. The kiosks are also able to print coupon offers, allowing the retailer and other advertisers to offer customers highly effective sales influencers at the point of purchase.

According to a recent case study, the average rate of redemption for coupons generated by Provisions 3D Savings Center was 17.4%. This is an extraordinary redemption rate when measured against the published national average coupon redemption rate of 1.2%. The redemption rate combined with its expanded footprint will boost the Companys ability to sign national and local consumer brands to its roster of advertising partners.



About Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc.

Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of the publicly traded company Provision Holding, Inc. (OTCQB:PVHO), is the leading purveyor of intelligent interactive 3D holographic display technologies, software, and integrated solutions for both commercial and consumer focused applications.

Provision's 3D holographic display systems represent a revolutionary technology that provides the projection of full color, high-resolution videos into space detached from the screen, without any special glasses. Provision is currently the market leader in true 3D consumer advertising display products being implemented by innovative, consumer-focused companies.

Provision Holding, Inc. (OTCQB:PVHO) trades on the OTCQB venture stage marketplace for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies. Companies are current in their reporting and undergo an annual verification and management certification process. Investors can find Real-Time quotes and market information for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.

For more information, visit www.provision.tv.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains projections of future results and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors that may cause actual results and outcomes to differ materially from those contained in the projections and forward-looking statements included in this press release are described in our publicly filed reports. Factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to, the acceptance of our products, lack of revenue growth, failure to realize profitability, inability to raise capital and market conditions that negatively affect the market price of our common stock. The Company disclaims any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements unless legally required.
Cash Askew, 22, whose family confirmed Sunday that she had died in the fire, was part of a local "goth-inflected duo" with Kennedy Ashlyn, Them Are Us Too, according to an article by journalist Beth Winegarner.

Winegarner, who talked to Askew this year for an article in the feminist publication Bitch, posted the full interview online "in the hope of sharing what a thoughtful, bright and special musician Cash was."

In the interview, the 22-year-old who had lived in San Francisco and Oakland spoke of trying to be an original force on the music scene, rejecting comparisons to the Cocteau Twins. "We're definitely not trying to replicate or rehash existing music," she said.

Askew, who identified as transgender, spoke to Winegarner of her initial attraction as a young teenager to the androgyny of goth and new wave and how that clashed, in some ways, with the reality she found.

"People don't think I'm a freak for looking the way I do, but they still see me as a man most of the time and it's really frustrating," the artist said. "Maybe because there is historically that precedent for men dressing femme, it's even easier than usual for people to dismiss my trans-ness."

Messages of grief and condolence poured onto the band's Facebook page Sunday.

"Woke up to more heart-wrenching news," wrote one person. "Seeing Them Are Us Too last year was one of the most immersive and beautiful live shows I've had the pleasure of ever attending. My heart goes out to Cash and everyone affected by the horrible Oakland fires."

 Cynthia Dizikes, cdizikes@sfchronicle.com
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I spent Saturday and Sunday knocking on metal doors that lead to Oaklands now-infamous cavernous playgrounds.

Inside these converted warehouses, I encountered artists and musicians struck by grief  and a reluctance to discuss their arrangements now that Fridays brutally fierce killer fire is drawing scrutiny to their establishments.

Rising housing costs have made it difficult for artists to find affordable housing, which is why blighted buildings are attractive. Now the inhabitants are frightened by the uncertainty of what comes next.

Will they be homeless in a week?

I hope this isnt used as justification to try to shut down a bunch of other spots, said Greg Ashley, a 36-year-old musician and producer who was booted from an artist warehouse in West Oakland in June after the building owner complained that the tenants built illegal units inside.

I figure if that happens again, Ill put all my stuff in storage, said Ashley, who now lives and records musicians in another modified space at a converted building in West Oakland. I dont want to leave Oakland.

As warehouse artists mourn the loss of friends and collaborators who died in the Ghost Ship fire, theyre also bracing for a possible city crackdown on warehouses that are remodeled without proper permits  and used illegitimately as residences.

Ashleys former digs were inside a two-story 4,000-square-foot warehouse on San Pablo Avenue known as the Ghost Town Gallery.

There was no way I was going to be able to afford a space to have a recording studio and rent an apartment, said Ashley, who lived and worked in Ghost Town for nine years. That really allowed me to start doing my thing more seriously than just trying to record stuff in an apartment.

I dont know when Im going to end up homeless next. I feel completely insecure about it.

Man, youre not alone.

The residents of the LoBot Gallery, a 9,500-square-foot warehouse on Campbell Street, were given a month to figure out their next move. Back in January, city officials removed dozens of artists from a red-tagged industrial building at 1919 Market St. so a tech entrepreneur could transform the building into dorm-style housing for Millennials.

The irony is unavoidable because in Oakland warehouses are the artistic equivalent of the technology incubators that nurture companies and create wealthy entrepreneurs.

And if artists leave town, the effect will ripple beyond the nightlife. Artists make ends meet by working in boutiques, coffee shops, bars and restaurants.

Days before the Ghost Ship tragedy, Mayor Libby Schaaf scheduled a Tuesday news conference to announce an investment for the arts community, which she says is facing displacement due to rising housing costs.

Last year, Schaaf convened a housing task force of volunteers and industry experts which, according to my colleague Rachel Swan, included about 30 artists who pitched ideas for new zoning regulations and affordable housing programs to help safeguard the citys creative class. Schaaf is expected to disclose Tuesday how and when the task forces recommendations will be implemented.

Since I became the mayor of Oakland, I have been passionate about preserving and lifting up the incredible creative community that makes this the incredible city that it is, Schaaf said at a briefing outside the site of the fire on Sunday evening. And the issue of creating safe, vibrant spaces for Oaklands artist community is a priority, not just of me as a mayor, but of this community.

This artist community, adept at rebuilding, has stuck together.

On Sunday afternoon, Luke Woll was hitching a trailer to his dented Dodge truck parked in front of a West Oakland building that had been the site of a party the night before. He was loading his customized smoker, known as the Flavor Beast.

Woll had smoked meats, including tri-tips slathered in his homemade rub of paprika, sugar and ground dried mandarin orange peels. Woll is a craftsman who uses scrap materials he finds dumped onto city streets.

Weeds were the only cargo on the trailer before he claimed it from the side of a road, and he found the tank that became the Flavor Beast buried at a Lake County winery. Woll has lived in warehouses for several years, including now. He thinks every code will be scrutinized when building inspectors come knocking.

Two vans pulled up behind Wolls truck as we talked, two bands returning for their gear. He waved to one person and hugged two others.

We lost a couple of homies, Woll, 39, told me. All the people here knew of the people there. We just didnt go to that party. We went to another party, hadnt shown up yet.

Otis R. Taylor Jr. is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist whose column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
NEW YORK, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. (AXIM Biotech) (OTC:AXIM), a world leader in cannabinoid research and development, today announced that it received approval from the Medical Ethical Committee (METC) of Wageningen University, The Netherlands, to begin a study on patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) with the Companys CanChew Plus CBD-containing chewing gum.



Combined with previously announced PK studies, the METC approval marks another key step toward clinical trials for a cannabis-based treatment for the most common functional gastrointestinal disorder in the world, said George E. Anastassov, MD, DDS, MBA and Chief Executive Officer of AXIM Biotech. The global treatment market for irritable bowel syndrome is estimated to grow in value to $1.5 billion by 2023. We believe that our CanChew Plus and other cannabis-based products provide viable solutions for suffering patients.

Further, our goal is to help people suffering from various gastrointestinal disorders with no effective remedies such as IBD and Crohns disease. With positive outcome from the IBS studies, we would immediately enter trials for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and Crohns disease.

METC at Wageningen University is an institutional approval board that is compliant with the Ethical Principles for Medical Research adopted at the 18th World Medical Association (WMA) General Assembly in Helsinki, Finland, in June 1964.

Wageningen University is a world-class education and research institute in the field of life sciences, agricultural and environmental science, and the only university in The Netherlands to focus on the theme of healthy food and living environment. According to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Wageningen is the best university in The Netherlands and No. 1 worldwide in agriculture and forestry for 2016 on the QS World University Rankings.

About AXIM



AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. (OTC: AXIM) focuses on the research, development and production of cannabis-based pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic products. Our flagship products include CanChew, a CBD-based controlled release chewing gum, and MedChew Rx, a combination CBD/THC gum that is undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. We prioritize the well-being of our customers while embracing a solid fiscal strategy. Medical Marijuana, Inc. is a major investor in AXIM. For more information, visit www.AXIMBiotech.com.

About CanChew and CanChew Plus

CanChew is a unique hemp-derived CBD functional chewing gum that is distinctly different than any other brands of gum on the market. Features listed on the CanChew website include:

Non-habit forming

No prescription needed

Available in all 50 states

Great-tasting mint gum has no artificial sweeteners or preservatives

Non-GMO, gluten free, vegan and kosher

CanChew Plus is a vastly improved delivery system than the alpha version of CanChew Gum. It is produced by a leading European functional gum manufacturer.

Featured in Healthy Living Magazine, CanChew was also recognized by the HealthyLivinG Foundation and honored with its Triple Leaf Award.



FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER

This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein.



LEGAL DISCLOSURE

AXIM Biotechnologies does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act (US.CSA).
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More than 15,000 people have signed a petition calling for the city to install 10 new 24-hour public restrooms in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market districts.

The petition was created as a class project by freshman-year students at Minerva University, located on Market Street between Seventh and Eighth.

The students involved in the petition say they frequently see human waste littering the streets near their campus. "The stench, as a result of the public hygiene problem, is very noticeable," says student Ranwa Kikhia.

They also want to bring dignity to the neighborhood's homeless population. Public restrooms "not only keep our streets sanitary, but also provide a link to humanity that often times homeless people do not get," says Zane Sand, another student on the project team.

While the petition does not outline exactly where the students would like to see the 10 new public restroom facilities placed, they say the need is greatest in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market.

The students kicked off the project by mapping existing public restrooms around the city, to better understand what facilities are already available. They discovered few restrooms in the downtown area, where many of the city's homeless services are concentrated. They also say that there are no free public bathrooms available in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market areas after 8pm.

According to SF Public Works, seven of the 11 staff-monitored public restrooms offered by the city's Pit Stop program sit within the Tenderloin and Mid-Market districts. The one that stays open latest, at 351 Ellis St., closes at 9pm.

"The need for 24-hour bathrooms is huge," says Sand. "These individuals do not have another option to use the restroom."

All of the first-year students involved in this project are San Francisco transplants; three were born outside of the U.S. They say that San Francisco's public restroom and homelessness dilemmas have stood out in comparison to their hometowns.

Ranwa Kikhia, a Libyan student who also lived in Jordan, spoke of the cultural differences in regards to urban bathrooms.

"Jordan, like the Middle East, emphasizes family relations, " said Kikhia. "Even if someone cannot afford housing, they can depend on their relatives to provide them with one."

"I believe having public toilets that are well kept, so that not only homeless people, but also tourists and citizens can use, will create a win-win situation for the city," added Thanh Nguyen, who hails from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Sand says he was surprised to see the petition, which was published on the site Care2, surpass its 15,000-signature goal in about two weeks. "The support we received from the site and the public far exceeded my expectations," he said.

The students plan to present the petition for 10 new public restrooms to city officialswhich they hope will be followed up with the installation of the restrooms.

In the meantime, they're still collecting signatures, and encourage anyone who shares their views to add their name to the list.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Silvaco, Inc. today announced it has agreed to merge with Global TCAD Solutions, GTS. GTS is a TCAD specialist, based in Vienna, Austria, providing powerful and sophisticated yet efficient-to-use software for device and circuit simulation. The capabilities for advanced CMOS logic and memory, and FinFET and nanowire technologies of GTS complement Silvacos portfolio of 2D and 3D TCAD simulation tools and its TCAD to Spice capabilities. The transaction is expected to be completed in January 2017.



Performance and economical concerns next to reliability and yield are the key challenges for advancing semiconductors beyond 7nm. Addressing these concerns will involve the extension of current approaches as well as the introduction of new technologies and materials. At the forefront of R&D, Path-Finding TCAD simulation allows to understand the effects and advantages of new materials and structures well before they can be physically tested on Silicon, with drastically reducing the number of costly experiments. GTSs Nano-Device Simulator (NDS) is a complete and fully integrated solution for true physical simulation of nano-devices at the 10/14nm and 7/5nm nodes, including profound predictive simulation for new materials and architectures to help the industry reduce time to market and development cost at the leading edge of advanced CMOS development.

GTSs technologies are a welcome addition to Silvacos TCAD portfolio of tools and increases our leadership in the TCAD arena. said Dave Dutton, CEO of Silvaco. The acquisition also further expands our European operations in Vienna, and deepens our partnership with TU Wien, Technology University Vienna, a TCAD pioneering center. The GTS staff deepens Silvacos Advanced CMOS competence which is key to our growth vision and to provide the EDA tools and solutions to help our customers innovate the highest quality and most advanced products to market.

As former scientific staff of TU Wien, GTS founders and staff are actively engaged in research as well as maintaining a close relationship to the university. GTS has special expertise in quantum transport and nano-devices including models for all physical phenomena relevant for operation, performance, and reliability of nano devices, such as ballistic effects, scattering, direct tunneling, band-to-band tunneling, etc. GTS products provide valid and sound predictions of device characteristics when using novel materials and new device designs and architectures.

The combination of GTSs expertise in physical device simulation and Silvacos TCAD position creates a very powerful partnership to help our customers meet the demanding development costs for advanced CMOS technologies such as FinFET, FDSOI and nanowire FETs, said Markus Karner, Co-founder and CEO of GTS. These synergies plus the ability to leverage Silvacos global infrastructure will help us scale out these important technologies to customers worldwide.

About Silvaco, Inc.

Silvaco, Inc. is a leading EDA provider of software tools used for process and device development and for analog/mixed-signal, power IC and memory design. Silvaco delivers a full TCAD-to-signoff flow for vertical markets including: displays, power electronics, optical devices, radiation and soft error reliability and advanced CMOS process and IP development. For over 30 years, Silvaco has enabled its customers to bring superior products to market at reduced cost and in the shortest time. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and has a global presence with offices located in North America, Europe, Japan and Asia.

About GTS GmbH

Global TCAD Solutions is a leading TCAD provider of products and services for process and device development. GTS offers classical TCAD as well as advanced models dedicated to study and optimize performance, variability, and reliability of n14, n7, and sub-n7 technologies. The company was founded in 2008 as a spin-off company of TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology). GTSs mission is to bridge the gap between cutting-edge scientific developments and industrial needs in semiconductor device engineering. The company is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
Portland, OR, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Malibu Boats, the leading manufacturer of watersports towboats, has selected Dealer Spike Marine as the top choice provider for Malibu dealerships websites.

Dealer Spikes reputation in design and strategy for dealerships is best in class, says Eric Bondy, Vice President of Marketing for Malibu Boats, also saying that the companys decision to partner with Dealer Spike came easily.

The company is so confident in Dealer Spikes powerful digital marketing tools that they have offered generous co-op opportunities for all Malibu dealers that sign on with Dealer Spike Marine.

Bondy and others on his team agree that endorsements for Dealer Spike from other leading brands - such as Harley-Davidson, BRP, Airstream and others - helped their decision-making process. Success stories from not only marine dealers but also dealerships in the other seven industries that Dealer Spike serves were also a major contributing factor.

Dealer Spike and Malibu Boats have a lot in common  core company values include a focus on versatility for customers, specialized knowledge regarding the lifestyle and specific needs of customers, and a commitment to deliver superior value. For those reasons and more, the partnership just makes sense.

We are incredibly proud to be chosen as Malibus exclusive web provider, says Jay Mason, CEO of Dealer Spike. Malibu is a household name, and to be recognized as the outstanding choice to serve their dealers is an honor.

Malibu dealers in need of a redesign or full update of their dealership website can count on Dealer Spike for the ultimate boat sales makeover. With an impressive portfolio of results filled with marine dealers and thousands of dealerships in other industries as well, Dealer Spike has the solution to enhance web presence and increase dealership sales. Just like Malibu Boats, Dealer Spike offers a product that is focused on performance, innovation, and advanced technology.

ABOUT MALIBU BOATS

Malibu is an all-American success story in the boating world. The company started in 1982 and has a strong focus on performance and quality, offering a full range of products to customers. The team at Malibu is part of a unique culture that embraces the boating lifestyle. They are passionate about what they do and truly put into practice the companys slogan  Life Without Limits.

http://www.malibuboats.com/

ABOUT DEALER SPIKE

Dealer Spike is a world-wide digital advertising company focused on helping dealers increase sales and service profitability through online digital advertising and training. The company provides innovative, powerful, distinctive web solutions and tools to thousands of dealers worldwide. Expertise comes from real-world dealership experience and a passion for listening and responding to dealers' needs in the marketplace.

http://www.dealerspikemarine.com/
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- JONS Fresh Marketplace, a unique full-service grocery store with foods and drinks ranging from the everyday to the exotic, opened a new location in Los Angeles South Bay, Torrance. The new store offers all traditional grocery goods as well as surprising specialties for a fun and adventurous appeal. All items are backed by a 100% quality guarantee, solidifying JONS Fresh Marketplace as a leading Los Angeles full-service grocer.



The addition of Fresh Marketplace to the JONS name refers to the way the company creates a fun and unique environment that elevates food shopping from a chore to a cultural experience. JONS offers the sweet spot of quality, everyday essentials and an astounding variety of savory specialties for shoppers to explore. They have searched the globe for great value and stocked their shelves, counters, and cases with high quality goods at honest, low prices.

JONS Fresh Marketplace is truly a grocery store unlike any other. Just one visit to our store brings out the culinary adventurer inside of you, said JONS VP of Sales and Marketing, Andy Meechan. Our customers love discovering new treasures always popping up on our shelves. Ive never seen people have so much fun shopping before.

The International Service Deli leads the way with specialty-cured meats and imports from across Europe and the Mediterranean. These options include hundreds of authentic cheeses, marinated olives, and gourmet sandwiches, salads, and spreads from France, Italy, Romania, Germany, Lithuania, and more. The Produce Department also carries plentiful choices with over 300 varieties of market-fresh fruits and vegetables delivered daily. Every items place of origin is clearly marked so customers know exactly how their food arrived to their table.

JONS further enhances the shopping experience in its Liquor Department with an in-store cocktail and drink pairing device. Now shoppers can seamlessly explore various cocktail recipes and food pairings right in the aisles. JONS carries over 200 types of international vodka as well as over 100 types of tequila, brandy, cognac, imported beer, and a variety of fine wines for endless drink combinations. This is followed by the International Grocery section, which offers imported breads, pastas, beans, oils, spreads, spices, chocolates, mineral water, juice, and coffees.

We make sure shopping at JONS is an enjoyable experience," said Meechan. Everything we have caters to a diversity of tastes and every time you visit you will discover something new and delicious. Your grocery shopping just got a major upgrade.

The international fare is complemented with a long-standing local favorite, the Smokehouse Grill BBQ with a vastly improved offering of tri-tip, brisket, ribs, and chicken all rubbed, tumbled, and smoked. Customers rave about their weekend barbeques hosted outside the store. To put the icing on the cake, JONS Signature Bakery offers a rotating variety of custom cookies, individual pastries, cakes, and more.

About JONS Fresh Marketplace

JONS honors the distinctive tastes of its neighborhoods with each store customized to meet the needs and preferences of its surrounding community. Since its founding in 1977, JONS has been a family-owned grocery chain serving the people  and palates  of Los Angeles and Orange County. The chain now has 14 locations in Southern California, spanning from Simi Valley to the North, and Westminster to the South.
NEW YORK and TORONTO, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TAP Portugal today announced the addition of six new destinations to its global route network by July 2017, including Toronto, Canada, the airlines fifth North American gateway.

TAP will also add five new European destinations: Budapest, Hungary; Bucharest, Romania; Las Palmas and Alicante, Spain; and Stuttgart, Germany. With these five new cities, TAP will serve 52 European destinations, adding more options to its popular Stopover program where travelers can enjoy a one, two or three day visit to Portugal on the way for no extra airfare.

The Stopover booking option is available on the flight search mode in the www.flytap.com site and TAP also has launched an innovative app, available from the Apple Store or Google Play.

The airline will also add additional flight frequencies in Europe to Madrid (departing Porto), Manchester, Moscow, Dusseldorf and Faro. These flights can be booked starting today.

The new service represents an 11% increase in operations, with 1,176 more flights than in same month year-over-year, representing an increase of 19 percent in seat capacity.

The growth planned for 2017 is in line with the expansion strategy TAP began in 2016, including the order of a new medium and long haul Airbus fleet (due for delivery by end of 2017); two additional A330 aircraft; the cabin retrofit of 48 aircraft currently in progress; the launch of the new brand TAP Express for regional operations; the new Lisbon/Oporto shuttle service; the launch of TAP Stopover and the addition of two routes to North America, with the re-launch of service from Boston and New Yorks JFK.

Following the successful launch of the Lisbon/Porto shuttle and the frequency increases to both Madeira and the Azores, TAP will as of next summer increase operations from Lisbon to Faro, growing from three to four dailies, for a 33 percent increase in service.

In order to support the additional operations, the company will add another long haul aircraft (A330), two medium haul aircraft (A320F) and four Embraers to join TAP Express regional operations, increasing TAP's fleet from 80 to 87 aircraft in total.

TAPs four US gateways are New Yorks JFK, Newark, NJ, Boston, MA and Miami, FL. Currently TAP serves 46 European destinations from the US via Lisbon including: Portugals own Faro, Funchal, Ponta Delgada, Porto, Porto Santo, and Terceira; Frances Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Paris, and Toulouse; Germanys Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Munich; Italys Bologna, Milan, Rome, and Venice; Spains A Coruna, Asturias, Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Malaga, Seville, Valencia, and Vigo; the United Kingdoms London and Manchester; and Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Brussels, Belgium; Copenhagen, Denmark; Geneva, Switzerland; Helsinki, Finland; City of Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Moscow, Russia; Oslo, Norway; Prague, Czech Republic; Stockholm, Sweden; Vienna, Austria; Warsaw, Poland; and Zurich, Switzerland. TAP also serves Porto nonstop from Newark.

This month, Global Traveler magazine named TAP as "Best Airline in Europe" for the sixth consecutive year as well as delivering the "Best New Route Launch (Boston-Lisbon)."



About TAP Portugal

TAP is Portugals leading airline, and member of Star Alliance, the global airline alliance to offer customers worldwide reach, since 2005. In operation since 1945, TAP celebrated 70 years on March 14, 2015, and has completed its privatization process in 2015, with the Atlantic Gateway Group now as new private shareholders of its share capital. TAP's hub in Lisbon is a key European gateway at the crossroads of Africa, North, Central and South America, where TAP stands out as the international leading carrier in operation to Brazil. The companys network currently comprises 77 destinations in 30 countries worldwide. TAP currently operates about 2,500 weekly flights on average with a modern fleet of 63 Airbus aircraft and 17 aircraft in TAP Express livery, operating in the companys regional network, adding up to an 80 aircraft fleet total.

Within the vast restructure program currently going across the company as the outcome of its privatization process, TAP has announced its Network restructure, its medium and long haul fleet renewal program as of 2017 and the retrofit of the fleet currently in operation as well as the launch of the new branded product TAP Express, which replaced PGA and operates a new fleet of 8 ATR 72 and 9 Embraer 190.

In the pursuit of its customer focused policy, TAP continuously strives to deliver safe, reliable and upgraded products & services, tailored to meet customers expectations. Retaining the Portuguese character of the Companys brand and quality service as the basic concept has been the main driver of TAP strategy in most recent years. Recognized and awarded as Europes Leading Airline to Africa as well as Europes Leading Airline to South America by the World Travel Awards in 2016, 2015 and 2014, the company was also awarded as the WTA Worlds Leading Airline to Africa in 2011 and 2012 and the WTA Worlds Leading Airline to South America in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, while the companys In-flight magazine UP also received the WTA award as Europes Leading In-flight Magazine in 2015 and 2016. Voted Best Airline in Europe for the last six consecutive years including 2016 by Global Traveler, USA, the company was also honored by UNESCO and by the International Union of Geological Sciences with the IYPE Planet Earth Award 2010, in the category of Most Innovative Sustainable Product. TAP was also voted Best Airline by Conde Nast Traveller Magazine in 2010 and Best Portuguese Tourism Company by the specialized magazine Marketeer, in 2011.

flytap.com

https://www.facebook.com/TAPPortugal/

https://www.youtube.com/user/tap

https://www.instagram.com/Tapportugal/

https://www.pinterest.com/tapportugal/

https://twitter.com/taportugal

https://www.linkedin.com/company/tap-portugal

A STAR ALLIANCE MEMBER
BRIDGEWATER, N.J., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Valeritas Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB:VLRX) announced today that audio webcast of the Companys presentation at the LD Micro Main Event will be available by visiting the investor relations section of the Valeritas website at www.valeritas.com. Replays of the presentation will be available for 90 days.



John Timberlake, President and Chief Executive Officer, is scheduled to present on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 9:30am PST at the LD Micro Main Event in Bel Air, CA.

About Valeritas Holdings, Inc.

Valeritas is a commercial-stage medical technology company focused on developing innovative technologies to improve the health and quality of life of people with Type 2 diabetes. Valeritas flagship product, V-Go Disposable Insulin Delivery device, is a simple, wearable, basal-bolus insulin delivery solution for patients with Type 2 diabetes that enables patients to administer a continuous preset basal rate of insulin over 24 hours. It also provides on-demand bolus dosing at mealtimes. It is the only basal-bolus insulin delivery device on the market today specifically designed keeping in mind the needs of type 2 diabetes patients. Headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, Valeritas operates its R&D functions in a state-of-the-art facility in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit www.valeritas.com.
Atlanta, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Promotional, advertising and marketing firm, New Acquisitions, is a company that prides themselves in their philanthropic ventures, especially during the holiday season. Their tradition of giving back to the community has continued through their most recent donation to Meals on Wheels' Atlanta chapter.

Per the charity's website, their mission is to support senior independence through providing meals, shelter, education, and a community where they feel welcome and supported. The Meals on Wheels program is designed by nutritionists and are meant to assist seniors 60 years of age and above that are unable to prepare or afford their own meals. In Atlanta alone 200,000 meals are delivered annually and over 130 seniors are currently on a waiting list for the program.

The New Acquisitions team came together to donate a total of 6 weeks of home delivered meals for seniors in the Atlanta area. With their donation, the team was given hand written letters from seniors thanking them for their generosity.

"It was great to see the generosity from those we were able to impact during this time of year," said Amber Abrams, Executive Assistant to the National Director of Operations at New Acquisitions, "When you donate, you know what cause the money is going to but sometimes you don't get to see how it directly affects the people that it's meant to help. The thank you notes were a wonderful surprise and I love that we got to indirectly communicate with the people that we helped."

The donation to the charity hit home for Human Resources Coordinator, Morgan Wright, whose grandfather was a recipient of the program while he lived with her as a child. Wright's grandfather lost his left eye due a work accident in his twenties. Years later, his right eye contracted a retinal disease that caused him to slowly lose the rest of his sight over time leaving him blind.

Since Wright and her brother were both in school and her parents both worked during the day, her grandfather was left alone to prepare his own lunch which proved to be difficult. Her grandfather luckily was chosen to be a recipient of the program shortly after a neighbor had suggested the charity.

"It was so much easier for him to get meals delivered straight to him that were ready to eat, instead of him trying to cook [meals] for himself," said Wright, "Knowing that we are going to help other people like my grandpa was an awesome way to kick off the holiday season. I hope that us donating inspires other companies to do the same."

The New Acquisitions team is excited to start their season of giving and plan to donate to other local charities both during the holidays and into the next year.

To read about other charities New Acquisitions has supported and to learn more about their website, please visit www.newacquisitionsinc.com.

To learn more about Meals on Wheels and how to get involved, please visit their website at www.mealsonwheelsatlanta.org.




Atlanta, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Monday, October 31st, Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity of Oglethorpe University hosted their annual Trick or Treat in Traer event for the local Boys and Girls Club, local churches, as well as other children from their community. New Acquisitions team members, Trisha Miller, Lauren McDonald, Brandon White, and John Wilson were able to attend the event and participate in the festivities along with the students and the children. The team was also able to assist in running multiple stations at the event.

All children that attended the event were treated with food, crafts, a student-sanctioned haunted house, cookie decorating, illusion stations, and of course, trick-or-treating at the college's freshman dorm, Traer Residence Hall at Oglethorpe University.

From 4:00PM to 6:00PM on Monday night, the team handed out candy, small toys, and other treats to the children as they trick-or-treated through the campus dorms alongside members of Alpha Phi Omega. McDonald, Human Resources intern at New Acquisitions and member of the fraternity, exhibited her creativity by making a pumpkin display with cups and tissue paper for the kids to poke through and find Halloween surprises. New Acquisitions was able to create another inclusive station with clementines and markers where the children were able to create mini Jack-O-Lanterns.

"I was really happy that the 'Poke-A-Pumpkin' was a hit with the kids!," said McDonald on her Halloween project, "Trisha [Miller] was there to help me put it all together, so we had a ton of fun making it and then even more fun watching the kids go at it for their candy and toys."

To learn how to make your own "Poke-A-Pumpkin" for next Halloween, visit http://www.thriftyfun.com/Making-a-Poke-A-Pumpkin-Game.html for ideas.

According to McDonald, the fraternity hosts this event in the tradition of bringing a fun and safe trick-or-treating environment for children in the Atlanta community that may not otherwise have the opportunity to Trick-or-Treat.

"Our hope as an organization is to make sure that the kids are having fun while being safe at the same time," explained McDonald, "It's a win-win because the kids get to have a good time and the parents can relax knowing they're in a safe place."

To learn more about New Acquisition's involvement in the Atlanta community, please visit www.newacquisitionsinc.com.




Only a few weeks ago, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Supervisor David Campos and Public Defender Jeff Adachi joined other city officials on City Halls marble staircase to declare unity in the fight against President-elect Donald Trumps threats to withhold funding from sanctuary cities.

That veneer of unity is already fracturing.

While he pledged to fight to protect immigrants living here illegally and facing deportation, Lee is balking at Campos legislation to give Adachi $2.6 million to represent detained immigrants in deportation proceedings.

The mayor instead wants to fund only community legal groups specializing in deportation defense. Under Campos legislation, those groups would receive $2 million to represent immigrants facing deportation who are not being detained.

The mayor wants the public defender to go through the regular budgeting process if they want more staff and resources, said Deirdre Hussey, the mayors spokeswoman. At the end of the day, community-based organizations are already doing this work, and we should be building on their success.

Its unclear if Lee wants to redirect the money for the Public Defenders Office to community groups to defend detained immigrants.

But Lees reluctance to fund the public defender is drawing opposition not only from Campos and Adachi, but also from the community legal groups Lee favors. They say Adachis involvement is crucial in creating long-term stability and ensuring universal representation for immigrants facing deportation.

To do this at the scale that is needed we need a partner like the Public Defenders Office, who we already know and trust, said Ana Herrera, managing attorney at Dolores Street Community Services, which defends immigrants facing deportation.

She said the Public Defenders Office is perfectly poised to scale up to represent detained immigrants, while community legal groups can take the lead on representing immigrants who have not been detained. The Public Defenders office would institutionalize the defense that is needed, Herrera said.

Campos legislation would allocate $2.6 million to the public defender to hire 10 new attorneys, five paralegals and two legal clerks to represent detained immigrants facing deportation whose cases are assigned to the San Francisco Immigration Court.

Another $2 million would go to community legal groups to represent immigrants facing deportation who are not being detained and provide education about legal rights to other immigrants living here illegally. An additional $400,000 would go to nonprofits to staff a hotline and provide emergency legal representation in the case of immigration raids.

Campos declined to be interviewed, but in a statement emailed by a legislative aide said, I have yet to see an alternative proposal excluding the Public Defenders Office that will ensure protection of San Franciscos entire immigrant community.

Supervisor John Avalos, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said including the public defender was critical.

Providing a hybrid approach of public defenders and community-based groups will ensure stronger representation and a much stronger connection to the city that can extend additional resources and clout to the community lawyers.

The fight over whether to include Adachi in the deportation defense project appears to be both political and practical. One concern from the mayors side is that any funding to the Public Defenders Office would likely become permanent  a challenge at a time when the city is facing a $100-million-plus budget hole and trying to shore up its finances.

The public defenders budget is currently $34 million and the city currently funds $4.3 million for legal services for immigrants.

Adachi also said he met last week with Steve Kawa, Lees chief of staff, who told him they didnt want a city agency providing this representation in these cases. Adachi didnt expound on what that meant. Asked about it, Lees spokeswoman reiterated that the administration supports funding community-based organizations.

Campos proposal is based largely on a model implemented in New York, where the City Council allocates $6.3 million to the public defenders office to defend immigrants facing deportation.

Peter Markowitz, an associate professor at Cardoza School of Law in New York who helped create the blueprint for the New York program, said a key to its success has been its placement in the public defenders office.

It runs very much like the criminal public defender system. They regularly staff the first master calendar. They are standing there and pick up every case. They have the resources of their office to do background checks, Markowitz said.

For now, negotiations between Campos, the mayors office, public defender and community groups are ongoing. Lee is expected to propose a counter proposal in the coming days.

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen
1 Leader resigns: New Zealands popular Prime Minister John Key stunned the nation Monday when he announced that he will resign after eight years as leader. Key had been expected to contest his fourth general election next year. Speaking in a shaking voice, Key said he had made personal sacrifices for the job and the role had taken a toll on his family. Key said his National Party caucus would meet Dec. 12 to decide on a new party leader and prime minister, and that he expected to submit his resignation that day. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he had sent Key a short message: Say it aint so, bro.

2 General strike: Greeces biggest labor unions have called a general strike for Thursday to protest further tax increases and labor reforms demanded by the countrys bailout creditors. Ferry crews have also extended for another two days a four-day walkout. The protest has disrupted life on Greeces islands, which import key goods from the mainland and are not all served by air. Greece has implemented waves of spending cuts, tax increases and reforms at the behest of its bailout creditors since 2010.
WARSAW  Polands Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that the country would refuse to detain and extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski to the United States.

The ruling upholds the decision of a lower court that was challenged by the justice minister, and closes the matter in Poland.

Game over, said Jan Olszewski, one of Polanskis lawyers. The case is definitively closed. We won in a fair struggle. We feel satisfaction.

Polanski, 83, is wanted in the U.S. in a case involving sex with a minor that has haunted him for almost 40 years. He is subject to an Interpol warrant in 188 countries.

He has avoided extradition by traveling only between three countries. He lives in France, where he was born, and also has a home in Switzerland, which in 2011 rejected a U.S. request to extradite him. He has often visited Poland, where he survived the Holocaust, grew up and studied at a film academy.

Polands three-judge panel rejected a request by Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro to overturn the extradition refusal, and upheld the decision made by a lower court in Krakow in 2015.

Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles. In exchange, the judge agreed to drop other charges and sentenced him to prison for a psychiatric evaluation. Polanski was released after 42 days by an evaluator who deemed him mentally sound and unlikely to offend again.

The judge then said he was going to send Polanski back to prison for the remainder of the 90 days and that afterward he would ask Polanski to agree to a voluntary deportation. Polanski fled from the United States before he was sentenced.

The U.S., which has been seeking to bring Polanski back before a court, asked Poland last year to extradite him.

Olszewski said Polanski has paid dearly for what he has done, with all the films that he was not able to make in Hollywood and the 40 years of stigma.

Polanski was preparing to make a film in Poland, but transferred it to France after Ziobros move.

Polanski won an Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film The Pianist, which he filmed in Warsaw, but he did not travel to the U.S. for the ceremony. He was nominated for his 1970s movies Chinatown and Tess.
SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Transwestern today announces it has earned more than 500,000 square feet in new property management assignments throughout the San Francisco Bay Area during the past three months. The firms innovative approach to superior service delivery was a key factor in expanding existing client portfolios and winning new clients.



We are honored that our clients have entrusted Transwestern to manage these assets, said Dave Rock, executive vice president. We are excited to share our unique approach to service delivery, called The Transwestern Experience, to create a unique community at each building.

The Transwestern Experience is an innovative approach to superior service that reflects the firms unique culture. The four key goals include consistently creating positive service experiences, connecting the dots between internal and external service, rupturing industry stereotypes, and building passion about purpose. This approach permeates every business line at Transwestern, including property management. The Transwestern Experience has resulted in an average 12 percent increase in overall tenant satisfaction in buildings that employ the approach, with 94 percent satisfaction in response speed/efficiency, 89 percent in accuracy/attention to detail, and 91 percent in collaboration/partnership.

The Bay Area Management Services team is led by Vice Presidents Amanda Monroe, Jeanette Marinque and Christina DuCote.

"Through The Transwestern Experience, we apply high-touch service approaches found in the worlds leading hospitality companies, combined with intuitive and skillful financial acumen, said Monroe. Our management style focuses on people, process, and place, creating a true second home for tenants.

The management portfolio growth has come alongside significant growth in the firms other services, such as a 15 percent year-over-year increase in Transwesterns leasing portfolio and an 83 percent increase in investment sales volume year over year. This growth prompted Transwestern to expand its Silicon Valley footprint at 2025 Gateway Place in San Jose.

The expansion of our San Jose space will allow our team to collaborate more freely and increase our overall productivity, said Edward Del Beccaro, senior managing director. Our Silicon Valley presence is a vital component of our Bay Area growth, and we are committed to providing our team members with the resources and environment they need to continuously provide best-in-class service to our clients and drive further success in this region.

Transwestern has grown significantly from its initial acquisition in May 2012 of an existing East Bay team comprised of 17 brokers, property management professionals, and staff, compared to more than 50 team members today. The firm has consistently won recognition as a best workplace for millennials, women and camaraderie by the San Francisco Business Times and Fortune.

ABOUT TRANSWESTERN

Transwestern is a privately held real estate firm of collaborative entrepreneurs who deliver a higher level of personalized service  the Transwestern Experience. Specializing in Agency Leasing, Management, Tenant Advisory, Capital Markets, Research and Sustainability services, our fully integrated global enterprise adds value for investors, owners and occupiers of all commercial property types. We leverage market insights and operational expertise from members of the Transwestern family of companies specializing in development, real estate investment management and research. Based in Houston, Transwestern has 34 U.S. offices and assists clients through more than 180 offices in 37 countries as part of a strategic alliance with BNP Paribas Real Estate. Experience Extraordinary at transwestern.com and @Transwestern.
Plans to build a new wood processing facility at Ngawha in Northland have been put on ice by Northland Inc, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Ministry for Primary Industries.

It follows the publication of a study into the potential project by independent consultants Indufor, which looked at the local impact, resource availability and market demand for an integrated sawmill and mechanical pulp mill at Ngawha.

Dr David Wilson, CEO of Northland Inc, argued the decision not to proceed is the right one.

While the study does identify potential, we have decided not to continue with further investigations at this stage. This is in part due to uncertainties arising from the Electricity Authoritys Transmission Pricing Methodology review and because of concerns raised by industry that need to be addressed, he said.

The Electricity Authority's review is considering the allocation of transmission costs and in May this year proposed raising the cost of bills in Auckland and Northland, to reflect the benefits of recent grid updates.

Indufor's report argued a mill would benefit the region through the provision of new jobs, and subsequent economic benefits, would not compete with existing wood processors and reduce heavy log traffic through the region. It also said there was sufficient resource in the area to develop the industry,

The report did note that some entities argued the project should be broadened to include other aspects such as the supply chain, integration of resources and collectivisation concepts.

The authors note, "the sentiments indicate that any tangible development of a new wood processing facility (whatever the mill concept) should be considered in the context of the aspirations and desires of Northland's forest resource owners."

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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New Zealand's spending on tourism infrastructure needs to increase and it isn't realistic to expect ratepayers to foot the bill, especially in smaller towns reliant on tourists such as Franz Josef, says Lawrence Yule, president of Local Government NZ and mayor of Hastings District Council.

At a quarterly LGNZ briefing in Wellington, Yule pointed to a report last month from Air New Zealand, Auckland International Airport, Christchurch International Airport and Tourism Holdings as a way forward. That report called for the creation of a National Tourism Infrastructure Levy, with industry and central government contributions, raising $130 million a year to fund local tourism infrastructure needs.

"There's an underinvestment going on and if we wish to maximise our tourism opportunity we need to look at doing things very differently," Yule said. "I think everybody gets that we need to change the system."

The report last month proposed that the tourism industry should raise $65 million in new revenues from the bed tax and a $5 increase in the current border clearance levy of around $20 per person, and that central government should match that funding dollar-for-dollar to produce $130 million a year "to develop mixed local use tourism infrastructure". The levy proposal would help small communities swamped by the international tourism boom to provide sufficient basic infrastructure, including public toilets, car parks, and footpaths. In 20 local council areas, about $100 million of immediate investment is required, it said.

Meanwhile, Local Government Funding Agency chief executive Mark Butcher said at the briefing that debt issued by the agency became more liquid in the past quarter. LGFA has lent $203 million to 17 councils in short-term arrangements for between three and 12 months, which Butcher said was all refinancing of previous bank borrowings and had saved local councils millions of dollars.

"We're working on improving liquidity in turnover, we want to be the most highly traded fixed income instrument after government bonds," Butcher said.

Market activity increased in the month, with turnover in LGFA bonds exceeding $30 million in November. Domestic institutional investors hold 37 percent of LGFA bonds, which Butcher said was driven by "good strong demand" from KiwiSaver funds such as AMP Capital and Fisher Funds.

The LGFA is considering offering a longer-term bond after requests from investors, chair Craig Stobo said. The agency currently offers bonds which mature in 2019, 2023 and 2027.

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Dec. 6 (BusinessDesk) - The New Zealand dollar has risen to its highest level this month and the benchmark stock index has gained from yesterday's close, suggesting little risk premium has been added for the resignation of Prime Minister John Key and the likelihood of a new finance minister should Bill English become PM.

English says he won't be able to retain the portfolio if he's successful in his tilt to be New Zealand's next prime minister, meaning the country will also be greeting a new minister in charge of the Treasury. He's up against factions of the caucus who may support Health Minister Jonathan Coleman and Corrections Minister Judith Collins to be PM, making it a three-horse race.

The loss of Key, a popular prime minister who has dominated in most-favoured leader polls during his terms, has the potential to sway the outcome of next year's election if, for example, a weakened National ends up having to form a coalition with NZ First or a Labour-Greens grouping seeks to form a government.

"We would see it increasing the risk premium at the margin," said Chris Green, director, economics and strategy, at First NZ Capital. "Obviously it depends how the PM position evolves and the finance position. There are risks around the potential for a less clean election going forward, if Peters emerges as kingmaker and what would his price be."

Green predicts a heightened sensitivity in financial markets to New Zealand political polls. First NZ's central scenario is that there will be a National-led government after the next election and that English as PM would keep a sense of continuity in government policy.

He said Key was probably more of a gifted politician "but people probably underestimate the role English has been playing behind the scenes".

Risks around a tie-up with Winston Peters would include possible curbs on migration, which has been at record levels this year, contributing to about one-third of New Zealand's economic growth, Green said. That could cause an "abrupt change" in a driver of economic growth which would be transmitted through to headline GDP and housing demand. Peters may also demand a less favourable climate for foreign investment.

An urgent debate on Key's resignation announcement is underway in Parliament this afternoon, at the request of Peters and Andrew Little, leader of the Labour Party. Peters has been critical of John Key's legacy, saying he has not delivered on economic growth he promised.

The kiwi dollar recently traded at 71.48 US cents, up from as low as 70.65 cents yesterday, after Key's announcement. It has traded in a range of about 69.70 US cents to 74 cents in the past month. The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 0.5 percent to 6,889.12 and has gained 8.9 percent year to date.

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Rock750 wrote:

The recently reelected president of Cyprus has asked that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their northern regions, to withdraw from his country.



(A) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their

(B) of the United States that it would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their

(C) that the United States would encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its

(D) that the United States encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls their

(E) the United States to encourage Turkey, which invaded the island in 1974 and now controls its

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The phrase asked that in choices (A), (C), and (D) requires the following verb to be in the subjunctive mood which, in situations like this (technically known as indirect speech), looks like the infinitive form of the verb. The options in the three choices are would encourage and encourage. The second is correct since encourage is indeed the infinitive form of the verb (to encourage). Eliminate (A) and (C). Answer choice (B) makes the same error. Even though it separates asked and that with some more information, (B) still presents the asked that construction and needs to use the subjunctive encourage rather than would encourage. (D) and (E) remain. (E) is correct because it uses its rather than their to refer to Cyprus.An 800 test taker realizes that he doesn't need to know all of the details of the subjunctive mood in order to ace the GMAT. He familiarizes himself with the three situations in which the subjunctive is used so that he can spot them in Sentence Correction questions._________________
James Martin, 82nd Aerospace Medicine Squadron health promotions program coordinator and native of Burkburnett, Texas, has been with the Air Force for 16 months as a government employee after serving 20 years in the United States Navy. Martin is the Support Airman of the Week at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, for the week of Dec. 6-12, 2016.

Most significant accomplishments:

I was able to help make the greatest step forward in healthy living by assisting with the transition to a tobacco free medical facility and a complete restructure of designated tobacco areas on Sheppard Air Force Base, Martin said. I also created a comprehensive health coalition with the Wichita County Public Health Department to include tobacco use and nutrition. As a previous smoker of 25 years, I know how impossible it feels when trying to quit  my greatest reward is when I help someone achieve that dream.

Airmans story:

I grew up in the small town of Burkburnett, and I wanted to see the rest of the world, so I joined the United States Navy as a Corpsman, Martin said. After retiring from the Navy, I wanted to try my hand in the civilian world but that did not last very long. I quickly found my way into Civil Service and it just feels right being back with the military.

I still have the distinct honor of serving our wonderful country, he said. My amazing wife constantly supported me throughout my military career and now it is great to be able to support her in her endeavors. Our most treasured time is spent traveling and exploring the country together in our RV.

Commanders comments:

Mr. Martin exemplifies the 82nd Training Wings mission as he is dedicated to training and inspiring warriors, said Lt. Col. Stephen Wolf, 82nd AMDS commander. His position as the Health Promotions Program Coordinator for the 82nd AMDS empowers him to utilize proven behavioral modification techniques to directly influence todays warriors on the benefits of making healthy choices. These actions ultimately create a healthier environment for Airmen to achieve their specific goals.

He also produces educational documentation, health promotion campaigns, and uses community engagement to ensure the base populace is exposed to effective tools to improve or maintain their wellness, he said. Without question, Mr. Martin is a critical asset to 82nd AMDS as we strive to prevent disease and optimize performance for those at Sheppard Air Force Base.
BENGALURU: One97 communication, the digital goods market place also known for their digital payments provider Paytm are merging their wallet service with the eponymous payments banks after the necessary approvals. These are a new model of banks conceptualized by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), according to The Economic Times.

The firm also runs an ecommerce marketplace that is expected to function as a gateway for online retail operations of Alibaba, a Chinese ecommerce firm.

It is speculated that Alibabas digital wallet Alipay is affiliated with Paytm. This collaboration of Alibaba and its subsidiary Ant Financial hold about 40 pct stake in One97 Communications, having invested about $680 million in the company.

Vijay Shekar Sharma, founder of Paytm holds a 51 pct share in the payments bank, with the balance owned by One97Communications. According to ET, Sharma has invested 112 crore for his majority stake in the payment bank.

Bhavik Hathi, Managing Director of Consultancy firm Alvarez & Marsal asserted that "Banks have their own mobile wallets, so it should not be a problem for Paytm to have its wallet business merged with the payments bank business. However, in line with regulatory requirements the company has had to segregate its ecommerce business from the payments business.

Paytm is one of the prominent digital firms who have made the most of the governments demonetization drive. There has been a drastic increase in the number of users after the demonetization announcement. Paytm claims a transaction of over 5 million on a daily basis with a spike of 120 crore worth of transaction in a single day.

After the demonetization rule, Paytm was administered closely as there were rumors that Chinese investors are benefitting from the governments move in India. For this reason, Swadeshi Jagran Manch that has been campaigning against the inflow of Chinese goods into India has stated it will have a keen eye on the relationship between Paytm and Chinese internet company, Alibaba Group.

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NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) has joined a group of 46 communication schools from around the world in the recently announced Google News Lab University Network.



"In this era of digital media, Google's News Lab would equip IIMC students with the knowledge of important online tools such as Google Search, Google Trends, Google Maps and Google Earth," a press statement issued by IIMC said.

Nicholas Whitaker, training and development manager at Google News Lab, wrote in a medium.Com post announcing the collaboration, "The Network is designed to provide in-person training and online training materials and support to professors and students on topics ranging from Google tool fundamentals, trust and verification, immersive storytelling, data journalism, advanced search and Google Trends, data visualisation, mapping and more."



Speaking about the tie-up, KG Suresh, DG, IIMC said, "Understanding of digital tools is the need of the hour for budding journalists. Our collaboration with Google's News Lab will make our students skill-ready to meet the challenges of a changing media landscape. We are proud to be associated with this venture."



The Network includes 27 schools in the United States, 12 in Europe, three in Hong Kong, three in India, and one in Mexico.

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BENGALURU: With new startups sprouting every day, one is spoilt for choices to choose the right one to pamper the taste buds. But here is a startup with a difference and it offers home-cooked food. Started by Vedant Kanoi and Shamit Khemka, two and a half years back, Foodcloud offers you home cooked food at your doorsteps. It is basically an online portal that connects foodies with chefs and caterers in Delhi-NCR.

With over 200 chefs and 6000 cuisines to choose from, it is the perfect platform to order sumptuous home-made delicacies delivered at your footsteps. Well, that sounds interesting and mouthwatering!

Foodcloud has received the first round of funding worth 3.5 crore and its main aim is to disrupt the food catering startup ecosystem with something innovative and different. So, the point is that if you are an amateur cook or you have a penchant for good food and love cooking, then you can always hop on this unique platform and become a part of this unique team. Its time that you stopped limiting yourself to Facebook and other social media platforms.

According to Business Insider, the founder Vedant Kanoi was quoted as saying, All the person needs to do is join as a chef on our website (www.foodcloud.in) and register himself. After that we arrange a tasting session for him where his food is judged on parameters like quality, hygiene, presentation etc. After the approval, we sign a contract with the chef and help him upload his menu on the website. Once the formalities are over, we immediately make him live on our portal. This sounds easy and surely is a great opportunity for all the amateur chefs out there.

No qualification or degree is required to get yourself enrolled for this unique work from home job opportunity, where you can give wings to your dream from the confines and comfort of your home. The chef decides the price himself but is always encouraged to keep it competitive and reasonable to encourage more customers.

It cant get better than this as you get this unique platform to showcase your skills and earn while pursuing your dream. Happy Cooking!

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After recruiting several head honchos to their company in June, the Staten Island Shakespearean Theatre Co. now welcomes six more members to the table.

The SIST is a local non-profit troupe that's produced more than 200 shows since its inception in 1975. Here are the six new faces recently welcomed to the board:

Christopher Campbell

Allison Cohen

Rachel Somma Devlin

Paul Duffy

Kashif Pervez

Jaclyn Tacoronte

New recruits join acting-board chair Dorri Aspinwall, Vice Chair-Treasurer Ken Conroy, Secretary Danielle Bonanno, Evelyn Finn, Jayne Cooper, Cara Liander and Producing Artistic Director Frank Williams.

"Cara Liander was an unstoppable powerhouse in recruiting new members to the Board," Williams said. "The retirement of many of the current directors is on the horizon and we really needed to get some new blood -- like yesterday. I think the diversity of the new directors, along with their fresh eyes and ideas will give the company exactly what it needs to push it to the enxt level."

UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS:

"Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol" is back.

Staten Island Shakespearean Theatre presents Tom Mula's annual take on the holiday classic under the direction of Joseph Daly at Conference House, 7455 Hylan Blvd. in Tottenville.

Showtimes: 8 p.m. Dec. 8-10 and Dec. 15-17; and 3 p.m. Dec. 11 and 18. Tickets are $25 or $20 for students and seniors. To purchase tickets, visit: ShowClix.com/events/1247

NEXT UP: "Twelfth Night or What you Will" by the Bard himself under the direction of Frank Williams and Cara Liander.



Performance Dates at The Little Victory Theatre in Travis:

Friday, March 3; Saturday, March 4; Sunday, March 5; Friday, March 10; Saturday, March 11; and Sunday, March 12.

Technical Director/Stage Manager: Chelsea Smith. Set Designer: Christopher Sorrentino. Lighting Designer: Pamela Pangaro

ABOUT STATEN ISLAND SHAKESPEAREAN THEATRE COMPANY

Since 1975, the mission of Staten Island Shakespearean Theatre is to bring high quality live theatrical experiences to the residents of Staten Island and to provide an artistic opportunity for the actors, directors and designers who choose to make that community their home. Classical works, including those of the company's namesake are considered essential components of its repertoire.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island man has been accused of groping a woman on the street in Manhattan's Theater District.

Manuel Franco, 49, placed his hand on the woman's crotch over her clothing at about 2:30 p.m. Nov. 30 in front of 1625 Broadway, according to a criminal complaint.

Public records indicate that Green Apple Gourmet Food is located at that address.

The victim did not consent to being touched, according to the complaint.

Franco has been charged with misdemeanors, including forcible touching and sexual abuse in the third degree, the complaint said.
SnugMade.jpg

Irina Poludnenko proudly announces where her knit items are crafted. She operates her cottage industry, Hats and Not Hats, out of her South Beach home. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Lorraine Mercado makes her all-natural Bath Buffet soaps and soaks in the basement of her Great Kills home.

Richard Xuereb has converted his Mariners Harbor garage into a custom woodworking shop where he crafts bowls, boxes and fountain pens from maple and cherry.

And the tote bags and coin purses Margaret Molinari creates from hand-printed fabrics are fashioned in the Margarts design studio of her Ward Hill house.

Cottage industries are booming across the borough as crafty Staten Islanders adapt their homes to make items that become fast sellers at fairs and gift gatherings. Judging from attendance at several recent events, handmade and homemade are in demand this holiday season.

Margaret Molinari of Ward Hill screen prints and block prints the colorful fabrics she uses to make coin purses, tote bags and ornaments. She calls her business Margarts. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

At a recent holiday fair hosted by the Staten Island Museum at Snug Harbor, Irina Poludnenko of South Beach was knitting in between brisk sales of her hats, cowls and fingerless gloves.

The native of Russia, who also lived in Siberia, is an expert when it comes to keeping warm. She started knitting when she was 7 and hasn't stopped since.

Poludnenko's items are labeled "Proudly Made on Staten Island" and created under the business name, Hats and Not Hats.

FRIENDS AND BUSINESS PARTNERS

Across the room, Connie Burke of Westerleigh and Laura Brown of Castleton Corners were selling their paper quilling creations.

The art of coiling and shaping narrow paper strips has been around for centuries, but the pair began their partnership just over a year ago after meeting at the Todt Hill Friendship Club.

Laura Brown and Connie Burke met in a paper quilling class at the Todt Hill Friendship Club and have been crafting partners - and good friends - ever since. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"I took a class and just fell in love with it," Burke said. "Now I can't get enough of it."

She and Brown were selling ornaments, picture frames and dioramas under the name CNL Everything Paper - the "CNL" standing for "Connie 'n Laura."

A few tables over, Wanda Chambers modeled one of her creations, a tomato-red fascinator, and answered customer questions.

"I've been embellishing hats for 25 years, designing hats for 10 years," said the New Springville artisan, whose millinery business is appropriately called Once Upon A Hat.

Chambers said she looks forward to even more interest in her work and Staten Island businesses in general when the New York Wheel and Empire Outlets open in St. George.

Millinery designer Wanda Chambers of New Springville models a fascinator and poses with some of her creations. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

And for Adriana Romero, it all began a year ago when she baked Halloween cookies for her daughter's YMCA pre-school class.

They were such a hit, she started her own custom decorated cookie business in her Great Kills kitchen and now caters to birthdays, baby showers and Communions.

Her paint-your-own holiday cookies, complete with food coloring and brush, were sell-outs at the Staten Island Museum fair.

FLYING OFF THE SHELVES

At the Noble Maritime Collection's recent holiday sale at Snug Harbor, Heidi Werner could barely keep up with the demand for her jellies, jams and toppings. Shoppers mobbed her table, digging into free samples of spicy, savory and sweet offerings.

"What's a good grandma jam?" asked Valerie Stokes of Orange County, Calif., who grew up in Westerleigh and was shopping with her husband, Nathan.

Sarah Clark of Westerleigh taste-tests the monkey butter made by Heidi Werner, at right, during a holiday sale at the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"Strawberry rhubarb, apple butter or black and blue (berry)," Werner answered with authority. The jar of Heidi's Homemade apple butter that Stokes purchased will go to Terry Rizzo of New Dorp.

Bacon 'n beer jam and eggplant caponata were top sellers at the museum sale, Werner said, and the banana nut bread topping generated a lot of "Mmmms."

When it grew too big for her own kitchen, Werner moved her operation into the kitchen at Castleton Hill Moravian Church in Castleton Corners, not far from her home. She buys her glass jars from Doody Home Center, a block away from the church.

"We keep it local," she said. "We take care of Staten Island."

HOLIDAY MARKET COMING UP

Twenty-eight local vendors will participate in the St. George Holiday Market on Dec. 14, 15 and 16 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Culture Lounge inside the St. George ferry terminal.

The event is presented by Staten Island Arts in partnership with Staten Island Creative Community and Flagship Brewery's Made in Staten Island. For information, go to statenislandarts.org or call 718-447-3329.

CONTACT THE ARTISANS

Bath Buffet by Lorraine Mercado: email lori@bathbuffet.com or call 929-428-3907; iwood101 by Richard Xuereb: call 917-952-1852; Margarts by Margaret Molinari: visit margarts.com or email margaret@margarts.com; Hats and Not Hats by Irina Poludnenko: visit hatsandnothats.com or email irina.poludnenko@gmail.com; CNL Everything Paper by Connie Burke and Laura Brown: visit cnleverythingpaper.com or email cnleverythingpaper@gmail.com; Once Upon A Hat by Wanda Chambers: visit wanda-onceuponahat.com or email wanda.chambers419@gmail.com; Adriana Romero Baking: email adrianaromerobaking@gmail.com; Heidi's Homemade by Heidi Werner: email heidishomemade@yahoo.com or call 347-336-1294.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD is asking for the public's help in identifying two people wanted for questioning in connection with a robbery and carjacking in Elm Park.

The incident occurred at about 1:45 a.m. Nov. 13 in front of 199 Granite Ave., according to a written statement from the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information.

Police said a male approached a 40-year-old victim who was stepping out of a red 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe. The male brandished a silver firearm, struck the victim over the head with the gun and took the victim's wallet, which contained $2,500, police said. The male then fled in the victim's vehicle, police said.

The NYPD distributed two photos of people wanted for questioning in connection with the incident. The photos were taken in the vicinity of Granite Avenue, police said.

A police spokesman was unable to provide more information about the incident.

Police are asking anyone with information about the suspect to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hot line at 800-577-TIPS (8477) or 888-577-4782 (PISTA) for Spanish; visit nypdcrimestoppers.com or send text tips to CRIMES (274637), then enter TIP577.

All calls are strictly confidential.
swastika

A swastika reportedly was etched into the elevator door of a healthcare facility in Dongan Hills in November, while police report that overall hate crimes are on the decline borough-wide. (Staten Island Advance/ Advance file photo.)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Hate crimes on Staten Island are on the decline amid a spike in reports citywide.

While 28 hate crimes were reported in 2014, police responded to 14 in 2015 and 14 so far in 2016, according to a spokesperson for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

In regard to a reported spike in recent weeks across the five boroughs, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday pointed to the presidential election as factor.

"It's obviously connected to the election and it's dangerous," said de Blasio at an unrelated event Monday in Manhattan. "Thank God, in most of these cases, it's reduced to just speech or threats, but sometimes there's going to be people who follow through on these threats. We could lose lives because of it. The temperature has to be brought down..."

The mayor spoke on the topic the same day a Brooklyn man was arraigned on hate crime charges in connection with an alleged attack on a Muslim-American off-duty NYPD officer and her teenage son.

Since mid-November, two hate crimes have been reported on Staten Island, police said.

On Nov. 17, a 19-year-old male was arrested on allegations he threatened to set a white male on fire on an MTA bus in Tompkinsville.

On Nov. 18, police received a report of swastikas etched into an elevator door at Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, located at 88 Old Town Road in Dongan Hills.

The mayor said the responsibility to reduce hate crimes falls, in part, on residents.

"This is a direct message to all New Yorkers: If you see someone commit an act of hate, you have to do something about it. At least report what you see to the NYPD."

Nationwide, hate crimes increased 6.8 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to the FBI's Unified Crime Report.

The report indicated that among the 7,121 victims who reported hate crimes, 59.2 percent of them were targeted due to race, ethnicity or ancestry.

-- Staff writer Anna Sanders contributed to this report
Vietnam Veterans

This 2014 Advance file photo shows Sen. Andrew Lanza and Assemblyman Matthew Titone at an event at Tottenville High School. Legislation by Titone and Lanza that prohibits the New York State Council on the Arts from awarding grants to organizations that are not incorporated as nonprofits within the state was recently signed into law by the governor.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Here's a recap of what some of Staten Island's lawmakers have been up to recently.

KEEPING ARTS MONEY IN NEW YORK

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently signed into law legislation that prohibits the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) from awarding arts and cultural grants to organizations that are not incorporated as nonprofits within the state.

The bill, by Assemblyman Matthew Titone and Sen. Andrew Lanza, also prohibits grant recipients from using grant funding received from NYSCA to fund arts programs outside of the state.

"We are not judging the work of out-of-state artists," said Titone (D-North Shore). "However this legislation will ensure that the limited funding available through the New York State Council on the Arts goes directly to New York arts/cultural organizations that actually live, work, and perform in New York State."

NYSCA is dedicated to furthering the arts culture in New York State and strives to achieve its mission through its core grant program. Unfortunately, however, there have been documented instances wherein out-of-state arts organizations access NYSCA funding by utilizing P.O. Boxes within New York in order to qualify.

"This law will ensure that state budget appropriations for the New York State Council on the Arts reflect the priorities of the State of New York and protect the interests of its taxpayers," said Lanza (R-Staten Island). "By requiring NYSCA to reserve allocations only for programs and services that lie within the state we ensure that New York's limited resources remain local, accessible and beneficial to our communities and residents."

SUPPORT FOR FIGHTING SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Cuomo recently announced $3.85 million in funding to support the state's ongoing effort to combat heroin and prescription opioid misuse across New York.

This funding will expand current addiction support initiatives to ensure two family support navigators and two peer engagement specialists are available in each of the state's 10 economic development regions. Funding is also available to support community coalitions to help stem the addiction epidemic in local communities across the state.

"This funding will further New York's fight against heroin and opioid addiction and help ensure those in need have access to vital recovery resources and treatment," Cuomo said.

The funding will be made available through a Request for Applications administered by the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

PRE-K FUNDING



Cuomo also announced recently that $25 million in funding has been awarded to support pre-K programs in New York City, Yonkers, Port Chester, Watertown and Uniondale.

"This funding represents another step forward in our mission to provide every child with high-quality education opportunities early in their lives," Cuomo said.

New York State was first awarded $25 million in federal funding in December 2014 to create full-day pre-Kindergarten slots for children in high need communities.

Final district-level allocations for the third year of the program as follows: $7.6 million for New York City; $7.3 million for Yonkers; $3.2 million for Port Chester; $2.5 million for Watertown, and $3.2 million for Uniondale. New York will also receive funding to invest in state-level infrastructure.
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Global markets were not lacking in precarious unknowns. Italy just added another.

As voters on Sunday emphatically rejected constitutional changes aimed at accelerating reforms to the countrys moribund economy, they enhanced concerns that Italys banks could spiral into a disaster. They reinvigorated worries about the endurance of the euro currency and broader European economic integration. And they amplified the sense that Europe is a land of disappointing growth, political dysfunction and seething populism.

Existential crisis had not been on the ballot, but that was essentially the result. The lopsided tally against the reforms  nearly 60 percent rejected them  prompted the resignation of Italys prime minister, Matteo Renzi, leaving Europes fourth-largest economy without clear leadership.

The widening spread between lower-yielding German bonds and those issued by debt-saturated European countries amounts to a flashing indicator that investors see risks for the southern periphery. These market moves were muted because the results had been anticipated.

Indeed, for Europe and the rest of the world, this dynamic was uncomfortably familiar. For nearly a decade, the 19 nations sharing the euro have lurched from one crisis to the next, with no effective fix. A currency designed to unite the adversaries of World War II has instead generated fresh divisions  between creditor and borrower; Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.

In a year in which Britain voted to abandon the European Union and the American electorate selected Donald J. Trump as the next president, Italy offered its own contribution to the global populist insurrection. Against this backdrop, the basic contours of the world economy are now uncertain.

The British vote to exit Europe  Brexit, in common parlance  threatens to cleave the geography of the worlds largest single marketplace. The American elevation of Mr. Trump hands authority over the worlds largest economy to a man who has threatened a trade war with the second-largest, China.

The fall of Mr. Renzi creates an opening for the populist Five Star Movement, a party that seeks to free Italy of the euro and its strictures on government spending.

Even that possibility threatens Europe with trouble. If investors worry that Italy may leave the euro, they will demand greater rewards for continued lending. Those with the greatest debt burdens  Greece, Spain and Portugal  could see their borrowing costs rise beyond their ability to pay.

For now, such grim scenarios appear remote. The referendum maintains the power of the Italian legislatures upper chamber, a potent check on the Five Star Movement, or any government pursuing radical change.

The most immediate consequences fall on the Italian banking system, now choked with some 360 billion euro, or about $385 billion, in suspect debts.

Mr. Renzi tried and failed to inject public funds into Monte dei Paschi, the perpetual locus of fears about an Italian-bred financial conflagration. The European Union, led by Germany, effectively forbade that step, citing new rules barring taxpayer bailouts to limit the temptation of bankers to engage in reckless lending.

Mr. Renzi instead forged a plan that has Monte dei Paschi scrambling to secure 5 billion from private investors.

For Monte dei Paschi, its going to be extremely hard to close the capital raise by end of the year, said Nicola Borri, a finance professor at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. The political future is so uncertain.

Most experts assume a caretaker Italian government will wind up seeking permission from European authorities for some form of a taxpayer-financed rescue of Monte dei Paschi, while agreeing to wipe out the investments of a thin slice of bondholders.

The consensus is that Italy can patch immediate holes in the banking system. But the referendum has destroyed what momentum existed to address the condition that is both cause and effect of the banking problem  a dire lack of economic growth.

Italys banks are stuffed with uncollectable debts in part because the countrys economy is smaller than it was a decade ago. Bad loans on bank balance sheets reflect that millions of people have lost jobs, eliminating spending power, while companies have seen sales evaporate.

Mr. Renzi pursued reforms aimed at spurring companies to invest. He made it easier for companies to terminate low-performing workers to eliminate a chief impediment to hiring them in the first place  the fear that giving someone a job was akin to adopting them as a dependent forever.

He sought to speed civil processes in the notoriously inefficient court system to make it easier for banks to recoup bad debts by collecting colateral.

The constitutional changes he sought were aimed at clearing another blockage to reform. They would have trimmed the powers of the upper chamber of the legislature, a place where proposals die.

Voters clearly did not trust Mr. Renzi to wield greater power. Now, they will be represented by someone with less power where it matters a great deal: Brussels and Berlin.

Debt-saturated nations in Europe have long argued that their burdens would be lighter if they could spend more money to spur faster economic growth.

But the European Union  anchored by Germany  has cited rules limiting the spending of member governments with big debts. Instead, Brussels and Berlin argue, such countries must deliver so-called structural reforms, stripping away labor protections and trimming pension benefits.

In a testament to the severity of this creed, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble effectively threatened to banish Greece from the euro if Athens did not deliver on reforms it promised as a condition of successive European bailouts.

Athens must finally implement the needed reforms, Mr. Schauble told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview published on Sunday, a day before eurozone finance ministers convened to court the participation of the International Monetary Fund in the Greek bailout.

If Greece wants to stay in the euro, there is no way around it.

Mr. Renzi was a rare leader who carried credibility in such quarters. He gained modest relief from European spending strictures in part by pointing at his reforms.

Renzi is the only leader in recent history who has advanced a structural reform agenda, said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy.

Now, Mr. Renzi is gone, along with his reform trajectory. What is most palpably still here is an Italian economy that is growing anemically, soon to be presided over by a caretaker government with a limited mandate.

What chance does a less effective prime minister overseeing a caretaker government have of getting a hearing in Brussels and Berlin? Mr. Rahman said. Its just not possible.

Italy has no fuel for growth. It has no clear way to extricate itself  or the other parts of the planet connected to money  from the perils of its grinding banking crisis. And the one reinforces the other.
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That experience is entirely self-taught. With nothing but a passion for plant-based baking and a flair for design, Konya experimented with triple chocolate chip cookies and whoopie pies, and they were a hit with her family and friends. But it wasn't until 1998, after she gave a cake - her now-signature chocolate peanut butter mousse bomb - to a guy in Philly who was selling vegan cheesesteak sandwiches, that she thought about a business. "He used to always say that there was no such thing as a good vegan dessert," Konya says. "I just brought him the cake to prove a point, but then he called me a few hours later and said, 'The cake's all gone. Can you make me 12 for next week?'"
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Former ACT government minister Simon Corbell will be announced as Victoria's "Renewable Energy Advocate" later this week.

Mr Corbell held an ACT Legislative Assembly seat for nearly 20 years, making him the territory's longest-serving politician, and held some of the toughest portfolios, including attorney-general's, police and emergency services, health and environment and climate changes.

'Mr Renewables' former ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell has been appointed Victoria's Renewable Energy Advocate. Credit:Graham Tidy

Mr Corbell is also a Labor-left factional stablemate of Victorian Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio, who will announce the appointment on Friday.

But the former ACT politician is steeped in clean energy policy and politics after years in charge of planning and executing a succession of of ambitious schemes for wind and solar power to fuel the national capital.
Rene Konrad's Model S Tesla turns a lot of heads, and it's not because he can drive from Melbourne to Brisbane without spending a dime to fill up.

He charges the car with electricity produced by the solar panels on his roof and can get up to 460 kilometres "per tank", before he needs to pull in to fill up at a charging station.

Rene Konrad with charges his Tesla electric car at home with energy from his solar panels. Credit:Katie Burgess

In a decade, Mr Konrad's electric car could be the norm, not the exception.

Modelling by Beyond Zero Emissions has shown transitioning Australia's fleet of petrol cars to electric could be cost neutral over 20 years.
A package of legislation that could significantly reshape the terms of employment for workers in New York's retail and fast food industries will be introduced in the City Council later this morning, the latest sign of the growing political clout of the city's tens of thousands of low-wage hourly workers.

The legislation, some of which has been backed by Mayor de Blasio, would restrict the ability of employers in these industries to make last-minute shift changes and limit workers' hours, common practices that workers' rights advocates have said undermine workers' financial and family stability.

"Knowing your hours ahead of time is too often taken for granted, though it is a downright necessity for arranging childcare, class schedules and budgeting for the week," Mayor de Blasio said in a statement. "This is an important next step in protecting the rights of 65,000 New Yorkers and once again demonstrates that we are committed to being a city that is fair and equitable for all."

One bill in the package, the Fair Work Week Bill, would end on-call scheduling policies, a retail industry practice in which employers make last-minute scheduling changes based on computer simulations of consumer demand. In the fast food industry, employers would be required to provide two weeks notice of scheduling changes. Employers who make scheduling changes in a shorter window of time would be required to pay a penalty to affected employees.

"My schedule is constantly changing and I rarely get the hours I want," said Alvin Major, 51, who has worked as a cook at a KFC in Brooklyn for the past four years, in a statement. "I'm a father of four with two kids in college and I struggle every month to make enough to support my family."

Employers in the fast food industry would also be barred from scheduling "clopenings"in which a worker works a nighttime closing shift and then an opening shift the following morning.

Under the Fast Food Worker Empowerment Bill, employers would be required to, upon request of an employee, make automatic deductions from that employee's paycheck, which would then be forwarded to a non-profit organization that would advocate for better working conditions in the industry. In effect, these organizations, which would be regulated by the Department of Consumer Affairs, would serve as informal unions. (Hector Figueroa, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, a major backer of the legislation, likened these organizations to the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance, a membership-based organization that advocates for cab drivers.)

According to Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, who sponsored the bill, it would be the first legislation of its kind in the United States. "It will allow them to educate their coworkers about their rights on the job and advocate in their communities for policies they need, like access to affordable housing and immigration reform," she said in a statement. "This bill will allow fast food workers to create an organization, gather their financial resources and focus on the issues that are important to them."

Michael Saltsman, research director at the Employment Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has advocated against minimum wage increases and other labor protections for low-wage workers, said the legislation would force employers to make cutbacks. "The idea that this is an industry that is in any way prepared to take the hit from another piece of legislation like this is just ludicrous," he said, citing an EPI study on similar legislation in San Francisco.

But Figueroa said that current scheduling practices in the fast food and retail industries are not an essential part of the business model. He pointed to a Wall Street Journal report on chains that use full-time workers. "Fast food employers can keep their stores profitable with full-time workers and regular schedules," he said.

City Council Members and labor activists are rallying outside City Hall Tuesday morning in support of the legislation.
"Who do you think you f---ing are? ... If you try to get me, I'm going to throw you under the f---ing bus," National Australia Bank's star financial planner Graeme Cowper told a compliance manager who was conducting a random compliance check of some of his customer files.

The strongly worded threats emerged as evidence as part of the legal action Cowper launched against Fairfax Media (and myself) and the ABC over an expose of poor behaviour in financial planning focused mostly on NAB.

That case though took on an ironic twist this week when Cowper effectively threw himself under the bus when he pulled the plug on the defamation case halfway into a four-week trial with a jury at the NSW Supreme Court.

In a complete surrender Cowper agreed to pay $200,000 in legal costs to Fairfax Media and the ABC as well as agreeing that a judgment should be made in the media companies' favour.
Australia's newest internet service provider MyRepublic has admitted that it's going through "teething issues" that have led to many customers venting about their bad experiences on social media.

Customers - attracted by the start-up's promise to deliver unlimited data at up to 100 Mbps for $60 a month - have complained about long wait times on the phone, generic replies to emails and lack of updates about the progress of their applications.

The biggest cause of fury has been MyRepublic's timeframe of five to 20 business days to connect a customer. Most ISPs are able to connect customers within 48 hours.

"When we launched on November 15, we did 200 orders in the first hour, and more than 1500 orders on the first day, so the response was phenomenal," said Nicholas Demos, MyRepublic Australia's managing director.
Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar and Tigerair are the subject of a complaint by consumer advocacy group Choice, which alleges the four airlines have breached Australian Consumer Law.



Choice has called for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to respond to evidence of excessive cancellation fees of up to $550 per ticket, widespread use of "no refund" signs, and a lack of compensation for the airlines' mistakes.

"Our investigation reveals the significant power imbalance between consumers and airlines, who are not being held to the same basic standards as other industries," said Choice spokesman Matt Levey.

In the past year, 31 per cent of travellers had a problem with flights, 73 per cent of which had problems relating to delays and cancellations, the Choice investigation found.



Other issues included difficulties making changes to bookings, claiming a refund and excessive cancellation or change fees.

Choice alleges one consumer, Daniel Kruk, was charged $861.72 when he decided to cancel two Qantas tickets to New York, following three separate notifications of changes to his flight time that were instigated by the airline.



"...The basis of my cancellation was because Qantas had altered my flight three times and offered me the option to accept or decline," he told Choice.
In total, 388 kilometres of rail line will need to be build, including about 310 kilometres connecting the northern Galilee Basin to the Port of Abbot Point, with coal trains running 24/7. The 247,000 square kilometre Galilee Basin is in central Queensland, about 200 kilometres west of the Bowen Basin, extending north past Hughenden, south to Charleville and west beyond Winton and Middleton. Adani has also proposed to establish a $200 million large-scale solar project near Moranbah. How much money is involved? Construction is expected to generate $78 million per year in direct and indirect impacts on the Mackay regions and $203 million for Queensland.

Production is expected to generate $176.6 million per year in the Mackay region and $274.1 million for the state. There would also be $5.5 billion in royalties/taxes in the first 10 years. There has been speculation that $1 billion in loans will be provided under the federal government's Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility to construct the rail line from the mine to Abbot Point port. But the federal government said Adani would only be granted a concessional loan if it cannot raise the money from the private sector. Ms Palaszczuk said the announcement that the regional headquarters would be in Townsville would be a boost for the city, which was hit hard by the collapse of businessman-turned-politician Clive Palmer's Queensland Nickel.

But Mr Palmer told Fairfax Media the $1 billion of taxpayers' money could be spent to "maybe create 600 jobs" while $10 million was not spent to save 3000 jobs at his refinery. Earlier this year, administrators for Queensland Nickel, FTI Consulting, requested a $10 million loan guarantee from the state government to keep open the refinery, near Townsville. At the time, the state government would only consider the request if Mr Palmer was removed from the company. What's the deal with the rail line? Adani said the rail line and port facilities had the potential to "assist the development of other proposed mines in the Galilee Basin".

"The rail will be an open access infrastructure to support other coal mines in Galilee and Bowen Basin and will be a growth engine for the economy of the Queensland State of Australia," Adani Australia's website reads. Adani proposes to construct a standard gauge rail line, which is more common in New South Wales and Victoria, while most of the rail used in Queensland is narrow gauge. Rail Back on Track spokesman Robert Dow said standard gauge would allow the trains to carry more coal and was unlikely to cause cross-over issues with Queensland's network. "It is a coal railway and it's fairly isolated, it's there for one specific purpose and that's to take coal from the mines to the port," Mr Dow said. A spokeswoman for Natural Resources and Mines Minister Anthony Lynham said the proposed rail line was always intended to be a multi-user rail line to transport coal from the Galilee Basin.

"Discussions are still underway with Adani as to how they will achieve it," she said. How many jobs will it create? The project has widely been promoted as creating 10,000 jobs, including by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. But in April 2015, Adani's own expert, Jerome Fahrer from ACIL Allen conceded 1464 jobs would be created. However, Adani has stood by the 10,000 jobs claim, with a spokesman saying its figures included contributions from the mine, the Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen, and the rail line connecting the two.

On Tuesday, Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan said the project would deliver thousands of jobs. "It is not just about the jobs in the mining sector," Mr Canavan said. "It's also going to create an economic ecosystem where there'll be more jobs for secretaries, for lawyers, for bankers, for nurses, because there'll be more people here." Adani says no 457 visas will be used in the Carmichael project. Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said, during 2015-16, the resources sector was responsible for one in seven jobs, one dollar in five across the state, assisted 914 community organisations, while using just 0.1 percent of total Queensland land surface.

Over the past seven years, the sector has generated $476 billion in value to Queensland, Mr Macfarlane said. What do green groups say? Protest groups have voiced concerns about the impact on the environment and the Great Barrier Reef. Australian Marine Conservation Society community campaigner Cherry Muddle said the mine would have a devastating impact on the reef and tourism jobs. While Greens Senator Larissa Waters said she was concerned at the prospect of a $1 billion concessional loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, and she could think of better things to spend taxpayer money on.
Townsville was a city divided on Tuesday with diametrically opposing views on the great benefits - or catastrophes - that would flow to the area as the Adani coal mine won its final approvals.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was in Townsville to meet with Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani and announce the city will be home to the Carmichael mine's regional headquarters.

Ms Palaszczuk said the announcement was a great boost to the city, which was hard hit by the collapse of Queensland Nickel, with the jobs to be advertised in regional newspapers.

Population centres such as Mackay, Bowen, Rockhampton, Emerald, Moranbah and Charters Towers will also provide support services.
Adani has promised not to use 457 visas at its $21.7 billion Carmichael Mine in central Queensland.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made the announcement in Townsville on Tuesday after meeting with Gautam Adani about the project, which is expected to generate some 10,000 jobs.

The Premier and Mr Adani also confirmed the headquarters of the controversial mine would be in the north Queensland city of Townsville.
Investors responded positively to Origin Energy's decision to spin off its portfolio of conventional oil and gas assets, pushing the company's share price up by 2.49 per cent on Tuesday to $6.58.

The move is designed to repair the company's balance sheet and restore it to profit growth.

Origin intends to float its upstream oil and gas business and list it on the Australian Securities Exchange. Credit:Louie Douvis

Analysts' early estimates are that the move, which will create a new mid-sized oil and gas company in Australia, will enable Origin to reduce debt by $1.5 billion or more.

Despite recent statements from Origin's chairman Gordon Cairns that it would not demerge these assets under the stewardship of the newly appointed chief executive Frank Calabria, the company is spinning off these assets into a new company to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Chinese property heavyweight Dahua Group has outmuscled local developers to snap up a billion-dollar land pipeline in a buying spree that has handed a wealthy family, a syndicate of landowners and two young property players a $347 million windfall.

Dahua Group's purchase of three large land parcels in Point Cook in Melbourne's west for $347 million mirrors a year-long buying spree in Sydney's south-west that had the Shanghai-based group spend more than $400 million on a three growth area sites in Bardia and Menangle Park.

The east coast land purchases, along with several city-based projects in Sydney and Melbourne, will catapult China's 310th richest man into one of the Australia's largest land developers with a potential pipeline of 8750 lots worth more than $2.5 billion.

Little is known about Dahua's Jin Huiming, who is ranked 310 on Forbes' China rich list. His company  previously a collective  is estimated to be worth about $1.1 billion and is among the country's top 50 developers.
A spike in demand for retail space in Flinders Lane has driven up rents and pushed retailers into upstairs premises where they are competing with IT and professional consulting firms for space.

Melbourne's best known lane has seen a dramatic transformation over the past decade from rundown warehouses and secondary office blocks to funky stores and chic, exposed-beam workplaces.

Retailers are happily moving into space above street level in Flinders Lane.

Retailers, usually reluctant to take space above street level in buildings, were now moving into upper storeys, Savills Australia's Phil Cullity said.

"We've had more interest from retail for these areas," Mr Cullity said. "Previously they have just been used as office space."
Scandal-plagued convenience store giant 7-Eleven has signed a "landmark agreement" with the workplace regulator to stamp out wage fraud across its network of stores.

The new agreement, known formally as a "Proactive Compliance Deed" was finalised this week after months of negotiation.

The big brother-like measures in the agreement include biometric shift scanning systems, including facial recognition, the installation of 7-Eleven owned CCTV and a central payroll system to allow head office to monitor employee hours and wages.

The agreement, which will set a new standard for the $170 billion franchise industry, includes admissions by 7-Eleven that a culture of underpayment and false records had become "normalised" in its network and that it must do more to detect and fix the issue.
Police are hunting for an unlucky robber who tried, but failed, to hold up five different Manhattan banks yesterday.

The failed robber, who police describe as a male between 45-55 years of age, bald, with a dark complexion, was possibly motivated to go on the spree after he successfully robbed an Apple bank near the intersection of 7th Avenue and 31st Street last Thursday, December 1st. In that incident, the man passed a bank teller a note demanding money just before 12 p.m. The teller complied, and the robber fled with an undisclosed amount of money.

Then, just before 2 p.m. yesterday, the same man entered the Valley National Bank near 5th Avenue and 31st Street, and again passed the teller a note demanding money. When the teller refused, the man fled, but was soon after caught on camera entering a Capital One Bank at Park Avenue and 58th Street. Again, the man passed a note to the teller demanding money, was denied, and ran away.

At roughly 2:35 p.m., the man attempted, but failed, to rob an H.S.B.C. Bank at Park Avenue and 40th Street, using the same note-passing technique. 50 minutes later, the trouper entered a Chase Bank at Lexington Avenue and 72nd Street, passed a note demanding money, was refused, and bolted.

Finally, the hapless thief entered a Chase Bank at 2nd Avenue and East 86th Street, passed the teller a note demanding money, was denied, and fled. According to an NYPD spokesperson, no one was injured during the six robbery incidents, and the suspect is still at large. An investigation is ongoing.
Australia will finally get a new high-speed broadband cable to Asia after Vocus Group announced it would build a link between Singapore, Jakarta and Perth.

Vocus said the new cable would have a capacity of 40 terabits a second - 10 times faster than the existing 16-year old cable - making connectivity between Australia and Asia much quicker and reducing delays.

Vocus chief executive Geoff Horth: "There is a cable in the water today that is at, or near, capacity." Credit:Ben Rushton

Once the cable is complete in late 2018, it will connect to Vocus' Nextgen Networks, which carries data across Australia.

Chief executive Geoff Horth described the cable as a "very significant building block and a significant extension of our existing fibre network".
The Turnbull government's credibility on climate change, regarded as close to zero by some environmental groups, faces searching scrutiny in coming days and weeks. On Monday, Josh Frydenberg announced the Coalition's Direct Action policy would be reviewed by his Department of the Environment and Energy, and that a national emissions intensity trading scheme might be included in a revamped emissions policy.

And on Friday, a report into energy security and Australia's international climate commitments will be presented at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra. A stormy reception looks very likely given federal Coalition criticism of ambitious state renewable energy targets for raising electricity prices and imperilling energy reliability.

Reaction within the Coalition to the idea of an electricity industry-specific carbon trading scheme has been largely negative too, with Defence Industry Christopher Pyne saying the Coalition has no intention of "returning to a carbon tax" and Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi describing it "one of the dumbest things I have ever heard".

In fact, a system where high-carbon emitting power generators (such as those reliant on coal) have to buy "credits" from lower-emitting or gas-fired generators is the idea of the CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia, which have spent two years analysing the future of the nation's electricity grid. Their report concludes that an emissions trading scheme  together with incentives to drive the uptake of domestic solar power and battery storage  would be the least expensive way for Australia to reach its international carbon reduction targets.
The last place most doctors want to be is in a coroners court.

For these two weeks, however, I am attending the coronial Inquest into the death of Hamid Khazaei  not as someone whose own actions will be scrutinised, but as a representative of Doctors for Refugees, an organisation of volunteer doctors in Australia that advocates for fair and appropriate healthcare for people in Australia's immigration detention system.

Hamid Khazaei was 24 and in detention on Manus Island when he died after his foot became infected.

Hamid Khazaei, an Iranian national, died after a cut foot he sustained while in detention on Manus Island became infected in late August 2014. Despite numerous requests from the doctors for his evacuation, he was not transferred to Brisbane until he had had several heart attacks and was in the early stages of brain death. Hamid's life support was turned off on September 5 this year and he was pronounced deceased. He was 24 years old.

That a previously healthy 24-year-old could die while under what then minister Scott Morrison subsequently described as "outstanding care" seems unthinkable. We all know someone like this young man  healthy, fit, perhaps enjoying university life or getting married at the same time Hamid was writhing in agony, strapped to a stretcher on a Papua New Guinean airport tarmac and slowly dying under the midday sun while government agencies argued about who was responsible for his treatment. I wonder if his death would have been easier to endure if Hamid had been elderly or suffering from some chronic medical condition. Quite possibly, as we simply don't want to acknowledge the hideous truth: that this young man died because our government  or those to whom it outsources healthcare  has a cavalier disregard for the welfare of those it imprisons.
Three prime ministers later, we are still stuck with media ownership laws that predate the coming of pay television and internet, let alone smartphones and live streaming. They are in more urgent need than ever of an overhaul. We're not the only ones saying it. The Prime Minister and former communications minister in the Abbott government Malcolm Turnbull told the Parliament they are "a relic of our past media economy and they have been out of date for years".

Is there another area of legislatIve reform so exhaustively discussed yet unconscionably delayed as media regulation? It is almost four years since the Herald cautioned the Gillard government against rushing through new media rules. That was because her communications minister Stephen Conroy had proposed applying a public interest test, which we thought so imprecise as to invite politically driven manipulation.

The media loves a debate; we thrive on the vigorous interplay of competing views. But we have to say, there's one debate that has dragged on quite long enough.

He said governments have "kicked the reform of these media ownership rules into the long grass for so long they have formed part of the rich subsoil of Australian political inertia".

Digital media brings greater diversity and choice of sources than before. The barriers to entering the media marketplace, which protected old media monopolies, are shattered. Anyone with internet access can publish. Free speech is booming. That is, on the whole, a good thing, although, as the US election has just demonstrated, it makes the task for consumers of distinguishing real news from fake more difficult yet more important than ever.

It requires fancy footwork to stay competitive in an environment when new players and new modes of delivery proliferate. The shift of audience and advertising revenue from traditional media to new players and forms including Google, Apple and Facebook threatens the viability of not just print but radio, free-to-air and subscription television. It creates problems for companies such as Fairfax Media, which has transformed its business to be able to publish quality content on multiple platforms with diminished and fragmented revenue while competing with rivals far less burdened by media regulation and taxation.

Fairfax Media invests heavily in quality journalism and content not just because it is the right thing to do but because our readers want and expect it. They know a strong independent media that delivers the facts, that is robust and resolute in distinguishing facts from spin, that is qualified and experienced and resourced to do the heavy lifting of news gathering and calling power to account with the facts is vital to the functioning of our democracy.

We don't ask for protection, but for liberation from rules that constrain our ability to compete. The New Zealand Commerce Commission's preliminary decision to block a merger between Fairfax New Zealand and NZME on the grounds of diminished diversity misunderstands the media landscape. Media companies are in a struggle for survival. If they cannot change the economics of their businesses, the result will be less diversity, not more.
Australia has unmatched renewable energy resources but will meet its climate targets only by intervening to accelerate the retirement of coal-fired power plants, according to Michael Liebreich, founder of global advisory service, Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Mr Liebreich said the Turnbull government should avoid setting renewable energy targets and instead focus on devising market-based methods to phase out coal.

Anita Ho-Baillie, senior research fellow at UNSW, with a record-breaking solar cell. Credit:UNSW

It should also avoid "perverse" subsidies, such as the speculated $1 billion loan being considered for Adani's proposed mega-coal mine in Queensland, he said.

The comments come as debate raged among conservative Coalition MPs about the government's plan to review its climate policies in 2017. Causing angst was the plan to examine an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector that could generate a carbon price - which prompted a rapid retreat by environment and energy minister Josh Frydenberg.
"It's dangerous to be under rocky overhangs or things of that sort," Dr Andrews told Fairfax Media. Lightning strikes at Narrabeen as storms move through the Northern Beaches on Monday. Credit:Nick Moir "If you absolutely are stuck, then [going] into a ravine or something that is deep and well sort of overhead-protected is important. But the best thing is to have a plan to get away to one of those other areas." Avoid metal objects Once in a sheltered environment, precautions must still be taken. "When you're at home ... it's a good idea to close your windows and doors, and keep away from the windows," Mr Campbell said. He also recommends avoiding anything that might conduct electricity, such as the metal parts of your vehicle or water pipes. "So don't do the dishes or have a shower."

Dr Chris Andrews is a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland. Credit:Channel Ten Lightning can also start fires, so any strikes on dwellings should be thoroughly checked to see whether it has been set alight. When taking shelter in a car, Mr Campbell advised to park away from any trees and areas prone to flash flooding. Crouch, spread out and begin CPR Not everyone will have access to shelter when a storm strikes, however. If caught out in the open, the advice is to crouch down with your feet closed together and your head down. If in a group, spread out so if lightning strikes it doesn't affect everybody. Lightning strikes near the Caltex refinery in Silverwater, in Sydney's west. Credit:Nick Moir

In the event someone is struck by lightning, start CPR immediately and call an ambulance. Lightning strikes can cause cardiac arrest but according to Mr Campbell victims can be revived by CPR even when there is no pulse. Continue CPR until medical assistance arrives. Phones and lightning The Bureau of Meteorology advises not to use mobile or cordless phones outside during a storm as objects with metal components do increase the chance of being struck. The bureau also advises people to wait until a thunderstorm has passed before using a landline, as it is possible to be on the receiving end of a deadly electric shock or deafening sound blast during a storm. Medical risks

Dr Andrews, who is an electrical engineer and medical practitioner, said that when a strong bolt of lightning strikes someone, their heart stops "immediately". While the heart re-starts by itself, breathing does not, so many lightning strike victims die from a lack of oxygen. It is "absolutely mandatory" to start CPR immediately on someone who has been struck by lightning and keep it up, Dr Andrews said. "A very important thing to say is individuals are not dangerous to touch after a lightning strike," he said. "There's no residual charge or anything like that, so CPR can be started absolutely immediately, as opposed to people who are in contact with electric wires and things like that." Survival rate

The typical mortality rate in Australia for lightning strikes is around 10 people per year, of around 100 people who are struck, Dr Andrews said. He recommended everyone to read lightning survival tips put together by the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration to increase their chances of survival. Many people who do survive lightning strikes can suffer physical and psychological symptoms afterwards, including muscle pain, problems with vision, and depression. Plan ahead; avoid high places Above all, plan ahead and make sure you have an escape plan if things go awry, Dr Andrews says.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says she can no longer work with her Senate colleague Rod Culleton, portraying him as an egomaniac obsessed with publicity and incapable of teamwork in an extraordinary outburst on live radio.

Senator Culleton's defiance of party policy on the backpacker tax, which saw him support Labor's preferred rate of 10.5 per cent, appears to have been the last straw in the rapidly disintegrating relationship between the two One Nation senators.

"He's not a team player at all. We can't work with him, you can't reason with him," Senator Hanson told Sydney's 2GB radio on Tuesday. "You can't give him advice, he runs his own race. That's not teamwork. It's just absolutely ridiculous."

Senator Hanson said she was still "angry" her colleague and Victorian senator Derryn Hinch had squibbed on the deal she struck with Treasurer Scott Morrison for a 15 per cent backpacker tax, instead supporting Labor's lower rate.
"This is business as usual," Malcolm Turnbull declared this morning, as he defended the decision to release a broad terms of reference for a climate change policy review that has been Coalition policy for years.

But it was business as usual in another more dangerous, even sinister, respect and it doesn't augur well for a Prime Minister who finished the parliamentary year with some cause for optimism.

At the slightest provocation, the hardliners who have never supported Turnbull are on the warpath, questioning the government's timing, tactics and intentions in announcing the review on Monday.

If Turnbull thought his authority within the Coalition party room had been enhanced by recent events, including the passage of the legislation he took to the double dissolution election, the kneejerk ill-discipline of colleagues, led by Cory Bernardi  recently returned from New York  tells us otherwise.
Matthew Krummel at his lab worked in the 1990s at a lab at the University of California, Berkeley, that would become one of the most influential in the development of immunotherapy. Credit:Jim Wilson/New York Times "We are playing with fire," said Dr John Timmerman, an oncologist and immunotherapy researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who recently lost a patient to side effects. The woman's immunotherapy drugs had successfully "melted away" her cancer, he said, but some weeks later, she got cold and flu-like symptoms, and died in the emergency room from an inflammatory response that Timmerman described as "a mass riot, an uprising" of her immune system. "We've heard about immunotherapy as God's gift, the chosen elixir, the cure for cancer," he said. "We haven't heard much about the collateral damage." Dr Harriet Kluger, along with other doctors at Yale, believes immunotherapy drugs are also the cause of other potentially life-threatening health risks. Credit:Gregg Vigliotti/New York Times Despite the warnings, physicians like Timmerman remain hugely supportive of drugs that are saving the lives of people who would otherwise die. Far better to cope with diabetes, hepatitis or arthritis, the thinking goes, than to die. Most reactions are not nearly so bad and are treatable.

The rub, doctors and researchers say, is that the medical system  from front-line nurses to oncologists to emergency rooms  is too often caught off guard. This is happening for a number of reasons: The drugs are new so many side effects just have not been seen. Symptoms appear at random, sometimes months after treatment, and can initially seem innocuous. Finally, oncologists are trying to treat patients with a combination of two or more immunotherapy drugs, hoping for more effective treatment but sometimes getting amplified risks. In the meantime, these drugs are moving from the academic centres into cancer clinics across the country, where oncologists in smaller cities most likely have less experience with the side effects. And with lives to be saved and billions of dollars to be made  $US250,000 or more is the list price for a year of some regimens  not enough research has been done into the risks of the new therapies, said William Murphy, a professor of dermatology at the University of California, Davis, who reviews immunotherapy-related grants for the government. It's "a massively understudied area," Murphy said, adding: "The number one priority is anti-tumour effects. Everything else, however severe, is considered the price worth paying." Caught in the middle are patients like Peal, whose stories show the delicacy of tinkering with the immune system. It may hold the keys to curing cancer if it can be at once stoked and tamed.

Real Promise, and Real Risks Peal, bespectacled and lean, was dealing with melanoma that had spread to his lungs in June 2015, when he saw a Yale oncologist, Dr Harriet Kluger. In the past, a patient like him would have been given little chance. "We'd sit the patient down and say, 'I'm really sorry, the median life expectancy is nine months. Get your affairs in order,'" said Kluger, who runs immunotherapy clinical trials, focusing on skin and kidney cancer. Now she could offer Peal hope. Consider: One study co-written by Kluger found positive responses in more than 40 per cent of advanced melanoma patients when they used a combination of two major immunotherapy drugs, nivolumab and ipilimumab. Other research, however, shows that the promise comes with real risks. A 2015 paper in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that use of these drugs carried a risk of side effects that were severe, required hospitalisation or were life-threatening 54 per cent of the time.

"It's at least that high, at least," Kluger said. But, she noted, most of the side effects are manageable through immune suppression, such as with steroids. The effectiveness of immunotherapy drugs and their side effects are intimately bound by the same biological mechanisms. Called "checkpoint inhibitors," the drugs work by essentially reversing a trick that cancer plays on the immune system: The cancer cells send nefarious signals to immune-system cells that cause them to stand down. Cancer is turning on the immune system's brake. There is a valuable reason the brake exists: It can shut down the body's powerful defenders so that they do not inadvertently attack the body itself. Cancer is taking advantage of this key survival mechanism. When an immunotherapy drug turns the brake off, the immune system can sometimes shrink tumours in mere days.

Peal, an engineering technician who tests the performance of helicopter parts, started taking nivolumab and ipilimumab on July 8. Kluger told him he might feel drowsy or nauseated, or he could get a rash. A rash indeed struck with a vengeance on August 30: red welts from his knees to his waist. On September 1, a Thursday, he visited Kluger's office, where he was given a steroid. The next day, he had a fever, nausea and was "dying of thirst  like beyond being in the desert," he said. He threw up everything. His girlfriend, Jo-ann Keating, called Kluger's office, and an on-call doctor prescribed an anti-nausea drug. Later, Keating called back to say it was not working and was prescribed a second, anti-nausea drug. By Sunday morning, Peal, unable to move, took an ambulance to the emergency room. In his wallet, he kept an information card published by Bristol Myers Squibb. It lists dozens of risks, including that the therapy "can cause serious side effects in many parts of your body, which can lead to death." Peal's family told the emergency room doctor about the treatment, recalled Keating. "The doctor kept on saying he was on chemotherapy," she said. "I said, 'They're calling it immunotherapy'. He went on his phone and started looking for information." But even Kluger's experienced team, which answered the distressed phone calls that weekend, was caught off guard and did not react immediately to the symptoms.

"It took us by surprise. He looked absolutely fine on Friday," Kluger said. Part of the problem, she thinks, is that Peal was relatively new to the clinic and so she and her staff members did not have the experience with him to accurately assess his symptoms. "It also happened very quickly. It spiralled within hours." Ultimately, Peal spent 24 days in the hospital, where trouble mounted. First his pancreas failed, then his bowels inflamed and his kidneys became dysfunctional, and "to top it off, he has a fever of 103 for which we can't find a source," Kluger said in an interview during the crisis. She was trying to figure it out and had emailed other experts around the country to see if they had ever had a patient with this combination of acute immune reactions. No one had seen it before. The pancreas problem was particularly noteworthy. Peal's is among a growing number of such cases that have led a Yale endocrinologist, Dr Kevan Herold, an authority on autoimmunity, to conclude that he is seeing a new form of Type 1 diabetes. Typically, the peak age of onset of Type 1 diabetes is 6 to 12, and it involves the immune system's destroying, bit by bit, the cells in the pancreas that make the insulin needed to metabolise sugar into energy. But this is different: Patients are 50 or older and are losing insulin production all at once, including in one case of an 83-year-old. Herold said he was hearing similar stories from peers around the country. "A single case like this is uncommon," he said. "As an aggregate, it's unheard-of." Another case at Yale involved Colleen Platt, 65, a real estate agent from Torrington, Connecticut, who was being treated by Kluger for late-stage kidney cancer. Platt opted for a clinical trial involving two immunotherapy drugs, atezolizumab and a second drug that Kluger declined to name because the trial is continuing.

Days after the second treatment in November 2014, Platt started feeling dizzy and numb and was vomiting water. She went to Kluger's office, where lab tests were done that "were so profoundly abnormal, we thought this was lab error," Kluger recalled. "We thought the machine was messed up." The tests were right. Like Peal, Platt had gone into diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition in which her body, desperate to compensate for energy it was missing when her pancreas shut down, created a flux of acid that could keep her functioning in the short term, at the risk of gravely harming organs throughout her body. Outside the emergency room, while a chaplain visited Platt to comfort her, Kluger called the drug company to report the extraordinary reaction. Today, like Peal, Platt takes multiple insulin shots each day, and still her sugar level fluctuates wildly. On the other hand, immunotherapy has largely beaten her cancer. In fact, after consulting with other doctors and one of the drug companies, Kluger recommended Platt continue with treatment, which she did. "Her pancreas isn't coming back," Kluger said, referring to the diabetic effects of immunotherapy. "She has her life." Peal  who, like Platt, agreed to let Kluger and Herold discuss his case  feels the trade-off will be well worth it. In fact, on Friday, he got the results from a scan taken the day before and learned immunotherapy had eliminated two of his cancer lesions and shrunk two others. "I can deal with diabetes," he said, "if I can beat melanoma."

'Nature of the Beast' Evidence of these challenges is decades old. In the mid-1990s, Matthew Krummel, a young immunology graduate student known as Max, worked at a lab at the University of California, Berkeley, that would become one of the most influential in the development of immunotherapy. The lab was run by Dr James Allison, who, along with Krummel, published a seminal paper in 1995 showing they could eliminate tumours in mice by turning off a brake on the immune system. But the lab got less attention for a related experiment: The skin of some mice treated this way turned from black to white. They had lost their pigmentation, a result of the immune system attacking the cells that make melanin. The startling change was not life-threatening but indicated the power of tinkering with the immune system. This discovery was novel but not particularly celebrated compared with the promise of curing cancer, Krummel recalled. The skin study "was kind of a footnote," he said.

Then came the TeGenero tragedy in 2006. TeGenero Immuno Therapeutics designed a drug to stimulate the immune system to fight leukemia. At Northwick Park Hospital in London, a Phase 1 trial took place, with six healthy patients getting the drug. Within hours, all suffered multiorgan failure. The devastating results tempered the enthusiasm and suggested more work needed to be done in advance of human trials. But enthusiasm came roaring back. Part of the reason was that, ultimately, the autoimmune reactions were seen not only as an acceptable cost of these drugs but as evidence they were working. "It's the nature of the beast," said Martin Bachmann, a professor and immunologist at the Jenner Institute, which is affiliated with Oxford University. "I'm not sure you can get rid of the side effects  it's really what you want." Chemotherapy, too, has side effects, but Kluger prefers immunotherapy's trade-offs because the drugs may offer enduring control of cancer without the need for continued treatment. So she is joining others looking to address largely unanswered questions: Who is likely to be at risk, can the side effects be recognised before turning dangerous and how should they be treated?

In June, Kluger and Herold submitted a grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health to study whether they could predict which patients would develop these symptoms. They based the proposal on a hypothesis that some patients have a biology or a genetic background that might make them more likely to have side effects. The proposal has not yet been funded. Only a modicum of work has been done on these questions. Several studies found that older mice were more susceptible than younger mice to autoimmune reactions; another study, also in mice, found that obese subjects were more likely to have adverse effects. "Old or fat mice were literally dead within hours," said Murphy, the professor at Davis who believes too little is being done. He is well positioned to see the trends: In the past year, he sat on eight government grant review committees focused on immunotherapy, and he said only three out of 500 research proposals he reviewed focused on the toxicity side of immunotherapy. Part of the problem, he said, is that the drug companies that are driving research prefer working with labs that support trials moving quickly. As a result, Murphy said, human trials are advancing faster than the background research can be done. Hoping to push access to lifesaving drugs, the US Food and Drug Administration has a "breakthrough therapy designation" that allows faster approval. Since 2012, the agency has granted breakthrough designation about 110 times, almost a quarter of them for immunotherapy.
Australian high school students are up to two school years behind their peers in the world's best performing countries, a major global test of student achievement has revealed.

The results of the OECD's latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), released globally on Tuesday night, revealed that not only are the science, reading and maths problem-solving skills of Australian 15-year-olds sliding backwards relative to their international peers, but their skills are declining in real terms.

Australian students were the equivalent of 1 years behind top-performer Singapore's students in science; a year behind them in reading; and 2 years behind in maths.

Peter Goss from the Grattan Institute said: "Australia is doing worse than Australia used to, and what's disturbing is that this pattern occurs across the board.
A Republican presidential elector in Texas has written an impassioned op-ed in the NY Times explaining why he will refuse to vote for President-elect Trump on December 19th. Christopher Suprun, a former FDNY firefighter who served on paramedic who volunteered on 9/11 and now works as a paramedic in Texas, argues that "presidential electors have the legal right and a constitutional duty to vote their conscience." An excerpt:

Since the election, people have asked me to change my vote based on policy disagreements with Donald J. Trump. In some cases, they cite the popular vote difference. I do not think president-elects should be disqualified for policy disagreements. I do not think they should be disqualified because they won the Electoral College instead of the popular vote. However, now I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office. Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation. That attack and this years election may seem unrelated, but for me the relationship becomes clearer every day. George W. Bush is an imperfect man, but he led us through the tragic days following the attacks. His leadership showed that America was a great nation. That was also the last time I remember the nation united. I watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge between us.

Suprun is the first Republican elector to announce that he will not cast his vote for Trump; he joins at least eight other Democrat electors who are planning protest votes for a candidate other than Clinton, in a growing effort to persuade Republican electors to join them in revolt.

In his essay, Suprun floats the possibility of a compromise Republican alternative to Trump, naming Governor John Kasich of Ohio as an alternative. (Kasich's top political adviser recently told Politico, Theres no question Trump won enough votes in the states to receive over 270 votes when the members of the Electoral College meet. Im sure the [Electoral College] will affirm this when it gathers later this month.") Since the op-ed appeared on the Times website last night, Suprun has been bombarded on Twitter by supporters and detractors, and seems committed to engaging with them:

306 electors are pledged to vote for Trump, and 232 are pledged to Clinton. A candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win, which means at least 37 Republican electors would need to vote for a Republican other than Trump (assuming they can't stomach voting for Clinton). If that happens, the decision goes to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which would choose the next president from the top three vote recipients in the electoral college. The faithless electors' theorize that the House might be swayed to stop an obvious sociopath from obtaining nuclear weapons if presented with a Republican alternative.

The establishment consensus (which has been unfailingly correct in everything so far this year) is that all of this is highly unlikely, though the electoral college did revolt twice in the 19th century. Michael F. Cannon, a "resident scholar" at the conservative think tank Cato Institute, also thinks this effort is a desperate pipe dreamunless Clinton comes forward to urge all of her Democratic electors to vote for a Republican compromise:

If Clinton announced she is releasing her electors and asked them to vote for a credible Republican alternative, she could plausibly deliver all 232 Democratic electors. She might even secure similar pledges from House Democrats in the event the election went to the House. Finding 38 Republican electors might then be easier than Democrats think. In 2012, Romney won a larger share of the popular vote (47.2 percent) than Mr. Trump did this year (46.2 percent). There are 35 Republican electors from states where Romney got more votes than Trump (Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, Wisconsin), and at least 120 others from states where Romney won a larger share of the vote. Thats more than half of Republican electors. Texas has 38 electors all by itself. Naturally, most rank-and-file Democrats would consider the idea of backing a Republican for president abhorrent. Even so, the electoral college presents a most interesting test for Clinton and her party. If Democrats believe Trump poses a unique threat to the republic, and signal this is not okay by reaching across the aisle to marginalize and stop him, then win or lose, Democrats could legitimately claim they put partisanship aside for the good of the country. If Democrats believe Trump poses a unique threat yet dont support another Republican in the electoral college, it will indicate that Democrats see Trump as no different from any other Republican. And if Democrats treat Trump as normal, they will be complicit in normalizing his behaviors.

Meanwhile, prominent Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig has joined a California-based law firm to offer free legal support for any so-called "Hamilton Electors" who revolt. In some states, electors face the threat of small fines for voting against the candidate to whom they're pledged. Politico reports that Lessig is also launching an anonymous online platform for electors to discuss "stopping Trump from taking the White House... [and] help electors coordinate to determine whether theyve gathered enough support to stop Trump from winning the presidency."

It makes no sense to be elector number five who comes out against Trump. But it might make sense to be elector 38, Lessig told Politico. Lessig has previously argued that the framers intended the electoral college as "a circuit breaker" and that electors were intended "to be citizens exercising judgment, not cogs turning a wheel."

With 13 days to go until the Electoral College votes to make Donald Trump president of the United States and Commander in Chief of the armed forces, Brooklyn resident Jeff Strabone has launched a customizable mail merge website that aims to help people send their own "signed postal letters to the members of the Electoral College from states won by Donald Trump to ask them, respectfully, not to vote for Trump." Strabone says his website has addresses for approximately 260 Trump-pledged electors, and estimates that it would take an average Trump-panicked individual under two hours to send pre-written letters to all of them.
A company part owned by Gina Rinehart is suing the Victorian government for $2.7 billion in damages over the state's ban on onshore gas exploration.

Lakes Oil claims the Andrews government has deprived the oil and gas company of its opportunity to use its exploration permits "for the purpose for which they were intended".

In a statement, Lakes Oil said it was seeking damages for losses suffered by the company as a result of Resources Minister Wade Noonan's conduct.



"The unjust and unlawful actions of the Victorian government, and its proposed bill to ban onshore exploration, have caused significant losses to the company and its 11,000 long-standing shareholders," it said.

The writ was filed in the Supreme Court.
Savas Guven, the Mosman chief executive with a violent past, has been slapped with two fresh charges of intimidation after an alleged "parking rage" incident saw him charged with assault in July.

Guven, 37, waited in his car outside Hornsby Local Court to avoid media attention, said his lawyer, who entered pleas of not guilty to the intimidation charges laid by police on Tuesday.

He had previously pleaded not guilty to the assault charge.

The court heard the incident related not to road rage but to "parking rage"  a July 1 dispute over a shared driveway on an industrial site in Lane Cove West.
Can you imagine flying through the Australian landscape like a peregrine falcon gliding at high speed through some of the country's most striking scenery?

Or like Harry Potter, flying in a game of Quidditch held in Australia.

Brogent Technologies' i-Ride 'flying theatre' opening in Brisbane in mid-2017. Credit:Tony Moore

That is the appeal of a Taiwanese firm who announced on Tuesday they were to set up their newest 3D attraction in Brisbane after receiving strong reviews from tourists about their set-up in Vancouver.

The company plans to open in Brisbane in mid-2017.
A new $2 million koala research centre will be opened in June 2018 at the internationally-known Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary at Fig Tree Pocket.

It was a promise Lord Mayor Graham Quirk made during the 2016 Brisbane City Council election campaign in March.

The new facility was one of Lord Mayor Graham Quirk's 2016 council election commitments. Credit:Tony Moore

Cr Quirk signed a memorandum of understanding to build the research centre with Lone Pine's general manager Robert Friedler on Tuesday.

The design will be finished in early 2017, work will start late that year and the research centre will open about June 2018.
Motorists slugged by the government's increasingly rapacious speeding fine frenzy won't be pleased with the latest antic of the Queensland Police. Ever keen to find new places to slug motorists, police have taken to parking illegally on footpaths on busy roads, as this photo taken on Monday shows.

Here the speed camera is clearly seen through the back of the vehicle, which was parked on the footpath of busy Lutwyche Road at Windsor.

This speed camera appeared to be illegally parked on Lutwyche Road. Credit:Bill O'Chee

Parking on footpaths is against the law because it is dangerous - except of course, if you are the Queensland Police Service.

One might be tempted to think that this was just some sort of mistake by an over-enthusiastic constable, but that is not the case. The guidelines for the siting of speed cameras make it clear that the locations have to be approved by a Speed Management Committee, composed of police, the Department of Transport and Main Roads, and others.
A controversial state government-backed proposal to build 3600 apartments over the top of protected wetlands near the North Stradbroke Island ferry departure point at Cleveland, also known as Toondah Harbour, has the potential to damage the Palaszczuk government's integrity in the lead-up to the next state election.

The proposal raises questions about publicly owned assets, political donations, protection of Moreton Bay, and the use of Newman government 'Priority Development Area' legislation. Before it was elected Labor attacked the Newman/Seeney PDA law empowering the deputy premier as "an outrageous abuse and concentration of power", accusing the LNP of wanting to give away assets "to its developer mates".

The latest concept plans for the Walker Group's Toondah Harbour project.

The developer and primary beneficiary of the Moreton Bay scheme, the Walker Corporation, has a history of making large donations to the ALP, including in New South Wales when it was lawful.

Queensland voters oppose the sale of public assets. How will they view the Palaszczuk government's plan to give away publicly owned land and protected wetlands on Brisbane's doorstep to a donor developer? Labor plans to allow Walker Corp to dredge and "reclaim" over 40 hectares/100 acres of Moreton Bay and construct 10-storey apartment buildings and a 400-berth marina. An estimated population of 7000 to 10,000 people is larger than most Queensland towns.
The 3D printing bubble has burst, according to Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski, who says that slow consumer take-up had forced a change in the company's strategy.

At the turn of the decade, companies such as Makerbot started to produce small, affordable 3D printers which allowed consumers and small businesses to "print" objects and materials  in limited batches from the comfort of their premises.

A 3D printer from Makerbot.

Along with these came a huge amount of expectation. These printers promised consumers an easy way to customise, update and repair appliances on their own, making it possible for example to recreate a component from a washing machine or car using schematics downloaded from the internet.

Autodesk bet big on the trend, developing software and acquiring companies who specialised in turning ideas and visions into designs that could be easily printed. However, Kowalski says that right now there's a "gap" between the hype and the reality.
Every year, in a small rectangle of north Richmond, an average of more than 20 people die from heroin overdoses, community health providers say.

An inquest into the death of a 33-year-old woman known as Ms A to be held next Wednesday will try to find a way to stop them.

More than 20 per cent of all people who die from a heroin overdose in Victoria either die in, or source the drug from, north Richmond. Credit:Jason South

Coroner Jacqui Hawkins has called for evidence from four groups, including the Department of Health and Human Services, as she searches for possible solutions to a troubling increase in heroin-related deaths.

The inquest is likely to fire debate about safe injecting rooms, either static or mobile, which advocates say have saved thousands of lives in other areas, such as Sydney's Kings Cross.
Developers will face tough new fines and jail time for illegal building work following the unlawful demolition of the Corkman Irish Pub in Carlton in October.

Developers that order or carry out building work without a permit will face a five-year maximum jail term or $466,380 fine. The maximum fine for individuals will be $93,276  and, for the first time, they will face five years' jail.

The new punishments were not previously available to the courts.

The state government said the new laws, to be introduced to Parliament this week, were needed following the demolition of the Corkman Irish Pub in Carlton in October and the building fire at the Lacrosse apartments in 2014.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to reveal how long children are being kept in their cells at Barwon prison ahead of a legal challenge against their detention there.

"Rest assured the government will defend any action bought against it," Mr Andrews said.

Youths protesting on the roof of the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre at Parkville in March. Credit:Jesse Marlow

Mr Andrews last week backed out of a separate legal battle and returned Indigenous teenagers to youth justice centres, but more than a dozen non-Indigenous teenagers remain in Barwon prison.

Premier Daniel Andrews has vowed to fight in court to keep teenagers in adult prison.

The government last month began moving children in youth detention to a unit at the maximum security adult prison, after a riot at Parkville detention centre caused about $2 million in damage. They were moved to the Grevillea unit of the prison, which the government declared a youth justice facility.

The children's lawyers have said that the children are being kept in lockdown for more than 20 hours a day, in breach of the government's legal obligations to them.

Justice Gregory Garde ordered documents be produced about the amount of time children were being confined in their cells at Grevillea, their daily routines in prison from November 1 to 5 and any behavioural management plans in place.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services has previously said that "standard management of young people" at Grevillea did not involve 20 hours of lockdown each day.

It comes a week after the government released Indigenous children from Barwon to youth detention centres at Parkville and Malmsbury on the eve of a separate legal challenge on their behalf. The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services promised the court not to move any more Indigenous children to adult prison without approval from Indigenous Children's Commissioner Andrew Jackomos in exchange for the legal case being abandoned.
Two Staten Island Republican state legislators are suing the city to stop Mayor de Blasio from deleting records from the IDNYC program that could be used by incoming President-elect Donald Trump to follow through on his mass deportation pledges. The municipal identification program comes with a destroy-in-case-of-strongarm-conservative-federal-government clause, which, as it turns out, was a prescient idea. De Blasio has vowed to protect New York City's estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants from Trump's roundup.

In their suit, Assemblymembers Nicole Malliotakis and Ronald Castorina of Staten Island argue that destroying the IDNYC files would run afoul of the state Freedom of Information Law, which requires the preservation of documents, and they have said that the records could be useful in future criminal investigations that involve bank accounts opened with the IDs.

"The mayor and the Council speaker are intent on the destruction of all of the records connected to the IDNYC programs. The records, we feel, are very pertinent and important to governmental purposes and this act in fact would violate FOIL," Castorina said at a press conference yesterday.

Responding to the conservative lawmakers' concerns last week, Democratic Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said they could "go ahead and sue us."

Referring to this, Castorina said, "So the speaker invited this litigation, and therefore, just by virtue of the fact that the invitation, that the litigation was invited, there should be a complete block on this information from being destroyed, pending a hearing and whatever motions and or proceedings that we will present to the Supreme Court here in Richmond County."

Castorina, a Trump backer during the presidential campaign, whom you may recall for calling abortion "African-American genocide," or his bill to make assaulting cops a hate crime, claimed that "This is not an immigration issue." Rather, he said his concern was for terror protection and the integrity of city banks.

Trumpwhose wife Melania appears to have worked as a model illegally after arriving in the U.S. on a visitor visa, and who has been accused by 11 women of sexual assaulthas blamed undocumented immigrants for crime and taking Americans' jobs, and has promised to deport all 11 million people estimated to be in the country without documentation. More recently, he revised the figure to 2-3 million "criminal illegal aliens." The new figure is still concerning to immigrant advocates, in part because experts estimate that only around 820,000 undocumented immigrants have a criminal conviction, meaning following through would require rebranding a large chunk of the population as criminals, building on mechanisms put into place by presidents Bush and Obama.

More than 900,000 New Yorkers have signed up for the municipal ID since it was rolled out in 2014, with free admission to various museums and other perks for signing up designed to entice New Yorkers with legal status.

De Blasio reiterated his intention to protect the records to reporters yesterday, saying, "The whole idea of IDNYC was to give people the opportunity in this city to live a better life for themselves in this city."

Responding to the lawsuit, Mark-Viverito's office sent a statement to the Observer belittling Malliotakis, whose party is a minority in the Assembly.

"Its sad but not surprising that backbench Assembly Member Nicole Malliotakis is more interested in filing ridiculous lawsuits than she is in serving New Yorkers900,000 of whom have already signed up for IDNYC," spokeswoman Robin Levine told the publication.
On Friday, he was committed to stand trial, and faced the County Court on Monday. Jess reported the nurse to Northpark nurse unit manager Noreen McConville on August 14 last year. The nurse, a married father-of-two who cannot be named, was stood down. The man's lawyer, Josh Taaffe, indicated last week that he would argue his client had consensual sex with the women. Text messages, which were similar to those that people in a relationship shared, supported this, he said.

It is alleged the nurse groomed the women by offering them support outside of his normal duties. He eventually started hugging them when he left their rooms, police said. He then started kissing his victims, it is alleged, before the contact became more sexual. Both women were allegedly raped inside the hospital. One victim was also allegedly raped at his house, and another at a public toilet block. He is alleged to have also raped Kate when she had passed out from drinking. It is alleged the other victim was raped when she had an arm in plaster.

The offences allegedly occurred between March and August last year. The women did not know each other. The first offence allegedly occurred in March last year, when, after he developed a friendship with one of the woman, he sat with her and kissed her for about 40 seconds. She was discharged soon after, but the nurse regularly called her and told her he loved her, police said. Later that month, when she was back at the hospital, police allege he took her hand and put it on his crotch, saying "you see what you do to me?".

In March last year, while on one hour of unsupervised leave from the hospital, the woman was allegedly confronted by the nurse at the Bundoora Square shopping centre. He drove her to a park, where he allegedly indecently assaulted her on a park bench, before taking her to a disabled toilet and raping her, the incident ending when he realised she had to return from her leave. She had felt unable to fight him off because of her arm injury. Kate was admitted to the hospital in April last year. She was in regular contact with the nurse, as she felt he was "a stable person in her life", police said. In May, the nurse allegedly kissed her on the mouth. A little more than a week later she was allegedly raped.

"[The victim] felt too frightened for her safety to report the incidents," the police summary reads. "She was concerned for her safety because the accused provides her with medications each day, and has access to her personal file so knows everything about her." Ms McConville spoke to this alleged victim after Jess reported the nurse last August. Ms McConville said during the nurse's committal hearing on Friday that the alleged victim initially told her she had become friends with the man, which had developed into them kissing. She told her later that she had sex with the nurse because she felt she had to.

"She said she had developed a friendship with [the nurse], he had problems of his own, she had been a shoulder to cry on, and it had gone from there," Ms McConville said. Ms McConville said the nurse, who had worked at the hospital since 2008, had been on a performance management plan because of his competence at work, but that this was not related to inappropriate behaviour. Under cross-examination from Mr Taaffe, she admitted she had described the nurse as "a nervous, clumsy, employee who was never calm or in control". But she said she never considered his behaviour was linked to a mental health issue. The man will appear in court again on July 28 next year, ahead of a trial in September.
Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt, Dr. Richard Walley OAM, Gina Williams and John Butler are supporters of the January 28 event. He said at Bayswater's first council meeting next year he would propose it investigate holding its own Australia Day riverfront fireworks in 2018. Aboriginal elder Robert Eggington, from Nyoongar advocacy group Dumbartung, said the 'what's next' comment was 'dangerous' and incited more ill feeling. Assistant Minister for Immigration Alex Hawke says Fremantle council cannot hold its citizenship ceremonies "under any circumstances". Credit:Andrew Meares "Comparing the decision to banning Christmas and then attaching the Muslim face is absurd. You would expect it to come from the mouth of an uneducated redneck, not the Premier of Western Australia," he said.

He thought people who were candidates for citizenship might be more sympathetic than the Premier assumed. "Deep in the minds of a lot of people who are accessing their citizenship rights through these ceremonies would be a consciousness that this country has been founded on the dispossession of Aboriginal people," he said. "I wouldn't take for granted that every citizen of Australia would be applauding that, especially since many come from countries that are war-torn and may know what it's like to be impoverished, or face genocide." He also dismissed Mr Fleeton's comments as typical of those born into relative "privilege, wealth and power" as a result of power their forefathers enjoyed. "Aboriginal people today face ingrained trauma from the dispossession of 200 years ago. So no, you cannot step aside in 2016 and say, 'well it wasn't my actions that resulted in suicides and incarceration and poverty,'" he said.

"While Aboriginal people still face atrocities and human rights inequality now, comments like this are basically like looking at your own reflection in a mud puddle. "It's really as absurd as Colin Barnett's comment about Muslims and Christmas." He hoped it would be the people who decided the ultimate fate of the Fremantle council and not the businesspeople or politicians. "It would have been easy for [Mayor Brad Pettitt] to have pulled out weeks ago and saved himself all this stress," he said. "I hope the voters have the courage and goodwill to know this decision has been made with the value of building a better future for all.

"This is a historical moment; the first time the status quo of celebrating Australia's identity, its nationhood, has been challenged by any government instrument. "One day, if not today, Australia will become a republic, represented not by the Union Jack but with a whole different identity. This is the beginning of that, and at least having had the courage to defy the status quo will make Brad Pettitt an important historical figure. "We are upon the oldest ceremonial grounds on the planet. For people to savagely attack him like this just shows that they don't understand the nature of this land, its beauty and its indigenous practice." Councillors have been under fire since voting in August to scrap the fireworks from 2017, saying that many Australians were uncomfortable celebrating a day representing "sadness and dispossession" for Aboriginal people. In consultation with the Aboriginal community, it has decided to instead host an event two days later and stood firm in the face of threats from far-right groups, criticism from public figures, opposition from the business community that profits from the celebrations, and a threat from the federal government to ban it from hosting citizenship ceremonies at all.
Dozens of protesters are gathering outside Beeliar Wetlands on Tuesday morning to protest against preliminary development of the Roe 8 project.

They've been met by mounted police as well as several officers on foot, as fencing is being set up ahead of the construction of the new highway.

Protesters are at the Beeliar Wetlands protesting preliminary work, 10 days before a high court decision is to be made. Credit:ReThink The Link

The Roe 8 project is still sanctioned to be heard by the High Court on December 16, but it was revealed last week that preliminary work was to go ahead before the court date.

Move on notices were issued for some of the protesters earlier in the day but protests have remained peaceful, with protesters chanting against the development.
Detectives believe three men can help them in relation to a burglary in East Victoria Park on Saturday during which a significant amount of jewellery was stolen.

The burglary happened sometime between 12pm - 12.35pm at a home on Angelsea Street.

One of the stolen pieces of jewellery. Credit:WA Police

Police say a significant amount of jewellery and personal items were stolen.

Three men were seen in the area at the time and may be able to assist detectives with the investigation.
A $2.8 million dollar upgrade to Wellington National Park has added 54 new campsites and a new bike track for the popular South West tourist destination.

The new campsites are dotted around the park, with each site able to accommodate up to six tents with it's own fire ring and picnic table.

54 new campsites have been added.

New toilets, camp kitchens and roads are also part of the improvements to the park, which has increased in popularity with tourists and WA locals alike in recent years.

Visits to Wellington National Park have almost doubled within the past four years, with an estimated 212,000 in the 2015-16 season.
London: German chancellor Angela Merkel has promised a partial ban on Islamic veils, in a concession to her party's hardliners ahead of a tough election next year.

In a careful speech that pushed a centrist but conservative line, Dr Merkel reassured her CDU party conference that 2015's extraordinary refugee influx "can and must not repeat itself".

More than a million people have sought asylum in Germany since the summer of 2015. Since then European countries have closed their internal borders to migrants, preventing the movement of asylum seekers north from Greece and Italy.

But Dr Merkel also defended her refugee-friendly position, saying "every single" asylum application would be reviewed, though not all would end up able to stay.
As certain as day follows night, a new dawn has greeted a very uncertain Italy after voters rejected Prime Minister Matteo Renzi via a referendum that was meant to be about Senate reform and cost cutting, not his mandate, but wound up seeing him formally hand in his resignation overnight.

Closer to home, New Zealand's woke up to the reality of their popular Prime Minister John Key also calling quits. Decision on a successor could come quickly, but there's only one problem: they are not John Keys.

On the way to hand in his resignation: Italian PM Matteo Renzi. Credit:AP

Over in London, new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has had to give up his bike. Not metaphorically, but literally. Our Latika Bourke writes that due to security, Mr Johnson has had to abandon his Boris Bike. Thankfully, the bike-retail scheme he started, is staying.

From Delhi, our Amrit Dhillon reports on the death of worshipped Indian politician Jayaram Jayalalithaa, whose passing has sparked mass suicide fears.
Paris: French Prime Minister Manuel Valls will step down to run in primary contests to be the Socialist Party candidate in presidential elections next year, despite predictions that he will struggle to surmount strong dissatisfaction with his government and deep divisions on the left.

Mr Valls, 54, who was born in Barcelona and became a French citizen at 20, said he wanted to "give everything for France, which has given me so much." He pledged to overhaul the French economy while "making globalisation work for the people."

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls puts his hand on his heart after announcing his candidacy for the Socialist primary next month in Evry, outside Paris, on Monday. Credit:AP

He made the announcement flanked by supporters in Evry, a town about 30 kilometres south of Paris where he was mayor for more than a decade before becoming President Francois Hollande's interior minister in 2012 and prime minister in 2014.

Mr Valls was expected to run after Mr Hollande last week became the first incumbent in decades not to seek re-election. Polls predicted that Valls would fare better in the elections than Mr Hollande, who has been battered by high unemployment and record-low approval ratings.
Jakarta: One of Indonesia's most senior ministers has called on Australia to help find a solution to the 2009 Montara oil spill which he says caused lasting negative impacts in one of the country's poorest provinces.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan told Fairfax Media that after seven years there was still no resolution for those affected by the worst oil spill in the history of Australia's offshore petroleum fields.

A handout photograph shows a well head platform on fire in the Montara oil field on November 2, 2009. Credit:Bloomberg

Fishermen and seaweed farmers in Nusa Tenggara Timur say fish populations were wiped out and seaweed crops died after oil spilled as a result of an explosion at the Montara rig, operated by oil company PTTEP Australasia.

"There is no solution so far and the victims are fishermen in the area. Australia should help out as well to solve this problem," Mr Pandjaitan said. "I don't think we can do it alone."
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PHILIPSBURG:---- The Central Committee will meet in a session on December 6, 2016.

The Central Committee meeting has been set for Tuesday, December 6 at 10.00 hrs. in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg.

The agenda point is:

Draft National Ordinance adopting the budget of Country Sint Maarten for the financial year 2017 (National Ordinance Budget 2017) (ZJ 2016-2017-098) (IS / 194 / 2016-2017 dated November 10, 2016)

The draft Budget 2017 is available on the website of Parliament, www.sxmparliament.org, for the public.

Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations.

The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.com and via www.sxmparliament.org.
The U.S. Consulate General Curacao is pleased to announce that a Consular Officer will visit Sint Maarten on January 12, 2016. Appointments will be held at Parliament Building Office in Frontstreet, Philipsburg. The officer will provide U.S. Citizens Services and accept applications for U.S. passports, Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBA), and Social Security cards. Unfortunately, we are not able to discuss visa cases during these outreach trips.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Applicants must bring all necessary documents for the service requested. The list of documents needed for each service is published on our website: curacao.usconsulate.gov. To avoid delays, please read the instructions carefully.

Bring originals and copies of all supporting documents.

You must make an appointment to meet with the Consular Officer. To schedule an appointment, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 5999-461-3066 Ext. 2225.

Payment must be made by cashier's check. The cashier's check must be in U.S. dollars, negotiable in the U.S., and made out to "U.S. Disbursing Officer." Cash and personal checks cannot be accepted.
PHILIPSBURG  Parliaments website states that Parliament has two main tasks, namely to act as co-legislator and to exercise control over Governments policies. The budget is an excellent example of co-legislation. It is drafted by the Government but, must be approved by Parliament in order for it to become a law.

On Monday, December 5th the Central Committee of Parliament, which consists of all fifteen members of Parliament, will meet to discuss the 2017 Budget of Country Sint Maarten. In the meeting of the Central Committee, Government will give information with regard to the financial projections and the policies supporting the budget. Parliament, on the other hand, should ask detailed questions regarding the figures as well as the spending and income policies as these relate to the 2017 budget.

The handling of the budget in Parliament is a good time to observe our Parliamentarians at work and see how much control our Parliament is exercising over Government. To be able to ask the critical questions Parliamentarians should not wait until the Central Committee meeting to review the budget but should have done so in smaller committees, called Permanent Committees. In these committees, members of Parliament should have scrutinized the budget; formulate questions, comments and motions and presented these during the meetings of the Central Committee. It is in these meetings that we will be able to see if our Parliamentarians did their homework or whether they are just winging it by means of grandstanding and political speeches. I recall last years Central Committee meeting on the 2016 budget. Most Parliamentarians did the political grandstanding but never really got to the meat of the matter which was to deal with budget details and to ask the critical questions concerning policies, income and expenditures.

The 2015-2016 Annual Parliamentary Report does not give such a good report concerning the functioning of our Parliamentarians in the various committees during the past Parliamentary year. According to the Report, the Committee of Finance never met to discuss the budget. Another committee, called the Committee of Countrys Expenditures, also never met because the meeting scheduled to appoint a chairman and a vice chairman was cancelled. So much for Parliament monitoring and controlling Government expenditures!

One way of holding Government accountable is to also submit written questions, asking Government about decisions taken or not taken and concerning policies followed or not followed. The Report states that only a total of 163 questions were submitted, most of which were submitted by MPs Sarah Wescott-Williams and Leona Marlin-Romeo. This would mean an average of ten questions per Parliamentarian per year. So much for Parliament exercising control of Government policies!

Parliament received the 2017 budget just about three weeks ago, which is, in my opinion, a rather short time to scrutinize such a comprehensive financial policy document. It will be interesting to hear, for example, the debate in Parliament regarding the Ministry of Justice. The Council of Advice already pointed out certain discrepancies which, according to me, have not been fully answered by the Government. Will Parliament take the opportunity to question the Minister of Justice regarding the personnel policies at the prison? During the year, the reason given by the Minister of Justice for not being able to execute personnel policies and move forward with construction plans, is the lack of finances. Last week we also learned that, due to the lack of money, the Prosecutors Office is unable to present certain cases that require psychological testing to the courts. One would have expected that matters pertaining to justice, would have been high on the agenda of especially Parliaments Committee of Justice, headed by MP Frans Richardson. Sadly though, this committee only met twice during the 2015-2016 Parliamentary year. The first meeting was to appoint the chair and the vice chair and the second meeting was the public discussion in Parliament on the topic of the legalization of cannabis. So much for Parliament exercising control of Government and in particular, of the Minister of Justice. In order to live up to certain commitments made to the Dutch, the Progress Committee has even suggested that reprioritizing be done within the budget to ensure that the Ministry of Justice has enough finances to execute its task in a responsible and effective manner.

After the discussions in the Central Committee the 2017 Budget will be submitted to Parliament to be debated in a public meeting where it will either be approved or rejected. Seeing that the coalition consists of a majority of eight parliamentarians, it is expected that the 2017 Budget will be adopted by Parliament.

As the budget law covers every aspect of the functioning of Government, the parliamentary budget debate is an excellent occasion for Parliament to exercise its controlling role and question every area of Governments functioning. SMCP advises everyone to follow the budget debates in order to get a better understanding of how government functions, as well as how your Parliamentarians are representing you in Parliament.

Wycliffe Smith

Leader of the Sint Maarten Christian Party
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Finance Richard Gibson Sr made clear during the budget hearing on Tuesday that Parliament should hire a legal translator to translate the budget and other documents for Members of Parliament. He said government paid for the translation of the 2016 budget and this year the request to translate the 2017 budget was submitted late and the translation is in the process. However, he said that government has to prepare the budget in a language that the CFT and the other councils fully understands and as such government should not have to pay for the translation of the budget for parliament.

The Finance Minister went as far as explaining how long it took for the Court system to mandate that judgment be handed down in Dutch and English. The Minister of Finance said some years ago two of the sitting judges could not read Dutch yet the verdicts were pronounced in Dutch he said it took the former Netherlands Antilles three years before a decision could be taken where the verdicts had to be in both languages. He further explained as a citizen of the country he took it upon himself to translate the civil code for the people of St. Maarten and back then he advised that the other laws are translated but to date it has not been done.

On Monday, during the budget hearing MP Frans Richardson requested that the budget is done in both languages since most people on St. Maarten speaks only English including some MPs.

COLA budgeted at 0, a blatant insult to civil servants.

The finance Minister also explained that all Ministries have budgeted zero for COLA payments because it was a recommendation from the CFT, citing that St. Maarten can no longer afford such payments. He said it is indeed a blatant insult to civil servants since prices will increase while salaries will not be.

Minister Gibson said most countries have stepped away from the COLA system, however, he did say that some unions are trying to renegotiate something that will assist civil servants financially.
Findev Inc. (formerly TransGaming Inc.) closes proposed COB, trading to commence under FDI

TORONTO, CANADA  (Marketwired)  12/05/16  Findev Inc. (TSX VENTURE: FDI) (formerly TransGaming Inc. ) (the Corporation) is pleased to announce that it has completed the sale of its predecessors GameTree TV business and has completed its previously announced proposed change of business from one focused on the digital distribution of games for Smart TVs, next-generation set-top boxes and over-the-top devices, to that of lending to, investing in and financing real estate transactions (the Proposed COB), as described in its management information circular dated August 23, 2016 (the Circular) with respect to the special meeting of its shareholders held on September 16, 2016 and available under the Corporations profile on SEDAR ().

The Corporation anticipates that its shares will resume trading on or about Tuesday, December 6, 2016. The Corporation will be listed as a Tier 1 Investment Issuer under TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) policies and will trade under its new symbol FDI.

Name Change and Stock Consolidation

In connection with the Proposed COB, the Corporation changed its name to Findev Inc. and consolidated its then 116,797,889 outstanding common shares on a 35 to 1 basis (3,337,083 post-consolidated).

Private Placements

The Corporation also completed on a post-consolidated basis both a private placement of 2,225,000 subscription receipts to Plazacorp Holdings Limited at a price per subscription receipt of $0.525 and a brokered private placement of 23,085,358 subscription receipts at a price per subscription receipt of $0.60 to various investors in two closings, collectively raising over $15 million in gross proceeds. Cranson Capital Securities Inc. acted as the agent for the brokered private placement and was paid a cash amount equal to six percent (6.0%) of the aggregate proceeds raised by the agent.

All subscription receipts have been converted and funds have been released to the Corporation, resulting in the issuance of 25,310,358 common shares and a total of 23,085,330 common share purchase warrants, half with an 18-month expiry and the other half with a 36-month expiry, and each exercisable at $0.70, provided that the Corporation may in its sole discretion call the warrants if and when and the common shares trade at a price equal to or greater than $1.20 for 5 consecutive days.

Plazacorp Holdings Limited acquired a total of 11,500,000 common shares and 9,275,000 common share purchase warrants in connection with the private placements, and now holds approximately 40% of the Corporations outstanding common shares.

Change of Financial Year End

The Corporation has changed its financial year end from May 31st to December 31st. A notice of change of financial year end is available under the Corporations profile on SEDAR (). The notice of change of financial year end was originally filed on October 27, 2016 and subsequently amended on November 18, 2016.

Board and Management

The directors and officers of the Corporation are now as follows:

Escrow

A total of 11,905,237 common shares and 9,676,664 common share purchase warrants of the Corporation (collectively the Escrowed Securities) are being held in escrow pursuant to a TSXV Form 5D (Value Security) Escrow Agreement among the Corporation, Computershare Trust Company and certain securityholders of the Corporation (the Escrow Agreement).

Further to the disclosure provided in the Circular in respect of the securities subject to escrow pursuant to the Escrow Agreement, Brice Scheschuk, David Roff and Devon Cranson subscribed for a total of 401,666 subscription receipts (166,666 as to Mr. Scheschuk, 166,666 as to Mr. Roff and 68,334 as to Mr. Cranson) under the private placements following the filing of the Circular, which resulting 401,666 common shares and 401,666 common share purchase warrants are included in the total number of Escrowed Securities set out above.

Advances to Target Projects

In connection with the Proposed COB, the Corporation has advanced mezzanine financing in the amount of $5.5 million to Musee Residences Corp. for the construction of the condominium project known as Musee  King Adelaide West in Toronto, Ontario. The loan bears interest at the rate of 10% per annum and matures on December 31, 2017. The Corporation has also advanced mezzanine financing in the amount of $7.5 million to Wellesley Residences Corp. for the construction of the condominium project known as 50 at Wellesley Station in Toronto, Ontario. The loan bears interest at the rate of 10% per annum and matures on December 31, 2019.

The Corporation is now focused on lending to, investing in and financing real estate development projects and will make other mezzanine loans as described in the Circular, subject to available funds and maintaining unallocated working capital thresholds.

Automatic Securities Purchase Plan

The Corporation confirms that Sruli Weinreb has adopted an automatic securities purchase plan (Automatic Plan) in accordance with guidance under Ontario Securities Commissions Staff Notice 55-701 (the Guidance), and the Corporations insider trading policies.

Mr. Weinreb, has entered into an Automatic Plan that provides for the purchase through a company controlled by him of up to $500,000 worth of common shares of the Corporation over an eight-month term, subject to certain limit order prices.

Canadian securities legislation permits insiders to adopt written Automatic Plans to sell, purchase or otherwise transfer shares in the future (including upon exercise of stock options) according to the Automatic Plan on an automatic basis regardless of any subsequent material non-public information they receive. Once an Automatic Plan is established, the insider is not permitted to exercise any further discretion or influence over how dispositions or purchases will occur under the Automatic Plan.

Other directors or officers of the Corporation may from time to time adopt Automatic Plans during trading windows. The Corporation will issue a press release to announce the adoption of any other Automatic Plans by its directors or officers.

On behalf of the Company,

Sruli Weinreb, CEO

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this document may constitute forward-looking statements, which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this document, such statements use words like may, will, expect, continue, believe, plan, intend, would, could, should, anticipate and other similar terminology. These statements reflect current assumptions and expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this document. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to vary significantly from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under the Risk Factors section of the Corporations the most recently filed Annual Report which is available on SEDAR at .

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this document are based upon what we believe are reasonable assumptions, we cannot assure investors that our actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by securities law.

Contacts:

Findev Inc.

Sruli Weinreb, CEO

(647) 789-5188
SEB Announces Extension to Private Placement Offering

MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO  (Marketwired)  12/05/16  Smart Employee Benefits Inc. (SEB or the Company) (TSX VENTURE: SEB) announces that further to its press releases dated October 20, 2016 and November 3, 2016 regarding a $5 million unit offering (the Offering), the TSX Venture Exchange has granted the Company an extension to complete the Offering.

Aggregate proceeds of $1,652,885 were raised on a first tranche closing. The second tranche of the Offering is expected to close on or around December 31, 2016.

About SEB

Smart Employee Benefits Inc.s global infrastructure is comprised of two operating divisions: Technology and Benefits. The Technology Division currently serves corporate and government clients across Canada and internationally. The Benefits Division focuses on offering SAAS and BPO solutions in the Health Benefits Sector to corporate and government clientele. The Benefits Division operates as a client of the Technology Division. The Technology Division is a critical competitive advantage in supporting the implementation of SEBs benefits processing solutions into client environments. Benefits processing is a high-growth specialty practice area.

The core expertise of both divisions is data processing. Emphasis is on automating business processes utilizing SEB proprietary software solutions combined with solutions of third parties through joint ventures and partnerships.

Acquisitions, joint ventures, and RFP wins will continue to be dominant influences in driving growth in both divisions. Growth emphasis for fiscal 2017 is in the Benefits Division.

For further information about SEB, please visit .

The statements made in this release that are not historical facts contain forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainties. All statements, including statements regarding the Companys areas of focus, other than statements of historical facts, which address the Companys expectations, should be considered as forward-looking statements and therefore subject to various risks and uncertainties. The words may, will, could, should, would, suspect, outlook, believe, plan, anticipate, estimate, expect, intend, forecast, objective, hope and continue (or the negative thereof), and words and expressions of similar import, are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

Such forward-looking statements are based on knowledge of the environment in which the Company currently operates, but because of the factors listed herein, as well as other factors beyond the Companys control, actual results may differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation, and does not intend, to update, revise or otherwise publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, or to reflect the occurrence of any unanticipated events, other than as required by applicable law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

MEDIA AND INVESTOR CONTACT:

John McKimm

President/CEO/CIO

Office (888) 939-8885 x 354

Cell (416) 460-2817
China Telecom Global Selects the Djibouti Data Center (DDC) as a Strategic Hub for Pan-African Expansion

HONG KONG, CHINA  (Marketwired)  12/05/16  (CTG), the international operating subsidiary of China Telecom Corporation (China Telecom), a leading integrated information service provider in China, has selected the Djibouti Data Center (DDC), to help facilitate network expansion, co-location and submarine fiber cable access services in East Africa.

The Djibouti Data Center has been built to Tier III data center standards and serves as a major meeting point for submarine fiber cable systems including the new Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE 5) submarine cable designed to connect Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Western Europe. China Telecom Global is a founding member of the consortium for SEA-ME-WE 5, which is expected to be ready for service in late 2016.

Mr. Liu Changhai, Managing Director of China Telecom (Africa and Middle East) Limited, a subsidiary of CTG, said, The cooperation with DDC is a significant component of our overall commitment to contributing to the digital evolution and economic development of Africa. The addition of SEA-ME-WE 5 to CTGs existing fiber cable assets in the region is a significant milestone that marks a new page for the companys regional strategic planning in accordance to the Belt and Road Initiative. With our abundant and further expanded network resources, we can better serve our MNC clients and Carrier partners in Djibouti, Ethiopia and other countries in East Africa.

The SEA-ME-WE 5 will span approximately 20,000kms and employ 100Gbps technology, with initial system capacity of 24 terabits to provide customers with low-latency and direct connectivity. It will further enhance the diversity and agility in the growing demand for Asia, Africa, Middle East and Western Europe routes around the world.

The system is designed as a multiregional super highway, and will connect Djibouti with China, via 18 landing points located in Singapore, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Egypt, Italy, France and etc.

Mr. Anthony Voscarides, Chief Executive Officer of Djibouti Data Center, said: The addition of the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system further establishes DDC as the leading carrier-neutral data center hub in East Africa serving global and regional telecommunication companies, MNOs, ISPs and CDN providers.

Mr. Voscarides added: We are very pleased that CTG will be joining the DDC ecosystem, as it further enables the development and introduction of new services that will help drive economic and social well-being in the region.

The DDC is uniquely positioned in East Africa and will enable China Telecom Global to establish cross-connect and co-location facilities directly adjacent to Djibouti Telecoms cable landing stations.

In addition to supporting SEA-ME-WE 5 in the near future, the DDC provides access to fiber-cable systems such as AAE 1, EIG, EASSy, Aden-Djibouti and Ethiopia-Djibouti.

China Telecom Global Limited (CTG) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Telecommunications Corporation Limited for managing its international businesses. Established in 2012 and headquartered in Hong Kong and Beijing, CTG leverages the abundant resources in mainland China, connecting the Asia Pacific region to the world. CTG has subsidiaries and affiliates in 31 countries and regions, 68 overseas PoPs, 45 OTN nodes, and delivers more than 20T in international connectivity bandwidth and intercontinental capacity. CTG also has resources on 38 submarine cables, while participating in the construction of more than 10. With the direct connections with more than 10 neighbouring countries and regions via terrestrial cables, CTG has mapped out a global service and capacity network. Targeting international carriers, multinational corporations and overseas Chinese consumers, CTG provides customised and cost-effective integrated communications solutions and diversified telecom services to cater to their global business needs. Its services include direct access, internet transit, data services, broadband, unified communications, internet data center, cloud computing, ICT services, fixed and mobile voice and value-added services, professional services and industry solutions, telecom operation consultancy, and service outsourcing.

For more information on CTG, please visit

The Djibouti Data Center (DDC) is the first and only Tier 3 carrier-neutral data center ecosystem in East Africa with direct access to all major international and regional fiber optic systems connecting Europe, the Middle East, and Asia markets with Africa  including upcoming Sea-Me-We5 and AAE1. The DDC also operates the Djibouti Internet Exchange (DjIX), a neutral and independent IXP in Africa. The DjIX offers high speed, reliable, and resilient service. Both the DDC and DjIX are catalysts in east Africa that enable new applications and services that help to drive economic development and social well-being in the region.

Learn more about the DDC products and services at

For more information please contact:

John Melick

Tel: + 1.703.627.1332

Email:

Public Relations

Tel: +852 2582 9233

Email:
ERP Solution for Salesforce Market in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia

Albany, New York, December 6, 2016: Market Research Hub (MRH) broadcasts the addition of a latest report to its database. This new research report is titled as ERP Salesforce Market to forecast  2021. The report offers a comprehensive analysis on the Enterprise Eesource Planning (ERP) for Salesforce in several key regions including United States, European Union, China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, more). According to the report study, the market of ERP solution for salesforce is estimated to grow in the above mentioned regions between the forecast duration starting from 2016 to 2021.

Request Free Sample Report: http://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=883021

The report begins with a market overview of ERP solutions. Enterprise resource planning is the integrated management of core business procedures, frequently used in real-time and facilitated by software & technology. ERP is usually referred to a type of business software, typically a collection of integrated applications that an organization can use to gather, manage and interpret data from many business activities. This software integrates all facets of an operation including development planning, product planning, manufacturing planning, marketing and sales in a single database. Salesforce includes a prebuilt application for CRM (customer relationship management) extending from sales force automation to partner relationship management customer service and marketing.

As the enterprise resource planning methodology has become more prevalent, software applications have appeared to assist business managers implement ERP in to other business actions and may incorporate units for CRM and business intelligence, presenting it as a particular unified package. Further the report also includes market segmentation based on different types and application. On the basis of type the ERP solution for salesforce can be split into:

 On-premise ERP

 Cloud ERP

On-premise enterprise resource planning refers to a corporations verdict to source domestic ERP software and maintain it at a physical organization, somewhat than ordering it for supply over the web or using vendor-supplied source. While, Cloud enterprise resource planning is a methodology to enterprise resource planning (ERP) that makes use of cloud computing services and platforms to deliver a business with additional flexible business method transformation.

Furthermore, this report focuses on the top companies in global market such as:

 NetSuite

 SAP

 Oracle

 Epicor

 TGI

 Sage

 Infor

 Concur (SAP)

 IBM

 Microsoft

 Kronos

 Totvs

 UNIT4

 Workday

 Rootstock

 Cornerstone

 YonYou

 Kingdee

 Digiwin

 FinancialForce

Browse Full Report with TOC:http://bit.ly/2h1d7Bs

The research report highlights these key players and provide an assessment of the competitive landscape present in the global market.
MomentFeed Announces New Online-to-Offline Customer Journey Tracking Tools for Multi-Location Brands

SANTA MONICA, CA  (Marketwired)  12/06/16  , the leader in mobile customer experience management for multi-location brands, today announced that the latest version of its platform, MomentFeed 3.3, is available immediately. The platform includes a series of powerful new dashboards that make it easier than ever for multi-location brands to track their customers online-to-offline journeys and calculate the ROI of their mobile marketing efforts.

The MomentFeed platform helps multi-location brands such as Jamba Juice, Avis, and Starbucks target consumers at the most influential moments in their online path to purchase. This includes managing all pages for every store across all major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, Yelp!, Twitter. Through MomentFeeds innovative approach to local, regional and national marketing organic and paid campaigns, the company is able to provide unique sets of data, including data from Facebook Local Insights, that havent been available to multi-location brands directly.

Were always looking for data to inform our marketing and operations. MomentFeeds new People Nearby vs. Paid Impressions dashboard is our new go-to for conversion tracking as we havent seen this overlay of paid impressions to store traffic anywhere else, said Deidre Hazelbaker at Tire Discounters, the nations eighth-largest independent tire retailer. Another ROI capability weve been wishing for and now can see through MomentFeed is the relationship between campaign spend and regional sales. We can segment our stores by regions and groups to see whats working, and expand major markets or campaigns based on direct offline attribution. These new capabilities are key to our 2017 strategy.

Consumers spend tremendous amounts of time on their phones. They are using their phones to augment their real-world experiences by engaging with brands through the most popular mobile apps, and that is driving multi-location brands to invest heavily in digital and mobile marketing initiatives like social engagement and reputation management for every store, said Robert Blatt, CEO of MomentFeed. The underlying challenge with funding these types of activities has been a lack of understanding as to whats really working to drive foot traffic and boost sales. Now with the latest version of MomentFeed, were helping these multi-location brands tackle this by providing insights into which digital efforts are successful, and how much theyre actually helping in-store sales. Our clients are able to align the growth strategy of a single store and map that all the way up to the regional or national level.

The latest version of the MomentFeed platform includes several new features that help multi-location brands engage consumers in new, relevant ways that drive them toward offline conversions. In particular, MomentFeed makes it possible to track a customers online-to-offline journey using a combination of enhanced search, discovery, social media and reputation management tools.

MomentFeeds Search & Discovery Dashboards include enhanced features such as:

Local Search Ranking  Helps brands optimize their business data to increase the search ranking of each and every one of their physical locations. Rankings can now be tracked by keyword on Google and Bing through the Local Search Ranking dashboard.

Local Page Leads  Allows businesses to track a consumers journey toward conversion by analyzing how many customers found the Google My Business (GMB) or Facebook page of the closest location and actually went on to view it, clicked to call, clicked for directions or even visited the website directly.

Facebook Local Insights  Uses Facebook Local Insights data to identify the busiest times of day for a business location, the demographics of those nearby consumers, and provides foot traffic trends within 50 meters of each business location  while also showing the percentage of those users who saw an ad in the past 28 days. MomentFeed is now making it even easier for multi-location brands to access these offline Local Insights.

The Social Media & Reputation Management Dashboards include enhanced features such as:

Customer Experience  Provides an overview of ratings and review activity across a brands locations (using custom Groups as filters), making it easy to understand and compare what customers are saying.

Facebook Page Insights  The Facebook Page Insights dashboard gives brands the first ever comprehensive overview of both brand and local page engagement from one dashboard. Track reach, engagement and fan growth across both brand and local pages, and get a full view into social engagement on Facebook.

Combined with the new dashboards, MomentFeeds latest software release offers ability to search for locations by business ID, allowing brands to grant single location managers permission to comment on or like Instagram, Facebook or Google posts from a brands account, as well as updated tools to help brands to identify and merge duplicate Facebook pages en masse. While previous processes caught the vast majority of duplicate pages through MomentFeeds Facebook API integration, updates in the latest platform provide brands with even more comprehensive dupe monitoring and elimination.

Marketers and brands interested in learning more about measuring Online to Offline attribution and ROI can attend a webinar on Tuesday, December 6th at 10:00 a.m. PST. For additional information and to register, please visit:

MomentFeed is a mobile customer experience management platform that enables multi-location brands to make their nearest location the best choice for every mobile customer. It turns physical stores into a brands most valuable online assets, helping guide customers along their entire digital path to purchase. Using the information that uniquely defines each location, the platform enables central or distributed management of a brands store locator, as well as search engine optimization, social media engagement, and paid advertising & media, and online reputation and review management. The platform increases same store sales for multi-location retailers, restaurant chains, banks, auto dealers, insurance companies and other franchised and corporate-owned services. MomentFeed was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. For more information visit:

Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

Chad Torbin

Speakeasy Strategies on behalf of MomentFeed

415.548.6536
News, analysis, and archives on the grassroots in Haiti. Nouvel, analiz, ak achiv sou baz yo an AYITI. Noticias, analisis y archivos sobre el pueblo de Haiti.
A guide to voter rights in Indiana. What you need to know before you cast a ballot

elections
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On a crisp, clear and sunny Montana morning, Marines, veterans and volunteers leave their warm homes and head for the corner of Montana and Custer -- you know, the corner in front of Shopko. We slowly put up a few Toys for Tots banner, assemble some Toys boxes, grab our warm gear and stand on the street. Oh, yeah. Wave our hands.

Nothing. No response.

In thirty minutes we get a honk or two. Ahhh. That's better. An hour after starting, the drivers begin to wake up, too. We start getting honks and waves and smiles as folks see that familiar Toys for Tots train logo. In must be near Christmas -- Santa's elves are at it again.

Inside Shopko, an accomplished team of seasoned shoppers prepare their baskets and await instructions. The adults know the drill. But the "specialists" are not quite sure. A team of kids from 8 to 15 years old are told to shop for "their" age and gender. They are to assemble baskets full of about 150 to 200 presents each.

The looks on their faces are priceless. "Me? Buy that many toys?"

"Yup," the grizzled old Marine said. "Get to it." And away they went. Ten minutes later, the first full basket appears, pushed by a smiling young lady who was having the time of her life. Two hours later, we had assembled about 20 shopping carts of toys -- over 600 toys for distribution on Dec. 17.

Outside, people are stopping and putting toys in the boxes. Some of them even write a check or give us cash we put in the Toys donation bucket. Horns are honking, people are waving and the mood on the corner is light and happy. Truckers are even tooting their air horns. Why so much activity and so many happy smiles? Everyone knows that their actions will help put a smile on the face of a child this Christmas. In their hearts they remember that "special" present they received so many years ago. It gives us all a chance to remember a happy moment and it gives us all a chance to pass it along to another child.

Last year, Toys purchased, collected and distributed over 12,000 toys to Helena, Townsend, and Boulder children. Toys for Tots is the conduit for all those generous donors to help deliver the promise of Christmas. Are you willing to do it again this year? I believe so. We have 95 businesses collecting toys in the familiar boxes. We have volunteers who collect, process and sort the gifts so happily given. And we have hundreds of families who will soon "go shopping" for the kids in their lives.

On distribution day, we volunteers find ourselves with tears in our eyes as we watch another family enter the gym floor at The Salvation Army for the first time. The generosity of the Helena community can overwhelm them and their eyes tear up with gratitude. By the time they finish shopping, it is not uncommon to find them openly weeping with gratitude. What's point of this story: It is not Toys for Tots that causes this -- it is you, our donors.

Toys for Tots is working hard to make dreams come true. Help us out. We will get the job done with your help. Merry Christmas and Semper Fidelis.
Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients for life on Earth, and some organisms, such as the kinds of microbes found within the roots of legume plants, are capable of converting nitrogen gas into molecules that other species can use.

Nitrogen fixation, as the process is called, involves breaking the powerful chemical bonds that hold nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and using the resulting single nitrogen atoms to help create molecules such as ammonia, which is a building block of many complex organic molecules, such as proteins, DNAand RNA.

With organisms playing such a crucial role in the chemistry of nitrogen on Earth, scientists are examining nitrogen in ancient rocks to decipher its potential as a biosignature of life on other planets. New findings in this area of research appeared recently in a paper titled "Nitrogen in Ancient Mud: A Biosignature?" which was published in the journal Astrobiology. [6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System]

This study identifies nitrogen abundances as a potential tool to detect remnants of life on Mars," said one of the study's authors, Eva Stueken, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington at Seattle and the University of California at Riverside.

An illustration of nitrogen fixation. (Image credit: Julie McMahon)

However, there are mechanisms other than life that can fix nitrogen. These abiotic nitrogen fixation processes include lightning, volcanism, shockwaves from cosmic impacts and chemical reactions inside hydrothermal vents. As such, it is uncertain whether high nitrogen levels seen in certain ancient rocks on Earth are indeed biogenic (biological) in origin.

Stueken focused on 3.8 billion-year-old rocks from the Isua Supracrustal Belt in Greenland. Previous researchers interpreted organic carbon molecules in those rocks as biogenic, a controversial finding because the widely accepted scientific date for earliest life has been a younger 3.5 billion years.

"It is possible to make organic carbon even in the absence of life, Stueken said. So those studies have been viewed with skepticism by some researchers, and an independent biosignature was needed."

Stueken set out to see if nitrogen could serve as a biosignature instead, focusing on the relatively high nitrogen levels found in the mineral biotite, which is present in the Isua rocks.

"The nitrogen concentrations are close to what one would find in modern mud," Stueken said. "So I asked myself if this amount of nitrogen could possibly result from abiotic sources."

In Earth's earliest history, abiotic processes may have been much more important to nitrogen fixation than biological ones, but nobody had tested the hypothesis, Stueken said. "I was determined to find out when life began to dominate the global nitrogen cycle," she added.

Stueken developed a model of abiotic nitrogen processes that could have played a role in early Earth. The results showed that such abiotic processes alone could not explain the nitrogen levels seen in the Isua rocks.

"Under abiotic conditions, it is impossible to accumulate so much nitrogen in sediments," Stueken said. "Life, on the other hand, can easily accumulate so much nitrogen." As such, "the results provide more evidence of an early origin of life on Earth  before 3.8 billion years ago," Stueken said.

This research suggests that analyzing nitrogen levels could help detect signs of life on Mars, Stueken said. "Nitrogen abundances are relatively easy to measure by a rover, making this a useful tool for upcoming Mars missions."

Financial support was provided by the NASA postdoctoral fellowship program.

This story was provided by Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program. Follow Space.com @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.
mage of the sun's corona, taken by NASA's STEREO Ahead spacecraft on June 8, 2010. The solar surface is blocked out in this view.

New observations from a NASA spacecraft could help solve a persistent mystery  why the sun's atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface.

While the sun's visible surface is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,538 degrees Celsius), its upper atmosphere, known as the corona, has temperatures in the millions of degrees.

NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft looks at the transition region between the sun's surface and the corona. The satellite recently saw evidence of "heat bombs," which occur when magnetic fields cross in the corona and realign, much like the process that causes solar flares.

"Because IRIS can resolve the transition region 10 times better than previous instruments, we were able to see hot material rushing up and down magnetic fields in the low corona," Paola Testa, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the research, said in a NASA statement. "This is compatible with models from the University of Oslo, in which magnetic reconnection sets off heat bombs in the corona."

This isn't the only way that the corona is heated, but it's one of the contributors. Another factor is when plasma waves from the sun smash into the corona, moving energy into the outer atmosphere.

IRIS, which launched in June 2013, could be a step toward understanding coronal heating, which has puzzled astronomers for decades, NASA officials said. One benefit of the observatory is that it looks continuously at the sun, allowing scientists to see quick-moving events such as the heat bombs.

"The problem of coronal heating was first discovered in the 1940s," Bart De Pontieu, a solar physicist at the Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory, said in the same statement. "The problem involves a variety of complex physical processes that are difficult to directly measure or capture in theoretical models."

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Russias Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, which landed with British astronaut Tim Peake, is bound for Science Museum, London in 2017.

The spacecraft that returned Britain's first professional astronaut to Earth in June will land on display in London next year.

Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, which touched down from the International Space Station with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and Expedition 46/47 flight engineer Tim Peake, will go on exhibit at the Science Museum, London in early 2017.

"You do become very attached to your spacecraft because it definitely does save your life," said Peake in a statement released by the Science Museum Group on Monday (Dec. 5). "I'm absolutely delighted that my Soyuz spacecraft, the TMA-19M, is going to be returning here to the UK and may serve, hopefully, as [an] inspiration for our next generation of scientists and engineers." [Russia's Manned Soyuz Space Capsule Explained (Infographic)]

The 1.7 ton (1.5 metric ton) capsule, which flew Peake and his two crewmates, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra, to and from the station, was acquired by the Science Museum Group (SMG), which is responsible for several UK cultural institutions.

"Russian ingenuity led to the birth of the space age," said Ian Blatchford, SMG's director. "Today it still plays a critical role, notably in long duration missions to pave the way for the next great leap into the cosmos."

"It is a great honor to be here to officially acquire the first flown human spacecraft in the [SMG] collection, one which allowed Tim Peake to make his historic journey," he stated.

Blatchford's signing of the acquisition agreement for Soyuz TMA-19M coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first Soyuz launch in 1966.

The display of the Soyuz TMA-19M descent module builds on the Science Museum's recent exhibition, "Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age," which brought in 140,000 visitors, making it the museum's most popular exhibit in its history. "Cosmonauts" included the display of Soyuz TM-14, which flew the first mission to Russia's Mir space station after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.

The exhibition, which ran from September 2015 to March 2016, also included the construction and display of a two-thirds scale replica of a Soyuz orbital module built entirely from a quarter of a million LEGO bricks.

SMG acquired the Soyuz TM-19M from RSC Energia, the Russian contractor responsible for building the Soyuz and a partner in the "Cosmonauts" exhibition.

Russias Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft in Kazakhstan after its return from 185 days at the International Space Station in June 2016. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

"We're very honored that a descent vehicle produced by our corporation will take its rightful place in the collection of one of the most important science museum groups in the world," said Vladimir Soltnsev, general director of Energia. "I would like to hope that this special symbol of Russia will become one of the highlights of the Science Museum."

Soyuz TMA-19M is the latest Russian spacecraft to land on display in the home country of one of its crew.

In September, the Soyuz TMA-03M descent module, which landed with Dutch ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers from the International Space Station in 2012, debuted on display at Space Expo in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Similarly, the Soyuz capsules that returned U.S. space flight participants Charles Simonyi and Greg Olsen to Earth are exhibited in Seattle and New York City, respectively.

Other astronauts' Soyuz capsules are on display in Cuba, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Poland, Romania and Vietnam.

Soyuz TMA-19M will not be the only flown spacecraft on exhibit at the Science Museum, London when it premieres next year. The museum also has on display NASA's Apollo 10 command module, which flew to the moon in May 1969 on a full-up dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. The capsule, named "Charlie Brown," is on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
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MISSOULA  A Missoula man is in jail on a $100,000 bail after being charged with sexually assaulting a boy repeatedly over the course of several months.

Joshua Dwayne Moody, who faces a count of felony sexual assault, made his initial appearance Monday in Missoula County Justice Court.

A court affidavit said that during the summer, Moody repeatedly sexually assaulted the elementary-school-age boy by rubbing the childs genitals through his clothing, allegedly almost every day. In an interview with police, Moody allegedly said he had accidentally touched the boy twice.

In court, deputy county attorney Amber Henning said Moody, 29, had a prior molestation case in Louisiana when he was a juvenile.

Justice of the Peace Marie Andersen imposed the bail recommendation from Henning, allowed Moody to be screened for pretrial supervision, and appointed the Office of the State Public Defender to represent him.
BILLINGS  Scott Austin Price was handed a life sentence Monday for stabbing his 78-year-old landlord in the neck.

Price, 38, was given a life sentence to Montana State Prison, with no chance of parole for killing Ed Martin on Dec. 14, 2015. Price pleaded guilty in September to deliberate homicide and aggravated kidnapping, according to Custer County District Court records. An additional 10 years was added to the sentence for use of a weapon during the homicide.

Martin's wife, Helen Martin, was granted restitution in the amount of about $8,200. Price was convicted of assaulting and tying Martin up. Price must also pay about $3,700 to the Crime Victims Fund. Helen Martin's son and daughter testified on her behalf during the sentencing.

Probation and Parole officer Kristi Moore requested Price not be allowed to return to Custer County. Price has six prior felony convictions, Moore said.

Price received credit for 350 days in jail prior to trial.

Price will also be sentenced on charges out of Missoula County District Court for deliberate homicide, attempted deliberate homicide, conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping, solicitation to commit theft and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

Chief Deputy Missoula County Attorney Jason Marks said in September he will recommend Price spend life in prison without the possibility of parole. That sentencing is scheduled for later this month.

Price and a co-conspirator, 32-year-old Sarah McKnight, were both charged in two separate attacks that took place in Missoula a week after Ed Martin's death. Prosecutors say on Dec. 21, 2015, Price stabbed a woman in a grocery store parking lot and later killed Lonette Keehner, a 56-year-old housekeeper at a Super 8 hotel.
Funding for school suicide prevention programs, more school counselors, school facility needs and special education were among the priority topics at a meeting Monday night between East Helena and Helena School boards of trustees and local legislators.

Both districts also briefly broached the topic of East Helena seeking legislation to become a K-12 district.

State funding is expected to be very tight in the upcoming session.

Helena School District wants to preserve what funding it has, said interim superintendent Jack Copps. He is being very cautious about its funding expectations.

State Rep. Jenny Eck, D-Helena, asked how the legislators could help with the suicide epidemic the school district has been dealing with. Helena High School has had six suicides in the past five years.

The deaths touch both school districts, since a number of the students were from East Helena.

East Helena was hit extremely hard by this, said East Helena superintendent Ron Whitmoyer. Both districts have been working cooperatively on addressing this huge issue.

HHS principal Steve Thennis said that suicide is a community problem, and there needs to be more groups stepping up to raise awareness about suicide prevention hotlines and who people can call for help.

Additional counselors would help, said Copps. We have huge ratios of students to counselors.

The district used to hire some social workers as counselors because they bring a different skill set to the job, but the state provides no funding for the district to use social workers, Copps said.

I think teaching resilience is the key, he added. Its a topic we have to talk about very early on.

This year, the school district launched a Youth Aware of Mental Health program with freshmen, said Helena trustee Libby Goldes, but its unclear if the district will have funding to run it in future years. To start something for one year and not continue funding it is nonsensical.

In other matters, Copps said his top priority this session is seeking a cost-of-living adjustment for special education programs.

When we look at funding for other education programs, a cost of living adjustment was built in, he said.

While the special ed funding stays flat, the number of special education students is steadily increasing, as is the severity of the students needs.

The district is seeing more emotionally disturbed, autistic and special education students than it ever has before, he said.

School facilities are also a huge issue for Helena, which is planning to go ahead with trying to pass a facilities bond this spring.

In 2008, a study of Montanas K-12 public schools facility conditions found $300 million in needs, said Copps. In the years 2008-13, the state funded just $61 million in improvements. In 2015, schools didnt receive a penny from the state for infrastructure.

Its been 39 years since Helena School District built a new school, he said. It would be helpful to have a partner.

School facilities are the responsibility of the state as well as the local school district, said Copps. In fact, when the state was sued over school funding, the court was very explicit that the state must be a partner.

Nor are school districts allowed to save money and build rainy day funds, said Copps.

Districts that had built up their reserves in the past had these taken away by the state.

Theres now a state limit setting a school districts reserve fund maximum at 10 percent of its general fund.

East Helena is also planning a facilities bond in the coming year to build a new school to meet its expanding enrollment.

Copps also reminded the legislators that the Montana Constitution prohibits direct or indirect funding of parochial schools.

The Constitution is less clear about private school funding, he added. The district supports the stance of MEA/MFT that the state shouldnt support funding for private schools until it has met its constitutional mandate for funding quality public schools.

Whitmoyer said a top priority for his district is additional early childhood education funding because 48 percent of the students in his district meet federal poverty guidelines.

One of the best ways to address poverty, he said, is to get those kids into school at an early age. He urged legislators to look for some creative ways to find funding for it.

Copps added that this is also a need in Helena. One school has two sections of kindergarten where 83 percent of the students qualify for speech therapy. If these students arent helped to come up to grade level early on, they wont be successful in middle school and high school.

Both school districts are hearing more demand from parents and students for career technology training, said East Helena School Board Chair Scott Walter.

And they have been meeting jointly to discuss options for either running a joint high school or joint high school education programs. Another possibility is forming an educational cooperative.

All of these options however are limited by state law, said Copps and Whitmoyer. For Helena and East Helena to form a co-op or to operate a high school jointly, both districts would need to be K-12 districts. If East Helena were a K-12 district, it could also decide to build its own high school. East Helena currently sends 500 high-school students to Helena.
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Boujdour (refugee camps), Dec 5, 2016 (SPS) - The participants in the 7th International Conference of Solidarity with Sahrawi Workers denounced the illegal exploitation of Western Sahara resources by the Moroccan occupier, and urged the United Nations to intervene and end the repressive policy against Sahrawi people.

Representatives of different unions participating in the Conference, held on the sidelines of the Eighth Congress of the General Union of Sahrawi Workers (UGTSARIO), reiterated their solidarity with Sahrawi workers, especially those living in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

They also committed, in their final declaration, "to sending union missions to the occupied territories to enquire about the situation of Sahrawi workers," and called on the Moroccan authorities to stop denying entry to journalists, lawyers and international organizations into the occupied Sahrawi territories.

The trade unionists urged the UN to hold a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara, "a right guaranteed by international resolutions," said the final declaration.

They also expressed their support to Sahrawi political prisoners and called for a fair trial.

The participants called on Spain, which is holding the presidency of the UN Security Council for December, to assume its historical responsibilities towards the Sahrawi people and complete the decolonization process.

African trade unionists suggested that the Conference boycotts all Moroccan products from the occupied territories. All the participants agreed to examine this proposal in depth soon.

They also denounced the expulsion of Pan-African Parliament Deputy Speaker Souielma Beirouk by the Moroccan authorities and preventing her from attending the works of the COP22 in Marrakesh. (SPS)

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Madrid, December 06, 2016 (SPS) - A humanitarian aid of 96.5 tons, worth 100000 will be sent to the Sahrawi refugee camps in December, by the Provincial Council of Ciudad Real (Spain), announced President of this Spanish province Jose Manuel Caballero.

The humanitarian food aid allocated by the Provincial Council of Ciudad Real every year consists mainly of food staples such as rice, lentils, pasta and oil to help relieve "the Sahrawi population living in the refugee camps, the source said.

This new food aid, which will be bought in Spain in order to favor economically local companies, will be managed and distributed by the Association of Friends of the Saharawi people of the province, said the same source.

Negotiations have been initiated with local suppliers to increase the quantity of food purchased with the same amount of money," the source added.

This will not only relieve the Sahrawi population which is in need but also, to boost the local economy by benefiting local suppliers."

The quantity of food will be conveyed from the port of Alicante to the refugee camps in four trailers which will also be given to the Sahrawi population, the same source said.SPS

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Collaborative groups working throughout Montanas forests are looking for common ground with each other in a new organization.

Montana Forest Collaborative Network held its first conference in Helena on Monday. The two-day event brought together collaboratives and interest groups focused on natural resource management and engaging with the state and federal agencies.

While local collaboratives work in diverse landscapes, they share many values, goals and challenges, said Gordy Sanders, owner of Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake. MFCN is an evolution of smaller collaborative networks and restoration committees around the state.

Over the course of time and various degrees of successes folks have had, we had the wherewithal and the interest to grow the organization to provide an umbrella group to actually help collaboration be successful statewide, Sanders said.

Collaboratives are often born of local frustration with federal forest management, Sanders said. As those groups engage with the Forest Service and push the pace and scale of management, they have found varying degrees of success. Sharing those experiences and challenges through MFCN is beneficial for other collaboratives as they prioritize current and future efforts, he added.

Collaborative groups typically convene around a particular project or forest, bringing members from different viewpoints to pursue common goals.

Its a cross-section of interests, from conservation and the environment, industry, landowners and in some cases, government, but sharing the same interest of we need to get something done, said Tim Love, conference coordinator.

Collaborative groups have garnered praise particularly among lawmakers and agencies also seeking an uptick in forest management. The ability to communicate and compromise results in better projects and promotes consensus support, they say.

Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Bill Avey told the conference that collaboration drives civil and collective engagement through collective learning.

But collaboratives have their share of detractors as well. Critics often see collaboratives as exclusive among groups with the funding and time to meet for weeks or months. Critics also pan compromise as softening bedrock environmental laws, particularly when land protections couple with timber harvest.

I disagree with that, Love said. If anything collaboratives are inherently democratic because they represent a wide span of interests.

Collaboratives must work within laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and cannot circumvent them, Sanders said.

MFCN is still in its infancy, recruiting members as it looks to ratify a charter early next year. The organizations priorities will come from the members, Sanders said, noting funding and legislation as often mentioned challenges.
Thumbs up to the intrepid team of rappel artists, including New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, of Rowayton, who last weekend rappelled down Stamfords 22-story Landmark building to help the city kick off its annual Christmas celebration and tree lighting. This was Cashmans seventh trip down the side of the building. I didnt have any nerves he said, Im so thankful they continue to ask me to come back for this event every year.

Thumbs up to Lord & Taylors rollout of its new look in Stamford, the result of a two-year renovation. The store is such a mainstay in the city, that its easy to take for granted that it employs more than 350 people. In an era of on-line shopping, we hope a store reshaped for the customer draws the foot traffic it deserves.

Thumbs up to the contributions Ernest Lamour made as chief executive officer of the Stamford YMCA over the last six years, when he guided membership growth from 1,000 to 2,500 people. We wish Lamour well with his new assignment running the YMCA in Ridgewood, N.J.

Thumbs up to successful outreach by the City of Stamford in educating residents about HIV prevention. Members of the HIV program staff reached more than 6,000 people in 2015, while conducting 600 HIV tests. The few people who have tested positive are referred to Family Centers for counseling.

Thumbs down to the annual emergence of the holiday scammers who take advantage of our better natures and instincts to help others, particularly around this time of year. The slimy creatures come in all forms, shilling for phony charities, misrepresenting themselves as collector for legitimate organizations, or just asking for personal assistance. Connecticut State Police recently warned about people working highway rest stops telling motorists a sob story and asking for a few dollars to buy gas. State Police recommend www.charitywatch.org , charitynavigator.org, givewell.org or guidestar.org to check on reputable organizations.

Thumbs up to Connecticut voters who went to the polls in record numbers last month. The 77-percent turnout of the states roughly 2.2 million registered voters equated to 1,675,955 people casting ballots in the presidential election. This is an impressive display of democracy in action. We would say to them, whether your candidate won or lost, you know you participated in this vital activity.

Thumbs up to the Platt Tech students Elizabeth Petroski, of Derby; Jessica Liscinsky, of West Haven, and Brianne McCrystal, of Oxford. To say the three students are rocket scientists is not much of a stretch. The three are working on NASA-authorized projects, Petroski and Liscinsky as NASA-certified quality-control inspectors on parts that will be used in the International Space Station. McCrystal is redesigning an electrical tool and parts kit. They are participating in a program whose acronym is HUNCH, for High school students United with NASA to Create Hardware.

Thumbs up to Sandy Hook Promise, the organization formed after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings for their tireless work in heightening awareness about school violence. Their most recent coup was production of a public service video titled Evan. Its disturbing, all right, in its approach to how we miss the signs of a student in the video apparently planning a shooting. The organization has started two high-profile, peer-based programs in the past year to combat youth isolation and recognize signs a young person may be contemplating hurting others. We cant do too much in this area.
STAMFORD  A New York woman was arrested Monday after she was caught on camera shoplifting from Lord & Taylor, police said.

A security manager at the High Ridge Road department store was monitoring her cameras about 5 p.m. when she saw a woman put a necklace and a pair of gloves into her handbag, according to the report.

Police Sgt. Simon Blanc said the woman, who was accompanied by a man, went on to buy other items and pay for them with fraudulent credit cards.

As she was leaving the store, the security manager questioned her about the $196 necklace and $75 pair of gloves, police said.

The woman  identified as Aubriana Adams-Coggins, 22, of Far Rockaway, N.Y.  was escorted back into the store while her companion ran away, according to the report.

Police said the woman became aggressive and kicked several store employees. Blanc said she claimed she accidentally forgot to pay for those two items.

The woman calmed down when police arrived and repeatedly denied stealing anything, Blanc said.

Blanc said she was taken to the police department, where officers learned she had four fraudulent credit cards and a fake Illinois drivers license.

Adams-Coggins, who had also given a false name, was charged with third-degree robbery, second-degree forgery, second-degree breach of peace and interfering with an officer.

She spent the night at police headquarters and was taken to court Tuesday morning.

noliveira@hearstmediact.com
I have never really understood the Electoral College (EC). Recently a friend and I were talking about people who are apparently trying to convince electors to the EC not to vote for President-elect Donald Trump, and he asked me if this was possible. The 538 electors meet Dec. 19 this year to officially vote for the President. The EC has a long and fascinating history (which I can only touch on here), and a surprising answer to the question as to whether they are bound delegates nationwide.

History of the Electoral College

Originally, Article II, clauses 2 and 3 of the Constitution set out the plan where electors would choose the President and the Vice-President. The framers of the Constitution assumed electors would be elected by district, would not be bound to vote for who their state voted for, the President and Vice-President would not run together, and the system would usually not select either a President or Vice-President, thus throwing the election into Congress. Obviously, many things have changed since 1789. Havoc ensued when candidates from opposing political parties were elected President and Vice-President, such as Federalist party's John Adams (President) and Democratic-Republican party's Thomas Jefferson (Vice-President) in 1796.

The states then ratified the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, making sure separate ballots were cast for President and Vice-President. Over the years, the EC system has varied state by state from where electors selected could vote for whoever they thought best, to electors being bound by the popular vote, to winner-take-all states electors, to Congressional districts only electors, both bound and unbound. A review of the history of the EC is truly captivating, but space limitations prevent presenting the full history here.

Montana Electoral College System

Currently electors are selected based upon the laws of every state, on a state by state basis. In Montana, the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act (UFPEA) was passed in 2011. Under the UFPEA, political parties or unaffiliated presidential candidates submit to the Secretary of State electors selected by those entities. An elector must sign a pledge which states: If selected for the position of elector, I agree to serve and to mark my ballot for president and vice president for the nominees of the political party that nominated me. If an elector does not vote, or presents a ballot in violation of the pledge, another elector is selected as a replacement. Section 13-25-307(4), MCA.

Nationwide, 29 states have laws similar to Montanas regarding faithlessness, the term used when an elector does not vote or does not vote for their nominated candidate. Of course, that means there are 21 states without a faithfulness remedy.

Summary

There are scenarios where rogue electors could conceivably not vote their states top vote getter and put the Presidential election into Congress. That is highly unlikely, however. Furthermore, regardless of who you voted for, hopefully we can all agree that would be a terrible idea  in Montana, we still live by the creed that your word is your bond. There are pros and cons to the EC, but those will have to wait for another article, if there is interest. In the meantime, be watching for what happens on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, Dec. 19 this year.

Judge Russell Fagg has been a State District Court Judge for nearly 22 years, and has handled over 25,000 cases during his tenure. Fagg is past President of the Montana Judges Association and served two terms in the Montana Legislature.
D onald Trump may capture headlines by goading China on Twitter, irritating Theresa May by suggesting Nigel Farage would make a good ambassador to Washington and putting together a tax programme that seems destined to exacerbate the US budget deficit.

Flying in the face of much of what he said he would do on the campaign trail, he is also assembling a business team largely unknown and untested in government circles.

But there is another largely neglected area where his policies might have a profound effect. Trump has said he is going to soften financial-sector regulation.

So the question that needs to be asked on this side of the Pond is how London should react if he is as good as his word. What are the competitive implications for London if light-touch regulation comes to Wall Street? How will the UK balance a deregulatory thrust from Washington with the continued heavy intervention favoured by Brussels?

If London lightens up to stay in competition with the US, how will it also be able to maintain the equivalence with EU legislation that is required to operate in mainland Europe in a post-Brexit world?

Trump said a lot of things on the campaign trail, many of which will presumably not see the light of day. But he also made less strident speeches away from the crowds and TV cameras. At the New York Economic Club in September, he told an audience largely made up of bankers and finance professionals: The regulation industry is one I will put an end to.

He made it clear that he thought over-regulation was strangling the US economy, and one of the keys to unlocking growth was scaling back years of disastrous regulations unilaterally imposed by an out-of-control bureaucracy. He said he wanted to eliminate all needless job-killing measures that were already on the books, and he wanted to block all additional regulation in the pipeline unless it was needed for public safety.

On financial regulation, he singled out the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in the wake of the financial crash, as a culprit. He suggested the Act made it impossible for banks to function and very hard for them to loan money to create jobs. This, he said, has to stop.

Trump stopped short of promising to repeal Dodd-Frank, but he may not have to. Much has been made of how the new President will interact with Congress, and there has been much speculation as to the extent to which it will support his more contentious ideas. But with his desire to see a loosening of financial regulation, he may be pushing at an open door because Paul Ryan, a leading Republican and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has made similar far-reaching proposals.

Ryans ideas are contained in a 57-page booklet called A Better Way, which he circulated earlier this year and in which he also makes the case for lighter-touch financial regulation. His main targets are Dodd-Frank and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the US body set up to oversee systemically important financial institutions. In this context, these are Americas biggest banks and insurance companies  those that could cause a risk to the system if they got into trouble.

Ryan again stops short of calling for a full repeal of the relevant legislation but proposes to blunt its edge in a very American way. He suggests stepping up levels of Congressional oversight as a means by which Congress can then control the purse strings. In this way, it could, if it wished, starve those whose job it is to apply and enforce the rules of the funds they need to do the job. The impact of the regulation could thus be significantly reduced.

Given that it is still more than a month before Trump even takes office, we are a long way from any of this actually happening, and these things always take longer than they should. But even without formal action by Congress, there seems little doubt the tone from the top is changing, and this will change attitudes among regulators. So the US financial community will probably feel the regulatory burden is getting lighter even before any official moves to make it happen.

This has to be a concern to London, particularly at a time when firms have been unsettled by the prospect of Brexit and are considering whether to relocate. Chancellor Philip Hammond, in recent comments aimed at EU leaders, has made the point that Londons competition is New York  not Frankfurt, Paris or Dublin.

There is a belief in some capitals that being hard on the City will encourage businesses to relocate to mainland Europe. Hammonds argument is that they are just as likely to choose New York, and it follows that the attractiveness of the US will be increased further if there is a perception that the regulatory burden will be eased.

Nor should it be lost on the City that when Henderson  one of our biggest fund management groups (and one of the most blue-blooded, having originally been seeded by Cazenove)  completes its merger with Janus, a major American fund manager, the share listing will move to the US. There are many reasons for this, not least that the UK shareholder base is quite small, but it is also a factor that the regulatory environment is believed by fund managers to be easier on the other side of the Atlantic.

Back in the days of the Financial Services Authority, the regulator was required to consider the competitiveness of the City in framing and enforcing regulation. This was dropped when George Osborne reorganised things  but the British Insurance Brokers Association, among others, has recently been lobbying to have the requirement reinstated. It has a point: Trumps arrival in the White House might yet signal the high-water mark for financial regulation.
P OWER tools giant Ashtead upped the budget for shelling out on new gear as markets bet on an infrastructure spending spree by Donald Trump.

Positive signs in construction, plus encouraging mood music from Washington policymakers, prompted US-focused Ashtead to lift annual spending budget to between 1 billion-1.2 billion from 800 million-1 billion.

Most will be spent buying new equipment like forklifts and diggers at its huge Sunbelt business to rent out to US construction workers.

The company, which makes most revenues in the USA and powers UK events like Glastonbury, has seen shares rise 24% since Trumps win.

It said half-year revenues at constant currency rates were up 13% and pre-tax profits were 9% higher.

Heating firm Wolseley, which makes two thirds of revenues in the US, also hopes Trumps win could make up for subdued markets at home. Chief executive John Martin added its waterworks business could be a potential beneficiary.
B lackRock, the worlds biggest fund manager, today pledged to hold boards feet to the fire when it comes to executive pay in a positive sign for Theresa Mays crackdown on corporate greed.

Amra Balic, head of investment stewardship for BlackRock in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told MPs that the company would take action to ensure better alignment between pay and performance.

The key thing we will be doing is holding boards accountable. We will be voting against [remuneration] committee chairmen if we feel there is a disconnect between pay and performance, she said during a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee hearing.

Balic also called for greater clarity and disclosure of the use of remuneration consultants, who advise firms on pay packages for staff.

The Prime Minister has promised to tackle fat cat pay to create a Britain that works for everyone  not just the privileged few.

The Government is considering ways to make companies justify high levels of executive pay, including publishing pay ratios comparing bosses pay with that of average employees. Data show that FTSE 100 chief executives earn an average of 4.3 million, 140 times that of ordinary workers.

In his testimony to the committee, Rio Tinto chairman Jan du Plessis agreed that there was a disconnect between executive and worker pay and that remuneration schemes were often too complex. However, he questioned whether pay ratios would be effective.

We employ 55,000 workers worldwide [in locations] where pay and conditions are vastly different. Quite honestly Im not sure it will mean anything and it could have unintended consequences on how we adjust our global portfolio, either buying or selling assets where wage ratios are quite low.
L uxury flats developer London Square on Tuesday said it has completed the largest property deal in Southwark since the Brexit vote, snapping up Bermondseys old Branston Pickle factory.

It has paid 50 million for an industrial plot where it plans to build 406 high-end apartments- including 35% of affordable housing, shops, offices and a gallery.

The site was once home to food company Crosse & Blackwell, which produced Branston Pickle there until 1969. It now comprises nine buildings.

London Square worked closely with the former owner to secure planning permission there earlier this year, and the acquisition from Rich Investments, advised by agent Cushman & Wakefield, has just completed.

London Squares Mark Smith said: Bermondsey is now one of the most fashionable districts in London, and we will build on this to redefine this as a new destination in SE1.

The sale is a boost for Londons land regeneration market, deals for large plots having slowed since the Brexit vote.
I magination Technologies has been more nightmare than dream investment, but today the Apple supplier showed signs of returning to its former glory.

The company, which designs the graphics chips for the iPhone, reported strong first-half results, boosting the shares by 26.88p, or 12%, to 246.88p as it nears the end of its restructuring.

Revenues rose 6% to 64.5 million and it returned to the black on an underlying basis after making 27.5 million of cost savings, although it still made a pre-tax loss of 2.6 million.

Analysts said strong licensing revenues from Ensigma, its connected devices arm, were behind the strong performance, which beat expectations.

We believe all three of Imaginations businesses are well positioned to see growing licensing and royalty revenue due to the increasing importance of graphics processing, virtual reality, augmented reality, automated driving and the internet of things, said broker Liberum.

Imagination also announced it has hired tech veteran Peter Hill as chairman, completing a management overhaul which saw Andrew Heath installed as chief executive and Guy Millward as chief financial officer earlier in the year.

Its shares are up more than 80% this year, but it follows years in the doldrums tainted by profit warnings amid the smartphone market slowdown. The recovery puts it in pole position to return to the FTSE 250 index after its ejection last year.

Traders lacked inspiration, causing the FTSE 100 to dip 5.94 points to 6740.89, with a rise from the banks offset by a mining malaise.

Huge falls from the spread-betters after the FCAs review took its toll on the mid-cap index, which lost 60.20 points to 17,401.66. G4S was weaker on threats over about its free cashflow generation.

Exane BNP Paribas cut its forecasts for the security giant yesterday after revealing that finance director Tim Weller told analysts first-half cash inflow was unlikely to carry on.

G4S reacted today by issuing a statement saying it expects to generate substantial free cashflow in 2016, but it did not prevent the shares from dropping 5.2p to 226.5p.

Investors hailed change at van hire firm Northgate, which hired Kevin Bradshaw, ex-boss of car rental firm Avis, as its new chief executive. Shares in the firm, which is focusing on its UK business after a strategic review, accelerated 23.6p to 458.6p.

Among the tiddlers, cakes maker Real Good Food dipped 1.5p to 36p after warning annual profits could fall short of current market estimates because of weaker sterling and higher sugar prices.
T HE Citys spread-betting industry was plunged into turmoil today after the watchdog unleashed an attack on the sector that is likely to put some firms out of business.

In a stinging rebuke to an industry that has long been the focus of concern, the Financial Conduct Authority is planning far stricter rules on the sale of products to retail customers. It wants to increase risk warnings and cut leverage on contracts for difference, complex financial products that have soared in popularity.

In the past six years, the number of firms selling CFDs to ordinary punters has doubled to almost 100. Those firms look after 3.5 billion of money on behalf of 125,000 betters. Some offer leverage of 200:1 to inexperienced clients, said the FCA, an amount of risk many of them do not understand. The FCA proposes this should be cut to 25:1 for anyone with less than 12 months experience and 50:1 as a maximum.

One devastating finding from the FCA is that 82% of clients lose money, at an average of 2200 each a year. Shares in IG plunged 25% to 589p and in CMC Markets 23% to 143p.

That takes 80 million off the fortune of CMC founder Peter Cruddas, who owns 57% of the firm. Cruddas was co-treasurer of the Conservative Party but quit following a cash-for-access scandal. Plus 500  which said the move would have a material effect  lost 33% to 346p. Christopher Woolard, executive director at the FCA, said: An increasing number of retail clients are trading in CFD products without an adequate understanding of the risks involved, and as a result can incur rapid, large and unexpected losses.

We are introducing stricter rules for CFD products to ensure the sector addresses the shortcomings identified, and that firms make sure that retail clients are aware of the high risks involved.

The FCA is also clamping down on binary bets, which are very short-term punts on events. The industry fears this clampdown will simply drive trade offshore to less-regulated firms.

IG said: The company recognises that there are shortcomings... however, the FCAs proposals do not appear to directly apply to firms operating from outside the UK offering CFDs and binaries to clients in the UK on a cross-border services passport from another EU member state.
BUTTE -- Montana Resources officials say they won't have a final tally of snow geese that perished last week in the contaminated Berkeley Pit water until mid-week at the earliest.

Federal officials say once the count is complete, the Environmental Protection Agency will determine if MR was adhering to the bird hazing program appropriately. Fines could be levied if the geese landed due to company negligence, say EPA officials.

The program, based on loud noises to scare birds, was put in place due to the 1995 snow geese die-off when 342 died on the pit. State and federal agencies designed the program.

"Trying to get some idea of mortality has been difficult," said EPA Montana Superfund director Joe Vranka.

The problem is due to the lack of access to the lake. The southeast walls have been unreliable for the last few years. As a result, officials cannot take a boat out on the water. Officials must rely on overhead imagery to get the numbers, said Vranka.

Using both telescope, drone and aircraft, mine officials began counting the dead birds over the weekend. MR officials said Monday they are still counting.

Mark Thompson, the mine's manager of environmental affairs, would only say to expect the count to be bigger than the 1995 incident.

At that time, the 342 snow geese died due to drinking pit water, which is high in sulfuric acid. Necropsies also showed that those birds had high levels of heavy metals in their kidneys. That die-off gained national media attention.

The mining company estimates that as many as 10,000 migrating snow geese landed in the pit water the night of Nov. 28. The usual landing spot for migrating snow geese -- Freezeout Lake west of Great Falls -- was largely frozen when the geese passed over, according to previous reports from the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Warm Springs Ponds, south of Deer Lodge, another popular layover spot for migrating birds, were also mostly frozen, according to a previous story.

Three snow geese were found elsewhere in Butte last week, said Butte-Silver Bow community enrichment director Ed Randall.

An individual reported to animal control on Thursday that there were two dead geese in the Walmart parking lot, Randall said. Another person found a live goose in front of a casino on the 2200 block of Amherst Avenue Wednesday. That goose died Thursday while still in animal control custody, Randall said. All three dead birds were turned over to MR.

MR officials said they collected 20 dead snow geese for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to analyze. They say they are also holding the three dead geese found in town in case federal officials want to perform necropsies on those birds.

Thompson said about 50 live snow geese remain in the pit, swimming on the pit's toxic lake a week after landing.

According to a 2002 report on Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield Companys bird hazing program, the pit is too large for either netting or Styrofoam bird balls to be practical. Currently the contaminated lake is around 700 acres in size.

ARCO and MR are the responsible parties for the Berkeley Pit Superfund site.

The passive hazing program, which noise-based, has been largely successful, according to the report. Between 1996 and 2001, over 22,000 birds were observed at the Berkeley Pit; 75 bird mortalities were reported during those years.

Mine officials say they are checking with federal officials to see if they should expect any additional large bird migrations headed this way.

Vranka said EPA is in contact with officials at Freezeout Lake to watch for more birds. MR is continuing round-the-clock hazing efforts to keep birds out of the pit, said Vranka.
M any commuters will have struggled into work this morning, once again delayed and vexed by RMT strikes affecting Southern rail services, with an overtime ban by drivers union Aslef exacerbating the problems. Some passengers will simply have cut their losses and decided to stay at home. This latest RMT walkout over the introduction of driver-operated doors is set to last for three days.

The Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, is a commuter himself and is rightly angry about militant unions. He tells the Standard today that sorting out the railways is his top priority, which sounds promising; and it is encouraging that he also expresses enthusiasm for Crossrail 2.

His first major initiative, to be outlined in a speech tonight, will be to end Network Rails sole responsibility for track maintenance. By involving the rail companies more in the upkeep of the networks basic infrastructure he hopes passengers will benefit from a more joined-up approach.

In fact, most rail users are uninterested as to which organisation is responsible for which element of their journey. Passengers simply want to get from A to B as quickly, cheaply and reliably as possible. Mr Graylings shuffling of responsibility will have to prove more than mere sleight of hand if he is to win the approval of train travellers. To that end, his outright rejection of Sadiq Khans call for Transport for London to take over responsibility for suburban rail services seems oddly stubborn. His dismissal of the proposal as deckchair shifting not only underplays TfLs relative success in running parts of the Overground network but also puts more pressure on his own plans for improving the network. Commuters are a patient bunch  but they pay a lot of money for substandard services. Mr Grayling will need to come up with real improvements, and soon.

Tecchies and Brexit

Tone matters when it comes to implementing Brexit. And it is a positive note that tech sector leaders are looking for from the Prime Minister, to send a signal to investors that London will still be an hospitable and friendly business environment inside or outside the EU. In an open letter to Mrs May, to coincide with an industry event today, they ask her to recognise the importance of being able to attract the best talent to work here. They also have a practical wishlist, including maintaining the visas of skilled tech workers from abroad while ensuring existing EU migrants are allowed to stay here, as well as research and development tax credits. They want her to secure access to the EUs digital single market. They would also back IAG boss Willie Walsh in his call today for the Government to expedite the provision of relatively cheap, decade-long visas for Chinese visitors.

For Brexit to work, the interests of critical elements of the economy  notably the science and tech sectors  must be explicitly protected. London must show it is open for the brightest global talent if we are to make the most of the opportunities Brexit offers.

Fashions big night out

The Fashion Awards at the Royal Albert Hall last night were a fabulous opportunity for designers, models and celebrities to compete sartorially in the industrys annual festival. It was a wonderful spectacle from a wonderful cast  from Lady Gaga to Salma Hayek. Fashion adds to the gaiety of the nation; just as importantly, it is also a highly lucrative part of the British economy. It deserves to be celebrated.
L ooking through the guest list for the Evening Standard Film Awards on Thursday I stop approvingly at the name of a director. Man of the moment, fascinating to meet. And yet invisible to the photographers outside. Women may feel professionally overlooked but they are photographically worth about 10 to one of their male stars. I was chatting to an extremely successful male model recently, who told me that equal pay would be a fine thing. He had always earned a fraction of his female counterparts.

Unless you are colossally famous, handsome or dress like Grayson Perry it is very hard for a man to stand out in the crowd. The untrained eye sees only a group of men who look a bit like Supreme Court judges. The birds on Planet Earth may favour males for display but modern westerners do it the other way.

The last hope for male visual dominance is the dress code. Black- or white- tie is a chance for men to dress up. But it is a cruel hoax that they have to dress exactly the same. Can you imagine women all being asked to appear in the same dress, regardless of shape, age or colouring? Unless they are at school or an air hostess, women are broadly free to wear what they like.

Fashionable events now are unwilling to use the stuffy term dress code. Instead they say party. This suggests individuality and glamour, which are both important for photographers. We have the added bonus this year that glitter and sequins are in vogue. Londons festive scene has been given a Dame Shirley Bassey-style makeover and looks all the better for it.

Last night, outside the Fashion Awards at the Royal Albert Hall, everything stopped for Gigi Hadid. As she has said philosophically: You have to go out and put on a smile. Hers is worth 26 million followers on Instagram.

Fashion Awards 2016 - The red carpet 1 /66 Fashion Awards 2016 - The red carpet Fashion Awards 2016 Adwoa Aboah Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Gigi Hadid wearing Versace Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Lady Gaga and designer Brandon Maxwell Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Lily Donaldson wearing Burberry Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Gigi Hadid wearing Versace Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Karlie Kloss wearing Stella McCartney Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Abbey Clancy wearing Carvela 'Georgia' heels Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Pixie Lott Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Johnny Coca Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Joan Smalls wearing the Corne de Gazelle choker by Anissa Kermiche Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Alexa Chung Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Jaden Smith wearing Gucci Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Kate Moss Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Naomi Campbell Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Clare Waight Keller Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Olivia Palermo Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Neelam Gill wearing a Helmer bag Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Winnie Harlow Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 David Gandy Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Jourdan Dunn wearing Brandon Maxwell Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Jenna Coleman wearing Erdem AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Claudia Winkleman Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Natalie Massenet Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Daisy Lowe Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Jack Whitehall Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Selma Hayek Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Alessandro Michele and Jared Leto Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Lady Gaga Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Erin O'Connor Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Pixie Geldof Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Eva Herzigova Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Twiggy Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Julien Macdonald and Nicole Scherzinger wearing Julien Macdonald Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Bebe Rexha Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Lara Stone Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Marilyn Manson Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Imagess Fashion Awards 2016 Donatella Versace Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Immy Waterhouse Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Livia Giuggioli Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Christopher Bailey Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Peter Dundas and Evangelo Bousis Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 David Koma and Maria Hatzistefanis Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Zara Martin Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Alice Temperley Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Mollie King Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Laura Bailey Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Fashion Awards 2016 Amber Le Bon Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Laura Haddock Matt Crossick/PA Fashion Awards 2016 Laura Whitmore Dave Benett Fashion Awards 2016 Amber Atherton Dave Benett

Being gawped at may be tiresome for beautiful women but it is a kind of public service. If you can turn it into a business, all the better. Women sometimes cringe over their visibility but they should try to enjoy it when they are in control of it.

Look at Theresa May. The best way for her to bury Brexit bad news has been gamely to appear in leather trousers. All else has become quickly forgotten.

It is a sign of the Prime Ministers intellectual confidence that she is prepared to splash out on her clothes. Presumably she buys as she rules, careful research followed by an inflexible decision.

The approved politicians answer is that you picked up a designer item in the sales. Theresa May gave us a name  Amanda Wakeley  and a price tag, the 1,000 leather trousers.

It is only fair that female public figures of means should also fly the flag. It cant just be left to the Duchess of Cambridge to be a showcase.

Fashion is more than a major British industry  let us remember that it is also a pleasure. Last night I sat at Mulberrys table at the Fashion Awards in a flannel pleated Mulberry dress.

Women will understand that birthday feeling of wearing something you love. You dont have to be a Hadid sister for fashion to make you happy.

The Fashion Awards 2016 After Party - In pictures 1 /24 The Fashion Awards 2016 After Party - In pictures Double trouble Lady Gaga and Kate Moss hug for the cameras Dave Benett Award winner Gigi Hadid, winner of the International Model Award, and Donatella Versace Dave Benett Kiss me quick Craig Green, winner of the British Menswear Designer award, gets a kiss from Lady Gaga Dave Benett Catching up Catherine Hayward, Graham Norton and Jeremy Langmead Dave Benett Silver star Gigi Hadid, winner of the International Model award Dave Benett Model looks Clara Paget (right) and guest Dave Benett Fashionable flare Lady Gaga and Jourdan Dunn Dave Benett Family affair Yolanda Hadid and Gigi Hadid Dave Benett Kate Moss and Dame Zandra Rhodes Dave Benett Standing out Jared Leto and Alessandro Michele Dave Benett New Fashion Icon Jaden Smith, winner of the New Fashion Icons award, and Marilyn Manson Dave Benett All smiles Karlie Kloss and Marco Bizzarri, winner of the International Business Leader award for Gucci Dave Benett Strike a pose Lara Stone and Jordan Barrett Dave Benett Big names Ralph Lauren and Ricky Anne Loew-Beer Dave Benett Lady in red Doina Ciobanu Dave Benett Striking Dame Natalie Massenet and Alessandro Michele Dave Benett Dinner guests Evgeny Lebedev and Jenna Coleman Dave Benett Gothic glamour Marilyn Manson and Nikita Andrianova Dave Benett

Parenthood has to be a shared experience

Cherie Blairs preference for the word parent rather than mother or father has drawn sharp responses. I think its a role that is fluid.

Two plays about being a father  King Lear and The Tempest  currently have female leads. Glenda Jackson has taken the part of Lear at the Old Vic while Harriet Walter has played Prospero for the Donmar. Both actresses are believable on the pain of parental love and loss. Of course you can play motherhood and fatherhood more distinctly.

I model myself on the The Magic Flute: the Queen of the Night to the bass-voiced wisdom of her husband, the high priest Sarastro. But really this is style over substance.

Blair was making a deeper point about joint responsibility. Parents cant be let off the hook.

Dinner parties can heal those Brexit wounds

London dinner parties were among the casualties of Brexit (dry your tears, northern heartlands). But I am pleased to report the wounds are healing. At a jolly metropolitan elite dinner the other night, including a representative of The Economist and an irrepressible Tory Brexiteer, the peace held. Both sides conceded that we did not have all the answers.

I am on a constant lookout for Brexit benefits  for instance, the business role model entrepreneur Charles Dunstone reflected on in the Evening Standard yesterday, that the beef for his Five Guys burgers comes from Ireland but the state of the euro is making him think of sourcing it from England instead. (He may re- reconsider after the Italian vote).

Brexit has become like the weather, constantly changing. We have to accommodate it. And if we can stay civil at dinner parties, and forgive rogue members of our families at Christmas, perhaps the Cabinet too can compromise. David Davis seems to be the first to do so. A la carte Brexit looks good to me.

* Boris Johnson has reportedly complained about being the butt of jokes from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. He is therefore accused of being thin-skinned.

One anonymous critic says a man who flies down a zip wire should not be moaning about being teased. This misunderstands the purpose of humour. Boris uses it to put others at ease. Theresa May and Philip Hammond were using it to put Boris down. If the Prime Minister declines to take the Foreign Secretary seriously, why should the rest of the world?

As for getting stuck on the zip wire, what made that episode so funny was that Boris was not playing it for laughs.
No one cracks a dress code like a Londoner. A metropolitan elite of partygoers, we have the confidence required to team our slip dresses with our Stan Smiths and understand that black tie need not mean buttoning up in an actual penguin suit.

However, the matter of what to carry with our perfect party ensembles has long been a stumbling block. Notably because the evening bag at its most traditional is an outmoded concept.

London-based designer Sophie Hulme has a plan to change all that and accordingly is closing 2016 with the launch of a range of party bags which are well on their way to becoming red- carpet regulars. Evening bags can be a bit twee, admits Hulme when we meet in her Islington studio, my take on it is a bit tougher, its about fun.

The name behind the most exciting home-grown bag label in the capital, north London born and bred Hulme offers quality designs with amiable price tags that have won favour among the style brigade.

Accessories designer Sophie Hulme / Tereza Cervenova

Her after-dark vision sees her signature box bag recast in a host of new styles, including glitter-infused Plexiglas and rainbow stripes finished with a substantial chain strap. The collection, which launched last week in Hulmes newly opened shop-in-a-shop in Harrods, continues her mission to create accessories that speak to all sorts of women leading all sorts of lives. The bags fall into the evening wear category because they are not leather, but this isnt about prescribed use, says Hulme, its the real womans take.

With this in mind Im not surprised to hear that the inspiration for the collection was a handbag Hulme designed for her bridesmaids to wear to her wedding. My sister was like: Oh, I love it, Im hands-free when I dance, she says.

Glitter pink Compton evening envelope clutch

It is this sense of fun fused with practicality that has come to define Hulmes brand. Her signature products include an oversized box bag that has become a wish-list item for busy working women across the capital and a series of gold charms - inspired by Hulmes obsession with Victorian chatelaines - which includes everything from gold-plated cocktail stirrers to chip forks.

For Hulme, these thoughtful flourishes are all part of a carefully thought through design philosophy in which each detail, however playful, has a clear-cut function. I love thinking about whats useful and working from there, she says.

To create the perfect bag Hulme and her team create everything out of cardboard before road-testing the style. You have to feel it and try it out. You put the stuff in, you play with it. Its incredibly arrogant to design things that dont work. I take huge pride in seeing people use my bags. Thats why feedback from the team is so important, she says.

It is Hulmes determination to avoid designing for designs sake that has made her label a success story. A womenswear graduate of Kingston University, the designer set out in business with a plan to let the products speak for themselves: This isnt a personality brand. At the heart of what we do there has to be something people really want to buy.

Rainbow Compton evening envelope clutch, 1,095

As a result, craftsmanship is a real focus for Hulme. As is her role, or lack of it, in the wider fashion community. I didnt grow up in a fashion set. I wasnt around other young brands and designers, she says.

While she is recognised among the fashion community, most notably with a fashion award which she won in 2012, Hulme remains relatively separate from its inner web. This has proved her secret weapon. We approach the brand and the product as a design company rather than a fashion company. I never looked at my fashion contemporaries in that manner. For the bags themselves, Hulmes determination to plough her own path means her style is a little unconventional. She learned her craft at the side of Mr Patel - an East End leather worker and an unbelievable guy.

The thing about not having a formal education in handbags is that my bag was unlined with a heavy saddle. The approach to how it was made was really quite unusual. That was a result of thinking of something as an object, rather than we normally do this so lets do this. That allowed me to be much more innovative. I was learning on the job.

It also means she offers the bags at a price she is comfortable with instead of being dictated to by whats going on elsewhere in the market.

We are a disruptor because we are luxury driven at a contemporary price point. We are driven by quality. Theres a sweet spot - you use all the best materials you can but still do it at a great price. Its not about the label. People justify a price because of a name. We couldnt charge the same as those brands. People want the thing - the name secondary. For me thats a massive personal goal. I want people to want what Ive created because they are great things.

Hulmes shop-in-a-shop in Harrods / Gilbert McCarragher

As well as catching the eye of a host of accessories junkies, whose investment in the brand has allowed the company to grow into an office packed with 40 employees, the brand has also found favour in Harrods, which is home to her first store.

Designed by her husband Edward Swift, an architect, the space is something of a career high for Hulme: When you first see your products in somewhere like that it hits you like a bus, she says.

Its also affecting Christmas shoppers who have figured out that Hulmes new evening wear options, some of which have price tags as low as 250, are worth throwing a party for.
Review at a glance









T his is a fascinating exhibition whose small size  there are only about 40 paintings and some are merely a few inches high  is countered by an explosively interesting theme: the construction of national identity through art.

There were three painters in Australia in the 1880s who called themselves Impressionists but were only really partially so. These are the heroes. Plus there was their friend, another hero, also Australian, who really was an Impressionist but made no impact on Australias positive vision of itself until long after he was dead.

The four chaps were Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, John Russell and Charles Conder. Russell was the odd one out. It was his internationalist attitude that makes him right for this exhibition. Although hes a paradox within it, hes a necessary one.

The catalogue reflects on the internationalism at play in art everywhere in the 1880s. It affected Australians who travelled to Europe to study or stayed at home and gratefully received the news from abroad from artist friends. Japanese prints, for example, were a great influence on Whistler in London and Van Gogh in Paris  Whistler was an American born and brought up in Russia and Van Gogh, of course, was Dutch. (Russell actually painted the first known portrait of Van Gogh.)

Roberts and Russell, the two out of the four who actually studied in Europe, had all this swirling in their brains. When they got back to Australia the thrilling task was to apply it to their own scene. There was the national mood of the countrys run-up to federation in 1901 to soak in (when the six self-governing British colonies all unified), and the particular visual personality of Australias urban and rural environment. It was a new country, or about to become one, but it did already have something of an art system. The younger artists wanted to modernise it, and in doing so to position themselves. Their eventual success in both aims is the narrative of the National Gallery show.

Tom Roberts, Winter Morning after Rain, Gardiner's Creek, 1885 / Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

In London, Roberts had been influenced by Whistlers silvery views of the Thames. He brought the news to Conder and Streeton in Australia, showing them his own London pictures, including boats and fog on the Embankment, and the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square.

These little paintings were seen by the Australian public in an exhibition called 9 x 5 Impression, held in Melbourne in 1895, initiated by Roberts and featuring work by all three artists.

The title referred to the dimensions of cigar boxes they used as surfaces to paint their landscapes on. The National Gallery exhibition starts off with many of these small works, complete with the curiously large and clunky wooden frames the artists themselves designed. The show was an immediate success and the word Impression took off. How useful is it?

In Robertss marvellously designed 1885 view of a bridge over a creek, with its elongated forms created from wooden pillars and their reflections in water, and the inventive positioning of the bridges fence, so it becomes a decorative rectangular pattern along the top edge of the painting, Roberts engages in a typical Impressionist subject, and the movements interest in unusual visual angles. But he avoids dissolving the subject into a pulverised world of colour effects. The result is a painting much more like Whistler than Monet  just as the art of Streeton, Conder and Roberts in general tended to back off from the full vision of Impressionism.

The French painter they were interested in wasnt Monet, who everyone now associates quite rightly with an intense colour palette and richly decorated surfaces. It was the now forgotten Jules Bastien-Lepage, who painted scenes of rural life in naturalistic colours and had a style of representation that was partly conventional and partly loose and open. When Russell began to follow Monet stylistically, Streeton, Conder and Roberts laughed at him and thought he was wasting time with technical matters (Streeton dismissed these as mere ways and means).

Russell observed in a letter to Roberts that French Impressionism wasnt really hastily done. Its looseness was a particular approach that was necessary to open up colour. And it had to be worked at: it wasnt the result of hurrying to catch a fleeting light effect in nature.

Russells own paintings, in all their apparent frenzy, also took a long time. One here  from 1887, picturing the wife of the Impressionist Alfred Sisley on the banks of a river in France  is a marvel of mosaic-like paint application and rhythmic structures. The picture seems to be composing itself almost as youre looking at it.

His fishing boat scene from 1905, in a South of France harbour, looks at first to be all thick squiggles of free brushstrokes. But he is able to co-ordinate every bit of individual turbulence. Greens and blues riding on reddish browns and modulated by thick white dont end up at all as chaos but as an entirely believable scene.

The catalogue, when it looks at European influences on art beyond Europe, can sometimes appear to want to see everything as Impressionism, including Expressionism and Symbolism. Nevertheless, the thought does strike home that just as official France eventually embraced Impressionist style as a sort of marker of national identity, so eventually, from the mid-1880s onwards, did Australia.

It wasnt about picnics on the Seine, drinking scenes in the bars and clubs of Paris, or beauty spots on the French coast. Instead, it was a blown-up quarry worker in Lapstone, west of Sydney; a firemans funeral outside Sydney Town Hall; a jackaroo on a horse in a stark yellow landscape in New South Wales attempting to control a mob of bolting sheep dashing towards a waterhole; and light after rain on a bridge over a creek in dense bushland on the outskirts of Melbourne.

The fact that soon the style wasnt particularly thought of as Impressionism but as Realism  and in effect was hardly considered a style at all as the artists were believed to be responding directly from the heart to Australias uniquely harsh landscape  is the measure of their success.

Australias Impressionists is at the National Gallery, WC2 from tomorrow until March 26; nationalgallery.org.uk

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H elen Marten says she would not have won the 25,000 Turner Prize if she had stayed in the countryside instead of moving to London.

The Macclesfield-born sculptor won contemporary arts most famous award last night at a ceremony at Tate Britain, fending off competition from shortlisted nominees Michael Dean, Josephine Pryde and Anthea Hamilton.

Marten, 31, who is based in east London, told the Standard she was still excited by the capital years after making the move down south. She said: I love it. Im still exploring it, Im not a native Londoner. I could only at this point live in a city because Im fascinated by the exchange of people, of substance, of objects, and that is really catalysing to me to making work.

I couldnt live in the countryside and be absorbed every day by the colour of grass or the quantities of milk produced by cows.

She said she was deeply honoured to receive the prize, which was presented by author Ben Okri. It puts her in the company of former winners including Grayson Perry. She confirmed she will fulfil her pledge to split the 25,000 between all four nominees.

She said: There should never be a hierarchy presented in the cultural sector which says I privilege this thing over another because thats not what were doing.

The ultimate genesis of all of this work is so self-generated that you could never say that my work is better than Antheas, or Josephines, or Michaels  were all making amazing things. Without sounding cynical, I really hope it wont change my life and that things will continue as they are.

Marten, who studied at Central Saint Martins, uses everyday objects including cotton buds and bicycle chains to create her sculptures. She was praised by the Turner judges for the complexity of the work and its disparate materials and techniques and also how it relates to the world.

Her competition included Hamiltons sculpture of a pair of giant buttocks and Deans installation of 20,436 in pennies  the minimum the Government states a family of four can live on.

Marten, who last month picked up the 30,000 Hepworth Prize for Sculpture  which she also pledged to share  said the reaction to her work from the public had been very humbling.

After an acceptance speech last night in which she expressed fears over global political uncertainty, she said: Everyone in this room is operating in this world that is so f***ing privileged. Were afforded so much optimism and education and time to do these things, and this is not the global consensus. To be shocked by the world at large is exactly the wrong attitude.

Read more of our coverage on this year's Turner Prize.

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Y ouve dutifully taken the children to their school Christmas fair and spent a fortune trying to win that vintage champagne on the bottle stall. Their Christmas lists have been rewritten 10 times and posted to the North Pole. The trees been decorated with foil bells and those prized pre-school paper chains. And theres still 19 sleeps before the Big Day. So what are you going to do to keep them occupied from now until the new year?

Meet the Big Man

Despite having a rather packed schedule towards the end of this month, if you hurry you can still manage to grab a one-to-one with Father Christmas in the capital.

Check out Santas Grotto in Leicester Square for a 25-minute group audience with session with the main man (10) or for a traditional twist head to the Victorian Santas Grotto at the Museum of London Docklands (7). Meet Santa and his elves at Duke of York Square in Chelsea and help raise money for the Chelsea Community Hospital School at the same time (suggested donation 5). Make sure you check availability as Mr Claus may well have to check on the elves in the workshop.

Take them for a day out

For an immersive, interactive show for children under the age of eight, The Enchanted Christmas House at the London Art House in Islington is hard to beat. Expect songs, performance, dressing up and decoration making  all to stop the baddies ruining Christmas (from 129 for one adult and one child).

Legoland Windsor Resort is hosting a Christmas Bricktacular with an Elves workshop, an eight-metre high Lego Christmas tree and the chance for little ones to build their own Lego tree decoration. They can even meet Mr Christmas too (from 35).

Winter Wonderland has rides and attractions for kids of all ages. However, if youre planning on taking toddlers, try to avoid the weekends as it can get super crowded. Free entry but some attractions such as the Sooty Christmas Show (20 family ticket) charge.

Or head to the London Transport Museum and solve the Christmas elf trail (admission 17 for adults, children under 18 free).

Just the ticket: Charlie and the Chocolate factory is always a winner

Head to theatreland

If you dont fancy a pantomime there are a whole host of family-friendly shows running. You cant beat a bit of Dahl, and the classic Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is still wowing audiences at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (until 7 January, from 25). Julia Donaldson and Axel Schefflers delightful animated tales are perfect festive fodder. Stickman (where  spoiler alert  the man in red makes a timely appearance) is at Leicester Square Theatre (until 8 January, family ticket 65).

And children under 6 will delight in the Lyrics Raymond Briggs Father Christmas as our hero puts in the final essential preparations for his busiest night of the year (until 24 December, tickets 10).

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The Romans were the first in recorded history to celebrate Christmas, but Charles Dickens was among those who set a template for how we celebrate it today. His novella, A Christmas Carol, is the archetypal festive tale of redemption.

This year, for one night only, Broadways hit musical take on the book comes to the capital. On 19 December, the Lyceum Theatre will boast three-time Olivier Award winner Robert Lindsay as Scrooge, sharing the stage with West End star Carrie Hope Fletcher and author/YouTube celeb Giovanna Fletcher.

Besides the play, Dickens will also be celebrated at  surprise, surprise  the Charles Dickens Museum on Doughty Street. The place has been decorated from top to toe with traditional Christmas decorations, holly and ivy galore, and is hosting candlelit evenings on 14 and 21 December. Then, on Christmas Eve, it is hosting a night of theatre, giving out mince pies and drinks free with a ticket.

Way before Scrooge there were Frost Fairs, where Londoners would make the most of the frozen Thames. Paying tribute to the original, 200-year-old celebrations, the Thames Frost Fair Party on 15 December is a three-and-a-half hour cruise on the river, complete with plenty of cocktails, unlimited wine, beer and bowl food, plus live music. The best part? The upper deck of the boat has been transformed into an ice rink.

If skating on dry, safe, non-moving land appeals a tad more, then be sure to head to one of the major Christmas ice rinks in the capital. Our picks would be Somerset House, which boasts food from Fortnum & Mason, and the iconic rink at the Natural History Museum, which has a carousel, a Christmas tree glistening with 1,000 Swarovski crystals and, best of all, wheelchair-friendly skate sessions.

Winter markets have sprung up across the capital this year, but the Southbank is hard to top for location: behind the glistening stalls and steaming vats of mulled wine the city lights twinkle. The Southbank Centres Winter Festival, which boasts everything from circus fare to the Million Dollar Quartet, is worth swinging by too.

Trafalgar Square is a must stop-off right through December, where carols take place daily. Afterwards, hop on the Tube to the Bussey Buildings to snuggle up with your favourite festive flicks at the Winter Film Club.

Christmas Lights in London 2016 1 /33 Christmas Lights in London 2016 Trafalgar Square The Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree lighting ceremony Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Oxford Street Oxford Street: Christmas lights in central London Jonathan Brady/PA Oxford Street A general view of the Christmas lights and displays on Oxford Street in the lead up to Christmas Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Oxford Street Back again: the now-familiar Oxford Street Christmas baubles Jeremy Selwyn Oxford Street A general view of the Christmas lights and displays on Oxford Street Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Oxford Street Christmas lights are reflected in a window on Oxford Street in the lead up to Christmas Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Regent Street Christmas festive lights on Regent Street in London Regent Street Red London busses pass beneath the Christmas festive lights on Regent Street in London Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Carnaby Street Large neon joy and love signs form part of the Carnaby Street Christmas lights as they are switched on at Carnaby Street Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Carnaby Street Crowds gather for the Carnaby Christmas lights switch-on celebrating the heritage of Carnaby's fashion and cultural revolutions since the late 1960s David Parry/PA Oxford Street A general view of the Christmas lights and displays at St Christopher's Place, Oxford Street in the lead up to Christmas Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Kew Gardens The Palm House is illuminated at Kew Gardens Jack Taylor/Getty Images Kew Gardens The Hive Instillation is illuminated during a preview for Christmas at Kew Gardens, London Andrew Matthews/PA Kew Gardens The Hive Instillation is illuminated during a preview for Christmas at Kew Gardens, London Andrew Matthews/PA Kew Gardens A representative poses for photographs beside the "Five Golden Rings" part of the "Fire Garden" at the launch of "Christmas at Kew" at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London Matt Dunham/AP Kew Gardens A general view of the illuminated Palm House during a preview for Christmas at Kew Gardens, London PA Kew Gardens A woman poses in a tunnel of LED lights at Kew Gardens Jack Taylor/Getty Images Covent Garden A general view of the Covent Garden Christmas lights following the switch on by The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera Chorus at Covent Garden Piazza Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Covent Garden A general view of the Covent Garden Christmas lights following the switch on by The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera Chorus at Covent Garden Piazza Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Covent Garden A general view of the Covent Garden Christmas lights following the switch on by The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera Chorus at Covent Garden Piazza Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Marylebone High Street A general view of atmosphere as Jennifer Saunders switches on Marylebone High Street Christmas lights Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images Marylebone High Street A general view of atmosphere as Jennifer Saunders switches on Marylebone High Street Christmas lights Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images Winter Wonderland Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park Fanatic Creative Winter Wonderland Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park Fanatic Creative Winter Wonderland Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park Fanatic Creative

Those who take an early morning Christmas walk should head to Hyde Park for 9am sharp to watch the traditional Peter Pan Cup, which sees hardcore swimmers battle it out over a 100-yard splash in the unheated Serpentine.

Read our guide to all the Christmas lights in London, find out all about the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square and be sure to read our advice for surviving the Christmas shop.

If you're looking for the finest festival feasts, be sure to read our guide to the best Christmas dinner menus across the city.

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P arty-goers rejoice: you may not have to shell out for a pricey Uber home on your next night out.

From now until Christmas eve, Capstar chauffeurs will be offering lucky Twitter users rides across town for absolutely nothing.

As part of a publicity tie-in with Jaguar, two cars will be roaming around London monitoring Twitter for anyone tweeting using the #MerryXEmas or #MerryXJmas hashtag. Those who do could get a free ride if either Jaguar or Capstar get in touch over social media.

The service will be running every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from now until Christmas Eve, from seven in the evening until 2am.

Though the cars will pick up passengers from anywhere, theyll primarily be based on Hertford Street, so those in Mayfair may stand the best chance of a nabbing a free chauffeured ride. A similar scheme is running in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Capstar chauffeurs are known for only employing ex-military personnel.

For more classic Christmas fun, read our guide to traditional celebrations across the capital.

Christmas Lights in London 2016 1 /33 Christmas Lights in London 2016 Trafalgar Square The Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree lighting ceremony Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Oxford Street Oxford Street: Christmas lights in central London Jonathan Brady/PA Oxford Street A general view of the Christmas lights and displays on Oxford Street in the lead up to Christmas Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Oxford Street Back again: the now-familiar Oxford Street Christmas baubles Jeremy Selwyn Oxford Street A general view of the Christmas lights and displays on Oxford Street Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Oxford Street Christmas lights are reflected in a window on Oxford Street in the lead up to Christmas Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Regent Street Christmas festive lights on Regent Street in London Regent Street Red London busses pass beneath the Christmas festive lights on Regent Street in London Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Carnaby Street Large neon joy and love signs form part of the Carnaby Street Christmas lights as they are switched on at Carnaby Street Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Carnaby Street Crowds gather for the Carnaby Christmas lights switch-on celebrating the heritage of Carnaby's fashion and cultural revolutions since the late 1960s David Parry/PA Oxford Street A general view of the Christmas lights and displays at St Christopher's Place, Oxford Street in the lead up to Christmas Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Kew Gardens The Palm House is illuminated at Kew Gardens Jack Taylor/Getty Images Kew Gardens The Hive Instillation is illuminated during a preview for Christmas at Kew Gardens, London Andrew Matthews/PA Kew Gardens The Hive Instillation is illuminated during a preview for Christmas at Kew Gardens, London Andrew Matthews/PA Kew Gardens A representative poses for photographs beside the "Five Golden Rings" part of the "Fire Garden" at the launch of "Christmas at Kew" at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London Matt Dunham/AP Kew Gardens A general view of the illuminated Palm House during a preview for Christmas at Kew Gardens, London PA Kew Gardens A woman poses in a tunnel of LED lights at Kew Gardens Jack Taylor/Getty Images Covent Garden A general view of the Covent Garden Christmas lights following the switch on by The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera Chorus at Covent Garden Piazza Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Covent Garden A general view of the Covent Garden Christmas lights following the switch on by The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera Chorus at Covent Garden Piazza Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Covent Garden A general view of the Covent Garden Christmas lights following the switch on by The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera Chorus at Covent Garden Piazza Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Marylebone High Street A general view of atmosphere as Jennifer Saunders switches on Marylebone High Street Christmas lights Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images Marylebone High Street A general view of atmosphere as Jennifer Saunders switches on Marylebone High Street Christmas lights Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images Winter Wonderland Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park Fanatic Creative Winter Wonderland Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park Fanatic Creative Winter Wonderland Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park Fanatic Creative

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T he idea of getting married for a limited time only might not sound terribly romantic, but according to relationship experts, putting a break clause in your marriage could help to prevent messy divorces.

Instead of saying 'till death do us part', couples are being advised to shun the traditional lifelong commitment of marriage and instead enter a more realistic ten-year contract.

The idea is that partners in wedlock will then renegotiate the terms of their marriage at the nine-year mark, discussing whether the union is still beneficial for both parties and whether they want to re-sign for another 10-year stint or amicably part ways.

Dr Nikki Goldstein, a relationship expert, told Daily Mail Australia that she often sees people "clinging on to marriages" because its "easier", and that "the idea of being on your own or divorced is scary."

She now thinks that people should consider 10-year contracts as a way of designing a more flexible commitment that has a clean get-out clause for both parties - or an excuse to renew your vows and formally celebrate the decade milestone.

"If there was more social acceptance from society and we did have more encouragement to create our own rules and marriages, maybe we'd see a decrease in the amount of divorces," she says.

The rate of divorce in the UK currently sits at 1 in 3 marriages, while official figures suggest that divorce rates peak around a decade after the average couple ties the knot - between the ages of 40 to 44 years-old.

Alternative wedding cakes 1 /12 Alternative wedding cakes Sarah Lejon The cheese cake Paul O'Hara Photography M&J Photography The naked cake Jo Hastings Photography Another idea for a cheese cake Godminster The cookie tower Devlin Photos The macaroon tower Colin Murdoch Studio The doughnut tower Claudia Rose Carter The pudding cake - try layers of rice krispie cake

One couple who recently tried out the idea of modernising their ceremony is Casey Beros and her husband. She told the Daily Mail Australia that she refused the traditional wedding vows because it took the pressure off their big day and "honoured" their right to "make our own rules."

In terms of their vows, Mrs Beros said they chose to take out 'till death do us part' as there are no other contracts in their lives that are forever.

"My intention was to focus on making the relationship good now, rather than promising forever, crossing our fingers and throwing caution to the wind," she told the paper.

"We're still promising to each other, we're not saying forever, but the sentiment is exactly the same."

Blogger Emma Johnson of WealthySingleMommy.com recently gained attention after writing that "marriage is dead" and that "the forever and ever model is a joke."

She thinks a 10-year marriage contract could be the smart answer to couples who crave the idea of marriage but are wary of the realities of divorce.

"A 10-year marriage contract embraces the human drive to formally couple," she wrote. "It offers the legal and emotional protection that marriage affords us, but also embraces the very realities of how we live our lives today."

According to Ms. Johnson, "The institution of marriage is in crisis."

"Lets demand a new model and save it," she said.

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I celand has it all - the Northern lights, waterfalls and lots of snow. It also has Instagram opportunities aplenty.

From the Snfellsnes peninsula's sprawling black beaches to the the country's many waterfalls, there's a corner of Iceland for every traveller. It's perfect for a roadtrip or a weekend break to its capital city, Reykjavik.

Heres our pick of the most beautiful Icelandic Instagrams that will make you want to stock up on thermal wear and head to the glaciers in 2017.

1. Strike a pose in Langjokull  the largest man made ice cavern in the world. Theres even a newly-built chapel where you can get married if you're feeling romantic.

2. Visit the picture-perfect fishing village, Siglufjorur on the northern coast of the country. There aren't any herring left in its waters but you can still hike the surrounding mountains and take a midnight boatrip across the Arctic Circle.

3. Among the lava fields of western Iceland lies the hamlet of Budir with its famous 18th century black church. Its another potential wedding venue  or you can just admire its white beaches.

4. Watch your step as you soak in the scenery at Gullfoss waterfall in southwest Iceland.

5. In Icelands southernmost village, Vik, you can walk along its black sand beach and visit its church, which stands proudly against an awesome mountain backdrop.

6. Yes, there are tourists at the Blue Lagoon but for good reason: bright blue hot springs and massages await.

7. If youre feeling ambitious, a trip to the top of Skogafoss waterfall in the south of Iceland. If stairs arent your thing, there are just as beautiful views from the bottom.

8. Climb to the top of Reyjkavik's Hallgrimskirkja - 73m tall - which makes it one of the tallest buildings in Iceland.

9. Watch icebergs crash (from the safety of a boat) at the Jokulsarlon Lagoon.

10. The adventurous can heliboard in north Iceland, with a view of the North Atlantic Ocean.

11. The Snfellsnes peninsula offers beach after beach of Icelandic beauty.

12. Stumble upon Lego houses in the middle of the Thingvellir national park.

13. Trek along to the Aldeyjarfoss waterfall which plunges into the Skjalfandafljot River.

14. Stokksnes, on the southeastern coast, combines black sand beaches and rolling mountains.

15.The mythical Goafoss is known as the waterfall of the god. That is obvious enough for anyone who's visited the 30m wide waterfall in the north of Iceland. It's one of the country's most spectacular sights.

16. Soak up every colour of the rainbow at the gasp-inducing Seljalansfoss waterfall.

Reykjavik - in pictures 1 /6 Reykjavik - in pictures Reykjaviks colourful buildings dazzle in the summer Alamy The Whales of Iceland Museum Hallgrimskirkja is a Reykjavik landmark Alamy Dining out at Matur og Drykkur Karl Petersson A hot dog from Bjarins Beztu Pylsur Alamy

icelandair.co.uk

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MISSOULA -- Lily Gladstone was named Best Supporting Actress on Sunday by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance in "Certain Women."

The film "Moonlight" was the big winner, taking home best picture and three other awards.

Gladstone told the Missoulian on Sunday evening that she was "thrilled and blown away given the caliber of performance I see I was considered alongside."

"It's a tremendous honor," she said. "On top of the good news out at Standing Rock today  keep eyes out there, too."

"Certain Women" and the performance by Gladstone, a Missoula resident and Montana native, have earned positive and often glowing reviews since its premiere at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

The film by director Kelly Reichardt focuses on the lives of women in contemporary Montana. Gladstone appears in the final third of the film as a lonely ranch hand who's pulled into the orbit of a lawyer, played by Kristen Stewart, who comes to town to teach a night class.

Reichardt adapted the screenplay for "Certain Women" from short stories in Helena native Maile Meloy's collection, "Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It." The film, which also features Kalispell-born actress Michelle Williams and Laura Dern, was shot in the Livingston area.

Gladstone's role is one she might not have landed at all if Reichardt hadn't changed the script. In Meloy's story "Travis, B." the ranch-hand character is a male named Chet. In switching the role's gender, Reichardt rendered ambiguous and somewhat mysterious the character's attraction to Stewart. After a recommendation from a casting agent, Gladstone won the part.

Gladstone grew up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and lists her tribal affiliations as Kainai, Amskapi Piikani and Nimi'ipuu First Nations. Her family moved to Seattle when she was 11, and she returned to her home state to study at the University of Montana. She's since remained active in the film and theater communities.

Her other film credits include projects that were shot in Montana and gained notice out of state. She starred in "Winter in the Blood," Alex and Andrew Smith's adaptation of James Welch's novel. The Smiths also are Montana natives and friends of the Welch family. She had a part in "Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian," a Benicio del Toro film, and "Buster's Mal Heart," which stars "Mr. Robot" lead actor Rami Malek.

Gladstone's performance earlier won a nomination for the breakthrough actor award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, which were announced last month. She has also been nominated for a 2017 Independent Spirit Award for best supporting female.

The Los Angeles Film Critics named Michelle Williams the runner-up Sunday in the best supporting actress category for her performance in "Manchester by the Sea."

Gladstone said Williams' performance "stopped my heart for a few moments." The two appeared together in "Certain Women."
P olice spent seven hours in a stand-off with a man who was allegedly holding a woman and two teenage girls hostage at a property in north London.

The siege on a street in Cricklewood began shortly before midnight on Monday and ended at around 7am today when police stormed the property, officers said.

The police had originally attended the address to make arrest enquiries but said they spotted a man with a gun through a window.

Armed backup attended but the man refused to put down his weapon, barricading himself and a woman and two 14-year-old girls in the house, according to police.

A seven hour siege ensued as a specialist negotiator tried to talk the man into cooperating.

The residential street was cordoned off and all local roads were closed.

At around 6.50 on Tuesday morning armed officers stormed the property and ended the siege.

The woman, believed to be in her forties, and the two teenage girls were unharmed.

Local roads have now reopened.

Borough Commander for Brent Chief Superintendent Mick Gallagher said: "Officers acted professionally in what was a difficult situation that thankfully ended in a safe resolution with no one harmed.

"Police would like thank the local community for their co-operation throughout the operation."

A 31-year-old man was arrested for recall to prison and on suspicion of rape, threats to kill and possession of a firearm. He remains in custody at a north London police station.
A man suspected of preparing to carry out a terror attack has been arrested at Heathrow airport.

Counter terrorism officers detained the 22-year-old when he returned to the UK from an undisclosed location on December 2.

He was held on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, contrary to section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006, before being bailed to a date in February.

The South East Counter Terrorism Unit said there was no "imminent threat" to airport passengers or the community at the time he was detained.

They confirmed his arrest related to conflicts overseas.
A mother-of-three who robbed a 72-year-old pensioner as she withdrew money from a cash machine has been jailed for 18 months.

Emma White, 26, was so high on drugs she can barely remember mugging Rita ODriscoll as she withdrew 300 for a friend at a cashpoint in Brixton.

The pensioner was so shocked by the robbery she struggled to tell police what had happened to her, Inner London crown court heard.

Judge Tudor Owen jailed White on Monday for 18 months, and told her if she did not kick her drug addiction she may spend the rest of her life going in and out of prison.

This is a mean offence you have committed, he said. This was disgraceful behaviour. The impact of being a victim of robbery is bad for everyone, but it increases with age.

The court heard Mrs ODriscoll had gone for a morning coffee with her friend in the centre of Brixton on November 4, and offered to withdraw the cash from Barclays Bank because her friend had mobility problems.

Prosecutor Peter Lancaster said White was walking past and spotted the vulnerable woman waiting for the money to come out.

She pushed the elderly lady away and takes the money, he said.

There was a short tussle before the defendant ran off.

Joshua Normanton, defending, told the court White, who has 94 previous convictions including many for prostitution, has three children, but they live away from her because of her ongoing drug problems.

He asked for a drug treatment sentence, but Judge Owen said the crime was too serious to let her go immediately.

Im told you have problems of your own but you have made your problems other peoples problems, the judge added.

White, of no fixed address, was also ordered to pay 300 compensation to the elderly victim.
A far-right extremist accused of an anti-Semitic hate campaign against Luciana Berger MP is tragic and pathetically wrong-headed but was only exercising his right to free speech, the Old Bailey has heard.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 23, allegedly dubbed the Liverpool Waverlee MP a "filthy Jew b****", blamed her for the death of Jesus, and called her a money-grabber and evil in a string of online articles.

He is standing trial accused of harassment for posting the articles on his extreme right wing website The Daily Bale, in response to an extremist troll being jailed for harassing Mr Berger.

James Palfrey, defending Bonehill-Paine, today conceded many people may dislike the articles, but said they are a legitimate contribution to the political discourse.

These five articles, truth be told, which form the basis of this indictment  they are pathetic, puerile rubbish, he told the jury.

Political discourse is not sensitive to emotions, its highly offensive sometimes but in essence the provisions of freedom of speech are there exactly to entitle people to offend.

If everyone is saying things you agree with, we wouldnt need to be able to tolerate things that are insensitive.

You might feel no matter how pathetically wrongheaded the defendant is, his comments in these articles form the basis of his political expression.

They are his contribution  meaningless it may be  to political discourse, and we live in a society where everyone is entitled to a voice.

Mr Palfrey mentioned former Prime Minister David Cameron describing swarms of immigrants, columnist Katie Hopkins referring to asylum seekers as cockroaches, Donald Trumps attack on Mexicans, and Tony Blairs depiction by his critics as the incarnation of the Devil as examples of stinging political attacks in recent times.

Judges who decided on Brexit are enemies of the people and out of touch judges who declared war on democracy, said Mr Palfrey.

Criticism of people in public office is dealt with in robust, offensive ways.

Bonehill-Paine is accused of targeting Mr Berger by photoshopping her face on to a rat to accompany one of the articles, and mocking up a picture of her being spanked by Ed Miliband.

He started the alleged campaign in October 2014 after fellow right winger Garron Helm was jailed for four weeks for a Twitter attack on Ms Berger.

Jurors have also been shown a video message by Bonehill-Paine, complaining about Jewification, which Mr Palfrey admitted was indefensible and could amount to inciting hatred.

But he pointed out the video does not form part of the charge against Bonehill-Paine which is limited to five online articles.

If you are looking for an example of something likely to incite hatred, that (the video) is it, he said.

It contrasts with the piffle and nonsense contained in these five articles.

When Bonehill-Paine was arrested at his home in Yeovil and questioned over the alleged harassment of Ms Berger, he told detectives: "I am really pleased.

This gives me an opportunity to be found not guilty, hopefully at a full crown court trial with the media that will bring."

However, jurors heard today that Bonehill-Paine will not be giving evidence during his trial.

He denies racially aggravated harassment and the trial continues.
T he 26-year-old British woman who was stabbed to death while working at a Christmas attraction in Lapland has been named as Rebecca Johnson from Fife in Scotland.

The young tour guide was found dead on Saturday in the Finnish village of Kuttanen.

Finnish police said her 36-year-old Czech boyfriend has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Ms Johnsons family confirmed her death to local newspaper The Courrier describing her as a beautiful girl.

Finnish police at the scene of the stabbing in Lapland / Lapland Police Department

Ms Johnsons great-aunt Val Laing told the paper: For her parents and grandparents to lose her just before Christmas is devastating.

Ill be there for them, but I dont know how they are going to cope.
P olice have launched a renewed hunt for a man seen on CCTV who they believe launched a series of "vicious" attacks on women in south-east London.

The three alleged assaults took place within a four mile rile radius between Peckham and Deptford in December and January last year.

A man pounced on all three women from behind before physically assaulting them as they walked home in the early hours of the morning.

In each attack, the victims sustained serious injuries to their heads. Police said the level of violence escalated with each assault.

The man can be seen creeping up on his victim from behind / Met Police

Detectives said they could not rule out a sexual motive as two of the victims had clothing removed.

The first attack took place on December 4 last year in Commercial Way in Peckham between 1 and 2am. The 31-year-old victim suffered head injuries.

CCTV- One year on, violent attacker of lone women in south London still sought

A second woman, 30, was found unconscious in Hanover Park shortly before 7am on December 13.

Police think the alleged attacker then struck again on New Years Day this year in Creekside/Deptford Church Street leaving an 18-year-old to fight for her life after suffering serious injuries to her face and head.

The police said they were still offering a reward of up to 20,000 for information leading to the arrest of and prosecution of the person responsible for the attacks.

The man refuses to le go of the woman / Met Police

Appeals aired on BBCs Crimewatch in March.

Detective Chief Inspector Zena Marshall, who is leading the investigation the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command said:"These vicious unprovoked attacks left the victims very shaken.

Even though it's been a year, the victims still vividly remember the attacks and they are still very distressed.

The man the proceeds to attack the woman / Met Police

"We have released CCTV of the Hanover Park attack on Sunday, 13 December 2015. Anyone watching it cannot fail to be shocked by its brutality, and therefore understand the need to catch the person responsible.

"I would urge anyone with any information on who the attacker may be, or anyone with any information about the attacks, to come forward and help our investigation."

Any witnesses or anyone with any information about the attacks can call the investigation team on 020 8217 6541 or via 101
A teenager who stabbed a schoolboy to death at a girls 16th birthday party after the victim stepped into an argument as a peacemaker has been jailed for 13 years.

Walker Sesay, 19, knifed 17-year-old Che Labastide-Wellington in the chest in the clash outside the house party in Kenton last November.

Che had gone outside as a peacemaker when gatecrashers were denied entry to the party, which had been advertised on Instagram.

But he and a friend were set upon by a small army of young men who had been summoned when trouble started to brew.

Victim: Che Labastide-Wellington was stabbed to death at a birthday party

Sesay was cleared by a jury of murder but convicted of manslaughter, and was sentenced today at the Old Bailey to 13 years in prison.

Judge Stephen Kramer QC, sentencing, heard Sesay had gone on a knife-awareness course while in prison, and was described as coming from a "good family" and as an "intelligent young man who had aspirations to go to university".

But the judge said the stabbing has deprived a family of a "much loved" son, grandson and brother.

It also emerged during the trial that Che's mother, Carlene Wellington, had given birth to another son less than 24 hours before the stabbing.

Che was due to visit his mother and new brother the following day, but had been stabbed to death before he could make the trip.

Calvin Tudor, 22, Marlon Tudor, 23 and Rimmel Williams, 18, were also part of the mob who arrived at the party, and were found guilty of chasing and attacking Ches 16-year-old friend.

'Aspirations': Che Wellington was stabbed to death in Kenton / Facebook

He tried to get away from the group but was cornered in a nearby house and stabbed repeatedly in the arms and legs.

The attack was sustained, although it did not take long, and he was lucky not to be more serious injured or killed, said the judge, as he jailed the Tudor brothers and Williams for nine years each.

Omar Afrah, 22, and Ola Onafowokan, 23, who were both convicted of conspiracy to commit violent disorder were jailed for two years each.

The court heard the teenage girls mother had allowed the party to celebrate her 16th birthday on strict conditions that cigarettes, drugs and alcohol were banned, and invited guests were searched on entry.

However, trouble flared up regardless when the party was advertised on social media and gatecrashers turned up but were denied entry.

Che, who had been invited, went outside to speak to those who could not get in, unaware that another group  containing the Tudor brothers, Sesay, Williams, Afrah, and Onafowokan - had been summoned by one of the partygoers from Wembley as back-up.

When the group of around 17 young men arrived, they surrounded Che and his friend. Che made a bid to escape but was stabbed by Sesay in the ensuing melee.

Paramedics performed open-heart surgery on the college student from Kensal Green as he lay on the pavement, but he died at the scene less than an hour after being stabbed.

Sesay, of Rawlings Crescent, Wembley, Calvin Tudor, of Kelly Close, Neasden, Williams, of Churchill Road, Willesden Green, Marlon Tudor, of no fixed address, Afrah, of Walton Avenue, Wembley, and Onafowokan, of Page Avenue on the Chalk Hill Estate in Wembley, were all cleared of murder.

Only Sesay was found guilty of manslaughter, while Calvin Tudor, Marlon Tudor and Williams were convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Afrah and Onafowokan were found guilty of conspiracy to commit violent disorder.

Sesay were acquitted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, the 15-year-old, Afrah, Onafowokan and Mansatray were cleared of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.
T his is the terrifying moment two groups of thugs armed with guns, machetes and knives clash in a mass brawl in north London.

The shocking CCTV images capture the men brandishing knives at each other in an angry confrontation in Edmonton.

Later, two people - Hayder Bozkina and Bartek Glowacki - are seen waving a knife as a stream of weapon-wielding youths rush towards them, some with their faces covered.

As the two shelter inside a car, a group of nine start attacking it, one of them caving in the windscreen with a machete.

Confrontation: The groups were having a dispute over money / Met Police

A thug even takes a flying kick at one of the windows, smashing the glass before collapsing on to the floor.

Seven men have now been sentenced for their part in the violence, which took place in Joyce Avenue last February following a dispute over money.

According to police, 20-year-old Bozkina, of Montague Road, Leytonstone, had arranged to meet another man called Rekan Saver that night to settle their argument.

But, after arriving with Glowacki, aged 21, also of Montague Road, they saw 20-year-old Saver coming towards them with a group of friends.

Bozkina and Glowacki got out of the car and armed themselves with knives before confronting Saver's group, sparking the sickening scenes of violence.

Clash: One thug used a machete to smash the windscreen / Met Police

During the altercation Saver, of Westminster Road, Edmonton, brandished a firearm, pointing it in the direction of Bozkina and Glowacki while another man, Delman Mahmoud, swung at the pair with a machete.

Saver's group then walked away from the scene but as they did so Glowacki threw a knife at them, prompting them to rush back and start a fresh bout of violence

Bozkina and Glowacki tried to flee the scene in their car but it was surrounded by the group who proceeded to smash windows and attempted to attack the pair.

Mahmoud, aged 20, of Commerce Road, Bowes Park, smashed the windscreen with his machete while the rest of the group, including lunged at the car attempting to get to the pair inside.

Bozkina, who was driving the car, crashed it into a pole in his attempt to flee.

The men are among seven who have now been jailed for a string of offences that night, including affray and possession of an offensive weapon.

Detective Constable Rob Jones of the Trident and Area Crime Command who led the investigation said: "CCTV footage shows that all those convicted armed themselves with weapons during this confrontation.

"The level of violence used was excessive and it is only by sheer luck that no person died as a result.

"All males showed a complete disregard for the safety of themselves and anyone else who may have been passing by as they fought.

"Violence of this nature will not be tolerated by police - we will identify, arrest and put before the courts those who choose to take this path."
B ritain's teenagers are continuing to lag behind their peers in other countries when it comes to science, maths and reading, a major international report has found.

The study, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, assesses how students could use their knowledge and skills in real life, rather than just being able to repeat facts and figures.

Although the UK performs above the OECD average in science and reading, it is more mediocre in maths.

It trails Singapore, Japan and small European nations such as Estonia, Finland and Norway, according to the latest triennial Programme for International Student Assessment.

Singapore was in first place across all subjects. The UK came 15th for science, up from 21st, fell to 27th for maths, a drop of one place, and was 22nd in reading, up from 23rd.

The study involved half a million 15-year-olds across the world.

In science, Britains teenagers scored 509 points, down from last years 514, but above the OECD average of 493. It put the country on a par with Germany and the Netherlands, slightly above Switzerland, Ireland and Belgium, but below New Zealand, Slovenia and Australia.

In reading, the UKs teenagers scored 498 points  down from last years 499, but above the OECD average of 493.

The results put the country level with Portugal, slightly above Chinese Taipei and the US, but below France and Belgium.

In maths, the UKs teenagers scored 492 points  down from last years 494, and only just above the OECD average of 490. It put the country on a par with the likes of the Czech Republic and Portugal. Singapore had a score of 564.

Schools standards minister Nick Gibb said: We are determined to give all young people the world-class education they need to fulfil their potential. It is encouraging to see so many young people setting their ambitions high, as we know science is valued by employers and is linked to higher earnings.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: After six years of turmoil in our schools, we have not made the progress we were promised by the Tories.
S cottish hospitals have been accused of promoting obesity by selling high-calorie, unhealthy food in canteens.

Dr Drew Walker, director of public health at NHS Tayside, told MSPs that hospitals are fueling a public health crisis by serving heavily energy dense food.

Holyrood's Health and Sport Committee heard treating obesity is thought to cost the NHS in Scotland between 360 million and 600 million a year in what was branded a "public health crisis".

Giving evidence to the committee, Dr Walker, representing the Scottish Directors of Public Health Network, said: "In far too many hospitals in Scotland, one of the first things you do when you go in the main door is you come across a commercial outlet which is marketing very heavily energy dense food.

"When you go into staff canteens, the food choices are too often high-calorie, low nutritional value foods.

"We should be expecting the NHS to play a full role in not at least promoting obesity in the way that it currently does."

The committee also heard from Professor Linda Bauld, of Cancer Research UK, who called for a ban on junk food advertising targeting children, to drive down preventable cancer deaths caused by obesity.

Further health experts taking part in the committee's roundtable discussion on obesity said good policies were in place to tackle the problem but they were not on a large enough scale and lacked resources.
HELENA  Authorities suspect foul play after finding an East Helena couple dead in their home Monday morning. The cause of their deaths is under investigation.

The bodies of the married couple, a 49-year-old woman and 56-year-old man, were found in two different rooms on Morton Avenue around 8:15 a.m.

"There is no further threat to the community of East Helena," East Helena Police Chief Dale Aschim said.

Lewis and Clark County Coroner Bryan Backeberg said the names of the couple will be released after autopsies are performed on Tuesday. The cause and the manner of their deaths remain undetermined.

Aschim said he received a call after a caregiver who was supposed to be working in the home noticed the front door was locked and became concerned. After some investigation, he found a body in the residence's living room. Another body was located in another room, he said.

Authorities declined to say if any weapons were found in the home.

The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office is investigating the deaths. Sheriff Leo Dutton said detectives were on the scene Monday using mapping equipment.

More details will be released as the investigation progresses, he said.
A father was killed in a suspected hit-and-run crash as he cycled to work in the early hours.

Steve Wightwick, 38, from Buckhurst Hill, north-east London, was found lying in the road suffering critical injuries at about 4.15am on Thursday.

He was taken to the Royal London Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Police believe Mr Wightwick was in collision with a small lorry. Officers found a wing mirror at the scene that is thought to belong to the vehicle.

A crowdfunding page has been set up to raise money for his wife Dalene and their wonderful, bright and artistic son, who has just turned 10.

The page, set up by family friend Sarah Ward-Kaye, has already raised more than 6,500 to cover funeral costs.

One friend said Mr Wightwicks death had caused such shock locally.

Detective Inspector Dave Jones, of Essex Polices Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said: I would like to thank all of the people who contacted us with information following the witness appeal.

"Information is always crucial to our investigations. We believe the vehicle involved in this collision was a small lorry, probably less than seven and-a-half tonnes, and light in colour.

It was travelling towards Buckhurst Hill from Debden.

If there are any transport managers or transport companies who have noticed anything suspicious about one of their vehicles, particularly that it may be missing a wing mirror, please get in touch urgently.

Additionally I would urge any shops in the Loughton, Debden and Buckhurst Hill areas that receive deliveries from a vehicle matching that description to also contact us.

Anyone with information can contact officers at SCIU on 01245 240 590 or email CollisionAppeal@essex.pnn.police.uk

A 36-year-old man from Southend has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and failing to stop after a collision. He was released on bail until March 27.
A fuming Scot filmed a heated row with a McDonalds employee in London after his Scottish 5 note was rejected.

Ian Hardie, 27, attempted to purchase a spicy chicken wrap using the new polymer note at the restaurant in Marble Arch on Sunday.

But the female member of staff refused to accept the note and handed it back to him  saying it is up to the restaurants discretion.

After arguing that its pound sterling, Mr Hardie, growing increasingly frustrated, cried: Its a f***ing 5 note.

The 15-second clip, which has been viewed almost 400,000 since being posted on Facebook, inspired an onslaught of comments from angry Scots.

Rejected: the McDonald's employee refuses the note / Ian Hardie

Alison Miller wrote: This is ridiculous. Scotland is a part of the UK. We do not have our own currency.

In reference to the news that the new bank notes contain traces of animal fat in the form of tallow, Graham Scott joked: Those fivers have more animal in them than any McDonalds burger.

Pauline Ellis added: What you doing down there? Get back up here to the best country ever.

The Bank of England states that Scottish banknotes are not legal tender and that their use is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved.

A McDonalds spokesman told the Standard: As stated in the video, the note in question was passed through one of our machines responsible for checking genuine bank notes and failed on two occasions.

This was the reason it was not accepted and has nothing to do with it being Scottish tender. The vast majority of McDonald's UK restaurants accept Scottish banknotes.
L ondon City Airport cancelled dozens of flights after a blanket of fog descended on the capital.

The airport in east London had cancelled 43 arrivals and departures by 9am on Tuesday leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.

Up to 18 flights were also delayed or diverted as fog shrouded the city causing poor visibility.

An airport spokesman said: Adverse weather is causing delays and cancellations this morning.

Passengers are advised to check with airline directly for flight info.

The Met Office issued a weather warning for fog in the south east from 6pm on Tuesday night until 9am on Tuesday.

Flights were also delayed into Gatwick and Stansted airports where there were reports of visibility below 900ft.

Cloud, mist and foggy conditions were expected to persist across London and the south east throughout the day.
A n American author has found herself at the centre of an online backlash after sharing a friend's remark that London has gone - all Islamic.

Janie Johnson, writer of conservative political philosophy book Dont Take My Lemonade Stand, posted the comment on her Twitter feed along with a link to an article about a report about the integration of Muslims into British society.

Along with the link, she wrote: My friends just returned from London. Shocked. Hadnt been for 20 years. Said London is gone  all Islamic.

A handful of followers supported her comment, but hundreds mocked it and accused her of scaremongering.

One person responded: "London was still here last time I checked."

And another Brent resident joked: "If we get taken over by hipsters that would REALLY worry me. They've not got to Dollis Hill yet."

Others found her comments less comical and furiously accused her of being "racist" and her friends of "lying".

And a lot of Londoners pointed out that they like the city "the way it is".

One critic wrote: "Replies to your xenophobic idiocy on this thread rock.

"Long live British humour, big love to multicultural London!"

Ms Johnson posted the comment in response to Dame Louise Caseys study into integration in the UK.

The year-long study found that division is growing in certain communities and accused public bodies of going too far "to accommodate diversity and freedom of expression".

The report said migrants should have to take an "oath of integration" enshrining British values as soon as they arrive in the UK.
O ne of the EUs top Brexit negotiators today predicted Britains departure deal from the union could be agreed in 2018.

Michel Barnier, the European Commissions chief Brexit negotiator, also struck a tough stance against allowing Britain to cherry pick over its new relationship with the EU.

But he appeared open to a transitional period for Britain as it leaves the union.

Speaking for the first time about the complex talks, he said: The single market and its four freedoms are indivisible.

Cherry-picking is not an option.

Being a member of the EU comes with rights and benefits, he added.

A third country can never have the same rights and benefits since they are not subject to the same obligations, he explained.

He also predicted that the Article 50 negotiations, which Theresa May has said will be triggered by March next year, could be concluded in October 2018, with Britain, the European Parliament and other bodies then having five months to ratify the split.

He added: There would be some point and usefulness of a transitional period if it eased the path towards a future arrangement in this new partnership.

He emphasised that all EU countries were determined to safeguard the unions unity.

We all have a common interest in not prolonging this state of lack of certainty, he added.

We are ready, keep calm and negotiate.

It came as Theresa May was urged by London Conservative MPs to set out her high- level Brexit plans as she faced a possible first defeat in the Commons since becoming Prime Minister.

Senior Tory MP Bob Neill, co-chairman of the cross-party group of London MPs, said his instinct was to back a Labour motion tomorrow but he was ready to listen to Government concessions ahead of the crunch vote.

Labours motion acknowledges some elements of the Governments negotiating position should remain secret but urges the Prime Minister to commit to publishing the Governments plan for leaving the EU before the formal Article 50 Brexit process begins.

Mr Neill, MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, told the Standard: Im very sympathetic to what Labour is saying. The motion does not seem to ask for any detailed plans. But key sectors in London like the financial services sector do need to know at least what the high-level strategy is.

Wimbledon Tory MP Stephen Hammond added: I would hope that the Government would use this opportunity to set out before the Commons its high-level plans. No one is expecting the Government to lay out the detailed strategy or negotiating position. But the Commons needs to have a discussion on the direction of policy.

Anna Soubry MP, an outspoken critic of hard Brexit, has predicted that between 20 to 40 Conservative MPs may revolt if the Government does not agree to give some outline of its plans.

Croydon South Tory MP Chris Philp will vote with the Government but said: It would be helpful for the Government to say more to reassure businesses, particularly in the City, that the Government will be fighting to make sure that they can continue to trade freely across Europe after Brexit.

Ms Soubry called for Mrs May, on a visit to Bahrain today, to outline the UKs Brexit proposals rather than MPs, businesses and the public only learning when ministers let slip more details.

Brexit Secretary David Davis admitted last week that the UK may carry on paying millions to the EU to gain good access to the single market.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson played down this suggestion and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling appeared to side with the ex-Mayor of London.

Mr Grayling said: My sense is that David Davis is just keeping options open. My view is that we need to deliver the best possible deal for the UK that enables us to leave the EU, leave the political institutions, take control of our borders and carry on doing business on a sensible basis and as close as possible to current ways of working.

Chancellor Philip Hammond stressed today that the UK wants to keep all options open in the Brexit talks, and to ensure a smooth and orderly transition for financial services. But Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the eurogroup of finance ministers, said the Governments current demands were incompatible with a smooth and orderly process.

In Bahrain, Mrs May stressed Britains partnership with Gulf nations and added on Brexit: Crucially, this is not about how we retain bits of what weve already got, but what our new relationship with the EU is.

A No 10 source said: As the PM has repeatedly made clear, revealing our negotiating position would be the best way to get the worst deal and our approach to this vote will be guided by that.
T heresa Mays call for a red, white and blue Brexit has sparked ridicule on social media.

The Prime Minister debuted the new slogan for Britains exit from the European Union as she spoke during a two-day visit to Bahrain.

Mrs May said that getting a good deal which left Britain operating within a single European market was the key thing, rather than being hung up on labels.

She said: "These terms that have been identified: hard Brexit, soft Brexit, black Brexit, white Brexit, grey Brexit.

Actually, I think what we should be looking for is a red, white and blue Brexit. That is the right deal for the United Kingdom.

Mrs May addresses sailors on board HMS Ocean in the Port of Manama in Bahrain / PA

"What is going to be the relationship for the UK with the European Union once we have left the European Union?

That's what we are about and that's what we will be working on.

But her comments sparked a flurry of tweets in response with many people mocking the PM and pointing out that the colours she cited featured in flags from across the world.

Laura Kerr tweeted: So, we aren't having the Norway,Switzerland or Canada model but "red,white&blue Brexit" Remind me, what colour are ALL their flags??

Paul Patrick wrote: I can't understand a word Theresa May is saying. 'Red,White & Blue Brexit'?!

Sam Cookney posted on Twitter: It's as if someone's just realised "Brexit means Brexit" was FAR too specific and asked Theresa just to vague it up a bit. #redwhiteblue.

Jackie Pearcey said: Unclear as to the difference between a red, white & blue brexit and a yellow, green and pink brexit.

Exasperated journalists also took to twitter to make jokes about the PMs new Brexit slogan.

Mrs Mays remark appeared to be a veiled retort at reports she had given ministers the green light to draw up secret plans for a grey Brexit that would steer Britain away from the black-and-white demands of Leave and Remain hard-liners.

The Sunday Times reported that Brexit Secretary David Davis and the Chancellor Phillip Hammond had formed a clique with Downing Street to drive Britain away from a hard exit from the European Union.
B oris Johnson is the British politician most 20-somethings would like to have a drink with, a survey found today.

Eighteen per cent of those aged 23 to 30 named the Foreign Secretary and former London Mayor as their favourite politician for a party - ahead of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Prime Minister Theresa May on eight per cent.

But the politician most young people would like to have a drink with is US President Barack Obama, who was named by 55 per cent of those questioned by One Poll for lifestyle brand Jack Wills.

Donald Trump scored 11 per cent.

Obamas and Boris are also the favoured guests for a Friendsmas party  scoring 45 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.

Friendsmas is the name given to a festive celebration in December for friends rather than family.
T he mystery of what has been drawing busloads of Chinese tourists to an unremarkable Oxfordshire village has apparently been solved.

Residents in Kidlington have been baffled by the spectacle of hundreds of visitors wandering around its quiet streets taking pictures as if it were a great attraction.

But now Chinese tour guides have admitted that the holidaymakers have been routinely dumped in the village to avoid them sneaking into nearby Blenheim Palace on cut price tickets.

Sun Jianfeng, of Beijing Hua Yuan International Travel, told The New York Times that tourists who did not want to pay an extra $68 (53) for an optional tour of Sir Winston Churchills ancestral home were being deposited in Kidlington.

Some cunning tourists had learned that buying tickets at the palace independently would only cost only about $25, and were sneaking there on foot while they waited in nearby Woodstock.

So now clients who opted out of the tour were being dropped in Kidlington, which is four miles from the palace and not within walking distance. Mr Sun said Kidlington was also an enchanting example of tranquil English rural life.
T housands of civil servants are being moved from central London offices to create a Whitehall of the East in Docklands, under government plans unveiled today.

A total of 5,700 bureaucrats from several departments will relocate to an 11-storey block in Canary Wharf before the end of 2018 to cut costs.

The Government Property Unit has leased the entire 10 South Colonnade building from Barclays to create a government hub in the heart of the Canary Wharf financial district.

Ben Gummer, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: We have some of the most talented people in the UK working in the Civil Service and it is right that we provide them with the right environment so that they can serve the public to the best of their abilities. We will be replicating this approach across the UK, putting right the historic mistake of forcing public servants to work in ugly and expensive buildings.

The GPU said that moving from often fragmented office locations, to modern, cross-departmental workplaces will make the most of emerging working practices and technology is part of that drive.

The move follows a government study which found that it costs 35,000 a year to accommodate a civil servant in the Ministry of Defences main Whitehall building, but only 3,000 a year for someone working in the Home Office building in Croydon.

Dan Bayley, head of BNP Paribas Real Estates central London agency, which advised the Government on the move, said: Average rents in Canary Wharf are at around half those in Westminster and Victoria, meaning there are huge potential savings to be made by heading east.

Meanwhile Barclays said the lease assignment is part of the lenders continued strategy to reduce costs. Earlier this year, boss Jes Staley said Barclays has not reduced its real estate footprint since the crisis, and there is tremendous savings for us to do so.

The firm stressed that no employees will lose their job owing to the exit. Instead bankers and finance staff have already started moving to Barclays other Canary Wharf offices, including to 5 North Colonnade.
L ondon artist Helen Marten has won the 2016 Turner Prize for her sculpture work using an array of materials.

The 31-year-old, who was born in Macclesfield, was presented with her 25,000 prize by writer Ben Okri in a ceremony at the Tate Britain gallery.

Her art was praised for its complexity and how it relates to the world.

Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, the chair of judges, said: The judges were impressed by the complexity of the work, its amazing formal qualities, its disparate materials and techniques and also how it relates to the world... how it often suggests meaning, but those meanings are all in flux somehow. One image, one form becomes another."

Winning work by Helen Marten / PA Wire

Ms Martens installation was divided into three sections, using handmade and found objects from daily life, including coins, cotton buds, shoe soles and eggs, as well as more unusual materials, such as snakeskin, to create a playful collage.

Runners up Michael Dean, Josephine Pryde and Anthea Hamilton  who created a giant golden bum - each received 5,000.

The winning sculpture by Turner prize winner Helen Marten / PA

The 25,000 jackpot Ms Marten received for her Turner Prize installation on Monday will add to the 30,000 she scooped last month for winning the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture.

Marten is known for using sculpture, screen printing and her own writing to construct pieces that reference both contemporary and historical themes, whether they are everyday or more outlandish.

Her installation for the Turner Prize was divided into three sections and used objects such as coins, cotton buds, eggs and snakeskin to produce a playful collage.

She described the work herself as "husked down" to "geometric memories of themselves".

Organisers of the competition described her work as inviting the viewer to become "archaeologists of our own times, to consider family items as if we are seeing them for the first time".

Marten's first notable award came in 2008 when she won The Fitzgerald Prize at Oxford's Exeter College.

The following year she was awarded the Boise Travel Scholarship and in 2011 was recognised at the Prix Lafayette and was shortlisted for the Luma Award.

She went on to win the award the following year.
A ngela Merkel has called for full-face veils to be banned in Germany as she made her bid for a fourth term as Chancellor.

Speaking to her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in the western German city of Essen, the Chancellor said the full-face veil must be banned, wherever legally possible.

Her statement, which was met with jubilant applause, comes after the German interior minister and one of Merkels close allies came out in favour of a partial ban in August.

Thomas de Maiziere said the law could apply in places where it is necessary for our societys coexistence including schools, courts and government offices.

In recent months Ms Merkel has toughened her stance on immigration in an attempt to win back voters from the upstart nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has thrived by attacking her migrant policies.

During her speech the Chancellor stressed her determination to ensure there is no repeat of last year's huge migrant influx.

Germany saw about 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year, many after Ms Merkel decided in September 2015 to let in migrants who were stuck in Hungary.

Mrs Merkel told the party: "A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated,"

"That was and is our, and my, declared political aim."

Numbers have since declined sharply, but Ms Merkel's approach to the migrant crisis has provoked discord within her Christian Democratic Union party, which has seen a string of poor state election results this year.

Her call for a full-face veil will likely be seen as a move to appease the right-wing faction in her party.

Support for bans on full-face veils has gathered momentum in Europe in recent years after France became the first country to prohibit the garment in 2011.

Belgium, Bulgaria and parts of Switzerland have since implemented their own versions of the ban.

Earlier this year France was embroiled in a bitter debate over the place of burkinis in French society, after mayors of some seaside towns banned the full-body swimsuit on their beaches.

In August the countrys highest court ruled that the ban was unconstitutional.

Last month the Netherlands became the latest country to vote in favour of a partial ban prohibiting the veil in schools, hospitals, government buildings and public transport.
A n image has been released of an Afghan teenager accused of raping and murdering a senior EU officials daughter in south-western Germany.

Hussein K, 17, has been linked by DNA to the killing of Maria Ladenburger, 19, a medical student who in her spare time worked with migrants in Freiberg.

In October, as she cycled home after a party, she was ambushed, raped and then drowned in the River Dreisam. CCTV and DNA evidence led to Hussein Ks arrest on Friday. He is on remand in a jail and will go on trial next year.

The teenager was born in Ghazni in Afghanistan and came to Germany as an illegal unaccompanied minor in November 2015. There were conflicting reports he confessed but the prosecutor has since said: He has remained silent. He has demanded a lawyer before he says he will say anything.

Maria Ladenburger, a 19-year-old medical student, was allegedly killed shortly after leaving a student party in Freiburg / Maria Ladenburger/Facebook

Marias father, Dr Clemens Ladenburger, is a legal adviser to the European Commission. Details of Ms Ladenburger's death only emerged after police arrested and charged her alleged killer last week.

Her murder has sparked a backlash against migrants in Germany, which admitted a million refugees in 2015.

The head of the countrys police union said Marias death would have been prevented had it not been for Chancellor Angela Merkels policy. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party called Maria a victim of Merkels welcome culture.

The killing is the biggest shock to Mrs Merkels plans for integration since the sexual assaults of New Years Eve in Cologne when mobs of immigrant men molested and robbed hundreds of defenceless women.
H ave some discerning drinkers to buy for this Christmas ? The supermarket booze aisle just wont cut it.

Weve tracked down the most quirky, creative, canny and delicious drinkable gifts there are  including limited edition bottles, make-you-own-kits and essential reading.

Theres something for just about anyone, whether your friends and loved ones are dedicated oenophiles, gin fiends, cocktail nuts, beer lovers or whisky dabblers.

1.Twelve Gins of Christmas

Scottish distiller Eden Mill is looking to make things ginteresting this festive season with the launch of a 12-piece taster pack featuring a dozen different gin flavours. They include Christmassy options such as candy cane and chestnuts roasting on an open fire along with chili and ginger and blueberry and vanilla. Perfect for the gin lovers in your life, as well as those who like to experiment.

69, Eden Mill, Buy it now

2. Beer and art at Tate Modern

Treat someone to a very London day out at Tate Modern, washed down with local London beers. Tickets include a tutored tasting with beer sommelier Alex Stevenson, lunch paired with a pint of your choice  try the Switch House Pale Ale made for the Tate by Fourpure in Bermondsey  and entrance to one of the premium exhibitions. The events run monthly, so there art or beer lover in your life has plenty of flexibility.

50, Tate, Buy it now

3. Balans cocktail crackers

Give someone a truly cracking Christmas with these crackers from Balans Soho Society. As well as the obligatory hat, each one includes a bottled cocktail and a voucher for another cocktail on the house in one of the bars. 10% of the price goes to charity, too.

60, Balans, Buy it now

4. Mason Shaker Homemade Gin Kit

Weve all heard about turning water into wine, but what about turning vodka into gin? Well, thats exactly what this kit allows you to do  what could be better for the gin fiend in your life? The kit contains glass bottles, a stainless steel strainer, funnel, juniper berries and a botanical blend as well as instructions. Just add basic vodka and to create an anything but basic gin.

44.95, Harvey Nichols, Buy it now

5. Boodles Mulberry Gin

This richly fruity, lightly spiced Mulberry gin can be enjoyed cold or warm and might just be the perfect way to keep the festive feeling going right into cold and dark January. Anyone keen on sloe gin, but open to trying something new, will be pleased to find this in their stocking come the big day.

21, M&S, Buy it now

6. Scotch Malt Whisky Society membership

For a special drinks connoisseur in your life, membership to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society could prove to be the gift that keeps giving. Splash out on a 122 special which comes with a gift box containing three 100ml sample bottles, a notebook, a lapel badge and a 10 whisky voucher. As a member, youll be treating the lucky someone to 12 months of access to exclusive whiskies and specially priced bottles, discounts at bars and entry to the clubs City of London bar plus special events throughout the year. Other packages are also available.

122, Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Buy it now

7. Taylors Quinta de Vargellas 2002 Vintage Port with Decanter

Port isnt just for Christmas, its for all year round  especially when there is cheese in sight  and this most decadent of drinks is at its best when served from a stylish decanter. This set pairs a sleek, modern bottle-size decanter with an inky, deep-purple and fragrant 2002 Port rich in cedar notes and spice flavours. All the recipient needs to add is stilton or mature cheddar for the perfect serve.

80, John Lewis, Buy it now

8. Camden Beer 2016

Every year Camden Town Brewery creates a beer in January and ages it in specially selected barrels for the whole year, on its Kentish Town site. This years brew is a lager aged in cognac, tequila and bourbon barrels to produce a one-off limited edition beer that is full bodied with a deep red hue and bitter hop flavours. Not only a good gift for any beer aficionado, it might also appeal to those feeling aggrieved by some of what the past year has seen  you can literally drink away 2016.

9.99, Beer Hawk, Buy it now

9. The Baileys Blend

Christmas favourite Baileys Original Irish Cream has partnered with Pact Coffee for this gift that will appeal to booze and coffee lovers alike. Available in a limited edition festive gift pack, the unique coffee blend has been crafted to compliment the iconic Baileys flavour - perfect for an after-dinner treat.

40.80, Pact, Buy it now

10. The Cocktail Lovers subscription

Londons bars won big at this years Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards in New Orleans, taking home numerous trophies including that for the best bar in the world. This glossy and forward-thinking quarterly cocktail magazine also took home a gong of its own, being crowned the globes best cocktail and spirits publication no less. Give your own Cocktail Lover the gift of features, forecasts, recipes and ruminations for an entire year with an annual membership.

12, The Cocktail Lovers, Buy it now

11. Honest Brew craft beer club

Few things can beat the gift of beer, but what about three whole months worth of interesting and unusual craft brews? Honest Brew deliver a case of 12 beers a month, hand selected from small breweries around the world. This generous gift will include an initial tasting kit, featuring six beers, glassware and a tasting guide, followed by a delivery of 12 great beers every month for the next three months.

116, Honest Brew, Buy it now

12. Wine Folly

While most of us love a glass or three of good wine, weve also experienced the stuffier side of some wine experts and sommeliers from time to time. For any enthusiastic amateurs out there, The Wine Folly is a book which educates and enthuses about all things vinous  and sets you on the track to becoming a pro yourself  but is as accessible, unpretentious and enthralling as can be  almost as enjoyable as the wine itself. It uses infographics and flowcharts to present tips on which glasses to use, flavour wheels for each wine type, and simple tasting and food-pairing notes.

18.99, Joy, Buy it now

13. Gin & Tonic Cocktail Kit

Got a G&T fan on your gift list? Of course you have. The large Gin & Tonic Cocktail Kit from Craved features a bottle of London Dry Gin, an Old Tom style gin and three distinctly different tonic waters, along with some nibbles. The lucky recipient will be able to mix up numerous versions of the nations favourite spirit and mixer well into the new year.

39, Craved London, Buy it now

14. Chambord gift pack

Looking for a fun gift for a fizz lover? This Chambord gift pack pairs the famous raspberry liqueur with a mini-bottle of Prosecco for an instant Chambord Royale cocktail which is sure to perk up the party season  at just a tenner its a perfect stocking filler.

10, Sainsburys, Buy it now

15. London Beer Bundle

Londons craft beer scene is booming  or should that be brewing  like never before. This hop-tastic bundle brings together the best of the capitals microbreweries, from Richmond to Peckham, along with some snacks in an under-the-tree-worthy presentation bag. Three sizes include six, twelve or eighteen beers.

From 25, Craved London, Buy it now

16. Cocktail Cookbook

Oskar Kinberg is the bartending legend behind the cocktails at Oskars Bar beneath Dabbous. In this book he puts together 75 simple recipes for homemade bar ingredients, allowing the keen home mixer to whip up the likes of nettle cordial, olive oil-infused gin and kiwi and avocado puree and incorporate them into original cocktails.

14, Amazon, Buy it now

17. Chandon

For a high-end fizz with a difference  and a more original gift  put Champagne on ice and opt for Chandon. Made using the methode traditionelle, it hails from vineyards at the Andes foothills in the Uco Valley, Mendoza, Argentina. It is bright and fresh tasting with roasted nut flavours on the palate and a rich, lingering finish.

16, The Champagne Company, Buy it now

18. Wine Weaver

Those who know a thing or two about wine will know that it's best left to air a little before drinking. Sometimes, however, it's impossible to keep up with the demand around the dinner table. The Wine Weaver is a professional aerator favoured by Sommeliers that, when popped into the top of a glass or decanter, will heighten the aroma and smoothen the taste as the wine is poured.

25, Wine Weaver, Buy it now

19. Personalised Mot Champagne

Everyone loves receiving the gift of Champagne, but it doesnt always feel particularly personal. But thats not the case with these cute personalised mini Mot bottles which can be adorned with the face of the receiver, the giver or indeed whatever else you think they might like.

19, Moet Hennessy, Buy it now

20. BeerBods

Treat the hop-lover in your life to a gift that keeps on giving. A BeerBods Gift Subscription will see them get 12 beers in the post every 12 weeks. But theres no guzzling them all in one go. The idea is that they drink one specified beer a week and share their views with other bods during live online tastings every Thursday night at 9pm. Its the thinking persons beer box.

From 36, Buy it now

Follow Ben Norum on Twitter @BenNorum
Do we still have troops deployed to other countries? Its surprising how often we get asked that question. The answer is most definitely yes! In fact, more American troops are deploying. Montana Supporting Soldiers (MSS) was created in September 2003 after learning about the large number of deployed troops who were not receiving any support from home. There were troops in Iraq who had been there for almost a year and had not received any mail. It is devastating to their morale to watch fellow troops get letters and packages, while they never or rarely receive mail. Unfortunately, there are still deployed troops who do not receive support from home. MSS does all it can to change that.

The MSS officers and members are all volunteers. The volunteers send care packages throughout the year to deployed troops from Montana as well as other states. We send items requested by troops that are not readily available. MSS adopts approximately 1,000 troops at a time serving in the Air Force, Army, National Guard, Navy and Marines. As some troops come home others deploy, keeping the volunteers busy throughout the year.

MSS sends clothing, toiletries, and blankets to the hospitals in Afghanistan for our wounded troops. We send fun things to the hospital staff to relieve a little stress and boost their morale.

Our organization is also there for Montana wounded warriors and their families. We send care packages to them in the hospital. When they return to Montana we help them and their families however needed, such as home repairs and modifications.

MSS is able to support troops, veterans, wounded warriors and their families with help from businesses, organizations, and individuals across Montana. MSS relies on donations of items and funds for supplies and to pay the huge postage costs to send care packages.

We partner with church groups, 4-H clubs, schools, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, retirement homes, and other service organizations. One of the most important ongoing community projects is making cards and writing letters to the troops. They love receiving handmade cards and handwritten letters.

To learn more about our organization, or for details to contact us, go to our website mtsupportingsoldiers.com.
SPRINGFIELD  Gov. Bruce Rauner plans to visit Clinton on Wednesday to sign a bill overhauling Illinois energy policy and creating $235 million in annual ratepayer subsidies to keep open Exelon Corp.s nuclear power plants there and near the Quad Cities.

The Clinton Chamber of Commerce announced Sunday on its Facebook page that Rauner plans a bill-signing ceremony at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Clinton High School. The governors office did not respond immediately Monday to a request for confirmation, and as of Monday afternoon, the bill hadnt been sent to his desk.

Energy giant Exelon said it would close the unprofitable Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear plants, which together employee about 1,500 full-time workers and generate millions in property tax revenue for schools and local governments, if the General Assembly didnt approve subsidies during the fall veto session. The company says the subsidies are warranted because nuclear generation, like subsidized wind and solar power, doesnt produce climate-damaging carbon pollution.

The House and Senate voted in a bipartisan fashion Thursday, the final day of the veto session, to approve the deal, which also includes increased investments in renewable power and energy efficiency.

After late involvement from Rauners office, the final version of the bill included caps on rate increases for electricity customers of all sizes, from large industrial companies to individual families.

Still, the final deal received criticism from some business and consumer groups for its lack of clarity on how those protections will work.
A Lincoln native has been reported among the dozens missing from a deadly warehouse fire in Oakland, California.

Nicole Siegrist, also known as Denalda Nicole Renae, is listed on online memorial pages as a missing person.

Relatives said Siegrist was at the warehouse Friday night for a dance party.

Siegrists mother, Carol Cidlik, is in Oakland and is in contact with authorities as the victims are identified.

Cidlik declined to comment Monday other than to say that the outpouring of love and support is just amazing.

Siegrist, 29, is a musician and is heavily involved in the music scene, family and friends said.

She is half of a duo named Introflirt  she plays the synthesizer and her partner sings, according to the bands website. The bandmate is also missing, friends said.

The band may have been performing Friday night.

Siegrist also had been involved in multiple bands in Lincoln.

Travis Beck of Lincoln, who now lives in Los Angeles, played with Siegrist in two bands and performed shows with her for at least a year.

Beck and Siegrist met at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Siegrist then moved to Chicago, then Oakland, Beck said.

She was super brave and carved her own path, Beck said. She used her weirdness as a strength.

Beck said he was in shock because of the tragic situation. Siegrist had stayed at his home in Los Angeles recently because Introflirt was playing in the city.

She was definitely all about creating and being an artist, Beck said.

Hours before the fire erupted at the two-story structure, Siegrist posted a photo on Facebook of her newly dyed blue-and-red hair.

You look very pretty, wrote her mom. Love the color on your hair.

Carina McCormick, who knew Siegrist in Lincoln, said it was overwhelming how many people are worried about her.

People were just drawn to her from her energy, her unique perspective, optimism and creativity, McCormick said.

* * * * *
Gering and Scottsbluff Public Schools now have a plaque reflecting that they are AdvancED certified.

The certification means that they are teaching a lot of the same standards of schools across the globe. The schools are demonstrate acceptable levels of student performance and a continuous improvement with various student performances.

Bob Hastings, superintendent of Gering Public Schools, said that Gering High School has received the accreditation by AdvancED for almost 10 years.

Scottsbluff High School received accreditation around the same time. All of Scottsbluff Public School are accredited by the AdvancED. This took place in 2015. Prior to that the high school only received accreditation.

Mike Halley, principal of Scottsbluff High School, said it was great and its a more difficult certification for schools to have.

He said it shows all of the work students, parents, administrators, all of the stakeholders put in to make successful schools.

SuAnn Witt, State Erate coordinator and Infrastructure specialist with the Nebraska Department of Education, said accreditation is necessary for any public schools in Nebraska

An Accreditation review takes place every five years.

There is self-evaluation as well as an external review.

There are different criteria on the report for what the schools are doing to keep within the standards. The ratings are needs improvement, mid-level, or powerful practices.

Five people assess the whole systems of the school. One of the people is out-of-state and three or four are in-state but not in the district so they know the various processes of Nebraska education.

They can look at the school with an objective eye and say wow, this is something Ive never seen before, said Witt, going to other schools you see things that are not happening in other school districts.

Witt said each school district has one thing that they are doing well and what makes them unique.

Schools now have five years to improve the recommendations that are noted as things needing to be done from the team during the review.

Hastings said improvement is what Gering Public Schools in about.

We strive to take our students and our program to a higher level, said Hastings.

Be successful beyond high school and be successful in a career.

Some of the improvement in Gering has been in motion before the AdvancED visit and some are a result of the visit.

Some of it is taking a look at our technology plans. How we are acquiring technology, how we are implementing it across the district, said Hastings, were looking at some different ways to provide professional development to staff.

Hastings said it might be using the staff for their expertise and sharing with others with what they are good at.

Witt said the review was a reflection of themselves and people that came might have picked up on things they might have missed.

Halley said they are glad to have the guidance of the external team that came.

Hastings said it was great to get feedback about the operation they are doing in the school district.

We now know how we stack up against schools in the country. I think this reflects favorably for us, said Hastings.

Both schools mentioned the teamwork it takes to be able to receive this recognition.

We have seen standardized test scores go up, NeSA scores go up, and the graduation rate has increased, said Ruth Kozal, Scottsbluff Public Schools Board of Education president,

According to Witt, half of Nebraska Public Schools are AdvancED certified. The other half are certified under Nebraska Frameworks.
Finland among the best in the world

Finland is a small country on a global scale. The population of Finland makes up just 0.07 per cent of the world's population and its area as much of the total world area. But even a small country can jump to the top of the world, and this is what Finland has done: in international country comparisons of positive things Finland is often among the top countries next to other Nordic countries.

In honour of Finland's centenary celebrations, we collected a list of comparisons in which Finland is one of the best in the world. The list below was last time updated on 5 December 2018, when Finland was for the last day one hundred years old. An updated list is available at Independence Day 2019.

Society

Finland is the most stable country in the world.

The Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 2018

Finland is the freest country in the world together with Sweden and Norway.

Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018

Finland is the safest country in the world.

World Economic Forum, The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017

Finland is the fourth best country in the world.

The Good Country Index, Results

Finland has the best governance in the world.

Legatum Institute, The Legatum Prosperity Index 2018: Finland

Finlands police and internal security as a whole are the second best in the world.

The International Police Science Association, World Internal Security and Police Index

Finland has the least organised crime in the world.

World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Report 2018: Organized crime

Next to Norwegians and Icelanders, Finns feel the second least insecure in the world.

Gallup, Law and Order Index 2018

Finlands judicial system is the most independent in the world.

World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Report 2018: Judicial independence

After Danes, Finns vote in the freest and most reliable elections.

Pippa Norris, Thomas Wynter and Sarah Cameron, Electoral Integrity & Campaign Media: The Electoral Integrity Project 2018 mid-year update (The Electoral Integrity Project, University of Sydney & Harvard University)

Finland has the third least corruption in the world.

Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2017

Finland is the third most prosperous country in the world.

Legatum Institute, The Legatum Prosperity Index 2018: Finland

Protection of property rights in Finland is the best in the world.

World Economic Forum (WEF), The Global Competitiveness Report 2018: Property Rights

Availability of official information in Finland is the best in the EU.

Center for data innovation, The State of data innovation in the EU: Freedom of information

Finnish banks are the soundest in the world.

World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Report 2018: Soundness of banks

Finlands pension system is the third best in the world. (34 countries in the comparison).

Mercer, Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index 2018

Finland has the third most personal freedom and choice in the world.

The Social Progress Imperative, 2018 Social Progress Index: Finland

Finland has the fourth best press freedom in the world.

Reporters Without Borders, 2018 World Press Freedom Index: Ranking

After Denmark and Sweden, Finland is the most socially just EU country.

D. Schraad-Tischler & C. Schiller: Social Justice in the EU  Index Report 2017 (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2017)

Among the worlds richest countries, Finland is the third most dedicated to policies that benefit people living in poorer nations.

Centre for Global Development, The Commitment to Development Index 2018 (CDI)

Finland is the best country in the world in a comparison of human wellbeing.

Sustainable Society Index, Main results 2016

Finland is the third best country in adhering to the rule of law in the world.

The World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index 20172018

Finland is the best country in protecting fundamental human rights in the world.

The World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index 20172018

Satisfaction and trust

Finland is the happiest country in the world.

Sustainable Development Solutions Network, World Happiness Report 2018

Finns are the second most satisfied with their life among Europeans.

Eurostat, Percentage of the population rating their satisfaction as high, medium or low

Finns are the most satisfied with their accommodation in the EU.

Eurostat, Percentage of the population rating their satisfaction as high, medium or low

Among EU citizens, Finns are the second most common to have someone to rely on in case of need.

Eurostat, Persons having someone to rely on in case of need.

Finns' trust in the police is the highest and in the political system and in the legal system the second highest in Europe.

Eurostat, Average rating of trust

Finns trust news the most in the world. (37 countries in the comparison).

Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2018

Finns' trust in other people is the highest in Europe.

European Commission, Fairness, inequality and inter-generational mobility: Social Capital: Trust in people

In Finland, consumers' confidence in the economy is second strongest in Europe.

European Commission, Business and consumer surveys

Equality

Finland is the third most gender equal country in the world.

World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Index 2017

Participation of genders in working life in Finland is the second most equal in the EU.

European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Gender Equality Index 2017: Work / Participation

Finnish women's gender equality in working life is the fourth best in the world.

The Economist, The Glass-Ceiling Index 2018

In Finland, power is divided between genders the third most equally in the EU.

European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Gender Equality Index 2017: Power

Finland has the third most female MPs in European countries.

Inter-Parliamentatary Union (IPU), Women in Politics 2017

Finland has the second lowest poverty rate in OECD countries.

OECD, Poverty rate

Finland has the fifth lowest income differences in OECD countries.

OECD, Income inequality

Environment and energy

The air in Finland is the cleanest in the world.

Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finland tops WHO air quality statistics

Finland is the water richest country in the world.

Keele University, The Water Poverty Index: an International Comparison

The risk to be exposed to natural disasters is lowest in the world in Finland together with Bahrain, Sao Tome and Principe and Singapore.

Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the European Commission, INFORM Global Risk Index Results 2018

Finland has the most forests in Europe.

FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment

Finland has the third most wetlands in Europe.

Eurostat, Wetlands cover 2% of the EU's land

The share of renewable energy of total energy consumption is the second biggest in Finland of EU countries.

Eurostat, Share of energy from renewable sources in the EU Member States

Education and human capital

Finland has the most human capital in the world.

The Lancet, Measuring human capital: a systematic analysis of 195 countries and territories, 19902016

Finland ranks as one of the top OECD country in education.

OECD, Better Life Index: Education

Education in Finland answers to future needs the third best in the world.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) & Yidan Prize, Worldwide Educating for the Future Index

Finland is placed third in a comparison of lifelong learning in EU countries.

European Commission, European Innovation Scoreboard 2018: Lifelong learning

Finnish adults are the third best in literacy and numeracy of OECD countries.

OECD, How's Life? 2017: Measuring Well-being, Education and skills: adult skills

Finland is the most literate country in the world.

J. W. Miller and M. C. McKenna, World's Most Literate Nations: Rank Breakdown

Finns are the second biggest library users in Europe.

The European Bureau of Library, Public Libraries  Statistics

Information society and competitiveness

Finland is the second best in the world in using information and communication technologies to boost competitiveness and well-being.

World Economic Forum (WEF), Global Information Technology Report 2016: Networked Readiness Index

Finland has EU's best digital public services.

European Commission, The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2018: Finland

Finland has the strongest digital knowledge capital in Europe.

<European Commission, The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2018: Finland

Finland has the second most wireless mobile broadband subscriptions per inhabitant in OECD countries.

OECD, Wireless mobile broadband subscriptions

Finns use most mobile data per subscription.

OECD, Digital Economy Outlook 2017

Finnish enterprises are most likely to have their own website of OECD countries.

OECD, Digital Economy Outlook 2017

Finland is the third best country for business in Europe.

European Chamber, Best European countries for business 2018

Finland has the third best economic environment for business growth.

Grant Thornton, Global Dynamism Index 2015

Corporate ethics in Finland is the second best in the world.

World Economic Forum (WEF), The Global Competitiveness Report 20172018: Corporate Ethics

Finland is the second best country in the field of clean technology. (40 countries in the comparison.)

WWF & Cleantech Group, The Global Cleantech Innovation Index 2017

Finland's sustainable competitiveness is the fourth best in the world.

SolAbility, The Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index 2017

Children's well-being and school attendance

Finland has the second lowest inequality among children in the world.

UNICEF, Fairness for Children: A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries

Finland is the second best country to be a girl in the world.

Save the Children, Every last girl: Girls opportunity index

Finnish children have the fifth most secure childhood in the world.

Save the Children, The Many Faces of Exclusion: End of Childhood, Report 2018

Young people (aged 11 to 15) in Finland are the fourth satisfied with their life among young people in welfare countries.

UNICEF, Child Well-being in Rich Countries: A comparative overview

Finns aged 15 are the third most satisfied with their lives among same-age young people in OECD countries.

OECD, PISA 2015 Results, Students Well-Being

Finnish fourth graders' knowledge of science is the second best in OECD countries.

M. O. Mullis, I. V. S. Mullis, P. Foy and M. Hooper, TIMSS 2015 International Results in Science

Finns aged 15 are among OECD countries the second best in literacy and the third best in science.

Ministry of Education and Culture, PISA 2015: Finnish youth still at the top despite the drop

Health

Finland is among the worlds top 25 countries in life expectancy at birth. Differences at the top are small.

WHO, Life expectancy

Finland has the least underweight (under 2,500 g) children born of OECD countries.

OECD, Low birth weight

Mothers' and children's well-being in Finland is the second best in the world.

Save the Children, State of the Worlds Mothers 2015, 16th annual report

Finland has the world's third lowest infant mortality rate (deaths at the age of under one year).

UN, SDG Indicators, Infant mortality rate

Maternal mortality is the lowest in the world in Finland together with Greece, Iceland and Poland.

WHO, World Health Statistics 2018: Monitoring health for the SDGs

The second lowest number of children weighing under 2.5 kg are born in Finland in OECD countries.

OECD, Health at a Glance 2015. Infant health: Low birth weight

Finland has the second lowest total mortality from cancer in EU countries.

OECD, Health at a Glance: Europe 2018: Mortality from cancer

Finnish adults are the second least likely to smoke of EU countries.

OECD, Health at a Glance: Europe 2018: Adults smoking daily

Finland's share of actively exercising people is bigger than in any other EU country.

Eurostat, How much do Europeans exercise?

Capital city

Helsinki is the third best city to live in. (65 cities in the comparison).

Metropolis, The Best Cities to Live in (2016)

People living in Helsinki have the highest satisfaction with the place where they live, alongside with people living in Stockholm.

European Commission, Quality of Life in European Cities 2015

Helsinki is the second most appealing city in the world for startups.

Nestpick, Startup Cities Index

Helsinki is the most equal city in Europe. (33 cities in the comparison).

Spotahome, Equality in Europe

Helsinki is fifth best in the ability to compete for talented workforce.

INSEAD, Global Cities Talent Competitiveness Index 2018 Rankings

Helsinki is the third best city in terms of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. (40 cities in the comparison).

J. Gibson, M. Robinson & S. Cain, CITIE  City Initiatives for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Nesta, Accenture & Catapult 2015)

Among European cities, Helsinki is the fourth best in supporting digital enterprises and entrepreneurs.

Nesta, European Digital City Index 2016

Of European big cities, Helsinki is the easiest and most pleasant to get around in. (20 cities in the comparison).

Politico, Urban Mobility Index

People living in Helsinki are the second most satisfied with cultural facilities among inhabitants of EU capital cities.

Eurostat, Satisfaction with cultural facilities in EU capital cities

Helsinki is the most honest city in the world.

Readers Digest, Most Honest Cities

The Helsinki-Vantaa airport is the best in the world.

Lonely Planet, Helsinki takes the worlds best airport award for 2016

And in these we are also at the top of the world

Finland has the third most space per person in Europe.

Eurostat, Population density, persons per km

Finns drink most coffee per person in the world.

International Coffee Organization, Coffee Trade Statistics

Finns drink the most milk per person in the world.

Dairy Nutrition Council, Maidon kulutus maailmalla 2015 (Milk consumption in the world in 2015)

Finland has the most Summer Olympics medals per capita.

Medals per Capita, Total Medals per Capita: All Time (Summer)

Finnish adults' English skills are the sixth best in a comparison of 80 countries.

Education First (EF), EF English Proficiency Index

The Finnish passport has the third most influence in the world.

Passport Index, Global Passport Power Rank 2018

Finland has the second most islands in the world.

WorldAtlas, Which Country Has the Most Islands?

Finland has the most heavy metal bands per inhabitant in the world.

Big Think, A World Map of Heavy Metal Density
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This awards season, there are a slew of films that directly or indirectly touch on the purpose of religion in characters' lives.
DECATUR  When Heritage Behavioral Health Center began showing documentaries about mental health issues at the Decatur Public Library's Madden Auditorium earlier this year, Monday's audience and the conversation to follow were what it had in mind.

About 55 people watched "The Heroin Project," a documentary set in nearby Southern Illinois addressing the nation's growing heroin problem, then afterward participated in a discussion featuring a panel of Heritage and Crossing Healthcare professionals.

Heroin has long been a problem in larger cities, but has recently spread to smaller towns and even rural areas. Heritage Chief Operating Officer Tim Macken said according to the most recent statistics from the Macon County Coroner, there have been nine overdose deaths from heroin in Macon County in 2016. That brings the total to 36 since 2013.

Two people in attendance said they had sons who had died from heroin overdose in the last six months. Kathleen Arnold's son, Tommy Arnold, died at 32 years old in July.

The discussion that followed the movie was ranged from the new medication-assisted treatment facility that is a collaboration between Heritage and Crossing, the types of medications available for opioid addicts and the importance of counseling to go along with medication-assisted treatment.

A major topic was the need for more inpatient services and recovery housing. Macken said the waiting list for Heritage's inpatient housing is often 40 names long, but said the state didn't seem interested in funding new residential treatment facilities.

Heritage Division Manager for Addictions and Criminal Justice Services Bruce Angleman said while having more inpatient services would help, the bigger need is for recovery housing -- a place a recovering addict can go to live following rehab.

"When they get out of whatever treatment they've been in, they can't go back to the same house and the same environment," Angleman said. "They need a sober environment that provides some support."

Arnold said her son received inpatient care for 45 days and was placed into recovery housing, but it didn't have the structure he needed and he quickly relapsed.

"There was no one accredited there to help him, and after 45 days of being protected -- and I think he hoped he would be successful -- but with no one there, he wasn't there a week," Arnold said. "And it was all downhill from there."

Arnold has made it a goal to fight for funding and support of effective drug recovery and aftercare programs.

"I didn't lose my son for nothing," Arnold said. "This can't be the end. There are a lot of people struggling -- people who need care. My husband and I have to honor our son by doing what we can to take up that fight for them."

This was the third documentary Heritage has shown at Madden, and Monday's event was easily the most well-attended. Heritage had previously shown the films, "Voices," and "Walking Man."

"This one ("The Heroin Project") was different than the first two -- much darker. There's no uplifting ending," Macken said. "So after that, I thought it was important to talk about the fact that this is hope, and many options for treatment."
By MARK EVANS STE. GENEVIEVE HERALD Scott Schmieder, county road and bridge foreman, reported to the county commission last Thursday that temperatures are getting too cold at night for much more asphalt work to be done. He said potholes had all been patched. His crews were working on Bodine Road and made call-ins to locate
Ronald Reagan was president when Michael Madigan, a Democrat, became speaker of the Illinois House in 1983. Reagan served two terms and died in 2004, and his name adorns schools, roads, parks and an airport. A generation has passed since he left the White House.

And Madigan? He is still speaker, and has been for all but two years since he started. He appears to be as permanent a feature of the Illinois landscape as the Mississippi River.

Illinois is a blue state, voting Democratic in the past seven presidential elections. But the Democratic Party's control of the state House is not the simple result of its ability to satisfy the citizenry. Democrats have also had the help of district lines drawn to help them at the expense of Republicans.

In 2012, Democratic House candidates got 52 percent of the votes statewide but captured 60 percent of the seats, report political scientist Kent Redfield of the University of Illinois at Springfield and policy consultant Cynthia Canary. In 2014, Democrats got 50.5 percent of the vote and 60 percent of the seats. This year, Madigan's party again won 60 percent of the races.

That's why Illinois Republicans may side with Wisconsin Democrats on one issue: partisan gerrymandering. In November, a federal district court struck down Wisconsin's legislative map on the ground that it unfairly favors Republicans, who dominate the Legislature. It had been more than three decades since a federal court invalidated a reapportionment plan for partisan bias.

In that case, the justices upheld an Indiana redistricting plan but affirmed that a gerrymander could be so biased toward one party as to violate the Constitution. The district court said the Wisconsin plan fits the bill.

Republicans captured the Wisconsin Legislature in 2010, just in time for the decennial reapportionment. They made the most of the opportunity. In 2012, GOP candidates got 48.6 percent of the statewide vote -- but 60 of the 99 seats in the lower house, the Assembly. In 2014, they got 52 percent of the vote and 63 seats.

A scholar they had asked to analyze the plan before its adoption said Democrats would need at least 54 percent of the statewide ballots to regain control of the Assembly. It was a recipe for Republican control in good times and bad.

In 1986, the Supreme Court noted that when legislators are entrusted with redistricting, the results are bound to have a partisan tilt. But it concluded there is a limit to what is permissible. "Unconstitutional discrimination occurs," it said, "when the electoral system is arranged in a manner that will consistently degrade a voter's or a group of voters' influence on the political process as a whole."

Wisconsin Republicans insist they have a natural advantage: Democrats are concentrated in cities, limiting the number of districts in which they enjoy majority strength, while Republicans are more scattered.

But the federal court said these facts don't explain the GOP's formidable edge. It is instead the product of efforts to dilute the votes of Democrats by "packing" large numbers into a few districts, where they can't lose, and "cracking" the rest into many more districts, where they can't win.

The Supreme Court (which will get this case on direct appeal) has hesitated to intervene in such matters because of a knotty question: how to separate the acceptable and unacceptable types of partisan gerrymandering. The Democrats in Wisconsin offered a formula, devised by Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a University of Chicago law professor, and Eric McGhee, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, that permits simple assessments.

What they refer to as the "efficiency gap" is enough to lock in GOP control in Madison for a full decade under almost any realistic conditions. The court found that the reapportionment violates the First and 14th amendments by intentionally hobbling Democratic voters. Every affected citizen, it said, is "an unequal participant in the decisions of the body politic."

Illinois Republicans know how that works. For the moment, partisan gerrymandering favors the GOP because it holds power in more states. But Republicans have been its victims just as often as Democrats -- and, if the Supreme Court doesn't curb the practice, will be again.

In the end, partisan gerrymandering is not really aimed at frustrating the party that is out of power. It's aimed at foiling voters who might want to remove politicians from office. As Michael Madigan can attest, it really works.
The National Transplant Agency (ANT), with the support of the Health Ministry, will take action in the coming period so as to ensure the transparency of the organ allocation mechanism, as well as the observance of all legal regulations in force, the Health Ministry pointed out on Tuesday.

On Monday, the Health Ministry hosted a meeting on the topic of the National Transplant Programme, with the participation of regional transplant coordinators from Bihor, Bucharest, Cluj and Targu Mures, members of the ANT Scientific Committee, ANT leadership members and Health Ministry representatives.

During the meeting, the transplant officials discussed again the issues facing this institution and the irregularities found by the minister's control body, with a view to jointly identifying solutions to correct them and carry out the transplant activity in Romania in the best possible conditions.

"We had a good meeting, where we established the priorities for the transplant activity and what the ministry's priorities are. The message cannot be but one: the transplant activity in Romania must continue. There are a lot of achievements in the transplant activity in Romania, but this activity must definitely continue in full transparency, under observance of the rules, of the legal framework. What we have decided yesterday are a few important steps. (...) There is a legal framework which will be improved, but nothing has changed at the moment. No one has anything to fear," Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu said on Tuesday.

He pointed out that funds are available for the transplant activity, as only 53 percent of the budget allotted to this area has been spent so far.

According to Voiculescu, the national transplant register is working, however "not as it should."

"I believe that we all agreed on this point yesterday [on Monday]. From a technical point of view, the register could help the ANT activity with much more. There is no clear methodology to complete this register, and the rules aren't observed. We shall meet quite often in the coming period," the Health Minister showed.

agerpres.
Pike Powers speaks while State Rep. Doug Miller, who introduced him on Monday morning, looks on. Powers was named as Texan of the Year by the Texas Legislative Conference.
The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center has signed a deal with a Kansas City company to commercialize some of its agricultural research.

The partnership with TechAccel, a Kansas City business-development company, makes $250,000 in grants available to Danforth Center researchers. The goal is to produce new companies or ready-to-license technology.

James Carrington, the Danforth Center's president, said in a statement that the commercialization program "provides a new tool for translating our discoveries into real-world solutions."

TechAccel was founded in 2014 to commercialize animal-health discoveries made at Kansas State University. It since has expanded into other food and agricultural technologies.
Alaska Air Group Inc. won U.S. antitrust approval for its acquisition of Virgin America Inc., a takeover that extends years of consolidation in the industry and expands Alaska Air's access to the lucrative cross-country market.

Under an agreement with the Justice Department announced on Tuesday, Alaska Air must reduce the scope of a marketing accord that allows it to sell tickets for American Airlines flights on over 250 routes. The change will ensure the merged Alaska Air competes against American rather than partnering with it, regulators said.

The restrictions will reduce by about 50 percent the volume of Alaska Air passengers on American flights, according to the government.

"Today's settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgin's assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers," Renata Hesse, the head of the department's antitrust division, said in a written statement.

The settlement with the Justice Department, which requires court approval, likely clears the way for the completion of the deal "in the very near future," Alaska Air said in a written statement. The combined airline will become the fifth largest in the U.S. based on passenger traffic, displacing JetBlue Airways Corp., which lost to Alaska Air in the bidding to link up with Virgin America.

Alaska Air shares rose 1.1 percent to $84.05 at 2:48 p.m. in New York, while Virgin shares rose 0.6 percent to $56.80.

Alaska Air won't surrender any assets under the settlement with U.S. regulators. While the concessions covering the "codeshare" agreement with American represent a revenue loss of about $60 million a year, the airline believes it will recapture 70 percent of that through its own passengers for a final negative impact of about $15 million to $20 million, Alaska Air said. The codeshare concessions involve 45 markets, the company said.

"We couldn't be more excited about receiving DOJ clearance," Alaska Air Chief Executive Officer Brad Tilden said in a written statement. "With this combination now cleared for takeoff, we're thrilled to bring these two companies together and start delivering our low fares and great service to an even larger group of customers."

Alaska Air's $2.6 billion cash agreement to buy Virgin America, announced in April, adds to the string of mergers that have shrunk the number of carriers in the U.S. airline industry since 2005, leaving the top four operators controlling 80 percent of the market.

The deal is the first substantial airline merger since the Justice Department sued to block US Airways Group's takeover of American Airlines in 2013. That deal ultimately was completed after the carriers agreed to sell airport assets to low-fare competitors.

Alaska Air is paying $57 a share for Virgin America. While the offer was a 47 percent premium to Virgin's share price at the time, it just barely eclipses the closing price of the shares, $56.45, on Monday. After accounting for debt and the capitalization of aircraft leases, the transaction was valued at $4 billion.

The deal will boost Alaska Air's revenue 27 percent to more than $7 billion and should produce $225 million of annual savings after incurring integration costs of as much as $350 million, Alaska Air said when the deal was announced. Alaska Air expects Virgin America to begin adding to earnings in the first full year, excluding those costs.

The Virgin America acquisition will expand Alaska Air's route network out of Washington state, Oregon and Alaska by adding important business centers in Los Angeles and San Francisco as well as adding flights into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. Alaska Air also picks up new routes out of New York's LaGuardia Airport.

The deal also gives the combined airlines extra market power to combat larger rivals that have moved to compete more directly with them by adding routes and cutting prices.

Cross-country routes between New York and California are among the most lucrative in the domestic industry. With the merger, Alaska Air hopes to become the carrier of choice within California, where it faces stiff competition from Southwest Airlines Co. and United Continental Holdings Inc.

The company will retain the Alaska Air name, brand and Seattle headquarters. It will explore how the Virgin America brand, which grew out of U.K. billionaire Richard Branson's business empire and has strong customer loyalty, might be used in the combined airline, Alaska Air has said.

The combined business will have hubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where Virgin adds east-west routes to Alaska Air's north-south strength, as well as in Seattle, Anchorage and Portland, Oregon.

Alaska Air has been on a growth spurt recently on the East Coast, capitalizing on an April decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to open up Newark Liberty to more competition. The carrier has started or is soon to start new routes between Newark and San Diego; Portland, Oregon; and San Jose, California, and it will add a third daily flight there from Seattle in the spring. Alaska Air also plans to add a new route from San Diego to Baltimore in the spring.

The airlines' merger is still being challenged by consumers in a San Francisco federal court case set to go to trial before U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Dec. 12. In October, Alsup issued an order directing the airlines to give him and those suing at least seven calendar days' notice of the deal's closing date, adding that "any consummation will be subject to divestiture." A final pretrial conference in that civil lawsuit is set for Wednesday.

American Airlines expects to remove its airline code from about 20 of the more than 80 Alaska Air routes in the codeshare relationship. It estimates that Alaska Air will take its code off of 40 of 270 American routes, said Martha Thomas, a spokeswoman for American.

"Even with these changes, we are committed to continuing our longstanding and valued relationship with Alaska," Thomas said. American declined to comment on the expected financial impact of the codeshare concessions.
Shares of stock in aircraft manufacturer Boeing fell nearly $2 a share before markets opened on Tuesday.

The reason? A tweet from the president-elect.

"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!"

Were Boeing to lose a $4 billion contract, that would certainly cause people to be skeptical of future earnings. But this, as seems always to be the case with Donald Trump tweets, is not the full story.

As The Washington Post's Christian Davenport reports, the contract with Boeing is currently $170 million. The government's plan to replace Air Force One actually involves two different planes which would serve future presidents for years to come. Boeing won the contract in 2015; the new planes are expected to be operational in about a decade. The $170 million isn't for manufacturing, after all. It's for Boeing's work "determin[ing] the capabilities" of the planes they will eventually produce.

It was natural to wonder, given the apparently unprompted nature of Trump's tweet, if part of his comment was meant to suggest he would prefer to use his existing aircraft for the job of the presidency. His campaign spent $6.7 million on his personal aircraft after he announced his candidacy, and he has called Air Force One "a step down" from his personal aircraft "in every way." (Not size, mind you.) Once Trump received a Secret Service detail, the agency paid $1.6 million for its agents to travel with him  money that went to TAG Air, a company owned by Trump.

Trump's current plane is also a Boeing.

The Air Force wouldn't let Trump keep using his plane as president, though, unless it were significantly upgraded. As CNN reported earlier this month, Trump's personal plane would need to be upgraded with critical functionality to serve as his official aircraft. That includes missile detection and avoidance systems, electromagnetic shielding, mid-air refueling mechanisms and confidential communications systems. The cost of those upgrades would be up to Trump.

As it turns out, though, the Trump tweet may not have been unprompted. CNN's Jake Tapper noted on Twitter that shortly before the tweet (which was posted at 8:52 a.m. Eastern) the Chicago Tribune posted an interview with the company's CEO, Dennis Muilenberg.

"Anyone who paid attention to the recent campaigns and the election results realizes that one of the overarching themes was apprehension about free and fair trade," Muilenberg told the Tribune's Robert Reed. Fair trade has helped Boeing, which prides itself on being America's largest manufacturing exporter.

"Last year, we delivered 495 737s from our factory in Renton, Wash., to customers around the world," Muilenberg continued, noting that a third of the planes were sent to China. "This phenomenon would have been unimaginable when I started at the company in 1985."

Those are pointed comments. It was Trump, of course, who robustly criticized free trade during the general election. And it is Trump who, this week, seemed to threaten a trade war with China.

That story has a dateline of 7:30 Central time  8:30 Eastern. Trump's tweet came out a few minutes later.

We don't know that Trump was responding to the Tribune story. We do know that the last time he tweeted an out-of-the-blue opinion, about flag-burning, it was immediately after a Fox News segment showing students burning flags.

We also know that Trump's tweet tanked Boeing's stock price, albeit only briefly. In 2013, Trump tweeted about having just bought stock in Boeing ("great company!"), but his spokesman said on Tuesday that the president-elect no longer holds stock in Boeing, or anything else, having sold it all in June.

The fluctuations in Boeing's stock price that may have stemmed from Trump's annoyance at a news article criticizing his policies in the lightest of terms, then, only affected other people.
Only a small percentage of microbes in the world can cause disease. Many, such as those in the human digestive system, are beneficial.

Similarly, many microbes found in soil have positive relationships with plants. Better understanding that association has attracted recent attention from researchers at Monsanto, which on Monday announced the upcoming release of a new microbial seed coating developed through a partnership with a European biotech company.

The product, called Acceleron B-300 SAT, will be applied to all of Monsantos domestic corn hybrids starting in the 2017 growing season. It is the first jointly developed technology from the Creve Coeur-based agribusiness giant and the Danish company, Novozymes, which announced a collaborative effort in December 2013 called The BioAg Alliance.

Monsanto says the technology is derived from a type of soil fungus called Penicillium bilaiae and can improve corn plants ability to uptake key nutrients, such as phosphorus. The company says product testing shows improved yields.

Our goal is to make sure these products improve yield or plant health that leads to yield, said Scott Bollman, Monsantos microbial traits director, who oversaw the field trials done through the BioAg Alliance.

Bollman said the product is an improved formulation of an existing Novozymes product called JumpStart, which farmers currently apply at the time of planting.

Our research has always said if you put it on the seed, its much more efficient, Bollman said.

Monsanto will explore foreign markets for Acceleron B-300 SAT after its U.S. rollout, according to Bollman. The company projects that 90 million acres of crops worldwide could incorporate the technology by 2025.

Microbial research represents a key part of Monsantos work with biologicals  a term company officials broadly apply to the relationship between crop systems and living organisms, as opposed to synthetic chemistries.

What were doing is taking something thats already in those soils and applying it in a more targeted manner, said John Combest, a Monsanto spokesman.

Bollman says the company is hoping that precision will give a competitive advantage to certain microbes and the crops they benefit.

Can you make the good microbes compete better? Bollman says. Its a community in itself with billions and billions of microbes and theyre all competing.
Philip Morris International Inc. filed a much-awaited U.S. application to market a new type of cigarette that heats rather than burns tobacco and may carry fewer health risks.

The company's application is the first to seek U.S. approval to market a tobacco product as being less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

If approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the company's iQOS device could give it a significant marketing advantage over alternatives to tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, which are not allowed to make such a claim.

The device electronically heats tobacco to produce a vapor without burning it, and the company claims the vapor has less than 10 percent of the harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke.

"We are encouraged by the timeliness of PM's first FDA application submission. ... We continue to believe iQOS is a positive catalyst for both Philip Morris & Altria providing a unique competitive advantage," Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in a note.

Philip Morris, which was spun off from Altria Group Inc. in 2008, sells brands such as Marlboro, Red and White and Longbeach in markets outside the United States.

The device is currently sold without a reduced harm claim in several countries, including Japan.

Most traditional tobacco companies are investing in tobacco alternatives as smoking in developed countries has declined.
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A familiar name in St. Louis politics appears to be headed back into the fray.

Steven C. Roberts Sr., a former alderman, will become chief deputy for incoming sheriff Vernon Betts, who takes office Jan. 1, several sources report.

Betts will succeed James W. Murphy, who did not run for re-election after 28 years on the job.

Roberts has met with Murphy's chief deputy, Michael Guzy, to work on transition issues. Guzy said he has talked with Roberts several times about office issues and procedures. The job of chief deputy pays $89,700 a year, Guzy said.

Roberts could not be reached for comment.

Roberts is the father of Democrat state Rep. Steve Roberts Jr., who was accused of rape in September by another Democratic state representative, Cora Faith Walker, in connection with an incident in August.

Prosecutors said there "wasnt enough credible evidence" to file charges. The younger Roberts has sued Walker, accusing her of defamation, malicious prosecution and inflicting emotional distress.

The elder Roberts was on the St. Louis Board of Alderman from 1979 to 1993. He has a law degree and a master's degree from Washington University.

Following his political career, he worked with his brother, Michael Roberts, as a real estate developer. Over the years in Missouri and eight other states, the company developed hotels, television stations, homes, offices, a radio station and a theater. Many of those business ventures ultimately failed in the 2000s.
Being governor just got real for Eric Greitens.

A gun pointed at his wife during an armed robbery Monday night in the Central West End changed things in a hurry. Gone are the campaign images of automatic gunfire blowing up a forest as a metaphor for reforming Jefferson City.

In St. Louis, where Greitens was born, reared and still lives, gun violence is real. And its frightening.

Tuesday morning, a shaken but resolute governor-elect stood in the December chill with his wife, Sheena, and suggested a frame for justice that could define his early days as governor.

As a husband, my first thought was for Sheenas safety, Greitens said of his state of mind upon learning that his wife was robbed outside Cafe Ventana, a popular coffee shop and restaurant near St. Louis University. My second thought was for justice.

How Greitens, a Republican, defines justice remains an open question. He didnt take questions from reporters Tuesday, but he indicated that his view on making St. Louis neighborhoods safer balances old-fashioned law and order with mercy and understanding.

Faith teaches us that we must forgive. And thats what Sheena and I plan to do, Greitens said, his voice strained by emotion. I plan to sit down with their mothers and their families to discuss what we can do together to make sure that every family and every community in the state of Missouri knows that they can go home at night and look at their kids and know that they are safe.

Thirty-four years ago, just a couple of blocks north from where Greitens stood, another street robbery turned bad.

Boards and metal pipes were the weapons of choice then, but the end result was the death of a white son of a popular local pastor, who had wandered away drunk after a night of celebrating his 21st birthday.

Eric Clemmons, who is black (as Sheena Greitens assailants were), was 21 when he was convicted by an all-white jury in 1983 of the murder of Todd Weems. He was given the ultimate law-and-order sentence, life in prison with no parole until he served at least 50 years.

Four Missouri governors ago a federal judge suggested that Clemmons deserved the sort of mercy that is at the heart of executive clemency, a power that will be in Greitens hands when he is sworn in as governor on Jan. 9.

It was July 12, 1999, and U.S. Circuit Court Judge Myron Bright of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals was agreeing with his colleagues that Clemmons didnt have federal grounds to have his murder conviction overturned.

That Clemmons swung a metal pipe at Weems during a street fight is not in dispute.

But almost everything else about the case is, including whether Clemmons was defending himself at the time, which should have provoked a lesser charge, and a far shorter sentence.

This is at the crux of an opinion Bright wrote in 1999.

This is an unusual case, Bright wrote. The jury convicted Clemmons of capital murder. Yet, as I have observed, the evidence indicates that Clemmons acted with some justification for his conduct, and evidence which surfaced in a different trial casts grave doubt on whether Clemmons struck the blows that killed the victim.  By this concurring opinion, I urge Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan to review this case and consider reducing the existing life sentence. I note that Clemmons has already served seventeen years in prison, seven more than the minimum for second-degree murder and seven more than the maximum for manslaughter.

Carnahan never commuted the sentence of Clemmons. Neither did Gov. Bob Holden. Nor did Gov. Matt Blunt. Nor, so far, has Gov. Jay Nixon.

Clemmons is hoping that on his way out, Nixon, a Democrat, will set him free.

I hope I have finally dotted the is and crossed the ts by having the appropriate people bring my nightmare to the attention of the governor, Clemmons wrote me recently from the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston.

With Nixons days as governor winding down, a lot of folks in prison  and their advocates on the outside  are banking on the fact that after two terms and with his political career likely over, Nixon will look their way, shortening sentences that were too long, or freeing those who have rehabilitated themselves, or simply righting past wrongs.

Clemmons, who is 55, has been locked up since Aug. 16, 1982.

I dont know if Nixon will free me, Clemmons wrote, but I sure hope he does. Under the current conditions I live under, I dont know if I can endure another four-year wait.

If Clemmons is still in prison come Jan. 9, his plea for clemency will eventually end up on the desk of a governor who lives down the street from where the crime occurred, who understands intimately what violence against families looks like, who speaks of law and order and faith and forgiveness as though they are all part of the same system of justice.

The last leg of that system ends on the governors desk, where one man can sift through hundreds of petitions for clemency, and right the wrongs of a justice system that sometimes isnt colorblind, that sometimes metes out punishment far too severe for the crime, that sometimes treats those from poverty differently than those with means.

It is at this final step, where mercy balances the rush to punish long after the tense emotions of a murder trial have simmered down.

In these cold December days, as one governor prepares to leave office and another begins his term, Eric Clemmons is begging for mercy. He hopes for forgiveness. He yearns for justice.
BELLEVILLE  State police and federal agents announced charges against nine Metro East area residents Monday on corruption-related offenses. All but one of them were public officials or police.

Seven were arrested Monday.

Charging documents accuse one of accepting a bribe to reduce taxes on a piece of property. Others are accused of forgery, voting irregularities and official misconduct charges.

St. Clair County States Attorney Brendan Kelly said it represented an old and cynical way of thinking.

At a news conference Monday with state and federal officials, Kelly questioned whether some governmental bodies have outlived their usefulness and said that he believes that the cases do send a message.

Charged were:

 St. Clair County Board of Review member Michael P. Crockett Jr., 55, of Millstadt. He was charged with bribery and failure to report a bribe for accepting cash to reduce taxes on two commercial properties on Camp Jackson Road in Cahokia. He was also charged with official misconduct and forgery for falsifying an assessment of that property.

 June Hamilton Dean, 53, an East St. Louis city councilwoman and East St. Louis Township contractor. She was charged with public contractor misconduct and forgery. Prosecutors say she created a false document about the employment status of another defendant. Dean is the sister of Oliver Hamilton, who pleaded guilty to a federal charge last week.

 Washington Park auxiliary police Officer Anthony L. Davis, 25, of Cahokia. He was charged with official misconduct, a felony. Prosecutors accuse him of knowingly furnishing false information about an accident involving his patrol car.

 East St. Louis Township trustee Michael D. Roberts, 70, of East St. Louis. He was charged with official misconduct for using township funds for a trip for him and his wife to Las Vegas.

 Alorton police Officer Teanna A. Gillespie, 26, of East St. Louis. She was charged with possessing a firearm after her Firearm Owners Identification card was revoked and another gun charge. Kelly said her card was revoked when she was in a mental institution.

 Former Alorton Mayor Jo A. Reed, 58, was charged with vote buying. Prosecutors also said she was soliciting votes within 100 feet of a polling place, a misdemeanor.

 RaeShaunta S. Lacy, 45, of Swansea, was charged with forgery. Prosecutors say she delivered a false document about her employment status. Her first name is listed in charging documents as Raesha.

 East St. Louis Township trustee Edith R. Moore, 68, of East St. Louis. She was charged with forgery of an email and prevention of voting. Prosecutors say that she prevented another person from voting.

 U.S. Postal Service employee Christopher E. Malone, 41, of Swansea. He was charged with theft of government property. Prosecutors say he stole property worth less than $500.

The prosecutors would not discuss the evidence in their cases.

The investigation of the most recent cases in so-called Operation: Watchtower began in April and involved the state police, the IRS, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Kelly said.

He said the cases were difficult, because it is sometimes hard to determine the difference between bad governance, bad decisions and what is criminal.

Both Kelley and U.S. Attorney Don Boyce stressed the cooperation between state and federal agencies in the probe.

Kelly said that all of the offenses involved in Mondays arrests are eligible for probation under Illinois law, assuming no prior criminal history by the defendants.

He said that Dean and Hamiltons phony baloney jobs were both funded by a Cease-fire Grant, which was intended to reduce violence.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.  A man with a history of violent sex offenses dating back to the 1960s has been committed to a treatment program.

The Missouri attorney general's office said in a news release Tuesday that it pursued the commitment as James Geitz, 66, was scheduled for release after serving a 27-year sentence.

The release says Geitz was arrested in 1968 for multiple home invasion sexual assaults. He was again tied to more home invasion rapes in 1976 and 1978.

In 1983, Geitz was arrested for breaking into a woman's home, sodomizing her, and threatening to rape her child. A month after being released on bond, Geitz broke into a home and sexually assaulted a 14-year old and the 3-year old she was babysitting. He also attempted to hire a killer in 1985.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY  Police are looking for a man they say tried to run over officers with his SUV Monday morning.

The man was one of two drivers who swerved at police shortly after 10 a.m. in the 1100 block Reale Avenue, police said.

He should be considered armed and dangerous, police said. He was last seen wearing red and black checkerboard shirt and pants and a red hat. Police believe he has a head injury.

Officers responded to the 1100 block of Reale Avenue after receiving a call that a man attempted to run down a woman with his vehicle but missed and hit a mailbox.

Investigating officers saw the man driving erratically. He swerved at an officer standing outside her marked patrol car.

The officer pushed herself away from the vehicle and onto her patrol car for protection. She was later taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries.

The driver of the SUV followed the first suspect vehicle. He also swerved at police.

Both vehicles fled the scene.

The first suspect vehicle crashed near the intersection of Bellefontaine Road and Saint Cyr Road shortly afterward. The man driving the vehicle was arrested and a stolen firearm was located in his vehicle.

The SUV was found overturned around 10:30 a.m. in the 800 block of Chambers Road. The driver had fled on foot.

The SUV had been stolen, investigators said. A stolen firearm was found inside.

The driver of the SUV was picked up by a third suspect vehicle, a sedan.

The sedan was found unoccupied around 11 a.m. near the intersection of Redman Road and Larimore Road. A helicopter and canine unit found the driver of the sedan shortly afterward. He was arrested and a stolen firearm was found nearby.

Police were looking for the second suspect Monday night.

Officials ask anyone with information about the second suspect to call St. Louis County Police at 314-889-2341 or CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477.
ST. LOUIS  The man shot to death while driving along Interstate 55 in south St. Louis this week was apparently targeted and probably not linked to a similar killing of a popular bar owner last month, police sources said Tuesday.

Suspects in a third fatal attack there already had been charged.

Officials identified the latest victim as Jarrell Foster, 28, of the 5200 block of Tennessee Avenue. The sources said his killers pursued him at high speed, weaving through traffic, but they did not know why someone might want him dead.

One source said Foster has children and a military background. Fosters name does not appear in online Missouri or federal court records.

He was alone, driving on southbound I-55 near Arsenal Street about 12:15 p.m. Monday when shots hit his black Ford pickup. It crashed, and Foster died at the scene.

Witnesses told police he appeared to be trying to get away from a dark-colored vehicle, possibly a four-door sedan. Police Capt. Mary Warnecke said the gunman was riding in the back seat with only a driver in the front, and that one of them wore a black hoodie. There was no indication that Foster fired back, Warnecke said.

The driver of a gold Ford Explorer was not hurt when its rear window was shot out during the attack.

It was the third deadly shooting on that stretch of I-55 in St. Louis in under four months.

On Nov. 9, Patrick McVey was killed in his Ford Explorer as he drove south near Loughborough Avenue. He was co-owner of Maggie OBriens Restaurant and Irish Pub, next to Union Station. McVeys body was found slumped in his stopped vehicle off the side of the pavement about 6 p.m., but police believe he was shot about 2:30 p.m. and sat unnoticed in the interim.

Sigaria Shanklin, 25, of St. Louis, was shot in the head and killed on I-55 near Arsenal shortly before 1 a.m. Aug. 12 as she rode in a car with her 2-year-old nephew in her lap. The driver was wounded; the child was not hurt. First-degree murder charges were filed against what police said were gunmen who fired from another vehicle.
ST. LOUIS  The wife of Governor-elect Eric Greitens was robbed at gunpoint Monday night as she left a restaurant in the Central West End and police said three suspects are in custody.

The governor-elect released a statement shortly before 10 p.m. that said his wife was safe but shaken after being robbed not far from the couples home.

We are grateful for the men and women of law enforcement, the statement said. Their response was swift and skilled, and we thank God for their presence tonight.

The robbery happened shortly after 6 p.m. near Cafe Ventana, a restaurant just west of the campus of St. Louis University.

Sheena Greitens was sitting inside her vehicle in the parking lot of the restaurant when her car door was suddenly opened by a suspect, police said.

The suspect pointed a gun at Greitens and demanded her property, police said. Greitens gave the suspect her laptop and cellphone.

She saw several men or boys running from the scene, police said.

Police arrived on the scene and discovered that another car in the parking lot had been broken into and a mans cellphone was taken.

The man tracked his cellphone, which led officers to the 4200 block of Shreve Avenue.

Officers got behind a suspect vehicle and attempted to stop it.

The vehicle fled and was involved in an accident, police said. No one was injured.

Three male teenagers got out of the car and fled from the scene on foot before they were taken into custody, police said. The suspects are ages 14, 15 and 19.

Investigators found the suspects car had been stolen in an earlier robbery on the 3700 block of Lindell Boulevard.

It had also been used in an attempted robbery in the 3100 block of Locust Street just before the robbery on West Pine.

The stolen laptop and cellphones were found in the suspects vehicle, police said.
WEBSTER GROVES  Almost a week after more than 100 fliers with racist and homophobic messages were placed outside of an African-American student's room in a Webster University dormitory, officials say they have narrowed in on the students responsible for the act.

University officials believe "a small group of students" created the fliers, according to a statement, adding that the messages are consistent with the Clery Act's definition of a hate crime.

A university spokesperson declined further comment, saying the incident is still under investigation. Because student conduct and Title IX investigations are protected by federal student privacy acts, outcomes of any disciplinary actions won't be public, according to the statement.

Webster administrators hosted several meetings on campus to discuss diversity and inclusion efforts, with plans for more. Students organized a "solidarity march" Tuesday afternoon on campus. On a Facebook event page created for the march, organizers point to university faculty and staff demographics as evidence of racial inequality. Another protest is planned for later this week.

"The University understands the needs for some in the community to speak out against the incident and supports the right to protest, as long as it is done in a safe and legal manner," the university said in a statement.

The student targeted in the incident did not see the fliers, according to previous Post-Dispatch reports. He told officials he did not know why someone would target him.
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
WASHINGTON  Indiana and Missouri will forever be paired in the analytical annals of Election 2016.

In those two states, the GOP Senate candidates were a drag on Trump, rather than vice versa. That stands out in relief from dominant national trends in which Republican Senate candidates largely out-performed President-elect Donald Trump.

The data are stark in some instances, and a surprise in others.

While it can be argued that some Republican senators helped drag Trump across the finish line to win close and pivotal Electoral College states, Trump also appeared to be the biggest drag on his ticket in some of the reddest states, particularly small states in the Upper Midwest and West. Republican senators who waltzed to easy re-elections in those states often outperformed Trump by significant margins, even though Trump also carried them in landslide proportions.

The Trump drag was less evident states where Republican Senate candidates won and that were essential to Trumps victory. In Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, incumbent Republican Senators all garnered more votes than Trump did, in some places dramatically so.

Those states, early on, were also seen as pivotal to whether Democrats could wrest control of the Senate. But in Ohio, for instance, incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman waltzed to an easy re-election with a margin of more than 1.1 million votes. Trumps margin over Hillary Clinton was just under 455,000 in the Buckeye State.

In Wisconsin, where Green Party candidate Jill Stein is challenging the presidential results, incumbent Ron Johnson won by just under 100,000 votes. Trumps cheese-state margin unofficially remains just north of 27,000.

By contrast, both Republican incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt in Missouri, and Rep. Todd Young, who won the Indiana Senate seat, lagged Trumps performance in their respective states. In Missouri, Blunts margin of around 87,000 votes fell far short of the 530,000-plus Trump ran up in the state.

Trump got 57.1 percent of the vote in Missouri and 57.2 percent in Indiana.

But in more consistently red states, a Trump lag really showed. Incumbent Republican senators in Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah won with an average of 70.4 percent of the vote. In those five states, none of which have voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964, Trumps average percentage was 59.2, although that total was skewed somewhat with a relatively low showing in Utah, at 45.9, where Trumps attacks on 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney had an effect.

Indiana and Missouri bucked the trend for opposite reasons.

In Indiana, Young was a relative newcomer running against a former governor and senator with a long history in the state. It took Young awhile to get known, and Young peaked late, in part riding on Trumps anti-Washington agenda in portraying Evan Bayh as an insider and carpetbagger, having returned from a job in Washington to seek the senate seat he once held.

Blunt, on the other hand, was attacked as the ultimate insider in an outsider year. He won through retail political skills, a political organization that had gotten him easily elected in 2010, and Blunts coattails. His opponent, Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander, was considered one of the Democrats best challengers.

In the end, more than 440,000 Missourians  roughly one in six who voted  appeared to have cast ballots for Trump and Kander. (Chuck Raasch)

ON THE WEB:

BY THE NUMBERS:

9  Number of states that have not voted for a Democrat since the 1964 election. (Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming).

12  Number of presidential elections since Minnesota has voted for a Republican, the longest string of Democratic wins in any state.

SHE SAID IT: Regardless of how close some of these races were, the results are still stunning. When this cycle got underway in early 2015, the question was not whether Republicans would lose their (U.S. Senate) majority but by how many seats." Jennifer Duffy, Cook Political Report.
WASHINGTON  A bill protecting whistleblowers who expose what they think is wrongdoing in government contracts was passed Monday by the U.S. House of Representatives and is expected to be signed by President Barack Obama.

It was sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and would make permanent current whistleblower protections to nearly all federal government grantees, sub-grantees, contractors and subcontractors, McCaskills office said in a press release. It would also block contractors from being reimbursed for legal fees defending retaliation claims by whistleblowers.

Weve got an enormous contracting workforce in the federal government, and weve got to make sure that all of our contractors have the same whistleblower protections as the government employees they work alongside, McCaskill said.
FERGUSON  At a meeting Monday night with the monitor charged with seeing that Ferguson complies with a federal consent decree, residents expressed concerns about poor communication, police recruitment and the future of the decree under President-elect Donald Trump.

In April, U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry approved an agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Ferguson to reform the police department and municipal court in the city. Ferguson had been the focus of protests over its policing and court practices after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a city officer in August 2014. A subsequent Justice Department report cited several problems, prompting the consent decree.

Some decree reforms include diversity training for officers and equipping police and jail workers with body cameras.

At the town hall meeting Monday, Ferguson residents said the public had gotten little notice about the meeting.

Three volunteer-based committees, the Neighborhood Policing Steering Committee, the Human Rights Commission and the Civilian Review Board Task Force, are in place to aid community engagement with the City Council during the audit.

But policing committee and Ferguson Collaborative member Francesca Griffin questioned why neighborhood apartment associations had not been established to include more marginalized voices in the conversation.

At some point, theres a disconnect, Griffin said, adding she also wondered why flyers about the meeting hadnt been sent home with Ferguson students .

Ferguson consent decree monitor Clark Ervin assured residents he is interested in working with all community groups during the review process and asked a few speakers for contact information to people they recommend to aid the review process. To those who questioned the current police complaint filing system, he also said he is working to establish a better log of resident complaints.

Ervin said a survey to assess public opinion will be distributed by mail, email and in-person in January.

Many of the about 100 people gathered at the meeting at the Ferguson Community Center also said they are concerned how the number of police would affect the Ferguson Police Departments ability to comply with the consent decree.

Ervin said, despite the decline in Ferguson police officers to near 30 from more than 50 in recent years, the department had enough officers to begin some of the early stages of compliance. He said that police recruitment, use of force and police stops, searches, citations and arrests are among his top priorities.

He said discussions with officers to talk about department issues would start Tuesday and an audit of municipal court reform would start in a few weeks.

The consent agreement is to remain in effect until Ferguson has reached full compliance and maintained that status for two years.

Ervin is set to meet with Perry on Tuesday.
For several years, Jill Thompson has been showing people through the streets in poor, racially segregated neighborhoods in north St. Louis and North County, pointing to the barriers to healthy pregnancies and raising young children.

From her SUV she notes the crumbling sidewalks, shuttered factories full of toxins, the abandoned houses and the ones that look abandoned but still house families.

In the Ville  once a thriving African-American middle-class neighborhood  theres a dearth of retail, including supermarkets with fresh produce. A few miles northwest, in St. Louis County, the bus stops are spaced far apart on major roadways, some with sidewalks barely wide enough for a stroller.

Thompson works for Generate Health, a regional group promoting better maternal and infant health. She gives these tours in areas notorious for the high rate of babies dying each year before their first birthday to explain the challenges of keeping infants and expectant moms healthy: fear of violence, a dearth of easy, reliable transportation, poor access to health care, and few safe places to exercise and play.

And shes spoken of the consequences of living in poverty, how a local study suggests that half of low-income mothers suffer from depression  and how toxic stress contributes to preterm labor.

A recent study commissioned by Generate Health found disturbing racial trends within infant mortality. African-American babies are three times as likely to die as white babies in St. Louis. Black women in Missouri are nearly 50 percent more likely to have a preterm baby than any other group, regardless of socioeconomic status.

The study further found the majority of the regions infant deaths occurred in the first month of life and correlated with significant incidents of high blood pressure among African-American mothers during pregnancy, nearly tripling their risk for babies with lower birth weights.

And yet despite these pregnancy risks, more than a fifth of black mothers received inadequate prenatal care compared to just 5 percent of white mothers. Black mothers were 137 percent more likely to lose a baby in the first month of life than white mothers.

Generate Health, the new name for the Maternal, Child and Family Health Coalition, has been sounding the alarms for years. But last year, agency leaders upped their game.

With funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health, they announced a new campaign to combat infant mortality called Flourish, and they are focusing heavily on the racial and social health disparities affecting African-Americans.

The group launched the effort with a simple fact: the number of babies that die each year in the region amounts to 15 lost kindergarten classrooms.

Imagine the lost potential, Thompson said during a recent car tour. Imagine the future leaders, the artists, the minds we lose each year.

Now a year in, Flourish has is acting on a new study of infant deaths commissioned by Missouri Foundation of Health. It has conducted a years worth of community meetings to hear the voices and needs of mothers and children in vulnerable neighborhoods.

The next step is for volunteers and community agencies to join forces on five initiatives to lessen infant mortality.

A call to act

Last week, at an event at New Northside Missionary Baptist Churchs conference center on Goodfellow Boulevard, Flourish unveiled a call to action. At the end of the meeting about 100 attendees locked arms in a circle and pledged to help solve these issues and recruit others.

Among the initiatives is a future public information campaign promoting infant safe-sleep practices among African-American families, in part, because Generate Healths study found black infants in the region are four times more likely than white babies to succumb to sudden unexpected infant death.

In the past three years alone, 48 babies in St. Louis died under these circumstances. Eight out of 10 of those deaths were caused by unsafe sleep conditions, which included sleeping with a baby in a bed.

Its very good its getting the attention it needs, said Lori Behrens, executive director of SIDS Resources in St. Louis who is working on the Flourish action team on unsafe sleep. Im glad that we made their top five.

Other initiatives will deal with improving transportation; helping with maternal stress, depression and drug addiction; enhancing health care access; and helping moms better navigate the health and support systems already in place.

During last weeks unveiling, participants used Post-It notes to comment on each action area. For infant sleep deaths, one participant warned that mothers without heat or poor insulation in their homes unwittingly take babies into their beds with them in winter to protect them.

Another suggested Uber or another ride-share venture could be engaged to better help moms make necessary appointments. Others spoke of the grief of a losing a child and how sadness can pervade homes and neighborhoods because of it.

Bracing for change

Nicollette Mayo lost her daughter Jazmyn at 7 weeks when her healthy daughter stopped breathing while napping. It happened during Mayos first day back at work, and though the mom wanted to stay home longer with her daughter, she had no paid maternity leave. In the aftermath, she fell into a deep depression and stopped working

I have met so many mothers during this process who have lost children, and I just think its horrible. Anything we can do from giving out fliers to training on safe sleep would be great, said Mayo, who attended last weeks meeting.

Flourish announced its action plan amid uncertainty over resources. Two years ago the federal government cut funding for Generate Healths Healthy Start program which sent nurses into homes of moms with children up to age 2  a program that had been supported by $7.1 million in federal funding. At this point, there are no plans to reinstate that program locally.

Generate Health is also bracing for anticipated policy changes in the Donald Trump presidency. Officials worry about Medicaid coverage and access shrinking, leaving more mothers without prenatal health care and early-infant health interventions. And they worry that access to birth control will be significantly curbed.

Kendra Copanas, executive director of Generate Health, said the five initiatives could focus on local strategies and resources  ventures and new ideas that can be done outside of traditional federal and state government support, though that is certainly welcome.

And yet, despite current uncertainties, Flourish workers are looking forward with hope and resolve.

The thing is, the more we know, the more we are able to get ahead, Mayo said.
HARTFORD, Conn.  Many birds in Connecticut are suffering slow, steady population declines because of a loss of nesting areas, and scientists say the saltmarsh sparrow could be extinct in 50 years, becoming the first avian extinction in the continental U.S. since 1931, the Connecticut Audubon Society reports.

The group recently released a sharply worded report warning of the threat of the loss of coastal habitat from rising sea levels and urging state officials to take action to protect endangered bird species, including setting aside funds needed to address the rising waters.

The organization reported many birds are suffering population declines with the loss of grasslands, shrubby areas, beaches and tidal wetlands. The saltmarsh sparrow, which weighs about a half-ounce, is particularly at risk.

It would be the first avian extinction in the continental U.S. since the Heath Hen in 1931, Milan Bull, the Connecticut Audubon Societys senior director of science and conservation, wrote in the annual Connecticut State of Birds Report. Theres no way to characterize that as anything but a disaster.

Saltmarsh sparrows, which live in coastal areas from Maine to Virginia during the breeding season and migrate farther south in the winter, are disappearing on the East Coast. University of Maine professor Brian Olsen, one of the researchers studying the bird, said the population has dropped about 9 percent annually since 1998. Besides sea-level rise, he blames structures such as roads and railways, which restrict the flow of tides to salt marshes and interfere with the sparrows habitat.

In Connecticut, the Audubon Society is recommending the states Department of Energy and Environmental Protection receive funding to plan for sufficient landscapes to allow the migration of tidal marshes inland as sea levels rise. The group also is calling on land-use officials, private landowners and conservation groups to find opportunities to maintain or expand shrub-scrub habitat within existing forests or newly created or restored habitats.

The report also recommends the Connecticut Audubon Society work with the department, the separate organization Audubon Connecticut, the Connecticut Ornithological Association and academic ornithologists on planning and funding a statewide survey of where birds breed. It notes how New York completed its first breeding bird atlas project three decades ago.

Connecticut still lacks this basic and indispensable inventory and data source, the report notes.
WILKES-BARRE, Pa.  A Pennsylvania woman who pleaded guilty to killing her husband by slipping rat poison into his food and drinks will be released from prison next week.

Joann Curley, 53, will be free on Monday after serving a 20-year sentence for the 1991 death of her husband, Robert Curley.

Prosecutors say Curley poisoned her husband with the chemical thallium for about a year so she could collect $300,000 in insurance policies and keep him from spending $1.7 million she won in a lawsuit.

The victim's sister, Susan Curley Grady, tells The Citizens Voice she feels Joann Curley should be serving a life sentence.

Joann Curley reached a plea deal in 1997 with prosecutors who intended to seek the death penalty.

Tests showed Robert Curley had 900 times the lethal dose of thallium in his system.
Most Americans can remember exactly where they were when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks occurred and trace the profound effect it had on our live
Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan today hosted a delegation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) headed by its Armenia Country Director Shane Rosenthal, this according to a government communique.

Karapetyan informed the delegation about reform steps his government is taking and plans to launch a Strategic Initiatives Center in Armenia. The prime minister stressed the importance of the ADBs possible participation in these processes.

Rosenthal said the ADB is not only prepared to continue assisting joint initiatives in Armenia, but has also researched the countrys present needs and has assisted the Armenian government to meet its stated priorities.

The sides discussed ongoing joint projects to develop the transportation, energy and infrastructure sectors and to assist the private sector.

Photo (from left): Shane Rosenthal, Karen Karapetyan
There are very few people in the world who do not have a smart phone. There are even fewer people of that number who...
November/December 2016

Magazine Features

The 10 Year View: What Will Online Video Look Like in 2026?

There's a vast generation gap in how Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers access and enjoy online video, so what will the area look like when Millennials get older?

Another Nail in Flashs Coffin: CDN Support Rapidly Dwindling

By this time next year, Flash support from the major content delivery networks will have virtually ended. Here's where Flash stands today.

The China Problem: Government-Sponsored Formats Are Incompatible

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Skeptics Unite! VR Is Half-Baked, Far From Ready for the Masses

What's so great about turning your head? For all the talk of immersive virtual reality experiences, this columnist sees only heavily-pixilated, nausea-inducing video.

CMAF Is Halfway There, But That's Not Far Enough: Commentary

The Common Media Application Format (CMAF) hits a predictable roadblock with encryption, where it enables two incompatible modes. This has one columnist feeling pessimistic.

$10K Buys a Mobile System for Interactive Streaming and Live VR

Costs are coming down and so are sizes. It's now possible to create a backpack-sized, completely mobile live video production system for around $10,000.

Containing Costs: How Publishers Can Save Money on ABR Encoding

Many companies spend too much on adaptive bitrate encoding. In turns out there's a pricey way to go about it and a cheaper way. Dynamic packaging to the rescue!

An Object Lesson in Personalized Streaming Video Experiences

What custom content does each viewer want to see? As broadcast and broadband converge, object-based media is showing the way to the future, and the BBC is taking the lead.

Review: Matrox Monarch LCS

The Matrox Monarch LCS is an inexpensive dual-input lecture capture solution with two output channels that can be independently set for recording and/or streaming.

The 2016 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Winners

It's the most prestigious honor in the online video industry, because it's decided by thousands of StreamingMedia.com voters. Read on to see which companies are taking home a Readers' Choice Award.

The Video Doctor

4 Ways Companies Can Lock Down Their Premium Video Catalogs

Piracy doesn't have to be a routine cost of business, and streamed videos can be secured. Learn which of these methods is best for your business.

Future in Focus

The Great OTT Myth: The Reality of Cord Cutting Isnt So Real

The days of traditional TV are over as consumers rush to cut the cord, right? Not so fast: We're seeing a migration, but the product and players haven't changed.
Jefferies analyst Martin Englert notes that on Friday a judge concluded Chicago Bridge & Iron's (NYSE: CBI) lawsuit against Westinghouse should be dismissed, with an independent auditor the appropriate party to address the dispute.

"As previously cautioned, CBI shares/valuation will likely remain pressured until the dispute is resolved," Englert commented. "Encouragingly, CBI may benefit from precedent based on its GAAP assessment vs Westinghouse's adjusted."

The firm maintained a Buy rating and price target of $38 on CBI.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Chicago Bridge & Iron click here. For more ratings news on Chicago Bridge & Iron click here.

Shares of Chicago Bridge & Iron closed at $32.10 yesterday.
Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) is modestly higher Tuesday (+0.6%) following some rare, positive analyst commentary. In a note to clients today, Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Graham said their proprietary sampling supports their Q4 MAU outlook and engagement is improving. The firm, however, maintained their Hold rating and $18 price target, saying revenue headwinds may still persist.

"Based on data so far this quarter (and extrapolating out to quarter-end) our TWTR engagement survey looks like it will grow 5.3% sequentially in Q4 over Q3," Graham said. "Of that, we estimate that ~25% is attributable to new member growth and ~75% is due to engagement improvements in the existing base. Therefore, our sampling suggests MAU growth in Q4 of 1.4% sequentially (4.4M net adds)."

"While growth is still sluggish, if our sampling results prove consistent with reported results again this quarter, this should mitigate one risk for the stock in Q4," the analyst added.

Graham noted the following key points:

Engagement seems to be improving - Our survey of the Twitter user base across about 100 countries suggests Q4 growth in our engagement index should reach 5.3% sequentially by quarter-end. This is up slightly from 4.0% sequential growth in Q3. We did not witness a significant uptick in any particular region, though there seem to be gradual improvements in a few countries.

Proprietary sampling supportive of our Q4 MAU estimate - By estimating that 25% of growth in the engagement index is due to new member growth, we estimate that Q4 MAU net adds could be as high as 4.4M, above our current model estimate of 3.5M and consensus at 1.6M.

Business challenges still persist - Following news of a sizable workforce reduction in Q3, management issued a wide range of revenue guidance for Q4 and also provided a 2017 profit outlook that seems to imply continued revenue strength. Growth and engagement from Twitter's user base beyond the levels we are seeing now may be needed to achieve these ambitions.

Valuation - Our price target remains $18, based on 20x our 2018 EPS estimate of $0.88.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Twitter, Inc. click here. For more ratings news on Twitter, Inc. click here.

Shares of Twitter, Inc. closed at $18.23 yesterday.
(Updated - December 6, 2016 10:47 AM EST)

The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft. The decision is conditional on compliance with a series of commitments aimed at preserving competition between professional social networks in Europe.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "A growing number of Europeans subscribe to professional social networks. These networks are important for professionals to connect and interact and to find new career opportunities. Today's decision ensures that Europeans will continue to enjoy a freedom of choice between professional social networks."

The Commission's investigation

Microsoft and LinkedIn are mainly active in complementary business areas, except for minor overlaps in online advertising. The Commission's investigation under EU merger rules focused in particular on three areas: (i) professional social network services, (ii) customer relationship management software solutions, and (iii) online advertising services.

Professional social network services

The Commission looked at whether, after the merger, Microsoft could use its strong market position in operating systems (Windows) for personal computers (PCs) and productivity software (including Outlook, Word, Excel and Power Point) to strengthen LinkedIn's position among professional social networks.

In particular the Commission was concerned that Microsoft would:

pre-install LinkedIn on all Windows PCs; and

integrate LinkedIn into Microsoft Office and combine, to the extent allowed by contract and applicable privacy laws, LinkedIn's and Microsoft's user databases. This could have been reinforced by shutting out LinkedIn's competitors from access to Microsoft's application programming interfaces, which they need to interoperate with Microsoft's products and to access user data stored in the Microsoft cloud.

The Commission found that these measures could have significantly enhanced LinkedIn's visibility whilst competing professional social networks could potentially be denied such access. As a result, LinkedIn would have been able to expand its user base and activity in a way that it would not have been able to do absent the merger.

The Commission was concerned that the increase in LinkedIn's user base would make it harder for new players to start providing professional social network services in the European Economic Area (EEA). Furthermore, it could have gradually and irreversibly tipped the market towards LinkedIn in Member States where a competitor of LinkedIn currently operates (such as Austria, Germany or Poland).

Customer relationship management software solutions

The Commission looked at whether after the merger Microsoft would be able to shut out its competitors by:

obliging customer relationship management customers buying LinkedIn's sales intelligence solutions to also purchase Microsoft's customer relationship management software; and

denying its competitors access to the full LinkedIn database, thus preventing them from developing advanced customer relationship management functionalities also through machine learning.

On the first concern, the Commission found that while the customer base of the two products does overlap, LinkedIn's product is one of several on the market and does not appear to be a "must have" solution.

On the second concern, the Commission also found that access to the full LinkedIn database is not essential to compete on the market.

Moreover, Microsoft is a relatively small player in the customer relationship management market, where it faces strong competitors, such as Salesforce, the clear market leader, Oracle and SAP.

The Commission therefore considered it unlikely that the transaction would enable Microsoft to foreclose these players and eliminate competition in this market.

Online advertising services

With respect to online advertising services, the companies' activities only overlap in relation to display advertising. However, given their very limited combined market share in the EEA, as well as the fragmented nature of the market, the Commission excluded any competition concerns arising from the combination of the parties' online non-search service activities.

Moreover, no competition concerns arise from the concentration of the parties' user data that can be used for advertising purposes. This is because a large amount of such user data will continue to be available on the market after the transaction. In addition, the transaction would not reduce the amount of data available to third parties as neither Microsoft nor LinkedIn currently makes available its data to third parties for advertising purposes.

The Commission analysed potential data concentration as a result of the merger with regard to its potential impact on competition in the Single Market. Privacy related concerns as such do not fall within the scope of EU competition law but can be taken into account in the competition assessment to the extent that consumers see it as a significant factor of quality, and the merging parties compete with each other on this factor. In this instance, the Commission concluded that data privacy was an important parameter of competition between professional social networks on the market, which could have been negatively affected by the transaction.

The proposed commitments

To address the competition concerns identified by the Commission in the professional social network services market, Microsoft offered a series of commitments. These commitments include:

ensuring that PC manufacturers and distributors would be free not to install LinkedIn on Windows and allowing users to remove LinkedIn from Windows should PC manufacturers and distributors decide to preinstall it.

allowing competing professional social network service providers to maintain current levels of interoperability with Microsoft's Office suite of products through the so-called Office add-in program and Office application programming interfaces.

granting competing professional social network service providers access to "Microsoft Graph", a gateway for software developers. It is used to build applications and services that can, subject to user consent, access data stored in the Microsoft cloud, such as contact information, calendar information, emails, etc. Software developers can potentially use this data to drive subscribers and usage to their professional social networks.

The commitments will apply in the EEA for a period of five years and will be monitored by a trustee.

These commitments address the competition concerns identified by the Commission. The Commission therefore concluded that the proposed transaction, as modified by the commitments, would no longer raise competition concerns. This decision is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments.

Companies and products

Microsoft is a global technology company based in US which develops, licenses, and supports software products, services and devices. Microsoft's products include operating systems for PCs, servers, and mobile devices (branded "Windows"), cross-device productivity applications (branded "Office"), video games, as well as cloud-based solutions and online advertising. Microsoft also provides other software solutions, including customer relationship management (branded "Dynamics"), which is a type of software used by businesses to manage their sales, marketing and customer support activities.

LinkedIn is a US based company that operates the homonymous Internet-based social networking service that focuses on promoting professional connections. Professional social network services are offered as free of charge basic subscriptions or premium subscriptions. Among premium subscriptions, LinkedIn offers a sales intelligence solution for businesses branded "Sales Navigator." This product grants access to a subset of the entire LinkedIn database that can be purchased by businesses that also buy customer relationship management solutions. LinkedIn also provides recruiting tools and online education courses as well as it offers advertising space to individuals and enterprises.

Merger control rules and procedures

The transaction was notified to the Commission on 14 October 2016.

The Commission has the duty to assess mergers and acquisitions involving companies with a turnover above certain thresholds (see Article 1 of the Merger Regulation) and to prevent concentrations that would significantly impede competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it.

The vast majority of notified mergers do not pose competition problems and are cleared after a routine review. From the moment a transaction is notified, the Commission generally has a total of 25 working days to decide whether to grant approval (Phase I) or to start an in-depth investigation (Phase II).

More information will be available on the competition website, in the Commission's public case register under the case number M.8124.
A Novartis logo is pictured on its headquarters building in Mumbai April 1, 2013. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash/File Photo

By Sophie Sassard and Arno Schuetze

ZURICH (Reuters) - Novartis is in talks about the sale of some older neuroscience drugs, people close to the matter said, as the Swiss drugmaker clears the decks to concentrate on promising new medicines it hopes will help to restore sales growth.

The assets may be valued at more than 500 million Swiss Francs ($496 million) in a potential deal, the people said.

Novartis did not immediately return phone calls and emails seeking comment.

Chief Executive Joe Jimenez is in the process of refreshing the group's drugs portfolio to help return the company to sales growth.

The expiration of patents on Novartis's best-selling medicine Glivec in the United States this year and Europe next year is putting pressure on sales as generics hit the market.

But the world's biggest maker of prescription drugs has high expectations for investigational multiple sclerosis medicines including BAF312 and CJM 112, as well as ofatumumab that it bought from GlaxoSmithKline last year.

Additionally, Novartis bought U.S- and Australia-based Spinifex Inc. in 2015 to get control of early-stage treatments for neuropathic pain and is working with Amgen on a promising medicine to treat episodic and chronic migraines.

As a result, Novartis is seeking to sell older medicines within its central nervous system (CNS) range to free up its workforce's capacity to introduce, manufacture and market new drugs that it sees as potential blockbusters, the sources said.

Novartis has been offering its CNS portfolio, including its Exelon Patch, to treat symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and Ritalin against attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, since early 2016, another source said.

Generic drugmakers are among the potential buyers, one of the people said.

Another source said that the asset might appeal to medium-sized healthcare groups such as Endo, Mallinckrodt, Recordati or Pierre Fabre.

Novartis is more familiar as a potential buyer of companies in the M&A arena, with Jimenez saying last month he was looking for bolt on acquisitions. The company bought U.S.-based Selexys Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth up to $665 million in November.

But Novartis has also periodically culled its stable of drugs, including central nervous system medications. In 2001, for instance, it unloaded the rights to five older CNS medications including the insomnia medication Restoril.

Neuroscience is one of nine research and therapeutic areas where Jimenez and new research boss Jay Bradner, who heads up the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, have said they will focus the Basel-based company.

(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Ludwig Burger and Arno Schuetze in Frankfurt and Sophie Sassard in London. Editing by Jane Merriman)
Incisives Technology Department and Concourse Spreadsheet Management Solution Honored for Excellence

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- For the fourth year in a row, Incisives Concourse solution has been named a winner in the Best New Version of the Year category. Incisives Vice President of Engineering, Dave Myers, and Principal Engineer, Tuan Tran, accepted the Silver Award in the Technology Department of the Year category for their work to address spreadsheet risk intelligence.

Dave and Tuan have worked tirelessly to build the Incisive product suite. In doing so, they have filled a serious void within the industry, the ability to detect and manage spreadsheet risk. By expanding the capabilities of the Xcellerator product, they have made it significantly easier to detect spreadsheet risk and fraud, said Diane Robinette, president and CEO of Incisive. It is an honor to know their efforts and continued commitment to building upon the capabilities of Incisives spreadsheet risk intelligence technology are acknowledged by others in the industry.

Concourse - Best New Version of the Year New

In February 2016 Incisive Software Corporation broke spreadsheet management barriers with the launch of the Concourse API. In doing so, the company now enables seamless monitoring of spreadsheets within any Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and file sharing systems including SharePoint, Documentum, One Drive, Google Drive, and Box.

Because the API sits behind the scenes, it is invisible to users. Meanwhile, changes and revisions are tracked, providing enterprises greater transparency and governance over spreadsheets, avoiding costly errors and unwanted headlines.

To learn more about Incisives risk intelligence technology please visit: www.incisive.com/overview

About Best in Biz Awards

Best in Biz Awards recognizes companies for their business success as judged by established members of the press and industry analysts. Best in Biz Awards honors are currently conferred in two separate programs: North America and International, and in more than 60 categories, including company, team, executive, product and PR and media. For more information, visit: http://www.bestinbizawards.com.

About Incisive

Incisive provides award-winning and innovative spreadsheet risk intelligence solutions. Our enterprise-class offerings provide visibility and control to all business areas that use or interact with spreadsheets. Incisive products have been recognized for accurately and reliably identifying risks to give users confidence in their spreadsheet information. For more information about Incisive and the companys solutions, visit www.incisive.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005335/en/

for Incisive Software

Julie Dearing, 713.201.9000

[email protected]

Source: Incisive Software Corporation
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Silver Spring Networks, Inc. (NYSE: SSNI), a leading networking platform and solutions provider for the Internet of Important ThingsTM, today announced its participation in the UBS Access conference call on Smart Grid Prospects on December 8th at 2:00 p.m. ET. Interested parties may access the conference call live via a dial-in number:

Dial-in NumbersToll Free: 888-227-5895International: +1-303-223-2696Passcode: 21836895

A dial-in replay of the conference call will be available until December 15, 2016 and can be accessed at 800-633-8284 (Toll Free) or +1 402-977-9140 (Toll) passcode 21836895.

During the course of this event, Silver Spring may disclose material developments affecting its business and/or financial performance.

The presentation time is subject to change. Please contact the financial institution hosting the conferences for additional details.

About Silver Spring Networks

Silver Spring Networks enables the Internet of Important Things by reliably and securely connecting things that matter. Cities, utilities, and companies on five continents use the companys cost-effective, high-performance IoT network and data platform to operate more efficiently, get greener, and enable innovative services that can improve the lives of millions of people. With more than 24.9 million devices delivered, Silver Spring provides a proven standards-based platform safeguarded with military grade security. Silver Spring Networks customers include Baltimore Gas & Electric, CitiPower & Powercor, ComEd, Consolidated Edison, CPS Energy, Florida Power & Light, Pacific Gas & Electric, Pepco Holdings, and Singapore Power. Silver Spring has also deployed networks in Smart Cities including Copenhagen, Glasgow, Paris, Providence, and Stockholm. To learn more, visit www.ssni.com.

Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements

During the course of this presentation, Silver Spring Networks may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. Statements including words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the filings Silver Spring makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual events or actual results to differ materially from those discussed during the presentation. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the presentation. Silver Spring assumes no obligation to, and does not necessarily intend to, update these forward-looking statements.

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Silver Spring Networks, Inc.

Mark McKechnie, 669-770-4664

Investor Relations

[email protected]

or

Amy Nunnemacher, 669-770-4183

Global Communications

[email protected]

Source: Silver Spring Networks, Inc.
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT), a pharmaceutical company advancing technologies designed to address rare, emerging and neglected diseases, today announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) with the appointment of Professors Elliot J. Androphy, Kevin Hodgetts, and Hengli Tang. The SAB will work closely with the Spotlight Innovation management team to advance the Company's product development programs.

"We're honored that these eminent inventors, scientists and key opinion leaders have chosen to serve on our SAB," said Dr. Geoffrey Laff, Spotlight Innovation's Senior Vice President of Business Development. "Their ongoing technical and strategic guidance will influence our allocation of resources and accelerate development of our early-stage pipeline product candidates."

The inaugural members of Spotlight Innovation's Scientific Advisory Board are:

Hengli Tang, Ph.D.

Professor Tang is a Biological Science Faculty Member at Florida State University's Department of Biological Science. He is an accomplished virologist who has been studying RNA viruses for more than two decades, publishing extensively on retroviruses and the hepatitis C virus. In early 2016, Prof. Tang's lab began to study Zika virus in response to the Zika global health emergency. Since then, he and his research collaborators have been at the forefront of research concerning the pathogenesis of, and development of therapeutics for, Zika virus infection. He recently co-authored a study, published in Nature Medicine, reporting two classes of compounds: one that protects Zika virus-infected neural cells from programmed cell death ("apoptosis") and another that directly inhibits Zika virus replication. According to the study, when used in combination, compounds from the two classes enhanced the neuroprotective effect. Professor Tang's professional contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Developing Scholar Award from Florida State University, Outstanding Service as Online Mentor from the American Society for Microbiology, and the Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society.

Elliot J. Androphy, M.D.

Professor Androphy is the Chair of the Department of Dermatology of the Indiana University School of Medicine. He is the author of 135 journal articles published in Science, Nature, EMBO Molecular Medicine, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Virology, Molecular Cell, and other publications. After a four-year postdoctoral fellowship in virology at the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology of the National Cancer Institute/NIH, he joined Tufts Medical Center. His research team began investigations in SMA and identified the critical difference between SMN1 and SMN2 exon 7 splicing. Dr. Androphy served as Vice Chair for Research of the Department of Medicine, and as Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where his lab characterized the mechanism of alternative splicing of the SMN2 gene, which leads to skipping of exon 7 and failure to protect from motor neuron loss found in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). His lab developed a cell-based high throughput screen for compounds that increase levels of the SMN protein that is deficient in SMA, with the goal of increasing the potency and optimizing the pharmacology of pre-clinical leads. His work at the Indiana University School of Medicine has led to the identification of pre-clinical compounds that increase SMN protein levels. Dr. Androphy is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for both Cure SMA and FightSMA, previously served on the SAB of ImmuLogic and of Signal Pharmaceuticals, and is co-founder of Elagen Inc.

Kevin Hodgetts, Ph.D.

Professor Hodgetts is the head of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Laboratory for Drug Discovery in Neurodegeneration (LDDN) at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Founder and co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Klogene Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Hodgetts has a broad background in organic and medicinal chemistry, with experience in both industrial and academic drug discovery. He has over 15 years of experience working on treatments for diseases of the central nervous system. Compounds from two projects that he was involved with have entered clinical trials: NGD-8243, the first TRPV1 antagonist to reach phase II clinical trials for pain; and NGD-4715, the first MCH-1 antagonist to reach phase I clinical trials for obesity. Dr. Hodgetts joined the LDDN in September 2012 to work with the academic community to design new and innovative strategies for drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases.

About Spotlight Innovation Inc.

Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) identifies and acquires rights to innovative, proprietary technologies designed to address unmet medical needs, with an emphasis on rare, emerging and neglected diseases. To find and evaluate unique opportunities, we leverage our extensive relationships with leading scientists, academic institutions and other sources. We provide value-added development capability to accelerate development progress. When scientifically significant benchmarks have been achieved, we will endeavor to partner with proven market leaders via sale, out-license or strategic alliance. For more information, visit www.spotlightinnovation.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/spotlightinno.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein include statements regarding Spotlight Innovation's efforts to develop and commercialize its various technologies, and to achieve its stated benchmarks. Actual outcomes and actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: risks and uncertainties, such as the inability to finance the planned development of the technologies; the inability to hire appropriate staff to develop the technologies; unforeseen technical difficulties in developing the technologies; the inability to obtain regulatory approval for human use; competitors' therapies proving to be more effective, cheaper or otherwise more preferable; or, the inability to market a product. All of which could, among other things, delay or prevent product release, as well as other factors expressed from time to time in Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). As a result, this press release should be read in conjunction with Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as of the date of this press release and Spotlight Innovation undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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SOURCE Spotlight Innovation Inc.
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ted Rollins and TXG Capital have announced Kellen Stillman as the winner of their annual eco scholarship. Stillman will graduate from South Mecklenburg High School in the spring of 2017 and will be attending Emory University located in Atlanta in the fall. Stillman has plans to study strategy and management consulting and will receive $1,000 that may be used to assist with the cost of tuition, books or living expenses.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445642LOGO Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445641

Ted W. Rollins, Co-Chairman and Founding Principal of Valeo Groupe, is a seasoned real estate entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience in real estate investment banking, development, structured finance, start-up businesses and construction. He is focused on niche opportunity investing in both real estate and financial service sectors, particularly those that balance economic, environmental and social outcomes. Check out Ted's work on Good Men Project and connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Contact Ted Rollins, TXG Capital 9101 Southern Pine BoulevardCharlotte, NC 28273 [email protected]

Media Contact: Caroline Davis [email protected] 8649184534

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ted-rollins-and-txg-capital-announce-winner-for-annual-eco-scholarship-300373015.html

SOURCE TXG Capital
CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Elite Gamers Require Elite Gear.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446258

That's why the REALFORCE RGB Premium Gaming Keyboard combines the world-renowned comfort of TOPRE premium key switches with a full spectrum of colors and tops it off with EXCLUSIVE customizable actuation points for unsurpassed accuracy and speed.

Actuation Point Changer  EXCLUSIVE

Premium Topre Electrostatic Capacitive Switches

16.8 Million (RGB) Color Per-Key Backlighting

Keycap Compatibility Stem

Software Control

Designed & Assembled in Japan

Actuation Point Changer (APC)An exclusive to the REALFORCE RGB, the Actuation Point Changer (APC) allows you to customize various points for detecting key activation, making it 25% faster than competing mechanical keyboards. Switch seamlessly from lightning fast responsiveness for gaming or adjust tighter response for accuracy in typing.

1.5mm  Great for double-tapping or lighting fast response in RTS, or first person shooters

2.2mm  Standard key press actuation distance

3.0mm  Longer travel time can be used for very critical actions in MMORPGs or for ensuring error-free documents for work

APC provides a new level of comfort to truly customize your typing and gaming experience.

Precision Tuned. Premium Grade.Powering every REALFORCE keyboard is Topre's revered electrostatic capacitive key switch. For 15 years, Topre engineers have refined this technology to provide the ultimate in comfort and tactility for keyboard users. Now gamers get to experience the best so they can perform the best.

Velvety smooth feel for satisfying, tactile key presses

Evenly distributed 45G to avoid finger fatigue

Anti-ghosting and full N-Key Roll Over (NKRO) to ensure your commands are executed

No key chattering and quieter than mechanicals to keep the lines of communication clear

"Keyboard enthusiasts have shared their love for Topre around the world through forums and word of mouth," says Shinichiro Uchigasaki, President of Topre, "and now after we want to advance our technology with Actuation Point Customization (APC) to give gamers a new level of control for their gaming gear."

RGB Per-Key Backlighting  16.8 Million ColorsREALFORCE keyboards have prided themselves on creating the best feeling key switch, but now includes RGB per-key lighting to meet the demands of gamers. Customize your keyboard's backlighting through the included software application. Represent your team, guild, or just yourself through a full spectrum of colors and set profiles to swap as needed.

Keycap CompatibilityThe REALFORCE RGB includes high quality, double-shot sculpted keycaps to retain the premium feel, durability, and design. But what if you want more customization? REALFORCE RGB has you covered with MX stem compatibility so you can switch up your style with any 3rd party accessory keycaps.

Made in JapanWe proudly honor our commitment to quality, durability, and technological sophistication by continuously improving. Topre's tradition includes highly controlled quality assurance methods and skilled factory processes to develop products that instill and retain confidence.

Availability

REALFORCE RGB is NOW available for sale in North America retail channels and distributed through partners select partners:

Seasonic

Amazon

NCIX (Canada)

MechanicalKeyboards.com

Elitekeyboards.com

About Topre

Since 1935, Topre has focused on advancing technology in emerging industries. So, it's no surprise that in 1983 as a new age of computers was emerging, Topre wanted to create a keyboard that would live up to their legacy and help their engineers design with comfort and performance in mind. Thus, began the introduction of the electro-capacitive key switch.

Over 33 years later and Topre has become synonymous with keyboard enthusiasts as arguably the best feeling keyboards on the market. Now, Topre has developed a keyboard that is designed for PC gamers and aims to bridge eSports professionals with the best keyboard technology.

Press Contact

[email protected]

Related Files

REALFORCE-RGB-ProductGuide1.1.pdf

Related Images

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Related Links

Topre Website

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SOURCE Topre
ORLANDO, Fla., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In the wake of terror attacks all over the country, including Ohio State University in late November and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando this summer, Florida Technical College hosted a free seminar this Monday on how to improve survival chances while in the midst of such horrific events.

The Surviving Traumatic Attacks and Rescue (STAR) seminar was taught at the college's Orlando campus. It trained attendants from the hospitality, education and nonprofit sectors, to deal with sudden attacks and active-shooter situations. Participants learned when to run, hide or fight, as well as how to help wounded victims while awaiting for first responders to arrive.

"Knowing what to do can make a live or death difference," said Robert Caruso, FTC's Chief of Public Safety, who developed the program together with security expert Bart Barnack. Both men have an extensive background in counter terrorism and law enforcement, including missions with the U.S. Government to train military and civilian forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Caruso and Barnack, advised surveying public places for exit doors at all time to know how to escape during an emergency. If an individual appears to be suspicious, listen to your instincts and get away quickly. If the unthinkable happens, running away from the gunfire or the attacker improves survival odds.

"A moving target is harder to hit than a still target," said Barnack, also a retired SWAT Team commander. "Don't stop. You'll be able to help victims better once you're safe by going back in once the shooter is gone or neutralized, or by being able to tell first responders where they are."

Seminar attendees also received hands-on training on how to stop profuse bleeding by packing a gun or knife wound with combat gauze. Readily available on several ecommerce platforms, combat gauze has a chemical compound that helps with clotting. Participants also learned how to improvise with other materials such as items of clothing, belts and shoe laces when the gauze isn't available.

"Doing nothing is no longer an option,'' said Caruso. "First responders have to plan before taking action, which can take valuable time away from treating victims. The STAR program is a tried and proven method of survival with minimal training and experience."

About Florida Technical College: FTC offers associate and bachelor's degrees and diploma programs in a range of professions, including healthcare, computer networking, graphic design, criminal justice, culinary arts and cosmetology. FTC's campuses are located in Orlando, Lakeland, DeLand, Kissimmee, Cutler Bay and Pembroke Pines. Founded in 1982 to provide private, post-secondary education in specialized fields, FTC is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. Program availability varies by location. For graduation rates, median date of students who completed the program and other important information, please visit www.ftccollege.edu/disclosures.html.

Contact: Maria Isabel Sanquirico Mobile: 813-420-2922

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SOURCE Florida Technical College
SANAA (Reuters) - Al Qaeda militants blew up Yemen's only gas export pipeline on Monday, local officials said, in a further blow to a moribund but vital piece of infrastructure for an impoverished country battered by 20 months of war.

The explosion occurred in the remote desert area of al-Uqla in the southern province of Shabwa, the officials said, and severed the link between Yemen's gas-producing Marib region and the export terminal of Balhaf on the Arabian Sea.

Oil and gas once accounted for most of Yemen's state revenue before a civil war and military intervention led by Saudi Arabia halted their export and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Noah Browning; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani takes part in a news conference near the United Nations General Assembly in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday he would not let U.S. President-elect Donald Trump rip up a global nuclear deal, warning of unspecified repercussions if Washington reneges on the agreement.

Trump had said during campaigns for the White House that he would scrap Iran's pact with world powers - under which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for lifted sanctions - describing it as "the worst deal ever negotiated".

"[Trump] wants to do many things, but none of his actions would affect us," Rouhani said in a speech at University of Tehran broadcast live on state television.

"Do you think the he can rip up the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal)? Do you think we and our nation will let him do that?"

Analysts have said Trump's comments could signal a harder U.S. line on Iran, a development that could in turn empower hardliners on Iran's political scene, including rivals of Rouhani.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned against any changes to the nuclear deal after Trump's comments in June, and said last month that an extension of a U.S. sanction regime would be viewed as a violation of the accord.

Rouhani echoed Khamenei's comments on the U.S. Congress decision last month to pass legislation to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years to make it easier for Washington to reimpose sanctions if Tehran contravenes the nuclear deal.

U.S. President Barack Obama still needs to sign the legislation.

"There is no doubt that the United States is our enemy," said Rouhani, who is expected to stand again in Iran's own presidential elections in 2017.

"If Obama signs ISA but uses waiver rights to cease its implementation, it still infringes the nuclear agreement and we will react to it."

Rouhani said he will attend the meeting of an experts committee on Wednesday to decide on Iran's reaction to what he called the U.S. violation.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
BAMAKO (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants freed 93 prisoners during an attack on a jail in the central Mali town of Niono early on Tuesday, officials said.

The prison break was the second of its kind in recent weeks in Mali, where militant groups based in the desert north have extended their campaign into central and southern regions, complicating international efforts at peace.

Five armed men attacked the jail at around 0115 GMT, injuring two guards, the Ministry of Security said.

Ninety prisoners remained at large on Tuesday afternoon; three were re-captured. The army was deployed in pursuit.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but a number of Islamist groups, some linked to al Qaeda, have stepped up their insurgency in Mali this year.

Army spokesman Diarran Kone said the attack bore the hallmarks of followers of radical Islamist preacher Amadou Koufa, the leader of an ethnic Fulani jihadist group, the Macina Liberation Front. It was unclear whether any suspected jihadists had been in the prison.

Last month, gunmen broke into a prison in southern Mali, freeing 21 inmates. But the two prisoners they had aimed to release had already been moved away, authorities said.

Islamist groups hijacked a separatist Tuareg rebellion in 2012 to seize towns in Mali's vast desert north. French forces drove them back a year later, but they have since reorganized, and in recent months launched dozens of attacks.

At a security forum in Dakar on Tuesday, French and American officials expressed concern about the spreading violence.

"It is not so much North Mali that worries us in the short term as the increase of violence towards the south of the country," Vice Admiral Michael Franken, deputy commander for the military operations of Africom, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Adama Diarra and Tiemoko Diallo; additional reporting by Marine Pennetier; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Larry King)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to join trilateral talks to discuss gas issues with Russia on Dec. 9 in Brussels, Ukraine state energy company Naftogaz said on its Twitter account on Monday (https://twitter.com/naftogazukraine).

The former Soviet republic has not bought gas directly from Russia since November 2015, following a breakdown in relations after Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatism in Ukraine's war-torn east.

Naftogaz did not say who will take part in talks that Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said he hoped would take place in the first ten days of December.

The European Union relies on Russia for about a third of its gas. More than half of that arrives via Ukraine, but since ties between Russia and Ukraine hit rock bottom, the potential for disputes over pricing and other issues has accelerated.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic acts as an intermediary between Russia and Ukraine in the gas dispute, trying to minimise the risk of gas supply interruptions to Europe, especially in winter.

He said last week that Russian and Ukrainian officials could meet this week to discuss gas deliveries.

(Reporting by Katya Golubkova in Moscow, Alissa de Carbonnel in Brussels and Alessandra Prentice in Kiev; Editing by David Goodman)
UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of The Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Date of Report: November 29, 2016

Ormat Technologies, Inc.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

001-32347

(Commission File Number)

Delaware

(State of Incorporation) No. 88-0326081

(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) 6225 Neil Road, Reno, Nevada

(Address of Principal Executive Offices) 89511-1136

(Zip Code)

(775) 356-9029

(Registrants Telephone Number, Including Area Code)

Not Applicable

(Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last Report)

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions: (see General Instruction A.2. below):

 Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)  Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)  Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))  Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement.

Item 2.03 Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation under an Off-Balance Sheet Arrangement of a Registrant.

Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits.

Signatures

Exhibit Index

Exhibit 4.1 Note Purchase Agreement, dated as of November 29, 2016, by and among ORNI 47 LLC, MUFG Union Bank, N.A., Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. and Munich American Reassurance Company Exhibit 99.1 Press Release of Ormat Technologies, Inc. dated November 30, 2016

2

INFORMATION TO BE INCLUDED IN THE REPORT

Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement.

On November 29, 2016, ORNI 47 LLC (ORNI 47) entered into a note purchase agreement (the Note Purchase Agreement) with MUFG Union Bank, N.A., as collateral agent, Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. and Munich American Reassurance Company (the Purchasers) pursuant to which ORNI 47 issued and sold to the Purchasers $92.5 million aggregate principal amount of its 4.03% Senior Secured Notes due September 27, 2033 (the Notes) in a private placement exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. ORNI 47, owner of the Don A. Campbell Phase I (DAC 1) geothermal power plant, is part of the ORPD LLC portfolio which is jointly owned by Ormat Nevada Inc., a direct wholly owned subsidiary of Ormat Technologies, Inc., and Northleaf Geothermal Holdings, LLC, an affiliate of Northleaf Capital Partners.

The net proceeds to ORNI 47 from the sale of the Notes, after deducting certain transaction expenses and the funding of a debt service reserve account, were approximately $87.6 million. ORNI 47 intends to use the proceeds from the sale of the Notes to refinance the development and construction costs of the DAC 1 geothermal power plant, which were originally financed using equity.

The Notes will mature on September 27, 2033 and bear interest at a fixed rate of 4.03% per annum. ORNI 47 will pay a scheduled amount of principal of the Notes beginning on December 27, 2016 and then quarterly, on the 27th day of each March, June, September and December, until the Notes mature. The Notes constitute senior secured obligations of ORNI 47 and are secured by all of the assets of ORNI 47.

Under the Note Purchase Agreement, ORNI 47 may prepay at any time all, or from time to time any part of, the Notes in an amount equal to at least $2 million or such lesser amount as may remain outstanding under the Notes at 100% of the principal amount to be prepaid plus the applicable make-whole amount determined for the prepayment date with respect to such principal amount.

Upon the occurrence of a Change of Control (as defined in the Note Purchase Agreement), ORNI 47 must make an offer to each holder of Notes to repurchase all of the holders Notes at 101% of the aggregate principal amount of Notes to be repurchased plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any, on the Notes to be repurchased to, but not including, the date of repurchase. Each holder of Notes may accept such offer in whole or in part.

In certain events, including certain asset sales outside the ordinary course of business, ORNI 47 must make mandatory prepayments of the Notes at 100% of the principal amount to be prepaid.

The Note Purchase Agreement requires ORNI 47 to comply with certain covenants, including, among others, restrictions on the incurrence of indebtedness or liens, amendment or modification of material project documents and the ability of ORNI 47 to merge or consolidate with another entity. The Note Purchase Agreement also contains customary events of default.

3

The above descriptions of certain terms and conditions of the Note Purchase Agreement are qualified by reference to the full text of the Note Purchase Agreement, a copy of which is filed herewith as Exhibit 4.1, and is incorporated by reference herein.

Item 2.03 Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation under an Off-Balance Sheet Arrangement of a Registrant.

The information set forth under Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits.

(d) Exhibits Exhibit 4.1 Note Purchase Agreement, dated as of November 29, 2016, by and among ORNI 47 LLC, MUFG Union Bank, N.A., Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. and Munich American Reassurance Company Exhibit 99.1 Press Release of Ormat Technologies, Inc. dated November 30, 2016

4

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

Ormat Technologies, Inc. By /s/ Isaac Angel Name: Isaac Angel Title: Chief Executive Officer

Date: December 5, 2016

Exhibit 99.1

Ormat Technologies Contact: Investor Relations Agency Contact: Smadar Lavi Rob Fink/Brett Maas Investor Relations Hayden - IR 775-356-9029 (ext. 65726) 646-415-8972/646-536-7331 [email protected] [email protected] / [email protected]





Ormat Technologies Announces Closing of Private Placement of $92.5 Million Senior Secured Notes to Refinance the Don A. Campbell Phase I Geothermal Power Project

RENO, Nev. November 30, 2016 - Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA) today announced that ORNI 47 LLC successfully issued and sold $92.5 million in aggregate principal amount of its 4.03% Senior Secured Notes due 2033. The Senior Secured Notes were issued in a private placement transaction exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and were purchased in total by MEAG, the asset manager of Munich Re. The Senior Secured Notes were assigned an investment grade rating of BBB- by Kroll Rating Agency.

ORNI 47 LLC issued the Senior Secured Notes to refinance the costs of development and construction of the Don A. Campbell Phase I (DAC 1) geothermal power plant, which Ormat initially financed using equity funding. The approximately 20 MW DAC 1 geothermal power plant is located in Nevada, and commenced operation in 2014. ORNI 47 LLC, which owns the plant, sells its electricity to Southern California Public Power Authority under a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement. ORNI 47 LLC and the DAC 1 plant form part of the ORPD LLC portfolio, which is jointly owned 63.25% by Ormats direct wholly-owned subsidiary Ormat Nevada Inc., and 36.75% by Northleaf Geothermal Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Northleaf Capital Partners. Ormat Nevada's share of the proceeds, net of transaction fees and funding of a debt service reserve account, are approximately $55.0 million.

"We are pleased to finalize this financing transaction for Don A. Campbell Phase I, enabling Ormat and Northleaf to benefit from favorable terms. This financing demonstrates Munich Re's confidence in geothermal projects operated by Ormat, said Mr. Isaac Angel, Chief Executive Officer of the Company.

With this investment we are continuing to diversify our portfolio with sustainable investments characterized by limited risks and attractive returns. In doing so we are making use of the entire groups expertise, says MEAG Managing Director Holger Kerzel.

CIBC World Markets Corp. acted as Private Placement Agent and Chadbourne & Parke LLP served as legal counsel.

About Ormat Technologies

With over five decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal company and the only vertically integrated company engaged in geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG), with the objective of becoming a leading global provider of renewable energy. The company owns, operates, designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and REG power plants primarily based on the Ormat Energy Converter  a power generation unit that converts low-, medium- and high-temperature heat into electricity. With 72 U.S. patents, Ormats power solutions have been refined and perfected under the most grueling environmental conditions. Ormat has 450 employees in the United States and over 600 overseas. Ormats flexible, modular solutions for geothermal power and REG are ideal for the vast range of resource characteristics. The company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed to utilities and developers worldwide, totaling over 2,000 MW of gross capacity. Ormats current 710 MW generating portfolio is spread globally in the U.S., Guatemala, Guadeloupe, and Kenya.

About Northleaf Capital Partners

Northleaf Capital Partners is a leading independent global private equity, infrastructure and private credit manager, with $9 billion in commitments under management on behalf of public, corporate and multi-employer pension plans, university endowments, foundations, financial institutions and family offices. Northleafs global infrastructure program pursues direct investments in mature, conservatively-positioned infrastructure assets in developed markets.

Northleafs 85-person team, located in Toronto, London, Chicago, and Menlo Park, is focused exclusively on sourcing, evaluating and managing private markets investments globally. Northleaf currently manages six global private equity funds, a specialist private equity secondary fund, two infrastructure funds, a private credit fund and a series of customized investment mandates tailored to meet the specific needs of institutional investors and family offices. For more information on Northleaf, please visit www.northleafcapital.com.

For further information, please contact:

Jeff Pentland

Managing Director

+1 416 477 6165

[email protected]

Olivier Laganiere

Vice President

+1 416 477 6713

[email protected]

About MEAG

MEAG stands for best practice asset management for Munich Re and ERGO. MEAG has representations in Europe, Asia and North America and also offers its extensive know-how to institutional investors and private clients from outside the Group. MEAG currently manages assets to the value of around  268 billion.

Ormats Safe Harbor Statement

Information provided in this press release may contain statements relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about future events that are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally relate to Ormats plans, objectives and expectations for future operations and are based upon its managements current estimates and projections of future results or trends. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see Risk Factors as described in Ormat Technologies, Inc.s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 26, 2016.

These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs, Tariq Fatemi has said that Pakistan attended the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in India for lasting peace in the region.

Tariq Fatemi, who is on an official visit to the US, said this during a meeting with local media in Washington on Monday.

Tariq Fatemi said Pakistan attended the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, India despite the fact that India constantly violating ceasefire on Line of Control (LoC) while Indian forces are committing human right violations in the Occupied Kashmir and over 16,000 Kashmiris were wounded in the past few months.

Read more: Fatemi briefs OIC member states over human rights violations in held Kashmir

He said that Pakistan highly values Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process and said that Islamabad wants cordial relations with all countries in the region. He further said that Pakistan will continue to play its role for the lasting peace in Afghanistan.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan asked three questions from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's lawyer during hearing of the Panama Leaks case on Tuesday.

During his arguments, PM's lawyer Salman Aslam Butt said there was a failure to provide evidence from the petitioners regarding the companies being formed illegally. This led to Justice Asif Saeed Khosa asking the following questions:

1. How did the prime minister's children form the companies?

2. Explain the issue of dependency

3. Were the prime minister's speeches true or not?

A five member bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali resumed hearing of the Panama Leaks case today (Tuesday) on petitions by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and other parties.

The court adjourned the session till December 7 (tomorrow).

Will form commission if need arises: CJ

During proceedings, Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali said the court has kept its options open. "We will form a commission if we feel the need to."

The chief justice added that the FBR and FIA have not done their job. "If these institutions do not want to work, why not close them," he said.

Children of the Sharif family submitted a petition in the Supreme Court requesting for hearing on a daily basis. "The issue is very critical and the work of institutions is getting affected," the petition stated.

Read more: PM Nawazs speeches and documents were found contradictory: Tareen

Speaking to the media outside the Supreme Court Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rasheed said that the government is very nervous. "It is submitting new documents everyday. We will accept whatever decision the court takes," he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan said that he has reached the court to hear "what stories the liars have to tell".

PTI argues Maryam Nawaz is the PM's dependent

Imran Khans lawyer Naeem Bukhari drew the courts attention towards Maryam Nawaz as dependent of Nawaz Sharif.

I have evidence to prove that Maryam Nawaz is dependent on the Prime Minister, Bukhari said.

"Where has the Prime Minister written in his tax files that Maryam Nawaz is his dependent?" the Supreme Court remarked in the case.

Naeem Bukhari said that in his first speech the Prime Minister never gave a date on which his mills based in Saudi Arabia were sold.

How were the London flats bought? Bukhari asked, Were they bought after selling the Dubai mill or the Jeddah mill?

Also read: No money trail of Sharif's London flats: Supreme Court

Hussain Nawaz had said that he bought the London flats through investments from Qatar, Bukhari argued.

There are discrepancies in the Prime Ministers speech and his childrens statements, Bukhari added.

To this Justice Azmat Saeed directed him to not repeat his old arguments.

The Chief Justice added that Bukhari had only 35 more minutes to present his argument.

Bukhari said that the Prime Minister had evaded taxes. Between 2014 and 2015 received Rs740 million as gift from Hussain Nawaz. The Prime Minister did not give tax on these gifts, he said.

Justice Azmat Saeed said that the court will have to see how the law defines dependents.

May be Sharifs have a hen which lays golden eggs: Fawad Chaudhry

Speaking to the journalists outside the Supreme Court, PTI spokesman for the Panama Leaks case Fawad Chaudhry said that they had submitted evidence to prove the Maryam Nawaz was dependent on the Prime Minister.

"She has filed zero tax returns. Her electricity bill is zero. She has zero expenses for her children's education. Her telephone bill is zero. He travelling expense exceeds her income," Fawad Chaudhry said.

He added that her traveling expense for two years is worth is Rs3.6 million.

Read more: PML-N leaders reject PTI's new evidence on panama leaks case

In 2006, he added, Maryam Bibi received a used BMW car in a gift scheme. "Now they are saying that over Rs 10 million in profit were received by Maryam through the BMW," he added.

"How is this possible?" he asked. "Maybe the Sharifs have a hen which lays golden eggs."

Eighth hearing over Panama Leaks case

Under the supervision of Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, it would be the eighth hearing on Panama Leaks case. Up till now PM Nawaz and his children; Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz and Maryam Nawaz have filed their official response on offshore companies and their flats in London.

Meanwhile, there has been a change in legal team of Pakistan Tehreek Insaf, the legal panel of the opposition party now is headed by Naeem Bukhari. Senior lawyer Hamid Khan excused himself from the case, due to 'media pressure'.

In the last hearing, Supreme Court asked Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to elaborate about the businesses owned by the Sharif family saying the court cannot review political statement, nor can it announce a verdict on the basis of news reports.

Read more: Panamagate case: Aitzaz says to give advice to PTI if approached

The bench asked PTI counsel to elaborate as to wherefrom the capital for Jeddah steel mill came and how was the money transferred to London. The judges told the PTI attorney if Sharif family's link with offshore companies prior to 2006 is established then the entire burden would be shifted on them (Sharifs)."We cannot review political statements and if a verdict was announced on the basis of news reports then your client may also have to face difficulty," the judges said.

"We cannot review political statements and if a verdict was announced on the basis of news reports then your client may also have to face difficulty," the judges said.
Forces loyal to Libyas UN-backed government have fully liberated the militant stronghold of Sirte from the Daesh terrorists, officials say.

Reda Issa, a spokesman for pro-government forces, made the announcement on Monday.

"Our forces have total control of Sirte," Issa said, adding, "Our forces saw Daesh totally collapse."

The spokesman also noted that the forces are now carrying out mop-up operations to clear the area of the terrorists remnants.

Meanwhile, a statement on the loyalist forces' official Facebook page confirmed the liberation of the terrorist groups ex-North African stronghold of Sirte.

"Daesh has totally collapsed and dozens of them have given themselves up to our forces," the statement read.

Daesh took control of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast, early last year and took advantage of the political chaos in Libya to increase its presence in the country.

Libyan forces launched a military operation in May to retake the city. They managed to enter the city in June and, since then, they have liberated a number of districts.

Sirtes recapture will leave Daesh with no territory in Libya.

The oil-rich North African state has been dominated by violence since a NATO military intervention followed the 2011 uprising that led to the toppling and killing of longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Rival governments were set up in Tripoli and eastern Libya back in 2014.

Last December, however, the two administrations agreed on forming the Government of National Accord (GNA) after months of UN-brokered talks. The presidential council of the GNA arrived in Tripoli in March in a bid to restore order to the country.
Israels first ambassador to Turkey since a severing of ties over a Tel Aviv attack on a Palestine-bound aid ship has commenced work.

On Monday, Eitan Naeh officially presented his credentials to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the presidential palace in Ankara.

Naeh served as the deputy ambassador in London before his appointment to Ankara.

According to Turkeys Anadolu Agency, Ankara's new ambassador to Israel, Kemal Okem, will begin work later in the week.

Turkey expelled the last Israeli ambassador to Ankara six years ago after the regime forces stormed a Turkish aid flotilla traveling to the besieged Gaza Strip. Ten Turkish activists were killed on board the ship, which sought to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza.

Turkey said in June that it had accepted Israels apology and compensation offer over the flotilla attack and decided to resume diplomatic ties. Reports said Israel had also guaranteed that Turkey could deliver its aid to Gaza unharmed although some sources in the occupied territories denied there was such a guarantee.

After meeting Erdgoan, Naeh said that the flotilla incident has been put behind by Turkey and Israel to a large extent," and that Erdgoan had stressed that we have turned a new page in our ties.

Even when the ties knew peaks and valleys, the economic and trade relations were almost not hurt at all. Businessmen continued to do business [and] we are seeing an increase in the number of Israeli tourists, Naeh added.

The United States and Britain are believed to have played a major role in the normalization of Israeli-Turkish ties. In October thousands of people took part in protests in Istanbul to condemn the normalization of relations, saying Ankara should have continued to denounce Israels deadly siege on Gaza.
More than 1,300 refugees have been rescued and 16 bodies recovered from the Mediterranean Sea over the past three days, the Italian coastguard says.

Italys coastal service said 285 of the refugees were rescued on Saturday, 791 on Sunday and 231 on Monday, making up 1,307 the total number of refugees saved from the sea.

Reports said all the refugees were packed on board nine different vessels, small wooden boats and inflatable dinghies.

Coastguard officials said efforts to resuscitate two women found on a dinghy had failed.

"Two women died of hypothermia in spite of the colossal efforts of the team. We are heartbroken, again," they said.

Among those pulled to safety were a number of Syrian families traveling with young children from Libya.

Thousands of people have died over the past months crossing the perilous sea route from the Libyan coast to Europe in search of a better life.

The coasts of Libya have become a launch pad for asylum seekers heading for Europe. A large number of them are Sub-Saharan Africans attempting to reach Italy.

In response to the widening crisis, the European Union launched Operation Sophia in 2015. The naval mission was meant to reduce the flow of people smuggled across the Mediterranean, and to train the Libyan coastguard to fight smugglers' boats. Yet, the operation is largely viewed as a failure.

At least 4,700 people have been killed this year trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. The figure has already exceeded the toll in the entire 2015, which was more than 3,600.

The International Organization for Migration has recorded a high number of refugee arrivals in Italy from North Africa in 2016. It says 173,000 have reached the Italian shores since the start of this year, nearly 14,000 more than the figure in 2015 and breaking a 170,000 record registered in 2014.

The surge in Mediterranean journeys from the south into Italy came after the European Union reached a deal with Turkey in March to curb the arrivals in Greece from the east.

The European Union has been dealing with an excessive influx of refugees in recent years, driven by war, famine, poverty and persecution. The crisis has largely divided the continent over how to deal with the situation.

A number of European countries have adopted harsh measures, including toughening border controls, shutting refugees out, and even erecting razor-wire fences. But the problem remains far from resolved.
The head of Waikato Hospitals Emergency Department is calling for Crate Day to be banned after the ED was flooded with intoxicated people on Saturday night.

While a number of parties across New Zealand spiralled out of control on December 3, in the Bay of Plenty it appears Crate Day celebrations, if any took place, were a lot more subdued.

Created and promoted by The Rock radio station, Crate Day is an annual event held on the first Saturday of December and encourages people to share a crate of beer to celebrate the arrival of the Kiwi summer.

Bay of Plenty District Health Board communications manager Diana Marriot says the board were neither aware nor did they hear anything thing about Crate Day, and there was no spike in the number of presentations at the Tauranga or Whakatane EDs.

Its a sentiment echoed by St John, with a spokesperson confirming to SunLive they too didnt notice an increase in the number of incidents attended by ambulance staff across the Bay on Saturday.

In a statement sent to SunLive, a spokesperson says police do not support or condone events or promotions that encourage irresponsible drinking.

This time of year being the start of summer and leading into the festive season there tends to be more social events and alcohol being consumed.

"Police want people to enjoy themselves during this festive season and to drink responsibly.

"This means drinking in moderation, eating food, drinking water and looking after each other.

But it was a completely different story across the hill, with a surge of drunk people presenting at Waikato Hospital ED starting at about 10pm and peaking at 2am. There were also people still waiting to be seen by a doctor by 8am on Sunday, says clinical director head Dr John Bonning.

There were a lot of 16-23 year-olds represented. Most were purely intoxicated and too drunk to look after themselves in the community. There were also a number injured as a result of being intoxicated. They were loud, rude and demanding, says John.

The influx meant time and resources were diverted away from other patients, including older people and young children.

We had five resuscitation rooms running with a continuous flow of intoxicated people, and even bringing in staff to work overtime we were struggling to cope, some people waited 11 hours to be seen.

I know that Crate Day started as a radio station publicity stunt, but encouraging binge drinking like this is incredibly irresponsible.

Binge drinking is not only harmful to peoples health but it also put undue strain on emergency departments across the country which puts other peoples lives at risks.

Under the Ministry of Healths national health targets, DHBs aim to get 95 per cent of patients assessed, treated, admitted or discharged from EDs within six hours  but this was never going to be achieved at Waikato Hospital in the weekend, says John.

Crate day is not a bit of fun to be celebrated, its encouraging people to binge drink an entire crate of beer, which is incredibly harmful to their health. If people could see what I see in my emergency department at 2am in the morning, they wouldnt be so keen to take part.

Police have also been left with serious concerns over the level of intoxication at Crate Day events around the country, with incidents reported in the Waitemata, Waikato, Tasman, Christchurch and Southern policing districts.

In one incident, about 300 people trashed Queenstowns village green, leaving bottles and boxes on the site during an impromptu event. No arrests were made and no liquor ban was breached, reports Fairfax.

- Additional reporting: Stuff.co.nz
Judith Collins and Bill English are two names that are being touted about to be the new Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Jonathan Coleman is also running for the countrys top position.

John Key announced yesterday afternoon he will be stepping down as Prime Minister and leader of the National Party.

John says he will stay on to see out his term as MP, while a new leader will be voted by caucus before Christmas.

He says he always believed the job of Prime Minister is about leaving the country in a better place than he left it, but believes the public will decide that.

Jonathan Coleman has welcomed the news of Judith Collins leadership bid, saying it is great that people are putting their hat into the ring.

Its very important that the caucus gets a choice in what is obviously a very important decision, so I welcome new entrants to the race.

Jonathan says the race is a blank canvas, with no rules around deputies, but it was important that the National caucus collectively hold our shape.

Obviously people are going to want to know the views of the various candidates but in the end weve just all got to get behind the new leader, whoever that may be.

He says he had not yet made a decision for his preferred deputy.

I can work with a range of people, and this is very early on in the process and lets just see how it unfolds.

Simon Bridges says he is keeping his options open on a bid for the leadership or deputy leadership, as the race expands to a three-way contest.

I havent made any decisions about any of those things and Im still assessing my options and looking at the leadership candidates weve got coming through.

Im not going to litigate those matters in the media at the moment...theyre matters for the caucus room and discussion with colleagues.

-Additional reporting from Sutff.co.nz

John Key announced this afternoon he will be stepping down as Prime Minister and leader of the National Party. In interim, Bill English will be Prime Minister. John says he will stay on to see out his term as MP, while a new leader will be voted by caucus before Christmas. He made the announcement at a press conference in parliament today. He says he always believed the job of Prime Minister is about leaving the country in a better place than he left it, but believes the public will decide that. - See more at: http://sunlive.co.nz/news/142051-john-key-stepping-down-as-prime-minister.html#sthash.m4aYrxB4.dpuf - See more at: http://sunlive.co.nz/news/142051-john-key-stepping-down-as-prime-minister.html#sthash.m4aYrxB4.dpuf
A new marine spatial plan with a comprehensive range of suggested measures designed to boost the health of the Hauraki Gulf/Tikapa Moana has been unveiled.

New Zealands first marine spatial plan Sea Change  Tai Timu Tai Pari was symbolically handed over to central and local government agencies during a ceremony in Auckland on Tuesday night.

Four years in the making, the non-statutory plan for the gulf is the outcome of a huge collaborative project overseen by a partnership between mana whenua, and local and central government.

Drafting of the plan was undertaken by a multi-sector Stakeholder Working Group following community engagement and was approved by the mana whenua-agency governance group in November.

The Sea Change  Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial plan is designed to improve the mauri (life force and vitality) of the gulf and better protect it for current and future generations.

The Hauraki Gulf/Tikapa Moana is a taonga for all the communities of this special area. It is significant for its cultural, environmental, economic and social values, says governance group co-chair Paul Majurey.

We all need to work together if the gulf and its resources are to be better protected. This plan provides us with a blueprint for action to make the gulf increasingly productive, and to support healthy and prosperous communities within its boundaries.

For years the Hauraki Gulfs health has been damaged and/or threatened, with a range of problems identified such as depleted fish and kaimoana stocks, fine sediments washed off the land smothering marine life by, increased pressures from population growth and development, and declining biodiversity.

The Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial plan suggests tackling the gulfs issues head on.

The plan calls for the eventual banning of certain commercial fishing methods, reviewing the way fish stocks are managed, plus the creation of 13 new marine protected areas and extension of two existing ones to better protect the marine environment plus support fish and kaimoana stocks.

It also calls for the creation of new local Ahu Moana marine areas, to provide for joint mana whenua and community management of local marine areas to support sustainable use of the gulf.

The plan also recommends setting limits for sediment and nutrients getting into the marine environment from land-based activities, as well as suggesting areas for an expansion of environmentally sustainable marine farming.

The plans development has been a major piece of work and I would like to thank SWG members who have worked tirelessly on this project, along with the various agencies, advisors and community members who have had input into the plan.

The challenge now is for agencies to pick up the recommendations suggested and to optimise the tools they have at their disposal to chart a new way forward for the health of the gulf.

Agencies involved in the creation of the non-statutory plan include the Waikato Regional Council, Auckland Council, local councils the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries. The SWGs deliberations were informed by extensive scientific advice.

A Thames event to will take place at the Thames Racecourse, 511 Parawai Road, Thames, Coromandel, on Wednesday, December 7, at 6pm.

To read the full text of the Sea Change  Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial plan visit: www.seachange.org.nz
The race to replace John Key is on, with three National MPs confirming theyll be running for the top job.

At this stage they are Finance Minister Bill English, Health Minister Jonathan Coleman, and Police Minister Judith Collins.

Bill has received the outgoing prime ministers approval, but that hasnt stopped other candidates coming out of the woodwork.

The temptation to be leader is, of course, high: National sits comfortably in the polls, while Labour languishes.

Whoever is chosen to lead the National Party on December 12 could very well steer a fourth-term government after the 2017 election.

As Judith points out in our interview with her below, choosing a new party leader doesnt happen often. Getting a shot at being Prime Minister is even rarer  John Key has seen off four Labour leaders during his tenure in the top job, for example, forever ending their ambitions.

Next year could be the only chance for these National MPs to get close to the shiniest baubles of office in the Beehive. SunLive interviewed Judith Collins to see what her reasons for running were, and found out her thoughts on Simon Bridges and working with NZ First.

Bill English and Jonathan Coleman have already thrown their hats into the ring. What do you think you can do differently to them?

Well, I believe this is all about the 2017 election. I believe its going to be an extremely hard-fought campaign. Well be asking the country to give us a fourth term, with a new leader, and its going to be extremely tough.

Im someone who can make decisions. I can make tough decisions; I can think on my feet. I make hard calls all the time and I believe its really important for us to connect with all New Zealanders, whether theyre women or men, or any ethnicity. I believe I can do that.

John Key has been a very successful Prime Minister. Much of Nationals popularity can be attributed to his personal appeal. Do you believe you can retain that popularity?

I think the main thing for me and the team, if I am successful, is to keep the partys high rating in the polls. But I know there can be a difference between the polls and how people vote. I think the last six or seven weeks of the 2017 campaign will be the toughest weve ever seen.

I do know this: I am a very tough person. Ive been hardened by an awful lot over the years. I know I can endure that, and I believe I could deliver us a victory and work with other parties.

What are some of the issues you would campaign on more strongly than, say, Bill English?

One of the things I think is really important is to listen to people. One of the strengths I believe I have is being seen as authentic. When I say I believe something needs to happen, I really do mean it. When I say, for instance, our Resource Management Act reforms need to be more attuned to what people want in New Zealand, I absolutely believe it. That is one of the areas I would like to campaign on. I would also like to campaign on transport, and on law and order. But in particular, the RMA is an example of an area we havent done as well in, and would have done better in if we could work with other parties.

And what other parties would you be happy working with?

Its always up to the people, isnt it? I was a lawyer and businessperson for 20 years before I came into politics; Im not a career politician. My view is you have to do the deals you have to do in order to get the best outcomes. But I do know it is highly likely we will have to look further afield in addition to the current parties we have in government.

Such as New Zealand First, potentially?

Yes.

What about caucus support? Do you feel you have a substantial support base there?

I think caucus knows I am an absolute straight shooter, and when I put my hand up it is because I believe very firmly I can make a positive difference to the outcome next year. But it will be up to caucus. Im not demanding people vote for me, or else something might happen to them. Im simply saying to people Im in the race, and I appreciate your support. I will be giving it my best shot, though, and well see how it goes.

What about deputy choice? Labour tends to run an American-style primary leadership contest, where prospective leaders sometimes pick a running mate. The National party has a different selection method, but do you have anyone in mind you would like to see as your deputy?

I think in the National Party the deputy is chosen very much the same way as the leader, by caucus. So we dont have the primary style of the Labour Party. I guess theyve had a lot more practice at leadership battles than we have, but we prefer not to follow that method. If I were to be successful, I would of course accept the caucus view on who should be deputy. Caucus doesnt very often get the chance to change leader. This is one chance in ten years, and I believe it is disrespectful to tell caucus who should be deputy, if you are chosen as leader.

Whats your relationship like with Simon Bridges?

I think my relationship with Simon is very good. Weve worked together on a number of matters over the years, and Ive certainly been a visitor to his fundraisers.

So in a Judith Collins-led government, he wouldnt have to worry about getting pushed to the backbenches?

I think hes a very capable MP and he has a tremendous future in front of him.

Assuming Monday doesnt go your way, and Bill English ends up being prime minister, would you support him 100 per cent?

My view is very firm: whoever is leader and deputy leader I will support them 100 per cent. Ive always done that in my time in the National Party, and I would continue to do so. But I want to make it very clear thats what MPs should do.

All the way up to the 2017 election?

Absolutely, you have to do it. Thats just the way it is.
John Key was a very disappointing Prime Minister.

Thats the report card from Taurangas Peter Malcolm, spokesperson for the income equality lobbyist group, Closing the Gap.

There will be some who think hes been a great Prime Minister, says Peter Malcom.

But there will be many very disappointed that such a capable leader, who could have taken the country with him, chose to avoid the difficult problems of endemic inequality and poverty in New Zealand.

He says over the last eight years, under Keys stewardship, income for those-in-need has stagnated or gone backwards in real terms, whereas those in the top percentiles of income have seen significant increases.

Exacerbating this inequality, the housing market is totally out of control, with affordable housing for beneficiaries and those on lower incomes now non-existent.

There are now significant numbers of families who cannot afford to go to their GPs in times of need. Public hospital elective surgery lists are getting longer and many cant afford the health insurance which would ensure surgery when needed.

Closing the Gap also points to rising cost of power, the rising cost of day to day living for those in need is getting worse and child poverty is as bad.

Income inequality has seriously damaging effects on our society and the lower paid are increasingly having to bear an unfair proportion of the costs.

After three terms its hardly something to be proud of that, in his own words, things have remained pretty much the same for the last 20 years.

Closing the Gap hopes successive Prime Ministers recognise they are responsible for all the people in New Zealand and not just a wealthy few.
During the past year, I have been working on building a collection of documents related to Smyth Countys black history. Many people have helped by contributing to this project. Stephanie Thomas, Diane Hayes and William Fields have made items from their personal collections available for digitization. This is a project that began, as an idea, in 2010. I was involved in a high-profile research project, which was illuminating, in many ways. For the space of four months, I traveled to North Carolina, West Virginia and Henry County each weekend, in search of documents related to several African-American families. I remember the frustration I felt as I encountered multiple road blocks, simply because records had not been maintained. These families had been forgotten and required much digging to uncover their stories.

One experience, in particular, stands out. I had been able to determine the burial site for one of the ancestors. Her name was Gracie. She had ended up in West Virginia, close to Bluefield. It was there that she died. She had been buried in Oak Grove Cemetery. I discovered that this cemetery was vast and her grave was unmarked. Recognizing that I would need help to find her burial site, I called upon one of the caretakers, Steve Orey. He agreed to meet me and my family at the cemetery. One Saturday, my husband and I took our two young daughters in search of Gracie. We arrived at the cemetery and were overwhelmed to see how many people had been buried there. Steve explained to us that there were more than 8,000 African-Americans buried in the cemetery. Until five years earlier, the cemetery had been overgrown with brush and trees. He had worked with a group of volunteers to re-claim the cemetery. As we stood on the hill, overlooking Gracies grave, he looked at my daughters and said that it was important to teach our children that if they dont know where they came from, they are like a ball in high grass. Theyre lost. That moment struck something within me. It inspired me to help uncover the stories of those who had been forgotten. The next year, 2011, the Smyth County Genealogical Society was formed and work began to preserve our local stories.

In working to preserve the black history of Smyth County, Diane Hayes, offered to let me scan her collection of papers. Her father, Arthur Nappy Hayes, had written a newspaper column for the Smyth County News for several years. She had preserved his columns, along with other newspaper articles written by Evelyn Lawrence, Mrs. Albert Goode and Mrs. Theodore Ganaway. Each article offers a wealth of information related to the black history of our area.

As I have added these documents to the SBRL online digital archive, I have become acquainted with the stories of some amazing people. Two of those people are William (Bill) and Harry Plummer, a father and son who were blessed with the gift of mechanical genius. In Betsy Whites book, Backcountry Makers, she gives the following history of William Plummer: He was born William M. Plummer in about 1873, the son of Claiburn and Seenah Plummer of Marion, in Smyth County, Virginia. In 1897, he married Magdalene Floyd, and he and Maggie moved to Tazewell, where William worked as a sawmill engineer. Here the Plummers started their family, which eventually included ten children.

Before long they moved back to Smyth County and lived in Marion for the balance of their lives, William working as a machinist in the automobile industry there during the 1920s.

In an obituary, printed on Feb. 8, 1943, several details of Williams life are given. Uncle Billy Plummer, mechanical genius and well-loved colored citizen of Chilhowie, died yesterday.

The people of Chilhowie and its community, from children to the older adults, knew Uncle Billy and depended upon him for any and all jobs of fixing.

When Uncle Billy was seen going down the road pushing his unique wheelbarrow (made of pipes, chiefly, and especially suited for carrying his tools) it meant something, somewhere, was wrong, from delicate watches to tractors, from fixing a childs toy to plumbing. For fully half a century, the colored man followed his useful path, finding time to construct many things of interest, at home.

Around 30 years ago, Uncle Billy made a bicycle chiefly out of wood, even the wheels being wood, rimmed with steel. This interesting object was sent to an exposition in Atlanta. Later, in the past few years, he constructed a Victrola cabinet, in which he put a table model Victrola. Over 300 pieces of wood were used in its construction, and it attracted much interest. During all the years, he built many kinds of engines and performed other difficult mechanical feats.

Children hung around while Uncle Billy did his fixing, to hear him practice his ventriloquism, then to hear him laugh his uproarious and contagious laughter at their amazement.

An honored and trusted man, he was depended upon by the whole community. He was one of the first to learn to drive an automobile and taught others to drive.

Bill passed this unique talent on to his son, Harry. Within Diane Hayes collection of newspaper clippings, is a July 6, 1950, article that tells the story of Harry and Plummers Comet. A natural-born mechanic, Harry Plummer has used his skill to build five cars and one tractor, thus far. Forty-year-old Plummer has never had any training as a mechanic. He worked a bit around garages, nothing steady, though, he points out.

I always liked to make things, he says. My daddy was a natural-born mechanic. Naturally, I inherited some of his ability. I just like to take odd parts and build things like this.

He pointed to [Plummers Comet] and revealed that it was made up of spare parts of motorcycles and cars he picked up at junk yards and anywhere he could find them. His latest model, Plummers Comet, is a mixture of Model T and A Fords, a Willis, a motorcycle, chicken wire and tin roofing.

Plummers Comet is a three-wheel vehicle with mechanical brakes, three forward gears, but no reverse. It runs about 100 miles a tank of gas. The tank contains two and a half gallons.

The auto will run upwards of 50 miles. It will make more, Plummer says, more than I want to make.

The Division of Motor Vehicles has classified Plummers Comet as a motorcycle because it only has three wheels. The strange looking vehicle often gets stares from motorists. Very often, when I travel on the highway, people follow and give it the once over. They ask me, Where are the wings?

Plummers Comet doesnt have wings, but one of Plummers previous home-made autos did. But, he tired of it, tore it down and built another.

A tractor he built is being used on the small farm of Dr. Ernest Greever, of Chilhowie. Plummer is plant manager at Mr. Greevers germicide plant, a job he has held for 21 years.

Plummer was born in Chilhowie in 1910 and went to public school for seven years. He married the former Fannie Shazier in 1939. They have two children.

These are just two examples of stories that are being preserved, thanks to the generosity of members of our community. As we continue work on this project, many other stories will be uncovered and preserved so that future generations will be better acquainted with those who came before them.

If you have a story or personal collection that you would like to share, I may be contacted at 783-2323, ext. 231, or by email, at mwlinford@yahoo.com.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Central New York's only Infiniti dealership is sporting a fresh look, thanks to a $3.5 million project that replaced its showroom and service center with all-new facilities.

Lowery Bros. Infiniti of Syracuse moved into its new, 16,000-square-foot digs at 736 W. Gensee St. on Syracuse's "Auto Row" in the summer. It replaced a 12,000-square-foot facility on the same lot that dated back to the 1940s.

The new showroom has a more upscale look than the one it replaced, with large windows flooding the room with sunlight. Customers waiting for their cars to be serviced can enjoy free snacks and coffee in the new customer lounge, which looks more like a modern apartment than a car dealer lounge.

The new service garage is in the rear of the property, but customers drop their cars off in a heated reception area that is part of the same building that houses the showroom.

Owner Gary Lowery said the new facilities are configured to provide much more visibility along West Genesee Street for his inventory of approximately 150 new and used vehicles.

Lowery, who has operated a Chrysler-Jeep dealership a block away since 1989, bought the former Sam Dell Infiniti in August 2006. (Kevin Lowery, his younger brother and business partner, died in 2001 from ALS at the age of 40. Lowery has kept "Bros." in his dealerships' names to honor his late brother.)

The Infiniti dealership employs 20 people and is the only one in Central New York. The next closest ones are in Rochester and Cohoes, near Albany.

Lowery said he made the investment to meet Infiniti's newest facility requirements and to keep up with the revitalization taking place nearby in downtown Syracuse.

The redevelopment of vacant and underutilized downtown buildings into a mix of retail, office and upscale apartments is luring many young professionals (and potential Infiniti buyers) to the area. Lowery said he has already seen an uptick in customer traffic since opening his new store.

"There's just a lot of new, different types of activities downtown compared to when I started years ago, and I'm proud to be part of it," he said.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
micah dexter.jpg

The Rev. L. Micah Dexter, pictured here in 2013.

(Tim Knauss | tknauss@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, NY -- The minister of a Syracuse church was brought into court in handcuffs this morning on felony charges relating to his alleged scheme to steal a city house.

The Rev. L. Micah Dexter, 46, was charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument and offering that instrument for filing. Bail was set at $20,000 cash or bond by County Court Judge Stephen Dougherty.

Dexter is accused of faking a deed that appeared to show that another man, James Greene, of South Carolina, had given him ownership of a South Side residence where Dexter had been behind on rent.

During an eviction proceeding, Dexter is accused of referencing the faked document before a City Court judge. Dexter was later evicted.

Greene filed a separate lawsuit in September accusing Dexter of illegally taking ownership of the house. The lawsuit says Dexter stole the entire signature page from another document -- signed by Greene -- and affixed the copy to the fake deed.

Greene had entered a "contract for deed" (rent to own) agreement with Dexter, but never transferred the deed after Dexter failed to make payments, the lawsuit says. Dexter is accused of copying Greene's signature from the "contract for deed."

In 2013, county records reflect Dexter took ownership of the house based on the allegedly forged deed. The house is valued at approximately $50,000.

Greene promised to seek criminal charges against Dexter. That led to today's court proceeding.

Dexter is minister of the Greater New Salem Missionary Baptist Church on South Avenue.

He's been an outspoken critic of Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner and Police Chief Frank Fowler. Dexter claims that the city is persecuting him for his stance on civil rights.

An altercation with the police chief in September 2014 led Dexter to complain to the city's citizen police watchdog group. The board found Fowler acted with "conduct unbecoming a police officer."

Dexter was also convicted in 2014 of obstructing governmental administration during a confrontation with police. He spent 60 days in jail and was placed on probation.

He later lost an election bid for Syracuse Common Council in 2015 against incumbent Khalid Bey.

Dexter was still on probation at the time of his arrest this week. It's not entirely clear where Dexter was living after being evicted, though he told the judge to send mail to the church itself.

His small church does not provide much income: Dexter said in court today he got probably $50 to $100 a week.

Dexter asked for an assigned lawyer. He is scheduled to return to court Wednesday.

Greene's lawsuit over the deed provided a side-by-side comparison of the original signature page and the one allegedly copied by Dexter:
1221 court.JPG

The Onondaga County Legislature met on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at the Onondaga County Courthouse. Legislators expressed concern over some of County Executive Joanie Mahoney's latest appointments.

(Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Several legislators today questioned why County Executive Joanie Mahoney would pick a personnel director with nearly no experience in personnel.

The legislature approved Mahoney's appointment of Duane Owens to commissioner of the personnel department by a vote of 12 to two. Three Republicans sought, unsuccessfully, to delay Owens' appointment in order to ensure the integrity of the selection process.

Owens has been commissioner of facilities management for the county since 2012. Prior to that, he worked in supervisory roles at New Process Gear and Anheuser Busch. He has a Bachelors of Arts in Economics from Wake Forest University.

He made $95,152 as facilities management commissioner in 2015. The previous personnel commissioner made $106,921 that year.

Legislator Casey Jordan, a Republican, said that the county executive didn't choose the most qualified candidate.

"I think he's wonderful, but he has no background in personnel related responsibilities aside from being involved in some union negotiations," Jordan said. "Why we are picking people who are not the most qualified candidates is beyond me. In the private sector, that wouldn't happen."

Legislator Linda Ervin, a Democrat, defended Owens.

"The training he might not have in personnel will certainly be supplied to him," she said. "I would be much more comfortable with him in that position that with someone outside [county employment] that doesn't understand what's happening here."

Legislators Kathy Rapp and Kevin Holmquist, both Republicans, questioned the appointment process as well as asked for a delay. Owens is one of four men being appointed to new positions atop Mahoney's administration.

"These are highly skilled, high paying jobs -- the kind of jobs you work an entire career for," Rapp said. "We just lost 200 of our most senior county employees... Whoever steps into any of these positions is going to find themselves with a very big job."

Rapp, Holmquist and Jordan suggested a more involved search process to find qualified candidates. Holmquist made the same argument last year when Mahoney appointed Travis Glazier to environmental director.

The personnel position was advertised and the county interviewed at least four candidates, including Owens.

Jordan said the other candidates for the personnel job appeared more qualified. One, he said, was a personnel professional from the private sector. Another was a personnel director from a nearby large municipality. The third was a current employee of the county personnel department.

Mahoney has nominated three other candidates for appointments to lead departments. Those three positions were not advertised publicly nor were outside candidates interviewed.

The legislature will meet again in two weeks to vote on three more of Mahoney's appointments.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- City lawmakers are asking the state to allow for transportation of more city students to school.

The Common Council today unanimously voted to ask the state for money and permission to bus Syracuse City School District students who live 1 mile or further from school.

Currently, the state allows for busing of students who live 1.5 miles or further. The state penalizes districts that transport "non-allowable" students. The council wants Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature to waive that penalty and to fund transportation for an additional 1,298 students.

Councilor Susan Boyle sponsored the resolution, which garnered support from the entire Council.

According to Boyle, there are 1,298 city students in kindergarten through eighth grade who live between 1 mile and 1.5 miles from school.

There are 2,297 students who live less than a half-mile from their school. Those students would still not be eligible for transportation.

Boyle pointed to hazardous conditions students face when walking to school in Syracuse. The city has seen a record number of homicides so far this year and also has the highest average snowfall in the nation for major cities.

More youthful Council input

The vote came the same day the Council approved a Youth Advisory Council, which will advise the Council on matters impacting the city's young people. Councilor Jean Kessner proposed the YAC in September.

Councilor Joe Carni opposed the YAC, saying taxpayer money should not be spent on such a program. He said he would volunteer to go to civics classes and city schools to speak with students about government issues on his own time.

The YAC will have a budget of $5,000, Kessner said.
UTICA, NY - Traci Irwin, 50, who pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree unlawful imprisonment in November, was sentenced to two years in jail Monday, according to a report in the Utica Observer-Dispatch.

She was sentenced in Oneida County court.

Nine people were charged in the Oct. 11, 2015 beating death of Lucas Leonard, 19; and the severe beating of his 17-year-old brother, Christopher Leonard. The nine were accused of beating the two young men for hours in the church as part of a counseling session.

Earlier this month,Traci Irwin and her son, Daniel, accepted plea offers, each pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree unlawful imprisonment, felonies.

Traci Irwin's lawyer, Frank Policelli , insisted in court that his client is innocent, according to the news report.

The prosecution said Traci Irwin was aware of what was going on in the Word of Life church that night, and could have done something to stop it.

Traci Irwin disagreed in court, according to the news report, saying: "I had no knowledge. and if I had, things would have been very different if I had. Of all the tragedy that's happened to me in my life, if I had five minutes to redo something, I'd choose five minutes right there to save Luke because I loved him."

Traci Irwin agreed to an Alford plea, meaning she did not admit to any criminal wrongdoing. She has been in jail for some time now, and will be released in March.

Several other defendants are still awaiting sentencing.

Sarah Ferguson, 33, a half-sister of the two victims, was found guilty of manslaughter in July. She was sentenced to 25 years in state prison.
Donald Trump

In this Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016 file photo, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a "USA Thank You" tour event in Cincinnati. Trump spoke Friday, Dec. 2, with the president of Taiwan, a move that angered China.

(Evan Vucci / AP)

Marc A. Thiessen, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and former chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush, writes a weekly online column for The Washington Post.

By Marc A. Thiessen | Special To The Washington Post

Relax.

Breathe.

Donald Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan wasn't a blunder by an inexperienced president-elect unschooled in the niceties of cross-straits diplomacy.

It was a deliberate move -- and a brilliant one at that.

The phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen was reportedly carefully planned, and Trump was fully briefed before the call, according to The Washington Post. It's not that Trump was unfamiliar with the "Three Communiques" or unaware of the fiction that there is "One China." Trump knew precisely what he was doing in taking the call. He was serving notice on Beijing that it is dealing with a different kind of president -- an outsider who will not be encumbered by the same Lilliputian diplomatic threads that tied down previous administrations. The message, as John Bolton correctly put it, was that "the president of the United States will talk to whomever he wants if he thinks it's in the interest of the United States, and nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to."

Amen to that.

And if that message was lost on Beijing, Trump underscored it on Sunday, tweeting: "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? I don't think so!"

He does not need Beijing's permission to speak to anyone. No more kowtowing in a Trump administration.

Trump promised during the campaign that he would take a tougher stand with China, and supporting Taiwan has always been part of his get-tough approach to Beijing. As far back as 2011, Trump tweeted: "Why is Barack Obama delaying the sale of F-16 aircraft to Taiwan? Wrong message to send to China. #TimeToGetTough." Indeed, the very idea that Trump could not speak to Taiwan's president because it would anger Beijing is precisely the kind of weak-kneed subservience that Trump promised to eliminate as president.

Trump's call with the Taiwanese president sent a message not only to Beijing, but also to the striped-pants foreign-policy establishment in Washington. It is telling how so many in that establishment immediately assumed Trump had committed an unintended gaffe. "Bottomless pig-ignorance" is how one liberal foreign-policy commentator described Trump's decision to speak with Tsai. Trump just shocked the world by winning the presidential election, yet they still underestimate him. The irony is that the hyperventilation in Washington has far outpaced the measured response from Beijing. When American foreign-policy elites are more upset than China, perhaps it's time for some introspection.

The hypocrisy is rank. When President Obama broke with decades of U.S. policy and extended diplomatic recognition to a murderous dictatorship in Cuba, the foreign-policy establishment swooned. Democrats on Capitol Hill praised Obama for taking action that was "long overdue." Former President Jimmy Carter raved about how Obama had "shown such wisdom," while the New York Times gushed that Obama was acting "courageously" and "ushering in a transformational era for millions of Cubans who have suffered as a result of more than 50 years of hostility between the two nations."

But when Trump broke with decades of U.S. diplomatic practice and had a phone call with the democratically elected leader of Taiwan, he was declared a buffoon. Well, if they didn't like that phone call, his critics may hate what could come next even more. Trump now has an opportunity to do with Taiwan what Obama did with Cuba -- normalize relations.

There are a number of steps the Trump administration can take to strengthen our military, economic and diplomatic ties with Taiwan. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Derek Scissors has suggested that Trump could negotiate a new free-trade agreement with Taiwan. "Taiwan's tiny population means there is no jobs threat," Scissors says, but Taiwan is also the United States' ninth-largest trading partner. A free-trade agreement would be economically beneficial to both sides and would send a message to friend and foe alike in Asia that, despite Trump's planned withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the United States is not withdrawing from the region.

On the military front, Trump could begin sending general officers to Taipei once again to coordinate with their Taiwanese counterparts and hold joint military exercises. On the diplomatic front, Bolton says the new administration could start "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."

Beijing would be wise not to overreact to any overtures Trump makes to Taiwan. When China tested President George W. Bush in his first months in office by scrambling fighters and forcing a U.S. EP-3 aircraft to land on the Chinese island of Hainan, its actions backfired. After the incident, Bush approved a $30 billion arms package for Taiwan, announced that Taiwan would be treated as a major non-NATO ally and declared that the United States would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan. His actions not only strengthened U.S. ties with Taiwan but also set the stage for good relations with Beijing throughout his presidency.

China does not want to make the same mistake and overplay its hand with Trump. Trump's call with Taiwan's president was a smart, calculated move designed to send a clear message: The days of pushing the United States around are over.

That may horrify official Washington, but it's the right message to send.
SYRACUSE, NY -- For most of 2016, the small neighborhood Ukrainian restaurant called the Welcome Inn has been dark, as its owners dealt with health problems and considered making improvements to the kitchen.

Now, owner John Melnyczuk has officially decided to call it quits. He's selling the building at 501 Tully St. to a buyer from New York City who may turn it into a club.

That means, after a run Melnyczuk calculated at 33 years, seven months and 20 days, the Welcome Inn is done. "I've thrown in the towel," Melnyczuk wrote in an email. He had closed the place last winter, hoping to reopen within a few months.

The Welcome Inn specialized in Ukrainian favorites like pyrohy (the Ukrainian spelling of pierogi), holubchi (cabbage rolls) and kielbasa, accompanied by a good selection of eastern European beers. Also popular was a dessert, "Mom's Honey Cake."

John Melnyczulk also specialized in catering, and made pig roasts his specialty. (Among his nicknames were "Big Poppa John" and the "King of Pork.") He may resume his catering and pig roasts in the spring if his health allows, he said.

The Welcome Inn has been a fixture on Tully Street since 1933. Melnycuk, a Marine Corps veteran who later trained at the Culinary Institute of America, took over the place in 1983. His mother, Bronislava "Bernice" Melnyczuk, joined him in the Welcome Inn kitchen in 1988. She turns 91 this month and is finally "retired," her son said.

Bernice Melnyczuk grew up in Ukraine, where she learned to cook some of the specialties that have become hallmarks of The Welcome Inn. She was a fixture in the Welcome Inn kitchen, bustling about in her head scarf, while her son worked in the kitchen and the dining room.

Don Cazentre writes about food, beverages, restaurants and bars for syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact him by email, on Twitter, at Google+ or via Facebook.
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Red Hat and Ericsson on Wednesday announced an alliance meant to speed adoption of open source solutions in the information and communications technology space.

The alliance will help promote a range of fully open source and production-ready cloud solutions, spanning OpenStack, software defined-networking and software-defined infrastructure, the companies said, to meet the growing demand for products using 5G and the Internet of Things.

Red Hat has a long history of collaborating with Ericsson on platforms including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat JBoss Middleware. The new alliance represents an extension of the companies prior relationship, according to Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager of OpenStack at Red Hat.

The telecommunications and communications service provider space is undergoing a tectonic shift, one driven by competitive and economic realities, he told LinuxInsider. Our alliance with Ericsson will help providers in this space fully embrace open source software and commodity hardware-based solutions to be able to address current and emerging challenges effectively.

Increasingly heavy demand for new IoT and 5G services has placed significant pressure on telecom service producers to become more flexible and agile, noted Red Hat spokesperson John Terrill.

Network Functions Virtualization Focus

The new open source collaboration between the companies will focus on network functions virtualization infrastructure, OpenStack, SDN, SDI and containers, giving customers the latest in technological options for the communications industry.

One of the key goals of using NFV is to provide companies in the telecommunications space a more flexible and efficient software-based solution, compared to traditional hardware systems.

The partnership will focus on helping Ericsson come to market with a network function virtualization infrastructure, or NFVi, system as part of the Ericsson Cloud Execution Environment. The companies aim to certify the Ericsson virtual network functions to run on top of that.

As the industry begins to embrace cloud-based infrastructure and data center deployment, large scale collaborations like this will become more prevalent, said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan.

We are seeing many similar alliances between companies as we move further into an IoT, 5G, VR, AI world, he told LinuxInsider.

The alliance will help create customer speed and choice, while allowing customers to embrace open source platforms, noted Jason Hoffman, head of product area cloud infrastructure at Ericsson.

Speed and Flexibility

The two companies also have partnered to offer a certified and seamless experience for Cloud SDN, Ericssons software-defined networking solution, and the Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hats production-ready OpenStack offering.

The companies will work together to certify Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenStack Platform for HDS 8000, Ericssons hyperscale data center solution.

Verizon earlier this year completed what may have been the largest NFV OpenStack cloud deployment in the industry, across five of the companys U.S. data centers.

Verizon worked with Big Switch Networks, Dell and Red Hat on the OpenStack pod-based design, which allowed it to deploy more than 50 racks in five data centers in less than a nine-month period.

The NFV deployment was designed to meet a number of project needs: to be resilient at scale; resist bandwidth bottlenecks; provide network design flexibility; offer reduced operational complexity; be compliant; and secure against cyberintrusion and other threats.

Red Hat previously has worked with other major telecom firms, including Alcatel-Lucent, Telefonica and Nokia Networks.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday released new details about the multinational takedown of Avalanche, a multimillion-dollar malware and money-laundering network, following a four-year probe led by German police and prosecutors. Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell, Acting U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song and Assistant Director Scott S. Smith of the FBIs Cyber Division made the announcement in Pittsburgh.

Prosecutors and investigators in 40 countries were involved in the probe, led by the Public Prosecutors office in Verden, Germany, and police in Luneberg. They received assistance from the DoJ, Eurojust and Europol.

The investigation uncovered a multinational malware campaign that started in 2009, sending out more than a million infected emails with damaging links and attachments.

The cyberthieves managed to use the information to transfer funds from the accounts of unsuspecting victims after stealing their bank and email passwords. The stolen funds, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of euros, then were redirected to other criminals through a double fast flux infrastructure.

More than 20 families of malware were used, including goznym, marcher, matsnu, urizone, xswkit and pandabaker. Highly organized networks of mules bought goods with stolen funds, enabling the cyberthieves to launder money they obtained through the scheme.

Arrests, Seizures

The takedown operation marks the largest ever use of sinkholing to combat botnet infrastructures, and is unprecedented in scale, involving more than 800,000 domains seized, sinkholed or blocked.

Five suspects were arrested, 37 premises were searched, and 39 servers were seized, officials said last week. Victims were found in 180 different countries, and 221 servers were kicked offline through abuse notifications sent to hosting providers.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab late last month granted federal prosecutors a temporary restraining order allowing them to block and reroute data from the infected computers used in the Avalanche malware scheme to prevent further malicious activity, according to Margaret Philbin, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys office in Pittsburgh.

The order essentially allows the illegal data to be trapped and traced over to government controlled systems that can track the illegal activity and protect victims of the scheme.

People across the globe, including residents and companies here in western Pennsylvania, have been victimized by Avalanche and the malware distributed using its intricate infrastructure, said Robert Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI in Pittsburgh.

At least three companies or government entities in Pennsylvania were impacted by the attacks, based on court filings.

From Feb. to April of this year, a New Castle-based firm was targeted with seven unauthorized wire transfers that totaled more than US$243,000, based on an attack using GozNym malware. The wire transfers were stopped before any money was lost.

In January 2015, a government entity in Allegheny County was victim to a Nymaim malware attack and had to pay 6 bitcoins, or about $1,400, to get a decryption tool to rescue its files.

In April of this year a Carnegie business was victim of an ATO fraud using GozNym malware attack that resulted in $387,500 being fraudulently transferred from a Pittsburgh-based financial institution to an account in Bulgaria.

This investigation highlights once again that through the international cooperation of law enforcement and private industry, we can be as effective investigating criminals in cyberspace as we are on the streets of our communities here at home, Johnson pointed out.

Classic Moves

Avalanche followed a fairly classic botnet attack pattern, noted Kevin OBrien, cofounder of GreatHorn.

A large number of compromised machines were being used to send out large numbers of phishing attacks and spam, he told TechNewsWorld. These machines were most likely compromised in a more traditional fashion  using malware, unpatched services and individuals whose personal accounts and credentials were lost or stolen  and then over the course of a number of years assembled into a larger botnet.

Avalanche was part of a larger trend of phishing attacks in recent years, OBrien said, with targeted email attacks causing$3.1 billion in damage over the past 18 months, based on FBI data.
Smartwatch shipments may be down 51.6 percent in the third quarter of 2016 but, according to the latest IDC report, the overall wearables market is up 3.1 percent year over year. It seems the biggest loser is Apple, which has seen its YoY growth fall by a massive 71 percent, though one person who disagrees with the figures is CEO Tim Cook.

The report shows that "basic wearables," which is mainly comprised of fitness bands, were the best-selling wearable devices for the last quarter, accounting for 85 percent of the market. IDC says this can be attributed to the launch of newer models and an expanding user base.

The number one wearables vendor is Fitbit, which saw YoY growth of 11 percent. It shipped 5.3 million units in Q3 2016, representing a 23 percent share of the market. The company looks set to acquire Pebble and eventually offer a true smartwatch of its own, cementing its position at the top of the pile.

Chinese giant Xiaomi sits in second place with a 16.5 percent market share and 3.8 million units shipped in Q3, while fitness brand Garmin is in third position with a 5.7 percent market share and device shipment volumes of 1.3 million.

Vendor 3Q16 Unit Shipments 3Q16 Market Share 3Q15 Unit Shipments 3Q15 Market Share Year-Over-Year Growth Fitbit 5.3 23% 4.8 21.4% 11% Xiaomi 3.8 16.5% 3.7 16.4% 4% Garmin 1.3 5.7% 1.2 5.3% 12.2% Apple 1.1 4.9% 3.9 17.5% -71.0% Samsung 1.0 4.5% 0.5 2.4% 89.9% Others 10.4 45.3% 8.3 37% -26.1% Total 23 100.0% 22.3 100.0% 3.1%

The most interesting entry in the chart is Apple at number four. IDC says the iPhone maker's YoY growth in the wearables market fell by 71 percent, with its total market share contracting from 17.5 percent in Q3 2015 to just 4.9 percent in Q3 2016. The late September launch of the Apple Watch 2 did contribute to the decline, but Apple boss Tim Cook claims sales of the wearables are off the charts. In a emailed statement to Reuters, he wrote: "Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year."

"Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the product's history. And as we expected, we're on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch," Cook added, without giving exact sales figures.

Samsung is the last manufacturer on the list. It may only have a 4.5 percent market share thanks to its 1 million shipped units, but that still represents YoY growth of almost 90 percent.
An application that calls itself "the world's leading augmented reality and image recognition app" is adding facial recognition technology to its service, allowing users to discover information on 70,000 public figures just by pointing a camera at their image, be it in-person or via a screen/photo. Eventually, any user will be able to add themselves to the database, which is causing some privacy concerns.

Blippar's 'visual discovery browser' lets users point their smartphones at objects to find out more about them. The app surfaces Wikipedia entries, videos, articles, advertising content, and other media, as well as related subjects that users can select. It's a little bit like Google on Tap's camera feature, but with an added augmented reality element. The company's website boasts 65 million users in over 170 countries, with 1000+ brands now using Blippar.

Following the addition of facial recognition technology, users can now scan faces to access a "unique augmented reality experience for people who have a recognized face profile."

While it's not available just yet, the app will soon introduce a feature that lets users create their own AR profiles through the app's selfie mode. Once it arrives, you'll be able to Blipp anyone with a profile to see their "augmented reality" halo, which brings up widgets that show photos, favorite music, a celebrity look-alike feature, "AR mood and Aura," and links to social media profiles.

The idea of being able to point a smartphone at someone and learn everything about them does sound very Black Mirror-like, and brings to mind the nightmare Russian facial recognition app FindFace. But Blippar's co-founder, Omar Tayeb, told the BBC that privacy is "baked into" the app.

"It's a totally opt-in service, the user has full control over what's shown and they're able to deactivate it at any time," he said.

Anyone, including the 70,000 public figures already added, who wants their profile removed can ask the firm to delete it from the servers. Users also have the option of setting their profiles to public or private. Tayeb added that there are a number of security features to stop people creating fake accounts, and that it is sophisticated enough to recognize if a person is trying to register someone else.

Despite the security measures, the app is raising a few concerns. Some people may not realize the potential dangers that come with creating a public profile, and there's no guarantee that aggregated information about a person will be accurate or in date. Still, at least creating a profile is optional, unlike FindFace.
Samsung is banking on its 10-nanometer FinFET technology to power its upcoming flagship, the Galaxy S8, but reports suggest that the chip may not be all cut and dried.

Samsung is on the brink of facing a lawsuit over allegedly infringing a patent on the aforementioned FinFET technology, the same one Samsung has boasted about generously and the same one crucial to the manufacturing process of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835.

Patent Infringement

The lawsuit comes from KAIST IP, the intellectual property management arm of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, the research university confirmed Wednesday.

KAIST IP sued Samsung Electronics in a Texas Court, The Korea Herald reported.

According to the report, KAIST developed FinFET but was stolen by Samsung when it invited FinFET developer Lee Jong-ho to do a presentation on the technology to engineers at Samsung's turf. Lee is a professor at Seoul National University, KAIST's partner institution.

For perspective, Intel also uses FinFET technology but has acquired proper licenses from KAIST to do so, while Samsung hasn't gone through the same process. Intel pays royalties to KAIST for using the patent.

Not Just Samsung

Apart from Samsung, KAIST also sued Qualcomm and Global Foundries, the latter of which has secured a licensing agreement with Samsung. KAIST will also target Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, once it procures proof of patent infringement.

FinFET Technology

The technology in question, FinFET, is a crucial component in manufacturing advanced processors for mobile handsets. It's a transistor designed to improve semiconductor performance and reduce power consumption.

KAIST alleges that Samsung developed its own technology identical to FinFET, reducing development time and cost by copying the technology Lee developed. Samsung hasn't issued proper credit or provided compensation to Lee or KAIST.

A 10-nanometer chip developed with FinFET technology will power the Samsung Galaxy S8. Other Galaxy S8 rumors purport the phone to rock curved displays for all of its variants, a step away from Samsung's curved and flat display combo found on the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. The smartphone could also have 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch display variants, in an attempt for Samsung to appeal to Note customers. The smartphone might also come with wireless charging and a touch-based power button.

Samsung will also incorporate artificial intelligence to power the Galaxy S8's voice assistant, similar with Google's Assistant feature. The assistant will reportedly be called Viv, an offspring of Samsung-acquired Viv Labs, run by Siri's cocreator, which might spell good fortune for Samsung's AI push.

The Galaxy S8 is slated for a 2017 unveiling.

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The stable version of the Android 7.1.1 Nougat was previously reported to be launching on Dec. 6. The operating system update is said to coincide with the December security patch.

However, a report claims that Google has started to roll out Android 7.1.1 Nougat earlier than the mentioned date, which means that owners of the devices who will receive the update can expect it to arrive very soon.

Android 7.1.1 Nougat Early Release

An AndroGuider report claims that Android 7.1.1 Nougat has started rolling out in advance of the expected Dec. 6 launch date, with screenshots to prove that the operating system update has already arrived for certain devices. This is happening even as most smartphone manufacturers are still working to bring their devices to Android 7.0 Nougat or Android 7.1 Nougat.

The devices that are said to have already received the Android 7.1.1 Nougat update are a General Mobile 4G and a Cherry Mobile One G1, which are both parts of Google's Android One project.

The screenshot that was sent in by the General Mobile 4G user, who is from Turkey, revealed a size of 240.6 MB for the update. The screenshot also showed that the software update provides improvements to the security and stability of the Android device, while also fixing certain bugs.

Also included in the operating system update is the Dec. 5 security patch released by Google. The official details of the Android 7.1.1 Nougat upgrade and the security patch, however, have not yet been made available by Google at the time of writing.

Devices That Will Receive Android 7.1.1 Nougat

In addition to Android One, the other devices that will be receiving the Android 7.1.1 Nougat update are the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL, which are the latest smartphones released by Google; several devices in the now replaced Nexus line, including the Nexus 6, the Nexus 5X, the Nexus 6P, the Nexus Player and the Nexus 9; and the Pixel C tablet.

With the Android 7.1.1 Nougat patch now having arrived in a pair of Android One smartphones, users who own the aforementioned devices should expect to receive a notification very soon on the arrival of the update.

Android 7.0 Nougat Migration

Android has always had the problem of fragmentation, as device manufacturers who utilize the open source operating system are not immediately able to release the latest versions to their products. Recent reports revealed that Samsung might be upgrading the Galaxy Note 5 to Android 7.0 Nougat soon, the same update is now launching for the Sony Xperia XZ, and Huawei is planning to launch Android 7.0 Nougat to six devices in the first quarter of next year.

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La Follette High School's key club gives back to its own with student-run food pantry
Samsung recently said that before the year ends it will explain why the batteries of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones were exploding, as the company looks to remain transparent over the issue.

However, in advance of an official announcement from the company, an independent team of hardware engineers released a report that reveals the cause behind the exploding batteries of the Galaxy Note 7.

Aggressive Design At Fault For Galaxy Note 7 Explosions

In the report posted on the official blog of Instrumental, it was revealed that the team acquired a Galaxy Note 7 to analyze its components. As a safety precaution, they had a fire extinguisher nearby as they proceeded to tear down the smartphone.

The team discovered that, with the way that the battery of the Galaxy Note 7 is designed, two polymer layers drenched in electrolytes were used to separate a positive layer of lithium cobalt oxide and a negative layer of graphite. It is important that these two layers are kept separated, because if they meet an explosion would occur.

The problem is that, in a bid to make the Galaxy Note 7 as thin and small as possible, the internal components were all cramped inside small spaces, causing the battery to become continuously compressed. This pressure damages the polymer layers, which in turn leads to the positive and negative layers touching and exploding.

Samsung Knew About The Risk

Another fact that the Instrumental report pointed out is that Samsung knew that it was pushing boundaries in the way that it designed the battery of the Galaxy Note 7, but decided to go ahead with it. Tests should have spotted the danger of the device's battery design, but the company decided to break protocol and, instead of having a third-party company perform the tests on the battery, Samsung decided to do the procedures itself.

In addition, the report claimed that for Galaxy Note 7 units that did not have their batteries explode, the design of the component would eventually lead to massive swelling within the batteries.

"Samsung took a deliberate step toward danger ... They shipped a dangerous product," wrote Instrumental in its report.

Galaxy Note 7 Fiasco: The Aftermath

Samsung's operating profit in the third quarter of this year plunged by 30 percent to 5.2 trillion won, which is about $4.5 billion, because of the Galaxy Note 7 debacle. The company is now struggling to recover from the massive financial impact of the recall program that it launched for the smartphone.

In November, Samsung released full-page advertisements in major newspapers in the United States to apologize for the exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, as the company looks to salvage what it can of its damaged brand. However, it seems that fans of Samsung's products remain fiercely loyal to the company, which should make it easier for Samsung to bounce back from the Galaxy Note 7 with its next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8.

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All it takes is a really great idea and a product can finally have an opportunity to take off. This seems to have been the case for Samsung's Gear VR headset when the South Korean company's Canadian subsidiary came up with a plan to market it as a cure for certain afflictions.

#BeFearless Canada

Through a marketing campaign being dubbed as #BeFearless, the Gear VR has now assumed the mantle of practical and even medical utility.

The main idea is to sell the device in the Canadian market as a tool to cure fear of heights and public speaking.

VR Therapy Program

For this purpose, Samsung has developed several modules that constitute what it is now calling as its VR therapy program. They are available as free downloadable VR content.

For example, the module for tackling fear of heights gradually assists an individual in going through the safest scenarios like riding an elevator to the more extreme situations such as driving along a cliff. Public speaking modules include virtual conversations, job interviews and even public performances such as singing karaoke.

The goal is to eventually master fear.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to make a difference in our connected lives, we believe the immersive VR innovation behind #BeFearless can empower many of us to master our fears," Mark Childs, chief marketing officer at Samsung Canada, said in an official statement. "We hope this inspires Canadians to experience the global movement."

Module Development

The program covers several weeks and Samsung claimed that the VR therapy modules have already achieved a high level of success in Europe, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Aside from Canada, the company is also aiming to introduce the program to several countries.

Certainly, Samsung does not claim exclusive credit for the VR therapy program. The modules have been developed in collaboration with Facebook and Oculus.

Gear VR Compatibility

Like the Google Daydream View VR, Gear VR also requires compatible smartphones to work. These include the Samsung Galaxy S7, the discontinued Galaxy Note 5 as well as the S6 and S6 edge. If you do not have these devices, Samsung is giving an S7 and Gear VR out for free. All you need to do is share your experiences and your fears.

"Fear ends where courage begins," the company said. "Tell us about your fear of heights or public speaking and you could win a Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Gear VR."

Of course, one of the fears that Samsung wants you to master is the fear of spending money for its latest S7 and Gear VR devices.

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Plex has announced support for Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox on Plex Cloud.

That means users of the media player system will have a more convenient experience than before.

What Is Cloud Sync?

To start things off, Cloud Sync is the feature that lets Plex users sync their libraries' content with a cloud storage provider, and just to be clear on that, those include the likes of the aforementioned services Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox.

"[W]e're announcing new support for Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive! All three Cloud storage providers are available for you to use right now. We've made managing your media in the Cloud more flexible by allowing you to link multiple Cloud storage providers, so you can create libraries with content from any of them," the Plex Cloud team announced a few days ago on Reddit.

For those who don't know, Plex Cloud initially supported only Amazon Cloud Drive, but on that end, the developers said that they have "run into technical challenges with the Amazon Drive integration."

However, they did assure users that they are working on a fix to iron out the issues as soon as they can.

At any rate, adding support for new cloud storage providers is a great solution for users who aren't able to use Amazon's service anymore.

How To Set Things Up

As an added bonus of sorts, it's pretty easy to set things up, including adding and modifying the cloud storage services you want to use.

Step 1: Log in to your Plex Web account.

Step 2: In the upper right corner, click on your user icon and select Account.

Step 3: On the left of your Account page, look for Plex Cloud and click on it.

Step 4: Choose which cloud storage services you want to use or remove. For the record, the current selection consists of Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and Amazon Cloud Drive.

After that's done, the providers you picked out should be available as file location options whenever you're adding or editing a library.

The Bottom Line

Thanks to the update, users can now access their files across cloud services and devices on Plex, and the whole issue related to Amazon's offering is now fixed.

Plex is available on PC, smartphone, smart TV, console and other devices. To try out the Plex Cloud service, users will have to register for an invitation and get a Plex Pass, which costs $5 a month or $40 a year.

What do you think of Plex supporting Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox? Drop by our comments section below and let us know.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
There are close similarities and definite relationships between chemicals existing on comets, even if these comets differ from one another in their overall chemical composition.

This was highlighted in a study published in the November issue of Icarus and sponsored by NASA's Planetary Astronomy and Planetary Atmospheres Programs. The study is part of the research work currently being done on the solar system's primordial bodies, which are composed of materials that have remained the same since the formation of the solar system.

In their research, space scientists analyzed the composition of hazy comas and tails of 30 comets to explore the relationships between chemicals found on different comets. They discovered that some chemical ices regularly appeared side by side with other chemicals, while others appeared on their own or separately from other chemicals.

"This relates to how the chemicals are stored together or sequestered in the nucleus, or body of the comet," said the paper's lead author, Neil Dello Russo, a space scientist at the Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland.

Clue To Structure Of Solar System

The study focused on simple yet abundant chemicals such as carbon monoxide, water, methane and ammonia in coming to the conclusions.

Noting that the missions by NASA and the ESA do reveal huge details, Dello Russo added that the new research has brought those findings into a larger chemical context within the overall comet population.

Also, the relationships of the chemicals would help in explaining more about the formation of the solar system.

The findings imply that a different chemical signature exists in each comet. It also talks about two classes of comets: the short-period ones from around the Kuiper Belt and the long-period comets found in the Oort cloud.

Using several instruments, including a high resolution infrared spectrometer, the study observed differences in comet tails. One of the spectrometers used was the Near-Infrared Spectrometer at the W.M. Keck Observatory.

Dello Russo credited the breakthrough to recent advancements to infrared spectrometers in detecting volatile chemicals even in fainter comets. Such technological strides allowed for a large group of comets to be traced for significant trends.

Comet 67P Flare-Up

Meanwhile, a new study has disclosed that the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko flare-up was caused by solar materials that led to a flare 100 times brighter than usual in some parts of the visual spectrum.

Charged solar particles rammed into comet 67P and the ESA's Rosetta spacecraft observed that the icy wanderer had brightened exceptionally. Earlier, the perception of scientists was that the flare-up came from materials within the comet.

However, new data says a burst of charged particles from the sun was responsible for the coronal mass ejection.

The coronal mass ejection was triggered by a substantial increase in the hydrogen, carbon and oxygen emission lines that increased the average brightness by a hundred times on the night of Oct. 5 and 6, 2015, said researcher John Noonan in a Space.com feature. The University of Colorado graduate presented his study at the meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences in California in October.

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Some of the biggest names in technology are taking a concerted effort to bolster takedown efforts on openly radical content that has helped terror cells recruit followers and spread terrorist agenda or ideas online.

Cracking Down Terrorist Content On The Web

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft announced on Monday that they would form a shared database of identifiers of online terror images and videos.

"There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services," the four companies said in a joint statement. "We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies."

According to The Wall Street Journal, the partnership comes as a direct result of all the companies' regular meetings with officials from the European Union as part of the EU Internet Forum, formed to dissuade terrorist from utilizing online platforms to encourage or promote their virulent agendas and ideas.

How The Database Will Work

The four companies will start assigning individual hashes to violent content. This hash maps out an image or a clip's unique characteristics in code which computers can then decipher. The four companies will then share the hash on the database so each can determine whether to remove the tagged material from its platform.

Internet companies, especially ones designed as social media platforms integrated with open and public discourse, have faced mounting pressure from authorities to expedite the takedown of terrorist content online such as Islamic State Propaganda videos and the ilk.

The companies will first sort out the technical details of the database, after which commences the sharing of identifiers on the database, due early 2017.

In the statement, all the companies clarified that if one company flags a particular material, it doesn't mean that the other company will automatically remove the material from its platform. Individual content policies of each company will still be implemented as a deciding factor in removing each material.

Previous Efforts To Wipe Out Terrorist Propaganda Online

This is not the first time these companies promised to sandblast their platforms free of terrorist propaganda. In May, Microsoft updated its terms of use as a countermeasure for terrorist content. In August, Facebook pledged to work with authorities to combat terrorism, spurred by the Germany attacks at the time.

Around the same time, Twitter also announced that it had suspended an additional 235,000 accounts on top of 125,000 accounts since mid-2015 for violent threats and terrorist propaganda.

According the four companies, other internet firms may potentially crowd the online database, too. If this happens, it'll be easier and faster for other platforms to remove terrorist material.

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Iridium Communications has announced that SpaceX might finally return to its first flight on Dec. 16 following the unfortunate Falcon 9 rocket explosion last September.

The Virginia-based satellite constellation company, which was affected by the delay in SpaceX's launches, plans to have 10 of its satellites aboard the Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff, a spokesperson said.

SpaceX postponed its flight schedules after a Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames on Sept. 1 while it was being fueled for a prelaunch test at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

"We are looking forward to return to flight," said Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX.

December 16 Falcon 9 Rocket Launch

Iridium urgently needs SpaceX on the launching pad because the company needs to set up the Iridium NEXT constellation before the current satellite constellation gets shut down.

Diane Hockenberry, a spokesperson for Iridium, said the company is confident that SpaceX now understands its fueling process and can do it successfully for the Dec. 16 launch. She also said Iridium's satellites will not be placed aboard the Falcon 9 rocket while the prelaunch engine test is ongoing.

The 10 satellites from Iridium are the first out of 81 spacecraft that will be sent to space as part of the company's efforts to replace satellites in its existing satellite constellation.

Iridium is planning to send at least 70 satellites to space in partnership with SpaceX in order to replace the world's biggest commercial satellite network located in low-Earth orbit. The company believes it is the largest "tech upgrade in history."

September 1 Falcon 9 Rocket Incident

SpaceX, a private spaceflight company led by Elon Musk, traced the Sept. 1 explosion to a fueling system problem, which caused pressurized liquid helium from inside the upper stage of the rocket to burst. The explosion destroyed a $200 million satellite owned by Israel's satellite operator Space Communication Ltd.

The company uses extremely cold liquid propellants loaded before blastoff to increase its rocket's power so it can return to Earth and be reused. It's an unconventional method that requires the spacecraft to be fueled a few minutes before launch so that the liquid helium does not warm up.

SpaceX has signed a contract with NASA to carry astronauts to the International Space Station in 2018, so its unorthodox fueling process has prompted concerns from officials. In fact, in early November, a NASA advisory panel questioned the safety of the company's fueling process.

In the meantime, SpaceX will continue working with NASA and Iridium in the future.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The U.S. Air Force is conducting late night tests of alien UFO technology in secret at the Nellis Air Force Base, according to UFO hunters who reported heavy UFO activity in the military area near Las Vegas in southern Nevada.

UFO hunter and eyewitness Steven Barone, who  in Nov. 16  uploaded on YouTube a video that he shot from his backyard on the night of Nov. 15, said he saw alien UFOs circling in the night sky above the Nellis AFB.

Barone asserts it as a clear case of stealth UFO activity at the base and a trial of "night vision technology".

The highly secretive Area 51 base of the USAF is located at the Nellis AFB's Test and Training Range.

Eye Witness Claim Endorsed By Veteran

The claim of the eyewitness on UFO activity was corroborated by veteran UFO hunter Scott C. Waring. He said that the video was explicit and three alien UFO crafts were indeed flying over the Nellis base.

"These objects are flying over a USAF base in that area so no one can travel over there to take a look," Waring said in a blog post of UFO Sightings Daily on Dec. 4.

He also said that the USAF was testing alien technology procured from extraterrestrial allies.

"It looks like the USAF is testing some of the alien craft that was given to the USAF in good faith."

He also recalled the crash of a similar craft in 2008 at Needles, California and wondered why the USAF still has not gained the expertise in flying them.

The vast military area is spread over more than 5,000 square miles in the southern Nevada desert.

Reverse-Engineering Plan Of Propulsion Technology

Meanwhile, some UFO researchers said that Pentagon has been recovering UFOs from crash sites for reverse engineering. A case in point was the crash site outside Roswell in New Mexico, where an alien saucer crashed in the late 1940s.

Some UFO hunters also allege that the restricted area in the Nellis AFB houses a secret community of technologically advanced aliens called Tall Whites.

They say the Tall Whites are in a pact with the U.S. government for exchanging advanced aerospace technology in lieu of other resources.

They also allege Tall White Aliens are living in an underground base at the Nellis AFB and the alien scientists, engineers, and technicians are backing Pentagon's aerospace projects.

Warin said the alien UFOs were given by the Tall Whites who are now operating from a secret base at the Nellis AFB.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
By Jordan Graham and Tony Saavedra, The Orange County Register



A state bill introduced Monday would require California law enforcement agencies to keep track of their guns and establish a reporting procedure for when police lose them.



State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said he introduced the legislation in response to investigations published this year by the Orange County Register and Bay Area News Group revealing that many law enforcement agencies make little or no effort to inventory their weapons and that officers frequently lose their firearms  some of which end up on the street.



The guns...fall into the hands of criminals, Hill said. The public will be protected much better when we account for law enforcement guns.



The stories on lost police guns noted that there are no state or federal laws requiring police agencies to account for their weapons and few agencies voluntarily do so.



The Department of Justices Automated Firearms System attempts to act as a national registry for law enforcement weapons, but agencies are not required to report when a registered gun is lost or stolen. Also, officers dont have to register their privately-owned guns even if they frequently carry them in the line of duty.



Hills bill, SB 22, would require police agencies to inventory all their firearms, to take annual counts of their weapons and to report to the national registry when guns go missing. It also calls for officers to register personal firearms if carried on the job. Officers who fail to report lost weapons would be disciplined.



The media investigations found that since 2010 at least 1,000 firearms had been lost or stolen from police agencies in California. Missing weapons included handguns, shotguns, high-powered rifles and at least one grenade launcher, among others. Some lost police weapons later were connected to crimes. In Northern California, a gun lost by a federal park ranger was used in a suspected murder.



In Southern California, theft accounted for about one-third of the missing guns. Many of the thefts came because officers left weapons unattended in vehicles, inside center consoles, in the glove box or stashed in gym bags behind the passenger seat.



In September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed another bill authored by Hill requiring law enforcement officers to lock up their guns left in unattended vehicles or face fines of $1,000.



That same month, at the Registers prodding, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department created a computerized database to monitor its missing weapons, something the agency previously had not done. That search found that more than 100 handguns and rifles were gone.



(Police agencies) are large organizations, Hill said of the need for statewide legislation. Theyre busy and this is just another bookkeeping issue that theyd rather not deal with.



2016 The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.




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
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The governments crackdown on zero-dollar package tours from China may have greater impacts on tourism business than earlier projected.

But whether the impacts will affect the GDP or not is yet to be assessed together with the overall economic performance, said Mr Don Nakornthap, senior director of Macro-economic Policy Office of the Bank of Thailand, on Wednesday.

Tourism sector accounts for 11-12 percent of the GDP and the number of tourist arrivals for the month of October has dropped to 2.26 million compared to 2.41 million in September representing 10.1 percent drop, said Mr Don, adding that this has weakened the consumption of tourism-related private sector.

Coupled with the weak purchasing power of the farming sector due to lower prices of farm products, the consumption growth of the private sector for the month of October contracted 1.9 percent against the figure in September.

Don said it was initially projected that the crackdown on zero-dollar package tours from China and the increase of fees for visa upon arrival would cut down the number of tourist arrivals by 200,000 for this year, but it appeared that the real impacts might be far greater than the earlier projection. The actual impacts, he added, will be further assessed.

Thailands earlier projection of ten million Chinese tourist arrivals this year is likely to fall short of target due to a sharp drop of tourists from China as a result of the governments crackdown on zero-dollar package tours from China, said Mr Sinchai Wattanasartsathorn, president of Pattaya Tourism Association.

He pointed out that air ticket bookings to Thailand in China saw 70-80 percent cancellations just as advance bookings of hotels in Bangkok and Pattaya substantially dropped since the crackdown.

Although high season has already arrived in Pattaya since October which will last until next April, the number of Chinese tourists visiting the resort city of Pattaya which is most popular among the Chinese has visibly dropped with two- and three-star hotels most affected, said Mr Sinchai.

Source: Central bank admits crackdown on zero-dollar package tours has greater impacts than earlier projected |
Bangkok, 5 December, 2016  Thailand has welcomed its 30 millionth visitor for 2016, breaking tourist records.

The Thailands Luckiest Visitor  The Amazing, Smashing Success was Ms. Huang Junyi who flew in to Bangkoks Suvarnabhumi Airport from Guangzhou, China on the auspicious date of 5 December, 2016.

The Thailands Luckiest Visitor campaign was launched in 2015 to welcome and reward every millionth visitor to Thailand from June to December. The campaign was a great success and garnered interest from the public and media organisations across the world, boosting Thailands tourism sector and brand image. It has been brought back in 2016 to welcome the 30th and 31st million visitors and will continue till the end of 2016.

In 2016, Thailand is projecting total international tourism revenue of 1.62 trillion Baht (USD 46 billion), representing a year-on-year increase of 11.68% over 2015.

To boost tourism numbers, various initiatives have been put in place to encourage tourists to visit and spend. This includes the waiver of tourist visa fees for visitors from 19 countries from 1 December, 2016, to 28 February, 2017, and the price of visas issued on arrival will be halved. To encourage more domestic travel, a long New Year holiday of four days including 31 December, 2016, and 1 to 3 January, 2017, has been confirmed.

The post appeared first on Tourism Authority of Thailand Newsroom, TAT Newsroom, Thailand Tourism News, Tourism Thailand, TAT.

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State Police: Baton Rouge woman dies, three others injured after car crashes into an 18-wheeler in East Feliciana
More voters cast early ballots for the Dec. 10 election in East Baton Rouge Parish than in any other parish statewide, a possible sign of interest in the mayor-president contest between Sharon Weston Broome and Bodi White.

About 8 percent of East Baton Rouge's registered voters early voted for the upcoming Saturday election  a bit over the under the fewer than six percent turnout posted statewide. Analysts say the 22,072 who did vote early in Baton Rouge may provide clues about the electorate's leanings. Black early voter turnout in East Baton Rouge Parish makes up a slightly higher share of the East Baton Rouge electorate than during primary early voting in November.

That's a good sign for Broome, a former state senator, according to pollsters John Couvillon and Roy Fletcher. Broome, a black Democrat, led in the primary election with 32 percent of the vote compared to the 29 percent for White, a white Republican. But the analysts emphasized they see opportunities for White, saying that it is key for him to energize his Republican base.

"When you have a black early vote that is larger from a percentage standpoint than it was in the primary, that for me means extra votes for Sharon Weston Broome," Couvillon said.

But if White can tap strongly into white voters, then he also has a shot.

"He's got to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent of white votes or a little bit better," Fletcher said. "That's the path."

East Baton Rouge Parish has a recent history of voting for Democrats, as the parish voted three times for Democratic Mayor-President Kip Holden, two times for U.S. President Barack Obama and, most recently, for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

This year's mayor-president race had to compete with the election between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Clinton, along with a crowded statewide U.S. Senate field to replace David Vitter. But now that it's runoff season, experts said people are paying more attention to the mayor-president race, which will share a ballot with the U.S. Senate runoff between Republican John Kennedy and Democrat Foster Campbell.

"People are finally focused on it, maybe even more than the Senate race," Fletcher said.

East Baton Rouge black voters made up 40 percent of the electorate in early voting for the runoff, which is 3 percentage points higher than their representation in early voting during November.

White voters in East Baton Rouge, on the other hand, made up 57 percent of the electorate in runoff early voting. That's a drop of 2 percentage points from the portion of the electorate that they had for early voting in the primary.

Couvillon said weeks ago that Broome should have an edge going into the runoff, as the Democrats in the primary election combined to earn 48 percent of the vote, while Republicans combined to earn 43 percent of the vote.

It's generally safe to assume that the vast majority of black voters will cast ballots for Democrats in the runoff, Couvillon said, but he noted the reverse of the idea  that almost all white voters will vote Republican  does not necessarily apply in East Baton Rouge Parish. A segment of white voters  likely moderates or liberals  voted for Democratic mayor-president candidates in the primary, as Democrats could not have reached the 48 percent mark without them, Couvillon said.

Broome's endorsement from former no-party mayor-president candidate Darryl Gissel could also help her pick up additional white moderates, Couvillon and Fletcher agreed. She already secured an endorsement from third-place finisher C. Denise Marcelle, and she received endorsements Monday from low-performing former mayor-president candidates Greg LaFleur, Braylon Hyde and Beverly Amador.

Michael Beychok, Broome's spokesman, said her campaign has been more successful courting early voters than White's campaign.

"It's not just black voter turnout, it's also Democratic voter turnout in the parish is high," Beychok said. "We've made it a point in the campaign to focus our resources, as limited as they may be, on targeting voters and getting them out to the polls for early voting."

But White, a current state senator, said he is confident about his campaign strategy, and he unveiled a few new endorsements Monday. Former mayor-president candidate Smokie Bourgeois, a former Republican Metro Councilman who finished in fifth place in the primary, and former Baton Rouge Police Department Chief Pat Englade and the International Union of Police Associations also endorsed White.

At the Legislature, mayor candidate Bodi White focused on education and crime These days veteran legislator Bodi White might be best known for his role in trying to sheph

White previously received the endorsement from fourth-place finisher John Delgado. Over the weekend, White also picked up an endorsement from the father of injured Sheriff's Deputy Nick Tullier, who was shot in July when a gunman opened fire and killed three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers.

White raised twice as much money throughout the campaign as Broome. He said he has turned his focus to turning out his base of voters in Central, Zachary and other areas.

"A lot of people in the north end of the parish, they like to turn up on Election Day," White said.

Couvillon said White needs to run a "full court press" to mobilize Republicans for Election Day. Fletcher said a strong turnout of white voters supporting White could push him past the 50 percent mark, as 51 percent of registered voters in East Baton Rouge are white and 44 percent are black.

East Baton Rouge's early vote total for this December election is almost the same as it was for the high-profile 2014 U.S. Senate race between Republican Bill Cassidy and Democrat Mary Landrieu.

In that race, 22,988 people early voted in East Baton Rouge parish for the December runoff  just 916 votes more than this year's count. But the turnout in that race saw more white early voters, at 63 percent, and fewer black early voters, at 35 percent.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hundreds urge world leaders to take action in a march coinciding with the Climate Conference, known as COP22, in Marrakech, Morocco, Nov. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
PLAQUEMINE  A sugar cane burn may have caused the massive power outage last week that crippled operations at the Dow Chemical plant, sparking a chlorine leak from one of the plant's tenants, according to an Entergy Louisiana statement Monday.

State officials also confirmed that an investigation into the incident, which occurred around 3 p.m. Friday, is underway and reaffirmed previous assertions from local officials that the chemical release posed no serious threat to the public.

Trooper First Class Bryan Lee, a Louisiana State Police spokesman, said initial estimates show between 3,000 to 3,500 pounds of chlorine leaked from the Olin Corporation facility  located within Dow's Plaquemine facility  following the power outage.

+6 Dow Chemical in Plaquemine now secure after power interruption; here's what sparked problems DOW Chemical spokeswoman Stacey Chiasson said they were in the process of restoring power to the plant as of 5:45 p.m. which she said will help the company stop the leak. No injuries have been reported, she said, and everyone in the plant is accounted for.

"That's not the final numbers," Lee said Monday. "The final total will be determined at the completion of the investigation."

There's evidence a sugar cane burn under a nearby transmission line might have tripped the power grid to the Dow facility, Entergy Louisiana officials said. The outage was confined solely to the plant.

"An investigation is underway with all parties involved, and at this time no further details are available," Entergy spokeswoman Kacee Kirschvink said in a prepared statement Monday. "Since Dow generates their own power, we do not know how long of an outage they experienced."

Plant officials were able to restore enough power three hours after the outage, enabling them to bring certain production units back online to stop the chlorine release. In a statement Monday, Dow says the plant was secure but the restart of production is still ongoing.

Olin Corporation officials indicated Monday their facility isn't fully operational yet either, but they are closely monitoring operations to ensure the public's safety. The company has multiple operations at the Plaquemine site, which produces a range of products including chlorine, dichloride, caustic soda and hydrogen, according to its website.

"Olin reported the release in a timely manner to the appropriate agencies, and we continue to work with local and state agencies as this incident is reviewed," Carol Clark, a spokeswoman for Olin, said in a prepared statement.

Lee confirmed that proper notification was made by Olin to the State Police Hazmat Division, which in turn notifies other agencies on the state and local level. Federal law mandates that any chlorine release over 10 pounds be reported to authorities.

The Iberville Parish Sheriff's Office temporarily shut down access along La. 1 into Plaquemine on Friday evening and issued a shelter-in-place order Friday from around 3:45 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. as a precautionary measure. Officials from the state's Department of Environmental Quality were also at the scene monitoring the air quality after the leak was reported.

"We haven't seen any (final) figures yet but we did not detect anything in the quantities that were a threat to human health," DEQ spokesman Greg Langley said Monday.

No major injuries were reported, but Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi said previously that 14 workers drove themselves to Plaquemine's Ochsner Medical Complex for examination. Three Dow employees were seen at the company's Health Services and released that night. All Olin employees and contractors have been accounted for and no injuries reported, Carol said Monday.
Backers of the effort to recall embattled Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni will get their day in court  but not before Saturday's next round of voting  in their challenge of a Louisiana law requiring signature gatherers to stay 600 feet away from polling places, a Baton Rouge state judge ruled Monday.

The Recall Yenni campaign, which fought but ultimately agreed to abide by the 600-foot buffer zone during the Nov. 8 presidential election, was hoping to use Saturday's election to boost the signatures it needs by early April to trigger a recall election against Yenni, who is embroiled in a sexting scandal involving a 17-year-old boy.

"We may just ignore it. We may not," Metairie lawyer Robert Evans III, who is leading the petition drive, said of the contested state law outside state District Judge Todd Hernandez's 19th Judicial District courtroom.

Two weeks ago, 24th Judicial District Judge Stephen Enright refused to block enforcement of the law, saying the Recall Yenni campaign failed to demonstrate it was likely to prevail at a trial by arguing that volunteers could come as close as 100 feet from polling places.

+2 Judge won't block law keeping Recall Yenni volunteers 600 feet from voting places A Jefferson Parish judge has decided he will not block enforcement of the law that requires 

Organizers cited a 1995 Louisiana Supreme Court decision they said found the law that includes the 600-foot buffer to be overly broad, and that it restricted free speech.

Evans has argued the state Supreme Court determined it takes 15 seconds to walk 75 feet and reasoned that campaign activity taking place at a distance of 100 feet would not represent an intrusion on the electoral process.

Attorneys for the state, however, contend the size of the buffer was never actually challenged in the '95 case. They also say the state law in question has since been clarified to address concerns raised by the high court.

Emily Andrews, who represents the state Attorney General's Office, which Recall Yenni sued Nov. 9, told Hernandez the lawsuit is the fourth such suit the group has filed since late October. She accused the group of "shopping" for a sympathetic judge.

Evans argued the state Legislature ignored the Supreme Court's '95 ruling and instead decided to "play games" with the law.

In the end, Hernandez agreed to entertain the constitutional question but said he would do so in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings and not on an expedited basis.

Yenni said last month he never had any sexual contact with the teenager, who has said Yenni visited him at his job at a local mall and brought him a gift of designer underwear in 2015. The teen also said Yenni kissed him briefly. Yenni was mayor of Kenner at the time and running for parish president.
The Baton Rouge man suspected in the Thanksgiving weekend stabbing and dismemberment of his parents in their Tennessee home will remain in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison until at least Dec. 16.

Joel Michael Guy Jr., 28, who appeared in a Baton Rouge courtroom Tuesday for the second time in a five-day span, isn't fighting his extradition back to Knox County in Tennessee, but he also isn't waiving his right to a formal extradition hearing, his court-appointed attorneys said.

Nineteenth Judicial District Court Commissioner Nicole Robinson scheduled Guy's extradition hearing for Dec. 16 following his brief court appearance. He arrived in shackles, wearing an orange-and-white-striped East Baton Rouge Parish Prison jumpsuit. The purpose of Tuesday's hearing was for Guy to decide whether he would waive his right to an extradition hearing.

"We are not waiving the extradition hearing," Lindsay Blouin, one of Guy's court-appointed attorneys, told Robinson. Blouin added that Guy understands the process. Guy said nothing in court other than to give his name and birth date.

Prosecutor John Russell told the commissioner that Tennessee is working on a governor's warrant to have Guy returned to that state to face first-degree murder charges.

Russell said outside the courtroom that the extradition hearing could be bumped into January if Tennessee officials don't have the necessary paperwork ready for next week's hearing.

Lyn Legier, another of Guy's other court-appointed lawyers, said afterward that Guy is merely exercising his right to an extradition hearing.

"There's nothing to fight on that," she said.

Russell reiterated that Tennessee officials are anxious to have Guy brought back to that state.

Guy was arrested Nov. 29 in Baton Rouge and is being held as a fugitive from Tennessee, where he is wanted on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Joel Guy Sr., 61, and Lisa Guy, 55.

The Knox County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee has alleged that Joel Guy Jr. stabbed his parents in their home near Knoxville, dismembered their bodies and tried to dissolve their remains with a homemade acid-based solution.

Guy graduated from the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts in Natchitoches in 2006. He also previously attended Hahnville High School.

Maj. Michael MacLean of the Knox County Sheriff's Office said last week that investigators believe Guy, who was living in an apartment complex on Nicholson Drive, attended LSU before apparently withdrawing last year. LSU officials were unable to confirm whether he was ever a student there.

Maclean said Guy is believed to have spent at least one night in the house in Tennessee after his parents were dismembered. He said deputies believe the couple was killed sometime between Nov. 25 and midday on Nov. 26. Thanksgiving was Nov. 24.

MacLean said Guy Jr., who was apparently unemployed since dropping out of school, arrived in Tennessee on Nov. 23 and left the state on his way back to Baton Rouge on Nov. 27.

MacLean said Guy's parents had been paying many of their son's bills while he lived in Baton Rouge and were "in the process of encouraging him to fend for himself" and planned on talking to him over Thanksgiving about cutting off some of their support.
An influential state panel Monday spent more time wrestling with how to change public school report cards, including the all-important issue of rewarding annual academic gains.

The effort is part of the state's plan to revamp public school policies to comply with a 2015 federal law called the Every Student Succeeds Act.

The topic was debated by the Louisiana Accountability Commission, which advises the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

How to revamp public school letter grades under renewed scrutiny A key state panel Tuesday grappled with how to revamp the way often-controversial letter gra

Under current rules, the growth of student achievement accounts for 7 percent of scores that translate into grades, and only applies to struggling students. State Superintendent of Education John White has proposed that the growth account for 25 percent of the score, and have it apply to all students.

The issue is important because grades assigned to public schools and districts play a huge role in how they are viewed by the public. Before state leaders agree on a percentage, they have to reach a consensus on how to measure annual academic gains.

Under a new plan unveiled for the commission, student growth would be measured by whether students meet or exceed annual benchmarks toward reaching the state's new academic target for schools to earn A ratings.

However, the controversial part would allow schools to earn points even if students failed to meet targets, as long as they exceeded the growth of their peers.

Backers called the proposed measuring stick simple to understand for parents, educators and others.

Kelli Joseph, superintendent of the St. Helena School District and a member of the panel, said the change would allow educators to have meaningful conversations with students and parents on where they stand in reaching the second of five achievement levels, called mastery.

Debbie Meaux, another commission member and president of the Louisiana Association of Educators, said she likes having two potential sources of academic growth -- meeting or exceeding annual targets, or doing better than peers.

Others said the new rules would make it too easy for schools to enhance their grades by earning extra points, distorting how schools are actually faring.

Brigitte Nieland, a panel member who follows public school issues for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said the gains would allow extra points even with low test scores.

Stephanie Desselle, who tracks public school issues for the Council for a Better Louisiana, raised similar concerns.

Jessica Baghian, assistant state superintendent for assessment and accountability, said the advantage of the two-prong approach is to allow low-achieving students, and those with disabilities, to earn points who would otherwise be unlikely to meet annual academic growth targets.

During public testimony, Brian LeJeune, president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, was complimentary of the two-prong approach to measuring student gains. LeJeune is superintendent of the Jefferson Davis School District in southwest Louisiana.

Kathy Noel, a DeSoto Parish school system educator and chairwoman of the commission, said her goal Monday was to narrow the list of options, not make any final decisions.

Two other plans to measure the growth of student achievement are also under review by the panel.

State officials are supposed to provide simulations to commission members to show details of how the new rules would work compared to current policies.

The commission is set to meet again on Jan. 9.
Early voting is now over for the statewide runoff election on Saturday.

The political prognosticators are looking at how many of what region or party or demographics voted early, hoping for clues about the races for U.S. Senate, a couple of seats in Congress and a new mayor-president in East Baton Rouge Parish.

We know that it's the home stretch for the candidates, and we urge those who haven't voted to look at the candidates and the issues. But, we're also entitled to a sense of relief in Louisiana because of the political cycle, three raucous years, that voters across the state are just about to see tapering off.

Beginning in 2014, Louisiana drew national attention as a key battleground state for control of the Senate. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, of New Orleans, failed to gain a fourth term in a bitter contest that was perceived as a rejection of President Barack Obama by Louisiana voters; Bill Cassidy, of Baton Rouge, won that seat. That opened Cassidy's seat in the U.S. House, enlivened by the candidacy of Edwin W. Edwards, who lost thumpingly to Garret Graves, a Republican.

Then, in 2015, Louisiana's off-year election for governor and Legislature was held. With U.S. Sen. David Vitter the favorite for much of the year, a bitter primary and then runoff election resulted in a dramatic upset, as Democrat John Bel Edwards won the Governor's Mansion.

This was another presidential election year, in which Louisiana voters flocked to the polls for Donald Trump, a historic choice because he is our first president-elect never to have held any public office or to have been a successful general, the traditional paths to the Oval Office.

Saturday's runoff settles the fate of Vitter's seat, which he is resigning after last year's loss. Even with the nation's election fatigue, and the fact that Republican John N. Kennedy is favored over Democrat Foster Campbell (see 2014, above), a lot of national attention is still coming Louisiana's way.

There are hard-fought runoffs in two seats in Congress, in the southwestern and northwestern parts of the state. And, because of term limits, Mayor-President Kip Holden's successor will be chosen in Baton Rouge. In 2015, also because of term limits, Lafayette Mayor-President Joey Durel's seat was open and won by Joel Robideaux.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, we won't be as besieged by candidates and canvassers in 2017, but Louisiana's Crescent City does not get next year off: Term limits will mean that a new mayor must be elected in New Orleans, so Mitch Landrieu's potential successors will start campaigning for the October primary, or at least positioning themselves for the race early in the new year.

For the rest of Louisiana, will it be a political respite? Yes, except for the state's budget crisis and what is likely to be a tumultuous year in the State Capitol. So it goes.
As the Wisconsin recount continued, presidential candidate Jill Steins fight to force ballot recounts in three states focused Monday on Pennsylvania, where her Green Party was seeking an emergency federal court order for a statewide recount, and Michigan, where a hand recount began on the orders of a federal judge.

President-elect Donald Trump narrowly defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in both states and Wisconsin, which started its recount last week. The recounts were not expected to change enough votes to overturn the result of the election.

Stein, who received about 1 percent of the vote in all three states, says her intent is to verify the accuracy of the vote. She has suggested, with no evidence, that votes cast were susceptible to computer hacking.

Let every vote count, Stein said Monday outside Trump Tower in New York. Thats what makes America great.

The news conference, held on busy Fifth Avenue, was repeatedly interrupted by shouts of protest. Several Trump supporters heckled the proceedings, with one yelling, Jill Stein is a common criminal.

In Nevada, a partial recount of the race was requested by independent presidential candidate Roque De La Fuente.

The recount in Wisconsin continued over the weekend, with little change so far in the unofficial results as reported on election night. Six counties had completed their work as of Monday morning, with the margin between Trump and Clinton unchanged.

A federal lawsuit was filed late last week by a Trump voter and two super PACs seeking to stop the recount.

The judge rejected a request to halt the recount while the lawsuit is pending and scheduled a hearing for Friday.

State and local election officials all have said they dont expect Clinton to surpass Trump in Wisconsin, where he won by about 22,000 votes.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission said no significant problems have been reported after four full days of recounting, and any changes between canvass results and recount totals have been due to human error.
In this combination of still images taken from an April 4, 2015, video provided by attorney L. Chris Stewart, representing the family of Walter Lamer Scott, Scott appears to break away from a confrontation with city patrolman Michael Thomas Slager, right, in North Charleston, S.C. In the video, as Scott runs away, Slager pulls out his handgun and fires at Scott, who drops to the ground after the eighth shot. Slager has been fired and charged with murder following the release of the dramatic video. (AP Photo/Courtesy of L. Chris Stewart)
When will we ever learn? After the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study results were released in 2012 there was widespread surprise and disbelief to discover that Australian children had performed poorly compared with many other countries.

This was most marked when measured against most of our neighbours within Asia. Blame was heaped upon our teachers, rundown schools, overcrowding in classrooms, lack of government funding and so on.

The latest 2016 TIMSS report released last week shows Australian children sliding further down the league table.

Again, expressions of disappointment and outrage came from all sources with a humiliating headline in the Herald of "Australian students fare worse than Kazakhstan in maths and science". Education Minister Simon Birmingham, lamely waffled on about increasing school funding from 2018, and said he wanted evidence-based action to prevent the performance of Australian children sliding further down the ladder. But he offered no explanations or solutions.
Climate politics seems set to sizzle in 2017. But will there be policy light, as well as political heat? Only a matter of days after it announced a long-awaited review of climate policies, the Turnbull government is beset with ill-disciplined and shrill dissent. The main cause of the angst being indulgently expressed by some in the Coalition's ideologically blinkered faction is the suggestion by Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, increasingly seen as a future prime minister, that the review might recommend carbon pricing for power companies.

The indignation is somewhat ironic, given the Liberals' hardliners are generally strongly in favour of market solutions. So is The Age, which is why we have been arguing for years that a market-based price on carbon emissions must be central to climate policy.

Let there be light: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shows Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg how to pray. Credit:Andrew Meares

Almost a decade ago, then prime minister John Howard, who consistently championed market solutions, adopted an emissions trading scheme as his preferred policy. He was correct to do so. It is the most efficient, low-cost way of reducing emissions, and thus of Australia, which is one of the highest-emitting nations per capita, meeting its undertakings to the rest of the world, enshrined in the recent Paris agreement.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mr Frydenberg have embarked on a fraught but necessary path. The climate policy review had long been envisaged, but there were few expectations the government would risk re-igniting debate about carbon pricing, an issue that has brought down political leaders in the 10 years since Mr Howard, whose ministers included Tony Abbott and Mr Turnbull, embraced the notion.
Embattled One Nation senator Rod Culleton has given the strongest indication yet he will quit Pauline Hanson's One Nation party if he survives a High Court challenge to his eligibility to serve in Parliament.

He said the party was not performing; had left farmers "bitterly disappointed"; had a toxic culture, and that he was evaluating his future, regardless of the High Court decision.

"This is about considering my position now. The real culture is starting to come through and it's not a culture that I'm in favour of," Senator Culleton told Fairfax Media in his Parliament House office.

"There are certain people in the party that I just don't think I could ever work with, to be honest."
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he has never supported a carbon tax, as debate about a climate policy review process threatens new disunity and political strife within the Coalition.

Backbench MPs have publicly questioned the government's timing and tactics after a formal review of the Direct Action policies was announced by Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg this week, with backbenchers including Cory Bernardi and Craig Kelly warning against any move towards a carbon tax or similar scheme.

The review will include consideration of whether an emissions intensity scheme for electricity generators, a form of carbon pricing, was appropriate for Australia.

Speaking in Sydney on Tuesday, Mr Turnbull said the planned 2017 process had been expected for years and was part of a suite of policies taken to the past three elections.
One of two men who smashed their way into the home of a Far East Side family in January, then shot and beat a man and battered his wife as their young children watched, was sentenced Monday to 16 years in prison.

Rollo R.P. Prince, 32, never divulged to police who broke into the home in the 4800 block of Retana Drive with him, and never said where he had heard there was $60,000 and drugs to be found in the house. Saying so might have worked in his favor, Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds said.

I share the victims questions in this case, Reynolds said. There is no place in civilized society for these horrendous crimes.

Prince pleaded guilty in September to second-degree reckless endangerment, substantial battery and burglary for the Jan. 24 home invasion. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors asked for up to 15 years in prison, while Princes lawyer, William Ginsberg, asked for an eight-year prison sentence.

In court Monday, the man described how his family had only recently moved to Madison from the St. Louis area, coming to a place they loved from somewhere that he called a racist, hateful place. He said his wife woke him up, after hearing the front door forced open. She said in court that she was already awake because their 2-year-old daughter had kicked her in her sleep. She was in the king-sized bed with the couple, as was their 4-year-old daughter.

Groggy from sleep, the man said he heard steps approaching the bedroom door, which a masked man then burst open.

My first reaction was to get up and protect my family, he said. The intruder fired gunshots, one of which went into the wall near the couples children, and another went into the ceiling. A third struck the man in the shoulder, but worked its way near his spine, and punctured a lung in the process.

Struggles with the intruder ensued, during which the man said he blacked out at different times. His wife also tried to fight off the intruder, and was beaten in the head with the gun. At some point, the intruder shot himself in the hand, and that left behind blood that helped police identify Prince through DNA.

It seemed to end when Prince left the room after being fought off. The woman braced her body against the bedroom door, holding it shut, but the man said the other intruder, the one still not identified, broke the door off its hinges and again attacked the couple, demanding to know, Where is it? Where the (expletive) is it?

But just before he burst in, the man said, one of the girls had taken the womans phone to her, and she called 911. Seeing the phone on the floor, the intruder said, We got a 911, weve got to get out of here, and fled.

The man told Reynolds the ordeal has left him still in pain, unable to do things at work as a scientist, and unable even to pick up and hold his daughters.

Its not really possible for me to convey to other people how this has impacted our lives, he said.

Both the man and woman said its also left them suspicious of people, and the woman said shes often afraid to even be in her own home. The psychological effects on their daughters, they said, have been lasting and serious.

I swear, my soul itself has aged this year, the woman told Reynolds. I feel like I was a resilient person, but this year has taken it out of me.

Prince turned to apologize to the couple, saying that he hoped one day they could forgive him.

But it rang hollow with Reynolds, who said that the moment Prince entered the bedroom and saw two little girls on the bed with their parents, he could have left.

This was all avoidable, and you are the reason it happened, Reynolds told Prince.
"He was wearing rouge!" So says an incredulous Winston Churchill after meeting with King George in Netflix's The Crown. To be fair, King George is almost dead from lung cancer and nobody is more unforgiving of weakness, physical, or otherwise, than Churchill. So the King gets himself made up for their meeting - a bit of rouge, yes. And powder. Only, instead of looking like a man with a terminal illness he ends up looking like a man with a terminal illness wearing makeup. Claire Foy, centre, and Matt Smith, right, in a scene from The Crown. Credit:Robert Viglasky/Netflix That's The Crown for you, the most expensive television series ever made, costing Netflix over 100 million pounds. I confess I thought that the formative years of Queen Elizabeth's reign would be nothing better than a sexed-up Downton Abbey. But it's actually the (English) Godfather. You know that thing where you can never go against the family because the family isn't really about love or blood but rather absolute obedience to a ruthless super power? Yeah, that.



But The Godfather was full of expression; people scream and yell and cry and kill in that movie. Hey, they're Italian. But what does one do when the entire cast is the very definition of a stiff upper lip and must appear perfectly attired at all times?

Claire Foy in Netflix's The Crown. Credit:AP The answer, dear ones, is makeup. There aren't any magical special effects, although, FYI: two people were responsible for "dental" on the show. I mean, it wouldn't be a series about the Royals without their teeth. In her youth, when Elizabeth is full of verve and totally besotted with Prince Phillip, they give her face freckles, and highlight her cheeks to make them glow. But as the Queen takes on more responsibility, the actor playing her, Claire Foy, frequently has dark circles under her eyes. Now, in a regular TV series, these would be hidden, but it's a brilliant choice to let them stay and get deeper, along with facial lines, and grey hair, as her rule continues into her mid 40s. In her dramatic scenes where she must confront heads of state, Elizabeth wears a bold red lipstick, bordering on orange. But in the most emotional scene of the series, she has a deep red lipstick that bleeds, ever-so-slightly, over the edges of her mouth. Such a fascinating, and subtle touch. As she grows older, her eyes have less and less makeup, until, in the final scenes, her hair is completely off her face, revealing a high forehead and clear, stark blue peepers. It's deeply reminiscent of how royals have been depicted in renaissance portraiture. Which is entirely the point, isn't it? What better way to convey the magnitude and historical significance of her role?
Just under a month since Donald Trump was elected to the US Presidency, it seems many of his supporters - including high profile individuals who endorsed him to the public - are already deeply regretting their decision.

And one Tumblr user, racked with schadenfreude, is gathering their moments of realisation together on a blog they have titled Trumpgrets, so the rest of the world can join in saying "I told you so".

Somehow, even political pundits are surprised that the President-elect has not in fact "drained the swamp" as he promised, but rather gone fishing in it for his appointments. As Trumpgrets points out, perhaps the likes of Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and former Congressman Joe Walsh should have done some more research before they endorsed him.
New figures are out, showing impressive growth in Sydney's GDP per capita, a figure I usually associate with measuring the wealth of nations.

Bring your umbrella if it's not too late. It'll be 25 in the city, 26 in Parramatta but with an 80 per cent chance of showers or an evening thunderstorm. Yesterday's evening storm left about 7000 homes without power and even set one house in Sydney's north on fire.

It shows that Sydney's economy generates about $80,000 in income per every head of population. About 40 per cent of the nation's growth happens in this city and our GDP is growing at 4.5 per cent each year, which is the highest it's been since 2000.

But the figures expose the widening gap between Sydney and the rest of the state. We're about $32,000 a year ahead.

An IUD

 is not the deadly roadside explosive favoured by Iraqi insurgents. A new study finds men know more than we thought about contraception but there's more to do.
A man has been charged after he lost control of his car, crashed through a fence and smashed into the lounge room of a Brisbane home.

Police say that about 1.45am Wednesday morning the man was driving along Gaskell Street at Eight Mile Plains when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed through the back fence of a residence in Leelaban Place and continued into the lounge room of the house.

The 25-year-old will face court on drink driving and dangerous operation of a vehicle charges on December 22.

No-one in the house was injured when the car ended up in their lounge room at 1.45am on Wednesday.
Brisbane teenager Tyrone Unsworth broke down to his friend the day before he took his own life, telling her everyone wanted him dead, ABC's 7:30 has revealed.

Tyrone was just 13 when he committed suicide November 22 after years of homophobic bullying at school.

The "spiritual" young boy who loved "girly things" used to play with his friend Gypsie-Lee Edwards Kennard's makeup and chose dresses for her to wear.

"Kids obviously thought that because he was like that that he could be a target for bullying," she told ABC's 7:30.
Amazon has revealed that it will open a brick-and-mortar grocery store called Amazon Go, an ambitious bid by the once online-only retailer to gobble up more of Americans' shopping dollars by taking the fight more directly to traditional supermarkets.

The store will be powered by a web of technology that allows customers to fill up their shopping bags and walk out without going through a checkout process, a concept that has long been discussed in the retail industry but that has not been implemented at any major US stores. The idea is that it will shave time off the shopping experience.

Here's how Amazon Go will work: Customers download an app and then swipe their smartphones as they walk through the store's entrance. Then they just start picking up groceries. In a process that the company does not describe except to say that it involves such capabilities as computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence, every item the shoppers tuck into their bags or carts is tracked on the phone. If an item is put back on the shelf, it's deleted. As the shoppers exit, their total bill is calculated, a digital receipt appears on their phones and their Amazon account is charged. This video produced by the company offers some visuals that might help you imagine what that will look like:
The Victorian government is understood to be days away from accepting recommendations to legalise voluntary euthanasia and reveal plans to take it to a conscience vote next year.

It has until the end of the week to hand down its response to the recommendations of a cross-party committee's report released in June.

The government has not responded to mounting reports it will back the scheme. Instead a spokeswoman for health minister Jill Hennessy said: "The government is currently finalising its response to the Legislative Council Committee's Inquiry into End of Life Choices."

The issue was taken to cabinet on Monday and the government will want it dealt with in 2017 to avoid it running into an election year, the ABC reported.
They call it the 'Batty effect': in the wake of Luke's murder by his father in February 2014, the number of children seeking shelter from family violence has surged.

Demand from children accessing homelessness help dropped in the year prior to Luke's tragic death, but increased in that financial year and soared the one after that.

Rosie Batty, whose son Luke, 11, was killed by his father in 2014. Credit:Eddie Jim

In Victoria, the number almost doubled, increasing by 87 per cent, in 2013/2014, the financial year when Rosie Batty's tragic story and courageous response dominated the headlines.

In 2014/2015, as the state and federal governments responded to the crisis, the numbers in Victoria jumped again, by 82 percent.
A nuclear power plant should be built in the western Victorian city of Portland to supply cheap electricity to Alcoa's troubled aluminium smelter, according to a local-micro party MP.

Vote 1 Local Jobs MP James Purcell has warned that Portland, which has a population of about 10,000, will become a "ghost town" if the smelter closes and cheap power generation is not created.

Western Victoria politician James Purcell says a nuclear power station should be built in Portland to help try and save Alcoa, and the town. Credit:Digitally altered image

He says the recent power failure that damaged the Alcoa's aluminium smelter illustrated the need for nuclear energy.

Earlier this month the smelter suffered a major setback when one of its two "pot-lines" was closed due to a disastrous power failure.
Dog breeders have been granted a temporary reprieve after the Andrews government shelved a controversial crackdown on puppy farms.

In an apparent backdown, Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford has conceded a government bill to stamp out unscrupulous breeding practices was "unlikely to pass in its current form".

Labor made much of a promise to ban puppy farms in the lead-up to the 2014 state election. But since then it has faced claims the planned legislation, including limiting breeders to 10 fertile bitches, would cripple the industry while doing little to protect the health and welfare of dogs.

A parliamentary committee report tabled on Tuesday found there was "no clear scientific" reason to limit the number of fertile female dogs, with "no correlation between the number of dogs in an establishment and the health and welfare of those dogs".
A Baraboo woman was injured in a three-vehicle crash Monday near Baraboo when her car drifted across the center line and struck two other vehicles.

The crash happened at about 5:20 p.m. on Highway 12 south of Skillet Creek Road in the town of Baraboo, the Sauk County Sheriff's Office said.

Courtney Kluender, 24, was driving north when her car crossed over the line and struck a southbound pickup truck driven by a 16-year-old from Baraboo, her car then spinning around and striking a second southbound car driven by Theodore Munz, 20, of Baraboo.

The pickup truck left the road into a ditch and hit a culvert, but the teen and a passenger in the pickup were not injured.

Munz and two passengers in his car were not hurt.

Kluender was taken to St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo, suffering from non-life-threatening injuries. She was cited for operating left of center.

All involved in the crash were using seat belts. Alcohol and speed were not factors in the crash.
That's it for Melbourne Express today.

Signing off now but a head's up on platform 10 at Flinders Street: It is out of action. There are delays of five to 10 minutes arriving and departing for the Cranbourne, Frankston, Pakenham, Sandringham, Werribee and Williamstown lines.

We will be back on deck tomorrow but leave you with our latest Christmas picture, this time from our photographer Penny Stephens. If you have a great Melbourne decorations picture, send it to Express via email.
Police killers will spend the rest of their lives behind bars under new Victorian laws to deny police murderers parole.

The Andrews government on Tuesday will introduce laws banning parole for police murderers, which is likely to be swiftly passed in the final week of parliament with bipartisan support.

Russell St bomber Craig Minogue has applied for parole.

The new laws will be retrospective and cover three police killers in Victorian prisons, including Russell Street bomber Craig Minogue.

Earlier this year the Opposition introduced a private bill to keep Mr Minogue, who is eligible for parole in 2017, in prison.
A 16-year-old Sunbury boy is facing several charges including multiple counts of thefts from motor vehicles, attempted armed robbery, criminal damage and petrol theft after an alleged spree over the weekend that damaged more than 40 cars.

An 18-year-old Sunbury man has also been released pending summons over the alleged crime spree in Wallan and Beveridge.

Police say the teens broke into cars over the weekend.

The 16-year-old has been remanded to appear at a children's court at a later date.
Victorian students are bucking the national trend when it comes to their achievements in science, maths and reading.

They aren't going backwards.

The OECD's latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)  a major global test of student achievement held every three years  revealed that Australian 15-year-olds students were up to two years behind the world's strongest performers.

Australia has now fallen behind Slovenia, New Zealand and Vietnam in scientific literacy, while it lags behind the Netherlands, Estonia and Poland in reading literacy. Students in Singapore - the OECD's top performer in all areas - are two-and-a-third years ahead of Australian students in maths.
WA Fisheries has seized a high value fishing boat from the Ocean Reef marina in Perth's northern suburbs alleging its owner was interfering with other fishers' lobster pots.

The 51-year old man from Sinagra had his 6.5m Assassin craft taken out of the water on Friday and faces hefty fines - though with a price tag of over fifty thousand dollars, the potential loss of the dark blue hulled boat could hurt more.

Fisheries said the boat's owner was interfering with other fishers' lobster pots. Credit:Edin Omerhodzic

While the vessel was being towed away on Friday, four men faced serious offences from last season at court in Joondalup.

Zan Petroski of Yokine, Steve and Aleksandar Kovacevski from Nollamara and Slobodan Stavreski from Westminster received over $18,000 in fines for a range of offences in December last year, including interference with other fishers' lobster pots.
New Zealand's next prime minister will have big shoes to fill after the shock departure of John Key.

A politician with an uncanny ability to read the public mood, Key's broad popularity has been the driving force behind the success of his National Party-led government. While his deputy, Finance Minister Bill English, is the leading candidate to succeed him, there's no guarantee he would take the party to a fourth straight election victory in 2017 or remain at the helm for the long term.

"He's seen as a bit bland and boring, which is fine for a minister of finance because you want someone with stability and a bit more of a conservative look," said Bryce Edwards, a political scientist at University of Otago. "He's going to need something different as prime minister, and I'm not sure he has that same charisma or colourfulness as John Key."

With the economy growing at a healthy clip and Key as popular as ever in opinion polls, National was looking a good bet for a fourth term. Key's surprise resignation Monday, less than a year out from the election, has given the main opposition Labour Party renewed hope.
Donald Trump has gone about picking his Cabinet and senior advisers in much the way one might have predicted. Instead of looking for people with the highest levels of experience, expertise, and competence, he seems to be making his choices based on criteria like who he's seen on Fox News, or who praised him effusively, or who has a cool nickname.

There may be no more dangerous choice Trump has made so far than picking Michael Flynn to be his national security adviser. There are few more important positions in the White House, and few where the wrong choice could have consequences quite as catastrophic. If we contemplate how President Trump might handle an international crisis  which he will face, probably before long  we see just how troubling Flynn's appointment is.

It's no mystery why Trump chose Flynn for this position. Trump is simultaneously contemptuous of military leaders (you'll recall how often he said during the campaign that he knew more than them) and enamoured of them; his Cabinet is likely to contain multiple retired generals. Early on, Flynn was one of the only former military leaders who endorsed Trump and campaigned with him. He quickly became Trump's closest adviser on national security.

But to put it plainly, Michael Flynn is a crackpot.
The jury has deadlocked in the case of a South Carolina police officer charged with murder after he was recorded on video last year firing a barrage of bullets at a fleeing motorist's back.

"We as the jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all members, we are unable to come to a unanimous decision," the jury wrote in a note Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman, which was read aloud in court.

North Charleston police officer Michael Slager (right) points his gun at Walter Scott, 50, as he runs away.

Judge Newman declared a mistrial on Monday, shortly before 3.40pm, and thanked the jurors for their "hard work in trying to reach a unanimous verdict in this case".

The deadlock came more than a year after Michael Slager, a white police officer, was charged with murder and dismissed from his job, after graphic video emerged showing him shooting Walter Scott, a black motorist, as the 50-year-old was running away.
A deadly sinkhole in an industrial part of San Antonio swallowed two cars Sunday evening, killing one person and nearly trapping another who had to be rescued by passersby.

The chasm opened just after 7.30pm in an area where the city is engaged in an "aggressive, vigorous, replacement program" for aging sewer pipes, San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor said on Monday.

The 12-foot sinkhole appeared near a connection between a pipe that was replaced a year ago and pipe that is decades old, officials said.

The pipe was visible in photos from the scene, which showed two toppled, submerged cars in a massive hole.
Justin Ross Harris has been sentenced to life in jail. Credit:Bob Andres The cause of death was recommended to be hyperthermia. Harris was arrested and charged with murder. His case, which has spanned more than two years, was widely publicised as people scrutinised every aspect of the trial and the Harris family's past. The case attracted so much coverage that the trial itself had to be moved more than 480 kilometres away, to Brunswick, Georgia. Justin Ross Harris was found guilty of all charges against him. Credit:Bob Andres Over two years, Harris's defense attorneys argued that the 35-year-old father was a devoted parent who had simply suffered a memory lapse in leaving Cooper in the car. Cooper's death, they argued, was the result of a tragic accident that could have - and has - happened to other parents.

Prosecuting attorneys laid out a different case: that Harris was an adulterer with "a malignant heart" who frequently sexted with women outside his marriage  including while his son was left in the hot car that day  and had intentionally killed Cooper so that he could escape his responsibilities as a father. "It's not a case of an adult hating his child," prosecutor Chuck Boring told jurors in his final argument to jurors last month, according to the Associated Press. "It's just that he loved himself and his other obsessions more than that little boy." Last month, the jury found Harris guilty on all eight charges against him, including malice murder. Harris, they decided, had left his son in the car to die on purpose. On Monday during the sentencing hearing, prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence allowed by law, declaring that Harris "was driven by selfishness and committed an unspeakable act against his own flesh and blood," killing his son in "the most torturous, horrific, unimaginable way possible." Through much of the hearing, Harris sat expressionless in the packed courtroom, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and shackles. His defense attorneys did not offer to present additional evidence or statements.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark sentenced Harris to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, plus 32 years. It was the maximum allowed by law based on the eight charges against him. "Except for the fact that the defendant has no prior criminal record, there is no mitigating fact or circumstance in this case," Clark said, before announcing the sentence. "This court finds particularly that the defendant intentionally and unnecessarily in a wanton manner, caused and inflicted upon Cooper Harris unnecessary and wanton severe physical and mental pain and agony." As she spoke, Clark appeared at times to try to restrain her emotions. She told Harris what he had done was "a violation and dereliction of duty to that child if not love of that child" as he "callously walked away" from his son in the car two years ago. "In June. In Georgia," she added for emphasis. "The state's recommendation is the very least that anyone could deem just under the circumstances of this case," Clark said. She called Harris up to the front of the courtroom just before announcing the sentence.

"My final observation is this, Mr. Harris," Clark said. "I went back and reviewed and thought about your statement to the police and your statement to your wife when you were taken into custody. It stood out to me that in both of those you [stated you] wished you would be an advocate so that people would never do this again to your children. And I would say, perhaps not in the way that you intended, that you in fact have accomplished that goal." Harris was led out of the courtroom shortly after 2pm. Harris's defense attorneys have said they plan to file an appeal within 30 days, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "There were breakdowns in this process that occurred," lead defense attorney Maddox Kilgore told the paper following Harris's conviction last month. "There were breakdowns in the investigation. There were breakdowns in the pre-trial phase, the motions phase. And there were breakdowns in the trial. It's our belief those breakdowns affected the verdict." Harris's charges included one count of sexual exploitation of children and two counts of dissemination of harmful material to minors, because he was found to have exchanged sexually explicit text messages with underage girls. During the trial, several women testified they had sexual relationships with Harris. In October, one of those teenagers testified that the two had been texting on the day Cooper died, while Harris was at work.

The girl told jurors that, at about 2pm that day, Harris texted her to ask for a photo of her breasts, according to the AP, which did not name the girl because she was a minor victim of a sex crime. "Yummy," Harris replied upon receiving the photo. It would be about two more hours before he left work. Harris's ex-wife, Leanna Taylor, divorced Harris earlier this year. Despite that, she gave an emotional testimony in October defending Harris as a loving father who helped with Cooper's diapers, meals and baths, and who watched cartoons in bed together with his son in the mornings. Taylor acknowledged there were problems in their marriage and that she had caught him texting other women, but she insisted to jurors that Harris would not have left their son in the car to die intentionally. "I knew he was never going to forgive himself," Taylor testified, according to the AP. "He wanted to be the one to push him on a swing. He wanted to be the one to slide down the slide with him  He wanted to enjoy every second he could with him."

According to the National Safety Council, more than two dozen children have died of heatstroke in 2016 after being left or trapped in hot cars. "Maybe it's an overworked parent who forgets to drop off their child at daycare, or a relative who thinks the child will be okay 'for just a few minutes,'" says an NSC pamphlet on the issue. The group advises parents to put something they will need by their child's car seat  a purse, wallet or phone, for example  as an additional reminder to check the back. "Remember, children overheat four times faster than adults," says a message on the council's website. "A child is likely to die when his body temperature reaches [41 degrees celsius], and that can happen in minutes." Those who see a child alone in a car are advised to call 911 immediately or even break into the car during an emergency, the group said, noting that many states have Good Samaritan laws.
Out-of-state students at UW-Madison would see their tuition bills rise by $4,000 over the next two years, while costs for the universitys business, medical and other professional schools could rise by about 10 percent or more annually, under a plan officials announced Monday.

The tuition increases would raise an estimated $13.7 million in revenue for the university and its professional programs. Officials said the money would be used to hire faculty in high-demand fields, bolster student support and advising programs, pay for new classroom technology and offset state funding cuts, among other uses.

Tuition for in-state undergraduate students has been frozen since 2013, but Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced in September that she would seek tuition increases for out-of-state and professional students.

The tuition increases for nonresidents are part of a four-year plan UW-Madison brought to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents in 2015. The Regents approved only the first half of the plan at the time, which has raised tuition by $6,000 over the last two years.

When the Regents meet in Madison on Thursday, Blank will ask them to approve the next two years of the plan, which calls for $2,000 tuition increases each year for out-of-state undergraduates. Those students pay $32,738 per year at UW-Madison.

The plan also calls for increasing tuition for students in the universitys nursing and doctor of pharmacy programs, and well as most business school programs, by 9.8 percent in each of the next two years. Medical students would see a 9.7 percent annual increase.

Tuition for the Wisconsin School of Business global real estate program would rise by 16 percent each year.

In the doctor of veterinary medicine program, tuition would increase by $4,000 per year for Wisconsin residents and $6,500 for non-residents.

The law school would offset declining enrollment by raising tuition by $1,000 per year.
How is he expected to govern? President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence. Credit:AP One evening, a man appeared among diners at the restaurant's tables with their red-and-white check tablecloths, insisting that he was there to investigate the allegations. In a separate incident, the police removed a man as he shot live video during Comet Ping Pong's busy evening rush. Donald Trump favours Twitter. Credit:AP Then on Sunday the shooter  28-year- old Edgar Maddison, from North Carolina, walked in and pointed an assault rifle at a servers who fled before he fired. The police say Maddison claimed he was "self-investigating" the child trafficking claims.

Among the many disturbing aspects of Trump's sensational election win, is that he and his surrogates and aides, and even some among his nominees for high office, happily embrace fiction as fact, and seemingly get a kick from seeing the mainstream media flounder as they grapple with how to merge the political unreality of Trumpland with the very real circumstances of living in and running the US in a post-fact or post-truth era. President-elect Donald Trump modelling his latest fashion statement. Credit:AP Trump's tweets, and what he has retweeted, often have no basis in reality. Less clearly understood, and never articulated by the President-elect, is just what his game plan might be. Fake news can kill. Police secure the scene near Comet Ping Pong in Washington. Credit:AP

His appointed national security adviser retired General Michael Flynn, who inanely adorns his tweets with an image of a four-leaf clover and a surfer riding a wave, tweeted early in November about another anti-Clinton conspiracy theory involving paedophilia. And his son, Michael Flynn Jnr, whose use of a .gov email address suggests he too will have a gig with the new administration, is a Pizzagate true believer who retweets messages alleging a media conspiracy to normalise paedophilia. And of course, hand in hand with Trump's obsessive Twittering is his record as a dab hand in the fake news department. Edgar Maddison Welch, who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place, fired an assault rifle inside the restaurant. Credit:AP Exhibit A: His leadership in the birther movement, which claimed that Barack Obama was not born in the US and, therefore, was not eligible to be president  not true. Exhibit B: His claim that "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks  not true.

Exhibit C: His claim that Obama and Clinton were "co-founders" of the Islamic State  not true. Exhibit D: His reliance on a report in the supermarket scandal rag, the National Enquirer, to claim that the father of Senator Ted Cruz's father had a hand in the JFK assassination  not true. Exhibit E: His repeated claims that Clinton was seriously ill  not true. Exhibit F: His claim that "illegal" votes robbed him of winning the popular vote  not true. On National Public Radio last week, jaws dropped among panelists on the Diane Rehm Show when Trump surrogate and CNN commentator Scottie Nell Hughes blithely declared of the Trump fantasies: "One thing that's been interesting to watch this entire campaign season, is that people say facts are facts, [but] they're not really facts.

"Everybody has a way, it's kind of like looking at ratings or looking at a glass half-full of water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. There's no such thing, unfortunately, any more, as facts." Lest that be seen as Hughes' personal flight of fancy, on-again, off-again Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, also speaking last week, castigated the media for taking Trump at his word  and even bothering to report some of what he actually says. "You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally," he said. "The American people didn't. They understood it. They understood that sometimes  when you have a conversation with people  you're going to say things, and sometimes you don't have all the facts to back it up." On Sunday, ABC TV host George Stephanopoulos made little headway in a 10-question exchange as he grilled vice-president elect Mike Pence on the absence of reality in Trump's baseless claim that he had been robbed of winning the popular vote, which Clinton leads by about 2.6 million votes, because "millions of people voted illegally". Stephanopoulos: "It's his right to make false statements?" Pence: "Well, it's his right to express his opinion as President-elect of the United States. 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."

Stephanopoulos: "But why is it refreshing to make false statements?" Pence: "Look, I don't know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you. The simple fact is that ..." Stephanopoulos: "I know there's no evidence for it." Pence: "He's going to say what he believes to be true and I know that he's always going to speak in that way as president." A media commentary in The New York Times sets out a part of the challenge for reporters: "How to cover a president's pronouncements when they are both provocative and maddeningly vague? Does an early-morning tweet amount to a planned shift in American policy? Should news outlets, as some readers argue, ignore clearly untrue tweets, rather than amplify falsehoods further?"

In some ways the media can't win. They can't not report what an incoming president says, however off-the-wall it might be; report the tweets without contrasting them with a semblance of reality, as some do, and they get kicked; qualify them with useful facts and contrast them with that other planet called the real world, and they get accused of devoting time and resources to a Trump-inspired distraction. A strategy? Some are convinced Trump is bent on a deliberate strategy, tweeting unsubstantiated nonsense to draw media attention away from the serious and dire implications of appointments he's proposing for his cabinet and White House team or other contentious aspects of the presidential transition. In The New York Times, Nobel-prize winning commentator Paul Krugman is certain Trump's unconstitutional Twitter rant last week, about stripping citizenship from those who burn the American flag, was a calculated bid to hijack the news cycle, to distract the media from the consequences of his selection on the same day of Georgia congressman Tom Price as secretary of human services  because of what Price is likely to do to Obamacare and Medicare. And elsewhere in the media, commentators are demanding that Trump's tweets either be reported more selectively  or, unrealistically, that they not be reported at all. A Politico magazine piece headed "Stop Being Trump's Twitter Fool" last week was taken up as a rallying call for the media to go cold turkey on Trump's tweets.

Amid claims that Trump wanted to distract attention from plans to enrich his family business through the presidency and from his multiple conflicts of interest, and that reporting his tweets merely legitimised the lies he tells, Slate magazine's Fred Kaplan tweeted eagerly: "I'm almost beginning to believe theory that Trump's tweets are subterfuge to distract us from real scandals. It's time to ignore his tweets." In The Washington Post, Aaron Blake tried to stay in the real world, writing: "But this is the President-elect of the United States. 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 doesn't matter if he says it on Twitter or at a news conference; either way it's 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." Much media resentment is rooted in the fact that Trump gives only occasional interviews and has not held a conventional, all-in press conference since July.

But ProPublica writer Jessica Huseman argues: "If he had said something similar in a press conference, no one would be concerned that journalists are getting distracted by his absurd language. But because it was a tweet, that's somehow different?" Unfortunately, this President-elect has decided to make Twitter his main means of communicating with the American public, and the American public listens deeply to things that he says on Twitter. Kaplan's Slate colleague Dahlia Lithwick fell into the report-it-all camp, writing: "The truth for journalists is that we cannot pick and choose which of Trump's words matter, and the larger truth is that we shouldn't try. All of his words matter, and none of us has any notion of which [of Trump's] threats are predictors of doom and which are mere burps and farts." Attacking reality Arguing that Trump's tweets should be reported, if only as proof of his bid to create the kind of alternate reality that demands a "strongman" presidency, Lithwick quotes ThinkProgress writer Ned Resnikoff: "By attacking the very notion of shared reality, the President-elect is making normal democratic politics impossible. When the truth is little more than an arbitrary personal decision, there is no common ground to be reached and no incentive to look for it."

In The New Republic, Jeet Heer arrives at a more plausible explanation than that Trump is seeking to distract the media pack  Heer argues that the President-elect has to stay in perpetual campaign mode, rather than attempt to heal a fractured nation or to be seriously or aloofly presidential, because it's the only way his style of politics can function. Heer's point is that because Trump campaigned as a populist, losing the popular vote becomes embarrassing. So he's driven to rewrite history, lest he be seen to have won less votes than not only Clinton in 2016, but the Republicans' Mitt Romney in 2012 as well. More importantly, to the extent that a volatile Republican coalition held together in defeating Clinton, now that she's been dispatched, Trump has to keep positioning himself as a winner over inevitable challenges from internal GOP factions  "Paul Ryan's belt-tightening budget at odds with Stephen Bannon's desire for a new populist economics, and Mike Pence's social conservatism at loggerheads with Trump's own personal libertinism," Heer writes. So yes, the Trump Twitter sprays do distract the media and they do get people talking about things other than Trump University, about whether his daughter Ivanka should accompany him to meetings with world leaders, or about the latest Trump conflict of interest. But most of all, they give Trump direct and unfiltered access to his millions of followers.

Consider this  when he arrives at the White House at the end of January, he'll likely combine his near 30 million social media followers with the 12 million-plus that are already signed on to the POTUS account that Barack Obama has operated for the last eight years. Why would Trump bother with tiresome questions when he can get away with 140 characters? And for the man who knows more about Islamic State than the generals, his Twitter account is more about send than about receive. Trump follows just 40 other Twitter accounts  mostly Trump family and Trump business, and just a handful of conservative, media figures and analysts. Media referendum The reality for the media is this  just as the advent of the internet was an existential threat to mainstream media, so too is Trump and his very deliberate social-media campaign to destroy its remaining credibility and to rob it of its institutional respect in a democracy.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Thousands of University of Wisconsin System employees would receive 2 percent annual raises over each of the next two years if lawmakers and the Systems governing board approve a plan officials released Monday.

The across-the-board pay increase is a necessary step to retain employees and start to close the gap between what workers are paid at UW and what they can make at other universities, according to System officials.

It would cost an estimated $70 million total.

The proposal comes as a report on faculty turnover within the System showed an increase in the number of professors leaving UW institutions over the past year.

While competitors have been increasing pay for university employees, System spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said, UW workers have in effect experienced pay cuts in recent years as a result of furloughs and requirements that they contribute more for benefits.

UW institutions compete nationally and internationally to attract the most talented faculty and staff, Marquis said. Its time to reinvest in our workforce so we can recruit and retain the best faculty and staff for our students and remain a world-renowned system.

Funding for the raises would come from the state compensation reserve, not tuition dollars, Marquis said.

The UW System Board of Regents will vote on the pay plan at a meeting Thursday at UW-Madison.

If its approved there, the proposal would go to the Legislatures Joint Committee on Employment Relations and would have to be approved by the Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker.

Governor mum on plan

Walkers office did not offer a response to the proposal Monday afternoon, nor did a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said the Senate majority leader is not commenting on specific budget requests until the governors full budget proposal is released.

The UW System approved a request in August for $42.5 million in new state funding in the 2017-19 budget, asking legislators to reverse a trend of declining financial support for higher education in Wisconsin. That request is separate from the proposed raises.

Employees last received System-wide raises in the 2013-15 budget, when they had 1 percent raises in each year, according to materials prepared for the Regents meeting. There were no pay increases in the 2011-13 or 2015-17 budgets.

Over the same period, employees at public colleges and universities nationwide received a 2 percent annual raise on average, UW officials said.

This pay plan request will not close the salary gaps between UW System employees and those at peer institutions, UW officials wrote in recommending the raises. However, it will provide modest salary increases and provide chancellors with the ability to recognize the contributions of UW faculty and staff.

UW-Madison officials warned that stagnant pay has been among several factors that led other universities to ramp up their efforts to recruit faculty and staff from the flagship campus.

Other campuses have expressed similar concerns.

Faculty turnover rises

A report on faculty turnover released Monday ahead of the Regents meeting showed that departures increased in the 2016 fiscal year  a time marked by discontent among professors after lawmakers slashed the UW Systems budget and weakened tenure protections.

Of the UW Systems 6,353 professors, 8 percent  509 faculty members  left their university during the year, compared to an average of 5.9 percent over the previous five years.

The turnover figures include professors who retired or resigned.

Faculty turnover was as high as 13.3 percent at UW-Superior, which lost 14 of its 105 professors. Four other UW campuses  Eau Claire, Green Bay, Stevens Point and Stout  experienced turnover of more than 10 percent of faculty.

UW-Madison, where officials fought off outside recruitment efforts by spending $23.6 million on faculty retention packages, had the lowest turnover rate of any System campus, losing 112 of its 2,128 professors, or 5.3 percent.
When the lights first come up on the play The Babylon Line, actor Josh Radnor, alone on stage, looks intently at the audience and says, The End.

Its a terrific start for a play that ultimately wants to be about the stories we tell ourselves and the ones that we let define our lives. In that opening monologue, Radnor sets up his character as a writer and lapsed atheist who believes that not until people die can we know how their stories end.

I continue to believe there is no God, but suspect for me He might make an exception, Radnor says.

The opening speech, a present-day framing device for the play, suggests Radnor is now an old man (I look wonderful, he says, to audience laughter) and is looking back on events that occurred in 1967. I may not come off well in it, he admits.

After nine seasons playing Ted Mosby on CBSs hit sit-com How I Met Your Mother, Radnor comes off extremely well onstage. He brings gravitas and intelligence to the character of Aaron Port, a floundering 38-year old writer from Greenwich Village who takes a job teaching an adult ed creative writing class in Levittown, New York.

Even artists work for money, he explains, noting that he makes fifteen bucks a week, after deducting transportation.

Playwright Richard Greenberg loudly signals his intentions by setting the play in Levittowna ticky-tack planned community in Long Island built right after World War Two. It is the archetype of a character-free, homogenized suburb, and has become shorthand for a place that stifles any originality.

Sure enough, the first three women who come in to take Ports class are stereotypes of suburban Jewish mothersslightly vacuous, gossipy, and focused completely on their children. None of them has any interest in self-expressionthey ended up in the class because their choices of French cooking and current events were all filled.

A fourth woman named Joan comes into the class and sits apart from the others. Its quickly apparent that shes the different one, with an artsy soul and no interest in being part of the gossipy-moms circle. Its also apparent that she and Aaron feel an immediate connection.

They linger together after the first class (and every subsequent one) sharing heavily-loaded conversation. When Aaron describes Levittown as a bedroom community, Joan gives a sly smile.

People do sleep here. I can attest to that, if that should be necessary. For any reason, she says standing close to him.

Actress Elizabeth Reaser (of Twilight) gives Joan a gentle Southern accent (most of the time) that suggests a moony Blanche DuBois. Its seductive and beguiling, but doesnt completely make sense for this New York woman.

Joan moved to Levittown with her husband after they met many years earlier in the Village. She originally thought he was a creative type who quoted Emily Dickinson, but after they married came years of dinners Id endured during which we discussed the green beans, lengthily.

Unable to have children and disappointed in her husband and her life, Joan hid away for seven years in her Levittown house. Now she has emerged, and it seems like she and Aaron will be able to bring each other back to life. Hes having trouble writing and doesnt seem excited by his own marriage.

The show is most alive when the two of them are on the stage. We hear way too much from the mothers in the class whose own dramas are so small that the revelations in their stories seem ho-hum.

Greenberg has a beautiful way with language and a track-record of strong and interesting plays (like the Tony-winning Take Me Out), so its disappointing to see him resort to suburban caricatures that have been done and overdone.

There should also be a moratorium on all plays and stories set in creative writing classes. Its a tired device that should have been abandoned after Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. (Nobody is going to do it better.) People can reveal their true selves without a creative writing class.

At the end of the play, Greenberg takes a twenty-minute diversion to describe what happened to each of the characters in the next fifty years. At least with Aaron and Joan, its not what you would have expected.

The Babylon Line has lyrical writing and strong performances by Radnor and Reaser. But like the train line its named after, the show ultimately needs a more inspiring destination.

The Babylon Line is playing at the Mitzi E. Newhouse theater at Lincoln Center in New York, through January 22, 2017. Book tickets here.
I am told that I sound like my mother when I speak. I share her round face, her diminutive frame, and her idealism about fundamental fairness and about what the world should be. I do not know, as my mother does, what its like to bury a child, but I sound like my mother when I weep.

I have been covering the death of Walter Scott since the day a former patrol officer gunned him down in an open field in North Charleston, South Carolina. Of my own volition, I traveled to the spot where the fatal shots were fired. I retraced Scotts stepsfrom the moment he jetted from his car until a bullet struck him in the back near an old tree a block or so away. Alone in the grassy field, I knelt down over a heap of flowers and stuffed toys, trying to imagine the unimaginable.

How could this be? I said out loud to no one.

The tears began to fall as I came to the realization that this had not been the first time such horrors had unfolded and it would not be the last. Officer Michael Slager fired eight shots in all, five of them piercing Scotts back from around 17 feet away, and then calmly planted his Taser near the dead mans body.

Rather than attempt to render medical aid, Slager handcuffed Scott as he lay bleeding out in the dirt and grass.

Police chief Eddie Driggers said he was sickened by what he saw on the video, which directly contradicted statements made by the officer. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called it a betrayal of the public trust.

What I knew then is what I know now that a hung jury has failed to convict Slager: Despite video evidence and despite the outcry from public officials, getting a conviction in the case would be nearly impossible. Prosecutors would have to convince a jury that the 50-year-old black father and Navy veteran did not deserve to die and that his killing was unjustified.

It is rare that a police officer faces criminal penalty for killing an unarmed suspect. The most one can usually expect is administrative leave, pending investigation, only to later return to that force or get a job with another. And when there is an indictment, which is also elusive, finding a jury willing to convict is almost always out of reach.

The Slager jury had options. They could have returned a conviction for murder or voluntary manslaughter, which by definition would have placed some of the blame on the victim. From the witness stand, Slager told the courtroom that he fired until the threat was stopped, like Im trained to do. He said Scott fought for his weapon.

It was difficult, knowing the strictures of race and class in the deep South, to believe Slager would be found guilty of either chargeespecially from jury of 11 white people and a black foreman. The early signals, beginning last week, said the jury was hopelessly deadlocked andin a letter to judgeone single juror said he could not in good conscience consider a guilty verdict.

That conscience is what bothers me most. To watch an officer of the lawor anyone, for that matterrepeatedly and coolly shoot someone in the back and not be able to appropriately assign guilt should trouble all of us. That fact is, too few are troubled by what happened that day. Too few of us, black or white, believe it could happen to us.

There is little hope that a federal investigation will continue, since Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions has been nominated as the next attorney general. So the only real opportunity for a successful prosecution rests at the local level, where the prosecutor has said that Slager will be retried (and he has at least been fired from the force).

Without significant reformsin training, in how non-white communities are policed, and in the criminal justice system writ largethere will almost certainly be another Walter Scott.

And our tears are not enough.
With Donald Trumps upset win foreshadowed by the U.K. referendum to leave the European Union known as Brexit, who better to console shell-shocked Washington than former British Prime Minister Tony Blair?

Your election was close, he told a ballroom of people who expected a different outcome. Brexit was 52-48, it wasnt 75-25; there are a lot of people out there capable of being persuaded.

How to persuade them? The alternative to a strongman cant be a weak center, he said. People feel the center has not been providing that dynamism. To counter the rise of the political strongman, epitomized by Trump and a raft of European politicians on the right, we need something strong and muscular.

Asked to explain these extraordinary political upsets, Blair said there was no doubt in my mind something different is going on, but he urged people to have some perspective. Populism is not new, concern about immigration is not new, and the impact of globalization is not new. Coal mining plants and steel plants were shutting down in the 80s, he said.

What is new is social media. Social media changes totally the way politics works, he said.

Do you tweet? moderator Gillian Tette with the Financial Times interjected. Not voluntarily, Blair replied with a droll laugh.

He said the rise of social media interrelates with the decline in the viewing audience of the BBC nightly news show, which drew 12 million people when he was in office. In todays fractured media environment, its just 2 million.

Thats a big, big change in how politics is conducted, he said. A single conversation with 12 million people is no longer readily available. Instead there are multiple tweets and opinions, some based on fake news stories. People know or think they know about the world, and they become very angry. They see politics as an instantaneous like or dislike.

Tette pointed out that Blair, when he was prime minister in the 90s, tried very hard to get beyond the right and the left, bonding with then-President Clinton in their mutual pursuit of third way politics. We had a sense of forward momentum, we were change agents, we were not guardians of the status quo, he said, acknowledging that todays center lacks that energy and drive.

Blair was speaking at an event organized by No Labels, a group dedicated to getting people to work with each other across party lines, and to identify a new political center that can make politics great again as a vehicle for solving problems.

Asked to give advice to the people in the room, Blair declined, saying that he doesnt really do that, but then he offered several challenges along with economics for politicians and policymakers to consider. First, cultural identity: Its not irrational to worry about immigration, he said. When people see their communities changing, theyre going to get angry. Second, politicians should be honest about globalization, and people hurt by technology or trade must know we are not indifferent to their plight. Third, the effect of partisanship is paralysis. The center needs strong solutions that make real change to break through.

Blair sounded the alarm for democracy, citing a poll in France where 30 percent of those surveyed doubted that democracy is the right system. They think government has failed them. People are insecure, and theres an immense amount of anger that we dont seem to provide for them. Its why Russian President Vladimir Putin is so admired on the right, he said, and people will say that openly. Ten years ago, they wouldnt have spoken like that.

Right-wing populism is playing out across Europe, where Italian voters on Sunday rejected the reforms offered by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who then kept his promise to resign. Right-wing parties are gaining ground in upcoming elections in France and Germany and the Netherlands.

One positive note emerged from Austria, where over the weekend the right-wing Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis and surging on a wave of anti-immigrant nationalism, was defeated by a former Green Party candidate. It was the first break in the right wings populist sweep of Europe, and at the No Labels gathering, it was received as welcome evidence nothing is inevitable, and now is the time to be heard.
Employees and new students throughout the University of Wisconsin System will soon have to take part in mandatory training on preventing sexual assault and harassment.

UW System President Ray Cross announced the plan Monday as one of several steps to combat sexual misconduct and offering support to victims, following the recommendations of a task force on sexual assault.

UW-Madison has for years required incoming students to take part in sexual misconduct prevention programs, but Cross announcement means that all new students at UW System campuses, as well as faculty and staff, will receive training.

Students will have to take the online training within their first six weeks on campus, and will get refresher training each year, UW officials said.

Employees must take part in the program by the end of June 2017, with plans for additional training every three years. New employees will take it during their first month.

The programs will tell students and employees about their rights and responsibilities concerning sexual violence and harassment, according to the task force, and aim to create safe, welcoming, harassment-free campuses and university environments.

Colleges and universities have been ramping up efforts to prevent sexual assault and harassment as a series of high-profile cases and a growing awareness about the problems scope have led to greater scrutiny of whether administrators are doing enough.

In October, a UW-Madison student was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting five women in a case that made national news. A 2015 survey of UW-Madison students found that more than one in four responding undergraduate women reported they experienced some form of sexual assault during their time at the university.

And the spotlight on sexual misconduct has not only shown on students.

The same Association of American Universities survey found that 22 percent of women graduate students who experienced sexual harassment said the perpetrator was a faculty member. Just more than half of women graduate students who took the survey reported being harassed.

New training for students and employees was one of several recommendations by a UW System task force on sexual assault and harassment. Cross will present the task forces report to UWs governing Board of Regents on Thursday.

Following those recommendations, Cross said the System will also launch a new website with information for sexual assault survivors on how to report assault and find support. And officials have drafted a new policy on sexual misconduct, which will go before the Regents on Thursday, that they say is a template System campuses can use to create their own policies.

Our campus communities should be safe and welcoming places to live, learn and work  and there is no room for compromise on this commitment, Cross said. This report reflects our dedication to addressing the disturbing and persistent problems of sexual violence and harassment in our society, and to identify and implement real, tangible approaches at our institutions to continue tackling these challenges.

The task force chose a training program created by Campus Clarity, part of the California-based company LawRoom.

The training will cost $68,000 per year, UW spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said, and will be covered by the System for the first five years.
On Monday at Trump Tower, Donald and Ivanka Trump met with an accused sexual predatorat least, thats how Breitbart News might characterize their meeting with former vice president and top climate activist Al Gore.

Breitbart, which has covered Donald Trumps rise with reverential awe, criticized Hillary Clinton in October for campaigning with Gore and cited 2010 allegations that Gore tried to have sex with a masseuse without her consent. That October report was one of the gentler examples of Breitbart ripping into a climate-change activist: The site has never lacked for content suggesting climate change is exaggerated, fake, or an insidious plot to build a one-world government.

Global warming is not the problem, proclaimed a Dec. 31, 2015, headline. Global governance is.

While Trump and his daughter appeared to look for common ground Monday with a man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about manmade climate change, his most generous supporters have helped finance some of its fringiest skeptics, along with prominent conservative organizations that question the scientific consensus on the issue.

Members of the Mercer family, who have provided financial backing for Breitbart, are among Trumps biggest donors, highlighting the potential for acute awkwardness in Trumps inner circle regarding Gore. The emerging conventional wisdom about the Trump White House is that Robert and Rebekah Mercer, a father-daughter duo who helped fund his presidential campaign, have outsize influence on Trumps policy and personnel decisions. Rebekah Mercer and Steve Bannon are particularly close (and some watchdogs believe she may have illegally funneled money to one of his companies through a super PAC during the campaign).

Numerous reports have concluded the Mercers provided the site with financial support. It isnt clear exactly how much they have spent or if they currently help fund it, but neither Mercer family representatives nor Breitbart spokespeople have publicly countered any of the reporting about the link.

As of press time, Breitbarts homepage coverage of the Trump/Gore meetingtwo short write-ups, which you can see here and hereneglected to mention the past assault allegations.

If you like Breitbarts global governance coverage, youll love the work of another Mercer-backed entity: the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a group led by Arthur Robinson that once published a book on how to survive nuclear war (probably worth a read). The group pushed a petition that it claims was signed by 30,000 scientists saying the consensus on climate change is wrong. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the signatories were climatologists, and reporters were unable to independently confirm that many of the signers were actually real people.

And the Mercers family foundation generously supports the Heartland Institute, a think tank known for its research questioning climate science. Its main landing page on the issue says that fighting the effects of climate change might involve rationing access to energy, which could in turn cause the premature death of millions of people. And the groups director, Jay Lehr, has described anthropogenic climate change as the greatest scam in world history. The Mercers have given Heartland millions of dollars over the years, as its tax forms show.

Needless to say, its not a philanthropy portfolio that would be particularly friendly to Al Gore. And the fact that he has Trumps earor at least had it for part of Monday morningis highly likely to have rankled some of Trumps most loyal advocates.
Back in January, when Donald Trump got the Problem Solvers seal of approval from No Labels, a bipartisan group dedicated to working across party lines, the media mostly guffawed. A candidate getting headlines for insulting his rivals and denigrating various groups of voters wasnt the kind of consensus-builder the group normally identified with.

Now Trump is the president-elect, and No Labels is following through on its commitment to provide a critical mass of some 80 members of Congress, members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, drawn about equally from both parties, who will be the go-to group on tax reform, infrastructure, immigration, and health care, the agenda Trump will launch during his first 100 days.

Its not clear Trump will pay them any attention, but Republican Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah and a national co-chair of No Labels, talked Trumps language when he introduced a series of panels Monday in Washington discussing the way forward.

Huntsman said No Labels was planting its flag where the deals get made, and that its members were laying claim to new political real estate, which has gone unclaimed since the partisan wars intensified during the Obama administration.

Because crossing party lines is dangerous business in this hyperpartisan political climate, New Labels is putting real money behind its effort, launching a $50 million super PAC to put some bite behind our bark, said Nelson Peltz, the chief executive of Trian Fund Management and a principal funder. The super PAC dubbed 1787, a nod to the Founding Fathers and their work, will focus on primaries in which lawmakers who stray from party orthodoxy often get challenged by their partys extremes.

Former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman hailed the creation of a true center as critical to a functioning democracy. Otherwise, its battling factions, and it feels like were coming apart.

The people assembled in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton Hotel for the No Labels launch event were still processing an election outcome they never expected. But there was hope in the air that maybe Trump will turn out to be better, or at least different, from all the doomsday predictions offered by his Democratic critics and the Never Trump Republicans.

The election of Donald Trump is a disruptive event for a political system that needs to be disrupted, Lieberman said, adding that he needs people from both parties to help him succeed.

Disruption isnt a bad thing, said Missouri Sen. Roy Blount, who just won reelection. Blount said the Republican majority would move quickly to pass two different budgets, one a vehicle to do something about health care, the other a longer-term budget.

Republicans are under great pressure to repeal and replace Obamacare, a pledge they ran on in the last three elections, 2012, 2014, and 2016. Using the same procedural legislative tool known as reconciliation that the Democrats used to pass Obamacare with 51 votes, Republicans will move to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but then theyre stuck because they dont have a replacement.

West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin spoke up, identifying himself as from the moderate-centrist wing of his party and saying, Were looking at everything we can to work with the president-elect, and if we disagree, were going to do it respectfully. But then he served notice that a party that has had six years to come up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act shouldnt expect the Democrats to go along with repeal and then give the GOP two or three years to produce the successor, conveniently timed for after the 2018 midterm elections.

Manchin didnt sound eager to throw the GOP a lifeline. They had six years to work on [Obamacare] he said. Nevertheless, he went on, I think it needs to be repaired. We need a path forward. Manchin is up for reelection in 2018 in West Virginia, where he is the only statewide elected Democrat left, so he has strong incentive to work with Trump, and Trump with him.

The challenge for Democrats, said Vermont Democrat Peter Welch, is, Do we fight for failure or do we put out a positive agenda? He said his party is in turmoil, we got hammered, were a bicoastal party, we dont have answers for the people we like to think we represent.

Thats where No Labels can play a positive role. The group has done an enormous amount of policy work, finding initiatives that could win support in both parties to advance four broad goals: create 25 million new jobs over the next 10 years, secure Social Security and Medicare for the next 75 years, balance the federal budget by 2030, and make America energy secure by 2024.

When Trump received the groups seal of approval almost a year ago, he scoffed at those goals, said they were easy and he could beat those deadlines. Now hell get a chance to test his optimism against the looming realities of Washington.
After Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan, and Ban Ki-moon, could secretary-general of the United Nations be Angelina Jolies next starring role?

That intriguing possibility has been raised by the gossip website TMZ, which claims to have been briefed that Jolies claim that Brad Pitt was physically abusive to at least one of their kids and her fight for sole custody of the children was part of a bigger strategy to move to London to bolster her diplomatic resume and later to take on one of the highest profile jobs on the planet.

Jolies reps have stoutly denied the claim, telling TMZ that there is no move planned, that Angelina is focused on the health and well being of her children, and that Angelina wants to continue therapy with the kids and Brad.

But the website claims with conviction that Jolie has been looking for an opportunity to end the marriage and bolt for her dream job with all six children in tow.

It has been previously reported that Jolie was interested in moving to the U.K., where she has a network of close political advisers. She was also hired as a visiting professor by the London School of Economics this year.

Hence, the story goes, Jolies claim that Pitt physically abused their son Maddox on a private jeta tale that was swiftly shot down and rejected by Californias child-protection agency. Pitt was cleared of any such abuse following their 'exhaustive' investigation.

Jolies camp has kept up a steady stream of allegations that Brad is a bad dad who has anger issues, reinforcing Jolies initial statement that she was filing for divorce for the health of her family.

Jolie is seeking sole physical custody of the couples six childrenMaddox, 15; Pax, 12; Zahara, 11; Shiloh, 10; and twins Vivienne and Knox, 8.

Divorce papers cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split, which looks increasingly likely to be dominated by a bruising custody fight.

Followers of international politics will know, of course, that the Angelina for Secretary-General campaign is likely to be a slow burner: Portugals former prime minister, Antonio Guterres, will take over the post on Jan. 1 for at least five years.

The role of UN secretary-general may have always been occupied by elder statesmen with extensive diplomatic experience, but, however unlikely it seems, its far from impossible to imagine Jolie thinking she could land the job.

The actress has become an increasingly powerful voice for poverty-sticken and disenfranchised refugees over the course of her career; she has said that she first become aware of the extent of the problems people around the world face when she filmed Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in Cambodia in 2001, saying that seeing and meeting the people of that war-ravaged country opened my eyes.

Jolie has made refugee issues the focus of much of her work and the cause has seen her visit countries such as Sierra Leone, Haiti, Tanzania, Cambodia, Syria, and Iraq.

Her Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which is named after her first son, Maddox, who she adopted from Cambodia, is dedicated to eradicating extreme rural poverty in Cambodia.
By my count, Ben Carson, nominated by Donald Trump to be his HUD secretary, makes the fourth designee who seems to oppose the very mission of the department hes about to take over. Theres Jeff Sessions at Justice, who isnt likely to be enforcing many civil rights cases or pursuing many antitrust violations. Tom Price at Health and Human Services, who wants to dismantle the same Obamacare that its HHSs job to implement and who more broadly will bring a ferociously anti-statist world view to an agency that embodies the states concern for its citizens health and well beingespecially its female citizens, who have extra reasons to worry about Dr. Price. And finally theres billionaire Betsy De Vos for Education, whos basically against, yknow, public education.

Critics of the Carson choice complain that hes totally unqualified because he has no background whatsoever in housing. Well, if you wanna get technical about it, thats true. But as the Beasts Gideon Resnick wrote the other day, Carson has actually shown interest in public-housing issues for some time. The problem is that his interest is pretty much of the public housing is social engineering variety, even to the point where he (inevitably) compared the things the government does to house its poorest people to socialism and communism.

Where will this end? Well, I suppose it ends with Elaine Chao at Transportation. While I doubt shell push her president to lay thousands of miles of maglev train tracks, I dont believe shes hankering to wreck the American transportation system. Were gonna have to take what we can get in the age of Trump, folks.

The Carson appointment ought to serve to remind us: There are a lot of appointments out there still waiting to be made, none of them as glitzy as State and Treasury, to be sure, but all of them important. And the above quadrumvirate ought to make us wonder what Trump has in store for other cabinet-level and lower positions.

Lets start with an obvious one. What kind of person would Trump put in charge of the EPA? The kind who hates the fact that the EPA even exists. The top two candidates are from Texas and Oklahoma and have records of opposition to carbon emission regulation and other concerns. What about Interior? A Republican DOI chief is typically supposed to side with the ranchers and the loggers and the snowmobilers and so on, and its never a first-order controversy because the secretary is usually soft-spoken and not personally controversial. But Trump might go full Cliven Bundy here (not in the sense of choosing Bundy himself, free man though he is, but in the sense of naming someone with Oath-Keeperish affiliations.

Such concerns are why 10 Democratic senators sent a letter to Trump urging him to remove some of the numerous fossil-fuel industry-connected people from his transition team. Guess what? They havent heard back!

Now, were still in the category of positions youve heard of and that occasionally make the news. But that isnt even beginning to scratch the surface.

Quiz interlude: How many presidential appointments do you think there are that require Senate confirmation?

a. About 300

b. About 900

c. About 1,200.

Yes, its c. And if you sit down and really think about Donald Trump appointing these 1,200 peoplemost of whom he wont give a crap about and will take whoever Steve Bannon or, if were lucky, Reince Priebus says to takewell, youll have nightmares.

Nearly 100 U.S. attorneys. Eleven assistant attorneys general. A director of something called the Office of Violence Against Women. Whos gonna take that job, for a president who is an avowed adherent of said violence?

A new Federal Reserve Bank chairman, in 2018 when Janet Yellens term ends, and seven governors of the Fed. Ambassadors, most of whom arent important but a few of whom are vitally so. Who will be Donald Trumps representative to Putins Russia? Who will he send to Israel? Chances seem pretty good it could be someone who has at least dangled a foot in the the Palestinians are an invented people camp and wholl be gung-ho about moving the embassy to Jerusalem. And wholl Trump put on the National Labors Relations Board? The Federal Elections Commission, whose mission was nearly destroyed by Dubyas disastrous appointments?

And heres a question that ought to make you wriggle uncomfortably in your seat for a few seconds anyway: Whos going to head Donald Trumps immigration service?

I could go on like this for a while, but just one more example. Every executive agency also has a general counsel, and often several sub-counsels of various divisions or commissions, and an inspector general. These too are all presidential appointees. Counsels do a lot in terms of implementation (or not) of regulations and enforcement of statutes. IGs are supposed to be independent enough to investigate allegations of corruption in the agencies. What, precisely, in the background of a man like Trump makes us think hes going to appoint zealous and independent watchdogs?

You may think none of this affects you. Some of it wont, directly, but a lot of it will. And if youre black or brown or Muslim or a foreign-born person or a woman who isnt upper middle class or better, all of it is far more likely to affect you. And if you are not any of those just-listed things, then like me youre probably a white male, and if none of this affects you directly you ought to reflect on your privilege and imagine facing this in someone elses shoes.

And I (kind of) hate to hop back up this old dray horse, but yes, goddammit, if you didnt vote for Hillary because shes a warmonger or some jejune nonsense you picked up from WBAI, then you helped make the Housing secretary a guy who thinks public housing is communism, and you helped make an HHS secretary out of a man who doesnt believe the government should be doing most of the things the HHS does.

And if youre white and privileged and you did so, you are all the worse. And no, the dialectic is no excuse. The revolution isnt coming. The counter-revolution, however, is here.
In Neruda, Pablo Larrains dreamy noir-ish biopic about the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Gael Garcia Bernal is tasked with playing a man who never existed. Against the backdrop of Nerudas post-WWII escape into exile, forced into hiding by swiftly shifting political tides and violent anti-communist sentiment, Bernal is the dogged, fascist policeman plagued by clues the artist-politician leaves behind as his stature as a populist symbol of liberty grows.

Hes a nihilist-fascist, because he talks terribly about the communists and who he represents, who he works for, Bernal mused of his policeman character, Oscar Peluchoneau, whose bitter hunt for Neruda brings him bewilderingly close to the paradoxical communist poet and politician in Larrains well-received drama.

Sipping green tea in Los Angeles during a weekend of press interviews, the Mexican-born actor beamed with affection for his latest collaboration with Larrain, for whom he starred in 2012s No.

I think theres a turning point where he starts to be fascinated by the person that hes persecuting, said Bernal. Understanding him. There is a key point, and a beautiful scene, where a transvestite says something very moving. He tells him, [Neruda] talked to me artist to artist, man to man, with human dignitythats something you will never be able to do. That kind of sums up the inability of this character to do something bigger than that, and it makes him wonder: Maybe I can change.

Selected as Chiles official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Larrains Spanish-language biopic is the directors second film contending in this years Oscar race. His Natalie Portman-starring Jackie also brings alive the tale of a key figure of politics past, with a window into the human dimensions that history books have little nuance for.

In their previous collaboration, No, Bernal played a Chilean ad exec in the middle of Augusto Pinochets campaign to remain in power. With Neruda, Larrain and Bernal explore the intersection of art and politics preceding that period in Chiles history, of the power of one mans words to give voice to his suffering countrymen as his government enemies drive him from his homeland.

In a way, Peluchoneau is the natural character that would be the recipient of Nerudas poetry, said Bernal. He is the unrecognized son of a father, he is the son of a prostitute, he is a marginalized member of society who Nerudas poetry wants to incorporate. Communism wants to empower him into society. But he chose another pathway, which is a very short-lived and implosive narrative, which is fascism: Save yourself. Dont care about the rest.

In his adversarial relationship with his prey and his poetry, Peluchoneau comes to a confrontation of self. He says at one point, I wrote myself a death and it was a good one. But the poet wrote me a death that has animals, that has snow, that has musicand that gives him life, said Bernal. This is Neruda saying, you can go further. You can reinvent yourself. You can live many lives within your life, and therefore learn compassion and gratitude and empathy.

It is a very uplifting feeling, and very moving, actually, he smiled, his face full of emotion. I cry my eyes out when I see this film. I feel a lot for the fascist policeman, which is crazy it satisfies our romantic optimistic ideals of what poetry can achieve.

Bernal is also pulling awards season double-duty in the lead-up to the Academy Awards. He co-stars opposite Luis Gnecco in Neruda and in the visceral cat-and-mouse border thriller Desierto, the Oscar entry from Mexico with even more urgency in a post-election America where President-elect Trump still threatens to build a wall to keep undocumented immigrants from crossing the Mexican border.

Bernals political two-fer, and his Golden Globe-winning work on Amazons Mozart in the Jungle, have given the Guadalajara actor, filmmaker, and activist ample opportunity to ponder and sound off on the state of U.S.-Mexico relations. I am concerned, said Bernal, who was named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People this year. But at the same time, knowing that for a country so huge and culturally so massive like Mexico, combined with the United Statesthe amount of people, the families that are interlinked between the United States and Mexico culturally and economically... with the amount of that dimension that these countries represent, Donald Trump doesnt exist, really.

He smiled optimistically. It is irrelevant.

It is far bigger, the unity that exists, than what somebody can do as a president. The only problem is that his discourse can create problems, of course. It can create the empowerment of certain people that feel that they have to take matters into their own hands, and thats really the problem. Thats what Desierto really exemplifies.

But really, I would say that for the history of the world, even more, he lowered his voice, smiling. Donald Trump doesnt exist.

It is alarming, he granted. But its like wanting to stop air from flowing. Its impossible. What we can do is build that fraternity even more. People from the United States should come to Mexico and people from Mexico should come to the United States. To travel! To have sex!

If he had been born during Nerudas time, Bernal says, I would have been a communist, for sure.

But lets not forget that communism comes from socialism, and its different, he quickly added. Communism couldnt answer a very important question which comes to play in the film a lot: In the part where one of the companeras talks to [Neruda] and says, When we communists get into power, how are we going to be? Ive been cleaning the shit of rich people for years and I dont know how equality will arrive. And communism couldnt answer that.

At just 38 years old, Bernal has already played several political figures. After breaking out in 2000s Amores Perros and achieving international acclaim with Y Tu Mama Tambien, Bernal portrayed Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara twice onscreen: in the 2002 miniseries Fidel and, two years later, in Walter Salless The Motorcycle Diaries. Hes continued to work with auteurs from around the world in films like Bad Education, Babel, and The Science of Sleep.

On the nonfiction side hes taken on more of an advocacy role to tell stories of migration from home. In 2011, he partnered with Amnesty International and director Marc Silver on The Invisibles, a collection of documentary shorts depicting the harrowing experience of immigrants crossing the Mexican border. In Sundance 2013s opening documentary Who Is Dayani Cristal? Bernal traced the path of a Central American man gone missing along the trekan experience he portrays in the fictional Desierto, which adds the terrifying element of a bitter, gun-toting American (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who stalks the Texas border hunting down illegal immigrants.

Ive been accompanying that issue for a long time, he said. I was invited to do a visit to see what the situation of the migrants from Central America were going through, passing through Mexico. The work that we started to do was fascinating. It brought me to a head-to-head experience as a migrant as well. The experience and my fascination with being a foreigner, an other.

Bernal acknowledges the privileges hes been afforded by his industry, and the celebrity status that grants him the kind of access to work that President-elect Trump has promised to deny to immigrants from all over the worldparticularly the Mexicans he vilified on the campaign trail.

I get offered to work here in the United States on Mozart in the Jungle and stuff and I come every year to do it, and I enjoy itand its a free circulation of labor, Bernal explained. I do it with a work visa and the whole thing, and Im not criminalized for doing it. The tomatoes that we eat need that free circulation of labor!

The problem is that we are criminalizing that free circulation of labor, hugely. Theres something wrong there. And the fact that I have those rights means I have to defend people who have no rights.
MOSCOW  Salekh carried a slender black leather briefcase and his long, skinny fingers were running nervously all over it, drumming as if on piano keys. Several times during the interview he unzipped the folder to pull out two envelopes, the letters from the court rejecting his petition to stay in Russia. The latest one was dated November 3, 2016.

Salekh is from Aleppo, Syria, but was in Russia when bombs destroyed his home in that martyred city. Now he is one of many thousands of Syrians who hope Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has engaged his country so heavily in the Syrian War, will give them legal shelter until the fighting is over.

But Salekh told The Daily Beast that he is running out hope in the Russian legal system.

In November, facing the judge in the Moscow court, 32-year-old Salekh, normally a mild-mannered tailor, just lost his temper.

The judge told me that life in Aleppo, where they are bombing every day, was actually fine, that I should go back home to Syria; so I told her straight away: My chopped off head will be sent back to you and thrown upon your desk, then it will be too late for you to give me the refugee status.

That week Russian rockets targeted east Aleppo as President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump discussed regulating conflict in Syria.

Salekhs angry story made everybody in the Civil Assistance reception room grow quiet.

From early morning to late night, foreign visitors from the Middle East, Africa, former Soviet countries and Asia came here to see attorneys in the only NGO providing legal help to refugees and illegal migrants in Moscow.

Next to Salekh, Julienne Madiende Macondo, a refugee from Congo, and her friend Marwa Mansur Ali, a refugee from Yemen, were trying to cheer up Juliennes four-month-old baby daughter. Both women escaped wars and threats in their own countries and for over a year have been trying to get temporary asylum in Russia.

Almost every other day either police stop me to check my papers or somebody yells at me about the color of my skin, Macondo told The Daily Beast.

Nobody in Russia cares about the war in Yemen, said Marwa Mansur Ali. At least they show Syria on the news here.

On Unity Day, Nov. 4,, hundreds of Russian far-right activists joined the Russky March demonstrations all across the country, chanting their usual: Russia is for Russians!

The annual event traditionally has terrified immigrants. But this year far fewer ultra nationalists dared to participate in the march, since authorities have cracked down on activists espousing Nazi ideology in Russia. But the ideas do not disappear from peoples minds.

Judging by how firmly authorities reject our pleas for help, the negative attitude toward black people seems to be deeply rooted in the minds of the public and the state, says Marwa Mansur.

Macondo, 26, escaped from one nightmare in Congo to find herself in another horror story in Russia. Last year, her husband, a photographer and reporter, was abducted. Macondo, who was in the early stage of pregnancy, received death threats on the phone. She was desperate to get away.

By pure accident, she says, she met a Russian man in Brazzaville, who told her that he worked for the Russian government and could help her escape from Congo. A few weeks later Macondo arrived in Moscow with a Russian visa in her passport to find out that the Russian men inviting her had a sinister plan: Macondos Russian host locked her in his apartment and raped her for more than two months, until she managed to escape and find Civil Assistance, who provided her and her newly born daughter with a shelter.

Since 1990 over 50,000 refugees, illegal immigrants, and internally displaced persons from the Caucasus regions, Middle East, Africa, Ukraine and Central Asia have been provided free legal support by the Civil Assistance group.

This year its founder and director, 74-year-old Svetlana Gannushkina, received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative Nobel Prize, for her courage.

But the Kremlin does not see Civil Assistance in a friendly light. Last year the Russian Ministry of Justice labeled the NGO a foreign agent working on grants from Western foundations.

That was basically the same as condemning us for being spies, Gannushkina said in a recent interview, shaking her grey head in frustration.

But neither Gannushkina nor any of her colleagues had time to worry about the long-term future of their group. They believe that any countrys respect for democratic and humanitarian values is defined by its treatment of refugees.

From early morning the reception room at the Civil Assistance office in downtown Moscow is crowded with desperate people like Salekh.

Try to guess how many Syrians running from the war have received official refugee status in Russia, Gannushkina says with evident emotion. Only two people so far, out of almost 10,000 Syrians running from the war to our country.

What a shame! she says, In the last two to three years Russia has provided not more than 700 people with an official refugee status, and fewer than 300 of them were Ukrainian refugees, she added.

Look, the bottom line is Russia does not want to see any of these refugees here, Gannushkina waved to the reception full of asylum seekers. We often hear that from officials.

The fate of Ukraines refugees is especially ironic. Nearly one million Ukrainians have fled the war in the Donbas region. But since November 1, Ukrainian citizens have to obey the same visa rules as any other foreign residents staying on the territory on Russia; in other words, although Donbas towns are still being shelled from all directions, Ukrainians are not seen as refugees in Russia any longer, the Civil Assistance lawyer Illarion Vasilyev explained.

The worst nightmare for the team of Civil Assistance attorneys is to receive a call with news about a client being picked up by the Russian security services and passed along to those of their home country.

We hurry to get a ban on deportation from the European Court of Human Rightssuch ban in most of the cases stops Russian authorities from deporting our clients; but sometimes, as in the recent case with an Uzbek client in Kazan, authorities ignored the ban and deported the asylum seekers anyway, says Vasilyev.

Out of thousands of Syrian refugees coming to Russia, only a few received temporary asylum before the latest crackdown. Last year Hasan and Gulistan Ahmads were camping in Sheremetyevo airport for almost seven weeks before they finally received a temporary permit to stay in Russia for one year.

Why would Russia not give Salekh and other Russian-speaking Syrians a chance to do something good for this country? The first time Salekh came to Moscow in 2010 he loved the Russian capital, he told The Daily Beast. A small Russian company producing bed sheets officially employed him and even registered his name in an employment record book that he immediately fished out of his leather file folder to demonstrate to The Daily Beast reporter. I am not going to give up, I will appeal the courts decision again and again, Salekh said firmly, Deportation would mean death for me.
Editors Note: Yasmin Seweid, the student who said that she was accosted on a train, has reportedly recanted her story and is expected to be charged with filing a false report with the NYPD.

On Monday morning, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker in a hijab in addition to her uniform was followed off a subway train at Grand Central Station in Manhattan by a man who shoved her down.

You shouldnt be working for the city. Youre a terrorist, he was heard to say.

On Saturday evening, an off-duty police officer who wears a hijab in and out of uniform dropped her 16-year-old son off by their hone and returned from parking the family car to see a man with a pit bull harassing and pushing him.

Go back to your country, the man was heard to say.

The man then turned on her.

Ill slit your throat, you ISIS bitch, he said.

The man loosened his grip on the pit bulls leash.

Sic her! he allegedly told the dog, which thankfully proved to have more sense than its owner.

On Thursday night, an 18-year-old college student who wears a hijab was on the subway after a Women in Business Style Your Success fashion show when three apparently drunk men began shouting, Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!

The men then zeroed in on her.

Look, a f---ing terrorist. Get the hell out of the country! You dont belong here!

They yanked her bag and the strap broke.

Can you please leave me alone? she asked.

They responded with laughter and followed as she tried to walk away from them. They tried to pull off her hijab.

Take that rag off your head!

What made it all the more nightmarish was that none of the many other people aboard the train sought to help her. Passengers looked at her and at the men and clearly understood what was happening, but then just looked away without offering so much as syllable in her defense.

It breaks my heart that so many individuals chose to be bystanders while watching me get harassed verbally and physically by these disgusting pigs, she posted on Facebook afterward.

The studentYasmin Seweidwrote of the incident itself as someone who is American born and raised: 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.

She might have been speaking for all the recent hate-crime victims as she wrote, Trump America is real and I witnessed it first hand last night! What a traumatizing night. Please stay safe everyone & never let anyone take your rights away.

All this transpired over the course of five days in Trumps home city. The same night that Seweid was harassed and called a terrorist by a hateful and hate-filled trio chanting Donald Trump! Donald Trump! the man himself was out in Cincinnati for a rally kicking off his thank you tour.

He continued to act as if he had not achieved victory by appealing to bigots and xenophobes as well as to the simply disaffected. He spoke of the need to find common ground and suggested that it was actually the government that has divided us.

For too long, Washington has tried to put us in boxes, he said. They separate us by race, by age, by income, by geography, place of birth.

The man who had called Mexicans rapists and spoken of barring all Muslims from our shores and given ear to the venom of the alt-right actually went on to say, We spend too much time focusing on what divides us.

Now is the time to embrace the one thing that unites us, he declared. You know what that is? America! America. Its America.

Now that he had bullied his way to becoming the president of the United States of America, he wanted all of it united, which is to say following him.

Because when America is unified, nothing is beyond our reach, he went on.

He added I mean that.

One country, under Donald.

He returned home to a city where Seweid was terrorized. A 34-year-old off-duty police officer named Aml Elsokary was assaulted two days later, along with one of her five children.

Elsokary had proven herself a truly great American two years before, after a man ran into a Brooklyn street and flagged down the radio car in which she and Sgt. Adrian Harris were patrolling. The man said people were trapped in a fire and both cops immediately leapt out.

Just the day before, Police Officer Dennis Guerra, a 38-year-old father of four, had died from injuries suffered when he and a fellow cop had attempted a rescue in a burning building in another part of Brooklyn. Elsokary had changed her Facebook profile picture to a blue band on a field of black as a sign of mourning.

At roll call the morning after the cops death, Elsokary and the others in her command had been reminded of the dangers of fire. And now, later in that same tour, she found herself rushing into the very kind of peril that had claimed the life of Guerra. She cast aside any fears her five kids might end up without a mother when she heard a babys cries coming from the roiling smoke.

I had to help, she later said. I could hear the baby crying.

Up on the second floor, another woman faced a terrible choice. Carmen Del Rio had a 21-year-old disabled daughter in the apartment who could not evacuate on her own. But Del Rio was also tending for her year-old granddaughter, Kayleigh, who also could not escape unaided. Her son, Felipe Arroyo, the childs father, was at work.

Who do you save? Arroyo, later said.

Elsokary then appeared, guided by the cries of the child she now scooped up in her arms.

Follow me, Elsokary told the grandmother.

In the meantime, Harris had been pounding on the doors of the buildings other apartments, making sure everybody was evacuated. Harris and Elsokary were taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation, but they had escaped serious injury.

Most importantly for all concerned, little Kayleigh Arroyo was fine. Elsokary came back at Christmas time with a gift for her.

It was very nice, Felipe Arroyo recalled.

Elsokary had joined the NYPD after the 9/11 attacks in part to make clear that the murder of innocents runs contrary to true Islam. She posted a somber photo of herself in uniform on Facebook at the approach of the 15th anniversary of the attack.

Fifteen years later, we remember, the accompanying message read.

On Saturday evening, Elsokary encountered the hater with the pit bull. She was unarmed and in the company of her son and chose to call 911 afterward rather than take immediate police action. She otherwise might have risked escalating the situation to where the pit bull might have reconsidered ignoring the mans order.

As news of this latest hate crime spread, nobody was more disturbed than the family of the child who had been saved by Elsokary two years before. They do not have to be reminded what might have happened had the cop not braved the smoke so soon after one of her fellow officers had died doing the same.

I dont even want to think about it, Felipe Arroyo told The Daily Beast.

Kayleigh is now 3 and she was busy running her toy Jeep through a car wash she had created. She needed an essential element.

Water! she exclaimed.

Her father got her the water, and she set to washing the Jeep and playing with her Barbie dolls.

Shes doing good, her father said. Always smiling, very adorable, very loving.

He added, She will hug me out of nowhere.

He said of hate crimes such as the one against Kaylieghs savior, This country is made out of immigrants, you know, being united together and trying to live our lives and be better people, have a better life. 

Arroyo sounded not completely unlike Trump in Cincinnati. Only, Arroyo was speaking truth, not a big lie such as Trump is trying to perpetrate. His lie about millions of fraudulent voters got the pundits in a tizzy, but nobody seemed even to notice his lie about who had incited the hate and division.

On Sunday night, police arrested 36-year-old Christopher Nelson, who happens to be a registered Democrat, for his actions toward Elsokary and her son. He was arraigned late Monday morning on hate-crime charges that his attorney emphatically denied. Bail was set at $50,000.

That same morning, police were reporting another hate crime, this one directed against a uniformed MTA worker who wore a hijab. She suffered injures to her leg when the hater pushed her down, saying a terrorist had no business working for the city.

At least in this instance, a Good Samaritan intervened and caused her assailant to flee.

The NYPD had already scheduled a 10 a.m. press conference, where Officer Elsokary sat between Police Commissioner James ONeill and Mayor Bill de Blasio. She was immaculate in uniform and wore a matching dark blue hijab.

Good morning, everyone, ONeill said. I did have the opportunity to meet Officer Elsokary aboutI guess its about two years ago after her rescue in the 9-0 Precinct. I met her in the emergency room at Woodhull Hospital where she was being treatedher and her partner were being treated for smoke inhalation.

Elsokary now gave ONeill even more reason to be proud to lead the NYPD.

I became a police officer to show the positive side of a New Yorker, Muslim woman that can do this job, that is non-biased, she said.  I help everybody, no matter whats your religion, whats your faith, what you do in New York. Im born and raised here and Im here to protect you all and I know that my department and city is here to protect me.

De Blasio said all the things that were right for the situation and, of course, for de Blasio. He did not need even to hint at any irony as he moved on to other matters and reported that he had sent the White House a letter seeking reimbursement for the citys cost of protecting Trump Tower since the election.

We will be asking for up to $35 million in reimbursement for the period November 8th to January 20, de Blasio said.

Among the visitors to Trump Tower on Monday was Al Gore. He was initially expected to meet only with Ivanka Trump, but ended up sitting down with The Donald himself. We can hope that despite the continuing Big Lie about what stirred all the hate, some good will come from Trumps newly adopted role in the soon-to-premiere reality show The President.

I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect, Gore told reporters as he departed the tower in the afternoon. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground.

Common ground. Trumps very words in Cincinnati. Talk about climate change, Al.

In the evening, Elsokary again spoke to the press. Her composure faltered toward the end and her hurt translated into tears.

Meanwhile, the student Yasmin Seweid is telling us that Trumps America is real.

But the fault is not just in The Donald but also in ourselves. The people on that subway car who did nothing to help her disgraced the whole city.
Seth Meyers, who unexpectedly delivered one of the more heartfelt post-election monologues in the wake of Donald Trumps stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton, returned to his Late Night program after a brief vacation to weigh in on the reality star-turned-politicians troubling tenure as president-elect.

In the last week, weve gotten glimpses of what will likely be two of the most important features of a Donald Trump presidency: his willingness to make false claims with no evidence, and his shoot-from-the-hip approach to foreign policy, said Meyers. And those two things do not mix well.

He added: When youre dealing with foreign powers in unstable regions, you need sober, analytical thinking and a firm grasp of realityqualities you definitely do not associate with Donald Trump.

As Meyers pointed out, Trumps shock election victory has not stopped him from peddling conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality, like his tweet about how he would have won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegallya claim that originated in a tweet, that was then picked up by the conspiracy-theory site Infowars, which has claimed that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, the Sandy Hook massacre was staged, and that the American government is poisoning our water to turn people gay. President-elect Trump is an avid Infowars aficionado, and has praised its host, Alex Jones, on the program.

To make matters worse, according to The Washington Post, there have only been four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 presidential electionand in three of the four cases, the person committing voter fraud was a Trump supporter. Oh, and Trump even took it upon himself to retweet a Twitter fan trolling a CNN reporter about alleged voter fraud, only to have the troll be a 16-year-old boy from the decidedly posh Beverly Hills, California.

It makes sense that Trump would identify with a 16-year-old, as he has surrounded himself with a team of aides and spokespeople that defend his actions the way entitled parents would defend their shitty kid at a high school, joked Meyers.

The comedian then threw to a series of clips of Trump supporters, from Mike Pence to Reince Preibus, defending Trumps erratic behavior as president-electwith Preibus, who will serve as chief of staff in the Trump administration, even suggesting that its possible millions of people cast votes illegally for Hillary Clinton.No, its not! Its not possible that millions of people voted illegally and nobody noticed! exclaimed Meyers. And it is wildly irresponsible to claim that it is possible. Stop saying Everything is possible! Youre chief of staff, not Kevin Garnett!The scariest thing about these false conspiracy theories is that a lot of people believe them, said Meyers, who oddly failed to mention the recent Pizzagate incident that occurred over the weekend, where a gunman fired off a shot inside a Washington, D.C. pizzeria while apparently investigating an online conspiracy theory that the pizzeria was the site of a child sex trafficking ring run by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta. The ridiculous claimwhich, for anyone with a functioning brain, is too stupid to write, let alone believeoriginated on right-wing websites and was pushed by, yup, Infowars, as well as Michael Flynn Jr., the son and chief of staff of Gen. Michael Flynn, who is Trumps pick for national security adviser. Flynn Jr. also has a presidential transition email address, though its unclear exactly why.

Meyers next tackled foreign policy, because in a little over a month, Trump will be in charge of our relationships with the rest of the world. And when youre dealing with major foreign powers and conflicts in unstable regions, facts do matterwhether you believe in them or not.

He then brought up Trumps phone call with the president of Taiwansomething no American president has done in nearly 40 years, and which increased diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and China. Whatever your thoughts are on China, its a delicate, important relationship. For example, we need their help dealing with North Koreas nuclear weapons program. So any action that China might see as provocative should be done only after a long period of careful study and considerationor, if youre Trump, you could just say, screw it, lets piss them off right away and see what happens, said Meyers.

Theres also Trumps phone call with Pakistan, in which he told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people, despite expressing these sentiments:

Trump also shocked diplomats when he reportedly praised controversial Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, whose government has been accused of running death squads in a bloody war against drug dealers that has killed thousands of people. Duterte said Trump told him on the call that he was conducting his drug war the right way, said Meyers.The late-night host then reminded viewers that, when Obama criticized Duterte for human-rights abuses, the strongman politician called the U.S. president the son of a whore.

Cue Meyers: Keep it up and we might just elect you president of the United States!
Every year I promise myself Ill start my holiday gift shopping early. Every year it all somehow gets done. But this season Im getting a jump on thingswith plenty of time to sparethanks to a list of my favorite new gifts for spirits, wine, food, or coffee lovers. My advice? Dont delay. December is flying by!

Alessi Pulcina Moka Pot ($90) & Emilio Pucci Art Collection Espresso Cups ($150)

Have a coffee drinker in your life? Illy partnered with another legendary Italian company, Alessi, to produce this stunning stove-top Pulcina Moka Pot. Another great option is Illys latest incarnation of its espresso cup set, festively decorated by the famous fashion house Emilio Pucci.

David Wondrich Punch Bowl ($40) & Turenne Punch Ladle ($65)

There are few concoctions better suited for a party than punch. The Daily Beasts senior drinks columnist David Wondrich wrote the definitive book on the subjectcalled, naturally, Punchand recently teamed up with luxury barware emporium Cocktail Kingdom to create a line of vintage-inspired punch bowls and ladles. The punch bowl, complete with a Latin inscription inside and a creepy historic punch cartoon on the bottom, would be perfect for any celebration. And to serve your punch youll need an impressive ladle, like the scalloped silver-plated Turenne model with a 15-inch beechwood handle.

Vintage Bar & Restaurant Menu Prints (from $20)

The aptly named company Love Menu Art produces, you guessed it, an impressive selection of prints of old menu and matchbook art from establishments across the country. I particularly like an image from a matchbook that was given out by a Pasadena, California, liquor store: The colorful illustration shows various spirits, wines, and mixers bowing down to king cocktail shaker and his lieutenant bitters. Another fun one is from L.A.s legendary Brown Derby restaurant, whose menu featured a cartoon map of the City of Angels with various annotated monuments.

Crafthouse by Fortessa Cocktail Shaker Set ($100)

To make good cocktails you need good tools. Fortunately, award-winning bartender Charles Joly has partnered with Fortessa to create a line of barware available at Williams-Sonoma. This set, which includes a shaker, a wooden muddler, a jigger, and a strainer, is perfect for the novice or expert mixologist on your list.

Elyx Mini Pineapple Gift Set ($150)

The holidays are all about entertaining and this copper set of mini pineapple cups from Absolut Elyx Vodka are a perfect gift. The fruit is historically a symbol of hospitality. But the best part? Proceeds from the sale will allow charity Water For People to provide a one-month supply of clean drinking water to a single person.

Rabbit Decanter ($100)

This stylish glass decanter will inspire you to start drinking more wine. It sits on an acacia wood and brass coaster for stability and features a high-tech stopper with a built-in micro-perforated strainer and an aerator. Full or empty, it will look great on your cocktail cart.

Yeti Brick Bottle Opener ($50)

There are bottle openers and then there is this limited-edition solid stainless steel Yeti bottle opener. While it may be over-engineered, to say the least, its heft allows you to pop the top of your favorite beer or soda with ease.
On Monday night, Victorias Secret and their game gang of angels once again proved that you can simultaneously wear the least and do the most. As in prior years, the annual fashion show was more about the lead-up than the spectacle itself, beginning when the models were announced about a month before they walked the runway. This year, our key players are a mix of veterans and newcomers. For anyone whos still stuck in the Tyra Banks era, the 21st annual extravaganza has been infused with a new generation of social media supermodelsup-and-comers who know how to use but dont actually need Snapchat filters.

First and foremost theres Kendall Jenner, Kardashian spin-off turned surprisingly enigmatic supermodel. Despite her affiliation with a family of over-sharers, Jenner is strangely and refreshingly dull. We dont know much about the notoriously private 21-year-old; shes plagued by anxiety, sleep paralysis, and a pathological inability to tell an interesting anecdote about herself. Then theres Gigi Hadid. When shes not reflexively elbowing would-be assailants, Hadid can be found sharing a modest bowl of baked beans with her boyfriend, One Direction defector Zayn Malik. She also claims to spend her free time painting really detailed mugs at chain ceramics workshop Color Me Mine, which is very odd.

This dynamic duo was joined in Paris this year by Gigis sister, Victorias Secret Fashion Show virgin Bella Hadid. In one of the numerous video segments peppered throughout the show, Gigi started crying with pride over being the first set of sisters to walk the Victorias Secret runway. Bella Hadids VS debut was extra-hyped on account of the fact that she was slated to share the stage with her very recent ex-boyfriend, spell check-resistant R&B star The Weeknd. Formerly known as the most famous Hadid who isnt Gigi, Bellas relationship drama made her a model to watch at the Parisian spectacle.

But the Hadids werent the only models making headlines in the lead-up to Monday night. Every year, one angel is given the honor of sporting Victorias most decadent creation. For the November 30th runway show, Jasmine Tookes was selected to wear this years gem-laden Fantasy Bra. Officially assessed at $3 million, the emerald-and-diamond-encrusted bra boasts more than 9,000 precious gems and over 450 carats. Then theres veteran angel Irina Shayk, who didnt announce that she had been impregnated by Bradley Cooper until after she pulled off two lingerie looks on the Grand Palais runway. Apparently, some women really can have it all.

Actually pregnant models aside, this a demanding runway walk for anyone. Being born with the magical ability to pull off assless chaps might sound like a blessing. But the Victorias Secret Fashion show is as much of a testament to human cruelty as it is to genetic greatnessa Sisyphean spectacle in which starving models are forced to strut up and down a runway lugging enormous bedazzled wings on their birdlike frames. This year, Victorias Secret subjected these physically perfect specimens to an endurance test of six themed segments: Road Ahead, Mountain Romance, Pink Nation, Secret Angel, Dark Angel and Bright Night Angel. These chapters were interspersed with videos of the models talking about Paris, their early modeling days, their love of fine lingerie and, of course, their extremely successful exercise regimens. As suspected, lingerie models really do have to work out seven days a week occasionally even twice a dayand always in Victorias Secret brand exercise apparel. And then there were all of the videos of angels prancing around Parisian landmarks. Apparently, suffering through multiple black and white montages of Paris is the price you have to pay to stare at a bunch of butts.

Before we could get to the more predictable motifs, like sexy women in trench coats and sexy women in sparkly lingerie, the Road Ahead portion jumpstarted the program in the worst possible way. Doubtlessly imagined as an ode to diversity and non-European aesthetics, Road Ahead ended up being a huge mess. Accompanied by the needlessly cruel throb of U2s Vertigo, our pore-less, glowing heroines stomped down the runway in ethnic looks spanning continents and centuries. Apparently, after thousands of years of human civilization, this is what weve come up with: a hodgepodge of indigenous influences, representative of an entire continent I guess Asian silks and I dont even want to get into it Africana. As the indigenous saying goes, you have to use every part of the clichewhich explains why the Victorias Secret designers taped tassels everywhere, dipped these glamazons in feathers, and even wrapped a blonde chick in a full Chinese New Year dragon. Essentially, this segment looked like someone pantsed the entire cast of Disneys Its a Small World.

The show quickly pivoted away from this wasteland of kimono fabric and boleros and into Mountain Romance, which was basically just slutty Sweden. Why the masterminds behind the VS fashion show felt the need to further highlight the fact that theyd just jammed together dozens of non-white cultures, well never know. Amidst sweeping graphics of the Swedish Alps, Lady Gaga emerged in a cloud of smoke, dodging leggy blondes in lederhosen. In an opening video segment, we learn that Gaga used to watch the Victorias Secret Fashion Show when I was younger, and that she feels welcomed into the angel family as a unique and more rebel type of angel.

This segment had it all: pictures of big ass mountains, Lady Gaga in an evening gown crooning Million Reasons, and meticulously embroidered suspenders. The angels seemed appropriately spooked by the overwhelming display, as Gaga attempted to hold hands with multiple models and walk them down the runway, all while executing flawless vocal runs. This went over about as well as it would if Lady Gaga went to your place of work and started touching you while you were trying to do your job. Distracted and confused, it became immediately clear that Victorias Secret angels do not take well to onstage improvisation.

Seasoned VS Fashion Show performers Bruno Mars and The Weeknd knew better than to repeatedly touch the models. The Weeknds rendition of Starboy was predictably improved by the runway presence of Bella Hadid, as the newly minted exes shared a few seconds of significant eye contact. In a body-hugging corset, Bella Hadid looked exactly how youd want to look when running into your excomplete with a foot-long train designed to keep them at a safe distance. Bruno Mars out-Bruno-Marsd himself in a tuxedo, indoor sunglasses, a fur coat and heels (sorry, elevator shoes). Luckily, Gaga more than redeemed herself later in the show by popping on a black veiled hat and matching sequin ensemble for high energy performances of A-Yo and John Wayne. For a big finish, Gaga sprouted her own freaking wings and slammed down the runway in sky-high heels, much to a turbaned Nick Cannons consternation.

Other notable segments included Pink Nation, which looked like Rihanna ditched Puma to do a collaboration with Legs Avenue, and Bright Night Angel. Rounding out the show, Bright Night Angel showcased the aforementioned Fantasy Bra, nestled between a bunch of other sparkly offerings. This is the Victorias Secret Fashion Show at its best: models with bodies we cant afford wearing bras that cost more than our annual salaries. At the end of the day, were just here to see how many diamonds creative director Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou can hot glue onto a push-up bra.
A jury trial to determine how much UnityPoint Health- Meriters insurance company should pay the parents of a doctor who died after an ambulance crash in 2013 will center on whether the doctor suffered and how much money he was going to give his parents during their retirement.

UW-Madison newborn care fellow Dr. Stanley Phillips III, 32, endured pain and suffering when the Meriter ambulance carrying him crashed, and after he died the next day his parents lost his financial support, their attorney said Monday during opening arguments in Dane County Circuit Court.

His intent was to help take care of his parents and take care of the infants of this world, Jeffrey Zirgibel said.

But Barrett Corneille, an attorney representing Meriters insurer, the Medical Protective Co., said Phillips was too gravely injured in the crash to suffer, and its not clear he planned to help his parents.

Minutes after the crash, Phillips had the worst score possible on tests to assess levels of coma, Corneille said. Youre unconscious, youre unaware, youre unresponsive, he said.

The doctor wanted to support his parents if they had a need, but we havent been told what that means, Corneille said.

Phillips and three other medical workers were on Meriters mobile newborn intensive care unit, heading to Appleton to bring a baby to Meriter for surgery by a UW specialist, about 12:35 p.m. July 10, 2013, when the ambulance crashed on Highway 26 about 10 miles south of Rosendale.

Ross Fleming, a Meriter employee who was driving, was fined $213 for failure to keep the vehicle under control. He told investigators he accidentally drove off the road as it curved and couldnt get back before the vehicle hit a culvert and flipped on its side.

Meriters insurance company admitted responsibility and agreed to pay medical bills, funeral costs and an amount for loss of companionship. The trial before Judge Richard Niess will determine if additional payments for pain and suffering and for loss of support should be made.

Zirgibel, of Brookfield, said medics at the scene and family members who were at the hospital where Phillips was taken for brain surgery will testify that he gasped, moaned, moved his arms and squeezed their hands.

An economist will say he would have earned $12 million to $16 million during his parents lifetimes, and he could have spent about 20 percent of that on them, Zirgibel said.

Corneille said Phillips extraordinarily severe brain injury, which apparently occurred when a laptop in the back of the ambulance hit him during the crash, meant he didnt feel pain or suffer.

Phillips parents, Connie and Stanley Phillips Jr., 58, of California, must prove he would have supported them, Corneille said.

Connie Phillips is a teacher and will get a pension, but Stanley Phillips is a construction worker who has no retirement benefits, Zirgibel said.

The trial is scheduled to last through Friday.

Two of the other medical workers in the ambulance were treated and released shortly after the crash. Another had surgery and was hospitalized for several days.

Some national EMS safety experts say box on a truck ambulances, like the one Meriter was using in 2013, arent as safe for passengers as van-style models.

The van models absorb energy from crashes better, are equipped with stability controls and undergo extensive safety testing, Dr. Nadine Levick, founder of the EMS Safety Foundation, told the Wisconsin State Journal in 2013.

But other EMS officials said that van-style rigs arent large enough to carry necessary equipment and personnel, a key reason box-style vehicles are much more widely used.
Long before Election Day, CNN commentator Van Jones was saying he was far more worried about what would happen on November 9th than he was about what would happen on November 8th, regardless of who won the presidency. With that in mind, he is set to host a special on CNN this week called The Messy Truth, for which he spoke to Donald Trump supporters in Ohio in an attempt to reach some sort of common ground.

Jones has been on a roll since the election, first speaking out passionately that night against the whitelash that he said had just occurred in America. Since then, he has found ways to speak less emotionally about Trump, telling The View last week that while the president-elect may deserve a chance, he should never get a pass.

But that didnt stop him from opening his interview with Trevor Noah on Mondays Daily Show by saying, Welcome to hell. When Noah pushed back, saying this felt more like the beginning of a ride than hell, Jones said, Well, for you it is a ratings bonanza, but for the rest of us, were going to be suffering.

Noah noted that Jones was one of the first to point out that the media needed to take the neo-Nazis and white supremacists supporting Trump more seriously and asked if he now wants to say I told you so. His guest replied, You know, some people were raised well and would never do that. And Im not one of them. I tried to tell yall! I tried to tell yall and aint nobody listened!

You have a core of people who were actually delighted by some of those inflammatory comments, Jones said of Trump supporters. Those people, I would call bigots. But then there were the people who found Trumps words distasteful, but not disqualifying, because they had so much other economic pain and problems that were not being talked to, and those were the people that cost us the election.

On those who felt that the elite had sold them down the river in both parties, Jones admitted, They werent wrong. We did not give them an opportunity to come to our side the way we should have.

Everybody that voted for Trump was not voting for every crazy thing he said, Jones added, saying that many voters were holding their noses when they cast their ballots on both sides of the aisle. Because of that, he said he has faith that they will stand up to Trump if and when he tries to enact some of his more outrageous policies.

Listen, Trump is much worse than anybody in this country is willing to accept, he said, but a lot of his voters are much better and I dont want to give them away.

Finally, Noah presented the question that many black Americans are asking right now: How many times do I have to be doing the right thing? he asked. So Ive got to be the one voting for Hillary and then I see white people be like, Ill take a chance on Trump. Ive got to be the one who is now extending a hand, listening and talking to people who I feel like would not do the same for me.

To Jones, Noah asked, Why do you feel the need for yourself to be reaching out? Because you could just say no, this country is racist, I dont care, Im out. But how do you justify it to yourself? Why engage?

Jones said all he needs to do is look at people like Nelson Mandela, who had it much worse than him but didnt give up. They shot King in the face the year I was born because he was trying to fight for these ideals, he said. I have one bad election and some bad tweets and quit? I cant do that. And I will tell you: You cannot, especially this younger generation. They cant quit either.

I am a ninth generation American, Jones continued. Im the first one in my family born with all my rights. My relatives didnt quit and Im not going either and neither should these young people. Were just getting started.
We catch up with 'the whiskey chef'

Beam Suntory's Matt Jones takes Sam Coyne through what it's like to represent the Kentucky bourbon brands of the 'first family of bourbon' in his native Canada

Matt Jones Beam Suntory

How did you decide you wanted to work in the whiskey industry?

I wanted to tend bar from my early teens, and started in the service industry washing dishes and as line cook for many years before becoming a server and then bartender. I have now been bartending for 17 years. Whiskey has always been prominent in the mixed drinks, cocktails and shots I have poured over the years. Honestly I believe the industry chose me.

Can you tell me a little more about how you got to where you are today with Beam Suntory?

Bartending is an amazing way to travel and see the World. On a contract in Japan in 2006 I was inspired by the bartenders in Kyoto, that were very bourbon forward with their cocktails and this is where I fell in love with Makers Mark, and learned the brand's story. I had heard of brand ambassadors for liquor companies, but did not consider this until I had moved back to Canada in 2009 and was approached by a colleague in the industry in 2010 to apply for the Canadian Makers Mark ambassadorship. I worked on Makers Mark for two years and then shifted to what is now Beam Suntory to speak to the entire bourbon portfolio, and this is my current role.

What does the role entail?

The primary role of brand ambassador at Beam Suntory is very similar to other companies in that the prime directive is to educate the trade and consumers alike and help them make informed choices when it comes to the whisk(e)y in their glasses. We educate not only on the heritage and unique flavours and processes that make each brand stand out as a sipping spirit, but their diversity in cocktails as well. We do this by facilitating trainings and special events.

You are well known for representing Beam Suntory's Kentucky bourbons, but can you tell me about any, potentially, lesser-known brands within your portfolio?

The Jim Beam family of bourbons is my primary focus which includes the Small Batch premiums Basil Haydens, Knob Creek, Bakers and Bookers. Canadians may not be familiar with some other historic bourbon icons that we produce but are not as available across the country such as Old Grand Dad, Old Crow, and Old Overholt, the latter being an American Straight Rye. Collectively we refer to these as The Olds.

What about your ambassadorial style? How important do you think this approach is in getting your message across?

Coming from a bartender and hospitality background, it is up to the bartender/server to lead our guests through their experience in a fun and entertaining way. Essentially you are the consummate host. This is also applied to being a brand ambassador, we are extensions of the distilleries in which we represent, like a tour guide. Being entertaining and engaging is paramount to being a great tour guide.

You're known in the industry as the 'whiskey chef', what's that all about and how did you pick up that nickname?

Ive always been the bartender at the party that you drop into your kitchen with whatever liquor is in your cabinet, whatever citrus and fruit in your fridge and sweeteners and spices in your cupboard, and turn out cocktails for everyone on the fly. Eventually I started incorporating more savory food flavours into cocktails like using fat washes such as butter, duck, and pork fat. And then I started cooking with whiskey and encouraging chefs to incorporate the whiskey into their dishes at my events. Someone called me the 'whiskey chef' and it stuck! Even though I have not taken any formal chef training, I have been called a chef of the bar.

When you're not spreading the word about whiskey, what do you like to get up to in your spare time?

My kids are my full time focus when I am home. Finding that work/life/family balance can be difficult while traveling 75% of the year. We make up for it in quality time. I have two young boys and our time is spent playing Lego, colouring, playing guitar, geo-caching, and some video-games. I am currently teaching my oldest to juggle.

You were recently named American Whiskey Brand Ambassador of the year in Whisky Magazine's Icons of Whisky Rest of World Awards 2017 - what do you think makes you stand out from other brand ambassadors in the industry?

I am a huge fan of my industry colleagues and their work, and am just honoured to be acknowledged among them. I have been presenting cocktails and brands for many years as bartender, and I do feel a brand ambassador with a bartending background has an edge in the industry. However I feel that I am as much an ambassador for the bourbon industry as I am for the great State of Kentucky. You come for the bourbon and its history, and you stay and return for the amazing people and the stunning geography. Kentucky is known as being the gateway to the Wild West with a touch of southern hospitality. I try and tell as much of that story of the people behind the brands with anecdotal stories of my experiences there, and people really seem to enjoy that!

What plans do you have for the future of the brands you represent?

As bourbon gains even more awareness and momentum in Canada, I plan on taking its message as far as possible to the outer reaches of the country. I would also like to do more interactive consumer events that bring a touch of Kentucky wherever I travel in Canada.

As an ambassador, what importance do you place on educating both the trade and consumer on history, production, legislation etc.

I am an amateur history buff, and people really seem to enjoy and relate to the stories and historical references. The Beam family has been making legal whiskey since 1795. They are truly the first family of bourbon. This is significant to the brands heritage.

As well, we are in an unprecedented era of transparency, where consumers are much more discerning about what they are consuming grain to glass, and bartenders as well. There are many resources such as newsletters and podcasts that they can stay up to date with legislation on so its important for the ambassador to be up to date on this as well.

You've got a very strong personal social media presence, on Twitter etc. How much of this is to help with your role and what would you suggest to others in the industry about using social media?

Social media is an amazing platform to not only lead by example and share out recipes and ideas, but also for the company to track my activities and see the influencers at our events. In the last 6 years it has become integral to the role. I would just encourage others to remember what you put out there is there forever so be conscious about how and what you post!

What can we look forward to from Beam Suntory in 2017?

Particularly in Canada, we have many exciting innovations and surprises up our sleeves in 2017, youll have to tune in to find out!

6 December 2016
But on 15th December they will launch their bTB Eradication Strategy for Northern Ireland. Wildlife people may be praying that it will not include badger culling. Farmers may hope that it will. But what reasons could be put forward to justify or refuse such a policy?

Why is it that efforts to control bTB in cattle always seem to be headed by badgers? Since the first TB-infected badger was found in Gloucestershire in 1971, badgers have served as a convenient scapegoat for an industry that perhaps does not want to look at its own practices. Farmers have taken on the belief, not the fact, that badgers, more than other factors, are responsible.

This is not to scapegoat farmers. After all, farmers produce our food. Their industry is rather more vital than some others and, apart from the large land-owning enterprises, often struggle with low prices and difficult conditions. Naturally they will look for the easiest way to 'deal' with a major problem.

How close do badgers get? (Not very)



For over 40 years badgers have been presented as the villain of the piece, the source of the disease. Yes, badgers can be infected by bovine TB as the Badger road traffic accident survey demonstrated. But few infected badgers are also infectious, capable of passing on the disease.

Nor are badgers the only 'wildlife reservoir' so freely talked about by farmers' unions and politicians. Many other animals, wild, feral and domestic, can be infected, and of all farm animals only cattle are routinely tested. But badgers alone are blamed for giving TB to cattle, and few ask where their bTB came from.

The year-long Badger / Cattle Proximity study placed cameras in randomly selected farms. The cameras showed badgers avoiding cattle housing in the yards while investigating feed stores and grain silos. On 64% of the farms badgers visited infrequently, and two had no visits recorded.

One farm accounted for nearly 39% of all badger visits, and a single badger was responsible for over 90% of that. Foxes, rats and cats, all of which can carry bTB, were also recorded visiting. Add that in and badgers turned out to be responsible for under 4% of farmyard visits.

The 'proximity' collars used on both cattle and badgers out in the field recorded how closely the two species interacted. Badger-to-badger and cattle-to-cattle interactions were studied as well as badger-to-cattle encounters. Out of a total 439,776 recorded interactions, absolutely none showed badgers coming within 2 metres of cattle, the maximum distance at which they could infect another animal by coughing or sneezing.

Similar recent studies in County Wicklow and Cornwall demonstrated that badgers avoid cattle, even while still blaming badgers. But Dr Paul Benham of Reading University was researching the known 'mutual avoidance' of badgers and cattle in the 1980s. When will that message be heard?

While the study talked much about the "potential" for badgers to contaminate feed supplies it does not ask a very simple question: why would foraging badgers urinate and defecate on the food they are seeking?

And as NI farmers believe there has to be 'nose-to-nose' contact for TB to spread from cattle to cattle, why should they believe that a badger urinating or defecating in a field or yard is enough to spread TB while ignoring infected cowpats?

The 'strain typing' research

The Ulster Farmers Union welcomed the research done on strain-typing badgers and cattle. It said "it provides new evidence of the close relationship between bovine TB infections in cattle and badgers at farm level."

A typical misreading; the research shows that although all the strain types found in badgers are also found in cattle, many of the strain types found in cattle are not present in badgers. In such cases the infection cannot be linked. The study concluded that "that there did appear to be a link between the distribution of infection in both species, although this did not indicate causality, i.e. direction of spread."

An apparent but not very strong link. The finding could be showing that all the strain types found in badgers came from cattle, and all the cattle-only strain types must come from cattle.

The real problem behind TB in cattle is found in the biosecurity research.

Biosecurity on farms is notable for its absence. A majority of farmers did use raised water and feeding troughs on pasture, but little beyond that.

Bearing in mind the proximity study showed that badgers did not commonly visit farmyards, very few farms had solid gates and fencing preventing access by badgers to the farmyard. If farmers claim that a cause of TB in their cattle is badgers visiting yards and contaminating feed, why are the yards so accessible?

In those farms that had secure cattle housing and well-protected storage of loose and processed grain, farmers still felt badgers could access feed passages, even though signs of badgers in cattle housing or feed stores were never seen, and no extra precautions were taken.

The major risks causing bTB in cattle

Among the identified major risks of a herd breakdown due to bTB is cattle-to-cattle infection, the risk being greater if a neighbouring farm has had a recent bTB breakdown. Advice on biosecurity suggests double fencing or broad hedges between all fields where cattle graze, so there is no nose-to-nose contact. Yet in this study, nearly 60% of boundaries with neighbouring farms would allow for nose-to-nose contact between cattle.

Land management practices such as spreading infected cattle slurry on pasture can create avenues for the disease. Contractors travelling from farm to farm without disinfecting their vehicles can carry the disease, as can cattle lorries going to and from market.

Research in both NI and England has shown that large herds also account for more cases of bTB. The biosecurity study tried to explain this away by suggesting that of course there is a greater chance of finding one infected beast in a large herd. But a recently published English study has this to say:

"The reasons that large herds are at greater risk of becoming infected are not well-understood, but are likely to be associated with increased exposure through buying practices, land use and other management factors, together with the greater risk of hidden residual infection after Officially TB Free status has been restored, due to the limitations of the skin test."

Buying practices, along with the inevitable cattle movements are also recognised as major spreaders of the disease. Large herds trade more cattle. Beef trading is greater than in dairy herds, as shown by the bTB incident records. One way to prevent this spread is by pre- and post-movement TB testing of any beast going to market.

Yet at the time of the study not many farmers made use of this and no more than 11.2% asked for a pre-test on any beast they were buying. When planning future biosecurity measures, only 28% were considering pre- and post-testing.

Of all the biosecurity measures they could take to protect their herds, the most popular was double-fencing farm boundaries, but only 30% of farmers intended to do that. Far fewer intended to implement the other measures. Why?

Effective biosecurity costs money

All the farmers who took part were surveyed, with these results: they didn't want to pay for bTB eradication. They backed cattle bTB vaccination, badger vaccination and badger culling but didn't want to pay. They backed pre- and post-testing, but didn't want to pay for either. And double fencing costs too.

One can't totally blame the farmers. For many of them money is tight. A farm under restriction is an economic shock to the farmer and there's even less money available for biosecurity measures. But still government looks at killing badgers instead of enforcing biosecurity measures. The nonsense of chasing after badgers has to stop.

Wales has dramatically reduced the bTB slaughter rate over the last few years by implementing a strict testing regime and cattle controls, all without culling badgers. Badger culling in England is not working and despite denials by the NFU, bTB has risen in the culling areas. The cost to the taxpayer has been high.

Endless government-funded research trying again and again to prove that only badgers are to blame is a waste of money. Surely that money would be better invested in funding good biosecurity measures?

One can only hope, for both farmers and badgers, that the bTB Eradication Strategy for Northern Ireland will follow the Welsh route.

Action: respond to Wales consultation on bovine TB.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites.
International conservation and environmental leaders from over 160 organisation are calling on governments at the 2016 COP13 of the Biodiversity Convention to establish a moratorium on the controversial genetic extinction technology called 'gene drives'.

Gene drives, developed through new gene-editing techniques, are designed to force a particular genetically engineered trait to spread through an entire wild population - potentially changing entire species or even causing deliberate extinctions.

The statement urges governments to put in place an urgent, global moratorium on the development and release of the new technology which, they say, poses "serious and potentially irreversible threats to biodiversity, as well as national sovereignty, peace, and food security."

Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, representing the Federation of German Scientists, said: "It is essential that we pause, to allow the scientific community, local communities and society at large to debate and reflect. We can't allow ourselves to be led by a novel technique.

"We lack the knowledge and understanding to release gene drives into the environment - we don't even know what questions to ask. To deliberately drive a species to extinction has major ethical, social and environmental implications."

"Gene drives will be one of the fiercest debates at CBD this year", added Jim Thomas of ETC Group. "Gene drives are advancing far too quickly in the real world, and so far are unregulated. There are already hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into gene drive development, and even reckless proposals to release gene drives within next four years."

Widespread scientific opposition to this hazardous technology



In the lead up to COP 13, taking place this week from 4th to 17th December, German Minister for the Environment Barbara Hendricks wrote a statement to NGOs saying she would not support the release of gene drives into the environment, saying:

"I share your concern that 'gene drives' can severely impact ecosystems, and believe that special precautions are needed in research and risk assessment. From an environmental point of view, I do not think that a release of organisms inheriting a 'gene drive' can be justified with our current level of knowledge."

In September 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also adopted a de facto moratorium on the support or endorsement of research into gene drives for conservation or other purposes, supported by 71 governments and 355 NGOs (out of a total of 544 votes cast). The successful motion calls for the IUCN Director General and Commissions
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 ...
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.
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STAMFORD  There was an unlikely gathering at a local museum for a field trip last week.

A group of preschool children and senior citizens gazed at pieces of art and browsed the natural history exhibits. The gathering at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich was the first joint trip between kids from the Childrens Learning Centers of Fairfield County and seniors from the Edgehill community  two Stamford-based organizations that have become strong partners in recent months.

The program is one of several initiatives CLC has led this year as part of a major rebranding.

The agency, now in its 114th year, is increasing its collaboration across the county at a time of declining support for early childhood education.

Besides cuts in state funding, there is uncertainty as to how the federal government will handle education since President-elect Donald Trump promised during his campaign to eliminate or drastically shrink the U.S. Department of Education.

Were committed to becoming less dependent upon government funding, CEO Marc Jaffe said. But having said that, it would be extremely difficult to liberate ourselves completely. There is a role for government to play. And certainly, government should be playing a role in helping to educate our youngest citizens who otherwise cant afford to have a preschool experience.

State and federal grants account for 70 percent of CLCs $15 million budget.

The organization, previously known as Childcare Learning Centers, recently changed its name and logo. Childcare was replaced by childrens and Fairfield County was added to highlight the agencys effect on communities outside Stamford.

Childcare, in certain respects, is almost an outdated notion, Jaffe said. Were much more disciplined and much more serious than that. We wanted the focus to be on childrens learning, not on childcare.

CLC, as it will continue to be known, offers early childhood programs at eight Stamford locations and serves about 1,500 children every year, from infant to 5 years old.

It accommodates families of all income levels with sliding scale-based fees and scholarships. Children in surrounding communities with parents who work in Stamford are eligible to attend. The agency also sponsors the Greenwich federal Head Start program.

More than 86 percent of CLCs children come from low-income families. In addition, about 70 percent of children come from immigrant households, where nearly 30 languages are spoken.

Jaffe said CLCs work has never been more important. Jaffe said research shows early childhood education is vital to childrens success and health. According to the Rauch Foundation, 85 percent of the brain is developed by age 5.

If you have an early childhood education, youre much more likely to be reading at grade level when youre in third grade, much more likely to graduate from high school, much more likely to get a job, more likely to be healthy, he said. For all of those reasons, it makes the most sense to support early childhood education.

Another challenge the agency faces is the gradual reduction of the Care 4 Kids program, which Jaffe said has been under assault. The program subsidizes child care and preschool for low-income families, but the state last summer tightened eligibility requirements for new program applicants and stopped awarding new subsidies.

Mary Jane Garcia, who has two children at CLC, lost her Care 4 Kids eligibility after the changes. The Stamford woman said the cut has had a great impact on her life.

Fortunately, she said, she is still eligible for other, smaller CLC subsidies.

Garcia leaves her 3-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son at CLCs main campus on Palmers Hill Road every morning before heading to work. She works at a doctors office for up to nine hours a day.

Garcia said the agencys flexible schedule definitely helps her family. But besides the schedule and the amazing teachers, the Philippines native said her two kids have been learning French and Spanish and they love going on field trips.

Edgehill resident Joan Weisman said Thursdays museum trip did not just benefit the children.

Its good for the spirits of both sides, she said.

Through the CLC and Edgehill partnership, seniors also visit the preschoolers at least once a month to read, play together and share some of their talents and special activities. The kids have also visited Edgehill, which is next to the agencys Palmer Hill Road site. On Halloween, for instance, a group of children visited Edgehill to sing songs and paint pumpkins with the seniors.

The intergenerational relationship is really great, said Weisman, chairman of Edgehills social action committee. It was a really fun experience.

noliveira@hearstmediact.com, 203-964-2265, @olivnelson
Westport Police / Contributed Photo

WESTPORT  A Bridgeport man allegedly punched someone in the face during an argument at Hall-Brooke Behavioral Health Services in May.

Police were called to the Long Lots Road facility, a branch of St. Vincents Medical Center, on May 11 to address a disturbance. Jeremy Aquino had been arguing with the victim he allegedly assaulted. Neither was an employee of the facility.
NORWALK  A branch of First County Bank at 660 Main Ave. was robbed Tuesday afternoon.

Police were alerted to the robbery at 2:10 p.m. The bank is on the town line with Wilton, and witnesses told police the robber fled in a car going toward Wilton.

Harold F. Cobin

Lt. Terry Blake, a Norwalk Police public information officer, said no one was injured.

In a broadcast to surrounding departments, Norwalk Police said the robber was wearing a Halloween mask. The broadcast also said he may have fled in a Jeep Liberty with New York license plates.

Blake said he hoped to provide a picture of the robber later in the day.
Sen. Graham and I discussed it again this morning and we hope to even have this bill ready before we leave next week, a bipartisan effort to say to the new president, give these young people a fighting chance, Durbin said in The Hill last week.

Pro-amnesty Sens. Durbin and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are working on a bill to grant legal status to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), President Obamas executive amnesty program that was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin is one of several "Gang of Eight" senators that are plotting legislation for the new Congress to grant amnesty to those that say they were brought into the U.S. unlawfully as minors.

You cant blame these kids for coming here, you cant blame these kids for coming out of the shadows, Graham said. (The Hill, Dec. 1, 2016)

Approximately 740,000 illegal aliens have received DACA since President Obama unilaterally implemented it in 2012, the Federation for American Immigration Reform reports.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is also supportive of a DACA amnesty. Rubio said he would not retroactively remove the temporary legal protections DACA recipients received from President Obama.

It expires. And what I would say is, if you have it, youll have it for the remainder of that period of time, but you will not be able to renew it, Rubio said. In the meantime, and its not a long period of time, but it does give us the time to do border security, modernization, and then move to something very reasonable for people like those who came here as children, or those who have been here for a long time who are not criminals to allow them to attain some legal status through a legal way, not an unconstitutional way, which is what DACA is.

FAIR says the push for amnesty in the aftermath of the 2016 election shows how out of touch these senators are with the American people.

"Donald Trump made opposing illegal immigration a focal point of this platform throughout the campaign," the group says in a Nov 15thlegislative update. "This position clearly resonated with voters: a Pulse Opinion Research poll commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies just ahead of the election found that voters overwhelmingly want our immigration laws enforced."

The poll found that 56 percent of likely voters supported causing illegal aliens to return to their home countries by penalizing employers, getting cooperation from local law enforcement, and denying welfare benefits and 54 percent believed that there has been too little effort placed on enforcing our immigration laws."

A Zogby Analytics exit poll conducted on behalf of FAIR similarly found that American voters, including Hispanic Americans, want our immigration laws enforced.

Lastly, Sen. Grahams claim that a DACA amnesty would pass overwhelming is not supported by fact. Indeed, Congress has repeatedly considered and rejected the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act was included in the comprehensive immigration reform bills that Congress refused to pass in 2006, 2007, and 2013. As a standalone measure, the bill has been equally unsuccessful.
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NORWALK  The Walk Bridge replacement project moved to the big screen Monday evening, as the Connecticut Department of Transportation whittled down its design alternatives in a public information meeting at The Maritime Aquariums IMAX Theater.

Chris Brown, senior project manager with HNTB, the consultant firm engaged by the DOT, was well aware that many local residents and business owners would prefer to see the existing 120-year-old structure repaired or replaced with a fixed bridge.

I know that theres some question about why dont we just lock down the bridge and not make it movable anymore, Brown said. Well, doing that doesnt address everything on the bridge that needs to be done.

If the state were to repair the bridges worn elements, Brown said, it still would be left running a modern railroad on an old bridge, and the two dont always mesh.

More than 100 people, including DOT Commissioner James P. Redeker, attended the meeting, which was held by the state to explain how it arrived at a 240-foot, vertical-lift-span bridge as its preferred replacement after considering 70 design concepts.

On the IMAX Theater screen, Brown showed the alternatives, ranging from rehabilitating the existing bridge to replacing it with a movable, or a low-, mid- or high-level fixed bridge.

Brown said a low-level fixed bridge would work if the DOT were starting with a clean slate. With the existing bridge in place, however, that would require construction of a temporary run-around bridge to allow train traffic to continue, he said.

More Information Three bridge finalists 170-foot rolling bascule, $330 million to $365 million. 170-foot vertical lift span, $380 million to $415 million. 240-foot vertial lift span, $425 million to $460 million. See More Collapse

Under such a scenario, he said, Youve got a bridge there now and youve got to keep those trains going, and youre working in close proximity to the operating railroad.

Brown said a high-level fixed bridge would be most costly and carry dire impacts for the city. With railroad bed grade increases limited to 1 percent, such a structure would require altering the approaches from the East Norwalk to South Norwalk Train stations, and replacing the latter station, he said.

The DOTs preferred design, which is also known as Option 11C, would provide the most advantages and fewest disadvantages, according to a fact sheet produced by the DOT.

Option C is the only alternative with foundations proposed outside of the existing swing span limits, allowing the existing bridge to remain operational longer during construction and requiring a shorter rail track outage, the fact sheet reads.

A number of elected officials, including State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and state Reps. Fred Wilms, R-Norwalk, Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, Terrie E. Wood, R-Darien and Christopher R. Perone, D-Norwalk, as well as Mayor Harry W. Rilling, attended the meeting.

Rilling described the DOT presentation as similar to one made to him and other officials several weeks ago.

Redeker said Monday evenings meeting, which was followed by a question-and-answer period, is part of the DOTs effort to engage the local community.

There are lot of impacts, there are a lot of parties, there are a lot of communications that have to take place, Redeker said. Its my commitment and that of my team to make this the best example of public participation, engagement, involvement and communications in something that will take place over many years.

rkoch@hearstmediact.com
Dec. 7, 1941 went down as a date "which will live in infamy," as President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces. As information poured from our most western state, newspapers across the mainland reacted. Here's a look at how our front and inside newspaper pages reacted to the event.
ALDA  Anthony Olderbak, a 23-year-old Lincoln man, is in the Buffalo County Jail after a high-speed chase on Monday afternoon that concluded on Highway 30, 2 miles west of Alda.

The chase began when Olderbak allegedly stole gasoline from a Holdrege business. After heading east on Interstate 80, Olderbak turned onto Highway 30 and continued east.

During the chase, the Nebraska State Patrol set out spikes in the cars path. The vehicle became disabled due to several flat tires, caused by the spikes. Olderbak voluntarily stopped about 2 miles west of Alda.

Olderbak was taken into custody without incident. As of Tuesday, he was lodged in the Buffalo County Jail on multiple charges, including felony possession of a stolen vehicle, felony flight to avoid arrest, driving during suspension and willful reckless driving. Olderbak also faces additional charges in Kansas, according to a State Patrol press release.

At about 3:15 p.m. Monday, the State Patrol was notified that a black 2005 Honda Pilot bearing a Kansas license plate that was suspected of involvement in the gasoline theft in Holdrege was observed traveling east on I-80 at the Elm Creek exit. A trooper observed the Honda a short time later about 3 miles west of the Kearney exit.

The pursuit began after the driver of the Honda failed to stop for the trooper. The vehicle fled east on I-80 until reaching the Cherry Avenue exit, where it headed north from I-80 on Highway 10. The driver then turned east onto Highway 30.

State Patrol personnel were assisted by the Buffalo County and Hall County sheriffs departments.
Yet Mr. Rauner has faced hurdles at every turn. Mike Madigan, Illinoiss powerful speaker of the house, almost immediately shot down the idea of serious right-to-work legislation. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the speakers daughter, issued a legal opinion arguing that right-to-work laws for local governments within a state are illegal. The Sixth Circuits judgment may help overcome such resistance.

Right to work is an important part of Gov. Bruce Rauners Turnaround Illinois agenda. Under his proposal, local governments would have the option to decide for themselves whether to adopt right to work. The policy could apply to workers in the private economy, as well as government employees. Any unit of local government could make this decisioncities, towns, counties, municipal wards and even school districts.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month in United Auto Workers v. Hardin County that Kentuckys local governmentsnot only the state legislaturecan decide whether to implement right-to-work laws, which ban unions from firing workers who refuse to pay dues. This ruling should relieve reformers throughout the Midwest, but its particularly good news for Illinois, where unions and their political allies have made securing workers freedom an uphill battle.

NEW YORK - In an op-ed published Monday in the Wall Street Journal , leaders of Americans for Prosperity-Illinois call for Right to Work in, of all states, Illinois. They base their call on a recent court ruling in Kentucky that may have set a Right to Work precedent that could be used throughout the nation.

After Hardin County in central Kentucky enacted its own local right-to-work law, the United Auto Workers and other unions challenged the policy in court. A federal-district court had previously sided with the unions in a ruling this February. But the Sixth Circuits unanimous decision upheld the countys ability to enact a local right-to-work policy on the basis of home rule. Under this principlea practice observed in most stateslocal governments are free to enact their own ordinances or laws, so long as they dont conflict with state law.

The issue is now moot in Kentucky, as newly empowered Republicans plan to enact a statewide right-to-work law. But the court has set a precedent, and many states should be optimistic. Ohio is still not a right-to-work state, but its counties and cities fall under the Sixth Circuits jurisdiction. These entities can immediately begin implementing right-to-work policies. The Ohio counties bordering right-to-work statesIndiana, Michigan, West Virginia, and soon Kentuckyhave the strongest incentive to act.

Although Illinois isnt under the Sixth Circuits jurisdiction, a similar challenge is already under way. The village of Lincolnshire, about 30 miles north of Chicago, enacted a right-to-work ordinance last year. Lincolnshire immediately faced lawsuits from unions, including the AFL-CIO.

Although the AFL-CIOs lawsuit has yet to be resolved, Illinois localities can now cite the precedent set in Kentucky. So can cities and counties in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and other states in a similar situation. If the case reaches the Seventh Circuit and the courts rule unfavorably, the issue could end up being decided by the Supreme Court.

Lincolnshire isnt the only municipality where right to work would be beneficial. These laws would help Winnebago County, next to Wisconsin, and many of the southern counties that border Kentucky, Missouri, and Indiana, where coal-related jobs have disappeared.

While progress on the local level is important, the entire state desperately needs the economic boom that accompanies the enactment of right-to-work laws. According to the latest data from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, Illinois lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs in the past year. Unemployment stands at 5.6%, about a point above the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Whereas Illinois and other forced-unionization states have struggled with persistent unemployment since the Great Recession, right-to-work states have 1 percentage point lower unemployment, on average, according to the Mackinac Center. These states also enjoy significantly higher economic growth. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that before 2012 forced-unionization states grew 40% slower, on average, than their right-to-work competitors. In 2010 Ohio University economist Richard K. Vedder wrote in CatoJournal that people move in extraordinary numbers to right-to-work states from forced-unionization states, bringing with them an influx of talent and new skillssomething Illinois desperately needs.

Right to work would also help attract businesses back to Illinois. When Indiana embraced the policy in 2012, 120 companies signaled that the decision would affect their choice to relocate to the Hoosier state, according to Gov. Mike Pence . Discussing Lincolnshires recent decision, a site-selection expert from the firm Biggins Lacy Shapiro and Co., wroteI can confirm that companies are aware of the opportunity and cite it as one of the reasons to consider a move.

Illinoiss localities dont have to idly watch as businesses and workers uproot for greener pastures. The Sixth Circuits ruling should inspire many of them to take matters into their own hands and pass right-to-work laws freeing local workers. The unions that control the levers of power in the state legislature may not like it, but they can no longer blockade the path to worker freedomand the many benefits it brings.

Mr. From is the Illinois state director of Americans for Prosperity, where Mr. Chougule is director of policy.
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.

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.)

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 is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Readers may send him email at doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com.
World Series no-hitter! Astros combine for Fall Classic's first no-no since 1956

Cristian Javier and three relievers combined to no-hit the Phillies in a 5-0 win, evening the World Series at 2-2.
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Linkedin Dharendra Wardhana (The Jakarta Post) London  Tue, December 6, 2016

Most people assume that Indonesia had an inauspicious fate on being a former colony of the Netherlands, simply as a result of comparison with former British colonies, for instance. While that conjecture might not necessarily be accurate, there are some facts that most Indonesians barely notice. We seldom learn that not all members of Commonwealth nations become developed economies. For example, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sierra Leone are not sharing the similar prosperity as Malaysia or Singapore.

Arguably, Indonesians might feel a little better when realizing that the worst colonizer is neither the Dutch nor the Japanese. It seems that teachers in schools barely teach the history of other colonies. According to the argument of Professor Tim Lankester from the University of Oxford, whom I met a few years ago, it was Belgium that was arguably among the worst colonizers when King Leopold made Congo his personal property, exploited its resources and overworked all its inhabitants between 1908 to 1960. In fact, the Belgian colonizer inflicted much irreversible damage. Hitherto, the prolonged strife still looming between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes is attributable to the ethnic separation policy. Undoubtedly, there are more stories of ill-fated colonies from all over the world, as vividly illustrated in Asian Drama (Myrdal, 1968).

Compared to other colonies experiences, we might be slightly fortunate that by the early 20th century, the Dutch administration eventually relented to the pressure of liberal politicians to promulgate Ethical Policy. At that time, the decision to accept moral responsibility for the welfare of colonial subjects ran counter to the formal official doctrine that the Netherlands East Indies was solely a profit-making region. That moment later became a milestone and marked the beginning of modern development policy as well as the start of nationalist struggles toward independence. Of the three aims of Ethical Policy, education seemed to carry sizable benefits particularly toward a middle class that progressively thought about the larger extent of natives equal rights.

Despite a limited number of positive outcomes ostensibly a result of contacts with colonists, we can view a wide range of concomitant adverse impact. Discrimination, segregation and unequal rights are usually the main pretexts for liberation from subjugation.

In the first decade after the end of World War II, at least 14 nation-states in Asia and Africa gained sovereignty. However, only three countries successfully managed to advance into thriving economies today. Six countries, including Indonesia, are actually on the right track of becoming middle-income countries, though they might still encounter enormous challenges ahead. The remaining five countries, mostly in Africa, are still lagging behind and have yet to find their development pathways. Apparently, there is a wide body of literature explaining different outcomes of former colonies development, but the results seem rather inconclusive.

There are not too many similar cases of a remarkable economic turnaround in Third World countries. What is revealing is not only the variety of statistics about the trajectory of economic development, but also the diversity of reforms on governance, democratization, decentralization and other intangible indicators.

Not only can lessons be drawn, but comparisons with other countries might also be of relevance especially because in the late 1940s, most of the newly-born nations were in the best possible position to take advantage of self rule. Nonetheless, they might have various sets of endowments and capacities when starting the administration. Within this context, gaining independence entails vast support from citizens. Consequently, the importance of working-class politics will engender the needs for extensive social programs to harness popular backing.

In a similar vein, newly independent states typically aspire to undertake warfare to welfare transformation of mindset underpinned by the fact that countries shifted their attention to the increase of production factors once granted independence. Hence, countries will enhance public provision such as health or entitlements for the sake of effective labor productivity. This strategy also echoes the notion of attaining theminimum $4,000-6,000 per capita income to sustain resilient democratic governance (Zakaria, 2007).

Correspondingly, it is not uncommon that left-wing ideologies played a pivotal role in the advent of new countries. Unfortunately, often this political spectrum was hijacked by demagogues to galvanize mass support yet offering false hope.

For the most part, middle-income trapped countries or failed states are examples of not getting the politics right, and related to this, of state weakness. However, the Indonesian case illustrates what is possible even when the state is relatively weak and domestic politics not seemingly promising. In Indonesia, the progress of development is demonstrated by substantial revamp in many aspects, which almost invariably took place in every regime change.

In the past, stabilization meant societies in which political leaderships have historically been content with cultivating support from a comparatively narrow base involving middle classes and wealthy groups. Nevertheless, widening inequality, a fragile economic base and weakened institutions were found to be the Achilles heel. Inexorably, push for reform and democratization became a necessity and eventually turned into a game-changer. It is not unthinkable that along with the increasing awareness of citizens, there will be stronger pressure for extended welfare provision in the midst of tighter budget constraints.

What is desperately needed is a redistribution of economic power that encompasses not only incomes but also any necessary means to empower society in improving livelihoods. The question of how much to redistribute is also inextricably linked to politico-economic considerations, which pose a new challenge on striking the delicate equilibrium between the two ideological stances, i.e. capitalism vis a vissocialism. Unfortunately however, maintaining an appropriate balance in its relation with both strands is always tricky anywhere.

Ultimately, the essence of gaining independence is to seek for greater prosperity and to remove barriers to equal opportunities for the citizens. The objectives can be made achievable through two important key elements. First, the freedom to earn a better livelihood through wider access to resources, which previously was highly restricted only for colonists and its collaborators. Second, the extension of social responsibility, particularly for the vulnerable indigenous groups.

***

The writer is currently on study leave from Ministry of Planning (Bappenas) and is now completing his PhD on Development Studies with reference to Emerging Economies at the Department of International Development, Kings College London, UK.

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Linkedin Eddy Leks (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Agrarian Law of 1960, as a fundamental land law in Indonesia, has regulated land registration, including registration of right to land and the issuance of certificates of right to land, which are considered strong evidence of ownership.

This fundamental provision means that registration of right to land and certificates of land are not considered absolute evidence, which also means ownership can still be nullified.

The provision for land registration under the Agrarian Law created legal issues for all buyers of land or real estate. On one hand, this provision gives an opportunity for the true owner to file a claim or objection with regards to the land registration and related certificates of land.

On the other hand, this opportunity results on legal uncertainty for all buyers, especially good faith buyers, who buy the land or real estate from the seller or previous owner.

The classic problem between justice, protecting the true owner, and legal certainty, protecting the buyer, is one issue that is always being debated between jurists and practitioners. To accommodate the two poles, a government regulation on land registration in 1997 provided further provisions concerning land certificates.

It stipulated that a land certificate is powerful evidence with regards to its physical and juridical data it contains, so long as the data are in accordance with data contained in the measurement letter and related book of land.

Furthermore, it regulates that if a plot of land has been validly certified under the name of an individual or legal entity that obtained that land in good faith and actually controls it, then other parties who feel they have rights to the land can no longer claim their rights if they had not filed objections in writing to the certificate holder and related chief of land office or do not file a claim through a court with regards to the occupation of land or issuance of that certificate of land within five years of the issuance of the certificate.

This provision is intended to provide legal certainty to buyers after the five-year period has lapsed. Unfortunately, however, this provision is not always considered by the judges. Hence, uncertainty among buyers, especially investors, is not resolved.

Worse still, many legal disputes between claimants, who may not have certificates as evidence, win the legal claim against the buyer or owner of the land who already has a certificate of land under his name.

One positive development is the stance by the Supreme Court judges with regards to land purchased in good faith. Just recently in 2015, there were two decisions, regarded as legal jurisprudence, supporting and protecting the legal position of a buyer in good faith.

These two decisions came from the public court and the state administrative court.

The essence of these two instances of jurisprudence is that the buyer is considered as having acted in good faith so long as the certificate of land is already registered under the name of the buyer, the transfer (sale and purchase) of the right is made before a land conveyancing officer and is done according to the laws.

This good faith buyer must be legally protected from the perspective of civil law, state administrative law and criminal law. This is highly positive for all buyers of land and investors in real estate and is especially important in terms of development of land registration regulations in Indonesia.

One of the backgrounds of these decisions was a circular letter by the Supreme Court addressed to all chief of first instance courts and appeal courts of Indonesia in 2012 and then followed by another circular letter in 2014.

Under the circular letter of 2012, the civil section of the Supreme Court determines that protection must be given to the good faith buyer even if it is later discovered that the seller was not entitled to sell the land or real estate.

The true owner or claimant to the land can only file a claim for compensation against the seller who was not entitled to sell the land or real estate. Accordingly, the good faith buyer is legally protected.

An important point to note is that the protection is given only to a good faith buyer, not to all buyers. Therefore, it is crucial to understand what constitutes good faith.

Blacks Law Dictionary defines good faith as a state of mind consisting of honesty in belief or purpose, faithfulness to ones duty or obligation, observance of reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing in a given trade or business, or absence of intent to defraud or to seek unconscionable advantage.

Prof. Siti Ismijati Jeni explains that good faith derives from Roman law terminology, namely bonafides. She further explains that good faith refers to honesty and appropriateness.

In the same dictionary, bona fides is defined as the standard of conduct expected of a reasonable person, especially in making contracts and similar actions, acting without fraudulent intent or malice.

In short, elements of good faith are honesty, understanding ones obligation as a buyer, fair dealing and having no immoral intention.

To shorten it further, as Prof. Siti mentioned, good faiths elements are simply honesty and appropriateness. These elements must be proved to be considered a good faith buyer.

The circular letter and these two examples of jurisprudence are good signs for the judicial process in Indonesia, especially in providing legal certainty over land or real estate acquisition by buyers or investors.

This certainty is important to all land owners, having fulfilled these two elements when the purchase was made. When the legal certainty is upheld, one may confidently expect that national economic development will be steadier.

***

The writer is CEO and managing partner at Leks & Co., Lawyers. The views expressed are his own.

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Linkedin Good Indonesian Food (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

I encountered many interesting facets that make Tanjung Pandan in Belitung such a remarkable place  from the unique daily rituals of its people to the variety of its delicious local cuisine. One that has still haunted me since I returned from my recent trip there was soto Belitung (Belitung beef soup).

I chanced upon this local treat while I was paying a visit to one of the longest standing eateries in Tanjung Pandan: Kedai Mak Jannah. A well-known establishment among the locals, it was founded in 1970 and its rising popularity since then has seen it become the go-to culinary stopover for both local and international tourists.

Its signature dish is, of course, soto Belitung, which has an appearance that is very similar to lontong sayur (rice cakes with vegetable stew in coconut milk soup) and shares more or less the same composition of ingredients.

(Read also: Nusa Kuliner app puts spotlight on Indonesia's traditional cuisines)

It consists of a bowl of flavorful coconut milk soup filled with rice cakes, rice vermicelli, potato and shredded beef and topped with fried shallots and kerupuk emping (seed crackers). Its smooth coconut milk soup combines well with the soft shredded beef, and lends a flavor that could set any tongue wagging.

Kedai Mak Jannahs opening hours are quite short, with morning being the most hectic time of the day. For many of the citys residents, a serving of soto Belitung has become the favorite way to start their day. The strategic location in the city center makes Kedai Mak Jannah easy to reach before they continue on with their daily activities.

While I was there, I took the opportunity to discover the history behind Kedai Mak Jannah by conversing with its affable owner Pak Ucu, who is the grandson of the shops founder. My grandparents laid the foundations of this business by opening a small warung not for from here. Not long after, they moved to this current location. Back then, it was located a bit further to the back and the building itself was a lot more modest. Fortunately, the local government conducted a redevelopment of this area three years ago by building modern shops, he said. (kes)

Explore more about Indonesian cuisine here.

Where: Kawasan KV Senang, Jl. Veteran, Tanjung Pandan

Opening hours: Opens daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Asmara Wreksono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Twitterverse has been poking fun at Jean-Paul Gaultiers creation for Hermes that was featured at the Paris Haute Couture Week 2010. The creation in question features a clutch resembling nasi lemak banana leaf package, a Malay delicacy that is known to be a very simple and cheap meal.

A photo posted by Maegan Yip Rue Vey (@himegzy) on Nov 30, 2016 at 9:13am PST

The whole brouhaha took me back to earlier this year, when in March 2016, Balenciaga released its Bazar handbag series that resemble Thai (and Indonesian) shopping bags commonly used by traditional market vendors and buyers. Twitter exploded with retweets of images of the said bags, Instagram was full of comparisons of Balenciagas new creation against the real thing along with comments criticizing the fashion house for stealing intellectual property of the Thai people.

The controversy continued up to the point where the Thai government had to make a statement about the real difference of the two products and that no intellectual property had been stolen from the Southeast Asian nation.

Balenciaga Bazar handbag(Balenciaga/File)

Maybe its 2016 and its mercury retrograde that creates confusion and chaos, but I wonder why almost nobody said a word about 2014 and 2015 where some really big names in fashion attempted to get fresh with their hilarious interpretation of everyday things and managed to get away with the comedic collections? Sure, not being Asian enough is a reason to dismiss the hilarity, however, lets take another look.

It seems like the Paris design directives in 2014 pointed out to grocery stores, hence a name as big as Chanel sucked it up and dared to come up with this fancied-up grocery basket priced at US$12,500.

I have mixed feelings about this particular piece, but who am I to argue with Karl Lagerfeld.

(Read also: Soon, we'll be checking in hotel Karl Lagerfeld)

Chanel Brass and Leather Shopping Basket(1stdibs.com/File)

However, I seriously think Lagerfeld predicted that the world is filled with people such as I am who would laugh at such high-fashion monstrosity, he decided to keep Chanels signature elegance in the form of mini-milk-carton-inspired minaudiere emblazoned with Lait de Coco on its body, plus its only priced at $4,800.

Chanels Lait de Coco minaudiere (Baghunter.com/File)

The year 2014 also seemed to be a good time for brand-designer collaborations. British designer, Anya Hindmarch, joined forces with household-name cereal brand, Kelloggs. Hindmarch applied Kelloggs iconographies Tony the Tiger from the famous Kelloggs Frosted Flakes product and the chicken logo from the classic Kelloggs Corn Flakes on to Anya Hindmarchs handbags.

Of course, the stark contrast is the price of Frosted Flakes at $4.12 per box to one of Anya Hindmarchs genuine-leather bags featuring the same orange tiger from the box, which goes for $1,700.

Anya Hindmarch X Kelloggs(Anya Hindmarch/File)

Still in 2014, Moschino paid homage to American fast food chain, McDonalds. As Moschino has the reputation of inserting fun elements in its products, it was no surprise seeing the brand, under the direction of designer Jeremy Scott, made an ode to McDonalds Happy Meal box into something to strut around with on fashion runwaysor in hipster parties.

The main handbag featured a bright-red Chanel-inspired quilt style with the re-styled golden arches logo in the middle of the front flap, and for a price of $1,265, can still be yours today as its still available at most high-end e-commerce stores.

A homage to McDonalds(Moschino/File)

Interestingly enough, the fun collection sparked controversy when McDonalds US-based employees criticized the collaboration as insensitive to their minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which tallies up to about $400 to $600 per month. Another interesting part of this so-called ode to the iconography, McDonalds claimed to be unaware of the Moschino collection and the fashion house remained tight-lipped about the use and re-styling of the famous golden arches.

For its Spring/Summer 2016 collection, Anya Hindmarch stole the show again with a collaboration with French supermarket giant Carrefour and kidswear brand Mothercare, by stamping both brands logos unashamedly on its bags. Priced at $2,250 each, these bags will immediately catch anyones attention when worn.

Anya Carrefour Mini Ephson Shoulder Bag(Anya Hindmarch/File)

The question is: would you prefer to spend your hard-earned cash indirectly promoting brands that would give you free shopping bags anyway? Most people would shake their heads in disagreement, however if you think about it, this iconography trend might become the next classic collectible in the future, so it might be a good idea to look at them as future investments.

Aside from the (sometimes) hilarious interpretations, I applaud these high-end designers for their creativity in taking inspirations from everyday iconography and objects as simple as nasi lemak. However, not to be a party pooper here, but I really think young Indonesian designers should start taking inspiration from these creations and immortalize our own iconic local iconographies and traditional everyday things into their own designs.

Because who knows, maybe well see Nasi Padang Bungkus-inspired clutches or maybe Rinso-inspired backpack in the future. Will we laugh, though? I have a feeling well be proud instead.

Indonesian brands, are you listening?
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Linkedin Masajeng Rahmiasri (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Tue, December 6, 2016

Two Indonesian films received special mentions at the 27th Singapore International Film Festival on Saturday.

Turah, a debut feature film by Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo, was granted an award at the Asian Feature Film Competition section, while On the Origin of Fear, the directorial debut of Bayu Prihantoro Filemon, gained recognition in the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition section.

It feels as if my proposal has been accepted by my significant other. This [accomplishment] is from Tegal to the world, Wisnu said about his film that was shot in Tegal, Central Java.

(Read also: East Nusa Tenggara documentary highlights challenging marriage traditions)

'Turah' production team-actor Ubaidillah (left), director Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo (right) and actor Slamet Ambari (front) pose during the red carpet of 27th Singapore International Film Festival's Silver Screen Awards. (27th Singapore International Film Festival/Bonnie Yap)

Meanwhile, Bayu commented, This award serves as a mark that Indonesian films, especially [films from] Yogyakarta, have gained more acceptance by the Southeast Asian audience," adding that the special mention award would inspire and challenge him to create more works that speak about the things around him.

The 79-minute Turah tells a fictional story about oppressed people from the Tirang village who barely earn enough to fulfill their basic needs but never question how the village is governed. One day, Jadag, an alcoholic, accuses the leaders of being unjust, which leads to a chaotic situation.

The film, which was inspired by real events, was given a special mention by the jury panel for its exposure of the corruption and hypocrisy inherent in our society through the microcosm of a small village, showing how the strong oppresses the weak, while never losing sight of the inherent humanity in all its characters.

(Read also: 'Prenjak' wins another international award in Singapore)

Meanwhile, On the Origin of Fear received a special mention award for its existential exploration on the evils of humanity. The 13-minute film takes place in a recording studio, showing how a soldier takes both the role of victim and aggressor in a scripted anti-communist campaign. Bayu told The Jakarta Post that he was inspired to create the movie due to his own traumatic experience when watching an anticommunist film when he was a child.

The winners were announced during the Silver Screen Awards of the event, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival 2016, which is slated to run until Dec. 9. (kes)
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Semarang  Tue, December 6, 2016

The government, overseeing more than 13,000 islands within Indonesian territory, has only recently decided to make an inventory of the small islands and discern their ownership.

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry said it would allow no one to own 100 percent of an island because according to Indonesian law, approximately 30 percent should go to the state.

The island inventory has become a struggle for local administrations as the ban on sales, usually done privately, is not only applicable for local people but also foreigners.

We will immediately launch a program to ascertain the status of the islands, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said on Saturday while accepting an honorary doctorate from Diponegoro University in Semarang, West Java.

The government should know the value of the states assets [in the islands], the dimensions of the islands and their potential. That will be included in our program, Susi added.

So far, the country, which celebrated its 71st anniversary last Aug. 17, has no specific calculation or inventory regarding the dimensions and natural resource potential of the small islands in Indonesia, all of which are supposed to be state assets.

However, it is widely known that many islands have been occupied by locals and foreigners, who have turned them into private and commercial resorts.

Not all of the privately owned islands are located far from the governments reach.

In the Thousands Islands, the archipelagic regency in the northern part of Jakarta, at least 66 out of 110 islets are owned privately, according to Jakarta Police data.

Earlier this year, the government reprimanded a Singapore-based developer, Funtasy Island Development (FID) Pte Ltd., for denoting Manis Island near Batam, Riau Islands, as Singaporean territory on a promotional map.

The ministrys marine space management director general, Brahmantya Satyamurti Poeadi, said on Sunday that private ownership of the islands was prohibited under the Constitution.

Article 33 Point 3 of the Constitution mandates that the nations earth, natural resources and water are controlled by the state and should be utilized for the sake of peoples welfare, meaning that, according to Brahmantya, all islands in the country are owned by the state, thus selling or buying islands privately should not be allowed.

In addition, the 2007 Law on the management of coastal areas and small islands prohibits exclusive ownership of an island, particularly ownership by foreigners.

Thats why we should record the islands, including their dimensions, ownership and potential. We will set sanctions for those [who are found violating the law], Brahmantya said.

He added that the ministry was still preparing the details of the program, which was set to be completed by the end of the month.

The Indonesian Center for Environment Law (ICEL) praised the plan, calling it one step ahead of the ministry but warned that it should coordinate with other government institutions and the public.

ICEL deputy director Reynaldi Sembiring said it was hard to get specific data on island ownership because the owners could avoid scrutiny from non-government entities.

Individuals and corporations have interests in the islands. Implementing the inventory program wont be easy for the government, Reynaldi said.

He added that private islands had a high probability of environmental damage because most of the owners built up tourism areas and resorts.
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine and Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The blatant use of political campaign material in the cultural parade held during the Car Free Day event in Central Jakarta on Sunday has drawn strong criticism from civil society groups, with accusations that it had hijacked the popular event for political purposes.

Initiators of the Car Free Day slammed the Kita Indonesia (We are Indonesia) rally, saying it had contravened the core principle of the event as an occasion for character building and promotion of the importance of improving the citys air quality by reducing the dependency on private vehicles.

Executive director of the Committee for the Phasing Out of Leaded Fuel (KPBB), Ahmad Syafrudin, condemned the politically driven cultural parade, claiming it violated a policy banning political activities during Car Free Day.

The citys communitarian character is continuously developed through Car Free Day, Ahmad said during a press conference on Monday.

Representing the community of citizens, he demanded an apology from the organizers responsible for the parade and called on acting Jakarta governor Sumarsono to blacklist them from taking part in the event in the future.

He stressed civil society groups had gone through an extensive process of solidifying the values nurtured by the Car Free Day only to have it shattered in a matter of hours.

Activists and NGOs concerned about air pollution gathered in 2001 to initiate the Car Free Day in an attempt to address Jakartas air pollution problem. It was first held on Sept. 22, 2002 in collaboration with the Jakarta Police after an attempt to stage it the previous year failed.

Since 2005, the Car Free Day in Jakarta has been held to fulfill the mandate of the Regional Regulation No. 2/2005 on Air Pollution Control.

Sumarsono praised Sundays parade but criticized the political activities. Fundamentally, yesterdays event was good as it was intended to uphold the diversity of Indonesia, he said.

However, he reiterated that the Gubernatorial Regulation No. 12/2016 only allowed three activities  sports, environment and culture and arts  at Car Free Day.

The regulation also stipulates that the venue cannot be used for political activities, including propaganda and issues related to SARA, he said, referring to the incitement of ethnic, religious, racial or class divisions.

The regulation was issued by Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama who is currently on leave campaigning for reelection.

Sumarsono, however, said the city administration could not impose any punishment as the regulation did not stipulate sanctions. Well just reprimand the organizers, he said. Sumarsono also noted that the event had not caused major environmental problems. Some plants were damaged as people trod on them, he said.

Ahok also denounced the involvement of political campaigning at the parade, even though it involved political parties that support his gubernatorial candidacy.

I have read the news, I do not know how it could happen when I was on leave, he said.

Ahok said the Golkar Party and the Nasdem Party, which support the Ahok-Djarot Saiful Hidayat ticket, never discussed the parade with him. Ahok added that he had banned Transjakarta buses from being used in political activities.

Transjakarta president director Budi Kaliwono said operators of buses used by the political parties in the parade would face sanctions.

It turns out the buses were hired from our operator Perum PPD, he said, referring to a state-owned bus operator.

Perum PPD president director Pande Putu Yasa said the hirers had only said that the buses would be used for a cultural event.

He said the bus rent was approximately Rp 1.6 million (US$118.4) for one day.
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Attorney General HM Prasetyo announced Tuesday that the trial of non-active Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama would be moved to the Central Jakarta District Court on Dec. 13.

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) had previously submitted Ahoks case dossier to the North Jakarta District Court along with 51 pieces of evidence.

However, Prasetyo told lawmakers that the trial would be moved because of a technical reason. The North Jakarta District Court building is under construction so a trial cannot take place there, he said during a hearing at the House of Representatives Commission III overseeing law and human rights.

Prasetyo, a politician from the NasDem Party, explained that 13 state prosecutors had prepared their indictment for the blasphemy case implicating Ahok, whose judgments, according to Prasetyo, would be reliable.

Ahok was charged for allegedly violating articles 156 and 156a of the Criminal Code on blasphemy. He was named a suspect by the National Police on Nov. 16 for a controversial statement during a working visit to Thousand Islands regency on Sept. 25.

Two mass demonstrations on Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, respectively, took place demanding the prosecution of the governor, who is seeking reelection, rivalling candidates of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's son Agus Harimurti and former education minister Anies Baswedan. The Jakarta gubernatorial election will take place on Feb. 15, 2017. (yan)
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Linkedin Esther Htusan (Associated Press) Yangon  Tue, December 6, 2016

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, seeking reconciliation among ethnic groups in fractious western Myanmar, urged the army on Tuesday to respect civilians' rights as concerns rise about treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

Annan spoke after meeting with top officials and making a three-day trip to Rakhine state, where the army has been conducting aggressive sweeps since October, when unidentified armed men killed nine policemen manning posts along the border with Bangladesh.

Human rights groups accuse the army of abuses including rape, the killing of hundreds of civilians and the burning of villages. The army denies the allegations. But Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak led a rally Sunday against what he called "genocide" of Rohingya and urged Asian neighbors and the world to step up pressure to stop the violence.

Annan heads a commission appointed in August by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to recommend measures to ease tensions between the Muslim Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists in the Buddhist-majority nation. Inter-communal violence in 2012 killed hundreds and caused about 140,000 people  predominantly Rohingya  to take shelter in camps for the internally displaced. There are still 100,000 living in squalid conditions in the camps.

Annan, who was in Rakhine from Friday through Sunday, said in a statement that his group was "deeply concerned by the reports of alleged human rights abuses."

He met Monday with President Htin Kyaw and Tuesday with State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's de facto leader. He also met Tuesday with army commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

"I made clear to him that it is important for the military to do what they are doing but the civilians also have their rights and they should be able to live a normal life," Annan said at a news conference.

"In my mind it's very clear that the military has two important roles. Yes, it has the role to protect the state and the interest of the state, but also has a responsibility which is extremely important  security forces have to be careful in protecting civilian rights and rights of the civilian population."

Referring to reports that aid groups were being barred from delivering assistance to the Rohingya population, Annan said his commission "also stressed that security operations must not impede humanitarian access to the population." Annan said they were assured that access would be allowed for humanitarian assistance.

He also said he hoped that the media, barred from the area of the conflict in northern Myanmar, would soon be allowed access to help dispel rumors about the situation.

Annan declined to speak publicly about the credibility of reports of army abuses.

"We went to the region but we didn't walk into a live conflict," he said. "We did see houses which have been burned. You asked if we saw rape, that is not possible. We didn't go there to investigate. That has to be investigated by those with expertise and knowledge. That wasn't our role and so we cannot talk about that."

"For the issue of genocide, this is a very serious charge," he said.

"It is a charge that requires legal review and judicial determination. It is not a charge that should be thrown around loosely."

Many Rohingya, a minority of about 1 million among Myanmar's 52 million people, have lived in Myanmar for generations, but most people in the country view them as foreign intruders from neighboring Bangladesh.
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Publicly listed general insurer Asuransi Multi Artha Guna (MAG) is expecting moderate net premium income growth at a range of 15 to 20 percent in 2017 by focusing on new products following the companys acquisition by Canadian financial holding firm Fairfax.

President director Linda Juliana J.L. Delhaye said the company would offer a number of new products, such as travel, health, and loan insurance, in addition to its existing vehicle and property insurance schemes. The products would mainly be sold under bancassurance partnerships.

"After the acquisition, we will get expertise and knowledge transfer from Fairfax, then we can create new products in a more efficient way," she said on Monday.

In October, Hong Kong-based Fairfax Asia Ltd., a subsidiary of the Fairfax Group that manages its operations in Asia, completed an 80 percent purchase of Asuransi MAG's shares from Panin Group in a US$165 million deal. Panin retained 11.52 percent in the company, while the remaining 8.48 percent was owned by the public.

In the third quarter, Asuransi MAG saw its net premium income dropped by 9.6 percent year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 402.01 billion ($29.9 million). The company has attributed the decline to bigger reinsurance premiums it had to pay.

Fairfax Asia Ltd. chairman Ramaswamy Athappan, meanwhile, hinted that Asuransi MAG would carry out more aggressive expansion, as he wanted the company to increase its income from premiums fivefold in the next four years. (hwa)
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Tue, December 6, 2016

Police have busted a baby trafficking syndicate in Medan, North Sumatra, arresting two suspects and securing four infants.

Belawan Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Tri Setiadi Artono said the suspects, identified as Ayen, 35, and Lina, were arrested separately in their houses in Medan early on Tuesday morning.

The suspects had earlier sold five babies to buyers in Jakarta with prices ranging from Rp 5 million to Rp 15 million, Tri said.

He said that Ayen acted as a seller while Lina was the go-between in the transactions.

(Read also: Number of child trafficking victims increases to 148: Police)

Tri revealed that the suspects committed the crime by approaching poor parents who could not afford to pay medical bills for the delivery of the babies.

The suspects then financed the delivery and took the babies from their parents, he added.

He said the suspects would be charged under article 83 of Law No. 35/2014 on child protection, which carries a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison. (jun)
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Tue, December 6 2016

Authorities arrested four men from Bandung, West Java, on Monday and foiled their attempt to smuggle 3 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine through Kualanamu Airport, Deli Serdang, North Sumatra.

The four suspects  Erwin Rusdiana, 29, Dadan Supriyatna, 29, Ega Yosanda, 25, Toro Suntoro, 34  were arrested at the airport while waiting for a flight to Soekarno-Hatta airport, Tangerang.

The men, all identified as Bandung residents, allegedly came to Medan to pick up the crystal meth, locally known as sabu-sabu, from someone called Dody and later planned sell it in the West Java capital.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The National Narcotics Agency (BNN) destroyed huge amounts of narcotics on Tuesday, all of which were uncovered in the agencys drug seizure operations in the last two months.

Using an incinerator, the agency destroyed 323,000 nimetazepam happy five pills, 190,840 ecstasy pills, 422 kilograms of marijuana and 445 kg of crystal methamphetamine, locally known as sabu-sabu, in the National Monument (Monas) area in Central Jakarta.

The narcotics were seized from 29 suspects. They were caught in joint operations between the BNN, the National Police and the Directorate General of Customs and Excise [of the Finance Ministry], BNN head Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso told journalists at the event.

(Read also: Thousands of ecstasy pills seized in BNN operation in N.Jakarta)

Budi also announced that this year the BNN had seized 990 kg of crystal meth, 3,051 kg of marijuana and 616.534 ecstasy pills. In total, there were 196 narcotics-related suspects undergoing trials," he said.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo, who was present at the event, requested that Budi increase the BNNs performance in narcotics eradication next year.

Those are really huge numbers [of narcotics seized]. 15,000 people die every year because of drugs, now how many drug dealers die annually? said Jokowi, directing the question at Budi.

Budi said there was a loophole in the countrys law on narcotics, which suspects could harness to avoid the maximum sentence.

We have to work on this because some suspects are free of indictment. In addition, as the leading sector [in narcotics eradication], we have to be able to uncover more drug supply chains and networks, he said. (adt)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) has welcomed the Transportation Ministrys decision to limit, instead of scrap, the operational hours of trucks on major highways for the upcoming Christmas holiday season.

The ministry announced Tuesday that it would limit, from Dec. 23 to Dec. 26, the number of cargo and container trucks on highways to help ease congestion. In some areas, the ministry plans to apply the odd-even license plate policy if the situation allows it.

During the same period, the truck ban will only be applied on five toll roads: Merak-Jakarta, Kembangan-JORR W2-Cikunir, Cawang-Cileunyi, Cawang-Brebes Timur and Cawang-Bogor-Ciawi.

We appreciate this policy. This shows good collaboration between regulators and business players. [We] hope that such a policy can be applied during other national holidays, such as New Year and Idul Fitri, Kadin vice chairperson for transportation Carmelita Hartoto said.

Nearly 18 million people are expected to travel on public transportation during the Christmas holiday season, a 5 percent increase from last years figure. (win/hwa)
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Linkedin Julie Pace and Matthew Pennington (Associated Press) Washington  Tue, December 6, 2016

Whether by accident or design, President-elect Donald Trump is signaling a tougher American policy toward China, sparking warnings from both the outgoing Obama administration and Beijing.

On Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said progress with the Chinese could be "undermined" by a flare-up over the sovereignty of Taiwan, the self-governing island the US broke diplomatic ties with in 1979. That split was part of an agreement with China, which claims the island as its own territory, although the US continues to sell Taiwan billions in military equipment and has other economic ties.

Trump broke protocol last week by speaking with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, then took to Twitter to challenge China's trade and military policies.

"It's unclear exactly what the strategic effort is," Earnest said. "I'll leave that to them to explain."

So far, Trump's advisers have struggled to explain his action, sending mixed messages about whether the conversation with Taiwan's leader was a step toward a new policy or simply a congratulatory call. Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Trump "knew exactly what was happening" when he spoke with Tsai, but Vice President-elect Mike Pence described the interaction as "nothing more than taking a courtesy call of congratulations."

Trump has pledged to be more "unpredictable" on the world stage, billing the approach as a much-needed change from President Barack Obama's deliberative style and public forecasting about US policy. But Trump's unpredictability is likely to unnerve both allies and adversaries, leaving glaring questions about whether the foreign policy novice is carrying out planned strategies or acting on impulse.

China's authoritarian government likes predictability in its dealings with other nations, particularly the United States. The US and China are the world's two largest economies with bilateral trade in goods and services reaching nearly US$660 billion last year.

While there have been sharp differences between Beijing and Washington on China's island building in the South China Sea and over alleged Chinese cybertheft of US commercial secrets, the two powers have cooperated effectively on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.

Taiwan split from the Chinese mainland in 1949. American policy acknowledges the Chinese view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, yet the US considers Taiwan's status as unsettled. The US is Taiwan's main source of weapons, with $14 billion in approved arms sales since 2009.

US diplomats were shocked by Trump's telephone call with the Taiwanese leader. Several officials privately expressed deep unease that Trump's team did not inform the administration in advance or give it a chance to provide input.

Max Baucus, the US ambassador to China, spoke about the matter Saturday with China's vice foreign minister to reiterate America's one-China policy on behalf of the current administration.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday that China would have "no comment on what motivated the Trump team" to make the tweets, and he said he believed both sides would continue to support a "sound and a stable bilateral relationship."

But a commentary on the state-run Xinhua news agency issued a veiled warning.

"Succeeding a mostly upward US-China relationship, Trump also needs to resist the light-headed calls for provocative and damaging moves on China by some hawkish political elites," said the commentary by Luo Jun. "The outdated zero-sum mindset is poisonous for Washington's foreign relations. It would be a mistake to think that Washington could gain from undercutting Beijing's core interests."

Stephen Yates, a former national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who has been in touch with Trump advisers, said the call with Tsai was arranged by the transition team and showed the president-elect wants to rebalance the US relationship with China.

"He is not going to be told who he can or cannot talk to," Yates said by email as he flew to Taiwan for a trip he said was planned before the election. "He meant what he said about being open to leaders who seek good relations with the US He knows more about these subjects than he might let on."

As a presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency and trying to "rape our country" with unfair trade policies.

Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Trump appears to be signaling a willingness to increase ties with Taiwan, but not necessarily a full overhaul of US policy.

"It doesn't mean we're going to poke the Chinese in the eye; it doesn't mean we're going to change the 'One China policy,'" said Lohman, whose think tank has been advising Trump's transition. "But it does mean we will reform our Taiwan policy to reflect reality."

___

AP writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Beijing  Tue, December 6, 2016

The first 120 troops of a 700-member Chinese UN peacekeeping force have departed for South Sudan, deepening China's commitment to the troubled East African nation, where two of its peacekeepers were killed in fighting over the summer.

The new troops, who departed on Sunday, are part of the third Chinese battalion to be sent to South Sudan to protect civilians, UN staff and humanitarian workers, and to conduct patrols and provide security escorts.

South Sudan has seen continuous fighting since its civil war broke out in December 2013. The more than 12,000 UN peacekeepers already in the country have been criticized for failing to protect civilians. China was an early investor in the new state's energy sector, but fighting and corruption have largely prevented it from reaping any benefits.

In July, two Chinese peacekeepers died and five others were wounded after their vehicle was struck with a rocket-propelled grenade as fighting swept the capital, Juba.

China has maximized publicity of its contribution to UN peacekeeping as part of its push to raise its international profile. China is now the biggest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, with 2,639 currently deployed on six missions, mostly assigned to medical, engineering and transport duties. Yet in actual terms, that still leaves China ranked 12th overall among nations that have contributed peacekeepers, led by Ethiopia, India and Pakistan.

In total, China contributes about 3 percent of total UN peacekeeping forces. In South Sudan, Chinese forces make up less than 10 percent of the total. Chinese peacekeepers also make up only a tiny fraction of the People's Liberation Army's 2.3 million personnel.

In a high-profile announcement at the UN General Assembly last year, President Xi Jinping said that China would also set up a permanent peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops to be deployed whenever necessary. No details were given on the makeup and mission of that force, and there has been no word on whether it has been established yet.
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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Indonesias efforts to attain 5.1 percent economic growth next year may fall short without a significant boost to the two top contributors of the economy, consumer spending and investment, economists say.

Prominent economist Faisal Basri projected that growth would be hindered partly by heavy pressure on consumer spending, which makes up 55 percent of the nations gross domestic product (GDP), and amount to no more than 5 percent in 2017.

Consumer spending is under heavy pressure, especially for lowincome people, the University of Indonesia (UI) economist said Monday during a seminar in Jakarta discussing the outlook of Indonesias economy. Consumption will slow down.

Consumer spending contributes the most to the nations economy, having grown about 5 percent in the past few years. It is followed by investment, which accounts for 32 percent of GDP and grew 4.88 percent from January to September year-on-year. Government spending only accounts for 10 percent.

Wahyoe Soedarmono, a financial economist from the Sampoerna Universitys School of Business, noted that it would be difficult for President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration to reach its ambitious 2019 goal of 7 percent growth without increasing the ratio of investments to GDP to 44 percent.

The government recently aimed for economic growth of 5.1 percent this year, slightly lower than the 5.2 percent target that was in the revised 2016 state budget, as it decided to reduce public spending in a bid to maintain a healthy fiscal balance.

The Rp 137 trillion (US$10.13 billion) cut to the state budget was made in early August after President Jokowi called for efficiency measures in the form of trimming less important spending. The move directly impacted government spending, which contracted by 2.97 percent in the third quarter.

The government has remained upbeat despite facing many predictions that its targets are unachievable.

Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said infrastructure and deregulation would remain key priorities next year, along with other improvements to reduce the dependency of domestic industries on imports.

The infrastructure projects, as they roll out, are expected to have trickle-down effects triggering loan demand and pushing credit growth to between 7 and 11 percent in 2017, higher than this years prediction of 7 to 9 percent.

In order to achieve this, the government needed to extend financial inclusion across the country as it would help support any investment needs, economists said.

We need to increase the proportion of national savings, which currently only hovers at about 33 percent, to 44 percent in 2019 in order to reach the 7 percent growth target, which can be fully supported by national savings, Wahyoe said.

One way to boost financial inclusion is to take advantage of the fastgrowing information technology sector to reach remote regions that have no access to banking or financial services because of a lack of infrastructure.

However, he warned that any transactions through financial technology (fintech) should be integrated with a formal financial intermediary in order to minimize any possibility of corruption.

There are about 120 fintech firms, mostly startups, currently operating in Indonesia in separate segments, such as peer-to-peer lending, e-wallets, crowdfunding and financial settlements, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) data show.

Total transactions within the fintech platforms are forecast to reach $14.5 billion with an average annual growth rate of 18.8 percent expected by 2020, according to market statistics portal Statista. (win)
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Linkedin Fadli and Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Batam/Kupang  Tue, December 6 2016

The crash of a turboprop plane operated by the National Polices air division in the waters of Riau Islands is the six aviation accident in the country in less than three months, once again putting Indonesias aviation safety in the spotlight.

With 13 people on board, the Polish-made Skytruck M28 crashed near Lingga regency in Riau Islands while flying from Pangkal Pinang, Bangka Belitung, to Batam, in Riau province, on Saturday.

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Linkedin Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Surabaya Corruption Court started the trial on Tuesday of the former minister of state-owned enterprises, Dahlan Iskan, over corruption charges involving the sale of assets worth Rp 11 billion (US$846 million) owned by PT Panca Wira Usaha, an East Java administration company.

Officials from the East Java Prosecutors Office accused Dahlan, who is also the owner of the Jawa Pos News Network, one of the countrys largest media groups, committed the crime while serving as the companys president director from 2000 to 2010.

The sale was not approved by the the provinces council and governor. It was only approved by the council chairman at that time, Trimo, one of the prosecutors, said while reading the indictment.

(Read also: Former minister Dahlan tried for corruption)

Trimo said Dahlan was charged with violating Article 2 of Law No. 20/2001 on corruption eradication, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison upon conviction.

Dahlan said he denied the charges.

I understand the indictment. I even know the background of the indictment. Prosecutors made it in a hurry. I reject it, Dahlan told the panel of judges.

After consulting with his team of lawyers, led by Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Dahlan asked for a week to prepare his objection to the indictment. (jun)
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Linkedin Edy SP (Member of the Indonesian FinTech Association and CEO of PT Espay Debit Indonesia Koe (uNIK.id) and PT Pembayaran Lintas Usaha Sukses (espay.id)) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The transaction solution service offered by payment gateway companies has become a leading area in the financial technology (fintech) business that has been growing rapidly. In Indonesia alone, payment gateway firms are dominating the industry, with 44 percent of 120 identified fintech companies operating in the sector.

Internet payment gateway

Fintech services that are focusing on supporting payment activities are referred to as Internet Payment Gateway (IPG). The services can be categorized into three areas: those that are based on the money flow (from customers bank accounts directly to sellers accounts or via IPG aggregator accounts that kept the money temporarily); based on sources (hard cash, credit cards, debit cards, e-money, personal bank accounts, corporate saving accounts, micro loan accounts and commercial loan accounts); and based on payment channels (via agents, including through a point-of-sales system and gadget-based channel system, or without agents).

Through such approaches, fintech companies offering payment gateway services are trying to build an integrated payment solution to support, for example, sales transactions, billing payments and fund distributions, through various delivery channels (electronic data capture machines, websites, mobile gadgets) and to facilitate interbank or multi-merchant transactions.

Those services are translated into various products and attractive transaction programs, such as gift cards, benefit cards, prepaid cards, loyalty programs, member cards, coupons and vouchers, to guarantee consumer satisfaction. In the public service sector, fintech facilitates the payment process through financial institutions (money wiring), billing payment (electricity, landline, water, property taxes, insurance, state-sponsored health insurance or BPJS), distribution of funds (pensions, school operational funds, scholarships for poor students) and other micro transactions.

The benefits

The IPG services will open up opportunities to introduce more payment options, help customers access a faster check-out procedure, invent new sales promotions and customer loyalty programs, automate reconciliation reports in real time with high accuracy and quickly validate online transactions. The services can also minimize fraud risk, improve the efficiency of the payment management system and combine the goods and services distribution channel to speed up the time-to-market  all will help optimize business performances.

With a long list of benefits, IPG services will provide consumers with a guarantee in terms of security and practicality. Retail merchants, meanwhile, will enjoy bigger business opportunities, improved certainty in revenue targets and a minimized risk in fraud and fund leaks.

(Read also: Peer-to-peer lending: A new form of financial inclusion)

Growth potential

The expected growth potential of payment gateway companies is massive, along with the development of 2.6 million wholesale retailers and the growth of modern retailers in Indonesia. Bank Indonesia (BI) has estimated the amount of online transaction payments to reach US$130 billion in 2020, up by 778.4 percent from $14.8 billion in 2016.

The huge potential is also reflected in the growth of the countrys digital landscape, in which 72.7 million of the countrys 255.5 million population are active internet users and 74 million are active social media users. The number of mobile connections has also exceeded the countrys population with 308.2 million, explaining why Indonesia has a whopping 64 million active social media users that go online using mobile gadgets.

(Read also: The emergence of fintech: disruptive or collaborative?)

Public awareness

The government should help regulate IPG activities by improving regulations regarding data security; electronic signature usage and its validation; fingerprints or biometric uses and validation; and, of course, the payment digitalization itself. The government is also expected to encourage small banks to introduce e-payment services to make them fintech-ready and shift further from manual to digital transaction.

Intensive dissemination campaigns are also highly needed to educate the public that the payment solution is not meant to replace transactions with physical money, but to introduce digital transactions that will create efficiency, with guaranteed security and reliability.

Meanwhile, education to financial industry players are also needed to ensure that payment gateway companies will not replace banks, but instead serve as a complement or supporting element for various types of transactions and provide access to financial services for more people in the archipelago.
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Linkedin Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Surabaya Corruption Court began on Tuesday the trial of former state enterprises minister Dahlan Iskan who is being charged with graft related to the selling of 33 assets that belonged to the East Java province-owned company PT Panca Wira Usaha.

Dahlan, who allegedly committed the graft when he was the companys president director from 2000 to 2010, was accompanied by his lawyer Yusril Ihza Mahendra in the hearing.

There are three lawyers from Jakarta and three from Surabaya. Dahlan will be accompanied by six lawyers at every hearing, Yusril told reporters before the trial began.

(Read also: Dahlan Iskan named suspect of graft)

Previously, Dahlan, who owns the Jawa Pos Media group, was temporarily detained in Medaeng penitentiary, but was released before the trial began. He is now under city detention.

Dahlan has denied the accusation, saying that he just signed documents prepared by his subordinates. (jun)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

About 300 people from Rembang regency in Central Java marched some 150 kilometers from their homes in Gunem district to Semarang in protest against the construction of a cement factory in their area by the state-owned Semen Indonesia.

The coordinator of a group called People Care for Kendeng Mountain, Joko Prianto, said the march started at their iconic fighting tents around the cement factory on Monday. They planned to finish walking on Friday, kompas.com reported.

We have arrived in [downtown Rembang], at the house of Gus Mus, said Joko "Jokopri" Prianto, one of the leaders of the Kendeng community, which had fought for the Kendeng karst mountains against cement factories. He was referring to renowned Nahdlatul Ulama cleric Mustofa Bisri.

The long march was undertaken to push Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo to revoke the environmental permit issued by his office in 2012. The marchers were also encouraged by a Supreme Court ruling that went in favor of the residents and ordered the revocation of the environmental permit.

We demand the governor revoke the permit and halt the construction of the cement factory in Rembang, he said. (evi)
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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Indonesian Military (TNI) has warned about the possibility of the Islamic State (IS) radical movement moving its base from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, posing a greater threat to Indonesian security.

TNI Commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said Tuesday that the terrorist group had been building its Southeast Asian base in the southern part of the Philippines, which immediately borders Indonesias Kalimantan and Sulawesi.

I have raised concerns over this issue for six months. The IS can enter Indonesia from there [the southern part of the Philippines], he said at a seminar on terrorism in Central Jakarta.

The increasing number of abductions carried out by terrorist groups on seamen passing the water in the area has indicated that extremists have been collecting money to build a new center of operations, Gatot said.

The IS, whose movement Gatot said was purely economic rather than ideologically driven, had begun to develop its Southeast Asian base because the lucrative energy source in the Middle East started to vanish.

They are moving to [the source of] other natural resources, namely sea and food, on the equator. That is why the southern Philippines has been chosen, he said.

The Sulu Sea, located in the southwestern area of the Philippines, has long been a source of trouble, as the Abu Sayyaf militant group has repeatedly kidnapped sailors there, including those from Indonesia, in exchange for ransom. Abu Sayyaf has stated allegiance to the IS. (hwa)
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Linkedin Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Myanmar has welcomed Indonesias continued support in the midst of harsh international criticism regarding the outbreak of violence in Rakhine state, with Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi flying into Naypyidaw on Tuesday to speak frankly about the facts on the ground.

Retno will head to Myanmars capital at the invitation of its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after repeated attempts to set a date for the State Counsellors visit to Indonesia have faltered, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said.

The planned tete-a-tete represents a willingness on Myanmars part to open up about the thorny issue, which has drawn international ire on account of allegations of gross human rights violation and crimes against humanity.

Turmoil in Rakhine erupted following a spate of attacks on police posts near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border on Oct. 9 by Rohingya militants, killing nine officers. Myanmar hit back with a crackdown in Maungdaw, placing the area under military lockdown and displacing thousands.

A Myanmar rights group released a report on Monday, providing witness accounts that implicate local security forces in the widespread destruction of Rohingya homes, rape and sexual humiliation, torture and indiscriminate killing of civilians.

Published by the London-based Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), the report states that at least 30,000 people in Rakhine have been internally displaced and ongoing violence worsens the shortage of food and aid for more than 70,000 people in Maungdaw.

BHRN executive director Kyaw Win urged the international community to not allow Myanmar to continue the abuses or excuse them as part of a political transition, while accusing its military of committing crimes against humanity.

Naypyidaw has denied allegations of abuse as the situation escalates, banning foreign journalists and independent investigators from the area.

Even so, the Myanmar government is slowly starting to open up.

Retno will meet Suu Kyi on Tuesday evening to talk about the latest developments in Rakhine and Myanmars plans to address the situation. Retno is also scheduled to speak with a number of foreign envoys based in Naypyidaw the next morning, Arrmanatha said.

We see this as an opening for us to share our input and help as much as we can, Arrmanatha told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

We will take this opportunity to share experiences in overcoming separatism, promoting pluralism and inclusivity, as well as cultural development and ethnic harmony.

He added that Retno was scheduled to meet former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan after a talk on Saturday.

Annan, who has been appointed head of a commission investigating the Rakhine conflict, will deliver a keynote address in the upcoming Bali Democracy Forum.

Jakartas continued support over the years has been instrumental in bringing Myanmar closer to becoming a democracy, with the ASEAN chairmanship in 2013 underpinning Naypyidaws continued transition.

So far, only Indonesias measured advances and disdain of megaphone diplomacy have managed to persuade Myanmar to let its guard down.

During a recent rally in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak thumbed his nose at Suu Kyi for her perceived inaction over the crisis, urging her to step in and stop the genocide of the Rohingyas.

Critics have accused Najib, already under fire for the 1MDB corruption scandal, of using the rally to win political support ahead of the 2018 elections.

I believe Najibs stance with regard to the Rakhine situation is a political move to burnish his credentials and tell the Malay Muslim voters, I will defend and protect your interests in the same way I am defending and protecting the Rohingya Muslims, Ibrahim Almuttaqi, an ASEAN researcher at The Habibie Center, said on Monday.
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Indonesia has been struggling to secure global recognition of its national sustainability standards for the palm oil industry, partly because of fierce competition in the international market, a government official has suggested.

The deputy for food and agricultural coordination at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister, Musdhalifah Machmud, said since many European countries wanted to protect their rapeseed oil producers, they were using environmental issues as non-tariff barrier for incoming palm oil products.

"Then they said our Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) was not 'sustainable enough' for various reasons," she said on Tuesday in a public discussion.

The ISPO is a certification for legal compliance issued by the government. Five years into its implementation, however, it has largely failed to gain market recognition and access to premium European Union markets.

She added that after the government answered their questions, other issues quickly emerged concerning things like the independence of the certification team and child labor. On the other hand, European rapeseed producers have no obligation to obtain sustainability certification at all, she said.

According to Oil World data, about 200 million tons of vegetable oil was produced on the planet in 2015 and palm oil contributed the biggest share with 31 percent, followed by soybean oil and rapeseed with 23 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

As the world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil, Indonesia relies on demand for the commodity, which generates almost US$20 billion a year for the country and employs millions, driving growth and development. (hwa)
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Linkedin Evan A. Laksmana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6 2016

Donald Trump has been the US president-elect for about a month now. Without a solid foreign policy and Asia strategy team in place, his initial interaction with regional leaders has caused the prevailing mood of uncertainty to deteriorate.

Over the weekend, Trump spoke to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on the phone. It was the first publicly reported call between a US president (or president-elect) and a Taiwanese leader since 1979.

A few days before, Trump talked to Pakistans Nawaz Shariff during which he reportedly said he was willing to play any role the prime minister wanted and accepted his invitation to visit. Much like the unprecedented call with Tsai, no US president has visited Islamabad since 2006.

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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Jemaah Anshar Daulah (JAD), which allegedly has connections with the Islamic State movement in Iraq and Syria, is the most dangerous terrorist organization in the country, the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) said on Tuesday.

JAD is the [terrorist group we are the] most cautious about but there are still other networks too. But the one that has a direct connection with global [terrorist] networks is JAD, BNPT head Comr. Gen. Suhardi Alius said at a seminar in Central Jakarta.

(Read also: Samarinda church attack fails to provoke tensions)

National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said JAD was more radical than terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the group that orchestrated the first Bali bombing in 2002, since the former targeted not just non-Muslims and the West but also Muslims not following their tenets.

Tito said JI had a direct connection with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan while JAD, which was led by firebrand cleric Amman Abdurrahmanwho is serving a nine-year prison term for terrorismhas a connection with the IS.

The IS is more powerful than Al-Qaeda, Tito said, adding that although Amman was being held in prison, ideologues in the organization could still plot terrorist attacks.

A number of terrorist attacks in the country have been alleged of having a link with JAD, including a series of attacks near Sarinah Shopping Mall in Central Jakarta in January and an attack at Oikumene Church in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, last month. (jun)
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Linkedin Ken Moritsugu (Associated Press) Tokyo  Tue, December 6, 2016

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won't apologize for Japan's attack when he visits the US naval base at Pearl Harbor later this month, the government spokesman said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that "the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology."

Abe announced late Monday that he would have a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Hawaii and visit Pearl Harbor. He will be the first Japanese leader to go to the site of the Japanese attack that propelled the United States into World War II.

The unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the US atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.

"We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the US"

The White House confirmed that Obama and Abe would visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 27. It said "the two leaders' visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values."

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, on an official trip to Japan, said he would tell Abe at a meeting later Tuesday how pleased Obama and the US are.

The announcement of the summit comes as Japan worries about the direction of US foreign policy under Obama's successor, Donald Trump.

Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said that together with Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbor visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration.

"Historical disputes tend to be brought up when relations become thorny ... but once you put them behind and move on, it makes a difference if there is any negative sentiment in the future," he said.

But Koichi Nakano, a professor of international politics at Tokyo's Sophia University, said the Pearl Harbor visit and Abe's commitment to the Japan-US alliance are tantamount to "giving a blank check to Trump" despite the uncertainty over bilateral relations under his administration.

More than 2,300 US servicemen died in the aerial attack, which will be marked Wednesday at Pearl Harbor with a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes hit their first target.

Three and a half years later, the war came to an end after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.

___

Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Josh Lederman in Washington, D.C., and Koji Ueda in Yokosuka, Japan, contributed to this story.
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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said Tuesday that the weakening value of the rupiah against the United States dollar was not a reflection of the country's economic fundamentals.

Speaking at a seminar in Jakarta, President Jokowi said Indonesias economic performance should not be measured solely by the value of the rupiah against the greenback.

"The exchange rate of rupiah per US dollar is not an accurate benchmark [to measure economic strength], but the value against our trading partners' [currency] is," he said.

The value of the rupiah against the greenback has been declining over the past couple of weeks, following the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential election.

Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution echoed the President's view, adding that the exchange rate between two currencies should be interpreted in relation to the size of their bilateral trade. (hwa)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Indonesian Military (TNI) says that its internal solidarity has been maintained despite the recent arrests of two retired Army generals for alleged treason, a high-ranking TNI officer has suggested.

Jakarta Military commander Maj. Gen. Teddy Lhaksamana denied on Tuesday rumors that the TNI was experiencing an internal split following the arrest of retired two-star Army general Kivlan Zen and retired one-star Army general Adityawarman Thaha on Dec. 2. The arrests came several hours before the start of a large-scale public gathering to push for the arrest of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

"There is no split within the TNI. The command chain for the security [forces] for the Dec. 2 gathering was so solid," Teddy said in response to a circulating rumor saying that a number of high-ranking TNI officers had objected the arrest of Kivlan and Adityawarman.

(Read also: Police in hunt for another suspect in treason case)

Teddy added that he had served as deputy chief for the law enforcement taskforce that secured the Dec. 2 gathering, which was attended by over 1 million people. The taskforce was led by Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Mochammad Iriawan.

Therefore, the TNI, he added, were also involved in the arrest of Kivlan and Adityawarman, whom according to the police needed to be interrogated for their alleged involvement in a treason plot.

On Dec. 2, several hours before the large-scale gathering at the National Monument square, the Jakarta Police arrested eight people  Kivlan, Adityawarman, Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, Ratna Sarumpaet, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, Eko Suryo Santjojo, Firza Husain and Alvin Indra  on treason charges.

Another three people were also arrested with different charges: Ahmad Dhani for defamation, and Jamran and Rizal Kobar for committing hate speech. (hwa)
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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

State-owned electricity firm Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) has committed to purchasing 100 megawatt (MW) electricity from waste-based power plants (PLTSa) in seven cities in a move that will help boost Indonesias renewable energy usage.

Under the build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) scheme, the firm will buy the power at Rp 2,496 (18.77 cents) per kilowatt hour (kWh) within a 20-year period, according to an agreement signed Monday.

Six cities, namely Bandung, Makassar, Semarang, Surabaya, Surakarta and Tangerang, will supply 10 MW electricity each to PLN, while Jakarta will distribute 4x10 MW.

The MoU [memorandum of understanding] will ensure that PLN will purchase electricity from waste-based power plants built in those seven regions, so that investors can have certainty before putting their money on the projects, said PLN corporate planning director Nicke Widyawati.

In February, a presidential regulation was passed to expedite the development of PLTSa between 2016 and 2018 as part of the attempt to resolve acute garbage problems in those aforementioned cities.

Jakarta, for instance, produces about 7,000 tons of garbage each day, while Bandung generates 1,500 tons.

With such high waste output, the city administrations are expected to team up with power plant developers, either local government-owned enterprises (BUMD) or local and global private companies.

To support this plan, PLN is required to source electricity at a certain price in accordance to the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministrys regulation No. 44/2015.

As a result, the firm expects the government to provide subsidies to cover the price gap in its operation.

However, such a scheme first needs approval from the House of Representatives. We may be able to implement this later in 2018 or 2019, PLN president director Sofyan Basir said.

The government initially proposed Rp 1.2 trillion in subsidies for next year to overcome the price difference. This was later rejected by the Houses budget committee, arguing that such subsidies could not be given to a corporation.

Many foreign investors have shown their interest to invest in waste-based power plants in the country.

Currently, we have received 250 proposals from companies around the world that want to become developers under build, own, operate [BOO] scheme, Jakarta Sanitation Agency head Isnawa Adji said, adding that the names of the assigned developers are set to be announced in March next year.

The companies are bidding to develop four Intermediate Treatment Facilities (ITF) to convert waste into electricity with a daily capacity to process about 1,200 tons of garbage each.

The facilities, slated for completion in 2019, will require an estimated investment of Rp 1.5 trillion each.

Meanwhile, Jakarta-owned developer PT Jakarta Propertindo (Jakpro), which will participate in a separate energy project, plans to build one ITF with a capacity of 2,000 tons of garbage per day under a build, operate, transfer (BOT) arrangement. In total, those five ITFs are set to produce about 100 MW of electricity, 60 MW higher than purchase commitment by PLN.

The development of waste-based power plants is part of the governments plan to supply 23 percent of the nations energy from renewable sources by 2025 in order to cut down carbon emissions and wean the country off fossil fuels.

To reach the target, the General Plan for National Energy (RUEN) stipulates that renewable energy must make up at least 11 percent of the energy mix by 2017, equal to 25.5 million tons of oil.
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Jakarta Police said on Tuesday that they might name another suspect involved in an alleged plan to overthrow the government during a large public gathering held on Dec. 2 in the capital to demand the arrest of Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy.

"We are still investigating this case. There is a possibility that we will name another suspect," Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Mochammad Iriawan said in a press conference.

Iriawan said that activist M. Hatta Taliwang had allegedly attended some meetings initiated by Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, sister of former president and ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, to discuss a treason plan.

"We are still looking for his whereabouts. If you know where he is, just tell us," Iriawan said.

Iriawan said that there were indications that musician-turned-politician Ahmad Dhani was involved in the treason plot.

Were still investigating it, he said, adding that the police would soon coordinate with a number of banks to trace the source of funds allegedly transferred to the activists to finance the plot.

On Dec. 2, several hours before the large gathering in the National Monument square, the Jakarta Police arrested eight people  Rachmawati, Ratna Sarumpaet, Sri Bintang Pamungkas, Eko Suryo Santjojo, Firza Husain, Kivlan Zen, Adityawarman Thaha and Alvin Indra  on treason charges.

Other three people were also arrested on different charges: Dhani for defamation and Jamran and Rizal Kobar for uttering hate speech. (hwa)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine, Corry Elyda and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6 2016

The first trial session of accused blasphemer Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has been set for Dec. 13, with the police warning the event would lead to more tension in the capital since a large number of people would potentially be going to the Central Jakarta District Court.

North Jakarta District Court spokesman Hasoloan Sianturi confirmed on Monday that judges from the district court would oversee the trial of Ahok because the crime he has been charged with allegedly occurred in the Thousand Islands, which is under the courts jurisdiction.

The trial, however, will take place in the Central Jakarta District Court building since the North Jakarta court is undergoing renovations.

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Linkedin Lori Hinnant (Associated Press) Saarlouis, Germany  Tue, December 6, 2016

The millions in ransom money came in dollar by dollar, euro by euro from around the world. The donations, raised from church offerings, a Christmas concert, and the diaspora of Assyrian Christians on Facebook, landed in a bank account in Iraq. Its ultimate destination: the Islamic State group.

Deep inside Syria, a bishop worked around the blurred edges of international law to save the lives of more than 200 people  one of the largest groups of hostages yet documented in IS's war in Syria and Iraq. It took more than a year, and videotaped killings of three captives, before all the rest were freed.

Paying ransoms is illegal in the United States and most of the West, and the idea of paying the militants is morally fraught, even for those who saw no alternative.

"You look at it from the moral side and I get it. If we give them money we're just feeding into it, and they're going to kill using that money," said Aneki Nissan, who helped raise funds in Canada. But, he said, there were more than 200 lives at stake, "and to us, we're such a small minority that we have to help each other."

A map shows the string of Assyrian Christian villages attacked by the Islamic State group along northern Syrias Khabur River in this frame grab from Silence After the Storm, a documentary about the villages by Assyrian filmmaker Sargon Saadi. The villages now stand virtually deserted after the militants attacked in February 2015, taking more than 200 men, women and children captive and driving out the rest, all members of a community that traces its heritage back to the beginnings of Christianity. (Sargon Saadi via AP/-)

The Assyrian Christians were seized from the Khabur River valley in northern Syria, among the last holdouts of a dwindling minority that had been chased across the Mideast for generations. They trace their heritage to the earliest days of Christianity, their Church of the East founded by the apostle known as Doubting Thomas. To this day, they speak a dialect of Aramaic, believed to be the native language of Jesus. But most also speak Arabic and some Kurdish, the languages of the neighbors who have long outnumbered them.

In a single night of horror on Feb. 23, 2015, IS fighters attacked the Christian towns simultaneously, sweeping up scores of people and sending everyone from 35 towns and villages fleeing for their lives.

At 1 a.m., Abdo Marza was awakened by the sound of rushing water in his village of Tal Goran. Somewhere upstream, the dam that had almost entirely cut off the Khabur River in the mid-1990s was open. The men were taking shifts guarding the village and it was not yet his turn. For the first time in many weeks, there was no sound of gunfire in the distance. He settled back into an uneasy sleep.

Around 4 a.m. Islamic State group fighters streamed in, firing their guns and kicking at doors. They herded the terrified residents into a home at the edge of town.

As dawn broke, the armed fighters took each man back to his home and forced him to destroy any signs of Christianity

Fearing for their lives, Marza and his neighbors obeyed the rough commands and stomped on their icons of the Virgin Mary, their pictures of Jesus.

"There was no way you could resist," he said.

Assyrian Christian bishop Mar Afram Athneil (right) greets Maryam David Thalya after her release from more than a year of captivity by the Islamic State group in this March 27, 2016 photo from the northeastern Syrian city of Hassakeh. (Assyrian Church of the East Relief Organization via AP video/-)

But they refused repeated demands to convert. Months later, recounting that night to The Associated Press from the safety of a German sidewalk cafe, Marza's hands trembled at the memory.

As they were being rounded up, people made panicked phone calls to cousins, sons, daughters, friends  Assyrians who had left the region in generational waves for the West. To the outsiders, rumor mixed with fact, choppy voices could barely be heard over the sounds of gunshots. Even the total number of hostages was a mystery, ranging in estimates from 200 to 280 men, women and children.

By the second day of captivity, the hostages were sure they were going to die. Earlier that month, IS had beheaded 21 Coptic Christians in Libya. In August 2014, the extremists had seized the largest Christian town in Iraq, driving out its residents.

But as days stretched into a week, the 17 men captured from Tal Goran learned IS had other plans. They were offered freedom, with a catch. One man would have to deliver a message to their bishop in the town of Hassakah about 40 miles away, and return with an answer. The extremists demanded US$50,000 per person, young or old, or they would be killed.

Marza wasn't eager, but he volunteered for the mission as long as the rest of his village was freed. The militants were so delighted at his courage, they said, that they would keep only his 6-year-old daughter Maryam and an elderly aunt. The rest of the Tal Goran hostages could go.

The extremists gave Marza a scrap of paper signed and stamped by the Islamic State group, allowing him safe passage: "The infidel Christian Abdo Marza wants to negotiate between us and their church for money. Please facilitate his task from the checkpoints in three days."

The bishop, Mar Afram Athneil, took three days to answer as he consulted with others in the church around the world on what to do. Finally he gave Marza a sealed envelope to take back to IS.

When Marza returned and handed the envelope to the IS leader, he said, he had no idea of the message inside or what it would mean for his fate and his daughter's. But the extremist broke into a smile. "Your bishop is a very smart man." With that, little Maryam was freed.

Athneil began secret negotiations for the more than 200 others, but it took a while before Assyrians realized what had happened.

In California, filmmaker Sargon Saadi packed his gear and headed back to a homeland he had left a decade before, hoping to find out what had happened to the Khabur villages. He found them deserted, but for a handful of ill-equipped Assyrian fighters.

"We didn't know why they took them, we didn't know where they took them, what they wanted to do with them," Saadi said. Were they going to be enslaved, traded, ransomed?

The answer filtered down from the bishop: IS wanted money.

The price was daunting. The militants' starting demand of $50,000 a person would mean more than $11 million for the entire group.

"There's no easy way to give them money. It's very dangerous, it's also illegal in many countries," Saadi said. "And the money they were asking for, no one could afford that kind of money."

In Canada, after an emergency meeting, Canadian Assyrians pooled around $100,000 to help the Khabur Christians and sent it off to the church to use wherever it could do the most good, Nissan said.

"Every Assyrian I know knows somebody that was either kidnapped or directly affected by the kidnapping," he said.

In the German rustbelt town of Saarlouis, a chain-smoking Assyrian entrepreneur who owned two restaurants suddenly found a cause more important than his businesses. Charli Kanoun had persuaded the government there to accept the freed Tal Goran hostages. His next task was to raise money for the rest.

"Everyone contributed; the church opened an account in Irbil, Iraq, and announced it on the internet so everyone can donate," Kanoun said.

On the outskirts of London, Andy Darmoo ran the Assyrian Church of the East Relief Organization in addition to a crystal chandelier business. He was one of the first people the bishop had alerted about the ransom demand. Darmoo and just a handful of Assyrians were the only ones who knew exactly how many Christians had been taken: 226.

In Australia, Nicholas al-Jeloo, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne whose cousins were among the hostages, gave a slide presentation on the history of the Khabur at a local church hall. Much  but not all  of the audience was from the Assyrian community, and more than 500 people donated that night, he said.

Al-Jeloo spent his childhood in Australia hearing about the trials inflicted upon the Assyrian people, how they managed to stick together, keeping the same dialects, the same customs, and even the same village names as they moved from Turkey to Iraq and finally to Syria. He himself had visited there to complete his family tree.

The calls for donations went out across social media, but primarily on Facebook, where second cousins and friends of friends found themselves in the same networks, anxiously asking for solid news or, failing that, rumors. On May 26, two elderly women were freed. On June 16, one man was released. On Aug. 11, 22 more people were liberated and many in the diaspora hoped the ordeal was nearly over.

"For the Assyrians, the Khabur was one of their last cultural strongholds in a sea of hostility in the Middle East," al-Jeloo said. "If they didn't help these people, it was the end."

Then in September 2015 came the video showing three Khabur men, dressed in orange jumpsuits, being shot to death by their captors. It's not clear what prompted the killings  whether the ransom demands had changed, the Islamic State group's cash was running low, or the captors had simply grown impatient.

"When that happened, everybody went crazy and money started flying in from all over. Churches, and donations, Assyrians, non-Assyrians, just donating to the churches and funneling it to the bishop," Saadi said.

They didn't see other options.

"We can't fight them, Assyrians don't have an army to go rescue them. They don't have SWAT teams, they don't have SEAL 6. The only option they have is to pay ransom. And everybody was so fearful that the rest of the hostages were also going to be killed," he said.

Nissan organized a Christmas concert with $90 orchestra seats, raising a few thousand dollars.

"We just kept giving and giving," said Nissan.

By then, Marza had settled into an immaculate house in Saarlouis, and young Maryam began learning German along with Arabic. But his wife and other children  including a 19-month-old baby  are stuck in Lebanon, awaiting permission to live in Germany.

The rest of the men from Tal Goran are also without their wives and children, and say their safe home in Europe grows lonelier by the day. Islamic State group and other extremists have made a fortune off the desperation of hostages and their families. A United Nations resolution from December 2015 condemned the practice of taking captives and called on governments "to prevent kidnapping and hostage-taking committed by terrorist groups and to secure the safe release of hostages without ransom payments or political concessions."

But while no government appeared to stop the fundraising, the Assyrians say no country stepped in to free the Khabur captives either. Governments are reluctant to discuss the issue at all, and none openly acknowledges paying or advocating others to pay ransoms. But in June 2015, four months after the Khabur Christians were seized, the Obama administration said families would not be prosecuted for trying to free their loved ones.

"It's a conflict between a very personal desire to free these people, these innocent people, and the law of the land," said Diane Foley, who faced a similar dilemma when her son James was kidnapped by IS extremists. James Foley was ultimately killed, like the Christians, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling before a video camera.

"The captors are very aware of what a tough situation that they put people and countries in, and they're loving it," said Diane Foley, who has set up a foundation in her son's name to advocate for families of hostages, better communication between governments, and a more consistent government policy.

The United States and Britain refuse to pay ransoms, while some European governments routinely pay ransoms. Foley said she learned only much later that her son and others had been held along with Europeans who were freed in exchange for money.

But the Assyrians had no government to speak for them. Brokered almost exclusively by the bishop Athneil, negotiations for the captive Christians resumed in mid-fall. By then, the remaining hostages had been moved to Raqqa, the capital of IS's self-styled caliphate. The money went into a bank account in Irbil, Iraq, under the name of the Assyrian Church of the East.

Thirty-seven Assyrians were freed on Nov. 7, and from then, the releases took place every few weeks into the new year.

Each time, the freed captives were put on buses. IS then emailed their names to the negotiators.

On Feb. 22, 2016, a final list of 43 names was emailed to the bishop. The last captive Christians from the Khabur River valley were on their way out. But when the bus arrived in Hassakeh, only 42 hostages were on board  16-year-old Maryam David Talya wasn't there.

She had been pulled off the bus at the last checkpoint by an IS guard who wanted her for himself, Kanoun said. On Easter Sunday, after another agonizing month of negotiations, Maryam stumbled into the arms of her waiting parents in Hassakeh.

How much was ultimately paid to free the Khabur Christians remains a mystery. The bishop, the only person with a full accounting, declined to speak to The Associated Press.

Those involved give him credit for saving the lives not just of the hostages but those of hundreds of other Assyrians who have left in hopes of building a better life outside the war zone. The Khabur valley has been all but emptied of its Christians.

"Honestly, this man should go down as a saint, the things that he's done, the sacrifices he's made to help these people," Nissan said. "He's refusing to leave Syria until all his flock is secured."

___

Maha Assabaloni, and Associated Press correspondents Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Peter Banda in Burbank, California, contributed to this report.
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Linkedin Eddy Leks (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6 2016

The Agrarian Law of 1960, as a fundamental land law in Indonesia, has regulated land registration, including registration of right to land and the issuance of certificates of right to land, which are considered strong evidence of ownership.

This fundamental provision means that registration of right to land and certificates of land are not considered absolute evidence, which also means ownership can still be nullified.

The provision for land registration under the Agrarian Law created legal issues for all buyers of land or real estate. On one hand, this provision gives an opportunity for the true owner to file a claim or objection with regards to the land registration and related certificates of land.

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Bread manufacturer Nippon Indosari Corpindo topped Twitter's trending topic chart this afternoon after the company posted an announcement on its corporate website claiming that their Sari Roti brand was not involved in the 212 rally.



The company mentioned that there were a number of Sari Roti hawkers giving away free bread at Friday's rally in its official statement. Photos of the sellers posing with their empty carts bearing signs that say "Gratis untuk Mujahid" (Free for Mujahids) have gone viral since Friday on social media.

Eh ada #TukangFitnahMatiKutu lihat semuanya bahu membahu membela agamaMu .. pic.twitter.com/QdfSwNqQjE  tukangBuburAyam (@swulll) December 2, 2016

Sari Roti won praise from rally participants on social media during the weekend.

In the press release, the management denied any corporate involvement, mentioning that a customer had bought the bread and ordered the hawkers to stand by at the rally location.



"PT Nippon Indosari Corpindo Tbk. does not get involved in any political activities [...] The information about Sari Roti bread hawkers giving away free bread was not a corporate policy and was done without corporate permission," the release said.



The management added that the company was committed to preserving nationalism and protecting Indonesia's 'unity in diversity'.



The clarification triggered a huge negative reaction from netizens, mostly saying that it was unnecessary, and that the company should even thank rally participants for buying their bread in such large amounts.

Begitu negatifnya anda meliat acara damai 212 sampai2 harus umumkan "steril" dari aksi tersebut? @sariroti #BoikotSariroti #BoikotMetroTV  Sobari Hong Jr. (@Zumpio) December 6, 2016

Sari Roti gagal paham. 212 bukan kegiatan politik. Lagian pengumumannya terkesan paranoid, under pressure?



pic.twitter.com/onIOc7ICui  Lucky J. Subiakto (@luckysubiakto) December 5, 2016

Calls for a Sari Roti products boycott have also swarmed social media, with some users posting alternatives from bread as their new choice of breakfast meals. (asw)
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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

The government plans to streamline the procedure for filing state budget spending reports (SPJ) in an effort to scrap another source of inefficiency within the country's notoriously slow bureaucracy.

Speaking in a seminar on Tuesday, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the current SPJ procedures absorbed up to 70 percent of the workforce in government institutions, creating severe inefficiency.

"Even teachers and headmasters have to stay up late to complete SPJs," he said, adding that a government project could require up to 44 separate spending reports.

The President said he had instructed Finance Minister Sri Mulyani to formulate a new procedure that only required civil servants to file two SPJs, instead of 44, for every project.
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Linkedin Youkyung Lee (Associated Press) Seoul  Tue, December 6, 2016

The heir to the Samsung empire and other tycoons took a public drubbing by lawmakers Tuesday over deep-rooted ties between politics and business that helped drive South Korea's economic ascent but are central to its political crisis.

The questioning on national TV of Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, 48-year-old only son of the company's ailing chairman, and eight other business leaders was in response to prosecution claims that President Park Geun-hye allowed a corrupt confidante to pull government strings and extort big sums from companies.

Lee apologized repeatedly, without saying what he was apologizing for, and sought to distance himself from Park's friend and shadowy adviser Choi Soon-sil.

"There are many things that I myself feel embarrassed about and I regret that as we have disappointed the public with many disgraceful things," Lee said.

The bright expectations for Park when she took office nearly four years ago promising a "happy era" of entrepreneurship and greater equality have dimmed to deep disappointment as the country's biggest political scandal has unfolded.

With Park facing the threat of impeachment over the scandal, her successor stands to inherit an economy, Asia's fourth largest, that is struggling with no easy solutions on the horizon.

Household debts have surged to a record high while the youth unemployment rate peaked at a record-high 12.5 percent in February and stood at 8.5 percent in October. The gap between wages for full-time, career jobs and contract work has widened, while quarterly growth has been below 1 percent for a full year.

South Korea's two-biggest biggest brands, Samsung and Hyundai Motor, are seeing their profit sag.

Younger South Koreans have taken to calling their country "Hell Joseon," referring to an ancient feudal kingdom.

"What good is it for people in their 20s to have hopes for the future?" Baek In-pum, 19, a student at a top university, said during a recent rally near the presidential office. "People are struggling but that doesn't bring a better future. The future will also be full of pain."

Baek said he doubts he could ever afford to buy his own home.

Older supporters of Park had hoped she would replicate the success of her father, Park Chung-hee, who is revered for guiding South Korea's rapid industrialization while he ruled as a military dictator from 1961-1979.

"I thought Park Geun-hye would be smart like her father. I feel terrible about how stupid she turned out to be," said Chae Woo-yeon, 85, who was holding a candle while selling blankets to fellow protesters at a rally that drew hundreds of thousands of people, the sixth straight weekend of demonstrations calling for Park's ouster.

"I never thought things would collapse like this," she said.

Of course, Park Geun-hye inherited a more mature economy, lacking the dynamism of her father's era, at a more challenging time for global growth.

South Korea is now the fastest aging society among developed countries, with an ultra-low birth rate. Many of the big businesses that drove an export boom subsidized by cheap government loans are struggling to adapt to the changing global landscape.

Public morale has deteriorated as Park's administration lurched from crisis to crisis. In 2014, 304 people, mostly teenagers on a school trip, died in a ferry accident. That disaster took a toll on consumption, leisure and tourism. A year later, an outbreak of Middle Eastern Respiratory syndrome sapped consumer spending and business activities.

Park's troubles have sharpened doubts over close ties between politicians and big, family-controlled businesses, known as chaebol.

Local media say prosecutors are looking into whether 53 businesses that donated funds to nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi received favors in return. Prosecutors also have raided Samsung and the nation's pension fund, reportedly scrutinizing its decision to back a 2015 merger of two Samsung companies.

"She gave the chaebol what they wanted," Kim Jae-kyun, a 51-year-old factory employee disgruntled over labor and wage reforms that he says have helped big industry at the expense of ordinary workers.

"My wages haven't gone up and I'm worried my children won't be able to find jobs when they graduate," Kim said during a recent demonstration.

Once the current political crisis passes, what will remain is the hard work of charting a future course for the economy.

The country's largest shipping line recently went bankrupt, while its biggest shipbuilder is undergoing a restructuring. The recent slowdown in China, the country's biggest export market, has been a further drag on growth.

Park has managed to boost growth in the short-term by increased government spending and stimulating construction and property development.

But the 2.5 percent growth rate last year came at the cost of an unsustainable rise in household debt. And efforts to counter inequality by promoting inclusive growth and restructuring the labor market and the public sector provoked huge backlashes.

Other policy initiatives like the "creativity economy" policy of promoting entrepreneurship likewise have made little headway, said Kim Sang-jo, executive director of a non-governmental business watchdog, Solidarity for Economic Reform.

Meanwhile, "The competitiveness of key industries appears to have collapsed," Kim said. "South Korea's economy is in a crisis like a frog in slow boiling water."
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6, 2016

Several lawmakers have described the arrest of eight antigovernment political figures for alleged treason as premature, and fear it could be a precursor to more draconian acts reminiscent of the authoritarian regime of president Soeharto.

In a hearing with the National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian, Golkar Party lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo, chairman of House Commission III overseeing security, human rights and legal affairs called the arrest of eight individuals including former dissident Sri Bintang Pamungkas and retired TNI general Kivlan Zen a repressive measure.

The police should avoid making such arrests. There are more dignified ways [of safeguarding the government] that arent in violation of our democracy or restrict the freedom of speech, Bambang said during the hearing on Monday.

In the morning of Dec. 2, just as anti-Ahok protesters began making their way to the National Monument (Monas) to stage a rally demanding the imprisonment of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy, the police arrested eight figures known for their opposition to President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration on charges of treason.

Other than Sri Bintang and Kivlan, those arrested included Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, sister of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the leading party in the government coalition.

The arrestees were charged under articles 107, 110 and 87 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on treason and conspiracy to commit treason.

On the same day, the police also arrested musician-cum-politician Ahmad Dhani, who is charged with insulting the President, and two other men for allegedly promoting hate speech in contravention of the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law.

Eight people were later released pending further investigation but Sri Bintang and the two other suspects identified as the Kobar brothers, Rizal and Jamran, remain in detention.

Bambang said the government should not have overreacted to the possibility of treason. We see no movement by university students like what we saw in 1998, and the people seem to love the President. Theres nothing to indicate that treason is brewing, he said.

Democratic Party lawmaker Erma Ranik said the arrests could have a chilling effect on the countrys fledgling democracy.

People will be afraid if the police can simply arrest them for expressing their antigovernment political opinions, Erma said.

Tito defended the move saying that the police had monitored the figures for weeks before making the arrests and maintained that the Dec. 2 rally passed off peacefully only because of the drastic measure.

We know that the GNPF-MUI [National Movement to Safeguard the Indonesian Ulema Councils Fatwa] and other Muslims went to the National Monument to perform Friday prayers and pray for the country. They were sincerely demanding law enforcement against Ahok. However, there was a group that aimed to take political advantage of the rally by directing them [participants] to the House complex for attempted treason, Tito said.

Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said the police expected to make more arrests in the future. As to other actors, well see, but not now, Boy said.

Constitutional law expert Irman Putra Sidin said the police could not apply treason charges against individuals who only made calls to occupy the House building.

It is treason if these people go to the TNI [Indonesian Military] headquarters and urge soldiers to take over the government from the President. It is too premature to claim that there was an indication of treason in this case, Irman said.

Another constitutional law expert Refly Harun said that in a democracy there was only a fine line between free speech and treason, so it was incumbent upon the police to be very cautious when handling treason allegations.

Treason must constitute a grand plan to overthrow the legitimate government, not simply making a public call to do so, he said.
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, December 6 2016

Several lawmakers have described the arrest of eight antigovernment political figures for alleged treason as premature, and fear it could be a precursor to more draconian acts reminiscent of the authoritarian regime of president Soeharto.

In a hearing with the National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian, Golkar Party lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo, chairman of House Commission III overseeing security, human rights and legal affairs called the arrest of eight individuals including former dissident Sri Bintang Pamungkas and retired TNI general Kivlan Zen a repressive measure.

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Linkedin Lita Aruperes (The Jakarta Post) Manado  Tue, December 6, 2016

After diving in Bunaken National Marine Park in North Sulawesi, a tourist from Switzerland, identified as Bruno Ernst Durrer, 62, reportedly begun to complain of illness and later died upon reaching the hospital.

North Sulawesi Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Ibrahim Tompo said Tuesday Durrer was staying at the Siladen Resort in the Bunaken marine park area.

Tompo said the tourist, who was a doctor, finished diving at 11:20 a.m. local time Monday. After surfacing to the boat, he began complaining that he did not feel well. Others took him to his hotel but his condition did not improve. So they took him to Siloam Manado Hospital, Tompo said.

Ibrahim said upon arriving at the hospital at 1:10 p.m. he had already passed away. Reportedly, his face, lips, arms, and legs had gone blue.

Hospital doctors found no indication of trauma to his body. They said the victim had difficulty in breathing and heart failure had led to his death, Tompo said.

"The examination was conducted by Dr. Harley Limantika, who found no indication of inflicted trauma, he said.

Tompo added that the victims widow had contacted the Swiss Embassy in Indonesia about her husband. (evi)
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Linkedin Stephanie Chao (The China Post/ANN) Taipei  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Presidential Office denounced China's political intervention in Taiwanese businesses seeking investment in mainland China on Monday after seafood restaurant chain Hai Pa Wang placed an advertisement in a local paper pledging support to the "one China" principle while debunking rumors of maintaining close relations with President Tsai Ing-wen's family.

"We believe that Taiwanese businesses should be legally guaranteed to invest in mainland China," the Presidential Office announced, citing Taiwanese businesses' contribution to economic development across the strait.

The press statement stressed opposition to "political intervention" such as open declaration of one's political ideology, which would hinder business rights and investment willingness in China. It said that such moves do not conform to cross-strait policies aimed at maintaining the development of peaceful relations.

The government is currently considering strategies and measures to guarantee legal rights of Taiwanese enterprises in face of similar events in the future, the statement read.

The announcement comes after the Taiwanese seafood restaurant chain published an advertisement in a local newspaper on Monday, advocating the "one China" policy and clarifying that the company had no ties with Tsai's family, days after being fined by Chinese authorities for mislabeling items.

There have been speculation in mainland Chinese media that the fines were imposed on Hai Pa Wang because its owners maintained good relations with Tsai's family, reported the Central News Agency, though the claim was later denied by Hai Pa Wang's General Manager Li Hui-shan, who told Apple Daily that it was "old news" dug up by the media for speculation.

The advertisement stressed that the only relations the company had with Tsai's family were governed under a leasing contract for a commercial building located in Taipei City.

This article appeared on The China Post newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Pares Lohasan (The Nation)  Tue, December 6, 2016

Four people were shot dead and one wounded in three separate attacks by suspected insurgents in Pattani province Tuesday.

In the first incident at about 7.30am in Nong Chik district, police discovered the bodies of Muang district defense volunteer Thawat Pongsuwan, 43, and his 31-year-old wife Papimol Chaikhong.

Both had been shot several times in the head and chest as they rode a motorcycle near the entrance to Ban Tha Dan Moo 2 in Tambon Don Rak.

The couple had been on their way to pick up their child from a relatives house when they were ambushed by two men on a motorbike, according to authorities. Police suspect the attack was part of ongoing unrest in the deep South.

Around the same time, people in Yaring district alerted police after the body of Duan Sirat, 38, was found near a chicken coop in Ban Yeuring Moo 4 in Tambon Tanyong Dalor.

It was reported that Duan, a Ma Yor district electricity office worker, had been riding his motorcycle in the area at about 3 a.m. when he was shot dead. Police are investigating whether the attack stemmed from the unrest or was related to a personal conflict or drug issue.

At 9.30 a.m., Ban Moo 3 village headman Pradap Mainjon was shot dead and his wife Amporn wounded in an attack in Ban Tanyong Jeung Nga in Yaring district.

The couple were travelling in a pickup truck toward the Muang district when two men on a motorcycle shot at them with military-model weapons.

This article appeared on The Nation newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Julhas Alam (Associated Press) Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh  Tue, December 6, 2016

The Myanmar soldiers came in the morning, the young mother says. They set fire to the concrete-and-thatch homes, forcing the villagers to cluster together. When some of her neighbors tried to escape into the fields, they were shot. After that, she says, most people stopped running away.

"They drove us out of our houses, men and women in separate lines, ordering us to keep our hands folded on the back of our heads," says 20-year-old Mohsena Begum, her voice choking as she described what happened to the little village of Caira Fara, which had long been home to hundreds of members of Myanmar's minority Rohingya community. She said that when about 50 people had been gathered together, the soldiers, along with a group of local men, pulled four village leaders from the crowd and slit their throats.

Muslims in an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, the Rohingya have long faced persecution in Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship. The latest outbreak of violence was triggered by October attacks on guard posts near the Bangladesh border that killed nine police officers. While the attackers' identities and motives are unclear, the government launched a massive counter-insurgency sweep through Rohingya areas in western Rakhine state. Most Rohingya live in Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.

(Read also: What's behind persecution of Myanmar's Rohingya)

The government, which has implied the attacks were carried out by Rohingya sympathizers, has acknowledged using helicopter gunships in support of ground troops in the sweep. While survivors and human rights groups have tracked waves of anti-Rohingya violence in recent weeks, the Myanmar government insists that stories like Begum's are exaggerations.

Myanmar's leader, the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has accused the international community of stoking unrest.

"It doesn't help if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation, in spite of the fact that there were attacks on police outposts," she said in a recent interview on Singapore's Channel News Asia.

Suu Kyi, whose party took power in March after decades of military-backed rule, has been accused of not acting strongly enough to curb the violence against the more than 1 million Rohingya believed to be in the country. Although many have lived in Rakhine for generations, they are widely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

"It helps if people recognize the difficulty and are more focused on resolving these difficulties rather than exaggerating them, so that everything seems worse than it really is," she said in the interview.

But Begum says she has no need to exaggerate what happened in Caira Fara.

She said that after the four leaders were killed, violence churned through the village in chaotic scenes of horror. Begum's husband, a poor, illiterate farm laborer, was beaten and then murdered by having his throat slit, along with an unknown number of other villagers, she said. Their bodies were eventually driven away in a truck.

She said attackers knocked her young son knocked from her grasp, then raped her.

Finally, when the soldiers weren't paying attention, she grabbed her son and ran into the nearby hills. After hiding for two days, her brother gave her enough money  about US$38  to pay smugglers to get her and her son into Bangladesh.

When Bangladeshi border guards stopped them, she began to weep.

"I told them I have no one to protect me there," she says, and told them: "'Look at my baby! He will die if I go back there.'" After that, they let her pass.

Much of Rakhine has been closed to outsiders, including journalists, since the violence began. However, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, leader of a commission formed to investigate the situation in Rakhine state, was allowed to visit in recent days. He is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city.

Along the banks of the Naf River, which marks the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, it's not difficult to find people who can talk about what is happening.

Some 15,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh over past month, often brought in by smugglers, according to police and intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government refuses to release numbers publicly. They have joined up to 500,000 undocumented Rohingya who have been living in Bangladesh after arriving from Myanmar in waves since the 1970s. Some 33,000 registered Rohingya refugees live the Cox's Bazar district. Bangladesh does not welcome Rohingya  its maritime patrols sometimes turn back refugee boats full of them  but it is seen as a haven compared to Myanmar.

The UN says up 30,000 Rohingya Muslims have abandoned their homes amid the recent violence. Satellite images analyzed by the rights group Human Rights Watch show 1,250 structures destroyed in November in Rohingya villages.

Osman Gani, a thin, fast-talking Arabic teacher, fled after his village, Gouzo Bil, was attacked Nov. 11.

"They came and killed mercilessly. They burned our homes," says Gani, standing near the Naf River over the weekend. "No one was there to save us."

He hid with his family for about a week near the village. But when searches intensified, and with soldiers targeting men, he was forced to leave Myanmar without his family.

"I had no other choice but to leave them behind. I came to the bank of the river and started swimming," he says. His family was able to join him in Bangladesh a few days later.

As he fled north, he used his mobile phone to film destruction in other Rohingya villages he passed through. In some, the blackened remains of what appear to be children can be seen amid the wreckage of homes. Gani's voice can be heard in some of the videos but The Associated Press could not confirm their authenticity.

"I have shot videos!" he says, holding out his mobile phone to a reporter. "Don't you see the charred bodies?"

While he was initially in hiding after the attack, Osmani said he also managed to slip back into his village and film what remained of his home.

As he walks through the village, a child can be heard talking to him.

"Where are you coming from?" the boy asks.

Gani doesn't answer, instead asking, "Where's my cow?"

Then he pans through the ashes and broken concrete. "This is my land, my home," he says. "This is Puitta's. This is Uncle Yunus."

___

AP writer Tim Sullivan contributed to this report from New Delhi.
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Linkedin (Associated Press) Bangkok  Tue, December 6, 2016

An official statement says Thailand's new King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun has named an 11-member council of advisers, bringing in three new officials, including a former army chief and two representatives of the ruling junta.

The so-called Privy Council is almost half the size of the 16-member council of his father, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died on Oct. 13. Vajiralongkorn took the throne on Dec. 1.

Tuesday's statement said Vajiralongkorn retained seven members from the old council, as well as the privy council head, Prem Tinsulanonda.

Among those removed through the contraction of the council are the director of the crown property bureau, the former chief of navy and former deputy chief of the military supreme command. The significance of the changes were not immediately clear.
In the aftermath of Sundays constitutional referendum, the British press started arguing that Italy is now the next country in line to leave the EU. But this is a lie. The electorate voted no, but in no way the referendum was meant to regard the relationship between Italy and Brussels.

Matteo Renzi officially resigned and now the country is understandably disoriented. The Italians rejected his proposal, having voted on him as a leader rather than on the actual reform. The constitution remains unvaried, but in no way this implies that country will leave the EU when the new government will come to power.

First of all, who knows wholl come to power? At this stage, it is worth clarifying that Renzi wont leave the office until the 2016 Finance Act will be approved, that is to say the end of the year. After that, Sergio Mattarella, Italys President of the Republic, will probably entrust the government to somebody close to Mr. Renzi to lay down a new electoral law  as of now, a mandatory step to then set up a new, effective government. Only at the end of this process  spring 2017?  the Italians will be asked to vote again.

Within Italys political spectrum, only the Northern League has shown the intention of leaving the EU, sharing the views of euro-sceptic politicians such as Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen. When addressing the issue, however the press seemed to advance the hypothesis of a victory of the Five Stars Movement. What if they win at the next general election? An anti-establishment party comes to power, thats it, really. For sure, they wont share Brussels same values, as they profoundly disagree on how Renzi tackled some issues on a European side. Nevertheless, in several circumstances they have clearly stated that the wont ask for an Italexit, as their main goal is to renegotiate  and not delete  the relationship between the the country and the EU.

Perhaps, the UK press just wanted to persuade the Britons that they are not alone. But, Italy has founded the European Community, having participated in every single stage of its constitution from the EC to the modern days. Economically speaking, leaving the Euro would be a catastrophe for the country, not even comparable to the UK situation. The pound has always been a guarantee fund, under this perspective, whereas Italy cannot even think to go back to the lira, as it would possibly lead to bankruptcy or even worse.

Perhaps, the British press just found it easier to to keep quite this part of the story, hoping to share the same uncertain destiny outside of the EU with another country.

Lastly, we should ultimately consider a substantial difference between Brexit and the Italian vote. It wasnt Mr. Renzis choice to call the referendum. In Italy, every constitutional change must be approved by the electorate. David Cameron, on the other hand, chose to call the EU Referendum, having deliberately personalised the vote, too wishful for the favour of the public opinion.

All said, the UK press should have considered all these factors before passing off political fiction as reality. Politics is fascinating because it allows people to make their own judgments. In a social age, where transparency is one of the most important values within the media industry, UK news publications could have behaved better. Checking sources when speaking about another countrys destiny should be a moral obligation, not just an option. Its fair to make predictions. But should we consider legitimate to lie just to make the news?
introducing downloads Netflix recently announced that it wasand the long-awaited ability to watch shows offline.

Therefore, we've come up with five of our top picks for shows available on Netflix that you can now download and binge-watch on the go. Perfect for if you're facing a long commute home for the Christmas holidays.

Skins

All seven series of this Channel 4 classic are available to download through Netflix. In case youre one of the people who havent watched Skins yet (you totally should), the show follows three generations of teenagers at the same sixth-form college in Bristol over a period of six years. Each episode centres around a particular character and their struggles.

It covers a huge range of issues from love, sex and drugs to mental health and eating disorders. The show helped to launch the careers of Nicholas Hoult (X-Men), Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), Joe Dempsie and Hannah Murray (Game of Thrones) and Jack OConnell who has just been announced as playing the lead role of Lee Alexander McQueen in an upcoming biopic. If you didnt catch it first time round when it was on TV, it really is a fantastic series to watch.

Series 1-7 are available on Netflix.

Black Mirror

This collection of standalone science fiction tales, created and directed by Charlie Brooker, is one of the best things on Netflix to date. Each episode is set in an alternate reality and centres around the impact that technology could have on our lives.

Black Mirror boasts an impressive cast including Mad Mens Jon Hamm, Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars: Force Awakens) and Bryce Dallas-Howard (Jurassic World).

Read our Series 3 review here. Series 1-3 are available on Netflix.

Stranger Things

This Netflix original series starring Winona Ryder has been everywhere since its launch in July. If youre not clued up on Stranger Things, its a sci-fi mystery set in the 1980s, with some major throwbacks to that glorious decade.

When Joyces (Ryder) son Will goes missing, her search for the truth exposes a huge supernatural government cover-up. It also stars scene-stealing newcomer Millie Bobby-Brown as the utterly brilliant Eleven - a mysterious girl haunted by her past.

Season one is available on Netflix, with a second season expected in 2017. Read our season one review here.

Bates Motel

A prequel to Alfred Hitchcocks 1960 cult classic Psycho, Bates Motel follows a teenage Norman Bates and his mother Norma as they first move into Bates Motel. The show explores the very complicated relationship between Norman and his mother that resulted in the horrific murders in Psycho. Well worth a watch.

Seasons 1-3 are available on Netflix.

Fresh Meat

If youre looking for something lighter to watch, Fresh Meat is a winner. The comedy drama stars Jack Whitehall and Joe Thomas (The Inbetweeners) alongside a great cast. Fresh Meat follows the lives of a group of freshers as they move into a shared house, and continues through their university life. A must watch for any student past, present or future, it made me laugh out loud.

Series 1-4 are available on Netflix.
Our favourite indestructible superhero, Luke Cage, will be coming back on Netflix for a second season, the Marvel series announced on its official Twitter page.

In the Netflix series first season, Mike Colter took the spotlight as the title character, an ex-convict whose skin becomes impenetrable after an experiment gone wrong.

He now fights crime in the New York neighbourhood of Harlem. The show also stars Mahershala Ali, Alfre Woodard, Theo Rossi, and Rosario Dawson as the Marvel Netflix universe's wise recurring character, Claire Temple.

His first appearance as the character was in Jessica Jones, another acclaimed superhero drama show exclusive to Netflix.

Aside from the second season of Luke Cage , Coulter will also reprise his role in the upcoming ensemble show The Defenders; a crossover series that will feature Cage, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones). The Defenders is expected to come out some time in 2017.

Though the second season doesnt have a set release date, the Twitter tease says its coming soon.
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Home >Miscellaneous Issues > Miscellaneous > US Transportation Department Wants More Sun Visor Stickers
Laguna scoops major Amcham CSR awards

PHUKET: Laguna Resorts & Hotels PLC, better known on the island simply as Laguna Phuket, has won three prestigious awards bestowed by the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) in Thailand in appreciation of the resorts long-term contribution in CSR and community development.

tourismcharityeconomicsenvironment

By The Phuket News

Tuesday 6 December 2016, 12:22PM

All 62 winners of awards at the 2016 AMCHAM CSR Excellence (ACE) award event in Bangkok pose for a group photo.

US Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T Davies (right) hands the Amcham CSR Excellence (ACE) Award to Peera Pomsook (left), CSR Manager representing Laguna Resorts & Hotels PLC (Laguna Phuket), at the 2016 AMCHAM CSR Excellence (ACE) Award in Bangkok.

US Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T Davies (left) hands the US Ambassador's Award to Peera Pomsook (right), CSR Manager representing Laguna Resorts & Hotels PLC (Laguna Phuket) at the 2016 AMCHAM CSR Excellence (ACE) Award in Bangkok.

The awards were handed out by US Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T Davies at the 2016 Amcham CSR Excellence (ACE) Award event in Bangkok on Nov 22.

Highlighting the resorts long-term contribution in CSR and community development, Laguna Phuket received the ACE Recognition Award, the Thai-US Creative Partnership Designation Award and the US Ambassadors Award.

Amchams ACE Recognition honours member organisations that create long-term economic and social benefits in their communities.

Laguna Phuket was awarded the ACE recognition in 2015 for its Seedlings Internship Program for marginalised local young adults, and ACE 2016 for its Greening Community Initiative that resulted in 25,000 mangrove saplings planted by the resort, participated by more than 1,000 associates and 450 community members, over the course of 10 years.

The Thai-US Creative Partnership Designation Award is bestowed to qualifying member companies. Laguna Phuket is one of the final 62 qualifying members who were appointed partnership from more than 1,000 corporate members.

The US Ambassadors Award is a special and additional award created this year to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Amcham Thailand.

The top three finalists were IBM, Dow and Laguna Phuket. Laguna Phuket pitched for the award with its Seedlings Internship Program, which showcases the resorts policy and view on the Inclusion of LGBTQ and Equality.
Phuket illegal daily rental 'hotels' face deadline

PHUKET: All accommodation properties operating illegally in breach of the Hotel Act by providing rentals of 30 days or less have until Jan 31 to register with authorities, Phuket Governor Chockchai Dejamornthan has announced.

tourismconstructioneconomicscrime

By The Phuket News

Tuesday 6 December 2016, 11:26AM

Properties in Phuket offering rental accommodation for 30 days or less have until Jan 31 to register, warned Governor Chockchai Dejamornthan. Photo: Phuket PR Office

There are currently 424 hotels, comprising 45,740 guestrooms, legally registered and operating on the island, Governor Chockchai recently told a meeting of relevant officials at Provincial Hall.

In total, there are 204 hotels with 19,395 rooms in Muang District (including Phuket Town, Chalong and Rawai); 148 hotels with 18,839 rooms in Kathu District (including Patong); and 72 hotels with 7,506 rooms in Thalang (including Surin, Cherng Talay and Mai Khao).

However, the officials found a further 1,366* properties illegally offering rental accommodation for 30 days or less.

The Phuket Provincial Office has ordered all 1,366 places to register correctly from December 29, 2016 to January 31, 2017, Gov Chockai said.

Rental accommodation operators are asked to register at their local District Office, he added.

If they cant make it in time, we will consider extending the registration period, but it must not be more than six months, Gov Chockchai said.

Short-term rental operators who failed to register would face legal action, Gov Chockchai warned.

The huge number of properties in Phuket illegally providing short-term rentals was having a drastic effect on hotel bookings, Gov Chockchai noted.

Bringing these hotels (sic) under regulation also helps tor educe to likelihood of corruption, he said.

Phuket Vice Governor Snith Sriwihok, added, Tackling this issue will increase tourists confidence in Phuket as a tourist destination, and helps to ensure they will stay in a good-quality hotel during their holiday to Phuket.

The deadline to register properties as hotels follows the Ministry of Interior on August 19 issuing a new regulation to make it easier for more property owners to obtain a hotel license.

The regulation  called the Ministerial Regulation Prescribing Descriptions of Other Types of Building Used for a Hotel Business Operation 2016 under the Building Control Act (1979)  will remain in effect for five years.

However, it applies only to buildings that existed before it came into force and whose owners desire to use the property as Hotel as defined by the Hotel Act. (See story here.)

* As of December 5, global hotel booking site Agoda listed 1,806 properties in Phuket available for rent.
Pounding conditions dismast boats in Phuket Kings Cup Regatta

PHUKET: Strong winds and pounding seas has forced at least three Phuket boats out of the Phuket Kings Cup Regatta on the first day of racing yesterday (Dec 5).

tourismweathermarine

By Chris Husted

Tuesday 6 December 2016, 11:10AM

Kiril Stashevskys Galeforce (left) has been improving on performance and Galeforce is currently third overall in the class. Photo: Ghislaine Bovy/GiGi

Phuket trimaran 'Adrenaline' has been forced to retire after suffering damager in yesterdays strong conditions. Photo: Ghislaine Bovy/GiGi

Stealth catamarans Hurricane and Java, both well known in Phuket as contenders for their class, both lost their masts in the strong conditions, confirmed Roger Digglemann of Phuket boatbuilder Asia Catamarans.

Everyone is safe. Its a big disappointment, but what can you do, he told The Phuket News this morning (Dec 6).

It was more the sea than the wind. A rigging fitting broke and that brought the masts down, he said.

Well-known trimaran Adrenaline is also out of the Kings Cup regatta after suffering damage to her aft, Mr Diggelmann confirmed.

She (the boat) suffered damaged to her aft and shes back in the yard now, he said.

All three boats are under repair, but they will not be ready in time to return racing in the regatta, he added.

I also heard that 3-Itch (trimaran) suffered some damage, but made repairs and should be out racing again today, Mr Diggelmann noted.

Hopes are high that Phuket boats will take honours in the Multihull Racing class in the prestigious regatta.

Three other Stealth cats, all built in Phuket by Asia Catamarans, are still racing.

Phantom V, Top Cat and Galeforce are all okay and still racing, Mr Diggelmann said.

Phantom V was launched only two weeks ago, while Top Cat is well known in Phuket racing circles as one of the fastest cats in the fleet.

Meanwhile, Kiril Stashevskys Galeforce has been improving on performance with each passing regatta. Galeforce is currently third overall in the class.

The Phuket Kings Cup Regatta this year is marking its 30th anniversary since it was launched at Nai Harn in dedication to HM the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej for his passion and support for the sport of sailing.

The regatta routinely attracts more than 200 yachts from around the world with over 1,000 sailors of different nationalities to compete in the Andaman Sea waters off the coast of Phuket.
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Former US vice president Al Gore on Monday held an "interesting conversation" in New York with President-elect Donald Trump, but offered no details about their meeting.

Initially, Gore had been scheduled to meet with Trump's daughter Ivanka to discuss environmental issues, official sources said, but upon leaving the meeting he said that he had also met with the President-elect, EFE news reported.

"I had a lengthy and very productive session with the President-elect," Gore told reporters after meeting at Trump Tower with the real-estate mogul and his daughter.

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the President-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that," he added.

Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and is the US politician who has been most active in defending the environment, served as vice president during Bill Clinton's 1993-2001 presidency.

Gore was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000 but he was defeated in the election by Republican George W. Bush in a controversial and extraordinarily close contest that wound up being settled with a Supreme Court decision.

Ivanka Trump is a member of the transition team's executive committee.
[COMMUNICATED CONTENT]

Amazing from beginning to end, ecstatic, fantabulous- no exaggerations! It was the first time that I made such an event, and the organizational aspects came out better than I ever thought they would. The Ribbono Shel Olam was in charge, so it was gevaldig! This was how Rabbi Moshe Yakov Gruskin, founder of Sparks of Life, the Jewish organization for those suffering from Parkinsons Disease, described the organizations representation the Fourth World Parkinsons Congress, which took place in Portland, Oregon from September 20 through September 23.

Parkinsons is an extremely complex progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. Early symptoms may typically include a barely noticeable tremor in one hand, but the disease progresses to include stiffness, slowing of movement, slurred speech, and more. Symptoms may gradually progress over decades, with no two progressions being exactly the same. There is no known cure for Parkinsons, although medications may slow the progression of the disease.

Rabbi Gruskin, who works as a tireless fundraiser for a Lakewood yeshivah, was himself diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2009. However, instead of allowing the diagnosis to slow him down, Rabbi Gruskin was spurred on to do whatever he could to help his fellow Yidden who are also suffering from the disease.

Last year, while in a doctors office, he noticed an advertisement for the third World Parkinsons Congress (WPC), to be held in Montreal, and decided to attend together with his son. I went to the conference, and was blown away by the information, support, and camaraderie that was offered there. They exude a very positive attitude; their main motto is Learn to live life to the fullest. The only problem was, there were only three frum people there out of 3700- myself, my son, and one other frum lady from Teaneck.

About six months ago, Rabbi Gruskin founded Sparks of Life, an organization dedicated to bettering the lives of Jewish Parkinsons patients by providing an array of emotional, medical, and educational resources. The goal of these services is to enable those suffering from the disease to live fuller and healthier lives, to enhance their care, and to empower them to make positive choices.

I saw that no one was doing anything like this  so bmakom she-ein ish, recalls Rabbi Gruskin. I am the first such organization in the world, to my knowledge.  Rabbi Gruskin hopes to create a full service organization with complete support, education, advocacy, financial assistance, a library, a gym with on site therapists, and more. Many of his ideas were culled from seminars at the convention.

Sparks of Life held their first support meeting in Lakewood at the end of June 2016. We had no idea how many people would come; some told us it was a pipe dream. Parkinsons is very complex, and the cure is only in the hands of the Aibershter. Many of those who suffer are afraid of the stigma and shame. However, 100 people showed up and we were astounded. There is obviously a great need for this.

When the time for this years WPC came around, Rabbi Gruskin decided to try to organize a frum contingency to attend. He knew how much he had gained from attending last year, and wanted to give others the chance to attend as well. With the support of the organizers of the WPC, Rabbi Gruskin was able to arrange for a separate area dedicated for the use of the frum attendees, kosher food, and minyanim. The set up allowed the frum attendees to benefit from all the conference has to offer, while having their unique needs accommodated. Perhaps most of all, the set up provided the frum attendees a chance to interact with each other, realize that they are not alone, and ultimately forge relationships with each other and emerge feeling as one, big, happy family.

Mrs. D., whose father suffers from Parkinsons, attended the convention together with her parents and her sister. When we first heard about the convention, we thought it would be depressing, but it was just the opposite. The atmosphere was very positive, and the convention was extremely informative. It was very good for my mother, who is the primary caregiver for my father. 

What Sparks of Life has done for the the frum people is amazing, Mrs. D. continued. There were three kosher meals a day, minyanim, and a dedicated room for us which was open all day, which served as an oasis for us in the midst of thousands of people. We made connections, shmuzed with each other, and shared information; there was something so special about it. The Gruskins acted with such heart and ravchus- it was just amazing.
Plans to restore the NASA mission control room that served as the nerve center when man first reached the moon have been discussed for more than 20 years, but its restoration and preservation remain in limbo.

Officials at Johnson Space Center in Houston say the restoration of Mission Operation Control Room 2 is a priority, but note that NASA has other priorities too.

The room was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and retired seven years later.

The Houston Chronicle reports that last month, Gene Kranz, a flight director during NASAs Gemini and Apollo missions, told a group of preservationists touring the room that it has been worn of its heart and soul. He said, Its time to start the battle for its restoration.

(AP)
President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday evening, in Jerusalem, addressed a summit of publishers and writers of Jewish media outlets from around the world.

President Rivlin welcomed the participants to Israel and noted that the media, and Jewish communities were faced by many challenges, and thanked them for their dedication to the community and to the press. He said, You are like a window. Many outside the community look at you to learn about the Jewish community. And the Jewish community want you to make their voice heard. Many Jewish newspapers, have the motto: the voice of the Jewish community. However, today perhaps more than ever, you have another job to do. You must also be the eyes and ears of the community. Together, we must stand up and fight anti-Semitism, whenever and wherever we find it. And we must do it together.

The President stressed that as an Israeli and a Zionist, I do believe that Aliya is still the best way to express your Zionism. But I also believe that wherever you choose to live  in Europe, in America in Australia, Asia or Africa  you have the right to live as a proud Jew. He reiterated, If you face anti-Semitism  it is the duty of the State of Israel to stand by you. And when we face anti-Zionism  which is also anti-Semitism  you have a duty to stand with us.

The President continued by noting he was, proud of the great achievements of the State of Israel, and said that, Israeli society is facing many changes, and no longer has a secular majority and small religious minorities. It is a society which has four tribes; Haredi, Secular, National Religious, and Arab: all nearly the same size, with different identities. living in different cities, in different schools, and reading different newspapers. He told the participants about the work the Presidents Office was doing to address this challenge, The Presidents Office is now organizing projects in education, academia, in employment, in sport, and in local government, across the country. In these projects we work to bridge the gaps, between religious and secular, between Arabs and Jews, and teach them; to build a shared hope.

He said, As President, I am working to shine a light on all forms of hatred and extremism, which want to tear apart our shared lives here in this land. And I see the Jewish community around the world as important partners in building this shared hope.

The President spoke directly to the journalists and said, I have not been shy to speak out, when I see a challenge to Israel: as a Jewish or as a democratic state. And when I have, the media in Israel and around the world was quick to report it. There are many who are quick to write headlines and articles about the problems we face. But they are much slower to report the good news: the solutions to the problems. They are much slower to write about all we are doing to build a shared hope, for all Israelis. I understand the golden rule, if it bleeds, it leads, but friends, as the voice, eyes, and ears of the Jewish community, I urge you all: be sure you give a voice to those working for a better future. Because the world and the community looks to you.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo Credit: Mark Neiman, GPO)
Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett has been under attack since it became apparent to all that Amona will fall for a second time as per the High Court of Justice ruling to remove the community of 40 families. The attack against Bennett follows his agreement to remove the controversial paragraph 7 of the Regulation Bill that address Amona. Backers of the bill hoped the bill would retroactively legalize Amona but it has become evident this would not be the case, as explained by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

Struck explained that even when miracles occur, they are not recognized, explaining it was clear to her that the Regulation Bill was never going to pass. She explains the Regulation Bill, even without paragraph 7, removes the threat of removal of thousands of homes throughout Yehuda and Shomron and this threat was removed because of Bennett and his efforts. She explains that while the bill will not apply retroactively, it will prevent future evictions of homes as would have been likely without the bill.

She adds the bill recognizes the residents of Yehuda and Shomron as regional residents and this marks the first time that the residents of yishuvim are recognized as essential to the public.

Residents are not criminals but residents and the state must grant them a legal status she adds. She adds this was not possible without the residents of Amona, who have been the shluchim towards achieving this historic achievement.

She concludes that despite the pain that will surround the expulsion of Amona, We must not let this prevent us from seeing the historic achievement that has been achieved.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A new poll conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that an overwhelming 83% of Israelis envision President-elect Donald Trump as a Pro-Israel president.

The study polled 500 Israelis that when asked if President-elect Trump would be a Pro-Israel president, 83% responded with a yes, while 17% thought otherwise.

The poll, conducted by Dialog, asked Israelis a number of questions surrounding their views on the recent US Presidential election, its impact on Israel and if the anti-Semitic events that have occurred in the US since the election are troubling. The poll also revealed that 42% of those surveyed think there is no chance that Trump will scrap the Iran Nuclear Agreement, only 3% think the President-elect will undoubtedly execute on his promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem; and 48% are concerned about the increase in anti-Semitic incidents which were reported in the US since the Trump victory on November 8.

Our poll of Israelis regarding the new US administration and its impending impact on Israel and American Jewry shows that Israelis are optimistic that President-elect Trump will be a friend of Israel while at the same time they are concerned about the growing incidents of anti-Semitism in the United States and its impact on the American Jewish community, said Jay Ruderman, President of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which focuses on strengthening the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community. Israelis have faith in a strong relationship between the United States and Israel, but are worried about the new reality for their fellow Jews in America.

This will be the topic of conversation at the Knesset Caucus for Israel-US Relations, in partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation, today, December 5, at 10:00 am that will discuss the American Jewish community in the new era of a Donald Trump administration.

The gathering will host Jonathan Greenblatt, President of the ADL, Jane Eisner, Editor in Chief of the Forward; Gil Troy, Professor at McGill University and the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa; and Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY 1st District) via video to discuss the implications for the American Jewish community and what it can look to over the next four years.

What is your concern regarding to the increase of anti-Semitism incidents which were reported in the United States since the election?

Very Concerned 16%

concern 32%

slightly concerned 32%

not concerned at all 20%

Total: 100%

Following the United States election results, do you think the status of the American Jewry will be stronger, weaker or will not change at all?

Their status will be stronger 32%

Their status will be weaker 19%

Their status will be the same (will not change) 49%

Total: 100%

In your opinion, do you think the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, will lead to a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians?

There is no doubt he will lead to peace treaty 1%

There is a high chance 7%

There is a possible chance 45%

There is no chance 48%

Total: 100%

To what extent do you think President-elect Donald Trump will execute his promise to transfer the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem??

There is no doubt he will move the embassy 3%

There is High chance 22%

There is a possible chance 49%

There is no chance 26%

Total: 100%

To what extent do you think President-elect Donald Trump will scrap the Iran deal?

There is no doubt he will Scrap the Iran deal 2%

There is a High chance 13%

There is a possible chance 43%

There is no chance 42%

Total: 100%

Do you believe President-elect Donald Trump will be a Pro-Israel President?

Yes 83%

No 17%

Total: 100%

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Following the death of arch terrorist Yasser Arafat YMS, Israel was blamed for murdering him using some type of poison. Other theories placed the blame on Mohammed Dahlan, who remains in exile. It is now reported a formal PA (Palestinian Authority) probe into Arafats death in 2004 has revealed he did die of poisoning, placing the blame on rivals within the PA like Dahlan, not Israel.

The official results of the PA probe were released on Sunday 4 Kislev. It states that persons loyal to Dahlan visited Arafat in a French hospital and later admitted to delivering the contaminated medicine that was later given to Arafat, leading to his death. The report adds those responsible have admitted to their actions.

The report states Dahlan was planning a coup in the hope of ousting Arafats replacement, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Abu Mazen blames Dahlan for Hamas takeover of Gaza and ousting him and his Fatah rule in 2007. Dahlan has always maintained his innocence as he does today.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The new arrangement regarding monthly child allowance payments and Bituach Leumi are getting underway. Under the new plan, the state deducts NIS 50 from each childs payment and this money will be placed into a savings account until the child reaches adulthood.

The new program is being called A savings account for every child and the government feels this will provide every child in Israel with a minimum amount of money when s/he becomes an adult. Opponents to the plan, primarily the chareidim, feel every last shekel of the monthly payments is required to pay for the expenses of the children.

For parents who can afford and wish to do so, they may add NIS 50 per child to make the monthly amount NIS 100, which continues until the child reaches the age of 18. In addition, when the child reaches 18 the state will deposit an additional NIS 500 and if the account is not cashed in, and an additional NIS 500 at the age of 21.

The parents have the option of a bank or investment track for the money. The state has undertaken to pay all fees for either type of account until the child turns 21.

This will provide all children with at least NIS 20,000 when they turn adults, which the state feels will be advantageous for most of todays children.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The Health Ministry program to vaccinate Israels students against the flu was not as successful as was hoped. According to a Ynet report only 55% of students agreed to receive the vaccine in school. The number of children who received the vaccine reached 60.4%.

An internal Health Ministry report shows that 90% of the refusal was from parents with 3.4% documented as student refusal and 3.5% as being absent on the day the vaccinations were given.

Officials now report the message was not delivered as well as it should have or could have and not, with flu season upon us, some 40% of the students are not vaccinated. One of the lessons learned is the need to add additional nurses in schools during the vaccination program. Health Ministry officials are disappointed with the low turnout among students.

Vaccines are given free around the country and adults may receive one via ones kupat cholim healthcare provider. Generally speaking, the kupot cholim are set up that one can just come to a nursing station during operating hours and receive the vaccine without seeing a doctor and without advanced appointment. That said persons are urged to contact their local kupat cholim office to determine the procedure and to make sure that they havent run out of vaccinations as is the case in some branches.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Irans nuclear chief warned the United States on Monday of a firm and strong reaction if it persists in actions he says are endangering a nuclear deal aimed at curbing programs that Tehran could use to make atomic arms.

Ali Akbar Salehi was alluding to a bill before President Barack Obama that would extend U.S. sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act l by 10 years. The bill was submitted to Obama after the U.S. Senate voted to extend it last week.

The nuclear deal between Iran and the United States and five other world powers lifted international sanctions in exchange for limitations on the Iranian nuclear program. But U.S. sanctions remain and will expire on Dec. 31 if Obama doesnt sign the extension into law.

Speaking at a nuclear security conference convened by the U.Ns International Atomic Energy Agency, Salehi urged Washington to desist from irrational and provocative moves.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, who was also at the conference, said Salehi also raised Irans concerns during a meeting between the two men. He told reporters while Iran strongly views the Senates vote to extend the sanctions act as a violation of the nuclear deal, I stated equally strongly that we do not view it as such.

(AP)
The leader of one of New Jerseys largest mosques, who is accused of lying on his green card application, was in court Monday to fight deportation.

Imam Mohammad Qatanani, the leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, didnt disclose being convicted in Israel for being a member of Hamas, federal officials have said.

Qatanani denies that he was ever a member of Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. He says that he was only detained  like many others at the time  and was never told that he was convicted of anything. He also said he was subjected to physical and mental abuse while in detention.

Eight years ago, a judge ruled against immigration authorities attempt to have him deported.

We believe the justice system in this country is very special, he said before entering court Monday, The Record reported.

Qatanani was born in the West Bank and said that he was detained by Israeli officials while visiting there in 1993. He came to the U.S. in 1996 from Jordan.

His brother-in-law was a senior Hamas military leader killed by Israelis, but Qatanani said in his 2008 trial that he did not participate with him in political activities.

Khalid Abu Goura, who served on the board of a mosque in Jordan when Qatanani was imam there, said that he never spoke about Hamas. Goura also said that he never saw any Hamas-related books or literature in Qatananis possession.

Goura also said imams were banned by Jordanian law from talking about politics, and that they could only be hired after a background check by Jordanian intelligence and security agencies.

The Jordanian government is in control of all the mosques, Goura said. If any imam or preacher talks politics he will be banned from preaching, jailed or fined.

An FBI agent testified previously that Qatanani admitted that he had been arrested and tried.

Qatanani came to the U.S. on a religious worker visa to lead the Paterson mosque and has been credited with working with leaders of different faiths and law enforcement. He has worked on the New Jersey attorney generals offices Muslim outreach task force.

While serving as the U.S. federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie called him a man of great goodwill and said that hes always had a very good relationship with us.

(AP)
Former Vice President Al Gore said Monday he had a productive meeting with Donald Trump, calling it an extremely interesting conversation.

Gore, a leading voice on the dangers of climate change, met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York City and spoke briefly to reporters afterward. He categorized the meeting as a sincere search for common ground.

When asked what was discussed, Gore said only, To be continued.

Gore said he also met with Ivanka Trump, the president-elects daughter. Transition officials said earlier Monday that the two would discuss climate change. During the campaign, Donald Trump called man-made climate change a hoax, and he has pledged to undo a number of regulations to protect the environment.

Since the election, however, Trump has sent mixed signals on the topic.

I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much, he said of the link between human activity and climate change in a post-election interview with The New York Times.

Im looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it, he said on the topic of whether he will withdraw from climate change accords.

Gore is well-known for the film An Inconvenient Truth, about his efforts to spread the word about global warming. Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

During the 2016 presidential race while campaigning for Democrat Hillary Clinton, Gore warned that Trump, based on the ideas that he has presented, would take us toward a climate catastrophe.

(AP)
The Regulation Bill was passed in its preliminary reading in Knesset in a 60-49 vote. The Bayit Yehudi party had to concede on the controversial paragraph 7, which would have retroactively legalized Amona, since the bill would not have passed with it included. Opponents explained the Knesset cannot legislate a law that is in direct contradiction to a High Court of Justice ruling, referring to the December 25, 2016 deadline for the removal of Amona issued by the court. As such, it is now clear to all that Amona will be evacuated for a second time while residents insist they have not yet given up all hope. Likud MK Benny Begin voted against the bill as he promised he would, for he feels it is irresponsible legislation which he refuses to be a part of.

Begin stood on principle and voted against it amid the awareness his vote for it or an abstention would not have impacted the outcome. Nevertheless he insisted on opposing the bill.

Not among those applauding the bill was opposition leader MK Yitzchak Herzog, who stated the bill is not representative of Zionism but rather national suicide. He and his colleagues warn that the bill result in a binational state rather than Jewish and Palestinian states.

Regional UN Envoy Nickolay Mladenov views the bill as a first step by Israel towards annexation of the occupied West Bank, warning of far-reaching legal consequences that will result.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
There is an increase in the number of cases of bird flu in Israel, with the latest found in the Kiryat Malachi area, resulting in the destruction of the birds from three coops.

A Ministry of Agriculture veterinarian who spoke with Kol Berama Radio on Tuesday morning 6 Kislev explained the illness is spreading throughout Europe and Egypt during recent weeks, attributed to birds migrating as Israel is a migration corridor between Europe and Africa.

Just a few weeks ago, the flu (H5N8) was discovered in Cheftziba Farm in Israel. Officials had to destroy about 1,500 of the farm almost 35,000 birds.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Keren Miller ordered the release of two minors detained on the night of Wednesday, 29 Cheshvan, on suspicion of participating in a protest at the Ofra Junction against the destruction of Amona. Judge Miller imposed strict restrictions on them and explained that the reasons for the conditions are the ideological motivation of the protest and situation in the region due to the planned evacuation of Amona.

The police stated that the two minors were detained in Ofra after a protest at the Ofra Junction during which the road was blocked with rock and burning tires. Judge Miller ruled that there is not a reasonable suspicion that the detained minors had placed rocks and tires, and rather they are suspected of only participation in the protest and violating the public peace. During their interrogation, the two minors, aged 14 and 15, denied being involved with the protest.

During the deliberation Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi, who represented the minors, stated that contrary to the law both of them were strip-searched by the Binyamin Police and that they are due compensation from the police for undergoing such a search. Judge Miller refused Hajbis demand for the police representative to clarify the matter during the deliberation.

See here for the complete post.

Minors detained over Amona fliers

On the morning of Sunday 4 Kislev, detectives from the Department of Nationalist Crime in the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police detained two minors aged 14 and 17 on suspicion of distributing fliers to border policemen and soldiers at the Tapuach Junction. The fliers call on security forces to refuse orders to destroy Amona and expel the 42 families living there.

The two minors were taken to the Department of Nationalist Crime in the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police and interrogated on suspicion of incitement to refuse orders. Honenu Attorney Nati Rom, who arrived at the police station to give the minor legal counsel, said that the police interrogators refused to allow the minors parents to be present during the interrogation, in violation of the Youth Law. Honenu considers the detention to constitute a serious violation of freedom of expression.

Sitting here is a 14-year-old whom policemen threatened to beat and whose parents the police have not allowed to be present during interrogation, as if he is a terrorist, said Rom at the police station. The police have passed all limits. The Central Unit detained a 14-year-old minor because he distributed fliers? Civilians are allowed to express their opinions even if they oppose way of thinking of the police and the High Court. The silencing of dissent must stop immediately.

The flier which the police claim was distributed by the minors was produced in light of the preparations by the IDF and the police to destroy Amona.

Translation by Honenu of the fliers text: Soldier/policeman! The State of Israel has decided to destroy a community in Israel. To carry out the destruction, security forces, of which you are a part, have been chosen. This decision damages the values of the Jewish nation that have a part of us and have guarded over us for thousands of years. This decision harms many Jews. This decision harms you. You can choose not to participate in the destruction. You can be the best soldier in the real war  the war for our values and for our country. Say now to your friends and your commanders that you will not participate in fulfilling this type of order!

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Five soldiers were found guilty of accepting sufganiyot (jelly donuts) and they are being ousted from their unit, the border crossings unit of the military police for accepted goods and services. Some of the jelly donuts were given to them by Arabs in exchange for lighter inspections at the crossing.

When Kol Yisrael military correspondent Carmela Menashe checked into the story, she learned something a bit different from the story explained above. One of the soldiers, a female, who was a combat soldiers for two years, was being sent to prison for her offense as she accepted jelly donuts from Chabadnikim. Two additional female soldiers were sentenced to military lockup and their combatant ID (Teudat Lochem) was taken from them, a severe consequence for such an infraction. Two other soldiers are still awaiting to hear what their punishments will be.

The soldiers insist there are expected to fulfill an impossible mission, to remain at a checkpoint for 12 consecutive hours and check each and every vehicle. This is the reason they explain they accept food and drink from Israelis and Arabs alike they explain.

In response to the report, a military official told Kol Yisrael that each crossing is equipped with everything necessary for the soldier and they were judged because they crossed an unacceptable red line.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
According to a Kikar Shabbos report a number of cabinet ministers recently met with representatives of the families of IDF soldiers Sgt. Oron Shaul HYD and Lt. Hadar Goldin HYD.

About six months ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appointed Shas leader Aryeh Deri and Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon to head a committee assigned with bringing home the remains of the two soldiers, whose bodies were taken by Hamas terrorists during Gaza fighting in the summer of 2014. Also, serving on the committee are Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his military secretary, Brigadier-General Eliezer Toledano.

There is reportedly some progress and this led to a meeting between Toledano, Deri and Kahlon. Following that meeting, they decided to update representatives of the families, a meeting held without media fanfare.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
As most Israelis have put the fires that struck Israel behind, for those whose homes were destroyed or badly damaged, the work is just beginning. This is the situation for 18 families in the Shomron community of Nvei Tzuf as their homes were totally destroyed. Another forty homes were damaged, some more seriously than others. The entire community, numbering about 300 families, was evacuated on Friday night as the arson fires raged and spread from one home to another.

Many residents of the community have launched a fund, turning to the tzibur to assist the families who lost everything to rebuild.

For now, they are seeking assistance in purchasing basic, as parents and children to not have clothing, school books and other essentials. Community leaders explain that if the families receive assistance from elsewhere, after their needs are met if money remains, it will be given to others who lost it all in the fire. They have launched a collections page and have raised 939,727 of 1,250,000.

The heads of the Binyamin Regional Council, which is responsible for the community, are working to set up some of the homeless families in apartments and caravans in the community. The regional council is also beginning to assess the damage and what will be required to rebuild the damage to public areas.

Ministers Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennet have both visited the community following the fire, promising to do what they can to assist in the rebuilding process.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A rookie state trooper responding to a call for help was killed in a violent wreck on a highway when a car traveling in the opposite direction crossed a grassy median and slammed into his cruiser head-on, authorities said.

The driver of the other vehicle also was killed.

The crash that left debris and the mangled cars scattered on Route 55 in Millville in southern New Jersey happened at about 7 p.m. Monday. Officials say a man traveling south in a Toyota Corolla crossed the median into the northbound lanes and slammed into a marked state police vehicle.

Trooper Frankie Williams, 31, was flown to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where he was pronounced dead, state police said.

The driver of the other car was pronounced dead at the scene. He has not been identified.

The crash remained under investigation early Tuesday.

State police said Williams, of Atlantic County, was a member of the 156th State Police Class, which graduated January 29, 2016. He was assigned to Port Norris Station.

In August, Williams responded to a parking lot in Pilesgrove Township after a person reported a Toy Poodle inside a vehicle with one window open about an inch. The trooper saw the dog was lying on its side inside a crate and in obvious distress from heat stroke, state police said.

After breaking the window with is baton, the trooper gave the dog water and it was taken to a veterinary hospital in critical condition. The dog eventually became stable and authorities charged its owner, a Pennsylvania woman, with animal abuse.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Williams interests primarily dealt with people understanding and being aware of cybercrime.

Before joining the State Police, he was a loss prevention manager for nearly six years for Lowes.

No other information was immediately available.

The only other state trooper to die in the line of duty this year was Trooper Sean Cullen. He was struck and killed by a vehicle while assisting at the scene of a vehicle fire on Interstate 295 in Deptford Township in March.

(AP)
Lawmakers are tacking on money for security around Trump Tower in New York and funds for health care for retired coal miners to a stopgap spending bill that would avoid a government shutdown at weeks end.

The temporary budget bill, scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday, would keep federal agencies functioning into next spring, giving the new Congress and incoming president Donald Trump time to approve more than $1 trillion to fund federal agencies through the current government budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

Current spending expires at midnight on Friday. Since the measure is the only must-do bill before Congress adjourns, its likely to carry several add-ons, including flood relief, money for overseas military operations and help for Flint, Michigan, to fix its lead-tainted water system.

Other items include language to help speed a congressional waiver required next year to confirm retired Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense and temporary help to maintain health benefits for retired members of the United Mine Workers. Lawmakers will again deny themselves a cost-of-living pay hike thats fallen out of favor.

One major dispute centered on protecting health care and pension benefits for about 120,000 retired coal miners.

The measure had divided coal-state Republicans. Several supported the bill, but GOP leaders  including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky  were wary of bailing out unionized workers.

McConnell said Tuesday that the temporary health care help for miners would be part of the spending bill, though Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., suggested the issue remained unresolved and continued to push for a permanent fix.

Manchin vowed to block any Senate effort to move quickly on unrelated legislation until the miners fight was settled.

Over two years ago, we promised the retired coal miners of America  we promised them and most of their families  and these are a lot of widows now  and we promise them that they would have their health care benefits, which were guaranteed to them, and their pensions, Manchin said.

At issue are health benefits for retirees whose companies declared bankruptcy in recent years.

Also the subject of last-minute talks was an Obama administration request for $35 million to provide security for President-elect Trump, whose home in midtown Manhattan provides unusual and costly complications for the Secret Service. The trucking lobby appeared poised to win permanent relief from recent Transportation Department rules mandating rest for long-haul carriers, but details were unavailable.

The overall measure would keep the government running through April 28, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday.

The Senate, meanwhile, appears on track Tuesday to pass a $6.3 billion measure boosting medical research and speeding drug approvals. It also includes a $1.8 billion cancer research moonshot strongly supported by Vice President Joe Biden, whose son Beau died of the disease, as well as $1 billion over two years to prevent and treat abuse of opioids and other addictive drugs like heroin. The nearly 1,000-page package cleared the House overwhelmingly last week, with strong backing from President Barack Obama. It contains a long-overdue overhaul of federal mental health programs.

Biden presided over the Senate during an 85-13 procedural tally on Monday and a final vote is expected Tuesday despite opposition from liberals like Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.. She complained that the bill would make it easier for politically well-connected pharmaceutical and medical device industries to win federal approval for their products while raising risks to consumers.

Also Monday, negotiators wrapped up talks on a massive water projects bill that also contains a controversial package of provisions that wades into a complex, longstanding battle over allocating Californias water resources. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein brokered the accord, which, among other steps, aims to offer relief to farmers and farm communities suffering from the states longstanding drought.

But Californias other Democratic senator, Barbara Boxer, ripped the accord, charging that it would harm drinking water quality and severely weaken the Endangered Species Act, threatening salmon and other species. Boxer is retiring and vowed to filibuster the legislation as her last major act in office.

For now, the stopgap measure is serving as a vehicle for $170 million to help Flint, Michigan, repair its aging water system to prevent its water from being poisoned with lead. Other items include about $4 billion to help Louisiana and other states rebuild from floods and other natural disasters, and money to partially meet the Obama administrations $11.6 billion request last month for war-related money.

(AP)
Who was the Chinese executive with a love of fresh-cut flowers who was given the VIP treatment at House of Fraser stores last week?

The mystery boss apparently demanded blooms be placed wherever he went. But with pressure on costs, fast-moving flunkies repositioned the same vases so they were always one step ahead of the dignitary.

Flower power: Fast-moving flunkies repositioned the same vases so they were always one step ahead of the dignitary

Spin doctors wont reveal who the pampered visitor was  itll just have to remain another House of Fraser mystery.

A bit like why chief executive Nigel Oddy suddenly resigned two weeks ago.

Another cost-cruncher is Kevin Loosemore, boss of FTSE 100 tech firm Micro Focus, which is currently in the midst of taking over Hewlett Packards software business.

The 57-year-old chairman wants to cut costs at the US firm, and has his eyes on HPs four corporate jets. Still, Oxford grad Kev can afford to be mean.

He took home 4.2m last year, has a 16m stake in the firm, and will get tens of millions if the deal goes through.

Donald Trumps new commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, 79, the hedge-fund billionaire, has a mixed track record of doing deals in the UK. He recently cashed in his 172m stake in Virgin Money. In April, though, the art investor, who has a 79m collection, wound up his NBNK UK venture which was supposed to invest in British banks.

In the six years since it was founded, it failed to make a single acquisition. Ross has better luck making ties in his personal life  hes on wife number three and has a string of homes.

Hes also famed for his hospitality  at a soiree at his Palm Beach house, his guests were served champagne by a trapeze artist swinging above their heads.

Silky smooth Fortnum & Mason boss Ewan Venters seems unfazed by cheaper rivals selling Christmas hampers. The purveyor of all things posh is clearly sniffy about competition from budget rival Aldi.
17.20 (close): Financial stocks led the charge on the London market as concerns eased over the state of Italy's beleaguered banking industry.

The FTSE 100 Index closed up 33.01 points to 6,779.84, as British lenders raced ahead on reports that the world's oldest bank, Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena, might be handed a state bailout to shore up its balance sheet.

Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest riser on the London market, climbing five per cent or 11.3p to 209.1p, while Barclays rose more than four per cent or 9.9p to 226.8p.

Analysts are fearful that Italian banks, many of which are burdened by bad debt, may struggle to find refinancing during a period of political uncertainty, with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tendering his resignation following the 'no' vote in Italy's referendum on constitutional reform.

Monte dei Paschi was looking to raise 5billion euros (4.2billion) from investors as part of its turnaround plan. Success now hinges on it finding an institutional investor to contribute 1billion euros (844million) of that total.

However, investors may be wary about ploughing funds into the Italian lender amid uncertainty over what the next Italian Government will bring.

Two former cooperative banks, Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, received cash injections and were taken over by a government-organised fund after small investors lost between 11billion euros (9.3billion) and 12.4billion euros (10.5billion) last year.

A failure of Monte dei Paschi could potentially add to the number of Italian investors who see their savings evaporate, spreading more woe throughout the economy.

In Europe, Germany's Dax was up 0.9 per cent and the Cac 40 in France rose 1.3 per cent.

The price of oil dropped for the first time since Opec reached a landmark agreement to support prices by cutting supply.

Brent crude dropped more than two per cent to 53.81 US dollars a barrel amid fears that the cartel's deal could be undermined.

On the currency markets, the pound hit a two-month high against the US dollar, before falling 0.4 per cent to 1.268.

Sterling came under pressure after the greenback strengthened on hopes that the steady US economy may force the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sooner than initially thought.

The pound was up 0.2 per cent versus the euro at 1.184.

In UK stocks, shares in power station owner Drax soared 12 per cent, or 33.6p to 311.2p, following a 340million deal to buy gas and electricity supplier Opus Energy.

The group said the takeover of small business supplier Opus - which has more than 265,000 customer meters - will combine with its existing Haven Power provider to create Britain's fifth biggest non-domestic energy retailer.

Construction equipment firm Ashtead rose one per cent after reporting a healthy increase in half-year profits, helped by the collapse in the value of the pound.

Shares were up 16p to 1,556p after it said that pre-tax profit rose 25 per cent to 413million in the six months to October 31 as organic growth and acquisitions also boosted the balance sheet.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 Index were Royal Bank of Scotland up 11.3 to 209.1, Barclays up 9.9p to 226.8p, HSBC up 27.3p to 654p, Travis Perkins up 48p to 1,405p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 Index were Anglo American down 48.5p to 1,194.5p, Johnson Matthey down 89p to 3,004p, Paddy Power Betfair down 215p to 8,135p, Sage Group down 13.5p to 619.5p.

15:30: Having dithered all session, the Footsie is back near the same point it started before the opening bell.

With just an hour to go the FTSE 100 is up just 3.2 points at 6,750.3, pretty much flat for the session.

In the US Wall Street was also little changed. In early trading the Dow Jones was up just 0.01 per cent to 19,219.07, the S&P 500 rose 0.07 per cent higher at 2,206.31, and the Nasdaq Composite has ticked up 0.14 per cent to 5,316.40.

Is this the new normal: Scary sight for investors as Trump intervenes into the markets

But the big worry for investors was President elect Donald Trump's intervention into Boeing's stock price.

Shares in the engine maker fell by 1 per cent at the start of trading after he publicly declared on Twitter that the firm was charging too much to build the new Air Force One and should lose the contract.

He added that the Government's purchase of Boeing's new Air Force One plane was 'ridiculous'.

The tweet should be a warning to other investors as this is a man used to voicing his opinions, even if it is to the detriment of the markets.

Connor Campbell, analyst at Spreadex said: 'Well it's a worrying sign that the President-elect now has the power to move individual stocks higher or lower with a tweet.'

Surprise: Banks were the big winners this session despite Italy's bank woes

On the data front the latest US trade balance for October widened out to minus $42.6billion from minus $36.4billion in September.

A drop in exports appears to have pushed out the deficit slightly more than expected.

In London it has been a good day for bank stocks despite fears over the state of Italy's lenders.

Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays all finished at the top of the FTSE 100 index as investors adopt a fairly sanguine outlook to events in Italy.

This could change if the beleaguered Italian lender Monte Dei Paschi fails to find a solution for its much needed bailout.

On the currency markets the pound is currently up 0.2 per cent against the US dollar at just under $1.28 and against the euro it's up 0.4 per cent at 1.19.

The increase has been linked to bets that the Government will lose its case to begin the formal process for leaving the European Union without parliamentary approval.

13:00: The Footsie moved into the black at lunch as markets calmed across Europe after yesterday's excitement over the Italian referendum result.

The FTSE 100 index was up 15.8 points 6,763.1, while the Dax in Germany gained 0.2 per cent.

The Cac 40 in France increased 0.3 per cent and Italy's Ibex rose 1.1 per cent.

On the currency markets the euro has dropped to its lowest level since March 2015 and sterling is reaping the benefits.

Against the euro the pound is trading at 1.20, sterling's highest level since July.

The pound also rose rose for a sixth day against the dollar, up 0.2 per cent to $1.2758.

Sterling is being boosted by expectations that the UK is more likely to be heading towards a soft rather than a hard Brexit.

At the moment 11 Supreme Court judges are being asked to overturn last month's High Court ruling that Prime Minister Theresa May must ask Parliament for permission to trigger Brexit.

It is not clear which way the decision will go, but some analysts appear to believe that either way Brexit is likely to be heavily watered down.

Jane Foley, analyst at Rabobank International said: 'Right now, the market is more of a view that hard Brexit can be avoided' which 'coupled with some position adjustment, is why we are where we are.'

On the markets it has been a day to forget for London's spread-betters as the financial watchdog has revealed plans for stricter rules for firms selling 'contract for difference' products such as spread bets to retail customers.

As a result CMC Markets has fallen 35 per cent, or 64.5p, at 119.8p, while IG Group has lost 280.5p at 505.5p.

David Cheetham, analyst at XTB, said: 'The biggest movers on the day have come from the mid-caps with spread-betting firms IG Group and CMC Markets seeing their valuation plummet by more than a quarter after the FCA announced more stringent regulation in the sector.

'The reaction in the stock price suggests this ruling has come as a major surprise but the increased offering of products such as binary bets which have characteristics more akin to gambling and the findings that 82 per cent of clients have lost money suggests that more stringent regulation was inevitable.'

11:00: The Footsie remained subdued in late morning trading as spread-betters clocked up heavy losses.

The FTSE 100 index was down 12.5 points at 6,735.0, little changed from the opening bell.

Meanwhile markets were up across Europe, with the Dax in Germany up 0.1 per cent and the Cac in France gaining 0.25 per cent.

Bad day: Shares in spread betting firms IG Group, CMC Markets and Plus 500 have fallen further - they're currently down nearly 30 per cent

In London spread-betting firms have tumbled after the Financial Conduct Authority announced plans to impose stricter rules on the contracts for difference market after identifying a number of 'serious concerns'.

The regulator has unveiled plans to impose caps on leverage for retail clients, force disclosure of profit-loss ratios on client accounts and ban the uses of opening bonuses to promote products.

Analysts at Liberum said: 'This will result in a much smaller, less profitable CFD and spread-betting industry.'

Elsewhere HSBC rose to the top of the index, up 2.9 per cent at 644.8p after analysts at Morgan Stanley raised their rating on the bank to 'equal weight' from 'underweight'.

This helped push RBS higher too after it said yesterday a settlement had been reached with three shareholder groups over a fund raising back in 2008.

Shares in the bank were up 2.4 per cent at 202.8p.

But miners were in the red with Anglo American falling to the bottom of the index, down 3.1 per cent at 1,197.0p, as metals prices fell.

BHP Billiton fell 2.8 per cent to 38.5p and Glencore lost 1.8 per cent to 285.1p, while Rio Tinto was down 1.8 per cent lower at 285.2p.

On the FTSE 250, power producer Drax was the biggest riser, up 14.5 per cent at 317.7p after announcing a deal to buy energy supplier Opus Energy for 340million alongside four gas power plant projects.

Imagination Technologies was the biggest 'small cap' riser, up 11.1 per cent at 245.4p after the chip maker reported a return to profits.

08:30: The Footsie has turned red in early trading after yesterday's hysteria surrounding the Italian referendum and the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi begins to subside.

In opening deals the FTSE 100 was off 16.2 points at 6,726.3, having finished 16.11 points higher yesterday. Across Europe the Dax in Germany and the Cac in France also ticked marginally lower.

But Italy's Ibex managed to make gains, up 0.3 per cent. Shares across Asia were also up with Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbing more than 0.8 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei 225 rose more than 0.4 per cent.

Markets have also been calmed by the fact that Italian Prime Minister Renzi has agreed to put off his resignation until the nation's 2017 budget has been approved, reducing the risk of snap election and another populist backlash.

Calm: Markets across Europe were marginally down this morning after yesterday's hysteria

But there is still plenty for investors to worry about, namely Italy's largest bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is in need of a state bailout.

Sources say the current political upheaval will make it harder for the bank to secure the 5billion it needs from private investors to cover losses linked to bad debts.

If a private-sector solution proved impossible, a source said, then the European Central Bank was likely to green light a 'precautionary recapitalisation' - involving an injection of state funds and the conversion of subordinated debt into equity.

Away from any developments in Italy post-referendum, will be Eurozone quarter three GDP.

It is also day two of the UK Supreme Court hearing on Article 50, which could have ramifications for the pound.

Companies in focus in London include:

ABN Amro - It announced it will sell its private banking operations in Asia and the Middle East to asset manager LGT as it focuses on northwest Europe.

Virgin Money - Bank announced Darren Pope and Eva Eisenschimmel were appointed independent non-executive directors of the company.

Drax - The UK's largest power station, has agreed a 340million deal to buy business energy provider Opus Energy.

Thomas Cook - Buying out partner Co-operative Travel in 55.8million deal.

UK company news scheduled today includes:

Annual: On The Beach

Interims: Ashstead, Imagination Technologies, Wolseley

Economic news scheduled today includes:

Eurozone Gross Domestic Product at 10am
The Italian finance minister is said to have asked Qatari investors to plug the gap

Shares in Monte dei Paschi have tanked again this morning as fears mounted that the world's oldest bank may have to be nationalised.

The bank - founded in 1472 in Siena, Italy - requires a 5billion bailout as early as this weekend but its private sector options have dried up since Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced he would resign.

It is understood the Qatar Investment Authority was interested in coming to the rescue but this now looks increasingly unlikely. Analysts said no one would invest in a bank that has already been bailed out three times in the last three years against such an uncertain political backdrop.

Without the cornerstone investment from Qatar, the other parts of the complex plan to fill the bank's 5billion capital shortfall are likely to collapse.

The world's oldest bank - Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena - is under threat of nationalisation with investors scared that the Italian Prime Minister's resignation could destabilise things

Shares in the bank are down another 3 per cent this session, adding to the pain of its 4.2 per cent drop yesterday. It has lost 85 per cent of its market value this year and lumbers under a 28billion bad loan pile.

There were worries the bank would struggle to raise the cash needed to stay afloat even before the vote.

'The 'No' result has undoubtedly made it harder to attract private sector capital to fill Monte dei Paschi's gaping capital hole,' said Kathleen Brooks of City Index.

'The risk is that investors lose faith, which triggers a run on the bank and a full-blown financial crisis that starts in the currency bloc but could emanate around the world.'

Many of the firms expected to support the capital-raising exercise are thought to have made their backing conditional on a 'Yes' vote.

On Sunday night the bank's bosses were locked in talks with its advisers JP Morgan and Mediobanca as they struggled to find a solution.

Ciao: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned after Italians rejected his constitutional reforms

In a move eerily reminiscent of Barclays' fundraising drive at the height of the financial crisis, Italian finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan is said to have asked Qatari investors for 850million to plug the gap.

If this is successful, bankers believe between ten and 20 more institutions could be persuaded to put in 85million each.

But if it fails, the Italian state will be left with a string of unpleasant options.

They could let Monte dei Paschi collapse, although this would be unthinkable and could see millions of depositors' savings wiped out.

No: 59.1% voted against Renzi's reforms in what is seen as another example of the growing anti-establishment trend

Alternatively, the authorities could follow tough European Union laws which require bondholders to lose money before taxpayers step in to rescue a lender.

In most countries  including the UK  bank bonds are held by large institutions which can take a hit when times are hard.

But many Italian bonds are owned by pensioners  and last time there was a so-called bail in, when these investors lost money, an elderly saver committed suicide afterwards.

The other choice would be to simply flout EU demands and launch a bailout without hurting bondholders, but this would deal a shattering blow to confidence in the bloc's laws.

Whatever happens, other banks will rapidly come under pressure if the Qatari rescue fails.

Another seven are thought to be in serious danger, including medium-sized lenders Popolare di Vicenza, Veneto Banca and Carige.

Banca Etruria, CariChieti, Banca delle Marche, and CariFerrara, four smaller institutions rescued last year, are the others in the firing line.

Although fresh elections are unlikely in the wake of prime minister Renzi's departure, there are growing fears the nation's troubled lenders - which are struggling with 300bn of bad debt - could come crashing down.

Unicredit, the country's biggest lender, is expected to seek 11billion from shareholders.

Despite concern from analysts, EU finance ministers denied there was any risk to the Continent's stability.
MBABANE  The poetic smooth flow of words and the rhymes that kept the audience snapping their fingers was felt at the Mbabane Theatre Club last Friday night.



Poetry Without Borders was a coalition show where Swazilands and South Africas finest poets came together to take poetry lovers through a poetic journey.

The first poet, Ngomane Nkambule used his rhythmical compositions to paint a beautiful love picture as he played around with words that describe love.



Some of the poems that he performed included Umuntfu Wami and Follow.

The second act for the show was the poetic seed Sibulelo Jele also known as Sbu-J, who introduced himself through stanzas that rhyme about Tinkondlo tami tikhaliphile.



The second poem that he recited was titled The girl who made the poet run out of words, just before he walked off stage he performed his last piece titled You will know which was a factual poem that left the audience snapping away as each verse was loaded with facts of the artists love for poetry.



The first international act was presented by KwaZulu Natals first lady of poetry Wazi Kunene who delivered her poem in a different and unique way as it was delivered with a musical background of jazzy and melodic tunes during her poem titled My lovers mouth .



It was definitely a night full of surprises and an out of the ordinary poetry journey for poetry lovers as Vusumuzi Phakathi brought his energetic vibe to the audience when he jumped on stage screaming hustle, hustle!
MBABANE  There will be no lifts for this years biggest winner of the Swaziland Gospel Music Awards.



The main winner of the awards scheduled for this Saturday at the Royal Swazi Spa Convention Centre will drive home a seven-seater Toyoya Vox.



The vehicle worth E90 000 comes courtesy of SO Motors. This is the same company that recently gave the Swaziland National Council of Arts and Culture (SNCAC) a vehicle to use when doing their day to day duties.

For now, the main winner remains anonymous until Saturday night.



This is a move by the Association of Christian Artists in Swaziland (ACASWA) to keep gospel fans on their toes in anticipation and looking forward to the final event.



Thanked



Zakhele Ginindza, President of the Association of Christian Artists in Swaziland (ACASWA) thanked the company for sponsoring the car, saying this time around they were looking for a vehicle that will be good to transport artists to the different events.

We are humbled with the gift given to us. It is exciting to have such partners who always believe in supporting local artists. OS Motors have proved to be true partners, he said.



Ginindza insisted that the main winner will only be known on the night of the event.

The main winner will remain a surprise until Saturday night. Mine would be to invite all gospel music lovers to come in their numbers to the event, as this is one event not to be missed, he said.
MANZINI  Five days after being on the run for allegedly killing his girlfriend by stabbing her seven times in the chest, the suspect was handed over to the police by his brother on Saturday.



With the curtain about to fall on 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, Siyabonga Lihle Malindzisa (22) of Esikhaleni Selusekwane, Masundvwini yesterday appeared in court for a one hour confession before Magistrate Xolile Nxumalo and admitted that he killed his girlfriend.

He then appeared in court for a remand hearing before Senior Magistrate Sindisile Zwane.



During his court appearance, the suspect revealed that his girlfriend, Ncobile Matsebula (19), a Manzini Central Form IV pupil, had dumped him before he killed her by stabbing her with a knife.

I could not stomach that and accept that she had moved on and was with another man.



We were in a love relationship for six years and when she started behaving weirdly and informed me that our relationship was over, I got very angry and made the decision to kill her, Malindzisa said.



He further stated that on the day of the incident, he had met up her and enquired where she had been.

Malindzisa told the court that after being hesitant to inform him of her whereabouts before she got home, she eventually told him that she was from KaKhoza, where her new boyfriend resided.



I got very angry and dragged her to where the small flats are and stabbed her with the knife which I had been carrying.

It was not my intention to end her life, I loved her so much, however, I was infuriated by the fact that she no longer wanted to be in a love relationship with me, Malindzisa said.
MANZINI  The Minister of Education and Training, Dr Phineas Magagula says his ministrys legal department is in talks with their South African counterparts to allow Matric pupils studying locally to continue with the syllabus.



This follows concerns from parents of pupils enrolled for the National Senior Certificate, commonly referred to as Matric, after it emerged that Department of Basic Education in South Africa (SA) wanted the syllabus stopped in Swaziland.



The SA department wrote a letter to the local ministry, informing it about the decision, something which has caused panic among parents who questioned schools offering this syllabus on why they were not informed about the latest developments.



Magagula revealed that it was not the first time a letter announcing the termination of the Matric syllabus in the country was sent to the ministry. Such letters date as far back as 2012, but we have always been able to engage with the Department of Basic Education in South Africa and found solutions to allow pupils to write their matric exams without frustrating them and the parents.



We are currently involved in the same process with the department where the Memorandum of Agreement is being fixed, said Magagula in an interview.

A letter dated September 28, 2016 titled Phasing out of the offering of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Examination in Swaziland and anywhere outside the borders of the Republic of South Africa, was sent to the Ministry of Education. This letter stated that Swaziland and neighbouring countries had only three years left to continue offering the Matric syllabus in their education systems.

The minister said his ministry had already written a letter to the Department of Education in South Africa, requesting that they adjust their regulations in order to allow matriculants in Swaziland to write their exams without any frustrations.



Magagula further expressed his disappointment at how the news was communicated to the relevant people, resulting in a lot of confusion within the ministry, schools and parents whose children are enrolled in schools that offer Matric.


MBABANE  Army personnel who thought they had an extra suit in their wardrobe following the SADC Summit had a rude awakening as all 700 of them have been recalled.



The snazzy suits had been bought by the Ministry of Defence ahead of the summit, which was held in the country at the end of August this year.The suits were bought at about E1 200 each from an undisclosed supplier and in total government paid around E840 000.



While the security team was still enjoying possession of the suits, an instruction is said to have come from the Principal Secretary Andreas Mathabela, that the personnel who received the suits must return them immediately as they were considered to be part of the army uniform.

The security officers are among those who guarded the various heads of state, who were in the country for the 36th SADC Summit where His Majesty King Mswati III took over as chairperson of the region.



The money used to purchase the suits is said to have been donated by the Republic of China on Taiwan through the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, which was in charge of the entire event.



The suits have all been recalled and are presently being kept along with other military uniforms such as the red one, which they wear during special occasions, said an officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The soldiers said they were not aggrieved per se, but said it was pretty surprising that the suits had been taken back as previously they had been allowed to keep them.



The security personnel were informed that the suits would continue to be used when the need arose and were specifically told that the outfits did not belong to them, but was army property.
EZULWINI  As the Ezulwini Town Board Commission of Inquiry continues, CEO Vusi Matsebula has no one but the Finance Chairperson, Councillor Nokuthula Mthembu, to blame for all the chaos.



Interestingly, this is the same woman who taught him English Language some years ago at Mbabane Central High School.

During his submission to the commission of inquiry investigating problems of the town board, Matsebula minced no words as he described how there has always been friction ever since 2012 when Mthembu rejoined the council after a brief break.



These are allegations made during the commission of inquiry and their veracity is yet to be determined by the commissioners.

As if he had been rehearsing his appearance before the commission, Matsebula made the job easier for the commissioners as he would now and again refer to different regulations, documents and minutes for almost every question that was posed to him.



Recordings



He also had with him recordings of different meetings where the councillors debated some of the issues that the commission had questions about.

Matsebula alleged that Mthembu had a tendency of coming to meetings showing no interest and further leaving even before they finished.

According to him, the fact that there were problems within the council also manifested itself to a representative from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, who made it known that not all was well and suggested a team-building exercise be embarked on.

There was a feeling that the team building exercise was a suggestion and not a directive. Such things depend and if they touch on regulations, they write to us.



So there is nowhere where the regulations stipulate team-building. However, there have been instances where we took suggestions seriously and acted on them, he said.
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By Bill Parry

In light of increased fear and anxiety in immigrant communities as a result of the current political climate, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a fraud alert last week warning immigrants to be aware of potential scammers offering immigration services.

Immigration fraud affects large segments of communities with foreign-born populations and involves individuals or companies that target vulnerable members by providing unauthorized and fraudulent immigration services.

In recent weeks, the attorney generals office and many legal aid organizations that work with immigrant communities have received an increased number of calls and reported scams.

New York has zero tolerance for anyone who would prey on that fear to defraud immigrants and their families, Schneiderman said. We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring to justice those who commit fraud against our immigrant families.

One of the most common scams right now is an unsolicited call from fake immigrant officials. For example, one immigrant living in New York received a call saying he was in the country illegally and must immediately pay $1,550.

Schneiderman said federal authorities will never demand payment, request sensitive personal information or threaten you over the phone. He said if you receive a call like this, hang up immediately and report the possible fraud to the attorney generals office.

Queens County is the most ethnically and culturally diverse area in the United States with more than 2.3 million residents, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. With over 120 countries represented in our neighborhoods and over 160 languages spoken, we take crimes committed against members of our immigrant communities seriously. Our Office of Immigrant Affairs, along with several other bureaus, investigates and prosecutes crimes that target immigrants. In addition, our OIA Office conducts extensive outreach initiatives in order to keep our communities informed on identifying and protecting against common immigrant scams.

The common forms of immigrant fraud include unsolicited calls from fake officials threatening deportation, misrepresenting legal credentials and unauthorized practice of the law. Schneiderman warns immigrants to only work with a licensed lawyer or authorized provider, never sign blank applications or documents you do not understand and never make payments over the phone or via email.

Now more than ever it is critical that our fellow New Yorkers are kept safe from those who seek to take advantage of them, New York Immigration Coalition Executive Director Steve Choi said. In a time when immigrant communities are terrified of whats to come, unscrupulous individuals may take advantage of immigrant fears by promising relief, permanent residency, or citizenship that they cannot actually provide. We must do everything in our power to ensure that immigrant communities are safe from this kind of harm.

Complaints can be reported to the attorney generals Immigration Services Fraud Unit Hotline at (866) 390-2992 or by emailing Civil.Right s@ag.ny.gov . Schneiderman also highlighted another key resource. The New Americans hotline is a toll-free, multilingual hotline that provides live assistance in receiving immigration and naturalization information and referrals regardless of citizenship or documented status. Managed by Catholic Charities Community Services, all calls are confidential and anonymous at 1-800-566-7636.
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By Patrick Donachie

A man pleaded guilty to assaulting a Jamaica man and shouting racial slurs in May, according to the attorney representing the victim.

Christopher Porr pleaded guilty to assault in the third degree, a misdemeanor, Wednesday, said Ali Najmi, who represented Gazi Rahman, 46. Rahman accused Porr of attacking him on the corner of Parsons Boulevard and Hillside Avenue May 7.

Porr will need to complete a 15-session sensitivity program run by Queens Center for Change, and upon successful completion of that program, will undergo three years of probation, Najmi said. Initially, Rahman was arrested and charged with assaulting Porr, but surveillance footage showed that Porr was the assailant.

I am satisfied to have my name cleared, and for justice to be served, Rahman said about the sentencing. I hope Mr. Porr benefits from the sensitivity training and does not do this to anyone else.

Rahman stated earlier that when Porr attacked him, he shouted f Indians during the attack. Rahman is from Bangladesh and has lived in the United States for 18 years. Najmi said the incident was one of several bias attacks that left people on edge.

There has been an increase in bias-related incidents that has left many people feeling scared and anxious, Najmi said. As a community, we will not tolerate these actions and we will continue to bring attention to them and seek justice.
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By Philip Newman

The MTA is holding a public hearing on its latest round of fare hike proposals Monday, Dec. 5, at York College

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has come up with two options for a raise in subway and bus fares with the possibility of a $3 ride starting in March.

The MTA emphasizes that a raise is essential and the amount of the proposed increase has been held to a minimum.

The agency reminded straphangers once again that just over half of the MTAs operating budget comes from fares and tolls, but it has achieved $1.8 billion in 2016 annual savings with more cutting planned annually to hold down the increases.

The MTA continues to keep its promise to make sure that fare and toll increases, while necessary to keep our system running, remain as low as possible and that they are done in as equitably a way as possible, said MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast.

One of the MTAs plans would mean increasing subway and bus fares to $3 from $2.75.

In Plan A, the new $3 fare would come with a bonus of as much as 16 percent for each MetroCard purchase of more than $6.

Plan B would keep the base fare at $2.75, but the bonus would be only 5 percent on each purchase of at least $5.50.

Under both plans a weekly MetroCard would increase by $1 to $32, with a monthly pass rising by $4.50 to $121.

The new and tolls would become effective March 19.

The proposed increases will be the subject of an open public hearingone of eight to be held citywideat the Milton G. Bassin Performing Arts Center at York College, 94-20 Guy R. Brewer Blvd., in Jamaica from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday

The new fares and tolls will be voted on by the MTA board in January.
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By Patrick Donachie

Southeast Queens residents said their neighborhoods could benefit from more community outreach on the part of New York Citys public hospital system, during a forum on the future of health care.

The event was put on by NYC Health + Hospitals, one of several the public hospital system is conducting to gauge community input on the future of health care in New York City. The forum was held on Tuesday evening in the basement auditorium of the Queens Library on Merrick Boulevard in downtown Jamaica.

Marjorie Momplaisir-Ellis, a senior director for engagement and collaborations at NYC Health + Hospitals, said it was important to ensure that the totality of patients needs were being considered, including services beyond medical needs.

In order to make our transformation, we have to a better job integrating health care with social services delivery, she said. We want to make sure they can be captains of their ship, as far as their health is concerned.

The evening consisted of brief presentations from NYC Health + Hospital staff, a survey for attendees to complete, and small group discussions centered on necessary changes in the state of health care in local neighborhoods, and what H+H could do to help improve local care.

NYC Health + Hospitals has had a tumultuous few months. Dr. Ram Raju, the systems CEO, announced he would be stepping down at the end of November. Additionally, an analysis by the Independent Budget Office this summer revealed the system faces a $1.8 billion deficit by 2020, even though Mayor Bill de Blasio increased the systems funding by 50 percent. Representatives from the system said a large share of uninsured patients, decreased state and federal funding and a declining use of inpatient services contributed to the shortfall.

After the small group sessions, presenters from each group presented their conclusions to the audience, pinning their thoughts on a whiteboard at the front of the room. A need for greater outreach was common in most presentations. One resident mentioned she had not known there were chemical dependency services available at Queens Hospital, and thought there needed to be more education about available services. Other residents bemoaned the lack of nearby specialists to service the community and stressed the need for urgent care centers in the event of overcrowded emergency rooms. One presenter spoke about the need for more clinical trials in the area as well as a pipeline program that would support students in the area who might want to enter the medical profession. She said better nutritional options could make a great difference.

How can we eat better so we can feel better? she asked.

Representatives from H+H said that their hospitals and centers in southeast Queens saw increases in visits after the closure of other hospitals in the area and they had added 40 beds at Queens Hospital due to the increase. NYC Health + Hospitals serves 1.2 million New Yorkers each year, according to the presentation. The system includes 11 hospitals, two of which are in Queens. About 70 percent of the people using its services are uninsured or on Medicaid, and approximately 40 percent are immigrants.
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By Patrick Donachie

In the wake of the Black Friday consumer bonanza, local businesses throughout the borough celebrated Small Business Saturday this weekend, urging customers to support the tiny shops that dot the avenues of Queens.

Small businesses need the support of their community because small businesses are the ones who give back to the community, said Margaret Ioannou, the owner of the Bayside-based Karma Boutique. We try to help customers shop locally.

Karma Boutique, a womens clothing and apparel store, was one of the many Bayside businesses that participated in the event that began in Massachusetts in 2010 as a push to encourage shoppers to forgo the chain stores in lieu of local mom-and-pop establishments. Ioannou said Karma Boutique had been on Bell Boulevard for more than 13 years and had a robust collection of loyal customers who support the establishment.

Lyle Sclair, the executive director of the Bayside Village Business Improvement District, was on hand Saturday afternoon at the Bayside LIRR stop. He was handing out copies of the BIDs 2016 Holiday Coupon Book, which included discounts for dozens of Bayside shops. Many of the discounts extended into January, which Sclair said was to accommodate traveling Bayside residents.

If people are still out of town, they can still take advantage throughout the holiday season, Sclair said, lauding the opportunity Small Business Saturday affords consumers. Its a great time to meet the business owners.

Turn the PageAgain, a tiny enclave nestled along Bell Boulevard, was one of the participating businesses included in the coupon book. The bookstore opened in February 2010 as a rehabilitative program run by Whitestone-based Transitional Services for New York, which helps people recovering from mental health issues. Employees at the bookstore can obtain valuable retail experience at the store, preparing them for other employment opportunities. The weekend manager, who gave his name only as Mr. Chen, said there were several sales early in the day on Small Business Saturday.

Bayside treats us so wonderfully and we participate in all the business fairs, he said. We have a lot of regular customers who come in here every weekend to pick out their books.

Small Business Saturday takes place each year on the day after Black Friday. In 2015, approximately 95 million customers went out to shop at small businesses, according to a survey commissioned by American Express, which helped to promote and push the Small Business Saturday concept at its inception. Another survey commissioned by the credit card company found that shoppers spent about $14.3 billion at small businesses on Small Business Saturday in 2014.
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By Patrick Donachie

Members of the Jackson Heights community spoke out about their experiences with the NYPDs controversial stop-and-frisk tactic, part of a series of community forums mandated by a 2013 federal court ruling that labeled the NYPDs use of the practice discriminatory.

The New York City Joint Remedial Process hosted the event at the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights at 27-05 77th St. Saturday afternoon in collaboration with the Mayors Office of Community Affairs. Shira Scheindlin, the presiding federal judge in Floyd vs. City of New York, mandated in 2013 that as part of the remedial process community forums should be held to discuss potential additional reforms beyond the mandated reforms included in the court ruling.

Justice Ariel Belen, a former justice for the New York Supreme Courts Second Department, was appointed as a federal facilitator for the process in November 2014. He discussed the storied history of stop and frisk in New York, speaking about how the NYPD needed to have a reasonable suspicion to stop someone, believing the person had committed, is committing or is going to commit a crime.

What happened in New York City was not that at all, he said.

About 85 percent of people stopped were black or Latino, according to the Joint Remedial Process, and the New York Civil Liberties Union reported that nearly nine out of 10 stopped New Yorkers were innocent, according to NYPD data. Belen concurred, stating that only 5 percent of stops resulted in an arrest. In 2011, the city recorded 685,000 stops.

Nilesh Vishwasrao, a representative for the Jackson Heights-based community group Desis Rising Up and Moving, told the forum he had been stopped and frisked more than 20 times, while Tania Mattos, a co-founder of Queens Neighborhood United, which works to halt the detrimental effects of displacement and police misconduct, detailed her experiences with NYPD officers.

Unfortunately, every time Ive gone to the police, theyve never helped me, she said during the forum. And thats not how police/community relations should work.

Mattos said the use of stop-and-frisk had decreased slightly in recent years, but she said there had been an increase in the use of surveillance cameras and vans. She suggested more investment was needed in the community in lieu of an increased police presence.

The Floyd ruling in 2013 included additional reforms, such as a monitored pilot program for NYPD officers wearing body cameras, as well as more training on implicit bias and better supervision, evaluation and documentation of recorded stops. There were 22,939 stops in 2015, according to a New York Civil Liberties Union analysis based on police data. The NYCLU analysis indicated 80 percent of people stopped were innocent and 83 percent of stops were conducted on black or Latino New Yorkers.

The Jackson Heights forum was one in a series sponsored by the JRP and the Mayors Community Affairs office, with one held in South Richmond Hill early in November. At the conclusion of the forums, Belen will create a report suggesting additional reforms that may help bridge the gaps between officers and community members.
By Bill Parry

The NYPDs Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating a possible bias incident that left an Astoria woman bruised, sore and frightened. The 45-year-old mother of four was called a terrorist, shoved down a staircase and injured during an apparent anti-Muslim attack at Grand Central Station early Monday morning, according to the NYPD.

Soha Salama, an MTA station agent originally from Egypt, was riding a Manhattan-bound No. 7 subway train when she was first accosted by a 5-foot-10 Hispanic man around 6:20 a.m.

A person approached her, called her a terrorist and said she should not be working in the city, an NYPD spokesman said. A sketch of the suspect was released by the NYPD Tuesday. He is described as 25 to 35 years old, 5-foot-9 to 6-foot, 150 to 180 lbs., and was last seen wearing a dark colored jacket, and a black knitted winter hat.

Salama was on her way to work wearing an MTA uniform and a traditional Muslim headdress, known as a hijab. As she left the subway in Grand Central, the suspect followed her and pushed her down the flight of stairs, injuring her ankle and her knee but not breaking any bones, police said.

I wasnt able to say anything. I was running for my life, Salama told reporters. I was afraid he was going to throw me down on the tracks or do more bad to me than he already did. I think this hate was raised after the election. During the Obama administration this hate wasnt there. Its because of the hate speeches we hear on the media. In the 20 years I live here, I didnt experience something like that. As soon as the election and Mr. Trump spreads this hate speech around its different now. He leads the people in the wrong direction.

Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed, placing the blame for the surge in hate crimes on the president-elect. Chief Robert Boyce cited statistics that showed a 115 percent increase in hate crimes in New York City since Election Day to 43 cases compared to 20 in November 2015.

Do I blame Donald Trump for using hate speech during his campaign? Absolutely  he did. It is a fact, de Blasio said. He said horrible things about Muslims, horrible things about Mexican Americans. I dont need to recount what happened for a year and a half in this country. We cant airbrush that out of our history. It was not acceptable. We now need to work with him and he has a chance to make it better by amending his comments and being a force of reconciliation. I think he has to do more of that.

Following Mondays attack on Salama, Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked the MTA to work with the NYPD to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

This is the great state of New York, we welcome people of all cultures, customs, and creeds with open arms. We do not allow intolerance or fear to divide us because we know diversity is our strength and we are at our best when we stand united, Cuomo said. The work of the Hate Crimes Task Force has never been more urgent and we will continue to crack down on this type of criminal behavior. I wish a speedy recovery for the victim, and I want to let her know we are seeking justice for her and for all New Yorkers.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is calling for additional federal anti-terror funding to help safeguard civil, religious and community institutions. She is urging a $5 million increase for a total funding level of at least $25 million in the 2017 Homeland Security appropriations bill that would help ensure the protection of non-profit facilities and places of worship from potential threats.

No New Yorker should ever live or worship in fear. With hate crimes on the rise in New York and across the country we cant stand idly by and let these incidents go unanswered, Gillibrand said. We must make sure our places of worship, our community centers and non-profits have every resource necessary to be protected and safe from threats. Im fighting for this additional Homeland Security funding because we must stand strong against threats, hatred and attacks against our community institutions.
By Steve Barnes

With its diverse, vibrant communities and the energy they generate, Queens is turning into a destination for the arts. But there are some roadblocks in the path to the full flowering of its cultural scene. Such problems as the high rents faced by artists and cultural venues, a lack of diversity in the workforce employed by cultural organizations, and limited access to cultural opportunities for low-income people and immigrants still affect the borough, as they do the city as a whole.

Tom Finkelpearl, commissioner of the city Department of Cultural Affairs, outlined some possible solutions to those problems during a panel discussion that took place Thursday at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in Manhattan. Finkelpearls roots in Queens run deep. He served as the director of the Queens Museum from 2002 to 2014, and has also worked at MoMA PS1.

The event, which was moderated by Errol Louis, of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and NY 1, gave Finkelpearl the opportunity to both discuss the cultural issues facing the city and give an update on the progress of the Cultural Plan for NYC. Addressing an audience that had been brought together by CUNYs Center for Community and Ethnic Media, he detailed several initiatives that have been set in place to both help artists and cultural organizations carry out their work and make the arts more affordable and accessible to city residents.

Those initiatives include the Cultural Development Fund, which enables qualifying cultural organizations to apply for grants from DCLA; Materials for the Arts, which provides art materials free of charge to a wide range of city arts, cultural and educational organizations; and the local arts councils that furnish support at a grassroots level in each city borough. (For information on the Queens Council on the Arts, go to www.queen scoun cilar ts.org .)

While the plan is still in the development stage, with what Finkelpearl called robust participation from Mayor de Blasio, DCLA is busily soliciting input from across the city to determine what people would like to see in it. That search has included Queens. Last month, a workshop was held at the New York Hall of Science to gather input from Queens residents.

The concerns the borough has about the state of artists and the arts were addressed on the panel by Javier Castano, the director of Queens Latino, a minority-owned media company. Castano brought up two main issues: the lack of appropriate places at which community groups can stage cultural events in Queens and the prohibitive cost of admission to city cultural institutions. For example, at the New York Hall of Science, with an admission price of $15 for adults and $12 for children between the ages of 2 and 17, a family of four would have to spend over $50 to attend.

While Finkelpearl acknowledged that affordability problem, he noted that most city cultural institutions had set aside hours during which admission is free. At the New York Hall of Science, those hours are run Friday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

In addition, he spoke about the success of the IDNYC program, under which recipients of the city ID card can obtain free memberships to such institutions as Flushing Town Hall, the Queens Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image and the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. (For a complete list, go to www1.nyc.gov/ site/ idnyc/ benef its/ museu ms-an d-cul tural -inst ituti ons.page #queens.) Finkelpearl said the 900,000 IDNYC cards that have been issued so far have resulted in more than 400,000 free memberships to cultural organizations being activated.

The problem of finding affordable space in which artists can work was also mentioned by Traven Rice, co-founder and publisher of The Lo-Down, a community website devoted to covering the Lower East Side. Rice primarily addressed the issues surrounding the high cost of city real estate, mentioning how those costs negatively affect the ability of artists to live and work in the city as well as making it difficult to find places to present artwork and cultural performances.

In response, Finkelpearl noted that DCLAs mission is basically limited to providing support to organizations that are already operating, and that DCLA cannot provide more than 50 percent of any cultural groups operating budget.

He also brought up DCLAs increasing focus on diversity in all aspects of the citys cultural lifefrom the range of art presented to the people who are provided with gainful employment through cultural organizations. There are so many ways to make a living in the arts, he said. DCLA has taken part in a study on cultural workforce participation, which has found that despite the citys diverse population, at least two-thirds of the workforce of its cultural institutions are white.

DCLA intends to use the results of that study to help broaden its outreach and contribute to the Cultural Plan for NYCs development. The organization is continuing its effort to solicit participation and feedback from the community, and is also encouraging Queens residents to take advantage of its resources.
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By Mark Hallum

Organizations and immigrant groups came together for a march though Queens to declare a hate-free zone last week.

Beginning at Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights and ending in Corona, nearly 1,000 people were involved in the demonstration against the policies proposed by President-elect Donald Trump as well as his controversial cabinet picks.

Muslim, Jewish, LGBTQ, Latino, South Asian, Asian, and black organizations were present at the opening news conference led by Ana liza Caballes, deputy director for Desis Rising Up and Moving, a group dedicated to helping low-wage immigrants through social and policy change. City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) delivered remarks expressing solidarity with the protesters.

I feel that we here, the people who came to this rally tonight, have something to show the rest of America, which is that we can all live together in peace and harmony, Dromm said last Friday. We all will stand united in this battle. And I must say, that as the Council member in this district, I will do everything in my power to resist the Islamophobic, the homophobic, the misogynistic policies and agenda of the Trump administration.

Trump has expressed his desire to exclude Muslims and Hispanic people through heavy immigration vetting, while his Mike Pence signed into effect the Religious Freedom Act designed to allow business owners to bar LGBTQ people on religious grounds while governor of Indiana. During the campaign, audio surfaced of Trump admitting to using his celebrity status to take grope women with women without consent. Dromm added that he and other members of the City Council were meeting to discuss ways to mobilize against policies which President-elect Trump may be looking to enact.

Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization which opposes bigotry in all forms, is campaigning against Steve Bannon being tapped as chief White House strategist for the Trump administration for his Islamophobic views and to confront what they view as not only a fascist regime, but a crisis situation for Jews and Muslims. Bannon is a founding member of Breitbart News, a far-right news website.

We think its our responsibility to stand and support Muslims, people of color, people who are vulnerable, said Rosalind Petchesky, a former political science professor at Hunter College and Jewish Voice for Peace leader. We think the threat of anti-Semitism is being used to deflect from the rampant Islamophobia. At the same time, anti-Semitism is real Breitbart, we know, is anti-Semitic.

Pedro Valdez Rivera Jr. from the Justice Committee, a Latino organization dedicating to stopping police violence and systemic racism, was at the rally to push for solidarity between the different groups regardless of who is in office at all levels of government.

Chelo Silva, a transgender man from Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, reminded the crowd of the important impact policies toward undocumented immigrants has had under the Obama administration.

Hundreds of people are deported every day, Silva said. They do not get the right to defend themselves, the right to get help, the right to look for options so that they can fight from the outside but being inside the country. We should not remain with our arms crossed. We must seek help, trust in community organizations.
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.
Albany

The Albany Blue Collar Workers Union plans to protest a fundraiser Mayor Kathy Sheehan is holding at Druthers Brewing Company in the warehouse district Tuesday evening.

The workers have spoken out against the raises outlined for some of the city's non-union employees in Sheehan's $177 million budget for 2017. Meanwhile, blue collar workers, among other union employees, are without current contracts and some haven't received raises in several years.

The union workers are set to protest from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, meeting at Broadway and Bridge Street.

The city council approved the $177 million budget with minor changes on Nov. 30.

afries@timesunion.com  518-454-5353  @mandy_fries
Albany

Schenectady County Family Court Judge Mark Powers has declared victory in the Fourth Judicial District State Supreme Court race.

The unofficial results of the race between Powers, a Democrat, and Clinton County Family Court Judge Timothy Lawliss, a Republican, must still be certified by the state Board of Elections.

"It's just a wonderful blessing," Powers said Monday. "I am truly gratified and I certainly congratulate Tim Lawliss on a wonderful campaign. He was a gentlemen throughout."

The 11-county district includes Schenectady and Saratoga counties.

Powers said he held a lead of 4,089 votes as of last week.

After election night results and before nearly 32,000 absentee ballots were counted, Powers led by 1,415 votes.

Rodney Brown, Lawliss' campaign treasurer, said Monday the candidate had privately said he didn't think he was going to win the race.

"After the first three days, most of them (absentee ballots) had been counted, and it was clear he wasn't gaining enough that would allow him to overcome the lead that Judge Powers had after the Election Night," Brown said.

He said Lawliss could not be reached Monday for comment.

State Board of Elections commissioners are scheduled to meet at noon Thursday in Albany to certify the results.

The winner will succeed retiring Appellate Justice John Lahtinen, who reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Powers, 61, of Schenectady was elected to Family Court in 2001 and has been an acting Supreme Court justice since 2004.

Lawliss, 56, of Peru, has been a Family Court judge since 1999 and an acting Supreme Court justice since 2003, his campaign website says.

pnelson@timesunion.com  518-454-5347  @apaulnelson
A tractor-trailer jackknifed on Route 2 in Brunswick, according to the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Office.

The vehicle swerved to avoid hitting a bus, about 3:30 p.m. Monday, according to a News Channel 13 report.
Norwegian Air plans to start low-cost nonstop flights between Stewart International Airport in Newburgh and up to three Irish destinations next summer, possibly as soon as June, a spokesman for the carrier told the Times Union.

The new flights would be operated with Boeing 737 aircraft in an all-coach configuration, which can carry up to 189 passengers, said Anders Lindstrom, the airline spokesman. The carrier would fly to Cork, Ireland and is also considering service from Stewart to Shannon and Dublin.

Lindstrom said more announcements on routes from Stewart will be made early next year.

Introductory fares to Europe may be priced as low as $69 one-way, including taxes, he said.

Stewart is a 95-minute drive south of Albany International Airport off the New York State Thruway. The carrier will target cost-conscious travelers from the Capital Region, Connecticut and downstate New York with its Stewart service.

While Lindstrom said Norwegian hadn't considered Albany International Airport before selecting Stewart, he wouldn't rule out future European flights from Albany. The carrier's traffic from the U.S. to overseas destinations is mostly point-to-point, he said, an approach Southwest Airlines has used with considerable success domestically.

Norwegian's average round-trip fare is $350, Lindstrom added.

The carrier also has a premium service with larger seats, more legroom, and complementary full meals and drinks service, as well as lounge access and expedited screening at select airports.

The U.S. Department of Transportation approved the application by Norwegian in recent days despite strong opposition from U.S. carriers and their unions. An Irish-based unit of Norwegian will operate the new flights, which will use Boeing's new 737 Max and possibly its existing fleet of 737-800 aircraft.

The carrier typically sees load factors of 90 percent or more, Lindstrom said. It currently has 45 routes from the U.S.

Norwegian has been flying from larger U.S. cities to Europe for three years, and currently operates flights from a number of larger cities including Boston, Newark, Kennedy airport in New York City, Fort Lauderdale and Las Vegas.
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OAKLAND, Calif.  A Mariaville musician is believed to have been among the victims of the fire in a warehouse during a dance party Friday night. The death toll has grown to 36.

The Mercury News in San Jose has published a list of those who perished in the fire. The list includes Ben Runnels, who is from Mariaville, the Daily Gazette reported.

Friends and family have posted remembrances and condolences on Facebook for Runnels, also known as Charlie Prowler, the Gazette reported. Runnels founded the two-person band Introflirt, according to the Mercury News. Remembrances and condolences for Introflirt band member Denalda Nicole Renae are also posted online. Runnels was also a disc jockey.

The band's Facebook page describes music as "a soundtrack for the insecure." The band's latest album is called "Temporary Heaven."

Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly said the victims also included people from Europe and Asia.

Work has stopped at the scene for now because one wall was leaning inward, posing a safety hazard for those who have been searching the structure.

Authorities believe they've located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.

The fire erupted during the dance party in a building known as the Ghost Ship. Officials say they know more bodies will be discovered.

It is the most lethal building fire in the United States in more than a decade.

The laborious job of digging with shovels and buckets through the debris was suspended overnight because of a dangerously unstable wall. It resumed in the morning, though a rainstorm Tuesday could complicate the effort. The cluttered warehouse had been converted to artists' studios and illegal living spaces, and former denizens said it was a death trap of piled wood, furniture, snaking electrical cords and only two exits.

District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said Monday her office has sent a team to search for evidence of a crime in the warehouse, but has not yet determined whether a crime even occurred. She said potential charges could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder.

"We just started our investigation," O'Malley said, "and we owe it to the community and those who perished in this fire, and those who survived the fire to be methodical, to be thorough, and to take the amount of time it takes to be able to look at every piece of potential evidence."

Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo, who lives a block from the warehouse, said he confronted the property's manager  Derick Ion Almena  several times about neighbors' concerns about trash in the street and in front of the warehouse. Gallo said Almena appeared resistant to addressing complaints and complying with city codes.
TARRYTOWN - Leonard Schleifer says he doesnt want to be in the business of drug price hikes.

The Regeneron Pharmaceuticals CEO has twice in the last week decried the practice, which has embroiled the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors in scandal this year and drawn criticism from public and political circles alike. Polls show Americans are increasingly wary of drug costs, with 77 percent calling them unreasonable this year, up from 72 percent in 2015, the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

Last year, Schleifer was one of many at the Forbes Healthcare Summit who denounced Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager who reignited price gouging conversations after he hiked prices for AIDs medication Daraprim by 5,000 percent.

We do some pretty crappy things, Schleifer said at the time. But Shkreli, he said, is not in the same business as we are.

Asked at this years conference why the public generally disapproves of his industry, he reiterated that stance.

We dispelled of some of it last year because we blamed it on the extremists, the people who come in, dial up a product thats off-patent, raising price ten-fold and theyre evil-doers. Thats why were not liked, he said, according to Business Insider. But the real reason were not liked, in my opinion, is because we as an industry have used price increases to cover up the gaps in innovation. Thats just a fact.

Schleifer then said he took issue with the use of mergers and acquisitions, rather than innovation, as a means of boosting revenue. Thats not the business I want to be in, he said.

His is a unique stance, given that biotech companies are likely poised for significant boosts under President-elect Donald Trump. Biotech stocks were among the first benefactors of Trumps surprise victory, changing the tune of a year fraught with worry that a Hillary Clinton administration would enforce more stringent policies on drug pricing and mergers and acquisitions. Trump  and more importantly, a Republican-held Congress  will likely do the opposite.

Biotech companies are also hoping Trumps plan to allow U.S. companies to bring back overseas cash at a lower tax rate will spur growth. Companies like Pfizer, which according to Reuters has more than $80 billion overseas, could kickstart more domestic dealmaking that would then facilitate the repatriation of cash trapped overseas for bigger biopharma companies, Adnan Butt, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, told Reuters in November.

But Schleifer, for whom the Trump administration will be the sixth under which hes run Regeneron, said he hopes federal changes will strike the right balance.

While the administrations change, the things that dont change are for the need for people to have drugs that can address important health concerns, he told CNBCs Meg Tirrell Thursday. What I look forward to is continuing to argue for an environment where innovation is encouraged  where its incentivized on the one hand, but on the other hand we make sure drugs are affordable for people who need them today. Thats a tough balance to strike.

rdownen@timesunion.com  518-454-5018  Follow @Robert_Downen
More and more Americans are accepting the fact of climate change and the need to reduce carbon pollution. Many understand and, like me, support the important role that wind, solar, and energy efficiency play and can play in meeting the objective of reducing carbon pollution. However, what many people often overlook is the role existing nuclear energy plants play in ensuring less carbon pollution.

The existing nuclear energy plants prevent over 531 million tons of carbon pollution per year. Fortunately, in recent months, states have made positive headway in introducing measures that recognize the role of nuclear power.

New York just became the first state to include nuclear energy in its clean energy policy by providing a mechanism that values nuclear's carbon free electricity. Under the Clean Energy Standard (CES), nuclear power in New York was recognized for its contribution to meeting the state's carbon reduction goals. New York basically acknowledged that without nuclear power, the state would be unable to reach its carbon pollution reduction targets.

As we work to reduce carbon pollution it is imperative to recognize the role of the existing nuclear power plants not only in New York but across the country. As President Barack Obama very clearly stated: "Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases." Nuclear power provides approximately 20 percent of our electricity supply while accounting for 63 percent of the country's carbon-free electricity. In New York, nuclear plants supply 60 percent of the state's carbon-free electricity and produce over 30 percent of the state's electricity all without emitting greenhouse gases. Taking the existing nuclear power plants out of the mix will only make our efforts to reduce carbon pollution that much harder. Why dig a hole when you are working to fill one?

Like any pollution, carbon pollution comes with a negative cost to our economy: greater health risks and costs, loss of productivity, impacts on agriculture production, more extreme weather events and more. A Horinko Group study conducted by scholars at George Washington University concluded that based on the government's estimates of the social cost of carbon, the existing nuclear fleet's prevention of carbon pollution will be worth $85 billion by 2020.

Despite nuclear power's tremendous benefits, existing nuclear energy plants in the United States and in New York remain at risk as a result of market forces that don't recognize nuclear power for its carbon-free contributions. As the George Washington University study outlines, when existing nuclear power is lost, greenhouse gas emissions increase, which can impact the environmental health of an entire state and region.

For instance, in New England, after many years of declining greenhouse gas emissions, the closure of Vermont Yankee power plant led to a spike in emissions, an increase of additional 3.1 million metric tons of carbon emissions in New England in 2015. Moreover, greenhouse gas emissions rose in California in 2012 after the 2011 closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. This, coupled with a drought that reduced hydropower, resulted in the state losing 33 terawatt hours of clean electricity.

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Too often, nuclear power is ignored in the discussion around climate change. Based on this George Washington University study and other findings, nuclear power and renewable energy like wind and solar must be part of a comprehensive clean energy plan that cuts carbon pollution, addresses climate change and protects public health while delivering the power we need to run our homes, our businesses and our economy. Now is the time to speed the transition to a clean energy future.

Carol M. Browner, former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is a member of the Leadership Council of Nuclear Matters, a campaign to raise awareness about the need to preserve existing nuclear energy plants.

This article has been updated to reflect the role of the Horinko Group, a Washington, D.C., environmental consulting firm, in the George Washington University study.
When we began this journey five years ago, we could never have envisaged the spectacular success we have achieved'.

A town cluttered with traffic, record numbers of visitors from everywhere, good business, children queuing for Santa and full houses for the night time activities to raise funds for worthy causes.

Having met every challenge along the way, Cllr. Michael Smith, Chairman of the organising Committee told the Tipperary Star: the most exciting and interesting aspect of this development was the degree to which the County Council, through the Enterprise Board, has come full square behind the project. Not only that, but plans are now afoot to give similar support to other towns. I have always believed that the harvesting of community initiatives and displaying our very best could be reciprocated in other towns, where there is the will and determination to do so. The people of Nenagh and Cahir will come forward with their own distinctive ventures and I wish them every success.

Every year in Roscrea we try to have something different on display. While the main feature will always be the exhibitors, Santa Claus and the evening festivities to raise funds for schools and clubs, the setting that we are fortunate to have in the Castle grounds gives rise to explorative efforts to attract more visitors. The advent of Franc and the snow was something to see and experience. So many people commented favourably and the children just loved it. Outside the gates, all the way from Stephens Barracks in Kilkenny, two Mowag Carriers, used to support our troops in dangerous situations on missions abroad, were a huge attraction. Many thanks to all the Defence personnel for their co-operation and support.

This year too was no exception in community orientated exhibits, the residents of Gleann Glas, Roscrea, gave months preparing for their display of crochet made decorations and baby clothes. This is an example of the type of initiative that we want to encourage other groups to follow. Like every year, the queues for Santa were endless over the period of the festival and his popularity never diminishes. Santa of course is very special and gave so much time to every child.

As the snow begins to melt on The Taste of Roscrea's colourful Christmas market and festivities, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this years event the biggest and best so far. The success of an event like this depends on and has received huge support from the local community and further afield. I am immensely proud and grateful for this. As a non-profit making committee, we were again very happy to witness the attendances at the night time events, raising funds this year for Scoil Iosef Noafa, Corville and the Roscrea Juvenile Club. Over 40,000 has been raised in the last five years for schools and community projects in the area.
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In a unanimous vote, board President Tim Harger (background) retained his seat at the head of the Titusville Area School Board. Jack Roberts (foreground) was unanimously approved to serve as board vice president.
December 06, 2016

While most call centers today have mastered telephone calls  it is, by their nature, what they do  newer channels of communication have proved to be more challenging. Many customer emails, for example, still go unanswered, and all but the most technologically progressive companies are handling communications in channels such as social media well.





Social media has been thoroughly embraced by customers as a medium they want to use to communicate with companies. They like the visibility: other customers can see and even answer their questions or concerns, and customers believe that this high visibility to others will prompt organizations to take care of their issues in a more timely way. Today, its nearly impossible for a company to improve their brand while ignoring social media. Its not an easy task, however, and you may require some help, according to a recent blog post by Sharon Joshi writing for My Operator.

To begin your social media marketing strategy you need to first identify your target audience and objective, she wrote. The next step involves bringing your idea to life and for this you need to curate and create content for the various social media channels you are going to approach. Content is required to spread awareness, attract potential leads and drive traffic to your website. It is needed to create Facebook (News - Alert) posts, Linkedin Ads, Tweets and Youtube videos.

But how do you know if your efforts are working? You dont want to put heart and soul into creating content and posts for various social media platforms only to receive a lukewarm response. Its critical to follow the metrics in social media, and many organizations such as contact centers or traditional marketing departments may not have the expertise to do so.

Companies that use third-party call monitoring services (or those that are contemplating doing so) may find it a good idea to embrace additional services from monitoring companies that track and analyze social media metrics in addition to calls. Even if youre using existing tools such as Google (News - Alert) Analytics to view your overall website traffic, the number of leads and conversions you are getting from other sources, such as social media, will still be out of reach. And monitoring social media is very much a job that requires dedicated humans.

Call tracking enables you to assign same or different phone numbers to each of your social media campaigns. It provides information about the overall call traffic, number of clicks, leads and conversions that your posts drive, wrote Joshi. Also, it allows you to analyze which post, video, advertisement worked best for you. With these details you can strategize your future marketing plans to drive better results.

Its the best possible way to link your marketing and promotion efforts  including social media  to real customers to determine the effectiveness of your approach. Just as you would use third-party call monitoring to keep an eye on the quality of support calls, so too can you use these services to ensure that your social media campaigns are effective, visible and a benefit to your overall customer strategy.

Edited by Alicia Young
[December 06, 2016] A.M. Best Special Report: Penn Treaty Liquidation Presents Potential Shock to the Health Marketplace

The U.S. health industry is bracing for what further action in the possible Penn Treaty liquidation could hold for the sector, as managed care providers have argued that they should not be liable for the failure of a long-term care insurer. According to a new A.M. Best special report, any action in the Penn Treaty case could set a precedent, and any changes in favor of health insurers would likely come at the expense of the life insurance industry. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania had placed Penn Treaty into rehabilitation in 2009. The action was driven by the company's projected insolvencies due to its inadequate reserving after assumptions used to price long-term-care business were found to be markedly incorrect. Findings evidenced that policyholders were living longer than expected, medical-related expenses were higher than anticipated and lapse assumptions were much lower than estimated during initial pricing of the products. According to a new Best's Special Report, titled, "Penn Treaty Liquidation Presents Potential Shock to the Health Marketplace," estimates are that the Penn Treaty companies in liquidation (Penn Treaty Network America Insurance Company and American Network Insurance Company) had up to $4 billion in liabilities with just $700 million in assets. The failure of the companies ould be passed on to solvent health insurers operating in each of the states/jurisdictions in which the liquidated companies operated as part of the insurance guarantee assessments.



However, given its exposure in these states, United Health Group, Inc., has partnered with many of its peers, including CIGNA Corporation, Anthem, Inc. and Highmark Health, among others, have lobbied that long-term care policies are more life insurance-like due to their long-tail structure and interest sensitive assumptions. Ultimately, these health insurers aim to impact how Pennsylvania would cover Penn Treaty's liabilities if it goes into liquidation by creating a hierarchy for what different insurers would be required to pay into the pool, placing health insurers at the bottom of this hierarchy. As long-term care is currently viewed as a health insurance product, premiums derived from life insurance or annuities would not be included in guaranty fund premium assessments. As the process remains ongoing and there are still many unanswered questions regarding the outcome, A.M. Best will continue to monitor any potential capital demands placed on insurers in these market segments.

To access the full copy of this special report, please visit http://www3.ambest.com/bestweek/purchase.asp?record_code=256386. A.M. Best is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright  2016 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006277/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Ancillare Announces New Vice President of Asia-Pacific

Ancillare, LP, the leader in end-to-end global clinical trial ancillary supply chain management services for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, contract research and medical research organizations, announced today the appointment of Nitin Jain to a new position as Vice President of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Nitin will focus on driving operational excellence to support our client's clinical supply chain needs and oversee the complete end-to-end supply chain management operations of Ancillare's Singapore Master Depot. Nitin brings to Ancillare over 18 years of business development, general management, strategic alliances, supply chain management and operations experience in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and contract research organizations around the world. Nitin has held senior positions at INC Research, Covance, Theorem Clinical Research and Worldwide Clinical Trials. "We see significant growth potential in the APAC region. Nitin's extensive experience and strong drive makes him a great fit to lead our operations and growth in the APAC region," said Joanne Santomauro, Chief Executive Officer at Ancillare. "By expanding our operations in Asia-Pacific this strengthens our ability to provide our clients with a single source for all their clinical trial supply chain needs." Singapore along with our strategic depots in China and Korea will provide Ancillare with the gatewayto the entire APAC region by incorporating standard processes and procedures under one quality driven operation. The Singapore Operation will augment Ancillare's strategic and master depot network so that our sponsors' clinical operations leaders will have one point of expert contact and one clinical supply chain to manage all global trials needs from pre-protocol launch and first patient/first visit through last patient/last visit, site closeout and reclamation.



About Ancillare, LP Ancillare, LP has extensive experience delivering cost savings and efficiencies to supply chains, with a complete turn-key approach for managing the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, contract research and medical research organizations' clinical trial supply chains with a singular focus. Our turn-key global model (A-TKOTM) centralizes supply operations which accelerates the processes, lowers costs and mitigates risk by making clinical supply chains more efficient, cost-effective and global.

Our capabilities include pre-protocol analysis and planning, contribution to overall program feasibility assessments and timeline development, product sourcing and procurement, forecasting and budgeting, large and small equipment and consumables management, patient retention and recruitment materials, customs clearance, import/export (including IOR/EOR), storage, kitting, distribution and returns management/disposition (including destruction, refurbishment/recalibration and redeployment) on a global level. Ancillare has master depots in United States, United Kingdom and Singapore, and strategic depots in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan and Ukraine. To learn more, visit ancillare.com or contact us via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005053/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Anesthesiology Consultants Inc. Teams with U.S. Anesthesia Partners

U.S. Anesthesia Partners, Inc. (USAP), the nation's leading Anesthesia-focused physician services organization, today announced a partnership with Anesthesiology Consultants Inc. (ACI), based in Las Vegas. ACI is the leading independent anesthesiology practice in Las Vegas and has been dedicated to providing quality anesthesia care to patients for decades. As USAP-Nevada, the practice will continue to deliver the same high quality care through its team of physician partners and care team providers, retaining full governance over its clinical operations. ACI joins other high quality anesthesia practices which have found a partnership with USAP enables them to focus on providing high quality care to patients and valued services to hospital clients, all while accessing a robust practice support infrastructure that would be prohibitive to build on their own. Dr. Jason Workman, President of ACI, said that USAP was attractive to the ACI partners for a number of reasons -- including its single-specialty focus, its physician ownership model, its data driven culture and its commitment to clinical quality. The opportunity to team with the other high caliber practices that have chosen to partner with USAP was very attractive to ACI as well. "As USAP-Nevada, we will gain valuable insight into the rapidly changing reimbursement environment and access to an IT infrastructure that will enhance our performance and position us for continued success. This partnership with USAP gives ACI immediate access to best pracices that will enable us to increase the value we provide to patients, our surgeons and facility partners in care," said Dr. Workman. "We gain these benefits while remaining a Nevada-based practice. Our facility clients and surgeons will still work with the same, high-caliber teams that understand the needs of Nevada patients. We remain rooted in -- and committed to -- Nevada."



USAP CEO Kris Bratberg said that ACI was a perfect fit for USAP. "We are building a unique organization for the specialty of anesthesiology. Quality groups like ACI are seeking a partner that can provide them with the support, expertise and infrastructure needed to succeed in a very demanding environment," said Bratberg.

"Hospitals continue to require a more sophisticated level of service from their anesthesiology groups, in addition to high quality clinical care. Government payers are requiring increasingly robust data reporting to maintain current levels of reimbursement, and commercial payers will not be far behind. By partnering with USAP, ACI will benefit from the significant investments USAP has made in infrastructure to support its practices and the high caliber business leadership team we have built. Importantly, as USAP physician partners, they will continue to participate in the future success of their practice and of USAP as a whole." About U.S. Anesthesia Partners USAP is a majority physician-owned, physician-services organization dedicated to providing high-quality anesthesia and pain management services. USAP partners with high quality groups of anesthesiologists, providing the capital resources, infrastructure and business expertise needed to position them for continued success. USAP's physician partners maintain governance of their practices and collectively own over 50 percent of USAP. USAP's affiliated physician groups share operational and clinical best practices, helping to facilitate the delivery of consistent, high quality services for patients, surgeons, facilities and payers. The company's 3,000 plus team members serve healthcare communities in Florida, Texas, Colorado and Nevada. USAP's capital partner is Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, an investment firm with significant experience investing in and building leading healthcare companies. Visit http://www.usap.com to learn more. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005175/en/

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[December 06, 2016] CLO Virtual Fashion Opens Office in Munich, Germany

CLO Virtual Fashion, a 3D fashion design software used to visualize true-to-life 3D garments, has opened an office in Munich, Germany to capitalize on the widespread adoption of 3D technology in the European market. With a substantial amount of current and potential users incorporating 3D technology in the Europe region, CLO realizes the need for this technology and has seen a 121 percent increase in European regional sales growth and almost a 300 percent increase in European user growth between 2014-2016. Industry trends show that fashion and retail brands in European markets are more apt to integrate 3D simulation into the product lifecycle. European companies typically have in-house sample rooms or are in close proximity to their manufacturers, and are therefore more aware of the sampling process and attuned to its pitfalls. Responding to this demand for more turn-key 3D simulation solutions, CLO is expanding presence in Germany to provide expanded customer service offerings and onboard to help improve design development processes with 3D garment siulation for European based companies.



"In an effort to be closer to our larger clients based in Europe, it made sense to open an office in Munich," said Daniel Seo, Director of Operations in Europe. "Furthermore, providing localized support while elevating our relationships with our European clients is part of our company philosophy as we have always been a company focused on the user, ultimately leading to an intuitive solution for the fashion and apparel industries." Additionally, the company announced recently the launch of CLO Enterprise 3.0 which improves on nonlinear simulation, linear garment measures and symmetric arrangements catering for faster and more accurate design.

For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLO is a 3D fashion design tool used to visualize true-to-life 3D garments. CLO can be used to express a variety of design details for every type of garments from simple T-shirts to complex outerwear. CLO is headquartered in Seoul, with additional offices in Shanghai, New York and Munich. Additional information about CLO is available at http://www.clo3d.com/. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005426/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Cubic to Discuss Benefits of an Integrated National Approach to Ticketing at North of England Transport Summit

Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS (News - Alert)), a business unit of Cubic Corporation (NYSE:CUB), today announced that John Pickworth, business development director for CTS, will participate in a panel discussion highlighting the role of transport in the Northern England economy at the North of England Transport Summit. Organized by the Transport Times, the event, held at Midland Hotel in Manchester, United Kingdom, on December 7, brings together key politicians and practitioners to discuss and debate the future transport strategy for the North of England.



At the summit, Pickworth will discuss how the region can benefit from a single approach to smart ticketing. In addition, he will introduce improved transport services, encouraging greater inter-modality across cities through a compelling customer proposition, to help boost the Northern England economy. Pickworth will also address how this approach will drive patronage growth on public transport, improve network optimization and lead to reduced congestion on the surrounding highways. "An integrated, well-understood and easily accessible ticketing system covering multiple regions and modes of travel, and based on a single account such as Cubic's One Account technology, is central to the idea of smart travel," Pickworth said. "Northern England is taking all the right steps in making integrated ticketing a reality, through its Smart North initiative. Once implemented, the scheme will bring Northern England benefits comparable to what the Ventra card, Oyster card and contactless payment have brought commuters and transport service operators in other major cities around the world, such as Chicago and London."

"Transport is crucial if we are to bridge the productivity gap between London and the southeast and north regions of England," added Professor David Begg, publisher and chief executive of Transport Times. "While big transport infrastructure projects including HS2, HS3 and Trans-Pennine Road tunnel grab the headlines, it is smaller schemes, such as smart ticketing and information, which will have just as much of a transformational impact on the traveling public." Pickworth will take part in the following panel session: Session 2: The role of transport in boosting the economy in the North

Wednesday, December 7, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, United Kingdom

Panelists: Alex Hynes, Arriva Rail North Ltd; Alison Pilling, Transport for the North; Susan Evans, Alstom UK & I; Giles Fearnley, First Group; Dave Newton, Arup. Cubic has been a global leader in intelligent transportation solutions for more than 45 years, processing more than 24 billion transactions annually and serving more than 38 million people every day. About Cubic Corporation Cubic Corporation designs, integrates and operates systems, products and services focused in the transportation, defense training and secure communications markets. Cubic Transportation Systems is a leading integrator of payment and information technology and services to create intelligent travel solutions for transportation authorities and operators. Cubic Global Defense is a leading provider of live, virtual, constructive and game-based training solutions, special operations and intelligence for the U.S. and allied forces. Cubic Mission Solutions provides networked Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities for defense, intelligence, security and commercial missions. For more information about Cubic, please visit the company's website at www.cubic.com or on Twitter (News - Alert) @CubicCorp. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005428/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Foresters Financial Offers Emergency Assistance to Members in Tennessee

Foresters Financial: Who: Foresters Financial, an international financial services provider committed to doing more for families and communities, is offering assistance to its members affected by wildfires in Tennessee. What: Eligible members experiencing significant personal hardship as a result of the wildfires can receive grants to help with immediate needs. Members who are directly affected by the wildfires can contact Foresters toll-free at 800 828 1540 between the hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday, or e-mail Foresters at [email protected]. About Foresters Financial

Foresters Financial is an international financial services provider with more than three million clients and membrs in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and total funds under management of $34 billion1. With a history of more than 140 years, we provide life insurance, savings, retirement and investment solutions that help families achieve their financial goals, protect their families and improve their communities. For more information, visit foresters.com.



Foresters Financial and Foresters are trade names and trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters (a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9) and its subsidiaries. Products offered vary by country. Not all products are available for distribution in all jurisdictions. In the United States, products are offered by The Independent Order of Foresters and its subsidiaries, including Foresters Financial Services, Inc. a registered broker-dealer. Securities, life insurance and annuity products are offered through Foresters Financial Services, Inc. or independent producers. Insurance products are issued by Foresters Life Insurance and Annuity Company, New York, or The Independent Order of Foresters. Investment advisory products and services are offered through Foresters Advisory Services, LLC, a registered investment adviser.

1in Canadian dollars as of December 31, 2015 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005969/en/

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[December 05, 2016] Jardine Schindler Group and Aspen Group Sign Collaboration Agreement to Boost Smart Digital Urban Mobility Solutions in Aspen's Developments

PENANG, Malaysia, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Antah Schindler Sdn Bhd and Aspen Vision All Sdn Bhd (a subsidiary company of Aspen Group) today signed a Collaboration Agreement in Penang, pledging collaboration and engagement in future building developments across Malaysia with smart digital urban mobility systems. The signing serves as a framework for collaboration and information exchange between the parties on the design, engineering, supply, delivery, installation, testing and commissioning of both mobility systems and Smart Digital Solutions for all Aspen's developments in Penang and Selangor. Smart Digital Solutions are a cornerstone of Schindler's pioneering equipment, and encompass remote monitoring, advanced analytics, intelligent elevator dispatching for optimum traffic performance, personalized passenger services, and smartphone building access and mobility technology, among others. The agreement was signed by Jujudhan Jena, Chief Executive Officer of Jardine Schindler Group, Ashok Ramachandran, Managing Director of Antah Schindler Sdn Bhd, Dato' M. Murly, Group Chief Executive Officer of Aspen Group and Woo Kok Weng, Executive Director of Aspen Group. The Chief Minister of Penang, YAB Lim Guan Eng witnessed this momentous signing at the ceremony together with Dato' Seri Nazir Ariff, Chairman and Executive Director of Aspen Group as well as Chan Siu Shing, New Installation director of Antah Schindler Sdn Bhd. The partnership follows Aspen Group's recent award of the Vervea commercial development contract to Schindler, to which Schindler will supply 442 units of intelligent elevators. Vervea commercial precinct is the first phase of Aspen Vision City in Batu Kawan, Penang. It is comprised of 441 units of three- and four-storey shop offices and comes with a host of value-added features such as external linkages to surrounding establishments, a 300-meter covered high street, tree-lined walkways and every unit is equipped with a private elevator. Spanning across 245 acres, Aspen Vision City is the largest mixed-use development in the state of Penang. It is also a mega-scale joint venture development between Aspen Group and Ikano Pte Ltd.



"We are delighted to have a new and strong business partner in Malaysia, which is an important market for us," said Jujudhan Jena, Chief Executive of Jardine Schindler Group. "Bringing intelligent digital solutions to the country is a goal we proudly share with Aspen Group, and we anticipate strengthening our presence in Malaysia through this important collaboration," he said. "This signing is an excellent step in our new partnership with Aspen Group," said Ashok Ramachandran, Managing Director of Antah Schindler Sdn Bhd. "We are proud to have been chosen for the Aspen Vision City development because of our well-established brand reputation and good relationship with our customers," he said.

"We are excited about this collaboration with Schindler, which we strongly believe will transform the way people move in Aspen's upcoming developments," said Dato' M. Murly, Group Chief Executive Officer of Aspen Group. "By integrating the latest Schindler Smart Digital Solutions, such as an intelligent elevator dispatching system that delivers first-class traffic performance, security access control systems, and smart personalized passenger services, among others, we envisage bringing seamless transit, efficiency, security and convenience to all Malaysians we come into contact with," he said. Antah Schindler Sdn Bhd -- the home of Schindler in Malaysia Antah Schindler Sdn Bhd is a joint venture between Jardine Schindler Group and Syarikat Persaka Antah Sdn Bhd, providing elevator and escalator installation and maintenance services throughout the country. Schindler Malaysia has worked on numerous landmark projects, including KL Eco City, Intermark - Integra Tower, Pavilion KL, KLCC Lot C, KL Sentral, KL International Airport, and Pavilion Residences. Aspen Group Aspen Group is a property development and real estate investment group based in Penang. The Group was founded on the principle of delivering quality and affordability in an ever-changing property development industry. Powered by a customer-driven business model, Aspen Group has become a name synonymous with buyer-oriented properties of exceptional quality and lifestyle features. With a promising future outlook for the property development sector, Aspen Group is set to take on bigger, multifaceted challenges in various new strategic locations. Aspen Vision City

With a GDV of RM8 billion and covering 245 acres of prime Freehold land, Aspen Vision City is one of the biggest mixed developments in Penang. The mega-scale project is a landmark joint venture between Aspen Group and Ikano Pte Ltd, owner of popular furniture franchise IKEA. A masterfully planned multi-phase development, Aspen Vision City comprises a spectacular mix of condominiums, shop offices, serviced suites, hotels, office tower, financial hub, medical centre and international school supported by a diverse array of top notch facilities and amenities. At the forefront of the project are an integrated shopping centre and the much anticipated Northern Region's first IKEA store, both to be placed under the management of Ikano Pte Ltd. Poised to redefine the very landscape of Batu Kawan, Aspen Vision City is situated right at the bustling landing point of the Second Penang Bridge. Arguably the most desirable location in Southeast Penang, Aspen Vision City's value and status is poised to grow exponentially in the coming years. Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20161202/8521607899LOGO

Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20141111/8521406714LOGO

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[December 06, 2016] Luxembourg's Ministry of Education Partners with Canadian Ed Tech Company, Vretta, to Transform Math Education Across the Country

TORONTO, Dec. 6, 2016 /CNW/ - The Ministry of National Education, Children and Youth of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg signs a convention with its education technology partner, Vretta, for the development of the personalized learning platform, MathemaTIC, for students in Grades 3 & 4 (Cycle 3) and Grades 7 & 8. This is in support of the "Digital Letzebuerg" strategy announced by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in October 2014, under the leadership and guidance of Education Minister, Claude Meisch, the Director of SCRIPT, Luc Weis, and the Coordinator of the Project, Amina Afif. (LOGO: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445825LOGO) The collaboration also includes partners from the French Ministry of Education (DEPP), the University of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), the Luxembourg Institute of Social-Economic Research (LISER), and Le Centre de gestion informatique de l'education (CGIE). During the 2015-2016 school year, MathemaTIC for Grades 5 & 6 (Cycle 4) was piloted in 41 schools in Luxembourg. The MathemaTIC team developed interactive learning and assessment modules aligned to the mathematical competencies outlined in the national curriculum document for Cycle 4, covering levels 8-10. "MathemaTIC is a national digital transformational project of high importance and w are happy to see our teachers embrace this new personalized learning platform and use it effectively to support the learning of mathematics for students in class and at home. It is with passion that we look forward to supporting our teachers and partners for the generalization of MathemaTIC for Cycle 4 and the development and generalization of MathemaTIC for Cycle 3 and Grades 7 & 8 for all the schools in our country" mentioned Education Minister Claude Meisch.



The strong uptake of MathemaTIC, in the first year of its launch in Luxembourg, can be attributed to the proven innovative pedagogies that have been developed, the ease of use, and the on-demand availability of the platform. MathemaTIC also has the advantage of offering students the ability to dynamically switch between four different languages, covering the entire student population. They can choose to learn in German, French, Portuguese, or English, interchangeably. "I am thankful to the immense support that we received from our national and international content experts, teachers, technology partners, research and evaluation specialists, and all the others team members who collaborated with unwavering commitment to achieve the highest possible quality and innovation through the development of the interactive items and customization of the MathemaTIC platform for our students" mentioned Amina Afif, Coordinator of the Project. She continued to say "I also extend a warm welcome to our new team members on the development and customization project for Cycle 3 and Grades 7 & 8 students".

The result of the pilot for Cycle 4 students has strengthened the need to not only provide students with interactive diagnostic and summative assessments but also engage them through the learning process throughout the school year. This is based on technology simulations of real-world scenarios to connect abstract math concepts to practical applications, demystifying the subject. "MathemaTIC is the result of pedagogical research conducted by international subject matter experts over many years of validating assessment items. It is also the culmination of almost seven years of educational technology research by Vretta in building and validating interactive Assessment for Learning technologies at schools and post-secondary institutions around the world" mentioned Anand Karat, President of Vretta Inc. He added "internationally, numerous educators have shown keen interest in providing MathemaTIC to their students and we are collaborating with MENJE make MathemaTIC available in countries across Europe". To learn more and participate in the MathemaTIC project visit www.mathematic.lu or send an email to [email protected]. ABOUT VRETTA Vretta is a global education technology company that is transforming the way students engage with mathematics. Vretta's team of learning and assessment specialists design and develop award-winning interactive math resources that are re-defining what really matters for students in the 21st century. Vretta's vision is a world where everyone enjoys mathematics and they are achieving this by pushing the boundaries of education technology to inspire and empower every learner in the world. To learn more about Vretta, visit: www.vretta.com. SOURCE Vretta Inc.

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[December 06, 2016] Nurix Appoints Robert Tjian, Ph.D. of The Column Group to its Board of Directors

Nurix, Inc., a private drug discovery company, today announced the appointment of Dr. Robert Tjian to the company's board of directors. Dr. Tjian is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards including the Alfred P. Sloan Prize and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. He was a co-founder of Tularik with Dave Goeddel and Steve McKnight and most recently served as president of the Howard Hughes (News - Alert) Medical Institute (HHMI) from 2009 to 2016. After leaving HHMI, Dr. Tjian joined The Column Group as a discovery partner in September 2016. "It is indeed a privilege to welcome Dr. Tjian to the Nurix board of directors," said Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of Nurix. "Dr. Tjian's unique combination of scientific expertise and biotechnology business insight will be of great value to Nurix as we translate our breakthrough science into breakthrough drugs for patients." Dr. Tjian discovered the first transcription factors, human proteins that bind to specific sections of DNA and play a critical role in regulating how genetic information is expressed into the thousands of biomolecules that keep cells, tissues and organisms alive. Dr. Tjian's laboratory has focused on disruptions in the process of transcription that cause diseases uch as cancer, metabolic syndromes and neuro-degenerative diseases. In recent years, much of Dr. Tjian's research has focused on key transcription events in embryonic stem cells. He joined the University of California, Berkeley faculty in 1979, where he assumed several leadership roles including director of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, faculty director of the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, and head of the Siebel Stem Initiative. He currently serves as scientific advisor to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the BioHub, and continues to serve on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley.



With his appointment, Dr. Tjian will assume the board seat previously occupied by David Goeddel, Ph.D. of The Column Group. "Dave has made significant contributions to Nurix since its inception and has been a guiding influence for the advancement of Nurix's scientific and business initiatives, said Dr. Sands. "He has successfully established the company as a leader in the protein homeostasis field and we thank him for his leadership."

About Nurix Nurix, Inc. is a leader in the discovery of small molecules that modulate the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) to address significant, unmet medical needs. The UPS is a regulatory pathway that controls protein levels, a function vital to the healthy life of a cell, and presents therapeutic opportunities in multiple disease areas. Nurix was founded by internationally-recognized experts in the ubiquitin proteasome field and is funded by leading life science investors, Third Rock Ventures and The Column Group. In September 2015, Nurix and Celgene entered into a broad collaboration targeting protein homeostasis for next-generation therapies in oncology, inflammation and immunology. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit www.nurix-inc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005358/en/

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[December 06, 2016] PixarBio Corporation to Present at the 9th Annual LD Micro Main Event on December 6th in Bel Air, CA

PixarBio Corporation, (OTCQX: PXRB) developers of NeuroReleaseTM, a novel morphine replacement, non-opiate/opioid, non-addictive pain treatment with FDA approval expected in late 2018, announced today that CEO Frank Reynolds will be presenting at the 9th annual LD Micro Main Event in Bel Air, California on Tuesday, December 6, 2016







Event: LD Micro Main Event Location: Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel 11461 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90049 Time: 8:30 AM PST / 11:30 AM EST.

About LD Micro

The LD Micro Main Event is one of the largest independent conferences for small/microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting companies. LD Micro Event was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event). In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe. The NeuroReleaseTM Platform: Non-Addictive and Non-opiate Treatment of Pain

NeuroReleaseTM is a morphine replacement, and non-addictive pain platform for the surgical/hospital setting, for the battlefield, or for acute and chronic pain. First product FDA approval for the platform will be for a 14-day post-surgical pain treatment and it is expected in late 2018. Major Benefits of NeuroReleaseTM Effects only sensory signals

No effect on locomotion nerve fibers, so patients can enter physical therapy quickly

Maintains two-point discriminate touch so patients can function

No effect on proprioception so no effect on a person feeling of well-being Therefore, patients will maintain two-point discriminate touch, control of their locomotion nerve fibers so they control voluntary movement to enter rehabilitation quickly with a non-addictive morphine replacement. PixarBio's NeuroReleaseTM pain platform also includes 4-8 hour, 3-day, 7-day, 14-day and 90-Day pain treatments all have expected FDA approvals in 2020. NeuroReleaseTM is biodegradable, and it's non-toxic so NeuroReleaseTM can be re-injected to extend treatment timelines. PixarBio Corporation was awarded the Boston Business Journal's "2016 Best Places to Work". The award recognizes PixarBio as one of the region's best firms, offering the greatest professional opportunities and work environments to innovate. About PixarBio Corporation

PixarBio is a public company traded on the OTC markets under the stock symbol PXRB. PixarBio is a specialty pharmaceutical/biotechnology company focused on pre-clinical and clinical commercial development of novel neurological drug delivery systems for post-operative pain. PixarBio researches and develops targeted delivery systems for drugs, devices, or biologics to treat pain, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, and spinal cord injury. Our lead product platform, NeuroRelease, has achieved sustained therapeutic release of non-opiate drugs for post-operative, acute and chronic pain in pre-clinical models. For more information, visit www.pixarbio.com. Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of PixarBio's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general industry conditions and competition; general economic factors, including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of Biotech and medical device industry regulation and health care legislation in the United States and internationally; global trends on cost containment; technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product development, including obtaining regulatory approval; PixarBio's ability to accurately predict future market conditions; manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial instability of international economies and sovereign risk; dependence on the effectiveness of PixarBio's patents and other protections for innovative products; and the exposure to litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions. PixarBio Corp undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be obtained through PixarBio's corporate headquarters at 200 Boston Ave, Suite 1875 in Medford, MA 02155. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005007/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Ready-to-Wear Manufacturer Gurmen Group Selects Dassault Systemes' "My Collection" Industry Solution Experience to Optimize its Fashion Value Chain

Dassault Systemes (Paris:DSY) (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, world leader in 3D design software, 3D Digital Mock Up and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced that Gurmen Group, owner of leading menswear brands, Ramsey and KIP, chose the "My Collection" industry solution experience to optimize the development of its fashion collections. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205005838/en/ Copyright Gurmen Group Gurmen Group is one of the largest groups in Turkey with strong expertise in various sectors including ready-to-wear clothing. The Group employs nearly 3,000 people and exports to 60 countries, where its men's fashion brands KIP and Ramsey ompete with the world's leading brands. Its flagship Gurmen Textile is differentiated by its design capability, innovative product approach and advanced production technology. The company has the capacity of producing 2,100 suits, 1,750 pants and 2,000 shirts per day.



Gurmen Group had been seeking an industrial solution for some time to allow its brands to collaborate more efficiently on a single unified platform. Based on diligent research and a deep market offering assessment-which lasted over a year-the group decided that Dassault Systemes' "My Collection" industry solution experience was the best-in-class fashion solution to address its requirements. Its objective is to deploy the solution within a six-month timeframe. Based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, the "My Collection" industry solution experience will provide Gurmen Group with a unified digital environment that connects internal and external stakeholders, integrates its value chain, and improves visibility, flexibility and decision support. Teams will collaborate in a single environment, spending less time chasing and duplicating data and more time on developing and sourcing items. With "My Collection," Gurmen Group will accelerate time to market of its Ramsey and KIP collections and its teams can better focus on creative work.

"This collaboration will give us a competitive advantage and will surely add value to our business," said Yasemin Gur Solmaz, Ramsey-KIP Member of the Board of the Directors, Responsible for Operations, Gurmen Group. "Dassault Systemes' (News - Alert) 15 years of fashion industry experience and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform offer a new, digital approach to collaborative innovation for on-trend and on-time collections that can create value," said Chris Colyer, Vice President, Consumer Goods and Retail Industry, Dassault Systemes. "We are seeing more and more apparel companies of all sizes in all markets adopt this approach and its depth of functionalities, for maximum visibility across seasons, categories, products and variations." For more information on Dassault Systemes' industry solution experiences for Consumer Goods & Retail, please visit: http://www.3ds.com/industries/consumer-goods-retail/ ### About Dassault Systemes

Dassault Systemes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, provides business and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations. Its world-leading solutions transform the way products are designed, produced, and supported. Dassault Systemes' collaborative solutions foster social innovation, expanding possibilities for the virtual world to improve the real world. The group brings value to over 210,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries. For more information, visit www.3ds.com. 3DEXPERIENCE, the Compass logo and the 3DS logo, CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, ENOVIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA, GEOVIA, EXALEAD, 3D VIA (News - Alert), BIOVIA, NETVIBES and 3DEXCITE are registered trademarks of Dassault Systemes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205005838/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Sunstone Circuits is Recognized as a Top Work Place for 2016

Sunstone Circuits, the leading printed circuit board (PCB) solutions provider, has been named one of The Oregonian Top Work Places for 2016. This is the fifth year The Oregonian/OregonLive has recognized the Top Workplaces in Oregon and southwest Washington. Starting with employee recommendations and self-nominations, WorkplaceDynamics - an employee research and consulting firm - invited more than 1,000 companies to participate in confidential employee surveys this spring. Of those, more than 150 agreed to make their almost 55,000 combined employees available for surveys. Almost half of the employees responded. The winners list includes a wide range of industry type and size. Employees gave their opinions on everything from pay and benefits to working conditions to corporate leadership. All responses were anonymous. "Sunstone Circuits is thrilled to once again be named as one of the Top Places to Work in Oregon," said Mathew Stevenson, Director of Marketing. "We want Sunstone employees to feel that they contribute something meaningful in their day to day work, and that they are appreciated by management. We are constantly looking at ways to move the company forward, and we want our employees' input on ways we can do that. Sunstone Circuits is more than a company; we're a family." Key sentiments among workers with winning ompanies are feelings of alignment and connection. In all, 100 companies were selected as Top Workplaces.



About Sunstone Circuits Sunstone Circuits is the established leader in providing innovative and reliable printed circuit board (PCB) solutions for the electronic design industry. With over 40 years of experience in delivering high-quality, on-time PCBs, Sunstone Circuits is committed to continuously improving the overall process for the design engineer from quote to delivery. With solutions ranging from prototypes to medium volume and production quantities, Sunstone has your entire product lifecycle covered. With live on-site customer support every day of the year (24/7/365), Sunstone Circuits provides unparalleled customer service and leads the industry with a real On-Time Guarantee that is the first of its kind. For more information about Sunstone's innovative PCB solutions, or to learn more about our custom quote or online quote and ordering process, please visit www.Sunstone.com.

Trademarks: Sunstone Circuits, PCBExpress, ValueProto, PCB123, & PCBpro, are trademarked by Sunstone Circuits. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005499/en/

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[December 05, 2016] MarketLinc CMO To Present Power of Human Engagement in Digital Commerce at Mobile Virtual Conference & Expo

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MarketLinc, the leader in creating and managing human-to-human engagement in digital commerce buying experiences, will be participating in the upcoming All About Mobile Virtual Conference & Expo with a presentation by Chief Marketing Officer Matt Langie. The live event takes place on Dec. 8, 2016, starting at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time with Langie's presentation set for 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time. PHOTO DOWNLOAD: http://www.kcomm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Langie.jpg Langie also was recently a featured presenter at the online ObservePoint Analytics Summit as well as the McCombs Marketing Conference and Challenge held at the University of Texas at Austin. Hosted by publisher Target Marketing, the online event is a one-day virtual experience for marketers and marketing service providers looking to augment their mobile strategy and campaigns. Many website visitors want and need more than just a digital experiene, especially when a considered, relatively complex purchase is involved. Langie's session will reveal a unique approach to analyzing visitor digital body language, segmenting that site traffic and delivering engagement at a human level for those visitors who need it to complete their purchases with the ultimate goal of creating revenue lift from revenue lost.



"Consumers are at the center of today's omnichannel world of commerce, but a digital-only experience or simple chat interaction may not be adequate to address their questions and move them through to a buying decision," said Langie. "The integration of human-to-human engagement can now be achieved to close this loop and capture new revenue opportunities from consumers whose needs are fully met." As Chief Marketing Officer at MarketLinc, Langie is responsible for marketing strategy, messaging and positioning, demand generation, corporate communications, sales enablement, and thought leadership. He has experience with both startups and large organizations, having led the global product marketing organization at Adobe that helped position the billion-dollar Marketing Cloud business as a market leader.

For information on MarketLinc, visit www.marketlinc.com. To register for the Virtual Conference & Expo, go to http://aamob.targetmarketingmag.com/agenda/. About MarketLinc

MarketLinc offers a fully-managed, turnkey solution to lift revenue and drive loyalty through human engagement in digital commerce. The robust solution identifies customers who require more than a digital-only experience to maximize their purchase, predict when and how they need sales assistance, and provide personalized engagement at critical moments in their buying journey. www.marketlinc.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/marketlinc-cmo-to-present-power-of-human-engagement-in-digital-commerce-at-mobile-virtual-conference--expo-300373093.html SOURCE MarketLinc

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[December 05, 2016] IGT to Provide Advantage Casino Management System with UGA and Service Window to Palms Resort Casino

LONDON, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- International Game Technology PLC ("IGT") (NYSE: IGT) today announced an agreement with Station Casinos LLC ("Station Casinos") to provide Palms Resort Casino with IGT Advantage casino management systems with IGT Universal Game Adaptor (UGA) and Service Window solutions and applications. By installing the IGT casino management system, Palms Resort Casino will be able to offer premium guest experiences through customized promotions and incentives through Service Window marketing, bonusing and guest communications solutions and applications across the property's slot floor. "Earlier this year, we reached an agreement with IGT to enhance our Advantage casino management system with UGA and Service Window across 19,000 machines and 19 Station Casinos properties. When we completed our acquisition of the Palms Resort Casino, we extended our investment in our guests by replacing the existing systems with IGT solutions that provide customized bonusing capabilities and incentives that enhance our newly expanded loyalty program," stated Marc J. Falcone, Station Casinos' Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. "This agreement represents the value that IGT systems bring to the gaming industry's most innovative operators. Within just one month of acquiring Palms Resort Casino, Station Casinos elected to replace the property's existing casino management system with IGT Advantage. We are thrilled to extend our strong relationship with Station Casinos by extending IGT systems capabilities to help provide an outstanding player experience at Palms Resort Casino," said Nick Khin, IGT Senior Vice President of Sales, North America Gaming & Interactive. About IGT

IGT (NYSE:IGT) is the global leader in gaming. We enable players to experience their favorite games across all channels and regulated segments, from Gaming Machines and Lotteries to Interactive and Social Gaming. Leveraging a wealth of premium content, substantial investment in innovation, in-depth customer intelligence, operational expertise and leading-edge technology, our gaming solutions anticipate the demands of consumers wherever they decide to play. We have a well-establishe local presence and relationships with governments and regulators in more than 100 countries around the world, and create value by adhering to the highest standards of service, integrity, and responsibility. IGT has over 12,000 employees. For more information, please visit www.IGT.com.



Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements (including within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) concerning International Game Technology PLC and other matters. These statements may discuss goals, intentions and expectations as to future plans, trends, events, dividends, results of operations or financial condition, or otherwise, based on current beliefs of the management of International Game Technology PLC as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, such management. Forward-looking statements may be accompanied by words such as "aim," "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "could," "would," "should," "shall," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "future," "guidance," "intend," "may," "will," "possible," "potential," "predict," "project" or the negative or other variations of them. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside International Game Technology PLC's control. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ materially from those predicted in the forward-looking statements and from past results, performance or achievements. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include (but are not limited to) the possibility that the businesses of International Game Technology (Nevada) and GTECH S.p.A. will not be integrated successfully, or that the combined companies will not realize estimated cost savings, synergies, growth or other anticipated benefits or that such benefits may take longer to realize than expected; unanticipated costs of integration of International Game Technology (Nevada) and GTECH S.p.A.; the possibility that International Game Technology PLC will be unable to pay future dividends to shareholders or that the amount of such dividends may be less than anticipated; the possibility that International Game Technology PLC may not obtain its anticipated financial results in one or more future periods; reductions in customer spending; a slowdown in customer payments and changes in customer demand for products and services as a result of changing economic conditions or otherwise; unanticipated changes relating to competitive factors in the industries in which International Game Technology PLC operates; International Game Technology PLC's ability to hire and retain key personnel; the impact of the consummation of the business combination on relationships with third parties, including customers, employees and competitors; International Game Technology PLC's ability to attract new customers and retain existing customers in the manner anticipated; reliance on and integration of information technology systems; changes in legislation or governmental regulations affecting International Game Technology PLC, including as a consequence of the announced withdrawal of the U.K. from the EU; international, national or local economic, social or political conditions that could adversely affect International Game Technology PLC or its customers; conditions in the credit markets; changes in the top management team; risks associated with assumptions International Game Technology PLC makes in connection with its critical accounting estimates; the resolution of pending and potential future legal, regulatory or tax proceedings and investigations; and International Game Technology PLC's international operations, which are subject to the risks of currency fluctuations and foreign exchange controls. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties that affect International Game Technology PLC's business, including those described in International Game Technology PLC's annual report on Form 20-F for the financial year ended December 31, 2015 and other documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which are available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov and on the investor relations section of International Game Technology PLC's website at www.IGT.com. Except as required under applicable law, International Game Technology PLC does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements. Nothing in this news release is intended, or is to be construed, as a profit forecast or to be interpreted to mean that earnings per International Game Technology PLC share for the current or any future financial years will necessarily match or exceed the historical published earnings per International Game Technology PLC share, as applicable. All forward-looking statements contained in this news release are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to International Game Technology PLC, or persons acting on its behalf, are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. IGT Contacts:

Robert K. Vincent, Corporate Communications, toll free in U.S./Canada (844) IGT-7452; outside U.S./Canada (401) 392-7452

Phil O'Shaughnessy, Global Communications, Gaming (702) 669-2975

James Hurley, Investor Relations, (401) 392-7190

 2016 IGT. All other trademarks used herein are owned by IGT or its affiliates, may not be used without permission, and where indicated with a , are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150406/196736LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/igt-to-provide-advantage-casino-management-system-with-uga-and-service-window-to-palms-resort-casino-300372952.html SOURCE IGT

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[December 05, 2016] CB&I Launches New Program to Train and Hire Veterans

CB&I (NYSE:CBI) today officially launched the CB&I Craft Development Program for Industrial Electricians, which is part of the company's long-standing commitment to supporting veterans. CB&I has partnered with Central Louisiana Technical Community College's (CLTCC) Lamar Salter Campus and Fort Polk, a U.S. Army installation in Louisiana, to train active duty military for careers in the industrial electrical field. The program is a 16-week training program for active duty military stationed at Fort Polk nearing the end of their service. After successfully completing the program, qualified graduates will receive job offers from CB&I, a certificate of completion from CLTCC and a certificate of completion from the National Center for Construction Education and Research. "As a fellow veteran, I want the men and women participating in the program to know that CB&I values your leadership, teamwork, strong work ethic and many of the other traits you develop in the U.S. Armed Forces," said Philip K. Asherman, CB&I's President and Chief Executive Officer. "These traits are critical to CB&I's success and a major reason why we are committed to providing careers for those who serve our country. We also are committed to helping prepare active duty military for a successful transition and establishing a pipeline of skilled workers for Louisiana." "Fort Polk is excited to see this initiative between CB&I and CLTCC for training our soldiers for civilian careers in the industrial electrical feld," said Brigadier General Gary Brito, Commanding General at Fort Polk. "This is a big deal for our soldiers. I can't think of a better way of showing our soldiers that when they leave active service, they are not alone, but supported by the Army and their communities. I applaud the entire team and thank them for their efforts."



CB&I is a proud military employer and has a strong track record of supporting the men and women who served in uniform. Some of the company's recent accomplishments in supporting veterans include: hiring over 5,000 U.S. veterans since 2014; receiving multiple awards from the U.S. Department of Defense's Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve; being recognized by G.I. Jobs magazine as a Top Military Friendly Employer; and being a member of the Veterans Job Mission. About CB&I

CB&I (NYSE:CBI) is a leading provider of technology and infrastructure for the energy industry. With over 125 years of experience and the expertise of more than 40,000 employees, CB&I provides reliable solutions to our customers around the world while maintaining a relentless focus on safety and an uncompromising standard of quality. For more information, visit www.CBI.com. Important Information For Investors And Shareholders Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding CB&I and represents our expectations and beliefs concerning future events. These forward-looking statements are intended to be covered by the safe harbor for forward-looking statements provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. When considering any statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or use or contain words, terms, phrases or expressions such as "achieve," "forecast," "plan," "propose," "strategy," "envision," "hope," "will," "continue," "potential," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "project," "estimate," "predict," "intend," "should," "could," "may," "might" or similar forward-looking statements, we refer you to the cautionary statements concerning risk factors and "Forward-Looking Statements" described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our Annual Report filed on Form 10-K filed with the SEC (News - Alert) for the year ended December 31, 2015, and any updates to those risk factors or "Forward-Looking Statements" included in our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC, which cautionary statements are incorporated herein by reference. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205005948/en/

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[December 05, 2016]

Nokia 200G optical transport solution doubles network capacity for Spark New Zealand

Espoo, Finland, Dec. 05, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Press Release

Spark first in New Zealand to offer 200 Gb/s (Gigabits-per-second) on a single wavelength thanks to Nokia's technology

Higher capacity, lower costs mean Spark can meet rising customer bandwidth demand on existing network without huge fiber optic investments

6 December, 2016

Espoo, Finland - Spark, New Zealand's leading communications service provider, has deployed the country's first 200G per wavelength production fiber link using Nokia's PSS1830 Optical Transport Network (OTN). The Nokia optical solution effectively doubles capacity while reducing cost per bit on the Spark fiber network. As a result, Spark is able to deliver more value and a better experience to its enterprise, retail mobile and broadband customers without the need for major investment in fiber optic cables and other CAPEX/OPEX-related costs.

The deployment of 200G per wavelength is a first for the New Zealand telecommunications industry, and was achieved with the Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch. The powerful yet flexible hardware and software allow customers to optimize their networks by balancing capacity and distance for individual wavelengths. Nokia's 200G channel can also co-exist with Spark's 10G and 100G channels, protecting the original network investment.

Spark's new 200Gbps network link connects its core network with the global gateway, and enables the service provider stay ahead of the data demand curve for both residential and enterprise customers. It will help meet continuing strong business and consumer demand for data bandwidth, utilizing existing systems to efficiently boost capacity for current usage and future growth.

200G provides a compelling business case for any operator looking to lower their total cost of ownership while still deploying extra speed and capacity in their existing 1830 PSS networks.

Colin Brown, General Manager of Networks at Spark, said: "Today's digital revolution is driving massive growth in data traffic, with businesses and consumers needing to instantly access and share information anytime, anywhere, doing so quickly, efficiently and securely. Nokia has helped Spark NZ reach a new milestone with our world-class Optical Transport Network, achieving our vision of adata-driven future for New Zealand and underpinning an integrated network including fiber, 3G, 4G, 4.5G, wireless broadband and Wi-Fi."







Ray Owen, head of Oceania at Nokia, said: "Like many operators, Spark has faced relentless growth in bandwidth demand, largely driven by an increase in video streaming by business and consumer users. By taking a flexible approach to this challenge with New Zealand's first 200Gbps fiber link, together with Nokia, Spark is well placed to meet continued demand growth while meeting existing user expectations."

Did you know?

Nokia is the market leader in 200G port shipments (Dell'Oro).

Deployments of our 200G solution are growing rapidly as customers see the benefits of the long haul capabilities of 200G 8QAM.

We have shipped our 200G solution to more than 88 customers.

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About Spark NZ

Spark is New Zealand's largest digital services company delivering mobile, fixed and IT products and services to millions of New Zealand consumers and businesses. Our ambition is to be a winning business, inspired by customers to unleash the potential in all New Zealanders.



Spark New Zealand is a multi-brand business, with principal brands Spark (supporting home, consumer mobile and small business customers) and Spark Digital (supporting government and business customers with strong Cloud services, mobility and ICT capabilities). Specialist and flanking brands include Skinny (consumer mobile), Revera and Appserv (data hosting services), Lightbox (internet TV), Qrious (data analytics), and Bigpipe (consumer broadband). An in-house incubator, Spark Ventures, is developing other new business opportunities.

www.sparknz.co.nz

About Nokia

Nokia is a global leader in creating the technologies at the heart of our connected world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.

From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. www.nokia.com

Media Enquiries:

Nokia APAC Media Relations

Cordia So

Phone: +852 9747 5873

E-mail: [email protected]

Communications

Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: [email protected]

Spark

Sam Durbin

Communications Partner

Phone: +64 27 529 4342

Email: [email protected]
[December 05, 2016] Breather, The Go-To Solution For The Mobile Workforce, Raises $40 Million To Grow On-Demand Space Network

NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Breather, the leading network of on-demand meeting rooms and workspaces, announced today it has closed $40 million in funding, bringing the company's total funding to $73 million to date. This Series C round was led by Menlo Ventures, the venture capital firm behind Uber, Tumblr, Warby Parker and Siri. The financing included follow-on investments from Valar Ventures RRE Ventures, Slow Ventures, and Real Ventures, follows a Series B in 2015 and a Series A round in 2014. The investment positions Breather as the most well-funded startup in the growing on-demand workspace sector. Founded in Canada in 2012, Breather currently operates a rapidly growing network of more than 300 spaces across 10 global markets, including New York, San Francisco, London and more. In 2016, the company expanded to new markets including Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Toronto. Breather has tripled its footprint in 2016 and is on track to increase density in its existing markets and contnue its expansion to new markets in 2017.



"Breather has tapped into a real need in the workplace. There hasn't been a company of its kind offering spaces on-demand," said Venky Ganesan, Managing Director of Menlo Ventures. "Breather has a tremendous vision to connect the world's spaces and make them accessible to all." Menlo Ventures has a track record of success with pioneering startups, funding 70 public companies and overseeing more than 100 mergers and acquisitions since its inception in 1976. Ganesan has joined Breather's Board of Directors. Breather's expanding customer base spans a wide range of users from freelancers and startups to large, multi-national corporations. Breather's clients represent a global shift in the way businesses and individuals work. The company's "Breather for Business" program has onboarded thousands of large organizations and small businesses since its start in 2015 and has grown 5x in this year alone. Notable clients include Apple, Google, Uber, GE, American Express, L'Oreal and IBM, which use the spaces for meetings and team off-sites.

"Over the past year, we've seen hundreds of new businesses sign up every month," said Julien Smith, CEO and co-founder of Breather. "We're excited to partner with Menlo Ventures because of their experience and alignment with our vision." The latest round of funding will fuel Breather's product innovation, allowing it to expand its network of users, and grow its footprint of spaces. Unlike co-working models, Breather has no membership fees or long-term contracts. Instead, the company offers its users quiet, dedicated meeting rooms and workspaces on a "pay-per-use" basis through the company's proprietary app and booking technology. The app allows users to instantly browse, book and access a space of their own. Breather has partnered with some of the largest and most prestigious landlords in each of its markets, with a unique business model that sets it apart from pure marketplace companies. Users have praised the inspiring aesthetic and consistent experience of Breather's spaces, which are designed by the company's in-house team.





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[December 05, 2016] IDrive Online Backup Updates RemotePC with New Web Viewer, Enabling Access to Remote Computers without any Software Requirements

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RemotePC by IDrive Online Backup has released their brand-new Web Viewer, enabling users to access multiple remote computers anytime, from anywhere, via a web browser. With this new feature, RemotePC software does not need to be installed on the external computer, only on the remote computers being accessed, making it convenient for users on the go to access their work from any laptop or desktop with an active internet connection. RemotePC Web Viewer has plenty of helpful features including: Connect to multiple computers -- easily access multiple remote computers at one time

No software requirements -- no software installation is required on user's local computer in order to access remote computers via the web browser

Security -- remote access is secured with TLS v 1.2 encryption. Personal key acts as a secondar password to access each machine

Remote Update -- remotely update to the latest version of the RemotePC application on any faraway computer

Multiple Monitor Access -- if a remote computer has more than one monitor, users can access any of them through the web interface

Lock function -- allows users to lock the remote computer instantly via the web. This prevents any unauthorized access to remote computers during a remote session

Easily view and download session logs by logging into user account through the web



Personal plan starts at $69.50 for the first year for access to 3 computers, and this includes 1TB of free IDrive Cloud Backup.

for the first year for access to 3 computers, and this includes 1TB of free IDrive Cloud Backup. Business plan starting at $499.50 for access to up to 50 computers, and comes with 10TB of free IDrive Cloud Backup. About IDrive

IDrive Inc. is a privately held company specializing in cloud storage, online backup, file sharing, remote access, compliance and related technologies. Core services include IDrive, RemotePC and IBackup. The company's services help over 3 million customers back up over 60 Petabytes of data.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/idrive-online-backup-updates-remotepc-with-new-web-viewer-enabling-access-to-remote-computers-without-any-software-requirements-300373175.html SOURCE IDrive Inc.

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[December 05, 2016] Calyxt Appoints Seed & Trait Veteran Bryan Corkal to New Chief Financial Officer Role

Calyxt, Inc., a Minnesota-based company developing healthier food products to benefit both consumers and growers, announced today the appointment of former Monsanto executive Bryan Corkal to the new role of Chief Financial Officer at Calyxt. Mr. Corkal will work closely with Calyxt's executive team to further the Company's mission to develop crops and food products with healthier characteristics and manage the Company's finance function moving forward. "Bryan brings a significant depth and breadth of experience in the agricultural seeds and traits space. After nearly two decades at Monsanto - Bryan has led efforts in finance, investor relations, strategy, manufacturing finance and M&A over the years - Bryan's extensive professional background in this space makes him the right choice to build up Calyxt's management team as the company prepares to launch its first products commercially," said Federico Tripodi, Calyxt CEO. "Bryan has an impressive track record - from implementing a supply chain transformation in his most recent role at Monsanto to designing a new financial planning and consolidation system for North America. As a result, I am confident that Bryan will hit the ground running at Calyxt and prove to be a valuable member of our growing senior management team." Mr. Corkal joins Calyxt from Monsanto, where he spent over 17 years in a variety of key financial roles. Most recently, he served as North America and Latin America North Supply Chain Finance Lead, where he was responsible fo the financial leaderships of the manufacturing and logistics functions for Monsanto's seed and trait business with a total annual product cost of over $2B. Mr. Corkal prior roles included serving as Director of Investor Relations, before which he was the CFO for the Latin America North region for Monsanto in Mexico City.



Additionally, over the years, Mr. Corkal has taken part in several key acquisitions, analyzed new product platforms and even implemented a Center of Excellence in Mexico City for Latin America North, where he improved levels of service and controls while providing meaningful development opportunities to a large international organization. "The agricultural food supply chain is a complex system that presents multiple opportunities to profitably deliver products to consumers and growers," said Mr. Corkal. "I believe gene editing represents the next big wave of innovation that will mark the future of food and agriculture and am excited to join Calyxt as a pioneer in this space. We are now in a unique position to use innovation and precise technology to improve the quality of our foods while meeting challenges that are related to sustainable growth and climate change. I am eager to bring my leadership and expertise so that Calyxt can responsibly and profitably contribute to addressing societal needs through health and nutrition."

About Calyxt Calyxt, Inc. is a fast-growing, consumer-oriented ag company that utilizes its innovative, patented TALEN technology to usher in a new era of agriculture and develop crop products with healthier characteristics for consumers - all the while helping farmers and food and agriculture industries reduce their environmental footprints in the context of climate change. Calyxt believes that agricultural technologies can have a profound, positive impact on humanity and is looking to engage those who share this passion for food and agriculture. Calyxt is located in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cellectis. For further information please visit our website: www.calyxt.com Calyxt and the corporate logo are trademarks owned by Calyxt, Inc. Talking about gene editing? We do it. TALEN is a registered trademark owned by the Cellectis Group. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205006318/en/

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[December 05, 2016] NOTICE TO MERRILL LYNCH PUERTO RICO BOND/BOND FUND INVESTORS: Klayman & Toskes, P.A. Continues to Investigate FINRA Arbitration Claims against Merrill Lynch for its Margin Lending Practices Related to Concentrated Investments in P.R Bonds/Bond Funds

The Securities Arbitration Law Firm of Klayman & Toskes, P.A. ("K&T"), www.nasd-law.com, continues to investigate FINRA arbitration claims against Merrill Lynch, a subsidy of Bank of America, N.A. (NYSE:BAC), for its margin lending practices related to concentrated investments in Puerto Rico bonds and leveraged closed-end bond funds (CEBFs). The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) recently fined Merrill Lynch $6.25 million for failure to supervise the recommended use of borrowed funds to invest in securities. Additionally, Merrill Lynch agreed to "pay roughly $780,000 in restitution to 22 customers who had 75% or more of their assets invested in Puerto Rico bonds and funds and suffered huge losses trying to liquidate them to meet margin calls." K&T is currently investigating the sales practices of Merrill Lynch's for violations related to unsuitable concentration in Puerto Rico bonds and leveraged CEBFs. K&T's investigation focuses on recommendations by Merrill Lynch to use loans secured by their Puerto Rico bonds and leveraged CEBFs. Recommendations to use borrowed funds to invest in Puerto Rico bonds and leveraged CEBFs resulted in undue risks for investors with moderate to conservative risk tolerances. Merrill Lynch investors suffered greater losses and margin calls from the use of borrowed funds provided by their parent company, Bank of America, N.A. The sole purpose of this release is to investigate sales practice violations by Merrill Lynch on behalf of our clients. The sales practice violations may include unsuitable investment recommendations, margin calls, conflicts of interest, misrepresentations and omissions of material facts and a failure to supervise. Merrill Lynch customers who have information about the sales practices of the firm related to concentrated investments in Puerto Rico bonds, CEBFs through borrowed funds provided by Bank of America, N.A. are encouraged to contact Lawrence L. Klayman, Esq. or Steven D. Toskes, Esq. of Klayman & Toskes, P.A. at (787)-919-7325, or visit our website at www.perdidasenbonospr.com/en/.



About Klayman & Toskes, P.A. K&T is a leading national securities law firm which practices exclusively in the field of securities arbitration and litigation, on behalf of retail and institutional investors throughout the world in large and complex securities matters. The firm represents high net-worth, ultra-high-net-worth, and institutional investors, such as non-profit organizations, unions, public and multi-employer pension funds. K&T has office locations in California, Florida, New York and Puerto Rico.

Destination: http://nasd-law.com/notice-to-merrill-lynch-puerto-rico-bond-and-bond-fund-investors-klayman-toskes-p-a-continues-to-investigate-finra-arbitration-claims-against-merrill-lynch-for-its-margin-lending-practices-relat/ View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205006335/en/

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[December 05, 2016] H3 Biomedicine Announces Data from Lead Development Program of H3B-8800 in Pre-Clinical Models of Hematologic Cancers

H3 Biomedicine Inc., a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of precision medicines for oncology and a member of Eisai's global Oncology Business Group, announced today that data from the company's lead cancer program were presented at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting in San Diego, Calif. The oral presentation detailed pre-clinical findings from the company's lead cancer compound, H3B-8800, demonstrating its potential efficacy in models of spliceosome mutant myeloid malignancies including a novel patient-derived xenograft system for chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML). Also collaborating in this program along with H3 Biomedicine, were additional cancer research groups from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY) and Moffitt Cancer Center, (Tampa, Fla.). "The data presented at ASH highlights the continued progress of our H3B-8800 program and establishes the clinical rationale for development of the compound in myeloid malignancies which has recently begun clinical trials," said Markus Warmuth, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and President of H3 Biomedicine. "Approximately 50% of myelodysplastic syndrome, secondary AML and CMML patients harbor a spliceosome mutation and these populations are in need of new treatment options." H3's ASH presentation provides an overview of the pre-clinical discovery f H3B-8800, an orally available modulator of the SF3b complex that shows potent splicing modulation in vitro and preferential cell killing of spliceosome mutant cells.



"Our deep expertise in RNA biology has uncovered a mechanistic rationale for the targeted treatment of spliceosome mutant cancers with H3B-8800," said Pete Smith, PhD, Vice President, Biology for H3Biomedicine. "The data presented at ASH demonstrates the compelling activity of H3B-8800 in cell line and patient-derived xenograft models of spliceosome mutant hematological malignancies." H3B-8800 is currently in Phase I clinical trials in advanced myeloid malignancies. The early clinical studies will evaluate safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and efficacy in patients with mutations in SF3B1, SRSF2, U2AF1 and ZRSR2 spliceosome genes.

About H3B-8800

H3B-8800 is an oral, potent, and selective small molecule modulator of splicing factor 3b subunit 1 (SF3B1) that is being developed by H3 Biomedicine as a potential anticancer therapeutic agent. In pre-clinical studies, H3B-8800 showed dose dependent modulation of canonical and aberrant splicing when dosed orally at tolerated doses. More importantly, oral administration of H3B-8800 demonstrated preferential antitumor activity in several pre-clinical xenograft models carrying spliceosome mutations. H3 Biomedicine's lead research and discovery programs in splicing are designed to develop drugs that target the vulnerabilities related to deregulated RNA homeostasis in cancer. About H3 Biomedicine Inc.

H3 Biomedicine is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of precision oncology treatments, which was established as a subsidiary of Eisai's U.S. pharmaceutical operation, Eisai Inc. Using modern synthetic chemistry, chemical biology, and human genetics, H3 Biomedicine seeks to bring the next generation of cancer treatments to market with the goal of improving the lives of patients. For more information, please visit http://www.h3biomedicine.com/. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205005078/en/

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APX Group Holdings, Inc. to Present at the Imperial Capital 2016 Security Investor Conference

APX Group Holdings, Inc. ("APX Group" or "Vivint") will be participating at the Imperial Capital Security Investor Conference being held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, Thursday, December 8, 2016. Vivint President Alex Dunn will participate in a fireside chat at 11:00 a.m. EST.

A live webcast of the fireside chat will be available on the investor relations section of Vivint's website at www.investors.vivint.com. The webcast will be archived and available for replay for 30 days after the event.







About Vivint

Vivint is a leading provider of smart home technology. Vivint delivers services through a cloud-based platform that integrates a wide range of wireless features and components to provide simple, affordable home security, energy management and home automation. Dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services, Vivint serves more than one million customers throughout the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit www.vivint.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205006350/en/
[December 05, 2016]

WitFoo Set To Start A Rebellion In Cyber Security

ATLANTA, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- WitFoo announced today that they will be hosting a launch party for their innovative network security solution on December 16th, 2016 featuring a private screening of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and a key note address by Matthew Mccormack, Chief Security Officer, Dell-EMC. The event will take place starting at 3:00 CST at the Muvico 18 theater in Rosemont, IL. The launch party will include drinks and hors d'ourves starting at 3:00, the Rogue One screening at 4:00, and an open bar social following the movie.

Regarding the event, WitFoo CEO and founder Charles Herring said, "A movie about a rebellion could not be a more perfect parallel for WitFoo. We are committed to changing the way network security is operationalized today, fighting back, and finally letting the good guys win."

Several Fortune 500 companies and cyber security professionals are already committed to attend the event at the 177 seat theater. Tickets are still available and WitFoo invites any cyber security professionals or press interested in attending to resister at www.witfoo.com/awaken.

About WitFoo, Inc: WitFoo exists to mature the craft of Information Security and to stop systemic failure in incident response. Founded in early 2016, WitFoo develops tools that significantly reduce the noise associated with cyber-attacks and builds processes that accelerate incident response.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Charles Herring at (678) 203-9800 or email at [email protected].









Contact Charles Herring Telephone (678) 203-9800 Email [email protected] Website www.witfoo.com



Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445796

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/witfoo-set-to-start-a-rebellion-in-cyber-security-300373196.html

SOURCE WitFoo, Inc
[December 05, 2016] KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) Treatment Results in Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma (cHL) Presented at 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology

Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today updated findings evaluating KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab), the company's anti-PD-1 therapy, in two trials of patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL). In the KEYNOTE-087 and KEYNOTE-013 trials, KEYTRUDA demonstrated overall response rates (ORR) of 69.0 percent and 58 percent, respectively. KEYNOTE-013, which had a median follow up of 29 months, showed responses of 12 months or greater in 70 percent of patients who responded to therapy. These findings will be presented today at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Additionally, data from these trials supported the recently announced regulatory filing with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "As the data mature from these two studies, we continue to be encouraged by the response rates, including complete remission and durable responses, in patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma," said Dr. Roger Dansey, senior vice president and therapeutic area head, oncology late-stage development, Merck Research Laboratories. The KEYTRUDA clinical development program includes more than 30 tumor types in nearly 400 clinical trials, including more than 200 trials that combine KEYTRUDA with other cancer treatments. For hematologic malignancies specifically, Merck is conducting broad immuno-oncology research assessing the role of monotherapy and combination regimens with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab). The hematology program includes nearly 40 ongoing studies - including company sponsored, investigator sponsored and collaborative studies; several of these are registration-enabling trials. "When patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma do not respond to standard of care chemotherapy or autologous stem cell transplantation, the cancer is difficult to successfully treat. For these patients, who are often in their 20s and 30s, the need to identify new treatment options is urgent," said Dr. Craig Moskowitz, clinical director, division of hematologic oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. "These data are promising and show that pembrolizumab may provide meaningful clinical benefit to patients with this disease." Results from KEYNOTE-087 Results from the KEYNOTE-087 trial will be presented in an oral presentation by Dr. Moskowitz at 5 p.m. PST (Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 6B) (Abstract #1107). KEYNOTE-087 is a multicenter, open-label, multi-cohort, activity-estimating phase 2 trial evaluating KEYTRUDA (200 mg fixed dose every three weeks) monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory cHL across three cohorts. The primary endpoints include overall safety, tolerability, and ORR (per blinded independent central review, BICR); secondary endpoints include ORR (per investigator review), duration of response (DOR), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). The patient cohorts are intended to assess the outcome measures in: patients whose disease progressed following an autologous stem cell transplantation and subsequent treatment with brentuximab vedotin, an antibody drug conjugate (Cohort 1); patients who failed salvage chemotherapy and were ineligible for a transplant and whose disease progressed following treatment with brentuximab vedotin (Cohort 2); and patients whose disease progressed after transplant and who did not receive brentuximab vedotin after transplant (Cohort 3). Across all 210 enrolled patients, the ORR was 69.0 percent (n=145; 95% CI, 62.3-75.2) by BICR, and the complete remission rate was 22.4 percent (n=47; 95% CI, 16.9-28.6). Across all cohorts, 93 percent of patients experienced a decrease in tumor burden (n=192). By cohort, the data showed: In Cohort 1, (n=69), ORR was 73.9 percent (n=51; 95% CI, 61.9-83.7) - with complete remissions in 21.7 percent (n=15; 95% CI, 12.7-33.3) and partial remissions in 52.2 percent (n=36; 95% CI, 39.8-64.4) of patients. An additional 15.9 percent of patients had stable disease (n=11; 95% CI, 8.2-26.7) and 7.2 percent of patients had progressive disease (n=5; 95% CI, 2.4-16.1). Additionally, 82.2 percent of responding patients had a response of six months or greater.

In Cohort 2 (n=81), ORR was 64.2 percent (n=52; 95% CI, 52.8-74.6) - with complete remissions in 24.7 percent (n=20; 95% CI, 15.8-35.5) and partial remissions in 39.5 percent (n=32; 95% CI, 28.8-51.0) of patients. An additional 12.3 percent of patients had stable disease (n=10; 95% CI, 6.1-21.5) and 21.0 percent of patients had progressive disease (n=17; 95% CI, 12.7-31.5). Additionally, 70 percent of responding patients had a response of six months or greater.

In Cohort 3 (n=60), ORR was 70.0 percent (n=42; 95% CI, 56.8-81.2) - with complete remissions in 20.0 percent (n=12; 95% CI, 10.8-32.3) and partial remissions in 50.0 percent (n=30; 95% CI, 36.8-63.2) of patients. An additional 16.7 percent of patients had stable disease (n=10; 95% CI, 8.3-28.5) and 13.3 percent of patients had progressive disease (n=8; 95% CI, 5.9-24.6). Additionally, 75.6 percent of responding patients had a response of six months or greater. Results also included an analysis of patients with primary refractory disease (n=73), defined as failure to achieve complete or partial response to first-line treatment. In this patient population, the ORR (per BICR) was 79.5 percent (n=58; 95% CI, 68.4-88.0). Additionally, an ORR of 67.8 percent (95% CI, 59.6-75.3) was reported in patients who relapsed after three or more lines of prior therapy (n=99/146). The safety profile of KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) was consistent with that observed in previously reported studies. The most common treatment-related adverse events were hypothyroidism (12.4%), pyrexia (10.5%), fatigue (9.0%), rash (7.6%), diarrhea (7.1%), headache (6.2%), nausea (5.7%), cough (5.7%) and neutropenia (5.2%). The most common grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events were neutropenia (2.4%), diarrhea (1.0%) and dyspnea (1.0%). Immune-mediated adverse events included pneumonitis (2.9%), hyperthyroidism (2.9%), colitis (1.0%) and myositis (1.0%). There were nine discontinuations because of treatment-related adverse events and no treatment-related deaths. Results from KEYNOTE-013 Results from the KEYNOTE-013 trial will be presented in an oral presentation by Dr. Philippe Armand, medical oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at 5:15 p.m. PST (Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 6B) (Abstract #1108). KEYNOTE-013 is an ongoing, multicenter, non-randomized, phase 1b trial of approximately 200 patients evaluating the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) monotherapy in patients with blood cancers, including myelodysplastic syndromes, multiple myeloma, classical Hodgkin lymphoma, mediastinal large B cell lymphoma and certain other non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (or lymphomata). The primary endpoints of the study include overall safety, tolerability, and complete remission rate (as measured by International Harmonization Project Response Criteria); secondary endpoints include ORR, DOR, PFS, and OS. Data from a cohort of the study evaluated KEYTRUDA monotherapy at 10 mg/kg every two weeks in patients with relapsed or refractory cHL who had progressed on or after treatment with brentuximab vedotin after failure of autologous stem cell transplant, or who were transplant-ineligible. Response was assessed at week 12 and every 8 weeks thereafter according to the International Harmonization Project 2007 criteria. Across all 31 patients enrolled in the KEYNOTE-013 classical Hodgkin lymphoma cohort, the ORR was 58 percent (n=18; 95% CI, 39-76) by BICR, and the complete remission rate was 19 percent (n=6; 95% CI, 8-38). Thirty-nine percent of patients achieved partial remission (n=12; 95% CI, 22-58) and 23 percent had stable disease (n=7; 95% CI, 10-41). The median duration of response was not yet reached (range 0.0+ to 26.1+ months) and 70 percent of responding patients had a response of 12 months or greater. The median duration of follow-up was 29 months. Measured by BICR, median PFS was 11.4 months (4.9-27.8). The six-month PFS rate was 66 percent and the 12-month rate was 48 percent. Median OS was not reached. Six-month and 12-month OS rates were 100 percent and 87 percent, respectively. The safety profile of KEYTRUDA was consistent with that observed in previously reported studies. The most common treatment-related adverse events were diarrhea (19%), hypothyroidism (13%), pneumonitis (13%), nausea (13%), fatigue (10%) and dyspnea (10%). The most common grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events were colitis (3%), axillary pain (3%), AST increased (3%), joint swelling (3%), nephrotic syndrome back pain (3%) and dyspnea (3%). Adverse events leading to discontinuation were nephrotic syndrome (grade 3), interstitial lung disease (grade 2) and pneumonitis (grade 2). There were no treatment-related deaths. About Hodgkin Lymphoma Hodgkin lymphoma is a type of lymphoma that develops in the white blood cells, called lymphocytes, which are part of the immune system. Hodgkin lymphoma can start almost anywhere - most often in lymph nodes in the upper part of the body, with the most common sites being in the chest, neck or under the arms. In 2016, it is estimated that more than 8,500 peple will be diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in the U.S.; cHL accounts for about 95 percent of all cases of Hodgkin lymphoma in developed countries.



About KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) KEYTRUDA is a humanized monoclonal antibody that works by increasing the ability of the body's immune system to help detect and fight tumor cells. KEYTRUDA blocks the interaction between PD-1 and its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, thereby activating T lymphocytes which may affect both tumor cells and healthy cells.

KEYTRUDA is administered as an intravenous infusion over 30 minutes every three weeks for the approved indications. KEYTRUDA for injection is supplied in a 100 mg single use vial. KEYTRUDA Indications and Dosing Melanoma KEYTRUDA is indicated for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma at a dose of 2 mg/kg every three weeks until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Lung Cancer KEYTRUDA is indicated for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have high PD-L1 expression [tumor proportion score (TPS) =50%] as determined by an FDA-approved test, with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations. KEYTRUDA is also indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic NSCLC whose tumors express PD-L1 (TPS =1%) as determined by an FDA-approved test, with disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. Patients with EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations should have disease progression on FDA-approved therapy for these aberrations prior to receiving KEYTRUDA. In metastatic NSCLC, KEYTRUDA is administered at a fixed dose of 200 mg every three weeks until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or up to 24 months in patients without disease progression. Head and Neck Cancer KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) is indicated for the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on tumor response rate and durability of response. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in the confirmatory trials. In HNSCC, KEYTRUDA is administered at a fixed dose of 200 mg every three weeks until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or up to 24 months in patients without disease progression. Selected Important Safety Information for KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated pneumonitis, including fatal cases. Pneumonitis occurred in 94 (3.4%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 1 (0.8%), 2 (1.3%), 3 (0.9%), 4 (0.3%), and 5 (0.1%) pneumonitis, and occurred more frequently in patients with a history of prior thoracic radiation (6.9%) compared to those without (2.9%). Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of pneumonitis. Evaluate suspected pneumonitis with radiographic imaging. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater pneumonitis. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2; permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 3 or 4 or recurrent Grade 2 pneumonitis. KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated colitis. Colitis occurred in 48 (1.7%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.4%), 3 (1.1%), and 4 (<0.1%) colitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of colitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater colitis. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2 or 3; permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 4 colitis. KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated hepatitis. Hepatitis occurred in 19 (0.7%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.1%), 3 (0.4%), and 4 (<0.1%) hepatitis. Monitor patients for changes in liver function. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater hepatitis and, based on severity of liver enzyme elevations, withhold or discontinue KEYTRUDA. KEYTRUDA can cause hypophysitis. Hypophysitis occurred in 17 (0.6%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.2%), 3 (0.3%), and 4 (<0.1%) hypophysitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of hypophysitis (including hypopituitarism and adrenal insufficiency). Administer corticosteroids and hormone replacement as clinically indicated. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2; withhold or discontinue for Grade 3 or 4 hypophysitis. KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) can cause thyroid disorders, including hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, and thyroiditis. Hyperthyroidism occurred in 96 (3.4%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.8%) and 3 (0.1%) hyperthyroidism. Hypothyroidism occurred in 237 (8.5%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (6.2%) and 3 (0.1%) hypothyroidism. The incidence of new or worsening hypothyroidism was higher in patients with HNSCC occurring in 28 (15%) of 192 patients with HNSCC, including Grade 3 (0.5%) hypothyroidism. Thyroiditis occurred in 16 (0.6%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.3%) thyroiditis. Monitor patients for changes in thyroid function (at the start of treatment, periodically during treatment, and as indicated based on clinical evaluation) and for clinical signs and symptoms of thyroid disorders. Administer replacement hormones for hypothyroidism and manage hyperthyroidism with thionamides and beta-blockers as appropriate. Withhold or discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 3 or 4 hyperthyroidism. KEYTRUDA can cause type 1 diabetes mellitus, including diabetic ketoacidosis, which have been reported in 6 (0.2%) of 2799 patients. Monitor patients for hyperglycemia or other signs and symptoms of diabetes. Administer insulin for type 1 diabetes, and withhold KEYTRUDA and administer antihyperglycemics in patients with severe hyperglycemia. KEYTRUDA can cause immune-mediated nephritis. Nephritis occurred in 9 (0.3%) of 2799 patients receiving KEYTRUDA, including Grade 2 (0.1%), 3 (0.1%), and 4 (<0.1%) nephritis. Monitor patients for changes in renal function. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater nephritis. Withhold KEYTRUDA for Grade 2; permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for Grade 3 or 4 nephritis. KEYTRUDA can cause other clinically important immune-mediated adverse reactions. For suspected immune-mediated adverse reactions, ensure adequate evaluation to confirm etiology or exclude other causes. Based on the severity of the adverse reaction, withhold KEYTRUDA and administer corticosteroids. Upon improvement to Grade 1 or less, initiate corticosteroid taper and continue to taper over at least 1 month. Based on limited data from clinical studies in patients whose immune-related adverse reactions could not be controlled with corticosteroid use, administration of other systemic immunosuppressants can be considered. Resume KEYTRUDA when the adverse reaction remains at Grade 1 or less following corticosteroid taper. Permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA for any Grade 3 immune-mediated adverse reaction that recurs and for any life-threatening immune-mediated adverse reaction. The following clinically significant immune-mediated adverse reactions occurred in less than 1% (unless otherwise indicated) of 2799 patients: arthritis (1.5%), exfoliative dermatitis, bullous pemphigoid, rash (1.4%), uveitis, myositis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, myasthenia gravis, vasculitis, pancreatitis, hemolytic anemia, and partial seizures arising in a patient with inflammatory foci in brain parenchyma. KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) can cause severe or life-threatening infusion-related reactions, which have been reported in 6 (0.2%) of 2799 patients. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infusion-related reactions, including rigors, chills, wheezing, pruritus, flushing, rash, hypotension, hypoxemia, and fever. For Grade 3 or 4 reactions, stop infusion and permanently discontinue KEYTRUDA. Based on its mechanism of action, KEYTRUDA can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. If used during pregnancy, or if the patient becomes pregnant during treatment, apprise the patient of the potential hazard to a fetus. Advise females of reproductive potential to use highly effective contraception during treatment and for 4 months after the last dose of KEYTRUDA. In KEYNOTE-006, KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 9% of 555 patients with advanced melanoma; adverse reactions leading to discontinuation in more than one patient were colitis (1.4%), autoimmune hepatitis (0.7%), allergic reaction (0.4%), polyneuropathy (0.4%), and cardiac failure (0.4%). Adverse reactions leading to interruption of KEYTRUDA occurred in 21% of patients; the most common (=1%) was diarrhea (2.5%). The most common adverse reactions with KEYTRUDA vs ipilimumab were fatigue (28% vs 28%), diarrhea (26% with KEYTRUDA), rash (24% vs 23%), and nausea (21% with KEYTRUDA). Corresponding incidence rates are listed for ipilimumab only for those adverse reactions that occurred at the same or lower rate than with KEYTRUDA. In KEYNOTE-002, KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 12% of 357 patients with advanced melanoma; the most common (=1%) were general physical health deterioration (1%), asthenia (1%), dyspnea (1%), pneumonitis (1%), and generalized edema (1%). Adverse reactions leading to interruption of KEYTRUDA occurred in 14% of patients; the most common (=1%) were dyspnea (1%), diarrhea (1%), and maculopapular rash (1%). The most common adverse reactions with KEYTRUDA vs chemotherapy were fatigue (43% with KEYTRUDA), pruritus (28% vs 8%), rash (24% vs 8%), constipation (22% vs 20%), nausea (22% with KEYTRUDA), diarrhea (20% vs 20%), and decreased appetite (20% with KEYTRUDA). Corresponding incidence rates are listed for chemotherapy only for those adverse reactions that occurred at the same or lower rate than with KEYTRUDA. KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 8% of 682 patients with metastatic NSCLC. The most common adverse event resulting in permanent discontinuation of KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) was pneumonitis (1.8%). Adverse reactions leading to interruption of KEYTRUDA occurred in 23% of patients; the most common (=1%) were diarrhea (1%), fatigue (1.3%), pneumonia (1%), liver enzyme elevation (1.2%), decreased appetite (1.3%), and pneumonitis (1%). The most common adverse reactions (occurring in at least 20% of patients and at a higher incidence than with docetaxel) were decreased appetite (25% vs 23%), dyspnea (23% vs 20%), and nausea (20% vs 18%). KEYTRUDA was discontinued due to adverse reactions in 17% of 192 patients with HNSCC. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 45% of patients. The most frequent serious adverse reactions reported in at least 2% of patients were pneumonia, dyspnea, confusional state, vomiting, pleural effusion, and respiratory failure. The most common adverse reactions (reported in at least 20% of patients) were fatigue, decreased appetite, and dyspnea. Adverse reactions occurring in patients with HNSCC were generally similar to those occurring in patients with melanoma or NSCLC, with the exception of increased incidences of facial edema (10% all Grades; 2.1% Grades 3 or 4) and new or worsening hypothyroidism. It is not known whether KEYTRUDA is excreted in human milk. Because many drugs are excreted in human milk, instruct women to discontinue nursing during treatment with KEYTRUDA and for 4 months after the final dose. Safety and effectiveness of KEYTRUDA have not been established in pediatric patients. Our Focus on Cancer Our goal is to translate breakthrough science into innovative oncology medicines to help people with cancer worldwide. At Merck, helping people fight cancer is our passion and supporting accessibility to our cancer medicines is our commitment. Our focus is on pursuing research in immuno-oncology and we are accelerating every step in the journey - from lab to clinic - to potentially bring new hope to people with cancer. As part of our focus on cancer, Merck is committed to exploring the potential of immuno-oncology with one of the fastest-growing development programs in the industry. We are currently executing an expansive research program that includes nearly 400 clinical trials evaluating our anti-PD-1 therapy across more than 30 tumor types. We also continue to strengthen our immuno-oncology portfolio through strategic acquisitions and are prioritizing the development of several promising immunotherapeutic candidates with the potential to improve the treatment of advanced cancers. For more information about our oncology clinical trials, visit www.merck.com/clinicaltrials. About Merck For 125 years, Merck has been a global health care leader working to help the world be well. Merck is known as MSD outside the United States and Canada. Through our prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and animal health products, we work with customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. We also demonstrate our commitment to increasing access to health care through far-reaching policies, programs and partnerships. For more information, visit www.merck.com and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. Forward-Looking Statement of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA This news release of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA (the "company") includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. There can be no guarantees with respect to pipeline products that the products will receive the necessary regulatory approvals or that they will prove to be commercially successful. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general industry conditions and competition; general economic factors, including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care legislation in the United States and internationally; global trends toward health care cost containment; technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product development, including obtaining regulatory approval; the company's ability to accurately predict future market conditions; manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial instability of international economies and sovereign risk; dependence on the effectiveness of the company's patents and other protections for innovative products; and the exposure to litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the company's 2015 Annual Report on Form 10-K and the company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC (News - Alert)) available at the SEC's Internet site (www.sec.gov). Please see Prescribing Information for KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) at http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/k/keytruda/keytruda_pi.pdf and Patient Information/Medication Guide for KEYTRUDA at http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/k/keytruda/keytruda_mg.pdf. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205006375/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Business Logic Systems and DSG Announce Strategic Partnership to Deliver the Next Generation of Solutions to Power Personalised Customer Engagement on Digital Channels

LONDON, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Data-driven Customer Value Management specialists, Business Logic Systems (BLS), and established Integrated Customer Experience experts, Digital Solutions Group, have announced today the signing of a formal strategic partnership. The partnership brings together two companies with a combined 36 year experience of working with mobile devices, communications technology and the management and processing of the large data volumes that the industry generates, to offer seamless solutions for enhanced and personalised customer experiences and digital marketing. Together, BLS and DSG plan to jointly innovate, using their already extensive experience as the platform for the future. Each bringing their own areas of expertise to the partnership, BLS in the space of high-volume Customer Data Management, Loyalty Programmes and real-time business rules orchestration for Customer Value Management and Measurement, and DSG in the space of cross industry, digitally-led Mobile Marketing, Campaign and Promotion Management, Mobile Virtual Network Enablement and Mobile Applications for advanced Customer Engagement. The initial focus for the partnership is with the Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) a company within the DSG Group. MVNE is an established company offering the full spectrum of solutions and services to assist any brand in becoming an MVNO in South Africa. From Managed Network Connectivity to Managed Business Operations all the way through to Managed Customer Experience, MVNE is ready to support any brand's MVNO strategy. Combining this with the BLS Customer Value Management solutions portfolio, offers the added value to help the brand proactively manage the customer lifecycle with measureable and targeted engagement, linking the customer journey with the existing strategy and values of their core business, all the time using the mobile device to contextually drive the right stimulus with the appropriate audience. Commenting on the new partnership, Zak van de Merwe, Co-founder and CEO of MVNE said: " In the telecommunications space, relevant and personalized customer service has become paramount. In this vein, most of the brands we aid in launching their MVNO initiatives not only understand but value an integrated approach to managing the on-going conersation with their consumers. It is an established principle in our Group to partner with leading organisations to complement our services to our clients and offer as comprehensive a solution as possible - we're excited about the partnership with BLS as it brings an additional dimension of excellence to the services we can offer our clients. "



Richard Lewis, CEO of Business Logic Systems commented: "I am delighted that our two companies have established this strategic partnership that combines the Digital Customer Experience expertise of DSG and the end-to-end proposition of MVNE, with the data-driven CVM expertise of BLS. The prospect of mutual innovation is very exciting as the clear trends for the next generation of Customer Engagement strategies in all industries is to use the mobile device to drive revenue and customer satisfaction even more than today, and the insight derived from new forms of Big Data is central to making each engagement unique. I am positive that together we will bring huge value to our clients, with pioneering solutions to deliver personalised contextual experiences across the customer lifecycle." About Digital Solutions Group (DSG)

Visit: http://www.dsg.co.za At DSG, we create meaningful brand experiences that crossover all relevant channels to reach your consumers-on their terms. With a track record spanning 18 years, DSG has become one of the leading providers of On-Demand Customer Experience and Digital Solutions, serving some of South Africa's premier consumer-facing and corporate brands. Our solutions are based on clear performance objectives for customer acquisition, retention and to maximise life time value of customers. About MVNE Pty Ltd Visit: http://www.mvne.co.za Africa is a 'Mobile First' Internet Economy, meaning that African Consumers are more likely to encounter a brand's Digital presence on a mobile device than through any other medium. Incorporating a robust approach to mobile into a business' strategy has therefore become of absolute importance to all major African consumer-facing brands. MVNE was founded at the beginning of 2013 specifically to assist large consumer facing brands in pursuing greater ownership of the mobile telecoms value chain to the broader benefit of their core business. The architecture and operating model is designed in such a manner as to incorporate best-of-breed MVNO practices to deliver a single unified system catering for greater control of the customer experience with a low overall total cost of ownership. About Business Logic Systems (BLS) Visit: http://www.businesslogicsystems.com Our passion at BLS is to transform customer data into actionable insight, enabling automated data-driven Customer Value Management & Loyalty Programmes that help our partners create greater value for both their customers and their shareholders. With a strong software development background and 18 year experience in loading, processing and working with the growing volumes of data from multiple sources, BLS continue to innovate to provide a range of CVM, Loyalty and VAS solutions tailored to address a range of strategic KPIs and help transform any business from a volume to a value-led approach. BLS has a global client footprint with clients in Africa, Asia Pacific, the Americas and Europe, including major Mobile Operator groups, working to provide both technology and outsourced CVM services to enable an effective, insight-led, data-driven approach to delivering incremental value from the customer base. Discover how BLS CVM solutions and services could help you achieve your targets - get in touch today to arrange your demonstration: Email us at: [email protected] Contact:

Rob Francombe,

Director of Marketing,

E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Business Logic Systems (BLS)

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JDA & WMG, University of Warwick Study Reveals Most European Manufacturers "Fail" on Supply Chain Segmentation

European manufacturers are failing to effectively use data and analytics when it comes to supply chain planning and segmentation, according to a new report from JDA Software Group, Inc., and WMG, at the University of Warwick. The "Supply Chain Segmentation: A Window of Opportunity for European Manufacturing" report surveyed 100 manufacturing organisations across Europe to benchmark their supply chain segmentation practices. The report revealed that only 18 per cent of respondents considered historic, present and future data in the supply chain planning process (tweet this), while only 39 per cent of respondents stated that their segmentation models were data-driven (tweet this). In fact, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of organisations stated they simply utilise "rules of thumb" over any kind of data-driven methodology (tweet this).

"The survey highlights that the majority of organisations are not using dynamic or data-driven models. Indeed, more organisations are driving their supply chains forward by looking in the rear-view mirror, rather than looking at the road ahead. It is not just that there's an over reliance on historic data, it is quite possible that organisations are being driven along the wrong road altogether," said Hans-Georg Kaltenbrunner, vice president manufacturing industry strategy, EMEA at JDA. "The research suggests that some organisations may not have the capability to accurately navigate their supply chain along the business roadmap, and a lack of analytics capabilities is widespread, along with a consistent end-to-end analytics approach. Given the apparent general lack of maturity across the space, the first movers will quickly gain a competitive advantage."

Strategic alignment or misalignment?

When it comes to implementing supply chain segmentation practices, only 29 per cent of respondents stated they did this in a "top down" manner, indicating that the strategic nature of segmentation is not being recognised in practice (tweet this). From a business process perspective, the need to bring together core supply chain processes (plan, source, make, deliver and return) under one umbrella, and to use them to seamlessly connect customers and suppliers has long been recognised. However, the results show that departmental and functional approaches continue to dominate.

Business process orientation isn't well established

Only 8 per cent of European manufacturers have reached level three segmentation (out of four), while no firms demonstrated level four capability (tweet this). An effective segmentation strategy should be informed by business rules from Integrated Business Planning (IBP); however, the research revealed that only 5 per cent of organisations were at level three (of four) maturity. It is not unrelated that only 17 per cent reported a business process orientation was part of their operational design. This indicates that there remains significant room for improvement for manufacturers when it comes to keeping their supply chain management, new product development and customer relationship management aligned. Ultimately this lack of conformance is hindering overall business performance.







"Segmentation is not a new practice for supply chain management, yet our study reveals that it remains relatively under-developed. Supply chain segmentation should be the lens that focuses complex signals from the market, so that organisations can configure their supply chain assets, ensuring they are consistent with business strategy and deliver maximum profitability," said Professor Janet Godsell from WMG, University of Warwick. "In theory, segmentation is a key business process and capability to ensure business goals are realised in the hurly-burly of operation. So it is surprising to find that only 17 per cent of respondents had business process orientation as part of their operational design. Ultimately, business processes provide a way to connect the end-to-end supply chain, create integration, enable flow and deliver customer value at the lowest supply chain cost."

Segmentation criteria is limited at best

The survey revealed that one third of organisations (33 per cent) are utilising just a single criteria to model segmentation, while over half (51 per cent) are only employing two (tweet this). As a result, organisations are making important day-to-day commercial prioritisation decisions based on limited criteria. Furthermore, the criteria being used is often inconsistent between functions, meaning there is no end-to-end commercial perspective driving supply chain and business decisions.

Supply chain segmentation can become a significant contributor towards bottom-line profitability and service differentiation. Yet, the survey found that only in rare cases, for "product" and "customer" dimensions, margin was a goal at all - even then, as a goal, it was ranked fourth or lower. In general, volume and geographic measures dominated, further indicating a low level of supply segmentation sophistication.

Franck Lheureux, regional vice president EMEA at JDA, added: "Manufacturers are facing ever more demanding customers. For CPG organisations, this may even include developing profitable omni-channel fulfillment to support direct-selling models. This requires a heightened focus on customer centricity, which in turn implies an unprecedented level of connectivity within the supply chain. Segmentation has always had the potential to make a significant difference to an organisation's profitability and agility; however, it lacked the underpinning technology to make it happen. However, this is no longer the case as the emergence of the digital supply chain means that segmentation has come of age."

Study Methodology

The study was conducted by WMG in August and September 2016, surveying 101 large European manufacturing organisations online.

Additional Resources:

Tweet This: Most European #Manufacturers "Fail" on Supply Chain Segmentation Says New @JDASoftware @wmgwarwick study #JDAsurvey: http://bit.ly/2gtcEo9

About JDA Software Group (News - Alert), Inc.

JDA Software is the leading provider of seamless supply chain planning and execution solutions for retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers and wholesale distributors. Our unmatched solution portfolio enables our clients to reduce costs, increase profitability and improve visibility so they can deliver on customer promises every time. More than 4,000 global customers run JDA, including 78 of the top 100 retailers, 78 of the top 100 consumer goods companies, and 8 of the top 10 3PLs. With JDA, you can plan to deliver. www.jda.com

About WMG at the University of Warwick (News - Alert)

WMG was established by Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya in 1980 in order to reinvigorate UK manufacturing through the application of cutting edge research and effective knowledge transfer. WMG is a world leading research and education group and an academic department of the University of Warwick.

WMG has pioneered an international model for working with industry, commerce and public sectors and holds a unique position between academia and industry. The Group's strength is to provide companies with the opportunity to gain a competitive edge by understanding a company's strategy and working in partnership with them to create, through multidisciplinary research, ground-breaking products, processes and services.

Every year WMG provides education training to over 1,500 postgraduates, in the UK and through centres in China, India, Thailand, South Africa and Malaysia. Students benefit from its first hand understanding of the issues facing modern industry. All tutors are highly qualified with a background in business or industry.

RSS Feeds:

JDA press releases: https://jda.com/rss?feed=press

JDA news: https://jda.com/rss?feed=news

JDA events: https://jda.com/rss?feed=events

Social Networks:

Web: https://jda.com

Blog: http://blog.jda.com

Twitter (News - Alert): https://twitter.com/JDASoftware

Facebook (News - Alert): https://www.facebook.com/JDASoftwareGroup

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jda-software

YouTube (News - Alert): https://www.youtube.com/user/JDASoftware

"JDA" is a trademark or registered trademark of JDA Software Group, Inc. Any trade, product or service name referenced in this document using the name "JDA" is a trademark and/or property of JDA Software Group, Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005273/en/
[December 06, 2016] Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs Gives High Praise to IFSEC Southeast Asia 2017

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 25, 2016, 3,500 security industry players in Malaysia converged for a gala dinner, which was organised for the first time ever by Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) in collaboration with Security Service Association of Malaysia (PPKKM) and sponsored by UBM Malaysia. Almost 800 security companies attended the memorable event, making it the largest dinner in the security industry that ever took place in Malaysia. The gala dinner was graced by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and Minister of Home Affairs, Y.A.B Dato' Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, along with Y.B Masir Kujat, MOHA Deputy Minister; Datuk Seri Mustafa Ibrahim, MOHA Deputy Secretary; General Tan Sri Dato' Sri Dr. Zulkiefli Bin Mohd Zin, Chief of Malaysian Armed Forces; Dato' Sri Haji Mustapa Bin Haji Ali, PPKKM President; Tan Sri Dato' Dr Mustaffa Babjee, Chairman, UBM Malaysia, and Mr M. Gandhi, Managing Director of ASEAN Business, UBM Asia. In his opening speech, Y.A.B Dato' Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi stressed the importance of having 24-hour guards on duty in all banks, due to increased cases in the premises and advised the banks to invest more in security parameters, to help protect not only their property, but also the people around them. The Ministry of Home Affairs will announce about the mandatory training, monitored by Royal Malaysia Police for all security personnel and bodyguards. This step has to be taken in order to improve te quality of their services.



With the dinner serving as the last big gathering for security companies in 2016, the next gathering will be at IFSEC Southeast Asia 2017 on 6-8 September 2017 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Being the largest security, fire and safety event in Southeast Asia, IFSEC SEA is the best platform for the industry players to converge and build international network, whilst obtaining the latest technology available in the market. Organised by UBM Malaysia, IFSEC SEA had attracted more than 7,000 security professionals from 51 countries in 2016. It is supported by Malaysia Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government, Royal Malaysia Police, CyberSecurity Malaysia, Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Malaysia, Asian Professional Security Association (APSA) Malaysia Chapter, International Workplace, National Examination Board of Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH), British Security Industry Association (BSIA), ASIS Malaysia Chapter and International Security Industry Organisation (ISIO).

"This event is part of our global IFSEC series of exhibitions that aims to promote security for commercial, government and private sectors. It is crucial for everyone to understand the security technology that helps protect offices, infrastructures and homes. One of the crucial elements in IFSEC SEA is cybersecurity, since globally, cybersecurity threats have cost billions of dollars in losses. So, we bring together leading global experts to IFSEC SEA and hope the industry players will take advantage by building business network and witnessing the latest technology and solutions available," said Mr M Gandhi. IFSEC Southeast Asia will take place at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on September 6 - 8 2017, and it's open to trade visitors only. Entrance is free of charge. For more information on the list of exhibitors or seminars, please visit www.ifsecsea.com. About UBM Asia (www.ubmasia.com) Owned by UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, UBM Asia is the largest trade show organiser in Asia and the largest commercial organiser in China, India and Malaysia. Established with its headquarters in Hong Kong and subsidiary companies across Asia and in the US, UBM Asia has a strong global network of 30 offices and 1,300 staff in 24 major cities. We operate in 20 market sectors with 230 exhibitions and conferences, 23 trade publications, 20 online products for over 1,000,000 quality exhibitors, visitors, conference delegates, advertisers and subscribers from all over the world. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445963

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445964

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121014/HK92339LOGO-d To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/malaysian-deputy-prime-minister-and-minister-of-home-affairs-gives-high-praise-to-ifsec-southeast-asia-2017-300373517.html SOURCE UBM Asia (Malaysia)

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[December 06, 2016] Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Spider Silk Technology Featured in Episode of "Xploration Station: Nature Knows Best"

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. (OTCQB:KBLB) (Company), the leading developer of spider silk based fibers, was featured in the broadcast television show Nature Knows Best aired on November 19th. Nature Knows Best is a nationally syndicated STEM series exploring how scientists and engineers mimic nature to create some of the worlds most amazing materials. The segment from episode 11 of this series featuring Kraig Labs can be found on the Companys YouTube channel at:

https://youtu.be/p68KPyAsiug or; http://www.kraiglabs.com/videos/ Nature Knows Best is produced by Steve Rotfeld Productions and airs on Fox. The first 9 full episodes of Natures Knows Best are currently available for streaming on Amazon, Ruko, or Hulu. I want to personally thank Danni Washington and the entire Nature Knows Best crew for doing such an incredible job of featuring our spider silk technology, said COO Jon Rice. We are always looking for ways to share our incredible technology and materials with new audiences. To be include in such a strong episode of this innovative science program, just as were preparing to ship out or first production order of Dragon silk cocoons from our Indiana factory, is very exciting.



To view the most recent edition of Kraigs Spider Sense quarterly newsletter and/or to sign up for Company alerts, please go to www.kraiglabs.com/newsletter. For more information about Spider Silk, check it out at www.kraiglabs.com/spider-silk.

About Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc.

Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. (www.KraigLabs.com), a fully reporting biotechnology company is the leading developer of genetically engineered spider silk based fiber technologies. The Company has achieved a series of scientific breakthroughs in the area of spider silk technology with implications for the global textile industry. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information

Statements in this press release about the Companys future and expectations other than historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are made on the basis of managements current views and assumptions. As a result, there can be no assurance that managements expectations will necessarily come to pass. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as believes, plans, expects, anticipates, foresees, estimated, hopes, if, develops, researching, research, pilot, potential, could or other words or phrases of similar import. Forward looking statements include descriptions of the Companys business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions and goals. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Ben Hansel, Hansel Capital, LLC (720) 288-8495 [email protected]

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[December 06, 2016]

Infosys Foundation USA Celebrates Computer Science Education Week

PALO ALTO, California, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Through a Series of Grants, the Foundation Will Introduce Computer Science Education to an Additional 725 Underrepresented and Minority Students Across Nine States

Infosys Foundation USA today announced numerous grants to extend its on-going efforts to reduce the digital divide in America by helping underrepresented populations gain greater access to computer science education. The Foundation will commemorate Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) with multiple grants to support events across nine states with participation expected from more than 700 students.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130122/589162 )



The events are free workshops focused on inspiring and empowering underrepresented students and minorities, young adults and educators across the U.S. to become creators of technology, not just consumers. Among the diverse groups that will participate are students living in rural or inner-city environments, students with autism, and minority students including Black, Hispanic, and Native American.

"The future is being written in code. In a world that is increasingly being reshaped by digital technology, computing skills are becoming as foundational as science and language arts, no matter what career a child decides to pursue," said Vandana Sikka, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation USA. "By continuing to support learning events like these, as well as helping teachers with high quality training, research, curriculum and standards, the Foundation is working to ensure that every child in the U.S. has the opportunity to learn these computing skills, regardless of their circumstances."

The following organizations are receiving grants to host free CS-focused workshops in various cities and states throughout CSEdWeek and the weeks following:







USA

Speaking on the partnership, Hadi Partovi, Chief Executive Officer, Code.org said, "The work we've accomplished at Code.org wouldn't have been possible without the generous support of the Infosys Foundation. Thanks to their support, millions of students have been introduced to rigorous computer science, and thousands of schools are changing curriculum to embrace this 21st century field."

For a complete list of organizations supported by Infosys Foundation USA , please visit here.

About Infosys Foundation USA

Infosys Foundation USA is focused on bridging the digital divide in America by supporting high quality computer science education and coding skills with a particular focus on underrepresented communities. It aims to give children and young adults the skills they need to become creators, not just consumers, of technology. In pursuit of this mission, the Foundation has partnered with internationally acclaimed non-profits and institutions like Code.org, New York Academy of Sciences, DonorsChoose.org, and the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, Infosys Foundation USA committed a million dollars to the Infy Maker Awards to inspire makers across the U.S. to demonstrate creative excellence in making projects with genuine impact.

Learn more at http://www.infosys.org/usa/ follow on Twitter @InfyFoundation or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/InfosysFoundationUSA.

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in technology services and consulting. We enable clients in more than 50 countries to create and execute strategies for their digital transformation. From engineering to application development, knowledge management and business process management, we help our clients find the right problems to solve, and to solve these effectively. Our team of 190,000+ innovators, across the globe, is differentiated by the imagination, knowledge and experience, across industries and technologies that we bring to every project we undertake.

Visit https://www.infosys.com/ to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise thrive in the digital age.

For further information, please contact:

Asia Pacific

Sarah Gideon

Infosys, India

+91-80-4156-3998

[email protected]

EMEA

Paul de Lara

Infosys, UK

+44-2075162748

[email protected]

Americas

Chiku Somaiya

Infosys, USA

+1-(713)-6706752

[email protected]



SOURCE Infosys
[December 06, 2016] Great Basin's Sandra Nielsen Named a 2016 Woman Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Great Basin Scientific, Inc. (OTCQB:GBSN), a molecular diagnostics company, announced today that Sandra Nielsen, senior vice president of sales, marketing and human resources, has been named a recipient of this years Women Worth Watching Awards by Profiles in Diversity Journal. Dedicated to promoting and advancing diversity and inclusion in the corporate, government, nonprofit, STEM, and higher education sectors, Profiles in Diversity Journal recognizes and celebrates women in leadership through this annual awards program, now in its fifteenth year. Winners of the Women Worth Watching Awards include exemplary women that lead Fortune 500 companies, drive the growth of new markets, launch new business ventures and contribute to the development of further generations of women leaders.

Time and time again, Sandra has demonstrated her expertise as a leader, overcoming every challenge thrown her way while consistently strengthening our sales, marketing and human resources operations, said Ryan Ashton, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Great Basin Scientific. Sandra continues to be a core asset to Great Basin as we build on our momentum, grow our business and transform the standards of patient care and treatment through molecular diagnostics. In 2010, Ms. Nielsen joined Great Basin as vice president of marketing. Since then, her leadership responsibilities have expanded to include customer support and human resource functions, and in 2014, Ms. Nielsen was appointed acting vice president of sales. Great Basin went on to nearly triple its customer base under her sales leadership while launching three newproducts, reducing the sales cycle from 45 days to 16 days, increasing the customer win rate from 75 percent to 91 percent, and improving the sales cycle by 143 percent. Ms. Nielsen, who was promoted to her current role in April 2016, has played a key role in strategic business planning processes, product development and customer retention strategy, and corporate branding and messaging. In leading the Companys HR function, she has helped establish policies and procedures that promote Great Basin's core values and corporate culture internally.



In January 2016, Ms. Nielsen was also honored with a Utah Business Magazine Sales & Marketer of the Year award. To read the full profile of Ms. Nielsen by Profiles in Diversity Journal, click here.

About Great Basin Scientific

Great Basin Scientific is a molecular diagnostics company that commercializes breakthrough chip-based technologies. The Company is dedicated to the development of simple, yet powerful, sample-to-result technology and products that provide fast, multiple-pathogen diagnoses of infectious diseases. The Companys vision is to make molecular diagnostic testing so simple and cost-effective that every patient will be tested for every serious infection, reducing misdiagnoses and significantly limiting the spread of infectious disease. More information can be found on the companys website at www.gbscience.com. Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements regarding the Companys continuing business efforts related to its products, including but not limited to, statements regarding customer growth and salesperson efficiency. Forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. These risk and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: (i) our limited operating history and history of losses; (ii) our ability to develop and commercialize new products and the timing of commercialization; (iii) our ability to obtain capital when needed; and (iv) other risks set forth in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risks set forth in the companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 and Quarterly Report on From 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2016. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and Great Basin Scientific specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Media Contact: Nirav Suchak ICR 646.277.1257 [email protected] Investor Relations Contact: Betsy Hartman Great Basin Scientific 385.215.3372 [email protected]

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[December 06, 2016] Yewno Adds Distinguished Educators To Its Advisory Board

Yewno, a provider of a new inference engine that mimics the human brain and increases knowledge discovery, today announced that distinguished UC Santa Barbara Professor, Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, and Co-Director of Stanford's Digital Humanities Minor Dr. Sarah Ogilvie, have joined the company's advisory board. This announcement comes on the heels of closing their series A funding round at $16.5m. Dr. Sarah Ogilvie is Lecturer in Linguistics and Social Sciences Research Fellow as well as a co-director to the Digital Humanities Minor at Stanford. She brings to Yewno an elevated level of insight on the intersection of linguistics and technology leveraging her background in the fields of Pure Mathematics and Computer Science. Dr. Ogilvie is also the lead investigator of two Digital Humanities projects: Nineteenth-Century Crowdsourcing and Mapping Endangered Languages. Dr. Michael Gazzaniga is Director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at UCSB, president of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, and the founding director of the MacArthur Foundation's Law and Neuroscience Project and the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience. His vast experience in the field of neurological brain function will bring additional insight to Yewno's new approach to knowledge discovery. "Dr. Gazzaniga's and Dr. Ogilvie's deep and broad experience in technology, brain function, cognitive science and linguistics will enhance Yewno's innovativeapproach to reshaping the way humans search for and discover knowledge," said Ruggero Gramatica, Founder and CEO of Yewno. "Two experts who truly comprehend the way the mind functions and the linguistic implication connected to artificial intelligence will play a monumental role in our company, helping us establish Yewno as the undeniable first choice in education and science inference engines."



"Moving knowledge forward will in large part come from interdisciplinary studies," said Dr. Gazzaniga. "Yewno is building a knowledge system that will facilitate that goal like no other. It will become a must use tool." "We are all swamped by an abundance of information and words but knowledge and concepts have never been harder to find," added Dr. Ogilvie. "Yewno is a cutting-edge tool that helps us access and discover knowledge by automatically contextualizing concepts, translating information, visualizing it, and taking you directly to sources you never knew existed."

Prior to Stanford, Dr. Ogilvie worked in the software industry, where among other things she worked on solutions for the Amazon Kindle. Dr. Ogilvie also holds board positions with the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, de Young Museum, and Legion of Honor. Dr. Ogilvie received her BS in Computer Science and Pure Mathematics from the University of Queensland and received an MA in Linguistics from Australian National University. She then completed her doctorate work in Linguistics at Oxford University. Dr. Gazzaniga is also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Gazzaniga graduated from Dartmouth College and went on to receive a Ph.D. in Psychobiology from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. Dr. Gazzaniga's teaching and mentoring career includes beginning and developing Centers for Cognitive Neuroscience at Cornell University Medical Center and University of California-Davis and Dartmouth College. Dr. Gazzaniga also has an esteemed career in publishing and is an editor of the The Cognitive Neurosciences book series published by the MIT (News - Alert) Press, which features the work of nearly 200 scientists and is a sourcebook for the field. About Yewno Founded in 2014, Yewno is helping people uncover the undiscovered through its new inference engine, which introduces an entirely new approach to knowledge discovery. Mimicking the human brain, the Yewno inference engine incorporates machine learning, cognitive science, neural networking, and computational linguistics into a highly visual solution to enhance human understanding by correlating concepts across vast volumes of text. The launch of its first vertical offering, Yewno for Education, serves as a unique service designed for scholars and students and is at use at leading academic and research libraries around the world, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford. Headquartered in Redwood City, CA (News - Alert), and with offices in London, Yewno is backed by leading investors including Pacific Capital and currently has numerous partnerships across top research universities, publishers and content aggregators worldwide. For more information, visit www.yewno.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005636/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Hitachi Consulting Launches End-to-End Water Management Solutions

DALLAS, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hitachi Consulting, a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd (TSE: 6501) and a leading provider of IT consulting and management consulting solutions and services, has launched a comprehensive water management solution to accelerate enterprise sustainability initiatives. Hitachi Consulting Water Management Solutions tailor water management services with an innovative approach that includes detailed assessments, leading technologies and equipment implementation, as well as water management intelligence systems, and on-going management and maintenance. As a Silver Sponsor of the upcoming American Water Summit and Big Data Workshop in Miami, FL, December 6-7, 2016, senior level representatives from Hitachi Consulting's water management team will be available to discuss how tailored solutions are developed. During the event, David Wechsler, Senior Vice President at Hitachi Consulting will be hosting a roundtable groupthink on Action Plans for Reducing Industrial Water Impact. "With the global demand for clean water doubling every 10 years, the need for more effective water management has never been greater. For many leading companies in the food and beverage, oil and gas, industrial manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries, smart water management is the key to future success," said Wechsler. "By utilizing an innovative water management program, organizations can significantly lower water costs and provide solutions for reducing water depletion and contamination." To deliver the most efficient and effective water management solutions, Hitachi Consulting leverages the Hitachi Group companies, such as Hitachi Infrastructure Systems (Asia) for design engineering, Hitachi Aqua-Tech Engineering for water intake solutions, andHitachi Data Systems for business intelligence infrastructure. In addition, partners like Hitachi Capital America are able to provide water management financing. As a result, Hitachi Consulting delivers end-to-end solutions to monitor, treat, reduce usage, manage waste, comply with regulations and maintain water management infrastructures.



"Companies that take proactive steps to reduce their water usage and waste can cut costs, protect their environmental reputation and get ahead of the competition," said Wechsler. "That's why you want an innovative, proven water management provider to help you on your journey to sustainability." Hitachi Consulting's full spectrum of water management solutions includes:

Water Quality: Water and chemical monitoring, pH management, treatment solutions

Water and chemical monitoring, pH management, treatment solutions Water Reduction: Infrastructure, process/behavior and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) solutions

Infrastructure, process/behavior and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) solutions Water Metering and Reporting: Metering infrastructure, information management, plant KPI dashboards

Metering infrastructure, information management, plant KPI dashboards Waste Water Management: Cleansing and remediation, recycling and reuse, membrane solutions

Cleansing and remediation, recycling and reuse, membrane solutions Biofuel: Plant infrastructure, treatment solutions, waste management

Plant infrastructure, treatment solutions, waste management Regulatory/Compliance: NPDES permit management, risk avoidance FMEA, OpEx/CapEx reduction

NPDES permit management, risk avoidance FMEA, OpEx/CapEx reduction Maintenance: On-call service engineers, replacement part ordering, annual equipment evaluation, and on-going management and maintenance Like other Hitachi companies, Hitachi Consulting's mission is to achieve a more sustainable society by implementing and promoting social innovation through sustainable practices, energy efficiency, eco-friendly products and flexible financing options. The Hitachi Social Innovation strategy is built on this uniquely broad set of experiences and capabilities. In addition to Hitachi Consulting, the strategy combines the resources and advanced approaches of Hitachi Data Systems, the Hitachi Global Center for Innovative Analytics, Hitachi Ltd., and other Hitachi Group companies. About Hitachi Consulting Corporation

Hitachi Consulting is the global management consulting and IT services business of Hitachi Ltd., a global technology leader and a catalyst of sustainable societal change. In that same spirit  and building on its technology heritage  Hitachi Consulting is a catalyst for positive business change, propelling companies ahead by enabling superior operational performance. Working within their existing processes and focusing on targeted functional challenges, we help our clients respond to dynamic global change with insight and agility. Our unique approach delivers measurable, sustainable business results and a better consulting experience. For more information visit: www.hitachiconsulting.com ** Follow us on Twitter: @HIT_Consulting and join the conversation #HitachiWater **

** Visit our Water Management Microsite for more information:

http://go.hitachiconsulting.com/WaterManagement ** About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2015 (ended March 31, 2016) totaled 10,034.3 billion yen ($88.8 billion). The Hitachi Group is a global leader in the Social Innovation Business, and it has approximately 335,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation, Hitachi is providing solutions to customers in a broad range of sectors, including Power / Energy, Industry / Distribution / Water, Urban Development, and Finance / Government & Public / Healthcare.

For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com. Logo- http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150611/222495LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hitachi-consulting-launches-end-to-end-water-management-solutions-300373381.html SOURCE Hitachi Consulting

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[December 06, 2016] SecurityMetrics Helps Secure North American Bancard's Merchants

OREM, Utah, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SecurityMetrics announced an agreement with North American Bancard (NAB) today to help thousands of its merchants increase data security and report PCI compliance. Technology-focused NAB chose SecurityMetrics for its unique ability to cater to its wide variety of merchant levels through a custom PCI compliance program. "In an effort to increase compliance rates, tighten merchant security, and keep up with changes to the ever-evolving PCI DSS," said Aliki Liadis-Hall, Director of Underwriting and Compliance at NAB, "SecurityMetrics created a custom PCI program for us. We also want our merchants to have the best possible experience with PCI compliance and we feel SecurityMetrics can provide that." In addition to PCI program components including PCI merchant scoping, simplified versions of the PCI Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), and ASV scanning, the program also provides access to the SecurityMetrics Partner+ Portal. Organizing information from over 100 data points, SecurityMetrics Partner+ Portal helps NAB strategize how to achieve their PCI program objectives through real-time dashboards and custom reporting options.



David Meyers , Senior Director of Business Development, "and SecurityMetrics Partner+ Portal, we are confident NAB will be pleased with the results of our PCI program for their merchants." To learn more, go to securitymetrics.com, email [email protected], or call 801-995-6516.

About SecurityMetrics (www.securitymetrics.com)

SecurityMetrics protects electronic commerce and payments leaders, global acquirers, and their retail customers from security breaches and data theft. The company is a leading provider and innovator in merchant data security, and as an Approved Scanning Vendor and Qualified Security Assessor, has tested over 1 million payment systems for data security and compliance. Among other things, SecurityMetrics offers PCI Level 4 compliance programs, PCI audits, mobile device vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, and forensic analysis. Founded in October 2000, SecurityMetrics is a privately held company headquartered in Orem, Utah, USA. About North American Bancard ( www.nabancard.com )

Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, award-winning North American Bancard is an industry leader in credit card processing, providing a variety of merchant services that help client companies of all sizes develop solutions for payment processing, including credit, debit, EBT, check conversion and guarantee, gift & loyalty cards, and much more. As an MSP/ISO since 1992, North American Bancard is dedicated to offering the highest service levels, exceptionally competitive pricing, and the latest technology to its client companies, including PayAnywhere, its proprietary point-of-sale (POS) solution. With over $34 billion worth of payments processed for more than 250,000 businesses every year, North American Bancard is determined to help American businesses prosper. For more information, visit http://www.nabancard.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140225/SF71790LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/securitymetrics-helps-secure-north-american-bancards-merchants-300373386.html SOURCE SecurityMetrics

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[December 06, 2016] SyncHR Selected by Solutionreach to Support Rapid Growth

DENVER, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SyncHR, a leader in Human Capital Management (HCM) cloud-based software, announced today its SyncHR platform has been selected by Solutionreach to provide next-generation HCM capabilities. SyncHR was selected for its one-of-a-kind payroll processing functionality and reporting; as well as its ability to support and automate HR needs throughout the employee lifecycle.

Founded in 2000 as one of the first text-messaging technology companies, Solutionreach began a revolution in healthcare by combining technology innovation with patient communication. Today, the company provides a comprehensive patient relationship management platform which empowers care providers to communicate with and engage patients in the ways that theyve come to expect, without losing important high-touch personalization. Its highly sought-after solutions have spurred rapid growth including over a 150% increase in its employee base. The companys previous HCM solution had limited reporting functionality, data management challenges and time-consuming payroll processing procedures. It initially worked for what we needed, but we knew there was a better alternative out there that could support our continued expansion. We needed a solution that would help us be more efficient, more effective and more accurate, said Steve Dalton, director of finance at Solutionreach. Solutionreach selected SyncHR because its HCM platform solved many of the companys finance and HR-related issues, and was easy to use. Some of the features most compelling to Solutionreach were:





Point in time reporting - which lets a user go back at any point in time to get details on a person and payroll process without manual work or creating a duplicate report

- which lets a user go back at any point in time to get details on a person and payroll process without manual work or creating a duplicate report Intuitive interface - easy-to-use for roles across the organization

- easy-to-use for roles across the organization Non-linear payroll process - ability to work on multiple payroll processes at once (past, current, future)

- ability to work on multiple payroll processes at once (past, current, future) One HCM application - single source solution that was built from the ground-up to address core HR, benefits, payroll and reporting needs

- single source solution that was built from the ground-up to address core HR, benefits, payroll and reporting needs GL integration

Designated team - dedicated and involved throughout the entire process

- dedicated and involved throughout the entire process Next-generation automation - across the employee lifecycle SyncHRs application was more cutting edge and intuitive than anything else in the market, said Chris Livesay, controller at Solutionreach. Just like us, SyncHR is focused on providing innovative, high-tech solutions that solve problems in a unique and real way. They are the right partner for us and we look forward to a long-lasting, successful relationship.

Too many companies accept the limitations of antiquated HCM systems without realizing a better solution exists, said Pamela Glick, chief executive officer at SyncHR. Fortunately, visionary companies, like Solutionreach, understand that technology advancements can be used to lower expenses, save time and provide a better overall employee experience. Solutionreach is the kind of company we want to work with and we couldnt be happier its management team chose to work with us. SyncHRs next-generation HCM platform is redefining and simplifying human capital management for mid-market companies. It provides critical advantages not found in traditional systems by fully automating HR, benefits, and payroll processes, balancing the distribution of work, and centralizing data to ensure accuracy and consistency at all times. About SyncHR

SyncHR is the Human Capital Management (HCM) cloud-based technology leader streamlining Core HR, benefits, payroll and reporting in a single, enterprise-class application for mid-sized businesses. Founded in 2010, the SyncHR team of industry veterans and visionaries has developed patented technology that saves time, increases productivity, and delivers a superior economic value by simplifying the complexity of HCM through one robust application. The companys dedicated services and customer care teams deliver industry-leading implementation times, and the intuitive interface creates an enhanced user experience for employees and administrators. SyncHR has created a new reality in HCM by making centralized, interrelated data easy to access, correct, control, and analyze - anytime. www.syncHR.com About Solutionreach

Solutionreach is revolutionizing the patient and provider relationship. Through its market-leading patient relationship management platform, Solutionreach supports higher patient satisfaction and loyalty, greater efficiency, and ultimately, stronger healthcare organizations. Solutionreach partners with more than 20,000 provider organizations in numerous specialties. Learn more at www.solutionreach.com. Media Contacts: For SyncHR Cynthia Phillips 720.770.1368 [email protected] For Solutionreach Erin Crowley 770.998.0249 [email protected]

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[December 06, 2016] Strategic Analysis of the Indian OES Channel - Ecommerce Expected to Drive OES Channel Opportunity to $8.5 Billion by 2022 - Research and Markets

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Strategic Analysis of the Indian OES Channel" report to their offering. In 2015, the OES (News - Alert) (dealer) channel generated $4.7 billion in parts revenues at the dealer-net level (about 37% of the total Indian aftermarket). It is forecast to record a CAGR of 8.8% until 2022 reaching $8.5 billion. Rising vehicle population due to increased sales, continued economic growth, and longer OE warranty terms is driving the Indian OES channel. The research service analyzes how all OES channel participants will be forced to expand beyond their dealerships and adopt new business models to address aging vehicle parc. It seeks to highlight opportunities in aftermarket expansion, eCommerce, and telematics that will support future industry growth and identify the OEMs that are better positioned to grow. Key Questions this Study will Answer: What i the short-to-medium-term outlook for the Indian OES channel?

Where are the key opportunities for OES channel participants?

What are the main growth drivers and industry challenges?

What is the structure of the Indian OES channel? Who are the key industry participants?

How is the competitive landscape changing?





Companies Mentioned: Ford (News - Alert)

General Motors

Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL)

Mahindra & Mahindra

Maruti-Suzuki India Limited (MSIL)

Tata Motors (TM)

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited (TKM) Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary 2. Research Scope and Definitions 3. Country Overview 4. Research Objectives, Background, and Methodology 5. Demand Analysis 6. Parts Analysis 7. Service Analysis 8. OES Channel Analysis 9. OEM Benchmarking in the Aftermarket 10. OEM Profiles-Maruti-Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) 11. Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) 12. Tata Motors (TM) 13. Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited (TKM) 14. Ford India 15. General Motors (News - Alert) India 16. Future Outlook 17. Appendix-Telematics Outlook in India For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/4dt8sz/strategic View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005798/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Philips Strengthens Collaboration with Leading Medical and Academic Institutions to Innovate in Personalized Health Solutions

Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG, AEX:PHIA) today announced that it is co-locating researchers from its Philips (News - Alert) Intellispace Genomics team with New York Medical College (NYMC), one of the oldest and largest health sciences universities in the country, and a long-standing collaborator in the creation of the Philips IntelliSpace solution for oncology genomics. Located in Westchester, New York, the Philips team will be sharing space at the NYMC new biotechnology incubator, [email protected] and working on collaborative computational genomics of large data sets. This not only supports Philips work in personalized cancer care, but it also builds on Philips Research North America's efforts to cross-pollinate with leading academic institutions, helping to develop innovations that can address society's most pressing healthcare challenges and deliver on the company's vision of improving the lives of three billion people by 2025. Philips' IntelliSpace Genomics is a configurable, scalable and secure healthcare informatics solution across hospitals for delivering real-time, actionable diagnostic information to physicians and specialists for therapy planning at the point of care. Philips IntelliSpace Genomics' collaborative solution enables physicians to answer key clinical questions by leveraging the best clinical expertise and algorithmic power in integrated workflows. It seamlessly brings data from multiple sources, including raw sequencing data, up-to-date in silico genomic databases, clinical data and knowledge databases, longitudinal patient records, medical images and pathology data, among others. "Bringing on Philips Healthcare Research as the anchor tenant at [email protected] is a true game changer - for the college, Westchester County and beyond. The positioning of nine innovative companies alongside such a notable name in healthcare research will add to the already impressive track record of our start-ups and the medical solutions they develop," said Randi D. Schwartz, M.B.A., Director of [email protected] and Associate Dean for academic administration.



"[email protected] is a thriving member of both the Westchester and the greater New York innovation ecosystem. We are excited to announce Phillips Healthcare Research as our biotech/high-tech incubator's new anchor tenant. The computational genomics collaboration between NYMC and Philips promises both research and economic benefits. Philips Healthcare Research and [email protected]'s other clients are working every day to develop novel technologies and healthcare solutions," said D. Douglas Miller, M.D., C.M., M.B.A., Dean of the School of Medicine at New York Medical College, Vice-Provost for Biomedical Affairs and Chief Scientific Officer of [email protected] Working from space on the NYMC campus allows Philips to collaborate more closely with its innovation partners at the College and their three affiliated teaching hospitals on the Valhalla, New York campus of Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth). WMCHealth has also launched a new precision medicine initiative for personalized cancer treatment, which will leverage Philips' IntelliSpace Genomics solution as one of the first partners to integrate large-scale genomic analysis with extensive patient clinical data.

"In order to create technologies that can have a meaningful impact on human health and enable us to focus on building a healthy society, we need to work closely with leading healthcare institutions to co-create outcome-based solutions," said Hans-Aloys Wischmann, Head of Philips Research Americas. "No single company will be able to create the solutions needed, it will take collaborative efforts, and we believe that working with academic institutions like New York Medical College will provide tremendous opportunities to shape a totally new approach to the delivery of healthcare." About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG, AEX:PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips' health technology portfolio generated 2015 sales of EUR 16.8 billion and employs approximately 70,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter. About New York Medical College Founded in 1860, NYMC is one of the oldest and largest health sciences colleges in the country with more than 1,400 students, 1,300 residents and clinical fellows, nearly 3,000 faculty members, and 16,000 living alumni. The College, which joined the Touro College and University System in 2011, is located in Westchester County, New York, and offers advanced degrees from the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Basic Medical Sciences, and the School of Health Sciences and Practice. With a network of affiliated hospitals that includes large urban medical centers, small suburban clinics and high-tech regional tertiary care facilities, NYMC provides a wide variety of clinical training opportunities throughout the tri-state region for medical students, residents, and other health providers. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005818/en/

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[December 06, 2016]

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Aeris to Open New Aeris IoT Hub in Chicago

CHICAGO, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly will join Aeris employees today to cut a ceremonial ribbon at the companys new Chicago office at 435 N. LaSalle Street in River North.

Marc Jones, chairman and CEO, Aeris





Aeris, a pioneer and leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, moved more than 40 employees into a 18,132-square-foot office space in Sept. 2016. The companys global headquarters is in Santa Clara, California.

The Aeris office in Chicago houses portions of the companys engineering, product management, sales, marketing, operations and customer support, finance and talent acquisition functions, as well as an innovation center showcasing the IoT products and services depended on by the companys customers worldwide.

Originally constructed in 1906, historic 435 N. LaSalle Street is a 50,000-square-foot, five-story loft office building that was purchased in 2015 by an investment team including Chicago-based developer Elmdale Partners. The investment team is currently underway on a full redevelopment of the property that coincides with the build-out of Aeris offices on the 3rd and 4th floors.

Unconnected products to connected services

Based on more than a decade of experience managing millions of devices and coupled with more than 50 patents, the Aeris IoT Solutions platform sets a new bar in terms of cost-efficiency, scalability and reliability. Hundreds of enterprises, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers rely on Aeris technology every day to enable their mission-critical IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) programs.

The Aeris IoT Solutions platform is delivered as platform-as-a-service (PaaS) out of multiple data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific regions, providing a complete set of capabilities from connectivity services, data management, analytics, application enablement and vertical platform solutions.

CLICK TO TWEET: Aeris (@AerisM2M), @RahmEmanuel, @AldReilly to cut ribbon today on new Aeris #IoT hub in #Chicago #M2M #AerisM2M http://www.aeris.com/news/







Supporting Quotes

Governor Bruce Rauner, State of Illinois

A strong tech community and an educated, innovative workforce have made Illinois a center for the emerging IoT technologies and services, and the companies that use them. I am glad to welcome Aeris to Illinois, and to be a partner in their growth here.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago

Chicago is home to an expanding ecosystem of tech talent, research and development that make us not just a great place to do business, but an ideal place for the kind of innovation and collaboration that help great companies like Aeris thrive. I look forward to watching Aeris grow and succeed in Chicago for years to come.

Brendan Reilly, Alderman of 42nd Ward, City of Chicago

Aeris is a wonderful addition to the 42nd Ward of Chicago. We welcome Aeris with open arms and look forward to working with Marc Jones and his team. Aeris offers Chicagoans a collegial working environment in our growing technology community of River North.

Marc Jones, Chairman and CEO, Aeris

Chicagos flourishing tech community made it a logical choice for Aeris to launch our U.S. expansion here. The property we now occupy is in the heart of the River North market and increases our visibility in Chicagos tech epicenter. We thank Governor Rauner and the state of Illinois, Mayor Emanuel and the city of Chicago and Alderman Brendan Reilly of the 42nd ward for their partnership and continued support.

Digital Assets

Invitation

Journalists, bloggers and industry analysts are invited to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10:30 a.m. today, Dec. 6, at the Aeris office, 435 N. LaSalle St., Suite 400, in Chicago.

Video and photo opportunities are available. 1:1 interviews with Aeris executives may be arranged.

Contact Kevin Petschow at 312.985.9182 to RSVP and arrange your 1:1 interview.

Supporting Resources

About Aeris

Aeris is a pioneer and leader in the market of the Internet of Things  as an operator of end-to-end IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) services and as a technology provider enabling other operators to build profitable IoT businesses. Among our customers are the most demanding users of IoT services today, including Hyundai, Acura, Rand McNally, Leica, and Sprint. Through our technology platform and dedicated IoT and M2M services, we strive to fundamentally improve their businesses  by dramatically reducing costs, improving operational efficiency, reducing time-to-market, and enabling new revenue streams.

For more information, contact: Grant Klinzman City of Chicago, Mayors Office +1.312.744.2430 [email protected] Kevin Petschow Aeris +1.312.985.9182 [email protected]
[December 06, 2016] Thoma Bravo Enters Into Agreement to Sell Deltek to Roper Technologies

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, has entered into a definitive agreement to sell portfolio company Deltek, the leading global provider of enterprise software and solutions for project-based businesses, to Roper Technologies. The company is being acquired for $2.8 billion, and the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2016. The exit culminates a very productive partnership between Thoma Bravo and Deltek, which resulted in a near tripling of the company valuation, and continues Thoma Bravo's successful approach of working with a company's existing management to accelerate its corporate objectives. Over the past four years, Thoma Bravo has made a substantial investment in Deltek's solutions, enabling the management team to expand the markets in which the company competes and increase employee headcount by 50 percent. Additionally, during the partnership, Deltek completed six add-on acquisitions, grew recurring revenue by 60 percent, significantly expanded EBITDA margins and dramatically increased annual organic revenue growth. "Thoma Bravo's expertise and guidance has been invaluable. This partnership has strengthened our company, and we feel better-positioned than ever to continue our industry leadership," said Mike Corkery, CEO and President at Deltek. "We are very appreciative of Thoma Bravo's support and partnership, and look forward to continuing to grow our business as a part of Roper Technologies." "Deltek represents another great case study in Thoma Bravo's strategy of buying strong franchises in technology and growing them both organically and inorganically with a great leadership team. In conjunction with Mike Corkery and his management team, we significantly expanded the size of the business in four years and invested heavily in the company's products and services," said Holden Spaht, managing partner at Thoma Bravo. "We believe Deltek is well-positioned to continue consolidating its market leadership position as the preeminent solutions provider for project-based businesses under Roper's leadership." About Thoma Bravo Thoma Bravo is a leading private equity firm focused on the software and technology-enabled services sectors. With a series of funds representing more than $17 billion in capital commitments, Thoma Bravo partners with a company's management team to implement operating best practices, invest in growth initiatives and make accretive acquisitions intended to accelerate revenue and earnings, with the goal of increasing the value of the business. Representative past and present portfolio companies include industry leaders such as Blue Coat Systems, Deltek, Digital Insight, Global Healthcare Exchange, Hyland Software, PowerPlan, Riverbed, SolarWinds, SonicWall, Sparta Systems and TravelClick. The firm has offices in San Francisco and Chicago. For more information, visit www.thomabravo.com. About Deltek Deltek is the leading global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for government contractors, professional services firms and other project-based businesses. For decades, we have delivered actionable insight that empowers our customers to unlock their business potential. 22,000 organizations and millions of users in over 80 countries around the world rely on Deltek to research and identify opportunities, win new business, recruit and develop talent, optimize resources, streamline operations and deliver more profitable projects. Deltek  Know more. Do more. www.deltek.com







Media Contacts:





For Thoma Bravo: Matthew Gorton

Hiltzik Strategies

212-776-1161

[email protected]



For Deltek: Lauran Cacciatori

703-885-9947

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160706/386960LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thoma-bravo-enters-into-agreement-to-sell-deltek-to-roper-technologies-300373631.html SOURCE Thoma Bravo

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[December 06, 2016] Wellington Financial Provides US$10 Million Financing to SparkPost

Wellington Financial LP, a privately-held specialty finance firm, today announced that it has invested US$10 million in SparkPost, the most performant cloud email delivery service available. "SparkPost is a high-growth, integral cloud email delivery service that numerous industry-leading companies rely on for their mission critical communication needs," said Ash Vaidya, Partner at Wellington Financial. "We believe SparkPost's growth is a testament to the value proposition of their technology, and our team at Wellington is excited to be in a position to support SparkPost's growth." As the highest performing cloud email delivery service available, SparkPost has been chosen by more than 15,000 active customers ranging from small startups to major technology companies including Pinterest, Zillow, CareerBuilder and LinkedIn (News - Alert) to provide the deliverability, speed and insight needed to drive customer engagement. SparkPost is trusted to send more than 25 percent of the wold's legitimate emails by its customers, totaling over 3 trillion messages per year, and is increasing that volume by more than 1 billion per month, making it the fastest-growing cloud email service provider on the market. The company's existing investors include LLR Equity Partners and NewSpring Capital.



"Today we are the only full-featured cloud email delivery service built 100 percent for the modern cloud on AWS. As a result we can focus on refining the world's best email delivery platform instead of building and running datacenters," said Phillip Merrick, Chief Executive Officer at SparkPost. "It's terrific validation to see this confidence in our business from Wellington Financial and it's a testament to the strong fundamentals of our business and our position in the market." About Wellington Financial LP

Wellington Financial LP is a privately-held specialty finance firm providing term, venture, amortizing and unitranche loans up to $40 million. Wellington Financial LP is currently managing a $900 million investment program with offices in Menlo Park, Santa Monica and Toronto. Wellington Financial LP is managed by a partnership controlled by fund management and Clairvest Group Inc. (CVG:TSX), who jointly have contributed a large financial stake to the Fund. LPs include several of Canada's largest institutional investors, crown corporations, financial institutions and pension funds. Please visit the fund website at www.wellingtonfund.com.

About SparkPost

SparkPost is the world's #1 email infrastructure provider, offering the most performant cloud email delivery service available. Customers including Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, Groupon, Marketo, Zillow, CareerBuilder, ZipRecruiter, the Financial Times (News - Alert) and Comcast send over 3 trillion messages a year, more than 25 percent of the world's non-spam email. These companies chose us to provide the deliverability, speed to launch and data insights they need to drive customer engagement for their business. Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @SparkPost or go to sparkpost.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005879/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Molnlycke Health Care AB: Molnlycke Collaborates with Rochal Industries to Strengthen Offer in Prevention Solutions

The Swedish medical solutions company, Molnlycke Health Care, today announced a licensing agreement with the Texas-based biomedical R&D company, Rochal Industries. The collaboration will initially focus on the introduction of novel skin care products to strengthen Molnlycke's current skin care offer and further reinforce its position as a world-leading prevention solutions company. The two companies have also signed a joint development agreement for future products and will be able to leverage on each other's R&D strengths. The licensing agreement between Molnlycke Health Care and Rochal Industries, initially consists of private labeled skin protectant products, including a next generation antimicrobial barrier film. Skin protectants play a major role in preventing and treating Incontinence Related Dermatitis (IAD), which can be a factor in pressure ulcer development. The product line will enhance Molnlycke's skin care assortment and full portfolio designed for pressure ulcer prevention. The portfolio, includes wound dressings with Safetac technology, and patient positioning solutions, and will give Molnlycke further competitive edge in the area. The collaboration also includes the two companies entering into joint development on future products and gives Molnlycke access to Rochal's technical expertise. Rochal will develop commercially viable innovations in conjunction with Molnlycke, who in turn will drive the commercialization of further new patented platform technologies. "Skin protectants are strategically important to our Prevention solution offer and the partnership with Rochal enables us to provide our customers with a complete solution within the pressure ulcer prevention area. Rochal has a srong track record of inventing, protecting and licensing valuable IP and we see great potential for future products through the exchange of competence and experience. We are looking forward to a long-lasting and productive commercial partnership." - Richard Twomey, CEO, Molnlycke Health Care.



"The emergent products Rochal has developed for protecting skin including the antimicrobial barrier film are patent protected technological innovations that we are excited to have Molnlycke bring to the market. Their focus on patient well-being and wound and skin care expertise will result in improved outcomes for patients, care givers, clinicians and providers." - Ann Beal Salamone, CEO Rochal Industries LLC. Molnlycke Health Care

Molnlycke Health Care is a world-leading medical products and solutions company that equips healthcare professionals to achieve the best patient, clinical and economic outcomes. We design and supply products and solutions for use in wound treatment, pressure ulcer and infection prevention and surgery. Our products and solutions provide value for money supported by clinical and health economic evidence. Molnlycke Health Care employs around 7,500 people and is owned by Investor AB. The company headquarters are in Gothenburg, Sweden and we operate in 90 countries worldwide. For more information, please visit www.molnlycke.com. Rochal Industries LLC Rochal Industries based in San Antonio, Texas is a global leader in creating technology innovations in polymer, antimicrobial, biological systems and related fields. Rochal is partnered with the Catalyst Group Inc, (a Houston-based private equity firm) and Atteris Healthcare. Atteris is committed to finding the best go to market solutions for Rochal's technologies including licensing, direct to market, and acquisitions depending on the technology and clearances for the products. Please visit us at www.rochalindustries.com or www.atterishealthcare.com. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005896/en/

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Netsertive Announces Award-Winning Momentum in 2016

Netsertive, a digital marketing intelligence technology company that enables brands and their local channel partners with turnkey, co-op compliant digital marketing capabilities, today announced another milestone in its award-winning momentum in 2016. Netsertive's continuous success highlights a growing demand among top brands for better alignment with the local retailers they depend on to deliver over 90 percent of their annual sales. Still, an astonishing 93 percent of brands and local retailers admit they're struggling to align local marketing efforts, contributing to nearly $14 billion in cooperative marketing funds being wasted each year.

Netsertive signed several new customers in 2016, and has reported continued success with top brands, including Serta, Electrolux and Acura, reinforcing the company's momentum in the automotive, home goods, technology and healthcare sectors. Further, the company has reported a 400 percent revenue growth over the past three years and has expanded its workforce to 250 team members. In 2016, it added two strategic executive appointments: Dave Logan as VP of Products and Debbie Edmondson as VP of Team Development. Moving into 2017, Netsertive will continue to enhance its marketing technology platform, with a focus on deeper campaign analytics and attribution, to meet the advancing needs of brands and their local partners.

"While many leading brands are beginning to see local marketing as a crucial part of their omnichannel strategy, most are still a long way from offering their customers a truly seamless experience in local markets," said Brendan Morrissey, CEO and co-founder, Netsertive. "Our company has a huge opportunity to help these brands finally bridge the gap between their customers' digital and physical worlds - and that starts with brands' engaging and empowering their local retail networks at scale."







About Netsertive

Netsertive is the fastest-growing digital marketing technology platform, revolutionizing how brands and local businesses work together to win local customers. The company's two complementary solutions, MarketWise for Brands and StreetWise for Local Businesses, enable cooperative marketing by giving brands the capabilities to activate scaled multichannel local marketing automatically through local partners. The innovative technology is powered by Netsertive's proprietary learning engine, which combines the company's deep industry experience with the collective intelligence of its extensive network of automotive, home goods, technology and healthcare clients to deliver unprecedented campaign speed, performance and value. An award-winning marketing technology company and Google (News - Alert) Premier Partner, Netsertive helps brands automate their co-op marketing to ensure localized brand compliance, seamless campaign execution and reimbursement tracking for local partners.

Founded in 2009 and based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the company has a history of rapid growth, a world-class team and the strength of venture capital funding from top firms RRE Ventures, Harbert Venture Partners, River Cities Capital Funds and Greycroft Partners. Netsertive was named for the fourth consecutive year to Inc. Magazine's 5000 fastest-growing private companies, named to the Deloitte (News - Alert) Technology Fast 500 for the second consecutive year, included on Triangle Business Journal's list of Fast 50 companies and named Triangle Business Journal's Best Places to Work for the fourth year. The company was also awarded several prestigious honors in 2016 for their work with national product brands, including: 2016 GOLOCAL Award by BIA/Kelsey, Local Visionary Award by Street Fight, a gold award by the Golden Bridge Awards and a silver award by the Stevie American Business Awards. Additional information about Netsertive is available at www.netsertive.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005901/en/
[December 06, 2016] Hazelcast and Azul Team to Deliver SLA Assurance for Java-based Businesses

Azul Systems (Azul), the award-winning leader in Java runtime solutions, today announced that it has partnered with Hazelcast, the leading open source in-memory data grid, to ensure explicit Service Level Agreement (SLA) assurance for Java-based in-memory computing applications. By combining Zing plus Hazelcast Enterprise, Java-based businesses are now able to deliver consistent in-memory application performance without the risk of performance-robbing Java runtime artifacts. A recent benchmark showed that the Zing/Hazelcast combination had a maximum latency of 8 milliseconds at the 99.99th (four nines) percentile. The same workload using the Oracle (News - Alert) HotSpot JVM had a maximum latency of 225 milliseconds, an improvement of over 28X when using Zing. Across the entire latency profile range, average transactions were 40% faster with Zing. In all cases the configuration was identical, using 2-node clusters and both 1 and 2 GB JVM heaps. Full benchmark results are available here: https://hazelcast.com/resources/benchmark-hazelcast-azul-zing/ SLAs can be formal or informal, depending upon the business requirements. Lower peak latencies and predictable performance are key to driving revenues and reducing exposure in business-critical applications. Here's how the Zing/ Hazelcast combo is delivering value and SLA compliance today in three important use cases: Ecommerce: As everyone who has completed a web-based shopping transaction knows, slow websites are bad for business, especially during the holiday shopping season when demand is at its peak. 200 milliseconds per online transaction is ideal - in most cases 2 seconds is tolerable, and within 5-10 seconds of a screen freeze the customer vanishes. Online buyers won't wait - they will abandon the session or the shopping cart and move on to a provider with a better user experience and a faster site. Today a leading ecommerce powerhouse uses Hazelcast with Zing to meet their SLA targets and ensure that customer inquiries and transactions happen quickly - every time, even under high, unpredictable loads of the holiday season. Payments processing: Credit card companies face a balancing act between their need to ensure that a transaction is valid and the very brief time available to make a go/no go decision. Their merchant clients and end consumers won't tolerate long wait times - and if credit card validation takes too long and payment is approved, the payment processor bears the fraud risk. By adding the Zing runtime to their Hazelcast-based risk platform, payment processors can meet their SLA targets while reducing their fraud exposure. Financial services: Low latency is a requirement within capital markets, where the proliferation of algorithmic trading requires firms to react to market events faster than the competition to increase profitability of trades. For example, when executing arbitrage strategies the opportunity to "arb" the market may only present itself for a few milliseconds before parity is achieved. To demonstrate the value that clients put on latency, a large global investment bank has stated that every millisecond lost results in $100m per annum in lost opportunity.[1] Hazelcast combined with Zing slashes latency and shaves precious milliseconds of latency, capturing revenue and profits otherwise unattainable.



"Achieving predictable and capped latency has been a challenge in Java systems and a major historical weakness of the use of Java," said Greg Luck, CEO of Hazelcast. "Achieving predictable latency with Java has been traditionally managed with smaller heaps and garbage collection (GC) tuning. But with Azul Zing we can achieve a latency cap of <10ms and at the same time lift performance, eliminating costly tuning and achieving performance consistency, a win-win for latency sensitive applications." "Businesses are constantly faced with balancing the need to develop and deliver innovative new capabilities and features for their revenue generating platforms with development costs and time-to-market requirements," said Scott Sellers, Azul Systems (News - Alert) president and CEO. "Java remains the world's most popular and productive language for the enterprise, however the constant tuning and tweaking needed to try and achieve consistent performance is expensive and often times futile. Azul Zing, combined with in-memory datagrids like Hazelcast Enterprise, deliver rock-solid consistent performance that scales to meet the demanding requirements of today's high growth businesses."

For additional information about the Zing runtime for Java visit www.azul.com/zing. Free Zing trial downloads are available from www.azul.com/zingtrial. You can learn more about Hazelcast Enterprise at https://hazelcast.com/products/enterprise/ 1"Wall Street's Quest To Process Data At The Speed Of Light". Information Week. About Azul Systems @azulsystems Azul Systems, the industry's only company exclusively focused on Java and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), builds fully supported, certified standards-compliant Java runtime solutions that bring the power of Java to the enterprise, the embedded community and the IoT. Zing is a JVM designed for enterprise Java applications and workloads that require any combination of low latency, high transaction rates, large working memory, and/or consistent response times. Zulu is Azul's certified, freely available open source build of OpenJDK. Cost-effective Zulu Enterprise subscriptions extend OpenJDK support to Java-based businesses who prefer open source solutions. Zulu Embedded is Azul's 100% open source build of OpenJDK for Intel, ARM (News - Alert), and PowerPC -based designs that require custom configurations and long support life cycles. For additional information, visit www.azul.com. Azul Systems, the Azul Systems logo, Zulu, Zing and ReadyNow! are registered trademarks. Java and OpenJDK are trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. About Hazelcast, Inc. Hazelcast is the leading provider of operational in-memory computing with tens of thousands of installed clusters and over 16 million server starts per month. The Hazelcast operational in-memory computing platform helps leading companies, like Capital One (News - Alert), Chicago Board Options Exchange, Deutsche Bank, Ellie Mae, and Mizuho Securities USA, manage their data and distribute processing using in-memory storage and parallel execution for breakthrough application speed and scale. Hazelcast's developer-friendly approach makes it easy to modernize existing applications while providing a platform for building new innovative solutions. Hazelcast is headquartered in Silicon Valley's Palo Alto, with offices in Ankara, Istanbul, London, and New York City. For more information, visit www.hazelcast.com or follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @Hazelcast View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005907/en/

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[December 06, 2016] AdExchanger's Industry Preview to Explore Trends, Opportunities and Key Issues of 2017

NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- AdExchanger, an award-winning integrated media company devoted to the data-driven digital marketing space, will bring together hundreds of leaders for Industry Preview 2017, an annual conference that focuses on what to expect over the next 12 months for the advertising and marketing technology ecosystem. This two-day event, beginning January 18, 2017, will officially kick off "The Big Three"  AdExchanger's three, must-attend, signature events of the year. Industry Preview 2017 will take place at Grand Hyatt New York and is expected to attract more than 750 marketers, agencies, publishers, technologists and service providers. More than 80 marketers have already signed up to attend from brands including American Express, Disney, Geico, JPMorgan Chase, L'Oreal, LVMH, Macy's, Netflix, Pepsi, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Time Warner and Target. As the first of "The Big Three," Industry Preview offers executives the chance to understand trends, explore emerging opportunities and delve into the year's most crucial issues with industry insiders and experts. For example, joining a fireside chat with AdExchanger Publisher John Ebbert on Day 1 is Todd Forsythe, the senior vice president of global marketing for Dell. This top marketer will explore digital stategy and marketing transformation following one of the industry's biggest integrations, and discuss how he expects 2017 to unfold.



Later that day, Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal, will discuss the media conglomerate's plans for the year ahead, as well as important trends her company is tracking in the marketing technology and media worlds. Also, Rob Norman, Global Chief Digital Officer of GroupM, will moderate a session with New York Time's Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer Meredith Levien, and another leading digital publication. These senior leaders will survey the media landscape in 2017 with an overlay on how technology continues to evolve the publisher's prospects. "As advertisers, marketers and publishers navigate the ever-changing digital landscape, this is the place for industry leaders to congregate as a whole, and assess the challenges and opportunities we will face in the coming year," said Mr. Ebbert. "The extent of the content and knowledge being shared here, as well as the quality of executives attending and presenting, makes Industry Preview one of the most invaluable forums for learning and engagement the industry has to offer."

Addressing financial matters is also a key component of Industry Preview. Accordingly, this year there will be a private equity panel that will dissect the factors driving the rise in IPEOs, discuss what happens to tech firms after they get bought, and examine where private equity firms might still be looking to buy. The second and third events included in "The Big Three" are AdExchanger's Programmatic Conferences. PROGRAMMATIC I/O San Francisco will take place April 4  5, 2017 while PROGRAMMATIC I/O New York will be held October 25  26, 2017. Registration is now open for all three conferences. For more information or to register, visit www.adexchanger.com. About AdExchanger

Founded in 2008, AdExchanger is an award-winning integrated media company  which includes publishing and three, large industry events devoted to the data-driven, digital marketing space. The company produces Industry Preview, which provides an exclusive look at the year ahead in digital marketing technology, as well as two, bi-coastal, leading conferences in programmatic media, known as PROGRAMMATIC I/O. For more information, visit www.adexchanger.com. Video - https://youtu.be/Hz8bV4bRlN8

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160302/339788LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/adexchangers-industry-preview-to-explore-trends-opportunities-and-key-issues-of-2017-300373614.html SOURCE AdExchanger

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[December 06, 2016] SiriusXM Teams Up With AT&T to Provide 4G LTE Connectivity Available on Select FCA US Vehicles

NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirius XM Connected Vehicle Services Inc., a subsidiary of SiriusXM, has teamed up with AT&T, a leader in the connected car industry, to provide 4G LTE connectivity to support SiriusXM Guardian, SiriusXM's package of in-vehicle safety, security, and convenience services in select 2017 model year FCA US LLC vehicles. "The importance of delivering a high level of safety and convenience features to auto owners in their vehicles in an easy-to-use fashion cannot be overstated now and in the future," said Larry Pesce, SiriusXM's GM and GVP of Connected Vehicle. "We're very excited to raise the curtain on our SiriusXM Guardian brand and work with AT&T to deliver connected vehicle services that create a dynamic in-car experience that FCA US drivers and their passengers want." "We're proud to work with SiriusXM to bring the benefits of LTE connectivity to FCA US vehicles," said Chris Penrose, President, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. "This collaboration will deliver the connectivity that more and more consumers want in their next car purchase." Designed to improve the in-car experience for drivers and their passengers, SiriusXM Guardian delivers a suite of features that includes the following services: SOS (contact a SiriusXM response specialist and send location info with the touch of a button)

(contact a SiriusXM response specialist and send location info with the touch of a button) Roadside Assist Call

Remote Vehicle Start

Remote Door Lock/Unlock

Remote Horn & Lights

Theft Alarm Notification

Stolen Vehicle Assistance

Vehicle Finder (via mobile phone)

(via mobile phone) Send & Go (send point-of-interest info from your mobile phone right to your vehicle's navigation system) SiriusXM Guardian services are available now in 2017 model year Chrysler 300, Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger vehicles when equipped with the 8.4-inch Uconnect system. Customers purchasing these vehicles will receive a one-year subscription to SiriusXM Gardian as part of the purchase or lease price.



About Sirius XM Connected Vehicle Services Inc. Sirius XM Connected Vehicles Services Inc. is a leading provider of connected vehicles services to Acura, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota. Sirius XM Connected Vehicle Services Inc. gives customers access to a suite of safety, security, and convenience services including automatic crash notification, enhanced roadside assistance, remote door unlock, remote start, stolen vehicle recovery assistance, turn-by-turn navigation, and more.

To download SiriusXM logos and artwork, visit http://www.siriusxm.com/LogosAndPhotos. This communication contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about future financial and operating results, our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to future operations, products and services; and other statements identified by words such as "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimated," "believe," "intend," "plan," "projection," "outlook" or words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond our control. Actual results and the timing of events may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements: our substantial competition, which is likely to increase over time; our ability to attract and retain subscribers, which is uncertain; consumer protection laws and their enforcement; the unfavorable outcome of pending or future litigation; the market for music rights, which is changing and subject to uncertainties; our dependence upon the auto industry; general economic conditions; the security of the personal information about our customers; existing or future government laws and regulations could harm our business; failure of our satellites would significantly damage our business; the interruption or failure of our information technology and communications systems; our failure to realize benefits of acquisitions or other strategic initiatives; rapid technological and industry changes; failure of third parties to perform; harmful interference to our service from new and existing wireless operations; our failure to comply with FCC requirements; modifications to our business plan; our indebtedness; our principal stockholder has significant influence over our affairs and over actions requiring stockholder approval and its interests may differ from interests of other holders of our common stock; and impairment of our business by third-party intellectual property rights. Additional factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, which is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and available at the SEC's Internet site (http://www.sec.gov). The information set forth herein speaks only as of the date hereof, and we disclaim any intention or obligation to update any forward looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this communication. Source: SiriusXM Media contact:

Andrew Fitzpatrick

SiriusXM

212-901-6693

[email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101014/NY82093LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/siriusxm-teams-up-with-att-to-provide-4g-lte-connectivity-available-on-select-fca-us-vehicles-300373649.html SOURCE Sirius XM Holdings Inc.

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[December 06, 2016] Luminaries and Leaders in Optical Communications to Deliver Keynote Presentations at OFC 2017

The world's leading conference and exhibition for optical communications and networking professionals, today announced the keynote speakers for OFC 2017. On Tuesday, 21 March, Mischa Dohler, King's College, UK; Urs Holzle, Google (News - Alert), Inc., USA; and Meint K. Smit, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, will take the stage to discuss future innovations in optics-based communication technologies. "The OFC 2017 plenary program focuses on the future of optical communications and explores the exciting and evolving relationship of optical technologies under the sphere of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and the Internet of Things (IoT)," said OFC General Chair, Peter Winzer, Nokia Bell Labs (News - Alert), USA. "We are seeing a transcendence of knowledge and innovation in optical networking today, and these presentations will provide guidance for 5G network infrastructure and beyond." Mischa Dohler, Professor, King's College, UK

Internet of Skills - Where Communications, Robotics and AI Meet Mischa Dohler is the chair professor of Wireless Communications at King's College in London, England. At King's College, Dohler's research interests range from 5G networks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities. Dohler serves as the director of the Center for Telecommunications Research (CTR), a research hub that attracts talent from around the globe to study applicable methods to relay concepts of wireless and mobile broadband systems and explore the greater economic implications of telecommunication technologies. Dohler is a Fellow of IEEE (News - Alert) and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and a Distinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. An entrepreneur, composer and pianist, Dohler has four albums available on iTunes and will perform following his presentation at OFC. Urs Holzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure, Google, Inc., USA

A Ubiquitous Cloud Requires a Transparent Network As the Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure at Google, Urs Holzle leads the design, installation and operation of servers, networks and datacenters that provide power to Google services. Holzle, with the support of his team have reduced the energy consumed by Google data centers to less than 50 percent, lower than the industry standard. Prior to his role as Google's Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure, Holzle served as Vice President of Operations and Vice President of Engineering, in which he developed Google's operational infrastructure. He has served as a leading contributor to DARPA's Ntional Compiler Infrastructure project and was recognized for his work on high-performance implementations of object-oriented languages by the National Science Foundation, receiving the CAREER award in 1996. A recipient of a 1988 Fulbright Scholarship, Holzle received his Master's degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, in 1988 and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1994. At Stanford, Holzle invented techniques that are at the foundation of today's leading Java compilers. Holzle is a member of both the US National Academy of Engineering and the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences. Holzle will explore Google's path to developing a cloud presence that is ubiquitous and rapidly evolving, thanks to a robust network.



Meint K. Smit, Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Photonic Integrated Circuits for All: How Foundries are Transforming the Prototype of Exciting New Devices Meint K. Smit, is professor of electrical engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, Smit is a graduate of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, receiving his Ph.D. in Integrated Optics in 1991. Smit's research interests revolve around InP-based Photonic Integration and the integration of InP circuitry on Silicon. As the founder of the JePPIX platform, the joint Europe Platform for Photonic Integration of Components and Circuits, he has led development of the InP-based photonic foundry system in Europe. At Eindhoven University, he is the leader of the Opto-Electronic Devices group at the COBRA Research Institute at the Eindhoven campus. Smit will explore the successful models of photonics foundries, its growing presence around the world and will explore prototype costs and foundry-modeled photonic ICs across a broad range of applications.

Registration Information

Conference registration is open! Register before 20 February 2017 and save on a full technical conference pass. Credentialed media and analysts who wish to cover OFC 2017 can submit a form to register for a full-access conference media badge. Registration, travel information and exhibitor news can be found in the OFC media room. Post Deadline Papers

Post deadline papers will be accepted from 14 December 2016 through 7 March 2017. Submission details are available on the OFC Conference website: Paper submission. About OFC The Optical Fiber Conference and Exposition (OFC) is the largest global conference and exposition for optical communications and networking professionals. For more than 40 years, OFC has drawn attendees from all corners of the globe to meet and greet, teach and learn, make connections and move business forward. OFC includes dynamic business programming, an exposition of more than 550 companies, and high impact peer-reviewed research that, combined, showcase the trends and pulse of the entire optical networking and communications industry. OFC is managed by The Optical Society (OSA) and co-sponsored by OSA, the IEEE Communications (News - Alert) Society (IEEE/ComSoc), and the IEEE Photonics Society. OFC 2017 will be held from 19-23 March 2017 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, California, USA. Follow @OFCConference, learn more OFC Conference LinkedIn, and watch highlights OFC YouTube. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005937/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Central Logic Bulks Up New Executive Advisory Board with Addition of Dr. Abraham Warshaw

Central Logic, which recently launched the first web-based technology to operationalize care coordination using real-time data - Central Logic Patient Connect - announced today the appointment of Abraham Warshaw, MD, Senior Vice President of Mount Sinai Health System and Associate Professor of Population Health Science and Policy at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to its recently formed Executive Advisory Board. Central Logic is the healthcare industry's leading provider of innovative transfer center, on-call scheduling technology and innovative data solutions. Warshaw also is Chief and Medical Director for Access Services which oversees the health system's transfer services at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. "We are thrilled that Dr. Warshaw has joined Central Logic's executive advisory board," said Dr. Barry Chaiken, MD, chairman of the executive advisory board. "Dr. Warshaw's expertise and insight will be invaluable to Central Logic as it looks to deploy its offerings across the entire spectrum of patient care. His background in transfer service complements Central Logic's mission of revolutionizing care and I believe he will help push our innovation to even greater heights." Washaw is board certified in emergency medicine and, in his role at Mount Sinai, has served as a consultant and committee member relating to a number of topics including hospital operations, physician relations and emergency management.



"Our goal in creating the executive advisory board is to bring together industry leaders who are committed to helping me guide the company into the future," said Central Logic board chair and CEO, Jennifer Holmes. "This group of healthcare leaders will ensure Central Logic continues to launch innovative solutions like our newly-released Central Logic Patient Connect which improves population health management and helps providers operationalize their care coordination efforts." "Dr. Warshaw has dedicated his career to serving patients and the industry," Holmes continued. "I'm confident his clinical expertise and knowledge of the challenges healthcare providers face today will play a significant role on our executive advisory board."

Warshaw completed his residency in emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Hospital, received his Doctor of Medicine degree from SUNY-Downstate, and holds a faculty appointment as associate professor in the department of Population Health Sciences and Policy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. About Central Logic: As the healthcare industry's leading provider of innovative web-based data technology, Central Logic's team works collaboratively with more than 500 hospitals and thousands of healthcare professionals - including physicians, administrators and healthcare staff - to operationalize transfer center, on-call scheduling, care coordination and population health management with comprehensive patient analytics and real-time reporting solutions. Its flagship solution, Central Logic Patient Connect, was launched in 2016 and uniquely gives visibility to real-time patient data from inside and outside a hospital's four walls. Founded in 2005, the company helps hospitals and systems standardize processes, centralize actionable data and operationalize care coordination. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005986/en/

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[December 06, 2016] 5 Things Global Businesses Must Take Notice Of In Privacy And Data Security

ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Global privacy and data security risks are accelerating in scope, frequency and intensity. Bloomberg Law today highlighted five things to pay attention to in this dynamic area: How the Trump administration will interface with federal agencies and different market sectors such as tech and banking. BREXIT fallout and how elections in the Netherlands , France and Germany will effect privacy enforcement. Preparing for the new landmark EU privacy regime's dramatic compliance challenges and threat of massive fines. Increasingly complex and sometimes conflicting domestic and international compliance and disclosure requirements. Rapidly evolving technology in the internet of things, artificial intelligence and big data analytics. Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/79918241-bloomberg-law-global-privacy-and-data-security-risks



"Business and legal issues related to privacy, data security and cybersecurity are undergoing massive changes and continue to increase in importance," Bloomberg Law Vice President and General Manager Alex Butler said. "Bloomberg Law provides in-depth coverage and expert analysis of the dynamic global legal and regulatory landscape and practical guidance to help businesses understand, plan and forecast for changes to privacy and data security regulations and laws in a time-sensitive manner."

Learn how Mercedes K. Tunstall, a public policy and privacy partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, turns to Bloomberg Law to advise clients in consumer financial services on privacy and data security laws and regulations around the world. See what "sets Bloomberg Law apart from other providers" as Mercedes describes how she uses the platform to quickly provide sound, reliable counsel to clients. About Bloomberg BNA

Bloomberg BNA provides legal, tax and compliance professionals with critical information, practical guidance and workflow solutions. We leverage leading technology and a global network of experts to deliver a unique combination of news and authoritative analysis, comprehensive research solutions, innovative practice tools, and proprietary business data and analytics. Bloomberg BNA is wholly-owned by Bloomberg L.P., the global business, financial information and news leader. For more information, visit www.bna.com. About Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law helps legal professionals provide world-class counsel with access to actionable legal intelligence in a business context. Bloomberg Law delivers a unique combination of practical guidance, comprehensive primary and secondary source material, trusted content from Bloomberg BNA, news, time-saving practice tools, market data and business intelligence. For more information, visit www.bna.com/bloomberglaw. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/5-things-global-businesses-must-take-notice-of-in-privacy-and-data-security-300373764.html SOURCE Bloomberg Law

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[December 06, 2016] HackerRank Announces Integration with Applicant Tracking Software Lever to Transform Technical Recruiting

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- HackerRank, a platform that helps companies find the right developers based on their coding skills, today announced a partnership with Lever, a modern applicant tracking system that helps recruiters and hiring managers streamline their recruiting efforts. Both Lever and HackerRank share the mission of helping companies discover and hire talent objectively by adding consistency to the recruiting process. "Our new HackerRank partnership extends Lever's ability to involve the entire organization in the recruiting process," says Sarah Nahm, Lever CEO. "Together with HackerRank, we're excited to help companies make even more informed and confident hiring decisions."



Customers of Lever and HackerRank will now have the benefit of connecting the two powerful talent engagement platforms to make better hiring decisions. By incorporating HackerRank coding assessments as part of the initial step of the interview process, recruiters and hiring managers using Lever can quickly surface candidates with top technical skills without leaving the Lever platform. Hiring managers can reduce time spent on technical phone interviews, reach a wider talent pool and boost onsite-o-offer conversions.



"This partnership streamlines the recruiting process so that companies can more efficiently and effectively find, assess and hire top engineering talent," says Vivek Ravisankar, CEO & co-founder of HackerRank. "Now, recruiters and hiring managers can quickly gauge candidates' proven skill level by integrating HackerRank assessments into Lever candidate profiles." Recruiters using Lever to track candidates can now:

Send HackerRank coding assessments to candidates directly from within the Lever platform

Receive completion notifications

View candidate scores

Import qualified candidates Lever's HackerRank integration will be rolled out to Lever customers starting now through December. About HackerRank

HackerRank is a platform that helps companies find the right developer solely based on their coding skills quickly and efficiently. We're driving a new paradigm shift by eliminating resumes and creating opportunities for hundreds of thousands of programmers worldwide. HackerRank was founded in Palo Alto in 2012. Over 1,000 companies use HackerRank to build strong engineering teams, including VMware, Capital One, Quora and more. For more information, visit www.hackerrank.com/work About Lever

Built from the conviction that recruiting is the responsibility of everyone at the company, Lever's applicant tracking and sourcing technology draws the entire team together to source, engage, interview, and hire top talent through effortless collaboration. Lever was founded in 2012 in San Francisco. Lever supports the hiring needs of over 1,200 companies around the globe including the teams at Netflix, Eventbrite, Lyft, and Quora. For more information, visit https://www.lever.co. Media Contact

Katie Sullivan

Bateman Group

[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hackerrank-announces-integration-with-applicant-tracking-software-lever-to-transform-technical-recruiting-300373759.html SOURCE HackerRank

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[December 06, 2016] Music to Everyone's Ears: Ford Motor Company Invests in Historic Detroit Symphony Orchestra Asia Tour

Ford (News - Alert) Motor Company and Ford Motor Company Fund, the company's philanthropic arm, are major contributors to what is shaping up to be a historic adventure next year for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. For its first international tour in 16 years, the orchestra will perform 11 concerts conducted by Music Director Leonard Slatkin, July 14-29, 2017. Five stops are planned for Japan, and five cities in China - including Shanghai and Chongqing, where Ford has a major manufacturing presence. This will be the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's first visit to China. "The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is more than a collection of talented musicians," said Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Company (News - Alert) Fund and Community Services. "They are cultural ambassadors for our entire region. We're proud to build on our long history of supporting the orchestra by enabling new audiences to share in the joy of a performance." The China stops are expected to include engagement with Ford employees, continuing the company's special connection to Detroit Symphony Orchestra that dates back to the 1930s when it supported the group's radio broadcasts. In addition to being the tour's lead corporate sponsor, Ford supports the orchestra's innovative approach to reaching new audiences through free Live from Orchestra Hall webcasts and Replay, an on-demand archive of more than 100 performances. Ford supports orchestra performances in neighborhoods around metro Detroit. Music will include Copland's Symphony No. 3, Bernstein's Candide overture, McTee's Double Play, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, Korngold's Violin Concerto and Takemitsu's Far Calls. Coming, Far! The tour launches July 9 with a free afternoon concert at Orchestra Hall that will be webcast. "This tour requires a strong collective of thoughtful and strategic partners," said Anne Parsons (News - Alert), Detroit Symphony Orchestra president and CEO. "I particularly want to thank Ford and all of our current supporters." Ford Motor China is home to the company's Asia Pacific headquarters in Shanghai, as well as 10 manufacturing plants, including five in Chongqing, and a regional research and development center. Last year, Ford sold more than 1.1 million vehicles in China, the world's largest automotive market. Ford's community outreach thereincludes Conservation & Environment Grants China, which has funded more than 400 environmental organizations to help develop their projects over the last 16 years.



Locally, investment in the orchestra's Asia tour fits with Ford's increasing support for Detroit and southeast Michigan institutions. Ford and Ford Fund are investing $20 million in local educational and community programs for 2016. Investments this year and beyond include: $6 million investment with UAW-Ford to fund Motown Museum's Ford Motor Company Theater as a state-of-the-art performance center, educational and community programming, as well as CARaoke Experience

$5 million investment to build a second Ford Resource and Engagement Center in Detroit

New three-year sponsorship commitment with The Parade Company - producer of both America's Thanksgiving Parade and annual Ford Fireworks

$400,000 in support for Cass Community Social Services' tiny homes neighborhood project to reduce homelessness

$200,000 Bill Ford Better World Challenge grant to University of Detroit-Mercy to create a mobility application to connect underserved populations with local resources Over the last 10 years, Ford and Ford Fund have made community investments totaling $161 million in the region.

About Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company is a global automotive and mobility company based in Dearborn, Michigan. With about 203,000 employees and 62 plants worldwide, the company's core business includes designing, manufacturing, marketing and servicing a full line of Ford cars, trucks and SUVs, as well as Lincoln luxury vehicles. To expand its business model, Ford is aggressively pursuing emerging opportunities with investments in electrification, autonomy and mobility. Ford provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford and its products and services, please visit www.corporate.ford.com. About the DSO Hailed by The New York Times as "cutting edge," the internationally acclaimed Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, visionary maestros, collaborations with the world's foremost musical artists, and an ardent commitment to Detroit. As a community-supported orchestra, generous giving by individuals and institutions at all levels drives the continued success and growth of the institution. A commitment to broadcast innovation began in 1922 when the DSO became the first orchestra in the world to present a radio broadcast and continues today with the free Live from Orchestra Hall webcast series, which now reaches tens of thousands of children with the new Classroom Edition expansion. Making its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, one of America's most acoustically perfect concert halls, the DSO actively pursues a mission to embrace and inspire individuals, families, and communities through unsurpassed musical experiences. For more information visit dso.org. For news releases, related materials and high-resolution photos and video, visit www.media.ford.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006091/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Anaqua Recognized as Best-In-Class by Leading Market Analyst Hyperion Research

Anaqua, Inc., a leading provider of intellectual property management and analytics software and services, has been named a Market Leader in Hyperion Global Partners' 2016 MarketView Report for IP Management Systems, including special recognition for innovation lifecycle management, decision support analytics and uniquely integrated patent drafting. Hyperion Research's MarketView report provides a comprehensive review of "end-to-end" Intellectual Property Management lifecycle software systems. The report provides a guidebook for Intellectual Property system evaluation, including market trends and dynamics, key components expected from leading solutions, an overview of vendors in the solution area, and guiding principles for selecting and implementing solutions. In the report, Hyperion introduces and defines the next generation of Intellectual Property Management: Intellectual Property Business Management (IPBM). According to the report, "as companies begin to mature their operational capabilities with the integration of business stakeholders and drivers into their performance models, there is demand for sophisticated technologies that understand and drive the IPBM model, and provide both depth and breadth of features and capabilities." As an advanced IPM Solution vendor, according to Hyperion, Anaqua offers a depth of IPBM-friendly modules, features, insight and analytics tools - extending its reach well beyond docketing, simple prosecution and task management. The report highlights Anaqua's robust IP Review and Invention Management modues, both of which feature collaborative tools to help strategically align innovation with internal and market positioning.



"The Anaqua story in 2016 is one of demonstrably higher ambition," the Hyperion report states. "In addition to its investments in a wide bevy of operational support tools, including analytics, PTO integrations and document management, the company is focused on 'persona-driven' development. We especially like the direction of Anaqua's 'Smart Workspaces' that cater to specific personas. Anaqua continues to lead and innovate with a powerful toolkit to drive IP as a business. Anaqua's pragmatic, thoughtful approach to work product management and data-driven decision support is precisely what makes IP Business Management (IPBM) approachable IP." Anaqua 8.6 was launched in August as the first solution to integrate analytics insight into day-to-day intellectual property operations workflow, which Hyperion recognizes as a market leading solution for decision support analytics. With Anaqua, inventors, business executives, IP leaders, operations managers, attorneys and paralegals can now leverage benefits of analytics-driven insight in their daily work and decisions.

"ANAQUA exemplifies a critical market maturity for 2016 and beyond: that it is no longer sufficient to manage IP from a purely legal perspective, but that organizations today must understand the impact of their portfolio on their business, and vice versa," said Eyal Iffergan, President of Hyperion Research. "We're proud to feature Anaqua in our 2016 MarketView Report for IP Management as a cornerstone solution for the most robust business integrated innovation lifecycle programs." "The Hyperion MarketView report is one of the industry's most valuable guides to IPM enabling technology. The 2016 edition captures an important trend toward IP Business Management which will change the way IP leaders evaluate technology solutions." said Steve Preston, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Anaqua. "We're very proud to be recognized by Hyperion as a Market Leader. It affirms our vision, developed in collaboration with our customers and brought to fruition by our incredible team." About Anaqua, Inc.

Anaqua helps corporations and law firms turn intellectual property into competitive advantage. Its software platform combines insight from big data analytics with critical tools, best practice workflows and services into one efficient, intelligent environment that helps IP practices work more efficiently and make better decisions faster. Many of the best-known brands and most innovative products were conceptualized, evaluated, protected and monetized through the ANAQUA platform. Founded in 2004 by IP leaders from The Coca-Cola Company, Ford Motor Company (News - Alert), Kimberly-Clark and British American Tobacco, Anaqua is a privately held company headquartered in Boston (U.S.) and has locations across Europe and Asia. For additional information, please visit http://www.anaqua.com. About Hyperion Research

Hyperion Research is the industry's leading source for Legal Solutions Market Intelligence. We work with law firms, law departments and other legal service organizations to make intelligent, fact-based decisions about how to improve their operational performance. The profession's leaders, innovators and trend-makers have come to rely on Hyperion Research as the premier provider of independent market research, analysis and advisory services. We provide unparalleled insight to the leading trends in legal strategy, operations, and technology. Hyperion's analyst-based research and benchmarking informs 8 out of every 10 practice management system selections each year. For more information, visit http://www.hgpresearch.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005990/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Lara Pringle Named as One of the "Top Women in Energy" by Texas Lawyer

Jones Walker LLP announced today that Lara D. Pringle, a partner in the firm's Houston office, has been named as one of the "Top Women in Energy" by Texas Lawyer, an honor recognizing outstanding women for their work in the area of energy law. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006110/en/ Lara D. Pringle, Houston Energy Partner (Photo: Business Wire) Ms. Pringle and the other honorees are highlighted in the December 2016 issue of Texas Lawyer magazine and were celebrated for their achievements in the energy industry during an event on December 5, 2016, at the Magnolia Hotel in Houston, Texas.



"We are ecstatic for Lara to be included in this list of outstanding women. She is an exceptional partner in our Energy Practice Group in Texas and most deserving of this accolade," said Joshua A. Norris, head of the firm's Houston office. Ms. Pringle is a partner in Jones Walker LLP's Houston office. She represents energy industry clients in a variety of litigation involving commercial disputes. She is a 2006 graduate of Baylor Law School and a 2003 graduate of Texas A&M University. She is active member of the United Way of Greater Houston and serves on the Young Leaders Council. Ms. Pringle also serves on the Dean's Advisory Council for the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. She is an active volunteer and lifetime member of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. She was recently named a "Rising Star" in the 2016 edition of Texas Super Lawyers in the area of Business Litigation.

About Jones Walker Jones Walker LLP (www.joneswalker.com) is among the 120 largest law firms in the United States serving local, regional, national, and international business interests with offices in Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, and Texas. The firm is committed to providing a comprehensive range of legal services to major multinational, public and private corporations, Fortune 500 companies, money center banks, worldwide insurers, and emerging companies doing business in the United States and abroad. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006110/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Inspiring Cancer Survivors Celebrate Their Medical Successes, Future on City of Hope's Rose Parade Float

For the 45th year, City of Hope will be participating in the 128th annual Tournament of Roses Parade celebrating the past, present and future successes of City of Hope's physicians, researchers, scientists, nurses and survivors. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006142/en/ For the 45th year, City of Hope will be participating in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. The 2017 float, themed "The Miracle of Science with Soul," reflects City of Hope's unique combination of leading-edge research and lifesaving care, a combination that creates second chances for patients suffering from cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Patients credit their medical teams for giving them those second chances and a future - inspiring them to continue to have long, successful lives. (Photo: Business Wire) By fostering collaboration between scientists and physicians, City of Hope is able to speed scientific advances to patients, enabling them to live successful, rewarding lives after cancer. No one knows that better than the seven patients riding atop this year's float, a group that includes a kidney cancer survivor who has gone on to serve as president of the State Bar of California, another who left the grape fields to become a nurse and a former pediatric patient who is on his way to becoming a pediatric oncologist. The theme for the 128th annual Rose Parade is "Echoes of Success." City of Hope's float, themed "The Miracle of Science with Soul," reflects the comprehensive cancer center's unique offering, a combination of leading-edge research and lifesaving, patient-centered care. This combination has created countless second chances for patients suffering from cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Patients credit their medical teams with giving them those second chances and an opportunity to lead rich, selfless lives. The seven patients riding the float will be celebrating each other's successes that were made possible through the selfless contributions of others. Riding and walking alongside the float are some of the doctors, nurses and caregivers who played a role in the patients' healing. Their stories: Commander Anne Clark: As the Los Angeles Police Department's first female Hispanic commander, Anne Clark takes nothing for granted. She has spent the past 30 years with the law enforcement agency and has had her share of life-threatening moments over the years, but none hitting closer to home than her cancer Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis two years ago. Clark resolved to beat the disease with the support of dozens of police officers rallying around her during her fight. Today she is in remission and is thankful to her medical team and fellow officers for helping her through one of the most challenging times of her life. Clark will be riding alongside her hematologist/oncologist, Stephen J. Forman, M.D., the Francis & Kathleen McNamara Distinguished Chair in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope. Darrell George: The current city manager for Duarte, Darrell George, cannot recall a time when he was sick. He cannot even remember a time he had a cold. So when he went in for an annual physical he was surprised to learn that he had developed a mass that was diagnosed as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. George immediately traveled to City of Hope and now, nearly two years later, he is in remission. He will also ride with Forman, his hematologist/oncologist. Dave Pasternak: As a successful Los Angeles attorney, cancer was the last thing Dave Pasternak had on his mind when he began experiencing a lingering case of bronchitis in 2014. That case of brnchitis, however, turned out to be advanced kidney cancer that had already begun to spread to other organs. Given the extent of his cancer, some estimated Pasternak's survival at between six months and a year - maybe even less. That's when Pasternak came to City of Hope, where he enrolled in a clinical trial to help treat his cancer. Pasternak has been responding well. So well, in fact, that while recovering from treatment, he has successfully gone on to become the 91st president of the State Bar of California. Pasternak will be riding alongside his oncologist, Sumanta K. Pal, M.D., assistant clinical professor in the Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research.



Jackie Garcia: Jackie Garcia was only 10 years old when she had to half her jaw removed due to Ewing's sarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer that mainly strikes children and adolescents and accounts for about 1 percent of childhood cancers. To avoid facial scars, City of Hope surgeons removed the tumor by making an incision in Garcia's neck and rebuilt her jaw using a portion of her fibula, along with small blood vessels. The complex surgery was successful and now Garcia, 14, has her sights set on becoming a surgeon herself when she grows up. "I want to be able to share some of the love and comfort that my doctors gave me on so many occasions." Garcia will be riding alongside her surgeons, Ellie Maghami, M.D., Chief of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, and Robert Kang, M.D., M.P.H., assistant clinical professor in the Division of Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery. Rodrigo Nunez: When Rodrigo Nunez was 18 years old, he thought he was destined to be a field worker. He spent his days picking grapes until one day he started to get sick. Soon, he was diagnosed with a rare, potentially fatal blood disease called aplastic anemia. His experience with a life-threatening illness, ironically, gave him the clearest glimpse of his future. During treatment at City of Hope he decided he would go back to school and become a nurse. Weeks after graduating, Nunez' story came full circle: He was hired as a nurse at City of Hope. He cared for one of his first patients - coincidentally, a young man with aplastic anemia - in the same hospital room where he was treated.

"Talk about a dream come true," says Nunez, now 56. "I was taking care of patients, working with the same doctors and nurses who saved my life." Sebastian Sanchez-Luege: Sebastian Sanchez-Luege was just 6 years old when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a rare condition that accounts for just 2 percent of blood cancers. A year later, just two weeks after he turned 7, Sanchez-Luege underwent a lifesaving stem cell transplant. While the road to recovery wasn't easy, Sanchez-Luege has "no doubt" that the experience positively impacted his life and the people around him. Now a senior at Stanford University, Sanchez-Luege is preparing to graduate this June. His goal: to attend medical school and become a doctor. "I want to help other patients face their illnesses with hope and empathy, knowing full well what it is like to be a patient." Linh Quan: Diagnosed with breast cancer after a routine mammogram at 40 years old, Quan traveled to City of Hope, where she knew from experience that she would be in good hands. After intense rounds of chemotherapy, Quan underwent a double mastectomy and spent another six months undergoing follow-up chemotherapy. Four years later, she is now cancer-free and focused on giving back as a result of the specialized care she received. "I feel very honored, and I hope to do whatever I can to make a difference." Quan will be riding alongside her oncologist, Christina Yeon, M.D. For the patient's full stories and more information about City of Hope's float, please visit: http://www.cityofhope.org/rose-parade-float About City of Hope City of Hope is an independent research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Designated as one of only 47 comprehensive cancer centers, the highest recognition bestowed by the National Cancer Institute, City of Hope is also a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, with research and treatment protocols that advance care throughout the world. City of Hope is located in Duarte, California, just northeast of Los Angeles, with community clinics throughout Southern California. It is ranked as one of "America's Best Hospitals" in cancer by U.S. News & World Report. Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a pioneer in the fields of bone marrow transplantation, diabetes and numerous breakthrough cancer drugs based on technology developed at the institution. For more information about City of Hope, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006142/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Molina Healthcare Increases Its Medicare Star Quality Ratings

Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) announced today that all of its eligible health plans increased or maintained their scores as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) 2017 Star Ratings, which measures the quality of Medicare plans across the country on a 5-star rating system. Based on the published results, Molina Healthcare of New Mexico was named the highest-rated Medicare plan in the state with a 4-star rating, while Molina Healthcare of Florida increased from 3 to 3.5 stars. Furthermore, Molina Healthcare of Michigan was rated the highest Medicare Dual-eligible Special Needs Plan (D-SNP) in the state with 3.5 stars. Other Molina health plans that retained their 3.5 Medicare star rating include Texas, Utah and Washington. "It's important for seniors across the country to consider the quality of care they will be receiving from the health plan they choose," said J. Mario Molina, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Molina Healthcare. "These star ratings demonstrate our commitment to quality as we continue to grow our Medicare line of business. Having operated Medicare health plans for 10 years, specifically serving the most vulnerable Mdicare patient population with the most complex health care needs, we are confident in our ability to provide high-quality care to our members as they age."



Molina Healthcare currently offers Medicare products in 12 states, providing care to nearly 100,000 members. Nationwide, Molina also has the most Medicare-Medicaid Plan (MMP) members and is the 11th largest Medicare D-SNP health plan as of November 2016. According to CMS, one of its most important strategic goals is to improve the quality of care and general health status of its Medicare beneficiaries. Every year, CMS publishes its Star Ratings, which are based on the following categories: outcomes, intermediate outcomes, patient experience, access and process.

About Molina Healthcare, Inc.

Molina Healthcare, Inc., a FORTUNE 500 company, provides managed health care services under the Medicaid and Medicare programs and through the state insurance marketplaces. Through our locally operated health plans in 12 states across the nation and in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Molina serves approximately 4.3 million members. Dr. C. David Molina founded our company in 1980 as a provider organization serving low-income families in Southern California. Today, we continue his mission of providing high quality and cost-effective health care to those who need it most. Molina Healthcare is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: MOH), a member of the Russell 2000 Index and maintains assigned credit and insurer financial strength ratings by Standard & Poor's and Moody's. For more information about Molina Healthcare, please visit our website at molinahealthcare.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006160/en/

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[December 06, 2016] Sunny Varkey Announces Support for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to Launch New Student Assessment Program

To improve access, drive growth and implement successful measurement in education systems globally, Sunny Varkey, Founder and Group Chairman of GEMS Education, is working with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to support the launch of a new approach to improving education assessment and strategies in low- and middle-income countries. The new assessment program, PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) for Development, or PISA-D, was developed by the OECD and its partners to enable greater PISA participation by low-income and middle-income countries in support of the United Nation's Education 2030 Project. PISA is an international survey occurring every three years, which evaluates education systems worldwide by testing 15-year-old students in science, reading and mathematics. Eight countries are participating in the project, including Cambodia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Senegal and Zambia. Though this work, Mr. Varkey serves as an expert advisor to the OECD and The Education 2030 Project, a multi-year collaboration of the world's leading countries to advance the development of modern education systems. With the support of Mr. Varkey and GEMS Education, PISA-D plays a key role in achieving the project's education goals to instill in students the values and skills necessary to be successful in the world by 2030. Mr. Varkey is also donating Windows 1:1 devices to six of the eight countries to enable researchers to test students' skills at home using a Windows-based application. "Global citizenship is an integral component of the curriculums we develop at GEMS Education, allowing our students develop a better understanding of global development issues and the impact they can have in our world," said Mr. Varkey. "I'm proud to work alongside the OECD, as this work supports our mission to improve access to quality education for all - and that for every child enrolled at a GEMS school, we impact the lives of 100 underprivileged children in our world." Implemented over 48 months, results from PISA-D will contributeto the OECD's support for the achievement of the UN's sustainable development goals (SDG) for education that focus on access, quality and equity in the classroom by engaging more countries globally about adequate learning opportunities. The most recently published results are from the 2012 PISA assessment, and on Dec. 6, 2016, the results from PISA's 2015 round of testing in 72 countries and economies will be released. For the 2018 assessment, the first round of testing will take place from the end of this year through March 2017.



Mr. Varkey is also the founder of the Varkey Foundation, a non-profit organization that builds new classrooms and centers of learning, addresses global teaching capacity and seeds excellence and innovation in the next generation of educators. Along with GEMS Education, Mr. Varkey partners with organizations and international agencies that share a commitment to promoting access to quality education for children across the globe. Other supporting partners for the PISA-D project include the participating countries and international contractors, a number of development agencies, including Positivo BGH, as well as support from the World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF. "We are facing a global challenge to define education indicators at all school levels, and the PISA-D project is addressing this issue head on," said Denise Gallucci, Chief Executive Officer, GEMS Education - Americas. "As Mr. Varkey, along with GEMS, believes in the power of education to reduce poverty, prejudice and conflict around the world, his support for the OECD's work is a key growth component in achieving a collaborative mission to improve the quality of learning communities, especially in developing countries."

With schools across 19 countries including the United States, Dubai, Singapore and Switzerland, GEMS Education is a world leader in cutting-edge education and empowers students through rich learning experiences and the purposeful use of technology to prepare them to be successful life-long learners in an ever-changing global society. About GEMS Education Founded in 1959, GEMS Education is the world's leading education company and through its thought-leadership and network of world-renowned experts, GEMS continues to be at the forefront of PK-12 educational innovation. GEMS has a global network of award-winning international schools spanning four continents, educating more than 250,000 students from 115 countries, and employing 20,000 education professionals. With countless opportunities for interactive studies with their peers around the world, GEMS students expand their knowledge and broaden their experiences with other cultures. This new work with OECD will leverage global interactions at a scale and pace. About The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) The OECD provides a setting where governments compare policy experience, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices and co-ordinate domestic and international policies. It brings together countries committed to democracy and the market economy from around the world to: Support sustainable economic growth

Boost employment

Raise living standards

Maintain financial stability

Assist member and non-member countries' economic development

Contribute to growth in world trade In today's globalised economy education is a major driving force for growth and development. The OECD Directorate for Education and Skills focuses on current key challenges facing education systems including how to improve the quality of teachers, teaching and learning in order to provide the knowledge and skills needed in the 21st century. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006227/en/

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[December 06, 2016] China Smart Meter Industry Report, 2016-2020

NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2015, China's smart meter shipments reached 150 million units, up 6.8% yr-on-yr; expected to grow to 160 million units in 2016. In the future, with the continuous development of IoT (Internet of Things), the smart meter market will grow steadily at an average annual rate of over 8.0% in 2016-2020.



Smart meter consists mainly of smart electric meter, smart water meter, smart gas meter, etc. Among them, smart electric meter boasts the highest market penetration rate, approximately 95%; followed by smart gas meter with over 50%.



Smart Electric Meters are mainly promoted in the form of unified bidding by State Grid and China Southern Power Grid (began smart electric meter tender in 2016). In 2015, 90.99 million smart electric meter tenders were won from State Grid, single-phase smart electric meter and three-phase smart electric meter accounted for 88.9% and 11.1% respectively, of which, single-phase smart electric meter manufacturers had scattered tenders, while three-phase smart electric meter showed relatively high market concentration due to certain technical barriers. In 2015, Yantai Dongfang Wisdom Electric Co., Ltd. and Wasion Group registered the highest bid-winning rate in respectively fields of 0.5S three-phase smart electric meter and 0.2S three-phase smart electric meter, with respective market share of 17.5% and 69.7%.



Smart Gas Meterrecords shipments of 19.4 million units in 2015 and (an expected) 24.3 million units in 2016. As the market penetration grows, the figure may exceed 50 million units by 2020. At present, main suppliers in the market include Goldcard, Shaanxi Aerospace Power Hi-Tech Co., Ltd., HangZhouInnover Technology Co., Ltd., etc. In2015, Goldcard took the first place with a 10.2% market share.







Smart Water Meter records shipments of 11.73 million units in 2015 (up 13.7% yr-on-yr) and (an expected) 13.49 million units in 2016. Currently, the market penetration of smart water meter is far below that of smart electric meter and smart gas meter, indicating a larger growth space. Key manufacturers are Sanchuan Wisdom Technology Co., Ltd., Suntront Tech Co., Ltd, Ningbo Water Meter Co., Ltd., etc. with annual capacity of more than one million units.



Primary driving factors in the future development of smart meter industry in China include IoT popularization, ladder price policies, etc.





IoT requires intelligent analysis of the collected data, thus smart meter is essential. And the application of NB-IoT technology in smart meter can solve the traditional meter wiring, high costs of wireless remote transmission equipment and other problems, but also make data accuracy rate as high as 99%. In 2017, with the release of NB-IoT series industry standards, NB-IoT will see large-scale application in the commercial sector, thus providing technical support for the development of smart meter.



So far, ladder pricing system has seen a wide range of implementation in water, electricity and gas fields, and traditional meters can't copy all data at the crucial point-in-time of calculating ladder price. Therefore, the popularizing rate of smart meter in water, electricity and gas fields will improve further.



The report highlights the following:

Status quo, market size, market structure, and competitive landscape of China smart meter industry;

Overview, policies, market size, market structure, competitive landscape, import & export, and State Grid tender of smart electric meter industry;

Overview, development environment, market size, and competitive landscape of smart water meter industry;

Overview, policies, market size, and competitive landscape of smart gas meter industry;

Development history, development environment, market size, competitive landscape, and prospects of heat meter industry;

Operation, smart meter business, etc. of 6 foreign and 16 domestic smart meter manufactures.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04420306-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





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Intl: +1 339-368-6001 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/china-smart-meter-industry-report-2016-2020-300374022.html SOURCE Reportlinker

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By PTI: Dubai, Dec 6 (PTI) Three Indian men have been accused of stealing 1 million dirhams by hacking into a Dubai businessmans mobile banking application after obtaining a duplicate SIM card using forged papers.

The Indian trio, who have not been named ? a 38-year-old worker, a 27-year-old visitor and a 26-year-old mechanic ? allegedly visited an outlet and claimed that one of them had lost a SIM card in May.

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Upon being asked to fill in the required details on the form to obtain a duplicate SIM, according to records, the trio provided the businessmans details and his phone number, the Gulf News reported.

Then they used the duplicate SIM to hack into the businessmans bank account through the mobile banking application and transferred Dh1 million from his account to another account.

Once the businessman realised that money had been withdrawn from his account, he contacted the bank and was informed that the transfer happened through the smartphone banking application.

Police were informed that the money had been transferred to an Indian mans account. Investigation disclosed that the 38-year-old and the 27-year-old collected the money in the form of cheques that were issued to them.

Prosecutors accused the Indian trio of forging papers to obtain a duplicate SIM card and hacking into the businessmans banking application to steal his money.

The three suspects were not present at the Dubai Court of First Instance where they were scheduled to enter their pleas yesterday.

According to the charge-sheet, prosecutors said the Indian trio conspired with two or more than other suspects, who remain at large.

A banker told prosecutors that the businessman called in to find out why his money went missing from his account.

"After checking out on his account operations, we discovered that the money had been transferred via the mobile banking application to another account. According to the banks findings, the mobile banking application had been activated at a date recent to the incident using the businessmans contact number...then cheques were issued to the 38-year-old and the 27-year-old," he testified to prosecutors.

A police lieutenant told prosecutors that they first arrested the worker, who admitted to obtaining the duplicate SIM.

"He confessed that he handed the duplicate SIM to one of the runaway suspects, who paid him money. The visitor was apprehended while trying to cash one of the cheques. The 27-year-old claimed that he had agreed with a man to cash the cheque for him against a certain commission. He also alleged that one of the runaway suspects gave him a number of bank cards and their pin codes to withdraw cash," he said.

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The court will hand down a ruling in the case on December 29. PTI KJ AKJ KJ

--- ENDS ---
The deputy chief minister said his government has been maligned because of its tough stand on drugs.

By India Today Web Desk: Trying to win Punjab for a third time in a row, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal is confident that this time too the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) will form the government in the state.

Speaking at the 'Satta Milegi Dobara' session of the Agenda Aaj Tak 2016, Badal shrugged off any threat from Aam Aadmi Party or its leader Arvind Kejriwal in the assembly elections in the state next year.

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"Delhiites did not know Kejriwal beforehand, they have started knowing him. A lot of people from Punjab stay in Delhi. What Kejriwal says, he does just the opposite of it. His popularity has dipped and he is not discussed much in Punjab," said the deputy chief minister.

On SAD government's falling graph in the opinion polls, Badal said, "Similar things were being said last time too". "Opinion polls are forged. The work we have done cannot be matched," a confident Badal said.

ALSO READ: Black money won't turn white just by depositing in banks: Amit Shah

Counting his government's achievement, Badal said two international and five domestic airports were built during the tenure. "All government offices have gone online," he said.

On the anti-incumbency wave in Punjab, Badal said, "Earlier, people would not judge you on performance, but now that has changed. You can take the example of Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP formed the government for the third time."

AAP will get 8-9 seats

Looking at the current situation, Badal said the AAP can win eight-nine seats. "People in Punjab can immediately take a liking to a new object, but they also don't think twice before throwing it if they find it useless," Badal said taking a dig at the Aam Aadmi Party.

Badal also countered allegations by the Opposition on his family amassing wealth during their rule, and said that Captain Amarinder Singh's government had scrutinised their business but did not find anything. "My hotel business is based in Haryana and our transport business goes back to 1947," Badal said.

ALSO READ: Demonetisation has affected everyone: Uttarkhand CM Harish Rawat

Badal and his opponent in Punjab Amarinder Singh briefly met backstage at the Aaj Tak summit. Refusing to read much into it, Badal said the SAD can never join hands with the Congress. "We can leave the chair, but we cannot join the Congress," the deputy chief minister said.

Tough stand on drugs

On the drug menace in the state, Badal said, "Because we seize drug consignments, we have been maligned". "We conducted drug tests during police and army induction programmes. Only one per cent candidates failed the test," he said .

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On drug problem being a major poll issue, Badal said drug menace is universal. "Whatever is given to Rahul Gandhi on a piece of paper, he will repeat the same. He once said 70 per cent youths in Punjab are drug addicts," Badal said.

ALSO READ: Above caste and religion, people believe in agenda of development: Vasundhara Raje

No enmity with Sidhu

Badal said he has no enmity with Navjot Singh Sidhu, former BJP leader who is now 'inclined' to support the Congress. "He was part of the BJP and not our party. Sidhu is not going to impact Punjab elections," he said. "A person who asks the market to decide his value cannot influence election result," Badal said referring to Sidhu.

Parkash Singh Badal will be CM

Asked if he would be the chief minister if his party is voted to power, Badal said no. "Parkash Singh Badal will be the chief minister. We have learnt a lot from him--patience being the biggest lesson," the Punjab deputy chief minister said.

Badal shared his own prediction for the elections next year, giving the Congress 30-35 seats and the SAD-BJP alliance 72-75 seats.

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By Anjana Kashyap: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said that if states develop, development of the country will follow.

Speaking at the Agenda Aaj Tak 2016, the chief minister said that today money from all government schemes is reaching the beneficiary directly in his or her account. She said her government has started a 'Gram Naam' programme under which at least 70,000 farmers have participated so far.

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The Rajasthan chief minister said that her state has attracted investments because law of the land is respected by one and all. She said above the agenda of caste and religion, it is the agenda of development that people care about the most.

Raje rubbished allegations that she stays away from poor, and instead said that she learnt from her family how to serve the people.

On asked why other chief ministers have a problem with her, Raje said she can't speak for others. "Earlier, thefts were common at ration shops. But, now such incidents don't take place. Of the 25,000 ration shops in the state, 5,000 have been converted into rural malls. Our aim is to turn all ration shops into rural malls," the chief minister said.

On her relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Raje said that media has created a perception that they don't get along well with each other. "When it is required, we speak to each other," she said.

Raje said that those who accuse her of staying abroad should tell people who many times they travel abroad.

On books and music: I don't understand the songs of the current generation. I prefer listening to the songs from my school and college days.

A queen or a chief minister? I come from a family where we were taught to serve people. Rajmata had said there are no shortcuts in politics. If you take everyone along with you, there will no fights. And even if they happen, you will be able to manage them well.

Low-point in life: Life continues to teach us valuable lessons all the time. Sometimes, you can suffer a setback because of your children or family.

On 2018 assembly elections: Rahul Gandhi says that if elections were to happen today, he will come to power, but such talks are baseless. Due to negative politics, the Congress lost the elections last time. The 2018 elections will tell how many lessons I have learnt. Rajasthan has made significant progress in the ease-of-doing-business index.

Refusing to comment on Congress leader Sachin Pilot, Raje said she would like to focus on her work.

On her positive attitude: I have always looked at the positive side of every situation. "When we came to power, the state was witnessing a shortage of 10,000 doctors. We have been successful in addressing the shortage of teachers; we are positive we will address the shortage of doctors too," she said.

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Demonetisation's effect on Rajasthan: Our state is digitally-driven.

On fearless women leaders: Never compromise on your ideals.

ALSO READ: Black money won't turn white just by depositing in banks: Amit Shah

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Melbourne indie-poppers Kill The Darling have just dropped the video for their latest single, The Tower, Our World And Its Lovers. Filmed in the beautiful Strathbogie Ranges, the video perfectly captures the eerie feeling and mysticism evoked in the track.

Opening with several beautiful shots of Strathbogies vast, breathtaking landscape, it follows a young man exploring the forest interspersed with shots of what can only be described as ghoulish, supernatural women. Soon enough, the two worlds collide at the videos climax.

The creepy clip was conceptualised by the bands own Tasha Lloyd before being brought to life by Caitlyn OGrady and Sammie Jackson and, just to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, it was also funded by a band-run Pozible campaign.

Check out the video below, and help Kill The Darling celebrate the release of The Tower, Our World and its Lovers Friday February 3 in the Scrap Museum, Bakehouse Studios.
Ahoy! This February, fiery Melbourne trio Camp Cope will be headlining a killer mini-festival set to take place on The Victoria Star. Yes, you and your mates maties will be moshing and pogo-ing to the sounds of Lost: Season One as you cruise down our beloved Yarra River.

The whole shebang is being organised by the legends at Poison City Records, Melbournes foremost house of punk rock, which boasts a roster of acts as awesome as The Smith Street Band, Camp Cope (of course), Clowns, Grim Fandango, Horror My Friend, Luca Brasi, The Bennies, The Meanies, The Nation Blue, and many more.

Tickets for Lost At Sea are set to hit sale this Wednesday, 10th December and will get you access to a spot on the beautiful Victoria Star, which docks at Melbournes Docklands. The Victoria Star will be departing at 1.30pm from Docklands and if you want to be on it when it leaves, ticket-holders must arrive at 1pm ready to board.

Oh, and yeah, the lineup also features The Nation Blue, Loose Tooth, Ouch My Face, The Dacios, and TV Haze. As if we hadnt sold it to you enough already, the lineup actually happens to be absolutely sick. So get your best Aussie punk T-shirt on, bring your sea sickness tablets, and get ready to party on the Yarra.

LOST AT SEA 2017

Camp Cope

The Nation Blue

Loose Tooth

Ouch My Face

The Dacios

TV Haze

Tickets on sale Wednesday, 10th December

Thursday, 12th February 2017

The Victoria Star, Melbourne

Tickets: Poison City Records
A sunny tale told in a local Fitzroy ice cream shop, the debut clip from Melbourne garage rockers The Slugg is a sweet treat that very rapidly takes a stomach-churning turn.

Got What I Deserved all starts innocently enough but, as the title would imply, things quickly turn nasty and debaucherous as the band tear into their ear-shredding blues riffs. Thought up by the duo of Tom Hulse and Jeremy Willcox shot We Are Moon House, the clip also features a few cameos from various members of the Melbourne music scene, so keep an eye out among the mayhem for some familiar faces.

The single is the just the first taste of what we can expect from the band in 2017, and we like what we hear so far. To see more from The Slugg, head down to Ninch Fest on January 14, which kicks off at St Andrews Beach on the Mornington Peninsula with Sheriff, Child, Stiff Richards, Zombitches Moonah Ripp and more along for the ride.
Loving live music isnt just about attending music festivals and seeing an international artists massive arena show.

Even the biggest of big-name headliners started in the trenches, on the sticky carpets and bandrooms of your local bars and pubs  which is exactly where you should be if you want to discover your new favourite band or venue.

Here are our picks for this weeks best local gigs from Aussie talent  from Perth to the East Coast  and all for the price of a good meal.

Beyond The Record

Where: Hugs & Kisses, Melbourne Vic

When: 20pm-5am, Friday Dec 9

Why: PBS is rallying its finest electronic announcers and throwing an all star party at Hugs&Kisses this Friday. With Dance floor connoisseurs, Edd Fisher, CC:Disco! and DJ JNETT bringing the tunes you can also party knowing that the money raised on the night will go towards essential studio upgrades for PBS.

Tickets & Info: $11.44-$16.67 more info here.

Visions Circuit #4

Where: Yah Yahs, Melbourne VIC

When: 8pm-12am, Friday Dec 9

Why: After throwing three admittedly pretty rad parties, the folks at Visions are back for party number 4 at Melbournes Yah Yahs. This time around helping getting the party going are Mesa Cosa, Lossless, Twin Haus, Jody and Plotz with of course Pretty City DJs and Visions Djs. If the last few parties are anything to go by this Friday night is going to get pretty loose. Something you wont want to miss.

Tickets & Info: $11.44, Yah Yahs, Melbourne VIC8pm-12am, Friday Dec 9After throwing three admittedly pretty rad parties, the folks at Visions are back for party number 4 at Melbournes Yah Yahs. This time around helping getting the party going are Mesa Cosa, Lossless, Twin Haus, Jody and Plotz with of course Pretty City DJs and Visions Djs. If the last few parties are anything to go by this Friday night is going to get pretty loose. Something you wont want to miss.$11.44, more info here

Thin Lizzy, 40th Anniversary Celebration

Where: Cherry Bar, Melbourne VIC

When: 8pm-5am Friday Dec 9

Why: After helping us celebrate Pearl Jams Ten last week, this week Cherry Bar are paying tribute to Thin Lizzy. With Melbournes own Thin Lizzy tribute band Live and Dangerous playing the classic album Johnny the Fox in full, with a few extra Lizzy tracks thrown in for good measure.

Tickets & Info: $13 on the door, more info here.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets

Where: The Jack Rabbit Slims, Perth WA

When: 8pm-12am, Friday Dec 9

Why: After having supported the likes of the might King Gizzard, Dune Rats, Skegss and Goons of Doom to name a few, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are celebrating the release of the first single off their upcoming debut album, with support from The Crystal Moth and Moonlighter.

Tickets & Info: $10+ bf, more info here.

Polographia

Where: Rocket Bar, Adelaide SA

When: 9pm-5am, Friday Dec 9

Why: Sydney Duo Polographia are hitting the road in support of their new EP Friends. With their lastest single earning a solid thumbs up by the folks over at Triple J the duo are bringing their feel good vibes to Adelaides Rocket Bar alongside the likes of Take Your Time, Okami and Cats DJs all night. Featuring a bunch of different drink specials all night, definitely not one to miss.

Tickets & Info: $10 before midnight, more info here.

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Nina Las Vegas

Where: The TBC Club, Brisbane QLD

When: 10pm-5am, Saturday Dec 10

Why: One of Australias most beloved DJs and producers, Nina Las Vegas, has had a huge year and she is capping it off with 3 huge parties. This week the party hits Brisbanes TBC Club. Along for the ride are Swick, Air Max 97, Lewis Cancut and Strict Face. For a good insight into what 2017 will look like for Nina Las Vegas head on down this Saturday and prepare for a wild night.

Tickets & Info: $15-25, more info here.

Confidence Man

Where: The Brightside, Brisbane QLD

When: 12am-3am, Saturday Dec 10

Why: The Holiday season is upon us, to help relieve the stress of figuring which socks, jox and tie combination to get dad this year, Confidence Man are throwing the mother of all dance parties at Brisbanes The Brightside. Teaming up with ravelord Finchley the night is guaranteed to be a huge one.

Tickets & Info: $7.50 or $10 on the door, more info here.

Rolling Blackouts C.F.

Where: Hotel Styene, Manly, NSW

When: 8pm-12am, Thursday Dec 8

Why: Rolling Blackouts C.F. Have just returned from a three-month long hiatus, but the group have not come back empty-handed. Having signed to the legendary Sub Pop Records (yes, the same Sub Pop that Nirvana called home for a while there), the band are launching their new single Julies Place in their hometown. Rolling Blackouts soft punk/tough pop choons will no doubt get you having a boogie, supports are yet to be announced.

Tickets & Info: more info here.

Zeahorse

Where: The Factory Floor, Sydney NSW

When: 8pm-11.55pm, Friday Dec 9

Why: Zeahorse are set to release their second album Torana Dreaming. The self-proclaimed noisy guitar music band are gearing up for one hell of a night. With locals Miners and Den taking care of the support roles the night promises t0 be one you wont soon remember if you catch our drift.

Tickets & Info: $10+bf, more info here.
Today we have a new track from Canadian folk three-piece The East Pointers, a cover of David Bowies classic Heroes.

The video sees the folk trio in an incredibly intimate setting, sat around a coffee table doing their thing, trading little glances and huge sounding three-part harmonies  all the while giving Bowies huge hit Heroes a little bit of a make over. Using, nothing more than a guitar, a fiddle and a banjo, the cover hits all the right notes and is sure to please even the most die-hard Bowie fans.

With a huge year behind them, having toured Europe, Australia, USA and of course their native Canada the group are poised for an even bigger 2017, including a trip to our shores for WOMADelaide and WOMAD NZ and a slew of headline shows for Australia not far behind  dates below.

East Pointers Australian Tour

01-Mar | Franklin Palais (TAS)

02-Mar | Founders Room, Salamanca Arts Centre (TAS)

03-Mar | Chudleigh Hall (TAS)

04-Mar | Mountain Mumma (TAS)

05-Mar | Dunalley Hall & Reserves (TAS)

08-Mar | The Toff in Town (VIC)

09-Mar | Geelong Workers Club (VIC)

10-13 Mar | WOMADelaide (SA)

15-19 Mar | WOMAD NZ

22-Mar | Thirroul Railway Heritage Centre (NSW)

23-Mar | Camelot Lounge (NSW)

24-Mar | Unorthodox Church of Groove (NSW)

25-Mar | Wauchope Community Arts Hall (NSW)

26-Mar | Cedar Bar Bellingen (NSW)

30-Mar | Bellevue Hotel: Townsville Folk and Acoustic Music Club (QLD)

31-Mar | Tanks Arts Centre (QLD)

1-Apr | Sol Bar (QLD)

06-Apr | Club Mullum (Mullumbimby Ex-Services Club) (NSW)

07-Apr | Eatonsville Hall (NSW)

08-Apr | Old Museum (QLD)

09-Apr | BLEACH* Festival Mudgeeraba Hall (QLD)

27-Apr | Armitage Centre Toowoomba (QLD)

28 Apr  1 May | The Planting Festival (QLD)
Craig Glazer: Trump Is Your President

"Donald Trump is not my president," the battle cry of thousands of anti-Trump folks nationwide. Got some news for you guys, he is your president. You may not like it, you may never like him no matter what he does, but the man will step into the white house next month. Yes they are doing recounts and asking electoral college voters to dump the Trump, won't happen. Yes Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote huge by over 2.5 million, still Trump easily won the states votes and electoral college numbers. That's the system. Clearly her numbers came from California and New York, two states with large populations that almost always go democrat.The media is in love with Trump on both ends, we hate him, we like him. CNN will always attack him, Fox will always back him. Way it is and then some. They want eyeballs on their stations. The numbers were huge for both during the campaign and election so they can only keep interest with 'bad news' or 'look at the great job he's doing' stories. Its the modern age of both television negative reporting and of course social media.We were told the stock market would 'crash' if Trump won It's now at an all-time high 19,201, wow. No sign of a drop, however a drop will come, it always does and the 'boo-birds' will blame Trump and declare doom and gloom.What's amazing is Donald Trump's work ethic, non stop. The man worked over the Thanksgiving weekend, every day. He is putting in 18-20 hour days, that's just unheard of this early. Would Hillary have done that? Uh, no. More important he has backed off his tough talk on going after ANYBODY. "I like the Clintons, I have no desire to prosecute them." He said he enjoyed his meeting with Barak Obama and wants to meet with him again soon. He has calmed down the 'kick out all illegals" to only the criminals. He is building a wall at some point but some will be fenced and other lesser enforcement. Trump was attacked for not being well informed on military issues over seas, especially the middle east, so he is hiring former generals to head up defense positions on his staff.What we see is a man trying to do the right thing. He wants to be a great president. The man putting his vast empire of business into his children's hands so he can be 100% involved in running the nation. This guy has done a ton of work in only 30 days since he was elected.Like I've said from day one..'give him a chance, he is our leader now, lets hope he can make things better.' I believe he will come up with a more fair and less expensive health care plan. My God Obama care did nearly double for most Americans.Yes he still tweets and some comments are a bit odd, but his real life moves have been solid so far. His bark was louder than his bite. I think off stage he might really be a pretty decent guy who does care. Remember he is already wealthy, famous and has quite a wife and family, at 70 this is his final battle for greatness and lord knows he wants to be great. In so doing he just might make 'AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.' That would be nice.#############
Greek Economy and Development Alternate Minister Alexis Charitsis on Tuesday approved the inclusion of two new funding tools to a Public Investment Program, worth 1.5 billion euros

Greek Economy and Development Alternate Minister Alexis Charitsis on Tuesday approved the inclusion of two new funding tools to a Public Investment Program, worth 1.5 billion euros to be covered by public and private funds.

The new funding tools are Saving II Fund and Entrepreneurship II Fund. Funding will begin this month with the disbursement of an approved advance payment covering 25 pct of total funds.

In a statement, Charitsis said: "We implement our commitment to activate by the end of 2016 very important funding tools to support real economy and employment. The new "Saving at home" program will revitalise the construction sector, while the the Entrepreneurship Fund will offer very significant liquidity to small- and medium-sized enterprises. Combined with a new, innovative Holding Fund -the first ever in Greece- in December, real economy will be supported with a total of 2.0 billion euros in the last month of 2016. With the activation of these tools we support the dynamic and innovative small- and medium-sized entrepreneurship".

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 India Today Web Desk: Anushka Sharma is a name to reckon with in the current day Bollywood. This year, she has tasted immense success with Sultan, in which she held her own despite Salman Khan being in it; and in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, she was loved by all for her role of Alizeh opposite Ranbir Kapoor.

As far as her on and off-screen equation with actors Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh is concerned, Anushka is known to bully both these actors. Speaking at the Agenda Aaj Tak 2016, Anushka cleared the air. When session moderator Sushant Mehta asked her to throw light on her pulling-each-other's-legs relation with Ranbir and Ranveer, Anushka said, "I friendzone men very quickly. This is a speciality of mine. I quickly draw a line, when it comes to men, and tell that that 'you're my friend'."

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ALSO READ: Tweet that brought Virat and Anushka back together declared golden tweet

PHOTOS: Virat and Anushka looked like a God-made jodi at Manish Malhotra's 50th birthday bash

"I think my friendship with them is really good... more so with Ranbir Kapoor, because we have recently worked together (for Ae Dil Hai Mushkil) and we have a great understanding. Also, when you spend your sad times together, you come closer. We have done Bombay Velvet together, which was a colossal flop. That drew us closer," said Anushka.

"There is this mutual respect we have for each other. I guess the new-age actors these days... we are trying to do something different. I don't want to sound pompous by saying that we are revolutionising everything, but we are just trying our bit. When you see that actors of your age too are doing something like that, there's a sense of respect that comes automatically. If I didn't respect them, I wouldn't have been able to share such a casual, playful relation with them," the Sultan star added.

On the work front, Anushka will soon be seen on the silver screen alongside Shah Rukh Khan in Imtiaz Ali's next film and her home production Phillauri.

ALSO WATCH | Ae Dil Hai Mushkil trailer review: Drop-dead gorgeous is the phrase for this

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The assets of Islamic banking reached $924 billion in 2015, with growth rates declining across all regions compared to previous years, says a new report from professional services firm EY.



The GCC regions share of participation banking increased to 72 per cent, as the size of assets in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries declined during 2015.



Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia are the three largest participation banking markets, in terms of assets, representing 34.2 per cent, 17.2 per cent, 13.3 per cent of the global market share respectively.



Gordon Bennie, Mena Financial Services Leader, EY, said: Today more than two billion adults still do not have a bank account. There are also more than 200 million micro, small and medium size businesses with unmet financing needs. The demand for a responsible, Sharia-compliant financial system is huge. There is also a wealth of business opportunities offered by FinTech innovations for participation banks, particularly in emerging markets.



FinTech opportunities for participation banks



In the GCC region, FinTech innovations have the ability to enhance market access and profitability of banks, dramatically. A starting point for participation banks is to activate a bold strategy for the finance function  inclusive of advanced data analytics, robotic process automation, the cloud, artificial intelligence and block-chain.



Ashar Nazim, partner, Global Islamic Banking Center, EY, said: The fact that almost one-third of the $3 trillion global Sharia-compliant assets are either reported as informal or best estimates demonstrates the limitation of participation banks in making sound strategic decisions. CFOs need reliable information and we are seeing a strong desire to improve data management and analytics at participation banks through FinTech innovations.



Some of the key areas of FinTech innovations that are relevant for participation banks include: SME and peer-to-peer lending platforms, payment related innovations such as person-to-person payments, digital authentication and digital wealth management.



There has been a clear evolution for CFOs from having the primary role of analyzing historical data to one whose focus will be providing forward-looking insights. In-memory computing and big data are the clear direction forward, with predictive analytics being a key driver of these changes. Given that there is more FinTech innovation going on outside of the banks than inside, the opportunity is for participation banks to win through collaboration. The bank of the future could be a consolidation of FinTech boutiques under a single brand, said Nazim.



If banks were to consolidate with Fintech companies, it could propel participation banks to become mainstream across 20 promising markets by 2021, up from five markets today, representing a jump from 100 million customers to 250 million customers over the same period.



Digital-only bank for millennials



The millennial generation has a clear preference for conducting their financial services on an end-to-end digital platform. Using FinTech innovations, banks worldwide are stepping forward to offer digital-only banking services to meet the differentiated needs of this customer segment.



Digital-only banking could become a significant client segment for participation banks. There is a case for participation banks to evaluate collaborative ventures with FinTech firms to launch digital-only banks in their respective countries.



The adoption of FinTech innovations is not an option, but an absolute imperative for participation banks to continue to gain market share. Consumer technology penetration (mobile phone, tablet, laptop) in the GCC region is now comparable with that of consumers in most developed countries. Based on their familiarity and use of consumer technology, their behaviour patterns are modifying, with increased expectation to interact with banks using digital channels. Participation banks cannot realistically expect to gain sustainable future growth in their market share if they lag behind their conventional counterparts in digital transformation through the use of FinTech innovations, concluded Nazim.  TradeArabia News Service
Global Islamic finance assets grew 7 per cent hitting $2 trillion at the end of 2015, according to the Islamic Finance Development Report released at the World Islamic Banking conference (WIBC) 2016 in Bahrain.



The fourth edition of the report from Thomson Reuters, the world's leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the private sector development arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) continues to examine key statistics, top performers and the trends across five indicators that are significant for the development of the Islamic finance industry across 124 countries.



Global Islamic finance development, as measured by the IFDI global average value, declined to 8.8 in 2016 from 9.9 in 2015, reflecting the poor performance of many nations due to aspects that are based on actual market practice, such as financial performance and corporate social responsibility.



Malaysia, Bahrain and the UAE continue to dominate the IFDI report for the 4th consecutive year. However, Malaysia posted a slight decline in its overall IFDI performance in 2016, as a result of weaker financial performance. Outside of the top 15, noteworthy emerging countries that have moved up the IFDI rankings are South Africa, Morocco, Tanzania, Japan and Russia, with each nation taking serious steps towards developing their Islamic finance industries.



Among the regions with high potential in Islamic finance is West Africa. Khaled Al Aboodi, CEO of ICD said: Currently, West Africa, and Africa in general, is at a stage where there is a need to broaden the source of funds required to support its large infrastructure deficit and plug its revenue shortfall caused by the global commodity slump, and Islamic finance can be the solution. The recent sovereign issues in Africa will not only serve as an impetus for other African governments to follow suit and diversify their financing instruments via sukuk, but they will help the Islamic finance industry to mature and pave the way for private sector growth and the development of capital markets in countries where they are still nascent.



Unprecedented oil price storm hindered Islamic finance performance, but not asset growth



The impact of global events like the sharp drop in oil prices lowered the financial performance of countries that have an Islamic finance presence, like the GCC. Although the drop in oil prices did not impede the growth of global or GCC Islamic finance assets (except for Kuwait which reported a 3 per cent decline in assets), it did lead to a decline in profitability measures such as ROA.



It also resulted in negative equity performances for a variety of listed Islamic financial institutions, particularly in takaful and Shariah-compliant equities that also make up part of Islamic fund portfolios. Sukuk was the least vulnerable of the asset classes, however the sector witnessed lower issuance volumes in 2015.



In 2015, Saudi Arabia held the largest amount of Islamic finance assets worldwide ($ 447 billion), while Malaysia dropped in ranking to hold the 3rd largest asset base($ 434 billion.) This was down to slow asset growth that was not sufficient to offset the devaluation of the ringgit in 2015. Iran remains the worlds 2nd largest Islamic finance jurisdiction ($414 billion).



Nadim Najjar, managing director at Thomson Reuters, Mena said: Despite lower financial performance by some in 2015, we maintain a positive outlook for the industry projecting those Islamic finance assets to reach $3.5 trillion by 2021. We have seen South Asian countries post the greatest amount of growth in Islamic finance assets after the introduction of Islamic windows for different financial institutions, which shows the increased acceptance of Islamic finance products in the region. Islamic banking remains strong in many countries and its growth is also supported by the continued development and introduction of it and other Islamic finance sectors in new countries.



East and West gear up for a renewed Islamic finance presence through research and education



There were 622 Islamic finance education providers in 2015, while 2,224 research papers were produced worldwide between 2013 and 2015. Among the key enablers for the development of Islamic finance education are Islamic education institutions, which can be found in abundance in Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. Turning to the West, countries with developed higher education systems, such as European nations Luxembourg and Belgium are joining the ranks of Islamic finance education. Meanwhile, the UKhas also benefited from the demand for Islamic finance education from Islamic markets.



A need for better corporate governance through the regulation of Islamic financial institutions



Governance saw steady growth, as measured by the Regulation, Shariah and Corporate Governance sub-indicators. There are 35 countries with at least one type of Islamic finance regulation in practice. Meanwhile, several countries with low corporate governance values need to strengthen their financial reporting framework for Islamic financial institutions.



This is evidenced by the low number of disclosed items that need to be reported in annual or financial reports. However, Malaysia and Pakistan made great strides in upholding Shariah governance framework during 2015, while African nations Nigeria and Morocco are moving towards a centralized Shariah board approach. There were 1,068 Shariah scholars representing different Islamic financial institutions in 2015.

Lack of CSR transparency in Islamic financial institutions remains the key issue



Corporate Social Responsibility is another indicator that was weaker in terms of development. There are two measures when it comes to a CSR mandate: one is the disclosure of CSR activities by Islamic financial institutions which was low as measured in different Islamic financial institutions annual or financial reports. The other is the total amount of CSR funds disbursed by these institutions, which reached $ 672 million in 2015. There is still a need for better transparency of Qard al-Hasan - one of the components of CSR funds disbursed- as few institutions disclosed their amounts.



Buzz for Islamic finance diminishes slightly compared to previous years



The popularity of Islamic finance declined due to a slight fall in the number of conferences held and exclusive news items, sliding to 112 and 17,795 respectively in 2015. The most extensive Islamic finance news was generated from the GCC which soared on the back of numerous stories on how the drop in oil prices impacted the Gulf and Middle Easts different Islamic finance sectors.



In addition, 2015 has witnessed notable efforts to spread awareness of Islamic finance through seminars across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Europe. In total there were 213 seminars held globally in 2015.  TradeArabia News Service
Increasing religious tourism in line with Saudi Vision 2030 will create huge opportunities in the retail, hotel and broader accommodation sectors in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, said an industry expert.



The long-term prospects for the hotel sector are extremely positive, given the reliance on accommodation providers to support the global unlimited demand of religious pilgrims to Makkah, added Jamil Ghaznawi, national director and country head of JLL Saudi Arabia, a leading real estate investment and advisory firm.



More than ever, the key to capitalising on growth of the real estate market is the strong cooperation between public and private sectors to invest in new and existing accommodation. An added benefit is the maxim of build it and they will come which applies more aptly to the Makkah market than any other city in the region.



In addition to increasing accommodation, the success of the Saudi governments plans to expand the number of religious visitors also relies heavily on the ability to address transportation capacity. While there have been significant investments to improve the networks serving Makkah, many of the projects have been affected by the stringent 2016 budget, Ghaznawi noted.



He was commenting on JLLs report titled Makkah, A City within a City which assesses the real estate market in Saudi Arabias most globally notable city given its status as Islams most holy city.



With the worlds 1.8 billion Muslims required to perform the Hajj pilgrimage in Makkah at least once in their lifetime the report addresses the trends and opportunities this presents across the citys hotel, office, residential and retail sectors.



Earlier this year, JLL signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry to help improve transparency in the Saudi real estate market. As part of the collaboration, JLL worked with key players and stakeholders in Makkah to release this first comprehensive report on the citys real estate market.



The report addresses an almost unlimited global demand for hotel and other tourist facilities in Makkah due to the continued growth of religious tourism, creating huge opportunities for both developers and investors to upgrade existing properties and create new ones. The pace at which the potential growth can be tapped into will rely on overcoming constraints including pilgrim quotas and investment in supporting transport infrastructure.



The Saudi 2030 Vision recognises the crucial role religious tourism can play in diversifying the economy away from dependence upon the oil and gas sector with religious pilgrims currently contributing two to three per cent of Saudis GDP. There are plans to roughly double the capacity to accommodate both Umrah and Hajj visitors to around 15 million and five million respectively by 2020.



The entry of international hotel brands into Makkah continues to reflect market confidence with brands such as Conrad selecting Makkah for entry into the Saudi market, Marriott and Best Western announcing expansion in the city and Carlson Rezidor entering with a pipeline which includes the Park Inn by Radisson Al Naseem Makkah (2016) and Park Inn by Radisson Aziziyah Makkah (2017).



Although there is a great opportunity for Makkahs real estate sector to flourish from increasing the number of pilgrims, there is currently a restraint on the number of pilgrims due to a cap on the number of quotas for each country. This has had a negative impact on the performance of Makkahs hotels and pilgrim accommodation but the quotas are expected to be relaxed upon completion of major infrastructure improvements in 2017 and 2018.



Beyond the buoyant hotel and accommodation sector, Makkahs retail sector is also heavily dependent upon trade from religious pilgrims particularly during a period of weakening spending power amongst residents. Despite this, retail lease rates in the Markazia remain substantially higher than in other parts of the city.



The traditional residential sector continues to suffer from a shortage of affordable homes and poor quality infrastructure projects. Compared to other major cities in Saudi, the office sector remains a relatively minor market which is reflected in lease rates which are considerably lower when compared to Jeddah and Riyadh.



Sector summary highlights



Hotel: Makkah is by far the largest hospitality market in Saudi, with around 27,000 quality rooms (compared to 11,000 in Riyadh and 9,400 in Jeddah). It is estimated that around 75 per cent of the demand from pilgrims is accommodated in hotels (with the remaining 25 per cent in other forms of accommodation). Around 60 per cent of the current stock of hotel rooms are classified as budget accommodation a much higher proportion than in other cities in Saudi.



The extreme seasonality of the market has meant that many hotels in Makkah have traditionally only operated during peak months. With the entry of more international operators, this pattern is now changing, with more hotels operating throughout the year.



Hotels in Makkah typically achieve 100 per cent occupancy during the Hajj period and the Umrah high season. The highly seasonal nature of demand results in occupancies falling to just 30 per cent - 40 per cent during off peak seasons immediately after Ramadan and Hajj.



Pilgrim Accommodation: Although Makkah has a substantial number of hotel rooms, this supply is insufficient to accommodate all the demand from religious pilgrims. This has resulted in the creation of a unique sector of the market not seen in other major cities in the region. Pilgrim accommodation comprises rooms in hostels, and apartment buildings that are rented to pilgrims seeking lower cost accommodation than recognised hotels.



Residential: As with other major cities in Saudi, Makkah is facing an acute shortage of affordable housing. Particularly as the expansion of the Holy Mosque, the growing need for seasonal accommodation, and extreme land values, the Markazia has transitioned into an area almost exclusively servicing religious pilgrims with permanent residents being largely priced out of the central city. This trend is expected to continue with further redevelopment of the areas around the Holy Mosque, increasing land values still higher.



The expansion of the Makkah metro network and the construction of a number of mega projects in the outskirts of the City (especially along the Fourth Ring Road), will further enhance this trend for the Markazia area to become something of a city within a city JLL estimates the number of residential units in Makkah is currently around 338,000.



Retail: Much of the quality retail space in Makkah is centred in the Markazia area and is targeted at pilgrims rather than permanent residents of the city. Spending is therefore extremely seasonal. Despite the current climate of weaker spending power in Saudi and the restrictions on pilgrim quotas, Hajj sales have resulted in some retailers in Makkah enjoying positive growth in sales ranging between 12 per cent - 20 per cent according to Euromonitor International.



Jabal Omar, Hilton Commercial Center and Abraj Al Beit achieve some of the highest lease rates in the region, if not the world, due to their proximity to the Holy Mosque. All of these malls benefit from high occupancy rates of between 90 per cent and 100 per cent.



Office: Unlike neighbouring Jeddah, which has a thriving port and a cosmopolitan business community, Makkahs office sector is relatively limited and largely focussed on businesses servicing Hajj and Umrah visitors.



Once the expansion of the Holy Mosque is complete and the capacity for pilgrims increases, demand for office space from travel advisories and licensed Umrah and Hajj service providers should increase, but this is not likely to support a large amount of additional office space.



Rentals in Makkah are relatively low compared to Riyadh and Jeddah, with only modest rental growth recorded in recent years. The injection of future supply is likely to ensure that any future increase is restricted to the better quality projects.  TradeArabia News Service
Mobilia Uno, a leading bespoke interior design company in the region, will be showcasing its latest collection of residential and commercial designs at the gulfInteriors 2017 expo in Bahrain.



The gulfInteriors is the Northern Gulf's annual showcase for luxury interiors, design and furniture.



The event, being organised by Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE), will be held from April 25 to 27 under the patronage of Bahrain's Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre.



"We will be showcasing our latest collection of designs of luxury furniture and accessories for the living area, bedroom, dining area and accessories such as chandeliers, carpets and mirrors," said Zahraa Haji, the managing director of Mobilia Uno.



Mobilia Unos furniture and accessories are manufactured in Turkey, Italy, Portugal, China, Greece, and India to the highest of specifications, designs and standards laid down by the company in Bahrain.



Prior to the show, the company is all set to launch its new multi-storey showroom in the Tubli area of Bahrain. The grand opening is set for December 8 under the patronage of Zayed Alzayani, Minister of Industry and Commerce.



"The full collection will be on display at gulfInteriors. Visitors at our stand will be given special offers on specific designs for orders placed either at the exhibition hall or in our showroom in Tubli during gulf Interiors week," stated Haji.



Jubran Abdulrahman, the managing director of HCE, said: "The Mobilia Uno brand is a major highlight to the Gulfs interior design sector; their designs reflect their growing creativity.



"As organisers of Bahrains high-profile event for luxury and designer interior products, it is our mission to promote Bahrain as a cradle for interior designers, luxury brands and creativity," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Qatar Foundation International (QFI) has joined hands with Northwesterns Middle East and North African Studies Programme to expand the Chicago Arabic Teachers Council, with the aim of supporting Arabic teachers in the Midwest.



The Chicago Arabic Teachers Council is organised to serve the needs of K-16 Arabic language teachers and administrators throughout Chicago, including public, private, and religious school teachers.



Since 2012, QFI has supported the councils in major US metropolitan areas of Washington DC, Michigan, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.



The councils aim to strengthen local Arabic programmes by providing a forum for Arabic teachers to network, collaborate, and share innovative approaches to teaching, as well as providing outreach and support to educators and their communities, said a statement from QFI.



Arabic has been taught at Northwestern since 1970, when it was offered on a regular but limited basis. In 2012, the teaching of Arabic moved to the then newly created Mena programme, where it has since grown dramatically, it said.



Northwesterns Mena programme now offers Modern Standard Arabic to the fifth year level, as well as dedicated courses in three regional dialects and media Arabic, it stated.



Maggie Mitchell Salem, executive director, QFI, said: We are delighted to continue supporting the Chicago-area Arabic Teachers Council with a new partner, Northwestern Universitys Mena Programme.



The council has been active since 2013, and our nationwide network has reached over 1100 members, she said.



We're proud of the existing ties to Northwestern Universitys Doha, Qatar campus in Education City and look forward to extending our partnership to include Northwesterns Mena programme in Chicago, she added.-TradeArabia News Service
The world is facing a humanitarian crisis that will require a record $22.2 billion in funding for 2017 to support nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people, a UN office said as it launched a relief aid appeal.



The world is facing a humanitarian crisis that will require a record $22.2 billion in funding for 2017 to support nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today as it launched a relief aid appeal.



The scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded, said UN Emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien, launching the Global Humanitarian Overview 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland, according to a press release from OCHA.



Not in living memory have so many people needed our support and solidarity to survive and live in safety and dignity, he said, noting that humanitarian response plans in 33 countries aim to reach 93 million people in need. Globally, more than 128 million people are affected by conflict, displacement, natural disasters and profound vulnerability.



Conflicts in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria are among the greatest drivers of humanitarian needs, fuelling new displacement within countries and across borders.



Funding in support of the plans will translate into life-saving food assistance to people on the brink of starvation in the Lake Chad Basin and South Sudan; it will provide protection for the most vulnerable people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, said O'Brien, also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.



So far in 2016, international donors have generously provided $11.4 billion to the current global appeal which, over the year, has risen from $20.1 billion to $22.1 billion. However, this represents only 52 per cent of the requirements and humanitarian organizations approach the end of this year with a funding gap of a record $10.7 billion - the largest gap ever.



The lives of millions of women, girls, boys and men are in our hands, O'Brien said. By responding generously and delivering fully on this appeal we will prove to them that we will not let them down.- TradeArabia News Service
More than 10,000 Middle East refugees and youth boosted their digital economy career prospects with coding courses, as part of the inaugural Refugee Code Week held recently in Beirut, Lebanon.



Across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey  which are among the worlds largest hosts of refugees according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) -- refugees and nationals learned highly-valued website coding and programming skills.



Demonstrating the potential for ICT careers, Middle East and Africa governments are investing $260 billion in IT in 2016, according to research firm IDC. Saudi Arabia, for example, will have an ICT job shortage of 37,700 in 2017, according to a recent Saudi government report.



The success of Refugee Code Week demonstrates how governments, the private sector, international organizations, and civil society can inspire and develop sustainable Digital Economy education models for youth. UNHCR and our partners are committed to helping the Middle East and Africa youth and refugees develop and launch their digital IT careers, help rebuild countries, and empower women, said Brad Henderson, Corporate and Foundation Relations Lead at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).



Refugee Code Week was spearheaded by global technology company SAP, in collaboration with UNHCR and the Galway Education Centre, along with partnerships with over 30 local governments, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, and businesses.



Across the Middle East and North Africa, there are tens of thousands unfilled technology jobs. Refugee Code Week is providing a lifeline to help young people in refugee camps and beyond to acquire coding skills, empower young adults to consider IT careers, and integrate coding into curriculums for long-term sustainable technology education, said Gergi Abboud, managing director for the Gulf, North Africa, Levant, and Pakistan at SAP.



Supporting women in ICT, nearly half  43 per cent  of Refugee Code Week participants were female.



SAP partnered with the ReBootKamp in Jordan for the first immersive code boot camp in the Arab World focused on empowering refugees. Refugee Code Weeks most promising students were given the opportunity to join the boot camp in Jordan to sharpen their Web programming or SAP Business One skills during the intensive 16-week program. All graduates from the first cohort have found a job.  TradeArabia News Service
Sohar Port and Freezone in Oman and Shenzhen Port in China have signed an agreement covering the development of mutually beneficial trade and shipping business as part of the Chinese One Belt One Road initiative.



Dong Yanze of the Ports Administration of Shenzhen Municipality and a delegation of other high-ranking Chinese officials attended the ceremony.



Both ports play a critical role in their respective regions and the agreement coincides with China's construction of twenty-first century maritime silk route networks, providing a timely opportunity for deepening cooperation on both sides.



The agreement will help to increase understanding and relations in areas that include port planning and construction, management and operations, environmental protection, information technology, personnel training and port security.



CEO Mark Geilenkirchen summed up the importance of this agreement from Sohar perspective: The Middle East plays a critical role in the Chinese One Belt One Road initiatives to develop modern land and maritime silk routes, that will stretch from Shanghai all the way to Hamburg; thanks to the prime location of Sohar outside the Strait of Hormuz, we are ideally placed to act as an important nodal hub on these maritime routes, as from here cargo can be directed though the Suez Canal or around the Cape, depending on vessel size and final destination.



We are naturally delighted that Shenzen Port has recognised this and we will be working closely with them and the other main ports in China to develop closer ties and more business as we move forward.



In October, Mark Geilenkirchen was invited as keynote speaker to the China International Logistics Forum in Shenzhen, and spoke to Chinese officials about the development of One Belt One Road and the potential role that Oman could play in its development.



With the support of Sohar container terminal operators Hutchison Ports, part of the Hong Kong based multinational group, both sides have been working to strengthen ties.



The deal signed today formalises the establishment of a sister-port relationship, and commits the management of both ports to maintain regular contact and send their staff for exchange visits to discuss details of interest to both sides, including recommending business partners to one other and promoting broader exchanges and cooperation across their respective regions.  TradeArabia News Service
An army jawan, in his wedding invitation, asked his guests to not attend his wedding in an inebriated state and if planning to resort to celebratory gunfire.

By India Today Web Desk: The celebratory firing of arms in marriages in north India often turns the celebrations into mourning. A bridegroom in Uttar Pradesh's Bagpat district has come up with a unique way to tackle this menace of a tradition.

Indian Army jawan Subhash Kashyap is set to tie the knot on December 8. Subhash has taken the wedding invites to the next level by clearly stating that the guests are to keep off, if they intend to bring in firearms to the wedding.

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He also asked his guests to strictly avoid alcohol and the ruckus that follows after people get drunk, ruining the celebrations.

On Saturday, a pregnant dancer was shot dead in Bhatinda by a drunk youngster while attending a wedding. Watch the video here:

***** DISCLAIMER: THE CONTENT COULD BE DISTURBING TO SOME*****

Kashyap's wedding invitation reads, "Use of celebratory gunfire and consumption of alcohol in the wedding is strictly prohibited. We request such people to not attend the wedding at all".

Subhash, who is from Wajidpur, Bagpat in Uttar Pradesh, will tie the knot in Meerut. His family has fully supported his decision to condemn firearms in his wedding. According to Subhash, a few days ago in his village, an incident on the same lines of 'celebratory gunfire' occurred and a CRPF personnel was shot dead in the firing. Subhash decided then to prohibit alcohol and firearms in his wedding.

A few friends and members of the family, on the other hand, have disagreed with Subhash's decision. Subhash's sister-in-law is of the view that the practice of celebratory gunfire among people will see its end only when people realise the dire consequences.

If people analyse the repercussions of this tradition, no auspicious celebrations like weddings will turn into mourning.

||STORY BY DUSHYANT TYAGI||

--- ENDS ---
A tram decorated with Christmas lights runs during its maiden voyage in Budapest, Hungary on December 5. The festive tram, which is wrapped in a 3500-meter cable bearing nearly 40,000 white and blue LED lights, serves commuters after dusk for the seventh year until Epyphany, January 6, and transports passengers for a regular fare. EPA/Janos Marjai






AlRayyan Hotel Doha, Curio  A Collection by Hilton, the Middle East's first Curio hotel set to open this month, has appointed new executive members to its management team.



Luca Crocco, who was appointed as general manager during the hotels pre-opening phase in June 2015, leads a multicultural team working together in a property that breaths fashion, glamour and comfort in its 201 rooms and suites, five restaurants, three outdoor swimming pools, wellness areas, meeting rooms and Grand Ballroom. Crocco joins the team with over 20 years Hilton Worldwide experience, first starting his career with the company in 1996 as assistant food and beverage (F&B) manager at Hilton London St. Ermins.



The first member to join the executive team was Isabel Fernandez, who takes on the role of director of Business Development, bringing with her 11 years experience in the field, including two in pre-opening roles. Fernandez joined Hilton Worldwide in 2011 as part of the pre-opening team for Hilton Doha. In her new role, Fernandez oversees the sales, marketing, conference, events and reservations departments.



Shortly after Isabel, Shaik Basha joined the AlRayyan Hotel Doha team as executive chef. During his career, Basha has been part of five pre-opening teams, with AlRayyan Hotel Doha being the sixth time Basha sets up the kitchen department in a brand new hotel. With more than six years experience as executive chef and 16 years working in the kitchen, Basha brings quality, flavour and freshness to the menus of AlRayyan Hotel Dohas restaurants.



He has been a part of the Hilton family since 2012, when he joined as Executive Chef of Hilton Shillim Retreat & Spa in India.



Othmane Lamine joins the team in his first role with Hilton Worldwide as F&B manager, and brings more than 15 years food and beverage experience to the hotel. During his debut at the upscale AlRayyan Hotel Doha, Lamine will oversee the operation of five restaurants, five meeting rooms and a Grand Ballroom, as well as manage all outside catering services. Throughout his career, Othmane has enjoyed a long list of successes, including the award-winning brunch concepts he developed between 2010 and 2015.



AlRayyan Hotel Doha, Curio - A Collection by Hilton is rooted in Qatars culture and finds the perfect balance between tradition and trend. The hotel is perfectly located at Al Rayyan and directly connected to Mall of Qatar. Recognized for its unique character and personality, AlRayyan Hotel Doha joins more than 20 upscale, hand-picked hotels across the globe.- TradeArabia News Service


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The Philippines has been one of the favorite destination tourists visit. Many people appreciate the wonderful nature of the country along with great mountains, beaches and tourist attractions. Tourists also appreciate the kindness of the Filipino people.

However, there is one important thing a travel considers in all of the country he or she will be traveling to. This important thing is, of course, food. Nomadic Boys and Travel to the Philippines listed down some of the Filipino cuisines tourists love. Here are the Top 5 Filipino foods that are popular among tourists.

1. Adobo- Due to Spanish influences in the Philippines history, Adobo, meaning marinade in Spanish, is one of the most famous Filipino dish. Marinated in soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and many other ingredients, chicken or pork will taste so good. There are different kinds of Adobo ingredients from all over the Philippines. However, almost all of the adobo recipes are truly delicious.

2. Kare Kare- This Filipino dish is known for being a comfort food. Made with vegetables, garlic, bagoong and peanut sauce, Kare Kare is an oxtail and beef Filipino stew.

3. Sinigang- Sinigang can be cooked using chicken, pork or fish. This is a Filipino soup that is unusually sour. People who love to eat sour foods can get along with Sinigang. The dish may contain Sampaloc and Gabi giving it the delicious sour taste it should have.

4. Lechon- Lechon is very popular among Filipinos. Once there is a celebration, Lechon will always be there. The word Lechon comes from the Spanish word leche that means milk. Lechon is a roasted whole pig. After eating the Lechon, leftovers are usually cooked to become a soup called "Lechon Paksiw".

5. Halo Halo- Halo Halo is a Filipino dessert that can be found in many Filipino restaurants. The word means "mixed" in Filipino and the dessert should literally be mixed before you eat it. The Halo Halo is prepared with shaved ice, evaporated milk, ice cream, corn, and other small toppings great for desserts. There are also many more ways to prepare the Halo Halo.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
After an engineer aboard the Caribbean Princess discovered that the cruise ship was illegally dumping 4,000 gallons of oil waste off the coast of England via a "magic pipe" and tipped the British MCA, Princess Cruise Lines faced seven federal charges concerning an illegal ocean pollution case.

After investigating, authorities learned that this cruise ship has been doing this illegal activity and other illegal practices in waste-dumping since 2005, disheartening many when they heard the news. Princess Cruise Lines is a subsidiary of Carnival, the world's leading cruise ship company.

The Princess Cruise Lines have pleaded guilty to all these charges and must pay around $40M in criminal penalty. According to justice.gov, this amount is the highest penalty ever to be given in an ocean pollution case, and when it's approved by a Miami judge, close to 15$ million will be given to several international maritime conservation community projects in Florida and the UK.

Thorough investigating also showed that four other Princess Ships have been doing the same thing, and aside from the "magic pipe" that tricks pollution-prevention tools onboard, these ships also use clean ocean water to hide their dumping of contaminated bilge water, which should be detected by onboard sensors.

In a press statement, Princess Cruise Lines said, "Although we had policies and procedures in place it became apparent they were not fully effective. We are very sorry that this happened and have taken additional steps to ensure we meet or exceed all environmental requirements."

This is not the first time a cruise line company has been fined in concern with environmental issues. In 2002, Carnival and the Norwegian Cruise Line has also pleaded guilty to felonies involving illegal discharge of oil waste in the sea, raking in $18 million in fines for Carnival, and $1,500,000 for NCL.

John Cruden, assistant attorney general for the US justice department's environmental division and Jeremy Smart, head of enforcement at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, both said in statements that "this case will send a clear message to the entire cruise line industry, that this kind of pollution practice will not be tolerated anywhere in the world"

According to the environmental non-profit organization Friends of the Earth (FOE), Princess Cruise and its host company Carnival have both been given a "D" and "C" in the FEO environmental report card.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Choice Hotels Europe announced a partnership and agreement with a hospitality and management development firm in Greece named the GVK Enterprises. The agreement between these two companies involves instituting a new hotel in Greece. Known for the many hotel franchises it has from different parts of the world, Choice Hotels Europe is indeed widening their reign in the global hotel and accommodation industry.

Choice Hotels is known for their hotel brands such as the Clarion, Quality and Comfort brands each having their own edge to cater different kinds of tourists and guests. George Kontos, GVK Enterprises' president expressed his glee regarding their partnership with Choice Hotels. According to reports from Breaking Travel News and Travel Daily Media, Kontos is looking forward to advance these new hotels that would target and attract international travelers. According to him, "Greece has always been one of the most popular tourism destinations and we look forward to sharing the food, hospitality and beaches with the rest of the world through the millions of guests if the Choice Family."

Choice Hotels' senior vice president in the international division also affirmed: "We are thrilled to be expanding our European portfolio to Greece, an important travel and tourism destination that has shown signs of strong recovery and positive forecasts. Choice wants to support and participate in this recovery and we have every confidence that our brands will thrive in such a dynamic market."

In addition to expanding their terrotory all over the world, Choice Hotels have annouced some of their plans in building more hotels. By 2017, Choice Hotels will be launching a hotel in Turkey after the success of their Ascend Hotel Collection recently built in France and UK. The company have also signed agreements for putting up Comfort and Quality brand hotels in Belgium, Austria, Hungary and Germany. They will also expand in Saudi Arabia and UAE.

As Choic

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Singapore is becoming popular these days. For a small country, Singapore is quite successful. Known as one of the richest country in Asia and being one of the most expensive countries in the world, Singapore has a lot to offer. Visited by many people all over the world for its tourism and business, Singapore is indeed a prosperous country.

As many tourists visit the country, there are tons of hotels and hostels available in the country. From great expensive hotels to the lovely budget hotels, tourists have a lot of choices when it comes to Singapore's accommodation. According to CNN Traveler and The Guardian, here are some of the best places to stay in Singapore that's fit for every travelers budget.

1. Hotel 1929- from being a Chinese shophouse to a hotel, the Hotel 1929 have quite a history. The 32-room hotel has great retro-chic interiors with a touch of modern and old-fashioned designs. It also has a restaurant serving European dishes mixed with Asian delicacies. Being near the country's Chinatown, riding the MRT isn't too far away.

2. Wanderlust- From being a school, a headquarters and an abandoned place, the Wanderlust hotel is a historic place. It has great old-fashioned interiors and rooms that guests could choose from. From capsule rooms to loft-style rooms, travelers can get the most out of their budget.

3. Klapsons- with designer rooms and lobbies, Klapsons is indeed a unique hotel. With only 17 rooms located at the downtown area of Singapore, this hotel is private and accessible. Each rooms and bathrooms have different unique designs to amaze and entertain guests.

4. Marina Bay Sands- Being a huge hotel offering almost anything a hotel guest could wish for, the Marina Bay Sands is one of the best places to stay in Singapore. It has wonderful restaurants and it even has a SkyPark filled with different plants and trees. It has over 2,561 available rooms and it also has an infinity pool to gratify all hotel guests.

5. Dorsett- Larger than most affordable boutique hotels, the Dorsett Singapore hotel contains 285 rooms. It has a 30-meter outdoor pool and a gym. Being a hotel near the country's Chinatown, it also has a Pappasan restaurant serving Singapore's local cuisines.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Responsible Travel today released its predictions for key destinations and trends colouring travel in 2017, driven it says, by an increasingly polarised tourism industry.

Responsible Travel today released its predictions for key destinations and trends colouring travel in 2017, driven it says, by an increasingly polarised tourism industry.

With the results of Brexit and the Trump vote in, Responsible Travel believes that tourism will become more polarised than ever before in 2017: one side dominated by a climate of fear and mistrust of strangers and the other trailing a growing trend for authentic and intrepid experiences.

Halted by fear:

Destinations perceived as unsafe will be avoided by many travellers as mainstream travel companies choose to capitalise on their fear; marketing holidays that provide a safe home-from-home, away from local people and real experiences. The continued growth of the cruise industry, Turkeys decrease in tourists and the fact that Tunisia continues to be closed highlights this trepidation. In the meantime, Tenerife (a traditionally safe, home-from-home destination) looks set to welcome its highest number of visitors ever recorded.

Feel the fear and do it anyway...

Responsible Travel cites its own rapid 22% year on year growth as indicative of an ever increasing trend for authentic, intrepid experiences as travellers become more driven by the experience economy. The company has recorded a 49% increase in revenue from Iran holidays, often cited as a more unusual destination. It is also the more adventurous travellers, according to Responsible Travel, who are becoming more engaged with responsible tourism issues, backed by research which reports an increase in interest in responsible tourism over the last couple of years.

CEO and Founder of Responsible Travel Justin Francis says:

It is becoming clearer that tourism will be more polarised in 2017. At a time where one end of the tourism spectrum is reverting back to home-from-home, all inclusive, outwardly safe holidays, fuelled by an increasing mistrust of strangers, responsible tourism is leading the way in meeting an increasing consumer demand for authenticity, and experience-led lifestyles.

We see our role as helping travellers overcome the natural fear of doing something new or different, in order to help them live their travel dreams. It is these people who are increasingly interested in responsible tourism as a way to get more authentic, memorable holiday experiences. The signs are there that in 2017 we can make the world a better place through travel.

WHERES HOT FOR 2017?

CROATIA

Responsible Travel reports that Croatia is its second best-selling destination, with a 20% increase  reflecting its appeal for holidaymakers looking for more authentic experiences. It offers an abundance of locally sourced fresh food, delicious locally-produced wine and a warm welcome from local people keen to embrace tourism as the country recovers from the civil war of the 1990s.

IRAN

Since British Airways restarted its connection to Tehran, the upwards trend of visitors intrigued by the unique culture, and new experiences offered by this country doesnt look to be stopping in 2017 with Responsible Travel recording a 49% increase in revenue from Iran holidays.

NORWAY

Northern lights and winter holidays away from the ski slopes continue to rise in popularity as tourists seek new experiences. But the unique opportunity to also go whale watching is a huge draw for visitors to Norway and is driving a 38% increase in revenue  as consumers turn away from captive whale encounters, to more ethical alternatives.

WHERES NOT:

USA

Responsible Travel has seen a 57% decrease in revenue from US trips and expects a lower level of demand to continue through 2017. A combination of Trump and the effect of Brexit on the strength of the pound means that the US is not the destination of choice for responsible travellers in 2017.

BURMA

It seems that for 2017, Burmas bubble has burst. Pent-up demand for a chance to visit this untouched destination has increased prices, meaning it is no longer a cheap destination. It will take a while for infrastructure to catch up with visitor numbers, and until it does it seems the Burma shine has worn off.

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 2022 Travel Industry Wire
By PTI: Guwahati, Dec 5 (PTI) Assam Government has fixed new business hours for all establishments in Guwahati Municipal Corporation area with the opening hour at 8 AM and closing hour at 12 midnight.

The Government today also notified that no adult worker shall be required or allowed to work in an establishment for more than 48 hours in any week and nine hours in a day.

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And no worker shall be asked to work continuously for more than four hours at a stretch unless he has been given a break of not less than one hour, said a government release here.

Further, the total number of hours of work of an employee in an establishment shall be so fixed, inclusive of his interval of rest and shall not spread over more than ten and half hours in any day, the release said.

Any working hour beyond eight hours in a day and 48 hours in a week shall be treated as overtime and the total number of overtime hours shall not exceed 78 hours in a period of three months, it said.

The notification comes into force with immediate effect, it added. PTI ESB DKB

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Ramdev talks about Patanjali, demonetisation, his relationship with PM Modi and his plans for the future at Agenda Aaj Tak.

By India Today Web Desk: Speaking at Agenda Aaj Tak on Tuesday, yoga guru Ramdev said he wouldn't leave yoga until his last breath.

"Business is just a by-product of yoga; it comes on its own. Yoga is the art of identifying oneself. Anyone who practices yoga can achieve not 100 per cent but 200 per cent growth," he said.

Ramdev's comments came on the heels of a report published in a Chinese Magazine in September this year that said Acharya Balkrishna, the CEO of Patanjali, is India's 26th richest man. "I have no black money or white money. Acharya Balkrishna is a CEO with no salary," asserted Ramdev.

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On demonetisation

Talking to Aaj Tak anchor Sweta Singh, Ramdev expressed his trust in PM Modi's "well-intentioned" demonetisation move. "I believe demonetisation has helped control terrorism and naxalism -- everyone known their funding has been stopped. We have to stay careful now to ensure black money doesn't find its way back into our economy."

When asked about the discomfort that has resulted from the move, Ramdev acknowledged that, "better arrangements could have been made." He also said the Rs 2,000-note needed a rethink.

According to Ramdev, however, demonetisation has not greatly affected his Patanjali business. "Our growth this month has been greater than the last month," he said, adding that he's targeting to double the growth in December.

"Despite demonetisation we will achieve 100 per cent growth," he said.

On Patanjali

According to Ramdev, his business is blooming because his 'motives' are well placed. "We sell world class products at fewer profits," he explained.

"Whether you find me a yogi or not, I am quite useful. I have indigenised noodles and malt products," he went on to add. "I believe the nation's money should be used only serve the nation," he said.

"Aaj Tak is an Indian channel that has left behind international media brands and has remained at the top spot since its very beginning. So why can't Patanjali leave behind international brands?" he said.

Ramdev said the country lacked courage and valour as a result of its history with colonisation, but there was no dearth of intelligence. "This is just the beginning, I still have another 50 years to go," he said.

On education

Talking about literacy in the country, Ramdev said he wants to remove inequality from the country's education system. "I want to bring an education system like that of Britain to the country, where people from every stratum can access higher education," he said.

"I government's fail to do it, I will make it happen," he said.

On Modi, politics and other leaders

When pondered on whether he agree with everything PM Modi says, pat came Ramdev's reply: "Modi ji is everything, I'm nothing."

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Talking about Mamata Banerji, Ramdev said, "Anyone in a democracy can dream to be the Prime Minister. Anyone born here is an asset for the country." He also called Uttar Pradesh chief minister a 'good guy'.

When asked about his relationship with Lalu Yadav, Ramdev said, "I simply taught him Kapalbhanti and Anulom-Vilom Pranayam to tackle some physical discomfort."

"I don't have any enmity with anyone. I even wish for Rahul and Sonia Gandhi's good health. Had I wanted, I could have sought revenge from Sonia-Nehru families, but I never did so. An ascetic doesn't take revenge, he only works for development," he said.

Talking about the prospect of joining politics, Ramdev stressed his core principle was yoga. "If ever such a time comes, I will save the country from any danger. But I will never take a political position."

--- ENDS ---
China Southern Airlines is asking the general public to submit their favorite recipe or snack that will be served on flights from New York to China in 2017.



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - December 6th, 2016 - NEW YORK  China Southern Airlines is asking the general public to submit their favorite recipe or snack that will be served on flights from New York to China in 2017. The airline has teamed up with the popular airline food website Inflightfeed.com and Rainbow Trout Films to create this very first of its' kind airline food tasting event.

The event will take place on the 26th January 2017 at the famed restaurant Bread in Nolita, New York from 2pm to 5pm. Attendees will taste test a number of meals and snacks and then finally vote on their favorite recipes that are currently being submitted by the general public.

"We are so excited to partner with China Southern Airlines, says Loukas This is something that has never really been done before, normally most airline food tastings happen behind closed doors, so inviting the general public will really change the dynamics.

By submitting a recipe participants have a chance to win a ticket to China with China Southern Airlines, all you have to do is use your favorite social media channel, upload a photo and recipe and tag with the hash tag #chinasouthernfoodies. Participants can find out further information by heading to the dedicated website Chinasouthernfoodies.com.

There are still a number of free places for the general public to come along and help judge and select meals to be served on flights. If you're available on 26 January and think you would like to attend this fantastic airline food event in New York, reach out via the website or contact Inflight Feed on nyevent@inflightfeed.com. Places are limited and participants may be interviewed for an upcoming airline food documentary too!

About InFlightFeed

Nik Loukas created InFlightFeed.com as an online guide for passengers who wanted to know more about the food available on various flights. The site includes features covering menu information, meal reviews, and notes from Loukas own globetrotting culinary adventures working with the airlines. Loukas has been quoted in publications like Vogue, The New York Times, and Conde Nast Traveler. He's also a regular columnist for UK magazine Onboard Hospitality and has contributed articles on airline food trends to CNN Travel and Yahoo Travel.

Contact:

Nik Loukas

Blogger and Airline Food Consultant

eat@inflightfeed.com

###
Seven contestants have been nominated for eviction this week.

By India Today Web Desk: Bigg Boss contestants are facing a tough time in the house; they have to perform tasks, plot against each other, and then plot some more. So much work!

Also read--BB10: Good news for Om Swami, non-bailable warrant against the Bigg Boss contestant cancelled

And in yesterday's episode of the controversial reality show, thanks to all the 'work' that we mentioned above, these seven contestants have been nominated this week.

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In case you missed the show last night, contestants who have been nominated for eviction are Priyanka Jagga, Sahil Anand, Bani Judge, Nitibha Kaul, Rohan Mehra, Lopamudra Raut, and Manveer Gurjar.

Poor Priyanka's name was taken by almost all the housemates during the nomination process, which left her quite upset. In fact, she even engaged in a war of words with Bani Judge regarding the same. And let us just put it this way--things turned quite ugly in the house.

So, who do you think will be evicted this Sunday?

Bigg Boss Season 10 airs every Mon-Fri at 10:30 pm, and every Sat and Sun at 9 pm.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From M Zulqernain

Lahore, Dec 6 (PTI) The brother and cousin of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch were among three persons charged by a court in Punjab province for her murder in July, an honour killing incident that shocked the Muslim-majority country.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Saeed Ahmad Raza of the district court in Multan city yesterday indicted the three accused -- Qandeels brother Waseem, her cousin Haq Nawaz and taxi driver Abdul Basit.

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However, the suspects denied committing the crime. The fourth co-accused, Zafar Hussain Khosa, has been declared an absconder by the court.

Police claimed that Waseem had made a confession of killing her sister in the presence of an area magistrate. But the counsel for the accused denied any such confession.

The court fixed December 8 as next date of hearing while issuing directions to the witnesses to appear before it. On the other hand, Lahore High Court, Multan bench, granted bail to driver Abdul Basit.

25-year-old Qandeel was found strangled in her house in Multan, some 350km from Lahore, on July 16. Her father had alleged that she was killed by her younger brother, Waseem, in the name of honour.

Waseem had confessed to having killed his sister in the name of honour.

In his confession video, Waseem expressed no regret in killing his sister. "I am proud of what I did. I drugged her first then I killed her. She was bringing dishonour to our family," Waseem said.

Qandeel rose to fame due to her bold videos and pictures many considered as obscene she posted on her Facebook account.

Honour killing is common in Pakistan and every year hundreds of women are killed by male relatives for allegedly dishonouring the family.

In October Pakistan Parliament passed a bill seeking to curb murders in the name of honour. PTI MZ AMS AKJ AMS

--- ENDS ---
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 5

Following the postponement of the hearing over organisation of Sarbat Khalsa in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, no preparations were started yet at the ground level as Sikh bodies and organisers are waiting for the verdict on their petition filed in this regard in the court.

The matter was listed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court for December 5, but now, the court would probably announce the decision on December 6.

The Sarbat Khalsa organising members today visited the venue proposed for Sarbat Khalsa in Talwandi Sabo while the police kept a vigil around the place. The police remained deployed at the site while no tent has been installed yet, like the attempt made in the previous month by the organisers of Sarbat Khalsa.

The organisers are also blaming the government for trying to suppress owners of land where the event is going to be held in Talwandi Sabo.

SAD (A) president Simranjit Singh Mann has challenged the Bathinda Deputy Commissioners (DC) order of November in which the DC refused to give permission for holding Sarbat Khalsa on November 10, citing reason that it could create some law and order problem. Later, the Bathinda district administration denied permission only five days ahead of the event.

The decision of the court on the petition filed by us is yet to come and it will be given on December 6. We can postpone our decision too or we can plan something else. The police had become a puppet in the hands of the SAD-BJP government and so it is trying to create obstacles before the holding of the event, he said.

Mann also sought directions against restricting him from exercising his fundamental right under Article 19 (1) (b) of the Constitution regarding freedom of speech and expression, to assemble peacefully without arms, and to form associations or unions. Mann, a few days ago, had appealed to Sikhs to come out on streets to protest and climb water tanks in protest if the government fails to allow Sikhs to hold it.

The ruling SAD-BJP government was apprehensive of the effect of the event on the upcoming elections and we were not allowed to hold it and now again, the government want to suppress the move proposed for December 8, the date which coincides with the state governments Paani Bachao, Punjab Bachao rally at Moga to oppose the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal project.

Station House Officer, Talwandi Sabo, said, There is no paramilitary force deployed. However, the force is available with us. Local police personnel are deployed at the venue but all this depends on the decision of the court.

Meanwhile, Gurdeep Singh Bathinda, one of the organisers of the event: The preparations are started but this time, we will not install any tents. Only the stage will be prepared and mats would be laid on ground. The paramilitary force, along with the police, had been deployed here, but the event will be held at any cost.
Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

With customers patience running out due to the non-availability of cash in banks, resulting in manhandling of bank employees, the largest bank employees union  All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), may take a call next week on proposed agitation to highlight the shortage of new currency notes. However, the second largest bank union in the country, namely the National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), said it doesnt have any plan to participate in any agitation and will rather focus on implementing the demonetisation move.

CH Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), said, with ATMs and bank branches running out of cash, people are becoming impatient and often hurl abuses in front of the bank employees. In the past fortnight, there has been a manifold increase in these kinds of incidents. It is very difficult to work in these circumstances, he said.

He said, We will wait for one more week and if the situation doesnt improve by then, we will take a call on the proposed agitation after December 12 to highlight the mounting pressure on banks arising out of shortage of currency. Except unions of State Bank of India, all other bank unions are members of the AIBEA.

Naresh Gaur, general secretary, All India State Bank of Patiala Federation, said, We are suffering because of currency shortage and often subjected to the peoples anger. Post the demonetisation, customers are often complaining that we are catering to a particular section of society who is influential, but its not true. We are rationing currency so that a wider section of customers can be catered to. The RBI should make public what quantum of currency each bank is getting so that the people can understand that banks are not hoarding the currency or obliging influential people.

The bankers complained that though the government and the RBI claim that there has been improvement in the supply of currency notes in the banking system, the ground reality is totally different. The problem of cash crunch is prevailing across the country.

However, Sanjeev Bandlish, general secretary, NCBE, said: We dont have any plan to go on agitation against the current crisis the banks are facing. Rather, we will focus on facilitating the customers. The State Bank of India associations are members of the NCBE.
Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

Less than four months after their claim for continuation in service up to 65 years in Panjab University was rejected, the Punjab and High Court today made it clear that the appellant professors were entitled to full salary being earlier paid to them.

A Single Judge had earlier dismissed a bunch of writ petitions filed by professors and lecturers in Panjab University and its affiliated colleges for permitting them to continue till 65.

Acting on their appeal, a Division Bench by way of an interim order had allowed the appellant professors to continue on a re-employment basis on salary drawn by them prior to the Single Judge verdict. The order had further clarified that the appellants would continue without a break in service.

As the case came up for resumed hearing, senior advocates Gurminder Singh, RPS Bara, JS Gill and Sameer Sachdeva argued that Panjab University had not released the emoluments as directed in the earlier interim orders. The court was also told that the appellants were being paid only half their salary.

Responding to the assertions, senior advocate Anupam Gupta furnished an order, dated November 25, on the decision to release the salary being earlier paid to them, subject to the furnishing of an undertaking.

Taking up the matter, the Division Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sudip Ahluwalia passed a detailed order clarifying the earlier order. The Bench ruled the word re-employment would not entail the retirement of the appellants. They would continue without break in service on the salary they were drawing prior to the Single Judge judgment.

A Single Judge had earlier made it clear that the Panjab University teaching staff were required to leave service at 60. The Judge had dismissed a bunch of writ petitions filed by professors and lecturers in Panjab University and its affiliated colleges for permitting them to continue till 65.

Their claim was based on the Panjab University Senate decision, UGC regulations, a circular coupled with the recommendations of a task force committee. Their stand was that Panjab University was a centrally funded institution as more than 90 per cent grant was coming from the Union of India. The retirement age had to be 65 as per the UGC regulations, their counsel had all along been contending.

The Central Government, through the Ministry of Human Resource Development, had taken a specific stand that Panjab University was not a centrally funded institution. In affidavits filed from time to time though Assistant Solicitor General Chetan Mittal, it was claimed that Panjab University was an inter-state body corporate as defined under the Punjab Reorganisation Act.

The decision to change the universitys status as a centrally funded institution required concurrence from the state of Punjab for the purpose of enhancing the age.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

Ashok Kumar (52), owner of Kumar Rasoi, a food joint in Sector 37, Chandigarh, had a smile that was contagious and a heart that was bigger than he was. An entrepreneur par excellence, Kumar was not only known for his business acumen but equally well known for his benevolent spirit and philanthropic works.

My father was a very giving person. He always felt it was his duty to come to someones help. He was the epitome of philanthropy who used to donate clothes, provide food to the needy on a daily basis and also give regular donations for the last rites of the poor. In addition, he had been organising blood donation camps on December 15 every year since 1995, said Ankush, son of the deceased with tears rolling down his cheeks.

It was on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday on December 2 that Kumar complained of dizziness and severe headache. When he fell down due to an ischemic stroke, his family rushed him to a private hospital without losing any time, from where he was brought to the PGI on the afternoon of December 3.

PGI doctors said they met twice to decide about the case and at around 5 pm on December 5, Kumar was declared brain dead.

Everything came crashing down. Then the transplant coordinators at the PGI talked to us about organ donation. The idea of having a chance to save someone elses life appealed to us  even though we didnt want to take him off life support, remembers Ankush.

Then we asked ourselves what he would have wished, and consented to the donation of his organs. My father definitely would have wanted someones father, husband, wife, mother, daughter or son to have more time to spend with their loved ones, said the braveheart son. After the familys consent, the doctors harvested the kidneys and corneas for transplantation on four in-waiting patients.

Rajinder Kalra, general secretary, Thalassaemic Children Welfare Association, recalling his 30-year-old association with the family, shared how Kumar contributed to the cause of thalassaemic children by helping the NGO organise voluntary blood donation camps since 1995. Even in his death, he has done what he lived for, said Kalra.

Dr Vipin Koushal, Nodal Officer, ROTTO, PGI, stated, Through its magnanimous gesture, the family of Kumar has conveyed a very strong message to pledge for organ donation. That would turn the balance of organ donation in a huge way. The role of the entire hospital team involved right from brain death declaration to retrieval and transplantation is extremely critical. But consent for organ donation is the bedrock.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

In a major relief to property owners, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today made it clear that coercive steps would not be taken on the basis of a rule that imposed monthly misuse charges of Rs 500 per sq ft.

The direction by the Bench of Justice Ajay Kumar Mittal and Justice Ramendra Jain came after senior counsel Vikas Bahl contended, among other things, that the misuse charges were disproportionate to the gravity of the offence.

The development took place on a petition filed by Sanjeev Gandhi against the Chandigarh Administration and other respondents through counsel Puneet Gupta. He contended that the UT Finance Secretary brought in the Chandigarh Estate Rules, 2007, which were applicable to new allotment alone.

The Rules were amended vide the Chandigarh Estate (Amendment) Rules, 2009, making the 2007 Rules applicable to sites allotted prior to its enactment with retrospective effect.

Gupta argued that the same was against the well-established principles of law as the delegated power granted to the Finance Secretary under Section 22 of the 1952 Act did not give power to make rules applicable with retrospective effect.

Gupta further argued that Rule 10(iii) of the 2007 Rules imposed penalty at the rate of Rs 500 per sq ft per month in case of misuse and building violations. It also permitted the sealing of the building, which was contrary to the provisions contained in the 1952 Act and the 1952 Rules

Referring to the judgment in the case of Dheera Singh versus the Chandigarh Administration and other respondents, Gupta asserted that the High Court categorically ruled that Section 22(1) of the 1952 Act empowered the Central Government to make Rules for carrying out the purposes of the 1952 Act. If one looks into sub-Section (2) of Section 22, there should be no difficulty in understanding that the power to determine the nature and extent of penalties for varied violations under the Act was neither intended nor was delegated by the Legislature to the Executive, he insisted. The counsel also contended that Section 22 of the Capital of Punjab (Development and Regulation) Act, 1952 did not empower the Central Government to frame the Chandigarh Estate Rules, 2007, to the allotments already made.
Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

Taking a tough stand with regard to teachers on deputation from Punjab to the UT, Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema today said come what may, the state government would not allow the UT Administration to repatriate teachers back to the state.

He said, I want to make it very clear to all concerned in the UT Administration that teachers had been sent on deputation to the UT against the Punjab quota of seats allocated under the laid-down formula. No one has given the right in the UT Administration to tamper with that laid-down formula, said Cheema.

If anyone tries to violate the legal provision, the state government will lodge a strong protest and do whatever is legally and otherwise possible to defend the states right to send teachers and other employees on deputation to the UT, he said.

He said the UT cadre of teachers had been created illegally and it should be done away with immediately. The Government of India had issued letters in this regard from time to time from 1966. Earlier, Cheema had written to the UT Administration against the repatriation of three teachers to Punjab without informing the state government.

These are policy matters related to the reorganisation of Punjab. These are highly sensitive issues. The UT has to implement the policy and decisions taken at the time of the reorganisation of Punjab and it has no mandate to take any policy decision on its own, he said, adding that if any officer tried to overstep his authority and harm the interests of Punjab, the state would not be a silent spectator.
Amritsar, December 6

Bhutans queen, Ashi Sangay Choden Wangchuck, landed in Amritsar on Tuesday morning along with her daughter and representatives of the Royal Bhutanese embassy.

She is on a private visit to the holy city. She will travel to Rewalsar in Himachal Pradesh, which is also known as Trisangam.

The queen began her itinerary with a visit to the Attari-Wagah border. Later, she visited Golden Temple in the evening.

She is on a personal, spiritual visit and has expressed happiness over coming to the holy city, said a spokesperson, accompanying the queen.  TNS
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) A case has been lodged against a 57-year-old railway engineer on a complaint of alleged sexual assault by a woman in southeast Delhi, police said today.

The 27-year-old woman filed a complaint with police alleging that for the last few days, the Senior Section Engineer posted at the Tughlakabad Railway station had been trying to corner her and had also touched her inappropriately.

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There have been complaints of eve-teasing and harassment received against the accused by his seniors, police said.

"We have received cross-complaints from both the sides. A case under section 354 IPC (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) has been registered on the complaint of the woman.

"A case under sections 353(assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 186 (Obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) IPC has been registered on the complaint of the engineer. We are investigating the matter," said a senior police officer.

The woman said that When she went to have a glass of water yesterday, the accused allegedly followed her and attempted to sexually assault her, they added.

When she raised an alarm, other employees rushed to alarm her and thrashed the accused, police said. PTI SLB ZMN

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Vivek Katju

THE just-concluded 6th ministerial meeting of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process at Amritsar will be remembered for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's ferocious attack on Pakistan. Perhaps never has a Head of State inaugurating a ministerial meeting directly named and shamed a country's representative as Ghani did. At the receiving end was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Foreign Policy Adviser Sartaj Aziz. Recommending that the Heart of Asia countries set up a fund to combat terrorism, Ghani said, Pakistan has generously pledged $US 500 million for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. This fund, Minister Aziz, could very well be used for containing extremism for without peace any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of the people. Of all places in Amritsar, next to the Pakistan border, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi sharing the dais this would have hurt Pakistan all the more.

This was not the only expression of Ghani's anger with Pakistan. He reiterated his earlier charge that Pakistan was engaged in an undeclared war against Afghanistan and that it was continuing to give sanctuaries to the Taliban. On the latter, he said significantly, As Mr Kakazada, one of the key figures of the Taliban movement recently said, if they did not have sanctuaries in Pakistan, they would last a month. This from an Afghan leader, who on taking office two years ago had publically declared his willingness to downgrade relations with India. To show that he meant business, he paid homage to the Pakistani generals at GHQ Rawalpindi and beseeched them to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. The Pakistanis simply brushed aside Ghani's overtures. No wonder for Pakistan now, hell hath no fury like a Ghani scorned!

In sharp contrast to his attack on Pakistan, Ghani praised India's assistance programme for Afghanistan. Ghani's words deserve to be quoted in full, India's support is impressive both in its scope and its system of delivery. India's assistance is state to state, aimed at improving people's lives and well-being. It is transparent without strings attached. There are no hidden agreements or secret conditions. It is a convergence of values of two states inspired by the belief in cooperative advantage.

Ghani's words were not on the rebound for they echoed widespread Afghan sentiment about Indian assistance. Many surveys have shown it to be the most popular country programme. Eminent Pakistani scholar Ahmed Rashid too has acknowledged the success of the Indian programme in generating unprecedented affinity for the country, in contrast to the great negativity towards Pakistan despite its hosting over million Afghan refugees for decades. The Indian assistance programme was crafted in the aftermath of the Taliban defeat in November 2001. Unlike established donors and international agencies, India did not seek to influence Afghanistan's development choices or strategy. While others gave lectures along with assistance, India only responded where it could to specific Afghan requests. Thus the origin of the major projects undertaken under the assistance programme lay in the direct needs of the people conveyed by the Afghan leadership. The Zarang-Dilaram road, the power transmission line laid across the Hindu Kush to bring electricity to Kabul, the India Afghanistan Friendship Salma Dam, and the Parliament building  were all asked for by the Afghan leadership. Significantly, President Karzai and his colleagues could have requested any Western democracy to build the Parliament building but they chose India. Indians are hardly conscious of the positive impact that the country's democratic system, warts and all, has had on the developing world, especially on the generation that came of age as the decolonisation was completed.

Apart from these major projects, numerous small-scale ones too were undertaken in all parts of Afghanistan. In addition, sustained skills-development programmes in India and Afghanistan have been popular. There is one more important lesson  the temptation to overly publicise assistance builds resentment for no people like to be reminded of their need for assistance. Appreciation is earned through deeds, not publicity.

Ghani's anger and Modi's indirect criticism are not reflected in the Amritsar Declaration though. These documents are drafted on the basis of consensus and reflect the positions of all sides. Hence, if India got its way and the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad have been mentioned, Pakistan succeeded in putting in the TTP which it has, in the past, claimed gets support from India and Afghanistan. While Ghani mentioned Pakistani terrorist sanctuaries, the Declaration mentions these in the Heart of Asia region. This is a significant difference. The Declaration calls on countries to take action against terrorist groups in accordance with their counter-terrorism strategies. This allows Pakistan to sequence action against anti-Indian groups in accordance with its priorities. That's what it says it will do, take action not when India says it should but when it wants too. There is no evidence that Pakistan would ever do so. Pakistan is unlikely to change the course of its Afghan policy on account of Ghani's attack. This is especially as it has successfully dealt with US unhappiness at its casual approach in delivering the Taliban to the negotiating table. The handling of the Taliban is becoming a little complicated for Pakistan as it has factions now but that will not deter it from supporting the main Haibatullah group and use it as its instrument in Afghanistan.

For the Obama administration it was important to ensure that the Afghanistan situation did not crumble prior to the US presidential election. The Trump administration will have to take a view on the nature of the continuing engagement in Afghanistan. General Flynn, who will be Trump's National Security Adviser, has served with the US forces in Afghanistan. Will Trump put effective pressure on Pakistan to curb the Taliban or seek its goodwill by making concessions? That will also depend on the view he takes on increasing the combat role of US troops stationed in Afghanistan at present.

The Afghan situation will also be impacted by equations that develop between Trump and China, Russia and Iran. China is now involved in Afghan affairs more intensely than before and it has established direct links with the Taliban. Russia is taking more interest in Afghanistan than before and is in contact with the Taliban too. Iran's relations with the Taliban are substantial. If Trump's ties with these countries become negative they will seek to undercut him in Afghanistan. The Amritsar meeting's eloquent call for regional cooperation to combat terrorism in Afghanistan and support its economic development will be subject to the complexities of the ties that develop among the major powers under the Trump administration. It will also be subject to Pakistan's obsession for strategic depth in Afghanistan.concerns.

The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs
S. Subramanian

THE world in which we live has long since emerged from the Dark Ages, to witness a Renaissance and an Age of Enlightenment. Reason and science, progress and modernity, should dispose us to the belief that we have come a very long way from what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, writing in the 17th century, called a state of nature, which he characterised as a world of war by all against all, in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The world in which we live, surely, should be one of well-being and freedom from want. This is not the world, vouchsafed in the Book of Revelations, of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse  Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death: "I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest Then another horse came out Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each otherand there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I hearda voice saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine! I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.

There are statistics on global well-being which assure us that, if we know where to look, ours is not the world foreseen in the Book of Revelations. World Bank data suggest that for the world as a whole, average annual national income (Per Capita Gross Domestic Product, or GDP for short), has increased nearly three-fold, from 5,413 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) US dollars in 1990 to 15,064 PPP dollars in 2015. The levels of GDP per capita are particularly impressive when we focus attention on North America (an increase from 23,567 PPP dollars in 1990 to 54,680 PPP dollars in 2015) or the European Union (with corresponding figures of 14,940 and 31,677 PPP$). (For comparison, the World Bank's international poverty line for 2015 is of the order of 684 PPP$ per person per year). According to UNESCO data, in 2015 the adult (age 15+) literacy rate was 91 per cent for the world, and 99.6 per cent for the developed world. From the same data source, we find that the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR, or number of under-one mortalities per 1000 live births) was an impressively low 5.6 for the USA, and an even lower 3 for Australia in 2015. UNICEF data suggest that the maternal mortality rate (number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births) was just 4 for Sweden, 9 for the United Kingdom, and 12 for the US in 2015. Data from the UNDP's Human Development Report indicate that in 2013 the under-5 mortality rate (number of deaths under age 5 per 1000 live births) was very small for Norway (3), Switzerland and the Netherlands (4), Australia (5), and the US (7). WHO data reveal that the adult death rate (the probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60 years per 1000 population) was a low 88 or 89 in the European region and the region of the Americas in 2009. Correspondingly, the expectancy of life at birth in 2015 was impressively high for the region of the Americas and the European region, at 79 years.

This is the picture that emerges from looking at the right places. But what if we were to look at the wrong places? It turns out that per capita GDP rose from 1,204 PPP$ in 1990 to 5,654 PPP$ in 2015 in South Asia; from 1,640 PPP$ to 3,695 PPP$ in Sub-Saharan Africa; from 931 PPP $ to 2,181 PPP$ in the Heavily indebted poor countries" (so that per capita GDP for North America was some 25 times that for the HIPC in 2015)! Indeed, a systematic assessment of pestilence, war, famine (or hunger) and death suggests the following:

Pestilence: According to the WHO, age-standardised mortality rate by cause (per 100,000 persons) for Africa, in 2015, was 798 from communicable diseases, 779 from non-communicable diseases, and 107 from injuries, with contrasting figures for the European region of 52, 532 and 63 respectively. The per cent of causes of death among children of less than 5 years of age due to HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea, malaria and measles was 22 per cent in the African Region, 29 per cent in the South-East Asian region, and just 5 per cent in the European and American regions.

War: Browsing through war statistics in Wikipedia yields the following doubtful reward. We find that the number of armed conflicts that have occurred in the world  rebellions, insurgencies, civil wars, wars of independence, external aggression  between 1990 and 2016 is 181. Of the 50 conflicts accounted for so far by 2016 alone, 22 have been in Africa, 13 in East and South Asia, 9 in West Asia, and 3 each in the Americas and Europe. The poorest countries of the world, which have seen the most war, have been net importers of arms  from the richest countries, which have experienced few conflicts on their own soil, preferring to conduct war on the territories of others. The civil wars in Burundi (1993-2005) and Somalia (from 1985 to the present) have each accounted for 300,000 deaths; and according to a report by the medical journal The Lancet, the excess deaths from the war waged in Iraq by the Allied Coalition, only till the end of 2006, numbered nearly 655,000.

Hunger: The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) puts out annual statistics on an indicator called the Global Hunger Index (GHI), which is an average of three distinguished headcount ratios  of those consuming food worth less than 1800 kilocalories per day, of underweight under-5 children, and under-5 mortalities. A score of 20  34.9 is regarded as serious, and one of 35-41.9 is regarded as alarming. It turns out that in 2016, the number of countries in the serious and alarming categories is 22 (out of a total of 182 countries), with scores ranging from 28.5 for India to 46.1 for the Central African Republic.

Death: Mortality figures for the poorer countries of the world are very different from those we have seen for the affluent North: for example, in 2015, the IMR for Afghanistan, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo was between 66.3 and 74.5; maternal mortality rates in 2015 for Western and Central Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa were 679 and 417 respectively; under-5 mortality in 2015 was 182 for Sierra Leone and 146 for the Democratic Republic of Congo; life expectancy at birth in 2015 was just 67 in the South-East Asian region, and even less, at 59 years, in Sub-Saharan Africa; and adult mortality rates in 2009 were a massive 347 for the African region and 167 for South-East Asia. So it would appear that, in large parts of the world that we inhabit, well-being is, after all, firmly in the grip of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! An interesting philosophical question deserving examination (perhaps in a future installment) is the one of whether rectification is owed by the global North to the global South.

The author is an economist
Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

Efforts by the state government to make Haryana the first cashless state of the country notwithstanding, achieving digital economy is being considered a distance dream, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas of the state.

It is being said that when even the most developed countries could not adopt complete cashless transactions, expecting this to happen in a state like Haryana is not possible.

Asking government departments to go cashless is one thing, but expecting people to adopt digital transactions for their daily routine will merely remain a dream. Even the developed nations were not cashless economies today. One cannot expect a daily wager, or a farmer or small shopkeepers in a village or a small town to switch over to digital payments, said Dr Mahabir Jaglan, a professor in geography department of Kurukshetra University.

Dr Jaglan said a large majority of poor people, labourers and farmers did not have bank accounts even as they earn wages in the day and spend by the evening.

A bureaucrat who attended a meeting convened by the state government on cashless transactions on Monday said the main purpose of the din about the cashless society seemed to be a strategy to divert attention of people standing in queues.

When educated people like me are not comfortable with the use of digital wallets or swipe of cards, it is too much to expect people to go cashless in a state where over 20 per cent people are illiterate, he said.

The status of cashless transactions in the USA is 45 per cent, Australia 35 per cent, Japan 14 per cent, China 10 per cent and India 2 per cent so far.

The state government has launched a drive throughout the state to create awareness on cashless transactions among people and cash incentives have been announced traders and individuals adopting digital transactions.

Panchayats adopting digital payments are to be given award of honour as per the state governments announcement.

In a letter written to Deputy Commissioners, the NITI Aayog has announced cash incentive of Rs 10 for every individual who makes two successful transactions by Unified Payment Interface (UPI), *99# Banking, Aadhaar enabled payments, e-Wallets or RuPay, Debir and Credic cards.

The letter said the Aayog would transfer Rs 5 lakh each to all DCs for this purpose.

Similarly, cash incentives of Rs 100 per trader and Rs 5 per individual have been announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for enrolling on the digital payment system.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 6

A war of words has broken out between Virbhadra Singh and Union Health Minister JP Nadda. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today lashed out at the Centre for delaying AIIMS and other projects for Himachal.

Nadda blamed the Himachal Government for its lackadaisical approach in providing land and implementing Centrally funded projects.

While Virbhadra hit out at the Centre during his public address in Bilaspur, home turf of the Union Health Minister, Nadda put the entire blame on the state government for failing to prepare DPRs and provide land for the projects.

In a statement issued here to rebut claims of Virbhadra, Nadda said the initiatives taken by the Centre to speed up development activities in the hill state were being put to naught due to the lackadaisical approach of the Congress government which had failed to keep pace with the pro-active Modi government.

The state government is not showing the same zeal either due to political reasons or sheer incompetence. It was not a healthy approach, because in a federal system the Centre and states had to work in unison, rising above party lines to accelerate the pace of development, he remarked.

He said he was not quoting all this to derive any political mileage but out of concern for the people who deserved better facilities.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was keen to lay the foundation of the IIM at Paonta Sahib during his last visit to the state but it had to be postponed as the state had failed to obtain forest clearances.

Similarly, work on the new national highways approved by the Centre was not making any headway for want of a DPR and the setting up of a trauma centre in the state capital too had been delayed, said Nadda.
Our Correspondent

Kangra, December 6

An Information Technology (IT) park will come up at Gaggal in the Kangra Assembly segment which will prove to be a boon for IT professionals and will boost the economy of the area besides providing job opportunities to unemployed youths of the state.

Kangra MLA Pawan Kajal said this today during the annual function of Ashwani Memorial Public High School at Bagli. Kajal said Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had given a nod for the two proposed IT parks in the state of which one would be set up in Shimla and the other one at Gaggal.

He said in the proposed IT Park at Gaggal, offices of different multinational companies would open and unemployed youths would get ample opportunities of work. He said work on the Manji river at Gaggal had started and a two-lane bridge on Pathanot-Mandi National Highway would be completed within two years. He asked the teacher community that besides their regular syllabus, they should prepare students for national- level competitions.

On this occasion, the managing director of the school, Chuni Lal, said educational facilities were being provided to children belonging to Below Poverty Line category and to families of the Integrated Rural Development Programme. Vishal Hans, Principal, read out the annual report and girl students presented cultural programmes. Ankita Soni and Jyoti, toppers of Class X board examination, were awarded on the occasion.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 6

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said that the state government had done its bit by handing over the land for the setting up of AIIMS at Bilaspur but now it is for the Centre to expedite the project, which was being delayed for reasons best known to the Central Government only.

He was addressing a rally today at Soldha in Shree Naina Devi Assembly constituency of Bilaspur district.

It is the Centre which has to now accord the necessary approval, including the forest clearance, for the AIIMS at Bilaspur which will prove to be very beneficial for the people of the state, he stated.

Virbhadra said the state government should get its due share from the Centre as it was the legitimate right of every state to get assistance and projects. It is the state government which provides land for implementing the Centrally aided projects and it is wrong on the part of any MP to demand that he has the right to inaugurate or lay foundation stone of any such centrally aided project, he said.

The Chief Minister said the state had progressed by leaps and bounds under successive Congress regimes. As of now, besides AIIMS, three more medical colleges were being opened in the state at Nahan, Hamirpur and Chamba. He said that as of today Himachal had as much as 37,000 kilometers of road length, besides, 100 per cent electrification.

Chairman, Twenty Point Programme Implementation Committee, Ram Lal Thakur, thanked the CM for dedicating projects worth Rs 11 crore in his constituency today.

He said the propaganda of BJP to defame and destabilise Virbhadra Singh had strengthened the Chief Minister even more. Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Rajesh Dharmani also addressed the gathering.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 6

J-K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday hit out at NC leader and former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah who offered a partnership to the separatist leadership, saying it has made clear that National Conference had a role in the Kashmir unrest.

The statement telling his party workers to lend full support to Hurriyat makes it clear one thing which we did not mention till now that NC can go to any extent for power, Mehbooba told reporters on the sidelines of a function.

She claimed that Farooq Abdullah has again directed his workers to not let the situation improve.

In the last four-five months, criminal elements pelted stones on vehicles, burnt schools and attacked camps. Abdullahs statement makes it clear that the NC was involved in such activities and when the situation is improving, he has directed his party workers to keep the atmosphere charged in the state, she said.

Mehbooba said the NC was only concerned for power.

.. He (Farooq Abdullah) used to say that Hurriyat leaders should be thrown into Jhelum. Today he is talking about something else. It again makes it clear that NC will play with the lives of anyone including children and women for power, she said.

On Monday, Farooq had said his party was ready to follow the separatists till they are on the right path and were leading the nation in the right direction.
Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 6

In detailed statements, terse tweets and sound bites, the opposition National Conference party in Jammu and Kashmir is touching the borderline of a rare anti-Delhi rhetoric as it struggles back from two withering electoral defeats.

A surprise statement came yesterday from Farooq Abdullah  who has thrice served as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and also as Union Minister once. His talk of azadi and asking his party workers to continue the struggle has perplexed many but halted short of being impressive.

Farooq, the 79-year-old veteran politician and president of the National Conference, has been as mercurial as he has been steady in his long political career spanning over four decades.

In his many speeches, Farooq mixes an element of humour to make the audiences laugh. But that was not something he did yesterday when he spoke at the mausoleum of his father Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, a towering politician and founder of the National Conference. Farooq spoke of azadi and offered partnership to separatists.

The offer left more people perplexed, made a buzz on social networking sites where many questioned his intent and past loyalties, and the state governments spokesman blamed Farooq for being the cause of instability.

It has been one of the reasons for instability in Jammu and Kashmir, because the National Conference has spoken in differing voices when in power and out of it, said Education Minister Naeem Akhter, a senior leader of the PDP and also the state government spokesman.

Akhter linked Farooqs latest statement, which bordered on separatist ideology, to the upcoming parliamentary byelection in Srinagar and Anantnag constituencies. There is nothing new in it. The National Conference is all about U-turns, that is in its DNA. Perhaps, he is trying to present himself in the coming election. But in the process, the party is doing a great disservice to Kashmir, he said.

The National Conference went into lengthy brainstorming after it faced two back-to-back electoral defeats, one of it routing the party from Parliament and other sending it to opposition benches with a record low legislators. Since then, the party has been trying for a makeover, treading an increasingly belligerent political approach while targeting New Delhi, the BJP and the PDP, its local arch-rival.

In the recent week, National Conference working president Omar Abdullah blamed New Delhi for historic blunders and broken promises which he alleged resulted in the political issue of Kashmir. At the same time, Omar, who has formerly served as Minister of State for External Affairs and the states Chief Minister, absolved Pakistan of any wrongdoing by claiming that Kashmirs political issue was neither an invention nor a creation of Pakistan.

But it was Farooq who went the extra mile by calling for unity with the regions separatists. This speech cannot be taken in isolation from other things  however, it is very good if Farooq Abdullah is saying solve the Kashmir issue, said separatist leader Abdul Gani Bhat, a former chairman of separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference.

Noor Ahmad Baba, a former professor of political science at University of Kashmir, said the National Conference had reasons to have grudges against New Delhi. They think they are not taken seriously whether in power or in the Opposition, Baba said.

The National Conference had its autonomy resolution and they want it to be restored. They were promised it one time, but nothing happened, he said.

Baba said there were similarities between the National Conferences latest posturing and what the PDP did when it was out of power.

Akhter, however, disagreed, saying that his party believed that accession is the most feasible decision and we stand by that. We have never said that we are not part of India. We go in the Assembly and Parliament, we take the oath and we dont deny that oath.
Satjit Singh

IWAS recently in the headlines in almost all national dailies  Thousands suffering from viral.

I was one of them.

Shivering, temperature rising to 103 degrees C, switching fan off, looking for a blanket. And then a dose of paracetamol. In a few minutes, sweating, temperature going down, throwing away the blanket, switching on the fan! What a pleasant feeling when sweat evaporates. I am not sure whether I am suffering from or enjoying the viral, I told a friend in a matter-of-fact manner. I never thought it would evoke a hearty  Saala nautanki! he chuckled.

I was reminded of a somewhat similar laugh, but in a serious environment. I was in a hospital to see my cousin who had developed complications after angioplasty. Another cousin from Amritsar was also present, wearing a huge gold ring with a coin-like top  the kind where the display of size is more important than aesthetics.

So brother, it seems your chemist business is flourishing these days, I joked, pointing towards his ring. Before he could reply, my ailing cousin quipped: Our Amritsaria brother believes in show-off. I am wearing a much costlier ring, the stent, inside my heart that I will never flaunt!

There was hearty laughter in the heart patients room.

While some can laugh away their blues, others use their confinement to bed rather creatively. In Jammu, in the year 2000, I met a wonderful man with a positive attitude. In his collection of music cassettes and records, I found a beautifully handwritten word, Typhoid on the cover of a collection of songs. The first song was by Suman Kayanpur  Yoohin dil ne chaha tha rona rulana, teri yaad to bann gayee ik bahaana.

Curious, I asked him about the title. Daya, my friend, explained that he was suffering from typhoid and the doctor had advised him complete rest for at least a fortnight. Even reading was difficult. So, he collected all cassettes, with some friends lending theirs. He listened to many songs and shortlisted the ones he liked the most. He then went through the cumbersome process of playing the selected numbers and recording these. By the time the two weeks were over, the collection was ready and christened Typhoid. I was promised a copy before I returned to Chandigarh.

I shuffled through his other collection. I found another title, Typhoid 2. Holding the cassette, I looked at him. The collection was too long for a 60-minute tape?

A naughty smile played upon his lips. No, the typhoid relapsed!

We can create pleasant memories out of bad phases in life, I learned.
Mumbai, December 6

The body of a 24-year-old lady doctor, suspected to be raped and murdered, was found at her residence in suburban Vile Parle, a senior police official said on Tuesday.

The naked body of a woman, a physiotherapist by profession, was found at her residence last night, the official said, adding there were also burn marks on the body.

As per initial investigation, it is suspected that the woman was raped and murdered, the official said.

The victim had gone out for a party last night and had returned home with some of her friends, the officer said, adding she was found dead at around 3 am.

Her body was sent for post-mortem and investigation into the matter is underway, police said.  PTI
By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: With the surge in terror strikes 2016 has become the most violent year in the recent times. The Ministry Home Affairs told Lok Sabha that Pakistan has violated ceasefire 437 times along the Line of Control (LOC) and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir. About 37 people were killed and 179 were injured in these attacks.

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Minister of State (MOS) for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir informed the Parliament that 27,449 people living along the border in Jammu and Kashmir were temporarily shifted to safer places due to ceasefire violations, especially after surgical strikes carried out by Indian army on September 29.

MHA also said that 6,000 people stayed in relief camps and remaining stayed with their relatives.

Ahir said that of the total ceasefire violation, 216 incidents were reported along LoC and 221 incidents along International Border till November this year.Among the dead, 12 were civilians, eight were Army personnel and five were BSF personnel, he said.

There were 405 incidents of ceasefire violation along the LoC and International Border in 2015 in which 26 people were killed and 97 others were injured.Ahir said majority of the people have since returned to their homes from relief camps. However, 220 families comprising of around 700 persons continue to be in relief camps.

November 2003 Ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan has been virtually nonexistent in 2016 with more than 400 incidents of ceasefire violations.

--- ENDS ---
Nainital, December 6

Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph has suspended three judges after an inquiry found them guilty of misconduct.

The inquiry into an anonymous complaint of misconduct was carried out by Registrar General of the High Court Narendra Dutt in compliance with the Chief Justices order.

Following the inquiry, Presiding Officer of Labour Court Haldwani Neetu Joshi was suspended yesterday.

Joint Director of Uttarakhand Judicial and Legal Academy (UJALA), Bhowali, Pradeep Kumar Mani and Judicial Magistrate Haldwani Durga were handed over their suspension orders today.  PTI
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 6

While it may be still too early for any long-term prediction, but big changes expected in Tamil Nadu's AIADMK and DMK-dominated politics post-J Jayalalithaa could throw up some interesting options for other parties, including the BJP.

The saffron party has been trying to make inroads into the state dominated by Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK and M Karunanidhis DMK for quite some time now. The political vacuum created by Jayalalithaas death has provided the BJP a better chance to emerge as a natural choice in the deeply religious state which, its leaders believe, is a good ground for Hindutva brand of politics.

For the time being though, the BJP-ruled Centre would like to see the AIADMK, which got re-elected to power in May, complete its five-year run without any hiccups or getting disintegrated courtesy the rival DMK.

Starved of leaders and looking for ways to increase footprint in the state, a status quo serves the BJPs interests best, for now, or so some political observers believe.

There are many reasons for that. Jayalalithaa shared a certain rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi but for the BJP, the numbers her party holds in Parliament are crucial. To keep her in good humour, the government gave senior AIADMK leader M Thambidurai the post of Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker. The AIADMK has 37 MPs in Lok Sabha and 13 in Rajya Sabha and the BJP needs these numbers not only to pursue legislative business in Parliament, but also for important events such as the elections of President and Vice-President next year.

Post-Jayalalithaa, the BJP expects the AIADMK government to move close to it, primarily because of survival compulsions. With the DMK keeping a hawks eye, the new incumbent O Panneerselvam would require all the help from the Centre and the BJP to ward off impending threat of the partys disintegration. This even as some political observers are giving the AIADMK just about a couple of months, maybe in the absence of a charismatic binder like Jayalalithaa.

With Jayalalithaa gone, there is now a possibility of some AIADMK leaders shifting base to other parties, including the BJP. The saffron party may have managed a seat from the state in Lok Sabha, but it failed miserably in the 2016 Assembly elections.

In 2014 as well as in 2016, the BJP tried its best to get Jayalalithaa onboard the NDA, attempts she resolutely spurned. For the next elections, it could certainly do with stronger candidates and good back-up support. Throughout her illness, BJP leaders continuously visited Amma in hospital, apparently to be perceived as "favourable" by her cadres.
New Delhi, December 6

An Indian Air Force plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai for the funeral of J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday returned mid-way due to a technical snag.

Within 30 minutes of take-off from the Palam Technical Area, the aircraft developed a technical problem and returned to base, sources said.

The aircraft had reached Agra when the snag was detected.

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The President will now board another plane and resume the journey to Chennai to pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa.

Officials said it would take 40 minutes to one hour for the President to be air-borne again. PTI
New York, December 6

An Indian-origin man was charged with murdering his wife here on Monday after a street argument, according to a city public prosecutor.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Prem Rampersaud, 50, who was visiting the city from Guyana, met his wife, Rajwantie Baldeo, 46, after she finished work at a restaurant around midnight and following an argument killed her by stabbing her several times.

She was taken to a hospital, where she was declared dead.

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This was an especially violent crime in which the defendant is accused of viciously taking the life of the woman he purportedly loved by repeatedly stabbing her following a heated verbal argument,: Brown said in a statement.

Her brutal and senseless death merits serious punishment, Brown added. If convicted, Rampersaud faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

Local ABC television station reported that according to witnesses Rampersaud choked her and tried to behead her with a long kitchen knife, leaving her head almost severed.

The attack was captured on a surveillance camera. Police caught him near the scene of the crime.

DNAInfo quoted investigators as saying that Rampersaud had given Baldeo $9,000 to go to the US about a year ago and was temporarily staying with his friend in South Jamaica, when he found out that the victim was dating someone she met online. IANS
Chennai/New Delhi, December 6

Congress veteran and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday expressed grief over the death of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa, saying she brought a hard, uncompromising style to politics and governance that won praise and criticism.

In a series of tweets, Chidambaram said the late Chief Minister acquired loyal following that equalled that of her mentor MG Ramachandran.

She brought a hard uncompromising style to politics and governance that won praise and criticism. Jayalalithaa acquired large loyal following that equalled that of her mentor MGR, he said.

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Jayalalithaa was the most dominant political personality of Tamil Nadu in the last 25 years, he said, adding, AIADMK must carry on and provide a government for remaining over four years.

Kejriwal to visit Chennai, pay tributes to Jayalalithaa

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will visit Chennai on Tuesday to pay floral tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

The Delhi Chief Minister will reach Chennai around 12.30 pm and pay tributes to Jayalalithaa at Rajajji Hall, said a senior Delhi government official.

V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admis leader. May her soul rest in peace, Kejriwal tweeted. PTI
Chennai, December 6

Amid heart-rending scenes, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was on Tuesday laid to rest near the grave of her political mentor M G Ramachandran at the Marina beach here with full state honours.

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Soon after the rituals got over around 6 pm, the sandalwood casket carrying Jayalalithaa's mortal remains was lowered down after the traditional gun salute amidst emotional chants of 'Amma Vazhga' (Long Live Amma) by the thousands of people who had converged there.

Jayalalithaa's long-time confidante Sasikala Natarajan and the AIADMK supremo's nephew Deepak performed the last rites at the M G Ramachandran Memorial Site.

This included showering of flower petals and sandalwood pieces after which the casket was lowered, symbolising the culmination of the customary rituals of the last rites.

Read:

Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, Union Ministers M Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishan, besides Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and former ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik also paid floral tributes on the occasion.

Earlier, the casket, which was placed at Rajaji Hall, was shifted to a flower-decked gun carriage doubling up as the funeral cortege to be taken to the burial site.

Sasikala, Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Akhilesh Yadav joined the funeral procession.

Milk and holy water were sprinkled on Jayalalithaa's body as part of the rituals.

Her body was covered with an AIADMK party flag red and white in colour with an image of Dravidian ideologue and former Chief Minister C N Annadurai.

Nails were then hammered in on the coffin that was engraved with the words 'Puratchi Thalaivi Selvi' (Revolutionary Leader) in Tamil, before being lowered.

Later, the pit where her mortal remains were buried was filled with sand and mud amid showering of flowers.

En route the funeral procession, those on board the cavalcade showered flower petals throughout even as followers and party men walked along chanting "Puratchi Thalaivi Amma Pugazh Onguga" (Let the reputation of Revolutionary Leader Amma grow).

Emotional men and women thronged terraces of high-rise buildings and on both sides of the road for a last glimpse of the departed leader, who was being taken in a long cavalcade of several vehicles besides the gun-carriage.

Amid tight security, which included the deployment of armed reserve and rapid action forces, the procession found its way to the famous Marina Beach peacefully.

Earlier in the day, President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew into Chennai to pay tributes to the late chief minister.

People in large numbers also thronged the Rajaji Hall grounds to pay their last respects to the AIADMK supremo.

Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his ministerial colleagues, MPs and MLAs and senior state government officials were among the first to pay homage to Jayalalithaa, who passed away at the Apollo Hospitals here at 11.30 on Monday night after waging a grim battle for life since her hospitalisation on September 22.

Those who paid homage to her at Rajaji Hall included Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Governor P Sathasivam and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.

Visiting Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan also paid his last respects, as did a host of film personalities, including superstar Rajinikanth, actors Sarath Kumar, Sivakarthikeyan, Dhanush, actress Gauthami, besides veteran artistes who had worked with Jayalalithaa decades ago.

Chaos

Scenes at Rajaji Hall was chaotic, even threatening to turn into a stampede, as distraught supporters broke barricades and police cordons on more an one occasion to glimpse their leader of one last time.

Crowd control became a challenge for policemen as supporters pushed past police barricades and ran to the place where Jayalalithaas body had been kept.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi left the venue, hundreds began to march towards the VVIP entrance. As crowds swelled, VVIPs, including some ministers, left to make room to for the supporters.

Police were forced to resort to lathi charge on some occasions to control the crowd. As emotions ran high, tempers flared and several youngsters were seen having arguments with policemen.

Many women and elderly were seen pleading with policemen to help them get out of the queue. Some people, among them a former Rajya Sabha MP, even fainted.

The 68-year-old AIADMK supremo had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away last night at the Apollo Hospitals, where she had been hospitalised since September 22.  Agencies
Tribune News Service

Lucknow, December 6

The BSP national president, Mayawati, today urged the common people, reduced to begging post demonetisation, to pay back PM Narendra Modi for causing them such misery by rejecting the BJP in the coming UP poll.

She blamed Modi for downgrading 90 per cent of the population to fakiri with his ill-prepared decision. Reacting to the PMs comment at the Moradabad rally that he had nothing to fear as he was a fakir, Mayawati said as a matter of fact it were the people of the country who had become fakirs having been denied access to their own money in banks.

A massive crowd from the six districts of Lucknow Division gathered at Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal on the occasion of the Dalit icons 61st death anniversary.

Addressing the rally, Mayawati accused the BJP of duplicity, saying while it paid lip service to Ambedkar by promising to build museums in his memory, it continued to reject the idea of a secular, egalitarian India enshrined in the Constitution.

She said Muslims had got their rights because of Ambedkar who carved out a secular Constitution. This, of course, was not liked by the BJP and the RSS. Now, they (BJP&RSS) want to change the secular Constitution and establish the old order of Hindutvadi caste-based system, she said.

Mayawati accused the BJP of purposely choosing December 6, the death anniversary of Ambedkar, to demolish the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 as the saffron party wanted to send out the message that it did not believe in the guarantee given to the minorities in the Constitution.

She warned that even if the BJP, the Congress and their allies give top posts to those belonging to SC/ST, OBCs and religious minorities, making them CMs or the Prime Minister, they will merely remain bonded labourers of the masters of these parties.
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 6

The Indian Navy has ordered an inquiry into Monday's incident in which a warship tipped over on a dry- dock in Mumbai, killing two sailors.

"Rear Admiral Deepak Bali, Flag-Officer Offshore Defence Advisory Group, to head Board of Inquiry in (yesterday's) INS Betwa incident," a Navy spokesperson said this evening.

"Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba visited the Naval Dockyard here this morning and was briefed about the incident and situation on ground," the spokesperson said.

It has also decided to make the warship, INS Betwa, battle-worthy within its ongoing re-fit cycle that ends April 2018.

The ship had tipped over in the dry-dock at Mumbai while being undocked on Monday.

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It was undergoing a two year re-fit cycle that started in April 2016.

Navy spokesperson Capt DK Sharma said professional salvagers from across the world have been called in to give an assessment on how to lift the ship from its 90 degree position and salvage it. "We will salvage it. This is the decision made on Tuesday, Capt Sharma said in New Delhi.

The ship costing Rs 600 crore was commissioned in 2004. Since it's indigenously made the re-fit and any new material can be sourced from India.

The Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba met the families of the two sailors who were killed when the ship tipped over. (With agency inputs)
New Delhi, December 6

The population of the Parsi community in the country has come down by almost half, while the number of Jews remains one-sixth of what they were in 1951, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said as per Census 2011, the population of Parsi/Zorastrian and Jews/Judaism in India are 57,264 and 4,229, respectively.

As per Census 1951, the population of these two communities were 1,11,791 and 26,781, respectively," he said in a written reply.  PTI
New Delhi, December 6

Russia has strongly protested with India on cash shortage affecting the working of its Mission after demonetisation, and wants a quick resolution of the issue, failing which it may explore other options, including summoning Indian diplomat in Moscow.

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In a letter, Russian Ambassador Alaxander Kadakin has raised the issue of diplomats not being able to withdraw enough money hampering the normal functioning of the mission and sought intervention of the External Affairs Ministry so that the withdrawal restrictions for diplomatic staff are lifted.

"We are awaiting a reply from the MEA and hope that this is resolved quickly. Otherwise, we will be forced to explore other options which may include raising the issue in Moscow with your Embassy by summoning Indian Minister Counsellor," a senior Russian embassy official said here.

Other options may also include restriction on the cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats posted in Russia, the official indicated.

There are approximately 200 staffers in Russian mission here.

There was no immediate reaction from the Indian side on the complaint.

Earlier, the Dean of Diplomatic Corps had also raised the issue, complaining about the problems faced by the missions.

It is also understood that some other countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also protested to the ministry.

After the demonetization last month, MEA had said it has approached Department of Economic Affairs over three or four types of requests including those related to maintaining sufficient flow of funds to diplomatic missions following the demonetization and was awaiting a decision from it. PTI
Yogendra Sahni had dreams of getting his daughter married with the usual wedding fanfare, but the demonetisation policy announced by PM Modi ruined his plans.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: After a couple in Gujarat's Surat got married by spending just Rs 500/- on their ceremony, another couple now in Bihar has overcome the demonetisation blues and tied the knot by spending only Rs. 1100. Such a frugally-organised affair needed to be solemnised sans the usual pomp and show that is concomitant with weddings.

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Yogendra Sahni, a resident of Katihar, had fixed the marriage of his daughter Saraswati to a boy from the same village where they lived. Like many fathers, Yogendra Sahni too had dreams of getting his daughter married with all the fanfare but as fate would have it, the demonetisation policy announced by Prime Minister Modi ruined Sahni's plans.

SAHNI COULDN'T WITHDRAW HEFTY SUM FROM ACCOUNT

All of Sahni's efforts to withdraw cash from his account in the bank went in vain as he could not withdraw a hefty sum. However, the distressed and disappointed father soon found solace in assurance from the groom's side that he didn't need to bother about organising a lavish wedding but only keep the ceremony simple. The groom's family assured Sahni that a simple marriage was perfectly acceptable to them.

Also read | Kerala bar hotelier hosts extravagant wedding reception for daughter, ministers skip event

On the scheduled date last week, Raja and Saraswati tied the knot in a low-key function in which there was no priest to oversee the solemnising the ceremony with strict adherence to the rituals. Instead, the duo simply exchanged wedding vows and tied the knot. Another feature of the wedding that stood out was that there were no mouth-watering dishes or delicacies served to the groom's side, but only a cup of tea and a "laddoo" each per person. The total amount spent on marriage was a mere Rs. 1100, which also included the clothes of the groom and bride.

WEDDING DATE COULDN'T BE POSTPONED

"Our marriage was fixed before demonetisation was announced. However, after scrapping of old notes was announced, my father was very disappointed but we could not postpone the marriage. Finally, we got married over tea and laddoos", said the bride Saraswati.

At a time when several families, especially those having marriages in their house are battling cash crunch, the extraordinary marriage of Raja and Saraswati is an example many can follow.

Also read | BJP's diktat to leaders on big fat Reddy wedding in Bengaluru: Stay away

--- ENDS ---

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Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 6

The separatist leadership today appealed to tourists and pilgrims to visit the Kashmir valley, terming it as paradise on earth, and promising to safeguard their rights in a desperate attempt to kick-start the dormant tourism sector in the region.

In a joint statement, Syed Ali Geelani, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq  the three separatist leaders steering the ongoing unrest  said the people of Kashmir had been safeguarding and providing exemplary hospitality and safety to tourists and yatris.

We have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests by our great religion. Tourists and yatris from the world, including India, who intend to visit Kashmir are most welcome, the separatist leaders said. We invite them to come to Kashmir and enjoy our hospitality and the beauty of paradise on earth, they said.

The appeal from the separatists has come at a time when the Kashmir region is slowly limping out from the impact of unrest, which is nearing the completion of its fifth month. The unrest has had a devastating effect on the regions tourism sector as footfall of holidaymakers hit a zero while the Valley was paralysed by protests and shutdown.

The separatist trio said they wholeheartedly welcomed the tourists and pilgrims who intended to visit Kashmir. Our religion Islam and the prophet of Islam have taught us to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost. This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethics and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history, they said.

Millions of tourists from the world, including India, have been visiting Kashmir from centuries and enjoying the mesmerising beauty of this paradise on earth, the separatists said.

Our history shows that we as a nation have always stood firm with these ethics and teachings and we have always respected, safeguarded and served our guest during hardest of times and worst calamities, they said.
Chennai, December 5

J Jayalalithaa, tinsel town heroine who practised politics on her own terms to remain one of the main poles of Tamil Nadu politics for three decades, was a feisty leader with a lot of grit and determination staging remarkable comebacks despite setbacks on account of corruption cases.

A teen starlet, who acted with the who's who of Tamil cinema in the sixties and seventies, Jayalalitha went on to become a five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, effortlessly inheriting the mantle of her mentor and superstar MGR.

Practitioner of adulatory politics, she has often been criticised for the public display of unswerving loyalty of her senior leaders and cadre, but nothing deterred her from what she sought to achieve in her own way.

Born in a Brahmin family in Mysore in Karnataka, Jayalalithaa quite often had the better of her arch-rival M Karunanidhi, a stalwart and one of the earliest products of the Dravidian movement that was founded on an anti-Brahmin platform.

After her formal initiation into the politics in 1982 when she was inducted into the AIADMK, she displayed enormous political skills in shouldering the task of running the party after the death of M G Ramachandran in 1987.

Jayalalithaa had to quit twice over corruption cases, but managed to stage dramatic comebacks on both occasions.

While the journey of actor Jayalalithaa started in 1965 in 'Vennira Aadai,' (The White Dress), she assumed her political avatar in 1982 after MGR made her the propaganda secretary the next year.

She was made a Rajya Sabha member in 1984 by Ramachandran, with whom she had paired opposite in 28 films, and led the party's charge in the 1984 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls when he could not go on a campaign trail following illness.

But her moment of reckoning came a few years later when Ramachandran died in 1987, with AIADMK at crossroads. The leader was humiliated as MGR's body was lying in state in the heritage Rajaji Hall when a DMK leader tried to push her from the rostrum.

She faced intense and protracted struggle to eventually head the AIADMK overcoming the animosity of rival camps. AIADMK split into two factions then  AIADMK (J) and AIADMK (Ja)  after Jayalalithaa and Janaki, wife of Ramachandran.

Jayalalithaa successfully contested the Tamil Nadu Assembly election in 1989 from Bodinayakkanur and became the first woman Leader of Opposition in the House. This period saw some challenges in her political and personal life, with Jayalalithaa alleging she was harassed and attacked by ruling DMK in the House even as she met with a deadly accident.

She unified AIADMK in 1990 which had split following the death of Ramachandran and led her party to a superb victory in 1991 with a massive majority. However, the five-year period turned out to be her undoing as corruption charges, display of pomp during her foster son's marriage and non-performance led to her defeat in the 1996 elections at the hands of arch rival DMK.

Soon after several cases were filed against her and she had to quit twice (in 2001 and 2014). Between September 29, 2014, and May 22, 2015, she was out of office after she was disqualified as a legislator and consequently lost chief ministership following her conviction in a graft case by a trial court in Bengaluru which was later set aside by the Karnataka HC.

She was jailed twice, once after the DMK government registered a graft case in 1996 and then after her conviction in 2014. But she took a legal recourse to stage terrific comebacks on both occasions.

Altogether, she was sworn in as CM five times  1991-96, May-Sept 2001, 2002-06, 2011-14, 2015-16.

Hailed as 'Puratchi Thalaivi' (Revolutionary Leader), she proved wrong all calculations of DMK retaining power in 2011. She retained power in 2016, scripting history after three decades to ensure that a party won a successive term.  PTI

From Kollywood to Fort St George
Varinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Talwandi Sabo, December 6

The police today launched a statewide crackdown on the organisers of Sarbat Khalsa. At least 12 leaders of various Sikh organisations were detained. A heavy police force has been deployed at Natt road in Talwandi Sabo, the venue of Sarbat Khalsa.

Raids were also conducted at the residences of nearly 150 leaders and workers of several Sikh organisations across the state.

Tension gripped Talwandi Sabo in the early hours today when the police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel cordoned off the venue. The action was taken following apprehensions that the organisers could vitiate the peaceful atmosphere of the state.

A group of Sikh activists led by Gurdip Singh Bathinda and Jaskaran Singh Kahan Singh Wala entered the state from Dadu village in Haryana at 4.30 am along with Palki Sahib carrying Guru Granth Sahib.

They stopped the Palki Sahib and deflated its tyres at the venue and started the akhand path. The police got wind of the development and cordoned off the Natt road venue by 5 am.

The police detained Gurdip Singh, Parminder Singh Balianwali, Chamkaur Singh Bhairupa, Sukhdev Singh Joganand and four others. They were taken to Maur police station.

SK Asthana, IG, said the pre-emptive action was meant to keep an eye on the developments related to proposed congregation.

Meanwhile, Sikh leaders Chamkaur Singh Bhairupa and Sukhdev Singh Joganand were detained while they were on their way to hand over an application to the Deputy Commissioner to seek permission for holding of the congregation.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, it is learnt, has directed the petitioners to approach the Deputy Commissioner to seek permission for the event.
Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6

On the first of every month, Malook Singh  an ex-serviceman  would leave his home at Cheema Kalan to get Rs 7,000 pension. Much before the dawn broke when he left home on December 5, nobody back home had a clue that it would be the last journey of the familys breadwinner.

Malook Singh, 65, passed away while standing in the queue at the State Bank of India at Chabal in Tarn Taran. He became another victim of demonetisation in the state. But before that for several days he was sent back without money by the bank. The November 8 demonetisation, which will complete a month on Thursday, has taken life of least 10 people in the state.

What will I do now, asks his daily wager son Gurdial Singh. It was Malook Singhs pension that helped them run their home, he added.

The most common victims of the demonetisation are the elderly. An 82-year-old retired Subedar from the BSF, Satpal Bali, lost his life on November 30 after he was denied pension by the bank due to non-availability of cash at the SBI branch in Maqsudan, Jalandhar.

Before collapsing on the bank stairs, Bali told his son Rohit, They have not given me this months pension. The next I wont be there to get.

He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead. Rohits worries are not much different than Malook Singhs son Gurdial. He too says it will be difficult to run home with his Rs 8,000 salary.

The reports of elderly falling sick while standing in bank queues have been coming from across the state, though a large number of cases are not being reported, says Hardev Arshi of the CPI.

Besides pensioners and elderly, the biggest sufferers of demonetisation are those who have weddings at home.

Fiftyfive-year-old Gurnam Singh of Havelian Ratoke village has been visiting the bank in Khemkaran on all working days since November 9. His daughters wedding is scheduled for December 10.

Sometimes he would come back with Rs 1,000, sometimes Rs 2,000. Once he got Rs 4,000 also. But most commonly he returned empty-handed, tells his 17-year-old son Manjeet Singh. On early morning of December 2, he suffered a heart attack and passed away. His son is back in the bank queue. He doesnt even have time to mourn the death of his father. I dont demand any compensation from the government but just want my money for sisters marriage, says Manjeet.

(With inputs from Gurbax Puri in Tarn Taran)

Demonetisation fallout

November 16: Sukhdev Singh, 50, a farmer died while standing in queue for money, which was needed for his daughters wedding on November 18

November 19: Anil Kumar Sidhana, 40, a small trader, ended his life by hanging himself. His neighbours alleged that he ended life because of cash crunch

November 21: A 52-year-old hosiery factory worker, Balbir Singh, died of heart disease as his family couldnt withdraw money for his treatment from their bank account

November 24: Piara Singh, 84, a retired post office employee, fainted while standing in queue with his son at a post office in Jamalpur, Ludhiana. He was taken home where he died

November 28: Tehal Singh (65), a resident of Jagdev Khurd village, collapsed suddenly when he was standing in a queue for depositing cash in a bank at Ajnala

November 29: Resham Lal, an elderly trader, died after his condition deteriorated while he was standing in a queue to withdraw money for his sons wedding from the Bank of Baroda branch at Bhagwan Mahabir Marg, Jalandhar

November 29: Joginder Singh, 47, a farmer from Ghubaya village in Fazilka district, died in a bank queue at Jalalabad while waiting for his turn to withdraw money

December 2: Jarnail Singh (54) suffered a brain stroke outside the State Bank of India in Moga. He died on December 5. He needed money to marry his daughter.
Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, December 6

In another setback to the ruling SAD, Pritam Singh Kotbhai, who had lost the 2012 Assembly election from Bhucho Assembly constituency in Bathinda district with just 1,288 votes, is all set to join the Congress in Delhi today.

Confirming the development to The Tribune from Delhi, Pritam said: I lost the election with just a few votes, but the SAD leadership completely ignored me. They neither appointed me halqa in-charge, nor did any work on my recommendation. Irate over this, I am joining the Congress today in Delhi in the presence of Capt Amarinder Singh and Asha Kumari. I had not even demanded ticket from the SAD this time.

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Notably, Ajaib Singh Bhatti of the Congress had defeated him by getting 57,515 votes. Pritam had got 56,227 votes.

Pritam (46), a landlord, started his political career by getting elected Zila Parishad member from Mallan zone in Gidderbaha sub-division of Muktsar district with a huge margin of about 14,000 votes.

His younger brother, Sukhdeep, is the present sarpanch of Kotbhai village, who was elected unanimously.
Pithoragarh, December 6

The Special Task Force of Champawat police arrested a Nepalese at Banbasa Bridge on the Nepal border and seized 14 kg of charas from his possession today.

The accused has been identified Ram Singh (36), a resident of Bramdev village in Kanchanpur district of Nepal. During interrogation, Ram Singh confessed to have brought charas several times before to sell in India. The police also seized a country made revolver with cartridges, said RS Rautela, Circle Officer of Banbasa police. OC
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 6

Dr Raghunandan Singh Tolia, first Chief Information Commission and former Chief Secretary of Uttarkahand, passed away this morning. He was undergoing treatment for an ailment at Max Hospital in Delhi where he breathed his last.

Born in Dehradun on November 17, 1947, Tolia, a 1971 batch IAS officer, was among those who put in place the entire administrative machinery in Uttarakhand, when the state was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.

He was a versatile personality, who, after holding the top post of Chief Secretary of the state went on to become the first information commissioner. He played a key role in strengthening the workings of the State Information Commission.

Besides his administrative skills, he was also a man of letters. He wrote numerous articles and books, including British Kumaon Garhwal, Handbook for Public Information Officers and essays on development initiatives in Uttarakhand.

Dr Tolia belonged to the Munsiyari region of Pithoragarh and his love for hills was well known. And that was the reason he spent most of his time in Munsiyari after his retirement. He was of a strong opinion that all policy-making linked to the development of hills must be done in the hills and not in Dehradun.

He was also one of the few bureaucracts, who kept a clear cut view on hydropower projects of the state. Dr Tolia asserted that power was a necessity for sustenance. He favoured hydropower projects in Uttarakhand, pointing out that many parts of Garhwal and Kumaon hills faced an acute power crisis due to the non-availability of power and opposing hydro-power projects was not justified under such circumstances.

Meanwhile, Governor KK Paul, said Dr Tolias death has caused Uttarakhand lose an efficient administrator and an intellectual public servant.

Dr Tolia was a frequent visitor to Raj Bhavan for several progammes, like the recent toppers conclave. Chief Minsiter Harish Rawat too expressed sorrow over his demise. The Congress, the BJP, the UKD, the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party and other parties have expressed grief over the demise of Tolia.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 6

The Uttarakhand High Court has directed the Central Government to take a final decision on the division of assets and properties between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand within a period of three months.

The double bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Alok Singh in the ruling delivered yesterday directed the Central Government take the final call on the long-pending asset distribution between the two states, based on the settlement arrived at by the two states on January 2, 2016.

Further, while disposing of the PIL, the judges also directed the Centre to constitute a Ganga Management Board under Section 80 of the Act and make it functional within a period of three months.

It also directed the Centre to ensure that Uttarakhand was also made a member of the Upper Yamuna Board within three months.

During the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly session in March 2015, the Congress MLA, now Transport Minister, had moved a private member resolution urging the Centre to create a Yamuna river authority on the lines of the Ganga river authority, which was accepted by the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly and the Central Government was also informed about it.
Dhaka, December 6

Around 21,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks to escape violence in neighbouring Myanmar, an official of the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday.

Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border to try to stem the tide of refugees fleeing a bloody crackdown by Myanmars army in the western state of Rakhine since early October.

But Sanjukta Sahany, head of the IOM office in Bangladeshs southeastern district of Coxs Bazar bordering Rakhine, said around 21,000 members of the stateless ethnic minority had crossed over in the past two months.

The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements, official refugee camps and villages, said Sahany.

An estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Coxs Bazar district between October 9 and December 2, she told AFP by phone.

It is based on the figures collected by UN agencies and international NGOs (non-governmental organisations).

Those interviewed by AFP inside Bangladesh told horrifying stories of gang-rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmars security forces.

Analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse but has banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from accessing the area.

Myanmars Nobel peace laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced a growing international backlash for what a UN official has said amounts to a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, a Muslim group loathed by many of Myanmars Buddhist majority.

Last week she vowed to work for peace and national reconciliation, saying her country faced many challenges, but did not mention the violence in Rakhine state.

Bangladesh has reinforced its border posts and deployed coastguard ships to try to prevent a fresh influx of refugees.

In the past two months Bangladeshi border guards have prevented hundreds of boats packed with Rohingya women and children from entering the country.

The Bangladesh government has been under pressure from Muslim groups and the opposition to open its border to the fleeing Rohingya.

Today police stopped thousands of hardline Muslims from marching to the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka to protest at the ongoing genocide of Rohingya.

Shiblee Noman, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka police, told AFP about 10,000 Muslims joined the march, which was halted at central Dhakas Nightingale Crossing.  AFP
Lahore, December 6

The brother and cousin of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch were among three persons charged by a court in Punjab province for her murder in July, an honour killing incident that shocked the Muslim-majority country.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Saeed Ahmad Raza of the district court in Multan city yesterday indicted the three accusedQandeels brother Waseem, her cousin Haq Nawaz and taxi driver Abdul Basit.

However, the suspects denied committing the crime. The fourth co-accused, Zafar Hussain Khosa, has been declared an absconder by the court.

Police claimed that Waseem had made a confession of killing her sister in the presence of an area magistrate. But the counsel for the accused denied any such confession.

The court fixed December 8 as next date of hearing while issuing directions to the witnesses to appear before it. On the other hand, Lahore High Court, Multan bench, granted bail to driver Abdul Basit.

25-year-old Qandeel was found strangled in her house in Multan, some 350km from Lahore, on July 16. Her father had alleged that she was killed by her younger brother, Waseem, in the name of honour.

Waseem had confessed to having killed his sister in the name of honour.

In his confession video, Waseem expressed no regret in killing his sister. I am proud of what I did. I drugged her first then I killed her. She was bringing dishonour to our family, Waseem said.

Qandeel rose to fame due to her bold videos and pictures many considered as obscene she posted on her Facebook account.

Honour killing is common in Pakistan and every year hundreds of women are killed by male relatives for allegedly dishonouring the family.

In October Pakistan Parliament passed a bill seeking to curb murders in the name of honour.  PTI
The road to Chanderi may be bumpy, but the sleepy little hamlet, known for looms that spin gold, is back on the map with a revival of its famous fabric.

A distant village holds the promise of a narrative; of a textile woven with gold and silver threads, through which light passes with ease. This village in Malwa was christened Shangrila by Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose commitment to Chanderi revival was celebrated at the recently concluded Amazon India Fashion Week. It showcased 16 designers, who showcased their collections made with Chanderi. Called Road To Chanderi, it pitched Chanderi as a fashion garment, with young designers like Ruchika Sachdeva of Bodice and Aneeth Arora of Pero presenting Western and bohemian silhouettes to show the versatility of the textile.

But the road to Chanderi itself is a bumpy ride. A train stops at Lalitpur from where the road cuts through Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradhesh. The town has 272 monuments and about 30,000 people, where almost every home houses a loom. Chanderi saw its revival through various design interventions , with designers like Rahul Mishra and Sanjay Garg who brought it into the fashion vocabulary. Garg of Raw Mango started with saris; he introduced bright borders and drapeability in the fabric to make it more wearable. His handloom evangelism helped mainstream the sari to become a fashionable attire. Many followed suit like Anavila Mishra, whose linen saris are now very popular.

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For a traveller, the narrative of Chanderi is a story of a town that has held on to its identity through the years. The gossamer weave is their inheritance from the weavers who had come from Bangladesh, and through the years, have worked the looms to preserve this beautiful textile. Chanderi, which is among the best known handloom clusters, occupies a special place because of its centuries-old weaving that produces finely-textured fabrics of silk and cotton embellished with woven zari. Through this story, we have tried to show the Chanderi sari as a fashion garment paired with jackets and contemporary blouses and used the narrative of drapes to recount a woman's journey to this town; stopping by to soak in all that it has to offer. As an outsider, she is open to the beauty of the textile but as a traveller, she wears it effortlessly with shirts, jackets and trench coats trying to retain both the identities, yet pitching the sari as part of a global woman's wardrobe.

Corset by Samant Chauhan of Rajputana Label Sari by Chanderiyan, a project initiated by Jyotiraditya Scindia

Blue chintz chequered blouse by Deepika Govind Head ornament and earrings by Chinki Sinha Sari by Chanderiyan

Black high-collar blouse by Arjun Saluja of Rishta by Arjun Saluja Sari by Chanderiyan Earrings by Samant Chauhan Location Raja Rani Mahal in Chanderi, Madhya Pradesh

Sari by Chanderiyan, Location Qila Fort at Chanderi, Model Sanjana GL, team Shikhar Siddharth

Photographs by Bandeep Singh

Text & styling by Chinki Sinha

--- ENDS ---
Tokyo, December 6

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor this month, the first by a Japanese leader, will not be to apologise for the Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War Two, Abe's top aide said on Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the purpose of Abe's December 26-27 visit was to console the souls of those who died in the war.

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While the lack of an apology could disappoint some US war veterans, Abe hopes the visit will showcase the tight alliance between the former foes. Experts say it is a message Abe wants to send both to regional rival China and to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has criticised Tokyo as a free-rider on defence.

"This visit is for the sake of consoling the souls of those who died in the war, not for the sake of an apology," Suga told a news conference the day after Abe announced the visit.

"I think that the prime minister's visit will be an opportunity to send the message that the calamity of war must not be repeated and ... express the value of reconciliation between Japan and the United States," he said.

The visit to Hawaii with US President Barack Obama could also boost Abe's popularity rating - already robust at around 60 per cent - and raise the likelihood that he will call a snap election for parliament's lower house.

It will come seven months after Obama became the first serving US president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in the closing days of the war in 1945.

"The planning for a Pearl Harbor visit has been in the works ever since Obama visited Hiroshima. It's mostly a reciprocal gesture and symbolic of the US and Japan burying the hatchet," said Columbia University emeritus professor Gerry Curtis.

"It sends a message to China about the strength of the U.S.-Japan relationship (and is) probably also intended to send the same message to Trump," he said.

A boost in popularity ratings would give Abe a freer hand to call a snap election in January before opposition parties are ready. No election need be held until 2018 but speculation persists that Abe wants to call a vote sooner to minimise losses for his ruling bloc, which holds a two-thirds majority in the chamber.

Reuters
Islamabad, December 6

Pakistan plans to rename a university centre for physicist Abdus Salam, its first Nobel laureate, after more than 30 years of all but disowning his achievements, as a member of a minority sect barred from identifying itself as Muslim.

The office of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said it had given approval for the National Centre for Physics at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, the capital, to be renamed after Salam.

The prime minister has directed the ministry of federal education to put up a formal summary for renaming the centRE, for approval of the president, it said in a statement on Monday.

Salam shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for helping to pave the way to the discovery of the God particle, one of sciences greatest achievements in the last 100 years.

However, under pressure from right-wing clerics and students, Salam was banned from lecturing at public universities during his lifetime, and even after winning the Nobel.

The Ahmadi minority holds that a prophet followed the Prophet Mohammed, who founded Islam. But that view runs counter to the Muslim religions central belief that Mohammad was the last of Gods messengers.

Killing Ahmadis earns the assailant a place in heaven, say some clerics, who distribute leaflets carrying the home addresses of sect members.

In 1974, a Pakistani law declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims and in 1984, a new law made it possible to jail Ahmadis for posing as a Muslim or offending a Muslims feelings.

Salam is buried in the Pakistani town of Rabwah, a major centre for Ahmadis, where his gravestone was defaced by local authorities who removed the word Muslim from an inscription that called him the first Muslim Nobel laureate.

All his life, Professor Salam wanted to set up an institution for physics in Pakistan but no one let him, Saleemuddin, the Ahmadi communitys Pakistan spokesman, told Reuters.

They didnt honour him in his life but we are happy they have finally done so now, better late than never, added Saleemuddin, who uses only one name. Only when we begin to honour our true heroes will Pakistan be on the right track.  Reuters
Image: U.S. DOT

A new research report strongly advocates for greater funding of transportation infrastructure investments what is now covered by Highway Trust Fund allocations. It also stresses the value of projects designed to support multiple transportation modes.

Release of the The State of Freight IIImplementing the FAST Act and Beyond report, co-authored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the American Association of Port Authorities, marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Fixing Americas Surface Transportation (FAST) Act highway bill.

The report aims to be a blueprint for state DOTs, Congress and the new [Trump] administration to address the critical freight infrastructure needs of our nation, said AASHTO President and MaineDOT Commissioner David Bernhardt.

One of my top priorities as AASHTO president is to focus on intermodal freight capacity constraints and work collectively to improve the vital connections between rail, ports, intermodal facilities and the national surface transportation system necessary to meet the projected demand in population growth and freight movement over the coming decades.

Kurt Nagle, AAPA president and CEO, said the report gives a comprehensive national overview of where states are collectively in developing state freight plans, one year after the FAST Act was passed.

The two associations contend that while states are making progress, improvements to critical freight infrastructure have not kept pace with current and future demands. The report includes several recommendations to leverage private-sector investment and move lawmakers to provide additional and ongoing funding resources outside of the Highway Trust Fund.

Based on compiling and analyzing results from a combined AASHTO- AAPA survey completed in November, the report delves into how states fund freight-specific investments through state-dedicated or discretionary funding, and how these funding sources can potentially work with federal freight investments.

For example, the survey found that 71% of states have state freight plans that they are actively working to make compliant with the FAST Act compliant. Additionally, 57% of states have targeted more than 6,200 freight projects for inclusion in their state freight plans, while 35% have identified a combined $259 billion in costs for their states freight plan projects.

The associations also noted that of the 50 state departments of transportation and the District of Columbias, 12 have direct relationships with one or more ports in their state. Whats more, 38 states are connected by navigable waterways and/or marine highway routes, which creates opportunities and obvious synergies for close DOT/port relationships.

To help states plan sustainable investments in a national freight network, AAPA and AASHTO recommend in the report that these steps be taken:

Have the U.S. Department of Transportation continue providing Highway Trust Fund allocations to states for highway freight projects through the National Highway Freight program

Have the USDOT coordinate its Build America Bureau and freight advisory committees with state freight plans to better leverage private-sector investment

Request that Congress provide additional and ongoing funding resources outside of the HTF for the overall multimodal freight network in such a way it can supplement highway formula dollars and fund discretionary grant programs

Move the Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT) from discretionary to mandatory spending to enable all the revenues from HMT collections to be used for maintenance of deep-draft navigation channels and providing more equity

During a Dec. 6 conference call with reporters, AASHTO Executive Director Bud Wright pointed out that while the FAST Act authorizes $11 billion to be spent on freight infrastructure over a five-year span, a lot more will be needed just for the over 6,200 freight projects targeted by states. Thats why were urging lawmakers to provide additional and ongoing resources outside of the Highway Trust Fund to fund freight programs.

AAPAs Nagle told reporters that a combination of federal, state, local and private-sector investments will be needed to bridge the funding gap. President-elect Trump has talked very vocally about his desire to rebuild infrastructure  discussing an up to $1 trillion package with Congress, he said. I think there is a new recognition by Trump and Congress that we need to invest not just in overall infrastructure, but in transportation, specifically in freight transportation, if we are to compete internationally.
Ministry of Home Affairs today informed Lok Sabha that Central Industrial Security Force was paid Rs 99.21 crore by eight private sector units, including Baba Ram Dev's Patanjali Food and Herbal Park.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The only paramilitary force to earn money in lieu of providing security cover to private firm has earned nearly Rs 100 crore . Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) today informed lok sabha that Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was paid Rs 99.21 crore by eight private sector units, including Baba Ram Dev's Patanjali Food and Herbal Park and Reliance Industries, for deployment of CISF in last three years, narrowly missing the Rs 100 crore mark.

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Minister of State (MoS) for Home Kiren Rijiju said in Lok Sabha that of the total amount Rs 29.05 crore has been paid by the Reliance Industries and Rs 14.16 crore has been paid by Infosys Tech Bangalore in last three years. The Patanjali Food and Herbal Park, Haridwar has paid Rs 2.48 crore in last two years.

Details of Private Establishment

Also read: Reliance IT Park in Navi Mumbai to get CISF cover

As per CISF Act, 1968 amended in 1969 provides for deployment of CISF in private units. CISF is deployed in 8 private sector units so far.

Also read: Power Yogi: How Baba Ramdev became India's swadeshi FMCG baron

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In its 75th year of business, Oklahoma Central Credit Union has announced it will build in Owasso, with a new branch of the company expected to open in late 2017.

At about 4,700 square feet, the full-service branch would include four drive-through lanes and an outdoor ATM at the northeast corner of E. 116th Street N. and N. 129th E. Avenue in Owasso, according to a press release.

Owasso Chamber of Commerce President Gary Akin said it is encouraging to see a regionally successful business choosing Owasso as a new base for expansion.

It excites me for businesses to see Owasso growing to the point that it could be a profitable place for investing, Akin said. If we were on a decline or just staying even, it might not warrant the investment of new business. But when I see new property, building, construction, what excites me is just an indication of the continuing interest in investing in our city.

The credit union, wholly owned by its more than 40,000 members, has its headquarters in Tulsa and operates eight other locations, including in Port of Catoosa.

It is known locally for its customer service in auto loans and other banking services including online banking.

President and CEO Gina Wilson issued the following statement, As a credit union and financial cooperative, we were founded on the philosophy of people helping people. What better way can we uphold this principle than by making the deep investment and commitment of a new branch to provide our contingency of loyal members and employer partners in Owasso with greater accessibility? We are thrilled to broaden our reach and deepen our relationship with the Owasso community.
A Tulsa County sheriffs deputy, credited with being part of a crew that stopped an active shooter in 2012 outside the courthouse, is now in a confrontation with cancer.

Deputy Cpl. Dennis Miller is diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. In a show of support, other law enforcement officers have pledged to shave the mustaches they grew during No Shave November, said Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Casey Roebuck.

Stage 4 means the cancer has spread to other organs or parts of the body. The cancer has spread to Millers bones and spine, Roebuck said.

A benefit to help pay for Millers treatment, organized by Cancer Sucks, is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 17 at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, 5 S. Boston Ave.

Hes known for helping those in need, Roebuck said in a news release. Now its time for TCSO and Tulsa County to return the favor.

Tickets are available online for $20 and at the door for $25.

Miller was one of the deputies who confronted Andrew Joseph Dennehy, 28, of Tulsa, in March 2012. Dennehy reportedly fired several shots into the air in the courthouse plaza and fired one bullet at deputies, according to Tulsa World archives.

In 2014, a jury convicted Dennehy of shooting with intent to kill, possession of a firearm after delinquent adjudication, reckless conduct with a firearm, attempted escape from arrest and battery on a police officer, according to court records. He was sentenced to 20 years in Oklahoma Department of Corrections custody.
By Mike Averill

The struggles in Elizabeth Jordans life are made easier because her family has each other and a roof over their heads.

That wasnt always the case.

Jordan lost custody of her two children when the youngest, Jesus Rivera, was just a couple months old.

They were living in Oklahoma City with the childrens biological father when Jordan and the children were kicked out of the house, she said.

We ended up on the streets, she said. That was the hardest thing in my life, living on the streets, because I didnt have my children.

She regained custody of them about eight years ago after working to get stable housing.

In 2012 Jordan was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer. The tumor caused a condition known as hydronephrosis, which resulted in renal failure.

Doctors were able to treat the cancer, but Jordan still has to have dialysis three times a week.

She relies on SoonerRide for transportation to and from the appointments, which take up most of the day.

Instead of complaining about hours spent each week in treatment, Jordan said shes happy that the appointments start early in the morning.

Im thankful I get time to share with my children when they get home from school, she said. My son likes to tell jokes a lot. He must get it from his grandfather.

My daughter, she hugs me and kisses me all the time. They care about me a lot.

Last year the family lost what possessions they had when the house they were living in caught fire.

I lost all of my stuffed animals Id collected over the years, Jordan said. I cant help it. I love dolls.

Then, earlier this year, Jordan had a heart attack that put her in the hospital for two weeks.

Id never had a heart attack in my life until now. It was kind of surprising, she said.

Jordan said that despite all the struggles the family has faced, having been homeless puts things in a different perspective.

It was pretty sad living on the streets, she said. Now I have everything back that I wanted back.
OKLAHOMA CITY  Private donors have written checks for $7.2 million for the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum, with more expected before the end of the year.

Blake Wade, chief executive officer of the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority, expects to receive $10 million of the $31 million in private pledges by the end of January.

Its coming in, Wade said. Thats what I like.

The first $10 million is vital because it is the amount necessary to trigger the state of Oklahomas commitment to sell $25 million in bonds to complete the center.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 5 (PTI) Closer cooperation between India and Vietnam in all sectors will contribute to the stability, security and prosperity of the entire region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today as he received Defence Minister of that country General Ngo Xuan Lich here.

During the meeting, Modi said Vietnam is a key pillar of India?s ?Act East? policy, a PMO statement said. The Prime Minister noted that India and Vietnam have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship in the field of defence, and reiterated India?s resolve to strengthen defence ties further, it said.

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He fondly recalled his visit to Vietnam in September this year, during which the bilateral relationship was upgraded to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the statement said.

Lich briefed the Prime Minister on the progress achieved in bilateral defence cooperation. PTI AKK AKK

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One former PNM stalwart says there is only one fit to head the political entity and it's not
US actor Van Williams, best known for the 1960s crime-fighting serial The Green Hornet, has died aged 82.

He died on November 28th of renal failure in Arizona, according to reports.

Williams starred as Britt Reid, a suave newspaper owner by day and masked vigilante by night in The Green Hornet. Bruce Lee got his start in acting by appearing as his sidekick, Kato. It ran for just 26 episodes in 1966, but has since been revived as a 2011 film starring Seth Rogen.

He was working as a diving instructor in Hawaii when he was cast as private eye Kenny Madison in the 1959s Bourbon Street Beat, followed by the sequel, Surfside 6.

Williams also made cameos in The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Beverly Hillbillies. His last credit was for the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

Source: Entertainment Weekly
Xavi Hernandez may have won almost all there is to win for club and country during his distinguished career  but he was still delighted and honoured to find that he had made UEFA.com's Ultimate Team of the Year.

Team of the Year: vote now

Only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Carles Puyol and Iker Casillas have racked up more overall appearances in a UEFA.com users' Team of the Year than the 36-year-old midfielder, who made the annual cut five times (2008, 09, 10, 11 and 12).

The Ultimate Team of the Year UEFA.com

Immediately on viewing the all-time XI, he noted that he had personally experienced the talents of most of his new 'team-mates' from his many seasons with Barcelona and Spain.

However, it was the less familiar elements which this side would hypothetically contain that particularly attracted Xavi when UEFA.com presented him with the news that he was one of the 'Ultimates'.

With a smile and "Wow! You don't say!" as his first reaction, he added: "We have Casillas, Ramos, Pique, Puyol and Lahm as defenders; me, Iniesta and Gerrard in midfield; then Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Henry up front.

"This looks a great team and obviously I've played alongside all of them, apart from Lahm, Cristiano and Gerrard. It's been a real pleasure to play with all these guys and of course it would have been just the same to line up alongside the other three.

"For Barca and Spain I had many battles with Cristiano Ronaldo. He is an incredible goalscorer, a great player, a true champion who has really been writing new pages in history," continued the veteran, now with al-Sadd in Qatar.

"Steven Gerrard, too, was a wonderful player, one of the best midfielders in the world in recent years who made history with Liverpool.

Xavi is a big admirer of Bayern's Philipp Lahm AFP/Getty Images

"Then we have one of my absolute favourites  Philipp Lahm, who always performs excellently. He's both a great defender and a great wing-back; he knows how to win the ball back, cross for his strikers and score himself.

"Philipp can play at right-back, as an organising midfielder, as a winger. So it is a great source of pride for me to be named in UEFA.com's Ultimate Team of the Year. Thank you very much, everyone!"

And his advice? "Vote for the Team of the Year on UEFA.com!"
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) Revenue department has asked Customs to take "urgent steps" to dispose confiscated gold while permitting the department to utilise the services of public sector banks, MMTC and STC, to sell the seized metal.

The government had informed Parliament that 67.4 kg gold was misplaced from the vaults of Customs department at the Indira Gandhi International Airport this fiscal.

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"In addition to the SBI, the sale of seized/confiscated gold found ripe for disposal can be routed through all public sector banks (approved by RBI to import and sell gold), MMTC and STC," the Central Board of Customs and Excise (CBEC) said in a communication to its top officials.

The Board also "desired that all Custom Houses should take urgent steps to dispose of seized/ confiscated gold..."

Earlier, the Customs was allowed to sell the confiscated gold only through the banking behemoth State Bank of India. The guidelines for sale of such gold was revised last in August 2005.

The sale price, irrespective of the form of gold, is based on the closing market price of the previous day. The banks cannot levy any commission on the Customs Department. However, all out of pocket expenses incurred by the banks would be deductible. As per the guidelines, the bank concerned will have to take physical delivery of the gold from the Customs warehouse/ office against a suitable acknowledgement.

Forty-seven cases of disappearance of gold were reported from IGI Airport having a total quantity of 67.40 kg between April and October 2016.

In the last three years (2013-14 to 2015-16), 12 cases of disappearance of gold from vaults of Customs department at New Delhi, Mumbai and Trichy Airports were detected. The total quantity involved in the same was 65.39 kg. PTI NKD CS NKD JM

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Roma's Edin Dzeko and Zenit's Giuliano continue to rule the roost in the FedEx Performance Zone, with Anderlecht's ukasz Teodorczyk the newest arrival in the top five in the UEFA Europa League form guide.

5: ukasz Teodorczyk (Anderlecht)

The Dynamo Kyiv loanee continued his excellent run of form with a goal against Kortrijk on Sunday. The Polish striker has now been on the scoresheet in his last five matches, including his strike in the last UEFA Europa League outing against Gabala, and will be looking to continue that run against Saint-Etienne.

9: Paul Pogba (Manchester United)

United's world-record signing jumped four places on the back of a solid performance in the 1-1 draw with Everton. The Frenchman won two aerial duels and made two interceptions in midfield, and was also a menace in the final third, creating three chances and embarking on four dribbles.

16: Iago Aspas (Celta de Vigo)

The Spanish forward was at his efficient best as he found the net with two of his three shots on target at Real Betis, and also linked up well with team-mates, providing 26 accurate passes (including six in the final third). His reward: a leap up 11 places in the FedEx Performance Zone rankings.

30: Radja Nainggolan (Roma)

Roma kept in touch with leaders Juventus with an excellent 2-0 derby win against Lazio, Nainggolan's combative performance crucial. The Belgian won three aerial duels and made four clearances as well as putting in six crosses to team-mates  and, more significantly, scoring a goal.

33: Dante (Nice)

In Nice's 3-0 victory over Toulouse on Sunday, Dante showed that he can get make a difference at both ends. The Brazilian set up two of his side's goals, but he did not neglect his core duties, and found team-mates with 83 of his 88 attempted passes. Dante rises 20 places in the rankings as a result.
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).
Juan Sanchez Munoz has been named the sole finalist for the presidency of University of Houston-Downtown (UHD). Munoz currently serves as vice provost for undergraduate education and student affairs, and senior vice president for institutional diversity, equity, and community engagement at Texas Tech University.

University of Houston-Downtown plays a vital role in our UH Systems overall delivery of higher education resources to this region, so we are fortunate to have an experienced educator and inspiring administrator of Dr. Munozs caliber lead this institution, said UH System Chancellor Renu Khator.

A national search was conducted to fill the UHD presidency, chaired by UH-Clear Lake President William Staples. Munoz is expected to join UHD in April. Texas law requires that 21 days must pass before the UH System Board of Regents can formalize the appointment. The Board will meet Feb. 23.

Dr. Juan Munoz is an excellent selection as the next President of the University of Houston-Downtown, said President Staples. He has extensive academic and administrative experience as well as a commitment to student success and community engagement that will enable him to successfully lead UHD.

Munoz will take the reins from UHD Interim President Michael Olivas, who was appointed to the position by Chancellor Khator in February. Olivas is the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center and Director of the Institute of Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston.

The University of Houston-Downtown community is pleased to welcome Dr. Juan Sanchez Munoz as its next president. He will bring energy and passion to this role, as well as the leadership experience necessary to help UHD continue on our upward trajectory, said Olivas. I have had the good fortune of serving as UHDs interim president and have learned first-hand that this is a very special university. I have come to love this institution, especially its remarkable students, as he will. I look forward to his arrival and all of us will support him during this transition.

UHD has grown both in size and reputation. The institution has managed to increase its admissions standards while maintaining its diversity, which is reflective of Houstons population. The institution serves more than 14,000 students, offering bachelor's and master's degrees in five colleges.

"I am very grateful to the Board of Regents and Chancellor Khator for this remarkable opportunity to be part of this dynamic institution and system to further set a standard of educational excellence that will serve as a model for the country," Munoz said.

Munoz has held leadership positions that reach all facets of higher education. He joined Texas Tech as an associate professor in the College of Education in 2004 and served as a special assistant to the president, advising leadership on policies, programs and initiatives to enhance the quality and diversity of university faculty, staff and students. He joined the Provosts office in 2006 and has held a number of leadership positions including becoming senior vice president for institutional diversity, equity, and community engagement in 2009 and being named a vice provost in 2010. As the senior vice president and vice provost, Munoz supervises more than 40 units and departments, including the TTU Ethics Center and the Teaching, Learning and Professional Development Center, and the Office of Academic Engagement.

Munozs academic research interests include educational access, equity and the advancement of public school students. Before joining Texas Tech, Munoz was an assistant professor at California State University, Fullerton in the Department of Secondary Education. He earned a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Master of Arts in Mexican- American Studies with an emphasis in literature from California State University, Los Angeles. Munoz was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied curriculum and instruction in the Division of Urban Schooling.

Prior to his career in higher education, Munoz was a secondary school teacher and also served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Munoz is married to Dr. Zenaida Aguirre- Munoz, and the couple has three sons, Joaquin Diego Munoz, Cruz Santos Munoz and Juan Amado Munoz.
President Petro Poroshenko inspected the stronghold on the frontline, 1 km away from Horlivvka.

This has been reported by the press service of the Head of State.

Poroshenko had a conversation with the military, congratulated them on the 25th anniversary of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and presented state awards.

I am really proud that in these 2.5 years we have created the most powerful Armed Forces in Europe, Petro Poroshenko said.

The President emphasized that the people of Ukraine trusted the army just as the church today.

I am here to congratulate you on the Day of Volunteer and express gratitude for your work. And to do what the state must do  present state awards to the AFU military and our volunteers, the President said.

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Ukrainian army has become one of the most combat-effective in Europe thanks to the courage and professionalism of its soldiers.

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov said this in his address on the occasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Day, the press service of the NSDC reports.

"You chose difficult profession  dangerous and the most respected one. The Ukrainian army has become one of the most combat-effective in Europe thanks to your courage and professionalism. The defender of the motherland becomes one of the most honorable member of our society, and every third citizen of our country trusts the Armed Forces," Turchynov said.

He noted that Ukrainian soldiers today safeguarded the sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interests of Ukraine and its European future, defending peace and well-being, giving resistance to the aggressor.

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Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak has congratulated Ukrainians on the 25th anniversary of the Armed Forces Day.

The text of congratulations has been posted on the Defense Ministry website.

The minister noted that over the past two and a half years, Ukraine has managed to create real armed forces.

Poltorak appealed to Ukrainians and thanked them for their hard work. He also thanked soldiers who conscientiously did their duty. The minister stressed that we did not forget the feat of those who died and were injured.

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One Ukrainian soldier was killed and one was wounded in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in eastern Ukraine over the last day.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson for ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzianyk said this at a press briefing in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and one was wounded as a result of military operations in the ATO zone over the last day, he said.

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NATO Special Program directs efforts to provide assistance and psychological rehabilitation to the soldiers, involved in fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Curator of the NATO program for social adaptation of former Ukrainian soldiers, Emanuel Huntzinger said this to Ukrainian soldiers, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We have started our additional activities in Ukraine since the beginning of active hostilities in eastern Ukraine. We hold workshops on psychological rehabilitation. This program is designed for solely and specifically demobilized persons, who took part in the hostilities," the representative of the Alliance Headquarters said.

He noted that the program involved demobilized soldiers of the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine.

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Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will visit Brussels on December 6-7, and he will attend a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission at the level of foreign ministers.

This has been reported by the press service of the Foreign Ministry.

"On December 6-7, Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will pay a working visit to Brussels," reads a statement.

The Foreign Ministry informed that during the visit, Klimkin will hold several meetings in the European Parliament and visit the NATO Headquarters in order to participate in the activities of the Alliance at the level of foreign ministers.

In particular, Klimkin will hold talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and several bilateral meetings with the foreign ministers of the Alliance member states.

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Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain said on Tuesday, "Patients with an annual family income of less than Rs 300,000 and bonafide residents of Delhi for three years will be eligible for free MRI/CT scan facility."

By Priyanka Sharma: The long wait for an MRI scan at ten Delhi government hospitals may end soon following a report published in Mail Today.

While patients were asked to wait till 2019 for an MRI scan at GB Pant Hospital, the Delhi government has now decided to provide the facility at seven private diagnostic centres for free.

Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain said on Tuesday, "Patients with an annual family income of less than Rs 300,000 and bonafide residents of Delhi for three years will be eligible for free MRI/CT scan facility."

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Patients would have to show income certificates and residential proofs like Aadhaar card, ration card or driving licence to avail the facility.

"The facility will be available at NABH-accredited MRI/CT scan centres on being referred by the medical superintendent or nodal officer of Delhi Arogya Kosh of an identified hospital," the minister added.

However, patients have to seek prior appointment with these labs.

The Delhi government will reimburse these centres at CGHS rates decided by the Centre, Jain said.

ALSO READ | 3 years, that's how long you have to wait for an MRI at Delhi's GB Pant Hospital

WHAT THE MAIL TODAY REPORTED

On November 23, Mail Today had reported that patients at GB Pant Hospital have been asked to wait till 2019 for an MRI scan because there's just one scanner which is not working for several months. The decision to offer the facility at private centres is aimed at reducing the waiting period of patients, particularly those at GB Pant Hospital, Jain said.

Asked about the availability of funds for reimbursing these laboratories, he said the Delhi government has saved money in several PWD projects that will be used for the purpose. Moreover, the facility will be extended to hospitals where these tests are currently unavailable, Jain added.

The scheme entitles patients to avail cashless MRI/CT scan facility from such centres under PPP mode at central government hospitals and the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. Delhi Arogya Kosh entered into an agreement with the private centres on November 30. This facility shall substantially decrease the load on Delhi government hospitals and shorten the waiting list for patients.

This will help in providing timely treatment to all patients in general and those belonging to EWS category in particular. GB Pant is one of the biggest state-run medical institutes in India, and is equipped for complex neuro, cardiac and gastrointestinal surgeries, all of which require MRI scans.

Other hospitals that provide the facility are Guru Teg Bahadur, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital, Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Delhi State Cancer Institute and Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya. The cost of an MRI scan at private facilities ranges from Rs 5,000-Rs 10,000.

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The governing institutions of the European Union and the Member States bear a serious political responsibility and should not lose the trust of Ukraine and Georgia regarding the speedy granting of visa-free regime to these countries.

This is stated in a letter of European Council President Donald Tusk to President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, available to an Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels.

"We have made demands on our partners, who have paid a heavy price in carrying out painful reforms and even have been subjected to great political risk. They accepted these challenges, with a strong belief that the EU will be able to fulfill its own promises. Therefore, I want to reiterate that we may lose not only the social, political and economic interests, and not only the future of our relations with our neighbors, but, also and especially, trust," Tusk commented on the inadmissibility of delay in EUs decision-making process regarding granting Ukraine and Georgia visa-free regime.

In his letter, the President of the European Council noted that the main reason for delay in granting visa-free regime for these two countries is the lack of agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

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Japan supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and it will continue sanctions against Russia.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Shigeki Sumi said this on Tuesday during a meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak at the National Military Medical Clinical Centre, where the ambassador conveyed the certificate for the new video endoscopy complex, the press service of the Head of State reported.

I wish the conflict caused by Russian aggression to be resolved as soon as possible. Japan will continue its support for Ukraines territorial integrity imposing sanctions against Russia. Along with the G7 countries, Japan will also continue supporting the process of reforms that will bring economic prosperity, the ambassador noted.

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Ukrainian border guards have rescued two storks from snow and later transferred them to rehabilitation in the Cherkasy city zoo.

This is reported by the press service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine on its Facebook page.

"The officers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine spotted at the training ground two storks, which were not strong enough to fly to southern skies. Birds were weak, but were not afraid of people. The border guards took them to the training establishment to save from cold and hunger," the statement reads.

Later the birds were transferred to a temporary location  the Cherkasy city zoo.

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More than a year has passed since Rahel bundled her infant daughter, badly burned in an accident a few days earlier, onto a smugglers' boat on the Libyan coast and headed for Italy.

The 15-month-old toddler, along with many of her 70 fellow refugees and migrants, had been injured when a gas cylinder blew up in the cooking area of the smugglers' den where she and her mother were in hiding, awaiting their departure for Europe. Several people were killed in the explosion and fire.

Rahel knew that if they went to hospital they would be arrested by the Libyan authorities. Instead, after an agonizing few days wait, they were able to leave on a boat.

Rahel, 26, from Eritrea, looks at photographs of her daughter Dina that she took with her phone after the accident in April 2015 and bursts into tears.

I saw fire, I ran outside and saw Dina burned here, on here and here, she says, pointing to her legs, face and arms. Dina suffered third-degree burns on 80 per cent of her body, including her face.

I saw fire  I ran outside and saw Dina burned."

Rahels partner, 28-year-old Azoz, who comes from the same Horn of Africa country, is visibly distressed as he looks at the pictures for the first time since the accident.

Italian coastguards intercepted the vessel on which Rahel and Dina were travelling about midnight on April 17, 2015, and ferried the refugees to the island of Lampedusa. Many others had also been badly burned by the gas explosion.

At the time of the accident, Rahel was inside the house and Dina was outside where the cooking was taking place.

I saw fire, Rahel said. I ran outside and saw Dina burned here, on here and here, she added, pointing to her legs, face and arms.

The day I arrived in Italy, I felt like a crazy woman. When the Italian [coastguard] rescued us, I felt happy. I thought: Its over, we made it.' But I was worried about my daughter  will she die or be okay? I was only thinking about her.

Rahel, Azoz and Dina pose for a family portrait near their home in Antwerp, Belgium.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Rahel learns Dutch at language school with other refugees and migrants.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Dina crosses the street in Antwerp, followed by her mother Rahel.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Two-year old baby Dina plays with her friends at nursery in Antwerp, Belgium.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Dina plays on the floor of her home in Antwerp, Belgium, where she lives with her parents.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Dina was injured when a gas cylinder blew up in the cooking area of the smuggler's house where she and her mother were in hiding, awaiting their departure for Europe.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Azoz plays with his two-year old daughter Dina in their home, while Rahel prepares food.  UNHCR/Marc Hofer

Dina received immediate treatment for her burns in Italy and she has had follow-up care in Belgium. The scars on her face have gone, those on her legs and arms are fading and will heal with time, doctors say.

Azoz remembers the day Dina was born in Sudan in December 2013 as a very happy day. The couple had left Eritrea for Sudan with the aim of eventually going to Europe.

Azoz had to leave Rahel and baby Dina behind, hoping he could reach Europe first and set up home before the arrival of Rahel and his newborn child. People smugglers took them to Libya by car.

After failing to obtain entry into the United Kingdom, where his sister lives, he sought asylum in Belgium where he has a cousin. The family now has refugee status there.

They live in a one-bedroom ground-floor apartment in a traditional neighborhood of Antwerp where Dina, now nearly 3, attends nursery. Her parents travel an hour to attend language school in another part of town.

Belgium: Flames of Libya haunt refugee family.

Having been in Belgium longer, Azoz has a better knowledge of Dutch but Rahel knows enough to follow the news on television.

Azoz usually collects Dina from nursery and spends much of his free time playing with her, taking her for walks in the park. When he received the call from Italy, he feared he might not see his daughter again. I didnt think Dina would live. But when I saw her here in Belgium I was very, very happy.

Memories of home are never far away. They play African music as they make traditional food for dinner, and the smell of coffee beans being roasted and infused with spices wafts through the flat.

As she brews the coffee in a clay pot, Rahel jumps as the gas hob lights up. I see the faces of the people who died and I cant sleep, she said.

Three people died after reaching Italy from injuries they suffered in the fire. Rahel said she counted eight who died on the spot in Libya. One badly burned woman committed suicide a few months after arriving in the Netherlands, she added.

I see the faces of the people who died and I cant sleep."

Dinas scars are a constant reminder of the second chance at life given to her daughter. I want Dina to finish school, I want her to be in good health for the rest of her life, I want her to be happy.

The child already seems settled in Belgium. She has made friends at nursery and talks to them confidently in Dutch.

Her parents are finding it more difficult to integrate. Besides the wet climate, the couple find life in Belgium has challenges. Half the financial assistance they receive from the government goes on rent, the rest on living expenses and transport costs.

However, Rahel and Azoz try to focus on happier things. The couple are not yet married and hope to do so once they can afford it. They are keen to learn the language and find jobs. Rahel said she did not mind what type of work she did, while Azoz had arranged an interview for a job as a plasterer.

If you dont work you dont have anything, said Rahel. If you dont work you dont feel normal, you stay at home and be stressed. You go crazy.
CBDT chief Sushil Chandra also said that the Income Tax Department does not differentiate between the common man and politicians or industrialists when it comes to going after black money hoarders.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: In an exclusive interview with India Today, the chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes, Sushil Chandra said that Since the beginning of demonetization process in India, around 2000 notices has been sent to bank account holders (within a month), hard cash of Rs 120 crore has been seized and approximate Rs 1500 crore undisclosed amount has been detected by the Income Tax (IT) department.

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He also revealed that the cases of false declarations from Ahmedabad and Mumbai would not affect the IDS money which is coming into the system in installments. However, he confirmed that both cases were being investigated at the moment. Chandra was in Mumbai to attend the BRICS meet of Revenue heads, which would soon open another gate for taxmen to check and investigate all Indians who may have laundered money in any of these countries.

Here's the full transcript of India Today's interview with the Central Board of Direct Taxes:

India Today: Till now, it seems almost Rs 10 lakh crore has been deposited in various banks by citizens of India. How has the IT department been able to capture the black money floating in the market?

Sushil Chandra (SC): Black money is one of the targets for which demonetisation was implemented. If the money comes into the banking sector in any form whatsoever, we will chase it. If it is within the system, we could always track it. Our concern was the black economy ie cash economy is not in our network.

So if somebody has deposited this amount to put back into the system, let say Rs 3 lakhs or Rs 5 lakhs, then we are collecting all banking data. The IT department and Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) have the tools to check the areas in which money has been deposited.

We are tracking, whether the money is genuine or not and if somebody has utilized others to park their money, and if it is found to be the case, we will be invoking Benami Property Act. In such cases, money would get confiscated, and the person would be liable to the penalty.

India Today: Out of the total deposits in banks, what portion could be the black money?

SC: No, I cannot tell you the percentage. In fact, nobody could tell the percentage right now. But definitely, when we are getting the information which is not matching with the profile of the person, than action is taken.

India Today: Have you come across with such kind of information, as till now a number of notices has been sent?

SC: Yes, we have sent these notices so quick. You should appreciate it. I think, in the less than a month. We had collected the information; we had matched up the profiles and later, issued notices.

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It is not that you have deposited a certain amount, you will get the notices. No, I will check up the profile of regular income tax filer. If your turnover is higher and the deposit is matching with these numbers, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you have not filed the return, you are not doing any business, suddenly some money comes in your pocket and the bank account shows Rs 10 lakhs than it falls into high risk category.We have made sure we have completed the profiling of these people before we issue the notices. In some cases, the department is conducting searches too.

India Today: Till now, how many notices have been sent across India?

SC: We have issued 2000 notices across the country. In some cases, we have issued notices, in some directly conducting surveys and searches (without any notices).

India Today: What is the quantum of seizures collected till now, as number searches took place?

SC: We have seized more than Rs 120 crore of hard cash from across the country, starting from November 8. In addition, around Rs 1400-1500 crore of undisclosed income has been detected. Let say, if we are going to your house and the shop, it is not only the cash component which we are looking for, but we are finding other details too. On that basis, we will get more detection of the undisclosed income, in the coming days.

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India Today: Off late, CBDT issued a clarification on false declarants i.e. Mahesh Shah for Rs 13,860 crore and one Mumbai-based family for declaring Rs 2 lakh crore. Do you think the number of fake declarants could increase in the near term and reduce the number of IDS the department has got so far?

SC: Not by much. Already, we have collected Rs 6000 crore as IDS amount. If you see, on the IDS declaration of Rs 65,000 crore with 45 per cent tax, we were hoping to get Rs 6000- 7000 crore of taxes. Right now, we have collected these figures, which itself is a large chunk.

In these declarations (Mahesh Shah and Mumbai family), we already had inclination that they are not correct declarations. Therefore, before the deadline came close, we rejected these declarations.

India Today: At least in case of Ahmedabad, there is a person to be questioned, but in Mumbai case, the family used bogus address in declaration form. How would IT department track them? Have you come across the actual beneficiaries in both the cases?

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SC: There are no actual beneficiaries in these two cases. IDS was to disclose their own money and not somebody else's money. As soon as they came to us, we found that these persons weren't genuine. After preliminary investigation, we found that they didn't possess as much income as shown in declaration form. Thus, we cancelled those declarants. Currently, investigation is going on. I cannot say beyond that.

India Today: Is IT department planning to search the bank lockers or conduct searches at home to check the gold kept inside by the people in India?

SC: There is no such plan at all. There is no need to panic as well. We have clarified these things that on legal assets (gold) nobody would question on that, but if you have got unsubstantiated assets, than only department will react to it.

India Today: Some banking experts are saying that even after the demonetisation drive, no significant amount of black money has surfaced. How would you respond to that?

SC: We can't say for sure how much money coming into the bank is black. That is why we are working on it. We are issuing the notices. There could be a possibility that money getting deposited in banks could not be clean money.

India Today: Critics also say that the IT department has failed to capture politicians, industrialists and high net worth individuals, till now. In fact, they say you have not even scanned the political funding of various political parties. What is your take on it?

SC: From the department perspective, we have never differentiated "X" and "Y". We strictly go as per our information. Any money coming in the banking system, we are going to chase most of the accounts with our available matching capacity. If the money is undisclosed and not genuine than the account holders would be taken to the task.

India Today: Is IT department investigating all those farmers and poor people who have opened Jan Dhan Account?

SC: If it is farmer's money in the bank account and falls into exemption category, than we would not do anything against them, but if we found that some other person has misused the farmer's account and we have the evidence in hand then those accounts would be checked. The department is working area-wise and station-wise. We are expecting good results, soon.

India Today: On Monday, CBDT and IT officials had a close-door meeting with BRICS officials on various revenue issues. What outcome is the Indian government is expecting from this meeting?

SC: In BRICS, as you know, we are working with developing countries. The whole idea is to share our experiences and information so that we could work together in certain areas. We are learning the best practices from each other and everybody is very enthusiastic.

By holding these meeting we are developing more confidence with each other. We can share our concerns also. The basic challenge is to bring more people under tax net and to check black money in every country which we are talking about, and how the person who is putting assets outside the country could be tracked properly.

So to curb the black money and stop evading of taxes, we share information to work towards better tax compliance and to find better ways to increase the tax net. These are some concern areas which we are sharing here, and everybody is absolutely committed in taking it forward

ALSO READ:

Demonetisation effect: IT department using opportunity to nab tax evaders

Income Tax raids to continue crackdown on black money hoarders

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: storm: IMD

New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago will receive rainfall in the next two days due to a depression over southeast Bay of Bengal, which is likely to turn into a cyclonic storm, the MET department today said.

According to Cyclone Warning Division of the India Meteorological Department, the depression lays centered around 1260 km south-southeast of Vishakhapatnam, 1310 km south- southeast of Gopalpur and 260 km west-southwest of Car Nicobar.

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However, it is yet to make any forecast on landfall.

"It is very likely to intensify into a deep depression during next 24 hours and into a cyclonic storm in subsequent 24 hours.

"Light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy falls at a few places is very likely to commence over A&N Islands during next 48 hours," the IMD said.

Squally winds speed reaching 40-50 kmph gusting to 60 kmph would prevail over A&N Islands during this time.

Sea condition would also be "rough to very rough" along and off A&N Islands. Fishermen are advised not to venture into sea along and off the islands during next two days. PTI PR ZMN

--- ENDS ---
The day is observed as Mahaparinirwan Diwas and followers gather in large numbers at 'Chaityabhoomi', where he was cremated after his death on 6 December 1956.

By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: An estimated 8 lakh followers of Babasaheb Dr B.R. Ambedkar paid tributes in Mumbai to the architect of the Constitution on his 60th death anniversary. The day is observed as Mahaparinirwan Diwas and followers gather in large numbers at 'Chaityabhoomi', where he was cremated after his death on 6 December 1956.

Chief Minister Devndra Fadnavis and Education Minister Vinod Tawde paid homage to Ambedkar at the 'Chaityabhoomi' in the early hours of Tuesday. The state government had recently approved 'A' class pilgrimage and tourist destination status for Chaitya Bhoomi, the memorial of Dr BR Ambedkar in central Mumbai. The move will pave way for the overall development of this place of historical importance.

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WHAT ARRANGEMENTS WERE MADE

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation made adequate arrangements for followers who came to visit Chaitya Bhoomi on Mahaparinirvan Diwas. The BMC set up 10 control rooms to guide visitors. Around 750 workers were put on duty round-the-clock at the venue and at Dadar Chowpatty beach, where there are many stalls set up.

Also read | Let Marathas rally, do not counter, says Ambedkar's grandson to Dalits over Kopardi gangrape case

About 200 mobile toilets, water tankers, utility vehicles and fire engines were set up to aid visitors. This year, the BVG India (Bharat Vikas Group) has placed its 9 ambulances with 18 doctors at 9 different locations around south central Mumbai to cater to any emergency situation.

In the last few years, youngsters have also been making a beeline to pay their respects to Dr Ambedkar at Chaityabhoomi.

WHAT THIS VISITOR HAS TO SAY

"December 6 is a day of introspection for me. I visit Chaityabhoomi at Dadar with my family and friends to pay homage to Babasaheb and to recharge myself about the Ambedkarite Mission of Social Change in a perfectly parliamentary and constitutional manner. I see my people from all parts of India and find rare comfort in the process of merging my energies with them. It is indeed a soul-elevating experience for all of us in the gathering...a silent dialogue between our Moses and us", said Kanishk Jayant, a lawyer in the Bombay High Court.

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The University of Southern California student suspected of stabbing a University of Southern California professor was identified. Los Angeles Police was responsible for the identification of the said graduate student.

Twenty-eight year-old graduate brain and cognitive science student David Jonathan Brown was arrested on the allegations of killing Bosco Tjan. Tjan was USC's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences was a professor of psychology. Tjan oversaw Brown with four other students who worked in the lab with the the professor.

The USC Department of Public Safety reported that investigators hypothesized the attack was the consequence of a personal disagreement, according to ABC News.

Brown's bond cost $1 million. It is not verified if Brown has an attorney.

C.L. Max Nikias, University of Southern California president, identified Tjan as the victim through a communication sent to staff and students. Tjan, who also served as co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging, became a member of the USC faculty in 2001 and was an expert in cognition, vision, and perception.

Associated Press reports that fifty year old Tjan was a married father of one.

LAPD reports that Tjan was murdered around 4:30 p.m. inside the Seeley G. Mudd building. The police arrived at the scene of the attack and arrested a male student. However, the student's name was not released.

Nikias said in his letter that the Department of Public Safety officers immediately responded and apprehended the suspect on the vicinity. It has been confirmed that the suspect was a student and is detained by the Los Angeles Police Department. He was proud for the quick response of the Department of Public Safety. He applauded the university counselors for immediately being at the scene of the crime.

Nikias announced that Varun Soni, the university's dean of religious life, will unite the campus together for reflection and prayer.
While the Motorola Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus are yet to receive the much-awaited Android 7.0 Nougat update, rumors and speculations regarding the upcoming Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus specs and release date are already leaking on the web.

An earlier report by GSMArena has revealed the alleged images of the rumored Motorola devices, the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus, along with some key information about its specs and possible release date.

According to Mobipicker, the two devices will have the design and form factor of their predecessors, of course, this is already expected. The Moto G5 is said to feature a 13MP primary camera and a whopping 16GB of storage, while the Moto G5 Plus is said to have a 16-megapixel primary camera and an additional 32GB storage option.

The leaked images also reveal some of the key specs of the two Moto devices. Bundled in with the leaked images is specs, which shows a 5.5 -inch full HD display on both Moto models along with the 5-megapixel front camera and a shaped fingerprint scanner below the phone screen. As shown in the leaked images, both models are powered by single Octa-core processors, but the specific details are not revealed in the photo. The company remained silent about this area.

In terms of operating system, both Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus are expected to feature Android N right out of the box.

However, there some difference between the two Moto devices. The big difference, according to Android Soul, is on the storage option and main camera. According to The Android Soul, which the first to leak the information, the Moto G5 will have a single 16GB storage option, while the Moto G5 Plus will have two 16GB/32GB storage options.

Both Moto devices are expected to feature a 24-hour battery life and support turbocharging. In addition to the camera difference, Fingerprint sensor is said to feature only on Moto G5 Plus.

Motorola has made no official statement about the rumored Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus devices, not even a hint about its specs. Like what the other media sites said, there is no official announcement yet about its release date. But rumors and leaked stories suggest a possible March 2017 launch date.

Based in Illinois, Chicago, Motorola Mobility is a Chinese-American consumer electronics company that came out from a split by Motorola, which now owned by the Chinese-based Lenovo. Currently, it developed and manufactures smartphones and other mobile devices running the ubiquitous Google Android operating system.
VR and AR products face a bleak 2017 as demand for such kind of technology is expected to be on the low side. What are the reasons why customers are not so excited in using augmented or virtual reality gadgets?

VR and AR Products 2016 Sales Down

The sale of VR and Augmented Reality (AR) products this year alone did not hold up to expectations, according to digitimes. The various VR and AR vendors include many of world's top technology company such as HTC with its Vive, Samsung with Gear VR, Sony with its PlayStation VR or PSVR and the Oculus Rfit.

Several companies though are still investing a serious amount of money in developing VA and AR products. Acer has given a sizeable investment to the IMAX VR Content Fund and has partnered with Swedish gaming company Starbreeze in the development Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display or StarVR HMD.

Why Is Customer Demand Weak?

The demand for VR and AR products is quite week is due to several serious factors. First is the high cost of the new and still developing technology. People willing to try them do not have the budget or are unwilling to part with their money just to satisfy their curiosity about it. Second is the apparent lack of content for the various VR and AR products, according to various social forums such as Reddit.

The lack of content is magnified due to the fact that most if not all of the VR and AR products from the different makers are not compatible to each other. This means that the content from one hardware maker will not work with a rival manufacturer.

A number VR and AR Product users have also complained of headaches and eye strains after prolong use of the technology. This kind of side effects tends to discourage gamers from using such devices. This is unfortunate since they are the major market segment targeted by the various VR and AR product makers.
The Obama cybersecurity policy initiated a commission report detailing the recommendations needed to secure the American cyberspace, but to actualize these need the support of incoming president Donald Trump, who already vowed to rescind Obama's executive orders during the campaign. One of the recommendations hold "Internet of Things" product manufacturers to be held accountable for security flaws in their devices that can potentially harm people and the American society.

The Obama cybersecurity policy is the outgoing administration's response to various cybersecurity threats during the past years, namely, the hacking of Google by the Chinese in 2009, the breach of the Office of Personnel Management and the increase of botnets rising from unsecured Internet of Things devices. Evidently, cybersecurity remains a huge threat that Obama has tasked the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity to conduct a nine-month study of the country's cybersecurity problems.

Last Friday, Dec. 2, the commission presented a hundred-page report detailing the recommendations and actions that need to be taken to secure cyberspace, which could be an important tool for innovation, prosperity and change, the Wired reported. A summary of the vital Obama cybersecurity policy recommendations are written here.

Security Ratings for Every "Internet of Things" product like nutrition labels

An independent organization like the Cyber Independent Testing Lab can be tasked to provide security ratings to every "Internet of Things" product, just like nutrition labels in grocery items so that consumers will be aware of the dangers they will be facing in buying a product.

Legal Liability of "Internet of Things" Product Manufacturers

For the first time, 'internet of Things" product manufacturers can be held accountable for any security flaws in their devices, which could bring potential harm to its users.

Cybersecurity Apprenticeship to Create "Cybersecurity Practitioners"

A cybersecurity program open to college students, who wants to be trained in Applied Information Security. The Obama cybersecurity policy hopes to create 50,000 "cybersecurity practitioners" by year 2020.

Congress to Fund Reseach and Development of the Cybersecurity Roadmap

For Congress to provide incentives to government and private sector collaboration particularly in creating a cybersecurity roadmap that will provide cheaper, safer and more usable computer systems. The private sector like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft can contribute immensely to this endeavor, BBC reported.

In a nutshell, the Obama cybersecurity policy recommendations seem to have huge potential, but it may all go to waste if the Trump administration chooses to ignore it. The likelihood of that happening is high since the Trump cybersecurity policy remains unknown, suffice it to say that Trump has vowed to rescind many of Obama's executive orders during his campaign.
Facebook, Google, and Alibaba co-founders awarded generous prizes in math, life sciences, and physics. Top scientists, A-list celebrities, and tech billionaires converged at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley for a ceremony similar to Oscars that celebrated achievement in science on Sunday evening.

Three million dollars were granted in the fifth year of the Breakthrough Prizes in mathematics, fundamental physics, and life sciences. Fifteen prizes were bestowed by a committee of past recipients that included six $100,000 New Horizons Prizes for early accomplishments in careers and a $250,000 Breakthrough Junior Prize for a teenager who has made an outstanding video that explained scientific concepts, as reported by Fortune.

This started when Russian billionaire and investor Yuri Milner and his wife Julia stated that they would grant yearly theoretical physicists for outstanding achievements in science that started in 2012. This scientific advocacy has grown since 2010 and there was an expansion of the number of disciplines. These scientific patrons included Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and his better-half Priscilla Chan, Google's Sergey Brin, Alibaba's Jack Ma and wife Cathy Zhang, and biotech firm 23 and Me's Anne Wojcicki.

Milner, in an interview with Fortune, studied physics before making it big on different high-profile Internet ventures, lamented that scientists obtain less recognition from the public than musicians, celebrities, and movie stars. He reiterated that there is imbalance as fundamental science has great influence in humanity.

Milner, Mail.ru's former CEO, emphasized the recent discovery of gravity waves as one achievement that has taken hold of him. Three leaders and LIGO project's thousand team members were awarded with the Breakthrought Prize for being successful in the validation of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Milner further said that this award brings attention to the great work that scientists have done. Milner also is a philanthropist of various science initiatives that include Breakthrough Listen, Breakthrough Starshot, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 5 (PTI) Dr Reddys Laboratories Ltd today announced the launch of anti-fungal ointment nystatin and triamcinolone acetonide in the US market.

In a BSE filing, Dr Reddys Laboratories Ltd said, "It has launched nystatin and triamcinolone acetonide cream USP, in the United States market, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)."

The product is the generic equivalent of nystatin and triamcinolone acetonide cream, USP 1,00,000 units/g-0.1 per cent manufactured by Taro Pharmaceuticals USA Inc, it added.

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Quoting IMS Health sales data, Dr Reddys Laboratories said that for the 12-month period ending October 2016, the generic had US sales of around USD 119 million.

Dr Reddys Laboratories shares today were trading at Rs 3,178.70 in the morning trade on the BSE, down 0.03 per cent. PTI SVK JM

--- ENDS ---
The University of Colorado recently expressed they are cutting ties with Dr. Michelle Herren. She called the United States First Lady Michelle Obama "monkey face."

Dr. Herren is an anesthesiologist from the University of Colorado's School of Medicine. She also works at the Denver Health Medical Center. However, the University of Colorado no longer wishes to continue its relationship with Dr. Herren.

Herren previously commented on a post that features Michelle Obama. Using her personal Facebook account, she replied to that particular post by calling Mrs. Obama names such as "monkey face" and has "poor ebonic English." In addition to her comment, she also said that she is only telling the truth and that does not make her racist. However, her behavior does not bode well with the University of Colorado.

The School of Medicine recently stated that her values do not agree with the teachings of the University of Colorado. And that her comment has compromised the teachings and patient care mission of their school.

Aside from the University of Colorado's termination, the Denver Health Medical Center also terminated its relationship with Michelle Herren. She no longer has a position in the center and she is no longer seeing patients at the hospital. According to the Morning Ledger, the Denver Health Medical Center and Michelle Herren has entered a mutual agreement that Herren is going to voluntarily resign regardless of her ten year tenure with the hospital.

Reports have indicated that Michelle Herren has deactivated her personal Facebook account and has also deleted her comment on the photo. During an interview with KMGH, she told the news station that her comments were taken out of context and she was not aware the phrase "monkey face" was an offensive term. Regardless of her explanation, the University of Colorado and the Denverr Health Medical Center still stand by their decision to cut ties with Herren.
Roosevelt University has received its largest ever donation. The gift will be used for student scholarships.

The Chicago Sun Times reported that Roosevelt University made the announcement on Monday. The school has received a $25 million donation from its long-time supporter. This is the largest donation in the institution's 71-year history.

The gift was from the estate of Rosaline Cohn of Chicago. She died in 2010 at the age of 97. Her daughter, Marcia Cohn, died last year.

"This magnificent gift will be used to support student scholarships, in accordance with Mrs. Rosaline Cohn's wishes," university president Ali Malekzadeh said in a statement. "Mrs. Cohn believed in the transformative nature of higher education. She was a long-time friend and supporter of Roosevelt University, and for several decades has helped Roosevelt students through the Jacob and Rosaline Cohn Scholarship Fund."

It was noted that Roosevelt University will be able to use $1.2 million every year for scholarships. Mrs. Cohn's late husband, Jacob, was one of the school's first contributors.

In 1915, the 19-year-old immigrant sold and delivered fresh coffee to restaurants by horse and buggy. His business grew and, by the late 1930s, it became known as the Continental Coffee Company.

Jacob's sons expanded to grocery products and frozen foods. Their firm was renamed CFS Continental.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the family was one of the university's first donors. Roosevelt University is expected to receive one-third of the money later this month. Scholarships are said to be available next fall.

"It is a very significant impact for our students," Malekzadeh added. "You always want to keep the tuition as low as possible and the university as affordable as possible. What this will do is allow us to not increase our tuition as much because there's scholarship money available. My guess is hundreds of students will benefit from the Cohn family's generosity."
Former employees of two giant Chinese companies have come out and revealed that the organizations have committed fraud in bringing Chinese students to America. Apparently, the companies engaged in college application fraud, from writing the students' application essays to faking high school transcripts.

In an investigation by Reuters, eight former and current employees of New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. as well as 17 former Dipont Education Management Group employees revealed that the firms created application essays and teacher recommendations for the students. The organizations were also reported to have falsified some high school transcripts.

Those who have worked with New Oriental admitted that most clients did not have the language skills needed to write their essays on their own. This is why the counselors wrote it for them. Only the top students were able to do original work.

Thomas Benson, who previously ran a small liberal arts college in Vermont, and Stephen Gessner, who served as president of the school board for New York's Shelter Island, worked as consultants for three major Chinese companies, including New Oriental and Dipont.

They were able to recruit several U.S. admissions officers to fly to China and meet with the companies' student clients. The schools that participated were: Cornell University, the University of Chicago, Stanford University as well as the University of California - Berkeley.

New Oriental, which was founded in 1993, has become China's largest provider of private education services. It caters to over two million Chinese students per year.

Clients usually pay about $1,450 and $7,300 for the company to recommend colleges and prepare applications. In a student contract reviewed by the publication, it was noted that New Oriental's services include "writing or polishing" parts of college applications."

The company also creates an email account for the student. However, New Oriental keeps sole control of the account's password. Moreover, some students never even get the chance to see their application.

Quartz added that Reuters' investigation is one of the latest reports on shady practices done by Chinese education companies. It was noted that, earlier this year, the SAT was compromised by a cheating operation run by some Asian test prep companies.
There are growing concerns over the lives of students who may have attended the concert or party that was held in a warehouse in Oakland, Ca. The Oakland Fire Department chief has described it as "the most deadly fire in Oakland Fire's history."

Local source The Daily Californian reported that Jenny Morris, a UC Berkeley student, has been identified as one of the Oakland Fire victims. Her roommate, Vanessa Plotkin, is still missing.

Former UC Berkeley student Griffin Madden and Chelsea Faith Dolan, a DJ for the campus radio station KALX, are also missing. An alumnus, David Cline, was confirmed to be dead on Sunday night. Berkeley employees Nick Gomez-Hall and Donna Kellogg were also confirmed to have died.

On Monday afternoon, Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sheriff-Coroner Gregory Ahern revealed that the office has recovered 36 bodies. 33 of them have been identified. 16 of the victims' families have been notified.

Darin White, deputy chief of Oakland Fire Department's Field Operations Bureau, noted that officials were able to finish 75 percent of the debris removal. The Coroner's Bureau has already conducted 32 autopsies, with more scheduled.

According to Inside Higher Ed, there are fears for students who attended the concert/party on Friday at the "Ghost Ship." San Francisco State University confirmed that a graduate student in education went to the event and is missing.

UC Berkeley issued a statement regarding the Oakland fire. "We realize how difficult this is for those who knew the people whose passing has already been confirmed, as well as those who anxiously wait for news of their friends and loved ones," Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said to the community.

The school has counseling services available for students at University Health Services. Students can visit this link to learn more about the program.

CBS reported that a 17-year-old student has been confirmed to be one of the Oakland fire victims. Draven McGill, a junior at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, was the son of a deputy for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.
After achieving a 5% increase in delivering student satisfaction in the recent National Student Survey and rising fast among universities in the UK, Wrexham Glyndwr University is still looking forward to doing better in 2017.

"Here at Wrexham Glyndwr University we work hard to ensure that every student is offered the best possible support for them to succeed in their studies," Wrexham Glyndwr Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dr. Claire Taylor said in a press release.

Student satisfaction is one of the key drivers that Wrexham Glyndwr University has. It offers various student support programs that help student succeed in their studies in the university, and preparing them for a life after college.

Wrexham Glyndwr's student support services include student funding, support for students with disabilities, childcare services for student parents, as well as personal academic tutors that focus on every student. These services, among others, help raise student satisfaction levels.

"Our personal academic tutors play a key part in this support mechanism which also includes a collaborative approach from our Students' Union and staff across the full range of professional services," Dr. Taylor added. "Everyone across the university community is committed to this approach."

At the university's Wrexham campus, there are one in five students with a registered disability such as dyslexia or Irlen Syndrome. The school helps such students develop better studying and learning skills.

The school provides personal tutor support and mental health mentoring. Students also receive help in making exam arrangements, as well as guidance for applying for financial assistance.

"The 5% points increase in overall satisfaction is very welcome news and shows how hard staff are working to further improve the student experience," Professor Maria Hinfelaar, Vice-Chancellor of Wrexham Glyndwr University, said in a press release.

"I would like to thank everyone for their hard work and focus on ensuring the student is at the heart of everything we do here at Wrexham Glyndwr University."

More information about Wrexham Glyndwr University's Student Support services can be found here.
By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: On November 22, on the basis of specific information, Delhi police had intercepted three persons carrying around Rs 3.7 crore in old denomination notes in front of Axis bank Kashmere gate branch. The case was further handed over to Income Tax department for investigation.

After preliminary investigation Delhi Police registered an FIR on November 29. On the basis of FIR, next day, Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a case under PMLA, 2002 and initiated its investigations.

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MODUS OPERANDI

The ED found that one group of jewelers who had collected advances in old currency notes against the sale of gold and laundered so received cash through banking channels through entry operators named Rajeev Kushwaha CA, Devendra kumar Jha and Raj Kumar Sharma.

For this purpose various shell companies viz; Sunrise trading company, Himalaya International, R.D Traders and. etc having their bank accounts in Axis Bank Kashmere Gate branch were used to deposit cash to the tune of Rs 39 crore between the period 10th November to 22nd November, in close connivance with the bank mangers namely Vinit Gupta and Shashank Sinha.

These cash deposits were in the installments of 90 to 99 lakhs so as to avoid detection by government agencies. In several instances more than one such cash deposit in a day were made in these accounts.

These cash deposits were then further transferred by way of RTGS to M/s Beagle Marketing Pvt. Ltd. on the same day, which is another shell company being managed and controlled by Rajiv Singh Kushwaha by way of dummy directors.

It has been revealed that one of the director of M/s Beagles Marketing namely Ram Charan was found to be a petty labourer working on daily wages basis and staying in a slum at Anna Nagar Jhuggi Camp, New Delhi.

"Ram Charan has expressed his ignorance about the existence of the company. It was also found that directors of other shell companies were also persons of no means", the ED official said.

Thereafter on the instructions of the Jewellers and Rajiv Kushwaha, the funds were further transferred by way of RTGS from the account of M/s Beagle marketing to various Bullion Traders namely M/s Aadi Traders, M/s Siddhi Vinayak Jewellers, Tushar Jewellers etc in lieu of purchase of gold bars.

Though the invoices were raised by these bullion dealers in the name of M/s Beagle Marketing Pvt. Ltd. but the physical delivery of the gold was given to Jewellers. This gold purchased by these Jewellers was further sold to various buyers at Rs 45,000 to 50,000/ 10gms.

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The ED official said, "During interrogation of the middleman, it was revealed that the bank officials agreed to this modus operandi for getting commission of the 2 per cent of the amount deposited in cash in these accounts."

This gratification was given to the bank managers namely Vineet Gupta and Shobhit Sinha in the form of Gold bars for one percent each.

One of the gold bars has been recovered and seized from Lucknow at the instance of statement given by Shobhit Sinha. "Further 2 kg of gold bars have also been seized from one of the jewellers", the official said.

VIOLATION OF RBI RULES

During interrogation of the bank managers it was found that at their instance huge amount of cash was also exchanged in the initial three days without following the due procedure prescribed by RBI.

For this bulk change, forms and unverified identity documents were received from certain customers along with old currency notes which were exchanged by giving them new currency notes in bulk amounting to several lakhs.

The directorate has arrested both bank managers for their connivance and further investigations are under progress.

By this modus operandi, old High Denomination currency notes which ceased to be legal tender from midnight of 8th November, 2016 were laundered by using the banking channels by a set of hawala/entry operators in connivance with bank officials.

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By PTI: London, Dec 6 (PTI) A pair of mummified legs have been identified to be the remains of the Queen Nefertari ? the favourite wife of the pharaoh Ramses II who reigned Egypt in the 13th Century BC - scientists say.

Researchers including Stephen Buckley and Joann Fletcher from the University of York in the UK used radiocarbon dating, anthropology, palaeopathology, genetics and chemical analysis to identify the remains.

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They conclude that "the most likely scenario is that the mummified knees truly belong to Queen Nefertari".

As the favourite wife of the pharaoh Ramses II, Nefertari was provided with a beautifully decorated tomb in the Valley of the Queens to which Fletcher was recently given access.

Although plundered in ancient times, the tomb, first excavated by Italian archaeologists in 1904, still contained objects which were sent to the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

This included a pair of mummified legs which could have been part of a later interment as was often the case in other tombs in the region.

However, as the legs had never been scientifically studied, it was decided to undertake the recent study to find out if the legs could actually represent all that remained of one of Egypts most legendary queens.

The study showed that the legs are those of an adult woman of about 40 years of age.

Chemical analysis also established that the materials used to embalm the legs are consistent with 13th Century BC mummification traditions, which when taken in conjunction with the findings of the other specialists involved, led to the identification.

"The evidence weve been able to gather about Nefertaris remains not only complements the research weve been doing on the queen and her tomb but really does allow us to add another piece to the jigsaw of what is actually known about Egyptian mummification," Fletcher said.

The study was published in the journal Plos One. PTI MHN SAR MHN

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The poll found six in 10 respondents said they owned their home, while a third said they lived in a home owned by a family member.

By India Today Web Desk: About a quarter of homeowners in India, and nearly one in five rural landowners, fear losing their property, in most cases because they do not have documents to prove ownership, according to a new poll.

The survey, launched by US polling firm Gallup in London on Tuesday, set out to test how secure people feel about their homes and land.

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Conducted over the past six months, the Indian survey is the first of a worldwide, two-year research project looking at perceptions of property ownership and security between different societies.

WHAT RESPONDENTS SAY

The poll found six in 10 said they owned their home, while a third said they lived in a home owned by a family member.

Despite the high incidence of ownership, the Indian survey showed that insecurity of property rights is widespread, with about one in four owners and nearly half of all renters expressing worry about losing their home.

Matters related to land and property make up about two-thirds of all civil cases in India, where tussles over ownership can delay property deals and lead to lengthy court battles.

Insecure land rights leave the urban poor particularly vulnerable as they are often unaware of the rights they do have, cannot afford lawyers and live in fear of being evicted.

Also read | India's home-for-all by 2022 plan ignores slum dwellers and homeless: UN

The study revealed that those who were worried about ownership also reported a higher incidence of health problems, including saying they sometimes did not have enough food.

Respondents said the main reason for their insecurity was the lack of documentation, including land titles, followed by disagreements with family members over property ownership.

INSECURE RIGHTS

India is in the throes of dramatic demographic and cultural change with the urban population expected to grow from 377 million in 2016 to nearly 600 million by 2030.

Insecure property rights, say analysts, can threaten to undermine the benefits of India's rapid urbanisation.

A lack of formal documentation proving ownership can block access to basic services such as sanitation, water and electricity and limit access to financial services such as raising credit against a home or farm for investment, the report said.

In the developing world, it can also limit access to state help such as food or fertiliser subsidies and services provided by municipal governments such as sanitation and water.

In India, more than 14,000 men and women, both owners and tenants in cities and villages, were interviewed face-to-face. The project covered 14 Indian states, including Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal.

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Nine other countries will be polled over the next year to build up a definitive picture of how different societies relate to - and feel about - land and property ownership.

GENDER GAP

The report showed a clear gender gap with women less likely than men to own their land or home. But men and women were equally likely to be worried about losing their home or land.

Tenants were twice as likely as owners to worry about losing their homes, with landlords - often afraid of permanently losing possession of their homes - preferring short term contracts.

And while about nine out of 10 respondents lived in a home owned by themselves or by a family member, those who owned their own property were more likely to express worry about losing the home than those who lived with other family members.

Thirty percent of city residents expressed insecurity, compared to 26 percent of their rural counterparts.

Owners were more likely to visit government offices to update their records, although only half had done so in the past. Of these, owners of agricultural land were far more likely to update land records than those who owned residential land.

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Also read | Resist or be ready to become homeless like Palestinians, say separatists in Hurriyat Conference

If people are willing to engage with state authorities on ownership, there are potential resolutions to the problem of insecurity, said the report commissioned by Land Alliance, a Washington-based think tank.

"...Government efforts to make it easier, and affordable, for people to register or update property documentation at local levels could have a large impact on reducing people's worry about their property rights," it said.

"This would have benefits for private citizens and the economy as a whole."

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By PTI: Jaidev had challenged Bal Thackerays last will made on

Jaidev had challenged Bal Thackerays last will made on December 13, 2011 which did not give him anything but bequeathed a substantial share of the property to his brother and incumbent Sena president Uddhav Thackeray.

Jaidev, whose relations with Bal Thackeray were strained, alleged that his father was of unsound mind and under Uddhavs influence when he made the will.

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Bal Thackeray passed away in November 2012 in Mumbai.

The high court had earlier asked the two parties to try and settle the dispute amicably, but they failed to reach a compromise.

A witness had told the court earlier that Bal Thackeray had made several wills since 1997. In all those wills, the beneficiaries remained the same but the assets given to each beneficiary kept changing. PTI SVS NRB ZMN SRE

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According to a new research paper, Donald Trump was especially successful in winning votes in regions that was hit hardest by drugs and alcohol abuse.

Shannon Monnat, a Penn State Sociologist examined the election result and zeroed in on region ravaged by "deaths of despair". This is the term employed to describe the fatal effects of alcohol, heroin and prescription opiates on people across the country, but especially white, middle-aged Americans, whose mortality rates have been rising in recent years.

Monnat had found that in Appalachia and New England, Donald Trump had out performed Mitt Romney by 10 percent in the counties with highest morality rates.

In the Industrial Midwest, by 17 percent. The trend also applies locally, to Suffolk County and Staten Island, which flipped from Obama to Trump and have experienced rising numbers of drug overdose deaths.

Primarily white Americans without college degrees, were being jarred not simply by the loss of jobs or income but by the understanding that hard work doesn't necessarily translate into success, Monnat said.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the Co-director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management, said Monnat's research doesn't explain why the Pacific Northwest did not go for Trump, despite an opioid crisis there. Or, why states like Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming went for Trump despite lower rates of opioid abuse.

Kolody also said that to the extent that there were many working class white voters who went for Trump because they feel that government has failed them, I think that the opioid addiction epidemic is an example of government failing these groups. Because their families, their communities have been devastated by prescription opioids and heroin, and yet the federal government really ignored the problem, up until very recently.

Kolodny and Monnat hope that Trump will deliver on his promises to address the drug epidemic, including a tough stance on Big Pharma.
By PTI: Jalpaiguri (WB), Dec 6 (PTI) An illegal telephone exchange was unearthed in a house at Panitanki near Indo-Nepal border and one person arrested in this connection, police said today.

The detective department of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate raided the house in New Market locality last night and arrested Ranvijay Singh, who was operating from there for around six months.

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Police seized 190 Nepalese and Indian SIM cards, a large number of ATM cards, four laptops, three voter ID cards bearing the name of a single person, and five GSM Gateway Machines from his possession.

GSM Gateway Machines allow direct routing among various networks like analog, GSM, digital and Internet Protocol (IP).

Out of the 190 SIM cards found in his possession, 155 were Nepalese and the rest were Indian, the police said.

Singh, hailing from Siwan district of Bihar, had worked in Qatar in 2009 and then in Oman the next year. He started staying in Siliguri in 2015 and shifted to Panitanki this year, the police said.

Police were also investigating whether the man was involved in any other crimes. PTI COR NN SBN KIS

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The economys dollarisation also has the potential to upset the apple cart

Macro economic stability, economic expansion and tamed inflation are three targets that Vietnams monetary policy must pursue at the same time to meet the National Assemblys socio-economic targets set for 2010.



This is a tough mission as those targets could drag each other down. Normally, monetary policies aimed at bolstering the gross domestic product (GDP) easily lead to hiked inflation and pressure macro stability.



The situation is worsened by the countrys widening trade deficit. Thus, monetary policy in the second half of 2010 must be executed actively, flexibly and cautiously to fine tune the execution of many different measures.



The State Banks first-half monetary manoeuvring focused on stabilising and bringing down bank interest rates to gear up the economy. At the same time, it controlled bank credit quality and growth in tandem with deposit growth, step-by-step narrowing the maturity mismatch resisting for a long time in the local banking system.



Maturity mismatch is situation where a bank has substantial long-term assets but short-term liabilities, such as deposits which can be measured by the duration gap. USD-denominated credit growth was thoroughly controlled with foreign capital inflow growth taken into account to ensure liquidity, catering for forex demand of imported essential commodities and easing forex rate pressure.



On the other hand, to stabilise the forex market, expand forex supplies for commercial banks and restrict enterprises USD hoarding, the State Bank used indirect monetary instruments to prompt enterprises to sell forex to banks.



Specifically, the central bank trimmed the compulsory USD reserve ratio and cut USD corporate deposit rates while raising the nominal exchange rate by 3.36 per cent. At the same time, it directed credit institutions to actively buy forex from some state-owned economic groups and corporations.



The State Bank also sold forex at reasonable prices to assist imports of essential commodities and materials for production. The regulator also shut down gold trading floors, making significant contributions to stabilising the forex market.



Vietnams GDP growth in the first half of the year was 6.1-6.2 per cent, higher than the figure recorded in the first quarter. The consumer price index (CPI) was reined in at a low level and has been stabilised since April.



Disbursed foreign direct investment rised by 10 per cent on-year. Monetary market movements have also been stabilised with proper capital flows, adequate bank liquidity, stable forex rates and banks having enough forex to cater for enterprises needs. Those are favourable conditions for the execution of monetary policies in the last six months of the year.



Though the January-June execution of monetary policies had positive results, in the second half of the year the policies must be cautiously and actively implemented as lots of challenges are ahead.



One of the challenges is the global financial market and the world economy are bouncing back, but the recovery is still fragile. Especially, there are lots of uncertainties around key currencies like the USD, euro and yuan. The rise or fall of these currencies will have impacts on the Vietnamese dong. Thus, the State Bank must keep a close watch on movements of those currencies to react timely.



Under Resolution 23/NQ-CP, the government ordered the central bank to bring down banks lending interest rates to fuel economic expansion. This is a suitable measure as many elements are calling for or supporting a lower level of interest rates.



The global economy has just ridden out a recession and there appear signs of recovery. Enterprises demand for borrowings with low interest rates for recovery and development. Inflation has been on a downward trend since April. The first-half credit growth was lower year-on-year.



Slightly hiked global market interest rates and USD interest rates did not trigger a hike in domestic interest rates. Government bond interest rates tended to slide down over the recent auctions. Besides, upon the governments request, the central bank expanded the money supply to reduce the interest rate level.



However, the only difficulty in pursuit of a lower interest rate level rests with commercial banks as they have to grapple with market share competition, ensuring capital sources and structural weaknesses of the banking system.



Some banks with small capital scale and market shares often resorted to practices that restricted competition or sparked off unhealthy competition.



Dollarisation of the economy also challenges the execution of monetary policies. This challenge is mounting amid uncertainties in international and domestic markets. To limit negative impacts of this phenomenon on the execution of monetary policies over the rest of the year, the central bank must always harmonise the relations between USD and VND interest rates and exchange rates to prevent sudden shifts of money flows.



Inflation was on a downward trend in the last three months and the CPI in June rised 8.69 per cent on-year. This trend is a favour to the execution of monetary policies. But, reining in inflation at 7 per cent for the whole 2010 remains a challenge given our pursuit of cutting down interest rates to bolster economic expansion. Thus, monetary policies must ensure money supply and credit quality are controlled.



However, the central bank is confronting some difficulties in controlling the economys money supply as it has no awareness of the state budgets inflows and outflows. Thus, there needs to be coordination between the central bank and the Ministry of Finance (MoF).



The MoF should assist the State Bank in budget collection-spending plans or allows the central bank to use state treasury at the central bank as an instrument to regulate money in circulation.



We can say that the execution of monetary policies to assist the National Assemblys 2010 socio-economic targets is more favourable as compared with 2009.



In the first half of the year, monetary policies were supportive to the socio-economic targets and monetary market is stabilising. But, domestic and international market uncertainties and the dollarisation of the national economy remain challenges.
Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announces his resignation during a press conference at the Palazzo Chigi following the results of the vote for a referendum on constitutional reforms, on Dec 5, 2016 in Rome. (Photo: AFP/Andreas Solaro)

Renzi handed his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella after Italians resoundingly rejected his constitutional reform proposals in Sunday's referendum, to the delight of the country's populist leaders, fresh after Brexit and Donald Trump's US victory.

The departure of the centre-left premier - who had staked his future on the outcome of the vote - plunges Italy into political uncertainty and casts a shadow over the future of the eurozone's third-largest economy.

In an apparent bid to ease investor fears, the presidency said in a statement that Mattarella had "asked the prime minister to postpone his resignation" until the 2017 budget has been passed, a move expected by the end of the week, according to Italian media.

The government has already won a vote of confidence on the budget in the lower house of parliament.

Renzi, who in 2014 became Italy's youngest-ever premier, was left with no option but to quit after his proposals to streamline parliament were rejected by voters by a decisive 59-41 percent margin.

The 41-year-old former mayor of Florence, who came to power promising radical reform, defended his record.

"1,000 difficult but wonderful days. Thanks to everyone. Viva l'Italia," he wrote on Facebook.

Italian media said he told his cabinet he had agreed to see the budget passed before his departure "out of a sense of responsibility".

LANDMARK MOMENT?

Initial market reaction to Renzi's departure has been subdued.

The euro briefly sank to a 20-month low as investors fretted that political instability could scupper efforts to resolve debt-ridden Italy's long-running banking crisis, and over the possibility of an election that could see anti-EU parties challenge for power.

Italy's FTSE MIB stock index fell 2.0 per cent at the opening but recovered to end the day only fractionally down. Italian bond yields rose slightly, having already edged up prior to Sunday's vote.

Traders were reassured in part by the result of Europe's other crucial vote this weekend, which saw Austria reject a far-right candidate for president.

But some analysts said the referendum could yet come to be seen as a landmark moment.

Holger Schmieding, at the Berenberg private bank, said the risk that Italy could choose to leave the euro, while still remote, had increased.

Capital Economics said: "Italy has taken the first step along a path that could lead it out of the eurozone."

AN ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT VOTE

The vote inevitably became something of a referendum on Renzi's personality and record after his pledge to stand down should he lose, and an opportunity for some to express wider frustrations.

Populists across Europe rejoiced at his downfall, with the founder of Italy's own anti-establishment Five Star movement Beppe Grillo calling for an election "within a week".

Giovanni Orsina, Professor of Politics at Rome's Luiss university, said four out of five voters had cast their vote politically rather than on the merits of the reform.

"The vote has broad similarities with the Brexit and Trump phenomena," he said. "The electorate voted against the establishment, against Brussels. They didn't get into the subtleties."

Poll data showed the No vote was strongest in areas with high unemployment, in the relatively poor south and amongst young voters, pointing to a correlation with levels of discontent.

Britain's eurosceptic Nigel Farage, who spearheaded the "Brexit" campaign, said the vote appeared to have been "more about the euro than constitutional change".

But former Bank of Italy economist Lorenzo Codgno insisted: "The outcome of the referendum is much more complex and nuanced than 'just another wave of protest across the globe'."

PADOAN FAVOURITE FOR NEW PM

Most analysts see immediate elections as unlikely.

The most probable scenario is a caretaker administration dominated by Renzi's Democratic Party taking over before an election that has to take place by March 2018.

Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan was installed as the bookmakers favourite to succeed Renzi as prime minister, with Senate speaker Pietro Grasso, a veteran anti-mafia prosecutor, running in second place.

Renzi meanwhile may try to stay on as head of his party, which would leave him well-placed for a potential comeback to frontline politics at the next election. But he faces resistance to that scenario from the many enemies he has made while in office.
Today, US tech giant Microsoft and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) launch M-Powered e-portal in Vietnam.

Powered by the MS public cloud and people, by partnerships with government, academia, multilateral agencies and non-profit organisations, the portal will enhance Vietnamese human capital by providing technical and soft skill learning opportunities and access to job listings.

The portal will carry Microsoft and partner-created content in Vietnamese. Online training can be supplemented by real-time mentoring for tech and soft skills.

M-Powered will help young people to strengthen their skills as well as helping businesses to find suitable employees and reducing the cost of training new people.

According to data on labour and employment in the first six months of 2016 from the General Department of Statistics, the unemployment rate was at an average 6.83 per cent and 2.27 per cent of young people (from 15 to 24 years old) in working age, respectively, in the first six months of 2016.

It can be seen that young people are much more difficult to find jobs than other citizens in working age.

Explaining for the high unemployment rate of young people, USAID conducted a baseline survey in 2015. The report indicated that the majority of graduates have not met the demands of employers because they lack necessary skills to perform ones job.

Computing skills and English were identified as critical soft skills needed for workplace.

To address this gap, Microsoft partners with VCCI to launch M-Powered which is a part of the Microsoft YouthSpark programme- a Microsofts initiative to increase access for all youth to learn computer science, empowering them to achieve more for themselves, their families and their communities.

M-Powered reinforces Microsofts long-term commitment to the future of Vietnam in terms of developing the country's economy, encouraging innovation and helping Vietnamese people.

M-Powered will focus on the following key pillars:

Provide Computer Science/ICT and soft skills learning opportunities for youth to improve their competence for work.

Through the network of business partners of VCCI and Microsoft Vietnam, the portal will introduce and connect job opportunities from businesses to young people.

Besides, on this portal, experts and experienced staff, leaders, trainers from Microsoft, VCCI, universities, colleges, business partners, startup accelerators will provide mentoring to youths on career development, technical skills and business management knowledge, and more which will enable them to overcome issues and enter labor market easily and smoothly.

Microsoft strives to empower Vietnam's digital generation to support the development of country's economy through our YouthSpark programme. M-Powered online portal will be an interface to connect young people with career, mentoring and learning opportunities, said Astrid Tuminez, regional director of Legal and Corporate Affairs in Southeast Asia of Microsoft.

The portal is built on Microsoft cloud computing platform, using Vietnamese language which is very user-friendly so that youths can easily access to useful resources provided to capture better opportunities for life.

In Vietnam, Microsoft collaborates with local NGOs such as VCCI, VIETNET-ICT, CED and Kenan Institute Asia to implement YouthSpark programme.

YouthSpark Vietnam has achieved impressive outcomes during three years: More than 100,000 Vietnamese young people were trained on Computer Science-ICT, soft skills and attended variety of forums, workshops, career days, internship organised by Microsoft and partners to help them meet the demand of modern learning and working environment.

I have graduated for more than six months and I have applied for jobs many times but still could not find a job due to lack of relevant skills.

Then, I was introduced to attend some free training workshops hosted by VCCI and Microsoft. Thanks to the training, I have improved my ability to use technology and computer to work.

The Project also created a chance for me to improve my experience and skills in real workplace via internship at enterprises. Thanks to that, I have matriculated and get to work at MediaMart.

These programmes and network of Microsoft and partners have inspired and supported young people like me not just in developing technical and soft skills but also in real life working experience to obtain employment and meet job satisfaction, said Trinh Viet Anh, graduate from Hanoi Vocational College of High Technology.

With continuous updated information on M-powered, the portal is expected to be a useful and effective channel for both employers and job seekers, a VCCI representative shared.

According to the Vietnamese government, the goal is to have one million IT workers by 2020. As a technology leader and commitment to support Vietnam, Microsoft has been cooperating with local partners to provide a variety of IT courses and technology resources to thousands of young people.

M-Powered online portal will serve as the bridge for the youth to make their dreams come true, said Vu Minh Tri, CEO of Microsoft Vietnam.

Microsoft also calls for collaboration from corporations, businesses, experts to support Vietnamese youth having more opportunities of jobs, internships, consultants, via M-Powered to make the e-portal become a truly useful platform in Vietnam.

M-Powered e-portal can be accessed at youthvietnam.vn or thanhnienvietnam.net.vn.
Members of the pro-European movement Britain for Europe pose dressed as judges outside the Supreme court building in London on the first day of a four-day hearing on Dec 5, 2016. (AFP Photo/Ben Stansall)

For the first time ever, all 11 Supreme Court judges convened to hear a government challenge against a ruling that Prime Minister Theresa May must seek approval for starting the Brexit process.

Protesters on both sides of the debate rallied outside the court as the four-day hearing began, with pro-Europe demonstrators arriving on a double-decker bus, wearing judges' wigs and waving EU flags.

The High Court ruled last month that the government did not have the executive power alone to invoke Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, formally starting exit talks which could take two years.

The decision enraged Brexit supporters and some newspapers who accused judges of thwarting the will of the 52 per cent who voted "Leave" in the June 23 referendum.

The vote for Britain to become the first country to leave the 28-nation bloc sent shockwaves across the world and emboldened populists in Europe and the United States.

Supreme Court president David Neuberger said people involved in the case had received threats and abuse and stressed that judges would rule without political bias in a case that has ignited tensions.

A parliamentary vote on Article 50 could open the door to pro-EU lawmakers delaying or softening Britain's withdrawal from the bloc.

'THREATS OF VIOLENCE'

Neuberger said the judges were "aware of the strong feelings" surrounding Brexit but "those wider political questions are not the subject of this appeal", an AFP reporter at the hearing said.

"This appeal is concerned with legal issues, and, as judges, our duty is to consider those issues impartially, and to decide the case according to the law. That is what we shall do," he told the court.

Neuberger said some parties involved in the case had received threats of "serious violence and unpleasant abuse", warning that there were "legal powers" to deal with such threats.

He ordered a ban on the identification of some of the claimants, including a national of Trinidad and Tobago and a Polish national who are concerned about the future status of their families.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright, the government's chief legal adviser, outlined the government's case in the grand courtroom, illuminated by vast stained glass windows and topped by a vaulted roof.

Wright argued that the government had authority over foreign affairs, including the right to withdraw from treaties, under so-called "royal prerogative powers".

The prerogative is "not an ancient relic but a contemporary necessity", Wright said as around 100 people, including legal representatives, press and public, crammed into the neo-Gothic courtroom.

Claimants in the case, led by investment fund manager Gina Miller, maintain that triggering Article 50 would strip British citizens of certain rights established under European law - which they say only parliament has the power to do.

The proceedings were shown live on television with the presence of all 11 justices "a historic first", according to the court.

Outside the court, Steve Gavin, who wants to see the High Court decision upheld, said: "It's extremely important. We live in a representative democracy with no written constitution."

But Brexit advocate Julia Waller said: "The people have spoken on Jun 23. They voted to get out of Europe. Instead of giving us a 'grey Brexit', or 'soft Brexit', they should just give us Brexit and leave Europe."

James Eadie, another lawyer representing the government, urged the court to make a decision that "the ordinary man and woman" would understand, when it delivers its verdict in January, suggesting there was an understanding the government would implement the referendum decision.

'CLEAR CASE' FOR BREXIT POWERS

Downing Street voiced confidence in the government's case, despite suggestions from some legal experts that it was destined to lose.

"We believe it's a clear case that we have the legal power to trigger Article 50 ... we're confident of our case," a spokeswoman for the prime minister said.

If unsuccessful, the government is expected to introduce a short bill which it will seek to push rapidly through parliament to authorise the triggering of Article 50.

May has insisted a parliamentary vote on the legislation would not disrupt her plans to trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017.

However she faces a potential complication at this week's hearing from representatives of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who will argue that Article 50 must also be approved by the devolved parliaments.

Such a ruling could further derail the prime minister's timetable and set up a stand-off between the nations.
Vinatea will increase its focus on the domestic market, which promises stronger growth and harbours yet unexploited potential. The firm marked its return by introducing 10 new brands at an event titled "A miraculous gift of nature in Hanoi last week.

The new products include Hundred Year White, Japan Sencha, a premium range of Oolong teas, Thai Nguyen green, British and Jasmine teas for the affordable range such as Ginger and Honey Daisy. This collection of tea blends is carefully selected and monitored under strict processes.

Lai Cao Le, chairman of the board at Vinatea, said that tea drinking has been a tradition of Vietnamese people for over a thousand years. However, Vietnamese tea manufacturers have failed to build a trademark in the domestic market dominated by international brands.

The Vietnamese tea market offers a significant opportunity for tea manufacturers. Many foreign tea brands are increasingly expanding sales operations, while domestic tea manufacturers manage to attract tea lovers, especially young consumers.

A new market research found that black tea consumption, in addition to the traditional green tea, is becoming more common among office workers in big cities due to strong marketing by branded tea manufacturers. Especially younger generations, who used to count as the thinnest layer of consumers, are now changing habits, thereby stimulating strong growth in the sales of fruit, milk, and bubble teas.

Luxury tea boutiques have become commonplace in many shopping malls across Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Milk tea shops and franchise chains are highly prevalent due to the rising tea consumption. Thus, Vinatea introduced this new collection focusing on green tea lovers, office workers, and younger consumers.

According to Le, Vinatea has become a private company in September last year after GTN Foods acquired 95 per cent of its holdings. The equitisation has driven Vinatea to leverage itself to a new level. The firm has introduced a new brand identity since November, aiming to secure a foothold in the north before expanding operations nationwide.

In addition to domestic expansion, he added that Vinatea continues its efforts to boost its export capacity and build a Vietnamese tea trademark in the global market. The firm has upgraded its tea plantations to raise the quality and value of exports.

Vietnamese tea is greatly undervalued and ranks on the lower end of the global tea market, despite the high export volume. To increase the value of Vietnamese tea, it is critical to improve quality, meet hygiene standards, and safety requirements of the global tea sector, he said.

Founded in 1958, Vinatea boasts the largest tea material resources in Vietnam with over 4700 hectares of tea plantations and 11 facilities in Hanoi, Moc Chau, Phu Da, and Nghia Lo provinces. The firm is developing clean tea plantation areas meeting global standards. Besides using the latest European technology to process green and black tea, Vinatea has also joined hands with Vietnamese tea masters to make their products more unique.
Workersat the Hue Textile and Garment Joint Stock Company. - VNA/VNS Photo Quoc Viet

To avail themselves of business opportunities from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, many textile and garment firms have over the past two years started building textile and dyeing complexes. For instance, 10 enterprises have invested hundreds of millions of US dollars in those complexes in southern Binh Duong Province.

However, US President-elect Donald Trump said his country would leave the TPP but investment to those industrial complexes would still continue for long-term development strategies.

Esquel Garment Manufacturing Viet Nam Co Ltd has operated in Viet Nam for 10 years and mainly imported material from China. In 2015, the company invested in a textile and dyeing factory in Binh Duong partly for availing business opportunities from the TPP. The factory has completed construction of the building in the first stage and it will begin operations in a year.

With information emerging that the US could leave the TPP, the company would consider carefully its investment plans for the factory in the second and third stages.

However, Nguyen Van Luong, deputy general director of Esquel Garment Manufacturing Viet Nam, said the decision on investment was under the companys long-term development strategy in Viet Nam but not only for TPP.

Textile and garment enterprises said that TPP has prompted them to increase investment in textile and dyeing for production of garment products. In the long-term, development of textile and dyeing would help Viet Nam complete its production process for garment products and avoid dependence on material imports as being done at present, VTV reported.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Xuan Duong, chairman of Hung Yen Garment Company said TPP would present more opportunities to local textile garment firms to export to the US, but if there was no TPP, exports to the US would have no effect.

During his election campaign, President-elect Donald Trump had said that if he won the elections the US would impose import tariff of 45 per cent on Chinese products. So, Duong said, garment producers who have investments in China could consider moving their business to other countries, including Viet Nam, to avoid high import tariff for products imported from China, the Dien dan Doanh nghiep newspaper reported.

Duong said that Viet Nams textile and garment exports next year would face many difficulties as expectations. Hung Yen Garment Company has signed contracts to produce garment for exports until March and April 2017.

He expected the company to receive more export orders after Tet (the Lunar New Year) festival to produce stable exports until October 2017.

According to the General Statistics Office, Viet Nam gained a year-on-year increase of 4.5 per cent in export value to US$21.5 billion for the first 11 months of this year.

This year, the nation expected to gain a total export value of textile and garment at around $29 billion.
By PTI: Jalpaiguri (WB), Dec 6 (PTI) An illegal telephone exchange was unearthed in a house at Panitanki near Indo-Nepal border and one person arrested in this connection, police said today.

The detective department of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate raided the house in New Market locality last night and arrested Ranvijay Singh, who was operating from there for around six months.

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Police seized 190 Nepalese and Indian SIM cards, a large number of ATM cards, four laptops, three voter ID cards bearing the name of a single person, and five GSM Gateway Machines from his possession.

GSM Gateway Machines allow direct routing among various networks like analog, GSM, digital and Internet Protocol (IP).

Out of the 190 SIM cards found in his possession, 155 were Nepalese and the rest were Indian, the police said.

Singh, hailing from Siwan district of Bihar, had worked in Qatar in 2009 and then in Oman the next year. He started staying in Siliguri in 2015 and shifted to Panitanki this year, the police said.

Police were also investigating whether the man was involved in any other crimes. PTI COR NN SBN KIS LNS

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The IAF plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai turned back to Delhi after it developed a technical snag.

By India Today Web Desk: An Indian Air Force plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee for the state funeral to be accorded to J Jayalalithaa in Chennai today had to return to New Delhi after it developed technical snag mid-air.

The IAF later said the snag has been taken care of and President Mukherjee is now scheduled to reach Chennai by 2.30 pm.

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Jayalalithaa's funeral will be held at Chennai's Marina Beach at 4.30 pm today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a host of other dignitaries will be attending the funeral.

Earlier, expressing his grief at Jayalalithaa's death, President Mukherjee had said, "Heartfelt condolences on the sad demise of Ms. Jayaram Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu."

"One of India's most charismatic and popular leaders, Ms. Jayalalithaa was a visionary and able administrator. Her life was dedicated to the socio-economic transformation of Tamil Nadu and its people," the President said.

"In her passing away, the nation has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions. Her contribution to the progress and development of Tamil Nadu will be long remembered," he said.

Also read: Jayalalithaa's demise: National flag will fly half-mast today

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Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation after suffering a defeat in a constitutional referendum. The rejection of his pro-EU policies followed a similar hit taken by pro-European forces in Britain. Austrian voters, on the other hand, opted for a left-leaning president in the final ballot Sunday. Bulgaria last month elected a socialist leader, considered to be close to Russia. VOA's Zlatica Hoke discussed the meaning of recent developments with U.S. analyst Peter Eltsov.
The Afghan Senate on Monday said it will investigate growing military ties between Taliban insurgents and Iran and Russia.

"Evidence of Russian and Iranian cooperation with the Taliban has been found," Fazal Hadi Muslimyar, chairman of the Afghan Senate said. He added that reports of foreign links to the Taliban are "worrisome."

The probe comes after U.S. General John Nicholson, leader of NATO's Resolute Support Afghan mission, said over the weekend that Taliban connections to Russia and Iran are not advancing the cause of stability in the region.

Taliban living in Iran

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.

And Iran is accused by Afghan officials of harboring Taliban fighters from Afghanistan in cross-border areas.

Families of a number of high ranking Taliban leaders reside in Iran, Asif Nang, the governor of western Farah province, recently told Radio Liberty. They live in cities such as Yazd, Kerman, and Mashhad, and come back to Afghanistan for subversive activities.

The governor said bodies of Taliban fighters who were killed in recent clashes in the provincial capital have been transported to their families in Iran. Nang told Afghan media that over 5,000 Taliban militants are present in the province.

High-grade weapons for Taliban

Locals say they often see Taliban crossing borders into Iran.

More new faces are seen these days coming from Afghanistan, Jamaluddin, an Afghan refugee in Taybad city which lies close to the border with Afghanistan, told VOA. They are barely seen in public places as they try to keep themselves away from other Afghans. Some Afghans say they are Taliban members.

Afghan lawmakers say Tehran is also supplying sophisticated weapons to the Taliban.

Iran not only has hosted Taliban families, it has supplied the group with weapons that could target and damage tanks and planes, lawmaker Jumadin Gayanwal from southeastern Paktika province said.

Iran says reports are "baseless"

Iran has denied the accusations, saying it has close relations with the government of Afghanistan.

The reports about the presence of Taliban elements in Iran is baseless, said Behram Qasemi, a spokesperson of the Iranian foreign office. He added that Iran has brotherly relations with Kabul, based on mutual interests.

Iran considered the Taliban movement a major ideological threat when it first emerged in the mid-1990s. But Tehran's views of the group has changed considerably since 2001.

Despite being each other's arch enemy in the 1990s, Tehran did not hesitate to provide the Taliban with ammunitions and explosives aimed at preventing U.S. troops from being able to use Afghanistan as a base to attack Iran, said Fatemeh Aman, an Iran-South Asia affairs analyst based in the U.S.

Russia in search of peace

Helped by Iran and Tajikistan, Moscow too is furthering contacts with the insurgent group, analysts say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told Turkey's Anadolu agency recently that Moscow has been in contact with Taliban leaders to promote stalled peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

We have contacts with the Taliban  to end the war by a national cease-fire, Kabulov said. And Moscow too is concerned about the growing IS threat in Afghanistan, Kabulov added.

The Taliban are fighting in Afghanistan against the people we fought in Syria, that's why our interests coincide, he said.

Afghan leaders wary of Russia

But Afghan lawmakers say Russia's meddling is not welcome. Russia fought a war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and its current ties to Taliban's growing Afghan insurgency are troubling, they say.

Any sort of relations with and supporting groups which terrorize Afghan people would become a regional threat in the long term, and no country will be spared from its danger, Shakib Mustaghni, a spokesperson for the Afghan Foreign Ministry told Radio Liberty.

VOA's Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this report from Washington.
Outside New York's Trump Tower, at the cross section of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, heated shouting matches warmed an otherwise frosty morning as supporters of a three-state vote recount joined Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in a rally to ensure an "accurate, secure and fair" vote.

"We are here to assure Donald Trump that there is nothing to be afraid of, said Stein. If you believe in democracy, if you believe in the credibility of your victory, put down your arms, end your bureaucratic obstruction, end your intimidation and join we the people of America who are calling for a democracy that serves all of us and elections that we can trust."

Protesters interrupted and taunted the group of supporters with shouts and signage. "Illegal voting, far left crybabies, Stein will not change outcome: President Trump on January 20, 2017!! read one womans sign.

Youre delusional! yelled a supporter in response.

A judge has ordered that a hand recount begin in Michigan, one of three battleground states that Stein contends may have been hacked due to aging voting machines. Similarly, she is pushing for a federal court order to enact a recount in Pennsylvania.

"As voters, we need to make sure that democracy is not being in any way hindered and that our votes are being counted correctly," said Rachel Desario, a Clinton supporter who attended Mondays rally.

Still, others see Steins effort as a waste of money and time.

"We all get a chance to vote," said Pim Couch, a tourist from Texas. Everyone did. And now we need to move on.

Cabinet picks continue

Inside Trump Tower, the president-elect resumed the process of forming his government.

On Monday, he picked one of his former Republican rivals, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, to be his housing and urban development chief. Trump said Monday that Carson "has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities. We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities."

Carson, 65, has no expertise in housing policy but spent part of his childhood living in public housing, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development oversees. In the past, he has voiced opposition to government programs that encourage what he says is "dependency," and has touted the virtues of individual effort in becoming successful.

Carson briefly led Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but support for him waned and he eventually dropped out and endorsed Trump. He is the first African-American Trump has named to his cabinet.

Carson's appointment, like those of Trump's other cabinet selections for his new administration, must be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he is "confident [Carson's] lifelong career of selfless service will be a positive addition to the incoming administration."

But Nancy Pelosi, leader of the minority Democrats in the House of Representatives, called Carson's appointment a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice," saying there was "no evidence" that he has "the necessary credentials" to lead the housing agency.

Carson's appointment came as the president-elect continued to meet in New York with other possible cabinet members, with a spokesman saying more selections will be announced this week.

Choice for top diplomat widens

Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who ignored reporters questions on possible picks for secretary of state upon arriving Monday at Trump Tower, instead praised the president-elect for his speed and decisiveness in formulating his cabinet. He added that the American people are rightfully encouraged and impressed."

Trump is still weighing his choice for secretary of state, the country's top foreign affairs post, but aides said that choice may not come until next week. Trump appeared last week to have narrowed his list to four names: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, losing 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, former Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus and Tennessee Senator Bob Corker. But he also interviewed former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and is talking to several others as well, including retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis, ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman.

Huntsman, who has an adopted Chinese daughter and is fluent in Mandarin, is a significant and timely prospect by the president-elect. Trump was criticized over the weekend for accepting a congratulatory call from the president of Taiwan  a move widely considered a snub to China and a risk to Sino-U.S. relations.

Trump talks climate change

Trump also met with former Democratic Vice President Al Gore, who said he had a "lengthy and very productive" meeting with the president-elect. Gore, a leading global advocate for controlling the effects of man-made climate change, called the discussions a "sincere search for common ground."

"I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that," Gore said.

Trump has called man-made climate change a hoax, but said recently that he has an open mind on continued U.S. compliance with the worldwide Paris climate pact that took effect a month ago.

Meanwhile, Trump continued his attacks Monday on one of his favorite targets, the U.S. news media, although he did not say what story had drawn his ire.

"If the press would cover me accurately & honorably," he tweeted, "I would have far less reason to 'tweet.' Sadly, I don't know if that will ever happen!"
Torture, solitary confinement and coerced confessions are rife in investigations of Chinese Communist Party officials detained on suspicion of corruption, according to a report issued Tuesday by Human Rights Watch that analyzes one of the most secretive aspects of China's one-party system: the supervision of its own party members.

One former detainee told the rights group that he was deprived of sleep for 10 days and beaten to keep him standing. A defense lawyer said prosecutors sought confessions of specific amounts of bribery to meet anti-corruption quotas.

Others described cadres being whisked away without warning to hotel rooms with padded floors and windows modified to prevent suicides. They were held there without contact with the outside world for weeks, until confessing to accepting bribes, real or imagined.

Four years into Chinese President Xi Jinping's sweeping war on corruption, rights campaigners warn that widespread use of shuanggui - a system of detention and interrogation of party cadres at off-the-book sites outside of the criminal justice system - is undermining the very rule of law that top party leaders say they are trying to strengthen.

Probes by the party's feared internal anti-graft investigators hit 330,000 in 2015, more than double the figure from 2011, before Xi took power, according to official news sources. The 2015 figure implies that 33,000 to 66,000 cases involved the shuanggui interrogation practice, assuming it was used in 10 to 20 percent of all cases, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate. The group wants the system abolished.

Corruption plagues Chinese politics, and Xi's vow to severely punish both tigers and flies - high- and low-ranking corrupt officials - has mostly been cheered by China's fed-up public. But the opacity of shuanggui, which by design operates unchecked by the courts and police, has raised concerns that some officials have been targeted as a result of intra-party feuding and personal rivalries rather than legitimate corruption claims.

Shuanggui came about in the 1990s as the Communist Party grappled with expanding corruption in its ranks. Investigators argue it is necessary to interrogate suspects in secrecy because probes could be influenced by informal political networks inside the party.

Under Xi, emboldened anticorruption investigators from the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, or CCDI, have reached into the most sensitive arms of the state, the judiciary, military, banks and the media, casting a pall over vast swaths of China's state sector. But officials are particularly terrified at the prospect of being put in shuanggui, said Human Rights Watch China Director Sophie Richardson.

In 2014, The Associated Press published rare interviews with local officials from China's Hunan province who said they had been abused while held under shuanggui, including city land bureau director Zhou Wangyan, who said he was whipped, forced to eat excrement and physically tortured, his legs pushed apart until his thigh bone snapped. He confessed to accepting $6,600 in bribes, but said he was being set up by the city's then-party boss.

The idea of combating corruption is extremely politically popular, and that makes sense ... it's a huge problem, Richardson said. But the use of this party system for which there is no legal basis and which yields evidence of extremely dubious credibility and that tortures people along the way is deeply problematic.

Human Rights Watch said it analyzed 35 detailed cases involving shuanggui reported in the media since the start of Xi's anti-corruption campaign. Close to 40 more cases from a large database of court verdicts were analyzed, and the group interviewed four former detainees and more than a dozen lawyers and prosecutors to glean a picture of the system in which party members are detained and interrogated in almost every city and jurisdiction. Relatives are often detained as well.

From 2010 to 2015, the organization found reports of 11 people who died while under shuanggui, although it is unclear whether those deaths were the result of mistreatment or suicide. Human Rights Watch cited an internal party circular as saying interrogation rooms should be on the ground floor to reduce the risk of suicide, while former interrogators described not giving out chopsticks after one detainee fatally stabbed himself in the nose.

In recent years, the Communist Party has made efforts to combat torture and improve judicial transparency. Evidence obtained through torture must be excluded in criminal proceedings, but shuanggui is not covered by these legal provisions.

As part of a new transparency initiative, since 2014, Chinese courts have published millions of verdicts in an online database. The database showed that from January 2014 to November 2015, roughly 1,700 cases cited evidence obtained during interrogation under the shuanggui mechanism, while 90 of the verdicts - nearly all of which were guilty - acknowledged the use of torture to extract confession, Human Rights Watch said.

Neither the CCDI nor the Ministry of Public Security responded to faxes seeking comment on the new report.

Those who endured the system have also shied away from discussing it, since the party has zero tolerance for whistleblowers. Two other Hunan province officials who spoke to the AP in 2014 about being tortured in shuanggui were subsequently arrested and sentenced to 13 and 20 years in prison on corruption charges. Zhou, the ex-land bureau director, was later arrested again and is now awaiting sentencing.
Hundreds of veterans who came to North Dakota to stand show solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe were heading an evacuation mission Tuesday to help those stuck in a blizzard that immobilized most of the state.

Hundreds of cars poured into the Oceti Sakowin camp Sunday and Monday following the decision of the Army Corps of Engineers to deny an easement needed to route the Dakota Access Pipeline under a Missouri River reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. That section is the last major part of the pipeline that hasn't been finished.

Security officials at the camp, however, have not let anyone leave, citing safety concerns. Thousands of protesters have been stuck since the blizzard began Monday.

"It's mostly involving helping people get back on the roads  people who have slipped off the road, and getting people to Prairie King," Iraq War veteran Johnathan Engle told VOA, referring to the casino about 15 kilometers from the Oceti Sakowin camp. Thousands of "water protectors" have been staying at the camp while they protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which they see as a threat to drinking water and cultural sites.

"[The casino] has a large open area" and has offered it as a place to stay, "so people are kind of spread out on the floor along the sides of the auditorium. They have their sleeping bags and other gear with them," Johnathan said. The casino is the nearest establishment of any kind to the camp.

Though multiple news agencies have reported that Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II has asked the camp to disband, saying its mission is over, the message has not spread throughout the Oceti Sakowin camp, where many who are prepared with long-term tents and winter gear are planning to stay. Though the Army Corps announced its decision on the easement Sunday, many "water protectors" are wary that officials in the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump could reverse the decision after he is inaugurated in January.

"Between the tribal elders, communication is moving very slowly here," Kevin Basl, another member of "Veterans Stand for Standing Rock," told VOA. "Some people are very ready for this, and there are some people who were just coming for the weekend who weren't so well-prepared. But the roads are closed, so no one will be leaving for now."

The majority of interstate Highway 94, which runs across the state, has been closed, and the North Dakota Department of Transportation issued a "no travel" advisory for the majority of state highways, including all routes to and from the Standing Rock reservation.

Basl and Engle both came to the camp over the weekend, when activist and veteran Wesley Clark Jr. organized nearly 2,000 veterans to show their support for the water protectors at Standing Rock.

"We've all signed up to sacrifice our lives to help people," Clark told VOA near the Standing Rock camp on Sunday. "I know a lot of veterans take the oath very seriously, like I do. I put the call out to vets, and everybody answered. It's awesome," he said, visibly emotional over the sheer number of veterans present.

A GoFundMe page set up to support veterans coming to Standing Rock this weekend raised over $1 million.

Clark, who spoke alongside U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on Sunday, cited both environmental concerns as well as a continuous history of mistreatment of the Native American people.

"The United States has broken every single treaty it's ever signed with native peoples. Every one. And native peoples have broken no treaties with the federal government," he said. "So it's time this country actually starts living up to its word."

Both Clark and Gabbard, who rose to popularity when she endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for president last year, spoke to what they said was a misrepresentation of the issue. They said oil companies  who say they support the pipeline for efficiency, safety and economic reasons  are not actually taking people's lives into consideration.

"Some who are talking about this issue are trying to pit two sides of our community and our country against each other  those who are choosing to support so-called economic development and jobs pitted against those who are standing for protecting water," Gabbard said. "It's a false narrative; it's a false question. Unless we protect our water, there is no economy. There are no jobs. There is no life."
A boat packed with 35 Rohingya Muslims, who were fleeing violence in Myanmar and were aiming to sneak into Bangladesh, capsized on a river leaving at least 29 people, mostly women and children, missing.

Several sources, including some fishermen and a survivor of the accident, reported that the boat capsized because it was loaded beyond its capacity.

After sailing out of Maungdaw township in Myanmar, the boat capsized during the early hours of Monday on the Naf River, which flows along the border of southeast Bangladesh and northwest Myanmar.

Fishermen help survivor

A 22-year-old Rohingya woman who took the boat from Myanmar along with five of her relatives said that after the boat capsized close to the Myanmar side of the border, she was desperate to cross over to Bangladesh and so she swam toward the Bangladeshi side of the border and landed on a deserted island.

"After the day broke, I called out for help when some Bangladeshi fishermen came and rescued me from the island. With around 35 people, almost all women and children, the boat was overcrowded, for which it drowned, I think," Rehena Begum, who fled Bor Gouzo Bill village of Maungdaw, said to local reporters.

After the Bangladeshi fishermen helped Rehena reach some of her relatives in a nearby village in Bangladesh, she knew that the bodies of three of her relatives, including her mother, had been recovered from the river in Myanmar and two others were still missing.

Rohingyas flee to Bangladesh

Mohammad Ali, a village administrator in the southeast Bangladeshi coastal town of Teknaf, said that several fishermen reported that they spotted three corpses floating in the area and they believed that they had been traveling on that boat.

"After speaking to many people we believe that five or six people, including Rehena Begum, have survived this boat tragedy. At least 29 of them are missing," Ali told VOA.

While the ongoing military crackdown, which began in Rakhine state in northwestern Myanmar following the killing of nine policemen in an armed attack on October 9, continues, reports of killings, rapes and other abuses have forced many Rohingyas from the area to begin fleeing to Bangladesh since last month.

Boats often overcrowded

Although Bangladeshi border guards have pushed back dozens of Rohingya-laden boats toward Myanmar in the past weeks, many Rohingyas have been entering Bangladesh, through some secret entry points, mostly with the help of some underground agent networks.

As many Rohingyas are desperate to flee Myanmar now, the agent networks, locally known as syndicates, are helping them land in Bangladesh, often riskily carrying them by overcrowded boats, said tourist guide Foizullah, who works in the southeast Bangladeshi coastal town of Teknaf and like many Rohingyas uses only one name.

A boat which is not supposed to carry more than 20 people, are carrying 30 or even 35 passengers risking the lives of the children and women, most of whom don't know how to swim," Foizullah told VOA.

Bangladesh offers help

Last week, Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that on humanitarian grounds Bangladesh would allow some Rohingyas who are fleeing violence in Myanmar to enter Bangladesh.

"Facing troubles in Myanmar they are seeking shelter in Bangladesh. We shall try to host these people as long as possible," the minister said.

Sources in Myanmar said to VOA that after the Bangladeshi minister said his government would allow some Rohingyas to enter Bangladesh, more Rohingyas have begun attempting to cross over to Bangladesh.

"Three weeks ago about 500 Rohingyas were taking boats [from Rakhine] daily, aiming to land in Bangladesh," Korim Ullah, a resident of Ngasaku village in Maungdaw, told VOA over the phone.

But for the past week, every day over 1,000 Rohingyas are fleeing Myanmar.

At least 10,000 Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh in the previous weeks, the UNHCR reported last week. But several local sources said to VOA that the current figure in the case would not be fewer than 25,000.
Brazil's Supreme Court on Monday removed Senator Renan Calheiros as president of the Senate after the top court indicted him last week on charges of embezzlement, a court spokesman said, a move that could put the government's belt-tightening agenda in peril.

His replacement on Tuesday by Senator Jorge Vianna of the leftist Workers Party, who opposes spending cuts, could block steps to control a widening budget deficit and recoup confidence in Latin America's largest economy mired in a deep recession.

Justice Marco Aurelio de Mello removed Calheiros based on a majority ruling by the high court last month that any person indicted for a crime could not be in the presidential line of succession. The head of the Senate is the second in line after the speaker of the lower house, as Brazil does not have a vice president at the moment.

Support of full court expected

The judge's ruling must be put to the full court, which is expected to uphold the injunction on Wednesday since six of its 11 justices favored the new presidential succession rule.

The removal of Calheiros was a new blow for President Michel Temer whose six-month-old government has been weakened by corruption scandals as it strives to push through unpopular austerity measures, including a cap on federal spending that is scheduled to be put to a final vote in the Senate on Dec. 13.

"The injunction is terrible news for Temer because it puts the spending ceiling at risk given that the deputy leader of the Senate is from the Workers Party," said Leonardo Barreto, head of Brasilia-based political consultancy Factual. "This can delay the final vote and send the wrong signal to markets," he said.

Delay of fiscal measures?

Calheiros declined to comment on the decision but his office said he would step down on Tuesday morning when he is officially notified, at which point Vianna, the vice president of the upper chamber, becomes leader until Senate elections in February.

The Workers Party quickly said the fiscal measures should be delayed until the new session next year.

"How can we vote for this explosive agenda in the climate of instability in which no one knows who is in command of the Senate," Workers Party Senator Paulo Paim said.

Calheiros was indicted Dec. 1 on charges of misusing public funds in a nine-year-old case involving child support for a daughter he had in an extramarital affair, including billing the Senate for car rentals with false contracts.

Dec. 13 vote won't change

The change of leadership in the Senate comes at a crucial moment for Temer's efforts to pass austerity measures through Congress to restore fiscal discipline to Brazil's overdrawn government accounts.

The government's leader in Congress, Senator Romero Juca, said the removal of Calheiros would not alter plans for the December 13 vote on the 20-year spending cap, the key measure in Temer's plan to rein in a widening budget deficit.

But the uncertainty is expected to rattle investors who are looking for signs that Brazil is putting its books in order before they decide to invest in the country again.

Brazil lost its investment-grade credit rating last year due to the fiscal deficit run up by the Workers Party government of impeached President Dilma Rousseff, who was replaced by Temer in May.

Calheiros' troubles just starting

The fall of Calheiros was a question of time because he faces 11 corruption investigations, most of them related to the massive bribery and kickback scandal centered on state-run oil company Petrobras.

The ousting of Calheiros was welcomed by some of his peers who were critical of his attempts to curtail the work of prosecutors in the Petrobras scandal.

"It was deeply unsettling for all of us to have an indicted person as leader," said Senator Ricardo Ferraco of centrist PSDB party. "This is timely and will clean things up."
Late Jayalalithaa was Tamil Nadu's Amma for a reason. Here are the strongest decisions she took during her tenures.

By India Today Web Desk: Opinionated, an epitome of beauty and a successful CM, Jayalalithaa was not just a politician but a ray of hope to many. Jayalalithaa Jayaram's demise has undoubtedly shook the entire nation along with the state of Tamil Nadu. Schools, colleges and offices are shut down, the entire state is in despair because of the great loss.

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From being a superstar in Tamil films to acing her Class 10 exams, she definitely was a personality no one can ever forget. An inspiration to many women, Amma was called 'Amma' for a reason. Her strong decisions, her willpower and her thoughtfulness was stronger than others. She always had a dedicated strength of followers who never left her side even in the times of despair because of her influential persona.

Amma took some really powerful decisions that definitely set her aside from the crowd of other female politicians. Here are some of the most important and influential decisions that only Amma could think of taking:

1. She supported women constables and officers in TN, also introducing women-only police stations.

2. Amma fired nearly 2 Lac state government employees in one go to end their strike in 2001.

3. She banned the purchase and selling of the lottery tickets in 2001, along with paan, gutka & casinos.

4. When Amma came in power on June 21st 2001, she got former CM Muthuvel Karunanidhi arrested at 2 am in the night on the charges of corruption for the case of flyover scam.

5. Jayalalithaa introduced the foreign based Automobile plant for the first time in India. She was the one to introduce Ford USA in Chennai in the year 1995. Chennai is now the hub of all world vehicle manufacturers and comprises of about 40% of India's vehicles.

6. She took an oath to become the CM of the state when the incident of 'Draupadi Prakaran' took place. One of DMK's party worker had pulled her saree off after which she decided she won't enter the Vidhan Sabha untill she becomes the CM.

7. She restricted free electricity which was earlier provided in abundance to the farmers in 2001.

8. She outlawed the killings of innocent animals in temples of TN when she was in power. Of course, it did not stay longer as she lost during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and was out of power.

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9. She shut down 500 liquor shops in the state as per 2016, as promised.

10. She introduced her brand 'Amma Canteen' where food is sold on dirt cheap rates so that even beggers can afford to eat. (Idli for Re 1, Sambar rice, pongal and curry leaf rice for Rs 5 and curd rice for Rs 3). Inspired by this concept, Even Egypt decided to adopt this scheme and considered it better than the US food stamp system.

Click here to Enlarge Graphic: NILANJAN DAS

--- ENDS ---
The president of Brazil's Senate refused on Tuesday to accept a Supreme Court injunction removing him from office, pushing the country towards a constitutional crisis as it struggles to end political gridlock and an economic recession.

A judge on the top court on Monday ordered the removal of Renan Calheiros because he was indicted last week for embezzlement, deepening conflict between the judiciary and the legislature over the prosecution of corrupt politicians.

But following a three-hour meeting on Tuesday, the leaders of Brazil's Senate published a letter refusing to enact the dismissal of Calheiros until the Supreme Court's plenary rules on it Wednesday.

Calheiros to continue on

Emerging from the meeting, Calheiros told reporters he would continue in the post and criticized the attempt to remove him just nine days before his mandate officially ends.

"Democracy, even in Brazil, doesn't deserve this," Calheiros said.

The constitutional rift threatens to delay key measures in President Michel Temer's efforts to restore fiscal discipline to Brazil in the midst of a two-year recession.

Brazilian markets seesawed over the decision to oust Calheiros because he would be replaced by leftist Senator Jorge Viana of the Workers Party, which opposes cuts in federal spending.

Year of political turmoil

At stake is the final vote in the Senate scheduled for December 13 of a 20-year constitutional cap on federal spending that is the centerpiece of Temer's plan to bring a widening budget deficit under control in Latin America's largest nation.

In a year of political turmoil in Brazil, Calheiros' ouster due to the embezzlement trial before the Supreme Court followed the removal of the former speaker of the lower house and the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff.

The Senate lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday to quickly overturn the injunction that removed Calheiros to avoid disrupting the voting on measures of vital importance to the nation, such as the spending ceiling.

The injunction causes enormous damage to the already weakened institutional and political balance of the Republic, the document said.

Brazil without a vice president

However, the full court is expected on Wednesday to uphold the injunction based on a recent ruling favored by a majority of the court that no one indicted for a crime can be in the presidential line of succession. The head of the Senate is the second in line after the speaker of the lower house, as Brazil does not have a vice president at the moment.

Brazil's currency BRBY fell as much as 1 percent in early trading, but later pared loses.

The benchmark Bovespa stock index BVSP fell 0.5 percent.

The index reversed and climbed 2.17 percent after the Senate refusal was announced.
The government of Cameroon has dispatched ministers and lawmakers from the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions to their areas of origin, in an effort to calm growing protests over the dominance of French in the country's institutions.

Thousands of supporters ask Cameroon's main opposition leader John Fru Ndi to stop the singing of the national anthem in the English regions of Cameroon, calling it a foreign anthem.

Fru Ndi told them he was in Buea in support of ongoing strikes organized by lawyers and teachers.

"I want the government to listen to the teachers and listen to the lawyers and do what they want them to do, because they are not just talking out of the air. They are speaking out of tested and proven methods of teaching, tested and proven methods of practicing the law," he said.

As Fru Ndi and his party drove out of Buea, a convoy of government ministers, parliamentarians, businessmen and traditional rulers of the ruling CPDM party sent by President Paul Biya were driving in.

Professor Elvis Ngole Ngole, a close aide of the president, said they want the population to stop the strikes. He said the government is aware there are challenges English-speaking Cameroonians are facing.

"We should never sort to lose sight of the superior objective, which is that coming together and being together makes us better and better off than being separate," said the professor.

The protests were started by lawyers, who asked for French-speaking judges to be transferred out of courts in the English-speaking regions, stating that justice can not be rendered when the judge, the advocate, and the suspect can not communicate.

They also asked for the OHADA business law used by French African countries to be translated into English.

When their requests were not granted, they refused to defend clients in court and went to the streets. Teachers also got involved, complaining that French was being used in English schools to the detriment of English-speaking children. The situation escalated when university students and business people also joined.

Many people have been arrested and several others killed since the military deployed to stop street protests in nearly every town in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

Anglophones say the country's French majority is disrespecting Article 3 of Cameroon's constitution which says the country is a bilingual and bicultural state.

Peace advocate Ndi Richard Tantoh, of the NGO Ecumenical Service for Peace, said the way forward is for the government to listen to the masses.

"Along the line Anglophones have articulated their problems and they have made suggestions and the possible scenarios for resolutions, but I have not seen that feedback coming from government. I have said several things about that problem and the need for the people to be heard so that we look for structural issues which can rehabilitate or which can solve this problem of linguistic legacy that we have in this country," said the advocate.

The violence has led to the closure of all schools and markets in English-speaking regions of Cameroon, with protesters and military having running battles.
People whose loved ones disappeared on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have appealed to residents on the east African coast to search for plane debris and hand in anything they find to the authorities.

Ghislain Wattrelos, who lost his wife and two teenage children on the plane, said more debris could help determine what happened, more than 1,000 days after the flight disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"It can tell us if there was a fire, if there are traces of explosive," Wattrelos told a news conference in Antananarivo, the capital of the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar where some debris has washed up. "The more debris we have, the more we can recreate, looking at the wind and currents, where the plane crashed."

Families have accused Malaysian-led investigators of focusing too much on the deep-sea search for wreckage off the coast of Australia.

The visit by seven relatives to Madagascar, where almost half of the more than 30 pieces thought to be from the plane have been found, prompted the Malaysian investigators to follow them to the Indian Ocean island to collect the latest items.

The Transport Ministry handed over six pieces Monday that included a seat back with coat hook, and wing and tail pieces.

Gervais Damasy, director of Madagascar's Bureau of Civil Aviation Accident Investigations, said he would discuss with the chief Malaysian investigator whether the two countries could launch a joint search of Madagascar's 3,200 miles of coastline.

"We want to help, but alone, we do not have the means," he said.

Grace Subathirai Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer who lost her mother on MH370, said the bereaved relatives  seven of whom are in Madagascar, from China, Malaysia and France  would be "delighted" if people on Africa's east coast joined the search.

"Up to today every piece of debris found has been found by private citizens," she said. "It is important to know that we as private citizens can make a difference."

The families, who are paying for their Africa trip themselves, said they would offer a modest reward to anyone who found debris confirmed to be from flight MH370.

"It needs to be proven that it's debris from a plane and then it depends on the importance of the debris," said Nathan, without saying how much they would pay for a found item.

On Tuesday, the families plan to visit different stretches of coastline around Madagascar to speak to residents and join the search. The Malaysian and Chinese families will return home via Mauritius to raise awareness there.
Donald Trump's convention-breaking phone call with Taiwan's president has triggered a sudden shift in the U.S. President-elects popularity among Chinese social media users.

Prior to that December 2 phone call with Tsai Ing-wen, Trump had been gaining admirers on Chinese social media for much of this U.S. election year  a trend that accelerated after his November 8 triumph over his main rival Hillary Clinton. But in the days since the Taiwan call, Trump has faced a torrent of criticism from users of the Chinese micro-blogging site, Weibo.

In March, when Trump was in the midst of his battle for the Republican presidential nomination, Chinese state-run news site Global Times said it conducted an online survey indicating that 54 percent of respondents favored the then-Republican front-runner. It also reported that Trump was getting increasing support from Weibo users who were following pro-Trump accounts such as "Trump fan club" and "Great man Donald Trump."

How his popularity grew

Michel Hockx, director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, told VOAs China 360 podcast that Trump had endeared himself to many Chinese with his reputation as an anti-establishment business tycoon and reality TV star.

"People saw him as a strong leader, as someone with personality, a kind of celebrity politician of the kind that they dont get in China, said Hockx. For sure, there also was criticism  mainly about the system that makes it possible for someone like Donald Trump to be elected, and whether or not such a system, that we call democracy, would be suitable for China."

Days after Trump surprised many people by winning last months election, his Chinese social media standing got another boost from a little known member of his family. A nine-month-old Instagram video of his granddaughter Arabella reciting Chinese poetry resurfaced in China and went viral, generating a wave of positive comments. Arabellas mother Ivanka  Donald Trumps eldest daughter  had uploaded the clip in February to show her family celebrating Chinese New Year. Arabella, then aged five, had been learning Mandarin with a Chinese nanny.

Hockx, also a professor of Chinese literature, said there were two main reasons for the warm Chinese responses to the Arabella video. "One is, she is cute, and people like seeing cute images on the internet, he said. But in addition, what makes the clip stand out is that Arabella is not just speaking Chinese, she actually is reciting Tang dynasty poetry, which Chinese people value as the epitome of what is great about their classical tradition.

Hockx said the Instagram clip also demonstrated to Chinese netizens that there are some Westerners who encourage their children to take an interest in Chinese culture. Chinese people are used to the West dictating global language and culture, so to see the granddaughter of the U.S. president-elect reciting Chinese poetry in fluent Mandarin makes a lot of Chinese people feel good and proud of their country."

Trump further improved his post-election image among Chinese netizens by reiterating a campaign pledge to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement when he takes office. The TPP deal championed by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama was intended to create a U.S.-led Asia-Pacific trade bloc that excludes China.

The prospect of TPPs impending demise was welcome news to Chinese netizens, according to Manya Koetse, chief editor of WhatsonWeibo, an independent blog about Chinese social media trends. They thought that if Trump abandons the TPP, it could be a good deal for China, said Koetse, also speaking to VOA China 360. Only last week, I read a lot of people saying that, 'I really like this president, go Trump!' But after the (December 2) Taiwan phone call, a lot of people have shifted and they don't like this incoming president so much anymore.

Social media mood quickly sours

Koetse said many Chinese netizens were confused by Trumps decision to speak directly to Taiwans leader, something no U.S. president or president-elect has publicly acknowledged doing since 1979. China has long viewed Taiwan as a renegade province and objects to foreign governments engaging in high-level contact with the islands leadership.

A lot of Chinese netizens just call Trump a fool who doesn't know anything about diplomatic etiquette, said Koetse. But there also are many people who say this phone call was a strategic, calculated move by Trump and we should be worried about it. Others netizens are angry, saying Trump should not attempt to meddle in Chinas business, and there is some arrogance within that (perspective), because they say, no matter what Trump will do, China will win anyway. Trump tweeted that he took the Taiwan presidents call because she wanted to congratulate him on the U.S. election and that he appreciated the courtesy.

Will the good impressions that Trump and his granddaughter previously made in the Chinese social media sphere be forgotten?

It all depends on what Trump is going to do in the next few weeks and months, Koetse said. She also said many Chinese netizens did not like the alternative to Trump. They thought of Hillary Clinton as a fake politician with a fake smile and saw her as hypocritical or corrupt. So even if they didn't like Trump that much, they liked him much more than Hillary, and I think even after the phone call, that feeling will remain."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to ban the full-face veil worn mostly by Muslim women as a way to stop any parallel societies developing in Germany.

Merkel had just been re-elected as chairwoman of her Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party at its annual conference Tuesday when she said the burqa should be forbidden wherever legally possible, which would include schools, courts and other public buildings.

In communication between people, which is of course essential to our living together, we have to show our faces, she said.

While it is unclear whether the German constitution would allow a ban on the burqa, Merkel stressed the importance of integration for new-comers, and this includes rejecting the full-face veil.

Merkels comments come as she has seen her approval ratings drop because of her decision to accept around one million refugees into Germany during the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe.

She is facing a heavy challenge from the right-wing populist Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, which has been fueled by anti-immigration sentiment. Earlier this year, the Afd called Islam incompatible with the German constitution and called for a ban on minarets and the burqa.

The 2017 election will be more difficult than any election before, at least since German reunification, Merkel said, acknowledging there was a strong polarization of our society.

Should Germany implement Merkels plan, it would join three other European countries - France, Belgium and the Netherlands - that have specific bans on the face-covering garment.
Excitement is building in Ghana's capital as the West African country prepares to elect a president and parliament on Wednesday.

Although campaigning by the political parties has officially ended the streets of Accra are adorned with colorful, predominantly promoting the ruling NDC party or the main opposition NPP.

President John Drahami Mahama is seeking a full term after taking over from John Atta Mills, who died in 2012. Mahama will face opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo.

Accra resident Kwasi Nantwi said he is excited to vote, but suggests he will not cast his ballot for the current president.

"I am excited because we have gone through four years of many troubles, particularly the economy and that is what excites me, that I am going to cast my vote for change," Nantwi said.

Importer Frank Boamah said he is also seeking change.

The election is all about the economy to me. Because as a businessman all I am looking for is for the economy to be good so that I can import more, get money so things will be okay with me. We need people here to buy the goods from us so the money can stay in the country. [My goods] that I brought in they are not buying. I am not going to keep this president, Boamah said.

Another Accra resident of the capital city, Bright Coker, said he will vote for Mahama.

"I want him to continue, because if we change him for now, for Ghana, you know, if we change our government, the infrastructure of the policy the government is doing, it will [be at] stake," Coker said.

Voting begins 0700 UTC and ends at 1700 UTC Wednesday. The electoral commission says official results will be announced at most 72 hours after the polls close.
A Greek court on Tuesday ruled in favor of the extradition of three Turkish soldiers accused by Ankara of involvement in July's failed coup.

The three soldiers, part of a group of eight who fled to Greece, have denied Turkey's allegations.

The ruling comes just a day after the same court ruled against the extradition of three different officers accused of participating in the failed coup attempt. In the case of these three officers, the court ruled that the Turkish authorities failed to provide sufficient evidence to hand them over.

The fate of the two remaining officers will be decided on Thursday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has engaged in a crackdown on journalists, academics, military and civilian government employees, accusing them of participating in the July coup attempt.

More than 100,000 people have been removed from their jobs since government forces blocked the coup attempt. More than 35,000 others, including military officers and opposition politicians, have been arrested for suspected collusion with the coup plotters.

Erdogan has accused U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of plotting the coup, and vowed to bring Gulen to justice.

Gulen, a former Erdogan ally in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup attempt.
People close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban are increasing their control over Hungarian media, raising concerns among government critics and international bodies over press freedom as an election approaches.

Some journalists who spoke to Reuters said they were alarmed last month when the Austrian owner of Hungarian media group Mediaworks closed Hungary's largest opposition daily newspaper and sold the rest of the group to an Orban ally.

Mediaworks suspended the 70-80 staffers at the leftist Nepszabadsag, then the new owners dismissed most of them and brought pro-government editors into other group publications.

Mediaworks CEO Gabor Liszkay declined to comment.

Orban has already taken steps to restrict the media, introducing tough legislation in 2010 and subsequently curbing the activities of state broadcasting outlets. His new drive for media control follows a falling out last year with one of his chief backers, business magnate Lajos Simicska, whose media outlets stopped supporting the prime minister, according to staffers and media analysts.

Simicska, through an assistant, did not immediately reply to questions seeking comment.

Since that parting of the ways, figures close to Orban have assumed prominent roles in the media industry after he used a broadcast interview to urge his supporters to invest in the sector. Those who support the ruling Fidesz party, he told Echo TV in May last year, should put their "personal and financial" energy into creating new media outlets.

Within a year, his closest political communications adviser, Arpad Habony, started Modern Media Group, which disseminates tabloid content on websites and free papers.

Andrew Vajna, the former Hollywood producer of the Rocky and Rambo movies and now the government's film commissioner, took over Hungary's No. 2 television group and acquired radio licenses.

A group of business associates with personal, financial or family connections to central bank Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy, another Orban ally, now runs two prominent news web sites.

Liszkay, a former Simicska associate, bought a business newspaper which now backs the government after a makeover.

None of these entities or individuals had any comment in response to multiple Reuters inquiries about their ownership of, or influence over, the media.

Our media structure is fine

Orban's spokesman rejected suggestions of undue government influence over the media.

"From the legal perspective our media structure is fine," Zoltan Kovacs said in response to Reuters questions at a press forum in Vienna last month.

Asked about the growing presence of government-friendly media owners, he said: "You mix up media freedom with the ownership of media." He said Opimus, Mediaworks' new parent company, had nothing to do with the government.

The control over large parts of the media exerted by business interests close to the prime minister, and the sense that this might increase ahead of parliamentary elections in 2018, has drawn criticism at home and abroad.

"We think the recent state of affairs in Hungary's media is highly worrisome," said Balazs Nagy Navarro, chair of the supervisory board at the European Center for Press and Media Freedom.

"We worry about the honesty of the elections as the media are not diverse enough and people's right of access to information has been limited," he told Reuters.

The chairman of Hungary's opposition Socialist Party, Gyula Molnar, told Reuters that with a significant part of the media controlled by Fidesz, millions of Hungarians were not seeing stories that criticized the government.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an intergovernmental human rights and media freedom watchdog, said there had been a significant decline in media pluralism in Hungary, where media had become "highly vulnerable to political pressure".

The radical nationalist Jobbik party's chairman, Gabor Vona, complained of untrue reports about him and his party in several pro-government outlets, saying the government was trying to divert attention from corruption.

"You can buy up the entire Hungarian press, down to the last rural gazette, but you can no longer hide what you are doing to this country behind the veil of your media," Vona said in an attack on Fidesz in parliament this month.

In his reply to Vona, Bence Tuzson, who speaks for Fidesz in parliament, ignored the remark.

Orban's chief of staff, Janos Lazar, said some conservative businessmen had heeded the prime minister's call and bought media interests or helped media businesses.

"As far as Hungary's media environment is concerned, I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with freedom, now that we have learned the lessons from the U.S. presidential elections," he told Reuters last month. "The entire American media was against Trump... and he scored a landslide."
As civil war grinds on in Syria, neighboring Israel has been largely uninvolved - even as the Islamic State (IS) said it considers Israel a prime target.



But a recent attack launched into northern Israel from Syria by militants affiliated with IS have heightened fears in Israel and stirred concerns that IS may try to lure Israel into the broader Middle East conflict, analysts say.



Khalid Ibn al-Walid Army  an Islamist group in southern Syria that pledged allegiance to IS this year  opened machine gun and mortar fire last week on an Israeli military patrol. The Israeli military responded with an airstrike that killed four Islamist fighters.



Israeli residents in the Golan Heights say they are growing wary of a possible increase in IS attacks.



Since the beginning of war in Syria, my family and I live in constant fear, said Faiz Zahraddine, a 37-year-old resident of Ein Qiniya, a Druze village not far from the Syrian border. Nobody was harmed this time, but who knows whats going to happen next time?



Israeli authorities say they have long been on high alert for cross-border attacks from IS and possible internal terror attacks from IS-inspired cells.



We will not permit radical Islam or any other hostile entity to open a front of terror against us on the Golan [Heights], Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters recently.



New and worrying development

The recent attack on the Israeli patrol was a new and worrying development, as so far [Islamic State] or any of its affiliates didn't try to attack Israel directly, said Adam Hoffman, a terrorism researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

IS, in its small pocket near the Golan, does appear to pose a major threat, said Seth Frantzman, an Israeli researcher based in Jerusalem. It could attempt to continue to harass Israel to draw it into the Syria conflict, which Israel is not interested in being involved in.

David Daoud, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington-based think tank, agrees it is unlikely that the Israel military would mount a major operation into Syria to pursue IS fighters.



I dont foresee an invasion by Israel, particularly in a situation as messy as Syria where the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] would get stuck engaging multiple factions, he said.

Nor is Islamic State well prepared for a fight with Israel at this time, Daoud said. With its forces on the defensive across Syria and Iraq, the resources [it] can devote to engaging the IDF are rather limited.



Since the start of Syrias war in 2011, Israeli military jets have crossed the border only to attack arms shipments from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.



Hezbollahs political platform has long been based on the destruction of Israel, and Israeli leaders consider the movement of arms to Hezbollah in Syria as a threat to their nation's existence. Israeli warplanes this week targeted a Hezbollah weapons convoy near Damascus, damaging a Syrian military base.



From its onset in Iraq and Syria in 2014, IS has often threatened to attack Israel, and its leaders have said conquering Jerusalem is the ultimate objective for their Islamic caliphate.



Launching pad

Qatars foreign minister said in November that the Gaza Strip could become a "launching pad" for IS recruiters.



Israel authorities say a few dozen Arab Israeli citizens have left to join IS in Syria and Iraq. Last month, Israel authorities arrested an Arab Israeli who planned to join IS in Syria.



Israel officially banned IS and anyone associating with it in a 2014 declaration signed by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon. The decree outlaws any meetings by IS sympathizers and allows authorities to take quick legal action.



"This is being done for the sake of national security, public safety and public order," the declaration said.



An IS terror cell was foiled in 2015 as it collected weapons in Israeli Arab towns. In June, two IS-inspired gunmen opened fire at a shopping center, killing four Israeli civilians.



But analysts caution that ISs ability to strike inside Israel is limited. Israel has a tight security apparatus and has long experience battling terror attacks by Palestinian militants.



Any IS terror attacks inside Israel will likely be on a small scale thanks to good intelligence on [IS] in Syria and on the Israeli Arabs who traveled to Syria to join it, Hebrew University analyst Hoffman said.



And despite the warning by the Qatari minister, IS has had difficulty finding a footing in the Palestinian territories given ideological differences with other Islamist groups like Hamas.



Hamas and more extreme groups such as Islamic Jihad or salafist groups in Gaza work hard to prevent [IS] from gaining inroads or competing for followers, researcher Frantzman said.
More than 1,000 migrants were plucked from overcrowded boats and 16 bodies were recovered in the past two days, Italy's coast guard said on Monday, adding to the already record number of arrivals this year.

Coast guard ships recovered some 800 migrants from nine different vessels on Sunday, the coastal service said, and coordinated the rescue of another 230 boat migrants on Monday.

As of Dec. 1, Italy had taken in more than 173,000 boat migrants this year, beating the previous record of 170,000 set in 2014. In all, about a half million have come in the past three years.

Italy has had to bear the brunt of new arrivals since the implementation in March of an agreement between the European Union and Turkey to curb the flow of migrants sailing for Greece.

The influx is putting the country's asylum process and legal system under increasing pressure.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had threatened to veto the European Union's budget to force partners to take in a greater share of asylum seekers, but he was due to resign on Monday after losing a referendum on constitutional reform on Sunday by a landslide.
Affectionately called Amma by fans and party activists, Jayalalithaa wielded power with an iron hand, many men in the party falling at her feet at public events.

By Indo-Asian News Service: She was a shy girl when she first stepped into the movie world. Decades later, by when she was one of the most popular actors in Tamil, Jayalalithaa became a colossus in Tamil Nadu's politics, one who dreamt of playing a larger national role too.

Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night after a 74-day battle for life, was a politician par excellence, a Brahmin woman who reached the pinnacle in a state where anti-Brahminism is very strong and led her AIADMK party to four victories in assembly elections - the last two in succession.

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Affectionately called "Amma" by fans and party activists, Jayalalithaa wielded power with an iron hand, many men in the party falling at her feet at public events. But she enjoyed genuine popularity, particularly among the economically weaker sections who regarded her as a virtual goddess.

Jayalalithaa certainly knew what it takes to negotiate the roller-coaster ride of power.

Also Read: Jayalalithaa: How a little girl Ammu became Amma of Tamil Nadu

Born in Karnataka on February 2, 1948 into an Iyengar family and named Komavalli, Jayalalithaa moved to Chennai in the 1950s to live with her mother who worked as a stage and Tamil film actress.

A bright student, Jayalalithaa studied at the Bishop Cotton Girl's High School in Bengaluru and the Church Park Presentation Convent in Chennai after her relocation.

At 16, she acted in a Kannada movie which turned out to be a blockbuster. She also acted on stage for years even as she continued to study.

Although she wanted to pursue higher studies, Jayalalithaa gradually veered towards acting. Her first Tamil movie was "Vennira Aadai" (1965). Over the decades, she acted in 140 films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and even one in Hindi "Izzat" opposite Dharmendra.

Her acting career peaked after she was paired with the legendary M.G. Ramachandran or MGR. The success of their film "Aayirathil Oruvan" (1965) turned Jayalalithaa into a leading heroine in Tamil movies. The two were an instant hit on the silver screen and they were said to be friends too in real life.

It is widely believed that it was MGR who prompted Jayalalithaa to join politics. But in reality, she made her own choice.

Also Read: #AmmaForever: Tributes pour in after Jayalalithaa's death, Tamil Nadu announce 7-day mouning and 3-day holiday

MGR appointed her the AIADMK's Propaganda Secretary in 1984. But it was her grit and tenacity that helped Jayalalithaa, a Brahmin in the Dravidian movement, to move her way up.

When MGR fell ill and was under medical treatment in the US, Jayalalithaa led the AIADMK's alliance with the Congress in the 1984 general and assembly elections.

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Life became choppy after MGR died in December 1987, leaving Jayalalithaa to battle it out with his wife Janaki for the leadership of the AIADMK. The party split into two factions.

In 1989, the two factions reunited under Jayalalithaa's leadership and she was elected its General Secretary.

In the same year, she was elected to the Tamil Nadu assembly for the first time. She became the first woman opposition leader in the state.

There was vitriolic opposition to Jayalalithaa's ascendancy in Tamil politics, especially from the DMK. But she countered all that.

In 1991, she became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in elections held after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination at an election rally near Chennai.

Losing in 1996, Jalayalithaa returned to power in 2001 but had to step down after her name figured in a court case. After being cleared, she took over again in 2002 and ruled till 2006.

She wrested the state from the DMK in 2011, but had to step down in September 2014 after being convicted in a corruption case by a Bengaluru court.

Acquitted, she took back the reins in May 2015 and led her party back to power in 2016, when she became the first in three decades to win an assembly poll in the state for a successive term.

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Jayalalithaa was considered mercurial. She withdrew her support to the BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee after giving the government several sleepless nights in 1999.

She also had a love-hate relationship with the Congress. At the same time, she was not at home with the national opposition which preferred the DMK over the AIADMK.

S. Thirunavukarasar, President of the Congress in Tamil Nadu and an old timer in the AIADMK, explained why Jayalalithaa succeeded the way she did.

"She was very bold, intelligent and shrewd, three important qualities for a politician," Thirunavukarasar told IANS. "She was charismatic and could attract and convince people. She was also an able administrator."

Jayalalithaa implemented a water scheme to quench the thirst of Chennai and made rain water harvesting mandatory.

She also brought in women's police in the state and the "Cradle Baby" scheme.

Though the DMK started the freebie culture with its colour television offer as an election promise, it was Jayalalithaa who took it to a different level offering laptops, mixers, grinders and more.

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The names of most newly-launched welfare schemes started with "Amma". It reinforced her brand equity.

Also Read: From India Today archives: 15 vintage photos of Jayalalithaa

The way she managed relief work after the 2004 tsunami drew praise from then US Senator Hillary Clinton. But her government's response to the 2015 Chennai floods cost her some seats in the city in 2016.

Jayalalithaa had been in and out of power several times, battling incumbency and corruption charges. But she never gave up.

A charismatic leader who was at home in Tamil, English and Hindi, a rare quality in Tamil Nadu politics, Jayalalithaa has also recorded many songs and written several stories.

When she was admitted to Apollo Hospitals on September 22, no one believed she would come out of it in a coffin. She was hyperactive in May, winning the election. She was dead in December.

By Venkatachari Jagannathan

--- ENDS ---
What is billed as the last big gathering of survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor takes place Wednesday in Hawaii  75 years to the day after the bombing which brought the United States into World War II.

Another poignant and historic event will occur 20 days later at the naval base, when Shinzo Abe becomes the first Japanese prime minister to visit the memorial dedicated to more than 2,400 military personnel and civilians who died in the aerial raid. But those who expect Abe to apologize are likely to be disappointed.

"The purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects to the war dead, not to offer an apology," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday in Tokyo.

Six months ago, U.S. President Barack Obama became the country's first sitting leader to visit a memorial in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where in 1945 the United States detonated the world's first atomic bomb intending to end the war.

Abe is scheduled to visit Hawaii December 26-27 and go to the site with Obama, who spent part of his childhood in the state. "This visit is for the sake of consoling the souls of those who died in the war, not for the sake of an apology," Suga said.

U.S.-Japan alliance

The Japanese prime minister, who visited U.S. President-elect Donald Trump last month in New York, is concerned about a possible weakening of the U.S.-Japan alliance under the new administration, according to Koichi Nakano, professor of Japanese politics at Tokyo's Sophia University.

"So he is doing all he can to send signals that U.S.-Japan relations are strong and indispensable," Nakano told VOA.

During his campaign, Trump at times criticized Japan and other nations where the U.S. plays a role in security and bases troops. Trump asserted that those governments should shoulder more of the cost.

Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, said Trump's win in November "has really thrown the Japanese for a loop."

Candidate Trumps statements suggesting that Japan was not doing enough for its defense and not paying enough for the services effectively of U.S. forces really frightened the Japanese government," Newsham told VOA.

"Japan once erred and challenged the emergent U.S.-centered international order, but has since repented and is now serving the international order as a good sidekick of the U.S.," said Professor Nakano in Tokyo. "The irony is that Abe at heart doesn't believe any of it, and now he is met by Trump, who doesn't believe any of it either."

The strengthening of the U.S.-Japan military alliance has been justified in recent years as crucial to maintain the liberal international order, Nakano told VOA. "And the entire logic is now bankrupt as neither of the two leaders of the alliance will be a liberal, so God knows where the U.S.-Japan alliance will drift to."

Asians look for apology

Abe's words at Pearl Harbor "will be very closely parsed, as are all statements by high Japanese officials about the war," said senior fellow Denny Roy at the Hawaii-based East West Center. "I would like to hear some kind of recognition that it was an act of aggression for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor."

But many of Abe's supporters "don't want him to apologize or say anything near an apology," Roy told VOA.

Japanese and American citizens will not be the only ones monitoring Abe's statement, which he will deliver while standing beside Obama.

Aggrieved Asian peoples "would like a strong apology for issues involving their countries," Roy explained.

"Prime Minister Abe, regardless of what he may believe personally and privately, has fully accepted the official Japanese government's view on these issues," Yuki Tatsumi, senior associate for East Asia programs at the Stimson Center, told VOA.

Remorse and apologies have been expressed to other countries by various Japanese prime ministers since the 1950s.

Tatsumi, who served as a special assistant for political affairs at Japan's embassy in Washington, expects Abe's Pearl Harbor remarks "to be very similar to the speech he gave to the U.S. Congress in April 2015 to remember the terrible history of Japan's conduct in World War II and to reaffirm Japan's commitment of not resorting to war to resolve international disagreements."

"Apologies are not necessary," according to Tetsuo Kotani, senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs.

Abe, he said, only needs to express remorse for those who suffered and died in the human tragedy and express a sincere commitment to peace.

Both Tatsumi and Kotani tell VOA that this aspect of history remains politicized in China and Korea  which were occupied by Imperial Japan  while the United States and Japan are setting an example of true reconciliation.

The Hawaii visit by Abe will be an "appropriate complement to President Obama's visit to Hiroshima this summer. The message is that Japan acknowledges its past, and that it is ready to move forward," said retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Dave Stilwell.

More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen were killed in the Japanese aerial attack at Pearl Harbor, which sunk the USS Arizona battleship while damaging or destroying 20 other ships and 164 planes. The attack will be marked Wednesday by a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes first struck their targets.

Three and a half years later, the world war came to an end after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 210,000 people in the two attacks.
The United Nations has launched a four-year crisis response plan for Lebanon it hopes will maintain stability and prevent an internal conflict from breaking out. It is appealing for $2.8 billion to get humanitarian and stabilization support programs underway in 2017.

The United Nations does not believe Lebanon is on the brink of collapse but it warns there is a danger the country could implode if the Syrian refugee crisis is not well managed.

Syrian refugees account for 30 percent of Lebanon's population, the highest concentration per capita of refugees in the world. Seventy percent live below the poverty line compared to 40 percent of the Lebanese population.

Few camps exist for Syrian refugees. Most live in host communities among Lebanese who are as impoverished as they are. The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, Philippe Lazzarini, said there is a constant high risk of tension among the host communities and Syrian refugees over competition for services and limited resources.

He said it is critical that the international community continue its support for Lebanon and provide the funds needed to promote the crisis response plan.

We do believe that it is in the interest, not only of the Lebanese, but of the region to shield Lebanon from the instability in the rest of the Middle East... Hence, the need to maintain the same level of support to the country. There is a risk always that if we loosen our attention, this might trigger host community fatigue... [and] social tension will follow, Lazzarini said.

The four-year Lebanon Crisis Response Plan will have a strong focus on humanitarian assistance to vulnerable communities, a necessity as most Syrian refugees are completely dependent on international aid for their survival.

Besides providing food, shelter, and other essentials, Lazzarini said the plan will work on peace and security, governance and social and economic issues.
The International Criminal Court has begun its first trial against a senior member of the Ugandan Lords Resistance Army, and its first against a former child soldier. The procedures raise complex ethical questions as defendant Dominic Ongwen, who has pled not guilty, was both a victim and an alleged perpetrator of the rebel groups brutality.

The trial against Ongwen took an unusual turn Monday as the defendant initially said he did not understand the charges against him. His defense team suggested he was not psychologically fit to stand trial.

But presiding judge Bertram Schmitt rejected those claims, and Ongwen was asked whether he pleaded guilty.

ONGWEN (thru translator): In the name of God I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda."

JUDGE: "You therefore plead not guilty with respect to all the charges, I assume.

ONGWEN: Yes.

Ongwen faces a record 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity against him at the Hague-based International Criminal Court. They include rape, murder, torture, pillaging and enslavement during LRA attacks on camps of displaced people in northern Uganda between 2003 and 2004. He is also accused of many other crimes the ICC is not examining at this particular trial.

Possibility of life in prison



Ongwen was captured in the Central African Republic in January 2015. If found guilty, he could face life in prison.

The ICCs chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the LRAs brutality blighted the lives of millions of ordinary people. She showed graphic images of slaughtered children after four LRA rampages on Ugandan camps.

Your Honors, the evidence shows that in each case, Dominic Ongwen played a prominent role in the planning and execution of the four attacks, said Bensouda. "He did so as a commander of one of the four principal operations units of the LRA - the senior brigade.

But Ongwen was also a victim of the LRA, abducted by the rebels at the age of 10 as he walked to school. The defense team will seize on his background in its argument. At the trials opening, Ongwen blamed the atrocities on LRA leader Joseph Kony, who faces an ICC arrest warrant and is still on the run, for the brutalities.

Investigation into abuses



Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch, says the group has also called on the court to expand its investigation to LRA atrocities committed outside Uganda.

We have also by the way, have called upon the ICC to investigate abuses committed by the Ugandan military during its long war with the LRA because we and others have documented serious crimes on that side, said Lefkow.

The Ongwen trial comes after several African countries said they would withdraw from the court. But in the case of Gambia, where longtime President Yahya Jammeh was defeated in last week's election, the incoming president says he is committed to remaining in the court. And South Africas opposition has launched a legal effort to block government efforts to withdraw from the ICC.
Members of various religious groups in Malawi held street protests Tuesday against a proposed law that would expand womens ability to terminate a pregnancy. The country's existing law allows only pregnant mothers whose lives are in danger to obtain an abortion.

More than 20,000 people including schoolchildren, medical personnel and members of a Rastafarian sect marched to the parliament in Lilongwe to protest the bill.

Among the placards they carried were signs that read, "A nation that kills its children is a nation without hope," "No life, rights," and "Thank you, mother, for not aborting me."

Leading the protest were the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, an arm of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Association of Malawi, an umbrella body of 122 Christian denominations.

"Our clear message is: Life begins at the moment of conceptions, said the Rev. Father Henry Saindi, secretary general for the Episcopal Conference of Malawi. Life of the human being was created in the image and likeliness of God himself, so nobody has the right to decide to take life at whatever cost."

Proponents of the proposed new law say abortion should be allowed to prevent injury to the physical or mental health of a woman; when the pregnancy results from rape, incest or defilement; and when there is severe malformation of the fetus.

Protester Cecilia Nkhonjera disagrees.

"That life has got the right to live, she said. So that is why I said no. I have to demonstrate that I am supposed to keep life, not to kill life."

Statistics from the Malawian Ministry of Health show more than 70,000 women seek backstreet abortions each year, and nearly 30,000 of them result in complications, and sometimes death.

The statistics also show that post-abortion care, which is offered in public hospitals, costs the government nearly $1 million a year.

The Coalition for the Prevention for Unsafe Abortion is pushing the new abortion bill. Its national coordinator, Chrispine Sibande, told VOA that Malawi's parliament is debating budgets for the ministry of health in which about $400,000 goes to post-abortion care.

"In the petition, they [protesters] are not addressing that, Sibande said. So even if they tell parliament, parliament consists of reasonable people who will look for realistic solutions and we believe that parliament will opt for realistic [a] solution, because real problems have to be addressed by real solutions, not noise."

The protesters have warned that parliament members risk being voted out of office should they allow the bill to pass.
Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo are calling for an immediate five-day cease-fire to ensure the humanitarian evacuation of civilians from the eastern part of the city.

The rebels made the proposal Wednesday morning, just hours after Syria's Russian-backed army gained control of at least three-quarters of Aleppo's Old City, which had been under rebel control since 2012.

The rebel factions are proposing that around 500 people needing urgent medical care be evacuated under the supervision of the United Nations. They are also proposing that other civilians who wish to leave be allowed to travel to rural northern Aleppo, where there is no government presence, instead of neighboring Idlib province, which is besieged by Russian airstrikes.

The rebels say once the humanitarian situation has been alleviated, they will discuss the future of Aleppo.

There has been no response from Damascus about the rebels' offer.

The fall of Aleppo's Old City caps a major offensive launched by the army late last month to drive the rebels out of eastern Aleppo and marks a major victory for the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the now five-year-old conflict.

Parts of the historic Old City neighborhood, which was declared a UNESCO Heritage site 30 years ago, were devastated in the takeover, and witnesses say swaths of the historic sector are now virtually unrecognizable.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors and reports on Syria's civil war, says 369 civilians have been killed in the offensive on east Aleppo, including 45 children. Another 92 civilians -- including 34 children -- were killed by rebel shelling on government-held west Aleppo,

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Hamburg, Germany later Wednesday. The two diplomats have held numerous talks in hopes of reaching a diplomatic solution to the civil war.

U.N. special envoy Stefan de Mistura said last week he expected eastern Aleppo to fall to government forces by the end of December, without a negotiated settlement to end the four-year rebel occupation.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in eastern Aleppo despite a huge surge of refugees fleeing in the past two weeks for the relative safety of government-controlled western districts.

Monitors last week estimated that 18,000 civilians in the east had moved into western neighborhoods and more than 9,000 others into a Kurdish-controlled district.

In a separate development, Syria's state-run SANA news agency says a military airport located west of the capital of Damascus was hit Wednesday morning by several Israeli surface-to-surface missiles. It was the second such airstrike carried out by Israeli forces on positions outside of Damascus in a week.
On Monday, an appeals court in Gambia ordered the release on bail of top opposition politician Ousainou Darboe and 18 other protesters who had been arrested in April under outgoing President Yahya Jammeh.

President-elect Adama Barrow has vowed to release more prisoners since winning the election last week.

"Political prisoners will be released, all of them. If it's politics, you are released," he told the Associated Press.

In a statement released Monday, Amnesty International welcomed the move as a positive step. But it warned against "forgetting other prisoners of conscience who still languish in jail simply for having expressed their opinion or participated in peaceful protests."

The newly elected president also announced that Gambia will not withdraw from the International Criminal Court, which is contrary to what his predecessor had wanted.

Christopher Fomunyoh of the National Democratic Institute spoke to VOA by phone from Accra, Ghana, where he is preparing for presidential elections there this week.

"In the past two decades we've seen many violations of human rights  many lawyers, journalists and human rights activists imprisoned. So it comes as a relief that someone who said he would never relinquish power has accepted the verdict of the polls," Fomunyoh said.

'Autocratic leader'

"I wish you all the best, the country will be in your hands in January," outgoing leader Jammeh told his opponent in a congratulatory phone call after the vote.

Jammeh, 51, has ruled the small West African nation since taking power from Dawda Kairaba Jawara in a military coup in 1994.

"The early 90s, the Gambia was one of only four African nations  the other three being Senegal, Botswana and Mauritius. These were the only four countries that even accepted political pluralism, Fomunyoh said. It came as a shock when Yahya Jammeh staged a coup in 1994 and took the reins of government. Very quickly, he moved from being a benign soldier to a very autocratic leader."

Jammeh lost last weeks election to a coalition of opposition parties led by Barrow, who rejoiced with supporters. "Everybody thought that it's impossible, but the impossible becomes possible," he said.

In light of Jammeh's concession, the United Nations special representative in West Africa, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, urged Gambia to avoid "any atmosphere of witch hunt and retribution," asking the country "to forge ahead in unity, conciliation, peace and harmony for the development of your great country known as the smiling coast of Africa."

Celebration

But celebrations of Jammeh's defeat continue throughout the country and elsewhere, with most Gambians saying they are jubilant.

"Gambia, we are suffering for 22 years. This guy didn't do nothing for us," said Sulyman Sawaneh, an ecstatic and unemployed 19-year-old.

Amie Touray, a 22-year-old student, says she finally feels some freedom. "Today  we can say anything we want without any soldier or any police harassing us."

For Buba Fatty, a 32-year-old medical worker, this was a dream come true. "I'm one of the happiest guys today throughout the whole world because this is what I've been looking for for so many years."

Ousainou Mbenga, the chairman of the Democratic Union of Gambian Activists based in the U.S., says he and his friends couldn't be happier that the Jammeh regime is over.

"A brutal regime, a tyrannical regime, very selfish. Jammeh has really pushed Gambian progress [back] another 50 years," he told VOA.

Mbenga says this is a new era in the history of the Gambia, adding that people should start working on building strong institutions to prevent someone like Jammeh from ever ruling his beautiful country again.
Nigerian and U.N. officials say they can prevent the humanitarian crisis gripping northeast Nigeria from spinning out of control if the international community responds quickly to their plea for support.

As part of its multi-billion dollar humanitarian appeal for 2017, the United Nations is asking for more than $1 billion to meet the needs of nearly seven million victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria.

This is more than double the 2016 appeal.

Nigerian National Planning and Budget Minister of State Zainab Ahmed says the request for more money is due to the militarys success in recovering communities that had been held by the militants.

But the paradox of the success is as these areas are recovered, we now are exposed to people that are in a very, very fragile state. So, the numbers keep changing as more communities are recovered, Ahmed said.

The humanitarian operation will focus on the three most affected states - Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. The United Nations is scaling up its aid operations as the magnitude of the human suffering becomes apparent.

U.N. Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator Peter Lundberg says the protection crisis under Boko Haram is rapidly turning into a food insecurity and nutrition crisis.

We have an opportunity to address the needs if we do them now, and if we get adequate resources to do it now we can actually stop something quite terrible from happening, and we want to avoid that at any cost, Lundberg said.

Lundberg added that there is no time to lose as many lives are at stake, with children particularly vulnerable. He said the U.N. Childrens Fund warns the lives of many of the 400,000 severely malnourished children are at risk if they do not urgently receive desperately needed therapeutic feeding.
President Barack Obama used his final national security speech to offer a defense of his counterterrorism record and lay out what he believes should be guiding principles for the new administration taking over the White House in January.

Speaking to troops Tuesday at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, Obama said, Over the last eight years, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland, adding that it was not for a lack of trying. He told the troops, This is your work.

Obama laid out how he views the status of the fight against terror after his two terms, getting loud applause when he said al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is dead. He noted with pride that when he took office, 180,000 U.S. troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that number is now down to 15,000.

WATCH: Obama's presidency during time of war

He said the reduction in U.S. ground forces deployed in war zones marks a deliberate shift in strategy to rely more on building strong international coalitions and relying on local partners, in order to reduce American casualties and monetary costs.

That shift in strategy also includes a drastic increase in the number of drone strikes targeting terrorists during Obama's term. He acknowledged the lack of complete certainty with the strikes and the civilian casualties that have resulted, but said drones are more precise than airstrikes and are less likely to result in the deaths of innocent civilians than troops deployed in a ground invasion.

Obama touted substantial progress against the Islamic State terrorist group, saying, "The bottom line is we are breaking the back of ISIL (Islamic State). He said the cost was considerably lower than efforts in the previous administration, putting it at $10 billion over two years.

WATCH: Obama on efforts to combat terrorism

But he cautioned that the nature of terrorism makes a clearly defined military victory like those in wars of the past impossible to achieve.

"So rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs, or deploying more and more troops, or fending ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained," he said.

Without mentioning his name, Obama rejected President-elect Donald Trumps call for a ban on Muslims and his support expressed during the election campaign for waterboarding.

"If we act like this is a war between the United States and Islam, we're not just going to lose more Americans to terrorist attacks, but we'll lose sight of the very principles we claim to defend," Obama said. He added the United States is not a place where some citizens have to prove they are not an enemy.

Obama came to office pledging to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nearly 800 people have been detained there, a number that has dropped to about 60 with a month left in Obama's term.

He said Tuesday it is past time to close the facility, calling it a "blot" on America's honor and a waste of money.

Some critics of the presidents counter-terror strategy, including President-elect Trump, say that by pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, Obama created a vacuum that terrorists have used to set up a base.

Terrorism expert Max Abrahms of Northeastern University disagrees, saying the original sin on Iraq was former President George W. Bushs decision to depose former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He also faults Obama for regime change in Libya. But Abrahms said Obamas overall record in the fight against terror is respectable.

I think Obama, to his credit, improved at counter-terrorism over time. His initial response to the Islamic State was too tepid. It was too slow. It wasnt intense enough.

Abrahms added, And it was only when our journalist James Foley had his head chopped off, when [Islamic State executioner] 'Jihadi John' bragged about it, that Obama went before the American public and basically rallied support for a more robust counterterrorism mission.

Abrahms agreed with Obama that one of the biggest issues that remains to be resolved is the problem of lone wolf terrorists at home, individuals radicalized online and acting on their own.

Colin Clarke of the RAND Corporation praised Obamas national security record for his ability to form large international coalitions and his prohibition of torture, saying, I think they will outlast this presidency and give some momentum to President-elect Trump as he grapples with a very serious set of circumstances. Clarke pointed out that the person Trump chose to be his secretary of defense, retired General James Mattis, recently said waterboarding is not effective.

Mattis is someone that has spoken out against waterboarding and so we are likely to see him [Trump] taking the wise counsel he is now surrounding himself with and possibly being a bit more deliberative and discerning with respect to some of those positions he has taken.
A marine sanctuary proposed by the Philippine president inside a contested South China Sea shoal risks upsetting rival claimant China despite an ecological mission and a recent thaw in relations with the Asian superpower.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told local media in late November he planned to issue an executive order declaring the triangle of water inside Scarborough Shoal a no-fishing zone. Duterte said he had notified his Chinese counterpart of his intention for the shoal, encompassing about 158 square kilometers (58 square miles) of water.

Competing claims

China and the Philippines have tried since August to repair relations damaged in part by competing claims to the tiny land form 198 kilometers (123 miles) west of Luzon Island. Vessels from China and the Philippines entered a two-month standoff at the shoal in 2012. The presidents order would effectively reassert Philippine sovereignty.

Designating the Scarborough Shoal area as a marine sanctuary would be a renewed claim by the Philippines to sovereignty over that area, said Jonathan Spangler, director of the South China Sea Think Tank in Taipei. Any unilateral actions that imply sovereignty are likely to cause friction between rival claimants, even if they are framed as marine conservation efforts.

China claims about 95 percent of the South China Sea, including waters west of the Philippine archipelago. It has upset Manila and four other Asian governments since 2010 by reclaiming land for artificial islets, militarizing some of them and passing vessels through tracts of ocean claimed by other countries.

The sea, which is about 3.5 million square kilometers (1.4 million square miles), ranges from Singapore to Taiwan. Its prized for fisheries, shipping lanes and possible fossil fuel reserves under the seabed.

Better fishing

Duterte wants the marine sanctuary to help replenish fish in the shoal where stocks have been depleted, Philippine National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon said at an Asia Pacific leadership meeting in Peru November 20.

The adviser said the government might send civilian coast guard personnel to the shoal and that he hoped China would accept the marine conservation plan.

Duterte visited Beijing in October and Chinese officials pledged then $24 billion in aid for the Philippines. The visit also eased tension created under Dutertes predecessor, who took Beijing to a world arbitration court over its maritime claims. The court ruled July 12 that China lacked a legal basis to claim much of the sea.

China should accept the marine sanctuary proposal as it would regenerate fish and avoid the question of sovereignty, said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Philippine advocacy group Institute for Political and Electoral Reform.

Two sides will talk

The two sides agreed in October to discuss the South China Sea issue eventually including possible joint exploration for gas or oil.

Marine sanctuary, fishing rights, coast guard cooperation, access to Scarborough Shoal, (they are) not really touching on the sovereignty issue, Casiple said.

China has not weighed in. The foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said only that the Chinese claims to sovereignty over the shoal will not change. The marine sanctuary would need at least tacit approval from related claimants other than Manila to reduce South China Sea tensions, Spangler said.

Elsewhere in the South China Sea, Taiwan formed a national park nine years ago at Dongsha Atoll in the Pratas archipelago to regenerate coral. China claims the Pratas as well but has not overtly challenged Taiwans sanctuary.

In October a city in China ordered anyone without government approval to avoid an ecologically unique, 301-meter-deep (987-foot) ocean sinkhole on a Paracel Island holding near Vietnam.

Manilas maritime protection area may be seen as an assertion of sovereignty without the boldness of a military move, said Douglas Guilfoyle, associate international law professor at Monash University in Australia.

Manila also has the right to declare it unilaterally because the shoal is within its 200 nautical-mile (370-km) exclusive economic zone, he said.

I dont think theres any internationally agreed definition of what a marine protection area means, Guilfoyle said.

Last year the world court ruled that Britain violated international law in setting up a marine protected area around the Chagos Archipelago, which is also claimed by the nearby Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius.

One way of characterizing it may be in essence a peaceful assertion of sovereignty in that if you declare that you are going to be attempting to be protecting and preserving the environment in an area, the objective sounds laudable and the means by which you would normally do it would be through coast guard or fisheries inspectorate vessels, so it looks much less heavy handed than sending in the navy, he said. But nonetheless it is a display of sovereign authority.
Bhupendra Vira, an activist who tried to expose political links to illegal land dealings in Mumbai, was watching television at his suburban home one evening in October when he was shot dead.

Vira, 61, had sought information under India's Right to Information Act on encroachments of public land and illegal land dealings in a city that has among the world's priciest real estate. The arrest of a former civic official and his son in connection with the killing shocked the city.

A couple of weeks later in another case, Nandini Sundar, a Delhi University professor, was charged in the killing of an indigenous villager in the restive Bastar region.

Sundar had just written a book on indigenous people losing land to mining firms in eastern Chhattisgarh state.

The ensuing outcry led the state to assure the Supreme Court that those charged would not be arrested before an investigation, and that it would give advance notice to them before proceeding.

The two cases highlight harassment and deadly violence against land rights activists in India, campaigners say.

Land is increasingly sought in India for industrial use and development projects, as one of the world's fastest growing major economies expands.

"More land is being acquired for industry by the government, sometimes forcefully, while per capita land available is declining," said E.A.S. Sarma, an activist and former bureaucrat who has campaigned against several land-acquisition projects.

"Meanwhile, people are also more aware of their rights and civil society is more active, even as states introduce new laws to speed up acquisitions. So the conflict level has risen in recent years," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Home ministry spokesman K.S. Dhatwalia said the ministry is aware of the incidents, including those involving Vira and Sundar, and "is taking all necessary actions as per procedure."

New battleground

In the fight for land and the environment, which U.K.-based watchdog Global Witness calls "a new battleground for human rights", communities worldwide are locked in deadly struggles against governments, companies and criminal gangs exploiting land for products including timber, minerals and palm oil.

In 2015, more than three people a week were killed defending land, forests and rivers against industries in the deadliest year on record, according to Global Witness.

Of the 185 murders documented in 16 countries, India was among the top 10, with six deaths last year.

The cases involving Vira and Sundar are just the better known ones, say campaigners.

"Crimes against city-based activists receive more attention, so we have heard more of the professor and the Mumbai activist," said Colin Gonsalves, founder of the Human Rights Law Network.

"But every day, many more are risking their lives in villages, in forests. They are fighting against the state and powerful corporations, and it is only going to get worse as our demand for land grows," he said.

India is home to more than 104 million indigenous people, the largest such population in the world. Its fast-growing economy has led to increased demand for land for infrastructure and development, as well as for resources to feed its industry.

Conflicts related to land and resources are the main reason behind stalled industrial and development projects in India, affecting millions of people and putting billions of dollars of investment at risk, a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences said last month.

"Unfortunately, the government believes that activists who speak for land rights or defend tribal communities are obstructing development," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"Instead of addressing concerns and providing proper rehabilitation and sustainable livelihoods to affected people, the state treats human rights defenders as irritants ... [and] deems any criticism as anti-national," she said.

Atmosphere of Fear

Sundar's book, The Burning Forest: India's War in Bastar, published earlier this year, details the decade-long conflict between the state and Maoist rebels who claim to fight for the rights of poor farmers and landless indigenous people.

Sundar was also a petitioner in an earlier suit that led the Supreme Court in 2011 to order the disbanding of state-backed vigilante group Salwa Judum, which had been accused of human rights violations against indigenous people in Chhattisgarh.

This year, lawyers with a local legal aid group and journalists were harassed into leaving Chhattisgarh, while chemicals were flung at activist Soni Sori's face, campaigners said.

"An atmosphere of fear has prevailed for many years ... now, there's an impunity that has emboldened police and politicians," said Supriya Sharma, who has reported on the region for more than a decade.

Last month, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) criticized Chhattisgarh officials, including the inspector general of police of Bastar, for the "unprecedented acts of hostility and indiscipline" against lawyers, journalists and rights activists.

A spokesman for the state chief minister said officials have addressed the Supreme Court's concerns on the Sundar case, and that they will move forward with their investigation. The state has not yet responded to NHRC's order, he said.

Despite greater impunity, there is also greater scrutiny of the government's actions, said environment lawyer Ritwick Dutta, who has campaigned against projects in forest lands.

"It's always been difficult to challenge the state, but because there is greater scrutiny, there is some element of fear of a backlash against investors and the state," he said. "The scrutiny has emboldened activists to stay the course."
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who breathed her last today, was more than a leader to her people.

By Shreya Biswas:

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who breathed her last today, was more than a leader to her people. Amma, for her followers, was someone they could die for.

Jayalalithaa's followers have, time and again, come out to show how emotionally driven they are when it came to their Amma. From bathing her pictures in milk, tattooing her face on their bodies, to immolating themselves, they have done it all.

Read: Jayalalithaa dead, Tamil Nadu on edge, shockwaves across India

Here's a quick look at how people have expressed their love for Jayalalithaa:

SELF-IMMOLATION, CRUCIFIXION

Around 16 persons were believed to have killed themselves either by setting themselves on fire or by hanging after Jayalalithaa was sentenced to a four-year jail term in the disproportionate assets case in October, 2014.

Reports say people as young as Class 12 students and as old as 65-year-old AIADMK workers burned themselves to death over the verdict. That's not all. At least 10 people were said to have had cardiac arrest and one died of shock.

Also, a man named Shihan Hussaini nailed himself to a cross to celebrate the AIADMK chief's 67th birthday.

Also read: Amma on my mind: After headbands, tattoos, Jayalalithaa features on earrings

HER BLESSINGS

O Panneerselvam, Jayalalithaa's trusted aide, had been seen time and again to prostratd himself on the ground to seek her blessings. He was not the only one.

While naming each would be difficult, here are a few pictures of Amma's followers seeking her blessings in public.

Source: PTI

Source: PTI

A 37-year-old devotee has promised to build a temple for Jayalalithaa, as he believes the late CM was "like God". AP Srinivasan, an AIADMK functionary, has purchased a piece of land near Sholinghur in Tamil Nadu, and is set to build the temple at a cost of Rs 50 lakh.

Also read: Amma Nadu: Where Jayalalithaa equals God

While people had death wishes when Jayalalithaa was sentenced, they expressed their boundless joy upon her release by emptying litres of milk on her pictures.

Also read: Jayalalithaa released from jail after 21 days

Source: PTI

JEWELLERY, TATTOOS

When the Assembly elections were around the corner earlier this year, Amma's followers did everything in their power to pitch for her, which included imprinting her face on their jewellery.

When u find such craze for a politician, you are in Amma-nadu. #TNElections2016 pic.twitter.com/Bmo9raQagl Pinky Rajpurohit (@Madrassan) May 11, 2016

On the occasion of Jayalalithaa's 68th birthday, AIADMK party members celebrated by getting Amma's face tattooed on their forearm. The tattoos are said to read 'Amma everything for us' in Tamil.

Chennai: Party workers get TN CM Jayalalithaa's picture tattooed on her birthday, say 'Amma everything for us' pic.twitter.com/KX2iVg8imM ANI (@ANI_news) February 24, 2016

Again, on Jayalalithaa's 68th birthday, AIADMK organised a mass marriage ceremony in Coimbatore where the brides and grooms sat at their wedding wearing headbands with Ammas photos on them.

Source: PTI

While Tamil Nadu and the rest of the country mourn her passing, the anticipation hanging in the air now is of how Amma's followers will react in the wake of the her demise. She was, after all, not only the mass leader who was incredibly loved, but also the one for whom people nailed themselves to crosses, set themselves on fire, and cut off their fingers.

FULL COVERAGE: #AMMAFOREVER

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The top social media networks in the United States say they are working together to quickly identify and take down photos and video that are used to recruit people into terrorism.

Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube announced Monday that they will create a shared database that identifies flagged images and video using unique "fingerprints," making it easier for the companies to review and potentially remove the content.

They said each company will then determine whether the material violates their terms of service.

"We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online," the companies said in a statement. "There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services."

The internet giants have come under increasing pressure from governments around the world to do more to remove extremist material.

In the United States, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require social media companies to report to police any online terrorist activities they learn about.

Most social media services have terms of agreement that prohibit content that supports violent or illegal activities. The companies typically rely on users to flag inappropriate content, which is then reviewed by editors.

Twitter suspended 235,000 accounts between February and August this year and has expanded the teams reviewing reports of extremist content.

The new database will be up and running by early 2017, and more companies could be brought into the partnership.

The European Union set up an EU Internet Forum last year bringing together the internet companies, interior ministers and the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator to find ways of removing extremist content.

The forum will meet again Thursday, when ministers are expected to ask the companies about their efforts and helping to provide evidence to convict foreign fighters.
A monitoring group Tuesday alleged at least 163 Syrians fleeing their war-torn country have been slain by Turkish border guards since the start of 2016. The accusation is the latest in a series stretching back more than a year of border guards firing on war refugees as they sought sanctuary in Turkey.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which has a network of activists on the ground inside Syria, says 31 children and 15 women were among those killed by Turkish gendarmes as they attempted to cross into Turkey.

Turkish authorities closed their border with Syria in March 2015, ending in effect their much-vaunted open door policy for refugees. Initially, they said the move was just temporary. Since then, there have been frequent claims by Syrians trying to escape airstrikes and fighting of being targeted by Turkish border guards.

Turkish officials insist their border guards do not fire on refugees but they say they have to make the border secure from infiltration by jihadists and terrorists intent on carrying out attacks in Turkey.

The first refugee killing this year came on January 12, says the monitoring group, when gendarmes killed a refugee as he attempted to sneak into Turkey from the province of al-Hasakah in the northeast corner of Syria. Refugees have reported being shot at all along the border, from Latakia in the west and through the provinces of Raqqa, Aleppo and Idlib.

There have also been reports of refugees being beaten and robbed of money and cell phones by Turkish gendarmes.

Call for Turkey to rein in border guards

SOHR executive director Rami Abdul Rahman called Tuesday for the international community and UNHCR to push the Turkish government to control their border guards and to stop them from killing the Syrian citizens.

In July, SOHR and other monitoring and rights groups accused Turkish border guards of shooting dead eight Syrian refugees in one weekend, including three children and four women, as they tried to escape northern Syria. The Local Coordination Committees, another network of activists inside Syria, backed up the claim, reporting that one child was just 6 years old.

Three of Syrias immediate neighbors, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, have made it virtually impossible for civilians to flee Syria. As refugees have strained resources and competed for jobs, often lowering wages as a result, public opinion has increasingly hardened against them in all three countries. The Syrian conflict has uprooted more than 5 million Syrians who have fled to neighboring states and Europe to escape the airstrikes, barrel bombs and fighting in their war-torn country. Another 6 million are displaced from their homes.

Last month, Lebanon's new president, Michel Aoun, in his inaugural address, vowed to send packing the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in his country. The issue of the Syrian refugees should be resolved as soon as possible, he said, characterizing them as a security threat. Aouns Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party, is allied with the Shiite Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have helped to prop up the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Human Rights Watch last year accused European governments of indirectly encouraging harsh treatment of war refugees by Syria's immediate neighbors by shutting their doors on Syrians. EU officials should recognize that their red light for refugees to enter the EU gives Turkey a green light to close its border, exacting a heavy price on war-ravaged asylum seekers with nowhere else to go, the rights group said.

Wherever you turn, theres war

For Syrians, the journey to safety in Turkey is harrowing enough without the dangers of a border crossing. There are tremendous physical risks inside with blistering airstrikes and skirmishes among an array of armed groups. For civilians in northern Syria, fleeing conflict can take you right back into conflict. Wherever you turn, theres war, say refugees who have made the trek.

Forty-two-year-old Bassam, a father of three, described the trip he and his family made in October through northern Syria. The former shop owner shook his head at what he had seen, saying hed encountered many women and children carrying small bundles. Theres little food to be had on the journey, he said. We had to move very slowly to avoid being targeted by warplanes.

Other refugees describe complicated meandering journeys around northern Syria trying to reach the border safely and then facing the peril of being shot at by Turkish guards.

Last year, Lina Chawaf, editor of the independent Syrian radio station Rozana, which broadcasts from studios in Paris and Gaziantep, Turkey, described to VOA her experience trying to re-enter Turkey after a reporting trip to Aleppo. A well-known TV personality in Damascus until she fled after siding with the political opposition against President Bashar al-Assad, Chawaf and a group of civilians trying to use a cross-border tunnel 700 meters long, three meters deep and three meters across were fired on when they began to walk to the tunnel.



The shooting came from Turkish guards trying to deter refugees from reaching the tunnel, she said. The refugees dashed to the tunnel. She said small children were in the group.





Bribes for safe passage

Syrians who manage to slip across the border often have to bribe Turkish gendarmes, paying up to $1,200 a person, according to refugees interviewed by VOA during the past year. People smugglers also profit, charging several hundred dollars.

The current rate for a less risky smuggling road to Turkey is $1,500 per person, which is a huge amount for the vast majority of Syrians, according to Haid Haid, an analyst with Chatham House, a London-based research institution.

Therefore, people keep trying other smuggling roads that are cheaper and riskier, he says. Border security is no excuse for depriving Syrians of refuge and by no means does it justify shooting civilians when it is clear that all they seek is their own safety.

Earlier this year, Western governments and aid agencies urged Turkey to open its border and admit civilians fleeing heavy fighting in northern Syria sparked by a Russian-backed Assad offensive. A European diplomat based in Turkey told VOA that in recent months, EU governments had reduced their behind-the-scenes pressure on Ankara to open the border.

We are just going through the motions really: European governments fear another migration wave and they know if Turkey did open the border, there would be more Syrians attempting to reach Europe.
Women rights activists in Imatong state say they are using 16 days of activism to talk directly to men about widespread sexual violence against women in South Sudan. They're also using the 16 days to advocate for more women to be appointed to local and state government positions, from which they can influence decisions and policies.

Activists in Imatong state say the vast majority of sexual violence is carried out by men, and those who commit gang rape and other acts of violence against women and girls often are not punished, because it is men who dominate decision-making positions, and they do not arrest other men committing the crimes.

Women say the pervasive system of injustice in South Sudan will not change unless more women are appointed chiefs, county commissioners and directors in government ministries.

Imatong state lawmaker and activist Angela Achiro said that in South Sudan  and especially in her state  gender-based crime is rooted in the culture.

"If they see a woman in parliament, they say women are there. And when they see a woman minister, they say women are represented, Achiro said. But when we talk of representation, we mean there should be representation at all levels of government. For instance, at the county level, we would like to see a female commissioner. In Imotong state we have 12 counties, but no woman is appointed county commissioner."

High-ranking women seen as key

She said women employed in the military and police units are only offered jobs as office cleaners, tea makers and messengers, while uneducated men get appointed to higher positions.

Achiro said if a woman headed the army, she would enforce the law and prevent government soldiers and rebel forces from raping women.

"Especially in the conflict situation, you find that men in uniform are the ones causing this, be it in the opposition or government, they are the perpetrators of gender-based violence, Achiro said. We hear men in uniform are stripping women and are raping [them] and taking property, but if a woman is there in the defense decision-making position to defend the country, they will make fair decisions to protect the country."

Davidika Ikai, who heads an organization called Itwak, which means morning star in the local Lotuko language, said having women in high positions at the local and state levels will ensure that girls not only are enrolled in school, but stay in school. Ikai believes that only through educating girls will sexual violence in South Sudan end.

"We have to go down to the grassroots and educate our people that girls must be sent to school. It is only through education that we can achieve what we want, but if our population is not educated, it will always be there," Ikai said.

A lot more needs to be done

Mary Cummins heads the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS, office. Commins said addressing the widespread problem of sexual violence will be a long and tedious process.

"A lot more needs to be done, she said. It is very hard work to succeed as a woman in a male-dominated society."

Jusphine Candiru, who works for the UNMISS Department of Gender, said Imatong state has some of the highest recorded cases of rape in the country. She said her office and a health charity called Health Link recorded an average of 30 rape cases per month this year, and those are only the ones that are reported.

"They actually don't report, but go seeking for treatment.  while seeking for treatment is when we identify them," Candiru said.

She said many South Sudanese women do not report rape cases because they do not want to be stigmatized by their communities.

Jacob Atari, Imatong state Education, Gender and Social Welfare Minister, said most sexual violence is perpetuated by men, but attitudes can and must change.

"That is why we need to call on all the various organized forces, especially soldiers and some men, so that we can talk about these things of violations  about gender-based violence, rape  to the people who are violating it," Atari said.

So far this year, not one individual in South Sudan has been convicted of rape and sent to prison.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner released a statement Monday saying sexual violence is becoming widespread in South Sudan. Toner said the government has mobilized at least 4,000 irregular ethnic militia and deployed them to Central Equatoria  a substantial increase in the overall number of government-affiliated soldiers in the region, which he said will increase the likelihood of more clashes with armed opposition groups and attacks against innocent civilians.

Toner said the warring parties must create conditions for peace and the international community must do its part.

"We can do so by imposing an arms embargo to end the parties' ability to acquire and maintain weapons, especially heavy weapons, military vehicles and aircraft. We should also impose targeted sanctions on those who seek through incitement and violence to turn their country into a graveyard," Toner said.
The Syrian government says it will reject any cease fire agreement that allows rebels to stay in eastern Syria, arguing it would allow the rebels to regroup and repeat their crimes.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried by state media, called the rebels terrorists, in reference to the 81 civilians killed by rebel shelling of government-held districts during the past three weeks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In the statement, Syria vowed to not leave citizens of eastern Aleppo in what it called "the terrorists captivity".

The Syrian statement comes just one day after Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council vote to impose a seven-day cease fire in Aleppo to allow humanitarian aid to reach the city and as its amry inches further into rebel-held territory.

The Syrian army took control of five new districts in eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, putting the government in control of about 70 percent of the city, according to the Observatory.

"The regime is cornering the rebels even further," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Russias U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, echoed the statement out of Damascus in explaining his veto of the cease fire plan, saying it would only worsen the suffering of civilians.

These kinds of pauses have been used by fighters to reinforce their ammo [ammunition] and to strengthen their positions, he said.

Syria and its Russian ally have routinely described the fight against rebels in eastern Aleppo as a battle against terrorists, despite the sector's huge civilian population earlier described by witnesses as largely too fearful to flee.

Speaking in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the only option for rebels is to leave the city.

Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed, he said. There is no other way.

Syria's Russian-backed military has been intensifying its offensive against the rebel-held enclave in Aleppo since mid-November. It has since retaken more than half of the rebel-held areas. About 250,000 civilians are believed trapped in the eastern part of the city.



U.S. Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison said the Russian and Chinese action would only serve to deprive besieged civilians of medicine, food and other life-saving aid. They have vetoed the lives of innocent Syrians, she said. This action is a death sentence for innocent men, women and children.
Tanzania plans to revamp its cash-strapped national carrier by buying new planes as part of plans to boost tourism and transport sectors, Tanzanian President John Magufuli said on Monday.

Home to the famous Serengeti National Park and Africa's highest mountain Kilimanjaro, Tanzania relies heavily on revenues from tourism - its biggest foreign exchange earner, bringing in around $2 billion a year.

Magufuli said his government wants to increase direct flights between Tanzania and Asian and European markets in a bid to boost annual foreign visitor arrivals beyond current levels of around 1 million.

"Tourists have to use several connecting flights to come to Tanzania ... this is because we don't have our own [strong] airlines," he said in a statement.

"We haven't even reached 2 million tourist arrivals a year, while a country like Morocco gets more than 12 million tourists each year."

In power for just over a year, Magufuli has made the overhaul of troubled Air Tanzania Company Ltd (ATCL) one of his flagship infrastructure development projects in a bid to transform the country into a regional transportation hub.

Last week, Tanzania signed a deal with Canada's Bombardier Inc. to buy two CS300 jetliners and one Q400 turboprop aircraft at a cost of $200 million.

The country received delivery of two other Bombardier Q400 planes in Sept. at a cost of $62 million.

Magufuli said his government has also made initial payment for the purchase of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which is expected to be delivered on June 18 and would boost Air Tanzania's fleet to seven planes. He did not say how much the plane would cost.

The state-run ATCL, which has suffered from years of under-investment and mismanagement, had just one plane on its fleet when Magufuli took office in Nov. last year.

Magufuli appointed a new CEO and board for the airline in Sept. and ordered the restructuring of the company, including staff retrenchment, as part of a turn-around plan.
Tensions between India and Pakistan are spoiling efforts to try to tackle the region's security problems, as the nuclear-armed neighbors have difficulty finding issues on which they can work together.

A regional conference that India recently hosted on Afghanistan fell hostage to a "[b]lame game, rather than constructive engagement," wrote Imtiaz Alam, a Lahore-based journalist and analyst, in his column for the English language The News.

Another regional conference, scheduled for last month in Pakistan, was canceled because of discord with India.

"I don't think you can have any kind of effective regional cooperation in which these two countries are involved until the India-Pakistan confrontation is resolved," said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi.

South Asia is not a well-integrated region, and few countries in the region are working together to address common problems. One of the few alliances developed to change that has struggled to perform. Under the best of circumstances, organizations like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, have fought to be effective.

"Every meeting of SAARC used to turn into a confrontation between India and Pakistan," said Sahni.

Even in peacetime

The discord, however, has reached a new level.

"We always had high tensions during war or immediately after war, but we have not seen this type of negative sentiment during peace before," said Lahore-based political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly announced a policy to try to isolate Pakistan internationally, after a September attack on an Indian army base in the disputed Kashmir region killed 18 soldiers. India blamed the attack on Pakistan-based militants.

SAARC, according to Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, could become one of the biggest casualties of that policy.

"With the India-Pakistan relationship in deep crisis, New Delhi has tried to use SAARC as a mechanism to isolate Pakistan," he said.

A recent conference held in the Indian city of Amritsar, called "The Heart of Asia  Istanbul Process," had a larger audience, with the United States, Russia, China and Turkey among those present. It was supposed to be about regional countries coming together to help strife-torn Afghanistan deal with its economic and security challenges.

Obvious tension

The conference unanimously approved a joint declaration that included language like "close regional cooperation aimed at promoting stability, peace and prosperity in Afghanistan," and demanded an "immediate end to all forms of terrorism, as well as all support to it."

Still, Sahni said, the declaration amounted to nothing more than a polite meeting among diplomats.

"You can have any number of declarations you like; that's not going to go anywhere," he said.

This time, however, the optics of tension became so obvious that, as Alam wrote in his column, Russia's special envoy to Kabul "had to lament the use of a multilateral forum for bilateral mudslinging."

The Indian leadership kept Pakistan's adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, who is the country's de facto foreign minister, mostly at arm's length. He was not allowed to hold a news conference with Pakistani media, citing "security concerns," and he did not meet bilaterally with any official of the host country.



"It made for riveting headlines, but in truth may have only set back further the cause of stability and peace in the region," read an editorial in Pakistan's largest English language daily, Dawn.

The two sides differ on the fundamental causes of this alienation.

Pakistan-based analysts say the Indian government is trying to whip up ultranationalist fervor.

"The state by itself is promoting extremism in the same way that Zia-ul-Haq did in his tenure," said Rizvi, referring to Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, the late Pakistani president and military dictator. Haq is blamed for promoting a culture of Islamist extremism and intolerance in Pakistani society.

Terrorism claims

Many Indian officials and analysts blame Pakistan's continued support for terrorist groups, despite Islamabad's claims that it is fighting a war against all terrorist elements.

"There is no effort whatsoever to contain, control or neutralize the groups that are directed against Afghanistan and the groups that are directed against India," said Sahni.

Still, some are questioning the efficacy of a policy of disengagement.

"[I]f every window for engagement with Pakistan is closed for India and Afghanistan, the two countries must closely consider what their next step will be," wrote India's widely circulated English-language paper The Hindu, in an editorial.

"A lack of engagement may, in the short term, yield some pressure on Pakistan's leadership to act, as it did briefly after the Pathankot attack," said the paper, referring to a militant raid last January on an airbase in Pathankot, in Punjab state, that killed seven Indian soldiers. "But in the long run it may deplete the two countries of their limited leverage as Pakistan's neighbors."

New Delhi blamed the Pathankot attack on Pakistan-based militants. Islamabad denies any role in supporting cross-border terrorism.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in southern India Tuesday to pay respect to Jayaram Jayalalithaa, an immensely popular politician who died Monday at the age of 68.

Jayalalithaa rose to prominence as an actress who appeared in more than 150 Tamil-language movies, but since the early 1980s was focused on her political work, including multiple terms as the highest elected official in Tamil Nadu state.

"Jayalalithaa ji's connect with the citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women and marginalized will always be a source of inspiration," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

He joined mourners Tuesday in the city of Chennai where Jayalalithaa's body lay in a public hall draped in the Indian flag.

The government in Tamil Nadu declared seven days of mourning to honor the woman known as Amma, or mother.

In the days before her death, crowds gathered at the hospital in Chennai where she had been admitted in September with a fever and dehydration. She died after undergoing surgery following a heart attack Sunday night.
U.S. lawmakers are bracing for thunderous and emotion-laden battles next year over President-elect Donald Trump's plans to crack down on illegal immigration to the United States.

It's going to be extremely contentious," Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah told VOA. "Anytime you get into an immigration battle, it's difficult no matter who is president.

Asked to what lengths Democrats were prepared to go to oppose Trump's immigration plans, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut had a succinct response.

We'll stop at nothing to prevent the mass-deportation of undocumented residents and a wall being built with Mexico, Murphy told VOA.

Trump's transition website features a 10-point plan, from constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, to punishing communities that shield undocumented immigrants, to restricting travel to the United States from certain war-torn regions where screening visa applicants is a challenge.

The most important thing for the Trump administration is to regain the public's confidence in the security of our borders and our commitment to enforce the law, said Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas. And I think we've got a long way to go.

Executive orders

President Barack Obama issued executive orders that shielded millions of undocumented immigrants from potential deportation. Trump has pledged to rescind those orders when he becomes president and could issue new ones that take federal immigration policy in the opposite direction.

Advocacy groups that cheered Obama's immigration orders are pledging to fight tooth and nail against what they fear will be an onslaught of heavy-handed moves by Trump.

Definitely protests, definitely civil disobedience, predicted Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of the pro-immigrant rights group America's Voice. If they [Republicans] want to start mass-deportations, we're coming after them.

Tramonte added that America's Voice will join with other groups to mount every legal challenge possible to undercut what Trump does through executive orders.

But Republican lawmakers note that as president, Trump will have vast executive authority that, ironically, Obama sought to broaden over the objections of Republicans.

He's the new president, Hatch said. Once he's sworn in, he has the immense powers of the presidency to correct ills or wrongs that were done by the prior president.

Once these precedents go beyond where they should have gone, it can become very dangerous, the Utah senator added.

Yes, Donald Trump does have wide latitude [to issue executive orders], Tramonte conceded. But that doesn't mean that we're going to sit back and let him terrorize our communities.

Restrictive policies

So far, Trump's immigration proposals amount to bullet-point agenda items and a vast array of promises made in campaign speeches. As such, senators of both parties told VOA they cannot fully analyze what the president-elect intends to do or how much it would cost.

I don't know enough about each of the 10 points [on Trump's immigration agenda] to know what breaks down legislatively and administratively, said Oklahoma Republican James Lankford.

What I know is what he said during the campaign, Democrat Murphy said. "But we still have yet to see his proposals.

Groups favoring more restrictive immigration policies expect Trump to implement most, if not all, of his proposed ideas in one form or another.

Most of it can be accomplished, a lot of it through his own authority [as president], said Steven Camarota of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. I think there will be pushback everywhere. America's a very litigious society.

Trump will benefit from having Republican majorities in both houses of Congress to help propel immigration proposals that require legislative approval, as well as funding for various initiatives.

Camarota says the president-elect should not, however, expect a blank check from Congress.

"They [Republican majorities] can be very important. But remember that President Obama had [Democratic] majorities for two years, and he still found things challenging to get through [Congress].
A U.S. Republican party foreign policy aide arrived in Taiwan Tuesday morning for a week-long visit, which might include a meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, after she congratulated U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during a phone call last Friday.

The call, made by Tsai, was seen as a reflection of the Trump advisors hawkish view that Washington should pursue its relations with Beijing from a position through strength.

It was November of 1987 when Stephan Yates, then a Mormon missionary, first arrived in Taiwan. He used to have to ride buses for many hours between major cities, including Changhwa and Kaohsiung, where he spent almost two years.

Three decades later, much has changed. Modernized infrastructure and high-rise buildings are seen everywhere, along with high-speed rail that makes transportation much easier. Not to mention the matured Taiwan democracy where several peaceful shifts in power from one party to another have taken place.

Respect for Taiwan

If mainland China wants to establish a good relationship with the people of Taiwan, they must respect the political reform and democratization of Taiwan with the example of President-elect Trump, Yates, now the chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, told VOA Tuesday.

Keeping it low-key, Yates said he is not carrying any message to Tsai on behalf of Trump.

Getting tough with Beijing

While Trumps conversation with Tsai has brought solemn protest from China, the call reflects the views of Yates and many other hard-line Republican advisers, who urge Trump to openly take a tough stand against China.

Officials from Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke with U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus to lodge an objection last Saturday.

One China policy still in effect

In Washington, the State Department said the call did not undermine the current U.S. One China" policy.

By establishing this 'One China' policy, its allowed us to develop closer relations with Beijing and also to deepen our unofficial ties with Taipei, said deputy spokesperson Mark Toner Monday. So in our estimation, its been a productive policy to pursue given Beijings very serious concerns in this case.

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. The United States broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979.

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.

Meeting with Trump aides in NY

Taiwanese media reports indicated Tsai plans to transit through New York on her visit to Nicaragua in early January before Trumps inauguration ceremony on January 20. News reports said Tsai might not meet with Trump in person but was planning to meet with Trumps close aides.

The State Department said on Monday it would handle Tsais transit with proper protocol, with consideration of the safety, comfort, and convenience for the travelers.

Trump message to Beijing

Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher from California said the call sent a diplomatic warning to China. Rohrabacher was reportedly a potential candidate to be the next Secretary of State.

He [Trump] showed the dictators in Beijing that he is not a pushover, Rohrabacher told the Fox News television network on Monday morning, adding China has had an enormously aggressive foreign policy.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who also emerged as a contender to be the next top U.S. diplomat, said it was time to shake up U.S.-China relations, noting Chinas aggressive and belligerent claims in the South China Sea.

Trump transition team economic advisor Peter Navarro and the Trump camps defense advisor, Alexander Gray, called Taiwan a beacon of democracy in Asia, and said it is perhaps the most militarily vulnerable U.S. partner anywhere in the world.

Both advocated for comprehensive U.S. arms sales to Taiwan to deter Chinas covetous gaze, and fulfill the U.S. commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act.

Obama Asia Pivot

Both advisors said the so-called Asia Pivot policy has been a failure under President Barack Obama and has invited Chinese aggression in the East and South China Seas, according to an article published by Foreign Policy magazine in early November.

Expectations too high?

But some regional experts voiced deep concern.

It will likely raise expectations in Taiwan of a pending shift in the U.S. One China policy that is not likely to be forthcoming. Beijing will probably seek to exact a price from the new Trump administration and will be deeply mistrustful of him and his new team, said Bonnie Glaser who is director of the China Power project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The U.S. should strengthen ties with Taiwan, but in a substantive rather than a symbolic way. Let's negotiate a free trade agreement with Taiwan, and encourage other countries to do so as well, Glaser added.

There are also others in Trump's cabinet who have been supporters of upgrading Taiwan's status.

Georgia Republican congressman Tom Price, picked by Trump to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services, sponsored a congressional bill in September to give a greenlight to high-level Taiwanese officials to meet with State Department officials.

The so-called Taiwan Travel Act states "it should be the U.S. policy to permit high-level Taiwanese officials to enter the United States under respect conditions and to meet with U.S. officials, including officials from the Department of State and the Department of Defense. "

It also advocates an upgrade of Taiwan's quasi-official representation, the so-called Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) to conduct official business in the United States.
Turkish hotels have cut staff by 40 percent, some have shuttered for the winter and others are struggling to pay back loans after a trying year when occupancy rates fell to the lowest in Europe, a report said Monday.

The tourist industry, which adds about $30 billion to gross domestic product in a usual year, has been dealt a body blow by a spate of bombings this year, including an attack on Istanbul's main airport, and a failed coup in July.

Long one of the world's most visited countries popular with Arabs, Russians and Europeans, Turkey has seen average hotel occupancy rates fall to 50.4 percent in the first 10 months of 2016, according to the Hotel Association of Turkey (TUROB).

Room revenues dropped by 42 percent over the same period, also the steepest decline in Europe, while some properties saw occupancy rates of just 30 percent, meaning they were operating at a loss, TUROB chairman Timur Bayindir said in a statement.

"Some hotel owners have sold their apartments to make the ends meet, and the sector had to let 40 percent of their personnel go," he said.

The number of foreign visitors to Turkey fell by a quarter in October, official data showed last week. That was the smallest contraction in seven months, as arrivals from Russia showed a recovery after Ankara restored ties with Moscow.

The drop-off in Russian tourists, who traditionally flock to Turkey's Mediterranean beaches, had been particularly painful.

Relations soured after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over Syria last year, but ties were formally restored in August.

Istanbul has been particularly hard hit this year, with the occupancy rate for the city's hotels down by more than a quarter in the first 10 months. The average price for a room slumped to 99.3 euros ($106) from 124.1 euros a year earlier.

Bayindir described the situation of Istanbul hotels as "very grave," and said many may follow the example of some properties in Antalya on the Mediterranean coast that shut down for the winter to cut costs.

He said most businesses were having trouble paying back loans they had taken to cater for what they had hoped would be a sharp rise in tourist arrivals.

But their troubles are unlikely to cause a major headache for the banking system. Hotels accounted for less than one percent of overall non-performing loans at the end of September, according to data from the BDDK banking watchdog.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa passed away late Monday night. We take a look at her life and the timeline of her political career.

By Vishakha Saxena: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa died at Chennai's Apollo Hospital late Monday night after remaining hospitalised for 74 days.

Born on February 24, 1948, she was initially given the name Komalavalli. Her family served King Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar of Mysore, and she had two siblings, a brother and a sister - who only came to fore in 2014, after she spoke of their connection to a Kannada TV Channel.

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Read: Jayalalithaa dead, Tamil Nadu on edge, shockwaves across India

FULL COVERAGE: #AMMAFOREVER

Jayalalithaa's father died when she was just two, and her mother joined Tollywood to support the family. Initially Jayalalitha lived with her grandparents in Bangalore, but moved to Chennai to live with her mother in 1958.

There, she received training in classical music, western classical piano, and various forms of classical dance, and soon followed her mother -- reluctantly so -- to the world of cinema.

(That's her acting and singing in the movie 'Adimai Penn')

Between 1961 and 1980, Jaya acted in countless films, including one English and one Hindi production. She tasted early success in acting, was popular and sought after. In 1966, she had as many as 11 releases lined up, spread across 12 months, and each of them were successful.

Posters of Jayalalithaa's sole Bollywood release 'Izzat', she acted with Dharmendra. (Sources: pinterest, ebay)

Couple of years after her last film, Jaya made the foray into politics where, too, she was immensely successful. Her career was mired in corruption, but Jaya was also hailed for her governance and schemes like Amma Canteen. She was incredibly respected by party workers who gave her the names 'Amma' (mother) and 'Puratchi Thalaivi' (revolutionary leader).

Here's a timeline of her political career:

1982

Jayalalithaa enters politics, joins AIADMK

In multiple interviews Jayalalithaa credits Ramachandran, the Tamil Nadu chief minister between 1980 and 1987, for introducing her to politics. Actor-turned-politician Ramachandran had been her co-actor in various movies.

1983

Becomes propaganda secretary

Ramachandran reportedly created the post specifically for Jayalalithaa. Her work brought her success and caused resentment among high-ranking party members.

1984

Nominated, elected to Tiruchendur Assembly constituency

This was a huge achievement for Jayalalithaa, considering she was wading through infamously male-dominated Dravidian politics.

1989

Elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly

With this win, Jayalalithaa became the first woman to be elected Leader of the Opposition in the state.

February 1989

The two AIADMK factions merge and unanimously accept Jayalalithaa as their leader

March 1989

Physically assaulted by ruling DMK members in assembly

After the assault, carried out in front of the assembly speaker and allegedly on behest of then chief minister Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha left the Assembly with a torn saree.

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June 1991

First term as chief minister

When she was sworn-in, Jaya became the youngest chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Her alliance with the Congress enabled her to achieve the coalition victory.

1992

Jaya introduces Cradle Baby Scheme

The scheme aimed to address the skewed sex ratio in the state due to a high rate female infanticide.

September 1995

Jaya's foster son Sudhakaran, marries Tamil film actor Shivaji Ganesan's granddaughter

The grand ceremony was broadcast on huge screens and was reportedly watched by more than 150,000 people. It even holds two Guinness World Records, one for the most guests at a wedding and the second for being the largest wedding banquet. The grandeur irked many and put her on the receiving end of multiple graft cases.

May 1996

AIAIADMK loses general elections miserably

The loss was attributed to an anti-incumbency sentiment, spurred by corruption allegations against Jaya and her ministers. The party managed to win just 4 of the 168 seats contested.

July 1996

Subramanian Swamy files private complaint in court

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Leader of the Janata Party, Swamy accused Jayalalithaa of amassing wealth worth Rs 66.65 crore -- disproportionate to her known sources of income during 1991 to 1996.

December 1996

Jayalalithaa arrested on charges of corruption

She had earlier filed for anticipatory bail in trail court but it was rejected, opening the door for her arrest in the Disproportionate Assets case.

April 1997

DMK sets up three special courts

The ruling government tried Jayalalithaa, her former cabinet colleagues and others in 47 corruption cases through these courts.

April 1999

Jaya marks the downfall of Vajpayee-government

Burying a long-standing hatchet, Jayalalithaa joined Subramanian Swamy for his famous 'tea party' along with Sonia Gandhi. Jaya withdrew her support to the Atal Behari-led NDA government at the centre, and delivered it a fatal blow.

Later, that same year, BJP came back to power in general elections held and Jayalalithaa broke her ties with Swamy to return in support of BJP.

2000

Special courts convict her in two graft cases

Jayalalithaa was indicted in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case where she was accused of granting permission for construction that flouted rules, and in the TANSI land deal case where she was accused of selling public land at a throw-away price to companies in which she and her aide Sasikala had holdings.

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May 2001

Second term as Chief Minister

Indicted in three cases, Jayalalithaa was barred from standing as a candidate in the elections. But the AIADMK won a majority anyway, and three days later Jayalalithaa took the chief ministerial oath as a non-elected member of the state assembly.

September 2001

Supreme Court legally voids appointment

The court ruled that Jaya could not hold the CM post whilst convicted of criminal acts. Subsequently, AIADMK minister O Panneerselvam was installed as state chief minister, but it was largely seen as a 'puppet' government micromanaged by Jayalalithaa.

December 2001

Madras High Court acquits Jaya in Pleasant Stay Hotel and TANSI cases

February 2002

Elected to Assembly in a by-poll from Andipatti constituency

March 2002

Jayalalithaa assumes the position of chief minister yet again

Panneerselvam resigned from the CM post as soon as the Supreme Court overturned Jayalalithaa's conviction. He was reinstated as the Minister for Public Works, Prohibition and Excise.

March 2002

The DA case

Soon after Jaya's return three public prosecutors and their senior counsel resigned from the case. Several prosecution witnesses resiled from their earlier depositions too.

June 2003

Sets up India's first company of female police commandos

The move was hailed as a step towards equality, as the women were trained in shooting, weapons handling, swimming, rowing, rock-climbing, rappelling and horse-riding - just like their male colleagues.

July 2003

Sacks almost 2,00,000 government employees

November 2003

Supreme Court upholds acquittal in TANSI case

Five days before the acquittal, Supreme Court had transferred the case to Bengaluru after DMK expressed doubts over conduct of a fair trial in Tamil Nadu with her being the chief minister.

May 2006

DMK returns to power

Jaya-led AIADMK lost the assembly elections as a result of the myriad of corruption charges against her.

May 2011

Third term as Chief Minister

AIADMK won the April 2011 election as part of a 13-party alliance

September 2014

Jayalalithaa unseated as Chief Minister

Special Court held Jayalalithaa and three others guilty of corruption in DA case and awarded a four-year jail term to each. Jaya was fined Rs 100 crore and sent to jail after the judgement. The three other accused were fined Rs 10 crore each.

Jaya was removed as Chief Minister after being disqualified as an MLA due to the conviction. Her loyalist O Panneerselvam was declared as the new chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

October 2014

Jayalalithaa gets bail

After spending 21 days in Bangalore Central Prison, Jaya was granted bail by Supreme Court. Her supporters held jubilant celebrations outside the jail and across the state.

Mar 2015

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy goes back to court

Swamy prayed to the court to confirm Jayalalithaas conviction. But eventually Karnataka High Court reserved its order on appeals filed by Jaya and three others against their conviction.

May 2015

Karnataka High Court acquits Jayalalithaa

While acquitting Jaya, Justice Kumaraswamy in his 919-page judgment said the prosecution had failed to prove the conspiracy. The proceedings lasted just five minutes. The acquital paved the way for her to return as Tamil Nadu chief minister.

May 2016

Wins state elections to serve consecutive terms as CM

This was Jayalalithaa's fourth assembly election victory. In her victory speech, she said, "even when 10 parties allied themselves against me, I did not have a coalition and I placed my faith in God and built an alliance with the people. It is clear that the people have faith in me and I have total faith in the people."

ILLNESS

September 2016

Jayalalithaa is admitted to Apollo Hospital

The chief minister was admitted to the hospital for fever and dehydration. Despite reports on her condition ranging from 'serious' to 'critical', the hospital maintained she was under observation, responding to treatment and set to be discharged soon.

October 2016

Confusion over Jaya's condition continues

AIADMK members continued to assert that Jayalalithaa was healthy, even as Dr Richard Beale -- an expert in sepsis, ARDS, haemodynamics, critical care nutrition and ICU informatics -- was flown in to examine her.

Eventually Apollo Hospitals said in a statement that Jaya was on respiratory support and under treatment for infection. At the same time they maintained that Jaya's health was improving.

AIADMK, meanwhile, refused to entertain demands to release photographs of Jayalalithaa from the hospital. It also maintained there was no legal necessity for a substitute chief minister.

November 2016

AIADMK and Apollo Hospitals continue to maintain Jaya is stable and 'completely recovered'. Both state several times that she will be discharged soon.

On November 13, Jayalalithaa released her first statement since the hospitalisation saying, "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."

December 2016

Jayalalithaa suffers cardiac arrest

Just hours after AIADMK members said Jaya would return home soon, Apollo announced that Jaya has suffered a cardiac arrest. A team of specialists from AIIMS was assembled to look into her treatment. Dr Beale was also consulted again.

Meanwhile, on December 5, AIADMK MLAs were called inside Apollo Hospital to sign a statement saying O Panneerselvam will be her successor.

Amid conflicting reports, Jayalalithaa's condition continues to be critical.

--- ENDS ---
Free haircuts, scientific funding, fish and tombstones are among the incentives being offered to Turks who answer President Tayyip Erdogan's call to convert their dollars to lira.

Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdogan has urged Turks to convert any dollars "under their pillows" into lira, and called on businesses to do more transactions in local currency.

Since the crisis operation is being carried out through foreign currency, we must use our own currency wherever we can, Erdogan said in a speech on Saturday, when he was opening a shopping centre in Istanbul.

It is now time to take hold of our economy, just as we took hold of our freedom on July 15," he said, referring to a coup attempt that failed. More than 240 people were killed.

Fighting the economic war

Some shopkeepers and traders have responded by offering free goods and services to anyone with proof they sold dollars.

Sabahattin Bas, chairman of Borsa Gold, a jeweler and gold seller in Istanbul's historic Grand Bazaar, said he was only accepting liras, to fight what he called a renewed attack on Turkey by Western powers who had backed the failed coup.

They are trying to open a new front and that is economic war," he said in his shop, a large ring glistening on his hand.

Tombstone for 2,000 dollars

Several restaurants and barber shops in Istanbul suburbs have been offering free lunches and hair cuts to clients with a receipt showing they had sold dollars.

One fisherman in Ankara told Reuters he had given free fish to dozens of people over the past few days as part of the same campaign.

A stonemason in the northwestern province of Bursa is offering free tombstones to clients who convert 2,000 dollars, according to the newspaper Hurriyet.

Tough November for lira

A university in the eastern city of Van is advertising funding for foreign research for the first five people to convert 20,000.

The lira had its worst month since the 2008 financial crisis in November and has lost a fifth of its value this year, hit by a resurgent dollar and investor concern about Turkey's stability after the coup attempt.

This is a battle for our sovereignty, said Sezai Orkmez, 57, a retired banker who said all of his savings were in lira. "If my country needs me, I will not hesitate to take my place at the front."
The Britain-based human right's group Amnesty International published a report Tuesday demanding Turkish authorities respect the right of return of up to half a million people displaced by fighting between the Turkish state's war against the Kurdish rebel group, the PKK.

The Amnesty report, titled "Displaced and Dispossessed," focused on Diyarbakir, the main city of Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. It highlighted the Sur district, devastated by months of fighting between the PKK and Turkish security forces.

"People were forced from their houses with very little notice. Many of them are now living in poor conditions," said Andrew Gardner, the report's author and Turkey researcher for Amnesty International. "Their children haven't been able to access education in certain circumstances. But most importantly for them, they are very concerned regarding their ability to return back to their communities, back to neighborhoods, back to their homes."

The report claims 24,000 people in Sur were forced from their homes, and 2,000 properties have been demolished during and after the fighting. Amnesty claims that under international law, Ankara is obliged to allow people to return home. Ankara insists that right of return will be respected.

"Our duty is to fix the infrastructure and give it back to the people here," stated Bilal Ozkan, the state-appointed mayor of Sur, in an interview in October. Ozkan replaced the democratically elected mayor who was removed from office after being accused of supporting terrorism.

"The owner of Diyarbakir is its inhabitants. The owner of Sur are its inhabitants. There is definitely no plan for pushing our citizens further away," Ozkan added.

Governments vow in question

The Amnesty report said that more than 60 percent of the Sur district had been expropriated by the state under emergency legislation. The report claims many areas in Sur remain under curfew and are off limit to residents, even though the fighting has ended.

Amnesty's Gardner said there is little evidence that the government is prepared to honor its commitments.

"It was remarkable that none of the families we spoke to had been provided with any sort of information by the authorities as to what compensation they would receive for their houses, he said. Frankly, it is looking less likely that families would be able to access their right to return."

The Amnesty report highlighted the historical significance of Sur, a UNESCO world heritage site. It described the unique nature with its tight-knit community that helped to sustain families, most of whom were poor with large families.

A significant proportion of those families are experiencing the loss of their homes for a second time.

"Many of the people who I spoke to who are most determined to go back to Sur," Gardner said, "are people who've been displaced previously from their villages in southeast of Turkey, as part of the state's anti-terrorism operations against the PKK during the 1980s and 90s."

NGO closures, winter add to struggle

Amnesty did acknowledge that some state assistance has been provided for rented accommodation or hotels for the displaced families. But no support has been given to the many who've lost their jobs. The plight of thousands has been compounded by the closure under state of emergency rule of many non-governmental organizations assisting displaced people.

"Their situation has been clearly made much worse by these NGO's closures," Gardner said. "Now the state has confiscated the property, food and money that was to be given to displaced people and poor people in Diyarbakir."

With the region now in the grip of winter, concern is growing for the plight of the people.

"It's a real question mark, Gardner said. What is going to happen to these people who are living in extreme poverty relying on delivery of food to just to get by? There're some 32,000 people relying on this support in Diyarbakir alone. These people are struggling to survive in difficult conditions, obviously now in very harsh winter conditions."

Heavy snow and freezing conditions have already hit much of the Kurdish region.

The Amnesty report claims many towns and cities in the region have shared Sur's fate, with up to half a million people displaced by the fighting all sharing an uncertain future  not knowing if their homes are intact, or if they will ever be allowed to return.
Ukraine is ready to join trilateral talks to discuss gas issues with Russia on Dec. 9 in Brussels, Ukraine state energy company Naftogaz said on its Twitter account on Monday.



The former Soviet republic has not bought gas directly from Russia since November 2015, following a breakdown in relations after Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatism in Ukraine's war-torn east.

Naftogaz did not say who will take part in talks that Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said he hoped would take place in the first 10 days of December.

The European Union relies on Russia for about a third of its gas. More than half of that arrives via Ukraine, but since ties between Russia and Ukraine hit rock bottom, the potential for disputes over pricing and other issues has accelerated.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic acts as an intermediary between Russia and Ukraine in the gas dispute, trying to minimize the risk of gas supply interruptions to Europe, especially in winter.

He said last week that Russian and Ukrainian officials could meet this week to discuss gas deliveries.
NATO Foreign ministers face a busy agenda as they meet for year-end talks Tuesday in Brussels. But at a time when the alliance faces myriad challenges, the biggest issue is not on the official agenda: What NATO course will Donald Trump chart when he becomes U.S. president?

Trump will be on everybodys mind, says analyst Sven Biscop of the Egmont Institute, a Brussels-based research group, before the two-day meeting in Brussels.

The President-elects conflicting remarks about the Atlantic alliance and his controversial calls and tweets, including a telephone chat with Taiwans president Tsai Ing-Wen that irked Beijing, have fed European concerns, analysts say, while his choices for key security posts have sparked a mixed response.

Working together

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg did not directly address those questions at a news conference Monday, saying only he was looking forward to working with Trump and his team.

Stoltenberg earlier expressed confidence Washingtons commitment to its alliance will not change, despite Trumps campaign claims the United States may not necessarily come to the defense of NATO members who fail to pay their dues.

The Europeans will want to emphasize their commitment to European defense and keep America tied to NATO and Article 5 (on collective defense), said Andrew Dorman, a NATO expert at London policy institute Chatham House.

This weeks talks will also mark the last major NATO meeting under the Obama administration, and a farewell to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Europeans will be trying to get a feel of what the heck a Trump administration is going to be like, Dorman said. And its not clear Kerry is going to be able to tell them that much. Hes probably guessing as much as anyone else.

Defense funding threat

This weeks meeting comes days after the European Union unveiled an ambitious new plan for defense funding and research, including a $5.36 billion annual investment fund.

While Washington has for years called on the Europeans to increase their defense spending, Trumps tough remarks appear to have hit home, analysts say. The United States bankrolls about 70 percent of NATO's budget. Only four members, Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland, meet alliance commitments of earmarking at least two percent of their GDP on defense.

Last week, Lithuanias president Dalia Grybauskaite said her country would meet the NATO target by 2018, even as she called on Trump to uphold NATO commitments.

Its really interesting to see how Trump is pushing the Europeans to react, says Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, Paris office director for The German Marshall Fund of the United States. When you meet with military commanders in France, theyll say, We want to prove that Trump is wrong. Thats the leitmotif of what youre hearing.

Brexit, Iran, Russia

Brexit is providing another push for closer military cooperation among the EUs remaining members, with heavyweights France and Germany leading the way.

The UK has been blocking the creation of the European Unions own operational headquarters, says Dorman of Chatham House. That will go ahead now.

While Trumps selection of retired general James Mattis as defense secretary has earned European praise, his positive remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his threats to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement have unsettled many allies.

On Iran, European allies may break strongly with Trump if he tries to undo the nuclear deal, Biscop says. For Europeans, the normalization of relations with Iran is absolutely uncontroversial, he said. Theres no desire to go back on that.

Russia is more complex. While Europeans maintain their sanctions and tough talk against Moscow on issues like Ukraine and Syria, Frances conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon is among those pushing for a more accommodating policy toward Moscow.

I think the concern now in Europe is where is Trumps red line when it comes to Russia. Is he willing to formalize Crimeas annexation? Or to find a solution with Putin in Iraq and Syria? said de Hoop Scheffer.

Those questions are unlikely to go away, de Hoop Scheffer predicts Moscow will flex its military muscles in the weeks before Trumps January inauguration.

Putin will be testing Trump to see how he reacts, she said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday denied the permit that would be needed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline's passage under the Missouri River not far from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The decision ended a tense standoff between the government and several thousand people who had set up a protest camp on federal land near the construction site. VOA's Greg Flakus has more from Cannon Ball, North Dakota.
Venezuela's opposition says it will not attend a meeting Tuesday with government officials, putting a halt to on ongoing talks intended to defuse the countrys political crisis.

Opposition spokesman Jesus Torrealba said authorities have yet to make compromises more than a month into the mediation effort, but he said opposition leaders are staying in the dialogue system.

Opposition leaders want to revive a suspended recall referendum that could lead to the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro and are demanding the release of political prisoners.

Maduro has rejected both demands, but added he is ready to talk.

With international mediators present in October, Maduro met with five opposition leaders, including Torrealba and opposition governor Henri Falcon in Caracas.

Afterward, he told Venezuelans during a televised speech that he was willing to listen and, hopefully, be listened to, and find points in the common interest of the great majority of the country, of the national interests. I think that this is not the time for long speeches, but rather to assume a deep commitment.

If Maduro were to accept their demands, reports say, opposition concessions would then include the suspension of planned street protests and stopping a symbolic impeachment attempt in congress while abandoning efforts to seat three contested legislators.

"It would be insincere to keep sitting there as if nothing has happened," said Torrealba said. "The government is not only failing to fulfill its promises, it is denying all the agreements."

On Monday, more than 14 opposition political prisoners were taking part in a hunger strike to demand their release and allow a vote to proceed.

The initial dialogue between government and opposition leaders was a Vatican-led effort to defuse the countrys political crisis after Pope Francis met privately with Maduro.

"The government and the opposition committed to lowering the aggressiveness in the language used in political debate," said papal envoy Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli.

But socialist party leader Diosdado Cabello said the cardinal is taking a stricter approach with the government, while spending a greater time with the opposition.

"Its irresponsible and disrespectful to think the Vatican is going to tutor Venezuela. When we say we're free and have sovereignty, it's because we're free and have sovereignty. We don't accept anyone trying to teach us," he said.

Polls show if the recall referendum is reinstated, Maduro would lose the presidency.

Maduro said blocking the referendum was an independent decision by the judicial and electoral authorities based on fraud allegations. He has distanced himself from the issue.

His political opponents have accused him of staging a coup detat by stopping the effort to hold a vote to remove him.
President Robert Mugabe says the government has unveiled more than 69,000 stands for Zimbabweans under the National Housing Delivery Programme as it seeks to address a housing crisis in urban areas.

In his State of the Nation Address in parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Mugabe said, In line with ZIMASSET objectives, government this year created 69,648 stands for the National Housing Delivery Programme. It is also working on unveiling land to formally disadvantaged groups including youth and women in support of women and youth empowerment.

The 92-year-old Zimbabwean leader, who appeared to be struggling to read his prepared speech, further noted that the government would provide agricultural inputs to more than 800,000 local people under the Presidential Agricultural Inputs Scheme.

Mr. Mugabe avoided talking about critical issues like bond notes, which have been widely criticized by local people, introduced recently by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

More details to follow 
China, Russia and Venezuela have strongly reacted to New Zealands proposal on Syria, which was backed by Spain and Egypt [1].

This proposal which provided for an immediate cease-fire was blocked on two issues that have monopolized debates in the Council for [the past] five years:

 the fact that, in violation of a number of Council resolutions, some States (Saudi Arabia, the United States, France, Qatar, the United Kingdom and Turkey) are supporting the jihadists.

 the withdrawal of the jihadists from East Aleppo.

The proposal had been tabled by New Zealand when its Prime Minister resigned. It seems that in actual fact it was drafted and imposed by the United Kingdom whose Queen is also the sovereign of New Zealand. This situation requires recalling the resignation of the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, in 1975. He had been opposed to the US National Security Agency base at Pine Gap and had planned to close it. However Queen Elizabeth removed him from office in order to preserve the  Five Eyes agreement.

The Russian representative, Vitaly Churkin, observed that each time an agreement on the point was reached between the US Secretary of State and his Russian homologue, a manoeuvre was attempted at New York to make it fail; this remark was directed directly at the UN number 2, Jeffrey Feltman (the former US Under Secretary of State).

The United Kingdom representative, Matthew Rycroft, accused China of supporting Russia through solidarity with President Bachar el-Assad,  due to his belief in a despot, who has turned against his people . This outraged his Chinese counterpart, Liu Jieyi. The latter denounced the United Kingdom for  systematic poisoning  the debates and wishing to sabotage the Kerry-Lavrov Agreements.

This is the fifth time China has vetoed the Syrian issue and for Russia it is the sixth time. Venezuela also voted against it. For the first time in the Council, Russia and China have, using coded language, accused the United Kingdom and the UN Number 2, Jeffrey Feltman, of sabotaging the work of the US State Department [2] for a long time.
New Zealand has tabled a draft resolution on the Syrian crisis [just] when its Prime Minister, John Key, announced to his fellow citizens that he was resigning.

The text [of the resolution] calls for an immediate cease-fire under international control and requires the States that are supporting Daesh and Al-Qaida to stop doing so, but without subjecting this hypocrisy to further control.

The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, denounced this is an act of provocation aimed at sabotaging good faith efforts to obtain peace.

We do not know if John Key had or not endorsed this text before resigning.
On 15 November 2016, the House of Representatives adopted, in the most discretionary manner, the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2016 (H.R.5732).

The law takes its name from the code name of the person presenting himself as the photographer of the Syrian Arab Army who took shots of the thousands of citizens that would have died under torture.

The text which has been presented with bi-partisan support by twelve parliamentarians, is the initiative of Elliot Engel, the traditional spokesman of Israel, this time inspired by the White House (photo).

The text has been transmitted to the Senate.

It provides for the establishment of a no-fly zone in Syrian territory so as to protect the zones controlled by the jihadists.
The 68-year-old leader, popularly known as Amma, was buried near her mentor MGR's memorial at Chennai's Marina Beach.

By India Today Web Desk: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was laid to rest at Chennai's Marina Beach today, just like her mentor MG Ramachandran (MGR).

The 68-year-old leader, popularly known as Amma, was buried near the memorial of her mentor MGR.

There are two explanations for the AIADMK's decision to bury Jayalalithaa, and not cremate her, despite the 68-year-old leader being a practising Iyengar.

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One, the Dravid politics that Jayalalithaa dominated for nearly three decades is inherently atheistic. All major Dravid leaders, like Periyar, Annadurai and MGR were buried.

Two, you need a blood relative to perform the cremation ritual. Since Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala - who has been monitoring her final rites - does not want any family member around, it was decided that Amma should be buried.

Also read | LIVE: Lakhs gather at Chennai's Marina Beach for Jayalalithaa's state funeral

STATE FUNERAL

President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and a number of Chief Ministers and VVIPs from various states attended the state funeral.

An estimate says more than 10 lakh people had gathered at Marina Beach to have a last glimpse of their leader as Jayalalithaa's body was lowered down in a sandalwood casket.

Also read | RIP Amma: Kamal Haasan attacked on Twitter for curt message mourning Jaya's death

The government today declared a one-day state mourning across the country in view of Jayalalithaa's demise. The national flag flew at half-mast in all state capitals and the national capital New Delhi.

--- ENDS ---
The Security Council,

Recalling its resolutions 2042 (2012), 2043 (2012), 2118 (2013), 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2175 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2209 (2015), 2254 (2015), 2258 (2015) and 2268 (2016),

Reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria, and to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Gravely distressed by the continued deterioration of the devastating humanitarian situation in Syria, and the fact that now more than 13.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria, and that about 6.1 million people are internally displaced (in addition to the half a million Palestinian refugees who had settled in Syria), and several hundred thousand people are suffering in besieged areas,

Emphasizing that the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria continues to constitute a threat to peace and security in the region, and will continue to deteriorate further in the absence of a full implementation of the cessation of hostilities and a political solution to the crisis, and stressing in this regard that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria,

Reaffirming its intent, expressed in its resolution 2258 (2015) to take further measures in the event of non-compliance with that resolution and resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014) and 2191 (2014),

Recalling that Member States are obligated under Article 25 of the Charter of the United Nations to accept and carry out the Councils decisions,

1. Decides that all parties to the Syrian conflict shall cease, 24 hours after the adoption of this resolution, any and all attacks in the city of Aleppo, including with any weapons, including rockets, mortars, and anti-tank guided missiles, and including shelling and airstrikes, to allow urgent humanitarian needs to be addressed for a period of 7 days and expresses its intention to consider further extensions for 7-day periods on a recurring basis, and demands that all parties allow and facilitate immediate, safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to all of Aleppo by the United Nations and its implementing partners;

2. Demands, in addition to paragraph 1, that all parties, immediately implement and ensure full implementation of the cessation of hostilities, including the call for humanitarian agencies to be provided with rapid, safe, and unhindered access throughout Syria, as described in resolution 2268 (2016), including the Annex referred to therein and stresses that the cessation of hostilities does not apply to offensive or defensive action again the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Daesh), Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and other terrorist groups, as designated by the Security Council;

3. Demands that all parties to the Syrian conflict, in particular the Syrian authorities, immediately comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law as applicable, including with respect to all besieged and hard-to-reach areas, and fully and immediately implement all the provisions of resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014) 2191 (2014), 2199 (2015), 2254 (2015), 2258 (2015) and 2268 (2016), and recalls that violations and abuses committed in Syria must not go unpunished;

4. Strongly condemns acts of violence, attacks and threats against the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their means of transport and equipment, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities;

5. Calls upon the parties to the conflict to support the United Nations and its implementing partners planning for, and actions to facilitate expeditiously, including through local agreements, the evacuation of the wounded and sick, the elderly, children and maternity cases from besieged and hard to reach areas to places of their choosing based solely on urgency and need, as well as all those wishing to depart Aleppo voluntarily, and stresses the need for civilians to be respected as such and permitted to move freely to places of their choosing;

6. Calls upon all States to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, and recalls its decision in paragraph 2 of resolution 2253 with respect to ensuring that no funds, financial assets or economic resources are made available to ISIL (also known as Daesh), Al-Qaida, and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities and its clarification in paragraph 19 that the obligation in paragraph 1(d) of resolution 1373 (2001) applies to making funds, financial assets or economic resources or financial or other related services available, directly or indirectly, for the benefit of terrorist organizations or individual terrorists for any purpose,

7. Demands all parties to the conflict cease all collaboration with ISIL, Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and other terrorist groups, as designated by the Security Council; and further demands that all combatants not designated by the Security Council take steps to separate expeditiously from terrorists designated by the Security Council, and also demands members of the International Syria Support Group to dissuade any party from fighting in collaboration with terrorists designated by the Security Council;

8. Demands that all parties to the cessation, within 10 days of the adoption of this resolution, indicate publically, or to the Co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group, their commitment to remain a party to the cessation of hostilities and stresses the need in this regard for their implementation of the provisions of this resolution;

9. Welcomes discussions between the Co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group together with other Member States and the United Nations, in Lausanne on 15 October and subsequently in Geneva, and urges those involved to translate those discussions into actions that improve the humanitarian situation of the Syrian people and contribute to the full implementation of this resolution; and welcomes in this regard the urgent provision of mobile hospitals and medical personnel currently deployed to Aleppo;

10. Calls upon all relevant Member States, in particular the members of the International Syria Support Group, to coordinate efforts in order to:

(i) Ensure adequate monitoring of the ceasefire in the city of Aleppo as well as the cessation of hostilities throughout Syria in accordance with the procedures set out by the Co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group;

(ii) Allow and facilitate immediate, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all areas, including to besieged and hard to reach areas throughout Syria, on the basis of needs assessed by the United Nations and its implementing partners;

(iii) Prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL, AlNusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaida or ISIL, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the Security Council, and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Syria;

11. Reaffirms that Member States must ensure that any measures taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law;

12. Demands the full and immediate implementation of the political process outlined in resolution 2254, and in that respect reiterates that the only sustainable solution to the current crisis in Syria is through an inclusive and Syrian-led political process that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people in line with the Geneva Communique and resolution 2254, and in this regard strongly supports the intention of the Secretary-General, through his good offices and the efforts of his Special Envoy for Syria, to convene formal negotiations as soon as possible;

13. Requests that the Secretary-General report to the Security Council on the implementation of this resolution and provide options to preserve the cessation of hostilities, including provision of assistance and protection of civilians in the city of Aleppo, within 10 days of the adoption of this resolution and subsequently within the framework of its reporting on resolution 2268 (2016), taking into account discussions held in Lausanne and Geneva;

14. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.
University Signs Agreement with GAMPA

The University of Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Academy of Music and Performing Arts (GAMPA) are pleased to announce the signing of a Letter of Agreement on Thursday 1st December 2016. The agreement sets out a framework for active collaboration and the sharing of resources between both organisations.

This is a very exciting initiative, with both parties jointly agreeing to work together to nurture talent and encourage creativity amongst Gibraltars performers and musicians.

'The educational benefits of music and the performing arts are well established. To add to this we have a great pool of talent locally that needs nurturing. This partnership is underpinned by a motivation to support GAMPAs work in these areas, Professor Daniella Tilbury, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Gibraltar, commented. She explained that ' As a higher education institution we can also broker new professional and academic development opportunities as well as international collaborative arrangements. We are delighted to be signing this Letter of Agreement.'

Christian Santos, GAMPA Principal, had the following to say We are very excited to collaborate with the University of Gibraltar. Our aim at the Academy is to foster a positive learning environment and be able to offer as many different educational opportunities to our present and future students as possible. We are two new institutions with a lot of energy and eagerness to grow together. This collaboration will enable us to enrich our students with all the knowledge and opportunities we can offer. Looking forward to a new educational future in music, performance, art and culture.

The LoA was a result of a Community and Culture Consultation Meeting held in May as a scoping exercise and to ensure the needs of the community were identified, with further meetings in the pipeline.
Fire Kit for Funchal

Her Majestys Government of Gibraltar will donate 8,000.00 to our sister city of Funchal, Madeira, to assist in the citys recovery and future protection capacities following the fires it suffered in August this year.

The money will provide one of the Local Self Protection Kits that Funchal will be installing in ten civil parishes around the capital. These kits aim to help fires to be fought locally, with quick and effective measures, before the arrival of the professional fire-fighting teams. The kits consist of different items, from protection gloves and masks to hoses and chainsaws.

In addition the Governments donation, a separate fund opened by Mr Louis Pereira raised 2,426.00, which has already been transferred to Funchal. Mr Pereira lived in Funchal during the Evacuation and since his return to Gibraltar has been instrumental in maintaining the links between both cities.

Gibraltar and Funchal share a historic relationship, and the two cities were twinned in 2009. The Local Self Protection Kit purchased by HMGoG will be donated to the Civil Parish of Sao Pedro. During the Evacuation the British School for Gibraltar children was in this Parish and the Church of Sao Pedro is where many Gibraltar children born in Madeira were baptised.

The Chief Minister of Her Majestys Government of Gibraltar, the Hon Fabian Picardo QC MP, said: Funchal has always been a good friend to Gibraltar, and became home to many Gibraltarians in our time of need during the evacuation of our people in the Second World War. Madeira and Funchal are therefore very close to the hearts of many Gibraltarian families and we cannot stand by when they have needs of their own. It is absolutely right that Gibraltar should reciprocate now in our own small and humble way to help our sister city recover from the devastating fires experienced over the summer. We send this material with all our affection, solidarity and deep friendship.
Photo: Getty Images

The 2017 Grammy nominations are out, and its clear that next February will be a heavyweight bout between Beyonce and Adele, who are both nominated for Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year and netted nine and five noms, respectively. Unsurprisingly, theyre both up for Album of the Year alongside Justin Bieber, Drake, and (slightly more surprisingly) Sturgill Simpson. And while the Big Four categories will likely dominate the conversation from now until the ceremony on February 12, there were plenty of shocks of both the good and bad variety in the very large field of nominees. Lets take a closer look at all the biggest wins and most glaring missteps from this years Grammy noms.

2017 Grammys: The Snubbed

David Bowie: While David Bowie did end up getting his first-ever nominations for an individual song or album, none of them came in the expected big categories. Most people (Vulture included) predicted Bowie would be nominated for Album of the Year, given Blackstars critical praise coupled with the magnitude of his death  and yet, hes been shut out from the top once again. Instead, youll find Bowie up for Best Alternative Album (just another indication of what the Recording Academy thinks of him), Best Rock Song, Best Rock Performance (both for Blackstar), and Best Recording Package. Dee Lockett



Radiohead: More on the matter of people losing to David Bowies Blackstar: The awards Bowie did get nominated for are all rock categories, where releases like Radioheads A Moon Shaped Pool and Bon Ivers 22, A Million  albums that frankly might have slid into the AOTY convo had it not been for Adele, Bieber, Drake, and Beyonces six-month hit parade  have essentially been sent in as cannon fodder. Craig Jenkins

Rihannas Anti: Rihannas up for a handful of Grammys for Work, Kiss It Better, and Needed Me as well as an appearance on Drakes Views, but Anti as a whole only getting recognized for Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Recording Package feels bittersweet. Weve always known Rih as a singles artist, but Anti was a powerful rebuttal to the notion that we should only come to her in three-minute bursts. For the Grammy response to that to be work work work work work work feels unfortunate. CJ

2017 Grammys: The Surprises

The Grammys considers Sturgill Simpson a bona fide country star: In nominating Sturgill Simpson for Album of the Year, the Grammys arent just saying that hes worthy of national attention, but that hes worth Nashvilles time. Simpsons also up for Best Country Album, which is a reverse from his previous 2015 nomination in the Americana category. The Grammys dont generally switch up genres for an artist, especially not in so short a time, but it appears to be a pointed message: Sturgills always maintained a rather contentious relationship with the rest of country music, often feeling like an outsider both in his attitude and the way hes been treated by Music Row  he recently spoke out against the Academy of Country Music for exploiting Merle Haggard and has been traditionally snubbed by country-music awards shows. For the Grammys to change its description of Sturgills sound now is just about the most institutional form of shade thrown at Nashville that you can imagine. DL

Beyonce got nominated in the rock category: Lemonade was a sweet blend of genres fitting of its title and, rather surprisingly, the Grammys have recognized it as such. Shes nominated all over the place, from the Big Four to rap, to pop, to urban contemporary, to even  rock! In fact, its the first time any artist has ever been nominated in this many genres in one year. Dont Hurt Yourself, which features Jack White, is up for Best Rock Performance against David Bowie, Alabama Shakes, Twenty One Pilots, and, most hilariously, Disturbed. The Grammys Head of Awards says Beyonces record label intentionally submitted Dont Hurt Yourself to compete as a rock song, to which, the Grammys didnt even try to fight: The committee listened to it and said, Yeah, thats rock. 2016, your unpredictability strikes again. DL

Drake got his Hotline Bling nomination after all: One of the biggest behind-the-scenes controversies of the 2016 ceremony was Drakes Hotline Bling snub. Turns out, it wasnt a snub, but rather a reported paperwork fail (someone allegedly forgot to submit it). Drake being the savvy pop star that he is, however, has found a workaround: In throwing Hotline Bling (and its millions in streams) onto Views, he reopened it for Grammy consideration. Just like that, Drake has gotten his way, because Hotline Bling is now up for Best Rap/Sung Performance. DL

All the nominations leaders are artists of color: Unlike this years Oscars  and despite Frank Oceans preemptive boycott  there will be no #GrammysSoWhite at next years ceremony. Beyonce, Drake, Rihanna, Kanye West, and Chance the Rapper are the top five artists to net the most nominations this year, and, whaddya know, theyre all black. Next year, there will be an artist of color represented in all the major categories  Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist  and while its likely not the first time thats happened in Grammys history, its more than most general awards shows can usually say in any given year. DL

Amy Schumer is a first-time nominee: Yes, really. While Beyonce was busy adding to her Grammy noms tally with an impressive nine this year, several artists are probably plenty thankful to just be getting one. The 2017 Grammy class is a mix of legacy acts and first-time nominees, running the gamut from Demi Lovato to even Amy Schumer. Schumes is up for Best Comedy Album (for her HBO special at the Apollo), and Best Spoken Word Album (for her The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo audio book). Also making their first Grammy nomination appearances this year are Solange, Desiigner, Chance the Rapper, Ro James, the Chainsmokers, Twenty One Pilots, Halsey, Maren Morris, Lukas Graham, Kelsea Ballerini, and many more. DL

The Stranger Things soundtrack is nominated twice in the same category: In a field dominated by films, theres one show that got double love. Kyle Dixon and Michael Steins insta-classic Stranger Things soundtrack is up for Best Score/Soundtrack for Visual Media  along with The Force Awakens, Bridge of Spies, The Hateful Eight, and the Revenant  for both volumes. Yep, theyre nominated twice in the same damn category against themselves. The power of Eleven wins! DL

The Grammys found a way to celebrate Vinyl: Just as the Emmys couldnt totally ignore Vinyl, neither could the Grammys. Its soundtrack is up for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, which, given HBO got every artist under the sun to cover the classics, almost makes more sense than recognizing it for the show itself. DL

Streaming won: The Grammys have spoken and it appears that, yes, streaming is officially a Thing now. In its first year of eligibility for streaming-only albums, the Grammys gave Apple Music (and, in some ways, Tidal) a leg up on the competition. Chance the Rapper received seven nominations (not all for his album), meaning Coloring Book is the first streaming exclusive to be Grammy-nominated. Hes also up for Best New Artist, which is an all-around win for independent artists, creative freedom, and innovation alike. Beyonces streaming-only-on-Tidal Lemonade is also up for Album of the Year, while Kanyes (formerly never-on-sale) The Life of Pablo is up for Best Rap Album. The futch is here. DL
Photo: Universal Pictures

Heres something else we can blame fake news for, according to Matt Damon: The Great Walls whitewashing controversy. The actor told the Associated Press that his role  Damon plays a swashbuckling hero swordsman defending the Great Wall of China  was actually whitewashed before he signed on, not because of his casting. Fake news, he says, misrepresented the movie and was responsible for the controversy. [The whitewashing news] suddenly becomes a story because people click on it, versus the traditional ways that a story would get vetted before it would get to that point, Damon explained. The Bourne actor told the AP that he expected criticism to dwindle once people actually see the movie: Its a monster movie and its a historical fantasy and I didnt take a role away from a Chinese actor  it wasnt altered because of me in any way, he said.

The problem with the fake-news theory is that the best critique of his new movie didnt come from the news at all  it came from Fresh Off the Boat star Constance Wu. We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that [only a] white man can save the world, Wu tweeted over the summer. Our heroes dont look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Ghandi. Mandela. Your big sister when she stood up for you to those bullies that one time.

Despite the outcry, the Great Wall star promised that he tried to imbue his role with as much cultural nuance and awareness as he could: Although it was developed for commercial purposes, I felt there was room for me to play and put many elements of Chinese culture into it, Damon said. The Great Wall opens February 17.
Polanski. Photo: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

The Polish court system has once again blocked the governments attempt to extradite Roman Polanski to the United States. On Tuesday, Polands Supreme Court denied the governments appeal of an earlier decision by a lower court to refuse extradition of Polanski decades after his 1977 child sex conviction. The case had gone on for two years, but is now considered officially closed. Polanski is a dual citizen of Poland and France, and lives in the latter country, but got an apartment in Krakow in 2014 with plans to film a movie there.
While 2016 has been a roiling cauldron of horrors for most people, Steve Harvey experienced his own private four-minute-long sneak preview of 2016 while hosting the Miss Universe pageant in December of last year. As you might recall, the Family Feud host famously crowned Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, the winner by mistake, subsequently shambling back out onto the stage and declaring Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach, the rightful winner instead.

In Steve Harveys dynamic retelling of the fateful night on The Tonight Show, he casts himself as a hapless victim (Harvey was fed confusing information through his earpiece) who stepped up to the role of hero (Harvey opted to correct the gaffe in the spot himself), all the while knowing the terrible consequences of his actions (everyone in the world was going to meme him the next day). While president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte has voiced his objection to Harvey hosting this years pageant, Steve Harvey has shown the exact amount of grace, compassion, and strength of character youd want in your Miss Universe host, and frankly, in your Miss Universe. If Steve Harvey accidentally reads his own name this year, honestly, we should be so lucky.
From The Babylon Line, at Lincoln Center Theater. Photo: Photo: Jeremy Daniel

The first words spoken in Richard Greenbergs The Babylon Line, which opened tonight in a fatally mild Lincoln Center Theater production directed by Terry Kinney, are The End. This is a daring literary gesture, neatly introducing some of the plays themes: It is about writing and history and the fruitful tension between them. Unfortunately, because The Babylon Line is a play, not a novel or a semiotics paper, the gesture deflates as quickly as a pricked balloon, and comes to seem less like a clever feint than a premature epitaph for a story that fails to thrive.

That failure is way too overdetermined to be totally accidental. Rather, it suggests that Greenberg wrote The Babylon Line as a kind of obstacle course to test his ability to rescue a play from as many unpromising constraints as he could put upon it. Like a lot of his nearly 30 previous stage works, it features a narrator, in this case a writer named Aaron Port, whom we meet at age 86 as he reminisces about events that took place 48 years earlier. Thats already two roadblocks keeping the audience at a distance from the story, and the play has barely begun. Once it gets moving, or creeping, the subject of Aarons reminiscence, a writing class, proves to be yet another roadblock. Back in 1967, at a time when his only credit was a story in a literary journal and he was seething with frustrated ambition, Aaron taught an adult-education class in Levittown, Long Island, for three bored Jewish matrons, two semiconscious men, and a sexy wack-job housewife named Joan with talent but no boundaries. Most of the play consists of these students reading, or not reading, or commenting upon the stories theyve produced for class.

Unlike them, Greenberg is a terrific writer, with tons of craft at his disposal. Some of his best plays  certainly Take Me Out and The Assembled Parties  mix disparate modes expertly, whether alternating narration and action or contrasting different versions of history. Both tactics are attempted here, but fall flat because the thing remembered is so banal. (The climax of Act One occurs when Joan reads a short story that bothers one of the matrons.) As its title suggests, The Babylon Line also recalls Greenbergs long-term interest in the cookie-cutter milieu of the Long Island suburbs he himself grew up in; one of the ladies, here a minor figure, is the title character of his 2015 play Our Mothers Brief Affair  an infra joke that goes nowhere. Still, its unfortunate that the smug conformism and braying confidence of this petite bourgeoisie are the most confidently rendered aspects of the play, both in the writing and in the performances by Randy Graff, Julie Halston, and Maddie Corman. Cormans reading of her story, in which a family visit to Europe reveals that Venice is a study in contrasts, is a study in comic pathos.

Its also an example of the way Greenberg winds even his best material into knots that mitigate its effectiveness. His portrait of the Jewish matrons is so amusingly offensive that Aaron, in his narration, has to apologize for it, retracting his description of them as mastodons  feeding and lowing. So much for the one funny thing in the play. (Well, the biggest laugh actually goes to a one-liner about William Levitt, the builder of Levittown: The man was a developer. Thats not a person you respect.) Meanwhile what is supposed to be the main story, Aaron and the Wack Job, is a nonstarter, in part because we know that Aaron will never respond to Joans outrageous propositioning (hes married and a good Jewish boy) and in part because Josh Radnor and Elizabeth Reaser cannot find anything convincing to play in their self-consciously literary characters. Anyway, whenever something does seem about to happen between them, its as if the class bell rings, the drama is dismissed, and the unwelcome narration returns like a hall monitor.

Eventually, one last roadblock completes the job of undramatizing the play: In a very long postscript, Aaron tells us what happened to each of the characters over the next several decades. Some of this is amusing, in an obvious way, but it reduces what were already faint and murky conflicts to purple prose. I have to believe that Greenberg knows this. At one point he has Frieda Cohen, the most peremptory of the matrons, ask why the only literature that critics like is the kind with violence and conflict. Aaron answers: Well if it is true I suppose its because theyre what makes long forms possible. Take these qualities away and you have at most a lyric poem which can be lovely but is outside the mesh of narrative.

Mesh of narrative: What a lovely way to put it. He should write a book.

The Babylon Line is at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through January 22.
Im not quite sure what it is about 20-something women in Los Angeles, but they all seem to have tattoos on their forearms. These little black wisps of ink, blurring back and forth as they move their hands and express themselves and judge others about their married boyfriends, cheating boyfriends, or boyfriends with penises that may or may not be working correctly. The forearm is the worst place for a tattoo because it will constantly remind both the wearer and the looker of the folly of youth.

Look at Scheana and Kristen, who both sport treble-clef tattoos on their wrists that they invariably got when they were 18-year-old seniors on an overnight trip with their show choir when dreams of musical-theater fame still blossomed under their extension-dragged scalps. Kristens tattoo is worse because its not only a treble clef, but also a bass clef thats reversed and backed up onto the treble clef so that they make a heart. Its as if Kristens soul is made of music. We all know that is not true. Kristens heart is made of rotting kale salads and Champagne belches, which could make their own kind of music, I guess.

Speaking of judging women, the best part of this episode, by far, is the whole interlude between James Kennedy, the scream that you make when trapped in a car underwater, and SUR server Ellie. (I think we should officially start calling them all SURvers.) Ellie has been around for a while, but she doesnt have a real place on the show. This is probably because she has an accent as mysterious and fatal as the identity of Jack the Ripper. When Ellie goes on a hike with Lala, we learn that she secretly dated James for a few months but didnt tell anyone because she was ashamed. Then, after James got that long-distance girlfriend, she kept sleeping with him on the side.

There are so many things wrong with this whole scenario. When Ellie claims to be embarrassed about getting Jamess bangers and mash, shes either lying to us or lying to herself, because she went back to the full English-breakfast buffet multiple times. We all make mistakes, she giggles to Lala, to which Lala very appropriately replied, Yeah, once.

Also, it seems like sex with James is pretty awful. Apparently, his idea of bedroom talk is telling women they mean nothing to him and that if they tell anyone, he will deny it because he doesnt want people to think that hes sleeping around. If that is not enough to make you get up, throw on your ugly purple SUR dress, and drive back home in your leased Honda without even remembering to put your bra back on, then I dont know what will. Because of this whole ordeal, when Ellie wakes up in the morning, she takes pictures of herself in Jamess bed so that she can prove to everyone that she did, in fact, have sex with him.

As this scenario blossoms out from Ellie and Lala across the whole spectrum of current and former SUR staff members, isnt it weird that no one else thinks this is odd behavior? No one stops to just ponder this whole thing and say, Okay, that is really messed up. No, they all think that this is totally normal, that this is the way the world works. Its in the same vein as when Scheana asks Ellie if shes met Lalas married boyfriend, and she says, No, I havent, and then Scheana reports back to everyone that Ellie somehow confirmed that Lala has a married boyfriend. Um, didnt she tell you the exact opposite? How exactly do these peoples brains work?

Speaking of people with brains that dont work, Lala has to understand that by continuing to bring up her boyfriend without disclosing his identity, she is welcoming all sorts of rumor-mongering. If there is nothing to hide, she wouldnt have to hide it, or at least she would need a reasonable explanation for why she is hiding it. Instead, she keeps acting like there is something to hide and then gets mad when people try to figure out what it is.

I loved when she was telling Lisa about her problems with the crew and Lisa asks, point-blank, Are you dating a married man? and Lala replies, Im not dating a married human being. That is one of those perfectly calibrated responses so that, later, when everyone finds out that shes lying, she can go back and parse it out. Actually, my boyfriend is married, but he is also from the planet Neptune so I was not lying because, technically, he is not a human being. This is how Lalas beautiful mind works and, ugh, it makes me want to lie down in the gutter after a bottomless brunch with my skirt over my head and never get back up again.
Popularly known as Amma in Tamil Nadu, she shared a lot of similarities with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, addressed as Didi.

By Manogya Loiwal : The demise of Selvi J Jayalalithaa has left a huge void in the political sphere of the country.

Popularly known as Amma in Tamil Nadu, she shared a lot of similarities with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, popularly addressed as Didi.

SOME OF THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN AMMA AND DIDI:

1. Both Jayalalithaa and Mamata started their political career from Delhi as Parliamentarians and then shifted to regional politics.

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2. Both wielded power in the party and are the first and the last word for any decision made.

3. As Parliamentarians, both worked with and have had high regards for Rajiv Gandhi, including the Gandhi family.

4. Both have an affinity for colour green (call it the love for the symbol ) and wear sarees of a particular style, bordered with specific colour combinations.

5. Both retained there regime in states with the rural vote bank in their favour, with schemes tailor-made for women and children.

6. Interestingly, both pulled out or pulled down the NDA government in their own style on various issues to retain power in the states.

7. None of them married and are known for devoting their entire time to politics and people.

8. Both were dragged in public and insulted by their rivals and both swore to re-enter Assembly and Secretariat as chief ministers.

9. Both are Brahmins, yet have been extremely vocal in fighting for the issues of the downtrodden.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO:

1. Jaya was epitome of flamboyance while Mamata reflects simplicity in every way.

2. Jaya lived in Poes Road, an accommodation nothing less than a palace whereas Mamata still lives in small two bedroom house in bylane near Kalighat in South Kolkata.

3. Jaya travelled in most suave vehicles while Mamata still hits the road in a small Hyundai car with no red beacon.

4. Jaya rarely wore anything but silk, sans crease while Didi seldom parts ways with her traditional Taant or cotton sarees.

--- ENDS ---
The time of cremation was also decided in accordance with astrology.

Supporters of Tamil Nadu state former Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa pay their respects to her body, wrapped in the national flag and kept for public viewing outside an auditorium in Chennai. AP Photo

By Prabhash K Dutta: In 1999, Jayaram Jayalalitha shocked Indian politics by suddenly withdrawing support to the then Atal Behari Vajpayee government. Differences were political and but the decision was influenced by astrology.

Before announcing withdrawal of support, Jayalalithaa reportedly locked herself up in her New Delhi hotel room. She refused to meet anyone as the moon was in its inauspicious eighth house.

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After having consulted her astrologers, Jayalalithaa gave the letter of withdrawal of AIADMK's support to the Vajpayee government. That was to be handed over after 9 am but before 10 am. It happened that way only on April 14.

Such was Jayalalithaa's belief in astrology.

STRONG BELIEF IN ASTROLOGY

Born in a very conservative Iyengar family, Jayaram Jayalalithaa had absolute faith in astrology and numerology. Jayalalithaa would not do anything without consulting astrologers and which was not suited according to Panchangam- the Tamil calendar.

She was known to take all decisions, big or small in accordance with Panchangam.

Also Read: Jayalalithaa: How a little girl Ammu became Amma of Tamil Nadu

If she were to announce any scheme, Jayalalithaa would consult astrologers for the date and exact time of the launch. Jayalalithaa would do new things during the muhurta of Budhan Horai of Panchagam.

She once cancelled the oath-taking ceremony because she found out at the last moment that the time was not auspicious.

WHY AN EXTRA 'A'

In 2001, the then Jayalalitha added an extra 'a' to her name. The name change was attributed to a yajna that she performed a year ago to goddess Kali at a temple in Thanjavur.

The yajna was performed with the aim of coming back to power, which she did in the 2001-assembly elections and then the journalists were asked to spell her name with 12 characters instead of 11- from Jayalalitha to Jayalalithaa.

AND, THE FINAL ONE

Based on the analysis of her birth chart, she believed that that numbers 5 and 7 were auspicious for her.

And, what an irony that she breathed her last on December 5. The Apollo Hospital's statement said that her demise took place at 11.30 pm- half-an-hour to December 6.

Given her popularity and emotional connect with the people of Tamil Nadu, it was only natural to keep her body till Wednesday the least to allow as many followers as possible to pay their last respects to the departed soul.

Also Read: #AmmaForever: Tributes pour in after Jayalalithaa's death, Tamil Nadu announce 7-day mouning and 3-day holiday

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It would have been befitting farewell to a leader of Jayalalithaa's stature and mass connect. However, people close to her in AIADMK decided not to wait even for 12 hours because of Jayalalithaa's beliefs in astrology.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is Ashtami. And, Jayalalithaa would not do any new thing on Ashtami of the Panchangam. How could the final journey begin on Ashtami!

The time of cremation was also decided in accordance with astrology.

According to Tamil Panchangam there is a Rahu Kala during 3.30 pm to 4.30 pm. Jayalalithaa would not do anything during the period of Rahu Kala. So, the wait till 4.30 pm before the funeral procession is taken out.

Also Read: From India Today archives: 15 vintage photos of Jayalalithaa

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OK, so we can say that Secretary Hillary Clinton won more votes nationwide than did President-elect Donald Trump. Not only can that concession be made, but the concession that she won by 2.5 million votes  hardly a razor-thin margin. So how does one make the argument in favor of keeping the Electoral College, a mechanism built into the very fabric of the original text of the Constitution?

To begin with, I read where one of our esteemed lawmakers in Congress questions the constitutionality of the Electoral College. For real? Dude, its part of the text of Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.

So what portion of the question of constitutionality can be debated before the U.S. Supreme Court to have the Electoral College stricken down as unconstitutional? From what I read, not a single word. But then it is the right of the desperate to crow about such things, even when it makes them look foolish. Far be it from me to wish to encroach on the rantings and ravings of the dispirited.

To do away with the Electoral College would require that the Constitution be amended in such a way that this clause would be repealed. Unfortunately, there are those delusional cases who believe they can actually muster enough signatories to enact legislation having the Electoral College invalidated for all time, the result of which would magically nullify Mr. Trumps victory. The coronation of Hillary Clinton could then move forward and all would be well as the universe would once again be in order. (Already a Republican member of the Electoral College from Texas says he wont cast one of his states 38 electoral votes for Trump because I am here to elect a president, not a king. He cites Trumps repeated attacks on the First Amendment.)

To truly amend the U.S. Constitution would require two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures or ratifying conventions in those states. Yeah. Just figure the odds of that happening.

I also read a letter to the editor in which a supporter of Mrs. Clinton was disenchanted because he or she felt that his or her voice was stifled by this winner-take-all scheme employed by the state of Texas. The premise was that since Mr. Trump took only 4.6 million votes and Mrs. Clinton garnered 3.8 million, 3.8 million of us who voted for Secretary Clinton got none of these [34 Electoral College] votes. Not one.

Even if we did a district-by-district or proportional assignment of votes, there would not be enough votes to get her to the 270 electoral needed to win nationally.

For what its worth, the Electoral College was put in place for a reason and woe betide those who monkey around with a process that has endured and kept us democratic for 240 years.

The problem is that when the colorful election-results maps are seen as a whole, only part of the story is told. The county-by-county tally maps show a much more impressive picture of what actually happened the night of Nov. 8. There is a noticeably redder hue to that map than the state-to-state depiction. For the most part, the Democratic voters prevailed in seaboard areas  populations concentrated on the California coast and Atlantic seaboard. However, the American Heartland  the wide-open spaces between the two  are regions where blue-collar workers, farmers, ranchers, oilfield hands and laborers ply their trades making an honest living. And that region was markedly devoid of Democratic blue.

For the most part, the vista seen on that map is enough to demonstrate that those in the mid-section of America would not be too keen on the coastal dwellers having more of a say than they do. More people may live in those few concentrated areas along the coast, but there are many other areas of interest in the interior of our nation.

There are 3,083 counties nationwide. Of those, Mr. Trump won 2,597. That leaves Mrs. Clinton with 486 counties. That is probably the greatest teller of the tale that can be shown. With reference to the letter I cited before, in Texas, 227 counties voted Republican and only 27 voted for Hillary Clinton.

Where is support for the argument against the Electoral College? Its certainly not apparent from a county perspective.

Pete Commander is a Navy veteran who lives in Bellmead. He holds a master of arts degree in international relations.
Cash crunch since demonetisation has hit the market so hard that even when people have come forward to sell gold, jewellers have not been able to give money to customers in cash.

By Vidya : The famous Zaveri Bazar area of Mumbai does not witness many gleeful customers looking for good bargains or happy jewellers hoping to make good profit this wedding season. The jewellery market wears a deserted look as there are hardly any customers around.

Kumar jain, vice president of Shri Mumbai Gold Jewellers Association, said, "There were 29,000 weddings this season for which huge amounts of gold had been imported. But with demonetisation, no one has cash to dispense for gold. People, who had weddings at their homes, brought in their old gold to exchange for new. But people abstained from buying new gold." The cash crunch since demonetisation has hit the market so hard that even when people have come forward to sell gold, jewellers have not been able to give money to customers in cash. Jain recounts that he had a customer a few days ago. "He had come to sell gold as there were some hefty hospital bills that he needed to settle. But we could not help him as we ourselves did not have cash."

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Also read | Your gold is safe. 500 grams per married woman will not be seized

Inder Jain, president of the Shri Mumba Devi Dagina Bazaar Association, says, "The market has fallen big time. In such a scenario, with whatever cash is available, people tend to buy things that they need for a living like food items. Only after that, people spend on luxury items like gold." Most jewellers say that almost all the transactions in the past one month have happened through card payments, but card payments carry a service charge which varies from Rs 1.40 to two rupees. Moreover, all cards have limits.

WHY PAYING FOR GOLD VIA CARD NOT A GREAT OPTION

"For wedding season, when someone buys gold, the minimum expenditure is around Rs 3 lakh. With this huge amount, if someone has to use a card, the service charge itself comes out in thousands and through card payment, one will anyway end up making only half the amount as all cards have limits. So most people have to depend on cash transactions," says Jain.

All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation has about 10,000 members across the country. Federation member Raman Solanki, who is into wholesale of gold chains, says, "Gold market, which includes gold jewellery, bullion as well as diamond-studded gold ornaments in Maharashtra, is worth around Rs 1.25 crore. During Diwali, most jewellers did brisk business so we were expecting a good sale this wedding season, which extends between November and December. But with demonetisation, the entire business is only about 10 to 20 per cent of that."

Also read | Gold glitters on Dhanteras: Higher prices fail to stop yellow metal shoppers

Most jewellers expect that the gold market will witness a turnaround only by the end of this financial year. "It will take a while for people to get cash in hand that they will be able to spend on gold. Gold buying, especially during the wedding season, happens mainly in cash and it is all in white as we give receipts for each transactions. But for people to get cash in hand to spend on gold will take time," says Rishant Jain, owner of UT jewellery store at Zaveri Bazar.

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The police also arrested a woman, who was accused of running a sex racket from her house in Maqbara area of Gwaltola locality.

By Ranjay Singh: A police head constable in Kanpur was thrashed by the crowd after he was caught red-handed making blue films for blackmailing people. He was later arrested by the police along with a woman, accused of running a sex racket.

The incident took place on Monday in Gawaltola locality in the city. The accused has been identified as Amarpal. Promoted as a head constable, Amarpal was posted as head operator with the Unnao police station.

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CONSTABLE AMARPAL CAUGHT BY LOCALS

The police officer was accused of blackmailing people by conniving with a woman, who was allegedly running a sex racket. On Monday night, locals caught him red-handed making blue films. The crowd first thrashed Amarpal badly, paraded him and later handed him over to the police.

Also read | Ex-Army officer, accused of running high-profile sex racket in Delhi, gets bail

For several months, police had been receiving complaints of a sex racket running from the house of a woman in Maqbara area of Gwaltola. When Amarpal learnt about it, he reached the woman's house instead of informing the police. His intention was to earn some easy money from the racket.

On Monday, when a youth visited the woman's house, Amarpal reached there and secretly started making a video of the couple while they were having sex. He wanted to make a video clip of the act and sell the footage for Rs 1 lakh by blackmailing them.

YOUTH INVOLVED IN THE ACT OF SEX TRIED TO FLEE

However, the youth involved in the act realised that he was being filmed. He wrapped himself in a towel and fled from the scene by jumping off the roof of the neighbour's house. In the commotion that ensued, locals gathered at the spot. They caught hold of the youth and cop Amarpal and thrashed both of them. Later, the duo was handed over to the police.

Also read | Prostitution racket busted in Gurgaon, 10 arrested

In the police station, the youth narrated the entire incident. The police arrested Amarpal and the woman running the racket.

Kanpur Deputy SP Vishal Pandey said action would be taken after examining the video and phone. A case of ransom has also been filed against Amarpal.

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On December 2nd, as reported by Giornaledbrescia, the Associazione Volontari del Garda (Garda Volunteers Association) recovered the substantial remains of an Italian Air Force F-51D Mustang from Lake Garda in northern Italy. This aircraft crashed into the lake on August 7th, 1951 following engine problems, sadly taking the life of its pilot, Lt. Paolo Tito. The Garda Volunteers had originally rediscovered wreck in April, 2013, and we reported on their discovery HERE once theyd formally identified the aircraft.

The Mustang, serial MM 4309, belonged to 92a Squadriglia C.T. of 2 Stormo. Lt. Tito took off in his F-51 from Vicenza at 4:40pm on that fateful summers day in 1951. He was heading for Orio al Serio on what should have been a routine flight. While young, Lt.Tito was already an experienced pilot, with a lot of Mustang time. The first leg of the journey was uneventful, but the freshly-overhauled Merlin engine began to show problems once Lt.Tito passed Valpolicella. Several witnesses to the accident reported hearing the engine revs increase and decrease. These issues were not serious enough to worry the pilot initially, and he tried to resolve them in flight, rather than declare an emergency and land. But the engine problems continued to worsen, and soon Lt. Tito realized he was in grave danger and needed to land immediately. The aircraft lost altitude rapidly and the primary diversion airport at Ghedi, became unreachable. The only area free of obstacles was Lake Garda, so Lt. Tito decided to ditch. Its possible he thought of bailing out before the impact, but hed lost too much altitude by this point. The Mustang crashed violently, skipping off the lake surface and breaking up, sadly taking Lt.Titos life.

In the days following the incident, the Stato Maggiore dellAeronautica commissioned a local firm to recover the pilots remains and, if possible, the Mustangs guns. Sixty two years later, thanks to the testimony of Mr. Egidio Isotta of Lazise, the Garda Volunteers began their historical research which culminated in the wrecks rediscovery. Mr Isotta had key information, because his fathers company had supported the initial recovery operation back in 1951, and he was able to describe the details of those events. This precise testimony allowed the Garda Volunteers to accurately determine the impact site, and to discover and identify the aircraft remains in the lake.

Now three years later, the wreck is finally recovered, raised from a depth of 60 meters. The Garda Volunteers employed remotely operated submersibles to help with the operation, using them to attach air bags to the six largest sections, which then lifted the parts to the surface. The biggest section was the port wing, extending from close to the wingtip roughly all the way under the cockpit. They also raised the Merlin engine and the badly twisted propeller complete with its hub and the engines reduction gears, which had separated from the casing. The recovery team trucked the parts to Lazise, and from there to the Volandia Park and Museum of Flight beside Malpensa Airport. WarbirdsNews has reported on several projects at Volandia over the years HERE, and while the museum has yet to announce their plans for what they will do with the Mustang, but it will undoubtedly form an important display in the future. Italian Air Force Mustangs are exceedingly rare, with only one complete example currently believed to exist (MM 4324/44-73451 at the Italian Air Force Museum in Vigna di Valle), so MM 4309, as wrecked as it is, represents a significant find. We hope to have more details of Volandias plans for the Mustang as they emerge.

Some sections of this article were edited from our previous piece based upon an article (used with permission) originally written in Italian by Luciano Pontolillo, president of the Italian Aviation Association, I-CARE. Thanks to the Associazione Volontari del Garda (Garda Volunteers Association) for the photos.

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With the drool worthy aroma of 11 herbs and spices, KFC has finally launched its range of scented candles.

By India Today Web Desk: Just imagine entering your home and breathing in the sweet and savoury smell of your favourite KFC fried chicken every day. Sounds just like heaven, right? Well, if all you think about is chicken then this bizarre product has been created just for you.

KFC New Zealand has just launched a limited edition of scented candles which are going to fill your home with the drool worthy aroma of chicken.

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Here's an official tweet by KFC New Zealand launching their subtle 'bomb' on Instagram:

What better way to light up your nights than with a limited edition KFC Scented Candle! Keen? To go in the draw to #win one just suggest another piece of KFC merchandise you'd like to see from us in the comments below! Winners drawn Monday! #KFCAdventCalendar A photo posted by KFCNZ (@kfcnz) on Dec 1, 2016 at 6:32pm PST

KFC launched this campaign over social media giving away limited edition candles to selected winners. The competition was live on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram and was won by Shiz Irani. KFC asked people to give innovative suggestions that they should include in their merchandise kitty. The winner had suggested KFC stamps "because the Colonel always delivers."

We really hope the limited edition scented candles hit the market soon. They are definitely a 'tender' present to gift your chicken-lovers buddies during the holiday season.

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F.E. Warren Air Force Base has released the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act policy which describes the rules, regulations and limitations of qualified law enforcement officers carrying concealed weapons while on the installation.



In response to tragic events that have taken place on and off installations over the past few years, Air Force commanders can take additional measures to secure personnel and property on their installations through programs allowing service members to carry weapons.



Personnel with the proper LEOSA credentials, Wyoming Concealed Firearm Permits and reciprocating state concealed carry licenses are authorized to transport a privately owned weapon in their vehicle while on the installation. This authorization does not allow for the concealed carry or open carry of any weapon into any facility within the established legal boundary of F.E. Warren Air Force Base.



We looked at active-shooter incidents across the country, and there are statistics that show where many [events] ended without police intervention because there was somebody there who had a concealed carry permit or somebody interdicted the active shooter, said Maj. Keith Quick, Air Force Security Forces Integrated Defense action officer. These programs allow commanders the ability to arm additional trained Airmen who could interdict before police arrive and are trained to stand down when police arrive.



Below are answers to some frequently asked questions concerning LEOSA and information concerning the bases policy.

Q) What is LEOSA?

LEOSA is a federal law that allows qualified law enforcement officers and qualified retired law enforcement officers to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the United States, regardless of state or local laws, with certain exceptions. In accordance with the law, QLEOs and QRLEOs can carry concealed privately owned firearms (POF) for protection. LEOSA credentials do not grant the bearer any authority to act on the U.S. Air Forces behalf or to exercise any law enforcement authority when off duty.

Q)What is the definition of a qualified law enforcement officer?



A QLEO is a security forces member  active duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve Command or Department of the Air Force  who is working in a QLEO position or is retired/separated security forces, ANG, AFRC or DAF. The individual must have 10 years of service in a Department of Defense QLEO position.

Q) How do I properly transport a POF on base?

LEOSA, WCFP and RCCL credentialed personnel are authorized to transport POFs in POVs in the loaded configuration while within the established legal boundary of F. E. Warren AFB. Individuals will secure handguns in an appropriate weapons case or vehicle compartment of their POV when left unattended and maintain positive control of their keys at all times.

Personnel will not remove handguns from a POV at any time within the established legal boundary of F. E. Warren AFB.



Exception: residents of privatized housing and 90th Security Forces Group Armory for storage purposes only.



Personnel will not be allowed to store or secure a POF in an unattended vehicle for more than 18 hours within the established legal boundary of F. E. Warren AFB. POFs will be removed from a POV and secured at an authorized location for any period exceeding 18 hours.

Credentialed personnel SHALL NOT transport a firearm while under the influence of alcohol (BrAC/BAC of .02 or greater) or another intoxicating or hallucinatory drug or substance.



Q) What are acceptable LEOSA credentials?



AF Form 688D, USAF LEOSA 926B



AF Form 688E, USAF LEOSA 926C



Air Force Office of Special Investigations LEOSA Identification Card



Other federal law enforcement officer credentials



Note: For a LEOSA credential to be valid, it must be accompanied by proof of weapons qualification within the last 12 months



For details on the proper documentation you are required to have on hand based on your LEOSA designation, please refer to the base LEOSA policy here



Q) How do I properly store my POF on base?



You can store your POF at the 90th SFG Armory. LEOSA, WCFP and RCCL credentialed individuals residing in or visiting F. E. Warren AFB dormitories, lodging, temporary living facilities or D. A. Russell Family Campground will not be allowed to store or secure a handgun or weapon of any type inside a dormitory room, lodging room, TLF Facility, camper or vehicle at any time. The 90th SFG Armory will remain the mandated storage repository for these weapons.



Credentialed personnel residing in privatized housing may store firearms in their residences or 90 SFS Armory

Personnel storing POFs in on-base housing (government or privatized quarters) will be required to register weapons with the 90 SFS Reports and Analysis section no later than ten (10) duty days from the date of acquisition or moving into base housing,

Q) How do I properly store my POF if I live in the base dorms?

Individuals residing in any dormitory located within the legal boundaries on F. E. Warren AFB are not authorized to store any POFs in their vehicle for any length of time. Additionally, if POF is being transported, the POV is not authorized to be in the vicinity of any dormitory parking areas.

All POFs owned by dormitory residents must be registered, secured, and stored in the 90th SFG Armory prior to parking in the vicinity of any dormitory on the installation.



Q) What if I have a firearm on base and get stopped at the gate or for a traffic violation?



Credentialed personnel must immediately inform law enforcement or command officials that there is a firearm in the vehicle or on their person.

Individuals are required to maintain their LEOSA credentials, WCPF or RCCL on their person at all times within the legal boundary of F. E. Warren AFB and must surrender it along with valid DoD identification card by security forces, OSI or local law enforcement officials.



Individuals must be able to produce their LEOSA credentials and proof of training.



Personnel may be apprehended or detained for failure to inform law enforcement or command officials that they are carrying or transporting a concealed weapon.



Personnel may have their privately owned weapon temporarily confiscated until they can produce proper credentials.



Personnel may have their authorization to transport POFs in POVs while on the installation suspended or revoked.



Q) What if I violate a base policy concerning LEOSA?

Individuals who violate any of the procedures may lose their privilege to transport concealed POFs on the installation.



Suspension periods are as follows:



First offense: 30-day suspension of concealed transport authorization



Second offense: six-month suspension of concealed transport authorization



Third offense: permanent revocation of concealed transport authorization



Q) How can I apply for a LEOSA credential?



To begin your application process, you must create an online account using the following site http://www.leosaonline.com/.



Q) Can I transport any type of firearm I want?



No, once you are issued your LEOSA credential you may only carry a handgun (as defined in th Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Publication and Federal Firearms Regulations Reference Guide.



Q) Do I need to have concealed carry or self-defense insurance?



While not a requirement, it is highly recommended in the event you become involved in an off duty incident. The Air Force is not liable and will not provide you with legal defense should you be involved in an off duty incident.



Q) Do I need any safety or firearm training to fulfill LEOSA requirements?



Must meet the definition of qualified police or law enforcement officer requirements defined in DoDI 5525.12, Enclosure 3, in order to be issued a credential under LEOSA.

Q) Is there an Air Force instruction that I can read to find out more about LEOSA?

Yes, additional information can be found in AFMAN 31-125, Security Forces implementation of LEOSA.



To find additional answers to frequently asked questions concerning LEOSA visit http://www.afsf.lackland.af.mil/LEOSA-FAQs.html.

For more information on the base's LEOSA and state concealed carry permit policy, please contact the 90th Security Forces Squadron installation security section at (307) 773-3957 or (307) 773-3501.
Police in Bridgetown have seized more than 60 cannabis plants and charged an elderly man who they will allege was behind the sophisticated set up.

Bridgetown police officers carried out a search warrant at the 73-year-old man's home in Hester Brook on Tuesday morning.

The drug set up in Hester Brook. Credit:WA Police

At the home police will allege they found a hydroponic drug set up with 65 cannabis plants inside.
By PTI: From Aditi Khanna

London, Dec 6 (PTI) A 26-year-old UK-based Belgian man was today found guilty of giving 3,000 pounds to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings.

Zakaria Boufassil from Birmingham was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism by providing 3,000 pounds to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in a Birmingham park.

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A co-defendant, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, also from Birmingham, had already pleaded guilty to the charge last month.

Both men will be sentenced on December 12.

They were found guilty of handing over the cash to Abrini - who became known as the "man in the hat" after his face was caught on CCTV footage following the deadly attack on Brussels airport in March.

"We know that Abrini visited several locations during his visit to the UK, but that his sole purpose of being here was to collect the money and our case - whilst not focused on attack planning - acts as reminder of why our work to prepare for and prevent such incidents in the UK is important," said Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, Counter Terrorism Lead for West Midlands Police.

"We are working hard with partner agencies and community groups around the West Midlands to alert the public to the dangers of radicalisation and explain what help is available to those vulnerable to negative influences," he said.

The money had been withdrawn from the bank account of one Anouar Haddouchi, a Belgian national who had been claiming UK state-funded welfare benefits while living in the West Midlands with his wife.

Haddouchi is believed to have fled to Syria since.

The court heard that hours after collecting the money fromBoufassil and Ahmed,Abrini visited the Grosvenor Casino in Birmingham where he took a photograph of a gambling machine on his mobile phone.

In March this year Abrini was captured on CCTV alongside Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, who detonated bombs hidden in suitcases killing 12 people at Brussels airport.

Another 20 people died in an attack on Maalbeek metro station less than two hours later.

Jurors were also told he is also wanted by the French authorities in connection with the attacks in Paris last November.

Boufassilhad denied one charge of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and the trial continues.

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Abrini remains in custody in Brussels. PTI AK PMS

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It's worth a billion dollars, can carry more than four thousand passengers and is longer than the largest United States Navy aircraft carriers... and it just docked in Fremantle harbour.

The MS Ovation of the Seas is part of the second largest class of cruise ship in the world, and is the newest ship in the Royal Caribbean International fleet, having been launched in February this year.

The ship weight in at a massive 168,666 Gross Tonnes. Credit:@MurraySkea

The immense ship - more a floating city really - docked in Fremantle on Tuesday morning with hundreds of people lining the moles and quays to watch the very delicate docking operation.

Fremantle local Chris Garnaut went down to watch the action and said the Ovation looked enormous even while it was still far out to sea.
By India Today Web Desk: Michelle Obama has been a modern day style icon over the last eight years and is touted as the most fashionable First Lady in history.

So it came as a surprise to her style fans when FLOTUS opted to wear Gucci at the Kennedy Center Honours ceremony, a.k.a. "Washington's cultural event of the year" on Sunday night.

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Also read: Michelle Obama's stylist reveals the what, why and how of FLOTUS' dazzling wardrobe

It was the first time Obama wore a non-American designer to the ceremony. Her choice coincided with the announcement from Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi that he would be resigning after voters decided against his plans for constitutional reform.

Photo: AP

According to the New York Times, this is only the second time the First Lady has worn Gucci, with the first being a map dress she wore for a September taping of Ellen. The First Lady's fashion choices are rarely just coincidence, so whether or not she chose the gown as an act of support for Mr. Renzi is ultimately up for debate.

Her choice doesn't seem casual, especially on an evening watched by millions, not just because of the paparazzi photos coming out of the appearances by such names as the honourees Al Pacino, the Eagles and James Taylor, but because it is broadcast on television later this year. She has often used clothes to convey cross-border diplomatic messages. For example, at the administration's last state dinner, held in October for Mr. Renzi, she wore Versace. He wore Armani.

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The WCO attended the International Conference for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Conflict Areas, organized at the initiative and in the presence of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and the President of France, Francois Hollande. The Conference, the principle of which was presented at the Ise-Shima G7 Summit in Japan last May, was held under the patronage of UNESCO and took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on 2 and 3 December 2016; bringing together heads of States and Ministers from over 40 countries, as well as representatives of international organizations, museums, private institutions and non-governmental organizations.

Throughout the two days, the Conference was structured into several panel discussions between cultural heritage experts tackling different challenges related to the protection of cultural heritage in times of conflict, as well as post-conflict rehabilitation efforts.

In particular, the work of the WCO on raising awareness among the Customs administrations on the necessity of countering illicit trafficking of cultural objects and partnering with other intergovernmental organizations in this area has been highlighted by several high level speakers.

During the second day of the conference, Heads of government and Ministers from more than 15 countries took the floor to express their solidarity with the cause and full support of the initiative resulting in the adoption of the Abu Dhabi Declaration on the protection of endangered cultural heritage. The Declaration endorses the creation of a new International Fund for the Protection of Heritage, with an initial contribution by France of USD 30 million and the objective to collect USD 100 million.

In relation to the destruction of several sites in different countries by terrorists, during his keynote address, President of France, Francois Hollande pointed out that terrorism is going against the diversity of civilizations and therefore against the unity of the human race, because we are rich in our differences and this is our wealth.

In her closing remarks, the UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova pointed out that the creation of this Fund would break new ground and send a powerful signal of hope a new commitment for culture, education and human dignity.

Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed recalled the importance of culture to build resilient societies and called on all participants to strengthen commitment against illicit trafficking of cultural property, which is weakening identities and contributes to the financing of terrorism.

The WCO welcomes the Abu Dhabi Declaration and joins the plethora of different voices from all over the world to support and stay committed to the common determination to safeguard the endangered cultural heritage and fight against illicit trafficking of cultural objects.

"As manifested through the unanimous adoption of the WCO Resolution on the role of Customs in preventing the illicit trafficking of cultural objects in July 2016, all 180 Member Customs administrations throughout the globe resolved to stand firm on their commitment to fight against this scourge", said the WCO Secretary General, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya.

"The WCO will continue working with its Members, other international organizations, such as UNESCO, INTERPOL, UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime), UNIDROIT, and non-governmental organizations, such as ICOM (International Council of Museums) to contribute to the common goal of safeguarding the cultural heritage", he added.
By PTI: Bhopal, Dec 6 (PTI) The Madhya Pradesh Assembly today paid rich tributes to J Jayalalithaa and the House was adjourned for 10 minutes as a mark of respect for the departed leader.

Speaker Sitasaran Sharma, MP Finance Minister Jayant Mallaiya, acting Leader of the Opposition Bala Bachchan and BSP Legislature Party leader Satyaprakash Sakhwar spoke of her qualities while mourning her demise.

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Mallaiya said the mid-day meal scheme was Jayalalithaas brainchild and was introduced in Tamil Nadu first.

Bachchan said the 68-year-old leader was a multi-faceted personality -- a great actress, dancer, social worker and politican.

Jayalalithaa was just two-year-old when she lost her father. Overcoming hardships in her childhood, she excelled in studies. She rose to become Chief Minister for six times and created a history of sorts.

They said Jayalalithaas demise has caused an irreparable loss.

The Speaker led the House in observing two-minute silence and adjourned it for 10 minutes as a mark of respect for the departed soul.

Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital in Chennai after battling for life for 75 days. PTI LAL MAS DK GVS MVV

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When cops reached the house, they found a pair of jeans belonging to Shraddha tied around her neck. They were also strangulation marks on her neck.

By Saurabh Vaktania: A 25-year-old doctor was found dead in her own residence in Mumbai early Tuesday morning. Sources said that the body was found in semi nude condition amd investigations into the case have begun.

The doctor was identified as Shraddha Panchal, a resident of Vile Parle east. She resided with her parents in the flat. According to police sources Shraddha slept in one room while her parents in another.

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HOW IT HAPPENED

On Tuesday morning they found her dead in her room. Immediately the local police was informed. The body was sent to a hospital where a post mortem is being performed. The cops however suspect a murder rather than a suicide.

A police source said that Shraddha completed a physiotherapy course a year back and was practising since than. When cops reached the house they found a pair of jeans belonging to Shraddha tied around her neck. The police thus said that Shraddha may have been strangulated to death with the pair of jeanns as there are strangulation marks on her neck. The cops are further investigating the matter and awaiting post mortem report.

There is one CCTV camera in the vicinity which the cops are taking help to identify the accused. The cops have registered a case of murder at the Vile Parle police station.

ALSO READ:

Bathinda dancer's murder: All 4 accused arrested

Engineer, 5 aides nabbed in murder-cum-robbery case

--- ENDS ---
A Muslim-owned restaurant has decided to provide free meals to the homeless and elderly this Christmas.

By India Today Web Desk: A Muslim-owned restaurant in London is spreading the Christmas cheer by offering free meals to the homeless and elderly.

Shish, a restaurant that specializes in Turkish food, has said it will give a free three-course Christmas dinner to homeless and elderly people this year. "No one eats alone on Christmas Day. We are here to sit with you", reads a handwritten note placed outside the restaurant.

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The meal includes soup and cacik (a yogurt-based dish), chicken casserole, vegetarian casserole, chicken shish, and rice pudding for dessert.

Photo: Facebook/Shish restaurant

The restaurant was applauded for its kind gesture on social media and their Facebook post about the free dinner went viral.

Photo: Facebook/Shish restaurant

Read the post here :

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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.
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By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) State-owned construction firm NBCC today said it has secured business worth Rs 24,694 crore during last month.

NBCC India has secured total business of Rs 24,694.23 crore in November, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The total business of Rs 24,694.23 crore secured in November includes re-development work of 3 GPRA colonies at Sarojini Nagar, Nauroji nagar and Netaji Nagar valued at Rs 24,682 crore based on the MoU signed with the Ministry of Urban Development.

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In July, the government had decided to rebuild seven housing colonies in the national capital to double the existing housing units from 12,970 units to 25,667 units at a total cost of Rs 32,835 crore. PTI MJH MR

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The following companies are subsidiares of Stanley Black & Decker: 2315708 Ontario Inc., 3-V Fastener Co. Inc., 3xLOGIC Dalian Technology Company Limited, 3xLogic Florida LLC, 3xLogic Inc., 3xLogic Indiana LLC, 8 Commerce Drive LLC, ADT France, ASIA FASTENING (US) INC., Advanced Turf Technologies LTD, AeroFit LLC, AeroScout (US) LLC, AeroScout Industrial, AeroScout LLC, AeroScout Ltd., Aeroscout (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Al Khaja Pimex LLC, Allan Brothers, Automatic Doors Systems, Automatic Entrances of Colorado, Avdel Holding Limited, Avdel Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, Avdel UK Limited, Aven Tools Limited, B&D Holdings Inc., B.B.W. BAYRISCHE BOHRERWERKE GmbH, BD Precision (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou Power Tools (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Xiamen (Hong Kong) Limited, BDB Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda, BDC International Limited, BDK FAUCET HOLDINGS INC., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) POWER TOOLS CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) PRECISION MANUFACTURING CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 1 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 2 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER DE REYNOSA S. DE R.L. DE C.V., BLACK & DECKER GLOBAL HOLDINGS S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER GROUP LLC, BLACK & DECKER HOLDINGS LLC, BLACK & DECKER INC, BLACK & DECKER INDIA INC., BLACK & DECKER INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS S.A.R.L., BLACK & DECKER INVESTMENT COMPANY LLC, BLACK & DECKER SHELBYVILLE LLC, BLACK & DECKER SSC CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER TRANSASIA S.a.r.l., BLACK AND DECKER S.A. de C.V., Bagley Road LLC, Baltimore Financial Services Company Unlimited Company, Baltimore Insurance Designated Activity Company, Bandhart, Bandhart Overseas, Bed-Check, Belco Investments Company Unlimited Company, Besco Investment Group Co. Ltd., Besco Investment Holdings Ltd., Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Best Lock Corporation, Black & Decker, Black & Decker (Czech) s.r.o., Black & Decker (Ireland) Inc., Black & Decker (OVERSEAS) GmbH, Black & Decker (Thailand) Limited, Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Black & Decker Argentina S.A., Black & Decker Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Black & Decker Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Black & Decker Distribution Pty. Ltd, Black & Decker Europe, Black & Decker Far East Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Finance, Black & Decker Finance (Australia) Ltd., Black & Decker Finance SAS, Black & Decker Funding Corporation, Black & Decker Hardware Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Healthcare Management Inc., Black & Decker Holdings (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Inc., Black & Decker International, Black & Decker International Finance (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Finance 1 Unlimited Company, Black & Decker International Finance 3 Designated Activity Company, Black & Decker International Finance Holdings (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Holdings B.V. & CO. KG, Black & Decker Investments (Australia) Limited, Black & Decker Investments LLC, Black & Decker Limited BV, Black & Decker Luxembourg S.A.R.L., Black & Decker Mexfin LLC, Black & Decker No. 4 Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Puerto Rico Inc., Black & Decker de Colombia S.A.S., Black & Decker de Panama LLC, Black & Decker del Ecuador S.A., Black & Decker del Peru S.A., Black & Decker do Brasil Ltda., Black and Decker de Costa Rica Limitada, Blick Plc, Bostitch-Holding L.L.C., Bristol Industries LLC, Bulldog Barrels LLC, C&C Enterprise Co. Ltd., CAM International Holdings Inc., CAMACC Systems Inc., CONNEXCENTER SA, CPE Acquisition Co., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, CRC-EVANS WELDING SERVICES INC., CRC-Evans B.V., CRC-Evans Canada LTD., CRC-Evans International LLC, CRC-Evans Offshore Limited, CRC-Evans PIH Servios De Tubulao do Brasil Ltda, CRC-Evans Pipeline International Inc., CRC-Evans Pipeline International Sdn Bhd, CWS Industries (Mfg.) Corp., Chesapeake Falls Holdings Company Unlimited Company, Chesapeake Investments Company S.A.R.L., Chicago Steel Tape, Chiro Tools Holdings B.V., Christie Intruder Alarms Limited, Clarke Security Services Incorporated, Columbia Manufacturing Company Incorporated, Compass Corporation, Compass II Co. Ltd., Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing, Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing LLC, Constellation (Luxembourg) Holdings S.a r.l., Contact East, Craftman, Cub Cadet LLC, DADO Inc., DEVILBISS AIR POWER COMPANY, DIYZ LLC, DeWalt Industrial Tools S.p.A., Dewalt Industrial Power Tool Company LTD., Doncasters US Holdings Inc., Dubuis et Cie SAS, E.A. Patten Co. LLC, ELU B.V., ELU Power Tools LTD, EMHART TEKNOLOGIES LLC, Eastern Vault & Security, Emhart Guangzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, Emhart Harttung A/S, Emhart Harttung Inc., Emhart International Holdings Limited, Emhart International Limited, Emhart Teknologies (Thailand) LTD., Excel Industries, Excel Industries Inc., F. Robotics Acquisitions Ltd., Facom, Facom Belgie BV, Fastener Jamher Taiwan Inc., First National AlarmCap LP/Premiere Societe en Commandite Nationale Alarmcap, First National AlarmCap. Trust, Frisco Bay Industries, GDX Technologies, GMT China, GRUPO BLACK & DECKER MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., GUANGZHOU EMHART FASTENING SYSTEM CO. LTD., Gamrie Designated Activity Company, Garden Way LLC, Generale de Protection, HSM Electronic Protection Systems, Hangtech Limited, Hardware City Associates Limited Partnership, Hefei INTACA Science & Technology Development Co. Ltd., Herramientas Stanley S.A. de c.v., Horst Sprenger GmbH Recycling-tools, Hustler Turf Equipment Inc., I.D.L. Techni-Edge LLC, INFASTECH CAMCAR MALAYSIA SDN BHD, INFASTECH DECORAH LLC, ISR Solutions, IguanaFix, Infastech (China) Limited, Infastech (Korea) Limited, Infastech (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech (Mauritius) Limited, Infastech (Shenzhen) Limited, Infastech (Singapore) Pte. Ltd, Infastech Company Limited, Infastech Fastening Systems (Wuxi) Limited, Infastech Holdings (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech Intellectual Properties Pte. Ltd., Infastech Receivables Company Pte. Ltd., Infastech/Tri-Star Limited, InfoLogix, InfoLogix Systems Corporation, Infologix - DDMS Inc., Infologix Inc., Innerspace Products, Interfast B.V., Irwin Industrial Tool Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda., JAFFORD LLC, JRB Attachments LLC, JennCo1 Inc., Jewel Attachments LLC, Jiangsu Guoqiang Tools Co., Jiangus Guopiang Tools Co. Ltd., Jointech Corporation LTD., K.And.M. Holdco Products Ltd., Kodiak Mfg. Inc., Lista International Corporation, Lux Star International S.a r.l., M. HART DO BRASIL LTDA., M.P.N. HOLDINGS LIMITED, M.T.D. France SAS, MTD Asia Hong Kong Limited, MTD Austria Handelsgesellschaft m.b.H., MTD Consumer Group Inc., MTD Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, MTD Deutschland Verwaltungsgeschellschaft mbH, MTD Europe Holding GmbH, MTD Holdings, MTD Hungaria Kft., MTD International Operations Inc., MTD Investments Australia Pty Ltd., MTD LLC, MTD PRODUCTS ITALIA S.R.L., MTD Poland Sp. z.o.o., MTD Products AG, MTD Products Australia Party LTD, MTD Products Benelux B.V., MTD Products Company, MTD Products Czech Spol. s.r.o., MTD Products Denmark ApS, MTD Products Inc., MTD Products India Private India Limited, MTD Products Limited, MTD Products New Zealand Limited, MTD Products Nordic AB, MTD Products S.A. de C.V., MTD Products Singapore, MTD Schweiz AG, MTD Southwest Inc., Mac Tools Canada Inc., Maquinas y Herramientas Black & Decker de Chile S.A., Microalloying International Inc., Microtec Enterprises, Moeller Manufacturing & Supply LLC, Monarch Mirror Door Co., NEWFREY LLC, NFASTECH COMPANY LIMITED, NIscayah, NSW Fabristeel Netherlands B.V., National Manufacturing, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH & Co. KG, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH Verwaltungs GmbH, Nelson Fastener Systems, Nelson Fastener Systems de Mexico SA de CV, Nelson Saldatura Perni S.r.l., Nelson Soudage de Goujons SAS, Nelson Stud Welding (Tianjin) Company Ltd., Nelson Stud Welding Canada Inc., Nelson Stud Welding Inc., Nelson Stud Welding India Private Limited, Nelson Stud Welding International LLC, New FEP Co. LLC, Newell Brands - Tools Business, Nippon Pop Rivets & Fasteners LTD., Niscayah Asia Limited, Niscayah Group AB, Niscayah Holdings Limited, Niscayah Investments Limited, Niscayah Teknik AB, Novia SWK SAS, OSI Security Devices, Onglin International Limited, P I H Holdings Limited, P&B Re Holdings LLC, PIH Services Limited, PIH Services ME LLC, PIH Services ME Ltd., PIH Services ME W.L.L., PIH U.S. LLC, PIPELINE EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES SARL, PORTER-CABLE ARGENTINA LLC, PT Stanley Black & Decker, Pacom Group AB, Pacom Systems (North America) Inc., Pacom Systems Espana S.L., Pacom Systems Pty Limited, Paladin Brands Group Inc., Paladin Brands Holdings Inc., Paladin Brands International Holdings Inc., Panalok Limited, Pengo Corporation, Pillo Health, Pinnacle Electronic Systems, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Powers Fasteners Australasia Pty Limited, Powers Fasteners Inc., Powers Fasteners Inc. (Panama), Powers Rawl Pty. Ltd., Powers Shanghai Trading Ltd., Precision Hardware, Prikos & Becker LLC, Pro One Finance SAS, QRP Inc, RCTENN LLC, RIGHTCO II LLC, Rawl Australasia Pty. Ltd., Rawlplug Unit Trust, Refal Industria e Comercio de Rebites e Rebitadeiras Ltda., Remington LLC, SBD Cayman LLC, SBD European Investment Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Holdings S.a r.l., SBD European Security International Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Investment Unlimited Company, SBD Holding AB, SBD Insurance Inc., SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings LLC, SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings S.a r.l., SBD Manufacturing Distribution & Global Purchasing Holdings L.P., SBD Niscayah S.a r.l., SBD Property Holdings LLC, SBD UK Canada Holdings Inc., SPIRALOCK GLOBAL VENTURES LIMITED, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER HUNGARY KORALTOLT FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER IBERICA S.L., STANLEY BLACK & DECKER MOROCCO SARL, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS ONE HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS S1 HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS S2 HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY ENGINEERED FASTENING EASTERN EUROPE SP.Z O.O., SWK (U.K.) Holding Limited, SWK (UK) Limited, SWK Utensilerie S.r.l., Scan Modul, Security Group, SecurityCo Solutions Inc., Shanghai Emhart Fastening System Co. Ltd., Sidchrome Tool, Sielox Security Systems, Societe Miniere et Commerciale SAS, Sonitrol, Sonitrol Distribution Canada Inc., Sonitrol Security Systems of Buffalo Inc., Southern Monitoring Services Limited, Specialty Bar Products Company, Spiegelberg Manufacturing Inc., Spiralock Corporation, Stanley Access Technologies LLC, Stanley Atlantic Inc., Stanley Black & Decker (Barbados) SRL, Stanley Black & Decker (Hellas) EPE, Stanley Black & Decker Asia Holdings LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Asian Holdings B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Australia Pty Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Austria GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Belgium BV, Stanley Black & Decker CCA S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Canada Corporation, Stanley Black & Decker Cayman Holdings Inc., Stanley Black & Decker Cayman International Financing LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Centroamerica S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Chile L.L.C., Stanley Black & Decker Colombia Services S.A.S., Stanley Black & Decker Czech Republic s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Distribution SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 1 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 2 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Finland Oy, Stanley Black & Decker France SAS, Stanley Black & Decker France Services SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Hermosillo S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley Black & Decker Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Black & Decker Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker IP Holdings Limited, Stanley Black & Decker India Private Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International FZE, Stanley Black & Decker International Fiance 2 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 1 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 2 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 5 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance L.P., Stanley Black & Decker Ireland Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Italia S.r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Holding BV, Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Investment Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Limited Liability Company, Stanley Black & Decker Logistics BV, Stanley Black & Decker MEA FZE, Stanley Black & Decker Manufacturing SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Middle East Trading FZE, Stanley Black & Decker NZ Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Netherlands B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Norway AS, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Polska Sp. z o.o., Stanley Black & Decker Precision Manufacturing (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Romania SRL, Stanley Black & Decker Slovakia s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Sweden AB, Stanley Black & Decker Turkey Alet Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Stanley Black & Decker UK Group Limited, Stanley Black & Decker UK Limited, Stanley Black & Decker de Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley Black and Decker Commercial Private India, Stanley Black and Decker Security Solutions Mexico S.A. de C.V. (fka DEWALT INDUSTRIAL TOOLS S.A. DE C.V.), Stanley CLP3, Stanley Canada Holdings L.L.C., Stanley Chiro International Ltd, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Engineered Fastening Benelux B.V., Stanley Engineered Fastening France SAS, Stanley Engineered Fastening India Private Limited, Stanley Engineered Fastening Industrial Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Engineered Fastening Italy S.r.l., Stanley Engineered Fastening Spain S.L.U., Stanley Europe BV, Stanley European Holdings B.V., Stanley European Holdings II B.V., Stanley Fastening Systems Investment (Taiwan) Co., Stanley Fastening Systems L.P., Stanley Fastening Systems Poland Sp. z o.o., Stanley Feinwerktechnik GmbH, Stanley Grundstuecksverwaltungs GmbH, Stanley Healthcare Solutions France Sarl, Stanley Housing Fund Inc., Stanley Industrial & Automotive LLC, Stanley Infrastructure LLC Formerly f/k/a International Equipment Solutions ("IES"), Stanley Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Inspection US L.L.C., Stanley International Holdings Inc., Stanley Israel Investments B.V., Stanley Logistics L.L.C., Stanley Pipeline Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Safety Corporation LLC, Stanley Security AS, Stanley Security Alarmcentrale B.V., Stanley Security B.V., Stanley Security Belgium BV, Stanley Security Canada ULC (fka 3xLogic Holdings Inc.), Stanley Security Denmark ApS, Stanley Security Europe BV, Stanley Security Federal Systema LLC, Stanley Security Holding AS, Stanley Security Limited, Stanley Security Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Stanley Security Nederland B.V., Stanley Security Oy, Stanley Security Singapore Pte. Ltd., Stanley Security Solutions (NI) Limited, Stanley Security Solutions - Europe Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Security Solutions India Private Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Limited, Stanley Security Sverige AB, Stanley Technical Services Ltd., Stanley Tools SAS, Stanley U.K. Holdings Ltd., Stanley UK Acquisition Company Limited, Stanley UK Services Limited, Stanley Works (Europe) GmbH, Stanley Works (India) Private Limited, Stanley Works (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Stanley Works (Wendeng) Tools Co. Ltd., Stanley Works Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Stanley Works China Investments Limited, Stanley Works Holdings B.V., Stanley Works Limited, Stanley-Bostitch S.A. de c.v., Stanley-Bostitch Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Stichting Beheer Intellectuele Eigendomsrechten Blick Benelux B.V., SureHand Inc. f.k.a. SBD Aura Inc., Sweepster Attachments LLC, THE BLACK & DECKER CORPORATION, TOG Holdings Inc., TOG Manufacturing Company Inc., TSI Monitoring LLC, TSI Sales & Installation LLC, The EAP Acquisition Co. LLC, The Farmington River Power Company, The Ferry Cap & Set Screw Company, The Stanley Works (Langfang) Fastening Systems Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Zhongshan) Tool Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works Israel Ltd., The Stanley Works Limited, The Stanley Works Pty. Ltd., Tong Lung Metal Industry, Troy-Bilt LLC, Tucker Fasteners Limited, Tucker GmbH, Tucker S.R.O., Universal Inspection Systems Limited, Venus Enterprise Co. Ltd., Visiocom International Pte Ltd, Voss Industries Inc., Wintech Corporation Limited, XMARK Corporation, XMARK Corporation., Yong Ru Plastics Industry (Suzhou) Co. Ltd, and Zag USA Inc..

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Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. operates as a specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies. The company operates through two segments, Sally Beauty Supply and Beauty Systems Group. The Sally Beauty Supply segment offers beauty products, including hair color and care products, skin and nail care products, styling tools, and other beauty products for retail customers, salons, and salon professionals. This segment also provides products under third-party brands, such as Wella, Clairol, OPI, Conair, and L'Oreal, as well as exclusive-label brand merchandise. The Beauty Systems Group segment offers professional beauty products, such as hair color and care products, skin and nail care products, styling tools, and other beauty items directly to salons and salon professionals through its professional-only stores, e-commerce platforms, and sales force, as well as through franchised stores under the Armstrong McCall store name. This segment also sells products under third-party brands, such as Paul Mitchell, Wella, Matrix, Schwarzkopf, Kenra, Goldwell, Joico, and Olaplex. As of September 30, 2021, the company operated 4,777 stores, including 134 franchised units in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany. It also distributes its products through full-service/exclusive distributors, open-line distributors, direct sales, and mega-salon stores. Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1964 and is headquartered in Denton, Texas.
Suncor Energy Inc. operates as an integrated energy company. The company primarily focuses on developing petroleum resource basins in Canada's Athabasca oil sands; explores, acquires, develops, produces, transports, refines, and markets crude oil in Canada and internationally; markets petroleum and petrochemical products under the Petro-Canada name primarily in Canada. It operates through Oil Sands; Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Corporate and Eliminations segments. The Oil Sands segment recovers bitumen from mining and in situ operations, and upgrades it into refinery feedstock and diesel fuel, or blends the bitumen with diluent for direct sale to market. The Exploration and Production segment is involved in offshore operations off the east coast of Canada and in the North Sea; and operating onshore assets in Libya and Syria. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil and intermediate feedstock into various petroleum and petrochemical products; and markets refined petroleum products to retail, commercial, and industrial customers through its other retail sellers. The Corporate and Eliminations segment operates four wind farms in Ontario and Western Canada. The company also markets and trades in crude oil, natural gas, byproducts, refined products, and power. The company was formerly known as Suncor Inc. and changed its name to Suncor Energy Inc. in April 1997. Suncor Energy Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
Panneerselvam has prostrated before Jayalalithaa, deified her and wept for her. He also meticulously followed her orders, coordinated with bureaucrats and proved himself a mature leader and team player.

By PTI: A trusted lieutenant and staunch loyalist of J Jayalalithaa, O Panneerselvam, who became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the third time, faces the challenge of keeping the AIADMK together as it tries to reinvent itself without the charismatic party supremo.

A tea vendor-turned-politician, 65-year-old Panneerselvam, popularly known as OPS, was late Jayalalithaa's Man Friday and twice helmed the state after she was convicted in graft cases. A grim-faced Panneerselvam, who was also seen sporting a beard, was sworn in around 1.15 am today by Governor Vidyasagar Rao at the Raj Bhavan here amid a pall of gloom, shortly after Jayalalithaa's death.

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ALSO READ: Jayalalithaa: A shy actress who became Queen of Tamil Nadu

A MATURE LEADER AND A TEAM PLAYER

Panneerselvam took oath as CM with a photo of Jayalalithaa in his pocket. Panneerselvam has prostrated before Jayalalithaa, deified her and wept for her. He also meticulously followed her orders, coordinated with bureaucrats and proved himself a mature leader and team player--qualities that worked for the unassuming Theni chieftain when he was made caretaker CM twice--in September 2011 and again in September 2014.

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He belongs to the dominant Mudukulathor community and has risen from humble origins, having run a tea stall at his home town Periyakulam which is still being operated by his family. A first-time minister in 2001 after his election to the Assembly, he was vested with the key Revenue department by Jayalalithaa, indicating her confidence in him. In 2011, in a further endorsement of her trust, Jayalalithaa allocated the major departments of Finance and PWD to Panneerselvam.

ALSO READ: Brand Amma: How Jayalalithaa's rice, kapda and TV schemes won her popularity

ENJOYS RESPECT ACROSS PARTY LINES

Even when in the Opposition, Panneerselvam was the No.2 (Deputy Leader of AIADMK Legislature party) from 2001-06 and he was considered Jayalalithaa's trusted lieutenant in the party rankings. Panneerselvam always came across as an affable man and enjoyed respect, cutting across party lines. As Leader of the House since 2011, except for a brief period when Jayalalithaa was convicted in a graft case and him being elevated as Chief Minister, Panneerselvam often handled House proceedings with deft ease, especially explaining the states position on financial matters as Finance Minister.

ALSO READ: Jayalalithaa: How a little girl called Ammu became Amma of Tamil Nadu

When Jayalalithaa was convicted in corruption cases in 2011 and 2014, she picked Panneerselvam as her replacement. As a loyal soldier Panneerselvam duly gave back the reins of power to Jayalalithaa when courts acquitted her in both the cases. On October 12, OPS was again given charge of Jayalalithaa's portfolios, including Home and Police, besides the task of presiding over Cabinet meetings, days after the AIADMK chief was admitted to Apollo Hospital. Panneerselvam retained all of the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa, including Home and Police.

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ALSO SEE: From India Today archives: 15 vintage photos of Jaya

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LEESVILLE -- The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has announced that they will hold their annual Locally Led Conservation Meeting and Local Work Group Meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

The meetings will be held in Leesville, at the East Leesville Baptist Church, 266 Alexandria Hwy. (Hwy 28), Leesville.

The Locally Led Conservation Meeting will begin 10 a.m., with the Local Work Group Meeting immediately following.

The first meeting, the Locally Led Conservation Meeting, provides landowners, agencies, organizations and any other interested individuals the opportunity to help identify natural resource concerns within the Calcasieu Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). The Calcasieu SWCD includes Vernon and Beauregard Parishes.

At this meeting, individuals will be able to voice concerns, provide comments and help to identify conservation issues. The public is encouraged to attend and participate in the meeting.

Following the Locally Led Conservation Meeting, the Local Work Group Meeting will be held. At this meeting the resource issues identified from the first meeting will be prioritized. This meeting will be chaired by the Calcasieu SWCD.

The issues identified and prioritized in these two meetings will be used to help direct technical and financial assistance decisions that your local NRCS and SWCD make throughout the year. These issues will be especially important in decisions made for financial assistance when implementing the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

This program is administered by the NRCS and provides cost share and incentive payments for the installation of several conservation practices on eligible participants land. The information gathered from these meetings will be used to help carry out the EQIP and other programs in 2018. LUNCH WILL BE SERVED.

For more information on the Locally Led Conservation and Local Work Group Meetings, contact your local NRCS and SWCD field offices at 337-239-2193 in Leesville or 337-463-8555 Ext. 3 in DeRidder.

AGENDA

9 a.m.  Calcasieu SWCD monthly board meeting

10 a.m.  Local Work Group Meeting

11 a.m.  Poster contest winners announced

12 p.m. - Lunch served

RSVP to Rose Sharbeno at 337-239-2193 as soon as possible.
On Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet was moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After a week of training at sea, there were very few early risers that morning as a gentle breeze blew across the beaches of Honolulu. In just a few short hours, they would be awakened to war. Sitting at anchor in Battleship Row were seven giant vessels of the fleet, the battleships California, Maryland, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arizona and Nevada. Along with the battleships, a total of 94 vessels were at anchor in Pearl Harbor that tranquil morning. All these ships were gathered in this anchorage which is less than three square miles in size.

At 7:55 a.m., Japanese torpedo and dive bombers began their dreadful attack on the fleet. As Japanese Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, leader of the torpedo planes and dive bombers, looked down at the American Fleet lying helplessly below him, he radioed back to the Japanese carrier fleet the fateful message Tora, Tora, Tora, the code signifying that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a complete surprise. As bombs and torpedoes began to explode throughout the fleet intercoms began blaring Air Raid ! No Drill! and sailors went to battle stations. On board the U.S.S. Oklahoma sailors were just hoisting the colors at the Boatswain piped To the colors. Suddenly the harbor was complete bedlam. Sailors began jumping to their battle stations and began to return fire at the attacking Japanese planes. Besides the naval fleet, the Japanese attacked all the airfields on the island of Oahu and destroyed all the planes parked in neat rows. Throughout the attack, the American defenders began fighting back, from soldiers on the ground to sailors on the ships.

The attack was devastating. The Oklahoma was hit by several torpedoes and began to slowly roll over, the California was hit by two torpedoes, the West Virginia began to sink after being hit, the Nevada was hit in the bow yet it began to get underway, but the most seriously damaged ship was the Arizona. With a thunderous explosion she blew up and started to burn after a bomb had smashed into the forward magazine. Witnesses and crewmembers who survived stated that the giant battleship seemed to almost lurch out of the water. In just minutes, down went the Arizona carrying 1,177 members of its crew with it.

But throughout this terrible attack, the American defenders began firing back with astonishing speed. Everyone from soldiers, sailors and Marines, on the ground and aboard ships, began to return fire on the attacking Japanese. Soldiers and Marines began returning fire with pistols, rifles, automatic rifles, and machine guns and gun crews on board the ships began blasting away. The Nevada, although damaged and on fire, opened up with all its anti-aircraft guns so furiously that the ship disappeared in the smoke of its own guns! Bravery and courage was seen everywhere as the defenders fought back during this terrible attack. Many gave their lives to save their comrades and to save their ships.

In a little more than an hour and a half, with the element of surprise, the Japanese destroyed 188 aircraft and damaged 159 others, 18 ships of war were sunk, including the Arizona and Oklahoma, and 2,403 military personnel killed and 1,178 wounded in the attack. In just a few hours, Americas bastion of the Pacific was destroyed. The California, West Virginia, and Tennessee would not rejoin the fleet for many months, the Pennsylvania and Maryland were out of action for weeks. The Japanese lost only 29 planes, five midget submarines, and one large submarine, all with their crews. The Japanese losses were extremely small compared to the devastation dealt on the United States Pacific Fleet.

The first serviceman from Louisiana killed in World War II during the attack on Pearl Harbor was Pfc. Hal H. Perry Jr. This young man was killed in the attack at Pearl Harbor while stationed at Hickam Field. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hal H. Perry Sr. and was born July 29, 1921. He had attended Newellton High School, Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi, and Tulane University. Pfc. Perry had entered the Army Air Forces on Dec. 8, 1939 and had attended armament school at Maxwell Field, then in April 1940 he embarked to the Hawaiian Islands where he was assigned to Hickam Field as a rear turret gunner, but was later transferred to Wheeler Field where he attended photography school. After this school he was again assigned to Hickam Field, where he was killed in action on Dec. 7, 1941. He was the first of many sons of Louisiana to perish in this terrible war.

Today, 75 years after the attack you can still see oil floating gently to the surface from the hulk of the U.S.S. Arizona. Now at this location, there is the beautiful Arizona Memorial that was dedicated in 1962. At this memorial is a marble wall listing the names of all the crewmen who went down on the Arizona. The Arizona is still listed as an active ship on the U.S. Navy roster and each ship entering the harbor renders honors to this ship. And sadly in 2016 there are only 5 survivors left of the Arizona crew. Recently at the Veterans Program held in Many, La., on Nov. 12, we were blessed to have in attendance one of the few surviving crew members of the U.S.S. Oklahoma who now resides in Sabine Parish. He told us of his harrowing escape just as the ship rolled over and how he was rescued by sailors on the U.S.S. Maryland. But of the over 12 million men and women who served in World War II less than 1 million remain, with them being well into their 90s with very few Pearl Harbor Survivors remaining.

As we remember Dec. 7, let us stop and pay homage to those remaining veterans of that great battle. This battle led the United States into World War II and a few days later President Franklin Roosevelt made his famous speech in which he declared that Dec. 7, 1941 would forever be a Day of Infamy. Pearl Harbor was the rallying cry for the American people as they began to strengthen the U.S. military by volunteering for service. Throughout America the battle cry Remember Pearl Harbor was heard. In our faced paced society of today, let us not forget this battle cry. Let us remember the men and women who fought in this battle, those who lost their lives, and those who lived to tell of this attack. Let our nation never forget its history for if we do, we will have to re-live it. So let us never forget to Remember Pearl Harbor!

Rickey Robertson is a retired Louisiana State Trooper. He writes about history for local, regional and national publications. Read more of his work HERE.
All persons are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law. According to Sheriff Mark Herford the following felony arrest were made for the week of 10/17/22 - 10/23/22. 10/18/22 Jennifer Gibson was arrested by BPSO Patrol Division and charged with Illegal Use of CDS in Presenc
By PTI: From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Dec 6 (PTI) In a shocking example of nepotism, a provincial government in Pakistan has appointed about four dozen members of a same family in health department.

The issue came to light after a health employee filed a petition in the Supreme Court against Sindh government and its health department for appointing about 48 cousins in Ghotki district.

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"More than four dozen members of Chadhar family have been appointed by the Sindh government authorities starting from 2008," said Farman Ali Pitafi.

Though most of them were given low grade jobs ranging from security guards to vaccinators but Pitafi alleged that they were being given quick promotions.

He said many of them were appointed in a single hospital of the area.

The Supreme Court accepted the petition and announced to start regular hearing from tomorrow.

Sindh Health Minister Sikandar Ali Mandhro expressed ignorance over the issue and promised to probe the issue.

Sindh has been under the rule of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of former slain leader Benazir Bhutto since 2008. The party is now controlled by her widower Asif Ali Zardari who in the past spent several years in jails on the charges of alleged corruption.

The party is often accused of misrule in the province but has been able to maintain hold through alliance with powerful landlords and other influential people of the province. PTI SH PMS

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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Dec. 05, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 05, 2016 | 06:13 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Paducah police are warning the public of a telephone scam in the area.



A woman reported that she received a telephone call from the Federal Grant Department, informing her that she had been chosen to receive a $9,000 grant. She was told that she needed to send a $100 processing fee, and she would get the $9,000 through an electronic money transfer.



The woman did not follow the suggestions and didn't lose any money.



Police are warning residents to be especially cautious during the holiday season for anyone who would try cheat them of money, or pretend to be helping the less fortunate and swindle people who are generous. Police recommend donating to causes you are familiar with, or investigating the organization before making a gift.
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Paducah Police make an arrest in an attempted arson
By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 05, 2016 | 10:33 PM | SEDALIA, KY

Sedalia Elementary School students already had begun a project to build a bench at the school. Then, on Nov. 11, fourth grader Akari Turner died unexpectedly at the age of 9 from health-related issues.Immediately, organizers dedicated the project and the resulting bench in his memory. When construction of the bench is completed, a plaque on it will pay tribute to the students classmate and friend.

The students welcome help from the public with donations of drink bottle and milk jug caps, lids from peanut butter jars, ice cream containers, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, detergents, and butter. In all, the goal is to collect a minimum of 400 pounds of materials.



Metal materials cant be used. However, plastic is perfect for the project. One flyer says, If it floats, we can use it!

Donations are welcome at Sedalia Elementary School, 5252 State Route 97, Mayfield, KY 42066. The schools phone number is (270) 328-4850.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Dec. 06, 2016 | LA CENTER, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 06, 2016 | 10:57 AM | LA CENTER, KY

A special referendum vote will be held on Tuesday, December 20 in LaCenter, to see if residents want to allow alcohol sales in the city.



Ballard County Clerk Lynn Lane told WestKentuckyStar Tuesday that a petition was submitted with the required number of signatures to demand the special election, which was set by the County Judge-Executive. The question on the ballot reads, "Are you in favor of the sale of alcoholic beverages in the city of LaCenter, Kentucky?"



Lane said the precinct of LaCenter will be the only one voting, and only residents of the city limits can participate. She said there are some people who live in the LaCenter precinct that don't live in the city, and they will not be allowed to vote. Ballots will be cast at City Hall between 6 am and 6 pm on December 20.



A person at City Hall said a private resident initiated the petition to get the measure on the ballot.




The British actor was best known for his stint as Grouty in the 1970s sitcom Porridge.

By India Today Web Desk: Game of Thrones actor Peter Vaughan aka MaesterAemon has passed away. He was 93 years old. "He died peacefully with his family around him," his agent Sally Long-Innes told The Guardian.

Vaughan was a popular British TV actor, mostly remembered for his role in the 1970s prison sitcom Porridge, where he played Harry Grout, the head of HMP Slade's protection racket. Also read: Game of Thrones Season 7: First teaser of the show out; Arya to cross paths with Jon Snow and Sansa?

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During an interview this year, the actor had confessed that people come up to him all the time and recite his dialogues from the show: "I still get people saying, 'Let you out, have they, Grouty?'"

He was recently seen in the wildly popular TV series Game of Thrones as the blind and elderly MaesterAemon. "The fan mail I get from all over the world because of Game of Thrones is enormous," he had told the Sunday Post. Are you a GoT fan? Do you love your wine? Here's some great news for you! Game of Thrones actor Brenock O'Connor who played Olly in the series expressed his sadness at the news and tweeted, "Deeply saddened to hear that Peter Vaughan has passed away at 93. A kind and talented man. His watch is ended."

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After much deliberation, CONMEBOL have decided to award the 2016 Copa Sudamericana title to Chapecoense.

As you well know, Chape were all set to square off against Colombian side Atletico Nacional in the final of the Copa Sudamerican (the South American equivalent of the the Europa League) when their team plane crashed en route to Medellin airport last Tuesday morning, killing 76 people.

CONMEBOL confirmed that they received a letter from Nacional club president Alejandro Dominguez two days after the tragic crash, formally requesting that the organisation give the Copa Sudamericana title to Chapecoense in honour of their great loss and as a posthumous tribute to the victims of the fatal accident.

A statement from CONMEBOL reads:

Following this [the letter], the council took the decision to appoint Chapecoense as champions of the Copa Sudamericana 2016 with all sporting and economic privileges it entails.

In short, not only will the Brazilian club be awarded the trophy, but also the prize money that comes along with it.

CONMEBOL have also confirmed that Nacional will be bestowed with a special Centennial Fair Play award for promoting the spirit of peace, understanding and fair play  as well as a $1million prize for reaching the final of the competition.

Funnily enough, Chape and Nacional are now set to meet in the 2017 Recopa Sudamericana (i.e, the South American Super Cup) which will hopefully give both teams the chance to play the match they were so cruelly robbed of last week.

Safe to say, its going to be an emotional one.
"Modi's demonetisation decision has made the common people bankrupt," said Mayawati while addressing the 61st death anniversary of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar at Ambedkar Saamajik Parivartan Sthal.

By Press Trust of India: In a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'fakir' remark, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati today said his note ban decision has turned a majority of the country's people into pauper but not him, and it will lead to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP's) defeat in Uttar Pradesh.

"Narendra Modi has not yet become a 'fakir', but has definitely turned 90 per cent of the country's population into 'fakir'.

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"His demonetisation decision has made the common people bankrupt," mayawati said addressing workers to mark the 61st death anniversary of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar at Ambedkar Saamajik Parivartan Sthal, a memorial built during her regime as a tribute to the Dalit icon.

Also read: How Modi's note ban has hit Uttar Pradesh election

On Saturday while addressing BJP's 'Parivartan Yatra' rally in Moradabad Modi had attacked Mayawati and others for opposing demonetisation, he had said, "What can my opponents do to me? I am a fakir (hermit or pauper)... jhola ley kar chaley jayenge (I will exit with my little belongings)."

Taking potshots at the prime minister, Mayawati had reacted within hours, saying Modi is "bahut bade maldar" (very wealthy) and wondered how a "well-wisher of the affluent" can be a hermit.

Also read: Demonetisation survey fake, sponsored; dare Modi to call election to know real mood: Mayawati

The BSP supremo today said that the note ban decision has caused so much hardship to the people that they will not only vote against BJP, but ensure that the party is relegated to the fourth spot in the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. "It is a travesty that people are being made to run from pillar to post to withdraw their own money," she said, accusing Modi of adopting a "dictatorial attitude".

Also read: Modi government's demonetisation decision hasty, has triggered chaos across the country: Mayawati

Asserting that BSP was not against black money and corruption, Mayawati said her objection was to lack of proper planning before demonetisation.

Cautioning people against designs of BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mayawati alleged that the saffron party together with RSS was trying to divide society on lines of Hindutva as they did not have faith in the secular Constitution framed by Ambedkar.

Also read: Uttar Pradesh will not vote for Modi after demonetisation: Mayawati

Also read: NOTES-MAYAWATI 2 LAST

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Bolivia has become the latest country to kick the Rothschild banks out of their country, with President Evo Morales announcing that Bolivia will no longer respond to pressure or financial blackmail from the US government or Rothschild-controlled international banking institutions.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and US-dominated World Bank have been major players in the global economic landscape ever since their creation in 1944. These international banking organizations, which are privately controlled by the notorious Rothschild banking family, first pressure nations to deregulate their financial sector, allowing private banks to loot their economies.Once the governments are forced to bail-out their deregulated financial sector, the IMF or World Bank sets up a loan package written in secret by central bankers and finance ministers that undermine their national sovereignty and force them to adopt policies of austerity that harm workers, families, and the environment.Bolivia have become the first South American country to grow wise to the ruse. They have worked hard to gain financial independence and are now in the process of kicking the Rothschild controlled banks out of their country.Before Evo Morales assumed the office of president, Bolivia was suffering from the effects of IMF/World Bank-imposed austerity and privatization that exploited its people and resources. It was also South America's poorest nation. Though the Bolivian people, through strong showings of popular resistance over a period of years, were able to stop some of the worst privatization efforts  particularly the privatization of the nation's water supply, many of the shackles imposed by these Rothschild-controlled institutions remained.Morales, who became Bolivia's 80th president in 2006, was the first president to come from Bolivia's majority indigenous Aymara population and has since focused on poverty reduction and combating the influence of the United States and multinational corporations in Bolivia. Ten years later, Morales, a Democratic socialist, has managed to transform Bolivia into the fastest growing South American economy all while maintaining a balanced budget and slashing its once-crippling government debt.Bolivia's newfound economic independence has now empowered Morales to reject the very same institutions that once preyed upon his country. Just a few weeks ago, Morales announced that Bolivia will no longer respond to the demands or blackmail of the United States, the World Bank, or the IMF.During a visit to Tarija in Southern Bolivia, Morales saidMorales praised social movements and the people's unity for the country's ability to resist and reject privatization and foreign influence.However, Bolivia has done much more under Morales' leadership than ban international banking cartels from operating within it borders. Bolivia has kicked out numerous multi-corporations since Morales took office, including McDonalds and Coca Cola, while also refusing to cooperate with the US' disastrous War on Drugs.It is also devotes 14% of its national budget to education, the second most of any country in South America. In contrast, only 1.7% of the national budget goes to education in the US. Morales also forced foreign oil and gas companies to pay an astounding 82% of its profits to the Bolivian government, which is used to fund a variety of popular social programs benefiting the poor. Poverty in Bolivia has dropped significantly as a result. Bolivia's transformation under Morales proves that any nation, no matter how impoverished, can throw off the shackles imposed by international bankers and return the power to the people.
By India Today Web Desk: President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, several Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, MPs and leaders of several political parties, including DMK paid rich tributes to J Jayalalithaa who breathed her last late on Monday night.

PRESIDENT PRANAB MUKHERJEE

I am deeply sad on the demise of Jayalalithaa ji. She first entered into Rajya Sabha in early 80s. She had wonderful mastery over facts and theories. I had interacted with her on many occasions. She was a fighter and till the last moment, she fought against the cruelty of disease and suffering. However, she lost the last battle. I pay my respectful homage to her.

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VICE PRESIDENT HAMID ANSARI

Jayalalithaa's demise is an irreparable loss to the people of India.

PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI

Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics. Jayalalithaa ji's connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women and the marginalised will always be a source of inspiration.

BJP PRESIDENT AMIT SHAH

Saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa ji. I extend my deepest condolences to her party and followers in this hour of grief.

LOK SABHA SPEAKER SUMITRA MAHAJAN

J Jayalalithaa ji was not only strong but also a good administrator. It is a big setback for politics. Not just Tamil Nadu but entire nation mourns the demise of Jayalalithaa ji. She was a very good administrator.

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTER SUSHMA SWARAJ

It is tragic. It is painful. She was a woman of dignity and self-respect. We shared a warm personal relationship.

HOME MINISTER RAJNATH SINGH

She was an icon in Indian politics. I condole the bereaved. This is a huge loss, especially to Tamil Nadu politics.

FINANCE MINISTER ARUN JAITLEY

Saddened by the untimely passing away of J Jayalalithaa ji, an exceptional leader and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu, may God bless the noble soul and give strength to bear the irreparable loss.

ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS MINISTER NITIN GADKARI

Loss for country and Tamil Nadu politics. I believe Jayalalithaa's party will definitely follow the path that she has shown.

INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING MINISTER VENKAIAH NAIDU

Felt very sad about the demise of Madam Selvi Jayalalitha. I had hopes (of her recovery) till the last movement. The doctors made every possible attempt. Her demise is a big loss to country. She was an able administrator who had conviction and courage. I appeal to Tamil Nadu people to maintain calm and peace. See, tributes are paid in a dignified manner. That is a fitting tribute we can pay to departing leader.

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MINORITIES AFFAIRS MINISTER MA NAQVI

She was a very dynamic and committed leader. Her life was committed to the poor and downtrodden of Tamil Nadu and her loss cannot be compensated.

HRD MINISTER PRAKASH JAVADEKAR

People are saddened due to Jayalalithaa's demise. She created brand 'Amma politics'. She connected with the poor. She was connected directly to the people. She was a fighter. Her death is a loss for all.

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY MINISTER NIRMALA SITHARAMAN

Sad to hear that CM of Tamil Nadu Selvi Jayalalitha is no more. Her life's journey is a story of grit and perseverance.

CIVIL AVIATION MINISTER ASHOK GAJAPATHI RAJU

Jayalalithaa will be fondly remembered for the way she encouraged and empowered women. She was a multi-lingual person. She was a charming person. Her death is a huge loss for the nation. We should take her work forward.

STATISTICS AND PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION MINISTER SADANANDA GOWDA

She was one of the tallest leaders of our country. She was elected five times as Tamil Nadu CM. During her tenure, law and order was well maintained. She was a tough woman. All followed her orders without delay. She fought for the people of Tamil Nadu and stood by them always. She met the people's expectation. This is a great loss. It is not possible to find someone who can match her level. She was in hospital for more than 70 days. The people prayed for her recovery. The people of Tamil Nadu think that they have lost their God. I think there will not be any law and order problem. Of course, there were some small incidents.

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MOS SS AHLUWALIA

I had heard and read a lot about her during our university days and also seen her movies. When I came to Rajya Sabha in 1986, she was there and sitting in the front row. As far as I remember she sat in the same seat where I sat as deputy leader of opposition. She was very articulate and a dynamic person. Then I remember when AIADMK lost badly, I believe she was the lone member and she was humiliated. Later on she was put behind bars. After hearing that, I was in tears. She was the darling of the oppressed and the depressed people. The poor people have lost their messiah. It is a big void which is difficult to fill.

MOS HANSRAJ AHIR

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She was very popular. She rose to popularity after hard work and struggle.

LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN RAJYA SABHA GHULAM NABI AZAD

India has lost one of its shining stars. Jayalalithaa ji made her mark both as an artist and a politician. I'm feeling deeply sad at her demise.

CONGRESS MP P CHIDAMBARAM

Jayalalithaa was the most dominant political personality of Tamil Nadu in last 25 years. I share the grief of millions. She acquired a large loyal following that equaled that of her mentor MGR. She brought a hard uncompromising style to politics and governance that won praise and criticism.

CONGRESS MP SHASHI THAROOR

She was an iconic figure. There is no question about it. She combined the charisma of hugely popular movies star with authority in politics. She dominated the man's world. We saw cabinet ministers prostrating in front of her. She was quite imperious as a leader with an unquestionable authority. We saw a cult in her. Amma canteen and Amma laptops gave her an amazing hold over people. I would say she was altogether a colossus on the Tamil Nadu stage. The party is completely identified with the leader here in Parliament. The members carry her photo in their pocket. They don't ask a question without reference to Amma. She filled shoes of a charismatic leader of MGR. But not only did she fill them she appears to have exceeded them. Both nature and politics, it has led to a vacuum which people will be looking to fill, not only in AIADMK but also other parties.

This is complicated and interesting times for those who follow Tamil Nadu politics. Holding the party together is the first challenge. O Panneerselvam will continue as chief minister, Thambidurai will be general secretary. So we have to see whether they work together. Tamil Nadu is a progressive state now. The question is how to guide the state forward.

JDU MP SHARAD YADAV

In her passing away, the nation, especially the people of Tamil Nadu have lost a great leader and a human being. I convey my deep condolences.

BJP MP SHATRUGHAN SINHA

I am deeply saddened by Amma's demise. She had a knack for always making state-centre relationship work in favour of Tamil Nadu. My heartfelt condolences.

CPM MP MOHD SALEEM

This is a very sad news. I am expressing my and my party's condolence on her demise. Hope the situation remains in control in Tamil Nadu.

KARNATAKA CM SIDDARAMAIAH

J Jayalalithaa's demise is a huge loss. I am going to Chennai to attend her last rites ceremony.

BIHAR CM NITISH KUMAR

It is unfortunate. It is a loss not only for Tamil Nadu politics but also for rest of the country. All of Bihar is in mourning today.

UTTAR PRADESH CM AKHILESH YADAV

The country as a whole will miss the charismatic leadership of J Jayalalithaa. Her schemes for the poor will continue to inspire governance.

DELHI CM ARVIND KEJRIWAL

Very sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. May her soul rest in peace.

RAJASTHAN CM VASUNDHARA RAJE

My heartfelt condolences and thoughts are with the bereaved family and followers. She shall be eternally cherished for her service to the people.

GUJARAT CM VIJAY RUPANI

Deeply saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa ji. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief.

ANDHRA PRADESH CM N CHANDRABABU NAIDU

In deep anguish over the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa. She was a long-time friend and a leader with indomitable spirit who was loved by all.

MADHYA PRADESH CM SHIVRAJ SINGH CHOUHAN

Jayalalithaa was a great leader. She changed the lives of people in Tamil Nadu with welfare schemes which is why she was called 'Amma'.

WEST BENGAL CM MAMATA BANERJEE

Just got details about funeral timings of dear Amma Jayalalitha. Was very eager to be present but flight availability/timings from Kolkata not making it possible. Sending our two MPs Derek O Brien and Kalyan from Delhi on my behalf.

ODISHA CM NAVEEN PATNAIK

I am deeply shocked at the passing away of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Selvi J Jayalalithaa. She was a leader of the masses and had made immense contribution to the development and welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu. She enjoyed a huge mandate and was known for her administrative caliber and political sagacity. She was the iron lady of Tamil Nadu who successfully steered the state on the path of progress and prosperity. Her benevolent measures endeared her to one and all. The people of Tamil Nadu affectionately referred her as Amma. Her death is a great national loss. The people of Odisha stand in solidarity with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief and bereavement. I pray that her soul may rest in peace.

ASSAM CM SARBANANDA SONOWAL

Deeply saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa ji. India has lost one of its tallest leaders. May her soul rest in eternal peace.

HIMACHAL PRADESH CM VIRBHADRA SINGH

Deeply saddened by the untimely demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa. She has left a huge void in Dravidian politics. May her soul rest in peace.

TELANGANA CM K CHANDRASHEKAR RAO

I offer my deep condolences on the demise of "Tamil Nadu CM 'Puratchi Thalaivi' Kum Jayalalithaa". Her political journey was a courageous one. Her demise is a deep loss to the Tamil society.

DMK PRESIDENT M KARUNANIDHI

I offer my deep condolences on the passing away of Jayalalithaa. Wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal.

LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN TAMIL NADU ASSEMBLY MK STALIN

Deeply saddened by the demise of our CM Selvi Jayalalithaa. My deepest condolences to the party cadres and well wishers in this hour of grief. She was an iconic and courageous leader. This is an irreparable loss to the people of Tamil Nadu. She was an iron lady.

US AMBASSADOR TO INDIA RICHARD R VERMA

On behalf of the United States, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu following her passing yesterday. Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu during this time of sorrow.

TAMIL NADU GOVERNOR C VIDYASAGAR RAO

I am deeply shocked and grieved to hear about the sad demise of Selvi J Jayalalithaa, the charismatic leader and the people's Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. She stood as a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for her sagacity and sharp intellect. Affectionately called as 'Amma', she was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled with indefatigable spirit. She was known for her noble qualities and sacrificed her life for the cause of the poor and downtrodden. Jayalalithaa struggled for more than two months in the hospital and fought the death valiantly with her indomitable will power. It is sad that the clutches of death have snatched away the life of the leader of masses. I fondly remember the day she received me at the Chennai Airport when I came to assume office as the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Her affectionate gesture and kind words are still afresh in my memory. Her passing away has caused an irreparable loss to the nation in general and to Tamil Nadu in particular. I express my sincere condolences from the bottom of my heart to the people of Tamil Nadu and pray to God to rest her soul in peace.

DELHI L-G NAJEEB JUNG

She was one of the greatest political leaders of contemporary India and was a source of inspiration to many. In her sad demise, India has lost a unique leader, who touched the lives of millions of people. She was an extraordinary politician with exceptional administrative skills and immense following, which made her a distinct leader in Indian politics. I pray for her departed soul. May she rest in peace. May God give strength to all her well-wishers to bear this loss with forbearance and fortitude. I join the people of India and Tamil Nadu in mourning her passing away.

RJD CHIEF LALU YADAV

Jayalalithaa's death is a person loss. She battled for life. She was a courageous woman. I shared a good relation with her. This is a loss for the nation. She was a pro-poor, popular, bold, strong and result oriented leader of country. She will be missed. May her soul rest in peace.

LAW MINISTER RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD

It is a great loss to the country. She was an iconic figure and a great human being. I had the privilege to know her rather well. The relationship started when I was the Information and Broadcasting Minister. First of all, she was a profound human being and she cared for the state.

To give you two instances - we had a Chetna Yatra in 2010 with LK Advani ji through Tamil Nadu. I was there with Ananth Kumar through the entire yatra. A report came that there was a suspicious object under culvert. We had to wait and she was gracious enough to ring and say that if anything would have happened to Advani ji I would have been very embarrassed.

I was also her lawyer in a couple of cases in Madras High Court and Supreme Court. Once I asked her did you think of becoming a lawyer? She said I would have loved to but family persuasion led me to be an actor.

FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES MINISTER HARSIMRAT KAUR BADAL

It is a sad moment. The nation has lost a great leader. The schemes she launched in Tamil Nadu are great and successful.

SAMAJWADI PARTY MP AMAR SIGNH

Jayalalithaa and I had decided to fight against BJP and Congress. She believed in numerology also. She never believed on anyone easily. She had requested Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav to become the PM.

CONGRESS LEADER MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

Jayalalithaa was always 'number one'. She did not know the second place whether it was studies, sports or other activities. She was put into films by her mother at an early age, but since she did not know second place, she excelled there also. She became the leading cine actress of the Tamil silver screen. Once she decided to leave the film world, she never turned back. She was a dedicated and able leader, even though she was discouraged. She wanted to become PM.

She was determined to fill MGR shoes even though MGR's wife was appointed to be his successor and she managed to be the leader of AIADMK within a year or so. She was their unchallenged leader. Defeat made her strive harder. When you hit the bottom is when your trek to the top begins. Her followers will always keep her in their memory and hearts. She had earlier also kept Panneerselvam as interim CM. He is well trained for it. However, the question mark is Sasikala. She can become powerful if she wants to. She might jump into the fray now or step aside for a while. However, she will inherit the powerful political legacy.BJP MP PARESH RAWAL

She was among the very rare leaders. It's a very sad news.

BJD MP AND ACTOR ANUBHAV MOHANTY

I salute her. It's an irreparable national loss. She was the iron lady of Tamil Nadu. She worked a lot for the welfare of the people. May her soul rest in peace.

MAHARASHTRA CM DEVENDRA FADNAVIS

She was one of the most respected leaders in the Tamil Nadu politics who earned the affectionate title of 'Amma' on account of her deep concern for the people. She had maintained cordial relations with all political parties.

JAMMU AND KASHMIR CM MEHBOOBA MUFTI

Jayalalithaa was a people's CM. She was learned and compassionate, godmother for her people. I offer my condolences.

DMK MP TKS ELANGOVAN

Enmity with her was political but her demise is a huge loss to the people of Tamil Nadu. She was bold. She respected the people from other parties who had capacity or intellectual. She was a great fighter. After Indira Gandhi, she was a lady who could capture the mind of entire country. Can't compare Jayalalithaa with Panneerselvam. As party they have selected him and they have numbers to run the government for the next five years. A vacuum has been created in AIADMK. I don't know how far it is going to be filled up.

DMK MP BHARATHI

Parneerselvam is one among the leaders of the party and there are leaders senior to him in AIADMK and the government. That may pose a problem before him. Jayalalithaa had full control over the party. Whether Panneerselvam will have same footing, will have to be seen.

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Avery Dennison Corporation in the USA has signed a wind power purchase agreement (PPA) with Apex Clean Energy to offset 50 percent of the companys U.S.-based greenhouse gas emissions derived from electricity consumption, signaling a commitment by Avery Dennison to renewable energy and energy efficient practices and technology.



Under the agreement with Apexs Perryton Wind, a 299.91 MW wind energy project to be located in Ochiltree County, Texas, Avery Dennison will purchase 20 MW of renewable energy capacity. The PPA is a key component of Avery Dennisons 2025 sustainability goal to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by at least three percent annually, and by at least 26 percent overall, between 2015 and 2025, made as part of the companys new participation in WWFs Climate Savers Program. Perryton will be Apexs fifth Texas wind farm, powering the equivalent of 108,000 U.S. homes. The facility will consist of 130 Siemens 2.307 MW turbines.

According to Roland Simon, vice president of global procurement and global sustainability leader at Avery Dennison, the partnership with Apex is one of the ways Avery Dennison continues to create shared value for the company, the industry and communities worldwide. He noted that the PPA will provide clean, renewable electricity equal to 50% of the power consumed by Avery Dennison's U.S. operations.

Its important for us to optimise renewable energy sources in a way that ripples outward to create change that encompasses far more than our own business, said Simon.

Apex, an independent energy solutions provider, was awarded a 2016 Green Power Leadership Award by the Center for Resource Solutions in October for its leadership in bringing wind capacity to market and its expansion of direct purchasing of clean energy by the public and private sectors.

We leverage the depth and breadth of our national pipeline of projects and we are committed to tailoring solutions that meet the specific goals of our corporate, utility and public sector partners, from a facility purchase to a structured PPA, explained Steve Vavrik, Apexs chief commercial officer. The commitment to long-term renewable energy purchasing by companies such as Avery Dennison is providing a strong drive in the market to bring more clean energy to the grid, Vavrik added.

Avery Dennisons investment in renewable wind power demonstrates its continued focus on energy efficiency and energy reduction. The agreement with Apex comes on the heels of Avery Dennison joining WWFs Climate Savers Program, a global group of partner companies engaged in the transition to a climate-friendly economy.

Additional goals set with WWF include covering the equivalent of 100 percent of electricity consumption at Avery Dennisons U.S. operations with renewable energy by 2025 and addressing climate change through other areas of operations, such as maximizing use of paper made with recycled or certified wood fiber (sourcing only from certified sources by 2025).

We recognise Avery Dennison for its strong leadership in sourcing more renewable energy to help achieve the companys emission reduction target, said Matt Banks, climate and business manager at WWF. As our newest Climate Savers partner and as a signatory of the Renewable Energy Buyers Principles, Avery Dennison has called for increased access to cost-effective renewable energy that will lead to measurable reductions in its greenhouse gas emissions while demonstrating to other companies the business and environmental value of scaling up to achieve a 2025 target.

Working in partnership with WWF is part of our commitment to sustain a thriving business that is a force for goodone that generates value, in every respect, for all involved, said Simon.

Avery Dennison

www.averydennison.com
By Moeena Halim: There's a moment during my meal with Chef Ranveer Brar at his newly launched Mumbai restaurant GourmART that I forget I'm being served only vegetarian food.

One bite into Brar's take on the Afghan Mantu and I don't care that it isn't filled with the traditional beef or lamb. The paneer-stuffed dumplings topped with deliciously tart tomato braised lentils and smoked yoghurt remains one of the standouts of the meal, wonderfully exciting for its unpredictability and the chef's trickery.

Pistachio-Mascarpone-Sourcherry-Burnt Miso. Photo: GourmART

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The Afghan Mantu, something Brar discovered during his journey through Australia at a small Afghan restaurant in Adelaide, has an interesting lineage. Fascinated by the delicious dumplings, Brar found that various versions of the dish could be traced from Mongolia to Korea in the Far East and Turkey in the west. "In Turkey, they're still extremely popular as tiny dumplings called manti," he reveals. At his Lower Parel restaurant, there's little he's done to change the way the Afghans serve the dish except for vegetarianising it.

Also read: Chef Ranveer Brar's new show is being telecast on Twitter. Yes, Twitter!

GourmART is a 50-seater, small-plates-only vegetarian gourmet restaurant on the second floor of The Amateur Gallery (TAG), India's first art gallery dedicated to showcasing the curated works of chosen amateurs. The pretty plates Brar and his team send out from the open kitchen could well be admired as pieces of art. Gorgeous red thinly sliced Watermelon Sashimi sit on a bed of yam guacamole, dressed with what the chef calls an "umami glaze", a sprinkling of sesame seeds and a dollop of ginger lemon ice. If you were to go by the look of it, it would be tempting to brush this dish aside as a cheap imitation of its tuna sibling. Please don't. The sous vide watermelon slices are deliciously refreshing with the onion and cilantro packed yam guacamole.

Wasabi Edamame Hummus, with sweet Pea's, Seasonal beans, red raddish, flax seed's and toasted Khakra. Photo: GourmART

The Konyakkuyaki, a Japanese street food, has a south Indian idiyapam twist with the juliennes of nori seaweed accompanied by julienned curry leaves. The flavours are all so familiar, but the combinations unpredictable. One of the most charming things about the food for me was that the focus is on flavours and ingredients rather than a particular cuisine or a forced idea of fusion. Brar calls this progressive cuisine.

While their experiments work in most cases, not all are hits. The Wasabi Edamame Hummus is completely overshadowed by the masaledaar khakras it is served with. Never a big fan of bubble tea, the raita it inspired didn't work for me, although the Palm Heart Biryani it is served with deserves a hat tip. Lucknow-born Brar is certainly as proud of the Biryani as he is of the Mushroom Gilawat-his favourite on the menu.

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By India Today Web Desk: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK's undisputed leader J Jayalalithaa passed away in Chennai's Apollo Hospital late on Monday night. She was 68.

While the entire nation is saddened by the demise of Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, an interesting trivia about Jayalalithaa has surfaced online.

ALSO READ: Kollywood & Mollywood mourns Jayalalithaa's death

ALSO READ: From Ammu to Amma, films that will keep Jaya alive. Forever.

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Going by report, Jayalalithaa was supposed to star opposite superstar Rajinikanth in the latter's Billa (1980). Amma was offered an important role in Billa, which is the Tamil remake of the Hindi film Don.

Jayalalithaa's letter on Billa

However, actor Sri Priya grabbed the offer after Jayalalithaa turned down the role.

Jayalalithaa's letter on Billa Jayalalithaa's letter on Billa

Thalaivar Rajinikanth took to Twitter and condoled the sad demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Puratchi Thalaivi J Jayalalithaa. He wrote, "Not just Tamil Nadu, but the entire nation is saddened by Jayalalithaa's death. May our Honourable Chief Minister's soul rest in peace."

WATCH HERE: Jayalalithaa passes away, Apollo confirms

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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 05/12/2016 (2158 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local developer is ramping up its campaign to save a proposed Crescentwood condominium project and to get the city to adopt binding guidelines for future infill developments in mature neighbourhoods.

The campaign by Winnipegs Ventura Developments Inc. and its supporters includes a full-page newspaper ad in Saturdays Free Press, two letters to the editor from individual supporters of Venturas McMillan House project, a guest column by Ventura vice-president Tim Comack in Mondays paper, and Comack appearing before a city committee, also on Monday.

Next up is Comack attending Wednesdays executive policy committee meeting  the next step in Venturas appeal process  and city councils Dec. 14 meeting, where its final appeal is expected to be heard.

Supplied An artists rendering of the proposed condo development at the corner of Harrow Street and McMillan Avenue. The developer says its time for the city to grab the bull by the horns.

A spokesman for the grassroots group that ran the newspaper ad  the Winnipeg Infill Network  said it may also make a submission at next weeks council meeting.

I would say that it is a possibility, Adam Dooley said in an interview Monday.

Dooley is president of Dooley Communications Inc., a local public relations firm whose clients include Ventura Developments. He said the newly formed network is made up of representatives of the local development and business communities who are upset with the handling of the Ventura project and who want to see some binding guidelines established for future infill projects.

The newspaper ad said Winnipeg needs more infill development, and called on the city to adopt infill guidelines that were drafted in 2011 by the citys planning department but never enacted by city council.

Comacks column outlined Venturas argument for why its 12-unit McMillan House project at the corner of Harrow Street and McMillan Avenue should not have been rejected last month by the city centre community committee. He noted the citys urban planning division concluded the project complied with the strategies set out in the long-term development plan, Our Winnipeg, and recommended it be allowed.

He also called on city council to enact the 2011 draft guidelines to eliminate the kind of uncertainty thats embedded in the existing approval process, which he said allows for a ward councillor to essentially veto a project he or she doesnt like.

Ventura Developments Tim Comack

The three-member city centre community committee rejected the Ventura project after ward councillor and committee-member John Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry) and three area residents argued the condo complex was too big and could lead to a rash of other multi-family developments in the predominantly single-family neighbourhood.

Comack said the story isnt just about the validity of Venturas project, but about the need for the city to grab the bull by the horns and embrace densification, urbanism, and upward development, as well as the vision of Our Winnipeg.

Dooley agreed some binding guidelines are long overdue.

I think its time that city council move forward and make the rules clear not just for developers but private individuals who want to develop properties and deserve to know what the rules are.

He said he wasnt authorized to disclose the names of the networks members. He said while the handling of the Ventura project is what triggered the groups formation, its broader goal is to push for the creation of an infill-development strategy thats in the best interests of the city as a whole.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Ventura Developments Inc. is fighting to build a 12-unit condo in Crescentwood.

It seems to me there is a broad level of support (for more infill development) among the business community and the politicians, yet for some reason its still not going forward. And this is what we have to get sorted out, said Dooley.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) valued at Rs 43.83 crore were seized from various parts of the country in 2015 and such notes worth Rs 27.79 crore were also recovered till September this year, Lok Sabha was informed today.

Of the total seized counterfeit notes in 2015, the highest worth Rs 9.65 crore were recovered in Delhi, followed by Rs 7.30 crore in Maharashtra, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said replying to a written question.

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FICN worth Rs 4.54 crore were recovered in Uttar Pradesh, while such notes worth Rs 3.84 crore and Rs 2.76 crore were seized in Gujarat and Karnataka, respectively in 2015.

FICN worth Rs 2.59 crore were recovered in Tamil Nadu, those worth Rs 2.18 crore seized in Andhra Pradesh and counterfeit notes worth Rs 1.92 crore were recovered in West Bengal last year.

Security agencies also recovered counterfeit notes worth Rs 27.79 crore in different parts of the country till September, 2016 of which FICN worth Rs 7.59 crore were seized in Delhi, those worth Rs 3.34 crore recovered in Maharashtra and FICN worth Rs 2.91 crore seized in Gujarat. PTI ACB SAI

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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 05/12/2016 (2158 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The warmest November on record for the majority of Manitoba has kept Lake Winnipeg fishers off the lake in December for the first time in at least 55 years.

Ivan Grimolfson has spent 50 years as a fisher on the lake, focused in the Hecla area, and told the Free Press never in his career has the lake not frozen over by December.

Were usually on the water by the middle of November and I have never seen it (the lake) open like this on Dec. 1, Grimolfson told the Free Press last week.

JESSICA BURTNICK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES In a normal year, ice fishers would already be drilling holes on Lake Winnipeg.

Everything is changing.

The fishing season ends at the beginning of November and under provincial law, fish cannot be caught unless they come from the under the ice. Grimolfson said he is hopeful the coming cold snap will freeze the lake soon, giving fishers a chance to make up the time lost.

In Winnipeg, Novembers average temperature was 3.2 C. Normal average temperatures for November range from -8.5 C to -1.3 C. Before this year, the last time November was nearly this warm was in 1899 when the average temperature was 1.3 C. In and around the Gimli area, the average temperature was 2.9 C  giving fishers no choice but to dock their boats until the water freezes over.

University of Winnipeg biologist Eva Pipp has been studying Lake Winnipeg since 1961 and said she has never seen the lake remain unfrozen this late in the year. She fears this will become the new norm in Manitoba.

Normally we would have already seen it freeze in mid-November, she said. There were some years that it would be even earlier than that this is generally what we are seeing with climate change, this is probably going to be a trend.

The late freeze is a both good and bad for the health of Lake Winnipeg, she explained. On one hand, the longer the lake is not frozen, the more time organisms in the lake can feed off the nutrients and oxygen in the lake.

So the later that is freezes, the better it is for all the things that live in there, she said.

On the flipside, warm temperatures are also the perfect breeding ground for invasive species such as zebra mussels and their more dangerous cousin, quagga mussels

There are pluses and minuses, when you have this moderating of conditions that they become less extreme, you also have the capability for invasive species. It makes it easier for them, she said. They have usually come from places that are warmer than here, which is why a lot of them havent been able to get a good foothold. Once the conditions become more optimal for them, that allows them to take over the ecosystem.

Lake Winnipeg isnt the only lake suffering from a late freeze. On Sunday, the body of a Nelson House teacher David MacDonald was found after he left on a snowmobile to a nearby cabin on Thursday. Nelson House RCMP said on Sunday that a preliminary investigation determined MacDonald broke through the ice on his snowmobile.

Nelson House Chief Marcel Moody told the Free Press the ice was unusually thin this year and at some spots was less than five centimetres thick. Nelson House is about 850 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

There are over 2,200 kilometres of winter roads in the province that rely on cold temperatures and frozen lakes in order to be constructed each year. Provincial officials say the warmer-than-average temperatures have delayed their normal progress on winter road development by seven to 10 days

Officials with the provinces Infrastructure Department said they cannot predict when temperatures will allow for lakes around Manitoba to freeze.

Lake freezing depends on the size, depth and location of the lake, sustained freezing temperatures and wind/wave action. It is difficult to predict, said a provincial spokesman in a prepared statement. At this time of year and until an extended period of cold weather, people should be cautious around lakes and rivers.

Environment Canada meteorologist Natalie Hasell said the cold snap heading across Manitoba  which will see temperatures hover between -15 C and -20 C across southern Manitoba for the next couple weeks  could help freeze Lake Winnipeg and other lakes.

It is going to take a while, (but) we do have much cooler temperatures coming, Hasell said.

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @kristinannable
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Moe Lerners career in medical research helped develop the technology paramedics use to bring people back to life, but he says all anyone talks about is how fat he is.

How much do I weigh: Its the first and last question anyone ever asks, says the Winnipeg doctor, rolling his eyes.

Lerner is what physicians call morbidly obese, although he wasnt always this way. He has a genetic predisposition to obesity, which he says, crept up on him slowly, despite his vast knowledge about physical health.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dr. Moe Lerner is speaking out on weight discrimination after Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard reintroduced a private members bill for it to be included under the human rights code.

Now he is unable to easily leave his hospital bed, which is twice the width of typical hospital beds.

Lerner will not elaborate on the details of his obesity. His public career in medicine has left him resentful of attention his size generates.

Its morbid curiosity, says Lerner. Just tell them Im the biggest doctor youve ever seen or something.

Lerner says ignorance about obesity is why Manitoba should adopt Liberal MLA Jon Gerrards private members bill to have weight discrimination forbidden under the human rights code. He wants peoples size to stop taking precedence over their careers, their conversations and their human rights.

I expect things will change once people realize that they can no longer dismiss large people as ignoramuses, says Lerner, who is the director of Four Rivers Medical Clinic. Fatness is not a lifestyle choice.

Gerrards bill has been gaining support online. Supporters rallied last week on the steps of the Manitoba legislature. Everybody deserves respect, read signs in the crowd.

Speakers at the rally talked about the ways obesity has prevented people from getting jobs and promotions, boarding airplanes and receiving proper medical care.

Lerner says he considers obese people one of the few demographics against which open discrimination is still allowed.

Weve seen the evils of sexism and racism and LGBTQ issues. Weve started considering peoples rights, said Lerner.

The last socially acceptable prejudice that no one has addressed is the one against fat people.

A 2016 Senate report on Canadas obesity crisis estimated almost two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are obese or overweight. Lerner says large people are a silent majority, and they often avoid the health-care system for fear of judgment and mistreatment.

But the Senate report did not delve into stigma and bias faced by large people.

Deborah McPhail, an assistant professor in community health science at the University of Manitoba, says the Senates failure to mention stigma in the report was irresponsible.

We talk a lot about there being an epidemic around obesity and these people are then seen as a drain on the health-care system, says McPhail.

She says the effects of these stigmas are especially hard on women, because cultural expectations suggest men can  and should  be larger than women.

We have stricter ideas of what womens bodies should be, she said. There are a lot more advertisements for ways that women can change their bodies than there are for men.

In his nearly four decades as a teaching doctor, Lerner was the director of many hospital clinical departments, including emergency and ambulance. He helped develop long-standing policies and systems for the provincial and regional health authorities.

He also became an advocate for rights for large people. Lerner has given academic lectures throughout North America about the stigmatization of obesity.

As a doctor, I would be remiss if I said it was healthy to be fat, says Lerner. But sometimes, its even more unhealthy to force a person to be what they cannot be.

He says he is optimistic that if Gerrards bill is passed, large people will start to see change.

I expect that health-care professionals who do bad things to large people will be taken to task, he said.

Youve heard the expression, big, fat, stupid and ugly. I expect that will change. I expect to be able to call a spade a spade and say, Hey, youre offending me.

Lerner believes he best communicated his message in a video he posted on his blog in 2012.

This large physician is telling you: You are not inferior, said Lerner, addressing other overweight people in the 10-minute video. You are not alone. You are loved. You can be somebody.

Although the government rarely passes bills from Opposition party members, Manitobas Progressive Conservative government has said it will take Gerrards bill under consideration.

rebecca.dahl@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @rebeccadaahl
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The good news? Canadian kids are among the best students in the world.

The bad news? Manitoba students are among the worst in Canada.

On Tuesday, a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Developments Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) delivered another blow to Manitobas education system.

Zachary Prong / Winnipeg Free Press Files When it comes to math, Manitoba students only score better than those in two other provinces.

Conducted every three years, PISA tested 540,000 randomly selected kids aged 15 in 72 industrialized countries and city-states in science, reading and math. Manitobas children ranked eighth in math in Canada, and ninth in both reading and science, rankings that were near identical to 2013 and 2010 results. Manitoba, however, is above the OECD average in reading and science and just below in math, while remaining ahead of several major countries.

Despite the provinces struggles, some extraordinary things in education have been happening elsewhere in Canada.

British Columbias children are the worlds best readers. Albertas children are second in science globally, followed by B.C. at third and Quebec in fifth. Singapore was first and Japan fourth.

In math, Quebec kids are third globally. Among countries, Canada is No. 1 in reading, fourth in science and sixth in math.

In science, Manitobas score of 499 surpassed only Saskatchewans 496  Alberta was at 541, B.C. 539 and Quebec 537.

In reading, Manitobas 498 topped Saskatchewan by two, and was far behind B.C.s score of 536.

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In math, the subject at which the then NDP government threw the most attention and resources since Manitobas performance went downhill, Manitobas score of 489 edged out Newfoundland and Labradors 486 and Saskatchewans 484  Quebec scored 544.

When the OECD applied socioeconomic factors to the science performances, Manitobas children in the lowest quarter were last in Canada at 466, while those in the highest socioeconomic quarter moved up to seventh nationally at 533.

Two things have been clear throughout the testings history: Manitoba has a higher proportion of kids performing at the lowest level than the rest of Canada, and a smaller percentage achieving at the highest level.

Globally, though, Canada excelled this time around.

Only in Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong (China), Japan, Macao (China) and Singapore do at least four out of five 15-year-old students master the baseline level of proficiency in science, reading and mathematics," said Angel Gurria, OECD secretary-general.

"Japan, Estonia, Finland and Canada are the four highest-performing OECD countries," said the OECD.

When it comes to providing equity for the lowest socioeconomic families, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Hong Kong (China) and Macao (China) achieve high levels of performance and equity in education outcomes, Gurria said.

"The data also show that the world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated nations and poor and badly educated ones: the 10 per cent most disadvantaged students in Vietnam compare favourably to the average student in the OECD area. Clearly, all countries and economies have excellent students, but few have enabled all students to excel, Gurria said.

Despite vows from former NDP education ministers to reverse the performance trend, Manitoba still lags behind other provinces. Since 2010, Manitoba has been either eighth or ninth in the three subjects.

After the PISA results were released in 2013, James Allum said capping of the youngest class sizes should help, as should changes to the math curriculum  requiring children to learn basic arithmetic and times tables before getting near a calculator.

"Were going to get back to focusing on fundamentals," Allum said. "We need to make sure our kids are having productive days every day.

The Tories in opposition accused the NDP of throwing billions of dollars at public education without seeing all the provincial kids achieve success, something OECD also commented on in its report.

"Several countries have increased expenditures over the past decade without seeing corresponding improvements in the quality of the learning outcomes measured by PISA," it said.

In the Nov. 21 throne speech, Premier Brian Pallister said the new Conservative government "will focus on the fundamentals of a quality education, and will embark upon the development of a comprehensive long-term literacy and numeracy strategy that will provide Manitoba children with the skills they need to succeed and prosper."

Within Canada, only 9.7 per cent of Manitoba 15-year-olds foresee a career in science and engineering, significantly below other provinces, though Manitoba girls are considerably more likely to try for a career in science than boys. Manitoba children are pretty much middle of the pack at 19.6 per cent hoping for a career in a health profession, but they were second-worst in Canada in having only a vague notion about where theyll be at age 30.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 05/12/2016 (2158 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister says the federal government should delay its planned legislation to legalize marijuana until the provinces are better prepared to deal with the legal and social implications it will have, particularly drug-impaired driving.

Pallister heads to Ottawa Friday for a first ministers meeting between the countrys premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau called the meeting to discuss his climate change plan, and requirement for every province to introduce a price on carbon, and the premiers are all hoping to put pressure on Trudeau over health care funding.

However, Pallister said for him the pending pot legislation has got to get some face time because the Liberals are plowing ahead to legalize it when there arent enough supports in place ranging from distribution plans, public education and awareness, and anti-drug driving laws.

John Carl D'Annibale / The Albany Times Union / The Associated Press Files Legalizing marijuana was an election promise by the federal Liberals in 2015.

Quite frankly I do think its too quick, he said. I am very concerned.

Legalizing marijuana was an election promise. The Liberals assigned rookie MP and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair to be their point person on the issue, and also established a task force to recommend how the government should proceed. That task force, headed by former Liberal health minister Anne McLellan, delivered its report to the government last week. The goal is to introduce legislation in the spring based on the task forces recommendations.

But Pallister said the provinces have a lot of work to do to address the legalization and he wants Ottawa to put the brakes on until things can be set up properly.

Youve got an array of issues that we should be coordinating among the provinces, he said. Were not little islands. You dont want to do what post prohibition governments did, just a hodge podge of silo-isms. We have a real opportunity and an obligation to get our people working, not at cross purposes.

Pallister said the public understanding of the issue of drug driving is simply not good enough.

I dont think a lot of people, particularly young people who I have consulted on this, have the same sense of concern about driving stoned as they do about driving drunk. That bothers me. If we put lives at risk as a consequence of not being properly prepared on this file that is a significant mistake.

In 2012, the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey found 2.5 per cent of Canadians admitted driving within two hours of using pot at least once in the previous 12 months. Those numbers are far higher among young people, and particularly among young males. Almost one in 10 Canadians who were 18 or 19 years old said they had gotten behind the wheel within two hours of smoking or ingesting marijuana.

Drug-driving arrests and accidents have increased in U.S. jurisdictions where pot was legalized in recent years.

Since 2008 the criminal code has allowed police to demand drivers suspected of drug use submit to a field sobriety test but roadside testing for drugs is still in its infancy. There is research underway on roadside saliva tests to detect for the presence of drugs, but they are not yet approved for use in Canada.

Other issues that need to be worked out include who will produce and distribute marijuana, what the legal age to use it will be, and what criminal penalties will be for those who use, grow or sell it illegally.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police Chief Danny Smyth apologized Tuesday for the words used by one of his officers during a recent news conference announcing the arrest of a suspect in the stabbing death of an indigenous woman.

Smyth said the words used at the Nov. 29 media briefing were hurtful to the family of Angela Marie Poorman, who was killed two years ago in the North End.

I would apologize specifically to the Poorman family for the insensitive way that we portrayed that particular media message, Smyth said. But what I can tell you, though, is weve begun to make changes. This was one case where the language that was used, I wasnt happy with.

FACEBOOK PHOTO Angela Poorman, 29, was found suffering from stab wounds in the area of Burrows Avenue and Charles Street early on a December morning in 2014.

During the November briefing announcing the 18-year-old suspect  already in custody on another matter  was facing a second-degree murder charge, Poorman was framed as a sex-trade worker killed during a disagreement over payment for a sex act.

Smyths apology at the Winnipeg Police Board meeting followed a presentation by two indigenous women: former police board member Leslie Spillett, the executive director of Ka Ni Kanichihk, which provides programs and services to the citys aboriginal community; and Angie Hutchison, a program co-ordinator with the not-for-profit organization.

Hutchinson said the police comments perpetuated stereotypes of indigenous women and hurt Poormans family.

The narrative the Winnipeg police choose to frame an individual sets the context for which it is delivered in the media and discussed in the public at large, she told the police board. These words disregard Poorman, first and foremost, as a fellow human being who was loved by her family and deserving of respect in both life and death, and these details had no place in the announcement of the investigation.

The 29-year-old woman was killed early Dec. 14, 2014 near Selkirk Avenue and Charles Street.

Hutchison said the handling of the news of the arrest strained relations between police and the citys indigenous community.

We call on the Winnipeg Police Board to see this use of language in the description of indigenous women and girls as a specific area to focus on in improving issues addressing the safety and security of indigenous people, she said. While the Winnipeg police have made efforts to build a stronger relationship of confidence and trust it is still a fragile relationship.

Spillett said police focused on blaming an indigenous woman rather than the arrest of a suspect.

We dont think what (Poorman) did had anything to do with her (death), Spillett told the board. When we use this language, it has an impact its victim-blaming; somehow she was responsible for her own (death) because of the situation she found herself in.

Smyth later told reporters the criticism is valid, and he was aware of the womens concerns before the board meeting.

Im not sure why we characterized it the way we did, but well be more cautious moving forward, he said.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Justice officials have dropped charges against a young woman accused of being involved in the prolonged abuse, starvation and killing of her infant sister.

Jasmine Bushie, 23, appeared in court Monday expecting the start of a preliminary hearing on charges of manslaughter and failing to provide necessities of life for her alleged role in the July 2014 death of 21-month-old Kierra Elektra Star Williams on Peguis First Nation.

As the hearing was set to begin, the Crown announced a stay of proceedings would be entered. No explanation was provided on the record.

winnipeg free press files Little information has been released about the tragic death of Kierra Elektra Star Williams.

The Crown proceeded with a preliminary hearing against two other accused. Kierras biological mother, Vanessa Bushie, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and failing to provide necessities of life. Kierras biological father, Daniel Williams, is charged with manslaughter and failing to provide necessities of life.

None of the allegations has been proven, and they are presumed innocent.

The case, which has drawn comparisons to the 2005 death of five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair at the hands of her mother and stepfather, has been shrouded in legal secrecy.

That will continue because of a court-ordered publication ban on evidence heard at the two-week preliminary hearing. A provincial court judge must decide if there is sufficient evidence for the case against the two parents to proceed to trial.

Mike Cook, the lawyer for Vanessa Bushie, told the Free Press Monday there are many key questions surrounding the tragedy.

The preliminary inquiry will examine the cause of death and whether the injuries were from accidental causes or intentional trauma, he said.

Cook said he doesnt believe the decision to drop the case against Jasmine Bushie is part of an immunity deal but is based on a review of the evidence.

Its possible the Crown or defence lawyers could subpoena Jasmine Bushie to testify, he said.

Jasmine is Vanessas daughter from an earlier relationship. She was in the house at the material time as she was a homemaker for her mom due to (her) moms poor health, Cook said.

His client sat quietly in the prisoners box throughout Mondays testimony. Williams, meanwhile, was in the public gallery because he is out on bail. He is Jasmines stepfather.

Police have released little information about Kierras death. Government officials, community leaders and those who were tasked with protecting her have remained silent.

Justice officials have told the Free Press they expect an inquiry will be called once details are made public.

That could happen years after the trial concludes and any appeals have been heard.

I should hope there would be (an inquiry). This is Phoenix Sinclair, Part 2, a source said earlier this year.

Phoenix, who had involvement with the child welfare system, suffered months of abuse by her mother and stepfather. Months passed before her death was noticed. Her case has become emblematic of a system in such turmoil it could not protect toddlers from harm by those meant to love them.

As the Free Press has reported, Intertribal Child and Family Services was involved with the family before Kierras death. The girl was returned to her birth parents months earlier, although specifics have not been shared publicly by officials.

Her mother, sister and stepdad were arrested in January 2015 after a six-month police investigation. Within hours, the province launched two separate investigations.

Some investigations are automatically launched when children die in care, including a child-abuse investigation, designed in part to determine whether an individuals name should be placed on the provincial child abuse registry, and another to assess the safety and risk to other children in the home.

The Office of the Childrens Advocate may also investigate if the child was in care or if the family had involvement with a Child and Family Services agency. The child-welfare system typically waits until a criminal investigation is done before opening its own probes. However, the results of both investigations will likely never be made public.

Government officials have confirmed Kierra had a child-welfare file but would not say what kind of services the girl received, from what agency, for how long or whether there are early indications child-protection safeguards failed.

Senior staff at CFS have told the Free Press their review found the agency generally did the right thing in Kierras case. The review recommended better training and better assessment but highlighted no systemic failures.

Unlike Phoenix, it would appear Kierras name and case barely register with most members of the public. Calls made by the Free Press in the past about her to band leaders in Peguis, social work sources and provincial staff often required an explanation of the case.

The Free Press fought to overturn a publication ban on Kierras name.

There has been little outcry from First Nations officials about Kierras death, and the board of Intertribal  or the chiefs who appoint them  has offered no explanation, assurances or accountability.

Mondays preliminary hearing began in a mostly empty courtroom, with the Free Press being the only media outlet in attendance.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its a winter wonderland out there. Or, without the rose-coloured glasses, its a major winter storm out there.

As youve noticed if you looked out your window, significant snow has fallen throughout Winnipeg and across southern Manitoba, and that snow is being blown about and drifting in north winds of 50 km/h gusting to 70 km/h.

Natalie Hasell, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said it will be difficult to measure with certainty how much snow actually ends up on the ground but 20 to 30 cm of snow is expected to accumulate in Winnipeg and surrounding area.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rayna Tolchinsky braves the snow in River Heights in Winnipeg during the winter storm Tuesday morning.

Youll have snow drifts in some places where the snow is being plastered into a building but then on the other side of the street where the snow was taken from, you probably wont have very much, she said. Whatever measurement we get will be skewed by this wind.

Environment Canada has issued a winter storm warning and says these conditions are expected to continue through Wednesday.

On roadways, visibilities are greatly reduced and on highways, near zero at times. Motorists are advised to drive with extreme caution and not to drive on highways unless absolutely necessary. There are numerous highway closures affecting major highways including the TransCanada and Highway 75.

Just stay home, advised Hasell. If you dont absolutely have to go, stay home.

She said the storm started in Winnipeg at about 2:30 a.m.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Snow piles up on Centennial Street in River Heights on Tuesday.

Another five to 10 cm (snow) is expected tonight, mostly tapering off by tonight. But theres a 60 per cent chance of snow in the forecast for tomorrow and the winds will still be strong. So whatever snow has fallen will still be picked up by it, so these blowing snow, possibly even blizzard-like conditions, are certainly expected to continue into tomorrow (Wednesday).

Handi Transit is advising its customers to cancel any non-essential trips for Tuesday by calling 204-986-5711.

Canada Post has issued a mail delivery alert, noting that mail delivery may be impeded by the weather Tuesday.

The Trans-Canada highway is closed between Headingley and Brandon. Other highway closures include Highway 2 from Highway 100 to Elm Creek and from Souris to Highway 18, Highway 3 from Highway 100 to Morden and Highway 13 from Highway 1 to Carman. For the latest highway conditions visit Manitoba 511.

Many school divisions cancelled classes Tuesday:

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A pedestrian scrambles across Portage Avenue and Edmonton Street in downtown Winnipeg. The city and southern Manitoba will have winter storm and possibly blizzard conditions for the day.

In Winnipeg, the Seven Oaks School Division is not running buses outside the Perimeter Tuesday. Those buses operating in the city may be running late.

The Seine River School Division has closed schools.

In the Lord Selkirk School Division, all schools are closed and no buses are running. Staff is not expected to report to their place of work.

All schools in Hanover School Division are closed to students and staff. Teachers are reassigned to work at home for the day.

The Prairie Rose School Division has closed schools and has instructed all students and staff are to remain home.

In the Pine Creek School Division, all schools closed, no buses running, and staff is re-assigned to work from home.

The Red River Valley School Division has closed all schools.

All schools in Border Land School Division are closed.

The Interlake School Division has closed its schools and there are no buses running.

The Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine (DSFM) has closed rural schools except Thompson.

Red River College has closed the Interlake and Peguis-Fisher River campuses. All other campuses currently remain open with regular scheduled classes.

Hasell said when the snow eases up late Wednesday or early Thursday, the lack of cloud cover will cause the temperature to drop. On Friday, the high will be -18.

Its already happening. If you look at the forecast for tonight, were looking at -7, for tomorrow -11, she said. With the clear skies, which allow the heat from the surface of the planet to escape into space, theres no cloud to re-radiate heat and the temperatures can drop quite substanially and we see that (by the weekend).

Get out your extension cords and make sure the block heaters on your vehicles are working: Lows in the -22 C to -26 C range are in the forecast for the weekend.

Public Safety Canada encourages everyone to make an emergency plan and get an emergency kit with drinking water, food, medicine, a first-aid kit and a flashlight.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Cameron Batista (front) and others help push out a delivery van stuck in snow on Ellice Avenue in Winnipeg on Tuesday. JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Pedestrians scramble across Portage Avenue and Carlton Street in downtown Winnipeg on Tuesday morning. JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jackie Garrett shovels on Corydon Avenue and Geulph Street as snow falls in Winnipeg on Tuesday morning.
Opinion

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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today, 27 years later, Canadians are still haunted by a horrifying act of defiance against womens opportunity, equality and overall human rights.

On Dec. 6, 1989, women became the targets of gun violence in a matter of just under 20 minutes at Montreals Ecole Polytechnique, resulting in the deaths of 14 women. What is remembered as a pivotal moment in Canadian womens rights, the Ecole Polytechnique massacre serves as a reminder that although Canada has made great strides in recognizing womens rights as human rights, gender-based violence remains an issue in our country.

As our country transitions into an age of confronting the truth about our colonial past and seeking reconciliation with indigenous people, we must acknowledge that our indigenous sisters are the most frequent the targets of violence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report emphasized the detrimental effects of the Indian residential schools system on indigenous people have not been limited to the students of the schools, but has had an intergenerational effect on all indigenous people. The TRC report drew a connection between residential schools and missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, explaining how these women and girls are more vulnerable to become victims of violence due to social circumstances, including poverty, unemployment and contact with the child-welfare system. Such vulnerability is further strengthened by a system rooted in discrimination.

As a member state of the United Nations and having ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Canada has a duty to actively find methods that can efficiently identify and address the root causes of violence against women, so it can be prevented and eradicated. This effort must also recognize and accept the truth that the legacy of residential schools continues to victimize indigenous women and girls. As individuals, we also have a duty to educate ourselves on the issues affecting each one of us in our community and must use our knowledge to be an ally to those fighting for their rights.

November 25 marked the beginning of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, an international campaign originating from the first Womens Global Leadership Institute in 1991. Participants chose November 25 (International Day Against Violence Against Women) and Dec. 10 (International Human Rights Day) as start and end-dates to symbolically link gender-based violence with human rights, and emphasize that this type of violence is a violation of human rights.

The United Nations secretary-generals UNiTE Campaign to End Violence Against Women and Girls invites governments, organizations and individuals around the world to mark the 16 days with events and actions to increase awareness. The UNiTE Campaign chose the colour orange to symbolize unity for a brighter future. In Canada, the colour orange also acknowledges Indian residential school survivors. For this reason, the Institute for International Womens Rights  Manitoba encourages everyone to wear something that is orange until Dec. 10  a piece of clothing, jewelry, or even a handmade orange ribbon. In this simple and attainable way, you can be part of the movement that will not only draw attention to violence against women and girls, but also the injustices indigenous women and girls disproportionately face.

Take action and stand up on behalf of your grandmothers, mothers, sisters, nieces, cousins, neighbours, friends and for yourself, no matter what your gender.

Angeline Rivard is the chair of the advocacy committee of the Institute for International Womens Rights, Manitoba. For more information see: http://iiwrmb.ca/events/
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) The decision by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to rename the Physics department of a leading university after the countrys only Nobel laureate scientist Abdus Salam is a "bold" one in a country where Ahmaddiya community is dubbed as non-Muslims, Congress leader Saifuddin Soz said today.

"This move is seen by the civil society of Pakistan as a bold decision and for liberal society there, it is a heart- warming celebration," he said while reacting on the development.

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Salam happened to be the only person in Pakistan to have received Nobel Prize for Physics, but Pakistan had never celebrated this prestigious award as many people held the extreme view that he was an Ahmadiyya, said the former Union Minister.

Sharif has give in-principle approval for the renaming of National Centre for Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University (Islamabad) as Professor Abdus Salam Center for Physics.

"Needless to mention it here that declaration of Ahmadiyyas as non-Muslims by General Zia-ul-Haq, the then President of Pakistan on 26 April 1984 caused very bad publicity for Pakistan abroad where Prof. Abdus Salam was seen as good a Pakistani as any other person," Soz said.

He said while an overwhelming majority of civil society in Pakistan has appreciated Sharif?s move, "the extreme religious elements have already raised a hue and cry against this gesture, which is unfortunate". PTI AKK AKK

--- ENDS ---
Opinion

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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In deference to the interests and wishes of the Sioux people, the Barack Obama administration on Sunday called a halt to construction of a Missouri River crossing tunnel for the Dakota Access pipeline and invited the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to discuss how the line could be built and operated safely. The decision removed, for the moment, the danger of violent confrontations among police, construction crews and pipeline protesters.

Most of the pipeline, which would transport oil from North Dakotas Bakken formation to a tank farm near Patoka, Ill., is already built. The Missouri River crossing at Lake Oahe has been delayed by a coalition of environmentalists opposed to fossil fuel use and pipeline construction and native people fearful of water contamination and desecration of their sacred sites. A gathering of thousands of Sioux people and their supporters  faintly reminiscent of the 1876 gathering at the Little Bighorn River that led to Custers Last Stand  raised the spectre of violence, which has now been laid to rest.

In light of the U.S. Armys long and bloody relationship with the Sioux people, the language of the Corps of Engineers Sunday announcement is remarkable. Further discussion should be held, the Corps said, in light of the Great Sioux Nations dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, the government-to-government relationship between the United States and the Sioux and the law on easements through government land.

NIMA TARADJI / THE WASHINGTON POST Sacred Stone Camp

It will fall to the Donald Trump administration to figure out the next steps toward completion of the Dakota Access pipeline. But the U.S. government has already admitted that previous dispossession of land suffered by the Sioux is relevant to this discussion. It has affirmed a government-to-government relationship with the Sioux, though what that means in practice is far from clear.

When Mr. Trump inherits the Dakota Access file, he may seek a solution by way of the art of the deal. He won applause in Indianapolis last week by working out a deal for the Carrier air conditioning company to keep operating a plant it was planning to move to Mexico. His deal-making skills may bring some result for the pipeline project, but he will have to work within a context of historical dispossession and militant action.

Canada is also aiming to build pipelines across aboriginal lands where some of the aboriginal peoples are happy to accommodate the projects and others are not.

Rail shipment of oil has been worrisome ever since runaway tank cars burned down the centre of Lac-Megantic, Que. three years ago. But pipelines are also worrisome: Husky Oils spill into the North Saskatchewan River this year, which contaminated drinking water for Prince Albert, Sask. and other communities, was just the latest dramatic example of pipeline dangers.

Canadian aboriginal leaders and pipeline builders and courts will be watching the Standing Rock standoff and perhaps shaping their plans accordingly. The proponents of the Dakota Access line think the latest delay is unreasonable because they followed the rules all the way along.

But their experience suggests that merely following the rules is not enough. They are not only dealing with a rule book written in Washington; They are also dealing with a painful history written on the land of North Dakota and Montana and in the hearts of the people who live there.
County Road 43 between Nichols Spring Road and County Road 6 near Troy south of St. Charles was closed after a semi-trailer carrying 800 gallons of ethanol overturned early Tuesday morning.

The road was closed for hours, before re-opening Tuesday afternoon.

Law enforcement was notified of the mishap at 3:12 a.m., Winona County sheriff Ron Ganrude said. St. Charles police and firefighters, sheriffs deputies and the Minnesota State Patrol commercial vehicle inspector were dispatched to the scene.

The tanker was leaking a small quantity of ethanol, but the spill was contained, Ganrude said. A team from the Twin Cities was sent to offload the ethanol from the damaged tanker.

No one was injured in the incident.
One person was injured in a rollover crash early Tuesday morning on Hwy. 52 in Fillmore County.

A 2005 Chevy Tahoe driven by Sandra Nelson, 57, of Canton, Minn., was northbound on the highway near Fountain about 7:45 a.m. when Nelson encountered an icy patch of road, lost control of the vehicle, and ran into the northbound ditch, where the vehicle rolled, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

Nelson, who was wearing a seatbelt, suffered injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening and was taken by ambulance to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester, the Patrol said.

The Fillmore County Sheriff's Office assisted at the scene.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said Monday it was time for Dakota Access oil pipeline opponents to leave a camp along the pipeline route in southern North Dakota.

But many of the opponents whove been protesting for months are vowing to stay. They believe the four-state pipeline threatens tribal drinking water and cultural sites.

The Army Corps of Engineers has denied a permit for the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in the area. Archambault says the protest camps purpose has been served and theres no need for people to stay in dangerous winter weather.

Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners could still prevail over the Corps in federal court. Some opponents also fear President-elect Donald Trump could reverse the Corps decision.

But Archambault doesnt think there will be any developments for months.

Will protesters leave?

Many Dakota Access oil pipeline opponents whove gathered for months in a camp in southern North Dakota are committed to staying despite wintry weather and demands that they leave.

Monday was the governments deadline for the several hundred people to leave the camp thats on federal land. But authorities have said they wont forcibly remove them. Gov. Jack Dalrymple last week also issued a mandatory evacuation but said no one would be removed by force.

Another snowstorm was hitting the area Monday, and people in camp were busy shoring up housing and stockpiling firewood. Andy Shute of St. Louis said hes staying until its over.

What will Trump do?

President-elect Donald Trump isnt saying what hell do about the $3.8 billion, four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline once he takes office in January.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller said Monday that the incoming president supports construction of the pipeline. But he wouldnt say whether Trump would reverse an Army Corps of Engineers decision to deny a permit for the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota.

The segment under Lake Oahe is the only remaining big chunk of construction on the 1,200-mile pipeline to carry North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.

Miller says the Trump administration will review the situation and make the appropriate determination.

THE INDUSTRYS STANCE

The trade association representing the countrys oil and natural gas industry is urging Trump to make approval of the pipeline a top priority when he takes office next month.

American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement late Sunday that the Obama administration is putting politics over sound public policy. He says Trump should stand up for American consumers and American workers.

WHAT IS THE PIPELINE STATUS?

Nearly all of the 1,172-mile, $3.8 billion pipeline has been built by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners except for a mile-long section across federal land and beneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir.

The pipeline is designed to carry oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Patoka, Illinois. State regulators in all four states approved the route through their territory. The proposed route skirts the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border.

ARE THERE OTHER ROUTES?

The company examined other routes when federal regulators conducted their initial environmental review. Energy Transfer Partners and the Corps agreed initially that the proposed route appeared to be the safest and most cost-effective path. The initial review looked at factors including the number of water crossings, how close the route came to homes and whether it crossed wetlands.

One alternative the company considered called for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River north of Bismarck, about 50 miles upstream of the current path. That option was rejected because it was 10 miles longer and required more water and road crossings. It was also estimated to cost $22.6 million more than the current route.

DOES ANOTHER ROUTE HAVE SUPPORT?

Energy Transfer Partners doesnt want to reroute the pipeline, which was originally expected to be completed before the end of this year. The company says delaying the project a year would cost it $1.4 billion in lost revenue. CEO Kelcy Warren told The Associated Press last month that the company doesnt see another way to complete the project besides the current route.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault has said the tribe does not oppose oil pipelines if they do not threaten water sources, environmentally sensitive areas or sacred sites. He said a route that would follow existing west-east and north-south oil pipeline corridors that avoid Missouri River crossings would be acceptable to him.
The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Saturday, Dec. 3:

Leroy Barber grew up in rural New London, Wis., hunting and fishing with two of his brothers. He enlisted in the Navy, trained at the Great Lakes facility north of Chicago and was assigned to a battleship. Barber enjoyed being a sailor, missed his brothers and advised them to join up. The Navy made an exception to its rule against putting family members on one boat  a decision their father sought to reverse  but America was not at war, and Hawaii was about as far from Europes fighting as you could get.

Thats how the Barber boys, Malcolm, 22, Leroy, 21 and Randolph, 19, came to serve together as firemen on the USS Oklahoma. And that is how they died: together, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941  75 years ago this Wednesday  when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and drew America into World War II.

We are not bitter, but there is one thing neither of us can forgive, Peter Barber, their father, told the Chicago Tribune in May 1942. We were at peace when the attack started. Our boys didnt even know about it. They must have been caught below decks without any chance to fight back. If they had known  if we had been on guard  they would have returned fire and they might not all have died.

Many wars are remembered and battles commemorated. But only two dates on the calendar awaken recollections of a sneak attack on American territory by an undeclared enemy. One is Sept. 11, which was 15 years ago this year. And then there is Dec. 7, a date which will live in infamy, as President Franklin Roosevelt told Congress in a national radio broadcast the next afternoon. A few hours later, the United States declared war on Japan. A few days later, the U.S. declared war on Germany.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, but it was foreshadowed. In 1941, America was attempting to check Japanese aggression in China through economic sanctions. The U.S. knew from a code-breaking operation known as Magic that Japan was girding for war. Conflict seemed inevitable, but officials in Washington missed the signals that war was imminent, and never guessed Hawaii would be a target. The American public also was unprepared.

On Dec. 1, the Tribune reported that ongoing negotiations to halt Japans expansionist moves were at a critical juncture, but there was a distant, theoretical tone to the warning. The U.S., having backed Britain in Europe, was already engaged in quasi-conflict with Germany. In the Pacific, war against Japan remained an unappealing question. The United States is not prepared to fight a war on two fronts and will not be before the completion of our two-ocean navy in 1946, the Tribunes story said.

The U.S. military was not on alert in Hawaii. Most naval personnel treated Dec. 7, a Sunday, as a day off. Around 7 a.m., just as radar operators were completing their overnight watch, they spotted a stunning concentration of aircraft coming their way  must be B-17s coming in from California, they were told.

Wrong: This was the first Japanese carrier strike force of torpedo- and dive-bombers, escorted by Zero fighters. The Japanese attack, completed in two waves in less than two hours, destroyed most of the U.S. military planes on the island of Oahu and devastated the U.S. Pacific fleet. Most of the ships anti-aircraft guns were unmanned. A few heroic American pilots got off the ground to shoot down Zeros, but the day marked a humiliating and painful entrance to the war. The Barber brothers were among 2,300 U.S. service members killed.

Firsthand descriptions of Dec. 7 have dwindled as survivors depart us, but the lesson of Pearl Harbor endures. In 1941, the United States failed to anticipate Japanese aggression. In 2001, terrorists intensified a slow-burning war against American civilians that had started years earlier and continues today. Despite Americas great power and comparative isolation on the map, it is vulnerable to the enemies it has, and the ones it may have. Our nation forgets that at its peril.
A state natural resources panel will consider plans for two major Sauk County projects during a meeting next week in Madison.

The list of items the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board is slated to consider at its Dec. 14 meeting includes possible approval of the master plan for the Sauk Prairie Recreation Area.

The 3,385-acre property is immediately south of Devils Lake State Park and includes about half of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources proposed master plan for that property includes many uses, such as land restoration, hiking, hunting, fishing, and bird watching, that have received widespread support.

However, several of the DNRs proposed recreational uses have been controversial.

The agency has plans for a 2-acre section that could be used for recreational rocket launching up to 10 days a year. The proposed master plan also would allow half the bike and horse trails to be re-purposed for dual sport motorcycles up to six days a year. And another proposal would set aside a 72-acre section of the property for dog training.

Also at the Dec. 14 meeting, the Natural Resources Board will consider whether to designate a proposed multi-purpose trail through Sauk County as a state trail.

One section of the Great Sauk Trail would run from Sauk City to the southern edge of Devils Lake State Park. And tentative plans are for the county path to link up with the 400 State Trail in Reedsburg.

Members of the public who want to have their voices heard can submit written comments or testify in person at the meeting. The registration deadline to testify or to submit written comments is 11 a.m. Friday.
JUNEAU  Dodge Countys recount was completed Tuesday with no significant changes in the totals for the presidential election.

There were not any significant changes in the totals, proving the accuracy of the voting system, County Clerk Karen Gibson said.

There were 13 more votes found with a total of 43,078 votes cast. President-elect Donald Trump ticket received eight fewer total votes during the recount for a total of 26,635. Hillary Clinton had the same number of votes during both counts of 13,968.

All other numbers remained the same for presidential candidates except for write-in candidates. Evan McMullen received 21 more votes for a total of 263, and Chris Keniston received one additional vote for a total of 4.

Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 22,000 votes in Wisconsin, but Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein sought a recount to confirm the accuracy of the results. Stein was responsible for the full cost of the recount in Wisconsin.

Gibson said in Dodge County, the counting of ballots finished Monday night, with the Dodge County Canvass Board reporting Tuesday morning to sign the vote totals.

Since the count began Thursday, Gibson said she had 18 to 20 people every shift with around 60 people helping in total.

Overall the recount went extremely well in Dodge County, Gibson said. Thank you to the many people that helped with the recount who did a phenomenal job. There were municipal clerks, election workers and citizens who helped and they have all learned a lot more about the election process. Thank you also to the many people who were scheduled to help in the upcoming days and those who contacted me wanting to help, but the schedule was full.

I have realized that we live in a county where if you need help, all you have to do is ask, Gibson said. I am proud to be your county clerk.

There were not any significant changes in the totals, proving the accuracy of the voting system.Dodge County Clerk Karen Gibson
Moraine Park Technical College in Beaver Dam is asking to purchase about two acres of land alongside Highway 151 from the city.

We think this is a good opportunity and a good time... Carrie Kasubaski, vice president of finance and administration said Monday night during the Beaver Dam Operations Committee.

She said MPTC is currently running a capital campaign to raise $800,000 for a gas utility technician program. She added that the gas utility center isnt dependent on the land acquisition. However, doing both at the same time works best for MPTC.

MPTC is looking to buy the land for $1,000.

The expansion to the building is estimated to be 3,800 square feet on the north side of the campus and it will include a lab and classroom.

According to a document detailing the gas utility technician workforce development, MPTC is working with Wisconsin Technical College System, Wisconsin Energy Workforce Consortium, WE Energy, Madison Gas and Electric, Wisconsin Public Service Corporation and Michels Corporation. They all have verified the need for local gas utility workers.

Alderperson Jon Abfall asked about the programs popularity. Kasubaski told him there are 20 students projected to graduate through the program with the first graduates coming in 2019.

Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay has a gas utility technician program that will be a model for the MPTC program. Kasubaski said there are only two technical colleges in Wisconsin that offer a gas utility technician program and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College is one of them. MPTC in Beaver Dam would be the third.

Phase 1 of the program concept was approved by WTCS in May.

There is no firm timeline, but Kasubaski said MPTC is looking at breaking ground sometime in 2017.

The committee recommended sale of the land to the Plan Commission.
An ailing Sushma Swaraj has come to the rescue again, and it melted our hearts.

By India Today Web Desk: Despite being admitted to AIMS, Sushma Swaraj is still actively working for the janta.

Here's what happened:

Recently, an Indian expatriate stuck in Dubai reached out to Swaraj via Twitter, asking her to help him return to Tamil Nadu for his mother's funeral.

The man had been forced to walk a 1000 km in two years, through the windy desserts and busy highways of Dubai to attend labour court proceedings, and was still denied visa.

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Swaraj, who not too long ago helped out a woman who visited her in AIIMS, the external affairs minister promised to help the 48-year-old man stuck in Dubai.

Earlier today, Swaraj tweeted out the happy news that the man has returned to Tamil Nadu and sent to his village. She also expressed her sadness over how the man had to go up and down the court walking almost a thousand kilometers as he couldn't afford anything else.

We have brought him back to India and sent him to his village. He went up and down to the court 20 times over a year. That made it 1000 Kms. https://t.co/UGxjGE1Uhf Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 6, 2016

Recently, she has also promised to help a girl called Eman Ahmed, who needs a medical visa to visit India.

Ma'am , Eman Ahmed (Egypt) 500kgs requested me 2 save her pls help me get her a medical visa as refused thru normal process @SushmaSwaraj pic.twitter.com/93Fwz6m8iL Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 5, 2016

Well, we have to praise the commendable way she has helped so many Indians with their problems. We wish her a speedy recovery and are sure that the rest of India does too.

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Beaver Dam Operations Committee recommended two more Capital Improvement Program plans from 2017-2021, Monday night.

For waste water utility, a mower/snow thrower ($40,000), new influent fine screen ($200,000), Mary Street lift station upgrade ($40,000), plant breaker replacement ($75,000), Starkweather Drive replace pipe sag ($60,000) and McKinley Street sanitary sewer lining ($25,000).

In total, waste water utility is looking at $475,000 for 2017.

The storm water utility projects that are expected to take place in 2017 are a storm sewer installation on Rosendale Street (Curie Street to Pearl Street) estimated to cost $137,000, a storm sewer replacement on Gilmore Avenue (North Center Street to York Street) estimated to cost $209,000, GIS (Geogrphical Information System) storm water system update estimated to cost $42,000.

The GIS system is used to digitally map out all of the sewers in Beaver Dam. The city has received a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources grant for more than $15,000 for the GIS storm water system update.

In total, the storm water utility projects are estimated to cost $491,500 in 2017.

In 2017, the water utility projects include an east clarifier painting/rehab ($120,000), PLC upgrade/replace ($80,000), new utility vehicle payment ($50,000), downtown water tower paint/rehab ($70,000) and West Mackie water main replacement ($72,000).

The estimated total cost for projects with water utility could be $392,000.

Ritchie Piltz, director of facilities and engineering said that these CIP numbers and estimates are still in the draft phase. Nothing is set in stone.

Revisions requested to 2018 North Spring Street project

The scope of the 2018 North Spring Street (Maple Avenue to Mackie Street) has changed at the request of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, which is seeking an additional $5,000.

WisDOT local program is requesting a revision to the project scope due to the encroachment report exceeding the original contract amount.

Piltz said that two encroachments will be allowed to remain during this project. Those two encroachments are the Beaver Dam Dental sign and an awning on Maple Avenue. He said the Beaver Dam Dental sign can stay until it needs to be repaired.

The North Spring Street job is estimated to cost $517,000. Preparatory work was done this year in the amount of $60,000. Next year, $66,000 will be borrowed for engineering services. Construction is expected to begin in 2018 and will cost $391,000. This project will include new curb and gutter, sidewalks, driveway aprons, street lighting and pavement markings. It is expected to have a useful life of 30 years.

The committee recommended the revision to the project.
Disorderly conduct  Friday at 10:14 a.m., an altercation occurred in the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot, 120 Frances Lane. One vehicle almost hit another vehicle.

Accident  Friday at 10:23 a.m., there was a two-car accident near the North Spring Street and Parallel Street involving a woman and a man.

Accident  Friday at 10:33 a.m., there was a two-car accident near Menard's, 121 Frances Lane.

Accident  Friday at 2:05 p.m., a 55-year-old man and 34-year-old man were involved in a vehicle accident near the Mackie Street and Center Street intersection.

Disorderly conduct  Friday at 5:06 p.m., and husband and wife were in an altercation in the 200 block of Webster Street.

Accident  Friday at 6:11 p.m., a woman reported that she saw a man on a bike get hit by a vehicle near Culvers, 1601 N. Spring St., The man on the bike said he was OK. A man that hit the bicyclist called in saying that the bike was not illuminated.

Break-in  Friday at 6:56 p.m., a woman told police that a door was kicked in the 300 block of East Maple Avenue. Several items were found to missing from the residence.

Fight  Friday at 9:36 p.m., someone reported a fight involving two men at Morrys, 430 Madison St. The men were separated.

Accident  Friday at 9:52 p.m., a man told police that a vehicle hit in a driveway in the 700 block of Mac Arthur Drive.

Suspicious  Friday at 10:01 p.m., a vehicle flashed a police vehicle near the Breezy Point Road and Highway 33 intersection. The driver told the officer that he/she was driving a new vehicle and was unsure on how to use it.

Intoxicated person  Saturday at 2:35 a.m., a a 38-year-old man was cited with operating a vehicle while intoxicated in the 200 block of West Maple Avenue.

Intoxicated person  Saturday at 2:51 a.m., a 50-year-old woman reported that she was driving near the East Mill Street and South Vita Avenue and hit a parked car. The woman was taken to jail and cited with operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The victims vehicle was totaled.

Vandalism  Saturday at 7:29 a.m., someone reported vehicle damage at the Patrick Parker Conley BMX/Skateboard Park.

Theft  Saturday at 9:48 a.m., a man came into the Beaver Dam Police Department building, 123 Park Ave., to report the use of a debit card in Madison.

Theft  Saturday at 10:30 a.m., a woman walked into the Beaver Dam Police Department building, 123 Park Ave., to report the theft of a debit card and use of the card.

Accident  Saturday at 10:52 a.m., someone reported a four-car accident on County Road B.

Break-in  Saturday at 10:59 a.m., a woman in the 100 block of West Third Street told police that someone stole a roll of toilet paper placed a dirty diaper in a cupboard.

Trespassing  Saturday at 12:05 p.m., a man in the 1200 block of DeClark Street told police that someone was living in a tent on his property.

Break-in  Saturday at 12:50 p.m., a man in the 300 block of East Maple Street reported finding keys inside of his home.

Accident  Saturday at 12:52 p.m., a man told police that another car backed into his car near Wal-Mart Supercenter, 120 Frances Lane.

Traffic  Saturday at 2:18 p.m., someone near Wal-Mart Supercenter, 120 Frances Lane, reported that woman was panhandling in the road.

Fire  Saturday at 5:50 p.m., Beaver Dam Fire Department responded to a garage fire in the 300 block of Henry Street.

Break-in  Saturday at 7:34 p.m., a 30-year-old woman was taken to jail for receiving stolen property in the 300 block of East Maple Avenue.

Drugs  Saturday at 8:21 p.m., while an officer was following up on a breaking and entering report, a 36-year-old man pulled into a driveway in the 300 block of East Maple Avenue and went into a residence. The man had a crack pipe in plain view of his vehicle. He was cited with operating a vehicle after revocation and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Animal  Saturday at 8:22 p.m., someone at Beaver Dam Community Hospital, 707 S. University Ave., told police that woman from the 100 block of James Street came in with a dog bite.

Intoxicated person  Saturday at 11:45 p.m., a 34-year-old man was reported to be outside in the 400 block of Madison Street. The man was released to responsible party.

Traffic  Sunday at 12:14 a.m., someone reported that a small convertible car was drifting in the 500 block of North Spring Street.

Intoxicated person  Sunday at 2:13 a.m., 32-year-old man was cited with operating a vehicle while intoxicated in the 100 block of Grove Street.

Vandalism  Sunday at 6:24 a.m., a 19-year-old woman told police that a man was pounding on her door in the 100 block of Lakecrest Drive. She didnt answer the door and he then smashed out her car window.

Vandalism  Sunday at 8:13 a.m., a man was reported to be hunched over the back porch of a residence in the 800 block of Madison Street. 67-year-old man was later taken into custody.

Accident  Sunday at 10:23 a.m., two men were involved in a vehicle accident near the Wayland Street and East Burnett Street intersection.

Accident  Sunday at 11:54 a.m., a woman was involved in a vehicle accident near the DeClark Street and Carroll Street intersection. The woman was cited for driving too fast for conditions.

Accident  Sunday at 12:56 p.m., police responded to a runoff near South Crystal Lake Road and County Road W.
The share of state highways in poor condition would double during the next decade without an infusion of new revenue, State Department of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb told lawmakers Tuesday.

Lawmakers grilled Gottlieb during a three-hour exchange that framed the escalating split between statehouse Republicans on how to fund roads, bridges and transit in the states next budget  and whether a transportation tax or fee increase may be warranted.

Rising costs for one of the states biggest ongoing highway expansions, of Interstate 39-90 from the Beltline to the Illinois state line, came up during Tuesdays hearing of the Assembly Transportation Committee. The projects estimated cost has ballooned from $715 million to $1.2 billion  a shift Gottlieb attributed Tuesday to an errant initial estimate.

We learned very soon that it was not possible to build the project for that amount of money, Gottlieb told reporters after the hearing.

Gottlieb billed his blueprint for the states next two-year transportation budget as a bid to refocus on preserving, not expanding, bridges and highways. He said the DOT budget request, which he put forth in September, prioritizes safety and maintenance of roads and bridges and funding for local roads.

At the direction of Gov. Scott Walker, the request does not increase taxes or fees. But Gottlieb acknowledged to lawmakers Tuesday that the states transportation network would deteriorate badly in the next 10 years without a funding increase. The state transportation fund is filled primarily with revenues from the fuel tax and from vehicle registration fees.

Gottlieb first made similar remarks in an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal in June.

At current funding levels, 21 percent of the state trunk highway system would be rated in poor condition under DOT methodology in fiscal year 2018, Gottlieb testified Tuesday.

By fiscal 2027, that share would balloon to 42 percent, he said. The bulk of the impact would be to secondary, or non-backbone roads  roughly half of which would be in poor condition in 10 years, Gottlieb said.

Some lawmakers pressed Gottlieb on the issue, saying his no-new-revenue plan doesnt do enough to stabilize transportation finances.

Other lawmakers cast the department as profligate in its spending, questioning everything from the type of materials used in bridge construction to its travel costs for out-of-state conferences.

Republicans divided

The transportation issue is dividing statehouse Republicans as they size up the states next budget.

Republicans publicly clashed in the lead-up to the Assembly hearing, as Sens. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, and Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, told reporters they side with Walker in saying taxes or fees should not be increased.

But Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Tuesday that state leaders have maintained for years that the timing wasnt right to raise taxes or fees for transportation. Given the condition of the states roads, lawmakers may be nearing a point at which they must act, Nygren said.

This is not something that Im excited about, but we should consider all our options, Nygren said.

Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin, grilled Gottlieb about the types of traffic signals installed by the department at certain intersections and its out-of-state travel budget.

The department has to take a much more serious look at ways that they can save money, Sanfelippo said.

Transportation funding has been a topic of recurring controversy in the state Capitol during the last six years. In 2013, a bipartisan panel whose members were appointed by Walker and GOP lawmakers found the DOT would need an average funding increase of $1.35 billion a year from 2014 to 2023 just to maintain current road, bridge and transit conditions.

The discrepancy between revenues and expenses has been driven by a combination of crumbling roads and bridges, sharply rising construction costs and stagnant fuel-tax revenues.

Those circumstances forced state leaders to increase transportation borrowing and delay highway projects in the 2015-17 state budget. Projects delayed included the second phase of the Verona Road expansion in Dane County and the I-39-90 expansion.

More of the same would be required the next two years without an infusion of transportation revenue.

The transportation budget request put forward by Gottlieb calls for further delays to the Verona Road project. The I-39-90 project would be kept on schedule.

Also delayed under the request are the I-94 North-South project in Racine and Kenosha counties and on north leg of Milwaukee Countys Zoo Interchange, the states oldest and busiest freeway interchange. The core portion of the interchange, which now is being rebuilt, would remain on track for completion in 2019.

Walkers office has noted the DOT request would bring transportation borrowing to its lowest level since the 2001-03 state budget.

Gas tax same since 2006

Wisconsins gas tax has not been increased since 2006, when it went from 29.9 to 30.9 cents per gallon. The registration fee for automobiles was last raised in 2008, from $55 to $75.

Walker has vowed to veto an increase of either, unless its paired with a corresponding tax or fee decrease elsewhere in the budget.

In a statement released Monday, Walker said voters gave Republicans control of state government in 2010 to lower taxes and rein in an out-of-control government.

We cannot now, after six years in charge, turn our backs on the people who placed their trust in us to make good on that promise, Walker said.
Portage quietly marked an anniversary of one of its most established institutions on Thursday, that of Richard Grangers 45 years of greeting customers at the post office.

Im just old and Ive been here a long time  you gotta have both of those things working for you, said Granger before starting his 9 a.m. shift on Monday.

The post office has been good to me. I like what Im doing. I enjoy working the window. I enjoy talking to people, he said. If you enjoy what you do, keep doing it, and thats what they say about retirement: if you enjoy what you do, why retire?

What youre going to learn about this organization is that these people have been here for so long, that there is a lot of longevity among quite a few of the employees here, said Postmaster Amy Tamminga, who joined the office in June 2013 after 17 years at the Fox Lake Post Office.

Being a postmaster is basically working with them to get the job done, she said. And Mr. Granger has been here for quite a long time.

Granger started working for the Postal Service on Dec. 1, 1971, after a recommendation from his father-in-law who was a mail carrier in Mauston. After 12 years working the dock for outgoing mail from 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., Granger was moved to the front of the store where he has been since.

Although there is a clear starting point for his career with the Postal Service, he is less specific about himself. For example, when asked about his age, Granger said only that hes been celebrating his 40th birthday for more than 30 years now.

Over that time, Granger has greeted customers with a sense of humor that is sincere but confusing for those who havent met him, filling what would be the awkward silence of procedure and mutual waiting with teasing and banter.

When they first come in, it takes them off guard, but by the time the transaction is over, they enjoy it, said Granger, and Ive been told many times that they would come back to this post office just because they were greeted friendly. And thats what I try to do, and I try to do it for everybody.

Admittedly, he has encountered less receptive audiences over the years and over time there have been more stressful encounters, with four or five blow-ups over the years, averaging about once every nine years, which Granger described as more than it should be.

But its very seldom that a customer, he said, then pointing out a woman filling out a package slip at the table a few feet away, like that lady right there, she gets to me all the time, always picking on me.

Thats right, she laughed as she signed her slip.

Theres not a lot of businesses that you can look at and see the same face like you do here, said Tamminga. Its not just the organization that has been around for a couple of hundred years, but when you have people that watch a generation going through, theres something to be said for that and there is a respect for that in the community.

But Ive enjoyed my job and tried to make it so people around me enjoy their jobs too, said Granger. Anybody can be grumpy and everybody should be able to like their job. If you dont like your job, you should find a new one. When you come in and buy stamps from me, you know that I enjoy it.

Hes such a positive person and such a people person that those are the people you remember, said Tamminga. Hes spreading his joy and selling stamps to the community. You wont see that face going away anytime soon. 
Information is taken from the records of the Portage Police Department and does not represent a comprehensive list of police activity. Each individual named in this report is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

The Portage Police Department is still welcoming volunteers to participate in the Portage Citizen Police Academy, a 10-week program, introducing Portage citizens to the policies, tools and procedures of local law enforcement, Tuesday evenings beginning Jan. 3. Those interested are encouraged to contact Lt. Keith Klafke at the Portage Police Department at 608-742-2174.

Between 9:30 a.m. Friday and 7:46 a.m. Monday police responded to 83 calls.

Super 8: Police on Friday at 9:30 a.m. responded to an incident where Danielle Pionke, 21, of Portage, was arrested and cited for credit card fraud, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of bail jumping. Dustin Schneiter, 33, of Portage, was arrested for violation of probation.

West Carroll Street: Police on Friday at 10:43 p.m. responded to a situation in which Wilson Miller, 29, of Portage, was arrested and cited for two counts of misdemeanor bail jumping and one count of bail jumping for violation of a court-ordered no-drink bond condition.

Cottonwood Bar and Grill: Police on Saturday at 1:25 a.m. responded to a domestic situation in which a 33-year-old man and 32-year-old woman were each arrested and cited with domestic disorderly conduct.

Main Street and East Conant Street: Police on Saturday at 2:55 a.m. stopped Mitchell Lang, 27, of Pardeeville, who was arrested following a field sobriety test and cited for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated as a third offense, registering .24 on a preliminary breath test. He was also cited for driving with an open intoxicant and operating a vehicle after suspension of a license as a first offense.

Walmart: Police on Sunday at 3:13 a.m. responded to a reported theft in which Elizabeth Robeson, 22, of Reedburg, and Alexis Fliescher, 20, of Oxford, were cited for theft of goods after being stopped with $77.02 of merchandise. Robeson was also cited for operating a vehicle after suspension of a license.

Cottonwood Bar and Grill: Police on Sunday at 3:13 a.m. responded to a situation in which Cody Buttner, 28, of Portage, was arrested and cited for disorderly conduct.

Rileys Bar and Grill: Police on Sunday at 12:25 p.m. responded to a traffic complaint resulting in contact with Tina Von Behren, 48, of Portage, who was arrested and cited for bail jumping after being found in violation of a court no-drink order.

West Cook Street: Police on Sunday at 6:28 p.m. responded to a situation in which Diamond Winslow, 19, of Portage, was arrested and cited for two counts of felony abuse of a child and misdemeanor bail jumping. A 16-year-old Portage male and 18-year-old Portage male have been referred to the District Attorneys Office on juvenile charges of disorderly conduct.

East Conant Street: Police on Monday at 1:30 a.m. stopped Taylor Smith, 23, of Mauston, who was issued a citation for operating a vehicle after suspension of a license as a third offense.
Donald H. Levzow

Donald H. Levzow, 91, of Portage, passed away Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, at Divine Savior Healthcare in Portage.

He was born June 16, 1925, in the town of Marcellon in Columbia County. Donald was the son of Joseph and Clara Greenwald Levzow. He was the youngest of eight children.

Donald served his country in the Army during World War II and the Wisconsin National Guard for 14 years, was called to active duty during the Berlin Crisis, serving at Fort Lewis in Washington State. He worked for the Columbia County Highway Department for 40 years; retiring in 1987 as road builder and foreman.

Don loved to bowl and started bowling at the Tom Turkey lanes in the early 50s. He bowled in many leagues and was a member of the Portage Bowling Association and inducted in the Portage Bowling Hall of fame in 1995. He was a lifetime member of the American Legion Post 47 in Portage. Don played horseshoes until his 89th summer.

He was an active member of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Portage Senior Citizen Card Club, Monday morning senior bowling and delivered Meals on Wheels.

Survivors include his wife Betty, of 37 years, married July 14, 1979, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church; son, Douglas; daughter and son-in-law, Donna (Jeff) Brown; stepson, Steve Sloggy; five grandchildren, Melinda, Jessica, Aerial (Kolten), Aaron and Nathaniel; and one sister-in-law, Florence Levzow; nieces, nephews and a former daughter-in-law, Juli.

Don was preceded in death by his parents, Joseph and Clara Levzow; first wife, Dorothy (April 1977); four sisters, Gladys, Leta (Lee) Sanborn, Elsie Radant, Iva (Don) Hall; and three brothers, Harvey, Oliver and Maurice (Marcella) Levzow; and one niece, Joann Converse.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Kratz Funeral Home in Portage. The Rev. Julie Krahn will be officiating. Visitation will be held from 10 a.m. till time of service. Military honors by the Portage Area Veterans Honor Guard. Burial will follow the services at Oak Grove Cemetery in Portage.

The family would like to thank Dr. Strabel, Tivoli Nursing Staff and all health care givers that have taken such good care of Don in the past years.

Kratz Funeral Home-Portage (www.kratzfuneralhome.com) is assisting the family with arrangements.
After more than two years of meetings, the Sauk Prairie School District is close to having a recommendation for a new salary structure.

The district originally began meeting with the Sauk Prairie Education Association because the previous salary schedule did not address how to pay certified teaching staff, said Superintendent Cliff Thompson, because of changes in licensing and hiring practices.

A professional pay plan needs to promote teachers growth as professionals, Thompson said, adding the district chose to model after the Wisconsin Department of Public Instructions licensing model, because it reflects professional growth. It made sense to align our plan with this model, he said.

The team consisted of high school, middle and elementary teachers, including teachers licensed under the DPI model and those who are not. The group held 32 meetings over more than two years to come to a recommendation, which was then forwarded onto the school boards Finance Committee and then passed on to the full board.

Right now we are in the process of determining next steps, Thompson said. We conducted listening sessions and afterwards the individual groups are meeting to determine those next steps.

The board met in closed session after its regular meeting Nov. 28 to discuss the results of the listening session. Next steps will be discussed at the boards Dec. 12 meeting.

Thompson said the greatest challenge is finding a way to fully fund the proposed plan.

We need to be in a position to recruit, retain and reward qualified educators for our students, Thompson said. Some may feel challenged with a change, but change is an opportunity to move forward by connecting with teachers as professionals and offering a clear and understandable plan for compensation.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) The number of terrorists killed in Jammu and Kashmir this year has seen a three-fold increase while casualty for security personnel has recorded a rise of over 80 per cent compared to last year, Lok Sabh was informed today.

Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir in response to a written question said the number of terrorists killed this year was 140, a figure which stood at 46 last year.

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The number of arrests and surrenders this year was 76, which was seven-fold increase from last year when the figures stood at 10.

He said the number of army personnel killed this year stands at 71. This number had been showing a declining trend up till last year with 53 in 2013, 47 in 2014 and 39 in 2015.

He said the number of terror incidents has increased to 305 till November 27 this year as compared to 208 for entire last year.

Also the number of security forces injured has shown over 100 per cent increase and it stands at 208 this year compared to last years 103.

Similarly, the number of civilians killed this year has seen a marginal decline so far and stands at 14 compared to 17 last year. PTI SKL TIR

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Biostatistician measures up as new Head of School of Public Health at Wits

Associate Professor Tobias Chirwa has been appointed as Head of the School of Public Health at Wits, effective 1 February 2017.

Chirwa is a biostatistician and currently Head of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. This is the branch of statistics concerned with the analysis and interpretation of scientific data generated in the biological and health sciences to inform clinical or health policy and practice.

Chirwa has exceptional credentials in infectious disease epidemiology and non-communicable diseases. He has a special research interest in HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. Prior to joining Wits, he was a research Fellow in medical statistics in the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Unit of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He later worked on this Schools research projects in Mwanza, Tanzania.

Chirwa has contributed to over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has initiated and completed research with the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Centre for Health Policy, MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), and Wits Health Consortium.

He has been the statistician for more than 30 research projects and in 2015 was one of just seven African researchers to receive a portion of a R70 million (3.337 million) funding injection from the Wellcome Trust and the Department for International Development in the UK.

Funding to the amount of 46 million over five years was awarded through the DELTAS Africa scheme. DELTAS is the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science Initiative, which aims to establish world-class research environments at African universities and training opportunities for the next generation of researchers.

When Chirwa takes the helm in the School of Public Health, he intends to leverage his network and collaborations in Africa and aboard to further strengthen the Schools footprint.

I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to lead such a reputable School of Public Health. I will build on existing strengths of the School, use my network of colleagues and collaborations within the African region and overseas, and capitalise on synergies and resources to further strengthen the footprint of the School. I look forward to contributing to the Facultys strategic goals and I am committed to the transformation process, ensuring we continue to improve our stature as a leader in public health education and research, says Chirwa.

He succeeds Prof. Laetitia Rispel, who will take up a SARChI Chair in Research on the Health Workforce.
Deaf MA grad a Wits first

First Deaf student graduates with Master of Arts in South African Sign Language.

Wits student Nyeleti Nokwazi Nkwinika, who is Deaf and uses South African Sign Language as her first language, graduated today with a Master of Arts (MA) degree by dissertation in South African Sign Language (SASL) using filmed SASL as the language to report on her research.

Nkwinika is the first person (Deaf or hearing) to receive a Masters from the SASL Department and the first Wits graduate to use a marginalised language (SASL) to report on her research into the possible origins of the vocabulary of SASL.

Nkwinikas research investigates the borrowing of lexical items in SASL and aims to find out the extent of lexical borrowings from Irish Sign Language, British Sign Language and American Sign Language.

Her dissertation, titled: An investigation of lexical borrowing in the South African Sign Language (SASL) lexicon was jointly supervised in the SASL and Linguistics departments.

The SASL Department began offering postgraduate degrees in 2013 when Nkwinika was among the first group of four honours students. She went straight on to register for a Masters by research in the SASL and Linguistics departments in January 2014, which was the first time that SASL offered an MA.

Her studies were partially funded by the Department of Arts and Culture through a bursary programme for studies in marginalised South African languages administered by the Department of Translation and Interpreting at Wits University.

At a celebratory function held for Nkwinika earlier today, she thanked those who had supported her throughout her studies.

 I just want to say thank you all for coming here. It has been a long time of passionate studying  it is coming to an end. I just want to say thank you to my family, my friends, and my interpreters. Thank you everyone. I am very excited today and it is great to have everyone here.

She says her studies were not easy, but she persevered.

It has been a struggle! It has been challenging. I was actually quite fed up with this at some point. I wanted to give up because there were continual updates, but my goal was to graduate. I can now relax. I have achieved what I wanted to, says Nkwinika.

Dr Ruth Morgan, one of her supervisors says that the education sector needs people with Nkwinikas expertise.

This is a great step forward in terms of decolonising the University and creating a multilingual platform for research reporting. Although SASL is not yet an official 12th language in South Africa, it is considered official for educational purposes in terms of the SA Schools Act. SASL is also constitutionally protected as a language to be developed, says Morgan.

Nkwinika intends to study for a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) next year at the Wits School of Education so she can use her expertise in SASL as an educator.
Women of Marikana withdraw from dispute resolution process with Lonmin

In June 2015, the women of Sikhala Sonke lodged a complaint with the Compliance Advisor / Ombudsman (CAO) concerning the International Finance Corporations (IFC) investment in Lonmin PLC. The IFC is part of the World Bank which provides funding to the private sector in developing countries. In 2007, the IFC made a $50 million investment in Lonmin which was earmarked for Lonmins Local Economic Development Programme. This funding was granted to ensure that Lonmin contributed to the development of nearby communities by providing infrastructure, basic services and poverty eradication programmes and thus complying with its social and labour plan (SLP) commitments.

Years after receiving this funding, the living conditions of the communities living around Lonmins Marikana mine remain dire. Lonmin has failed to comply with its SLP commitments and the IFCs Performance Standards and thus the purpose for which the funding was granted. The complaint lodged by Sikhala Sonke, with the assistance of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, highlights the womens concerns with the living conditions in Nkaneng, an informal settlement near Marikana. These concerns relate to access to housing, water, and sanitation, and ensuring sound and effective environmental management, gender empowerment, education and black economic empowerment. At the heart of the womens complaint are issues which if resolved would substantially improve the conditions of the people living in Nkaneng.

Following the complaint, Sikhala Sonke engaged in a number of mediation and training sessions with the CAO and then began the mediation process with Lonmin. Despite Sikhala Sonkes good faith efforts, nearly 17 months since the lodgment of the complaint with the CAO, and nearly 10 months of engagement with Lonmin resulting in three separate meetings has delivered extremely limited progress on only a few peripheral issues.

No progress has been made on the issues which form the core of the Sikhala Sonkes complaint to the CAO: access to housing, water, and sanitation, and ensuring sound and effective environmental management, gender empowerment, education and black economic empowerment. Instead of engaging on these core issues, Lonmin suggested that the engagement first be on peripheral issues (counselling for community members, scrap metal collection by community members and Lonmins channels of communication with Sikhala Sonke as a stakeholder). And secondly, on issues that required greater clarification and thirdly (and lastly) on core issues. Sikhala Sonke was concerned with this suggestion as they feared it would result in a delay in a engagement on the core issues.

Nonetheless, Sikhala Sonke supported this approach in the hope that it would result in the resolution of the concerns raised and create a foundation for the resolution of core issues. This process has however failed to yield a resolution in both the core issues, and the peripheral issues.

On the three peripheral issues, Lonmin made minor and resourceless commitments. Even on these peripheral and minor issues (i.e. counselling, scrap metal and communication channels), Lonmin failed to keep its commitments. It became evident to Sikhala Sonke that this was an indication of Lonmins engagement in bad faith and the ineffectiveness of the dispute resolution process.

The dispute resolution process has both failed to address the concerns raised in the complaint and to develop a communicative relationship between the women of Sikhala Sonke and Lonmin. As such, it has failed to ensure Lonmins compliance with its SLP, the IFC Performance Standards and the purpose for which funding was granted to it. In light of these failures, Sikhala Sonke has withdrawn from the dispute resolution process.

Sikhala Sonke have also requested that the CAO commence with a compliance process. It is hoped that this process will ensure a full analysis of the reasons for: (a) Lonmins failure to comply with its SLP commitments to the IFC (including its commitment to comply with its SLP obligations); (b) the IFC and Lonmins failure to comply with the IFCs Performance Standards; and (c) the IFCs failure to ensure that Lonmin complied with its Performance Standards.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Thumeka Magwangqana

Chair

Sikhala Sonke

079 706 2295

Nomonde Nyembe

Attorney: Business and Human Rights

Centre for Applied Legal Studies

nomonde.nyembe@wits.ac.za

076 100 6156

Palesa Madi
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) The Supreme Court today sought responses from real estate barons Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal on pleas of the CBI and the victims body seeking review of the 2015 verdict in the Uphaar fire tragedy case asking them to serve a two-year jail term if they fail to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine.

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A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, which fixed the review pleas for open court hearing on December 14, also extended the order restraining the Ansal brothers from leaving India till disposal of the petitions.

"We issue notice and will hear the review petitions on next Wednesday. In the meantime, we direct you (Sushil and Gopal Ansal) not to leave the country till disposal of review petitions," the bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel, said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing CBI, said that "the issue is on narrow compass" and the notices can be issued to the respondents on both the review petitions filed by the agency and Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT).

Senior lawyer Salman Khurshid, appearing for the Ansal brothers, accepted notices and sought some time to prepare his responses to the review pleas saying "we do not know what are the grounds in them."

He also assured the bench on behalf of Ansals that they will not leave the country till disposal of the review pleas.

AVUT, represented by another senior lawyer K T S Tulsi, said it was ready for advancing arguments and should be granted adequate time on December 14 when the pleas are heard. The bench said it would try to conclude the hearing on next date itself.

Yesterday, the apex court had restrained Sushil and Gopal Ansal from leaving the country till listing of the review plea of AVUT which, citing a media report, had apprehended that they may flee.

59 people had died of asphyxia when a fire broke out during the screening of Bollywood movie Border in Uphaar theatre in Green Park area of South Delhi on June 13, 1997. Over 100 were also injured in the subsequent stampede. PTI SJK MNL RKS ARC

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Vaani Kapoor has rubbished the rumours of going under the knife.

By India Today Web Desk: It was in 2013 that Vaani Kapoor made her Bollywood debut opposite Sushant Singh Rajput in Shuddh Desi Romance. But after a not-so-successful debut, Vaani was nowhere to be seen in the Bollywood circuit. And it was only at the end of 2015 that it was revealed that she has bagged her second project - Befikre. But as soon as the first look and teaser of Aditya Chopra's much-talked-about film came, something looked different. And it was Vaani Kapoor.

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PHOTOS: The truth about Vaani Kapoor's chin

ALSO READ: Ranveer Singh and Vaani Kapoor's Befikre is all about France

Soon enough the reports of the 28-year-old undergoing a chin surgery started doing the rounds. Her 'then-and-now' photo went viral on the internet and it was difficult to not see the change. But Vaani has rubbished the rumours of undergoing the knife.

In an interview to Mid-Day, Vaani revealed that that she has lost some weight and this might be the reason for her looking different.

She was quoted as telling the daily, "I have lost weight; my face is bound to look different. We shot in Paris when it was freezing; the cameras keep zooming in and out. The face looks different from different angles."

She did not stop here and added, "I can't afford surgery, I am only one-film old."

However, at the same time she clarified that she doesn't judge those who opt for surgeries.

It is for the first time that Vaani has been cast opposite Ranveer Singh. The film, which has been extensively shot in Paris, revolves around two carefree people.

Vaani waited for almost three years for her second film and it has been a long journey for her. "I kept auditioning with Shanoo Sharma (YRF's casting director) for the last three years to hone my skills. I also did a Tamil film called 'Aaha Kalyanam' (2014), a remake of 'Band Baaja Baraat' (2010). I requested Adi (Aditya Chopra) to make me an AD on a film so that I could learn filmmaking tricks."

Befikre is set to hit the screens on December 9.

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In an exclusive interview to India Today, Befikre's heroine Vaani Kapoor spoke about working on her new film, acting with Ranveer Singh and, of course, kissing him, and last but not the least, Aditya Chopra.

By Suhani Singh: In an exclusive interview, Vaani Kapoor spoke to India Today's Suhani Singh about her upcoming film Befikre, working with Ranveer Singh and Aditya Chopra and her future plans in Bollywood.

ALSO READ: Ranveer-Vaani's kissing scenes in Befikre stay uncut, CBFC chairman Nihalani says that kissing is done openly in Paris

SEE PICS: The truth about Vaani's chin in Befikre

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ALSO READ: Vaani denies chin surgery, says she cannot afford to go under the knife

How did you keep yourself motivated during what was a prolonged break for your next Hindi film?

Adi ([Aditya Chopra) has always been in touch with me. We were having a Shuddh Desi Romance success party and the very next day he called me and said, "I want you to wait. I see the potential in you. I don't want you to jump the gun and sign up any project. But if you want to take up something, then please go ahead for I am never going to restrict you. But I'd ideally want you to wait for something really good to come your way."

Back then I don't think he was done writing his own script. He wasn't sure he wanted me for his film or one directed by other. He kept reassuring me to hang in there and saying he believes in me. This reassurance really does help because you can get insane and also because I don't have anyone else's support within the industry. In fact I used to tell Adi to take put me as an assistant director (on a film) so that I am in touch with what is happening and not sitting idle at home. He said, "You should audition with Shanoo (Shanoo Sharma, Yash Raj Films' casting director) to be all charged up."

I have had this infinite amount of faith in him. There is something about him that makes you trust him blindly which I do. And I followed my gut and chose to wait for something really good to come along. It paid off, I think. I'm happy that my parents were supportive. They never really pressurised me into going ahead with just about anything.

Going by the initial video, you had to work really hard to get this role too.

It's also because Adi never really knew me personally. He had only seen me as Tara in Shuddh Desi Romance and Shyra is poles apart from her. So he had his doubts if I can convince the audience that I am someone who is born and brought up in Paris. He had only seen my auditions which he loved.

(To get this part) I auditioned a lot of scenes from both English and Hindi films. He wanted this whole cool quotient in Shyra. It took a lot of time, almost six months.

In contrast, was Dharam meant for Ranveer?

Yeah. Adi said it also, that he had Ranveer in his mind from day one. I had to bust my ass. He didn't have to do anything. He just had to show up. No, I'm just kidding. (Laughs)

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Shyra is carefree and has no inhibitions. What was the most challenging part of playing her?

It wasn't very easy to get into skin of Shyra. She is very non filmi, non-Bollywood. It was more about getting her body language, her thought process, the way she talks, her energy, her outlook and how she dresses up, everything right. I had to work hard to get these minute details which can make you distinctive. I watched a lot of French films. Before we started shooting, I went to Paris and spent a lot of time with French people especially talking to the women just to get their vibe, body language and nuances. It was exciting and challenging.

There is a part of me that has become Shyra. She has inspired me a lot. I personally have become a lot less inhibited. I don't stay in the constant worried and over-thinking zone. She is really cool. I wish I can be that cool.

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Did the many kissing scenes faze you?

Really no. I am also someone who has grown up watching lots of Hollywood films. I am kind of immune to them. I understand that you are a professional and it is part of your job. It is as normal as doing any other scene.

What was Aditya Chopra's brief to you?

Adi used to keep telling me that "Don't make her filmi, don't give her the energy that the Hindi filmi girls have." You know how people term you as the bubbly one. He also didn't want her to be completely useless. It was important to make her believable in the sense that she is born and brought up there.

How did the Parisians react to you shooting there especially given how you and Ranveer are dancing on streets and pulling quite a few antics?

They were so welcoming and happy. They were also surprised especially with the dance sequences on streets. They found it hilarious. I can only imagine what it would be in the times of Govinda and Karisma Kapoor who had to go abroad and do these really jazzy steps. Some confidence you require to pull that off.

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I used to see a whole lot of people gather just to watch (us shoot). Ranveer has a huge fan following so people used to somehow figure out where he is shooting and land up there. Because I am so anonymous right now, I could walk around the street. I can do the same in Mumbai still but in Paris you don't need a car. There walking is the best way to discover the city. The weather and the architecture is amazing. I love all the al fresco cafes. I had my set places for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

You had time to do all of this?

Before we went for the shooting, I was doing all of this. All lukhagiri. Like a proper tourist. (Laughs)

What is it like working with Aditya Chopra about whom little is known given that he doesn't give any interviews?

He is really approachable as a director. He has this amazing sense of humour. He loves to feed people. He used to take all the assistant directors, me and Ranveer out for dinners and practically order everything on the menu.

As a professional, he is so clear about his vision. You can ask him any question under the sun and he will explain it to you with so much clarity that there is no room for doubt.

I also did spend a lot of time doing workshops with him before he took me on for the film. That I think made me really comfortable around him. We developed this equation where I could approach him (freely) and I didn't mind goofing up. I knew that he doesn't judge you constantly. That it is OK to have a bad day or mess up once.

But on set, he is very impatient. You ask him whatever you have to right before the shoot. Once on set you need to be clear with your lines, not waste time by being late and you have to be fully prepared. He is extremely efficient. I realised that he doesn't take too many suggestions from people around him. He is very sure. With Befikre, he has stuck by what he thought. He has made this film with so much conviction that no matter what anybody has to say he is very clear that this is what I intended to make, and now I can only hope and pray that you like it.

How will Befikre change the notion of romance in Hindi cinema which is either too mawkish or too frivolous?

I don't think Befikre is frivolous at all. Yes, the film is light-hearted. Shyra and Dharam are free-spirited but that doesn't mean they are obnoxious. It is a love story where the emotions are not heightened to an extent where you know there is a big twist happening or conflict waiting in the second half or something tragic will happen. A lot of scenes are one-shot. You feel you are right there. It feels very real.Befikre is kind of film Adi always wanted to make but never did. He always ended up making the conventional love stories that we are used to watching. He just thought that now is the time that you can actually make it and connect with today's youth. He is damn cool guy in his sensibilities. He doesn't hold back. He has always had this side and he has chosen to show this side now.

What do you make of the Neal 'n' Nikki comparisons?

You can't blame also. I understand that they are also just going by the trailer. May be they are thinking because there is a kiss, it is frivolous; because they are having so much fun, they are so frivolous and so there is no depth and substance to these characters. That's not true. They have judged too soon. They will understand after watching the film and take it for what it is.

What's next for you?

I honestly don't have the bandwidth to think what's going to come next. I hope people like me in the film and love the film because I think Befikre is a very sweet film. Hopefully it pleasantly surprises people. The story might be thin but the moments and the journey, the way the story has been executed and the treatment it has got is so different and fresh. It is full of happiness. Ranveer Singh will make you laugh and how. It is fun and unlike (a) Bollywood (film).

(The writer tweets as @suhani84 .)

WATCH: I wish I do more such films, says Ranveer on Befikre

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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.
Nabors Industries Ltd. provides drilling and drilling-related services for land-based and offshore oil and natural gas wells. The company operates through five segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. It provides tubular running, wellbore placement, directional drilling, measurement-while-drilling (MWD), equipment manufacturing, and rig instrumentation services; and logging-while-drilling systems and services, as well as drilling optimization software. The company also offers REVit, an automated real time stick-slip mitigation system; ROCKit, a directional steering control system; SmartNAV, a collaborative guidance and advisory platform; SmartSLIDE, an advanced directional steering control system; and RigCLOUD, which provides the tools and infrastructure to integrate applications to deliver real-time insight into operations across the rig fleet. In addition, it manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and other drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools; and provides aftermarket sales and services for the installed base of its equipment. As of December 31, 2021, the company marketed approximately 301 rigs for land-based drilling operations in the United States, Canada, and in 20 other countries worldwide; and 29 rigs for offshore platform drilling operations in the United States and internationally. Nabors Industries Ltd. was founded in 1952 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.
By PTI: Allahabad, Dec 06 (PTI) Verdict by Allahabad High Court on a petition challenging election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Lok Sabha from Varanasi was further deferred today. Justice Vikram Nath, who yesterday began dictating order on the petition by losing Congress candidate Ajai Rai, said the dictation of the judgement shall continue tomorrow.

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Rai had challenged Modis election alleging among other things that there were discrepancies in his nomination papers, that the expenses on campaign had exceeded permissible limits and religious sentiments were exploited through slogans like "Har Har Modi".

The Congress candidate had finished third and forfeited his deposit in the electoral battle wherein Modi defeated his nearest rival Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party by a margin of 3.71 lakh votes.

Rai had moved the court in June, 2014, less than a month after the result was announced.

"We had argued that first of all there was no illegality in stating not known against columns meant for the assets and liabilities of ones spouse," Modis counsel and Additional Solicitor General of India Satya Pal Jain said today.

"A candidate could be held guilty of concealing facts on this count only if he or she is well aware of the assets and liabilities of the spouse and still declines to divulge the details. The petitioner had failed to establish the same and the court appeared to be in agreement with our contention," added Jain, who is also a member of BJP national executive.

"Moreover, the court also took note of the fact that following our strong rebuttals, the petitioner had agreed not press a number of other allegations made in the original petition, which include bribing of voters through distribution of freebies, appealing to religious sentiments and creating animosity between members of different communities," Jain added.

He said the petitioner chose to stick to two points - alleged discrepancies in nomination papers, "which was struck down by the court today - and expenditure on the campaign of Modi exceeding the permissible limits. The latter point is likely to be decided tomorrow when the court resumes dictation of orders". PTI NAC AKK AKK

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William & Mary building toward a bright future

Integrating the sciences The new ISC 3 was dedicated in the fall of 2016, bringing all of W&M sciences within proximity of one another and providing opportunities to collaborate. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Integrating the sciences The new ISC 3 was dedicated in the fall of 2016, bringing all of W&M sciences within proximity of one another and providing opportunities to collaborate. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Integrating the sciences The new ISC 3 was dedicated in the fall of 2016, bringing all of W&M sciences within proximity of one another and providing opportunities to collaborate. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Dedicating the building President Taylor Reveley (center) addresses the universitys Board of Visitors and other guests at the dedication of ISC 3. Other speakers were Chair of the Department of Biology Eric Bradley (left) and Rector Todd A. Stottlemyer 85. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Dedication: Hundreds of alumni, students, faculty, staff and administrators gathered on Jamestown Field for the dedication ceremony of Lemon and Hardy halls. Photo by Skip Rowland '83

Dedication: Jody Allen (fifth from left) and Leah Glenn, co-managing director of the Lemon Project, unveil the plaque for Lemon Hall with others who have been involved with the project. Photo by Skip Rowland '83

Dedication: Chief Diversity Officer Chon Glover (left) presents replicas of the Hardy Hall plaque to members of Hardy's family at the dedication ceremony. Photo by Skip Rowland '83

Dedication: Members of the Caroll F.S. Hardy's family unveil the plaque for Hardy Hall with Chief Diversity Officer Chon Glover (right) and President Taylor Reveley (third from right). Photo by Skip Rowland '83

John Tyler Hall Students of William & Mary study in the new lobby of the renovated John Tyler Hall. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

John Tyler Hall A faculty member works at her desk in the newly renovated John Tyler Hall. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

New name: In tribute to Martha Wren Briggs '55, the outdoor venue has been named the Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheatre at Lake Matoaka. Photo by John Henley

Wellness center: A conceptual sketch of the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center.

The Hixon Center A rendering of the Hixon Center for Experiential Learning and Leadership as seen from South Henry Street. Courtesy of VMDO Architects Photo - of - Hide Caption

Parts of William & Marys campus got a new look this year in a number of renovation and building projects that updated facilities for 21st century learning and expanded the universitys capabilities, particularly in the sciences. Other buildings gained significance after being renamed to reflect the contributions of historically marginalized members of the W&M community.

Integrated Science Center 3

This fall, the university dedicated the four-story, 113,000-square-foot Integrated Science Center 3, the third phase of William & Marys state-of-the-art science complex. ISC 3 provided new office and lab space for the science departments that had remained in Millington after the first two phases opened, clearing the older building out completely.

Designed with an eye toward interdisciplinary research, ISC 3 features adjustable boundaries that allow scientists to expand or reallocate lab space as needed.

The focus on interdisciplinary teaching and research is particularly helpful for programs such as environmental science and neuroscience, which involve scientists from different scientific fields. For example, neuroscience includes faculty from five different departments  applied science, biology, chemistry, kinesiology, health science and psychology  who were previously housed in four different buildings. The ISC puts them in much closer contact.

ISC 3 features open spaces for collaboration, study space, a cafe and an atrium that has been called a student magnet.

Tyler Hall

Economics, government, international relations and public policy are all housed in the same space with the completion of a major renovation of Tyler Hall. Built in 1927, the building had not had a major overhaul in almost 40 years.

The renovation added almost 7,000 square feet to the building by converting the fourth-floor attic to offices. It also updated the buildings infrastructure, deploying cost-saving energy connected to the central plant, water-saving measures and more flexible IT framework.

It has already reinvigorated the departments and programs housed there even as the finishing touches are being applied, said John McGlennon, longtime government and public policy professor, at the beginning of the fall semester.

Zable

Zable Stadiums dramatic reformation focused on the west side of the 80-year-old facility, adding 10 luxury boxes, a new press box, concession and bathroom areas and circulation space. After reopening in the fall, the stadium now features a new grand entrance and upper deck, wider aisles, additional handrails, improved lighting and a new ticketing office.

{{youtube:medium:center|f8tEB1qsNYE, The "new" Zable Stadium shines}}

Restrooms were renovated on both sides of the stadiums and an upgraded sound system can be clearly heard throughout the entire facility.

The renovation also added new field turf to replace the natural grass, which couldnt be used for recreation activities after bad weather.

Lemon and Hardy halls

More than 300 alumni, students, faculty, staff and administrators gathered on Jamestown Field during Homecoming for a ceremony of great significance to William & Mary  the formal renaming of the two Jamestown Road houses to honor the contributions made by Lemon, a man enslaved by the College in the 18th century, and Carroll F.S. Hardy, a longtime administrator who made monumental strides in diversity at William & Mary.

For hundreds of years, they have worked to sustain our institution, W&M President Taylor Reveley said at the ceremony. Theyre the William & Mary people, African-Americans, who suffered the hammer blows of the Colleges traffic in slavery, secession and segregation. And what we do today as part of our journey is remember them and repent for how badly they fared at the hands of Alma Mater of the Nation.

{{youtube:medium:left|Jn-jt8tzgKs, Dedicating Lemon & Hardy Halls}}

In the spring, the Task Force on Race and Race Relations issued a report that included 51 recommendations, including one that buildings on campus be named to more fully reflect the diversity of the W&M community.

New names

In April, the Lake Matoaka Amphitheatre was renamed The Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheatre at Lake Matoaka. Martha Wren Briggs is an alumna of the Class of 1955. The amphitheatre has been a popular venue, featuring musical performances, shows, wedding ceremonies and other special events for more than 70 years.

William & Mary Hall in autumn was renamed Kaplan Arena in honor of Jane Thompson Kaplan 56 and Jim Kaplan 57. The venue is home to hundreds of Tribe sporting events, concerts and ceremonies every year.

And watch for...

Work continues on the James A. and Robin L. Hixon Center for Experiential Learning and Leadership, a new 12,000-square foot building at William & Mary Law School. James A. Hixon is a 1979 graduate of W&M Law School. All nine of the law schools clinics will be located on the first floor, which will feature offices for managing attorneys to meet individually with students enrolled in the clinics, client interview rooms and a multipurpose conference room/clinical classroom.

Construction has started on the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center, located behind the Sadler Center. The center, named in honor of Bee McLeod 83, M.B.A.91 and honorary alumnus Goody Tyler, will house the Student Health Center, the Counseling Center, Health Promotion and the wellness components of Campus Recreation. The building will also house a new Center for Mindfulness and Authentic Excellence.

Design and construction of a new arts facility, The Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts, which will be home to an expansion of the Muscarelle Museum of Art and the new Kaplan wing. The centers space is expected to accommodate interactive technology and house world-class exhibitions, an arts teaching center, an auditorium and gathering spaces.

Two new buildings are in the works at William & Marys Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The 32,000-square-foot Consolidated Scientific Research Facility near Clayton House will provide research and tech space for the Center for Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Sea Grant, Marine Advisory Services, communications and IT. Also underway is a 15,000-square-foot facilities management building to house that division as well as safety and environmental staff, shipping and receiving, procurement and others.

Comprehensive renovations will begin at Landrum Hall dormitory in May 2017 and last approximately a year.
One woman and two babies were killed in a house fire in western Indiana.

It happened just after 8:30 p.m. Monday evening in Brazil, which is about 20 miles east of Terre Haute.

There were reportedly 14 people living in the house at the time, according to the

Four people were taken to the hospital.

The cause is unknown.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 6 (PTI) Austrian capital Vienna has attracted 47,465 visitors from India in the first 10 months of 2016, accounting for 1,02,701 overnight stays.

"Vienna got an overwhelming response from travellers from India exceeding the target of 1,00,000 overnight stays for 2016 by Indian tourists in just 10 months," Vienna Tourist Board Public Relations Manage Isabella Rauter said in a statement.

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Indians love to stroll around the city, "with half its metro area dotted with 2,000 green spaces, 850 parks and 400 species of rose, perhaps unmatched by any other city in the world", she added.

For the entire 2015, there were 89,628 total overnight stays from India.

"Tourists from India accounted for 1,02,701 overnight stays between January and October 2016, each visitor clocking an average of 2.16 nights," Vienna Tourist Board (VTB) said.

A direct Delhi-Vienna flight by Air India also contributed to more Indians visiting the Austrian capital, it added.

Set up in 1955, Vienna Tourism Board is the official destination marketing agency for Vienna. PTI AKT SBT ABI

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After falling short in his bid to unseat Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt last month, Roger G. Jalette Sr., here with his dog Lady, will end 16 years of public service.
Court backs German utilities' compensation claim

06 December 2016

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Germany's Federal Constitutional Court today ruled that, although the country's 2011 phase-out legislation is essentially in compliance with the constitution, power utilities are entitled to "reasonable" compensation for the early shut down of their nuclear power reactors.

Germany's reaction to the Fukushima accident in 2011 was extreme, with Chancellor Angela Merkel making two decisions: firstly to order a shutdown of eight units that started operation in or before 1980 for a three-month moratorium period; and subsequently that those units may not be allowed to restart. Without consultation or reference to independent regulatory advice on the safety of the plants, the orders were executed by the German states which are home to the reactors.

Collectively the utilities lost 8336 MWe of nuclear generating capacity, closing Biblis A and B, Neckarwestheim 1, Brunsbuttel, Isar 1, Unterweser, and Phillipsburg 1. Despite only starting operation in 1984, Krummel was not brought back from long-term shutdown.

Three of the four energy company operating those plants - EOn, RWE and Vattenfall - launched legal actions seeking compensation for the early shut down of their reactors. They claim the change to the law constitutes expropriation. EnBW, which is 45% owned by the Green-governed state of Baden-Wurttemburg, did not contest the shutdown.

In its judgement today, the Constitutional Court said the phase-out legislation itself is largely within Germany's constitution. However, it said it does "violate the constitutionally guaranteed right to property to the extent that the introduction of fixed dates by which nuclear power plants in Germany must be shut down does not ensure that the electricity output allowances allocated to each power plant by law in 2002 will be used up within the corporations concerned before the fixed shut down dates." The court added German legislation "does not provide for any settlement with regard to investments made in legitimate expectation of the additional electricity output allowances granted in 2010 and that were devalued as a result of the striking out of these allowances" under the country's nuclear phase-out legislation.

The court said the legislator should have at least taken these losses into consideration for its decision at the time. It therefore ruled the power companies should receive at least partial compensation for the early nuclear phase-out.

EOn has said it lost 8.0 billion ($8.6 billion) as a result of the early shut down of its reactors, whilst Vattenfall claims to have lost 4.7 billion. Analysts have estimated RWE's losses at 6.0 billion.

According to the ruling, the legislator must draw up new provisions in the legislation governing this compensation by the end of June 2018. The court did not state how much money the energy companies are entitled to but its ruling creates the basis for out-of-court settlements or for further court cases.

The three utilities issued statements welcoming the court's decision and saying they are prepared to enter constructive talks with the German government on the implementation of the ruling. They also commented that the amount of the claims they will seek cannot be quantified until the court's decision has been analyzed in more detail.

EOn said the ruling "acknowledges above all the importance of trust when it comes to investments made on the basis of political decision."

RWE Power CEO Matthias Hartung said, "With today's decision by the highest German court, we have gained certainty for our company and its owners regarding a legal issue that is of fundamental importance for us."

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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EDF reactors move closer to restart

06 December 2016

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The French nuclear safety authority has accepted analyses submitted by EDF on the serviceability of ten of its 900 MWe reactors in which some steam generator parts were found to contain high concentrations of carbon. The utility will soon submit analyses for two 1450 MWe units.

In June, the French regulator, the Autorite de Surete Nucleaire (ASN), said it had identified 18 French nuclear power reactors operated by EDF - of both 900 MWe and 1450 MWe capacity - whose steam generators could contain high carbon concentrations. Of these, 12 are equipped with channel heads manufactured by Japan Casting and Forging Corporation (JCFC) "liable to contain a particularly high carbon concentration". A high carbon content in steel can lead to mechanical properties lower than expected.

EDF has since provided ASN with data aimed at demonstrating the operating safety of the 12 reactors concerned. However, the regulator called for additional inspections to be carried out to verify whether each of the channel heads concerned conforms to the data submitted by EDF. These inspections have already been conducted or are in progress during scheduled outages.

The data submitted by EDF has since been examined by ASN and France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), who verified that the hypotheses and method used were acceptable. However, the ASN said the hypotheses of the EDF data will need to be confirmed by a test program on representative scale replicas of the components.

ASN has now sent EDF requests concerning "the additional inspections required, the compensatory operational measures to be implemented or reinforced and the additional tests or studies to be performed in the medium term".

ASN said yesterday, "Provided that its requests are taken into account, the generic demonstrations provided by EDF are acceptable for the 900 MWe reactors and can be used on each of the reactors concerned with a view to ASN authorizing their restart."

"Each reactor restart remains subject to the approval of ASN on the basis of a specific safety file," ASN said.

It added, "EDF informed ASN that it will shortly be sending its additional data regarding the 1450 MWe reactors."

Steam generators are heat exchangers between the water circulating in the reactor's primary coolant circuit - at a temperature of about 350C and a pressure of 155 bar - and the water in the secondary circuit that supplies steam to the turbines. Their domed lower head is part of the primary circuit and therefore has an important safety role in ensuring cooling water is always available. There are three steam generators in 900 MWe pressurized water reactors, while 1450 MWe reactors feature four.

Last month, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority concluded that domestically produced nuclear power plant components are sufficiently strong for their intended purpose.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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The country of Guinea is located in West Africa, sitting along the coastline of the Gulf of Guinea and the greater Atlantic Ocean. Guinea encompasses 94,927 square miles (245,860 square kilometers) in size and has a population of around 11.75 million people. Guinea gained independence from France in 1958, and today it is a majorly French-speaking nation that mostly relies on mineral production and agriculture for its economy.

The three biggest cities in Guinea:

3. Gueckedou

The city of Gueckedou is the third largest city in Guinea, with a population of 221,715 people. The city is located in the Gueckedou Prefecture of the Nzerekore region in the southern part of the country. The population of Gueckedou has almost tripled in the last twenty years as the greater population of the country has increased by close to 4 million over that time. The city is most well known for its large market that takes place every week and attracts traders and visitors from across the southern part of the country as well as the neighboring countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Cote d'Ivoire. The city has seen its fair share of violence and problems over the last two decades as the fighting from the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991-2002) and the Second Liberian Civil War (1999-2003) spilled over heavily into the area in 2000 and 2001. The city was also a center of protests, strikes, and riots against then President Lansana Conte (1934-200) in 2007 and was one of the areas involved in the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak.

2. Nzerekore

The city of Nzerekore is the second largest city in Guinea, with a population of 238,928 people. The city is located in the Nzerekore Prefecture of the Nzerekore region. Like Gueckedou, Nzerekore's population has also increased rapidly in the last two decades, having slightly more than doubled. The city is noted as an economic and commercial center in the southern region of Guinea and is a market town with its own airport that is known for its silverworking. The rapid growth of the town did not start until after the end of World War Two when it became a center of trading and administration and had a sawmill and plywood plant built. During the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1997) and the Second Liberian Civil War the city was disrupted due to the many refugees that spilled over the border and came into the city. The city was also the location of 3 days of fighting during the 2013 Guinea clashes between the ethno-religious groups of the Fula and the Malinke over the transparency of the presidential election.

1. Conakry

The city of Conakry is the capital city of Guniea and by far the largest city in the country, with a population of 1,660,973 people. The city is located in the Conakry Region and sits on the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean as a port city in the western part of the country. The city was founded in 1887 when France took control of the Tombo Island where the city was located. The city became the capital of French Guinea in 1904 and started developing as a major export port since then. The population of the city has skyrocketed in the last half a century, going from 50,000 in 1958 and growing to what it is today as the administrative, economic and communications center for the country. The city has several universities and museums, as well as hospitals, parks, hotels and markets. The city has had faced numerous challenges in the past and was the location of the Camp Boiro concentration camp set up during the rule of President Sekou Toure (1922-1984), was the site of over a hundred deaths during the 2009 Guinea protests and having water and power cuts over the last decade.

The future of Guinea:

The country of Guinea is just coming out of a disputed presidential election and having officially being declared free of Ebola in 2015. The economy of the country has been badly effecting by the Ebola crisis, low commodity prices, the capital city has been having power and water issues for the last decade and around 55% of the population has been affected by poverty. To counter this the government has launched a five years development plan starting this year to address the poverty, infrastructure issues and have a post Ebola recovery plan for the country.
Africa is well known around the world for many things. Among them are its wealth of natural resources, rich cultural heritage, and, arguably best of all, amazing ecological attractions. However, the continent has made a name for itself in another field for the past few decades, and that has been in the realm of higher education. Currently, there are dozens of universities spread all over Africa, which provide Africans with a chance of getting a good quality higher education, thus transforming them into valuable members of the society.

7. Makerere University, Uganda -

Makerere University is located on Makerere Hill in Ugandas capital city of Kampala. It was founded in 1922, making it one of the oldest higher learning institutions in Africa. Initially, it was just a technical school designed to offer courses in building, carpentry and mechanics. However, it now offers a broad range of higher education courses in various disciplines such as medicine, agriculture, business studies, veterinary science, engineering, and education. Makerere University is one of the most prestigious universities in Africa, which has managed to produce notable alumni such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o Kenyan novelist, Mwai Kibaki, former president of Kenya, Patrick Mazimhaka, Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania, Oginga Odinga politician, and many others.

6. University of Ghana, Ghana -

The University of Ghana, which was established in 1948, is the oldest institution of higher learning in Ghana. It is based in the town of Legon, approximately 12 kilometers from Ghanas capital, Accra. The University of Ghana has a student enrollment of approximately 40,000. Initially, it focused on offering liberal arts, social sciences, agriculture, and medicine courses. However, it has since expanded its curriculum to include technology-based courses. The university also has a graduate school for nuclear and allied sciences, making it one of the few African universities that offer nuclear physics courses.

5. University of Nairobi, Kenya -

The University of Nairobi was one of the leading pioneers of higher education in Kenya. It was established in 1956 as the Royal Technical College, but it did not become a full-fledged, independent university until 1970. It is located in Kenyas capital, Nairobi, but it has several other campuses around the country. As one of the oldest universities in Kenya, the University of Nairobi is a prestigious institution that has produced famous alumni such as William Ruto, a Kenyan Deputy President, Willy Mutunga, a former Chief Justice of Kenya, Wangari Mathai, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and several others.

4. University of Marrakech Cadi Ayyad, Morocco -

The University of Marrakech Cadi Ayyad, also known as the Cadi Ayyad University, is one of the major institutions of higher learning in Morocco. Located in Marrakesh, the university was established in 1978, and it is one of the youngest universities in Africa. It has one of the highest enrollment rates in Africa, currently boasting of about 70,000 students, out of whom 700 are international students. It has 13 institutions, which offer a variety of courses in disciplines such as science, human sciences, law, economic and social sciences, applied sciences, commerce, technology, and most notably, astronomy.

3. University of Ibadan, Nigeria -

The University of Ibadan is one oldest university in Nigeria, having been founded in 1932 as Yaba College. It is located about 8 kilometers away from the city of Ibadan and is made up of 12 faculties that offer various courses in medicine, arts, agriculture and forestry, education, technology, law, public health, science, pharmacy, dentistry, social sciences, and veterinary medicine. As one of the most prestigious higher learning institution in Nigeria, the University has produced several famous alumni such as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Emeka Anyaoku (the Commonwealth Secretary-General), and several others.

2. Cairo University, Egypt -

Cairo University is one of the premier African universities, having been founded in 1908. Despite its name, the universitys main campus is located in the city of Giza, about 5 kilometers away from Cairo. It has one of the largest enrollments in Africa, with about 155,000 students taking courses in 22 faculties. Notable alumni from the University include Mohamed Morsi (a former Egyptian president), Boutros Boutros-Ghali (a former United Nations Secretary General), and Nobel Prize winners Mohamed ElBaradei, Yasser Arafat, and Naguib Mahfouz.

1. University of Cape Town, South Africa -

The University of Cape Town is one of the top higher learning institutions in all of Africa, commanding respect both on the continental and international level. Founded in 1829, it is the oldest university in South Africa, and one of the premier higher learning institutions in Africa. Ranked as the best African university by several ranking organizations, the University of Cape Town is one of the most prestigious universities in Africa, and it has produced several famous alumni, including Ralph Bunche, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Bangladesh has a market economy. It is considered the 44th largest economy in the world and the second fastest growing. Since 2004, this country has experienced relatively constant growth at 6.5%. In 2016, it reached 7.1% and is around $180 billion. This amount is expected to increase to $322 billion by 2021. Bangladesh relies on diversified industries, including textiles, pharmaceuticals, leather, fishing, steel, natural gas, shipbuilding, telecommunications, and food processing. Additionally, it has the second largest financial sector of the Indian subcontinent.

The relative stability of this economy has attracted the attention of foreign investors. In 2015, direct foreign investments exceeded $2 million, 44% more than in 2014. These investments were directed at some of the previously mentioned industries, as well as oil and power generation. One of the reasons so many foreign investors are attracted to Bangladesh is its open policy which allows for 100% foreign funds in some industries.

Economic History of Modern Bangladesh

Bangladesh gained its independence from Pakistan in 1971. At that time, the new country implemented a socialist framework for its economy. Under this framework, all industries within the country were state-owned. This move resulted in slow growth, food shortages, and inefficient goods production. The inefficiency led to lost external buyers. This changed in 1975, however, when the government of Bangladesh set about reforming the economy. The reform gave way to private industry participation in the market. Gradually, the government began to privatize state-owned businesses, including telecommunications, banking, media, and jute production.

By the 1980s, the country had begun to see hints of improvement, and legislation was passed to support increased privatization of industry. Internal political instability in the 90s caused a failure to follow International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment reforms and caused a loss in foreign investors. From 2003 to 2010, several lines of credit were made available to Bangladesh, including $70 million of a $490 million IMF poverty reduction plan, $536 million in interest free loans from the World Bank, and a $1 billion line of credit from India. The country now has a $30 billion foreign reserve.

Most Important Economic Sectors in Bangladesh

The most important economic sectors in Bangladesh are agriculture, manufacturing, and finance.

Agriculture

A large percentage of the population of Bangladesh survives by subsistence farming. The principal crop is rice, although jute, corn, and various vegetables have been increasing in importance. Because of the rapidly growing population, many people in Bangladesh suffer food shortages. Risks of inclement weather and natural disasters hinder growth opportunities. Additionally, the number of non-landowners in rural areas has been increasing. The risk involved with agricultural production has limited investments in new technologies.

Manufacturing

In manufacturing, the clothing industry is the largest contributing sector. Clothing factories provide approximately 3 million jobs, mostly employing women. Wages, however, are among the lowest in the world, although minimum wage has recently increased. Today, the clothing industry makes up 80% of the countrys total exports. Bangladesh is the worlds second largest textile exporter. Other manufacturing industries include shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, leather, and information technology.

Finance

As previously mentioned, banks in Bangladesh were state-owned until the 1980s. Between 2000 and 2006, the country focused on creating risk-based regulations. Today, there are 4 government-owned specialized banks, 9 foreign commercial banks, and 39 private banks.
Overview Of The Economy Of Norway

Norway practices a mixed economy with both privately and publicly owned enterprises. Most of the economy is based on natural resource exploitation, including fishing, petroleum, and hydroelectric power.

The Norwegian economy's total gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 was $499 billion and a 2015 GDP per capita of $70,000. The services industry contributes 52.7% of the GDP, followed by industry (45.1%) and agriculture (2.2%). Of the 2.8 million-person labor force, approximately 76% work in the services sector, 21.1% in the industry sector, and 2.9% in the agriculture sector. Other important sectors in the economy here are food processing, shipbuilding, shipping, chemicals, paper products, metals, timber, and textiles. Norway has a 4.3% unemployment rate. In addition, it has $55 billion in foreign reserves and an AAA Standard & Poors credit rating.

Leading Industries Of Norway

Production and exploitation of North Sea oil and natural gas drive the economy of Norway. Profit from these industries finance the countrys manufacturing and welfare systems, including the Government Pension Fund Global. Oil and natural gas exports contribute 17% of the national GDP. The largest oil company in the country is Statoil, two-thirds of which is owned by the government.

Top Export Goods And Partners

Norway exports $149 billion worth of goods annually. Its principal export goods include: crude petroleum ($45.1 billion), petroleum gas ($43.6 billion), refined petroleum ($6.5 billion), non-fillet fresh fish ($4.94 billion), raw aluminum ($3.14 billion). The majority of these exports go to the following countries: the UK ($28 billion), Germany ($26 billion), the Netherlands ($20.8 billion), Sweden ($10.1 billion) and France ($9.1 billion).

Top Import Goods And Partners

This country imports $90.7 billion worth of goods every year. Considering imports and exports, Norway has a positive revenue of $59.1 billion. The majority of its imports are cars ($5.54 billion), refined petroleum ($2.81 billion), computers ($2.06 billion), passenger and cargo ships ($2.03 billion), and nickel mattes ($1.84 billion). The biggest import partners are Sweden ($11.4 billion), Germany ($10.9 billion), China ($8.23 billion), the UK ($5.86 billion), and Denmark ($5.53 billion).

Challenges Faced By The Economy Of Norway

Although the economy of Norway is considered healthy, developed, and growing, it does face some serious challenges. This country has a high cost of living and labor. Most of the labor force is concentrated in the petroleum industry, which places an emphasis on unskilled labor. Because of its reliance on petroleum, once reserves are exhausted Norway will not be able to maintain its high quality of living and economic success. Because of this reliance on nonrenewable resources and unskilled labor, economic growth is vulnerable to any downturns in the global market.

Future Economic Plans

In the 1970s, the world experienced an increase in oil prices which benefited Norways economy. Because of this, the government had no reason to invest in and encourage the growth of private business. Over the last few years, however, both federal and local governments have been working toward increasing private industries that are not focused on petroleum production and exploitation. The principal focus is on the high-technology industry. Public investments have been made in centers of expertise, particularly in cancer biotechnology in Oslo.
Maria Ladenburger

By: Chan Yuan

People in Germany, are angry after learning that a teenage refugee abducted a woman and raped her.

Freiburg police said that they have arrested the boy of Afghanistan, after raping and drowning the 19-year-old daughter of an EU official.

The victim was identified as Maria Ladenburger. She was the daughter of Dr. Clemens Ladenburger, an attorney with the legal director of the European Commission in Germany.

According to the criminal complaint, Maria was on her way back home from a party when she was attacked on the edge of a bike trail behind the Schwarzwald train station.

Her body was found in the River Dreisam. An autopsy showed that she was raped and drowned. Police found Mariaas black scarf and bike near the murder scene.

A strand of Mariaas blond hair was found on the suspect.

During questioning, the suspect confessed to the murder.

Maria volunteered at a refugee center.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
Amateur & Professional Bakers to Battle it Out in Wrexhams Great Christmas Bake Off

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Dec 6th, 2016

Over 20 of Wrexhams best amateur and professional bakers are preparing to go head to head in Wrexhams first Christmas Bake Off.

The event, which will take place at The Bank in Wrexham Town Centre tomorrow, follows on from the inaugural evening held in the summer which saw over 100o raised for Nightingale House Hospice.

Following on from the success of the first ever Wrexham Bake Off held in September at the Bank Bar in Wrexham, event organisers Andrew Atkinson and Alex Jones are looking ahead to the festive season to find the Star Baker of all things seasonal.

The event is again being organised by local campaigner Andrew Atkinson and owner of the Bank Bar, Alex Jones.

In total there are over 20 entries competing for the highly coveted title of Star Baker  with three local baking businesses, restaurants and individuals all taking on the festive challenge.

Contestants this year include previous winners- Bevs Been Baking, Emz Cakes, Chris De Burger and Gateway Church as well as Kitchen Creation Cakes, King Street Coffee, La Baguette, The Lemon Tree, Natwest Bank, Crafty Creations, Barbara Edwards, Marlena Masel, Maggie Rastall, Elwell Chocolates, Val Hartnell, Cllr Phil Wynn, Olga Kalkwarf-Greyling, Natalie Jones, Nightingale House, Marfird Play Group and Siaran Price-Edwards.

The entries will be brought to the Bank Bar and judged in front of a live audience who will then get the chance to buy and try slices of cake and other Christmas treats for 1 each.

The head judge will once more be Mayor Berry the Mayor of Wrexham, Cllr John Pritchard and there will be prizes awarded to the winners as well as a fundraising raffle on the night.

Mayor of Wrexham Cllr John Pritchard will be reprising his head judge role of Mayory Berry for the night. Also on the look out for soggy bottoms will be several other judges who have volunteered themselves to take on the task of sampling every cake / dessert entered into the competition.

Mr Atkinson commented: Its all set to be another great night highlighting our amazing businesses from in and around Wrexham and showcasing our baking talent from the area whilst raising money for an incredibly important cause, Nightingale House. I hope lots of people will come down get a beer and cheer on the bakers before the best part, trying the cake.

There will also be the chance to take part in a raffle  with money raised going to Nightingale House Hospice.

The prizes have all been donated by local businesses, including a back massage voucher from Glow, jewellery from Jens Irresistible Handmade Jewellery, Emz Cakes treats, King Street Coffee voucher, 20 Mr Tee home delivery ice cream voucher and much, much more!

One lucky person will also have the chance to win an oven glove signed by some of the recent contestants of the Great British Bake Off (pictured above)

The categories in contest are-

Best Christmas Cake- Professional bakers only.

Best Christmas Cake- Everyone else.

Most epic Yule Log.

All the Extras- Festive treats, there must be 12 as close to identical as possible.

Gluten-free Christmas Treat

Anyone interested in attending is welcome to turn up at the Bank Bar tomorrow evening at 7pm.

You can view our coverage / watch videos from the first Wrexham Bake Off here.
On Thursday, December 1, Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill that would have provided Chicago Public Schools (CPS) with $215 million toward its roughly $700 million required contribution to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. Because the CPS budget for the current fiscal year, approved August 24, assumed the state would disburse those funds, Rauners veto creates a large deficit in the current CPS budget, bringing the likelihood of mass layoffs and other attacks on teachers and public education during the current year in order to cut costs.

While the Illinois Senate voted to override Rauners veto, the House adjourned for the year without even taking a vote. A spokesman for Speaker Michael Madigan, the Democratic House leader, said that they would not be able to override, despite formally holding a one-seat supermajority.

The truth is that the Democratic Party, including leading figures such as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, as well as its junior partner, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), were fully aware that the $215 million in funding was illusory and likely to be vetoed by Rauner. But the promise of funding was used to block a strike and extract key concessions from teachers in order to continue the assault on public education and public sector workers that was begun before Rauner was even elected.

The CTU and the pseudo-left organizations, such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO), whose leading member, Jesse Sharkey, is CTU vice president, knowingly maintained the ruse long enough to sell a concessions contract to Chicago teachers and to drive support for the Democrats in the recent election. While CTU president Karen Lewis now claims Rauner was never going to give us any money, the CTU did nothing to mobilize teachers and wider layers of workers to defend either funding for public education or for public teacher pensions, which are woefully underfunded.

Indeed, one of the central issues that emerged in last-minute negotiations between CPS and the CTU was over a matter of $200 million, which CTU president Karen Lewis claimed would provide, everything we need to fund schools so that they work well. This helped CTU sell the concessions contract, which introduces a two-tier pension system, flatlines wages, and eliminates protections against economic layoffs, such as budget deficits.

The $200 million, which would supposedly have provided funding for more counselors, teacher assistants, and other support staff direly needed by schools, was left to CPS, which claimed it would use surplus revenue from Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, as well as savings booked from not having to pay $215 million in pensions out of its own revenues.

The CTUs bogus claims about the funding served to bolster illusions in the Democratic Party just prior to the November elections. It echoed the lies, promoted by the American Federation of Teachers and other unions that this party of austerity and war was actually working toward stabilization of school and pension fund finances.

The $215 million in CPS funding was part of a stopgap budget deal approved by Rauner and the Democratic Party-controlled legislature at the end of June in order to keep state government running into the new fiscal year, which began July 1. The stopgap budget provided minimal funding for state government, social services and higher education through the end of 2016 as well as funding for public schools for a full year.

At the time the measure was passed, it was widely reported that the $215 million was contingent on a comprehensive plan to cut pensions statewide, and Rauner justified his veto by explaining he supported the bill only on condition that Democrats re-engage in serious, good faith negotiations. Rauner said, Despite my repeated requests for daily negotiations and hope to reach a comprehensive agreement by next week, we are no closer to ending the (budget) impasse or enacting pension reform.

Democratic Senate President John Cullerton, for his part, denied that the CPS funding measure required passage of any specific pension reform bill and said, If he wants to tie it to something else like pension reform, thats something I am supportive of. We havent talked about putting the two things together at this point in time.

As a matter of fact, Rauner and Cullerton, as well as Madigan and Emanuel, are all in fundamental agreement on the matter of cutting the pensions of teachers and other public sector workers. In 2013, before Rauner was governor, Cullerton and Madigan passed a bill to cut state worker pensions that was signed by the then-governor, Democrat Pat Quinna bill that was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court. Emanuels own plan to cut city worker pensions was also struck down by the courts on the same grounds.

Moreover, the Democrats, who prior to Rauners election dominated state government for over a decade, have repeatedly cut education funding at all levels, slashed health care spending, particularly for those with mental health issues and developmental disabilities, and pushed ahead with the continued privatization and cutting of social services. In Chicago, the Emanuel administration has laid off thousands of teachers already through budget cuts and school closures.

Although Emanuel and other leading Democrats were aware the Rauner would likely veto the funding measure, Rauners veto itself is part of an overall strategy to force Democrats to enact provisions of his so-called Turnaround Agenda, a package of anti-worker provisions including cuts to workers compensation, restrictions on collective bargaining, limitations on lawsuits against corporations, privatization of state government and public schools, pension cuts, and term limits for legislators. Illinois has operated without a full state budget since July 2015 due to Rauners insistence that any budget deal must also enact parts of his agenda.

Outside of the provision on term limits, practically none of the components of Rauners agenda are items that Democrats have not already passed in some form or another. But the Democrats are worried that some of the provisions in particular, such as an end to prevailing wage requirements and the placement of limitations on collective bargaining topics, would serve to drastically weaken the unions to the point that they could no longer carry out crucial roles upon which the ruling class reliessmothering worker anger and militancy and forcing through concessions.
The Obama administrations decision to block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline has left the fate of the project up to the incoming Trump White House. On Monday, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the pipeline remains something we support construction of, and will review the full situation in the White House and make an appropriate determination at that time.

There can be little doubt that a Trump administration would reverse the Army Corps of Engineers decision to stop construction of the pipeline underneath the Missouri River. While many have hailed Mondays decision from the Army as a historic victory for the anti-pipeline activists who have gathered at the Oceti Sakowin camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in reality nothing has been resolved and the energy companies are banking on a more favorable political climate in six weeks to resume construction.

The pipeline has cost $3.8 billion so far and travels some 1,200 miles to transport crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois, threatening cultural and environmental sites along the way. The pipeline as a whole is 92 percent complete, and in North Dakota, 99 percent complete. The only remaining obstacle to its completion is the segment under Lake Oahe, which is part of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

Energy conglomerates are hopeful that construction will be approved again under a Trump presidency. American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement Sunday, I am hopeful President-elect Trump will reject the Obama administrations shameful actions to deny this vital energy project.

The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners also criticized the Army decision, saying, The White Houses 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.

While many cheered the Armys decision at Oceti Sakowin, the protest encampment where thousands have assembled since August, the demonstrators are determined to stay and fight until the pipeline is abandoned. Significantly, the Army announcement does not end the pipeline, but simply asks for more time to look into alternate routes for its completion.

Assistant Secretary of Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy did not rule out an alternate pipeline that 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, its clear that theres more work to do, she added, The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.

Donald Trump has personal investments in Energy Transfers Partners as well as Phillips 66, which owns a share of the pipeline. The CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, Kelcy Warren, gave $169,000 to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Trumps business ties prompted a statement from his transition team to campaign and congressional staff, which said that Trumps position on the DAPL has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americans, adding, Those making such a claim are only attempting to distract from the fact that President-elect Trump has put forth serious policy proposals he plans to set in motion on Day One.

As recently as last week, the Trump team released a memo saying they would cut the bureaucratic red tape put in place by the Obama administration that has prevented our country from diversifying our energy portfolio.

Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, the main backers of the DAPL, were unfazed by the Armys decision and in a statement late Sunday said, As stated all along, [we] are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. They added, Nothing this administration has done today changes that in any way.

North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness said his group was looking forward to the enforcement of the rule of law and the approval of an easement by the incoming Trump Administration.

Not wanting to confront mass opposition by Native Americans and their supporters in the waning days of his presidency, Obama has essentially left it to Trump to be the villain of the pipeline saga and deal with the protesters. The stock of Energy Transfer Partners fell only 2 percent on Monday morning, as Wall Street investors know perfectly well they have nothing to fear from either government.

The incoming administration will also seek to privatize oil-rich Indian reservations, which may contain about a fifth of the nations oil, gas, and coal reserves. Trumps team proposed to put tribal lands into private ownership, a move that could reap in $1.5 trillion in energy resources, according to a 2009 study by The Council of Energy Resource Tribes, a private energy group. In 2008, the Bureau of Indian Affairs testified to Congress that Indian reservations contained about 20 percent of the nations untapped energy deposits.

Trumps transition team has commissioned a 27-member Native American Affairs Coalition to guide his administration over Indian policy, especially in regard to privatizing tribal lands for drilling. At least three of the four chair-level members have ties to the energy industry.

While the mining and drilling deals are presented as much-needed sources of income for the impoverished reservations, they only benefit a small tribal elite. In 2015 the Government Accountability Office revealed that the Bureau of Indian Affairs actually hindered the development of energy infrastructure and as a result tribes lost money.

Activists at Oceti Sakowin have made clear that Sundays Army announcement has not deterred them from remaining at their encampment. Charlotte Bad Cob of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota told media on Sunday, This is a temporary celebration. I think this is just a rest, adding, With a new government it could turn and we could be at it again.

Veteran Matthew Crane of New York also told news media, That drill is still on the drill pad. Until thats gone, this is not over.

Frank Archambault of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation moved his entire family to the encampment last August. He told media that the energy companies will appeal the Armys decision saying, Its a trick. Its a lie. Until that drill is shut down its not over yet, adding, Everybody needs to stay in place.

Weve been lied to and deceived this whole time, he said. Why should this time be any different?
The Fair Work Commission, the federal governments industrial tribunal, last month effectively cleared the way for extensive job cuts by New South Wales state-owned electricity distribution company Essential Energy.

The job destruction is part of a drive by the NSW state Liberal-National government to slash costs throughout its electricity enterprises. This includes Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy, which are in the process of being privatised.

The tribunal decision removes prohibitions on the use of involuntary redundancies in the current enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA). The company will no longer be obliged to offer voluntary redundancies and can move directly to sackings. It can impose 600 forced redundancies by July 2018, when a cap agreement ends, and up to 1,000 more in the following year.

Essential Energy originally demanded that workers accept the immediate destruction of 800 jobs as part of negotiations in a long running dispute for a new EBA. It is also seeking to freeze wages for two years, maintain a ban on re-employing redundant workers in permanent positions within two years, halve the amount employees are paid when called in for emergencies, and reduce the wages and conditions of contractors.

In its ruling, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) admitted that the job cuts will have significant detrimental consequences for individual Essential Energy employees, their families, and the communities in which they live. Yet it insisted this was an unavoidable consequence of the economic paradigm in which Essential Energy operates. It declared that a significant reduction in the size and cost of Essential Energys workforce has become inescapable.

This openly pro-business rationale, insisting that workers must suffer to cut costs, exposes the claim by the Electrical Trade Union (ETU) and United Services Union (USU) that the FWC is an independent industrial umpire.

While the ETU issued a statement making some objection to the ruling, the union handed the dispute over to the tribunal and is wholly responsible for the outcome. In May, without any consultation with its members at Essential Energy, the ETU called off a scheduled 80-hour strike after the FWC granted the companys application for a suspension of the action on the grounds of public safety.

Subsequently, the ETU asked the tribunal to order the termination of all industrial action. It knew this would trigger a 21-day compulsory arbitration period, opening the way for a deal or a court-imposed settlement.

ETU state secretary Steve Butler declared this was the best possible outcome because it forces the company to sit down and negotiate in good faith. The union could put its case to the independent umpire who will then make a final decision.

The FWC is no independent umpire. Introduced by the federal Labor government in 2009, with full support of the trade unions, the tribunal is armed with anti-strike provisions and the power to impose severe penalties on workers. It forms part of the state apparatus, which includes the courts and the police.

Under Labors Fair Work laws the FWC and the federal government can also terminate any industrial action deemed to threaten to cause damage to the Australian economy or endanger the welfare of any part of the population.

The ETU and USU will now insist that Essential Energy workers have no choice but to accept the job cuts, and block any attempt to oppose them.

To head off any potential action against the sackings, the ETU is now claiming that the regional-based National Partys newly-elected state leader John Barilaro can be prevailed upon to prevent the job cuts.

In a November 23 bulletin, the ETU declared: New Nationals leader John Barilaro will today face his first opportunity to defend regional jobs and services. It cited a statement by Barilaro before the March 2015 state election that: I support lower electricity prices, but I will always lead the charge in protecting local electricity jobs.

To claim that the Nationals will oppose job cuts is to lead workers into another blind alley. As part of coalition governments, at both state and federal levels, they are slashing thousands of jobs and cutting wages and working conditions across the public service, while gutting essential social services. The state Liberal-National government is currently privatising five regional-based hospitals, at the expense of jobs and services.

No doubt the power unions will also attempt, as they did in the 2015 state election, to promote Labor as a progressive alternative. For electoral purposes, Labor cynically claimed to oppose the governments plan to privatise the electricity distribution assets.

In reality, Labor began the sell-off before it was thrown out of office in 2011. Once the 2015 election was over, state Labor leader Luke Foley flagged support for privatisation, declaring private and not-for-profit sectors should play a significant role in the delivery of our public services.

The FWC decision will strengthen the governments hand in its assault on workers at Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy, where hundreds of jobs have already been axed with assistance of the power unions. The unions have worked to prevent any unified campaign by power workers to oppose cost cutting and privatisation.

Electricity workers nationally are facing a political offensive by Labor and Liberal-National governments alike, aided at every point by the trade unions.

A stand must be taken against the escalating assault on jobs that is condemning ever-greater numbers of workers and youth to permanent unemployment. A unified struggle by workers across the entire power industry will mean a direct confrontation, not only with the government and the corporate elite, but with Labor and the trade unions, which enforce their dictates.

The defence of jobs, conditions and services requires the establishment of rank and file committees to turn out to all other sections of workersacross the steel, mining, car and engineering industriesfacing the destruction of jobs and conditions. This struggle can only be based on a socialist perspective to fight for a workers government to reorganise society to meet social need, not private profit.

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More than 200 detainees being held in UK immigration centres staged hunger strikes in the three months from July to September this year.

The figures were obtained following a Freedom of Information request submitted by No Deportations, a voluntary group that provides information to those subject to UK immigration controls who do not want to leave the country, for whatever reason.

The Home Office, which is responsible for the detention centres, had initially refused to release the information relating to hunger strikes and suicide. An appeal by No Deportations was made to the Information Commissioner, who ruled that the Home Office had breached the Freedom of Information Act.

The highest number of hunger strikers, 66, was recorded at Brook House detention centre, near Gatwick airport. There were 35 hunger strikers logged at both Harmondsworth (close to Heathrow Airport) and Tinsley House, also near Gatwick.

One hundred nine suicide attempts were made in detention centres over the same period; 649 were placed on suicide watchnearly 9 percent of those in detention over the period, with the highest number (106) at Brook House. The figures released record 393 attempted suicides in 2015, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year, with 2,957 placed on suicide watch that year.

Theresa Schleicher, the acting director of the charity Medical Justice, which offers independent medical advice and assessments to immigration detainees, told the Guardian the high numbers illustrated the degree of desperation, frustration and sense of helplessness faced by detainees.

Schleicher said that several of the hunger strikers seen by Medical Justice had later been found to have been unlawfully detained and were found to have valid protection claims.

As well as hunger strikes and attempted suicides, there are a large number of incidents of self-harm by those in immigration removal centres. Over the five years 2011-2015 nearly 11,000 detainees were deemed at risk of self-harm, with 1,435 actual incidents being logged.

Stephen Shaw, the former prisons ombudsman and author of a critical report into the welfare of immigration detainees, said, Levels of self-harm are critical indicators of the health of any institution and the welfare of those in detention. Many detainees are extremely vulnerable and experience high levels of anxiety and depression.

On Monday last week, a legal challenge brought by Duncan Lewis Solicitors, supported by Medical Justice, was successful in gaining a temporary suspension of the far more restrictive definition of torture introduced by the government in September, and used to keep those affected in detention.

The narrower definition, hypocritically included in a new policy titled, Adults at risk in immigration detention, restricted torture to that only carried out by state authorities.

Submissions made on behalf of five asylum seekers showed how the restrictive definition had failed to protect vulnerable detainees with a history of ill-treatment, who had been unable to meet the new definition. These included an Afghan male kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban, a Nigerian man beaten and stabbed by a gang for being homosexual, and a Vietnamese woman who was tortured twice by loan sharks for a debt owed by her parents.

At the High Court, Justice Ouseley ruled that the Home Office must revert to applying its original definition of torture, which does not distinguish between state and non-state actors. The full case will be heard in March 2017.

Speaking to the World Socialist Web Site, solicitor Lewis Kett, one of those representing the Duncan Lewis claimants, said the suspension of the restrictive definition of torture could potentially affect hundreds of immigration detainees between now and the hearing in March, and may lead to many of the most vulnerable detainees being released.

Commenting on the conditions facing those incarcerated while their asylum claims are evaluated, Kett said, Detention continues to be an inhumane way of dealing with people pending their applications, especially in those cases where they have been a victim of torture, that they have mental health issues or may be trafficked.

As a result, its not surprising to see hunger strikes and suicide risk in cases where people are either trying to get out of their misery or are protesting against their treatment and continued detention.

During the court case, the Home Office announced it was reviewing the cases of 340 people identified between September 12 and November 18, who had claimed to be the victims of torture and may have been wrongly detained.

However, the numbers may be far higher, as Toufique Hossain, director of public law at Duncan Lewis, pointed out: We know from NGO groups and other firms that there are othersgiven that non-state torture is a common feature in those who are traumatized.

In August, the Home Office introduced a draft Detention Services Order (DSO) providing guidance to staff at immigration detention centres on the use of solitary confinement. Under the Removal from Association and Temporary Confinement rules, staff are advised that anyone being stubborn, unmanageable or disobedient can be placed in solitary confinement. Obliquely called rule 40 or rule 42 accommodation, staff can authorise this punishment for up to two weeks.

Where medical advice is that such confinement might prove life-threatening, staff are under no obligation to follow it, with the DSO stating it can be ignored as long as a note is made clearly stating the rationale. This can apply to those with serious mental health issues, who may be at acute risk of harm under such conditions.

Human Rights organisation Liberty said, The use of limitless detentionunashamedly for administrative convenience and far removed from the enforcement of removal decisionsleaves a dark stain on this countrys human rights record.

Liberty goes on to note considerable evidence suggesting that segregation is used punitively and retributively as an arbitrary sanction for non-compliance with staff requirements. It cites reports from Her Majestys Inspectorate of Prisons finding that segregation was used at the Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as an unofficial sanction for non-compliance  when there is no risk of harm to staff or detainees, contrary to the Detention Centre Rules.

In 2015, the numbers being detained, either pending a decision on their asylum application or their deportation, reached 32,466, up 7 percent over 2014.

These are people who have committed no crime, and yet they are incarcerated in squalid conditions, subject to arbitrary and inhumane treatment by their gaolers, who are often working for private companies. They represent the most oppressed and vulnerable layers of the worlds population. Many are the victims of wars, tyranny and grinding poverty, for which British imperialism bears a major responsibility.
India has demonstrably rebuffed Pakistans attempts to initiate a dialogue aimed at defusing the almost three-month-long war crisis between South Asias rival nuclear-armed states.

This crisis has already resulted in weeks of artillery and gunfire barrages across the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistan-held Kashmir and scores of military and civilian casualties. But Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appear determined to continue their push to rewrite the rules of New Delhis relations with Islamabad, even though this entails an ever-escalating danger of triggering all-out war.

Islamabad had repeatedly signaled that it wanted New Delhi to use the visit of its de facto foreign minister to Amritsar, India for last weekends Heart of Asia (HoA) international conference on Afghanistan as the opportunity to resume high-level talks.

But India went out of its way to snub Sartaj Aziz, while using the HoA meeting to intensify its campaign to diplomatically isolate Pakistan.

Aziz was granted only a brief audience Saturday evening with Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was standing in for Indias ailing foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj.

The Pakistan Foreign Office circulated a photo of Aziz and Doval in conversation and Radio Pakistan claimed that the two had spoken for more than 30 minutes, but this was angrily denied by India. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup categorically denied there had been any pull aside or bilateral meeting between Aziz and Doval. Earlier an unnamed Indian official accused Pakistan of leveraging a joint, 100-foot stroll.

Speaking to the Pakistani press, Aziz later admitted, my so-called interactionwas not really substantial. Doval and Jaitley sort of welcomed my presence, continued Aziz. Thats all we should take notice of right now.

Adding insult to injury, India did not allow Aziz to hold a press conference or even leave his hotel. Islamabad called this a violation of diplomatic protocol, while India cited, not very convincingly, security concerns.

At the HoA conference, India mounted a coordinated attack on Pakistan in tandem with Afghanistan, whose government has taken an increasingly antagonistic attitude toward its southeastern neighbor.

In his opening address, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted that terrorism constitutes the gravest threat to Afghanistans peace, stability and prosperity and went on to denounce those in the region who support, shelter, train and finance terroristsa remark that was universally interpreted as aimed at Pakistan.

Rattled by this summers resurgence of mass anti-Indian government protests in Indian-held Kashmir and angered by Pakistans attempts to use the protests to bolster its reactionary, communally based claim to Kashmir, the BJP government has been mounting a diplomatic offensive to label Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism since August.

Afghani President Ashraf Ghani was even more explicit than Modi in attacking Pakistan. He accused Pakistan of waging an undeclared war against Afghanistan, charging that the military campaign Islamabad has mounted since 2014 against the Taliban and allied groups in Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas has been selective, thereby allowing the displacement of the Pakistani extremist networks and their allies onto Afghanistan.

Ghani further charged that Pakistans undeclared war has intensified during 2016 and especially following the October 5, European Union-Afghan government-sponsored Brussels Conference on Afghanistan.

While denouncing Pakistan, Ghani heaped praise on its archrival India, saying New Delhis impressive support for Afghanistan was aimed at improving peoples lives and was transparent and without strings attached.

Modi and Ghani had coordinated their attack on Islamabad during the bilateral talks that they held Sunday morning, just hours before the ministerial session of the HoA conference. During those talks, India agreed to operationalize US $1 billion in bilateral cooperation aid, including for the establishment of an air cargo corridor. For decades, Pakistan has used its geographic position between the two countries to frustrate Indo-Afghan trade ties. Ghani also reportedly pressed India, which has provided training for Afghan security forces and recently gifted it four attack helicopters, for increased military hardware.

In his comments to the HoA conference, Aziz rejected Ghanis accusations as baseless. He said that to blame only one country for the recent upsurge in violence in Afghanistanwhich has seen the Taliban secure control over more of the country than any time since the 2001 US invasionis simplistic.

Aziz claimed that his participation in the conference, despite the military escalation on the Line of Control, is testimony to Pakistans unflinching commitment to peace in Afghanistan and the region.

The statement issued by the Amritsar conference labeled a series of groups as terrorist threats to the region. Over Pakistans objections, India was able to place on the list two Pakistan-based groups that had, and New Delhi claims continue to have, ties to sections of Pakistans intelligence apparatus: the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. In return, New Delhi had to concede Pakistans demand that the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP also be included.

Islamabad has charged both New Delhi and Kabul with providing covert support to the TTP. As the New York Times admitted several years ago, there is definite evidence that Afghan intelligence has assisted the TTP in order to pressure Islamabad, and that this stratagem was initially supported by rogue elements in the US military-intelligence apparatus.

Islamabad became deeply involved in Afghanistan as a result of its frontline role in the CIA-orchestrated mujahedeen insurgency against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. Post-1991, it sought to use the war-ravaged Afghan state to give it strategic depth against India, ultimately backing the Taliban in their rise to power.

Two decades on, and under conditions where Indias strategic position has been enormously strengthened by its having supplanted Pakistan as Washingtons chief South Asia ally, Islamabad is increasingly apprehensive about the growing Kabul-New Delhi axis. The joint attack Modi and Ghani mounted on Pakistan at last weekends conference will only have increased these fears.

So as to secure Pakistans logistical support for the US occupation of Afghanistan, Washington, while encouraging New Delhis role in Afghanistan also put definite limits on it.

But as part of a broader recalibration of its strategy in South Asia, Washington now appears prepared to give India greater latitude in Afghanistan and with Pakistan more generally.

A critical factor in the Modi governments hardline stance against Pakistan is the encouragement it has received from Washington. The Obama administration first gave tacit and then explicit support to the illegal and highly provocative Special Forces commando raids India mounted inside Pakistan on Sept. 28-29 in supposed retaliation for an attack by Islamist, pro-Kashmir separatists on an Indian military base in Kashmir.

Indias surgical strikes were the first military action New Delhi has admitted to carrying out inside Pakistan in more than four decades. Previous governments, including that led by the BJP from 1998-2004, refrained from publicizing attacks inside Pakistan so as avoid sparking an escalating series of retaliatory actions that could rapidly end in war.

The Modi government, by contrast, is boasting that it has thrown off the shackles of restraint and that it is ready to keep attacking Pakistan unless and until Islamabad demonstratively bends to its demand that Pakistan cease all logistical support to the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir.

The US is well aware that events in South Asia could easily spin out of control, resulting in the first-ever war between nuclear-armed states. All the more so, since Modi is shamelessly using claims of Indias newly proven military prowess to whip up a foul bellicose atmosphere, calculating that this will both facilitate his governments ramming through of unpopular pro-big business reforms and bring big electoral dividends in the coming elections in Indias largest state, Uttar Pradesh.

But Washington is also anxious to demonstrate to India that there are rewards for the Modi government having integrated India ever more completely into the US military-strategic offensive against China, including by throwing open its military bases and ports to US warplanes and battleships.

Thus, as the war clouds grow ever thicker over South Asia, Washington is recklessly combining muted calls for New Delhi and Islamabad to show restraint with celebratory statements about the strength of Indo-US military ties. On Sunday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter boasted, The US-India defense relationship is the closest its ever been. Through our strategic handshakewith America reaching west in the rebalance [i.e. Washingtons anti-China Pivot], and India reaching east in what Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls his Act East policyour two nations are exercising together by air, land and sea like never before.
Yesterday New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced his resignation from politics after eight years in the role and a decade as leader of the National Party. He will formally step down on December 12 after the party caucus elects a new leader.

The sudden announcement appeared to come as a shock to media commentators and the political establishment, including government ministers, who were only informed of Keys decision a few hours before his media conference. Police Minister Judith Collins told Radio LIVE that she and her cabinet colleagues were absolutely gobsmacked.

There was no obvious trigger for the resignation. Key was widely expected to lead the party in the 2017 election. He only offered the trite and unconvincing explanation that he wanted to spend more time with his family and was exhausted with politics.

Key supported his deputy Bill English to take over as prime minister, identifying him as best placed to maintain the governments continuity. As finance minister, English has been the chief architect of the governments anti-working class agenda, leading the part-privatisation of several power companies.

Collins and Health Minister Jonathan Coleman are so far the only other candidates to declare their intention to contest the leadership. Collins has pushed draconian law and order policies and has links with far-right bloggers. Coleman has overseen the governments drastic underfunding of the health sector.

Under Keys leadership, National has won the last three elections and was favoured to secure another term in office. The media have described Key as the countrys most popular leader ever. His government has been touted as a model of stability compared with neighbouring Australia, where in the past six years three prime ministers have been removed in inner-party coups.

In reality, there is seething popular hostility towards the government, with a social explosion building below the surface of daily events. National has imposed severe austerity measures, strengthened the powers of the intelligence agencies to spy on the population and supported US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Key, a multi-millionaire former trader at Wall Street bank Merrill Lynch, personifies the financial aristocracy that has profited from the global economic crisis at the expense of the working class.

The National Party has remained in power primarily due to the historic collapse in support for the opposition Labour Party, which is discredited among workers because of its support for Nationals pro-business agenda and its own pro-market policies while in government. The 2011 and 2014 elections were both marked by record abstention of more than a million peoplein a country with just 4.5 million people. Despite Nationals sweeping attacks on living standards and public services, Labour is languishing at under 30 percent support in the polls.

The exact reasons behind Keys resignation have yet to emerge. It takes place, however, in the context of the US election victory of Donald Trump, whose extreme right-wing nationalist and protectionist agenda has sent shockwaves through ruling circles throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Key took it upon himself to warn business leaders last month not to get despondent over fears of a new wave of protectionism.

Key was one of the most vocal advocates for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which Trump vehemently opposes and, in one of his first policy pronouncements, promised to scrap. In February the New Zealand government hosted the formal signing of the agreement.

Trump will dramatically escalate the US confrontation with China. His threats to impose a 45 percent tariff on imports from China and to label Beijing a currency manipulator, if carried out, would unleash a full-blown trade war, heightening the danger of war between the two nuclear-armed powers.

While Key supports the American military build-up in Asia and has strengthened New Zealands alliance with the US, his government has worked assiduously to avoid alienating China, which is New Zealands second largest trading partner. Two-way trade with China has nearly tripled over the past decade, rising from $NZ8.2 billion in 2007 to $23 billion in 2016. Annual exports to China have quadrupled and imports doubled since 2007.

Trumps protectionist policies could have devastating consequences for trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region. At an APEC summit in Peru on November 20, Key warned: We really like the US being in the region. We think they are great partners, great friends and we think they add something to all the countries there. But in the end if the US is not there, that void has to be filled. And it will be filled by China.

On November 21, in one of his final acts as prime minister, Key announced the launching of negotiations to upgrade New Zealands Free Trade Agreement with China. A few days later Key told a business audience in New Zealand: Is the world going to stop trading because Donald Trump is fundamentally opposed, or do things in spite of the US?

Key was not forced from office by any significant opposition from the other parliamentary parties. Labour leader Andrew Little responded to Keys resignation by hailing his service in the wake of the global financial crisis and the series of New Zealand earthquakes in 2010, 2011 and 2016. He told Radio NZ Key has been a very popular prime minister  Hes seen through some pretty difficult periods [and]  given comfort and assurance to people.

Former Labour Party Prime Minister Helen Clark (1999-2008), now a leading figure at the UN, wrote: He has advocated tirelessly for NZ internationally these past eight years.

Labours main ally the Green Party similarly extended its best wishes to Key. Co-leader James Shaw stated: Mr Key should be applauded for his commitment to public service and to New Zealand.

For working people, the legacy of the Key government has been eight years of austerity. Key has overseen thousands of job cuts and a decline in median incomes, almost destroyed the coal mining industry, increased the goods and services tax, cut taxes for the rich and slashed spending on healthcare and welfare services. An estimated one in four children is living in poverty and 41,000 people are homeless due to the soaring cost of housing. Large parts of the country have been de-industrialised and economically shattered. Suicides have reached record levels two years in a row.

The calling of an early election is now possible. However, Keys departure will in no way lessen the attacks on the working class and the drive towards nationalism, militarism and anti-democratic forms of rule in New Zealand. Labour and the Greens are both parties of big business and agree with Nationals agenda to make workers pay for the economic crisis.

The opposition parties have attacked National from the right, joining the anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party in demanding cuts to immigration. The election of Trump has given a definite boost to NZ First, whose leader Winston Peters is demanding similar protectionist policies. Peters has also launched repeated racist attacks on Muslims and Chinese immigrants, scapegoating them for the countrys social crisis.

Whoever wins the next election, Labour or National, may well need NZ Firsts support to form a government. Key, however, has repeatedly criticised Labour and the Greens for aligning themselves with NZ First and helping it to promote xenophobia and anti-immigrant policies.
As the death toll mounts, the horrific fire that broke out at a dance party in East Oakland, California Friday night is now one of the worst such disasters in the recent history of the United States.

The City of Oakland announced early Monday that the number of bodies recovered from the 86-year-old Fruitvale warehouse called the Ghost Ship had risen to 36. The warehouse was being rented out to artists, and the studios were also used as informal housing by about 20 people.

According to survivors and neighbors, the fire spread quickly through ad hoc wooden rooms, cutting off any escape from the dilapidated building that lacked basic fire safety measures. Many were almost immediately trapped on the second floor, where a concert was being held, without any means of escape.

Recovery efforts were delayed Monday when one of the buildings walls threatened to collapse on firefighters. About 75 percent of the structure has been searched, but the Alameda County Sheriff told the Associated Press that he did not expect to find any more bodies.

Thirty-three of the victims have so far been identified. Many were in their 20s and 30s, but the youngest so far was 17. Three foreign nationals were identified, from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala.

According to one tally by NBC News, the Ghost Ship fire is the seventh-deadliest building fire in the past 50 years, a list that includes the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It is the deadliest building fire in the US since a night club in Rhode Island burned down in 2003, killing 100 people.

While the precise causes remain to be determined, indications are that the tragedy was facilitated by city officials who ignored unsafe conditions, a landlord who neglected basic safety measures and a housing crisis driving people to seek cheap rent in unsafe conditions.

There was no shortage of dangerous flash points in the structure. Shelley Mack, a former tenant who lived in the warehouse for five months, told reporters that the building had no sprinklers or fire alarms and that it regularly went without utilities. Tenants used gas generators or propane stoves to heat their water, and stayed warm in the winter with space heaters. Wires crisscrossed the uninspected wooden partitions that turned the first floor into a maze of studios.

A neighbor, Danielle Boudreaux, described to the Washington Post the precarious makeshift stairs to the second floor where shows were held to help pay rent: It only took two people on it at a time. .. when you stepped on it, it wobbled, and there were ropes holding it up. If you had three people on that it was falling down. Once the fire started, she said, there was no way you were getting out of that building.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley spoke to reporters Monday afternoon, announcing that the fire was a potential crime scene and that her office would investigate whether there was any criminal liability. She said that it was too early to specify who might be implicated, but that charges could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder. Any serious investigation, however, would immediately turn to the city itself.

The unsafe conditions, as well as the warehouses role as an unlicensed apartment and music venue, were an open secret to the landlord and city officials. The Tumblr page for the Ghost Ship contains numerous advertisements for musical performances. Over the past two years, the city has received numerous complaints, including three this year, regarding construction without a permit and unsafe conditions.

Twice in 2014 and twice in 2016, building inspectors were sent to the warehouse in response to complaints. However, no action was taken to improve the safety of the building. The Oakland Police Department records also show officers responding to reports of a stolen phone at a 2014 New Years Party where they canvassed the area and building.

In 2007, Alameda County placed a lien on the property, owned by Chor Ng since 1988, for substandard, hazardous or injurious conditions. According to public records, Ng has four other properties that have been cited for blight in Oakland.

The conditions found in the Ghost Ship warehouse are far from unique and are well known by the city. Noel Gallo, a city councilor from the Fruitvale district, told CBS, The reality is, there are many facilities being occupied without permits. He estimated that there are about 200 warehouses that have no papers, no permit, no fire code, nothing.

The negligence of landlords and city officials is complemented by the broader housing crisis that drives poor people to seek out informal housing for cheap rent.

What this tragedy really brings home is displacement and other impacts of gentrification: the high cost of housing and the lack of affordable housing, Anyka Barber, co-founder of the Oakland Creative Neighborhoods Coalition, told the Wall Street Journal.

Rents have skyrocketed across the Bay Area in recent years. Oakland, which was once a haven for people avoiding San Franciscos rent, is now the fourth most expensive city for renting in the United States.

The median cost of an available rental in Oakland in September 2016 was $3,000 a month, according to Zillow. This is up 71 percent from January 2013, when it was just $1,757. Median income for renters in Oakland remains just $3,000 a month, making most apartments wildly unaffordable to perspective tenants.

The Bay Area is riven with social inequality. While workers in San Francisco and Oakland can barely afford rent, massive new luxury apartments are under construction in the Rockridge and SoMa districts. Across the Bay from the Fruitvale district where the warehouse burned down is the home of Larry Ellison, who has a personal net worth of $51.6 billion.

The current spike in property prices is part of a broader economic bubble driven by financial speculation after the 2008 crash. In 2001, 41 percent of US renters spent 30 percent or more of their income on housing. By 2014, this rose to 49 percent, with 26 percent of renters spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing.

A UBS report in 2015 drew a direct connection between the amount of cheap credit central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve and the Obama administration, were pouring into the financial market and exploding rental costs. The authors wrote, Loose monetary policy has prevented a normalization of housing markets and encouraged local bubble risks to grow.

The Oakland Ghost Ship fire is a horrific tragedy, but one with definite roots in the reality of American capitalism.
The Polish parliament (Sejm) approved the establishment of an army for territorial defence (WOT) in mid-November made up of 53,000 personnel. The parliament thus gave the green light to a project pushed by far-right Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz.

The new military organisation will be under the direct control of the Defence Ministry. It will support the Polish army in fighting Russia in the event of war, and suppress social and political opposition domestically. Motions by the opposition that the WOT ought to be apolitical, and not be deployed against Polish citizens, were explicitly rejected by the Sejm.

Macierewicz already announced his intention to establish a militia along the lines of the American National Guard in the summer. The Sejm has now voted in favour of this by an absolute majority. By 2019, the force will be comprised of 53,000 people. The first units in the east of the country will be established before the end of the year. By 2019, the government plans to spend 3.6 billion zloty (around 800 million) on the WOT. The monthly remuneration for the militiamen will amount to around 500 zloty (120).

Macierewicz stated in a television interview, These units are the most effective way to expand the strength of our armed forces and its defence capabilities. It is also the best response to the dangers of a hybrid war like those we saw in the wake of Russian aggression over Crimea.

Each of Polands 16 provinces is to establish a defence unit of between 3,000 and 5,000 men. The units will be recruited from volunteers, who will be given military training at the governments expense. Most of the units will be constructed in the eastern regions of Podlachien, Lublin and Podkarpathen, which border Ukraine and Belarus. The east of Poland is the poorest and most economically backward part of the country and is comprised of large forested areas. Given the social catastrophe produced by the restoration of capitalism, fascist forces and the PiS (Law and Justice Party) have been able to transform the region into a stronghold.

The WOT mandate voted for by the Sejm is extraordinarily wide-ranging and openly orients to right-wing nationalism. It states that the WOT is responsible for anti-crisis, anti-sabotage, anti-terrorist and anti-disinformation deployments, to defend the security of the civilian population and the cultural heritage of the Polish people. The Defence Ministry, which will command the WOT, will have a free hand to define what amounts to a crisis, sabotage, terrorist attack or disinformation.

Politicians from the governing PiS explained to a parliamentary committee prior to the vote that the WOT had the goal of strengthening the patriotic and Christian fundamentals of Poland and the armed forces. The patriotism and belief of the Polish soldiers was the best guarantee of our security.

They were thereby making an appeal to far-right forces to join the WOT. Several leaders of right-wing parties and citizens militias have already indicated that they will encourage their members to join the WOT.

Since taking office just over a year ago, the PiS government has repeatedly strengthened far-right and anti-Semitic forces in Poland. The government has cooperated closely in this with the Catholic Church, which historically has intimate ties with fascism. Defence Minister Macierewicz, who has a fascistic and anti-Semitic past, played a central role in the promotion of far-right forces and their integration into the state apparatus.

The construction of an ultra-right militia in Poland also enjoys international support. The US think tank Atlantic Council advanced proposals in a strategic paper published in July to establish Poland as a bulwark against Russia. Among the concrete measures suggested for the military build-up were an increase in the regular army from 100,000 to 150,000 and the expansion of paramilitary forces under government control. According to the authors of the paper, the various paramilitary groups, including private ones, already comprise some 400,000 personnel.

It is significant that, according to Polityka magazine, the Krakow-based paramilitary organisation Stowarzyszenie Jednostka Strzelecka 2039 participated in NATOs Anaconda training exercise. A number of these units now intend to join the WOT. Other right-wing and fascist organisations like Falanga and Zmiana plan to participate in the WOT.

The WOT bears similarities to the paramilitary organisations in Ukraine, which have not only fought pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, but also taken action against opposition throughout the country within the Ukrainian population. Some of the right-wing paramilitary organisations, which played a leading role in the overthrow of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovitch in February 2014, were trained in Poland. Similarly right-wing forces are now to be trained and established in Poland itself.

The liberal opposition has criticised the founding of the militia from a right-wing bourgeois standpoint. Considerable disquiet has been created by the fact that the militia will not be under the command of the military general staff, but rather the Defence Ministry. The deputy chair of the opposition Nowoczesna Party, Katarzyna Lubnauer, described it as Macierewiczs private army.

Within the Polish army, opposition has emerged to the course pursued by Macierewicz. At the beginning of the year, several high-ranking generals resigned in protest at Macierewiczs military reforms and agitated in the press against the government.

General Janusz Bronowicz attacked the minister and his military reforms publicly. In an interview with Polityka magazine, he warned that PiSs policies could lead Poland to a catastrophe like 1939. Bronowicz was one of those who resigned in protest against Macierewiczs policies earlier this year.

The liberal newspaper Newsweek Polska in a column expressed the fear that the WOT could be deployed by the Defence Ministry against the liberal opposition. This concern is not without justification. There have already been violent attacks on members of the Committee for Defence of Democracy (KOD) by right-wing radicals, which were quite openly supported and promoted by PiS.

In addition, the opposition does not want to lose its influence over the direction of the military. There remain several generals and officers in the leadership of the army who support the liberals domestic political programme.

But the liberal opposition has no objections to the strengthening of the armed forces against Russia and its deployment against the working class at home. Some liberal commentators even attacked the parliamentary vote from the right. Some expressed the fear that several fascist organisations seeking to join the WOT pursue an anti-American stance and advocate a closer alliance with the Kremlin.

Others argued that the money allocated would be insufficient to establish well-equipped units by 2019. Like other NATO states, the government should therefore concentrate its resources on equipping its armed forces with modern weaponry and technology, they argued.

Bogdan Klich, who was defence minister under the PO (Citizens Platform) government of Donald Tusk, complained, The majority of NATO states are investing in an expansion of the potential of existing forces, not in the creation of a territorial defence force. The priority for investments should be the purchasing of new technologies for the waging of modern wars.
A mistrial was declared and the jury discharged Monday afternoon following a month-long trial against former North Charleston police officer Michael T. Slager, who was charged with murder after a bystander video surfaced showing him gunning down Walter Scott, age 50, while fleeing a traffic stop.

Slagers initial report stated he shot Scott in self-defense while the two struggled over his Taser. The video shows Slager planting the Taser next to Scotts body after the shooting. Despite the damning evidence, however, the mistrial is the latest in a series of cases where police officers have escaped conviction.

While local prosecutors say they will retry Slager and he still faces potential federal civil rights charges, the record shows that convictions of killer police officeres are very rare. While police kill 1,000 people a year, since 2005 only 78 have been charged with murder or manslaughter, according to a Bowling Green University study. Only a small fraction of those were actually convicted.

Criminal juries must be unanimous. A single holdout juror, perhaps in this case influenced by pro-police propaganda, can trigger a mistrial. The outcome did not come as a surprise after the events of last Friday, the third day of deliberations, when one juror stated in a note to South Carolina Circuit Judge Clifton B. Newman that he could not in good conscience consider a guilty verdict.

We all struggle with the death of a man and with all that has been put before us, the juror wrote. I still cannot, without a reasonable doubt, convict the defendant. At the same time, my heart does not want to have to tell the Scott family that the man who killed their son, brother and father is innocent. But with the choices, I cannot and will not change my mind.

In a separate note, the foreman, the only African American on the 12-member jury, reported to the judge that the jurors were on the verge of reaching a verdict, and Its just one juror that has the issues, adding, that juror needs to leave.

The jurors returned to court on Monday to continue deliberating, sending additional notes before announcing they were hopelessly deadlocked. As of this writing, no juror has spoken to the media, but based on Fridays notes, the count is assumed to be 11-1. It is not known whether the majority of jurors were leaning in favor of a murder conviction, which carries a sentence of 30 years to life imprisonment, or the lesser included charge of manslaughter that could have resulted in a sentence anywhere from 2 to 30 years.

Slager is facing a federal indictment for violating Scotts civil rights and can be tried on those criminal charges regardless of the outcome of the South Carolina case. It is highly likely, however, that the Obama administrationwhich has not convicted a single killer copwill dump the Scott case into the hands of Trumps Justice Department, which will be headed by Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama and fanatic law-and-order advocate.

On the morning of April 4, 2015, Slager pulled over Scott for a non-functioning brake light, ironically next to an auto parts store. Scott fled on foot. There apparently was a brief altercation that ended right before the video begins. Scott was running away, at least 17 feet from Slager, when the officer fired an eight-round fusillade.

Five bullets struck Scott, one in the buttocks, one grazing an ear, and three in the back. The fatal round tore through Scotts lungs and pierced his heart.

The video recording of the cold-blooded murder received widespread national attention and bolstered popular opposition to police killings, including over the death of Freddy Gray in Baltimore, which occurred a week after the Scott killing. Within days of the release of the video, Slager was fired, charged and arrested. Scotts family members settled their wrongful death claim against North Charleston for $6.5 million last year.

The Scott trial is the latest in a series of similar cases over the last few months.

On October 10, a New Mexico jury, deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquitting two Albuquerque police officers, Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez, captured on video cameras they were wearing gunning down James Boyd, a homeless and mentally ill man being rousted from an encampment on a hill at the edge of town.

On November 12, an Ohio judge declared a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of a University of Cincinnati police officer, Ray Tensing, charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed motorist, Samuel DuBose.

The media and various proponents of identity politics claim police killings are the product of pervasive racism in American society. While police departments are certainly breeding grounds for the most backward and reactionary conceptions, including racism, state violence arises from the role of police in capitalist societyi.e., the defenders of the wealth and property of the few against the overwhelming majority of society.

The perpetrators of this violence are police officers of all races, and their victims are overwhelmingly working-class and poor, black, white and immigrant. While Scott and DuBose were black men killed by white officers, in Albuquerque the victim was an impoverished white man shot by white and Latino police officeres.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) held a successful public meeting in Colombos New Town Hall on November 30 to explain the international implications of Donald Trumps election as the president of the United States. The meeting was attended by workers, students and housewives.

Leading up to the meeting, SEP and IYSSE members and supporters conducted a campaign in Colombo and its suburbs and universities. Discussions were held with students and workers and hundreds of copies of World Socialist Web Site articles were distributed on the US presidential elections in three languages, English, Tamil and Sinhala.

Sri Lankas ruling elite, including President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Mahinda Rajapakse, had quickly welcomed Trumps win and appealed for his support.

Chairing the meeting, K. Ratnayake, national editor of the WSWS, explained that Trumps election was not an accident but was a product of 25 years of war, erosion of democracy and deepening social inequality in the US. Only the SEPs sister party in the US had warned of the dangers before the working class and fought to mobilise it independently of every section of the bourgeoisie, including the Democratic Party, on the basis of an international socialist program, he said.

Turning to South Asia, Ratnayake warned that Prime Minister Narendra Modis government in India had indicated it would strengthen its strategic partnership with Washington, developed during the Obama administration, to a new height under Trump, targeting China and Pakistan. Sri Lankan President Sirisena had declared he would write to Trump urging him to free Sri Lanka from war crime charges, which the Obama administration had already diluted, in return for Sirisena reversing the previous Rajapakse governments close relations with China.

Prageeth Aravinda, speaking on behalf of IYSSE, said many students generally understood the right-wing character of Trump, the reactionary character of his politics, and the gathering war danger. However, leaders of the Inter University Student Federation (IUSF), which is controlled by the pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party, were also aligning themselves with Trump. A Buddhist monk in the IUSF leadership had backed Trumps nationalist policies, saying Sri Lanka was facing a threat from Islamists. This is chauvinist propaganda to divide the working class, Aravinda said.

Delivering the main report, Wije Dias, SEP general secretary, emphasised the method of analysis that the Trotskyists of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) had applied to the protracted political process that produced Trumps election.

It is necessary to place any political or other phenomenon within the relevant context in order to make a proper analysis or assessment of it, he said. If we do not go by this rule in understanding the election of Donald Trump as US president it could lead to wrong conclusions that would place the emphasis solely on the supposedly peculiar evil nature of Trumps personality 

Two fundamental factors in this process of contemporary world politics were identified by the International Committee about 25 years ago when the first signs of the cracks of the post-war world order emerged in the form of the collapse of the autarchic Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, and finally in the Soviet Union, one after the other, as a pack of cards. Our world movement recognised these events as the beginning of the breakdown of the post-war political settlement reached between the counter-revolutionary Moscow bureaucracy and imperialist leaders.

At the same time, we drew the attention to the explosive contradiction that existed between the massive military strength of US imperialism and the loss of its dominant economic and political position in the world.

Outside this historical context, Dias said, it was impossible to make a valid evaluation of the emergence of Trump, who would pursue a militarist strategy to seek world hegemony for the US ruling class.

The Democratic Party and all the pseudo-left tendencies that gravitate around it had grotesquely cheated the working people and youth of the US, Dias explained. All these forces brought forward Barack Obama as a candidate of change to exploit the public hatred of the previous Bush administrations imperialist war agenda. What Obama delivered instead was the extension of US military aggression that Bush initiated. Simultaneously, Obama carried out severe attacks against the social and democratic rights of the American working class and youth.

Added to this massive political fraud was the presentation of Bernie Sanders as an alternative democratic socialist candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. After more than 13 million people voted for him during the nomination contest, he unashamedly capitulated before Hillary Clinton.

The political frustration and confusion created by these events played into the hands of Trump, Dias said. Only the US SEP and its sister parties around the world tirelessly exposed the bogus progressive postures of the Democratic Party candidates and opposed the calls to support Clinton as a lesser evil.

Now Trump is organising his cabinet team, recruiting notoriously right-wing and war-mongering individuals into it. The Democratic Party has shown its total readiness to work with Trump and his agenda of militarism and social counter-revolution.

Examining the response of Sri Lankas ruling circles, Dias explained: Both President Maithreepala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe immediately joined other rulers in congratulating Trump. They are showing the craven slavishness of the national bourgeois leaders before the dominant imperialist masters, on whose support the sustenance of their discredited rule ultimately depends.

Pseudo-left elements had readily come forward to provide legitimacy for these appeals by the capitalist rulers to Trump. Dias cited a column in the Sunday Island by one such unrepentant opportunist, Kumar David, in which he presented Trump in the mildest colours possible and even suggested that the president-elect could create a beneficial new global currency order. The aim of such opportunists was to lull the working class to sleep in front of the unprecedented threat posed to the world humanity by the strategic shift of the US ruling elite on the path of world war.

In conclusion, Dias appealed to the audience to join the SEPs political struggle to forge the revolutionary leadership of the working class in Sri Lanka and South Asia as part of the fight to build the ICFI as the world party of socialist revolution.

A female engineer who participated in the meeting said Trump posed the biggest threat to the world since the Second World War. She said the SEP should hold meetings other places too. The new generation has not experienced a world war. Weve seen wars, but we can imagine how disastrous a war of this magnitude would be. The history of the world wars is either not taught at all in schools or just brushed away as something unimportant.

The engineer said the speakers explained the economic background of the war drive. As workers in the private sector we have seen the economic downturn in Sri Lanka from 2013-14, but most of us think of it as a local problem, not the result of a world economic crisis.

Ratnaweera, a government worker from Matara, said: I was searching for an objective analysis of Trumps election and its global implications. Since I have learned a lot from the speeches, I think that my long journey from Matara is not wasted.

While the pseudo-left organisations presented Hillary Clinton as a lesser evil, she was preparing to escalate the military interventions against China and Russia, which could ignite a world war.

Ratnaweera warned that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government was fully aligned with the Obama administration and was ready to serve Trump.
On Monday, the UKs Supreme Court began a four-day hearing on whether the Conservative government of Prime Minister Theresa May is able to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treatyto begin the process of leaving the European Union (EU)without the consent of Parliament.

The case stems from the major constitutional and political crisis sparked by the narrow June 23 referendum vote by the population to exit the EU. It is the most significant to be heard in a British court in modern times.

The government intends to trigger Brexit by the end of March 2017, by invoking the powers of Royal Prerogativeonce held by British monarchs and now reserved to the government on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet.

The government appealed to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, to challenge last months High Court decision ruling that Parliament alone has the right to trigger Britains EU exit. The High Court case was brought by a group of claimants led by Gina Miller, a London-based investment fund manager. They argued successfully that rights conferred by Parliament when it passed the 1972 European Communities Actpaving the way for the UK to join the then European Economic Communitywere threatened by Brexit. The High Court accepted their contention that a process leading to the withdrawal of these rights could therefore only be determined by Parliament.

The significance of the Supreme Court hearing was laid out prior to the case by the president of the court, Lord Neuberger. He said the assembling of 11 Supreme Court judges to hear the case was the largest panel constituted since the Law Lords were created in 1876. Cases are normally heard before just five judges, or occasionally seven. The Courts deliberations are being live streamed on the Supreme Court web site, by the BBC and other news channels, with an estimated 300,000 expected viewers.

Representatives from the UK devolved Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland administrations are also in court as interested parties.

What is being fought out in the courts are the fundamental strategic interests of warring factions of the British ruling classbetween those who favour remaining in the EU, and the minority faction, which includes the May government but not all of the ruling Conservative Parliamentary party, who favour leaving.

In the aftermath of the High Court ruling, Nigel Farage, a leading Leave campaign figure and then leader of the right-wing xenophobic UK Independence Party (UKIP), threatened to lead a march of 100,000 people through central London to the Supreme Court. Supporters of the Remain camp were preparing to hold a counter-protest. The Farage-led march was cancelled after the organisers, Leave.EU, said they feared it would be hijacked by fascist groups, including the English Defence League and British National Party.

The Leave-supporting media responded to the High Court verdict by describing the judges as enemies of the people and accusing them of treachery.

On Saturday, the Daily Mail continued its campaign by editorialising, With only a simple majority needed for a ruling, we therefore find it disturbing that no fewer than five Supreme Court judges have publicly expressed views which appear to be sympathetic to the EU, while six have close links with people who have publicly attacked the Leave campaign.

The Telegraph led Mondays front page with the headline, Dont defy the people, judges told. This was in reference to the Attorney General for England and Wales and Tory MP, Jeremy Wright QC, who outlined the governments case at the beginning of Mondays session. Wright would say that the governments opponents were inviting the court to stray into areas of political judgment rather than legal adjudication, the Telegraph reported. The Court should resist that invitation, particularly where the underlying issue is one of considerable political sensitivity.

Tensions escalated further as the case got underway, with Mays spokeswoman saying threats by Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs to amend any Brexit bill that comes before Parliament if the government loses the case were an attempt to frustrate the will of the British people.

The Supreme Court began its deliberations in an extraordinarily febrile atmosphere. Neuberger was forced to warn the media they should not report the names and addresses of Miller and other claimants and their families, as there had been threats of serious violence and unpleasant abuse made to them online and in emails.

In his submission, Wright stated that the foreign affairs prerogative was not an ancient relic, but was essential for the government to maintain control over strategy, policy and operational matters in conducting our bilateral or multilateral international relationships.

If Mays government loses the case, it plans to present a mini-bill to Parliament, confirming its intention to proceed with Brexit. Presented as a compromise, the governmentwith a majority of just 13is desperately seeking to bring its Brexit agenda back under its control. It calculates that Parliament will accept the bill and therefore hand back to the government full control of negotiations with the EU over Brexit that will last a minimum of two years. However, this outcome is unacceptable to the Remain camp, whose leading figures are seeking the reversal of the Brexit vote.

In Parliament, they are supported across party lines, by up to three-quarters of MPs. While a majority of MPs have said they will not block Article 50 being triggered, many are committed to amending any Article 50 bill in order to ensure that their pivotal aimaccess for British capital to the EUs Single Marketis achieved in the EU negotiations. Last Saturday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn stated, When the Article 50 debate comes up, we will put forward an amendment to it, about market access and protections. We want those to be part of the negotiations.

The bitter divisions in ruling circles cannot be resolved through the courts. The Brexit referendum was called in 2013 by Mays predecessor, David Cameron, as a manoeuvre to stem the growing influence of the Tories euro-sceptic wing and to prevent a further haemorrhaging of support to UKIP. As a Leave result was never seriously contemplated, no planning was undertaken by the Cameron government for this eventuality. The Remain campaign, led by Cameron, was only ever intent on implementing the referendum if they got the result they wanted.

The working class must take an independent political stance against both equally reactionary factions of the ruling elite. The pro-Brexit forces are advancing a Britain into the world strategy, based on the tearing up of all regulations that hamper the unfettered ability of Britains corporations to reap profits. This is premised on escalating the exploitation of the working class in order to compete internationally. The pro-EU wing are solely concerned with access to the EUs single market for UK banks and corporations, and the ability to compete globally as part of the worlds largest trade bloc. Both wings are equally supportive of cuts in immigration and restrictions on the freedom of movement.

This unprecedented crisis in British ruling circles gathers pace amid the ongoing fracturing of the EU. The Remain camp eulogises the EU under conditions where its austerity agenda and the accompanying destruction of living standards is being rejected by millions across the continent. Just hours before the Supreme Court hearing began, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was forced to resign after the population rejected, in a referendum, constitutional amendments modifying electoral laws to vastly strengthen the prime ministers powers. The EU supported Renzis proposals and their decisive rejection reflects deep opposition to the ruling Democratic Party government and the austerity policies enacted since the 2008 global financial crash.

The author also recommends:

High Court verdict on EU Brexit plunges UK deeper into crisis

[4 November, 2016]
Syrian troops pressed ahead with their advance into eastern Aleppo Monday, continuing the rout of US-backed rebel groups. Reports indicate that Syrian government troops and Shia militias, including forces from Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, are now in control of two-thirds of the area formerly held by the Islamist forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Washingtons attempt to rely on Islamist proxy forces to carry out its regime-change operation in Syria is in disarray. While Secretary of State John Kerry was pushing last week for a deal to remove al-Nusra fighters from the city in exchange for an agreement on the part of Assad and Russia to let moderate so-called rebels remain, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded Monday that all rebel fighters leave the city.

Those armed groups that refuse to leave east Aleppo will be regarded as terrorists, Lavrov declared. We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists, and will support a Syrian army operation against those criminal squads.

The New York Times reported that US officials refused to confirm whether talks with Russia would begin in Geneva in the coming days on the withdrawal of the rebels. Indicating a sense of deepening crisis as the scale of the rebel defeat becomes ever clearer, the Times noted that Lavrovs new demand appeared to have taken US officials by surprise.

Events on the ground are rapidly moving in the direction of a government victory in Aleppo. While reports Sunday indicated that government-aligned forces controlled 50 percent of eastern Aleppo, further gains were reported Monday. The rebel-held areas have been divided into enclaves during the three-week offensive, which has been accompanied by intense bombing raids on the area by Russian and Syrian planes.

According to the latest estimates, these attacks have cost the lives of 320 civilians, including some 40 children. The rebels, for their part, have continued their indiscriminate shelling of government-held western Aleppo, killing 69 people during the same period.

Aid agencies report that 31,000 civilians have fled rebel-held territory.

On Monday, a hastily established field hospital to care for civilians fleeing the fighting was shelled by anti-Assad forces. Two Russian nurses were killed in the attack. A total of eight deaths were reported in government-controlled areas. Two airstrikes in Idlib province, likely carried out by Syrian or Russian planes, killed dozens.

Hoping to seize the advantage and push all rebel forces out of Aleppo, Russia, together with China, vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Monday. The resolution, which was tabled by Spain, Egypt and New Zealand with the backing of the US, would have implemented an immediate seven-day cease-fire.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov declared the resolution to be a provocation, pointing out that all previous cease-fires had been used by the rebels, who are dominated by the Al Qaeda-linked affiliates of the al-Nusra Front, to regroup and obtain new supplies of weapons from the US and the Gulf sheikdoms. This was the outcome of the brief cease-fire agreed to by Russia and the US in September. The truce was broken when US aircraft bombed Syrian army positions less than a week after it came into force.

Predictably, the US and its allies responded to Moscow and Beijings vote by denouncing Russia and Syria for human rights violations. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated that the Syrian and Russian attacks were disgraceful.

The level of hypocrisy in such statements is breathtaking. Moscows chief goal is to prop up the Assad regime, its most important ally in the Middle East and host to its sole military base outside of the former Soviet Union. But the casualties caused by Syrian and Russian attacks pale in comparison to the atrocities committed by US imperialism.

The US is playing a decisive role in the brutal offensive being waged on the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, where upwards of 1.5 million civilians are trapped amid sustained assaults on residential areas. US politicians and the media have sought to prepare public opinion for large numbers of civilian casualties in Mosul by placing all of the blame on Islamic State fighters. But the US-backed offensive by the Iraqi army, Kurdish Peshmerga and other militias has left an unknown number of civilians dead, caused tens of thousands to flee, and disrupted water and utility supplies to eastern districts of Mosul. There have also been reports of sectarian atrocities against the local Sunni population.

The United States bears principal responsibility for the violence that has engulfed Iraq and Syria, costing the lives of millions. Not only did Washington foment the 2011 civil war with the aim of engineering regime change in Damascus, it has waged virtually uninterrupted war in the region for two decades, with the aim of consolidating its hegemony over the energy-rich region.

The appointment by President-elect Donald Trump of a cabinet dominated by former military generals and aggressive proponents of US militarism demonstrates that this policy will only be intensified under the incoming administration.

While Trump has yet to lay out a Syrian strategy, his appointments of retired General James Mattis to the position of defense secretary and Michael Flynn as national security adviser point to a shift in policy. Both have criticized Obamas reliance on rebel groups, and Mattis has called for a congressional resolution authorizing the deployment of US ground troops if necessary against the Islamic State, which still controls significant portions of Syria.

The routing of the US-backed Islamist forces in Aleppo is encouraging the European imperialist powers to advance an alternative solution to the conflict. A report in the Times of London suggests that the debacle of US policy in Syria has prompted the European Union to propose its own initiative. According to the Times  report, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini proposed at a meeting with Syrian opposition forces two weeks ago that Brussels could accept Assad remaining in power if he agreed to grant control of regions of the country to the rebels. Brussels would provide financial assistance to facilitate such an arrangement, Mogherini reportedly added. The Times suggested that this was part of a last-ditch effort to ensure Western influence over Syria in the aftermath of the civil war.

What Mogherini wanted to do was present an EU planthis is how to solve the conflict, a source linked to the Syrian opposition stated.  In return, if all sides agree and everyone does what the EU says, theres a huge pot of money.

This only underscores the increasingly explosive character of the Syrian crisis, which is deepening the rivalries between the imperialist powers as they seek to pursue their geostrategic interests with ever more open hostility. Leading European politicians reacted to the election of Trump last month by insisting that Europe had to act with greater independence from the United States and even challenge it in areas where their interests collide.

EU diplomats confirmed the outline of the proposals reported by the Times. With the US strategy of backing an Islamist insurgency against Assad apparently headed to defeat, the EU is pushing a plan for the sectarian partition of Syria along regional lines, with the competing governments propped up by European capital.
Latin America

Wave of layoffs continues in Argentina

Following a national wave of layoffs in the public sector and the Argentine auto industry, Alladio, a washing machine manufacturer, shut down two plants and sacked 1,500 workers. Tandil foundry laid off 130 workers, all of its employees except maintenance staff, and Expofruits, a food processing firm, also shut down two plants, sacking 260 workers.

The three main trade union federations continue observing a truce with the right-wing, corrupt and neoliberal administration of President Mauricio Macri, ruling out strikes and protests against the attack on jobs.

Illusory growth of employment in Mexico

With cynical fanfare, President Pena Nieto recently declared the creation of 2 million jobs between the second quarter of 2012 and the second quarter of 2016. The government claims that the current rate of unemployment is 3.9 percent.

This announcement is illusory. During the same period more than 5 million joined the labor force; another 6 million are not in the labor force but available for work, for a total deficit of more than 8 million jobs.

Including these workers in the ranks of the unemployed, the unemployment rate leaps to 13.5 percent.

The announcement by Pena Nietos Pact for Mexico coalition government (PRI, PAN and PRD) also leaves out the growth in jobs that pay poverty wages from 18.2 million in 2012 to 21.7 in 2016.

In December 2014, the Pena Nieto administration negotiated with 30 trade union leaders to establish a framework for labor peace. Each of the trade union officials present pledged to place the interests of the nation ahead of those of the workers that they represent.

If the President [Pena Nieto] succeeds, the working class and Mexico will succeed, declared the union chiefs.

Guerra workers protest in Brazil

Guerra workers locked one of the gates of the company on Friday morning. They are demanding that the company pay 180 workers who were laid off recently. Guerra manufactures agricultural and road building equipment in the city of Caixas do Sul, in Southern Brazil.

The company declared itself in financial emergency in 2015 and since then has sacked half of its 1,000 workers. Sao Paulo-based private equity group Axxon, a financial asset stripper, took over Guerra in 2008.

The Metalworkers Union of Caxias do Sul has ruled out industrial action and instead is appealing to the court system.

Chile: Five-day occupation by contract workers at the Los Bronces copper mine

On November 26, contract workers occupied the Los Bronces copper mine, jointly owned by Anglo-American, the government-owned Codelco, and two Japanese firms. The workers occupied the mine to demand the return to wages and benefits that they enjoyed in 2014. Their protest had the full support of all the other mine workers.

Los Bronces management declared the occupation illegal, claiming that the dispute was not with the mine, but with the labor brokers that hire and assign workers on a contingent basis.

The United States

Pennsylvania hospital drags feet on implementation of $15 wage for hospital workers

Some 20 workers at the University of Pittsburghs UPMC hospital walked off the job November 29 as a part of the Fight for $15 campaign. But in the case of these workers, they are pressuring for an earlier implementation of a pledge by UPMC to pay workers $15 an hour. The hospital system said it would delay the wage hike until 2021.

The hospital had indicated it would incrementally implement the wage increase, but has done nothing to date. On April 14, dozens of workers held a similar strike to press for quicker implementation of the wage hike. The workers are also protesting harassment and some four firings they claim are related to their attempt to unionize with the Service Employees International Union.

Meanwhile, registered nurses at UPMCs nearby hospital in Altoona have been in negotiations with management over staffing levels and other issues since October 29. The contract covering nurses there expires December 31.

Canada

Nova Scotia schools close due to job action

The provincial Liberal government of Nova Scotia has closed the doors to all public schools in the province this week after 9,300 teachers began a work-to-rule campaign last week that has been supported by unionized school support workers who have refused to do struck work.

The provincial government cited public safety as the reason for the school shutdown and immediately announced that they would introduce legislation to put an end to the strike and impose the contract that was recently rejected over the heads of their union leadership. Growing class sizes and deteriorating working conditions are central issues in the dispute between the government and members of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NTSU).

The government has made clear that back-to-work legislation, which may take another week to pass, will be designed to avert any further strike action by teachers in the province. Teachers affected by the contract dispute were still required to show up for work on Monday even though there were no students in attendance.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- Celebrations rang out among thousands of protesters across the country Sunday, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it's halting plans to build a portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) under a lake at a Native American reservation.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters have been fighting the pipeline for months, saying it could be hazardous and damaging to their water supply.

About 400 people gathered in front of the Old Capitol building Sunday in a peaceful and largely silent demonstration.

They emphasized the importance of water to daily life and warned against the potentially harmful effects of pipelines to the environment.

They learned of the news that the DAPL plans were halted while still demonstrating at the Old Capitol.

"It was overwhelming to get that news especially at that time," said local activist Lorinne Myatt. "Even though there's a lot of work left to be done, that was really encouraging -- to say that our voices, locally and nationally, are heard and have an impact."

The focus turns to the Sabal Trail pipeline, which affects Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

It'll be more than 500 miles long -- but locals are hoping they can stop its completion, just like the one in North Dakota.

The Sabal Trail pipeline would be built in several local counties, including Brooks, Colquitt, Lowndes and Mitchell in Georgia and Suwannee and Hamilton in Florida.

"The pipeline itself would be transporting fracked natural gas, but it is not flowing yet," said Myatt, "and, until that gas is flowing through the pipeline, it can be stopped."

Organizers from Sunday's event are working to unify their efforts moving forward.

The plan is to create a local activist group to respond to situations similar to ones like Standing Rock and Sabal Trail.

Locals have already organized a "call to action" Saturday in Live Oak by the Suwannee River. Some are planning to camp out the night before.

The event will be at 3243 91st Drive, starting at 10 a.m.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
YAKIMA, Wash. - After closing three years ago, the Yakima County jail on Pacific Avenue could be back in business by this summer if a tentativ
Trump not saying what hell do about Dakota Access pipeline




". loved the small inventor and was the champion of the little guy. He was never happier than when he was meeting with the individual inventor, and when he represented those people, it meant more to him than you could imagine."

In August, 2016, one of the most influential persons in modern patent litigation, Raymond Niro, passed away at the age of 73. It has taken IPKat some time to properly recall Mr. Niro, but as we approach the end of 2016, it is appropriate to do so now. Some (indeed many) Kat readers may not recognize Mr. Niros name, but are likely familiar with the moniker that, according to many accounts, was bestowed upon him by an assistant general counsel of Intel. That nickname was "patent troll, a term that has become a central part of contemporary IP parlance. If there is one person who is most directly identified with the phenomenon, known in a more anodyne fashion as NPE (non-practicing enterprise) or PAE (patent assertion entities), it was Mr. Niro. Vilified, condemned, or worse; admired, revered or even more; probably no person in contemporary IP practice was more divisively viewed than Mr. Niro.IPKat does not intend to address the debate over NPEs, PAE's and the like, which has been voiced many times on this blog site, and the arguments over which will surely continue to rage on for the foreseeable future. The intention of IPKat is modest and personalto briefly recount the life of the person who changed the way that patent litigation is perceived and practiced.Born to Italian parents in Pittsburgh (ironically, perhaps, he died while visiting the island of Capri in Italy), Mr. Niro studied chemical engineering, worked for a time at Shell Oil as an engineer before taking a position at DuPont, where he wrote patents. Like so many patent practitioners of his time, he studied law at night at George Washington University. (This Kat can only hope that one or more graduates of this program will yet share in writing their memories of that experience.) After completing his studies, he moved to Chicago in 1969 to join the IP firm now known as Brinks Gilson & Lione. In 1976, he left the firm to set up a law office with Gerard Hosier. There, they came up with what is described as a novel form of client representation at the timecontingency representation of small inventors in patent litigation cases. In 1994, he and Mr. Hosier parted ways and Mr. Niro set up a law firm bearing his name.Mr. Niros courtroom skills were legendary, and he is said to have possessed special skills in cross-examination and being able to connect with the jury. He was a reported master at focusing the case before the jury on the (small, aggrieved) inventor rather than the invention. It is reported that he was victorious in 20 jury verdicts in a row, generating awards in excess of $400 million dollars (reportedly, he set his fee at between 35%-45% of the gross revenues received.) In addition to his court room victories, there were numerous settlements reached after the mere receipt of a cease and desist letter from his office.Mr. Niro never seemed to waiver from his declared commitment to representing the small inventor. His son Dean is quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying that his late fatherMr. Niro apparently enjoyed substantial financial success in his practice. He endowed the Niro Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecturer and Raymond P. Niro Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the College of Law at DePaul University Over the last decade, a number of factors have made it more challenging for patent plaintiffs, including the America Invents Act, U.S. Supreme Court decisions on patentability and fee shifting, and appellate court decisions on patent damages. President Obama himself called out against the practice of patent assertion entities. Debate will continue on the pros and cons; Kat readers are invited to reach their own conclusions. What is undeniable is that during his career Mr. Niro exerted a towering influence over the practice of patent litigation.For more on Mr. Niro, see here and here Photo from Chicago Tribune (Family photo / Handout)
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Duran Duran: Please please tell me now: Is there something I should know? Is there something I should say?

Lawyer : You mean, is there something you should say, before your copyright goes away?

Duran Duran : That's funny, for a lawyer. But we didn't agree to pay you a hundred quid for your songwriting talents. What do you think about this contract?

Nick Rhodes, co-founder of Duran Duran (photo: Eva Rinaldi, CC BY_SA 2.0)

Lawyer: Well, you're agreeing here to assign all of your existing and future copyrights worldwide for their full term. That's pretty standard stuff. But there's a new Copyright Act in the United States, just two years old, and it will allow you to reclaim your copyright from the publishers after 35 years. Which is nice, though it does rather assume anyone will be buying your records in 2015 (no offence).

Duran Duran: Eh thanks. What exactly should we do?

Lawyer: When the 35 year mark is approaching, you'll simply serve a notice on the publisher. Tell them you want your copyright back, lodge a copy of the Notice with the Copyright Office and hey presto it will revert to you. So in your contract, you could include a clause stating that the assignment is without prejudice to your rights under section 203 of the US Copyright Act to terminate the assignment of the US copyright.

Duran Duran: They'll never go for it. Have you seen our haircuts? They won't change their standard contract for us. And if they don't sign us up, nobody will.

Lawyer: Well don't worry about it. When Congress was passing the law, they had unequal relationships like that in mind. Here's what they say in House Report 941476 introducing the law:

"A provision of this sort is needed because of the unequal bargaining position of authors, resulting in part from the impossibility of determining a works value until it has been exploited ... Instead of being automatic, as is theoretically the case under the present renewal provision, the termination of a transfer or license under section 203 would require the serving of an advance notice within specified time limits and under specified conditions. However, although affirmative action is needed to effect a termination, the right to take this action cannot be waived in advance or contracted away."

And it's right here in section 203(5): "Termination of the grant [of a transfer or licence of copyright] may be effected notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, including an agreement to make a will or to make any future grant." So basically, it doesn't matter what you sign now. You can't contract away the right to claim the copyright back when the time comes.

Duran Duran: Cool. Now about your fees. We've been thinking. Maybe we can cut you in on the royalties for our first three albums instead?

Lawyer: Thank you, but my understanding is that you have never even been inside a recording studio. I think I'd prefer the hundred pounds we agreed on. In cash please, boys.

"The language of clause 3(a) is wide and general. Particularly when read together with clause 4, I consider that what the language would have conveyed to a reasonable person having the relevant background knowledge was that the parties' intention was that the "entire copyrights" in the Compositions should vest, and remain vested, in the Claimant for the "full term" of the copyrights. That implicitly precludes the Group Members from exercising rights under US law which have the result that the Claimant's ownership of the copyrights is brought to an end prior to their expiry. Moreover, this interpretation is reinforced by clause 6(b), by which the Group Members promised not to transfer any interest in the copyrights to any other person, which I read in context as meaning any person other than the Claimant. (This is clearer from the wording of clause 6(b) of the Service Company Music Publishing Agreements, which refers to "any person, firm or corporation other than Tritec".) In effect, what the Group Members have done by exercising their rights of termination is to transfer the reversionary interest in the copyrights from the Claimant to themselves."

"As a consequence of Section 203, a US Court would not allow a claim for damages for breach of a contractual agreement because the statutory termination right supersedes any contractual right. This applies whether that contract was governed under English or US law."

A few weeks after his eighteenth birthday, Duran Duran co-founder Nick Rhodes signed a music publishing agreement assigning his existing and future copyrights to a publisher, as did the other band members. None of them was aged more than 21 at the time.Had they taken advice from a copyright lawyer at the time (1980), one can imagine a conversation along the following lines:This conversation never happened of course, and indeed we don't know if the band took any advice or knew about the possibility of claiming the US copyright back in the future. What we do know is the band members signed a music publishing agreement assigning the "entire copyrights" in their existing and future works for the "full term" of the copyrights, to Gloucester Place Music Ltd (then called Tritec Music Ltd , and now part of the Sony/ATV group).

In 2014, with the 35 year point approaching, band members Nick Rhodes, Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor, duly served Notices under section 203 in respect of 37 songs, including most of their best-known works like "Girls on Film", "Rio", "Hungry Like The Wolf" and "Is There Something I Should Know?".Gloucester Place Music responded by seeking a determination from the English High Court that such Notices, if not retracted, would represent a breach of contract, i.e. by improperly terminating an assignmentwhich the band members had no right to do.Mr Justice Arnold has decided in favour of the publisher and against the band members. The case is [2016] EWHC 3091 (Ch) . His decision is based on the fact that the contract was made under English law, and on its proper interpretation the parties are assumed to have been aware when entering into the Agreements, at least in general terms, of the effect of section 203, and to have nevertheless contracted away the US copyright for its full term. He summarised at [44]:The reference to "a reasonable person having the relevant background knowledge" was held to include some knowledge of US copyright law. In other words, someone signing a contract such as this was assumed to know, at least in general terms, about the possibility of reclaiming copyright in the US.Insofar as it goes, this may be a pretty unremarkable interpretation of a contract under English law. But what about the fact that under US law the right to terminate the assignment cannot be contracted away?Arnold J. noted the US law aspect but pointed to the fact that Article 7(1) of the Rome Convention, which provides for effect to be given to the mandatory rules of the law of another country with which the situation has a close connection, does not have the force of law in the United Kingdom by virtue of section 2(2) of the Contracts (Applicable Law) Act 1990.The issues of US law were treated as questions of fact. No expert evidence had been provided as to the meaning of the US statute, nor had permission been sought to do so. So efffectively they were never brought properly before the court.The solicitor for the defendants (i.e. the band members and their service companies) had made a statement in his witness statement that:The defendants argued that this was admissible evidence, and was unchallenged. Arnold J had little time for this argument. It was no more than a statement of case with which they could expect the other side to take issue at trial. It was a statement made by an English solicitor who, he noted, claimed no expertise in US law, with no basis given and no citation of any decided cases supporting the assertion, and nor did it address whether the position was the same in the period 1980-1983.To the IPKat it appears that this failure to introduce evidence as to US law represented a major oversight by the defendants, or at least a very risky assumption that the point was self-evident. This Kat cannot tell whether the outcome would have changed if the judge had evidence that the position as stated by the solicitor was both correct as to the law now and at the relevant time, but the failure to adduce this evidence undermined the defendants' reliance on the US law point.Nick Rhodes, commenting on the judgment, said "We are shocked that English contract law is being used to overturn artists rights in another territory. If left untested, this judgment sets a very bad precedent for all songwriters of our era and so we are deciding how properly to proceed."The IPKat would like to see the case appealed, and would prefer to see artists free to exercise their statutory rights, but is less convinced that the decision sets a "very bad precedent". A future litigant who introduces strong expert evidence on the US law point would at the minimum ensure that the court would have to consider afresh the conflict of laws question.Rhodes also commented that the band members signed the agreement as "unsuspecting teenagers ... when we knew no better". This bears out the "unequal relationship" rationale for section 203, and is another reason why it would be extremely interesting to see the US law point properly considered.Arnold J's decision serves a salutory purpose, reminding anyone signing a publishing agreement that the court will interpret the agreement from the viewpoint of a reasonable person with the necessary background information, including some knowledge of copyright law. This makes obtaining good advice all the more critical when the bargaining position is unequal.
One of the Likud ministers encountered one of the main activists from his party at the Knesset cafeteria last week. There is one thing you should pay attention to, the activist told the minister, without the faintest glimmer of a smile on his face. If Bibi is sick in the coming days, were headed to elections.

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On Tuesday, the cabinet secretariat announced that the cabinet meeting was being cancelled due to the prime ministers illness. The flu. The same famous cold that strikes Benjamin Netanyahu every time he experiences one of his paranoia attacks. But having the flu does not mean that you are not being chased. And the main issue discussed in the Knesset last week was not the Regulation Bill or the spate of fires, but whether the elections were on the way.

Its exactly like what happened in the previous round in the previous government, another senior Likud member said. The same quarrels, the same madness, the same feeling that everyone hates and suspects each other.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Education Minister Naftali Bennett. The Bayit Yehudi leader is the only one in the government who has stands to gain from early elections (Photos: Amit Shaabi, Daniel Elior)

The signs of restlessness were mainly apparent in the back benches of the Likud, which accommodate the Knesset members who were elected in the different districts. According to the Likud constitution, they will have to be elected on the national list next time. In other words, they will have to reach tens of thousands of voters, most of whom have never heard of them.

But the tensions did not spare some of the ministers either. Experienced players like Gilad Erdan and Gila Gamliel, who planned to sit quietly in the coming year and step it up only ahead of the primary elections, are now impatiently watching Minister Miri Regev. Her strategyto never stop making headlinessuddenly seems like a political genius quality.

Add that to a rare series of events, most of which the prime minister is directly involved in. The submarine affair is not going away. The Germans are investigating, the police are investigating, new details emerge every day (we have yet to receive an answer to whether attorney David Shimron was in the room when Netanyahu decided to replace Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon with Avigdor Lieberman, and who knew at the time that the decision was worth NIS 120 million to Miki Ganor).

The other investigations against the prime minister are still ongoing, and even the decision to prosecute his wife Sara cannot be stalled forever. Add to that the battle over the new Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation , the Bezeq Law, the multi-home tax plan which the ultra-Orthodox parties are determined to thwart, and the images waiting for us on December 25, when the bulldozers take on the Amona homesand you have yourself all of the makings of a perfect storm.

And if I had to bet who will be at the center of the storm if the government is overthrown, my money would be on Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett. He is the only one in the government who has something to gain from early elections.

There is no way we will get less than 14 Knesset seats this time, a senior Bayit Yehudi member said this week. This time, we wont let Bibi empty us out. Bennett cannot afford to concede on the Amona issue, and he knows that if he waits too long, Uri Ariel and Bezalel Smotrich will break up the party right under his nose a moment before he implements his not-so-secretive plan to remove the National Union faction from his party.

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who was at the center of the previous early elections, is likely experiencing a deja vu as well. Last week, he submitted a bill to dissolve the Knesset. Such a proposal can only be made once every six months, so if Lapid is firing with such a cannon, he must have detected something that he has already seen in the past.

We are seeing complete loss of control, Lapid told me on Wednesday, immediately after the Knesset removed the Regulation Bill from its agenda. This is the first internal challenge this government is facing, and look whats happening. Up until now, they had no internal disputes because they were not doing anything apart from cancelling the previous governments laws. The first time they have an argument they fly off the handle.

Experience taught us that if there is anything that prompts early elections, it is mainly discussions of early elections. The crazies become crazier, the ideologists become more fanatic, and all of yesterdays partners become todays Knesset seat robbers.

Traditionally, the winter session is the longest Knesset session. At the current state of events, there is a good chance it will be shortened.
The Elor Azaria trial is a micromodel of the states maladies, and as opposed to the rules of optics, or to the rules of television photography, the more one delves into the details, the wider ones gaze becomes.

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Omri Assenheims investigative report in the Uvda television program, about the shooting soldier from Hebron, presented a series of facts which we have known about for a long time in a professional and didactic way. Their collection and presentation, minute after minute, created a strong impression.

The Azaria case strengthens the suspicion that the presence of settlers influences soldiers operational responses

First of all, the alleged uniqueness of the incident. Similar incidents happen in the territories frequently. Hardly a week goes by, especially during the knife intifada, without a similar incident taking place: A regiment commander shooting a fleeing teen in the back because he is irritated by a stone thrown at his car (a rock, to be more exact, because stones are thrown by Neturei Karta while Arabs throw rocks); a young soldier firing at a Jordanian judge who talked back at him; a circle of Border Guard officers emptying full magazines of bullets at a terrorist lying on the ground at Nablus Gate.

Lets admit it: Azaria is on trial only because there was a combination of two things there  the publication of a video shot by BTselem during the shooting, and the fact that it involves a simple soldier, a La Familia (Beitar Jerusalems supporters group) fan from Ramla. If the video had not been published, or if the shooter had been an officer from Ramat Hasharon or Elon Moreh, the incident would not have reached the heights it did. The politicians only jumped on the incidents prominence. And every minister who rushed to open his mouth and comment on the issue was hiding another agenda behind his statement. Its unnecessary to go back to those comments which have changed since then according to ones position (Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman) or the need to appear more right-wing than Naftali Bennett (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu).

The Azaria case highlights another known fact: That the ones who control the occupied territories, manage them, direct the soldiery and the government workers and navigate the narrative are the settlers. The scene of the incident in Hebron was managed by the settlers, period. It doesnt matter how many soldiers were in the area  two experienced settlers were the ones who set the tone.

This only strengthens the suspicion that wherever there are settlers alongside soldiers, including scenes of terror attacks, the settlers influence the soldiers operational responses. Only last week, a settler stood in the middle of the road in Hebron and refused to let three American tourists proceed, because one of them had a keffiyeh wrapped around her neck. The soldiers stationed around the settler to protect her refused to intervene, and the tourists turned around.

The armys professionality has been stained by the shooting soldier affair too. The chief of staff reported, in an explicit and documented manner, that two-thirds of the army are employed in keeping the occupied territories (its unbelievable, but only one-third deal with the Arab states, Iran, submarines, F-15, Hezbollah, Hamas and all the other calamities). And since we are the world champions in occupation, as declared by Maj. Gen. (res.) Gadi Shamni, who defined himself as the champion of occupation, we should have been a bit more organized and efficient in this area.

But it would be naive to expect the peoples army to be significantly more efficient than the people, and it turns out that the army is as professional and efficient as the National Insurance Institute, the Housing and Construction Ministry, the ports, the transportation or any other field. When you slightly rub off the coating, your eyes will grow dark. Especially when it has to do with an area in which our young soldiers are forced to engage in policing, and anyone who engages in this  apart from the settlers and their assistants  does it very unwillingly.

I dont envy the judges who will have to decide on the shooting soldiers sentence. On the one hand, there is no doubt that Azaria fired a bullet into an injured terrorists head under circumstances which do not justify this killing, and a state like ours must not start pardoning soldiers for such acts.

On the other hand, one cannot ignore the impossible situation which soldiers who have just finished high school are forced to deal with, with experienced terrorists taking over the scene while the officers mind is constantly distracted by background noises, two-way radios and cellular phones. Because after all and before anything else, this incident is a reflection of the biggest problem the State of Israel is dealing with, which is the occupation.
Police collected testimony Monday evening from senior IDF officials related to the submarine affair as part of the investigation police are conducting into the involvement of David Shimron, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's personal attorney

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Investigations have revealed that IDF officials were involved in all business proceedings with ThyssenKrupp and the Israel Police have requested their version of events.

Two days ago, legal advisor to the Minister of Defense, Ahaz Ben Ari, provided testimony that Shimron did not mention Netanyahu in their conversation.

A week and a half ago, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit ordered a police probe into the submarine affair. The Ministry of Justice announced that, "The Attorney General held further consultations with the participation of the state prosecutor, officials from the justice ministry and the head of investigations and intelligence at the Israel police."

According to the announcement, the consultation took place following "new information received from the police, as well as further developments on the subject. In summing up the discussion, the attorney general decided to order a probe with the Israel Police in relation to various aspects associated with the case."

Prime Minister Netanyahu has denied several times that he knew of the relationship between Shimron and the acquisition of the submarines.
PORT-AU-PRINCE- A former Haitian coup leader wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for alleged cocaine trafficking and money laundering has won election to Haiti's Senate, according to preliminary results released by the electoral council.

Guy Philippe defeated all other candidates in the second round of elections, held on Nov. 20, for the southwestern Grand Anse region, which is still recovering from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Matthew.

"Victory, thank you Grand Anse," said a message posted on Philippe's Facebook page late on Sunday. "My fellow compatriots, together we will accomplish and live a patriotic act of faith."

In Haiti, losing candidates have a period in which to file complaints about the results. If Philippe's win stands, he would take office early next year for a six-year term.
The Nitzan Battalion of the IDF Field Intelligence Unit arrested several Palestinians as they were preparing to throw Molotov cocktails at cars next to Highway 60.

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The suspects allegedly were planning to lob the Molotov cocktails over the security fence at the cars below.

IDF stops Molotov throwers (:  ")

X

They were arrested outside the village of Khader, south of Bethlehem.





The IDF force, in green, approaching the suspects preparing to throw the Molotov cocktail (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit put out a video showing the force identifying the primary suspect, while military lookouts alerted the force to two other suspects who were approaching the force. Those two suspects managed to run away and evade the force.

The spot is popular for Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails at cars.

Weapons found in the brush around Highway 60 (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Money cache found in possession of the Hamas operative (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Soldier searching the house of one of the Hamas suspects (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Cache of money found in the home of one of the Hamas suspects (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Meanwhile, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit said that the IDF - in conjunction with the Shin Bet and the Israel Police  arrested 10 suspects in the West Bank overnight. Six of the suspects were arrested on suspicion of planning nationalistically motivated terror attacks, and for taking part in violent demonstrations against Israeli security forces.

The IDF arrested two members of Hamas in the Balata refugee camp outside Nablus, and arrested two more in the village of Askar refugee camp, also in Nablus.
Amona residents on Monday rejected out of hand the compromise reached in the coalition that allowed a revisd version of the Regulation Bill to pass a preliminary reading in the Knesset.

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The Regulation Bill would retroactively legalize Jewish outposts in the West Bank built with government involvement. Clause 7 of the legislation proposal, which specifically refers to Amona, was removed from the new version to allow it to pass.

The legislation will now be advanced in an expedited process and the Kneset is expected to vote on the first reading on Wednesday.





Amona children protest outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, calling for the passing of the Regulation Bill (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

"We can now say with certainty that had Naftali Bennett and Benjamin Netanyahu insisted and demanded the Kulanu party, as a member of coalition, to respect the basic requirement of honoring coalition discipline, then Amona could have stayed on the map and 200 children and their parents would not have to be uprooted from their homes," the residents said in a letter.

"The fact this demand was not made by the prime minister and education minister is frustrating and can ruin lives. Unfortunately, Bennett and Netanyahuwho were willing to pass the Regulation Bill and face international threatsfolded in the face of a petty political threat from the Kulanu party, which was an entirely empty threat. We still don't understand why."

'Amona North is a ghetto'

After the High Court of Justice rejected the government's request for an extension on Amona's impending evacuation, a solution was formulated that would see them moved to temporary lodgings for eight months on three plots of land belonging to absentee owners, until a more permanent solution could be found.

"We completely reject the bogus solution of using 'absentee owners' lands,'" they wrote. "This plan is detached from reality and does not take into consideration the size of the town, its population, its public and education institutions, and its community and agricultural character. This is a very limited areaa ghetto."

"Amona North," the temporary area set to house the evacuated residents, is 13 dunams in size, spread over three unconnected plots of land. The 40 families will have to crowd into only 31 structures.

A child in Amona with a sticker on his shirt saying: 'Amona will not fall again' (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

On Monday, however, it transpired that the temporary solution might face other obstacles. Palestinians filed reservations concerning two of the three plots, claiming the land owners were not absentees at all.

The Amona residents called on the people of Israel to join them in protesting the evacuation. Dozens of teenagersyeshiva students from all across the countryhave already arrived in Amona and are waiting for the impending evacuation on December 25.

"We call on you, all lovers of the Land of Israel who have been by our side so far, to join us and be here with us until the legislation is amended or, heaven forbid, on the day of the evacuation to mount a widescale popular protest against the intention to demolish a Jewish town and carry out a transfer of our families," they wrote.

Amona resident preparing temporary structures to accommodate the thousands of protesters they expect to come to their aid on evacuation day (Photo: AFP)

They also noted that Netanyahu and Bennett would bear the responsibility for the painful sights of evacuation.

During Monday's Likud party meeting, Netanyahu offered an apology for having to pass the revised version of the Regulation Bill, which doesn't include Amona.

"I want to apologize to those who had their hopes up," he said. "We're working very hard to find a solution for Amona, and I believe everyone sitting here understands the distress the residents are in. The solution we're examining and planning to propose will allow the residents to remain on the mountain and stay as a community. It's true, they would have to move, but they could stay in the area and that's a very important thing."

Netanyahu added that "there isn't just one Amona, there are many," referring to the fact the Regulation Bill might not stop Amona's evacuation, but could legalize dozens of other outposts.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Photo: Ofer Meir)

Bennett celebrated the fact the revised Regulation Bill passed the preliminary reading, saying "The national camp is back in power. This is a historic day: Today the Knesset went from a path that would lead to the formation of a Palestinian state to the path of establishing sovereignty in Judea and Samaria."

AG still opposes Regulation Bill

But despite having passed this initial hurdle, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit still objects to the Regulation Bill.

According to Mandelblit, the revised version of the legislation is still unconstitutional and contradicts both Israeli and international law.

The Regulation Bill, the attorney general said, still includes clauses that bypass accepted procedures in the regulating of lands in the West Bank and in the legalization of outposts built on privately-owned land, stating he would therefore not be able to defend it at the High Court of Justice.

The Knesset discusses the revised Regulation Bill (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

Based on the Regulation Bill, the government could expropriate the right to use the land. Since the expropriation refers to the right to use the land rather than the land's ownership, Palestinians who prove ownership will be entitled to financial compensationbut the outpost would not be evacuated.

Last week, Mandelblit conditioned the approval of the temporary solution for Amona on the Regulation Bill not passing in the Knesset. If the bill does not get passed into law, the attorney general will petition the High Court of Justice on behalf of the state, asking once again for a 30-day postponement of Amona's evacuation.

But officials in the Bayit Yehudi party said they were aware of Mandelblit's objection to the revised edition, and noted they never thought he would support it.

"The problem was with Kahlon and Benny Begin, and not with the attorney general," one official explained.

Bennett himself was not worried, "he says he won't defend the legislation at the High Court? Fine, we'll bring someone else who will."
Burger King chains throughout Israel will be serving donut burgers specially for the holiday of Hanukkah.

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The burger will be called "SufganiKing," a play on the Hebrew word for donut, which is "sufganiyah."

The SufganiKing will be sold for NIS 14.90.

Burger King's SufganiKing donut burger

Donuts are typically eaten by Jews in Israel and throughout the world to commemorate the miracle of Hanukkah, whereby the Jewish Maccabees fought off and overthrew the Greeks who were occupying the Land of Israel. Following the Greek desecration of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, a jug of oil to light the menorah was found. The oil was only enough to last one day, but it lasted eight, thus creating a tradition whereby Jews eat oily and fried foods, and light an eight armed candelabrum called a "Hannukiyah."

The "SufganiKing" will be a normal Whopper hamburger, but with donuts to be put in place of buns. Ketchup will replace the normal jelly donut filling which is typical of donuts sold throughout Israel during the Festival of Lights.

Israeli Burger King employees have already tasted the new SufganiKing, and say it tastes delicious.

The SufganiKing will be available at Burger King outlets throughout Israel from the start of Hanukkah, which this year begins on December 25th, and will be available until the end of Hanukkah on January 1st.

Israeli Burger King CEO Steve ben Shimol said "this matching of two popular Israeli food items was inevitable for us. We're proud to be able to end 2016 on a creative, festive note."
A Japanese backpacker who was crushed by rocks on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal was rescued by a group of Israeli hikers on Monday.

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Akihu Sujiyama, 40, was injured when a rockslide fell on her while hiking the Annapurna Circuit. The rockslide caused her to break her leg with the bone protruding, and she began to lose blood rapidly. Israeli hikers in the area heard her anguished screams and ran to help her.



The injured Sujiyama lying in hospital

Upon arriving at her, they immediately applied a tourniquet, and were able to use a satellite phone in their possession to call a rescue helicopter. The Chabad emissary for the region, Rabbi Chezki Lifshitz, arrived with the helicopter as well.

The Japanese Consulate General to Nepal then went to the local Chabad house to give his thanks to the hikers who rescued the Japanese woman. The woman was evacuated to a hospital in Kathmandu.

"We thank the Nation of Israel," the consulate general said.

Rabbi Lipshitz visits Sujiyama in the hospital

"(The Israelis) are heroes who didn't leave her side for even a second," Rabbi Lifshitz said. He received word of the incident via a Chabad situation room located in Israel.

"We extracted her from the area in the helicopter. Her situation was critical yet stable," the rabbi added.

Sujiama received life saving blood transfusions in the hospital in Kathmandu.

"She came to the hospital with a hemoglobin level of 4," said Hilik Magnus of Israel based Magnus International Search and Rescue.

Rabbi Lipshits and the Japanese Consulate General

"These (Israelis) are heroes and definitely saved her life. Israelis have a lot of value due to their military service. They kept their cool, and knew exactly how to treat her wound."

Sujiyama underwent life saving surgery and was able to have her leg saved.

During the Japanese Consulate General's meeting with Rabbi Lifshitz, he told the Chabad emissary that Sujiyama wanted to directly thank the Israelis who saved her life, and wanted to say that she "loves the Jewish people."

It turns out that Sujiyama had visited Israel five years prior on a work visit specializing in calligraphy, where she visited several Torah scribes in Jerusalem.
According to The Independent, the Human Rights charity, Reprieve, raises concerns the EU and member states as part of a new page in EU-Iran relations that was announced earlier this year, might be funding support for Irans drug police, a body responsible for hundreds of executions in the country, following deeply concerning Iranian media reports that a senior official in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) claimed the EU is actively supporting Iranian drug enforcement operations.

In a letter addressed to EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini and co-signed by NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Iran Human Rights, Reprieve called for urgent clarification of the European Commissions policy on funding counter-narcotics operations in Iran. The letter cites a report in the Iran Daily, where Alex P. Schmid, UNODC official, stated 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 added, Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway are ready to allocate the credit to Iran.

According to a report from the United Nations investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, an estimated 1,000 people were executed in Iran last year, but the unofficial number is believed to be higher. The majority of the executions are linked to drug trafficking and non-lethal drugs offenses.

The Iranian government executed 474 drug offenders in 2014, 682 drugs offenders were hanged in 2015, and around 189 drug offenders had been hanged as of September 2016, according to Reprieve. Despite such measures, Mohammad Bagher Olfat, the deputy head of the judiciary, said in August that the death penalty had not had a dissuasive effect on drug trafficking through Iran, one of the main routes for Afghan heroin heading for Europe.

Sims writes, 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.

Reprieves letter reads, 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 European Parliaments draft resolution 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, and the EUs 28 member states made a joint statement to the UN General Assembly in April saying that imposing the death penalty for drug offences is against the norms of international law.

When Ms. Mogherini visited Iran to announce the EU and Iran had turned a new page in their diplomatic relations, she also said it is not a secret we have some concerns over the question of human rights in Iran.

The UK, Italy, Germany and Austria have previously indicated they will not contribute to Iranian counter-narcotics programmes overseen by the UNODC.

A director at Reprieve, Maya Foa, 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. She added, 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.

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. an EU spokesperson stated.

The UNODC declined to comment, saying they were unable to verify the Iranian media reports.
BAMAKO - Suspected Islamist militants attacked a prison in the town of Niono in central Mali late on Monday and freed all the prisoners, army spokesman Diarran Kone said.

Militants in northern Mali have staged a series of high-profile attacks since 2015, extending their campaign beyond their desert bases into the central and southern regions of the country and the capital.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira has launched an investigation into the Gaza Disengagement Authority in an effort to ascertain whether NIS 5 billion allocated for the families evacuated from Gush Katif were indeed used to benefit them.

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The Disengagement Authority, which was formed ahead of the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlements in Gaza in 2005, was essentially dissolved over two years ago after having gone through many changes over the years.

After it was dissolved and most of its employees dismissed, the handling of the Gush Katif evacuees was entrusted to the Agriculture Ministry. Today the authority functions as a department within the ministry, under the leadership of Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi).

Gush Katif evacuees protesting the fact they've yet to move to permanent homes10 years later (Photo: Zohar Shahar)

Despite being dissolved, the authority continues receiving a budget of billions of shekels. Only two weeks ago, for example, the authority received NIS 160 million. It remains unclear, however, whether the money went to the evacuees or to the Agriculture Ministry.

The matter first came to light during a discussion at the Knesset's State Control Committee. MK Stav Shaffir (Zionist Union) noticed discrepancies between the big budget allocated for the authority and what was happening on the ground.

For example, she found no explanation as to why only NIS 8 billion out of NIS 13 billion were used to benefit the Gush Katif evacuees, nor could she figure out what happened to the remaining NIS 5 billion.

Shaffir sent her findings to the state comptroller, leading him to launch an investigation into the authority's funds management.

Most of the Gush Katif residents who were evacuated from their homes as part of the Gaza Disengagement Plan moved to temporary structures in Nitzan, which is the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council in southern Israel. Of the 1,680 families evacuated, 180 families remain that have yet to move into permanent homes.

Over the years, serious problems arose for the evacuated families: problems with employment, welfare, education, mental health, and others. But the handling of the evacuees was mostly left to the regional council.

A regional council official spoke of the difficulties in dealing with the Disengagement Authority, accusing that "There are millions of shekels there that are being held hostage. They owe the regional council a lot of money, which is meant for the evacuees or for the plan to rehabilitate their lives. Everything is moving along slowly. It appears that there are people sitting on these budgets and refusing to let these funds go for reasons only they know."

MK Shaffir welcomed the state comptroller's decision to launch an investigation into the matter, saying the "conduct of the Disengagement Authority and Minister Uri Ariel raises suspicion of the corrupted use of public funds, which causes even more damage to the Gush Katif evacuees. Some of the money for the evacueesmillions of shekelswas given to secret advisors and dozens of lawyers, and a big part of the money simply disappeared from the authority's records."

The Agriculture Ministry said in response: "The issuing of a letter of undertaking by the state for a certain purpose is not akin to automatic payment. Every letter of undertaking is written and signed based on certain conditions that need to be met. For example, the requirement to receive approval for work plans before the issuing of a letter of undertaking, as well as the requirement to submit execution reports and provide supporting documents. The regional council must submit to the ministry a series of documents and the transfer of funds will only be done upon the examination of these documents."
NAIROBI- Food rations to more than 400,000 refugees in Kenya have been halved due to severe funding shortages, and existing supplies will run out completely at the end of February, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Kenya hosts 434,000 refugees from 21 countries, mainly from war-torn neighbouring South Sudan and Somalia, in two overcrowded camps on its northern borders.

"We are very worried about the impact of this on the refugees," Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"There is a chance, particularly if (the food ration cuts) go on for a long time, of health consequences, of deterioration in people's nutritional status."
More than 150,000 visitors are expected to attend MEDICA, the largest expo of medical devices and computerization in the world, which is held later this month in Dusseldorf, Germany. The expo will feature more than 5,000 companies from over 100 countries.

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This would be the tenth time the Israel Export Institute's pavilion, which is operated in conjunction with the Economy and Industry Ministry's Foreign Trade Administration, is participating in the expo. It is

This year, the pavilion will include a record number of 62 Israeli companies, engaged in various fields such as cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, emergency medicine, rehabilitation, tele-medicine, and more. Also participating are secondary manufacturers for the medical equipment and computerization industry, who are working in design, development, and product engineering.

The director of the medical equipment and computerization department at the Israel Export Institute, Tomer Epstein (Photo: Ronen Ackerman)

According to the director of the Israel Export Institute's Medical Equipment and Computerization Department, Tomer Epstein, the Israeli presence at MEDICA will actually consist of pavilions in four locations, each dedicated to a different area of medicine.

Our job in practice is to manage the pavilions, collect marketing materials, translate them into seven languages, and distribute them to the relevant parties from every corner of the globe," Epstein said.

"An inseparable part of our work consists of coordinating meetings ahead of time that would take place during the expo. The matching of the Israeli companies with potential customers and other interested parties depends on the nature of the Israeli company and its marketing strategy. Based on this, we set up meetings with potential distributors and strategic partners, and we help open doors for the Israeli companies to do business with relevant parties from all over the world, he added.

Is Israel considered a leader in the field of computerized medicine?

Absolutely. We are the leaders in technological medical innovation. We offer a variety of solutions, we identify the needs at hospitals and universities, and even from personal experience, and these are translated into useful, functional technological developments.

Do these medical developments make their way into the Israeli healthcare system?

The companies tend to aim at the global market, because the Israeli market is considered relatively small. Still, a significant portion of the customers of these Israeli companies are Israeli hospitals, HMOs, and rehabilitation centers.

Here are some of the Israeli companies that will present their wares at the expo.

Pangolin Medical Ltd.

Pangolin Medical is a recent start-up which is developing a model of the heart and blood vessels that would help medical professionals prepare for medical procedures for each individual patients.

The simulated heart is made of a clear, flexible material that can be catheterized. It is constructed based on the CT data of actual patients.

Doctors can practice the catheterization of the patient they have yet to meet on the model and thus raise the chance of the procedures success.

Pangolin Medical sells its models to start-ups on the Israeli and international markets, and is working on further medical developments with Israeli hospitals.

Ohad Shafran, CEO and company founder, described the companys vision in a conversation with Ynet: Abraham Lincoln once said: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. We operate on the same principle. Instead of having the catheterizing doctor showing up and asking him- or herself what tools to use or how to work through this blood vessel or the other, he or she will practice on our model and operate in real time only after being properly prepared.

Year established: 2012

Location: Ein Carmel

No. of employees: 3

Salute Ltd.

Salute has developed an innovative, effective rehabilitative product to help people regain the ability to walk after this basic motor function has been affected by an acute or chronic health problem, old age, or even a congenital defect.

The therapeutic device encourages intuitive motor learning. It is an effective, low-cost solution that helps practice walking in different surroundings. The device can be used in conjunction with professional therapy or even at home, exponentially increasing the frequency of practice and thus leading to better motor learning and performance for the patient.

Salutes patent-protected technology was designed for home use. The company says that the intuitive, user-friendly technology is suitable for people suffering from neurological damage and aging folks suffering from similar motoric problems.

The device also helps children and adolescents who suffer from congenital defects and adults whose ability to walk has been damaged by accident or illness to improve their walking.

The company adds that an important advantage of using the device lies in the short time span it take the product to help users regain their ability to walk. The device Salute developed allows continuity in patients rehabilitation. The process begins in the hospital, continues at the rehab facility, and then at home. The device supports rehabilitation of both the upper and lower extremities.

So far, more than 300 patients in Israel and elsewhere have been treated with the device.

According to Orly Bar, company CEO, The device has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for sale in the United States, and has also earned the European standard, the Conformite Europeene (CE) marking. The company is on the brink of mass manufacturing and distribution abroad and in the midst of its second round of raising capital.

The advantage of the Salute device lies in the fact that it brings therapy to all those patients who, until now, could only access therapy at rehab facilities or with professional personnel. The outstanding plus is that it can be used anywhere and at any time.

Year established: 2015

Location: Beer Yaakov

No. of employees: 4

TytoCare

TytoCare, co-founded by CEO Dadi Gilad and COO Ofer Tzadik, has developed a system that allows doctors to carry out long-distance patient examinations of various kinds.

TytoCare is based on a vision to create an application that simulates a visit to ones general practitioner or pediatrician without actually leaving home, says Gilad. We provide a platform to consumers that allows them to do a GP or pediatricians physical examination, which is usually performed at the clinic. The exam covers the throat, ears, skin, heart, lungs, stomach, and temperature.

The exam is carried out in one of two ways: in real time with the doctors guidance, or independently by the patient who receives instructions on what to do and how to make sure that the quality of the exam is good enough for a diagnosis.

All of the information is forwarded to the doctor, either in real time as part of a video-conference, or using a pre-recorded digital file, says Gilad. The device is like an extension of the doctors eyes, ears, and hands.

Gilad adds that the data is saved to the cloud and is being analyzed to help the doctor make decisions.

Were aiming to provide, at a later stage, a full diagnosis of common illnesses, but this is still in development. The basic device received FDA approval two weeks ago, and were now launching the product in the United States and introducing it to large medical institutions there, he says.

Year established: 2012

Location: Netanya and New York

No. of employees: 35

Hundreds of representatives from abroad

In the meantime, Israel will host its fourth annual Conference on Medical Devices and Computerization on March 7, 2017. The conferencedubbed 2017 MEDinIsrael and spearheaded by the Israel Export Institute in conjunction with the Economy and Industry Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and the Health Ministrywill focus on the global challenges to the worlds healthcare systems, while stressing the importance of community healthcare and the integration of innovative technologies for the benefit of public health.

The organizers are expecting some 2,000 visitors, 800 of whom will come from abroad, including health ministers, import and distribution reps, hospital directors, IT and acquisitions managers from government and private hospitals, government and regulatory officials, global company executives, and more.

The visitors, representing dozens of nations around the world, are expected to hold hundreds of business meetings with representatives of Israeli companies, facilitated by the economic attaches of the Foreign Trade Administration at the Economy and Industry Ministry.

In tandem with the conference, the organizers are hosting a professional expo where visitors can see the range of technologies and applications and meet the Israelis companies working in the field.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reprimand Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel after determining that he acted illegally by giving a drone away to the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during his recent trip to Israel.

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The drone, worth 200,000 shekels, was given as a gift despite the fact that it was being used by researchers at the Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center.

At the same time, Mandelblit approached the Civil Service Commissioner to consider opening a disciplinary investigation against the Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture.

In the letter written by the Attorney General, he said that after becoming aware of what had transpired, he viewed "the conduct in which a drone was given to the Russian prime minister as grave and in contravention of the law. It was done without receiving the required approval and no examination of the implications.

Minister Uri Ariel (l) stands with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (Photo: Yossi Aloni)

Mandelblit announced that he informed the prime minister who turned to the civil service commissioner in order to open a thorough check into the conduct of the general director of the agricultural ministry and to determine the possibility of opening a disciplinary proceedings against him.

In addition, Mandelblit also turned to the Accountant General, to consider whether there is a need to refresh the relevant guidelines in order to avoid the occurrence of similar instances in the future.

Soon after the incident became public, an American official from the US Embassy in Israel expressed concern over Ariels decision to give the drone to Medvedev.

The US demands information from the Israeli authorities in order to determine whether there was American technology in the drone, the official said days after Uriels humiliating and potentially consequential blunder.
A memorial ceremony took place for Israels first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on Tuesday afternoon at his Sde Boker Kibbutz, marking 43 years since his passing.

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The ceremony was attended by President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with the Supreme Court President Miriam Naor.

This is the first memorial ceremony for Ben-Gurion to have taken place without Shimon Peres, may his memory be blessed, said Prime Minister Netanyahu as he began his speech. Peres was Ben-Gurions prodigee, and I have to say that I feel Shimons absence, as do you, as does everybody.

David Ben-Gurion

The honor of being one of the first founding fathers in reserved for Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu said, adding that Israels small but intrepid first leader understood that the mere declaration and establishment of a state did not ensure its survival.

The problem was how to create a state. He understood that three fundamental foundations were required: military strength, economic strength and diplomatic strength. We are building and nurturing these foundations of Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu continued before explaining how his ideals remain the sine qua non of survival in todays Middle East.

The simple truth is that in our region the weak do not survive, only the strong do. The strong are not attacked or (enemies) are unable to attack them. You make peace and forge alliances with the strong, he said.

That is why Ben-Gurion went about building our military strength. The IDF became one of the strongest and leading armies in the world, and anyone who threatens our existence is himself in extremely serious danger, he warned as he listed some of the most recent reinforcements to Israels military might.

With this in mind, we are now arming ourselves with the F-35, with submarines, with cyber security and with defensive tools such as Iron Dome and Davids Sling. Obviously, this all costs a lot of money and that is why we need a strong economy and that requires the development of the country.

Finally, the prime minister emphasized the importance of establishing alliances in the face of seemingly perennial threats posed by surrounding nations.

Memorial ceremony for David Ben-Gurion (Photo: Roee Idan)

Because of the noose placed around us by the Arabs in our surroundings, Ben-Gurion set about establishing alliances with countries beyond the most obvious. Every state needs alliances and superpowers also need alliances. Here we combine our military and economic strength, which enable us to create alliances. We create new relationships which in my eyes contribute to the best chances of advancing peace between us and the Palestinians.

Taking to the podium after Netanyahu, President Rivlin extolled Ben-Gurion as the builder of Israel, who was one of the greatest people of action since the Zionists movements inception  During the days of the British Mandate, he led the establishments of dozens of institutionsmilitary, economic, political, educational and socialwhich were created for the new Israeli kingdom.

In addition to being a man of action, Rivlin continued, Ben-Gurion was a competent translator of the language of vision into a language of reality. Ben-Gurion was endowed with a unique and exceptional ability to make decisions.
A battalion of soldiers crawls across the desert sand with assault rifles cocked. It's a routine exercise, but these are no ordinary troops - they are Arabs who have chosen to fight for the Jewish state.

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While the vast majority of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are Jews - and nearly all their conflicts have been against Arab nations - a trickle of Israeli Arabs volunteer for the army.

Most are Bedouin, a community native to southern Israel. But some are other Arab citizens of Israel, the descendants of Palestinians who remained during the 1948 war of the state's founding, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced from their homes by advancing Israeli troops.

"Why did I decide to enlist?" asks Sergeant Yusef Salutta, a 20-year-old Arab from the north of Israel who serves with the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. The army rarely grants journalists access to the unit.

Sgt. Yusef Salutta stands in an IDF uniform wearing a Star of David (Photo: Reuters)

"Because I'm from this country and I love the country and I want to contribute," he said. "Everyone should enlist, anybody who lives here should enlist."

The military conscripts young Jewish men and women, but not Arabs. It does not report exact numbers of Arab volunteers, but officials say there are several hundred among the 175,000 active personnel.

A silver Star of David necklace hung around Salutta's neck, and he chatted with fellow-soldiers in Hebrew.

Some Israeli Arabs see volunteering for the military as betrayal. "This phenomenon, we totally reject it," said Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli-Arab member of parliament.

"What could go through a person's mind when he serves against his people? We try to educate people that this is not the way."

Sgt. Yusef Salutta training in the IDF (Photo: Reuters)

Volunteers say their families are supportive, and that they are prepared to take criticism.

"I don't care about them," said Salutta. "I need to be part of the country, to be like everybody else."

The head of the IDF Minorities Unit, Colonel Wajdi Sarhan, said some Israeli-Arabs saw service as a way to improve their chances in life.

"(It) can get easier when you hold an Israeli soldier or reservist ID card," said Sarhan.

"To be a soldier in the army, it's actually an identity certificate of Israeli-ness, which can help integration."

Ahmad Tibi

He said some recruits faced threats and harassment at home from fellow Israeli-Arabs. In some cases, they are allowed to travel to and from military duty out of uniform.

When it comes to Israel's decades-old conflict against the Palestinians, there is no question - if they are required to fight, they must.

"I assume that anyone who decided to be a combat soldier in such a unit took this into consideration in advance," said Sarhan.
ATHENS -- A Greek court has agreed to the extradition of three of Turkish servicemen from a group of eight who fled to Greece after a failed July 15 military coup, a day after rejecting Turkey's extradition request for three others.

All eight helicopter crewmen deny participating in the coup and a plot to assassinate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They fled to Greece by helicopter and maintain they will not have a fair trial in Turkey.

The Athens council of appeals judges approved Turkey's extradition request for three of the group Tuesday on charges of being involved in the coup, attempting to impede a parliamentary session and the seizure of a helicopter. It rejected the charge of involvement in an assassination attempt against Erdogan.

The three are expected to appeal.
Coalition Chairman David Bitan (Likud) suspended fellow party member MK Benny Begin for three weeks from the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee on Tuesday for voting twice against a preliminary reading of the Regulation Bill.

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This is a real symbol of the Likud party, but even a symbol needs to stand behind the party line. He cannot be above the rest. He cannot do whatever he wants, said Bitan as he justified his decision.

In the letter of suspension, Bitan wrote, In light of the fact that you voted twice in the Knesset plenum on the Regulation Bill against the coalitions position, I hereby inform you of my decision to suspend you from the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee for three weeks. For the duration of your suspension, your post will be filled by another member of the Knesset from the Likud party.

Benny Begin (L) and David Bitan (Photo: Zvika Tishler and Haim Horenstein)

During an interview with the Knesset Channel following the issuing of the suspension, Bitan said, You have to understand that the issue is creating problems for the coalition  I cant have these situations.

Bitan added that he still respected Begin and believed that even he understood why action was taken against him.

I also think that Begin understood, and I had conversations with him, that he could be punished over this issue. He has no problem with this. No one receives punishment with joy but he understood that given the situation that has come about, in order to avoid a situation in which anyone can do what he wants, I was forced to suspend him, Bitan insisted. Even though he is an extremely prominent figure in the Likud and in the nationalist camp, I had no choice. I deeply respect him. He is receiving only symbolic punishment.

MK Tzipi Livni from the Zionist Union camp criticized Bitans decision as an indictment on the Likud party itself. The fact that they are suspending Benny Begin says everything about todays Likud. Netanyahu exploited Begins integrity for election purposes and now he is running it over.

The revised version of the Regulation Bill passed in its preliminary Knesset reading by 60-49 on Monday evening following weeks of political maneuvering and culminating in an intense debate.

Begin first voted against the initial version of the bill in a preliminary Knesset reading in mid-November when the bill passed by a majority of 58-50.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced to the Supreme Court on Monday that he will consider submitting an indictment against Rabbi Yosef Elitzur for alleged incitement to violence against Arabs, pending a hearing.

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The Reform Movement and Tag Meir filed a petition that claiming that two articles that Elitzur penned in 2013 incited to violence and racism against Arabs, which led to Mandelblit's announcement. Elitzur was a co-author of the King's Torah , a book that claims that in certain situations is permissible to kill gentiles, for which he was investigated for the same charges.

The hearing will take place in the Center District Prosecutor's office, and their recommendation will be presented to the Attorney General for his decision.

Yosef Elitzur (Photo: Avi Moalem)

The state announced that it has closed the cases regarding two additional articles written by the rabbi.

According to the evidence of the case, Elitzur was working as the rabbi and teacher at the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Yitzhar, where he taught many of the children living in the area. He had a weekly opinion column on the Kol Hayehudi website.

On May 1, 2013, a day after the murder of Yitzhar resident Avitar Borovski at Tapuah Junction, Elitzur published an opinion piece entitled Never Give UpOnly Grow!

He wrote, "There is a growing trend of Jews taking action against the enemy. These appear to be the acts of a public which feels cornered and desperate, but those who take a closer look will see that these are actually the actions of a growing number of the public who are taking responsibility for ensuring the security of the Jews."

He continued, "After the murder of blessed Avitar Borovski (may God avenge his soul), different acts were carried out all across Israel. The acts were primarily carried out against the Arab community, those who cover up the crimes The main thing is that the public is getting farther and farther away, and is going with a different vision, a vision of a government which represents the Jewish nation these actions don't arise out of despair; they are the initial actions of a new public raising its head. These actions are being manifested by Jews who are beginning to sober up, those who understand that Judaism is the main reason we exist here. These actions are the beginnings of Jewish confidence, mutual helpfulness, and concern over the welfare of Jews both in Israel and around the world."

On May 28 of the same year, 30 days after Borovsky's murder by Palestinian terrorists, Elitzur published a second op-ed titled How to Catch Those who Commit "Price Tag" Attacks.

Orly Erez-Likhovski, the director of the Legal & Public Policy Department at the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism's Israel Religious Action Center that submitted the petition, said, "Rabbi Elitzur said and published incitement that fell on the attentive ears of his students, and some of them are involved with acts of terrorism against Arabs."

Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu, the chairman of Tag Meir, which works against racism in Israel, commented, "We take no delight or pleasure in the attorney general's decision. This is a time for reckoning for the extreme right."
On December 4 the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) published an article regarding the raid by Security Forces and Police on December 3, the commemoration ceremony of the victims of serial killings in Iran and demanded immediate and unconditional release of those arrested. The raid was condemned by Amnesty International who issued a statement, calling for a fast and independent investigation on the attack on this ceremony. Citing eyewitness reports, Amnesty International condemned the treatment of participants in the event by security forces. They also demanded the release of four detained people.

On November 3, during the the memorial ceremony of Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, two victims of the serial killing in Imamzadeh Taher in Karaj, Iranian regimes intelligence agents stormed in and arrested those present in the ceremony after beating and insulting them. The agents prevented entry of the participants to the graveyard where ceremony was held, and attacked and arrested a number of people, according to witnesses.

Amnesty Internationals Statement is reproduced below, and there is also a copy available on their website.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PUBLIC STATEMENT

MDE 13/5267/2016

3 December 2016

Iran: Detainees arrested at commemoration for murdered writers must be released

The Iranian authorities should release immediately and unconditionally four individuals arrested yesterday as security forces quashed heavy-handedly a peaceful gathering to mark the 18th anniversary of the extrajudicial killings of two prominent intellectuals and writers, said Amnesty International.

The four detainees  Baktash Abtin, Fatemeh Sarhadizadeh, Mohammad Mehdipour and Mazdak

Zarafshan  are being held in an undisclosed detention centre following their violent arrest yesterday.

They were among a crowd of some 100 people seeking to gather peacefully in Emamzadeh Taher Cemetery in Karaj, near Tehran, yesterday to commemorate the killings of prominent intellectuals and writers Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh by Ministry of Intelligence officials in 1998. The killings have never been independently investigated. The authorities reacted by deploying police vehicles and dozens of uniformed and plain-clothes law-enforcement officers to disperse the crowd and prevent them from entering the cemetery.

Eyewitnesses said they saw seven or eight intelligence officers beating Mazdak Zarafshan until his face was covered in blood. They also described how the officials shoved his elderly father, Naser Zarafshan, a prominent lawyer and human rights defender, to the ground and beat him on his legs and chest when he attempted to intervene to persuade the intelligence forces to stop. The officials then bundled the father and son into a car and took them away. Naser Zarafshan was separated from his son and released several hours later. Mazdak Zarafshan, however, remains in custody and the authorities have not provided his family with any information about his legal status or whereabouts.

Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International that individuals who held mobile phones in their hands were particularly targeted by plain-clothes intelligence officers, in an apparent effort to stop them filming or photographing incidents of police brutality. It appears that Fatemeh Sarhadizadeh, a 75-year-old woman, was arrested after several officials saw her taking out her phone to answer a call and snatched the phone from her hand while hitting her. Two other individuals present, Baktash Abtin and Mohammad Mehdipour, were arrested at around the same time. Like in the case of Mazdak Zarafshan, the authorities have not released any information about the legal status or whereabouts of these three individuals.

Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to ensure that prompt, independent investigations are conducted into the violent events of yesterday at Karajs Emamzadeh Taher Cemetery and that police and intelligence officials suspected of using unnecessary or excessive force are held to account.

Amnesty International is also urging the authorities to release Baktash Abtin, Fatemeh Sarhadizadeh, Mohammad Mehdipour and Mazdak Zarafshan immediately and unconditionally as, according to the organizations information, they have been detained merely for peacefully exercising their right to peaceful assembly. The organization appeals to the authorities to shift its approach radically so that it focuses on remedying past crimes, such as the murders of writers and opposition figures in 1998, by ensuring that all those involved are brought to justice in fair trials rather than violating the rights of those seeking to pay homage to the memory of the victims.
US tax records show that President-elect Donald Trump's son-in-law co-directs a family foundation that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish settlement organizations in the West Bank.

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Trump has said Jared Kushner, who serves as a close adviser, could help negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The donations by Kushner's parents' foundation raise questions about Trump's previous statements in which he said that his administration would endeavor to remain neutral in any mediation efforts.

Jared Kushner and Donald Trump (Photo: Reuters)

Kushner and his siblings direct the foundation with their parents.

Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for the Kushner companies, declined to comment on the donations to the settlement groups. She says the family is "extremely generous" and has given away over $100 million to charitable causes.
A gilded statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dubbed "King Bibi" by its creator, stirred condemnation from Culture Minister Miri Regev and was toppled by an onlooker after a brief public appearance on Tuesday.

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Sculptor Itay Zalait told reporters he had placed the four-meter tall effigy of Netanyahu on a white pedestal in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, adjacent to city hall, to test the limits of freedom of expression in Israel.

The Israeli government and artists have been locked in a so-called "culture war" over steps by Culture Minister Miri Regev to withhold state funds from institutions that do not express loyalty to the state.



X

Posting on Facebook after the guerrilla-art sculpture was erected, Regev called it an "expression of hatred towards Netanyahu". Tel Aviv municipal officials ordered Zalait to remove the statue and said they would haul it away and fine him if he refused.

'King Bibi' is toppled (Photo: AP)

People carry out the statue (Photo: EPA)

Morning commuters gathered to snap photos and debate whether the statue should be seen as mockery of Netanyahu or homage to the right-wing prime minister, now in his fourth term and known by his childhood nickname "Bibi."

One woman bowed down in jest in front of the figure, which Zalait said took him three months to sculpt.

A woman steps on the toppled statue (Photo: EPA)

City hall in the background (Photo: Reuters)

"On social media, there have been tens of thousands of comments about 'King Bibi,'" Zalait said on Army Radio when asked what had inspired him to create the statue.

"I simply made it a reality and put it in its deserved place, the Kings of Israel Square," he said, referring to the plaza's name before it was changed to honor Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister assassinated by an ultranationalist Jew during a peace rally there in 1995.

Passerby Nina Lobel said the portrayal of Netanyahu was "horrendous" and the artist had wanted "to show him as a dictator".

Shortly after city hall's deadline for the statue's removal expired, a man in the crowd pushed "King Bibi" to the ground. It made a soft "clink" as it hit the pavement and the artist, who seemed amused, took it away, still in one piece, on a truck.

Netanyahu and his wife Sara have drawn legal scrutiny and frequent headlines over whether state funds have been used to support what critics as their lavish
NEWARK -- The leader of one of New Jersey's largest mosques is defending himself against charges he lied on his green card application.

Imam Mohammad Qatanani is the leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County.

A judge ruled against immigration authorities' attempt to have him deported eight years ago. Federal officials say he didn't disclose that he'd been convicted in Israel for being a member of Hamas.

Qatanani began testifying Tuesday before an immigration court judge in Newark as part of the appeals process.

Qatanani denies he was part of the group classified as a terrorist organization by the US government. He says he was only detained and never convicted.

He testified that he was handcuffed, hooded and made to sit in a child's chair for hours while in Israeli detention.
The Defense Ministry confirmed Tuesday evening that in 2004 it was made aware of an Iranian corporation which held 4.5% of the shares in the ThyssenKrupp conglomerate, from which Israel acquired submarines and warships for its Navy.

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The admission, which came during remarks made to the Knesset's Finance Committee by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman when he announced that "the issue was known," came just days after his ministry denied having any such knowledge during the time of the transaction.

IDF submarine (Photo: Roee Idan)

Last week, Yedioth Ahronoth, Ynet's print publication, discovered that Israeli money used in the submarine deal with ThyssenKrupp will fall into Iranian hands. ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems was contracted to build three submarines and four Sa'ar 6-class corvette warships for the Israeli Navy.

It later emerged that an Iranian government-owned foreign investment company (IFIC) holds close to 5% shares of ThyssenKrupp, a company which invests state funds in companies around the world. The Iranian involvement raises questions over the possible exposure of Iranian shareholders in one of the most classified projects in the IDF.

Lieberman told the Finance Committee, "Regarding the issue with Iran, I don't want to speak about this too much. The issue was known. Many things were decided before I got to the Defense Ministry, but at the end of the day whoever looks over the protocolsincluding the cabinet and the National Security Councilwill see that this is not what it seems. The reality and the facts are far from what we hear in the media. In any event, it was known and it has no impact," he insisted. "The State of Israel had no other alternative."

When the Iranian involvement was originally announced, Lieberman's ministry announced that they did not know of any Iranian involvement. However, this position completely changed on Tuesday when they announced, "Following a thorough check carried out by the Defense Ministry over the last few days with the relevant officials, it has become clear that the aforementioned issue was known since 2004 about IFIC's holding 4.5%."
RIYADH -- A court in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death and several others to prison terms in a case involving an alleged Iranian spy cell, a sign of the continuing tension between the two Mideast powers.

A Riyadh criminal court handed down its ruling to the 32 people who were charged, including 30 Saudis, one Iranian and one Afghan national. The defendants' names were not made public and Amnesty International criticized the proceedings as "a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights."

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi denied any link between his country and the defendants, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
NEW YORK -- A Bahamian man was sentenced to five years in US prison on Tuesday for hacking into celebrities' email accounts to steal unreleased film and television scripts, personal information and sexually explicit videos in order to sell them.

Alonzo Knowles, who maintained a list of 130 celebrities' emails and phone numbers, was sentenced by US District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty in May to charges of criminal copyright infringement and identity theft.

"You have some obvious facility for computers," Engelmayer said. "But you chose to use your gifts for dark and lawless ends."
The 433rd Airlift Wing here hosted nearly 30 civic leaders with the Air Force Reserve Commands 514th Air Mobility Wing from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, Nov. 29-30. The tour allowed civic leaders the opportunity to see the C-5 mission as well as the medical training facilities at JBSA-Ft. Sam Houston.

The civic leaders arrived on a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft and were greeted by Col. Gregory Haynes, 433rd Operations Group commander. From there, the group headed to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce where they met with the Military Affairs Committee.

The second day of the visit began with a mission brief by Col. Thomas K. Smith, Jr., 433rd AW commander. After the brief, the civic leaders traveled to the flight line to tour a C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft.

I expected a very similar experience with the C-17 and seeing the C-5 it is vastly different, said Jeffrey Mondelli, Wakefern Food Corporation pharmacy division manager.I really didnt understand what the necessity would be for having both airframes, but seeing it now, there are completely different functionalities for each operation.

The tour then moved to the Medical Education and Training Campus at JBSA-Ft. Sam Houston where the civic leaders received a mission brief from Lt. Col. Melanie Ellis, director, Office of Strategic Planning and Partnerships. The civic leaders witnessed the joint training environment of the surgical technicians and occupational therapy students. In occupational therapy, instructors teach students how to perform basic tasks like cleaning and cooking with their injured patients. The group also got to witness a simulated surgery with a realistic human training aid that students practiced on.

Like a lot of civilians, I thought I knew what the military did and what their sacrifices were, but you dont realize how dedicated and efficient these Airmen are to our country, said Fred Tecce a Fox News legal contributor.

From there, the tour moved to the Center for the Intrepid an outpatient facility under the command and control of Brook Army Medical Center. Civic leaders encountered a wide range of rehabilitation equipment and techniques doctors and physicians use to get the war-fighter back to active duty. Lori Leal, a secretary, and guide for the tour showed members the Firearms Training System (FATS), the Auto Motivation System (AMS), and Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CARE).

While Texas and New Jersey may seem miles apart, the spirit of the people that support our Airmen and Wounded Warriors is deeply heartfelt, said Col. David Pavey, 514th AMW commander. This tour has been outstanding, and its great to see how we are facilitating getting our Wounded Warriors back in action and having fulfilling lives again.
(Left) Senior Master Sgt. Laura Trent, 433rd Maintenance Group plans and scheduling supervisor, and Staff Sgt. Winnett Knox, 433rd Force Support Squadron family readiness specialist, wrap gifts for the 433rd Airlift Wings Angel Tree at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas Dec. 3, 2016. The program supports the Salvation Army San Antonio who gives the gifts to families in need throughout the local community. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Bryan Swink)

Alamo Wing Airmen are not only donating to the local community during the holiday season, but also receiving donated items to help their own families.Airmen of the 433rd Airlift Wing have been bringing toys, bikes and stuffed animals for more than two months to donate in support of their own Angel Tree program. Alamo Wing volunteers donated their time to individually wrap each of the gifts.At the same time, Airmen were able to select several small gifts for their family members due to donation from Operation Homefronts toy drive.Operation Homefront is a nonprofit charity organization that donates millions of toys each year to military families during the holiday season. According to their website, Operation Homefront connects the American donor community to our military families through a robust array of valued and life-changing programs that address the specific short-term and critical assistance, long-term stability and recurring support needs they experience.This is the second time weve participated in Operation Homefront and it has been a huge success throughout the Wing, said Leticia Gonzales, 433rd Force Support Squadron Airman and Family Readiness director. Weve received a great response from our Airmen expressing how thankful they are for the program and how much it means to their children.
Citizen Airmen from Patrick earn CCAF degrees

Twenty-one Reserve Airmen from the 920th Rescue Wing here received their Associate of Applied Science degrees from the Community College of the Air Force Dec. 4 during a ceremony at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute here.



During the ceremony, Col. Brett Howard, the 920th RQW vice wing commander, presented the diplomas while 920th RQW Command Chief Timothy Bianchi presented special coins to each graduate.



Several friends, family members and fellow airmen attended the ceremony. Howard addressed the graduates and thanked the guests for their support of the new graduates Reserve careers and educational goals.



I recognize how hard youve worked to make this accomplishment come true and certainly recognize that you couldnt have dont this without the support of your families, Howard said. This took a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of effort.



He said the CCAF benefits the members who receive their degrees, but also to the Air Force as a whole.



Getting your education enhances mission effectiveness by making you a better technical expert and more competent leader, Howard said. Thats what your commanders want.



A total of 53 wing airmen recently graduated, but many were unable to attend the ceremony due to mission requirements, personal obligations or because they are assigned to one of the wings geographically separated units at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.; Portland Air National Guard Base, Ore.; and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.



The commencement speaker, retired Chief Master Sgt. Johnie Stevens, congratulated the graduates and said he is proud to work with such committed and driven Airmen. Stevens, the training and program acquisition manager for the 45th Space Wing here, graduated with his Associate of Applied Science degree in personnel administration from the CCAF in 1992.



We are here to congratulate you because in the midst of serving our great country, and while working toward this degree, you have had to carve out time for studying while balancing school, military life and continuing with other distractions, Stevens told the graduates.



Three graduates received the William H. Pitsenbarger Award, which is awarded to the top graduates who are also pursuing bachelors degrees. The award is sponsored by the Air Force Association and comes with a $400 grant.



CCAF degrees are all conferred as Associate in Applied Sciences, however, degree program titles mirror each Airmans Air Force specialty. On occasion, some Airmen present the knowledge and proficiency levels required for the award of a second or subsequent degree. For example, an Air Force Reserve personalist can receive their Human Resource Management degree. If they cross train into Finance, they could earn their Financial Management degree as well. Two Airmen at the ceremony attained this status.



The 920th Rescue Wing is an Air Force Reserve combat search-and-rescue located unit in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Its primary mission is to rescue critically injured troops off the battlefield. The wing also provides space support as well as local search-and-rescue support when requested by local and federal agencies.
Reserve wing breaks graduation record

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE-The 512th Force Support Squadrons Education and Training Office presented 109 Community College of the Air Force degrees to Airmen from more than 30 career fields during their graduation ceremony Dec. 3 at the base theater here.



This is the highest number of graduates in a single year for the 512th Airlift Wing. Before 2016, the wings best year was 2012 with 70 graduates. A decade earlier, there were even fewer.



The significance of this year is that weve had 109 graduates compared to seven in 2000, said John Young, an education technician who joined the 512th FSS team in 2000. This is a major improvement on the number of folks wanting to pursue that degree.



Wanting to earn a degree and knowing how to do so are two very different things. Senior Master Sgt. David Jackson, the 512th FSS force development chief, and his staff helped Airmen by had analyzing the CCAF progress of the wing. They identified 400 of our reservists who were within 19 credits of graduating with their CCAF degree.



Through my teams efforts researching and analyzing student records, we were able to reach out to these reservists and help them complete their CCAF degrees, said Jackson.



Earning a CCAF degree is one of the first steps in education for reservists. Young said he wants to set them on the path for future success.



The 512th FSS goal is to help Airmen receive their degree in their first six years of service, said Young. We want them to have a stepping-stone towards a bachelor degree whether they continue to serve in the Air Force Reserve or join the civilian work force.



According to Air Universitys website, the CCAF partners with more than 108 affiliated Air Force school and serves approximately 300,000 active, guard and reserve enlisted personnel, making CCAF the world's largest community college system.



Furthering education helps advance the career of Airmen. Completing a degree became a requirement for promotion to E-8 and E-9. Jackson hopes to continue advancing even more careers in the future.



If we could break this record of 109 graduates in the future, that would be great for our wing and our enlisted corps, said Jackson.



Reservists who want to pursue their CCAF degree or have questions about their degree program status can get assistance by contacting the 512th Education and Training office at (302) 677-3517 or by emailing them at 512FSS.DPMT@us.af.mil.


[December 05, 2016] Aquantia Powers High Performance Network Storage Solution from Buffalo

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Aquantia Corp., pioneer and market leader in high-speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for data centers, mobile, and enterprise infrastructure, today announced that Buffalo, a leading provider of external storage and networking solutions, has adopted Aquantia's multi-Gigabit/s AQrate technology for its high performance TeraStation 5010. Available today in Europe and Japan, Buffalo's TeraStation 5010 delivers reliable RAID-based network storage solutions for larger networks and business critical applications. Aquantia's AQrate technology delivers networking speed of up to 10Gbit/s while leveraging the ease-of use and low-cost of ubiquitous twisted-pair Ethernet cabling infrastructure. Today's business users have a wide range of options when it comes to back-up and storage of their data. In cases where there is the need for tightened security, low-latency and fast access speed, the deployment of Local Area Network (LAN) storage is preferred. With today's Gigabit Ethernet speeds, the dramatic increase in the number and size of files to be backed up or transferred to Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices, the network speed connecting PCs and storage has become the bottleneck. As an example, in the case of post-production editing of high-definition video, moving large files of video blocks back and forth between workstation PCs and storage has become impractical on legacy Gigabit Ethernet networks. Other examples include large database analysis and processing, surveillance recordings, etc. All contribute to a growing requirement for high-throughput networking of more than 1 Gigabit/s and the deployment of high-capacity storage systems that can be easily installed, configured and operated. Latest generations of NAS systems, such as Buffalo's TeraStation 5010, are now capable of sustaining read/write speeds of more than a Gigabit/s. By adopting the AQR105, Aquantia's multi-Gigabit/s AQrate Physical Layer (PHY) Integrated Circuit (IC), for its networking I/O, Buffalo has taken to fully resolve the network speed bottleneck. With Aquantia's AQR105, Buffalo's TeraStation 5010 delivers bandwidth of 2.5 and 5Gbit/s over up to 100m of legacy Cat5e Ethernet cables and 10Gbit/s over 100m of the higher grade Cat6A Ethernet cables. Aquantia's multi-Gigabit/s AQrate AQR105 is compliant with the recently-approved IEEE standard 802.3bz, assurig full interoperability within the IT infrastructure.



"With the unique multi-Gigabit/s AQrate technology, Aquantia has developed the perfect match to Buffalo's storage solutions for the business markets," said Masaya Ishimaru, General Manager of Network Business Unit at Buffalo. "We are confident that the combination will provide the highest quality storage solutions for business and demanding users with critical storage needs." "Multi-Gigabit/s networking speed is crucial to the growth of NAS in the business markets," said Nick Shamlou, Vice President, Asia Sales at Aquantia. "We're thrilled to see our AQrate product line expanding into the NAS market, delivering the right solution to Buffalo for their new TeraStations."

About Buffalo's TeraStation 5010

The TeraStation 5010 series of network storage solutions provides increased speed and reliability with a 10GbE connection and hard drives built specifically for always-on NAS devices. With the powerful Annapurna Labs Alpine AL314 1.7GHz Quad-core processor, TeraStation 5010 provides exceptional performance during file transfers and everyday NAS functions. TeraStation 5010 runs many services simultaneously and is able to focus on concurrent tasks with minimal performance degradation. TeraStation 5010 is packed with business class features such as Active Directory support, disk quota support, share level replication, failover support, 2.5/5/10GbE port, dual GbE ports, hot-swap hard drives, iSCSI targeting and USB 3.0 accessory support. Availability

Aquantia's 28nm AQrate AQR105 is the world's only single-port five-speed 10G/5G/2.5G/1000BASE-T/100BASE-TX PHY in the industry. It is currently shipping in volume production.

Buffalo's TeraStation 5010 is now available in Europe and Japan. About Aquantia Aquantia is a leading developer, and global supplier of high-speed semiconductor connectivity solutions. Backed by more than a decade of technology leadership and execution, Aquantia's market leading product portfolio enables the world's most innovative computing, data center and enterprise infrastructure applications. The company addresses ever-changing market needs by providing an extensive portfolio, based on architectural innovations that deliver high performance, low power consumption, high density and high-quality silicon solutions to our customers. Aquantia is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, with strong venture capital and strategic investors. For more information, visit www.aquantia.com. About Buffalo, Inc. Buffalo, Inc., based in Nagoya, Japan, is a leading global provider of award-winning networking, storage solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology. For more information about Buffalo and its products, please visit www.buffalotech.com/select-your-region/. Buffalo, Inc. trademark statements. Buffalo is a trademark of Buffalo, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. Cautionary Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning Aquantia including, among other things, the anticipated size of the market for its products and the extent to which such products provide technological advantages. Forward-looking statements herein are based on current beliefs, assumptions, and expectations, speak only as of the date hereof and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, without limitation, technological and business developments in the data center and Ethernet enterprise markets for ICs. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aquantia-powers-high-performance-network-storage-solution-from-buffalo-300372983.html SOURCE Aquantia Corp.

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[December 05, 2016] Fitch Rates The Allstate Corporation's Senior Unsecured Notes 'BBB+'

Fitch Ratings has assigned a 'BBB+' rating to The Allstate Corporation's (Allstate) new $550 million 3.28% senior notes due 2026 and $700 million 4.20% senior notes due 2046; the issuance is anticipated to close on Dec. 8, 2016. KEY RATING DRIVERS The ratings for the new offerings are equivalent to the rating on Allstate's existing senior debt. Proceeds from the issuance will be used for general corporate purposes, including in part to fund its recently announced, approximately $1.4 billion acquisition of consumer protection plan provider, SquareTrade Holding Company, Inc. Fitch expects pro forma financial leverage following the senior note issuance to increase to 24.8% from 20.9% at Sept. 30, 2016. Fitch last reviewed the ratings of Allstate and its insurance operating subsidiaries on July 12, 2016. For more details, see Fitch's press release at www.fitchratings.com. RATING SENSITIVITIES Key rating triggers for Allstate that could lead to an upgrade include: --Sustainable capital position measured by net leverage excluding life company capital below 3.8x and a score approaching 'Very Strong' on Fitch's Prism capital model; --No material deterioration in underwriting profitability of the property/casualty operations from current levels. Given its Negative Outlook, Fitch considers an upgrade of Allstate Life Insurance Company (ALIC) unlikely over the near- to intermediate-term. The following rating triggers could result in a revision of ALIC's Outlook to Stable from Negative: --An improvement in statutory Risky Assets/TAC ratio to 200% with operating performance remaining stable; --Fitch's view of its strategic importance changes to 'Core' from 'Very Important'. Given its relatively small size and scale, American Heritage Life Insurance Company (AHLIC) is unlikely to be upgraded in the near- to intermediate-term, but the following could result in an upgrade over the longer term: --Fitch's view of its strategic importance changes to 'Very Important' from 'Important' or if the agency's view of parent support merits a greater degree of uplift. Key rating triggers for Allstate that could lead to a downgrade include: --A prolonged decline in underwriting profitability that is inconsistent with industry averages or is driven by an effort to grow market share during soft pricing conditions; --Significant deterioration in capital strength as measured by Fitch's capital model, NAIC risk-based capital, and statutory net leverage. Specifically, if net leverage excluding life company capital approached 5x it would place downward pressure on ratings; --Significant increases in financial leverage ratio to greater than 30%; --Liquid assets at the holding company of less than one year's interest expense, and preferred and common dividends. Key rating triggers that could lead to a downgrade for ALIC include: --Statutory Risky Assets/TAC ratio deteriorates further; --Fitch's view of its strategic importance weakens. Key rating triggers that could lead to a downgrade for AHLIC include: --Financial performance or capitalization deteriorates significantly; --Fitch's view of its strategic importance weakens. FULL LIST OF RATING ACTIONS Fitch has assigned the following ratings: Allstate Corporation --$550 million 3.28% senior notes due 2026 at 'BBB+'; --$700 million 4.20% senior notes due 2046 at 'BBB+'. Fitch currently rates the Allstate entities as follows: The Allstate Corporation --Long-Term Issuer Default Rating at 'A-'/Stable Outlook; --Preferred stock at 'BB+'; --Commercial paper at 'F2'; --Short-Term IDR at 'F2'. The following senior unsecured debt at 'BBB+': --6.75% $177 million debenture due May 15, 2018; --7.45% $317 million debenture due May 16, 2019; --3.15% $500 million debenture due June 15, 2023; --6.125% $159 million note due Dec. 15, 2032; --5.35% $323 million note due June 1, 2033; --5.55% $546 million note due May 9, 2035; --5.95% $386 million note due April 1, 2036; --6.9% $165 million debenture due May 15, 2038; --5.2% $62 million note due Jan. 15, 2042; --4.5% $500 million note due June 15, 2043. The following junior subordinated debt at 'BBB-': --6.125% $224 million debenture due May 15, 2067; --5.10% $500 million subordinated debenture due Jan. 15, 2053; --5.75% $800 million subordinated debenture due Aug. 15, 2053; --6.5% $500 million debenture due May 15, 2067. <> Allstate Insurance Company



Allstate County Mutual Insurance Co. Allstate Indemnity Co.

Allstate Property & Casualty Insurance Co. Allstate Texas Lloyd's Allstate Vehicle and Property Insurance Co. Encompass Home and Auto Insurance Co. Encompass Independent Insurance Co. Encompass Insurance Company of America Encompass Insurance Company of Massachusetts Encompass Property and Casualty Co. --Insurer Financial Strength (IFS) at 'A+'/Stable Outlook. American Heritage Life Insurance Co. --IFS at 'A'/Stable Outlook. Allstate Life Insurance Co. Allstate Life Insurance Co. of NY --IFS at 'A'/Negative Outlook. Date of Relevant Rating Committee: July 11, 2016 Additional information is available on www.fitchratings.com Applicable Criteria Insurance Rating Methodology - Effective May 17, 2016 to Sept. 15, 2016 (pub. 17 May 2016) https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/881564 Additional Disclosures Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1015916 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/regulatory ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTPS://WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA, AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE, AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE CODE OF CONDUCT SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. Copyright  2016 by Fitch Ratings, Inc., Fitch Ratings Ltd. and its subsidiaries. 33 Whitehall Street, NY, NY 10004. Telephone: 1-800-753-4824, (212) 908-0500. Fax: (212) 480-4435. Reproduction or retransmission in whole or in part is prohibited except by permission. All rights reserved. In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in making other reports (including forecast information), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to be credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual information relied upon by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains reasonable verification of that information from independent sources, to the extent such sources are available for a given security or in a given jurisdiction. The manner of Fitch's factual investigation and the scope of the third-party verification it obtains will vary depending on the nature of the rated security and its issuer, the requirements and practices in the jurisdiction in which the rated security is offered and sold and/or the issuer is located, the availability and nature of relevant public information, access to the management of the issuer and its advisers, the availability of pre-existing third-party verifications such as audit reports, agreed-upon procedures letters, appraisals, actuarial reports, engineering reports, legal opinions and other reports provided by third parties, the availability of independent and competent third- party verification sources with respect to the particular security or in the particular jurisdiction of the issuer, and a variety of other factors. Users of Fitch's ratings and reports should understand that neither an enhanced factual investigation nor any third-party verification can ensure that all of the information Fitch relies on in connection with a rating or a report will be accurate and complete. Ultimately, the issuer and its advisers are responsible for the accuracy of the information they provide to Fitch and to the market in offering documents and other reports. In issuing its ratings and its reports, Fitch must rely on the work of experts, including independent auditors with respect to financial statements and attorneys with respect to legal and tax matters. Further, ratings and forecasts of financial and other information are inherently forward-looking and embody assumptions and predictions about future events that by their nature cannot be verified as facts. As a result, despite any verification of current facts, ratings and forecasts can be affected by future events or conditions that were not anticipated at the time a rating or forecast was issued or affirmed. The information in this report is provided "as is" without any representation or warranty of any kind, and Fitch does not represent or warrant that the report or any of its contents will meet any of the requirements of a recipient of the report. A Fitch rating is an opinion as to the creditworthiness of a security. This opinion and reports made by Fitch are based on established criteria and methodologies that Fitch is continuously evaluating and updating. Therefore, ratings and reports are the collective work product of Fitch and no individual, or group of individuals, is solely responsible for a rating or a report. The rating does not address the risk of loss due to risks other than credit risk, unless such risk is specifically mentioned. Fitch is not engaged in the offer or sale of any security. All Fitch reports have shared authorship. Individuals identified in a Fitch report were involved in, but are not solely responsible for, the opinions stated therein. The individuals are named for contact purposes only. A report providing a Fitch rating is neither a prospectus nor a substitute for the information assembled, verified and presented to investors by the issuer and its agents in connection with the sale of the securities. Ratings may be changed or withdrawn at any time for any reason in the sole discretion of Fitch. Fitch does not provide investment advice of any sort. Ratings are not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Ratings do not comment on the adequacy of market price, the suitability of any security for a particular investor, or the tax-exempt nature or taxability of payments made in respect to any security. Fitch receives fees from issuers, insurers, guarantors, other obligors, and underwriters for rating securities. Such fees generally vary from US$1,000 to US$750,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent) per issue. In certain cases, Fitch will rate all or a number of issues issued by a particular issuer, or insured or guaranteed by a particular insurer or guarantor, for a single annual fee. Such fees are expected to vary from US$10,000 to US$1,500,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent). The assignment, publication, or dissemination of a rating by Fitch shall not constitute a consent by Fitch to use its name as an expert in connection with any registration statement filed under the United States securities laws, the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 of the United Kingdom, or the securities laws of any particular jurisdiction. Due to the relative efficiency of electronic publishing and distribution, Fitch research may be available to electronic subscribers up to three days earlier than to print subscribers. For Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea only: Fitch Australia Pty Ltd holds an Australian financial services license (AFS license no. 337123) which authorizes it to provide credit ratings to wholesale clients only. Credit ratings information published by Fitch is not intended to be used by persons who are retail clients within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161205006309/en/

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Stiri pe aceeasi tema

- Romanian Prime minister Nicolae Ciuca officially informed the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, that Romania wants the renegotiation of some targets and benchmarks under the National Relaunch and Resilience Plan (PNRR), under which EUR 27.2 bln of grants and loans are

- President Klaus Iohannis is participating, Thursday through Friday, in Brussels, in the meeting of the European Council, among the topics of discussion being the necessary measures in the field of energy, following the package of proposals presented by the European Commission and the reaffirmation

- President Klaus Iohannis will participate, on Thursday and Friday, in Brussels, in the meeting of the European Council, among the topics of discussion being the necessary measures in the field of energy, following the package of proposals presented by the European Commission and the reaffirmation

- The citizens of the European Union "must constantly participate in the democratic process" and we must "cherish democracy", because "it is not for granted" and it is subject to "great challenges at the moment", declared on Friday, in Bucharest, in an interview for AGERPRES, the Vice-President of

- Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca had a meeting with the President of Georgia, Salome Zurabichvili, at the Victoria Palace of Government on Tuesday, the two officials reviewing, in context, the good relations between the two states, the security situation in the Black Sea region and the bilateral cooperation

- President of PES activists Romania, MEP Victor Negrescu, on Friday said, in Craiova, that in the last two decades the European Commission was led by right-wing politicians and maybe that is why certain decisions were not in Romania's favor, which we must point out during the electoral campaign for

- Romania's potential in extracting natural gas from its territory will improve its energy security, the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Mathias Cormann, said on Tuesday, in Bucharest. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste

- Presedintele Ucrainei Volodimir Zelenski i-a cerut sefei Comisiei Europene, Ursula von der Leyen, intr-o discutie la telefon, ca UE sa impuna un al optulea pachet de sanctiuni impotriva Rusiei. Intr-un measj publicat duminica, pe Twitter, Zelenski a precizat ca acesta ar trebui sa includa interzicerea
Nashville Zoo is excited to announce the hatching of four endangered Yellow-blotched Map Turtles. This hatching ranks Nashville Zoo as the third AZA institution to ever successfully breed these beautifully patterned turtles.

This is an exciting hatching for the Yellow-blotched Map Turtle and for the Zoo, says Dale McGinnity, Nashville Zoos Ectotherm Curator. We are bringing awareness to the community about this threatened species and hope to increase support for the protection of this rare turtles continued survival in the wild through our conservation efforts.

During the breeding of this rare species, the Zoos Herpetology team was able to decide what sex the hatchlings would be by monitoring the temperatures during the 80-85 day incubation period. Incubating at cooler temperatures typically hatches males and incubating at warmer temperatures hatches more females. When the time is right and the turtles are ready to emerge from their shells, they are equipped with an egg tooth, which is a hardened piece of keratin that protrudes from the tips of their noses. A team of keepers was on standby during hatching to ensure the smooth and safe hatching of each of the four turtles.

Photo Credits: Katie Gregory

Yellow-blotched Map turtles (Graptemys flavimaculata) are found exclusively in the Pascagoula River, and its tributaries, in southern Mississippi.

This species was listed, in the United States, as federally threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1991. The State of Mississippi and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also classify the species as endangered. Yellow-blotched Map Turtles have been of long-term concern due to a very limited range and declining populations due to habitat degradation by pollution and river channel modifications.

Nashville Zoo participates in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan for Yellow-blotched Map Turtles to increase the captive population, as well as raise awareness for this rare and endangered turtle. Guests can see the Zoo's new turtles on-exhibit inside Unseen New World.
Biharsharif: The Bihar Police on Tuesday said that it has arrested five youths, hours after a picture was posted on a social networking website showing them with an IMFL (Indian-made foreign liquor) bottle.

The incident, which took place in this headquarter town of Nalanda district, is the first of its kind after promulgation of total prohibition in the state by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in April. Notably, Nalanda is also the native district of the Bihar CM.

Hours after he posted the photograph on Facebook, Vicky Arya was arrested from his house in the Laheri police station.

Arya later divulged details of his four friends who had accompanied him in the revelry and they were arrested too, said Nalanda Superintendent of Police Kumar Ashish, who had tracked the photograph.

The five have been booked under new Excise Act and forwarded to jail, he said, adding the IMFL bottle shown in the photo was also recovered from them.

Alcohol, spiced, domestic liquor, as well as IMFL, have been completely banned in Bihar since April 5, 2016, and the new Excise Act has the provision of jail as well heavy penalty for those found violating it.
Chennai: India on Tuesday mourned the death of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away on Monday night.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also joined a sea of mourners who gathered to view their leader one last time at the Rajaji Hall.

Fondly called "Amma" by her passionate followers, Jayalalithaa was pronounced dead just before midnight on Monday, ending an era in Tamil politics.

Approximately 10 lakh people had gathered at the Rajaji Hall by this afternoon to pay their homage to Jayalalithaa, who was in her fifth term as Chief Minister when she died.

Here is the picture of her death certificate doing the rounds on social media:

Tamil Nadu has declared a week-long mourning, during which schools and colleges will be shut for three days. No state transport corporation buses plied on Tuesday and millions stayed indoors.
[December 05, 2016] Boston Ltd Introduces a Revolutionary Deep Learning Platform @GTCx Mumbai

MUMBAI, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Limited will be exhibiting the latest weapon in their machine learning armory, the Boston ANNA Pascal - a new NVIDIA Tesla GPU solution-based on the Pascal architecture harnessing Supermicro server technology. Powered by five ground-breaking technologies each delivering great enhancements in performance, the appliance offers up to a 12x leap in neural network training reducing training time from weeks to just hours. These 5 enhancements are: - An all new Pascal architecture: delivering up to 5.3 TeraFLOPS of double precision compute per GPU, 10.6 TeraFLOPS of single precision compute for HPC, or 21.2 TeraFLOPS of FP16 for deep learning. - NVLink: The world's first high-speed Interconnect for multi-GPU scalability with a 5-12x boost in performance over PCI-E. - CoWoS with HBM2: Unifying data and compute into a single package for up to 3x memory bandwidth over prior-generation solution. - 16nm FinFET for unprecedented energy efficiency - With 15.3 billion transistors built on 16 nanometer FinFET fabrication technology, the Pascal GPU is the world's largest FinFET chip ever built. It is engineered to deliver the fastest performance and best energy efficiency for workloads with near-infinite computing needs. - New AI Algorithms: New half-precision, 16-bit floating point instructions deliver over 21 TeraFLOPS for unprecedented raining performance.



The Boston ANNA Pascal utilizes NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs to deliver the highest absolute performance for HPC and deep learning workloads with infinite computing needs. This new offering from Boston Limited is an industry leading, latest-generation GPGPU-based server and a masterclass of server design and innovation. The streamlined design eliminates complex cabling and GPU pre-heat for maximum airflow, cooling and performance-per-watt. The high-density 1U server includes 2 x PCI-E Gen 3 slots for InfiniBand to enable strong RDMA performance and can support up to 4x GPUs, making it an optimal system for scalable GPU applications where density matters.

"The ANNA Pascal has been built by Boston, using Supermicro server technology, in response to the demands of HPC and artificial intelligence workloads, that require maximum power in a small form factor. Once again we have delivered an innovative and high-powered solution that fits the brief," said Manoj Nayee, Managing Director, Boston Limited. View the full Boston ANNA Pascal specifications here: https://www.boston.co.uk/products/BOS-VX0-1103-0T.aspx About Boston Limited Boston Limited has been providing first-to-market technology to a diverse client base since 1992. Boston's high performance, mission-critical server, storage and workstation solutions can be tailored for every client. With expertly trained engineers and a dedicated R&D labs facility, we are able to fully customise the specification, design and brand a solution in order to help clients solve their toughest business challenges simply and effectively. Since its founding in London, UK, Boston has expanded operations globally. Following on from the successful launch of Boston IT Solutions India in 2009, Boston launched Boston Server & Storage Solutions GmbH in Germany a year later, with offices opening on the East coast of America in 2013. For more information about Boston IT Solutions (India), please visit http://www.bostonindia.in and follow @bostonindia on Twitter. Media Contact:

Akshattha Swamy

[email protected]

+91-7022621819

Marketing Manager

Boston IT Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd





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Chennai: Tamil Nadu's iconic leader and former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away on Monday night after battling for her life at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai for nearly 75 days, was laid to rest with full state honours at Chennai's Marina Beach on Tuesday.

She was buried next to her political mentor MG Ramachandran at Marina Beach.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tamil Nadu CM O Panneerselvam, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik were among the VVIPS who paid rich tributes to 'Amma' before her final journey.

Contrary to speculations of her being cremated as per the Hindu rituals, the late AIADMK supremo was buried at the Marina Beach.

Among various theories which are doing the rounds in this regard, one suggest that the departed leader was a cult figure, beyond caste and religious identity. Although, she was born in Tamil Iyengar family where deceased are cremated, it is believed that 'Amma' had once expresed her desire to be buried after her death.

It's probably why the Dravidians wanted to bury her with sandalwood and rose water instead of cremating her mortal remains.

However, some others believe that Jayalalithaa was buried because her mentor Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known as 'MGR' was also buried on Marina Beach.

Importantly, Jayalalithaa was also laid to rest near MGRs memorial site on Marina Beach.

Some Dravidians even claim that they can still hear the sound of MGRs watch ticking near his memorial site on Marina Beach.

Many in Tamil Nadu believe that Jayalalithaa was introduced to politics by MGR, who, apart from being a renowned actor, director and producer, had served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for three terms. Both MGR and Jayalalithaa went on to star in whooping 24 films together.

Another possible reason of her being buried could be that Jayalalithaa did not have any blood relative to light the funeral pyre apart from her niece Deepa Jayakumar.

Sources claim that Jayalalithaas close aide Sasikala was against Deepa Jayakumar getting involved with the final rites because she could be a potential challenge.

Deepa, the daughter of the Chief Ministers only brother late Jayakumar, who had tried to meet Jayalalithaa several times when she was undergoing treatment at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, was denied permission for unknown reasons.

Iconic leader Jayalalithaa was given a tearful adieu by millions of her ardent supporters who accompanied her during her final journey till she was buried with full military honours on the Marina Beach.
Chennai: Jayalalithaa, Amma to millions, passed away at Chennai's Apollo Hospital at 11.30 PM on Monday after waging a grim battle for life since her hospitalisation on September 22.

The mortal remains of Amma have been kept at Chennai's Rajaji Hall for the public to pay their last respects.

Here are five things you may not know about 'Puratchi Thalaivi' (revolutionary leader) Jayalalithaa:-

1- Lowest salary as CM: She drew just Re 1/month

As a Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Amma only drew Re 1/month as salary.

Jayalalithaa had refused to accept her first salary cheque as Chief Minister.

On being told that she should receive a salary as public servant, she accepted a salary of Re 1.

2- She worked in Hindi film too

Jayalalithaa appeared in over 80 Tamil movies. However, she also did one Hindi movie, Izzat, opposite superstar Dharmendra.

3 - She took bath in public

Amma once attended the Mahamakam festival in Kumbakonam, the Kumbh Mela of South India.

Sections of the ghats where she was to have a ritual bath were cordoned off. Eventually there was stampede.

4- Featured in Guinness Book of World Records

Ammas name featured in Guinness Book of World Records as in the year 1995, during her first term as CM, she organised a lavish wedding for her foster son Sudhagaran.

According to Guinness record, over 1,50,000 guests were invited to the wedding at a 50-acre ground in Chennai.

5- Jayalalithaa's first movie was adult only

Jayaalithaa first movie - Vennira Aadai - in 1965 was released as 'for adults only. It was a blockbuster in Tamil cinema.

As she was only 15, she herself couldnt watch her first movie, according to a report in Financial Express.
New Delhi: UGC has asked all universities and colleges across the country to launch a month-long campaign to create awareness about cashless transactions.

In a letter to varsities, the University Grants Commission (UGC) said a month-long campaign from December 12 "can be run to educate and train students in various modes of digital payments".

An important component of this campaign is to ensure that every campus becomes completely cashless by adopting digital payment systems in all its receipts, payments and transactions within the campus, the UGC said.

Following is the full text of the letter (courtesy - ugc.ac.in):

"You are aware that Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched VITTIYA SAKSHARATA ABHIYAN (VISAKA) - a campaign for promoting a digital economy through youth volunteers from the higher educational institutions of the country. Hon'ble Minister for Human Resource Development has already unveiled the plan in a Video Conference connecting all Universities/llTs/llMs/NlTs/lllTs/ llSERs/other higher educational institutions on 1"' December, 2016.

The details of presentation by Hon'ble Minister for Human Resource Development in the matter may be seen in www.mhrd.qov.in/visaka. Participation in the campaign by the youth in the higher educational institutions is highly relevant because fhey would be the main beneficiaries in creating a digital economy - free of corruption, black money; completely transparent and just.

lt is therefore essential that the heads of all institutions educate and train their students in the various modes of digital payments and encourage them to join as volunteers in large numbers for this campaign. These volunteers would need to be guided by faculty who are aware about the digital payment systems and are enthusiastic to participate in the effort. An important component of this campaign is to ensure that every campus becomes completely cashless by adopting digital payment systems in all its receipts, payments and transactions within the campus.

This process would need to be pioneered by you as a leader of the institution, personally. The NSS and NCC units in your institution may be asked to meet immediately and identify one nearby market/mandi to transform it into a digital market place, where all shops/establishments/traders located therein are enabled with digital payment systems. A website has been launched in www.mhrd.gov.in/visaka which provides for: downloading material, registration of volunteers, giving feedback and uploading progress repofis.

This campaign may be run for a month between 12th December,2016 and i2th January, 20'17. A detailed plan of action in this regard is enclosed with the request to follow the date-lines without fail. You are requested to kindly instruct the colleges affiliated with your esteemed university to Initiate action on the above immedlately. Action taken in this regard may be intimated to UGC on email ugc.action@gmail.com.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development proposes to award the best institution which has done commendable work in this respect at a function that will be separately organised."
New Delhi: She has come to people's aid many times before and she did it again.

A bed-ridden Egyptian woman weighing 500 kg was on Tuesday granted visa by Indian Embassy in Cairo following intervention by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

36-year-old Eman Ahmed, a resident of port city of Alexandria, was issued the medical visa hours after a Mumbai- based bariatric surgeon requested Swaraj to help the woman travel to India for her treatment.

"Thanks for bringing this to my notice. We will definitely help her," Swaraj tweeted in response to the request.

Thanks for bringing this to my notice. We will definitely help her. pic.twitter.com/l6RfC5bWE4 https://t.co/fWBYilbPIY  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 6, 2016

Hours later, Dr Muffi Lakdawala, who as per his twitter profile is also a philanthropist, tweeted that Indian Embassy in Cairo granted visa to Eman, a resident of Alexandria.

"Embassy in Cairo called visa granted.Thank you so much for this prompt response, impressed Appreciate the help," Lakdawala told the EAM.

Embassy in Cairo called Visa granted.Thank you so much for this prompt response,impressed Appreciate the help @SushmaSwaraj @CODSIndia01  Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 6, 2016

Earlier, seeking Swaraj's intervention, he had said Eman weighs 500 kg and has been refused the visa.

"Eman Ahmed (Egypt) 500 kgs requested me to save her please help me get her a medical visa as refused through normal process," he had requested Swaraj.

Eman's weight prevented her from pursuing her studies as she dropped out of school due to weight gain.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday left for Chennai to pay his last respects to J Jayalalithaa, who died yesterday night.

Earlier, the Indian Air Force plane in which President Pranab was travelling from New Delhi to Chennai, developed a mid-air technical snag and returned midway to the national capital.

The plane had landed back in the national capital in less than an hour after it had departed.

However, it is yet to be known what exactly happened to the aircraft.

Early today, President Pranab had condoled the death of Jayalalithaa, saying he was 'extremely sad' as the country lost 'a visionary leader'.

In a condolence message to Vidyasagar Rao, the Tamil Nadu Governor, Mukherjee said the country has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions.

"She was regarded one of India`s most charismatic and popular leaders," Mukherjee said.
New Delhi: All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretaries have demanded that party vice president Rahul Gandhi be elevated to the Congress president post at the earliest, sources said on Tuesday.

Some of the secretaries claimed that people with vested interest are postponing the decision to appoint the Gandhi scion as the Congress president, sources said.

According to media reports, many in the grand old party are divided on the timing of Rahul's elevation and want it to be deferred till the upcoming Assembly polls. Some party leaders, however, also feel that in view of the current situation Sonia Gandhi should continue to steer the party and not take a back seat.

Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Goa are scheduled to go to polls in 2017.

46-year-old Rahul was appointed party vice-president in January 2013 at Congress's brainstorming session in Jaipur.

The talk about his elevation has been going on for quite some time now.

On the other hand, Sonia holds the record of being the Congress chief for 18 consecutive years. She had taken over from Sitaram Kesri in 1998.

At Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting held in the month of November, the party members unanimously had voiced a "strong sentiment" for Rahul's elevation to the top post in the party for the first time. Notably, Sonia Gandhi was not present at the CWC meet.

Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath, Jyotoraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot have number of times advocated for Rahul's anointment as Congress chief.
New Delhi: The central government announced one-day national mourning on Tuesday in view of the demise of Jayalalithaa.

Hour after her death, the Tamil Nadu government too declared a seven-day state mourning from December 6 onwards.

During the period, the national flag at all government building will be flown at half-mast. No official ceremonial function will be held during this time. The government also announced a three-day holiday for all educational institutions in the state.

Jayalalithaa or 'Amma', as she was fondly called by her supporters, breathed her last in Chennai yesterday night. She was one of the most powerful and popular politician leader of the country.

In the meantime, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Bihar government too declared one-day state mourning as a mark of respect to late Jayalalithaa.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to leave for Tamil Nadu soon to pay his tributes to Amma at Chennai's Rajaji Hall.

"Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics. Jayalalithaa jis connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration," PM Modi tweeted.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief. May the Almighty grant them the strength to bear this irreparable loss with courage and fortitude. I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace," Modi said in a series of tweets.
[December 06, 2016] Meizu Welcomes New M5 Note to the M-Series Smartphone Family

BEIJING, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading smartphone company Meizu officially releases the all-new Meizu M5 Note, which features a full metal unibody design and a 5.5-inch Full HD display. As the latest member of Meizu's celebrated M-series, the M5 Note is designed for consumers who seek affordable smartphones with excellent industrial design and easy user experience. Meizu M5 Note  More Performance, More Beauty - Beautiful hardware The new M5 Note has the classic full metal unibody that has gone through 12 steps of 3D sandblasting for a smoother touch, and comes in four colors: champagne gold, silver, grey, and blue. The speaker hole located at the bottom of the phone is carved in a rectangle shape and made by CNC equipment for more natural and even sounds. - A delightful viewing experience The 5.5-inch Full HD display with 2.5D glass features the latest smart eye-protective mode to ensure a more comfortable viewing experience. The display produces vivid colors and lively visuals. - Powerful new generation processor The powerful new generation 8-core 64-bit Cortex-A53 processor has a peak frequency of 1.8GHz. The M5 Note is equipped with either 3GB or 4GB RAM and users can choose between 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB of internal storage to satisfy every kind of user. - High battery capacity and fast charging Although the M5 Note is only 8.1mm thick, it is powered by a 4000mAh battery that can support 32 hours of talk time, eight hours of browsing on 4G or five hours of playing heavy games. Meizu specifically chose the safest battery cells from international suppliers to guarantee strong and stable performance. Backed by 18W of power it takes just 90 minutes to charge the Meizu M5 Note.



- Capture all precious moments To better document the moments in life, the M5 Note has a 13 megapixel rear camera with 0.2s high-speed focusing. The 5 megapixel front camera comes with a real-time beautifying function that allows users to improve their selfies.

- Easy and fast fingerprint recognition The M5 Note also brings a fingerprint recognition experience that makes mobile payment easy and fast. It has a recognition angle of 360 and a response speed of 0.2 seconds. Aber Bai, President of Meizu, remarked that out of the M-series, which is defined as "Quality for Young," Meizu Note products sold more than 20 million during the period of two years in which they have been launched. The previous generation Note device achieved seven million in sales. "The M-series and the Note product lines have not only been recognized by the market, but are also seen as a leader in bringing high quality smartphones that are budget-friendly," said Bai. "This newly launched M-series M5 Note device is the first one in the series to be equipped with the NMT antenna that's mostly used in high-end flagship models. We believe this model will offer more value options for our users." The M5 Note will be available at RMB 899 (approx. USD 130.70) (3G+16G), RMB 999 (approx. USD 145.25) (3G+32G) and RMB 1,499 (approx. 217.95) (4G+64G). For more information about Meizu M5 Note, please visit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9jmUcjnFk-GdHhZLU1aaENaYzA About Meizu Founded in 2003, Meizu has become one of the most influential smartphone makers in the world. Meizu has developed a series of smartphones utilizing the Android-based Flyme operation system. The company now carries four smartphone lines: the PRO, MX, M and U-series. As of now, Meizu has released almost 30 smartphone models. According to the statistics from IC Insights, Meizu is the world's 11th largest mobile phone manufacturer in terms of unit sales. Meizu phones are characterized by their light, comfortable design, premium sound quality, high-definition camera, and simple, elegant user interface, combining performance, ease of use and functionality with the durability needed to survive the human experience. Availability Meizu is currently officially available in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Mainland China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. For more information contact: Emily Tin

Cell Number: +86-132-6714-0309

Email: [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445975 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/meizu-welcomes-new-m5-note-to-the-m-series-smartphone-family-300373596.html SOURCE Meizu

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Thiruvananthapuram: As park of respect to J Jayalalithaa, government offices and educational institutions in Kerala will remain shut on Tuesday.

The former Tamil Nadu chief minister passed away Monday night at Apollo Hospitals after a prolonged illness.

Jayalalithaa, a spinster, breathed her last at the Apollo Hospitals just before midnight, over 24 hours after she suffered a cardiac arrest that derailed the halting progress she had been making on the health front.

Kerala Governor described the her as the greatest woman political leader in contemporary India.

"In her we saw the perfect blending of the strong will of an able administrator and the compassion of a philanthropist".

"In her sad demise, we have lost a unique mother's touch that had brightened the lives of millions of people during the last three decades".

The Tamil Nadu government declared a seven-day mourning. Schools and colleges in the sprawling state will be closed for three days.

As Jayalalithaa's death became known, a loud wail rent the air outside the Apollo hospital where thousands had gathered since her cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, hoping against hope that she would survive.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in paying homage to Jayalalithaa, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha at the start of her political career.

The last rites will be held at the Marina Beach Tuesday evening.
Chennai: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader M Karunanidhi on Tuesday mourned the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, saying her fame will remain forever.

"I offer deep condolences on the passing away of Jayalalithaa. Wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal," Karunanidhi said.

Earlier, DMK treasurer and Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly MK Stalin expressed grief over Jayalalithaa's demise, describing her as an "iron lady" and courageous leader.

Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes and a pole in state politics for three decades, died here Monday night at Apollo Hospitals after battling for life for the 75 days.

Jayalalithaa, a spinster, breathed her last at the Apollo Hospitals just before midnight, over 24 hours after she suffered a cardiac arrest that derailed the halting progress she had been making on the health front.

As Jayalalithaa's death became known, a loud wail rent the air outside the Apollo hospital where thousands had gathered since her cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, hoping against hope that she would survive.

The last rites will be held at the Marina Beach Tuesday evening.
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu capital on Tuesday woke up to a grinding halt in the wake of the demise of its leader and or rather say 'Amma'.

AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa passed away at Chennai's Apollo Hospitals yesterday night after battling her health worries for almost 75 days.

At least two millions of people have gathered outside Chennai's Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's body has been kept to let public pay their homage.

The Tamil Nadu government announced a seven-day state mourning as a mark of respect for its departed leader.

A near total shutdown like situation is seen in the city and several other parts of the state since last evening itself.

Public transport services, including autorickshaws, were seen off the roads while some private vehicles were seen plying in various parts of the city as police personnel kept a tight vigil at vantage points in the city.

Almost all tea stalls, which usually do a brisk business in the early hours, remaining closed, mobile tea vendors could be seen dispensing the brew at some places. Hotels are also closed.

Suburban train services, however, were being operated in the city, albeit with lower passenger rush. Long distance trains arriving at Chennai Central and Egmore stations were on time.

The Tamil film industry announced cancellation of shootings scheduled for today. Theaters in the state have also cancelled all their shows.
Chennai: Jayalalithaa, who suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, died on Monday night after battling for life for 75 days at Apollo Hospitals.

Following is how some of the world media covered her demise:

The New York Times said 'Death of Tamil Nadus leader leaves power vacuum in southern India'.

"A paroxysm of grief began rippling through the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on Monday when its longtime leader, an imperious former starlet known by her followers as Amma, or Mother, was pronounced dead. Dramatic displays of emotion are not unusual in southern Indian politics, and Ms Jayaram, with her queenly manner and numerous subsidies for the poor, had inspired an especially passionate following.

The Guardian wrote 'Jayalalithaa Jayaram, Tamil Nadu's 'iron lady', dies at 68'.

"Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the iron lady of Tamil Nadu, who riveted and ruled the south Indian state for more than half a century as an actor and then chief minister, has died in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest. Her biographer, the novelist Vaasanthi Sundaram, told the Guardian that Jayalalithaa was the most colourful, dynamic and determined woman politician that one has ever seen."

Singapore's The Straits Times said 'Popular Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram dies at 68'.

"Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the chief minister of south India's Tamil Nadu state and one of the country's most popular political leaders, died after a prolonged illness. Doctors had been treating the 68-year-old former film star, who enjoys an almost god-like status in Tamil Nadu. Hundreds of devotees have kept a round-the-clock vigil outside the private hospital in the state capital Chennai since she was first admitted in September suffering from a fever.
Beijing: President-elect Donald Trump's tweets on China's economic and South China Sea policy has seriously irked the Chistringentia.

In stringent remarks, the English-language China Daily newspaper termed Trump as a "diplomatic rookie". It warned the next US President to moderate his behaviour or he will create "costly troubles for his country".

The Global Times' warned that Trump "can make a lot of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game."

"Trump's China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it," it said.

"He is trying to pillage other countries for US prosperity," it warned, but instead he will unwittingly "smash the current world economic order" of which the US is the "biggest beneficiary."

The Chinese media also warned saying that America could pay dearly for his (Trump's) naivety.

The comments followed criticism of Trump in US and Chinese media for taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that flew in the face of nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and raised questions about whether the president-elect intends to pursue a hard line against Beijing.

Trump fired off two tweets on Sunday blasting China for devaluing its currency, taxing US imports, and building military installations 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..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

China has lodged solemn representations with the US, urging the latter to honour its commitment to the one-China policy. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang's remarks came after US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday spoke over phone with Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen.Ing-wen.

(With AFP inputs)
Washington: United States-president elect Donald Trump is likely to move closely to India in a bid to suppress China, however it will have limited impact on Beijing, the Chinese state media said on Tuesday.

The Chinese media also added that New Delhi may not accept a quasi-alliance with Washington to retain its independent foreign policy.

"US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trump's diplomacy. With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India," an article in the state-run Global Times said.

"However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease," it said.

"As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes," the article said, assessing policies options for Trump after he takes over the Presidency next month said.

"Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and India's concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China," the article titled 'Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi' said.

"In other words, the US attempts of establishing a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China may not be accepted by India as the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition," it said.

When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said.

"His will reduce India's trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to," it said.

"To sum up, US-Indian relations during Trump's term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trump's adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China," it said.

"Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on China's influence on regional trade," it said.

Chinese official media began attacking Trump after his tweets on Monday that slammed China's currency devaluation and its claims on South China Sea.
Gaza: One police officer and a youth were hospitalised on Tuesday as Hamas forces clashed with hardline Islamists in the Gaza Strip, a medical source and witnesses said.

Two men of a Salafist group and followers of an ultra-conservative form of Islam suffered bullet wounds during an attempt to arrest by Gaza security forces, a witness said.

The young man was in serious condition who was believed to be a Salafist, while the policeman`s condition was not life threatening, the medical source said.

A grenade was thrown at security forces when they were raiding a house in Al-Fukhari in the southern Gaza Strip, sparking clashes, the witness said.

Hamas is an Islamist party which rules Gaza is frequently criticised by more conservative Islamists, including hardliners who sympathise with the Islamic State group.

The hardliners sporadically fire rockets at Israel, prompting retaliation against Hamas targets.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza, regardless of who launches it.

In an unrelated incident, a fighter of Hamas`s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, was killed accidentally.

"Ahmad Mansour, 30 and from Jabalia in northern Gaza, died on Monday night when a grenade exploded by accident," a Qassam statement said.
Seoul: In what could lead to further escalation of tensions between the two warring neighbours, the South Korean military has claimed that its cyber command has been breached by North Korea.

"It seems the intranet server of the cyber command has been contaminated with malware. We found that some military documents, including confidential information, have been hacked," South Korea's Ministry of National Defence told Yonhap News Agency.

While North Korea has been often accused in the past of carrying out cyber-attacks on South's banks, phones of top government officials but the hackers have never managed to break into military data.

Interestingly, South Korea had set up the cyber command in 2010 to prevent and counter cyber attacks on its military.

The BBC reports that it is not yet fully clear the type of documents and files that were accessed by the hackers. Quoting the South Korean military, the BBC added that the compromised section of its network was isolated once the attack was detected.

North Korea has in the past denied being involved in cyber attacks on Seoul but reports have suggested all along that Pyongyang has deployed thousands of experts to break into South Korean security systems.

A report in the BBC quotes North Korean defector and computer science professor Kim Heung-Kwang as saying that his native country has been focusing on application programming interfaces (APIs), which can be programmed to attack national infrastructures, since 2010.
[December 06, 2016] KnowBe4 Aims to Take a Bite out of CEO Fraud Cash Cow

KnowBe4, provider of the world's most popular security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, today introduced Phishing Reply Tracking to help IT managers more effectively combat CEO Fraud, one of the fastest growing social engineering schemes. Phishing Reply Tracking is designed to test whether users will interact with "the bad guys" on the other end of a phishing email. CEO fraud, or Business Email Compromise (BEC) as it is referred to by the FBI, has been steadily gaining steam since January 2015, costing the economy over 3 billion dollars, according to the FBI's Internet Complaint Center (IC3). "CEO fraud is harder to detect than a simple phish, as the emails used in these attacks bypass antivirus because they contain no malware," said Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4's Chief Executive Officer. "Email is the number one attack vector into the enterprise. Once inside, cybercriminals can monitor the financial connections and interactions within the company. While they study the key individuals and protocols necessary to perform wire transfers in their target, they learn how to spring a convincing attack, posing as a company executive or an accounting executive." Once a cybercriminal has learned what they need to and has launched a CEO fraud attack, it is then left up to the employee to detect the threat. Unless employees are trained with new-scool security awareness training and tested with simulated phishing, they can miss vital red flags that can result in a tremendous loss of income.



Phishing Reply Tracking provides the ability to test users with simulated phishing attacks, while also tracking if they will reply to these phishing attacks, a service offering provided only by KnowBe4. Within the KnowBe4 console, replies will be optionally recorded, and the raw data from the reply (in the form of a .eml file) will be available for IT to download if desired. Phishing Reply Tracking also:

Stores the reply-to content (on by default, may be disabled as an option);

Includes a customizable reply-to address sub-domain, which allows IT to make the reply-to address look similar to your actual domain; and

Tracks out of office replies to allow IT to identify if users include company directories or other information with their out-of-office messages. Sjouwerman added, "This is an important addition to your security awareness training plan that will help you inoculate users against Business Email Compromise, or CEO fraud. What happens if your users receive an email from a cybercriminal pretending to be your CEO requesting an urgent wire transfer? Will the employee reply back to question the sender for more details or worse, simply confirm that they completed the transfer? Most companies cannot afford to take that risk." For more information about Phishing Reply Tracking visit: www.knowbe4.com About KnowBe4 KnowBe4, the provider of the world's most popular integrated new school security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, is used by more than 6,500 organizations worldwide. Founded by data and IT security expert Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4 helps organizations address the human element of security by raising awareness of ransomware, CEO Fraud and other social engineering tactics through a new school approach to security awareness training. Kevin Mitnick, internationally recognized computer security expert and KnowBe4's Chief Hacking Officer, helped design KnowBe4's trainings based on his well-documented social engineering tactics. Thousands of organizations trust KnowBe4 to mobilize their end-users as a first line of corporate IT defense. Number 139 on the 2016 Inc 500 list, #50 on 2016 Deloitte's (News - Alert) Technology Fast 500, KnowBe4 is based in Tampa Bay, Florida. For more information, visit www.knowbe4.com and follow Stu on Twitter (News - Alert) at @StuAllard. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005219/en/

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British Prime Minister Theresa May will be the first British premier and the first woman to attend the annual summit of the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council states

British Prime Minister Theresa May is to meet Gulf leaders who on Tuesday opened their annual summit in Bahrain, for talks on trade ties after Britain leaves the European Union.

King Salman of Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia opened the summit with a call for "doubling of efforts" to face regional challenges.

May is expected to meet the leaders later Tuesday before addressing the summit on Wednesday, when she will become the first British premier and the first woman to attend the annual gathering of the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Defence ties are also expected to be high on the agenda as Britain builds a new naval base in Bahrain, while advocacy groups have urged May to raise human rights concerns.

May's two-day visit comes as her government faces mounting domestic criticism that it has not done enough to avoid post-Brexit disruption to British trade, which is currently carried out under EU agreements.

"I will have the opportunity to talk to all six leaders about how we can develop our trade relationship, as well as cooperation on security and defence," May said before arriving in Manama late on Monday.

Her office said May will discuss possibilities for post-Brexit free trade arrangements with the GCC states -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf," the British premier said.

- Naval base -

Ahead of the summit, May on Tuesday met King Salman, Bahrain's King Hamad, the emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

In October last year, Britain began building a naval base at Mina Salman, outside Manama, its first new permanent base in the Middle East in four decades.

May told 300 Royal Navy officers aboard HMS Ocean that she wanted to "step up our defence and security cooperation to keep British citizens safe at home and abroad".

Story continues

Britain's force already stationed in Bahrain was "a clear demonstration of the UK's enduring security commitment to the Gulf", she said.

Western ties with Bahrain, however, have come under criticism from international human rights groups.

Bahrain's Sunni minority rulers have cracked down on dissent since they crushed protests in 2011 led by the Shiite majority for a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

The main Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, once the largest in parliament, has been dissolved and scores of Shiites have been stripped of their citizenship.

Amnesty International said Monday the summit gave May a "unique opportunity to raise concerns over a pattern of recurring human rights violations throughout the region".

"In recent years across the Gulf we have seen human rights activists, peaceful political opponents and government critics systematically targeted in the name of security," said Randa Habib, the London-based watchdog's Middle East and North Africa director.

"It is high time for allies of the GCC to stop putting business and security cooperation before human rights, and Theresa May must not squander this opportunity to raise key rights issues," she added.
[December 06, 2016] Cloudflare Chooses 365 Data Centers To Support Expansion Of Its Suite Of Internet Services

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- 365 Data Centers, one of the top U.S. colocation providers by market presence, today announced a partnership with Cloudflare to support its expansion into Tampa, Nashville, Pittsburgh and Detroit, which will improve website performance and security for Cloudflare's global customer base. Cloudflare, the leading web performance and security company, adds more than 10,000 new customers every day and both protects and improves the performance of more than four million customers. The company has mitigated some of the largest Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks ever recorded and its Content Delivery Network (CDN) is built on proprietary technology that makes it simple and inexpensive to deploy, making it the fastest growing network in the world. 365 Data Centers has 13 carrier neutral facilities to enable faster delivery of content to end users in tier one and tier two markets. Each and every one of their locations is certified compliant with HIPAA, PCI DSS, SSAE 16, SOC 2 and ISAE 3402. "Working with providers like 365 Data Centers helps make performance and security that much easier for our four million customers," said Nitin Rao, head of infrastructure strategy at Cloudflare. "365 Data Centers is a carrier-neutral edge data center provider that will connect us to the last mile providers and Internet Exchanges. Cloudflare is committed to growing its low cost CDN and security ervices, and collocating with edge data center providers like 365 Data Centers. Connecting to the last mile providers and Internet Exchanges located there is one of the ways we keep our costs low. We are thrilled to be launching this partnership with 365 Data Centers because it is carrier neutral data centers that help us deliver on that commitment."



"There is tremendous synergy between 365 Data Centers edge colocation strategy and Cloudflare's strategy of deploying smaller footprints in carrier neutral data centers to expand its services," said John Scanlon, CEO of 365 Data Centers. "Hosting Cloudflare in our edge data centers will improve user experience for our customers and millions more across the globe." About 365 Data Centers

365 Data Centers is the leading data center solutions provider for cloud, content, carriers and enterprises in tier 2 markets. We operate 13 U.S. data centers and help hundreds of businesses to improve user experience, reduce cost and speed innovation by leveraging our secure, carrier-neutral and reliable edge colocation services. With 100% uptime and industry compliance, 365 ensures that mission-critical application infrastructure is highly available and conveniently accessible. 365 is a privately held company based in Emeryville, California. For more information, visit http://365datacenters.com.

About Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc. (www.cloudflare.com / @cloudflare) is on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world's largest networks that powers more than 10 trillion requests per month, which is nearly 10 percent of all Internet requests for more than 2.5 billion people worldwide. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Websites powered by Cloudflare have all web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with each new site added. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer, named the Most Innovative Network & Internet Technology Company for two years running by the Wall Street Journal, and ranked among the world's 50 most innovative companies by Fast Company. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Cloudflare has offices in Austin, TX, Champaign, IL, Washington, DC, London, and Singapore. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160105/319353LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cloudflare-chooses-365-data-centers-to-support-expansion-of-its-suite-of-internet-services-300373809.html SOURCE 365 Data Centers

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After Alaska Airlines buys Virgin America, a deal which was cleared December 6, 2016, it will be the fifth largest carrier in the US

US antitrust regulators approved Alaska Airlines' $4 billion acquisition of Virgin America on Tuesday, but will require it to scale back a route-sharing alliance with American Airlines.

Under the codeshare agreement, Alaska currently markets American flights on over 250 routes, an arrangement in which the companies "often behave more like partners than competitors," the Justice Department said.

Under Tuesday's agreement, the Justice Department prohibits sharing between Alaska and American on routes where Virgin and American now compete and where Alaska is likely to introduce service after the merger.

"Smaller airlines, such as Alaska and Virgin, provide a critical competitive check on the larger carriers," said Renata Hesse, acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division.

"Today?s settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgin's assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers."

Alaska Airlines said the Justice Department's action will not affect the majority of the codeshare flights with American.

The acquisition of Virgin America is expected to close "in the very near future," Alaska said in a news release.

The addition of San Francisco-based Virgin America's main routes, which connect the US west and east coasts, will strengthen Alaska's coverage, which has built up from its roots connecting the huge, remote northwest state to the west coast.

Alaska Airlines will be the fifth biggest US carrier after the takeover.

Shares of Alaska Air Group rose 1.3 percent and Virgin American 0.6 percent.
The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab (previously) is one of the world's leading research centers for cybersecurity analysis, and they are the first port of call for many civil society groups when they are targeted by governments and cyber-militias.



Citizen Lab's John Scott-Railton has published a fascinating analysis (originally published in IEEE Security & Privacy, but since updated) of the most common tactics deployed against civil society and makes some recommendations about how these groups can defend themselves  as well as recommendations for how the platforms that civil society groups should retool to protect their users.





One of Scott-Railton's most interesting points is that civil society groups are canaries in the coal-mine: the attacks they face from well-resourced attackers generally become more automated and thus more available to petty crooks and other untargeted attackers who go after broad swaths of the population. That means that platforms can use the attacks these groups face as a preview of their coming security challenge  and by defending civil society, they armor their whole user-base against those coming threats.

The attackers in Scott-Railton's data are more socially sophisticated than they are technologically sophisticated. Almost all of the time, these attackers are using old, known hacks as weapons (not sexy, unpublished, "0-day" exploits). They rely on the idea that their targets  overtaxed civil society activists  are likely to have unpatched systems that can be targeted by these older exploits. Even if many of the members of a target group have updated, it's often sufficient to attack a single laggard (remember, to get inside a group's messages, you just need to compromise one member of that group!).





Scott-Railton is very strong on two-factor authentication, though he notes that attackers have used extremely sophisticated social engineering to beat this. Nevertheless, his top recommendation is for everyone to turn on 2FA, and for platforms to make things like 2FA mandatory, so that overtaxed users don't ever opt-out.



It's human nature to want to help, to be curious, and to respond to a sense of fear and urgency. This natural urge presents an endless opportunity for attacks that rely on deception and trust exploitation. The PGEAs targeting civil society groups share the emphasis on targeting human behavior as the primary entry point for their campaigns. This "just enough" principle holds for many more sophisticated a ack groups, even with harder targets, as the head of the US National Security Agency's Tailored Access Operations recently pointed out at a security conference (www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDJb8WOJYdA). Social engineering has always been a game of probability, and most organizations contain members who are more likely to be taken in than others. A growing cottage industry is "security training" that focuses on increasing civil society's awareness of surveillance and malware and on shifting security behavior. This development is promising but deserves a stronger evidence-based footing and numbers-driven repeat testing, such as the use of regular phishing simulations and penetration testing. Even when large user populations become vigilant and change their behaviors, attackers have shown a remarkable ability to adapt their techniques in response. Still, a range of good security technologies attempt to account for some of these risks; the challenge is ensuring that they're systematically enabled.

Security for the High-Risk User: Separate and Unequal [John Scott-Railton/Citizen Lab]





(via The Gruqq)
With a price tag of between $300 million and $500 million, it would take a change in political will  and a massive cash infusion  to resurrect Iqaluit's hydro dam project, says Nunavut's finance minister.

It's been more than a year since the territory decided to put the project on hold.

"It's not to say that the project initiative could not commence again in the future," Keith Peterson told MLAs earlier this month.

"It may be that in the future the political direction would come from cabinet to look at hydro energy in Nunavut or in Iqaluit. It may direct the Qulliq Energy Corporation to look at solar energy, tidal energy, wind energy, all matters of energy."

When that happens, Peterson said the government would need to look to the private sector or federal investors for help.

For now, the government isn't "actively looking" for financing.

The hydroelectric project is "permanently on hold"  a seeming oxymoron which frustrated some members of the legislature.

A 'huge amount' already spent

The discussion was prompted by a line item in Bill 21, the act outlining government assets to be written off for last year.

MLAs were asked to forgive more than $10 million in expenditures on the project that were made between 2005, when the Qulliq Energy Corporation began looking into the project, and 2015, when it was officially shelved.

"Just for further information, the $10 million is a huge amount to me," said Tununiq MLA Joe Enook, in Inuktitut.

"You used a great amount of money and you're asking us to forgive you for using that money."

Peterson said the government really has no choice but to write off those costs, explaining that it was really an "accounting treatment to clean up the books" proposed by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

He added that the money wasn't wasted.

"Some of the work that has been done over the years  the studies, the engineering work, and other research that has gone into this the $10 million and change has paid for  may be usable in the future towards that project."

Story continues

Market conditions have changed

If the project went forward now, Johnny Mike, the minister responsible for QEC, saids the utility would need to carry the financial burden.

"QEC would have to recoup this cost through the existing electrical rates charged to their clients," he said in Inuktitut. "Based on the current rates, QEC would not be able to pay for this project even if it was approved."

At the outset, the project was seen as a way to lessen the territory's reliance on expensive diesel fuel.

Now, Premier Peter Taptuna is pointing to other priorities.

"This particular infrastructure, which is going to cost in the hundreds of millions, is not going to bring the cost of living down for our residents of Nunavut," he told MLAs.

"It's simply a factor where we do not build infrastructure [which] increases the cost of our living in the territory."

Plus, Taptuna said the price of oil has substantially decreased.

QEC adding oversight to major projects

David Joanasie, the MLA for South Baffin, said writing off the funds felt like putting $10 million on an iceberg and watching it float away.

"I don't want to see this occur again within the government," he said in Inuktitut.

Peterson said QEC has put some work into this area, adding more oversight to projects before they get to an advanced stage.

At the end of the discussion, MLAs agreed to write off the amount, without finding out whether the project will eventually be restarted.

"I can't state with any degree of certainty where this will go in the future," said Peterson.
Networking

Columbia College Chicago Builds E-Learning Network

Columbia College Chicago has revamped its network to support e-learning. The liberal arts institution turned to IT services provider Netrix to deploy the ADVA FSP 3000 optical transport solution from AVDA Optical Networking in a 100Gbit/s optical transport network.

"Building and owning our own network will bring significant cost savings over time. But what's most exciting are the new opportunities we'll be able to give to our 9,500 students," explained Mark Las, director of infrastructure services at Columbia College Chicago, in a statement. "Now we have the flexibility to add capacity in an instant, so if a department requires more bandwidth then it's immediately at their fingertips. Reliable, high-speed data transmission is also essential for the exciting program of online e-learning courses that we're starting to offer. It provides our students with access to research and educational resources from any of the 10 sites on campus with great flexibility and reliability. Now they can easily download video, music and other media-rich content and collaborate with each other in real-time."

According to a press release, the installation comprises 40 channel filters with two active data centers linked by a protected 100Gbit/s core. The network is built with ADVA FSP 3000 DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) 100Gbit/s channel modules. One fiber pair connects the campus sites in a 10-node ring topology. A ring network at Layer 1 provides low-latency traffic protection and diverse routing, protecting the system in the event of a primary link failure. ADVA Optical Networking's network operating center will provide network surveillance and support.

"Today's arts and media students increasingly need to use high-bandwidth applications so it's essential that the college has fast, reliable connectivity and the agility to provision new channels," noted Thomas R. Browne, senior director of sales, North America, ADVA Optical Networking, in a statement. "With our 100G optical transport technology, Columbia College Chicago can guarantee access to the services their learners need. And, with the long-term support we're giving them, they'll be able to keep pace with bandwidth demand and empower the next generation of media professionals and artists."

For more information, visit the ADVA Optical Networking site.
MONDAY, Dec. 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Brazilian bikini waxing and similar forms of personal grooming may be all the rage, but they come with a heightened risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease, new research suggests.

The study found that frequent groomers of pubic hair are three to four times more likely to contract a sexually transmitted infection, such as herpes, human papillomavirus (HPV) or syphilis.

"Grooming is linked to a heightened self-reported sexually transmitted disease risk, and for those who groom frequently or remove all of their hair often, the association is even higher," said lead researcher Dr. Charles Osterberg. He's an assistant professor of urology and surgery at the University of Texas Dell Medical School in Austin.

Still, the study didn't prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between pubic grooming and sexually transmitted infections, it was only designed to show a link between these factors.

Pubic hair grooming and removal has become increasingly popular worldwide among women and men, as public perceptions have changed regarding the role of body hair in cleanliness and attractiveness, Osterberg said.

To see whether this grooming might have any connection to sexually transmitted infections, Osterberg and his colleagues surveyed 7,580 U.S. residents, aged 18 to 65, about their grooming practices, sexual behavior and history of sexually transmitted diseases.

Almost three out of four participants (74 percent) said they had groomed their pubic hair before. More women (84 percent) than men (66 percent) reported trying it at least once.

Among the groomers, 17 percent were classified as "extreme" since they remove all of their pubic hair more than 11 times a year. Twenty-two percent were labeled "high-frequency" groomers because they trim their pubic hair daily or weekly. One in 10 groomers fell into both categories.

Extreme groomers had a quadrupled risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. In addition, high-frequency groomers had a 3.5-fold increased risk of sexually transmitted infections, the results showed.

The researchers speculated that infections might spread more easily due to tiny cuts, scrapes and skin tears that result from grooming.

Dr. Dennis Fortenberry is a professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine and current president of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association. He said, "I would probably lean toward the idea that the grooming itself causes mild trauma to the skin, and essentially makes the skin more susceptible to the organisms when they're exposed."

On the other hand, Osterberg noted, it might be that people who groom more often engage in more sex and are at higher risk for a sexually transmitted infection.

"Grooming may be a proxy for higher levels of sexual activity," he added.

Overall, groomers tended to be younger, more sexually active, and to have had more sexual partners than those who don't groom their pubic hair, the survey found. Extreme groomers had a higher number of sexual partners than any other category of groomer.

But, the researchers still found an 80 percent increased risk of sexually transmitted infections in anyone who reported having ever groomed at all, even after adjusting for the person's age and their lifetime number of sexual partners.

There's one bright spot for regular groomers -- a reduced risk of pubic lice, the investigators found.

People who never or rarely groom their pubic hair have double the risk of pubic lice, the study authors reported.

"That's how pubic lice end up breeding, in the hair itself," Osterberg said. "You actually decrease your risk for lice by grooming."

The study was published online Dec. 5 in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

More information

For more on sexually transmitted diseases, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Iraqi ground effort to wrest away control of the country's second-biggest city, Mosul, from ISIS has dragged on since mid-October, and it looks set to continue into the new year.

Throughout the fight, Iraqi forces and their partners in the Kurdish peshmerga and Shiite militias have been assisted by air support from the US-led coalition of more than 60 countries.

The coalition has mounted numerous strikes on ISIS positions around Mosul, including a November 10 strike that targeted an ISIS headquarters building near the city, a clip of which you can see below.

The November 10 strike came during a three-day period that saw 19 airstrikes around Mosul, targeting ISIS-held buildings, vehicles, weapons systems, tunnels, fighting positions, and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or VBIEDs, which ISIS has made extensive and devastating use of during the Mosul campaign.

The operation to retake Mosul kicked off on October 17, with Iraqi forces targeting ISIS fighters and their positions around the city. But since the fight has moved into the city itself, progress has slowed, as streets crowded with civilians and fierce ISIS resistance have made Mosul a treacherous battleground.

In recent days, unfavorable weather has grounded coalition aircraft, creating an opportunity for the terror group. ISIS militants, who still hold about three-quarters of the city, launched counterattacks to the east, south, and west late last week. Their efforts gained some ground, but Iraqi officials said it would be short-lived.

"We withdraw to avoid civilian losses and then regain control. They can't hold territory for long," an Iraqi military source told Reuters.

iraqi special forces mosul

With the Iraqi winter setting in however, civilians stuck in the city have grown more despondent, squeezed by shortages and the ever present violence.

Weiterlesen

ISIS "still controls our neighborhood, and the Iraqi forces have not taken a single step forward in three weeks. We're in despair," a resident in Mosul's southeastern district of Intisar, where the army's Ninth Armored Division has struggled to make gains, told Reuters by phone.

iraqi civilians mosul

"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," the source said, referring to ISIS by an Arabic name.

The US has worked to provide support in the face of ISIS' effective resistance, specifically targeting VBIEDs and the factories making them. ISIS has deployed hundreds of such weapons in the Mosul's tight confines.

The US Air Force has also said it has developed a way to counter drone bombs employed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday that it was "possible" to retake the city before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20, but he stressed that it would be a "tough fight."

Carter has also cautioned that US forces would need to remain in Iraq well after ISIS is defeated.

You can see the full video of the airstrike below.

NOW WATCH: Footage reveals ISIS' secret underground tunnels near Mosul





More From Business Insider


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."

Weiterlesen

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

NOW WATCH: How to move to Canada and become a Canadian citizen





More From Business Insider


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and Israeli ambassador to Ankara Eitan Naeh chat with each other at the presidential Complex in Ankara, on December 5, 2016 (AFP Photo/Adem Altan) (AFP)

Ankara (AFP) - Israel's first ambassador to Turkey since 2010 presented his credentials to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, completing a critical step in the normalisation of relations after a bitter diplomatic rift.

Eitan Naeh was received by Erdogan at the presidential palace in Ankara, handing over his formal credentials and introducing his staff, a video shared on the Turkish president's website showed.

The video showed Erdogan, who has in the past been bitterly critical of Israel, greeting the new envoy warmly and sharing a few words.

Naeh is the country's first envoy since Israeli commandos raided a Gaza-bound ship of activists in 2010, sparking an unprecedented feud between the one-time key allies.

The career diplomat previously worked in Ankara between 1993 and 1997 and was serving as deputy head of mission at the Israeli embassy in London before being chosen for the new role.

In the aftermath of the raid which killed 10 Turkish activists, the two countries pulled their envoys out from the respective capitals as relations fell to an all-time low.

The rift came to an end in June after long-running secret talks in third countries.

Israel paid $20 million (18 million euros) in compensation in September and offered an apology over the raid as well as permission for Turkish aid to reach Gaza.

Last month, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim's foreign policy advisor Kemal Okem was chosen as Ankara's ambassador to Israel.

Okem will start work on December 12, state-run news agency Anadolu said last week, marking the very final step in the diplomatic reconciliation.

On Friday, a Turkish prosecutor called for charges related to the raid to be dropped because of the terms of the deal agreed between Israel and Turkey.

In the agreement ratified by both sides, individual Israeli citizens or those acting on behalf of the Israeli government would not be held liable -- either criminally or financially -- for the raid.

The next hearing in the case is due to be held on Friday, Anadolu said.
Mobile ad tech growth helped Glispa prosper in 2016.

Glispa, the mobile performance marketing and ad tech company, grew rapidly in 2016, as mobile ad spending overtook desktop spending for the first time. During 2016, Glispa added more than 300 advertisers, doubled its employees to 250, and made a major investment in new technology.

Gary Lin, chief executive of Berlin-based Glispa, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the company expects to close the year with record profits. One of the biggest areas of growth is native advertising  where ads seem like a natural part of the content that theyre touting. In the U.S., native ads grew more than 50 percent  in terms of spending  in 2016. Overall, Glispas plan is to expand in both demand-side and supply-side advertising.

Its a heavy year of reinvestment, Lin said. We have great momentum.

Ecommerce firm Market Tech Holdings bought a majority stake in Glispa in 2015 for $77 million. Glispa grew in part through multiple acquisitions, but it also had significant product launches during the year. The company is running mobile advertising campaigns in 187 countries, and its tech and data science investments will help accelerate both the demand and supply sides of the business. That means it helps advertisers reach the right audiences, and it also helps publishers fill their ad space.

In 2016, the company completed three major acquisitions. In March, Glispa bought the SDK mediation company MoneyTap, which was integrated with Glispas own newly launched native monetization platform Ampiri to provide native monetization solutions to publishers. Ampiri is partnered with a number of networks, including Facebook Audience Network, Googles AdMob, Baidu, and Imobi.

Glispa's year-end results for 2016.

Above: Glispas year-end results for 2016.

Image Credit: Glispa

In May, the company also purchased Brazils mobile ad marketing firm Mobils. Then, in September, Glispa bought native programmatic exchange Avocarrot as an in-house supply source for ad mediation.

Story continues

Glispa has built all of its proprietary operational tech with an emphasis on its in-house campaign, analytics, and optimization management tool. The past year saw a huge reinvestment in the companys custom BI-Knowledge System, which supports operational activities across all business units.

In August, Glispa launched Voltu, a custom-built social influencer network, to connect global advertisers with the rising social influencers who promote apps on a performance basis.

Glispa also added a new team of eight senior data science experts, who analyze the more than 1.5 billion user profiles in the Glispa Audience Platform, which fuels mobile solutions with relevant persona data.

Glispa continues to focus and invest in core markets, including the U.S., Europe, China, India, Brazil, South Korea, and Indonesia. In June, Glispa opened a new office in Southeast Asia to add a local presence to its local expertise in high-growth, high-potential Indonesia, where the company has been active since 2013.

Lin said the company has about 190 people in Berlin, but it has added people in other regions, too. He said Glispa is strengthening both its sales and services divisions, as well as adding to remote locations. By the end of 2016, Glispa expects to have about 280 employees.

As for 2017, Lin said, We are hoping to release a lot of new products on the supply side over the coming quarters.

Facebook and Google are Glispas prime competition.

A lot of the competition has disappeared, Lin said. We are mindful of Facebook and Google, but there is very little competition below them. We see a wide-open opportunity.
NEW YORK, Dec. 05, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TAP Portugal was honored by Global Traveler magazine with the awards for "Best Airline in Europe," for the sixth consecutive year, and "Best New Route Launch (Boston-Lisbon)," awarded in the magazines 13th edition of the GT Tested Reader Survey. The magazines December edition shares the results of a survey of 22,000 readers invited to select the best airlines, hotels, loyalty programs and other travel-related products in more than 80 categories.



Each is rated in different categories by best customer experience. Readers of Global Traveler are primarily frequent flyers, who travel, on average, 13 international roundtrips and 13 US domestic trips each year.

"For TAP, being among the best in a selection that is made by frequent flyers is a big reason for satisfaction. It gives us motivation to continue betting on a quality service, which offers more and more reasons to earn the preference of our passengers," said Fernando Pinto, CEO of TAP.

The Global Traveler awards will be presented at a ceremony in Los Angeles on December 13. More information is available on the Global Traveler website: http://www.globaltravelerusa.com/global-traveler-announces-13th-annual-gt-tested-reader-survey-awards/.

About TAP Portugal

TAP is Portugals leading airline, and member of Star Alliance, the global airline alliance to offer customers worldwide reach, since 2005. In operation since 1945, TAP celebrated 70 years on March 14, 2015, and completed its privatization process in 2015, with the Atlantic Gateway Group now as new private shareholders of its share capital. TAP hub in Lisbon is a key European gateway at the crossroads of Africa, North, Central and South America, where TAP stands out as the international leading carrier in operation to Brazil. During the current IATA Summer period, the companys network will comprise 76 destinations in 29 countries worldwide. TAP currently operates about 2,500 weekly flights in average on a modern fleet of 61 Airbus aircraft and 17 aircraft operating in TAP Express livery, TAP regional branded product, adding up to a 78 aircraft fleet. As of June 2016, the company took delivery of two additional A330s, thus increasing its fleet to 80 aircraft in the whole. Within the vast restructure program currently going across the company as the outcome of its privatization process, TAP has announced its Network restructure, its medium and long haul fleet renewal program as of 2017 and the retrofit of the fleet currently in operation as well as the launch of the new branded product TAP Express, which replaces PGA and operates a new fleet of 8 ATR 72 and 9 Embraer 190. In the pursuit of its customer focused policy, TAP continuously invests to deliver safe, reliable and upgraded products & services, tailored to meet customers expectations. Retaining the Portuguese character of the Companys brand and quality service as the basic concept has been the main driver of TAP strategy in most recent years. Recognized and awarded as the Europes Leading Airline to Africa as well as Europes Leading Airline to South America by the World Travel Awards in 2015 and 2014, the company was also awarded as the WTA Worlds Leading Airline to Africa in 2011 and 2012 and the WTA Worlds Leading Airline to South America in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Voted Best Airline in Europe in 2011, 2012, 2013 and again in 2015 by the Global Traveler, USA, the company was also honored by UNESCO and by the International Union of Geological Sciences with the IYPE Planet Earth Award 2010, in the category of Most Innovative Sustainable Product. TAP was also voted Best Airline by Conde Nast Traveller Magazine in 2010, Best Portuguese Tourism Company by the specialized magazine Marketeer, in 2011 and also the airline with Best Reputation by the Reputation Institute in 2014, while its Inflight Magazine UP was voted Best European Inflight Magazine by the WTA awards in 2015 .

For further information, please go to www.flytap.com.
CHICAGO, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly will join Aeris employees today to cut a ceremonial ribbon at the companys new Chicago office at 435 N. LaSalle Street in River North.

Aeris, a pioneer and leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, moved more than 40 employees into a 18,132-square-foot office space in Sept. 2016. The companys global headquarters is in Santa Clara, California.

The Aeris office in Chicago houses portions of the companys engineering, product management, sales, marketing, operations and customer support, finance and talent acquisition functions, as well as an innovation center showcasing the IoT products and services depended on by the companys customers worldwide.

Originally constructed in 1906, historic 435 N. LaSalle Street is a 50,000-square-foot, five-story loft office building that was purchased in 2015 by an investment team including Chicago-based developer Elmdale Partners. The investment team is currently underway on a full redevelopment of the property that coincides with the build-out of Aeris offices on the 3rd and 4th floors.

Unconnected products to connected services

Based on more than a decade of experience managing millions of devices and coupled with more than 50 patents, the Aeris IoT Solutions platform sets a new bar in terms of cost-efficiency, scalability and reliability. Hundreds of enterprises, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers rely on Aeris technology every day to enable their mission-critical IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) programs.

The Aeris IoT Solutions platform is delivered as platform-as-a-service (PaaS) out of multiple data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific regions, providing a complete set of capabilities from connectivity services, data management, analytics, application enablement and vertical platform solutions.

CLICK TO TWEET: Aeris (@AerisM2M), @RahmEmanuel, @AldReilly to cut ribbon today on new Aeris #IoT hub in #Chicago #M2M #AerisM2M http://www.aeris.com/news/

Supporting Quotes

Governor Bruce Rauner, State of Illinois

A strong tech community and an educated, innovative workforce have made Illinois a center for the emerging IoT technologies and services, and the companies that use them. I am glad to welcome Aeris to Illinois, and to be a partner in their growth here.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City of Chicago

Chicago is home to an expanding ecosystem of tech talent, research and development that make us not just a great place to do business, but an ideal place for the kind of innovation and collaboration that help great companies like Aeris thrive. I look forward to watching Aeris grow and succeed in Chicago for years to come.

Brendan Reilly, Alderman of 42nd Ward, City of Chicago

Aeris is a wonderful addition to the 42nd Ward of Chicago. We welcome Aeris with open arms and look forward to working with Marc Jones and his team. Aeris offers Chicagoans a collegial working environment in our growing technology community of River North.

Marc Jones, Chairman and CEO, Aeris

Chicagos flourishing tech community made it a logical choice for Aeris to launch our U.S. expansion here. The property we now occupy is in the heart of the River North market and increases our visibility in Chicagos tech epicenter. We thank Governor Rauner and the state of Illinois, Mayor Emanuel and the city of Chicago and Alderman Brendan Reilly of the 42nd ward for their partnership and continued support.

Digital Assets

Invitation

Journalists, bloggers and industry analysts are invited to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10:30 a.m. today, Dec. 6, at the Aeris office, 435 N. LaSalle St., Suite 400, in Chicago.

Video and photo opportunities are available. 1:1 interviews with Aeris executives may be arranged.

Contact Kevin Petschow at 312.985.9182 to RSVP and arrange your 1:1 interview.

Supporting Resources

About Aeris

Aeris is a pioneer and leader in the market of the Internet of Things  as an operator of end-to-end IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) services and as a technology provider enabling other operators to build profitable IoT businesses. Among our customers are the most demanding users of IoT services today, including Hyundai, Acura, Rand McNally, Leica, and Sprint. Through our technology platform and dedicated IoT and M2M services, we strive to fundamentally improve their businesses  by dramatically reducing costs, improving operational efficiency, reducing time-to-market, and enabling new revenue streams.
NEW YORK, Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Korean-American snowboarding champion Chloe Kim continues to make history beyond being the first female to score a perfect 100 at the 2016 U.S. Grand Prix. Today LANEIGE, one of the worlds K-Beauty leaders, is proud to announce Chloe Kim as its first-ever North American brand ambassador as she exemplifies the spirit and power of K-Beauty and feeling confident in your own skin. Together, LANEIGE and Chloe announce Your Personal 100, a social media campaign designed to inspire everyone to look, feel and do their personal best.



A video accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/34c06ca9-d990-4ec5-a8f9-5e2de325027b

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3293f773-f8b9-4a7c-b7b1-0e1c08d3b9da and http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dd69ef30-3fe4-406e-886f-32943ea5704d.



LANEIGE is honored to name Chloe Kim as our first-ever North American brand ambassador because she embodies the spirit and power of K-Beauty and the beauty of feeling confident in your own skin, said Bradley Horowitz, CEO, AmorePacific North America. Chloe has the perfect formula for inspiring women around the world. We admire her determination to keep striving to reach new heights and we are thrilled that our brand will accompany her on her journey.

Your Personal 100 campaign will follow Chloe Kim on her journey to the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. As part of the campaign, Chloe will inspire and engage fans through social media posts by sharing her Personal 100 stories and LANEIGE K-Beauty secrets using #YourPersonal100.

Chloe has changed the face of snowboarding and always puts her best face forward thanks to her family, friends and a skincare routine that is based on tradition and nourished by K-Beauty products. For Chloe and her mom, Boran, using LANEIGE is a tradition that is passed on with pride and love from one generation to the next. Chloe knows the importance of staying hydrated and protected from the sun and other elements when she is on the slopes and learned from her mom that LANEIGE can help keep her skin healthy and glowing so she can concentrate on bringing home the gold.

My skin has seen some extreme weather and Im so glad I have LANEIGE to keep it looking and feeling awesome, said Kim. First thing in the morning I use my LANEIGE cleanser, toner, emulsion, Water Bank Serum and Gel Cream, and before bed I relax and recharge with my LANEIGE Water Sleeping Mask. Its like my treat to me!

About Chloe

Chloe was most recently named by TIME magazine as one of The 30 Most Influential Teens of 2016 and is a favorite to compete in Korea at the 2018 Olympic Games. Her first X Games medal came at the young age of 13 (silver) and she is now the only athlete in X Games history to earn three medals before the age of 16; back-to-back X Games gold in 2016 and 2015 and silver as a rookie in the X Games Aspen 2014 SuperPipe. The partnership was negotiated by Chloes agents at CAA Sports, led by Lowell Taub.

About LANEIGE

LANEIGE is committed to helping you achieve younger, more radiant skin through the power of water. After 20 years of research, only LANEIGE Laboratories have unleashed scientifically engineered, skin-perfecting mineral water clinically proven to hydrate, protect and revitalize individual skin types. The result is 24-hour hydration and protection against sun, pollution and stress. Through its mastery of the science of water, LANEIGE brings skincare to a new level of excellence.

For more information about the Your Personal 100 campaign or for interview requests, please contact:

Dawn Maniglia

(917) 862-5444

d.maniglia@vegarun.com

You can download video in HD from the following location: http://www.dssimon.com/MM/Laneige/
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Dec. 06, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mueller Co., a leading manufacturer of gas distribution products, has introduced a line stopping solution designed specifically for polyethylene (PE) pipes distributing natural gas.

The Shur Stop PE Line Stopping System incorporates Mueller Co.s well-known NO-BLO technology providing leak-free performance. It increases the safety of utility workers by giving them complete control of natural gas flow during stop off. The Shur Stop PE system is a safe alternative to pipeline squeezing techniques historically used by the natural gas industry.

After removing a small coupon of the polyethylene pipe, the mechanical stopper is inserted into the pipe and expanded to safely shut off natural gas flow so pipe service operations can occur.

The Shur Stop PE system addresses the dangers inherent in working with 'hot' polyethylene gas pipelines, by giving utility workers more control over the stopping process and reducing the chance for leaks, said Nick Peyton, vice president of marketing for Mueller Co. The same safety and quality features built into our No-Blo steel stopping systems are delivered with the Shur Stop PE system.

The lightweight system includes a number of components constructed with high-strength aluminum alloys, making the system easier to handle and operate. It also has a stopper that is mechanically expanded into the natural gas pipe, giving the operator better control of the stopping performance.

The Shur Stop PE system is designed to have the versatility to meet the requirements of specific systems, while eliminating potential pipeline stresses commonly caused by other polyethylene pipe flow control methods for natural gas pipelines.

Features of the Shur Stop PE system include:

125 PSI maximum working pressure to meet demands of modern natural gas PE systems



Large machine-to-machine by-pass connections



Electrofusion fittings compatible with industry standard universal processors



Unique mechanical stopper provides NO-BLO performance



Eliminates potential damage from natural gas pipeline squeezing operations



About Mueller Co.

Since 1857, the Mueller name has become known for innovative water distribution products of superior quality, many of which have become industry standards. This leadership position has resulted in our valves or hydrants being specified in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. We also provide distribution products for the natural gas industry. Our products enable utilities to regulate the flow of water and gas as they are transmitted from source to customer. Mueller Co. is a subsidiary of Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE:MWA). For more information about Mueller Co., visit www.muellercompany.com.

About Mueller Water Products



Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE:MWA) is a leading manufacturer and marketer of products and services used in the transmission, distribution and measurement of water in North America. Our broad product and service portfolio includes engineered valves, fire hydrants, metering products and systems, leak detection and pipe condition assessment. We help municipalities increase operational efficiencies, improve customer service and prioritize capital spending, demonstrating why Mueller Water Products is Where Intelligence Meets Infrastructure. The piping component systems produced by Anvil help build connections that last in commercial, industrial, mechanical, fire protection and oil & gas applications. Visit us at www.muellerwaterproducts.com.
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URBANA -- The Women Changing the Face of Agriculture (WCFA) conference will be held at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on March 10. Registration will open Dec. 15. Registration will remain open until maximum capacity is reached. Interested women are encouraged to register early to ensure a spot.

Young women in high school and college interested in agricultural careers are encouraged to attend. Attendees may interact with women agricultural professionals, learn more about careers in the agricultural industry, and network with women from across the country.

Registration is $15 per individual. Group registration is available for collegiate groups, FFA chapters, and 4-H clubs. Visit womenchangingthefaceofagriculture.com for more information on how to register. Women Changing the Face of Agriculture is a project of Illinois Agri-Women.
MATTOON -- World-renowned human genetics educator Sam Rhine will host a Genetics Update Conference at Lake Land College, Friday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Luther Student Center Theater.

The conference, sponsored by the Lake Land College Math and Science Division, will be open to students, teachers, parents and the community. Many schools bring their AP and honors biology students to the conference. There is a $20 registration fee per person, but the cost is free to Lake Land College students.

Described by experts in the human genetics field as the most effective human genetics educator in America today, Rhine is the director of the Genetics Education Center near Indianapolis. He received the Honorary Membership Award by the National Association of Biology Teachers. The award is recognized as the highest honor bestowed on members of the profession and is awarded annually.

Topics addressed will include human embryology, stem cell biology and Genome editing with special emphasis on CRISPR/Cas-9 technology. Rhine will also address embryonic stem cells vs. adult stem cells and how adult stem cells from bone marrow, pancreas, retina and adipose tissue are being used in generating new tissue.

Rhine has made more than 8,500 presentations to more than 3.75 million teenagers in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Rhine is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Indiana in Bloomington in the Department of Applied Health Science where he teaches a summer class on Causes and Prevention of Birth Defects. He also teaches summer classes at the University of St. Thomas in Houston and the University of Texas Pan AM campus in Edinburg, Texas. He has lectured in London, Prague, Montreal, and Tokyo and taught human genetics in St. Petersburgh States in St. Petersburgh, Russia.

Registration will be accepted through the morning of the conference. Attendees are not required to stay for the entire presentation. For more information or to register, call 800-727-2315 or visit www.samrhine.com.
MATTOON -- Navy veteran Carl Browning's children accompanied him to many meetings of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association over the decades and joined the Sons & Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors.

"We always did whatever it took to support him and show our appreciation," said Carlissa Puckett of Mattoon, adding that she and her two siblings are very proud of their father's service in World War II.

Today, the siblings plan to continue honoring the memory of Browning, who died on April 12, 2012 at age 91, by attending the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This Dec. 7, 1941 attack by Japanese forces led to the United States' entry into World War II.

The trip to the Pearl Harbor site will be the first for Puckett and her brother Steve Browning of Montrose and the second for their sister, Charlotta Jones of Mattoon. Puckett said the only time her father returned to Pearl Harbor was for the 25th commemoration in 1966, noting that he disliked flying.

Nevertheless, Puckett said her father, who lived in Mattoon and worked as a carpenter, was active in the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association from the inception of this group in 1958. Browning served as a chapter president and state chairman during his time with the association.

Puckett said her father appreciated the camaraderie of his fellow Pearl Harbor survivors.

"He was a very quiet man, never wanting any recognition for anything, but he was always so active in that organization," Puckett said. "They were always a close knit group of folks."

Puckett said her father attended countless chapter, state and national meetings with the survivors association, often hauling her organ along so she could play dinner music for the veterans and their families. She said the wives and the children also built close friendships during these meetings.

Her father talked with fellow survivors about his memories of Pearl Harbor but shared few of these recollections with his family over the years, Puckett said. She added that her father shared some stories later in life with his family, and they also learned more by researching his service history.

Browning was serving as a gunner's mate aboard the destroyer USS Phelps in Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor when the attack occurred. Puckett said her father manned his gun and was wounded in the attack, during which the Phelps is credited with shooting down an enemy plane.

Puckett said her father talked some about how crazy it was that day with "people running around, not realizing what was happening, just trying to defend their ships."

Steve Browning said the Phelps, with his father on board, was able to take part in offensive operations against the Japanese fleet in the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack.

The Phelps subsequently took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea, during which it helped sink the damaged USS Lexington to keep this aircraft carrier from being captured, and in the Battle of Midway.

Some of the Phelps' other campaigns during Browning's service included Guadalcanal, Makin Atoll, Marshall Island, Palua Islands, Kiska and Attu in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, and Saipan.

Steve Browning, a veteran of the Navy Seabees construction forces, noted that his father served on the Phelps with a Lt. j.g. Elmo Zumwalt, who would eventually become chief of naval operations.

Puckett said their father's military service also include helping sail a couple of old destroyers across the Atlantic to Great Britain as part of the Lend-Lease program before the U.S. entered World War II. She said her father then traveled through the Panama Canal on his way to the Pacific and Pearl Harbor.

"He was all over the place," Puckett said.
MATTOON -- Tonight, the City Council will consider a proposed annual levy that will seek up to $4.66 million in property tax revenue, including revenue from new construction projects.

However, Finance Director Beth Wright said the final figure collected by the levy will likely be approximately $4.2 million after county property value assessments are completed. She estimated that the city's share of the tax bill for homeowners will only increase by 1.6-1.7 percent under this levy.

Wright said the levy will seek the full amount of revenue from new construction projects that went onto the tax rolls in 2016 in the city. She said the restrictions of the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law in Coles County do not go into effect for new construction projects during their first year.

PTELL, otherwise, limits the tax revenue increases of local governments to 5 percent or the latest rate of the consumer price index, whichever is less.

City Administrator Kyle Gill said the levy will cover part of the construction of Advance Auto Parts along Lake Land Boulevard, the expansion of the Lambo's BP service station along east Illinois Route 16, the construction of new homes and duplexes, and other projects that are still being identified.

The council meeting at 6:30 tonight in City Hall, 208 N. 19th St., is scheduled to begin with a public hearing on the levy.

Wright said a hearing is required whenever a proposed levy is more than 5 percent larger than the amount of revenue collected by the previous levy. She said the $4.66 million sought by the proposed levy is 12.88 percent larger than the $4.13 million brought in by the previous levy.

The levy increase is needed, in large part, to help the city cover the rising long-term costs of meeting its fire and police pension payment obligations, Wright said.

Other actions that the council is scheduled to take include:

Selling Lot 48 and Lot 58, 3015 East Lake Road, in Lake Paradise Subdivision for $8,500 to Kent and Lee Coffman, owners of a home on leased premises on this property.

Approving a home occupation application and authorizing a permit for a special use to enable Lorrie Bierman to offer single-patient counseling services at 6559 North Country Club Road.

Approving a $51,304 change order for foundation design changes needed to handle the weight of the pre-engineered metal building that will be erected along East DeWitt Avenue as the Mattoon Public Works Department's new building. Grunloh Building, Inc. is handling this construction project.
Googles Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones were the first devices to ship with Android 7.1 software. But now Google has released the first stable builds of Android 7.1 for a bunch of recent Nexus and Pixel products.

New Android 7.1.1 factory images, OTA update images, are available for the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player, and Pixel C. Theres also a December update for the Pixel and Pixel XL, and Verizon and other carriers are rolling out over-the-air updates for those devices as well.

While todays update is a pretty modest bump for Pixel phones, it brings a few key new features to older devices, including:

Long-press some app icons to bring up shortcuts for specific options (like home or work shortcuts for Maps).

Keyboard apps can now include stickers, animated gifs, and other images.

Circular icons are supported for a Pixel-like home screen.

Moves settings puts gestures in one place, allowing you to enable features like switching between front and rear cameras by double-twisting your wrist.

Ahead of todays launch, Google had offered preview builds of Android 7.1 for some devices to folks who signed up for the Android beta program. But now theyll begin rolling out more widely. If youre a beta tester and want to leave the beta program, make sure to backup your data first, since leaving the program will prompt Google to send you an over-the-air update to the latest stable version of Android and installing it will wipe your device.

One recent Nexus device that doesnt yet have an update? The Nexus 6 smartphone from 2014. Google did release a software update for that phone, but its just a new version of Android 7.0.

Google had indicated that the Nexus 6 would receive an Android 7.1 updated eventually, but it looks like today isnt the day for that. Update: Looks like a Nexus 6 update is still on the way, as is one for the General mobile 4G Android One smartphone.

Nexus and Pixel devices are the first to get the update, but this is also the first build of Android 7.1.1 that will make its way to phones, tablets, and other devices from other companies.
Samsung and Apple have been fighting court battles since 2011 over phones that neither company actually sells anymore. Apple claimed that Samsung copied some of its iPhone designs for the physical appearance and software for early versions of Samsungs Galaxy line of Android phones. And a jury did find in 2012 that Samsung infringed on Apples patents, but the case made its way all the way to the US Supreme Court as Samsung challenged the way the penalties were calculated.

As Reuters summarizes, in 2012 Samsung was ordered to pay Apple $930 million. But an appeals court in 2015 reduced that amount to $548 million, which Samsung said was still too much, given the circumstances.

It turns out the Supreme Court agrees with Samsung (pdf link).

At question was the issue of whether an article of manufacture, as described in patent law means a finished product, or just a component. Samsung argued that while it was found guilty of violating Apple design patents, they only covered some components of the companys complex smartphones and so rather than paying damages based on the total price of a smartphone, the damages should be calculated based solely on the cost of the infringing components.

While Samsung did pay $548 million to Apple last year, the company wants to get $399 million back. And Samsung could probably use a bit of extra cash right now.

In ruling for Samsung, the Supreme Court hasnt actually said how much money Apple should refund Samsung. Instead, the justices, in a unanimous decision, simply agreed that article of manufacture applies to components and not just finished products and ordered the case to be sent back to a lower court to figure out damages.

So whats the likely impact of all this on future patent disputes? Damages are likely to be lower, which could reduce incentive for some patent rights holders to pursue legal action.

Then again, even if Samsung gets back $399 million, the company will still have paid Apple $149 million in damages. And thats not even mentioning the amount of money the company had to spend to defend itself in court. So if youre thinking of releasing a product that infringes on a few patents, youd still better have very deep pockets.
WSJ: UAE tried to convince Saudi Arabia not to cut oil production

Cavusoglu: Greece must stop arming the demilitarized islands in the Aegean Sea

Moody's downgrades outlook for banks in Germany, Italy, and 4 other countries to negative

About 40 international companies to announce their relocation to UAE by end of year

Israeli Prime Minister cancels participation in climate summit in Egypt

Earthquake strikes in Antalya

Polish manufacturing output falls amid economic uncertainty

IEF: Oil price to exceed $100 due to EU sanctions against Russia

Iranian MFA denies information about country's planned attack on Saudi Arabia

Lebanon: U.S. guarantees will protect maritime border agreement with Israel if Netanyahu wins

Belarusian MFA responds to Armenia after reaction to statements of Alexander Lukashenko

Azerbaijani propaganda machine launches anti-Iranian rumors in social networks

Lavrov and Abdollahian discuss situation in Persian Gulf zone and South Caucasus

Erdogan and Aliyev discuss results of Sochi meeting of Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders

Goldman Sachs predicts that natural gas prices in Europe will fall by about 30%

White House alleges Iran's plans to supply Russia with surface-to-surface missiles

Iran to send delegation to Vienna to strengthen relations with IAEA

Iranian Foreign Minister to discuss state of nuclear deal negotiations with Borrell

Putin: Russia is ready to supply grain to the poorest countries even without participation in the deal

First list of Armenian servicemen killed as result of Azerbaijan's September aggression is published

Pentagon to supply Vampire anti-drone system to AFU

Xi Jinping confirms China's readiness to invest in Pakistan

Kuzmina: I don't agree that Armenia's economy will be swept away if the borders with Turkey are opened

Poland to build wall on border with Kaliningrad

Garo Paylan proposes opening Armenian-Turkish border

Eduard Solovyov: Russia stated extreme undesirability of close contacts between Baku and NATO countries

Zelenskyy: Threat of use of nuclear weapons by Russia exists and it is not related to non-compliance with ultimatums

IRNA: Azerbaijani State Security Service reacted nervously to Pashinyan's visit to Tehran

FLYONE ARMENIA to start operating flights on the route Yerevan - Beirut Yerevan

Moscow to host meeting of Secretaries of CIS Security Councils

Armenian MFA considers it inappropriate to comment on Lukashenko's rambling statements

Dollar rises, euro falls in Armenia

Makredonov: The Sochi summit showed that it is it's too early to write Russia off

Biden's threat to impose profit tax on oil companies is more of boast than threat

Vadim Mukhanov: Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh are one of main points of negotiations

Russia analyst describes Karabakh Armenians fate if Western version of peace treaty is signed

Armenia MFA: Lukashenko statement is disconnected from reality

Russia MFA spox comments on Zangezur corridor prospects

Voytolovsky: Both sides will have weighty reasons to extend Russia peacekeepers mission in Karabakh

Armenia finance minister: Expenditure for PM's office will be reduced next year

Finance minister: Expenses for needs of parliament staff, Armenia President will increase considerably in 2023

Zakharova on meeting of Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs in Sochi

Armenian President congratulates Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

Azerbaijani special forces conduct exercises on border with Iran

Armenia defense minister meets with head of EU monitoring mission

Nikol Pashinyan: It is necessary to continue the work to reduce cash turnover

Russia resumes its participation in grain deal

UK shortage of F-35 fighter pilots

Premier: Ministry of Internal Affairs, Foreign Intelligence Service will be established in Armenia in 2023

Shoigu: The NATO grouping near Russia's borders has grown 2.5 times since February

New Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad hopes to continue talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran

Security Council chief receives head of EU monitoring capacity mission to Armenia

Pashinyan: Armenia-Azerbaijan borders existence was recorded both in Sochi and Prague

Second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan to take part in rally on November 5

Canada to welcome 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025

Armenia PM: Communication difficulties, challenges in relations with Turkey have been overcome

Pashinyan: Armenian side suggests extending mandate of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh

MFA: Armenia has no misunderstandings with Iran

Russia position on Karabakh status corresponds to Armenia government approach, PM says

Pashinyan: Armenia attaches great importance to further development, deepening of relations with Brazil

Premier: Armenia defense spending will increase by 113% in 2023 compared to 2018

Deputy PM Grigoryan to attend Armenia-Azerbaijan border delimitation, security commissions 3rd meeting

Pashinyan: Armenia has set new record for registered jobs

Israir Airlines launches flights between Tel Aviv, Yerevan

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Blinken goes to Germany to meet with G-7 colleagues

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U.S. military conducts field weapons inspections in Ukraine

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Armenian President and ICRC representatives discuss Armenian captives held in Azerbaijan

Aliyev's aide visits Nakhchivan

Berlin urges Serbia to choose between EU and Russia

Armenian Deputy Prime Minister and USAID representatives discuss bilateral cooperation

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Macron promises Ukraine to survive winter and strengthen air defense

The Collins British Dictionary chooses main word of 2022

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YEREVAN.  The first buckwheat production plant will open in Armenia.

European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (ENPARD)-Armenia Project Manager Sergey Matevosyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am that this plant will launch Tuesday in Tsovagyugh village, in Gegharkunik Province.

Matevosyan noted that, within the framework of this project, they not only helped the villagers in building this plant, but also in sowing buckwheat and following its cultivation because buckwheat has not been grown in Armenia ever since Soviet times.

Russian specialists helped in sowing and field work, whereas Ukrainian specialistsin the plant equipment.

Several hundred farmers from five provinces had expressed a wish to participate in this project, added the ENPARD representative.

This plant will serve farmers in Kotayk and Gegharkunik Provinces.

Another plant is ready for operation in Bavra rural community in Shirak Province. It will process buckwheat grown by farmers in Shirak, Lori, and Aragatsotn Provinces.
YEREVAN.  Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyevs apprehension comes from the fact that the international community more frequently calls for the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).

Vice President of the National Assembly of Armenia, Eduard Sharmazanov, on Tuesday told the aforementioned to reporters at Parliament. In his words, this is the very reason for Aliyevs most recent aggressive statements.

Sharmazanov noted that, against this backdrop, what remains is to yet again advise the Azerbaijani side to read the works of ancient authors.

But, with the stubbornness of the known animal, they dont do this, added the deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament. As a travel lover, what remains is to remind them that these works are in Rome.

And as a car lover, it remains to remind [them] that Audi is nine years older than Azerbaijan while BMWby two years.
YEREVAN.  The 2017 budget shall be realistic and consistent with macroeconomic developments, Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan stated at Tuesdays National Assembly debates on the bill of the 2017 State Budget of Armenia.

But he noted that these debates need to consider economic developments, too.

The precept of macroeconomic stability is important, added the minister. We need to go with anti-budget consolidation through debt stabilization.

In Aramyans words, expenditures need to be conservative in the coming year, so that the debt would be manageable for the future, and not go beyond the dangerous domain.

The precept for tax revenue collection is also important, stressed the minister.

As per Vardan Aramyan, the overall budget has maintained its previous indicators.
YEREVAN. - President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on Tuesday convened a consultation to discuss the development prospects for the Armenian state service system.

The consultation was attended by Vice Prime Minister of Armenia, Minister of International Economic Integration and Reforms, Vache Gabrielyan, Minister - Chief of Armenian Government Staff Davit Harutyunyan, Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan, Chairman of Armenian Civil Service Council Manvel Badalyan, President of Ethics Commission of High-Ranking Officials Siranuysh Sahakyan and other relevant officials of the President's administration.

At the outset of the discussion, the President referred to the legal process of state service formation launched with the adoption of the Law on ''Civil Service,'' stressing that it later served as a basis for adopting about two dozens of laws on other services, whose application allowed to achieve significant success in establishing separate types of state services.

According to the President, as an independent agency, the Civil Service Council of Armenia has played a significant role in ensuring the regular and efficient activity of a number of authorities during these years. In his words, at the initial stage of forming this system, the choice of the centralized model was justified but the political developments in line with the modern demands require new approaches, this raising a need for developing new solutions. ''The improvement of the state service system has always been in the center of our attention and it continues to remain one of the priority issues of the state. I think it is high time we tried to develop this system as well through applying a new model,'' Sargsyan stressed.

Vice Prime Minister of Armenia, Minister of International Economic Integration and Reforms, Vache Gabrielyan presented the need for reforms in the state service system, the results of research made in that direction, the pros and cons of the models developed on their basis, as well as the most efficient model according to the Government. In Gabrielyan's words, the latter supposes a change in the status of the Civil Service Council, which will apparently lead to reconsidering the volume of the Council's powers.

In the framework of the consultation, Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan reported on the currently drawn out package of legislative changes, which should set up a common anti-corruption body. According to Hovhannisyan, the latter will be formed on the basis of the Ethics Commission of High-Ranking Officials, which will lead to expanding the Committee's authorities.

As a result of the discussion, the President presented his position on the aforementioned issues and gave relevant instructions. Noting that the proposed preferable model has certain privileges, the President said that it can be considered as a basis for the further work. However, according to him, to organize this process more efficiently and discuss all the details of the issue more thoroughly it is necessary to form a working group, involving in it all the institutions concerned and hearing their position and observations.

At the same time, Sargsyan attached importance to considering the peculiarities of the new constitutional regulations when discussing such large-scale reforms, as well as the objectives and issues proceeding from them. He also considered it necessary to ensure the precise separation of functions of the Government and independent authorities, as well as possibilities of their efficient cooperation.
The 14th session of the Armenian-Iranian Intergovernmental Commission took place in Iran on December 4-5. It was attended by the Armenian delegation led by Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia, Ashot Manukyan. The delegation also included officials and specialists representing different areas of economy.

The session was presided by the Armenian co-chair, Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia, Ashot Manukyan, and Iranian co-chair, Minister of Energy of Iran, Hamid Chitchian.

The agenda of the intergovernmental session included a wide scope of issues related to the relations of two countries, specifically energy, infrastructure, transportation, nature preservation, health, agriculture, bank and insurance system, as well as education, trade, regional cooperation and various other areas.

Considering the high level of relations between the two countries and their accumulated experience, the sides attached importance to the need to expand the regional cooperation. It was recorded that a favorable environment has been created for this due to Armenias membership to the EAEU and arrangements made round Irans Nuclear Program.

To expand the turnover of goods between the two countries, the sides considered appropriate to cooperatee in the field of certification and standardization. Apart from this, the possibilities of speeding up the construction of the second Iran-Armenia high-voltage power transmission line and cooperating in the field of renewable, specifically wind energy were also discussed.

The Iranian side showed great interest and readiness to cooperate in establishing free trade zone on the Armenian-Iranian border, as well as take part in its further activity. The importance of Iranian companies operation in the free trade zone and the possibility of their entering the EAEU market was underscored.

By the end of the meeting, a Memorandum of Understanding of the 14th joint sesison of the Armenian-Iranain Intergovernmental Commission was signed.

In the framework of the session, Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia, Ashot Manukyan, had meetings with First Vice President of Iran, Eshaq Jahangiri, Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian and Iranian Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade, Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh. A wide scope of issues of mutual interest were discussed at the aforementioned meetings.
YEREVAN. - The talks on signing an agreement between Armenia and EU are constructive, but certain issues still remain open.

Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Piotr Switalski, told the aforementioned to Armenian News  NEWS.am.

In his words, the next round of talks will be held in Brussels on December 9. Switalski also added that they held a good round of talks, great progress being recorded.

He said he will be able to say where the talks have reached in a month. The Ambassador also noted that they are very optimistic about the results of the future talks.

Asked when exactly the new Armenia-EU agreement will be signed, Switalski noted that he would prefer talking about this after the next round of talks. He recalled that FM Nalbandian stated that two more rounds might be needed, but based on the talks the Ambassador assured that many elements of the future agreement have already been agreed.

Nevertheless, according to him, certain issues still remain open and thus additional efforts may be needed.

Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Garen Nazarian stated that it may be possible to complete the talks on signing Armenia-EU agreement in the first quarter of next year.
Donald Trump's deal with Carrier was a hit with voters, despite the red flags it raises.

A Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday shows the agreement the president-elect struck with United Technologies' (UTX) Carrier last week to keep about 1,000 jobs in Indiana played well with the American electorate. Six out of 10 voters surveyed said Trump's intervention to keep the heating and air conditioning systems maker from shipping hundreds of jobs in Mexico made them view him in a more positive light, even as a growing chorus voices alarm about the real estate magnate's tactics toward governing business.

"The Carrier announcement was big for Trump," Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult cofounder and chief research officer, told Politico. "Rarely do we see numbers that high when looking at how specific messages and events shape public opinion."

The Carrier deal helped Trump across party lines. Four in 10 Democrats say they view him four favorably and 54% of independents. Even about a third of Hillary Clinton voters said it improved his standing.

Moreover, most voters say the tactics Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the current governor of Indiana, employed were appropriate. More than half of respondents said they believe it is acceptable for the pair to directly negotiate private business, offer tax breaks, incentives or government contracts to keep jobs in the United States, and negotiate with individual companies on a case-by-case basis.

The online survey polled 1,401 registered voters on December 1 and December 2 and has a margin of error of three percentage points.

Not everyone is so comfortable with the strategies Trump employed in negotiating the Carrier deal and what they may mean for governance after his inauguration.

Some have pointed out that while saving 1,000 jobs in the state of Indiana is a good thing for those workers, it is quantitatively insignificant when considering there are 150 million jobs in America, including 12 million to 13 million in manufacturing.

Moreover, the president engaging in public stunts and behind-the-scenes deals with private companies sets an alarming precedent and could encourage others to adopt similar tactics. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last week maligned the deal as "crony capitalism," and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders declared that United Technologies "took Trump hostage and won."

While speaking at Carrier's Indianapolis factory in celebration of the deal on Thursday, Trump suggested he had forgotten about his pledge to keep it from moving jobs to Mexico, even though he invoked Carrier as a major talking point throughout his presidential campaign.

"I never thought I made that promise. Not with Carrier. I made it for everybody else. I didn't make it really for Carrier," he said.

As the Washington Post points out, he did make such a promise. "We're not going to let Carrier leave," he said in April. "Because say what you want, Indiana. I've been talking about Carrier now for four months, right?"

Trump's apparent campaign-pledge amnesia on Carrier and his actions since his election indicating he may not be so keen to keep his campaign promises have an increasing number of observers worried.

"Was it a bait and switch?" asked Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University in a recent CNN op-ed.

While Trump has painted himself as a sort of post-ideological policy renegade, a number of his maneuvers since November 8 signal a clear shift to the right. He has announced Steve Bannon, former Breitbart News chairman and alt-right champion, as his senior adviser and plans to nominate Senator Jeff Sessions, who takes a hard line on immigration and voting rights, as Attorney General.

He also plans to nominate Representative Tom Price, an ardent Obamacare opponent, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, despite promises to maintain parts of the healthcare law that would be structurally impossible to hold onto under repeal. And, he has pulled a number of former Goldman Sachs executives into his realm, including Bannon, his Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin and adviser Anthony Scaramucci, despite railing against his opponents' ties to the bank on the campaign trail. Last week, he met with Goldman COO Gary Cohn.

"For all the talk about divisions within the GOP and Trump's unorthodox policy position, this is really looking like a very traditional Republican administration, and one that will veer to the right, not the center, on domestic and foreign policy," wrote Zelizer.

"The white working class is about to be betrayed," wrote Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and economist, in an op-ed on Friday, pointing to the president-elect's promises on healthcare coverage and manufacturing jobs it will be difficult for him to keep once in the Oval office.

"One tactic, which we've already seen with this week's ostentatious announcement of a deal to keep some Carrier jobs in America, will be to distract the nation with bright, shiny, trivial objects," he wrote.

Judging by the Monday's poll, the tactic worked.
PURCHASE, N.Y., and SAN FRANCISCO  December 6, 2016  Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) announced today that Mastercard SendTM is now speeding payments for Wells Fargo Treasury Management and Wells Fargo Merchant Services customers. Mastercard Send is a payments service that sends funds quickly and securely to consumers domestically.

Through an application programming interface (API) connection to the Mastercard Send platform, businesses, merchants, governments, nonprofits, financial institutions, and other senders can send money to consumers and small businesses. By digitizing payments that are typically handled via cash or check, Mastercard provides greater convenience, choice, and security to payment senders and receivers.

Moving money is one of a treasurers primary responsibilities, and its our job as their bank to help them fulfill that responsibility, quickly and safely, said Keith Theisen, executive vice president and head of product management for Wells Fargos Treasury Management Group [4] . Were excited to present our customers with Mastercard Send, a product that was designed with and for our customers.

Insurance claims, rebates, e-marketplace payouts, shared economy payouts to sellers, social benefits, and tax refunds can now be sent in real time, which speeds up access to vital funds. Allstate Corporations QuickCard Pay is among the first to leverage Mastercard Send through Wells Fargo for disbursements.

Allstate continues to innovate on behalf of our customers and claimants, says Allstates Chief Claims Officer Glenn Shapiro. QuickCard Pay gives claimants an immediate and secure payment method and helps us deliver on our promise of a fast, fair, and compassionate claims experience.

Merchants and businesses across a wide array of industries, as well as government and other nonprofit organizations, can also take advantage of the reach, speed, and simplicity of Mastercard Send, while providing a better consumer experience.

In todays digital world, consumers have come to expect payments and disbursements to be made in real-time, said Matt Barr, senior vice president, Digital Payments and Labs, Mastercard. Mastercard Send addresses this by enabling businesses, governments, and others to send money instantly and securely, through a robust platform that joins all U.S debit card accounts with one connection.

About Mastercard

Mastercard [5] (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com [6] , is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the worlds fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities  such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances  easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews [7] , join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog [8] and subscribe [9] for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau [10] .

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 42 countries and territories to support
The agreement, which has already been signed, will benefit more than 2,000 clients on e-commerce platforms throughout Latin America, the USA and Europe. In Europe, the companies are already active in Spain, one of the strategic countries for the companies growth in the region. Through SafetyPay services, online stores increase their channels for receiving payment, offering consumers more options to conclude their purchases, whether via online transfer or cash payment, through lottery outlets or banks.

SAO PAULO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/  SafetyPay, a platform for cash payments, and VTEX, a leading technology company in electronic commerce and a pioneer in the marketing of software as a service (SaaS), signed a global partnership agreement to provide solutions for e-commerce companies. SafetyPay also just received certification for an international partnership from VTEX.

VTEX is a strategic partner. Since we signed the first agreement in 2014, we have implemented projects with the most renowned online retail operators in Brazil. The internationalization of our partnership will open up new opportunities in the various markets where we are already present, or where we will be present in the future, said Luiz Antonio Sacco, Chief Executive Office of SafetyPay for Latin America.

With activities in 21 countries, SafetyPay is a Fintech that combines innovation and safe payment options, including consumers in the world of e-commerce. The company develops solutions that allow clients who do not have a credit card to make purchases using Internet banking. It also allows people without a bank account to be able to make payments in physical establishments, such as lottery outlets in Brazil, or in convenience stores in other countries where the company is present. In Brazil, the solution is an excellent option to the traditional bank voucher, which will undergo significant operating changes and changes in tariffs that may be applied by banks in Brazil starting in 2017, when these documents must be registered.

In electronic commerce, credit cards are already generally well distributed, but according to the World Bank, there are still nearly two billion people all over the planet who do not have a bank account, representing more than 40% of the economically active population. Bringing this audience new methods of payment so that they can enjoy the experience of acquiring products and services is one of the objectives of SafetyPay, Luiz said.

Having SafetyPay as part of the launch of our global program is very strategic, affirmed Livia Soares, who is responsible for the strategic partnerships of VTEX. Our goal is to make our clients more competitive by offering them more alternatives, so that they can increase their sales volume and create positive operating impacts with lower costs, lower inventory, and more agility in confirming purchases, the executive said.

About SafetyPay:www.safetypay.com

SafetyPay is a company that combines finance and technology (Fintech), and uses its experience and knowledge in the area to carry out online financial and cash operations in 21 countries. With more than 100 banks qualified worldwide, the technology was launched in 2007 and is available in Latin America, the United States, Europe and Canada. It is a secure online payment method that allows cash sales from multiple service channels, such as e-commerce or via call centers for clients who wish to pay using Internet banking from their banks, or for clients who do not have bank accounts, through lottery outlets.
Lincoln police are trying to find a possible serial arsonist who appears to be targeting the Belmont neighborhood.

Since October, five fires have been set in the area.

People are very concerned, said Bill Moody, Lincolns chief fire inspector. Theyre not understanding, is it random? Is there a motive?

The answers arent as clear as the questions.

The victims cant provide a motive," Moody said. "They dont know why someone has done this.

All five cases are still under investigation by the Lincoln Police Department, which has collected evidence for analysis at the Nebraska State Patrol Crime Lab.

Moody said the fires have some similarities to one another, and it's possible they're connected.

The first was reported at 2:03 a.m. Oct. 3 after someone set fire to the sanctuary at Belmont Baptist Church. Firefighters put out the blaze, but the church was set on fire again at 10:24 that night.

An abandoned house at 3526 Portia St. was destroyed by fire Nov. 14 and set ablaze again Nov. 29, authorities said. It had been recently purchased by someone who intended to renovate it, police said.

The owner, Quality LCC, applied for a demolition permit this week.

The last reported arson happened Monday when someone set two fires inside the Aspen Haus apartment complex, a home to about 30 people 50 or older at 1500 Knox St. One fire began in a game room and the other on an upper-level floor, Moody said.

Its the first time in the string an occupied building has been targeted, he said.

(Mondays) fire was a little more brazen, Moody said. Fire can spread unbelievably fast, and setting fire to an occupied building is a class 2 Felony.

One Aspen Haus resident received minor injuries and was taken to the hospital for cuts on her hands.

Assistant Fire Chief Pat Borer said LFR upped the fire to a third alarm to make sure all 28 residents and two visitors were evacuated safely.

Lincoln Police Capt. Martin Fehringer said the department has investigated 54 cases of arson in Lincoln this year. Moody said Lincoln Fire and Rescue has been sent to 29 of those.

Most intentionally set fires dont turn out to be serious.

There are always some low-dollar arsons in and around the various high schools and middle schools, Fehringer said. There are always arsons involving juveniles experimenting with fire. There are dumpster fires and vehicle fires. The majority of the arsons in Lincoln are not of occupied dwellings.

Nine other cases of arson to occupied dwellings this year havent resulted in arrests, he said.

But the Belmont fires dont seem to fit into a normal arson case.

These five are different as they involve a total of three locations, Fehringer said. The same location getting hit again is rare. Also the locations of the three dwellings are very close. With the exception of schools, there is no other noticeable pattern of these crimes.
Foursquare CEO, Jeff Glueck

Sarah Jacobs

Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck at Lure Fish Bar.

Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck has explored much of the world, both in a professional capacity and for his own personal enjoyment. The list of cities hes visited and worked in is longer than most, which would make sense for the head of a company that thrives on its users thirst to explore, discover, and share their own adventures.

From working on economic reform in South America to creating Travelocitys famous traveling gnome ad campaign, Glueck says that his personal and professional experience has helped him pinpoint what he calls the magic of Foursquare.

While at lunch with Business Insider at Lure Fish Bar in Manhattans Soho neighborhood, Glueck shared what hes learned from his journeys through Peru, the former Soviet Union, and Washington, DC, as well as the latest on whats happening at Foursquare.

Glueck chose Lure Fish Bar in Soho for our lunch. Only one block away from Foursquares headquarters, its a company favorite.

Glueck discovered Lure the way many people hear about restaurants  from a friend. [Foursquare founder Dennis] Crowley has [always] loved this place, and Steven Rosenblatt, whos our president, is a regular here as well, Glueck said. He knows the maitre d,

and she greets him, Hey Steven, welcome back!

Theres both a New York tech element to Lure, and its a neighborhood spot. Its sort of like Cheers  they know your name, Glueck said. Hes an especially big fan of the restaurants homemade salt and vinegar potato chips, which appeared on the table as we settled in.

Originally hired as Foursquares COO in 2014, Glueck replaced founder Dennis Crowley as CEO in January. Crowley became the companys executive chairman.

Story continues

Around the same time that Glueck became CEO, the company raised a new $45 million financing round led by Union Square Ventures with the participation of past investors like Andreessen Horowitz, but it reportedly had to take a cut in its valuation to do so. A report in Recode placed the companys value around $250 million, down from $650 million in 2013.

When Crowley founded Foursquare in 2009, the idea was that people would use the app to virtually check in to particular locations. In 2014, it launched a second app, called Swarm, which uses Foursquares original check-in idea to offer users monetary and virtual prizes for creating a log of where they go. The original Foursquare app  Foursquare City Guide  is now focused on making activity recommendations, similar to Yelp.

With more than 50 million users, Foursquares apps have now surpassed 10 billion check-ins. In the past two years it has also launched its for-business enterprises, which include selling location data to mobile advertisers and app makers like Uber, Samsung, and most recently, Snapchat.

At lunch, Glueck was sure to check in on Swarm. Logging his every move is clearly a habit for him. I particularly like to compete with Fred Wilson [on Swarm], said Glueck. Wilson, a venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures and an investor in Foursquare, is an avid Swarm user, and he checks in every morning with a photo of his latte. If I can beat Fred, then I feel like Ive had a good week, joked Glueck.

By checking in, Glueck was contributing to the ever-growing data set that Foursquare has about Lure: the restaurants shape, its popular hours, and how many people have visited it. In fact, its the Swarm data that has been the cornerstone to Foursquares enterprise efforts.

Gluecks marketing background helped him see how Swarms life-logging could be helpful to online advertisers, particularly Foursquares attribution feature, which can measure how effective digital ad campaigns are at driving people into stores.

But brick-and-mortar stores arent the only companies benefitting from seven years worth of Foursquare check-ins. The Places data is also used by Apple, Uber, Twitter, Microsoft, Samsung, and thousands of other developers whose services depend on location information.

Glueck orders the chicken club sandwich, mostly because the French fries here are fantastic, he says.

Glueck often uses Foursquares City Guide to help him find local favorites, which, he admits, he used to rely on Yelp for. However, he claims that Foursquares community has helped him find much better hidden treasures.

Because theres such a passionate community of explorers on Foursquare, we find those off-the-beaten-path, special, original places that arent always the mass market, or the most popular, he said. And thats the kind of thing I love exploring.

Foursquare users can add tastes to their profile to help inform the apps recommendations. Tastes can range from specific favorite foods, like fish tacos and pancakes, to restaurant features, like outdoor seating and karaoke.

While claiming to be adventurous is easy, Gluecks history proves hes not bluffing.

Glueck has lived in England, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela abroad, and Washington, DC and New York City stateside. While in grad school, he traveled all over Europe, including a visit to what was then the Soviet Union.

After graduate school, Glueck was hired by the Monitor Company, a strategy consulting group that was in Peru to advise then-President Alberto Fujimori on economic growth.

I moved to Peru with the team, and you could occasionally still hear a bomb going off on the outskirts of town, said Glueck. But we traveled all over Peru and helped [Fujimori] figure out what new markets [Peru] could enter, eco-tourism [options], and exporting.

After his time there, Glueck moved on to consult with leaders of other South American countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela. But Glueck grew impatient with slow government reforms, so he decided to move to Washington, DC to learn how policy could be reformed quickly.

In 1999, he was named a White House Fellow and focused his work on environmental reform.

Fellows typically spend a year assisting White House staff and other government officials.

As a Fellow I worked on toughening environmental rules in trade and finance globally. [We also promoted] clean technology exports to China and Latin America to offset climate change, he said.

But Glueck was realizing that even in the US, reform is a slow process. Glueck arrived in DC during the middle of Bill Clintons impeachment trial. I didnt see great reforms enacted, he said.

Glueck says that hes always worked toward causes that he believes in.

Ive worked on Middle East peace and I worked on fighting poverty in Latin America, and they were all causes that I just believed in  and that I still believe in  but they were all really slow-moving, he explained.

He compared the situation to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who was forever condemned to push a boulder up a hill. You could really work for years and move things just a little bit, Glueck said.

Tired of the slow-paced world of government, Glueck moved on to tech just in time for the dot-com boom.

When his close friend Michelle Paluso, who was also a White House Fellow, pitched the idea to create a website that could help fellow travel-lovers book affordable trips, he jumped at the opportunity.

With Site59.com, Glueck helped build something that was already exciting and fun  such as planning a trip to New Orleans Jazz Fest  into a $125 million dollar operation. And when Travelocity bought Site59 in 2002, Glueck became the CMO.

After seven years with Travelocity, Glueck moved on to Foursquare. Immediately before joining, I said, Oh my god, this is what any analyst or marketer of the real world would love to understand, he said.

Glueck mentioned the magic of Foursquare several times during our conversation. Its kind of magical  you walk around with the app for a couple weeks, and it says, Hey you forgot to check in at your local coffee shop.  Youre teaching the app what you like, he said.

Now Glueck is happily settled into his fast-paced, startup office environment. Everything we want to do we want to make it more delightful than a big company would make it. More fun, more quirky, more whimsical. We really want to invent the future, he said.

One of the magical things that Dennis Crowley did when he founded Foursquare was that he wanted to get people off their screens and enjoy the real world, he said.

Glueck currently lives in Irvington, New York, with his family, about an hours train ride north of Manhattan.

In addition to helping continue to create that magic, Glueck also simply wants the benefits that any average Foursquare user enjoys. That means sometimes using Foursquare data to plan a family vacation.

[My wife and kids and I] just went to the Harry Potter world in Universal Studios in LA and I asked our team, What is the optimal day to go to get the least lines during the summer?

The data team found the best time: morning on a Friday or Monday in late August, when most California schools are in session.

So we went on a Friday early in the morning and there were no lines, but by the afternoon it was crazy, he said. Im so glad we used location intelligence to have a great time, and my kids had so much fun with their wands making things happen.

The post Foursquares CEO shares his favorite restaurant and his thoughts on why travel matters for business appeared first on Business Insider.
Located at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, San Jose del Cabo is increasingly popular with intrepid travelers, who have published a growing number of reviews of the town's hotels and tourist attractions. The seaside resort has won first place in the Traveler's Choice Awards published by TripAdvisor on Tuesday December 6.

The Americas are popular with travelers seeking out of the way destinations. San Jose del Cabo, a seaside resort which is located at the southern extremity of the Baja peninsula, offers an alternative view of Mexico.

Placing second in this year's awards for destinations on the rise, Whistler in Canada's British Columbia has attracted praise for its mountain climate. Travelers come here to experience Canada's wide open spaces, the resort's famous ski slopes, and to reconnect with nature.

Third in this year's awards, the Brazilian sea resort of Jericoacoara has all the trappings of a tourist paradise with its white-sand beach and clear blue water. For those seeking to spend some tranquil time by the sea, the Traveler's Choice Awards for 2017 have also singled out Kihei in Hawaii (placed 4th), El Nido in the Philippines (6th), Eilat in Israel (7th) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Spanish Canary Islands (8th).

For those eager to experience new and different cultures, the cities of Baku in Azerbaijan (placed 5th), Tbilisi in Georgia (9th) and Jodhpur, India (10th) also feature in this year's rankings.

To establish the ranking for its awards, TripAdvisor makes use of an algorithm which measures increases in the number of positive opinions for guest accommodation, restaurants and attractions for a vast number of destinations. Growing interest in bookings is also a criterion.

Here is TripAdvisor's list of the world's top 10 Travelers' Choice Destinations on the rise for 2017:

1. San Jose del Cabo, Mexico

2. Whistler, Canada

3. Jericoacoara, Brazil

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4. Kihei, Hawaii

5. Baku, Azerbaijan

6. El Nido, Philippines

7. Eilat, Israel

8. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

9. Tbilisi, Georgia

10. Jodhpur, India

TripAdvisor's top 10 destinations on the rise in the US:

1. Kihei, Hawaii

2. Park City, Utah

3. Portland, Maine

4. Louisville, Kentucky

5. Colorado Springs, Colorado

6. Houston, Texas

7. Tucson, Arizona

8. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

9. Columbus, Ohio

10. Jacksonville, Florida

TripAdvisor's top 10 destinations on the rise in Asia:

1. Baku, Azerbaijan

2. El Nido, Philippines

3. Jodhpur, India

4. Da Lat, Vietnam

5. Jeju, South Korea

6. Sapa, Vietnam

7. Hualien, Taiwan

8. Kuching, Malaysia

9. Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

10. George Town, Malaysia

TripAdvisor's top 10 destinations on the rise in Europe:

1. Las Palmas, Spain

2. Tbilisi, Georgia

3. Malaga, Spain

4. Kiev, Ukraine

5. Kaliningrad, Russia

6. Wroclaw, Poland

7. Bologna, Italy

8. Faro, Portugal

9. Bucharest, Romania

10. Limassol, Cyprus
War crimes prosecutors Tuesday unveiled a campaign of terror led by 'ferocious' Lord's Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen, including showing shocking images of an aftermath of an attack on a refugee camp. The former LRA commander became the first-ever member of the notorious rebel group to go on trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, where he faces a litany of charges for his role in terrorising parts of northern Uganda. Warning she was about to show "extremely disturbing images", ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda played gruesome videos of the scene after an LRA attack on Lukodi refugee camp, showing disemboweled children, and the charred bodies of babies in shallow graves. "Dominic Ongwen became one of the most senior commanders in the LRA  following rapid promotion for his loyal fighting and ferocity," Bensouda said. He was "enthusiastic" in adopting "the LRA's violent methods" and eager to show "he could be more active and more brutal" than others. Ongwen, 41, denied 70 war crimes and crimes against humanity charges as he also became the first former child soldier to be tried by the ICC for his role in the infamous rebel group led by the elusive Joseph Kony. "In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda," Ongwen said. "It was the LRA who abducted people. It was the LRA who killed them," he insisted, maintaining he was "one of the people who had crimes committed" against them. A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a bloody rebellion some three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda. The UN says it has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it was set up in 1987. - 'Nothing left alive' - More than 4,000 victims are taking part in Ongwen's trial and scores were watching the proceedings in several sites in Uganda. About 500 people, mostly subsistence farmers, crammed into Lukodi primary school to watch, squeezed onto rows of dilapidated wooden benches. "They burnt my grandmother in her own hut, and shot the son of my co-wife," Alanyo Juzima said as she wiped away tears, staring at Ongwen's flickering image on a screen. "I feel like I could go to The Hague and kill Ongwen myself." The son of Ugandan schoolteachers, Ongwen was abducted as a child while on his way to school, and likely suffered sadistic initiation rites into the militia's ranks. But ICC prosecutors in The Hague say unlike some 9,000 people who escaped from the LRA, Ongwen chose to stay, helping orchestrate the abduction and enslavement "of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities". Some were as young as six, said Bensouda recounting how one witness told of children being given military training but "they were so small that the muzzles of their AK47 rifles dragged on the ground." - Moral responsibility - The trial focuses on attacks on four refugee camps in northern Uganda from 2002 to 2005, in which people were killed, tortured, raped and children kidnapped to be "moulded" into the LRA's way of life. Those who could not keep up were savagely beaten or killed while "nursing mothers" who were slowed down by their infants "watched as their babies were callously killed or were thrown into the bush and left behind," Bensouda said. Ongwen also stands accused of systematically abducting young girls for sex, and distributing hundreds to his men. In one attack on the Odek refugee camp in 2004, Ongwen instructed his troops to "kill civilians and to abduct beautiful girls and good boys," to act as soldiers, another prosecutor Benjamin Gumpert said. "His last words were: 'Nothing should be left alive in Odek'." Ongwen, who listened intently in court writing in a small notebook, is said to have had at least seven wives -- one was just 10 when she was first raped. DNA tests have revealed he fathered at least 11 children. The defence says it is considering several arguments including that Ongwen is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and was acting under duress. Observers say the trial raises deep questions about how to prosecute children who commit crimes after years of abuse. But Bensouda said: "Having suffered victimisation in the past is not a justification or an excuse to victimise others." Each human being is "endowed with moral responsibility for their actions," she said. Ongwen surrendered himself to US forces in 2015. But Kony remains at large with about 150 followers hiding out in the jungles of the Central African Republic.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani demanded on Sunday that Barack Obama block an extension of sanctions passed by the U.S. Congress, saying Tehran would otherwise "firmly respond". In a speech to parliament, Rouhani denounced legislation passed by the U.S. 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 programme 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. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law, the White House said on Friday. The U.S. Congress move was a blow to Rouhani, a pragmatist who engineered the diplomatic opening to the West that led to the nuclear deal. U.S. officials have said the ISA renewal would not infringe the nuclear agreement. U.S. 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 U.S. 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. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Ratko Mladic, whose war crimes trial reaches a climax next week, is a former Serb army commander whose brutish leadership during Bosnia's 1990s conflict was blamed for the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II. The 74-year-old came to symbolise a barbaric plan to rid multi-ethnic Bosnia of Croats and Muslims, fuelled by the desire for a "Greater Serbia" that would establish an ethnically pure state. The epitome of Serb defiance after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Mladic once said chillingly: "Borders are always drawn in blood and states marked out with graves." Closing arguments in his protracted UN war crimes trial at The Hague begin on Monday, with families of the victims in Bosnia's 1992-95 conflict waiting anxiously for its completion. The wartime Bosnian Serb military chief, who has been dogged by health problems in detention, will long be associated with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. But his role in the conflict made him a hero to many Serbs and a one-time favourite of the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic -- himself a fanatical nationalist who was also indicted for war crimes. Mladic is also accused of being the architect of the bloody 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which claimed an estimated 10,000 lives, according to the UN war crimes indictment against him. The defiance of the man dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" by international media seems undimmed by age and years on the run, and he insists he was only "defending my country". - 'A cynic and a sadist' - Born on March 12, 1942 at Bozinovici in eastern Bosnia, Mladic was named Ratko, a diminutive of a Serb name meaning war and peace, usually given to a male baby during wars, his biographer Ljiljana Bulatovic wrote. His life was quickly struck by bloodshed and tragedy when aged two, his father was killed by the Ustasha, Croatia's World War II fascist regime. In June 1991, as Yugoslavia crumbled and war broke out in Croatia, Mladic, then a colonel in the Yugoslav National Army, was given the task of organising the Serb-dominated army in Croatia. The following May, Mladic, by now a general, was made commander of the Bosnian Serb forces and fought to link Serb-held lands in eastern and western Bosnia. Former Yugoslav army spokesman Ljubodrag Stojadinovic described Mladic as "narcissistic, conceited, vain and arrogant," while a former colonel, Gaja Petkovic, said he was a "cynic and a sadist". - Over the edge - Mladic's daughter Ana, unable to cope with the burden of accusations of his wartime crimes, committed suicide in Belgrade in 1994 aged 23, reportedly with her father's favourite pistol. Those close to the general were reported as saying her suicide pushed him over the edge. A year later, Mladic was accused of setting in motion Europe's worst atrocity since the Nazi era, with his troops rounding up and killing Muslim men and boys in the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica. In under-siege Sarajevo, the ferocious Mladic refused to bow to Western demands to withdraw his heavy weapons and it took the combined might of NATO warplanes and cruise missiles to blow apart his military advantage in September 1995. Never just a simple soldier, Mladic once enjoyed considerable political influence within the Bosnian Serb leadership and was never shy of using it. He was indicted by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in July 1995, a few months before the war ended, on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the conflict, Mladic became too much of a liability and was sacked by the Bosnian Serb government in 1997. For a long time he holed up in his former main command bunker, calmly defying NATO attempts to arrest him before moving to the Serbian capital Belgrade in 2000. At first he lived openly, but soon went underground as his popularity waned amongst Serbian politicians, increasingly concerned that failure to transfer him to the ICTY would further delay the country's accession to the European Union. Mladic was finally arrested in May 2011 at a relative's house in northern Serbia and transferred to the Hague to stand trial.
A 26-year-old who completed his prison sentence last month returned to prison Monday after a judge sentenced him to six years for assaulting staff at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in October.

Prior to the assault, James Pilcher threatened to retaliate against a staffer who confiscated items from him on Oct. 4, an investigator wrote in an affidavit for his arrest.

As the same staffer tried to take him to a holding cell, Pilcher started arguing and punched the staffer in the face and then punched a correctional officer who intervened, the affidavit said.

Pilcher had served three years on a weapons charge out of Douglas County and was discharged from prison Nov. 9.

He was taken to jail on the warrant, which accused him of two counts of second-degree assault.

Pilcher pleaded to third-degree assault on an officer and a misdemeanor assault charge. He will get credit for 26 days served in jail.
The expression, the more things change, the more they stay the same is still so true.



Given the scope of how things have changed in our business world and life, it is also true that fundamentals and values get you through anything. There is a right way and best way to conduct ourselves and do things that is common sense and timeless. A foundation of best practices and fundamentals is the best way to start and grow your professional life. Professional qualities never go out of style.

So, although times do change the fundamentals always work in changing times.

We need to make sure we are incorporating them into our business growth and practices and use them to keep us on the beam.

Here are Five Essential Business Fundamentals You Can Count on to Keep Changing.

Demographics and Psychographics

We are a family of 5 generations at the moment:

Gen Z or Centennials born 1996 and later

Millennials or Gen Y born 1977 to 1995

Generation X born 1965 to 1976

Baby Boomers born 1946 to 1964

Traditionalists or Silent Generation born 1945 and before

All the generations are intertwined, representational of valuable ideas and cultures and contribute in many ways.



Over the next few decades the majority of US population growth will reflect new Asian and Hispanic immigration. Getting to know as much as we can about each one of the generations, as active consumers and marketing to them requires different approaches and points of view. Generations create the demographic trends driving all aspects of family, lifestyle, business and culture. Baby Boomers continue to drive trends as they will live well into their later years, but Millennials are growing into prominence. According to the UN Population Division, 1 in 5 people are expected to be 65+ by 2035.



Demographics tell us who consumer are with regard to age, race and religion, but psychographics tell us about their lifestyle, habits and attitudes. Both give us the information we need to craft targeted, smart and effective communications and marketing campaigns.



A tried and true rule to follow has always been: know thy customer and speak directly to them.

Business Tools and Resources

This area of change is by far the most stunning and significant. The web, online and social media are the communication systems and hubs for connecting and sharing both one on one and to the many. This change in access has created an immediacy and real time ability to share information that is vital to how we live, learn and conduct and do business.

These tools and resources from the SBA , provide information, procedures and requirements to start, grow and run a business. Google is the 8th wonder of the world and is the most active and valuable search and delivery system we use. Whatever you want to know and whatever you want people to know about you can be found here. Google loves content, so the more you create and publish consistently, the more Google will pick you up as people search for information.

Social Media and Marketing For Your Business

The tools and platforms today, allow any small business or consultant to promote, engage and educate most of the time for free. Be an early adopter of social media and get involved with writing, communications and creating content. As social media platforms evolve and unfold, they are now the norms and hubs for businesses, groups and communities to gather, engage, learn and interact.



An up to date web presence, including a website, professional Linkedin account, Facebook and Twitter profiles, a blog and email marketing activities are standards for marketing yourself and your business. Not everyone needs a full blown website. There are many small businesses that use different web platforms today to have a web presence. Use the platforms that make the best sense for you and your customers.

Try to Choose Top Categories of Small Business

There are several categories of business that are universal and timeless no matter how much things change. They are products and services that we all need and use on a daily basis.

Choosing the right business category is one of the most important aspects of starting and growing a business. What are the best and most successful categories of businesses? Here are the top 15, including accounting, management services, real estate, auto, legal services and many more.



If you already have a proven expertise you can use that for a successful business idea. It can be a niche but it is essential to learn all the aspects of starting, running and growing a business. The sophistication and expertise it takes especially today is critical. Research your local market and make sure there is a market for your idea.

Why Start a Business?

Dont romanticize, professionalize starting a business.

Its easy to get caught up in the idea, but the reality is its one of the hardest jobs there is. There are several skills sets that are key including time management, organization, trend management, sales, marketing and networking to name just a few. Make sure you honestly and rigorously self evaluate, discuss with qualified family, friends and colleagues who either have done it or are working in business.

The success rate for small business is improving but still challenging. The great news is the rate at which American employers go under has fallen by 30 percent since 1977. According to the SBA: about two-thirds of businesses with employees survive at least 2 years and about half survive at least 5 years.

Ask yourself why you really want to be in business. Do you have the entrepreneurial qualities to take on the challenge, responsibilities and commitment? Do your due diligence, be very honest and create a strong support system.

Get used to change. Change is a door. Change is inevitable. Change is exciting.

Use change to impact success and embrace it as part of the adventure. Prepare for change and become a change expert and agent. Anticipate change by staying rigorously up to date on trends.

One of the best trend sites is Trendwatching.com.

Check out the Abba Virtual experience Tour, a groundbreaking and exciting venture that will utilize the very latest in digital and virtual-reality technology, which will enable a new generation of fans to see, hear, and feel ABBA in a way previously unimagined planned for 2018.

This is what is possible today, so be very encouraged that you can be successful if you set yourself up to be.
Policy

New Report Explains Student Privacy under SOPIPA and Similar Regs

A national advocacy group that focuses on data privacy has issued a report that offers an overview of California's Student Online Personal Information Protection Act. SOPIPA, as it's called, is the first state law that "comprehensively" addresses student privacy, according to the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF). Since its 2014 passage and implementation at the beginning of 2016 in that state, the regulations have been borrowed heavily by numerous other states, which have used them as a template for developing their own laws.

According to FPF, 49 states have introduced almost 400 student privacy bills since 2014. Thirty-five states have passed 73 laws since 2013. Thirty-three states have introduced their own versions of SOPIPA or a "similar piece of legislation" that does the same, but is known as "student user privacy in education rights" or "SUPER."

SOPIPA was to put in place to stipulate how student information could be used by education technology companies that are serving the education market. The laws apply to companies that run websites, online services, online applications and mobile applications designed for and marketed to K-12 customers. It doesn't apply to companies that run "general audience products," even when those programs may be used for school purposes.

As the report, "FPF Guide to Protecting Student Data Under SOPIPA: For K-12 School Administrators and Ed Tech Vendors," lays out, under the terms of SOPIPA, third-party operators "must not":

Engage in targeted advertising based on information acquired through the use of that operator's site, service or application;

Use information to build a profile about K-12 students except for school purposes;

Sell a student's data; or

Disclose information except in specific, limited circumstances.

Operators are also expected to:

Maintain reasonable security procedures and practices;

Protect information from "unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure"; and

Delete a student's information if the school or district requests it.

How can student information be used? According to the report, ed tech companies can use the data in two ways:

To conduct "legitimate research"; and

For product improvement, marketing and development, as long as the data is "de-identified."

The 38-page report defines terms; explains the background for specific aspects of the regulations and provides context for SOPIPA as it relates to other laws in the area of student privacy, such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA); and compares SOPIPA to the regulations introduced in other states.

The report is available for download on the FPF website here.
Computer Science

The Virtual High School Introduces New Computing Certificate Program

The Virtual High School, a nonprofit based in Massachusetts, is introducing a new computing certificate program to celebrate Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 5-11).

The new VHS computing certificate program will encourage high school students across the United States to become more interested in computing and computer science (CS), and better understand the career options available to them in CS and related fields. The program is especially geared toward the underserved, the Virtual High Schools President and CEO Carol Ribeiro said.

The announcement also corresponds with President Obamas Computer Science for All initiative and the White Houses fact sheet released today, announcing hundreds of new commitments that support the implementation of CS and computational thinking in K12 education. The Virtual High School is one of the organizations mentioned in todays fact sheet of agencies, nonprofits and companies pledging their support for CSforAll.

The computing certificate program also complements other recent VHS CS initiatives. This fall, the organization launched AP Computer Science Principles, an introductory college-level computer science course designed for all students in grades 10-12, not just those interested in STEM subjects. VHS says it was among the first online providers in the country to offer this College Board-approved course.

Computer science is a necessary skill in our technology-based society, but unfortunately not all students are aware of the computer science options available to them, Ribeiro said in a prepared statement. Were pleased to build new partnerships and expand the ways in which we help students acquire critical thinking and problem solving skills through computer science.

The computing certificate program will be available to students at no charge if their schools pay a VHS participation fee, Ribeiro said. Students who wish to enroll independently (home school students, etc.) would pay the per-course rate, which is $450, she said.

For more information about the certificate program or about the Virtual High School, visit the organizations website or call 978-897-1900.
STEM

California Issues Draft NGSS Framework for Revising Science Ed

The state of California has adopted a revised science framework intended to help its public schools transform instruction to mesh with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It claims to be the first state to do so. The framework offers guidance to educators and science content publishers on how to teach the standards in K-12.

The revision work kicked off in 2013 when state legislators approved adoption of changes to science education that incorporated NGSS. From there the State Board of Education recruited a focus group from among local education agencies, science, higher education and other "stakeholder" organizations to develop a framework for guiding the transition. A draft was issued in 2015 for public review, then again in 2016. In total, about 3,000 public comments were considered during the drafting process.

The new framework expands and refines coverage of climate change and adds engineering, environmental literacy and strategies to support girls and young women in science. It also encourages the teacher-as-facilitator model, in which he or she poses questions and students conduct experiments and projects to make discoveries.

Among the examples provided, middle school students tackle an engineering challenge in which they divert rainwater away from road surfaces, where it can pick up pollutants. Another middle school challenge encourages students to graph fish populations under global warming scenarios. At the high school level chemistry students examine the impact of the increasing acidification of the world's oceans and develop potential remedies.

"Science education is undergoing a renaissance that began with the adoption of California's Next Generation Science Standards in 2013 and advances today with a Science Framework that will guide teaching," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, in a statement. Torlakson began his own career as a high school science teacher in the 1970s.

"This framework will help our students become the scientists and technology leaders of the future as well as citizens who are knowledgeable and understanding of the natural world and the environment," he added. "It will also help produce the well-educated, innovative workers needed by all of our employers, but especially our high-tech companies, which are some of the most advanced companies humankind has ever seen."

During 2017, the state's Department of Education will present science framework "rollout" events to help teachers and principals start preparing for the adoption of the new standards. Next spring, the state will run a pilot test of a new assessment based on the learning standards. By 2018 the state expects to develop a list of recommended NGSS-compliant textbooks and other content.

The draft framework is available on the Department of Education website here.
Assessments

PISA Results: Math Down, Science and Reading Flat for U.S. Students

Top 10 Scores in Mathematics Literacy Singapore: 556 Japan: 538 Estonia: 534 Taiwan: 532 Finland: 531 Macau: 529 Canada: 528 Vietnam: 525 Hong Kong (China): 523 B-S-J-G (China, as represented by Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces): 518 The average OECD score was 493.

American 15-year-olds declined in performance on the "mathematics literacy" portion of the 2015 international PISA assessments, compared to 2012 and 2009. Reading and science scores remained flat in the latest assessment. An analysis of the results was released today by the United States Department of Education.

PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, is an international effort created by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to let nations compare student performance in certain subject areas near the end of their compulsory education. The core assessments in math, reading and science are administered every three years.

According to the results of the latest assessment, the average math score for U.S. students was 470, which puts them in 36th place among the 69 nations that participated in the latest assessment. It's also the lowest PISA score ever recorded in math by U.S. students. Mathematics scores for U.S. students date back to 2003:

2003: 487

2006: 474

2009: 487

2012: 481

2015: 470

A score of 470 corresponds to a 3 on the program's 6-point scale. According to the Education Department:

At level 3, students can execute clearly described procedures, including those that require sequential decisions. Their interpretations are sufficiently sound to be a base for building a simple model or for selecting and applying simple problem-solving strategies. Students at this level can interpret and use representations based on different information sources and reason directly from them. They typically show some ability to handle percentages, fractions and decimal numbers, and to work with proportional relationships. Their solutions reflect that they have engaged in basic interpretation and reasoning.

It's also worth noting that in mathematics, the United States had a relatively high percentage of low-performing students and a low percentage of high-performing students. A massive 29.4 percent of American 15-year-olds scored 1 or below on the 6-point scale in math (versus the international average of 23.4 percent); and 5.9 percent scored 5 or higher on the scale (versus the international average of 10.7 percent).

Among all the states, Massachusetts stood out with an average mathematics literacy score of 500, including 10 percent in the top tier (scoring 5 or higher on the scale) and just 17 percent scoring 1 or lower on the scale.

The overall story in science and reading was one of stagnation rather than decline. Scores in both subjects were within one point of the previous year's assessment, representing no statistically significant change. In science, the United States' average score of 496 was good enough for 25th place and was slightly above the OECD average of 493. The reading score of 497 put the nation in 24th place, beating the OECD average of 493.

The PISA results for the United States were similar, but less promising, than results released last week in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which compared U.S. fourth and eighth graders over time and to their international counterparts.

The analysis published by the U.S. Department of Education can be found here. The United States spotlight published by OECD can be accessed freely here. And the complete PISA report can be found here.
STEM

Teach for America to Offer Nanodegrees

Teach For America plans to offer scholarships for students to complete Udacity's Intro to Programming nanodegree program.

The scholarship program is an expansion of Teach For America's computer science initiative, which was launched in 2015 with the support of AT&T and the National Science Foundation. AT&T's philanthropic initiative, AT&T Aspire, will contribute $900,000 to the initiative over the next two years. In addition to the Udacity nanodegree scholarship program, the funds will support professional development for teachers and continuation of the Exploring Computer Science program.

This school year, the scholarship program will enable up to 50 students of Teach For America teachers to complete the Udacity nanodegree, which teaches students how to make a web page, build a simple game, create a movie website, reverse engineer a web app and complete a final project geared toward a specific computer science career goal.

According to information from Teach For America, "only one in four schools nationwide offer CS classes, leaving many students  particularly students of color and those from low-income communities  without the foundational skills, exposure to teachers with CS backgrounds and hands-on learning experiences to pursue CS in college and career."

In addition to the scholarship program, the expansion of Teach For America's computer science initiative will provide Teach For America teachers with computer science curriculum and professional development. Collectively, these teachers serve 2,500 students across the Bay Area, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, New York, Rio Grande Valley, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.

The new funding from AT&T Aspire will also provide continuing support for the Exploring Computer Science program, which works to increase and enhance computer science educational opportunities for female students and students of color in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Teach For America is an organization that works with communities to expand educational opportunities for children living in poverty. Teach For America and AT&T are members of the CSfoAll Consortium.
A judge in Omaha has sentenced a man to five years and 10 months in federal prison for his part in a conspiracy to bring 6 pounds of methamphetamine to Nebraska.

Jose D. Martinez-Pena, 30, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge. Senior U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon sentenced him Thursday to the prison time, plus five years of supervised release for what started with an interstate traffic stop of another man near Amarillo, Texas, on April 3.

Carlos Alonso Carrazco-Peralta, 28, allowed the officer to search and law enforcement found the meth in a shoebox in the trunk, according to court documents.

A charge against his passenger, Naysa Burmudez-Ulloa, was dismissed.

Investigators learned Carrazco-Peralta picked up the meth in Phoenix and was planning to bring it to Lincoln at the direction of a man living in Mexico.

Investigators with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Texas Department of Public Safety allowed the drugs to be brought to Nebraska in a supervised delivery, according to court records.

In Omaha, investigators watched as he met with Jose D. Martinez-Pena about delivery of the package. Martinez-Pena left without taking the meth, but officers stopped him and arrested him for his part in the conspiracy.

Last month, Bataillon sentenced Carrazco-Peralta to 37 months in prison.
Traian Bostan Wins Record-Breaking 2016 Unibet Open Bucharest (100,000)

December 06 2016 Christian Zetzsche

The biggest Unibet Open Main Event ever has determined a winner and it was local player Traian Bostan who completed a Cinderella story to come back from less than four big blinds and emerge victoriously. A total of 603 players ponied up the buy-in of 1,100 to participate in the popular live tournament series in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, and it was Bostan who lifted the trophy in the Grand Ballroom of the stunning JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel.

The final day saw 15 hopefuls return to the tables with Eli Heath in the lead. The Brit made it all the way to heads-up and eventually finished runner-up after a fierce duel for the title and payday of 100,000. While the home country made up the majority of participants, it was still impressive to see seven Romanians reach the final table. Dan Murariu's attempt of making further history was halted in sixth place; it was the seventh final table of the two-time Unibet Open champion.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Traian Bostan Romania 100,000 2 Eli Heath United Kingdom 64,200 3 Adrian Stefan Calusaru Romania 44,200 4 Cosmin Cimpeanu Romania 32,800 5 Gabriel Gavrila Romania 25,200 6 Dan Murariu Romania 19,400 7 Eugen Chiva Romania 15,500 8 Ionut-Alin Tambura Romania 12,400 9 Juho Launonen Finland 9,910

The first casualty of the final day was Nikita Malinovskiy who returned as one of the top five stacks. After losing some smaller pots, Murariu cracked his pocket queens with king-queen making a runner runner straight. The next hand, short stack William Hens shoved with ace-ten suited and Malinovskiy called all in from the small blind with king-nine suited. Neither player hit anything and ace-high scooped the pot for Hens.

Cristian Dan joined the short stacks early on and three-bet shoved with ace-jack in the second level of the day. He failed to improve against the pocket eights of Heath and made his way to the payout desk. Soon after, he was joined on the rail by Martin Wendt who called all in with pocket deuces after a shove by Adrian Stefan Calusaru with ace-queen. An ace appeared on the flop and the Dane was eliminated in 13th place.

Popular Unibet community member Hens then finished in 12th place. He three-bet shoved with ace-queen and Murariu reshoved with ace-king from one seat over on the button. Hens flopped a queen, but Murariu turned a king to then dodge an additional flush draw by the Dutchman on a blank river.

Hens' countryman Gordon Plomp, who lives in Belgium, was the next to join the early exits on the rail. After falling short again, he shoved the button with jack-nine and Murariu called with ace-jack in the small blind. Both players flopped a pair with the jack, but the kicker played to eliminate Plomp.

Soon after, the final table of nine was set with the elimination of Roei Motola. The last remaining player from Israel got it in good with ace-ten against the ace-nine of Eli Heath. Both hit their kicker on the flop but Heath turned trips nines to bust Motola.

Down to the last nine, Bostan was by far the shortest stack but it was Juho Launonen who ran out of chips first, busting in the very first hand of the official final table. The three-bet shove of the Finn with ace-king suited was snap-called by Calusaru with pocket aces and that was all there was to it.

Bostan then scored a vital triple up with six-four suited against the isolation shove of Murariu with ace-king thanks to a runner runner flush. From then on, it was all about Bostan who kept winning pot after pot.

Ionut-Alin Tambura fell in eighth place when his pocket nines failed to improve against the pocket queens of Cosmin Cimpeanu. Fellow Romanian Eugen Chiva sent his chips over to Cimpeanu as well when he shoved the button with king-three. Cimpeanu had eights in the small blind and held up.

Murariu lost a big flip with ace-king against the pocket queens of Bostan for two third of his stack and would eventually boy out with ten-nine against Calurasu's ace-four suited. Day 1b chip leader Gabriel Gavrila followed in fifth place; his ten-eight suited blanked as Heath claimed the pot with king-jack.

Cimpeanu also fell victim to the run of Heath, three-betting with ace-ten suited and then calling the shove of the Brit to see Heath's pocket jacks stay ahead on flop, turn and river. The heads-up duel for the title was set when Calusaru, with pocket tens, and Bostan, with ace-queen, clashed with even stacks. A queen on the flop and an ace on the turn improved Bostan to two pair and that was it for Calusaru.

Bostan already had the Pokerfest.ro last longer locked up as a result and won the package for the next Unibet Open stop in London in February 2017. What followed was a hard-fought battle by Heath and Bostan, with the latter eventually grinding down his opponent. Heath shoved 14 big blinds with queen-seven off suit and Bostan snap-called with ace-queen suited to see the board run out jack-high.

Just like that, the record-breaking festival in Bucharest came to a close. That was it from the PokerNews live reporting team here in Bucharest. Make sure to tune back in next week for coverage of the last ever European Poker Tour festival in Prague.

Sharelines Traian Bostan has won the largest Unibet Open ever, the Unibet Open Bucharest.


New Triton

Sydney, Dec 6, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Triton Minerals Ltd ( ASX:TON ) (Triton or the Company) is pleased to advise that it has embarked on the revised strategy set out in the prospectus of 24 October 2016, with a renewed focus on the rapid development potential of the premium quality Ancuabe Graphite Project in Mozambique.



A new-look Triton re-commenced trading today, recapitalised and with a fresh Board and management, following a successful Voluntary Administration process.



Following a strategic review, which highlighted the large flake size distribution and opportunity for potential rapid development, the Company has turned its focus to the evaluation and development of Ancuabe and supply into the high value end of the graphite supply market.



New Triton Managing Director, Mr Peter Canterbury said, it was exciting to be heading a company with strong fundamentals.



"We are now excellently positioned with strong cash levels of approximately $8 million at bank, a supportive substantial shareholder in Shandong Tianye Mining Co Ltd, which is the nominee company of Minjar Gold Pty Ltd, and a very attractive project opportunity, that we believe can deliver significant value to all shareholders."



"The global graphite industry is currently going through a period of historically high growth, underpinned by the rapidly developing battery market for automobiles, solar systems and mobile devices. Preliminary test work at Ancuabe has indicated that approximately 50% of the flake size distribution fits in the extra-large or jumbo flake size category which could allow us to market into the niche and high-value end of the market."



"Even during the Voluntary Administration process we have not been sitting still having commenced a 3,000 metre diamond and 1,800 metre reverse circulation (RC) drilling programme last month. This was part of the overall strategy to focus on, further explore and upgrade, the Ancuabe T12 Mineral Resource classification, and to assess other VTEM targets in the Ancuabe area, to support a decision to undertake a Pre-Feasibility Study."



"Results from the drilling are expected to become available progressively over the coming 3 months commencing in December as a programme of sample assaying, resource modelling and metallurgical test work is undertaken."



"Ancuabe is close to existing infrastructure, including roads, port, airport and power, and we are targeting the development of this highly prospective deposit at a scale suitable to the size of the deposit, the demand from the high-value end of the market and a company of Triton's size."



"We look forward to keeping shareholders updated as we progress over coming months."





About Triton Minerals Ltd





Triton Minerals Limited (ASX:TON) is an ASX listed, responsible mineral explorer and resource management company headquartered in Perth, Australia.

Led by a highly experienced management team, Triton Minerals' vision is to grow shareholder's value through discovery or development of base metal, gold and other precious metal deposits.

Triton has made excellent progress with its three Graphite projects located in the Cabo Delgado Province in Mozambique, with the program successfully identifying a number of graphitic exposures.

It is the Company's belief that the Mozambique, Balama North Project could host multiple and very substantial world class graphite deposits.
NAIROBI, Kenya  For years, the Kenyan government has been mired in scandals of corruption and mismanagement. But that dysfunction is rarely as visible as it was in the Kenyan capital on Monday, when dozens of mentally ill patients escaped from Mathari Hospital, where nurses were on strike and refused to work.

More than 80 patients, wearing their hospital-issued uniforms, climbed over the hospital walls and ran on to one of Kenyas busiest highways. The nurses who were supposed to be taking care of them had joined a massive strike to demand higher wages.

The patients, unsupervised, wandered away because there was no one to guide them, said Julius Ogato, the medical superintendent of the hospital. If patients are not engaged, they will find something to do on their own. More than 50 patients are still missing. Their illnesses were not disclosed, and many in Nairobi worried Monday that the escapees could pose a threat. Mathari is Kenyas largest mental hospital.

They are more of a danger to themselves. For example, if one of them strays into a private compound, he or she could be mistaken for a burglar, Ogato said.

Traffic on the Thika Highway was stalled Monday morning as patients ran between cars and across lanes. One video showed the patients straddling a wire fence and walking away as onlookers gawked. The nurses never returned to work. It was unclear whether anyone was there to provide food or medicine to the patients.

The hospital is working with the deputy county commissioner and police to track down the missing patients.

Kenyan doctors make as little as $400 per month, and Kenyan nurses make as little as $150 per month. Many of them say they are working in squalid conditions. On Monday, thousands of doctors and nurses across the country refused to go to work, instead marching in front of the countrys finance ministry to demand a 300-percent raise they were promised in 2013. They have accused government officials of siphoning off the money intended for Kenyas public hospitals.

Doctors with six years of training earn less than rookie police officers, according to Ouma Olunga, secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union.

Health workers warned Kenyans to prepare for the longest strike in history if their demands are not met. On Monday, the protests were broken up when police fired tear gas into the crowd of doctors and nurses.

Delays in treatment and limited resources have had dire consequences for Kenya, especially the countrys poor who cannot afford the slew of private hospitals that have emerged to fill the void. The average age at death here is 46 for men and 51 for women.

kenya
SANTA FE  The woman who ran over a motorcyclist who later died from his injuries during a major power outage in Santa Fe this summer pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide and other charges in District Court Monday in a room packed with her family and the victims family.

Megan Carrillo, 23, was indicted for vehicular homicide, careless driving and reckless driving last month for the death of 39-year-old Jerry Hicks.

Carrillo rear ended Hicks motorcycle at the intersection of Cerrillos Road and Cristos Road in front of the Kohls department store as they were both traveling northeast on Cerrillos around 7:44 p.m. Aug. 7, while traffic lights werent operating.

Carrillo faces just over six years on all the charges. Hicks widow, Michelle Hicks, asked Judge T. Glenn Ellington to suspend Carrillos driving privileges while she awaits trial, but Ellington only imposed a $25,000 signature bond. The case is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in April.

The accident was captured by the dashboard camera of a Santa Fe police officer who was driving in the opposite direction on Cerrillos. Carrillos silver SUV can be seen colliding with the back of Hicks motorcycle as Hicks appears to be stopped or slowing down at the intersection at Cristos Road. Carrillo runs over Hicks and his motorcycle and comes to a stop in the intersection before officers and witnesses come to help.

A lighting bolt had hit a PNM substation in Albuquerque, causing a power outage there and in much of Santa Fe a few minutes before the crash, and traffic lights were out in both directions on Cerrillos.

Police have said drugs or alcohol werent factors in the crash and found no evidence that Carrillo was on her phone at the time of the collision. Prosecutor Marko Hananel noted the unusual circumstances in the case since the power went out just minutes before the crash and since Carrillo wasnt intoxicated. Carrillos attorney, Doug Couleur, said Carrillo has worked for the Department of Corrections for 3 1/2 years and is a single mother to two children.

But Michelle Hicks said Carrillo shouldnt drive before her trial so the public isnt put in danger. She and her husband have two daughters at Santa Fe High and another at the University of New Mexico. Michelle and the oldest daughter were a few cars behind Hicks when the accident happened. What she did was against the law, so we want justice for my husband, Michelle Hicks said.

Her husband, a father of three, was well known in the community and ran a rainwater retention business.
CHARLOTTE, N.C.  Twenty-nine years ago this month, I watched in wonder as surgeons at Carolinas Medical Center performed a heart transplant on a 48-year-old man.

Even today, transplanting a heart is a big deal. But in 1987, the Charlotte program was less than two years old. As a young health writer, I was excited to don a gown and mask and witness this unusual procedure up close.

James Brock, the longest surviving heart transplant recipient from Carolinas Medical Center, shares a laugh with his wife Louise. He has lived for 29 years since his operation, four years short of the apparent world record of 33 years. Dr. Sanjeev Gulati, a cardiologist and medical director of heart failure and transplant services for Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute at Carolinas HealthCare System. James Brock, the longest surviving heart transplant recipient from Carolinas Medical Center, shares a laugh with his wife Louise. He has lived for 29 years since his operation, four years short of the apparent world record of 33 years. Dr. Sanjeev Gulati, a cardiologist and medical director of heart failure and transplant services for Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute at Carolinas HealthCare System.

When I entered the operating room, the patient, whose name I did not know, was on the table. His chest had been cut open, and his diseased heart had already been removed. The donor heart, from a 35-year-old man in Asheville, had just arrived in a red and white Igloo cooler. I stood nearby as the surgeons connected the healthy new organ to the patients blood vessels.

Two weeks later, the Charlotte Observer published my article, Man-Made Miracle. I didnt think much more about that patient  until a few weeks ago.

Thats when a spokeswoman for Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute at Carolinas HealthCare System asked if Id like to interview the programs longest-living heart transplant recipient.

She told me James Brock, of Cheraw, S.C., has lived with his donor heart for 29 years.

She said his transplant was the subject of an Observer article in 1987. But when I searched the archives, I couldnt find it under his name.

Thats when it became clear: He was that anonymous patient whose operation Id watched.

Although I hadnt known his name, Brock had given permission for me and former Observer photographer Mark Sluder to be in the OR that day. He and his wife, Louise, saved the article, and they brought along their yellowed copy when we finally met earlier this month.

Now 77, Brock is one of the longest-living heart transplant recipients in the world  just four years short of the apparent record holder, John McCafferty of the United Kingdom, who lived 33 years after his transplant.

Thanks to the Charlotte transplant, Brock and his wife have been married for 58 years. But theyve known each other since childhood, when their families were neighbors in a rural area about 70 miles southeast of Charlotte.

Theyre down-to-earth people  Just plain, simple country folk, in Louise Brocks words  who seem unfazed by the thought of setting a record. Even when James Brock says, I still cant believe it, his voice is so calm you might think hes talking about the warm weather in November.

Before his transplant, Brock had been on the waiting list for seven months. But hed been sick much longer. He had his first heart attack when he was 36. I thought I was a goner, he said. He returned to work for the CSX railroad in Hamlet, N.C. But heart problems ran in the family  his father died from a heart attack at 47  and his disease worsened.

In 1985, he had open-heart surgery and went on medical disability. I couldnt do anything, he said.

He had to sit in his lounge chair, Louise Brock added.

In early 1987, he was out in his yard when he felt a spell coming on and staggered to the neighbors house for help. A medical helicopter flew from Charlotte to pick him up. They said most all of his blood had been pumped out of his heart, Louise Brock said.

James Brock went home from the hospital, unsure of his future. But the next day, on Nov. 11, the call came about the donor heart, giving him the chance to have 29 more years with his growing family.

The Brocks have three children, and before the transplant, theyd had two grandchildren. Since the transplant, theyve welcomed three more grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Theyve also traveled a little, including a trip out West that included Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial and Dodge City. James Brock was also able to return to hunting, his lifelong hobby. In recent weeks, he bagged two deer.

He still takes drugs to fend off rejection of his foreign heart. But dosages have decreased, and hes down from 16 medicines to six. He visits the Sanger medical team in Charlotte twice a year and gets his blood tested every three months.

For years, Louise Brock washed her husbands clothes separately. We had to be careful about germs, she said. Still, when he gets sick, she said, We rush him to the doctor. But its been mostly cold viruses, nothing serious.

Dr. Sanjeev Gulati, a cardiologist and medical director of Sangers heart failure and transplant services, said there are multiple reasons Brock has done so well. Except for his heart, he was relatively healthy before the transplant. The donor heart was healthy and transported quickly to CMC. That allowed surgeons to complete the operation well within the six-hour time limit.

Over 30 years, surgeons at CMC have performed 489 adult heart transplants, with 21 in 2015 and 22 so far this year. CMC has the busiest program in the Carolinas behind Duke University, which performed 40 adult heart transplants in 2015. One Duke patient has also survived 29 years.

Demand for hearts is greater than available donors, so the number of U.S. transplants remains flat  2,254 in 2015. Today, even the sickest transplant candidates can potentially wait years for a donor organ because artificial heart pumps can serve as a bridge to transplant, Gulati said.

But back in 1987, Brock was lucky to be matched with a donor before it was too late, Gulati said. He has done a fantastic job of taking care of himself and taking his new heart seriously.To see someone go from the brink of death to a new life, its really incredible.
In a state that leads the nation in fatal shootings per capita by law enforcement, a special subcommittee has been created to review policies and procedures that New Mexico law enforcement agencies presumably follow when responding to and investigating officer-involved shootings and use-of-force incidents.

The subcommittee was appointed by Attorney General Hector Balderas, in his role as chairman of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Board, according to a news release issued Monday.

In addition to reviewing and auditing current policies and procedures, the subcommittee will make recommendations to ensure timeliness, transparency and uniform accountability across New Mexico law enforcement agencies. The review will include more than 190 law enforcement agencies in the state.

The four-person subcommittee consists of State Police Chief Pete Kassetas, Navajo Department of Public Safety Chief Darren Soland and citizen members Elisabeth L. Miller and Kelly Burnham, both from Las Cruces, according to AGs Office spokesman James Hallinan. All four are members of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Board.

Asked if the recommendations that eventually come from the subcommittee are binding, Hallinan said, This is an information-gathering process and we cannot speculate on what the board will do when the report is presented.

The U.S. Department of Justice already has investigated Albuquerques police force, the states largest, and found it had a culture of excessive force. The city is working with the DOJ to implement dozens of changes required by the federal agency.

Officer-involved shootings can have devastating consequences for both the civilian and law enforcement communities. My office has reviewed this issue for over a year, and during that time we studied the methodology of other states, met with impacted families, and created a strategic approach for moving forward, Balderas said in explaining the need for the subcommittee.

We believe that following an incident, officers, families, and the public deserve a process they can trust, starting with the investigation. Good investigations depend on sound, consistent policies, and that is why I called for this review.

While there is no simple way of addressing what Balderas called a critical public safety issue, he said he was committed to promoting consistent processes that advance integrity and transparency across New Mexico law enforcement agencies.

The subcommittee will conduct its review in the first half of 2017 and present its report and recommendations to the full board at the June 2017 meeting.

Hallinan said the Albuquerque Police Department would remain bound by its mandate from the DOJ regardless of what the subcommittee recommends or how the board responds to those recommendations.

New Mexico leads the nation this year in fatal shootings by police per capita with more than 10.1 fatal shootings per 1 million people, according to an online database created by The Washington Post. On Saturday, the tally reached 21 people killed when two officers with the Las Cruces Police Department shot and killed 36-year-old Joshua Josh Clay Dunne. The officers shot Dunne  who was possibly suicidal and possibly armed  after he refused to leave his hotel room for several hours, according to a LCPD spokesman. Police didnt say why they opened fire.

The Washington Post database of police shootings is in its second year; last year New Mexico was second only to Wyoming in the per capita number of civilians killed by law enforcement.

The New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Board was created in 1969 to disseminate qualifications for hiring and standards for training New Mexico law enforcement officers and telecommunication officers.

The board consists of the attorney general as chairman, a certified tribal or pueblo police chief, a municipal police chief, a county sheriff, a State Oolice officer, a district attorney, an officer ranked sergeant or below, and two citizen representatives. The board meets a minimum of four times a year to conduct business.

Journal staff reporter Elise Kaplan contributed to this report.
Sara Casados was driving 70 mph in a 35 mph zone in January when she rear-ended a Mercedes, killing its driver, according to police.

Casados, 29, is one of three people who were indicted in state District Court last week for their roles in three unrelated fatal wrecks, according to court documents.

According to Albuquerque police, Casados was driving a Ford Ranger pickup early the morning of Jan. 2 when she rear ended a Mercedes-Benz sedan stopped at a red light at the intersection of Constitution and Louisiana. Teodora Konstantinova, who was driving the sedan, died hours later at a local hospital.

According to the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center website, Konstantinova was a physician and an associate professor of internal medicine at the UNM School of Medicine. She practiced in both the UNM Health Sciences Center and the local Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Casados fled the scene and was found in a nearby dialysis clinic, lying on the floor flailing her arms and legs and shouting all hell is going to break loose, police said. Officers said there was no indication that Casados was intoxicated. She was indicted Thursday, and faces charges including leaving the scene and vehicular homicide.

Xavier Nelson, 22, was indicted Nov. 29 on charges of vehicular homicide, racing on highways and drug possession. Witnesses reported seeing two vehicles racing on Interstate 25, reaching speeds between 85 and 110 mph, when one rear-ended an SUV traveling at the posted speed, police said. A 10-year-old girl was ejected from the SUV, and died at the scene.

Attorney General Hector Balderas announced Monday that his office would prosecute the case jointly with the 2nd Judicial District Attorneys Office. Balderas said in a statement that his office works with local law enforcement and prosecutors to investigate crimes against children.

Yolanda Chacon is accused of drunkenly losing control of her vehicle in August, sending it rolling into an arroyo and killing her passenger, Angelique Carrion-Montoya, according to a criminal complaint.

The two had drinks at the VFW before spending time at the Downs Racetrack and Casino. They were headed to Isleta Casino when Chacon, 59, attempted to exit Interstate 25 at Broadway and lost control, according to deputies.

Deputies found skid marks on the off ramp and a heavily damaged Hyundai Accent in an arroyo. Chacon was still inside of the car, and Carrion-Montoya was on the ground beside it.

Chacon wore a neck brace and smelled of alcohol as deputies interviewed her at a local hospital after the wreck.

She was indicted Thursday on vehicular homicide and DWI charges.
Two Las Cruces police officers have been placed on leave after an allegedly suicidal man was fatally shot at a Las Cruces Sleep Inn over the weekend, police said Monday.

Officers were dispatched before 4 p.m. on Friday to the residence of 36-year-old Joshua Clay Dunne after receiving a call that Dunne was possibly suicidal and could be armed with a 9 millimeter handgun and a hunting knife, according to a Las Cruces police statement.

Not found at home, police continued looking for Dunne, reported to be driving a gray Toyota 4Runner.

Officers located the vehicle at a Sleep Inn hotel off Interstate 25 near New Mexico State University, where he had rented a room on the third floor.

Officers attempted to negotiate with Dunne for more than five hours beginning at around 5 p.m., according to a police statement. Eventually, the Las Cruces Police Departments SWAT and hostage negotiation teams were activated but Dunne remained uncooperative and refused to exit the hotel room.

Shortly after 10:30 p.m., an officer or officers fired shots, striking Dunne at least once, according to the statement. He was transported to a local hospital where he died of his injuries.

Police spokesman Dan Trujillo said he could not confirm whether Dunne had threatened anyone or done anything illegal, saying the matter was under investigation.

Two LCPD officers have been placed on leave, standard procedure in an officer-involved shooting.
WASHINGTON  No, Joe Biden didnt just announce a presidential run in 2020. But as hes learned from experience, you never say never.

Im not committing not to run. Im not committed to anything, the vice president told reporters at the Capitol on Monday night after attending a Senate vote. I learned a long time ago  fate has a strange way of intervening.

Biden might have run this year if not for fate intervening. He seriously weighed a candidacy in 2015 as he and his family grieved the death of his eldest son, Beau, who had brain cancer.

The (grief) process doesnt respect or much care about things like filing deadlines or debates and primaries and caucuses, he said last year as he announced he would not run, saying he didnt have enough time to mount a winning campaign.

But in that same speech, he rededicated himself to public service. Among the causes he pledged to champion was a cure for cancer.

Which is why Biden was even talking to reporters Monday at the Capitol. In his constitutional role as president of the Senate, he presided over consideration of legislation that includes $1.8 billion in funding for cancer research.

Before senators approved the measure, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced a last-minute amendment: to rename the cancer funding provisions in honor of Beau Biden.

Its fitting to dedicate this bills critical cancer initiatives in honor of someone whod be proud of the presiding officer today, and thats his son, McConnell said as Biden watched, clearly moved. The vice president silently clasped his hands in front of him after the final change was approved, and the chamber applauded in his honor.

Shortly after, Biden was asked about running for president in four years. Yeah, I am. I am going to run in 2020, he said. Asked whether he was serious, Biden paused, before acknowledging the role of fate.

It will be an emotional few weeks for Biden as he prepares to leave office. On Wednesday, hell return to the Senate for a bipartisan tribute to his 36 years as a member of the body, as well as eight as vice president.

On Dec. 18, his family will again mark another tragic anniversary: of the car accident that killed his first wife and infant daughter just after Biden won his first term in the Senate in 1972.
TAOS, N.M.  Authorities say shots were fired at a New Mexico State Police officer Monday night from a vehicle the officer was attempting to stop.

Sgt. Chad Pierce says the bullets fired at the officer in the Taos area missed the officer but struck his vehicle several times. Three suspects have been taken into custody.

According to a news release, a State Police officer attempted to stop the vehicle about 7:18 p.m. Monday in the Ranchos De Taos-Llano Quemado area, south of Taos. After the shots were fired, police established a perimeter and officers searched the area. Two suspects were initially located and taken into custody:

Jenna Trujillo, 32, is charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault on a peace officer, aggravated fleeing, and harboring or aiding a felon. Diana Castro, 35, faces charges of resisting, evading or obstructing law enforcement and two outstanding magistrate court warrants. They were both booked into the Taos County jail.

At about 7:45 a.m. today (Tuesday, Dec. 6) a third suspect, Juan David Gonzales, 30, also known as Bashful, was found and arrested. The State Police news release said he is being processed by the State Police Investigations Bureau.
LAS CRUCES  The suspected ringleader of an identity theft scam in the Dona Ana County Clerks Office received a suspended sentence and five years of probation Monday after pleaded guilty to eight felonies.

Maria Ceniceros, 44, of Anthony, New Mexico, was sentenced before Chief District Judge Fernando R. Macias in 3rd Judicial District Court in Las Cruces.

As part of a plea agreement, Ceniceros, a former document technician for the Clerks Office, pleaded guilty to three counts of third- and fourth-degree forgery, three counts of identity theft and one count of fraud and conspiracy.

Authorities said Ceniceros used her position to access voter information, including Social Security numbers, and filed fraudulent income tax returns with the stolen identities. She and three other suspects, including her daughter and husband, were arrested in May 2015 by Dona Ana County sheriffs detectives.

Under the terms of the agreement, prosecutors dismissed 115 charges in the 123-count indictment, most of which were related to identity theft.

Obviously, we take white-collar crimes very seriously, Patrick Hayes, a spokesman for the 3rd Judicial District Attorneys Office, said in a statement, but we had an ethical obligation to dismiss a majority of the charges because the evidence we received did not specify or list the names of victims who allegedly had their information compromised.

Ceniceros was sentenced to nine years for three third-degree felonies and two years for two fourth-degree felonies, for a total of 12 years. But Macias suspended the 12-year sentence and ordered that Ceniceros serve five years of probation.

Prosecutors are still trying to determine if Ceniceros will have to pay restitution.

If restitution is due, primarily to the United States government or to any individual on the basis of the three checks upon which we proceeded, then it will be ordered at the state level, Deputy District Attorney Davis Ruark said.

Ceniceros and a co-conspirator, Armando Gutierrez-Torres, 52, of Mexico, also faced federal charges.

In October 2015, they pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to commit theft of government property and aggravated identity theft.

In accepting his plea agreement with federal prosecutors , Gutierrez-Torres admitted that he asked Ceniceros in November 2014 for the voter identifiers of people born in 1995, which were then used to file fraudulent federal income tax returns.

He also admitted that he asked Ceniceros to mail fraudulent tax returns to the IRS and cash return checks in the amount of $11,963.73. He was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison in July. After completing the prison term, he will be deported to Mexico.

In June, Ceniceros was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release. She was released from prison in September.

Also in October 2015, Ceniceros daughter, Denise Ceniceros, 25, pleaded no contest to one fourth-degree conspiracy charge. She received a conditional discharge instead of prison time.

The state cases against Gutierrez-Torres and Ceniceros husband, Francisco Ceniceros, 48, are still pending, court records show.

Carlos Andres Lopez can be reached 575-541-5453, carlopez@lcsun-news.com or @carlopez_los on Twitter.



2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
When news broke that Donald Trump had talked on the phone with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen, it was widely criticized as a foreign policy gaffe. A U.S. president had not spoken on the phone with a leader of Taiwan in decades for fear of upsetting the Peoples Republic of China, which considers Taiwan a rogue province.

But Washington Post reporting on Monday revealed that the phone call was actually a planned provocation. According to interviews with people involved in its planning, the call was the beginning of a new strategy for engaging Taiwan and taking a tough stance on China.

The telephone call was totally unprecedented. But the combative attitude toward China was not. For decades, U.S. presidents have come into office with sharply negative rhetoric and plans toward China. What usually happens next is predictable, scholars of history say.

David Lampton, director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said there is a long tradition of politicians issuing bumper sticker statements against China. And then when they get in a position of government, they find its very deleterious to uphold that proposal, he said.

Ronald Reagan, for example, entered office in 1981 with already-rocky relations with China. During the campaign, he had criticized incumbent President Jimmy Carter for terminating diplomatic relations with Taiwan as the U.S. normalized relations with China in 1978. Reagan repeatedly promised to restore official ties with Taiwan and forge new weapons deals.

Once in office, however, Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush embarked on a closer working relationship with China than ever before, according to Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. Under Reagan, U.S. military officers met with their Chinese counterparts for the first time, and the U.S. began exporting dual-use technology like torpedoes, artillery-locating radars and helicopters to the Chinese military, Haenle says.

In the 1992 presidential campaign, which came shortly after the bloody protests in Beijings Tiananmen Square, Bill Clinton famously inveighed against the butchers of Beijing. Clinton attacked incumbent George H.W. Bush for coddling dictators in China and sending emissaries to raise a toast with those who crushed democracy.

Clinton promised he would force China to change  and in his first year in office, he issued an executive order requiring China to improve its human rights record before the countrys favored trading status could be renewed.

But Clinton soon faced strong objections to the strategy from American business interests, who feared it would start a trade war. He then had what Lampton describes as a humiliating back-down. Clinton ultimately moved to renew Chinas favored trading status, saying that revoking it would drive the two countries back into a period of mutual isolation and recrimination that would harm Americas interests, not advance them. He later helped to negotiate Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization.

History repeated to some extent with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Bush described China as a competitor, not a strategic partner on the campaign trail. Then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, and Bush found he needed Chinese support in his global war on terrorism, Lampton said.

In his first year in office, Bush described relations with China as candid, constructive and cooperative.

Like Trump, Obama promised on the campaign trail to label China a currency manipulator. But he never followed through. Obama later faced criticism for choosing to delay a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after he had met with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

As both pundits and events keep reminding us, Trump appears likely to be a different sort of president altogether. And the call by the president-elect to Taiwan is perhaps more of a diplomatic break with China than ever before.

But Trump would not be by any means the first person to run for president saying one thing about China and then moving to a more accommodative policy, Lampton said.

Trump is by nature a negotiator, a dealer. So I think in all probability Trump will have to, and may find it desirable, to negotiate back from some of these positions.

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The nations total output of high school graduates peaked in 2013 at nearly 3.5 million and is projected to stagnate for most of the next decade, but the Hispanic share is expected to boom, according to a new report.

The demographic shifts point to major recruiting challenges for colleges following an era of steady growth in high school graduates that started in the late 1990s. While that growth had provided a solid pipeline for schools focused on serving traditional students between the ages of 18 to 22, the supply of these students appears to be dwindling or leveling off.

As a result, many colleges have been forced to rethink how to fill seats and educate incoming students who are more likely than their predecessors to be the first in their families to pursue a bachelors degree.

The report from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, released Tuesday, illuminates potential mismatches in supply and demand for higher education. Some states, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, have lots of colleges and a declining number of high school graduates. Other states in the South and West have the opposite problem. The South, in particular, is an engine of growth: The output of high school graduates from Texas alone is projected to rise 19 percent from 2013 to 2025.

Overall, the report shows that the U.S. high school class of 2013, public and private, was about 3.47 million; the nations graduating class is not expected to reach that level again until 2024. The report also found that the number of Hispanic graduates from public schools is projected to rise 43 percent from 2013 to 2025, while the number of white graduates is expected to decline 6 percent. The number of private high school graduates is expected to fall 18 percent in that time.

Joseph Garcia, the commissions president, said the trends could imperil schools that fall short of recruiting targets, especially small colleges.

It puts some of these institutions at risk, Garcia said Monday. With the number of private school graduates and white students ebbing in many places, he said, colleges that relied for generations on certain feeder schools could be forced to get creative.

You cant use your same old techniques, he said. You need to change your approach.

Virginia high schools next spring are on track to produce about 87,900 graduates. Thats 2 percent fewer than five years earlier. By contrast, the total in the previous five-year period had grown 11 percent. The number of Hispanic graduates in the commonwealths public schools is surging and is expected to top 10,100 next spring, up 34 percent over five years.

Peter Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, said the states colleges are increasingly focused on helping students finish their degrees. The push for retention and completion helps with enrollment and is also the right thing to do, Blake said.

Marylands high school class of 2017 is projected to have about 62,000 graduates, down 9 percent compared to the class of 2012. But the number of Hispanic graduates is expected to be about 6,800, up 35 percent.

Robert Caret, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said the states public universities are well positioned to capitalize on the changing market because they offer quality education at a moderate price. We just play that huge access role, particularly for first-generation students, Caret said. Were in pretty good shape.

The 15-state commission has studied the demographics of high school graduates for decades. Its report, Knocking at the College Door, is the first update to that research in four years.

Jeff Strohl, director of research for Georgetown Universitys Center on Education and the Workforce, said colleges face major recruiting hurdles. One is persuading students to apply. He cited federal data showing that the share of recent high school graduates enrolled in college fell from 70.1 percent in 2009 to 65.9 percent in 2013.

The disheartening part is that fewer students are trying to go to college, he said. Strohl said colleges must resist the urge to keep fishing in the same pond of potential students.Theyre going to need to spread their enrollment and recruiting activities outside of the places theyve already gone, he said.

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BRUSSELS  Britain may not have two years to negotiate its divorce from the European Union after all.

The EUs chief negotiator on Brexit warned Tuesday that the country will have less than 18 months once talks begin and that it wont be allowed to pick and choose what parts of the EU it wants to keep.

The British government, meanwhile, agreed for the first time to publish details of its plans for Brexit before formal talks start  though how much detail it would disclose remained an open question.

While steering away from specifics on what a Brexit deal might look like, EU negotiator Michel Barnier, who took up his post months ago after Britain voted in June to leave the EU, said formal procedures at the start and end of the talks will cut into the time Britain has to leave.

Time will be short, he said. All in all there will be less than 18 months to negotiate.

British Prime Minister Theresa May wants to invoke Article 50 of the EUs key treaty, which will officially kick off two years of exit talks, by the end of March.

But Barnier, who has visited 18 of the EUs 28 member states to gauge views on Britains withdrawal, warned that the effective negotiating time will be less due to procedures such as parliamentary approvals to rubber-stamp any deal.

If May sticks to her timetable, Barnier said an agreement may have to be secured by October 2018 to get a final agreement in place by March 2019  two years on from the triggering of Article 50.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appeared unconcerned by such a deadline.

That timeframe seems to me to be absolutely ample, he said on arriving for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

Its a fluid situation, not least because a British court ruled last month that Parliament needs to give its approval before the government can trigger Article 50.

The government is contesting that ruling in the Supreme Court. Should it confirm Parliaments involvement, Mays plans could be delayed.

Its also possible that European governments might extend the two-year period outlined within Article 50.

The British government has been reluctant to reveal much about what sort of post-Brexit relationship it is looking for out of fear that it would weaken its hand in negotiations. That has fueled allegations from opponents that May and her ministers lack a coherent Brexit strategy.

Opposition Labour Party lawmakers forced a Wednesday debate in Britains House of Commons, calling for the government to offer some clarity by publishing its plan for leaving the EU before it triggers Article 50.

Fearing defeat at the hands of the opposition and rebellious pro-EU Conservatives, the government agreed late Tuesday.

But it still said it would not be showing our negotiating hand until we have to, leaving doubts about how much detail the plan would include.

Barnier sought to dampen talk that Britain could cherry-pick what it likes about the EU, noting that the single market and its four freedoms, such as the freedom of movement, are indivisible.

This will be the atmosphere in which we will be conducting our negotiations with the U.K. and the sooner the better, he said. We are ready; keep calm and negotiate.

During the referendum campaign, many of those in favor of leaving the EU had indicated that Britain could have its cake and eat it  continue to trade freely in the EU single market while clamping down on the free movement of people from the region.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that sort of deal is off limits.

The internal market threatens to be weakened by negotiations on Brexit, Merkel told a congress of her conservative Christian Democratic Union in Essen. We will not allow cherry-picking. The four fundamental freedoms must be preserved.

Given that it takes many years to conclude wide-ranging free trade deals  Canada recently completed one with the EU after seven years  theres been speculation that Britain and the EU might forge a transitional arrangement that would see Britain pay into the EU budget in return for access to the single market. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says some sort of transitional period would be advantageous as it would allow firms to adjust.

Barnier indicated there may be some point and usefulness to a transitional arrangement.

It is for the British to say what kind of relationship they want and for the 27 EU states to define the future they want to build with them, he said. You cant do everything in 15 to 18 months of negotiations.

The British governments opaque approach has frustrated many in Europe.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs meetings of the 19 EU countries that use the euro, said proposals hes seen so far are incompatible with smooth and incompatible with orderly.

___

Geir Moulson in Berlin, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
BERLIN  Just a few months ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel brought together the leaders of the U.S., Britain, France and Italy to discuss the worlds crises, a moment captured in a photo of the five seated around a conference table. When she hosts a summit of 20 leading global powers in July, she will be the only one of them left  and many of the policies her partners worked for might be reversed.

Merkel, the last of President Barack Obamas key European allies still standing, appears well on course to extend her 11-year grip on power, though even she warned her conservative party Tuesday that she faces her most difficult campaign yet.

Many people feel that the world is in disarray, and theyre right, Merkel told a congress of her Christian Democratic Union in Essen. 2016 hasnt made the world stronger and more stable, but rather weaker and more unstable.

No one, even with the greatest experience, can make things better in Germany, Europe and the world more or less alone  and certainly not a chancellor of Germany, she said. Let us not be fooled into thinking that. That would be grotesque, absurd, condemned to failure. Thats not how it works.

Tamping down expectations has served Merkel well in three terms of pragmatic and rarely flashy leadership. But given the exodus of like-minded leaders, she will struggle to avoid such hopes.

In April, Merkel welcomed Obama to Germany for a meeting at which the merits of a proposed European Union-U.S. trade pact were a prominent issue. They then met British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Premier Matteo Renzi.

But at Julys Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Merkel will be facing new leaders of the Wests leading powers.

Obama, whose popularity has been rising in the U.S. in recent months, tried to use his stronger standing to ensure allies on both sides of the Atlantic were in office after he leaves in January. He was mostly unsuccessful.

Obama campaigned vigorously for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, casting her election as a safeguard on his agenda. She lost to Republican Donald Trump, who opposes the kind of multilateral trade deals Obama tried to pursue with Europe and has called for closer relations with Russia.

Cameron was replaced by Theresa May after failing to persuade British voters to stay in the EU in a June referendum. The deeply unpopular Hollande has decided not to seek re-election in April; both of the two top contenders to succeed him advocate a softer line on Russia, and one supports leaving the EU.

Renzi announced his resignation after losing a weekend referendum on constitutional reform in Italy, leaving unclear who will take on the task of steering the countrys large but troubled economy.

Obama traveled to London in April to try to boost Cameron ahead of the Brexit vote. The president bluntly warned that Britain would find itself at the back of the queue in trans-Atlantic trade deals if it left the EU.

This fall, Obama threw his support behind Renzi, hosting him at the White House for a celebrity-filled state dinner. He praised Renzis efforts to modernize Italys political institutions, calling reform an important step toward a more vibrant, dynamic economy.

The White House has dismissed questions about whether the referendums and Trumps victory signal a broad rejection of Obamas world views, though officials privately worry about the spread of isolationist tendencies.

I would warn against painting with an overly broad brush about the potential consequences of this outcome, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said after the Italian vote. There certainly is a not entirely unreasonable tendency to want to loop together the outcome in the U.K. and even the outcome of the U.S. presidential election with this outcome. But each of these is different.

Obama made no attempt to assist Hollande, and Merkel is now the last of the presidents core European partners standing.

Obama has again tried to do his part to give her a boost, traveling to Germany last month to heap praise on his long-time partner.

I value Angelas leadership, he said. If I were German and I had a vote, I might support her.

He added: But I dont know whether that hurts or helps.

Merkel acknowledges that she faces a tougher task this time after cruising to victory in 2013. While her conservative party is well ahead in polls, it faces new competition from the upstart nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has thrived by attacking Merkels migrant policies.

It also faces the possibility of three left-leaning parties linking up to put it out of government, if they can win enough votes and overcome deep policy divisions  although that currently looks like a long shot. And it must smooth over tensions with its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union, which has differed with Merkel over migrants.

Merkels party re-elected her unopposed as chairwoman on Tuesday, with 89.5 percent of delegates supporting her. That was solid, but down from 96.7 percent in less-troubled times two years ago.

The 2017 election will be more difficult than any election before, at least since German reunification, Merkel said, citing the strong polarization of our society.

___

Associated Press writer Julie Pace in Washington contributed.
SAFFORD, Ariz.  The Latest on a missing 12-year-old Arizona girl (all times local):

12:10 p.m.

Authorities say a 12-year-old southeastern Arizona girl who was the subject of a now-canceled Amber Alert has been found in rural southwestern New Mexico while walking with a 34-year-old man who also had been reported missing.

Graham County Undersheriff Jeff McCormies says a Grant County sheriffs sergeant picked up Savinya Kimball and Lawrence James Halamek after several motorists Tuesday morning reported seeing them walking along State Route 78 several miles into New Mexico.

The two were last seen Monday morning.

McCormies says Arizona authorities are sending their New Mexico counterparts a warrant charging Halamek with custodial interference.

McCormies said previously that it appeared from communications between the girl and Halamek that she trusted him and reached out to him before she didnt go to school Monday. Theyre not related.

8:35 a.m.

The Graham County Sheriffs Office says the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl is being investigated as a possible case of custodial interference involving a 34-year-old man who knows the girl.

Undersheriff Jeff McCormies says it appears from communications between Savinya Kimball and Lawrence James Halamek that she trusts him and reached out to him.

McCormies says the girl and Halamek arent related but that she knows Halamek and his wife.

McCormies says both were last seen Monday morning when she was never made it to school and he told his wife he was going to get them breakfast.

Halamek drives a blue 2001 Dodge pickup truck with temporary Arizona license plate T941407.

___

6:20 a.m.

An Amber Alert has been issued for a 12-year-old Safford-area girl last seen Monday morning at a school bus stop.

The Graham County Sheriffs Office says Savinya Kimball is white, 4-foot-10, 70 pounds, with blue eyes and black shoulder-length hair shaved on the left side. She was wearing black pants and a black sweater.

County Undersheriff Jeff McCormies says a person of interest is 34-year-old Lawrence James Halamek. He drives a blue 2001 Dodge pickup truck with temporary Arizona license plate T941407.

Halamek is described as white, 6-foot, 182 pounds with brown eyes and brown hair. He was last seen wearing a red shirt, black pants and a camouflage jacket.

McCormies says the girl and Halamek arent related but that she knows Halamek and his wife.
There are few things more British than a traditional countryside pub. So when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited then-Prime Minister David Cameron at the official country house retreat, Chequers, last October, the pair decided to take a short stroll to the local inn, where they each enjoyed a pint of ale and some fish and chips.

The highly choreographed meal was widely portrayed as a sign of the warmth between the two world leaders. By treating Xi at his country residence and the pub, Cameron displayed a private, family-style hospitality toward the Chinese leader, Chinas state run news agency Xinhua noted.

But not much more than a year later, the traditional British pub they visited is changing hands  and a Chinese investment firm will be the new owners.

The Christie & Co. real estate firm announced on Tuesday that it had brokered the sale of the The Plough pub in Cadsden to the Chinese firm SinoFortune. The Times of London reports that around 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) was paid in the deal. The pub, which says its history dates back to the 16th century, will still be managed by the previous owner Steve Hollings.

For SinoFortune, the logic behind buying the pub was simple. While the pub had long been a favorite for British prime ministers due to its proximity to Chequers, Xis visit brought with it a new popularity with Chinese tourists, eager to see where the Chinese leader ate and drank. On the Ploughs website it prominently features a photograph of the visit, along with the beer Xi drank: A Green King presidents IPA.

Going to the pub is a British tradition, Hollings told China Daily shortly after Xis visit, adding that it was a place for friends to relax and chat. The Chinese state newspaper reported that on the day their reporters visited, a Sunday in October, almost 30 Chinese customers had visited the pub in the hour after it opened.

We all know that fish and chips is called the British national food that you can find everywhere. However, with Xis visit, we are curious to know what is special about this pub, one student told China Daily.

Chinese tourists are increasingly big business in Britain: There were almost 270,000 Chinese visitors to Britain in 2015, according to VisitBritain figures, more than double the number in 2006. There are widespread hopes that more visitors may be enticed by the lower pound in coming years. There are also indications that they are becoming less interested in regular tourist sights and more interested in places that show how British people really live.

Perhaps more importantly, SinoFortune indicated they may plan to use the pub as a model for business in China. The English pub concept is growing very fast in China, and its the best way, culturally, to link people from different countries and build friendships, SinoFortone Investments managing director, Peter Zhang, was quoted as saying by China Daily after the deal was announced.

At the same time, Britians pub industry has struggled badly over recent years due to a complicated set of economic circumstances. Earlier this year, one organization reported that on average 27 pubs across Britain closed each week, with the number of pubs at the end of 2015 down to 52,750 from 54,194 in 2014.

Pub landlords arent the only ones whove lost their job over the last year, of course. Xis drinking partner Cameron stepped down from the prime ministers office in July 2016 after losing Britains Brexit referendum. Ahead of his meeting with the Chinese leader, Cameron had been criticizing for leading an aggressive courtship of the authoritarian China.

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STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo.  The city of Steamboat Springs has filed a lawsuit over a historic barn at the base of Steamboat Springs Ski Area city officials say has been neglected for years.

The Steamboat Pilot & Today reports (http://bit.ly/2gzcQ5q ) that the citys lawsuit claims the developer, RP Steamboat Springs, and the property owner, RCS-Wildhorse Land, LLC, should be maintaining the 88-year-old barn as part of a 2006 development agreement. The city is seeking a court order that would force the defendants to stabilize the barn this winter.

City Attorney Dan Foote said Monday that an engineer who recently inspected the barn said he was surprised it was still standing.

RP Steamboat and RCS-Wildhorse Land deny they are responsible for maintaining the barn. They argue that the development agreement was struck with a previous City Council and is no longer valid.

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Information from: Steamboat Pilot & Today, http://steamboatpilot.com/
A $25,000 Albuquerque Community Foundation grant and a new partnership with Santa Fe-based nonprofits will rope more students and young adults into Cultivating Coders boot camps next year.

Cultivating Coders, which offers intensive eight-week training workshops for aspiring web and software developers in underserved communities, will use the Community Foundation grant to support a summer course next year for at least 20 high school students in Albuquerque, founder and president Charles Ashley III said.

Well work with the Native American Community Academy and two or three other local high schools to offer a summer school camp for students, Ashley said. The $25,000 grant covers a part of the course. Were working with other partners as well on contributions.

The grant came from the foundations new Social Giving Club, which launched this year to allow individuals to pool contributions to benefit a local nonprofit of their choice, said vice president Kelli Cooper. Contributors donate $1,000 each. Half goes into a permanent endowment, and the rest is pooled for one large grant at year-end.

The foundation collected donations from 50 people, who unanimously voted for Cultivating Coders given its focus on helping Native Americans and other underserved groups through training and skills that can lead to immediate, high-paying jobs.

That had overwhelming support, Cooper said.

Three or four more boot camps are also planned for northern New Mexico next year, thanks to a new partnership with New Mexico TechWorks, which unites nonprofits and government agencies in an effort to expand tech-sector employment opportunities and career pathways.

The Santa Fe-based Community Learning Network and Startup Santa Fe worked together to create TechWorks, which received official recognition this month as one of 70 communities involved in the White Houses nationwide TechHire Initiative.

Learning Network director and educator Jennifer Nevarez said Cultivating Coders is a natural fit for the initiative.

It provides intensive training in different languages for people to graduate as software developers in just eight weeks, Nevarez said. It offers tools for people to either continue their education or immediately start working.

Cultivating Coders has trained 55 people since launching in Albuquerque last December, most of them Native American and the majority of them women.
President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Japanese telecom and internet conglomerate SoftBank would invest $50 billion in the United States and create 50,000 new jobs, saying that the decision wouldnt have been made without Trumps election win.

Trump appeared in the lobby of the Trump Tower on Tuesday with Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of SoftBank, to announce the news, and later on Twitter claimed credit.

Trump wrote: Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!

Son told reporters at Trump Tower that the funds would be invested into American start-ups. It was not immediately clear how much of the investment was new, and how much was previously committed.

Son told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the money will come from a $100 billion joint investment by SoftBank and the Saudi Arabian government.

SoftBank announced in October that it would create the SoftBank Vision Fund to invest in the global technology sector. SoftBank said it would provide at least $25 billion of the funds in the next five years, while Saudi Arabias public investment fund pledged up to $45 billion in the same time period. During a trip to India last week, Son said he is close to securing investors to provide the additional funds.

I think its making hay out of something that was there already, said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. In all likelihood, this comes out of the $100 billion fund. Considering the extremely large part that the U.S. has in the high-tech economy, [Son] would have probably invested something in the neighborhood anyway.

As he spoke to reporters in the Trump Tower, Son held up a piece of paper with the same figures that Trump had announced, but which also specified that the investment would be made in the next four years.

The paper also contained the logo of Foxconn, a major supplier for Apples iPhones. Foxconn could not immediately be reached for comment, and it was not clear what role Foxconn would play in the deal, or if the company would be responsible for the additional $7 billion in investment and 50,000 new jobs mentioned on the paper.

Trump also tweeted the news Tuesday afternoon:

Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs.

Softbank owns roughly 80 percent of telecom company Sprint. Following the announcement, shares of Sprint Corp. surged nearly 4 percent as of mid-afternoon.

The announcement sparked speculation that Son might be seeking to curry favor for his U.S. business interests. Sprint and SoftBank abandoned an effort to purchase rival telecom carrier T-Mobile in 2014 after U.S. regulators signaled the deal might violate anti-trust laws. But in August, Bloomberg quoted people familiar with his thinking as saying that Son still held out hope for the merger.

A Trump administration may consider a potential merger between Sprint and T-Mobile differently, analysts said. Speaking from the lobby of the Trump tower, Son said that he wanted to celebrate Trumps election because he would do a lot of deregulation.

Jeff Kagan, an Atlanta-based telecom industry analyst, said that was a possibility, but described Son as an ambitious entrepreneur who was likely looking for opportunities beyond the merger.

Maybe he sees theres a different possibility for a Sprint and T-mobile partnership. But thats only one slice of the pie. I dont think Masayoshi Son is that small of a thinker, said Kagan. He sees opportunities, based on what weve all seen happen in the last few weeks. And he wants to be a player.

A self-made billionaire, Son has earned a reputation as an entrepreneurial thinker and a maverick. Since founding SoftBank in 1981, he has built the company into a telecom, internet, and financial leviathan with purchases including an early investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and the acquisition of the Japanese unit of British mobile phone company Vodafone.



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President-elect Donald Trump announced that a Japanese bank, Softbank, has agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States, and 50,000 jobs. Trump met with Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, at Trump Tower Tuesday. (The Washington Post)

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URL: http://wapo.st/2gOjNTi

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In the early morning hours of Feb. 25, police were called to a home in Elyria, Ohio.

There had been an apparent abduction attempt at the home, local authorities said in a news release. A 10-year-old girl ran into her fathers room that night, screaming, according to the release.

She told her father that someone had grabbed her legs and tried to yank her out of her bedroom window. The girl described the person who tried to abduct her  a man in his 30s, who was wearing a hoodie tied tight around his face.

Months later, another girl was taken in Cleveland, which is about 30 miles from Elyria. That case involved a 6-year-old girl, and this time, the abductor was successful. The child was taken from her home about 4:30 a.m. May 21 and brought to another location.

The young victim was sexually assaulted, according to the Cuyahoga County Office of the Prosecutor, and later released.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams spoke of the May abduction at a news conference Monday, saying the child was taken in the dead of night, by a basically a monster. Then, he mentioned other officers and investigators in the room, whom he said worked the case.

It is my pleasure to announce that on Friday, this team who you see assembled behind me, made an arrest in that case, Williams said.

Investigators have arrested 29-year-old Justin A. Christian of Lorain County in the two incidents. At a news conference, Christian was called a serial child abductor and predator. A news release about his indictment said that he faced charges stemming from two shockingly brazen attacks that targeted young girls in Cleveland and Elyria.

Christian has been charged with three counts of rape, eight counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated burglary and one count of tampering with evidence, according to the release. The FBI said in a news release that Christian was arrested without incident at his Ohio home.

This case really represents the worst fears of any parent, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said at the news conference. I will tell you that the men and women who worked on this case are parents, some are grandparents, and they felt this case very, very much. And they did everything they could in their power to take this predator off the streets.

According to DeWine, Justin Christians arrest came after authorities utilized a new tool, called a familial DNA search. It marked the first time such a search has been conducted the state of Ohio, DeWine said.

DeWine described familial DNA as a tool that can point law enforcement in the right direction on a case. Authorities still need to conduct old-fashioned police work after a potential DNA match, he said, but the search could provide a strong lead when all other efforts have failed, and a danger to the public remains.

And that was the situation in this case, DeWine said.

A familial DNA search identifies a person who is a genetic near-match to a suspect  such as a sibling, a parent, a child. From there, scientists pull DNA samples on potential matches and conduct additional testing. The same type of testing was used in Californias Grim Sleeper case, which involved a serial killer who was eventually convicted in the murders of several women and a teenager.

DeWine said in a phone interview that authorities in Ohio have studied what other states have done with familial DNA and developed a protocol. After they received software for the searches, they conducted trial runs, he said, and had been waiting for the right case. The Christian case was appropriate because officials had exhausted all other leads and avenues, he said, and authorities were still stumped.

We had a guy who was what we believed was someone who would continue to commit these crimes. He was out there, he was active, DeWine said. We really faced a choice of, if we did not use this family DNA, the only way we were going to get this guy was for him to commit another crime, and maybe get lucky or maybe he made a mistake. And so that was not an acceptable alternative. We dont want to wait until someone else is victimized.

He continued: Wed come to a conclusion that that is the only way were going to get him. He would have to commit another crime, or two crimes, or three crimes. So that was just not acceptable.

The suspects father, Jimmy Christian, spoke with a local FOX affiliate, saying that after he saw security footage that investigators released, he spoke with his son, mentioning a resemblance he had with the person in the video.

I said something to Justin. I said, Hey, Justin, this could be you,  he told Fox 8 News. But because it wasnt in my sons character, whatever he said, that conversation never came up again.

Jimmy Christian told the station that he has spoken with his son via telephone.

I dont know what happened, he said. This is devastating to our family.

According to the station, Jimmy Christian also added: Theyre somebodys children. He went to somebodys house. Its crazy.

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NEW YORK  Donald Trumps new luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., has been attracting foreign envoys, special interest groups  and a bit of controversy.

One of the latest groups to book the hotel is the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank whose big donors gathered there Tuesday night for a speech by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Pence spoke on Trump administration priorities.

The Heritage Foundation said its decision to use the hotel was driven by space needs.

The Trump International Hotel has come under scrutiny by government ethics experts who worry that foreign governments, special interest groups and others will book rooms and events there to curry favor with the president-elect.

The Washington Post reported last month that about 100 foreign diplomats from around the world used the hotel for a reception just a week after the election. On Dec. 15 an umbrella organization for U.S. Jewish groups is holding a joint Hanukkah party with the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan there.

Malcolm Hoenlein, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said using the hotel was in no way an attempt to gain favor with the president, and that conflicts of interest are not an issue anyway because Trump isnt president yet.

Until January 20, hes a private citizen so I dont think the conflict issue comes in, Hoenlein said. He added, Do you think the president-elect knows who rents rooms for two hours?

The Azeri embassy did not respond to a phone message requesting comment. The Obama administration criticized Azerbaijan its latest annual report on human rights in April.

A party to be held at the hotel by another foreign embassy is causing a stir.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts sent a letter to Trump urging him not to accept any money from the Bahraini monarchy for use of his hotel. He cited news reports that the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain will hold its National Day celebrations at the hotel on Wednesday.

The embassy did not reply to an email and phone call about the event. In June, a bipartisan group of senators wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry saying they were deeply alarmed by the government of Bahrains suppression of free speech and political dissent.

Trump tweeted last month that he would disclose plans on Dec. 15 to take me completely out of business operations without elaborating what that means. He had previously said that he plans to hand over management of his business to three of his adult children. That is far short of what some government ethics experts are pushing him to do: sell his assets, and put the money in a blind trust overseen by an independent manager not related to him.

The Trump Organization did not immediately reply for comment about events at its hotel.

Since the election, government ethics experts have called for the Trump Organization to sell its interest in the hotel.

Aside from attempts to use the hotel to influence the president-elect, they worry about a 60-year lease that his company took out with the U.S. to use the government-owned building that houses the hotel. In addition to an annual rental fee, the Trump Organization has to pay a special annual payment based on various measures on how well the hotel is doing.

Any disputes over that payment will be handled by the General Services Administration, the federal agency overseeing the property. The head of the GSA will be appointed by the new president.

The Pence speech on Tuesday was the highlight of the Heritage Foundations annual gathering for its biggest donors. The event was mostly being held at the Ronald Reagan Center across the street from the hotel.

The space wasnt large enough and there are security concerns, said Heritage spokesman Wesley Denton. Its just this one speech.
President-elect Donald Trump may not be a big fan of NATO, but that didnt keep a senator on his list for secretary of state from putting his stamp of approval on expanding it.

Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker, R-Tenn., presided over a unanimous vote Tuesday ratifying a treaty to accept Montenegro as the latest member of NATO. Backers want the Senate to take up the measure later this week, when two-thirds of senators would need to approve it in order for Montenegro to be on its way to becoming the 29th member of the alliance.

Corker said in a statement that members of the committee welcome Montenegro as NATOs newest member, before noting that once in NATO, the small Balkan nation  like other members  should be prepared to pull its weight in the alliance.

Given the many challenges facing the alliance, it is important that every state step up and meet the two percent of GDP target for spending on defense, Corker said.

His comments echo some of Trumps own statements about NATO. On the campaign trail, Trump called it obsolete and suggested the U.S. might not rush to defend NATO members from a potential Russian invasion if they hadnt paid the two percent of GDP towards the alliance expected of them.

Corker is one of an apparently growing number of candidates that Trump is considering to be his chief ambassador to the world. They have recently included Corker  who supported Trump during the campaign  former arch-rival Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, ex-Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, ex-U.N. Ambassador John Bolton; Exxon head Rex Tillerson and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WestVa.

Many of those candidates are likely to break with Trump, including Corker, in a number of key foreign policy areas especially concerning Russia.

Since winning the election, Trump has tempered his rhetoric on NATO, to the extent that even outgoing President Obama said he was confident Trump would maintain U.S. obligations to the alliance after meeting with the president-elect.

The admission of Montenegro is likely to anger Russia, which has sought to pull the state off its course toward closer alliance with the West. This fall, Montenegrin authorities accused Moscow of trying to plot a botched coup during the countrys parliamentary elections.

That might not sit well with Trump, who has advocated warmer relations with Moscow, despite protestations from many within his own party that he and his aides are too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump has not specifically weighed in on the prospect of Montenegro joining NATO. After a years-long application process, Montenegros pending membership was approved by members foreign ministers in May, and the White House asked Congress to ratify the agreement in June.

When he started the ratification process, Obama told Congress that accepting Montenegro into NATO will demonstrate to other countries in the Balkans and beyond that NATOs door remains open to nations ready to carry out needed reforms, and is yet another milestone in advancing the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Balkans.

That idea wont sit well in Moscow, where Kremlin officials have long feared NATO encroachment, particularly in countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union or its sphere of influence during the Cold War. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Georgia are also formally pursuing NATO membership, though none of their bids to join are imminent.

By itself, Montenegro offers few marked assets to the NATO alliance: the tiny country of just over 600,000 has a GDP of barely $7.5 billion and a standing military of only about 2,000. But Montenegros main port, Bar, is strategically valuable as the only deep-sea port along Europes southern coast belonging to a non-member state.

Members of Congress also seem to care little about whether their move angers Russia.

Strengthening and expanding NATO is critical at a time when terrorism and Russian aggression continue to threaten our European allies, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that handles Europe and regional security, and co-sponsored the legislation with ranking member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

Approving Montenegros accession will send the clear message that Congress will not bow to Russian threats and intimidation, Shaheen said. The United States must always stand on the side of freedom, security and democracy.

senator-nato
Relax.

Breathe.

Donald Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan wasn't a blunder by an inexperienced president-elect unschooled in the niceties of cross-straits diplomacy.

It was a deliberate move - and a brilliant one at that.

The phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen was reportedly carefully planned, and Trump was fully briefed before the call, according to The Washington Post. It's not that Trump was unfamiliar with the "Three Communiques" or unaware of the fiction that there is "One China." Trump knew precisely what he was doing in taking the call.

He was serving notice on Beijing that it is dealing with a different kind of president - an outsider who will not be encumbered by the same Lilliputian diplomatic threads that tied down previous administrations. The message, as John Bolton correctly put it, was that "the president of the United States [will] talk to whomever he wants if he thinks it's in the interest of the United States, and nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to."

Amen to that.

And if that message was lost on Beijing, Trump underscored it on Sunday, tweeting: "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? I don't think so!" He does not need Beijing's permission to speak to anyone. No more kowtowing in a Trump administration.

Trump promised during the campaign that he would take a tougher stand with China, and supporting Taiwan has always been part of his get-tough approach to Beijing. As far back as 2011, Trump tweeted: "Why is @BarackObama delaying the sale of F-16 aircraft to Taiwan? Wrong message to send to China. #TimeToGetTough." Indeed, the very idea that Trump could not speak to Taiwan's president because it would anger Beijing is precisely the kind of weak-kneed subservience that Trump promised to eliminate as president.

Trump's call with the Taiwanese president sent a message not only to Beijing, but also to the striped-pants foreign-policy establishment in Washington. It is telling how so many in that establishment immediately assumed Trump had committed an unintended gaffe. "Bottomless pig-ignorance" is how one liberal foreign-policy commentator described Trump's decision to speak with Tsai. Trump just shocked the world by winning the presidential election, yet they still underestimate him.

The hypocrisy is rank. When President Obama broke with decades of U.S. policy and extended diplomatic recognition to a murderous dictatorship in Cuba, the foreign-policy establishment swooned.

But when Trump broke with decades of U.S. diplomatic practice and had a phone call with the democratically elected leader of Taiwan, he was declared a buffoon. Well, if they didn't like that phone call, his critics may hate what could come next even more. Trump now has an opportunity to do with Taiwan what Obama did with Cuba - normalize relations.

Beijing would be wise not to overreact to any overtures Trump makes to Taiwan. When China tested President George W. Bush in his first months in office by scrambling fighters and forcing a U.S. EP-3 aircraft to land on the Chinese island of Hainan, its actions backfired. After the incident, Bush approved a $30 billion arms package for Taiwan, announced that Taiwan would be treated as a major non-NATO ally and declared that the United States would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan. His actions not only strengthened U.S. ties with Taiwan but also set the stage for good relations with Beijing throughout his presidency.

China does not want to make the same mistake and overplay its hand with Trump. Trump's call with Taiwan's president was a smart, calculated move designed to send a clear message: The days of pushing the United States around are over.

That may horrify official Washington, but it's the right message to send.
If ever there was a lost cause in modern American society, it had to be the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline, a $3.8 billion project to ship fracked oil from North Dakota across the U.S. heartland to lucrative markets.

The battle pitted some of the worlds richest oil companies and its powerful political allies against what started as a small band of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota, soon to be joined by other indigenous tribes, environmental activists from all over the country, even military veterans.

The Natives and their allies had some powerful moral arguments: First Nation peoples had been given little or no input, the pipeline cut through land that tribal citizens believe is sacred, and local residents could not abide the risk of a potential leak as the oil crossed the Missouri River, their sole source of clean drinking water.

In the hardened world of political punditry, the odds of stopping the project looked highly unlikely. The opponents had entered the battle late; much of the pipeline across four states has already been built, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had granted at least tentative approval to finish the rest. Despite this, the Standing Rock Sioux were willing to put their bodies on the line for the things that mattered: respect for indigenous people and their rights, as well as the right to clean water. The foes called themselves water protectors, a name that resonated with all who learned of their struggle.

The protest followed a classic pattern. First the politicians and the national news media ignored it. They seemed to view North Dakota as if it were Outer Mongolia, an exotic and inaccessible land. Then, when the protest was dramatized by one intrepid journalist, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, people switched to ridiculing it, these Native protesters and their naive belief they could defeat Big Oil and the political establishment. Then officials fought it, with vicious security dogs that nipped at and injured demonstrators, by arresting or charging journalists like Goodman or anyone else who tried the document the protests, by attempting to blockade the protest encampment, and firing water canons at the group in sub-freezing temperatures.

And when all seemed lost, when a bitter cold winter was descending on Standing Rock, when authorities seemed ready to clear the camp and the rabidly pro-oil administration of Donald Trump was just weeks away from moving into the White House, they won.

Sundays stunning announcement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  ordering a halt on work to complete the pipeline and a new plan that would re-route it away from the Standing Rock Sioux and require an extensive environmental review  was a stunning victory for people power. And it came right at the moment when fear for the future of American democracy was at its greatest.

Howd they do it?

Although the protesters had solid facts to support their case, including the hundreds of damaging pipeline spills across America in recent years, they won the battle, in my opinion, with an emotional appeal to the nations heart. For centuries, the American government has broken its promises to Native Americans, often with brutal violence, while expropriating their lands. The Dakota Access pipeline felt like more of the same, and it just felt wrong to many people.

Indeed, the tipping point may have come this weekend when about 2,000 military veterans  who saw the values of the protesters the same as those theyd fought for during their time in the service  arrived at the camp just ahead of threats to shut it down by force.

Faced with a possible clash against military veterans, native peoples and hundreds of their allies, the government blinked.

There may be new battles ahead, as Trump  who once held stock in the pipeline builders and received major backing from the projects main CEO  tries to undo what just happened there.

Although this was not their intention or their goal, the people of Standing Rock have already taught many valuable lessons to those of us determined to resist Trump as he prepares to take office. And they have already given this burgeoning political movement the most priceless gift of all.

Hope.
Hundreds of guests from across the country converged at the Conrad Hotel, Dublin yesterday to celebrate Irish business by recognising their outstanding achievements in their chosen fields.

Winners of the InBUSINESS Recognition Awards were chosen across 22 categories based on the broad criteria of growth, profile of business, range of services and customer care



Hosted by Newstalks Vincent Wall, the awards were run in association with Skoda and each winner had the unique opportunity to address the audience to give some further insights to their business as they received their award.



The Company of the Year Award was presented to Vodafone Ireland. Julie Sinnamon of Enterprise Ireland was named Businesswoman of the Year, while Joe Barrett of Applegreen was named the Businessman of the Year.



Legal Firm Eversheds were named Business Law Firm of the Year for the third year running while Russell Brennan Keane took the award for Accountancy Firm of the Year. Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick receiving, Best Business School while Virgin Media were recognised as Best Business Broadband.

Dublin Port was named Best in Tourism with Shannon Group being presented with the award for Best Brand.



NSAI was named Best State/Semi-State Body and AdMailer.ie was received the award for the Best Newcomer. Paypal took the award for Best in E-Commerce while the Volvo V90 was named Best Executive Car.



Speaking at the awards, Brand Director at SKODA Ireland, John Donegan said, "On behalf of myself and everybody at SKODA Ireland I would like to congratulate, not only the 22 category winners but also all nominees here today. When I look at the prestigious nominee list I can relate to many of them. Over the last number of years the SKODA brand in Ireland has persevered and grown through the most difficult of business environments."

He added, "Ten years ago it was unthinkable that SKODA would be on the cusp of breaking into the top-five bestselling car brands in Ireland but this has become possible through Innovation, investment, recruitment, hard work and determination. We will continue to grow in 2017 with some outstanding new products arriving, supported by excellent financial products, and we wish equalled success to all those in business here in Ireland in 2017 also."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General Group and chair of the advisory panel on mission-led businesses

The UK government should introduce a benefit company status in company law to make it easier to set up profit-making companies driven by mission, a government-backed review has said.

The recommendations come in On a Mission in the UK Economy, the final report of an Office for Civil Society review of mission-led businesses  businesses which exist to make a profit, but are also driven by social mission. The Office for Civil Society has said it is keen to expand the growth of this kind of business in the UK.

The review panel is led by Nigel Wilson, chief executive of the Legal & General insurance group. It says that its call for evidence on mission-led businesses has revealed that they are growing in popularity.

It makes ten recommendations, including introducing a model similar to the benefit corporation structure which has already been introduced in Italy and 32 US states.

The structure allows businesses to enshrine a social purpose as legally more important than the requirement to maximise shareholder value. But it does not have the asset lock which prevents the boards of charities, community interest companies and community benefit societies from selling up and making a profit.

Benefit corporations are seen as a halfway house between mainstream businesses and social enterprises  although the definition of social enterprise is a complex one and is not well-agreed, even within the social enterprise community.

The review said there was evidence that mission-led businesses are growing in popularity.

Our numerous interviews and meetings over recent months have convinced us there is a new social contract developing between business and society, in which businesses engage with stakeholders beyond their current narrow remit to create benefits for employees, citizens and society at large, the review said.

We have found evidence that businesses that embrace social priorities perform better, reflect peoples ideals and ambitions and so are primed for success. Of course, they also face challenges, particularly in securing funding and identifying appropriate legal structures to serve their purposes.

The attached report discusses the current state of mission-led business in the UK, sets out our vision for the next decade and makes 10 recommendations that we hope will help businesses and government move forward.

Recommendations in full

Government to lead a conversation on responsible business and identify how the public, private and social sectors can work together to address societal issues.

Starting with business schools, educators to lead the way in analysing the impact on business of having a purpose that serves society, and embedding this into curricula.

Government to encourage and incentivise the positive social impact of mission-led business by enabling blended finance investment models and social pension funds.

UK corporates to create social and environmental impact investment funds targeting 1 billion by 2021.

Mainstream businesses and start-up mission-led businesses to set up talent exchange programmes.

Advisory firms to commit to better serving mission-led businesses through increased training and extending their pro bono remit.

Government to promote the flexibility offered under English law for companies to act with a social purpose and align shareholder and stakeholder interests.

Government to encourage businesses to incorporate around a social purpose and commit to social impact by establishing clear entry points for entrepreneurs.

Government to explore the introduction of a benefit company status in English law.

Every business to actively communicate its social mission and progress in the form of a transparency report.
The Information Commissioners Office has fined both the RSPCA and the British Heart Foundation for breaches of data protection law in their fundraising practices, following a Daily Mail expose in September 2015.

The ICO this morning confirmed that it had fined the RSPCA 25,000 and the British Heart Foundation 18,000, after the Daily Mail today published an article citing the figures. But both the RSPCA and the British Heart Foundation have strongly condemned the ICOs findings.

The fines are the result of an ICO investigation into both charities around so-called wealth screening and selling of donor data, which begun after a Daily Mail investigation into the practice in September 2015.

The full findings of the investigation have not yet been published. The ICO had originally intended to publish at the end of the week, but is now expected to publish the full findings later today.

The British Heart Foundation said that it was considering whether to challenge the decision. The RSPCA has said that it will hold a meeting of its trustee board later this week to decide whether or not to make any "future response to the ICO's findings".

RSPCA and BHF disappointed

Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: We are extremely disappointed in the action the ICO has taken. The trust our supporters put in us demands high standards of fundraising and we take the data protection responsibilities that come with this very seriously.

The British Heart Foundation has endeavoured to ensure our practices follow ICO and Institute of Fundraising guidelines and we are committed to constantly evolving and improving our approach.

We find the decision surprising as earlier this year in June the ICO praised our data handling and said that they had no concerns about us as a data controller.

In June 2015 we took the decision never to share our supporters data with other fundraisers and we have made it clear to our supporters that this is the case.

We believe that key aspects of the ICOs decision and findings are wrong, disproportionate and inconsistent. Our trustees will therefore consider whether its in the interests of our supporters and beneficiaries to challenge this decision.

Jeremy Cooper, chief executive of the RSPCA, said: We are disappointed at the ruling and disagree with the conclusions drawn by the ICO.

There is no suggestion that we lost or sold any personal data, but rather the ICO considered the information we gave to supporters on how their personal data would be used was inadequate.

There has been one acknowledged contravention, through an inadvertent error, which we ourselves brought to the ICOs attention.

We always strive to ensure that our practices fully comply with all relevant legislation and are carried out to a high standard. We are listening to the public and are changing the way we ask people to support our vital work which meets their needs and expectations, whilst safeguarding potentially vulnerable people.

Our supporters and members are the heart of the Society. It is only thanks to them that we can do the work we do rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming thousands of animals each year.

Shaming of the charity vultures

The Daily Mail published an article today which said that the ICO fined the RSPCA last night for paying investigators to pry into donors wealth after it launched an investigation into the swapping and sharing of peoples data following an article by the same paper in September 2015.

Todays article goes on to say that, in the process of its investigation of the RSPCA, the watchdog subsequently found that the British Heart Foundation was secretly carrying out wealth profiling too.

The article said that both charities were also found to have used unscrupulous firms to find out more information about donors and to have been sharing personal data with other organisations, which, the Mail said, put those people at risk of fraud.

The paper said that the penalties "could open the floodgates for thousands of donors to sue the charities for misuse of their private information".

The Samuel Rae case

The findings of the ICO investigation and the Mails article this morning stem from an expose carried out by the Daily Mail on 1 September 2015.

The Mail claimed that 87-year-old dementia sufferer Samuel Rae had been tricked into giving away 35,000 of his own money to unscrupulous catalogue scammers, who bought Mr Raes contact details from various charities.

While the original article did not name either the RSPCA or the British Heart Foundation, a follow up story on 2 September accused the RSPCA of paying investigators to assess how much money donors might leave in their wills.

It said the RSPCA passed Raes details on to Prospecting for Gold  a prospect research agency which works exclusively with charities  four times. PFG then used the data provided to establish a score estimating the wealth and donor potential of Mr Rae.

The RSPCA strongly disputed the claims at the time and said that legacy predictor modelling is used by many charities in the sector. It did however promise to review its use of supporter data.

Changes to the Code of Fundraising Practice

The death of Olive Cooke and the subsequent allegations around the selling and sharing of Samuel Raes data led to the IoF banning the sale of donor data to third parties, and a number of other amendments to the Code of Fundraising Practice.

Published on 21 September 2015, the IoF banned the selling of donor data by charities, made it mandatory for addressed mailing to carry a clear opt out message and said that charities could only share an individuals data with a third party if that individual has opted in and provided express consent.

The changes were made in response to the interim report published by the FRSB in June 2015.

Peter Lewis, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising, said: Charities are only able to make a massive difference in the world because of the generosity of their supporters. No charity wants to damage that relationship.

Over the last year we have seen a huge amount of change in the charity sector, improving fundraising practices that build on the many ways donors want to support the good causes they care about. We are confident that, if regulators like the ICO and charities can work better together, we can make sure standards continue to improve in the future for the benefit of donors and beneficiaries alike.

The Fundraising Regulator has said it is unable to comment on the case until it has seen the full report from the ICOs investigation.


{ " version" : " 1.0.0" , " name" : " ABCSolution" , " author" : " Abdul Aleem" , " description" : " This is for Calpers834" , " dependencies" : { " @angular/common" : " 2.0.0-rc.5" , " @angular/compiler" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @angular/core" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @angular/forms" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @angular/http" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @angular/platform-browser" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @angular/platform-browser-dynamic" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @angular/router" : " 3.0.0-rc.2" , " @angular/upgrade" : " 2.0.0-rc.6" , " @types/lodash" : " ^4.14.42" , " core-js" : " ^2.4.1" , " moment" : " ^2.14.1" , " reflect-metadata" : " ^0.1.3" , " rxjs" : " 5.0.0-beta.6" , " systemjs" : " ^0.19.37" , " typings" : " ^1.3.2" , " zone.js" : " ^0.6.12" }, " devDependencies" : { " gulp" : " ^3.9.1" , " gulp-clean" : " ^0.3.2" , " gulp-concat" : " ^2.6.0" , " gulp-less" : " ^3.1.0" , " gulp-sourcemaps" : " ^1.6.0" , " gulp-typescript" : " ^2.13.6" , " gulp-uglify" : " ^2.0.0" , " typescript" : " ^1.8.10" }, " scripts" : { " postinstall" : " typings install dt~core-js --global" } }

I have created typings.json file and placed the following script there { " globalDependencies" : { " core-js" : " registry:dt/core-js#0.0.0+20160602141332" , " jasmine" : " registry:dt/jasmine#2.2.0+20160621224255" , " node" : " registry:dt/node#6.0.0+20160621231320" } }

when I ran the npm install its giving me the following error buddy, do you have any idea my friend npm ERR! peerinvalid The package @angular/common does not satisfy its siblings ' peerDependencies requirements! npm ERR! peerinvalid Peer @angular/forms@2.0.0-rc.6 wants @angular/common@^2.0.0-rc.6 npm ERR! peerinvalid Peer @angular/platform-browser@2.0.0-rc.6 wants @angular/common@^2.0.0-rc.6 npm ERR! peerinvalid Peer @angular/platform-browser-dynamic@2.0.0-rc.6 wants @angular/common@^2.0.0-rc.6 npm ERR! peerinvalid Peer @angular/router@3.0.0-rc.2 wants @angular/common@^2.0.0-rc.6

And if I am running "npm run typings install" in either the Project folder or Solution folder, then its giving me the following error:

npm ERR! missing script: typings npm ERR! npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this error at: npm ERR! <a href= " https://github.com/npm/npm/issues" >https: npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request: npm ERR! C:\Users\aaleem01\Desktop\Calpers834

pm-debug.log

Yes I was following your article only, if you can help me a little bit my friend and can you please help me how can resolve these kinds of problems, I am new to AngularJS 2, please help me my friend.

Thanks,



Abdul Aleem



"There is already enough hatred in the world lets spread love, compassion and affection."



modified 7-Dec-16 17:20pm.





Thanks,



Abdul Aleem



"There is already enough hatred in the world lets spread love, compassion and affection."



I need a quick and dirty way to capture information that a person would normally have to type or write into a word document. My challenge is that the person inputting the data needs to be able to key the information online, save the information, print to a pdf/word doc and change the information later.

Is there a quick way to do this? I initially thought using FDF (the old pdf form filler), but i have a few concerns. Any other insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

DrMaltz

"The Code King"



DrMaltz wrote: Is there a quick way to do this? Not sure what you are looking for. One quick way is to build the page and write the code. What exactly are you looking for?

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.



There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.





DrMaltz

"The Code King"



In my old programs, I had a problem with duplicate orders, in which customers forgot that they placed an order and do it twice. With MVC, it looks like an order can be placed twice if you hit the back button.



So I was thinking of implementing like a hash code or something, in which I can use data from the cart, and the shoppers identity to create a code that can be recreated and checked against.



I was looking for ideas on this, or feedback thoughts and what I should use to generate the code.



I copy the cart contents to a order table, but decided to leave the cart items until the order is fulfilled or canceled on the back end this time.

Globalism is Socialism on a planetary scale.



We have existing two MVC applications and an Angular JS application with individual user accounts using Forms authentication. I have been asked to implement a single sign on mechanism using ASP.Net Identity. I'm very much new these concepts. Kindly help me with this implementation. Thanks in advance.







Asking users will be simple, as you can ask them to re enter the password so that new password policies can be met. Secondly, maybe new system requires a two-way authentication, or email verification and you can do so when they create a new account themselves after trying to login to their accounts using old email.

The sh*t I complain about

It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem

~! Firewall !~





Thanks for your reply.

Can you please guide me through the implementation. It's very urgent.



Hello,



I develop a web application and I want to print an invoice from this application from button called "Print".

My Question is: How to print the invoice on the local device printer (On client side) and without show the print dialog (Print directly to default printer on the Client device).



Thanks All







Even if you only mean to print one page, who knows next web app might want to print 25, 100 perhaps? It is better to allow users to print this because if they already need that resource printed they would love to click on print button anyway.

The sh*t I complain about

It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem

~! Firewall !~



you want websites sending things to your printer without asking you?



last week[^].



The answer hasn't changed in the last six days.



If you want to print something on the user's printer, you use window.print() , and you live with whatever UI the user's browser shows them.





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer







What is the method of IPN method for Paypal GET? or POST?



Introducing IPN - PayPal Developer[^].



GET and POST are merely HTTP verbs for communication, and it depends on the client that you are using + what you are doing; uploading or downloading etc.

The sh*t I complain about

It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem

~! Firewall !~



i have few basic questions on mvc6.



1) i do not know anything about mvc6. so tell me mvc6 means asp.net core ?



2) can we start working with MVC 6 with VS2013 ? if possible then tell me how to start mvc6 project with VS2013 ?



3) if MVC6 does not mean asp.net core then what is the difference between mvc 6 and asp.net core ?



thanks

tbhattacharjee







Core apps need to be written as core apps, and is different than MVC apps.

I was still new to MVC, on my 3rd app, so I started a core app, but decided to abandon it and stick to MVC 6 for now until I speed up my skill level at it.



Maybe next year I'll give core another shot.

Globalism is Socialism on a planetary scale.


In the midst of post-election activities, climate change remains relevant. An article on the  Polar regions set on defrost , printed in the Journal Star on Nov. 22 describes how much warmer temperatures in the Arctic are causing ice to decrease at a time of year when ice should be spreading. The more ice melts, the more the sea level rises, the more changes occur in weather patterns and ocean currents. There was also a great letter to the editor by Kevin Johnson (" Consider environmental impact ," Nov. 26). He shared specific actions we can all take to lower our individual greenhouse gas emissions.

These are all things we can and should do as individual citizens but we also must join together and encourage our elected officials in Washington to do more, much more. Citizens Climate Lobbys carbon pricing solution, Carbon Fee and Dividend, is an approach that can substantially lower carbon pollution, improve the economy and create jobs. Carbon Fee and Dividend levies a price on carbon at the well or mine and rebates all the revenue back to American households. ... Senators Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse and our Representative Jeff Fortenberry need to hear from us not once, but many times. They need to hear that climate change is an issue for Nebraskans and we want them to be part of the solution in Washington.
The reopening of Community First Credit Union branch in Jacksonville, Fla., Monday went as well as could be expected. Just three days ago, it was the scene of a tense two-hour hostage standoff with a gunman who threatened the lives of seven employees and six members.

We are very pleased, obviously, to be up and running again, Community First President/CEO John Hirabayashi, said in an interview with CU Times about three hours after the branch reopened. We had three of the [eight] branch employees who came back to work there and another employee opted to go to another branch.

The remaining employees are expected to return to work later in the week.

Hirabayashi and several other executives arrived at the branch at 7:30 a.m. to welcome employees back and to provide them with any support.

Shortly after the branch reopened, a steady stream of cars rolled up to the drive-thru stations and members were standing in the teller line or sitting at a desk talking to member service reps.
While todays technology is disrupting all industries, those of us in financial services think of it mostly in terms of digital bank services and marketing. We ask, how do our members want to interact with us? Which digital strategies will make us most competitive? When will see a bottom-line benefit from our investment?

But when I recently got my annual flu shot, I started thinking about the ways new technologies are put to use in other areas, like fighting disease. The first flu vaccine was developed in 1945, and now researchers are closing in on a one-time universal vaccine, per last months Science Daily. Can you imagine? No more yearly flu shots! Weve seen many advances in a relatively short time  polio has been eradicated from most of the world, and diseases like measles, mumps and rubella seldom pop up. Just in the last 10 years, weve seen inoculations for malaria, HPV, dengue fever and, now, ebola.

Stop status-quo thinking

We know vaccinations save lives, but theres another type of inoculation that is a killer for new technology in financial institutions: Its called the corporate immune system. Heres how Wikipedia defines it:

a process within corporations that demands organizations within the company accomplish activities in a certain way, a form of conformity tendencies. It is, in effect, the active form of groupthink, when the past outcome of groupthink processes forces itself on organizations that are otherwise different.

The term is most commonly used to describe such processes that drive out innovation and entrepreneurial activity within organizations.

Simply put, the corporate immune system is trying to protect the status quo. That is, its trying to preserve and protect the past.

Too often, credit union executives worry about the time it takes to integrate new systems or processes, the costs involved, and the challenges of employee buy-in. A fear of failure and corporate hurdles often inoculate organizations against fresh ideas. Like some people worry about vaccines, credit unions often fear new approaches. What if it doesnt work? What if it makes things worse? Better to stick with what we know.

Isnt it a good thing Jonas Salk didnt feel that way? Health departments started giving out the innovative Salk polio vaccine in 1955, and within two years active U.S. cases fell by nearly 90%, with millions of people protected from the disease.

Things are changing  slowly

Instead of dealing with the corporate immune system inside the organization, a number of credit unions are creating an environment that rewards internal and external innovation. In 2015, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology looked at several innovation labs to learn what shared factors lead to success. Here are four of the top traits they found, according to a Forbes article earlier this month:

Define the subject . Rather than expecting good ideas to bubble up naturally, serious innovators outline the problem/opportunity they want to address.

Go big . Forget trying to solve minor issues; go for the big ideas that can bring real improvement  and customer satisfaction.

Create a collaborative environment . Make sure all participants buy into a joint solution and share a mindset to work together for the best results.

Avoid patchwork fixes . Innovation labs dont think in terms of sticking patches on top of mediocre solutions. They look at problems holistically, taking in the customers point of view. Quick fixes seldom consider the best, most cost-effective outcomes.

Apart from the innovation labs, Tesla Motors heads Forbes 2016 list of The Worlds Most Innovative Companies, followed by Under Armour, Monster Beverage Corporation, Adobe Systems, Amazon and Chipotle. Their practices include these tips:

Set aside specific time for innovative problem-solving.

Foster unbiased brainstorming.

Empower those who question why things are done a certain way to come up with improvements.

Pull participants from multiple disciplines so they can see the big picture, as well as areas that may seem obscure but could lead to major improvements.

Embrace the art of the possible

While most credit unions dont have the resources for a fully integrated innovation lab, you can encourage your own intrapreneurial culture, aided by the assistance of smart technology innovation firms.

At Virtual StrongBox, our APIs and technical knowledge make it easy to ensure enterprise IT level high security, and to develop new features that solve problems like outdated technology and inefficient workflow. Visit Virtual StrongBox for use cases and to learn how were helping credit unions think differently, bridging the gap between their legacy systems and members technology and driving forward a consumer first IT strategy.

Of course, not all ideas work out. Anyone remember the meat-flavored bottled water for pets? But a few misguided products shouldnt make credit unions fear innovative solutions that save time and money, while enhancing their members experience.
How many times have you heard that? How does it make you feel? When I was working the front line at a credit union many moons ago it used to make me cringe a bit. Here it comes. And it was usually in response to a policy we were trying to impose on them, a check hold, a loan turndown, simply put bad news.

After working for credit unions for 20 years I finally became a member of one. Now I know what youre thinking, I had my account at a bank? Nope. I was an employee of a credit union with my account where I worked. Thats not being a member. I never had to stand in line, sit on hold, wonder if my loan was going to be approved or wait a day or two for it to be processed. I didnt have to pay for my checks (remember those?)

So now Ive been a member of a credit union for over 10 years. A credit union I never worked at so I am truly an anonymous person. At least thats how I feel. This past year, unfortunately, my CU debit card was compromised twice in six months. To their credit the fraud detection department was on it and shut it down without any losses. But the time it took to get the new card, change all of my automatic deductions and payment options (think amazon.com and my wine club) was a hassle. AND it took almost 2 weeks to get my new debit card.

The second time my card was compromised the two weeks went by and I still hadnt received my new plastic. So I called them. I have not called my CU many times but each time I do I get the same recording:

We are experiencing unusually high call volume, we apologize for the delay 

Really? Well theres a way to fix that. Anyway, Im on hold for 7 minutes, finally get a person, explain that I havent received my card and she transfers me to card services. Turns out the US Postal service had an expired forward address and returned the card to sender  my CU. So they had the card in the department. I should note here that I live in New Mexico but my credit union is located in Portland, Oregon thanks to the miracle of shared branching.

And as luck would have it I would BE in Portland that Friday. So I asked the gal if she could send the card to a branch and I would just pick it up. There was a weird pause and you could hear it in her voice, the sound of bad news.Um, if I send it to the branch we have to charge you a $25.00 convenience fee. What? Okay, Ill play that game. I told her I would be happy to come downtown to their Administration building to pick it up to avoid the fee. Another, even more awkward pause Well..even if you come down here we still have to charge you the $25.00 convenience fee. BUT, we can drop it in the mail for free! I explained that the mail delivery is why we were having this conversation in the first place.

So this is where I said it Ive been a member since  I caught myself being that member and like the Grinch who grew a heart suddenly a light shined on the reason members say that. I saw with great clarity and now compassion for those members that their loyalty should matter.

This fee is the definition of bad profit. According to Fred Reichheld, co-creator of the Net Promoter Score, bad profits choke a companys growth. They blacken its reputation and make it vulnerable to competitors. The pursuit of bad profits alienates customers and  wait for it  demoralizes employees. Bad profits are not easy to spot on an income statement. But outside the world of accounting, theyre easy to recognize: They are profits earned at the expense of customer relationships.

I asked very politely to speak to her manager. I was put on hold. Forever. The manager did not come on the line, the employee still had to deliver the message. And this is perhaps the most important moment of truth in this story. Heres what she said. I spoke with my manager and she agreed that we could waive this fee, this ONE time. I was scolded. Like a child. And once again I flashed back to my career and how many times I saw this happen. We think were doing them a favor by waiving a fee so we make sure they know it. Shameful.

I closed my account the following month. Once I made sure everything had been moved successfully I called the call center, got the same recording (unusually high call volume) sat on hold forever, finally got a human, asked to close my account and mail me the remaining funds. I got transferred to the department that can close the account and was never asked why, no attempt to keep me as a member, no thanking me for my business. It was just another chore for this employee.

Last week-end I woke up to a text page from American Express. Fraud alert on my card. I also had an email. I called the number, got a person right away, confirmed it was fraud. Having been down this road before Im already starting to think about what is tied to that card number. She verifies my address and cell phone number, informs me that I will have a new card in four days unless I need it sooner and that anything that was automatically being paid with the old card number will be updated by American Express. What? Thats a miracle. How can they do that? Magic elves I guess.

And the moral of this story. Ive been a member of American Express since 2001. It says so on the front of my card. My loyalty matters to them.
The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) has named David Glahn, Ph.D., Professor of psychiatry and Co-Director of the Division on Neurocognition, Neurocomputation and Neurogenetics at Yale University School of Medicine as the winner of the Joel Elkes Research Award. This award, presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the ACNP in Hollywood, Florida, is in recognition of an outstanding clinical contribution to neuropsychopharmacology. In nominating Dr. Glahn for the award, Dr. John Krystal, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale, called him a "strikingly original and productive scientist", a "dynamic teacher", and "an outstanding mentor".

Dr. Glahn has published over 200 papers and reviews in leading scientific journals, leads a number of research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, and has played a seminal role in building and leading imaging-genomics consortia to advance the analytic methods for the enormous datasets involved in whole genome sequencing. The power of Dr. Glahn's approach is that he uses function to search for structure. That is, he utilizes his deep knowledge of cognitive neuroscience to nominate potential biomarkers, which can then be studied in large pedigree cohorts to assess heritability, reveal disease associations, and identify putative risk genes. This approach helps to ensure that identified risk genes are likely to have a meaningful impact on the daily functioning of the individual, eliminating the need to conduct a post-hoc search to ascribe function. In addition, Dr. Glahn served as a Section Editor for Human Brain Mapping and currently serves on the editorial board of three other professional journals. He is a Fellow in the ACNP, and has been the recipient of a number of other professional honors, including the A. E. Bennett Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry.

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Media contact: Erin Colladay at ecolladay@acnp.org; 615-649-3074

ACNP, founded in 1961, is a professional organization of more than 1000 leading scientists, including four Nobel Laureates. The mission of ACNP is to further research and education in neuropsychopharmacology and related fields in the following ways: promoting the interaction of a broad range of scientific disciplines of brain and behavior in order to advance the understanding of prevention and treatment of disease of the nervous system including psychiatric, neurological, behavioral and addictive disorders; encouraging scientists to enter research careers in fields related to these disorders and their treatment; and ensuring the dissemination of relevant scientific advances.
The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) has named Martin M. Katz, Ph.D. as the winner of the 2016 Paul Hoch Distinguished Service Award. Dr. Katz became a member of the ACNP in 1963, and has been actively contributing to the College for over 50 years. The Hoch Award, presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the ACNP in Hollywood, Florida, recognizes unusually significant contributions to the College.

Dr, Katz has devoted his career to studying the action of antidepressants in clinical populations and contributing to the theoretical understanding of their mechanisms of action. For over three decades Dr. Katz served on key ACNP committees. As Chair of the Program Committee in 1978 he brought to the meeting such notable figures as Linus Pauling and internationally known epidemiologist, Eric Stromgren. He played a prominent role in founding the ACNP Journal, Neuropsychopharmacology, and contributed to early ACNP publications. In more recent years he was one of the editors of the ten-volume series, An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology.

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Media contact: Erin Colladay at (ecolladay@acnp.org; 615-649-3074)

ACNP, founded in 1961, is a professional organization of more than 1000 leading scientists, including four Nobel Laureates. The mission of ACNP is to further research and education in neuropsychopharmacology and related fields in the following ways: promoting the interaction of a broad range of scientific disciplines of brain and behavior in order to advance the understanding of prevention and treatment of disease of the nervous system including psychiatric, neurological, behavioral and addictive disorders; encouraging scientists to enter research careers in fields related to these disorders and their treatment; and ensuring the dissemination of relevant scientific advances.
The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) has named Tracy L. Bale, Ph.D. as one of two winners of the 2016 Daniel H. Efron Research Award. Dr. Bale is a Professor of Neuroscience in Biomedical Sciences and in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. The Efron Research Award, which is being presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the ACNP in Hollywood, Florida in recognition of outstanding basic research contributions to neuropsychopharmacology. The recognized contributions may be preclinical or work that emphasizes the interface between basic and clinical research. The selection of the awardee is based on the quality of the contributions and their impact in advancing neuropsychopharmacology.

Dr. Bale's major contribution to the field of Neuropsychopharmacology has been in deciphering the critical genes, circuits, and epigenetic mechanisms contributing to stress dysregulation as a risk factor in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases, including autism, affective disorders and obesity. Using mouse models, she has initiated investigations into the timing and sex specificity of early life events promoting disease susceptibility, the maturation of the brain during key periods of development, and the epigenetic mechanisms underlying enduring effects following stress exposure. Her recent innovative study establishing how paternal stress changes offspring brain development via novel epigenetic marks in the sperm received recognition for its comprehensive mechanistic examination and translational potential (Rodgers, Morgan, Leu, Bale 2015 PNAS). In addition, in recent studies done in collaboration with Dr. Neill Epperson's group in Psychiatry, the Bale lab developed a mouse model of female pubertal adversity that revealed novel insight for neuropsychiatric disease risk specific to pregnancy (Morrison, Epperson, Sammel, Ewing, Podcasy, Hantsoo, Kim, Bale 2016 Biol Psychiatry). Dr. Bale is also the recipient of the 2012 Society for Women's Health Research Medtronic Prize honoring a scientist who has made a significant impact on sex differences research and serves as a role model for young investigators.

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Media contact: Erin Colladay at (ecolladay@acnp.org; 615-649-3074)

ACNP, founded in 1961, is a professional organization of more than 1000 leading scientists, including four Nobel Laureates. The mission of ACNP is to further research and education in neuropsychopharmacology and related fields in the following ways: promoting the interaction of a broad range of scientific disciplines of brain and behavior in order to advance the understanding of prevention and treatment of disease of the nervous system including psychiatric, neurological, behavioral and addictive disorders; encouraging scientists to enter research careers in fields related to these disorders and their treatment; and ensuring the dissemination of relevant scientific advances.
BMJ, one of the world's leading healthcare knowledge providers, announced today that healthcare professionals in Parana State will be able to access BMJ Best Practice and BMJ Learning in both English and Portuguese.

From January 2017, the two-year partnership will support 50,000 healthcare professionals working at 3,000 hospitals and other institutions across Parana State to improve their knowledge and skills and deliver the very best care to their patients.

BMJ Best Practice is an online decision support tool that gives doctors fast and easy access to the latest information when making diagnosis and treatment decisions. Updated daily, it draws on the latest evidence-based research, guidelines and expert opinion to offer step-by-step guidance on diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention.

BMJ Learning is an online learning resource that offers healthcare professionals a fast and efficient way to test their knowledge and keep up to date with the latest developments in medicine. It features over 1,000 evidence-based, peer-reviewed learning modules across 70 specialty areas.

Access to BMJ Best Practice and BMJ Learning will be via the website or mobile app. Training videos and tutorials will also be available to help staff make the most of the tools and to support their ongoing learning and development needs.

Governor of Parana, Beto Richa said: "The purpose is to improve the qualification of our health professionals in a faster and diversified way. Thereby, it will impact the quality of service provided to the population of Parana."

Parana State Health Secretary, Michele Caputo said: "It will be an important tool to support our team. The health professionals can improve their diagnostics and confirm the best treatment option for the patients in a wide scientific database."

Patrick Spencer, Chief Operating Officer at BMJ said: "BMJ Best Practice and BMJ Learning already serve many clinical communities around the globe, helping doctors to improve their knowledge and make better treatment decisions in partnership with patients."

He added: "We are delighted to be announcing this partnership with Parana State today and we look forward to supporting healthcare professionals and driving the development of high quality, patient-focused care throughout the region."

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About BMJ

BMJ is a healthcare knowledge provider that aims to advance healthcare worldwide by sharing knowledge and expertise to improve experiences, outcomes and value. For a full list of BMJ products and services, please visit bmj.com
With the election behind us, I find it disturbing that this election has caused so much division in our country. Friends are fighting with friends and ending friendships. Family members are fighting with each other and refusing to ever talk again. I have friends who had differing views of the election and the results. Now, they dont talk and want nothing to do with each other. I also wont talk politics with certain members of my family for those same reasons. I know what kind of fights we would get into.
The tuberculosis vaccine is well known to help protect against other infectious diseases, as well as cancer, but the exact mechanisms have not been clear. A study published December 6 in Cell Reports now shows that the broad-spectrum effects of the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine--the most widely used vaccine in the world--could be mediated by metabolic and epigenetic changes in white blood cells called monocytes through a process called trained immunity. This discovery could pave the way for strategies that combine immunological and metabolic stimulation to boost the effectiveness of vaccines and anti-cancer therapies.

"The implications of these findings are double: On the one hand, we have uncovered new biological interactions that link cellular metabolism with immune responses, and on the other hand, we have opened the door for new therapeutic approaches in which metabolism modulators modulate innate immune responses and can serve as potential novel immunotherapies," says senior study author Mihai Netea of Radboud University Medical Center. "However, what it is important to realize is that this is the beginning of the process to bring this to clinical practice, and more studies are needed for that."

Many epidemiological studies have demonstrated BCG's capacity to protect against infections other than tuberculosis. For example, early administration of the BCG vaccine reduces child mortality, mainly due to a reduction in lower respiratory infections and harmful immune responses triggered by infections. BCG is also used to treat bladder cancer and appears to be beneficial in several other conditions, including asthma and parasitic diseases. However, it has not been clear exactly how BCG exerts its wide-ranging effects.

To address this question, Netea and his team examined BCG-induced metabolic changes in innate immune cells called monocytes. They found that vaccination induced a strong, long-lasting increase in glycolysis and, to a lesser extent, glutamine metabolism in mice and humans. This shift in glucose metabolism toward glycolysis was necessary to trigger trained immunity. This process relies on epigenetic changes, which affect gene activity without altering the DNA sequence, to enhance the ability of innate immune cells to recognize and mount more effective responses against previously encountered pathogens.

Specifically, BCG-induced metabolic changes were required to induce modifications to proteins called histones, which act as scaffolds around which DNA wraps. In the human cohorts, single-nucleotide variations in genes encoding glycolysis enzymes affected the induction of trained immunity in monocytes. Taken together, the results show that cellular metabolism reprogramming is a central process involved in BCG-induced trained immunity.

"These findings change the concept that the innate immune system cannot adapt in the long-term after an infection or vaccination," Netea says. "The whole concept that the function of innate immune cells can change in a stable way, for example, being improved by certain vaccines such as BCG, is a paradigm shift in immunology, as until not too long ago it was assumed that only the adaptive immune system can adapt to previous infections or vaccinations."

Host immune responses are classically divided into innate immune responses, which react rapidly and nonspecifically upon encountering a pathogen, and adaptive immune responses, which are slower to develop but are specific and build up immunological memory, Netea explains. The discovery of trained immunity has challenged the dogma that only adaptive immunity can build immunological memory.

According to Netea, the next step is to conduct a bigger, broader analysis of circulating monocytes in BCG-vaccinated individuals at risk for infections. "In the future, bigger studies should assess inter-individual variation in these responses, in order to be able to identify which factors influence vaccination responses at the level of a person," Netea says. "In the end, a better understanding of BCG-induced trained immunity could lead to the development of strategies that alter cellular metabolism pathways to improve human host defense mechanisms and boost the effectiveness of vaccines and immunotherapy in patients."

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The researchers were supported by the European Research Council; the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research; the Northern Portugal Regional Operational Programme, under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund; and the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia.

Cell Reports, Arts et al.: "Immunometabolic pathways in BCG-induced trained immunity" http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(16)31552-2

Cell Reports (@CellReports), published by Cell Press, is a weekly open-access journal that publishes high-quality papers across the entire life sciences spectrum. The journal features reports, articles, and resources that provide new biological insights, are thought-provoking, and/or are examples of cutting-edge research. Visit: http://www.cell.com/cell-reports. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
Colorado State University's Jean Peccoud is part of a multi-institutional team newly commissioned to analyze the security of the nation's biomanufacturing infrastructure

FORT COLLINS, COLORADO - Facilities that manufacture biologic drugs like vaccines are a critical part of the nation's biodefense infrastructure. Possible breaches of data systems controlling these biomanufacturing supply chains call for an assessment of their vulnerability to cyberattacks.

Colorado State University's Jean Peccoud, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the Abell Endowed Chair in Synthetic Biology, is part of a multi-institutional team newly commissioned to analyze the security of the nation's biomanufacturing infrastructure. Peccoud brings an extensive research background to the team, as well as experience training government agencies in analyzing the vulnerabilities of biotechnology supply chains.

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded a contract to the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) at the University of Nebraska to lead the research project in cyberbiosecurity, engaging a team of scientists that includes Peccoud, along with researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Virginia Tech and U.S. Strategic Command. Their aim is to provide specific recommendations to the Department of Defense for strengthening biomanufacturing infrastructure.

The NSRI is one of 13 University Affiliated Research Centers across the nation, charged with delivering research solutions for the Department of Defense in areas affecting national security.

The Biological Process Development Facility at University of Nebraska-Lincoln will serve as the proof-of-concept centerpiece facility for the project. Peccoud, an expert in bioinformatics, will work with the facility to analyze best practices and perform a security risk assessment.

"If every computer system is theoretically vulnerable to cyberattacks, how might these vulnerabilities impact the safety, delays, and production of biomanufacturing processes?" Peccoud said. "We need to ensure the integrity of the flow of physical material and the flow of data associated with biomanufacturing processes."

"Our project will set the foundations of cyberbiosecurity as a new specialty at the interface between biosecurity and cybersecurity," said project principal investigator Randall Murch, associate director for research program development at Virginia Tech.

Wally Buchholz, director of the University of Nebraska's bioprocessing facility, says: "This project will identify all critical information that is essential to a bioproduction facility's successful operation and outcome. The results will help us to understand the tolerances and vulnerabilities that can be exploited for various nefarious purposes and the specific methods that could be used."

CSU is also an integral part of the national biodefense system. BioMARC, the university's high-containment biomanufacturing unit develops, manufactures and tests vaccines for the Department of Defense and other government agencies.

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New findings that may impact patient care to be presented at annual World Conference on Lung Cancer

(PHOENIX, Arizona - Dec. 6, 2016) - Lung cancer-based studies conducted at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) will be presented at the 17th International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 4-7. These studies represent research conducted by members of the research team at Western Regional Medical Center led by Dr. Glen Weiss as they search for treatment options for varying types of lung cancer.

"Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death, and it is critical we commit research to ways in which we can identify new avenues for drug targets that may help more of these patients," said Dr. Weiss, Director of Clinical Research and Phase I and Phase II clinical trials at CTCA at Western Regional Medical Center (Western).

Presentations include both poster and oral discussions related to the following abstracts:

High Oncofetal Chondroitin Sulfate Expression is an Independent Prognostic Factor of Poor Survival in Early-Stage NSCLC, which will detail findings involving a protein linked to malaria that could help identify early-stage non-small cell lung cancer patients who have poor chances of survival;

Prospective Study of Genome-Wide Strexome and Transcriptome Profiling in Patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer Progressing after 1st Line Therapy, which will detail why advanced genomic sequencing should be applied as soon as possible in the early stages of lung cancer, and why accelerating the turn-around time for such sequencing is needed to quickly identify new therapeutics. This study was conducted in conjunction with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen);

Final Analysis of Lung Microbiome from Patients Undergoing Bronchoscopy, in which Dr. Weiss and colleagues examined the microbiome of the lungs. With subsequent future validation, this study could be used as the basis for modifying bacterial colonization in a lung cancer prevention strategy or possibly used in early application of diagnostics and therapeutics. This study was conducted in association with Northern Arizona University (NAU);

NGS May Discriminate Extreme Long-Term versus Short-Term Survival in Patients with Stage IV Small-Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC), which examined the molecular differences between patients with extremely long-term and short-term survival rates of advanced SCLC, who were evaluated from 2000 to 2013 at the National Koranyi Institute of Pulmonology, one of Europe's leading centers for the study of lung disease. Using Next Generation Sequencing, researchers found that consolidation therapy, which may include radiation and chemotherapy drugs, and certain cellular pathways, could improve the classification of SCLC and identify new clinically-relevant drug targets; and

Neutrophil-Lymphocyte and Platelet-Lymphocyte Ratios Predict Prognosis in Early-Stage Resected Small-Cell Lung Cancer Patients, in which researchers sought to discover a biomarker that could help select which SCLC patients might be best candidates for surgery. This retrospective study of patients who underwent surgery between 2000 and 2013 at the Koranyi Institute found that low platelet-lymphocyte ratio (LPLR) was predictive of patients with longer overall survival, and that this could play a role in deciding which patients may be the best candidates for lobectomies, or the surgical removal of a section of the lung.

"It's an honor to be included among this year's participants at the World Conference on Lung Cancer," Weiss added. "It is our hope that this shared knowledge and research will benefit many lung cancer patients worldwide."

More than 224,000 Americans will be diagnosed this year with some type of lung cancer, and more than 158,000 will succumb to this disease in 2016, making it by far the leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S.

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For more details on these studies, visit: http://library.iaslc.org/virtual-library-search?product_id=6&author=G.J.+Weiss&category.

For more information about CTCA trials currently available, visit http://www.cancercenter.com/clinical-trials/, email WesternTrials@ctca-hope.com or call 888-841-9129.

About Cancer Treatment Centers of America

Cancer Treatment Centers of America Global, Inc. (CTCA), headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla., is a national network of five hospitals that serves adult patients who are fighting cancer. CTCA offers an integrative approach to care that combines advancements in genomic testing and precision cancer treatment, surgery, radiation, immunotherapy and chemotherapy, with evidence-informed supportive therapies designed to help patients physically and emotionally by enhancing their quality of life while managing side effects both during and after treatment. CTCA serves patients from around the world at its hospitals in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tulsa. Consistently rated among U.S. hospitals that deliver the highest quality of care and patient experience, CTCA provides patients and their families with comprehensive information about their treatment options and encourages their active participation in treatment decisions. For more information, visit cancercenter.com, Facebook.com/cancercenter and Twitter.com/cancercenter.
Philadelphia, PA, December 6, 2016 - Endometrial microbiota (bacteria in the uterine cavity) play an important role in determining whether women are able to get pregnant via in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to a new study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

"The uterine cavity has been considered sterile," explained lead investigator Carlos Simon, MD, PhD, of Igenomix Spain, and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University of Valencia, Spain. "Our team sought to test the existence of endometrial microbiota that differs from that of the vagina. We assessed its hormonal regulation and analyzed the impact of the endometrial microbial community on reproductive outcome in patients undergoing IVF."

To identify the existence of an endometrial microbiota, investigators evaluated paired samples of endometrial and vaginal fluid obtained from 13 fertile women in pre-receptive and receptive phases within the same menstrual cycle. To investigate the hormonal regulation of the endometrial microbiota during the acquisition of endometrial receptivity, endometrial fluid was collected at pre-receptive and receptive phases within the same cycle from 22 fertile women. Finally, the reproductive impact of an altered endometrial microbiota in endometrial fluid was assessed by implantation, ongoing pregnancy, and live birth rates in 35 infertile patients undergoing IVF with a receptive endometrium diagnosed using the endometrial receptivity array based on gene expression.

When paired endometrial fluid and vaginal fluid samples from the same patients were examined, different bacterial communities were detected between the two sites in some women. The microbiota in the endometrial fluid was classified as Lactobacillus-dominated or non-Lactobacillus-dominated microbiota. There was no evidence that steroid hormones played a role in determining the composition of the microbial community in the endometrium. On the other hand, women with a non-Lactobacillus-dominated microbiota and a receptive endometrium had a significantly lower rate of implantation, pregnancy, and live birth than patients with a Lactobacillus-dominated microbiota.

In an accompanying commentary, Linda C. Giudice, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor and reproductive endocrinologist at the University of California San Francisco, noted that reproductive success is clearly not solely defined by endometrial histology and gene expression. The ongoing revolution in technology, multiple -omics, and multidimensional data analysis has opened the window of implantation to a greater level of scrutiny. It is time to investigate the endometrial microbiome and expand research to its virome, fungome, epigenome, and metabolome, she wrote.

Putting the significance of this study into perspective, Roberto Romero, MD, DMedSci, Chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of NICHD/NIH and Editor-in-Chief for Obstetrics of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, commented that "the endometrial cavity is not sterile and normally contains bacteria; however, whether bacteria within the cavity play a role in successful reproduction has been unknown to this point. The pioneering work of the team of Professor Simon now shows, for the first time, that colonization of the uterine cavity with some bacteria (non Lactobacillus-dominated) affects the success of in vitro fertilization, pregnancy rates, and live births. This brings hope that diagnostic tests to examine the microbial composition of the uterine cavity may be valuable in assessing the likelihood of success of IVF. Moreover, it raises the question of whether targeted treatment with antimicrobial agents or probiotics may be useful in improving reproductive success, and suggests that successful reproduction may depend on a host-microbial relationship in the endometrial cavity, unknown before this time."

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In addition to Igenomix and Valencia University, Lifesequencing and Biopolis (Scientific Park of Valencia University) contributed to this study. Endometrial samples were obtained from patients from IVI Valencia.
New Rochelle, NY, December 6, 2016--Legalization of cannabis for medical or leisure use is increasing in the U.S., and many experts and cannabis users alike agree that package warnings stating the health risks are needed. The warnings suggested by cannabis users are not necessarily the same as those of medical experts though, as shown in a new study published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, a new peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research website.

In the article "Cannabis Users' Recommended Warnings for Packages of Legally Sold Cannabis: An Australia-Centered Study," authors John Malouff, Caitlin Johnson, University of New England, and Sally Rooke, University of Sydney,

Australia, asked young adults who had used cannabis at least once to suggest a warning that governments could mandate on cannabis packages. Some youths in Australia view cannabis as potentially harmful, and many of their recommended warnings agreed with those of experts, particularly related to the effects of cannabis on driving ability, mental health and psychological functioning, addiction/abuse risk, and long-term physical effects. However, the study participants also suggested some types of warnings not typically recommended by experts.

"One of the many challenges created by legalization is how to package cannabis products," says Editor-in-Chief Daniele Piomelli, PhD, University of California-Irvine, School of Medicine. "This is no small problem: think how different a box of gummy bears and a bottle of medications look, and how this difference can influence use. We hope that this contribution will be the first of several examining this issue from different perspectives."

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About the Journal

Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research is the only peer-reviewed open access journal dedicated to the scientific, medical, and psychosocial exploration of clinical cannabis, cannabinoids, and the biochemical mechanisms of endocannabinoids. Led by Editor-in-Chief Daniele Piomelli, PhD, the Journal publishes a broad range of human and animal studies including basic and translational research; clinical studies; behavioral, social, and epidemiological issues; and ethical, legal, and regulatory controversies. Complete information is available on the Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Medicinal Food, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
This week's edition of PLOS Medicine, featuring four Research Articles and two Perspectives, begins a special issue devoted to research on cancer genomics. Research and discussion papers selected along with two leaders in the field, Guest Editors Elaine Mardis and Marc Ladanyi, will highlight progress in the study of important cancer types, and assess the clinical implications of progress in this fast-moving field.

In their Perspective article, James Topham and Marco Marra discuss the acquisition of genetic information from tumors, which in recent years has progressed from localized analyses of single genes, and subsequently panels of genes, that are important in specific cancer types, to whole-genome sequencing. Intensive effort is being applied to analyses of tumor genomes aimed at selection of appropriate therapies for individual patients, and the authors emphasize the need to study the dynamic nature of tumor genome sequences -- which can change over time and adapt to cytotoxic and other treatments -- to maximize the potential benefit for patients.

In a Research Article, Dr. Charles Perou of the University of North Carolina's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, NC, USA and colleagues study the evolution of tumors in two patients with triple-negative, basal-like breast cancer, a disease associated with lack of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 which generally results in poor clinical outcome. For many cancer types, it is the metastases, or the spread of cancer cells from the original tumor to other parts of the body, that are life-threatening, and it is therefore of interest to study the cancer after it has left the site of origin. The researchers studied whole-genome sequence and gene expression information from primary tumors and metastases obtained from the patients at autopsy, and report similar somatic mutation and copy number patterns across all tumors in an individual patient. This analysis identified multiple populations of cells, or clones, in the original tumor as well as in the metastatic sites. The findings suggest that metastatic potential is established early in the trajectory of this form of breast cancer, and that multiple clones from the primary tumor traveled together to distant organs.

Anindya Dutta and colleagues present a study of gene expression changes in large datasets derived from patients with brain tumors in a second Research Article -- focusing on low-grade gliomas and glioblastoma multiforme, which is a particularly intractable form of the disease. The authors study expression of large numbers of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which are thought to be involved in governing the expression of other genes and thereby controlling important processes such as development and tumorigenesis. The authors found that a signature made up of selected lncRNAs was associated with length of survival in patients with low-grade gliomas. If validated in future work, these findings could lead to a way to estimate prognosis for patients with this type of tumor, which might be useful in planning treatment.

Further research and discussion articles addressing important topics in the area of cancer genomics will appear throughout the December, 2016 issue of PLOS Medicine.

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Perspective

Funding:

No specific funding received for this article.

Competing Interests:

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation:

Topham JT, Marra MA (2016) Sequencing Strategies to Guide Decision Making in Cancer Treatment. PLoS Med 13(12): e1002189. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002189

Author Affiliations:

Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver, Canada, Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002189

Research Article (1)

Funding:

This study was supported by funds from the following sources: the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (LAC); the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (LAC, M01RR00046); National Cancer Institute P50-CA58223 Breast SPORE Program (LAC); National Cancer Institute P50-CA58223 Breast SPORE Program (CMP); National Cancer Institute R01-CA195754-01 (CMP); National Cancer Institute R01-CA148761 (CMP); the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (CMP); National Cancer Institute F30-CA200345 (MBS); and the National Human Genome Research Institute Center Initiated Projects U54HG003079 (ERM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests:

I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: CMP is an equity stock holder of BioClassifier LLC and University Genomics, and ERM, CMP, and JSP have filed a patent on the PAM50 subtyping assay. ERM served as guest editor on PLOS Medicine's Special Issue on Cancer Genomics.

Citation:

Hoadley KA, Siegel MB, Kanchi KL, Miller CA, Ding L, Zhao W, et al. (2016) Tumor Evolution in Two Patients with Basal-like Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Genomics Study of Multiple Metastases. PLoS Med 13(12): e1002174. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002174

Author Affiliations:

Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America Department of Mathematics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002174

Research Article (2)

Funding:

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute grants P01 CA104106 and R01 CA166054 to AD. BJR was supported by training grants T32 GM007267 and T32 CA009109. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests:

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation:

Reon BJ, Anaya J, Zhang Y, Mandell J, Purow B, Abounader R, et al. (2016) Expression of lncRNAs in Low-Grade Gliomas and Glioblastoma Multiforme: An In Silico Analysis. PLoS Med 13(12): e1002192. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002192

Author Affiliations:

Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America Department of Biochemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America Division of Neuro-Oncology, Neurology Department, University of Virginia Health System, Old Medical School, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002192
Discovery of a new species of assassin flies led to the redescription of its genus. This group of curious predatory flies live exclusively in South Africa, preferring relatively dry habitats. Following the revisit, authors Drs Jason Londt, KwaZulu-Natal Museum, South Africa, and Torsten Dikow, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, USA, publish updated information about all species within the genus, now counting a total of seven species, and also establish a new tribe. Their study is published in the open access journal African Invertebrates.

The family of assassin flies (Asilidae), also known as robber flies, are curious insects, which have received their common name due to their extremely predatory behavior. The assassin flies prey on a great variety of insects, including beetles, moths, butterflies, wasps, other flies, as well as some spiders, as early as their juvenile stage of development. When hunting, they would ambush their prey and catch it in flight. Then, they would pierce the victim with a short and strong proboscis, while injecting venom. Once in the body of the prey, it quickly dissolves the insides, so that the assassin fly can suck them out.

The published study was spawned by the collection of new specimens of previously described assassin flies of the species Trichoura tankwa by the junior author in December 2015. These specimens could not be easily identified and so the authors started to look at all available specimens in natural history museums.

The new species, called Trichoura pardeos, was discovered in Tierberg Nature Reserve by the authors in 2004, a small conservation area located on the north banks of the Gariep River in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The habitat comprises almost entirely a large rocky hill, where the vegetation is scarce and dominated by drought-resistant plants, such as aloes. The fly is predominantly red-brown in colour, with silvery, white and yellowish markings.

Having noted morphological variation between the species inhabiting areas with differently timed yearly rainfalls, the entomologists suggest that two groups within the studied genus have adapted to these different patterns in western and eastern South Africa. They also expect that species representing Trichoura could be also dwelling in Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and possibly Zimbabwe.

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Original source:

Londt J, Dikow T (2016) A review of the genus Trichoura Londt, 1994 with the description of a new species from the Northern Cape Province of South Africa and a key to world Willistonininae (Diptera, Asilidae). African Invertebrates 57(2): 119-135. https://doi.org/10.3897/AfrInvertebr.57.10772
HOUSTON - (Dec. 6, 2016) - Three major issues with Mexico's weak rule of law threaten to foil the successful implementation of the new reforms made possible when Mexico opened its energy sector to private and foreign investment in 2013, according to a new paper from the Mexico Center at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

"Security, the Rule of Law and Energy Reform in Mexico" argues that the country must anticipate potential problems in three areas -- violence and organized crime, corruption and social conflict -- and resolve them before it can call energy reform a success and reap its benefits. The reforms were made after more than seven decades of a tightly controlled oil industry, but the problem areas could cut short the promise of development, the authors said.

The paper was co-authored by Tony Payan, the Francoise and Edward Djerejian Fellow for Mexico Studies at the Baker Institute and director of the institute's Mexico Center, and Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, associate professor in the Department of Public Affairs and Security Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

"The 2013-2014 energy sector structural reforms in Mexico were greeted with great enthusiasm inside and outside the country," the authors wrote. "After the initial euphoria for this historic opening, however, a new set of more serious questions on the conditions and probability of success arose. Some of these questions were related to the shifting geopolitical conditions of oil and gas -- the role of Iran in energy markets, Russia's weakened position in the gas sector, China's economic slowdown, the U.S.-Saudi Arabia oil price war, etc.

"Other questions had to do with the country's ability to successfully implement this historic change in the face of numerous domestic challenges," the authors wrote. They noted that chief among these concerns were issues related to the rule of law and cited "the capacity of the Mexican state to protect energy projects from the onslaught of organized crime; the capability to offer guarantees against the web of corruption that currently envelops the country; and the ability to prevent and deal with social conflicts related to natural-resource allocation, such as land and water."

The authors said Mexico has attempted to bring about the rule of law, but it has failed to do so. "Most of its security operations have, in fact, increased the level of violence, further exhibited the weakness of the state and angered civil society," they said. "A first effort must begin with fighting corruption. It costs the country billions of dollars a year, weakens it institutions, enables government officials to participate in criminal activities and sows despair in the Mexican public. Unfortunately, there is no agreement among the political parties on what type of anti-corruption system must be put in place, but it is better to begin with a weak system than not have any at all.

"Second, all of the administration of justice institutions must be reformed well beyond the scope of the 2008 judicial reform, which as of yet has not been implemented. Mexico's justice system requires a major overhaul, especially one that guarantees its independence from an interfering executive power. Third, Congress should make a major effort to clarify Mexico's laws where they contradict with national priorities. Energy projects and water allocation, for example, cannot be both highest and equal in their priority. The laws are clearly contradictory and must be clarified."

The paper is part of a Mexico Center research project examining the rule of law in Mexico and the challenges it poses to implementing the country's energy reform. The project's findings are compiled in a Spanish-language book and will be posted on the Baker Institute's website in English.

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For more information or to schedule an interview with Payan or Correa-Cabrera, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

Related materials:

Paper: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/6bf37bd2/MEX-pub-RuleofLaw_PC-120116.pdf.

Payan bio: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/tony-payan.

Correa-Cabrera bio: https://webapps.utrgv.edu/aa/dm/index.cfm?action=profile&user=guadalupe.correacabrera.

Follow the Mexico Center via Twitter @BakerMexicoCtr.

Follow the Baker Institute via Twitter @BakerInstitute.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Founded in 1993, Rice University's Baker Institute ranks among the top five university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute's strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes -- including a public policy course -- and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at http://www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute's blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.
At two miles long and five inches in diameter, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS) ice core is a tangible record of the last 68,000 years of our planet's climate.

Completed in 2011, the core is packed with information, but it's also packed with noise and error, making the climate story hard to read. Figuring out whether blips in the data are evidence of humans spewing carbon into the atmosphere, odd North Atlantic weather events, or equipment malfunctions often challenges the scientists trying to read the ice cylinder's story.

Drawing from information theory, a research team led by Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellow Joshua Garland has proposed new, more sophisticated techniques that promise to make ongoing interpretation of the WAIS core easier and extract new kinds of data that could change the way we think about Earth's climate.

"There is information in these records that we didn't know existed until now, and it has opened doors where we didn't even know there was a door before," says James W.C. White, director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and a collaborator on the project.

In the first application of the new technique, Garland, White, and team focus on stable water isotopes present in the ice, the mix of which is a good proxy for nearby sea-surface temperatures at the time ice formed and, therefore, a good way to track climate change over thousands of years. Just plot the isotope mix over time, and you can see how temperatures changed.

What's harder to see, however, is whether those changes result from natural processes or external influences--say, Industrial Revolution activities. That's where information theory and something called permutation entropy come in.

In information theory, entropy is a measure of the unpredictability of information content. Permutation entropy essentially is a way to quantify the predictability of a future event.

Imagine an isolated climate system, void of game changers like supervolcanos or humans. Everything you'd need to predict the future climate would be contained in the Earth's climate history. When game changers arrive, they inject new information that couldn't have been predicted from the climate's past patterns--and that should manifest as an increase in permutation entropy (i.e., more unpredictability).

In fact, there are early signs in the WAIS record of an entropy increase roughly 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Holocene, suggesting human impacts on our climate began well before the Industrial Revolution.

Confirmation of that finding is pending. Meanwhile, Garland and team have already made two other surprising discoveries using their technique. The first concerns Dansgaard-Oeschger events, during which Greenland rapidly warms during glacial periods, triggering ripple effects throughout the world.

Geoscientists hypothesize that these events begin with some kind of external shock. But when Garland and team looked at another core, the North Greenland Ice Core, there didn't appear to be an increase in permutation entropy--in other words, no external shock, suggesting the events are likely part of the climate's standard operating procedure. This initial result calls for more study.

In another surprise, Garland and team discovered an anomaly in the WAIS ice-core data that had eluded others--an anomaly they eventually traced to the use of an older instrument to analyze one section of the ice core. Using the permutation entropy technique, WAIS researchers are now looking for similar anomalies deeper in the ice core.

Their paper, "A First Step Toward Quantifying the Climate's Information Production Over the Last 68,000 Years," appeared last week in Advances in Intelligent Data Analysis XV, the proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis, Stockholm, Sweden, October 13-15, 2016.

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Previous research has determined that poverty can harm children's educational, social-emotional, and physical health, in part by damaging the bodily systems that respond to the chronically high levels of stress that children in poverty are more likely to experience. A new study has found that intensive arts programs--music, dance, and visual arts--may address this phenomenon by lowering the stress levels of economically disadvantaged preschoolers, as measured through cortisol.

The study, by scientists at West Chester University and the University of Delaware, appears in the journal Child Development.

"Our study is the first we know of that demonstrates that the arts may help alleviate the impact of poverty on children's physiological functioning," notes Eleanor Brown, professor of psychology and director of the Early Childhood Cognition and Emotions Lab (ECCEL) at West Chester University, who was the study's primary investigator.

Researchers looked at 310 economically disadvantaged 3- to 5-year-olds attending a Head Start preschool program in Philadelphia that serves children from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. While all Head Start programs have some arts programming, this program--Settlement Music School's Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Program--is unique in that it fully incorporates arts into the curriculum. Children have multiple arts classes each day and these are taught in fully equipped studios by credentialed artteachers. The arts classes are used not only to develop children's artistic skills but also to promote learning in core early childhood domains like language, literacy, and math.

The study randomly assigned preschoolers by classroom to different types and numbers of arts classes. Researchers measured cortisol levels by analyzing 7,000 samples of children's saliva; samples were collected at morning baseline, and after arts and homeroom classes on two different days at the start, middle, and end of the school year.

The researchers found that cortisol levels were lower after arts classes than after homeroom, suggesting that taking part in arts programming helped reduce the stress levels of these children.

"The study has important implications," says Brown. "In an ideal world, no child would grow up in poverty. Working toward this ideal requires attention to not only economic inequities but also to the many related inequities that harm children who grow up poor and to the opportunities for disrupting the strong predictive relationship between poverty and negative outcomes. This study demonstrates that a nonmonetary intervention can reduce cortisol levels. In this case, the intervention is the arts."

Researchers saw these positive effects at the middle and end of the year, but not at the start of the school year. "The physiological benefits of arts programming may not be seen when children are first exposed," explains Mallory Garnett, research coordinator at ECCEL, who also worked on the study. "The benefits may depend on children adjusting to the classes and accumulating skills from the programming."

Adds Dr. Brown: "Our study is notable in rigorously demonstrating that arts programs of high intensity can reduce cortisol levels. This study sets the stage for further investigation regarding the arts as a vehicle for promoting well-being among children from disadvantaged families."

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The study was funded by the Research: Art Works program at the National Endowment for the Arts.

Summarized from Child Development, Can the Arts Get Under the Skin? Arts Classes and Cortisol Levels for Economically Disadvantaged Preschool Children by Brown, ED, Garnett, ML, Anderson, KE (West Chester University), and Laurenceau, J-P (University of Delaware). Copyright 2016 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.
Nebraskas pipeline-fighting ranchers and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota -- both victors thanks to federal decisions -- now find themselves in parallel limbo, awaiting the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Were waiting and seeing, said Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, which made a name for itself fighting the Keystone XL and since has branched out to several other states.

Bold has worked closely with groups opposing the $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline that would stretch 1,170 miles across North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa to Patoka, Illinois.

Nebraskans have shown their support of the water protectors to the north by sending money, people and supplies, including 800 pounds of beef and solar kits for mini barns, to support the Camp of the Sacred Stones, a sprawling collection of people gathered near the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers.

Those Nebraskans cautiously cheered Sunday's announcement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers saying it would not issue an easement to let Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners built a section of the Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota. The department instead plans to explore alternate routes and conduct an environmental impact study with public input, a process that could take years.

But a Trump administration intent on dismantling federal regulations could strive to reverse the decision and allow the original route, which the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe decried, calling the pipeline a potential risk to drinking water, as well as to sacred ancestral lands.

It's not yet clear how quickly or how far a Trump administration could roll back decisions made during President Obama's administration.

"It's not as easy as he (Trump) says it is on Twitter to approve a pipeline," said Kleeb.

Art Tanderup, whose Neligh-area farm would stand in the path of the Keystone XL, believes having Trump in the White House could inevitably mean revival of the project.

Well have some challenges obviously, but I think we can stop this thing, he said Monday. We still have to protect the Sandhills. We still have to protect the Ogallala Aquifer. We still have to protect the landowners along the route.

Trump has pledged to green-light infrastructure projects like the final 1,179 miles of the Keystone XL designed to move 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada to Steele City on the Nebraska-Kansas border, where it would meet up with the existing Keystone network owned by Calgary, Alberta-based TransCanada.

A year ago, Obama denied a cross-border permit for the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline saying it wasnt in the national interest and the United States needs to lead the global effort to fight climate change.

TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper said Monday the company remains committed to building the Keystone XL but declined to talk about any future steps right now.

We are extremely sensitive to the fact that the federal government is in a transitional period, Cooper said. Once things are more settled, we will be in a better position to speak.

One possible barrier to revival of the Keystone XL, originally proposed in 2008, could be that the economic need for more pipeline space may have slackened.

U.S. oil production has grown thanks to a fracking boom and suppressed oil prices. And even without the pipeline, Canadian oil has found its way to US refineries via rail. In 2015, Canada provided a record-high share of U.S. crude oil imports -- four out of every 10 barrels imported into the United States in 2015.

Levels this year have remained about the same.

What hasnt changed is the resolve of about 100 Nebraska landowners who refused to willingly sign a lease with TransCanada for Keystone XL right-of-way, Tanderup said.

"There might be a few people who say, 'We have had enough,' and give in to TransCanada. But most of us will stay strong," he said.

Those landowners still have 59 pending court cases in nine counties in which they are fighting for about $500,000 in legal fees.

TransCanada has said it would go through the Nebraska Public Service Commission for approval of its Keystone XL route in the state rather than pursue approval by the governor, a move that previously resulted in prolonged constitutional challenges in state court.

Brian Jorde with Domina Law in Omaha, one of the attorneys representing landowners, said that process would take seven months at a minimum, possibly longer. Also, he said, TransCanada will have to wait until September 2017 to revive eminent domain efforts to get right-of-way because state law requires entities that abandon such proceedings, like TransCanada did in September 2015, wait two years before starting again.

TransCanada still has ongoing legal challenges in response to Obamas denial of the cross-border permit. It has filed a $15 billion claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement seeking to recover costs and damages, as well as a separate federal lawsuit seeks to have Obamas denial overturned.
Educators, policymakers, and parents have begun to focus more on children's math learning in the earliest years. Yet parents and teachers still find it challenging to know which kinds of early math skills merit attention in the classroom. Determining how to help children achieve in math is important, particularly for children from low-income families who often enter school with weaker math knowledge than their peers. A new longitudinal study conducted in Tennessee has found that low-income children's math knowledge in preschool was related to their later achievement--but not all types of math knowledge were related equally. The findings suggest that educators and school administrators may want to consider carefully which areas of math study they shift attention to as they develop curricula for the early years.

Conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt University, the study appears in the journal Child Development.

The study followed 517 low-income children from ages 4 to 11; the children were primarily Black and all qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty. When the children were in the last year of preschool and near the end of first grade, researchers tested general skills (including self-regulated behavior, work-related skills, and reading) and six math skills (patterning, counting objects, comparing quantities, understanding written numbers, calculating, and understanding shapes). When the children were at the end of fifth grade, researchers tested a range of math knowledge, including knowledge about numbers, algebra, and geometry. The aim of the study was to determine whether children's math skills at ages 4 and 5 predicted their math achievement at age 11.

Preschool math skills supported first-grade math skills, which in turn supported fifth-grade math knowledge, according to the study. In preschool, children's skills in patterning, comparing quantities, and counting objects were stronger predictors of their math achievement in fifth grade than other skills, the study found. By first grade, patterning remained important, and understanding written numbers and calculating emerged as important predictors of later achievement.

Because not all types of math knowledge were equally important, the study's authors suggest that certain early math topics should get more attention than they currently do. "Counting, calculating, and understanding written numbers already get a lot of attention from teachers and parents, for good reasons," notes Bethany Rittle-Johnson, professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University, who led the study. "However, comparing quantities may merit more attention in preschool, and patterning knowledge may merit more attention in both preschool and the early elementary grades."

For example, the study's authors note, Common Core content standards for school math include shape but not patterning knowledge, and they focus little on comparing quantities. Since patterning skills in the early years predicted math achievement in fifth grade in this study, the authors suggest that teachers and parents engage young children in activities that help them find, extend, and discuss predictable sequences in objects (patterns) and compare quantities, without needing to count, such as estimating who has more pennies or more Halloween candy. A next important step will be to systematically vary how much of this content young children receive and look at their math achievement over time.

"Our findings extend those of other studies that have focused on fewer math skills over shorter periods of time and that looked at children from more advantaged homes," explains Emily R. Fyfe, assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University, who was part of the study when she was a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. "This suggests that children from low-income homes develop math knowledge in ways similar to children from more-advantaged homes, and it supports a more comprehensive understanding of the trajectory of math development from the early years to the later years."

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The research was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the National Science Foundation.

Summarized from Child Development, Early Math Trajectories: Low-Income Children's Mathematics Knowledge From Age 4 to 11 by Rittle-Johnson, B (Vanderbilt University), Fyfe, ER (Indiana University, formerly at Vanderbilt University), Hofer, KG (Abt Associates, formerly at Vanderbilt University), and Farran, DC (Vanderbilt University). Copyright 2016 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.
Enrollment of Latino children in early care and education programs is relatively low, with six in 10 not attending preschool before kindergarten. In addition, few long-term evaluations of early care and education programs have included Latino children. Now a new study has found that low-income Latino children who attended either public school prekindergarten or center-based care with child care subsidies at age 4 did well through the end of third grade, but those in public school prekindergarten did better academically than those in center-based care, especially English language learners.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Abt Associates, the University of Missouri, Florida International University, and George Mason University. It appears in the journal Child Development. Using a longitudinal research design that followed children attending different early childhood programs (specifically subsidized center based child care and public school pre-kindergarten), the study shows that public school prekindergarten appears to improve academic outcomes for third grade Latino children.

Researchers used data from 11,902 low-income Latino children who were part of the Miami School Readiness Project (MSRP) between 2002 and 2006. About 75 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches (an indicator of poverty) and 80 percent were English language learners.

Children attended either public school prekindergarten programs or center-based programs that accepted child care subsidies. In Miami at the time, prekindergarten programs were housed in public schools, ran for 3 to 4 hours a day, and had an average student-teacher ratio of 20:2. By contrast, the average center-based child care program was either for profit or faith based, ran for 7 to 8 hours a day, and was largely unaccredited, with an average student-teacher ratio of 16:1.

The study looked at children's performance on state standardized tests of math and reading in third grade as well as children's grade point average (GPA) in third grade. Researchers tested children's school readiness at the end of preschool and the beginning of kindergarten. They also assessed the children's English proficiency each year in school.

"Although all Latino children in our sample performed reasonably well through the end of third grade as compared to other public school children in the region, those who attended public school prekindergarten at age 4 outperformed their classmates previously in center-based care on math and reading, and they had higher GPAs in third grade," notes Arya Ansari, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Virginia (who was at the University of Texas at Austin at the time of the study). The findings held even when taking into account baseline characteristics (e.g., receipt of free and reduced-price lunch, gender, age, language at home, and country of origin) and children's skills when they entered preschool (e.g., cognitive, language, and fine-motor skills, as well as social-behavioral skills).

"We found that those children who took part in public school prekindergarten programs started kindergarten with stronger academic skills, more optimal social-behavior skills, and English-language proficiency," Ansari says. "This appeared to contribute to their success in third grade." The findings were also true for English language learners.

Because the study looked at the experiences of Latino children in Miami, the findings are not generalizable to all Latinos (who may have different immigration backgrounds) in other parts of the United States. In addition, the study's authors caution, the research can't speak to whether these children's experiences are typical or unique compared to children from other backgrounds (for example, Latino children who attended Head Start or who were cared for at home were not included in the MSRP sample).

Adds Adam Winsler, professor of psychology at George Mason University, who was a principal investigator for the original Miami School Readiness Project (MSRP) and coauthor of the study: "While our results are not causal, they provide much-needed insight into the experiences of Latino children in publicly funded early care and education programs in Miami. Our work reveals that policymakers should consider that such programs can help put Latino children on a path toward more positive school achievement."

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The research was funded by the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, the Children's Trust, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families, which is funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Summarized from Child Development, Differential Third-Grade Outcomes Associated with Attending Publicly Funded Preschool Programs for Low-Income Latino Children by Ansari, A (University of Virginia, formerly at University of Texas at Austin), L?pez, M (Abt Associates), Manfra, L (University of Missouri), Bleiker, C, Dinehart, LHB (Florida International University), Hartman, SC (West Virginia University), and Winsler, A (George Mason University). Copyright 2016 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sexual assault incidents that involve intimate partners feature unique factors that affect a victim's willingness to cooperate with police, including the relationship between the suspect and victim and law enforcement practices in investigating these crimes, according to a recent study.

Recent national estimates suggest that 1 in 10 women experience sexual assault by an intimate partner. Victim cooperation is a key factor in processing these cases through the criminal justice system.

"The choice to cooperate with law enforcement is one of the most important decisions made by victims in the processing of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault (SA) cases," said Eryn O'Neal, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University and the author of the study. "Research overwhelmingly indicates that victim cooperation influences case outcomes in these types of crimes, with desired outcomes being linked to attaining and maintaining cooperation."

O'Neal's study used quantitative data from 160 intimate partner sexual assault cases from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2008. The study found that women were more likely to cooperate in the criminal justice process if they were married to the suspect; if they were in a longer relationship; if they were threatened prior to or during the incident; or if physical evidence was collected or documented. Conversely, women were less likely to participate in the process if non-violent tactics were used by the suspect to limit the victim's autonomy or if the victim communicated that she didn't want the suspect arrested.

In addition to the quantitative findings discussed above, O'Neal's qualitative findings suggest additional reasons intimate partner sexual assault victims refuse to cooperate. Other factors that led to a refusal to cooperate in the investigation were that the victim was no longer interested in continuing with the case or wanted to put the incident behind her; the victim blamed herself or made excuses for the suspect's behavior; the purpose of filing the report was not for prosecution; the victim was involved in a relationship with the suspect; the victim feared retaliation or consequences; or the victim recanted.

The study suggested ways that law enforcement and other professionals in the criminal justice field can increase cooperation by victims in these cases. These include:

Understanding that relationship and case factors help predict the victim's willingness to cooperate in their case

Acknowledging relationship-based barriers to cooperation, such as a lack of transportation, denied access to the phone, or the need for financial support from the abuser

Collecting or documenting evidence from the scene, victim, or suspect despite perpetrator claims of consent

Actively working toward dismantling rape myth acceptance among officers

Working with victims to ensure their safety so cooperation decisions do not need to be based solely on fear

"Victim Cooperation in Intimate Partner Sexual Assault Cases: A Mixed Methods Examination" was recently published by Justice Quarterly and was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.

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New research has identified a higher prevalence of disability among students in U.S. allopathic medical schools (2.7 percent) than prior studies (0.3 percent to 0.6 percent), according to a study appearing in the December 6 issue of JAMA, a medical education theme issue.

Studying the performance of medical students with disabilities requires a better understanding of the prevalence and categories of disabilities represented. It remains unclear how many medical students have disabilities; prior estimates are out-of-date and psychological, learning, and chronic health disabilities have not been evaluated. For this study, Lisa M. Meeks, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and Kurt R. Herzer, Ph.D., M.Sc., of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, assessed the prevalence of all disabilities and the accommodations in use at allopathic medical schools in the United States.

From December 2014 through February 2016, an electronic, web-based survey was sent to institutionally designated disability administrators at eligible allopathic medical schools who have a federally mandated duty to assist qualified students with disabilities. The survey was designed by experts in medical school disability administration based on provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and prior research. The survey assessed the following domains: (1) total number of self-disclosed or registered students with disabilities receiving accommodations, (2) demographic characteristics of students with disabilities, (3) categories of disabilities, and (4) approved accommodations.

One hundred forty-five schools were identified; 12 were excluded. Of the 133 eligible schools, 91 completed the survey (68 percent) and 89 reported complete data and were included in the analysis. Respondents identified 1,547 students with disabilities (43 percent male), representing 2.7 percent of the total enrollment and ranging from 0 percent to 12 percent. Of these students, 98 percent received accommodations. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was the most common disability (34 percent), followed by learning disabilities (22 percent) and psychological disabilities (20 percent). Mobility and sensory disabilities were less common. School-based testing accommodations were most frequently used (98 percent); clinical accommodations were less frequently used.

"These results underscore the limitations of studying isolated subtypes of disabilities (i.e., only mobility impairments), which may underestimate this population. The preponderance of students with ADHD, learning disabilities, and psychological disabilities suggests that these disability subtypes should be included in future research efforts, such as studies assessing the performance of appropriately accommodated students," the authors write.

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(doi:10.1001/jama.2016.10544; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website)

Editor's Note: This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' Medical Scientist Training Program and from the National Institute on Aging. Both authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.

To place an electronic embedded link to this study in your story This link will be live at the embargo time: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2016.10544
A review and analysis of nearly 200 studies involving 129,000 medical students in 47 countries found that the prevalence of depression or depressive symptoms was 27 percent, that 11 percent reported suicidal ideation during medical school, and only about 16 percent of students who screened positive for depression reportedly sought treatment, according to a study appearing in the December 6 issue of JAMA, a medical education theme issue.

Studies have suggested that medical students experience high rates of depression and suicidal ideation; however, prevalence estimates vary across studies. Reliable estimates of depression and suicidal ideation prevalence during medical training are important for informing efforts to prevent, treat, and identify causes of emotional distress among medical students, especially in light of recent work revealing a high prevalence of depression in resident physicians.

Douglas A. Mata, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies of depression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation in undergraduate medical trainees. The researchers identified 195 studies that met criteria for inclusion in the analysis.

Depression or depressive symptom prevalence data were extracted from 167 cross-sectional studies (n = 116,628) and 16 longitudinal studies (n = 5,728) from 43 countries. The overall pooled crude prevalence of depression or depressive symptoms was 27 percent (37,933/122,356 individuals). Summary prevalence estimates ranged across assessment methods from 9 percent to 56 percent. Depressive symptom prevalence remained relatively constant over the period studied (baseline survey year range of 1982-2015). In the 9 longitudinal studies that assessed depressive symptoms before and during medical school, the median absolute increase in symptoms was 14 percent. Prevalence estimates did not significantly differ between studies of only preclinical students and studies of only clinical students (23.7 percent vs 22.4 percent). The percentage of medical students screening positive for depression who sought psychiatric treatment was 16 percent (110/954 individuals).

Suicidal ideation prevalence data were extracted from 24 cross-sectional studies (n = 21,002) from 15 countries. The overall pooled crude prevalence of suicidal ideation was 11 percent (2,043/21,002 individuals). Summary prevalence estimates ranged across assessment methods from 7 percent to 24 percent.

"The present analysis builds on recent work demonstrating a high prevalence of depression among resident physicians, and the concordance between the summary prevalence estimates (27.2 percent in students vs 28.8 percent in residents) suggests that depression is a problem affecting all levels of medical training. Taken together, these data suggest that depressive and suicidal symptoms in medical trainees may adversely affect the long-term health of physicians as well as the quality of care delivered in academic medical centers," the authors write.

"Possible causes of depressive and suicidal symptomatology in medical students likely include stress and anxiety secondary to the competitiveness of medical school. Restructuring medical school curricula and student evaluations might ameliorate these stresses. Future research should also determine how strongly depression in medical school predicts depression during residency and whether interventions that reduce depression in medical students carry over in their effectiveness when those students transition to residency. Furthermore, efforts are continually needed to reduce barriers to mental health services, including addressing the stigma of depression."

"Further research is needed to identify strategies for preventing and treating these disorders in this population," the researchers conclude.

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(doi:10.1001/jama.2016.17324; the study is available pre-embargo at the For the Media website)

Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

Related material: Also available at the For the Media website , the editorial, "Medical Student Mental Health," by Stuart J. Slavin, M.D., M.Ed., of the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

To place an electronic embedded link to this study in your story This link will be live at the embargo time: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2016.17324
Risk of antibiotic resistance and environmental impact should be among the considerations for ingredients added to over-the-counter and household products

BOSTON (Dec, 6, 2016)--A new commentary from Patrick McNamara and Stuart Levy cautions that the Food and Drug Administration's ban on triclosan and 18 other biocidal chemicals that promote antibiotic resistance is only a starting point. Triclosan's long-term impact, as well as the risks substitute chemicals may pose, must also be addressed.

The commentary is in the December 2016 issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, published by the American Society for Microbiology.

Triclosan targets bacteria, encouraging its use in soaps and cosmetic agents. But bacteria adapt and become resistant to the chemical in a phenomenon known as cross-resistance. While the authors applaud the decision to remove triclosan from common products such as antibacterial hand soap, they note that the chemicals will continue to persist in the environment after the ban because they do not readily degrade. Moreover, triclosan is still used in some self-care products, including dry shampoo and toothpaste. As importantly, triclosan binds to soil and other organic materials used in agriculture, and its continued use delivers resistant microorganisms to the environment.

McNamara warns that "biocides will remain in the environment, perpetuating antibiotic resistance. Triclosan naturally resists degradation during wastewater treatment, making it pervasive in rivers, lakes, sediment and soil after it is sent down the drain. Specifically, triclosan binds to biosolids, which are organic matter recycled from sewage that is regularly used in agriculture. Along the way, triclosan selects for antibiotic resistance in the microorganisms that digest these biosolids."

The Food and Drug Administration's ban does not preclude the use of triclosan in toothpaste and other products, which will add to the development of more antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment.

Even though the ban is a hard fought victory for public health officials, the authors warn that companies may replace one biocidal chemical with another that has a risk as great as the original. Many of these substitutes, which have received less attention than the 19 banned chemicals, have been linked to cross-resistance to antibiotics.

"Triclosan has altered the bacteria in our environment and taken a lead role in selection and spread of these bacteria throughout the world, creating the environmental resistome--the ever-growing world of antibiotic resistance in our day-to-day environment. We can't undo this consequence of prior use. What we can do is work to encourage replacement of triclosan, but without contribution to further problems, namely, derivatives of the drug that can circumvent this ban," said Levy. "We can work to ensure that any replacements for triclosan do not contribute more environmental problems. Any chemical marketed as safe and effective should have to demonstrate these qualities before further worldwide damage is done."

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Patrick J. McNamara, Ph.D., is assistant professor in the department of civil, construction and environmental engineering at Marquette University, and Stuart B. Levy, M.D., is professor of medicine and director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.

McNamara, P.J., Levy, S.B. Triclosan: an instructive tale. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, December 2016. doi: 10.1128/AAC.02105-16

About Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences

Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences are international leaders in medical and population health education and advanced research. Tufts University School of Medicine emphasizes rigorous fundamentals in a dynamic learning environment to educate physicians, scientists, and public health professionals to become leaders in their fields. The School of Medicine and the Sackler School are renowned for excellence in education in general medicine, the biomedical sciences, and public health, as well as for research at the cellular, molecular, and population health level. The School of Medicine is affiliated with six major teaching hospitals and more than 30 health care facilities. Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School undertake research that is consistently rated among the highest in the nation for its effect on the advancement of medical and prevention science.
Rising temperatures due to climate change were found to have less influence on mosquito populations than land use changes and the decay of residual DDT in the environment

Mosquito populations have increased as much as ten-fold over the past five decades in New York, New Jersey, and California, according to long-term datasets from mosquito monitoring programs. The number of mosquito species in these areas increased two- to four-fold in the same period.

A new study finds the main drivers of these changes were the gradual waning of DDT concentrations in the environment and increased urbanization. The findings were published December 6 in Nature Communications.

The potential effects of climate change on the spread of insect-borne diseases is a major public health concern, but this study found little evidence that mosquito populations in these areas were responding to changes in temperature or precipitation.

"At first glance, recent increases in mosquito populations appear to be linked to rising temperatures from climate change, but careful analyses of data over the past century show that it's actually recovery from the effects of DDT," said corresponding author Marm Kilpatrick, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz.

Kilpatrick explained that the effects of climate change are expected to be seen at the edges of species' geographic ranges, as species adapted to warm climates move further north and cold-adapted species retreat from the southern parts of their ranges. So a tropical species like Aedes aegypti, which transmits Zika, dengue, and other human diseases, could expand its range northward in the United States as temperatures warm.

"On the cold edge of a species' distribution, temperature matters a lot. In Washington D.C., for example, where Aedes aegypti is not common now, it might become more common if the winters get milder. Whereas in Florida, urbanization and mosquito control efforts are more likely to be the dominant drivers of mosquito populations," Kilpatrick said.

Urbanization is an important factor because it changes the species composition in an area, favoring the types of mosquitoes that live near and feed on people, such as Aedes aegypti, and causing other species to decline, such as those adapted to wetlands and other natural habitats.

Mosquito control programs continue to help limit mosquito populations in many areas, but currently available techniques are not nearly as effective as DDT was, Kilpatrick said. "Everyone knew DDT was an extremely effective insecticide, but I was surprised by how long-lasting its effects were. In some areas, it took 30 to 40 years for mosquito populations to recover," he said.

More than a billion pounds (600 million kilograms) of DDT were used in the United States from the 1940s through the early 1970s. Its use was curtailed in the 1960s and finally banned in the United States in 1972 because of adverse environmental effects, especially on birds and other wildlife, as well as potential human health risks. Yet DDT was still detectable in soil cores as recently as 2000 in New York state, where DDT use was much higher than in New Jersey and California.

In all three regions, both mosquito abundance and the number of species decreased dramatically during the period of DDT use, then steadily increased as the amount of DDT in the environment declined. In New York, the researchers found, patterns of DDT use and its concentration in the environment could explain most of the long-term trends in mosquito populations. In New Jersey and California, however, the analyses showed that urbanization was also an important factor.

Average annual temperatures showed surprisingly little correlation with mosquito population trends. "Precipitation was more important than temperature, but land use was more important than either of those factors," Kilpatrick said. "The long-term impacts of land use changes on ecosystems are sometimes underappreciated."

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The coauthors of the paper include Ilia Rochlin and Dominick Ninivaggi at Suffolk County Vector Control in New York; Ary Faraji at the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District; and Christopher Baker at UC Davis.
UC Santa Barbara engineer Glenn Fredrickson has received the 2016 William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Presented annually since 1936, the award is named for William H. Walker, one of the American pioneers of chemical engineering practice and principles.

"This major award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers recognizes Glenn Fredrickson's immense and impactful contributions to the chemical engineering literature, particularly with respect to polymer theory and simulations," said Rachel Segalman, the Edward Noble Kramer Professor and chair of UCSB's Department of Chemical Engineering. "We are incredibly proud of Glenn's achievements and thrilled that they go so much further than the literature contributions recognized by this award to contributions to UCSB, where he is an incredible colleague and a cornerstone of many exciting collaborations."

Fredrickson's computational field theory techniques have revolutionized the study of soft materials and complex fluids, most notably in self-assembling polymers and block copolymers. Known as field-theoretic simulations (FTS), these techniques are significant not only for their importance to molecular thermodynamics but also for their engineering impact on directed self-assembly -- an emerging lithographic technology for semiconductor devices. Companies such as Intel and Samsung are developing their next-generation lithographic processes based on FTS software tools developed by UCSB's Fredrickson Research Group.

After contributing an influential 2002 article to the journal Macromolecules that explained the full framework of FTS, Frederickson, the Mitsubishi Chemical Chair in Functional Materials at UCSB, four years later published the Oxford University Press monograph "The Equilibrium Theory of Inhomogeneous Polymers." The book, which unified the field of nonhomogeneous polymer theory and simulation, has become the standard reference for both self-consistent field theory and Frederickson's more powerful FTS.

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Frederickson earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Florida in 1980 and his master's degree and doctorate from Stanford University in 1981 and 1984, respectively. He worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories before joining the faculty at UCSB in 1990. In 2014, Frederickson was appointed chief technology officer and member of the board of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation in Tokyo.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the AIChE, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His other honors include the Collaboration Success Award from the Council for Chemical Research, the Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science and Engineering from the American Chemical Society, and the Polymer Physics Prize from the American Physical Society.
Women treated with a common chemotherapy drug combination have more young eggs in their ovaries afterwards, research has found.

A small study indicates that a therapy commonly used to target Hodgkin's lymphoma appears to increase the number of non-growing eggs in women's ovaries.

Researchers say it is too soon to link the outcome to fertility, but believe more research is needed to better understand the findings and their implications.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh analysed samples of ovary tissue donated by 14 women who had undergone chemotherapy, and from 12 healthy women.

They found that the ovaries from eight of the cancer patients, who had been treated with a drug combination known as ABVD, had a much greater incidence of immature, or non-growing, eggs compared with tissue from women who had received a different chemotherapy, or from healthy women of a similar age.

The ovary tissue was seen to be in healthy condition, appearing similar to tissue from young women's ovaries.

If further research can reveal the mechanism by which treatment with ABVD results in increased production of eggs, this would aid understanding of how women might be able to produce more eggs during their lifetime, which was until recently thought to be impossible.

Researchers had set out to better understand why treatment with ABVD is one of the few cancer drug combinations that does not impact on women's fertility.

Future studies will examine the separate impact of each of the four drugs that combine to make ABVD - known as adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine - to better understand the biological mechanisms involved.

The study, published in Human Reproduction, was supported by the Medical Research Council.

Lead researcher Professor Evelyn Telfer of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, said: "This study involves only a few patients, but its findings were consistent and its outcome may be significant and far-reaching. We need to know more about how this drug combination acts on the ovaries, and the implications of this."

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The impact of soil erosion on both the environmental and social wellbeing of communities in East Africa is to be explored in new research led by the University of Plymouth.

The study, which is focused on the East African Rift System, will examine the degree of damage being caused to the local environment by a range of agricultural land management practices.

It will aim to identify means by which that damage can be lessened, but also explore the knock-on effects of such actions from economic, health and societal perspectives.

The project has been funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic & Social Research Council, as part of the Global Challenge Research Fund, a 15bn fund announced by the UK government in 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries.

The Principal Investigator on the project is Will Blake, Professor of Catchment Science, who has previously worked in this area as part of joint United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and International Atomic Energy Agency research programmes and within European Commission funded research. It also involves Neil Roberts, Professor of Physical Geography, David Gilvear, Professor of River Science, and Geoff Wilson, Professor of Human Geography, all at the University of Plymouth, as well as Dr Anna Rabinovich, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Exeter, and Patrick Ndakidemi, Professor of Agricultural Sciences at The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), in Tanzania.

Professor Blake said: "In countries for which agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, there are always going to be tensions between growers, pastoralists and conservationists. With growing populations and increased demand for food, the landscape is approaching a tipping point so finding a means by which to augment food production while preserving the quality of the land for future generations, is essential."

Even under normal climatic conditions, soil erosion by water reduces water and nutrient retention, biodiversity and plant primary productivity on agricultural land putting stress on food production, and causing ecosystem and water resource damage downstream.

This undermines the resilience of communities that depend on soil and water resources, and shocks are often amplified by physical and socio-cultural positive feedback mechanisms. Restoration of the landscape can, however, lead to greater-than-previous levels of resilience (sometimes termed 'bounce back') if a holistic view of environmental and community needs is considered.

For this project, researchers will use sediment drilling techniques to assess the current and historical impacts of soil erosion alongside systematic surveys of soil degradation. They will also speak directly to those within local communities, establishing how soil erosion is perceived and how those perceptions might be influenced in future.

The ultimate aim is to create a model with three strands - defining the problem, identifying pathways to change and facilitating action - which can be applied in this region and, subsequently, across the developing world.

Professor Blake added: "A lot of our previous work has developed a deep understanding of soil erosion, how it takes place and where, but it has not focused on ways to take the knowledge forward and bring about real change in practice. By creating an evidence base around the environmental, social and cultural impacts of soil erosion, we hope to devise a system which can have positive affects in this region and others across the world."

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The attorney for a man re-sentenced this year to 90 years to life in prison for kidnapping a Blair woman as a teenager argued Monday that the new sentence is an effective life sentence, and therefore unconstitutional.

Brian D. Smith, now 50, originally got a life sentence on kidnapping and burglary charges for the January 1983 crime that led to the death of 21-year-old Mary Jo Hovendick.

But a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court opinion ruled it unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to life without parole in nonhomicide cases. Two years later, the Supreme Court went a step further, finding all mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles cruel and unusual punishment.

The decisions led to re-sentencings in cases around the country, including about two dozen in Nebraska like Smith.

In February, Washington County District Judge John Samson sentenced him to 90 years to life in prison for raping, robbing and leaving a Blair woman tied up in a car sent hurtling into the Missouri River when he was 16.

Hovendick drowned.

It was the same sentence Samson gave Smith's co-defendant, Dale Nollen, a month earlier for first-degree murder for his role in the crime.

On Monday, Smith's attorney, Jeffrey Pickens of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, told the Nebraska Supreme Court that it amounted to a de facto life sentence without parole because Smith was being denied a meaningful opportunity for release, which is prohibited by Graham v. Florida, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case.

According to the Department of Correctional Services website, Smith won't be eligible for parole until he's 77.

"He has, at best, one year to live, and that's not taking into account the effect of incarceration on life expectancy," Pickens argued.

Supreme Court Justice Max Kelch asked Pickens if it was his opinion Smith should be released immediately.

Pickens said if he had that choice, yes. He said Smith has matured and rehabilitated and has been evaluated as a low-risk to reoffend.

He pointed to decisions in other states that have taken up the issue and found sentences where teens can't gain parole until they are 60 or older unconstitutional. But the Nebraska Supreme Court hasn't yet answered that question.

Pickens also asked the state Supreme Court to answer which good-time method should apply to the case. Good-time in 1983 or now.

In cases like this one, the Department of Correctional Services currently is using the method in place at the time of the crime, not the time of re-sentencing, unless the judge directs them otherwise.

In Smith's case, Pickens said, the judge said that was a decision for Corrections.

But, Pickens argued Monday, the problem is it isn't being done uniformly throughout the state in these cases. And, for Smith, it means the difference between being eligible for parole at age 62 versus 77, he said.

On the other side, Assistant Nebraska Attorney General Melissa Vincent said even if the difference is significant, she doesn't believe the question is an issue in this case or properly before the court.

And the "de facto life sentence" argument is the same one that has been made in every juvenile resentencing case pending before the state Supreme Court, she said.

"One issue is what does a de facto life sentence mean?" Vincent said, adding that another fundamental question is how do you measure life.

Asked by Justice John Wright if it was a coincidence so many are being re-sentenced to 90 to life in these kinds of cases, Vincent said she noticed that, too, but couldn't say why.

She said in considering whether Smith's sentence was excessive, the answer is no for a number of reasons.

While he pleaded to kidnapping, he committed a murder, Vincent said, and had ample opportunity to stop what was going on and knew it was wrong but actively participated.

The Supreme Court will decide the case later.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded approximately $14 million over five years to a multi-university, regional transportation center led by the University of Washington to fund research aimed at improving the mobility of people and goods across the Pacific Northwest.

The competitive funding, which local and regional agencies and companies will match for an expected total of $28 million, advances the work of the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium, or PacTrans. It's one of 10 regional University Transportation Centers across the U.S. and represents Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska.

The new grant will expand PacTrans' focus, which previously included data-driven solutions for transportation safety and sustainability, to address all aspects of the region's diverse mobility challenges. That will include everything from alleviating traffic congestion to improving transit accessibility for people with disabilities, improving the reliability of trip-planning tools and expanding rural transportation options.

Other university partners include Boise State University, Gonzaga University, Oregon State University, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Idaho and Washington State University.

"This exciting new grant will allow us to address broader mobility challenges, of which our region certainly has many," said PacTrans director Yinhai Wang, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering.

"We're seeing rapid population growth in both Portland and Seattle, but we also have the very rural areas like Alaska, with very few people living in a vast landscape. So the question is: How can we offer transportation mobility to people in very different living environments?" Wang said.

The federal program's funding commitment is five years, much longer than the previous two UTC awards, providing valuable stability and opportunity. The universities may also partner with private companies and other stakeholders with economic and social interests in improving the reliability and efficiency with which people and goods move around the region. The proposal had strong support from members of the Congressional delegations across the involved states.

"Transportation mobility is one of the great challenges facing Washington state as we seek to remain competitive now and in the future," said Sen. Patty Murray. "This funding will support important advances that will benefit our local communities and the nation as a whole."

Potential research topics include expanding the use of wireless sensors to collect data and connect traffic systems, integrating self-driving vehicles into traffic operations, exploring transit deserts across the region, strategic freight planning and car-sharing for elderly communities.

"When it comes to transportation problems, I have found that most folks want facts and data to guide decision-making," said Rep. Rick Larsen, a senior member of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. "That is why this grant is important - it will help the UW and its PacTrans partners develop smarter transportation solutions that will help drive job growth and keep the economy moving."

Matching funders include transportation industry partners and local transportation agencies, including the four states' transportation departments and the City of Seattle.

"Considering the transportation challenges facing America, our country needs this innovative research being done by these universities to help speed up freight movement and reduce congestion," said Sen. Maria Cantwell.

###

For more information, contact Wang at yinhai@uw.edu.
London : Hindu groups in the United Kingdom have joined hands with British vegetarians to protest against the new five-pound notes as it contains traces of animal fat in the form of beef tallow.

Tallow is a rendered byproduct of animal fat, in this case beef, which finds use (not much these days) in making, candles, soaps and a host of other things.

Leading the agitation against the new notes are a number of temples Hindu temples like the Bhativedanta Manor. Located in Hertfordshire, southern England, the Manor is one of UKs largest Hare Krishna temples.

The temple management 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 said in a statement that the new note 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.

While it is unclear exactly how many temples have imposed a clear, the Hindu Forum of Britain (HFB), an umbrella body of Hindu organisations, had issued a statement over the weekend saying they were urging people to sign a petition to withdraw the notes and avoid its use in donations.

Tarang Shelat, president of the Hindu Council of Birmingham  which is part of HFB, said: It is important that we do make our views known in the strongest terms to the relevant authorities.

Through ignorance they may not be aware of offence it is causing us as Hindus.

It is also important to mention that in our place of worship, animal based products are strictly forbidden and this would have a drastic effect on our collection boxes as 5 pound will not be allowed as donation, the petition titled Remove Tallow from bank notes had clocked nearly 130,000 signatures.

It will be delivered to the Bank of England when it hits 150,000.

It reads: The new 5 pound notes contain animal fat in the form of tallow. This is unacceptable to millions of vegans & vegetarians in the UK. We demand that you cease to use animal products in the production of currency that we have to use.

Source : Zee News
Dakota Skipper Mural Is Tenth Installment in National Endangered Species Mural Project

CANNON BALL, N.D., November 28, 2016  In support of the Standing Rock Sioux tribes campaign to protect their water and sacred grounds from the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Center for Biological Diversity and artist Roger Peet have installed a mural of an endangered butterfly at the Oceti Sakowin camp, where hundreds of tribes and allies have gathered in peaceful protest.In addition to the threat to people, water and sacred places, the pipeline will also kill the Dakota skipper, a rare prairie butterfly protected under the Endangered Species Act. The brightly colored butterfly mural is intended as a show of support of the gathering of water protectors and to symbolize the harm the project will cause to people and wildlife. It is painted on the side of a structure built by the Shelter for the Storm project to provide shelter for indigenous media collectives during the frigid winter.It was an honor to paint this mural in the Oceti Sakowin frontline camp, and to offer it to the assembled water protectors as something bright and beautiful within the vibrant assembled communities of First Nations peoples, said Roger Peet, who leads the Centers national endangered species mural project. The struggle at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline is native-led and native-voiced, and the protectors there are facing down police violence in defense of all species, large and small, including even the tiny but tough Dakota skipper.Dakota skippers are small butterflies with hooked antennae and thick, muscular bodies that enable a faster, more powerful flight than other butterflies. They have already lost nearly two-thirds of their original range due to loss of native prairie habitat. They are currently found only in the eastern half of North Dakota, northeastern South Dakota and western Minnesota, and are already extirpated in Iowa and Illinois. They were protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2014.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that the threatened butterflies will be harmed by construction and maintenance of the pipeline, but issued a permit that allows the butterflies to be killed and their habitat to be degraded. The Service suggested to the company and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the butterflies be monitored and that voluntary conservation measures be taken to try to minimize the overall harm to the species.Respecting the diversity of the earths cultures and people is intrinsically connected to protecting its plants and animals, so the plight of the Dakota skipper butterfly is directly connected to the plight of indigenous cultures that will be irreparably harmed by the pipeline, said Tierra Curry, a senior biologist at the Center. The government should stop the Dakota Access Pipeline because of the threat it poses to tribal rights, to endangered species and to our collective future.The pipeline will harm 19 endangered species including the pallid sturgeon, Topeka shiner, whooping crane, interior least tern, piping plover, rufa red knot and northern long-eared bat.The structure on which the mural was painted is one of two designed and built by Oregon's Shelter for the Storm Project, coordinated by activists Esther Forbyn and Matt Musselwhite. It was framed entirely using solar power, and with timber felled and milled by hand from dead trees in communities in southern Oregon. Two indigenous media collectives will use the structures for warmth and power in the coming final stretch of the struggle against the pipeline.It's vital that indigenous voices have a warm and safe space from which to do their work, said Peet. Our work to build and decorate these structures is a small way to help amplify the native-led struggle against the bankrupt energy systems that are destroying the world..Standing Rock and Dakota Access BackgroundThe $3.8 billion pipeline would transport fracked crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. On Nov. 15, rallies were held in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., for a national day of action urging President Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers to permanently halt the pipeline. This call to action from indigenous leaders in Standing Rock was in response to increased violent repression from militarized police as the pipeline company continues construction on sacred land, despite a voluntary hold by the Army Corps. On Nov. 20, militarized police endangered the lives of the water protectors by attacking them with water cannons in sub-freezing temperatures and firing rubber bullets, pepper spray and concussion grenades that injured more than 300 people. The Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council reports that a 21-year-old woman from New York City was severely injured by a concussion grenade thrown by police that shattered her arm.Endangered Species Mural Project BackgroundThe Dakota skipper mural is the 10th installment in the Centers national endangered species mural project, which aims to increase appreciation of endangered species in communities across the country. Murals already in place include the mountain caribou in Sandpoint, Idaho; the Arctic grayling in Butte, Mont.; the monarch butterfly in Minneapolis; the jaguar in Tucson, Ariz.; the blue whale and yellow-billed cuckoo in Los Angeles; the watercress darter in Birmingham, Ala.; the pink mucket pearly mussel in Knoxville, Tenn.; and the white fringeless orchid in Berea, Ky. Upcoming murals are planned of the hellbender salamander in Conway, Ark.; and the marbled murrelet, a seabird, in Arcata, Calif.The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.Center for Biological DiversityPhoto: Please credit Roger Peet.
WASHINGTON, December 6, 2016  Existing pipelines in North Dakota have spilled crude oil and other hazardous liquids at least 85 times since 1996, according to an analysis (see PDF) released today by the Center for Biological Diversity. These 85 spills  an average of four a year  caused more than $40 million in property damage, according to the data compiled from the U.S. Department of Transportations Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Image: Hazardous liquid pipeline spills in North Dakota (1996 - present). Map by Kara Clauser, Center for Biological Diversity.

The analysis follows Sundays decision by the Obama administration not to grant the Dakota Access pipeline an easement for construction under Lake Oahe. After months of peaceful protests led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the Army Corps of Engineers will undertake a review of alternate routes for the pipeline.Pipeline leaks are common and incredibly dangerous, and the Dakota Access pipeline will threaten every community it cuts through, said the Center's Randi Spivak. This pipeline wasnt considered safe for the residents of Bismarck. It is equally unsafe for the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux. The Army Corps should not be putting anyones water supply at risk.Energy Transfer Partners, the conglomerate behind the controversial Dakota Access project, has a questionable safety record. The company has been responsible for 29 pipeline safety incidents since 2006, in which 9,555 barrels of hazardous liquids were spilled.The standoff over the Dakota Access pipeline has united indigenous people across the globe in an unprecedented show of solidarity; thousands have come to show their support. In response local police have militarized the situation, firing rubber bullets and showering protesters with water in freezing temperatures.A 2013 study reveals a deeply troubling history of pipeline accidents in the United States. This independent analysis of federal records found that since 1986, oil and gas pipeline leaks, spills and other safety incidents have resulted in nearly $7 billion in damages, more than 2,000 injuries and more than 500 deaths. (See: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/americas_dangerous_pipelines/index.html A time-lapse video documents every significant pipeline incident in the continental United States  along with their human and financial costs  from 1986 through May 2013. On average one significant pipeline incident occurred in the country every 30 hours, according to the data. (View video: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/americas_dangerous_pipelines/index.html#video We expect the Corps to conduct a full oil-spill risk analysis for every river crossing along the entire route of the Dakota Access project," Spivak said. Spills are a fact of life when pipelines fail  and that puts water, wildlife and people directly in harms way.The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.Center for Biological Diversity
Google says it is nearing a milestone in its quest to reduce pollution caused by its digital services that devour massive amounts of electricity.

The internet company believes that beginning next year, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world.

That is significant, given Google's ravenous appetite for electricity to power its offices and the huge data centres that process requests on its dominant search engine and store Gmail, YouTube video clips and photos for more than a billion people.

Google says its 13 data centres and offices consume about 5.7 terawatt hours of electricity annually - nearly the same amount as San Francisco, where more than 800,000 people live and tens of thousands of others come to work and visit.

The accomplishment announced on Tuesday does not mean Google will be able to power its operations solely on wind and solar power.

That is not possible because of the complicated way that power grids and regulations are set up around the US and the rest of the world.

Google instead believes it is now in a position to offset every megawatt hour of electricity supplied by a power plant running on fossil fuels with renewable energy that the company has purchased through a variety of contracts.

About 95% of Google's renewable energy deals come from wind power farms, with the remainder from solar power.

Nearly 20 other technology companies have also pledged to secure enough renewable energy to power their worldwide operations, said Gary Cook, senior energy campaigner for the environmental group Greenpeace.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, made its commitment four years ago and appears to be the first big company to have fulfilled the promise.

Apple is getting close to matching its rival.

The iPhone maker says it has secured enough renewable energy to power about 93% of its worldwide operations.

Apple is also trying to convert more of the overseas suppliers that manufacture the iPhone and other devices to renewable energy sources, but that goal is expected to take years to reach.

Mr Cook said the symbolic message sent by Google's achievement is important to environmental experts who believe electricity generated with coal and natural gas is causing damage that is contributing to extreme swings in the climate.

US President-elect Donald Trump dismissed the need for climate control during his campaign for office, and he has pledged to undo a number of regulations to protect the environment.

"More than ever, companies must show this sort of leadership on renewable energy," Mr Cook said. "Now is not the time to be silent."

Google still hopes to work with power utilities and regulators around the world to make it possible for all of its renewable energy to be directly piped into its offices and data centres around the clock.

For now, Google sells its supply of renewable energy to other electricity grids whenever it is not possible for its own operations to use the power.

Google declined to disclose how much it has spent on its stockpile of renewable energy or the size of its annual electricity bill.
Iran's president has said his country will not allow President-elect Donald Trump to "tear up" the country's landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

Hassan Rouhani also warned that Tehran will react to any extension of American sanctions.

The comments came during a speech at the University of Tehran commemorating the killings of Iranian students protesting against a visit by then-US vice-president Richard Nixon in 1953.

Mr Rouhani's remarks highlight the situation he faces after Mr Trump's inauguration in trying to defend the deal struck by his moderate administration.

The timing - during an annual remembrance of the killing of students at the hands of the US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi's security forces - also shows the internal challenges he faces from hard-liners already suspicious of America's intentions.

"The US is our enemy," Mr Rouhani said. "They want to put pressure on us as much as they can."

Mr Rouhani never mentioned Mr Trump by name in his speech, though he prefaced his remarks with noting that "some man... elected in the US".

"Whatever plans he has, it will be revealed later," Mr Rouhani said. "He may desire to weaken the nuclear deal. He may desire to rip up the deal. Do you suppose we will allow this? Will our nation allow this?"

On the campaign trail, Mr Trump called the multi-nation deal "catastrophic" and vowed to renegotiate it, without explaining how.

Mr Rouhani also warned Iran "will show a reaction" if outgoing president Barack Obama signs a law extending some of America's sanctions authority by 10 years.

The law, first passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed several times since then, allows the US to sanction companies for doing business with Iran.

Mr Rouhani has described extending the sanctions as a violation of the nuclear deal. The White House deemed the bill unnecessary but said it did not violate the international accord.
The last buildings occupied by Islamic State militants in Sirte have fallen into the hands of Libyan fighters, officials said, as anti-IS fighters celebrated in the streets of the final IS stronghold in Libya.

Ahmed Hadiya, the head of the media centre for the anti-IS operation, said: "This is the last major battle, but it is not the end of military operations, nor the declaration of liberation."

Mr Hadiya said that 12 fighters were killed on Tuesday in "intense fighting".

The United States threw its support behind the anti-IS operation in August, helping break weeks of stalemate with dozens of air strikes.

While the extremist group has lost its major base in Libya, IS militants might seek sanctuary elsewhere - such as Libya's lawless southern regions.

IS and other extremist groups gained a foothold in Libya over the years of chaos that engulfed the North African country in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Militias, originally made up of Nato-backed rebels, quickly filled the security vacuum.

The country has been split between rival parliaments and governments, each backed by a loose array of militias and tribes.

Western nations view the newly formed UN-brokered government as the best hope for uniting the country, but Libya's parliament, which meets in the far east, has refused to accept it.

In pictures: Libyan forces retake Sirte from ISIL https://t.co/z2MeLJj4wy pic.twitter.com/Wucnh2Ya9W  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 5, 2016

Another fight against Islamic militants is ongoing in the eastern city of Benghazi, under the command of Marshal Khalifa Hifter, who answers to the parliament.

UN envoy to Libya Martin Kolber told the UN Security Council on Tuesday "the fight against terrorism has produced results, but the gains are not irreversible".

He also said that the fragmentation of the country's security authorities, "allow criminal and terrorist networks to flourish. Kidnappings, extortion and theft occur daily".

AP
Cosmic dust raining down from space has been discovered on rooftops in three major cities.

The tiny particles date back to the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Scientists usually collect cosmic dust in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Now, for the first time, the space debris has been found hidden in city dirt.

Researchers sifted through 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of muck trapped in roof gutters in Paris, Oslo and Berlin.

Using magnetism to pull out the particles, which contain magnetic minerals, they identified a total of 500 cosmic dust grains.

Dr Matthew Genge, from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said: "We've known since the 1940s that cosmic dust falls continuously through our atmosphere, but until now we've thought that it could not be detected among the millions of terrestrial dust particles, except in the most dust-free environments such as the Antarctic or deep oceans.

"The obvious advantage to this new approach is that it is much easier to source cosmic dust particles if they are in our backyards."

The idea of looking for cosmic dust in the city was the brain child of amateur scientist Jon Larsen, from Norway, who contacted Imperial.

Dr Genge added: "When Jon first came to me I was dubious. Many people had reported finding cosmic dust in urban areas before, but when they were analysed scientists found that these particles were all industrial in origin."

City cosmic dust was found to be larger than previously recovered particles, measuring around 0.3mm across instead of the more usual 0.01mm.

In addition the dust found in cities contained fewer feather-like crystals than the much more ancient particles from Antarctica.

The differences may be linked to changes in the orbits of planets such as the Earth and Mars over millions of years, Dr Genge believes.

Resulting gravitational disturbances may have influenced the trajectory of the particles as they hurtled through space. This in turn would have an effect on the speed at which they slam into the Earth's atmosphere and heat up.

Dr Genge added: "This find is important because if we are to look at fossil cosmic dust collected from ancient rocks to reconstruct a geological history of our solar system, then we need to understand how this dust is changed by the continuous pull of the planets."

The study, published in the journal Geology, showed that the city cosmic dust must have entered the atmosphere at around 12 km (7.45 miles) per second. This makes them the fastest moving dust particles ever found on Earth.
Stobart Air is a unit of London stockmarket-listed freight firm Stobart Group.

Stobart Group confirmed that talks over a potential collaboration and a possible ownership deal with CityJet were at an end.

It had long been speculated that CityJet and Stobart Air were eyeing some sort of tie-up but informed by our wider review, the board has concluded that the agreement with CityJet is not in the commercial interest of the group, Stobart said.

A spokesman for CityJet said it had ended the acquisition talks because of the protracted nature of the negotiations.

Stobart again said it was seeking to buy the 33% stake held by Aer Lingus in Stobart Air and Propius, its aircraft leasing firm.

Stobart had said last month it planned to pay 14.7m to Aer Lingus now owned by IAG  for the stake.

Stobart had previously bought out another stake, a shareholding held by Invesco Asset Management.

The airline was reassuring about the future of its relationship with Aer Lingus.

Our Aer Lingus Regional services will continue to grow, with a continued emphasis on growing passenger numbers across our 31 routes throughout Ireland, the UK, and France, it said.

Stobart also said it plans to expand at Southend Airport, which it owns, by adding 18 routes for Flybe.

Shares were up 5% yesterday. They have gained about 60% this year.
Yesterdays gains take the rally since the Opec deal was struck last Wednesday to 19% for Brent and 16% for US crude.

Last weeks 12.2% rise was the largest one-week increase since February 2011.

Opec sentiment continues to support oil markets, said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro, Amsterdam.

Speculative short positions are still at elevated levels and as more traders unwind these positions they could trigger more support for oil prices.

Weekly data from the InterContinental Exchange yesterday showed investors had raised net long positions on Brent to the highest level in four weeks.

After Opec agreed to curb production by 1.2m barrels per day (bpd) from January, eyes have turned to a meeting this weekend between Opec and non-Opec producers to expand the deal.

Non-Opec producers are expected to agree to add an output cut of 600,000 bpd in Vienna on December 10.

We remain sceptical that non-Opec producers will line up to pledge their own reductions when Opecs announcement last week already largely took responsibility for rebalancing the market, said Tim Evans, energy futures specialist with Citigroup in New York.

In our view, the rally in prices represents an economic call for more production, not more cuts.

Transneft, Russias pipeline monopoly, yesterday a cut to oil output could begin in March. Iran will also attend the meeting.

Reuters
Revenues at the Clarence Hotel in Temple Bar last year were boosted by the hotel being booked out for the week U2 performed the Dublin leg of their world tour last November.

Last year represented the sixth consecutive year of profits at the hotel, with the business generating a surplus of 434,228.

A spokeswoman for the Clarence said yesterday that the hotel is very pleased with the improved performance in 2015.

On the factors behind the improved performance, she said: There is an overall increase in the numbers of visitors in the Dublin market, people want quality for their money and The Clarence places a strong emphasis on quality service, which helped achieve high occupancy throughout the year.

Regarding the hotels performance in 2016, she said: We have a positive view on 2016.

Last years profit was up from the 400,000 generated in 2014, as the hotel continues to benefit from the boom in the capitals hotel industry.

The boutique hotel was purchased by Bono and The Edge and a consortium of investors in 1992 and the latest returns show that the hotels shareholders have advanced interest-free loans to the business and they were owed 705,278 at the end of last December.

The shareholders are listed as Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, The Edge along with financier Derek Quinlan and developer Paddy McKillen.

According to the new accounts filed by the hotels Brushfield Ltd holding company, the businesss cashpile last year increased nine-fold to 455,92.

Prior to 2010, the business had incurred significant losses with combined pre-tax losses of 2.64m in 2009 and 2008.

The latest returns show that Bono and his wife, Ali and The Edge retain 50% ownership of the firm with Mr Quinlan and Mr McKillen owning the remainder.

Numbers employed by the hotel last year increased from 36 to 37 with staff costs increasing marginally from 932,276 to 942,277.

A note attached to the accounts states that the company continues to meet its day-to-day working capital requirements by way of loans from its directors/shareholders which are unsecured and interest free.

These parties have confirmed they will not seek repayment of such loans for the foreseeable future, it said, adding the directors have confirmed their intention to provide the financial support necessary to enable the company to discharge its liabilities as they fall due and continue its operations for the foreseeable future.
A man was killed in a two-car collision yesterday at about 8am on the N72 road west of Fermoy, Co Cork.

The driver was heading in the direction of Mallow when his car collided with a 4X4 vehicle. The driver and two passengers in the 4X4 were taken to Cork University Hospital.

The fatality came a day after three men in their 30s were killed in a collision outside Dungarvan on the same road, some 50km east of yesterdays accident.

The fatality came a day after three men in their 30s were killed in a collision outside Dungarvan on the same road, some 50km east of yesterdays accident.

Emergency services at the scene of the car crash outside Dungarvan Co Waterford. Picture: Dan McGrath

Gardai were yesterday said to have made progress in their attempts to identify the three men, whose car caught fire following the impact with a people carrier. It is understood DNA testing will be used to identify the men, a process that may take a number of days.

The six travelling in the people carrier have been identified locally as Mary Bermingham, her partner Gary Fenton, and her four children, all of whom are from Cork. The six were taken to hospitals in Cork and Waterford with serious injuries.

The children  three girls and a boy  are aged between six and 14. The boy was released from hospital yesterday. It is understood that Mr Fenton works for the Naval Service.

Following yesterdays fatal accident in Fermoy, a local councillor called on Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII)  which assumed responsibility for Irelands main routes from the former National Roads Authority last year  to conduct a report on the conditions along the N72 both to the east and west of the town.

It is a bad stretch of road, and while we dont know what the cause of this accident was yet, I have people on to me complaining about the speeds along that route every day of the week, Fine Gael councillor Noel McCarthy said yesterday.

Perhaps TII should look to produce a report on what can be done to make the road safer.

Mallow-based Labour TD Sean Sherlock said that he had recently commended TII on the work that was carried out on both the N72 and N73 routes into the town, but said more needs to be done.

I acknowledge some works have been carried out so far, but there is still a need for future investment, he said, adding that safety measures could be implemented for reasonably small amounts.

Sometimes it is difficult to get the message across to the authorities that these are vital commuting and commercial routes, he said.

Meanwhile, politicians in Waterford had also raised concerns surrounding the N72 earlier this year.

Waterford City and County Council had heard calls for the speed limit along the section of the N72, known locally as the Military Road, to be lowered amid safety fears.

This story was re-edited on Thursday, October 4, 2017.
During its investigation into an incident last year involving the Ryanair flight, the Air Accident Investigation Unit of the Department of Transport here was informed that it is not a criminal offence to shine a laser at an airport in Portugal. On September 5 last year, the captain of a Ryanair flight was temporarily blinded by a laser while on approach to Porto Airport in Portugal.

The co-pilot, who was the pilot flying at the time, was not directly affected by the light but was distracted by the incident which forced the crew to abort their landing.

The investigation unit investigated the matter and yesterday issued a report into the incident.

The aircraft was on a scheduled passenger flight from Lille Airport in France to Porto Airport with 160 passengers and six crew onboard. While on approach to Porto Airport, the co-pilot who was pilot flying, noticed a laser light from the city centre area. The laser was not pointed directly at the aircraft and then disappeared from view leading the pilot flying to believe that it had been switched off.

However, shortly after establishing the final approach track, a laser was directed towards the aircraft again and from the same area. On this occasion it illuminated the cockpit forcing the pilot flying to use his left hand to shield his eyes.

The commander, who was acting as pilot monitoring and unaware of the laser, looked up at that moment and her eyes were struck by the laser light. She sustained flash-blindness which is a temporary visual loss or impairment during and after exposure to a light flash of extremely high intensity.

Flight crew co-ordination was compromised due to the temporary visual impairment of one member and the distraction to the other. The crew informed air traffic control of the incident and opted to continue with the approach.

However, they found the aircraft was slightly above the ideal profile and its speed and rate of descent began to increase as the aircraft re- established on the descent path.

They realised that the approach had become unstable and the commander called for a go-around.

This missed approach was called when the aircraft was about 275m above the ground. The flight re-positioned for a second approach and landed safely.

The commander told investigators her eyesight was only temporarily affected by the laser illumination, and that her vision returned to normal after a few seconds. The co-pilot reported that his vision had not been affected.

The investigation established that, of the 294 laser incidents in Portugal in 2014, 107 occurred at Porto while in 2015, when there were 264 such occurrences in the country, 105 happened at Porto Airport.

The investigation unit was also informed by the Portuguese authorities that it is not currently an offence to shine a laser light or similar at an aircraft in Portugal.

The investigation made a single recommendation, that Portugals civil aviation authority should review the current civil aviation legislation with a view to taking account of occurrences of deliberate or reckless illumination of aircraft, or persons involved in the operation of aircraft, by laser light or similar.
Those who sign up to the trial will receive a drug called Ipilimumab or Ipi and electrochemotherapy. Ipi is the first in a line of new immunotherapies that prevent tumours from shutting down the patients immune system when its attacking the cancer.

Electrochemotherapy involves a process known as electroporation, where short bursts of electricity are delivered directly to the tumour making it porous, and dramatically increasing its absorption of the chemotherapy drug.

Researchers hope that combining Ipi and electrochemotherapy will make the immunotherapy treatment even more effective, enabling the patients immune system to respond against the cancer.

Principal Investigator and consultant oncologist Derek Power said Ipi has already shown its potential. The scientific information on Ipi after 10 years follow-up of 5,000 patients worldwide is that about 18% to 20% are alive a decade later. These are people with advanced, incurable melanoma. That was unthinkable 10 years ago when about 50% of those with advanced melanoma died in less than 10 months, Dr Power said.

There was also early scientific data to show the combination approach being taken in the Cork trial could further improve outcomes for patients, Dr Power said.

Bristol-Myers Squibb the manufacturers of Ipi, is partially funding the trial by covering the cost of the drug  70,000 to 100,000 per treatment schedule per patient. A treatment schedule involves four doses of the drug over 12 weeks.

The trial, which has just commenced at CUH, has enrolled two patients to date and is open to patients around the country.

Dr Power said because the Cork/ Kerry/ Waterford seaboard is a skin cancer hotspot, as identified by the National Cancer Registry, about one third of advanced melanoma cases each year are in the region. He said not all patients with advanced melanoma will be suitable for the trial

There are other drugs, more advanced than Ipi, which may be more effective but patients could enrol in the trial and see how it worked out for them.

Doctors with patients who may be suitable for the trial should refer them to Dr Power of the Oncology Clinical Trials Unit in CUH or Declan Soden of the Cork Cancer Research Centre in University College Cork.

The centre is the pioneer of electroporation, announced the launch of the study yesterday entitled Enhanced Malignant Melanoma Immunological engagement using sequential therapy with Ipilimumab and electrochemotherapy. n For more on Cork Cancer Research Centre see www.ccrc.ie
Imagine fishing vessel No 8301187, otherwise known as the MFV Margiris, a supertrawler registered in Lithuania, banned in Australia, but currently fishing off the coast of Scotland and no stranger to Irish waters.

The second largest supertrawler in the world can process more than 250 tonnes of fish a day and conservationists and fishermen say huge damage is being done to our fish stocks and sealife, including dolphins.

A supertrawler net. Coastal communities and the resources they rely on are fast approaching a point of no return. Picture: Greenpeace

That issue and more is explored by Tipperary filmmaker Risteard O Domhnaill in his film Atlantic, which will be shown on RTE 1 television this Thursday. Narrated by actor Brendan Gleeson, Atlantic follows the fortunes of three small fishing communities  in Ireland, Norway, and Newfoundland  as they struggle to maintain their way of life in the face of economic and ecological challenges.

As the oil majors drive deeper into their fragile seas, and the worlds largest fishing companies push fish stocks to the brink, coastal communities and the resources they rely on are fast approaching a point of no return.

This has huge implications for Irish fishing communities and the national exchequer. It is even more relevant in the light of Brexit and the UK leaving the Common Fisheries Area and with Providence Resources planning a large Irish drilling programme next year.

My last documentary, The Pipe, told the story of a small coastal community in Mayo as they faced down one of the worlds most powerful oil companies, which was forcing a high-pressure raw gas pipeline through their farms and fishing grounds, says O Domhnaill.

Risteard O Domhnaill, maker of the film Atlantic, with narrator Brendan Gleeson.

What has since unfolded is an incredible story of resource mismanagement, and the capture of our offshore riches  oil, gas, and fishing  whilst our gaze is elsewhere. Unfortunately, what I found when I looked across the Atlantic is that Irelands tale is not unique.

However, in both Norway and Newfoundland, the lessons learned by similarly affected communities can help us to chart a different course, before our most renewable resources are damaged beyond recognition, or sold to the highest bidders, he says.
With the help of the Lincoln community, Raising Canes donated over 1,900 new and gently used coats to the Peoples City Mission and Homeless Prevention Center during its 10th annual Raising Coats with Raising Canes coat drive.

Throughout the month of October, a donor giving a new or gently used coat received a free meal with purchase offer. Through these efforts, Raising Canes gave over $8,500 in food to support the cause.

Since 2007, supporters have helped donate nearly 15,300 coats to the Peoples City Mission. The generosity of the Lincoln community continues to amaze me. Each year we have seen the number of donated coats in Lincoln increase said Jennifer Jones, owner of the Lincoln Raising Canes franchise.

A sincere thank you to everyone who dropped off a coat this year or in years pastnone of this would have been possible without the support of each and every one of you.

Distribution to shelter residents was held Nov. 1 and made available to the public at the Homeless Prevention Center the following day.

About Raising Canes

The Lincoln and Grand Island franchiseSouthern Hospitality Ventureswas opened in 2006 by Justin and Jennifer Jones, who moved to Nebraska from Baton Rouge, LA. Since opening their first location, they have set out to make a change in their restaurants communities by becoming active community leaders. Since 2006, the Lincoln franchise has given back over $1 million to the Lincoln community.
The action was brought by the Carmans Hall Interest Group, the Michael Mallin House Residents Association and youth and community worker Elizabeth OConnor in relation to use the former parish centre at Carmans Hall, Francis Street, in The Liberties, as a hostel for homeless people.

The residents, who live close to the centre, say Dublin City Council decided in late October to convert the community centre  which was closed in 2013 over fire safety concerns and a lack of accessibility  into a dial a bed hostel accommodation for 65 homeless men.

The building, which has been leased to Dublin City Council was to be operated by the Dublin Simon Community and the Salvation Army and was due to open later this week.

However, the residents groups, represented in court by Niall Handy, say local people are very angry and launched the High Court action to block the move.

The court heard the residents had been actively campaigning to have the centre, which is owned by the Dublin Roman Catholic Archdiocese, reopened as a community centre.

The residents say their action is not not in my back yard-ism. They claim the proposed hostel is an undue concentration of services for those with addiction problems and the homeless within a very small area of the south inner city.

The say the local area has 12 homeless and social support services crammed within 500m of the centres location. The residents also say that the proposed hostel will confound existing problems such as anti-social behaviour in the area.

The authorities they say, should be doing more than kettling all of greater Dublins homeless persons with addiction issues into pockets of Dublin 1 and Dublin 8.

The groups also say they nor their public representatives were ever consulted about the proposal to use the community centre as a hostel for the homeless.

In their action, the residents are seeking an order quashing the councils decision of October 26 last permitting the change of use.

The judge, who placed a stay on the councils decision until the matter next returns before the court, adjourned the case to January 17 next.
Ms Justice Caroline Costello agreed yesterday to adjourn to December 19 the bankruptcy petition by Promontoria (Aran) Ltd fund to allow Mr Wallace pursue those matters.

The fund has brought the petition arising from a 2m judgment obtained after it took over the TDs debt to Ulster Bank.

Promontoria is owned by US fund giant Cerberus, the same fund that was at the centre of allegations made in the Dail by Mr Wallace in relation to the acquisition of Namas 5.7bn Northern Ireland portfolio.

The substance of those allegations is now subject to investigations in the UK and US.

The loans taken over by Promontoria are linked to M&J Wallace, one of Mr Wallaces pre-crash Dublin businesses, but are also understood to be backed by personal guarantees, leaving the TD liable if the business could not pay the debt.

The court was previously told, while Mr Wallace is entitled to anonymity at this stage of the bankruptcy process, he had waived that right.

When the matter first came before the court last month, Mr Wallace sought an adjournment to allow him engage with an insolvency practitioner. The matter was adjourned to allow a number of steps be taken.

Yesterday, Edward Farrelly, counsel for Promontoria, told Ms Justice Costello that Mr Wallaces counsel was looking for an adjournment of the application to December 19.

His side was anxious to get the matter on but was not objecting to the adjournment, Mr Farrelly said.

When the judge asked Keith Farry, counsel for Mr Wallace, whether his client was pursuing alternatives to bankruptcy, counsel said he was.

Mr Farry said an insolvency practitioner had written on Mr Wallaces behalf to the fund and to Allied Irish Banks to see if his family home could be retained. A statement of affairs was also being prepared and would be ready for December 19 when it was also expected the AIB response would be before the court.

His side hoped to have made significant progress in the matter by December 19, Mr Farry added.

In the circumstances, the judge agreed to adjourn the petition to December 19.

Until 2014, a TD would automatically lose their seat if declared bankrupt, but that is no longer the case.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Dec. 6, 2016) - Eloro Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:ELO)(FRANKFURT:P2Q) ("Eloro") and Tartisan Resources Corp. (CSE:TTC) ("Tartisan") are pleased to announce the completion of the previously announced acquisition of a 100% interest in the La Victoria Gold/Silver Property ("La Victoria" or the "Property") by Eloro from Tartisan, following release from escrow today. Eloro's 100% interest in La Victoria is held by its wholly-owned Peruvian-based subsidiary, Compania Minera Eloro Peru S.A.C., following the registration of title by the proper authorities in Peru.

The acquisition was paid for by Eloro issuing Tartisan 6,000,000 common shares and 3,000,000 common share purchase warrants with limited transferability, and paying Tartisan C$250,000, less adjustments as specified in the La Victoria Purchase and Sale Agreement (the "Agreement"). Eloro owes one further payment of C$100,000, payable or on before July 17, 2017, at which time the San Markito mineral concession will be transferred by Tartisan to Eloro. Pursuant to the terms of the acquisition Eloro granted Tartisan a 2% royalty interest (the "Royalty") on the Property, half of which can be repurchased by Eloro for C$3 million to reduce the Royalty to 1%.

All securities issued by Eloro pursuant to the Agreement are subject to a statutory 4-month hold period and are subject to a lock-up agreement whereby Tartisan will be restricted from transferring securities of Eloro for a period of 18 months following October 17, 2016, and with limited transferability for a period of four and one half years, all as detailed in the August 5, 2016 and October 17, 2016 new releases.

About Eloro Resources Ltd.

Eloro is an exploration and mine development company which recently acquired a 100% undivided interest in the La Victoria property, located in the prolific North-Central Mineral Belt of Peru. The La Victoria Property covers 45 square kilometres and is within 50 kilometres of several large low-cost producing gold mines, with three producers visible from the Property. Infrastructure in the area is good with access to road, water and electricity and is located at an altitude that ranges from 3,100 m to 4,200 m above sea level. Eloro also holds a portfolio of gold and base-metal properties in northern and western Quebec.

About Tartisan Resources Corp.

Tartisan is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on mineral exploration and development of precious and base metals properties in Canada and Peru.
Probe Metals Inc. (TSX.V: PRB) ("Probe" or the "Company, is pleased to announce results from the ongoing drilling program on its 100% owned Val-d'Or East project (the "Project") located in Quebec (see table 1). In addition to further definition and delineation of the East-West-trending gold-bearing quartz-tourmaline vein system, drilling was also successful in discovering a new high-grade gold zone hosted by diorite dyke, similar to that of the past-producing Beliveau Mine.

Highlights from new drilling include:

Discovery of a new high-grade gold zone in diorite dyke returning intervals of up to 12.6 g/t gold ("Au") over 7.3 metres in Hole PC-90. Mineralization was intersected consistently between 400 and 800 metres depth and could represent a significant new gold zone (within the dyke mineralization, true width is not known)

(within the dyke mineralization, true width is not known) Holes PC-91 & -94 also intersected the high-grade zone returning intercepts of up to 8.5 g/t Au over 3.5 metres and 9.7 g/t Au over 4.2 metres, respectively (within the dyke mineralization, true width is not known)

(within the dyke mineralization, true width is not known) Continuity of near surface mineralization continues to be demonstrated with some impressive intervals in the first 150 meters of depth, with the best intercept returning 2.0 g/t Au over 143 metres, including 35.1 g/t Au over 4.2 metres, in Hole PC-90 (true width approximately 70% - 90% of drill interval).

The new gold zone was intersected by an infill drill hole, DDH PC-90, which was originally designed to test for higher grade mineralization within the east-west-trending quartz-tourmaline vein system. At approximately 400 metres depth (down-hole) a north-south-trending diorite dyke containing numerous zones of significant disseminated pyrite mineralization and quartz-tourmaline veins, similar to that hosting the former Beliveau Mine, were intersected and traced down to over 800 metres depth down hole. The true width of these zones is not known and will require further drilling to determine. The presence of strong gold mineralization in the diorite dyke at these depths indicates that the east-west feeder system is active at these levels and bodes well for further expansion along strike, away from the dyke, at these depths. In addition to the new zone, the higher-grade quartz-tourmaline vein mineralization originally targeted was also intersected at shallow depths in Hole PC-90, returning an impressive 2.0 g/t Au over 143 metres starting at 15 metres depth (down hole). Other highlights of the near-surface vein system include: 2.5 g/t Au over 25.5 metres in Hole PC-86; and 3.0 g/t Au over 16.0 metres in Hole PC-88. Results from this first-phase drilling program are very encouraging, and indicate increased potential for both near-surface bulk tonnage and deeper, higher grade mineralized systems. Results also demonstrate the continuity of the gold mineralization and therefore the potential for significant new mineralization laterally to the west and east of the known mineralization.

Table 1: Val-d'Or East Project Drilling Results

Hole Number From (m) To (m) Length (m) Au (g/t) Host Rock PC-16-84 45.5 62.2 16.7 1.5 Int. Volcanics including 52.9 54.9 2.0 9.5 Int. Volcanics 134.0 140.0 6.0 2.9 Diorite Dyke PC-16-85 101.0 158.9 57.9 1.1 Diorite Dyke including 148.8 150.5 1.7 9.0 Diorite Dyke PC-16-86 41.5 67.0 25.5 2.5 Int. Volcanics including 45.5 48.1 2.6 14.6 Int. Volcanics 85.0 90.0 5.0 3.9 Int. Volcanics 102.7 144.0 41.3 1.0 Int. Volcanics 153.4 156.0 2.6 6.9 Int. Volcanics PC-16-87 131.5 149.5 18.0 2.4 Int. Volcanics including 139.5 142.0 2.5 11.2 Int. Volcanics PC-16-88 166.0 182.0 16.0 3.0 Int. Volcanics including 168.0 171.0 3.0 15.0 Int. Volcanics PC-16-89 13.0 36.6 23.6 0.8 Int. Volcanics PC-16-90 14.8 157.8 143.0 2.0 Int. Volcanics including 14.8 27.3 12.5 7.0 Int. Volcanics including 94.4 98.5 4.2 35.1 Int. Volcanics 437.5 450.0 12.5 2.6 Diorite Dyke 524.4 535.8 11.4 3.2 Diorite Dyke 586.4 593.7 7.3 12.6 Diorite Dyke 637.8 648.5 10.8 3.1 Int. Volcanics 657.8 663.6 5.8 5.3 Int. Volcanics 669.5 678.0 8.5 3.5 Int. Volcanics 710.4 717.5 7.1 4.7 Diorite Dyke PC-16-91 150.7 152.8 2.1 14.6 Int. Volcanics 476.1 483.6 7.5 3.8 Int. Volcanics 518.3 521.3 3.0 6.3 Int. Volcanics 680.5 684.0 3.5 8.0 Diorite Dyke PC-16-92 392.0 394.3 2.3 19.5 Int. Volcanics PC-16-93 100.3 105.3 5.0 3.2 Int. Volcanics PC-16-94 15.7 155.0 139.3 0.7 Int. Volcanics including 17.7 25.7 8.0 6.2 Int. Volcanics 529.6 540.6 11.0 4.8 Diorite Dyke 649.7 651.7 2.0 8.2 Diorite Dyke 641.0 664.1 23.1 3.1 Diorite Dyke including 661.6 664.1 2.5 12.9 Diorite Dyke 690.5 693.3 2.8 5.1 Diorite Dyke 728.0 731.0 3.0 5.1 Diorite Dyke 808.9 813.1 4.2 9.7 Diorite Dyke PC-16-95 14.8 19.3 4.5 2.6 Int. Volcanics 136.9 141.8 4.9 2.8 Int. Volcanics 163.8 168.0 4.3 3.4 Int. Volcanics 254.0 263.0 9.0 3.9 Int. Volcanics PC-16-96 164.9 167.0 2.1 10.9 Diorite Dyke

(1) For intervals within diorite, true thickness is not known. Additional drilling is planned for the immediate area which will enable the true width determination (2) For all other rock types, true thickness is currently estimated to be between 70% to 90% of drill length.

Figure 1: Drill Holes Location - Surface Map



Figure 2: New Discovery at Depth - North-South Drill Section Hole 90



David Palmer, President and CEO of Probe, states: "Initial results from the drilling program have definitely validated our confidence in the Val-d'Or East project and highlighted its significant exploration upside and potential for expansion. To come up with a new discovery so soon after the combination of Probe and Adventure Gold is not only a testament to the project but also the dedication of the new exploration and management team. We look forward to continuing the success on Val- d'Or East, as well as our other projects, as we ramp up our exploration activities. With the bulk of our land consolidation strategy achieved, we will now be able to focus more effort on our exploration programs and generating results".

Following the discovery of the new zone, surface drilling has been expanded to better delineate this mineralization and test for its extensions. Two drill rigs are currently in operation on site testing the new zones. The results announced today are from 5,600 metres of drilling, representing 13 drill holes. Drill results from the ongoing drill program will be disclosed as they become available.

In addition to drilling, the first phase of a property-scale IP survey has been completed and is currently being interpreted. The Company intends to commence drill-testing of the new IP anomalies in Q1-2017 with the addition of a third drill.

The New Beliveau Gold Deposit

The New Beliveau deposit consists predominantly of a series of parallel, east-west trending, moderately dipping to the south mineralized zones hosting gold-bearing quartz-pyrite-tourmaline veins. Gold mineralization occurs in the veins but also in their immediate wall rocks. The sulphide content is generally 1 to 5%, but may reach up to 10% in the higher-grade sections. The extent of the alteration zone, which consist of a mixture of quartz, tourmaline, dolomite, albite, and euhedral pyrite is commonly twice the thickness of the vein itself. The north-south-trending diorite dykes also contain significant gold with gold grades typically increasing in areas where the dykes are intersected by the east-west quartz-tourmaline veins. Wall rocks for both systems consist of intermediate volcanics rock.

Together with the Highway and North Zones, the New Beliveau Deposit host a NI 43-101 inferred resources of 770,000 ounces at 2.6 g/t gold calculated at a 1.0 g/t cut-off above 350 metres depth and 1.5 g/t cut-off below 350 metres depth (see NI 43-101 technical report: Mineral Resource Val-d'Or East Property - January 4, 2013).

Qualified Persons

The scientific and technical content of this press release has been prepared, reviewed and approved by Mr. Marco Gagnon, P.Geo, Executive Vice President of Probe, and Mr. Denis Chenard, P.Eng, Senior Geologist of Probe at the Val-d'Or East Project, who are "Qualified Persons" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101").

Quality Control

During the last drilling program, assay samples were taken from the NQ core and sawed in half, with one-half sent to a certified commercial laboratory and the other half retained for future reference. A strict QA/QC program was applied to all samples; which includes insertion of mineralized standards and blank samples for each batch of 20 samples. The gold analyses were completed by fire-assayed with an atomic absorption finish on 50 grams of materials. Repeats were carried out by fire-assay followed by gravimetric testing on each sample containing 5.0 g/t gold or more. Total gold analyses (Metalic Sieve) were carried out on the samples which presented a great variation of their gold contents or the presence of visible gold.

About Probe Metals

Probe Metals Inc. is a leading Canadian gold exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of highly prospective gold properties. The Company is well-funded and controls a strategic land package of over 1,000-square-kilometres of exploration ground within some of the most prolific gold belts in Ontario and Quebec: Val d'Or, West Timmins, Casa-Berardi and Detour Quebec. The Company is committed to discovering and developing high-quality gold projects, including its key asset the Val-d'Or East Gold Project. The Company was formed as a result of the sale of Probe Mines Limited to Goldcorp on March 13, 2015. Goldcorp currently owns a 15% stake in the Company.

Source: Probe Metals
President Park Geun-hye is briefed about the sinking of ferry Sewol at a disaster response center at 5:15 p.m. on April 16, 2014. Park arrived at the center when nearly all of the ferry was submerged. Allegations have it that Park spent about 90 minutes having her hair styled at the presidential office before going to the center. / Korea Times file



By Kim Bo-eun, Chung Hyun-chae



President Park Geun-hye spent 90 minutes getting her hair styled by a popular hairdresser at her residence at Cheong Wa Dae while the Sewol ferry was sinking on April 16, 2014, the local daily Hankyoreh reported Tuesday.



The 90 minutes were part of the "missing seven hours" while the ferry was sinking, during which nobody saw the President who only received written or phone reports about the incident without holding an emergency meeting with government officials.



With Cheong Wa Dae being denounced for an inept response to the sinking, Park's hair styling during the critical hours may deal another blow to her if it is proven true.



According to the newspaper, a hairdresser who runs a beauty salon in Gangnam, southern Seoul, did President Park's hair up for about 90 minutes between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. at Cheong Wa Dae after being called by the presidential office.



Park has enjoyed her signature up-style hair, reminiscent of her mother former first lady Yuk Young-soo who was assassinated by a Japanese-born North Korean in 1972.



But Cheong Wa Dae described the report as "ridiculous," saying, "We have used two hairdressers for the President since 2013 and they come almost every day. On the day of the ferry sinking, they gave her a trim for 20 minutes after 3 p.m."



It said the President had her hair done after deciding to visit the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.



There have been suspicions that the President received cosmetic treatment during the missing seven hours. The suspicions grew after it was confirmed that Cheong Wa Dae had purchased large doses of various fatigue relieving and cosmetic shots.




THAAD schedule might change depending on political situation



By Cho Jae-hyon

Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Vandal

8th U.S. Army commander

North Korea may carry out a military provocation in the next 30 to 60 days to see how the new U.S. administration will react, according to Lieutenant General Thomas S. Vandal, the commander of the Eighth U.S. Army.

The commander said the North has committed provocations whenever the U.S. inaugurates a new administration.

"Every time we see a new president, there has been some sort of provocation," Vandal said, Tuesday. "That obviously might provide opportunity for Kim Jong-un to do something to see what the reaction is and what the policy isor to get a feel for how the Trump administration will react."

He made the remarks during a meeting with a group of journalist members of the KATUSA (Korea Augmentation to the U.S. Army) Veterans Association.

Still, the commander said there were "no immediate indicators" of possible provocations. Vandal said the United States Forces Korea is "watching very closely" North Korea for these.

He said the possible provocation the North Korean leader might commit may involve another launch of ballistic missiles to assess technological development and see what modifications need to be made.

"We would presume that, once that is set, that he may go into another ballistic missile cycle at some point," Vandal said.

Asked about South Korea's concerns that the Trump administration might demand Seoul share a greater burden of the USFK stationing costs, Vandal said the ROK-U.S. alliance will not undergo any major changes even after the inauguration of President-elect Trump.

He said South Korea already makes a "significant contribution" to the operations of the USFK. For instance, he said South Korea is committed to covering 92 percent of the costs for its relocation to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

"I will not anticipate any major changes to the alliance as the alliance of 60 years is fundamentally sound," Vandal said. "We will collectively inform the Trump administration of that contribution."

Vandal said the timetable for the plan to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here could change depending on South Korea's political situation.

The schedule is basically based on a variety of conditions, and political and environmental considerations are part of these, he said.

"Political consideration is a factor of conditions (that might) impact on the timeline" of the THAAD deployment, he said. "Still, as (USFK commander) Gen. Brooks said we expect somewhere between the next eight to 10 months that we will see the arrival of THAAD."
RACINE  Police executed a search warrant early Wednesday in the 2000 block of Kearney Avenue; in the process, a dog was reportedly shot multiple times and killed.

Sara Harmon and her husband, Joseph, had just left for work Wednesday when police reportedly broke down their front door.

Racine Police, the Racine County Gang Unit and FBI reportedly executed a no-knock search warrant at the home at about 5 a.m.

Police told Harmon's son, Jordan, that they were there for an investigation into a shots-fired incident. Her son was taken in for questioning and later released without charges.

The Harmon's 2-year-old dog, Sugar, an English bulldog, was reportedly scared by the police breaking down the door and retreated to Sara's room. There Sugar was shot as many as five times. The dog was taken from the scene, but a bloody mess was left on Sara's bed and walls.

"I didn't go in the room," Sara said. "My mom came over to help clean up. They found a bullet fragment on the floor and the dog's collar on the curtain rod."

Sara said this was especially tough on her 5-year-old granddaughter, who was close to the dog.

"(Sugar) was my granddaughter's best friend," Sara said. "(Sugar) was a big baby. She loved everybody."

Jordan Harmon told his mother that the warrant was in regards to a shots-fired incident that occurred on Nov. 15.

"They had a no-knock warrant off of hearsay off someone on the streets is what they told him," Harmon said. "They found nothing. What gives them the right to tear my house apart and kill my dog?"

Police reportedly told the family that it is protocol to kill the dog during the search warrant, and that was all of the information the family was reportedly given.

"Its just very upsetting," Sara said. "My dog is dead for no reason."

Police withhold comment

Racine Police Chief Art Howell said Monday that he could not comment at the time because he had not been fully informed about the situation.

"Until I obtain additional information regarding the circumstances involved in the case, I will refrain from responding," Howell said in an email.

Howell added that the department, on average, executes more than 100 search warrants annually and most occur without incident.

"It is not uncommon for officers to encounter dogs during the execution of such warrants," Howell said. "The data on such incidents will show that the overwhelming majority of warrants are executed without incident."

A formal complaint has not been filed with the police, according to Howell. For an investigation to occur, a formal complaint must be submitted. Harmon said they had not filed such a complaint as of Monday.
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06.12.2016 LISTEN

Creative and Lyrically Blessed Dubia base, Rock Hit Ent C.E.O Black Joe unleashes with a Highlife and Rhythmic song Titled Asheyori.

Asheyori is an Easy Listening Genre of Music which can be played at Your Worship place, Party, Convenience of your Bedroom, Kitchen, Car etc.

This melodious tune is produced by Tobass

DIRECT LINK (UNTAG)

https://my.notjustok.com/track/download/id/118968/by/29sDIzzk0b
06.12.2016 LISTEN

This years Election has been described by many as a crucial one which will decide the turn of events in the country in the coming years. In order to minimize the tension that characterizes the elections, there is the need for every citizen to preach the message of peace.

In line with this,multiple international award winning gospel artiste, known for hit song "Onyame Gya", Minister Ike has called for peace ahead of Tomorrow's (December 7th 2016) general elections.

Speaking to razzonline.com via telephone,Minister Ike opined that it is important as a nation to maintain and enjoy peace during and after elections;

I am proudly Ghanaian and I stand for peace. Peace is all we want us a nation, without peace there is no sustainable development. So it is important for us to persevere and ensure peace and stability during elections" he said.

He continued" its the right of every citizen above 18 years to vote. voting or elections shouldn't divide us but rather bring us together cos election is about sharing opinions".

He appealed to the media houses to be circumspect in their reportage and support the dream of maintaining the peace we've enjoyed all these years before,during and after the elections.

Minister Ike who is based in Canada is currently out with the video of his newest hit track 'Lord I thank You, which is enjoying massive airplays on the various television stations.
Rev Isaac Owusu Bempah, leader of the Glorious Word Ministry, has allayed fears that this year's elections would lead to war in Ghana.

According to him, God has listened to the prayers of Christians and will, therefore, not allow anything that will plunge the nation into war to happen on December 7.

Speaking to the media after his church service on Sunday, he said, Yes there will be confusion in some places but I can tell you that the whole nation will not be affected.

Rev Bempah urged the various political party leaders to desist from inciting their supporters to pull guns and fight on elections day, stating, There is no need to kill each other because of a politics. Why should one political party import guns into the country during this critical period?

We don't want Cote d'Ivoire in Ghana, we don't want Liberia in Ghana; all we are calling for is peaceful elections.

He said, There would be no peace if one party decides to perpetuate violence; there would be no peace if the voting is not free and fair, urging the electoral body to put in place the necessary measures that would not only ensure a credible election but also a violence-free poll.

Rev Bempah also called on the National Peace Council, former Presidents Kufuor and Rawlings, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene and other religious leaders in the country to advise the various political parties on the need to ensure peaceful elections.

[email protected]

By Cephas Larbi


Beyonce has scooped nine nominations for the 2017 Grammy Awards, extending her lead as the most-nominated woman in Grammys history.

The star is up for the main prize, album of the year, for her ambitious visual album, Lemonade, which tackles themes of race and female identity.

Her single Formation is also up for song and record of the year.

In all three categories, she is up against Adele - who previously won the ceremony's top three prizes in 2012.

Beyonce now has 62 Grammy nominations across her work as a solo artist and as part of Destiny's Child, making her the fourth most-nominated artist ever.

She has won 20 trophies altogether, although she has yet to clinch the album of the year prize, having been beaten to the title by Beck in 2015 - much to the disgust of Kanye West, who stormed the stage in protest.

West receives eight nominations this year for his album The Life Of Pablo - all in the rap categories.

Drake and Rihanna also have eight nominations, including three for their hit collaboration, Work.

Image copyright AP

Image caption Drake, whose album Views is the most-streamed record of the year, is nominated in multiple categories

Making Grammy history is Chicago-born musician Chance The Rapper, whose album Coloring Book is the first streaming-only record to be recognised by the Recording Academy.

He achieves seven nominations, including best new artist, without ever releasing a physical album or digital download. Bowie snub

Beyonce and Adele go head to head with Justin Bieber, Drake and country star Sturgill Simpson in the best album category.

If Adele wins, she will become only the second woman to receive the best album prize twice, after Taylor Swift.

Notably absent from the shortlist is David Bowie, who was tipped to win for his critically-acclaimed Blackstar album.

The record does make an appearance in the best alternative album category, as does Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool.

Coldplay have also fared badly, receiving just one nomination - best music video - despite selling millions of copies of their latest album, A Head Full Of Dreams.

Prince receives a posthumous nomination for his final album, Hit N Run Phase Two, in the best engineered, non-classical category, where Blackstar also makes the shortlist.

British star James Corden will host the 2017 Grammy Awards, which take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, 12 February.

Image copyright AP

Image caption Rihanna now has 32 nominations and eight wins to her name Main nominations

Album Of The Year

Adele - 25

Beyonce - Lemonade

Justin Bieber - Purpose

Drake - Views

Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide To Earth

Record Of The Year

Adele - Hello

Beyonce - Formation

Lukas Graham - 7 Years

Rihanna ft Drake - Work

Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out

Song Of The Year

Adele - Hello

Beyonce - Formation

Justin Bieber - Love Yourself

Lukas Graham - 7 Years

Mike Posner - I Took A Pill In Ibiza

Best New Artist

Kelsea Ballerini

The Chainsmokers

Chance The Rapper

Maren Morris

Anderson .Paak

Best alternative album

David Bowie - Blackstar

PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project

Bon Iver - 22, A Million

Iggy Pop - Post Pop Depression

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

Best pop album

Adele - 25

Justin Bieber - Purpose

Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman

Demi Lovato - Confident

Sia - This Is Acting

Best rap album
With few hours to the general elections, activities to promote peace have intensified to safeguard the peace being enjoyed in the country.

One of such activities was a peace painting exhibition organised by the Ho Technical University Faculty of Art and Design to contribute to the peace promotion process.

A group of artists from the University and Ho township took to the streets of Ho aiming to bridge the 'political gap' between sympathizers of the various parties by preaching peace through their arts.

The artists produced some fantastic and fascinating pieces of paintings which seeks to disseminate positive ideas into the minds of the citizenry to ensure the upcoming election is violence free.

Their paintings were inculcated with the values of peacebuilding and respectful coexistence during the elections as they showcased their feelings with regards to peace.

The main artist of the day, Atsu Kofi who is an alumni of Ho Technical University showcased a different dimension of artworks exhibiting rare talent.

He used a broom and his five fingers to paint portraits of all seven presidential contestants in the upcoming elections.

Ernest Atsukofi Akaaba who believes Ghana lacks an enabling environment to nurture artists explained the notion behind his paintings and why he decided to use his fingers and a broom to paint the portraits instead of the brush.

"I always say that Ghana belongs to you and me, no matter who becomes the president I believe Ghana still belongs to us so we don't need to fight. We don't need to be it at each other's throat because we belong to different political parties", he said.

The artist added, "all we need to do is love one another and the moment we love one another, there is unity and peace in the country. That is why I used my fingers for the painting to depict unity and the broom to show the togetherness of us."

Ben Homenya entreated the citizenry to commit to peace ahead of the crucial elections.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Fred Quame Asare | Joy News
06.12.2016 LISTEN

Actress Kalsoume Sinare has declared support for President John Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as Ghanaians gear up to vote tomorrow.

Retired model and wife of former Black Stars player Anthony Baffoe was conspicuously captured cheering on her brother Alhaji Saeed Sinare while he vigorously campaigned at the NDC rally held yesterday at the Accra Sport Stadium.

The video mostly expressed in Hausa language showed Alhaji Sinare raining praises on President Mahama and the ruling NDC.

Victory for the NDC is a done deal  and I want NPP to know and understand that, whether they like it or not, we will retain power in this years elections, he said.

The duo charged Zongo communities to show President Mahama their support by voting massively for the NDC.
The Hague (AFP) - War crimes prosecutors Tuesday unveiled a campaign of terror led by 'ferocious' Lord's Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen, including showing shocking images of an aftermath of an attack on a refugee camp.

The former LRA commander became the first-ever member of the notorious rebel group to go on trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, where he faces a litany of charges for his role in terrorising parts of northern Uganda.

Warning she was about to show "extremely disturbing images", ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda played gruesome videos of the scene after an LRA attack on Lukodi refugee camp, showing disemboweled children, and the charred bodies of babies in shallow graves.

"Dominic Ongwen became one of the most senior commanders in the LRA  following rapid promotion for his loyal fighting and ferocity," Bensouda said.

He was "enthusiastic" in adopting "the LRA's violent methods" and eager to show "he could be more active and more brutal" than others.

Ongwen, 41, denied 70 war crimes and crimes against humanity charges as he also became the first former child soldier to be tried by the ICC for his role in the infamous rebel group led by the elusive Joseph Kony.

Victims of the Lord's Resistance Army recount the group's sadistic initiation rites for kidnapped youngsters, who were forced to bite and batter friends and family to death, or to drink their blood

"In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda," Ongwen said.

"It was the LRA who abducted people. It was the LRA who killed them," he insisted, maintaining he was "one of the people who had crimes committed" against them.

A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a bloody rebellion some three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda.

The UN says it has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it was set up in 1987.

'Nothing left alive'

More than 4,000 victims are taking part in Ongwen's trial and scores were watching the proceedings in several sites in Uganda.

About 500 people, mostly subsistence farmers, crammed into Lukodi primary school to watch, squeezed onto rows of dilapidated wooden benches.

"They burnt my grandmother in her own hut, and shot the son of my co-wife," Alanyo Juzima said as she wiped away tears, staring at Ongwen's flickering image on a screen.

Children rescued from the Lord's Resistance Army line up for dinner at the Gusco Centre, a place for formerly abducted children in Gulu, Uganda

"I feel like I could go to The Hague and kill Ongwen myself."

The son of Ugandan schoolteachers, Ongwen was abducted as a child while on his way to school, and likely suffered sadistic initiation rites into the militia's ranks.

But ICC prosecutors in The Hague say unlike some 9,000 people who escaped from the LRA, Ongwen chose to stay, helping orchestrate the abduction and enslavement "of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities".

Some were as young as six, said Bensouda recounting how one witness told of children being given military training but "they were so small that the muzzles of their AK47 rifles dragged on the ground."

Moral responsibility

The trial focuses on attacks on four refugee camps in northern Uganda from 2002 to 2005, in which people were killed, tortured, raped and children kidnapped to be "moulded" into the LRA's way of life.

Those who could not keep up were savagely beaten or killed while "nursing mothers" who were slowed down by their infants "watched as their babies were callously killed or were thrown into the bush and left behind," Bensouda said.

Ongwen also stands accused of systematically abducting young girls for sex, and distributing hundreds to his men.

In one attack on the Odek refugee camp in 2004, Ongwen instructed his troops to "kill civilians and to abduct beautiful girls and good boys," to act as soldiers, another prosecutor Benjamin Gumpert said.

"His last words were: 'Nothing should be left alive in Odek'."

Ongwen, who listened intently in court writing in a small notebook, is said to have had at least seven wives -- one was just 10 when she was first raped. DNA tests have revealed he fathered at least 11 children.

The defence says it is considering several arguments including that Ongwen is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and was acting under duress.

Observers say the trial raises deep questions about how to prosecute children who commit crimes after years of abuse.

But Bensouda said: "Having suffered victimisation in the past is not a justification or an excuse to victimise others."

Each human being is "endowed with moral responsibility for their actions," she said.

Ongwen surrendered himself to US forces in 2015. But Kony remains at large with about 150 followers hiding out in the jungles of the Central African Republic.
06.12.2016 LISTEN

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sunyani based Suncity Radio, Mr. Ransford Antwi, has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to desist from stifling the media houses of vital information, concerning the forth coming general elections.

He said the media has, and continue to play very significant role in preparing and keeping Ghanaians informed and educated on the December 7th General Elections.

Mr. Antwi was commenting on some difficulties his outfit was going through in sourcing information from the Brong Ahafo Regional Directorate of the EC.

He explained that when the Press needed information or pass on same at various constituencies in the region, the regional EC directorate would ask the Press to contact the Commissions Head office in Accra for redress.

Mr. Antwi lamented that this unco-operative attitude of the EC, especially, at this crucial stage of the 2016 general elections was quite unfortunate.

Right from the day one, the general public has been informed and educated on all activities by stakeholders pertaining to the impending election; however when it matters most, the EC was trying to frustrate the Press from getting vital information for public consumption, he bemoaned.

He urged the leadership of the EC, to come clear on the issue, in order to create a congenial environment and atmosphere, for a free, fair and peaceful polls, whose outcome would be acceptable to all Ghanaians, without any shred of doubt.

The CEO also appealed to the National Peace Council to urgently call the EC to order in this regard.
05.12.2016 LISTEN

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA

Sekondi (WR), Dec, 05, GNA - A total of 14,705 election officials in the Western Region have been recruited and trained to supervise the December 7 Elections in 2,941 polling stations.

They comprise returning officers, presiding officers, ballot paper issuers, name reference officers and biometric verification device operators.

Mr. Stephen Opoku-Mensah, the Western Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, (EC) told the Ghana News Agency in an interview, in Sekondi, that it had taken delivery of more than 95 per cent of the election materials needed on the Election Day.

He explained that the EC invited the representatives of the political parties to inspect the election materials anytime it took delivery of the items and the Police also provided escort to the various constituencies in the Region.

He said the EC had engaged with the various election stakeholders including, the security agencies, the political parties, the Interparty Advisory Committee and the media, to explain the preparedness of the Commission.

In all, 108 parliamentary candidates comprising 100 males and eight females would contest in 26 constituencies in the Region with 1,579,749 registered voters with an average of three persons contesting in each Constituency.

The Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Akuribah Yaagy, told a stakeholders' meeting that the Police Command had prepared adequately to provide security at the polling stations.

'We are committed to ensuring a violent-free election n fulfilment of the social contract we have with Ghanaians by maintaining law and order before, during and after the polls', he pointed out.

He, therefore, called for a sense of collective responsibility and efforts from all stakeholders, particularly, the political parties, the Election Management Body, the media, the clergy and interest groups, to achieve the desired results.

DCOP Yaagy, who is also the Chairperson of the Regional Security Taskforce, urged the EC to ensure a level playing field so that the outcome of the polls would be accepted by all and sundry.

He urged the media to be circumspect with the reportage and blacklist politicians and political activists who used intemperate language on their platforms.

The Regional Police Commander entreated the leadership of the various political parties to advice their supporters to be law abiding and desist from any form of electoral violence since anyone found culpable would be arrested and prosecuted.

'You should campaign on issues because election is a contest of ideas and at the end of the day, Ghana will be the ultimate beneficiary,' he said.

DCOP Yaagy asked the political parties that had concerns with the electoral processes to use internal conflict resolution mechanism such as the Interparty Advisory Committee to address their concerns.

He called on the religious leaders to use their pulpits to preach peace and tolerance, instead of predicting the outcome of the elections, noting that such pronouncements had the tendency of creating unnecessary tension and conflicts in the society.

GNA
By Bajin D. Pobia, GNA

Wa, Dec. 5, GNA - Investment inflows into the mining sector from 1983 to 2015 has increased the output of all minerals production in Ghana, bringing in about 16 billion US dollars.

Gold production increased by 93 per cent from 2.24 million ounces in 2002 to over 4.3 million ounces in 2014.

However, in 2015, there was a significant reduction to 3.63 million ounces due to declining metal prices among others, Mr Nii Osah Mills, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources has said.

He said despite the reduction, Ghana still maintained its position as the second largest producer of Gold in Africa and ninth in the World.

Mr Mills made those known in a speech read on his behalf at a stakeholders sensitisation workshop on the 'Developing Ghana's Mining Vision' in Wa, which was aimed to raise awareness on the new mining regulations passed recently.

The forum was also to solicit inputs from stakeholders in drafting a sustainable vision for the mining industry in Ghana.

Mr. Mills said the sector contributed 27 per cent of revenue, which was collected by the Domestic Tax Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority in 2012, 18 per cent in 2013 and 14 per cent in 2015, and provided an average of 40 percent of total merchandise export earnings over the last 10 years.

About 22,000 people were employed for large-scale mining; while it is estimated that over one million people were engaged for small scale mining in 2015.

The Sector Minister said the perception that African countries had not benefited enough from the exploitation of their mineral resources stemmed from the fact that the continent still exports most of its mineral resources in the raw state.

Additional to that challenge, had been the limited linkage development of the mining sector with the rest of the economy.

Mr. Mills therefore urged the stakeholders to help identify additional challenges and suggest ways that could be used to address the gaps.

Dr. Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, Minister of State at the Office of the President in Charge of Private Sector Development and Public Private Partnership (PPP), said the mineral sector had the potential to increase the economy, but warned that its exploitation should be done without jeopardising the environment, especially water bodies, which could cause health risk to the population.

He called for implementation and enforcement of mining and environmental related laws to safeguard the exploitation of the mining sector and the environment from abused by citizens and foreigners.

Dr. Pelpuo urged institutions responsible for the enforcement of laws to read the laws thoroughly and be abreast with them for appropriate enforcement to deter offenders.

Mr. Issahaku Nuhu-Putiaha, Wa Municipal Chief Executive, said one of the greatest challenges facing Ghana's mining industry had been the sustainable exploitation of the mineral resource within the framework of environmental integrity and social concerns.

He said for mining to make any meaningful contribution to sustainable development, it was important to ensure that the exploitation was done in a humane and environmental friendly manner devoid of violating any of the laws and regulations governing the operations of mining in Ghana.

GNA
By Christopher Tetteh, GNA

Sunyani, Dec 04, GNA - The Women Situation Room (WSR)-Ghana, a women peace advocacy organization, is to deploy 400 female election observers on voting day.

Madam Adwoa Bame, the National Coordinator, said there would be 40 of them in each region to assist to make sure that everything went well.

She was speaking at the closing of a three-day training programme organized by the Organization for those who have volunteered to observe the election in five regions - Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West.

They were educated on what to do when there was interference in the voting process by political party agents, delayed arrival of election materials, violence occurring at the polling centre and dysfunctional biometric devices.

Madam Bame said apart from the 400 observers, it had also trained volunteers to monitor events at 96 identified flashpoints nationwide, by the police and the Electoral Commission (EC) including six, in Brong-Ahafo.

The WSR was eager to see a peaceful and credible conduct of December 07 presidential and parliamentary elections because in the event of any confusion and violent clashes women and children would suffer the most.

It was on the account of this that it had deepened the conversation with women to aid them to have better understanding of the electoral process and the need to fully become involved in efforts to make the election peaceful.

Madam Bame said it had also organized programmes for the various youth groups to discourage everybody from doing anything to threaten the peace.

GNA
By Albert Futukpor, GNA

Tamale, Dec. 5, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama has told supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) not to do anything to mar the reputation of the country during this week's elections.

President Mahama, who addressed a rally in Tamale on Saturday night as part of the last leg of his campaign tour of the Northern Region, said the country was highly rated in the comity of nations and all must play by the rules to safeguard her reputation.

He described the rally in Tamale as 'the biggest that I have seen so far' adding God was on the side of the NDC and victory was assured on December 7.

He said: 'The NDC is the only Party that has the most credible and the most well-thought out programmes for the country.'

He introduced the NDC's Parliamentary Candidates for Tamale South, Tamale Central, Tamale North and Sagnarigu Constituencies to the supporters at the rally as well as taught them how to cast their ballots so that their ballots would not be rejected.

GNA
By Erica Apeatua Addo, GNA

Tarkwa (W/R), Dec. 5, GNA - The Tarkwa Nsueam Municipal Electoral Officer, Mr Kwaku Owusu Addo, has warned his staff to be fair and neutral at their polling stations on December 7.

He said the law would deal with officers if they allowed themselves to be influenced by any politician to manipulate the elections.

The Municipal Electoral Officer gave the advice in Tarkwa when the Ghana News Agency interacted with him to ascertain the Commission's preparedness towards the Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

He explained that his outfit has trained 913 officers to equip them with the requisite skills on the Election Day.

Mr Owusu Addo said about 110,000 people were expected to cast their votes across the 183 polling stations within the Tarkwa Nsueam constituency.

GNA
By Josephine Nyarkoh/ Rachel Fosuah Osei, GNA

Kumasi, Dec 05, GNA - The Electoral Commission (EC) has described as fake large quantity of thumb-printed ballot papers found in a hotel room in Kumasi.

These were seized following an information passed on to the police by the leadership of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region.

Mr. Serebour Quaicoe, the Regional Director of the EC, told journalists that the ballot papers were not genuine - had no serial numbers.

The Commission's printed ballot papers for the December 07 polls, carried serial numbers alongside other authentication details.

Reports about the discovery of the alleged invalid materials drew scores of angry supporters of the NPP to the Kumasi Central Police.

Also there were the Regional Chairman of the Party, Bernard Antwi Bosiako, Mr. Eugene Boakye Antwi, and Mr. Daniel Okyem Aboagye, NPP Parliamentary Candidates for Subin and Bantama, respectively.

Commissioner of Police (COP) Nathan Kofi Boakye, the Regional Commander, said they were investigating the matter.

He advised leaders of political parties to avoid doing anything to heighten tension in the country.

They should get right with the law and provide evidence of any election irregularities to the police.

GNA
By Stephen Asante, GNA

Kumasi, Dec 05, GNA - The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) had collected a total GH21,204,978.54 in internally-generated revenue as of the end of September.

Mr. John Alexander Ackon, the Ashanti Regional Minister, who is also the acting Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), said the figure represented 72 per cent of the GH29,596,267.00, it had targeted for the year.

He said the assembly had expected a stronger performance by companies it had contracted to collect revenue on its behalf.

Addressing members of the assembly at an ordinary meeting in Kumasi, he announced the decision to abrogate the contract with those companies.

Mr. Ackon touched on the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) and said the KMA's total receipts stood at GH5,507,615.08.

Added to this was an amount of GH2,036,525.00 from the District Development Fund (DDF) and GH20,592,419.78 from the Urban Development Grant (UDG).

He said these funds had been used to support the socio-economic development of the city, pointing out that, all projects under the UDG I, II and III, had been completed, expect the Amankwatia school library project, which was about 60 per cent ready.

He told the meeting that the UDG Secretariat at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) had given approval for the construction of a 400-metre open drainage system to check flooding at Akwatialine and Aboabo.

Mr. Ackon said the implementation of the annual action plans derived from the Medium-Term Development Plan for 2014-2017 under the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda II was in progress.

It, among others, seeks to ensure infrastructural and human settlement development, productivity and employment, natural resource management, as well as transparent, responsive and accountable governance.

GNA
Gov. Scott Walker is visiting deployed troops in the Middle East this week, he tweeted on Monday.

Tom Evenson, spokesman for Walker, said the governor is visiting National Guardsmen as part of a delegation of governors organized by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Citing security concerns, Evenson would not disclose which countries Walker will visit.

According to background information provided by Evenson from the Defense department, the program allows governors to visit troops from their states in the field.

The trip began Monday and lasts until Friday, Evenson said.
By Christabel Addo, GNA

Accra, Dec. 5, GNA - Voter apathy hits Dome Kwabenya Constituency phase two of the Special Voting process with only 42 out of the expected 280 voters casting their ballot as at 1100 hours.

Mr David Larbi, the Electoral Officer at the Polling Station, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that, although the process had been very slow since it opened at 0700 hours, they were hopeful that more people might turn up after church.

He said the process had also been smooth except for two persons whose names were still not found in the special voting register that has been upgraded by the Electoral Commission, to address the challenges reported in the previous one used on Thursday December 1, 2016.

He said those whose names were still omitted were advised to hold on till December 7, 2016, so that they could go and cast their ballots at their respective polling stations where the full Voter's Register would be used.

Meanwhile, there was adequate security presence with some Observers from the European Union, some accredited personnel and representatives of the various Political Parties, to ensure a smooth process.

GNA
Koforidua, Dec. 5, GNA - The National First Vice-Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Samuel Ofosu-Amopofo has called on the members of his Party to reject any offer of extra ballot papers to vote on the Election Day.

He said each electorate should vote once for the presidential and once for the parliamentary elections.

Mr Ampofo explained that any extra vote by anybody could lead to the bloating of votes at the polling stations and could attract the cancellation of the results.

He called on the agents of the Party who would be working at the polling stations to ensure that each voter was issued with a single verified ballot paper for the parliamentary election and another for the presidential elections.

Mr Ampofo was speaking at the Eastern Regional rally of the NDC at Koforidua.

He appealed to all branches of the Party to mobilise people in their branches to cast their vote on the election day and convince people who would be going to market to vote before they go to the market or farm on that day.

Mr Ampofo explained that this year's election was very important to the country because it was the outcome that would determine if Ghana would continue with the massive building of infrastructure for the country to catch up with the economic development of its contempories in the world or relapse into stagnation.

The Vice-President, Mr Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur thanked the leadership of the party for their hard work during the campaign and urged the people of the Region to work hard to push their agenda 50/50 to Agenda 60/40 in favour of the NDC.

The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketia said it was never true that the Eastern Region was the strong hold of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and explained that the NDC won the region in 1992 and 1996 and could win it again this time round.

He advised the supporters of the Party not to respond to any provocation by the opponents of the Party because the NDC was sure of victory and so need no fight to disrupt their celebrations.

Mr Asiedu-Nketia said the NDC have received information that all the research conducted by the NPP indicate that they would lose the elections hence they have resorted to bullying and provocations.

The Minister of Communications, Dr Edward Omani Boamah urged Ghanaians to come out in their numbers on the election day to cast their votes without fear and assured of full security to all citizens of the country before, during and after the elections.

The Member of Parliament for Akwatia who spoke on behalf of the members of parliament of the Party in the Region assured that the NDC would maintain all the seats that it won at the 2012 elections and win five extra parliamentary seats in the Region.

GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Dec. 5, GNA - Baldwin University College over the weekend held its maiden matriculation in Accra, during which 70 students were admitted to pursue various tertiary programmes.

The programmes include Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Diploma Medical Laboratory Technology, Pre-medicine, Institute of Commercial Management (ICM) business professional courses and a Certificate in Healthcare.

Baldwin University College has been accredited by the National Accreditation Board, and is currently affiliated with the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the Xavier University School of Medicine, Aruba.

Dr Akwasi Achampong, the Chancellor, Baldwin University College, said the College aspires 'to become the preferred institution that trains the minds that make important decisions in shaping the world'.

He said Baldwin University College is an independent, comprehensive institution which provides a value-centered educational experience that enhances intellectual, ethical, spiritual and social development for students.

He said faculty would encourage their students to search for truth through critical and analytical thinking to strive for personal moral growth and to develop a sense of social, economic and political responsibility.

Added that students after completing their training programmes would be empowered to create jobs; thereby impacting positively on their communities and nations.

He announced that by January 2017, they hope to run BSc Information Technology as well as High National Diploma (HND) Pharmacy Technologies.

Dr Tufour Kwarteng of the University of Cape Coast said the University would not compromise on quality and urged the matriculants to take their studies very seriously.

Dr Clement Opoku-Okrah, Registrar of the Allied Health Professions Council, advised the students to take their practical lessons very seriously and continuously seek for ways to enhance their services in their chosen profession.

He told the students that challenges would come, but they must team up with faculty and management to address them.

At the ceremony an eight member Students Representative Council, led by Mr Benjamin Nii Crowey Borquaye, was inducted into office.

GNA
By Hannah Awadzi, GNA

Accra, Dec. 5, GNA - The Minister of Health has said even though the health sector is faced with some challenges, government transformational plan to reposition it for better service delivery was on course and remained intact.

'I will not hide the fact that the health services in Ghana is beset with problems, but government's vision to transform this sector into one capable of fulfilling its mandate is intact,' Mr Alex Segbefia said.

'We have had a series of setbacks as a result of dissatisfaction with salaries and allowances,' he said during the induction ceremony of 252 newly qualified doctors and dentists by the Medical and dental Council Saturday.

'Let me take this opportunity to reiterate that we are where we are because we have had to respond to threats to industrial actions from health workers,' he added.

'And if we have to learn from the past, then we should learn to solve problem systematically and to ensure that we plug all loop holes as we define these solutions.'

He expressed hope that with the commitment from both government and health workers issues of strike action would become a thing of the past.

Mr Segbefia also expressed regret that preventable and curative childhood and communicable diseases were still available while maternal mortality continuous to pose a major problem.

'Another area of concern is the upsurge of non-communicable diseases, road traffic injuries which are or have come to take up the top five positions of common causes of mortality,' he said.

The government is pursuing regenerative health and nutrition programmes, aiming to create change agents within communities to support healthier lifestyles, good eating habits and improved sanitation.

'We have adopted this approach simply because as a developing country we have started feeling the effect of a silent epidemic of non-communicable disease,' he said in addition to the communicable ones.

He warned that if action was not taken now 'we may get to a situation where our entire health budget will be swallowed by the treatment of lifestyle diseases which could have been avoided at no cost.'

He said the ministry was concern about growing health service gap between urban and rural communities, estimating that about 52 per cent of doctors are in greater Accra region.

The figure escalates to around 78 per cent when Ashanti, Eastern and Central regions are added.

'It is sad to state that there are only six Ghanaian doctors serving a population of about a million in the upper west region,' he said.

In order to bridge the gap, he said the Tamale Teaching Hospital would serve as a base for health workforce who, will in-turn serve the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.

He also said if 50 per cent of the newly qualified doctors be posted to the three regions in northern Ghana to do their house job would be have accommodation.

He commended the college of physicians and surgeons and the West Africa post graduate colleges for their role in the retention of health professions in the country.

'Because of the well-structured programmes of these colleges, a good number of doctors have as at date been attracted to stay and undertake their specialisations in Ghana,' he said.

De Eli Kwasi, Registrar of the Medical and Dental Council said the inductees qualified after years of training and have gone through a programme on ethics, law and medical jurisprudence organised by the council.

The inductees will be issue with provisional registration certificates to enable them undertake their two years housemanship in accredited institutions, a prerequisite for permanent registration.

The second year service as their national service, he said.

The 252 inductees brings the number of doctors released this year by the Council to about 600. The figure excludes hundreds of Physician Assistants trained and discharged into the health sector.

GNA
By Prince Acquah, GNA

Kukurantumi (E/R), Dec 05, GNA - The phase one of a 240-bed hospital being built at Kukurantumi in the East Akim Municipality to help the people to have access to quality healthcare has been completed.

It comes with a theatre, pharmacy, fertility clinic and dental department.

Community Hospitals Group (TCH GROUP), a non-governmental organization (NGO) is undertaking the project.

Mr. Akwesi Acquah, Chief Executive Officer of the Group, speaking at its inauguration, said their goal was to assist bring quality healthcare to the doorstep of the people.

They are engaged in building and professionally managing hospitals and mortuaries in deprived communities across the nation.

He indicated that it was only when the people were healthy that they could become economically productive.

Mr. Victor Smith, Ghana's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (UK), who was instrumental in the construction of the hospital, urged the people to patronize the facility.

The chief of the town, Daasebre Darko Boamah II, promised to release five acres of land for the building of residential accommodation for nurses.

GNA
By Edmund Quaynor, GNA

Koforidua, Dec 05, GNA - Religious leaders have been asked to take centre stage in the effort to calm the nation and keep the people united.

Mr. Christopher Owusu Marfo, alias 'Ghanaba', who has been walking for peace, said they should use their tremendous influence with the people to persuade them from doing anything to undermine the peace.

He reminded them that they had vital role to play to prevent election violence and that they could not disappoint.

He was speaking to members of the Central Chapel of the Assemblies of God Church in Koforidua.

He has been engaging Christians and Muslims in Koforidua, Ada and Nkurankan to get them to lead the peace campaign.

He urged parents to talk their children out of intolerance, aggressive rhetoric and political violence.

The Reverend Alex Ofori Amankwa, Head Pastor of the Church, encouraged all to continue to pray and work for peace.

GNA
By Stephen Asante, GNA

Tepa (Ash), Dec 05, GNA - The Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) has appealed to Ghanaians to exhibit high sense of discipline and tolerance as they head to the polls on December 07.

Ms. Eileen Goody Gans-Lartey, an Assistant Project Officer of the Institute, said the nation should be spared a general election characterized by anxiety, antagonism and tension.

She was speaking at a forum organized at Tepa in the Ahafo-North District, under IDEG's Mondelez International Cocoa Life Programme.

It brought together members of the Governance Issues Forum Network (GIFNet), a civil society organization, working to empower people in cocoa growing communities to demand improvement of their living conditions.

Ms. Gans-Lartey reminded all key actors in the election to show good faith, play it fair and avoid anything unethical to protect the nation's democratic credentials.

That, she indicated, would go a long way to assure the nation of a violent-free polls.

She asked the leadership of the political parties to insist that their followers conducted themselves well and desisted from any breaches of the law.

She encouraged them to get all election-related disputes resolved through the appropriate legal channels.

Similar forums had earlier been held at Effiduase in the Sekyere-East District.

Ms. Gans-Lartey said given the critical importance of cocoa to the nation's economy, there was every reason to give priority to the welfare of the cocoa farmer.

Policy-makers and duty-bearers should ensure that cocoa communities had the best of infrastructure and the right policy interventions introduced to motivate them to increase productivity.

GNA
By D.I. Laary, GNA

Accra, Dec 05, GNA - Community scorecard exercises conducted in Accra Metropolitan Assembly has cited political interference and corruption as reasons ruining the effective enforcement of sanitation by-laws, thus thwarting authorities' efforts to deal with waste management problems in the city.

Mr Benjamin Lartey, the Lead facilitator on the scorecard findings, told participants at a WASH stakeholders' coordination meeting.

WaterAid Ghana in partnership with the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation with financial backing from the European Union, carried out the exercise in six metros featuring some 263 people.

It formed part of a project, aimed at empowering citizens and civil society organisations' deals to improve delivery, equity and sustainability of water, sanitation and hygiene in the capital city.

The forum was organised by People's Dialogue on Human Settlement and WaterAid Ghana.

Mr Salifu Abdul-Mujeeb, the Youth, Health, Skills and Development Officer of Peoples' Dialogue, said the session was to set the agenda for action by identifying key issues for policy influence.

The proportion of Ghanaians with access to improved sanitation has only increased by merely 11 per cent since 1990, the tally indicated, in spite of numerous commitment declarations at different international stages by the government.

Mr Lartey, however, said from the exercise, there had been some improvement in some of the indicators such as health education.

'This was tied to the fact that in this year, no cholera epidemic has been recorded,' he said. 'However, waste management has been a major challenge.'

This, he attributed this to either waste contractors not working or the attitude of community members towards those indicators being poor.

'Enforcement of the laws to check the community members and the waste contractors by the limited environmental officials is a major challenge,' he also said.

'Political inferences and corruption have marred the efficiency of the laws and needs to be rectified.'

As part of the recommendation in the scorecard, waste contractors and AMA must work closely to help solve waste challenges facing the capital city.

Education and sensitsation also remained paramount in solving the situation, officials said, and urged the retooling of sanitation officers so that they could reach out to communities and sensitise people on good hygiene practices.

Mr Graham Sarbah, the AMA Sanitation and Water Project Coordinator, told reporters that the Assembly was tackling the issues of household and institutional toilets deficiencies.

'Apart from the household toilet, we are also looking at the institutional toilets, the schools especially the basic schools, in AMA for instance, most of them have toilets already but are not functioning because of misuse,' he said.

'We are renovating all those toilets for them and this time, we are also educating the school authorities and the children on how to use the toilets so it won't get back to the situation that they are now.'

'We are aiming that before the end of the project [2018], we would have constructed 2,000 toilets in households.'

'Now we've been able to do a little above 90 but we are still moving forward.'

Mr Sarbah explained that each household was supposed to pay 50 per cent of the cost estimated at GH 4,000, while the remaining 50 was borne by the World Bank.

GNA
By Ken Sackey, GNA

Accra, Dec. 5, GNA - The Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) has deployed observers to Ghana's December 7, 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Former Interim President of Liberia's Government of National Unity, Amos Sawyer, is leading the ECOWAS short-term observer mission for the elections.

The mission would ascertain the free, transparent and credible conduct of the elections.

The 94-member delegation comprises 80 short -term observers and 14 long-term observers.

The short-term observers are from all Member States of the ECOWAS, except for Ghana, and the Community's Parliament.

The short-term mission also comprises members of the civil society, representatives of Electoral Commissions in West Africa, Ambassadors of Member States accredited to the ECOWAS, and observers from the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping and Training Centre.

The 14 long-term observers, who have been deployed since November 27, are experts in security, gender, electoral operations, constitutional laws and political affairs.

The observers would be support by a technical team from the ECOWAS Commission. The team will comprise of the Commission's Vice President, Edward Singhatey and its Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Mrs Halima Ahmed.

The Director of Political Affairs, Dr Remi Ajibewa, the Head of the Electoral Assistance Unit, Francis Oke, the Acting Head of the Communications Unit, Liberor Doscof Aho, and other officials of the institution will also form part of this team.

The observers would be deployed throughout the nine geographical regions, to observe and monitor all the pre-election, election and post-election polling operations.

The mission is expected to comment on the conduct of the elections based on their observation on the conformity, transparency, fairness and smooth conduct of the legislative and presidential elections.

'At the end of the elections, the ECOWAS observer mission will present its view and where the need arises make recommendations to the different stakeholders in the election process.

The Head of the Mission, Amos Sawyer, is therefore expected to make a preliminary statement at a press conference that will be held in Accra on Thursday 8 December 2016', said a statement issued by the ECOWAS Commission and made available to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

'ECOWAS appeals to candidates, leaders of political parties as well as activists and sympathisers, for the conduct of the elections in an atmosphere of peace, calm, and national cohesion,' the statement said.

Seven candidates are vying for the presidential slot in the elections. They include the incumbent John Dramani Mahama, of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), and Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, of the National Democratic Party (NDP).

The rest are Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, of the Convention People's Party (CPP), Papa Kwesi Nduom, of the Progressive People's Party (PPP), Edward Mahama, of the People's National Convention (PNC), and the Independent Candidate, Jacob Osei Yeboah.

Some 1158 persons are also contesting for 275 parliamentary seats in the elections

GNA
By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA

Kwesimintsim (W/R), Dec. 5, GNA - Some security personnel, election officials and journalists who were to participate in the second phase of the special voting exercise on Sunday, December 4, once again could not take advantage of the special voting exercise.

Their names were not found in the two voters' registers used for the exercise.

Some security personnel expressed their frustration over the situation and insisted that they would check their names in their constituencies where they registered on December 7, and vote before departing to the centres assigned to provide security on December 7.

At the Kwesimintsim Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, Mr Lawrence Arthur Jackson, the Presiding Member, told the Ghana News Agency that they were using two special voting lists for the exercise.

He said the two registers included the one used on Thursday, December 1, with 222 names while the second one contained 116 names.

'When we check your name and did not find in the first one then we search for it in the second one,' he said.

He said, despite using the two registers at the same time, some eligible voters could not find their names on the list and that made them very disappointed.

As of 1440 hours on Sunday, only nine persons, four males and five females, had voted at the centre.

The Electoral Commission in collaboration with other stakeholder and the various political parties had to extend the special voting exercise to Sunday, December 4, to enable those who could not cast their votes on December 1, to exercise their franchise.

The inability of people to find their names on the register has resulted in very low turn -out in some of the polling centres in the Metropolis

In all 7016 eligible voters are expected to exercise their franchise in the special voting within the Western Region and out of the number 2314 are expected to vote in the five centres in the Metropolis.

GNA
A Handy Guide For Liberals Who Are

Suddenly Interested In Gun Ownership

Comments

By Larry Correia. November 14th, 2016

Article Source

That title isnt joking. This post is aimed at my liberal readers. Im a libertarian leaning Republican and gun expert, who thinks you are wrong about a lot of stuff, but Im not writing this to gloat about your loss. For the record, I disliked all the presidential candidates.

Judging by your social media over the last few days many liberals have been utterly terrified that your government might turn tyrannical or that evil people will now be emboldened to hurt you. Im going to let you in on a little thing the other half of the country is familiar with to keep those unlikely, yet catastrophic, events from happening.

And that my lefty friends, is 2nd Amendment. Having just gone through a war against a tyrannical government, the Founders understood that governments can go bad, so they made sure to note our God given right (or well say naturally occurring right, since a bunch of you are atheists) to keep and bear arms in order to defend ourselves. The 2nd Amendment isnt about hunting or sporting purposes, its about having weapons that you can fight with. As an added bonus, being able to protect yourself from a tyrannical government means that youre a lot better equipped to deal with any common criminal who decides to hurt you. Before I get into the details about how to enjoy your newly discovered 2nd Amendment rights, let me just say that I get youre sad, angry, bitter, and fearful. But just like my people over the last few elections, youll get over it. The really hyperbolic freak outs about Literally Hitler make you sound just like the Alex Jones crowd worried that Obama was going to herd Christians into FEMA camps last time. So take a deep breath and relax. Your friends and neighbors are the same as they were last week. The vast majority werent voting because racism, they voted against the status quo and a really unlikable Democrat. And no, they arent going to round you up into cattle cars.

But in the off chance they do, lets get you prepared!

WHAT GUNS ARE FOR

Ill start out with the far more likely threat, violent criminals who would assault, rape, or murder you, and how to deal with them.

Many of you have been sharing every second hand account, rumor, and urban legend about some random doofus in Somnambulant, Wisconsin or Bumfight, Louisiana, shouting an ethnic slur or spray painting a swastika on a wall. Newsflash, in a country with a third of a billion people, some percentage of them are going to be assholes. I hate to break it to you, but the assholes were there before, and they will be there forever. Just right now the news has a self-serving incentive to report about these assholes in particular.

But Correia! Youre not a marginalized Mexican transsexual Muslim! What do you know!?

I know that anybody can be marginalized if they walk into the wrong neighborhood. Violence can happen to any of us, and it does, all the time. Whether your odds of being a victim are good or bad, it still sucks when you draw the short straw and somebody tries to hurt you. Whoever you are, you are correct to be concerned for your safety. Anybody can be attacked, and everybody should be prepared to deal with it.

Since this is addressed to liberals, spare me the usual nonsense about Victim Blaming. We dont have time for silliness. If youre banking on the goodwill of evil people to keep you safe, you are a sucker. If I urge you to look both ways before crossing the street, Im not victim blaming, Im trying to keep your stupid ass from getting hit by a bus.

Whether you are being attacked because some jerk doesnt like your head scarf and you voted for Hillary, or getting pulled out of your car and beaten because the local hooliganry thinks you voted for Trump, or some dude with no coherent political philosophy beyond the voices in his head told him to murder you and rape your dog, it doesnt matter There are evil people in the world, and they will hurt you simply because it amuses them.

So there are bad people who want to hurt you. Now what do you do?

Regardless of what you worship, who you love, or you skin tone, you have the unalienable right to self-defense. The 2nd is an equal opportunity amendment.

Calling the cops is awesome. If they get there in time they will be happy to save your ass, but thats assuming they get there in time. Violent encounters usually happen very quickly. Good police response time is measured in minutes. You can be dead in seconds. Plus, your side is the one that doesnt trust the cops anyway. It isnt Republicans out there protesting the police. So why is it you expect agents of the state to risk their lives to save you? Gratitude?

What most of us in the right side of the country understand is that responsible adults need to be able to defend themselves. That means owning guns and learning how to use them. (To be fair, many on the left have also come to this same conclusion already, but they have to keep that opinion to themselves so the rest of you dont yell at them).

Unarmed self-defense is great, when it works. Im a fan. Less-lethal devices like pepper spray are great, when they work. But trust me on this, everybody who does this professionally, who has spent years learning about how violence really works, we all have guns.

Youve probably been taught that guns are frightening murder rods, just itching to go shoot up a school. You want to survive, get over that nonsense. I know that most of the stuff liberals think they know about firearms is flat out wrong. Im here to tell you as a retired professional firearms instructor that sadly everything Occupy Democrats memes have taught you is incorrect. Whatever you think you know, check those preconceived notions at the door, because it is probably biased garbage.

Firearms are not magic. They are neither evil nor good. They are just tools that throw a projectile. Thats it. Theres no voodoo involved. They are items that allow a physically weak person to survive a confrontation against somebody who is stronger, or theres more of them, or whatever other nightmare scenario you come up with. I know many of you are scared of guns, but just think of them like fire extinguishers, but for murderers.

HOW SELF-DEFENSE WORKS

Just because you have a gun doesnt mean that you can just go and shoot whoever you feel like. I see this pop up all the time amongst my liberal friends. Like if a redneck sees a black dude, he can just blast him because the redneck felt uncomfortable. First off, no, thats not how the laws work. Second off, maybe if youd quit proclaiming everybody who isnt part of your clique is a racist murderer, youd win more elections.

Here is another article where I go into a great deal of detail about when it is legal to shoot somebody. http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/11/25/the-legalities-of-shooting-people/ I taught this stuff for a living. Trust me, I know more about this than the staff writers at Salon. Almost everything Ive ever seen from a liberal publication concerning self-defense laws is incorrect. And Im not just talking like I enjoy guns and they dont, I mean they have such a basic, elementary misunderstanding of the legalities of shooting people that we arent even inhabiting the same reality. My reality is the one that the jury instructions will be issued from.

The short version is that in order to be justified in using lethal force against another human being, they need to be demonstrating the ability to seriously harm you, the opportunity to do so, and acting in a manner that a reasonable person would believe they are an immediate threat.

So no, you cant just shoot somebody walking down the street in a Trump hat. That would be Murder. Or considering most liberals dont understand basic marksmanship, more likely Attempted Murder. However, if somebody dressed entirely in Confederate flags walks up, screams DIE GAY ABORTION VEGAN and tries to stab you with his commemorative Heinrich Himmler SS dagger, its game on (dont blame me, Im basing this hypothetical scenario on what most of your facebook feeds sound like).

Go read that article. As a bonus once you understand how use of force laws actually work, you wont be able to get as spun up with outrage over every shooting that makes the news.

LEARN HOW GUNS WORK

Now that youve decided that you should be able to protect yourself from sexist war bands, and you know the basics about when its okay to shoot people, you want to go get strapped. But hold your horses there, Che. Guns are tools, but they are also very unforgiving of stupidity, and the last thing I want to have happen is one of you liberals shoot somebody on accident, because then youll be trying to pass more laws to punish people like me. First you need to learn how to be safe.

Seek out your local gun range. Sadly, for those of you living in deep blue areas, this will be difficult because the politicians you have voted for have run off most of your local gun ranges. Now that youre afraid the state cant/wont protect you, I hope you realize that was a bad call.

But if you do have one in driving distance, most ranges will have ads posted for upcoming basic classes. Contrary to what youve been told about the ultra evil National Rifle Association, the majority of what the NRA does is conduct basic safety training to keep newbies from shooting themselves in the foot. They will walk you through the fundamental rules of gun safety, mechanics, and storage.

Here is another mind blowing factoid for you liberals, the NRA was actually started by Union army officers to train recently freed blacks how to defend themselves from the Democrat KKK. The first gun control laws in America were racist in origin, and aimed at disarming undesirables like blacks or the Irish. So in that respect, not much has changed.

For those of you in the LGBTWTFBBQ community, in the aftermath of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, a transsexual friend of mine started Operation Blazing Sword. https://www.facebook.com/OperationBlazingSword/ It is a network of firearms instructors across the country who are volunteering to help out gay and trans people who are new to guns learn about basic safety and firearms familiarization. I helped them get started. Check their map. Theyve probably got somebody near you willing to help.

If you havent blocked all of them yet for having dissenting opinions, you can ask your gun owning friends and family for advice. I would still recommend talking to actual experts though, just because we know what were doing, and we personally havent had to listen to you talk about how were all baby murdering psychopaths over Thanksgiving dinner. But if they love you, theyll be happy to help you learn about how guns work. If you dont have any friends who own guns, you may want to ask yourself how you live in such an echo chamber.

Again, most of what youve been told about the gun culture is a myth. We want you to be able to defend yourself, and we want you to be safe and responsible doing it.

HOW GUN LAWS WORK

Now it gets really complicated. And thats entirely your fault. See, traditionally Democrats dont like the 2nd Amendment and historically have done everything in their power to screw with it. Your gun laws are going to vary dramatically based upon where you live. It might be really difficult and expensive for you to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights, or it might be relatively easy.

But youre scared right now! Well, thats too bad. Because for the most part Democrats have tried to make it so that citizens have to abdicate their responsibilities and instead entrust that only state can defend everyone That doesnt seem like such a bright idea now that you dont trust who is running the state, huh?

You might get attacked in your home, but lets be realistic, youre way more likely to be attacked out in public. Accordingly, democrats have made it way harder to have a gun where you are most likely to need it. If your state is red or purple, you probably have an inexpensive way to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon so that you can be armed everywhere. The bluer your state, the more unlikely/expensive that becomes, and in the most exclusive cities, unless you are a politician, movie star, or body guarding a politician or movie star, you are basically out of luck.

Oh yeah, it kind of goes without saying by this point, but most of what you think you know about what gun laws do is wrong. I know you think youve been helping with your demands to Do Something, but you arent. I wrote this article a few years ago in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. It is one of the most widely read articles on gun control laws ever written. http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/23/an-opinion-on-gun-control-repost/

I am a big fan of concealed carry, and if you are honestly worried about murderous racists being emboldened, then you should be too. If your state has a concealed weapons permit, I would recommend taking that class. Even if you are not personally ready to take that big step of actually keeping a firearm on your person, the class should provide a great primer on your state and local laws.

There are thousands of onerous little gun laws. I wont overcomplicate this, but you guys have been sticking extra gun laws on the books all over the country at every opportunity. In your area you might not be able to buy certain guns, or youll have to lock them up in a specific manner, or youll have to register them with the state. (now that youre worried about the state rounding you up, having a registry of which of you own guns seems kind of dumb huh?)

HOW TO BUY A GUN

Now that you understand basic safety and marksmanship, lets get you armed.

Contrary to what Barack Obama told you, Glocks are not easier to get than books. Hell, Ill trade an autographed copy of each of my published novels for a Glock if youve got any spares lying around.

If you havent completely alienated all of your pro-gun friends by blaming them for every mass murder thats ever happened, now would be a great time to ask them to come shopping with you.

Find your local gun store. Go there. Ask the nice people behind the counter questions about what is the best gun for you needs. They are usually very helpful, however, dont tell them that you are a liberal, because since youve previously tried to ban everything youre now buying, they will probably laugh at you. Thats expected, because your people do kind of malign them constantly and have repeatedly tried to ruin their livelihood. Oh well, live and learn. You know better now.

Shockingly, you will quickly discover that the gun best suited for your home self-defense needs is probably one of the guns that the news would call assault weapons. In reality thats a gibberish term to scare newbs, but remember, most of what youve been taught is complete bullshit. You want the best tool for the job. Yes. It looks scary. Thats kind of the point.

If you live in a place with concealed carry laws, you will probably want one of those deadly high capacity assault pistols too. In regular America we just call those handguns. Have the experts help pick one out that suits your lifestyle and manner of dress. Then make sure you get a good holster to carry it safely. Common newb mistake is to get a decent gun and a crap holster. Dont do that.

Once youve picked your firearms, you will need to fill out a federal 4473 form, provide ID (gasp! Racist!), and the shop will call in your background check to make sure you arent a felon, illegal alien, or otherwise prohibited person. Since this check is computerized it only takes a few minutes.

Now that is how it works in most states. If you are lucky enough to live in a blue state liberal paradise, then you may have to deal with extra laws. Like mandatory waiting periods, special permits, or youve got to jump through a bunch of other onerous hoops before you are allowed to defend yourself But hey, you voted for that. Suck it up, buttercup.

GET BETTER

Now you need to learn to shoot. It doesnt work like the movies.

There are a lot of people out there who do what I used to do, so find the professional firearms instructors in your region and take some classes. Your local ranges and stores will know who is teaching or will have ads posted. A good instructor wont just teach you how to hit the target, but will teach you basic tactics, and when/how to use your gun. I spent a big chunk of my time teaching people how to avoid fights and not make stupid decisions.

The more you shoot, the more you train, the more comfortable you will become. Your confidence will grow. If something awful happens you can be part of the solution instead of just another victim. You wont rise to the occasion, you will default to your lowest level of training. So get trained.

Oh yeah, this training part gets expensive too. Government regulations have driven up the cost of ammunition. You get one guess which party is responsible for that. And around the blue cities youve closed all of your shooting ranges because guns are scary and loud (oh yeah, we could fix that, but Democrats made it illegal or really expensive to make guns quieter), so youll have to drive further in order to train. Let me check Nope, Im still fresh out of pity.

WHAT ABOUT DOOMSDAY?

Now the elephant in the room. Ive seen a lot of you going on about how terrified you are for all your marginalized friends, that the government is going to turn tyrannical and genocidal, and murder them by the million. I dont think thats actually going to happen, but lets say it did. Were talking full on Gestapo Stasi jack boots and cattle car time. Bear with me through this hypothetical situation, that stuff about ability/opportunity/immediate threat is actually happening, but it is systematically being carried out by agents of the state against its own citizens. Im talking war in the streets.

I keep seeing you guys saying that youre going to fight harder. No offense, but bullshit. What are you going to do? Call more innocent bystanders racists? Post more articles from Salon even harder? Have a protest and burn your local CVS? Block more freeways with your bodies? Guess what. If the government has actually gone full tyrannical theyre just going to machinegun your dumbass in the street. They are going to drive through your roadblock, and your bodies will grease the treads of their tanks.

Thats what actual tyrants do. So despite your bitching, virtue signaling, and panic attacks, were a long way off of that.

There is a saying that has long been common in my half of the country. There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty, soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. You can debate, vote, and go to court in order to get things changed. You only go ammo box when those other things no longer work, because once you do, there is no going back.

God willing, America never gets to that point, because if we ever go to war with ourselves again, then it will be a blood bath the like of which the world has never seen. We have foolishly created a central government so incomprehensibly powerful, that to stop it from committing genocide would require millions of capable citizens to rise up and fight.

Congratulations. Now you understand why the Framers put the 2nd Amendment in there. It is the kill switch on the Republic, and everyone with a clue prays we never have to use it.

Right now you guys are angry and talking a lot of shit. This is all new to you. My side is the one with the guns, training, and the vast majority of the combat vets, and we really dont want our government to get so out of control that this ever happens. Only fools wish for a revolution. But that big red button is still there in case of emergency because if a nation as powerful as America ever turned truly evil then the future is doomed. As Orwell said, if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human faceforever.

Thats the real meaning of the 2nd Amendment. So dont screw around with it. If you do youre no better than the fat wannabes running around the woods in their surplus camo and airsoft plate carriers You dont get that, but all my gun culture readers know exactly who Im talking about. They are the morons CNN trots out whenever they need to paint all gun owners as irresponsible inbred redneck violent dupes for your benefit.

And spare me the typical talking points about how an AR-15 cant fight tanks and drones Its way beyond the scope of this article, but you dont have a flipping clue what youre talking about. Every HuffPo guest columnist thinks they are Von Clauswitz. They arent.

This Doomsday option is something we never want to use, but which we need to maintain just in case. It is also another reason Hillary lost. One motivator for Americans to vote for Trump was that Hillary hates the 2nd Amendment. Her husband put the biggest gun ban weve ever had in place, and she has been exceedingly clear that she hates guns and would get rid of all of them if she could.

And doing that would push that big red button.

When the already super powerful government wants to make you even more powerless, that scares the crap out of regular Americans, but you guys have been all in favor of it. Take those nasty guns! Guns are scary and bad. Dont you stupid rednecks know whats good for you? The people should live at the whim of the state!

But now that the shoe is on the other foot, and somebody you distrust and fear is in charge for a change, the government having all sorts of unchecked power seems like a really bad idea, huh?

Absolute power in the hands of anyone should terrify you. The 2nd Amendment is there to make sure some of that power always remains in the hands of the people.

CONCLUSION

So thats it. Thats how you go down the path of responsible gun ownership.

I dont care how marginalized you think you are. Get armed. Get trained. Be prepared to defend yourself and your loved ones. Thats part of being a responsible adult.

And quit trying to disarm the rest of us.

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It has been a year since MTN got its 4G license, and they are already in talks with other 4G players in the country for partnership.

The telecoms market leader was the only company which won one of the two 800MHz spectrum slots at US$67.5million on December 2, 2015.

Four companies paid a non-refundable fee of GHC250, 000 each to participate in an auction for that spectrum pair, but the other three did not even show up so MTN became a default winner of one.

MTN deployed the service exactly six months after winning the license, as it promised, and has since spread 4G to all regional capitals across the country and to some key selected towns, with an initial investment of US$18 million for 2016 alone.

Partnership

Whereas MTN boasts of having "the widest 4G coverage in Ghana, and one of the widest in Africa in less than one year", the company said it is already talking partnership with all the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) license holders who also offer 4G LTE services on the 2600MHz spectrum band.

In response to a questionnaire from Adom News in commemoration of the first anniversary, MTN said "we are open to partnerships with all interested parties and we continue to engage all BWAs in the best interest of the industry."

But some telco executives have recently hinted that their pursuit of partnerships with BWAs ran into a roadblock because the industry regulator, National Communications Authority (NCA) is not allowing it.

MTN, however, said, "Where there is value in partnering, MTN will seize the opportunity subject to regulatory approval where required."

Adom News has independently confirmed from at least the leading BWA licensee, Surfline, that indeed they met with the MTN CEO and talked about how they can leverage on each other's strengths to expand 4G.

Surfline and the other BWAs like Blu, Broadband Home (BBH) and Goldkey got their licenses for only US$6million each; but they have been struggling for the past four years to expand coverage and to meet the five-year deadline to provide service in 60 percent of all district capitals.

The biggest among them, Surfline is pretty much in Accra and parts of Takoradi, while Blu and BBH are only in pockets of Accra and Goldkey has not even started commercial service.

The BWAs licenses allow them to offload up to 30 per cents shares to external investors. The telcos, like MTN, which are largely foreign-owned and have the infrastructure and the financial muscle, have shown interest in the 30 percent.

Shares

Speaking of shares, there is a regulatory requirement on MTN to also offload 35 per cent shares in its company to Ghanaians after acquiring the 4G license.

This is expected to be done either via an open public offer or a private placement on the Ghana Stock Exchange, or any other legal means within the next one month.

It has been one year and MTN said they are still going through the regulatory process with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the NCA to make it happen sooner than later.

Customer Experience

But how has customer experience been like in the first six months of MTN 4G?

Everyone MTN 4G customer Adom News spoke with, described the service as simply great, except it is a bit more expensive than the other 4G services.

One avowed user of MTN 4G LTE is KofiTV, arguably the biggest Facebook live television channel in the country.

KofiTV has used MTN 4G to cover major political and national events, covered big breaking news stories and also done very gripping live interviews across the country over the last few months.

Founder and CEO of KofiTV, Kofi Adomah told Adom News "MTN 4G is simply the best."

According to him, he started running KofiTV with another 4G services and later tried another one, but both gave him coverage limitations and frequent service interruptions, but since he switched to MTN 4G Mifi, the live streaming has been smooth no matter the location.

He said KofiTV is even able to split the screen and show pre-recorded footage and or live feed from other cameras, and also do live Facebook calls simultaneously and yet face no service interruptions.

"With MTN 4G I have been able to do live KofiTV from Kumasi, Sunyani, Cape Coast and other parts of the country without any interruption and I think that is really great," he said.

Kofi Adomah also said on the other 4G networks he did not have coverage at home, but MTN 4G gives him coverage at home and he is able to work from home as well.

"I consume a lot of data on KofiTV and I noticed that MTN 4G is a little more expensive than the two others I tried earlier but I prefer it to the others because it is by far the best in terms of service quality and coverage," he said.

Kofi said he was even willing to bring MTN 4G on board as a sponsor of KofiTV because of the great experience, but MTN is yet to respond to his invite.

Expansion

Speaking of coverage and experience, MTN is assuring existing and potential customers that between 2017 and 2019 it will embark on a steady expansion of 4G across the country to ensure more people have access.

"We have plans to expand the coverage to reach more areas in Ghana to enable our customers to experience higher-speed mobile internet on the same mobile phone from which they make and receive voice calls," it said.

It is also promising to introduce more innovative services that will support the growth of businesses and ultimately boosting national development, and also make video services which require high-speed bandwidth available, and accessible to all.

The decision

At the time of the 800MHz spectrum auction, there was an industry-wide outcry against the US$67.5million minimum auction price, but MTN said its business case for the acquisition of the spectrum took into consideration some key factors that made it worth their while.

They said the company's decision was partly driven by the fact that telecoms worldwide, is moving towards greater data speeds and 4G technology is the next step in that journey to making the lives of customers a whole lot brighter.

Meanwhile, industry experts have always cautioned that 4G devices are not easily affordable in Ghana, so such heavy investment into a 4G network is not the smartest thing to do. The BWAs' struggle to generate revenue seems to support that assertion.

But MTN said "The revenue projections made for the 4G license provision was not for us to attain Return on Investment (ROI) within a year. It is an ongoing process and in line with our long-term digital strategy."

The company said they are also working with device manufacturers and distributors to source affordable 4G devices to make it easy for many more Ghanaians to access 4G LTE services.

"Subscribers replacing their legacy devices (handsets and others) to 4G compatible type is also very key to the expansion of 4G across the country," they said.

It is important to note that MTN is currently in partnership with handset dealers like Mobile Zone and i2 through which they churning out relatively affordable 4G brands from Tecno and Huawei among others to boost uptake.

MTN said they so far they do not see any immediately recognisable bottlenecks on the regulatory front so Ghanaians can rest assured that their 4G expansion will continue until it is available everywhere.
After leading scores of his supporters across some areas in Accra yesterday [Monday], the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Akufo-Addo in a special broadcast to Ghanaians, has asked Ghanaians to vote John Mahama's NDC out of office.

He repainted what he called a failed economy and encouraged Ghanaians to change the situation by going out and vote for him tomorrow[Wednesday].

According to him, Ghanaians are unhappy and dissatisfied with the conditions of their lives and yet government propagandists tell us we are living today in better times. 

I know many of you are tired of failed promises and have lost trust in the leadership that you have been served, you have seen and are appalled by the blatant theft of state coffers by the very government officials who promise to make our lives better.In spite of these however, I urge you not to lose faith in our democratic system of government which we fought so long and so hard to establish, he added.

He believes the election will give Ghanaians an opportunity to vote to resolve challenges bedeviling the country.

What is broken can be fixed. This election gives you the chance to help Ghana get working again and I plead with all of you. Everyone who is registered to vote. To take this chance and vote to get Ghana working again. It is clear, we cannot afford four more years of this government.

The Presidential Candidate on Monday led a float through some principal streets of Accra as part of activities marking his final campaign ahead of the election on Wednesday.

The procession started around the same time the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) was holding its final rally ahead of the election.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The outspoken Northern Regional Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has served notice that the party will reject any attempt by the Electoral Commission (EC) to push the December 7 elections to the next day.

He revealed his administrations resolve to position at least 40 party agents at each polling station across the region.

Daniel Bugri Naabu was addressing the media in Tamale ahead of the forthcoming Wednesday December 7 polls.

He alleged that postponement of the 2012 polls created an opportunity for the EC to rig it in favor of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He implored law enforcement agencies particularly the police service to be neutral and exhibit the highest standard of professionalism before, during and after the December 7 polls.

He said the NPP was poised to win the elections One touch and would plug all loopholes intended to overrun the victory.

He, however, said the NPP was adequately prepared to deal with miscreants suspected to be NDC agents on the day of the polls.

He claimed the NDC intended using fake security operatives to disrupt the electoral processes in NPP strongholds on December 7.

Daniel Bugri Naabu emphasized the need for all party loyalists to stay at the polling stations after voting to ensure that every single ballot is counted at the end of the polls.

He called on his colleague NPP regional Chairman especially in regions where there are border entry points to be extra vigilante on December 7.

He appealed to the electorate to massively vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and the NPP for a resounding victory.

He described the Nana Addo-Bawumia ticket as the best desirous to lead the nation to the promised land.

He insisted that Ghanaians will not regret voting for the NPP which has men and women of integrity capable of delivering good governance.



By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
It has been said that there are really no undecided voters. Everybody has, deep down, an inclination towards one candidate. In the present situation where two candidates are the clear front runners, it is difficult not to prefer one to the other or, rather, to detest one more than the other. Even among those who support one of the third-party candidates, there will be an inclination towards either Mahama or Akufo-Addo in the event of a run-off between the two. A few hours to the election, it will be difficult to find someone whose mind is not already made up. But what difference will it make who I vote for?

For a vast majority of Ghanaians, it will not make a blind bit of difference who wins on Wednesday. It is in this sense that the elections are NOT about Ghanas future. Our country is NOT at any crossroads. It is true that a very inspired leader can make a lot of difference in the fortunes of a country. But neither Mahama nor Akufo-Addo is any such leader. Both of them are drab and uninspiring figures. No Ghanaian is going to vote for either of them because she genuinely believes the person voted for is going to turn the country into a paradise. The only crossroads that can be talked of is the possibility of election violence. No decent Ghanaian wants that.

But there are groups of Ghanaians for whom the outcome of Wednesdays vote is going to make a hell lot of difference! These are the people who find themselves directly in the eye of the storm. There are individual Ghanaians who are going to gain tremendously by an Akufo-Addo victory. And there are others who are going to lose when Mahama falls from power. These elections are more about these individual fortunes than about the future of the country. The fortunes that will change are only marginally linked to the greater fortunes of the nation.

If Mahama loses on Wednesday, he will stand down from power and with him will go all the ministers, appointees, hangers on, etc. and his control of the patronage system that still exists in our country. At the same time, Akufo-Addo will come in with his coterie of favour seekers, vultures and what have you. There will be plum posts to dish out to the fateful  heads of parastatals, juicy ambassadorial posts, government contracts going to favourites and the very Ghanaian desire of being in power and lording it over others. The stakes are high for these people. Even a tenuous link to the wife of the head of state or a powerful minister can help get your son or a cousin a job somewhere. Then there are the parties so-called foot soldiers who may also gain something according to their station in life. These are the people who will be the true losers or gainers from Wednesdays vote.

Those Ghanaians who are far away from the corridors of power are not going to be affected in any meaningful way by the outcome of Wednesdays vote. The main reasons most Ghanaians are going to vote for one person rather than the other are clear. Many Asantes and Akyems will vote for Akufo-Addo because he is their tribesman. Most Ewes will vote for Mahama, not because they particularly like him, but to spite Akufo-Addo. People will vote for those who are their abusua so they may personally benefit one way or the other from his victory. Some people have invested emotionally in supporting one side and will follow it up with their vote. The so-called foot-soldiers will vote for the party they have toiled for. The hired hooligans, if they have a vote, will give it to their pay masters or else wait to be called upon to unleash violence on the enemy. Not many Ghanaians will vote for ideological reasons since such matters are not clear-cut in our country, and, anyway, are understood only by the educated middle class. And many Ghanaians will simply stay put at home, not minding what happens.

The ultra-partisans of either party who write daily articles to Ghanaian websites extoling the non-existent virtues of those they support will rejoice or weep as the case may be. Some of them will be able to write articles immediately after the announcement of the results. Some will dare not.

And so, whom do I want to win? Actually, my dear reader, I dont care a damn who wins! I know life in Ghana will go on as usual.

Kofi Amenyo ([email protected])
The legal tussle between Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, Greater Accra Regional Minster, and businessman Kwadwo Asante Boateng is far from over.

This time round, fresh evidence is emerging that an affidavit the minister, nicknamed 'Lion,' used for his defence in the case was not sanctioned by his father, one Otu Akwetey, on whose behalf he had mounted the action.

According to Asante Boateng aka Kwadwo Baah (Plaintiff), a livestock farmer, Afotey Agbo could not have been instructed by his father who has been indisposed since 2009.

He claims the document the minister had used in appealing against the current case before the Court of Appeal could not have been done based on the instructions of Akwetey but rather he, Afotety Agbo, instructed his lawyer, Ayikoi Otoo, to file the document on his (Afotey's) behalf.

The Plaintiff alleged that there was no affidavit attached to the suit, neither was it signed by Mr Akwetey in whose name the minster purportedly acted.

Interestingly, a high court judgement on which the minister relied in the instant case went against him and a cost of 450 awarded against him in a suit numbered L 326/75 dated July 19, 1980.

However, in a second case against the University of Ghana (default judgment), judgement was entered for 670 acres of land but he was said to have frequently had a total of 14,405.28 acres plotted in his favour.

Mr Kwadwo Baah further insisted that although the land had been plotted at the Lands Commission as Stool Land, it is being alienated as family land and also being registered at the Lands Title Registry.

Currently, the Plaintiff is back in court challenging another high court ruling clearing Afotey Agbo and Inspector General of Police (IGP) John Kudalor of contempt.

Mr Baah in his latest action is asking the court to set aside the whole ruling of the learned high court judgeand a ruling given in favour of the Appellant.

Justice Mensah on June 23, 2016 threw out a contempt of court motion filed by the Appellant to incarcerate the two for refusing to carry out a demolition exercise in respect of a land case he had won.

The two appointees were dragged before the court for refusing to execute an order for writ of possession over parcels of land which was a subject of litigation.

In the view of the judge, it was most unfair to convict the minister as well as Kudalor for contempt, although it was not in doubt that Mr Kwadwo Baah had secured a judgement from the court which had yet not been executed.

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson

[email protected]
In a competitive market both consumers and producers are presented with affordable and wider choices of quality goods and service and this brings about efficiency in allocation of resources, thus the benefits of a competitive market cannot be overlooked. In a an emerging economy like Ghana, it is important to embrace the need for a functional competition regime, said Professor Justice Samuel Kofi Date-Bah, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana and Board Chair, CUTS Ghana.

He was speaking at this years World Competition Day Celebration in Accra under the theme: Cement Market: Issue of Competition or Unfair Trade Practice. Justice Date-Bah was of the view that the recent agitations in the cement industry should serve as an indication to policy makers the need for a fully functional competition and unfair trade practice law to regulate the conduct of the market players.

Mr. Appiah Kusi Adomako, the Centre Coordinator for CUTS Ghana in his presentation indicated that consumers desire to have quality cement at an affordable price and one way of achieving this is through the presence of multiple players in the market competing among themselves. He mentioned that the era of dominance, monopolies and oligopolies in the sector is over. He quoted data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) that indicates that the prices of cement have remained fairly stable compared to the past. Current price war in the sector is unprecedented. He added that sometimes it is helpful to protect local producers but is also fair to ensure that consumers get the opportunity to have quality products at affordable prices as well as options in the market. This he believed can be achieved effectively through the enactment of Competition Policy and Law.

A Trade Policy Analyst at CUTS Ghana, Mr. Abubakari Zakari in his presentation titled, Barriers to Trade, and Unfair Trade Practices explained the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on import permits and import license and the various redress channels that government can deploy to reduce the effects of subsidies and dumping in the local market. Mr Zakari stressed on the important role that the government plays in ensuring affair and competitive market through the application of the WTO measures. He called for the full operationalization of the Ghana International Trade Commission (GITC) to investigate the claims being made by the local cement manufacturers.

Mr. Fredrick Ghartey, an Assistant Commissioner, Design and Monitoring at the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), and also a member of the Cement Monitoring Committee in remarks mentioned that the country has in place the necessary installed capacity to meet the local demands and that it is important that the local industries are supported to make sure they produce to meet the demands for the market.

Mr. Samuel Amegayibor, Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estate Development Association (GREDA) on his part explained that competition in the cement industry is very much needed; however, the local industry needs to be protected and well supported by the government to ensure that they are well able to compete in the market.

Mr. Komla Buami, Media Relations Manager at the Dangote Cement mentioned that Dangotes presence in the market has set the standard high for the production of quality cement grades in the country. Further, he explained that the low prices of Dangote cement is not as a result of the alleged subsidy that but rather due to the bonus structure that has been set up firm by the firm. Currently, Dangotes ex- factory price for cement is GHC 29.30 and that of GHACEM is GHC 28.60. Distributors reduce the price of the Dangote cement at the retail level in order to sell more quantities and earn bonus.

Mr. Moses Agyemang from the Private Enterprise Federation (PEF) raised the issue of efficiency of cement producers in the country. He lamented that local companies have the habit of producing at low efficiency and blaming others for beating them in the market. He cited example that power that Ghana imports from Cote dIviore is cheaper than the one that the local power companies sell to the grid. He suggested that CUTS and the relevant agencies to work together to better understand the efficiency gaps in the sector and come up with ways to support the local cement producers to meet its innovative challenges and thus better enable them to compete.

The World Competition Day Celebration is observed on 5th December every year worldwide to generate awareness about the need for competition reforms. CUTS has been advocating for the implementation of a competition law and policy in Ghana. This policy dialogue series was attended by officials from the various cement manufacturing firms and associations, Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), Private Enterprise Federation (PEF), Ghana Standard Authority (GSA), Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI), academia, professional associations, civil societies and the private sector.

About CUTS

CUTS Ghana is a policy think tank which works in the areas of consumer protection and education economic regulation, trade and development, regional integration, competition policy and law, etc.

For more information about CUTS, and competition policy and law related issues, please contact, CUTS International (Ghana), P O BOX AN 6156, 30 Oroko Avenue (Near Accra Central View Hotel and ATTC Kokomlemle), Accra, Mobile + 233-24-392-0926 | Office: +233-30-224-5652 | Email: [email protected] , [email protected] , Website: http://www.cuts-international.org/ARC/accra
The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI), has advocated peace before, during and after this years Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

The Chamber contends that a distortion to the peace and stability will pose serious risks to businesses.

We should not take the peace and stability in the country for granted. The business community cannot thrive without peace and stability, a statement from the GNCCI said.

It added, The modest economic and social progress we have achieved in the last few years owes much to the political stability we have enjoyed in the 4th Republic.

Local and foreign businesses have expressed varied opinions and expectations ahead of this years elections.

While some businesses have predicted a drop in investments, others are confident of a stable environment climate after the election.

The GNCCI, commended the various stakeholders for their respective contributions to successive elections and further urged them to contribute to sustaining the peace enjoyed by the country.

The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce, on behalf of the private sector, commends the National Peace Council for securing a firm commitment from the various presidential candidates with the signing of peace accord,

The Chamber also commends the Electoral Commission, the Judiciary, Parliament, Government, Security Services, Media Houses, International Partners, and other stakeholders for their commitment towards a free, fair and credible election to ensure an enabling business environment.

Meanwhile the Chamber has appealed to the Electoral Commission to expedite processes in addressing grievances among the various political parties.

The Chamber calls on the Electoral Commission to work harder to deliver free, fair and credible elections. The Commission must continue to work with all stakeholders including political parties and show willingness to address their concerns in a timely fashion. We believe that the Commission has the capacity and the track record to deliver first class elections to Ghanaians come Wednesday December 7.

The Security Services have a crucial role to play. We urge them to be professional by treating all the actors in the political arena with fairness and respect. Government must provide the Security Services with the necessary logistics while affording them the freedom to discharge their duties. It is our fervent hope that the security forces will live up to expectations by securing the sanctity of the Ghanaian politics, the statement added.

The President of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nana Dr. Appiagyei Dankawoso I, further urged electorates to conduct themselves in a manner that will not undermine the peace and stability of the country.

He added, We also urge the political parties to continue to refrain from acts and utterances that have the potential to create chaos and erode the political, economic, and social gains made in the country.We also call on media practitioners to uphold ethical standards and be circumspect in their reportage in order not to create unnecessary tension before, during and after the elections.

In addition, the Chamber has assured of its continuous engagement with its members and stakeholders towards ensuring a peaceful election critical for economic growth and development.

We agree with our first President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah that the forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart. We are one people and let us vote in peace to make Ghana the winner, the Chambers statement concluded.



By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
The Hague (AFP) - Child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen Tuesday became the first member of Uganda's brutal Lord's Resistance Army to go on trial in a landmark case before the International Criminal Court keenly watched by thousands of victims.

Ongwen, 41, is also the first former child soldier to be tried by the court and will enter a plea in relation to an unprecedented 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the rebel group led by the elusive Joseph Kony.

"The LRA leadership is reviled worldwide for its brutality against Africans, but never before has an LRA commander faced trial," said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch.

As Ongwen appeared in the dock in the tribunal in The Hague, a last-minute bid by the defence to delay the start of the trial -- maintaining that he did not understand the charges before him and calling for medical reports -- was rejected by the judges as "untimely".

A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a bloody rebellion against Kampala some three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda.

The UN says it has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it was set up in 1987.

Ongwen appeared composed on Tuesday, dressed in light grey suit with a lilac shirt and blue tie. He studiously took notes in a small notepad, with the charges due to be read out to him by court officials.

More than 4,000 victims are taking part in Ongwen's trial and thousands of others are expected to watch the trial unfold at four viewing sites in northern Uganda.

Victims have recounted the LRA's sadistic initiation rites imposed on kidnapped youngsters, who were forced to bite and batter friends and family to death, or to drink their blood.

Victims of the Lord's Resistance Army recount the group's sadistic initiation rites for kidnapped youngsters, who were forced to bite and batter friends and family to death, or to drink their blood

The son of Ugandan schoolteachers, Ongwen was abducted as a child while on his way to school and likely endured such horrors himself.

'Forced pregnancy'

But ICC prosecutors say when Ongwen became an adult he turned abuser, helping orchestrate the abduction and enslavement "of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities".

He stands accused of rape, murder and "forced marriage" -- the first such charge at the ICC -- as well as the unprecedented legal charge of "forced pregnancy".

While boys ended up in the ranks, girls were "treated as spoils of war" and turned into sex slaves.

Ongwen is said to have had at least seven wives -- one was just 10 when she was first raped. DNA tests have revealed he fathered at least 11 children with different girls.

Prosecutors also allege that from 2002 to 2005, Ongwen "bears significant responsibility" for attacks in northern Uganda, "systematically" ordering the killings of civilians sheltering in four camps.

Victims died in an orgy of violence, while survivors had their lips and ears cut off. In one case, a witness said Ongwen ordered his troops to cook and eat civilians.

The defence however says it is considering several arguments including that Ongwen is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. His lawyers also maintain he was acting under duress, as he lived under the constant threat of being killed by Kony and his commanders.

Prosecutors intend to bring 74 witnesses including former child soldiers and some 5,800 pieces of evidence such as intercepted radio communications, videos and photos.

'Victim turned abuser'

Children rescued from the Lord's Resistance Army line up for dinner at the Gusco Centre, a place for formerly abducted children in Gulu, Uganda

Observers say Ongwen's trial raises deep questions about how to prosecute crimes involving children subjected to years of abuse who after years of trauma and lacking any moral compass then become perpetrators. The case is likely to set a legal precedent.

"Dominic Ongwen's past experience as a child soldier is not a defence in itself," said Isabelle Guitard, programme director at the London-based Child Soldiers International.

"It cannot exonerate him of the responsibility of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity as an adult," Guitard told AFP.

Ongwen surrendered himself to US forces in 2015. But Kony remains at large with about 150 followers hiding out in the jungles of the Central African Republic.
Algerian businesspeople have extended a hand of collaboration to their South African counterparts during the African Investment and Business Forum currently underway in Algeria. This came out during a meeting held between South African and the Algerian business chambers on the margins of the investment and business forum.

The Vice President of the Algerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Rhiad Amour said Algeria had decided to build real partnerships with Africa in order to create added value as Africans. According to Amour, intra-Africa trade accounted for only 10% compared to 80% of trade between American states and 50% in Europe.

We need to work together, know what each of us produce and what our capabilities are, said Amour.

He highlighted that the African Investment and Business Forum had been the first after the economic independence of Algeria, and that what was important was the action that businesspeople from the two countries were going to take after the forum.

Amour said Algeria wanted to diversify its economy and move away from reliance on oil alone. He invited the South African business community to bring their skills to Algeria and make partnerships. In the same breath, Amour urged Algerian business to also go to South Africa to explore business opportunities.

The President of the Black Business Council (BBC), Ms Danisa Baloyi expressed appreciation to the Algerians for extending a hand of cooperation and collaboration to the South African businesspeople. She said her highlights of the forum had been the congregation of businesspeople from across the continent who turned out in numbers.

This shows the seriousness and commitment that we as Africans have to do business with each other. It is time that even the SADC businesspeople collaborate. I urge our businesspeople to please make follow-ups with the Algerians. Doors have been opened, the ball is in our court, she added.

The delegation participated in workshops, business-to-business meetings and had an opportunity to see an exhibition of Algerian products.
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved on December 5, 2016without an Executive Board meeting[1]an extension of Malawis arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) to June 30, 2017. This extension will provide additional time for the authorities to achieve the programs objectives.

The ECF arrangement for Malawi was approved on July 23, 2012 (see Press Release No. 12/273 ) in an amount equivalent to SDR 104.1 million (about US$146.7 million). An earlier extension of the arrangement from June 30, 2016 to December 2016 and an augmentation of access by the equivalent of SDR 34.7 million (about US$ 49.2 million or 25 percent of quota) was approved by the Board on June 20, 2016 (see Press Release No. 16/295 ) to strengthen the countrys response to the El Nino-induced drought. The program is aimed at the achievement and maintenance of macroeconomic stability and implementation of policies and structural reforms to spur growth, diversify the economy and reduce poverty.

[1]The Executive Board takes decisions under its lapse of time procedure when it is agreed by the Board that a proposal can be considered without convening formal discussions.
We have followed the discovered ballot paper issue in Kumasi since news about the blemish made the headlines on both social and traditional media yesterday.

A number of retired top police officers have punched holes in the manner in which the subject was handled.

No sooner had the story broken out than COP Kofi Boakye came out to debunk it on the premises that the ballot papers were fake.

That sounds interesting, especially coming from a top police officer, a regional police commander for that matter. Listening to the retired superior police officers, we could not agree more with them.

One of the officers had this to say about the police blunder. The police in Kumasi should have laid surveillance for the suspect who dropped the bag at the location. That person would have turned up to retrieve the cargo. The police would have pounced on him and conduct a critical interrogation of him.

Such an interrogation would have led to many important discoveries in our estimation, given the recent suspicion that some spent printing plates had been smuggled out from a printing house involved in the production of some election materials. The uproar which this generated was too fresh for us to rehash it.

What happened in Kumasi can be likened to fake currencies discovered in the possession of a suspect. Would the Police dismiss such a discovery as nonsense because the notes were fake and not do anything about it?

The issue that the ballot papers do not bear serial numbers does not matter because in the evening when the voting is over such details are hardly considered. We recall the agenda of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to use all means to increase their voter population by a million and are tempted to think that such so-called fake ballot papers could be part of the project.

Such an evil plot would depend on varied dirty arrangements, one of which was to stuff ballot papers on Election Day.

We have also heard about how it was being alleged that the fake papers belong to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Be it as it may, the Kumasi Police should have tarried a while before jumping the gun and somewhat berating those behind the removal of the lid.

There are ballot papers in the system and it does not matter who are those behind them.

It matters, however, that the intention of those who commissioned the project of their production is evil and not one which is favourable to our democratic civilization.

The elections, which are due tomorrow, should not only be free and fair but credible.

To achieve this feat, which is simple yet difficult, behooves not only the Electoral Commission to do their work with the bigger picture of Ghana as the cornerstone but the law enforcement agents to be as professional as possible.

Any attempt at pleasing one side of the political divide can only spell an avoidable disturbance which our economically troubled country cannot afford at this time.

We must nonetheless congratulate the good police personnel who would not fold their arms as bad elements within the Service and within some political groupings attempt to destroy this country.
THE DISCOVERY of thumb-printed ballot papers in favour of President John Mahama which were reportedly stuffed in three big black bags in Room Four of Madison Lodge at TUC in Kumasi created a lot of tension in the city Monday morning.

Supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who suspected that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) wants to rig tomorrow's elections, rushed to the Central Police Station, where the items were taken to, in protest.

The policemen at the station, led by COP Kofi Boakye, the Ashanti Regional Commander, had a very tough time ordering the charged supporters, numbering over 500, to leave the station.

Bags Discovery

Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi Boasiako aka Chairman Wontumi, led a team of policemen and NPP taskforce to Madison Lodge at about 7 am after he had been hinted about electoral materials being kept in the hotel.

Addressing newsmen, Wontumi said two young men who according to the receptionist at the hotel, were the owners of the bags, left before the police and the NPP taskforce arrived for a search of the rooms in the facility.

He said he had a tip-off that bags which were fully laden with thumb-printed ballot papers for President Mahama were being kept in one of the hotel rooms and true to our suspicion the illegal items were uncovered during our visit.

Wontumi said the police brought the electoral materials to the Central Police Station to count them, adding that about 10,000 thumb-printed ballot papers were found in the three bags.

The NPP regional chairman said the NPP is alert and therefore would make a follow-up to any information that would be dispatched to it, stressing that he would not allow the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to rig the polls.

EC Denial

The Ashanti Regional EC boss, Serebuor Quaicoe, who rushed to the Central Police Station on Monday morning to examine the seized items, stated that the materials were fake because they did not have serial numbers on them.

According to him, he rushed to the station to check when he heard reports that some electoral materials were in possession of some individuals even before the Election Day but I realized that the items in question were fake.

Arrest

COP Kofi Boakye stated that since the owners of the bag were not at the hotel when the items were seized, the police had to arrest the hotel's manager and the receptionist to assist in investigations.

He admonished politicians in the city to refrain from coming out with wild allegations which tend to create unnecessary tension, fear and panic, especially as the December 7 polls draw closer.

The wild goose chase is becoming too often in the city in recent times and this weird behaviour will not help anybody, the police chief complained, adding that anybody who has suspicions should report to the police first.

'Change' Mantra

Meanwhile, hundreds of NPP supporters in the city that left their homes and work places to the police station to catch a glimpse of the seized materials, suddenly, turned the place into a political rally ground, with some of them chanting Change is coming.

Some even went on their knees to thank God for helping the NPP to unravel what they termed the ill motives of the NDC.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi
Some executives of NPP displaying one of the masks at the press conference

The Volta Regional branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has revealed what it alleges to be a grand scheme by the National Democratic Congress ((NDC) to cause confusion and rig tomorrow's general election in the region.

Speaking to journalists in Ho, NPP Regional Secretary, Joseph Homenya, mentioned among other things that the NDC was distributing masks and military uniforms to some selected party members to perpetrate acts that will disrupt polls and pave way for rigging.

Mr. Homenya was grateful to God for touching the heart of the NDC member who felt uncomfortable with the ploy and informed an elder of his church.

He therefore, urged the security agencies to take note of their complaints and act decisively on them before things get out of hand.

Arrest Of NPP Chairman

The regional secretary, who was flanked by the vice chairman, Dr. Archibald Letsa and the Deputy Communications Director, Enoch Amegbletor, also accused the NDC government of clandestine schemes to cause the arrest of the Regional Chairman, John Peter Amewu, for unknown reasons and detain him until after the elections.

He said information gathered indicated that the arrest is meant to destabilize the party ahead of the elections and divert the party's attention from the all-important democratic exercise.

Border Communities

Mr. Homenya further disclosed that the government had opened the Beat Zero border entry point at Aflao, few days to the elections, alleging that it's part of a scheme to smuggle in foreigners to come and vote for the NDC.

The NPP was also unhappy with the transfer of personnel of the security agencies in the region, particularly those operating along Ghana's borders who were fair and firm. For the party, Such transfers are to pave way for security operatives who will succumb to the whims and caprices of the NDC government and its assigns.

The party was also unhappy about a speculation there would be total blackout in the evening of tomorrow when the ballots are being counted.

Mr. Homenya claimed that the party had noticed a blue Toyota Hilux with registration number GT 411-16 that had for some time now been trailing them in the course of party activities.

The Volta NPP accused Koku Anyidoho, NDC deputy general secretary, of using some local radio stations to incite mayhem in the region.

From Fred Duodu, Ho ([email protected])


Two persons who allegedly attempted to transport some weapons to the Central Region using a National Democratic Congress (NDC)-branded pick-up in the wee hours of yesterday, have been arrested.

The two suspects, (names withheld) according to information, were arrested at about 1:30 am by police personnel on snap check at Weija, near Accra and have been handed over to the Accra Regional Police Command.

Information gathered indicated that the suspects were transporting the weapons using a vehicle purportedly belonging to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Amasaman, Nii Okai Emmanuel Laryea.

The weapons included pump action gun, two foreign pistols and 38 rounds of ammunition.

When they were interrogated, according to information, the suspects who claimed ownership of the weapons, said they were going to use them on their farm at Gomoa Fetteh.

The suspects allegedly claimed they were often being terrorized by some Fulani herdsmen and so they bought the guns to protect themselves, a source said.

The Weija police after the arrest, handed the suspects over to the Accra Regional Command for investigations.

The Accra Regional Public Relations Officer, ASP Effia Tenge, in an interview confirmed that the two suspects were in the custody of the police.

A total of three guns were recovered by the police and not as many as it had been circulating on social media, according to her.

Upon interrogation the suspects said they had registered the guns and so we have asked them to provide the documents; but investigations are still ongoing, she added.

By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey

([email protected])


Details are emerging about how a secret deal between Mahama's National Democratic Congress (NDC) government and Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the party's reported bank roller, to enable him to execute a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project has been prepared.

The presidency is said to be neck-deep in the murky transaction  which pressure group OccupyGhana has described as another avenue to loot state funds  involving Mr. Woyome's Anator Holding Company Limited.

The government, through Chief of Staff Julius Debrah, is allegedly putting pressure on the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to fund the controversial public-private partnership arrangement; and it looks like the involvement of the SSNIT is what Anator Holding Limited is waiting for before going to the financial market to raise funds.

Woyome is asking for $8 million (GH35 million) from SSNIT, even though he owes the state GH51.2 million as money he fraudulently received as judgement debt.

A letter directing SSNIT to 'strictly' comply and take 24% shares in the bizarre SEZ project was signed by Ambassador William Ntow Boahene, a presidential staffer, on behalf of the Chief of Staff on October 4, 2016, and had said it was being done following the Attorney General's advice.

The AG in its advice to the government prepared and signed by Deputy AG, Dominic A. Ayine on September 30, 2016, cautioned, The Chief of Staff can issue directives with respect to SSNIT to take up the 24% stake in the project subject to compliance with the investment guidelines established by the National Pensions Act 2008.

The AG had explained that the issuance of governmental directives to a public body such as SSNIT does not necessarily violate the law.

The letter indicated, Where the Board of Trustees of SSNIT agrees with the directive to take up the stake, it would be advisable to conduct legal and financial due diligence on the proponent company in order to ensure that the public interest in the investment by SSNIT is protected.

The letter accepting the presidency's directive to SSNIT to be part of the project was written on August 19, 2016 by Albert W.S. Essamuah, Managing Director of Albert Essamuah Associates Limited, who are the Supervising Consultants of the project; and said they were appointed by the government through the Ministry of Transport under former minister, Dzifa Attivor and Anator Holding, proponents, to establish the Master Plan Implementation Office which comprises the legal technical and financial structure to organize, follow, and monitor the realization of the preliminary and implementation phases of the SEZ project.

The consultant then asked the Chief of Staff to issue an urgent directive to SSNIT through its Board Chairman, Joshua Alabi, to take up the 24% stake in the project on behalf of the people of Ghana because the trust had shown interest.

By transferring the 24% stake holding of the government to SSNIT, the project transaction advisor, Ernst & Young, can progress with their work on raising capital for the project, according to the letter.

$256m Stake

According to the consultant, the SEZ project has landed property totaling over 35,000 acres in Tokpo, Kablevu (963.42 acres), Todze (1,743.39 acres), Sogakope (2.7 acres) and in the Sekondi-Takoradi petrochemical enclave (2,470 acres yet to be reclaimed); all together with a market capital value in their current user states over $256 million, adding, It is expected that when the construction of the port commences, the value will escalate to over $25 billion.

The consultant said that the Ministry of Transport and Anator Holding have jointly established an Escrow account from which verified payments will be made towards the project.

The consultant, in another letter dated July 14, 2016, written to the Lands Commission, assured it (commission) that Anator Holding has made arrangements for payment of compensation for land owners to be captured under the project.

They said Anator Holding would assign custody of the lands to UT Bank after the transfers had been done in the name of the Ministry of Transport.

The letter stated that Atuguba & Associates are the project's local lawyers and that they would ensure that payments are made on the back of signed contracts to prevent future denials of compensation payments.

By William Yaw Owusu


Exactly sixty years (60years) ago, 1956  2016, Kotokolis in the then British Togoland, were among some ethnic groups such as Ewes, Akans, Mamprusis, Dagombas, Nanumbas, Bimobas, Konkomba, Chokosis, Kusasis, Basaris,, Bisas (Busanga), Akebus, Adele, Buems, Adwodes, Gonjas of Salaga and Guans among others in the present Volta Region of Ghana, went to the polls to decide their future with the union with the then Gold Coast.

On Wednesday, the 9th of May 1956, the election, popularly known as the Plebiscite, was held under UN Supervision with the choice between formal integration with the future independent Gold Coast or continuation as a Trust Territory.

There were only two items on the ballot paper, did the people of the British Togoland sometimes known as Transvolta Togoland (TVT), want to continue with union with the Gold Coast or be separated from it and remain under British mandate pending a decision on its future by the UN.

THE BRITISH TOGOLAND

The Territory of British Togoland was first formed after a partitioned of the Togoland on 27th December 1916, during the First World War (World War 1) British and French forces already occupied Togoland. After the war, on 20 July 1922, the League of Nations (Now United Nations) UN/gave its mandate to formally transfer control of British Togoland to the United Kingdom.

The area was partitioned with between the two occupying powers in 1916 with the British taking 33,775 sq km of area stretching from Ho to almost near the border with the then Upper Volta, now known as Burkina Faso.

This land became known as British Togoland, Transvolta Togoland (TVT) or UN Mandated Territory with the capital Ho. Languages spoken are mentioned earlier, Ghana-Togo languages with English as official.

In 1954, the British government informed the UN that it would unable to administer the Trust Territory after 1957 in response, in December 1955; the UN General Assembly passed a resolution advising the British government to hold a plebiscite on the future of British Togoland.

Three (3) main political parties were involved in the plebiscite, the Togoland Congress Party (TCP), the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and the Northern Peoples Party (NPP).

The Togoland Congress Party (TCP) was a local party, led by the late S.G. Antor a native of Lobga Alakpeti,in the now Hohoe Municipality, with slogan: Abladee, Abladee, Gbadzaa (Freedom,Freedom, Real Freedom), was formed in 1951 which had won three seats in the Gold Coast elections of April 1954 and two seats in the July 1956 elections, but did not survive for long afterwards.

The TCP secondary goal was to campaign for the unification of the Ewe people in British Togoland and French Togoland as a separate Ewe State, however the Party yet again failed in May 1956 UN plebiscite held in British Togoland and the Gold Coast.

The party was dissolved in 1957, and merged into United Party (UP), in the Gold Coast.

Nkrumah and the CPP, with Gbedemah campaigned excessively in area for unification. A total of 194,230 people were registered and 160,587 voted. 90,095 (58%) voted for unification with Gold Coast while 67, 492 voted (42%) for separation. The United Nation then decided that British Togoland should become part of Ghana, and in March 6, 1957 it did so.

KOTOKOLI (TEM)

The word Kotokoli is a popular name for tribes, called Tem. Tem form part of group of tribes put under the Gur ethnic group of West Africa found in present Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso and Benin.

The language Tem (Kotokoli), are believed to have migrated from around the present day Chad and settled in present Sokode and Bafilo in Togo and Republic of Benin, where some of them further migrated to Kue-Kotokoli, in the Volta-North of Ghana, with the administrative capital at Nkwanta, in the Nkwanta-South District of the Volta Region.

Now Kotokolis are found almost everywhere in Ghana, but still maintain Kue-Kotokoli as their traditional home. Wuro Alhaji Dauda Chedre Brenan11, is the Chief of Kue-Kotokoli,and also the Paramount Chief of Kotokolis in Ghana.

The town of Kue-Kotokoli and its immediate neighboring villages like Abdulai krom in the Nkwanta-South District of the Volta Region form part of the Kotokolis lands that extended from present Togo. And until 1956 plebiscite that confirmed the region acceptance to be part of the Gold Coast at independent the whole Volta Region including Yendi, Salaga extended to Bawku was ruled by Germans and later by the British.

Kotokoli is one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. Being industrious they indulge in Cocoa farming, Cola trades and commercial vehicle drivers.

Kotokolis embraced Islam as far as 16th Century with many Islamic Scholars, some included our late Father, Uncle, Grandfather, Great Grandfather and Professor, Sheikh Alhaji Abdulai Gomda of Yendi, the then Togoland section of Dagomba District, the late Sheikh Abdul Nasir, who established Siddique School Complex and Vocational Centre at Agona-Nyakrom and former Deputy National Chief Imamof Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama Muslim Sect. among others. May dear souls rest in perfect peace.

Some even fought for the British in the West Africa Frontier Forces (WAFF) in the First and Second World Wars including Congo wars and the present UN Peacekeeping Forces, because of their bravery.

Historically they fought against Musa Indewura Japka, Slave traders like Samori and Babatu, due to their prowess which culminated in the formation of a warrior group called the Semasi which was so strong that it conquered other smaller tribes in the Northern Togoland.

Apart from peaceful co-existence, tribes like Kotokolis, Dagombas, Bassaris, Gonjas, Chokosis, Bimobas and Konkombas etc, are all intermarried and have the same traditions and culture that are often portrayed in festivals such as Damba, Bugum of the Dagomba,the Maariborwu,Adosa, Kamaka, Dilla and Maulud-Nabih (Birth Day of Prophet Mohammed PBUH) of Kotokolis and also in the Takai dance of both tribes.

COLONIAL BORDER DEMARCATION PROBLEMS

The arbitrary demarcation of the nations boundaries in Africa by the Colonial Masters created the problem of tribal divisions which culminated into certain tribe found in either side of Ghana and other African Countries. For examples in the West we have Nzemas, Wassas, Akans etc found in Ghana and Cote dIvoire. In the North we have Dagarti, Sisalas, Gurunshies, Builsas, Kusasis, Frafras and Busangas found in Ghana and in Burkina Faso.

The Eastern border has tribes like the Ewes, Kotokolis, Adele, Atwodes, Basaris, Konkombas, Chokosis, Bimobas, Likpes, Buems, Guans etc. found in Ghana and Togo, that is why Kotokolis, Basaris, Chokosis, Bimobas etc. have historically lived together as brothers and playmates and never harmed each other.

In all elections in Ghana from 1957 up to 2012, Kotokolis played important roles as party adhere, such as the Action Troopers and Verandah Boys of the then Convention Peoples Party (CPP), the Action Group of the then National Liberation Movement (NLM), The Muslim Association Party (MAP) and latter United Party (UP), also the Founding Members of some Political Parties, Party Agents, Leading Members, Foot Soldiers etc etc. and exercised franchised in all the various elections.

Presently they could command a force of about three million votes. And some parties having realized this have taken advantage of this. The major revolutions in Ghana that is the 1979 and 1981 revolutions involved the Kotokolis who participated like any other Ghanaian to fight against corruption and eventually establish democratic rule.

Most of the Kotokoli students by then took part in the cocoa evacuation from land locked areas to the harbours. Historically Kotokolis led certain tribes in Ghana to fight for and capture lands on which they live today. But some of these tribes relegate the Kotokolis to the background and call them aliens to the land they fought for and captured such as Agona-Nyakrom in the Central Region and others.

How can such people become aliens or immigrants in the land they fought for, struggled for its independence contributed to its economic growth and development? I wish to reiterate to those who know historically and those who do not know that Kotokolis are spared the embarrassment caused by misguided utterances and torture by some unscrupulous Ghanaians by allowing our votes to be counted in the 9th May 1956 plebiscite. END

The writer is a Veteran Journalist and Politician.

Email: [email protected]
The Chicago Chapter of the New Patriotic Party congratulates the Ghanaian electorate for a peaceful campaign. We believe it is every bit the participation and comportment of the public that kept the peace. To consolidate the peaceful atmosphere, we humbly call on Ghanaians to be even more engaged and vigilant on election day. It suffices to say that; our collective destiny and democracy require us to do so.

Linked to our collective future, NPP Chicago Chapter respectfully calls on all registered Ghanaians to vote overwhelming for Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP on December 7th. Cast your votes for Nana Addo because Ghanas economy and general wellbeing depend on it.

The choice in this election is self-evident. President Mahama and the NDC have shown that they lack the policy ideas and discipline to manage the economy in a manner that improves the wellbeing of Ghanaians. When a government-run a growing economy into decline and create widespread unemployment, then, it is time for it to go.

The extreme economic hardship especially, youth unemployment and the weakening of the hitherto functional National Health Insurance Scheme demands that you vote for a change of leadership at the Flagstaffs House. A new leadership under Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP will lead Ghana with vision, purpose and a plan to restore economic growth and prosperity.

As Ghanaians resident, abroad, we have experienced firsthand the benefits of the industrialization policy Nana Akufo Addo, promised to implement when elected. So, your vote for Nana Akufo Addo is a vote for economic growth and employment. Your vote for Nana Akufo Addo is a vote to restore allowances for nursing and teacher trainees, smart healthcare and education investments among others.

Further, we urge you to vote for Nana Akufo Addo because he is a seasoned leader with a vision and the passion for executing. As John C. Maxwell says, a leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. John Maxwell appears to be describing Nana Akufo Addo, for, his story has been one of learning the way, going the way, and now with your vote, Nana Akufo Addo will show Ghana the way to economic success and sustained development.

So, be bold, proud and confident when you cast your vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo because it is the necessary first step to putting Ghana on a path to positive change.

All hail change, all hail Ghana!

NPP Chicago Chapter

Media Team
Now that the official electioneering campaigning has come to a close, I will seize the opportunity to say a big thank you to all the celebrities who made election songs for Nana Akufo Addo and NPP, hit the campaign trail to canvass for NPP and carried out other activities all to ensure a future better Ghana for all.

Among these celebrities were Agya Koo and his Agenda 57% brigade, Lucky Mensah, Evangel Manfred, Nana Kwame Ampadu, Great Ampong, Diana Asamoah, Daddy Lumba, Kwame A-Plus, Kwabena Kwabena and Aseibu Amanfi. Those whose names are not mentioned here should please forgive me because it is not intentional to leave them out but just that their names have escaped my mind.

Additionally, I thank all those Ghanaians who in diverse ways campaigned to garner more winning votes for Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP. Also, may God Almighty richly bless all those Ghanaians who have decided to, and are going to, vote to elect Nana Akufo Addo as Ghanas president and NPP to form the next government on 7 January 2017.

As we are anxiously waiting to exercise our franchise on Wednesday 7 December 2016, I shall implore all discerning Ghanaians, economically-suffering Ghanaians or financially-strapped Ghanaians, to remember that it is only by voting for a change of government that their circumstances can be made better.

They have the obligation to themselves and to mother Ghana to vote for a change of government from the NDC to NPP. That is the only way to prevent themselves from being blamed by posterity for failing them when they had the opportunity to help them by voting out President Mahama and NDC but failed to.

It is obvious how President Mahama and the NDC are squandering Ghanas money as though the world is coming to an end so they have to gluttonously consume every pesewa they can lay hands on today before it becomes too late.

As the campaign has formally come to an end, so shall I end my campaigning on the internet at midnight today, Monday 5 December 2016.

You are still reminded of the fasting and prayers to God to let happen our desire to have Nana Akufo Addo and NPP elected to form the next government following the 7 December 2016 election.

God is mightier than the rigging plots the NDC and Mrs. Charlotte Osei have set in motion provided we will seek His face in this time of difficulty, through fasting and prayers.

Change is coming to set Ghanaians free from the financial burden John Mahama has placed around our neck like a yoke.

Today, I was saddened to see the NDC distribute what seems to be take away among the NDC supporters at their grand round off rally at Agona Nsaba. The recipients of the take away and/or some tray were very happy. What could the take away and those receiving trays do to better their impoverished circumstance?

These people will be voting for NDC just for the fact of receiving a less valuable gift of a tray or a take away

Will President Mahama not have the cause to mock Ghanaians as having a short memory if ordinary take away can influence one to give their vote to him?

Anyway, God will let Nana Akufo Addo become the President-elect on Wednesday 7 December 2016. However, we need to continue to pray and do whatever is physically expected of us, thus, to go out and vote for Nana Akufo Addo and NPP on the Election Day.

Rockson Adofo
The Hague (AFP) - Former child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen pleaded not guilty Tuesday to crimes committed by the LRA rebel group in northern Uganda during a reign of terror spanning three decades.

"In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda," Ongwen said as his war crimes trial opened at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Those of you who visited Ivory Coast in pre-independence era can testify how wicked our colonial masters were. British didnt develop our cities nor build roads. The railway lines they built were purposely to carry timber, cocoa, bauxite, and other bulky goods to the ports to be shipped. The only infrastructure Ghana could boast of now were those built by Kwame Nkrumah and a few supplemented by recent regimes.

Infrastructure is an important variable for judging a county's, development. Infrastructure is the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of society or enterprise or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. It can generally be defined as the set of interconnected structural elements that provide framework supporting an entire structure of development. Infrastructure is the building block of a nation's development. Infrastructures play a major role to facilitate countrys logistic, communication and accesses to energy as an important part of national development.

They make their contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. It has been proven that the mechanism of each fast growing country was running by the well-managed infrastructure since it supports countrys logistic, communication and accesses to energy. Infrastructure has played a very significantly positive role in the growth performance of countries like South Korea, Japan and recently UAE. When considering infrastructure, site selectors most often consider hard infrastructure assets such as: number and quality of the roadways, airport capacity, rail line connections, availability and reliability of electricity, natural gas, and water and sewer utilities.

We must admit that, thanks to Dr Nkrumah, Ghana would have been like some Central African countries. We often times refer to South Kora and Malaysia but have forgotten massive influx of FDI to those countries just to block Chinese intrusion, We most want to visit Dubai but have forgotten some time ago United Arab Emirate was a desert land and massive investment in infrastructure has made it a golden land today. Donald Trump has promised trillions of massive infrastructure development when he takes office. Couldnt he have shared the money to Americans because till date some of them live on food stamps and the minimum daily wage is still $7?. Most of Ghanaians abroad have hard time making ends meet with a normal job, and most in US do double. Educated ones would have come home if they could have found job. So I am surprised Ghanaians are being brainwashed by power seekers that there are hardships in Ghana.

There are hardships everywhere and now country has fully recovered from 2008 credit crunch. No country in the world can boast of economic boom since the global recession. Surprisingly, Dr Bawumia, NPP so-called economist, is hiding that from his people. Have people asked why BREXIT, why Donald Trump took it to undocumented migrants? No long ago, car parks at our ministries, departments, security quarters, and schools were made for koko and yoko gari sellers. Now teachers, non-commissioned officers, clerks and even some students are using cars. Through hybrid breeds, there are sufficient food in the market throughout the year. So what is the complaint here? What is the hardship when everyone want to live in urban cities and expect poor farmers to feed them, or expect relatives abroad to remit them? Since the credit crunch, inward remittances have reduced drastically because there is not more greener pastures abroad. The opposition party ignorantly or explicitly tried painting Ghana as a hell to the international world, just because they are not at the helms of affair. This is wicked and diabolical propaganda to win sympathy votes from ignorant voters who will ascribe to their manifestoes.

They have made those in the basket of deplorable sing the same song as Incompetency Mahama, create, loot, and share , share with friends and families etc. John Mahama has engaged those he can trust and believe can to the job and thats why he does reshuffle often. JA Kufour put his brother and friends to key positions in his cabinet and we didnt complain. Looking at one of the driving forces behind South Korea growth were Chaebols. Chaebols are huge business conglomerates that are run by families. Samsung, Hyundai, LG, etc are Chaebols. From 19101945, Korea was a Japanese colony. As a result of Japanese capital investment, they built industrial infrastructures, schools, hospitals and a proper transport systems to aid their War goal.

My reference to South Korea is because I hear Dr Bawumia comparing Ghana to it many times. To quote from Wikipedia: When a military coup in 1961 led by general Park Chung-hee overthrew the Democratic Party, the result was a military junta under the SCNR. During this time, the first national Five-Year Plan (1962-1966) was implemented, becoming an important factor in the Miracle on the Han River. It aimed to develop the nation's economy through expansion of agriculture and energy industries such as coal and electric power; development of basic industries such as chemical fertilizer, cement, oil refinery, iron, and steel; expansion of social overhead capital including roads, railways, and ports; full utilisation of idle resources including increased employment; conservation and utilisation of land; export promotion to improve the balance of payments; and promotion of science and technology.[14] While this first Five-Year Plan did not bring about an immediately self-reliant economy, it brought a period of growth and modernization in preparation for long-term economic success and policy reform.[14]

I cant fathom whether its shear ignorance or lack of knowledge among some senior members of NPP to downplay the impact of infrastructure on our economy. Even the physically challenged can attest to the massive infrastructural development going on around the country. It is therefore true that President John Mahamas record is only second to that of our first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

THIS IS HOW NPP IS CAPABLE OF - RECORDS OF RULE: 2001 TO 2008

There is a lot of hypocrisy in contemporary politics. But it would be a mistake to assume that there is more hypocrisy around than ever before. There is just more political exposure than we think but people are critical with the truth which makes hypocrisy difficult to nd. It will be recall that hypocrisies of the contemporary politics are relatively and potentially very dangerous. Some examples are the hypocrisies surrounding the Ghana politics. We should stop trying to eliminate every form of hypocrisy, and we should stop vainly searching for ideally authentic politicians. Instead, we should try to distinguish between harmless and harmful hypocrisies and should worry only about its most damaging varieties. Looking back at the political history of Ghana, there is no doubt that we have not been deceived by some people roaming down their ambition down our throats, or using others as scapegoats.

In comparing todays' NPP seems to be comparing indictment of the Bush Administration's cynical, anti-democratic manipulation of the media. A critical analysis of American politics today, reviews the curtain on the pervasive political manipulation of the media-and reveals just how fragile our democracy is. Among them are political advertisements and press conferences to mainstream media reporting, clearly showing how political discourse is now dominated by carefully scripted images and rhetoric, all in favour of the NPP and their cohorts. One cannot deny the propaganda style of Akyem mafia politicians who hide behind the scene only to enjoy the fruits of what others have sacrificed their life for.

Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear. "Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, and lies have always been regarded as justifiable tools in NPP political dealings. Ghanaians must be wise in voting and vote not according to tribes or nepotism. Ghana cannot be a centre-right state but a democratic state where tribe is insignificant. The centre-right government would be the worst thing for Ghana. To set the records straight these some of nightmares we had.

The opposition party, NPP, claiming that the worst corrupt government Ghana has had is Mahama led government. Ghanaian voted President Kufour because they wanted a change. Mr Kufour promised Zero Tolerance For Corruption: by stating that "There will be, under this administration, zero tolerance for corruption," His Zero Tolerance For Corruption test was by renovating his private home with state money and acquiring Hotel Kufour, known as Hotel Wawa among other assets. This sham is what Mr. Kufour calls Zero Tolerance For Corruption? To cover up the financial scandal for fear of vilification, this hotel was sold out before Kufour left office. President Kufour warned his ministers that he won't permit corrupt administration, this he said  I won't tolerate vices but to set the records right. Retorting to President Kufour warning, one will ask if he did not see or hear his corrupt ministers like Dr. Dick Anane, Mr. Kwamena Bartels presiding over contracts and gave to his family, Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Mr. Muktar Bamba, Mr. Isaac Edumadze, Mr. Yaw Osafo-Marfo, Prof. Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi presided over loans for railways and shared among themselves, Dr. Kwame Amoako-Tuffour, Dr. Kofi Konadu Apreku and the like who plugged the state into severe financial losses, not to mention Kwasi Osei, his foreign minister who imported rotten rice from India, Asamoah Boateng, his information minister who stole the state's fund and Kennedy Agyapong, who was contracted in the last days of Kufour to supply electrical equipment but did not do. In fact, most of these men are the richest in Ghana.

Another corruption or shear wickedness saw the looting or stealing of furniture and fittings in state's bungalows occupied by NPP General Secretary, Nana Ohene Ntow and Mr Ebenezer Sekyi Hughes, speaker of parliament, after their term of office ended. In similar stream, before the naked eyes of Ghanaians, series of cocaine seized by the police and the drug enforcement agents, kept under strict surveillance at the police headquarters vanished in the thin air. In another circumstance, cocaine intercepted on the sea under the close watch by UK and US narcotic officers got missing and the suspects till now walked away free of charge. The current NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo, then minister of foreign affairs and later justice minister also issued Ghana's diplomatic passports to his niece and boyfriend, who were arrested in Latin America for peddling in cocaine.

The minister of finance, Mr. Osafo Marfo, and senior minister, Mr. J.H. Mensah, on two occasions deceived the Ghanaians to have contracted loans. It was later on found out that IFC loan address was someone salon and the CNCI loan was traced to someones garage. While Ghana has diplomas abroad who could have verified the authenticity of these establishments, the duo and their delegates travelled excessively to negotiate the loans which turned out to be a scam causing financial losses to the state.

As if that's not enough, when in opposition NPP blamed Rawlings' NDC of selling our telephone network to Melekom Malaysia and later Telenor. But just about to leave office, Kufour sold the same national treasure to Vodafone BV, who had never operated landline in UK and The Netherlands, for a mere token. He was able to lobby the NPP MPs to vote in favour of his plan. This same president after leaving office recommended MPs gratuity of $85,000 each and awarded himself $400,000 a year with luxury cars plus other amenities. They also sold state properties including bungalows and lands at very cheap prices among themselves. There are even no records that they paid for them.

APPLE DOESNT FALL FAR FROM THE TREE

In George Orwells Animal Farm, Snowball said The only good human being is the dead one, that is how hypocritical Ghana politics is. It brings to light how UGCC/NLM/UP, the precursor of NPP did to Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Dr Kwame Nkrumah in 1960s was declared the worst leader on the earth, very corrupt, incompetent, dictator, communist and to an extend that he was known to suck blood and was consult juju called kankan nyame. There were so many assassination attempts on his life. The opposition sabotaged anything Dr Nkrumah planned to do for Ghana and when he was finally overthrown all academic books were burnt and CPP was banned totally in Ghana. Below are few things the opposition did to Dr Kwame Nkrumah:

1. PRIOR TO OUR INDEPENDENCE, DR J.B. DANQUAH SENT DR K.A.BUSIA TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND TO STOP GHANA'S INDEPENDENCE.

2. THEY TRIED 5 BOMBS ATTEMPT ON DR NKRUMAH FROM 1951 TO 1958, ONE WAS ON 10 NOVEMBER 1958 AT HIS RESIDENCE IN ACCRA NEW-TOWN.

3. THEY TRIED SUBOTAGING AKOSOMBO DAM WHEN DR BUSIA APPROACHED US AMBASSADOR MAHONEY TO INFLUENCE USA TO STOP SUPPORTING NKRUMAH.

4. ON 2 AUGUST 1962 : KULUNGUGU BOMB ATTEMPT ON DR NKRUMAH, ON HIS RETURN FROM MALI AND BURKINA TO STOP THEM FROM BLOCKING THE UPSTREAM OF RIVER VOLTA.

5. ON NEW YEAR EVE THEY PLACE POLICE CONSTABLE SETH AMETEWE ON GUARD AT FLAGSTAFF HOUSE TO KILL DR NKRUMAH.

6. FINALLY CONNIVED WITH WESTERN COUNTRIES TO OVERTHROW DR NKRUMAH.

So like father like son, NPP will always criticize anything if they are not in power, if its not their way, nobodys way. We know it from historical and President John Dramani Mahama is a victim. First it was Dumsor and when the light problem was 90% solve, they came back to corruption. When they couldnt incriminate anyone or had nothing to prove, then complained economic hardship. They cried not to have money in their pockets as if Ghana can afford paying social benefits. What is new now is, Mahama is INCOMPETENT and MISMANAGEMENT. Then came allegations and unnecessary press conferences. Those in deplorable are chanting Change. But out of Mahamas incompetency, Ghana has been held in high esteem in terms of infrastructural development and investors confidence. Yet NPP and those deplorable cant see. The sad aspect of it is that they refuse to see because they are sleeping. And I believe they will sleep till thy kingdom come.

We have followed various countries politics but the type of politics NPP is staging is a mushroom one. Because they jump into anything they hear and quickly adapt it as their blueprint. In a camouflaging politics they put up these bogus and unfeasible promises:

They will build Houses for Kayayei  more houses for Kayayei, will attract more Kayayei instead of training them to stop migrating. They will establish Zongo Development Fund  Zongo People are not refugee in Ghana, they are all Ghanaians and why do they need special Fund? This is an INSULT and SEGREGATION. One District-One Factory  Total of 216 Factories? Did Akufo Addo even build one in 12 years at Kyebi or how many did President JA Kufuor built in 8 years? One Village-One Dam - Average of 3800 dams excluding Greater Accra. Should the villagers expect toilet pit (Atonkom). Those of us from the villages know its gimmick. Is this dam going to be on my fathers land or who else? Creating Western North Region as campaign promise? It was an article I wrote: North Western Region In Offing on 2 July 2014. It went viral on various media. I sent copies to Sefwi Chiefs and some prominent people and I copied to NDC. I met Sefwi students during their interaction with one Sefwi Paramount Chief at GNAT Hall in July and I emphasized on that and referred them to my article. Tell Nana Addo to come again. NPP has promised and dont mind promising harbor in Tamale, but then they have promised to tax cut. With tax cut, how can they even afford Single Spine Salaries, restoring various allowance, build kingdoms for security personnel.

When you are desperate for power, you dont mind promising Heaven.

Fellow Ghanaians and distinguished voters, your vote is your power, vote wisely and vote against LIES, PROPAGANDA, UTOPIAN PROMISES. They have none and will give none. Vote NDC and retain President John Dramani Mahama to power. NPP Change is mere rhetoric.

FOR ME, I DECLARE MY SUPPORT FOR MR JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA.

MAHAMA, TOASO!!!!

VOTE FOR MAHAMA, VOTE FOR DEVELOPMENT!!!!!

Lewis Kwame Addo

Amsterdam
Mr. Anthony Kwaku Amoah, a Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Ghana Education Service (GES), has urged teachers to use their skills and competencies to help pupils to study well.

According to Mr. Anthony Amoah, the teacher is a role model and facilitator in the process of education delivery and so the need for those people engaged in it to do it with the best of professionalism and commitment that it deserves.

Mr. Amoah made the remark during a tour of some basic schools, including Ave-Havi D/A, Ave-Afiadenyigba D/A & R/C and Ave-Adzigo D/A schools in the Akatsi North District of the Volta Region, which also had in attendance some executives of the Parent-Teacher Associations and School Management Committees of the schools.

As teachers, lets help control the activities of the children that we teach for them to become great men and women in the future. Engage parents and the community to fight cases of sexual immorality that have hit our society and children hard in recent times, he said and queried, For how long should we sit unconcerned as these kids patronise series of wake-keeping, funerals and social media to the detriment of their school education?.

The head teachers of the schools expressed gratitude to the PRO for his visit and seized the chance to appeal for the supply of educational materials, including textbooks and computers, to assist their schools to churn out good quality education to their pupils.

Mr. Bismark Mark Kwadwo Ahiawodzi, Head teacher of Ave-Havi D/A Basic School, said, We are very grateful to have you around and we pray that you continue to visit us for an encounter like this. I would like to appeal to you, on behalf of the school, to get us some textbooks and computers with accessories for use in teaching the pupils.

Mr. Amoah donated some handbooks on GES policies and programmes to the schools and urged teachers to study things outside of the classroom for enhanced performance.
The UK & Ireland Chapter of the NDC urge Ghanaians to exercise their franchise peacefully on Wednesday, 7th December 2016.

All eligible voters are encouraged to go out in their numbers to vote massively for President John Dramani Mahama in support of his unprecedented achievements to continue his good work of transforming Ghana and Changing Lives.

We want to use this opportunity to advise fellow citizens to comport themselves before, during and after the elections to keep the peace we have been enjoying and also to maintain the credentials we have earned as beacon of Africa when it comes to democracy.

Vote wisely! Vote for peace and development! Vote for JM!

God bless you all.

Michael Frempong

PRO, UK & Ireland Chapter

December 6th,2016.
I went on a trip to South Africa for my usual business in that country on October 11, 2016 and went through an ordeal I would like to share with others.

On the said date, I saw some South Africans, Nigerians, Ghanaians and Congolese in and around the Oliver Thambo Airport in Johannesburg doing one thing or another.

I spoke to a Ghanaian named Prince at the Airport, enquiring about a ticket for my friend to return to Ghana after the trip. My friend had booked a one-way ticket.

He told a Congolese, who approached me that he wanted to help get the ticket.

Alaine, as I was told he is called, took an amount of 3000 Rands from me under the pretense of buying me the ticket. After taking the money, he disappeared into thin air, defying all attempts to arrest him. He was able to outwit the security men at the airport because he was very conversant with the area.

I reported the case to the Police who admitted it wasnt the first time he had done such, since some of the Congolese and other nationals at the airport are engaged in fraudulent activities. That was the end of my attempt to recover my money or ticket.

On another occasion, I went to buy a phone at Kempton Park. I withdrew money from the ATM of Standard Bank and paid the phone seller, who happens to be a Nigerian. The phone cost 600 Rands. The following day, he and other colleagues approached us as we passed by and claimed 200 Rands of the money I paid him with was fake.

We tried to reach a compromise by asking them to show us the fake notes so we replace them but they refused. We also proposed that they bring the remaining four hundred Rands so we return their phone too but that also didnt yield any result so they collected the phone by force from us and in the ensuing confusion the phone fell down and broke.

That was the end of the phone and the money.

Based on those experiences and others, I would like to advise all travelers to South Africa to be wary of some elements who approach them to offer unwarranted support or help and when buying at the markets, they should exercise a lot of caution.

This is not to tag the country as a violent or crime-prone one but to help avoid unfortunate experiences such as the ones I had, and as I was told, others have also gone through.

Collins Obeng Agyare

C.E.O.

KnB Company Ltd.
Former Attorney General Martin A.B.K. Amidu has said President John Mahama and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) government are too corrupt to be retained in office.

According to the anti-corruption crusader, the time has come for Ghanaians to vote massively for a new government of integrity.

He cited a litany of corruption scandals involving President Mahama, saying we are told this President is incorruptible, tell it to the marines.

He said the only way for Ghanaians to retrieve GH51.2 million of state money illegally paid to NDC financier Alfred Agbesi Woyome is to vote massively against the NDC, who have been conniving with Woyome to keep the money.

Public Purse

The representative democratic process provided for in our Constitution gives citizens the power to change corrupt governments and public purse looters like this President's Government once every four years at the presidential elections, Mr. Amidu said in his latest news release.

Vote this President out on 7th December 2016 so that we do not need any further examination orally on oath of Woyome by me in person for you to get your money back. The new government will have the duty of getting your money back in the shortest possible time because of the confidence you would have reposed in it.

Do we wait another four years while a John Mahama Government drags its feet and shields the very lootees it has helped? he quizzed.

Deceitful Gov't

Mr. Amidu said, If you vote the incumbent President back into power after 7th December 2016, I can assure you that no examination on oath by me will ever get your money back again, adding you will be re-electing a government that has been deceiving you about its intention to retrieve even a pesewa.

This is why if we want our money back plus every interest on it we must vote for a new President on 7th December 2016. Up until now, I have preferred to concentrate on the loot of GH51.2 million by the Government for Woyome with Austro-Invest, the incumbent Attorney General's former client, and the Waterville case with over 47million unconstitutional loot by this Government again for Waterville.

State Machinery

He said that anytime the issue of corruption had been leveled against the President and his assigns, the government machinery had come out strongly to defend the President, saying the lies about the incorruptibility of this President do not hold up to scrutiny against the available evidence.

Let us look at examples of how the incumbent President has plundered the public purse. Do you remember SADA where the President's own kinsmen and others who raped the public purse have never been dealt with? Why? Because the President could not see to its prosecution since the President is himself tainted by it.

He recounted other projects such as the forestation of northern Ghana and the guinea fowls being reared for Upper East Region; projects that never existed.

Free Port Deal

The former AG also mentioned the Atuabo Free Port Agreement, saying you cannot fail to see the corruption embodied in it with Government institutions like SSNIT, GHAPOHA and others being forced to contribute to the free carried interest which the foreign beneficiary was to pay to the Government of Ghana.

He said even when President Mahama tried to act on corruption issues, he was selective in his approach, saying this President pretends to prosecute only those he dislikes like Abuga Pele, the MP for Paga, and a few others, adding but he only uses the pretended prosecutions to whip his wayward Party members into line.

$13 million

Mr. Amidu said as a condition for the President John Evans Atta Mills to sign what he called a controversial executive consent to permit the E.O. Group to assign its $300million shares to Tullow, the E.O. Group agreed to pay $13 million to the government for the development of the Western Region, and they called it corporate social responsibility and it was then Vice President Mahama who had 'orchestrated' the unlawful deal and said he (Amidu) refused to endorse the deal as Attorney General.

It was Mahama who ensured that the $13 million was paid not to the Government of Ghana for the benefit of the people, but into private pockets, which the late President Mills was shocked to hear shortly before his death, he said.

By William Yaw Owusu
President John Dramani Mahama has warned foreigners in the country's cement industry against unfair trade practices.

The President disclosed this while speaking recently in Tema at the launch of the factory of CIMAF Cement, a Moroccan firm.

The 60 million cement factory, which will operate under the free zones board, has the capacity to produce one million tons of cement annually.

President Mahama bemoaned the unfair practices by some foreign companies in Ghana.

The President's warning comes on the back of complaints by local cement producers about unfair trade practices in the local cement industry by some foreign firms.

It would be recalled that the Association of Cement Manufacturers of Ghana have accused SOL Cement, Fujian, Dangote Cement and other cement importers of engaging in unfair trade practices to gain competitive advantage over the other counterparts.

For example, the local cement manufacturers, GHACEM and Diamond Cement, say the low prices of Dangote cement and others were adversely affecting their businesses.

Even though Dangote has since debunked the allegations, President Mahama believes foreign firms in the country ought to desist from any trade malpractices aimed at gaining undue advantage over their local counterparts.

He, however, gave the assurance the government would protect local companies.

By Melvin Tarlue


Karpowership Ghana Limited has presented a fully furnished ultramodern computer laboratory to Manhean Anglican JHS in Tema.

The computer laboratory comprises 31 computer sets, 31 desks and other equipment.

Prior to this, the school had no computers and students had to be transported to near-by schools for practical Information Communication Technology (ICT) lessons.

Speaking at the inauguration of the computer lab, Volkan Buyukbicer, Country Manager of Karpowership Ghana, said the donation was in line with Karpowership's Corporate Social Responsibility to support education and improve literacy in communities which they operate.

He said, The speedy growth in technology has made acquiring knowledge in the sector very necessary in our day-to-day lives. It has become very important for every individual to be up-to-date in the use of computers, and this is seen in the inclusion of ICT in the curricula of every school. That is why we embraced the opportunity to attend to this important need of Manhean Anglican JHS.

Marian Cobblah, Headmistress of Manhean Anglican JHS, expressed gratitude to Karpowership for the gesture.

This donation is sure to boost students' concentration in class and enhance teachers' efficiency in the teaching of ICT. We are very delighted to have benefited from this initiative, she said.

Isaac Ashai Odamtten, Chief Executive of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), also lauded Karpowership for supporting education in the community and called for long-term relationship with the company.

He said, The record Karpowership has set in adopting this computer lab is going to have far-reaching benefits.

Last month, the company donated learning materials which included back packs, stationery and other learning materials to 2,000 students at the Manhean Anglican Cluster of Schools.

They also presented one-year bursary to 100 needy but brilliant students at Manhean Presbyterian Primary School and Manhean TMA Primary and JHS.


ABOUT 200 supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who call themselves 'Friends of Magoo' (Margret Ansei)  the District Chief Executive and the party's parliamentary candidate for the Suhum Constituency in the Eastern Region  have defected to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) barely 24 hours for Ghanaians to go to the polls.

The NDC supporters unanimously declared their support and appealed to the electorate to vote massively for Frederick Opare Ansah, the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, NPP flag bearer, to win the parliamentary and the presidential elections.

The group, according to sources, has its members in the villages in the constituency, among who are said to be some NPP members who crossed carpet to the NDC in 2000 and have now decided to vote for the NPP.

Edward Bekoe, chairman of the group who announced the decision at a press conference on Sunday, said they formed the group in 2012 to support the current Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, who promised to help the youth when he was contested for the parliamentary seat but lost to Mr Opare Ansah.

Mr Bekoe indicated that when the NDC won the 2012 elections, the party abandoned them.

The attitude of the NDC parliamentary candidate towards the party has created confusion and division among the constituency executives; and due to that we dont think she can win the seat, thats why we have decided to support Opare Ansah and Nana Addo who we see can move Ghana forward when given the nod, Bekoe stated.

When contacted by DAILY GUIDE, Mr Percy Fosu, special assistant to Magoo, said the members are not those supporting her (Mrs Margret Ansei), but belong to another group.

FROM Daniel Bampoe, Suhum
A Muslim activist, social commentator and researcher, Abdul-Fattah Twahir Akinyele, has added his voice to the call of Martin Alamisi Amidu on Ghanaians not to entrust the reigns of governance of the country into the hands of President John Dramani Mahama.

In an informal discussion with Abdul-Fattah, aka Mallam or Sheikh, he said that President John Mahama has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that he is not a sincere and trustworthy and must as a matter of urgency be voted out to save Ghana from his corrupt, incompetent and disgraceful leadership.

Until the masses, who spend precious time standing in queues for hours to vote for their own people to come to power to manage their affairs for them take the issues of good governance very seriously, their poverty, their deprivation, their misery, the squalour they live in; all the dehumanizing conditions will only perpetually constitute the stanzas for politicians year in year out, he said.

Hon. Martin Alamisi Amidu's call for President John Mahama to voted out from office is in the right direction, he said.

On the Hajj, Mallam said that since the NDC came to power, all efforts to get back Hajj for the Muslim Ummah had proved futile.

All what President John Mahama has done since 2009 to date is to play 'Kwaanikwaani' and time-buying tactics with the Muslim Ummah, and above all not showing good faith in even honouring some promises he made.

Mallam said he had a wrong perception about late President John Evans Atta Mills but that perception changed when he realized that the man was a good person and that it was actually John Mahama and some Muslims around him, who did not want Muslims to take control of the Hajj management.

He said after series of meetings at the Osu Castle in 2009, it came to light that John Mahama, then the vice president, called the bluff of a directive from the National Security Advisor to the late President Atta Mills to the then newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon. Alhaji Muhammed Mumuni.

The directive was for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to pave the way for the rightfully constituted body-the National Hajj Council of the Muslim Ummah- to take control of Hajj management.
The Ga Dangme Council, Ga Dangme Muslim Council and the Alliance of Ga Dangme Organizations Overseas have jointly petitioned President John Mahama to extend the deadline for the submission of claims for the Accra Marine Drive Investment Project to June 30, 2017.

They also asked the President to hold public hearings in Ga, Osu and Jamestown communities to properly inform community members via written, verbal and visual information about the Marine Drive Project and elicit input and address concerns.

The petition was accordingly submitted to the President yesterday in Accra through the Secretary of the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah.

The petitioners had reportedly succeeded in obtaining signatures from 600 Ghanaians who are opposed to the project.

The petitioners urged the President to consult and liaise with a committee comprising representatives of the Ga, Osu and Jamestown Traditional Council, Ga Dangme organizations, and community leaders to elicit their inputs and feedback to ensure that they are informed about developments and progress of the Marine Drive Project.

The petitioners further admonished President Mahama to ensure that the project includes local content, culture, images and symbols in the proposed tourism project, recruit and hire indigenous artisans and contractors.

The Marine Drive Investment Project seeks to modernize the coastal belt of Accra to make the city a trade and economic hub in the West African sub-region.

The project, jointly financed by three Chinese companies, would be situated on land stretching from the Osu Castle through the Independence Square to the Arts Centre under Executive Instrument 59.

But residents along the coastal belt of Accra, who are likely to be affected by the project, have continuously accused government of not being transparent in the negotiation process in the execution of the project.

It would be recalled that residents of Osu, a few months ago, held a press conference to protest against government's plans to undertake the Marine Drive Project.

Members of the Ga Dangme Council, Ga Dangme Muslim Council, who are the latest to join others to oppose the Marine Drive project, believe proceeds from the sale of Ga Dangme lands by government were going into the pockets of few private individuals.

Former President of the Ga Dangme Council, Dr. K.B. Asante, who addressed the media yesterday after the submission of the petition, said the government's continual sale of public lands acquired compulsorily from the Ga and Dangme people to private interests without any benefits to the original allodia owners is not only confrontational and insensitive but does not bode well for peace in Ghana.

It exacerbates the tensions and legitimate anxiety that has arisen over the handling of Ga and Dangme lands acquired by the Gold Coast and Ghana governments, it said.

They have therefore called for more time in the consultation process to ensure that the interests of all parties in relation to the acquisition of the land are promoted.

By Melvin Tarlue
The old students' association of the Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS) have sunk a bore-hole with pipe-stand for the second cycle institution to help bring to an end the intermittent acute water problem that confronts the school.

The water facility, estimated at GH41,000 is being provided by the 1986 year group of the school also known as 'Subruku 86'.

With the project in place, the students will no longer have to trek long distances to fetch water from outside the school when there is water shortage on campus.

At a brief ceremony to officially hand over the project to the school, Mr Julius Ben Asare one of the 1986 old boys of GSTS also called 'GIANTS 86' noted that visiting the school after close to 30 years, the old students realized that the water problem that persisted when they were students in the school was still on-going.

So there was the need for us to do something. We then decided to sink a bore-hole for the school to help alleviate the water problem, he added.

He explained that the school already had an underground reservoir and so the engineers on the project managed to pump water into it. He indicated that the reservoir had only one hand pump installed on it which served the entire school populace.

So we added 10 pipe stands and also donated a 15,000 litre storage water tank, he indicated.

Mr Asare pointed out that the project which cost about GH41,000 will solve about 70 per cent of the water problems of GSTS.

In a related development, the 1976 year group of the school also handed over refurbished computer laboratory at the cost of GH80,000 to the school.

Speaking on behalf of the 1976 year group, Anthony Mensah noted that members of the group, majority of whom were domiciled in the United Kingdom and the United States of America wanted to put up a project that would benefit all the students.

So after talking to the headmaster and the teachers, we decided to rehabilitate the computer laboratory which was in a bad state, he added.

He disclosed that the old students fixed burglar proof on the windows and doors of the laboratory and provided modern computer tables with cubicles for each computer.

We were told that thieves had broken into the laboratory on two occasions and so we think the burglar proof will go a long way to ensure the safety of the computers at the laboratory, he stated.

Mr Mensah added that the 1976 year group also tiled the floor of the laboratory and painted the building to give it a face-lift.

Samuel Essel, Headmaster of the School praised the old students for helping to address some of the challenges confronting their alma mater.

From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi


American, Sri Lankan envoys call on Prime Minister Dahal

American and Sri Lankan ambassadors called on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal separately on Monday and discussed latest political development in Nepal, bilateral relations and areas of mutual interest.
Speaker of Parliament Edward Doe Adjaho and a number of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) stalwarts in the Volta Region have descended on Akatsi South constituency to campaign for the party's candidate Bernard Ahiafor.

Reports from the Volta Region indicated that they had sensed that the party was going to lose the seat to Lawyer Evans Gadetor Djikunu who broke ranks with the NDC to contest as an independent candidate after accusing the party of shortchanging him hence the last minute push to convince voters to change their mind.

They were allegedly spreading cash and other goodies to voters in the constituency to enable the NDC retain the seat.

Apart from the Speaker, the NDC gurus who were campaigning in the constituency included former Roads Minister Joe Gidisu, former Regional Minister Modestus Ahiable and Henry Ametefe, the Regional Organizer.

They were said to be moving from villages and towns urging opinion leaders and chiefs to impress on their people to retain the NDC in the interest of the party even though they conceded the NDC had not done enough for the people of the region.

According to a DAILY GUIDE source, the NDC gurus had shared GH20 among all motorbike riders in Akatsi and its environs with the task to impress on their passengers to vote for the ruling party.

It was also alleged that a prominent chief in the area was going round sharing money to his colleague chiefs and other opinion leaders to retain the NDC.

In spite of all the maneuverings, the independent candidate says he will shock the NDC on Wednesday.

The people have read in between the lines, he told DAILY GUIDE via telephone and added they cannot be fooled all the time. Every voter is becoming discerning.

He said the people had become disenchanted because for many years the NDC had taken them for granted saying, There are no jobs for the youth and the poverty gap continues to widen. They wait for elections and come to the constituency to distribute freebies. We can't continue this way.

He said the work the NDC had done for the people could not be enough judging from the unalloyed support the ruling party had received from the people over the years.

Mr. Djikunu said he had outlined what he called a 'comprehensive plan' for the constituency and promised to make agriculture, health, education, roads and water and sanitation a priority when given the nod to represent the people of Akatsi South in Parliament.

He said the NDC launched their campaign on September 25 and made me their target, heaping insults on my person but I am not going to engage them on a platform of insults. I want us to debate bread and butter issues that are affecting the daily lives of our people.

Mr. Djikunu said I am not promising heaven for the people but I will do my best as a lawmaker to get their grievances addressed so that together we shall create wealth for the benefit of all.

By William Yaw Owusu
The man is as sleek as the serpent. Like Mikhail Gorbachev, John Dramani Mahama is a sheep in a wolfs cloths. Right from the beginning of his political career, Mikhail Gorbachev avowed aim was to destabilize the Soviet Union by bringing communism to its knees. In a similar mien, John Dramani Mahamas singular ambition in life was to be head of the Ghanaian political entity

This cunning Mahama, right from the beginning began to put in place plans to help actualize that aim of attaining the Golden Fleece. Like Gorbachev, he pretended to be a loyalist of Professor John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills. Rawlings deduction of se aboa no beka wo a na ofura won tama (if the animal will bite you then it is wearing your cloths) holds true here.

His selection as Vice Presidential candidate of NDC was the beginning of Mills journey to the underworld. And as I will state later, pretenders deliberately put a wedge between Rawlings and the learned Professor for a purpose. Unfortunately, the late President, like Rehoboam forsook the advice of his mentor and the result was the eventual demise of the late President.

You see Mills was a decent man in an evil contraption but his sickness actually reduced his reasoning faculties. Twice his acolytes told us that he rejected fat envelopes meant to compromise him. Can we say same of current President Mahama?

A big no!

He accepted a gift on a gargantuan scale from a Burkinabe national. Earlier on, he had inflated some invoices in connection of purchasing some air crafts for the Ghana Armed Forces. It was so huge that his boss, late President was shocked and so appointed a three man committee to investigate the shady deal.

But our sleek President like the clever servant in the Bible realized what was at stake and acted fast before the long alms of the law caught up with him. The rest is history

We prefer the sacking of the treacherous National Chairman of our party to the bizarre and unexplained circumstances resulting in the death of late President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills. This is because, the monster aided by the charlatans and brood of vipers would stop at nothing to achieve its crude intention. It is similar to denying the devil a seat in your house. Then, it would prefer to sit on your nose. The unknown assassins of late Presidet Mills have put Ghanaians between the devil and the evil grove.

Yes, the man called John Dramani Mahama has taught us a bitter lesson, for he stands out as one of three African leaders to have shown a great deal of ingratitude to their mentors.

The first is Paul Biya of Cameroon who was foisted on the people by outgoing President, Ahidjo. His reward? A fake coup detat, orchestrated by Biya implicated his predecessor. In the end, Ahidjo was tried and sentenced to death in absentia.

The second was Mwamanaissa of Zambia. Against all protestation by the Zambians that the elections were rigged, Chiluba, outgoing President went ahead and made Mwannaissa his successor. Mwannaissa later accused his mentor of corruption. In the end, God became the arbiter, when He used his big stick to snuff life out of Mwamanaissa, the ungrateful wretch.

This time, we are not watching a live video. We are living witnesses to what is happening. We have seen and are still seeing it with our naked kurokuro eyes. And it is about the ingratitude of a man called John Dramani Mahama.

President Mahama has cut the knot that binds the Ghanaians together as one people. You see, the death of the late President was programmed in such a way that, like Caesar, he put so much trust in his so-called loyalists and lost touch with reality. Yes, security gave way to conspiracy. Some of the monsters trusted allies pretended to be friends of late President Mills.

As already stated, the first plan they put in motion was to put a wedge between the late Professor and his mentor, former President Rawlings. They knew that as long as the Professor and his mentor were on good terms, it would be impossible to carry out their diabolical plans. So, the scheming began. On one occasion, when Rawlings went to discuss an issue with the late President, the pretenders told him that the President did not want to see him. At that time, Mills was having his bath and had no idea that Rawlings had come to see him. The former President felt slighted and left in anger. The gulf between the two widened. This is the simple truth.

President Mahama wrote a book and he titled it My First Coup detat. Against whom, one may ask? In less than six months or so after launching his book, the President died. And it would interest you to know that Yaw Boateng Gyan, former National Organizer of the Nefarious Contraption said that rumors of Mills death before it happened had originated from the camp of a top official at the Presidency, who stood to gain on the death of Mills.

To show you how vindictive and callous the President is, I want to take you back to events which happened a few days before the learned Professor died officially. According to Mahama, he went to the late Presidents office but did not find him in the office. He next went to his own office to find a note left on his table by Prof. Mills. Now, the question is this. The late Presidents residence was within the Castle where Mahama also had his office. What prevented him (John Mahama) from going to the residence of the then President to find out what was wrong with him?

Since John Dramani Mahama became President, he has reversed almost every policy put in place by his Predecessor. The party has not even deemed it expedient as a matter of courtesy to observe a minute silence in his memory in any of its numerous ceremonies.

He has deliberately refused to acknowledge the fact that his Government is a continuation of Mills own. But he himself said I was virtually the President in the latter part of Mills Presidency. Now, all the so-called acolytes of Mills who used to call him charitable names and said he was the best thing that ever happened in the country are singing a different tune. They are saying Mahama is the best President Ghana has ever had. They even claim he is better than Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Founder of Ghana. And I am asking them this question: Between Mills and Mahama, who is better?

You see, when they found out that the late President was seriously ill, they decided to exacerbate the sickness by using some ways and means methods. And that was the reason why Nii Lante Vanderpuye took him to a juju man to make a ring for him to put on his finger. Instead of the warding off evil forces, it rather worsened his illness. You see how diabolical these people in the nefarious contraption are.

Immediately, the professor passed on to the land beyond, the babies with sharp teeth, the greedy bastards and the evil dwarfs shouted eureka. Revisionism started. Mills was against taking part in the debate organized by the IEA. Immediately after his demise, the NDC made a reversal.

John Mahama revealed his disdain for his former boss when dissidents and rebels from the NDC were brought back into the party soon after the demise of the formrt President. Those people had resigned from the party or had their membership put on hold, but with Mahama in the saddle, people like Obed Asamoah, Bede Ziedeng, Captain Boakye Djan and many others had their membership restored to them. Under Mills, they had been persona non grata Who says, Man no dey? Man dey!

What about the Dzi wo Fie Asem (Eat you House Matter) syndrome of late Mills? Mills was against sending Ghanaian troops to Cote dIvoire. NDC shouted unto the highest heavens and praised Mills for being his own man. They even said the UN Secretary General had praised him for his stance on the impasse in Cote dIvoire. In comes John Dramani Mahama. He sent Ghanaian troops to quell a rebellion in Mali where Islamic fundamentalists are having a field day. What has changed? Ghanaians are familiar with the terrain in Cote dIvoire. What about Mali?

Did not Mills turn the Castle into a Prayer House? Yes, he did and we applaud him on that. He was against Homosexuality and Lesbianism. He told the world powers to go to hell with their money. In comes danger boy, John Dramani Mahama, who is riding a bicycle without brakes down a slope. He appoints a gay activist into his cabinet. This gay activist says gays have a right. What rights? Do they have other rights that do not affect ordinary citizens? If they do, I am yet to be told how.

The Vice President of the Gay Movement even made a large donation at the launch of President Mahamas book My First Coup detat. That is John Dramani Mahama for you.

Appointments in Mills Government were tilted in favour of the Dzelokupe Mafia against the Fante Confederation spearheaded by the Ahwoi brothers. Now, the Northern Mafia led by the Presidents brother are in control . Muritalla Mohammed and Omane Boama are assisting Ibrahim Mahama to loot our collective tool.

We should not forget the fact that Mills had kicked against moving the Presidency from the Castle to Jubilee House, now renamed Flagstaff House. While Mills was alive, the NDC had said it would use the entire edifice as a hen coop. But the flamboyant, young man moved the seat of Government to the building a few months after the demise of his predecessor. What do they say to their argument that it would be incompatible for the President as representative of the downtrodden masses to live in such opulence while majority of Ghanaians wallow in abject poverty

In terms of who could foul the air and mouth foul their political opponents; Squealer Okudzeto Ablakwa was made the arrowhead of such vicious barking dogs and babies with sharp teeth. But under Mahama, his contriman Muritalla Mohammed has gained notoriety as head of such evil dwarfs.

Ghanaians appear to be blinded by quackery. As the election draws closer, there is the need to put all the cards on the tape for Ghanaians to make well informed decisions. I am saying it on authority that current President, John Dramani Mahama has a murky past. He cannot absolve himself in the murder of his predecessor and it is my responsibility as a defender of democracy to alert the citizenry on this. Akua Donkor, the darling of the President even corroborates this.

The NDC as it now stands and led by its @Commander in Thief harbors thieves, rapists, necromancers, thugs, murderers, cut throats, quacks, criminals and vermin. It is filled with arrogant thieves who have milked dry our collective toll.

What so you do to such criminals? In the early part of the revolution, they would have been tied to the stake and shot. But we shall be magnanimous this time around. We shall send them to the Coventry. We have to vote out John Mahama, now christened Ali Baba and his bunch of criminals

Vote them out ooo! They are criminals!! They are murderers who are sucking your blood and giving you steroids just to keep you going. They are blood sucking vampires who ought to be sent to the nearest witches camp to be purged of their evil activities.

The President and his bunch of looters are archetypes of nation wreckers. Having accepted their cruel fate that they have tainted souls which will be short, nasty and brutish, they have had no compunctions on inflicting pain on all the rest of us.

Yes, majority of Mahamas government are armed robbers. Armed with power and pens, these sadists have unarguably behaved as if there would be no tomorrow. They have milked the nation dry and almost brought us to our knees. But whether they are armed robbers or pen robbers, a thief is always a thief. Armageddon awaits them and it will happen sooner than they expect.

On a very serious note, some Ghanaians think and believe that the late President was seen as a liability to the Ruling Party on account of his failing health against the rigors and demands of the 2012 General Elections. The fear of this liability and the reality that their political opponents were waiting to take them on squarely for that against the constant assurance of the late Presidents good health by his handlers and close aides set them to do serious mathematics. The answer to the calculation was the elimination of the good old Professor (the liability). After all, what is the soul of one Liability Professor of Law compared to the souls of Three High Court Judges and a Military Officer when an election is at stake?

Ghanaians, December 7, 2016 offers you a better opportunity to know the true killers of our late President and the late J. B. Danquah. A vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo will make this a reality

Will you take it? I shall return!

Daniel Danquah Damptey ( [email protected] ) 0243715297

(Self-Appointed Special Aide to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo)
The political process does not end on election day. Young people need to stay involved in the process by continuing to pay attention to the conversation and holding their leaders accountable for the decisions they make. These are words of the renowned Patrick Murphy. General elections in Africa has been the cause of several wars but the truth of the matter is that it can't be ignored as it forms the mark of hope for the end of tyrannical rules. Presidential elections in Burundi took place on July 21, 2015 despite calls by African leaders and Western powers for it to be delayed due to the tensions in the country. Incumbent President, Pierre Nkurunziza won a new term having been said to have garnered 69.41 percent of the votes cast, with his nearest rival, Agathon Rwasa, taking 18.99 percent of the votes. Nkurunzizas decision in April 2015 to seek a third term had plunged the country into its biggest crisis since the civil war ended in 2005 with the opposition saying Nkurunzizas bid violated the constitution. The opposition consequently called for Nkurunziza to form a Unity government to avert a new civil war but even before Nkurunziza could think of the demand, violent clashes erupted in December (three months after the elections leaving most people on the African Continent calling for Nkurunzizas resignation).

Togo had its Presidential elections on 25 April 2015. The polls which were originally scheduled for 15 April 2015, had to be postponed by ten days. The National Independent Election Commission declared Faure Gnassingbe winner with about 59% of the votes giving him a third term in office. On the other hand, Ivory Coast President Alassane Dramane Ouattara won a second five-year term with 83.66 percent of votes on October 25, 2015. The December 2010 polls led to tension in the country with his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo refusing to concede defeat and hand over power. This sparked a wave of violence which left about 3,000 people dead. Gbagbo was eventually defeated by forces loyal to Ouattara and backed by the UN and France. Tanzania. Tanzanias elections came and went like a flash on October 29, 2015 with nothing so significant to report except the victory of governing party Chama Cha Mapinduzis John Pombe Magufuli. Many would have seen Magufulis victory which occurred on his 56 earth-strong day as a perfect gift for him but the man had other ideas. The victory presented him with an opportunity to change the face of Tanzanian politics and power. Soon after his swearing-in, Magufuli began making international headlines. First, he banned the celebration of the nations Independence Day Anniversary, arguing there was nothing to celebrate if people had to die out of cholera and other communicable diseases; the day must rather be spent cleaning the country. Next, he banned foreign travels except when they are very necessary and the number of officials undertaking such trips significantly reduced; Tanzanians working in embassies abroad were capable of handling work which ministers and other government officials travelled from Tanzania to perform on such trips. Magufuli certainly knew why he got into public life to lead change. That resonates positively with William Barclays assertion there are two great days in a persons life a the day we are born and the day we discover why.

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso also went to the polls on 29 November 2015 to elect a President and 127 legislators. The elections were the first national elections in the country since the 2014 Burkinabe uprising and the departure of President Blaise Compaore, who had ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years. The presidential election was won by Roch Marc Christian Kabore of the Peoples Movement for Progress. Mr Kabore had previously served as Prime Minister of Burkina Faso from 1994 to 1996 and President of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso from 2002 to 2012. In January 2014, he left the ruling CDP and founded a new opposition partythe Peoples Movement for Progress. He received 53% of the vote in the first round, negating the need for a second round.

Central African Republic

Presidential and parliamentary elections were postponed from 18 October 2015 to December 30, 2015 due to violence and instability. Provisional results announced by the National Election Authority, on 7 January 2016 showed none of the Presidential Candidates polled at least 50+1 votes to become an outright winner. Dologuele led with 23.78% of the votes followed by Touadera in second place with 19.42% of the votes. However, Touadera won the second round of elections held on 31 January 2016 with 63 percent of the ballots cast. Dologuele accepted the results and recognized Touadera as president, but expressed concerns about irregularities. Hero or Villain?

Uganda

Uganda went to the polls on February 18, 2016 to elect the President, Parliament and local councils. Incumbent Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, and Kizza Besigye, who had run against Museveni in 2001, 2006 and 2011 contested each other again. Voting was extended in several locations following claims of rigging and violence at polling stations and reports of people being prevented from casting their votes. The Electoral Commission declared Museveni re-elected with 61%. The state machinery was used largely used to favour Museveni drawing huge criticisms from European Union, United States and the Commonwealth election observers. Hero or Villain?

Comoros

In the Comoros Presidential elections were held on February 21 alongside elections for the Governors of the three islands Anjouan, Grande Comore and Moheli. The presidency of the Comoros rotates between the countrys three main islands; Presidential candidacy in the 2016 elections was limited to Grande Comore residents since two previous elections (2006 and 2010) were limited to candidates from Anjouan and Moheli respectively. Three top candidatesMohamed Ali Soilihi, Mouigni Baraka and Azali Assoumani progressed from the primary to the nationwide second round on 10 April where Azali Assoumani of the Convention for the Renewal of the Comoros was elected President with 41% of the votes.

Niger

General elections were held in Niger on February 21, 2016 with a presidential run-off held on March 20. President Issoufou placed first in the first round, but fell just short of an outright majority, necessitating a second round vote

in which he faced Hama Amadou. The opposition boycotted the second round, thus allowing President Issoufou to be re-elected with an overwhelming majority. Niger had come very close to tipping point following disagreements over electoral register earlier and subsequently strings of attacks by various insurgent groups, most notably Boko Haram in the recent months making security and poverty alleviation major issues in the larger scheme of things.

Gabon

The West African country went to the polls on August 27, 2016. Incumbent President Ali Bongo Ondimba ran for re-election challenged by former Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean Ping (Ali Bongo ascended the seat of power in October 2009 following the death of his father Omar Bongo, who was President of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009). Ali Bongo was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1991 and subsequently became Minister of Defense from 1999 to 2009.

Protests erupted in the capital Libreville after the electoral commission declared Ali Bongo re-elected with a margin of less than two per cent on 31 August. Consequently, the Parliamentbuilding was set on fire later and the following day, Ping claimed his partys headquarters had been bombed by the presidential guard killing two people. Several people have been arrested. Flash Points South Sudan Plans to form a unity government has failed to materialize. The unity government was part of a peace deal in August 2015 to end the civil war which began in 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused Riek Machar (his vice at the time) of plotting a coup. The two sides blame each other for violating the terms of the agreement and thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced since 2013. President Kiir, appointed 28 new governors for the new provinces, just as rebel delegates arrived in the capital Juba, to begin work on the new government.

Rwanda

Remember Rwanda? How radio ravaged that race? The eyes of the world will be on Rwanda when they go the polls in 2017 as President Paul Kagames term in office has been extended through a referendum in December 2015.

Results of the controversial vote on the countrys constitution that drew international criticism means Kagame could be in power until 2034.

More importantly, back in Ghana, my motherland, where politicians for the past decade has consistently failed to realize the prime aspirations of the citizens will be journeying to the polls on December 7, 2016. The general elections which is just around the corner had received a whole lot of brouhaha from both the aspirants, electorates and the media. The newly appointed electoral commissioner who is in the person of Mrs. Charlotte Osei has assured Ghanaians of a free and fair elections of which it's a mere promise loyal Ghanaians pray it happens in that way. Nonetheless, our concern is not about who wins, but the cry for peace. It's our fervent hope and desire that Ghanaians for one's cast their votes based on realistic policies and in so doing will go a long way to help build strong institutions in the country. Because as things stands now, the country is in crisis. All our administrative institutions are more corrupt than the word corrupt from the apex to the bottom.

Akwasi Brobbey

0548412192/0268908324

[email protected]

Offinso College of Education
06.12.2016 LISTEN

Elections in Ghana are like a baby longing for breast with all his/her might. I remember vividly writing an article in 2013 titled The Beauty of Democracy (https://www.modernghana.com/news/468007/the-beauty-of-democracy.html) just after ELECTION 2012 hullabaloo and I must re-emphasize that Ghanaians proved to the world that it still stands tall when it comes to democracy. Nevertheless whiles the winners were celebrating their successes; the unfortunate or unlucky ones were sharing tears unabatedly about their inability to chalk success. Never did anyone know that the static four years interval between the general elections was as fast as the blinking of an eye and now, I present to you,ELECTION 2016

I personally called it, the Fall of a Man!!! Because, assuming the incumbent president looses the election, then he becomes the first President of the fourth Republic who only enjoyed a term presidency .Secondly if the largest opposition candidate fails again this time to clinch to the highest office, then he also wins the accolade of the biggest opposition candidate that has tried the presidency three consecutive times but to no avail. Moreover the third largest opposition partys candidate who is well known for his business and entrepreneur skills has a last chance to redeem his image of becoming president. Now juxtaposing the various candidates political campaigns and rallies, one can draw a simple analogy that the future seems bright for the candidates especially the incumbent and the largest opposition however, my fellow Ghanaians please tell someone to tell someone that, this election is Nine (9) months pregnant with surprises hence people should be ready to embrace it.

This shock from the elections outcome would precipitate some politicians to tighten their fellowship with their Maker (God), whereas some would surrender their life to Christ/Allah, others will be emotionally bankrupt and physically dumbfounded with suicide lingering in the chambers of their membrane. At this juncture is the point where family and friends-care matters most because any least uncaring attitude can results to death.

The chemistry of the Ghanaian electorate is still a mystery yet to be discovered because the silent majority is not willing to voice out his/her preferences not until the Election Day. Lastly before I pause this write up and start a day journey to my electoral area, I want to say that in spite of the political tension in the country, the ordinary Ghanaian respects democracy and will never indulge in anything that will dent the image of mother Ghana, We love each other because God first loved US.

Freedom the Most Expensive Commodity!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God bless Ghana.
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service wishes to remind all Regional, Metro, Municipal and District Directors of Education of the official off-day declared for all Basic and Second Cycle Institutions across the country on Wednesday, 7th December, 2016 for the up-coming election.

Heads are also hereby informed to officially close down their schools to enable both teachers and students who tend 18, 19 year and above, to go out to exercise their franchise in their respective polling stations on the said day.

Students and teachers are expected to return to their stations and schools for an academic work to progress on Thursday, 8th December, 2016.

Your strict adherence to this directive is important.

Sgd: JACOB A. M. KOR

DIRECTOR-GENERAL
Tema has always been the barometer of Ghanas politics. Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, Dr. Hilla Liman and President Rawlings (1992) and President Kufuor all won Tema. As for Nkrumah, there is no need mentioning, he created Tema. The Tema East Constituency in particular is the battle ground for elections in this country since Tema is administratively a Regional capital.It host the countrys biggest port,-Tema Harbor and the Heavy Industrial Area.

It is the first major urbanized industrial community closest to the Eastern and Volta Region with a population that has the highest living standard index and educational attainment. It also the rallying point of industrial, commercial and organized labour activity. The political importance of Tema in Ghanas politics cannot be overstated.

The NDC first won Tema in the 1992 elections, then NPP won it in 1996 and have won it ever since and continues to dominate Tema politics.

It is hard to understand why President John Dramani Mahama as leader of the NDC could allow a mute and an unprincipled man like Mr. Kempes Ofosuware to represent him in Tema. Instead of leading his campaign Mr. Ofosuware has turned round to campaigning against him.

He has not been capable of holding the bull by the horn by challenging the dominance of the NPP in Tema. He rather dances to the tune and compromises with the NPP.

He goes round asking the electorate to votefor NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO as President and for himself as Member of Parliament. He did same in 2008 against Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, and repeated same against President John Dramani Mahama in 2012.

I know Titus Glover and Kempes Ofosuware in very good measure. If I am to choose between the two for any public office I will prefer Titus to Kempes.

Kempes Ofosuware was in the Tema Metropolitan Assembly with me. I never noticed Kempes Ofosuware rising up to speak on the floor of the Assembly for the whole my four year journey at the Assembly. He never spoke for one day.Onlyheaven knows what a mute is going to do in Parliament.

Although I am committed to the NDC, I am also aware that I will be doing Tema a great disservice if I should support Kempes bid to Parliament. I was born inTema; schooled inTema; and most likely, will die and be buried in Tema. The future of Tema will depend on right and purposeful leadership and we cannot afford to sacrifice this on the altar of petty partisan politics.

Titus Glover is an accomplished workers leader; a, man with sound record of commitment as a former Assemblyman; respectful, sensitive, articulate on local and national issues. He is now known nationally as the voice of Tema and must be encouraged to retain the seat.

Iwish to call on all NDC electorates not to vote for Kempis Ofosuware. We must give him his own medicine. He is not concerned about the lives of people. Kempes was MCE of Tema for four good years: what did he do to help the boys who followed him?

Anytime I see the few boys who are still following him I laugh! It is so interesting that some people can always be fooled. Kempes is only serving his parochial interest.

Tema is the spine and pivot of the nation. It has mounting challenges and opportunities that need to be harnessed. Politics is not a gamble.

Let us vote Titus Glover as Member of Parliament for Tema East Constituency. He is competent and proven.

Jake Addo is a management consultant and long standing political activist and contributor to national political debate.A former Assembly Man of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly heis currently Chairman of the Kwesi Plange Ward, Tema East Constituency NDC.

020 503 7989 [email protected]
The Inspector General of the once war-torn Liberia, Gregory Olivier Wendel Colman, has asked police personnel deployed for Ghana's general elections Wednesday to adopt a non-partisan posture by being neutral.

To the Police, be the police; non partisan, be as neutral as transparent as you can, be accessible to all and deliver those services that the Ghanaian people so deserve from a police service, he advised Tuesday.

Mr Colman gave the advise when he appeared on Media General's Election Command Centre platforms to share the experiences of his country's elections and also to learn from that of Ghana on December 7.

Liberia was in the Guinness Book of Record [1982], listed as the country with the fraudulent elections in world history following the country's 1927 presidential elections, which gave President Charles King landslide victory.

The country until 2003, suffered a brutal 14-year conflict, which started in 1989 and saw up to 250,000 people killed while thousands more were left mutilated and raped.

As the country goes to the polls once more next year, Mr Colman and a Police delegation have arrived in Ghana observer the country's general elections on Wednesday and draw some lessons from how the Ghana Police will conduct itself.

According to the IGP, the Liberian Police and the security sector in general was partly blamed for the civil war that ravaged the country.

Liberia yesterday was like the light in the sub region [but] as a result of the violence, we're years behind. Now we look to Ghana. We are also here to share with you that it cost us dearly. We can't even begin to factor how much it destroyed us, he said.

It destroyed the family; it broke the family apart. It tore off the society and there's just that ripple effect because once the family is no longer cohesive and it's been torn apart the structure, the social fabric does no longer exist, he indicated.

The IGP thus advised Ghanaians to do all that it takes to consolidate the democratic dispensation in the country and urged the Police to play their role.

I have no doubt in the current administration that they are able to produce that. I believe over the years, their track record has spoken for itself and this process will be added to history that once again they've performed beyond expectation, he observed.

He added: My thinking is that the Ghana Police is one of the best in this sub region; their overall performance, their contribution to respect for democracy in other countries, specifically in my own country Liberia.

Ghana's role in Liberia

Mr Colman noted Ghana's role in keeping peace in Liberia during the civil war was commendable, and has over the years strengthened the ties between the two countries and their people.

Ghana has played a role that we can never ever forget. We're tied to each other; we're one family, we're one people. We appreciate everything that you all Ghanaians.

Watch the full interview below



-3news
06.12.2016 LISTEN

The majority of the Ghanaians fear blood which became obvious in the many Coups the country had seen which mostly were a friendly takeover of stronger groups with small blood lost unlike similar situations in other African countries. This is not to say that in the Northern parts of Ghana people do not kill each other based on tribal disputes regularly with Military Personal present in the Areas. Ghanaians are not by nature peaceful Africans but their geographical locations, surrounded by French speaking and Muslim dominated countries, makes Civil War most unlikely for no country to find refuge in.

When Individuals and Groups are engaging in changing the fate of the opposition party NPP in Northern Region as revealed in Media reports on 29.11.2016 by paying money and giving a car to the Regional Chairman of the party to work against his own Flagbarer; when in High Court of Justice of the Republic of Ghana (e.g. Human Rights 2, issued 15.04.2016, Suit No HRCM/2/2016 Messrs. Kwame and Frank claimed and warned the Rent control officer that Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, brother of President John Dramani Mahama and Mr. Yao Donkor, Director of National Security and Mr. Kudalor, the Police Boss had given an Order to them to impede their freedom of movement and that they shall be arrested and detained by police. The Rent Control officer answered and said Plaintiff cannot be arrested in her Court room and stated further the matter before he is a civil matter but they challenged her saying that Plaintiffs would be arrested.) cases of injustice done by private individuals and their friendly forces in government institutions, the complaints of Human Rights organizations against the Chinese practice to execute Government Officials and private Individuals for serious wrong doings by which the positive, dynamic development of a nation is immensely negatively affected, must be generally, across Nations, seriously debated and concluded.

The situation in Ghana raises the general question whether a people are mandated to execute individuals and groups that have set themselves outside the political and legal frame work of a country in order to save a whole nation from poverty by which stop the greediness of some having only interest in their own welfare at the expenses of many or to leave it simply to the political and justice system of the country.

Human rights organization argue that sentencing such perpetrator to long time in prison in their own countries or hand over to the ICC, where applicable, would bring an end to the negative occurrences in Africa and beyond or at least limited their effects. After all, the Bible is mandating each and every one not to kill another human being. They state that executions do not change the mind of people otherwise killings would no longer be part of any societies in which the Death Penalty is still part of society life and widely accepted.

Convicts based on large corruption charges, once out from custody, will not be transformed human beings but wiser to avoid in future their corrupt practices not to be caught again. Their time in prison spend makes them more dangerous to society than before as to their increased capacity to hide their real doings will be more challenging to the State than before their first trial unlike other offenders like Thieves, Armrobbers, Rape or Murder cases based on jealousy etc. that can be changed individuals once given a fair chance to show their good sides in life.

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself and took Europe by storm with no broad consent of the French Nation. Ousted unto Elba a small island few years later he managed to return back to power in which cause thousands of innocent French citizen and other Europeans lost their lives and got misplaced. When ousted again, he was jailed comfortable on another island Helena on which he died finally peacefully never having given up his power to overtake once again the power of the country.

Adolf Hitler always made sure to gain power based on democratic principles never having ever gained in all the election the majority of votes for his NSDAP party finally by decree achieving to install him as a Dictator based on Emergency Laws voted for in Parliament under Gun presence.

USSR Dictator Stalin labeled himself as a caring Communist Leader only to kill in Archipel Gulag and other Concentration Camps Millions of innocent Russians never seen before under the last Zar Nicholas II that was killed by Lenins followers in the Forests around Moscow.

Saddam Hossein from Iraq was killed by the Americans, once a former Allie of the USA Administration, based on false charges to have processed Weapons of Mass Destructions. Assassination Attempts by the Americans against late Fidel Castro or of Russias President Vladimir Putin on Opponents in London and other cities are part of a dirty power play of Nations with the intend to keep power and turn history into some bodies favour.

Such countries and Politicians consistently repeat the same mistakes again instead learning wisely from History. What GOD wants to happen, eventually will happen regardless how hard evil forces try to mess up his plan and kill his people. GOD is wise enough to send another man to finish the job and judge the men that came across his time line.

King Solomon had to kill his own brother to establish the wisest Kingdom on earth and GOD was very pleased with him and the temple he erected to his Glory. King David killed many people and is reported in the Bible as a person close to GODs heart.

When reflecting on the Bibles history, commands and revelations it is clear that certain people must be killed to set a Nation free. It has always been done in good practice in justified cases when a whole Nation is negatively affected by Individuals or Groups that take laws, rules and society values into their own hands for their own egoistic good.

Author: Dipl.-Pol. Karl-Heinz Heerde, Sakumono, Tema West, Ghana, [email protected] , phone +233(0)265078287, 01.12.2016
Rome, 6 December 2016  A total of 17,500 poor rural households in six regions of Eritrea will benefit from a financial agreement signed today between the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Eritrea to boost coastal and inland fisheries.

The total cost of the Programme is US$32.1 million of which IFAD is providing a US$15 million grant. It is co-financed by the Government of Germany ($5.9 million), the Global Environment Facility ($7.9 million), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ($0.5 million), the Government of Eritrea ($1.4 million) and by the beneficiaries themselves ($1.3 million).

The financial agreement for the Fisheries Resources Management Programme (FReMP) was signed in Rome by Michel Mordasini, Vice-President of IFAD; and Fessahazion Pietros, Ambassador of Eritrea to Italy and Permanent Representative Eritrea to Rome-based UN agencies, in the presence of Arefaine Berhe, Minister for Agriculture of Eritrea.

Eritrea has substantial and relatively underexploited marine and fisheries resources that have been underutilized for decades compared to neighbouring countries. These resources exist in an unpolluted, underexploited and under-capitalized marine environment. The Programme intends to invest both in large fisheries and small pelagics.

The Government of Eritrea has been making significant investments in the inland regions by constructing water retention dams in the inland regions. It has established 330 reservoirs, of which 70 are stocked with different fish species. However, the inland fisheries resources have are hardly been exploited because local communities are generally not aware of the nutritional benefits of and they lack fishing skills and equipment, apart from the fact that traditionally they are not fishers. The Programme aims to positively change this situation by raising awareness, imparting the right skills and enabling the communities (especially youth and women) to acquire equipment for fishing, fish processing and marketing.

This innovative programme will ensure that the countrys marine fishery resources are utilized in a sustainable manner to improve the livelihoods of Red Sea coastal communities, said Eric Rwabidadi, IFAD Country Programme Manager for Eritrea. Moreover, inland fisheries and aquaculture present another great investment opportunity to increase fish production, incomes, nutrition and employment, especially for youth and women, he added.

FReMP will support the establishment of infrastructure, and technologies for production, post-harvest operations and marketing of both marine and inland fisheries. In addition, it will promote the development and capacity building of cooperatives and other enterprises and ensure that they have access to the requisite tools to undertake economically viable and sustainable fish-related businesses.

Specifically, the programme will target 15 water reservoirs to demonstrate good practice and test successful models that can be replicated and scaled up in other reservoirs. It will also assist in developing climate resilient plans for the water reservoirs, which will lead to improved crop and livestock production. The aim is to not only increase incomes but also to improve food and nutrition security, through availability of increased quantity and quality fish.

In short, the programme is expected to transform Eritreas small-scale fisheries sector from subsistence to a sustainable commercial fish industry.

Since 1995, IFAD has financed five rural development programmes and projects in Eritrea for a total cost of $124.3 million, with an IFAD investment of $73.1 million directly benefiting 293,942 rural households.
The UK government has appointed an expert advisory board to advise how it can best spend an additional 50 million British pounds over the next five years to fund innovative initiatives to tackle drug resistant infections, which include resistance to antibiotics.

Professor Kelly Chibale, founder and director of the University of Cape Towns Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D) and founding director of the South African Medical Research Council/UCT drug discovery and development research unit, has been selected as a member of the advisory board.

The 12-member board was appointed by Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England and UK government adviser to support the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Innovation Fund (GAMRIF).

Professor Davies said: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses the biggest threat to global health with the potential to kill millions each year. No one nation, or sector, can tackle this alone, and therefore it is critical that we encourage the public and private sectors to work together to tackle AMR globally.

I am proud that we are bringing together such a wealth of expertise to form a multi-disciplinary board that will identify the gaps within the current funding system and the best opportunities for funding solutions.

Professor Chibale said he was honoured to be selected as a member of the board based on his drug discovery and global health experience. H3D is globally recognised for its groundbreaking research into a possible single-dose cure for malaria. In addition to malaria and tuberculosis drug discovery, H3D has also recently expanded into AMR drug discovery, specifically resistant Gram negative bacteria.

Professor Chibale said: AMR represents the greatest threat to modern medicine. The UK has continued to champion the need for tackling the threat of AMR at the highest political level, including at the G7, G20 and recently at the UN General Assembly. As a member of the board, I will play a vital role in the set-up of the fund and work to develop and shape the scope of the Fund, recommend mechanisms of delivery of the Funds budget, and work to create a platform to leverage additional investment in AMR Research and Development, said Professor Chibale.

The GAMRIF will help to invest in:

 High-quality research and development and stimulate innovation to tackle AMR to promote the welfare of people in low and middle income countries.

 Neglected areas which may currently lack commercial or academic interest, for example for research that aspires to prolong the shelf life of existing antibiotics.

 Areas of research and development around new therapeutics, alternative therapies, preventative measures and diagnostics.

The expert advisory board will provide critical advice on aspects such as the precise scope of the fund, scientific objectives and investment opportunities. It will also consider where the health need is greatest in low and middle income countries.

Christopher Egerton-Warburton has been appointed as the chair of the expert advisory board. He is a founding partner at Lions Head Global Partners and is an expert in the structuring and execution of innovative financing solutions, having been involved in innovative financing for health in over a decade, particularly working on vaccines.

The members of the expert advisory board are:



 Prof Rosanna Peeling, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

 Prof Keith Klugman, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

 Prof Susanna Sternberg Lewerin, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

 Prof Kelly Chibale, University of Cape Town

 Dr David Gray, University of Dundee

 Prof Melissa Leach, University of Sussex

 Prof Elias Mossialos, London School of Economics and Imperial College London

 Dr Bill Love, Destiny Pharma

 Ms Florence Sejourne, Da Volterra

 Dr Jorge Villacian, Janssen Diagnostics

 Dr Theo Kanellos, Zoetis
Board members in question yet to answer to ministry

Three Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) board members, who have been accused of obstructing the process of ending loadshedding, have gone out of contact after the Ministry of Energy started the process to sack them.
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has advanced a process to introduce a single window system to incorporate every actor in the tourism industry on the one-stop shop platform to boost promotion and marketing in order to enhance socio-economic returns from the industry.

The system will advertise every tourism actor still doing business in the dark. It will give vivid information about climatic conditions at the various destinations and traffic situations there as well as where to catch a bus or airline to these places, Acting Chief Executive Office on GTA, Gideon Aryeequaye, said.

The tourism single window system, he explained, will give the country a competitive edge over other tourism-oriented countries on the continent, adding, we are starting this initiative immediately; the Authority has already given out the contract.

Mr. Aryeequaye was speaking at a stakeholders meeting in Sunyani. The meeting which formed part of his familiarization tour of the Brong Ahafo Region was to afford him the opportunity to abreast himself with the developments in the region.

He entreated the private sector to capitalize on the enormous economic opportunities in the tourism industry. The private sector should be able to appreciate the number of tourism sites across the country and build required facilities there to make them more attractive to tourists.

Common issues that came up at the meeting included multiplicity of taxes, astronomical utility tariffs, poor infrastructure such as lack of recreational centres at tourism sites and bad road network to most of the tourism centres in the Brong Ahafo Region. The region is blessed with many of tourism destinations but accessibility has always been a challenge; some sites are still in their raw diamond state.

Mr. Solomon Frimpong of the African Origin Travel and Tour said: The poor nature of the roads leading to tourism centres in the region makes it very difficult to facilitate domestic tourism in this part of the country. Lack of direct flight from Accra to Sunyani has also been a huge disincentive to the industry.

For his part, Andrews Kofi Oteng, Chairman of the Brong Ahafo Traditional Caterers Association appealed for more funding to support the education and periodic training of practitioners in that sector. He said frequent training programmes for staff and owners of traditional catering are very imperative to raise their standard of operation.

Meanwhile, the GTA Boss and his entourage later visited the Boaben-Fiama Monkey Sanctuary in the Nkoranza North District, Fuller Waterfalls and the Kintampo Waterfalls.

Gideon Aryeequaye
President Zuma has today, on behalf of the Government and the people of South Africa, congratulated President-elect Adama Barrow on his election as President of The Gambia following presidential elections that were held on 01 December 2016. President Zuma conveyed his best wishes to the President-elect Barrow and committed himself to working closely with him to strengthen bilateral relations between South Africa and The Gambia.

President Zuma also commended the outgoing President Yahyah Jammeh for graciously conceding defeat.

Furthermore, President Zuma also commended the people of the Islamic Republic of The Gambia for conducting peaceful and democratic elections. President Zuma stated that the peaceful and democratic manner under which these elections were conducted signify yet another positive step towards deepening democracy on the African continent.
The joint work of Every Woman Every Child ( EWEC ), the Global Partnership for Education ( GPE ), Sanitation and Water for All ( SWA ), the Scaling Up Nutrition ( SUN ) Movement and Zero Hunger Challenge ( ZHC ) has been selected as a new Global Partnership Initiative (GPI) at the second High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-Operation (GPEDC) in Nairobi, Kenya. The event gathered leaders from Governments, the private sector and civil society to identify opportunities to strengthen collaboration for a sustainable future that leaves no one behind.

One of three new initiatives announced in Nairobi, the five partnerships join a list of 28 GPIs that have been accepted by GPEDC as voluntary, member-led commitments that advance development co-operation and help turn global agreements into impact at the country-level. Building on their respective areas of work, the initiatives have actively promoted partnership across sectors and developed a Partnership Playbook to guide principled collaboration. As a new GPI, they will continue to catalyse transformations in the way stakeholders work together across sectors to deliver on an integrated development agenda, including through shared principles outlined in the Playbook.

"We are here in Nairobi to take the next step in our journey towards effective cooperation. We need to take a leap forward if we are to deliver on the 2030 Agenda, said H.E. Lilianne Ploumen, co-chair of the GPEDC and Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. Going beyond the traditional silos to work across sectors will be essential. This new Global Partnership Initiative and its Partnership Playbook provides the commitment and guidance we need to strengthen multistakeholder partnerships and ensure alignment with national priorities. With shared principles that encourage mutual respect, transparency and accountability, we can create better partnerships for impact."

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for a revitalized global partnership effort (SDG 17) and require stronger, more inclusive multistakeholder partnerships for their implementation. Collaboration across government, private sector and civil society builds shared value and leverages skills across sectors to accelerate progress against national priorities. To ensure effectiveness and impact aligned with national priorities, such partnerships need guiding principles.

The Partnership Playbook, launched during the 71st United Nations General Assembly in September 2016, is a practical guide to improve the quality of multistakeholder partnerships to operate across sectors and deliver on an integrated development agenda for all. Its shared principles are based on national ownership to ensure alignment with government plans. By encouraging mutual trust, respect, transparency and accountability for impact, the shared principles help to remove duplication and allow all to benefit from shared efficiencies, risks and responsibilities.

The Global Partnership Initiative was officially announced during a session co-hosted by the partners, in cooperation with the Government of the Netherlands, on Improving the Quality of Partnerships on Thursday, 1 December. The session was moderated by Ms. Julie Gichuru, host of Africa Leadership Dialogues, and included the perspectives of leaders from the government, private and UN sectors.
European Union Ambassador to Kenya, Stefano A Dejak, accompanied by Head of Infrastructure Walter Tretton will attend the joint launch of the Katua  Kee - Nunguni Road Project. The event will be presided over by H.E President Uhuru Kenyatta, on December, 3 2016, in Makueni County (Nunguni).

The "Rural roads rehabilitation project" supports the Kenyan Government's efforts to improve rural transport infrastructure through the Roads 2000 Maintenance Strategy, which is a key component of the economic recovery effort described in the national policy "Vision 2030". This programme enables improvement of agricultural production by upgrading the rural roads network.

The Rural Roads Rehabilitation Project is co-funded by the EU and the Kenyan government. Total project cost is 20 million EUR (Ksh2 billion), of which 14.8 million EUR (1.4 billion KSH) are financed by the EU and 6 million EUR (600 Million KSH) by the Kenyan Government.

The project entails the construction of 5 roads in 5 counties of Eastern Kenya i.e. Embu, Tharaka Nithi, Meru, Machakos and Makueni. The 101 km of roads will be upgraded to tarmac standard using Low Volume Sealed Road (LVSR) technology. These roads were selected based on the agricultural production of the areas.

For Journalists interested in covering this event, send a confirmation to [email protected] and copy [email protected] or call 020- 280 2204/ 0705 951 364.
06.12.2016 LISTEN

Mrs. Benita Sena Okity Duah, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ledzokuku constituency in the Greater Accra Region, has indicated that she will secure 65 percent of the total votes in the constituency on December 7.

She also predicted that President John Mahama will secure 54 percent of the votes nationwide in the upcoming presidency election.

Speaking to the Daily Express in Accra on Monday, Mrs. Sena Okity Duah who doubles as the Parliamentary Candidate for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ledzokuku constituency noted that the NDC slogan Unity, Stability and Development is not only reflecting on the party , but also in the nation at large.

Commenting on her chances in this election, Mrs. Okity -Duah who is also the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, said she had the support of the constituents because she is sociable, humble, selfless, unifier, and youthful achiever who had understood the needs and desires of the people of Ledzokuku.

Mrs. Sena Okity Duah mentioned that the NDC has supported the constituency through the construction of the Teshie- Nungua Desalination water project which has brought great relief to residents, after several decades from acute water shortage.

She revealed that she is supporting the expansion of Teshie Technical Training College so as to admit more students.

The Ledzokuku MP added that she has contributed to the construction of a cholera unit at Ledzokuku- Krowor Municipal Assembly (LEKMA), construction of a Compound Health Improvement Services (CHIPS) compound at Teshie Camp Two and the construction of a laboratory at Teshie community clinic to reduce the pressure at LEKMA hospital.

She pledged to lobby for the upgrade of the Teshie Community hospital into a Polyclinic to augment the pressure on LEKMA hospital to serve the growing population of the community.

The Ledzokuku MP was confident the people in the constituency would retain her on December 7, in order to continue her agenda of development and changing lives which had brought relief to most people.

I can confidentially and boldly say Im retaining the seat for Ledzokuku. I have been with the people and through their body expressions, through what they tell me at the grassroot in relations to the massive development myself and the NDC government have done for them, the Former Miss Ghana Queen stated.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Mr. Delali Kwasi Brempong has said he is optimistic of winning the seat in the December 7 elections.

Mr. Delali Kwasi Brempong who is popularly known as DKB told the Daily Express in an interview on Tuesday that the sitting MP for the constituent, Mr. Boakye Kyeremanteng Agyarko based on the massive developmental initiatives that President John Mahama led NDC administration is undertaking in the area.

The NDC PC cited the newly built Legon teaching hospital as one of the projects which will a great benefit to the people of the area.

He alleged the sitting MP has neglected the people but only turn up to ask for votes when election is due.

He asked party faithful in the constituent not to be reluctant at home but they should endeavor to embark on a house to house campaign to ensure a massive victory.

We cannot seat at home and say we have already won, lets go out to every house to tell the people what we are doing and what we have for them in our next term in office, DKB said.

As part of what he intends doing for the people when given the nod in December, Mr. Kwasi Brempong indicated that he would invest heavily on the skills development of the youth.
The Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency, Alhaji Amadu Sorogho, says he will dedicate his next tenure as a legislator to making the lives of the youth and women better.

Im dedicating 2017 to 2020 as a legislature to the youth and the women in the constituent in order to make their lives meaningful. I will make sure that every youth who has to go to school is in school by providing them with a decent school infrastructure. Also those who have to get jobs get jobs and those who have to get train, receive vocational training, he stated

Speaking to the Daily Express in Accra, Alhaji Sorogho said he played a pivotal role in the quest of the University of Professional Studies (UPSA), then Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) becoming a fully-fledged university.

Alhaji Sorogho who doubles as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for the constituency noted that his tenure has seen massive development projects such as the ICT cente at Pantang, an 18-unit classroom block, at La-Nkwatanang, the Madina market among others.

He revealed that Madina market which was hitherto a refuse dump when he was elected a legislator has seen a facelift thus becoming one of the secured and modernized markets in Accra.

It was I, Alhaji Sorogho who was instrumental in getting this market project done, with the supports of others, Assembly men, chiefs, mallams and pastors of this area. Madina did not even have a good market like this. We need to continue our good works, Alhaji Sorogho added.

He said development projects such as construction of roads, schools, health facilities, drainage, provision of potable water among others, were the priorities of the ruling NDC government.

Alhaji Sorogho appealed to Ghanaians especially the youth, to continue to take advantage of the social interventions programmes introduced by the NDC.
The Media Center for Social and Economic Justice (TheMediaCenter), wishes Ghanaians well as we go to the polls tomorrow December 7, 2016. This is an important election that has been characterized by emotional campaigns.

The Electoral Commission expects over 15 million Ghanaians to cast their ballot in 275 constituencies, and over 28, 000 polling stations across the country, to elect the next president of Ghana.

We urge the Electoral Commission to ensure transparent, credible, free and fair elections that guarantees the peace of our nation.

The tension that has characterized the campaigning leading to this election calls for our security agencies, especially the Ghana Police Service and their personnel, to be fair, firm, and impartial in the provision of security for the ballot, individuals and all interested groups participating in the elections.

To voters, we urge decorum, decency, and peace, as we seek to elect people who will transform our country into prosperity, and for our collective goal of social and economic justice. This we must do peacefully, with decency, and respect for the rights of other voters as well.

To the contending parties, we know you all have something to offer the good people of Ghana. We urge you to conduct yourselves in a peaceful manner.

The Media Center for Social and Economic Justice (TheMediaCenter) is an independent, non-partisan Ghanaian based non-profit media organization dedicated to the promotion of free, fair, just, informed and developed individuals and society where governance institutions and their leaders are held accountable and responsible for their actions and inactions. We are also set up to protect the interests of genuine Ghanaian business enterprises, and we deny the partisan polarization of public wrongdoing.

We are set out at a time when Ghanaians have a pending elections, to elect parliamentary and presidential leaders, and it is at a time that we are unaware of the outcome of the election just so we position ourselves to critique the actions and inactions of any candidate that emerges as the winner (s).

May the best candidates win tomorrows election.

Philip Boafo

(Communications Manager)
Businessman Alfred Woyome says a list published by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) purporting to be the list of beneficiaries the GH51 million judgement debt is concocted.

Mr Woyome issued a statement Monday in reaction to the NPPs list, describing the NPP press conference that made the list public as needless and politically jaundiced.

He also questioned the source of the documents and information put out by the opposition party.

How Mr Woyome spends his money is his own business, private and personal to him. It has never happened in the history of Ghana or anywhere else where a private individual's personal life is abused in such a proportion blatantly, the statement said.

The NPP released what it says was a list key members of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) who benefited from the GH51.2 million judgment debt wrongfully paid to Alfred Woyome.

NPP Communications Director, Nana Akomea, at a news conference in Accra on Monday, said it was never the case that the NDC financier solely benefited from the judgment debt paid him in 2010.

He alleged that the embattled businessman and NDC financier wrote down the names of all the beneficiaries of the money and noted the purposes for which they were going to be paid the money.

Mr Woyome was very meticulous in keeping the records, Nana Akomea said.

Read: Full list: Asiedu Nketia, Pratt, Anyidoho benefited from 51.2m Woyome cash - NPP

Names that featured on the NPPs list of alleged beneficiaries of the judgement debt include NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC Deputy General Secretary, Koku Anyidoho, former Head of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), Steve Kpordzih, Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt, and the governing party, among others.

However, Mr Woyome said in his statement that the names on NPPs list had no connection with the controversial judgement debt.

Mr Woyome indicated that Mr Kpordzih once lent him money and his name could have been on his (Woyomes) documents because the former ADB boss was repaid the money he lent. He insists that he and his companies have never borrowed from the ADB.

Mr Woyome also said his office has been broken into many times and important documents stolen.

The statement also said Koku Anyidoho was supposed to refund a debt of printed party T-Shirts that Mr Woyome promised to refund the money on behalf of the party.

He adds that his benevolence to the governing party was done without expecting anything in return as he has been supporting the NDC since 2001. Mr Woyome insists that all monies paid him was paid legally as a result of a court order.

Mr Woyome was paid GHa 51 million on claims that he contributed to the raising of funds to construct stadia for purposes of hosting a pending CAF Nations Cup in 2010.

However, the Supreme Court asked him to pay back the money to the state after Martin Amidu, a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, kick-started a legal challenge to contest the legality of the money paid to him.

Mr Woyome has vowed to fight the Supreme Court ruling with all his might.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor
As part of activities to promote its new brand, staff and management of OmniBank on Saturday participated in a peace and health walk under the theme Bank for all, Peace for all.

The walk was to promote peaceful elections as Ghanaians head towards the polls.

The walk which started at 6:30am involved a hike from the Ayi Mensa Toll Booth on the Accra- Aburi Road to the Peduase Lodge in the Eastern Region.

Staff later participated in aerobics and ended with a health talk and screening.

As the country gears up for the presidential and parliamentary elections, the company used the opportunity to drum home the message of a peaceful elections.

Meanwhile as part of the programme, the company climaxed its water distribution where it distributed OmniBank branded bottles of water to commuters.

Story by Ghana/Myjoyonline.com
Caan ready for Icao audit of corrective measures

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) has said it plans to invite a revalidation mission of the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) in the first quarter of 2017 to audit the corrective measures completed by Nepal to address the significant safety concerns (SSC) relating to operations and other aspects.
President Jacob Zuma has accepted the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers recommendations for the adjustment of Public Office Bearers annual remuneration for the 2016/2017 financial year.

The Commission recommended that there would be no adjustment (0 %) to the remuneration of following Public Office Bearers:

All members of the National Executive (the President, Deputy President, Ministers and Deputy Ministers);

All members of the National Parliament;

All members of the Provincial Executive and Legislature;

All Judges

Local government: Positions of Executive Mayors to Whip;

Traditional Leadership: Position of the King/Queen to full time Deputy Chairperson of Provincial House of Traditional Leaders (PHTL).

The Commission further recommended a four percent (4 %) cost-of-living adjustment to the remuneration of the Local government: Municipal Councillors and six percent (6 %) for all Magistrates and from full-time member of the National House of Traditional Leaders (NHTL) to Headmen/Headwomen as well as sitting allowance for all members of NHTL and PHTL.

Salaries and allowances of different categories of public office bearers are determined by the President, after taking into account, amongst others, the recommendation of the Commission.
Agona Duakwa (C/R), Dec 6, GNA - Mr Ben Mensah, former Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Agona West, has appealed to smaller political parties to support Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, NPP presidential candidate, to win the December 7 elections.

According to Mr Mensah, Nana Addo is the realistic opposition candidate to become the next president, looking at the wind of change blowing across the country.

Speaking to the media at Agona Duakwa, Mr Mensah, a former MCE in the John Agyekum Kufuor administration, said the NPP acknowledged the efforts of the opposition parties which were geared toward changing the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He said the smaller parties had done a yeoman's job travelling to almost all the 275 constituencies to solicit votes from Ghanaians, but stressed that Nana Akufo-Addo stood tall among them to win the elections.

The former MCE for Agona Duakwa, appealed to the leaders to impress upon their supporters to rally behind the NPP to defeat the NDC to reverse the ailing economy which had brought untold hardships to the masses.

Mr. Mensah said though the NDC boasted of being social democrats it never implemented one single social intervention that alleviated the suffering of Ghanaians.

Rather, he said, social interventions made by the NPP government to reduce poverty among the masses had been collapsed, adding that it was regrettable that the capitation grant, NHIS, Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP), free maternal health care and others had hit the rocks.

He urged Ghanaians to show the NDC government led by President John Dramani Mahama the exit.

Mr Mensah said Nana Akufo-Addo had the capacity, zeal, integrity and international connections to fulfill his one factory, one district; one million dollars each for 275 constituencies; one district one dam for northern region; and free senior high school education policy if voted into power.

GNA
By Linda Baah/Christlove Basmel/Rhema Bansah

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has deployed 300 observers nationwide for the December 7 elections.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday in Accra, Mrs Comfort Akosua Edu, the Head of Public Relations and Communication at the CHRAJ said: 'On the day of elections, observers are expected to be present at their respective polling stations early enough, to cast their votes and then start observing as well as monitoring the process'.

She said these were part of measures to ensure that the right of a citizen to vote was not infringed upon, explaining that like the Police, CHRAJ had also identified some hotspots from negative past reports.

The observers would also to pay attention to the voting centres of Presidential Candidates, Members of Parliament, and Municipal District Executive.

The district directors and their assistants, she said, were to cover at least two polling stations and report electronically directly to their regional directors.

'The sub regional offices in Obuasi and Tema will send their reports to the Ashanti Regional Office and the head Office, respectively,' she explained.

'The regional directors will also send their reports to the National Coalition Committee (NCC), a committee set up by the Acting Commissioner and the Assistant.'

At the head office, she said, the directors would visit selected constituencies and report directly to the NCC.

There are three sub-committees - the Compilation Committee, Analysis Committee and the Editorial Committee - who would work to ensure that an interim report compiled from the observation was released two days after the elections.

CHRAJ, Mrs Edu said, had been engaging in media monitoring to find out whether all the parties contesting the elections were given fair coverage, while institutions mandated to prevent malpractices were also covered.

The media monitoring, she said, covered news items, features, editorial reports, animations and articles in all the 10 regions.

She said the Commission, whose fundamental role was to protect, promote and defend the fundamental human rights of Ghanaians had also been monitoring the political environment before the elections with the media of as its main focus.

CHRAJ has offices across the 10 regions, two sub-regional offices and 97 district offices across.

'The regional offices are headed by lawyers and the district offices have university graduates from competent fields as heads as well, and this should tell you the calibre of people we are deploying.' Mrs. Edu said.

The coverage of GNA's Election dubbed: 'GNA Tracks Election 2016,' is being funded by Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) the nation's foremost indigenous oil marketing company and CIMG 2015 Petroleum Company of the year.

The project seeks to sensitise the electorate on the various issues raised by the political parties, elections management body and other governance institutions.

It also seeks to ensure that gender and social inclusion in national politics and to provide voice for the youth, vulnerable groups, opinion leaders and the broader spectrum of the society, as well as contribute its quota to the achievement of a peaceful poll on December 7.

Another objective of the project is to create a platform to dissect the manifestoes of all political parties and provide in-depth analysis of each thematic area to the electorate to enable them to make an informed judgment.

GNA
By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA

Cape Coast, Dec. 6, GNA - Mrs. Alice Tettey, a member of the Central Regional Media Advisory Committee has advised journalists to desist from sourcing information from their colleagues on the various social media platforms during the election period.

Speaking at the maiden meeting of the Committee with media practitioners in the Region, she noted that some media houses due to the limited number of reporters, depended on information put on social media platforms.

The meeting was to afford the eight-member Committee, inaugurated last month by the National Media Commission (NMC), the opportunity to familiarize with media practitioners and conscientise them to be professional during the electioneering period.

The Committee has the mandate to assist the Commission to monitor and directly engage with media houses in the Region, to adhere to the highest journalistic ethical standards and also help settle complaints by and or against the media in the Region, in addition to addressing all media related issues.

Mrs Tettey, who is also the Regional Chairperson of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and the Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency (GNA), asked journalists to crosscheck their facts and get confirmation from Electoral Commission (EC) Officers before publishing their news.

She said elections reports were unique and different from the normal news reporting and that the former covers an array of sentiments and emotions, which needed to be treated with caution.

Mrs. Tettey reminded the media practitioners of the need to behave responsibly and abide by all rules and regulations on election reporting to ensure peaceful elections.

'Be wary of results from social media groups.

The situation in the country is volatile. Get confirmation from officials before you publish. There is uneasy calm in the country.

Please let's not fan sentiments. Let's be circumspect,' she added.

The acting Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Mr. John Ankomah Simpson, said the Committee would be monitoring the activities of the media houses in the Region to ensure that they followed the highest journalistic standards.

Other members of the Committee and the media practitioners took turns to press home the need for responsible journalism through objectivity and adherence to rules and regulations to ensure smooth elections.

They were particularly concerned about news embellishment in the local languages by some FM stations and called on such stations to be circumspect.

GNA
By Sampson Adu-Poku, GNA

Asokore (Ash), Dec 06, GNA - Asokore Rural Bank is showing strong growth with profit on its operation hitting GHE220,063.00, last year.

This represented an increase of 1,726.25 per cent over the year 2014 total of GH12,748.00.

During the period, its total assets also increased to GHE16,027,816.00 from GHE12,752,132.00.

Mr. Francis Nyanin, the Board Chairman, announced these at the 29th annual general meeting of the shareholders at Asokore in the Sekyere East District.

He informed the bank owners that deposit rose by 32.29 per cent - from GH10,683,088.00 to GH14,132,674.00.

At the same time, investment in treasury bills and other short term securities climbed to GHE7,410,102.00 from GHE5,316,824.00 - a growth of 39.37 per cent.

He said it made available GHE4,391,325.00 in loans and advances to support the growth of businesses.

Compared with the previous year's figure of GH2,705,119.00, this showed a 62.33 per cent increase.

Touching on the bank's paid-up capital, he said that grew from GH311,959.00 to GH360,864.00.

Mr. George Kwaku Annor, Ashanti Regional Manager of the ARB Apex Bank, applauded the bank for the impressive performance.

He asked the board to continue to work hard to strengthen internal controls to protect customers' deposit.

GNA
By Joyce Danso,GNA

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - Two Nigerians who attempted to collected GHa5,000.00 from a worker at the Office of the President under the pretext of transporting five million dollars from Togo to Ghana for investment have appeared before a District Court in Accra.

Favour Uzorma, a trader and Stanley Simon Chgimereze, a model, have been charged with two counts, namely conspiracy and attempt to commit crime.

The two accused persons have pleaded not guilty and the Court presided over by Mr Worlanyo Kotoku has admitted them to bail in the sum of GHa50,000.00 with three sureties.

They are to pay GHa5,000.00 each as security deposit and report to the Police at Ministries Police Station twice a week.

An accomplice whose name was given as Temple is at large.

Prosecuting Chief Inspector Robert Adu-Gyamfi said Mr. Derek Prince Tamakloe, the Complainant, works at the Office of the President, Ridge, in Accra.

Prosecution said during the month of October, the complainant received a call from one Temple now at large that Uzorma was interested in investing in Ghana with five million dollars and as such they wanted the complainant to be their partner.

Later, Prosecution said, Temple gave Uzorma's number to the complainant and he contacted him (Complainant) and he confirmed that he wanted to invest in Ghana.

According to the prosecutor, some weeks after, Uzorma called the complainant that he had arrived at the Togo border and that Immigration Officers had seized the box containing the five million dollars and were demanding GHa5,000.00 cash before releasing the box.

Based on Uzorma assertion, the complainant agreed and acceded to his request. On November 4, this year met the complainant at his office to collect the money.

Chief Inspector Adu-Gyamfi said Joachin Mensah Doe a witness in the matter caused the arrest of Uzorma and he was escorted to the Ministries Police Station.

Uzorma in his cautioned statement admitted that there was no money in the said box seized at the Togo border and he and his accomplices intend to defraud the complainant.

On November 8, this year, Prosecution said Temple then called the complainant that he intends to strike a new deal with him.

Prosecution said Temple then asked Stanley to meet the complainant at the Italian Embassy to collect another GHa5,000.00 and he (Stanley) was also nabbed by the Police.

GNA
By Kwabia Owusu-Mensah, GNA

Kumasi, Dec 06, GNA - A waste managing company has threatened to drag the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) to court over a GHE2 million unpaid job done.

Messrs. Osborn Enterprise Limited was engaged by the assembly to collect waste from house-to-house in the Asawase sub-metropolitan area but had refused to pay the company for its services.

Madam Juliana Osei Bonsu, a Director of the Company, addressing a press conference in Kumasi, said the amount had been outstanding for 10 years.

She said an order by a High Court to the KMA, in August 2015, to pay them the money owed was yet to be complied with.

She said they were completely surprised at the reported claim by Mr. Alexander Ackon, the Ashanti Regional Minister, who is acting as the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), that the assembly had settled part of its indebtedness to waste managing contractors.

Madam Osei Bonsu said the claim had brought a lot of pressure on her company as their creditors were all over them.

She said if indeed the assembly was paying some waste management contractors, it was difficult to understand why they should be left out.

She indicated that her company secured an execution order from the court to attach properties of the assembly but had to hold on because of the intervention by some prominent personalities.

Madam Osei Bonsu said the assembly had not shown good faith and they could be heading to the court again.

GNA
By Erica Apeatua Addo, GNA

Tarkwa (W/R), Dec. 5, GNA - Three persons, who allegedly robbed their Chinese employer of his black gold concentrate, valued at GH20,000.00 have been remanded into prison custody by the Tarkwa Circuit Court.

The accused persons, Kwame Budu, a 40 year-old security guard, Khadri Abdulai Kwaku, 23 and Hudu Sulemana, 27, both galamsey operators, pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit crime and robbery when they appeared before the Court.

They are to re-appear today December 5.

Prosecuting, Detective Chief Inspector Oscar Amponsah, told the Court presided over by Mr Michael Cudjoe Ntumey, that the complainant, who is a small scale miner at Yireho near Asankrangwa had employed the accused persons including one Moro now at large.

He said in the early hours of November 17, the accused persons and Moro hatched a plan to rob the complainant.

According to Inspector Amponsah, after close of work on that day, Abdulai, Sulemana and Moro quickly left the mining site and laid ambush to unable them accomplish their task.

The Prosecutor said because Budu was carrying a pump action gun, he was asked to escort the vehicle carrying the gold concentrate with two Chinese national on board to the complainant's house.

He said while on the way, the accused person attacked them with a cutlass and Budu instead of protecting them threw the gun into the nearby bush and they managed to make away with the black gold concentrate.

A report was made to the police and fourteen workers of the mining firm were arrested for questioning.

Inspector Amponsah said during interrogation Budu confessed to an independent witness that he and the other accused persons committed the offence.

GNA
By Francis Ameyibor, GNA

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The Commonwealth Observer Group on Monday said pre-election observation has not picked any signal of major threat to peaceful elections on December 7.

'All the seven Presidential Candidates contesting the election have demonstrated strong commitment towards peaceful, transparent and credible polls,' Mr Thabo Mbeki, former South African President who is leading a17-member Eminent Commonwealth Observer Group stated in Accra.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra, former President Mbeki noted that the overwhelming impression across the country was a total commitment from all stakeholders including the political parties, Electoral Commission, National Commission for Civic Education among others towards a peaceful election.

The former South African President said the Observer Team had a sense of unity to undertake credible elections and the people were general commitment to resort to legal means to redress disputes.

'This is a general indication that Ghana is indeed providing leadership and strong signal to deepen multi-party democracy in Africa and across the Commonwealth,' he said.

Mr Mbeki noted that the Commonwealth was convinced that Ghana would live up to expectations and demonstrate democratic leadership.

The Commonwealth Observer Group made up of Eminent Persons from across the different regions of the Commonwealth including Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific are in the country to observe Ghana's Election 2016.

Some of the leading members include Dr Lesley Clark, Gender Expert from Australia, Shahreen Tilottoma, Youth Expert from Bangladesh, Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer from Belize, and Pandu Skelemani, a former Foreign Minister of Botswana.

Mr Mbeki said the team deployed across the ten regions through sampling system with strategic dimension of urban/rural divide, would observe the polls to ensure fair report based on broad observations.

He said the Team, as part of the observation process has met the two leading Presidential Candidates.

The Commonwealth Group of Experts will be in small teams to observe preparations ahead of the polling day and would meet with political parties, the police, election officials and other stakeholders to discuss best practices.

'On Election Day, they will observe the opening, voting, closing, counting and the results management processes.

'We will issue an Interim Statement on our preliminary findings on December 9, 2016 and a final report will then be prepared and submitted to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, and subsequently shared with relevant stakeholders and the public,' Mr Mbeki said.

The Group is expected to leave Ghana on December 13, 2016.

Mr Mbeki explained: 'We are here to observe the electoral process and will act impartially and independently as we scrutinise its organisation and conduct.

'We will seek to assess the pre-election environment, polling day activities and the post-election period against the backdrop of Ghana's national legislation, regional and international commitments.

'We will then take a view whether it has been conducted to the international and regional standards to which Ghana has committed itself, including its own laws.

'In this context, we look forward to the presidential candidates reaffirming their commitment to peaceful elections,' Mr Mbeki said.

The Group also planned briefings with wide range of stakeholders including the Electoral Commission, political parties, local observers, women's groups and the youth.

On the Accra Peace Declaration signed by the seven Presidential Candidates, Mr Mbeki lauded the process and commended Ghana for the initiative.

The Presidential Candidates through the declaration had promised to respect the political ethics by conducting peaceful campaigns and advising their supporters to stay away from any form of violence.

The candidates also pledged their commitment during a Public Re-affirmation of Declaration against Electoral Violence, Impunity and Justice Forum organised by the National Peace Council, National House of Chiefs and the United Nations.

They signed a declaration to accept the outcome of the December 7 polls, advise their supporters against the use of violence and to conduct their campaigns peacefully.

GNA
By Samira Larbie, GNA

Accra, Dec. 06, GNA - Mr Alex Segbefia, Minister of Health, has launched a new E-Health initiative in the Central Region to help address challenges of record keeping in health facilities.

The project, which is at its pilot stage, has started at the Kasoa Polyclinic and is being rolled out by Lightwave, a technology service provider.

It aims at creating a centralised data centre with a 24-hour unit that will serve as an infrastructure platform for patients wherever they find themselves.

The new system will help better manage care of patients and keep their track records for easy accessibility any time they visit health facilities.

The minister said at the launch of the project that a number of challenges had existed in the health sector for a long time due to the manual process used.

He said the project had therefore come at the right time to ensure the tracking of patients and integrate it into the current National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) system.

The system will provide accurate, up-to-date and complete information about patients at the point of care.

'This will reduce costs through decreased paperwork because of its computerised processes and ensure proper checks and balances. '

Mr Segbefia therefore appealed to the doctors and nurses of the clinic to ensure that the new system worked to enable it to operate in all other parts of the country.

He again urged that doctor-patient confidentiality be ensured at all cost due to the legal implications involved for the success of the project.

Dr Lucio Dery, Deputy Regional Director, Health Services, expressed gratitude to government for the initiative.

He said the quality of care and service delivery to patients had been their major challenge in the sector and the E-Health system would help reduce patient movement and subscriber time and improve their revenue base.

Dr Dery thus appealed to the staff to attach all seriousness to the project to optimise their objectives.

Mr Thomas Mac Scofield, Chief Technology Officer, Lightwave, said the system had been designed in a single source that would allow for easy access by clinical operators by integrating patient information from multiple sources.

He said the system also conformed to the laws of the country per the dictates of the Ghana Data Law to ensure its safety and thereby improve health information reporting capacities of nurses and doctors.

The system will also enhance networking of all hospitals, clinics and Community Health Clinics in every region, district and sub-district and connect all health centres to a centralised data server.

The project, which will be carried out at 25 health facilities in the Central Region, has currently started with five districts and is expected to end by March 2017.

GNA
Complaint seeking impeachment of SC Justice Bhattarai revoked

A complaint filed at Legislature-Parliament seeking impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Ananda Mohan Bhattarai has been cancelled.
By Josephine Nyarkoh, GNA

Kumasi, Dec 06, GNA - The clergy has been asked to be bold to speak up against corruption, lawlessness and growing indiscipline in the society.

Presiding Bishop of the Christian Life Centre, Davis Freeman, said they should lead from the front the fight against social injustice, anything evil and unhealthy to the progress of the people.

He was speaking at a prayer conference, held in Kumasi, to ask for God's continued gift of peace as the nation readied to elect new political leaders.

The programme was organized by Women on Focus, a Christian non-profit organization.

'Understanding the times we are in', was the theme chosen for the event'.

Bishop Freeman underlined the need for elected leaders to be modest, transparent and accountable to the people.

They should not betray those they were representing, overcome arrogance and accept to go the extra mile to ensure that the society worked for everybody.

He also spoke of the need for all to work together to build trust in the state institutions.

He used the occasion to rally the church to do more to help people to smooth over their differences - genuine reconciliation and live in harmony.

The Reverend Emelia Ampomah, Coordinator of the Organization, urged Christians to refuse to be associated with anything immoral, evil and toxic.

That was the way to go to become a positive influence on society, she added.

GNA
06.12.2016 LISTEN

By Patience A. Gbeze, GNA

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has urged Ghanaians to rise above the 'dirty politics' and go out to vote massively to retain President Mahama and his Members of Parliament on December 7 elections, to consolidate the peace in the country.

Mrs Joyce Mogtari, Deputy Minister of Transport and Spokesperson for President Mahama's Campaign, who made the call at a press conference in Accra, said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) only wanted a change, to discontinue all that the NDC government has achieved over the years for their selfish gain.

She cited the alleged plan by the Flag bearer of the NPP to move the capital city from Accra to Kyebi in the Eastern Region as one of such 'dirty politics and lies' that the opposition was peddling and urged the public to ignore those deceits and rally behind the NDC for truth and development.

The Deputy Minister urged the public not to allow anybody, including the main opposition party, NPP to take away the shine of the good work of the government and the people of Ghana.

'Despite the year-long challenges characterized by the Elections Petition, President Mahama managed to fulfil his campaign promises and that manifest in every community across the country, she said.

Mrs Mogtari said during their nation-wide campaign tours, President Mahama still stood tall and would win the elections massively to continue his good works.

The campaign she said, focused on issues, achievement messages and peoples' development devoid of violence, insults and attacks on opponents, as being the case of the NPP.

She said President Mahama is a man of peace and has promised Ghanaians to ensure peace before, during and after the elections and urged the public to trust him for his words and also try be tolerant and avoid discrimination irrespective of their political or religious affiliations.

'In the face of great provocations, the NDC continue to remain focus for the sake of peace of the country,' she said and urged the public to go and cast their ballot in safety and peace.

'President Mahama has great commitment and passion for the country's development and he is the symbol of respect for the sanctity of the ballot before, during and after the elections, he said.

The Deputy Minister said President Mahama's unparrallel leadership quality is recognized both internationally and globally.

She therefore, thanked the media for their support, cooperation and understanding throughout their campaign period and urged them to continue the good work during and after the elections.

GNA
By Kodjo Adams, GNA

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - Major General Retired Nii Carl Coleman, the Chairperson of the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI), has implored domestic election observers to be transparent and give credible and reliable information for effective analysis of the election process.

'We know that each and every one of you belong to one political party or the other, but this exercise is a national duty and there is the need for you to subdue any party affiliation and focus on national interest by giving truthful information from the field,' he said.

Major Gen. Coleman gave the advice in Accra at the launch of the National Civil Society Elections Situation Room.

The event was organised by the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) and Civic Forum Initiative and supported by Star Ghana, UKAID, Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy, Education for Development, Ford Foundation, Australian Aid and the African Capacity Building Foundation.

Major Gen. Coleman urged the observers to give credible reports to the situation room to avoid undue pressure on them in the course of their professional work because IDEG was known to be a credible organisation in election analysis.

'We need to make sure things are done properly and it behooves on all observers to furnish the situation room with the right information,' he said, adding that any false information meant doing a disservice to the country's development.

Major Gen. Coleman pledged the unflinching support of members to a successful and peaceful election, saying their outfit would cross-check any information on the ground before making it public to maintain its credibility.

Launching the programme, Mrs Angela Dwamena Aboagye, the Founder of Ark Foundation, a Women's Right Organisation, said IDEG and CFI had established 10 situation rooms in all the regions with a national co-ordinating centre in Accra to disseminate credible information on the polls to the public.

She explained that the rooms would be operated in conjunction with the police and the Electoral Commission to focus on data regarding the voting processes, voter turnouts, and results from polling stations and collation centres. It would also cover other incidents and events that may crop up at the various polling centres.

Mrs Dwamena Aboagye said; 'It is an operational room equipped with cameras, phones, television sets and other gadgets to monitor and gather information as events roll out before, during and after the December general election.'

Mr Clement Nwankwo, the Head of Nigeria Civil Society Organisations, said the country had demonstrated its commitment to upholding democratic values due to the successful elections it had since 1992 and was optimistic it would continue.

He urged the observers to be abreast of the electoral process and have the understanding of the entire process to work effectively.

GNA
The Ghana Education Service has declared Wednesday, December 7 an off-day for all Basic and Second Cycle Institutions across the country.

A statement signed by the Director-General of the GES Mr Jacob Kor said the off-day declaration is for teachers and students who are 18 and above to exercise their franchise in their respective polling stations.

In less than 24 hours, Ghana will go to the polls to elect a president and parliamentarians.

Mr Jacob Kor urged all Regional, Metro, Municipal and District Directors of Education to adhere to the directions to allow the teachers and students partake in the exercise.

"Students and teachers are expected to return to their stations and schools for an academic work to progress on Thursday, 8th December, 2016," the statement added.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com | AA
Tripoli (AFP) - Forces loyal to Libya's unity government said Tuesday they were hunting down the last jihadists in the city of Sirte after the Islamic State group's ouster from its former bastion.

The loyalists said their soldiers were "chasing the last jihadists hiding in fewer than 10 houses" in the seafront district of Al-Giza al-Bahriya, the last to fall in the almost seven-month-long battle.

They also "managed to rescue a group of women and children that the defeated gangs of Daesh (IS) were using as human shields", the force backing the Government of National Accord (GNA) said on its Facebook page.

The pro-GNA force announced its full control of Sirte on Monday, in a major blow to the jihadists, and that dozens of IS fighters had surrendered.

Sirte's fall comes as IS also faces a string of military setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

Thirteen bodies of IS fighters were found Tuesday in Al-Giza al-Bahriya's streets, the pro-GNA force said.

The battle for the city, which was the last significant territory held by IS in Libya, cost the lives of nearly 700 loyalist troops and an unknown number of IS fighters.

"Today they helped many women and over 20 children, mostly infants and toddlers, who came out terrified and in dire need of medical and post-traumatic assistance", it said.

Libyan television stations have since Monday been broadcasting footage of women in black and small children, their hair covered with dust, emerging from Sirte homes, and of soldiers chanting to celebrate a hard-fought victory.

"The liberation of Sirte... is an historic day for Libya that must be celebrated across the nation," a GNA vice premier, Moussa el-Koni, wrote on Twitter.

'Rid of those monsters'

He said the Mediterranean city, which IS had seized in June 2015, was "in the centre and capable of linking" the country which is politically divided between east and west.

But for inhabitants of Sirte, the home town of Moamer Kadhafi which was subsequently neglected in the aftermath of the 2011 revolt which ousted the longtime dictator, the outlook remains gloomy.

"I used to live in Al-Giza al-Bahriya. No doubt my home has been destroyed," said Abdessalam al-Sirtawi, who took refuge in Tripoli and has been there with his family for several months.

Locator map of Sirte in Libya and timeline since June 2015 when it was first taken by IS group.

"I don't know if (Sirte) will find the means to recover... But the important thing is that we've got rid of those monsters," he told AFP.

Loyalist forces launched the offensive against Sirte on May 12, quickly seizing large parts of the city and cornering the jihadists.

But IS put up fierce resistance with suicide car bombings, snipers and improvised explosive devices.

The offensive in Sirte, 450 kilometres (280 miles) east of Tripoli, has been backed since August by a US bombing campaign.

On the political front, the city's capture boosts the authority of the UN-backed GNA, which was set up in Tripoli in March but whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration in eastern Libya.

The country descended into chaos following the NATO-backed ousting of Kadhafi, with rival administrations emerging and well-armed militias vying for control of its vast oil wealth.

The infighting and lawlessness allowed extremist groups such as IS to seize several coastal regions, giving the jihadists a toehold on Europe's doorstep.

The fall of Sirte comes as IS also faces a series of military defeats in Syria and Iraq.
A 75-year-old Tanzanian man has launched an elaborate search for a partner after his wife died.

Athumani Mchambua has put up advertising posters in the low income area of Mbagala in the main city of Dar es Salaam, urging interested applicants to show up for an interview.

The poster, in Swahili, says the successful candidate must be hardworking, able to handle farm work and be willing to be a step-mother to his 11 children:

Mr Mchambua told the BBC's Munira Hussein that he wanted to do the search on his own and not through intermediaries, which is traditional in some cultures.

I felt that if I was to use a traditional intermediary to find a wife, they might find a woman and then want to keep her for themselves. That's why I decided that I search for her on my own, and put out those posters.



I have held the interview only once and four candidates showed up, but no one had all the qualities. Some mentioned only two out of four [qualities] but not more than that."

He has so far interviewed four candidates:His daughter Dalia Mchambua told the BBC that she was happy with her father's process and was ready to accept the winning "candidate" as her mother.
The Flagbearers for the two leading political parties in the 2016 elections; President John Dramani Mahama and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

Tomorrow, Ghanaians will vote in a crucial election. The country will elect 275 parliamentarians and the President of the Republic of Ghana. There are seven presidential candidates in the race, but it is going to be a straight fight between President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) has been tipped to push the contest into a second round, but I don't think so. It's likely to be a one-touch victory for either the NDC or NPP.

Below are nine main factors, which, in my opinion, will determine who wins in tomorrow's election. This is a qualitative analysis, and it is my opinion.

1. Incumbency advantage

This has been an important factor that helps the governing party in Ghanaian elections. The governing party has money to spend. Yes, a lot of cash to splash around. This year, the NDC has the incumbency advantage, the spending power. The NDC's billboards have dwarfed those of its opponents. The party, apart from almost monopolizing the advertising space in the media, also bought slots on prime-time media programmes to propagate its message. Apart from doling out cash and other goodies to buy votes (which the smaller parties also do in small quantities), the governing NDC also uses state-funded initiatives such as outboard motors for fishermen to canvass for votes. Some people vote based on what they get from the politicians.

President Mahama, especially in his last days of the campaign, was able to visit many areas to campaign because he flew in state-owned helicopters. The incumbent party also controls the police and other security forces. In a country where agencies of the state owe allegiance to the governing party instead of the state, the system works in favour of the governing party. The NDC, therefore, has the incumbency advantage in this advantage.

2. Incumbency curse

People often talk about incumbency advantage, but they forget that there is an incumbency curse. The general hardships in the country are not blamed on the opposition. When there is no water, it is the incumbent party that suffers. Unemployment, power crises and any other form of disaffection or frustration in the country have a way of affecting the governing party. The NDC will suffer incumbency curse and the NPP will gain from this.

3. Infrastructure

The governing NDC has built its campaign around infrastructure. I wrote a few weeks ago that borrowing money to build infrastructure is something any idiot can do. Anybody can borrow, build and brag. It is not a novelty, but not all voters are sophisticated enough to see governance beyond the building of infrastructure. For some people, development is what they can see or touch. For some of the rural folks, they cannot be blamed. To the farmer in a village near Damongo who wants to transport his farm produce to Tamale or Accra, he cares very little about the exchange rate. Their major concern is the road so if you fix it, they need nothing more. Infrastructure will play an important role in this election. The NDC will benefit from this.

4. Corruption

Corruption is the biggest sin of this government. Almost all the campaign messages against the government have an accusation of corruption. The GYEEDA, SADA, SUBAH, Woyome, Bus Branding, Ford Gift Saga and other scandals have dented the reputation of the NDC and their candidate. Ghanaians are generally very tolerant of corruption but corruption will influence the voting decision of some people in this election, especially the middle and the upper classes in the society.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on the other hand, has been perceived as incorruptible. He is one of the most vilified politicians in this country. Even though allegations of all sorts thrown at him seem to stick with ease, his opponents do not add corruption to his sins. Contrasting this with his main opponent who has presided over a corruption-friendly government, the corruption factor will favour Akufo-Addo.

A voter writes on Facebook what will inform his choice

5. Candidate's appeal

Some people vote based on the appeal of the candidate. The demeanour of the candidates determines how some people vote. President Mahama has a youthful appeal. It is not in vain when he does the Usain Bolt sign and other youthful antics. He appeals more to the boys boys and girls girls than Nana Akufo-Addo, who looks very serious. While President Mahama tweets and Facebooks, Akufo-Addo recently said in a radio interview that he does not send emails. For this reason, President Mahama has an edge over Akufo-Addo in this regard, even though that appeal has waned since 2012 when Mr. Mahama first appeared on the Presidential ballot paper with edey bii keke.

President Mahama has also been projected as a humble man while Nana Akufo-Addo is said to be arrogant. Ghanaians are generally timid. And timidity is sometimes mistaken for humility and elevated above cardinal values such as honesty and trustworthiness in the selection of our leaders. A charge of arrogance can hurt the fortunes of a candidate even if those leveling the accusation cannot prove it. In terms of personal appeal, President Mahama seems to have an edge over Nana Akufo-Addo and those who vote on this factor will choose President Mahama over Akufo-Addo.

6. Fallout from Election 2012

In the 2012 election, President Mahama won with a slim margin. He had 50.7% of the total valid votes cast. He had 325,863 more votes than Nana Akufo-Addo. In the history of Ghana's elections in the Fourth Republic, any candidate who won and sought re-election often dropped in his performances. If this trend is anything to go by, President Mahama's percentage is likely to drop in 2016.

If someone voted for President Mahama in 2012, he or she may have more reasons not to vote for him in 2016 than those who voted for Nana Akufo-Addo in 2012. In 2012, President was not in charge for a long time. When he took over after President Mills' death, he was the darling boy of many voters. President Mills' death united the party behind him and won the party the sympathy of some floating voters.

In 2016, however, he has four years of not-so-impressive governance behind him as president. Not all who voted for him in 2012 may be happy with his handling of the economy, corruption, employment, power, etc. But because Akufo-Addo has not been in charge of these things, someone who voted for him in 2012 may not have a strong reason not to vote for him again. If all factors remain constant, the gap between the two will close because Mahama is likely to lose voters. These are people who may have voted for him in 2012. Those people may either not vote or they will vote for Akufo-Addo. So Akufo-Addo is likely to have the net gain in the fallout from election 2012.

There will be first-time voters, but looking at the general economic outlook and high level of unemployment the new voters (who are mostly the youth) will either shift towards the NPP or the two parties will share the spoils.

7. Ethnicity

Both the NDC and NPP have strong supports among some ethnic groups. The NPP enjoys enormous support among the Asante and Akyem, and some Akan ethnic groups while the NDC enjoys enormous support among the Ewes in the Volta Region and a majority of the ethnic groups in the three regions of the north. It is difficult to say who has the edge here. If either party suffers voters' apathy in its stronghold, the opponent will greatly benefit.

As it stands, the NPP is likely to improve on its performance in the three regions of the North. This will be mainly credited to the Bawumia factor and the fact that some people in that part of the country are not happy with the performance of the president in the handling of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). When President Mahama first contested in 2012, a lot of people up north said, it was time for their own brother to be in charge. But it seems a number of them are disappointed in their brother. It is not clear how the NDC will fare in the Volta Region, but the party's fortunes in the north are likely to reduce even though it will still win in that part of the country. The NDC is also targeting one million votes in the Ashanti Region, but it is difficult to say how close the party can get to that target, but from the northern Ghana situation the NDC is likely to have a deficit in the balance sheet of ethnic politics. This is likely to favour the NPP.

8. The running mate factor

The NPP's flag bearer Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia appears to have more weight than the NDC's Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur. They are both economists but Dr. Bawumia expertise has shaped this campaign to a large extent. His lecture on the economy brought the campaign back on track when it was reduced to trivialities. He adds value to the Akufo-Addo brand and the NPP has featured him in their campaign commercials. His wife, Samira, is arguably the discovery of the 2016 campaign. Nana Akufo-Addo's running mate adds a lot of weight to the ticket and appeals to the middle and upper classes. The NDC's Amissah-Arthur, on the other hand, does not add much weight to the ticket of President Mahama so the NPP has an edge over the NDC as far as the running mate factor is concerned.

9. The middle class/floating voters

A majority of voters in Ghana have their votes on autopilot, as Pastor Mensa Otabil puts it. They vote for ethnic and regional reasons. Both the NDC and NPP may have 45% of these votes before they start campaigning. There are also people who vote based on prevailing conditions. These people are not part of the two extremes. Infrastructure and vain promises do not inform their voting decisions. They are the middle and upper-class people. Call them the elite. They are in the minority but they have a say in who wins. The NPP does better in elite constituencies and on university campuses than the NDC. And in this election, the decision of the middle and upper class as well as university graduates who are yet to get jobs is likely to favour the NPP.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, the odds favour the NPP. But the NDC has campaigned very hard in the run-up to the election. The virtual control of the airwaves and the splashing of government projects will sway people. This makes it an open race. But the NPP has more reasons to win this election than the NDC.

The views expressed in this article are his personal opinions and do not reflect, in any form or shape, those of The Multimedia Group, where he works.

-Myjoyonline
The management, pupils and staff of St Nicholas Preparatory School, Tema New Town welcomed distinguished visitors, guests, parents and guardians to attend their annual St Nicholas Day celebrations on Sunday, December 4, 2016 at the schools wonderful premises located in Bankuman where the children and staff entertained a large and very appreciative audience to a morning of culture, music and dance.

The day began with a Service of Thanksgiving in the magnificent Greek Orthodox Church, built in the grounds of the school and which provides a beacon to mariners as they enter Tema. The service was led by Rev Father Irenios Opoku with appropriate prayers and hymns. Distinguished guests were then invited to sit under canopies to enjoy the spectacle under the flags of Ghana, Greece and the UK.

St Nicholas School was pleased to welcome many distinguished visitors, including Rev Yankey representing the Sailors Society, Charles Narh Teye who represented Ghana in the Para Olympic Games in London (2012) and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (2016) in the 80kg Powerlifting class and Ivan Quashigah of Farmhouse Productions who provided all video, photography and sound equipment for the event. Mr Quashigah also invited the cast of YOLO who later that evening won 8 awards at the prestigious Ghana Movie Awards 2016.

The programme began with the children singing the St Nicholas School anthem, followed by poetry recitals in Ga, Ewe, English and French. The audience was then entertained with a cultural display which showcased the extraordinary dancing abilities of the children, all wearing traditional Ghanaian costumes. The audience fully appreciated the cultural significance of the performance.

The audience then enjoyed songs from the nursery classes and watched the splendid parade and march past by the schools Cadet Corps, all dressed in naval uniform and with instruments kindly donated by Aiglon College, Switzerland. The band played and the cadets marched, both with remarkable skill and discipline. The National Anthems of Ghana, Greece and the UK were then sung by all who attended. The inspection of the cadets was then undertaken by the Paramount Chief of Tema, accompanied by Mr Enoch Adu, and by our visitor from British Airways, Captain James McNeillie who had flown a 747 to Accra the previous evening, but still honoured us by attending. Mr Patrick McLachlan represented the trustees of St Nicholas.

Prizes were awarded by Madam Deborah Eleazar to those pupils who had distinguished themselves during the past year at St Nicholas. Speeches were made by Innocent Fiagadzi (pupil) and Mrs Rita Damani (Tema East Sub-Metro Director of Education), who remarked that education was the best legacy that any nation could give its citizens and thanked the school authorities for their efforts made on behalf of the pupils.

Further choreography and songs were very much appreciated by the audience, and a most enjoyable occasion was closed by Madam Deborah Eleazar, who took the opportunity to thank her fellow trustee, Captain Alkiviadis Kappas for his constant efforts on behalf of St Nicholas, which are fully appreciated by all pupils, staff and management of the school. Visitors were then able to visit the new IT facilities and library, kindly donated by the Maria Tsakos Foundation, The Soutos Group of Companies, TCM (Tsakos Colombia Shipmanagement) and Haris Broumidis (the previous CEO of Vodafone, Ghana).
The first USA-Africa Chamber of Commerce, Ghana has been launched as part of measures to help the two countries to increase trade.

The Ghana chamber, which is the first of its kind on the continent is open to all businesses in the country and will be engaged in facilitating trade between businesses from the two countries. It will also empower small and medium business enterprises by equipping them with the necessary resources, connections and exposure that they need to form international partnerships for growth and development.

The Chamber will also work actively with stakeholders to help deepen cooperation and strengthen Ghanas business sectors.

Martin Ofori, Chairman of the USA-Africa Chamber of Commerce, Ghana, speaking at the launch in Accra encouraged Ghanaian businesses to practice the golden rule of doing business.

Dont not regard the golden rule as an after-thought or academic execise but rather as the core of business strategy. Historically, it has been proven that treating your competitors, customers, the environment and other stakeholders right is not just the good thing --- it is also the profitable thing to do. And we expect nothing less from members of the USA-Africa Chamber of Commerce, Ghana, Mr. Ofori said.

The launch, which was themed, Engendering growth and development through peace and cooperation, happened together with the launch of the iChange Nations (ICN), a professional institution that promotes honour and builds statement by equipping, mentoring and training highly esteemed individuals who have the desire to change nations throughout the world.

Speaking at the launch, Founder and President of ICN, Dr.Clyde Rivers said ICN is a global awareness by strategically helping nations to educate, train and support the nation building process designed to improve the dignity and betterment of human life.

He stressed that ICN Ghana is intent on promoting the golden rule of doing business in Ghana.The Golden rule of doing business is simply a call to business and national leaders to do unto others what they want others to do unto them.

Dr. Glays Loggin-Folorunsho, founder and President of the USA-Africa Chamber of Commerce entreated Ghanaians to promote the peace agenda during and after the national elections.
On my way to work this morning, one man asked: What does this Soyinka want? Sitting beside him in the same bus, I couldnt immediately provide a reply. One thing I was sure of was that this man was really angry with the Nobel Laurette.

As he spoke further, I began to understand his problem with Professor Soyinka. His problem with Soyinka dates back many years ago. Soyinka opposed Jonathan. Soyinka writes in indecipherable words. Soyinka opposed Trump. He started cultism on Nigerian university campuses. He plays too much politics, that is why nobody in the world recorgnised Kongi.

All these came up after the man hear that the Professor has threatened to leave Nigeria in the news. Soyinka is quoted to have said: "I should not be exiting the United States but Nigeria because the people on behalf of whom one has struggled all ones life can be so slavish in mentality as to start querying the right of their champion to free speech." How dare he say that, this man seems to say!

This mans problem like I said earlier, was not much with Kongis unfortunate statement, but with things more personal.

In this mans bitterness, he forgot that Kongi won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1986. He also forgot that Soyinkas politics transcend Nigeria. Many probably do not know that Soyinka was largely involved in the downfall of Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin Dada. Those that have bothered to read his A Play of Giants, will testify that Kongi chooses his audience carefully and he has never claimed to achieve popularity by simply writing!

Famed writers like Eric Blair (better known as George Orwell) wrote on social and political problems. Books like Nineteen Eighty Four, Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out of Paris are dedicated to addressing specific social problems he saw in his life. What is the big deal in a writer like Soyinka participating in politics?

As far as I know the best of writers are those who are brave enough to take sides with what they know as truth. George Orwell fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. W.B. Yeast never hid his Irish Republican sympathies in his write-ups (see An Irish Airman Foresees His Death and Easter 1916). Chinua Achebe was not only on the Biafran side during the Nigerian Civil War (incidentally Soyinka was imprisoned for visiting the Eastern Region by Gowon), he was National Vice-Chairman of Aminu Kanos Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in the Second Republic (1979-83).

I can go on to list writers and their political beliefs, but for time and space. What does Soyinka want? If he tears his Green card because Trump won, whose business is that? To this I will reply: Jero is a social critic who sees the society the way he interprets it like all of us do. On a serious note, what does Soyinka want?

Olalekan Waheed ADIGUN is a political risk analyst and independent political strategist for wide range of individuals, organisations and campaigns. He is based in Lagos, Nigeria. His write-ups can be viewed on his website http://olalekanadigun.com/ Tel: +2348136502040, +2347081901080

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Follow me on Twitter @adgorwell
English access microscholarship gets wider reach

The US Embassy has opened six new English Access Microscholarship Programmes across Nepal, the embassy said on Monday.
The opposition New Patriotic Party in the Ashanti Region has rejected claims that its Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, also known as Chairman Wontumi masterminded the planting of the fake ballot papers that were intercepted by the Police in the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi on Monday.

The NPP has absolutely nothing to do with the criminal act to thumb print ballot papers in favour of John Dramani Mahama, the NDC presidential candidate. It's an allegation that is mischievous, reckless, criminal and designed to pervert the course of justice, the NPP's parliamentary candidate for the Subin Constituency, Eugene Boakye Antwi said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The Police in Kumasi on Monday intercepted three bags stuffed with thumb-printed presidential ballot papers found at the Madison Lodge at TUC in Kumasi.

All the retrieved ballot papers which had thumb prints for President John Mahama, the presidential candidate of the NDC was later said to be fake .

The NDC has however blamed Wontumi and his aide, Andy Owusu for plotting the incident.

Meanwhile, the NPP in the region while rejecting the claim, further accused the Police of taking sides instead of being objective.

Eugene Boakye Antwi at the press conference said the leadership of the party in the region has read with dismay and concern about the threat of arrest and detention of our Regional Chairman on social media by the Commissioner of Police, Nathan Kofi Boakye, the Regional Police commander.

The constitution of Ghana enjoins the security agencies to protect every responsible and law abiding citizens who go about their lawful businesses. We urge the security agencies to exercise maximum restraint, reasonable force and even handedness in their constitutional mandate, before, during and after this tensed political season. The leadership has put in place maximum internal security arrangements to protect every polling station to ensure that Ghanaians specifically those residing in the Ashanti Region are free to go about and exercise their civic responsibilities, he added.



By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
Rt. Rev. Prof. Martey (L), immediate past Presby Moderator, praying for Rt. Rev. Prof. Cephas Omenyo

The newly elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Reverend Professor Cephas Narh Omenyo, has been inducted into office at a church service in Accra.

Rev. Prof. Omenyo, who is 57 years old and the Provost of the College of Education of the University of Ghana, succeeds Very Right Reverend Professor Martey who served as moderator for five years.

He was elected in August 2016 at the 16th General Assembly of the church at Abetifi in the Eastern Region, after serving as a minister of the church for 31 years.

Rev. Prof. Omenyo went into the contest unopposed after Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante, the President of the Trinity Theological Seminary in Accra, and Rev. Herbert Anim-Opong, the Chairperson for the North American Presbytery of the church, stepped down after the nomination.

At the nomination stage, Rev. Prof. Omenyo secured 116 votes, Rev. Prof. Mante (60 votes) and Rev. Anim-Opong (27 votes) as the top three nominees.

Rev. Prof. Mante and Rev. Anim-Opong later bowed out. leaving Rev. Prof. Omenyo as the sole candidate for the election.

Induction Service

The induction service was graced by the Vice-President of Ghana, Mr Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, and his wife; the Finance Minister, Mr Seth Terkper; the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party ( NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and his wife and a leading member of the NPP, Mr Alan Kyerematen.

Very Rt. Rev. Prof. Martey performed the induction ceremony and counselled Prof. Omenyo to work hard to enhance the work done by his predecessors to ensure that the Presbyterian Church grows from strength to strength.

He also charged the new moderator to continue the church's works of lifting high the cross of Jesus and rescuing the perishing for the second coming of the saviour.

Very Rt Rev. Prof. Martey congratulated his successor and urged him to seek the face of God always.

He further appealed to the members of the church to offer the needed support and cooperation to Rev. Prof. Omenyo in the discharge of his duties.

In his address after his induction, Rev. Prof. Omenyo expressed gratitude to the leadership and members of the church for the confidence reposed in him.

He expressed the belief that his election was a confirmation that he had been chosen by the almighty God to serve the church.

I walk into this office convinced that the Sovereign Lord has chosen me to work to glorify His name and that is exactly what I will do. I appeal to all Presbyterians to join hands with me to work to enhance the church and glorify God, he said.

Rev. Prof. Omenyo said the first five years of his leadership would focus on church missions, renewal, discipleship, social justice and safeguarding the integrity of the nation, among other thematic areas.

He expressed gratitude to his predecessors for the solid foundation they had laid for the church, upon which he had been given the opportunity to build, and promised to work hard with the help of God to boost their achievement.

Biography

Rev. Prof. Cephas Narh Omenyo was born in 1959 and hails from Somanya in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

He is a Professor in the Department for the Study of Religions of the College of Education, University of Ghana, with extensive experience in teaching, research and administration.

He was commissioned into the Ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in 1985 and was ordained in 1987 in Tamale.

The new moderator obtained his first degree in Sociology and Religion from the University of Ghana and Master of Philosophy from the same university and a PhD from Utrecht University in Holland.

He has served on a number of boards and committees both in the church and the university, and until his elevation was the Head of the Grace Presbyterian Church, West Legon. He is married with three children.

-Ghanaweb
06.12.2016 LISTEN



By Bernice Bessey ([email protected])..

The Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah has broken the ground for the construction of three-storey building to replace the abandoned the Salaga Market.

The market is a combined initiative by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and Social Security Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to provide 1300 stalls to accommodate traders.

The facility, which is expected to be completed by August 2017, comes along with a car park.

Mr. Debrah said in a short speech on Sunday to the traders and some concerned residents in the area that the government has no intention to eject anybody upon completion.

He, however, assured the general public that the market will have enough stalls to accommodate all the 600 registered members and more.

He promised more of AMA and SSNIT collaborations if the people vote for the ruling National Democratic Congress to continue with the good works, saying, after the elections, more projects will come will come your way.

The Member of Parliament for the area, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, also reiterated that the stalls will be shared equally without any discrimination.

He said the NDC would transform Accra into a modern city that can boast of beautiful landmarks and edifices.

The Gbese Mantse, Nii Ayi Bontey, was overwhelmed with the proposed project, and even threw the challenge that if the NDC loses he will step down as a chief.

Dr. Alfred Okoe Vanderpujie, Chief Executive Officer of the AMA, also disclosed that the Rawlings Park will be constructed into a 17-storey to enable the free flow of traffic, as well as create jobs for the youth.
06.12.2016 LISTEN



The presidential candidates of the various political parties who have been cleared to contest in tomorrow's election recently assembled in Accra to sign a peace pact.

The idea by proponents of the peace accord was to ensure peace before, during and after the elections.

Considering what is happening in other African countries, where elections become battle fields, The Chronicle sees as laudable the idea to commit the flagbearers of the contesting parties to sign the peace pact.

Our concern though, is the frequency for the signing of these peace pacts. The 2012 maiden edition was held in Kumasi in the presence of Otumfuo Osei Tutu Ababio, the Asantehene.

The big question is how long should we keep on signing peace pacts?

Since 1992, when the country ushered in the Fourth Republic, almost all the successive presidents of the United States of America, starting from Bill Clinton have visited Ghana because of our flourishing democracy, which has become the envy of our peers.

Indeed, except for some recorded pockets of violence, all elections conducted under the 4th Republican Constitution have been relatively peaceful.

It is based on these past records that The Chronicle finds it rather unfortunate, the continuous signing of these peace pacts as if this nation does not know what peace is.

The most ironic and disturbing aspect of it all is that, some of the international observers invited to witness these peace signing ceremonies are from war-torn countries.

If these so called international observers know how to maintain peace, how then did their countries go to war? Is this not a shame that we have visited upon ourselves?

Since bad news sells, the foreign media are always interested in terrible news from Africa. The Chronicle does not begrudge them because it is part and parcel of journalism.

However, as a nation, we must prevent this bad press by doing the right things. The moment we invite our flagbearers to sign a peace pact, we are telling the world that the election would turn into violence and this would compel the foreign media to focus their attention on Ghana.

As we noted earlier, we are not against signing of the peace accord per se, but what we are against is its frequency, as if we are learning nothing from our democratic dispensation.

The 1992 Constitution has relevant provisions that deal with anyone that tries to take the law into his or her own hands.

Unless we are trying to tell the world that the flagbearers are not aware of these sanctioning provisions in the constitution, then there is no need to keep on signing the peace accord.

After practicing democracy over the past 24 years, we have come of age and should, therefore, stop sending wrong signals to the outside world that our democracy has weak foundation.

What promoters of these peace accords should do is to keep an eagle eye on our electoral process and ensure that every vote is counted when the polls come to an end. We must stop this rabble-rousing attitude because it is tarnishing our image.
06.12.2016 LISTEN

The Adabraka Branch of the Young Women's Christian Association is calling for peaceful elections as the country prepares to go to the polls tomorrow [Wednesday].

The President of the group who made the call, Rosemond Abraham said we need peace here, the young ones need peace, everybody needs peace.

We know that in the Sahara area and the Abuja areas in Adabraka, there is always conflict because residents quarrel anytime results are declared so we want to preach peace. We want them to understand that it is just a competition and this competition is not about fighting.

She also emphasized the need for parents to advise their wards to exercise patience during this crucial season.

Parents should speak to their children. They should speak to their children about politicians and their deception. They should be advised not to allow politicians to deceive them.

She also appealed to the youth to be circumspect, sayingas the young ones we are pleading with them to exercise patience. They should think clearly that their parents and siblings are there.



By: citifmonline.com/Ghana
[06 December 2016] Airtel Business, the enterprise sub brand of Airtel Ghana is supporting the Women Situation Room (WSR) to ensure a peaceful election during Ghanas 2016 presidential and Parliamentary elections. The WSR is a peace building project that empowers women and the youth to be the leading force for democracy and peace before, during and after presidential elections across the African continent.

Airtel Business has brought on board its expertise in delivering unmatched network solutions in this project, by equipping the project with a call center with dedicated high speed internet and voice solutions.

The WSR consists of a Secretariat, election observers, a Call Center, a team of eminent women leaders and a pool of experts who receive situation reports of real or potential trouble on the ground. The eminent persons use their status and influence with the Electoral body, political leaders, traditional leaders and civil society to reduce brewing tensions or acts of violence from getting out of control.

The Physical Situation Room is at the heart of WSRs project where incidents at polling stations and collation centers across the country will be reported and immediately addressed. Various security services, the Electoral Commission and members of other civil society bodies are well represented in the Physical Situation Room.

The services provided by Airtel Business will ensure that incidents from all corners of the country reach the WSR in time. The robust connectivity provided will also ensure that the WSR is constantly in touch with its members across Ghanas 28,000 polling stations.

The Women Situation Room, a novelty for the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Ghana, is a real-time and progressive process that focuses on advocacy, mediating and intervening in violent and tense situations that occur at polling stations and Constituency Collation Centers before, during and after the elections.

The concept was initiated by Cllr Yvette Chesson-Wuren, the Coordinator for the Liberia-based Angie Brooks International Centre, a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) focused on Women empowerment. This initiative was successfully deployed during the 2011 presidential elections in Liberia. It has since been deployed in Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria and Sierra Leone with remarkable success.

Call Center Contact

The dedicated Call Center provides a platform for Ghanaians to report incidents, violence, voting anomalies or violence against women at their polling stations in real time. The toll free number to call is 0800 100 100 across all networks.

Launch

The initiative was launched at the Holiday Inn Hotel, where the team will be based during the elections and the days after. The launch attracted representatives from the Diplomatic Corps, the Electoral Commission, Civil Society Groups, the Security Services and the media. Yvette Chesson Wureh, the Initiator of the WSR shared insights into the successes the initiative has chalked in other countries which will be replicated in Ghana. A solidarity message was shared by Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia.

Solid network throughout the elections and Christmas period

Meanwhile a statement from Airtel Ghana is assuring its cherished customers of network stability over the electioneering and festive period. It reads At Airtel Ghana, delighting our customers with the best network coverage for all their communication, connectivity and collaborative needs is our hallmark. In line with our processes, we have instituted a network freeze to ensure stability over the period and beyond. Customers are guaranteed exceptional experiences on our network for voice and data services all year round.

About Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 359 million customers across its operations at the end of July 2016. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com

About Airtel in Africa

Airtel is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all. Airtel has 17 operations in Africa: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Airtel International is a Bharti Airtel company. For more information, please visit www.airtel.com, or like the Airtel Ghana Facebook page via www.facebook.com/airtelgh or follow us on Twitter via the handle @airtelghana.
06.12.2016 LISTEN



By William Jalulah

At the heart of the Kusasi-Mamprusi conflict is an agglomeration of issues about litigations over allodial rights and chieftaincy. Both the Kusasi and Mamprusi claim allodial ownership of Bawku, claims which are shrouded in their narrative histories of origin, and derived from claims of autochthony. This is according to Project MUSE/Ghana Studies: 2014.

The history of litigation over the Bawku conflict dates back to the 1950s. But the last conflict that devastated the north-easternmost corner town of Ghana, which was one-time an economic hub of the West African country, occurred in December 2007, during the celebration of the Samapiid festival celebrated by the Kusais.

Gunshots echoed through the town, lives lost, properties destroyed, and many residents displaced. The insurgence continued, with retaliatory attacks through the use of sophisticated weapons. Women, children and the youth were not spared. In fact, some of the youth took active participation in the conflict from either side.

The brutalities intermittently continued until the latter part of 2010, when the perilous situation started paving way for a peace process to take place. In the heat of the conflict, the state spent hugely to calm down the situation, as it deployed heavy security officers and apparatus, mainly from the military and the police. Some known persons were targeted, fished out and killed. Some of those victims were either killed in their homes or ambushed.

Curfews

Several hours of curfews were imposed on the town, as temporary measures to curtail the movements of residents. As temporary measures, the curfew hours varied from time to time, as the state of peace was reviewed on a monthly basis and appropriate security advice given.

Ban on the use of motorbikes

Being a business town, the use of motorbikes in Bawku was, and still is of immense help to the people. However, security watchers and personnel identified the use of motorbikes as a threat to the search for peace. According to them, most criminals used motorbikes to perpetrate sporadic shootings and the burning down of houses. Even to the extent that unscrupulous persons could ride motorbikes, wield weapons in broad daylight, and fire either at their targets or aimlessly, just to cause commotion.

Subsequently, a ban was placed on the use of motorbikes for a long period. This affected negatively those who traded in motorbikes, those who repaired them, and those who used them to run their businesses, as well as workers who used them to and from their offices.

Education and Healthcare

The conflict affected the standards of education in the area, because teachers and students could not predict when, where, and how sporadic gunshots would be unleashed. Thus, they often avoided teaching and learning to save their lives whenever the situation was precarious. Healthcare providers also fled the town, because some of them were targeted and killed, while others left because they sensed danger.

Inter-Ethnic Peace Committee

Subsequently, a peace committee  Bawku Inter-Ethnic Peace Committee (BIEPC)  was formed and inaugurated in May 2009, to work towards the restoration of lasting peace in the area. The 10-member committee was also charged with the responsibility to open up genuine, constructive and effective dialogue among all people of Bawku, especially, the major protagonists in the conflict.

Though the committee attained some appreciable level of achievements, misunderstandings later ensued, and the Mamprusis withdrew from it. They, however, returned later for the peace talks to continue.

Fleeing for their lives

In the heat of the conflict, many residents, in their hundreds, fled Bawku to neighbouring towns in Ghana, including Bolgatanga, the capital of the Upper East Region, Zebilla, Nalerigu, and some as far as to Tamale, Kumasi, Accra and other major cities in Ghana. As if that was not enough, some also, mainly the youth, took refuge in neighbouring countries like Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, and anywhere in the world they thought they could find refuge.

Visiting some youth bases in the Bawku municipality, some recounted their losses, as their prominent leaders like Mohamed Bukari, Tanko, Gordon Anaaka, Emmanuel Akatame and many others, who were deeply involved, have vanished into the thin air due to the threat they received those days and fear for their lives. Meanwhile, relatives of those who lost their lives have declined to comment for fear of their safety.



Even though there is a military base in Bazua, a deep throat source from the two gates insisted that the lasting solution to the fragile peace is to establish a permanent military base in Bawku town. The government also did indicate that plans are far advanced to resource this military base, which has been in the same town since 2008.

As I walked through the main streets of Bawku and interacted with some of indigenes, it was clear that some of their colleagues who fled the town have not returned. Maybe, just maybe, some may return, and maybe too, they will not.

A 29-year old mobile phone credit vendor at Natinga, a suburb of Bawku, Alebna Victor, said; Two of my brothers had to run away from Bawku, because they felt unsafe. One is in Kumasi now, but the other one; we don't know where he is.

Though we don't longer feel threatened like we used to do during the shooting time, I'm not convinced that this conflict won't happen again. In fact, because of this conflict, my very good friend called Anaka ran away; almost four years now I don't know where he is. Even if I can locate him, I will tell him to be where he is, if only that place is safe for him, Awini Ahmed said.

Naba Asigri Abugrago Azoka II, the Overlord of the Bawku Traditional Area, corroborated the fleeing of some residents from the town during the conflict. According to him, the effects of the conflict are retardation of development, loss of lives and destruction of properties.

Not oblivious of the unpredictability of the area, the Overlord advised politicians campaigning for votes ahead of the 2016 polls to desist from the use of provocative language, so as to avoid any disturbances.

Meanwhile, Bawku Central constituency has been identified as one of the flash-points ahead of the December. In Ghana, flash-points are areas that are prone to violence during elections. They are often identified by the Ghana Police Service, in conjunction with the Electoral Commission.

It is, therefore, incumbent on all the security agencies to remain resolute, neutral and impartial, not leaving anything to chance as far as peace in Bawku is con
06.12.2016 LISTEN

In the rat race for survival and fulfillment in Ghana today, it is not only the privileged applying ways and means in beating the heat that the system throws at ordinary, decent people. Possibly leading the pack among the lowly in that race today are our dreaded mortuary attendants, our investigations reveal.

As you read this piece, there continues unabated the spectre of these glum-faced human beings daily wheeling into the mortuaries the dead, poor and rich, ignorant and wise, lettered and unlettered.

Not many people would ordinarily love to enroll in such a vocation, and yet, very few know that within the turbulent climate in which health workers generally operate, breeds a silent trade, in which the major beneficiaries are not your average decent health workers or the bereaved weeping family members. The real beneficiary entities are these glum-faced messengers of death, who pace up and down from hospital wards into chilly, dark mortuaries with human cargo as their 'loot.'

In this environment, in which the respected dead are consigned to the chilly embrace of mortuary attendants in an unholy friendship, the deceased family members count only one loss  that of their royal  which affords our messengers of death some enduring comfort. How does one, indeed, compare the loss of a royal to a bead on the waist, ear-ring, wedding ring on the finger, or brazier and panty on a woman's vital parts? And yet, that is a gold mine most hospital staff or the general public may not be aware of.

Instructive in this revelation interestingly, is a phenomenon in which most beneficiaries, who have been cited in the trade, have turned from humans into dummies. Years of horrid trade have reduced them to a semblance of physical life, but inwardly diseased and spent, awaiting a similar call by a doctor or nurse to a colleague attendant to ferry him to join those he looted in the name of playing lawful scavenger as a legitimate hospital personnel.

Quiet investigations by The Chronicle have established that from doctors and nurses at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Okomfo Anokye Hospital, Pantang Psychiatric Hospital or any other you know or can imagine, come on a daily basis innocuous messages to mortuary attendants asking them to pick a dead body to the morgue. This is after certification that the person had lost the battle for life and is a regular, routine hospital duty.

Within minutes, up pop these men in ash with their wheels to carry out the duties they cherish. As far as the doctor or nurse is concerned, what matters most at this point is that they have made assurance doubly sure that the person in question is medically and truly dead. Beyond that, what matters to the dead body is of little consequence to them. The responsibility then is passed on to the mortuary attendant. Between the message to the mortuary attendant and the journey to the mortuary, there are no procedures for taking stock of items like, necklaces, ear-rings wedding rings, beads, braziers, panties etc.

This signals the beginning of a trade that has existed for nearly half a century, according to doctors and nurses who are friends to The Chronicle.

Ali, a cemetery attendant of yesteryears, who plied his trade at the Osu Cemetery and is now joined to the thousands of bodies he had previously buried as local government officer and state undertaker, once told this reporter in 1996 that he does not understand why people kept calling on him asking for things that may only be found at the mortuary. Ali, I am told, was a very good friend to the revered Second World War and Congo War veteran, Gen. J.A. Ankrah, head of the first military government of Ghana.

My undertaker pal was a devout Moslem, who would not desecrate the dead or his religion. This reporter didn't understand Ali then, when he 'partnered' people like him and mortuary attendants seeing to burials and related duties as part of his responsibilities as Communications Officer for a leading Pentecostal denomination in Ghana, before entering the wicked, turbulent landscape of political journalism in Ghana.

Ali had confided in me then: I don't sell human [dead men] nails; I don't sell wedding rings and I don't sell dresses worn by dead people Were today's mortuary attendants in Ali's shoes, it would have been a 'windfall hurray.' Ali would have then been described as stupid, though he knew, like a book, where all the nation's military veterans and leading luminaries were buried at the Osu Cemetery, including the very affluent.

The truth, as revealed by insiders at the Korle Bu mortuary and the La General Hospital, is that there are occasional requests coming to mortuary attendants from faceless merchants daily to supply finger nails, pubic hair, human tongues and dresses that had been worn by dead people. Also included in the horrendous list are beads, wedding rings etc.

Hospital authorities hold that when a person is dead, he is dead, including everything on his body  hence the understandable virtual write-off of such items. I was told it is not the hospital authorities' duties to read into spiritual matters like what people may do with discarded beads and panties. When we ask a patient to come to the theatre, we demand that items like beads, panties, wedding rings etc. are removedin the same breadth, when a person is dead, only the naked body is whisked to the mortuary after we have certified that the person is truly dead our doctor friend told The Chronicle, pointing out, however, that family members have a right to demand such items.

We don't have other processes and procedures apart from theseThese are conventional practices the world over. As far as we are concerned, these things are meant to be incinerated, when a person is dead. They are rubbish, and may even be infected. I should be surprised if anyone finds a treasure in such items. Our job and those of our nurses ends at inviting mortuary attendants to pick up corpses to be sent to the morguethat's all we do, our medical officer friend intimated.

Our mortuary attendant sources, however, in confirming the story, add that on the way to the mortuary, panties and braziers or ordinary dresses are singled out and washed to be sent to people in our markets who buy and sell just anything  if faceless merchants don't even turn up.

We have two markets. One is that we have on our markets people who buy and retail anythingthey come for itbut the better and bigger market comes from those who order wedding rings and beads or nails and pubic hair

The theory and suspicion is that there is an underworld of the wicked powerful and rich who thrive on occult rituals, and who support their grisly activities with rituals in which such items are sacrificed on altars, It is a veritable case of the law of the jungle existing side by side with conventional law created for you and I, and which necessarily do not bind these elevated elite and their political animal cronies.

Like our doctors, the mortuary attendants find nothing wrong with selling what they also consider rubbish. Mortuary attendant, Dagger (not real name), insists that patriotic people like him are only helping family members to keep the mortal remains of their royals intact until the day they come for them for wake keeping and burial rites. Again, like the conventional health staff at the hospitals, he queried: What about those who prepare corpses outside the confines of the mortuary and those who finally bury them. They should be the worst sinners, because they see more expensive rings, panties, dresses and beads, including the pubic hair and the finger nails, and rest being referred toWhat about the decent pathologists who do worse things on the body..?

Two Moslem priests and Mallams I spoke with denied using such items to pray or conduct divination rites. According to them, Moslems use cowries and ordinary sand or kola and chicken etc., for their spiritual invocation rites. We can't create human beings, so we don't desecrate human beings. We respect the dead

According to Dagger, it is not his business to find out what the person buying the item needs it for, since, in his thinking, what mortuary attendants trade in is mere rubbish, which not even the family members need. According to him, anybody who buys rubbish to dispose of should be appreciated rather than deprecated.

Stories about cemeteries being raided and corpses being desecrated are no longer strange to the ordinary ear in Ghana. Awash in social media are gory pictures about dead bodies hidden under construction profiles for chapels. On police dockets are records of cases of young men who had butchered vulnerable women, and yet other equally heinous cases of men arrested for carrying human parts on them. It has not been too clear how these cases have ended, in terms of prosecution, but also in terms of unraveling any rings associated with the phenomenon, to enable a decisive preventive national strategy.

Our insider sources propose a theory: items like beads and panties are claimed to enhance womanhood in a marriage when a spiritualist applies it as a prayer point; pubic hair signals enjoyment in a relationship in which the male spouse's affection is 'captured' perpetually, and footwear and fingernails, fulfillment and fruitful direction in life. The tongue, on the other hand, is meant to enhance and enable credibility and acceptability for the applicant seeking the aid of a shrine or cult in business, or the fight into a leadership position.

In a nation, where institutional commitment to policy or law and order exists only in the minds of technocrats and politicians, it will take only God, perhaps, to trace how such transactions fester and linger, and the ends to which the items being traded in are put, in establishing if such practices are not injurious to the nation's emotional, physical, mental, psychological and spiritual health.

Dagger has built for himself a decent house along the Kasoa stretch and eats and drinks good; another colleague, Obrempong, who lives along the same stretch towards Bawjiase in the Central Region, also lives comfortably, save, like his pal Dagger, he wears almost on a regular basis an expression of absent-mindedness on his face when he is outside the mortuary premises. It appears that his soul is at home only when he is within the dreary premises  among the silent dead.

Both are due for retirement but have managed, over the years, to scale down their true ages for vocational profit.

By Chris Lartey
The acting Manager of Madison Lodge has denied issuing a statement that linked the Ashanti Region Chairman of the New Patriotic Party to the thumbprinted presidential ballots which were retrieved from the Lodge yesterday.

Benjamin Owusu, who is also son of the owner of the guest house told Luv FM's Erastus Asare Donkor two of his staff have been arrested by the police to assist in investigations.

He however denied the involvement of his workers in a plot that saw thousands of ballot papers thumb-printed for the president, John Mahama.

Three bags containing thousands of already thumb-printed ballots were retrieved Monday morning after the NPP chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako led a team of police men and journalists to the Madison Lodge, a Guest House in Nhyaeso in the Ashanti Region

Shortly after the bags were retrieved, the EC and the police declared the ballots as fake claiming they will not have any influence at all on the election.

No sooner was a statement issued purporting to have come from owners of Madison Lodge accusing the NPP chair of masterminding the whole incident.

"The attention of Madison Lodge has been drawn to images and videos circulating on social media, alleging that thumb printed ballot papers were found in our hotel rooms.

"We wish to state the following

"1. On Saturday, December 3 at 7:20PM, a gentleman by name Andy Owusu, who is a known face in Kumasi and special Assistant to Chairman Wontumi, booked three rooms, he said was meant for some investors of his business.

"2. He dropped 2 Bags and stayed in the room for 2 hours with a fair lady.

"3. Chairman Wontumi, on Sunday, led Police men and media to our hotel premises to the very room his assistant booked, only to be told they were thumb printed Ballot.

"4. We see this as scandalous and an attempt to destroy our brand as one of the serene hotels in Kumasi," the statement, signed by one Evans Nuamah said.

But for the first time owners of the Lodge have broken their silence on the matter denying ever issuing the first statement which has been trending on social media.

He suspects the statement may have been coming from the perpetrators of the crime.

Benjamin Owusu indicated that even though he was not present when the incident happened he has adequately been briefed by the workers about what happened.

Narrating what he was briefed on, the acting manager said a man rented the guest house with a lady Sunday night.

The man was said to have entered the room with the three bags. Neither was his identity taken by the receptionist nor were the bags searched.

Mr Owusu reported the receptionist as saying that the man was tired and promised to give all information about himself the following morning.

He however failed to do so and left the Guest House shortly before it was invaded by the police and Chairman Boasiako, Monday morning.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah
By Kodjo Adams, GNA

Accra, Dec. 2, GNA - The approval of a Gas Master Plan by Cabinet would address the country's infrastructure gaps and clarify areas of priority in the power sector, Mr Emmanuel Kofi Armah-Buah, Minister of Petroleum has said.

Mr Armah-Buah said the Ministry has begun work on the development of a Gas Policy and a Gas Act that would provide transparent regulatory framework for the gas industry.

'The policy will address infrastructure requirements; funding, institutional mandates for gas sector agencies and provide a revised gas pricing policy reflecting our developmental priorities as a country,' he added.

The Minister said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the Ministry's activity in the oil and gas industry.

He said government was systematically developing additional gas fields and ramping up volumes in existing fields, adding that in the next decade, 80 per cent of country's source of power would come from thermal generation with gas as the critical feed stock.

He noted that with the various projects outlined by the Ministry, gas volumes from indigenous fields will reach 350 Million Standard Cubic Feet Per Day (MMSCFD) by 2019 that would be enough to generate over 2000 Mega Watt of power.

Mr Armah-Buah said additional volumes would in the long term provide the opportunity for the country to realise its vision to utilise gas for other industrial uses beyond power generation such as fertilizer and petrochemicals.

He observed that the Gas Processing Plant, which has a capacity of 150 MMSCFD was currently supplying about 80 MMSCFD of gas for power generation.

He said the plant was also producing about 500 metric tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) per day, which was about 50 per cent of national demand.

'In addition to the main project, several ancillary projects within the Gas corridor are being undertaken. These include the construction of asphalt road network, including construction of bridges for the safe evacuation of the LPG from the gas processing plant,' he said.

The Minister said Ghana Gas has installed a backup overhead compressor to minimise interruptions to gas supply and commenced procurement and installation of a Mainline Compressor Station in anticipation of the Sankofa gas which would be available from the 2nd Quarter of 2018,

'The Ghana Gas has completed the extension of its pipeline to the battery limit of the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company's (WAPCo) Regulatory and Metering Station at Aboadze awaiting WAPCo to interconnect to ensure bidirectional transportation of gas between the two critical load centres of Takoradi and Tema, and guarantee flexibility and security of supply'.

Mr Armah-Buah said the cumulative production from the jubilee field as at September, was approximately 181 million barrels of oil and 41 bcf of gas exported to the Gas Processing Plant and that about 80 MMSCFD was supplied to power plants to generate electricity.

He said the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) Fields would deliver about 80,000 bopd and 50 MMSCFD to fuel thermal plants for electricity generation, stressing that production from the TEN field would complement Jubilee to ensure uninterrupted gas supply to the power plants.

To date, TEN has produced about 800,000 barrels of oil. TEN gas export to the Gas Processing Plant (GPP) is expected to begin in the 1st quarter, 2017.

The Minister said the Voltaian Basin, which represented 40 per cent of the country's land mass was under intensive assessment by Ghana National Petroleum Commission to determine its oil and gas prospectivity.

He said an Environmental Impact Assessment has been completed in addition to procurement processes to acquire 2D seismic for the area.

Mr Theophilous Ahwireng, Petroleum Commission said on August 4, 2016, the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Bill 2016, Act (Act 919) was passed into law replaced the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Law, 1984, Act 84.

The new law sought to ensure greater transparency and prudent management of the country's oil and gas resources including some key features such as a public tender process for the allocation of petroleum blocks, in ensuring transparency in award process.

He said the establishment of a Local Content Fund was to provide financial resources for the education and training of Ghanaian citizens, as well as loans to indigenous Ghanaian companies engaged in petroleum activities to empower them to effectively compete in the petroleum sector and bring improvement in the economic lives of our people.

Mr Ahwireng said a number of policy initiatives were introduced and institutional restructuring were embarked upon to further improve the enabling environment for investment in the downstream sector.

These include, Petroleum Price Deregulation, The Single Point Mooring (SPM) and Conventional Buoy Mooring (CBM) Facility, BRV Tracking Scheme and Petroleum Products Marking Scheme, Rural LPG Promotion Programme, National Strategic Stock of Petroleum Products, and Revamping of Tema Oil Refinery.

He said the National Petroleum Authority has made considerable progress in the implementation of the Bulk Road Vehicle tracking scheme and the Petroleum Product Marking Scheme.

Mr Ahwireng explained that Petroleum Product Marking Scheme provides a foundation for an effective quality monitoring systems by offering consumer quality assurance and protection for products at the final dispensing outlet, Checking/controlling malpractices that result in loss of government revenue and a secondary effect of interfering with product quality.

He noted that the Fuel Marking was the introduction of a unique identifier (bio-chemical liquid) in trace quantities into petroleum products at depots before distribution unto the market.

'Currently, over 2,056 Bulk Road Vehicles, representing 100 per cent transporting petroleum products across the country have been equipped with tracking devices by the NPA and adulteration of petroleum products has reduced drastically from 32 per cent to less than 2 per cent, he added.

Mr Thomas Akabzaa, Chief Director at the Ministry of Petroleum said as part of Government's effort to increase access to LPG in the country, the Ministry, launched the Rural LPG Promotion Programme to distribute 1000 6kg LPG cylinders, cook stoves and related accessories.

The programme is part of Government plans to ensure that 50 per cent of Ghanaians use LPG by 2020.

He said BOST has begun supplying petroleum products to the land-locked countries of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali from the Bolgatanga depot and by sea to Benin and Nigeria and there were plans to extend the exports to Liberia.

BOST is currently engaged in an expansion of its petroleum products infrastructure and plans to construct an additional storage tank of up to 100,000MT of gasoline and gasoil in Pumpuni in the Western Region to increase the Country's strategic storage.

GNA
Sangam Prasain is Business Editor at The Kathmandu Post, covering tourism, agriculture, mountaineering, aviation, infrastructure and other economic affairs. He joined The Kathmandu Post in October 2009.
Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - Data Link Institute (DLI) has signed a deal with Jiangsu University of Science and Technology (JUST) in China to run Bachelor and Master of Science Computer Science programmes relevant to industry.

The agreement formed part of the Institute's commitment to deliver quality tertiary education in the country and contribute to building strong human resource faculty of the nation for accelerated social and economic growth.

Mrs Ingrid Ansha, Vice President and Head of Institutional Advancement at DLI, told journalists at a press briefing Monday, that the academic programmes have been planned to commence in January 2017.

'It is of great importance to note that these programmes are unique in terms of content which makes them industry-relevant,' she said.

'The programme structure will offer students first class knowledge in the subject areas, and convenient study sessions - day, evening and weekend.

The Institute as a non-for profit organisation has ensured that students pay comparatively cheaper fees with flexible terms of payment to enhance progressive teaching and learning experience, Mrs Ansah added.

She said: 'It will interest you to know that there are scholarship packages attached to the JUST offer.

'For master students, there is one year scholarship to study in China with a monthly payment of stipend and partial scholarship for undergraduate students who are expected to do two years of their programme duration in China per the arrangement.

'All you need to do as a potential student is to start the programme with us and we will walk you through the process to graduate in China.'

Data Link Institute is on the move to expand its courseware and develop innovative programmes that are relevant to the changing needs of society and industry with much attention to IT programmes to support national development.

The Institute with nearly 2000 student population said it was in the process of also establishing collaborations with several other universities in Ghana and abroad.

The Institute already runs professional programmes with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, UK for certificates, Diploma and Advanced Diploma Programmes and serves as an accredited centre for ICM and ACCA programmes.

Institute established and inaugurated in 2006, has operated as an accredited higher education body and duly recognised by National Accreditation Board (NAB).

'Due to the Institute's adherence to best practices in the higher education landscape, we have been re-accredited by NAB to run both undergraduate and graduate programmes for another five-year term,' Mrs Ingrid said.

The DLI is affiliated to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in collaboration with University of Education, Winneba.

It is committed to the delivery of a holistic higher education that focuses on the physical, social, spiritual and mental development of students for service to communities.

GNA

By D.I. Laary, GNA
Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is fielding an international election observation mission for Ghana's presidential and parliamentary elections.

A statement issued by NDI, copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the delegation includes 30 political and civic leaders, elections experts, and regional specialists from 14 countries.

It said leadership of the delegation is comprised of Johnnie Carson, former Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, United States State Department; J. Yvonne Mokgoro, former Justice, South African Constitutional Court; Dr Christopher Fomunyoh, Senior Associate and Regional Director for Africa, NDI; and Mr Thanksgiving Merloe, Senior Associate and Director of Elections, NDI.

'The recent peace accord signed by all seven presidential candidates and the country's consistent record of credible elections demonstrates Ghana's reputation as one of the more established democracies in West Africa,' said Carson.

'We expect high interest at the polls on Wednesday and hope that Ghana will continue to lead by example.'

The statement said the objectives of the NDI delegation are to provide an accurate and impartial assessment of the administration and character of the election process in Ghana, and to demonstrate the support of the international community to Ghanaian efforts to strengthen democratic processes in their country.

It said during their stay in Ghana, the observers would participate in briefings on Ghanaian political and electoral processes from Ghanaian experts, political leaders, election administrators, representatives of civil society, as well as NDI staff.

The statement said the delegates would deploy in two-person teams to regional capitals across Ghana to meet with election administrators, parliamentary candidates, domestic observer groups, and political and civic activists in these localities.

It said on election day, December 7, observers would visit polling sites in their area of deployment to watch the voting, tabulation of results, and other aspects of electoral proceedings.

'As the last African country to hold national elections of 2016, all eyes are on Ghana,' Dr Fomunyoh said.

'We hope that the voices of citizens will be heard, as Ghanaians deserve nothing short of meaningful and peaceful polls.'

It said the NDI delegation would hold a press conference on Friday, December 9 in Accra.

The statement said at that time, NDI would issue a report with the delegation's findings and recommendations on steps that could enhance confidence and participation in the election process.

"The mission is supported by a grant from the US Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor," it said.

GNA
Tamale, Dec. 6, GNA - The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Northern Region has said it would win 20 out of the 31 constituencies in the coming elections.

Mr Daniel Bugre Naabu, Northern Regional Chairman of the NPP, said the NPP has prepared itself adequately and was likely to increase its presidential fortunes to enable it secure a one-touch victory.

The Chairman, who was interacting with the media in Tamale, said the NPP was fully prepared and had sensitised its supporters on the need to conduct themselves in a peaceful manner.

He said despite the fact that the party has committed itself to a peaceful conduct, it would not tolerate any illegal acts on the part of any individual or group of individuals who might want to thwart the peace process.

Mr Naabu urged supporters of the party to be very vigilant and not allow the verdict of the polls to be stolen by any entity adding that 'we want the police to be very vigilant and protect the ballot boxes'.

He said the party would not tolerate the extension of this year's elections to two-days as happened in the 2012 general elections explaining that many irregularities occurred in such periods.

'We are going into this election with the support of members of the All Peoples Congress in this region', he said adding that the NPP wants to promote peace and justice in the country.

Appealed to supporters of the party to ensure that the NPP achieves a resounding victory.

GNA

By Paul Achonga Kwode, GNA
Tamale, Dec. 06, GNA - The Northern Regional Office of the Electoral Commission has said all is set to ensure successful presidential and parliamentary elections in the Region on Wednesday.

Mr Bruce Ayisi, the Northern Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, told the GNA that all electoral materials had been dispatched to various Police Stations across the Region for distribution to polling stations on the elections day.

A total of 1,427,908 registered voters are expected to cast their votes at 2,676 polling stations spread across the 31 constituencies.

Besides the seven presidential candidates, 130 candidates, including 10 independent candidates, are contesting the elections as parliamentary candidates across the Region.

Mr Ayisi said the Electoral Commission did not anticipate any challenges during the elections but assured that measures were in place to swiftly address any challenges that might occur during the elections.

The Northern Regional Police Command said more than 3000 security personnel had been deployed to the various polling stations to maintain law and order during the elections.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mr Ebenezer Tetteh, the Public Relations Officer of the Northern Regional Police Command, said the Police had identified 81 polling stations as hot spots, adding that, two police officers were deployed to man such hot spots to ensure peaceful polls.

GNA

By Albert Futukpor, GNA
Wa, Dec. 6, GNA - Youth in the Upper West Region have cried out to politicians, chiefs and traditional rulers as well as religious and opinion leaders to put their acts together and help ensure peace in the December 7, polls.

The youth maintained that they have nowhere to run to should there be any violence in the country, hence their resolve not to allow any self-seeking politician to use them to perpetuate violence in the coming elections.

Mr. Mumuni Sulemana, Upper West Regional Director of the National Youth Authority (NYA) made the cry on behalf of the youth during a youth peace durbar organized by the Women Situation Room (WSR) -Ghana in collaboration with the NYA at the Wa Naa's Palace.

Mr. Sulemana who is also the Youth Coordinator for the WSR in the Region noted that when there was violent conflicts, women and children suffered most, pointing out that the need for peace in this year's elections was therefore priceless and non-negotiable.

He called on political leaders, chiefs, traditional rulers, religious leaders and opinion leaders to hear the cry of the youth and put in their possible best to ensure peace, before, during and after the elections.

The Youth Coordinator also appealed to all candidates to trust in the ability of the Electoral Commission (EC) and endeavour to accept the outcome of the elections whether against or in their favour to ensure peace for the continued progress of mother Ghana.

Wa Naa Seidu Fuseini Pelpuo, the Overlord of the Wala Traditional Area, said peace before, during and after the election was of paramount concern to him and his subjects and that they were leaving no stone un-turned to ensure peace in their various communities.

He said women were most vulnerable in conflict situations and appealed to them to become ambassadors of peace in their families.

"There is a woman in every family and if they all sit their families down and preach the need for them not to engage in any violent conduct, there will be no violence in this year's elections," he noted.

Police Superintendent Mr. Huseini Musah Awinaba, the Upper West Regional Crime Officer, reiterated the commitment of the security agencies to guard the election process to a peaceful end and appealed for public support in that direction.

Mr. Issahaku Nuhu Putiaha, the Wa Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), noted that the Regional Coordinating Council had directed all Municipal and District Assemblies to form election task force teams to assist the police in maintaining law and order during polls.

He urged all especially the youth to choose peace in the coming elections.

Representatives of the Islamic Unit, the Christian Council, peace ambassadors and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as well as the Convention People's Party (CPP) were there to pledge their commitment to peace before, during and after the elections.

GNA

By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA
06.12.2016 LISTEN

Accra Dec. 6, GNA - Thomas Kofi Owusu, a block manufacturer, who reported to the Police at Amasaman that he had killed his wife and injured his step son after locking them in a room has now secured the services of a counsel.

Owusu is alleged to have smashed the heads of the deceased and her son with a hoe several times following a misunderstanding.

At the District Court in Accra on Tuesday, Mr Thomas Obeng announced himself as counsel representing Owusu.

However, Owusu was not brought from lawful custody to the court. Prosecution was also absent.

The matter was therefore adjourned to December 20 to enable Owusu reappear before the court presided over by Mr Worlanyo Kotoku.

Owusu aged 56 who is being held for murder and causing harm had his plea reserved.

Earlier, the case as presented by the prosecutor Deputy Superintendent of Police Mawunyo Nanegbe was that Faustina Esinu Owusu aged 40 years was the wife of Owusu and they had been married for the past four years.

Owusu and Faustina lived at Danchira, near Amanfrom in the Greater Accra Region.

According to the prosecutor, accused and Faustina lived with the victim Benedict Agboada, the son of the deceased and Comfort Akoto, niece of the deceased aged 13 years.

On October 30, this year at about 8:30 pm, Owusu went to Amasaman Police station and reported that he had killed his wife Faustina and injured his step son Agboada and locked them up in their room.

Prosecution said the Police immediately arrested Owusu and escorted him to his house and found his wife dead in a pool of blood in their living room while his step son, Agboada also was found lying beside her mother with severe wounds to head and gasping for breath.

According to the Prosecutor, Agboada was rushed to the Amasaman government hospital for treatment and later transferred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital where he is receiving treatment at the Intensive Care Unit.

DSP Nanegbe said the body of Faustina was initially deposited at the Police Hospital but has since been transferred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital Morgue awaiting autopsy.

Prosecution said Owusu in his investigation caution statement admitted killing his wife and causing harm to his step son.

According to the prosecutor preliminary investigations conducted revealed that on October 30, this year at about 8:00 pm while the couple were retiring to bed, a misunderstanding ensued between them in their bedroom.

In the process, prosecution said Owusu pulled deceased from the bed room to their living room and hit her head with a hoe several times till she fell unconscious and died.

Not satisfied with the act, Owusu hit his step son's head with the hoe and become unconscious.

GNA
Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - Bimobas have been urged to conduct themselves in a manner that complements order and peace during the forth-coming presidential and parliamentary elections.

'Go home after voting and do not get involved in unlawful activities.'

W.O. Chamba Alhassan Nayam (Rtd), newly installed chief of the Bimoba community in Accra, said this during his coronation held over the week-end in Accra.

He said whilst elections might be characteristic of competition and rivalry, the ultimate duty of every citizen was to ensure national unity and peace.

He said there would only be true victory if the country had a peaceful and an uneventful election.

On his coronation, newly installed Bimoba chief said he needed the support of Bimobas for success in his reign.

Chief Nayam urged Bimobas to be supportive of one another and avoid jealousy and envy which only created disunity.

The National Chief Imam, in a message read on his behalf, urged the newly installed chief to see himself as a servant of his people and not an over-lord.

'Strive to unite your people and live by your word. Open your doors wide for people to come in,' he said.

Bimobas can be found within the Upper-East region of Ghana, the western part of Togo and the south-eastern part of Burkina Faso.

GNA
Elmina (C/R), Dec. 6, GNA - More than 80 per cent of the 1.3 million active contributors of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) have been successfully captured onto its new biometric system, Mr Ernest Thompson, the Director General of SSNIT, has said.

He said SSNIT's biometric registration exercise had been one of such exercises in the country done with less flaws and extremely successful, surpassing its new registration target.

Mr Thompson, who was speaking at the opening of this year's operations conference at Elmina on Wednesday, said the exercise had paved the way for the introduction of a new numbering structure for employers and establishments who transacted business with the Trust.

The four-day conference, which is on the theme: "Consolidating Technology to Maximise Operational Efficiency for Superior Customer Service," is being attended by departmental managers as well as area and branch managers of the Trust.

It is aimed at reviewing the current strategies of SSNIT to resolve prevailing data challenges and to improve operational processes to enhance customer satisfaction as well as refocusing on compliance enforcement activities.

He said the successful conduct of the biometric exercise had proved that SSNIT was a formidable institution which could deliver efficiently when given the needed support.

'Currently, a lot of advances have been done as to whether SSNIT can take over some of the biometric exercises being undertaken,' he said.

SSNIT began a nationwide biometric exercise in May 2014 to provide multiple service delivery channels, reduce the number of enrolment cycle time drastically, eliminate multiple member registration through a highly secured biometric system, reduce fraud and facilitate easy identity verification.

Mr Thompson said SSNIT viewed increased use of technology as the basis of productivity and as such had moved from the manual system of work to a fully automated system by automating its departments.

He said for the first time in the history of the Trust, its record data base had been digitised while efforts were far advanced to encrypt and ensure maximum security of the national data-base.

Mr Thompson said as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, the Trust was undertaking four main investment projects including the construction of police community posts, training complex for the Trades Union Congress, children's library and a court complex.

He said as part of the investment programme of the Trust for 2017, it would convert the Rawlings Park into a multi-purpose high-rise modern market and a car park complex.

Mr Adam Sulley, the Deputy Director General in charge of Operations and Benefits, said SSNIT remained committed to consolidating the current technology to ensure migrational efficiency and to attain superior customer satisfaction.

He said employers were able to pay their contributions through banks using electronic transfers, use of the biometric terminal and the web portal which had transformed the way SSNIT transacted business with its customers.

Dr Prosper Ayisah, the Takoradi Area Manager, said the Operations Business Suite, a technological tool adopted by the Trust to improve service delivery, sought a secured and reliable social security pension administration.

He urged managers and staff of the Trust to tackle the identifiable challenges and devise strategies to forge ahead and work together as a coherent tool to persevere in attaining the vision of transforming the Trust through technology.

GNA

By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA
Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The Commonwealth has called on political leaders in Ghana to commit not just to the letter but to the spirit of the peace pact which they signed under the 'Accra Declaration'.

Dr Josephine Ojiambo, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, also urged them to agree on appropriate enforcement mechanisms that would further strengthen the 'Accra Declaration'.

Speaking during the signing of peace pact 'Accra Declaration' by the seven presidential candidates contesting the December 7 polls, Dr Ojiambo said the Commonwealth, the West Africa sub-region, Africa, and the entire world would again look up to Ghana on December 7 and days that follow for a credible transparent electoral verdict.

'The Commonwealth remains confident that this country will continue to uphold our shared democratic values, embedded in Ghana's own constitution, its laws, and its regional and international commitments,' she said.

The 'Accra Declaration' facilitated by the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), under the auspices of the NPC and the National House of Chiefs.

The signing of the 'Accra Declaration' was presided over by the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Justice Georgina Theodora Wood and witnessed by Rev Prof Asante and the President of the National House of Chiefs Torgbe Afede XIV.

Dr Ojiambo urged political leaders to recognise the constitutional role of the Electoral Commission (EC) and respect its independence.

She said the EC, on its part must continue to engage all stakeholders including political parties, security forces, civil society and media representatives, at all stages and levels of the electoral process.

'This will help build upon the level of confidence already placed in you, and will ensure transparency in the entire process,' she said.

'However, ensuring peaceful elections is not the sole responsibility of the EC and the Political Parties. Civil society plays a vital role in promoting transparency and accountability during elections as the voice of the electorate,' she added.

She said their behavior would also contribute to the tone of the political environment and to the achievement of peaceful elections.

She urged the media and civil society to play their roles meaningfully to offer constructive criticism to the EC, political parties and other stakeholders where necessary.

Dr Ojiambo said: 'Ghanaians have made their mark as tolerant and peaceful people. The democratic institutions here today have facilitated peaceful transitions from one administration to another, when elsewhere in Africa we witnessed unfortunate spikes in election-related violence and unconstitutional changes of government.'

'Ghanaians have always resorted to the legal route to settle any grievances after elections. This is commendable. It demonstrates the confidence reposed in your strong institutions, and in you, its leaders. Indeed, it speaks volumes about the rule of law in this country too,' she said.

'It is also a demonstration of political maturity. You have made Africa and the Commonwealth proud by choosing peace over violence.'

She said the conduct of political party leaders during this electoral period is under scrutiny both domestically and internationally; declaring that 'It should be beyond reproach'.

'I would be remiss not to express concern about recent clashes between some political parties. These acts of violence should be condemned as they have no place in democratic societies,' she said

'Ghana is enjoying the fruits borne by constitutionality, democracy and the rule of law. The bitter result of not respecting these basic norms should forever remain in the annals of your history,' Dr Ojiambo said.

GNA

By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The Electoral Commission has announced that at the end of the two phases of Special Voting 101,014 representing 79.29 per cent out a total of 127,396 voters cast their votes.

A statement issued by Mr Eric Kofi Fleming Dzakpasu, the EC Head of Communications, which was copied to the Ghana News Agency, said during Phase One on December 1, a total of 92,357 special voters cast their votes, while on December 4, Phase Two recorded 8,657.

The statement gave the regional breakdown as Ashanti, which had a total of 19,710 Special Voters, recording 15,474 voters during Phase One. In the second phase 1,030 voted, bringing the total to 16,504 (83.73 per cent) turn-out.

The Greater Accra Region, which had 25,558 Special Voters on the register, recorded 16,474 votes during Phase One but had 2,207 during Phase Two, leading to a total of 18,681 (73.09 per cent) turn-out.

The Volta Region with a total of 14,485 Special Voters had 9,672 cast their votes during Phase One, whereas 825 voted during Phase Two resulting in 10,497 (72.47 per cent) turn-out.

Of the 10,358 Special Voters in the Central Region, 7,451 voted on day one of the Special Voting, whilst 686 cast their ballots on day two, bringing the total to 8,137 (78.56 per cent) turn-out.

The Western Region with a total of 7,000 Special Voters recorded 4,747 turn-out on the first day of Special Voting; whereas on second day it had 415, which gave a total of 5,162 (73.74 per cent) turn-out.

The Eastern Region has 12,863 Special Voters, of which 9,286 voted on day one , while 831 cast their ballots on day two, giving a total of 10,117 (78.65 per cent) turn-out.

For the Brong Ahafo Region with a total of 13,487 Special Voters, 10,853 cast their ballots during the first phase, whilst 811 voted during the second phase, bringing the total to 11,664 (86.48 per cent) turn-out.

The Northern Region with a total of 13,402 Special Voters, 10,245 voted during Phase One, whereas 1,056 cast their votes during Phase Two giving a total of 11,301 (84.32 per cent) turn-out.

Upper East Region had 7,609 Special Voters of which 6,327 voted during Phase One, while 508 voted during the second phase, resulting in 6,835 votes casts (89.83 per cent).

The Upper West Region had a Special Voter population of 2,924 with 1828 casting their votes during Phase One. However, 288 were able to vote during Phase Two, giving a total of 2,116 (72.37 per cent) turn-out.

The statement said: 'For those who did not find their names on the special voters list, it is because they are either not listed for duties outside their usual residence on Election Day or their names were not submitted by their institutions to the EC.

'Therefore they will be voting at their polling stations on Wednesday, December 7.

'We encourage everyone to use the Commission's shortcode #6363 to check their registration details and the name of their polling station if they did not do so during the exhibition period.

'We urge all potential voters, to turn out in their numbers on Wednesday December 7, to exercise their franchise in the main election to choose their leaders.'

It said in the interest of national peace and national stability, the EC was entreating the media to be circumspect in their commentary and desist from publishing unverified and unconfirmed claims and allegations about the process.

'Our doors are widely open and the Commission will be providing constant updates on every aspect of the process to the media in a live press briefing every two hours on Election Day,' it said.

'This is to ensure that there is no communication gap that could create room for needless speculations and allegations.

'We hope the media would take advantage of this opportunity to better inform their listeners and viewers.'

The Special Voting was for the Staff of the EC, media professionals and members of the security forces, who will be carrying out electoral duties on Wednesday, December 7.

The Phase Two of the Special Voting became necessary when some 34,644 special voters, who will be performing electoral duties on Election Day, were unable to cast their votes due to operational hiccup.

The EC, at an emergency Inter-Party Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting on December 1, therefore, agreed with the political parties that the Special Voting exercise be extended to Sunday, December 4, in all the 275 constituencies.

GNA
Flights could become cheaper as fuel prices cut

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) on Monday slashed prices of aviation fuel by Rs8 per litre, raising hopes of cheaper air tickets at least in the domestic sector.
06.12.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - African Union (UN) and ECOWAS Observer Mission for Ghana's December 7 General Election on Tuesday expressed satisfaction at the preparations of the state organs towards the polls.

"We have been able to meet most of the leaders of contesting political parties in the polls, the Head of the Judiciary, the Inspector General of Police, the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders and believe Ghana will once again come out of this election successfully," Mr Pohamba Hifikepunye, a former Namibian President, said.

Mr Hifikepunye, the Head of the AU Observer Mission, was speaking a closed-door meeting with President John Dramani Mahama at the Flagstaff House, Kanda.

He said the long-term mission wing of the group had been in the country for the past one month.

Apart from holding series of meetings with all stakeholders, he said the Mission also toured all the regions of the country and observed how political rallies and campaigns in general were conducted.

Mr Hifikepunye promised to outline their impressions about the campaigns, voting and outcomes after the final declaration of the results.

Dr Amos Sawyerr, the former Interim President of Liberia, who led the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to Ghana, said they had received assurances from President Mahama and Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, the Presidential Candidate of the NPP, who had both committed themselves to the Declaration they signed a few days ago.

"We are encouraged by the readiness of Ghanaians everywhere to vote in the Wednesday polls and will continue to monitor proceedings," he said.

He called on the security personnel, the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders to play their roles professionally to ensure violence-free polls.

Ghana is holding her seventh Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in the Fourth Republic in the 275 constituencies.

After the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 general elections, Ghanaians would be given another opportunity to choose their leaders through the ballot box among the seven presidential candidates.

Candidates for the 2016 Presidential election are; President John Dramani Mahama for National Democratic Congress, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo for the New Patriotic Party, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom for the Progressive People's Party and Ivor Kobina Greenstreet for the Convention People's Party.

The rest are; Dr Edward Nasigre Mahama of the People's National Convention, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings of the National Democratic Party and Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, an independent candidate. GNA

By George-Ramsey Benamba, GNA
06.12.2016 LISTEN

Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - The Word Bank has noted with satisfaction, the achievements of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) - University of Ghana, in attracting students from the West Africa sub-region and beyond.

Mrs Eunice Ackwerh, Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank Country Office, commended WACCI on its regional numbers saying students from the sub-region and beyond accounted for 66 per cent of WACCI's total enrolment and also the number of publications was almost on target at 80 per cent.

She hailed the Centre for closing the gender gap in its enrolments.

"The World Bank is elated to partner with the UG and the WACCI on the African Centre of Excellence (ACE) Project.'

Mrs Ackwerh said in Accra on Tuesday during a sod-turning ceremony for the construction of an ultramodern building for the Centre.

Ghana is hosting three of twenty-two ACEs in nine West and Central African countries.

The University of Ghana has two of these Centers: WACCI and the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP).

The Centre for Water and Environmental Sanitation, which is the third Centre in Ghana, is located at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

The objective of the ACEs Project is to support recipient countries promote regional specialisation among participating universities in areas that address regional challenges and strengthen the capabilities of these universities to deliver quality training and applied research.

The ACE Project is designed by the World Bank with support from the Government of Ghana to help address the critical demand for skilled graduates in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

The Project also covers themes in agriculture, health, water and sanitation, construction, energy and climate change.

Under the ACE Project, the World Bank is making available eight million dollar grants to be disbursed intermittently to each Centre.

Mrs Ackwerh said the World Bank was encouraged that the ACEs and participating countries were making significant disbursements on the project so far.

"The World Bank and the Ghana Government, are not only interested in disbursement, but also in implementation beyond the disbursement of funding such as the current sod-turning and construction of the WACCI building,' she stated.

'At $6.2 million, WACCI has exceeded the targeted $5.4 million with respect to generating additional funding to the ACE Project funds. We are expectant that the building will facilitate successful academic and research activities which will sustain the recognition of WACCI as a national, regional and international Centre of Excellence in Africa for the training of the next generation of scientists, researchers, leaders and innovators in the field of agriculture,' she added further.

Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, the Founding Director of WACCI, said the new building, estimated to cost about $ 2.4 million, would take a projected duration of 18 months to complete.

He said the facility would house offices, lecture rooms, a bioinformatics platform, a seed science laboratory, a tissue culture laboratory, a library and conference and meeting rooms.

He went on to say that the world-class PhD training in Plant Breeding and MPhil in Seed Science and Technology would experience a scaling up after the construction of the multipurpose building.

He said the overall purpose of WACCI is to train the next generation of West and Central African plant breeders in an African university; to breed crops in national agricultural research stations for production systems in the two sub-regions.

Prof Danquah said that since 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," the Director said.

"WACCI graduates have demonstrated the value of quality plant breeding education in the region and made the WACCI programme a model for SSA and beyond," he added.

He said currently, the programme had students from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya, Senegal, Sudan, Malawi, Togo and Uganda, and that in July 2017, WACCI would be graduating a record number of 18 PhD students which.

Prof Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, hailed WACCI for its impressive achievements; saying the management of the University would put in place necessary measures to ensure the success and sustainability of WACCI.

He appealed to government to allow the public universities maintain and use their Internally Generated Funds (IGFs) for their development projects.

He said IGFs were key fund areas from which most public universities get reliable revenues; declaring that without IGFs most public universities would dry up.

Mrs Mona Helen Quartey, a Deputy Minister of Finance, said Government was proud of WACCI's initiative towards enhancing food security, which had been a challenge in the country and the sub-region as a whole.

She said it was envisaged that WACCI would not only address the brain drain syndrome, which is characteristic of training African scientists abroad, but have graduates trained locally to embark on research to support the agricultural sector.

Prof Mohammed Salifu, the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education, commended the Centre for standing tall, as a shining example of investment in capacity building and research in Africa.

The sod-turning ceremony, which was jointly performed by Prof Owusu, Prof Salifu, Mrs Quartey and Prof Danquah, was witnessed by high profile figures from academia, members of the diplomatic community, donors, internationally renowned research scientists and the University community.

WACCI was established in June 2007 with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to train 40 Plant Breeders at the PhD level at the University of Ghana.

The Centre has now 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 to increase productivity in farmers' fields in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Centre expects to graduate an additional 18 PhD students in Plant Breeding at the University's July 2017 Congregation.

The Centre collaborates with Cornell University, USA, the National Agricultural Research Institutions (NARIs) in Africa where most of these students have been drawn from and the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research Institutions among other world class institutions.

GNA

By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, Dec. 6, GNA - Mr Mohammed Nureeden, aspiring National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya, has called on the electorate to consider tomorrow's polls as an event that would shape the lives of their children and generations unborn.

He urged all to protect the peace the country was enjoying and not do anything that would plunge the country into chaos.

Speaking at the Christ Apostolic Church International- Taifa Central during their annual harvest, Mr Nureeden called on the electorate to put Ghana first before embarking on any activity that may disturb the peace of the country.

The aspiring MP said Ghana was a country of peace and well endowed with resources but blamed our challenges to leadership concerns over the years.

He said President John Dramani Mahama's leadership over the years has brought about numerous developmental projects of which his constituency had been a beneficiary.

Mr Nureeden, a journalist, said the constituency has been provided with a Community Senior High School which has admitted over 600 students.

He appealed to the electorate vote him into power for more projects in the Dome-Kwabenya Constituency.

Mr Nureeden donated 20 bags of Cement to the Church.

Apostle Augustine Bugyei, the Apostle of the church, led the congregation to pray for peaceful elections.

GNA
French Interior Minister Cazeneuve replaces Valls as PM

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has been named as prime minister, replacing Manuel Valls, who resigned in order to make a bid for the presidency next year.
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Oranges worth more than Rs 600 million is traded in the agriculture market of Dharan every year. But lack of cold storage facilities is hurting farmers and traders of the district.
In what many have described as a surprising move, Chris Kwekowe who is an entrepreneur has rejected a job offer from Bill Gates

According to Newsweek.europe, the 23-year-old computer science graduate of the Lagos State University rejected an offer from the richest man on earth shortly after winning the 2015 Anzisha Prize which came with a $25,000 cheque.

READ ALSO: Bill Gates says he will not leave any money for his children

Kwekowe said he was offered the position at software engineer at Microsoft but declined it in order to build his own start-up, Slatecube, a website aimed at helping other young Nigerians find jobs.

"When I told him, Gates was intrigued and he smiled. After the programme, all the directors were like, Dude, you mean you actually turned down a job at Microsoft and had the guts to tell Bill Gates?

Kwekowe and his brother, Emerald founded their start-up in October 2014 and funded it though by freelancing as web designers and running a software solutions firm.

READ ALSO: Folorunsho Alakija wants to be richer than King Solomon

In a Facebook post, he wrote: "Oh yeah, I did meet with Bill Gates in Durban, South Africa where we had some candid discussion about everything - from his involvement with charitable causes in the continent, to how he makes time to be a great father for his kids. My favourite moments were watching his reaction after I told him I turned down job offers from Microsoft and the likes to pursue something more defining for me, and how Africa's development depends more on sustainable investments in innovative social startups like Slatecube that solve some of the continent's biggest problems, rather than donating entirely to charity organisations who end up requiring more financial injection to deal with the minutest of issues.

"Anyways, we'd be working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to make our value proposition at Slatecube a pan-African privilege. Soon, you'd rather be in demand across the globe, and engage in companies and projects that make you better, and suits your career goals. Nothing can really be better"

Source: Legit.ng
For those who remember the giant candy cane outside the front parking lot at Santas Village located in Skyforest California  its time to dust off those memories and relive the childhood memory once again. The Christmas amusement park, which originally opened its doors six weeks before Disneyland in 1955 establishing itself as the first franchised theme park in history, is reviving the magic for the holidays this year.

Skypark at Santas Village was originally created by Glen Holland, who grew up during the Great Depression and wanted to give kids the Christmas he never had as a child. After facing bankruptcy, closings and fires, Hollands park has come back to life.

Michelle Johnson and her husband bought the 230-acre property in 2014, their first plan being to build a bike park. After hearing the locals love for the old escape, the couple decided to reopen the land to its original state. Near Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, the park not only provides fun holiday activities for kids, but adventures in nature for the whole family.

The idea was not to go carnival rides, but more to go outdoors, Johnson told the L.A. Times.

Some attractions little tykes can get excited about are the Polar Express Train Ride, Santas Candy Mine, rock climbing walls, Santas workshop and North Pole Post Office where guests can see toys being made and elves read letters to Santa. Oh, and of course visitors can pop by Santas house where Mrs. Claus is ready to greet you with cookies.

Santas Village is free every day from 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. until January 8 but will be closed Christmas Day.

McGee Nall is a travel intern with Paste and a freelance writer based out of Athens, Georgia.
Blame it on the Supermoon.

The world went gaga. Telescopes bristled on rooftops in Tucson. Lunatics leered and laughed from drive-up windows in Jersey. Werewolves ran wild in Walla Walla.

Here in Colombia, Frank Sinatra had a cold. Bitterly, we stared at heavy cloud cover. Oh, the clouds! Cakes left out in the rain. Sour grapes, bunches and cloudy bunches. Bows and flows of angel mucus. Clouds like that.

The Supermoon was one big bust.

My family and I did get one quick exhilarating Supermoon sighting as we returned by car to Bogota after a happy weekend in the country. A huge round rising ghost eye observed us a few seconds, unblinking, then disappeared behind the black silhouette of some unknown peak in the Andes. That was it.

Still, the Supermoon must have exerted some unusual power in back of its Wizard of Oz curtains that November night. I rarely have insomnia, but I tossed and turned. Instead of counting sheep, I catalogued night noises of Bogota.

The whoosh of traffic on the north/south autopista, one of the citys big freeways, becomes oceanic after midnight. Passing cars crescendo and decrescendo like surf, but you hear other highway sounds deeper than wavesheavy undercurrent noises you sort of feel in the chest and bones, the way you hear the crunch of ocean breakers not just in eardrums, but internal places. Now and again, a siren or mad motorcycle barely a hundred meters from my apartment violently disturbs the peace. But like a river, peace returns, flowing its own way, hypnotic, lulling.

I hear young men laughing. Smoking Marlboros and trying to look tough, they lounge under evergreens in the pocket park below my fourth-floor bedroom window. The kids in this part of town, though, arent tough. The tough boys haunt the south of the city, in Soacha, prowling the night in places where the police wont even go. The boys outside my window put on cologne and look for girls. The boys down south put on weapons and look for meat.

For a few minutes, one of the nightly jets out of El Dorado International drowns out most other sound. I watch it fly over. I often look up at planes and imagine who is looking down at me, at my building, at my window. I love the sense of wonder in that moment. Where will that person in 16B step out of the plane? Barcelona? Fiji? San Francisco? What adventure unfolds the very next day?

A taxi blows. Reverie ends.

The surface streets of Santa Barbara Occidental can grow loud as a jungle at midnight. The growls of jaguars just happen to occasionally be Jaguars, along with migratory herds of less shiny Chevy Sparks and Renaults and, of course, the insect swarms of motorcycles. No taxi in Colombia drives a full block without a blast of its horn. For some drivers, its recreational. For some, its possibly therapeutic, a kind of primal scream. On rare occasions, once in a blue Supermoon, a taxi driver blows a horn to actually avoid some accident.

A few blocks away on a balcony, a dog goes off like a barking bomb. Some other enraged dog on some other balcony answers. A beagle and a cockapoo quickly go out of their minds arguing from respective terraces. Designer beasts gather their teams: mastiffs and Shar Peis and pits over here in Apartamento El Molino, lapdogs and Weimaraners and bulldogs there in Tordesillas. The barking idiots of insomnia have their party.

Blame it on the Supermoon.

Far down the street, wafting on the east wind, comes relief. I hear horns, not the kind played by taxi drivers, but the kind played by mariachi. It sounds like bullfighters stepping into a ring, red capes lifted.

Plaza Mexico, one of the most intriguing features of my neighborhood, holds down most of an entire block four streets east of my apartment. The plazas mission, its architecture, its styling all evoke the famous Garibaldi Plaza in Mexico City where mariachi music became famous.

This place in Bogota is, indeed, mariachi central, with four or five different groups unloading from vans every night with instruments set to play for, you guessed it, Mexicans living in Bogota and lonely for home. These Mex-pats buy bottles of tequila or rum and pour shots for other homesick Mexican buddies and beauties packed at small tables, and everyone sings Juan Gabriel tunes loud and passionately. A dozen or so musicians dressed very much like bullfighters (only a few less sequins per square inch) strum and thump guitars, horns, violins, etc, long into the night.

The distant mariachi music makes me think of Johnny Cashs greatest song, Ring of Fire. Cash wrote the song but felt it nagging him, not quite finished. The songwriter went to sleep and had a dream, and in the dream heard Spanish horns playing, like bullfighting music, he later said. Cash arranged mariachi horns to start his tune  and that distinctive brass intro still brings people out of their seats even now, 53 years after Ring of Fire debuted on the radio in 1963.

The wind changes. The mariachis fade. Local noises return.

The portcullis of the building grinds open, and a car cruises to rest four stories beneath my bed. The insult of a burglar alarm sounds as the driver locks up.

A garbage truck grumbles into hearing, clanging and chuffing its way down Carrera 23 like an armored prehistoric monster. The sanitation crews leap acrobatically off and on, quiet as mimes except for signal whistles, a strange street language with no words.

Ahead of the sanitation crew, the hermit crabs of Bogota make a quieter noise. Men in the streets pull oversized wooden carts with tall cardboard sides (imagine 18th-century engravings of tumbrils, those two-wheeled vehicles packed with ruffle-shirted aristocrats on their way to the guillotine). The street scavengers scuttle from one trash deposit to the next, salvaging cardboard, barely keeping ahead of the garbage trucks.

These collectors once used horses to pull carts, but the animals suffered such neglect and mistreatment that the city outlawed their use for scavenging. Now street people do the work the horses did, muscling mountainous loads down the middle of dark calles and carreras at all hours. Under strain, gaunt, dressed in rags, the collectors look every bit as neglected and mistreated as the animals once must have.

A car rolls past, window down. The loud radio plays a song you hear everywhere in Bogota right now, La Bicicleta, a Carlos Vives/Shakira duet. The pair sing a sort of new national anthem in this country where two Colombians who achieve great things can easily become immortal. Sixty million people are eager to hang their hat on national pride of any kind.

Maybe its just coincidence, but over the autopista, in the neighborhood called The Alhambra, a genies hand shoots fireworks into the low clouds. They go off with a muffled pop and a puff of ghostly light.

It isnt a Supermoon. Oh no, there will never, ever, be anything in our lives again like the Supermoon. But fireworks are better than nothing on this long, sleepless night.

Image: Rex Boggs, CC-BY

Charles McNair is Pastes Books Editor emeritus. He served the magazine as writer, critic and editor from 2005-2015.
Hands down, my favorite way to break the ice at an uncomfortable dinner party is to loudly ask everyone, So what do you guys think about abortion?

If religion and politics are seen as imprudent topics to openly discuss, then abortion is the bullseye between the two, and there is virtually no safe way to have any kind of honest conversation about it. As such, my guess is most of the left-leaning audience reading this will not like the conclusion Im about to draw.

Post-election, there have been no shortage of self-flagellating liberal critiques about how the Democrats must reach out to working class whites and abandon Wall Street and bad trade deals. They have ignored the plight of the rural white voter! This, however, ignores the primary cultural issue that keeps most of those voters incapable of even contemplating anything but a Republican vote. Nowhere has there been any self-reflective take that Democrats must see the error of their ways on abortion.

Not to worry about the author of this piece, who believes in the autonomy of a womans body and her prerogative to do with it as she wishes, whether thats have an abortion, get an IUD, or vote for Donald Trump. Yet the self-reflexive pro-choice position deserves greater scrutiny than it often gets. As author Mike Davis has pointed out, Trump did not win by vastly expanding the Republican electorate. He won due to a lag in Democratic voting in key states and by holding together the same coalition of economic royalists and pro-life, mostly Evangelical voters who have formed the backbone of the Republican electorate in every election of my lifetime.

How could Evangelicals vote for Trump? This is what the Democratic bubble asked itself over and over. How could they flip-flop so brazenly, defy their supposed morals so absolutely, and support this divorced, philandering, sexual-assault-declaring moral leper? But the pro-life voter did what he or she had to do. They rightly determined that if Clinton won, any chance at overturning Roe v. Wade would be lost for a generation, if not forever. If Trump won, however, thanks to Republican intransigence on Obama nominee Merrick Garland, he would likely appoint the fourth and fifth votes to overturn Roe (with Thomas, Roberts, and Alito already surefire). Given the age of several justices, including 83 year old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it is likely Trump will now get this chance. The Democrats can halve this possibility by winning control of the Senate in 2018, but if I had to bet on it right now, Id bet Roe is going down, and this will commit the Democrats to further purge their ranks of pro-life sympathies.

Within conventional liberal opinion, unfettered access to an abortion within the first two trimesters of pregnancy is viewed as a shibboleth. Its as obvious that right-thinking people believe this as they do the reality of climate change or the immorality of torture. Whats lost on those of us who spend so much of our time within this bubble is that there are hordes of single-issue voters who view abortion with the same moral urgency that Leonardo DiCaprio views climate change or Bernie Sanders views income inequality. Take a moment to appreciate how this must feel.

You grew up in a town you really love, a place that has its flaws but nevertheless brims with good people. You work for a livingits not a glamorous job, it wont make you famous, and it leaves an ache in your back every day from being on your feet for so long, but its honest, and it supports your family (sort of). Your major portal to the rest of the country is your TV, where wealthy actors tell you the weather is changing, and its your fault for driving too much, or a smirking comedian from New York ridicules your church or a liberal commentator scolds you for the Confederate flag, and you dont even own a Confederate flag, but apparently thats not allowed anymore. Youve lived your whole life knowing in your bones that homosexuality is a sin until very recently when you were informed that this opinion makes you a bigot, and its not like you hate anyone, but the Bible says what it says about that issue, and now you just make sure not to bring it up in the wrong company.

And no one ever asks your opinion about any of this. You never see your life reflected in the media you consume, and if you do, theres something vaguely insulting about it, some inchoate note struck in reality shows of the Duck Dynasty or Honey Boo Boo variety, which are entertaining enough, but you get the message. You are a punchline. Your life and opinions are not important. And yet as all these people bemoan you personally in all your supposed ignorance, they are proudly championing the legal murder of thousands of babies every single day. How dare they condescend to you about your life, tell you what you should think, when they are the ones who proudly identify with killing unborn children before those little ones even have a chance to draw a breath. How are you the one with the blind spot? Theyre the ones who sit in the shadow of a blind spot so epic, so total, that it leaves you uncertain if you can even think of such people as morally alive.

This epistemic closure is total for both sides of the debate. If you were raised in a household that views the primacy of a womans control over her body as the main issue (as I was) than you have one inviolate opinion. And if you were raised in a home that views the life that woman carries as equal to (or greater than) her own well-being, then you have another inviolate opinion. Nothing, it seems, can span this gulf.

And yet, this debate is shadowed by several myths, one of which is that most people divide into the binary camps of pro-life v. pro-choice. This is not the case. According to the most recent Gallup polling on the issue, American opinion could not be more schizophrenic, which tracks well with the stickiness of the issue.

Polling the terms pro-choice and pro-life has never drifted far from a fifty-fifty split. During the Bush years, pro-choice identification nudged upward, and during the Obama presidency, pro-life respondents had the edge. Currently it stands at 47% to 46%, respectively. In the latest poll, 29% said it should be legal in all circumstances, 19% illegal in all circumstances, and a full 50% said legal only in some circumstances. You can see almost these same exact numbers if you scroll back to the year 1989. More interestingly, when asked if abortion is morally acceptable, the majority of respondents almost always favor no. Yet by a wide margin the majority of respondents do not want Roe overturned, 50% to 29% most recently, and thislike the rest of the numberstracks virtually the same over time.

The idea that women monolithically believe in access to abortion is one of the more counter-productive myths, one that women who disagree with abortion find enraging. Fluctuating between 2001 and 2015, women have at several different points in time been found to identify as pro-choice at a lower rate than men. 2015 marks the high-water mark for women identifying as pro-choice at 54%. Women, in a shocking development, are the same as men in that they dont like being told what they are supposed to believe. The fact remains that approximately half the women in this country do not identify as pro-choice, and no amount of Lena Dunham PSAs seems likely to change this.

But the progressive wave! Opinions are changing! Gay marriage is legal now!

Unlike many other issues about which my generation has become vastly more left-wing than our parents or grandparents, abortion remains stuck in an even divide. While support for LGBT rights has skyrocketed, while notions of environmental protection and income inequality and war and peace and race have moved front and center, creating a burgeoning progressive majority in demographic terms, the needle on abortion has not moved at all. 53% of 18-34 year-olds identify as pro-choice, fewer than in 2001. There is some evidence that young people are even less accepting of abortion than their parents.

What are the political implications of this? Theres a fantasy bubbling up on the left that Hillary Clintons defeat marks an opportunity for a major realignment of the Democratic Party, a shift away from corporate-friendly attitudes and policies towards a true progressive vision. Sure, count me in. But the idea that candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Zephyr Teachout are going to sweep to victory in rural parts of the country with working class voters by criticizing Wall Street and TTP is a fantasy of the first order. As the Big Sort-ing of the country continues and cosmopolitan and rural areas becoming more and more homogenous politically, wholly progressive, ideologically lockstep candidates will continue to perform weakly where the Democrats are weak. Voters in non-urban centers will continue to vote for candidates who oppose abortion the way they have been doing their entire lives.

Think of abortion as a series of paradoxes: Paradoxically, opponents of abortion should support a robust health care system for womenespecially poor women. They should support easy access to contraception and programs that subsidize decent housing, food, or, God forbid, a program of universal pre-K. Pro-life true believers, of course, typically support none of this because, in my opinion, their opposition is more rooted in a need to control peoples sexual behavior than it is about the lives of the unborn children they purport to care about.

Paradoxically, abortion is viewed as an un-nuanced, either/or proposition when, as mentioned above, all evidence suggests people carry in them a range of views that land everywhere but the fringes of the debate. When Gallup bores down into the nitty-gritty of abortion access laws, majorities favor a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, a law requiring women under 18 to get parental notification, laws instructing doctors to inform patients of the (mostly non-existent) risks, laws requiring a pregnant woman to view an ultrasound of her fetus, and for the husband of married woman to be notified. Yet majorities oppose a ban on federal funding for abortion providers, oppose allowing pharmacists or health providers to opt out of providing medicine or procedures associated with abortion, and they definitely oppose a constitutional ban on the practice.

The fuzzy middle is vast.

Finally, and quite paradoxically, womens reproductive freedom has never been safer than when the Democratic Party has contained a large and robust pro-life caucus. For a long time after the issue hit the national stage in the 1970s, the parties did not divide evenly. There were pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats. In the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats won a 31-seat majority with 37 pro-life members.

These congressional majorities advanced basically the only progressive legislation of the last forty years, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank financial reform, and every other inch gained during the first two years of Obamas presidency. It was all done with the votes of this large pro-life contingent.

What did a pro-life Democrat believe? Like America, this now-odd creature represented a range of views. Senate majority leader Harry Reid branded himself as pro-life, yet during his tenure he was a consistent friend to Planned Parenthood. Most of those pro-life Dems were supported by Democrats for Life of America, which proposed linking a ban on abortion after 20 weeks to paid medical leave for pregnant women, affordable daycare, and other laws that would support working mothers. Whether you agree or disagree, this faction at least allowed for the broad range of American views to have congressional representation.

Then, during the 2010 midterms following Michigan congressman Bart Stupaks deal to keep abortion funding out of Obamacare, pro-life Democrats suffered enough defeats to basically wipe them off the map. What followed was an anti-abortion wave of hard-right zealots that continues to compromise the health, safety, and reproductive freedom of women across the country. Today, as Democrats reel from the November election results, the party has uniformly aligned itself as a pro-life party first and a party that challenges concentrated wealth, environmental pillaging, and structural racial and economic injustice second and only with incrementalism.

Therein lies the bad news: Since the issue first rose to national prominence, the Democrats have never held a majority in either chamber of congress that did not include pro-life members. If the Democratic Party wants to be a big tent, it has to be big enough to support and elect pro-life candidates. That is political reality. Even if demographics favor it in presidential election years (and a fat lot of good that did in 2016), in the House, the Senate, and most state legislatures it is, paradoxically, going to be impossible to challenge anti-abortion dominance without pro-life candidates.
Whenever the mainstream media whip themselves into a frenzy of indignation over this or that political developmenteven when said indignation seems reasonable and maybe even righteousone would do well not to take them at their word. Indeed, in the vast majority of cases, they are simply condemning someone or something they once embraced, promoted or offered apologetics for. In so doing, they expose themselves, over and over again, as truly pathological hypocrites.

Its tempting to define such behavior as a sort of Freudian defense mechanismdischarging suppressed feelings of guilt and so onbut that would be a mistake: use of defense mechanisms presupposes a conscience; propagandizing on behalf of the American Empire (the principal function of the mainstream media) presupposes a lack of conscience. In any case, the corporate media have no credibility whatever, and, by all appearances, they couldnt care less. (Consider, for example, the strange case of Kurt Eichenwald, Newsweeks village idiot, whose total derangement actually contains an element of pathos.)

Apparently Facebook has a disinformation problem (who wouldve thought?). The companys failure to crack down on fake news stories during the presidential campaign has been cited by many a Clintonoid as a major factor underlying their false prophetess humiliating defeat. That such stories were allowed to infect the public discourse is an outrage, a scandal, and it must be redressed, lest the pillars of our democracy come crashing down, crushing us all. Or so were informed by the Washington Post, that bastion of veracity and objectivity, in a somber editorial titled Social Media Sites Cant Allow Fake News to Take Over.

Freedom of expression is a bedrock of American democracy, the editors sermonize, but its irresponsible exercise can distort and destabilize our politics. They then proceed to lecture the social media companies on what it means to be a credible news outlet (its a delicate thing that requires balanced judgment) before concluding with the following injunction:

The Internet has become a vital forum for democratic debate; it is essential that the interchange not be warped by propaganda and lies.

So says the newspaper that has propagandized on behalf of every US military adventure in recent memory, including, of course, the invasion of Iraq, a crystalline example of what the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called the supreme international crime, namely aggression. The pretext for this momentous crimefar and away the worst of this centurywas a series of falsehoods concocted by the Bush administration and promulgated by our most credible media outlets. Chief among said lies were Saddams fictional WMD program and his fictional ties to Osama bin Laden; and chief among the media outlets peddling the fake narrative were the Washington Post and New York Times, neither of whom ever contest Washingtons official version when doing so would actually mean something. (The Times, by the way, ran their own self-righteous editorial slamming Facebook; its almost identical to the Posts.)

The war in Iraq was a strictly imperial enterprise, a naked power grab, and the results were as predictable as they were horrifying: More than a million dead, an entire country in ruins, widespread torture, sectarian violence on a shocking scale (now plaguing the entire region), the vilest terrorist organization weve ever seen, et cetera. Before and during the war, it was the mass medias job to justify US aggression and all its ancillary horrorsa serious moral crime in itself (Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher was hanged at Nuremberg). As the war wound down, their attempts at justification became attempts at erasure, and they were ready to be infallible all over again. Indeed, as Barack Obama said upon assuming office in 2009, we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. After all, Putin!

Coinciding with the fake news drama is the alt-right/white nationalist/neo-fascist drama, augmented by Trumps early cabinet selections, particularly Steve Bannons appointment as chief strategist. The concern is valid enough; Bannon seems like a pretty nefarious character, and for all I know hes every inch the neo-Nazi many are making him out to be (though Ill admit I tend to doubt it). Nevertheless, the vehement opposition to Bannon and the alt-right coming from the Post and the Times smacks once again of hypocrisy, and can really only be met with an exasperated roll of the eyes.

When Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by a violent uprising in 2014, Americas foremost papers of record got to work legitimizing the interim government and glamorizing the storm troopers who spearheaded the revolution. What they refused to acknowledge, as a matter of course, was that Yanukovychs government had been brought down, and was being replaced, by fascists. Indeed, for those who get the bulk of their news from the Washington Post, it would probably come as a surprise to learn that many of Ukraines freedom fighters (those so valiantly defending against Russian aggression) are little more than neo-Nazis who would like nothing so much as to cleanse eastern Ukraine of its ethnic Russian population.

The State Department, and thus the mainstream media, would have us believe that there are no fascists in or around the western-backed Ukrainian government, and that anyone who says otherwise is simply propagandizing on behalf of the Kremlin (useful idiot is a term in heavy rotation in our media). As usual, however, the facts are not on their side; ergo they are ignored or distorted.

Following Yanukovychs extralegal ouster, a man called Andriy Parubiy was appointed Secretary of National Security and Defense Council. Back in 1991, Parubiy co-founded the Social National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), a fascist and virulently anti-communist party whose symbolthe Wolfsangelwas used by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Only ethnic Ukrainians were permitted to join the SNPU, which later changed its name to Svoboda and made efforts to soften its image.

Parubiy named as his deputy secretary Dmytro Yarosh, then leader of the ultra-nationalist Right Sector, a violent gang of street fighters who played a crucial role in militarizing the Euromaidan protests.

The office of Vice Prime Minister was awarded to one Oleksandr Sych, a member of the aforementioned Svoboda party who faced significant backlash for his assertion in 2013 that women ought to lead the kind of lifestyle to avoid the risk of rape, including refraining from drinking alcohol and being in controversial company.

While the Ukrainian government was being filled out along these lines, the Western media sought to divert our attention by publishing hysterical rants about Putins supposed aggression, steadfastly ignoring the fact that ninety-six percent of people in Crimea voted to rejoin the Russian Federationor, if they acknowledged it, charging that the referendum was somehow fixed by Moscow (just like our recent presidential election was). Anything to obscure the fact that the Obama administration was supporting bona fide fascists in Ukraine.

In one exceptionally disingenuous article, master obscurantist Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post whitewashes and romanticizes the infamous Azov battalion, a paramilitary unit enlisted by the Ukrainian government to wage war against pro-Russian separatists in the east. Why is the Azov battalion infamous? Because its comprised of avowed fascists who embrace Nazi insignia like the swastika, the SS bolts and the Wolfsangel. So noxious are the Azov militants, in fact, that in 2015 the US Congress actually passed an amendment (later discarded) that limits arms, training and other assistance to the neo-Nazi Ukrainian militia, the Azov Battalion.

Now, contrast that unequivocal characterization with the deliberately ambiguous one offered in Faiolas story, where the Azov Nazisnow officially a part of Ukraines National Guardare described as battle-scarred patriots who have fought valiantly for their country. Throughout the 1100-word piece, the battalions Nazi sympathies are mentioned only once, in passing, in the third-to-last paragraph.

In one room, Faiola writes (grudgingly, one senses), a recruit had emblazoned a swastika above his bed. But [a platoon leader] dismissed questions of ideology, saying that the volunteersmany of them still teenagersembrace symbols and espouse extremist notions as part of some kind of romantic idea.

And lest his readers be made uncomfortable by the disquieting revelation, Faiola finishes on a strong Russophobic note, assuring us that the groups primary goal is defending its country against Russian aggression and quoting the platoon leaders assertion that Putin is the new Stalin.

In other words, lets not dwell on such trifles as resurgent Nazism in Europe. Weve got a reincarnation of Uncle Joe on our hands.

Clearly, the editors over at the Washington Post couldnt care less about opposing the rise and spread of neo-fascism; and the same, of course, can be said of the New York Times (you can read about their efforts to soft-pedal Ukrainian Nazis here). The Post even appears amenable to the notion that the swastikaforever synonymous with mass murderholds a sort of mystical romantic appeal, so long as its brandished by people who share our fear and loathing of all things Russian. In view of that, any criticism of Steve Bannon and the alt-right from either outlet can and should be disregarded as a load of hypocritical shit. When Bannon masterminds Americas next nation-building exercise, you can bet your bottom cent our papers of record will reprise their roles as war-loving cheerleaders.
Mass rally in Bhairahawa against Constitution amendment bill

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Bhairahawa in Rupandehi district on Tuesday accusing the government of attempting to split province no 5 through the constitution amendment.
HOOH BOY, taco bout a game-changer.

Purveyor of fine burritos and other Mexican food goods, Guzman Y Gomez, is going drive-thru.

The Mexican food chain  which sits somewhere between a McDonalds and a restaurant on the price-point & quality scale  is planning to open up a dozen outlets with purpose-built drive-thru areas in the next 12 months, reports The Australian.

Chief Executive Steven Marks told the broadsheet:

People are becoming more educated on what they are eating with traditional fast food and now they dont have to compromise on quality for the convenience of drive-through.



Drive-thru burritos? Our hangovers might never be the same.

GYG drive-thrus already exist in the Darwin and Nerang, Queensland stores, but Marks describes them as add-ons, saying that this new lot would be purpose-built.

There are already 82 outlets around Australia and Asia (the brand was named the fastest-growing food-chain in 2015), and it looks like the company is showing no signs of slowing down: its planning on opening another 20 next year, incl. the drive-thru lot.

Truly, tis a wonderful day for burrito-enthusiasts everywhere. :)

Photo: Facebook / Guzman Y Gomez; @desiree.potatoes.
We welcome BBI Advisory & Audit, our new member firm in Cameroon, to the global accountancy network UHY, extending our coverage within the EMEA region.

Media Contact

Dominique Maeremans

***@uhy.com

+44 20 7767 2621 Dominique Maeremans+44 20 7767 2621

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-- We welcome, BBI Advisory & Audit, our new member firm in Cameroon, to the global accountancy network UHY, extending our coverage within the EMEA region.BBI Advisory & Audit based in Douala with further offices in the capital Yaounde and in Limbe, provide a full range of services including audit and assurance, business advisory and accounting, corporate finance and corporate tax services to a diverse portfolio of clients.Managing partner Isaac Joel Bela Belinga says: "Africa has become the destination for emerging market investors and as one of the region's highest performing economies; Cameroon has high potential for growth and a wealth of natural resources. We are delighted to become part of the UHY global network which matches our commitment to deliver quality services and enhances the services and advice we can offer our clients. It not only strengthens our own capabilities, locally and internationally, but also those of our current and potential clients."Bernard Fay, chairman of UHY comments: "BBI Advisory & Audit's membership of UHY reinforces our footprint in the EMEA region and strengthens UHY's regional market expertise and capabilities to support clients' needs and opportunities in one of theregion's highest performing economies. We are delighted to welcome BBI Advisory & Audit to the UHY network."The firm is in the process of adopting the UHY branding and will be known as: Dominique Maeremans, marketing & business development manager, UHY International, Quadrant House, 4 Thomas More Square, London E1W 1YW, UK. Tel: +44 20 7767 2621, or email: d.maeremans@ uhy.com Established in 1986 and based in London, UK, UHY is a leading network of independent audit, accounting, tax and consulting firms with offices in over 320 major business centres across more than 90 countries.Our staff members, over 7,600 strong, are proud to be part of the 16th largest international accounting and consultancy network. Each member of UHY is a legally separate and independent firm. For further information on UHY please go to www.uhy.com.UHY is a member of the Forum of Firms, an association of international networks of accounting firms.
Career Step has enhanced its Pharmacy Technician program offerings to include an additional 315 hours of curriculum in order to meet ASHP requirements.

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-- Career Step, an online provider of career-focused education and professional training, has enhanced its Pharmacy Technician course offering to meet American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) requirements. Accordingly, the program has been submitted for ASHP accreditation. In conjunction with the updates, Career Step has renewed its partnership with Paradigm, whose content is aligned with the ASHP Model 4 curriculum. These changes will improve the educational experience and allow students to excel in their chosen career as a pharmacy technician."We have increased our hours from 285 to 600 in order to expand our program and enrich the preparation of our students," said Jerolyn Robertson, Career Step Vice President of Academics. "We now include more simulations and have added 200 hours of required externship, which means our students will be well prepared to move into their career upon graduation."The Career Step Pharmacy Technician training program covers pharmacology, pharmacy law, prescriptions, nonsterile compounding and additional material, to prepare students for the field. The course incorporates feedback from employers and prepares students to take the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) Exam upon graduation. The opportunity to participate in a local externship though Walgreens or CVS Pharmacy is also an option in most areas across the U.S., making it easier for students to fulfill their required externship."Student success is our highest priority at Career Step, and providing excellent curriculum is a vital part of helping our students develop the skills they need to succeed," said Laurie McBrierty, Career Step Vice President of Product Management. "These updates ensure that we keep pace with industry trends, standards and accreditations."For more information on Career Step's Pharmacy Technician program, visit CareerStep.com/pharmacy-technician-careers ( http://www.careerstep.com/ pharmacy-technician- careers?uid... ) or call 1-800-246-7837.Career Step is an online provider of career-focused education and professional training. The company has trained over 100,000 students for new careers as well as more than 100,000 healthcare professionals through its various continuing education courses. More than 150 colleges and universities nationwide have partnered with Career Step, and the company provides training for several of the largest and most respected healthcare employers in the nation. Career Step is committed to helping students and practicing healthcare professionals alike gain the skills they need to be successful in the workplaceimproving lives, advancing careers and driving business results through education. More information can be found at www.careerstep.com ( http://www.careerstep.com/? uid=pub161206 ) or 1-800-246-7836.
INsig2 LawTech Europe Congress, an annual event on electronic evidence, digital forensics, and cyber security, is pleased to publish valuable insights from its 2016 distinguished expert speakers.

By: INsig2 LawTech Europe Congress

Contact

Suzanne M. Easter

Director of Operations

***@e-discovery- europe.com

+420734595268 Suzanne M. EasterDirector of Operations+420734595268

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-- During its 2016 event, INsig2 LawTech Europe Congress (LawTech) has continued its mission of bringing inter-related industry leaders together to broaden their scope of learning and awareness. In furtherance of its mission, LawTech has included valuable insights from speakers within its Electronic Evidence Track."According to the speakers within our Electronic Evidence Track, cooperation and the use of technology are essential for efficiency and substantial cost savings in an era of big data," said Frederick Gyebi-Ababio, Director of INsig2 LawTech Europe Congress. "However, there is still the ongoing issue of balancing discovery versus data protection."LawTech 2016 speakers provided the following suggestions and observations."Parties should cooperate where possible. The era of sensible, informed, and cooperative discussion about the use of TAR is well and truly upon us." Dan Wyatt, RPC"we now have access to a powerful tool in our TAR armoury that, with sensible approaches by the parties and suitable endorsement by the court, can lead to massive costs savings and, as important, a feasible way of managing today's large data volumes." Vince Neicho, Allen & Overy LLP"many of the both new and existing data protection rights and principles remain difficult to reconcile with new technologies and in a data-rich environment. For example, it will be rather complicated to implement principles like privacy-by-design and data minimisation in a big data context." Julien Debussche, Bird & Bird"The volume of analyzed text data in eDiscovery grows rapidly and it is no longer possible to proceed manually. It is necessary to employ the advanced approaches to text data processing. In their talk, Jan Balatka and Katerina Veselovska from Deloitte explained how to effectively use semantic analysis to automatically discover patterns and trends in the data and thus to save clients' time and money.""No doubt, the vast majority of data generated worldwide every day through ISPs, smartphone applications, social networks etc., are generated exactly by the individuals!That's the contribution of citizens, not only in terms of what privacy rights they would enjoy, but in terms of national security as well!" Ljubica Pendaroska, C3I SkopjeFor more information about the event, please visit http://www.lawtecheuropecongress.com About INsig2 LawTech Europe CongressLawTech's mission is to create a cutting-edge forum that addresses four core areas; electronic evidence, digital forensics, and cyber security. These disciplines are at the forefront of organisational thinking. LawTech's guiding philosophy is to embrace solutions to empower corporations, law firms, and government institutions to limit the potential exposure to legal, financial, and reputational risks and to increase overall competence around these topics. Delegates will be engaged throughout our events with advanced topic presentations, panel discussions, and an array of latest solutions from credible exhibitors. This event strategically focuses on best practices and how they fit into upholding a high level educational structure. LawTech has set out to provide relevant solutions and advice to all professionals interested in the future of law, technology, and analytics.
Local Appliance Repair Company Launches Food Drive to Benefit the Food Bank for the Heartland

By: Nebraska Home Appliance

Contact

Angela Gibson

***@philosophycommunication.com Angela Gibson

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-- As winter begins to bite through Omahan's coats, families retreat inside their homes to bask in the warmth of fires, feasts and families. However, Nebraska Home Appliance, an appliance maintenance and repair company serving the Omaha area, understands that not everyone has access to food during the holidays. To combat Nebraska's hungry population, the company partnered with the Food Bank of the Heartland (http://foodbankheartland.org/)to ensure that the holiday spirit misses no one.When Nebraska Home Appliance services resident's appliances from now until the end of the year, they will also pick up financial or canned food donations for Omahans in need."The holidays are about encouraging selfless acts and giving, about celebrating and strengthening our communities,"said Todd Daganaar, president of Nebraska Home Appliance. "We are thrilled to partner with the Food Bank of the Heartland to ensure that everyone is made to feel a part of and uplifted by our community."The Food Bank for the Heartland is an Omaha-based nonprofit whose mission is to eliminate hunger in all communities across Nebraska and Western Iowa. As the largest food bank in both states, Food Bank of the Heartland serves 93 counties, distributing food to 530 food pantries, schools, emergency shelters and other nonprofit partners.To donate, visit http://nhaparts.com/ blog/hometown- hero-holidays/ Family owned and operated since 1988, Nebraska Home Appliance is a staple in the Omaha community, providing fast and reliable appliance repair, maintenance and parts for all major brands. With a team of trusted technicians under the leadership of current president Todd Daganaar, the company has built a reputation as the community's "Hometown Hero." The company is located in Cedarnole Plaza in Omaha, Nebraska. For more information visit http://nhaparts.com
Socially Conscious Hip-Hop Artist Souleye Presented and Performed

By: Playing For Change Foundation

1 2 Playing For Change Foundation imPAX

Media Contact

Bobbi Marcus

Bobbi Marcus PR & Events

bobbi@bobbimarcuspr.com

310-889-9200



Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/ 12606047/1

https://www.prlog.org/ 12606047/2 Bobbi MarcusBobbi Marcus PR & Events310-889-9200

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--presented thetoat the opening reception of thelast night in Las Vegas. The imPAX Prize recognizes noble achievements in the promotion of peace and positive social impact within the staging of live events.Choudhry, an inspirational speaker, writer, and storyteller, is perhaps best known for his role as co-founder of the annual Life is Beautiful festival held in Downtown Las Vegas. As an avid festivalgoer and creative business professional, Choudhry created the vision for a music, food, art and learning festival after leaving a high-profile corporate job to explore his passion.When Life is Beautiful was founded in 2013, Choudhry had three goals in mind: make a positive impact on the local community, create a unique blend of lifestyle programming and make a significant societal impact. Life is Beautiful brings together an eclectic group of talent and seeks to offer unique and meaningful experiences that uplift and inspire. The festival also supports local and global causes, giving attendees the opportunity to engage with and donate to chosen nonprofit organizations on festival grounds.Through its global network of music schools, Playing For Change Foundation shares a similar vision of revitalizing communities and inspiring people through music. "We knew the recipient of the imPAX Prize needed to be someone who embodied the spirit of furthering peace and making a positive impact in the world," said Playing For Change Foundation Executive Director John McKenna, who presented the award along with artist Souleye. "We nominated Rehan immediately, and to honor him in Las Vegas is fortuitous, for it's his base and the place where his impact is most profound.""I have dedicated my life to making a positive impact on the world via live experiences,"Choudhry says. "I always believed that festivals are more than just a large party, but rather they're opportunities to celebrate life, connect on a human level, grow culturally and drive awareness for social issues and challenges. It is such an amazing honor to not only be recognized by Playing For Change, but also considered for the imPAX Prize. We do the work we do not for recognition or for accolades, but because we want to change the world. I am so incredibly grateful for the work that Playing for Change does in this arena."Socially conscious hip-hop artist Souleye commemorated the occasion with a live performance of several original songs, including a preview of his forthcoming 2017 album, during the XLIVE Opening Reception in which Playing For Change Foundation served as sponsor.XLIVE, formerly the International Music Festival Conference (IMFCON) and International Film Festival Summit (IFFS), convenes industry leaders at the intersection of music, film, culinary, beverage, eSports, technology and the experiences that culminate at festivals and live events."XLIVE is thrilled that someone who has been an incredible contributor to not only the festival community but the local community of Las Vegas is being recognized at this year's conference,"said XLIVE CEO & Co-Founder Waco Hoover. "As the founder of Life is Beautiful, Rehan's vision represents the spirit of festivals bringing together diverse communities and supporting the local communities they take place in."The 2016 imPAX Prize includes a scholarship dedicated in Choudhry's name to the Playing For Change Foundation music school of his choice, the program in Dhaka, Bangladesh.was established in 2007, providing music education in areas that are culturally rich yet economically challenged. Children in countries around the world, from Africa, Latin America to Southeast Asia, attend free classes in music, dance and languages, taught by qualified local music teachers and led by regional administrators. Students learn about their own cultural traditions while employing technology to connect and share experiences with others around the world., led by Co-Founders Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke, arose from the universal belief that music can connect people across circumstances, challenges and cultural differences. In 2002, a small group of filmmakers set out with a mobile recording studio in search of inspiration and the heartbeat of the human race on the streets. The first music video production, "Stand By Me," combined 35 musicians from 10 countries who had never met in person. The phenomenon swept across the world, with "Stand By Me," one of the Playing For Change productions, being viewed over 100 million times online and counting.The Playing For Change Movement has since attracted hundreds of global artists including, in addition to street musicians from 47 countries who have participated in PFC video recordings. Playingforchange.org
ERP Industry

Contact

Sudip Saha

***@marketresearchhub.com Sudip Saha

End

-- Market Research Hub (MRH) broadcasts the addition of a latest report to its database. This new research report is titled as "ERP Salesforce Market (http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/united-states-eu-japan-china-india-and-southeast-asia-erp-solution-for-salesforce-market-size-status-and-forecast-2021-report.html)"to forecast - 2021". The report offers a comprehensive analysis on the Enterprise Eesource Planning (ERP) for Salesforce in several key regions including United States, European Union, China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, more). According to the report study, the market of ERP solution for salesforce is estimated to grow in the above mentioned regions between the forecast duration starting from 2016 to 2021.The report begins with a market overview of ERP solutions. Enterprise resource planning is the integrated management of core business procedures, frequently used in real-time and facilitated by software & technology. ERP is usually referred to a type of business software, typically a collection of integrated applications that an organization can use to gather, manage and interpret data from many business activities. This software integrates all facets of an operation including development planning, product planning, manufacturing planning, marketing and sales in a single database. Salesforce includes a prebuilt application for CRM (customer relationship management) extending from sales force automation to partner relationship management customer service and marketing.As the enterprise resource planning methodology has become more prevalent, software applications have appeared to assist business managers implement ERP in to other business actions and may incorporate units for CRM and business intelligence, presenting it as a particular unified package. Further the report also includes market segmentation based on different types and application. On the basis of type the ERP solution for salesforce can be split into: On-premise ERP Cloud ERPOn-premise enterprise resource planning refers to a corporation's verdict to source domestic ERP software and maintain it at a physical organization, somewhat than ordering it for supply over the web or using vendor-supplied source. While, Cloud enterprise resource planning is a methodology to enterprise resource planning (ERP) that makes use of cloud computing services and platforms to deliver a business with additional flexible business method transformation.Furthermore, this report focuses on the top companies in global market such as: NetSuite SAP Oracle Epicor TGI Sage Infor Concur (SAP) IBM Microsoft Kronos Totvs UNIT4 Workday Rootstock Cornerstone YonYou Kingdee Digiwin FinancialForce:http://www.marketresearchhub.com/pr/united-states-eu-japan-china-india-and-southeast-asia-erp-solution-for-salesforce-market.htmlThe research report highlights these key players and provide an assessment of the competitive landscape present in the global market.Market Research Hub (MRH) ( http://www.marketresearchhub.com/ ) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRH's expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.90 State StreetAlbany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free : 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel : +1-518-621-2074Email : press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite : http://www.marketresearchhub.com
By: Lisnr, Neukleos

Lisnr

Contact

Bukola Akingbade

bukola@neukleos.com

+23412930690 Bukola Akingbade+23412930690

End

-- LAGOS, NIGERIA - Technology at its best is functional magic, opening a world of untold possibilities. Imagine still being able to use your phone to communicate without Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or a Network. Sounds like magic, right?LISNR can do that. Their technology uses proprietary inaudible sound waves called Smart Tones to connect devices. It works like existing technology protocol Bluetooth, except LISNR uses sound waves to transmit data and does not require hardware or maintenance.This is a game changing solution for the continent where reliability regarding data connectivity and mobile phone functionality varies greatly depending on your location and mobile service. LISNR brings proximity data transmission across all mobile phones, including feature phones, and enables solutions, such as contactless payments, mesh networking for messaging, and authentication. The magic behind LISNR is that it will bring equal levels of connectivity to the most advanced cities and the most remote villages in Africa.This "speakernet"or "The Internet of Sound," as Williams puts it, gives LISNR the ability to leverage a massive, existing network all around us. "Anywhere there is a speaker or has the ability to broadcast audio like a phone, LISNR has the ability to turn that object or media into a data-transmitting medium."Announcing its partnership with Lagos-based digital agency Neukleos, LISNR CEO Rodney Williams explains, "There is a huge need for this technology in Africa. Neukleos brought this need to life. We looking forward to working with Neukleos and Africa's top telecoms to ensure functionality."In 2015, LISNR won the Gold Lion for Innovation in Mobile at Cannes Lions on the strength of partnerships with global brands Budweiser and the Cleveland Cavaliers.According to Bukola Akingbade, CEO of Neukleos, "This partnership is a merging of vision. Giving feature phones the ability to make payments, authenticate and identify audiences will provide millions of Africans access to functions that they otherwise would not have. LISNR is Africa-ready for today and going into the future."As more devices come to market capable of being always on, data-over-audio communications will continue to accelerate. Neukleos will work with LISNR to develop disruptive products for key African markets. Both companies believe that using sound as a data delivery system can radically change how marketers access audiences in Africa.About LISNRFounded in 2012, LISNR is the creator of Smart Tones, a new ultrasonic communication protocol for sending data over audio. LISNR transmits customizable packets of data every second, enabling proximity data transmission, second-screen functionality, authentication and device-to-device connectivity on any LISNR-enabled device. For more information, visit http://www.lisnr.com About NEUKLEOSNeukleos is a Lagos based full service digital agency that believes insight enables better human connection. With a focus on digital transformation as a factor for business growth, we develop business strategy, create digital content and utilize technology to create meaningful experiences. For more information, visit www.neukleos.com
By: The Guardian

Contact

The Bobby Taylor Company

***@bobbytaylorcompany.com The Bobby Taylor Company

End

-- The Guardian, Nigeria's most credible and trusted newspaper, is pleased to announce the launch of Guardian Brand Studio, an innovative multi-platform content marketing solution for advertisers. Following on from the launch of Guardian TV and the overhaul of its digital platforms, this launch demonstrates The Guardian's ongoing commitment to being a leader in the market.Guardian Brand Studio consists of a team of writers, designers, videographers, developers and researchers that work with advertisers to create branded content to reach influential and well educated audiences in Nigeria, the diaspora and globally. We use our journalistic and storytelling skills to work with brand marketing departments to create compelling content that will engage audiences on our platforms and beyond.Toke Alex Ibru, the Executive Director, The Guardian Newspapers, stated, "The media industry is continually evolving and requires publishers to adapt to the ever changing needs of our audience and advertisers. The launch of Guardian Brand Studio continues to build on our vision to become the most progressive and innovative publisher across the region".Daryn Wober, CEO Ventra Media/ Guardian Digital said, "The Guardian Brand Studio will allow our advertiser partners to create content and tell stories in partnership with a leading news brand. All the skills that The Guardian has built around multiplatform journalism and content creation can be harnessed for the benefit of their brands."The studio has already worked with brands such as Zenith Bank, Jumia, Nairabet and United Capital to deliver campaigns using editorial, photography, video, info-graphics and technology. Advertisers provide Guardian Brand Studio with a creative brief and the team deliver a content and distribution strategy before moving to production and syndication. Content is then made available across all of The Guardian's platforms including print, online, Guardian TV and social channels. Clients are also then able to utilize content and assets across their own platforms to achieve maximum reach and impact.Further information on Guardian Brand Studio can be found at http://media.guardian.ng or by emailing studio@guardian.ng
Fly ash is a fine powder substance which is a by-product of electric generation power plants produced by burning of pulverized coal.

Media Contact

Ajay Daniel

Email: ajay.daniel@ researchnester.com

***@researchnester.com

6465869123 Ajay DanielEmail: ajay.daniel@researchnester.com6465869123

End

-- Fly ash is a fine powder substance which is a by-product of electric generation power plants produced by burning of pulverized coal. Fly ash contains aluminous and siliceous material that forms cement in the presence of water. Fly ash when mixed with lime and water forms a compound similar to portland cement. Coal fired power plant produces fly ash which provides an excellent prime material used in embedded cement, mosaic tiles and hollow blocks.Fly ash has been successfully used as structural fills in many developed countries. However, this particular bulk utilization of ash is yet to be implemented in developing and under-developed countries. The growth of fly ash market is mainly driven by the construction sector. Extensive use of fly ash in construction industry is going to create a strong demand of fly ash in the global market.Fly ash fills the gap between cement particles in concrete mixture this results in less usage of water which increases the durability of concrete. Fly ash concrete reduces crack problems, reduces heat of hydration and makes the infrastructure resistant to cold weather.Market SegmentationBy ProductDeep dive industry analysis has been carried out on the following product segments:-Class FClass COthersBy ApplicationBy application, the global fly ash market is analyzed on the following end uses:-Portland CementRoad ConstructionFire BricksAgricultureDecorative GlassOthers (water treatment etc.)Get Full Table Of Content Fly Ash Market : www.researchnester.com/ toc-request/ 1/rep-id-210 By RegionGlobal Fly Ash Market is further classified on the basis of region as follows:North America (U.S. & Canada) Market size, Y-O-Y growth & Opportunity AnalysisLatin America (Brazil, Mexico, Rest of Latin America) Market size, Y-O-Y growth & Opportunity AnalysisWestern and Eastern Europe (U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg, Rest of Western Europe) Market size, Y-O-Y growth & Opportunity AnalysisAsia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) Market size, Y-O-Y growth & Opportunity AnalysisMiddle East and Africa (GCC, North Africa, South Africa and Rest of Middle East and Africa)Growth Drivers and ChallengesIncreasing awareness among consumers towards the benefit of using fly ash as a substitute for portland cement in concrete along with the cost reduction is expected to uplift the fly ash market across the globe.According to WHO, global urban population comprises 55% of the global population in 2015. Growing urbanization has led to strong demand for infrastructure in urban areas, this will further boost the demand of fly ash in construction sector therefore propelling the over-all growth of the market.Increasing construction activities across the globe has led to strong demand of fly ash in the market owing to its properties such as strength, long term durability, cost effectiveness and improved quality of finished product.Fly ash is an environment friendly product because it is a by-product and has low embodied energy, increasing environmental concerns along with the government initiatives to reduce the fly ash emissions, by disposing it into waste landfills have boosted the growth of global fly ash market. However, higher permeability of cement due to poor quality of fly ash is expected to be the major reasons restraining the market growth over the forecast period.Get Free Sample Report of Fly Ash Market : www.researchnester.com/ sample-request/ 2/rep-id-210 Market Size & ForecastGlobal fly ash market was valued at USD 40 billion in 2015; the market is anticipated to reach USD 70 billion by the end of 2023 witnessing a compound annual growth rate of 7.1% over the forecast period.Portland cement segment is expected to be the largest segment of fly ash market and is anticipated to maintain its "all time high" position over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023.Road construction and fire bricks segment is anticipated to be the second most attractive market in terms of compound annual growth rate. This is mainly attributed to the increasing demand of fly ash for emerging megaprojects of expressways and highways in the developing countries.Asia Pacific is the largest market for fly ash followed by North America owing to the wide availability of product in this region. Due to increasing construction activities and growing urbanization, the region is anticipated to show a strong growth over the forecast period. Agriculture sector accounted for more than 14% of the global fly ash market and is expected to experience steady growth in the near future due to availability of substitutes for soil stabilization.Research Nester is a global market research and consulting firm helping organizations, private entities, governments undertaking, non-legislative associations and non-profit organizations. With our decades of experience in the market research, we help our clients to gain a competitive edge over other players. Thus, helping them making strategic yet dynamic decisions for the future investments.Ajay DanielEmail: ajay.daniel@researchnester.com (mailto:ajay.daniel@researchnester.com?subject=openPR.com%20contact)1820 Avenue M, Suite# 1113,Brooklyn, New York 11230U.S. +1 646 586 9123U.K. +44 203 608 5919web: www.researchnester.com
NFC to buy beans, grains from farmers in Karnali

Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) plans to buy 113 tonnes of beans, buckwheat and naked barley from four districts in Karnali zone to ensure that local farmers do not suffer for lack of market access.
PFN (Project Freight Net B.V.) has announced the addition of Cargo Experts as their new member for the Greece to its Project Freight Forwarders network.

By: CargoExperts

Contact

Project Freight Net B.V., P.Bouwhuis

***@projectfreight.net Project Freight Net B.V., P.Bouwhuis

End

-- Cargo Experts is established on 11.11.11 as a full Freight Forwarding and Logistics Services company in Greece and covers almost all transportation services including Project Logistics and offering the best possible solutions to its clients, based on their cargoes requirements.Cargo Experts is presently headed by mr. John Nicolas Kallipetis and mr. Stathis Tsomidis, as well as 37 supporting staff covering Sales & Marketing, Documentation and a team of 25 experts in Ops-Logistics at their container depots and warehouses.Large scale and multinational companies required constant freight cost updates and daily follow up of shipments. On the other hand, urgent loadings, last minute amendments, occur on customer shipments and need professional attention. Their team is ready to assist and take the lead of solution with the most efficient cost management, in less time interval without headaches for their customers.An international transport is successful in less time, only with an experienced partner that have the knowledge of local and regional regulations and conditions that covers The Balkans area. Reliable documentation process and all kinds of transport means. Communicating daily updates with the status of shipment and success level of your sales leads. Their strong relation with the most reliable carriers offering customers multiple quotes without spending extra time for shipping rates research and only have to compare shipping rates, transit time and quality of service or intermodal package solution.233, Syngrou Avenue,17121 Nea Smirni,GreecePhone: +30 210 93 11 020,Fax: +30 210 93 11 021Email: info@cargoexperts.eu Website: http://www.cargoexperts.eu forms a welcome addition to the PFN network especially for their expertise in Greece whereby we have also looked at the future potential that Cargo Experts and PFN will have together in thePFN is a Project Freight Forwarders network that offers its members not just all the usual network benefits but in addition adds online systems, likeand, to advance their processes and efficiency. PFN offers know-how and educational programs that are recognized by the industry and. In these times of economic turmoil and a strong decline in industrial projects it is important to be part of a network that looks out for the members and the wellbeing of its members. Exclusivity is another part of the strategy that the network has whereby we like to look at the quality of a country member rather than quantity. Industrial customers and EPC organizations look for consistency and quality.============Project Freight Net B.V. a Dutch registered company is a Project Freight Forwarders Network organization that offers exclusive memberships to the industry. PFN has always been about offering value to its members in the form of productivity, collaboration, generating sales leads, arbitration, and consultancy. It will offer much more in the near future in the form of actual business for the members. Momentarily it has already members (in the startup phase) but projections are to reach the 30 members before Q4 of 2016 and 100 before the end of 2017. Project Freight Net is also the initiator of the LinkedIn group, Project Freight Management (PFM) with 13,500 connections that takes care of news items and knowhow sharing.
More than 200 acres of land acquired in St. Johns County along Sixmile Creek

By: North Florida Land Trust

Contact

Kelly White, Client Focused Media

***@cfmedia.net Kelly White, Client Focused Media

End

-- North Florida Land Trust is pleased to announce they have purchased the first piece of property identified in their Preservation Portfolio. The land was among the 112,346 acres in their seven-county focus area that they deemed in critical need of preservation. The property was owned by Fletcher Management Company, a Jacksonville-based real estate developer. Fletcher reached out to NFLT after learning land they owned in St. Johns County was included in the organization's targeted conservation area."This is a first step in reaching our goals of preserving these lands that provide valuable ecosystem services," said Jim McCarthy, Executive Director of NFLT. "This is a great example of how we can work alongside developers to preserve land for future generations."The recently acquired land is two tax parcels that total 206 acres. The property has significant frontage on Sixmile Creek directly off the St. Johns River in St. Augustine and protects the forested uplands and the floodplain of the creek. The land is directly across the creek from the Outback Crab Shack Seafood Restaurant on County Road 13 North. It is a rich wetland ecosystem, which provides food and shelter for numerous birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. The property is densely populated by countless trees that tolerate fluctuating water levels from the creek and help filter nutrients and pollutants from the water. The acquired land is a portion of the more than 5,500 acres NFLT had identified as a preservation priority along Sixmile Creek.NFLT has identified four tracts of land in St. Johns County that are in critical need of preservation. In addition to the Sixmile Creek land, NFLT is also interested in acquiring and preserving acreage in the Julington-Durbin Creeks, Guana River and agricultural lands in Hastings.NFLT's Preservation Portfolio identifies the most valuable 112,346 acres of land in Northeast Florida which provide significant ecosystem services, which are defined as services provided by the natural environment that would otherwise cost money. These lands provide the water we drink and the air we breathe, provide needed fisheries, prevent flooding, provide recreational opportunities and are critical to maintaining a healthy community. Preserving the land can reduce or eliminate the need for storm water drainage or sewage treatment facilities. The estimated cost to acquire all the land in the Preservation Portfolio is $216,516,934, but the ecosystems services value is $413,430,739.NFLT developed the Preservation Portfolio using the North Florida Conservation Priorities, an adaptable database of natural resources in their operating area that the Land Trust completed last year. They looked at over three million acres in Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns Counties. These areas include an array of ecosystems; from coastal salt marshes and pine forests, to cypress swamps and everything in between.North Florida Land Trust is a non-profit organization who serves as a champion of land conservation primarily in Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns counties. NFLT was founded in 1999 and has protected thousands of acres of environmentally significant land including land at Big Talbot Island, the River Branch Preserve, Pumpkin Hill, Moccasin Slough, along the St. Mary's River and other valued natural areas in Northeast Florida. NFLT is funded largely by private and corporate contributions and works closely with private landowners and other public agencies at all levels of government, not-for-profit partners, and foundations. For more information, visit www.northfloridalandtrust.org
Charitable land donation received from real estate investor and developer Charles Chupp

By: North Florida Land Trust

Contact

Kelly White, Client Focused Media

***@cfmedia.net Kelly White, Client Focused Media

End

-- North Florida Land Trust has received a charitable land donation on Big Talbot Island from Charles Chupp. The donation is 6.43 acres of environmentally sensitive and pristine land on the very northern tip of the island and at the edge of Big Talbot Island State Park."We are very grateful for Mr. Chupp's donation, which keeps Diane Joy Milam Dennis' dream of protecting all of the privately-owned land on Big Talbot alive," said Jim McCarthy, Executive Director of NFLT. "We have now protected nearly 1100 acres on Big Talbot. There are seven more land owners and ten more parcels that we are interested in acquiring and protecting on the island."The property near Big Talbot Island State Park is unique because of its surrounding state parks and the Nassau Inlet. Many rare forms of wildlife can be found in the area including dozens of migrating shorebirds, nesting sea turtles, and one of the rarest species of birds in the U.S., the piping plover. The piping plover species, which is found along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, is considered endangered due to habitat destruction and disturbance by people. Recent surveys by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimate the Atlantic population at fewer than 2,000 pairs.Part of the property donated by Chupp connects to Spoonbill Pond, which hosts a high concentration of wildlife. It is common to see hundreds of wading birds and American white pelicans roosting at the pond and surrounding trees. Visitors will be able to enjoy the property and its bird-watching opportunities from the Timucuan Trail, which runs the length of the island.Chupp, a real estate investor and developer, is the second developer that NFLT has concluded a deal with in just one week. Last Wednesday, NFLT purchased 206 acres of land in St. Johns County from Fletcher Davis Management Company. McCarthy said he hopes there are many more of these types of acquisitions in the future.North Florida Land Trust is a non-profit organization who serves as a champion of environmental protection primarily in Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns counties. NFLT was founded in 1999 and has protected thousands of acres of environmentally significant land including land at Big Talbot Island, the River Branch Preserve, Pumpkin Hill State Park, Moccasin Slough, along the St. Mary's River and other valued natural areas in Northeast Florida. NFLT is funded largely by private and corporate contributions and works closely with private landowners and other public agencies at all levels of government, not-for-profit partners, and foundations. For more information, visit www.northfloridalandtrust.org
Local Author Ed Sealover will be available to sign copies of book

End

--Colorado is replete with natural beauty, award-winning breweries and a history that reflects its wild and rugged character. Author Ed Sealover offers this detailed guide to ten three-day excursions full of nature, history and unique watering holes. Discover sprawling parks and celebrated landmarks throughout the state. Visit oddball destinations like the trail of America's favorite cannibal and the renowned ghost town of Saint Elmo. Work up a thirst on the hiking trails of Rocky Mountain National Park and unwind on the single block in the state that is home to a brewery, a winery and a distillery. Uncover the craft, creative and cultural gems that make the Centennial State a curious wanderer's dream.Ed Sealover is a reporter with the Denver Business Journal covering state government, tourism and the beverage industry. He worked at the Colorado Springs Gazette from 2000-08, covering City Hall and politics and writing the paper's beer column. Over his 21-year journalism career, he has received eighty-four state, regional and national awards in categories ranging from investigative reporting to political reporting to public service. Sealover has been writing about beer since 2003, including the book Mountain Brew: A Guide to Colorado's Breweries (2011) and his ongoing "Beer Run" blog.Barnes & Noble960 S. Colorado Blvd.Denver, CO 80246Saturday, December 17th, 2016; 11:00 a.m.  1:00 p.m.Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or online.The combination of Arcadia Publishing & The History Press creates the largest and most comprehensive publisher of local and regional content in the USA. By empowering local history and culture enthusiasts to write local stories for local audiences, we create exceptional books that are relevant on a local and personal level, enrich lives, and bring readers closer - to their community, their neighbors, and their past. Have we done a book on your town? Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com
Poyed by Velvette B2BAB 3rd Annual Blessings Bag Fundraiser Brunch to Honor Local Human Services Organization #SurpriseTheStruggling Campaign

By: POYED by Velvette

2016 B2BAB - Brunch Fundraiser

Contact

Poyed by Velvette

***@gmail.com Poyed by Velvette

End

-- The 3Annual B2BAB Blessing Bag Fundraiser Brunch being held on Saturday, December 10located in Brooklyn, NY at the Brooklyn College Academy is a unique give back opportunity and female empowerment platform for women and young girls committed to aide in the fight against homelessness created by POYED by Velvette's CEO and Founder, Velvette Mattison-Batson, I.E.W.P.In its 3year, the 2016 fundraiser is a brunch with an expected guest count of 80 women and 20+ young ladies; 70% of which are business owners or entrepreneurs who have collectively donated over 2,800 Sanitary/Toiletry items to place in the Blessing Bags.Spirited Speaker, Ms. Robin E. Devonishwill be the event's host as she is a champion and advocate of female empowerment. To kick off the brunch, a piece 'I See You" written by My Faith Heels creator Leslie Biamby- being Lyrically Interpreted by Nayilah Antoine (mother-daughter duo) will be dedicated to the women and young ladies at the B2BAB Brunch which will culminate in the celebration and recognition of the 1B2BAB Award Honorees.This award ceremony recognizes women and teenage girls that have exhibited B2BAB Initiative's and core belief that the Greatest Gift is to become the Blessing; STS Founder and Executive Director Dr. Jacquelyn Wilson, SmHEARTgirls Founder and Facilitator AP, Lynelle Rennis, P.R.a.D.A, NP Founders Janine Smalls-Gueye and Lanise Herman-Thomas with their Executive Staff, POYED by Velvette's Event Specialist, Charice Williams and Founders of Positive Teen Seen, Quasbah Virginie & Chance Haynes will all make history as the first honorees with their appearance at the 3Annual Blessed to Be a Blessing Fundraiser.Creating the Blessing Bags during the brunch is POYED by Velvette's way of engaging the donors with their personal touch of giving. The Blessing Bags in addition to the overflow of toiletry and sanitary items will be donated to this year's B2BAB chosen Charitable Organization501 c3, not for profit who is meeting the needs of homeless women and teenage girls globally. To learn more about this organization or to donate please visit www.surprisethestruggling.org STS will distribute the donated blessing bags during the Holiday Season to homeless women and teenage girls locally as well as to a village in Jamaica, Haiti, and Africa.Thanks to the In-Kind Raffle donations provided by CC's Treats, Eloquent Essentials, Embrace Your Cake, Evelyn's Consultant Services, LoveWinx Consultant  Iris Dudley, Positive Teen Seen, POYED by Velvette, Organic Threadz and Soule by Brittany D ALL proceeds raised from the raffle will be donated to the Charitable Organization Peoples Resource and Development Association (P.R.a.D.A) 501 c3 not for profit and will be used to purchase new chairs, desks and gym equipment for the Y.E.S. Academy; A program that provides education and recreational services for children of low-income families in two locations (Bronx and Harlem). To learn more about this wonderful charitable organization and their programs please visitThe 2016 B2BAB Community Partnera mentoring program that empowers girls to find their voice by teaching them to Be, Love and Respect themselves... has generously provided the event space for the B2BAB Brunch in addition to Blessing Bag donations. Their members will be paired with a B2BAB Business Service provider and will receive mentorship from them prior to the start of the brunch.A special and heartfelt thanks to B2BAB Brunch donor Embrace Your Cakeyour generosity is a further testament to the power of kindness. B2BAB is a huge advocate of female empowerment because of the wonderful support from other female entrepreneurs. They are truly the Blessing. Our gratitude is unmatched for the talent that will be present offering their skills to make this brunch even the more successful. Photos and graphic design are provided by Photography by Sena a Lifestyle & Family Photographer. Media coverage will be provided by Go Open Other Doors an online radio show that promotes a commitment to a lifestyle of resourcefulness. The event design elements such as Balloon Deco will be provided by Brooklyn's own B4AllOccasionz; our guest and honoree table design and special set up is provided by POYED by Velvette www.poyedbyvelvette.wixsite.com/boutique-events and Eye Imagine Fashion.The overall excitement and take away is in knowing that our guests will enjoy an afternoon filled with networking, fellowship and female bonding while creating Blessing Bags. They'll delight in a tasty 3-course meal provided by SOULE by Brittany D with an array of chocolate covered treats and dessert shooters to choose from provided by Shocolate Kisses and Kei Kei's D-Lites.B2BAB will continually thank and acknowledge the success of thecredited to the partnership of female entrepreneurs and individuals coming together. Our Title, Premiere and Supportive Partners deserve a multitude of thanks and appreciation for their continuous support and donations.and countless individuals._____________________________THE END___________________________
Boise Paper and General Mills Announce Winners in the Give the Gift of Box Tops Sweepstakes

By: Boise Paper

Contact

Ellyse Orndorff

L.C. Williams & Associates

***@lcwa.com Ellyse OrndorffL.C. Williams & Associates

End

-- Boise Paper and General Mills announced today Unity Christian School of Fulton, IL; Arthur B Ness Elementary School of Spokane, WA; and King School of Portland, OR; as the winning schools in the 2016 Give the Gift of Box Tops Sweepstakes. All three schools will receive 400 reams of paper and 10,000 bonus Box Tops to start out the New Year."Boise Paper's Give the Gift of Box Tops Sweepstakes is a fun way for us to engage and give back to the communities our customers and employees call home," said Paul LeBlanc, vice president of Boise Paper. "What better way to fulfill our Paper with Purpose promise and celebrate the holiday season than by giving something unexpected to a local school?"The promise is Boise Paper's commitment to provide consistent, high-quality papers and invest in the sustainability of local communities. Through their partnership with Box Tops for Education, Boise Paper has funded over $10 million to help America's schools. K  8 schools use Box Tops for Education funds to purchase necessary items such as gym equipment, library books, instruments and art supplies.The Give the Gift of Box Tops sweepstakes  held from October 24, 2016, to November 21, 2016  celebrated Boise Paper's partnership with General Mills and the Box Tops for Education program. One hundred sixty-one thousand thirty-three (161,033) participants entered to win on behalf of their favorite school. Participants were allowed one entry on every day of the contest. Lillian Carroll entered for Unity Christian School, Dorothy Heid entered for Arthur B Ness Elementary School, and Betty Szylowicz entered for King School.
Sarasota attorney David E. Gurley named Super Lawyer for eighth consecutive year.

By: Gurley Vitale

Contact

Shelby Isaacson

Grapevine Communications

***@grapeinc.com Shelby IsaacsonGrapevine Communications

End

-- Gurley Vitale, a Sarasota law firm specializing in construction law, is pleased to announce that founder and president David E. Gurley has been selected by Super Lawyers as a Top Florida Attorney. This marks the eighth consecutive year Mr. Gurley has achieved this prestigious recognition, having first received the honor in 2009."It is an honor to once again be included on the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice," said Gurley. "At Gurley Vitale, we take pride in being named among the top professionals in our industry, while remaining dedicated to providing exceptional representation for our clients."Each year Super Lawyers reviews attorneys from all firm sizes and over 70 practice areas throughout the United States. Lawyers enter the candidate pool either by being formally nominated by a peer or being identified by the Super Lawyers research department, whose criteria includes certain honors, results or credentials indicating a high degree of peer recognition or professional competence.Each candidate is evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement. Selections are made on an annual, state-by-state basis. The objective is to create a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of outstanding attorneys that can be used as a resource for attorneys and consumers searching for legal counsel.An active participant in the American Bar Association, Mr. Gurley serves on both the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section's Fidelity and Surety Law Committee and the Forum on Construction Law. He is also a member of The Florida Bar, the Sarasota County Bar Association, the Florida Surety Association, the National Bond Claims Association, the Defense Research Institute and the Judge John M. Scheb American Inn of Court. Highly regarded by his fellow professionals, Mr. Gurley has received an AV Preeminent peer-review rating through Martindale-Hubbell.Gurley Vitale is a commercial litigation, construction and surety boutique law firm with a national and international reach. Gurley Vitale provides its clients optimal value, by integrating market-leading legal services with a comprehensive understanding of clients' needs to maximize effectiveness, efficiency and opportunities. David Gurley, founding member and president, is an expert in construction law and has been a principle of the firm since its inception in 2002. The firm proudly holds the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory's highest attainable rating for legal expertise and ethics. For more information, visit www.GurleyVitale.com Grapevine Communications provides full-service advertising, marketing and public relations services to clients nationwide. The firm is the most award-winning advertising agency in Sarasota, Florida, and the surrounding areas. Recent accolades include the 2016, 2015 & 2014 Best Marketing/PR Agency by SRQ Magazine readers; the 2016 "Top 25 Public Relations Firms of Southwest Florida" by Tampa Bay Business Journal; the 2015 Greater Good Philanthropy Award  Small Business by Biz(941) Magazine; the 2014 Small Business of the Year by the Manatee Chamber of Commerce; and the 2010 Small Business of the Year by the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. For more information on Grapevine Communications, contact Shelby Isaacson ( Shelby@grapeinc.com ) at 941-351-0024 or visit the website at www.grapeinc.com
XcellR8 welcomes Case Polen and Brandon Bonfils, Co-Founders of BeachParking.com

By: Nerac

Contact

Susan Lucek

***@nerac.com Susan Lucek

End

-- Nerac(www.nerac.com/)is pleased to announce the next XcellR8 meeting which will be held Thursday, December 8, 2016 at the Nerac headquarters in Tolland, CT. The XcellR8 meetings are high energy, interactive gatherings for entrepreneurs to pitch ideas and concepts and to brainstorm creative solutions to challenges. XcellR8 welcomes Case Polen and Brandon Bonfils, Co-Founders of BeachParking.com (www.beachparking.com/)Finding a parking spot at the beach can be the most stressful part of anyone's fun filled day. This is especially true for people travelling from afar. Case, Brandon, and the rest of their team recognized this on-going problem and developed BeachParking.com, an online reservation service which connects beach goers to local beach parking lots. This online connection allows beachgoers to arrive to the beach when they want, without the stress of having to find a spot. Beachparking.com offers its customers guaranteed parking reservations, fluctuating price protection, and localized business deals. In addition, it helps parking lots fill up - maximizing their space - and provides them with a stronger online presence.The team from Beachparking.com is seeking feedback on:* Their overall business model* Guidance on the most efficient way to acquire more parking lots* A cost-effective marketing strategy that will maximize customer outreach and retain customer loyaltyXcellR8, established as a networking cell in northeastern Connecticut, was one of four cells originally created by members of the Connecticut Technology Council executive board, including Nerac CEO, Kevin Bouley. Nerac generously makes space available to support this growing community of entrepreneurs."The Tolland/Nerac XcellR8 group continues to accomplish an amazing amount for our participants with just the volunteer talent and the energetic people who attend the sessions," said Bouley. "I'm very excited to welcome Case and Brandon to our next XcellR8 meeting and am confident that the team can provide insights and ideas to help their company evolve and grow." Contact XcellR8 ( mailto:xcellr8@ nerac.com ) to learn more today.Nerac Inc. is a global research and advisory firm for companies developing innovative products and technologies. Nerac provides expert insights that equip clients with the knowledge to develop or refine a technology, explore market growth opportunities, evaluate intellectual property strategies and respond to regulatory changes. Nerac serves approximately 20,000 users worldwide and delivers over 75,000 research projects and custom alerts each year. Nerac has a long, successful consulting history in a wide-range of industries with a strong focus in the areas of pharmaceutical, food and nutraceuticals, medical device, engineering, energy and advanced materials.


Xcel Energy donating $50,000 to weatherize Colorado's San Luis Valley homes Funding for CARE program to benefit limited-income families and seniors By: Colorado's Affordable Residential Energy Program CARE logo ALAMOSA, Colo. - Dec. 6, 2016 - PRLog -- To help Colorado's San Luis Valley residents save money on their home energy bills,



CARE brings together energy organizations in various regions of the state to help limited-income Coloradans improve the energy efficiency of their homes for free by conducting an energy audit and installing free improvements such as air sealing, insulation, furnace/boiler replacement, refrigerator replacement and other measures. Small upgrades, such as LED light bulbs and efficient faucet heads, may be provided during the audit.



CARE works alongside the Colorado Energy Office's



To qualify for the program, a household must be at or below 80% of the area median income. Assistance is available to both homeowners and tenants, as long as the tenant has written permission from their landlord to participate.



In the San Luis Valley, the CARE partners are Xcel Energy and nonprofits Energy Outreach Colorado (http://www.energyoutreach.org) (EOC) and the Energy Resource Center (https://www.erc- co.org/erc-in- san-luis-valley/) (ERC). EOC, which launched the CARE program in 2015, provides grant funding and processes the applications to verify household qualifications. EOC also helps low-income Coloradans across the state afford home energy through energy bill pay assistance, energy efficiency grants for affordable housing and nonprofits, energy education and public policy.



ERC manages the San Luis Valley and Denver Metro CARE program and facilitates household audits and upgrades. ERC is partially funded through the Colorado Energy Office and provides energy efficiency services for income-qualified families in 13 Colorado counties, including the San Luis Valley.



Both EOC and ERC have a strong history of providing services to improve the living conditions of limited-income families and seniors in the San Luis Valley. Lance Cheslock, Executive Director of La Puente in Alamosa, has partnered with both agencies and values what they bring to the community.



"Charlie Sanchez, Program Director with ERC, is a great community guy and his crew does not miss a detail," Cheslock said. "Even the most tedious jobs they approach with thoroughness. Being efficient is just being smart."



"With winter under way, it's great to be able to work with agencies such as ERC and EOC to give these limited-income homes access to energy efficiency and free home improvements so they can continue to pay their energy bills and stay warm throughout the winter," said Michelle Hurst, Program Manager at Xcel Energy.



According to a State of Colorado report, Colorado households saved an average of $435 per year after weatherization services were completed. The CARE program is an effective way to save families money, as well as increase the safety and comfort of the home, at no cost to the homeowner.



For more information, please contact Peggy Hofstra, marketing director at Energy Outreach Colorado, at 303-226-5053 or phofstra@energyoutreach.org, or visit http://www.energyoutreach.org/ get-help/care.



Contact

Peggy Hofstra

***@energyoutreach.org



Photo:

https://www.prlog.org/ 12606262/1 Peggy Hofstra End -- To help Colorado's San Luis Valley residents save money on their home energy bills, Xcel Energy is contributing $50,000 to fund the expansion of CARE  Colorado's Affordable Residential Energy Program  to the region.CARE brings together energy organizations in various regions of the state to help limited-income Coloradans improve the energy efficiency of their homes for free by conducting an energy audit and installing free improvements such as air sealing, insulation, furnace/boiler replacement, refrigerator replacement and other measures. Small upgrades, such as LED light bulbs and efficient faucet heads, may be provided during the audit.CARE works alongside the Colorado Energy Office's Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) to help more moderate-income Coloradans get quicker access to home weatherization services. In the San Luis Valley, which has one of the highest poverty levels in the state, WAP has a wait list of more than two years. Xcel's support to expand CARE to the Valley will enable residents to get help more quickly.To qualify for the program, a household must be at or below 80% of the area median income. Assistance is available to both homeowners and tenants, as long as the tenant has written permission from their landlord to participate.In the San Luis Valley, the CARE partners are Xcel Energy and nonprofits Energy Outreach Colorado (http://www.energyoutreach.org)(EOC) and the Energy Resource Center (https://www.erc-co.org/erc-in-san-luis-valley/)(ERC). EOC, which launched the CARE program in 2015, provides grant funding and processes the applications to verify household qualifications. EOC also helps low-income Coloradans across the state afford home energy through energy bill pay assistance, energy efficiency grants for affordable housing and nonprofits, energy education and public policy.ERC manages the San Luis Valley and Denver Metro CARE program and facilitates household audits and upgrades. ERC is partially funded through the Colorado Energy Office and provides energy efficiency services for income-qualified families in 13 Colorado counties, including the San Luis Valley.Both EOC and ERC have a strong history of providing services to improve the living conditions of limited-income families and seniors in the San Luis Valley. Lance Cheslock, Executive Director of La Puente in Alamosa, has partnered with both agencies and values what they bring to the community."Charlie Sanchez, Program Director with ERC, is a great community guy and his crew does not miss a detail," Cheslock said. "Even the most tedious jobs they approach with thoroughness. Being efficient is just being smart.""With winter under way, it's great to be able to work with agencies such as ERC and EOC to give these limited-income homes access to energy efficiency and free home improvements so they can continue to pay their energy bills and stay warm throughout the winter," said Michelle Hurst, Program Manager at Xcel Energy.According to a State of Colorado report, Colorado households saved an average of $435 per year after weatherization services were completed. The CARE program is an effective way to save families money, as well as increase the safety and comfort of the home, at no cost to the homeowner.For more information, please contact Peggy Hofstra, marketing director at Energy Outreach Colorado, at 303-226-5053 or phofstra@energyoutreach.org, or visit http://www.energyoutreach.org/get-help/care. Email : ***@energyoutreach.org Tags : Energy Outreach Colorado , Energy Resource Center , Xcel Energy Industry : Energy Location : Alamosa - Colorado - United States

Denver - Colorado - United States Subject : Sponsorships Account Phone Number Disclaimer Report Abuse Account Email AddressAccount Phone Number


The company provides 186 service men and women with free car wash and wax.

By: VERC Enterprises

End

-- VERC Enterprises, a leading convenience store, Mobil/Gulf gasoline retailer and car wash operator with locations throughout eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire, is pleased to announce that 186 military veterans took good advantage of a Veterans Day program that offered a free top tier car wash and wax to members of the United States Armed Services.On Friday, November 11, all service men and women coming to Briteway Car Washes in Marshfield or Norwell received "the whole shebang" car wash and wax for free."It was great to see people lining up; we're proud of our military men and women and this was our small way of expressing gratitude," said Paul Vercollone, Vice President of VERC Enterprises.VERC Enterprises is the region's leading, independent chain of convenience stores and gasoline stations, with locations throughout Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The company began 39 years ago with a single car wash in Marshfield, in a business founded by Eugene Vercollone. Today two of Mr. Vercollone's sons operate the company, with Leo as President and Paul as Vice President. The firm has more than 270 employees and is a leader in hiring those with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. In 2011 VERC Enterprises was recognized by the Boston Business Journal as a Best Place to Work in Massachusetts and as a Leader in Diversity and in 2011, 2012 and 2013 by the Boston Globe as a Best Place to Work in Massachusetts. For additional information, please visit the website, www.vercenterprises.com , or call 781-934-7300.To learn more about VERC, please view: https://www.youtube.com/ embed/videoseries? list=PLesS4W9hjtufdf6GhvnfUKMk2l2Q- r-MM
Oakland fire: Death toll rises to 36 and 'will increase'

Officials have said 36 people are now confirmed dead from a fire at a warehouse party in Oakland, California, and murder charges are possible.
Hotta Maestro

Contact

Natasha Von Castle

***@l3magazine.com Natasha Von Castle

End

-- Jamaica's famed international Selector and Personality Hotta Maestro (formally of Swatch International and Jamaica's infamous Passa Passa street dance), received a clean bill of health from his medical team for 2017.Diagnosed in 2016 with sleep apnea (a common disorder in which a person experiences a pause in their breathing while asleep) which in turn led to Pulmonary Heart Failure (which causes shortness of breath and swelling of the body), Maestro was hospitalized at University Hospital and under doctors care until the issue was healed. "Maestro was a good patient" said the Selectors lead doctor. "He did everything that was asked of him which led to his recovery. He is good to go!"The go-to Selector is regarded as one of the best in the business. Popularizing street parties in Jamaica, as well as representing brand Jamaica while performing abroad, Maestro has made artists music popular in Dancehalls around the world. Performing alongside Demarco on the hot single "Lazy Body" ( https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=etwcLXVevww ) which enjoys more than 4 million views on YouTube, the Selector, MC, Artiste and Actor has made his stamp known worldwide.The international Reggae and Dancehall fraternity expressed concern for Maestro when word circulated that he was not well. Boston's Junior Rodigan encouraged fans to pray for Maestro via Twitter. "I appreciate all the prayers love and support" said Maestro from his home in Kingston. "I have a new lease on life, and I'm ready to hit the road playing the best music for my fans!"Maestro is available for local and international bookings as of February 3, 2017.Email dannydavito@ gmail.com or whats app 1-876-455-3212
Danfoss Power Solutions has renewed its lease for more than 20,000 sq m of industrial, office and social space at Hillwood Wrocaw I. The tenant was represented in the negotiations by Cushman & Wakefield. The Danfoss Group is a provider of components and technology for refrigeration, air-conditioning, heating, water distribution

[]
As of 4 May 2020, Ferraris market value has surged to about $30 billion while share prices grew by 7%

Italian supercar manufacturer Ferrari has outgrown Ford and General Motors in terms of net worth. The Maranello-based marques market value has touched roughly $30 billion while its shares prices surged about 7%. It is worth mentioning that Ferrari accomplished this feat even after its factories in Modena and Maranello were closed due to COVID-19 outbreak. To recap, Italy was the worst-affected country at one point in time.

Ferrari had even shifted its focus to making essential medical equipment while production remained at zero units. Now, the company has gradually opened both of its manufacturing facilities and is expected to run on full capacity in about a weeks time. Ferrari is getting ready to commence full-fledged deliveries of its new range of V8 products: Roma and F8 Tributo.

Another interesting fact is that Ferrari witnessed a 5% increase (+2,738 units) in shipments in March (when COVID-19 damage was at its peak in Italy) while its factories remained closed. Revenue fell only by 1% or $1.02 billion.

On 4 May 2020, Ferraris market capitalisation reached $30.1 billion earlier in the day before dropping to $29.8 billion. General Motors fell below $29.3 billion while Ford went down further to $19.2 billion on the same day. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), which had a 90% stake in Ferrari between 1988 and 2014, faced a massive decline and plummeted to $13 billion.

Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1939, Ferrari produces only around 10,000 units a year. On the other hand, General Motors makes about 7.7 million units annually and Ford Motor Company tops out at about 6.4 million. Still, investors predict that Ferraris brand image and extra-premium price tags would help achieve better profits margins and stock values amid coronavirus.

COVID-19 led to the cancellation or postponement of several important automotive events, including motorsports. Scuderia Ferrari, one of the current holy trinity in Formula One, has faced severe losses due to back-to-back GP cancellations. As per Aston Martin Redbull Racing boss Christian Horner, the 2020 FI season was supposed to be the biggest years in F1 history.

With the temporary prohibition of public gatherings in many countries, leading automotive brands have shifted to online platforms to make important announcements or host events such as reveals or launches. In India, experts predict that the entire car-buying scenario will change even if concerned authorities allow dealerships to function as usual. For starters, the new normals will be prioritised right from the booking process to taking delivery of a vehicle  read more details.
Tesla Model 3 is the worlds best-selling electric car with more than 5 lakh units sold since its launch in 2017

Tesla Model 3 has joined the fleet of Thailand National Police Agency. As per info posted on the official website of Thai police, a total of seven Tesla Model 3 Performance cars have been leased for a period of five years. All cars have been customized to include a range of police equipment such as light bars and computers. These were delivered at Thai police headquarters located in Dusit, Bangkok.

Adding Tesla Model 3 cars to its fleet has been a costly initiative for Thai police, as the agency had to pay a total amount of USD 2.7 million (Rs 20.8 crore). This translates into around USD 386,000 per car (Rs 2.96 crore), which is exponentially higher.

In the US market, Tesla Model 3 Performance retails at a base price of USD 56,990 (Rs 43.84 lakh). Thai police had to pay a much higher price because electric cars in Thailand are quite expensive. The average price of an electric car in Thailand comes at around USD 64,675. Electric cars are even more expensive in Singapore, where average price is USD 110,326.

Tesla Model 3 Performance cars leased by Thai police will be used as lead vehicles in VVIP motorcades. They are unlikely to be used for high-speed chases, even though Model 3 Performance is fully equipped for that job. The car comes with a 75 kWh battery pack that supplies power to dual motors connected in an all-wheel drive configuration. Max power is 450 hp and max torque is 639 Nm. The car can reach 0 to 100 kmph in just 3.4 seconds and has a top speed of 261 kmph. EPA certified range is 518 km.

Tesla cars are being used by government agencies in other countries as well. For example, Taiwan military had placed orders for 20 units of Tesla Model 3. In the US, Tesla cars have been acquired by Westport Police Department in Connecticut, Bargersville Police Department in Indiana and Fremont Police Department.

Teslas main production facility is also located in Fremont. While Bargersville and Westport have Model 3 Performance in their fleet, Fremont has Model S 85. Dubai police, meanwhile, has plans to add a Tesla Cybertruck to its fleet.

Tesla cars are proving advantageous for police forces as they have low maintenance and fuel costs. Savings amount to thousands of dollars per year for each Tesla car added to the fleet. This helps save a lot of taxpayers money. Tesla cars also score higher than gas-powered cars in terms of environment friendliness and sustainability.

Tesla Model 3 is one of the safest cars in the world. It has received 5-star safety rating from top agencies such as NHTSA (US), Euro NCAP, and ANCAP.
Is walking fewer than 900 steps per day associated with functional decline in older hospitalized patients? A new research letter published online by JAMA Internal Medicine suggests it is.

Recent research has suggested 900 steps per day were normative for frail older adults and for older adults hospitalized in internal medicine units. Maayan Agmon, Ph.D., and Anna Zisberg, Ph.D., of the University of Haifa, Israel, and coauthors examined whether that amount of steps differentiated those patients who do, or don't, experience hospitalization-associated functional decline.

The authors used patients within an ongoing study of a newly designed program that promotes in-hospital mobility. The study included 177 older patients hospitalized in internal medicine units at an academic medical center in Israel during the last three months of 2015. Total steps per day were calculated and the evaluation included cognitive, functional and mobility assessments.

Walking fewer than 900 steps per day was associated with hospitalization-associated functional decline, according to the results. Among the 41.8 percent of patients who walked less than 900 steps per day, 55.4 percent (57 patients) reported hospitalization-associated functional decline. Among the 58.2 percent of patients who walked 900 steps per day or more, only 18.4 percent (14 patients) experienced hospitalization-associated functional decline.

Limitations of the study include its sample of a relatively high-functioning group of older adults from a single site.

"Nonetheless, this study adjusts for a broad range of intervening variables and relies on gold-standard, sensor-based data collection. Thus, it fills the gaps uncovered by previous studies and provides preliminary evidence to support the recommendation of 900 steps per day for HAFD [hospitalization-associated functional decline] prevention. These findings should be confirmed by future studies involving diverse groups of older adults," the study concludes.
Look out your window, and you may see people of all ages and sizes roaming the street: a 6-foot-5-inch man walking beside a 4-foot-6-inch boy, for example, or a sprouting teen-ager who is much taller than a full-grown adult.

Virginia Tech geoscientists Christopher Griffin and Sterling Nesbitt discovered that this sort of variation in growth patterns in people despite their ages also occurred among early dinosaurs, and may have provided an advantage in surviving the harsh environment at the end of the Triassic Period approximately 201 million to 210 million years ago.

The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We found that the earliest dinosaurs had a far higher level of variation in growth patterns between individuals than crocodiles and birds, their closest living relatives," said Griffin, of Redding, California, the lead author and a first year doctoral student in the department of geosciences in the College of Science. "Not only were there many different pathways to grow from hatchling to adult, but there was an incredible amount of variation in body size, with some small individuals far more mature than some larger individuals, and some large individuals more immature than we would guess based on size alone."

The study focused on the skeletal changes that occurred during growth in the small carnivorous dinosaur Coelophysis (SEE-lo-FY-sis), one of the earliest dinosaurs. Hundreds of these animals, ranging from young, immature individuals to older, mature individuals, were buried together by a flooded river about 208 million years ago in present day New Mexico. Griffin examined 174 fossils from this site that are housed within natural history museum collections across North America.

"As these animals grew, muscle attachment scars formed on the limb bones, and the bones of the ankle, hips, and shoulder fused together, similar to how the skull bones of a human baby fuse together during growth," Griffin said. "Fossils of even a single partial skeleton of an early dinosaur are exceptionally rare, so to have an entire group of a single species that lived and died together provided an unparalleled opportunity to study early dinosaur growth like never before."

Using a technique known as ontogenetic sequence analysis, Griffin was able to reconstruct the growth sequences of Coelophysis and compare them with two bird and one crocodylian species, ultimately demonstrating that the earliest dinosaurs developed differently than their living relatives.

"Studies like this are a perfect demonstration of how fossils can help us understand the evolution of peculiar features and behaviors of modern animals," said Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the research. "How dinosaurs grew may have been both the key to their early success and the reason that one particular unique subgroup, the birds, survives today."

This variation in early dinosaurs had been noticed for decades, but had usually been interpreted as a difference between males and females, with one sex identified by large muscle scars and fused bones.

However, statistical tests on the large Coelophysis sample showed no evidence that there were two groups in the sample, as would be expected given variation based on sex, said Griffin. Instead, individuals were arranged on a spectrum ranging from completely lacking scars and fused bones to having all of them, which is what would be expected if these differences were based on growth.

"Large variation in early dinosaurs may have allowed them to survive harsh environmental challenges like dry climate and high levels of carbon dioxide," said Nesbitt, an assistant professor of geosciences in the College of Science and affiliate with the university's Global Change Center. "Understanding why dinosaurs were so successful has been a great mystery and high variation may be one of the characteristics of dinosaurs that led to their success. However, it's difficult to determine whether this trait evolved in response to the environment, or was simply a stroke of luck that allowed these dinosaurs to survive and thrive and become the most dominate vertebrates on Earth for 150 million years."

Griffin, who graduated with his master's in geosciences from Virginia Tech in 2016, will continue his Ph.D. work with Nesbitt.
PM Dahal applauds EU support

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has thanked the European Union (EU) for its supporting role in making the Nepal's peace process successful.
The following companies are subsidiares of Becton, Dickinson and: Accuri Cytometers, Accuri Cytometers Inc., Alverix Inc, Alverix Inc., Atto Bioscience Inc, BD Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., BD Infection Prevention BV, BD Kiestra BV, BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation, BD Rapid Diagnostic (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., BD San Luis Potosi S.A. de C.V., BD Switzerland Sarl, BD Ventures LLC, BD West Africa Limited, BDX INO LLC, Bard (Thailand) Limited, Bard ASDI Inc., Bard Access Systems Inc., Bard Acquisition Sub Inc., Bard Australia Pty. Limited, Bard Benelux N.V., Bard Brachytherapy Inc., Bard Brasil Industria e Comercio de Produtos Para a Saude Ltda., Bard Canada Inc., Bard Chile S.p.A., Bard Czech Republic s.r.o., Bard Devices Inc., Bard Dublin ITC Limited, Bard EMEA Finance Center Sp.z o.o., Bard European Distribution Center N.V., Bard Finance B.V. & Co. KG., Bard Financial Services Ltd., Bard Finland OY, Bard France S.A.S., Bard Global Holdings I LLC, Bard Global Holdings II LLC, Bard Global Holdings III LLC, Bard Healthcare Inc., Bard Healthcare Science (Shanghai) Limited, Bard Hellas S.A., Bard Holding SAS, Bard Holdings Limited, Bard Holdings Netherlands B.V., Bard Hong Kong Limited, Bard IP Holdings Inc., Bard India Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Bard International Holdings B.V., Bard International Inc., Bard Istanbul Healthcare Limited Company, Bard Korea Ltd., Bard Limited, Bard MRL Acquisition Corp., Bard Malaysia Healthcare Sdn. Bhd., Bard Medica SA, Bard Medical Devices (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical SA (Proprietary) Limited, Bard Mexico Realty S. de R.L. de C.V., Bard Norden AB, Bard Norway AS, Bard Pacific Health Care Company Ltd., Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc., Bard Poland Sp. z.o.o., Bard Productos Plasticos e Medicos Ltda., Bard Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Bard S.r.l., Bard Sdn. 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Rockwell Automation, Inc. provides industrial automation and digital transformation solutions in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments, Intelligent Devices, Software & Control, and Lifecycle Services. Its solutions include hardware and software products, and services. The Intelligent Devices segment offers drives, motion, safety, sensing, industrial components, and configured-to-order products. The Software & Control segment provides control and visualization software and hardware, information software, digital twin and simulation software, and network and security infrastructure solutions. The Lifecycle Services segment provides consulting, professional services and solutions, and connected and maintenance services. The company sells its solutions primarily through independent distributors in relation with its direct sales force. It serves discrete end markets, including automotive, semiconductor, warehousing and logistics, and other discrete markets, as well as general industries comprising printing and publishing, marine, glass, fiber and textiles, airports, and aerospace; hybrid end markets, such as food and beverage, life sciences, household and personal care, and tire, as well as eco industrial, including water/wastewater, waste management, mass transit, and renewable energy; and process end markets comprising oil and gas, mining, metals, chemicals, pulp and paper, and others. Rockwell Automation, Inc. was founded in 1903 and is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Even though over 500 black bears were already killed in New Jersey in October, hunters were hungry for more. On Monday, 27 more bears were killed. This means that 589 bears have been killed so far this year in New Jersey, which comes close to beating the record set in 2010, when the hunt reopened and 592 bears were killed.

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The second segment of the newly extended bear hunting season started on Monday. The first segment, which took place in October, was the first time in decades the "bear harvest" allowed archery. Among the dead bears from the first segment of the hunt was Pedals, the internet-famous bipedal bear who was spotted walking on two legs after an old injury to one of his front paws.

Now hunters are taking firearms into the woods of New Jersey to kill the bears. They are permitted to shoot male or female bears, regardless of whether cubs are nearby. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) claims that the extended hunt "will help achieve [the] goal of healthy and sustainable bear population and reduce potential for encounters with people."

But black bears almost never attack people - you're far more likely to get struck by lightning. "Most negative black bear encounters are caused by surprising the bears or giving them a reason to think you are a threat," Born Free USA said.
If ever there was a cat wrapped in mystery, it was Sky. She just appeared one night outside a lonely 7-11 store in Naples, Florida - and started meowing nonstop.

Naples Cat Alliance

A couple leaving the store couldn't ignore her cries. They took the cat home and gave her a bath. A lot of baths, in fact. She was covered in fleas. Then the real work of figuring out where this enigmatic cat came from began. The couple who scooped her up from the convenience store parking lot eventually took her to the Naples Cat Alliance, an organization that shelters and finds homes for countless strays - with a little help from a certain cat-loving dog named Bitsy. At first, it seemed Sky's case would be quickly solved. She was, after all, microchipped.

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Naples Cat Alliance

But all Megan Sorbara, president of the Naples Cat Alliance, could glean from the chip was that it had been implanted by a humane society ... in Missouri. That organization gave Sorbara a breadcrumb - an owner's name, along with a phone number that was no longer in service.

Naples Cat Alliance

An army of animal lovers on a Facebook page then got involved with the investigation. "These women on this page just went crazy hunting down this person," Sorbara tells The Dodo. "They were making a million phone calls. Finally, they found the girl's father - who told them his daughter had moved to Kansas four years earlier. And finally, Sky's past was revealed.

Naples Cat Alliance

The man explained that his daughter and her husband had lost their cat seven years ago, back in Naples. The family looked everywhere for their Sky. They finally gave up, moving to Kansas City. Sorbara called the family there. Your cat has been found. Seven years - and no telling how many cat lives - later. In front of a 7-11 hundreds of miles away.

Naples Cat Alliance
Little Larry the chimp was a big surprise to everyone - perhaps even his own mother.

Ape Action Africa

Little Larry's mother Loko has lived at a sanctuary in Cameroon run by Ape Action Africa since 2007, when she lost her own mom to poachers as a baby. Loko is now 10 years old, and she shares an enclosure with a group of female and male chimps. The sanctuary team puts the females on birth control to prevent any unexpected surprises, but Loko somehow managed to get pregnant - although she kept it a secret until the very end. "It was surprising because Loko didn't show any of the usual signs of pregnancy," Elissa O'Sullivan, spokesperson for Ape Action Africa, told The Dodo. "She didn't gain weight or have an obvious 'bump.' She also likes to spend long periods of time deep inside her group's forested enclosure, so she wasn't able to be observed as easily as some of her group-mates." On the evening of April 12, 2015, Loko refused to join her group inside their cage for the night, preferring to stay inside the forest. This wasn't unusual for Loko, O'Sullivan explained, so the caretakers allowed her to do what she wanted. The next morning, Loko emerged from the forest cradling a tiny infant. Her infant. It was then that the sanctuary team realized Loko had been pregnant. The gestation period for chimps is between 230 to 260 days, so they were astounded that they didn't know.

Ape Action Africa

At first, all seemed well for Loko and her baby, whom the sanctuary team named Little Larry. But the other female chimps started to take an interest in the baby- a little too much interest. And unfortunately, since these apes grew up without the natural family structure of the wild, they didn't know how to behave around the new arrival.

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Ape Action Africa

By the next morning, Little Larry was no longer with Loko - he was with another female chimp, named Billie Jean, and both Larry and Billie Jean looked injured. "We'll never know what happened as it occurred inside their enclosure where the forest is very thick," O'Sullivan said. "Births, particularly when they're the first to occur within a group, can create high emotions. This is often more heightened in groups of orphaned primates who haven't had the benefit of observing and learning about raising infants from older females in their natural, wild families." The vet team stepped in quickly. They separated Billie Jean from the others, and sedated her so they could treat her wounds and remove Little Larry from her arms.

Ape Action Africa

Little Larry's injuries were pretty serious. "He had deep wounds on the backs of both thighs, consistent with adult canine teeth," O'Sullivan said. "These needed to be cleaned and stitched and antibiotics administered to control infection." Larry also had a broken nose. After getting stitched up, the vet team placed Little Larry in a cage by himself. But he was hungry and missing his mom, and cried out for her.

Ape Action Africa

Loko dashed over to his cage and rattled the door. When the team let her inside, she immediately scooped Little Larry up. But instead of feeding him, Loko held her baby away from her breast and started picking out his stitches. Unfortunately, it was clear the vets needed to step in, so they sedated Loko. But when they examined her, they realized she didn't have any milk. "As with human mothers, sometimes breastfeeding doesn't happen in the way we hope or expect," O'Sullivan explained. While it would have been ideal to keep Loko and little Larry together, they knew it was impossible now. If he was going to survive, Larry needed to be bottle-fed.

Ape Action Africa

A team of volunteers were happy to take turns mothering the baby chimp. Just like a human baby, Little Larry required a lot of care, especially in the first few months. "He needed 24-hour physical contact with a caregiver and 2 hourly feedings throughout the day and night," O'Sullivan said. "This was provided by our deputy director and two other experienced caregivers, who took it in turns to stay awake caring for him." Unsurprisingly, no one seemed to mind caring for this adorable baby.

Ape Action Africa

Now one and a half years old, little Larry has gotten bigger and stronger, but he's still very much a baby chimp.

Ape Action Africa

He spends his days playing with three other infant chimps - Daphne, Paula and Jenny. "He's not a big climber, but prefers ground-based games of chase, wrestling and tickling," O'Sullivan said. "He likes to forage for leaves and forest fruits to fill his big belly."

Ape Action Africa

While the team hopes to reunite Little Larry with his mom, they have to wait until he's older. "He'd be vulnerable to attack from the mature males in the group who are not always open to accepting infants that don't belong to them," O'Sullivan explained. "He's also now strongly bonded to the three other infants and, if transferred back to his family group, would be the only infant."

Ape Action Africa

So for now, Little Larry will live with the other infants in the comfort and security of the sanctuary. And Little Larry couldn't seem happier with this arrangement.

Ape Action Africa
<p>LCA</p>

Newly released footage taken during an investigation of Marineland shows animals with untreated severe eye infections and a freezer full of dead deer, birds and bison piled on top of each other, among other disturbing visuals. The Niagara Falls, Ontario, marine park was charged with five counts of animal cruelty by the Ontario SPCA (OSPCA) last week, after undercover video from the animal activist group Last Chance for Animals (LCA) revealed mistreatment of some of the land animals.

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LCA

Charges include allowing a peacock to be in distress, failure to comply with standards of care for Guinea hens and failure to supply adequate food and water for the park's captive black bears (there are at least 35). The Ontario SPCA said that further charges are still pending. Former employees of Marineland have been working with LCA to shed light on the park's practices. "Over the course of a number of weeks this summer LCA gathered evidence that prompted the Ontario SPCA to charge the park with five counts of animal cruelty," Adam Wilson, director of investigations at LCA, told The Dodo.

Ontario Captive Animal Watch

But Marineland directed The Dodo to a blog post that, it said, answers some of the concerns raised by LCA. Despite its recent animal welfare charges, Marineland also claims LCA is not a reliable source of facts. The video "depicts the inside of Marineland's morgue, a walk-in freezer where animal carcasses are stored until they are buried," the blog post said. "This is a best practice that every veterinarian employs when dealing with the remains of household pets as well. The video also shows dog food that is being stored in the same facility for disposal."

LCA

LCA expressed concern about the marine animals earlier this year, when an investigation into the beluga whales showed the animals in apparent distress, rubbing their genitals on the bottom of the concrete tank. The park houses dozens of beluga whales and other marine animals, as well as a solitary orca named Kiska. The park's 13-year-old walrus, Zeus, was recently filmed of what appears to be severe emaciation.

In response to the latest concerns about Marineland's animals, Wilson sees the OSPCA's animal welfare charges against the park as a big win. "The charges themselves can be seen as a change in response from the OSPCA who for years has avoided any real engagement with the park," Wilson said. Wilson added that the best outcome for Marineland's animals would be for the park's owners to be convicted of the charges and to receive the maximum penalty: a lifetime ban on owning animals, so their animals could be rehomed in a sanctuary. "As former employees of Marineland, these charges are music to our ears," Phil Demers, a former senior marine mammal trainer at Marineland who became a whistleblower, recently said. "Despite their efforts to do harm to those of us who speak out against their cruel practices, those of us who haven't given up feel vindicated. Facts are facts, and the truth will prevail." Watch the footage below:
No one could have imagined a flimsy cardboard box would hold the most precious of cargos. It was stained, sopping wet, had a particularly unpleasant odor, and - when staff at a carwash in Corsicana, Texas, found it this morning - it seemed to be squirming.

That might be because the puppies crammed inside were doing everything they could to keep warm. Someone had dumped them in that box in the cold December night.

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But sometimes, even the flimsiest, sorriest packages find just the right destination. The puppies were taken to a local shelter - and staff there got in touch with Jaclyn Smith, founder of East Dallas Pet Rescue. Puppies? Smith didn't waste a moment in sending a volunteer to pick them up. "The box was filthy; it had poop and dog food all over it," Smith tells The Dodo. And these siblings had only each other to keep themselves warm.

"It was freezing cold last night," she adds. Someone thought a box with some dog food sprinkled on top would sustain the puppies at least until morning. Luckily, some other people had different ideas for keeping them warm - the kind that will sustain them for a lifetime.
A massive and deadly wildfire ripped through the woods of Tennessee, where Rob Holmes and his family live. The Holmes family had been trapped in their home last Monday night, as flames surrounded them, when suddenly it became clear that they had to leave.

"All hell broke loose," Holmes said. "The trees snapped and the power lines dangled over our driveway. We could not get the cars out and the smoke was so bad our 18-month son Wyatt was having a hard time breathing." The whole family fled, along with four dogs and one cat, to a neighbor's house and then to a hotel where they were safe. But Rob's daughter, Andrea, cried all night because there was one animal they didn't manage to bring with them - their pet pig, Charles. The next day, a neighbor called Holmes and told him the worst news a homeowner can hear: the Holmes house was completely burned to the ground.

But then came some more news: Charles the pig was alive.

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The family rushed to the land where their house once stood and found Charles burrowed into the ground.

"When I arrived ... I couldn't believe my eyes," Holmes said. "Charles had burrowed in the mud to survive. The lord let us keep Charles. How else could he [have] survived 800 degree temperatures. The alloy rims were melted off the car."

Charles was a bit singed and had burns on his hooves. He was also very dehydrated and wouldn't eat. He was given fluids and his family gathered around him to make him feel safe.

Because he was still suffering from inhaling so much smoke, Charles was brought to the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital where he can get the care he needs as he recovers.

And he has a lot of visitors.

"Charles is doing exceptionally well," Holmes said on Tuesday. "He got up to greet us and looks really good. He is still not wanting to get up much due to the burns on his hooves. But his spirit is back." Holmes said that the family doesn't know how long Charles will have to stay at the hospital, but the family "won't miss a day visiting him." Even if life will never be completely the way it was before for the Holmes family, the future of all its members looks promising.

"We lost everything materialistic," Holmes said, "but we had what was most important, our lives."
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We all know that text messages can sometimes be hilarious. Like when theyre sent by mom. Or if the the 
Politician on hunger strike demanding hospital reforms

Bikash Tiwari, chairman of Sadbhawana Party (Gajendrawadi), has been staging a hunger strike for the past 13 days, demanding reforms and better services at Sagarmatha Zonal Hospital in Rajbiraj, Saptari.
The man who pulled Lego out of an existential crisis to turn it into the worlds most profitable toymaker is stepping down as chief executive officer and will instead become the chairman of the company.

CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, 48, will be replaced at the end of the year by 60-year-old chief operations officer, Bali Padda, Lego said on Tuesday.

The company, which has its headquarters in western Denmark and is controlled by the billionaire Kirk Kristiansen family, brought in Knudstorp in 2001 after he had worked for them as a McKinsey & Co. consultant. When he was made CEO in 2004, Lego was losing about $1 million a day as its traditional plastic building blocks couldnt compete with a growing range of electronic toys.

From 2005 to 2015, Knudstorp helped revenue jump five-fold to 35.8 billion kroner ($6.9 billion Canadian). The CEO set up research teams to study how children played with the iconic building blocks, and supervised a shift in financial governance to make Lego less vulnerable to credit crunches.

Under Knudstorp, the company expanded its franchise deals with building block sets based on Hollywood movies, including Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He also introduced Lego Friends, a series aimed at girls. Last year, Lego reported net profit of $1.8 billion, beating results at its U.S. rivals Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. several fold.

Padda, who was born in India in 1956, has been with Lego since 2002. He will be the first non-Dane to run the 84 year-old company.

The board of Lego is proposing that Knudstorp become chairman in May, replacing Niels Jacobsen. Lego plans to set up a new entity, to be called the Lego Brand Group, which Knudstorp also will chair. The unit will focus on the long-term potential of the companys brand.

With our recent growth and globalization come new and exciting opportunities for the brand, and we establish the Lego Brand Group to look into these new opportunities, Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, who is the fourth generation in the family to own Lego, said in a statement.

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Mexico is overtaking Canada as the No. 2 exporter of goods to the U.S. this year, in a sign of how economic ties have deepened between the two countries even as the relationship is being questioned by President-elect Donald Trump.

Shipments from Mexico totalled $245 billion (U.S.) in the first 10 months of the year, according to Commerce Department figures released Tuesday, ahead of Canadas $230 billion. If the trend continues, it would be the first time ever the U.S. bought more imports from its neighbour to the south. The two countries ended 2015 tied in exports to the U.S.

The trend of catching up to Canada puts China and Mexico as the top two exporters to the U.S. just as Trump prepares to take office in January, reflecting the strong pull of lower cost jurisdictions for the U.S. economy. Canada, which has one of the highest cost bases in the Americas, has seen its share of U.S. imports fall to about 13 per cent from around 20 per cent two decades ago.

Integration with Mexico has become more solid than with Canada, said Marco Oviedo, chief Mexico economist for Barclays. Manufacturing continues to be very competitive in terms of wages and location to other U.S. producers and suppliers.

The growing links between Mexico and the U.S. hinge on motor vehicles. Mexico has won new factories over the past six years from Toyota, Volkswagens luxury Audi unit, Kia Motors and BMW  up to $25.9 billion in new auto investments since 2010, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan  fuelling car shipments totalling $90 billion in the first 10 months. Thats compared to $54 billion from Canada.

Canadas cost base is also a big part of the story. Canadas labour bill has swelled with unit labour costs in U.S. dollars, a key index of competitiveness, increasing by 64 per cent since 2002 even with Canadas currency weakening in recent years.

Mexicos average salaries, meanwhile, rose 0.5 per cent a year in the decade through 2014, the least among the 11 largest Latin American nations after Venezuela, International Labour Organization data show.

Our competitiveness hasnt been what it could be, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, who grew up in General Motorss Canadian production hub of Oshawa east of Toronto, told lawmakers in October. Auto manufacturers can just as easily do it in Mexico, and get a fine dedicated workforce, they get the advantage of lower costs.

And the problems go well beyond the auto sector for Canada. In a down year for all shipments to the U.S., Canadian exports have fallen 7.7 per cent so far in 2016, versus a 1.6-per-cent drop for Mexico.

The twist is that, even with Canada suffering from lost trade to Mexico, there is little populist anger. According to Oshawa Mayor John Henry, Canadians should rise to the challenge of competition and be a good friend in the world.

The world has changed in the auto industry a lot since the 1990s, automation, more and more countries are making cars, Henry said in an interview. But based on the economics of Canada, given an equal playing field, we can build the best vehicles in the world.

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Just a few days after Vancouver announced a tax on foreign property investors, Seattle real-estate broker Lili Shang received a WeChat message from a wealthy Chinese businessman who wanted to sell a home in Canada and buy in her area.

After a week of showings, he purchased a $1-million (U.S.) property in Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle. He soon returned to buy two more, including a $2.2-million house in Clyde Hill paid for with a single cashiers check.

Shang says shes been inundated with similar requests from China and Hong Kong after Vancouvers provincial government enacted a 15-per-cent tax on foreign homebuyers in August to help cool soaring real estate values. With Chinese investors  the largest pool of foreign capital  looking for a place to put their cash, the unintended consequence of the fee has been to push demand to cities such as Seattle and Toronto.

The tax was the trigger of this new wave of investment now coming to Seattle, Shang said. Why pay more for the same thing?

Vancouver, which has seen detached-home prices double in a decade, joined areas including Australia and Hong Kong in taking steps to slow housing demand after an unprecedented surge of foreign investment. Chinese buyers, in particular, are accelerating purchases overseas, spurred by a weakening yuan, rising prices at home and the perceived safety of real estate. Theyre also venturing farther afield as costs soar in some of their favoured markets.

Home-purchase inquiries from China have jumped in Seattle and Toronto since the Vancouver tax was announced, according to Juwai.com, the countrys largest overseas property website.

For Vancouver investors, Seattle is a lure because its a waterfront city just a few hours away by car. Its also more affordable than other West Coast destinations. Toronto, as one of the worlds financial capitals, already has an established base of foreign investment in condominiums and a large Asian population.

Chinese money isnt going to sit and wait, said David Ley, a Vancouver-based professor at the University of British Columbias Department of Geography, who focuses on housing. Investors are going to find another city, and Toronto and Seattle are the top two contenders, he said.

Rising sales

While there are no figures specifically showing purchases made by offshore buyers, brokers say demand in Seattle and Toronto has been robust, particularly for the high-end properties Chinese investors tend to favour. In Seattle, about 12 per cent of all homes this year sold for at least $1 million, double the share over the last decade, according to brokerage Windermere Real Estate. Single-family home prices in King County, where the city is located, jumped almost 15 per cent in October from a year earlier, data from the local Realtors association show.

The average price of a Greater Toronto home rose 23 per cent in November from a year earlier to $776,684 Canadian while sales soared almost 17 per cent, the local real-estate board reported Dec. 2. In Vancouver, meanwhile, sales have plunged since July and were down 37 per cent last month compared with the prior year.

Dean Jones, chief executive officer of Realogics Sothebys International Realty, which specializes in high-end properties and has a unit that caters to Asian buyers, estimates that about half of the homes his firm sells in Seattles suburbs are going to Chinese purchasers, with many of the transactions requiring the use of interpreters, international banks and multiple escrow deposits. Thats up from about 30 per cent last year, he said.

This is Vancouver 2.0, said Jones, who lived in the Canadian city about two decades ago, when the capital flow from Asia started to accelerate. A lot of the same motivations and goals are being replicated in Seattle.

Relative value

The Seattle metropolitan area has already seen a 50-per-cent jump in house prices in the past five years, thanks in part to a booming technology industry and growth in companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Still, the median home value is $409,900 (U.S.), less than in San Francisco and Los Angeles, according to Zillow Group Inc. In Vancouver, the benchmark home price is $919,300 Canadian, or $1.06 million with the tax.

Carrie Brown, a broker at Ewing & Clark Inc. in Seattle, says she has received roughly six calls a night from Taiwan, Hong Kong and even local Chinese residents looking for more real estate to store their wealth.

Most of my Chinese investors, 60 to 70 per cent, compare Vancouver and Seattle, Brown said. She currently has two clients living in Vancouver who are actively looking for Seattle real estate, and many others in China, with an average budget of about $2 million (U.S.) for a home.

There are other dynamics at play boosting home prices in the area, such as limited supply, according to Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Seattle-based Zillow. She said its not necessarily the Vancouver tax bringing in buyers.

I can easily buy the story that were seeing a ton of foreign buyers here, I just dont think theyre all from Vancouver, Gudell said.

Toronto dinner

In Toronto, the Vancouver tax has also rippled through the market, said Hunter Milborne, chief executive officer of Milborne Real Estate Inc. His team is responsible for about 15 per cent of sales of new condo units in Toronto each year, advertising through many Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking brokers to reach Chinese buyers across the globe.

The week that the government announced Vancouvers foreign tax, Milborne was dining in Yorkville with about a dozen Chinese bankers. Conversation over the lobster and dim sum dinner was consumed by the tax, he said. The diners mentioned that a handful of clients were closing their Vancouver accounts and planned to sell homes to move investments to Toronto.

One of the brokers Milborne works with is Ding Li, who runs JDL Realty, a closely held Toronto company offering services for Chinese investors, including advising on real-estate investments, giving seminars on the education system and helping to manage finances. Li sells about 500 pre-construction condo units a year to Chinese investors looking to rent them out for a monthly income, or as a home for their children attending nearby universities.

The Toronto market is stronger, healthier, than Vancouver, Li said. But demand from Chinese investors, including some of his clients, likely will return to Vancouver once prices soften, he said.

Regardless of where the unprecedented flow of money out of China and Hong Kong goes, itll find a home as Asian investors look for a safe place to invest their growing wealth.

The key point for Chinese investors is still, Lets move that money out of China, you never know what will happen to it,  said Gordon Houlden, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. So theyll go to Seattle or Toronto.

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You arrive on time at the airport for a flight, only to find it has been cancelled and rebooked for the next day. Does the airline have to cover a hotel room? What about meals, transportation and other costs you may incur?

This happened to Bill and Fikret Howes when they went to the airport in Istanbul, Turkey, for a long-booked flight home to Toronto.

Air Canada had cancelled the flight months previously and failed to notify us  even though we confirmed our reservation with a call to Air Canadas Istanbul office a week earlier, Bill said.

Without notifying the couple, the airline had rebooked them on the same flight one day later. Tired and upset, they stayed at a reasonably priced airport hotel and asked the airline for compensation when they got home.

Air Canada sent an auto-reply acknowledging our request, but after more than a month, has not contacted us again, he told me, asking for help.

Soon after, Air Canada offered a 30 per cent discount for two on a future flight. The couple accepted, since they want to upgrade to premium economy seats on a flight to Istanbul next summer.

Even if your flight is on time, you may find your baggage is damaged when you get to your destination. What are your rights to compensation? And when is a bag too big to carry onto an aircraft? Must you pay a fee to check it?

Each airline must have a set of terms and conditions, called a tariff, governing how it will treat passengers under its care. The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) wants to make these tariffs more accessible to the public. At its website, it posts a list of links to airline websites where tariffs can be found.

Scott Streiner is chair and chief executive of the CTA, which regulates the airline industry and handles complaints. After 18 months on the job, hes keen to stretch his wings and make a difference.

There is often confusion on the part of passengers about what, if anything, they can expect from an airline if there are disruptions to their travel, he told the Air Transport Association of Canada in a recent speech. This confusion can contribute to frustration. And frustration can mean customer relations issues for airlines. We need to do better.

Streiner comes across as a man with a mission. After a 25-year government career, he wants to use his agencys powers to beef up consumer protection in an industry known for being hard to navigate.

This fall, he wrote to the five largest domestic airlines  Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat, Sunwing and Porter  asking them to turn their tariffs into plain language and post them prominently on their websites front pages.

The five CEOs had a quite positive reaction, he told me. They need to communicate more clearly and be more transparent with consumers. They realize they have reputation issues if they dont get on top of it.

Streiner has cleared up a backlog of 200 complaints at the agency, which had led to frustrating delays in providing resolutions to consumers. Now he wants to make airlines finish their complaint investigations within 30 days.

Gabor Lukacs, an airline passenger rights advocate, has spent eight years filing complaints with the agency and trying to get stronger protection for consumers. He feels things are getting worse, not better.

The agency has turned from an impartial arbiter into an advocate for the industry, he said.

Under Mr. Streiners leadership, the number of enforcement efforts has dropped to one quarter of the level of 2013-14, while the number of complaints has continued to soar, and agency staff have been turning away passengers with valid complaints, telling them that their file has been closed.

John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a consumer group based in Ottawa, has a more positive view.

Hes a good leader for the organization, he said of Streiner, pointing to innovations such as creating videos about passenger rights that can be shown at airports and telling MPs how to reach the CTA with their constituents complaints.

The Liberal government has announced its intention to create a passenger rights code. But that could take a year or two to be enacted.

Meanwhile, the CTA will step up its efforts to attract complaints and look for systemic issues that could lead to a tougher law when its finally drafted.

Just as the CRTC took a firm line with phone companies and created a wireless code of conduct, the CTA may be creating a flight path to stronger regulation of airlines.

Customers are angry and frustrated. They write to me more often about airlines than about wireless phones. Its time for the industry to step up and shape up.

Ellen Rosemans column appears each week

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Nearly a decade ago, Maria Schneider revealed the unsettling details surrounding an infamous rape scene in the 1972 drama Last Tango in Paris, in which Marlon Brandos character uses butter as a lubricant before forcing himself on her.

But over the weekend, a clip of director Bernardo Bertolucci talking about the scene resurfaced, setting off wide media attention and sparking outrage in Hollywood.

In the clip from a 2013 press tour, Bertolucci describes how he and Brando had come up with the idea to use the butter in the scripted rape scene, but did not tell Schneider what was going on, because I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated.

Similar remarks had been previously reported, but didnt generate this level of outcry until now. Last week, Spanish nonprofit El Mundo de Alycia published the interview clip with Bertolucci, adding Spanish subtitles and posting the video on its website in recognition of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25. (A fuller version was uploaded to YouTube in 2013.)

Schneider, who died in 2011 after a long battle with cancer, told the Daily Mail in 2007 that the scene wasnt in the original script; Brando had come up with the idea and she was only told right before they had to film that part. I was so angry, she said.

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, she said. 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 apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take.

She added: 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.

Bertolucci responded to the renewed controversy on Monday, saying in a statement in Italian that it was based on a ridiculous misunderstanding, Variety reported.

I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter, Bertolucci said of the 2013 clip. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use (of the butter). That is where the misunderstanding lies.

He said Schneider knew about the violence in the script, and that the only novelty was the idea of the butter.

After El Mundo de Alycia posted the clip on YouTube, Spanish-language outlets picked up the story. English-language sites soon followed suit, starting with Elles Bertolucci Admits He Conspired to Shoot a Non-Consensual Rape Scene in Last Tango in Paris. The renewed attention drew outrage on social media from Hollywood actors and directors.

Inexcusable. As a director, I can barely fathom this, tweeted Ava DuVernay. As a woman, I am horrified, disgusted and enraged by it.

Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again, Chris Evans tweeted. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage.

Anna Kendrick responded to Evans shock by pointing out that Schneider talked about this years ago. I used to get eye-rolls when I brought it up to people (aka dudes), she tweeted, adding shes not surprised that the actresss comments werent widely known.

Bertolucci says that Schneider hated him for years, especially given how the sequence of the butter  the most well-known scene in the critically acclaimed movie  came to be:

It was in the script that he had to rape her in a way. And we were having with Marlon breakfast on the floor of the flat where we were shooting. And there was a baguette and there was butter, and we looked at each other and without saying anything, we knew what we wanted.

But, Ive 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. I wanted her to react humiliated, if it goes on, she shouts, No, no! And I think that she hated me, and also Marlon, because we didnt tell her, and there was that detail of the butter used as a lubricant, and I still feel very guilty for that.

El Mundo de Alycia said in a statement accompanying the video that Bertoluccis comments had practically no repercussions on social media or elsewhere despite being publicly available for years. The organizations statement continues, asking how is it possible a case as serious as this hasnt been broadcast widely, impacted public opinion and been roundly denounced.

From gender pay disparities to cases involving sexual harassment and assault, the treatment of women in Hollywood  either on set or by famous men  has received increased attention in recent years, and led to tangible repercussions. The most widely known case involves Bill Cosby, who faces felony charges for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. Cosby adamantly denies the allegations from the woman and dozens of other accusers.

While allegations of sexual assault werent a secret, it wasnt until 2014 that the news cycle became dominated by them, and more women came forward publicly. It all began after video of comedian Hannibal Buress telling a joke about Cosby being accused of rape went viral.

The joke itself underscores how such stories, despite being in the public domain, get so little attention. After describing Cosbys Teflon image, Buress says that hes done this bit on stage and people think Im making it up ... When you leave here, google Bill Cosby rape. That s--t has more results than Hannibal Buress.

Cosby, who had been on the verge of a career comeback, has since receded from the limelight, his public image forever altered, and is currently awaiting trial.

In its day, Last Tango in Paris was controversial for its graphic depiction of sex, and was rated X in the United States. But critics and Hollywood at-large praised the movie, depicting it as an erotic drama and giving it considerable buzz. Brando and Bertolucci were nominated for Oscars. Schneider was snubbed.

Brando has also said he had a particularly humiliating time filming the movie, albeit for totally different reasons. In his 1994 autobiography, Brando wrote it was particularly cold during the filming of a full-frontal nude scene, and his body went into full retreat, referring to the size of his penis.

I was humiliated, but not ready to surrender yet, he wrote. After an hour, the crew gave up and the scene was cut. Brando described it as one of the more embarrassing experiences of my professional career.

The director also wanted Brando and Schneider to actually have sex, the actor wrote; both have said they simulated the scenes.

Decades later, Schneider wasnt quiet about her treatment during the films production. She publicly said she felt used by the director, telling Premiere magazine in 2000, You have to understand what kind of world Bertolucci is in. He was in love with Marlon. The part I play was written for a boy! Thats why the butter, the sodomization, the gag...

The actress also said she had a friendship with Brando, who died in 2004, and that their interaction was the best part of making the movie.

Schneider said she struggled with the unexpected fame and intense public interest in her after the movie, using drugs as an escape and attempting suicide.

In her Daily Mail interview, she said Bertolucci was very manipulative, both of Marlon and myself, and would do certain things to get a reaction from me. Some mornings on set he would be very nice and say hello and on other days, he wouldnt say anything at all.

I was too young to know better, she added. Marlon later said that he felt manipulated, and he was Marlon Brando, so you can imagine how I felt.

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OTTAWACall them wobbles, or missteps, mistakes, or worse.

Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef was forced last week to apologize for slagging opposition MPs as lazy after she tossed aside their electoral reform report.

As she stood Monday, Conservative MPs heckled they smelled toast, a taunt that her career was on the line.

Monsef appeared unconcerned. She had trailed into the Commons, late, sat down and asked aloud, Wheres Jim?

Thats her seatmate, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr. He capped last weeks approval of two new pipelines by suggesting defence and police forces would deal with protesters. Carr, an otherwise strong performer on government bench to date, was absent for Mondays question period.

So was the prime minister.

Justin Trudeau was elsewhere in downtown Ottawa at a coding workshop for high school students to launch computer science education week. Ottawa locations are often photo op venues for the prime minister. But Trudeau was nowhere to be seen Friday when his government hastily reversed a decision on the location of a new Ottawa hospital. It left egg on the face of another star Liberal cabinet minister, Catherine McKenna, whose campaign rhetoric had backed the wrong locale and forced a lengthy, pointless re-examination.

The government also reversed another decision, and launched another lengthy re-examination. It is restarting a fighter jet procurement competition and will consider Lockheed Martins pricey, as-yet-not-operational F35 after all, contrary to a campaign promise.

Meanwhile it will buy 18 of the F35s competitors. No matter that two top cabinet ministers, Harjit Sajjan and Judy Foote, are the face of the file. The government still struggles to bring clarity around what the true needs of the Air Force are.

These days, it seems, everyone  including Trudeau  has stumbled.

Trudeaus official statement to mourn the death of Cubas longest-serving, larger than life unelected communist president Fidel Castro was a wrong-footed reaction he quickly tried to right by acknowledging the very next day Castro  his fathers friend  was a dictator.

Its worth noting Trudeaus senior advisers Gerry Butts and Katie Telford were not travelling with him when he issued the statement. Its also worth noting the Castro clarification didnt stop the prime minister from being booed during a video appearance at the CFLs Grey Cup game.

And no amount of heckling has moved Trudeau, or his House leader Bardish Chagger, off the governments defence of his and his ministers attendance at so-called cash-for-access fundraisers.

The Globe and Mail has reported Trudeau was directly lobbied at one such party  based on admissions by his host, a wealthy Vancouver businessman, who acknowledged he called on Trudeau to allow Chinese investment in seniors care, relax immigration restrictions on financiers and ease investment by foreign real-estate developers.

Whether they are miscues or gaffes, the past few weeks have seen the shine wear off the Liberal government, more than 13 months into its first mandate.

On Monday, the opposition fired a broad salvo at the government in the form of an ethical complaint about the prime minister to two separate officers of Parliament.

Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose wrote to complain about the private fundraisers to conflict-of-interest and ethics commissioner Mary Dawson and to lobbying commissioner Karen Shepherd.

It is wrong, it is unethical and it is actually illegal, Ambrose said in question period. When will the prime minister come to his senses and end this cash-for-access fundraising?

Its one thing for the opposition to rally and criticize the government in unison. Its another for the government to sustain daily blows. But thats what it appears determined to do.

On Monday, government sources and Liberal MPs who spoke to the Star argued the blows are just glancing. They said ministers like Monsef and Carr are rookies facing more criticism for small mistakes than is warranted.

Several suggested the governments missteps are amplified by sharpened media focus now that the Liberals have passed their first anniversary in power. They countered the government is doing all the big things right  like the economic files, the words of one. More than one insisted none of what the opposition, the press gallery or partisans might see as big mistakes are anything more than a distraction outside the bubble of Ottawa  which may indeed be true.

No one uttered the phrase sunny ways.

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In his meeting with the Stars editorial board the other day, Justin Trudeau said some things about the rise of populism in Western politics that bear another look.

At least since the beginning of this year, the prime minister has been careful not to talk about Donald Trump much, or to analyze the political currents that brought him to power. Trudeau doubted Trump could get elected. But he didnt rule it out, and he didnt want to buy trouble. There will be enough challenges ahead without picking fights, he reasoned.

But when my colleagues put some general questions to him in Toronto the other day, Trudeau went further on the general question of what might be termed Trumpism than he has before.

Is Canada isolated from the populist currents in other countries, he was asked.

Canadians faced an election, a year ago, that was filled with very similar rhetoric as were hearing right now, he replied. Whether it was the Barbaric Practices line (a Conservative campaign proposal that neighbours could call police to inform on neighbours who were behaving in ways deemed un-Canadian). Whether it was the Islamophobiacarefully, sometimes not-so-carefully veiled. The politics of, you know, pointing and isolating and demonizing different corners of the country.

We as a country chose a different option than some of the other countries seem poised, or have chosen. But that outcome isnt guaranteed, Trudeau said. Unless we make significant changes around who gets the benefit of economic growthunless were much better at including everyone in the success of the country  then people will start to lash out.

In fact, Trudeau seemed to draw tentative, limited parallels between his own political success in 2015 and Trumps a year later.

Stephen Harper ran a campaign very much on you should be thankful for how well weve been managing this economy, and how good you all have it, Trudeau said. And we highlighted, No! The middle class is falling behind, and we need to do significant things to boost it. What sort of significant things? Trudeaus a Liberal: Hes pretty sure the measures in his first budget went a long way toward delivering on his promise. He listed his middle-class tax cut, his Canadian Child Benefit, and his attempts to reconcile protecting the environment and growing the economy at the same time.

But his 2015 election campaign, Trudeau argued, was not a rebuttal of populism, but an attempt to channel the frustrations that drive it. That was my contention, and it reflected better the angst and the frustration that so many Canadians were feeling  that, quite frankly, people in the middle class around the developed world are feeling. We didnt do it to the same degree of anger  we tried to channel it into hope instead  but the recognition of the same issue was there.

The prime minister clearly doesnt think hes finished meeting this challenge. People are feeling that theyre not well-suited for the pace of change that the planet and our Western economies are going through. And how we demonstrate that we are aware of those challenges whether its in training or support, or opportunities for their kids, is going to be really, really important.

This analysis offers a handy frame for guessing what Trudeau will do next. One assumes further action on training or support or opportunities for kids will be forthcoming.

Its also, inevitably, a lens for testing whether the Trudeau governments actions rise to the level of his objective, which is no less than to stave off a global tide of reaction against mainstream politics. I think its really important that we acknowledge the very diverse range of voices across the country, on all different sides of the spectrum, and try and govern in ways that try to show weve heard people  whether or not we agree with them as much as wed like.

Voters can  indeed they certainly will  decide for themselves how well Trudeau is doing just that.

Im very confident in the nature of Canadians, where we understand that our neighbours success doesnt take away from our success, but it adds to it, Trudeau said. Thats something that has always been true in this country. And (that) we continue to need to have to work on and improve, because it hasnt been as true as wed like. But people get that were better off together. And I think a leader that emphasizes that, and a team that showcases that, is going to do better than someone that preys on division, fear, and insecurities.

We will certainly see.

Paul Wells is a national affairs writer. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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A Canadian environmental group is taking DeBeers Canada to court, claiming the company failed to report toxic levels of mercury and methylmercury in the waters surrounding a northern Ontario diamond mine.

The Wildlands League, a chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, represented by Ecojustice lawyers, says De Beers has failed to consistently report the levels of methylmercury in the creeks surrounding the Victor Diamond Mine, located 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat First Nation.

De Beers Group denies the allegations, saying, To suggest that we have not been reporting per our legal requirements for seven years is grossly misleading. That is simply not true.

Diamonds taken out of the Victor Mine are known as being among the highest quality in the world, renowned for their exceptional colour and clarity. The Victor open pit diamond mine is located in the ecologically pristine James Bay Lowlands.

The environmentalists allege the company has neglected to properly report on mercury levels from five of nine surface water monitoring stations from 2009 to 2016, which is a violation of the mines condition to operate, and that these are offences under the Ontario Water Resources Act.

Anna Baggio, conservation director at Wildlands League, said the group first alerted the Ontario government 18 months ago about the missing data but nothing was done.

The reason why we are doing it is a violation of the condition of the permit that DeBeers has. You have to meet the conditions of your permit. It is not that they just missed one station over one month or a few months or even a year. They missed it over seven years, in five stations out of nine. So it is quite significant, Baggio said.

The water stations are in the North Granny Creek and the South Granny Creek. Both creeks frame the mine.

They converge downstream. What caught our attention initially, last year, is the downstream stations were missing. That is really important. You want to be able to compare upstream to downstream to understand the impact of the mine, which is in the middle, she said.

We expected Ontario to do something. We alerted Ontario, over a year and a half ago, and we alerted De Beers, she added.

Tom Ormsby, head of corporate affairs for De Beers Canada, said the company has not had the opportunity to discuss the issue with its legal counsel, so it is unable to provide any comment on the leagues specific claim.

We have been in 100 per cent compliance with all our permits and environmental reporting requirements. While we will follow legal due process in this matter, we also look forward to highlighting the world-class research and reporting that takes place at our De Beers Victor Mine, which has been shared at scientific conferences around the world, Ormsby said in a statement.

Gary Wheeler, a spokesperson for Ontarios Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, said it takes the concerns very seriously and will study the proposed legal action. The ministry enforces the Environmental Protection Act and the Ontario Water Resources Act.

De Beers obtained the necessary permits in accordance with the legislation, he said. These permits and approvals have strict terms and conditions that the company must adhere to, including conditions concerning operations, reporting and monitoring, he added.

The Wildlands League initiated a private prosecution using the Ontario Offences Act. Private prosecutions are important tools that let private citizens hold industry to account, said Julia Croome, an Ecojustice lawyer, who represented the league last Thursday.

When governments dont enforce their own laws, this course of action is in the public interest, said Croome. The idea is this is an early warning system that lets the public and government know there is something to be worried about.

De Beers latest annual report, provided in June of this year, did include the old data, said Croome. They have now added the missing data and the Wildlands League is studying it.

A private prosecution was used in Alberta against oilsands producer Syncrude Canada for the deaths of 1,606 ducks. The ducks landed on the companys tailings ponds, Croome said. Both provincial and federal regulators said they would act against Syncrude but they didnt, so a private prosecution was launched.

Alberta Crown lawyers eventually took over the case. Syncrude was eventually found guilty and paid a $3-million fine in 2010.

We are prepared to take this through to trial. The allegation is based on evidence which well put forward to the courts, if we get to that point. The province has a duty to monitor, Croome said.

The mine is not responsible for directly depositing methylmercury into nearby creeks, Baggio said.

But mining activities stimulate the conversion of mercury  already present in the ecosystem as a consequence of coal-fired plant pollution  into methylmercury. Basically wherever you have boreal bogs, mercury settles in the wetlands, Baggio said. Ontario no longer burns coal but the United States still does and that pollution can end up settling in northern Ontario.

Methylmercury, a neurotoxin, enters the food chain when fish absorb it directly through their gills or when they consume small organisms, like plankton, that are contaminated, the Wildlands League said. People then eat the contaminated fish. Those at highest risk are women of childbearing age and children under 15. Methylmercury can affect nervous system and brain development.

Attawapiskat is an indigenous community of 1,900 people along the James Bay coast that consistently faces many issues resulting from poverty, flooding and intergenerational trauma from the residential school experience in Canada. For more than 100 years, indigenous children were separated from their parents and sent to state-funded, church-run schools.

Attawapiskat has been at the centre of the youth suicide crisis for decades. Earlier this year, Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency because it was overwhelmed by children trying to kill themselves. On April 10, seven children were brought into the small local hospital with drug overdoses from suspected suicide attempts.

The Victor Mine will come to the end of its lifespan in about four years. De Beers is trying to get an extension on the mines life with the Tango project. It is also exploring options to dig the original pit deeper, said Baggio. In order to proceed, community consent is desired by all parties  De Beers and Attawapiskat  but it is not provincially necessary.

Attawapiskat recently elected a new chief, Ignace Gull. He could not be reached for comment.

The next court appearance is scheduled for the Ontario Court of Justice on Jan. 12, Baggio added.

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OTTAWACanadas mission in Iraq is set to undergo another transformation after Daesh is driven from the city of Mosul, which is expected to see the extremist group turn into a more traditional insurgency.

Senior military commanders have been weighing possible options amid warnings that Daesh will resort to suicide attacks and other terror tactics in Iraq after it loses control of its last population centre in the country.

There is also the question, however unlikely, of whether Canadian troops will end up in Syria, where U.S.-backed rebels have been advancing on Daeshs de facto capital of Raqqa.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said last week that the Liberal government currently has no plans to deploy forces into Syria, but he left the door open to Canada joining other allies if such a course of action is decided upon.

Our efforts right now are in Iraq, Sajjan told the House of Commons committee last week.

If the situation in Syria does change, we will always assess a situation based on consultations with our allies. However, right now we do not have, or intend to have, any involvement in Syria.

Canadian troops have spent the past seven weeks working with Kurdish forces as they and Iraqi government troops have moved to liberate Mosul from Daesh, which seized Iraqs second-largest city in June 2014.

The offensive, which has seen Canadian troops destroy vehicle-borne suicide bombs and fire in support of advancing Kurdish units, is the culmination of two years of training and assistance to get the Iraqis and Kurds ready for the fight.

Military commanders say Daeshs defeat in Mosul could take several more months.

But they also say it is inevitable and will represent a turning point for Iraq, which has been torn apart by more than a decade of war, as the extremist group will effectively lose its last bastion in the country.

They have also warned that Daesh will continue to pose a threat, resorting to suicide bombings and other insurgent-type attacks similar to what Canadian troops saw from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

We fully expect that it will dissipate into the urban terrain and into the population and that were going to be fighting insurgency and counterterrorism operations, Brig.-Gen. David Anderson, commander of an international team of military advisers posted within Iraqs ministry of defence, said recently.

So its definitely not over; if anything, its going be more difficult. The period between the day after Mosul and the day after (Daesh) is probably when its most dangerous.

Sajjans spokeswoman Jordan Owens said it was too early to discuss what shape Canadas mission in Iraq will take after Daesh is defeated in Mosul, where Iraqi troops and extremist fighters have been engaged in intense close-quarter combat for weeks.

But Canadian military commanders said last month that Iraqi and Kurdish forces will need more training to secure the country after Mosul is liberated, and that they are already discussing ways Canada can help.

Military capability, primarily through building partner capacity, will likely be needed as part of the broader whole-of-government stabilization approach, said Lt.-Gen. Stephen Bowes, commander of all Canadian military operations at home and abroad.

Thomas Juneau, an expert on Middle East security at the University of Ottawa, said there is no question that Daesh will remain a threat even after Mosul is liberated, and that changes will be needed as it changes tactics.

Canadas military mission in Iraq has already undergone several transformations.

The previous Conservative government deployed 69 special forces troops, fighter jets, surveillance planes and an air-to-air refuelling aircraft in late 2014.

The Liberal government in February withdrew the jets, but expanded the number of special forces in Iraq to more than 200.

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WELLAND, ONT.Police in Ontario have issued a Canada-wide warrant for a woman they allege abducted her 9-year-old daughter, prompting an Amber Alert over the weekend.

Niagara regional police say Layla Sabry and her mother Allana Haist were last seen on Thursday evening in Welland, Ont.

Laylas case continues to be treated as a missing person investigation but police said Saturday that enough time had elapsed that they concluded the Amber Alert.

Police are asking anyone with information regarding the girl or her mothers whereabouts to contact them.

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Post-truth journalism

Lets wage war against the trend of selling emotions over facts on digital platforms
Patients needing highly specialized spinal cord surgery  some who have been waiting for years in chronic pain  are anxiously awaiting information about the status of their operations and medical care, after a Toronto neurosurgeon was charged with first degree murder in the death of his doctor wife.

Stranded patients  now without the care of two accomplished doctors  are part of the ripple effect from the murder of family physician Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji, allegedly killed by Dr. Mohammed Shamji, her husband, the father of her three children and a Toronto Western Hospital neurosurgeon.

Staff from the University Health Networks division of neurosurgery worked through the weekend, scrambling to reassign Shamjis patients, said Gillian Howard, spokesperson for the UHN.

The neurosurgical team is trying to work as quickly as possible and they understand that this situation is very distressing for the patients, Howard said in a statement Monday that does not mention Shamji by name.

Staff are shocked and distressed, said Howard, but the work now is to pull together around the care of our patients in order to meet their needs.

Scarborough General Hospital, where Fric-Shamji worked in the family practice teaching unit, is also reassigning her patients to other doctors within the unit, Dr. Tom Chan, Scarboroughs interim chief medical officer, said.

Shamji, 40, was arrested in a Mississauga coffee shop Friday, one day after police discovered Fric-Shamjis body inside a suitcase near a bridge beside the West Humber River. He remains in custody until a bail hearing later this month.

The murder charge is not the neurosurgeons first brush with the law. In May, 2005, while the couple was living in Ottawa, Shamji was charged with one count of assault and two counts of uttering threats  charges that were withdrawn later that year.

Patients say they are shocked by the allegations against their doctor, describing Shamji as thoughtful and compassionate.

He was very, very, very friendly and patient  He wasnt one of those doctors who had a god complex, said patient Bernadette Green, who lives in Guelph.

Green, now 46, suffered compression fractures in three vertebrae when she was in a car accident 26 years ago. Initial spinal surgeries kept the pain at bay for a few years, but it has worsened in the past decade and been complicated by other conditions, including scoliosis.

After trying every treatment and every medication, last year Greens mother saw a TV segment featuring Shamji and a pioneering new treatment for back pain, called Spinal Cord Stimulation.

Shamji performed the surgical procedure at UHNs spinal cord clinic, in which a small electrical stimulator is connected to your spinal cord, providing up to a 50 per cent reduction in pain.

Green waited more than a year to see Shamji, who then ran a months-long series of tests to determine if the Green was a candidate for the procedure. In October, Shamji gave her the green light and she was scheduled to have the surgery early next year.

This was my last hope. This surgery was everything to me, Green said.

While she stresses that her pain is nothing compared to the grief of the couples family and friends, Green says she is distraught. As of Monday night, she had not received any information about what will happen now  Im back at square one, she said.

Howard, the spokesperson for the UHN, said if a patient has a procedure scheduled, we are in the process of contacting those patients so they will know who will be handling their case.

Other patients who may be scheduled for a consultation in the future will be reassigned to another surgeon and that surgeons office will be in touch as soon as possible.

Shamji is due back in court December 20. The couples children are currently with Fric-Shamjis mother, according to police.

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

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After months of controversy, trustees with the embattled York Region District School Board have voted for change.

The 12 trustees voted in a secret ballot to oust chair Anna DeBartolo and replace her with Loralea Carruthers, the trustee for East Gwillimbury and Whitchurch-Stouffville, in a meeting at board headquarters in Aurora Monday night.

The results, which were met by loud applause in a room packed with parents, removed DeBartolo from the chair position she had held for several years.

Carruthers thanked DeBartolo for her years of service and pledged to work together moving forward.

I would like to thank parents who have shown tremendous advocacy and patience on behalf of their children, Carruthers added. Those who ensured that their voices were heard even when that seemed difficult.

Please rest assured that the board has heard your concerns and set itself on a new path tonight.

Parents in attendance said they felt it was important to be there to remind trustees who they were representing.

We are here to see a leadership change in this YRDSB drama, said parent Syed Abdul. This is just scratching the surface, but it is a great beginning for an entirely new chapter.

Richmond Hill Trustee Corrie McBain was voted in for vice-chair.

The vote for chair comes after months of controversy at the board, including families who said complaints of racism were not dealt with, a principal who posted Islamophobic links on her public Facebook page, and as trustees jetted overseas on questionable trips  some visiting the same country for a second, even a third time, on the public dime.

The board has been in such turmoil in recent months that Education Minister Mitzie Hunter has demanded it produce a report in early January on how it is handling incidents of racism and intolerance, as well as trustee transparency about the costs and purpose of travel.

Ive heard from the community, from students, from parents, Hunter told the Star Monday. My expectations of the York board and its leadership remain the same  that when students come to school . . . my expectation is that they are safe, their well-being is a priority and that all of our schools are safe and inclusive. Thats what Ive made clear to the board.

Last Friday, a diverse coalition called on the board to be more open as they announced a new human rights complaint alleging students are suffering racial and religious discrimination at school. The board said it cannot comment on the rights complaint.

Hunter said Monday the complaint underscores the urgency of the issue and the importance of the issue, and how parents are feeling. So this is something that the board and its leadership must pay attention to.

Shernett Martin, the director of the Vaughan African Canadian Association said after the vote she looks forward to meeting with Carruthers to work for the betterment of all of our children.

Before Mondays vote, families had been pressuring the board to change its leadership, including in a letter sent to trustees by York Region Parents for Education.

DeBartolo had announced her intention to run again for chair at a meeting last week, sources say  one in which she brought a security guard after claims she and director J. Philip Parappally received threats.

Under DeBartolos leadership, Parappally was granted an unprecedented 10-year contract, with a guaranteed job as a senior staffer once the contract is up  basically a job for life under a new director, and again unheard of in education circles.

Every year at this time, school boards in Ontario hold votes for chair and vice-chair, appointments that last one year. The meetings are public, though the vote is by secret ballot.

Former decade-long York board trustee Joel Hertz has told the Star the board should consider hiring an integrity commissioner to restore public confidence.

Previously, director of education, Parappally has said: We all share a goal to create learning environments that are safe and welcoming for all students and staff. As one of the most diverse and highest performing jurisdictions in the province, our achievement comes in concert with equity and well-being.

The Peel District School Board also held its annual vote for chair on Monday night, with Janet McDougald again taking the helm. She is believed to be the longest-serving chair in Ontario.

In her speech, she said equity and inclusion are the boards priorities  in fact, in the next decade, it is the most important work an elected board can do, and our community, and history will judge us on the measure of our continuous progress.

The Peel board recently announced a long-term plan to help black males who are struggling in the system. It is also launching a student census, collecting information about race, sexual identity so that, like the Toronto District School Board, it can track things like graduation rates and suspension and expulsion rates.

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Canadian 15-year-olds are near the top of the global science class, according to the latest survey of student achievement in 72 countries.

Students from across the country also scored strongly in reading and were steady in math, though the latter was their weakest of three subjects covered in the OECDs 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), released Tuesday.

This is showing us that we are in good shape, its a good story, its stable, said Bonnie Schmidt, president of the educational non-profit Lets Talk Science, based in London, Ont.

She said findings that 80 per cent of the Canadian participants had mastered baseline proficiencies in all three domains  and 90 per cent had in science  is encouraging though we cant be complacent.

Canadian students ranked third among 35 OECD countries in science, tied with 15-year-olds from Finland, outperformed by only Japan and Estonia. The Canadians ranked fourth among all countries, 72 in total, with six others statistically tied.

The survey has been conducted every three years since 2000. The most recent version focused on science achievement for the first time since 2006. Over the past 10 years, Canadas results have been statistically steady.

Among the provinces, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec outperformed Canadas overall score, while students in Ontario performed at the national average.

Ontario math results, which have declined in the last decade, continued to slip, falling below the Canadian average after matching the mark in the last PISA assessment in 2012. Ontario is one of only three provinces to fall below the average this time, along with Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.

Six countries outperformed Canada in math, with six others tied.

Ontario Education Minister Mitzie Hunter welcomed the overall PISA results, but noted we know there is more work to do  especially in mathematics.

Alarm over declining math scores in Ontario among grade 3 and 6 kids tested by the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) prompted the province to announce a $60-million math strategy earlier this year, calling for mandatory math for an hour a day up to grade 8 and specialized math teachers in every school.

Another 2015 global study released last week found Ontarios grade 4 students lagged behind counterparts in 27 countries in math, putting them at the middle of the pack. However, that study found Canadian students improved by grade 8, by then outpaced by only six other countries.

That study also reported a much stronger showing in math in Quebec, which was echoed in the OECD study released Tuesday.

Only one country in the PISA assessment ranked higher in reading than Canada  Singapore  while three others were statistically similar.

The two-volume results take a deeper look at many other trends, including such factors as equity, gender differences and career aspirations.

Schmidt said shes encouraged by findings that Canadian teens were well above the OECD average in anticipating careers in science, with girls expressing the most interest. However they are still more likely to be drawn to health care, while boys more often express interest in engineering.

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Growing up, Christina Kalcevich always helped out at her familys food store, the Pasquale Brothers, on King St.

Thats what the 40-year-old Toronto womans mother, Anna Marie Kalcevich, and grandmother, Georgina Pasquale Madott, had done before her at the family business established in 1917 by her great-grandparents, Edward and Donna Pasquale, to serve Italian newcomers.

Not so many companies can live to 100 years. The Eatons didnt. The Simpsons didnt, said Madott, the familys 90-year-old matriarch. We have.

Although the Pasquale specialty food store wont be celebrating its 100th birthday until next year, it was featured in a recent Toronto Ward Museum event that celebrated the citys immigrant stories and rich multicultural heritage.

The Pasquales story is also among many highlighted in the Picturing the Ward exhibit to be unveiled Thursday at the future Toronto courthouse on Chestnut St. about the unique history of the neighbourhood through the stories of former Ward residents and their descendants.

We wanted to share Torontos immigrant stories through food, Gracia Dyer Jalea, one of the museums co-founders, said of its Dishing Up Toronto program. The Pasquale is at the intersection between the Ward, food and immigration history.

The Ward was the neighbourhood in central Toronto bounded by Yonge St. to the east, University Ave. to the west, College St. to the north and Queen St. W. to the south. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the slum was the first home for different waves of newcomers from the Irish to Jewish, Chinese and blacks who settled in the cities.

It was also where Edward Pasquale first settled in Toronto from Abruzzo, Italy, and opened his food store, first at 100 Elm St. and later at 145 Elizabeth St. with a $500 loan from his family.

Grandmother, Donna Bernardo, came to Toronto aged 4 and she was quite ill on the ocean voyage. Edward Pasquale grew up in a small village in the mountains. He was a shepherd, said Anna Marie Kalcevich, 66, Edwards granddaughter, who joined the family business officially the day after she graduated from University of Toronto in 1972 with a degree in geography.

He would always tell stories about sleeping under a bridge. He had limited schooling and never wore shoes until he came to Canada.

When the family store was first opened, it was to supply fellow Italian immigrants with familiar foods, from high-quality olives to cheese and meats. Through word of mouth, the business grew and moved to King St. as it began manufacturing its own products.

After consolidating its production line into the well-known Unico brand, the Pasquale family sold it, but kept the family store at 145 King St., next to the St. Lawrence Market, run by Georgina Pasquale and her husband, Henry Madott.

Under the second-generation of Pasquale-Madott, the store became a meeting place for people to mingle and share recipes and cooking tips. In 1981, it moved to 217 King St. before relocating again, in 2003, to its current address at 16 Goodrich Rd. in Etobicoke.

Today, the store sells spices and delicacies, including more than 100 different kinds of cheese. Many of their suppliers are also multi-generational family businesses, such as the makers of Manuel Segura chocolate (6th generation), Bonci cake (3rd generation) and Confetti Pelino candy (established in 1783).

I dont want to sound pompous, but you get what you pay for. Men will think nothing of spending $45 or more on a bottle of wine, but hesitate to spend $20 on good-quality olive oil that takes two to three months to use up, said Anna Marie Kalcevich, the third-generation who took over the family operation in 1979 with her ex-husband.

For us, this is not a get-rich scheme. Everything is a long haul. Its not about the costs. It is about our personal services. In Europe, good food is the rights. Here, people think that its a privilege to eat well, but it shouldnt (be).

Two years ago, when she decided to retire and sell the family business, her daughter, Christina Kalcevich, and her son-in-law, Tony Burt, stepped up and asked to take over the store.

Were so close to our 100th year that I couldnt imagine it out of the familys hands, said Christina Kalcevich, who has a master's degree in health science from McGill University and has worked as a researcher at Torontos Institute of Work and Health.

Growing up, everyone helped out at the store. What makes this so rewarding is the sense of keeping our family traditions going.

She and her husband officially took over the family business on Nov. 1.

We came through the war years when lots of Italians were rounded up as enemy aliens. We survived the discrimination against Italian Canadians. I could never imagine that the Pasquale Brothers wouldnt be strong. Its just indestructible, Madott said.

It doesnt happen often that a family business lasts for 100 years and Im pleased that its us. I hope we will continue.

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Ontario educators are getting help for their high-tech needs  with new lesson plans and suggested apps to teach coding and computer classes.

Education Minister Mitzie Hunter made the announcement Monday, saying the province is also boosting the number of specialized courses in computing for high school students.

We need to equip our students with the skills to thrive in a world where technology is constantly evolving, she said. Our students are global citizens. They require a wide range of tools and skills in order to adapt.

The coding resources are to help teachers who have no knowledge of coding as well as those with more experience, starting in kindergarten.

The government is providing $150 million over three years to schools and boards through a special technology fund.

At Scarboroughs Courcelette Public School, students as early as Grade 2 are learning to program robots.

By equipping students with skills like coding and other global competencies, we are preparing them to succeed now and in every stage of their lives, Hunter said.

The announcement was made as part of Computer Science Education Week. Ontario schools are also being encouraged to take part in Hour of Code, an online tutorial available to students around the world.

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WASHINGTON - American Muslim leaders on Monday sent an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump, calling on him to reconsider and reject some of the individuals he recently named to his administration who have a well documented history of outright bigotry directed at Muslims or advocating that Muslims should not have the same rights as their fellow Americans.

The letter, which also heralded the long history of Muslim contributions to American society, did not identify any of Trumps advisers or cabinet appointees by name. But some of its 300-plus signatories, who ranged from imams and university chaplains to the presidents of Islamic charities and advocacy groups, have previously expressed concern about Trumps selection of retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as a national security adviser, Stephen Bannon as senior counselor, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for attorney general, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., for CIA director, and Ben Carson for Housing and Urban Development secretaryall of whom have publicly criticized Islam or supported policy ideas like a ban on Muslim immigrants or refugees.

The letter read, in part: [We] are deeply troubled by reports that your team is actively considering proposals that would target Muslims based on religion and violate their Constitutional rights. Advisors and members of your transition team have proposed a registry of Muslim immigrants and visitors to this country. Shockingly, an advisor cited the internment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War IIone of the most shameful moments in our nations historyas precedent for targeting Muslims.

Trumps transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump campaigned partly on promises that he would prevent terrorism by imposing a ban on Muslim immigrants, halting the arrival of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria, and implementing a monitoring or database system for mosques and Muslim individuals inside the United States.

Muslim advocacy groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University, as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center, have blamed Trumpwho has often propagated misinformationfor stoking hatred and violence against Muslims. The FBI recently reported a 67 percent rise in hate crimes against Muslims in 2015. The 2016 figures will not be available until next year.

Experts have pointed out that most perpetrators of mass violence in the United States are not Muslim, nor have any Syrian refugees been involved in violent attacks in the United States.

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BEIRUT  Syrian government forces and allied militias captured Aleppos centrally located al-Shaar neighbourhood from rebels on Tuesday, securing nearly three quarters of the besieged enclave less than two weeks after launching a ground offensive, according to the Syrian military.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia meanwhile rejected a cease-fire for the war-torn city, keeping up the military offensive amid rebel retreats and massive displacement.

Rebels withdrew from al-Shaar under heavy bombardment by pro-government forces to the Marjeh and Maadi neighbourhoods, local media activist Mahmoud Raslan told The Associated Press. Several gunmen were killed.

Morale has hit rock bottom, he said from inside the citys remaining rebel-held enclave.

The SANA state news agency said the government captured the entire neighbourhood as well as the neighbourhoods of al-Qatarji and Karm al-Dada.

A map provided by the Syria army showed a quickly shrinking opposition enclave  a pointed leaf-shaped territory in the centre, abutting already government-controlled Aleppo districts. The army media said the new gains bring the area controlled by the government in eastern Aleppo to about 73 per cent of its original size, which is estimated to be about 45 square kilometres.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also reported the gains.

Al-Shaar was home to at least four hospitals available to residents trapped by the governments siege of the eastern part of the city. But those hospitals, along the rest of the neighbourhood, were bombed by the governments attacks and evacuated. Broad swaths of the citys eastern quarters are in ruins.

Ibrahim al-Haj, a civil defence member, said he was in the neighbourhood shortly before it fell to the government. It is totally destroyed, he said, adding that if he had stayed a minute longer he would have been captured. He said the previously densely populated district had largely been deserted since the government forces first moved in on the eastern districts last weekend.

A government intense aerial offensive had preceded the ground troops advances.

Rebel defences are collapsing under the weight of twin offensives by pro-government forces.

Rebels and pro-government forces fought street-to-street in the citys southern Saif al-Dawleh and al-Zabadiyeh neighbourhoods, according to footage provided by Syrian military media and audio provided by local teacher and media activist Abdelkafi Alhamdo.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia on Tuesday issued stark warnings to rebels in besieged eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo, with Moscows top diplomat saying the rebels will be wiped out unless they stop fighting and leave the city.

Damascus also said it rejects any cease-fire for Aleppo that does not include the departure of all rebels from the eastern part of the city and that it wont allow the rebels to use a truce as a chance to regroup.

The tough rhetoric comes a day after Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the UN Security Council demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food and medicine into the city. Russia, a main backer of the Syrian government, is supporting the governments offensive in Aleppo and has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria.

Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, speaking of the Syrian rebels. There is no other way.

In Damascus, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried on the state SANA news agency, that the government will not allow rebels a chance to regroup and repeat their crimes in the divided city  a reference to rebel shelling of Aleppos western, government-held districts that has killed 81 civilians in the past three weeks, according to the Observatory.

The governments offensive to take eastern Aleppo killed 341 civilians over the same period and displaced tens of thousands over the past week, the Observatory and other activist groups have said.

Residents in the citys east reported heavy shelling and bombardment overnight.

A rocket struck the fifth floor of the building we are staying in, but thankfully no one was hurt, said Judy al-Halaby, an activist sheltering in the Mashhad neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, rebel shelling of Foua and Kfarya, two besieged pro-government towns in northwestern Idlib province killed at least 10 people, many from the same family, according to a Facebook page operated by activists in the predominantly Shiite towns. The Observatory put the death toll in the two towns at 12, including three children.

At the press conference in Moscow, Lavrov lamented what he described as attempts by the United States to obtain a pause in the fighting in Aleppo to allow rebels to re-arm and re-supply. He said that serious conversations with our American partners are not working.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that he hopes to convince Syrias warring factions and their backers to return to the negotiating table before Aleppo is destroyed.

Kerry said he is due to meet Lavrov in Hamburg, Germany on Thursday and would try to find a way forward.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesman said the Kremlin regrets a more than modest reaction by the international community following a rocket attack on a Russian military hospital in Aleppo on Monday that killed two Russian nurses.

Russian officials alleged rebels were provided co-ordinates to the hospital by a foreign power, though they did not specify a particular country.

After the Russian and Chinese veto at the Security Council, U.S. diplomats accused their Russian counterparts of stalling for time as Syrian government forces advance in Aleppo.

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A scrawled name hidden for decades on the back of a painting by Amedeo Modigliani may hold new insights into the mystery surrounding the rightful ownership of a Nazi-looted masterpiece.

Seated Man With a Cane, painted in 1918, re-emerged in the headlines this year when documents contained in the massive Panama Papers leak added fuel to a legal battle for its ownership.

On one side, a retired Frenchman claims title to the painting through his Jewish grandfather, Oscar Stettiner, who he claims was forced to surrender it to Nazi invaders in Paris.

On the other, the billionaire Nahmad family, who masked their current ownership of the Modigliani through an offshore holding company, a joint investigation by the Toronto Star and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported earlier this year.

As the two sides remain locked in battle in a New York court over the fate of the $35-million painting, the latest chapter of the tale unfolded last week.

French television aired an image of a label on the back of the painting  a yellowing remnant from the 1930 Venice art exhibit where it was last publicly displayed.

The name and address of the paintings proprietaire (owner) were crudely scratched out, according to the images contained in a documentary produced by Frances public broadcaster.

But the word Stettiner appears to be still visible in elegant cursive script  something emphasized by the documentary makers, who recreated the name through computer graphics.

An address on the line below, also partially erased, appears to correspond with Stettiners Rue du Cirque flat in Paris, where he lived until fleeing in 1939 before the Nazis invaded.

This proves that Oscar Stettiner owned that painting, says James Palmer, president of Toronto-based Mondex Corp., an international art hunting firm that is assisting Stettiners grandson, Philippe Maestracci, in his claim for the painting.

It proves that it was owned personally  Oscar Stettiners name was on the back.

The Nahmads New York lawyer, David Golub, did not respond to interview requests from reporters.

The Star visited Stettiners former home and nearby gallery, just off the Champs-Elysees, in March, piecing together the paintings contested history.

The joint investigation unearthed documents proving for the first time that the paintings corporate owner  International Art Center (IAC)  is controlled by the Nahmad family, renowned art gallery owners in London and New York who have amassed hundreds of masterpieces valued in the billions of dollars.

Until the Panama Papers revelations, the Nahmads identity as owners of IAC was shrouded in the secretive Panamanian corporate registry, complicating the legal process for Maestracci and Palmer.

In court records, the family initially denied their ownership of the painting.

International Art Center, S.A., and not anyone else in the world including  Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc., Helly Nahmad and Davide Nahmad, purchased the painting at auction from Christies in London, England, on June 25, 1996, reads the familys initial defence filed in court.

In response to reporters questions about the documents proving the Nahmads control of IAC, their defence shifted to questions about whether Stettiner, who worked as an art dealer in Paris, was the real owner of the painting.

Very often, the people who are in the provenances are not people that owned it, Golub, the Nahmads lawyer, said at the time. Lots of dealers have paintings on consignment.

Documentary evidence gathered by the joint investigation included a program from the 1930 Venice Biennale exhibition that listed the painting from the collection of sig. Stettiner, (Paris).

A letter dated April 14, 1930, to the Venice Biennale, written in French, refers to Stettiner as the owner of the painting.

A day after publication of the joint investigation  by newspapers in France, Switzerland and Germany, and by the CBC and Toronto Star in Canada  Swiss authorities seized the painting in the Geneva warehouse where it was stored, pending outcome of the dispute.

The latest revelations came after the Nahmads granted the filmmakers access to the painting in the Geneva free port.

My cameraman really filmed every detail of the painting on both sides, filmmaker Pascal Henry says in an interview. And it was thanks to this we found a detail. At the time, we didnt understand what it was. We looked at it and we said, Were not experts. We didnt understand the labels importance.

He said a closer look this past summer led to the realization that the name Stettiner fit perfectly into the erased line. I think that all of a sudden we now have a real certainty that the painting belonged to Mr. Stettiner.

Palmer, speaking from his home in London, said the new evidence  including the image of the label and a translated transcript of the program  will be submitted to Maestraccis lawyers in New York.

Were really striving to get to the truth, said Palmer. There have been many obstacles  but I think were getting very, very close.

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Vladimir Putin is seizing on president-elect Donald Trumps pledge to reverse U.S. policy on Syria to press for a military victory that could mark Russias return as a great-power rival in the wider Middle East.

With Trump vowing to focus on defeating Daesh, ISIS or ISIL, rather than on arming militias fighting Syrian leader Bashar Assads forces, Putin is moving decisively to oust rebels from Aleppo, their last major stronghold. Just days after Trumps election last month, Putin and Assad resumed their aerial assault on the erstwhile Syrian commercial capital, turning a potential stalemate into what may become the Kremlins biggest success in the region in decades.

Putins advance, backed by Iran, is already paying diplomatic dividends. NATO-member Turkey is helping Russia bypass the U.S. by negotiating a ceasefire directly with insurgents. And last month, Egypt, the biggest recipient of American military aid after Israel, declared its support for Syrias army. Russia is also preparing to forge a post-war transition that will keep Assad in power, contradicting the cornerstone of current White House policy.

Trumps election opens a new page that can put an end to this bloody war, Randa Kassis, a Syrian political opposition leader who is poised for a role in a potential power-sharing deal brokered by Putin, said by phone from London.

Kassis, whos been ignored by the Obama administration because of her close ties to the Kremlin, met with Donald Trump Jr. in Paris in October before flying to Moscow for talks with Putins Mideast envoy. Trumps transition team didnt respond to emailed requests for comment, but confirmed the meeting with Kassis in the French capital to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump said during the campaign that the U.S. has bigger problems than Assad and that as president hed bomb the hell out of Daesh. He said hed co-ordinate the effort with Putin, something the Obama Administration has so far refused to do.

Leonid Reshetnikov, a retired Foreign Intelligence Service general who now heads a Kremlin advisory group, said officials in Moscow expect the U.S. and Russia will work together to wipe out terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Russia, for its part, will use its influence with Assad to ensure the moderate opposition has a role in a new government, he said by phone.

Putin on Sunday said the global structure of power is rebalancing after attempts to create a unipolar world failed. He told Russian television that Trump is a smart person wholl adjust to being the leader of a great nation.

Trump has also said hed consider lifting sanctions imposed over Putins policies in Ukraine. If he pushes ahead with rapprochement, though, hell face formidable resistance from the security and foreign policy apparatus in Washington, as well as senior members of his own party, according to Thomas Graham, a White House adviser on Russia under President George W. Bush.

Putin isnt waiting for Trumps Jan. 20 inauguration to press his advantage in Syrias civil war, which has lasted almost six years, killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced half the pre-war population of 22 million.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow on Tuesday the terrorists holed up in Aleppo, which is about 40 miles south of the Turkish border, will be destroyed if they refuse to leave nicely. He also said talks with the U.S. are not working. On Monday, China joined Russia in vetoing a proposed UN Security Council resolution that demanded a seven-day truce to allow for humanitarian access to besieged areas of the city.

Russian and Syrian forces paused their assault of Aleppo in October amid international outrage over the casualties being inflicted on the several hundred thousand civilians still trapped there. Western leaders including French President Francois Hollande and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have said Russias actions there may have been tantamount to war crimes.

The Russians are rushing to create a fait accompli on the ground before Trump gets to the White House, said Bassma Kodmani, a leader of the High Negotiations Council, a Syrian political group supported by countries including the U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Russia and the Assad regime view the fall of Aleppo as the final military solution, but the fighting wont end there, it will just morph into guerrilla warfare, Kodmani said by phone from Paris.

Assads military, backed by Russian firepower and Iranian-trained militias, have retaken about 60 per cent of the terrain held by rebels in the eastern part of Aleppo in the past two weeks. They should regain control of the whole city within a month or two, according to Konstantin Kosachyov, who heads the international affairs committee in Russias upper house of parliament.

Another Russian senator, Ilyas Umakhanov, whos met with Assad in Damascus and recently returned from talks in Tehran, said gaining a decisive military edge in Syria now is the best way to achieve peace in the future.

Then there will be more willingness for a peaceful settlement from the U.S. and regional powers, Umakhanov said in an interview in Moscow.

Konstantin Malofeev, a businessman and Putin ally whos been involved in back-channel negotiations with Turkey, said there wont be any political settlement that doesnt cement Assads grip on power.

Putins Syria game is intricate, involving not only Turkey, where President Tayyip Erdogan is still reeling from Julys failed military coup, but also Saudi Arabia and Iran, bitter enemies who are backing competing factions. Still, Putin continues to find ways to strengthen Russias hand in the region.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, the most populous Arab country, ended years of fence-sitting on the war last month in declaring his support for Assads forces. That position puts him at odds with Saudi Arabia, a major benefactor of Egypt, but aligns him with other Arab states such as Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Tunisia.

For the first time since the beginning of the anti-Assad rebellion in 2011, a series of geopolitical, military and political shifts are favouring the regime and its ability to emerge victorious, Ayham Kamel, director of Middle East and Africa analysis at New York-based Eurasia Group, said in a research note.

Syria is just part of Putins goal in the Middle East, which is to regain the clout the Kremlin had before the Soviet Union collapsed a quarter century ago.

Last week, for example, Putin played a key role in convincing the Saudis and Iranians to set aside their differences and agree on OPECs first cut in oil output in eight years. And in Libya, hes been forging ties with a powerful military leader, General Khalifa Haftar, whos seeking Russias help in fighting Islamic militants.

Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria whos now a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Russia is now a factor in Iraq, too, mainly due to the counterterrorism centre Putin established in Baghdad last year to share intelligence with Iranians and Iraqis.

For 20 years, people basically ignored Russia on the Middle East, Ford said. The Russian role in the region now will certainly increase.

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President-PM condole Jayalalithaa's demise

President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' Tuesday sent separate messages of condolences to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India respectively on the passing away of Selvi J. Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
CHARLESTON, S.C.Relatives of Walter Scott, the black motorist fatally shot while fleeing a traffic stop, say they are confident justice will prevail even though a South Carolina jury could not reach a verdict in the murder trial of a white former police officer charged in his death.

Circuit Judge Clifton Newman on Monday declared a mistrial in the case of Michael Slager after the jury of 11 whites and one black deadlocked. The panel, considering verdicts of murder or voluntary manslaughter, deliberated more than 22 hours over four days and heard testimony from 55 witnesses during the five-week trial.

God is my strength, and I know without doubt he is a just God and injustice will not prevail, Scotts mother, Judy, told reporters later. We have a federal trial and another trial to go. Im going to rest in the Lord.

Immediately after the mistrial was declared, Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said she would retry the case. Slager goes on trial in federal court early next year on charges of depriving Scott of his civil rights.

Scotts brother, Anthony, said Slager, who is free on bond, will be able to spend Christmas with his family and his young child.

Me and my family will never see Walter again. We have to live with the fact that Walter got gunned down, shot in the back, Anthony Scott said. He said he could eventually find the peace to forgive the ex-officer but not before justice is served.

The April 2015 shooting of the 50-year-old Scott was captured on widely distributed cellphone video that renewed a national debate about how blacks are treated by law officers. Taken by a barber on his way to work, the footage showed Scott being shot five times in the back as he ran from Slager.

The first shot was fired when Scott was 17 feet (five metres) away from Slager.

The video then shows Slager walking back to the spot where he struggled with Scott and picking up his Taser. He then drops it near Scotts body.

After the video became public, Slager was fired and charged with murder. Scotts family called for calm at the time, which is thought to have helped prevent the kind of violence that erupted elsewhere when blacks were killed by police.

Wilson praised the Scott family and said they have not received the credit they deserve in their calm leadership for the community.

Slagers mistrial marks the second time in recent weeks a jury has deadlocked in an officer-involved shooting. A mistrial was declared Nov. 12 when a Cincinnati jury couldnt reach a verdict in the case of a former campus police officer who was also charged with shooting a black motorist.

Slagers wife, Jamie, cried after the jurors were dismissed. She said thank you for everything to the defence lawyers as they left the courtroom. She did not respond when asked to comment. Slagers attorney, Andy Savage, also did not comment.

I dont think there is a soul or a person with a soul that thinks what Michael Slager did is OK or is not wrong, said Justin Bamberg, an attorney for the Scott family. I dont think questions of fact were the issues for this jury. I think there were issues of their interpretation of the law.

The video dominated the trial. The jurors saw it numerous times, sometimes frame by frame.

Scott was pulled over in North Charleston for having a broken tail light on his 1990 Mercedes and then fled the car, running into a vacant lot. Family members have said he may have run because he was worried about going to jail because he was $18,000 (U.S.) behind on child support.

The defence maintained that the men wrestled on the ground, Scott got control of Slagers stun gun and then pointed the weapon at the officer before the shooting.

Last year, North Charleston reached a $6.5 million civil settlement with Scotts family. The city also asked the U.S. Justice Department conduct a review of its police department policies to see how it could improve its relationship with residents.

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Donald Trump met with Al Gore in New York Monday to discuss an issue the Republican president-elect has long scoffed at: Global warming.

The meeting at Trump Tower was initially scheduled with the president-elects daughter, Ivanka Trump. After Gore emerged, the Democratic politician-turned climate activist told reporters he wound up spending the bulk of the time with Trump himself.

I had a lengthy and very productive meeting about the transition with the president-elect, said Gore, who campaigned on behalf of Hillary Clinton and shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his climate-change work. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I found it an extremely interesting conversation and to be continued, and Im just going to leave it at that.

The president-elect has sent mixed signals on the issue, and Ivanka Trump plans to make global warming one of her key issues once he takes office, according to the news site Politico.

Its good news that the president-elect is showing an open mind on climate change, said Bob Deans, a spokesman for New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council. Al Gore is a good one to talk to about this. A lot of what we heard during the campaign was troubling.

Other advisers Trump has appointed have a taken a more hostile view on climate change. The head of Trumps Environmental Protection Agency transition team, Myron Ebell, has pushed to defund United Nations climate programs. The president-elects NASA adviser, Bob Walker, told the Guardian that he would do away with funding for climate research.

Trumps perhaps best-known statement on climate change came in a 2012 tweet saying that the concept was created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing less competitive. He shifted his tone somewhat last month during a meeting with the New York Times, saying there might be some connectivity between human activity and rising temperatures that are melting polar ice caps and have been linked to extreme weather around the world.

Trumps incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus later clarified the statement on Fox News, saying the president-elect still believes global warming is mostly a bunch of bunk.

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The dispute over the North Dakota Access pipeline has been resolved, but the months-long protest by the Standing Rock Sioux has already served as a beacon to First Nations of Canada feeling the aggravation of their accumulated injuries  the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Laloche, Val dOr, Grassy Narrows, the Site C Dam, the Trans Mountain pipeline  and for this Canada has only itself to blame.

We take far too many of our political cues from the United States, but need not solutions. We are an open, imaginative country still. This weeks meeting in Gatineau, Que., of the Assembly of First Nations is an opportunity for more than embraces. Here, then, is a simple five-point plan for addressing a challenge to Canada more grievous and innate than any posed from down south, proposals intended as an adjunct to the 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions report.

1. Adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is a problematic document but one that provides solutions to the challenges of balancing indigenous rights and state sovereignty in its final clauses. In truth, it is a very Canadian charter, its guiding principles entirely compatible with our own. Let Canada take it on and, through practice, improve it.

2. Make the chief of the Assembly of First Nations a de facto member of cabinet. The next Governor-General is likely to be indigenous but this measure, note, is absolutely not about ceremony. A minister does not need to be a sitting MP, so let the chief of the Assembly of First Nations (with accommodation for Inuit and Metis) into the room as a peer and a participant. First Nations will be consulted on everything from housing to defence and procurement. Make the nation to nation relationship more than the stuff of costume and rhetoric.

3. Make the use of select First Nations languages in Parliament a right. Our two official languages, French and English, are spoken on the floor of the House of Commons and let this status be extended to Cree, Inuktitut and either Ojibwe or one of the Salish group of languages, the ones most broadly spoken and positioned for survival. Some provincial legislatures and courts already allow this and not to do so in Ottawa denies our communality and heritage. Language is the vessel of a culture and imagine, beyond any questions of fairness, how inspiring this would be to First Nations youth, in particular.

4. Make the completion of a course in aboriginal studies a mandatory requirement to matriculate from high school. Education falls under provincial jurisdiction, but this cannot be an excuse for federal inaction on so vital an issue. Such courses might teach language, indigenous arts or systems of native justice, these taught alongside the historical knowledge of residential schools that, regardless, should be a necessary part of the ordinary high school curriculum.

The aboriginal studies requirement would provide acquaintance in a land where the gift of abundant space means Canadians never actually have to meet unless a concerted effort is made; it would advance scholarly rather than politically correct discussions of indigenous issues, and provide tens of thousands of meaningful well-paid jobs elevating not just the native sense of self.

5. Create and enforce a commons law uniting trails, reserves and national parks. Canada is in dire need of a commons law, variants of which exist in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Norway. Protecting not just native but all Canadians rights to share and learn the land is an opportunity that will imminently be lost and that First Nations are in a powerful position to defend.

Making reserves a part of this system is not to detract from the rights of First Nations but to recognize common interests of the panoply of Canadian peoples. A working example of this kind already exists in the functioning of the Torngat Mountains National Park in Newfoundland and Labrador, jointly administrated by Parks Canada and Inuit who have lived within its boundaries for thousands of years.

Entitled property owners and resource companies will resist such a law, of course, while thinking progressively on this score will prevent conflicts such as the one happening in North Dakota that could as easily happen here.

Let the country act boldly and in league with indigenous peoples, to who we owe ways of being as much as royalties and reparations. The alternative is our own Standing Rock.

Noah Richlers most recent book, published by Doubleday Canada, is The Candidate, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. He is a regular contributor to these pages.

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Since the 1960s, Canadas mainline Protestant denominations  made up of the Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United churches  have lost anywhere between 40 to 60 per cent of their membership. Some research colleagues and I wanted to find out why.

Wed read the previous academic studies and there was no consensus. Many of the popular texts on the subject, written primarily by mainline theologians, suggested liberal theology was the key to growth. Liberal theology calls clergy and lay people to practice a metaphorical interpretation of the Bible and to temper their belief in supernatural phenomenon in order to make their religious message more palatable for modern audiences.

As a researcher its not often you make a discovery that flies in the face of conventional wisdom but, when we finished assessing our data, thats what happened. We found it is conservative theology  with its emphasis on the factual truth of scripture and Gods activity in the world  that fuels church growth. Liberal theology leads to decline.

To get to our findings we tracked down an elusive sample of growing mainline congregations, increasing in attendance by at least 2 per cent per year, and compared them to a sample of declining. We surveyed more than 2,200 of the congregants, half growing and half declining, and the clergy who serve them.

We found, without exception, the clergy and congregants of the growing mainline Protestant churches held more firmly to traditional Christian beliefs  such as the belief Jesus rose physically from the grave and that God answers prayer. The clergy of the growing churches were the most theologically conservative and the declining church clergy the least. When we used statistical analysis to determine which factors are influencing growth, conservative Protestant theology was a significant predictor.

In the last week or so our findings have been widely reported and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they have also been attacked. Conventional wisdom doesnt go quietly.

Several critics have argued that liberal churches do grow and they know this because theyve seen it. This is anecdotal fallacy and betrays faulty reasoning. One-offs or unverified, isolated examples cannot be used to dismiss strong statistical evidence.

Related to statistical evidence, some have said our sample of 22 churches, nine growing, should have been larger. As to the growing churches in our sample, I would remind those critics that you cant study what you cant find. We contacted denominational offices in Ontario but got few referrals; some churches they said were growing, werent.

So, we also searched independently. Those we found, we studied. Accurate results are dependent on strong method. Our statistical method was tested and approved via rigorous peer-review by the Review of Religious Research, one of the top journals in the world for scientific study of religion.

Furthermore, studies with larger samples do not contradict our findings. For example, The Faith Communities Today Study out of the U.S. analyzed data from thousands of congregations. That study found, by far, growing churches had clergy and congregants who were theological conservatives. Unlike our research, that study made no link between theology and growth but as we point out in our academic work, it didnt adequately explore the issue. It asked just one question of one person, the church pastor, to gauge theological outlook of an entire congregation. We surveyed all the congregants and the clergy in each church and asked many theological questions. Better questions elicit more accurate results.

The last common assertion of our critics is that some factor besides theology is the real cause of growth. For example, weve been told that churches featuring clergy with strong convictions will grow regardless of doctrinal leanings. But we would point out that different convictions, though equally strong, produce different outcomes.

For example, all the growing church clergy in our study, because of their theological outlook, held the conviction that it was very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians. Conversely, half the clergy at the declining churches held the opposite conviction, believing it was not desirable to convert non-Christians. Comparing the two convictions, which do you think is more likely to generate church growth?

Paradox is intimately and profoundly connected to the Christian experience. Christians are told such things as the first shall be last and to save your life you must lose it. Now we can add a new paradox to the list: conservative theology leads to church growth and liberal theology leads to decline.

Dr. David Millard Haskell, associate professor, religion and culture and digital media and journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University, is lead author of Theology Matters in the Review of Religious Research, December 2016.

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Chris Alexander may have been mortified, as he now claims, when he heard chants of lock her up! aimed at Alberta Premier Rachel Notley at a rally he spoke to on the weekend.

But the former MP and Conservative party leadership hopeful sure didnt look it.

In a video taken at the event he clearly looks amused, grinning and tapping his finger in the air to the beat as if he is conducting the crowd while they bellow their misogynistic, anti-democratic chant. Instead of stifling the crowd, Alexander appeared to be stoking their anger.

In short, he showed hes not up to the task of leading.

Nor do his words, after the fact, make up for his actions in the moment.

Leaders need to address such attacks on the spot. Sandra Jansen, an NDP member of Albertas legislature, was one of many who rightly pointed out that you need to set an example by making sure that you say emphatically that those types of behaviours are unacceptable and you need to do it there.

Alexander isnt being excused or supported by fellow Conservatives, either. Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose described those who were chanting as people acting like idiots. And Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Jason Kenney said that calling on our democratically elected premier to be locked up is ridiculous and offensive.

Still, even while claiming he was uncomfortable, Alexander continued to offer excuses for his behaviour. He didnt interrupt because he was hearing a lot of frustration and people need to be listened to, he argued. But another Conservative leadership hopeful, MP Michael Chong, got it right when he compared the chants to undemocratic action more worthy of a dictatorship than Canadas parliamentary democracy.

Nor did the undercurrent of misogyny go unnoticed. Federal Status of Women Minister Patricia Hajdu said the chanting amounted to verbal violence, and condemned the notion of any leadership contestant inciting violence towards elected officials.

One of the most frightening parts of the ugly U.S. election campaign was when Donald Trump led rallies in chants of lock her up! referring to Hillary Clinton, as if he was a dictator who intended to jail his rivals once he got into power.

Its a profoundly undemocratic sentiment unworthy of the United States, never mind Canada. Alexander should have shut it down the moment it reared its ugly head here. But he didnt. He let it pass unchallenged.

For a man running to be the leader of a major political party and eventually the country, he failed a crucial test of leadership. Canada doesnt need to import Trump-style politics, and it doesnt need politicians who dont recognize and confront it when it appears.

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When the Liberal government was elected last November, Environmental Defence might reasonably have expected to get a reprieve. The non-profit organization with a mission to promote green public policy was among the first targets of the Harper governments political audit program  a crackdown on charities that the Liberals decried.

Yet earlier this month, a year into the Trudeau governments mandate, Environmental Defence was notified by the Canada Revenue Agency that its charitable status is still under threat of revocation, CBC News has reported. The organization has been deemed too political  a decision based on a dubious process meant to enforce dubious rules. It ought to be overturned.

Under the current system, a charity must spend no more than 10 per cent of its resources on political activities if it is to maintain its tax-exempt status. In 2012, the Tories invested more than $13 million to establish an audit program ostensibly aimed at ensuring that charities were not breaking this rule.

But as many critics, including the Star, pointed out at the time, it was notable, if not outrageous, that the vast majority of the 60 targeted charities were environmental, human-rights or anti-poverty groups that had taken positions apparently antithetical to the government. These audits are extremely costly for small, non-profit organizations and may well chill other groups into silence or mealy-mouthed moderation. The end result looks an awful lot like stifling debate.

Oxfam Canada, for instance, a respected aid agency that had been a particular object of Tory scorn for its work in the West Bank, was told by the CRA that it could no longer try to prevent poverty  apparently not a charitable aim  but should work instead to alleviate it. The Canadian Unitarian Council, a venerable religious charity that promotes views unwelcome to Conservatives, was told to remove any reference to justice or social justice from its mandate.

These strange decisions point to a larger problem. The rules for charities are ambiguous and confusing and therefore vulnerable to abuse. Revenue Canada, for instance, offers no clear definition of what constitutes political activity. Is raising awareness about the environmental risks of pipelines, as Environmental Defence has done, a political act or simply an educational one? Is all advocacy political? Canada is an international outlier in the strict limits it places on charities political activities and the lack of protections it provides from political interference.

Justin Trudeau promised a better way. In his mandate letter to Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier, Trudeau instructed the minister to set charities free from political harassment and to modernize the rules around political activity to ensure charities can continue to make an important contribution to public debate and public policy. Lebouthillier quickly killed the political audits program and launched a process to revise the rules, which will conclude next week.

Yet, to the great disappointment of the charitable sector, she allowed the 26 audits then underway to continue. Her reasoning? The government doesnt want to be seen to be interfering with the independence of the CRA. The minister is right, of course, that audits must be independent of politics. It is, in part, for that very reason that these seemingly politically motivated decisions must not be allowed to stand.

The Trudeau government has said these charities are being targeted for the wrong reasons and based on unsound rules. Surely it can instruct the CRA to hold off on the audits and revocations until a clear policy that better serves the public interest is in place. A rule that bans charities from promoting social justice or working to prevent poverty is absurd on the face of it. Every time the government enforces it our democracy is weakened.

Note - January 13, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version.



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Re: MPPs vote to denounce BDS movement, which targets Israel, Dec. 1

MPPs vote to denounce BDS movement, which targets Israel, Dec. 1

Several commentators have likened our time to Weimar Germany. One aspect is the observed failure of the liberal class to address peoples real circumstances in the wake of economic calamity. A section of the population blames scapegoats and, given a charismatic leader, turns to fascism. Hitler and the Jews then, Trump and Muslims now. Then, generalized anti-Semitism fostered the Nazis radical anti-Semitism and, in the context of war, the Holocaust.

The comparison with now is no doubt imperfect. One signal difference is that it is the murderous and merciless oppression of Palestinians by the Jewish State of Israel, supported by the U.S. and Canadian governments, big business and academic and media establishments, that is contributing to the blowback that is occasioning the move toward fascism in the United States and elsewhere.

In Ontario the liberal class represented by the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties just voted to condemn the peaceful attempt by Palestinians and their supporters to assert their rights in the form of the BDS movement, describing the latter as hateful, hostile, prejudiced, racist and intolerant.

I await the deluge of condemnation from the defenders of free speech, human rights and democratic protest populating the boards of the nations press, universities and corporations at this cowardly and repugnant assault, instigated by Israel, on the peaceful defenders of an otherwise largely defenceless people that, since 1948, has been subjected to ethnic cleansing and what is arguably a slow genocide.

Where is the liberal class when it counts?

Peter Eglin, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener

If, as an act of peaceful protest, you choose not to invest in Israel or buy Israeli products, as of Thursday, Dec. 1, you have been condemned as an anti-Semite by the Ontario Legislature 49-5.

The boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement is a peaceful, non-violent movement that seeks to put pressure on Israel to end its senseless occupation and uphold international law with respect to its treatment of Palestinians. It has hundreds of Jewish supporters across the country, including me, as well as a national Jewish organization, Independent Jewish Voices, that expressly supports it. Are we all anti-Semites?

Gila Martow, the Conservative MPP who put forward the motion to condemn BDS, was elected to represent the riding of Thornhill. I dont recall her being elected to represent the Jewish people. That she or the overwhelmingly non-Jewish Ontario legislature should be passing a motion that calls me and other Jewish  and non-Jewish  people of conscience anti-Semites is, quite frankly, offensive.

Jason Kunin, Toronto

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The three Middle East airlines -- Emirates, EtihadAirways and QatarAirways -- continue to add U.S. routes at a rapid pace, but opponents like to think the Donald Trump administration will slow things down.

Since January 2015, current and planned U.S. service by the three carriers has increased 47%, according to the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies, which represents American (AAL) , Delta (DAL) and United (UAL) and most of their unions in opposing the buildup.

Last week, Qatar Airways said it would add a Doha-Las Vegas route at an unspecified date in 2017 or 2018. In 2016, Qatar added Doha to Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles. Emirates will add Dubai-Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 15; during 2016 it boosted service to Dallas and Los Angeles. And Etihad has said it will increase its Abu Dhabi- Dallas/Fort Worth service from four a week to daily in February 2017.

"The Gulf carriers have been racing against the clock to add routes to the U.S. before anybody could shut the door on them," said Jill Zuckman, spokeswoman for the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies.

The partnership began its campaign in January 2015, when it released a report showing that area governments had provided $42 billion in subsidies to the three Gulf carriers. The figure was revised to $50 billion in June 2016.

The increased flights have come despite what appeared to be a promising development this summer, when the U.S. State Department said it would conduct informal talks with Qatar and United Arab Emirates regarding the expansion by the three subsidized carriers.

But the talks appear to have gone nowhere, even though American CEO Doug Parker said in September that American, Delta and United want nothing more than assurances that the Middle East carriers won't operate flights, known as fifth freedom flights, from third countries to the U.S.

Currently, Emirates flies daily between Milan and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Middle East carriers' only fifth freedom flight to the U.S.

"We were making slow progress under the Obama administration, but it effectively has run out of time," said Zuckman.

Trump "has repeatedly said he will enforce our trade agreements and look out for American workers," Zuckman said. "We believe these Open Skies agreements are a perfect vehicle for doing these things; we are hopeful that this issue fits in squarely with all that things {he} has said on the campaign trail."

Zuckman said the partnership "looks forward to briefing President-elect Trump's team as soon as possible."

The January 2015 report suggested that the Gulf airlines' practices make a mockery of Open Skies policy, developed in the early 1990s in an effort "to enable U.S. carriers to compete in a global market undistorted by government actions that advantage foreign carriers.

"The UAE and Qatar have turned this policy on its head by pursuing aviation industrial policies that are designed to distort the global market in favor of their state-owned carriers," said the report, which noted that Open Skies policy requires that "competition is fair and the playing field is level."

In fact, Open Skies treaties have turned into lopsided deals where the Middle East airlines fly nearly two dozen daily flights to the U.S., while U.S. airlines do not fly a single flight to Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.
Italy could be prepping a state-led rescue of its third biggest bank that could both stabilise its beleaguered financial system and protect thousands of retail investors from having their capital wiped-out.

The FTSE MIB index is leading European equity benchmarks with a 1.3% rise Tuesday as bank shares rise sharply on reports that Rome is ready to step in with a taxpayer-backed rescue of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Sienna (BMDPY)

Italy's President Sergio Mattarella has asked outgoing Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to stay on until he can steer parliament into passing a 2017 budget law that would settle the nation's finances and appease concerns in Brussels that Europe's third largest economy will remain on track to bring its deficit in-line with EU rules.

However, the decision to keep Renzi in place despite his crushing defeat in Sunday's constitutional referendum could be more closely linked to the government's desire to draw a line under the ongoing Monte dei Paschi saga and restore confidence in Italy's beaten-down banks, which are staggering under the weight of 360 billion in non-performing loans.

EU rules, established in the wake of the global financial crisis and the myriad bank failures that followed, forbid state-led bailouts of failing lenders without first "bailing-in" shareholders and junior creditors. That framework has complicated Italy's efforts to shore up its financial system, largely because retail investors hold billions in junior bank debt that would be wiped out in a state-led rescue.

According to International Monetary Fund figures, around a third of the 600 billion in debt issued by Italian banks, including half of the 60 billion in subordinated bonds sold, are owned by Italian retail investors.

However, EU rules also allow for state-led recapitalization if a bank failure were to cause systemic financial stability risks.

That caveat was highlighted in a speech earlier this year by European Central Bank Vice President Vitor Constancio, who told an audience in Madrid that while he supports changes from "the culture from easy public bailouts to a new culture of private bailing-in ... we need to bear in mind that it is not only direct public support for banks that has a cost for taxpayers, but also financial instability - indeed, the costs of the latter may be higher."

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that MPS executives would meet with ECB officials charged with banking regulation in Frankfurt to discuss the bank's much-delayed plans to raise 5 billion in private capital.

Having already suffered a massive political defeat that could lead to early 2017 elections, Renzi might be prepared to sacrifice junior creditors for the greater good of Italy's financial system. That certainly appears to be the market's assumption, as the FTSE Italy Banks index adds 2.8% and UniCredit (UNCFF) , the country's biggest bank, rises 3.2% to 2.08 per share.

Yet Renzi, who has always had excellent relations with Brussels and is committed to the European project, could instead broker from flexibility from both EU and the ECB that would allow for the rescue of the world's oldest bank without obliterating the finances of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Italians - whose anger could be directed to anti-European political candidates the next time they head to the polls.
Updated from 10:06 a.m. with additional details

Bruised and battered Chipotle (CMG) may be about to rally behind the vision of a single leader.

According to a tweet from well-known restaurant Howard Penney of Hedgeye Risk Management, Chipotle co-CEO Monty Moran be on his way out the door.

"Our management team has not changed -- if we make any management changes, we will announce them in a timely manner," Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said via email.

Chipotle has reportedly hired a search firm to fill a chief operating officer position, which is a function long held by Moran. Meanwhile, Moran didn't present in front of investors alongside Ells at Barclay's on Tuesday.

The better-burrito joint has had a co-CEO structure since promoting Moran from president and chief operating officer in January 2009 to serve alongside founder Steve Ells. Moran, a lawyer by trade and long-time friend of Ells, was there at Chipotle's founding.

As told on the website of Moran's former employer Messner & Reeves, one day back in the early 1990s Moran was asked by Ells to sample a new burrito recipe. Moran allegedly tasted the creation and promptly said, "You ought to sell these things."

Ells wasted no time taking his bestie's advice. In 1993, Ells took his recipes and opened a small burrito joint in Denver. By 1997, with five stores up and running, Ells reportedly reached out to Moran -- who was practicing law at Messner & Reeves -- for business and legal advice.

After Moran had led so much of Chipotle's strategy over the years, the website says, he joined Chipotle as president and chief operating officer in 2005. On Jan. 26, 2006, Moran found himself ringing the bell to open trading at the New York Stock Exchange as Chipotle became a public company.

Since then, many on Wall Street have held that Ells -- a classically trained chef -- was in charge of Chipotle's push to source better ingredients, while Moran handled operations, growth plans and developing what it calls a "unique people culture."

But it hasn't been made clear to investors why Chipotle needs to still have such a co-CEO structure. If anything, Moran should be the fall guy for Chipotle's food safety scares in 2015 due to his focus on operations. According to Chipotle's website, the company doesn't have the chief operating officer role that is common in restaurant chains. Ells is unlikely go anywhere, seeing as he is the founder, face of Chipotle, and architect of the company's menu.

"It's certainly an unusual arrangement, and it's never been clear why Chipotle needs a co-CEO structure," says CtW Investment Group lead analyst Derrick Wortes. CtW Investment Group and Amalgamated Bank recently jointly filed a shareholder proposal against Chipotle to remove Ells as chairman and replace him with an independent director.

Severing ties with Moran would at least help Chipotle do something about its excessive CEO compensation.

"One of the main reasons why Chipotle's executive pay figures were so astronomical (when we first approached them with that critique in 2014) was precisely because they're paying dual CEOs," Wortess explained. Ells earned $13.8 million in total compensation in 2015, down from a jaw-dropping $28.9 million in 2014. Moran saw his total compensation decline to $13.6 million in 2015 from a whopping $28.1 million the year before.

Chipotle may want to take a page from Whole Foods (WFM) ahead of 2017, which has made efforts of late to bolster corporate governance. The struggling organic grocer recently said co-CEO Walter Robb will leave his position by Dec. 31. Robb has been co-CEO with Whole Foods founder John Mackey for the past six years. He has spent 25 years at Whole Foods, and was an integral player in growing the company from 12 stores to 464 stores in three countries.

He will remain on Whole Foods' board and serve as a senior adviser to the company.

Wortes said, "We're presently focused on the independent chair proposal and have not engaged the company around breaking up with the co-CEO structure. But the news on Whole Foods gives everyone -- owners and managers -- something to think about."
Protests continue against state split plan

The indefinite banda enforced in various districts to protest the constitution amendment proposal to split Province 5 continued on Monday as well.
German utilities RWE (RWEOY) and E.ON (EONGY) popped higher Tuesday after Germany's highest court ruled the companies could make a claim against the state for losses resulting from the country's decision to abandon nuclear energy.

E.ON shares climbed more than 5% while RWE added more than 4% in early trading, before both stocks slid back later in the day to trade up 4.23% and 1.7%, respectively by 15:30 GMT.

The court ruling relates to a u-turn by the conservative-led government of Chancellor Angela Merkel on an agreed phase out of Germany's fleet of nuclear power plants.

Merkel's government in 2010 extended the deadline for the plants' closures from a previously agreed date of 2021 to 2036, prompting new investment by the German utilities. That extension was then reversed and the state ordered the immediate closure of eight of Germany's oldest reactors in 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan.

E.ON and RWE, along with Sweden's state-owned Vattenfall, claimed that the government's about-face amounted to expropriation of their assets and that they were due compensation for the cost of investments and losses resulting from the change in the law.

Germany's Constitutional Court Tuesday disagreed that the state had effectively seized the utilities' assets but decided it had breached the companies' property rights and was liable to pay "appropriate compensation."

E.ON has said it will seek 8 billion in compensation, while Vattenfall has claimed 4.7 billion in losses. RWE has so far declined to put a figure on its losses, though analysts expect it to claim about 6 billion.

The final compensation deal will have to be agreed with the government and is likely to come in under the companies' estimates.

The amounts may also end up being offset against costs due to be levied against the utilities for the storage of radioactive waste from the power stations. In April, a parliamentary commission recommended the establishment of a $23.3 billion fund to finance that storage.

Germany's government has so far resisted demands that it share that financial burden, claiming that the utilities made the waste and remain solely responsible for it.
The Department of Justice Tuesday approved Alaska Air Group's (ALK) $4 billion acquisition of Virgin America (VA) .

As a condition of approval, Alaska Air must significantly reduce the scope of its codeshare agreement with American Airlines (AAL) .

The merger of Alaska and Virgin would combine the nation's sixth- and ninth-largest airlines, respectively, to create the fifth-largest U.S. carrier.

"Smaller airlines, such as Alaska and Virgin, provide a critical competitive check on the larger carriers," said acting Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. "Although this merger offers hope that a strengthened Alaska can be an even stronger competitor than before, because of Alaska's extensive codeshare agreement with the world's largest airline, the merger threatened to blunt important competition and reduce choices for consumers. Today's settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgin's assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers."

The DOJ said that the codeshare agreement, which allows Alaska to market American flights on more than 250 routes, creates incentives for Alaska to compete less aggressively on routes both carriers serve and to forgo launching new service in competition with American. As a result of these incentives, the complaint alleged that Alaska and American often behave more like partners than competitors.

Virgin, by contrast, has a network that extensively overlaps with American's network. It has competed aggressively with American, particularly on 20 nonstop routes served by both airlines, the DOJ said.

According to the DOJ, the significant head-to-head competition between Virgin and American on these routes is due in part to the fact that Virgin holds essential and scarce assets, including airport gates and takeoff and landing rights known as "slots," at key American strongholds. Several of these, including gates at Dallas Love Field Airport and slots at Washington Reagan National Airport and New York's LaGuardia Airport, Virgin acquired as part of the settlement of the department's lawsuit challenging the 2013 merger of American and US Airways.

The DOJ added that the extensive codeshare relationship between Alaska and American would cause Alaska to compete less vigorously with American than does Virgin today, resulting in lower quality service and/or higher prices on the routes where Virgin and American currently compete. The complaint also alleged that the codeshare would make Alaska less likely than Virgin to launch new service in direct competition with American.

Tuesday's proposed settlement requires Alaska to significantly reduce the scope of the codeshare agreement by prohibiting Alaska and American from codesharing on routes where Virgin and American compete today and on routes where Alaska would otherwise be likely to launch new service in competition with American following the merger.

Alaska and American, however, would be allowed to continue codesharing in limited circumstances where it is unlikely to lead to competitive harm and may offer some benefits to consumers such as to serve destinations Alaska would otherwise be unlikely to serve on its own in the near term.

The proposed settlement also requires Alaska to obtain the department's approval before selling or leasing any of the gates or slots that were divested to Virgin and expressly prohibits Alaska from transferring any interest in the assets to American. This requirement ensures that American does not directly or indirectly regain control of the assets it divested to Virgin to settle the department's challenge to the American-US Airways merger.
As Verizon Communications ( (VZ) ) announced that it would sell its data center business to Equinix ( (EQIX) ) for $3.6 billion on Tuesday, Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam described the deal as a necessary pruning of its portfolio as the telecom emphasizes mobile content, advertising technology and the Internet of things.

"You trim the branches on the tree so the tree can be as strong as possible," McAdam said at the UBS telecom, media and technology conference in New York on Tuesday.

McAdam likened the sale of 29 data centers to the $10.54 billion sale of landline telecom operations in California, Florida and Texas to Frontier Communications ( (FTR) ) earlier this year. Verizon has invested in digital content and advertising with the $4.4 billion purchase of AOL Inc. and the pending $4.8 billion purchase of Yahoo! ( (YHOO) ). The New York telecom has also invested in telematics, or technology that tracks vehicles, with the the $2.4 billion acquisition Fleetmatics Group ( (FLTX) ) and the purchase of Teleogis Inc., both announced this summer.

"We'll look for opportunities [to sell assets] where we are subscale and put the money into an area where we think we can scale because in our business cost, your cost structure is absolutely critical to long-term success," McAdam said.

The Deal reported in early December 2015 that Verizon had received interest for its data centers and that the sale process was imminent. The auction played out this year, alongside a data center auction by CenturyLink ( (CTL) ) that concluded with the $2.3 billion sale to a group led by BC Partners Ltd. and Medina Capital Advisors.

Equinix is paying 13 times Ebitda, according to UBS, which is higher than 12 times Ebitda that CenturyLink recieved. However, it is less than the 14.9 times that Verizon paid in its $1.9 billion purchase

Terramark Worldwide

, which accounted for a large chunk of the telecom's data center portfolio.

Equinix CEO Stephen Smith told investors during an call that the company would establish a presence in Bogota, Colombia; Culpeper, Va.; and Houston. The deal also strengthens Equinix's portfolio in Atlanta, Denver, New York, Seattle and Silicon Valley.

The four data centers inCulpepper, Va. will help Equinix sell to government agencies.

Houston has long been on the buyer's wish list, the company's Americas President Karl Strohmeyer said. "Not only is it a very large enterprise-headquartered market for us, but, of course, it has the oil and gas sector which is a sector that we've seen nice traction with, without having the facility in the market," Strohmeyer said. "And we think having a campus there will be a significant advantage for that particular sector and the opportunity for growth there."

Verizon and Equinix plan to close the deal in mid-2017.
The following companies are subsidiares of Ecolab: AO Ecolab, Abednego Environmental Services, Abednego Environmental Services LLC, Abednego Mexico Holdings LLC, Abednego de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Alcide Corp., Anios America S.A., Anios Diffusion SAS, Anios Manufacturing SAS, Aqua Environmental Limited, Bioquell, Bioquell Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Bioquell Global Logistics (Ireland) Ltd., Bioquell Holding SAS, Bioquell Inc., Bioquell Limited, Bioquell SAS, Bioquell Technology (Shenzhen) Ltd., Bioquell Technology Canada Ltd., Bioquell UK Limited, Bro-Tech Limited, CALGON LLC, CID LINES NV, CID Lines, CID Lines Beijing Animal Hygiene Co Ltd., CID Lines France Sarl, CID Lines Iberica SL, CID Lines LLC, CID Lines Mexico S.A. DE C.V., CID Lines R&D NV, CID Lines Sp. z o. o., CORPAK MedSystems, Cascade Water Services, Champion Technologies, Chamtech L.L.C., Chemlawn, Chemstar Corporation, Cirlam BVBA, Copal Holding NV, Copal Invest NV, Cymru Holdings Limited, DERYPOL SA, DMD, E&M Bio-Chemicals LLC, ECOLAB NL 10 B.V., ECOLAB PEST FRANCE SAS, EPN Water Col Ltd., Ecolab (Antigua) Ltd., Ecolab (Aruba) N.V., Ecolab (Barbados) Limited, Ecolab (China) Investment Co. Ltd, Ecolab (Fiji) Pty Limited, Ecolab (GZ) Chemicals Limited, Ecolab (Guam) LLC, Ecolab (Proprietary) Limited, Ecolab (Schweiz) GmbH, Ecolab (St. Lucia) Limited, Ecolab (Taicang) Technology Co. Ltd., Ecolab (Trinidad and Tobago) Unlimited, Ecolab (U.K.) Holdings Limited, Ecolab A.E.B.E., Ecolab AB, Ecolab AU2 Pty Ltd, Ecolab Acquisition LLC, Ecolab ApS, Ecolab Argentina S.R.L., Ecolab Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Ecolab B.V., Ecolab Bahrain S.P.C., Ecolab CDN 2 Co., Ecolab CDN 4 ULC, Ecolab CH 1 GmbH, Ecolab CH 2 GmbH, Ecolab CH 3 GmbH in Liquidation, Ecolab CH 6 GmbH, Ecolab Chemicals Limited, Ecolab Co. Compagnie Ecolab, Ecolab Colombia S. A., Ecolab DE 1 GmbH, Ecolab Deutschland GmbH, Ecolab Digital Center Private Limited, Ecolab EOOD, Ecolab East Africa (Kenya) Limited, Ecolab East Africa (Tanzania) Limited, Ecolab East Africa (Uganda) Limited, Ecolab Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Ecolab Engineering GmbH, Ecolab Europe GmbH, Ecolab Export GmbH, Ecolab FR 1 SAS, Ecolab FR 4 SAS, Ecolab Finance Company Designated Activity Company, Ecolab Food Safety & Hygiene Solutions Private Limited, Ecolab G.K., Ecolab Global Business Services LLC, Ecolab GmbH, Ecolab Gulf FZE, Ecolab HK 1 Limited, Ecolab HK 2 Limited, Ecolab Hispano-Portuguesa S.L., Ecolab Holding Italy S.r.l., Ecolab Holdings (Europe) LLC, Ecolab Holdings Inc., Ecolab Holdings Mexico S. de R. L. de C. V., Ecolab Hygiene Kft., Ecolab Hygiene d.o.o., Ecolab International SDN BHD, Ecolab Israel Holdings LLC, Ecolab JVZ Limited, Ecolab Korea Ltd., Ecolab LLC, Ecolab LUX & Co Holdings S.C.A., Ecolab LUX 1 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 2 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 4 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 7 Sarl, Ecolab LUX Sarl, Ecolab Limited, Ecolab Ltd., Ecolab Lux 10 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 12 SCA, Ecolab Lux 13 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 14 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 15 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 16 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 17 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 9 Sarl, Ecolab Lux Partner LLC, Ecolab MT Holdings LLC, Ecolab MT Limited, Ecolab Malta 1 Limited, Ecolab Malta 2 Limited, Ecolab Malta GPS, Ecolab Manufacturing IE Limited, Ecolab Manufacturing Inc., Ecolab Manufacturing UK Limited, Ecolab Maroc Societe a Responsabilite Limitee, Ecolab NL 11 B.V., Ecolab NL 15 BV, Ecolab NL 16 B.V., Ecolab NL 23 B.V., Ecolab NL 3 BV, Ecolab Name Holding Limited, Ecolab New Zealand, Ecolab Peru Holdings S.R.L., Ecolab Pest Deutschland GmbH, Ecolab Philippines Inc., Ecolab Production Belgium B.V., Ecolab Production France SAS, Ecolab Production Italy Srl, Ecolab Production LLC, Ecolab Production Netherlands B.V., Ecolab Production Poland sp. z o.o., Ecolab Pte. Ltd., Ecolab Pty Ltd., Ecolab Quimica Ltda., Ecolab S. de R.L. de C.V., Ecolab S.A., Ecolab S.A. de C.V., Ecolab SAS, Ecolab SIA, Ecolab SNC, Ecolab SRL, Ecolab Sdn Bhd, Ecolab Services Argentina S.R.L., Ecolab Services Malaysia SDN. BHD., Ecolab Services Poland Sp. z o, Ecolab Sociedad Anonima, Ecolab Sp. z o, Ecolab Spain Services S.L.U., Ecolab Temizleme Sistemleri Limited Sirketi, Ecolab U.S. 2 Inc., Ecolab U.S. 6 LLC, Ecolab U.S. 7 LLC, Ecolab US 1 GP, Ecolab USA Inc., Ecolab Viet Nam Company Limited, Ecolab Water Holding LImited, Ecolab a.s., Ecolab d.o.o., Ecolab s.r.l., Ecolab s.r.o., Ecolab y Compania Colectiva de Responsabilidad Limitada, Ecolab-Importacao E. Exportacao Limitada, Ecolabone B.V., Ecolabtwo B.V., Endoclear Equipamentos Medicos Hospitalares Ltda., Enviroflo Engineering Limited, Food Protection Services, GCS Service, Gallay Medical & Scientific Pty Ltd, Gallay Medical & Scientific Pty Ltd., GallayTrac Pty. Ltd., Georgia-Pacific - Paper Chemicals Business, Gibson Chemical Industries, Green Harbour Mainland Holdings Ltd, Henkel-Ecolab, Hicopla SL, Holchem Laboratories, Huntington Laboratories, Hydenet SAS, INTERNATIONAL WATER CONSULTANT B.V., Immobiliare R.E.O.P.A. SRL, Instrunet Hospital SLU, Jianghai Environmental Protection Co., Jianghai Environmental Protection Co. Ltd., KATAYAMA NALCO INC., Kay BV, Kay Chemical Company, LHS (UK) Limited, Laboratoires Anios, Laboratoires Anios S.A.S., Laboratoires Anios-Distribution SAS, Les Produits Chimiques ERPAC Inc., Lobster Ink, Lobster Ink Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Lobster International S.A., MOBOTEC AB LLC, Master Chemicals OOO, Meratech Rus Group LLC, Microtek Dominicana S.A., Microtek Italy S.R.L., Microtek Medical B.V., Microtek Medical Holdings, Microtek Medical Holdings Inc., Microtek Medical Inc., Microtek Medical Malta Holding Limited, Microtek Medical Malta Limited, Midland Research Laboratories, NALCO (SHANGHAI) TRADING CO. LTD., NALCO AB, NALCO ACQUISITION ONE, NALCO ACQUISITION TWO LIMITED, NALCO AFRICA (PTY.) LTD., NALCO ASIA HOLDING COMPANY PTE. LTD., NALCO BELGIUM B.V., NALCO CHINA HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO COMPANY OOO, NALCO DANMARK APS, NALCO DE MEXICO S. de R. L. de C.V., NALCO DELAWARE COMPANY, NALCO DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, NALCO DUTCH HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO EGYPT LTD., NALCO EGYPT TRADING, NALCO ESPANOLA MANUFACTURING S.L.U., NALCO ESPANOLA S.L., NALCO EUROPE B.V., NALCO FINLAND MANUFACTURING OY, NALCO FINLAND OY, NALCO FRANCE SAS, NALCO FRANCE SNC, NALCO GLOBAL HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO GLOBAL HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO HOLDING B.V., NALCO HOLDING COMPANY, NALCO HOLDINGS G.m.b.H., NALCO HOLDINGS UK LIMITED, NALCO HONG KONG LIMITED, NALCO INDUSTRIAL OUTSOURCING COMPANY, NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (NANJING) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (THAILAND) CO. 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. Ltd., Nalco Anadolu Kimya Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Nalco Canada ULC, Nalco Company LLC (1), Nalco Contract Operations LLC, Nalco Deutschland Manufacturing GmbH, Nalco Japan G.K., Nalco Libya, Nalco Middle East FZE, Nalco Polska Sp. z o. o., Nalco Production LLC, Nalco Real Estate GmbH, Nalco Schweiz GmbH, Nalco US 1 LLC, Nalco Wastewater Contract Operations Inc., Nalco Water India Private Limited, Nalco Water Pretreatment Solutions LLC, Nalco Worldwide Holdings S.a.r.l./B.V., National Wiper Alliance Inc., Nigiko, Nuova Farmec S.r.l., Oksa Kimya Sanayi A.S., Oy Ecolab AB, PT Ecolab International Indonesia, PT Ecolab Technologies and Services, Purate business - AkzoNobel, Purolite, Purolite (China) Co. Ltd., Purolite (Int.) Ltd, Purolite (Pty) Ltd, Purolite AG, Purolite GmbH, Purolite Ileri Kimyasal Ticaret Ltd, Purolite KK, Purolite LLC, Purolite Ltd, Purolite NZ Limited, Purolite Private Limited, Purolite Pte. Ltd., Purolite Pty Ltd, Purolite S. de R.L. de C.V., Purolite SAS, Purolite SRL, Purolite do Brasil Ltda, Purolite s.r.o., Purolite sp. z o.o., Purolite C Corporation, QazSorbent LLP, Quantum Technical Services LLC, Quimicas Ecolab S.A. de C.V., Quimiproductos S.A. de C.V, RP Adam Ltd, Research Fumigation Co., Royal Pest Solutions, Shield Holdings Limited, Shield Medicare Limited, Soluscope International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Soluscope SAS, Swisher Hygiene, TechTex Holdings Limited, Technical Textile Services Limited, Terminix, Ultrafab, VanBaele Hygiene AG, Wabasha Leasing LLC, Zhe Jiang Purosoft Home Appliances Sale Co Ltd, and vanBaerle Hygiene AG.

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Reforms at Sagarmatha hospital: Lone crusader in hunger strike for past 14 days

The hunger strike of Bikas Tiwari, Chairman of Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Gajendrabadi), demanding reforms in services of Gajendra Narayan Singh Sagarmatha Zonal Hospital in Rajbiraj, the district headquarters of Saptari, has entered 14th day on Tuesday.
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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PulteGroup, Inc., through its subsidiaries, primarily engages in the homebuilding business in the United States. It acquires and develops land primarily for residential purposes; and constructs housing on such land. The company also offers various home designs, including single-family detached, townhomes, condominiums, and duplexes under the Centex, Pulte Homes, Del Webb, DiVosta Homes, American West, and John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods brand names. As of December 31, 2021, it controlled 228,296 lots, of which 109,078 were owned and 119,218 were under land option agreements. In addition, the company arranges financing through the origination of mortgage loans primarily for homebuyers; sells the servicing rights for the originated loans; and provides title insurance policies, and examination and closing services to homebuyers. PulteGroup, Inc. was formerly known as Pulte Homes, Inc. and changed its name to PulteGroup, Inc. in March 2010. The company was founded in 1950 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
In August of 2016, torrential downpours caused catastrophic flooding across Southern Louisiana. It dropped the equivalent of 7.1 trillion gallons of water, devastating parishes across the state. Louisianaians were salvaging what they could from the disaster, while scrambling to find a way to prepare their kids for the first day of school. Many low income residents did not have the financial means to replace their kids school supplies lost in the flooding.

Team Comeback Kids raced against the clock, rallying to help their neighbors. In a matter of a month, they delivered over one million dollars in school supplies to kids across Louisiana in time for their first day at school. Delivering over 9,500 backpacks across the state with no time to spare is a logistical endeavor as much as it is an altruistic one. Comeback Kids used Twilio SMS, powered by Twilio.org, to assemble and empower volunteer squad to help the kids of Louisiana.

A Fantastic Opportunity (Presented in the Form of a Logistical Nightmare)



Pallets of school supplies arrived at New Orleans Saints star Thomas Morsteads charity What You Give Will Grow (WYGWG). Team Comeback Kids, a division of WYGWG, had a plan to get the much-needed supplies to kids, but they didnt have the manpower. The stockpile of supplies had to be distributed in one weekend. It was Friday.

Team Comeback kids sent one SMS blast to their volunteers that Friday. Ten minutes later, they had the 30 volunteers they needed. By the end of the weekend, those supplies were out of their headquarters and in the hands of kids.

Dennis Lomonaco, Executive Director of WYGWG, sent the text blast to volunteers himself, calling it a eureka moment.

Ten minutes later we were set, said Lomonaco. That would have never happened with email.

Mobilizing an Army of Volunteers

The texting platform allowed us to get near 100% open rates and responses within minutes of sending. With email, our open rates were never close to that high, and even when they did get read, it could take a day or more, said Lomonaco.

Using the Frontline SMS platform, powered by Twilio, Dennis can send SMS to curated lists of volunteers without having to write a line of code. A lot of nonprofit work we do is limited by the tech stack we have available, says Lomonaco. The Frontline SMS platform put the Twilio API in reach for Lomonaco.

Now that kids affected by the flood are back in school, fully equipped with desperately needed supplies, Lomonaco is shifting his focus. With his other venture, Story Block Media, he is aiming to give nonprofits access to the tools they need to help others with a quickness.

We want to create a one stop shop for nonprofits to communicate with the donors and volunteers and all the people they need to talk to, says Dennis. Communication is the biggest struggle for nonprofits in or out of disasters.
The Posts Rosalind S. Helderman explores the details behind the announcement that President-elect Donald Trump sold all his shares in companies in June. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

The Posts Rosalind S. Helderman explores the details behind the announcement that President-elect Donald Trump sold all his shares in companies in June. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

President-elect Donald Trump sold all his shares in companies in June, his spokesman said Tuesday, a move that could have created a cash windfall as he ramped up to begin a costly general election presidential campaign that at the time he claimed he would personally support with major contributions.

The sell-off could help address conflict-of-interest worries about his stock portfolio, a sizable part of Trumps financial life that was worth roughly as much as $40 million as of December 2015, a May disclosure filing shows.

Trumps stock portfolio, the May filing shows, included shares in a number of banks, oil giants and other companies with business pending before the U.S. government and whose value could rise due to Trumps decisions in office.

Those stock holdings, ethics advisers said, offered a potentially troublesome facet of Trumps private finances that could entangle his public decision-making. Beyond comments to The Post, Trump representatives have not provided records of stock transactions or other details since the May filing.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller, who told The Post about Trumps stock sale Tuesday morning, did not immediately answer why Trump had sold the shares, how much he sold them for, or whether he has bought anything since. Trump will not be required by law to file another personal financial disclosure until May 2018.

Donald Trump has a lot of potential conflicts of interest as president  but there's no law that specifically requires a commander in chief to remove themselves from all of their business interests. The Fix's Peter W. Stevenson explains why presidents usually put their assets in a "blind trust" to avoid problems. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

[Trumps stock holdings may give him a personal stake in rules on banks and oil firms]

Trumps campaign had given no indication of the sale in the five months since it apparently took place in June. As president, Trump will be subject to the STOCK Act, a law passed in 2012 that requires elected officials, including the president, to publicly disclose any stock transactions worth at least $1,000 within 45 days.

Trump has refused to release his tax returns, which would provide more detailed information about his financial holdings.

Trumps stock portfolio, which is separate from his broader real estate and branding businesses, included stocks and bonds invested in companies such as Apple, AT&T, ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs.

The June stock sale would have coincided with a point when Trump was pouring money into his presidential campaign. During the Republican primary, Trump loaned his campaign $47 million of his own money. In June, as the general election began, he formally forgave the loan and began making cash infusions to his campaign, first donating $2 million on June 22.

Trump then gave $2 million a month between July and August before donating $10 million in October. Much of Trumps campaign was ultimately funded by other donors. In all, Trump gave his campaign $66 million, federal filings show  short of the $100 million that he repeatedly claimed he was spending on his race.

Miller, the Trump spokesman, told The Post about Trumps stock sale Tuesday morning, following Trumps criticism of aviation giant Boeing.

Trump tweeted that Boeings federal contract to build new Air Force One jets should be cancelled because costs had gone out of control. Trump was once a company shareholder, tweeting in January 2013 that @Boeing stock went way down because of 787- so I just bought stock in @Boeing- great company!

Trump reported owning between $50,000 and $100,000 of Boeing stock in the May filing. In the three years between Trumps original tweet about buying Boeing stock and June 2016, Boeings share price climbed about 70 percent.

Trump has tweeted that he will separate from his own business, the Trump Organization, but has provided no additional details other than promising to hold a press event on Dec. 15 to outline his plans.

[Citing high cost, Trump says Boeings contract to build Air Force One should be canceled]

Trump told Fox Business News in August that he was dumping stocks because he predicted the market was crashing, saying, I did invest, and I got out, and it was actually very good timing. Despite Trumps August comments, stock prices have generally been on the rise since June.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Post last month that Trump had in June also sold his shares in Energy Transfer Partners, the majority stakeholder in the $3.7 billion Dakota Access pipeline project that has drawn protests from environmentalists and Native Americans.

The Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday it would not allow the oil pipeline to be drilled further near a Standing Rock Sioux reservation, but Trump has said he supported completing the pipeline. The companys chief executive was a major campaign donor to Trump, but its stock had declined in value in the face of protests.

Trump said in a financial filing released in May 2015 that he owned between $500,000 and $1 million worth of stock in Energy Transfer Partners. By May 2016, when Trump updated his annual filing, the value of the holding had fallen to less than $50,000.

Norm Eisen, who served as ethics counselor to President Obama and has criticized Trump over his conflicts, said it would be absolutely a step in the right direction if Trump had sold his stock holdings in June, divesting himself of ownership in companies whose fates could be tied to his policies. But he added that it is now important to know how Trump spent the money he earned from the sale.

We need to know, has he put them in conflict free assets ... or has he bought other stocks or assets that would create new conflicts? he asked. Its all the more reason that we need a prompt and full financial disclosure. If he did liquidate all his stocks, what did he do with the money? What bank is the money in? What did he buy? Its a lot of money.

He called this the latest example of the tension between Trumps promise to drain the swamp and how he has managed his own business conflicts. The swamp draining should begin with Trumps own wetlands, Eisen said.

Matea Gold contributed to this report.
Road projects under Indian LoC moving at snails pace

The progress of the road projects under the Indian Line of Credit (LoC) is far from satisfactory, largely due to delay in project preparation and land acquisition on the part of Nepali side and delayed approval from the Indian side.
Before Morning, by Joyce Sidman and Beth Krommes (HMH Books for Young Readers)

In the opening pages of Before Morning (HMH, Ages 4-7) the late-autumn sky is heavy with gray clouds. The city streets are busy, and houses glow with warmth as evening gathers. A child hurries home with her mother and stops at the sight of a flight bag and pilots hat near the door. You can sense her disappoint-ment as her mother prepares to leave for work. Joyce Sidmans graceful, rhyming words fill the air while Beth Krommess rich illustrations show the last autumn leaves giving way to snow crystals, and a gradual thickening and quieting of the streets. Small scenes of activity  the child sleeping, a parent reading nearby, the bus on its way to the airport  are surrounded by the bigger scene of the sky changing and the snow gathering on trees and sidewalks and cars. The runways are filled with snow, flights are canceled and a lone plow makes its way through the night, with a passenger headed for home. A childs wish for a snow day comes true, with cupcakes and a family toboggan ride. This is a comforting and deeply satisfying book to read with a child and a celebration of a bit of magic that winter can offer: a gift of time.

 Kathie Meizner

[Best childrens and young-adult books of 2016]

Radiant Child by Javaka Steptoe (Little Brown)

From its vibrant cover to its thoughtful endnotes, Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (Little Brown, Ages 6-9) deftly introduces kids to one of the most influential painters of the late 20th century. Focusing on Basquiats creative drive and distinctive vision, author and illustrator Javaka Steptoe begins this picture book in a Brooklyn apartment. Here young Jean-Michel draws all the time  with a serious face amid a storm of papers. Steptoes art works in a style thats inspired by Basquiats but not limited by it; the opening double-page spreads contrast the budding artists unrelenting focus with the bold colors around him. Steptoes text is concise and illuminating, as when discussing Basquiats great influences, such as his mother, Matilde, who showed him that art is not only in the poetry books she reads to him or in the theaters and museums they visit. Basquiat was also deeply affected by a childhood car accident and the mental deterioration of his mother. Steptoe handles both in a sensitive and straightforward way. The book concludes with Basquiats move from spray-painting on New York City streets to displaying his art on gallery walls; his drug addiction and death at age 27 are addressed with care. Peppered with Basquiat motifs  crowns, eyes and cars  this openhearted book wonderfully honors the life Basquiat had and the radiant work he created.

 Abby McGanney Nolan

The Sun Is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon (Delacorte)

A National Book Award finalist, The Sun Is Also a Star (Delacorte, Ages 12 and up) tells the riveting story of a day in the life of its endearing main characters, Natasha Kingsley and Daniel Jae Ho Bae. The two meet accidentally and then get to know each other as they crisscross New York City in a whirlwind of appointments, errands and museum visits. Sound like frothy rom-com fun? The story is playful and tender, yes, but this second novel (following Everything, Everything) by Nicola Yoon is timely and penetrating as well. This is no ordinary day. Natasha is a pragmatic, science-minded high school senior whose family faces deportation to Jamaica that evening unless she can persuade the authorities to hold off. Daniel balks at the Ivy League medical track mapped for him by his stern immigrant father but cant imagine a different course. The narrative alternates first-person vignettes but also contains reflections from the two fathers, a grieving driver and a lonely security guard. This wider view reminds us that actions  large and small, hurtful and kind  can have a rippling effect upon the world. Love always changes everything, including readers who will follow this bittersweet story right to its surprising end.
Peter Vaughan, a British character actor whose doughy features made him adept at playing villains and avuncular figures alike and who gained recent attention as the enigmatic blind scholar Maester Aemon on the HBO series Game of Thrones, died Dec. 6 in England. He was 93.

His agent, Sally Long-Innes, confirmed the death but did not provide the cause.

Mr. Vaughans face  if not his name  was familiar to generations of television viewers in Britain and around the world. His best-known roles included criminal Harry Grout in the 1970s prison sitcom Porridge.

Peter Ewart Ohm was born in Wem, England, on April 4, 1923, and he grew up in Wellington. After Army service in Normandy, Belgium and the Far East, he returned to a budding career in repertory theaters. His breakthrough was in the 1964 original West End staging of Joe Ortons convention-flouting comedy Entertaining Mr. Sloane.

That same year, Mr. Vaughan had a rare leading screen role, playing an insurance investigator in the 1964 mystery Smokescreen. Mostly he thrived in supporting parts, often sinister roles like a menacing butler in Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), starring Tallulah Bankhead, and a thug in the smuggling drama A Twist of Sand (1968) featuring Richard Johnson and Honor Blackman.

Actress Joanna Lumley, left, and actor Peter Vaughan, in 1998. (Fiona Hanson/Associated Press)

Mr. Vaughan also played a British spy in The Naked Runner (1967), opposite Frank Sinatra, and had notable parts in Sam Peckinpahs violent Straw Dogs (1971) and director Karel Reiszs The French Lieutenants Woman (1981). Filmmaker Terry Gilliam cast him as Winston the Ogre in Time Bandits (1981) and as an information minister in the futuristic Brazil (1985). One of his most poignant turns was as the aged and infirm butler (and father of Anthony Hopkinss head butler) who suffers a humiliating end to his career in The Remains of the Day (1993).

Mr. Vaughan was a fixture on BBC radio and TV costume dramas; he also played an aging Labour Party leader with dementia in the nine-part televised drama Our Friends in the North (1996). He gained particular renown onstage for playing hardened men, including a racist juror in a production of Twelve Angry Men, directed by playwright Harold Pinter. His vast range included plays by Anton Chekhov, Arthur Miller and Alan Ayckbourn, seldom in heroic parts.

In terms of the parts I played, Mr. Vaughan once said, I think my face had more to do with it. Clearly I wasnt ever going to play romantic leads.

His first marriage, to actress Billie Whitelaw, a mainstay of Samuel Beckett plays, ended in divorce. He later married actress Lillias Walker. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.
The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste, according to findings by The Washington Post. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post.

Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

The report, issued in January 2015, identified a clear path for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel of corporate executives, and consultants from McKinsey and Company. Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management.





[The Defense Business Boards 2015 study on how the Pentagon could save $125 billion]

The data showed that the Defense Department was paying a staggering number of people  1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel  to fill back-office jobs far from the front lines. That workforce supports 1.3 million troops on active duty, the fewest since 1940.

The cost-cutting study could find a receptive audience with President-elect Donald Trump. He has promised a major military buildup and said he would pay for it by eliminating government waste and budget gimmicks.

Robert Bobby L. Stein, former chairman of the Defense Business Board. He serves as managing director of Chartwell Capital Management and president of the Regency Group. (Thomas Hager/Courtesy of Chartwell Capital Management)

For the military, the major allure of the study was that it called for reallocating the $125 billion for troops and weapons. Among other options, the savings could have paid a large portion of the bill to rebuild the nations aging nuclear arsenal, or the operating expenses for 50 Army brigades.

But some Pentagon leaders said they fretted that by spotlighting so much waste, the study would undermine their repeated public assertions that years of budget austerity had left the armed forces starved of funds. Instead of providing more money, they said, they worried Congress and the White House might decide to cut deeper.

So the plan was killed. The Pentagon imposed secrecy restrictions on the data making up the study, which ensured no one could replicate the findings. A 77-page summary report that had been made public was removed from a Pentagon website.

Theyre all complaining that they dont have any money. We proposed a way to save a ton of money, said Robert Bobby L. Stein, a private-equity investor from Jacksonville, Fla., who served as chairman of the Defense Business Board.

Stein, a campaign bundler for President Obama, said the studys data were indisputable and that it was a travesty for the Pentagon to suppress the results.

Were going to be in peril because were spending dollars like it doesnt matter, he added.

The missed opportunity to streamline the military bureaucracy could soon have large ramifications. Under the 2011 Budget Control Act, the Pentagon will be forced to stomach $113 billion in automatic cuts over four years unless Congress and Trump can agree on a long-term spending deal by October. Playing a key role in negotiations will probably be Trumps choice for defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis.

The Defense Business Board was ordered to conduct the study by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, the Pentagons second-highest-ranking official. At first, Work publicly touted the efficiency drive as a top priority and boasted about his idea to recruit corporate experts to lead the way.

After the board finished its analysis, however, Work changed his position. In an interview with The Post, he did not dispute the boards findings about the size or scope of the bureaucracy. But he dismissed the $125 billion savings proposal as unrealistic and said the business executives had failed to grasp basic obstacles to restructuring the public sector.

The Post's Craig Whitlock discusses the $125 billion in administrative waste, as well as its implications for the Pentagon and Congress. (The Washington Post)

There is this meme that were some bloated, giant organization, he said. Although there is a little bit of truth in that . . . I think it vastly overstates whats really going on.

Work said the board fundamentally misunderstood how difficult it is to eliminate federal civil service jobs  members of Congress, he added, love having them in their districts  or to renegotiate defense contracts.

He said the Pentagon is adopting some of the studys recommendations on a smaller scale and estimated it will save $30 billion by 2020. Many of the programs he cited, however, have been on the drawing board for years or were unrelated to the Defense Business Boards research.

Work acknowledged that the push to improve business operations lost steam after then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was replaced by Ashton B. Carter in February 2015. Carter has emphasized other goals, such as strengthening the Pentagons partnerships with high-tech firms.

We will never be as efficient as a commercial organization, Work said. Were the largest bureaucracy in the world. Theres going to be some inherent inefficiencies in that.

Dark matter

Work, a retired Marine officer, became deputy defense secretary in May 2014. With the military budget under the most pressure since the end of the Cold War, he sought help from the Defense Business Board, an advisory panel known for producing management studies that usually gathered dust.

Work told the board that the outcome of this assignment would be different. In a memo, he directed the board to collect sensitive cost data from the military services and defense agencies that would reveal how much they spent on business operations.





Pentagon officials knew their back-office bureaucracy was overstaffed and overfunded. But nobody had ever gathered and analyzed such a comprehensive set of data before.

Some Defense Business Board members warned that exposing the extent of the problem could have unforeseen consequences.

You are about to turn on the light in a very dark room, Kenneth Klepper, the former chief executive of Medco Health Solutions, told Work in the summer of 2014, according to two people familiar with the exchange. All the crap is going to float to the surface and stink the place up.

Do it, Work replied.

To turn on the light, the Pentagon needed more outside expertise. A team of consultants from McKinsey was hired.

In a confidential August 2014 memo, McKinsey noted that while the Defense Department was the worlds largest corporate enterprise, it had never rigorously measured the cost-effectiveness, speed, agility or quality of its business operations.

Nor did the Pentagon have even a remotely accurate idea of what it was paying for those operations, which McKinsey divided into five categories: human resources; health-care management; supply chain and logistics; acquisition and procurement; and financial-flow management.

McKinsey hazarded a guess: anywhere between $75 billion and $100 billion a year, or between 15 and 20 percent of the Pentagons annual expenses. No one REALLY knows, the memo added.

The mission would be to analyze, for the first time, dozens of databases that tracked civilian and military personnel, and labor costs for defense contractors. The problem was that the databases were in the grip of the armed forces and a multitude of defense agencies. Many had fought to hide the data from outsiders and bureaucratic rivals, according to documents and interviews.

Information on contractor labor, in particular, was so cloaked in mystery that McKinsey described it as dark matter.

Prying it loose would require direct orders from Work. Even then, McKinsey consultants predicted the bureaucracy would resist.

This is a sensitive exercise conducted with audiences both weary and wary of efficiency, cost, sequestration and budget drills, the confidential memo stated. Elements of the culture are masterful at waiting out studies and sponsors, with a this too shall pass mindset.

Overstaffed chow hall

From the outset, access to the data was limited to a handful of people. A $2.9 million consulting contract signed by the Pentagon stipulated that none of the data or analysis could be released to the news media or the public.

Moreover, the contract required McKinsey to report to David Tillotson III, the Pentagons acting deputy chief management officer. Anytime the Defense Business Board wanted the consultants to carry out a task, Tillotson would have to approve. His office  not the board  would maintain custody of the data.

Good news! Work emailed Tillotson once the contract was signed. Time to cook.

In an Oct. 15, 2014, memo, Work ordered the board to move quickly, giving it three months to produce specific and actionable recommendations.

In a speech the next month, Work lauded the board for its private-sector expertise. He said he had turned it into an operational arm of the Pentagon leadership and predicted the study would deliver transformational results.

In an aside, he revealed that early findings had determined the average administrative job at the Pentagon was costing taxpayers more than $200,000, including salary and benefits.

And you say, hmmm, we could probably do better than that, he said.

The initial results did not come as a surprise.

Former defense secretaries William S. Cohen, Robert M. Gates and Chuck Hagel had launched similar efficiency drives in 1997, 2010 and 2013, respectively. But each of the leaders left the Pentagon before their revisions could take root.

Because we turn over our secretaries and deputy secretaries so often, the bureaucracy just waits things out, said Dov Zakheim, who served as Pentagon comptroller under President George W. Bush. You cant do it at the tail end of an administration. Its not going to work. Either you leave the starting block with a very clear program, or youre not going to get it done.

Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine general and former staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers block even modest attempts to downsize the Pentagons workforce because they do not want to lose jobs in their districts.

Without backing from Congress, you cant even get rid of the guy serving butter in the chow hall in a local district, much less tens of thousands of jobs, he said.



Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, the Pentagons second-highest-ranking official, ordered the Defense Business Board to conduct the study. (Kate Patterson/for The Washington Post)

Time to hunt!

The Defense Business Board assigned five members to conduct the study alongside consultants from McKinsey. Scott Rutherford, senior partner at McKinseys Washington office, declined to comment.

The team ran into resistance as several Pentagon offices delayed requests for data, according to emails and memos. Work and Tillotson had to intervene to get the data flowing. At one point, more than 100 people were feeding data from different sectors of the bureaucracy.

Laboring under its tight deadline, the team hashed out an agreement with Pentagon officials over which job classifications to count in their survey. The board added a sixth category of business operations  real property management. That alone covered 192,000 jobs and annual expenses of $22.6 billion.

On Christmas Eve, Klepper emailed Work and Tillotson to thank them for putting their muscle behind the project. Without it, he said, this would all have been DOA and the naysayers would all have been right.

He hinted the board would make some eye-catching recommendations and expressed relief its work had not been torpedoed.

I have to admit, with all the caution, negative reaction and pushback, Klepper said, I had a bit of concern at the end of the analysis some form of censorship would stop us from showing the true opportunity.

Work replied that he could not be happier.

Time to hunt! he said in an email, adding that he was very excited about 2015 and ready to make some bold moves.

The year kicked off with promise. On Jan. 21, 2015, the Pentagon announced Stein, the private-equity investor, had been reappointed as the boards chairman and praised him for his outstanding service.

The next day, the full board held its quarterly public meeting to review the results of the study. The report had a dry title, Transforming DoDs Core Business Processes for Revolutionary Change, and was packed with charts and jargon. But it began plainly enough.

We are spending a lot more money than we thought, the report stated. It then broke down how the Defense Department was spending $134 billion a year on business operations  about 50 percent more than McKinsey had guessed at the outset.

Almost half of the Pentagons back-office personnel  457,000 full-time employees  were assigned to logistics or supply-chain jobs. That alone exceeded the size of United Parcel Services global workforce.

The Pentagons purchasing bureaucracy counted 207,000 full-time workers. By itself, that would rank among the top 30 private employers in the United States.

More than 192,000 people worked in property management. About 84,000 people held human-resources jobs.

The study laid out a range of options. At the low end, just by renegotiating service contracts and hiring less-expensive workers, the Pentagon could save $75 billion over five years. At the high end, by adopting more aggressive productivity targets, it could save twice as much.

After a discussion, the full board voted to recommend a middle option: to save $125 billion over five years.

Hordes of contractors

Afterward, board members briefed Work. They were expecting an enthusiastic response, but the deputy defense secretary looked uneasy, according to two people who were present.

He singled out a page in the report. Titled Warfighter Currency, it showed how saving $125 billion could be redirected to boost combat power. The money could cover the operational costs for 50 Army brigades, or 3,000 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the Air Force, or 10 aircraft-carrier strike groups for the Navy.

This is what scares me, he said, according to the two people present. Work explained he was worried Congress might see it as an invitation to strip $125 billion from the defense budget and spend it somewhere else.

A few weeks later, Carter replaced Hagel as defense secretary. Carter sounded as though he would welcome the kind of revolutionary change the board was urging.

To win support from our fellow citizens for the resources we need, we must show that we can make better use of every taxpayer dollar, Carter said in an inaugural message in February 2015. That means a leaner organization, less overhead, and reforming our business and acquisition practices.

In briefings that month, uniformed military leaders were receptive at first. They had long groused that the Pentagon wasted money on a layer of defense bureaucracies  known as the Fourth Estate  that were outside the control of the Army, Air Force and Navy. Military officials often felt those agencies performed duplicative services and oversight.

But the McKinsey consultants had also collected data that exposed how the military services themselves were spending princely sums to hire hordes of defense contractors.

For example, the Army employed 199,661 full-time contractors, according to a confidential McKinsey report obtained by The Post. That alone exceeded the combined civil workforce for the Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development.

The average cost to the Army for each contractor that year: $189,188, including salary, benefits and other expenses.

The Navy was not much better. It had 197,093 contractors on its payroll. On average, each cost $170,865.

In comparison, the Air Force had 122,470 contractors. Each cost, on average, $186,142.



Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has emphasized goals such as strengthening the Pentagons partnerships with high-tech firms. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Taking fire

Meantime, the backlash to the $125 billion savings plan intensified.

On Feb. 6, 2015, board members briefed Frank Kendall III, the Pentagons chief weapons-buyer. Kendalls operations were a major target of the study; he oversaw an empire of purchasing agents and contractors that were constantly under attack from Congress for cost overruns and delays.

Kendall put up a stiff fight. He challenged the boards data and strenuously objected to the conclusion that his offices were overstaffed.

Are you trying to tell me we dont know how to do our job? he said, according to two participants in the meeting. He said he needed to hire 1,000 more people to work directly under him, not fewer.

If you dont believe me, call in an auditor, replied Klepper, the boards restructuring expert. Theyll tell you its even worse than this.

In an interview, Kendall acknowledged he was very disappointed by the boards work, which he criticized as shallow and very low on content. He said the study had ignored efforts by his agencies to become more efficient, and he accused the board of plucking the $125 billion figure out of thin air.

It was essentially a ballpark, made-up number, he said.

Still, Kendall knew that lawmakers might view the study as credible. Alarmed, he said, he went to Work and warned that the findings could be used as a weapon against the Pentagon.

If the impression thats created is that weve got a bunch of money lying around and were being lazy and were not doing anything to save money, then its harder to justify getting budgets that we need, Kendall said.

More ominously, board members said they started to get the silent treatment from the Pentagons highest ranks.

Briefings that had been scheduled for military leaders in the Tank  the secure conference room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff  were canceled. Worse, the board was unable to secure an audience with Carter, the new defense secretary.

Stein, the board chairman, accused Carter of deliberately derailing the plan through inaction. Unfortunately, Ash  for reasons of his own  stopped this, he said in an interview.

Peter Cook, a spokesman for Carter, said the Pentagon chief was busy dealing with a long list of national security challenges. He added that Work and other senior officials had already concluded that the report, while well-intentioned, had limited value.

The fatal blow was struck in April. Just three months after Stein had been reappointed as board chairman, Carter replaced him with Michael Bayer, a business consultant who had previously served on the panel and clashed with Stein. Bayer declined to comment.

A few weeks later, Klepper resigned from the board. The $125 billion savings plan was dead.

In an interview, Tillotson, the Pentagons acting deputy chief management officer, called the boards recommendations too ambitious and aggressive. They, perhaps, underestimated the degree of difficulty we have in doing something that in the commercial sector would seem to be very easy to do.

Yet he acknowledged that its overall strategy for scaling back the bureaucracy was sound and that, given more time, it would be possible to realize huge savings.

If we had a longer timeline, yes, it would be a reasonable approach, he said. You might get there eventually.

Ending the debate

Frustration, however, persisted in some corners over the Pentagons unwillingness to tackle the inefficiency and waste documented by the study.

On June 2, 2015, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. He complained that 20 percent of the defense budget went to the Fourth Estate  the defense agencies that provide support to the armed forces  and called it pure overhead.



Navy Secretary Ray Mabus takes his seat to testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2016. (Kevin Lamarque /Reuters)

He singled out the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the Defense Logistics Agency, which together employ about 40,000 people, as egregious examples.

When a reporter in the audience asked whether he thought the agencies should be abolished, Mabus resisted the temptation to say yes.

Nice try on getting me into deep trouble, he replied.

But trouble arrived in Mabuss email the next day.

Ray, before you publicly trash one of the agencies that reports through me Id really appreciate a chance to discuss it with you, wrote Kendall, the Pentagons chief weapons-buyer, whose management portfolio included the Defense Logistics Agency.

He said that if Mabus had a complaint, he should raise it directly with their mutual bosses, Carter and Work, and copied the email to both.

In his interview with The Post, Kendall said he was completely blindsided by the Navy secretarys criticism, so I sent him what I thought under the circumstances was a pretty polite note.

[Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Works response to The Washington Post]

Mabus did not back down. In an emailed retort to Kendall, he referred to the ill-fated Defense Business Board study.

I did not say anything yesterday that I have not said both publicly . . . and privately inside this building, he said. There have been numerous studies, which I am sure you are aware of, pointing out excessive overhead.

That prompted a stern intervention from Work.

Ray, please refrain from taking any more public pot shots, Work said in an email. I do not want this spilling over into further public discourse.

Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.
When my regular babysitter went on vacation, she suggested I hire her younger, 15-year-old sister, who had previously worked for me as a mothers helper.

The morning after our new sitter watched our 7-year-old daughter, I heard how it went. We had fun, Mom, our little girl said. And right before I went to sleep, I talked to a nice, brown-haired boy.

I felt a frisson of panic run though my body. What do you mean? Did someone come in the house?

No, I saw him on her phone, on FaceTime, like how we talk with Daddy when hes on a business trip.

My husband and I have worked hard to protect our daughter from too much screen time, keeping her away from social media and the dangers of strangers interacting with her. The idea that my daughter had video-chatted with a boy I didnt know felt as if a stranger had been in our house, sitting on the couch with our young daughter. I felt unsettled.

(Bee Johnson/For The Washington Post)

When I asked the sitter about it, she said her friend had FaceTimed her with a question about homework. Her voice was matter-of-fact as she explained something that is obviously second nature to her  and to most teens today.

This cant happen ever again, I said, and then explained: I dont want her talking to or meeting anyone I dont know in person or online, and I dont want anyone to see my home that way, either.

Our sitter apologized and said it wouldnt happen again, but it made me see how normal this was to her and my daughter.

Most parents who hire caregivers know the importance of babysitting safety. They instruct caregivers to adhere to bedtimes, make sure the kids eat a vegetable at dinner, dont let them cross the street without holding a hand. But few parents realize how smartphones, tablets and apps can affect their childrens safety right in their own home. And its not just about safety: Many sitters rely on screens to entertain kids when parents have rules against it.

According to statistics in a babysitter survey by Care.com, 26 percent of families have caught their sitter texting, and 22 percent have caught them playing on social media when they were supposed to be watching their charges. Social-media issues now trump the smaller 11 percent of parents catching their sitters having a friend over or looking through their drawers.

Sitters may have good intentions when introducing children to games, social media and geotracking activities, such as Pokemon Go, but they may not be considering the consequences. Although incredibly rare, one innocent mistake, such as posting and tagging a photo of your child or checking in at a park, could result in an online predator finding your childs location. In fact, Pokemon Go was recently found to deliver kids directly to sex offenders homes.

Although Instagrams geotagging system can be disabled, it can easily be turned back on by accident, alerting people to your childs every move. And if a sitter posts a photo of your child doing something wacky, it could go viral, as has happened, playing havoc with your familys serenity.

Just as with any other instructions they give a new sitter, parents should also outline their rules for social-media use.

Communication is your best weapon, says Kim Estes, child-safety expert and founder of the website Savvy Parents Safe Kids. Its also important for you to realize that sitters  particularly young teens  are not trying to be sneaky. There is a modern-day generational technology gap. They think its normal to share everything online, and we dont. Because they dont share the same values as us and dont see it as a danger, we need to be clear with our expectations.

That communication extends to children, from a very young age, as well. Talk to them about family rules and how they are in place to keep them safe, and then adjust as necessary as they get older. Then, when a sitter comes over, give your children a gentle reminder in front of the sitter to remember our family safety rules,  Estes suggests. This way your child will know that he or she can refuse to do something that breaks the rules, even if the sitter suggests it.

Add Snapchat to the growing list of social-media apps that might cause problems. Many sitters enjoy using it with kids because of its fun face filters. The danger with the app is that because photos and videos disappear after a maximum of 10 seconds, it feels temporary, but all it takes is a screen shot for a picture or message to live forever.

Colleen Bohensky, a New Jersey mom, saw photos of her friends 8- and 6-year-olds on Snapchat after that friends babysitter posted them. I was the one who saw the photos, Bohensky said. I swiped on the pics and messaged her about how cute her boys looked. Her friend, who had a strict no-social-media rule, was upset. Shes planning to speak to her sitter but is unsure what to do. She doesnt want to have to follow her sitter on social media to be sure that she isnt posting pictures of her kids. Its unfortunate, because she is an amazing sitter otherwise.

Social-media usage is a key subject to address with a sitter, says Genevieve Thiers, founder of the online child-care company Sittercity and the babysitter-booking app Chime .

Cut it off at the pass, she suggests. Say, Please dont share pictures of my kids, and dont show them social-network screens. 

And if a sitter puts a photo on social media and you find out about it? Immediately call (dont text) and ask them to take it down, she said. Explain why it is important and that it is a nonnegotiable.

Estes is a fan of Circle With Disney, a $99 tool that allows you to set limits on what children can access online and to monitor access to all devices on your home network.

Lynn Perkins, founder and chief executive of UrbanSitter , agrees that its up to parents to set boundaries. When meeting with a new babysitter, you will want to walk them through your childs routine and get them familiarized with your home, Perkins says. Some of the parents who use our service say, Please only use your phone in case of an emergency, if you need to text me a question or when the child/children is asleep. Others ask sitters to keep their children off of their social-media feeds. And then there are the parents who say its okay to take photos or videos to send to the parents, but then they have to be immediately deleted. And dont tag people or locations or use my kids names or our last name. 

Jo Frost, formerly known as Supernanny, is practical about digital abuse. Like we overused playpens in the 1980s and 1990s by sticking our children in them, today we are misusing technology as an electronic babysitter. But since it is here to stay, we need to embrace it, regulate it and use it in moderation, she said in an interview.

Its fine for nannies to use the phone for emergencies or to take a funny photo or video and send it to the parent, she said, but they need to be hands on with children and use their imagination and creativity to entertain them. Its not okay to use devices as a sitter for kids. It takes them out of the moment.

Parents are still feeling their way when it comes to making rules about babysitters and social media. Because the field is so fluid, with new apps developed every day, its hard to tell what we are going to be dealing with in the future.

No matter what, its essential to protect children  particularly young children  from situations that they have yet to learn to be discerning about and cant make choices on, says Irina Harris, a New York-based therapist. You have to decide what your rules are on the use of devices and apps, then you have to convey them to the sitter, plus spell it out to the child in simpler terms. It all takes a bit of work.

I told Harris that after the FaceTiming issue, I let everyone know that our house safety rule is Nobody in, nobody out, and that includes on social media. My sitters and my daughter need to understand that if someone comes into my home digitally, it is the same as letting them in the front door. And thats not okay.

Estelle Erasmus is a journalist, author and writing coach. You can find her on Twitter @estelleserasmus
Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian spent 544 days in Tehrans notorious Evin prison in the wing for political prisoners before he was released in January. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who spent 18 months detained in an Iranian prison before his release in January, will write a book about his ordeal for Ecco.

The memoir, tentatively titled Hostage: 544 Days, 400 Million Dollars, the Nuclear Deal & Me, is scheduled for publication in 2018.

Not knowing when I would get out was an incredible ordeal for my family and me to endure, says Rezaian, who is studying at Harvard on a Nieman Fellowship. Now that its over, the hard work of putting my life back together continues, and that, too, has included many incredible and often surreal moments.

Rezaian, 40, was born in San Francisco to an Iranian father and an American mother and was raised in Marin County, Calif. He had lived in Iran since 2009 as a freelance journalist before joining The Washington Post in 2012 as Tehran correspondent.

The book will share his experiences growing up as an Iranian American in the United States and reporting from Iran, as well as the story of his imprisonment.

Rezaian says, Im looking forward to the opportunity to tell this exciting story, which, while intensely personal, also deals with one of the biggest international news stories of recent times.

The book was acquired by food-and-travel-focused TV host Anthony Bourdain, who has an imprint with Ecco, a division of HarperCollins.

Rezaian and his wife, journalist Yeganeh Salehi, were filmed in 2014 for CNNs Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown program about Iran weeks before the couples arrest in July. Salehi, who was born in Iran, was detained for more than two months.

Its an important story. Harrowing and suspenseful, yes. But its also a deep dive into a complex and egregiously misunderstood country with two very different faces, Bourdain says. There is no better time to know more about Iran, and Jason Rezaian has seen both of those faces  the warmth and hospitality of the people, and the cruelty and absurdity of its security apparatus. I am very proud to be publishing him and grateful to have him back.

[These people I interviewed clearly loved their country. So why did it put them in jail?]

Rezaian was tried on espionage and related charges in a closed-door trial. He spent 544 days in Tehrans notorious Evin prison in the wing for political prisoners, 49 of them in solitary confinement.

In October, Rezaian and his family filed a federal lawsuit against the Iranian government, claiming that he was psychologically tortured and used to influence concessions from the U.S. government in Irans nuclear negotiations.

I follow news from Iran very closely still, he says, especially the stories of dual nationals like me, who are currently being held hostage there for political reasons.

Rezaian is a Terker Distinguished Fellow at George Washington Universitys School of Media & Public Affairs, where he delivers a monthly guest lecture.

Since his release, Ive spent my time recuperating and reconnecting with my family, friends and colleagues, he says. Im catching up on all that happened while I was gone, eating food that I love  burritos, lobster rolls and a lot of ramen  and following the Golden State Warriors with passion.

And, now, writing his memoir.
Seeing is believing

Govt should remove all doubts among conflict victims about the dispensation of justice
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser emerged from a private meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday saying that the president-elect is a supporter of the District.

The one thing I know emphatically that he said is that he is a supporter of the District of Columbia, hes familiar with the District of Columbia and he wants to be supportive, Bowser (D) said when asked whether she thought Trump would be a friend to the city.

Some D.C. residents had urged the mayor to be hard-hitting in the meeting. They sent scores of emails to her office Monday encouraging her to ask Trump to denounce the dangers of fake news. That is because authorities say a fabricated story about a child sex ring involving Hillary Clinton prompted a North Carolina man to travel to the District on Sunday and fire an assault-type rifle in a local pizza shop.

Bowser spent about an hour in the president-elects office atop Trump Tower, according to a pool report of the meeting. She emerged smiling to face reporters assembled in the lobby but did not say whether they talked about fabricated news.

I wont talk about specific things that the president and I discussed. I will say that we had a wide-ranging conversation about things that are important to Washingtonians, the mayor said.

Later Tuesday, Bowser told The Washington Post that she did discuss the political rhetoric that permeated the campaign and that Trump is definitely aware and not supportive of anything that would cause that type of fear.

I absolutely expressed the kind of fear and anxiety that people have around the rhetoric that was in the campaign and somewhat after the campaign, Bowser said. She added that she and Trump talked about how they might work together.

Especially, she said, the opportunity we have in our city to heal around the divisive talk.

Bowser declined to say whether she pressed the case for D.C. to become the 51st state. Last month, she told The Post that it would be the top issue she would raise with Trump at their first meeting.

[D.C. is about to declare its independence  from Congress]

On Tuesday, Bowser said that she mentioned it but that her main concern was Metro and federal contributions and oversight of the beleaguered transit system.

The mayor also said that they discussed education. To the chagrin of many local politicians, the District has the only federally funded private school voucher program, thanks to demands by Republicans in Congress.

[The Districts federal voucher program lacks quality controls]

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to expand voucher programs, and his nominee for education secretary, Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos, has led campaigns to enact vouchers in several states.

John Falcicchio, Bowsers chief of staff, who also attended the meeting, said the mayor and president-elect discussed the federally funded Tuition Assistance Grant program, which provides grants to D.C. students who are college-bound in recognition of the fact that D.C. lacks a public university system like most states. Republicans in Congress have tried to scale back the program.

Bowser said that she spent part of the meeting trying to brief Trump on the complicated relationship the city has with its federal overseers in the White House and Congress.

Our unique construct, as city, county and state, Bowser said, and that were no more dependent on the federal government than any state.

[In D.C., jitters over a Trump presidency]

Trump is coming off a campaign in which he pledged to shrink the size of the federal government, perhaps starting with a federal hiring freeze that could negatively affect the Districts economy.

But he has also invested personally in the Districts flourishing downtown.

The Trump Organization invested $42 million to finance his recently opened luxury hotel along Pennsylvania Avenue. His company is also suing the District because it disputes its tax bill on the building. Bowser said that they did not discuss the lawsuit on Tuesday.

Bowser received $2,000 in campaign contributions during her run for mayor from Trumps children Ivanka and Eric, and $5,000 toward her inaugural bash came from Donald Trump.

She also declined to say whether Ivanka Trump, who joined her for lunch with in D.C. last year, attended the meeting.
The nations total output of high school graduates peaked in 2013 at nearly 3.5 million and is projected to stagnate for most of the next decade, but the Hispanic share is expected to boom, according to a new report.

The demographic shifts point to major recruiting challenges for colleges following an era of steady growth in high school graduates that started in the late 1990s. While that growth had provided a solid pipeline for schools focused on serving traditional students between the ages of 18 to 22, the supply of these students appears to be dwindling or leveling off in Maryland, Virginia and elsewhere.

As a result, many colleges have been forced to rethink how to fill seats and educate incoming students who are more likely than their predecessors to be the first in their families to pursue a bachelors degree.

[For poor in the Ivy League, a full ride isnt always what they imagined]





The report from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, released Tuesday, illuminates potential mismatches in supply and demand for higher education. Some states, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, have lots of colleges and a declining number of high school graduates. Other states in the South and West have the opposite problem. The South, in particular, is an engine of growth: The output of high school graduates from Texas alone is projected to rise 19 percent from 2013 to 2025.

Overall, the report shows that the U.S. high school class of 2013, public and private, was about 3.47 million; the nations graduating class is not expected to reach that level again until 2024. The report also found that the number of Hispanic graduates from public schools is projected to rise 43 percent from 2013 to 2025, while the number of white graduates is expected to decline 6 percent. The number of private high school graduates is expected to fall 18 percent in that time.

Joseph Garcia, the commissions president, said the trends could imperil schools that fall short of recruiting targets, especially small colleges.

It puts some of these institutions at risk, Garcia said Monday. With the number of private school graduates and white students ebbing in many places, he said, colleges that relied for generations on certain feeder schools could be forced to get creative.

You cant use your same old techniques, he said. You need to change your approach.

[Alumnae vowed to save Sweet Briar College. And they did.]

Virginia high schools next spring are on track to produce about 87,900 graduates. Thats 2 percent fewer than five years earlier. By contrast, the total in the previous five-year period had grown 11 percent. The number of Hispanic graduates in the commonwealths public schools is surging and is expected to top 10,100 next spring, up 34 percent over five years.

Peter Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, said the states colleges are increasingly focused on helping students finish their degrees. The push for retention and completion helps with enrollment and is also the right thing to do, Blake said.

Marylands high school class of 2017 is projected to have about 62,000 graduates, down 9 percent compared to the class of 2012. But the number of Hispanic graduates is expected to be about 6,800, up 35 percent.

Robert Caret, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said the states public universities are well positioned to capitalize on the changing market because they offer quality education at a moderate price. We just play that huge access role, particularly for first-generation students, Caret said. Were in pretty good shape.

The 15-state commission has studied the demographics of high school graduates for decades. Its report, Knocking at the College Door, is the first update to that research in four years.

[From 2013 archives: Troubling trend in enrollment  too many empty seats]

Jeff Strohl, director of research for Georgetown Universitys Center on Education and the Workforce, said colleges face major recruiting hurdles. One is persuading students to apply. He cited federal data showing that the share of recent high school graduates enrolled in college fell from 70.1 percent in 2009 to 65.9 percent in 2013.

The disheartening part is that fewer students are trying to go to college, he said. Strohl said colleges must resist the urge to keep fishing in the same pond of potential students. Theyre going to need to spread their enrollment and recruiting activities outside of the places theyve already gone, he said.
Mount Airy resident Mike Wonsala asked to sell guns out of his home in this neighborhood. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

A zoning change that would have allowed a gun enthusiast to sell weapons from his home in a Maryland town was voted down Monday night.

Mike Wonsala, who specializes in the sale and restoration of antique weapons, sought the change so he could get a federal firearms license to operate the business in Mount Airy, about 40 miles north of Washington.

[Selling guns legally from home isnt easy. This man is trying to make it happen.]

Neighbors in the town of about 10,000 worried that Wonsala intended to sell modern weapons as well and that the change would open Mount Airy to other firearms dealers.

The proposed change was voted down 4 to 0 by Mount Airys five-member town council, with one abstention, at a meeting Monday night attended by more than 100 people.

Mike Wonsala (Courtesy of Mike Wonsala )

Were trying to keep all emotions out of this, said Council member Bob King, who voted against the measure. Instead of guns versus no guns  a Second Amendment issue  it really was a zoning issue.

King said residents opposed to the measure should have spoken up sooner. Wonsalas attempt to change the zoning regulation was initiated more than a year ago but garnered attention on social media and in dueling online petitions only in recent weeks.

Its kind of hard when nobody comes, then all of a sudden come in this huge wave, he said.

Council President Peter Helt, who abstained, wrote in an email that the zoning change was workable, but not in its current form.

I think it can work in some areas of the town, Helt wrote. I was willing to amend the proposal to make more restrictions, so while I was against it as is, I was not against the concept.

Neighbors opposed to the change praised the decision.

I think the council did a great job in really listening to the public, and they voted as they should by doing what the public had asked them to, said Jen Stukey, a neighbor of Wonsala.

Wonsala wasnt immediately available for comment Tuesday. Meanwhile, an alternate proposal introduced Monday would prohibit gun sales in any residential area of Mount Airy.

We may be revisiting this issue, King said.
Catherine Pugh, right, smiles as she takes the oath of office to become Baltimores 50th mayor. Standing with Pugh are, from left, Judge Shirley Watts of the Maryland Court of Appeals and Pughs brothers, James and Ardell Crump. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Former state senator Catherine E. Pugh (D-Baltimore) took the helm of Marylands largest city on Tuesday, vowing to work with Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to bring federal aid to Baltimore to create jobs and improve its infrastructure.

Pugh was sworn in as the citys 50th mayor inside the ornate War Memorial Building, just steps away from her new City Hall offices. She said during her inaugural address that she has already drafted a letter for President-elect Donald Trump (R) and would like Hogan to accompany her to Washington to deliver it.

When [Trump] talks about infrastructure in an urban environment, I say, Thats our city, Pugh said. When he talks about creating jobs and opportunity, I say, Thats our city.

Turning to Hogan, she added: I look forward to our partnership. We had one when I was in Annapolis, and I look forward to our continuing relationship.



The popular first-term governor had a strained relationship with Pughs predecessor, former mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D). In his own remarks, he praised Pugh as a fierce advocate who will work tirelessly to address the problems facing the city.

Gov. Larry Hogan (R), right, chats with Democrats Catherine Pugh, left, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, center, during Pugh's mayoral inauguration ceremony. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Pugh, 66, grew up in Pennsylvania but came to Baltimore in the 1970s to attend Morgan State University. She was elected to the City Council in 1999 and served in the state legislature starting in 2005, rising to become Senate majority leader.

Among the Democratic officeholders attending her inauguration were Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin; Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen, who is taking Mikulskis seat; Rep. Elijah E. Cummings; state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (Calvert); and five former mayors, including Rawlings-Blake, former presidential candidate and governor Martin OMalley and Pughs challenger, Sheila Dixon, who initiated a write-in campaign during the general election following a bitter primary.

Miller called Hogans presence a sign of bipartisanship and moving forward together . . . Thats what Catherine has always been about.

Also on the stage were Baltimore County Executive Kevin B. Kamenetz (D) and Prince Georges County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), each of whom are considering challenging Hogans bid for a second term in 2018 and would need strong support from heavily Democratic Baltimore to win.

Pugh, who thanked her father for instilling in her a belief that she could be anything if she worked hard for it, will face numerous challenges as mayor, such as widespread crime and blight in some neighborhoods, high unemployment, struggling schools and allegations of police misconduct.

She took the oath of office with her two brothers by her side, thanking the crowd of residents from across the city for the opportunity to become a servant-leader.

Pugh repeated a commitment she made during her campaign to help all neighborhoods, and to close the gap between the citys downtown and other sections of the city that have not experienced the same revitalization.

Every neighborhood deserves to be the greatest, she said.
The Prince Georges County Council on Tuesday agreed to create a panel to examine its policy of assigning government-owned vehicles to lawmakers for business and some personal use, which appears to be far more expansive than policies in nearby jurisdictions.

The three-member County Vehicle Use Review Board would have the power to recommend policy changes, propose suspending or revoking driving privileges of individual lawmakers and generate an annual compliance report listing violations, traffic citations and accident reports involving vehicles issued to lawmakers.

The proposal follows the arrest last month of council member Mel Franklin (D-Upper Marlboro), who was charged with driving under the influence after his county-issued SUV crashed into the back of a sedan, sending two people to the hospital.

Franklin also was involved in two collisions while driving a county-issued vehicle in 2012.

Prince Georges council members can be assigned government vehicles that they can take home daily and use for business and incidental personal travel. Council members are required to have valid driving licenses and no more than six points on their records to be eligible for county vehicles. They can refuel free at county-owned gas stations but must pay any traffic tickets they receive.

This SUV driven by Prince Georges County Council member Mel Franklin struck another car Nov. 21, 2016. (The Washington Post)

Our responsibility is to look at how we operate and ensure that that operation is done appropriately, said Council Chair Derrick L. Davis (D-Mitchellville), who proposed creating the panel.

He declined to comment on Franklins situation or pending legal case.

The decision to review the vehicle-use policy came during an otherwise routine council meeting featuring the annual gavel ceremony. Davis, who has chaired the nine-member council for the past year, was elected for a second one-year term. Dannielle M. Glaros (D-Riverdale Park) was reelected vice chair.

Franklin, who has refused to answer questions publicly since his Nov. 21 arrest, was present during the ceremony but left shortly after, skipping a news conference that is typically attended by the entire council.

Davis, who drives his own vehicle for county business, nevertheless said he understands the appeal of a take-home car, given the demands of the job and the size of the county  some 500 square miles.

The wear and tear on your personal vehicle is enormous, Davis said.

Montgomery is roughly the size of its eastern neighbor, but council members there drive their own cars and are reimbursed for the mileage. In Arlington County, board members and the appointed county manager have access to the countys fleet of vehicles on an as-needed basis, for county business only. Alexandria City Council members have no special access to city vehicles.

Members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors do not have full-time access to vehicles but can reserve cars as needed for government business or for work-related trips. The District of Columbia has a pool of two cars and a van that the 13-member council and its staffers share for official business only.

In Prince Georges, council members can be assigned cars full-time from the countys fleet of vehicles or seek travel stipends to cover the cost of using their own vehicles on official business.

Franklin was barred from the program after the most recent accident, which badly damaged the vehicle he was driving and the one he struck. Other council members who have take-home cars are Andrea C. Harrison (D-Springdale), Mary A. Lehman (D-Laurel), Obie Patterson (D-Fort Washington), Karen R. Toles (D-Suitland) and Todd M. Turner (D-Bowie).

The council members, by virtue of being elected, are automatically eligible for a take-home car unless they have more than six or more points or their driving privileges have been suspended or revoked, said council spokeswoman Karen Campbell.
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Jayaram Jayalalitha, a former film actress who became the powerful four-term leader of one of Indias largest states, died Dec. 5, apparently of a heart attack. She was 68.

Her political party, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, announced her death in a tweet, saying that our beloved leader, the Iron lady of India . . . Amma, is no more.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also tweeted his condolences.

I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji, the prime minister said, using the honorific.

Ms. Jayalalitha was a revered public figure in her home state of Tamil Nadu and was known as Amma, or mother, an image she bolstered with a range of popular low-cost public programs, which she branded as Amma canteens, Amma pharmacies and Amma water.

Thousands gathered Monday around Apollo Hospital in the southern India city of Chennai to await news and then mourn her death, which had been rumored for weeks.

She had governed the state four times, working through a proxy even after she was convicted on corruption charges in September 2014. A judge overturned the conviction, and she was reelected to her fourth term as chief minister in May of this year.

She was known as a secretive, somewhat imperious politician who rose to power despite Indias deeply patriarchal political system and was credited with developing her state and helping the rural poor.

At any given point in time, I did what had to be done, she once said in a television interview. I never stopped to think whether Im a man or a woman. . . . I felt I had to do this, I did it, I did whatever I felt was right.

Her state has low infant and maternal mortality rates, among other positive health markers, but is struggling with debt because of social programs such as Amma canteens.

Ms. Jayalalitha inspired a cultlike devotion among party elites as well as ordinary citizens, and she had her own television station, Jaya TV. Her corruption conviction had sparked days of riots in the streets, with some of her followers setting themselves on fire. In 1992, when she did a ritual bath as part of the Kumbh Mela religious festival, so many people crowded to see her that nearly 50 were killed in a stampede.

Ms. Jayalalitha, who was born in 1948 in the village of Melukote, had made her name at a young age, pushed by her mother to become an actress in the Tamil-language film industry. She eventually starred in more than 140 films.

In several of those movies she was paired with a revered older film star, M.G. Ramachandran, who later became chief minister of Tamil Nadu and brought her into politics.

She was elected to her first term in 1991, a few years after her mentors death. In September 1995, she threw a wedding for her foster son that was so grandiose that it was listed by Guinness World Records as the largest wedding banquet. More than 150,000 guests celebrated on 50-acre grounds at an estimated cost of $23 million, according to Guinness.

Her extravagant display of wealth attracted notice, and she was charged with corruption and misuse of office in a disproportionate assets case, meaning she had allegedly accumulated far more wealth and property than her stated income  nearly $11 million more, the court eventually found. A police raid on her home uncovered more than 10,000 saris, bags of gold and more than 400 pairs of shoes.

She was sentenced to four years in prison in connection with the case but continued to run her state  one of Indias biggest economies  from behind the scenes as her close aide, O. Panneerselvam, served as temporary chief minister.

A weeping Panneerselvam, who carries a photo of the leader in his shirt pocket, was sworn in again to succeed her early Tuesday.

A complete list of survivors was not available.


From left, Terry Anderson and Karolyn Anderson, both of Roswell, N.M.; Travis Anderson, of Kurtistown, Hawaii; and John D. Anderson Jr., of Carlsbad, N.M., traveled to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where John D. Andersons ashes are to be interred underwater in the remnants of his old turret aboard the USS Arizona. He will rejoin his twin, Delbert Jake Anderson, whose body was never recovered from the ship after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (Kent Nishimura/For The Washington Post)

When John D. Anderson reached his battle station in the USS Arizonas No. 4 turret that morning, he realized the gigantic guns could do nothing against the swarms of attacking Japanese airplanes.

But his twin brother, Delbert Jake Anderson, was manning an antiaircraft gun out on deck, and was in the thick of the action. He needs help, John told his turret commander, and asked if he could join his brother.

Both men were 24. The sons of a judge, they were born in Verona, N.D., in 1917. Both had joined the Navy in 1936. John was a boatswains mate second class; Jake, a boatswains mate first class.

Both wound up on the Arizona, which at that moment on Dec. 7, 1941, was a maelstrom of fire, smoke and explosions.

They would never meet up that Sunday morning, and only one would survive the day.

On Wednesday, 75 years later, John Andersons ashes are to be interred underwater in the remnants of his old turret, rejoining Jake, whose body was never recovered from the ship.

The Arizona interment is one of two scheduled for Wednesday that, along with many other commemorations this week, will probably mark the last major anniversary of the attack attended by survivors.

The brothers reunion, on the anniversary of the attack, brings together one twin who enjoyed a long and varied life, and one whose life stopped at Pearl Harbor.

John lived through the rest of the war. He settled in Roswell, N.M., became a local TV personality and died last year at age 98, one of the Arizonas last survivors. Only five of the original 334 are left.

Jake is eternally 24, still aboard the Arizona and one the first Americans killed in World War II.

Johns family said they believed they should rest together.

He talked all the time about his brother, Johns son, John D. Anderson Jr., of Carlsbad, N.M., said in a telephone interview last month. They wrote letters back and forth to each other when they were on different ships. And Jake really wanted him to get on the Arizona with him.

They were really close, he said.

During the attack, while searching through the inferno for his brother, John was ordered off the battleship by an officer.

Im not leaving, he told the officer, according to a 2011 oral history recorded by videographer Don Smith. My brothers here someplace. Ive got to find him.

He couldnt have made it, he said the officer replied, and shoved John into a rescue vessel.

But after they reached shore, John grabbed an empty boat and went back to the Arizona in the midst of the attack, nearly losing his life in the process.

He just kept saying, Ive got to find my brother, Ive got to find my brother,  his son recalled.

A wrenching moment in history

Warden was just going back for seconds . . . when this blast shuddered by under the floor and rattled the cups on the tables. . . . He stopped in the doorway . . . and looked back at the messhall. He remembered the picture the rest of his life. It had become very quiet and everybody had stopped eating and looked up at each other. . . . This is it, somebody said quite simply.

 James Jones, From Here to Eternity

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941, pushed the United States into World War II. But the battleship wasnt supposed to be docked at the harbor on that date. The Washington Posts Michael Ruane takes us back to that fateful day in American history. (Claritza Jimenez,Michael Ruane/The Washington Post)

Seventy-five years later, the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor remains one of the most wrenching and intimate events in American history.

As with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, people remembered where they were when they heard the news.

The cost of the attack was stunning: On the Arizona alone, 1,177 sailors and Marines were killed. More than 900 of them were never recovered.

[USS Arizona still leaking oil, decades after Pearl Harbor attack]

Thirteen hundred more people died on other ships and elsewhere around the harbor.

Many men were blown apart. One survivor recalled that the sky rained sailors. Another remembered dozens of Navy hats floating on the surface of the water.

Eleven hundred men were wounded, many horribly burned.

Flames from the inferno leapt up the metal steps and barred our escape, Arizona survivor Donald Stratton, now 94, wrote in his new memoir, All the Gallant Men.

My T-shirt had caught fire, burning my arms and my back, he wrote. My legs were burned from my ankles to my thighs. My face was seared. The hair on my head had been singed off, and part of my ear was gone.

Eighteen U.S. warships were sunk or crippled, along with hundreds of planes destroyed and damaged. The Arizona went down, as did the battleship USS Oklahoma, entombing hundreds of sailors when it capsized.

(Today, newly exhumed remains of the Oklahomas sailors are still being identified in Defense Department labs.)



The battleship USS Arizona burns in the Hawaiian port of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, after being hit by Japanese carrier-based strike aircraft. (REUTERS)

[USS Oklahomas dead just now being identified]

The Japanese, gambling that they could cripple U.S. forces as they expanded their Asian empire, launched the daring attack with 31 ships, including six aircraft carriers, and more than 350 airplanes.

Their armada sailed in secret across the stormy northern Pacific Ocean to within striking distance of Hawaii. Its only encounter was with a lone Soviet freighter, which steamed by in silence.

The Americans, although forewarned, were overconfident, dismissive of Japanese capabilities, and not expecting the blow to come at Pearl Harbor, historians say.

The first U.S. servicemen killed in World War II were three soldiers in two Piper Cubs shot down while on a sightseeing flight as the attack began about 7:55 a.m.

Some Americans threw tools, potatoes and binoculars at the enemy aircraft. Others could only shake their fists.

A frantic radiogram went out: AIRRAID ON PEARLHARBOR X THIS IS NO DRILL.

The effect was electrifying.

Pearl Harbor absolutely shattered Americans image of themselves, said historian Steve Twomey, author of Countdown to Pearl Harbor.

The country saw itself as having a fine Army and Navy, and the protection of two oceans. The wars were always over there,  he said.

But within hours that Sunday millions of families knew . . . that their sons and their brothers and their fathers were going to go war . . . and many of them were not going to come back, he said.

The attack would bring 9 million Americans into the war, and create the powerhouse United States of the 21st century, said historian Craig Nelson, author of Pearl Harbor, From Infamy to Greatness.

Almost every aspect . . . of the United States and its international position in the world . . . comes from the reaction to Pearl Harbor, he said.

It also gave history President Franklin D. Roosevelts legendary A date which will live in infamy speech, delivered to Congress the next day.

It produced the slogan Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition, uttered by Lt. j.g. Howell M. Forgy, a chaplain on the embattled cruiser USS New Orleans.

And it provided the story of the heroic African American sailor Dorie Miller, a 22-year-old mess attendant on the USS West Virginia who manned an antiaircraft gun and opened fire on enemy planes.

Miller was decorated for valor, but was killed in the sinking of a ship he was on later in the war.

Many of the sailors, soldiers and Marines at Pearl Harbor were children of the Depression and the Dust Bowl who had joined the service to escape poverty and starvation.

The 1,500-man crew on the Arizona was similar in size to the population of some of the small towns the sailors had come from. Now they had hot meals, a hammock to sleep in and a steady paycheck.

The Japanese are here

John Anderson had just made the arrangements for church services on the Arizonas fantail that Sunday and had gone to the mess hall to get some breakfast. Suddenly, he heard a loud explosion.

I thought, What in the dickens is that?  he said in his video account. He went out on the deck, looked up and saw this plane dipping . . . and it had red balls on its wings, he said.

I said a cuss word and said, The Japanese are here,  he remembered.

He hurried to sound the alarm, but before he could, a bomb fell nearby and knocked me silly.

He got up and ran to his battle station in the turret, which had huge 14-inch guns to fire at enemy ships. I was a gunner, he said. I got into the seat and said, Manned and ready. 

But he hadnt seen any enemy ships or enemy shell fire. Theres all bombs and machine gun fire, he said he told the turret captain. We cant do any good in here. We need some gunners on the antiaircraft batteries.

Id like to get out there and get on a gun with my brother, he said. The Andersons were among 26 sets of brothers on the ship, but the only twins. The turret captain gave him the okay.



An undated photo of sailor Delbert Jake Anderson, who was killed on the USS Arizona. (Anderson family photo)

An undated photo of John D. Andy Anderson, who survived Pearl Harbor. He tried to search for his brother during the attack, but John Anderson was ordered off the battleship by an officer. (Anderson family photo)

Anderson left the turret, and started up a ladder to the antiaircraft guns.

I got to the top of the ladder and an enormous explosion occurred, he said. People were blown all over the place, all kinds of body parts . . . and tremendous fires broke out.

He was driven back toward the turret. On my way back, I grabbed a guy by the hand who was on fire, and I held on to him, he said. He was from Greenfield, Ohio. I never forgot that. I saved him. I got him out of there.

Meanwhile, officers were ordering survivors off the doomed ship, as more bombs struck. Anderson refused to go until he was forced. Reaching Ford Island, in the middle of the harbor, he looked back at the Arizona.

It was still on fire, but his brother and others were out there. He spotted a small boat floating by with nobody in it, and with a buddy swam out, got in and headed back to the ship.

There, he gathered three wounded men into the boat. There was no sign of Jake. We had to take what we could get, he said, and they headed for shore. As they did, the boat was hit and blown apart.

Anderson said his buddy and the three wounded sailors were lost. I was the only one left alive, he said. He made it to shore and collapsed on the beach.

After the attack ended, he was assigned to another ship, became part of Navy raiding parties and fought his way across the Pacific  in so many scrapes and fights that I forgot the names of the places.

At first, he heard nothing of Jake, but he was told later that someone had seen him felled at his post by gunfire.

That was the last anybody ever had on my brother, he said.

Wednesday afternoon, about 40 members of his family are scheduled to gather at the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor as they return Anderson to what is left of Turret No. 4, and to his shipmates and his brother.

Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, walked into D.C. pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong armed with an assault rifle on Dec. 4, apparently to "investigate" a fake internet conspiracy. Here's what we know about him so far. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, walked into D.C. pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong armed with an assault rifle on Dec. 4, apparently to "investigate" a fake internet conspiracy. Here's what we know about him so far. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)

For 45 minutes, police said, Edgar Maddison Welch, cradling an AR-15 assault-style rifle, roamed the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant looking to prove an Internet conspiracy theory that the popular D.C. restaurant harbored juvenile sex slaves.

The few patrons had fled before Welch shot off the lock to an inside door, sending a bullet into a computer tower. The North Carolina man then turned the gun on an employee who emerged from the back holding pizza dough. The worker ran out, unharmed.

With D.C. police amassing outside on Sunday afternoon, Welch finally walked out with his hands up  but not before he finished his search.

He had come to rescue the children, court papers say he later told police, and now was convinced that none was being harmed there.

D.C. Magistrate Judge Joseph E. Beshouri on Monday ordered Welch  known to his friends by his middle name, Maddison  jailed until his next hearing on Thursday. He faces several gun-related charges, including assault with a dangerous weapon.

Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sonali Patel said Welch was a danger to the community and a flight risk based on the notoriety of his alleged crimes. His lawyer with the Public Defender Service argued that her client should be released because he had no prior violent offenses.

Welch, bearded and dressed in a white plastic jail jumpsuit for the D.C. Superior Court hearing, said only his name when asked to identify himself.

Family and friends said they are struggling to understand how Welch apparently became so fixated on a fake news story that he drove from North Carolina with a Colt long rifle, a .38-caliber revolver and a shotgun, determined to take action. The viral Internet tale, which emerged shortly before the presidential election, falsely linked Hillary Clinton, her campaign chairman and the owner of Comet to the alleged sex-slave conspiracy.

[At a D.C. pizzeria, the dangers of fake news just got all too real]

Welch, described by some friends as a devoted father to two young girls, toyed around with filmmaking and writing, and he had attended a community college. He is an avid hiker. He and his wife are separated. They both are involved in raising the children, a family member said.

1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  See the reaction after gunman enters D.C. pizzeria to investigate conspiracy theory View Photos A man from North Carolina fired shots in D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong on Sunday. He told authorities he came to check out a fake news story involving Hillary Clinton. Caption A man from North Carolina fired shots in D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong on Sunday. He told authorities he came to check out a fake news story involving Hillary Clinton. Dec. 6, 2016 Signs of support hang on the building of Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. The business reopened after Edgar Maddison Welch from North Carolina discharged his assault rifle at the popular Chevy Chase restaurant claiming he was there to investigate a fake news story on the Internet about a child sex ring. Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

One of Welchs closest friends of the past eight years said she does not think he intended to shoot anyone.

He most likely really believes the conspiracy theory, said Kathy Sue Holtorf, who produced one of his films and appeared with him in another. Hes a good guy with the best of intentions. He probably saw himself as more on a hero mission to save children than anything else.

The call about a man carrying an assault rifle into a pizza joint popular among teens and their parents frightened many D.C. residents and created a standoff that closed streets. In and beyond the nations capital, it also raised fears about hoax stories proliferating the Internet and whether they are stoking new dangers from societys fringe.

Even the White House weighed in on Welchs alleged crimes.

Even without knowing precisely what the motives were, theres no denying the corrosive effect that some of these false reports have had on our political debate, said Josh Earnest, press secretary for President Obama. Thats concerning in a political context. Its deeply troubling that some of those false reports could lead to violence.

Loyal patrons to Comet Ping Pong are organizing an event Friday to urge people to stand with the owner and employees, even as it appears that Sundays incident will not quell the stories.

A new Internet conspiracy theory emerged Monday. Citing Welchs minor background as an actor, some claimed the gun incident was either staged or even a hoax altogether. And on Sunday night, Michael Flynn Jr., the son and top aide of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trumps pick for national security adviser, tweeted that the Comet Ping Pong conspiracy theory might still be true.

Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, itll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many coincidences tied to it, Flynn Jr. tweeted. He later posted images of direct messages from CNN host Jake Tapper imploring him to stop spreading the rumors.

As the story spread, Comet and other establishments along Connecticut Avenue have been subject to threats and vile social media banter, business owners said.

Dustin Sternbeck, the D.C. police spokesman, said the department became aware last month of the fictional allegations about Comet. However, despite postings of offensive language, we did not receive reports of any specific threats. Officers advised the staff to immediately report to police any threats made against the establishment or individuals.

The spokesman said police have contacted Comets owner and others to address their concerns. We want to ensure the community that their safety is our priority as we have committed additional police resources to that area.

A portrait of Welch based on interviews with his friends suggests he is an adoring father to his children but also someone unable to claim interest in a career, including following his father, who is a filmmaker, or his mother, who volunteered as a firefighter.

He was a prolific hiker, profiled in 2009 by his local newspaper, the Salisbury Post, for hiking the 500-mile Colorado Trail. He attended Cape Fear Community College in 2008 and 2009, pursuing an associate of arts degree.

Maddison is a sweet young man with a big heart, said Tajuana Tadlock, his aunt. We are all in shock right now. We are still trying to get our minds around what happened. This is totally out of character for him.

We are all worried about him. He comes from a family that cares.

We all just want to put our arms around him and ask him, Why baby? What made you this upset? This isnt you. 

Tadlock described her nephew as passionate, tenderhearted. Loves his family. Loves his children, he is always concerned about his parents and children. We have not been able to talk to him yet, so we do not know what got him to this level.

He is a loving person, a loving dad. He has friends, church, family and friends. He is anybodys son.

Other relatives, including his parents, Harry and Terri Tadlock Welch, did not respond to interview requests or could not be reached for comment. No one answered the door at the address listed for Welch in court records. The home is in a pocket of sparsely arranged ranch-style houses five miles outside of downtown Salisbury, a county seat along Interstate 85, about 50 miles north of Charlotte.

Aaron Christie, a friend from West Rowan High School in North Carolina, said he hadnt talked to Welch recently but that he had strong political convictions and had faith in the Constitution. It didnt matter whether it was Democratic or Republican, he said. If you had the ability to do something good for the people, you knew it was your responsibility to do something good for the people.

But Welch was laid-back and happy, he said; he had never seen an angry moment with his family.

Ive never seen him hostile toward anybody. He was always levelheaded and calm, took a minute to think things over before he said or done things, Welch said. But I havent seen him in three years. A lot can change over time.

At community college, Welch wrote his first screenplay, Mute, about a unique boy who meets a unique girl  a nine-minute short that was posted to YouTube and was produced by Holtorf when she was part of the areas independent film scene. He and Holtorf appeared as victims of vampires in a slasher movie, and he worked as a production assistant on a movie about a small-town sheriff pitted against a bootlegger.

Holtorf said Welch dabbled but never wanted to become an actor. His mother worked for the Locke Volunteer Fire Department on the outskirts of Salisbury, and for a time her son tried that job, too.

He hardly came around, hardly ran any calls, said Locke Volunteer Fire Chief Dusty Alexander. It just wasnt for him and he got out of it.

Interviews with other friends and court records shows he also had trouble with drugs and alcohol, and in the past several months went on a rant about religion that offended his girlfriend's best friend.

Danielle Tillman, 23, a friend of Welchs girlfriend, recounted meeting Welch for the first time several months ago. Tillman said a group had gathered for a party. She said she had taken acid and others were using drugs as well. The account was backed by Tillmans boyfriend at the time, Jacob Stephens.

Tillman said Welch and his girlfriend began talking about religion.

They were preaching about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Tillman said. It was super weird.

Welchs Facebook page contains pictures of his children, of himself brandishing an assault-style weapon and of lists of psalms and proverbs from the Bible. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up, one reads.

Welch has one conviction, for driving while impaired in 2013 in Salisbury. He has been arrested several times in North Carolina, once on a drug charge, in 2007, and he was in a police report when his name appeared on a forged prescription, according to records from Salisbury police. He was twice a victim of assault by someone with a gun, though details were not immediately available.

In October, police said, he was the driver of a car that struck and critically injured a 13-year-old boy. His most recent job is noted in 2013, in the impaired-driving case, where his grandmother wrote the court that he worked for his fathers film company, Forever Young Productions, making daily deliveries and pickups of film prints.

Hes not a nut, said Holtorf, 29, who lives in California and works as a film producer. He talked about his two little girls, how proud he was of them, how he liked going to the park with them. Hes not a conspiracy-theory nut. Hes a well-educated man. Our conversations were normal, about kids and about his family and our friends in North Carolina.

Jennifer Jenkins, John Woodrow Cox, Keith L. Alexander, Rachel Weiner, David Nakamura, Aaron Blake, Greg Lacour, Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
Shinzo Abe to be first Japanese PM to visit Pearl Harbor

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is to visit Pearl Harbor, becoming the first leader of his country to go to the US naval base in Hawaii.
Richard A. Schmidt, shown in this cancelled passport page, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for molesting young boys in Southeast Asia. (Richard A. Schmidt/US District Court)

A federal appeals court Tuesday suggested that a serial child molester from Maryland who abused young boys overseas was exactly the type of person Congress intended to ensnare when it passed a law targeting American sex tourists.

The hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit came after a Baltimore judge last year found that Richard A. Schmidt had not broken U.S. law because the crimes to which he pleaded guilty occurred in the second country he visited after leaving the United States, not in the first.

All three judges on the appeals panel  G. Steven Agee, Pamela A. Harris and J. Harvie Wilkinson III  appeared convinced that the law applied to Schmidts conduct no matter how many countries he visited during his travels.

Congress deliberately targeted what Wilkinson called a worldwide scourge that leads to the conscription of very young children and their induction into the sex trade and has been underwritten and subsidized by Americans.

Schmidt, a former elementary school teacher, was arrested repeatedly during the 1980s in Maryland for molesting young boys and served more than a dozen years in prison. In 2002, after his release, he fled to the Philippines and later to Cambodia, when a new U.S. warrant was issued for his arrest, according to court records.

In Southeast Asia, Schmidt was arrested again in the Philippines and Cambodia for abusing young boys. He was deported in 2004 to the United States, where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

[Conviction of serial child molester at center of federal appeals case]

Schmidts attorney, Mary Davis, told the court that U.S. prosecutors have no control over the actions of Americans such as Schmidt in Cambodia unless there is a direct connection to the United States. Davis said that after leaving the United States, Schmidt had settled in the Philippines, getting a job, renting a home and obtaining a drivers license.

His trip to Cambodia came after his stay in the Philippines.

Harris and Wilkinson said the reach of U.S. law does not end when a person travels to a third country. The U.S. passport and American citizenship of the person traveling create the U.S. connection that the law requires, they said.

In addition, all three judges said the facts of the case suggest that Schmidt was a fugitive, a man on the move.

He intended to do what he did until he got caught, Harris said.

Agee took a similar view that Schmidt intended to get out of Dodge before he got arrested.

Sujit Raman, chief of appeals for the U.S. attorneys office in Maryland, asked the court to reinstate Schmidts conviction.

Regardless of the outcome of the appeal, Schmidt, now 74, is scheduled to be released from prison Jan. 20.

If the ruling of U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz of Baltimore is upheld, Schmidt would not be required to register as a sex offender when he is released or be subject to other conditions of his initial guilty plea, such as being banned from getting a new passport or having unsupervised visits with children.
A man tried to kidnap a female high school student in Gaithersburg early Monday, police said.

The student, from Watkins Mill High School, told police that the man approached her at about 7 a.m. as she walked to a bus stop in the Cider Mill apartment community on Lost Knife Circle. The man told her to shut up and tried to put a black bag over her head, the student said, but he ran away after she screamed.

The man was described as black, in his mid-to-late 30s, about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with a medium build, wearing black pants and a black-hooded sweatshirt with a red logo on it, police said.

Police asked anyone with information about the incident to contact them at 240-773-5400 or call 866-411-TIPS (8477).

Watkins Mill High School also posted a letter about the incident.

Please speak with your son/daughter about this incident and the importance of staying alert, taking headphones out, and making a habit of walking to school with a friend, the letter, from Principal Carol Goddard, said.
A federal judge on Monday postponed sentencing for a man who D.C. police and prosectors say is so dangerous that returning him to his community in Southeast Washington would pose a grave risk of violence.

Keith Cooper, 23, has been detained for the past seven months, charged with possession of ammunition by a felon.

Police said bullets were found during a search of his home near East Capitol Street and Benning Road after a spate of violence on May 16 that included a shootout and two other shootings hours apart that left Coopers mother and another man dead.

[Man arrested at murder scene accused of driving violence in D.C. neighborhood]

Authorities have said the shootout and subsequent fatal shooting are believed to be related. Cooper was arrested shortly after his mother was killed and charged in D.C. Superior Court with threatening to kill the man he believes shot his mother, Tracey Louise Cooper, 45. Police aid Tayvon Devonte Cummings, 22, was fatally shot a few hours earlier and five block s away.

After the threat charge was filed, a D.C. Superior Court judge released Cooper pending his next court appearance. Federal authorities then charged him in the ammunition case, and have held him in protective custody since. In September, he pleaded guilty to one count of illegal possession of ammunition.

Prosecutors have argued that Coopers detention is necessary  and that he should be sentenced to prison  to help prevent further violence in the Ward 7 neighborhood, which saw a threefold increase in homicides in 2015. They are seeking a 16-month sentence.

Defense attorneys argue that Cooper's case should be decided on facts limited to what police say they seized, and not based on what they call speculative theories about increased violence.

Mondays sentencing was postponed after the judge asked lawyers for more information about Coopers pending case in Superior Court regarding the alleged threats. No new date has been set.
Sheila, 12, and Katherine Lyon,10, shown in undated photos released by the FBI, disappeared in 1975 in Maryland in a case that went without an arrest for decades. (AP)

A former carnival worker awaiting trial in the 1975 disappearance of two young Maryland girls  Katherine and Sheila Lyon  has been indicted on a charge of rape in an unrelated case involving a then-6-year-old-girl in Northern Virginia in 1996, according to court records made public Tuesday.

Lloyd Lee Welch, 59, allegedly committed the Virginia assault aboard a houseboat in Prince William County. The indictment charges him with rape, aggravated sexual battery and indecent liberties, all felonies.

The latest charges might give authorities leverage to try to learn more from Welch about the case of the Lyon sisters, who disappeared from a shopping mall north of Washington on March 25, 1975, when Sheila was 12 and Katherine 10. For four decades, detectives made no arrest in the Lyon case.

That changed last year, when Welch was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Detectives had found his name in old case files from the 1975 period, when he had been considered a witness, not a suspect, and re-interviewed him multiple times.

[Once Welch started talking to detectives, he went on and on]

Lloyd Lee Welch, who is awaiting trial on charges of murder in the disapparance of Lyon sisters Sheila, 12, and Katherine, 10. They disappeared in Maryland in 1975. (Courtesy of Bedford County Sheriff's Office)

Snippets of the freshly recorded interrogations played in court this year in connection with the Lyon case indicate that detectives and prosecutors think Welch knows more about what happened to the girls and about others who may have been involved in their disappearance. Their bodies have not been found.

Welch has denied harming the Lyon sisters. His attorneys in the murder case  Aaron B. Houchens and Anthony F. Anderson  did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

The woman in the new Virginia case, now 27, described her account of an assault in an interview with The Washington Post

I remember it very clearly, she said. It will never leave my mind.

The woman spoke to The Post on the condition that her name not be used. The Washington Post generally does not identify people who report that they were victims of sexual violence unless they choose to be identified. Her account to The Post was consistent with what she has recently told investigators, according to two law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case.

She said she was 6 when she met Welch at a carnival with her family on the day she said he attacked her.

He came across as a very nice person, she said. He plays that Im a nice guy very well. You would think he was someone who you could get along with and trust.

The night of the alleged assault, she said, she went to sleep on a houseboat where she and her family lived. She said she slept on the bottom bunk of a bed, with two younger brothers sleeping on the top bunk.

She said two adults were in a different part of the boat.

She said she awoke to Welch raping her but remained silent because she was afraid he would hurt her. I didnt know what to do. I kept acting like I was asleep, she said.

She said the alleged attack was not reported to the police at the time. Her accusations in the incident surfaced recently as part of the broader Lyon sisters investigation, according to the woman and law enforcement officials.

The woman said its a burden Ive had to carry. If I see someone who looks like him, it freaks me out.

She said she thinks often about the Lyon sisters and their family and said she hopes her case can be used to find more answers for them.

Im hoping that they do find all the answers they are looking for, she said.

Finding answers has been a priority for Maryland and Virginia officials overseeing the investigation.

According to authorities, when Welch was 18, he and others abducted the Lyon sisters from a shopping mall in Wheaton, killed them and disposed of their bodies on a mountain in rural Bedford County, Va.

[A rural mountain in Virginia may hold clues to fate of Lyon sisters]

At the time the sisters went missing, Welch worked for a traveling carnival company. He lived in the Hyattsville area of Maryland.

He had burglary convictions in 1978 in Montgomery County and in 1982 in Prince Georges County. Later, in South Carolina, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny and to molesting a 10-year-old girl.

Then, in Delaware, he pleaded guilty to molesting another 10-year-old girl. An outrageous criminal history, Delaware prosecutor Susan Purcell characterized his record in court in 1998.

In the Lyon sisters case, detectives combing case files several years ago came across Welchs name in a report from 1975. They studied his statements, and tracked him to a prison in Delaware where he was serving time on the molestation case and interviewed him during repeat visits.

[Detectives: Welch threw bloody duffel bags into fire in 1975]

On the basis of what they heard, detectives said in court records, they concluded that Welch and others had disposed of the girls bodies in Bedford County. A grand jury in Bedford indicted Welch last year on two counts of murder in the case of Katherine and Sheila Lyon.

His trial is set for April.
Joanna Cruz is 17 and still in high school, but she knows more than many adults about how to handle an agitated patient with dementia who is batting away a spoonful of applesauce.

We would put everything down, she explained. They will forget, so you just wait a few minutes and then try it again.

Patience is just one of the skills the Gaithersburg High School senior is learning through a partnership between her school and Ingleside at King Farm, a Rockville retirement community that has a nursing home on site.

The intensive program, in its second year at Gaithersburg High, is training a dozen students to become certified nursing assistants and geriatric nursing assistants. The four-day-a-week course, which takes place outside school hours, combines 88 hours of classroom learning with 60 hours of clinical training, and it includes working with actual residents at Ingleside.

The goal is to prepare students for a career in health care, whether that means eventually going on to study medicine or beginning work as a certified nursing assistant, geriatric assistant or home health aide immediately out of high school.

Gaithersburg High School student Joanna Cruz gets practical experience by measuring the pulse rate of Polly Loonsk. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The program, which was first implemented from 1999 to 2005 at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince Georges County, was started by William Leahy, a neurologist who is now on Inglesides board of directors. He hopes to expand it to the District and Northern Virginia by next fall. Students dont pay tuition; it is funded by a foundation that Leahy started, and the course is taught by Linda Hall, a nursing professor at Montgomery Colleges Workforce Development and Continuing Education division.

Forty or 50 students have applied to be part of the program for each of the two years. Those who complete it are eligible to apply for nursing assistant state certification or take the geriatric nursing assistant (GNA) exam.

The current group, which started in September, will be tested in January, so on Thursday they were practicing their skills on each other. Knocking on a door and introducing themselves. Washing their hands for 20 seconds, then using a paper towel to shut off the water. Helping someone eat in bed. Using a strap to assist someone who has trouble standing up and walking.

Then, they headed to residents rooms.

Hi, Im Oriana and Im going to be your GNA today, Oriana Smith, 17, said brightly to Charles Miller, 88, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War.

The burly Miller waved her in; he sat in a chair beside his bed. Im a particularly difficult one because they have to hoist me, he said. Im not able to use my legs.

But today Smith was focusing on his arms, using both her hands to raise each one over his head and then out to the side. Miller grinned. Its all right, he said, you can move it around, I wont break, and Smith grinned back.

Down the hall, Cruz stood beside Polly Loonsk, 88, a petite woman lying on a bed. She took one of Loonsks wrists, while Hall, the class instructor, took the other.

Cruz looked at her watch and said, Now. The room fell silent as they took Loonsks pulse.

I got 63, Cruz said.

Perfect, Hall said; because I got 65. The students count must be within four beats of the testers.

The students, mostly seniors, arrive with different backgrounds; some have family members who are nurses; some grew up in the same house with grandparents and know a little about how to care for older people.

No one in 18-year-old Eve Ouangrawas family works in health care, but she thinks she wants to become a doctor, and this might help her decide.

Being a doctor is so many long years of schooling, she said. This is an opportunity for me to know if I really, really want to do it.

Cruz thinks she wants to be a forensic psychologist, but she feels an obligation to her family to consider health care. No one in my family has really gone to college, she said, but my Dads sisters in El Salvador are sort of doctors for their community, so he wanted me to follow in their footsteps.

Graduates of last years course are all now in college or postsecondary education, including several who are studying to be registered nurses, said Kim Curtis, who oversees college, career and preparation programs at Gaithersburg High. It opens the door for some who would never have that door opened, she said.

Even if they dont end up going into health care, the training teaches them to interact confidently with adults. You kind of develop your social skills. You have to be loud and project your voice a little, said Mikaylah Sayles, 17. You learn how to come out of your shell.

Training in a working facility also allows them to reach across a generational divide. Students learn about residents lives  the careers they had, the wars they fought in, the worlds they explored. I met a resident, he speaks five or more languages, and he has been in a lot of countries, Ouangrawa said with a touch of awe.

When the course began, Miss Hall told us that wed get really attached to the residents, and I didnt believe it, but you do get really attached, said Jennifer Perez Diaz, 17. On the last day Im going to be really sad.

The programs benefits reach both ways. It gives the residents an insight into whats going on outside with the younger generation, said Adaeze Ikeotuonye, health-care administrator at Ingleside, adding that it has helped some reclusive residents become more engaged. They feel like theyre helping the young people start a new career, so it does give our residents a sense of fulfillment.

Even after just three months, the relationships can become deep, Ouangrawa said. Everybody knows everybodys names. You get touched by their stories, she said. Particularly for residents who dont get many visits from relatives, You have to be a family to them, and that takes a lot of humanity and compassion and love.
A group called Justice for John Geer picket outside of the police department in the Massey building in 2015. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Virginias largest jurisdiction moved forward Tuesday with creating a civilian board to review allegations of police abuse, joining the District, New York and other major U.S. cities that have taken steps to improve police accountability.

Concerns over police misconduct have spread across the country after a spate of fatal shootings by officers sparked protests and became part of the debates in the presidential election.

Fairfax County, whose Board of Supervisors approved the new civilian panel in a 9-to-1 vote, was motivated to act in the face of sharp criticism over how the county handled the fatal police shooting of an unarmed resident, John B. Geer, in 2013.

Adam D. Torres, who was fired from the police force two years after Geers death, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the case in April.

The case has prompted the county to pursue $35 million in reform efforts, including the hiring earlier this year of an independent auditor whose job will be to monitor use-of-force investigations. Fairfax officials also are considering requiring police officers to wear body cameras.

Fairfax board chair Sharon Bulova (D) said the various police reforms being implemented by the county will help Fairfax avoid police shootings leading to injury or death. (Tom Jackman)

What were doing here today is taking another step in making a great police department even better and being a model for the nation in how we continue to enhance trust between our community and the police, said Sharon Bulova (D), chair of the Board of Supervisors.

Last year, Bulova created a police advisory committee that recommended 202 changes, following public outrage over the countys initial refusal to share police internal affairs files with the Fairfax prosecutor, Raymond F. Morrogh (D), while he was investigating the Geer shooting. A county attorney also rejected a request by Morrogh to discuss the case with county supervisors, without informing supervisors of the request.

The nine-member civilian review board will scrutinize police department investigations into allegations of police abuse or misconduct. The board may also refer such allegations to the police department, but, unlike in some other jurisdictions, will not have any authority to investigate cases on its own.

If the board does not agree with the police departments findings in a particular case, it may request that the supervisors order the county police chief to reopen the investigation.

The lone vote against creating the review panel came from Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield), who called the proposal an act of political correctness.

Herrity argued that there is already enough police accountability in Fairfax with the departments internal affairs bureau and the new auditor position. He said creating a new board would be duplicative, as the county prepares for another tough budget year, and could hurt morale within the police department.

Supervisor Catherine M. Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) pushed unsuccessfully to allow the board to take testimony from witnesses not interviewed by police in an investigation, arguing that such an expansion of powers would help instill deeper trust from residents who are wary of going to the police.

We were unresponsive before and it was a very, very difficult environment to live in, she said. Citizens felt we were not listening, we were not engaged and that we did not want to be engaged.

After a county attorney told the board that taking in additional evidence outside of an ongoing police investigation could make Fairfax vulnerable to a lawsuit, the supervisors decided to allow those witnesses to submit written testimony that would be turned over to the police.

Bulova said the various police changes being implemented by the county will help Fairfax avoid police shootings leading to injury or death.

We dont have very many of those in Fairfax County, she said. And we dont want to have very many of those in Fairfax County.
A U.S. flag flies above naval vessels docked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Norfolk. (Joshua Roberts/BLOOMBERG NEWS)

Virginia lawmakers say Congresss plan to continue funding the government at current levels will stall the construction of aircraft carriers in Norfolk, threatening jobs and putting national security at risk.

Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) last week urged Republican leaders to approve $500 million in new spending to keep fabrication of parts for the USS Enterprise on track at Newport News Shipbuilding.

The Norfolk-area company is the sole designer and builder of aircraft carriers for the Navy.

The House on Friday passed the National Defense Authorization Act, a plan that includes preparations for the new carrier and a host of other military programs, including an upgrade to the Navys ballistic missile submarine fleet.

But the new projects will not be funded as long as lawmakers continue to disagree about how to pay for them. Republican leaders are expected this week to release the details of a continuing resolution that could make an exception for the carriers and submarines.

Weeks after he and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost the election, Kaine has blamed President-elect Donald Trump for putting shipbuilders in limbo.

Trump campaigned on, I want to do all these good things for the military, but has asked the House, Dont do an appropriations bill. This injects tremendous uncertainty into the process, Kaine said.

Trump asked Republican leaders in Congress to delay action on spending bills until after he takes office in January. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed, saying he would pass a continuing resolution, a stopgap measure, to maintain current spending levels until March.

The USS Enterprise will not be finished until 2025, but Warner and Kaine said special steel must be made now to produce shaft forgings, propulsion machinery, major pumps and large complex valves.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee on defense, said lawmakers are still figuring out what to include in the continuing resolution.

While no final decisions have been made, providing appropriations necessary to maintain national security programs is central to those discussions, Cochran spokesman Chris Gallegos said.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said an overall budget plan would avoid delaying the carriers and more than 140 programs, according to the Pentagon.

So far, Republicans have made no attempt to take these scores of problems into account as they write a bill to put spending on autopilot, preferring instead to pick and choose a few of their favorite programs, Durbin spokesman Ben Marter said.

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said the specialized workers required to make the carriers are particularly vulnerable to the whims of Congress.

We cant tell you were going to lay you off for a couple of months while Congress gets its act together and then were going to have you come back to work, he said. He called aircraft carriers the cornerstone of our ability to project power around the world.

A spokeswoman for Huntington Ingalls Industries, the shipyards corporate parent, said it is too early to quantify the potential effect of flat funding or say how many jobs could suffer.

Wittman is one of four Republicans competing for their partys nomination to run for governor next year. He chairs the readiness subcommittee on armed services, but he said he hopes next year to move over to the seapower and projection forces subcommittee, where he could have direct influence over the nations fleet.

He said a promotion could alter his plans, perhaps eliminating some competition for the Republican nomination.

My plans havent changed, but I tell folks the world around me has. Well see where we are in the next couple of weeks, Wittman said.

[With Forbess defeat, Virginias delegation to Congress grows less experienced]

Virginia has been losing influence on military matters as senior members of its congressional delegation have lost seats or retired in recent years.

In 2014, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary, and Democrat James P. Moran and Republican Frank R. Wolf retired. Then-Reps. Scott Rigell (R) and Robert Hurt (R) declined to seek reelection this year, and Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R) lost in the primary after switching districts.

Lawmakers have so far stymied Floridas efforts to station a carrier in Jacksonville, thereby protecting Norfolks status as the only East Coast home to the nations fleet.

Forbes  the current chair of the Seapower subcommittee  has been mentioned as a possible Navy secretary in the Trump administration.

Forbes declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that Congress should fund the carriers: If funding for carrier construction is arbitrarily held to last years levels, it will inevitably cause inefficiencies and delays with our carrier fleet already understrength, we cannot allow Congresss failure to pass a budget to delay the delivery of more ships.

Congress mandates 11 carriers, but there are 10 in operation.
Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Shaken by weeks of death threats and online attacks fueled by a bizarre conspiracy theory, the independent business owners on this block of Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington gathered at Terasol restaurant just after Thanksgiving to discuss what to do. Though they had repeatedly reported the harassment to District police and the FBI, the abuse had only intensified.

Terasols co-owner, Sabrina Ousmaal, who had begged authorities for help, worried that the worst was yet to come.

It only takes one crazy with a gun, she recalled saying at the meeting.

On Sunday, police say, a North Carolina man with an assault rifle walked into Comet Ping Pong, the pizzeria across the street that had become the subject of a widely shared fake news story linking Hillary Clinton to a child sex ring. He fired his gun at least twice before pointing it at an employee.

[N.C. man told police he was armed to save children, but didnt find any]

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, walked into D.C. pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong armed with an assault rifle on Dec. 4, apparently to "investigate" a fake internet conspiracy. Here's what we know about him so far. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)

The man, Edgar Maddison Welch, would later tell police he had come to rescue imprisoned children who, of course, didnt exist. Ousmaals husband, Alan Moin, was driving down Connecticut Avenue NW just after Maddison had gone inside the pizza shop. An officer yelled at Moin to back up, so he made a U-turn and parked in front of his own restaurant. Suddenly, people poured out of Comet, screaming.

I knew exactly what was going on, he said.

Internet trolls had first targeted Comet after WikiLeaks revealed that its owner, James Alefantis, had communicated with Clintons campaign chief, John Podesta. Inexplicably, those hacked emails morphed into the false allegations against Alefantis and Clinton.

Soon, the conspiracy theory grew, and so did the fallout on Connecticut Avenue.

A few days before the election, Ousmaal noticed a disturbing Google review of the restaurant. It alleged that they, too, were involved in the sex-abuse plot. More online accusations quickly followed.

[At a D.C. pizzeria, the dangers of fake news just got all too real]

They suspected that the online mob may have targeted them because of a photo on Terasols website that showed Ousmaal and her daughter posing with Clinton, who had eaten there three or four years ago.

The would-be Internet sleuths also fixated on a heart logo that appeared on the site as part of a fundraiser for St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, which Ousmaal, a cancer survivor, has supported for years.

These maniacs thought that was a symbol of child pornography, Moin said Monday. Its crazy.

When the family removed it from the site, their tormenters concluded Terasol was hiding something. The anonymous calls increased.

Just up the road, Abdel Hammads Besta Pizza was swept up in the witch hunt shortly after the election, when the company that maintains his website alerted him to an astonishing new review. Someone had alleged that his shops simple, pizza-shaped logo was also a symbol of child pornography.

He was stunned.

Its a slice of pizza, Hammad said.

He removed the logo from his site but couldnt afford the more than $2,000 to pay for new signs.

Why did you change the website? anonymous callers began screaming at him over the phone.

Were going to put a bullet in your head, threatened another.

Last week, Hammad said, a pair of protesters barged into his shop and photographed a manager, who broke his fingers when he tried to stop them.

More than once, hes had to turn off the phones at his two stores, including one in Bethesda. His revenue, he said, has plummeted by 35 percent.

Im just an immigrant running a pizza place trying to make ends meet, said Hammad, a Muslim  and Donald Trump voter  who moved here from Egypt in 1980 and first opened a pizza joint on Connecticut Avenue 25 years ago. The business helped send his daughter to Penn State and his oldest son to Virginia Tech, where he has joined the Army ROTC program.

If it goes like this another month or two, Hammad worried, Im going to have to shut down.

Several doors down, Politics and Prose has also been inundated with online hate and a relentless stream of vicious calls since mid-November, and like his neighboring entrepreneurs, the bookstores co-owner, Bradley Graham, was frustrated with the police response.

We had felt for days, he said, that more could and should have been done to squelch these verbal attacks and figure out who is the source.

Ousmaal first reported the harassment of her restaurant to D.C. police two weeks ago, but in emails she shared with The Post, an officer told her they couldnt do anything to prevent free speech. He suggested she file a lawsuit.

She understands freedom of speech, Ousmaal replied in an email, but derogatory libelous and hateful blogs and emails should not and cannot qualify.

The officer replied once more, suggesting she ask the other owners if they knew who was behind the disruption.

I dont have anymore options to give unfortunately, he wrote.

Ousmaal couldnt believe it. She feared her family or staff could be harmed.

Literally, she said, death threats.

In a statement, District police maintained that they did not receive reports of any specific threats before this weekends incident.

But Ousmaal was encouraged on Monday evening after she and the other business owners met with city and police leaders, who promised to provide the neighborhood with more security and to pursue those responsible for the harassment.

Their message was simple, she said: Were going to do something.

Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.
Siddhartha CCI Vice Chairman escapes murder attempt

Businessman and Vice Chairman of Siddhartha Chambers of Commerce and Industries (CCI), Kul Prasad Neupane has been shot at Siddharthanagar municipality in Rupandehi on Tuesday.
Authorities in Oakland, Calif., say dozens of people have died in a fire that broke out during a party at warehouse that served as an art and music venue. (Claritza Jimenez,Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

Authorities in Oakland, Calif., say dozens of people have died in a fire that broke out during a party at warehouse that served as an art and music venue. (Claritza Jimenez,Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

For the artists who lived in the rickety, debris-filled warehouse called the Ghost Ship, what lured them was the promise of beauty and art. What they saw this weekend instead was death and reality in its most brutal and tragic form.

The step-by-step search after Friday inferno  so far turning up 36 bodies  has covered 85 percent of the buildings charred hulk, said Alameda County Sheriffs Deputy Tya Modeste on Tuesday.

Crews now hope to buttress the remaining portion of the site, which has been too unstable to enter. Authorities warn the death toll could rise as the last corners are combed.

On Monday, survivors, former tenants and family members desperately waited for news and gave vivid accounts of the eclectic community that sprang up within the buildings fragile walls.

Some were mournful, even wistful about the bohemian life they found in the large two-story warehouse. They described it as a nourishing space where creativity thrived and a refuge in a city where ever-rising housing prices were constantly chasing artists away.

1 of 48 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Photos from the scene of deadly warehouse fire in Oakland View Photos More than 30 people died in a blaze that broke out during a party in a converted warehouse late Friday night in the San Francisco Bay area, according to fire officials. Caption More than 30 people died in a blaze that started during a party in a converted warehouse late Friday night in the San Francisco Bay area, according to fire officials. Dec. 6, 2016 Emergency crew workers watch as a vehicle picks up debris at the site of a warehouse fire in Oakland, Calif. The fire erupted Friday, killing dozens. Jeff Chiu/AP Wait 1 second to continue.

Others were scathing and recalled conditions ripe for disaster.

Its a death trap waiting to happen, said Shelley Mack, a jewelry maker who used to live at the Ghost Ship, paying $700 a month for rent.

The unstable structure was deemed unsafe for much of Monday, prompting fire officials to pull back workers who had been haltingly trying to excavate the burned remains of those who came to a music party at the warehouse. Investigators had identified 33 of the dead, including three victims from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala, and had conducted autopsies on 22.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley said that charges of murder or involuntary manslaughter were possible, although she noted that a criminal investigation was in its early stages. Federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting.

The warehouse was not licensed for dwellings or event space, and city authorities had recently sent an inspector after neighbors and others complained about trash outside and conditions inside.

What Mack discovered when she moved into the Ghost Ship was stark. There were no sprinklers or fire alarms in the building, she said. Propane tanks, located underneath a sink and in a hallway outside the bathroom, were used to provide hot water. Transformers could be found in several places, she said, and people were constantly tripping over the wires and cords that ran throughout the space. A transformer exploded a couple of months after she moved in.

The building often had no electricity, said Mack, who recalled often using a small flashlight on her keychain to get around. On the first floor were makeshift recreational vehicles where people lived; Mack said her RV was at the back part of the building. A rickety, makeshift staircase made of wooden pallets led to the second floor, which was used for events.

It was like organized chaos, said Mariah Benavides, who used to babysit for Derick Ion Almena, who leased the building, and his wife, Micah Allison. The couple and their three children were not at the warehouse during the blaze, because, some reports said, Almena had rented out the space for the party.

It was dark. There were nails coming from the ground. The staircase was totally unstable. There was so much stuff, Benavides said. There were people living downstairs on the first level, almost like a makeshift RV park with campers randomly everywhere.

Despite the conditions, many described finding meaning and even beauty in the chaos.

The community included tattoo artists, jewelry makers, painters, sculptors, and people who hand-stitched outfits and handbags. In addition to its draw as a symbol of artistry, it also was frequently the home of concerts such as the one held Friday night, when the fire began, and a sanctuary for many in Oaklands LGBT community.

Nikki Kelber, one of about 23 people who lived in the warehouse, said, It was one of the most amazing, beautiful spaces you could ever see.

It was beautiful, said Pete Veilleux, who was friends with people who lived there. It was like an art gallery, but people lived there.

In pictures on the communitys website, oaklandghostship.com, every nook and cranny seems crammed with eclectic objects  wood 2-by-4s, antique furniture, wooden lofts, tapestries, pianos, organs, yards of bright textiles, Persian rugs piled on the floors and other oddities.

In retrospect, those objects appear as kindling, and the rooms subdivided by wooden walls as a deadly labyrinth that partygoers and residents tried to navigate amid the smoke and the terror.

The space was never meant to have people living there, said Benavides, who had last visited the Ghost Ship in 2014. They tried to create that, and they created it in a way thats unsafe.

Benavides said Almena and Allison would leave their children  then ages 1, 3 and 9  for days at a time. Because the warehouse didnt have running water, the children sometimes showered and ate at the nearby house of a friend of Benavides.

I dont feel like they were totally malicious or evil people, she said. They were selfish and arrogant.

In a Facebook post soon after the fire, Almena wrote: 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.

The post, which was later deleted, drew criticism and anger from families of the dead and survivors of the fire.

I cant explain who I am anymore, Almena told NBC News in an interview broadcast Monday night. Weve done everything that we possibly can afford to do, his wife added.

Danielle Boudreaux, an artist, hairdresser, and jewelry and handbag maker, said she had a falling out with Almena a year and a half ago after she told him not to raise his children at the warehouse and convinced Allisons relatives that it was dangerous.

Boudreaux said stairway was too generous a description for the steps leading to the second level where Almenas family lived.

It only took two people on it at a time . . . when you stepped on it, it wobbled, and there were ropes holding it up. If you had three people on that, it was falling down, she said.

Once the fire began, she said, there was no way you were getting out of that building. Even if you knew about the back stairwell, even if you knew it could take you up to the roof, who knows if you could have had time to get out even then?

Jeffrey Pine, a former Rhode Island attorney general who defended a nightclub owner who faced criminal charges for a fire that killed 100 people in that state in 2003, said Oakland investigators will have to determine what caused the fire, whether flammable materials were allowed inside the building, and whether there had been any code violations.

Its unclear whether Oakland officials, or the buildings owner, Chor Ng, were aware that the warehouse had been converted into a residential artists collective, or that concerts or parties were being held inside.

In the years since the recession, budgets for building-code enforcement have fallen significantly in most cities, said Elley Klausbruckner, a San Diego-based fire and building-code consultant, so theres less budget to be able to police these types of facilities.

At a news conference, Darin Ranelletti, director of Oaklands Planning and Building Department, said the last permitted use of the building was as a warehouse, so neither habitation nor a concert would have been legal.

The building had a long history of complaints, with some lodged as recently as last month.

Al Garcia, who owns a business across the street, said trash, pianos, crates, boards, statues and abandoned cars were piled up outside the building.

The Planning and Building Department had previously investigated the warehouse after complaints about trash and blight outside the property and conditions inside.

The most recent such complaint occurred on Nov. 13, Oaklands mayor, Libby Schaaf, said. They also alleged there was illegal or unpermitted construction inside, and possible residential use.

She said the city sent an inspector to the building on Nov. 17 in response to the complaints, but the inspector couldnt get into the building, so the investigation simply remained open.

Guerra and Wan reported from Washington. Jasper Scherer in Oakland and Sarah Larimer in Washington contributed to this report.
GEORGIA

Man gets life for death of 22-month-old son

A judge on Monday handed down a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for a Georgia man convicted of murder by jurors who believed he had intentionally left his toddler son in a hot SUV to die.

Jurors last month convicted Justin Ross Harris, 36, of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.

Cooper died after sitting for about seven hours in the back seat of his fathers vehicle outside the suburban Atlanta office where Harris worked 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.

 Associated Press

OHIO

U.S. Capitol plot leads to 30-year sentence

An Ohio man was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a federal judge on Monday for plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol with guns and bombs in sympathy with Islamic State militants.

Christopher Cornell, 22, of Green Township, which is near Cincinnati, was arrested in January 2015 and accused of planning to travel to Washington to attack the U.S. Capitol during President Obamas State of the Union address.

Cornell remained defiant despite his guilty plea and long sentence.

Allah is in control, not this judge, Cornell said as he left the court Monday, adding, Dont trust the court system, its rigged.

Cornell pleaded guilty in August to charges of attempted murder of government officials, possession of a firearm to commit a crime and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

 Reuters

Texas sheriffs deputy dies as car plunges into sinkhole: An off-duty sheriffs deputy died and two other people were hurt when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio, officials said. The Bexar County Sheriffs Office on Monday identified the victim as Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara, 69, who was a courthouse bailiff. Utility officials say the sinkhole appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain earlier Sunday. Two passersby rescued a driver after another vehicle went into the sinkhole Sunday night. That driver and one of his rescuers were treated for minor injuries.

 Associated Press
Donald Trumps selection Monday of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development sets up what could be a collision between the nominees philosophical aversion to social safety-net programs and an agency that administers some of the governments most expansive programs for helping minorities and low-income people.

If Carson remains true to his political commentary about the nations housing programs, he could pursue a conservative agenda sharply at odds with efforts by the Obama administration to promote racial integration in housing and with other anti-segregation policies championed by minority groups such as the NAACP. Carson might also abandon or place new restrictions on government subsidies and other programs that conservatives criticize as fostering a culture of overreliance on government handouts, according to housing advocates alarmed by his nomination.

It could prove difficult, however, for Carson to manage, much less change the fundamental course of an organization as massive as HUD. By his admission, Carson has never run an organization of that size and is far from fluent in housing-policy issues. His leadership of the department will be a test case for Trumps stated governing philosophy that it is better for Washington outsiders, even those with no policy experience, to hold the levers of federal power.

Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities, Trump said in a statement announcing his decision to nominate Carson.We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a Presidency representing all Americans.

[Carson: From Trump friend to enemy to ally to outsider to Cabinet member]

President-elect Donald Trump named Ben Carson as his nominee for housing and urban development secretary. Here's what you need to know about the former GOP presidential candidate. (Sarah Parnass,Osman Malik/The Washington Post)

Carson is receiving counsel from Alphonso Jackson, HUD secretary under President George W. Bush, who has suggested he rely heavily on the departments professional staff to help him set priorities when he takes over the agency. We have discussed that over the last couple of weeks, Jackson said in an interview. The Senior Executive Service people at HUD are extremely intelligent and valuable to any secretary, if he will listen to them.

Major changes to the governments role in housing would require Congress to act, but policy experts said Carson will have the power to make many changes on his own using his departments rulemaking authority.

He could, for instance, seek to change rules that determine who is eligible for housing assistance and institute tougher work requirements for people in subsidized housing.

Advocates said they are concerned about Carsons comments that safety-net programs foster dependence in low-income people.

Coming to lead an agency that serves the poorest people in the country with a philosophy of if people are that poor its because theyre not trying hard enough could have a big impact on the people HUD serves, said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

[The Trump appointment tracker]

HUD, with a $49 billion budget and about 8,300 employees, has its origins in President Lyndon B. Johnsons Great Society. Its mission includes enforcing anti-discrimination laws, assisting low-income applicants in obtaining home mortgages and operating more than 3,000 local public-housing authorities.

The agency is likely to attract attention in Trumps administration, given the president-elects frequent and often criticized descriptions of hellishly violent urban communities on the campaign trail.

You have so many things, so many problems, so many horrible, horrible problems, Trump said at a rally before the election. The violence. The death. The lack of education. No jobs. Were going to work with the African American community, and were going to solve the problem of the inner city.

Carson has spoken about the desperation he sees in urban areas as well but uses a more modest tone than Trump.

We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid, Carson wrote in a Facebook post last month.

Congress will have a significant budgetary role in determining what pieces of Carsons agenda take effect. Housing experts said they expect to see a decline of HUDs already-shrinking budget, assuming that Trump follows through on his pledge to pay for increased spending on the military with cuts to domestic programs, which could narrow Carsons range of options.

[Carsons positions on poverty create tension with rags-to-riches life story]

The nominees history gives him a pronounced, often controversial view on the roots of urban poverty.

Born into a struggling family on the southwest side of Detroit, Carson was educated at Yale University and the University of Michigan before he began a celebrated surgical career at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He credits his achievements to his Christian faith and the high expectations of his mother, an illiterate domestic servant who sought never to take government assistance, though she sometimes did.

She worked very hard, leaving very early in the morning, getting back very late at night, he said in interview last year with The Washington Post. Sometimes we didnt see her for a week. She didnt like the idea of dependency. Even if she sometimes took government aid, she always wanted to be independent. She would get in arguments with others who would say, Theres aid for dependent children  you dont need to be working. 

The biggest shifts under Carson could come in the area of fair housing, experts said. The Obama administration is just starting to implement a new rule requiring local communities to study and report on patterns of racial and income disparity in housing, with HUD overseeing the strategy. The federal government is giving these communities detailed data on poverty rates, school demographics, where minority groups live and whether they are segregated from white neighborhoods. Where segregation exists, HUD and local officials are supposed to come up with plans to reduce it.

Conservative critics have called the policy government overreach, and Carson wrote last year that requiring cities and towns to publicly report racial disparities in housing would fundamentally change communities by requiring affordable housing to be built in wealthier neighborhoods.

In a Washington Times op-ed, he issued a strong warning against the policy, comparing it to mandated social-engineering schemes typical of socialism.

These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse, Carson wrote. There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.

As housing secretary, Carson could urge Congress to take this authority away from HUD, experts said. But even if that didnt happen, Carson could direct his staff not to enforce the rules, by moving resources out of the fair-housing division and into other areas of the department.

Just sort of ignoring it on its own could mean much less oversight, Yentel said.

Carson could seek guidance from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who has proposed overhauling federal housing policy using the changes to welfare in the 1990s as a model. That could mean imposing a work requirement for federal housing aid and limiting the amount of time beneficiaries may use public housing.

Housing experts said they also anticipate a shift away from enforcing fair-housing laws and responding to complaints of discrimination and toward creating more of a role for the private market in housing programs. Trumps transition team for HUD has several members from the world of housing finance, which could help the agency provide government-subsidized mortgages for low-income home buyers.

Robert Silverman, a housing expert at the University of Buffalo, predicted that Carson will reduce the level of scrutiny these lenders face about how loans are distributed to minority groups. Less regulation will allow them to originate loans they might consider higher-risk, Silverman said.

He also expects to see a larger role for private developers in revitalizing existing public housing apartments or building new ones, a strategy the Obama administration has used to some degree. Developers benefit from tax credits when they take on federal projects such as these, but experts say they will have less incentive to do so if Trump reduces many of their corporate taxes.

Groups representing the governments more than 3,000 local public-housing authorities said Carsons expected push for a weaker government hand in housing could also bring some relief  from regulations they say are too time-consuming and expensive to carry out. Thousands of civil servants at HUD are eligible to retire, and from 2005 to 2014, the agency has lost the greatest percentage of full-time employees who have not been replaced of any federal department, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In recent years, there have been new requirements to employ public-housing residents in redevelopment projects, the fair-housing rule and now a no-smoking rule.

Were concerned that HUD cant fulfill many of its mandates, said Tim Kaiser, executive director of the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association.

These are complex issues that bedevil policy experts, but Jackson said Carsons leadership abilities will see him through the challenges of running HUD.

Ben is a leader, and he engenders energy in people, he said. I dont want to prejudge him.
Statute amendment bill deepens political divide

With the main opposition CPN-UMLs protests against the constitution amendment proposal gathering momentum and the Madhes-based parties refusing to take ownership of the bill registered in Parliament,
Taskforce to review foreign policy on cards

Minister for Foreign Affairs Prakash Sharan Mahat said on Monday that plans are afoot to review Nepals foreign policy to make it more relevant in accordance with changed context.
In his Dec. 2 op-ed, An old foe awaits a new president, Michael Gerson argued that strategic realities, not negotiating skills, will determine our policy concerning nuclear-armed North Korea. Mr. Gerson also contended that resolution of this seemingly intractable problem cannot be subcontracted to China.

Perhaps a negotiated solution is possible now that we have the ultimate dealmaker, Donald Trump, as our president-elect. He could propose a grand bargain in which Korea would be unified under South Korean leadership in exchange for the permanent removal of U.S. forces and the neutralization of Korea a la Finland during the Cold War. Such an agreement could well incentivize Beijing to consign North Korea to the ash heap of history.

This deal would benefit all parties to the accord: The United States would save on expensive treaty commitments to South Korea; Chinas nightmare of having U.S. forces on its border in a unified Korea would vanish; South Korea could vastly reduce its military expenditures while integrating the impoverished and brutalized North Korean population into a humanistic democracy. Japan and Russia would also benefit. The world would be spared the catastrophe of a possible second Korean War. The art of this deal would be of Westphalian proportions.

What would North Koreas despot leader Kim Jong Un and his cronies gain? Survival in China with lavish perks for the remainder of their lives. Beijing would have every incentive and the means to convince the North Korean leadership that this is an offer it cannot refuse.

Edward Grimes, Springfield
Michael F. Cannon is a resident scholar at the Cato Institute.

Hillary Clintons decision to join Green Party candidate Jill Steins recount efforts in key states may have been welcome news to Democrats, but it is unlikely to change the outcome of the presidential election. Nor will complaining about the unfairness of the electoral college or begging Republican electors to vote for Clinton. Democrats best chance to prevent Donald Trump from assuming the presidency is instead to do the unthinkable: Throw their support behind another Republican, such as Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP presidential nominee.

1 of 74 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Heres what President-elect Donald Trump has been doing after the election View Photos Trump has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to transition into the White House. Caption He has been holding interviews and meetings as he prepares to enter the White House. Jan. 19, 2017 President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, visit the Lincoln Memorial before the Make America Great Again concert. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

To become president, a candidate must get a bare majority of 270 votes when the electoral college meets Dec. 19.

As Alexander Hamilton explained, the electoral college provides a backstop in the event voters select a dangerously unfit candidate. The process of election, Hamilton wrote, affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Electors would use their judgment to prevent the tumult and disorder that would result from this mischief of presidential candidates exploiting talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity. One might call it the cooler-heads college.

[The Constitution lets the electoral college choose the winner. They should choose Clinton.]

Election Day produced 306 electors pledged to Trump and 232 pledged to Clinton. A petition at Change.org asks Republican electors to vote for Clinton. A group calling itself Hamilton Electors seeks to persuade at least 37 GOP electors to vote for a Republican other than Trump, leaving him with only 269 votes. If no candidate secures 270 votes, the House of Representatives selects the next president from the top three vote-getters in the electoral college.

Either strategy is a fools errand. Whatever reservations Republican electors may have about Trump, empty entreaties from Democrats are unlikely to sway them. Even if 37 Republican electors voted for another Republican, the GOP-controlled House would likely select Trump anyway.

The only way Democrats stand any chance of persuading Republican electors to abandon Trump is with a dramatic gesture of true bipartisanship. If all 232 Democratic electors pledge to reach across the aisle and vote for a Republican alternative to Trump, it would take just 38 GOP electors to make that person the next president.

If Clinton announced she is releasing her electors and asked them to vote for a credible Republican alternative, she could plausibly deliver all 232 Democratic electors. She might even secure similar pledges from House Democrats in the event the election went to the House.

Republicans and Democrats react to the announcement that Hillary Clintons campaign plans to join a vote recount in Wisconsin initiated by former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Finding 38 Republican electors might then be easier than Democrats think. In 2012, Romney won a larger share of the popular vote (47.2 percent) than Mr. Trump did this year (46.2 percent). There are 35 Republican electors from states where Romney got more votes than Trump (Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah, Wisconsin), and at least 120 others from states where Romney won a larger share of the vote. Thats more than half of Republican electors. Texas has 38 electors all by itself.

[Dont blame the electoral college. Heres how Democrats can take back politics.]

Naturally, most rank-and-file Democrats would consider the idea of backing a Republican for president abhorrent. Even so, the electoral college presents a most interesting test for Clinton and her party.

If Democrats believe Trump poses a unique threat to the republic, and signal this is not okay by reaching across the aisle to marginalize and stop him, then win or lose, Democrats could legitimately claim they put partisanship aside for the good of the country.

If Democrats believe Trump poses a unique threat yet dont support another Republican in the electoral college, it will indicate that Democrats see Trump as no different from any other Republican. And if Democrats treat Trump as normal, they will be complicit in normalizing his behaviors.

The only people who will be responsible for a Trump presidency are those who voted for him  plus Clinton and her campaign, who helped to raise Trumps profile during the primaries. But if Democrats truly believe what they say about Trump, they should prefer another Republican who does not threaten to normalize what a Trump presidency would.
FAIRFAX COUNTY will have the chance Tuesday to go from wrong to right on police accountability.

The county was wrong when it failed for more than a year to take responsibility for the shooting of an unarmed man by one of its officers in 2013. It started to make things right when, after the controversy that followed, the county Board of Supervisors commissioned a group of civilians to propose accountability-boosting revisions to police procedures. Tuesday, the most essential of those recommendations  a civilian review panel to look over investigations of police misconduct  could finally get the green light.

The panel would allow citizens to submit complaints about police investigations they think have gone awry through a channel outside the department. Their peers, all members of the Fairfax County community, would review those complaints and determine whether the case deserved a second look. The board has already approved an independent auditor to monitor internal affairs investigations of incidents involving death or serious injury.

The review-panel plan has been revised somewhat since the initial recommendation. For example, while citizen complainants will retain the right to speak and take questions before the panel, they wont be allowed to present new evidence or testimony. And although the commission suggested the panel have a single representative from a law enforcement background, it now must have a minimum of one. Its up to the Board of Supervisors to appoint a balanced slate of members.

Even with these alterations, the panels approval Tuesday would mark a major turning point for Fairfax. John Geers death more than three years ago made news, and it laid bare broader problems in county policing. Just this summer, statistics showed that more than 40 percent of use-of-force cases in the county involved black residents, who account for only about 10 percent of the countys population.

These troubling numbers underscore the need for reforms, including outside review. But the county cant stop there: Though the police department says it has implemented around 90 percent of the recommendations under its purview, some remain in progress. A pilot program for police body cameras, which the board says it plans to turn to early next year, should top the list.

The citizen review panel is designed to address abuse after it occurs. The county must continue pursuing other measures to stop that abuse from happening in the first place.
Joseph I. Lieberman, a former U.S. senator from Connecticut, is chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran. Mark D. Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform, is chief executive of United Against Nuclear Iran.

Like President-elect Donald Trump, we vigorously opposed the Iran nuclear agreement, so we sympathize with his promise to dismantle it. But we hope that he and his administration will first try to aggressively enforce and then renegotiate the deal beyond the confines of the nuclear issue to make it better for us and the world.

Before such renegotiations begin, the Trump administration could strengthen its hand by closely consulting with our allies in Irans neighborhood  Israel and the Arab states. They were missing from the group that developed and consented to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the agreement is formally known. That was wrong, for two main reasons: because the Arab states and Israel are our allies and the Iranians are not, and because the countries in the region have the greatest equities at stake and should have a significant voice in the outcome.

To date, the Iranian regime has made clear it has no intent to honor the spirit or letter of the JCPOA. Irans pattern of reckless behavior has accelerated over the past year. Its anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Arab rhetoric has grown stronger, and its actions have matched its rhetoric. Last month, 11 Arab states publicly accused Iran before the United Nations of meddling in their internal affairs. In June, the State Department again designated Iran the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism.

President Obama said the Iran deal is an example of the gap between rhetoric and reality during a news conference Monday, Nov. 14. (The Washington Post)

The American people see clearly what is happening. According to a recent survey by United Against Nuclear Iran, a large majority of American registered voters view Iran as the greatest state threat facing the United States  ahead of North Korea, Russia and China. Only the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are deemed bigger threats.

With U.S. leadership, the new coalition could address the policy omissions in the JCPOA by, for example, securing an agreement with Iran to verifiably curb its regional aggression, state sponsorship of terrorism and domestic repression of human rights. In exchange, Iran could be given broad-based sanctions relief and even normalization of relations.

However, if Iran refuses, the United States and our allies will have great leverage to hold Tehran accountable under the existing accord. Iran has already twice exceeded its allotted limit for heavy water; it has test-fired multiple ballistic missiles, in defiance of U.N. Resolution 2231, which endorses the nuclear deal; and, according to German intelligence estimates, Iran has continued its illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities at a quantitatively high level. The United States and its partners have closely adhered to the letter of the JCPOA; they should demand that Iran do the same.

The Trump administration can also designate the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization. To date, only its extraterritorial Quds Force has been labeled as such by the Treasury Department. If done correctly, such a move could freeze foreign investment in Iran because of the IRGCs pervasiveness in the Iranian economy through front companies.

Trump can also support legislation in Congress punishing sectors of the Iranian economy that support Irans ballistic missile program, and he can propose measures to curb Iranian access to U.S. dollars.

To persuade Iran to abide by both the letter and spirit of the JCPOA, as Dennis Ross and retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus have argued, strengthening deterrence will be key. Setting forth a blunter statement on the consequences of continued Iranian intransigence  even in an authorization for the use of military force in the most dire crisis  might change Ayatollah Ali Khameneis calculations.

If Iran does not change course, the president-elect should make clear he is prepared to impose a new round of comprehensive secondary sanctions against Iran  and then to walk away, with cause, from the JCPOA. Then it will be time, as the president-elect has said, to tear up this agreement.

Such a step-by-step strategy will make clear that the United States is willing to work with Iran but that there will be consequences for the Iranians if no diplomatic solution is reached. At its best, such an approach can be transformational. At the least, it will rewrite the current nuclear deal, relegating to history a period in which the great powers legitimized Irans rogue nuclear program without asking the regime to change its radical, terrorist, repressive and expansionist ways.
I was home with my family Sunday afternoon when an email arrived from a reader with a proposal. He wanted to lynch me.

Rope, Tree, Journalist, the man wrote. Some assembly required. To this slogan, made popular by T-shirts Donald Trump supporters wore at his rallies, my would-be hangman added his offer: I will assemble for you.

This bit of, er, gallows humor was the latest, though far from the worst, of the sort of correspondence my colleagues and I have been receiving lately.

There was a time when threats against journalists, like threats of any sort of political violence, were exceedingly rare. But in Trumps America, such threats are neither rare nor idle.

If you doubt that, consider the events in recent days at Comet Ping Pong, the family pizza place in Northwest Washington Ive been frequenting with my daughter ever since she was a toddler a decade ago. Lately, the owner and staff at Comet  and those of other businesses on the block  have been getting death threats, spurred by radio host Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist with close ties to the president-elect.

Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Jones has been whipping up a bogus and bizarre accusation that Comet is a front for a Hillary Clinton-affiliated pedophilia ring, and the resulting calls and messages threaten a public lynching of this nonexistent ring. I pray someone comes to Comet pizza with automatic weapons and kills everyone inside, wrote one. I just may cut your throat. . . . I truly hope someone blows your brains all over Comet pizza.

Comets owners asked the FBI for help but heard nothing in reply from James Comeys agents. They heard instead from a North Carolina man, carrying an assault rifle, who walked into Comet and started shooting on Sunday afternoon  by coincidence, about the same time I got the email from the aspiring hangman. The man told police he had come to self-investigate the pedophilia conspiracy. Mercifully, nobody was hurt.

The notion that Clinton and her aides are involved in pedophilia has been furthered by none other than Michael Flynn, the man Trump tapped to be his national security adviser. On Nov. 2, Flynn tweeted about allegations that Clinton emails included evidence of sex crimes with children. Even after the man fired his assault weapon inside Comet on Sunday afternoon, Flynns son, Michael Flynn Jr., spread further suspicion on Twitter about Comet and the Clinton pedophilia ring.

This would appear to be the new normal: Not only disagreeing with your opponent but accusing her of running a pedophilia ring, provoking such fury that somebody takes it upon himself to start shooting. Not only chafing when criticized in the press but stoking anti-media hysteria that leads some supporters to threaten to kill journalists.

After The Washington Post reported Sunday about the Comet gunman and the nonsense conspiracy theory that motivated him, the reporters received emails and tweets saying I hope the next shooter targets you lying sacks of s--- in the media, God has a plan better than death, and it would also be a shame if someone took a gun to The Post.

Trump is not directly responsible for every violent word or action of his followers. But he foments violence. As The Posts executive editor, Marty Baron, has noted, when Trump refers to journalists as the lowest form of life, scum and the enemy, it is no wonder that some members of our staff [at The Post] and at other news organizations received vile insults and threats of personal harm so worrisome that extra security was required.

Trump, during the campaign, fantasized about Clinton and her judicial nominees being assassinated. He boasted that I bring rage out in people, and his violent rallies proved it. Since the election, Trump has falsely accused the media of inciting violence. At his speech in Ohio last week he denounced the dishonest media no fewer than six times.

He has also been encouraging Jones, leading publicist of the Comet-Clinton-pedophilia absurdity. Trump has praised Joness amazing reputation, called Jones after winning the presidency to thank him for his support, and has regularly parroted Joness conspiracy ideas.

Now we are beginning to see the consequences of the rage and paranoia Trump has encouraged: A disturbed man fires an assault weapon in a place where tots play ping-pong. The only crime of the owner, James Alefantis, was to be a Clinton supporter who had, the WikiLeaks hack exposed, discussed with Clinton aide John Podesta the possibility of hosting a Clinton fundraiser.

If Trump were a different leader, he would declare that political violence is unacceptable in a free society. Perhaps hed say it after eating a Steel Wills pie at Comet.

But instead he continues to fuel rage against his opponents and his critics. More and worse violence will inevitably follow.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Norbert Hofer with his wife after he lost a close election in Austria. (Ronald Zak/Associated Press)

Around the world, the populist, ethnonationalist far right is gaining vote share  in some cases (ahem) even winning elections.

Also around the world, political observers are shocked  shocked!  that such anti-democratic impulses are gaining ground. But an important new study from three German economists suggests that these phenomena could have been predicted.

In fact, given the 2007-2008 financial crisis, they were virtually preordained.

First, an overview of the populist political rebellion.

On Sunday, Italian voters rejected a constitutional referendum widely seen as a proxy for establishment politicians. It was also a victory for a consortium of populist parties headed by the anti-globalist, anti-elite, Euroskeptic Five Star Movement.

The same day, Austria held its own highly symbolic election. The leader of the nationalist Austrian Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer, came astonishingly close to becoming the first freely elected far-right European head of state since World War II.

Hofer lost, but he still managed to claim a projected 46.7 percent of the vote. Thats the highest national vote share to date for his party  and, for context, higher than the percentage claimed by Americas president-elect. So its hard to argue that the threat that he and his co-partisans represent to a liberal democratic Europe has been neutralized.

Speaking of Donald Trump, he of course represents a tremendous victory for the self-described alt-right. This is a populist, white-nationalist movement in the United States, whose informal leader will soon hold one of the most powerful positions in the White House.

Likewise, in Britain, we can see the phenomenon in Brexit and the rising ethnonationalist, populist U.K. Independence Party. And across the channel, Frances anti-immigrant National Front is gaining steam, as is Germanys comparable AfD party.

Some commentators have analogized this anti-establishment wave to that of the 1930s, when economic instability helped hardline populists gain popularity not just in Europe but also here in the United States.

Thats fair. But its also limiting.

According to the study I mentioned earlier  based on an analysis of 800 elections across 20 countries over 140 years  systemic financial crises have usually produced similar results. Indeed, the researchers find that several trends recur.

Francois Hollande announced that he would not seek reelection in 2017. He is the most unpopular president in the history of modern France, with an approval rating dropping as low as 4 percent. (James McAuley, Jason Aldag / The Washington Post)

One, political polarization and fractionalization rise. The middle hollows out, and parties on the far right benefit more than those on the far left. In fact, on average, the far right sees an increase in vote share of about 30 percent in the five years following a financial crisis.

Two, governing becomes much harder, precisely because of this splintering. There are more political crises, and theres more leadership turnover.

And three, social unrest  anti-government demonstrations, strikes, riots  increases.

These patterns generally do not occur in the wake of normal recessions or major macroeconomic shocks that are not financial in nature.

People see financial crises as man-made disasters, explains Moritz Schularick, an economics professor at the University of Bonn and study co-author. This means that afterward, there is a popular impulse to punish those thought to be responsible.

The scapegoats are often minorities and elites. As weve seen in the recent wave of global anti-elitism, casualties might also include incumbent political parties, central banks, experts, educated cityfolk and the foreigners both at home and abroad viewed as greedily nibbling on natives share of the economic pie.

Why does the populist far right profit more than the populist far left?

Schularick theorizes that after periods of economic uncertainty, people are drawn to the far rights promises of law and order and financial stability, rather than experiments in wealth redistribution.

Theyre voting for reestablishment of order, whatever they perceive that to be, he says.

This is, in my view, among the more tragic implications of this research.

Voters seek out law-and-order politicians precisely because the world has seemingly become so lawless and disorderly; yet those politicians are likely to produce even more chaos, uncertainty and instability.

This is true for Trump, who even before taking office has produced an international incident through his courtesy call from Taiwan, and whose domestic and international policies suggest more volatility to come.

And its likewise true for the anti-establishment, anti-system parties gaining ground across Europe, where they threaten to rip up international agreements and pull out of an already strained currency union.

The one silver lining buried in this depressing study? Right-wing populism may already have peaked. The researchers find that the political effects they document diminish over time, generally reverting back to pre-crisis conditions about 10 years after a crisis.

I wouldnt exactly set your watches yet, but the latest global financial crisis began about nine years ago.
Fake news leads eventually to real tragedy. It almost got there Sunday when an idiot reportedly brought a loaded assault rifle into a Washington pizzeria, firing at least one shot, in an attempt to self-investigate a preposterous made-up conspiracy theory.

No one was hurt  this time. But the same kind of thing will happen again, thanks to the poison being dispensed by alt-right and white-supremacist propagandists. They concocted news stories out of whole cloth during the campaign in an attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton and those closest to her. Is anyone surprised that some people take these paranoid fantasies as gospel truth? Im not.

President-elect Donald Trump makes matters worse by trumpeting facts that are non-factual. To the extent that he shapes the post-truth media landscape, he shares responsibility for the consequences.

The made-up story that inspired Sundays incident grew out of the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podestas emails. There were a number of exchanges between Podesta and the owner of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza parlor. Suspicious? Not in the least. Comet is located in the affluent neighborhood that is home to much of the political establishment. And anyone involved in politics knows that campaigns basically run on pizza.

Also, quite a few of Podestas hacked emails had to do with food. Apparently, he likes to eat well. How sinister.

Comet Ping Pong customers came out to support the restaurant after a gunman entered it with an assault rifle, firing it at least once. Several other businesses on the block have received other threats as well. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

In any event, cynics writing on sites such as Facebook, Reddit, Infowars and the Inquisitr spun these innocent facts into a dark, hydra-headed conspiracy involving the alleged trafficking and sexual exploitation of young children. Hidden rooms and secret tunnels were supposedly involved, and no, I am not making this up. Other people made it up, and some gullible readers swallowed it.

Among the believers, apparently, was Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., who allegedly walked into Comet Ping Pong waving around a loaded AR-15-style assault rifle. Fortunately, employees and customers were able to flee. Welch allegedly fired at least one shot before surrendering to police, who said he had a second firearm with him in the restaurant and a third in his car. He is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

Police said Welch told them he came to the nations capital to look into the ridiculous child-trafficking story. He reportedly barged into the pizzerias kitchen to search for the entrance to the nonexistent secret tunnels.

Yes, this is all as crazy as it sounds. But the lives of those who happened to drop by Comet Ping Pong or any of the neighboring businesses on a chilly Sunday afternoon were put in real danger by the purveyors of fake news. Morally, those propagandists should be in the dock along with Welch.

Legally, of course, those who make up such stories are protected by the First Amendment. The only way we can shield ourselves from toxic conspiracy theories is to denounce them and disown those individuals and media outlets who spread them. In other words, we can use shame as a disinfectant. Yet next month we will inaugurate as president a man who  in this regard, at least  is without shame.

Trump is the Old Faithful of fake news. He started his late-blooming career in politics by claiming, falsely, that President Obama was not born in the United States. He said that thousands and thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks, which was not true. He charged, absurdly, that Obama and Clinton were co-founders of the Islamic State. He touted a ridiculous National Enquirer story alleging that Sen. Ted Cruzs father had something to do with the JFK assassination. He repeatedly said, falsely and without evidence, that there was something seriously wrong with Clintons health. Apparently stung at having lost the popular vote to Clinton, he claimed that he would have won it if not for widespread voter fraud  which simply did not take place, according to officials in the states he cited.

Trump has not, to my knowledge, spoken or tweeted about the pizza scandal, although his chosen national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, did send a tweet about purported Sex Crimes w Children. But the president-elect seems not to realize that it is now in his self-interest to renounce fake news and its creators. Soon, after all, he will be the source of the official story about basically everything.

In a post-truth world, how will we know hes not cooking the economic books? Or that every foreign policy move isnt designed to further his business interests? Or that his Cabinet doesnt practice witchcraft?

Real news and true truth still matter. As Trump will discover.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
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.
Last week on MSNBCs All In with Chris Hayes, a guest mentioned the new unmentionable: Weimar. The guest was Bob Garfield, a liberal media critic, and he was discussing Donald Trump. Hayes was mildly disapproving of the reference. I tend to stay away from Weimar comparisons for a variety of reasons, he said. That would make sense if only Trump himself did not constantly bring them to mind.

I must stop right here to emphasize what I will not be saying. I will not be calling Trump a fascist. I will not be saying hes an anti-Semite because, manifestly, he is not. I will not be smearing him with the clear bigotry of some of his supporters, although I fault him for not slapping down the haters with more energy. Still, the reference to Weimar is apt, not because Trump is another Hitler but because the United States might be another Germany.

Weimar is the charming German city that gave its name to the parliamentary democracy that was created following World War I and which Hitler crushed in 1933. It was never a robust democracy, but it nevertheless was the government of Europes most important  and, in many ways, advanced  country. Berlin in the early 1930s was a tolerant and liberal city. Many a Hollywood filmmaker got a start in Berlin. I cite Billy Wilder  Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard  for one.

[Trump is the Old Faithful of fake news, and that can cause real damage]

In a relative snap of the fingers, all that changed. Weimars intellectuals, artists, actors, writers, architects (Bauhaus) and others fled. The precipitating event was, of course, Hitlers appointment as German chancellor. That was Jan. 30, 1933. Almost exactly a month later, the German parliament building, the Reichstag, was consumed by fire. A Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was accused of setting it. (He was subsequently guillotined.) Hitler, declaring a vast communist threat, asked President Paul von Hindenburg for emergency powers. He got them. He kept them until he died.

Here's what you should know about President-elect Donald Trump's Nov. 29 tweet calling for a ban on burning the U.S. flag. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Here is the relevance of Weimar. Trump has shown a daunting disregard or ignorance of the Constitution and of law. Regarding the use of torture, he has said that the military must follow his orders  even if they are illegal. More recently, he declared that flag-burning should be a crime and that flag burners be punished by perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail. The remark was one of his off-the-cuff inanities  since 1989, flag-burning has been protected political speech, and citizenship, wed like to think, is forever. The tweet  so few words, so much meaning  spoke to Trumps abysmal lack of knowledge but, more important, contained an emotional truth. Trump despises dissent and often reacts emotionally to setbacks or challenges.

Now, ask yourself what might happen if there were a huge terrorist incident on American soil. Might this man of little knowledge and no restraint attempt to suspend civil liberties? (After all, even Abraham Lincoln did.) His instinctive reaction to flag-burning was all wrong. In addition, he holds the Nixonian view that the law is what he says it is. The courts have time and time again ruled otherwise.

[Trumps Taiwan call wasnt a blunder. It was brilliant.]

Yet, I wonder if a compliant Congress and an even more compliant American people would balk at giving Trump any emergency power he seeks. His election was a stunner  an eruption of anger and resentment that is putting an epochally unqualified man in the White House. So great was the urge to trash the status quo that Trumps lying, bragging, cheating, insulting and breathtaking ignorance did not disqualify him. Indeed, his very unsuitableness for the presidency immensely credentialed him. He is loved by many because he is loathed by others.

Already Trump has brought the Republican Party to heel with even his most vociferous critics  Mitt Romney, for instance  willing to discuss a Cabinet post. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan speaks of Trump as if hes just had a chat with Ben Franklin  some good ideas, and let bygones be bygones  but this passivity is actually good. Trump needs to be surrounded by political adults. Sooner or later, someones going to have to throw a pitcher of cold water in his face. (Watch the hair!)

I have too much faith in America and its institutions to think that Weimar is the future. It is, however, a warning, not something that shouldnt be discussed, but something that should be mulled. The differences between Weimar Germany and contemporary America are significant but so, increasingly, are the similarities.

Read more from Richard Cohens archive.
Whatever his other considerable achievements, our president-elect is not known for his broad reading in American history. But Donald Trump is about to enter that history. And in the spirit of new beginnings, he might view this as an opportunity to accumulate some inspiration, both for his inaugural address and his manner of governing.

So here is an exercise: If you were to recommend three American texts for our president-elect to read and ponder before taking the oath of office, what would they be?

The smartasses in the back of the room have already said the Constitution, so lets exclude that one. There are, of course, so many possibilities that any proposed list is almost entirely subjective. In a casual survey of friends, I got strong options by Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.

But because (in my entirely artificial construct) I have to choose, here are my selections:

First, Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Written in 1963 from solitary confinement, it was a response to local white clergymen who had condemned protests and accused King of being an outside agitator.

For King, no one is an outsider when it comes to confronting injustice because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. King based a vision of human dignity on moral law, which takes precedence over unjust human laws. And King urges  actually demands  that white America see events from a different perspective. When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will . . . when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters . . . then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

The lessons here? The limits of law and order, set at the boundaries of conscience; the importance of protest in a free society; the need for empathy as the basis for justice.

Second, Id propose Franklin D. Roosevelts Four Freedoms speech to Congress in 1941. The United States had not yet been attacked at Pearl Harbor. But Roosevelt knew that the country would eventually be engulfed by the disorders of the world. So he set out to overcome isolationist sentiment and build public support for military aid to a beleaguered Britain.

In his view, America opposes any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall. Instead, the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders. The engagement and sacrifice of Americans, he realized, had to be rooted in an unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. And so he set out the goals of freedom of speech and expression  everywhere in the world . . . freedom of every person to worship God in his own way  everywhere in the world . . . freedom from want . . . freedom from fear.

That theory of Americas global role has been embraced by Democratic and Republican presidents since World War II, helping defend the American people from grave dangers and stabilizing large portions of the world.

It is the great power of historical texts that they speak to us differently, in different times. We read certain speeches and documents again and again. But then, in a new light, they speak across the years, as close as a voice over your shoulder.

This is true of my third choice: George Washingtons Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. Washington was responding to a letter of thanks from representatives of the largest Jewish community in post-revolution America.

Trying to figure out what to make of the post election landscape? Here are five notable political books that captured the climate of 2016. (Adriana Usero,Julio Negron/The Washington Post)

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, replied Washington, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens. Washington continued: May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

This is the proper response to anger and division. We are not a nation that grants tolerance; we are a nation that recognizes inherent rights, held equally by all the Children of Abraham, and everyone else. And when we come back to our deepest values, as we always do, there shall be none to make them afraid.

Read more from Michael Gersons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .
IT WAS less than a month ago that a spokesman for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told reporters that the erstwhile GOP presidential candidate would not be serving the Trump administration in anything but an unofficial advisory capacity. Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, Armstrong Williams said, hes never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency. On that basis alone, President-elect Donald Trumps announcement Monday that Mr. Carson would be his choice to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development was baffling. Add the fact that Mr. Carson has no relevant expertise whatsoever (secretary of health and human services, the previous job for which the highly accomplished physician was mentioned, might have been a different story) and Mr. Trumps pick goes well beyond baffling.

[Donald Trump says he wants to fix cities. Ben Carson will make them worse.]

To be sure, HUDs mission, in large part, is to help the urban poor through administering public housing, distributing rental-assistance vouchers and other programs; Mr. Carsons Detroit boyhood certainly taught him what it is like to grow up poor in a segregated big city and to succeed against the odds. No doubt, too, the half-century-old HUD bureaucracys record is mixed at best, with more than a few scandals involving its various grants and subsidies. In that sense, a Republican administration could be expected to seek someone with fresh free-market-oriented policy alternatives. Mr. Carson, however, comes equipped with little more than the generalities about abolishing dependency that he spouted on the campaign trail. In an op-ed last year, he called new Obama administration regulations linking housing aid to more ambitious neighborhood desegregation efforts government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality and suggested that they would be downright dangerous. As HUD secretary, he would be in charge of federal fair-housing enforcement.

Mr. Carsons nomination is the second puzzling sign about where housing policy might be headed under the Trump administration. The first was Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchins comment that weve got to get Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac] out of government ownership. It makes no sense that these are owned by the government and have been controlled by the government for as long as they have. That could mean Mr. Mnuchin will argue for a total overhaul of the governments mortgage guarantee business that finally ends the system of private gain, public risk that prevailed before the government took over the failing Fannie and Fred in 2008. Or, it could be interpreted as support for the efforts, so far thwarted by courts and Congress, of hedge funds to make a killing through a Treasury-blessed privatization. Certainly it would help if the next HUD secretary were an expert on the housing market capable of weighing in against the more dubious plans being floated for Fannie and Freddie.

[Trumps team of faux populists and real crony capitalists]

President-elect Donald Trump named Ben Carson as his nominee for housing and urban development secretary. Here's what you need to know about the former GOP presidential candidate. (Sarah Parnass,Osman Malik/The Washington Post)

Mr. Carson needs to be given a thorough, searching examination by the Senate over his approach to housing policy, which, though certainly not brain surgery, does present complexities that would challenge a nominee far more experienced than he.
My whole life Ive been greedy, greedy, greedy. Ive grabbed all the money I could get. Im so greedy, President-elect Donald Trump boasted last January. But now Id like to be greedy for the United States.

It was a compelling story: the rapacious mogul turned Robin Hood, setting out to reform the rigged system that made him rich in the name of the common good. But that tale was always fiction, as Trumps economic platform of corporate tax breaks and deregulation should have made obvious. Now, Trumps transition has ended any remaining doubts that his promise to drain the swamp of corrupt government was a lie. Based on his post-election moves, it seems the Trump White House will be an experiment in crony capitalism on steroids.

After playing to the countrys populist mood as a candidate, Trump has surrounded himself almost exclusively with corporate elites. While the appointments of chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) fired up his base, Trump has loaded up his transition and Cabinet-in-waiting with members of the establishment he claimed he would crush. Trumps team, with few exceptions, is filled by the swamp creatures wed expect in virtually any Republican administration.

Last week, Trump named Wall Street veteran and Hollywood producer Steven Mnuchin as his choice for treasury secretary. Mnuchin spent nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs, but as David Dayen writes at the Nation, that may be the least distressing part of his resume. During the housing crisis, Mnuchin also chaired a bank, OneWest, with a reputation for being a foreclosure machine. In one case, the bank foreclosed on a 90-year-old womans home over a 27-cent payment error. Trumps pick to lead the Commerce Department, Wilbur Ross, has a similar track record of profiteering on the backs of working people. A private equity tycoon known for laying off workers and outsourcing jobs, Ross was also a significant player in the housing crisis.

As his transportation secretary, Trump has selected Elaine Chao, who served in George W. Bushs Cabinet as labor secretary and is currently a board member at Wells Fargo. Under her leadership, the Labor Department was accused of taking an excessively deferential approach to business and left thousands of actual victims of wage theft who sought federal government assistance with nowhere to turn, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. (Chao is also married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a longtime swamp-dweller not exactly known for his anti-establishment politics.) Meanwhile, Trumps nominee for education secretary is Betsy DeVos, a billionaire Republican donor and influential advocate of for-profit charter schools whose family has also contributed heavily to anti-labor right-to-work initiatives.

Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Hollywood financier, is President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for treasury secretary. He spoke at Trump Tower Nov. 30. (The Washington Post)

Retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, Trumps choice to lead the Defense Department, also has questionable corporate ties. Since leaving the military in 2013, Mattis has been a board member at the defense contractor General Dynamics and the Silicon Valley blood-testing technology company Theranos, which is being sued for alleged fraud. And potential energy secretary Myron Ebell, who is heading up the Environmental Protection Agency transition, is a prominent denier of climate change whose work has been bankrolled by ExxonMobil and foundations connected to the Koch brothers.

Trumps extreme vetting of his Cabinet is leading to a team of plutocrats, not rivals, a fact Democrats plan to highlight during confirmation hearings. But the problem goes far beyond personnel. Trumps public relations stunt last week with Carrier Corp. is a stellar example of his faux populism and real cronyism. According to his version of events, which too much of the media ran with, Trump heroically stopped the company from shipping factory jobs from Indiana to Mexico. In reality, Vice President-elect Mike Pence  who is Indianas governor  handed Carrier a tax giveaway to keep some jobs in the United States  it will still send more than 1,000 jobs to Mexico  signaling that, with Trump in power, big businesses can use their workers as bargaining chips.

Finally, there is the burning issue of Trumps business empire. Since the election, there have been numerous reports of Trump using calls with world leaders to shamelessly promote his business interests around the world. And while he claims to be giving up control of his companys operations, dangerous conflicts of interest will remain as long as Trump or his children, who also serve as his political advisers, retain ownership. As former chief ethics lawyers for the Obama and Bush administrations have explained, unless Trump sells off his business entirely, the potential for conflict will be  as he might say  huge.

Like the contractors he stiffed throughout his career, millions of working-class voters may soon learn that Trump has no intention of fulfilling his campaigns red-meat promises. One way to hold him accountable is for the media to spend less time gawking at Trumps tweets and more time exposing the greed and cronyism that are already poisoning his administration. And for progressive Democrats, the challenge now is to not just fight Trumps policies, but also to listen to the people he is betraying  and to offer them the concrete solutions they deserve.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter.
FULLY SEVEN weeks before he is due to take office, President-elect Donald Trump launched what looked like an offensive against China beginning last week. First came a precedent-breaking phone call with the president of Taiwan; then came a series of tweets assailing Chinas trade and currency policies and its buildup in the South China Sea. Mr. Trumps rhetoric was not new, and his apparent strategy of pushback against the regime of Xi Jinping has some merit. Whats worrying is the evident lack of preparation and diplomatic care in the initiative, as well as the unintended consequences it may produce.

On Friday, in a move that was reportedly planned, Mr. Trump took a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, breaking with decades of U.S. policy. When the United States formally opened diplomatic relations with China in 1979, Taiwan was relegated to nondiplomatic status, which has meant arms sales and support but not phone calls or meetings at the highest level. China views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has always been hypersensitive to any quiver in its standing in the world, and especially its ties to the United States.

The phone call predictably raised alarms in Beijing. By itself, a courtesy call does not seem so earthshaking to us, given that Taiwan is a thriving democracy with a vibrant civil society and is an important U.S. trading partner. Yet it may produce countermoves from Beijing  such as new economic and military pressures on Taiwan  that may undercut the calls political boost to Taipei while further stoking already-high tensions in East Asia.

The president-elect did not stop with the phone call. Next came Twitter messages on Sunday that echoed his campaign blasts against China on economic issues and the South China Sea. The reality of these issues is far more complex than Mr. Trumps tweets allow. But more importantly, they carried a tone of aggressive challenge. Do they mean Mr. Trump will plunge the United States into a trade war with China? He must realize that such a confrontation could prove counterproductive and a serious drag on his hopes to boost economic growth at home. Is he planning steps against Chinas massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? If not, his rhetoric may look hollow in a few months.

Mr. Trump takes pride in being undiplomatic and unpredictable. But if he wants to effectively challenge China, a rash of Twitter messages hardly seems the right way to go about it. He has been acting without the benefit of U.S. intelligence briefings or advice from the State Department, and his weekend missives were apparently uncoordinated with the current administration. His impulsive statements carry the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation.

Aggravating China also could have a downside when Mr. Trump needs to ask Beijing for help with its errant client state, North Korea. Kim Jong Uns accelerating nuclear weapons and missile programs will be near the top of Mr. Trumps problems upon taking office. China is an essential player in restraining North Korea. This is just one example of the costs and benefits that Mr. Trump should weigh  preferably with experienced advisers  before letting fly on Twitter.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy seemed to hold the key in two redistricting cases Monday where the justices were considering whether Republicans had unconstitutionally packed minority voters together to limit their influence.

His comments should cause concern for Virginia lawmakers, who lost at the court last term for the way they drew congressional districts and this time were defending a dozen legislative seats from challenges by African American voters.

[Supreme Court leaves in place decision on Virginia gerrymandering]

I have problems with the way the lower court analyzed and approved the districts, Kennedy told Paul D. Clement, the lawyer representing Virginia.

In both cases argued Monday  the other involves two congressional districts in North Carolina  the court was considering whether race played too large a role in drawing districts. States and municipalities say they face pressure under the Voting Rights Act to draw districts that give minorities a shot at electing the candidates of their choice.

But the Supreme Court for decades has held that race cannot be the predominant factor in drawing electoral lines.

That can be a difficult balance to find, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. complained that the issue was very, very complicated and that any decision by the state seems to serve only as an invitation for litigation.

[Amid bitter partisan battles, another North Carolina case heads to high court]

At issue in Virginia are 12 House districts in Richmond, the Hampton Roads area and along the states southern border. All were held by African American representatives.

Republicans who drew the new map after the 2010 Census said their goal was to preserve those incumbents. To do that, Republicans said each of the districts would have a black voting age population of 55 percent.

But African Americans and Democrats complained that the real intent was to pack black voters into those districts so the surrounding districts would be more winnable for Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges upheld the districts last year.

But Marc E. Elias, the lawyer representing the challengers, said that the judges were wrong to rule that race did not play the predominant role in drawing lines.

Virginia applied this 55 percent rule to move voters in and move voters out of districts on the basis of race, regardless of the differences in voting patterns, geography, demographics or the actual interests of black voters in each of those districts, he said.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said it was difficult for the court to discern what motivation was the dominant one when lawmakers were drawing the map. And partisan gerrymandering, as opposed to racial decisions, is allowed under the courts current jurisprudence.

But Justice Elena Kagan suggested that there must be a more detailed approach than the one Virginia employed.

It sort of defies belief you could pick a number and say that applies with respect to every majority-minority district, she said.

But Clement said the number was not picked from thin air. Some of the majority-minority districts that the state wanted to protect already had black voting age populations larger than that.

The 2011 redistricting of the Virginia House of Delegates was a bipartisan success story, Clement said, noting that the changes were endorsed by the legislatures black caucus.

Even though Virginia has elected two Democrats to the U.S. Senate and voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in the past three elections, it is much more divided at the state level. Republicans hold 66 seats in the 100-member House. As the result of the congressional map approved by the court last term, the commonwealth elected a second African American congressman. Republicans will hold seven of 11 seats.

In the North Carolina case, a lower court had rejected how the state legislature drew two congressional districts. The arguments were similar to those in the Virginia case  and the lawyers were identical.

Clement said those arguing that the drawing of one district was racially motivated, rather than partisan, should be required to produce an alternative map.

But Kagan questioned that, and Elias agreed that there are all manner of ways to prove that race predominated.

A separate three-judge panel has struck down some of North Carolinas legislative districts and said there must be new elections in 2017. That decision is probably headed to the Supreme Court as well.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted that he had written several of the courts rulings on reapportionment and had tried in a 2015 decision to give guidance to lower courts that would alleviate the need for the justices to step in so frequently.

It certainly doesnt seem to have done that, Breyer said.

The cases are Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections and McCrory v. Harris.
The Supreme Court decided two important business cases Tuesday, ruling for Samsung in its smartphone patent infringement battle with Apple, and upholding the insider trading conviction of a man who gave a tip to his relative.

Both decisions were narrow and reached by a unanimous eight-member court.

The Samsung decision will allow the besieged company a chance to recover some of the nearly $400 million it had to pay Apple for incorporating into its product some of the innovative design elements of the iPhone.

[At oral argument, Supreme Court seems to side with Samsung]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had ruled that Samsung must pay all the profits from 11 phone models for violating several of Apples design patents.

The Supreme Court was interpreting for the first time in more than a century the law regarding design patents.

The statute states that a party that infringes on a design patent may be held liable . . . to the extent of his total profit. But it also says that such infringement occurs when the design patent is applied to any article of manufacture.

The federal circuit interpreted the entire smartphone as the article of manufacture, even though Samsung pointed out that smartphones contain more than 200,000 technologies that are not at issue.

In an opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the justices said the lower court got it wrong.

Reading article of manufacture . . . to cover only an end product sold to a consumer gives too narrow a meaning to the phrase, Sotomayor wrote.

Samsung was not challenging the finding that it had infringed on the patent by copying what Sotomayor called the iPhones familiar rectangle design with rounded corners or its colorful grid of icons.

The issue was how much Samsung should pay for the violation. But the Supreme Court did not settle that, nor identify the particular smartphone components at issue.

The court did not receive briefing on that, Sotomayor said, so the case should return to the lower court for more work.

The case is one of several legal battles between Samsung and Apple over the lucrative smartphone market. It not only is important for the companies but also could have a significant effect on the tech industry, where design and function are key to success.

The insider-trading decision was important for federal prosecutors charged with policing Wall Street, and in considering a case of information-trading between relatives, justices ruled for the government.

[Is it insider trading to give information to a relative?]

Maher Kara, a former investment banker at Citigroup, gave confidential information about health-care industry mergers to his older brother, Michael. Michael bought and sold stock based on the tips and then passed the information to his brother-in-law, Bassam Salman.

Salman made a profit of more than $1 million by trading on the confidential information before being prosecuted for securities fraud. He was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to three years in prison. (Maher and Michael Kara both pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 2011 and cooperated with the government.)

Salman appealed, arguing in part that Maher Kara had not received money, gifts or any other reward in exchange for the tips.

But the Supreme Court said previous rulings made it clear that there were benefits to the disclosures that violated the law.

Here, by disclosing confidential information as a gift to his brother with the expectation that he would trade on it, Maher breached his duty of trust and confidence to Citigroup and its clients  a duty Salman acquired, and breached himself, by trading on the information with full knowledge that it had been improperly disclosed, wrote Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The Supreme Court was settling different interpretations of the law from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco and the 2nd Circuit in New York.

The justices said the 2nd Circuit was wrong. It had ruled in 2014 that simply receiving inside information about a company is not enough. Prosecutors had to show that the person providing the information received something tangible  such as money  in return.

After a more than eight-year crackdown on Wall Street cheating, U.S. attorney Preet Bharara was forced to toss out more than a dozen insider trading convictions over the past year. The ruling, he said, created an obvious road map for unscrupulous investors.
US Embassy launches new website

The US Embassy in Nepal has launched its new website.
A person watches the sun rise over the Oceti Sakowin camp, where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline, in Cannon Ball, N.D.

Dec. 5, 2016 A person watches the sun rise over the Oceti Sakowin camp, where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline, in Cannon Ball, N.D. David Goldman/AP

An encampment has grown near the work site, where security guards face off with demonstrators.

An encampment has grown near the work site, where security guards face off with demonstrators.

An encampment has grown near the work site, where security guards face off with demonstrators.

Three months ago a young Malaysian woman asked President Obama about the protests taking place over the Dakota Access pipeline: She wanted to know what the president was doing to ensure the protection of the ancestral land, the supply of clean water, and also environmental justice.

Obama was at a town hall with young leaders in Luang Prabang, Laos, thousands of miles from the sit-in on the Great Plains, and he did not have an answer: Id have to go back to my staff and find out how are we doing on this one, he said.

The standoff, which evolved into a massive gathering of tribal representatives, environmentalists, veterans and other activists from across the nation, took the president and his aides by surprise. But it quickly captured their attention.

Former assistant secretary for Indian affairs Kevin K. Washburn, who left the administration in January, said in an interview that Obama changed the federal culture around tribal affairs during his eight years in office.

Theres definitely a sense within the administration if youre on the wrong side of tribes, you better be able to explain yourself, said Washburn, now a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, because the federal governments been on the wrong side of tribes for 200 years, and it hasnt been successful.

Protesters celebrate after an announcement Sunday that the Army would not grant an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to be built under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

Obama first connected with several tribes  including the Crow Nation, which he visited during his 2008 White House bid  because it was a voting bloc that was not automatically allied with his then-Democratic primary rival, Hillary Clinton.

But Raina Thiele, who volunteered for Obama in 2008 and worked for his reelection bid, said Native American concerns resonated with Obama. Thiele later worked in the White Houses Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement and as a liaison to Native American communities.

For him, it made a lot of sense, based on both who he is and what he cares about, that he can lift up this population that has not been treated very well, Thiele said.

Obama made a series of pledges during that first campaign, including that he would hold an annual White House conference with tribal nations, establish a White House liaison and require greater consultation between agencies and sovereign nations. He kept them all, and has settled more than 100 lawsuits with tribes since taking office.

A relationship that arose in part out of political necessity and nurtured by Obamas sense of the tribes historic grievances had borne fruit.

[Obama tells tribal leaders, I hope Ive done right by you.]

The president and first lady visited Standing Rock in June 2014, where they spent an hour talking to young members of the tribe about the high rates of suicide, alcoholism and unemployment that dominate life on their reservation. The visit left a mark.

The protest of an oil pipeline that is being constructed close to the Standing Rock Indian reservation has become a rallying point for Native Americans across the United States. Here's what you need to know. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

They were affected to their cores, said Thiele, who helped arrange the meeting.

A week later the president called several members of his staff to the Roosevelt Room, Thiele added. Tearing up, she recalled, he told the group, We needed to do something and he wanted to see real progress, especially for tribal youth, before he left office.

But some of those young Sioux have questioned whether Obama has really delivered, given the pipeline controversy.

[Voices from Standing Rock]

Kendrick Eagle, who met with Obama on the reservation and again at the White House, released a video last week from the Oceti Sakowin camp in which he declares, Im here, standing with my people, talking to you and asking you if you can come and help us stop this pipeline. Because I just want you to stick to your word, that you said would have our backs as long as you were in office.

Still, these factors, along with the fact that dozens of tribes have joined with the Standing Rock Sioux, give tribal communities a degree of leverage in Washington they have not had in decades.

Last week 17 former Native American administration officials, including Thiele and former White House senior policy adviser Kim Teehee, sent a letter to Obama asking him to block the $3.8 billion pipeline project. Although she was not a signatory, Jodi Archambault Gillette, Obamas former special assistant for Native American affairs, is an active Standing Rock tribe member whose brother serves as chairman of the tribe.

[Voices from Standing Rock: Opposing views from a prairie standoff]

Although Obama did not explicitly instruct the Army Corps of Engineers to not approve the easement needed to allow the pipeline to cross under North Dakotas Lake Oahe, he sent a clear signal to the Army Corps and other agencies last month when he said during an interview on the online start-up Now This News that there was a way to reroute it.

My view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans, he said.

For Energy Transfer Partners, which says the 1,170-mile pipeline is 92 percent complete, the move smacked of politics. In a statement Sunday night, the company said the 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.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for President-elect Donald Trump, told reporters that the pipeline is something that we support construction of and well review the full situation when were in the White House to make appropriate determination at that time.

The next administration can undo the Armys move, although it would be more cumbersome and politically painful. Now that the agency has announced it will conduct a full environmental impact assessment of the project, it must provide a notice in the Federal Register that will be subject to a 30-day comment period, so the review may be just starting by the time Trump takes office.

Natural Resources Defense Council President Rhea Suh said in an interview that her group and others are prepared to raise legal challenges if the new administration short-circuits the environmental review. Suh, who served as the Interior Departments assistant secretary for policy, management and budget under Obama, said there is an unprecedented level of unity among tribal nations in regard to to these big projects.

There is a groundswell of communities that are on the front lines, so to speak, standing up and saying, This is not what we want. And I dont think youre going to see that diminish at all.
President Obama made a final public defense of his counterterrorism record at a military base in Tampa on Tuesday just hours before President-elect Donald Trump introduced his choice of a vocal Obama critic to lead the Pentagon at a rally in North Carolina.

In his remarks, Obama took on virtually all of the criticisms of his policies in the Middle East over the past eight years, including the full withdrawal of American forces from Iraq in 2011. He insisted that the United States could protect itself from terrorists without betraying core American values. Obama has said that those values are under threat from his successor.

Obama never mentioned Trump by name, but his speech served as a stark rebuttal to the counterterrorism approach that Trump and other Republicans laid out during the presidential campaign. Obama rejected the president-elects contention that dropping more bombs, deploying more troops or placing restrictions on Muslim immigrants would make America safer.

The United States is not a country that imposes religious tests as a price for freedom, he said. The United States is not a place where citizens have to carry an ID card.

The timing of Obamas speech, which came only hours before Trump introduced retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis as his choice for defense secretary, raised questions about how much of Obamas approach will survive his successor.

Retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Mattis has been chosen to be secretary of defense by President-elect Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the decision. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Obama is finishing his second term at a time of widespread bloodshed and unrest in the Middle East. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he had vowed to end, likely will grind on long after he leaves office. On January 20th, I will become the first president of the United States to serve two full terms during a time of war, he mournfully noted.

Obamas defense of his record is largely built around the crises he avoided, the large number of troops he brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the terrorist attacks that did not happen on his watch.

No foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and, executed an attack on our homeland, and it is not because they didnt try, Obama said. Today, he added, there are about 15,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, down from about 180,000 when he took office.

Instead of deploying large battalions of American forces  an approach Obama called unwise and unsustainable  the United States has relied on small teams of Special Operation forces to fight alongside Iraq, Syrian and Afghan forces.

The critique from Trump and Mattis is that the president did not do enough to prevent the Islamic State from taking root in Iraq and Syria and has moved too slowly to destroy it.

In Mattis, Trump has chosen a former military commander who earlier this year described Obamas strategy to defeat the Islamic State as unguided and replete with half measures.

The bottom line on the American situation is quite clear, Mattis said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies this past spring. The next president is going to inherit a mess. Thats probably the most diplomatic word you can use for it.

Mattis has argued for the United States to take a much tougher stance against Iran, which he described as the single most belligerent actor in the Middle East.

It isnt clear exactly what Trump, despite his bellicose rhetoric, would change about the presidents approach to counterterrorism and the war against the Islamic State. On the campaign trail, Trump said he had a secret plan that would lead to a quick and effective total victory.

I dont want the enemy to know what Im doing, he said.

Mattis has suggested that the United States should devote more resources to fighting the Islamic State, but he has not pressed for a major change in the presidents central strategy of relying on local partners.

I think what were doing right now in Iraq, while it may not be sufficient, is certainly on the right path, he said.

Obamas final speech in defense on his counterterrorism policy, meanwhile, focused on the dangers of overreach and the pitfalls over overstating the terrorist threat. At moments, he seemed to be speaking directly to Trump and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, who have cast the battle against Islamic extremism as a global fight for survival.

These terrorists want to cast themselves as the vanguard of a new world order, Obama said. They are not. They are thugs and they are murderers and they should be treated that way.

He denounced the use of torture, including waterboarding, which Trump has spoken of approvingly and, as he has since his first days in office, Obama pressed Congress to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Until Congress changes course it will continue to be judged harshly by history, Obama said. I will do all I can to remove this blot on our national honor.

On Monday, the White House introduced a 61-page compendium of its policies governing the use of force, in hopes that the summary of legal opinions, executive orders and military directives will guide his successors decisions and reduce the risk of an ill-considered decision.

Obamas speech in Tampa also amounted to a defense of his past decisions, including his much-criticized move to pull all U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011. Obama said the move was driven as much by necessity as strategy. The agreement that President George W. Bush signed with the Iraqi government called for American troops to depart the country by the end of 2011 unless the Iraqis agreed to an extension.

By 2011 the Iraqis wanted our military presence to end, Obama said.

The presidents critics contend that Obama did not push hard enough to keep American troops in the country and that the vacuum created by their departure created an opening for the Islamic State. But Obama suggested that a small American force in the country would not have been enough to stop the chaos and unrest caused by poor Iraqi governance, a hollowed-out Iraqi military and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assads brutal tactics.

Obama described his response to the rise of the Islamic State as a new and smarter way of waging war.

The bottom line is, we are breaking the back of ISIL. We are taking away its safe havens, Obama said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. Weve accomplished all this at a cost of $10 billion over two years, which is the same amount that we used to spend in one month at the height of the Iraq War.
Demonstrators protest against President-elect Donald Trump in front of Trump Tower on Nov. 12. Trump opponents are urging some electors to switch their votes and not back Trump when the electoral college meets on Dec. 19. (Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images)

When Joyce Haas noticed late last month that her mailbox was stuffed fuller than usual, she chalked it up to the arrival of the holiday season.

I thought, okay, its Christmas card time! said Haas, 70, one of 538 electors from across the country who will officially pick the next president later this month.

This was no flood of seasons greetings. It was the start of what she said has been a steady stream of 150 to 200 letters, postcards and handwritten notes urging her to disregard Donald Trumps victory in her home state of Pennsylvania and vote for someone else. She said she has received thousands more messages via email.

To me, it has been a form of harassment, said Haas, a Republican fully committed to voting for Trump.

Many other electors in states won by the president-elect have experienced similar pressure, with a constellation of anti-Trump activists, organized groups and rogue electors waging an urgent, long-shot attempt to prevent Trump from taking office. A Republican elector from Texas said this week that he will not vote for Trump.

Some Republicans opposed to Donald Trump want the electoral college to choose Ohio Gov. John Kasich as president instead. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, two Democratic electors in Colorado filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a state law that requires them to vote for the winner of the states popular vote, the Denver Post reported. They had pledged to support Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the states nine electoral college votes. The suit is part of efforts in several states to use the electoral college vote to block Trump from winning the presidency.

Although such efforts do not appear to have put Trumps expected victory in doubt, they have infused a normally dull quadrennial exercise with political tensions still raw nearly a month after Trumps defeat of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who easily beat Trump in the popular vote but fell short in the electoral college. They have also given rise to a new round of questions about how the electoral college should operate and whether it should continue at all.

The 538 electors are to vote on Dec. 19. Before Election Day, political parties in each state chose competing rosters of electors. In states where Trump won, the Republican slate will vote this month. The number of electors in each state corresponds to the size of its congressional delegation.

There is no federal law binding electors to the results in their states, and state-level guidelines governing electors vary. More than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged throughout history, according to the National Archives. Trump would defeat Clinton 306 to 232 if all of them do so this month.

However, Texas elector Christopher Suprun wrote in a New York Times op-ed published online Monday that he does not plan to vote for Trump because the president-elect is someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office. He urged others to rally behind a Republican alternative, such as Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Haas, who is the vice chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, shared with The Washington Post examples of letters and emails she has received, including a few that came in an envelope with the same Stockton, Calif., return address but that were signed by different people.

[How the electoral college gerrymanders the presidential vote]

Democrat Hillary Clinton, seen at the first presidential debate, won the popular vote on Nov. 8 but lost in the electoral college to Donald Trump. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

Here are the reasons why you MUST vote for Secretary Clinton, the letters read. They argue that Trump has engaged in unethical business practices and has appointed people with records of BIGOTRY to senior White House posts. The letters also point out that Clinton is ahead in the popular vote.

Kimba Livesay, 52, who confirmed that she spearheaded the effort to draft and send the letters, said she started organizing a local group of about 240 women the day after the election. She called Trump dangerous, and she said she uses her return address in Stockton because people were afraid to put their own return address on there.

We just want our voices to be heard. Do I think it will really change the outcome? I dont know. Do I think that they might think about it a little differently this time around? Maybe so. And thats our hope, Livesay said.

Charles Potts, 72, a Republican elector from Oklahoma, said he has heard from just two people: a woman from Texas and a person who claimed to be from Boston. But the text exchange with the latter individual shortly after Election Day, which he shared with The Post, was impassioned.

Vote for Hillary. Do it, Charles, it read.

Potts replied, Why would I do that?

Because Trump is a fascist bigot who will reduce the rights and outcomes of so many Americans, the texter wrote.

Potts, who provided the texts and phone number to The Post, said he never got a reply when he asked for the texters name. A person who answered a call placed to the phone number quickly hung up.

Ebby Amir, 28, a software engineer from New York, has collected elector contact information through Google searches and with a friend started a website called Ask the Electors, which provides people with a way to email electors with their concerns directly. Through the group, more than 90,000 emails have been sent, he said.

After the election, there was this sort of frustration to get involved and have more of a voice, said Amir, who acknowledged that reversing the outcome, as he would like, is a long shot.

Bret Chiafalo, 38, a Democratic elector from Washington state who started the group Hamilton Electors, is taking a different approach. He is discouraging people from reaching out to electors. Instead, he is talking to them privately in hopes of persuading enough to unite behind a Republican alternative to Trump.

Donald Trump is a unique emergency, he said.

The the name of Chiafalos group nods to Alexander Hamiltons writings in the Federalist Papers, which he and other Trump critics hold up as an argument that the electoral college should serve as a safeguard against allowing someone unfit for the presidency to serve.

Many see what Chiafalo and others are doing as nothing more than sour grapes. Robert Asher, 79, a Republican elector from Pennsylvania, said he understands that some might be upset about how Trump won the presidency, but he said that anyone disputing the validity of the institution is a sore loser.

Thats just the way elections are. I dont understand why they cant understand that. But they cant. Its unfortunate, he said.

Mark Weston, an electoral college expert who has written a book, said the likelihood of electors defying Trump is improbable because it would require bipartisan coordination unheard of in these rancorous political times.

One-eighth of Trumps 306 electors, 38 of them, would need to desert him for another Republican, and then if the Democrats were to join those 38  maybe vote for John Kasich, then Kasich could have 270 electoral votes, he said. Unless the Democrats join in, no one is getting the majority, in which case the election goes to the House of Representatives, and its Republican.

Clintons win in the overall popular vote  she leads by more than 2.6 million votes, with more ballots being tallied  has renewed consideration of whether the country should do away with the electoral college.

It will take a little time, but Id be surprised if we didnt eventually shift to a popular vote for president over the next decade or so, former vice president Al Gore told MSNBC on Monday. In 2000, Gore won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college.

Representatives for Clinton and Trumps transition team did not respond to requests for comment on the efforts to pressure electors to vote against Trump.

While many of the people who dont want to see Trump win in the electoral college have voiced an array of worries about him, some have singled out business interests as an area worthy of more scrutiny before Dec. 19.

Any questions about Trumps financial holdings need to be resolved before the electoral college votes, said Richard Painter, a corporate law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, who served as George W. Bushs chief ethics lawyer. Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor who once taught President Obama, agrees and has been speaking out in television interviews and social media.

But neither Painter nor Tribe has made direct contact with any electors, and Tribe said he has heard from less than a dozen concerned electors from Michigan, Texas and elsewhere, a number he concedes is not enough to make a difference.

Some of those involved in lobbying electors say they want to continue applying pressure on Trump in the years to come  a sign that the contentious tone of the election might linger into 2017.

Well still fire up a few letters, Livesay said.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.
President Obama waves as he arrives to deliver a speech at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta on Nov. 10, 2010. He said he thought of the visit as a homecoming because he lived in Indonesia for four years as a boy. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

When Barack Obama visited Jakarta in 2010, on his first state visit to Indonesia, university students lined up outside the hall starting at 4 a.m., eager to catch a glimpse of the American president who had spent four years of his youth here.

Arlian Buana, a journalist who was a student at the time, remembers Obamas eloquent speech about how his childhood in Jakarta exposed him to the basic goodness of Islam. Obama wanted to show that Indonesia offered a model for how Islam and democracy could be compatible, Arlian remembered. Not since [former president] Sukarno has Indonesia witnessed such an amazing orator.

Obama lived here from 1967, when he was 6 years old, to 1971, after his mother had married an Indonesian geographer. He went to Indonesian-language schools, and in his memoir, Dreams from My Father, he wrote about the contentment he felt living in that society.

News of his election in 2008 was greeted ecstatically here, and though there have been inevitable feelings of disappointment since then, Indonesians still savor their connection to the U.S. president.

Pew data shows that Indonesian approval of the United States rose to about 70 percent shortly after Obama was elected, from around 30 percent during the George W. Bush years. Indonesian approval of the United States has remained well above 50 percent throughout Obamas presidency.

But with that presidency drawing to a close, Americas approval rating is set to take a tumble in Indonesia, the country that has more Muslims than any other nation in the world. President-elect Donald Trumps negative views of Islam, and his declaration that the United States should restrict Muslim immigration, have been widely disseminated and condemned in Indonesia.

Dino Djalal, who was Indonesias ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2013, wrote in a post for the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia that he was concerned Trumps attitudes toward Islam could damage American-Indonesian relations. If Donald Trump restricts Muslim immigration to the United States, the Indonesian government must speak up, even if that means raising the issue with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Dino wrote. He expressed hope that Trump would moderate his positions once in office.

The concerns about Trump go beyond his views on Islam. Indonesian economists and politicians worry that if America becomes more protectionist, other countries will respond in kind, which could ultimately damage Indonesian exports.

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a prominent Indonesian foreign-policy thinker who serves as deputy secretary to Vice President Jusuf Kalla, was especially worried about Trumps talk of abandoning Americas allies in the region.

I was appalled, simply appalled, when Donald Trump said in one of his many speeches that he would like to see Japan become a nuclear power, Dewi said. That is a recipe for disaster.

Dewi warned that Indonesias continued economic growth is dependent on regional stability.

A lot of the economic gains would be lost, she said, if Asian countries engage in an arms race so they can protect themselves without relying on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

The anxiety that Indonesians feel in the weeks after Trumps victory couldnt contrast more strongly with the jubilation when Obama was elected. Eight years ago, then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono congratulated Obama by reminding the new president of his deep ties to Indonesia, with local fans financing a $10,000 bronze statue of Obama as a boy living in Jakarta.

When Obama visited Indonesia in 2010, he referred to it as a homecoming, and emphasized the similarities between the United States and Indonesia, the worlds second- and third-largest democracies. We are two nations which have traveled different paths, Obama said at the time. Yet our nations show that hundreds of millions who hold different beliefs can be united in freedom under one flag.

The bronze statue now sits in the courtyard of the leafy public school Obama attended in the center of the city. Edi Kusyanti, director of State Elementary School Menteng 1, said that every student here is taught that Obama is kind and hard-working. Edi saw these attributes reflected in the Obama presidency.

Evan Laksmana, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, says that Obama has left important legacies In Indonesia. An agreement between the United States and Indonesia, signed in 2010, created groups to build partnerships on climate change and the environment, and significantly increased the amount of Fulbright foreign-exchange scholarships offered by the U.S. government to American and Indonesian students and academics. Its less of a high-profile thing, but its actually a good thing, Laksmana said.

He acknowledged that some in Indonesias foreign-policy community say that Obamas Pivot to Asia was underwhelming and they are disappointed that ties between the United States and Indonesia did not ramp up significantly during his presidency.

Its the expectations game. Precisely because Obama was supposed to have this epic relationship with Indonesia, we would [expect to] see more high-profile activities and events between the two countries, Laksmana said. But, he said, by enhancing person-to-person ties, the Obama administration created strong ballast in the relationship.

Now there is concern that Trumps anti-Islam rhetoric could undermine that. Rizki Andini, a 25-year-old Indonesian student from Jakartas suburbs, said that she had wanted to pursue a masters degree in the United States beginning two years ago, but became anxious after hearing about attacks such as the 2015 Chapel Hill, N.C., shootings, when three Arab American Muslims were killed by a man with a history of making anti-Muslim statements.

This [anxiety] increased after Trumps racist and Islamaphobic campaign, which I didnt expect to receive such strong [public] support. It made me reconsider my desire to study in the United States, Rizki said. Ultimately, she said, the rise of Trump was one reason she turned down a Fulbright fellowship and instead took an Australian scholarship.

Alan Feinstein, director of the American Indonesian Exchange Foundation, which oversees the Fulbright program to Indonesia, acknowledged in an email Indonesian anxieties about studying in the United States.

Ever since the campaign began and since Trumps statements about barring Muslims entry to the U.S. or setting up a registry [for Muslims], et cetera, Indonesians have asked us what this means for those wanting to study in the U.S., he said.

For Arlian, the Indonesian who was impressed by Obamas speech during his state visit, it was disappointing that Trump won the election after saying such negative things about Islam. But Arlian understood how it could happen.

He noted that Indonesia, itself a large, plural democracy, has, like many countries around the world, seen a rise in sectarian rhetoric directed against religious and ethnic minorities, such as Christians and ethnic-Chinese Indonesians.

Trump represents their frustrations, Arlian said. This is what democracy is like. Maybe it will happen to Indonesia in a few years.

But he hopes it wont.

Read more:

Indonesias top court weighs ban on sex outside marriage

Why the worlds Muslim population is growing so very, very quickly

Back-to-the-land spiritual movement in Indonesia sparks crackdown

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Yadav seeks Indian model of federalism in Madhes

Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum Nepal (SSFN) Chairman Upendra Yadav has said that the Tarai region should be federated into provinces based on the Indian model.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who last year opened the door to nearly 1 million mostly Muslim migrants, staked out a tough new stance on conservative Islam on Tuesday by making her first direct call for a widespread ban on full veil religious coverings.

Her backing could add Germany to the growing list of European nations imposing restrictions on Islamic coverings as debates sharpen across the continent over religious tolerance, perceived threats to European identity and possible attacks by Islamist militants.

It also could signal a pragmatic shift to the right for Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term as Germanys leader. In the wake of Britains vote to leave the European Union and the U.S. election of Donald Trump, the tolerant Merkel became seen as among the last guardians of liberal democracy in the West.

[Germanys potential burqa ban has a problem: Where are the burqas?]

But her handling of the migrant crisis  which damaged her approval ratings and caused internal party dissent  is now seen as a critical weakness ahead of next years elections.

Her comments also came as German social media buzzed following the arrests of two asylum seekers in five days in connection with three sexual assaults, including the brutal rape and murder of a 19-year old medical student in the picturesque southern city of Freiburg. Right-wing politicians are openly blaming Merkels policy for what they decry as a migrant-fueled crime wave.

Yet Merkel on Tuesday issued a reminder that she still can play the conservative card.

Speaking to a cheering conference of her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she used her strongest language yet to back a ban on certain Islamic coverings first proposed by conservatives in her party. Some are calling for a law making it a regulatory offense for women to cover their faces in courtrooms, administrative buildings and schools, as well as while driving or attending demonstrations.

[How Angela Merkel became leader of the free world]

The full veil is not appropriate here, Merkel said. It should be banned wherever its legally possible.

Political message

Women in Germanys Muslim community of 4.7 million who actually wear a full burqa  or a loose veil that covers the entire body, often including mesh over the eyes  are exceedingly rare. Some experts suggest there may be only a few hundred at most.

But bans on such garments are being increasingly seen as a powerful political message.

Frances highest administrative court, the Conseil dEtat, overturned the so-called burkini bans in 26 of the countrys coastal towns and cities. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

Merkel has previously called full Muslim veils a hindrance to migrant assimilation. But her words at the party conference  reaffirming her as the CDU candidate and leader  seemed aimed at appeasing critics who have charged her with recklessly opening the door last year to hundreds of thousands fleeing war. She also repeated her worries about the alleged spread of Islamic sharia law in some migrant communities.

We dont want any parallel societies, she said. Our law takes precedence before tribal rules, codes of honor and sharia.

Other nations in Europe have imposed bans on Islamic coverings. But Germany  saddled with the dark past of World War II  had shied away from doing so, citing the need to uphold religious freedoms. Muslim groups said they were caught off guard by Merkels call.

I think this is election campaigning, said Burhan Kesici, chairman of the Islamic Council of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its a populist statement. I was surprised . . . especially since she hasnt said this with such clarity before.

He said that physical attacks against Muslim women with headscarves have increased and that he feared heightened rhetoric could worsen the trend.

The wording for the law planned in Germany probably would mirror the moves in neighboring France, not referring specifically to conservative Muslims but clearly aimed at them.

Yet strong differences remain within Merkels party about how far such a proposed law should go. Officials at various German ministries are already drafting language that would make it an offense for civil servants to wear garments that make open communication more difficult or impossible.

The law also would impose fines on women who refuse to take off covering veils to allow law enforcement officials to compare their faces with photo IDs.

But some are calling for an even broader ban before the bill is submitted to Parliament in coming weeks.

We are still fighting over the question of what is legally possible, CDU lawmaker Jens Spahn told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. And I would actually like to ban it everywhere. I dont want to see the full veil  no niqab, no burqa  in public life in Germany.

[Angela Merkel congratulates Donald Trump  sort of]

Live together

Since the height of the crisis last year, Merkel has taken steps to stem the tide of migrants, including negotiating a deal with Turkey this year to block more from crossing into Europe. On Tuesday, she reiterated that she would attempt to thwart any new wave of asylum seekers, many of them seeking to reach the West from war-ravaged places such as Syria and Iraq.

A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated, she said. That was and is our, and my, declared political aim.

Merkels government is under renewed pressure following the arrests by local police in two German states of a 31-year-old Iraqi and a 17-year-old Afghan. The 17-year-old is the prime suspect in the rape and murder of the German medical student. The Iraqi, married with two children, has been charged with raping two Chinese students. Both arrived in Germany last year with the massive wave of migrants.

The chancellor has condemned the violence while reminding Germans that it is wrong to tarnish all migrants and refugees with the crimes of a small minority. But her critics have lashed out hard.

Of course its always the offender who is responsible for a crime, said Ronald Glaser, a local Berlin politician with the populist Alternative for Germany party, referring to the case of the young Afghan. But if she hadnt opened the borders, he wouldnt have come into the country.

Merkels call to ban coverings echoes laws in France and other European nations to put restrictions on full-face coverings such as the burqa or other Islamic traditional garb for women such as the niqab, which shows only the eyes. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the latter law in 2014 after it was challenged by a 24-year-old Muslim woman. The court agreed with the French government that the burqa ban made it easier for citizens to live together.

In 2004, the French government passed a highly controversial law banning any overt religious symbols from schools, which critics interpreted as a ban on Muslim headscarves by another name. In 2010, the government passed another law, banning outright any face-covering garments from public spaces, arguing that these violate individual freedoms, especially of women.

[French court overturns burkini ban]

This summer, roughly 30 French towns banned the burkini, a swimsuit designed to allow Muslim women to enjoy the beach while observing traditional codes of modesty. Manuel Valls, now a Socialist Party candidate for the French presidency, called the burkini a provocation and an insult to Frances strict interpretation of secularism. French courts have since overruled several such bans.

But Muslims often say that these restrictions  carried out in the name of secularism  are hypocritical, targeting one particular group in a society that in theory is committed to liberty, equality and fraternity. Frances public holidays, they say, are all Christian in origin, and secularism often becomes a means of attacking Islam in a country still reeling from a string of terrorist attacks committed by Islamic State militants.

Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin and James McAuley in Paris contributed to this report.

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Italy's Senate is to vote on the 2017 budget on Dec. 7, the last task for outgoing Prime Minister Matteo Renzi before he officially resigns, the upper house of parliament said. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images)

Europes leaders have a new fear  their own voters.

A ballot-box revolution is gathering steam on the troubled continent, where citizens this year have seized opportunities to depose top officials and step into the unknown. The latest ouster was Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, after his nation overwhelmingly rejected his signature reforms this past weekend. But France, the Netherlands and Germany all face tough elections next year, and the fate of the European Union is in the balance.

The discontent has been fueled in part by the lingering effect of the 2008 global economic crisis, which continues to depress many of Europes job markets. But anti-establishment parties are thriving even in prosperous countries that escaped the worst of the pain, capitalizing on resentment toward immigrants, fears about the future and a backlash toward globalization that itself has become a global trend.

Even before the votes are cast, mainstream politicians are making concessions to thriving far-left and far-right parties in an effort to blunt their appeal. French President Francois Hollande, whose popularity has scraped a record-low 4 percent, made the unprecedented announcement last week that he would not seek reelection in order for another Socialist to stand a chance at succeeding him.

[Anti-immigrant, anti-euro populists gain ground in Italy as prime minister resigns]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday delivered a rabble-rousing call to ban full-veil Islamic coverings in her country, a concession to right-wing forces after she made Germany a world leader in welcoming refugees last year. She is running for reelection next fall. And Dutch leaders, facing elections in March, have been trapped between trying to maintain good relations with troubled Ukraine while obeying the will of a referendum championed by the far-right that banned Dutch ratification of an E.U. trade deal with the country.

The troubles come even while European leaders begin to negotiate the terms of Britains divorce from the E.U., known as Brexit, a messy process that itself is an epochal shift for a league of countries forged in World War IIs lingering embers.

Theres a way success breeds success with these parties, said Mark Leonard, the head of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The Brexit vote did create a sense of the possibility of winning for Trump. His election makes it less preposterous that Marine Le Pen might win in France, he said, referring to the far-right French leader who wants to drastically roll back E.U. powers. And if Marine Le Pen wins in France, that will be a shock to the European system many times greater even than the Brexit vote.

The vital signs are not all grim for European leaders. Attitudes about Brussels have grown more positive in most major countries since the British vote in June to leave the European Union  even in Britain, according to a Bertelsmann Foundation survey released last month. Researchers theorized that the bounce was driven by a newfound appreciation for the benefits of the club after the British referendum unleashed turmoil across the continent.

And Renzi himself may be embracing elections despite his humiliating defeat. He is seeking new elections as soon as February, local Italian media reported Tuesday, despite having his constitutional changes rejected by 59 percent of voters. Early elections would be a major gamble, since populist parties on the left and right are surging in opinion polls and the anti-euro Five Star Movement is just a hair behind Renzis center-left Democratic Party in opinion polls. But Renzi may be calculating that early elections would be best for his personal political survival and that anti-system parties would be unable to form a coalition even if one of them placed first.

[After Italian Prime Minister Renzis defeat, this Trump fan could throw Europe into crisis]

Even if overall feelings about the European Union are swinging slightly more positively, the trend can do little to allay voters specific concerns about their leaders. The most disruptive shift in Europe next year could happen in France in May, when Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, is expected to make it to the second round of the presidential elections and could pull off an upset win.

She would represent a historic shift for a country that alongside Germany co-founded what became the European Union after World War II.

This Italian no, after the Greek referendum [against a bailout], after Brexit, adds a new people to the list of those who wish to turn their backs on absurd European policies plunging the continent into misery, she wrote Monday on her website.

If elected, Le Pen has vowed to hold a referendum on French membership in the E.U. And if France pulls out, many pro-European advocates believe the entire project would fall apart.

If Marine Le Pen wins, that will comprise an existential shock to the E.U. and for stability in Europe, said Simon Tilford, the deputy director of the London-based Center for European Reform.

Amid rising resentments, many leaders have struggled to find a convincing argument why voters should believe in the E.U. and give mainstream parties a chance.

Creating a counternarrative which takes into account the fears and the multiple uncertainties people have while turning it into a positive narrative is very difficult, said Janis Emmanouilidis, the director of studies at the European Policy Center in Brussels.

Read more

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Migrant boat traffic from Libya to Europe is surging  and turning deadlier

Turkeys Erdogan warns Europe that political snubs could set off new migrant crisis

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Michael T. Flynn, White House national security adviser-designate and retired three-star U.S. Army general, stands in the elevator at the Trump Tower in New York. (John Angelillo/Bloomberg)

The child exploitation conspiracy that apparently inspired a North Carolina man to show up in Washington this week with an assault rifle ranks among the most insidious fabrications to have spread online during the presidential campaign.

But it has at least two prominent backers on President-elect Donald Trumps transition team: designated national security adviser Michael T. Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn.

The retired three-star U.S. Army general and his 33-year-old son  who serves as his fathers chief of staff  have used their social media accounts to promote numerous baseless claims, including that members of Hillary Clintons campaign were implicated in a child prostitution ring.

The Flynns involvement in spreading this toxic allegation seemed mainly to serve as a disheartening example of the publics susceptibility to manipulation in the digital age, until a gunman arrived in northwest Washington on Sunday carrying an assault weapon and, according to authorities, planning to investigate the fictitious crime.

The gunman was arrested but not before he had fired at least one round, had caused panic at a pizza restaurant that had the misfortune of being linked to the anti-Clinton conspiracy, and had caused a busy stretch of Connecticut Avenue to be cordoned off by police.

President-elect Donald Trump named retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn his national security adviser on Nov. 18, but Flynn has a history of making incendiary and Islamophobic statements that have drawn criticism from his military peers. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

The elder Flynn, who served as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was pushed out by the Obama administration in 2014, called attention to the phony story just days before the election last month with a breathless posting on Twitter: U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc...MUST READ!

Hours after the gunman was apprehended, the younger Flynn renewed his support for the lie.

Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, itll remain a story, Michael G. Flynn said on Twitter late Sunday evening. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many coincidences tied to it.

Younger Flynns tweet appeared to be a reference to unfounded allegations spread online that the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington served as a front for human trafficking and sex crimes, and that hacked Clinton emails were riddled with coded references to kidnapping, molestation and child prostitution. The elder Flynn did not make the connection to the restaurant, though he has also never backed away from the claim that the Clintons were linked to a child sex ring.

Neither Flynn responded to requests for comment Monday. As designated national security adviser, the senior Flynn is poised to be among the most influential occupants of the Trump White House.

His son has appeared in photos with his father greeting other senior national security applicants at Trump Tower  where Trump and his transition team are based. The younger Flynn has no national security of significant government experience. One family associate said that Michael G. Flynns prior work experience included a stint working for an uncle's printing company in California.

The two were often separated during the elder Flynns military career, which included long deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The father even missed his sons wedding while overseas.

But the two have been largely inseparable since Flynn left the military and echoed one anothers strident postings online. When the older Flynn launched an intelligence consulting firm, he gave his son a job as chief of staff.

The son traveled with his father to Moscow last year, according to family associates, where his father was seated beside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gala thrown by RT, the Kremlin-controlled propaganda news outlet.

The older Flynn has gone largely quiet on social media since the election, but his son remains an active online presence. His Facebook account was updated Monday with a fresh link to a broadcast by right-wing provocateur Alex Jones.

Previous postings include a digitally manipulated image of Trump surrounded by handguns aimed at his head. The weapons are marked labeled with brands of major news organizations, including CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Neither Flynn appears to have been involved in the initial fabrication of the Clinton email claims. But both amplified the falsehood online as part of a broad stream of dubious postings and claims.

Multiple organizations with alt-right affiliations have spread stories accusing the Clintons of being tied to cases of human trafficking and sex crimes. One involves Comet Ping Pong, and another involves billionaire donor and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epsteins ties to the Clintons.

After leaving office, Bill Clinton was occasionally a passenger on aircraft owned by Epstein, who was also a regular visitor to Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The initial tweet by the older Flynn linked to an article from the far-right website True Pundit that points to the Epstein case. Comet Ping Pong is not referenced by True Pundit  either explicitly or implicitly. And in fact, the Reddit posting that spawned whats come to be known as PizzaGate (the thread has been taken down by Reddit) is from Nov. 4, according to Snopes  two days after the True Pundit article posted Nov. 2.

Both Flynns have trafficked in these kinds of bogus stories many times before. The son has also pushed a conspiracy theory that Sen. Marco Rubio was a closeted homosexual who abused cocaine, and promoted baseless accounts that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Aaron Blake and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Read more:

He was one of the most respected intel officers of his generation. Now hes leading Lock her up chants.

Trump adviser Michael T. Flynn on his dinner with Putin and why Russia Today is just like CNN
Jared Kushner, who may become a Middle East peace envoy in his father-in-laws administration, is a director of a family foundation that has made charitable donations to West Bank settlements.

The gifts totaled $58,500 between 2011 and 2013, a small portion of the almost $8.5 million the Seryl and Charles Kushner Family Foundation gave away in that period, according to IRS records first reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and reviewed independently by The Washington Post. Kushner and his three siblings are directors, along with their parents, of the foundation.

President-elect Donald Trump has said he may make his son-in-law, who is married to Ivanka Trump, a broker for talks between Israelis and Palestinians, saying Kushner would be very good at working with both sides.

Kushner is not known to have publicly expressed a position on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which every U.S. administration since 1967 has considered illegitimate and counterproductive to peace, because they make it more difficult to stitch together a contiguous Palestinian state. But several Trump advisers made statements during the campaign suggesting that they reject the characterization and believe a policy change may be in order.

David Friedman, Trumps real estate lawyer and adviser on Israel who would like to become U.S. ambassador to the country, has said it may be time to reconsider the two-state formula. Friedman heads the American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva, which got $10,000 from the Kushner family in 2011 and $28,000 in 2013.

[Top Trump adviser says settlements are not an obstacle to peace]

The GOP platforms position on Israel was revised this year to become what Trump called the most pro-Israel of all time. It does not explicitly call for a two-state solution and rejects the false notion that Israel is occupying the West Bank.

Middle East analysts are split on whether the incoming administration is poised to change U.S. policy and stop describing Jewish settlements as an impediment.

I imagine this will be the end of State Department statements for 50 years calling settlements illegal to illegitimate, unhelpful or obstacles to peace, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of J Street, which strongly supports a separate state for Palestinians alongside the Jewish state. American foreign policy is about to be dramatically shifted.

But diplomats who have served in the region say it is too early to predict what Trumps posture toward the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict will be.

He himself said hed like to do this deal, he has reason to believe he could do it and he wants Jared Kushner to play a major role, said Dennis Ross, who worked on the Middle East peace process under President Obama and presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. If you want to get a deal done, in the end, he has to address the needs of the Palestinians as well as the Israelis.

[Dennis Ross: How Trump could surprise the world on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking]

Daniel Kurtzer, the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005, noted that the Kushner family foundation donations were made over time, before anyone in either family had any idea Trump would be elected president.

The Republican platform would signal change, if one took platforms seriously, he said, adding, But I think its way too early to tell.

The Kushner foundation gifts were mostly made to schools, including religious yeshivas, located outside the Green Line that separates Israel and the West Bank. The charities that received them are all registered as 501(c)(3) organizations, and there is nothing illegal about their existence or the donations made to them.

It opens a huge can of worms trying to deal with it, Kurtzer said. Who makes the determination of what is politically acceptable and what is not?

According to IRS filings for the Kushner foundation, the family gave $10,000 to the New York-based American Friends of Bet El in 2011, and two more gifts totaling $28,000 in 2013. Located next to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the well-established settlement is considered hard-line and ideological. At the organizations annual dinner this week, one of the star speakers is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who leads American Christians on pilgrimages to biblical sites in Israel and who would also like to be U.S. ambassador to the country.

[Mike Huckabee, tour guide in the Holy Land]

The Kushners donated $5,000 to the Etzion Foundation in 2012, and $10,000 in 2013. The Etzion Foundation, which has a U.S. fundraising office in Teaneck, N.J., supports a yeshiva, a kibbutz and a teachers school in Gush Etzion, a cluster of settlements between Jerusalem and the Palestinian town of Bethlehem.

The family also gave $5,000 in 2011 to Ohr Torah Stone, a group of schools operating in Israel and the United States and headquartered in the settlement of Efrat. Ohr Torah Stone was founded by Shlomo Riskin, an American-born rabbi who applauded Trumps election and said he is hopeful the U.S. Embassy will be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a controversial move that successive U.S. presidents have declined to do because it could exacerbate tensions.

The most controversial Kushner family donation was the smallest  $500 in 2012 to the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Extremists in the settlement have launched violent attacks against Palestinians and Israeli security forces. The yeshivas dean is a far-right rabbi, Yosef Elitzur, who is notorious for opinion articles in which he seemed to praise price-tag attacks as retaliation against Palestinians.

Its troublesome if, as the administration suggested, Jared Kushner is going to play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Jill Jacobs, a rabbi who is the head of TRuah, a group encouraging human rights for Palestinians as well as Israelis.

Ben-Ami said he fears that U.S. policy toward Israel is about to be determined by a group whose views are outside the mainstream of Jewish Americans.

Its not about one check from Jared Kushner, but a broad threat to 50 years of bipartisan support for the proposition that settlements are an obstacle to peace, he said. Now, that could be declared dead. Im very alarmed.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the Green Line that separates Israel and the West Bank. Originally established in a 1949 armistice between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the line changed when Israel captured additional territory in 1967. The line is not a recognized border and remains a subject for negotiation. The story also incorrectly reported that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee addressed the American Friends of Bet El annual dinner this year. He spoke at the 2015 dinner.

Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Read more:

Right-wing Israeli leaders push forward on legislation to preserve Jewish settlements

Israeli leaders urge Trump to move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem

GOP Pushes U.S. citizens in Israel to vote for Trump
Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrives to address the news media during a foreign affairs meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. (John Thys/AFP/Getty Images)

Secretary of State John F. Kerry reassured NATO allies Monday that he is confident the incoming Trump administration will remain committed to the fundamental components of the Atlantic alliance.

Obviously, I dont think anybody is in a position to give an absolute, 100 percent guarantee, because many of President-elect Donald Trumps national security appointments have not yet been made, he said.

Not all of the people have been chosen who are going to implement the policy or affect the policy and influence it, he said.

I am confident in the people I see thus far, Kerry said, mentioning the naming of retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as defense secretary. But, he noted, the list for people to replace me is growing, not diminishing, as a half-dozen prospective secretaries of state have been mentioned.

I cant begin to try to guess, he said. But I believe common sense will prevail on that and a range of questions still to be answered by Trump.

Kerry is on what is likely to be his final trip to Europe in his current job. He began the week in Berlin and is meeting here with NATO foreign ministers. He will stop in Hamburg and Paris before returning to Washington on Saturday.

He acknowledged concern on the part of U.S. allies. Trump has questioned the relevance of NATO and said U.S. defense of Europe was in question because the Europeans arent paying their bills.

[Trump questions need for NATO]

Its human, and I understand the anxiety, Kerry said at a news conference after a closed-door alliance meeting. But lets not get all churned up over things that havent happened and appointments that havent been made. He noted that successive administrations had called on other NATO members to increase their defense spending.

Kerry said that Trump has tempered his initial calls to build a wall all along the Mexican border and impose sharp restrictions on immigration. As he has met with new advisers and expanded his circle, Kerry said, Trump has shown every indication that theres an openness, at least at this point in time.

On the Iran nuclear accord, he said, Im convinced the world is safer and I think the Trump administration will come to that conclusion. Trump has called it a bad deal and said he wants at least to renegotiate it.

Similarly, Kerry said that Trump and his advisers would look at all evidence indicating on a daily basis an increased threat and make the right choice.

There will be some things [done by Trump] the current administration doesnt like. . . . There will be things that many of us disapprove of, Kerry said.

When that happens, he said he intends to speak out: I certainly as a private citizen will not shy away from doing that.

Read more:

European leaders, NATO caution Trump on warming relations with Russia

Trump outlines noninterventionist foreign policy

NATO secretary general projects confidence after call with Trump
Secretary of State John F. Kerry said he plans to meet with his Russian counterpart later this week for further talks on a proposal for the rebels departure from Aleppo that was first discussed Friday. (Francois Lenoir/Reuters)

The United States is discussing with Syrian rebels their surrender and evacuation from Aleppo, as Russia on Tuesday threatened the imminent elimination of anyone who refuses to leave the city.

Those who refuse to leave of their own accord will be wiped out, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow. There is no other solution.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, said he expects to meet with Lavrov later this week for further talks on a proposal for the rebels departure that was first discussed Friday.

But hopes of agreement on the new plan to stop the carnage in Aleppo again appeared to falter amid charges, countercharges and confusion. Russian-backed Syrian forces made further gains Tuesday in reclaiming rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of the city amid heavy civilian casualties.

[Fearing abandonment by Trump, CIA-backed rebels in Syria mull alternatives]





Lavrov charged, and U.S. officials sharply denied, that Washington had revoked the Friday evacuation proposal. Serious conversations with our partners do not work, Lavrov said. He asserted that the United States had notified Moscow that it would not attend a new meeting on the plan.

Lavrov said a U.S.-backed U.N. Security Council draft resolution, which called for a seven-day Aleppo truce with the rebels in place, was proof that other U.S. officials had disavowed Kerrys efforts.

Russia and China vetoed the resolution Monday. They did so, British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said, because of their long-standing, misplaced faith in a despot who has killed nearly half a million of his own people.

Meanwhile, Kerry told reporters here that he was not aware of any specific refusal to meet with Lavrov. During a stop Monday in Berlin, he said the two would meet Thursday in Hamburg, where they will attend a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

U.S. officials suggested that Lavrov was trying to avoid ending the conflict while Russia and Syria destroy as much of Syrian President Bashar al-Assads opposition as possible. A brutal government offensive over the past week has driven the opposition out of much of the territory in eastern Aleppo it has held since 2012, and the city is thought to be just days from falling.

[We are alone: The voices of besieged, rebel-held Aleppo]

The U.S. goal, the officials said, is to save as many lives as possible before that happens. They said it was clear from the start of the most recent Kerry-Lavrov talks that the rebels would have to be consulted on a departure plan.

Kerry acknowledged that the discussions with the opposition were ongoing. Were not the fighters on the ground; they are, he said in a news conference. They have to make their choices. The latest discussions have been about trying to move people out in order to save Aleppo, he said. But until this moment, there has not been agreement on how that would happen.

International talks began more than two years ago on successive plans to get the opposition and Assad to negotiate a transition government in Syria. That remains the goal, but even as Syria was being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, the participants were unwilling, Kerry said. Both sides.

He said he hoped that in talks with the Russians this week, we can get them to understand the importance of getting to that table . . . and not inflaming the situation more . . . with the fall of Aleppo.

The current evacuation proposal is different from previous plans. Under it, U.S.-backed rebels and civilians would depart the city under secure conditions, leaving only the forces of the al-Qaeda-linked group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Russia maintains that the group  which Moscow and Washington deem a terrorist organization  is the only target of the assault on Aleppo. An earlier U.N. proposal called for the groups fighters to leave the city, with guaranteed secure travel to their stronghold in the neighboring province of Idlib. That would have allowed about a quarter-million civilians under siege in eastern Aleppo, along with opposition forces, to remain and would have facilitated the negotiation of a truce and the flow of humanitarian aid.

Now, the proposal is to evacuate all the civilians who want to leave, along with an estimated several thousand rebels. The evacuation would not include Jabhat al-Nusra, which recently renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

The United States believes that only a few hundred of the groups fighters are in Aleppo, while Russia insists there are thousands.

But Col. Abu Bakr of Jaish al-Mujahideen, a brigade of the opposition Free Syrian Army, said the rebels have so far rejected the evacuation proposal because they want to fight to the last drop of blood. Instead, he said, they are formulating their own plan for evacuating civilians only and transporting them to the rebel-held Aleppo countryside.

With the civilians gone, he said, we will do our best to save what is left of besieged Aleppo.

Louisa Loveluck in Beirut contributed to this report.

Read more:

The battle of Aleppo, explained

Syrian men caught in government net as Aleppos rebel zones fall

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Pakistani physics professor Abdus Salam in London in 1979. He was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics that year. Salam died in 1996 in London. (AP)

In most countries, it would hardly require an act of courage for the government to rename a university science center after a native-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist who died two decades earlier.

But the belated honor that Pakistan announced Tuesday for the late Abdus Salam was a bold step in the Muslim-majority democracy, where officials often feel the need to appease religious hard-liners at the expense of progress and international stature.

Salam was a member of the Ahmadiyya community, a minority sect that is ostracized and reviled by many Muslims in Pakistan, and whose schools and places of worship have been the frequent target of attacks.

So touchy are Pakistans majority Sunnis about Ahmadis  who consider themselves Muslims but are widely viewed as heretics  that the decision to add Salams name to the National Center for Physics is the first official honor he has received in his homeland. Salam won the Nobel in 1979, sharing it with two theoretical physicists from the West. He died in 1996 in London.

The government should be congratulated for correcting a historic injustice, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University, where the center is located.

The move shows that Pakistan is finally ready to move ahead in science . . . irrespective of faith, Hoodbhoy said. It will help soften Pakistans image, which is badly needed when we are accused of being intolerant and terrorist.

[In deadly attack on Pakistani college, extremists take new aim at students]

But even as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued a statement saying Salams remarkable achievements earned fame and prestige for the country and deserve to be valued, critics were cursing the physicist in online posts as a thug, a spy and a traitor to Islam. Salam left Pakistan in the 1970s after its legislature declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslims, and he worked from then on in the West.

Other Pakistanis, while praising Sharif for taking a step no previous government leader had risked, said it meant little as long as members of the countrys 4-million-strong Ahmadi minority are still persecuted.

This is indeed welcome news, but can the prime minister explain to us why the Ahmadi community is being hounded, beaten, jailed and brutalized? one woman commented on Facebook.

In the past several years, Ahmadis have faced deadly attacks, some by local Muslims whipped up by conservative Islamist preachers and others carried out by terrorists. In 2010, suicide attackers from a Sunni militia killed 94 people and wounded more than 120 in simultaneous assaults at two Ahmadi community centers in Lahore.

Last month, a more subtle but damaging episode took place: a whisper campaign suggesting that one of the top candidates to become the army chief had family ties to Ahmadis.

The rumors  later proven false  died down quickly and were reported only obliquely by the Pakistani press. But the incident illustrated the persistent depth and power of animosity toward Ahmadis, whose sect was founded in India and claims that another historical figure instead of Muhammad was the last prophet.

Based on a video, the rumors sprang up as Sharif was about to choose among four generals to replace the army chief. They insinuated that one of the candidates, Lt. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, had relatives who were Ahmadi. The suggestions threatened to undermine his candidacy at a critical moment.

Sharif selected Bajwa for the post anyway. But while some commentators denounced the anonymous smear campaign, the language of their criticism was telling.

One prominent columnist, Syed Talat Hussain, slammed the campaign as a vile act, a sensational falsehood and the ultimate slander. Hussain did not directly refer to Ahmadis, but his hyperbolic tone underscored the widespread suspicion facing the group.

The beginning of Salams official rehabilitation in Pakistan, a country desperately in need of academic role models and modern heroes, comes years after he was recognized for his contributions in the West. Pakistan did not have another Nobel laureate until 2014, when Malala Yousafzai won the peace prize.

As a schoolgirl in 2012, Yousafzai survived a terrorist attack and went on to become an eloquent advocate for girls education and womens rights.

One Facebook post Tuesday quoted an imaginary letter from Salam to Yousafzai written the day after she won the Nobel.

It read: Now, the mantle passes to you, dearest child. And with it, I regret to pass onto you the heart-wrenching burden it brings.

Read more:

Pakistan is still trying to get a grip on its madrassa problem

Pakistans prime minister is defying the clerics  very carefully

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Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen said Tuesday that her phone call with President-elect Donald Trump should not be interpreted as a significant shift in U.S. policy and stressed that both sides see the value of maintaining regional stability.

Of course I have to stress that one phone call does not mean a policy shift, she told a small group of American reporters in Taipei. The phone call was a way for us to express our respect for the U.S. election as well as congratulate President-elect Trump on his win.

Trumps phone call with Tsai broke four decades of diplomatic protocol, alarming some commentators who feared it could spark a dangerous confrontation with China.

But others, especially Republicans, have welcomed it as a sign that Trump will not be bullied by China and believe that the United States should offer more support to Taiwans island democracy.

People in Trumps team said the call was planned weeks in advance to establish that the incoming president would break from the past, although Vice President-elect Mike Pence described it as a courtesy call, not intended to show a shift in U.S. policy on China.

Tsai echoed that line.

I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region, she said.

China has reacted with relative calm to the call, lodging what it called a solemn protest with the U.S. government but also underlining that its economic and diplomatic relationship with Washington depends on the U.S. acceptance of the one China principle, which recognizes Beijing as the sole representative of the Chinese nation.

Beijing blocks Taiwan from taking part in almost all international bodies. Tsais office said she had told Trump in the phone call that she hoped the United States would continue to support more opportunities for Taiwan to participate in international issues.

Reacting to criticism of the call, Trump pointed out that the United States sells billions of dollars of arms to Taiwan. Indeed, in December 2015, the Obama administration announced a $1.83 billion arms-sale package for Taiwan, including two frigates, antitank missiles, amphibious assault vehicles and other equipment, drawing an angry response from China.

Beijing has already increased the pressure on Taiwan since Tsais election this year, upset that she has not publicly endorsed the one China principle  although she consistently expresses the need for dialogue.

Tourist arrivals from mainland China have fallen this year, and China blocked Taiwanese officials from attending the International Civil Aviation Summit in Montreal as well as the Interpol general assembly in Bali, Indonesia, despite efforts from Washington to secure their admission.

Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi appeared to blame Taiwan for the phone call, calling it a petty move, and the nationalist Global Times tabloid initially recommended that Beijing should continue to talk to Trump but punish Taiwan.

Michael Cole, a Taipei-based senior non-resident fellow at the China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham, wrote that this could include renewed efforts to deny Taiwan access at various multilateral organizations, punitive economic measures and more intense or frequent military exercises aimed at Taiwan.

If that happens, the domestic support Tsai has received for her call could be countered by greater tensions with China, he said. What remains to be seen is what kind of ally Taiwan will have in Washington if and when such a shift occurs in the Taiwan Strait, he wrote in the National Interest.

On Tuesday, there were also signs of growing concern in Beijing that Trumps constant criticism of China in his speeches and on Twitter might actually mean something. His latest salvo  complaining about Chinas currency and trade policy, and its actions in the South China Sea  sparked a frustrated response in the Global Times.

Trumps China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it, it said. China should brace itself for the possible fluctuations of the Sino-U.S. relationship after Trump is sworn in. We must confront Trumps provocations head-on, and make sure he wont take advantage of China at the beginning of his tenure.

The Communist Party newspaper, the Peoples Daily, took a more measured line, arguing that dialogue was vital to maintain friendly relations and correct some of Trumps inaccurate criticisms of China.

Trumps recent demeanor has proved peoples doubts on his inexperience in diplomatic relations. In fact, Trump is not that ignorant on China and China-U.S. relations, he has some sensible understandings and his own take on matters. But the problem is that Trumps rhetoric shows that he only knows one side of China and China-U.S. relations, it said in a front-page editorial in its overseas edition.

At the present, the peaceful transition of China-U.S. relations is the key task that both countries face. It depends on joint efforts, not just good wishes from one side.

Denyer reported from Beijing. Congcong Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.

Read more:

[In substance and style, Trump may be a headache for Beijing]

[As Trump prepares for office, concerns about Chinese trade intensify]

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The president of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, was defeated by real estate tycoon Adama Barrow in presidential elections held Friday.

Jammeh conceded late Friday night on state television, stating I told you, Gambians, that I will not question the outcome of the results and will accept it. In a concession call to Barrow, Jammeh stated, Congratulations. Im the outgoing president; youre the incoming president.

Masses of Gambians celebrated in the capital city Banjul on the news of the autocratic president's defeat.

The presidential elections were held under the shadow of political repression and intimidation. In the months preceding the election, several opposition figures were beaten, arrested, and detained, and international telephone and Internet services were shut down during the election poll. There were widespread reports of intimidation of the press by the Jammeh government.

In April and May, dozens of protesters were beaten and arrested, along with 51 officials of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), who are still awaiting trial. The UDP Organizing Secretary, Solo Sandeng, has since died in custody after being tortured. The protestors and officials are being held at the infamous Mile 2 prison near Banjul, known for repression and torture.

Nogoi Njie, the vice chairperson of the young womens section of the UDP was arrested at the demonstration, and described in an affidavit her ordeal of being detained, beaten, and tortured at the hands of the National Intelligence Agency, the Gambian security agency responsible for scores of forced disappearances, murder, torture, and intimidation of political opponents.

The Gambia was ruled by Jammeh for more than two decades, after he came to power in 1994 in a military coup. As a commander in the Gambian army, Jammeh led a faction of the military and seized power from Dawda Jawara, the corrupt president who ruled for the three decades since The Gambia gained its independence from British colonialism in 1965.

Jammeh joined the Gambian armed forces in 1984, rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant in 1989. Just months before leading the military coup that brought him to power, he received military training at Fort McClellan in Alabama; a clear display of Washington's influence in Jammeh's rise to power.

Barrow, the candidate of the UDP and its former treasurer, is a wealthy real estate developer in The Gambia. He received a university education in London, returning to The Gambia where he was employed by the largest real estate firm in the country. Barrow was supported by all opposition parties in his bid for the presidency.

Clearly enunciating the character of his administration in calling for unity in the ruling class, Barrow displayed his cynicism in an interview with the Associated Press the day after his election win, saying, "A new Gambia is born. We want everybody on board now. This is Gambia, politics is over."

What Barrow really means to say is, The ruling elite needs to continue the exploitation of The Gambia's resources, so quit the political squabbling.

The jubilation of the masses at Barrow's election is likely to be short-lived, as he is set to take power in a country influenced by Washington which is seeking to assert American capitalisms hegemony over the entire African continent.

The Obama administration welcomed the newly elected president in an official statement congratulating Barrow on his victory. The administration stated that it looks forward to being a strong partner in efforts to unify the country, [and] promote inclusive economic development, clearly a reference to maintaining the current capitalist relations Washington has with the country.

Washington has been increasingly dissatisfied with the Jammeh regime, hypocritically criticizing the autocrat on his repressive rule. In advancing its imperialist aims on the continent, Washington is keen to cultivate an image that it promotes human rights and democratic forms of rule in Africa, and regards various autocratic leaders such as Jammeh as a stick in its eye.

The predominately Muslim nation is the smallest nation in Africa, with a population just under two million. It harbors great economic resources mainly in the agricultural sector, tourism, and its special location geographically as a center of trade in Western Africa. It also has an abundance of natural resources such as silica sand, titanium, tin, zircon, clay, and fish.

Despite this, The Gambia is one of the poorest nations on earth, ranking 175th out of 188 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index. The vast majority of Gambians subsist in farming and earn around one dollar or less per day.

Like most nations on the African continent, The Gambia is home to crippling poverty and other social ills inflicted on the masses, such as high mortality rates in child birth and diseases due to lack of spending for basic social services. The Gambia has a high HIV prevalence rate at 2 percent. Besides HIV/AIDS, malaria, hepatitis A, typhoid, and animal contact diseases such as rabies ravage the Gambian population.

These intolerable social conditions are rooted in the class structure of the Gambia, in which a tiny corrupt elite controls the countrys economic resources and wields political power in which the great majority have little to no say.

The scramble for Africa, aggressively pursued by Washington to assert its geo-political and economic dominance on the continent in furtherance of control by wealthy Western business interests of Africa's economic resources guarantees massive social and political upheavals not only in The Gambia, but across all of Africa.
Former Vice President Al Gore had what he described as a very productive meeting with President-elect Donald Trump on Monday.

Gore, one of the nations most vocal advocates for combatting climate change, also met earlier in the day with one of Trumps closest advisers: his daughter Ivanka Trump.

After the meetings, Gore spoke briefly with pool reporters as he exited the elevator at Trump Tower in New York City. I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect, Gore said. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and Im just going to leave it at that.

Gore, who endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for president, said after Trumps election that he hoped to work with the president-elect on climate policy.

An aide to the former vice president tells PEOPLE, Vice President Gore made clear in his statements following the election that he intended to do everything he could to work with the president-elect to ensure our nation remains a leader in the effort to address the climate crisis. He happens to be in the New York area this week for his 24-hour live broadcast, The Climate Reality Projects 24 Hours of Reality, and they took him up on the opportunity to discuss the issue.

According to Politico, an adviser to Trump said that Gore and Ivanka were meeting to discuss climate change. Ivanka, 35, is planning to make climate change one of her signature issues as first daughter, Politico reported last week, citing a source close to the businesswoman. The source added that Ivanka was just beginning to explore how to use her voice to speak out on the issue.

RELATED VIDEO: Backlash Over Ivanka Trumps Meeting with Japanese Leader as Source Says Trumps Are Adjusting to New Realities

Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller announced Ivankas meeting with Gore on Monday mornings daily conference call, saying at the time that the president-elect would not participate in the talk.

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Miller also said that Trump supports the Dakota Access pipeline project and will review the Obama administrations decision to halt construction on the controversial pipeline once he takes office.

Trump, who has called climate change a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese, conceded in a New York Times interview late last month that there is some connectivity between humans and climate change, adding, It depends on how much. It also depends on how much its going to cost our companies.




In an election year full of unexpected victories, Daniel Brezenoff is hoping to pull off one more.

Brezenoff, a clinical social worker and professor in California, is the man behind a record-breaking Change.org petition calling on the Electoral College to make Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the next president of the United States.

Brezenoff launched his petition on Nov. 9, one day after Donald Trumps election, hoping to spark a discussion with friends on social media. But on Thursday, Change.org announced that the call to action had officially become the fastest growing and most signed petition in the websites 10-year history. As of Monday, it had more than 4.7 million signatures, and several celebrity supporters, including Lady Gaga, Laverne Cox and Sia.

Brezenoff, who teaches human services at California State University Dominguez Hills, says he never imagined his petition would get this much support  but it gives him hope that the last-ditch effort just might be able to prevent a Trump presidency.

I know its a longshot but this has been a year of longshots and unpredictable outcomes, he tells PEOPLE. Very few people thought Trump was going to get the nomination of his party, very few people thought he had a shot at the presidency. Its been a year of surprises.

In Brezenoffs petition, he declares President-elect Trump unfit to serve, adding, His scapegoating of so many Americans, and his impulsivity, bullying, lying, admitted history of sexual assault, and utter lack of experience make him a danger to the Republic.

Donald Trump is a danger to the Constitution, and the Electors have the power to stop him, he also said in a press release. This is constitutional, its patriotic, its possible, and were just getting started.

The petition comes as Clintons lead in the popular vote continues to grow, with the former secretary of state receiving 64,874,143 votes to Trumps 62,516,883  a difference of 2,357,260, according to figures released by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

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RELATED VIDEO: Donald Trump Falsely Claims He Won the Electoral College and Popular Vote by a Landslide

But as Brezenoff well knows, its the Electoral College, not the American people, who will officially elect the nations next president when its members cast their votes on Dec. 19.

Its a Hail Mary, Brezenoff says of his efforts. I knew this was the only constitutional path open to stopping him. I just thought, somebodys gotta give it a shot.

Conscience Votes

Trumps Electoral College lead stands at 306, compared to Clintons 232. Brezenoffs goal  with the help of a coalition of like-minded academics, Democratic electors, and at least one elected official  is to persuade Republican electors to cast their ballots for Clinton instead of Trump  even if it means voting against their pledged candidate or the candidate voters in their state supported. (In 29 states, plus the District of Columbia, there are laws that prohibit electors from voting against their pledged candidate. Brezenoff is targeting electors in the other 21 states who can legally vote for anyone they want.)

We have a coalition of people around the country who are in positions of some authority and we together are contacting selected electors who  based on what we know about them  might be open to voting against Trump, Brezenoff explains. Were trying to speak directly to their values and beliefs.

So far the coalition has not been able to officially sway any Republican electors.

Based on the reaction theyve received so far, Brezenoff says, My sense is that there are electors who do not support Donald Trump, who do not think that hes fit or qualified to be president, and who in their hearts would love to vote for someone else. Some of them vote with their party no matter what their conscience tells them. But I think some people think theyre legally bound to vote with their party. And I think some of them are scared to vote for someone else because of the potential political fallout.

So were working to show them that theyre supported by many Americans, including many Republicans, he added.

RELATED VIDEO: Hillary Clinton Receives Outpouring of Support at UNICEF Ball

In addition to efforts by the coalition to contact electors, Brezenoff says thousands of public volunteers have reached out to state Republican Party chairs in states where Trump won a majority of votes. Were asking people to remind those officials that the electors have the right to vote their conscience and ask those officials to affirm that publicly, he says.

Letting the Grassroots Do the Dirty Work

Brezenoffs petition comes in addition to a three-state recount effort launched by Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Stein has raised more than $9 million in donations for recounts in the three crucial battleground states. Clintons campaign has said it will participate in the recount efforts  which Trump has labeled a scam.

Brezenoff also see allies in the handful of voters who have declared they will be faithless electors. The group  comprised of at least seven people, six who have spoken out publicly  are calling themselves the Hamilton Electors, and have vowed to stop Trump from becoming president.

In an unexpected twist, six of the publicly announced voters are Democrats, bound to vote for Clinton, who are planning to instead cast their votes for a reasonable Republican who does not have Donald Trumps questionable ethics.

Brezenoff, who says hes spoken with the faithless electors several times, praises them as good people who are being very courageous.

Our petition says Hillary Clinton on it but I think really anyone who is affirming that electors may vote their conscience and encouraging them to do that, and anyone whos trying to stop Trump, I would consider an ally and Im very supportive of those efforts, he says.

Brezenoff says his coalition has not reached out to anyone in the Clinton campaign, nor have they been contacted by her camp. And thats okay, he says. I think theyre in a position where they have to let the grassroots do this work.

Taking It Old School

With the support of millions, Brezenoff has raised more than $85,000, the majority of which will go towards a media campaign to promote his petition. As part of that campaign, Brezenoff plans to publish an open letter in newspapers serving the capital cities of the states in which Trump won the most votes, including Austin, Tallahassee and Atlanta.

We think its important to be in black and white, Brezenoff says of his message. Were taking it old school because the Electoral College is as old school as it gets.

After Dec. 19, any remaining funds will support continued advocacy for progressive causes and electoral equality, Brezenoff says.

Even if the petition doesnt succeed, Im very glad weve got a national conversation happening about the Electoral College, about the Constitution. Thats really important, he says. Weve also built a great network of progressives and were going to continue working on electoral reform and protect the progress of the last eight years, no matter whos inaugurated in January.




Woman Disappears After Florida Jog  and Police Believe Estranged Husband May Have Abducted Her

Federal officials have found the body of Rachael Madison, the woman who vanished while jogging along a Florida beach last week after fleeing her estranged and allegedly abusive husband, PEOPLE confirms.

On Friday night, unidentified human remains were found in a remote area on the side of a highway in Knoxville, Tennessee. Officials announced the discovery Saturday, believing the remains belonged to the 44-year-old, though the identity was not confirmed until Monday.

Madisons husband, Jarvis Madison, was arrested Friday morning, on an arrest warrant from Indiana State Police, for criminal confinement charges. Following his arrest, authorities acquired information that led them to the bodys location more than 200 miles away, according to the FBIs statement.

It is unclear whether Jarvis has an attorney or has entered a plea to his charges. He currently remains in custody in Indiana. Neither he nor Rachaels family could be reached for comment.

She went missing on Nov. 27 during a jog along the beach in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida, Volusia County Sheriffs Office spokesman Andrew Gant previously told PEOPLE.

The thoughts and prayers of everyone in the FBI are with Ms. Madisons family, and we remain committed to finding answers through our ongoing investigation, said Charles P. Spencer, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Jacksonville Division, in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.

Rachaels Family Alleges Abuse

Rachaels aunt, Thelma Newsom, told police Rachael moved to Florida days before her disappearance to get away from Jarvis, according to a Volusia County police report obtained by PEOPLE.

On Nov. 14, Jarvis allegedly held Rachael hostage at gunpoint and fired a gun at her after finding out she wanted to leave him, the police report states.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

According to the report, citing Newsom, Rachael was covered in scars from her husbands alleged abuse  including one on her back, after Jarvis allegedly poured acid on a tattoo, and several on her neck, after Jarvis allegedly cut her with a knife.

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Days before Rachael vanished, Jarvis frequently called her and her family members, threatening to kill her if she did not come back to him, the police report alleges. On the day of her disappearance, Newsom claimed Jarvis tried one last time to reach his wife, 30 minutes before she went for her run.

The couple were homeless and lived between motels in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, police say. They sometimes lived in Jarviss 2011 silver Honda Pilot.




Ex-Cop Who Shot Walter Scott as He Ran Away Now Wants Murder Charge Dismissed

A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday for disgraced cop Michael Slager, following four days of unsuccessful jury deliberations over his fatal shooting of a fleeing, unarmed suspect, which was captured on video.

Were back to square one, Judge Clifton Newman said as he thanked jurors for their service.

State prosecutors plan to refile murder charges against Slager but have yet to comment on when that might happen.

It was not immediately clear if the deadlock Monday was the result of one or more jurors. The mistrial comes just days after one of the jurors proclaimed he could not in good conscience convict the ex-cop in the death of Walter Scott.

Slager, who is 34 and white, shot an unarmed Scott, who is black, during a traffic stop in early April 2015. Prosecutors have alleged the killing, which was captured on video by a bystander, constitutes murder

Judge Newman earlier refused a defense motion on Monday asking him to declare a mistrial in the case. Newman told the court he would allow jurors to deliberate on a verdict for as long as they were still willing and able.

But around 3:30 p.m., jurors sent a new note to the judge that they could not reach a verdict despite our best efforts.

A juror wrote a letter to Newman on Friday noting that I still cannot, without a reasonable doubt, convict the defendant.

The note to the judge added that at the same time, my heart does not want to have to tell the Scott family that the man that killed their son, brother and father is innocent. But with the choices, I cannot and will not change my mind.

The judge received a second note on Friday from the jurys foreman (and its only black member), asking that the uncooperative juror be removed: Its just one juror that has the issues, the foreman said.

That juror needs to leave, he said. He is having issues.

Jurors  11 whites and one black  were instructed to either find Slager guilty of murder or voluntary manslaughter, or determine that the shooting was an act of self-defense, meaning Slager would go free.

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Slager is charged with murder for repeatedly shooting Scott, who was 50, in the back as Scott ran away from him following a traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina, on April 4, 2015. Slager pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A witness recorded part of the shooting on video, and the release of the footage  which contradicted how authorities had described the altercation in the immediate aftermath  sparked outrage and spurred further protests about the use of force by police officers against African-Americans.

Slager was fired by North Charleston police soon after the video of the shooting was made public, and he faced widespread condemnation including from South Carolinas governor. His police chief said he was sickened by the footage.

Prior to his arrest, Slager claimed he had been acting in self-defense. His defense team, which could not immediately be reached for comment, has alleged that Scott was reaching for Slagers Taser in some kind of attack before he turned and fled.

Should he have assumed that an unarmed man would have attacked a police officer? Slagers defense attorney said at trial. His attorney also claimed Scott made decisions to attack a police officer.

Prosecutors counter-claimed that Slager staged the scene of the shooting, after Scotts death, to favor his version of events.

Scott was shot in the back multiple times as he ran away, according to the medical examiner.

Slager has also been indicted on federal charges, including violating civil rights laws, obstruction of justice and using a firearm while committing an act of violence. He has pleaded not guilty in that case as well.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

L. Chris Stewart, lead attorney for Scotts family, could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon, but he did speak to the media after Mondays mistrial, and said the fight is far from over.

It was a long five weeks and a missed opportunity for justice, Stewart said, according to Live 5 News. It was a missed opportunity to heal a lot of wounds in the country, a missed opportunity to remind the good officers who put on that badge that they arent Michael Slager.

But if you thought that we were going to come out crying or weeping or weak, you dont know the Scott family, who have become my family, Stewart continued. The fight isnt over: that was round one.

Scotts mother Judy also spoke to reporters following the judges decision.

Im not sad and I want you to know why Im not sad, Judy Scott said. Because Jesus is on the inside and I know that justice will be served. Its not over till God says its over.




Killeen, TX (76540)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
Now thats devotion!

Prince Harry made a major detour from the Caribbean to see girlfriend Meghan Markle in Canada.

Instead of jetting back to Britain with his staff on Sunday, the royal headed north to Toronto, where the Suits actress has a home, The Sun reported on Tuesday.

Harry is said to have spent the day with the L.A.-born actress at her home. His office declined to comment.

The couple has been apart for two weeks while Harry toured seven nations in the Caribbean on behalf of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth. With it being such a high-profile trip, Markle wasnt expected to join him.

Although it was said that he would immediately head back to Britain  where he has an official engagement tomorrow  that plan apparently changed at the last minute, as the prince flew straight to Meghan.

Want to keep up with the latest royals coverage? Click here to subscribe to the Royals Newsletter.

A friend of the actress recently told PEOPLE that she is head over heels for Harry. And as he was on his way to see her, Meghan cheekily displayed her colors when she shared a photo of her dog wearing a sweater decorated with the British flag.

Harry spent the last day of his 15-day tour charming kids in Guyana, who stopped him for an impromptu interview.

Unlike with other royal tours, Harrys return to London was not recorded in the official court circular that lists the official engagements or duties of members of the royal family. When Prince William and Kate and their staff returned from Canada in October, for example, their arrival at Stanstead airport just outside London was noted.

On Wednesday, Harry will be helping out in the financial center of London as he attends the ICAP fundraising day, which will partly be donating cash to Sentebale, Harrys charity that helps young people living with HIV in Southern Africa.
By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Free haircuts, scientific funding, fish and tombstones are among the incentives being offered to Turks who answer President Tayyip Erdogan's call to convert their dollars to lira. Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdogan has urged Turks to convert any dollars "under their pillows" into lira, and called on businesses to do more transactions in local currency. "Since the crisis operation is being carried out through foreign currency, we must use our own currency wherever we can," Erdogan said in a speech on Saturday, when he was opening a shopping centre in Istanbul. "It is now time to take hold of our economy, just as we took hold of our freedom on July 15," he said, referring to a coup attempt that failed. More than 240 people were killed. Some shopkeepers and traders have responded by offering free goods and services to anyone with proof they sold dollars. Sabahattin Bas, chairman of Borsa Gold, a jeweller and gold seller in Istanbul's historic Grand Bazaar, said he was only accepting liras, to fight what he called a renewed attack on Turkey by Western powers who had backed the failed coup. "They are trying to open a new front and that is economic war," he said in his shop, a large ring glistening on his hand. Several restaurants and barber shops in Istanbul suburbs have been offering free lunches and hair cuts to clients with a receipt showing they had sold dollars. One fisherman in Ankara told Reuters he had given free fish to dozens of people over the past few days as part of the same campaign. A stonemason in the northwestern province of Bursa is offering free tombstones to clients who convert 2,000 dollars, according to the newspaper Hurriyet. A university in the eastern city of Van is advertising funding for foreign research for the first five people to convert 20,000. The lira had its worst month since the 2008 financial crisis in November and has lost a fifth of its value this year, hit by a resurgent dollar and investor concern about Turkey's stability after the coup attempt. "This is a battle for our sovereignty," said Sezai Orkmez, 57, a retired banker who said all of his savings were in lira. "If my country needs me, I will not hesitate to take my place at the front." (Additional reporting by Umit Bektas and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Larry King)
In the early days of September 2001, I was driving down Santa Monica Boulevard on my way to a call-back for Guy Ritchie's adaptation of Swept Away, starring his then-wife Madonna, when it dawned on me: Instead of turning left toward the office buildings, I would be veering into the residential area. I was going to Madonna's house. Her music had been the soundtrack to my preteen angst, and she was my idol as a feminist and as an artist. Naturally, I pulled the car over, called my sister and had a mini-freak-out.

When Madonna walked into Guy's home office that day, her little son, Rocco, was perched on her hip. She told me that my audition was funny and that I'd be good in the movie, and I just tried to keep breathing. I assume it was in that moment that Guy concluded I'd be the perfect, nubile idiot to cast in Swept Away. I won the part. The next few weeks were surreal for all of us. I had seen Madonna in concert as a teenager and had splurged on tickets for her Staples Center show scheduled for Sept. 11, 2001. Needless to say, that concert was postponed as the world came undone. But a couple of weeks after we met, I watched Madonna finish her Drowned World Tour. Before the music began that night, she started with a prayer for peace: "If you want to change the world, change yourself," she told the crowd. Through tears, I sang along for the entire show.

Anyone who has ever had the opportunity to work alongside her -- as I did in Malta during those next couple of months -- understands why Madonna is Madonna. She works harder than anyone I've ever met; she exists in this world by her own rules; she has remained in control of her own voice, paving the way for the Taylor Swifts and Adeles of the world to do their thing in the process. During the course of her more than three-decades-long career, all of those instincts have helped her land the most top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and hold the record for the most No. 1s by any act on a single Billboard list (46 No. 1s on Dance Club Songs). With more than $1.3 billion earned from her groundbreaking concert tours through the years, as reported to Billboard Boxscore, she now reigns, at age 58, as the highest-grossing female touring artist of all time. Her most recent trek, the Rebel Heart Tour, grossed $170 million during the course of 82 performances, concluding in March 2016. (A concert film chronicling the tour, Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour, premieres Dec. 9 on Showtime.)

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But it has never really been about the numbers for Madonna. Whether through her music, her devotion to her family -- daughter Lourdes, 20; son Rocco, 16; son David Banda, 11; and daughter Mercy James, 10 -- her advocacy for LGBTQ rights or her ongoing work with Raising Malawi, the nonprofit she co-founded in 2006 to help combat the extreme poverty experienced by the African republic's orphans, Madonna's existence has always been rooted in making the world a more inclusive place. There is no higher calling.

On a recent Monday afternoon in between parent/teacher conferences for my kids and meetings for Pitch Perfect 3 -- a film that focuses on young women finding harmony through music -- Madonna and I reconnected over the phone. Since there is no shortage of Madonna books, articles, blog posts and career analyses, I just wanted a snapshot of Madonna right now, in this moment, because she is a woman who lives in the present and never looks back.

Where are you today?

I'm in New York, trying to get my Raising Malawi art auction together for Art Basel in Miami. Just dealing with artists and temperamental people.

How many artists will you feature?

It will probably be 12 amazing works of art. I wanted to keep it to artists that I collect myself or I'm friends with or art from my own collection. Originally it was just going to be art, but now it's also experiences, so I'm trying to make them as interesting as possible. For instance, one is a trip with me to Malawi, where my son and daughter [David Banda and Mercy James] are adopted from. Another is playing poker with Jonah Hill and Ed Norton, and another is staying at Leonardo DiCaprio's house in Palm Springs for a week. I didn't think it was going to be as complicated as it is, but, oh well, that's life. It's complicated because I'm involved with everything: the lighting, the curtains, the flowers, the decor, the food. I've tasted too many bad bottles of wine. This auction is an extension of me, so I want everything to be beautiful, tasteful and well-appointed. It becomes exhausting because I need to be involved in every aspect of it: the people who are speaking, the clothes people are wearing, the music on the playlist.

Will there ever be a time that you let go of that control, or is this like, "I have to?"

I have to.

Where does that come from?

Obviously, you could say it has to do with my childhood, if you're going to psychoanalyze me: My mother dying and me not being told, and a sense of loss and betrayal and surprise. Then feeling out of control for the majority of my childhood, and becoming an artist and saying that I will control everything. No one will speak for me, no one will make decisions for me. You could say I'm a super control freak. That's what everybody likes to say. I don't want to have an event that I'm not proud of. It's like everything that I do. My shows, my films, my house, the way I raise my children. I take great offense when details are overlooked.

I want to ask you about ageism in the music world. In Hollywood, as you know, it's rare for women to find great roles as they get older. I imagine it's even tougher to be a woman of a certain age in pop music. When you go into the studio or mount a tour like Rebel Heart, are you concerned about staying relevant?

I don't care. It's the rest of society that cares. I don't ever think about my age until someone says something about it. I feel that I have wisdom, experience, knowledge and a point of view that is important. Can a teenager relate to that? Probably not. But that's OK. I understand that. "Relevance" is a catchphrase that people throw out because we live in a world full of discrimination. Age is only brought up with regard to women. It's connected to sexism, chauvinism and misogyny. When Leonardo is 60 years old, no one is going to talk about his relevance. Am I relevant as a female in this society that hates women? Well, to people who are educated and are not chauvinists or misogynists, yes.

Speaking of: How did you feel about the outcome of the election?

It felt like someone died. It felt like a combination of the heartbreak and betrayal you feel when someone you love more than anything leaves you, and also a death. I feel that way every morning; I wake up and say, "Oh, wait, Donald Trump is still the president," and it wasn't a bad dream that I had. It feels like women betrayed us. The percentage of women who voted for Trump was insanely high.

Why do you think that is?

Women hate women. That's what I think it is. Women's nature is not to support other women. It's really sad. Men protect each other, and women protect their men and children. Women turn inward and men are more external. A lot of it has do with jealousy and some sort of tribal inability to accept that one of their kind could lead a nation. Other people just didn't bother to vote because they didn't like either candidate, or they didn't think Trump had a chance in the world. They took their hands off the wheel and then the car crashed.

Were you surprised?

Of course. I was devastated, surprised, in shock. I haven't really had a good night's sleep since he has been elected. We're f - ed.

Do you know anyone who voted for Trump?

Yeah, and I've gotten into major arguments.

What did they say?

That they would rather have a successful businessman running the country than a woman who lies. Just absurd. But people don't have faith in government as we know it. We live in a country that's run by bankers. In a way, it makes sense that Donald Trump is the president. Because money rules. Not intelligence, not experience, not a moral compass, not the ability to make wise decisions, not the ability to think of the future of the human race.

What do you think artists' responses will be?

I've witnessed many protests in Manhattan, but in the end the protests have to equal something. Something has to manifest.

Do you think you can be an agent for change?

Well, of course you know the answer to that. I'm trying to figure out my response to Trump. I like the idea that women are marching on Washington, D.C., the day after the inauguration. I want to rain on his parade. I was put on this earth to fight for the underdog and fight against discrimination.

As a fellow New Yorker, have you ever met the president-elect?

I wouldn't call him a friend or anything, but I've certainly met him. I did a photo shoot years ago at [Trump's] Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach [Fla.] for a Versace campaign. He's a very friendly guy, charismatic in that boastful, macho, alpha-male way. I found his political incorrectness amusing. Of course, I didn't know he was going to be running for president 20 years later. People like that exist in the world, I'm OK with it. They just can't be heads of state. I just can't put him and Barack Obama in the same sentence, same room, same job description.

When you go to Malawi, or travel the world, you must clearly get a sense of how our president affects the globe.

We're the laughing stock of the universe right now. We can no longer criticize other governments, other leaders. I'm hanging my head in shame.

What have you learned through your work in Malawi?

It really opened my eyes to what's going on in the rest of the world. It has connected me to organizations and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] in other countries in Africa. It got me involved with the importance of secondary school for girls because girls are not encouraged to be educated in Africa. I've been working in Malawi for over a decade. I have a huge commitment and love for the country and I will never desert them. I adopted my two children that I'm so lucky to have living in my house right now. Since then I've been working tirelessly trying to make Malawi a more self-sufficient country. I've been building orphan-care centers, funding clinics and schools, and the list goes on. I've also been supporting this pediatric surgeon, Eric Borgstein. He's an angel in human form who has given his life to looking after children. He's tireless and fearless and performs multiple surgeries a day in the most dire conditions. I couldn't take it anymore, so I built a hospital. I've been subsidizing education of other surgeons to work by his side so he doesn't do everything on his own. That's really what this Art Basel fundraiser is about: creating an endowment for the hospital with art. Art is how I express myself, and art is how I can change the world.

When I visit your social media accounts, you're either posting about Malawi or about your family.

My family is everything. I will go to war for them. Whatever I'm fighting for, it's for my daughters and my sons. I want them to have a good future. I've created an unconventional family and we have discussions at the dinner table about all sorts of things. My 11-year-old son can speak eloquently about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and James Baldwin. My daughter Mercy plays the piano and can talk to you about Nina Simone. I'm really proud of that.

How do you decide when to include your children in your social media posts?

When I post their things, they give me permission. A lot of times they'll send me pictures and say, "Please don't post this," and I won't. They have private accounts, and I respect that. I also consider my children part of my work and the work that we do together.

What is going on with you as a filmmaker?

I want to make more films, and I'm going to make more films. I've written screenplays and I'm hoping to make them next, but who knows. Making films is very complicated. There are a lot of people involved. When I go on tour I just go, "OK, I'm going on tour." But with films, I don't have that kind of control. It's much more frustrating for me.

Besides Trump, what does Madonna worry about? Do you even worry about anything?

What? I worry about absolutely everything. I worry about my kids all day long. I worry about my health. I worry about whether I'm going to get things done in time. I worry about every project I'm working on. I worry about whether I'll get to sleep at night. I worry about the state of the world. There isn't anything I don't worry about.

Artists Weigh In on Madonna's Inspirational Role in Their Lives

"When I think of greatness and what a legend is, I always think of Madonna. She has always been true to herself as an artist. She does things her way no matter what, and that always inspires me. Because she never backs down from her beliefs and takes risks, she has made history. Working with her was one of the proudest moments of my career. She's the ultimate boss."

-- Nicki Minaj

"Madonna paved the way for girls in pop to express themselves sexually, without apologizing. I really admire what she has created!"

-- Tove Lo

"Madonna has always been an inspiration to me. She's a strong woman who knows what she wants and doesn't compromise her vision. And she's not afraid to reinvent herself -- with every album she experiments more and pushes the envelope. That takes a lot of courage, which motivates us all."

-- Britney Spears

"Madonna is such a singular artist. She created the modern pop star and has pushed boundaries for music for 30 years. She's legendary, and yet she still brings this incredible young energy."

-- Diplo

This article originally appeared in the Dec. 10 issue of Billboard. Billboard's Women In Music event takes place on Dec. 9 in New York City and airs on Lifetime Dec. 12.
A Prince fan has draped his home in 10,000 blinking purple lights to celebrate the purple one during the Yuletide season. The Christmas lights hanging from the home of Mike Staudt and his family in Chaska, Minnesota, blink in unison to "Purple Rain" next to a spinning Prince symbol, the Star Tribune reported Monday.

"We've always been casual Prince fans, but his passing really hit us," Staudt said. "Prince's passing meant so much to our community that we decided to do a short dedication during the intermission of our Christmas light show to honor him. We've received compliments on this part of our show and a few people have even mention it made them teary-eyed."

The family has gone all out with Christmas decorations for years, but after Prince's death, they wanted to pay tribute to one of their favorite musicians. They call their annual holiday display the "Lights on Pascolo" after their street name. In the past, the family has put up holiday "Star Wars" and Snoop Dogg Christmas themes.

Staudt said he puts roughly at least 200 hours into the project every year. The light shows shine from 5:40 to 9 p.m. on most days to avoid bothering the neighbors. You can see it for yourself on the family's "Lights on Pascolo" Facebook page.

The Staudts are hoping to make use of all the attention their holiday display is receiving by collecting donations for the Ronald McDonald House at Children's Hospital in Minnesota. The medical center oversaw their son's heart surgery earlier this year.

Prince was found dead April 21 at his Minneapolis-area estate of an overdose of fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller. The death was formally ruled an accident and Prince administered the drug himself on an unknown date, according to a one-page report released by the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office in June.

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A home owner in suburban Chicago also dedicated their holiday display this year to Prince. The Grant-Grusecki home in Park Ridge, Illinois, includes flashing purple lights and Christmas hits such as "Holly Jolly Christmas" and "All Alone on Christmas," the Associated Press reported Sunday.

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From Cosmopolitan

Photo credit: Getty

Donald Trump has chosen Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate, to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, a $47 billion department that oversees federal programs aimed at increasing American homeownership and providing access to affordable housing.

Carson's appointment brings another layer of diversity to Trump's proposed cabinet, but Carson also lacks experience in government and even suggested he was not qualified for a cabinet position.

Heres what you need to know about Carson:

He was a top neurosurgeon by his early 30s.

Photo credit: Getty

Carson was born into poverty in inner-city Detroit and raised by his mother. He earned scholarships to Yale and the University of Michigan medical school. By the age of 33, he was director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. He held that role from 1984 until his retirement in 2013. Carson launched into the spotlight in 1987, when he led a team of doctors to separate 7-month-old twins conjoined at the head.

Hes written six best-selling books, one of which became a movie.

The 1987 surgery led to interviews, speaking gigs, and awards, including the White Houses Presidential Medal of Freedom and the NAACPs Spingarn Medal. In 1992, he wrote his first book, an autobiography called Gifted Hands, which became a made-for-TV movie starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.

He earned national political attention after criticizing President Obama.

Photo credit: Getty

In 2013, Carson was speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast - an annual event that takes place in Washington, D.C - where he said America faced the kind of moral decay and fiscal irresponsibility that befell the Roman Empire, according to The Washington Post. Obama was there too, and the remarks were seen as an assault on the president. He quickly became a commentator on Fox News - where hed frequently attack Obamacare - and started writing a column for The Washington Times.

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Hes deeply religious.

Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist, a Christian denomination that believes the second-coming of Christ is imminent. This faith informs his worldview: Hes against abortion under any circumstances - including rape and incest - and opposes same-sex marriage. He also doesn't believe in evolution.

His faith is what led him to run for president in the first place. After he dropped out of the race in March, Carson devoted himself to not only supporting Trump but also encouraging Christians to vote, according to The Washington Post.

He was the target of Trumps name-calling during the campaign.

Photo credit: Getty

In November 2015, Carson began gaining on Trump in the polls, sparking a series of vicious attacks from Trump. Carson has written about an episode from his childhood in which he tried to attack his mom with a hammer and nearly stabbed a friend. The incidents, hes said, led him to his Christian faith and inspired him to work harder in life, eventually landing him a scholarship to Yale.

But Trump seized on the episodes in a series of campaign speeches and tweets, saying they pointed to an incurable pathological temper and comparing it to child molesting.

With Ben Carson wanting to hit his mother on head with a hammer, stab a friend and Pyramids built for grain storage - don't people get it? - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2015

The pair eventually reconciled, with Carson becoming an early and an outspoken supporter of Trump.



He has no experience in government.

One of the biggest strikes against Carson is his lack of experience in government or in the field of housing and urban development. His sole qualification is that he grew up in public housing in Detroit. Most people in this position have some government experience, The New York Times pointed out. For instance, the current HUD secretary, Julian Castro, was mayor of San Antonio before joining the Obama administration.

With many qualified Republicans to choose from with deep knowledge of, and commitment to, affordable housing solutions for the poorest families, and with the housing crisis reaching new heights across the country, Dr. Carsons nomination to serve as HUD Secretary is surprising and concerning, Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement.

Carson even told a close friend he was reluctant to join Trumps administration because of this lack of experience, according to The Hill. And, in an interview with The Washington Post, he said, Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water, quite frankly.

He is opposed to programs meant to help minorities.

The other big strike, according to fair-housing advocates, are his statements about public housing programs. He has, for example, suggested that he climbed out of poverty in Detroit purely through hard work, saying in a TV interview, according to The New York Times, that poverty is really more of a choice than anything else.

Carson also took aim at an Obama administration rule meant to promote housing integration. The Fair Housing Act, which was passed in 1968, is a seminal piece of legislation that does two things, according to the Times: prevent landlords and communities from denying housing to minorities and bolster open housing markets - in other words, create programs that might, for instance, allow minorities to live in predominantly white suburbs where they have access to better schools.

In 2015, the Obama administration introduced a program meant to address the second part of the Fair Housing Act, which has been largely overlooked for decades. The program gives communities detailed data on racial demographics, poverty rates, school quality, and housing vouchers, the Times explained, then requires those communities to come up with a plan to reduce segregation.

These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse, Carson wrote in The Washington Times. There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.



Hes known for making a number of controversial statements.

In his 2015 book, A More Perfect Union, Carson suggested that gun control led to the Holocaust.

"German citizens were disarmed by their government in the late 1930s, and by the mid-1940s Hitler's regime had mercilessly slaughtered six million Jews and numerous others whom they considered inferior. Through a combination of removing guns and disseminating deceitful propaganda, the Nazis were able to carry out their evil intentions with relatively little resistance.

When pressed on the passage, Carson doubled down, insisting to CBSs Face the Nation that he was not exaggerating and telling CNN, I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.

In 2013, Carson compared Obamacare to slavery. "You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery," Carson said at the Values Voter Summit. "And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control."

He compared women who have abortions to "slave owners," saying on NBC's Meet the Press:

During slavery - and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it - during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said: 'You know, I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do'? Where would we be?"

Carson also drew derision after BuzzFeed unearthed a video of Carson saying in a 1998 speech that Egyptian pyramids were built by Joseph, a character in the Bible, to store grain and not, as archaeologists contend, a tomb for pharaohs.

He beat cancer.

In 2002, Carson underwent surgery for prostate cancer. He said he was cancer free after the surgery, which removed his entire prostate.

But his cancer also led to controversy. Carson has credited a nutritional supplement for beating cancer, according to The Daily Beast, but he didnt make those claims while he was undergoing treatment. Instead, he praised the supplements in paid speeches made on behalf of Mannatech, which makes the supplements, in the years after his battle with cancer. He also appeared in promotional videos on the companys website.

Carson has said he doesnt have a relationship with the company, only that he made the speeches, according to CNN.

He is married with three sons.

Photo credit: Getty

Carson met his wife Lacena, who goes by the nickname Candy, in 1971 while they were both students at Yale. They married in 1975 and have three sons: Rhoeyce, Benjamin Jr., and Murray.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow Michael on Twitter.

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The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.

The medical schools where accepted students are most likely to attend are not in the Ivy League.

All 10 ranked schools with the highest yield rates in 2015 had yield rates that exceeded 75 percent, meaning that more than three-quarters of accepted students decided to enroll.

Nine of those schools are state schools, and eight rank more highly for primary care than research.

The school where the highest percentage of accepted students enrolled is the University of Washington, a public school with the No. 1-ranked primary care program.

This top-10 list primarily consists of schools where in-state tuition is available and less than $40,000 per year.

[See the 10 most affordable public medical schools for in-state students.]

One exception is California Northstate University, a new for-profit medical school where annual tuition is $52,675. Despite the cost, 77.9 percent of students admitted ultimately attended.

Though California Northstate does not have a published rank, it does share a focus on primary care with its peers in this list. The school's mission is to address a national shortage of primary care providers.

[Discover six signs of a compassionate medical school.]

Among the nine state schools on this list, the average 2015-2016 in-state tuition is $26,078, lower than the national average for in-state medical school tuition: $32,495.

Medical schools where admitted students are most likely to accept admissions offers are concentrated in the geographic center of the U.S. Of the top 10 schools where admits typically attend, two are on the West Coast, two are on the East Coast and the rest are in landlocked states.

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Midwestern state Oklahoma has two schools on this list. Rural states in America's heartland have a severe shortage of primary care physicians, so the profession is in high demand in that region.

Below is a list of the 10 medical schools where the highest proportion of accepted students in 2015 enroll ed. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

* RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of all rank-eligible medical and osteopathic schools. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Medical School Compass to find yield rates, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed 170 medical schools for our 2015 survey of research and primary care programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News' data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Medical Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The yield rate data above are correct as of Dec. 6, 2016.

Ilana Kowarski covers graduate schools for U.S. News. You can reach her via email at ikowarski@usnews.com.
Sundar Pichai

Good morning. Here's everything you need to know in the world of advertising today.

1. The top 10 most popular Christmas ads on YouTube in 2016. With six of the top 10 from Britain, Christmas ads are becoming as much of a British cultural export as the Super Bowl is in the US.

2. This is how Google's "autocomplete" search results spread fake news around the web. It actively directs users to fake content on the web, even when they're not looking for it  we have mapped out some of the most bizarre examples.

3. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is "cautiously optimistic" that parent company Verizons's plan to acquire Yahoo will still go through. The deal has taken a long time to close after Yahoo admitted in September it had suffered a catastrophic hack affecting more than 500 million accounts.

4. One of the top former editors at Bloomberg has launched his new media venture "The Outline." A reference point for The Outline pre-launch had been The New Yorker for millennials, or the digital age.

5. We have mapped out all the most popular ideas Facebook's most recent hackathon event. After Facebook's engineers prototype their ideas, they present and vote on them among their colleagues.

6. Digiday has put together the UK's top-five Facebook Live brand videos this year. Using data from Socialbakers, Boohoo, workout guru Joe Wicks, Xbox, Oh Polly, and Chain Reaction Cycles make up the list.

7. Major-league Baseball and Under Armour just announced a 10-year long exclusive deal to design and manufacture the uniforms for all 30 teams. As part of the unique deal, sports e-commerce platform Fanatics will become the official retailer and distributor for licensed products.

8. The BBC confirmed last week that "Planet Earth 2" is attracting more young viewers than ITVs Simon Cowell singing contest "The X Factor." However, the number of young people watching the BBCs television channels dropped by 7% on last year.

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9. Facebook and Google are "killing news" according to the CEO of Dow Jones & Company, The Drum reports. CEO Will Lewis said the two giants have been embarrassed and forced to reconsider their complex algorithms.

10. "BS Detector," a plug-in developed to flag up fake news on Facebook, has been downloaded 25,000 times. However, it's not yet an official Facebook feature sadly, despite it appearing in news feeds, and it seems that Facebook is currently blocking links to the site.

NOW WATCH: The 3 worst things you do when you wash your face  according to a dermatologist





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Get ready to skank (meaning: dance to Ska music) as Cartel Production is bringing in a cool rhythmic music festival for reggae and ska music this month, featuring a line-up of outstanding local acts.



Dubbed as the Skankin Festival, the organiser previously also presented a series of small indoor shows called Skankin Fest Present.



Spearheaded by a group of visionary young folks from Cartel Production, the festival aims to promote the reggae and ska genres which are deemed as underground to the main stream market.



The festival will also serve as a platform for young reggae and ska-loving musicians to express and showcase their talents.



Taking place at the KL Live Centre on 24 December 2016 at 3pm, the festival will feature a total of 50 songs by 12 local reggae and ska bands including Salammusik, Gerhana Skacinta, Pure Vibracion, Plague of Happiness and Republic of Brickfields among others.

Cartel Production is also planning on releasing a compilation album of reggae and ska songs.



After Malaysia, the festival will be heading to Singapore and Indonesia as well.



Tickets for the festival are priced at RM90 for Early Birds, RM110 for Regular tickets and RM130 for VIPs.



For more information, visit skankinfestival.asia.


Stu pendousmat via Wikimedia Commons



A Costco membership opens doors, quite literally, to a vast selection of bulk-size groceries and household goods selling at discounted prices. But buying potato chips and toilet paper by the case is just the start. The warehouse club also stocks everything from tires and furniture to electronics and jewelry. With so many items to choose from, Trae Bodge, a consumer expert who specializes in smart shopping strategies, says it's critical to shop Costco with a list to avoid overspending.

List or no list, shoppers seem to like the savings and selection. Costco boasts 84 million card-carrying members worldwide, and the worldwide membership renewal rate is 88% (91% in the U.S. and Canada). The chain ranks first in customer satisfaction among specialty retailers, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, comfortably ahead of rivals Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale.

Thinking of taking the Costco plunge? Here's what you should know before investing $55 in an annual membership.

You Don't Actually Need to Be a Member to Shop



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If you're not ready to commit to a year-long membership, there are still ways to shop at Costco. Members are allowed to bring up to two guests. So if you want to check out the warehouse club to see the selection and compare prices, ask a friend or family member with a membership if you can tag along. Want to buy something? The Costco member will need to make the purchase for you -- cashiers check membership cards at checkout -- but afterward you can simply pay the person back.

If you want to shop on your own without a membership, give that same friend or family member the money to purchase a Costco Cash Card for you. These cards are treated like cash and can be bought for as little as $25 (and go up to $1,000 in value). Non-members can use a Costco Cash Card to enter, shop and pay at any Costco location.

And if you prefer online shopping, anyone can make a purchase at Costco.com. However, the product selection is limited for non-members, and non-members also may face an additional surcharge on orders.

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SEE ALSO: 16 Worst Things to Buy at Warehouse Clubs

Membership Fees Might Be Going Up



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Costco hasn't raised the cost of a membership since 2011, boosting speculation that the time is ripe for the warehouse club to do so. Membership fees could increase between $5 and $10 in 2017, UBS analysts who follow the company have predicted. (Costco denies a fee increase is in the works.) For now, you can still take advantage of current rates on Costco's three types of membership: Gold Star, Business and Executive.

Both the Gold Star membership and the Business membership run $55 a year. A Gold Star card is available to anyone and can be used for personal purchases. The membership includes a free additional household card. The Business membership, available only to verified business owners, permits business purchases and bulk purchases for resale. The annual fee includes a free additional household card and the option to add six more cardholders as business members for $55 each.

An Executive-level version of either the Gold Star membership or the Business membership is available for $110 a year. In addition to the basic privileges outlined above, Executive-level members can earn an annual 2% reward on most purchases (up to a maximum of $750) that can be applied toward future Costco purchases. Executive-level members also receive discounts on various Costco services including travel services.

SEE ALSO: Warehouse Club Quiz: Deal or No Deal?

You Can Get a Good Deal on a Casket



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Caskets are often the single most expensive item purchased for a traditional funeral service, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The average cost of a casket bought through a funeral home is more than $2,000, but depending on the finish the price can climb as high as $10,000. Costco offers a cheaper alternative.

Costco members in the process of planning a funeral can purchase a casket online through the warehouse club's website. Provided by Universal Casket Company, caskets at Costco range in price from $950 to $1,900. Those interested in buying one must first call the casket provider at the number listed on Costco.com to confirm product, pricing and shipping/delivery details before the order will be processed.

Standard shipping is included in the cost of the casket, but expedited shipping is available for an additional fee. Both the shipping address and the billing address must be in one of the 36 states (plus the District of Columbia) approved for casket sales.

SEE ALSO: 7 Ways to Save on Funeral Costs

The Store Return Policy Is Generous (Except on Caskets)



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There isn't a time limit on returns or exchanges on most products sold at Costco. However, big-ticket items such as televisions, computers and smart phones must be returned within 90 days of purchase in order to receive a full refund.

That's still a much more lenient policy compared to other mass retailers that sell similar electronics. This includes Best Buy (most items must be returned within 15 days of purchase), Target (items must be returned within 30 days of purchase) and Walmart (most electronic items must be returned within 15 days of purchase). See our story about Retailers With the Most Flexible Return Policies for more.

Among the few exceptions are alcohol and tobacco, which can't be returned where prohibited by law. Diamonds over 1 carat must be authenticated before a refund is approved. As for the aforementioned caskets? All sales are final unless damage occurred during shipping.

SEE ALSO: 11 Things You Can't Return to Amazon

You Can Even Return Your Membership



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Shopping at a warehouse club isn't for everyone. If, after joining Costco, you decide you aren't getting the best value on the products you buy or you simply don't shop enough to justify paying the annual fee, you can cancel your membership anytime and get your money back.

All you have to do is visit your local Costco, go to the membership desk and request to close your account. As part of Costco's "Risk-Free 100% Satisfaction Guarantee," your membership will be cancelled and you'll receive a full (not prorated) refund of the annual fee on the spot -- no questions asked and no cancellation fee.

SEE ALSO: Costly Shopping Mistakes at Warehouse Clubs

1 in 5 Products Are Costco's Kirkland Signature Brand



m01229 via Flickr



About 20% of the items found at Costco are from its Kirkland Signature private-label brand. The product line includes everything from home goods and apparel to food and liquor. You can even buy a 72-pound wheel of Kirkland Signature cheese. Costco strives to make its branded items as good as or better than national brands, going as far as manufacturing its products in the same factories used by national brands. According to Bodge, the shopping expert, you can often save a few bucks by opting for the Costco brand over a national brand. However, compare quality as well as price. In quality testing, Consumer Reports gave low marks to Kirkland Signature toilet paper and facial tissue.

We put prices on a few Kirkland Signature items found at a Washington, D.C., area Costco to the test against similar name-brand products. Here's what we found: A 30-roll pack of Kirkland Signature 2-Ply Toilet Tissue (425 sheets) cost $15.99, while a 30-roll pack of Charmin Ultra Soft 2-Ply Toilet Tissue (231 sheets) was $21.99. A 48-ounce container of Kirkland Signature Arabica coffee cost $9.49, while the same size can of Folger's Classic Roast Coffee rang up for $9.99. A 12-roll pack of Kirkland Signature Premium Paper Towels (160 sheets per roll) was $15.69, while the same size package of Brawny Paper Towels (156 sheets per roll) priced at $15.99.

SEE ALSO: 12 Biggest Shopping Mistakes at the Supermarket

You Can Buy Low-Priced Organic Foods



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Costco may not be top of mind for many shoppers when it comes to buying organic foods, but it might be soon. The warehouse club surpassed Whole Foods as the top seller of organic food. Costco sold $4 billion in organic foods last year compared to $3.6 billion at Whole Foods.

We spot-checked Costco's prices on organic items such as milk, brown eggs and salad mix and compared them with prices at traditional supermarkets. Here's what we found: A 16-ounce container of Earthbound Farm organic spring salad mix cost $4.39 (unit price: 27 cents per ounce) at Costco, while a four-ounce bag of Whole Foods' 365 brand spring salad mix was $1.99 (unit price: 50 cents per ounce). That's practically double the price at Whole Foods.

A two-dozen carton of Costco's Kirkland Signature Grade A large organic brown eggs was $6.99 (unit price: $3.49 per dozen), while an 18-count carton of Safeway's O Organics Grade A large organic brown eggs totaled $7.69 (unit price: $5.13 per dozen).

If you're buying staples such as organic milk on a weekly basis, it may make sense to buy it in bulk since organic milk lasts longer than regular milk. Costco had a three-pack of 64-ounce cartons of Kirkland Signature Organic Whole Milk for $11.49 ($3.83 per carton), while at Whole Foods a single 64-ounce carton of Whole Foods' 365 brand organic whole milk went for $3.99.

SEE ALSO: Best Places to Buy Organic Food on a Budget

You Can Buy a Car, Too



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Costco members on the market for a new ride can take advantage of the warehouse club's auto program, which includes an online car-buying service. Members purchased 465,000 vehicles through the auto program in 2015.

Here's how it works: You search Costcoauto.com for a new or certified pre-owned vehicle. Once you know the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for your desired vehicle, you can then locate nearby dealers who sell it. You'll be prompted to input your membership information and then be connected with a participating dealer. The dealer will contact you directly to schedule an in-person meeting where they'll provide the Costco member price -- no haggling required. Costco estimates that their member price is typically $1,000 below the average transaction price and varies based on location, desired vehicle make/model, options and accessories selected.

Costco's auto program also allows members to save 15% on automotive parts and services on any of their household vehicles at participating service centers.

SEE ALSO: How to Use a Car-Buying Service to Find Deals on New Cars

You Can Fill Up Your New Car With Kirkland Signature Gasoline



Mike Mozart via Flickr



With gasoline prices on the rise, a Costco membership can help you score lower prices at the pump. Select Costco locations have on-site gas stations for members that carry store-branded regular unleaded (87 octane) and premium unleaded (91 octane) gas.

During a visit to a Washington, D.C., area Costco location equipped with a gas station, the price of regular unleaded was $1.97 per gallon. Premium unleaded totaled $2.45 per gallon. The cost of regular unleaded gas at a nearby Exxon station was $2.29 (an extra 32 cents), while premium unleaded cost $2.89 at Exxon (an extra 44 cents).

Costco's gas stations are self-service, and there's only one way in and out to speed up transactions. Members can pay using a debit card or Costco credit card. Anyone including non-members can fill up and pay with a Costco Cash Card. Cash and checks are not accepted.

SEE ALSO: How to Get Your Car to 200,000 Miles

Leave the Manufacturer Coupons at Home



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Coupons offer shoppers a great way to save. Combining coupons from manufacturers with supermarket sales is a particularly effective strategy to lower your grocery bill. It's also a strategy that won't work at Costco. The warehouse club doesn't accept manufacturer's coupons or discount coupons from outside retailers.

There is some consolation for Costco members: The company issues its own coupons, which can be found in a monthly printed booklet sent in the mail or on Costco.com. Costco's coupons also can be viewed and redeemed either in-store or online via the warehouse club's smartphone app. Recent Costco coupons offered discounts on products ranging from toothpaste to televisions.

SEE ALSO: 10 Ways to Save Money on Groceries Without Coupons

Leave Your American Express Card at Home, Too



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For years, American Express was the only major credit card accepted by Costco. AmEx even backed a variety of co-branded rewards credit cards for warehouse club shoppers including the American Express Costco TrueEarnings Card and the American Express Costco Platinum Cash Rebate card. That exclusive arrangement is no more. Effective June 20, 2016, Costco switched to Visa as its only accepted major credit card.

Costco members who previously used the co-branded American Express card have been automatically transferred over to Citibank's new Costco Anywhere Visa card. However, it's up to individual members to decide whether to activate their new cards. Costco will now accept any Visa card, not just the co-branded card from Citi. In addition to Visa credit cards, club members can still use cash, debit or Costco Cash cards to make purchases.

SEE ALSO: The Best Rewards Credit Cards for 2016

Buying in Bulk Isn't Always a Good Deal



Bob With via Wikimedia Commons



Buying household essentials in bulk seems like a no-brainer. Not only can you save money but you can also save time by avoiding frequent trips to the market. But unless you're shopping for a large family or group, paying to join a warehouse club solely to gain access to bulk-packaged products might backfire, says Jeanette Pavini, a savings expert for Coupons.com. If the items you purchase in bulk expire or spoil before you finish using them, that's money poorly spent.

In fact, in our story 12 Things You Should Never Buy in Bulk we highlight several staples to steer clear of at warehouse clubs. The two main reasons: Either they have a short shelf life or you can typically find better prices on them elsewhere. Examples of risky bulk purchases include liquid bleach (its effectiveness diminishes after six months), cereal (sale prices at traditional supermarkets are usually less per ounce) and skincare products (they lose effectiveness over time, plus the risk of contamination rises the longer a container has been open).

SEE ALSO: 10 Things You Must Know About Shopping at Aldi
Days of torrential rain and flooding have killed at least 14 people in southern Thailand, with authorities declaring much of the region a disaster zone, the government said on Tuesday.

Heavy rains have lashed the central part of Thailand's south for much of the last week, including the popular tourist draws of Krabi, Koh Samui and Koh Pha-ngan, affecting some flights and ferry services.

"582,343 people from 88 districts are affected and 14 have people have been killed," the interior ministry said in an update.

Three people have been injured, the statement added, with 11 southern provinces declared disaster zones, a process that frees up more emergency government aid and resources.

At least three people are known to be missing.

In Saiburi district, Pattani province, rescuers on Tuesday were searching a swollen river for two missing boys who were swept away in a flash flood as anxious relatives looked on, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

Railway services have also been suspended south of Nakhon Si Thammarat province after floodwaters covered the train line there.

The rains are unusually heavy for this time of year, with most of Thailand usually experiencing a cooler, dry period from early November -- part of a three month long peak tourist season that is crucial to the economy.

Thailand's Meteorological Department has forecast continued downpours across the region for the next few days.
On December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment was ratified after the state of Georgia approved the amendment as it was proposed to the states by Congress. That act officially ended the practice of slavery in the United States.

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The brief, 47 word amendment, finished the barbaric institution that had its roots in the British Colonial era and dominated much of the political, social and economic life in the United States for more than two centuries.

The amendment reads as follows:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The amendment was a top priority for the late President, Abraham Lincoln. In January 1863 Lincoln had issued the final version of the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. With the rebellion ending, it became imperative to get the 13th amendment ratified.

It was approved in the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the states, a little more than two months before his death at the hands of an assassin who supported slavery.

Still, 27 of the 36 states, including those states that had been in rebellion during the Civil War, had to ratify the amendment for it to become part of the Constitution. Lincoln and the Radical Republicans had struggled to get the House to pass the amendment, but they finally succeeded in securing a 11956 vote.

It came down to a group of four Southern, former Confederate states, to ensure the 13th Amendments passage. Two Union states, Delaware and New Jersey, had already rejected the 13th Amendment, as had two Southern states, Kentucky and Mississippi. Three western states, Iowa, California and Oregon, had yet to vote on it, while Florida and Texas hadnt voted yet.

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However, South Carolina (November 13, 1865), Alabama (December 2, 1865), North Carolina (December 4, 1865) and finally Georgia on December 6, 1865 agreed to ratify the amendment. Secretary of State William Seward officially certified the amendment on December 18, 1865.

Subsequently, the nine states that rejected or didnt act on the 13th Amendment approved it, but it took Mississippi until 1995 to do so.

The public reaction, as seen in contemporary newspapers, was strong. We are certain, then, that slavery in the land is dead in the law and letter beyond hope of resurrection, and that it has been burled by the official sextons of twenty-seven States, said the New York Tribune.

A strange, grateful, and animated emotion beats in our veins at the thought of the United States Government declaring with its official lips that American slavery is no more forever, said the New York Independent.

Freedom is national, for slavery is dead. No more to be revived, no more to breed dissensions, no more to incite war, no more to clutch at the heart of the people, and steal the life blood of the fairest and noblest of the land, said the Springfield (Mass.) Union.

But others saw the 13th Amendments ratification as cause for all the former states in rebellion to regain all their constitutional rights as soon as possible.

The New York Times said the ratification and certification of the 13th Amendment is the first official recognition by the government of the constitutional equality of the late insurrectionary states with the other states.

We may rightfully claim  that our state is fully entitled to be placed in that position in the Union where she will stand as the political equal of any other state under the Federal constitution, said Alabama Governor Robert Patton said in his inaugural address.

Patton lost two sons fighting for the Confederate side in the war. How far governmental action may be able to promote the common interest of the two races in their suddenly changed conditions is a great problem that time alone can solve, he said.

Within two years, Patton would be replaced in all but name by a military commander during Reconstruction, and it would take several years for the former Confederate states to be officially readmitted to the Union. Ratification of the 14th Amendment was a requirement for those states to gain representation again in Congress.

Related Stories on Constitution Daily

The case of the missing 13th amendment to the Constitution

A Common Interpretation: The Thirteenth Amendment

Podcast: The legacy of the 13th Amendment
Jerusalem (AFP) - More than two million Israelis lack adequate shelter in case of rockets fired from Gaza to the south or from Lebanon or Syria to the north, an official report said Tuesday.

State comptroller Yossef Shapira, who is in charge of assessing state policies and the use of public funds, said in the report that Israel had not learned its lesson from the July-August 2014 Gaza war, when Palestinian groups fired thousands of rockets at the Jewish state.

The Israeli military believes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, and its allies, still have some of their arsenal and are also working to rearm.

In Lebanon, Israel estimates the powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah has more than 100,000 rockets and missiles capable of reaching most of Israeli territory.

"Although the military has envisaged a scenario in which Israel would be the target of thousands, or even tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, it is doubtful whether it has adequate capacity to defend the country properly," media reports quoted Shapira's report as saying.

The report says it was estimated in 2012 that 27 percent of Israelis -- more than two million people -- had no protection in the event of war.

But according to the comptroller, the figure was likely higher because some public shelters were unusable.

His report criticises the government for not having organised meetings on the protection and evacuation of civilians since the 2014 war. It also regrets that Bedouin communities in the desert within reach of rockets from Gaza have practically no protection.

In another chapter, it criticises the army for still not having provided a more effective early warning system for areas near Gaza, where residents during the 2014 war had just 15 seconds to find shelter.

That conflict killed 2,251 people on the Palestinian side, including 551 children, and 73 people including 67 soldiers on the Israeli side, according to the UN.

Shapira is also expected to submit in coming weeks the final version of an audit reportedly on Israel's lack of readiness in the face of the threat from tunnels used in 2014 by Palestinians to infiltrate Israel.
From Popular Mechanics

In 2005, the nuclear attack submarine USS San Francisco suddenly stopped dead in its tracks. The ship's crew were thrown about, some over distances of 20 feet, and the majority of the 137-member crew suffered one injury or anotherincluding one that would later prove fatal. Further inspection would explain what happened, and reveal that the submarine's bow looked like a crushed soda can. USS San Francisco had run into an undersea mountain.

On that day, January 8, 2005, the San Francisco had been approximately 360 miles southeast of Guam, traveling at flank speed (more than 30 knots). The navigational charts used by the ship's crew failed to show a seamount, or undersea mountain, protruding from the ocean floor. The sub smashed into it head-on.

The incredible thing about the incident: despite running into an immovable object at more than 30 miles an hour, at depth of 525 feet, the San Francisco didn't sink, nor did it experience a reactor malfunction. Even more incredibly, the submarine was able to move under its own power back to port on the island of Guam. All of that is directly attributable to safety actions the U.S. Navy had taken four decades earlier.

Back in 1963, the nuclear submarine USS Thresher was lost during dive tests in the Atlantic Ocean. Although nobody knows for sure what caused Thresher's initial emergency, it became clear that the ballast-blowing measures meant to surface the sub in an emergency failed. The ship was lost.

Within two months, the Navy had created the SUBSAFE program. The goal was to ensure that, no matter what the emergency, a U.S. Navy submarine's hull would maintain structural integrity under pressure and the sub would at least be able to surface. Meanwhile, the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program emphasized safe nuclear reactors and reactor handling above all else. If the hull, ballast systems, and reactor all worked properly a crew had a fighting chance of survival.

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In the case of San Francisco, despite a crushed bow at 525 feet depth, the rest of the hull held pressure, preventing it from sinking. The ballast systems still worked, allowing it to surface, and the nuclear reactor still worked after the crash, allowing the ship to move under its own power. In 2013, an admiral with the Navy's Naval Sea systems command was quoted as saying that were it not for SUBSAFE decades earlier, USS San Francisco might have been lost.

As for the sub itself, it returned to sea just three years later with a new nose. The bow of sister ship USS Honolulu, set to be retired, was cut off and welded to the bow of the San Francisco. The submarine served for another eight years, and last month headed to Norfolk to begin a two-year process in which it will be transformed into a permanently moored training vessel .

This post was originally published on December 5, 2016.

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More than 20,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, humanitarian officials said on Tuesday, following a bloody crackdown by the army in neighbouring Myanmar.

Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border to try to stem the tide of refugees since an eruption of unrest in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine in early October.

But Sanjukta Sahany, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) office in Bangladesh's southeastern district of Cox's Bazar bordering Rakhine, said around 21,000 members of the stateless ethnic minority had crossed over in the past two months.

The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements, official refugee camps and villages, said Sahany.

"An estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Cox's Bazar district between October 9 and December 2," she told AFP by phone.

"It is based on the figures collected by UN agencies and international NGOs" (non-governmental organisations).

The Dhaka office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in a statement also said it "estimate(d) that there could be 21,000 new arrivals in recent weeks".

Those interviewed by AFP inside Bangladesh told horrifying stories of gang-rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's security forces.

Analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse but has banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from accessing the area.

Myanmar's Nobel peace laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced a growing international backlash for what a UN official has said amounts to a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, a Muslim group loathed by many of Myanmar's Buddhist majority.

Last week she vowed to work for "peace and national reconciliation", saying her country faced many challenges, but did not mention the violence in Rakhine state.

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But Kofi Annan, a former UN chief appointed by Suu Kyi as head of a commission on Rakhine, hoped Myanmar would allow journalists to visit the state to "help eliminate some of the rumours we are hearing".

"The issue of genocide and ethnic cleansing -- this is a very serious charge. It is a charge that requires legal review and a judicial determination," Annan told reporters in Yangon.

"It is not a charge that should be thrown around loosely."

- Protests over 'genocide' -

Bangladesh has reinforced its border posts and deployed coastguard ships to try to prevent a fresh influx of refugees.

In the past two months its border guards have prevented hundreds of boats packed with Rohingya women and children from entering the country.

On Monday a vessel carrying Rohingya refugees sank in the Naf border river, leaving dozens missing. A woman was rescued and told reporters the boat was carrying some 30 Rohingya fleeing violence in Rakhine.

Bangladesh police said they recovered a woman's body on Tuesday morning near where the boat went down but they could not confirm whether she was a Rohingya.

"The body has been sent for post mortem," local police chief Abdul Mazid told AFP.

The Bangladesh government has been under pressure from Muslim groups and the opposition to open its border to the fleeing Rohingya.

Police on Tuesday stopped thousands of hardline Muslims from marching to the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka to protest at they called the "genocide" of the Rohingya.

Shiblee Noman, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka police, told AFP about 10,000 Muslims, many shouting slogans against Suu Kyi, joined the march before it was halted at central Dhaka's Nightingale Crossing.

"They were peaceful," he said.

More than 230,000 Rohingya are already living in Bangladesh, most of them illegally, although around 32,000 are formally registered as refugees.

Violence in Rakhine has surged in the last month after security forces poured into the area following a series of attacks on police posts blamed on local militants.
- By PJ Pahygiannis





1. How and why did you get started investing? What is your background?

I was 13 years old at a conference for salesmen that my mom brought me to because Joe Montana would be there. Phil Town presented on some technical analysis software by Investools. I never got into that, but I got some investing books at the library, started reading on the Motley Fool website and stumbled on to Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio).





Today I run Rightpriceinvesting.com and work full-time as a commercial loan underwriter. I have bachelor's degrees in accounting and finance from Westminster College and a master's in finance from the University of Utah.

2. Describe your investing strategy and portfolio organization. What valuation methods do you use? Where do you get your investing ideas?

I'm about 50% solid long-term stocks and 50% trades. The stocks mostly are sourced through newsletters, GuruFocus or just the news. I lean on back of the envelope valuations and try not to sell.

The trades are almost totally news derived. I then look for the stock to be in a trend and try to find an option with low implied volatility.

On my website, I try to put together strategies that have some element of value or catalyst so they aren't totally passive but also don't require a whole lot of human action to run.

3. What drew you to that specific strategy? If you only had three valuation metrics, what would they be?

A whole lot of trial and error with biases and bad predictions.

CAPE, EV/FCF and P/B.

4. What books or other investors changed the way you think, inspired you or mentored you? What is the most important lesson learned from them? What investors do you follow today?

Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio), Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio), Matthew Richey, Bill Mann, Porter Stansberry, Steve Sjuggerud, Doug Casey.

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The most important lesson is to be an independent thinker and avoid the propensity to put horse blinders on for any one strategy.

I follow the same people today.

5. How long will you hold a stock and why? How long does it take to know if you are right or wrong on a stock?

With investments, I try not to sell unless the market gives me no other choice, either with better opportunities or an insane valuation.

With speculations, I tend to personally get too emotionally involved so I use a stop loss and then re-evaluate.

6. How has your investing approach changed over the years?

The biggest thing for me has been working to take my emotion out of the equation. In some ways, that means leaning on others' analysis more than I'd like, and in other ways, it means automatically selling if the trend changes.

7. Name some of the things that you do or believe that other investors do not.

Technical analysis and asset allocation. Many of the value investors I know view technical analysis as the same sort of thing as witch doctors reading goat intestines. In my mind, trying to figure out the current emotion of the market, the supply and demand and the long-term trend allows you to better time buys and sells.

With asset allocation, I think most individual investors would be better suited with proper asset allocation than with just blindly investing in a vanguard fund. Most of these investors will sell out when the market crashes and the vanguard fund goes with it. If you can reduce these drawdowns through diversification, it will help in the long run.

8. What are some of your favorite companies, brands or even CEOs? What do you think are some of the most well run companies? How do you judge the quality of the management?

I like Reed Hastings, Jeff Bezos, John Malone and Ken Iverson.

Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN) are my favorite companies - both captains of the usually-too-expensive-to-buy club.

I like to compare what management said in the past to what actually happens.

9. Do you use any stock screeners? What are some efficient methods to find undervalued businesses apart from screeners?

I like the Magic Formula, I have five or 10 gurus I follow on GuruFocus, and I use all the premade Morningstar screens.

Other than that, I like to look for great companies that drop 10%-plus for some nonsense short-term thing and use that as my entry point.

10. Name some of the traits that a company must have for you to invest in, such as dividends. What does a high-quality company look like to you and what does a bad investment look like? Talk about what the ideal company to invest in would look like, even if it does not exist.

I like a little murkiness. Some sort of controversy or bad year of financials paired with a historically great company and brand.

The traits I look for are the classic ones: strong cash flow, low capital needed, a good moat, little debt.

Bad investments are high-technology stocks trading at insane valuations based on hero worship and solar roofs.

11. What kind of checklist or homework do you utilize when investing? Do you have a specific approach, structure, process that you use? Or do you have any hard-cut rules?

I have a checklist on my website that I use. It's about eight pages of business, financial, management, risk, valuation, etc., questions. The investments do not have to pass every single one, but if it is missing a lot, it goes into the no thanks pile.

I have a method for my trades, too, that I wrote about here.

12. Before making an investment, what kind of research do you do and where do you go for the information? Do you talk to management?

I like Morningstar a lot. I try to make a spreadsheet projecting out financials - but I also try not to put too much weight into what this says to avoid biases.

13. How do you go about valuing a stock and how do you decide how you are going to value a specific stock? When is cheap not cheap?

I do the valuation first - see if it's going to be worth it to do the rest of the analysis. Most of the companies I look at are ones I have some experience with to know the business/brand and management are good.

I just use multiples - the more complicated the valuation the more ways it can go wrong.

14. What kind of bargains are you finding in this market? Do you have any favorite sector or avoid certain areas, and why?

I have a couple of speculations on coal and short some solar stuff based on the election results. These have quick stop losses.

As for the investments, I don't think there are any big bargains as far as industries go - as far as I've seen. I do like a few muni bond closed-end funds trading at discounts. With these you get a yield that is as safe as it gets, no taxability and the reversion to the mean when the discount closes.

15. How do you feel about the market today? Do you see it as overvalued? What concerns you the most?

I think the general stock market is probably overvalued - the CAPE is pretty high. I don't know exactly what you can do with that information though.

16. What are some books that you are reading now? What is the most important lesson learned from your favorite one?

Right now, I'm reading "The Idiot's Guide to Making Money with Rental Properties." Next will be "Income Investing" by Jason Brady and "Equities" by Stuart Veale. I'm also looking forward to the Ed Thorpe memoir.

The most important lesson is probably just to think independently. This doesn't mean discounting what everyone else says and moving to a cabin in the woods to invest. I think it means considering others' opinions and analysis and deciding when to use it and when not to. Allow the division of labor into investing while not just following every passing crowd.

17. Any advice to a new value investor? What should they know and what habits should they develop before they start?

Don't be close-minded and read as many annual reports as you can.

18. What are your some of your favorite value investing resources or tools? Are there any investors that you piggyback or coattail?

Morningstar and GuruFocus.

Porter Stansberry, Steve Sjuggerud, Chris Mayer, Mohnish Pabrai (Trades, Portfolio), Glenn Greenberg (Trades, Portfolio), Bruce Berkowitz (Trades, Portfolio).

19. Describe some of the biggest mistakes you have made value investing. What are your three worst investments that burned you? What did you learn and how do you avoid those mistakes today?

Selling too soon and holding too long.

I sold Netflix at $40 and then it went to $400. I have a few gold miners I held to $0.

20. How do you manage the mental aspect of investing when it comes to the ups, downs, crashes, corrections and fluctuations?

Try to do as much as I can mechanically.

21. How does one avoid blowups in value investing?

See question 20 - get emotions out of decision making. Also, consider using stop losses. Sometimes stocks go down 30% and then up 400%. If you can get out when it's down 20%, you can still buy it back when the uptrend returns.

22. If you are willing to share, what companies do you currently own and why? How have the last five to 10 years been for you investing wise compared to the indexes?

AutoZone (AZO), Fiat (FCAU), Franco-Nevada (FNV), Greenlight Re (GLRE), Annaly (NLY), Silver Wheaton (SLW).

I've had too many hiccups with needing cash (down payments for a couple houses, tuition, etc.) to be able to calculate a return.

23. Here's a fun one - What stock would Warren Buffett or Benjamin Graham buy today if they were you?

I think they would both be looking outside of the U.S. Many foreign markets are at similar stages in their history as America in the 1930s-1970s. Graham and early Buffett both focused on data mining to find cigar butt value. I don't think this is really a viable option in the U.S. anymore, but there are sparsely traded foreign markets where it's possible to do this.

Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Many investors like to look for value in stocks, but this can be very tough to define. There is great debate regarding which metrics are the best to focus on in this regard, and which are not really quality indicators of future performance. Fortunately, with our new style score system we have identified the key statistics to pay close attention to and thus which stocks might be the best for value investors in the near term.

This method discovered several great candidates for value-oriented investors, but today lets focus on Dean Foods Company DF as this stock is looking especially impressive right now. And while there are numerous reasons why this is the case, we have highlighted three of the most vital reasons for DFs status as a solid value stock below:

Price to Forward Sales for Dean Foods

One of the most underrated ratios for value investors is the price/forward sales metric. This ratio shows investors how much they are paying for each dollar of revenues generated. In other words, a lower number is better here while a price to sales ratio of 1 means that you are paying one dollar for each dollar in sales.

With a P/S ratio of 0.23, DF investors are paying 23 cents in stock price for each dollar of revenue generated by the company. Compare this to the industry average of 1.22, and it is safe to say that DF is undervalued compared to many of its peers on this important metric.

Forward PE for Dean Foods

Easily one of the most popular readings for value investors, the forward PE ratio shows us the current price of a stock divided by the full year earnings. Generally speaking, value investors like to see this ratio below 20, though it can vary by industry.

Right now, DF has a forward PE of just 11.87, which means that investors are paying $11.87 for each dollar in expected Dean Foods earnings this year. Compared to the industry at large this is pretty favorable as the overall space has an average PE of 18.83 in comparison.

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DEAN FOODS CO PE Ratio (TTM)

DEAN FOODS CO PE Ratio (TTM) | DEAN FOODS CO Quote

DF Earnings Estimate Revisions Moving in the Right Direction

The solid value ratios outlined in the preceding paragraphs might be enough for some investors, but we should also note that the earnings estimate revisions have been trending in a positive direction as well. Analysts who follow DF stock have been raising their estimates for the company lately, meaning that the EPS picture is looking a bit more favorably for Dean Foods now.

Over the past 60 days, 7 earnings estimates have gone higher compared to none lower for the full year, while we are also seeing that 6 estimates have moved upwards with none downward revisions for the next year time frame too. These revisions have helped to boost the consensus estimate as 60 days ago DF was expected to post earnings of $1.57 per share for the full year though today it looks to have EPS of $1.62 for the full year.

Bottom Line

For the reasons detailed above, investors shouldnt be surprised to read that we have DF as a stock with a Value Score of A and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

So if you are a value investor, definitely keep DF on your short list as this looks to be a stock that is very well-positioned for gains in the near term.

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A recent graduate of U.C. Berkeleys prestigious Graduate School of Journalism, Bay Area documentarian Daphne Matziaraki found her thesis film 4.1 Miles traveling far and wide, distributed through the New York Times and landing recently on the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Short. Born and raised in Greece, Matziaraki returned to the country to document the refugee crisis, putting a human face on life-or-death circumstances faced by many.

On a boat in the Mediterranean for three weeks, the filmmaker observed those few heroic Coast Guard officials rescuing scores of terrified refugees, whose flimsy boats were sinking on a daily basis as they fled war in Syria. Speaking with Deadline from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam about her doc, which is part of the Emmy-winning New York Times Op-Docs series of short documentaries, Matziaraki shares her reasons for making the film and the experience of witnessing mass terror firsthand.

How did the story of 4.1 Miles first come to your attention?

Im based in the Bay Area, in Berkeley, but I am originally from Greece, and thats where Ive grown up. I was in a stage where I was reading about the refugee crisisit had just peaked in 2015, and I was reading everything and it was quite over-exaggerating. I found that I could still not connect to the issue; I felt I hadnt read or watched anything that made me really feel for the issue. I felt like in the west, if I can put it this way, Im kind of in a comfort zone, in a bubble almost. We may feel sorry for a situation like that, but we are always, in a way, distanced from it.

I wanted to go and see with my own eyes what the situation is there, and I want to start thinking about it. I was thinking of, how I could tell the story in a different way? How could I tell a story from a perspective that would make any common person, like me and you, that didnt have anything to do with a crisis like that, to connect? How do people get out of their comfort zone? How do they respond? I was trying to see who this person could be. I realized that in Greece, the Coast Guard crews, theyre not trained to do CPR or to deal with any crisis like that. I know that a person, their life suddenly changed because of this huge war going on in Syria, and the refugee crisis, and suddenly having to respond, would be an amazing story. To actually give this story from a very different perspective from everything that I had seen so far.

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It took me a really long time to try to get access on the Coast Guard boat because they dont let any journalists or filmmakers on that boat. I finally did after a few months and a lot of persistence, and I met this incredible person, who was just a very normal person, who had nothing to do with anything like that. He had never thought that something like that would come into his life, and suddenly he was called to respond to this and save thousands and thousands of lives from the Mediterranean.

What was the involvement of Berkeley students and staff in the making of this short?

I was at the Graduate School of Journalism at the documentary program there, and this was my thesis film. I worked with all the incredible, legendary faculty of the documentary program, like Orlando Bagwell, Jon Else, Dan Krauss, Spencer Nakasako. Incredible, legendary filmmakers were consulting producers, and executive producers, really.

What was it like for you to witness these dire, life-or-death circumstances firsthand?

I went there without really knowing what to expect. I expected to see what I was reading, and watching until that point. I could only imagine certain things, but I didnt know. I dont think any words can describe the shock that I felt when I went there, because the amount of people that were crossing the Mediterranean at this time, and the way that they were, and the minimal help that existed These islands used to be really peaceful, picturesque islands, and suddenly it felt like a war had just come. I had never seen people coming from war before. Its a situation that I feel that people are so scared, and you can really tell, you can really see it in their eyes. And after them having fled war, they had to go through this really difficult journey. It was very hard for me to be thereit was really hard for me to film there and hold a camera.

It was really hard for me to try to separate the job that I had to do, which I had decided that I needed to do, which was to make this film to show what is happening there, and to hold it together. The film opens with a scene where the Coast Guard captain tells me to put the camera down and hold the baby. That happened so many times that I really didnt have any other option but to help, and there was no second thought. I feel hopefully that every human being in their right mind would respond in a way, or should respond, and help the other person, and thats what the captain does.

How were you taught to think about these situations, in the classroom? In a sense, youre there first and foremost to document a crisis, but of course, how can you simply watch someone dying in front of you without intervening?

Before I went there, I had really thought about it, and I had a huge ethical dilemma about this. I dont know how to do CPR. I dont know how to deal with an emergency like that. I dont have any training. I had decided that what I can offer as an individual is what I know how to do, and that would be to document in the best possible way the situation as it is. However, the situation was so chaotic, and in a situation like that, I forgot, oftentimes, my role as a filmmaker. Like I said, when I was asked to put the camera down, there was no second thought crossing my mind. Of course, I did put the camera down and held the baby.

Every time that I was not shooting, the emergency was so big that I would have to help transfer somebody to a hospital, or get somebody to the port that really needed to get to the port to find some dry clothes. Help a family transport with babies. I did things that were outside my comfort zone, and my knowledge, but I really felt that I had no other option. However, when I was on that boat, I was really trying to stay out of the way of the crew, because the boat was so small. I was really trying to be as discreet as possible, and not be in the way. Because sometimes, filmmakers or journalists could be in the way of things like that.

What was the most surprising revelation to you in making the doc?

I felt that I realized that the film, in itself, was, of course, about the refugee crisis and this terrible situation. But really, what its about for me is the way that people do respond in an emergency situation like that, towards other human beings, or not respond. I was really surprised, in a way, that Im kind of shocked to see the captain of this boat, and his crew, gave their soul, put their lives into so much danger, and went completely out of their way to help these people, because they felt an internal, really huge responsibility. Its this responsibility that really impressed me and I found very unique and surprising, that some people still feel this huge responsibility as citizens, or as members of the society. And some others, just dont.

Is it validating to see the traction your documentary has received, being presented through The New York Times? That would seem to amount to a lot of people experiencing the reality of these circumstances for the first time.

Of course, Im thrilled about The New York Times and all the success, exactly because The New York Times has millions of viewers. Already, the film has traveled quite a lot. Im in Amsterdam right now at some very successful screenings. And the film premiered at Telluride, and had a few other screenings. I feel that people come to me and tell me, from the bottom of their heart, that it was really important that they saw this, because they understood. Thats all I really want, is for as many people to see this.

A lot of people ask me, What can I do to help? Theyre asking why theres no call to action in the film. There is no call to action purposely, because this film is about something bigger than just, Send your money to help the Greek Coast Guard. Its about, how do we respond, and how do we act as citizens? Right now in the States, theres a new presidency, and theres a lot of talk about people being deported, or refugees not being welcome. The issue has taken a political expression, in the States and all over Europe. I feel that people need to see this film because these people are like us, and we would need to escape a terrible situation of war, if that was happening in our home. We need to have people like that captain, whos a true hero, to actually take responsibility, put their lives sometimes aside, in a way, and help.

In your written piece in The New York Times, you refer to a new, huge crisis threatening to undo years of stability and progress. That certainly seems to reflect strongly on the world were living in at the moment.

Exactly. Its in these situations that we need to reflect about how we stand and how we live our lives, because there is a huge financial crisis in Greece, theres a huge instability all over the world, and in the United States, in a lot of ways. When situations are not great, obviously we tend to find scapegoats, or blame situations like refugee influx in the country, and we are very scared of something other, something different entering in our lives when were already in an unstable situation. I really think we need to rethink all these notions, and be a little more human and understanding, and responsible for our own actions, as members of society and a world that were all part of.

To view 4.1 Miles, click here.

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Travel + Leisure recently released its list of the Best Places to Travel in 2017, and the honorees might surprise you.

Mixed in among the stunning tropical islands (Bermuda, Hawaii, a Cambodian archipelago) and expected European capitals (Oslo, Helsinki, Belfast) are several more accessible American cities. Philadelphia, for example, is worth revisiting since that middle school trip to the Liberty Bell.

Philly is coming off a high-profile couple of years, between hosting Pope Francis and the DNC and being the first U.S. city inducted into the Organization of World Heritage Cities, the list notes. Its also got a growing population of young people, new hotels and museums, high-brow bars and even a new mayor.

RELATED: Live Like Royalty In One of These Unbelievable Castles for Sale

Cincinnati; Nashville; Tofino, British Columbia; and Norfolk, Virginia also make the cut, representing North America. More than a quarter of these places are within reach for a long-weekend trip from the United States, T+L points out.

WATCH THIS: Why Didnt We Think of These?! HSN Star Joy Mangano Gives 6 Smart Packing Tips

RELATED: Celebrity Vacations: Channing Tatum, Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde and More!

Among the more far-flung, bucket listworthy places, Hampi, India, where a new luxury hotel is making the 14th-century ruins far easier to visit, is an unexpected lure. In Europe, Jura, France  the wine-rich countrys smallest producing region  looks straight out of a storybook. Concealed by Alpine peaks and rolling, wooded hills, Jura . . . has long been shielded from the swarms, the list notes.

Nearly all of the spots listed will no doubt soon be much hotter. Best to get your Pinterest boards primed and your airfare booked ASAP!




The year before the Japanese raid An aerial photograph taken on May 3, 1940, the year before the Japanese raid, shows the East Loch and the the Fleet Air Base on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. Visible are the carrier Yorktown, 10 battleships, 17 cruisers, two light cruisers and over 30 destroyers. (U.S. Navy/National Archives/Handout via Reuters)

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, a Sunday, Japanese bombers flew across Oahu, Hawaii, and began their assault.

The attack killed more than 2,300 people, nearly half of them on the battleship USS Arizona. More than 1,100 were injured. After the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a speech before Congress, calling Dec. 7 a date which will live in infamy. The U.S. declared war against Japan. (AP)

Dec. 7, 2018, marks the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Heres a look back at that fateful day.

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Tumblr.
Photo: Courtesy of Julia Fusco-Luberoff

Julia Fusco-Luberoff describes her son Eddie, 9, as someone who has always been very much his own person, outspoken, witty, and kind. At his first birthday party, he greeting guests with, Hi, Im Eddie  welcome to my party. Throughout elementary school, Fusco-Luberoff heard stories from her sons teachers about the way hes upset by  and stands up against  inequality and bullying.

After Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the race for presidency, Fusco-Luberoff  a Clinton supporter  says she must have been looking sad because Eddie asked her the next morning what was wrong. When she told him that she was disappointed by the results of the election, Eddie told his mother, I know. But dont worry. As long as he keeps taxes to a minimum, doesnt promote bigotry, and doesnt try to build that ridiculous wall, well all be OK. Four years will feel like four minutes.

Fusco-Luberoff, herself a survivor of Hurricane Sandy who lost everything to the deadly 2012 storm, tells Yahoo Beauty that upon hearing these words out of her young sons mouth, she said to him, Youre 9  to which he replied, Yes, but Im woke.

Which is why, Fusco-Luberoff says, when Eddie asked his mother for rainbow hair for his birthday a few weeks after election night, his request was not surprising. Because, she says, her son was the only child in his first grade class wearing nail polish and had asked for earrings for his eighth birthday. And even more so, because as Eddie explained to his mother his desire to dye his hair like a rainbow, he was excited that it also helps support the LGBTQ community, because he thinks its ridiculous that they have to fight for rights in 2016.

Photo: Courtesy of Julia Fusco-Luberoff

Knowing that my son is so politically aware and wants to support the community in his own way makes me really proud of him, Fusco-Luberoff says. Im trying to teach him to be an activist, to speak out when he sees something that isnt right, to not go along with the crowd [when] his heart doesnt agree, and to stand up for others when they cant stand up for themselves.

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She adds, I want him to always be true to himself, no matter what opposition he faces, even if it isnt an easy decision. Especially if it isnt an easy decision. Hes little and hes young, but he can still make a difference, and he knows that.

And when it comes to rocking rainbow hair, Eddie told his mother, It makes me feel better about the future because it may make a change. Maybe people will see my hair and say, Oh look, he supports it, maybe I should support it too.

And so dye his hair like a rainbow Eddie did  and when Fusco-Luberoff posted pictures and his story on the page of the private Facebook group for Clinton supporters Pantsuit Nation, she says she was just sharing because I thought he looked cute and wanted to share his positive story. The post, however, quickly blew up the page, quickly garnering 76,000 likes and counting.

As Fusco-Luberoff wrote in her Pantsuit Nation post:

His father didnt want him to do it and expressed concern that he would be bullied at school because of the rainbow theme. So I asked him what he would do if someone made fun of his hair or called him gay. I asked him if he knew the rainbow stands for LGBTQ pride. Mommy, theyre not going to make fun of me. But if they do Ill tell them it doesnt take much courage to make fun of someone but it does take a lot of courage to stand up for someone who is being made fun of. If my hair stands for pride, then Im PROUD to have it! You got it, kid. Rainbow hair it is.

It really made me realize how important it is, especially now that we remain vigilant and aware of communities who are afraid of losing their voice, Fusco-Luberoff says. Eddie says of the mass outpouring of support for his new dye job, It makes me feel good because people actually noticed! I feel like Im helping other people not be afraid, and thats pretty cool.

Fusco-Luberoff says that she believes there couldnt be a better time for the world to see her son and his hair and his story since now more than ever, traditionally marginalized groups  people of color, women, LGBTQ people  need all the support they can get. Now is the time for everyone who sees injustice and hate in the world to stand up and use their voice for good. My son is a white male in America. It is extremely important to me that he understand and use his privilege to be a force for change. Right now hes only 9, but as he gets older hes going to run into the situations where hell have a choice to help or ignore, and I want him to always choose justice, even if it means hes going to take some heat for it.

And Fusco-Luberoff believes that time really is now.

Photo: Courtesy of Julia Fusco-Luberoff

Im fearful, given the current political climate. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time, she says, noting that what she is most concerned about facing the incoming Trump administration is the explosion of hatred, the breathtaking boldness those who feel they now have permission to be horrible to other people without fear of consequence. The normalizing of disgusting behavior. The willful ignorance of people who should know better. The breezy dismissal of facts as something you can pick and choose which ones you believe in.

As a special education teacher, Fusco-Luberoff has seen firsthand the fear that has emerged following Trumps election, saying the day before the election one student asked to stand next to her during the Pledge of Allegiance. He said he was worried there was a 50-50 chance Im going to be deported after tomorrow. Likewise, around the same time another student who she asked not to use foul language in class told her, Miss F, we live in a Grab em by the pussy kinda world now  thats just how it is.

And as a mother, she says, Im afraid of the world my son is growing up into  Im afraid a free spirit like his will be crucified in a world like the one that, in her opinion, a Trump-Pence administration represents. This isnt the America Ive known. Im fearful because, in addition to raising a kind, open, loving young man, I must also raise a warrior.

Photo: Courtesy of Julia Fusco-Luberoff

Which is why Eddies rainbow is so much more than just a great look.

I hope the world sees him and sees courage and hope. I hope they feel safer knowing there are parents like us who arent afraid to let their sons rock rainbow hair and be themselves. I hope they feel protective of him and kids like him who just want to be who they are without fear of violence, hatred, oppression, or rejection. I hope his light shines for those kids who cant shine theirs, she says. Its a very small gesture, but its a powerful statement for such a little guy.

Or, as Eddie himself says about his hair, I was hoping it would express my personality and that I show my support with my hair. It isnt fair [that LGBTQ people] have to be treated differently. Maybe if they see my hair, they wont be mean to someone else.

Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
- By Alberto Abaterusso





AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will conduct exploration, experimentation and discovery activities related to studying cancer, according to a five-year collaboration agreement.

The worldwide biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Lake Bluff, Illinois, and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, announced through PR Newswire yesterday that the agreement encompasses the goal of targeting disparate fields of cancer research, including lung carcinoma, bowel cancer, breast, prostate and blood tumors.





Following this agreement, the physicians and scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine will have the opportunity to delve into innovative therapies that have been advanced by AbbVie during nonclinical studies.

The agreement will also be an opportunity to exchange scientific expertise between the two parties' teams of physicians and scientists.

The exchange of scientific expertise will be essential for the two teams as they work together to study oncology medicine and develop innovative therapies to more accurately target and fight cancer.





"The importance of cancer research is critical to developing new therapies that could have life-changing implications," said William Nelson, M.D., Ph.D., director, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. "Opportunities to advance science and further research help move us in a direction to yield positive outcomes."







The agreement provides AbbVie the privilege of marketing specific discoveries the Johns Hopkins team will make under conditions of exclusivity.

The two teams will work on projects submitted by a committee composed of representatives appointed by AbbVie and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The main task of this committee will be preparing and arranging the projects.

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AbbVie and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say that their physicians and scientists "will also participate in an annual symposium to discuss their joint research and evaluate potential new projects."

Yesterday, AbbVie closed at $60.86, up $1.43 (or 2.41%) from the previous close. A volume of 10,227,657 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange versus an average of 8.93 million shares traded over the last 10 trading days and an average of 7.57 million shares traded over the last three months.

At the moment, AbbVie has a market capitalization of $99.05 billion and approximately 1.63 billion shares outstanding, of which 0.10% are held by insiders and 73.60% are held by institutions.

The volume of shares freely traded on the New York Stock Exchange is 1.62 billion.

According to current market prices, AbbVie is trading at 15.31 times its book value per share (mrq) and 11.27 times its EBITDA.

Most analysts suggest to hold the stock and the average target price is $69.75.

NWQ Managers (Trades, Portfolio), Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio), David Dreman (Trades, Portfolio), Mario Gabelli (Trades, Portfolio) and Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio) reduced their positions in AbbVie by 73.90%, 24.43%, 5.52%, 42.78% and 1.35%.

Disclosure: I have no positions in AbbVie.

Start a free 7-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Michael Slager

The murder trial of Michael Slager, the South Carolina patrolman who was filmed shooting unarmed black motorist Walter Scott, ended in a mistrial on Monday when the jury could not reach consensus on a verdict.

The result drew strong reactions from politicians and public figures, some of whom were anticipating a guilty verdict from the jury. Slager was facing a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Murkley, a Democrat, called the mistrial declaration "inexplicable, infuriating, tragic."

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro said "our legal system failed."

Walter Scott was shot in the back while running away. That's murder. Our legal system failed as a justice system today. https://t.co/wQAxDhvJJB  Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) December 5, 2016

South Carolina Republican Party chairman Matt Moore had perhaps the most forceful rebuke:

An absolute travesty and abdication of justice. https://t.co/d9sxFbG85l  Matt Moore (@MattMooreSC) December 5, 2016

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg gave a neutral statement, expressing disappointment in the result without stating a preferred verdict.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley did the same:

"It is my understanding that there will be, as quickly as possible, a new trial where the Scott family and all of South Carolina will hopefully receive the closure that a verdict brings," Haley said in a statement on Monday.

"Justice is not always immediate, but we must all have faith that it will be served  I certainly do," she said. "I urge South Carolinians  in Charleston and across our state  to continue along the path we have walked these last two years: a path of grace, faith, love and understanding."

Haley issued a strong rebuke of Slager's actions last year, saying they were "not reflective of our values," and adding that "we have a responsibility to make our communities safer and stronger and prevent another tragedy in our state going forward."

Meanwhile, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey barely said anything at all:

The jury had signaled on Friday it was facing a deadlock, with one juror saying he was unwilling to convict the former North Charleston officer. Further clarification of the law from Judge Clement Newman did little to break the stalemate on Monday.





More From Business Insider


buffalo wild wings

Activist investor Marcato Capital just sent a letter to Buffalo Wild Wings franchisees, publicly ripping into the company for keeping "the best opportunities for itself."

On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based company  which has a 5.2% stake in Buffalo Wild Wings  released an open letter to franchisees, condemning Buffalo Wild Wings' management and business model.

In recent months, Marcato has been advocating for its own game plan for the future of Buffalo Wild Wings. Marcato wants to increase the ratio of restaurants run by franchisees to company-operated locations, with plans to refranchise roughly 600 restaurants.

"Franchising will be the top priority of the business, and the franchisor will no longer be conflicted by aspirations of company-operated unit expansion," stated the letter to franchisees, signed by Marcato CEO and founder Mick McGuire, who has been called a Bill Ackman "protege.

In the letter, Marcato also announced the launch of WinningAtWildWings.com. The website is intended to share Marcato's plan for revamping Buffalo Wild Wings with franchisees and other stakeholders, as well as get feedback  specifically, details on how the company has failed franchisees.

"The observable discontent among the companys stakeholders has not gone unnoticed by us," the website reads. "Marcato wants to hear your ideas about how Buffalo Wild Wings can be improved. Please share your comments in the submission box here."

The public battle between Buffalo Wild Wings and Marcato began in August, when McGuire released a harsh letter to the board's chairman James Damian.

buffalo wild wings

The letter accused Buffalo Wild Wings management of ignorance and inaction, and demanded the addition of new board members. McGuire called for "interested shareholders"  like Marcato  to be consulted in adding these board members, calling independent changes "a hostile act of entrenchment."

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In October, Buffalo Wild Wings announced it was appointing three new independent directors  a shake up that failed to satisfy Marcato.

In Tuesday's letter to franchisees, Marcato claimed Buffalo Wild Wings had "ignored" its viewpoints, and that the company's board and senior executives lacked the necessary urgency to remain competitive. The activist investor once again argued that the company's board of directors needed new directors.

Marcato emphasized in its letter to franchisees that a "franchise-first" model would be to their benefit, as it could provide opportunities to open more Buffalo Wild Wings locations in more desirable areas. Up until this point, Marcato argued, Buffalo Wild Wings has kept some of the best franchise opportunities to itself.

"The Company has retained many choice 'greenfield' markets in high-AUV regions, such as California, Florida, Texas, and Washington, D.C, for its own development, effectively capping the growth opportunities

available to existing franchisees and deterring investments from new entrants," the letter states.

Buffalo Wild Wings did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

In October, the company reported that same-store sales dropped 1.6% in the third quarter, less than the expected 1.7% decline expected by analysts.

NOW WATCH: We did a blind taste test of wings from Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's, and Buffalo Wild Wings  the winner was clear





More From Business Insider


By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alaska Air Group Inc (ALK.N) has won U.S. antitrust approval for its $2.6 billion acquisition of Virgin America Inc (VA.O) on condition that it scale back its code-sharing with American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O), the Justice Department said on Tuesday.

The merged company would be the fifth largest U.S. carrier after American Airlines (AAL.O), Delta (DAL.N), United Airlines Inc (UAL.N) and Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N).

Alaska Air said in a statement that it was pleased with the approval and plans to close the purchase "in the very near future."

Under the settlement with the Justice Department, Alaska and American would be banned from code-sharing on routes where Virgin and American now compete, the department said.

Code-sharing is also barred on routes that Alaska Air might start in the future if American also flies that route.

The settlement is a good one for Alaska since it does not require the company to dispose of any gates, slots or other hard assets, said airline analyst Robert Mann of R.W. Mann & Company, Inc. "It's not a material impact on the economics of the deal," said Mann.

American put its code on nearly 163,000 Alaska Airlines scheduled flights in 2016, and Delta put its code on more than 78,000, according to data from air travel intelligence company OAG. Alaska Airlines places its code on nearly 588,000 of those carriers' scheduled flights as well.

Alaska, which paid a premium of about 86 percent for Virgin, pursued the deal to better compete against Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) and American, the company has said.

Virgin is the offshoot of billionaire Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, which had become famous for its mood lighting and media-rich entertainment on flights.

The big four airlines control more than 80 percent of the U.S. travel market, and the Justice Department is hoping that a stronger Alaska Air will compete with the giants.

"Todays settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgins assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers," Renata Hesse, the acting head of the Justice Departments Antitrust Division, said in a statement.

Alaska in April announced its $2.6 billion cash deal for Virgin America, which will make it the top carrier on the U.S. West Coast.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz, Alana Wise and Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft)
Gigi Hadid was one of the big winners of the night [Photo: Getty]

The revamped Fashion Awards took place in the Royal Albert Hall last night. Watched by over 4000 industry members along with the public, the star-studded event was attended by the worlds top models and designers along with some extra special celebrity guests.

Heres everything you need to know about the well-deserved winners:

[Photo: Getty]

Gigi Hadid beat her sister Bella in the International Model category. With role model Donatella Versace presenting the 21-year-old with the award, Gigi struggled to contain her emotion: This is so crazy. I just want to say that I know that Im in the generation of social media, and Im so blessed for that, but the fashion industry is my family, and you guys are the ones that Im here for.

[Photo: Getty]

Molly Goddard was presented with the British Emerging Talent award. Known for her tulle gowns and love of neon, the rising designer is definitely one to watch.

[Photo: Getty]

Lady Gaga gave the award for British Menswear Designer to Craig Green.

[Photo: Getty]

Simone Rocha was awarded the much-coveted British Womenswear Designer trophy.

[Photo: Getty]

Alexander McQueens Sarah Burton was awarded British Brand by Naomi Campbell.

[Photo: Getty]

Ralph Lauren received the Outstanding Achievement in Fashion award. Celebrating his many decades in the industry, presenter David Beckham called it an honour with the man himself joking: You talk about lifetime achievement, but I feel like Im still 22.

[Photo: PA]

The prestigious Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator was given to photographer Bruce Weber who is best known for his portrayal of the American dream (along with his 90s portraits of a young Leonardo DiCaprio).

[Photo: Getty]

British Vogues Alexandra Shulman was honoured at the event with a Special Recognition award to celebrate 100 years of the magazine.

[Photo: Instagram/vogueitalia]

The Swarovski Award for Positive Change was given to Franca Sozzani, the editor of Vogue Italia, for her commitment to promoting diversity through the lens of a fashion magazine.

[Photo: Getty]

Demna Gvasalia received two awards: one for International Ready-to-Wear Designer for his work at Balenciaga and the other (International Urban Luxury Brand) for his own label, Vetements.

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[Photo: Getty]

Guccis Alessandro Michele was given the International Accessories Designer award by a very well-dressed Jared Leto.

[Photo: Getty]

Jaden and Willow Smith were presented with the New Fashion Icons award.

[Photo: Instagram/britishfashioncouncil]

Marco Bizarri, the president and CEO of Gucci, was given the award for International Business Leader after a remarkable turnaround at the fashion house with the hire of Alessandro Michele.

Fashion Awards 2016: What everyone wore

British style reigns supreme at the British Independent Film Awards
Photo credit: undefined

From Esquire

The Three Great Premises of Idiot America: Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units; anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough, and fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.

-Some Random Libtard With A Book Deal, 2006.

In 1983, allegations of child sexual abuse were raised against the employees of the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. They were originally raised by a schizophrenic, alcoholic woman who also accused someone of raping her dog, and eventually killed herself. By the time the case finally ended, in a 1989 mistrial of the one remaining defendant, Ray Buckey, it had cost the taxpayers of California $15 million. Buckey had been in jail without bail for five years. His mother, grandmother, and sister, also defendants in the original indictments, were acquitted in the first trial, or had the charges against them dismissed. Nevertheless, they had their lives disrupted beyond measure.

The prime engines behind the case were quack psychology at the service of public hysteria and a revenue-hungry media. Children were testifying to all manner of fantastical tales: several said they'd seen animal sacrifices on the altar of a church; several talked about being flown to Palm Springs in a plane with no windows; some of them said they were forced to exhume corpses from the graves of various cemeteries and watch as the McMartin staff hacked up the bodies with knives. No corroborating evidence for these flights of dark fancy ever was produced, but it made great TV.

And then there were the tunnels. From the Frontline archives:

The children also described bizarre satanic rituals in which the McMartins mutilated animals in hidden underground tunnels beneath the school.

And to think, all of this happened years before Al Gore invented the Internet.

However, if you do a Google search right now for "McMartin preschool tunnels," you will be inundated with "studies" and "reports" that "prove" the tunnels did exist, and that the lurid fictions prompted out of the children by ambitious social workers were therefore true. Nothing dies on the Internet, not even the most arrant lunacy.

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Photo credit: undefined

This all came to mind when I was reading The Washington Post's account of the gentleman who showed up at a Washington D.C. pizza-and-fun palace over the weekend with his trusty shootin 'arn, pointed it at one employee, and then apparently got off one round before he was taken away by police.(Brief historical diversion: the gentleman was white, so he was not shot dead on the spot. We continue.) It seems he was one of those citizen investigators that we've heard so much about.

Matt Carr, the owner of the Little Red Fox market and coffee shop, said his business started getting threats last weekend. They got 30 to 40 calls before they stopped answering calls from blocked numbers, he said. "One person said he wanted to line us up in front of a firing squad," said Carr, who spent more than an hour in lockdown with his employees Sunday.The threats were all tied to the Comet Ping Pong accusations online, he said. "There's some old painted-over symbol on the marquee that they claim is an international symbol of pedophilia and that there are underground tunnels"

Tunnels, again. Maybe they lead all the way across the country to Manhattan Beach. Someone should put that on Internet so we can all find out what's what and make ourselves more stupid in the process.

As has been made clear in a number of places, Comet Ping Pong is the central establishment in a bizarre rightwing conspiracy saga in which it is alleged that-and it's hard even to type this without a desperate thirst for liquid Thorazine-elements of the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign, up to and including chairman John Podesta, were running a child sex-slave operation out of the back of the restaurant and, apparently, out of the secret tunnels beneath. This is generally attributed to the hacked e-mails provided to the gullible by WikiLeaks and hashtagged into eternity by enthusiasts. Disruption! Thanks, Julian.

[contentlinks align="center" textonly="false" numbered="false" headline="Related%20Story" customtitles="Trump%20Surrogate:%20'There's%20No%20Such%20Thing%20as%20Facts'" customimages="" content="article.51152"]

As a result, There have been threats against the owner of the place, his employees and, most recently, against the Post reporters who covered the incident over the weekend. There have been threats against neighboring businesses. Suddenly, a quiet patch of gentrification in the nation's capital is Ground Zero for the perfervid conservative imagination. It's Terri Schiavo's room at Woodside Hospice. It's the last exit off the NAFTA superhighway. It's where Hillary Clinton shot Vince Foster, hiding his body behind the pizza ovens until it could be relocated to Fort Marcy Park.

All of this is bad enough, but the people promulgating this inflammatory crapola include General Michael Flynn, who will be the National Security Advisor to the next president of the United States, and his son, who likely will be chief-of-staff for his Pops. As The Independent points out, the Flynns are quite comfortable trafficking in the stone crazy. Here's Pops:

This is not the first time Mr Flynn Jr has spread conspiratorial rhetoric via social media. He also alleged top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood and pushed a conspiracy theory that Sen Marco Rubio was a closeted homosexual who abused cocaine. His father also tweeted the hashtag #spiritcooking on 4 November, referring to the conspiracy that Ms. Clinton's former chairman John Podesta practiced satanic rituals.

On Sunday night, Junior tweeted that, until All The Facts on #pizzagate come out, "it'll remain a story." It's nice when fathers and sons have the same hobby.

(In case you're wondering, and you really shouldn't be at this point, radio maniac and Trump adviser Alex Jones also is on the case, and the pushback by the schizoid Illuminati is that the episode in Washington was a false-flag operation.)

My point is that none of us should be surprised at this point that it's all come to this, nor should we be surprised that it's attached itself finally to a president-elect. We all allowed this to grow in our country. The limitless American appetite for conspiracy theories was well-established long before Julian Assange was born. As the technology of the media improved, and the rate of transmission of information accelerated, the safeguards that kept our American taste for baroque explanations for scary and/or disliked phenomena proved inadequate to the public's appetite for them.

Photo credit: undefined

Ronald Reagan's fast-and-loose relationship with reality was dismissed as charming. Both Bill Clinton's presidency, and Al Gore's subsequent campaign, were bedeviled by wild stories that were "out there" and, as such, given far too much oxygen by an elite political media that lost its ability to distinguish junk food from chateaubriand. Then came Judy Miller and the lies that helped sell the Iraqi disaster, as well as the truthless presence of Dick Cheney at the pinnacle of political power.

And, finally, birtherism, which first propelled into political prominence the man who will be the next president of the United States, who will tell you that three million illegal voters is why he lost the popular vote, and who will have advising him on national security a guy who thinks children are being molested in tunnels under a pizza joint. One of his primary surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes, told an NPR panel that "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts." But we have not "entered" an age of post-truth politics. We've been living in it for years. The Executive Branch of the government just has been slow to catch up. Now, it's right there with the rest of us, god help the country. We're all just the children of McMartin now. We'll say anything we're told until we come to believe it ourselves.

UPDATE: This just in -- the new nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is a guy who believes the pyramids were used to store grain. Something he saw on the Internet, I'm guessing.

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SYDNEY (Reuters) - An American backpacker was killed in Australia on Tuesday when lightning struck his tent, police and local media said, as severe thunderstorms swept the east coast.

Police said the man was camped beneath a tree with his girlfriend at Mt Warning, in an area popular with tourists, and died instantly. His girlfriend was injured.

"Lightning struck the tree, went through the tree, it appears it struck the male's feet in the tent," local police commander Wayne Starling told reporters.

Police did not release the man's name.

The Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper said he was a 24-year-old U.S citizen.

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Istanbul (AFP) - Amnesty International on Tuesday called on Turkey to compensate and allow 24,000 people displaced under a curfew to return to their districts of the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.

Turkish authorities imposed strict round-the-clock curfews in a number of urban centres in the southeast ravaged by the resumption in July 2015 of violence between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces.

The historic Sur district of Diyarbakir -- a UNESCO world heritage site with its ancient fortified walls, historic mosques, churches and synagogues -- is one of them.

The curfew began in December 2015 in 11 neighbourhoods of Sur, later affecting 15 neighbourhoods at its January peak. The measure is still in place in six neighbourhoods as the authorities seek to eradicate any PKK presence.

All of the nearly 24,000 residents of the six neighbourhoods of Sur have left their homes, Amnesty said in its report. In total, half a million people have been displaced by fighting across the southeast, it said.

The displaced residents' right to return to their homes appears to be "in grave danger" due to curfews, damaged infrastructure and demolitions, Amnesty said.

It urged the authorities to "lift the curfew without delay" and take steps to ensure the displaced people's return to their homes.

"People were forced to leave their homes with a short notice," Andrew Gardner, Amnesty's Turkey Researcher, told AFP in an interview in Istanbul.

"They need to be compensated for the loss of their possessions but also for the loss of their livelihoods because when they lost their homes, they also lost their jobs in a great number of cases," he added.

- 'Detailed, credible plan' -

Gardner said some families had received compensation from the authorities for loss of their possessions but that's been "clearly inadequate".

"Going forward, there isn't any concrete, detailed or credible plan for how these families are going to be able to return to their homes," he added.

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An AFP reporter in Diyarbakir said formerly narrow alleyways surrounded by buildings have been flattened and it is still possible to run across explosives.

But the Turkish authorities say that the damage was the fault of the PKK and insisted everything is being done to make the new Sur habitable for residents and hospitable to tourists.

With the easing of the curfew in several parts of Sur, authorities have begun to restore historic buildings including Kursunlu Mosque and two Armenian churches severely damaged by the clashes.

Visiting Diyarbakir in September, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 1.9 billion lira ($645 million/577 million euros) would be invested in Sur.

And his predecessor Ahmet Davutoglu even vowed to turn Sur into a "new Toledo" in reference to the famed Spanish city.

But Amnesty said that the issue was being further complicated by the removal of elected mayors in the southeast and the closure of NGOs in a crackdown after the failed July 15 coup attempt.

Gardner said having a state of emergency does not justify "the measures that we've seen" and urged authorities to draw a line between unlawful violence, threats to the state and peaceful dissenting opinions.
Essen (Germany) (AFP) - Chancellor Angela Merkel Tuesday lashed populists seeking to exploit Germany's refugee influx, but set down a tough line on integration -- including a ban on the full-face veil -- as she launched into election campaign mode.

Outlining a strategy to counter populism that has consumed key allies abroad, Merkel vowed there would be no repeat of last year's record refugee arrivals.

She also stressed it was legitimate for Germany to expect newcomers to integrate, and this included a rejection of the niqab full-face veil.

"The full veil must be banned wherever it is legally possible," she told the annual gathering of her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), urging them to back her bid for a fourth term.

Merkel was rewarded with a standing ovation that lasted more than 11 minutes as the majority of the 1,001 delegates present rallied behind her.

"She took on a new tone, she signalled that in the future, refugee and immigration policies will be more restrictive," Wolfgang Reinhart from the south-western region of Baden-Wuerttemberg told AFP.

But dissenters made their voices heard when delegates were asked to re-elect Merkel as chief for the next two years, as the congress gave her just 89.5 percent -- her second worst score, and the worst since she became chancellor in 2005.

Her lowest was in 2004, when she was approved by 88.4 percent.

National media had suggested that a score below 90 percent would be a slap in the face.

- 'Simple answers' -

Merkel, who has led Germany for 11 years, last month confirmed she would run for a fourth term but acknowledged that the election would be "more difficult" than any other she has contested.

Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU sailed to a decisive win of 41.5 percent at the last election in 2013 -- its best result since national reunification in 1990, on the back of strong approval for her tough stance on austerity for debt-stricken EU nations.

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Three years on, there are rumblings of discontent -- even within her own party -- following her September 2015 decision to admit refugees fleeing war in mostly-Muslim nations, a move that deeply polarised Europe's biggest economy.

There have also been questions about whether the 62-year-old has fresh ideas to offer in a world upended by Brexit, the surprise election of Donald Trump and the departure of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi following a crushing referendum defeat championed by populists.

The CDU has seen setbacks in five consecutive state polls as voters punished Merkel for her liberal refugee policy, with more than a million people seeking asylum in Germany since 2015.

Merkel reiterated that next year's poll will "not be a walk in the park" as Germany is deeply polarised, but urged the population to remain "sceptical about simple answers".

"Rarely is it the simple answers that bring progress to our country," she said, in a clear reference to the upstart anti-Islam and populist AfD, which Merkel had previously criticised as offering no solutions to problems.

Party members are particularly anxious to halt a haemorrhage of support to the AfD, which now enjoys around 12 percent support, according to opinion polls. At the last general election it fell short of the five-percent threshold to ensure representation.

- Aleppo 'disgrace' -

Beyond domestic issues, Merkel also devoted a large part of her address to crises abroad as she noted that in 2016, "the world has not become stronger and more stable, but weaker and more unstable".

She deplored the failure of the international community to alleviate the suffering in Syria's besieged city of Aleppo, calling it a "disgrace".

Merkel said she was shocked to see tens of thousands of Germans hitting the streets to demonstrate against free trade deals but virtually no protests against the bloodletting in Syria.

"There is something wrong there," she said.

She also underlined the importance of holding the European Union together, saying Germany will do well "only when Europe does well too".

In the face of the mountain of challenges, Merkel urged her delegates: "You must, you must, help me."
Angela Merkel addressed the annual conference of her Christian Democrat party (CDU) in Essen on December 6. Before starting, she was startled by a 360-degree camera. What is this device, she asked. What does it do?

She then asked who owned to camera, and laughed to find out it was the CDUs own. Credit: CDU via Storyful
Essen (Germany) (AFP) - Chancellor Angela Merkel Tuesday attacked the rise of right-wing populists in Germany, hitting out at opponents of her liberal refugee policy staking a claim to define German national identity.

However she told the annual congress of her Christian Democratic Union that it was legitimate to expect integration from newcomers, underlining her party's bid to ban the full face veil.

"We all get to determine who 'the people' are -- not just a few, no matter how loud they are," Merkel said in a speech looking ahead to the 2017 general election.

Without mentioning the upstart Alternative for Germany (AfD) party by name, Merkel said Germany must remain "sceptical about easy answers".

"The world is not black and white," she said. "Rarely is it the easy answers that bring progress to our country."

But Merkel also played to the wing of her conservative party that has been deeply unsettled by last year's record influx of asylum seekers, most of them Muslims fleeing war zones.

She underlined her support for a proposal in August by her interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, to outlaw the full-face burqa Islamic veil in public places.

"The full veil must be banned wherever it is legally possible," she said.

On German Unity Day in early October, Merkel faced noisy protests when she arrived at celebrations in Dresden birthplace of the anti-immigration Pegida movement.

The group has sought to co-opt the "We are the people" rallying cry used by East Germans in the peaceful revolution that brought down the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The German leader, in power since 2005, has been under pressure at home over her refugee policy that saw an influx of nearly 900,000 migrants last year.

Polls show nevertheless that her CDU is the clear frontrunner in the general election, expected in September 2017.

The AfD harnessed a wave of anger over the refugee arrivals to make strong gains in a string of regional elections this year. It is currently polling at around 12 percent nationally.

Its success has mirrored the march of anti-migrant parties in France, Austria and the Netherlands as well as Republican maverick Donald Trump in the United States.
Angelina Jolie has filed new court documents outlining her current custody arrangement with Brad Pitt, but sources tell PEOPLE that nothing has changed since the couple first made the agreement in October.

This is pure spin and manipulation, as absolutely nothing has changed, says a source with knowledge of the situation. The original agreement is temporary and voluntary and that has not changed in the slightest; absolutely no binding agreement has been made, no final decisions have been made, and there is nothing that should be presented as a legally binding custody arrangement at this time. There is zero legal purpose for filing this. Zero.

A second source agrees, reiterating that nothing has changed and that both sides are continuing to work towards a permanent agreement.

Its very unusual that she filed this document with the court for two reasons, CA family law specialist Steve Mindel tells PEOPLE. The first reason is that most of the time, celebrities want to be anonymous. The second reason has to do with her children. Now that shes filed this document, people are getting more information about her children: where they are, what their schedules are, and so forth. And at their wealth level, privacy is very important for their safety.

While Mindel is unclear of the legal purpose to the filing, he adds that, Her filing is definitely sending a message to Brad that she wants this more in the public than less in the public. And thats not particularly good for either one of them as celebrities.

The court documents, filed by Jolie on Dec. 2 and obtained by PEOPLE, detail the temporary custody arrangement already in place, including that, pending any future changes, Jolie shall have physical custody of the minor children, and that Pitt will continue to have agreed upon therapeutic visitation with the kids.

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The documents also state that Pitts visitation is being determined by a psychologist, Ian Russ Ph.D., and that Pitt is participating in individual and group therapy sessions at least once a week. In addition, Pitt had previously agreed to random drug and alcohol testing at least four times a month. The children are also to continue group and individual therapy sessions.

RELATED: Brad Pitt Had a Restful and Relaxing Thanksgiving in Turks and Caicos After Angelina Jolie Split: Source

According to sources, this is the same temporary family decision plan recommended by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services during its investigation. The investigation was launched after Pitt allegedly got verbally abusive and physical with his son Maddox on the couples private plane on Sept. 14. Jolie filed for divorce five days later, asking for sole custody with visitation rights for Pitt.

There is absolutely nothing different about the situation today as opposed to yesterday as opposed to when this agreement was put into place, adds the first source.

A separate source notes that Jolie has been attending her kids counseling sessions. Angie has been by the kids side nonstop since this happened. Their health and well-being has been her only priority. She hasnt traveled, and she delayed completing First They Killed My Father, says the source, adding, Angie also hasnt been the one to keep Brad from seeing the kids. It hasnt been her choice. She has been following the advice of the therapists.

As for why Pitt has agreed to follow the current custody arrangement, Mindel explains, In the short run, this might be uncomfortable for Brad because no one likes to be supervised with their children. But over the long run, going along with the temporary plan is a winning solution for him to get the custody he desires. Thats because, by continuing to behave properly during the visits, and by continuing to pass his drug tests, Pitt is gathering evidence that will help him negotiate for the custody he wants later on.

Meanwhile, Pitt has not made any court filings since requesting joint custody in November. As for why he has yet to ask the court to intervene in the dispute, the first source says, Brad has always placed the interests of his children first and foremost, and has been accommodating and agreeable for now due to his desire to continue putting his children first. Particularly during the holiday season, embarking on legal filings at this moment doesnt feel imperative.

A source close to the actor tells PEOPLE, Brad is not at all happy with this situation. He wants to spend more time with the kids and on his own terms. There is nothing about the current arrangement that makes him happy. He has no plans to accept it. He misses his kids. Its a very sad situation for him.

The source adds, Angie is playing hurtful games and he wont play along. He feels he has done nothing wrong and is getting punished without cause. He always was a great dad and wants to continue to be a great dad. Spending Thanksgiving without his kids was very difficult for him. He wants to have a normal relationship with his kids. He has a great legal team and is figuring out the best strategy right now.
Allegations of idea theft are hardly a new problem in Hollywood. Most lawsuits fail, but studios still spend hundreds of thousands of dollars - perhaps millions - each year on settlements and litigation costs. Recently, in an effort to deter litigation, studios have set their sights on recovering attorney fees from plaintiffs at the end of unsuccessful court actions. But is there anything studios can do on the front end of a lawsuit asserting idea theft?

That's where The Purge comes into play. Douglas Jordan-Benel claims that the ideas in his screenplay Settler's Day, about a family's fight to survive a state-sanctioned day on which crimes go unpunished, were stolen by The Purge writer James DeMonaco with the help of several UTA agents. In June 2015, Jordan-Benel experienced a surprising success at the pleading stage when U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald rejected Universal's attempt to stop the lawsuit. On Monday, the case went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and focused on one key line in Fitzgerald's opinion.

Jordan-Benel is not only claiming that The Purge is a copyright infringement of his script. He's also alleging that when the defendants accepted his screenplay for consideration, they entered into an implied agreement to pay him for ideas if they were later used.

In response, the defendants tried to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP statute, which creates early barriers to frivolous lawsuits arising from free speech on matters of public interest. Here's why the defendants failed: Judge Fitzgerald ruled Jordan-Benel's claims didn't arise from protected First Amendment activity. It is the "alleged breach of the contract by failing to pay Plaintiff that is the act out of which the claim arises, not the creation and distribution of The Purge," the decision stated.

Because Universal, DeMonaco and other defendants failed here, the judge never got to the second part of the anti-SLAPP test necessitating plaintiff show a likelihood of prevailing on the claims before such claims move any further.

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Reviewing the decision yesterday were 9th Circuit senior circuit judges Harry Pregerson and Dorothy W. Nelson, as well as circuit judge John B. Owens. They heard arguments from both plaintiff's attorney Glen Kulik and Universal attorney Kelli Sager.

Much of the time was spent discussing a recent California Supreme Court decision.

That case, Baral v. Schnitt, centers on how the SLAPP statute applies when the case involves a "mixed cause of action" - one involving some activity that is in furtherance of First Amendment-protected rights and some activity that is not.

"The anti-SLAPP procedures are designed to shield a defendant's constitutionally protected conduct from the undue burden of frivolous litigation," states the Baral opinion. "It follows, then, that courts may rule on plaintiffs' specific claims of protected activity, rather than reward artful pleading by ignoring such claims if they are mixed with assertions of unprotected activity."

That the 9th Circuit brought this decision to the attention of Kulik and Sager could portend their thinking - especially since Pregerson snapped at Kulik when he said the case wasn't "earth-shattering."

"You weren't even aware of this critical case," said Pregerson. "You've got the nerve to come here and you're making the same argument you made to the district court. There is an element of speech here. We have to construe this statute broadly."

Kulik had argued that there is only one cause of action giving rise to the claim: the non-payment. "The writer wants the defendant to use the idea," said Kulik. "Because if the defendant uses the idea, it triggers a promise to pay. It's the breach of that promise to pay which is the only wrongful or injury-inducing conduct."

"But for the creation of these films, there wouldn't be a claim here," Sager rebutted. "If it arises from speech, even in part, it falls under the SLAPP statute."

This leaves the 9th Circuit with a veritable chicken or egg decision: Is someone wronged by idea theft when the concept is used or when the person who uses it fails to pay the creator? If the panel follows Baral, the unprotected action of breaking an implied contract could be wrapped into the context that it involves the making of a film. And if the 9th Circuit goes this course, that will give studios the opportunity to potentially put the early breaks on a wider zone of lawsuits involving idea theft claims. If Universal does reverse Fitzgerald's ruling, the case would then address whether Jordan-Benel showed a likelihood of prevailing on his claims. In other words, the judges will have an opportunity to weigh the merits of the claim that The Purge was stolen. Whether that happens sooner or whether that happens later, it's up to the 9th Circuit to decide.
iphone 6s

Over the past few weeks, a number of iPhone owners have made note of an issue that causes their phones to shut down with around 30% battery left.

Apple first addressed the problem in late November, saying that a "very small number of iPhone 6s devices" were affected. It opened up a free battery exchange program for those phones it deemed vulnerable.

More and more complaints have come to light since then, though, with many claiming to suffer from the same issue on iPhones beyond the 6s. Apple Store employees have reportedly been inundated with grievances over the issue, and a Chinese consumer watchdog has claimed that the battery flaw is more widespread than Apple has let on.

All this of led Apple to issue a statement last week, when it reiterated that the problem should only apply to a select number of iPhone 6s devices manufactured between September and October 2015, and chalked the issue up to excess "ambient air" being let into a battery component within those devices during manufacturing. In other words, a hardware problem.

iphone 6s plus

The complaints have kept rolling in, though, so Apple on Tuesday put out another statement on its Chinese language website. As spotted by 9to5Mac, the new note acknowledges that "a small number of customers outside the affected range have also reported an unexpected shutdown."

Though the company isn't opening up its battery replacement program to more iPhones, it says it will include "additional diagnostic capability" in a forthcoming iOS update, which should help it see if there's anything it can do on a software level to help with the unexpected shutdown problem.

"This will allow us to gather information over the coming weeks which may potentially help us improve the algorithms used to manage battery performance and shutdown," the statement says. "If such improvements can be made, they will be delivered in future software updates."

Apple says the software update will roll out next week.

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iphone charging

It's worth noting that unexpected shutdowns are not uncommon for lithium-ion batteries nearing their death  iPhone users have reported similar issues for years.

Kyle Wiens, head of popular device repair site iFixit, told Business Insider that iPhone batteries are generally designed to last for 400 charging cycles. That amounts to roughly two years of "regular" use. If someone isn't careful with how liberally they charge their phone, though, they may run into this sort of battery "failure mode" sooner.

All of this is to say that not every iPhone user complaining about random shutdowns is probably suffering from the battery flaw Apple has addressed here. Sometimes, a battery is just nearing its end.

That said, it's clear that some newer batteries are failing sooner than usual  it's just hard to tell which of those are due to explicit manufacturing or software flaws on Apple's part.

For now, though, you can either check Apple's webpage to see if you're eligible for a battery replacement, or hope that there's some sort of software fix after all.

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By Julia Love

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sales of the Apple Watch to consumers set a record during the first week of holiday shopping, and the current quarter is on track to be the best ever for the product, Apple Inc (AAPL.O) Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters.

Responding to an email from Reuters, Cook said the gadget's sell-through - a measure of how many units are sold to consumers, rather than simply stocked on retailers' shelves - reached a new high.

Cook's comments followed a report on Monday from technology research firm IDC estimating that the tech giant sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71 percent from the year-ago quarter. The comments offer a glimpse of the gadget's performance during the holiday quarter, which is typically Apple's strongest.

"Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year," Cook wrote.

"Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the products history. And as we expected, were on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch," he said.

Cook did not respond to a request for specific sales figures for the gadget.

Apple has disclosed few details about the performance of the Apple Watch, its first new product released under Cook. The company has not broken out sales of the gadget in its earnings, instead lumping it into an "other products" category that includes devices such as the iPod and Apple TV.

Strong sales of the Apple Watch are to be expected during the holiday quarter as the gadget is a more natural gift than some of the company's other products such as the iPhone or Mac computer, said analyst Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research. Apple also lowered the price of the gadget this year, potentially helping the holiday sales comparison, O'Donnell noted.

Apple is facing mounting pressure to show new sources of growth as sales of the iPhone, the company's lifeblood, begin to level off. O'Donnell said he remains skeptical the Apple Watch can fill the void, citing uncertain demand among consumers for smartwatches.

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"While Im not surprised that there is a good week, there are still, I think, significant concerns about the category," he said.

IDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Buenos Aires (AFP) - A convicted pedophile has died after being badly beaten during a concert he was performing in a cathedral near Buenos Aires, attacked by parents from a preschool where he had allegedly molested children, a priest said.

Marcelo Fabian Pecollo, a music teacher and trumpeter with the Moron city orchestra, was sentenced in 2010 to 30 years in prison for molesting five preschool children. He was freed in 2014 after a sentence reduction.

The attack took place on October 30 at the cathedral in Moron, a Buenos Aires suburb.

The group of parents barged into the cathedral yelling: "There is a pedophile and a rapist in the church and he is playing in this orchestra."

Pecollo, 42, tried to get away but the group caught up with him and beat him, including one parent who hit the man with his own trumpet, according to witnesses.

"When I arrived, those people were leaving," priest Jorge Oesterheld told local media. "He was in a very, very bad way, until the police and ambulance arrived. He was in a coma and died on Friday."

The priest criticized the attackers.

"They say they took justice into their own hands, but it was revenge, it was murder."

Pecollo was arrested in 2007 after a mother complained that her four-year-old child had been abused. Six other cases later came to light.

The court recognized five of the seven cases for trial.
By Luc Cohen

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Argentines with funds at a Bank of New York Mellon Corp unit cannot wire money straight to their government to pay fees for a tax amnesty program, prompting some to use an indirect foreign exchange trade to make payments, a lawyer and a broker said.

As part of his bid to jump-start Argentina's recession-stricken economy, center-right President Mauricio Macri started a program to allow Argentines to pay a fee and declare the estimated $400 billion in hidden wealth they have abroad without fear of prosecution for tax evasion.

Those who declare can keep their money abroad but must pay a fee of up to 15 percent of the value of their assets. But clients of BNY Mellon's Pershing LLC custodian and asset manager cannot pay the fee through a wire transfer to the AFIP tax agency, according to two lawyers, an accountant and a broker.

As a workaround, some Pershing clients have resorted to a currency exchange tactic called the "contado con liqui," or blue-chip swap, that gained prominence when currency controls implemented by populist former President Christina Fernandez were in place.

A Pershing spokesman declined to comment on why Argentine clients could not transfer the fee payments directly to the government. One of the lawyers consulted and a Buenos Aires-based broker said it was common for custodian banks to prohibit wire transfers of funds to third parties.

Many Argentines with funds abroad turn to Pershing for its lower fees and because of difficulties opening accounts at commercial banks, said Sebastian Arena, director of brokerage Buenos Aires Valores.

"For an Argentine to open a checking account at a United States bank isn't as simple as for an American," he said.

Commercial banks were reluctant to open accounts for Argentines while the country was on the Financial Action Task Force's list of nations not doing enough to fight money laundering between 2011 and 2014, he said.

"Many private bankers in Argentina have business channels with Pershing," Arena said.

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Under the Fernandez regime's currency controls, which Macri lifted in 2015 shortly after taking office, Argentines looking to get dollars would often buy a security like a sovereign bond or stock in state-owned oil company YPF SA in Argentine pesos on the local market. They would then sell the security in dollars in the United States.

Now Pershing clients have reversed the trade.

"They're buying YPF's (American Depository Receipts) on Wall Street with their Pershing money and then selling stocks here so they can use it legally, use it to pay the tax," said Buenos Aires lawyer Eduardo Aguilera of RCTZZ Abogados, who has clients participating in the amnesty.

Aguilera said Argentines who do have accounts with commercial banks have largely not reported problems making transfers to pay the fees.

The most common "contado con liqui" trade is between sovereign bonds expiring in April and traded in the United States in dollars and the same bonds in pesos traded in Argentina, Arena said.

The amnesty program is considered a success so far, with nearly $22 billion declared by Nov. 21. Total fees that AFIP collects may affect how much debt Macri's government needs to take on next year.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Photo credit: Getty + Dana Tepper

From Seventeen

When Ariel Winter took a mini-vacay to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with a group of friends and appeared kinda close to actor Levi Meaden, rumors began to swirl that maaaaybe the two were an item. On Sunday night, those rumors were finally cleared up: she walked the red carpet at The Trevor Project's 2016 TrevorLIVE LA event with Levi by her side, celeb-speak for "hi, this person is v important to me, thx."

Photo credit: Getty

Levi, 29, has played roles in The 100, iZombie, Aftermath, and more. He also starred in The Killing with Ariel's friend Sterling Beaumon, which might explain how the couple first met. A few weeks back, he and Ariel shared a Friendsgiving dinner, during which Ariel's friend Jack Griffo called Levi "her man" on Instagram Stories.

OK, so despite getting cute and cozy on the red carpet, Ariel and Levi aren't quite Instagram-official yet. After the event, Ariel shared a solo pic flaunting her gorgeous gown with sheer skirt.

Hmm, wonder how Ariel feels about this tweet now.

Everyone thinking I'm taken when I'm just over here like hi I'm single AF pic.twitter.com/n4vbXRp8j2 - Ariel Winter (@arielwinter1) September 2, 2016

Hannah Orenstein is a writer at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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Paris (AFP) - Asian countries dominated the top places in a key survey released Tuesday of high-school skills, but the report criticised science teaching in many countries.

The PISA survey of 15-year-olds in 72 countries and economies found that the quality of science lessons was more important than equipment or even staffing levels.

And it confirmed earlier findings that loading students down with homework or extra tuition was rarely the key to success in science.

Singapore came top of the table for its teaching of science, reading and mathematics.

Its students scored an average of 556 points, compared with the average among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries of 493.

Where once Finland led the way in educational excellence, Singapore is now the example to other countries, the report said.

"Singapore is a standout performer," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria at the global launch of the report in London.

"In Singapore, one in five students master the most advanced scientific problems and demonstrate that they think like scientists."

Nearly a quarter of all students in Singapore (24 percent) scored in the top two categories in science tests, compared with just eight percent across the OECD countries.

The five top-performing countries in the PISA tests, which were carried out in 2015, were Singapore, Japan, Estonia, Taiwan and Finland.

- Teaching 'not keeping up' -

However the report found that only 12 countries assessed had improved their performance in science since 2006, despite an increase in spending per primary and secondary student of 20 percent over the same period.

"A decade of scientific breakthroughs has failed to translate into breakthroughs in science performance in schools," said Gurria, adding that science education "isn't keeping up" with the "lightning speed" of scientific progress.

Around six percent of students in OECD countries, many of them in Europe, reported they did not get regular science lessons. These students scored significantly lower in the tests.

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Schools that did not offer dedicated science lessons tend to be in poorer areas of countries, the report noted. The problem was particularly bad in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Slovakia and Taiwan.

- Homework not the answer -

The results also suggested that the key to success in science teaching, even more than well-equipped and well-staffed departments, was how much time was spent teaching the subject.

Those teachers who actually demonstrated scientific ideas and who adapted their teaching to meet students' needs produced better results, the report said.

That tended to happen in smaller classes, and students who received this kind of teaching were more likely to go on to a science-related career, it added.

"It's not about science tests, it's about engaging students and making science learning relevant... that's what translates to better outcomes and better careers," said Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's director for education and skills, at the London launch.

The report also suggested that the study of science needed to be done in school, not at home.

"School systems where students spend more time learning after school, by doing homework, receiving additional instruction or in private study, tend to perform less well in science," the report said.

Last month, parents in Spain staged a strike to protest the amount of homework schools were handing out. Spain scored 493 points in the latest PISA tests -- corresponding exactly to the OECD average.

- Asian countries dominate -

Asian countries dominated the top 10 of the PISA table, with Japan recording the second-highest average score behind Singapore.

Macao, Hong Kong and the mainland Chinese territories that were tested also featured in the top 10, as did Taiwan and Vietnam.

But the top-ranked European country, Estonia, took third place. The only other European country in the top 10 was Finland, in fifth.

Canada was seventh on the list, well ahead of the United States, which ranked 25th among OECD countries.

PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, was devised by the OECD to measure countries' performance in teaching 15-year-olds the core subjects.

PISA tests are carried out every three years and in 2015 they covered all 35 OECD countries and 37 partner countries and economies.
* Tagrisso cuts risk of disease progression by 70 percent

* Patients with brain metastases show clear benefit

* Drug targets genetic mutation common in China, east Asia (Adds AstraZeneca comment, further details)

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca's pill Tagrisso cut the risk of lung cancer progressing by 70 percent compared to standard chemotherapy in a major clinical trial, lifting prospects for a drug that is key to the company's lofty long-term sales goals.

The medicine is designed to help cancer patients with certain genetic mutations that are very common in China and other parts of east Asia.

Tagrisso is already on the market, winning early approval based on mid-stage studies and selling $276 million in the first nine months of 2016, but AstraZeneca was required to produce a confirmatory Phase III randomised study detailing its benefits.

Results released on Tuesday showed that Tagrisso, given as a second-line treatment, helped patients live a median 10.1 months before their cancer worsened, against 4.4 months for those on chemotherapy. Tagrisso patients also had fewer drug-related side effects.

AstraZeneca said it would continue to monitor patients to see if the improvement in progression-free survival also translated over time into increased overall survival.

The lung cancer pill is a key component of AstraZeneca's target to lift sales to $45 billion by 2023. The company set that goal in response to a takeover attempt by Pfizer in 2014, with Tagrisso forecast to contribute $3 billion.

At the time, many analysts viewed the Tagrisso target as highly ambitious. Yet consensus forecasts have now risen to $2.5 billion for 2022, according to Thomson Reuters data, helped by its strong launch and the failure of some rival products.

Sean Bohen, AstraZeneca's chief medical officer, told Reuters the latest data showed "a pretty extraordinary benefit", especially as Tagrisso also produced better results than chemotherapy in patients whose cancer had spread to the brain.

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Brain tumours are an important consideration in lung cancer, since 25 to 40 percent of patients have brain metastases at some point in their disease.

Results of the trial, involving 419 patients whose disease had progressed after using a so-called EGFR inhibitor drug such as AstraZeneca's Iressa or Roche's Tarceva, were presented at the World Conference on Lung Cancer and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

AstraZeneca is also assessing Tagrisso as a first-line treatment in a non-small cell lung cancer clinical trial that will report results next year.

The drug, already approved in major Western markets and Japan, is currently under fast track review in China, where nearly half of lung cancer patients are thought to have the EGFR mutation. By comparison, EGFR-mutated lung cancer accounts for only 10-15 percent of cases in Europe and the United States.

(Editing by Jason Neely and Louise Heavens)
* Energy retailer sells oil and gas production assets

* IPO to be Australia's biggest since 2014

* Focus returns to more stable retail business (Recasts, adds CEO quote, market context)

By Byron Kaye and Tom Westbrook

SYDNEY, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Australia's top energy retailer Origin Energy Ltd plans to sell some oil and gas producing assets in a listing tipped to fetch A$1 billion ($750 million), cutting debt and joining its main rival in reducing exposure to upstream production.

The move by newly installed CEO Frank Calabria sets up Australia's biggest initial public offering since 2014 and underscores the desire of the country's energy companies to refocus on their more stable retail gas and power businesses.

It also gives a sense of the speed at which Calabria plans to put his stamp on the company he took over in October. A month before Calabria started, Origin Chairman Gordon Cairns told Reuters the company had no plans to demerge.

"The decision is my decision but ... it is also something we've done quite bit of work around," Calabria told journalists on a teleconference on Tuesday, noting that his predecessor, Grant King, planned to sell A$800 million of assets by 2017 to cut debt.

He denied the company was forced to abandon King's all-in-one energy strategy because of weak oil and gas prices, saying he decided on the IPO because "we needed to reduce debt and focus on the underlying performance of the business".

Australia's No. 2 energy retailer AGL Energy Ltd said in February it was quitting the coal-seam gas business because the plunging oil price had undermined the economics of its projects. It has also said it will exit coal-fired power stations by 2050.

Origin will keep a stake in Australia Pacific LNG, a 9 million-tonnes-a-year project co-owned by ConocoPhillips and China's Sinopec off Australia's east coast, which the company cannot spin off until it has met all of its project finance commitments, expected in mid-2017.

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Origin and AGL, which together sell electricity to a third of Australia's 24 million population, have meanwhile ramped up plans to sell rooftop and industrial-grade solar power, as well as storage batteries from makers like Tesla Motors Inc.

Origin did not say how much it hopes to raise in the 2017 IPO, but its shares rose as much as 5 percent, hitting their highest intraday level in a year, as investors took a positive view of the simplified company structure. The broader market was up 0.8 percent.

"We think Origin's strategy is logical," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note to clients.

Morgan Stanley estimated the assets being sold were worth A$1.3 billion, while Standard and Poor's estimated the spin-off to be worth at least A$1 billion and Royal Bank of Canada said the business would have an enterprise value, which includes debt, of between A$1.6 billion and A$1.8 billion.

The proposed IPO will not require shareholder approval, Origin said.

($1 = 1.3383 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Tom Westbrook and Byron Kaye; Editing by Richard Pullin)
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - A major auto trade group is making a last-ditch effort to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing tough fuel economy standards through the 2025 model year.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing General Motors Co, Toyota Motor Corp , Ford Motor Co, Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG, late Monday urged congressional negotiators to include language in a short-term budget resolution that would bar the Obama administration from finalizing the rules before it leaves office next month.

"EPA's sudden and controversial move to propose auto regulations eight months early - even after Congress warned agencies about taking such steps while political appointees were packing their bags - calls out for congressional action to pause this rulemaking until a thoughtful policy review can occur," said Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the group.

An EPA spokesman declined to comment on Monday.

Automakers face an uphill battle getting the language attached to the funding bill, which could be made public as early as Tuesday. Even if Congress approves the rider, President Barack Obama would get to decide whether to sign or veto any funding bill.

Automakers had appealed to President-elect Donald Trump last month, who has been critical of Obama's climate change policies, to review the rules requiring them to nearly double fleet-wide fuel efficiency by 2025, saying they impose significant costs and are out of step with consumer preferences.

The EPA under law had to decide by April 2018 whether to modify the 2022-2025 model year vehicle emission rules requiring average fleet-wide efficiency of more than 50 miles per gallon. Instead, the agency said last week it will end the public comment period by Dec. 30, and could move to lock in the rules after then and before the Obama administration leaves office on Jan. 20.

If finalized, the Trump administration could seek to overturn the decision, but environmental groups would likely sue. Several environmental groups last week praised the EPA action.

The agency said last week it concluded after a lengthy review that automakers can meet the 2025 standards.

Janet McCabe, EPA acting assistant administrator, told reporters last week the technical record could "arguably support strengthening the 2022 through 2025 standards," but the EPA believes it "is not the time to introduce uncertainty by changing the standard." (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Bahamian man was sentenced to five years in U.S. prison on Tuesday for hacking into celebrities' email accounts to steal unreleased film and television scripts, personal information and sexually explicit videos in order to sell them. Alonzo Knowles, who maintained a list of 130 celebrities' emails and phone numbers, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty in May to charges of criminal copyright infringement and identity theft. "You have some obvious facility for computers," Engelmayer said. "But you chose to use your gifts for dark and lawless ends." Prosecutors said Knowles, of Freeport, Bahamas, accessed the accounts of actresses, musicians and others by sending their computers a virus or by emailing a fake notification that their account had been hacked and asking for their passwords. Knowles, 24, stole at least 25 unreleased movie and television scripts, as well as music, financial documents and nude and intimate images and videos, prosecutors said. The identities of most of the celebrities who were victimized have not been revealed. But one was Naturi Naughton, who stars in the Starz network series "Power" and who in a video submission to the court said she felt "violated." Among the scripts Knowles stole was one for "All Eyez On Me," an upcoming biopic of Tupac Shakur, who died in a 1996 shooting, the film's production company has said. He also stole scripts for two Twenty-First Century Fox Inc properties. The investigation began last December after a radio host received an unsolicited offer from someone for scripts of a TV drama's upcoming season, prompting him to contact the show's executive producer, prosecutors said. The investigation led to Knowles, who in video conference calls told an undercover U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent he had "exclusive content" worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars," prosecutors said. Knowles was arrested on Dec. 21, 2015, after flying to New York to try to sell the agent numerous scripts and several individuals' personal information for $80,000, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said that even after pleading guilty, Knowles appeared anxious to continue exploiting celebrities once released. In prison emails, Knowles boasted of plans once released to publish a book airing celebrities' information, they said. Knowles' lawyer countered he had no means to act on his statements. In court on Tuesday, Knowles apologized for his conduct, saying he regretted "the stupid things I did and said." (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler and David Gregorio)
Tampa (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday phoned Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who formally resigned after a crushing referendum defeat.

"The president emphasized that Italy will remain one of the United States' closest and strongest allies and an indispensable partner," the White House said in a statement.

Obama made the call from Air Force One on a flight from Washington to Tampa, Florida, thanking Renzi "for the close friendship and partnership the leaders enjoyed" during his tenure as prime minister.

The outgoing Democratic president, who will be succeeded by Republican Donald Trump next month, had praised the center-left Renzi's proposed reforms to streamline parliament and the electoral system.

Obama hosted Renzi at his final state dinner at the White House on October 18.

After Renzi, 41, suffered a crushing defeat in a referendum Sunday on constitutional reform, he presented his resignation to Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Monday.

But Mattarella asked Renzi to postpone his resignation until parliament approves the 2017 budget, in the interest of easing political uncertainty in the country and across Europe.
6 Dec - While director Arlyn dela Cruz has her reservation about the recent decision made by the Professional Artist Managers, Inc. (PAMI) to inhibit its artistes from working with her and Baron Geisler, the latter was more accepting of the result.



As reported on Coconuts Manila, the actor, who was sanctioned by PAMI after the pee incident, in which Geisler urinated on "Bubog" co-star Ping Medina for what he deemed as a creative choice, stated recently that he understands the decision and that he is willing to wait for the indefinite period to pass.



"I will just condition my body. But it's hard to promise," he added.



Geisler also expressed hope that the group didn't make the decision without finding out the truth.



As for Medina, Geisler stated that he hopes to mend fences with the actor eventually, and re-extend his apology for the unfortunate incident.



(Photo source: expatmedia.net)
As part of a deal announced on December 5, four BBC Earth Giant Screen films will debut in museums across China and Hong Kong in 2017.

The four 40-minute films "Tiny Giants," "Wild Africa," "Earthflight," and "Incredible Predators" will start their 6-12 month runs at over 20 science and technology museums in mainland China and Hong Kong come January 2017. Cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenyang and Hefei, as well as Hong Kong.

The movies will be screened in giant 2D Dome and 3D formats for a fully immersive experience. Kelvin Yau, BBC Worldwide's GM for Greater China, explains "We are very pleased that visitors to science and technology museums all over China will have access to the four BBC Earth films."

The deals were made in collaboration with clients including Orient International Holding Shanghai Foreign Trade Co. Ltd and Wuhan DDMC Culture Co Ltd.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian authorities searched houses and detained eight people for questioning on suspicion of supporting Islamic State financially and through the recruitment of fighters for the Syrian civil war, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. The prosecutors said nine houses were searched in a district of Brussels, as well as the cities of Bruges, Antwerp and Sint-Niklaas. No weapons or explosives were found. "Those concerned are suspected to be involved in recruiting people to leave for Syria and having financially supported IS," prosecutors said in a statement, adding a judge would decide whether they would be detained further. In a separate announcement on Tuesday, prosecutors said they had arrested a fourth suspect, a 43-year-old Belgian man named as Reski A., in the case of a police stabbing in August which was claimed by Islamic State. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Dr. Ben Carson speaks before a Trump campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., in August 2016. (Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP)

In one of his few public statements on the subject of affordable housing prior to being picked to run the federal agency in charge of that housing, Dr. Ben Carson called such programs social engineering.

It is a view that worries longtime housing advocates who find themselves parsing the limited words Dr. Carson has spoken and written on the subject before the former neurosurgeon was named Monday Donald Trumps choice for secretary of housing and urban development.

The fair housing community has been hoping for a HUD appointee that would do no harm, said Erin Kemple, executive director of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center. Someone who would not try to dismantle the fair housing laws even if he didnt actively enforce them. We still hope Ben Carson could be that person, but the few things he has said raise a lot of red flags.

HUD, with its $47 billion budget, is tasked with helping five million families find rentals they can afford and with helping homeowners who are threatened with foreclosure. Under the Fair Housing Act of 1965, that mission technically includes insuring equal access to housing regardless of race, but the history of the agency is inconsistent in terms of implementing that legislation.

Under some administrations the agency was proactive against discrimination. In 1973, for instance, HUD partnered with the Justice Department to sue Trumps father, Fred, under the act, charging that blacks who applied to be tenants in his buildings were told no apartments were available, while whites were welcomed.

Seven years later, in contrast, HUD was the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the NAACP, who charged that it allowed the city of Yonkers to discriminate against residents of color by building nearly all its public housing in a ghetto-like cluster.

Since 1969, HUD has been a vehicle  sometimes ineffectual, sometimes stalled, but still a vehicle  trying haltingly to get toward a vision of housing that is free of discrimination, says Michael Sussman, the lawyer who successfully represented the NAACP in the Yonkers case. (Coincidentally, Judge Leonard B. Sand, whose ruling required Yonkers to build new housing in the white, middle-class side of town, died on Saturday, less than two days before Carsons appointment was announced.) Most recently, it has been a vehicle for good, but this appointment indicates a shift away from whatever optimism I might have felt in the past year.

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The recent progress of which Sussman speaks were two decisions during the summer of 2015 that housing advocates hailed as milestones. The first was from the Supreme Court, affirming disparate impact by ruling that municipalities can be found responsible for discrimination if the effects are separation of the races, even if that was not the intent. The second was a HUD decision known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which put teeth into existing law by saying that to receive federal housing funds, local governments must prove they are working toward desegregation.

Those two decisions led to one of Carsons few public stands on housing  an op-ed piece in the Washington Times in June 2015, criticizing both. Carson, then a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, wrote that the new standards would destroy wealthy neighborhoods by requiring they accept low-income housing, and also damage poorer neighborhoods by prohibiting funds from being spent to upgrade housing stock. He compared the policies to school busing plans of the 1970s, which resulted in white flight.

These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse, he wrote. There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.

Soon after, in an interview with an Iowa radio station, Carson criticized an HUD agreement with the city of Dubuque that would provide more housing vouchers for African-Americans moving to the area from cities like Chicago. This is just an example of what happens when we allow the government to infiltrate every part of our lives, Carson said. This is what you see in communist countries, where they have so many regulations encircling every aspect of your life that if you dont agree with them, all they have to do is pull the noose. And this is what weve got now. Every month, dozens of regulations  business, industry, academia, every aspect of our lives  so that they can control you.

Housing advocates yesterday said that Carsons public statements reflect a misunderstanding of housing law. There is no requirement that affordable housing be placed in wealthy residential neighborhoods, they said, and most of what has been built has been aimed at mixed-income urban areas, where services like transportation and access to public health clinics already exist. Similarly, the history of housing policy shows that publicly sanctioned private social engineering efforts have been with America for as long as the country has existed. In the past century, that included efforts to steer people of color to certain neighborhoods, to allow for restrictive covenants on property deeds and to refuse mortgage loans and therefore home ownership to those in the inner cities.

As for the comparison to the white flight caused by school busing, Sussman responded: Everyone doesnt leave. We saw that in Yonkers; existing homeowners didnt leave. Carsons seeming lack of knowledge of this history has deepened concerns about his lack of background in the housing sphere. On Monday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called him a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice with no relevant experience beside the fact that he lived in public housing during part of his childhood.

Sussman, for one, thinks the fact that Carson is a stranger to the field is his very appeal to the Trump administration. At Education, at HHS, even the presidency itself, were in a world where the fact that you have no experience doing something is a great qualification. Thats really the message, especially when it comes to domestic policy.

Theres no history that needs to be known, he continued. No institutional history that matters. What you are saying to people who spent their whole lives in those areas is, Your whole life, what you know, what youve learned, means nothing. They would like to undo 40 years of social policy.
Paris (AFP) - Former interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve took over as French prime minister on Tuesday, replacing Manuel Valls who has resigned to fight for the Socialist party nomination in presidential elections next year.

Valls, 54, stepped down after two and half years in office marked by a string of terror attacks, the trauma of which he said "will never leave us."

He acknowledged that his desire to run for president next year made it "impossible for me to be a candidate and prime minister at the same time" before hinting at the difficult challenges ahead.

"I understand what I have to do before the French people," he said at the prime minister's residence in central Paris where Cazeneuve was sworn in for what is expected to be a short stint in office.

Cazeneuve, 53, will essentially be a caretaker for the final six months of President Francois Hollande's troubled term in office which will end after elections in May.

Hollande, who has the worst approval ratings in nearly 60 years, has decided not to seek re-election to give his beleaguered and divided party a chance in next year's vote.

Cazeneuve insisted that "each day counts" as he pledged to work to keep France safe from the "extremely high" terror threat which he witnessed firsthand as interior minister since April 2014.

The promotion of the widely-respected austere former lawyer has led to a minor reshuffle in the cabinet, with Bruno Le Roux, leader of the Socialists in the lower house of parliament, promoted to interior minister.

- Valls under attack -

Spanish-born Valls, a centrist and pro-business moderniser, will now throw himself into campaigning for the Socialist party nomination against his more left-wing rivals.

Appealing to the party to unite, Valls declared his bid on Monday evening, saying he wanted to challenge election frontrunner Francois Fillon, from the rightwing Republicans party, as well as far-right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen.

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"We're told that Francois Fillon is the next president of the Republic. Nothing is set in stone," Valls said from the multicultural Parisian suburb of Evry.

But the twice-married football fan has alienated many in the Socialist party during his time in office and he will also need to escape the shadow of Hollande with the wider French public.

Polls currently place him fifth in the election next year if he clinches his party's nomination -- a humiliation for the Socialists which have been France's main leftwing force since World War II.

Le Pen and Fillon are far out in front in the opening round of the election on April 23, with Fillon expected to beat Le Pen in May's second round, surveys show.

Valls would crash out with 10 percent if he won the Socialist nomination -- behind former economy minister Emmanuel Macron and the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, an Ifop-Fiducial poll showed Tuesday.

He will go up against seven other candidates in the two-round Socialist party primary on January 22 and 29, including former more leftist cabinet colleagues Arnaud Montebourg and Benoit Hamon.

"His intentions as a candidate are contradicted by his acts as prime minister," Hamon said on Tuesday. "His candidacy is without doubt the most divisive there is today in the Socialist party."

The charges against Valls include his use of decrees to force through labour reforms and his call for dual-national terror convicts to be stripped of their French nationality.

His stern line on secularism and Islam has also turned off many lifelong Socialists after he declared the Islamic burkini swimsuit was "not compatible" with French values over the summer.
Stark disparities in prisoners treatment are embedded into criminal-justice systems at the city, county, state, and federal levels, and have disproportionate, negative effects on men of color. A new analysis from the Association of State Correctional Administrators and Yale Law School provides a fresh trove of information with which to explore the racial dynamics in state and federal prisonsspecifically through their findings on solitary confinement.

People of color are overrepresented in solitary confinement compared to the general prison population, said Judith Resnik, a professor at Yale Law School and one of the studys authors. In theory, if race wasnt a variable, you wouldnt see that kind of variation. You worry. It gives you a cause to worry.

The basis for the data is a 2015 survey on the use of solitary confinement in 48 jurisdictions, which represent about 96 percent of all prisoners: 45 states, the District of Columbia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Virgin Islands. Of those 48, 43 of themrepresenting 54,000 inmatesprovided the surveyors with details on race.

The study concluded that, overall, black male prisoners made up 40 percent of the total prison population in those 43 jurisdictions, but constituted 45 percent of the restricted housing population, another way to describe those in solitary confinement. In 31 of the 43, the percentage of black men who spent time in solitary wasnt proportional to their slice of the general populationit was greater. Latinos were also disproportionately represented in solitary: On the whole, 21 percent of inmates in confinement were Latino, even though this group constituted only 20 percent of the total population. Overall, in 22 of the 43 jurisdictions, Latinos were overrepresented in relation to their general-population numbers.

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At the same time, figures for white inmates were largely inverse, with 36 of the 43 jurisdictions reporting that whites were underrepresented in solitary. (Women prisoners also undergo solitary confinement, though not as frequently as their male counterparts; this article focuses on the mens data.)

The numbers look slightly different at the state level. In some states, the racial makeup of prisons and their solitary-confinement populations appeared more balancedlike in Kentucky, where white prisoners made up 70 percent of both the general and restricted-housing populations. Black prisoners represented 28 percent of those imprisoned and 27 percent of those in solitary. The dynamic is similar in the District of Columbia, with whites representing 2 percent of both the general and solitary-confinement populations, and blacks representing 90 percent and 94 percent of those groups, respectively.

By and large, similarly aligned figures can be found throughout the country. But in some states, the racial disproportions are startling.

Whether someone who is detained is exhibiting anger or insubordination is tinged by our stereotypes about that racial group.

For example, in a handful of states where Latinos represent a large swath of the overall population, the racial disparities are significant. In California, Latinos made up 42 percent of the general prison population, but 86 percent of those in solitary confinement. Whites, by contrast, were 22 percent of the general population, but only nine percent of those in solitary. And in Texas, Latinos made up 50 percent of those in solitary, but only 34 percent of the overall prison population. Yet again, whites figures were lower: They represented 32 percent of the general prison population, but 25 percent of the population in solitary confinement. Mississippi, too, had dissimilar numbers among the racial groups.

The Yale study found that in almost all responding jurisdictions, the percentage of white inmates subjected to solitary was disproportionate to their slice of the general population.

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A question that is raised by the data and not answered by the data is: Why are people being put in, [and] how constant acrosseven within a jurisdictionare the sanctions? Resnik said. Are you worried that the general social mechanisms that over-incarcerate people of color or that over-discipline young boys are going to be at work in prison? The answer from our data is yes, you should worry, now go and find out more.

Examining the racial disparities between prisoners and guards can provide insight into why there are disparities in punishment, including the use of solitary.

The influence of race on prison staffs decision-making is the subject of a paper by Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, titled Race, Prison Discipline, and the Law. Her conclusions on race include:

First, minority offenders may be more likely to be perceived as a disciplinary threat by correctional officers, regardless of an offenders actual behavior. For example, a correctional officer may be more likely to perceive contraband in a black offenders hand than in a white offenders hand. A prison guard may also decide more quickly that a black offender is a threat as compared to a white offender, leading perhaps to increased citations for black offenders. It is also possible that the threat is exaggerated for minority offenders, and therefore, minority inmates may face more serious conduct reports than their fellow white inmates for the same type of behavior.

New York is among those states with a significant racial imbalance between staff and prisoners. According to The Times Union, 85 percent of the states 30,000-strong corrections staff is white, but the majority of prisoners are people of color. Twenty-five percent of the states 56,000 prisoners are Latino, though only 3 percent of the staff belong to that group; and while only 11 percent of the staff is black, half of the states inmates identify as such. And there are significant differences in the rates of solitary confinement among blacks, whites, and Latinos in New York, The New York Times recently reported in an in-depth investigation. Blacks and Latinos were sent to solitary confinement more often and for longer intervals. At Clinton [prison]  black inmates were nearly four times as likely to be sent to isolation as whites, and they were held there for an average of 125 days, compared with 90 days for whites, the article said.

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Unclear disciplinary standards may also contribute to prisoners receiving disparate punishment, Armstrongs paper argues, because the rules are left up to individual guards interpretation. Ambiguous disciplinary rules, particularly those regulating an inmates attitude, are especially susceptible to the influence by an individual prison guards implicit racial preferences, she wrote. In these instances, raceor the perception of an individuals racecould significantly affect a guards response to a prisoner. Armstrong continued:

White and black inmates may experience differential treatment (being cited or disciplined) for insolence, even when acting identically, since a prison guard may be more likely to perceive anger from a black inmate than a white inmate.  [S]ocial cognition studies demonstrate that we perceive attitudes differently depending on our racial preferences.

Armstrong, though, differentiates between overt racismwith intentional or explicit racial stereotypes influencing disciplinary decisionsand implicit bias. Implicit racial bias is where it may be unintentional, it may be unconscious, but, nevertheless, the way that we view others is viewed through this lens of stereotype and bias, Armstrong told me in an interview, noting that bias can exist both within and between racial groups. The way that we perceive each other is tinged by race. Whether someone who is detained is exhibiting anger or insubordination is tinged by our stereotypes about that racial group.

And its not just that there may be an internalized bias that may view a minority-group member as more likely to be criminal, Armstrong continued. Its that we also see majority-group members as more likely to be innocent, and that is just as problematic. Thats because implicit bias distorts an individual level of culpability through viewing it through the lens of race.

Both Resnik and Armstrong agree that theres no one answer or solution to this complicated state of affairs. But standardizing ways to determine the appropriate punishment and use of solitary confinement could be a start. Advocates may take that suggestion further and push for addressing racial disparities by ending the use of confinement altogether. The existing race-based disparities in the use of restricted housing impact everyone in a prisons ecosystem. Its a problem for everybody, and the way to fix the problem, and fix the problem for sub-populations, is to end practices that deprive people of sensory stimuli no matter who they are, Resnik said.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
By Rinat Harash KISUFIM, Israel (Reuters) - A battalion of soldiers crawls across the desert sand with assault rifles cocked. It's a routine exercise, but these are no ordinary troops - they are Arabs who have chosen to fight for the Jewish state. While the vast majority of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are Jews - and nearly all their conflicts have been against Arab nations - a trickle of Israeli Arabs volunteer for the army. Most are Bedouin, a community native to southern Israel. But some are other Arab citizens of Israel, the descendants of Palestinians who remained during the 1948 war of the state's founding, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced from their homes by advancing Israeli troops. "Why did I decide to enlist?" asks Sergeant Yusef Salutta, a 20-year-old Arab from the north of Israel who serves with the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. The army rarely grants journalists access to the unit. "Because I'm from this country and I love the country and I want to contribute," he said. "Everyone should enlist, anybody who lives here should enlist." The military conscripts young Jewish men and women, but not Arabs. It does not report exact numbers of Arab volunteers, but officials say there are several hundred among the 175,000 active personnel. A silver Star of David necklace hung around Salutta's neck, and he chatted with fellow-soldiers in Hebrew. At a time when Israel is expanding its settlements in the West Bank and Palestinians fear they may never end up with their own state, some Israeli Arabs see volunteering for the military as betrayal. "This phenomenon, we totally reject it," said Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli-Arab member of parliament. "What could go through a person's mind when he serves against his people? We try to educate people that this is not the way." Volunteers say their families are supportive, and that they are prepared to take criticism. "I don't care about them," said Salutta. "I need to be part of the country, to be like everybody else." The head of the IDF Minorities Unit, Colonel Wajdi Sarhan, said some Israeli-Arabs saw service as a way to improve their chances in life. "(It) can get easier when you hold an Israeli soldier or reservist ID card," said Sarhan. "To be a soldier in the army, it's actually an identity certificate of Israeli-ness, which can help integration." He said some recruits faced threats and harassment at home from fellow Israeli-Arabs. In some cases, they are allowed to travel to and from military duty out of uniform. When it comes to Israel's decades-old conflict against the Palestinians, there is no question - if they are required to fight, they must. "I assume that anyone who decided to be a combat soldier in such a unit took this into consideration in advance," said Sarhan. (Writing by Luke Baker; editing by Andrew Roche)
A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, judge ruled Monday that Bill Cosbys deposition in his sexual assault accusers long-settled civil lawsuit against him can be used as evidence in his upcoming criminal trial.

Cosbys attorneys argued in November that the judge should not allow the deposition to be used in the criminal case because, they claimed, former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. promised not to prosecute the 79-year-old Cosby in exchange for his cooperation with Andrea Constands lawsuit.

In the deposition for Constands suit, conducted over four days in 2005 and 2006, Cosby admitted to having sex with teens and offering Quaaludes to women with whom he wanted to have sex.

The deposition became public in July 2015, prompting Castors successors at the DAs office to quietly re-open Constands case, and they were key in the decision to charge the comedian last December. (Constands suit was settled in 2006.)

Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Constand, a 43-year-old former Temple University employee, at his mansion in Ekins Parks, Pennsylvania, in January 2004. Cosby has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denied similar allegations from more than 50 women.

This Court concludes that there was neither an agreement nor a promise not to prosecute, only an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, memorialized by the February 17, 2005 press release, Montgomery County Judge Steven ONeill wrote in his six-page order Monday.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

This is the second time Cosbys attorneys have raised the issue of Castors alleged promise not to prosecute Cosby. It was the subject of two days of hearings in February when Castor himself took the stand. After that hearing, ONeill ruled Castors testimony was not credible and refused to dismiss the case.

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ONeill elaborated on that in Mondays order, saying there were numerous inconsistencies in Castors testimony and writings on the issue. (Castor could not be reached for comment.)

Cosbys spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, had no comment on the ruling. Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said he was happy with the judges decision to allow the deposition.

Allowing the jury to hear Mr. Cosbys deposition testimony is another step forward in this case and will aid the jury in making its determination, Steele said. Its important that we are able to present all of the evidence available, and Judge ONeills ruling allows us to make this evidence part of the upcoming trial.

Cosbys trial is scheduled to begin in June.




With less choice in the cosmetics aisle, black women have a higher risk of products with dangerous chemicals. (Photo: Getty Images)

A new report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) suggests that women of color are using more beauty products containing potentially hazardous chemicals than other consumers.

The EWGs Skin Deep database  which allows users to search products that are rated on a toxicity scale from one to 10  has added 1,177 personal-care products marketed to black women. And while the percentage of high hazard products is about the same as the general public, fewer than 25 percent of products for black women scored low (or safer) on the scale, as compared with 40 percent marketed to the general public. This suggests that theres less choice for black women, who may be buying more chemically laden products.

And while African-Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, their spending accounts for as much as 22 percent of the $42 billion personal-care products industry, according to the report, which also suggests that black women buy and use more products with potentially harmful ingredients than Americans as a whole.

In categories of hair relaxers, hair color, lipstick, concealer, foundation, and sun-protective makeup, none of the products analyzed scored as low hazard, according to the report. And the worst of the worst are all in the hair product category  relaxers, dyes, and bleachers all had average rankings at the highest risk.

The report comes as no surprise, says NiKita Wilson, cosmetic chemist and founder of Skinects V-VI, a beauty resource for women of color. Everyone is aware of the hazards of relaxers  chemical burns are real! she tells Yahoo Beauty. At the end of the day, it seems to come down to fragrance, retinyl palmitate (a derivative of vitamin A), and preservatives, along with highly irritating products like relaxers and hair dye  this report reveals the obvious, she adds.

Scientific testing on products marketed to black women has also been lacking; most of what exists has focused mainly on the two chemical hair-straightening groups of products known as relaxers and texturizers, which contain ingredients like lye that break down chemical bonds in hair so locks can be reshaped. Advocacy groups cite studies linking chemical straighteners to baldness and increased risk of noncancerous growths in the uterus; and among pregnant women, premature birth and low infant birth weight.

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Among other products like face creams, body lotions, and hair conditioners marketed to black women, the report says many show potentially harmful ingredients that mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen. While this is a common issue cited for the general population as well on the database, the EWG report points to studies that show African-Americans had higher urinary concentrations of parabens than the general population. According to the EWG, parabens are the potentially hormone-disrupting chemicals often used as preservatives in personal-care products. Again, this suggests that women of color are disproportionally exposed.

In response to the bigger social issue of the higher exposure rates of African-Americans to chemicals, from beauty products to food and the environment, organizations like Black Women for Wellness, West Harlem Environmental Action, and Womens Voices for the Earth have recently launched as both advocates and consumer resources.

Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
By Francesco Guarascio BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Most European Union finance ministers on Tuesday rejected a British-backed plan to exempt financial traders from new rules aimed at tackling practices used by multinationals to reduce their tax bills. The move is a blow to Britain's giant financial services industry and a sign that relations with EU partners are souring following June's Brexit referendum vote to leave the bloc. With a perceived inaction on tax avoidance helping fuel the growth of anti-establishment parties across Europe, EU finance ministers were keen to reach an agreement on Tuesday on tackling so-called hybrid mismatches. These are differences in national tax rules which allow multinationals to claim double tax deductions or dodge taxes on dividends. But the compromise collapsed at a meeting in Brussels after the Slovak presidency of the EU introduced exemptions for financial traders, a move strongly supported by Britain. "We have a problem," France's Finance Minister Michel Sapin said during a public session of the meeting. He said it was impossible to agree on the "exemption required by Britain for operators of the financial sector", calling it a new loophole through which to avoid the rules. Under a compromise proposal presented to ministers on Tuesday, securities traders would have been exempted from the new rules. The Slovak proposal, seen by Reuters, said this would avoid "an unacceptable and uncontrollable tax risk on market participants with negative consequences for liquidity in this market." Advocates of the exemption say that because net income from trading is taxed, individual payments raise little tax risk. But Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the exemptions granted to financial traders in the new text went beyond international requirements and were not necessary. British Finance Minister Philip Hammond, making a rare appearance at the monthly meeting of EU finance ministers, said the compromise was "proportionate". The proposals are part of a wider plan to reduce corporate tax avoidance in the EU, which has become a priority after the leaked Panama Papers and other revelations about the scale of global tax dodging by multinationals and wealthy individuals. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a deal was important to counter growing populism and said he was ready to agree on the compromise proposed by the Slovaks. Ministers had previously set a year-end deadline to reach a deal. But many other ministers called for favouring "quality over speed" and urged more talks. The discussions will continue next year under the new Maltese presidency of the EU. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Catherine Evans)
The body of a woman who vanished while jogging on a Florida beach has been discovered and her husband, whom family claims she had left prior to her disappearance, has been arrested.

Federal officials confirmed that previously unidentified remains found alongside a remote highway in Tennessee are those of 44-year-old Rachael Madison.

Read: 19-Year-Old Woman Lets Boyfriend Suck Her Blood, Then Stabs Him Repeatedly: Cops

In a Volusia County police report following her disappearance in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Madison's aunt, Thelma Newsom, told cops her niece had fled an abusive relationship.

On Friday morning, Jarvis Madison was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Kentucky on an Indiana warrant unrelated to his wife's death.

Newsom claimed in the police report that Mr. Jarvis called his wife just 30 minutes before she went out jogging, according to People magazine.

"Information gathered in the subsequent investigation led teams of investigators from the FBI Louisville Division and the Indiana State Police to a remote area off I-40 near Knoxville, Tennessee, where the remains were found Friday evening," the FBI said in a statement Saturday.

On Monday, those remains were positively identified as Mrs. Madison's.

Read: After Being Abandoned, 'Vampire Cat' finds Home with Woman Who Battled Depression

"The thoughts and prayers of everyone in the FBI are with Ms. Madisons family, and we remain committed to finding answers through our ongoing investigation," said Charles P. Spencer of the FBI's Jacksonville Division.

Madison faces a charge of criminal confinement, which carries a bond of $15,000 with full extradition, according to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

The couple have no known home address and were believed to be homeless and living between motels in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Madison had not been charged in Volusia County.

Watch: Mom of Daughter Drugged and Killed on 10th Birthday Sought Men to Rape Her

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(Releads with hopes for Trump presidency giving a boost to the U.S. market)

By Alexander Cornwell

DUBAI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S President-elect Donald Trump could give the business jet market a much needed boost after a "tough" 2016, Boeing Business Jets President David Longridge said in Dubai on Tuesday.

The international property tycoon has his own private fleet, including a Boeing 757, which he used to criss-cross the United States during the presidential campaign.

Longridge believes Trump's use of private aircraft could encourage other business owners to do likewise and help the industry that is often associated with the ultra-rich and came under fire in President Barack Obama's first term of office.

In 2013 Obama proposed stretching a depreciation tax-break schedule for corporate jets from five years to seven years. Business jet makers objected, saying it would be damaging for the industry. Obama has not changed the depreciation tax-break on corporate jets and is unlikely to do so before his term ends in January.

"Donald Trump is a lot more open about his use of business aviation than I think it's fair to say any previous U.S. president we've had, he said at press conference. "I can't help but think, and maybe this is the optimistic in me, that bodes well for us as an industry."

Longridge's comments were made less than two hours before Trump called on the government to cancel the purchase of Boeing's new Air Force One plane on Tuesday, saying it was "ridiculous" and too expensive.

"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!" Trump said in a Twitter message.

Boeing has not yet been awarded the money to build the two proposed Air Force One replacements and is currently working on engineering and designing the aircraft.

Boeing is forecasting a recovery in its business jet business over the next two years after sales more than halved this year to three aircraft, all narrow-bodies. This compares to 10, including four wide-bodies, in 2015 and 14 jets in 2014, Boeing Business Jet Vice President Jeff Dunn told Reuters.

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Boeing Business Jets (BBJ), which sells variants of Boeing aircraft for the corporate jet market, blames a more than halving of sales this year on the uncertainty created by Britain's Brexit vote and U.S. Presidential election.

"Now the elections are over and Brexit is decided we're starting to see things pick up," Longridge said. "I think over the next two years we'll go back to the kind of six to eight airplanes that we saw more regularly in the past four years," he said.

Boeing has campaigns open for three to four business jets though is unlikely to close those deals before Dec. 31, Longridge said. He later told Reuters 2016 was likely to be the low point for BBJ in terms of sales since the 2009 global financial crisis.

Boeing's business jet division, which competes with commercial jets rival Airbus's Corporate Jets arm, accounts for a fraction of the company's total aircraft sales and deliveries. It delivered four dedicated models of narrow-body BBJ jets plus an unspecified number of wide-body jets for private customers in 2015, out of 762 total jetliner deliveries that year.

Longridge on Tuesday announced Asia-Pacific-based Orient Global Aviation as the first customer of the recently announced BBJ 737 MAX 7 aircraft.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Doina Chiacu and Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Jane Merriman, Greg Mahlich)
Donald Trump declared Tuesday morning that the Air Force should cancel its contract with Boeing to build two new presidential airplanes, asserting that the agreement had a $4 billion price tag.

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! the president-elect tweeted.

Its not clear how Trump, who frequently tweets exaggerated or baseless claims, arrived at that number. Reuters, citing budget documents, reported that the budgeted costs for the Air Force One replacement program are $2.87 billion for the fiscal years 2015 through 2021.

The aircraft manufacturing company issued a statement clarifying that it is currently under contract for $170 million to determine the capabilities of the new aircraft.

We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States. We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer.

This preliminary process is expected to determine the ultimate cost that the forthcoming Air Force One aircraft will cost taxpayers.

Well, the plane is totally out of control, Trump told reporters in Trump Tower. Its going to be over $4 billion for the Air Force One program. And I think its ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.

An Air Force One aircraft at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Jason Miller, Trumps communications director, further told reporters that Trumps tweet really speaks to the president-elects focus on keeping costs down across the board with regard to government spending.

He continued: I think people are really frustrated with some of the big price tags that are coming out for programs even in addition to this one. So were going to look for areas where we can keep costs down and look for ways where we can save money.

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The full details of the new contract have not yet been released, but some of the costs can be attributed to the high-end security and communications demands of a roaming commander in chief.

A president needs the ability to travel anywhere on the planet quickly and with little notice. The aircraft has unlimited range because it is capable of refueling while airborne. The jet can function as a mobile command center if the U.S. is under attack. It contains sophisticated, secure communications equipment and onboard electronics that can protect against electromagnetic pulses.

The term Air Force One can be used to describe any aircraft carrying the president, but since the mid-20th century, it became associated with jets specifically equipped for the president. Now the term refers to one of two modified Boeing 747-200B series aircraft.

We have many decades of productive relationships with presidential administrations from both political parties and I would expect that we will reach the same point with the Trump administration, Todd Blecher, a spokesman for Boeing, told Yahoo News.

Aboard Air Force One, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said there are unique technical requirements for the project to ensure that future presidents have upgraded capabilities while representing the United States abroad.

As for Trumps tweet, Earnest said, Id refer to my colleagues at the Department of Defense for the particulars of the procurement contract. Some on the statistics that have been, uh, cited, shall we say, dont appear to reflect the nature of the financial agreement between Boeing and the Department of Defense, according to a pool report.

He said that the current Air Force One is nearing the end of its projected life and that future presidents should have a modern presidential aircraft.

A profile on the White Houses website says Air Force One is operated by the Presidential Airlift Group, founded during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. The group is part of the White House Military Office.

Air Force One is one of the most recognizable symbols of the presidency, spawning countless references not just in American culture but across the world, the website reads. Emblazoned with the words United States of America, the American flag, and the Seal of the President of the United States, it is an undeniable presence wherever it flies.

Kevin W. Buckley, an executive officer at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson in Ohio, told the Dayton Daily News that its become harder to keep Air Force One airborne now that the aircraft are reaching to end of their 30-year life expectancies.

The real challenge, and the challenge that is forcing us to buy newer aircraft for the president, is to overcome the fact that there are heroics going on every day to keep the current aircraft flying and its becoming way too expensive and way too difficult to do that, he said to the paper.

According to the Associated Press, the new Air Force One planes would go into use around 2024, so Trump would not use them to travel around the world unless he won a second term.

Donald Trump arrives in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York to speak to members of the media, Dec. 6, 2016. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)

Trump does have plenty of familiarity with Boeings products. While campaigning, he crisscrossed the country in a private Boeing 757 with his last name emblazoned on the sides. As with all things bearing his name, Trump has praised his private jet as being the best of its kind.

The Trump Organization released a video gushing about the planes Rolls Royce engine, 24-carat gold-plated seat belts and luxury amenities.

Back in January 2013, Trump tweeted that he was buying stock in Boeing after it had gone way down. At the time, the Boeing 787 Dreamliners lithium batteries were a widely reported problem.

@Boeing stock went way down because of 787  so I just bought stock in @Boeing  great company! he wrote.

His comments Tuesday seemed to have knocked that stock price down some, but his net worth apparently wont be affected. The president-elect sold all of his stock back in June, Miller, Trumps spokesman, told Yahoo News on a conference call with reporters.

Additional reporting by Hunter Walker.
(Adds Petrobras comment)

SAO PAULO, Dec 5 (Reuters) - A Brazilian federal court issued an injunction to block the sale of the fuels distribution unit of state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) after a request by workers, according to the court's press office.

Petrobras is looking to sell a stake in BR Distribuidora, Brazil's largest fuel distribution company, as part of a divestment program that aims to raise cash to reduce its large debt load.

Members of an oil workers union in the northern state of Sergipe asked the court to block the sale process, arguing that Petrobras should hold a public tender to sell the stake in the subsidiary instead of the current private negotiation.

Federal Judge Edmilson da Silva Pimenta decided in favor of the request. The order can be appealed.

BR Distribuidora is one of the most coveted assets put up for sale by Petrobras. It operates more than 7,000 filling stations across Brazil.

Petrobras said later on Monday that the sale process is being conducted in a way to guarantee extensive competition and that it plans to appeal the court's decision.

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira and Roberto Samora; Editing by Daniel Flynn and James Dalgleish)
Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's Senate on Tuesday rejected a judge's order to suspend its speaker who faces trial for alleged embezzlement in a scandal that threatens to destabilize President Michel Temer.

The chamber's governing panel said it would keep speaker Renan Calheiros in his post until a full session of all 11 judges in the Supreme Court rules on whether he should be suspended.

"Removing the speaker of the Senate from his post nine days before the end of his term... through a monocratic decision... even in Brazil, democracy does not deserve such a fate," Calheiros told reporters after meeting with the panel.

Supreme court judge Marco Aurelio Mello on Monday ordered the suspension of Calheiros, 61, the third-most-powerful official in Brazil.

That decision deepened the political drama in Brazil, worsening the outlook for Temer as he struggles to lift Latin America's biggest economy out of crisis.

It threatened to derail his legislation for a cap on public spending.

Calheiros's allies in the Senate filed an appeal at the Supreme Court on Tuesday arguing that his suspension poses "an enormous risk to the normal functioning of legislative work."

The full Supreme Court said it would decide Wednesday whether to uphold or reject the speaker's suspension.

The court last week ordered Calheiros to face trial on embezzlement charges. He has denied accusations he used public money to make support payments to a woman with whom he had a child.

In a separate case, Calheiros is among numerous top politicians including an ex-president and lawmakers accused of helping steal billions from the state oil firm Petrobras.

Calheiros had tried unsuccessfully last week to push through an urgent reform that would challenge judges' powers to investigate corruption.

Temer went from vice president to president this year when he and Calheiros drove proceedings that saw Brazil's previous president, Dilma Rousseff, impeached for fiddling with government books.

Although Temer has not been formally investigated himself over the Petrobras scandal, it has forced the resignation of several of his ministers.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's Senate will only decide on the voting schedule for key legislation after the Supreme Court decides whether to uphold an earlier ruling to remove the head of the upper house, senator Jorge Viana said on Tuesday. Viana would take over the presidency of the Senate if the plenary of the court removes Renan Calheiros on Wednesday. The leftist senator from the jungle state of Acre is a member of the Workers' Party, which opposes austerity reforms proposed by President Michel Temer. (Reporting by Marcela Ayres; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
BRASILIA (Reuters) - The leader of the Brazilian government in Congress, Romero Juca, said on Monday that the Senate will go ahead with a scheduled vote on a key spending cap proposal next week even after the surprise removal of the head of the upper house. A Supreme Court judge earlier on Monday decided to remove the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, who was indicted last week by the top court on charges of embezzlement, a court spokesman said. (Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Writing by Alonso Soto; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
By Anthony Boadle and Alonso Soto BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's Supreme Court on Monday removed Senator Renan Calheiros as president of the Senate after the top court indicted him last week on charges of embezzlement, a court spokesman said, a move that could put the government's belt-tightening agenda in peril. His replacement on Tuesday by Senator Jorge Vianna of the leftist Workers Party, who opposes spending cuts, could block steps to control a widening budget deficit and recoup confidence in Latin America's largest economy mired in a deep recession. Justice Marco Aurelio de Mello removed Calheiros based on a majority ruling by the high court last month that any person indicted for a crime could not be in the presidential line of succession. The head of the Senate is the second in line after the speaker of the lower house, as Brazil does not have a vice president at the moment. The judge's ruling must be put to the full court, which is expected to uphold the injunction on Wednesday since six of its 11 justices favored the new presidential succession rule. The removal of Calheiros was a new blow for President Michel Temer whose six-month-old government has been weakened by corruption scandals as it strives to push through unpopular austerity measures, including a cap on federal spending that is scheduled to be put to a final vote in the Senate on Dec. 13. "The injunction is terrible news for Temer because it puts the spending ceiling at risk given that the deputy leader of the Senate is from the Workers Party," said Leonardo Barreto, head of Brasilia-based political consultancy Factual. "This can delay the final vote and send the wrong signal to markets," he said. Calheiros declined to comment on the decision but his office said he would step down on Tuesday morning when he is officially notified, at which point Vianna, the vice president of the upper chamber, becomes leader until Senate elections in February. The Workers Party quickly said the fiscal measures should be delayed until the new session next year. "How can we vote for this explosive agenda in the climate of instability in which no one knows who is in command of the Senate," Workers Party Senator Paulo Paim said. Calheiros was indicted Dec. 1 on charges of misusing public funds in a nine-year-old case involving child support for a daughter he had in an extramarital affair, including billing the Senate for car rentals with false contracts. The change of leadership in the Senate comes at a crucial moment for Temer's efforts to pass austerity measures through Congress to restore fiscal discipline to Brazil's overdrawn government accounts. The government's leader in Congress, Senator Romero Juca, said the removal of Calheiros would not alter plans for the Dec. 13 vote on the 20-year spending cap, the key measure in Temer's plan to rein in a widening budget deficit. But the uncertainty is expected to rattle investors who are looking for signs that Brazil is putting its books in order before they decide to invest in the country again. Brazil lost its investment-grade credit rating last year due to the fiscal deficit run up by the Workers Party government of impeached President Dilma Rousseff, who was replaced by Temer in May. The fall of Calheiros was a question of time because he faces 11 corruption investigations, most of them related to the massive bribery and kickback scandal centered on state-run oil company Petrobras. The ousting of Calheiros was welcomed by some of his peers who were critical of his attempts to curtail the work of prosecutors in the Petrobras scandal. "It was deeply unsettling for all of us to have an indicted person as leader," said Senator Ricardo Ferraco of centrist PSDB party. "This is timely and will clean things up." (Additional reporting by Eduardo Simoes and Marcelo Teixeira in Sao Paulo; Editing by Diane Craft and Lisa Shumaker)
By Paulo Prada

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - When Michel Temer took over Brazil's presidency in May, many hoped he could overcome the political gridlock, corruption scandals and economic obstacles that have hobbled Latin America's biggest country.

But seven months into the job, Brazil's problems look just as intractable as they did when Temer and his Congressional allies orchestrated the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, his predecessor.

Like a sequel to her administration, Temer's is already beset by scandal, an unwieldy legislature and an economy that risks entering a third year of recession.

Instead of hope and change, after 13 years of increasingly feckless government by the leftist Workers Party, even those who enabled Temer's ascent fear more of the same.

"We already have a crisis of confidence as bad as it was with Dilma," says Cristovam Buarque, a veteran senator scorned by fellow leftists for supporting Rousseff's impeachment. "There is no indication the country has a way out of this mess."

A quick fix would be rare in Brazil's chaotic, multiparty democracy.

After all, Temer, as vice president, was part of Rousseff's administration and, critics say, helped create the mess. His Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), a shapeshifting mix of conservatives and pork-barrel centrists, was a key part of the Workers Party coalition.

And Temer, a backroom dealmaker who calls his specialty "arbitrating conflict," is not the commandeering, inspirational savior that many Brazilians crave.

"This is someone known for accommodation, not for leading with ideas, certainty and strength," says Rafael Cortez, a political scientist at Tendencias, a Sao Paulo consulting firm.

The president and his aides say they remain confident they can pull Brazil from the morass. But many Brazilians are growing impatient, with memories fresh of an economic boom that preceded the Rousseff administration.

The recession is proving relentless, pushing unemployment toward a 12 percent level unseen in over a decade.

Story continues

Last week, government data showed the economy contracted for a seventh consecutive quarter. Confidence is so low - and wallets so bare - that businesses are not investing and consumers are not spending.

If federal finances were not hurting enough, with the deficit this year expected to equal 10 percent of the economy as tax revenues plummet, Temer recently agreed to help troubled state governments. Several of these are so bankrupt they will likely need full-fledged bailouts.

FISCAL CRISIS, MESSY POLITICS

To make way for future growth, Temer has bet on two measures economists have long argued would make Brazil more efficient: a constitutional amendment to limit government spending and an overhaul of the costly social security system.

Even if they are passed quickly - which is far from certain amid political tumult that threatens to derail a Senate vote on the spending cap - the measures will provide little immediate relief.

"There is a horrendous fiscal crisis ahead and the government has only been thinking about the medium- and the long-term," says Monica de Bolle, a Brazilian economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

She is one of a few to have suggested Temer consider tapping the International Monetary Fund - anathema to some in a country that during the boom took pride in weaning itself off decades of foreign assistance.

"The government is going to need cash and it doesn't make sense to just sit, wait and hope," de Bolle added.

The messy political situation is compounded by growing tension between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Temer recently lost his fourth minister to graft allegations.

On Monday, the Supreme Court stripped the Senate presidency from Renan Calheiros, a party colleague of Temer's, after indicting him on corruption charges. His replacement, a Workers Party stalwart, is expected to delay the spending-cap vote.

The lower house, rattled by a plea bargain deal by employees of engineering firm Odebrecht SA that could implicate dozens of lawmakers in a kickback scandal, disgusted Brazil last week by passing a bill meant to intimidate judges and prosecutors.

Combined, the troubles have undermined confidence further.

Local stocks and Brazil's currency, the real, are trading well below peaks reached after a post-impeachment boom.

The Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, on Monday raised its probability to 20 percent that Temer will not finish his term, citing growing unrest and possible fallout from the kickback probe, which could touch Temer himself.

Having gone through one traumatic ouster, few Brazilians are eager for another aborted administration. Even if Temer is unpopular, with approval ratings mired at around 14 percent, some see no benefit in his failure.

"We have to hope for improvement," says Rogerio Chequer, a Sao Paulo businessman who leads Vem Pra Rua, a conservative group that organized street protests in recent years. "We need economic development, we need better politics and we need a way out of this deadlock." (Reporting by Paulo Prada; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Marguerita Choy)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that the 18 months the EU's chief negotiator has set for concluding talks with Britain to leave the bloc should be "absolutely ample". "I think that with a fair wind and everybody acting in a positive and compromising mood, and I am sure they will, we can get a great deal for the UK and for the rest of Europe within that time frame," Johnson told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday. "I see no reason why not, at all. That time frame seems to me to be absolutely ample," he continued. Michel Barnier, giving a first news conference on Tuesday after two months in office, said the two-year deadline for final withdrawal fixed in Article 50 of the EU treaty meant there would be less than 18 months to run negotiations themselves. (Reporting by Robin Emmott, writing by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Robert-Jan Bartunek)
Earlier in the night, the Spurs forgot to guard Giannis Antetokounmpo and he made them pay. This must have given Gregg Popovich an idea for a play that led to one of his players getting a wide open dunk, because my goodness, did Jonathan Simmons bring the hammer down on Milwaukee.

The Spurs had Nicolas Laprovittola take the ball out of bounds. Simmons somehow shook his man and had a wide open path to the hoop, so Laprovittola tossed the ball towards the rim from behind the basket, Simmons grabbed it with one hand, and he finished with authority.

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Simmons scored six points in San Antonios 97-96 win over Milwaukee. Getting the win was definitely nice, but for Simmons, it was probably a little nicer knowing that he dang near levitated and rocked the rim like this.
LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May's government will have to put forward a parliamentary bill if it loses a Supreme Court case over whether it can begin Brexit talks without lawmakers' approval, a government lawyer said on Tuesday.

"It would require not just parliamentary involvement ... but primary legislation," lawyer James Eadie told the Supreme Court.

"The reason it requires primary legislation is (because) you are being asked to declare ... unlawful the exercise of the prerogative power to give Article 50 notice as the first step in the process."

The government is appealing to the Supreme Court against a High Court ruling last month that it could not invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which begins a two-year exit process from the European Union, without parliamentary assent.

(Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Estelle Shirbon)
By Noor Zainab Hussain and Huw Jones

(Reuters) - Britain's financial watchdog has joined other European regulators in a crackdown on financial spread betting, a fast-growing 3.5 billion pound ($4.5 billion) industry where most retail investors lose money.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it had found evidence of poor conduct across the market over the past six years and that people using the most popular financial betting product - known as a contract for difference (CFD) - lost 2,200 pounds ($2,805) a year on average.

"We have serious concerns that an increasing number of retail clients are trading in CFD products without an adequate understanding of the risks involved," the FCA's Executive Director of Strategy and Competition Christopher Woolard said.

Shares in Britain's major financial betting firms lost more than a quarter of their value on Tuesday and lawyers said the FCA proposals were much tougher than expected.

IG Group, which has 40 percent of Britain's financial spread betting active accounts, fell more than 30 percent, making it the biggest loser across major European stocks. Rivals CMC Markets and Plus500 posted similar falls.

In recent months, France has moved to ban digital advertising of CFDs and the Netherlands is considering a similar measure, Belgium has banned CFD trading and Germany could "intervene shortly", Numis analysts said, highlighting the regulatory risks faced by the sector.

The spread betting industry in Britain has grown rapidly and there are about 125,000 retail customers in the country trading CFDs. There are 97 CFD firms authorised by the FCA, double the number six years ago, and they also serve some 400,000 retail clients outside Britain. Another 130 firms, mainly based in Cyprus, offer CFDs to clients in Britain.

CFDs let investors bet on both the direction a share price, currency or other financial product will move, and the extent of the change in price, and there is no stamp duty.

Story continues

The industry is regulated by European Union rules which have no caps on leverage. That means investors can take out bets that are far larger than their initial outlay, offering greater potential returns but also running the risk of huge losses.

LEVERAGE CAP

The FCA wants to split the retail CFD market into two categories: people with little experience and more experienced investors. Under the first category, the exposure taken on must not be greater than 25 times the initial outlay, and it would be capped at 50 times for the second group. Under current rules, some firms have been offering leverage of up to 500:1.

The watchdog also wants to ban "bonuses" to entice new investors. It wants the measures in place by mid 2017 and believes they will reduce losses for retail investors by 20 percent to 40 percent.

Lawyers said the FCA was taking a very protectionist approach as many retail investors probably understood the risks.

"This is less an example of 'conduct regulation', rather, 'product intervention', and this will come as a shock to the UK industry, which received detailed briefings from the FCA earlier in this year where this was not indicated," said Jake Green, a regulation partner at law firm Ashurst.

IG Group said some of the FCA's proposals could "enhance client outcomes" but noted they did not appear to apply directly to firms outside Britain offering CFDs.

CMC Markets said it already focused on "higher-value", experienced clients who understood the products. Plus500 said the proposed measures would affect about a fifth of its revenue.

Cyprus's financial regulator CySEC issued a warning last week to retail currency brokers registered on the island over their use of bonus schemes to encourage trading in risky products and their poor treatment of clients.

"FCA seems to be imposing more penal rules than the Cypriot regulator last week ... This will result in a much smaller, less profitable CFD and spread betting industry," said Liberum analysts.

The FCA also said it would look at new rules for binary options - a product that lets people take a position on a price movement in a fixed time frame - once it assumes regulatory responsibility for them from the UK's Gambling Commission.

(For a Reuters special report on binary options, click on: http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/israel-investing-binary/)

($1 = 0.7844 pounds)

(Reporting by Huw Jones in London and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; editing by Louise Heavens and David Clarke)
LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The British government could put forward a one-line bill to give it the authority to trigger formal European Union divorce talks should it lose a Supreme Court fight over who can start the Brexit process, a government lawyer said on Tuesday.

"If the Supreme Court decides against our arguments here then the solution in legal terms is a one-line act," government lawyer James Eadie told the Supreme Court, Britain's highest judicial body.

"Maybe that would lead to all sorts of parliamentary complication and possible additions and amendments and so on, but that's the solution."

The government is appealing to the Supreme Court against a High Court ruling last month that it could not invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which allows a country to leave the EU without parliamentary assent.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she intends to trigger Article 50 by the end of March but if the government loses its appeal, the matter would have to be submitted for lawmakers' approval which could delay the process and derail her Brexit strategy.

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
* Government outlines its case to trigger EU divorce

* Challengers say parliament must give assent first (Updates with new quotes after end of day's hearing)

By Michael Holden and Estelle Shirbon

LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The British government will need to put forward a new law to trigger formal divorce talks with the European Union if it loses a legal battle over who can start the Brexit process, the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday.

The government is appealing against a ruling last month that it needs parliament's assent to invoke Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the first formal step towards Brexit, as opposed to using an executive power known as the prerogative to do so.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she intends to trigger Article 50 by the end of March, and the government's fear is that going through parliament could disrupt her timetable and give lawmakers opportunities to water down its Brexit plans.

Senior government lawyer James Eadie told the Supreme Court that if it upheld the earlier ruling, ministers would have to put forward a new parliamentary bill to trigger Article 50.

"It would require not just parliamentary involvement ... but primary legislation," Eadie told the 11 justices on day two of a four-day appeal hearing.

He also said the new bill could be just a one-line piece of legislation: "If the Supreme Court decides against our arguments here then the solution in legal terms is a one-line act.

"Maybe that would lead to all sorts of parliamentary complication and possible additions and amendments and so on, but that's the solution."

PARLIAMENT V MINISTERS

The government announced on Tuesday it had accepted the opposition Labour Party's call for it to set out its plans for Brexit before formal talks, while asking parliament to respect its timetable.

Britons voted for Brexit by 52 to 48 percent and the government has said this mandated it to begin the divorce process using the prerogative power.

But its position has been challenged in court on the grounds that only parliament can remove rights granted by a parliamentary act in 1972 which paved the way for Britain to join what is now the EU.

Story continues

"Parliament did not intend that what it had created could be nullified by a minister exercising a prerogative," David Pannick, a lawyer for the lead claimant in the case against the government, told the Supreme Court.

Markets take the view that greater involvement by parliament would reduce the risk of a "hard Brexit". The pound hit a two-month high against the dollar on Tuesday as investors bet the challengers would win in the Supreme Court.

The hearing continues until Thursday and the verdict is expected in January.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)
By Anjuli Davies LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's financial services sector contributed a record 71.4 billion pounds in taxes last year, highlighting the potentially big impact of the country's vote to leave the European Union, according to the City of London Corporation. There is growing speculation that banks based in Britain will lose their rights to sell services freely across the EU once the country exits the now 28-nation bloc, prompting some to relocate to the continent. The total tax contribution from the financial services sector for the period to March 31, 2016 increased 7.4 percent from the previous year to the highest amount since the survey, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the City of London Corporation, began nine years ago. The tax take, which accounted for 11.5 percent of total UK government tax receipts, was driven in part by an increase in the amount of bank levy paid by banks and a rise in corporation tax payments, the survey found. This included collecting 28.8 billion in "taxes borne" - such as corporation tax and national insurance contributions - and 42.6 billion in "taxes collected" - which are the taxes of employees collected by the company and paid to the government. Employment taxes remained the largest component, accounting for 47.8 percent of the total tax take, with each of the over 1.1 million employees in the sector contributing on average 32,000 pounds. "In light of the UKs decision to leave the EU, these new findings not only demonstrate the significant contribution made to government revenues, but are also key in helping us to understand the potential impact of Brexit on different sub-sectors within financial services," said Mark Boleat, Policy Chairman at the City of London Corporation. Some large banks who use London to run their EU operations have said they could start moving staff as early as 2017 if there is no clarity on whether Britain will retain access to the European single market. Although it was the highest amount paid since the report began nine years ago, as a percentage of government receipts, the 11.5 percent figure is lower than the record 13.9 percent estimated in 2007 before the financial crisis erupted, reflecting in part the job losses that ensued. In total, 50 financial services companies, including banks and insurers, provided data on their UK tax payments for the 2016 study and together they employed 41.4 percent of the total employees in the sector. (Reporting by Anjuli Davies; editibg by Mark Heinrich)
By Kit Rees and Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's mid-caps underperformed blue-chip peers on Tuesday, as spreadbetting firms' stocks tumbled after regulators announced a planned crackdown on some of their products.

Britain's financial watchdog proposed tougher rules for retail financial spread betting products known as "contracts for difference" (CFDs) after finding that 82 percent of customers using them lost money.

Mid-caps CMC Markets (CMCX.L) and IG Group (IGG.L) both dropped more than 37 percent, while Plus500 (PLUSP.L) fell 28 percent.

"This is negative  period - and CMC Markets and IG Group  the two that operate to the highest standards in the industry in our opinion  are collateral damage," RBS analysts said in a note.

The British mid-cap FTSE 250 (.FTMC) was down 0.1 percent, while the FTSE 100 (.FTSE) was up 0.5 percent at its close.

The blue chips were supported by a rally in bank stocks. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), Barclays (BARC.L) and HSBC (HSBA.L) were the top gainers on the index, all up between 4.4 to 5.7 percent.

Traders cited Morgan Stanley's upgrade on HSBC to "equal-weight" from "underweight".

"Our key concerns  necessity for capital build and tepid revenue outlook  are dissipating," analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a note, adding that, if HSBC's revenue growth was to pick up, the stock could do well.

The mining and oil sectors, however, were among the biggest weights on the FTSE 100, as copper and Brent crude prices eased back.

Oil prices retreated as crude output rose in virtually every major export region despite plans by OPEC and Russia to cut production, triggering fears that a fuel glut that has dogged markets for more than two years might last well into 2017.

Meanwhile, strong month-long rallies for industrial equipment hire company Ashtead (AHT.L) and heating and plumbing supplier Wolseley (WOS.L) stalled.

Ashtead was up just 1 percent, despite early gains on the back of results at the upper end of expectations, and Wolseley gained only 0.9 percent after forecasting annual profit in line with expectations. [nL4N1E12OQ]

Story continues

Both sets of results were accompanied by bullish statements on the strength of U.S. growth, a factor investors have already priced in.

The stocks are up 28 percent and 14 percent respectively from lows touched after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, having rallied strongly on hopes of an increase in U.S. infrastructure spending.

Mid-cap Drax (DRX.L) surged more than 12 percent after it said it plans to buy Opus Energy for 340 million pounds.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Kit Rees; editing by Richard Lough)
By Patrick Graham and Alasdair Pal

LONDON (Reuters) - A British clampdown on retail trading platforms prompted warnings among industry players and investors on Tuesday that some smaller firms may not be able to sustain their business under the new stricter rules.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) placed limits on the leverage which can be offered to individual investors betting on currency and other asset prices, knocking more than a third off the market values of larger players IG Group (IGG.L) and CMC Markets (CMCX.L)..

The FCA said that on average 82 percent of individual clients lose money. Those losses tend to translate into quick and easy gains for the firms and may fall if investors post relatively higher deposits behind trades.

"Given the prices quoted, the costs of the business, advertising bans in certain key countries, for some marginal players this (change in regulation) will sound the death-knell," said David Woolcock, .

That in turn might also have a knock-on affect on bigger players, some of whom provide technology to or take clients or trades from smaller rivals.

"If people are more informed in plain language, and realise that there are real dangers, it will deter some people. There is going to be a hit there," Woolcock said.

Despite the market reaction, some welcomed the FCA's action, with IG saying it might enhance the outcomes for clients.

A risk manager with another large broker told Reuters it was not clear whether revenues would fall because clients would now be trading for longer before losing their deposits.

Marco Baggioli, head of brokerage at Abu Dhabi-owned ADS Securities, said that the FCA was protecting the industry, unlike in some European jurisdictions and reducing the leverage to 1:50 was "very healthy". Some retail customers are currently being offered more than 1:200.

"Volumes will drop for a few months and then people will come back and they will have more diversified portfolios," Baggioli said.

Story continues

Dozens of small individual investors were effectively bankrupted by losses last year when the Swiss National Bank suddenly removed its longstanding ceiling on the franc, prompting regulators to look at the market.

A number of traders allege they were not treated fairly by brokers, while others have complained about their treatment by some of the dozens of brokers registered in Cyprus.

Cypriot regulator CySEC announced its own clampdown on some brokers' behaviour last week.

"It is the first volley in a closer look at the industry," said Jacob Ma-Weaver of hedge fund Cable Car Capital, which has a short position in Plus500 (PLUS.L), whose shares fell by 28 percent on Tuesday.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)
Dubai (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May is to meet Gulf leaders who on Tuesday opened their annual summit in Bahrain, for talks on trade ties after Britain leaves the European Union.

King Salman of Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia opened the summit with a call for "doubling of efforts" to face regional challenges.

May is expected to meet the leaders later Tuesday before addressing the summit on Wednesday, when she will become the first British premier and the first woman to attend the annual gathering of the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Defence ties are also expected to be high on the agenda as Britain builds a new naval base in Bahrain, while advocacy groups have urged May to raise human rights concerns.

May's two-day visit comes as her government faces mounting domestic criticism that it has not done enough to avoid post-Brexit disruption to British trade, which is currently carried out under EU agreements.

"I will have the opportunity to talk to all six leaders about how we can develop our trade relationship, as well as cooperation on security and defence," May said before arriving in Manama late on Monday.

Her office said May will discuss possibilities for post-Brexit free trade arrangements with the GCC states -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf," the British premier said.

- Naval base -

Ahead of the summit, May on Tuesday met King Salman, Bahrain's King Hamad, the emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

In October last year, Britain began building a naval base at Mina Salman, outside Manama, its first new permanent base in the Middle East in four decades.

May told 300 Royal Navy officers aboard HMS Ocean that she wanted to "step up our defence and security cooperation to keep British citizens safe at home and abroad".

Story continues

Britain's force already stationed in Bahrain was "a clear demonstration of the UK's enduring security commitment to the Gulf", she said.

Western ties with Bahrain, however, have come under criticism from international human rights groups.

Bahrain's Sunni minority rulers have cracked down on dissent since they crushed protests in 2011 led by the Shiite majority for a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

The main Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, once the largest in parliament, has been dissolved and scores of Shiites have been stripped of their citizenship.

Amnesty International said Monday the summit gave May a "unique opportunity to raise concerns over a pattern of recurring human rights violations throughout the region".

"In recent years across the Gulf we have seen human rights activists, peaceful political opponents and government critics systematically targeted in the name of security," said Randa Habib, the London-based watchdog's Middle East and North Africa director.

"It is high time for allies of the GCC to stop putting business and security cooperation before human rights, and Theresa May must not squander this opportunity to raise key rights issues," she added.
Photo credit: Photo: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel; Design: Luca Roncoroni

From ELLE DECOR

Ice-sculpted suites carved with glistening artwork? An ice bar with champagne at the ready? No, this isn't the hideout of some mysterious James Bond villain (remember that Ice Palace from "Die Another Day"?).

It's Sweden's Icehotel, just 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Since 1989, the icy retreat has reinvented itself 27 times, melting each spring into the nearby Torne River from which it was made.

Now a new 2,100-square-meter permanent additionfittingly named Icehotel 365is open to the public and will remain open year-round even as the rest of the structure starts to melt come spring.

The classic Icehotel, welcoming around 50,000 guests a year, as well as its 365 counterpart are both built in the winter using a mixture of snow and ice, also known as "snice," made of the water from the Torne.

For 365, the snice is attached onto the walls and inside the roofs to give the suites the same feeling as the original structure, the hotel's creative director Arne Bergh tells Conde Nast Traveler.

In the summer, Icehotel 365 will continue to keep guests cool thanks to Mother Nature and some eco-friendly technology - namely, solar panels used to harvest the energy from the roughly 100 consecutive days of sunlight that occurs over Jukkasjarvi, the Swedish village where the hotel is based. That energy, in turn, is used to power the refrigerating plant that keeps Icehotel 365 cool as temperatures outside warm up. Neat, right?

But don't let the cold temps scare you away. While the new building keeps a temperature around minus five degrees Celsius (or 23 degrees Fahrenheit), the Icehotel provides guests with expedition-style sleeping bags to stay nice and toasty at night.

A loan of warm outer clothing (snowsuit, boots, gloves and balaclava) is also included in your stay, though it's recommended you pack thermal underwear, breathable layers, plenty of socks and a warm hat.

In addition to the ice bar and an ice gallery, the year-round structure also features 20 suitesall hand-carved by some 40 select artists from across the globe. Bonus: Each of the 9 deluxe suites features a private, heated bathroom and a sauna.

Story continues

Check out more photos of the phenomenal interior below.

Photo credit: Photo Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

Photo credit: Asaf Kliger/Icehotel

h/t: designboom

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Frank Cooper, who is leaving as BuzzFeeds chief marketing officer at the end of 2016 after a year and a half at the company, has been hired by asset-management firm BlackRock in the same capacity.

Prior to joining BuzzFeed in June 2015, Cooper was CMO at PepsiCo, where he had worked for more than 12 years, and had previously served as VP of interactive marketing at AOL.

Cooper will join New York-based BlackRock in January as senior managing director and CMO, reporting to CEO Larry Fink. In a memo from Fink to the companys staff, according to the Wall Street Journal, the chief exec cited Coopers experience using new marketing technologies to help organizations  from global consumer companies to technology startups  to drive growth.

BlackRocks previous global head of marketing and communications, Linda Robinson, is moving into a vice chairman role.

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CACI International Inc.CACI, a defense and intelligence information technology company based in Arlington, VA, was recently awarded a five-year contract worth approximately $1.77 billion. Per the deal, the company will offeranalytical operations, integrated intelligence, and training services to the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO).CACI has a history of providing is expertise and solutions to various government agencies around the world. This contract will boost its goodwill, which will help the company win more such contracts in the near future.

The deal will help the company strengthen its foothold in the Intelligence Services market.

CACI has worked with JIDO and its predecessor organizations for about 10 years, due to which it understands the critical needs of the latter. Per the contract, CACI will support JIDOs critical Focused Support/Decisive Effort mission by assisting the joint forces in integrating capabilities, technologies, and processes to help defeat enemy networks worldwide.

CACI will provide time-sensitive support and sophisticated intelligence technologies that will enable safety and help the combatant commands stay ahead of complex and increasing threats.

Per a report by Research and Markets, the estimated global threat intelligence security market size is expected to be worth $5,860.5 million by 2020, with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 14.3% between 2015 and 2020. Such contracts will enable the company improve its top line, going ahead.

On the back of continuous contract wins, CACI significantly outperformed the Zacks categorized Computer Services industry with an average return of 30.4% compared with 1.1% for the latter, over a period of 90 days. In addition, over the same time frame, earnings estimates for the current year increased by 0.32%. This estimate trend was been impacted by the companys organic growth, which looks promising.

CACI remains focused on the federal government marketplace and capturing more market share. The company intends to drive operational excellence by intensively focusing on its organic and inorganic growth strategy and strengthening its existing customer relationships while building newer ones. In addition, it anticipates benefiting significantly from its cost-reduction program.

Story continues

CACI currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include CSG Systems International Inc. CSGS, Ebix Inc. EBIX and WidePoint Corporation WYY, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

CSG Systems has beaten estimates in all the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 24.9%.



Ebix has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 10% and has beaten estimates in all the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 15%.



WidePoint has beaten estimates in all the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 37.5%.

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By Stephen Grey and Amina Ismail CAIRO (Reuters) - In Egypt, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been the target of bitter criticism and even violent protest this year. Protests at the agency's Cairo headquarters  including one man setting himself on fire  have been led by Oromos, the single biggest ethnic group in Ethiopia. The Oromos say the UNHCR  which by agreement with the Egyptian government has responsibility for determining asylum applications in Egypt  has routinely rejected their asylum claims. The Oromos claim the UN agency has been hostile to their allegations of discrimination, persecution and even torture by the government of Ethiopia. Protests and a government crackdown in Ethiopia have left 140 (the government estimate) or 314 (Human Rights Watch) dead since July and pushed thousands of people to flee the country. UNHCR said the criticism is unfounded. It conceded there had been delays to processing applications but said those were caused by a shortage of resources. It was "absolutely not true to say we reject everyone," said Tariq Argaz, a UNHCR spokesman. Nevertheless, an increasing number of Oromos in Cairo have tried to get to Europe this year. Almost half of the estimated 150 Ethiopians who drowned in a sinking on April 9 joined the voyage straight from the UNHCR protest, according to relatives and survivors, who said the UN agency effectively pushed them to risk the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. "We have come to feel in Cairo, it is Europe or death!" said Arafat Abdulrahman, an Oromo who lost several friends in the April disaster. He set off for Italy himself and arrived safely in July. SELF IMMOLATION Muaz Mahmud, the Oromo migrant who lost his wife Duniya and their two-month-old baby in the shipwreck, is furious with the UN. "If our case had been taken seriously we would have waited for the UN to make a decision," he said. "We wouldn't have dared to leave. But we lost hope." Mahmud, 25, said he fled Ethiopia after being arrested for protesting. He said police had tortured him with electric shocks. "'You don't have the right to speak,'" he said they told him. "'If you want to be silent and live silently, you go ahead and live silently.'" Mohammed Seid, public relations director of Ethiopia's Office for Government Communications Affairs, said no law-abiding citizens had reason to fear the government. "Ethiopia is governed by rules," he said. "Opposition activity that is not criminal in nature, or does not involve violence, is not illegal in Ethiopia." Seid said that Oromos who make it to Europe or the United States often lie to win asylum. "In their bid to find shelter, or be handed green cards, residency status or have their asylum bids accepted, any pretext is claimed," he said. "But the main reason is economic ... Traffickers lure them through false promises of easy wealth." In late April, UNHCR in Cairo agreed to work with Oromo groups to resolve the growing dispute there. But 40 or so refugees remained camped outside the agency's office. In July, Getu Ayana, 26, doused himself with petrol and lit a match. Another migrant, Asli Nure, tried to put out the flames. Her clothes caught alight, and both died. According to other Oromos, the self-immolation was in protest at the high number of rejected asylum claims. Argaz, the UNHCR spokesman, said staff helped get the two medical attention. He said every refugee application is treated on its merits and processed in a transparent and fair way. Abdo Mohamed, chairman of the Oromo Sons Refugee Association in Cairo, said frustrations remains. "The UNHCR have promised to work on this issue but they are still rejecting people," he said. (Edited by Simon Robinson)
A California police department came under fire for using a fake news release in an anti-gang operation. Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin reportedly defended the action, calling it necessary to protect the lives of two men from a gang that wanted to kill them.

The police was reportedly criticized for using the tactic that could undermine the department and its trust with the public. The sting operation carried out by the police came to light as news organizations tried to set the record straight, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

"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," Martin said.

Kendra Martinez, news director at KSBY-TV, told AP she was "deeply troubled" that the police misled the public. "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 added.

Last week, the fictional news release was found by the Santa Maria Times in court documents. The original story was reported nearly 10 months ago by local newspapers and television stations.

In the fake press release, police said two cousins  22-year-old Jose Santos Melendez and 23-year-old Jose Marino Melendez  were detained on charges of identity theft. Police also reportedly said the two were handed over to immigration authorities.

This false report was part of the department's surveillance operation on a gang called MS-13. While listening to MS-13 conversations through wire tapes, the police learned the Melendez cousins, members of a rival gang, were targeted for murder, AP reported.

Authorities took the cousins into protective custody, and later released the fake news to deceive the MS-13 assassins. When the suspects returned the cousins' house to look for them, police eavesdropped on a phone conversation and heard the alleged assassins talking about news reports of the arrests.

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Martin said the investigation, called Operation Matador, eventually led to the arrest of 17 gang members on charges related to 10 murders.

It was a moral and ethical decision, and I stand by it, Martin said. 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.

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Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's caribou population has reached "all-time low" levels, particularly in the eastern Arctic, where the animal was classified as endangered Monday along with the monarch butterfly, according to a committee of scientific experts.

"Caribou are, sadly, very sensitive to human disturbances, and we are disturbing caribou more and more," Justina Ray said in a report by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (Cosewic).

"These stressors seem to be interacting in complicated ways with rapid warming in the North," she added.

"Many of the great northern caribou herds have now fallen to all-time lows, and there is cause for concern that they will not rebound in the same way they have before," according to the committee responsible for making recommendations to the government on the status of wildlife at risk.

Cosewic studied two populations of caribou: the tundra herd -- which it considers "threatened" -- and the rarer Torngat Mountain caribou in far northeastern Canada, which it assessed at an even higher risk -- "endangered." The latter is facing "imminent" destruction or extinction.

The causes of the caribou's decline include encroachment of its habitat by forestry and mining, and global warming, which is more pronounced in the Arctic.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in October expressed alarm over the decline of Canadian caribou herds over the past three decades.

Cosewic also classified the monarch butterfly, another migratory species, as endangered. The committee said that the "remarkably tiny wintering grounds where monarchs congregate continue to be chipped away by habitat loss."

The insects travel 4,000 kilometers from Canada to Mexico each fall to escape the snow. The report calls for conservation of its habitat in Canada, along its migratory path through the United States and critical overwintering areas in Mexico.

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"Otherwise, monarch migration may disappear, and Canada may lose this iconic species," it concluded.

In June, 200 American, Mexican and Canadian academics, scientists and artists wrote to the leaders of the three countries calling for banning mining and illegal logging in the Mexican reserve where monarchs spend the winter.

They also demanded a ban on the use of pesticides on plots where milkweed grows to preserve the only plant Monarch caterpillars eat.

The committee pointed to a particularly destructive herbicide used on genetically modified corn and soybean crops.
(Adds quote from minister, background, comments by prime minister, aboriginal leader)

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Canada's natural resources minister on Tuesday apologized for remarks he made about anti-oil pipeline protests that some people interpreted as a threat to use troops against demonstrators.

Jim Carr, speaking after Ottawa approved Kinder Morgan Inc's plans to build a crude pipeline, said last Thursday that in case of violent protests the government would keep people safe "through its defense forces, through its police forces."

Opposition legislators accused Carr, a member of the Liberal government, of using reckless and incendiary language.

Environmental and aboriginal groups vow to do all they can to oppose the Kinder Morgan bid to more than double the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline to the Pacific Coast from Alberta's oil sands.

"I didn't choose my words carefully last week and I regret that," Carr told reporters on Tuesday. Carr said Canada had a tradition of tolerating and embracing dissent.

"It was not meant to conjure up images or to bring up bad memories for any community ... I am fully confident that Canadians will be peaceful in the way in which they express themselves on this and other decisions."

Use of the military to deal with indigenous protests is a sensitive topic in Canada. In 1990, after a high-profile land dispute between the Quebec town of Oka and a group of Mohawks turned violent, soldiers were sent in to end the confrontation.

Carr declined to draw comparisons between any future protests against Trans Mountain and a stand-off in the United States, where a coalition of activists has been demonstrating against a proposed oil pipeline in North Dakota.

Separately, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Assembly of First Nations (AFN )- an umbrella group of Canada's 634 indigenous bands - that he was proud of Carr's apology "for his unfortunate comment."

AFN chief Perry Bellegarde said that given Carr had said sorry, it was time to move on.

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"We don't want another 1990. That doesn't get anybody anywhere," he told reporters.

Although Kinder Morgan plans to start construction in September 2017, members of the ruling Liberal Party said the company is likely to face a series of protracted court challenges before it can dig.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Grant McCool and Steve Orlofsky)
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's natural resources minister on Tuesday apologized for remarks he made about anti-oil pipeline protests that some people interpreted as a threat to use troops against demonstrators. Jim Carr, speaking after Ottawa approved Kinder Morgan Inc's plans to build a crude pipeline, said last Thursday that in case of violent protests the government would keep people safe "through its defense forces, through its police forces." Opposition legislators accused Carr, a member of the Liberal government, of using reckless and incendiary language. Environmental and aboriginal groups vow to do all they can to oppose the Kinder Morgan bid to more than double the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline to the Pacific Coast from Alberta's oil sands. "I didn't choose my words carefully last week and I regret that," Carr told reporters on Tuesday. Carr said Canada had a tradition of tolerating and embracing dissent. "It was not meant to conjure up images or to bring up bad memories for any community ... I am fully confident that Canadians will be peaceful in the way in which they express themselves on this and other decisions." Use of the military to deal with indigenous protests is a sensitive topic in Canada. In 1990, after a high-profile land dispute between the Quebec town of Oka and a group of Mohawks turned violent, soldiers were sent in to end the confrontation. Carr declined to draw comparisons between any future protests against Trans Mountain and a stand-off in the United States, where a coalition of activists has been demonstrating against a proposed oil pipeline in North Dakota. Separately, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Assembly of First Nations (AFN )- an umbrella group of Canada's 634 indigenous bands - that he was proud of Carr's apology "for his unfortunate comment." AFN chief Perry Bellegarde said that given Carr had said sorry, it was time to move on. "We don't want another 1990. That doesn't get anybody anywhere," he told reporters. Although Kinder Morgan plans to start construction in September 2017, members of the ruling Liberal Party said the company is likely to face a series of protracted court challenges before it can dig. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Grant McCool and Steve Orlofsky)
Furthering its reputation as an example to follow among wealthy nations, Canada has vowed to help alleviate the pressure on Lebanon caused by the ongoing refugee crisis in war-torn Syria. In a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart in the Middle East country Monday, Canadas Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion pledged 8 million Canadian dollars ($6 million) in security, defense and stabilization assistance.

As well as boosting efforts to prevent the expansion of the Islamic State, much of that aid will go toward supporting Lebanon in its housing of Syrian refugees.

Canada and Lebanon have a strong and deeply rooted relationship, and our two countries continue to work closely together to achieve peace, security and stability in the Middle East, Dion said. We hope Canadas support will help Lebanon and its host communities build resilience and cope with the ongoing crisis in the region.

Around five million Syrians have fled the country since the war began almost six years ago. Lebanon has borne the largest burden in terms of refugees taken in per capita. The country houses more than 1.5 million refugees, which equates to 183 per 1,000 inhabitants, according to a report released in October by Amnesty International. Speaking alongside Dion, Lebanons Foreign Affairs Minister Gebran Bassil said that the cost of the refugee crisis to Lebanon had reached $13 billion.

The United States, in comparison, has taken in just 10,000 Syrian refugees.

Syrian refugees Lebanon

Photo: Reuters/Ali Hashisho

The Amnesty International report was sharply critical of the efforts of the worlds wealthiest countries to help combat the crisis. However, it reserved special praise for Canada.

Canadas response to the Syrian crisis thus far shows that with leadership and vision, states can resettle large numbers of refugees in a timely manner, it said.

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Since Justin Trudeau took office as Canadas prime minister in November 2015, the country has welcomed almost 36,000 refugees from Syria. A year ago, Trudeau was at Torontos airport to personally greet the first batch of refugees arriving from Beirut.

However, even Trudeau has conceded that Canada can still do more. Responding to criticisms over the lack of efficiency in providing information to refugees, Trudeau said Friday that "we have to make significant improvements in the immigration system.

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Ottawa (AFP) - Canada posted a Can$1.1 billion (US$827 million) trade deficit in October, stepping back from a record shortfall the previous month, the government statistical agency said Tuesday.

The figure beat analysts' predictions of Can$2.1 billion after a record deficit in September, which was revised upward to Can$4.4 billion.

Imports in the month fell 6.3 percent to Can$44.7 billion while exports rose 0.5 percent to Can$43.6 billion.

Statistics Canada noted a large decline in imports in October relative to the previous month because a one-time shipment of an oil platform from South Korea intended for the Hebron offshore oil project had boosted last month's total figures.

There were lower imports from Algeria and Saudi Arabia in October, while imports from China and Switzerland rose.

Oil imports were lower, coinciding with scheduled maintainance work at eastern Canada refineries.

Canada, however, imported more communications and audio and video equipment, including more cell phones from China and Vietnam.

Higher exports of energy products and motor vehicles and parts, meanwhile, were partially offset by lower exports of consumer goods and aircraft and other transportation equipment and parts.

Energy exports increased for an eighth consecutive month, due to higher oil prices and more shipments of coal to India, Taiwan and the Netherlands.

Exports of passenger cars and light trucks were also up.

Canada also exported fewer pharmaceutical and medicinals products, and aircraft, while shipping more boats abroad (a record Can$349 million) mostly to Saudi Arabia.

Canada's trade surplus with the United States, its largest trading partner, widened from Can$2.5 billion in September to Can$3.0 billion in October, led by higher crude shipments.
What's the only thing more irresistible than Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tearing up upon hearing a Syrian refugee tell the story of the day he was welcomed into Canada.

During a round table with Syrian refugees and sponsors last week, Trudeau got emotional listening to gynecologist Vanig Garabedian recall his first moments in his new homeland, CBC reports.

"When we landed at Pearson airport, and the very first person we shook hands [with] was the prime minister," Garabedian said, and Trudeau immediately lost it.

"When I met Mr. Prime Minister at that moment, he said two words: 'Welcome home.' So imagine you are living in a war zone, you are leaving your home and you are welcomed by two words: welcome home," Garabedian continued. "So my memories of that moment went back to Syria before war, our life, our happiness there, and the horrible moments we went through during war. So I felt myself that I'm proud to be here."

Trudeau personally welcomed Garabedian and other Syrian refugees who had arrived on a plane en route to Toronto from Beirut, Lebanon last December.

[READ: People aren't happy about Trudeau's Castro eulogy.]

He told CBC that greeting them in person was important because the Syrian refugee program was "something I knew that all of Canada was involved in, that making the commitment to bring over 25,000 and more Syrian refugees was something that the government couldn't do on its own."

He added, "Watching you and your girls walk through this airport towards me was a moment in which I understood just the kinds of things that we can do as a country and that I get to help this country do."

You can follow Rachel Dicker on Twitter or reach her at rdicker@usnews.com.
Cannes is, without question, the years most important showcase for international film, calling attention to masters and emerging voices alike  so its no surprise to learn that 13 of the 85 films competing in this years Oscar foreign-language race made their world premieres at the festival (one, Colombias Alias Maria, in 2015).

Of course, the Oscars would like to be a similarly prestigious honor, but theres a fundamental flaw to the Academys method: Instead of going out and doing the work to find the best, it takes each countrys word on it, relying on local selection committees to submit one film for consideration (which explains how Brazils Little Secret was picked over the more politically controversial, Cannes-proven Aquarius).

Still, for all the Oscar categorys flaws, it would be a mistake to dismiss the winner and look to the Palme dOr as the years definitive foreign film award. The latter is a highly political prize, chosen by a jury of nine, and it represents only the festivals official competition, which is heavily weighted to established auteurs.

If Spains Pedro Almodovar has a new film (as he did this year, with the Oscar-submitted Julieta), it will premiere in competition, or not at all. Whereas a discovery such as Egyptian helmer Mohamad Diabs Clash, a claustrophobic drama in which a handful of peaceful demonstrators are thrown into a paddy wagon with violent members of the Muslim Brotherhood, debuted in the festivals Un Certain Regard section. So did Singapores Apprentice, a classically styled critique of the countrys death penalty (its unfussy approach suggests late-career Clint Eastwood) from relative newcomer Boo Junfeng.

Such distinctions can be confusing to those who have never attended Cannes. The point is that official competition consists of perhaps 20 movies, mostly from known directors, while the festival as a whole represents the full range of filmmaking experience.

Naturally, the younger directors tend to take greater creative risks. Canadian enfant terrible Xavier Dolan, 27, is a bold and brazen talent still struggling to find his voice, and his latest, Its Only the End of the World, pitches its emotional premise  an HIV-positive man returns home to break the news to his family  at a melodramatic extreme. Dolan took a chance with this borderline-histrionic approach and his courage is to be commended.

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Similarly, Chilean director Pablo Larrain (just 40, and already Oscar-nominated for No) delivers a dizzyingly sophisticated look at fugitive poet Pablo Neruda, on the run from an oppressive dictatorial regime, in Neruda. The fact that he also managed to direct Jackie in the same year is a testament to his astonishing energy and artistic range.

Arguably Cannes most exciting 2016 discovery, German director Maren Ade defies conventional filmmaking rules in her deliriously funny, piercingly observant human comedy Toni Erdmann, about a workaholic young woman whose practical-joker dad threatens to disrupt an important business deal. Composed of a series of long, seemingly shaggy set pieces, the wildly unpredictable film is in fact precisely calibrated to reveal its characters and the pain of their long estrangement.

While its exciting to see fledgling directors trying new techniques, thats not to suggest that the veterans have necessarily become complacent. Granted, during his punk early phase, a young Almodovar probably would have rolled his eyes at Julietas politesse, and yet theres still a radical aspect to the films nonlinear narrative and profound identification with its female protagonist.

Sieranevada, the lastest from the godfather of the Romanian New Wave, Cristi Puiu, may be consistent with his own naturalistic observational style (as seen in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu), but it remains defiantly opposed to classical narrative conventions. Likewise, Irans Asghar Farhadi (who won an Oscar for A Separation) stripped back his budget to make the perceptive moral drama The Salesman. Its undeniably a Farhadi movie, one that doesnt even try to hide his background in theater (his main characters are stage actors), and yet, he expects audiences to do the heavy lifting.

Most fascinating among the older auteurs from this years festival, Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven subverts his own master grasp of genre filmmaking with French selection Elle, in which Isabelle Huppert plays a rape survivor whose reaction defies cliche.

Though styled to look like a conventional commercial thriller, the tricky film delivers a sharp meta-textual critique of precisely the sort of sexual objectification

of which Verhoeven has been accused by past detractors.

The trouble is, whether their directors are previously known or not, Cannes films tend to be more challenging than much of the pablum submitted by other countries (though there is fine work from other festivals as well, including Danis Tanovics Berlin-launched Death in Sarajevo and Sundance prize winner Sand Storm from Israeli director Elite Zexer). Still, the Academy members who actually have time to screen all the movies eligible for the foreign-language Oscar understandably (if somewhat ignominiously) gravitate toward more mainstream fare, in which the directors reputation is less a factor than how the movie makes them feel.

Its a known problem for Academy governor Mark Johnson, chair of the foreign-language branch, whose executive committee selects three films to the shortlist, but bigger issues remain (such as the fact that 2016 was a strong year for Romanian cinema, and Cristian Mungius Graduation isnt even eligible, or the fact that Elle  directed by a Dutch filmmaker  renders several other strong French contenders ineligible).

Johnson and his team try to reevaluate the category every year, but the system remains outdated. I think were on the verge of doing something radical. Its sort of inevitable, he hinted recently. In the meantime, it remains a greater honor to be selected by Cannes than submitted by your home country for a foreign-language Oscar.

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Cara Delevingne looks like a completely different person at the Chanel show

Just days after the Victorias Secret Fashion Show stormed Paris for its annual runway show, Karl Lagerfeld moved in for Chanels annual show honoring the beauty and charm of Parisian culture. Lagerfeld took over the newly reopened Ritz Hotel in Paris  which was famously the home of brand founder Coco Chanel for nearly three decades  for the Chanel 2016 Metiers DArt runway show.

To honor the city, Lagerfeld brought some of his favorite muses, including Cara Delevingne and Lily-Rose Depp, walking in her first show.

And instead of using a traditional runway, The models wove around tables mimicking Parisian sidewalk cafes.

"Chanel Collection des Metiers d'Art 2016/17 : Paris Cosmopolite" : Show At Hotel Ritz

Delevingne reportedly opened the show, wearing a stunning ivory/cream colored tweed suit with coral accent flowers in her hair. She later returned (and transformed) in a beautiful black and gold matching dress and coat, still rocking the coral flowers in her hair.

Despite having previously announced that she was retiring from her career as a runway model to focus on her acting, it appears that Delevingne couldnt stay away from Lagerfelds world, having recently modeled for the brand earlier this year.

<> on December 6, 2016 in Paris, France.

Lagerfeld said of Delevingne in an interview with The Sunday Times earlier this year, Shes the Charlie Chaplin of the fashion world. She is kind of genius, like a character out of a silent movie. I would see her better in a silent movie than a talkie because she over-accents the movement. Girls admire her like they used to Kate Moss. They all want to be as free as her.

While modeling in the Chanel shows may just be Delevingne taking a brief hiatus from retirement, its so good to see her back in action.

The post Cara Delevingne looks like a completely different person at the Chanel show appeared first on HelloGiggles.
[Photo: Instagram/pharrell]

With the fanfare surrounding the Victorias Secret fashion show, its easy to miss Chanels annual Metiers dArt show.

Held today at the Ritz Paris, the dramatic show masterminded by Karl Lagerfeld saw a whole host of famous faces take to the tweed-filled runway.

A video posted by FASHION TO MAX official (@fashiontomax) on Dec 6, 2016 at 4:46am PST

After supposedly quitting last summer, Cara Delevingne made her catwalk return, dancing around the tables and accidentally knocking into a guest.

A video posted by Virginie Mouzat (@virginiemouzat) on Dec 6, 2016 at 4:40am PST

Chanel campaign star Lily-Rose Depp also made an appearance wearing sequin-encrusted light and dark looks.

A video posted by Virginie Mouzat (@virginiemouzat) on Dec 6, 2016 at 4:36am PST

Other star walkers included Pharrell Williams, Georgia May Jagger and Sofia Richie as well as 7-year-old Hudson Kroenig  who has appeared in every Chanel show since he was a toddler.

[Photos: Instagram/chanelofficial]

The collection featured Chanels signature tweeds and skirt suits along with more modern inclusions such as a puffer coat and a sequinned suit sure to be seen on a red carpet soon.

Cara Delevingne hits back at claims she was too bloated for Victorias Secret show

A history of Chanel No.5 ads: From Lily-Rose Depp to Nicole Kidman
By David Lewis and Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - The task of preventing Democratic Republic of Congos political crisis from spiraling into fresh conflict falls to the countrys Catholic Church, one of the few institutions to emerge from decades of turmoil with its credibility intact. The role as mediator of last resort illustrates the clout of the Church in Congo  home to some 30 million faithful  where Catholic leaders have long gone beyond their pastoral duties to fill the void left by an absent state, providing healthcare and schooling, and promoting human rights and democracy. In October, Congos President Joseph Kabila appeared to have secured the backing of regional leaders for an African Union-mediated deal with some opposition leaders to remain in power until April 2018, a year and a half after his second and last term in office ends. However, heavyweight rivals such as veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and millionaire businessman Moise Katumbi boycotted the process, insisting Kabila step aside this month. Diplomatic and political sources said neighboring leaders delivered a clear message to Kabila in private at a summit in Angola  seek help from CENCO, the Catholic Bishops Conference in Congo, to get more rivals on board, or risk major unrest. "No one is better positioned today to be the honest broker. Not the discredited AU, nor the West," said Pascal Kambale, a Congolese human rights lawyer working for the Open Society Foundations. Since then, Congos bishops have spent a month shuttling between rival camps in a bid to bridge the gap between those who signed the Oct. 18 AU-backed deal and those holding out. CENCO is in a race to secure a deal ahead of Dec. 19, the official deadline for Kabila to leave power. Citing a ruling in May by Congos highest court, Kabilas camp says the president can remain in office until a new president is elected. Opposition leaders, and many on the streets of Kinshasa, the fiercely anti-Kabila capital, say he must give way to an interim administration. Tension is ramping up, with hard-line opposition supporters threatening protests, and Kabilas camp, in return, accusing them of preparing insurrection. United Nations peacekeepers have shifted some troops to the city in anticipation of trouble and many expatriates are temporarily moving families abroad. Tom Perriello, the United States special envoy to the region and one of the strongest international voices calling for Kabila to respect the constitution, told Congress last week CENCOs mediation was the best chance of avoiding wide-scale violence but warned it was working on "borrowed time". CENCO issued a statement on Dec. 2 cautioning that the gap between the sides remained wide despite weeks of talks, with issues ranging from the basic interpretation of respecting the constitution to the timing and financing of elections. "The situation is critical," it said. "CENCO ... calls on all sides to show responsibility and good will to prevent our country from slipping into an uncontrollable situation. May the Virgin Mary intervene for our people and our country." LEOPOLD TO MOBUTU When King Leopold II ran Congo as a private fiefdom, he depended heavily on the Catholic Church to help administer the vast territory. In return, the Church was free to evangelize. Under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, efforts to replace legacies of colonial rule with local culture saw the Churchs authority challenged, but economic crisis and mismanagement meant Catholics still substituted for the state in many places, providing education and healthcare to millions. In the 1990s, the Church took a more active role politics, challenging Mobutu as well as playing a leading role in a national dialogue with similarities to the present political process. In 1992, security forces opened fire on a Catholic-led pro-democracy protest, killing at least 20 people. Keen to maintain a healthy relationship with the Church, Congo signed a bilateral treaty with the Vatican this year that will return property confiscated under Mobutu, give the Church customs exemptions and shield the Church from government. In Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Congo has one of the most senior African bishops advising the Pope on reforms of the Catholic Church. Like the Pope, the Vatican's ambassador to Kinshasa is an Argentine and the pair are close, diplomats say. "Kabila doesnt want to be seen to be on the wrong side of the Church," a Kinshasa-based diplomat told Reuters. For all its clout, however, the Catholic Church has long trod carefully in the minefield of Congolese politics. On the one side, it has been prepared to take a firm line tackling corruption and standing up for democracy and human rights. But it has also found itself reined in and seeking compromise. This is in part due to internal divisions but also down to fears of being blamed for violence or hijacked by opposition leaders riding on its broad following. Never has this been clearer than during the 2011 elections, when CENCO's network of 30,000 observers gave it the best-informed view of the vote. After Kabila was declared winner, the Church called for the results to be corrected. Kambale said CENCO was deeply divided, with many bishops keen to publish results that would have challenged the official tally but leaders from the east against the idea. "In the end, they decided that the unity of the church was more important than the truth. I think they are now agonizing over this," he said. POPE DIRECT WITH KABILA By 2014, a number of pro-Kabila politicians were floating the idea of tinkering with the constitution to allow the president to stay in power. While visiting the Vatican, Congos Catholic bishops issued an open letter against any such initiative. As Mobutu did before him, Kabilas government accused the bishops of straying beyond their ecclesiastical role and pandering to foreign influences. When it became clear this years elections would be delayed, Catholic leaders planned a major march for February 2016 to remember those killed in 1992. In the end, CENCO called it off, officially due to concerns the event would be hijacked by politicians. Pressure from Rome also played a role, according to the diplomat. "They were reined in as they were seen to be too close to the opposition." CENCO supported the AU-mediated talks but pulled out after security forces killed dozens of protesters in September. CENCO then also called for the deal to be renegotiated to make it more inclusive and clarify that Kabila cannot stand for re-election. Soon after the deaths, Kabila, an Anglican, flew to Rome. The Pope was "direct and chilly", a senior Vatican source told Reuters, adding: "The Pope told him to follow your constitution and do things that are in the best interests of your people". Diplomats say CENCO has secured some concessions in talks, including opposition recognition that Kabila could remain in power until the delayed vote, but blockages remain over when it would be held and the lack of a clear statement from Kabila not to engineer a possible re-election. The U.N. Security Council issued a statement on Monday supporting CENCO's efforts and opposition leaders have said they are open to further talks to break the deadlock. However, there have been mixed messages from Kabila's side. Kabila met CENCO for the first time on Monday and his office said he was fully supportive of CENCO's efforts. Over the weekend, though, Kabila's political coalition had said it believed CENCO's initiative had failed and no more time should be wasted. "Kabila's camp is still convinced that they can repress anything on the streets and keep on going," an official close to the CENCO mediation effort said, asking not to be named. (Additional reporting by Phil Pullella in Rome and Michelle Nichols in New York; editing by Peter Graff)
Pink and husband Carey Hart may be keeping the sex of baby number two a surprise, but Hart says hes hoping for a boy on delivery day.

We got one princess, so hopefully well have a little guy coming, the retired motorcycle racer, 41, told PEOPLE Saturday at the opening of his new Hart & Huntington Tattoo Shop in Nashville. I dont want any competition for my daughter.

He adds, Im nervous for what its going to be.

Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter.

The musician, 37, took to Instagram in November to announce that shes expecting her second child with Hart, captioning the post Surprise!

Pink and her motocross husband are already parents to 5-year-old daughter Willow Sage, whose sex was kept a surprise until delivery day as well.

Its been a while since weve had a baby around the house, says Hart. Its going to be really fun.

Soon-to-be big sister Willow is over the moon to welcome the new baby, as shes been talking about having a sibling since she was 3 years old.

Shes been talking about how she wants a baby sister, says Hart. She built a bicycle for him or her. So were going to finish it up after number two shows up.

Hart shared the moment she decided to re-build the bike for her new sibling on his Instagram account, writing, So proud of this lil girl today.

Explains the proud dad, She tore the bike all apart and after number two shows up, shes going to decide the colors that she wants to do for it. I told her, Look, he or she is not going to be able to use it for a while  but theyll be ready for it. 

Willow has been practicing other duties, like changing diapers, and Hart thinks shell be a great big sister  that is, until they become competition, like all siblings.

He says, Right now, shes very excited, until they start taking her toys and breaking her stuff, and then well see how it goes.

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Though the pair still has a couple months to go until the baby arrives, Harts shop opening in Nashville will be the last travel trip for a while.

Harts Nashville shop joins his locations in Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida and Niagara Falls, New York, to give people a really fun experience while coming to get inked.

Typically, its a really bad experience, says Hart. I remember when I first started getting heavily tattooed, you would show up to these places with really harsh lighting, really bad customer service  it wasnt a great experience. So we wanted to be very first-timer friendly.

As to whether Hart got a tattoo to commemorate the launch, he jokes, Unfortunately, the only space I have left is my face and my head. I asked permission to get a tattoo on my face and wifey shot me down.

And since Pink is now on the no-fly list due to her pregnancy, the couple expects to have a really mellow holiday season this year.

This will be the first year that we get to stay home, Hart says. Typically, well travel to see my wifes family. Its nice just to be able to stay home this year.

He says the day will include a lot of relaxing and occasionally hanging out with friends.

This is probably going to be the last calm Christmas for a while due to more kids and career and travel and all that stuff, so were just going to try to enjoy it and be nice and quiet.

Whether the baby ends up being a boy or girl, Hart says, I just want a healthy baby. Thats all I care about.




A few years ago, a group of Iowa Republicans claimed the legitimate 13th Amendment to the Constitution was missing. The debate is part of a historical detective story with some surprising twists that is still taking place.

The Daily Beast did a fairly extensive feature on the missing amendment in 2010, which didnt feature a cloaked Freemason stealing the amendment because it had a secret treasure map printed on it.

Instead, the debate between historians and conspiracy buffs is about an amendment that was almost ratified in 1812 that would have been the 13th Amendment, bumping back the current 13th Amendmentwhich was ratified on this day in 1865 and abolished slaveryto the position of the 14th Amendment.

Writer Jerry Adlers 2010 explanation of the Thirteenthers controversy is pretty detailed and covers both sides of the issuewhich isnt new but got a big burst of publicity thanks to the Iowa GOPs 2010 platform.

The Iowa Republicans didnt want the current 13th Amendment banned; they just wanted the original one reintroduced for approval. That missing proposal was called the Titles of Nobility Amendment (or TONA). It sought to ban any American citizen from receiving any foreign title of nobility or receiving foreign favors, such as a pension, without congressional approval. The penalty was loss of citizenship.

It was an extension of Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, which doesnt allow a public office holder to receive a foreign title or similar honors without the consent of Congress.

Today, the idea of a constitutional controversy about the royals may seem kind of silly, but in 1812, the United States was fighting the British and had a rocky relationship with France. The fear of both nations using noble titles as bribes, along with pensions from a foreign government, was persistent. And both the Senate and the House easily passed the TONA and passed it on to the states. By late 1812, a total of 12 states had approved the 13th Amendment and ironically, it needed a 13th state to become ratified. As the War of 1812 escalated, the TONA faded away as an issue and was never ratified.

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Or so we think.

In the 1980s, Adler says a researcher started finding copies of the Constitution from the pre-Civil War era that had TONA listed as the 13th Amendment. The premise was that Virginias legislature had approved the amendment in 1819, but somehow, it was never listed as accepted by the federal government. Further research revealed that President James Monroe asked his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, to confirm that the TONA was never ratified, which he did.

A law journal article from 1999 by Jol A. Silversmith, an attorney, explains how the TONA appeared in widely published versions of the Constitution for more than 30 years, including the official United States Statutes at Large (an official compilation of laws published by the government in 1815). His well-documented article of the missing amendment has more than 200 footnotes and a lot of interesting stories about how the Founding Fathers couldnt keep track of new amendments they had just passed.

As the story goes, the editor of the 1815 book of statutes, John Colvin, couldnt determine if the TONA amendment has been ratified, so he included it in the book with an explanatory note. Then, an official version of the Constitution was given to Congressional members that included the TONA as the 13th Amendment, as an apparent misprint. That triggered a request for Monroe and Adams to verify that the amendment hadnt been ratified. The United States Statutes at Large wasnt reprinted until 1845, so the mistake became part of textbooks, state publications, and newspapers, Silversmith said, for decades.

So a whole generation of Americans lived during a time when the phantom 13th Amendment existed, in some publications. (And with any kind of luck, you can probably find a TONA version of the Constitution at a flea market.) Silversmith also said Virginias Senate rejected the TONA on February 14, 1811, based upon information in its records. But an official letter or note from the Virginia legislature couldnt be found several years later.

But how could the Founding Fathers and their heirs become so confused by a handful of amendments? President John Adams waited three years to acknowledge the 11th Amendment as law, and it took Secretary of State James Madison (the Father of the Constitution) three months to recognize the 12th Amendment as an effective law.

Part of the issue was the lack of a process for states to communicate to the federal government that they had voted in favor of an amendment. Also, the number of states kept changing, which added more confusion to the ratification process.

Today, TONA supporters have made several legal challenges to get the original 13th Amendment recognized. The issue hasnt been taken up by the Supreme Court, and Silversmith wrote that a 2005 U.S. district court ruling said that based on Article V of the Constitution, the inclusion of TONA in published documents doesnt make it an amendment.

That hasnt kept the debate over TONA off the Internet, as there are many websites that claim it is the legitimate 13th Amendment. And there is no expiration date for the TONA amendment, which means that it can be introduced to 35 more states that didnt vote on it originally.

It may seem that preposterous that an amendment from the early 1800s could still become a law today, but the 27th Amendment was proposed in 1789 and finally approved in 1992.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

Related Stories on Constitution Daily

On this day: The United States formally outlaws slavery

A Common Interpretation: The Thirteenth Amendment

Podcast: The legacy of the 13th Amendment
Trump

Masayoshi Son, the CEO of the Japanese telecom SoftBank, announced Tuesday that his company will invest $50 billion and bring 50,000 jobs to the US after he met with President-elect Donald Trump.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Son told reporters at Trump Tower that the investment would come from a $100 billion fund created in partnership with the Saudi Arabia sovereign-wealth fund and other investors.

SoftBank in October announced a $100 billion tech fund with the Saudis called the SoftBank Vision Fund. The fund had not detailed where it would invest.

Details about the jobs or what sort of businesses the fund would invest in were not announced. But Son showed reporters a PowerPoint slide signed by Son and Trump with the vague numbers.

Shortly after the meeting, Trump tweeted the details of the agreement and said the deal never would have been done "had we (Trump) not won the election."

Son and Trump came down from the president-elect's office in Trump Tower to announce the move to reporters gathered in the lobby. Trump called Son "one of the great men of industry" before leaving the Softbank CEO to talk to reporters.

"I just came to celebrate his new job," Son said, according to a pool report. "I said, 'This is great. The US will become great again.'"

SoftBank is the second-largest telecom by market share in Japan after rival NTT.

The SoftBank move comes a week after Trump announced a deal with United Technologies to keep about 1,000 jobs at its Carrier plant in Indiana.

Following the news, shares of the US-based telecom Sprint spiked just over 4% as of 2:50 p.m. ET. SoftBank owns 83% of Sprint.

Additionally, shares of T-Mobile jumped around 2% after the SoftBank announcement; Son has long targeted the firm for a takeover. Son declined to comment on a T-Mobile takeover that was quashed because of possible possible regulatory action, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Story continues

Watch Son and Trump's announcement:

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Greg Hayes, the CEO of United Technologies, the parent company of the heating and air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier, just let slip a consequence of a deal struck to keep jobs in Indiana.

And American workers won't like it.

Carrier said last month that it would keep more than 1,000 jobs across two locations in Indiana, following pressure from President-elect Donald Trump. The decision was touted as a win for the incoming president, who had pledged keep the jobs from moving to Mexico.

In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC's "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" that aired Monday, Hayes set out the comparative advantages of moving to jobs to Mexico, the motivation behind his decision to keep those jobs in Indiana, and the ultimate outcome of the deal: There will be fewer manufacturing jobs in Indiana.

Before we get to that

First, Hayes was asked what's so good about Mexico. Quite a lot, it turns out. From the transcript (emphasis added):

JIM CRAMER: What's good about Mexico? What's good about going there? And obviously what's good about staying here?

GREG HAYES: So what's good about Mexico? We have a very talented workforce in Mexico. Wages are obviously significantly lower. About 80% lower on average. But absenteeism runs about 1%. Turnover runs about 2%. Very, very dedicated workforce.

JIM CRAMER: Versus America?

GREG HAYES: Much higher.

JIM CRAMER: Much higher.

GREG HAYES: Much higher. And I think that's just part of these  the jobs, again, are not jobs on assembly line that people really find all that attractive over the long term. Now I've got some very long service employees who do a wonderful job for us. And we like the fact that they're dedicated to UTC, but I would tell you the key here, Jim, is not to be trained for the job today. Our focus is how do you train people for the jobs of tomorrow?

So Mexico has cheaper labor with a much more dedicated workforce, and these are the kinds of low-skilled jobs most people don't find that attractive. Elsewhere in the interview, he made clear that United Technologies intended to keep engineering jobs in the US and that these higher-skilled jobs were not at risk of being moved overseas.

Story continues

"The assembly lines in Indiana  I mean, great people," Hayes said. "Great, great people. But the skill set to do those jobs is very different than what it takes to assemble a jet engine."

Hayes was then asked why he decided to cancel the move to Mexico. From the transcript (emphasis added):

GREG HAYES: So, there was a cost as we thought about keeping the Indiana plant open. At the same time, and I'll tell you this because you and I, we know each other, but I was born at night but not last night. I also know that about 10% of our revenue comes from the US government. And I know that a better regulatory environment, a lower tax rate can eventually help UTC of the long run.

But here's the kicker

The result of keeping the plant in Indiana open is a $16 million investment to drive down the cost of production, so as to reduce the cost gap with operating in Mexico.

What does that mean? Automation. What does that mean? Fewer jobs, Hayes acknowledged.

From the transcript (emphasis added):

GREG HAYES: Right. Well, and again, if you think about what we talked about last week, we're going to make a $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost of labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because we'll make the capital investments there.

JIM CRAMER: Right.

GREG HAYES: But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.

The general theme here is something we've been writing about a lot at Business Insider. Yes, low-skilled jobs are being lost to other countries, but they're also being lost to technology.

Everyone from liberal, Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman to Republican Sen. Ben Sasse has noted that technological developments are a bigger threat to American workers than trade. Viktor Shvets, a strategist at Macquarie, has called it the "third industrial revolution."

Hayes said in the same interview that United Technologies was focused on how to "train people for the jobs of tomorrow."

In the same breath, he seems to be suggesting the jobs it is keeping in Indiana are the jobs of yesterday.

NOW WATCH: 7 inventors who were killed by their own inventions





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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Chad's government is negotiating with Exxon Mobil Corp over a massive fine which a court has ordered an Exxon-led consortium to pay and hopes to reach an "amicable" solution, Bechir Madet, Chad's minister of petroleum and energy, told Reuters on Tuesday.

A court in October fined the consortium 44 trillion CFA francs ($71.65 billion) - nearly four times BP's record Deepwater Horizon settlement - over unpaid royalties.

"The government is trying to find an amicable solution acceptable to both parties and looking for a future with the company," Madet told Reuters in an interview at the Petrotech conference in New Delhi.

Madet also said Indian companies ONGC Videsh and Adani Enterprises had shown interest in buying oil blocks in Chad.

($1 = 614.0800 CFA francs)

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan)
Luis Suarez of Barcelona celebrates scoring the opening goal during the La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF at Camp Nou.

With qualification already assured, Barcelona hosts Borussia Monchengladbach in the last group match of the Champions League on Tuesday.

A 2-0 win over Celtic in their last European match confirmed Barcelonas place in the pre-quarter final as the group C winners. Their final group game against Monchengladbach is a just a formality, but Luis Enrique will be motivated to extend winning record of his team in the competition.

The Blaugrana have terrific record at home in the Champions League, with 17 wins and a draw in their last

18 home matches. Luis Enriques men are on a 13 games winning streak at home, and they will want to increase their winning tally when they welcome the German side on Tuesday.

Monchengladbach, meanwhile, will be bidding goodbyes to this seasons Champions League as their thired place in the group C is already confirmed, irrespective of this games result.

In the previous encounter between these teams, Barcelona had beaten Gladbach 2-1, in the first round of this years Champions League.

Team News: Barcelona

[Image by David Ramos/Getty Images]

Barcelona has nothing to worry about in terms of qualifying for the next round of the Champions League, since they have already progressed as the group C winners.

Luis Enriques team is almost fully fit ahead of the clash against Monchengladbach.

Lionel Messi, who wasnt at his best in the last weekends EL Clasico, will be looking to increase his European goal tally of 92 in this match.

Click here to continue and read more...

Champions League Preview, Barcelona Vs. Monchengladbach: Prediction, Possible Line-Ups, And Betting Tips is an article from: The Inquisitr News
Moscow (AFP) - A judge hearing the murder trial of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov on Tuesday refused a request to call Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov for questioning.

Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who strongly criticised President Vladimir Putin's rule was gunned down near the Kremlin in February last year.

Five Chechens are on trial for the murder at a Moscow military court.

But the judge rejected a plea from lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, representing the murdered opposition politician's family, to summon the pro-Kremlin Chechen leader.

Prokhorov argued that Kadyrov, who was on bad terms with Nemtsov and had criticised him, could have information on the murder.

"Nemtsov's conflicts with various political figures are not a basis to summon them to court," the TASS state news agency quoted judge Yury Zhitnikov as saying.

Nemtsov's family and allies say the authorities have failed to bring the masterminds to justice and point the finger of blame at Kadyrov as well as at the Kremlin itself.

Nemtsov's daughter had asked investigators to question Kadyrov as a witness but this was refused.

Kadyrov in turn said he was "willing to give testimony, with pleasure" at the trial in an interview with TASS last week.

Three of those on trial served in a Chechen unit of interior ministry troops known as Sever, or "North", which supports Kadyrov and has taken part in operations against insurgents.

In an important move, the judge on Tuesday agreed to summon Sever's commander Alibek Delimkhanov for questioning along with his deputy.

Delimkhanov was decorated as a Hero of Russia in 2009 for fighting insurgents in the North Caucasus. He is reportedly Kadyrov's cousin.

The judge rejected a plea to question Alibek's brother Adam Delimkhanov, an MP for Putin's ruling party.

The defendant whom the prosecutors say fired the fatal shots -- Zaur Dadayev -- is a former deputy commander of Sever. Kadyrov after his arrest praised him as "a real patriot of Russia."

Another man who was named as an organiser but has fled Russia, Ruslan Mukhudinov, also reportedly served in the same unit, as did a third suspect, Beslan Shavanov, who blew himself up as he was detained.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A well-known Chinese hedge fund manager detained last year in a crackdown on financial crimes in the wake of a stock market crash has pleaded guilty to manipulating the market, according to the court where he is standing trial.

Xu Xiang, general manager of Shanghai-based Zexi Investment, who earned nicknames like "Hedge Fund Brother No.1" and "China's Carl Icahn" in local media, was detained in November 2015.

Xu and two others standing trial pleaded guilty to manipulating the stock market and asked the court for leniency in sentencing, the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court, in the eastern province of Shandong, said in a statement.

Chinese authorities blamed market manipulation and "malicious" trading in stock futures for stoking share volatility that sent Chinese bourses tumbling more than 40 percent in the summer of 2015.

Investigations netted journalists, senior executives in brokerages, foreign and local hedge fund managers and even securities regulators.

The government tried desperately to try to arrest the stock market's fall, including emergency measures like banning major shareholders from selling stakes, restricting trading of index futures and launching a state-backed stability fund to prop up share prices.

The Chinese financial news website Caixin said at the time of his arrest that the low-profile Xu had been respected "as a legendary punter with a knack for successfully timing investment moves according to volatile stock market swings".

It said his funds had scored annual yields of 160 to 323 percent as of October 2015.

(Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Chinese media outlets have warned that Donald Trump is threatening healthy U.S.-China relations, on which world peace and prosperity depend, by behaving like a diplomatic rookie on issues like Taiwan, trade and the South China Sea.

Comment pieces published on Chinas state media channels and newspapers with ties to Beijing criticized the President-elect in response to a series of tweets he issued on Sunday, chiding China for taxing U.S. imports, devaluing its currency, and building military installations in the South China Sea. This comes after he broke with decades of diplomatic niceties on Dec. 3 and took a phone-call with Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen.

Trump may dislike, distrust the diplomatic establishment in Washington D.C., and aspire to rework U.S. foreign policies China Daily wrote in a Dec. 6 editorial. But he should first come to terms with the real, not imagined, reality of international relations before wielding the scalpel, because a misstep as president will be far more damaging than one as president-elect.

To stop acting like the diplomatic rookie he is, the next U.S. president needs help in adapting to his forthcoming role change. Otherwise, he will make costly troubles for his country, and find himself trying to bluster his way through constant diplomatic conflagrations China Daily wrote.

Even though there has been little official reaction to Trumps tweets and talk with Tsai, China uses state media to let its policy positions be known. The U.S. cannot (and should not) try to dictate the policy of another sovereign state, Peoples Daily warned. Sovereignty means that China, for example, is not always going to do what the U.S. wants.

An irrational and hasty get tough with China policy would be detrimental to U.S. long-term interests  Not only is the U.S. more dependent on China than Trump seems to realize, but world peace and prosperity depend on the healthy develop of China-U.S. relations Peoples Daily wrote. Trump needs to get the China-U.S. relationship right.

The Global Times says China should brace itself for fluctuations in relations with China and U.S., warning that Trump is treating China as a lamb for the slaughter: Trumps China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it. Trump wants to revive US economy, but he knows that his country is not as competitive as it used to be. He is trying to pillage other countries for the prosperity of the US. Trump [seems] to be wanting to make the US a new economic empire in the 21st century under his leadership, which is about to smash current world economic order. However, he doesnt know that the US is the biggest beneficiary from the current world order, and he wants to reshape the world order into a winner-takes-all one.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's rising corporate leverage underscores the urgency for the country to accelerate its market-oriented reforms, the U.S. Treasury said in a press release on Tuesday, citing a U.S treasury official.

The United States should continue to engage constructively with China to support China's reform agenda, said Nathan Sheets, the Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs.

Sheets made the remarks in Beijing at the China Finance 40 Forum late on Monday.

(This version of the story has been refilled to corrects press release date to Tuesday in first paragraph)

(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
London (AFP) - A Chinese firm has bought the British pub where last year Chinese President Xi Jinping and then prime minister David Cameron hoisted a pint over fish and chips.

The Plough in Cadsden, close to the prime minister's official country residence near London, was bought by SinoFortone Investment for an undisclosed sum, Christie & Co commercial property agent said in a statement on Monday.

"The pub became famous in Chinese circles following the visit of President Xi Jinping and it has become quite a tourist attraction for Chinese visitors since," said Neil Morgan, managing director of pubs and restaurants for the company.

Visitors were "keen to sample the classic British food and beer that the president tried", he said.

"Asian investors are becoming more interested in UK markets, particularly hotels, licensed and leisure and we are seeing more and more Chinese investors."

Peter Zhang, managing director of SinoFortone Investment, was quoted as saying: "The English pub concept is growing very fast in China and it's the best way culturally to link people from different countries and build friendships."

Cameron took Xi to the pub in October last year, reportedly at the Chinese leader's request during his state visit to Britain.

The pub's landlord Steve Hollings told AFP then that Cameron and Xi had been "extremely friendly".

They drank "traditional English bitter" and had "traditional English fish and chips", he said proudly.

Then Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying that Xi's "only problem" was the lack of salt and vinegar for his fish and chips.

British brewer Greene King said exports of its India pale ale (IPA) -- the beer the two were drinking -- to China had increased sixteen-fold after the visit.

"If the British prime minister chooses to drink IPA that's normal, but if the president of China chooses to drink a British beer it attracts lots of interest," Greene King chief executive Rooney Anand said then.
Chipotle

Chipotle shares slid 7% on Tuesday after the company said it was nervous about hitting its guidance for the year.

The burrito chain was presenting at a Barclays retail conference in New York.

Its same-store sales have fallen for three straight quarters in the wake of two E. coli outbreaks last year that affected its restaurants in 14 states.

Co-CEO Steve Ells said inadequate customer service may be lengthening the sales recovery.

Bloomberg reporter Shelly Banjo tweeted some highlights from the conference, which was livestreamed.

Chipotle says it's "nervous" about hitting the guidance it gave out earlier this year. $CMG  Shelly Banjo (@sbanjo) December 6, 2016

In first half of the year, 78% of Chipotle's least frequent customers stopped coming to $CMG, virtually no new customers during that time  Shelly Banjo (@sbanjo) December 6, 2016

Chipotle just recently allowed catering orders online + other tech advancements that are years behind competitors $CMG  Shelly Banjo (@sbanjo) December 6, 2016

Chipotle said lines were "definitely" back, but were not as long as they used to be, especially during off-peak times, for a number of reasons it was actively addressing.

Throughput  the flow of people in and out of the door  was down, Chipotle said. "Throughput is a major component of our customer service," the company said. People visit because they think that Chipotle is "faster than fast food" in some aspects, it said.

In September, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square disclosed a 9.9% stake in Chipotle. On Tuesday, the company said it did not have "any fundamental disagreements" with the activist investor, according to Banjo.

Story continues

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has the lowest approval rating for any governor in any state in more than 20 years, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

Seventy-seven percent of New Jersey voters disapprove of the job Christie is doing, with a majority of those surveyed for the Quinnipiac University Poll saying he is dishonest, lacks strong leadership qualities and does not care about their needs or problems.

How the mighty have fallen, Assistant Poll Director Maurice Carroll said in a statement. The [governors] job approval numbers get worse every time anyone looks. This could be a long, final year for Gov. Christie.

Christie had been embroiled in the so-called Bridgegate scandal that resulted in heavy traffic jams in the state about three years ago and ended with the convictions of two of his former aides.

More than half of voters say Christies potential involvement in the scandal should be investigated further, according to the Quinnipiac poll.

The poll was conducted between Nov. 28 and Dec. 4 and interviewed 1,318 New Jersey voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Chris Christie

Chris Christie, the embattled Republican governor of New Jersey, has the lowest approval rating for a state governor ever measured by the Quinnipiac University Poll.

A whopping 77% of New Jersey voters disapprove of the job Christie is doing as governor, according to the poll, while only 19% of voters approve. It's the lowest approval rating since Quinnipiac began formally polling voters in 1994.

Further, 71% of voters said that Christie is not "honest and trustworthy," and 67% said that Christie "does not care about their needs or problems."

Christie  once a rising star in the Republican party  had his reputation tarnished after he was linked to the Bridgegate scandal, where his aides were convicted of orchestrating the closure of three lanes on the George Washington bridge in an apparent act of political retribution in 2013.

Two former aides of Christie's, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, were found guilty on counts of wire fraud and conspiracy for their role in the scandal.

While Christie hasn't been charged with any crime, 71% of New Jersey voters said that he knew his aides were orchestrating Bridgegate, and 56% of voters said he should be investigated further.

Chris Christie Donald Trump.

Though Christie was one of the first mainstream Republicans to back Donald Trump's campaign for president, 69% of New Jersey voters say that he shouldn't be offered a role in Trump's administration.

Christie was the head of Trump's transition effort until November 11, when Mike Pence, the vice-president-elect, took over after reports of clashes among the team.

The governor has also indicated that he will finish serving his second term, ending in January 2018. He's also reportedly expressed interest in taking over for Reince Priebus as the Republican National Committee chair.

Story continues

"This could be a long final year for Gov. Christie," said assistant poll director Maurice Carroll in a press release.

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On the same day that Jimmy Kimmel was named 2017 Oscars host, 88th Academy Awards host announced that he is returning to stand-up.

Chris Rock shared the news with fans on social media that hell be hitting the road for the first time in nine years with his Total Blackout tour next year.

Tonight, I am announcing that I, Chris Rock, am going on tour. The Total Blackout tour is coming to your town in 2017, Rock said in a Facebook Live video shot outside the Comedy Store on Hollywoods Sunset Blvd.

Also Read: Jimmy Kimmel Dishes on Oscars Hosting Gig: 'Maybe I'll Wear Jean Shorts'

First time in nine years, havent done it in awhile. Been a little busy, You know, writing Pootie Tang 3 and everything. But hey, its time, OK, he continued.

See this guy right here? Rock asked, pointing to his own photo on the Comedy Store Wall of Fame. This guy is going on tour. Im coming to your town, Ive got all new material and I cant wait to see you b-s.

Its going to be a busy few months for Rock, who is set to star in two Netflix specials, which will presumably be filmed on his Total Blackout tour.

Also Read: Chris Rock to Star in Two Netflix Stand-Up Specials

Chris Rock is a beloved actor and director, and his remarkable stand-up makes him comic royalty. There is no one like him, and Netflix offers the global platform and creative freedom that will serve as a perfect home for someone with his incredible talent, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said in a statement when the streaming specials were announced in October.

Rocks tour begins Feb. 14 in Durham, North Carolina, and concludes on May 25 back in Cherokee, North Carolina, with dates across the country in between.

Story continues

See the full schedule here.

Related stories from TheWrap:

'SNL': Watch Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock Attend an Election Night Watch Party With White People (Video)

Chris Rock Announces 2020 White House Run: 'Wish Me Luck'

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KINSHASA (Reuters) - Clashes between a tribal militia and security forces in a province of central Congo killed at least 31 people at the weekend, its vice governor said on Monday. Hubert Mbingho N'Vula said on state TV that the conflict in Kasai province started after a row between an uncle and a nephew over who had the title to a local chieftaincy, before Congolese forces stepped in to try to restore order. "(The uncle) resorted to raising a militia," N'Vula said, adding that 13 security forces and 18 militiamen had been killed. More than a decade after a 1996-2003 war that killed millions, the mineral-rich country remains a tinderbox of armed groups and ethnic militias. (Reporting by Aaron Ross; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by John Stonestreet)
Most explanations concerning the reasons that led Trump to victory in the US presidential election are unconvincing for two simple reasons: they brush off the issue of class and the rise of China in the global political economy. In fact, these two factors were key to his success.

Lets take a look at the numbers. It is often assumed that it was white men who won Trump the White House. But his support was, in fact, relatively broad  and was far more bolstered by class than race or gender.

Some 53% of white women opted for Trump and more black and Hispanic female voters voted for him than for Mitt Romney in 2012. As a percentage of votes cast, all racial groups swung more towards Trump in 2016 than Romney in 2012  but white voters atually showed the lowest swing to Trump (1%), compared to Latinos (8%), Asian-Americans (11%) and African-Americans (7%).

Crucially, however, Trump registered support in the so-called Rust Belt, the de-industrialised and depressed zones of Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He flipped a third of the counties there that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and this is what gave him the presidency.

The rich and the affluent voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for Obama in 2012. Some 3.46m with an income above $250,000 voted for Clinton, compared with 2.16m for Obama in 2012, a jump of 60%. But is was the working-class votes in the Rust Belt that made the difference.

This annoyed some feminists, such as Monica Potts in The Nation, who went as far as to insinuate that the (white) working class in the Rust Belt is a reactionary force. There is nothing more wrong than that.

If identity politics (politics that put an emphasis on gender or racial issues, for example) is on the wane in terms of electoral-political significance, it is because class inequality is on the rise. Since the late 1970s, the US  and, for that matter, the UK  has embarked on a programme of de-industrialisation and outsourcing, decimating the workforce, slashing real wages, augmenting a rather unproductive service sector, trading fictitious (financial products such as derivatives and insurance) rather than real commodities, and promoting precarious and part-time work across all economic sectors.

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At the same time, and in order to solve the economys demand problem (low purchasing power of the consumer, inadequate health and pension provision, housing shortage) the neo-liberal ruling elites in Washington and London financialised everyday life  that is, they encouraged heavy borrowing of people from banks and various lending institutions.

The great collapse

When financialisation collapsed in 2007-08, the very same elites embarked on harsh austerity programmes, increasing class inequalities across society. Between 1980 and the most recent period, Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial Times, the top 1% in pre-tax income jumped from 10% to 18%. He continued:

The rise in compensation of chief executives, relative to that of workers, has been huge. The US has the highest inequality of any high-income country and has seen the fastest rise in inequality among the seven leading high-income countries.

Trump promised nothing more and nothing less than jobs for the unemployed and the deprived  an easy task since the Democrats took care to sideline Bernie Sanders in the primaries. But there is also another issue strictly linked to this.

It has to do with Chinas rise in the international economy of globalisation that the US has pioneered. De-industrialisation and outsourcing gave a massive advantage to China and other emerging economies, which are now competing on an equal footing with the US.

China is now the worlds largest economy on a purchasing power parity basis. She is also the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves and her investments in Africa and Latin America have outstripped those of the US. China is also Americas second-largest trading partner and holds more than $1.3 trillion in US debt, enabling the US to finance its deficits.

In April 2016, Australia blocked a vast land sale to a Chinese-led consortium and in October 2016 Germany withdrew approval for the $1 billion takeover of chip equipment maker Aixtron by a group of Chinese investors. China is increasingly seen as an economic threat by some countries.

The rise of China

The value of Chinese overseas acquisitions announced in the first nine months of 2016 totalled $191 billion, almost double the inflows of foreign investment into China over the same period. Participation in the World Trade Organisation benefited China more than the US.

The paramount aim of the notorious TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) with the EU, which is not forthcoming, and the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) is not just to pulverise nation state power but also to consolidate a Western trade bloc to fight Chinese competition. Pointedly, China is excluded from the faltering US-led TPP.

Trumps campaign grasped this shift in the global political economy. He promised America first  that is protection from the Chinese competition which destroys American jobs. The Clinton camp cultivated the old mantras of globalisation and identity politics, backed by aggressive financial interests that have brought the country to its knees.

Class inequality became even more pronounced in this light, trumping in significance and visibility any other form of inequality based on gender or race. Thus, while Clintons campaign was producing a narrative on identity politics creating, as Francis Fukuyama put it: a coalition of women, African-Americans, Hispanics, environmentalists and the LGBT community, Trump focused on the real issue of job creation and won the vote of the working class. Class politics and the power-shift to China won Trump the White House.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Vassilis K. Fouskas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
Clear Channel Airports (CCA), a division of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. CCO, was recently awarded a 10-year contract extension by the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority. Per the new agreement, CCA will install an entirely new suit of digital advertising network at Nashville International Airport (BNA) that will include the worlds most advanced, technologically sophisticated state of the art media. The contract started on Nov 1, 2016.

CCA offers BNA a complete digital media program to enable advertisers reach out to 12 million passengers annually. In the prior year, BNA became the fourth fastest growing airport in the U.S. In fiscal 2016, it served 12.2 million passengers. BNA continuously provides new destinations and nonstop options for its travelers, having recently extended its services to San Francisco, Oakland and Seattle.

A market research report by PWC shows that total global out-of-home (OOH) advertising revenue is expected to continue at a CAGR of 4.3% to reach $42.7 billion in 2020. The growth in the global OOH advertising market is likely to have a positive impact on Clear Channels revenues, especially since it is currently streamlining its business to focus on this market.

Clear Channelunderperformed the Zacks categorized Advertising and Marketingindustry with a negative average return of 19.5% compared to -6.5% for the latter, over a period of 90 days. In addition, over the same time frame, earnings estimates have fallen by 27.8% for the current year. However, such project wins will have a positive impact on the company's top line, going ahead.

Clear Channel is one of the worlds largest outdoor advertising companies, with more than 650,000 displays in over 35 countries across five continents, including 43 of the 50 largest markets in the U.S. The company offers numerous displays worldwide to meet the advertising needs of its customers. These include a growing digital platform that presently offers over 1,050 digital billboards across 29 U.S. markets. Its International segment operates in 22 countries across Asia, Australia and Europe in a wide variety of formats. Additionally, it operates over 250 airport programs across the world, with presence in 31 of the top 50 U.S markets.

Clear Channelcurrently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include Marin Software Incorporated MRIN, Publicis Groupe SA PUBGY and National CineMedia, Inc. NCMI, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Marin Software has beaten estimates in all the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 47.9%.



Publicis Groupe has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 8% and has an average forward PE of 12.7x.



National CineMedia has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 9% and has an average forward PE of 36.1x.

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- By Alyangka Francheska Manalo





Things are looking bright for the surety bond industry.

After two successive years of growth, the rally in overall premiums is expected to continue next year despite an expected rise in loss activity. Industry experts say the U.S. economy is showing signs of true economic recovery and that most contractors are reporting a return of acceptable profit margins.





After all, the health of the surety sector is correlated with the construction industry.

From its peak of $5.5 billion in premium in 2008, the volume saw a sharp drop as the financial crisis spread across all sectors, particularly hurting the construction sector that saw public construction dropped significantly.

However, surety premiums saw a steady rebound in recent years with the improvement in the U.S. economy and as the construction industry gathers its pace again. Surety premiums surpassed the $5.5 billion high mark in 2015.

Surety industry in slow but steady rise

As the U.S. economy and the financial markets improve, the surety industry also saw its share of modest gains. Over the past several years, the sector has recorded a slow but steady rise. This year, the industry is expected to close 2016 on a positive note.

Indeed, 2015 was the most profitable year in the history of the surety industry. Total industry direct-written premium reached $5.62 billion last year with an 18.3% loss ratio compared to the industry standard of 34% break-even loss ratio, according to U.S. Surety Industry data. The growth in the industry spilled over through the second quarter of this year with nearly $3 billion in total direct premiums written in just six months and an 18.4% loss ratio. The figures edged the 2015 numbers.

The expansion in the industry will likely grow as the market capacity rises. As a result, some new entrants have joined the industry and are offering new products that provide better alternatives to clients, including subcontractor default insurance (SDI) and letters of credit. The steady supply of new surety bond products is likely outpacing demand.

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And while the number of carriers is on the rise, the top five surety companies - Travelers (TRV), Liberty Mutual, Zurich (ZSA), CNA (CNA) and Chubb (CB) (recently acquired by ACE LTD Group [ACE]) - still control the lion's share of the market. These top carriers control 50.3% of the written premiums. The other five carriers comprising the top 10 of the largest surety companies in the U.S. write 13.4% of the overall premiums. The 10 biggest surety companies in the country control 63.7% of the surety market.

Still, the U.S. surety sector is considered competitive, and there are signs of more relaxed underwriting terms and conditions for sureties with the aim of broadening the markets and maintaining clients.

Sure 'arms race,' new trends

Industry players have noted concern over emerging trends wherein "noncontract" surety companies have joined the contract underwriting field. This so-called "arms race" for premium could prove costly for the players, many of whom have set relaxed underwriting standards because they are used to issuing commercial (noncontract) bonds. This trend could result in a rise in loss frequency and force market corrections if not closures.

Another industry trend is the rise in mergers and acquisition activities. Chubb & Son Inc. Group was acquired by ACE LTD Group and HCC Surety Group (NYSE:HCC) merged with Tokio Marine Holdings (TSE:8766). Philadelphia Insurance Cos. (PHIN) launched its surety operation three years after being acquired by Tokio Marine Holdings.

New entrants bring fresh capital, new products

Even with the unexpected exit of XL Catlin in the first quarter that took away over $1 billion in capital capacity, it had no significant impact on the overall industry. But as expected, the sector saw an increase in the number of new entrants over the past few years, bringing with them fresh capital and property as well as new products with the idea of expanding profits.

"The future of the surety market remains bright indeed," commented Greg Rynerson, president and CEO of Surety Bonds Authority, a full-service surety bond company and one of the new players in the sector.

"There are just too many opportunities in the surety sector, including energy, construction, transportation, etc.," he said. "There are too many insurance firms that also want to get in."

Rynerson explained that surety underwriters are also facing intense pressure to grow. Many of these sureties are publicly traded stock companies that are expected to report consistent growth to their shareholders.

Data released by the Surety & Fidelity Association of America, the sector's loss ratio, is below 20% in seven of the past 10 years. In the first six months of this year, the loss ratio was a little above 18%.

Contract surety vs. commercial surety

The surety industry is divided into two main sectors: Contract surety used in the construction industry and commercial surety serves the rest of the bonding requirements. Both sectors face tough competition but more so in the commercial bond.

Susan Hecker, director of national contract surety and area executive vice president at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG), commented, "Where we see severe competition to the point where rates are significantly impacted, or underwriters are complaining about other companies doing things that are 'hypercompetitive,' it's typically in the commercial surety space. That's also where we see most of the new entrants as well."

Because of the cutthroat competition in the commercial surety sector, some bonding companies are offering premiums that alarms and concerns the industry. Ed Titus, senior vice president of surety for Philadelphia Insurance , complained that some sureties are undercutting existing companies by at least 20%.

The same grim prospect faces the contract surety side with some underwriters being lenient in conducting personal financial backgrounds, particularly on personal indemnity and relaxing some requirements. Some are skipping financial presentation that is normally required from contractors.

"A highly competitive contract surety market has definitely impacted underwriting," says Carl G. Castellano, surety chief risk officer and vice president of contract security at Philadelphia Insurance. "We must remain disciplined while also being somewhat creative in our underwriting approach."

Future of surety remains bright

Still, industry players agree that the surety market holds a bright future, particularly if public spending continues with the new administration funneling fresh funds to infrastructure, transportation, education and the military.

As a whole, there is still plenty of room for growth in the surety sector. The more organized companies are capable of managing their expenses and cash flow even in a highly competitive environment, said Rynerson. He added that even struggling sureties can find a niche in the industry if they know how to manage their balance sheets pretty well.

Premiums are seen to remain competitive as long as the current loss ratio is maintained. And even if the existing loss ratio jumps several points, the sector is still capable of producing attractive profits in 2017. Some are even predicting that the industry could breach the $6 billion premium mark in the coming year.

"It will take some severe losses or significant economic changes for the industry as a whole to see some tightening," added Hewett.

Disclosure: I do not own any shares at any of the companies or stocks mentioned in the article.

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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Hillary Clinton, who lost the Electoral College to President-elect Donald Trump in November, extended her popular vote lead over her former challenger Tuesday to a tally that is far larger than any other election in history where the candidate who lost the election won in the popular vote.

As of Tuesday morning, Clinton leads Trump 65,467,571 to 62,813,613, according to voter data from the Cook Political Report  a margin of 2,653,958 votes. That lead represents nearly a 2.1 percent edge in the popular vote as a whole.

In 13 swing states that played an oversized role in electing the next president, however, Trump has maintained a healthy lead. Trump leads Clinton in those states 22,238,917 to 21,418,687, an 820,230 vote advantage. The lead in those swing states may overstate how many voters played a crucial role in electing the next president, as the Washington Post argued last week, since the deciding swing states  Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  were decided by an accumulative 79,646 votes.

The close nature of the race in those states has led to recount efforts. The most prominent recount efforts are being led by Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who launched fundraisers to challenge the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Stein held a campaign rally outside of Trump Tower in Manhattan Monday to send a message to the president-elect that the recount efforts will not be bullied.

Wisconsins recount began Thursday but there was little changed in the results as of Monday morning. In Michigan, 83 counties began recounting ballots Monday and six more counties were expected to start Tuesday. The Green Party filed a federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania on Monday to push for a statewide recount after dropping a state-level case that would have been argued Monday in court.

A recount effort in Nevada, where Clinton beat Trump, has been launched by a presidential candidate who received a fraction of 1 percent of the states vote. That effort has been described as a counter-balance effort to Steins recount efforts.

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- By Sangara Narayanan





McDonald's (MCD), the largest burger chain in the world, has decided to double down on the coffee business.

McDonald's is going through a huge transformation process, moving toward a franchise-heavy model as it faced a huge slowdown in its growth trajectory. Things have picked up in the last 12 months, though, as same-store sales stayed positive.





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Due to its sheer size, increasing the company's store footprint is going to be a hard task, and same-store sales have to stay positive if it wants to keep its top line moving. McDonald's decision to shift toward a franchise-heavy model was likely prompted by the fact that it will help stabilize its top line. Meanwhile, global same-store sales increased by 3.5% in the last quarter but only grew by 1.3% in the U.S.

Now, McDonald's has decided to get aggressive with its coffee brand, McCafe. It is an important part of McDonald's business as it generates $4 billion annually in the U.S. McDonald's will be reintroducing the McCafe concept next year, and it plans to go in with price cuts to take on rivals Starbucks (SBUX) and Dunkin' Donuts (DNKN).





McDonald's still plans to emphasize its price advantage over Starbucks as it retools the McCafe brand. The company is planning a $1 drip coffee and $2 small specialty-beverage deal for the first quarter of next year, U.S. Senior Vice President of Strategy and Insights Kristy Cunningham told Bloomberg .







Coffee is indeed a huge global market and, considering the fast food chain's footprint of more than 36,000 stores around the world, coffee could well turn out to be a big revenue spinner for the company.

The effort will take time to percolate through to the top line, but a big push can help effectively re-brand the unit. Also under way is a major overhaul of the entire chain with a focus on more personalized service.

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"The Golden Arches' cafe brand isn't the only aspect of the company getting an upgrade. The burger chain revealed last month that its restaurants will be getting revamped as part of an effort to become a 'modern and progressive burger company.'

"McDonald's will be adding self-service ordering kiosks, craft burgers and table service to its stores." - CNBC







Starbucks has changed the narrative around coffee and is the best premium coffeehouse chain in the world. McDonald's can certainly use some of that goodwill surrounding coffee that Starbucks has built in order to improve its own image with respect to the coming generations.

The move may not help keep its sales numbers ticking, but it can definitely help the company change the way its brand is perceived.

Disclosure: I have no positions in the stock mentioned above and no intention to initiate a position in the next 72 hours.

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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






Kwoh Choo Chye lost his supervisor job at an electronics firm during a restructuring exercise in 2014. (Photo: NTUC)

Kwoh Choo Chye was an experienced supervisor at an electronics company when he received the dreaded letter informing him that he was surplus to requirements in 2014.

As the breadwinner who had to take care of an autistic son, Kwoh was aware that he faced a big obstacle in finding his next job: his age.

Despite going for many interviews after his retrenchment, several prospective employers hinted to Kwoh, now 60, that his age was a deal breaker.

At the end of the interview, they (the interviewers) would ask for my age, after which their stance would change towards me. Although there are guidelines in place not to let age be a factor in hiring, their reluctance showed in their body language.

But I dont blame them. Perhaps they want to take in a younger worker who can remain at the company longer, said Kwoh.

It took him 20 months before he was able to secure another job with the help of his union, this time in the public transport industry.

Kwohs experience is becoming more commonplace among mature Singaporean workers amid slower job growth and ongoing retrenchments due to challenging economic conditions.

The re-entry rate  or the proportion of residents who regained employment within three months after being retrenched  as at the end of the second quarter of this year was 42 per cent for workers who were 50 and above. The same rate was lower for PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technical workers) at 39.6 per cent.

Chart of re-entry rate for residents who were made redundant. (Source: Ministry of Manpower)

Bias of companies against mature workers

In the past decade of running a recruitment business, I have lost count of the number of employers who told us that they have some expectations for their new hires.

Employers are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of age in their job advertisements so they typically outsource the filtering out of mature workers to recruitment businesses, which typically would comply with clients requests or risk losing their business.

The bias of some employers against mature workers is due to their perception that these workers are slower and less productive compared with their younger counterparts but this has been debunked by several studies.

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A US report revealed findings by German carmaker BMW that showed changes made in its workplace to accommodate mature workers have resulted in higher productivity and lower absenteeism at the company.

There is clearly a strong bias in many companies in favour of younger workers. But many Generation Y workers still lag behind mature workers in areas such as employee loyalty, reliability and experience.

Workers who are in their 50s or 60s can still contribute to a companys growth for up to 10 years and their impact may even surpass that of some of their younger colleagues over the same period of time.

About four months ago, I started a human resource consultancy, which is my fourth business. Although I am an experienced HR professional, HR consultancy is a new area of business for my partners and me.

Fortunately, we were able to tap the experience of Hua Pak Cheong, who had done consultancy work in industries ranging from retail to manufacturing.

We decided to hire Hua and thanks to his help, we were even able to open a new line of service focusing on implementing flexible work arrangements for our clients. Without him, our business might not have taken off.

Hua happened to be 71 years old and has over three decades of experience in advising companies ranging from small and medium enterprises to multi-national corporations.

Highly experienced, mature workers with the right mindset and expectations can be valuable assets to companies. With lifelong learning being a mantra for Singapore Inc., younger workers  and managers  have a lot to learn from older workers like Kwoh and Hua.

Adrian Tan is a HR professional who blogs about entrepreneurship and human resource issues.
As part of the National Constitution Centers Interactive Constitution project, leading scholars across the legal and philosophical spectrum find common ground on the Constitutions articles, amendments, and provisions. In this essay from September 2015, Jamal Greene and Jennifer Mason McAward explain the 13th Amendments broad implications, which ended slavery in the United States.

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Jamal Greene and Jennifer Jason McAward

Slavery is Americas original sin. Despite the bold commitment to equality in the Declaration of Independence, slavery was legal in all of the thirteen colonies in 1776. By the start of the Civil War, four million people, nearly all of African descent, were held as slaves in 15 southern and border states. Slaves represented one-eighth of the U.S. population in 1860.

Many think that slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. However, the Emancipation Proclamation freed only slaves held in the eleven Confederate states that had seceded, and only in the portion of those states not already under Union control.

The true abolition of slavery was achieved when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. The first section of the Amendment declares: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The Amendment is unique in the Constitution because it bars every person from holding slaves or engaging in other forms of involuntary servitude, whereas most constitutional provisions only constrain or regulate the government. It is unique in another way as well: although the Constitution obliquely acknowledged and accommodated slavery in its original text, the Thirteenth Amendment was the first explicit mention of slavery in the Constitution.

The most immediate impact of the Thirteenth Amendment was to end chattel slavery as it was practiced in the southern United States. However, the Amendment also bars involuntary servitude, which covers a broader range of labor arrangements where a person is forced to work by the use or threatened use of physical or legal coercion. For example, the Thirteenth Amendment bans peonage, which occurs when a person is compelled to work to pay off a debt. Originally a Spanish practice, peonage was practiced in the New Mexico Territory and spread across the Southern United States after the Civil War. Former slaves and other poor citizens became indebted to merchants and plantation owners for living and working expenses. Unable to repay their debts, they became trapped in a cycle of work-without-pay. The Supreme Court held this practice unconstitutional in 1911. Bailey v. Alabama (1911).

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Most scholars also assume it would violate the Thirteenth Amendment to order specific performance of a service contract. An example of this situation would be where an employee has a contract to work for a full year but wants to leave after six months. Forcing the employee to continue to work instead of paying a financial penalty to get out of her contract would almost certainly violate the Thirteenth Amendment.

Notably, the Amendment does allow a person convicted of a crime to be forced to work. Thus, prison labor practices, from chain gangs to prison laundries, do not run afoul of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment has also been interpreted to permit the government to require certain forms of public service, presumably extending to military service and jury duty.

In addition to the first sections ban on slavery and involuntary servitude, the second section of the Thirteenth Amendment gives Congress the power to enforce that ban by passing appropriate legislation. This provision allows Congress to pass laws pertaining to practices that violate the Amendment. For example, the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867 prohibits peonage, and another federal law, 18 U.S.C.  1592, makes it a crime to take somebodys passport or other official documents for the purpose of holding her as a slave.

Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment has broader applicability as well. The Supreme Court has long held that this provision also allows Congress to pass laws to eradicate the badges and incidents of slavery. The Supreme Court has never defined the full scope of what the badges and incidents of slavery are, and instead has left it to Congress to flesh out a definition. In The Civil Rights Cases (1883), the Court held that racial discrimination in private inns, theaters, and public transportation did not qualify as a badge or incident of slavery.

In a series of cases in the 1960s and 1970s, however, the Court held that racial discrimination by private housing developers and private schools is among the badges and incidents of slavery that Congress may outlaw under Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment. Most recently, Congress has determined that Section Two provides a basis for a portion of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (which criminalizes race-based hate crimes) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (which penalizes human trafficking and protects its survivors). The Supreme Court has yet to evaluate these laws.

Despite its significance in American history, the Thirteenth Amendment is not one of the more frequently invoked parts of our Constitution today. Now that slavery is a part of our past, the Amendments current relevance is subject to debate. Does it govern the fairness of modern labor practices? Does it empower Congress to pass broad-ranging civil rights laws? Whatever the outcome of those debates, though, the Thirteenth Amendment deserves recognition as a historic and solemn promise that slavery will never again exist in the United States.

Jamal Greene is Vice Dean and Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. Jennifer Mason McAward is Associate Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School.

You can read more from each author on our Interactive Constitution project on this topic, as they offer viewpoints beyond this common interpretation: The Thirteenth Amendment And The Constitutional Imagination By Jamal Greene | The Thirteenth Amendment: A Constitutional Success Story By Jennifer Mason McAward

Related Stories on Constitution Daily

On this day: The United States formally outlaws slavery

The case of the missing 13th amendment to the Constitution

Podcast: The legacy of the 13th Amendment
When Conns Inc. (CONN) reported its fiscal third-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Tuesday, it posted a net loss of $0.12 per share and $376.8 million in revenue. Consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters had called for a net loss of $0.19 per share and revenue of $393.83 million. The same period of last year reportedly had $0.02 in earnings per share (EPS) and $395.23 million in revenue.

Total retail revenues were $308.4 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2017, a decrease of $14.7 million, or 4.5%, primarily a result of the decline in same-store sales, partially offset by new store openings.

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Credit revenues decreased 5.2% to $68.4 million. The decrease in credit revenue was the result of lower credit insurance commissions due to higher claim volumes in Louisiana after the floods and lower average rates in new states.

In terms of guidance for the fiscal fourth-quarter, the company expects to see a change in same-store sales down about 10%, with the retail gross margin in the range of 37.0% to 37.5%. The consensus estimates are $0.13 in EPS and $453.44 million in revenue for the quarter.

On the books, Conn's cash and cash equivalents totaled $59.07 million at the end of the quarter, up from $12.25 million at the end of the previous fiscal year.

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Norm Miller, Conn's chairman, CEO and president, commented:

Our credit operation is already benefiting from the fiscal 2017 underwriting refinements. Initial indications are encouraging as Conn's experienced meaningful reductions in early stage delinquency and first pay defaults during the fiscal 2017 third quarter. In addition, we successfully implemented our Texas direct loan program ahead of schedule - it was fully operational across all 55 Texas locations by the end of October. As a result of the rollout, all of November's Texas originations were under the direct loan program, which improved the APR on new originations to over 27%, an increase in excess of 500 basis points compared to September. We expect the direct loan program, planned changes in other states, and changes to no-interest programs will increase Conn's overall yield by 600 to 900 basis points on new originations by the end of fiscal 2018.

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ALSO READ: 15 Major Oil and Gas Analyst Upgrades After OPEC Production Cuts

Shares of Conn's were up 11% at $12.44 Tuesday afternoon, with a consensus analyst price target of $12.88 and a 52-week trading range of $6.54 to $27.53.

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How could the trial have ended in anything but a conviction?

On April 4, 2015, the 50-year-old black motorist was pulled over in North Charleston, South Carolina, to address a broken brake lighta matter that inanely requires citizens to submit to impromptu interactions with armed agents of the state, despite the risk roadside stops pose to the safety of motorists and police officers.

The motorist, Walter Scott, unlawfully fled on foot from his 1991 Mercedes. Then Officer Michael Slager, who executed the traffic stop, pursued him on foot, drew his weapon, and shot the unarmed man in the back as he ran away. A passerby captured what appeared to be a murder on his mobile phone camera, thought about erasing it for fear of his own safety, but decided to come forward after details of the video contradicted the police report that the officer in the case filed.

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There were 1,146 people killed by American cops in 2015.

In every instance where video was made public I watched it. I read about many killings, too. I never encountered a cop who behaved more egregiously than Slager.

Nor was I alone in being horror-struck at his actions.

Officials in North Charleston have sought to calm tensions; offered condolences to the victims family; made no attempt to publicly defend the officer; and said they handed the investigation over to the state, though they were not obligated to do so, to ensure an impartial and independent inquiry, the New York Times reported.

I have watched the video, and I was sickened by what I saw, North Charlestons police chief told reporters. Slager was fired, arrested, charged with murder, and held without bail. That almost never happens when cops shoot unarmed people.

But despite an unarmed victim, forensics proving he was shot multiple times in the back, a police officer who made a false report, and clear video showing the entire debacle, Slager was not convicted of murder or manslaughter in his trial this week. A lone juror spared him that fate with a refusal to convict. That triggered a mistrial.

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Prosecutors say they will retry the case.

If there was a police killing last year that was comparably egregious, it was that committed by University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing, who shot an unarmed motorist, Samuel DuBose, in the head during a traffic stop. That killing was also captured on video. Joe Deters, the prosecutor in the case, declared, This is the most asinine act Ive ever seen a police officer make. People want to believe that Mr. DuBose had done something violent toward the officer; he did not. He did not at all. And I feel so sorry for his family and what they lost. And I feel sorry for the community, too.

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He added, Purposeful killing of another, thats what makes it murder. He purposefully killed him. Video of the egregious killing was released to the public.

Last month that case ended in a mistrial, too.

My belief is that police officers should be treated like any other person accused of a crime. In the ongoing debate about policing, defenders of the status quo frequently point out, correctly, that patrolling Americas streets is a tremendously difficult jobone that puts all who perform it in frequent contact with dangerous criminals, risking injury or death while trying to protect public safety. Their view is that the risks involved, the difficult demands of the job, and the importance of the task to society mean cops should always be given the benefit of the doubt.

The inevitable, unspoken consequence of that view is that citizens who have interactions with cops, often Hispanic or black men, are presumed to be in the wrong.

To stack the deck against unarmed citizens who get shot is absurd.

Yet even operating under a standard in which police officers get the benefit of every reasonable doubt, it seems hard to understand why Slager and Tensing wouldnt have been convicted of manslaughter. The fact that neither was convicted is the latest evidence that the system as it now exists does not reliably punish cops for even egregious killings.

The policy debate around policing has lately focused on the tactics and rhetoric of Black Lives Matter (while mostly ignoring its excellent Campaign Zero roadmap for policy reform). Whatever conservatives think of Black Lives Matter, it is long past time that more of them join with libertarians and liberals in an effort to address this problem: Armed agents of the state are killing American citizens at rates far higher than other developed countries, and even when videos show them killing unarmed individuals, some are somehow getting away with it.

Recommended: Sometimes There Are More Important Goals Than Civility

Elie Mystal gets this much right: Letting cops who murder black people go free has nothing to do with the black community. The defense attorney Scott Greenfield adds:

People need to believe in cops. Its an irrational belief, born of their own compulsion to make sense of the world, because if an otherwise ordinary police officer had a random killer hiding beneath his badge, there would be nothing to stand between our desire for safety and the insanity of random violence that could take our life, our childrens lives, for no reason at any moment. It would be like living in The Purge, and no one would ever be able to sleep at night if that was the case. But as Elie says, the failure to convict in this case, with this evidence, rips our comfort blanket of civility from our clutches. Whether its because Walter Scott was black or Michael Slager was a cop isnt clear. What is clear is that any result other than guilt in this case tell us the system is a failure and we are left to our own devices to survive.

In these two failed prosecutions of white police officers, the most proximate failures belonged to individual white jurors. The larger failure to hold police accountable in the United States, even in egregious cases, is a collective one, and any political movement that claims to revere individual liberty or the rights set down in the Constitution is lying to itself if it doesnt expend effort to make things better.

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Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Los Angeles (AFP) - A now-retired Los Angeles police officer, who grabbed headlines over the detention of a "Django Unchained" actress, was fined $500 Tuesday by an ethics commission for leaking audio of the incident.

Sergeant James Parker had faced a $10,000 fine but members of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission said a lower nominal penalty was more appropriate.

In a highly unusual move, Parker was accused of violating city ethics rules after he leaked audio of his September 2014 encounter with African-American actress Daniele Watts.

Parker's attorney, Lawrence Hanna, expressed outrage at the ethics commission ruling, blasting panel members as "cowards" and vowing an appeal.

"This is the first police officer they've ever done this to... and they are trying to make an example out of him," he told AFP.

"They are cowards because they just feel that they have to do something and to show that they're being tough rather than backing a police officer and doing what's right."

In the 2014 incident, Watts was briefly handcuffed and detained by police who were responding to a report of a couple having sex in a car parked in Studio City, an upscale neighborhood of Los Angeles.

She had refused to show any form of identification to the responding officers and was released after her boyfriend, Brian James Lucas, gave police her ID.

The actress -- who played Coco in Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning 2012 film "Django Unchained" -- and Lucas initially claimed that the police action was racially motivated.

Lucas wrote on his Facebook page that officers acted as though the pair were engaged in prostitution as he is white and Watts is black.

Parker defended his actions, which gained national attention, by releasing an audiotape of the encounter to the celebrity website TMZ, prompting a backlash against the couple.

He was not paid for the tape, his attorney said.

Lucas and Watts subsequently pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace and were ordered to apologize to police officers. As part of their deal with prosecutors, charges of lewd conduct were dropped.

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The ruling on Tuesday fined Parker $250 for each of the two counts he faced -- disclosing confidential information without authorization and misusing his position of authority to create a private advantage.

Two police officials spoke on Parker's behalf during the hearing Tuesday, saying the charges against him were unprecedented and pointing out that they had both released similar audio recordings of incidents to the media in the past and had not faced discipline.

Commission president Jessica Levinson defended the ruling, insisting the panel members had simply applied the law.

"It's not about what has happened in other cases that are not before us (and) which we are not permitted to consider," she said.

"It's not about the political climate, as much as we may want to consider this. It is our duty as commissioners just to apply the facts before us."
These Tennessee officers took to the streets to dance up a storm, all for a good cause.

Read: A Couple Recovering From Hard Times Drops $500G Check into Salvation Army Bucket

Officer Sean Bulow from the Cleveland Police Department did more than just ring the bells Monday for a Salvation Army Kettle Drive.

In a video posted to the department's social media page, Bulow could be seen rocking out in front of a Walmart parking lot, ringing the bell with one hand, and collecting donations from passing cars with the other.

Just a friendly Battle of the Bells challenge from the local #SalvationArmy. Ofc. Bulow bringin' in the cheese  #dancingcop #ClevelandTN pic.twitter.com/ONefOpZex4  ClevelandTNPolice (@police_tn) December 5, 2016

His less-enthusiastic partner mans the red donation bucket located closer to the entrance of the store.

To support the officers, the Cleveland Police Department even offered the first 50 people who donated $20 or more a limited edition challenge coin.

Read: Salvation Army Bell Ringer Flashes Boy, 4, and His Dad After They Make Donation

According to the Facebook page, Bulow even got out his dancing shoes for a second day of working the Kettle Drive, due to popular demand.

Watch: Cop Tears Up the Dance Floor at College Football Game: 'Smiling, Dancing and Protecting'

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Singapores State Courts (Yahoo file photo)

He was in his taxi while making payment for petrol at a booth when he dropped his change on the floor.

Ong Kha Lee, 60, opened the door and tried to retrieve the notes from the floor without engaging the brakes in his Kia taxi. He leaned through the opening and as he tried to take the money, the vehicle rolled forward and trapped his head between the door and the wall of the booth.

Hearing his cries for help, a cashier at the booth, located at the Premier Taxi Headquarters at Changi, tried to help him. Two other cabbies in the vicinity also attempted to render their assistance during the incident, which happened at about 7.45 pm on 14 June this year.

Rescuers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) arrived five minutes later after being notified of the incident. They elevated the vehicle from the rear before freeing Ong, who was conveyed unconscious to Changi General Hospital where he was pronounced dead the following day.

On the first day of the coroners inquiry into Ongs death on Tuesday (6 December), the investigation officer of the case, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Faizal Nasir, explained that an investigation was conducted on the vehicle.

The taxi was inspected and was found to be serviceable and there were no mechanical fault with the vehicle, said the officer from Bedok Police Division.

ASP Faizal said that Ong suffered injuries on his neck, back, chest and upper limbs. He also had skeletal injuries consistent with him being pinned between the door of his vehicle and the wall.

Three video recordings of the accident were played before State Coroner Marvin Bay. The recordings showed the vehicle coming to a stop at the booth. A few seconds later, the vehicle was seen moving towards the wall of the booth and witnesses rushing to help the deceased.

The cashier said (during investigations) that the deceased had aligned his vehicle nearer to the wall before stopping to make payment, said ASP Faizal.

The officer also pointed out that the vehicle was in drive mode and that Ong had not engaged the foot brake while he was at the booth. That could have caused the vehicle to roll forward, trapping Ong in between the wall and the taxis door.

The findings will be delivered by State Coroner Bay on Wednesday (7 December).
I have an odd perspective on the election of Donald Trump: a warped kind of deja vu. For the past decade, Ive worked on the issue of corruption around the world. In particular, Ive spent a lot of time explaining that people who live in structurally corrupt political and economic systems are sometimes driven to extremes. I have always understood that the analysis was relevant in the United States  just maybe not how relevant.

In the past 10 years, populations have rejected rigged systems that had stood for decades. They have risen up in mass protests in Brazil, Guatemala, South Africa, and South Korea. They have overthrown their governments in open insurrections like the Arab Spring and Ukraines Maidan. Or they have fallen in behind self-proclaimed Robin Hoods such as Venezuelas Hugo Chavez. Occasionally, they have joined violent religious movements like the Islamic State or Boko Haram.

With Trumps election, the United States just joined this list.

It might make his voters uncomfortable to hear that theyve behaved much as my former neighbors in Kandahar, Afghanistan, who re-embraced the Taliban in their disgust at the corruption of Hamid Karzais government. Hillary Clinton voters might be equally upset to consider the degree to which the United States has come to resemble that regime or those of other corrupt countries I have been studying.

We Americans may not be subjected to shakedowns by the police, the judge, or the county clerk. But consider current realities: Networks that weave together public officials and business magnates (think the food or energy industries, pharmaceuticals, or Wall Street) have rewritten our legislation to serve their own interests. Institutions that have retained some independence, such as oversight bodies and courts, have been deliberately disabled  starved of operating funds or left understaffed. Practices that, while perhaps not technically illegal, clearly cross the line to the unethical, the inappropriate, or the objectively corrupt have been defended by those who cast themselves as bulwarks of reason and integrity.

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How many of us have said  in any meaningful way  Thats a red line!? Who among us refused, in the end, to take the money or make the excuses?

For me, the seminal moment came on June 27, when the Supreme Court overturned former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnells conviction on corruption charges. A businessman had lavished luxury travel, designer clothes, a Rolex watch, and tens of thousands of dollars on McDonnell and his wife, apparently in return for their help persuading public universities to perform clinical trials on his companys tobacco-based anti-inflammatory supplement.

The Supreme Courts decision was unanimous. Not one of the eight justices could come up with a reason why such behavior might violate the law. None even thought the matter significant enough to warrant separate comment or a cry to our collective conscience: Given the wording of the statute, I had to vote this way. But the legal definition of corruption has grown too narrow. These statutes had better change if America as we know it is to survive.

Subsequent commentary was signally lacking in outrage. On NPRs The Diane Rehm Show that day, for example, the guests (two legal scholars and a journalist) practically skipped over the McDonnell decision. Rehm had to push them to grapple with it. Their consensus seemed to be that if the standard enshrined in the lower courts decision to convict McDonnell were to prevail, every politician in Washington would be liable.

Well, exactly.

These are moral issues. And the very laws we depend on to enforce what should be bedrock standards have sometimes undermined them. Do we reject corruption? Of course we do  just as we refuse to countenance torture. But then come the legal definitions. What counts as torture? How bad does it have to hurt? What do you mean by corruption? The head of an Egyptian business association once told me: Thats part of the brilliance of corruption in Egypt; they make it legal! The United States is going down the same road: The laws we hold so dear have narrowed the definition of corruption almost to the point of irrelevance.

Two candidates  Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump  made the word corruption central to their campaigns. Together they drew easily more than half of votes cast. Yet to use this word to describe America remains almost taboo in polite circles. In the hundreds of pages of post-election commentary, how often has it been emphasized?

One remark from 2013 says a lot about what has befallen America. When then Salon writer Alex Pareene described some of JPMorgan Chases practices as corrupt, CNBC host Maria Bartiromo slapped him down. Should we talk about the financial strength of JPMorgan, at this point? she wondered. Even with all of these losses, the company continues to churn out tens of billions of dollars in earnings and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. How do you criticize that?

Indeed. How do you criticize money these days?

In a country full of sophisticated lawyers and lobbyists and rationalizers, it is now urgent to ask whether we still understand what corruption is. To say its what is proscribed by law is to fall into a logical sinkhole.

What does corruption mean when a senior public official receives gifts from foreign leaders, via an institution bearing her name, while she is making decisions regarding these same foreign leaders? How should someone like me talk about corruption overseas when five different police departments use force against peoples whose lands were stolen through repeated treaty violations, on behalf of a private company pleading the letter of property laws?

What is the definition of corruption when a bank defrauds millions of customers without losing its license? When 2 million American adults are behind bars for trivial offenses, their lives permanently derailed, while no legal institution has punished any executive for bringing about the collapse of the world economy?

Its time to see past the rationales and the rhetoric. No matter who won our vote, we must come to grips with these questions.

Whatever our affiliation or walk of life, we must also, each of us, discover and hold on to that dividing line that marks off the reasonable compromises from the unacceptable.

For, like the people of Mosul in Iraq or northern Nigeria, who traded intolerably corrupt regimes for Islamist crusaders who were worse, Americans will wake up in January under a system that is more corrupt than the one that fueled their rebellion. That is the irony of resorting to a wrecking ball to bring down a corrupt regime. Too often, the kleptocratic networks prove resilient, while those who revolted end up with crushed heads.

Already, President-elect Trumps questionable affiliations and potential conflicts of interest  as genteel vocabulary would have it  are making headlines. The issue is not one of technical legality or poor vetting. His actions and associations are deliberate. While tweeting out distractions to disguise the fact, he will unleash a feeding frenzy. Our laws and institutions will be bent to the purposes of personal enrichment. Industry lobbyists will draft the bills. He will negotiate business deals with foreign counterparts, confusing his personal interests for the good of the nation. Agencies that try to hold the line will see their budgets slashed, their officials belittled in public. Law enforcement will be even more selective than it is today. The labor of human beings, the land, and whats on it or under it will be converted to cash as efficiently as possible. And what cant be converted will be bulldozed out of the way.

And what will Americans do in the face of this exacerbation of our own brand of corruption? Will we further relax our standards, shrugging our shoulders and referring to the letter of ever-changing laws? Or will we reach for a definition of corruption that is in line with common sense and rebuild our foundations upon that bedrock?

Our answer to that challenge will determine whether this is a crisis the United States survives and from which it emerges renewed  or whether we lurch into some more violent and damaging cataclysm.

Photo credit: Getty Images/Foreign Policy illustration
On Dec 6, 2016, we issued an updated research report on global confectionery leader The Hershey Company HSY.



Hersheys shares have gained around 9.66% year to date, compared to the 3.6% decline of the Zacks categorized Food-Confectionary industry. Estimates have also moved north for 2016 and 2017. Also, Hershey beat earnings estimates in all of the past three quarters. The companys productivity improvements and cost savings initiatives should drive the stocks performance in the upcoming quarters as well.

Pros



Hershey is the largest producer of quality chocolate products in the U.S. It markets some of the worlds leading brands which enjoy widespread consumer acceptance. The company is also a global leader in sugar confectionery products, which is an attractive category as confectionery products are easily available, affordable and highly indulgent, thus making the industry almost recession-resistant. The $25 billion CMG category is the largest segment of the $85 billion U.S. snacks market.



In order to counter tepid sales, management has optimized its North American manufacturing footprint, added manufacturing capabilities in international markets, increased supply chain productivity, invested in cost saving projects and improved the sales mix significantly under its continuous improvement and productivity (CIP) program. In 2016, the company expects to achieve combined (CIP and business productivity initiative) savings of around $135 million.



In its last reported third quarter, earnings rose 10.3% on lower advertising costs and higher sales in North America. Hershey also raised its earnings guidance for 2016. The companys sales were up 2%, the second straight quarter of a rise after four quarters of no growth. Its North America category improved while the International segment saw profits for the first time since fourth-quarter 2014. Volumes also increased after almost two years.



Cons



Although, Hershey has been registering sales growth in recent times, its sales trends have been weak since 2014 due to weak category trends, increased competition from broader snacking category and soft international growth. The top-line weakness continued in 2016 with sales declining 0.1% in the first nine months of 2016. Persistent macroeconomic challenges in China continues to hurt the companys sales.



Gross margin also remains a drag and the company continues to expect 2016 gross margin to be slightly below 2015 levels, mainly due to unfavorable sales mix.



Moreover, the U.S. chocolate category is gradually slowing down. A shift in consumer preference toward healthier snacks like nuts and increased competition from the broader snacking category is denting the demand for chocolate.



Meanwhile, changing shopping habits in the U.S., like channel shifting and e-Commerce, are hurting chocolate category growth. Over the last three years, the average growth rate of the CMG category was about 2.3%, lower than the long-term historical average of 3% to 4%. In fact, the company is witnessing chocolate category softness in key international markets like China as well.



Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks



Hershey currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



Other favorably ranked stocks in the industry include Mondelez International, Inc. MDLZ, Ingredion Inc. INGR and Lancaster Colony Corp. LANC.



All three companies carry a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Full-year 2016 earnings for Mondelez are expected to grow 11.4%.



Ingredion is expected to witness 20.1% growth in full-year 2016 earnings.



Fiscal 2016 earnings for Lancaster are expected to rise 7.3%.



"Zacks' Top Investment Ideas for Long-Term Profit



How would you like to see our best recommendations to help you find todays most promising long-term stocks? Starting now, you can look inside our portfolios featuring stocks under $10, income stocks, value investments and more. These picks, which have double and triple-digit profit potential, are rarely available to the public. But you can see them now. Click here >>



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HERSHEY CO/THE (HSY): Free Stock Analysis Report



INGREDION INC (INGR): Free Stock Analysis Report



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Costco Wholesale Corporation COST is slated to report first-quarter fiscal 2017 results on Dec 7. The question lingering in investors mind is, whether the company will be able to deliver a positive earnings surprise in the quarter to be reported. In the final quarter of fiscal 2016, the company outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.3%. Lets see how things are shaping up prior to this announcement.

Zacks Model Shows Unlikely Earnings Beat

Our proven model does not conclusively show that Costco is likely to beat earnings estimates this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Costco has an Earnings ESP of -1.67% as the Most Accurate estimate stands at $1.18, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged higher at $1.20. Costcos Zacks Rank #3 increases the predictive power of ESP. However, we need to have a positive ESP to be confident about an earnings surprise.

COSTCO WHOLE CP Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

COSTCO WHOLE CP Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | COSTCO WHOLE CP Quote

Factors Influencing this Quarter

Costco continues to be one of the dominant retail wholesalers based on its scale and quality of merchandise offered. A differentiated product range enables the company to ensure an upscale shopping experience for its members, resulting in market share gains. Moreover, Costco continues to maintain a healthy membership renewal rate. Further, it is gradually expanding its eCommerce capabilities in the U.S., Canada, UK, Mexico, Taiwan and Korea.

However, investors are worried about Costcos top-line performance as its revenues have missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the seven trailing quarters. Moreover, we note that while lower gasoline prices are adversely impacting U.S. comps, currency fluctuations are affecting international comps. Consequently, shares of Costco have declined 6.1% so far in the year, while the Zacks Categorized Retail-Wholesale industry improved approximately 2.7%.

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Stocks Poised to Beat Earnings Estimates

Here are some companies you may want to consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat:

Burlington Stores, Inc. BURL has an Earnings ESP of +0.59% and a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

DSW Inc. DSW has an Earnings ESP of +6.25% and a Zacks Rank #3.

Dollar Tree, Inc. DLTR has an Earnings ESP of +0.76% and a Zacks Rank #3.

Zacks' Top Investment Ideas for Long-Term Profit

How would you like to see our best recommendations to help you find todays most promising long-term stocks? Starting now, you can look inside our portfolios featuring stocks under $10, income stocks, value investments and more. These picks, which have double and triple-digit profit potential, are rarely available to the public. But you can see them now. Click here >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



DSW INC CL-A (DSW): Free Stock Analysis Report



DOLLAR TREE INC (DLTR): Free Stock Analysis Report



COSTCO WHOLE CP (COST): Free Stock Analysis Report



BURLINGTON STRS (BURL): Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
By Lisa Rapaport Without good information on how well different nonprescription skin creams work for infant eczema, parents may want to try petroleum jelly first because it tends to be cheapest, a recent study suggests. Up to one in five children develop eczema at some point, and half of them get this inflammatory skin condition as babies. The condition can lead to rashes, itchy skin and infections when kids scratch, and it's also linked to other health problems like asthma, allergies, sleep disorders, developmental delays and behavior issues. Doctors often tell parents to cover babies head to toe in moisturizers to prevent flare-ups and soothe inflamed skin. For the current study, researchers examined the cost per ounce of Vaseline petroleum jelly and other non-prescription options such as Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment, Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream and Aveeno Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Cream. "Petroleum jelly is an extremely effective moisturizer," said lead study author Dr. Shuai Xu, a dermatology researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago. "It also happens to be one of the most affordable." While adults may not want to coat their whole body with petroleum jelly because it's messy and greasy, babies won't care much about getting their clothes dirty, Xu added by email. This product also tends to be free of artificial fragrances or preservatives that can act as irritants or allergens in the future. To determine the typical cost of covering babies in moisturizers each day, researchers averaged the list price for seven of these products at four different retailers. Then, they calculated a price per ounce as well as the cost per typical application to fully moisturize an average size 6-month-old baby once every day for six months. Vaseline was cheapest by both measures, at an average price of 13 cents an ounce and 4 cents per application, for a total cost over six months of $7.30, researchers report in JAMA Pediatrics. Aquaphor was the fourth most expensive option, at an average price of 94 cents an ounce and 31 cents per application, for a total cost over six months of $56.58. Aveeno was second in expense only to Vaniply Ointment. Aveeno's eczema cream cost $1.40 per ounce and 45 cents per application, for a total of $82.13 over six months. The study didn't look at the effectiveness of different options, and researchers didn't test out how much moisturizer parents actually applied to determine typical costs. Instead, researchers assumed all the moisturizers were equally effective, which may not be true, said C. Michael White, chair of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy in Hartford. "However, there is a very low risk of harm from using a moisturizer without artificial scents so it is something that parents can do as more data is generated," White, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email. "At this point, I would choose the least expensive product to start and if you don't like the feel of it (petroleum jelly can be very greasy and some people don't like the feel of it) or you believe something else might be easier to use you can try it and be able to compare the effects to the less expensive option," White added. Trying these moisturizers is a good option because left untreated, parents don't always realize that eczema can go beyond just itchy skin to encompass a wide variety of health problems, Xu said.
With Green Party presidential candidate Jill Steins quest to recount the votes in three states running into serious problems, the latest long-shot hope for people still convinced that Donald Trump can be prevented from becoming president is a rebellion within the Electoral College. But just as Steins effort to seek out voting irregularities in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania seemed a vain effort even before it started, so does the dream of electors banding together to overthrow the results of the election.

As most of us learn in middle school civics and quickly forget, when voters cast a ballot for president they are actually choosing electors who have pledged to cast their votes for a specific candidate when the Electoral College convenes a few weeks after the election. Each state has the same number of electors as it has members of the House and Senate combined. Whichever presidential candidate manages to receive 270 votes in the Electoral College is made president.

Related: The Campaign Promise Congress Wont Let Trump Keep

Historically, the Electoral College vote has largely been a formality, with the individual electors obediently casting their votes in line with the majority of their states voters. However, over the years, there have been occasional cases of faithless electors -- so called because they broke faith with the voters by casting their ballots for candidates other than those they promised to support.

While faithless electors have never had a real effect on a presidential election, there is good reason to believe that the Founding Fathers believed the electors were meant to be something other than a rubber stamp for the electorate as a whole. Writing in Federalist Papers No. 68, Alexander Hamilton defended the Electoral College in part by insisting, The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

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The intervening 228 years have brought many changes to the system that Hamilton described -- including state laws mandating winner-take-all distribution of electoral votes -- but the latest dream beguiling anti-Trumpers is that the spirit of Hamilton will persuade Republican electors to abandon their partys candidate and cast their votes for someone else.

The poster-child for this movement is Chris Suprun of Dallas, a Republican elector who has declared his intention to vote for someone other than Trump.

Related: How the Electoral College Can Turn a Definite Presidential Winner Into a Loser

I was told if we elected Donald Trump he would transform his personality into being presidential. He isnt, Suprun told the Associated Press. I wanted him to be presidential, but since the election he hasnt grown into our institution, hes attacked them. I am here to elect a president, not a king.

However, so far there doesnt appear to be a wave of Republican defections on the horizon. And, in the event there were enough holdouts to cause Trump to fall short of the 270-vote threshold, the law would throw the election to the House of Representatives, who would be required to choose a president from the candidates who received the most electoral votes. A Republican House would almost certainly install Trump as president.

In fact, as Cato Institute scholar Michael F. Cannon writes in The Washington Post, the most plausible Electoral College strategy for avoiding the ultimate selection of Trump involves the 232 electors pledged to Hillary Clinton banding together behind a different Republican and convincing a few dozen Trump electors to join them.

The only way Democrats stand any chance of persuading Republican electors to abandon Trump is with a dramatic gesture of true bipartisanship, Cannon says. If all 232 Democratic electors pledge to reach across the aisle and vote for a Republican alternative to Trump, it would take just 38 GOP electors to make that person the next president. If Clinton announced she is releasing her electors and asked them to vote for a credible Republican alternative, she could plausibly deliver all 232 Democratic electors.

Related: Why Both Trump and Obama Are Wrong About How to Save American Jobs

But even in the age of social media and news with instantly national reach, its worth keeping in mind another of Hamiltons observations about the Electoral College. One of its selling points, he wrote in Federalist 68, is that manipulating hundreds of electors, who are required by law to hold no federal office and whose commission expires with the casting of their votes, would be all but impossible. While Hamiltons major concern was corruption, his point applies as well to an organized effort to overturn the results of an election.

Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it, he wrote. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court has further remanded the Kanyamunyus to Luzira prison.

This is after state prosecutor Racheal Nabwire informed Grade One Magistrate Noah Sajjabi that police investigations are still on-going and asked for more time until the 20th/December 2016.

Businessman Matthew Kanyamunyu, his 26-year-old girlfriend, Cynthia Munwangari and 40 year old brother Joseph Kanyamunyu, are accused of killing child rights activist Kenneth Akena.

The trio had returned to court this morning for the mention of their murder case.

Prosecution states that on the night of 12th/November 2016 in Kampala Kanyamunyu allegedly shot Akena who later died at Norvik hospital from the gunshot wounds.

The suspects were earlier barred from pleading to this grave offence which is only triable and bailable by the High Court.
Karlsruhe (Germany) (AFP) - A German court on Tuesday ruled that energy suppliers can claim compensation over the country's nuclear power phaseout in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, dealing a blow to one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's flagship policies.

Judges did not agree with power plant operators that the shutdown ordered by lawmakers in 2011 amounted to an "expropriation" of their assets, but said the government should agree a deal to compensate the firms by June 2018.

"It was permissible for lawmakers to take the accident in Fukushima as a prompt to speed up exiting nuclear energy to protect the health of people and the environment," senior judge Ferdinand Kirchhof told the court in Karlsruhe.

But although the phase-out decision itself was legal, the court found, the firms have a right to "appropriate" compensation from the government, which is not provided for in the law as it stands.

The judges did not specify how much the compensation should be, but media reports said the plaintiffs -- German electricity giants EON and RWE and Sweden's Vattenfall -- had sought some 20 billion euros ($21 billion) in damages.

Merkel's government decided after Japan's 2011 Fukushima reactor meltdowns to halt operations of Germany's eight oldest nuclear plants and to shutter the other nine by 2022.

The move marked a sharp reversal for Merkel, who had earlier overturned a phase-out ordered by a previous government in 2002.

The chief of Germany's biggest power company EON, Johannes Teyssen, told the court in March that while the companies respected the political choice to give up on nuclear energy, they should not have to foot the bill alone.

"We cannot simply accept that parliament disregarded constitutional requirements by providing for no compensation," he said at the time.

"For our shareholders -- including many small stock holders who have their savings and pensions invested with us -- this creates a significant financial loss which under current law will not be compensated for."

Story continues

- Leverage -

The firms have complained that the losses come at a time when they are already struggling in the face of low wholesale electricity prices and competition from heavily subsidised renewables as part of Germany's shift to clean energy such as wind, solar and biomass.

Critics however have countered that the big energy companies benefited from massive state subsidies when the nuclear plants first went into operation.

At the same court hearing in March, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks defended the government's position, saying that the Fukushima catastrophe had "necessitated a reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear energy".

The verdict could have an impact on parallel negotiations between the government and nuclear plant operators on managing the country's atomic waste disposal.

Under a draft law approved in October, the firms Vattenfall, EON, RWE and EnBW would have to contribute 23.5 billion euros to a state fund for the storage of nuclear waste by 2022.

The agreement is yet to be finalised however, and the plaintiffs may well use a favourable verdict as leverage in the talks.

Safely decommissioning all the plants and storing their radioactive parts and waste could cost up to 50 billion euros, experts estimate.

Eight nuclear power stations remain in operation in Germany today.
By Minami Funakoshi and Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - A Thai teenager born and raised in Japan lost an appeal on Tuesday against a lower court ruling that upheld his deportation order, highlighting the country's deep reluctance to accept foreigners even as its population ages and shrinks. The Tokyo High Court ruled that Utinan Won, a 16-year-old high school student living without a visa, should leave Japan. Won's mother had already left Japan after lower court judges said her son could win residency if she returned to Thailand. "Of course I want to stay in Japan," Won told reporters after the ruling. "I'd waited so long for this decision. I'm so sad and pained that it was made so quickly." The High Court judges made their ruling in little more than 10 seconds, with cries of "Why?" and "Terrible" coming from a packed public gallery. Won's case has drawn sharp focus on the plight of hundreds of children who, like him, live on "provisional release" - a status that allows those without visas to stay in Japan while banning them from working and traveling freely. Last month, Reuters exposed the agonizing pathway to residency offered by the Japanese immigration authorities and courts to some families living on provisional release: Children can stay in Japan legally if their parents return to their country of origin. Tokyo District Court judges said in June Won could win a special residence permit if his mother - who at the time was also on provisional release - left Japan, and if he found another guardian. Won's mother, Lonsan Phaphakdee, returned to Bangkok in September to give her son a chance to continue life in the only country he has known. Won now lives with a Japanese man who has been supporting the family. The High Court judges said in a written ruling: "We must say that the (lower court's) decision and the deportation order are legally legitimate." Although Won does not read or write Thai, he is able to speak the language and is young enough to adapt to life back in Thailand, the judges said. Won's lawyer, Koichi Kodama, said the judges did not take into consideration the fact that the mother had left Japan and only re-evaluated evidence submitted to the lower court. Wearing his school uniform and sneakers, Won remained impassive throughout the ruling, his head bowed slightly. Representatives from the government, the defendant in the case, were not present at the hearing. His lawyer said Won had not yet decided whether to appeal against the latest ruling. (Editing by Paul Tait)
The regulator of securities firms in the U.S., the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), has imposed a fine of $16.5 million on Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, the securities business unit of the Swiss bank  Credit Suisse Group AG CS  for inadequate supervision of anti-money laundering (AML) compliance policies and systems. FINRAs AML Investigative Unit identified the violations during an examination of the firm.



Per the regulator, Credit Suisse units suspicious activity detection program lagged in two areas. Firstly, the company failed to effectively review AML trading for reporting purposes. During Jan 2011Sep 2013, the company chiefly relied on its registered representatives for identification and escalation of potentially suspicious trading to its AML compliance department, including transactions related to microcap stocks.



Conversely, these representatives, the primary source of contact with the customers, did not always report high-risk activity for investigation, as required under the companys AML policies. Additionally, such reliance failed to track orders that came electronically from the companys foreign affiliates. Consequently, such orders were not accounted for by the firms sales traders.



FINRA found that during 20112013, the bank facilitated the illegal distribution of at least $55 million unregistered shares of microcap securities. However, the firm later implemented additional procedures, limiting the trading of such securities.



Secondly, the companys automated surveillance system was ineffective to detect potentially suspicious money movements, as a considerable amount of data feeds into the system lacked adequate information. The regulator alleged that during Jan 2011Dec 2015, the company failed to effectively implement the automated system to identify red flags and also use applicable risk scenarios in its assessments.

Story continues

Further, the bank initially failed to assign sufficient resources to resolve the issues on time. Also, the company lagged adequate staff to review the tens of thousands of alerts its automated system generated in any given year.



The regulator noted that some of the AML deficiencies remain unresolved even today, though Credit Suisse itself identified few of them and even hired a consulting firm to assist with the evaluations. The company neither admitted nor denied the charges, but agreed to the entry of FINRAs findings.



Over the last few months, regulators have been targeting financial players over unfair business practices. In Sep 2016, Wells Fargo & Company WFC faced a combined fine of $190 million from California and federal regulators over the opening of nearly 1.5 million of unauthorized deposit accounts. In Oct 2016, Morgan Stanley MS was charged with conducting an unethical, high-pressure sales practice against their clients brokerage accounts. Further, last month, FINRA fined $7 million to a unit of Bank of America Corporation BAC for inadequate supervision of securities-backed leverage in their clients brokerage account.



Currently, Credit Suisse carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.



The companys stock declined more than 36% so far this year on the NYSE, underperforming the 2.7% growth for the Zacks categorized Foreign Banks industry. The Zacks Consensus estimate plummeted nearly 46% to 22 cents over the last 30 days, for the current year.







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DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

Crude oil prices struggling at chart barrier after OPEC rally

Gold prices may recover amid lull in Fed-linked news flow

API inventory data, UK Brexit appeal headline key event risk

Crude oil prices corrected lower as markets digested last weeks gains in the wake of a last-minute OPEC output cut accord. Non-OPEC producers with meet with members of the cartel in Vienna on December 10 to discuss cooperation with the scheme. In the meantime, traders may turn to more mundane matters, with the API estimate of weekly inventory flows on tap today.

Gold prices are consolidating below the $1200 figure amid a lull in fresh news-flow informing the Fed policy outlook. A quiet US docket through much of the week may open the door for a corrective rebound amid profit-taking on short positions after recent weakness. A pending Brexit implementation ruling from the UK Supreme Court may also a bit of direction to the extent that it influences broader sentiment trends.

See the schedule of upcoming webinars and join us LIVE to follow the financial markets!

GOLD TECHNICAL ANALYSIS  Gold prices continue to tread water in familiar territory but the emergence of positive RSI divergence hints a bounce may be brewing ahead. A daily close above the 14.6% Fibonacci retracement at 1183.28 opens the door for a test of the 23.6% level at 1199.50. Alternatively, a push below the 23.6% Fib expansion at 1158.15 exposes the 38.2% threshold at 1133.83.

Crude Oil Prices Struggle at Chart Barrier After OPEC Rally

CRUDE OIL TECHNICAL ANALYSIS  Crude oil have stalled at familiar resistance in the 51.64-91 area (double top, 76.4% Fibonacci expansion). The appearance of a bearish Dark Cloud Cover candlestick pattern and early signs of negative RSI divergence hint a turn lower may be ahead. A break below the 61.8% levelat 50.05 targets the 50% Fib at 48.55.Alternatively, a push above resistance exposes the 100% expansion at 54.92.

Crude Oil Prices Struggle at Chart Barrier After OPEC Rally

--- Written by Ilya Spivak, Currency Strategist for DailyFX.com

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Contact and follow Ilya on Twitter: @IlyaSpivak



original source

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HAVANA/WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Cuba and the United States will draw up a roadmap for deepening their detente, the Cuban government said on Tuesday, in a first meeting since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Wednesday's fifth U.S.-Cuban bilateral commission comes at a time of increased uncertainty about the future of U.S.-Cuban relations given Trump's promise to end the detente if Cuba did not offer a better "deal."

The administration of outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama has pressed American companies to complete additional business deals in Cuba to help further cement the president's policy by the time Trump takes office on January 20.

"We will define the actions that will be carried out in the coming weeks to further the process of improving relations," the Cuban foreign ministry said. Those actions would include high-level visits and accords of cooperation in areas of mutual interest, it said.

Communist-ruled Cuba has so far mostly stayed quiet on Trump's statements, waiting to see whether he converts his tough rhetoric into policy change.

Several major U.S. companies, such as General Electric , are in the final stages of negotiating deals with Cuba, sources familiar with the matter say. One of those sources, based in Washington, said more than half a dozen announcements, ranging from cruise ships and travel to manufacturing and telecommunications, are believed to be in the works.

Negotiations may have been affected by the nine days of official mourning for Castro, the source said.

Castro had given Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs during his half century as president, partly by clashing with the United States.

His younger brother, Raul Castro, who took over as president in 2008, made history two years ago by agreeing with Obama to end Cold War hostility and start normalizing relations.

Since then, the two countries have opened embassies, restored commercial flights, opened travel options and negotiated agreements on issues affecting the environment, law enforcement, the postal service and communications.

Story continues

Obama, who visited Cuba earlier this year, has also gradually poked holes in the U.S. embargo on the Caribbean island through executive orders. But Trump says Obama ought to have cut a "better deal."

At a campaign rally in Miami, which has a large population of Cuban exiles, he said he would seek to reverse Obama's moves to open relations with Cuba unless its leaders allowed religious freedoms and freed political prisoners.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh, Nelson Acosta and Marc Frank in Havana, Matthew Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
By Sarah Marsh and Matt Spetalnick HAVANA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cuba and the United States will draw up a roadmap for deepening their detente on Wednesday in a first meeting since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro. The fifth U.S.-Cuban bilateral commission comes at a time of increased uncertainty about the future of U.S.-Cuban relations given Trump's promise to end the detente if Cuba did not offer a better "deal." The administration of outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama has pressed American companies to complete additional business deals in Cuba to help further cement the presidents policy by the time Trump takes office on January 20. "We will define the actions that will be carried out in the coming weeks to further the process of improving relations," the Cuban foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Those actions would include high-level visits and accords of cooperation in areas of mutual interest, it said. Communist-ruled Cuba has so far mostly stayed quiet on Trump's statements, waiting to see whether he converts his tough rhetoric into policy change. Several major U.S. companies, such as General Electric, are in the final stages of negotiating deals with Cuba, sources familiar with the matter say. One of those sources, based in Washington, said more than half a dozen announcements, ranging from cruise ships and travel to manufacturing and telecommunications, are believed to be in the works. Negotiations may have been affected by the nine days of official mourning for Castro, the source said. Castro had given Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs during his half century as president, partly by clashing with the United States. His younger brother, Raul Castro, who took over as president in 2008, made history two years ago by agreeing with Obama to end Cold War hostility and start normalizing relations. Since then, the two countries have opened embassies, restored commercial flights, opened travel options and negotiated agreements on issues affecting the environment, law enforcement, the postal service and communications. Obama, who visited Cuba earlier this year, has also gradually poked holes in the U.S. embargo on the Caribbean island through executive orders. But Trump says Obama ought to have cut a "better deal." At a campaign rally in Miami, which has a large population of Cuban exiles, he said he would seek to reverse Obama's moves to open relations with Cuba unless its leaders allowed religious freedoms and freed political prisoners. U.S. supporters of the detente say it is improving Cubans' lives while contributing to opening the socialist system in place, for example by fostering the fledgling private sector. A bipartisan group of U.S. congressional leaders and four Cuban entrepreneurs will hold a joint news conference on Wednesday to urge Congress to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba. The Cuban entrepreneurs will also urge Trump not to reverse the thaw, according to a statement issued by the office of pro-detente Senator Patrick Leahy. (Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta, Frank Daniel, and Marc Frank in Havana and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
TEL AVIV, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Secdo has raised $10 million in a funding round led by RDC, a subsidiary of Israel's Elron Electronic Industries and Rafael, Check Point Software co-founder Marius Nacht, and the founders of Anobit, which was acquired by Apple.

The funding will be used to expand U.S. sales operations, customer support, and its research and development centre, Secdo said on Tuesday.

Secdo enables large businesses to quickly sort through thousands of potential cyber breach alerts that they receive each day, cutting response time to minutes.

The company was founded in 2014 by cyber security experts from Israeli army intelligence, and has offices in New York and Israel.

"After major investments in solutions that try to prevent or detect threats, the industry's focus is shifting to incident response," Secdo Chief Executive Shai Morag said.

(Reporting by Tova Cohen)
MP Michael Kabaziguruka has asked the General court martial sitting in Makindye to stay the proceedings in a treachery charges against him.

Kabaziguruka wants his trial stayed until his petition before Constitutional challenging the powers of General court martial to try civilians is heard and disposed of.

The state Prosecutor Major Simon Maserejje has informed court that investigations in the matter are complete and they were to commence hearing today but unfortunately the state witness has informed them that he is not feeling well and therefore asked for a short adjournment.

This has been objected to by all the defense counsels led by Hon Medard Lubega SSegona who informed court that it would be unfair to commence hearing of the matter yet there is a constitutional petition against the same matter before a superior court.

However the Judge Advocate in reply informed Court that its the constitutional court that has powers to issue an order staying the proceedings but not lawyers thereby advised them [layers] to seek for an order stay the proceedings from that court.

This prompted Courts chairman Lt Gen Andrew Gutti to adjourn the matter to 20th December for the ruling on whether to stay the proceedings or to countinue with the hearing.

Prosecution alleges that between February and June 2016, Kabaziguruka and 25 others including UPDF soldiers plotted in Kampala, Wakiso and Luweero districts, to overthrow the government by force of arms.
Photo credit: Associated Press

From Cosmopolitan

A Georgia man convicted of murder after his toddler son died in a hot SUV has been sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jurors last month convicted Justin Ross Harris of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper. The malice murder conviction means they believed Harris left the young boy to die on purpose.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark sentenced the 36-year-old Harris at a hearing Monday. Prosecutors said at trial that Harris intentionally killed his son to escape the responsibilities of family life.

"What factually was a horrendous horrific experience for this 22-month old child who had been placed in the trust of his father and in violation and dereliction of duty to that child, if not love of that child, callously walked away and left that child in a hot car in June in Georgia in the summer to swelter and die," Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark said.



Defense attorneys said the boy's death was an accident.



On the morning of his death, Harris was supposed to drop off his son at daycare and then go to work at Home Depot in the Atlanta suburbs. The two went to Chick-fil-A, according to NBC News, then, instead of dropping the boy at daycare, Harris parked his car at Home Depot and left Cooper inside for seven hours. The child died of hyperthermia.



Harris, who was married at the time, had been texting sexually explicit messages to women, including prostitutes, and underage girls. Some of the messages were sent the day Cooper died.

Harris' wife of ten years, Leanna Taylor, filed for divorce during the trial.

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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
Looking at the big picture, its clear that the Five Start Movement won the battle to get Italian PM Renzi out of power. But in doing so, it may have lost the war to achieve ultimate power itself, closing off a pathway for it to take Italy out of the Euro and the European Union. In other words: this may mean more trouble for the Italian banking system than it will for the Euro itself. Any actions that insulate the Euro from tail risk (i.e., contagion from a bank failure or a break-up of the bloc) should be viewed positively by markets. See my full analysis on the Italian referendum and why the Euro rallied from yesterday.

Elsewhere, in other economic populism-related news, the Brexit hearings have continued at the UK Supreme Court and thus far, markets are pricing-out the likelihood of a favorable outcome for UK Prime Minister Theresa May; the resilience of GBP/USD during the greenbacks recent is a testament to this sentiment swing.

The British Pound may see that its positive influences have staying power. Our long-term view of Brexit has always been that, because parliamentary ratification of the June 23 Brexit vote would be necessary before Article 50 could be triggered, and that the vast majority of MPs were in favor of Remain, that once Brexit took shape, it would be of the soft variety; that the UK could enter a relationship with the EU akin to what Switzerland has under EFTA or Norway under EEA.



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By Liz Hampton HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army's denial of an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, after permitting and legal obligations were followed, sets an uncertain precedent for new projects despite President-elect Donald Trump's promise to support energy infrastructure. The decision came after months of protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and others who said the line could desecrate tribal grounds, or a spill could contaminate drinking water. While most of the 1,172-mile (1,885-km) pipeline is complete, Energy Transfer Partners, the line's owner, needed an easement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to drill under Lake Oahe. The lake, a water source formed by a dam on the Missouri River, has been the focus of protesters. The Army's intervention sets an unsettling precedent, analysts and industry groups told Reuters, because Energy Transfer had undergone the necessary environmental reviews and permitting processes to move ahead with construction. "I think it sends a horrible signal to anyone wanting to invest in a project and I strongly suspect those policies will be discontinued on Jan. 20th," said Brigham McCown, the former head of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) under George W. Bush, referring to the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Still, the decision to deny the easement tempers some of the optimism pipeline companies assumed following the election of Trump, who is seen as more supportive of oil and gas projects. Energy Transfer Partners said in a statement the decision was politically motivated and it did not intend to reroute the line. (For graphic on the Dakota Access Pipeline, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2cqkRJ7) DELAYS & RISING COSTS Beyond the federal approval issues, state and local governments have also mobilized against pipelines. Earlier this year, Georgia's state legislature passed a bill to restrict pipeline developments, stopping a gasoline line from Florida to South Carolina from being built. Energy Transfer chief executive Kelcy Warren, a donor to Trump's campaign, said his election was a positive. Last week Trump for the first time voiced support for the Dakota Access project. Trump has also said he would support TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL, which the Obama Administration rejected last year. Denying permits for an already-approved pipeline adds a new level of uncertainty to projects. Oil companies have already been facing growing resistance from environmental groups that have resulted in delays or unanticipated costs. Equipment used for the Dakota Access line has been set on fire, and in October, a group of protesters turned off valves on pipelines transporting oil from Canada to the United States. Together, those lines had capacity to move some 2.8 million barrels per day of oil. "Until you see that Trump has a track record of approving things and showing that things can get built in time, it's tough to say it's not a murky environment for pipelines," said Sarp Ozkan, manager of energy analytics for Drillinginfo. That means pipelines could face higher risk premiums and have a harder time getting volume commitments from shippers that underpin such projects, Ozkan said. Energy Transfer has said it expects to lose almost $84 million each month the Dakota Access pipeline is delayed, and that losing shippers could result in its cancellation, according to a court filing. "I think midstream companies will hope that each project can be decided based on necessary permitting approvals, but there will be increased risk where agencies like USACE are involved," said Sandy Fielden, director of research in commodities and energy at Morningstar. While the Standing Rock Sioux have said they would support a rerouting of the line, others, such as the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), want it canceled. "Given Trump's support of the Dakota Access, and the Keystone XL, we remain cautious," said Dallas Goldtooth, a spokesman for IEN. (Reporting by Liz Hampton in Houston; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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By Curtis Skinner and Peter Henderson OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The death toll rose to 36 on Monday from a blaze that engulfed a converted warehouse during a dance party in Oakland, California, the greatest loss of life from a U.S. fire in over a decade, as searchers sifted charred ruins being treated as a crime scene. Authorities said they were certain to find more bodies in the gutted building and were still trying to account for about 50 people reported missing by loved ones, while ruling out any drastic climb in the tally of deaths. "If you have a best friend out there, please hug your best friend," Franchesca Dickerson, a 21-year old hairdresser, told a candlelight vigil, as she held a collage of images of a friend who died in the blaze. "I'd give 50,000 years to hug mine," added Dickerson, who was to have joined her childhood friend, 19-year old Michalea Gregory, at the party, but changed plans because of work. The cause of the fire, which erupted late on Friday in a sprawling two-story building leased to an artists' collective, has yet to be determined. Officials have said arson was not immediately suspected. But charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder could feature in a potential criminal case, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley told a news conference. Possible safety violations were expected to be one aspect of the investigation, with city officials having said the site was already under investigation for reports of illegal construction. Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives identified an "area of interest" on the ground floor that was still out of reach, said Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. He described the spot as being at the rear of the warehouse, where makeshift studios and cubicles were clustered. O'Malley said fire investigators and a task force from her office were working with recovery teams inside the wreckage to preserve any potential criminal evidence as they seek signs of victims and clues to the origin of the blaze. Debris was being removed "bucket by bucket," said Deputy Fire Chief Darren White, but a large construction crane at the scene required nearby electricity lines to be shut down for several hours, as a precaution. FIRE HAZARDS The nature of the fire has raised questions about possible building code violations. City officials have said the warehouse, known as the Ghost Ship, was already under scrutiny, with an inspector having visited on Nov. 17. Municipal authorities also cited reports of people living in the structure, although it was barred to residential use. Some of those who entered the warehouse called it a potential fire trap. The first floor, housing an artist cooperative, the Satya Yuga Collective, was a warren of partitioned studio spaces and rooms crammed with furniture, musical instruments and rugs, according to survivors, city officials and photographs posted on social media before the fire. Two recreational vehicles believed to have been used as living quarters and work space were found parked on the ground floor inside, Kelly said. The dance party was held on the second floor, which partially collapsed when the roof gave way. Survivors said flames spread quickly and billowing thick, black smoke blinded and choked those struggling to flee. The 10,000-square-foot (929-sq-m) building lacked sprinklers or smoke detectors, and wooden pallets partially formed a makeshift stairway between first and second floors, officials said. It had just two exterior doorways. YOUNG VICTIMS The recovery of three more bodies took the confirmed death count to 36, making the blaze the deadliest in the United States since 100 people perished in a 2003 nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island. "We absolutely believe that the number of fire fatalities will increase," Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton told reporters. But Sheriff Gregory Ahern later said he was "not anticipating any more huge numbers" of victims. By Monday afternoon, 33 of the dead had been identified and authorities were notifying families, said Ahern, adding that three victims were from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala. Most victims had been in their 20s and 30s, but some were younger, officials said. The site was known as a "safeplace" haven for young members of the city's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, Kelly said. With many bodies burned beyond recognition, families were asked to preserve items that might contain DNA to help identification. Kelly said some people died of smoke inhalation. Officials were unsure of the numbers present when the fire erupted. One survivor has estimated them at 60 to 70. The warehouse was one of many converted lofts on the east end of San Francisco Bay in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood, a mostly Latino district where rents are typically lower than elsewhere. (Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Timothy McLaughlin in Chicago, Deborah Todd in Oakland and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Writing by Daniel Wallis and Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)
Athens (AFP) - Demonstrations in Greece to mark the eighth anniversary of a teenager's death at the hands of police culminated in violence Tuesday, with officers using tear gas against protesters.

Hooded youths in Athens set fire to garbage bins, damaged cars and threw stones, flares and firebombs at police in the Exarcheia district, where 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos was fatally shot by a police patrolman in 2008.

A riot officer was hurt in the clashes and police detained 25 persons for questioning, state agency ANA said.

In Thessaloniki, where a similar protest took place, some demonstrators climbed to the roof of the local university and threw firebombs at police below.

Hundreds of school pupils, university students and left-wing organisations had earlier held protests in Greece's main cities in memory of Grigoropoulos, whose death sparked days of youth unrest across Greece.

Greek police had already been on alert for the remembrance day, mobilising thousands of officers in Athens and shutting down two central metro stations closest to the protest.

The officer who shot Grigoropoulos following a street row, Epaminondas Korkoneas, was in 2010 found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to life in prison for the killing.

At his trial, Korkoneas claimed he had fired warning shots to keep back youngsters who were hurling objects at him and his patrol partner.

One of his bullets deflected onto the boy's chest, killing him before he could be taken to hospital.

His patrol partner Vassilios Saraliotis was sentenced to 10 years for complicity but was conditionally freed in 2011.
The trial of former Lords Resistance Army rebel commander Dominic Ongwen opens today at the International Criminal Court.

Ongwen is to appear before a panel of three ICC judges led by Bertram Schmitt.

He faces 70 counts which include crimes against humanity, murder, rape, attempted murder, sexual slavery, torture, cruel treatment, destruction of property, as well as abduction and use of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities in northern Uganda.

Yesterday the International Criminal Court Registrar Herman Von Hebel gave assurance on witness protection while addressing journalists in Kampala.

He said they have over 4000 victims to participate in the proceedings as witnesses.
Photo credit: Berkley Vopnfjord

From ELLE

This article originally appeared in the December 2016 issue of ELLE.

Casting for Broadway is now in a post-Hamilton era. How do we know? Because when it was announced that 24-year-old Denee Benton would make her Broadway debut-along with costar Josh Groban-as Natasha Rostova, a historically Anglo nineteenth-century Russian countess, in the exuberant experimental electropop Broadway musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, there was barely any mention of "color-blind casting."

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Benton was simply the best person to tell Natasha's story. "I grew up singing in church and school plays and chorus," Benton says of her teen years performing at Trinity Preparatory School in Winter Park, Florida. "But I never understood how to go from being a kid in Orlando to being on TV or on Broadway. I was like, 'Do I get headshots? Do I get discovered at Starbucks? How does this happen?' " A year participating in the NAACP's immersive arts, tech, and science enrichment program, ACT-SO-a kind of master class for talented African American youths in various disciplines (Jada Pinkett Smith is an alum)-sorted that out, giving Benton the confidence to land the title role in Aida her senior year of high school, and then to major in musical theater at Carnegie Mellon. Soon after graduating in 2014, Benton was cast as Nabulungi in London's West End run and U.S. national tour of The Book of Mormon.

The Great Comet-which is based on just 70 pages of Tolstoy's War and Peace-recounts Natasha's affair with the waggish Anatole as her closest friend, Pierre (Groban), falls into an existential crisis. When the cast was gearing up for the third non-Broadway production of the play in late 2015, this time at the American Repertory Theater, director Rachel Chavkin needed a new Natasha, as Phillipa Soo, who originated the role, was leaving to star in Hamilton. Chavkin found her in Benton, who imbued Natasha with a riveting mix of unblighted romanticism and raw desire-and melted crowds with her heartening aria, "No One Else." Thus, when the musical got its Broadway transfer, Benton went with it.

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"Natasha has such access to big emotions, especially joy," says Benton, who was most recently seen as one of the female contestants on season two of Lifetime's satirical send-up of The Bachelor, UnREAL. "And I recognized that in myself. To play a wide-eyed, confident, edgy ingenue who's ready to go against what she's been told to do in life-that's the way I've existed. So as much fun as it is to be transformational, it's cool to be like, 'I get you, girl.' "

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On Dec 5, we issued an updated research report on DeVry Education Group Inc. DV  a provider of secondary and post-secondary education.



Impressive first-quarter fiscal 2017 results, cost-saving initiatives and plans to introduce more stackable programs in 2017 are doing the tricks for DeVry.



Moreover, the U.S. presidential election had a positive impact on the school industry as shares of for-profit education companies like Universal Technical Institute, Inc.UTI, Strayer Education STRA, K12 Inc.LRN and American Public Education, Inc. APEI have rallied since the victory of Donald Trump.



The new president had assured relaxed federal regulations for such companies during his campaigns. DeVrys shares gained over 31% since the release of its first-quarter fiscal 2017 earnings (on Nov 1), outperforming 2.35% growth for the Zacks categorized School industry.



Again, the stock has a VGM Style Score of A. Notably, our research shows that stocks with VGM Scores of A or B when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 or 2 (Buy) make solid investment choices.



Whats Driving DeVry?



DeVrys health care and international institutions  Chamberlain, Ross, Becker  have shown significant improvement in revenues and profits in the past three years. These medical schools produce strong student outcomes, with very low cohort-default rates and high job placements. In addition, these schools have been continuously opening campuses and introducing programs in order to capitalize on the strong demand.



Also DeVry reported impressive first-quarter fiscal 2017 results and has surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for sales and earnings for the third quarter in a row.



Throughout fiscal 2017, the company plans to introduce a number of short-period, stackable programs that will provide students the flexibility and affordability to pursue education outside the traditional degree course structure.



Also, DeVry adopted several cost-saving initiatives like workforce reduction and curbing discretionary spending. The company is following a strict cost-control routine, with special emphasis on controlling escalating costs at DeVry University and Carrington Colleges. The company also condensed the footprint of DeVry University.



This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock has a decent earnings history, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all of the past four quarters at an average of 8.9%. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.



Concerns



The company has been witnessing a persistent decline in enrollments at its flagship institution, DeVry University, which accounts for a major portion of its revenues. DeVry Universitys starts have also been declining for several years now and are expected to remain a challenge over the near term, as prospective students are reluctant to incur debts for pursuing higher degree. The competition in this space is also intense.



As the employment scenario is improving, more adult students are opting for jobs while the demand for academic programs is on the decline. There is also growing reluctance among students to enroll in academic programs and take loans to fund them.



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Less than one week after its launch, DirecTV Now reached the subscriber goal that AT&T had set for December, the telcos CEO Randall Stephenson told investors today.

Although he didnt provide any numbers, the early demand has been rather dramatic, he said at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference. In addition, the number of streaming service customers paying an additional $5 for HBO or Cinemax is exceeding expectations.

If anyone doubted that mobile subscribers wanted to watch long-form video that ship has sailed, the CEO says. And his plan to spend $85 billion for Time Warner is the completion of the strategy.

One day before hes due to testify before a Senate committee about the deal, Stephenson said that the Justice Departments antitrust review has begun. And if regulators have any concerns they can be dealt with with conditions.

AT&T is still determining whether it will buy licenses from Time Warner that would also require an FCC review.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump said that he would block the acquisition. Since the election, he has surrounded himself with advisors who believe in taking a more relaxed view of government regulation and mergers.

Stephenson says he believes a Trump administration FCC will drop efforts to guarantee an open internet. That includes the agencys effort to limit the ability of service providers to offer pricing plans that favor their own services  including AT&Ts offer to let its wireless customers watch DirecTV Now without incurring data charges.

Since the election those issues have, for all intents and purposes, been set aside, he says. A more moderate approach to some of these regulations is in the making in a Trump administration.

He also defended the plan  known as zero rating  to waive data fees for AT&T wireless customers who subscribe to DirecTV Now.

Story continues

He likened it to offering consumers free calls on 1-800 numbers, and Amazons free download plan for Kindle users who buy books from the e-retailer.

Amazon was paying the data charge, he says. I think free is pro-consumer.There are decades of precedent on this kind of pricing.

The FCC says that AT&Ts plan may violate the spirit, if not the letter, of net neutrality rules because it effectively raises the price of rival video services including Sling TV and Netflix.

Stephenson acknowledged that profit margins for DirecTV Now will be fairly thin. But he says that the company is preparing for the day when it can offer 5G wireless service, which could offer download speeds as fast as 1 Gb per second.

That can be a fixed line [cable] replacement, the CEO says calling DirecTV Now a 5G service on a 4G network.

Related stories

FCC Warns AT&T: Waiving Subs' Video Data Fees Might Violate Net Neutrality

DirecTV Now Plans Leave Wall Street Wondering About Pay TV's Prospects

AT&T Launching DirecTV Now With Introductory Offer Of 100+ Channels For $35 A Month
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A massive fire destroyed eight buildings in Cambridge, Massachusetts, including the home of one cat lover, who got an uplifting surprise after the blaze was knocked down Saturday.

Despite the tragic loss of her home, firefighters were able to save her two cats. The woman was overjoyed to see her pets again amid the chaos, and her friend, Justin Khoo, captured the reunion in a touching video.

SEE ALSO: Inside the Oakland artist warehouse that tragically burned down

"My friend's house was involved in a massive fire. She didn't think her cats survived. Here she is finding them alive!" he wrote on Reddit.

"Really puts things into perspective," he continued in a comment. "She didn't even care about her house being gone, she just was happy her kitties were ok."

Redditors were moved by the video.

Image: REDDIT

Image: REDDIT

Image: REDDIT

Image: REDDIT

Khoo links to a GoFundMe page set up by city officials to help those affected by the fire in his Reddit post. Mashable has reached out to Khoo for further comment.

"Firefighters from nearly 20 communities helped to battle a 10-Alarm fire in Cambridge involving eight buildings," the GoFundMe campaign reads. "Mayor E. Denise Simmons has established a Mayor's Fire Relief Fund to assist the families and individuals directly impacted by this devastating fire."

The campaign has already surpassed its goal of $500,000.
After Brexit, it was the result of Italys referendum which did not show friendly terms with the European Union. Having lost the Italian constitutional referendum by a wide margin, the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi announced that he will resign on December 5. As much as 60% voters went against streamlining the 68-year-old parliamentary system, intended at boosting Italy's ailing economy.

With this, market watchers expect political uncertainty and the likelihood of an early election in Italy. The No movement was led by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement party, commanded by Beppe Grillo. And if Grillo wins in an early election, he might dump euro, reintroduce the Italian lira and call for a situation like Brexit (read: UK Votes for Brexit: ETFs Winners & Losers).

In this light, while the only pureplay Italy ETF iShares MSCI Italy Capped EWI will be in the spotlight, we highlight a few ETFs that should be in focus in the near term or long term.

ETFs in Focus

CurrencyShares Euro ETF FXE

Responding to the result of the referendum, the common currency Euro plummeted to a 20-month low. Since exit polls had warned about no votes, some analysts do not expect a steep crash in the common currency (read: Will Euro ETFs Stand Steady or Fall Like a 'House of Cards'?).

But in the long run, the impact might be appalling. This is especially true given the greenbacks surge in anticipation of faster Fed rate hikes and the ECBs ultra-easy monetary policy along with a QE. So investors should keep a tab on the fund (read: ETF Winners & Losers as Dollar Hits 13-Year High).

iShares MSCI Europe Financials EUFN

Investors should note that Italy is the Euro zone's third-largest economy and is heavily in debt. There are investors find the countrys third-largest bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, at risk as it is asking for 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in capital from investors.

Story continues

Italy's banks have been under pressure due to high costs and low returns for years. Analysts believe that ifMonte dei Paschi or another struggling bank runs out of options, it could be an imitation of the situation caused by Lehman Brothers. In any case, European banks have been fragile lately given the woes in Deutsche Bank. iShares MSCI Europe Financials EUFN thus may come under pressure (read: European Financial ETF in Focus on Deutsche Bank Woes).

iShares MSCI Eurozone EZU

Italy government's referendum defeat may call for an upheaval in the near term as long as nothing more constructive comes up to outweigh the negative sentiment. This might put the Euro zone ETF in trouble (read: European ETFs Fall Out of Investor Favor Since Brexit).

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Our story begins, as so many do these days, with a tweet from President-elect Donald Trump.

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

The deal between the Pentagon and Boeing to outfit an updated presidential plane was announced last January, and was initially pegged at $26 million. The planes could use a face lift as they have been in service since 1990, during the administration of George H. W. Bush.

In July, the Defense Department then added on a $127.3 million dollar contract to develop interior, power, and electric specifications for the jets. In all, The Wall Street Journal reported, the Air Force has apparently earmarked $1.65 billion for two new aircraft  the four-engine Boeing 747-8s, the biggest, longest-range, and fastest version of the iconic jet. The Air Force has yet to break out the full cost or delivery schedule of the replacement jets, the WSJ said.

Boeing initially scrambled to address a hostile tweet from the man slated to be one of the companys highest-profile passengers.

In a statement Tuesday, Boeing said it is currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of the presidential plane. We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer, the company said.

It is not clear where Trump got the $4 billion figure for the cost of the new planes. In a call with reporters Tuesday morning, Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller said that Trump was including the cost of the new planes, plus the cost of research. (The presidential planes differ from stock 747s in plenty of ways, especially in their interior amenities and communications and electronics gear. But the 747-800 is Boeings latest version of its bubble-headed jet, and is not being specially designed for Air Force One.)

Story continues

Miller said that the president-elect was stressing the high price tag for taxpayers. It is even higher, he failed to note, than the $1 million a day New York City is spending on security for Trump, which will come to $1.4 billion over four years.

Though Tuesdays tweet came seemingly out of the blue, Trump has railed against Air Force One and Boeing for a good part of the campaign.

In June, he apparently sold all of his stock, including in Boeing. In July, he objected to the use of Air Force One for campaign events  Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary, he tweeted at the time  and railed at how much fuel the existing plane uses. Trump also derided the presidents Air Force One, mistakenly claiming that his own Boeing 757  a smaller plane suitable for medium-range flights  was bigger than the presidents.

Trump also has taken aim at Boeings efforts to sell commercial airliners to Iran, thanks to the easing of sanctions with the nuclear deal signed last year.

But it may not all be bad news for Boeing. Jim McNerney, former chairman and CEO of Boeing, is to sit on Trumps new Presidents Strategic and Policy Forum, perhaps giving him a chance to bend the next presidents ear back toward the plane makers good graces.

In the meantime, Trumps favorite from his personal fleet of planes remains that 25-year old, Trump-emblazoned 757. If age limitations for his planes are the same he sets for his women, that means Trump and his favorite jet have but 10 years left until check-out time.

Photo credit: Carsten Koall/Getty Images
If you only read one thing: Want to see how President-elect Donald Trump can create a news cycle from nothing? Look no further than his Tuesday morning tweet objecting to the price tag for the new Air Force One planes set to be delivered in the mid 2020s. 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! First off, his team couldnt provide back-up for the $4 billion price tag for the planes, which will replace the aging VC-25s which have carried presidents for two-and-a-half decades. Also, no one was talking about this issue yesterday or last week or last month. Trump wasnt responding to a news story, he was creating oneor rather thousands. Within minutes the Air Force One replacement program was the subject of dozens of stories, with more following by the second. Third, this is a time-honored ploy to demonstrate a desire to cut costs in the bloated Defense Departmentand coming on the heels of a report showing more than 12-figures of bureaucratic waste. President Obama canceled the President Helicopter Replacement program shortly after taking office in 2009 after it ballooned to a $13 billion effort. Trump aides declined to say whether he would be content to fly the old planes, which the Air Force says are growing ever more costly to maintain and repairand which could benefit from more modern communications technologies to enable the president and staff to carry out their duties while airborne. The aides acknowledged it was a symbolic announcement by Trump designed to show the American people his seriousness about cutting waste. Its an example of how Trump intends to wield the bully pulpit in ever more novel ways as he prepares to take office.

Why the North Carolina governors election is such a big deal for LGBT people. Trumps national security advisor under fire for fake news posts. And Republicans arent on board with Trumps protectionist plans.

Story continues

Here are your must reads:

Must Reads

Donald Trumps Tariffs Proposal Faces Pushback From Republicans

GOP lawmakers arent happy with his plan [TIME]

Why the North Carolina Governors Election Is Such a Big Deal for LGBT People

The treatment of transgender people was central to the race, TIMEs Katy Steinmetz writes

Flynn Under Fire for Fake News

A shooting at a D.C. pizza restaurant is stoking criticism of the conspiracy theories being spread by Donald Trumps pick for national security adviser [Politico]

New Pro-Trump Group Takes Form, With Kellyanne Conway Possibly at the Helm

Outside group to model Obamas Organizing for Action [Washington Post]

Donald Trumps Message Sparks Anger in China

President-elects Taiwan call, tweets signal his approach will be more adversarial [Wall Street Journal]

Pentagon Buries Evidence of $125 Billion in Bureaucratic Waste

Government tried to cover it up [Washington Post]

Sound Off

Im not committing not to run. Im not committed to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening.  Vice President Joe Biden to reporters on Capitol Hill after saying he would run for president in 2020

Im not gonna get into the tweets. You think Im gonna sit here and comment on the daily tweets? Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on President-elect Trumps tweets

Bits and Bites

Oprah Will Conduct Michelle Obamas Final White House Interview [TIME]

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory Concedes Governors Race to Roy Cooper [Associated Press]

After Senate tribute, Vice President Biden jokes about 2020 run. Or maybe he was serious? [Washington Post]

Trump heads back out on road for thank you tour [Associated Press]

Trump kids diplomatic forays rattle State Dept. [Politico]
Talking about net neutrality is so boring, the comedian John Oliver once quipped, that he would rather listen to a pair of Dockers tell me about the weird dream it had than delve into the topic.

So its unsurprising that Donald Trumpan entertainer with a flair for the dramatic and little interest in wonky detailshas stayed away from the issue almost entirely.

If you want to captivate a nation, discussing thorny telecommunications policy is generally a terrible way to do it. (For those who have managed to avoid reading up on net neutrality thus far, the term refers to open-web principles aimed at curbing practices that give certain companies competitive advantages in how people access the internet. The FCC formally established rules last year that allow the agency to regulate broadband the way it oversees other public utilities. Those rules ban internet service providers from throttlingor slowingconnections to certain content online, and prohibit providers from offering faster connections to corporations that can afford to pay for premium web services. The rules also discourage zero-ratingin which an internet service provider subsidizes a consumers cost of going online but often does so in exchange for a competitive advantage.)

Recommended: The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class

Despite Trumps prolific social media presence, the president-elect hasnt demonstrated any real understanding of tech issuesnet neutrality included. As a candidate, Trump never outlined a technology plan or platform. His discussion of cyber security on the campaign trail and in presidential debates was muddled and at times bizarre. (Remember his comments on the Democratic National Committee hack? I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.)

Story continues

Nevertheless, net neutrality advocates are preparing for a renewed fight, operating on the belief that Trump will work to dismantle the internet as we know it.

Trumps mainand possibly onlypublic comment on net neutrality came in 2014, before he was officially running for president, in a bewildering tweet that seemed to conflate tenets of the open web with the Fairness Doctrine, a federal policy that required broadcasters to use airtime to discuss controversial issues of public interestand to feature opposing views on those issues. (The rule was eliminated in 2011.)

Trumps stance, incoherent though it may be, seems simple enough to parse anyway: the Obama administration advocated for net neutrality (and specifically for strong FCC regulation of net neutrality rules), therefore Trump opposes it. Plus, Trumps a Republican; Republicans tend to oppose regulation.

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There are other, more specific developments that have net neutrality advocates worried. The make-up of Trumps FCC transition team is among the biggest clues that a reversal of federal policy is likely. His appointees include Roslyn Layton, Jeffrey Eisenach, and Mark Jamison, all of whom have argued against the existing net neutrality rules. Eisenach and Jamison have both worked for companies fighting the rulesVerizon and Sprint, respectively. The consumer protection group Free Press referred to Eisenach and Jamison as industry operatives who have habitually opposed the communications rights of real people, prioritizing instead the monopoly-minded views of companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon ... ignoring the many people who struggle to pay escalating costs to connect and communicate. Eisenach didnt respond to an interview request for this story. Jamison and Layton declined interview requests.

In tech circles, a grim future for net neutrality is treated as a certainty, despite Trumps silence on the issue. Trump hates net neutrality, the tech news site Recode wrote the day after the election. Trumps picks for FCC leadership are likely to hand control of the internet back to service providers like Comcast and Verizon, The Verge reported, citing scuttlebutt in Washington.

Larry Downes, a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, says advocates concerns are overblownin part because theres really is nothing to go on, to discern what Trump might do. (Trying to predict what the president-elect has planned is like playing the worlds worst game of poker because every card is wild, he said.) Downes believes that Trumps team wants to see the open-web flourishjust not under FCC rule. Legislation is one possible approach, for example, and hes advocated for that path in the past. A common refrain among those opposed to the rules is that government oversight is likely to delay essential infrastructure upgrades that could be spurred by private competition.

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If youre trying to read the tea leaves, Downes told me, If the insider-D.C. folks that are on the transition teamand certainly the current Republicans on the FCC boardif theyre the ones setting the agenda, then I would say zero-rating is something that will not be forbidden or prohibited.

Other than that, he added, Who knows.

An example of a zero-rating service that has faced much scrutiny in the United States is T-Mobiles Binge On program, which lets customers bypass data caps in order to watch streaming video on their cell phones. Facebook has been criticized for its zero-rating service, Free Basics, which was effectively banned in India earlier this year.

Business leaders in the U.S. share similar predictions about the future of zero-rating in the States. Charlie Ergen, the chief executive of Dish Network, told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump presidency means you may see net neutrality be challenged or weakened going forward, and specifically cited concerns about what that could mean for zero-rating in his industry. Content providers like Dish and Netflix, who aim to keep their own operational costs low, are often in favor of net neutrality rules. Internet service providerslike Comcast and Verizon, which could profit from making companies pay more for faster connectionsare often opposed to them.

Layton, one of the members of Trumps FCC transition team, seemed to imply support for predictions about a reversal of the attitude against zero rating. There is nothing I can say about the future of net neutrality; I can only speak to my research, she said in an email response to my request for an interview, then shared a link to a paper that outlined findings that there is no evidence that zero rating harms consumers or competition.

Trying to predict what will happen by examining Trumps record is trickier. During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to block the $84 billion AT&T and Time Warner merger. (Net neutrality advocates consider the merger to be a major threat to the open webspecifically because it would reduce competition and bolster zero-rating.)

As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few, Trump said in an speech in October.

But Trump now seems to be walking back that position. After meeting with members of Trumps transition team, the Financial Times reported that AT&T executives are confident that their deal has a good chance of passing regulatory scrutiny. Ergen, speaking to The Wall Street Journal, suggested that theres an expectation that the Trump administration will be light-handed in its approach to regulationincluding its consideration of the AT&T-Time Warner mergerwhich could then pave the way for more mega-mergers in telecommunications.

All of which means that the debate over net neutrality still isnt settledand may become more complicated than everunder President Trump. Its still very early, Russell Brandom wrote for The Verge last week. Trump might ignore the FCC entirely, or the agency might focus on unrelated issues. But coming off an unusually active term under chairman Wheeler, its clear the wave of aggressive telecom regulation is over.

The Republican partys 2016 platform referred to existing net neutrality rules as the gravest peril putting the survival of the internet as we know it ... at risk.

But Trump is unpredictable enough that looking to his party doesnt offer much clarity as to what he might actually do. Rather than basing his decisions on overarching principlesor party platformsthe president elect often seems to be guided by vendetta (or at least the desire to generate a punchy sound bite).

Trumps record of opposing monopolies, for instance, often centers around his disdain for the media, which was a reliable crowd-pleaser among his supporters. Last spring, Trump accused Amazon as having a huge antitrust problem and claimed Amazons founder, Jeff Bezos, was using his ownership of The Washington Post as a political bargaining chip to avoid scrutiny. (Relatedly, Trump then attempted to ban The Washington Post reporters from covering his campaign events because he didnt like the newspapers coverage of him.)

One final clue as to how Trump might think about net neutrality is by looking at his biggest supporter in Silicon Valley, the billionaire Peter Thiel.

I dont like government regulation, Thiel said when asked about net neutrality in a Reddit forum two years ago. We need the U.S. government to regulate the internet about as much as we need the EU to regulate GoogleI suspect the cons greatly outweigh the pros, especially in practice.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Daniel King is a missionary evangelist who is passionate about leading people to Jesus.
Photo credit: Getty

From Cosmopolitan

After Donald Trump made the false, unsubstantiated claim that "millions of people" voted illegally in the election - which he won! - his campaign is saying the exact opposite.

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

On Nov. 27, Trump tweeted, with no basis or evidence, that Hillary Clinton's more-than-2-million lead in the popular vote was a result of voter fraud from "millions of people who voted illegally."

The Washington Post reported that Reince Priebus, who will serve as Trump's chief of staff, said this large scale voter fraud was "possible," while House Speaker Paul Ryan said "I don't know," without rejecting the claim.

But in legal filings to block Green Party leader Jill Stein's recount efforts, Trump's lawyers said that the election was fair. "On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise Michigan citizens? None really, save for speculation," they wrote in the Michigan filing, parts of which were published by the Post. "All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake."



In Pennsylvania, they wrote: "On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise the voters of the Keystone state? None really. There is no evidence - or even any allegation - that any tampering with Pennsylvania's voting systems actually occurred."

Incredibly, Trump is simultaneously spreading two opposing narratives and benefiting from both regardless of what the facts say. And his words have a major impact: CNN recently interviewed a group of Trump voters who believed that 3 million people voted illegally in California and that President Barack Obama supports voter fraud. When they cited their sources, one said simply, "Google it, you can find it on Facebook."

Story continues

Fake news spreading on social media has become a major problem throughout the election but challenging misinformation becomes even harder when one of the sources for fake news is the president-elect himself.

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President-elect Donald Trump met with Apple (AAPL) board member and former Vice President Al Gore at Trump Tower on Monday.

Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller told reporters on Monday that Gore would be meeting with Ivanka Trump to discuss climate change issues. He said Gore would not be meeting with Trump himself. As the former vice president was leaving Trump Tower, however, he mentioned his meeting with Ivanka and said he had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect, who has long claimed that climate change is a hoax.

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," said Gore, co-director of the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary "Inconvenient Truth," which probed climate change. "I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that."

The former vice president joined the Apple board in 2003. As of earlier this year, he owned a little more than 440,000 shares, according to filings.



During an interview with The New York Times, Trump said he told Apple CEO Tim Cook that it would be "a real achievement" for him to get Apple to "build a big plant in the United States." His proposal to lower the business tax rate to 15 percent and allow the one-time repatriation of corporate profits held offshore at a tax rate of 10 percent could make Apple the biggest beneficiary in tech, according to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

CNBC's Anita Balakrishnan contributed to this report.







More From CNBC


In a major early hurdle to Donald Trumps trade agenda, Republicans indicated on Monday they are not ready to support his proposed tariff on U.S. companies that leave the country, reopening old rifts between the President-elect and his own party.

Trump repeated on Sunday morning a campaign promise to set a 35% tax on businesses that leave the countryleaving many Republicans on Capitol Hill to respond the next day with guffaws, grimaces and nervous hedging.

I do not want a trade war. I do not believe in a trade war. I do not think trade wars are healthy. I think history has shown that trade wars are not healthy, said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

We know the size of America with the population around the world that we need to trade around the world, he added.

Some of these things do have to face a harsh reality but you have to be very careful if youre going to add costly tariffs, said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who endorsed Trump in May. Were all going back to the 30s when they started playing around with this and that and caused a lot of trouble.

Republican Sen. John McCain, when asked whether he would support a 35% tariff, scoffed and and answered emphatically. No! he said.

On an array of policy issues, Trump is at odds with Republican orthodoxy. But on few issues is he as far removed from the rest of his party as on trade.

Republicans have long been the standard-bearers for free trade, opposing impediments to the exchange of goods, while traditionally, it has been Democrats who have supported taxing goods that are imported in the United States and called for similar trade protections.

During the election, Trump flipped the script, promising to punish trade infractions and countries. Though his screeds against companies that planned to leave the countryNabisco, Carrier and othersattracted workers in the so-called Rust Belt states, they came with few specifics on policy.

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Now, with Trumps inauguration just seven weeks away, a central message of his campaign seems unlikely to garner much support from his Republican colleagues, who have long held that extreme restrictions would have a devastating effect on American companies and the economy.

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 product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence, is WRONG! Trump tweeted shortly before 7 a.m.

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, he said.

The disagreement between Trump and his fellow Republicans show once again the disagreements between the partys traditional views and their now-leaders long-held beliefs. Trump has been calling for more protectionist trade policies since Ronald Reagans presidency; ideological leaders in the Republican Party such as House Speaker Paul Ryan have insisted on the partys traditional small-government, limited regulation agenda.

One point of agreement between the President-elect and Republicans may be on tax reform. Republicans on Monday emphasized a compromise instead of tariffs that would include a lower corporate tax and a streamlined tax code. Some leading Democrats and Republicans, including incoming Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Sen. Rob Portman, favor a one-time tax on companies that have kept their profits overseas.

We can get at what hes talking about through smart tax reform. What his concern is, is legitimateAmerican companies are moving overseas, are shifting headquarters and factories overseas, Speaker Ryan said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Monday, the paper reported.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, an outspoken critic of Trump during his campaign, said he supported tax reform, not tariffs.

I think tax reform to entice people to stay is the right approach, said Graham. Tax penalties to keep them from leaving really gets into the boardrooms of every business in the United States.

The U.S. government already imposes duties on companies that sell goods into the country below market value, a practice called dumping. Much of Trumps support during the election came from working-class voters, many of them who feel that trade deals have caused them to lose their jobs.

Despite their differences with the President-elect, some Republicans are still loath to speak out against the issues that excited Trumps base of voters and brought him a surprise victory last month.

If you think of all the things that have been proposed, obviously there were many of them and an agendas got to be narrowed down, said Republican Sen. Bob Corker. Im not much of a tariff-oriented individual, but I look forward to seeing what he does.
By Karolos Grohmann LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Former Switzerland President Samuel Schmid has taken over an International Olympic Committee investigation into doping at the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics after French judge Guy Canivet resigned, the IOC said on Tuesday. Canivet was appointed earlier this year to lead the IOC probe after revelations of widespread doping in Russia and systematic cheating during the 2014 Games by Russian athletes, who were allegedly helped by the country's secret service. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Canivet, a French Constitutional Court judge, had stepped down for "strong personal reasons". Canivet offered to remain at the IOC's service and "give advice whenever needed", Adams said. His investigation was focusing on allegations of government involvement in Russian doping during the Sochi Games. The 69-year-old Schmid is a former president of the Swiss Confederation and ex-head of the federal council in charge of the army, population and sport. Canivet's resignation comes just days before Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren publishes the second part of his report into Russian doping in London on Friday. His first report in July triggered a partial ban of Russian athletes at the Rio de Janeiro Games. (Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; editing by Ken Ferris)
ITV has suspended Scott and Deirdre Gurney from their roles as heads of Gurney Productions, the company behind A&Es Duck Dynasty, amid an investigation for fraud, Variety has learned.

Craig Armstrong, head of 55 Media, will serve as interim head of Gurney Productions.

The board of Gurney Productions is currently in discussion with Scott and Deirdre Gurney about future arrangements with them, a Gurney Productions spokesperson said in a statement. Craig Armstrong has been appointed interim CEO of Gurney Productions. Craig is an Emmy award-winning producer whose credits include King of the Nerds for TBS, CBSs Survivor, and ABCs Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Jamie Olivers Food Revolution. Craig, along with his producing partner Rick Ringbakk, is co-founder and co-CEO of 55 Media, which will continue to operate as before.

ITV purchased a majority stake in Gurney Productions in 2012 for $40 million. No charges have been filed as part of an internal investigation involving alleged billing fraud related to Gurney shows.

The Gurneys serve as executive producers on Duck Dynasty, which at its peak was the most watched unscripted show in cable-television history. Among Gurney Productions other shows are VH1s Leann and Eddie, TLCs Leah Remini: Its All Relative, and HGTVs Tiny House Builders.

Armstrong issued the following memo to his staff:

As most of you have heard, the board that oversees Gurney Productions has placed Scott and Deirdre on a short, temporary leave of absence. Due to the nature of this leave of absence, we can not share all the specific details. What I can tell you is that Gurney Productions is a very important part of the ITV family and we are committed to help keep things running smoothly until the situation with Scott and Deirdre is resolved. There are several items we need to look into over the next couple of days so we may be asking some of you to sit down with me and legal counsel to answer some questions. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Obviously, this is a little out of the ordinary and you may be tempted to start inquiring and drawing conclusions for yourselves, but I strongly recommend that you do not do so and direct any questions to ITV management.

Story continues

So what does this mean for all of you? You should continue to operate business as usual but will be functioning under a new management team. Starting immediately, Scott and Deirdre are no longer responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Company. For the short-term, the Company will be overseen by Craig Armstrong who will be your interim CEO & Chris Valentini, ITV America COO. All questions, decisions and actions now come under the jurisdiction of Craig and Chris. I do want to remind you that it new management is in place immediately and all discussions around Gurney business must be directed to new management. As of today Scott and Deirdre no longer have legal oversight of Gurney Productions.

I do want to remind everyone that it is unlawful to circumvent the new management team or discuss internal operations with Scott and Deirdre. We will have a transition team stationed in LA and in the Louisiana office to assist with the changeover and to support all of you during the next few weeks. Attached please find the contact list noting phone numbers and email addresses as well as the org chart.

All this week we will be meeting with company personnel to ensure the continuation of the existing series currently in production and to get to know each one of you and a little bit about what you do here. If you have any questions please feel free to meet with me and anyone from the HR team and we should be able to answer any questions you may have.

We understand this is a lot to take in and certainly not an easy message for us to deliver but we ask that you keep an open mind. We would appreciate your help and cooperation to facilitate a smooth and seamless transition and please know that it is important for us to hear your thoughts and ideas to make this a great place to work.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces killed three gunmen on Tuesday, the interior ministry said, in a raid on a hideout used by what it described as an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. It said in a statement on Facebook that automatic weapons were found in the house in the southern province of Assiut, which was used by a recently emerged armed group called Hasm. Hasm claimed responsibility in September for an assassination attempt on a senior prosecutor, saying it was in revenge for mass death sentences against political prisoners. Egyptian judges have issued death sentences against hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters since mid-2013, when President Mohamed Mursi, a member of the group, was overthrown by the army and immediately arrested. The Brotherhood, which won Egypt's first free elections after the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule, has since been banned and its leaders and members have largely been imprisoned or driven into exile or underground. Since the crackdown, other small groups, including Hasm, have popped up and carried out attacks on police, prosecutors and army officers. The government says these groups are linked to the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood says it is a peaceful organization. Hasm, about which little is publicly known, has claimed a handful of attacks this year including an attempt on the life of the former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa. Gomaa is an outspoken critic of Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and had, in his former role, the final say on whether to confirm death sentences. The Interior Ministry statement said security forces came under fire from the hideout as they prepared to raid it and the men were killed in the exchange of fire. It was not immediately possible to contact Hasm or find witnesses. The Interior Ministry said two of the men killed were wanted in connection with deadly attacks on police officers and a third was a bomb maker for the group. (Reporting by Aly Abdelaty and Lin Noueihed; editing by Giles Elgood)
Universe makes it possible for an AI agent to play Flash games like Dusk Drive. (OpenAI Graphic)

If you were weirded out by HBOs Westworld, hold onto your cowboy hats: OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab backed by Elon Musk and other tech gurus, has released a software platform called Universe that lets AI agents use computers the way humans do.

Universes first mission? Master thousands of video games and real-world browser tasks.

The idea is to train AI agents to hone their general-intelligence skills by exposing them to a huge number of computer-based environments, over and over again.

Our goal is to develop a single AI agent that can flexibly apply its past experience on Universe environments to quickly master unfamiliar, difficult environments, which would be a major step towards general intelligence, OpenAI says in a blog post announcing Universes release.

Toward that end, OpenAI is looking for help from gamers and coders  by giving permission for Universe AI agents to access games and applications, or by training agents, or integrating new games, or just standing by while bots play games on your computer.

Musk, whos one of OpenAIs founders as well as the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, gave the effort a boost today in a couple of retweets. You can sign up now to become a beta tester.

Microsofts Project Malmo team will be integrating with Universe, and Microsoft Studios has given permission for Universe to make use of games such as Fable Anniversary. And those arent the only connections to Redmond: Microsoft Azure serves as OpenAIs primary cloud platform.

Bellevue-based Valve and dozens of other game companies are in on the adventure as well.

OpenAI says Universe was inspired by the history of the ImageNet dataset in the computer vision community, which has reduced its error rates from 28 percent in 2010 to the human performance level of 3 percent in 2016.

If the AI community does the same with Universe, then we will have made real progress towards systems with broad, general intelligence, OpenAI says.

More from GeekWire:
By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Microsoft <MSFT.O> won EU antitrust approval on Tuesday for its $26 billion bid for professional social network LinkedIn <LNKD.N>, its largest ever acquisition, after agreeing to a series of modest concessions.

The deal, which has already received the green light in the United States, Canada, Brazil and South Africa, would close in the coming days following the EU clearance, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer.

"With this regulatory process behind us, we can bring together two great companies and focus on even broader issues for the future," he said in a blog.

The U.S. software company is aiming to enhance its core business products with LinkedIn's suite of sales, marketing and recruiting services, allowing it to better compete with rivals in next-generation computing.

LinkedIn generates the bulk of its $3 billion annual revenue from job hunters and recruiters who pay a monthly fee to post resumes and connect with people.

The European Commission, which in recent months has signaled concerns about companies acquiring rivals with valuable data and the potential negative impact on competition, said the concessions addressed its concerns.

"These networks are important for professionals to connect and interact and to find new career opportunities. Today's decision ensures that Europeans will continue to enjoy a freedom of choice between professional social networks," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.

Reuters had flagged the imminent EU approval on Nov. 23.

To secure EU approval for its largest ever deal, Microsoft will let LinkedIn rivals access its Office add-in program, crucial for integrating their services with its Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel programs.

It will also allow computer makers the option of installing or removing LinkedIn on its Windows operating system, and give competing networks access to Microsoft Graph for software developers. The concessions will be in force in Europe for five years.

Story continues

U.S. software company Salesforce, which lost out on the bid for LinkedIn and had urged regulators to take a tough line on the deal, said enforcers should not drop their guard.

"Given Microsoft's history and existing monopolies, it will be necessary for antitrust enforcement agencies to be vigilant to ensure that Microsoft operates in a manner that promotes competition, rather than stifles it," Salesforce said in a statement.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Philip Blenkinsop/Keith Weir)
BRUSSELS, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The European Commission is in contact with Italian authorities over the situation of its banks, the EU commissioner for the euro said on Tuesday, signaling authorities in Italy were ready to act if needed.

"As regards the current banking situation in Italy, we are in close contact with the Italian authorities," Valdis Dombrovskis told a news conference in Brussels after a meeting of EU finance ministers.

"Authorities are prepared and ready to follow up if and where needed," he added.

On Sunday, Italians rejected constitutional reforms in a referendum, leading to the end of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government and so raising new concerns about the countries' ailing banking sector.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission is in contact with Italian authorities over the situation of its banks, the EU commissioner for the euro said on Tuesday, signalling authorities in Italy were ready to act if needed.

"As regards the current banking situation in Italy, we are in close contact with the Italian authorities," Valdis Dombrovskis told a news conference in Brussels after a meeting of EU finance ministers.

"Authorities are prepared and ready to follow up if and where needed," he added.

On Sunday, Italians rejected constitutional reforms in a referendum, leading to the end of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government and so raising new concerns about the countries' ailing banking sector.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
Brussels (AFP) - European Union countries cleared the way Tuesday for full normalisation of ties with communist Cuba next week by dropping demands for Havana to first improve its human rights record.

Cuban and EU officials signed a normalisation deal in March as US President Barack Obama brought Havana back in from the cold after nearly 60 years, but it still needed backing by the 28 EU member states.

EU ministers meeting in Brussels agreed on Tuesday to repeal a 1996 policy containing the human rights conditions and to have the normalisation deal signed on December 12.

"We are truly at a turning point in the relations between the EU and Cuba," EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement.

"Through the new agreement, the EU is ready to support Cuba's process of economic and social modernisation," she added.

In 2003, the EU imposed sanctions on Cuba and suspended cooperation over a crackdown on journalists and activists and it took until 2008 to get talks going again.

Cuba was previously the only Latin American country without an international cooperation deal with the EU.

The normalisation deal will cover trade and investment, economic development, regional cooperation, environment, human rights, disarmament, migration, drugs and counter-terrorism.

Havana had rejected the human rights conditions as interference in its domestic affairs and pressed hard for its removal during the normalisation talks launched in April 2014.

The 1996 policy -- known as the Common Position -- had included the following demand: "The European Union considers that full cooperation with Cuba will depend upon improvements in human rights and political freedom."

But the EU's diplomatic service said the new agreement enshrines a human rights dialogue launched in 2015 that will allow "both sides to exchange views on basic principles of human rights and address concerns."

The pact is due to be signed by Mogherini and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla.

The deal will be submitted to the European Parliament, member state national parliaments and the Cuban National Assembly for ratification.
BRUSSELS, Dec 6 (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers gave their backing on Tuesday to an expanded plan to spur investment and economic growth in the bloc, but they fell short of committing more national funds to the EU Commission-led initiative.

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) was launched last year with a target to mobilise 315 billion euros ($338.18 billion) of additional investment in three years, countering a fall in spending after the 2007-08 global financial crisis.

Citing good results, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, proposed in September to double the plan's financial capacity and duration.

"Today we agreed a general approach," the chair of the EU presidency, Peter Kazimir, said in a regular meeting of EU finance ministers.

"Europe is facing many challenges today and the need to boost investment is one of them. We need to play our part."

Ministers supported a Commission proposal to extend the plan until 2020 and step up its size to at least 500 billion euros.

Under the expanded plan, 26 billion euros of EU budget money would be used to guarantee the riskiest parts of investments in energy, transport or telecommunication infrastructures, in a bid to attract private and other public investors. The original plan envisaged the use of 16 billion euros from the EU budget.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU's financial arm, would contribute 7.5 billion euros, up from its current commitment of 5 billion to the EFSI.

The combined 33.5 billion euros of EU cash and guarantees would then be used to attract private investments totalling 500 billion euros, 15 times the original amount.

EU finance ministers agreed to increase the EU budget contribution to the expanded plan, but did not commit to national payments under the scheme.

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had urged them to add national funds to the EFSI so as to increase its financial capacity to 630 billion euros.

The European Parliament will have to approve to plan before it can be applied.

($1 = 0.9314 euros) (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Brussels (AFP) - Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem urged Britain on Tuesday to show a "different attitude" in talks with the EU, warning of a disorderly Brexit if London fails to change.

Dijsselbloem, who heads the group of 19 eurozone finance ministers, issued the warning as his British counterpart insisted a smooth Brexit was still possible.

"It can be smooth and it can be orderly, but requires a different attitude I think on the part of the British government," Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, told reporters as he arrived for talks with all 28 EU finance ministers in Brussels.

"Because the things I have been hearing so far are incompatible with smooth and incompatible with orderly."

His comments came shortly before European Commission Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier was due to give his first press conference after talks with the other 27 European Union nations.

Dijsselbloem repeated his warning that it would be impossible to maintain Europe's financial capital in London if Britain chooses to thwart EU rules after Brexit.

"If the UK wants access to the internal market, they will have to accept the rules and regulations which go with that internal market," he said.

Asked about comments by other EU leaders that Britain cannot "have its cake and eat it", he added: "I was going to stay away from this cliche but you are absolutely right."

British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to trigger the two-year divorce process at the end of March in line with the shock June 23 popular vote for Britain to exit the bloc, but has not revealed a clear negotiating position.

Her Finance Minister Philip Hammond said he wanted a deal that worked for both London and the rest of the EU.

"I think that's in everybody's interest on both sides of the English Channel to have as smooth a process as possible," he said as he arrived for the talks.

"That minimizes the threat to European financial fincanical stability and minimizes the disruption to the very complex relationship that exists between European manufacturing buisinesses and their financing banks and so on in London."

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Hammond confirmed comments by Brexit Minister David Davis that Britain could continue to pay for access to some parts of the single market.

"What he said was that we wouldn't rule out the possibility of some ongoing contribution in some form if we have an ongoing relationship," he said.

"That'd be something that we have to look at, looking at the costs and looking at the benefits and making a decision based on what's in the best interest for the British taxapyers."
Jeff Weiner, Satya Nadella, Reid Hoffman

The European Union has given Microsoft the OK over its $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, CNBC reports. As expected, the EU has put some conditions in the deal. As expected, the EU has put some conditions in the deal.

Microsoft has been promising that the deal will close by the end of the year. However, Microsoft rival Salesforce has been contesting the deal.

Salesforce was concerned that Microsoft was going to block its competitors from accessing LinkedIn's data, a treasure trove of information that all sorts of people use for their jobs. Salespeople especially use LinkedIn for cold calling and if Microsoft blocks others from using that data, it will be a huge competitive advantage for Microsoft.

The concessions, however, did not focus much on that. They reaffirmed that Microsoft would not use its leading position with Microsoft Office or Windows to inappropriately promote LinkedIn, or to crush other social networks that compete with LinkedIn.

Here if the full blog post announcing the approval, by Microsoft's chief lawyer, Brad Smith:

Microsoft-LinkedIn deal cleared by regulators, opening doors for people around the world

It was roughly six months ago, on June 13, that we announced that Microsoft would acquire LinkedIn. At that time, we said that we aimed to close the deal by the end of the year. Today, the European Commission announced that it has cleared the acquisition. As a result, weve now obtained all of the regulatory approvals needed to complete the acquisition, and the deal will close in the coming days.

The approval in Brussels follows similar reviews and clearances in the United States, Canada, Brazil and South Africa. In each country and in a number of others, weve had the opportunity to review our combination with government officials and regulators in considerable detail.

As part of our discussions with the European Commission, we formalized several commitments regarding Microsofts support for third-party professional social networking services. For example, weve committed that for the next five years:

Story continues

Well continue to make our Office Add-in program available to third-party professional social networking services. The Office Add-in program enables developers to integrate their services into Microsoft Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel, providing users an enhanced experience using Office. As we continue to improve this program, these improvements will be available to third-party professional social networking services.

Well continue to make promotional opportunities in the Office Store available to third-party professional social networking services.

Well ensure that IT administrators and users can customize their Office experience by choosing whether to display in the user interface the LinkedIn profile and activity information that may be integrated in the future.

If we develop a LinkedIn application or a tile for Windows PCs and include it in Windows, well allow PC manufacturers to choose not to install them on their Windows PCs in the European Economic Area, or EEA. Similarly, well ensure that users can uninstall the application and tile if they wish. We also wont use Windows itself to prompt users to install a LinkedIn application, although it can remain available in the Windows Store and be promoted in other ways.

In the EEA we wont enter into agreements with PC manufacturers for pre-installation of a Windows LinkedIn application or tile that would favor LinkedIn on an exclusive basis and thereby bar the distribution of competing professional social networking services.

We appreciated the opportunity to talk through these and other details in a creative and constructive way with the European Commission.

With this regulatory process behind us, we can bring together two great companies and focus on even broader issues for the future. The events of the past six months make not just this business opportunity, but the broader societal issues connected to them, more important.

In June, Satya Nadella and Jeff Weiner, the CEOs of Microsoft and LinkedIn, announced their shared vision for bringing together the worlds leading professional cloud with the worlds leading professional network. Just ten days after they announced this combination, voters in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. And roughly five months after that, a tumultuous presidential election campaign in the United States came to a close. On both sides of the Atlantic, it has become increasingly apparent that many people feel left out and unable to participate in the economic growth and opportunities created by the rising digital economy.

While technology tools are not a panacea for current economic challenges, we believe they can make an important contribution. Microsoft and LinkedIn together have a bigger opportunity to help people online to develop and earn credentials for new skills, identify and pursue new jobs, and become more creative and productive as they work with their colleagues. Working together we can do more to serve not only those with college degrees, but the many people pursuing new experiences, skills and credentials related to vocational training and so-called middle skills. Our ambition is to do our part to create more opportunity for people who havent shared in recent economic growth.

With the combination of Microsoft and LinkedIn, we can take new steps to help people learn added skills and seek better jobs. Through Microsoft Philanthropies, well invest more than any other company to bring digital skills to schools. Through our Affordable Access initiative and new wireless broadband TV White Spaces technologies, well help bring broadband access to more rural communities. And with the LinkedIn Economic Graph, with its data on local job growth and skills needs, there is an expanded opportunity to help governments use better data and analytical capabilities to pursue economic development strategies to help connect people with new opportunities.

We readily recognize that no single company can come close to solving the many economic challenges that confront the world today. Perhaps more than anything else, governments will need to continue to innovate across a wide array of education, training and labor policies. And across the private and public sectors, we all will need to come together and act with a sense of shared responsibility.

Theres no shortage of work  or opportunity  ahead of us.

Having completed detailed conversations with governments around the world about the opportunity to bring Microsoft and LinkedIn together, were excited to get started and committed to doing our part.

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Norwegian Air Boeing 787-9

Late Friday, the US Department of Transportation finalized its decision to grant Norwegian Air International approval to operate flights into the US.

In April, the Federal Agency granted the Norwegian Air subsidiary tentative permission to enter the market.

"This case is among the most novel and complex ever undertaken by the Department," The DOT said in its final ruling on the matter.

"Regardless of our appreciation of the public policy arguments raised by opponents, we have been advised that the law and our bilateral obligations leave us no avenue to reject this application."

NAI's arrival in America has been the subject of great criticism from airlines and unions representing US-based airline workers.

NAI is one of several subsidiaries operating under the Norwegian banner. Unlike the rest of Norwegian Air, NAI is based in Dublin instead of in Norway. This, critics say, allows NAI to take advantage of Ireland's employment laws, which are significantly less stringent than Norway's. As a result, they say, NAI could hire lower-cost pilots and cabin crew members from Asia to fly trans-Atlantic routes. Some go as far as calling Norwegian's strategy the aviation equivalent of a cargo ship's with a flag of convenience used to dodge taxes and regulations.

The airline currently operates flights into the US using its Norway-registered Norwegian Long-Haul subsidiary with Europe-based pilots and crew.

Norwegian Air Boeing 787

In a statement to the media, AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department president Edward Wytkind wrote:

"Todays decision betrays Americas aviation workers by granting a rogue, flag-of-convenience airline a permit to serve the United States. Unless reversed, this decision threatens a generation of U.S. airline jobs and tells foreign airlines that scour the globe for cheap labor and lax employment laws that America is open for business. Clearly, a Norwegian-owned airline that is based in Ireland for the purpose of evading Norways labor and tax laws, and that will hire crews under Asian contracts, is in violation of these explicit labor protections and should be denied entry into our marketplace."

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The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents 54,000 US and Canadian airline pilots echoes the AFL-CIO's aggravation.

"We are extremely disappointed by the Department of Transportations decision to run roughshod over the U.S. Open Skies agreement and allow Norwegian Air International to fly to and from the United States," ALPA president Capt. Tim Canoll said in a statement. "This decision is an affront to fair competition and will ultimately result in the loss of U.S. jobs and, potentially, significant losses for the U.S. international aviation industry."

Norwegian Boeing Dreamliner Interior

In light of the DOT's ruling, Norwegian Air announced on Friday that it will ramp up the hiring of American pilots and cabin crew.

"In October this year, Norwegian announced it would open its first U.S. pilot base at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport," Norwegian Group CEO Bjrn Kjos said in a statement. "Now that we finally have our DOT approval for Norwegian Air International, Im pleased to announce that we will also be opening a second and third pilot base in the U.S."

The second and third crew bases will be in the New York and Greater Boston areas, Norwegian Air spokesperson Anders Lindstrom told Business Insider. The initial group of 25 US pilots destined for the Fort Lauderdale base will be begin training in March to fly the airline's fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

Once the airline's new generation 737MAX 8 aircraft enters service during the middle of 2017, Norwegian is expected to hire another batch of US pilots for the New York and Greater Boston bases.

According to Lindstrom, all pilots hired for the new US bases are either currently flying for another US airline or are American pilots flying overseas. In addition, Lindstrom told Business Insider back in April that the airline pays its pilots "almost exactly" the same regardless of where they are based.

According to the airline, its New York base will have more than 300 cabin crew by year's end while its Ft. Lauderdale base will have nearly 200.

In addition, Norwegian is expected to hire another 150 pilots and cabin crew members in the US during 2017. In 2018, Norwegian is eyeing the possibility of additional pilot and crew bases in Oakland and LAX, Lindstrom said.

Norwegian Air CEO Bjorn Kjos

With the arrival of the new Boeing 737MAX next year, Norwegian will begin offering $69 tickets to Europe from secondary cities in the Northeastern United States. Norwegian Air CCO Thomas Ramdahl told the Wall Street Journal that the airline intends to set up a base at Stewart International Airport in upstate New York while Bradley International Airport in Hartford is also under consideration.

Norwegian Air currently operates 118 Boeing 737 and 787 airliners with another 260 Boeing and Airbus jets on order. In 2017, the airline is expected to take delivery of nine 787s, six 737MAXs, and 17 737NG aircraft. Norwegian  which was named the best low-cost airline in Europe by Skytrax for the fourth consecutive year in July  currently operates 450 routes with 150 destination around the world. In addition, Skytrax reviewers also named Norwegian the best long-haul, low-cost airline in the world.

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By Stephen Grey and Amina Ismail LONDON (Reuters) - The head of Europe's police agency said it would "look again" at the largest migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean this year after an investigation by Reuters and BBC Newsnight exposed a gap in the response by law enforcement. Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said his agency would reconsider the shipwreck, given "the absence of any clear answers." The Reuters investigation into an incident on April 9, in which an estimated 500 people drowned, raised "uncomfortable" issues, Wainwright said. It found that no official body, national or international, has held anyone to account for the deaths or even opened an inquiry into the shipwreck. Only 37 people survived when an Egyptian trawler capsized as its crew of smugglers loaded more migrants on board from a smaller feeder boat. The survivors, who eventually reached Greece on April 16, said that the smugglers abandoned the scene, leaving up to 100 people still alive in the sea. They said the smugglers used force to stop survivors on the feeder boat rescuing others. Among the dead were an estimated 190 Somalis, around 150 Ethiopians, 80 Egyptians, and some 85 people from Sudan, Syria and other countries. In interviews with Reuters and BBC Newsnight, Wainwright said that in hindsight his agency should have investigated the April sinking, and the media inquiries might have exposed a "gap here in the collective response by Europe" to such cases. Italy, where the ship was headed, has not investigated the sinking. Nor has Greece, where the survivors landed. Both countries judged that no crime had occurred within their jurisdiction. There has been no investigation by any United Nations body, the European Union's frontier agency, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or the EU naval task force in the Mediterranean. All said investigating the incident was not within their mandate. Reuters has identified the owners of the doomed ship and the ringleaders of the voyage, as well as the alleged people-brokers who assembled the migrants in Cairo and Alexandria and took their money. The investigation also revealed that, under pressure from smugglers, some survivors initially lied about the journey, stating that they left from Tobruk, Libya, instead of Alexandria, Egypt, their real departure point. In Egypt, Judge Khaled al-Nashar, assistant to Egypt's Minister of Justice for Parliamentary and Media Affairs, said he could not confirm what inquiries had taken place into the April sinking. But he said Egypt had just passed new laws against illegal migration and was determined to take action against smugglers. He said further action over the April sinking was not ruled out. "If the occurrence of such a crime is proven, Egypt certainly will not hesitate to conduct the necessary investigations to uncover it and arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice." Some Egyptian lawyers believe the smugglers' actions may have amounted to murder. "I consider putting 500 people on this boat to be murder. There is no other way to describe it," said Sabry Tolba, an Egyptian lawyer hired by the families of some of those who died. (Reporting by Stephen Grey and Amina Ismail Editing by Richard Woods and Sara Ledwith)
Brussels (AFP) - Britain must broker its deal to leave the EU by October 2018, the bloc's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Tuesday, warning that time for talks was running out.

Frenchman Barnier added that an interim deal to soften the blow of Britain's departure was "difficult to imagine" unless it quickly told Brussels what it wanted from a Brexit deal.

Despite the tight new timeline Prime Minister Theresa May pledged a "red, white and blue Brexit" following Britain's shock June 23 referendum vote to leave the European Union.

"Time will be short. It's clear that the period of actual negotiations will be shorter than two years," Barnier said in his first news conference since his appointment by European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.

Speaking in a mix of French and English, former finance minister Barnier said the EU was "ready" for May to trigger the official two-year divorce process as promised in March 2017.

But Barnier said that much of that time would be spent getting any deal approved by the remaining 27 EU countries plus the European Parliament and then British MPs.

"All in all there will be less than 18 months to negotiate -- once again that is short," added Barnier, once dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by a British newspaper when he was the EU's financial services commissioner.

"Should the UK notify the council by the end of March '17 as Prime Minister Theresa May said she would, it is safe to say that negotiations could start a few weeks later and an Article 50 agreement reached by October 2018."

- 'Keep calm and negotiate' -

Barnier, who is touring EU capitals to hear their views on Brexit, urged Britain to "keep calm and negotiate", echoing a famously stoic British World War II slogan.

But he also warned Britain that "cherry-picking is not an option" and that it "can never have the same rights and benefits" outside the EU.

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Barnier said the EU "needs to know" the full details of Britain's plans for its long-term relationship with the EU before any interim deal was possible.

"As we don't know what the UK wants and is waiting for, it's difficult to imagine a transitional period," he said.

Barnier's tough stance was backed by Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who called Tuesday for a "different attitude" from Britain "because the things I have been hearing so far are incompatible with smooth and incompatible with orderly".

But the new timeline seemed to catch the British government unawares.

In London, a spokesman for May admitted Barnier's timetable was new. "It's the first that I have heard of it," the spokesman told reporters.

However British foreign minister Boris Johnson, in Brussels for talks with his NATO counterparts, insisted that "that timeframe seems absolutely ample".

The EU has become increasingly frustrated with May's refusal to set out its demands, with her government hedging its bets between control over immigration and access to the EU's single market.

- 'Red, white and blue Brexit' -

Speaking during a visit to the Gulf for talks on post-Brexit trade, May insisted on Tuesday she wanted an "ambitious" deal, while still giving few details.

"People talk about the sort of Brexit that there is going to be  is it hard or soft, is it grey or white. Actually we want a red, white and blue Brexit: that is the right Brexit for the UK, the right deal for the UK," she said.

Her finance minister Philip Hammond, who was also in Brussels Tuesday for talks with his counterparts, confirmed that Britain could continue to pay for access to some parts of the single market.

Responding to criticism of the government's unwillingness to give detail of their Brexit plan, May indicated on Tuesday she would accept demands by opposition Labour MPs to reveal her hand -- as long as they accept her timetable for leaving the EU.

The premier was facing a rebellion by up to 40 lawmakers from her Conservative party over an opposition motion which demanded she publish the details of her Brexit plan before triggering Article 50.

In an amendment to the motion May accepted the demand, on the condition that MPs "respect the wishes" of voters in the Brexit referendum and accept her timetable to launch the exit procedure by the end of March.

The motion and its amendment will be subject to a debate and non-binding vote in House of Commons on Wednesday.

It comes as the government fights a legal challenge at Britain's Supreme Court to stop parliament having the final say on a decision to trigger Article 50, which could delay the whole process.

If it loses the case, the government could use a "one-line act" to try to quickly push it through parliament, James Eadie, a lawyer representing the government, told the court on Tuesday.
Photo credit: Hearst Owned

From Esquire

In June, Justin Bieber went live on his Instagram account. Among the countless questions and comments directed at the pop star was one from a social media user who asked Bieber to touch his hat if he were a survivor of child sex trafficking. Bieber did subsequently adjust his beanie, but it's entirely likely that he'd never even noticed the request. However, for followers of the Pizzagate conspiracy, it offered proof of their belief in a powerful cabal of pedophiles who not only traffic kids for sex, but also physically abuse and even murder and cannibalize them in horrifying Satanic rituals.

The fact that no evidence supports this thoroughly debunked theory hasn't stopped Pizzagate, which first went viral in 2016 before making a resurgence in recent months, from spreading. Here's what you should know.



What the hell is Pizzagate?

It all started in early November 2016, when Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's email was hacked and the messages were published by Wikileaks. One of the emails, according to The New York Times, was between Podesta and James Alefantis, the owner of D.C. pizzeria Comet Ping Pong. The message discussed Alefantis hosting a possible fundraiser for Clinton.

Users of the website 4Chan began speculating about the links between Comet Ping Pong and the Democratic Party, according to the BBC, with one particularly vile connection burbling to the surface: the pizzeria is the headquarters of a child trafficking ring led by Clinton and Podesta.

Seriously?

Yes. The conspiracy theory that prominent members of the Democratic Party are somehow involved in a global child-trafficking ring took root on far-right conservative websites. According to the BBC, the conspiracy theory linking this very false theory to Comet kicked around 4Chan until someone posted a long document with "evidence" to a now-banned alt-right section of Reddit several days before the U.S. election. The alt right is a fringe group of far-right extremistscomprised, mostly, of white supremacists and old-fashioned racistswho share their views and various forms of propaganda online.

Story continues

Also, the nation of Turkey is involved in the spread of Pizzagate.

Around mid-November, the BBC explained, a pro-government media outlet in Turkey started tweeting the conspiracy theory using the hashtag #pizzagate. The reason, according to The Daily Dot, is that supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were trying to accuse opponents of hypocrisy. An actual child-abuse scandal had rocked a foundation connected to the Turkish government, and Erdogan's supporters were asking why people weren't also outraged over Pizzagate. In other words, it was meant as a distraction.

How does this involve Comet Ping Pong?

The 120-seat restaurant opened in D.C. in 2006 years ago and, according to The New York Times, is considered a kid-friendly place, with ping-pong tables and craft rooms. It's also played host to concerts by local musicians, including the band Fugazi.

Comet Ping Pong's owner, James Alefantis, is an artist and D.C.-native who was a Clinton supporter but had never met her, according to the Times. Alefantis has prominent friends in the Democratic party. Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, frequents the restaurant.

Alefantis was also in a relationship with David Brock, the founder of the website Media Matters for America. The Times described Brock as "a provocative former right-wing journalist who became an outspoken advocate for Mrs. Clinton."

The restaurant's staff and customers have come under frequent assault online because of this nonsense.

Photo credit: The Washington Post - Getty Images

As fake news stories on far-right conservative blogs began to pile up and spread online, the Facebook page and Instagram feed of Comet Ping Pong began filling up with comments to the tune of "we're on to you." It quickly spiraled out of control, with threatening messages pouring through. "I will kill you personally," one message read, according to the Times.

Alefantis and his staff of 40 people received threatening phone calls and text messages. Photos of customers' children posted online were taken and used in articles as evidence of the child-abuse ring. Many of those customers, the Times noted, hired lawyers to have the pictures removed.

As the threats mountedincluding one person who showed up at the restaurant to investigate for himselfAlefantis contacted local police as well as the FBI. He also got in touch with Twitter, Facebook and Reddit in an effort to remove the posts and stories about the conspiracy theory.

None of it worked. The social media posts, texts and phone calls continued to mount.

The situation finally boiled over into real violence.

Photo credit: AP

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 4 2016, 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch, of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked through the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed an assault rifle in the direction of an employee, according to the Associated Press. The employee fled and called police, but Welch fired his gun, possibly striking the walls, door, and a computer. No one was hurt.

Police surrounded the pizzeria, according to The Washington Post, which said Welch emerged about 45 minutes later, his hands in the air, to surrender to authorities. He told police he'd gone to the restaurant to "self-investigate" reports of the child-trafficking ring.



He was carrying a Colt AR-15 rifle, a Colt .38 handgun, a shotgun and a folding knife. Police charged him with assault with a dangerous weapon, other weapons offenses and destruction of property.

Earlier, Welch allegedly drove his Buick LeSabre into a teenage pedestrian in North Carolina, according to Slate. The 13-year-old "suffered head, torso, and leg injuries, WBTV reported. Welch stayed at the scene until police arrived, WBTV added, although a witness said it appeared Welch didn't try to avoid striking the pedestrian.

In a statement after the incident at Comet, Alefantis called out the dangers of fake news. "What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences," he said. "I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away."

Welch wasn't the only would-be vigilante to target Comet Pizza.

The Pizzagate gunman surrendered when he discovered Pizzagate was a lie. https://t.co/S4mTbFgS1M pic.twitter.com/chdJCuaN5c  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) December 5, 2016

Welch, who told The Times that he believed that Hillary Clinton had personally murdered children, isn't the only person to target the pizzeria in person. In 2019, Ryan Jaselskis walked into the restaurant and set a curtain on fire. Employees and a customer were able to put out the flames before the fire spread. Jaselskis, who had a history of mental illness, was sentenced to spend four years in prison in April.

The shooting didn't stop someone close to Trump from inflaming the situation.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Shortly after the incident at Comet Ping Pong, Michael Flynn, Jr., the son of Trump's former national security advisor Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, tweeted his support of the conspiracy theory:

The story Michael Jr. shared on Twitter suggests Welch's actions were meant as a "false flag" and will now be leveraged to push for censorship of independent media, according to Politico.

Michael Jr. isn't just Flynn's son, he was his chief of staff and, according to The Washington Post, his closest adviser. But he might be taking after his dad in spreading baseless rumors. The elder Flynn, who led chants of "lock her up" at the Republican National Convention, tweeted a link to a fake news story claiming police in New York had found a link between Clinton, her staff and the child-sex ring.

So why didn't Pizzagate go away?

Many aspects of Pizzagate were eventually folded into the broader QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that Donald Trump is secretly engineering the downfall of the deep state and its cabal of elite pedophiles. Obviously, non of that is at all true.

But Pizzagate came roaring back in 2020, when the theory, once associated primarily with older Trump supporters, found a new, younger audience on platforms like TikTok. And while the theory has spread, it's become less overtly political, morphing to falsely accuse celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Chrissy Teigen, and brands like Wayfair.

Wait, what does Wayfair have to do with this?

In July, a Reddit user sparked a viral conspiracy theory with a post about, of all things, cabinets being sold by the online furniture retailer Wayfair. The cabinets, which all cost more than $10,000, had been given female names as their product titles on the website. Soon, the theory that Wayfair was trafficking children disguised as furniture was spreading around the internet. Wayfair refuted it by explaining that the items earned their high prices because they are industrial-grade cabinets, and that an algorithm had named the products. Still, that didn't stop believers from doing their signature deranged deep dive into attempting to connect the company to child abuse.

The Left and Mainstream media keep saying #WayFair is fake.

Tell me more #PizzaGate2 pic.twitter.com/EfMT2yD2AE  Verum Bellator (@VerumBellator1) July 18, 2020

And because Ellen DeGeneres has a partnership with Wayfair, Pizzagaters decided that she's somehow in on the kid smuggling. Chrissy Teigen attracted the conspiracists' attention after some of her old tweets surfaced, while Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, who took breaks from their late night shows this summer, were interpreted by the Pizzagate-addled as attempting to dodge their involvement in the conspiracy.

So people really take this idea seriously?

New York Times reporter Sheera Frankel said in an interview that pandemic lockdown-induced boredom may be helping to fuel some of the interest in Pizzagate on TikTok. Teens she spoke to said that they'd shared conspiracy videos just because it seemed like fun.

But some, like Welch, take Pizzagate dangerously seriously. At one Trump rally, a woman tearfully told writer Jeff Sharlet that the Clintons literally eat childrenthere are plenty of true believers. And in 2019, the FBI identified extreme conspiracy theorists as a domestic terrorist threat.

Luckily, some platforms are moving to squash the spread of this viral mythology. Reddit banned its Pizzagate subreddit in 2016 and a QAnon group in 2018. And in July, Twitter purged thousands of QAnon associated accounts, and implemented measures to prevent the amplification of QAnon content. TikTok followed by blocking QAnon hashtags.

It's unclear just how effective this will be in stopping the spread, as conspiracists tend to hop ship for rival platforms in the wake of crackdowns. But hopefully, vigorous moderation can help confine Pizzagate to the margins of the web.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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By Nate Raymond

Dec 5 (Reuters) - A former Expedia Inc computer support technician pleaded guilty on Monday to having secretly accessed senior executives' emails in order to engage in insider trading based on confidential information he stole.

Jonathan Ly, 28, entered his plea in federal court in Seattle to one count of securities fraud stemming from an insider trading scheme that prosecutors said netted the San Francisco resident $331,000.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 28. As part of a plea deal, Ly agreed to repay Expedia the $81,592 it spent investigating the computer intrusion. He also reached a $375,907 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A lawyer Ly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to court papers, in 2013, Ly began exploiting his administrative access privileges to secretly review the contents of devices belonging to executives including Expedia's chief financial officer and head of investor relations.

Prosecutors said that using the non-public information he obtained, Ly executed a series of well-times trades in Expedia stock options.

Even after he left the company in 2015, prosecutors said, Ly kept a company laptop and continued accessing the electronic devices and email accounts of Expedia executives.

"The irony of our increasingly digital world is that the greatest threat to our networks is a human one," U.S. Attorney Annette Hayes said in a statement. "In this case, an IT professional used his employer's networks to facilitate a get-rich-quick scheme."

Prosecutors said Expedia ultimately discovered the computer intrusion and reported it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Expedia in a statement confirmed it worked closely with law enforcement in the probe.

"Expedia has been and remains committed to a rigorous and continual improvement cycle for all elements of its security posture," the company said in a statement.

The case is U.S. v. Ly, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington, No. 16-cr-00316.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) has pulled out of half of the six exploration blocks it operated in the Kurdistan region, the Iraq Oil Report reported.

The oil company has walked away from its operations in the Qara Hanjeer, Arbat East, and Betwata blocks, the magazine reported, citing Kurdistan's Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami and Exxon spokeswoman Lauren Kerr. http://bit.ly/2h1FYWo

"Some companies didn't meet contractual deadlines and according to the contract had to relinquish their areas," the minister was quoted as saying.

Chevron (CVX.N), the second-largest U.S. oil company after Exxon Mobil, relinquished its interest in the Rovi block north of Erbil at the end of 2015 but continued to test wells in the Sarta area.

Since 2014, international oil companies have renounced a total of 19 exploration blocks in Kurdistan, according to an analysis by the Iraq Oil Report.

In August, Iraqi state oil firm SOMO blacklisted three tankers involved in shipping crude from Kurdistan, swelling the dispute over oil revenue-sharing between Baghdad and the Kurdistan regional government.

(Reporting by Vishal Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
Advertising Revenue in US

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Digital Media Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

Morgan Stanley analysts anticipate that a new video-only tab on Facebook  a feature that is being tested but hasn't been rolled out yet  will enable the social network to seize additional ad spend from TV, Business Insider reports.

TV ad revenue in the US totaled close to $70 billion in 2015, according to PwCs Media Outlook. Of this, the big four national networks  CBS, FOX, ABC, and NBC  represented 58% of revenue. But traditional TV's ad model is under increasing pressure as linear audiences shift online to video sites like YouTube and Netflix. Morgan Stanley expects this to worsen when Facebook debuts its own video portal:

TV advertisers have been reluctant to shift budgets to Facebook. The reason, according to Morgan Stanleys findings, is that videos and ads in the Facebook News Feed are too fragmented and interspersed among other kinds of posts.

The Facebook video tab would resolve TV advertisers concerns. Its a destination designed purely for video consumption, where users can search and discover videos theyd like to watch, including posts from pages, popular live videos, and posts from friends.

Facebook has been testing this feature for the better part of a year. In the most recent earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that initial tests for the video home had gone well, and that he was hopeful and excited about widely rolling out this feature soon.

The video tab threatens both TV and video sites like YouTube. Facebooks new video hub serves a similar, if not identical, function as YouTube, which has siphoned the most TV ad spend thus far. Last May, for instance, advertising group Interpublic committed to shifting at least $250 million in TV ad spend to YouTube.

Facebook has been refining its pitch to win over TV advertisers. This includes creating an ad-buying tool that works like buying spots on TV, to make purchasing easier for broadcast advertisers on Facebook. Meanwhile, more recently, a Facebook-commissioned Nielsen study showed ads on the social platform reach an additional 5% of people who cant be reached on TV.

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Consumers continue to increase their time spent consuming digital media, while advertisers continue to increase their ad budgets into digital channels.

The influx is not expected to let up in the near future. The US digital advertising industry will continue to experience remarkable growth through 2021 to reach nearly $100 billion in annual revenue, driven primarily by the sustained migration of ad dollars from traditional TV to digital video and the continued increase of social spending.

Overall, the strong growth of the US digital ad market can largely be attributed to increased time spent by consumers on digital media and brands' increased comfort with allocating budgets to digital formats, particularly on digital video. In a recent 2016 survey of almost 400 US ad agencies and marketers, the IAB found that two-thirds of respondents plan on increasing spending on digital video in the next year.

Moreover, mobile will become the top destination for digital ad spending as advertisers continue to attempt to resolve the disconnect between the rapid growth in time spent on phones and tablets and the relatively small share of ad budgets that are allocated to such platforms  known as the mobile opportunity gap. In fact, mobile is set to eclipse desktop ad spend by 2018.

Dylan Mortensen, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on U.S. digital media ad revenue that forecasts revenue trends over the next five years and outlines the key growth drivers for overall digital ad revenue in the U.S.

Here are some key points from the report:

US digital ad revenue is expected to reach nearly $100 billion by 2021, according to BI Intelligence estimates. This represents compound annual growth of 8% from the $68.9 billion expected in 2016.

Mobile is positioned to become the top destination for digital ad spending as advertisers continue to attempt to close the "mobile opportunity gap."

Digital video advertising will grow faster than any other segment over the next five years, as consumers shift time spent online to phones and tablets . Revenue in this category is forecast to rise from $8.5 billion in 2016 to $23 billion in 2021.

Social advertising in all formats is gaining traction and will be among the key drivers of digital ad growth in the next five years. Social ad revenue is poised to climb to $30.8 billion by 2021, up from $15.5 billion this year.

Artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and sponsored content will help propel further digital ad growth in the next decade.

In full, the report:

Forecasts US digital ad revenue through 2021.

Highlights the rising popularity of digital media with consumers and brands.

Explores why digital video advertising growth will exceed all other formats over the next five years.

Outlines emerging technologies that will help propel ad growth in the next decade.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of the following two options:

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally.  START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase & download the full report from our research store.  BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, youve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of digital media ad revenue.





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(Reuters) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday turned down the request for an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to build under the Missouri River, after months of protests from Native American and climate activists. However, Donald Trump's unexpected win in the U.S. presidential election could mean that victory for Native American and environmental groups could be short-lived, as they have plans to allow more pipeline production. The following is a timeline of the project: December 2014 Energy Transfer Partners LP applies to build a 1,172 mile (1,885 km), 570,000 barrel-per-day pipeline to deliver crude oil from North Dakotas Bakken shale fields to Patoka, Illinois, crossing South Dakota and Iowa to the North Dakota Public Service Commission, kicking off a year of public hearings in the state. January 2016 North Dakota regulators approve the pipeline unanimously April 29 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers holds a hearing for Native Americans on the pipeline. At that time, there was heated opposition to the project from Native tribes. July 25 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved three easements for water crossings for the pipeline at Sakakawea, the Mississippi River and Lake Oahe. Lake Oahe is an ancestral site for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. July 27 The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sues the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in connection with the pipeline, citing violation of multiple federal statutes that authorize the pipelines construction and operation, and seeks an emergency order to halt construction. The tribe also alleges the pipeline threatens their environmental and economic well-being and would damage and destroy sites of historic, religious and cultural significance. The Sioux Tribe say that because the pipeline goes underneath Lake Oahe, approximately half a mile upstream of the tribes reservation, leaks from the pipeline would be directly in the tribes ancestral lands. Aug. 24 Celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Riley Keough and Shailene Woodley joined members of the Tribe outside a courthouse in Washington, D.C., to protest the pipeline saying that it could pollute water and desecrate sacred land. Sept. 3 Private security guards hired by Energy Transfer Partners used attack dogs and mace after violence erupted at a private construction site along the pipeline route. Six people were reportedly bitten by dogs, a scene that was captured on video and broadcast widely. Sept. 6 Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians, which represents more than 500 tribes, spoke to nearly a dozen of President Barack Obama's Cabinet-level advisers at a Sept. 6 meeting of the White House's three-year-old Native American Affairs Council. Cladoosby delivered an impassioned request to his audience: stand with Native Americans who have united with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Sept. 9 U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington rejected a broad request from Native Americans to block the project. He, however, rules that no construction activity on the Dakota Access may take place between Highway 1806 and 20 miles to the east of Lake Oahe. Construction activity to the west of Highway 1806 may proceed. The tribe appeals the decision. Sept. 9 Less than an hour after Boasberg's decision, the U.S. Justice and Interior Departments and Army made an unprecedented move and ordered a stop to construction near Lake Oahe until the Army Corps of Engineers reviews its previous decisions and decides if it needs to conduct a fuller environmental and cultural review. Sept. 13 Energy Transfer Partners told employees in a letter, provided to media, that the company was committed to completing the project. The midstream operator cited that the pipeline was 60 percent complete, and that it had already spent $1.6 billion so far on equipment, materials and the workforce. Oct. 9 The U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit said that an administrative injunction related to the emergency motion of the Standing Rock Tribe would be dissolved, citing that Dakota Access has rights to construct on private land up to Lake Oahe. Oct. 11 Environmental activists across four states disrupted the flow of millions of barrels of crude from Canada into the United States in a rare, coordinate action that targeted several key pipelines simultaneously. The protest group, the Climate Direct Action, said their move was in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. As a safety precaution, companies operating the pipelines shut off sections of the lines for several hours while they investigated. Earlier in the day, Energy Transfer Partners said it looked forward to prompt resumption of construction activities east and west of Lake Oahe on private land. Oct. 25 Government-to-government tribal consultations began across six regions on how federal government decision-making on infrastructure projects could better include tribal concerns. Nov. 8 Energy Transfer Partners says it has built the pipe to the edge of Lake Oahe and reiterates its intentions to complete the project. Nov. 9 Following the surprise victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, climate activists and the Standing Rock Sioux say they still hope President Obama will be able to kill the pipeline definitively. Analysts say the line is more than likely to go through. Nov. 14 The U.S. government, in a joint notice issued by the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers, delayed a final decision on permitting. They said the permit had followed all legal requirements, but said more consultation with Native American tribes was needed. Nov. 18 Energy Transfer Partners' CEO Kelcy Warren told the Associated Press that the pipeline would not be re-routed. The statement came as protests grew more heated. Nov. 20 About 400 activists gather on a bridge between the camp protest and the construction path and law enforcement officers respond by using tear gas and water cannons on them in freezing temperatures. Nov. 26 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tells protesters they need to leave the Oceti Sakowin Camp, the primary protest camp located on federal land, by Dec. 5. They later say they have no plans to enforce this order. Nov. 28 North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple issues an evacuation order for the Oceti Sakowin camp, citing harsh weather on the way. Officials the next day tell Reuters they plan on blockading the camp so supplies cannot get in. They later back off that plan to say they may just issue fines but retreat from that idea as well. Nov. 30 A group of U.S. veterans announce they will bring more than 2,000 service members to North Dakota to stand as human shields between the protesters and law enforcement. They begin arriving over the next several days. Dec. 4 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denies Energy Transfer Partners' request for an easement to run under Lake Oahe, sparking a celebration amongst protesters. ETP says it will continue to fight for the line. The incoming Trump administration has said it supports Dakota Access, along with other pipeline projects. (Reporting by Catherine Ngai and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Bill Trott)
By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British judges may upset government plans to start Brexit talks soon but whatever the Supreme Court decides after hearings this week, the EU has prepared its side of the unprecedented process. THE TIMELINE, AND WAITING FOR MARCH 2017 Theresa May's formal notification of British withdrawal from the EU treaty under Article 50 is critical. EU counterparts rule out any negotiation before that. Article 50 sets a two-year countdown to Brexit. Without a deal Britain would be out of the EU but with many loose ends. The deadline can be extended, but only if there is mutual consent. May pledged two months ago to trigger Article 50 by late March. That would suit EU leaders who want a deal before an EU parliament election in May 2019. But London judges may upset the timetable, which could revive speculation May might use her power to delay notification to gain leverage in Brussels. After getting May's letter, European Council President Donald Tusk would convene a summit of the other 27 national leaders within a month or two to deliver a response and agree a mandate for the executive European Commission to negotiate. One issue in arguments in Britain over how withdrawal can be triggered following the non-binding referendum in June is whether London could change its mind later and stay in. The view in London is no but in Brussels most think it can.. QUICK, QUICK, SLOW - THE BREXIT THREE-STEP Divorce, transition, future. Barring a "cliff edge" falling out, Britain and the EU would agree withdrawal terms by 2019 and an interim deal to avoid needless disruption during negotiation of a new relationship that may take five more years. While there is a degree of consensus on what must be settled in the withdrawal treaty, which would need only majority backing among EU states, much beyond that is unclear, mainly because it is unclear what Britain will ask for. And any transition deal would depend on having some idea what it was a transition to -- and it would probably have to be agreed by the 27 unanimously. Key parts of a future relationship will be terms of access to the EU single market for British-based firms and how far Britain will accept immigration from the continent, arbitration by EU judges and to pay into EU budgets in return for access. DIVORCE, AND WHO GETS THE HOUSE AND THE KIDS These are the EU's priorities for the withdrawal treaty: 1. The house, bank accounts and pensions. The British state, businesses and citizens contribute to and receive from the EU budget. Negotiators need to divide the cash. After leaving, London may need to keep paying, for example to cover pensions of EU staff or previously agreed but yet to be disbursed spending. The EU will resist Britain getting a share of the value of the EU's property -- it didn't pay extra when it joined, they say. 2. The kids. More than 3 million non-British EU citizens live in Britain and more than a million Britons live elsewhere in the EU. Neither side thinks mass deportations are desirable or likely. However, EU leaders' hard line against a quick deal on this shows reluctance to give up a politically powerful card. 3. The borders. They need to settle customs measures for goods and probably special arrangements for the only UK-EU land border, on the island of Ireland. EU leaders fear upsetting the Irish peace settlement. But are wary lest favours for the Irish let the rest of the UK, or parts of it like similarly anti-Brexit Scotland, end up better off out of the EU than in it. 4. Court cases. Among a host of lower-profile issues to be settled will be agreeing how to handle outstanding cases involving Britain at the European Court of Justice. LOOK WHO'S TALKING - THE NEGOTIATORS This is what in EU-speak is called "Chefsache" -- German for 'a matter for the bosses'. Theresa May and her 27 counterparts will take the final decisions. However, the details will first have to be worked on by legions of lesser officials. Council President Tusk, a conservative former prime minister of Poland, will hold the ring for the other 27 states, assuming his mandate is renewed in May. He is expected to set up a Brexit Working Group to keep national leaders in the loop. President Jean-Claude Juncker's European Commission will do the heavy lifting of detailed negotiation and legal drafting. Michel Barnier, a French former minister who irked London when financial services commissioner, runs the Commission's Brexit Task Force. His deputy is German trade expert Sabine Weyand. The European Parliament must approve any deal. It will be represented in talks by Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal former Belgian prime minister seen in London as an arch eurofederalist. (Editing by Ralph Boulton)
(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday he would name retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The following is a list of Republican Trump's selections for top jobs in his administration. All the posts but that of national security adviser require Senate confirmation: DEFENSE SECRETARY: JAMES MATTIS Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname "Mad Dog." He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: "It's fun to shoot some people." TREASURY SECRETARY: STEVEN MNUCHIN Mnuchin, 53, is a relatively little-known but successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California's largest bank. The bank came under fire for its foreclosure practices as housing advocacy groups accused it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. COMMERCE SECRETARY: WILBUR ROSS Ross, 78, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross has helped shape the Trump campaign's views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which entered into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization for causing massive U.S. factory job losses. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: ELAINE CHAO Chao, 63, was labor secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. Chao is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TOM PRICE Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House of Representatives' Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion. U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY Haley, a 44-year-old Republican, has been governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman. EDUCATION SECRETARY: BETSY DEVOS DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatization of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump's presidential bid and has been a close ally since. The son of a country-store owner, the senator from Alabama and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY: BEN CARSON Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: RETIRED LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL FLYNN Flynn, 57, was an early supporter of Trump and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his U.S. Army career in 1981 and served deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama, but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama's foreign policy. CIA DIRECTOR: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE POMPEO Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government's sweeping collection of Americans' communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. (Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Alessandro Michele, Gigi Hadid and Alexander McQueen were just some of the names to claim top prizes at the Fashion Awards 2016 on Monday evening.

Stars and key players gathered at London's Albert Hall to toast the winners of the prestigious awards ceremony, hosted by the British Fashion Council, with a focus on both emerging talent and industry legends.

The winners included several designers and brands challenging the status quo in some form, with innovation widely rewarded across the board. Alessandro Michele, credited with breathing new life into Gucci since his tenure at the brand, was awarded the title of 'International Accessories Designer', while the enigmatic Paris-based collective Vetements, which has been shaking up the fashion scene since its edgy debut in 2014, was named 'International Urban Luxury Brand.' One of its founding designers Demna Gvasalia also won the 'International Ready-to-Wear Designer' category for his work at Balenciaga.

Ralph Lauren, one of the biggest names in American fashion to reject the traditional fashion show cycle and adopt a 'see now, buy now' strategy over the last year, won the 'Outstanding Achievement' award. Meanwhile brother and sister Jaden and Willow Smith, known for their boundary-pushing careers and personal style, took home the title of 'New Fashion Icon'.

Gigi Hadid celebrated a stellar 12 months with the 'International Model' award, Alexander McQueen was named top 'British Brand' and photographer Bruce Weber took home the 'Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator.' Innovative designer Molly Goddard, known for her pop-culture themed collections, won 'British Emerging Talent', and Craig Green and Simone Rocha were named 'British Menswear Designer' and 'British Womenswear Designer' respectively for their eponymous brands. Italian fashion journalist Franca Sozzani claimed 'The Swarovski Award for Positive Change', Marco Bizzarri was named 'International Business Leader' for his role as CEO of Gucci and 100 Years of Vogue was given a 'Special Recognition' prize.
LA Metro

The FBI and local law enforcement were investigating a potential threat against a public transit system in the Los Angeles area on Monday.

The plot, according to police, targeted the Metro subway station in Universal City, about 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Federal officials said they received information about the threat from an anonymous caller who contacted a public-safety hotline from overseas.

Officials did not specify where the call originated, but said the threat was communicated in English.

We receive threats all the time, but this one was very specific with regard to date and location and for that reason we felt that it was important to provide some detail, FBI Los Angeles spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told Business Insider Monday night. This was to be a terrorist attack involving some sort of a detonation," she said.

Information about who could be behind the threat has not yet been determined, Eimiller said.

In a press conference Monday, FBI officials and Los Angeles police said they were working to verify the veracity of the threat.

During a news conference on Monday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he does not believe the threat is credible, "but with an abundance of caution, we always want to make sure that we protect our people here in Los Angeles." He added: My advice is right now, everyone should go about their normal day.

City officials said there would be additional law-enforcement patrols at subway stations on Tuesday.

NOW WATCH: A fake news story led to a shooting at a pizzeria in Washington DC





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From Road & Track

Fidel Castro's funeral turned into a private event in the last minute with only about thirty people allowed into the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia. But before the officials closed out all of the local and international media, Castro's ashes were driven from the Revolution Square across the city of Santiago de Cuba for all to pay their last respects. On a trailer behind an UAZ.

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As a military man and a communist leader, Fidel Castro was more than familiar with the Russian off-roader. Yet it's also worth noting that back in 1959, he and his crew enjoyed their successful revolution in a much more refined fashion, driving a Dodge Custom Royal.

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The UAZ-469 and its variants have been the number one choice of no-nonsense military organizations (and foresters) since 1971, and since they remained in production until late last year in the great city of Ulyanovsk, some 555 miles east of Moscow, parts availability will never be a problem.

In 2003, the 469 was rebranded as the UAZ Hunter, and today, you can still get one of the last ones ever made with the gearbox from Hyundai and such extras as brown metallic paint. Perfect is the word you're looking for.

Photo credit: UAZ

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After days of heavy rainfall, roads in Koh Samui, the second largest island in Thailand, were severely flooded on December 5.

Koh Samui is in the province of Surat Thani, which has been declared a disaster area, according to the Bangkok Post, citing Gov Auychai Inthanak of Surat Thani.

Torrential rainfall was expected to continue in Thailands southern provinces, including Surat Thani, according to Thailands meteorological agency. The agency also warned that strong winds could lead to waves reaching 7-10 feet in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea. Credit: Instagram/hannakarlson via Storyful
Who knew drawing a picture depicting pregnancy would be so difficult?

Read: Mother Expecting a Daughter Gave Birth to Baby Boy  and Viral Photo Shows Her Shock

When Andreanne Langevin of Montreal, Canada, discovered she was pregnant, she couldn't wait to share the good news with her two best friends, Alex and Fred.

Inspired by their monthly or bi-monthly get-togethers over Settlers of Catan and other board games, Langevin called her two best friends, and suggested they get together for a more intimate night playing Pictionary, that would actually serve as her surprise pregnancy reveal.

It seemed obvious to Langevin that once she drew a sun, to represent her nickname, "Day," and a pregnant woman, her friends would immediately guess that she and her boyfriend Jay were expecting.

But the process proved to be a little more complex.

"Suntan baby," Alex guessed, in a video licensed by Caters News.

Fred even exclaimed, "She ate the son! That's it!"

"A new day? A new life?" Alex chimed in.

After nearly four minutes of wild guesses, Fred finally realized, "Is this your way of telling us you're pregnant?"

Langevin later told InsideEdition.com, "They're extremely competitive. Alex's mindset was still in the category, and when she sets her mind to something, she can be weirdly focused on it."

And because she strayed from the typical idioms one might find in a game of Pictionary, she admitted, "technically, I should be disqualified for this one."

Read: Wife Surprises Husband With Pregnancy Announcement After 5 Years of Infertility

Langevin said that after being together for a year, she and Jay are expecting their first baby together, a boy, in March 2017.

"They should have expected it," Langevin laughed. "It was pretty obvious."

Langevin also added she will be officiating Alex and Fred's wedding in the coming year.

Watch: Gender Reveal Party Goes Hilariously Wrong as Box Contains Medley of Rainbow Balloons

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FX Networks is restructuring its development and current operations, expanding the roles of two of its key original programming executives, EVPs Gina Balian and Jonathan Frank. The move comes as the companys third programming EVP, Nicole Clemens, is departing to return to the representation side of the business with a job at Anonymous Content.

Balian, previously EVP Limited Series, is being named EVP of Series Development for FX Networks and FX Productions, overseeing all original series development for FX Networks. She will take over Clemens duties of drama and comedy series development in addition to limited series. On the studio side, she will work with producers and writers under deals at FXP to develop series for FX Networks and other Fox Networks Group outlets.

Frank, previously EVP Current Series, becomes EVP of FX Current Programming and FX Productions. He will oversee the development and selling of FXP original series for non-FNG outlets and will have business operation responsibilities for FXP. Additionally, Frank will continue to shepherd day-to-day production for FX Networks original programming.

Balian and Frank will continue to report to Nick Grad and Eric Schrier, Presidents of Original Programming for FX Networks and FX Productions.

Gina Balian is one of the smartest and most talented development executives in the industry, said Schrier. Her track record of success speaks for itself, which is a direct reflection of the trust and respect producers and writers have for her. We are truly looking forward to Gina having oversight of all original series development for FX Networks and FXP.

Said Grad, For almost a decade, Jonathan Frank has played a vital role in the success of FX Networks, doing an extraordinary job of the day-to-day management and oversight of our current series. It is only fitting that he will now expand his role to include the management and distribution of FXP original series produced for non-FNG outlets, as he so ably has done with the acclaimed FXP comedy series One Mississippi for Amazon.

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Balian, a rising star at FX, joined the network four years ago as the first executive hired by a network to oversee a push into limited series when the area was just starting to heat up. FX, which kicked off the current anthology series renaissance with American Horror Story, has been been a leader in the limited series field. Since joining FX in 2012, Balian developed FX Networks first limited series, Fargo, which won three Emmy awards, including Outstanding Miniseries. She also developed the hit new limited series American Crime Story, whose first installment, The People v. O.J. Simpson, won nine Emmys.

Additionally, Balian developed the drama series Legion from Fargo Executive Producer/Showrunner Noah Hawley, which marks FXs first co-production with Marvel Television, and she also oversees the upcoming drama series Taboo for FX, a 19th Century period piece starring Tom Hardy, and previously oversaw the limited series Wayward Pines, which was produced by FXP for Fox Broadcasting Company. Before joining FX in 2012, Balian served as SVP of Drama Series at HBO where she developed many projects including Game of Thrones, In Treatment and Flight of the Conchords.

In his role as head of current series, Frank oversees day-to-day production for the entire slate of FX Networks original programming, including the dramas The Americans, The Strain, the anthology series American Horror Story, and FX comedy series Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Archer, Louie, The League, Man Seeking Woman, Baskets, Better Things and Atlanta. Beyond that, Frank oversaw the development of the FXP comedy series One Mississippi starring Tig Notaro for Amazon, which was recently renewed for a second season. Additionally, Frank is overseeing FX Networks initiative to grow the roster of women and people of color to direct episodes of FX Networks series. In just over a year since taking on that role, the percentage of women and people of color booked to direct all episodes of FX Networks series has increased to over 50% from approximately 12%. Frank joined FX in 2008 as VP of Current Programming and was promoted to SVP in 2011. Prior to joining FX, Frank was with Mark Johnson Productions as head of television development and Caryn Mandabach Productions as VP of Television Development.

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FX Networks Exec Nicole Clemens Joins Anonymous As Manager & Producer

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'American Horror Story' Renewed For Seventh Installment By FX
By Emma Farge BANJUL (Reuters) - A Gambian court freed a prominent lawyer and 18 other political prisoners on bail on Monday pending an appeal of their jail sentence for "unlawful assembly", in a sign that President Yahya Jammeh's shock election defeat last week could end years of repression. A Reuters witness was present for the decision to release Ousainou Darboe along with other senior members of the United Democratic Party (UDP), who had been jailed for three years in July for taking part in a small protest near the capital Banjul. Darboe appeared thin in a long blue robe but grinned broadly as he hugged family members and friends in the courtroom. He was greeted by cheers and cries of "A new Gambia!" as riot police attempted to control a large crowd of supporters outside. Jammeh ruled Gambia for 22 years with and iron fist and little tolerance of dissent. Rights groups say the government routinely imprisoned and tortured political opponents. But his ouster at the ballot box, and his shock acceptance of his defeat despite previously saying he would rule for "a billion years", has raised hopes that democracy is dawning in the tiny, riverside West African nation of 1.8 million people. The election results gave Adama Barrow, a real estate developer who once worked as a security guard at retailer Argos in London, a clear win over Jammeh. Barrow has said he will free political prisoners. "It is finally time for the families of those people wrongly detained to be reunited with their loved ones," Amnesty International's Steve Cockburn said. "Adama Barrow has promised to release all political prisoners and he should ensure this goes beyond opposition figures and includes everyone jailed simply for expressing their views," he added. (Reporting by Emma Farge in Banjul and Nellie Peyton in Dakar; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Richard Lough)
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By Emma Farge BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambia's high court released a further 12 political prisoners on Tuesday, their lawyer said, adding to hopes of an end to years of repression after long-ruling President Yahya Jammeh lost elections last week. Their release comes a day after another court granted bail to a prominent lawyer Ousainou Darboe, whose arrest helped galvanize opposition to Jammeh, breaking a climate of fear in the tiny West African country. Darboe was freed on bail along with 18 other political prisoners pending an appeal of their sentence for "unlawful assembly", the same charge on which the dozen released on Tuesday were jailed. The election result, and Jammeh's decision to accept it on a continent where veteran leaders rarely lose, took Gambians and international observers by surprise and sparked days of wild celebrations across the seaside capital Banjul. President-Elect Adama Barrow is due to be sworn in January, although political sources said a meeting scheduled for Tuesday between him and Jammeh was canceled. Tuesday's group, detained after a demonstration in May, originally numbered 15. Two women, included one with a tiny baby, were previously released while a third prisoner died in detention following an operation his family said they never authorized. "The writing is on the wall for all these cases," said defense lawyer Antouman Gaye. "Either the government concedes they are highly politically motivated cases with no legal basis or the incoming government drops them." The United States and the United Nations have called for all political prisoners in Gambia to be freed. (editing by John Stonestreet)
(Story corrects to 1 billion tonnes from 1 million in sixth paragraph.)

By Alwyn Scott

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co's <GE.N> sales of power plant upgrades would not suffer much if the United States bailed out of climate change treaties under a Trump administration as utilities still want the economic benefits that come with modernizations, GE's power services chief said on Monday.

President-elect Donald Trump has called global warming a hoax and threatened to quit climate accords, though he recently said he is keeping an "open mind."

But even if Trump took the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate deal, that would not necessarily cut demand for plant improvements, GE said.

"We see the demand being very robust for products that can lower emissions and increase efficiency," Paul McElhinney, chief executive of GE's $15 billion power services business, said in a TV interview with Reuters.

"I don't actually see anything happening domestically in the U.S. as having a dramatic impact."

GE supports the climate agreements, which it says can help drive utilities to upgrade plants. It released a study on Monday that shows global CO2 emissions could be cut by 10 percent, or 1.1 billion tonnes a year, if current technology to boost the efficiency of coal and gas-fired power plants were installed in every plant now operating. The reduction would be equivalent to taking 95 percent of U.S. cars off the road, GE said.

Such upgrades cost about $55 million for a coal plant and $10 million for a natural gas plant, GE said.

GE expects to land contracts worth about $500 million in coming weeks, including a $300 million deal to upgrade two British power plants operated by Uniper SE of Germany <UN01.DE>, McElhinney said.

Hardware upgrades combined with new software can increase efficiency at coal plants about 4 percentage points and around 3.3 percentage points at gas plants, GE said.

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GE expects more coal plants to be built over the next 25 years. Demand is particularly strong in China, India, South Africa, Southeast Asia and North Asia.

Power utilities there face rising power demands and want improvements to wring more electricity from existing turbines and generators, while also helping comply with climate rules, McElhinney said.

Demand for renewable energy such as wind and solar is increasing and now accounts for half of all new electric capacity, said Deb Frodl, executive director of GE's Ecomagination business, which focuses on environmental strategy.

GE's potential market for power plant equipment sales more than doubled to $53 billion a year with the 2015 acquisition of power assets from Alstom SA <ALSO.PA>, McElhinney said.

GE is ahead of projections on cost savings and sales growth it forecast from the Alstom deal, but he declined to provide figures.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Andrew Hay and Marguerita Choy)
General Mills Inc. GIS announced a restructuring plan at the close of its 150th anniversary celebrations. The maker of Cheerios, Kix and Lucky Charms, which has been struggling with weak sales in recent times, intends to streamline its portfolio that will eliminate an executive position along with hundreds of jobs.

GENL MILLS Price

GENL MILLS Price | GENL MILLS Quote

The Plan



As part of the reorganization, General Mills is eliminating the post of international chief operating officer that is currently held by Christopher O'Leary. Also, the restructuring will include the laying off of approximately 400600 employees worldwide, subject to consultation with employees and employee representatives in locations as required.



Starting Jan 1, 2017, the company will split into four key business groups -- North America Retail (U.S. Retail & Canada), Europe & Australia, Asia & Latin America, Convenience Stores & Foodservice. These groups will report directly to President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Harmening who took over the companys global operations earlier this year.



In the words of Harmening, "The capability investments and savings generated by these changes will help us deliver our fiscal 2018 adjusted operating profit margin target of 20%."



The latest reshuffle is one of General Mills series of moves adopted in recent years, namely, "Project Century" and "Project Catalyst" that have slashed over 3,000 jobs as of mid-2015.



Growth Plans



Apart from restructuring its global operations into four key divisions, the company has other plans as well.



General Mills is aligning its current dairy strategic brand unit or SBU with this new global organization structure. Notably, in its recently released third-quarter results, General Mills said that sales fell 7% as its yogurt business took a hit in the U.S. France-based Dairy SBU will now focus to explore new opportunities to drive growth and innovation for the dairy platform globally. General Mills holds the second position globally in both yogurt and super-premium ice cream, courtesy of the Yoplait and Haagen-Dazs brands.



Again, the company expects to "enhance its growth capabilities in several areas, including strategic revenue management (SRM), e-commerce, and marketing innovation, and intends to augment its current talent with external expertise in these areas over the next several months."



What Good Does It Hold for General Mills?



General Mills is currently pursuing several multi-year restructuring initiatives focused at improving operational efficiency to generate cost savings and support its key growth strategies. In fiscal 2015, the company generated combined savings of $75 million from Project Century and Catalyst. These projects coupled with Project Compass and administrative cost reductions from zero-based budgeting generated cost savings of $350 million in fiscal 2016 and are expected to generate savings of $600 million by fiscal 2018.



However, the company needs to focus on increasing sales apart from just generating savings through these initiatives.



It is important to note here that General Mills shares have outperformed the Zacks categorized Food-Miscellaneous/Diversified industry so far this year, with the stock rising 6.02% versus 2.31% growth seen by the broader market.

Story continues





Zacks Rank & Key Picks



General Mills currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



Better-ranked stocks in the industry include Mondelez International, Inc. MDLZ, Ingredion Inc. INGR and Lancaster Colony Corp. LANC.



All three companies carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Full-year 2016 earnings for Mondelez are expected to grow 11.4%.



Ingredion is likely to witness 20.1% growth in full-year 2016 earnings.



Fiscal 2016 earnings for Lancaster are expected to rise 7.3%.



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Thailand's new King Maha Vajiralongkorn appointed top army brass to his powerful advisory body on Tuesday, including three generals linked to the ruling junta.

The move illustrates the close military-royal alliance that has defined Thai politics for the last five decades, an era that has seen brief flirtations with democracy punctuated by multiple palace-endorsed coups.

In a statement broadcast on all television stations, it was announced that Vajiralongkorn has trimmed the size of his Privy Council from 16 to 11, keeping eight members appointed by his father and elevating three new ones.

Two of the newcomers are members of the military government's current cabinet, Justice Minister General Paiboon Koomchaya and Education Minister General Dapong Ratansuwan.

The third new member is General Teerachai Nakvanich, who became army chief under the junta in 2015 and retired earlier this year.

They join three ex-generals who keep their positions, giving the armed forces a majority on the council.

The deeply revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej died in October aged 88 after a seven-decade reign, leaving the politically turbulent country bereft of a unifying figure.

His only son, 64-year-old Vajiralongkorn, was proclaimed king last week.

The royal succession is a highly sensitive topic in Thailand, where criticism of the monarchy is banned, and has thrust the kingdom into a new era of uncertainty.

The most recent coup -- when generals ousted an elected government in 2014, -- is thought by analysts to have been staged to control the looming royal succession as Bhumibol's health declined.

- 'Balancing factions' -

The constitutional monarchy has limited formal power but is one of the world's richest and attracts the loyalty of much of the business and military elite.

Privy councillors also wield significant political influence from behind the scenes and have been appointed interim prime ministers after some previous coups.

Vajiralongkorn retained the influential and longstanding head of the council, 96-year-old head Prem Tinsulanonda, a close confidante of his father and one of Thailand's savviest political operators.

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Paul Chambers, a Thailand-based expert on the Thai monarchy, said the council's new makeup suggested the new king was seeking a "balancing of military factions" that included members from different cliques.

The downsized body also suggests "the sovereign wants a smaller and manageable council" to which he could add more loyalists to in the future, he added.

Vajiralongkorn has enormous shoes to fill after the passing of his father, who was worshipped with near-religious devotion and deftly courted military officers and politicians to elevate the monarchy's prestige.

A former air force fighter pilot, he has his own personal military unit -- the Royal Guard 904 -- which Chambers estimates is some 5,000-strong.

He has often spent much time outside the country, with his military network less deep-rooted and the extent of his power base unclear.

The new king has also yet to achieve the same degreee of popularity among ordinary Thais of his father.

But he remains shielded from public criticism by a royal defamation law that punishes each offence with up to 15 years in jail, forcing subjects and media to heavily self-censor.

The junta has ramped up use of the law since its power grab, throwing scores of people behind bars -- sometimes for decades.
By David Beasley

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia is scheduled to execute on Tuesday a man convicted of fatally shooting his father-in-law and kidnapping his estranged wife and her sister in 1990 who is set to become the ninth person put to death in the state this year.

William Sallie, 50, is due to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. EST at the state prison in Jackson. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his request for clemency late on Monday.

Sallie would become the 19th person executed in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Georgia has carried out more executions this year than any other U.S. state, according to the group. Another execution is scheduled in Alabama on Thursday.

At the time of the murder, Sallie was separated from his wife, Robin, and their 2-year-old son, who were living with her parents in rural Bacon County in south Georgia.

Dressed in green camouflage and carrying a pistol, duct tape and handcuffs, Sallie broke into the Moore house in the early morning and shot his sleeping in-laws, John and Linda Moore, according to court records. John Moore, 49, died from his injuries.

Sallie then handcuffed Robin and her 17-year-old sister, and took them back to his trailer, releasing them later that night.

Sallie was originally convicted and sentenced to death in 1991, but the Georgia Supreme Court later ordered a new trial after it was disclosed that one of the defense attorneys had a conflict of interest. He was then convicted again in a second trial.

Sallie's lawyers have petitioned the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his sentence to life without parole. They argued that a juror was biased against Sallie and lied about having a "checkered and tumultuous" history of divorces and child-custody fights.

The juror later told investigators that she pushed a divided jury for a death sentence.

(Editing by Letitia Stein and Andrew Hay; Editing by Will Dunham)
By Michelle Martin

BERLIN (Reuters) - German industrial orders rose in October at their fastest pace for more than two years, data showed on Tuesday, suggesting that the industrial sector will prop up growth in Europe's largest economy in the coming months.

Factories saw demand climb 4.9 percent on the month despite bulk orders being lower than usual, the Economy Ministry said. That was the biggest increase since July 2014 and far above the Reuters consensus forecast for a 0.6 percent rise.

"The reading was very strong even without large-scale orders and that suggests it's more than just a flash in the pan," BayernLB economist Stefan Kipar said, noting that some firms might have brought orders forward.

"I don't think we can keep this pace up until the end of the year," he said.

Nonetheless, the data revives hopes of an industrial upturn in the fourth quarter after data last week showed engineering orders falling in October by 10 percent from the previous year and manufacturing growth slowing slightly in November.

A breakdown of Tuesday's data showed domestic demand climbed 6.3 percent while foreign orders increased 3.9 percent despite a stagnation in contracts from the euro zone.

A 7.2 percent surge in capital goods contracts drove the overall increase while factories making consumer goods and intermediate goods benefited from stronger demand. Orders for cars and car parts surged.

In the less volatile two-month comparison, bookings increased 2.5 percent.

The Economy Ministry said the data pointed to a good start to the fourth quarter and that it expected the industrial sector to revive in the October-December period thanks to rising demand and an improved business climate.

German quarterly growth halved to 0.2 percent in the third quarter as exports weakened, but the economy is expected to perform better in the fourth quarter. The government expects domestic demand to propel growth of 1.8 percent in 2016.

The latest forward-looking indicators also bode well, showing the mood among investors and consumers picking up while business sentiment has held steady at a high level despite greater uncertainty due to Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election.

The orders data for September was revised up to a fall of 0.3 percent from a previously reported drop of 0.6 percent.

(Additional reporting by Klaus Lauer; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Louise Ireland)
Berlin (AFP) - Germany's public broadcaster ARD came under fire Tuesday, accused of ignoring a rape-murder case in which an Afghan refugee is the top suspect for fear of fueling anti-migrant sentiment.

The top-ranking evening news programme, Tagesschau, had on Saturday decided not to report on the arrest of the 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker over the alleged killing of a 19-year-old medical student named as Maria L.

Responding to a wave of online criticism, ARD chief news editor Kai Gniffke said that the national edition of the programme reports "very rarely on individual criminal cases" and focuses mainly on "events of societal, national or international relevance".

But the programme found itself at the centre of a social media storm, widely accused as deliberately ignoring the crime in an effort to be "politically correct" and because it cast a negative light on the government's liberal migrant policy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has earned both respect and harsh criticism for her government's policy of allowing almost 900,000 refugees and migrants into the country last year, with another 300,000 expected for all of 2016.

The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party -- which has campaigned angrily against the migrant influx, Islam, Merkel and what it calls the "liar-press" -- labelled ARD's explanations "ridiculous".

Lawmaker Ansgar Heveling, of Merkel's conservative party, also said the Tagesschau was "wrong because it gave the impression it did not want to report the case because the suspect is an unaccompanied minor asylum seeker".

"Creating such an impression is terrible," added Heveling, a media expert and chairman of the parliamentary internal affairs committee.

In the end, ARD did report on the case when it asked Merkel about it in an interview late Tuesday. Merkel said that while any murder is to be condemned, the crime should not be used to target "an entire group".

Story continues

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel earlier also argued the murder should not be used to whip up hatred against all refugees.

"Such horrible murders happened before the first Afghan or Syrian refugee arrived here," Gabriel told the Bild newspaper. "We will not allow incitement after such violent crimes, no matter who commits them."

German newspapers and broadcasters were sharply criticised at the start of the year for being days late in reporting on sexual assaults against hundreds of women, blamed mostly on Arab and North African men, at New Year's festivities in Cologne.
By Narottam Medhora

(Reuters) - GoDaddy Inc (GDDY.N), a U.S.-based website domain name provider, said on Tuesday it would buy peer Host Europe Group (HEG) for 1.69 billion euros ($1.82 billion), including debt, as it seeks to expand beyond the initial set-up of websites.

GoDaddy has branched into the more profitable business of hosting websites for small businesses and consumers and the HEG deal will help it accelerate this shift as well as broaden its customer base in Europe.

The deal gives the company a five-year jump in Europe, GoDaddy Chief Executive Blake Irving said in an interview.

Godaddy's share price rose 2.2 percent in early trading.

HEG is one of Europe's largest independent web hosting firms and operates brands such as 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet and Host Europe.

GoDaddy, well-known in the United States for its at times provocative TV marketing campaigns, trumped bids from German Internet service provider United Internet AG (UTDI.DE) and Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE) for the company.

Reuters had reported last month that GoDaddy was in exclusive talks to buy the company.

HEG is currently owned by European private equity firm Cinven Ltd [CINV.UL], which acquired the business in August 2013 for 438 million pounds ($560 million).

Irving said the company had considered buying HEG in 2013, but dropped the plan over integration concerns.

GoDaddy also said it would explore options for HEG's PlusServer managed hosting business, including a possible sale.

HEG's chief executive, Patrick Pulvermuller, will lead European operations of the combined company.

The HEG platform will likely be used by Godaddy for follow-on deals in Europe, a person familiar with the deal said.

GoDaddy said HEG was on track to generate about $328 million in bookings and about $139 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2016.

Cinven was advised by Deutsche Bank on the deal, while Godaddy was advised by Greenhill.

Banks including Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and RBC are lining up the financing of the deal.

Story continues

($1 = 0.9284 euros)

($1 = 0.7849 pounds)

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and David Evans)
DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

Gold Prices and the US Dollar Take a Pause Ahead of FOMC

US Dollar Bullish Breakouts Begin Above 101.54

Bearish Breakouts for Gold Prices are Identified Beneath $1,157.30

Gold prices and the US Dollar (Ticker:Ticker::DXY) continue to consolidate, as the market fundamentally begins to focus on next weeks FOMC rate decision. The event is critical because rates are expected to rise for the first time since December 2015. Even though a hike would only bring expected rates to 0.50%, this move in policy could drastically affect commodities such as gold that are prices in Dollars.

US Dollar Daily Chart and Inside Bar

Gold Prices and US Dollar Pause Ahead of FOMC

(Created Using TradingView Charts)

Whats next for the US Dollar? Read Our Dollar Market Forecast HERE

Technically, the US Dollar Index (Symbol DXY) is set to conclude todays trading with the creation of an inside bar. Prices have yet to trade above yesterdays high of 101.54 or below yesterdays low of 99.85 to complete this pattern. While this pattern is considered a consolidating pattern, traders may use these points to plan the US Dollars next major breakout. A move above resistance at 101.54 should be considered significant as it would put the US Dollar back on track to resume its primary daily uptrend. However a breakout below support may signal a larger bearish retracement for the Index.

Gold Price Daily Chart and Inside Bar

Gold Prices and US Dollar Pause Ahead of FOMC

(Created Using TradingView Charts)

Looking for additional trade ideas for Gold and commodities markets? Read Our Gold Market Forecast

Gold prices are trading in a similar pattern, by also failing to establish a new daily high or low. Gold prices traded to a new daily low yesterday, which creates a barrier of support at. Alternatively the daily high for Mondays trading may be used as a point of resistance at $1,188.10. A bearish breakout in Gold prices may be synonymous with a bullish breakout in the US Dollar. A move of this nature may set the commodity up to retest 2016 lows at $1,061.25. In the event of a bullish breakout, Gold prices may begin to retrace more of the bearish decline which has been developing since the July 2016 high was put in place at $1,375.12.

Story continues

--- Written by Walker, Analyst for DailyFX.com

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Contact and Follow Walker on Twitter @WEnglandFX.



original source

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Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Mostly clear. Areas of patchy fog developing. Low near 45F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Mostly clear. Areas of patchy fog developing. Low near 45F. Winds light and variable.
Tel Aviv (AFP) - A four-metre-high golden statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was raised secretly in a Tel Aviv square in a free speech protest Tuesday, sparking political debate and online humour.

It was put up overnight illegally in the centre of the Israeli commercial capital in a square named after former premier Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist.

Israeli artist Itay Zalait claimed responsibility, saying he wanted to spark a debate on freedom of speech by replicating the kind of statue erected by dictatorial regimes.

Passers-by gathered out of curiosity on Tuesday morning, with some taking selfies in front of the statue depicting Netanyahu in a suit.

"I did it to check one thing: can I do it?" Zalait told AFP. "Will this work be allowed and will there be sanctions?"

Culture Minister Miri Regev hit back on Facebook.

"How an artist can be disconnected from reality!" she wrote.

"Israel is a democracy, one of the freest countries... the hatred of Netanyahu is their only true Golden Calf," wrote Regev, referring to the biblical episode in which the Israelites are punished by God for idol worshipping.

Within hours the Netanyahu statue had been toppled, apparently by a member of the public.

On social media, Israelis joked that it was reminiscent of the iconic Saddam Hussein statue pulled down after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Left-leaning artists have accused Netanyahu's government of seeking to muzzle them, particularly with Regev's promotion of a bill to cut subsidies to cultural institutions deemed not "loyal" to the state.

Netanyahu also leads what is seen as the most right-wing government in Israeli history, and critics accuse him of consolidating power.

In addition to being premier, he also holds the economy, foreign affairs, communication and regional affairs portfolios.

Zalait said he wanted to open a debate around Israeli attitudes to Netanyahu by placing the statue at the spot where Rabin, who won the Nobel prize for his peace efforts with the Palestinians, was killed.

"The reaction of the Israelis interests me, from those who say they would like to see more statues like that on the squares of the country to those who want to demolish it with a hammer," he said.

In the United States in August, a group of artists installed giant and unflattering statues in several American cities of Donald Trump, with the then presidential candidate entirely naked.
Photo credit: Amazon

From ELLE

When I published my first essay for the Internet, I talked about things I'd long been silent about: sexual assault, therapy, family relationships. The silence was self-inflicted-I never believed that in the telling of a story, years of unspoken hurt would finally find an audience that shared my experience. The impetus to write that essay came from a woman named Piyali Bhattacharya, who was working on an anthology called Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion (Aunt Lute Books, 2016). This tongue-in-cheek title of a tired stereotype invited South Asian women writers to share stories of how societal expectation and resistance collide. In the anthology, each writer tackles a different, everyday issue that most women can relate to: fraught relationships with our families, coming out, our body image and self-worth, sexuality or making career moves outside of the typical doctor-lawyer-engineer triumvirate I've never really vibed with.

We have so many psychic, emotional, and linguistic barriers with the families we come from; this is the plight of anyone who has their feet planted in more than one home.

Piyali and I became friends over the years, sharing many crisscrossing interests: a shared love of saris (she is also known as The Sari-torialist) and being Bengali women from opposite sides of the border (I'm Bangladeshi; she's Indian). Just like any pair of people who've known each other for a decade, it took us both that long to find an audience for our work. Our conversations, which take us to many profound places, have always felt good for my soul, as if I have a sister who gets this journey of writing what we're not supposed to talk about. In this interview, Piyali and I discuss reactions to the book, touring after the tragic passing of her father, and what compels her to keep on fighting for our stories.

Tanwi Nandini Islam: This has been such a long journey and the anthology is being so well-received-as if folks have been waiting for this. Does it feel that way? In some ways you are bringing the book home?

Piyali Bhattacharya: In terms "bringing the book home," yes, it feels that way in some senses, but perhaps not in others. The family reception-that is, the reactions of the families of the women [in] the volume-that reaction is sometimes wonderful but sometimes difficult. There are women in the book who have had very difficult conversations with their families after the book has come out. And then there are some who have had a lot more support. I am so lucky to have the support of my mother, who even came to the New York reading because she felt she needed to be there. It couldn't have been easy for her, but she was there, and she totally supports the project. She is uncomfortable with it sometimes, but I know she is so happy to see it doing well. Not everyone who has written for the book has that.

Story continues

Ah, yes, the family reckoning. I dealt with that too, and feel lucky that my mom read my book and loved it  I think in some ways my father still is too afraid to do so. So much of that fear of telling our stories is tied up with shame, with feeling that secrets out of the family harm us. It's wonderful to have parental support, but not always an easy place to write from when there is resistance. When reading the anthology, I really felt how each essay is its own facet of being a South Asian-American "daughter" - how are some authors breaking out of the monolithic South Asian paradigms we've grown used to, and tired of? How do you think the book has been received by the larger community?

The community reception has been a dream, a fantasy. This has been so overwhelming and so overpowering that I can barely process it. We sold out all copies of the book on Amazon on pub day itself. More than 250 people were at our reading in New York. More than 200 at our reading in San Francisco. And at each one, dozens of women have come up to me afterwards weeping, saying that this is the most heard and seen they have ever felt. That is miraculous. It took me nearly a decade to put this book together because finding the resources to create it was so difficult. But I had a hunch that this community needed a project like this, and to see them reacting to it in this way -that makes all the years of thankless hard work worth it.

I love it, girl. We NEED that. Always bursting open expectations. Like, the '90s saw a lot of Indian writers succeed, so mainstream publishing thought they had South Asia all figured out! Publishers have been like, "We've heard that story" And our response is, like, "Fuck you. You haven't." I think about that a lot-not having the books we're writing as kids, that's my thinking too, my novel 'Bright Lines' is a book I didn't have.

Exactly-you have NOT heard this story. We are all writing the books we once needed.

I love how these women explore sexuality, eating disorders, work, love, non-marriage, marriage, children. These are issues we talk about constantly in the mainstream, but always hidden from view when it comes to our South Asian American families. Like, we're still living in a world where a young Indian woman like Purvi Patel feels so ashamed of being sexually active that she lies about being pregnant to her strict parents and is now in jail for 30 years because of a racist misogynist system. We try to protect and end up hurting ourselves. We are trying to protect our family from bearing witness to our lives, as messy and complicated as they are. There's something celebratory about the anthology form: all of these Desi women speaking to their marginalization in some way, shedding these narrow ideas of obedience that suffocate us.

Yes, absolutely. I think the medium of personal essay can be a very powerful one, especially for women. Personal essay allows us to wield our voices creatively, and also to delve as deep as possible into the stories of our past. The result is neither a history lesson nor a journal entry, but a deeply intimate portrait of our lives told in our own words.

These days, we even get to see South Asians on TV! Like, hey, you get to be a part of "American culture" now!

Yes, we're getting there now. And one of the writers herself is an actress in Hollywood and writes about that experience! Yet there's no such thing as "American culture," and what we imply when we use a term like that is usually a tired stereotype of how the rest of the world sees Americans. Similarly, what is "South Asian culture?" The women who have written for this book are not shunning the cultures and values that they grew up with. We are simply living our lives according to our own rules, and by virtue of the fact that we identify as South Asian. What these women are doing is charting out a map of all the different terrains "South Asian culture" is allowed to cross. We are literally creating for ourselves a guide, a manifesto, on what is acceptable in our "culture," and it turns out, everything is. The monolithic South Asian paradigms that you mention are just that-they no longer apply. We have written for ourselves a way out of that straightjacket.

"Their stories are heard and their lives are not invisible."

I remember feeling amazed at how intricately tied into your own family this labor of love is. Your dad was a doctor, and like we talked about how desi dads and their daughters have very intense, loving, fraught, unloving relationships, sometimes all at once. I see this all as a part of you walking the path into your own literary voice, outside of your parents' expectations, their culture.

This has been very difficult. Particularly strange has been releasing the book just six months after my father left us. He was very young, and I was exceptionally close to him. His illness was sudden and violent and fraught and I cannot believe he is gone. I will never believe it, and sometimes, I feel I will never be finished grieving. This has been particularly difficult because he was a true champion of my writing careerand as a woman, his profession fascinated me, too. He was an ob/gyn, someone whose life's work was to take care of women. I think a lot of my instincts about creating this community for women came from him. He and I had our disagreements about this particular book, but for the most part, he was so proud, and so excited. Every time I get a piece of good news about the book I pick up my phone to call him, and then realize I can't. I keep a picture of him on my phone, though, and sometimes, when I need to, I talk to it. I tell him everything-I even fight with him! I can so clearly imagine all his joy and all his exasperation with me-I hear him so clearly. That's been the most difficult part about the book tour.

That's beautiful. Thank you for your honesty and openness about that.

Hearing all these stories from all these women, crying with them, hugging them, assuring them that their stories are heard and their lives are not invisible. And knowing that this is exactly what my father would do for women in his office day after day. Wishing I could tell him about this shared experience. But I'm grateful that he taught me how to listen. I am listening to him, to these women, to everyone.

Tanwi Nandini Islam is the author of Bright Lines, a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize, and the inaugural selection of the First Lady of NYC's Gracie Book Club. She is the founder of Hi Wildflower, a perfume house based in Brooklyn, NY.

Piyali Bhattacharya is a writer, editor, and writing instructor based in Nashville, TN where she is writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and many other publications. She is the editor of the anthology Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion, which was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is currently working on her first novel.

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Scientists recently confirmed that Americans who spend their youth as part of a movement or creative community are at double the risk of coming down with an incurable case of Glory Days Syndrome, in which the afflicted is unable to recount stories from their youth later in life without discrediting the current cultural landscape as inferior.

Matthew Conboy -- co-founder of Brooklyn's DIY music venue Death By Audio -- is acutely aware that his near-decade-long residence in that artists' collective/experimental music space leaves him at a greater risk of contracting Glory Days Syndrome, especially in the two years since Vice Media controversially took over Death By Audio's building, effectively snuffing it out. But Brooklyn counterculture has always been relentlessly self-aware, and so Conboy's documentary about demise of the DIY venue, Goodnight Brooklyn: The Story of Death By Audio, strikes a delicate balance between homage and hagiography. Or as he himself says in the film, speaking directly to camera, "I hope I don't turn into one of those people who talks about how much better things were in their day. Those people are really boring."

On Friday (Dec. 2), Goodnight Brooklyn began its run at Brooklyn's Alamo Drafthouse, with Conboy and BrooklynVegan's Bill Pearis conducting a post-show Q&A followed by an afterparty at the movie theater's House of Wax bar, featuring a performance by a new band of Brooklyn music veterans called Drawing Boards.

Based on the cheers of recognition that greeted Death By Audio's central players as they appeared on screen -- in addition to Conboy, that would be A Place to Bury Strangers' Oliver Ackermann and Death By Audio sound guru/music superfan Edan Wilber -- and the post-show questions, it was clear the premiere night audience consisted of people well familiar with the venue over the years.

If all that sounds rather insular, well, it is -- after all, a dilapidated space housing punk, experimental electronica and drone music isn't going to appeal to everyone. But part of what made Death By Audio so special during its 2007-2014 lifetime was how inclusive it was. While Williamsburg record store clerks might superciliously eye customers to gauge their indie acumen, the people who frequented Death By Audio were at best welcoming, at worst indifferent, but never judgmental or competitive.

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And while Glasslands (another now-shuttered nearby Williamsburg venue) might have been a more visually stimulating space, it was also more 'scene' -- people went there to be looked at, to drink and to hook up. Anyone milling around in Death By Audio on a given night was there for one reason: to be overwhelmed by the regenerative power of loud-as-hell music in a live setting. After all, the venue was sweaty, poorly lit, the beer was warm and the bathrooms didn't lock (or have soap). If you were there, it was for love of live music, and Death By Audio hosted many of the premier indie acts of its period well before they broke, from A Place to Bury Strangers (obviously, given the frontman co-founded it) to Future Islands to Ty Segall to Jeff the Brotherhood.

So yes, the audience who came to Goodnight Brooklyn's Alamo Drafthouse premiere night were certainly patrons of Death By Audio looking to recapture memories of that venue's spark and purity. The whole night could have felt like a collective perusal of a Ghosts of Williamsburg Past scrapbook, but thankfully, Conboy's documentary serves as a rallying cry, too. In addition to explaining Death By Audio's role in the Williamsburg scene explosion (which ironically lead to its doom, as Williamsburg's hipster crowd became itself out-gentrified by Manhattan professionals seeking identity by association with the 'cool' neighborhood), Goodnight Brooklyn is a testament to people who simply and purely love music -- and an open invitation for the next generation of twentysomethings to take up the DIY mantle in any city. 'Start Your Own Fucking Show Space' is a challenge issued toward the end of the film (and the name of a triple vinyl soundtrack accompanying the documentary), and for any person interested in providing their city with a self-sustaining cultural space, Goodnight Brooklyn is an inspiring, instructive blueprint.

That's not to say it's all good vibes. Given that the documentary focuses on the whirlwind final few months of the venue, Vice Media - an early champion of Death By Audio whose chic Williamsburg headquarters took over DBA's building, forcing it to shut down in 2014 -- is given a fair share of scorn during the documentary. But as Conboy said during the post-show Q&A, he's not consumed with bitterness: He has friends who work at Vice, and he doesn't hold anything against them.

Despite the irony of a counterculture-servicing corporation unceremoniously quashing a nonprofit artist space it previously lavished praised upon, the story of Death By Audio isn't a sad one. As Edan Wilber -- a man whose face radiates deep satisfaction as he watches live music -- says toward the end of the film, his trove of experiences at Death by Audio are irreplaceable internal riches.

Sure, the inevitable David and Goliath metaphor is tossed around in the film, but the story of Death By Audio shouldn't be seen as the tragedy of David losing to Goliath. It's about the unlikely true story that for years, punk rock David was able to do his thing on his own terms before corporate Goliath finally knocked him over. And in a city like New York, where Goliath's cash rules everything, that's a triumph worth documenting.
Google expects to purchase enough renewable energy to cover its entire operation for the first time ever next year, the company announced Tuesday.

The company will purchase about 2.6 gigawatts of wind and solar energy annually (enough to more power more than 1 million homes) to power its office and data center operations around the globe. The nature of the electric grid means the company cannot ensure that its facilities only use renewable energy, but the company contracts with renewable producers to add wind and solar capacity to the grid. This means that Googles consumption does not result in any increase in electricity use from fossil fuels.

Googles announcement is the latest indicator of how quickly renewable energy sources have become a competitive alternative to fossil fuels. The cost of solar power per unit of electricity, for instance, is now 1/150th of what it was in the 1970s and costs the same as electricity produced from coal and natural gas fired plants in many places, according to a Bloomberg report. Gary Demasi, the companys director of global infrastructure and energy, said that when the companys executives first set a 100% renewable target in 2012 they had no idea how quickly they could achieve it.

The cost curve has been coming down regardless, he says. We didnt know it would come down so quickly.

Google, whose data centers across the globe consume large quantities of energy, explained the choice to go renewable as a business decision first and foremost. Contracts to purchase renewable energy help the company avoid the highly-variable costs of fossil fuels that affect the bottomline of other energy-intensive industries.

Beyond business concerns meeting the renewable target will also delight environmental groups that have called on corporations to help make up the gap between government commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the level scientists say is needed to address climate change. More than 80 large companies including the likes of Facebook, Nestle and Walmart have promised to go 100% renewable in the coming years. Data from the Climate Group, which organizes a coalition of companies pursuing 100% renewable energy, suggests that if all companies made such a pledge global carbon dioxide emissions would fall by as much as 15%.
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Google will power 100 percent of its sprawling data centers and offices with renewable energy starting next year.

The tech giant on Tuesday said it had bought enough wind and solar power to account for all the electricity it uses globally each year. That means the servers handling your Google Maps requests, storing your backlog of unread Gmails and holding the work of aspiring YouTube stars will use only emissions-free energy.

Last year, just 44 percent of Google's power supplies came from renewables, the company said.

SEE ALSO: Apple aims to clean up its supply chain with new renewable energy goals

"It's been a long road here, but we're excited that we finally reached it," Neha Palmer, Google's head of energy strategy for its global infrastructure division, told Mashable.

Google's announcement arrives at an uncertain time in the clean energy sector.

The $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar ElectirIc Generating System in Primm, Nevada, counts Google as a major investor.

Image: AP photo/chris carlson

President-elect Donald Trump  the only climate-change denying global leader  has vowed to scrap rules for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and instead accelerate fossil fuel production. He's expressed no small amount of disdain for wind farms.

If the future Trump administration lags on environmental progress, companies will likely play an even greater role in growing the U.S. clean energy market, said Nathan Serota, a senior analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in New York.

"A Trump presidency could actually wind up causing corporations to pick up the slack, and to fill the leadership vacuum on renewable energy that's being left in the federal government," he said.

Businesses will also need to become more vocal advocates of policies that make it easier or cheaper to build wind, solar and other cleaner projects, said Gary Cook, an IT sector analyst for the environmental group Greenpeace.

Image: Google/BNEF

"Corporate leadership has been critical in driving a lot of the renewable energy investment," Cook said. "It could be even more important in the coming years and months with much less leadership, and more hostility, from the federal government."

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Google, for its part, said it has no plans to change its clean-energy approach under Trump.

"We will continue to run our business in an environmentally responsible way," Palmer said. "We'll hold to our values, which includes obviously continuing to procure renewable energy."

Tech's clean energy grab

Tech companies in particular are buying more renewable power for two key reasons.

First, it benefits their bottom lines. The price of solar energy in the U.S. has plunged 80 percent since 2012, while the price of wind power has tumbled 60 percent, thanks to improving technology and design, lower financing costs and less regulatory red tape. Solar and wind power is increasingly competitive with conventional sources like natural gas or coal.

When companies buy power from a wind or solar project, they often sign long-term agreements with the projects' developers. The contracts set a fixed price for the electricity over 10 or 20 years, which allows companies to manage their future expenses and ideally save money in the end.

Minco II wind farm in Oklahoma.

Image: Google

Google signed the country's first corporate renewables deal in 2010, with a contract to buy 114 megawatts of electricity from a wind farm in Iowa.

Since then, Google has signed agreements for 17 more wind farms and two solar projects in six U.S. states and six countries.

Together, the 20 projects can produce 2,600 megawatts of clean electricity  enough to power all of Google's direct operations worldwide. The power doesn't account for indirect electricity demand from its third-party manufacturing partners.

The second reason for the clean energy push? Corporate sustainability goals.

As the digital economy expands, digital companies are building more energy-guzzling data centers around the world. Businesses are now facing increasing pressure from their customers and environmental groups to meet that rising energy demand with renewables, rather than higher-emissions coal and natural gas.

Inside Google's data center Pryor, Oklahoma.

Image: Google

Tech companies alone now account for about two-thirds of all corporate renewables deals signed since 2010, or about 4,700 out of 7,000 megawatts under contract, according to a tracker compiled by the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank.

"The IT sector has been leading the charge among corporations to purchase renewable energy to power their rapid growth," said Cook from Greenpeace.

Cook is the lead author of the group's annual "Click Clean" report, which ranks major internet companies on their environmental performance. In the 2015 report, Google was listed as a "green internet innovator" while Amazon Web Services was considered "middle of the road" and Oracle was considered stuck in the "dirty energy past."

"Given the growth of the sector, there's still a lot to do," Cook said. "Some companies are still lagging, in terms of really matching up their growth with an equivalent amount of renewable energy supply."

Image: "Click Clean" (2015) greenpeace

Social media giant Facebook scored well in the last Greenpeace report after making "radical improvements in transparency" and encouraging Iowa utilities to invest billions of dollars in new wind farms by building a Facebook data center in the state.

Two other Facebook data centers  in Clonee, Ireland and Los Lunas, New Mexico  will be powered entirely by clean energy when completed, a spokesperson noted in an email.

Apple, one of Google's top competitors, has also made sizable progress on clean energy.

The California tech company in September said it would partner with its far-flung manufacturers to reduce carbon emissions from factories  a major component of Apple's carbon footprint. Apple already powers nearly all its data centers, offices and retail stores worldwide with renewables.

In August, Apple won U.S. federal approval to start selling clean electricity, just as Google did in 2010.

An Apple employee greets customers on Earth Day, April 22, 2014.

Image: john moore/Getty Images

Microsoft this fall announced a new goal to get 50 percent of its data centers' power from clean energy sources by 2018, and 60 percent renewables by the early 2020s.

At Salesforce, the goal is 100 percent renewables for the firm's global operations. To that end, the cloud computing company signed two major agreements last year with wind farms in Texas and West Virginia.

"Looking forward, corporations have the opportunity and the responsibility to play a major role in transforming our energy systems so they are reliable, safe and clean," Suzanne DiBianca, Salesforce's chief philanthropy officer, said in an email.

Google's own efforts to buy wind and solar power could make it easier for more companies, tech or otherwise, to follow suit, Palmer said.

For instance, Google recently worked with Duke Energy in North Carolina to build a 61-megawatt solar project that will power Google's new data center in the state. As part of the deal, other companies in the area can purchase power from the project, with no added cost for ratepayers.

"We're hoping that the increased demand will actually push the market to become more innovative, and we'll see new technologies, we'll see new ways to integrate renewable energy as a result," Palmer said.
The 2017 Grammy Awards are upon us  and the nominees are out!

The nominations for the highly-anticipated show were announced Tuesday morning, and some of musics hottest stars are going head-to-head for many of the coveted awards.

Meghan Trainor, last years Best New Artist winner, announced the top four categories on CBS This Morning. Read on for the first round of nominations, and then head over to Grammy.com for the complete list.

Album of the Year

25  Adele

Lemonade  Beyonce

Purpose  Justin Bieber

Views  Drake

A Sailors Guide to Earth  Sturgill Simpson

Song of the Year

Formation  Beyonce

Hello  Adele

I Took a Pill in Ibiza  Mike Posner

Love Yourself  Justin Bieber

7 Years  Lukas Graham

Record of the Year

Hello  Adele

Formation  Beyonce

7 Years  Lukas Graham

Work  Rihanna featuring Drake

Stressed Out  Twenty-One Pilots

Best New Artist

Kelsea Ballerini

The Chainsmokers

Chance the Rapper

Maren Morris

Anderson Park

James Corden will host Februarys 59th annual Grammy Awards, taking over the job from rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J, who has hosted the ceremony for the past five years.

I am truly honored to be hosting The Grammys next year, the 38-year-old Late Late Show star said in a statement. Its the biggest, most prestigious award show in music and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of such an incredible night.

The 2017 Grammy Awards will air live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.




Tony Revolori, who will star opposite Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming, is in final negotiations to take the lead role in the independent thriller Exchanged for Meyers Media Group.

Geoff Haley, who worked as a camera operator on Fast & Furious 7, American Hustle, and Star Trek Beyond, is directing from his own screenplay co-written with David Chisholm.

Lawrence Steven Meyers and Randy Dannenberg will produce for Meyers Media Group. Executive producers are John Evangelides and Jonathan Tybel. MMG will also handle worldwide sales.

Revolori will portray an autistic American high school senior who travels to Germany for a student exchange program, only to learn that members of his host family are terrorists. Unable to report them for fear of his own familys safety, he is coerced into becoming an accomplice to their plan.

Revolori portrayed lobby boy Zero in Wes Andersons The Grand Budapest Hotel and starred in Rick Famuyiwas comedy Dope. He will play Flash Thompson, a high school nemesis to Hollands Peter Parker, in Marvel-Sonys Spider-Man: Homecoming, and will be seen next in the wedding comedy Table 19 opposite Anna Kendrick.

We are excited at the prospect that Tony will be joining our production, as he possesses a certain level of sensitivity needed for this role, besides having a strong and commanding presence, as we have seen in his previous roles, Meyers said.

Revolori is represented by UTA and Circle of Confusion.

Meyers Media Group recently closed multiple territory deals for the romance-drama Bitter Harvest, starring Max Irons and Samantha Barks, at the American Film Market.
On Dec 5, we issued an updated research report on leading communications equipment and service provider Harris Corp. HRS.

Of late, the company has won multiple contracts, which should boost its top line. Earlier in the month, the company won a five-year follow-on contract worth $43 million from the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research.

In October, the company was awarded a Communications Network Services contract worth $700 million by the State of Florida. Additionally, the company received a military contract worth $1.7 billion in June. As a leading government electronics supplier, Harris Corp. is benefiting from the increase in U.S. defense expenditures as well as strong market conditions for RF (radio frequency) communications. Recently, the company also opened a state-of-the-art global innovation center that showcases some of the best innovations by Harris.

We are impressed with the company's efforts to reward shareholders. In Aug 2016, the company raised its quarterly dividend to 53 cents per share ($2.12 per share annualized), representing an increase of 6% over the previous payout of 50 cents per share. The dividend hike not only indicates the company's commitment to create value for shareholders but also underlines its confidence about business growth. Harris Corp. has an impressive dividend payment record. In fact, this is the 15th consecutive annual dividend hike by the company.

The companys earnings history is also impressive. It outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the last four quarters with an average earnings beat of 4.20%.

Riding on these bullish factors, the Harris Corp. stock has surpassed the Zacks categorized Wireless-Equipment industry, year to date. The stock has gained 21.91% compared with the industry, which has contracted 10.53% over the same period.

Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks

Harris Corp. currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other favorably placed stocks in the broader computer & technology sector include Asure Software ASUR, Cirrus Logic Inc. CRUS and NVIDIA Corporation NVDA. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for NVIDIA Corporations current-year earnings has jumped 33.3% to $2.48 per share.

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Over the last 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Cirrus Logics current-year earnings has jumped 29.1% to $3.73 per share.

Asure Softwares earnings per share for the current year are projected to grow in excess of 100%.

Zacks' Top Investment Ideas for Long-Term Profit



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Rita Ann Olson, 86, of La Crosse died Monday, Dec. 5, 2016, at Hillview Health Care Center, La Crosse. Funeral Mass will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday at St. Patricks Catholic Church, Onalaska, with interment in Mormon Coulee Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitationl from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Blaschke & Schneider Funeral Home, 1501 West Ave. S., La Crosse, and from noon to time of Mass Thursday at church. A complete obituary will follow.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- The former French judge heading an IOC investigation into Russian doping stepped down on Tuesday, three days before the release of a new report into systematic cheating at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Guy Canivet, a former judge of the Constitutional Court, resigned purely for ''personal reasons,'' the International Olympic Committee said.

Canivet leaves as vice chairman of the IOC ethics commission and as chairman of the inquiry commission looking into evidence of state-backed Russian doping, a position he began in July.

Canivet will be replaced as head of the IOC inquiry panel by former Swiss president Samuel Schmid, who is also a member of the IOC ethics commission.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the change should not hamper or slow down the investigation.

''Mr. Canivet has strong personal reasons for resigning,'' Adams said. ''The succession and handover has been assured and I don't see any particular delay.''

Canivet's resignation precedes Friday's publication of the latest report by World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren into alleged state-sponsored Russian doping.

The Canadian lawyer's first report, issued in July, led WADA to recommend Russia's exclusion from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The IOC rejected the call, instead allowing international federations to decide which Russians could compete.

Friday's report is expected to focus on evidence of organized Russian doping centered on the Sochi Games, including allegations that tainted samples of Russian athletes - including medalists - were swapped for clean ones through a concealed hole in the wall of the drug-testing lab.

Adams said the IOC has not been given any access to McLaren's report ahead of Friday's release at a news conference in London.

Without knowing the contents, the IOC executive board is expected to issue a statement this week setting out how it will deal with the new findings - including the possibility of stiff sanctions ahead of the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

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The report will be sent to two IOC inquiry commissions. Canivet's panel has been looking into the Russian system as a whole, while Swiss member Denis Oswald leads a commission focusing on the Sochi doping samples.

''It will be done in a timely fashion that will work for Pyeongchang,'' Adams said.

IOC President Thomas Bach said last month that once the investigations and hearings are completed, the IOC will take ''the necessary measures and all the sanctions because if only part of this would be true, it would be an unprecedented attack on the integrity on the Olympic Games and on the Olympic competitions.''
A woman in England was rushed to an emergency room with life-threatening symptoms after she mistakenly used the leaves of a poisonous plant to make an herbal tea, according to a new report of her case.

The 63-year-old woman recovered after receiving treatment, according to the report, which was published today (Dec. 1) in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

The plant that the woman used to make the tea, called foxglove, contains potentially harmful compounds that act on proteins called ion channels in heart cells, and can cause a person's heart rate to slow down, said the lead author of the report, Dr. Mathew Kurian Vithayathil, a doctor at the Kings College Hospital in London, who treated the woman. [10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart]

The woman came to the emergency department in April 2016, Vithayathil told Live Science. When she was admitted to the hospital, her symptoms included vomiting, irregular heartbeat and lightheadedness, according to the report.

When the doctors examined the woman, they found that her heartbeat was slower than normal and her pulse was irregular. However, the woman had no history of heart problems and was not taking any medications.

However, the woman told her doctors that, the night before, she had tried a new herbal remedy  a tea made from the leaves of a plant named comfrey  that her friend had recommended to help the woman treat her insomnia. The woman took her friend's advice and purchased a product at a local market that was labeled as comfrey leaves.

She then mixed the leaves with hot water at home and drank the tea. But she developed the symptoms in just a few hours.

Because the woman had not previously had heart problems, and she did not take medication, her doctors suspected that the herbal tea caused her symptoms. [27 Oddest Medical Cases]

But when they looked up "comfrey" on the National Poisons Information Service (NPIS) website, they did not find any information about its potential toxicity. However, when the researchers extended their search to other web sources, they found that the comfrey plant resembled  and was easy to confuse with  the foxglove plant, which contains potentially toxic compounds that might have caused the symptoms that the woman experienced.

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When the doctors examined the woman's blood composition, they found increased levels of one such compound, called digoxin, in her blood. They treated the woman with an antidote for this compound and monitored her condition for the next five days until her heart rate went back to normal. After that, she went home.

The new report shows that, although herbal remedies may seem harmless, they can also be potentially fatal, especially if they are sold or purchased by people who have limited knowledge of plants, the researchers said.

Originally published on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
Global Credit cards

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

Chinese banks will reportedly stop issuing co-branded cards between foreign card networks, like Visa and MasterCard, and the state-affiliated UnionPay, according to reports from the Financial Times.

The news comes following a Peoples Bank of China notice to stop renewing these cards when they expire. Such a move could deal a major blow to foreign card networks because these co-brand partnerships were one of the easiest ways for them to access the massive Chinese card payment ecosystem.

The move could have a material impact on foreign companies. For context, when a customer receives a co-branded card, UnionPay generally processes domestic payments in China, while the foreign network processes dollar-based payments abroad.

Its possible that they could lose customers. In the past 14 years, Chinese banks have issued 240 million co-branded cards, according to the Financial Times. Once existing cards expire, customers will reportedly be issued two cards  one UnionPay, for domestic use, and one foreign-branded, for international purposes. That could allow for the retention of some customers, but its extremely likely these firms' user bases will decline.

The bigger impact could be on transaction volume. Chinese tourists in the US are expected to spend $40 billion in 2017, a figure thats growing. Its likely that the foreign card networks have captured a good portion of that share through these co-brands. But UnionPay has been drastically expanding its reach abroad, which could make it easier for customers to continue using their UnionPay cards abroad, ultimately rendering the foreign-issued card somewhat obsolete.

The move could limit the potential of foreign card networks as they prepare to move into the Chinese market. Itll likely be a year or longer until foreign networks launch in China as a result of stringent guidelines issued as China opens up its card payment ecosystem. Ending the co-brand program means that, until then, foreign firms exposure and visibility in the Chinese payments card market will likely be limited. That could hurt their competitive positioning ahead of their launch in the market, and make it more challenging for them to attract a broad user base and capture a share of the over $8 trillion Chinese card payment market. At the same time, the move could help UnionPay maintain its edge in mainland China while growing abroad.

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The U.S. payments ecosystem is in the midst of a shift toward mobile, and countless new and old stakeholders are attempting to accelerate this migration, which is moving at a glacial pace relative to other markets globally. But mobile payments can rise to the mainstream. For companies seeking to build out a robust mobile payments product, China's thriving mobile payments ecosystem offers some insight  and some lessons.

Total mobile payments volume in China will reach $6.3 trillion by 2020, according to our estimates based on iResearch data. This marks a healthy 33% five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR). In comparison, the U.S. will generate $154 billion in mobile payments volume this year by our estimates, which amounts to just 6.5% of China's mobile payments volume.

Even accounting for population discrepancies, China will generate over $1,700 in mobile payments volume per capita in 2016, compared with $475 in the U.S., based on forecasts from BI Intelligence and eMarketer. China's advantage will eventually diminish, but it will still produce around twice as much volume per capita in 2020.

China has unique factors buoying the industry, like the dominance of mobile phones, a lack of legacy infrastructure, and the surging popularity of digital retail marketplaces. Some of the characteristics behind the country's success can be mimicked, or even replicated to some extent, in other markets like the U.S. However, one fundamental barrier in the U.S. is that it's being forced to layer mobile payments on top of an existing payments system, and the ecosystem is very fragmented.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on mobile payments in China that takes a deep dive into China's mobile payments ecosystem and deciphers which growth drivers can be exported to the U.S. to help spark its relatively lackluster market.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

China claims the world's largest mobile payments market and serves as the global benchmark for other markets to pursue. China will process a whopping $6.3 trillion in total mobile payments by 2020, according to our estimates based on iResearch data. This marks a healthy 33% five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

It dwarfs the U.S.' mobile payments industry. The US will generate $154 billion in mobile payments volume this year by our estimates, which equates to just 6.5% of China's mobile payments volume. Meanwhile, China will generate over $1,700 in mobile payments volume per capita in 2016, compared with $475 in the U.S., based on forecasts from BI Intelligence and eMarketer.

Mobile commerce, a lack of legacy infrastructure, and marketplaces have fueled China's enormous success. Consumers in China are much more comfortable shopping on their mobile phones compared with their counterparts in the U.S., and the devices face less resistance from other legacy payments methods like credit cards. The open approach to mobile shopping has been fortified by Alibaba, a Goliath-sized marketplace, and WeChat, a go-to messaging platform, which support Alipay and Tenpay, respectively.

In full, the report:

Forecasts and compares mobile payments volume, in-store mobile payments users, mobile payments volume per capita, and mobile commerce penetration in China and the U.S.

Overviews the key competitors in China's mobile payments market, and how new entrants may shuffle the hierarchy of dominant players.

Uncovers the key drivers propelling China's mobile payments market.

Identifies which drivers the U.S. can import from China, and which barriers may be standing in the way.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT





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Students from Boston Public Schools planned a walk-out on Monday, December 5, in protest of President-elect Donald Trumps administration.

Student organizers told the Boston Herald that students would walk out of class at 1 pm and march on the State House and City Hall in a protest against what they see as threats to minorities and immigrants.

In this video, students have gathered at the Boston Common.

On December 4, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Tommy Chang tweeted an open message to students, discouraging the walk out. Credit: Twitter/Sarah Toy for Boston University News Service via Storyful
Viewers of the Today show think Hillary Clinton should be named TIMEs Person of the Year for 2016, according to a Today poll still underway.

The shortlist for Person of the Yearwhich was announced Monday on Todayincludes Clinton, President-elect Donald Trump, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among others. The Person of the Year is the person who most influenced the news, for better or for worse.

As of Tuesday morning, 58% of respondents said Clinton should be named Person of the Year. Trump is in second place with 17% of the vote. Biles came in third place.

WATCH: Who do YOU think will be @TIME's Person of the Year? The results of our poll #OrangeRoom #TIMEPOY https://t.co/IrSlh97LQN  TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 6, 2016

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the TIME reader poll this week, earning 19% of yes votes and placing well ahead of his closest competitorsTrump, President Obama and Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange.

TIMEs editors choose the Person of the Year, but poll results provide insight into how the world views the contenders.

The 2016 Person of the Year will be unveiled on Today on Wednesday morning, when the news will also be shared on Time.com.

TIME also partnered with TODAY on a Person of the Year Snapchat filter, which can be used on TODAY Plaza in midtown Manhattan, New York.
By Ronnie Cohen (Reuters Health) - Hundreds of Californians who were forcibly sterilized based on eugenics laws in the last century might still be alive and deserve an apology and financial reparations, a new study concludes. In a Sacramento government office, historian and lead author Alexandra Minna Stern stumbled across a filing cabinet containing about 20,000 recommendations for eugenics-motivated sterilizations dating from 1919 through 1952. Stern, a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and her colleagues used the documents and actuarial tables to calculate that as many as 831 men, women and children slated for sterilization could still be alive and would be on average almost 88 years old. Many of the typewritten and signed sterilization recommendations were for children, the youngest 7 years old, Stern said in a phone interview. One was for Rose Zaballos. Today she would be 93. But she died in 1939, when she was just 16, on the operating table at the Sonoma State Home during surgery to prevent her from conceiving, according to her niece, Barbara Swarr of Hayward, California. In a phone interview, Swarr described her aunt as mentally retarded. California had the right to sterilize Rose Zaballos under a 1909 state law authorizing reproductive surgery on patients committed to homes or hospitals and judged to have a mental disease which may have been inherited and was likely to be transmitted to descendants, Stern's team writes in the American Journal of Public Health. The California statute provided the legal framework for the most active sterilization program in the U.S., the study says. The law remained on the books until 1979. This was one of these dramatic and significant episodes in the states history that shouldnt be forgotten, Stern said. Each of these 20,000 people was their own individual, with their own life story, loves, passions. They are people who should have been treated with dignity, she said. In 2003, then-Governor Gray Davis publicly apologized for the state-mandated sterilizations. But Stern believes the Californians who were rendered incapable of conceiving children as a result of the government program deserve more than just an apology. The state could never completely right this wrong, she said. In the name of social justice, though, she believes California should follow the lead of North Carolina and Virginia and offer financial compensation to those who were forcibly sterilized and are still alive. North Carolina has offered $20,000 to each of its sterilization victims and Virginia offered $25,000, according to Sterns report. Attorney and historian Paul Lombardo, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, has written extensively about compulsory sterilization. He praised the new study for filling in details that could help locate people who could be eligible for reparations. In 2003, when Davis apologized, only one person who had been forcibly sterilized  a man living in a car in Stockton  could be located, Lombardo said in a phone interview. You had a population of people who didnt exactly want to put sterilized on their resumes, he said. The study describes one sterilization recommendation for a woman admitted to the Sonoma State Home in 1926. She had an IQ of 56, which led a doctor to categorize her as low moron. The physician deemed her sly, profane, obstinate, . . . dangerous to public health and recommended that she be sterilized. Stern and her team do not know which of the people recommended for sterilization actually had the surgery, she said. California passed the third eugenics law in the U.S. and performed one-third of all the nations estimated 60,000 forced sterilizations, the study says. Following a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of Virginias sterilization law, sterilization rates climbed. Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the case, Buck v. Bell. He compared the states duty to sterilize patient Carrie Buck to the need to protect the public against smallpox with compulsory vaccinations. Holmes concluded: Three generations of imbeciles are enough. Lombardo would like to see Californias surviving sterilization victims financially compensated. In the name of doing something that is simply about justice, he said, it seems to me the states can afford this. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fF3K5J American Journal of Public Health, online November 17, 2016.
Santa relies on Christmas cheer to deliver presents on time. Most retailers rely on major shipping carriers.

Lacking enchanted reindeer and flying sleighs, stores require sufficient time to deliver presents to your doorstep before Christmas. To ensure you receive your shiny toys, sleek electronics and fruitcakes on time, familiarize yourself with the 2016 holiday shipping deadlines for U.S. carriers and major retailers below. Delivery deadlines are typically applicable only to destinations within the 48 contiguous states.

[See: Prepare Your Finances for the Holidays.]

UPS Christmas Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Monday, Dec. 19: Last day to ship via UPS 3 Day Select.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via UPS 2nd Day Air.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via UPS Next Day Air. Last day to ship via UPS 2nd Day Air with Saturday delivery option.

USPS Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Thursday, Dec. 15: Last day to ship via USPS Retail Ground.

-- Tuesday, Dec. 20: Last day to ship via First-Class Mail Service.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via Priority Mail Service.

-- Friday, Dec. 23: Last day to ship via Priority Mail Express Service.

[See: 14 Important Personal Finance Dates to Mark on Your Calendar.]

FedEx Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Monday, Dec. 12: Last day to ship via FedEx SmartPost.

-- Friday, Dec. 16: Last day to ship via FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx Ground.

-- Tuesday, Dec. 20: Last day to ship via FedEx Express Saver.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via FedEx 2Day and FedEx 2Day A.M.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via FedEx Standard Overnight, FedEx Priority Overnight and FedEx First Overnight.

-- Friday, Dec. 23: Last day to ship via FedEx SameDay City.

-- Sunday, Dec. 25: Last day to ship via FedEx SameDay City (Priority) and FedEx SameDay.

Amazon.com Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

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-- Friday, Dec. 16: Last day to ship with free shipping for non-Prime members. Amazon Prime members receive free two-day shipping.

-- Monday, Dec. 19: Last day to ship via standard shipping.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via two-day shipping on qualifying orders.

-- Friday, Dec. 23: Last day to ship via one-day shipping in select cities.

-- Saturday, Dec. 24: Last day to ship via same-day delivery in select cities. Must place order before 9:30 a.m. local time.

[See: 8 Big Budgeting Blunders -- and How to Fix Them.]

Wal-Mart Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Friday, Dec. 16: Last day to ship via value shipping.

-- Tuesday, Dec. 20: Last day to ship via standard shipping.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via expedited shipping.

Nordstrom Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Thursday, Dec. 15: Last day for free standard shipping to P.O. boxes. Must order by 12 p.m. EST.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via two-day business shipping. Must order by 12 p.m. EST.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day for free standard shipping. Must order by 12 p.m. EST.

-- Friday, Dec. 23: Last day to ship via $10 rush shipping on qualifying merchandise. Must order by 12 p.m. EST.

JCPenney Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Friday, Dec. 16: Last day to ship orders to a JCPenney store.

-- Monday, Dec. 19: Last day to ship via standard delivery.

-- Tuesday, Dec. 20: Last day to ship via express two-day delivery.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via expedited one-day delivery. Must place order before 12 p.m. CST.

Bloomingdale's Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via standard and premium delivery. Must order before 5 p.m. EST.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via express delivery. Must place order before 12 p.m. EST.

Target Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Target has yet to announce its official Christmas shipping cutoff dates. Dates below are estimated based on its available delivery options:

-- Friday, Dec. 16: Estimated last day to ship via standard shipping.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Estimated last day to ship via premium shipping.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Estimated last day to ship via express shipping.

-- Friday, Dec. 23: Estimated last day for rush delivery in select cities. Must order before 1:30 p.m. local time.

Target also offers a free holiday shipping option on qualifying orders for guaranteed delivery before the holidays.

Apple Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Apple has yet to announce its official Christmas shipping cutoff date. Dates below are estimated based on its available delivery options:

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Estimated last day to ship via free two-day shipping.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Estimated last day to ship via next-day shipping.

-- Friday, Dec. 23: Estimated last day to ship via courier delivery.

Toys R Us Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Monday, Dec. 19: Last day for free shipping with $19 purchase. Must place order by 11:59 p.m. EST.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via expedited shipping for orders placed by 3 p.m. EST. Last day to ship via express shipping for orders placed by 11:59 p.m.

Best Buy Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day for free shipping. Must place order before 10:30 a.m. CST.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Estimated last day to ship via one-day shipping.

Bed Bath & Beyond Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Monday, Dec. 19: Last day to ship via standard delivery.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via expedited delivery.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via express delivery.

World Market Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Cutoff dates for delivery by Dec. 25, 2016:

-- Monday, Dec. 12: Last day to ship via ground delivery for furniture, rugs and select items.

-- Monday, Dec. 19: Last day to ship via ground delivery for all other merchandise.

-- Wednesday, Dec. 21: Last day to ship via second-day delivery, excluding furniture, rugs and select items. Must place order by 6 a.m. PST.

-- Thursday, Dec. 22: Last day to ship via overnight delivery, excluding furniture, rugs and select items. Must place order by 6 a.m. PST.

Maria Lalonde honed her deal-hunting skills while traveling through South America and Southeast Asia, combing colorful local markets for unique finds. Her love of blogging and thirst for deals brought her to Offers.com, where she blogs about savings tips.
Dads can be notoriously particular when it comes to gifts for the holiday season  only the best will do when it comes to tech fanatics or grill gurus.

Whether youre picking something up for dad thats fun (a fine whiskey or a new Apple TV, perhaps?) or useful (never underestimate the power of a new wallet or the latest camping equipment), there is definitely a little something for every dad-type out there. From the fashionably dapper dude to the dad who enjoys a stiff drink, there are plenty of gift options this year.

RTSUDAX

Photo: Reuters

For the Lover of Spirits: For the dad who appreciates a little mixology or just enjoys a good bourbon, a nice bottle of their favorite liquor or liquor stones are excellent choices. A bottle of hand-crafted Scotch could also be a good call. The Lost Distillery just launched three new blends of malt whiskeys  the Lossit, Towiemore and Benachie  that all make great gifts.

In addition, whiskey rocks are a clever, inexpensive option for dads that are whiskey lovers. A set of 12 small whiskey rocks -- which keep beverages nicely chilled without watering them down  retail at Crate & Barrel for $19.95.

For the Fashion-Lover: Skip the tie this year, perhaps, in favor of a mens watch from AVI-8. The watches are a bit of a splurge, so it might be a good gift to go in on with the siblings. The vintage-inspired timepieces reference the iconic style of aircrafts and pilots, and each piece is named after actual aircrafts like the Hawker Hurricane.

When it comes to footwear, select a nice pair that you know dad has had his eye on. A pair of mens of dress shoes is great for the dad whos working the 9-to-5. Or, if he cant miss a workout, the newest pair of Nike sneakers, like the Nike Air Max sneakers or Nike Zooms, make great gifts, as well.

For the Tech Geek: Drones continue to be popular gifts for 2016, while the Apple TV is always a good gift for the dad who loves his Netflix shows. Amazons smart home products are excellent for the tech-loving father who is looking to create the ultimate smart house. Amazons second generation of the Echo Dot is a device thats hands-free, voice controlled and acts as a music speaker and can control fans, switches, thermostats and more. Finally, a tablet, like a 7 Samsung Galaxy Tablet, is perfect for the dad who travels a lot.

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For the Dad Who Appreciates the Basics: Sometimes, nice updates on the standard wallet are gifts that are highly appreciated. A new leather wallet to refresh a worn one makes for a great gift. Passavant and Lee designs refined leather cardholders and Nordstrom stocks a variety of wallets for any style.

As for any updates on appliances or camping gear? Try a new sleeping bag or tent from REI or a Home Depot gift card for any appliances (best to leave the tools selection to dad unless he specifies a brand or model he truly loves).

Related Articles
Hot Topics new Rogue One collection is out-of-this-world perfection

While we might not be able to join the Rebel Alliance ourselves, well certainly feel like were about to go off to battle with Jyn Erso (and later, Luke, Leia, and Han) in Hot Topics brand new Rogue One line.

Ahead of the latest Star Wars movie  that hits theaters in TEN DAYS  Hot Topic has released a dozen brand new items that totally embody the spirit of the Rebellion, and also Star Wars. And, you know, the Death Star, because it looks like THATS actually going to be the real big, bad villain of Rogue One.

The new items are heavily inspired by the newest Star Wars heroine, Jyn, and were going to try our hardest to be as badass as her wearing the Rebel Alliance jacket, that even comes with a hood for covert missions. Even better  because you know the plot of Rogue One is all about stealing the plans for the Death Star  the lining inside show Death Star blueprints. OMG.

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Theres another coat in this collection, modeled after Captain Captain Cassian Andor, and while theres a dude modeling it here, you can totally rock it, too  and youre going to want to because the back of the coat has the Rebel symbol with two X-Wings flying through it, and it is too cool.

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If youre looking for something more formal, theres always the Flight Suit Dress. Yeah, its a dress, but you can probably still pilot your X-Wing with ease.

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If youre still looking for something more low key, and totally cozy, your best bet is Jyns cardigan, complete with a hood.

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All these items are available in regular and plus sizes (ah-mazing), and were eager to steal these looksjust like Jyn steals the Death Star plans.

The post Hot Topics new Rogue One collection is out-of-this-world perfection appeared first on HelloGiggles.
The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that Globe University, a for-profit institution with a location in Onalaska, will lose access to federal student aid dollars.

The department said the decision was a result of a court ruling in Minnesota earlier this summer that sister institutions Globe and the Minnesota School of Business used deceptive practices to enroll students in criminal justice programs. Based on that ruling, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education decided in September to prohibit letting the schools register in the state or take on new students.

In a statement, Globe Chief Communications Officer Jeff Myhre said Tuesday's decision continued what he considered destructive actions taken by Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson and the Obama administration against career-focused institutions. He said Globe was working with other higher education institutions to transfer students' credits and continue their education.

"Its unfortunate that the Attorney General and the Department of Education decided to sanction the schools in their entirety," the statement said. "Instead of helping students in one program, their actions will eliminate options and tarnish the degrees of thousands of graduates."

Globe's Onalaska campus had offered a criminal justice program in the past. As a result of the education department's decision, students enrolled at Globe and MSB campuses will no longer be eligible for federal aid, such as student loans and Pell Grants for low-income students.

In the lawsuit, the Minnesota Attorney Generals office argued that the associate and bachelor degree criminal justice programs  with price tags of $35,000 and $70,000  targeted prospective students who wanted to become police officers. This was despite the fact that neither school's programs fulfill the requirements for graduates to become licensed police officers in Minnesota, because the university was not recognized by the Minnesota Peace Officer Standards and Training Board.

Globe and MSB preyed upon potential public servants  targeting those with a sincere desire to help their communities, U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in the announcement of the sanctions. These institutions misrepresented their programs, potentially misleading students, and abused taxpayer funds, and so violated federal law, which is why we removed them from the federal student aid program. This is a sober reminder that not all institutions deliver on their advertised promises.

According to federal data, the Onalaska campus enrolls more than 170 students and has an average annual tuition cost of $18,756. Nearly 75 percent of students receive an average of $4,200 in Pell Grants, and more than 80 percent receive an average of $7,100 in federal student loans.

Globe enrolls roughly 1,000 students at 10 locations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota, and it received $28.4 million in federal student aid during the 2014-15 award year. MSB enrolls about 700 students at nine locations throughout Minnesota and received $25.5 million in federal student aid during the 2014-15 award year. Both schools have until Dec. 20 to submit evidence to dispute the departments findings.

During the past three fiscal years, the department has denied re-certification applications for more than 30 institutions.
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House panel on Tuesday questioned the Environmental Protection Agency's diesel emissions settlement with Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), which requires the German automaker to invest $2 billion in zero emission vehicle efforts over 10 years.

Representative Tim Murphy, who heads a House Energy and Commerce panel, raised doubts about the government's oversight of the fund to boost electric vehicle charging stations and other green vehicle efforts.

The settlement "raises the potential that VW's penalty for bad behavior may not be entirely without benefit for VW's own future operations," he said at the hearing.

Under the settlement approved in October by a federal judge, VW must spend $2 billion over 10 years to improve infrastructure, access and education to support and advance ZEVs, including $800 million in California.

Volkswagen is ramping up its electric vehicle offerings and the automaker has not sold any diesel vehicles in the U.S. market since late 2015, when it admitted to secretly installing software to evade emissions rules.

Murphy said the massive investment comes "coincidentally just as VW is launching a new strategy to enter and grow its share in the electric vehicle market." He told reporters it was the equivalent of the "fox guarding the hen house."

The EPA's Cynthia Giles told the House panel that EPA officials are "not the deciders" on the VW investments but that the agency will oversee VW to ensure it complies with the settlement.

In total, the world's second-largest automaker has agreed to spend up to $16.5 billion in connection with the scandal, including payments to dealers, states and attorneys for owners. That includes $2 billion for zero emission vehicle efforts and $2.7 billion to offset excess diesel emissions.

In October, ChargePoint Inc, which operates a large electric vehicle charging network, said the VW diesel emissions cheating settlement threatened its survival and other charging station companies.

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The fund allows VW "literally to drown out all other participants in the ZEV infrastructure market through enormous spending, made at its unfettered discretion," ChargePoint said.

Volkswagen still faces potentially billions more in costs to address 85,000 polluting larger 3.0-liter diesel-powered Porsche, Audi and VW vehicles and Justice Department fines for violating clean air laws.

Reuters reported last month that VW has agreed with U.S. regulators to offer to buy back about 20,000 of the 85,000 vehicles and offer only fixes for the other estimated 60,000 vehicles. VW is still in talks over how much compensation to offer U.S. owners of 3.0-liter vehicles with their lawyers and the Federal Trade Commission.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Howard Schultz thinks the best way to brew coffee is in a French press. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Many people like to start their days with a cup of coffee. And some of those people can be extremely particular about how they take their coffee.

One of the people is Howard Schultz, the outgoing CEO of Starbucks (SBUX). The billionaire coffee magnates go-to is a cup of Sumatra, brewed his favorite way  in a French press.

For me, the best way to brew coffee has always been in a French press. That was how Id brewed it at home for 25 years. Unlike the drip method, where water passes over coffee grounds and drips through a filter, the coffee grounds in a press pot are continually steeped in water; the full immersion brings out a taste that just cannot be achieved by a drip brewer, Schultz wrote in his 2011 bestseller Onward.

He described his first time drinking a cup of Sumatra while visiting the original Starbucks store in the Pike Place Market district in 1981. At the time, he was a general manager for Swedish drip coffee maker, Hammarplast. Starbucks, then a single-store roaster and retailer of whole bean and ground coffee, was a client.

As we spoke, the counterman scooped out some Sumatra coffee beans, ground them, put the grounds in a filter in the cone and poured hot water over them. Although the task took only a few minutes, he approached the work almost reverently, like an artisan, Schultz wrote in his first book, Pour You Heart Into It.

When he handed me a porcelain mug filled with the freshly brewed coffee, the steam and the aroma seemed to envelop my entire face, Schultz continued. There was no question of adding milk or sugar. I took a small, tentative sip. Woah. I threw my head back, and my eyes shot wide open. Even from a single sip, I could tell it was stronger than any coffee I had ever tasted.

Three sips in, Schultz was hooked.

After visiting the original store that day, Schultz went to the Starbucks roasting plant to meet the owners of the company, Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker. Baldwin brewed him a cup of coffee in a French press for the first time, showing him the way coffee should be brewed.

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Schultz would eventually buy Starbucks and expand it into the coffeehouse empire it is today, with more than 24,000 locations worldwide.

Last week, Schultz announced his resignation as CEO, effective April 2017. Hell assume the role of executive chairman, while Kevin Johnson, the companys president and COO, will take over as CEO.

On Wednesday, Starbucks will host its Investor Day in New York. Yahoo Finance will live streaming Schultzs Q&A with Johnson.

Starbucks Investor Day



Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance.

Read more:

SCARAMUCCI: Why is it so bad to be a billionaire?

SCARAMUCCI: The governments new rule will hurt investors

Bill Ackman made close to $400M on Fannie and Freddie
Hong Kong (AFP) - A pair of rainbow-painted lions displayed in front of one of Hong Kong's most iconic buildings has been slammed as "disgusting" by anti-gay campaigners who condemned the show of support for the city's LGBT community.

The multi-coloured art piece has been placed in front of the HSBC's landmark building in the business district, beside two famous bronze lions that the bank first installed in 1935.

An important symbol of power in Chinese culture, the bank's bronze guardians have come to represent prosperity in Hong Kong.

The rainbow installation, painted by local artist Michael Lam for HSBC's "Celebrate Pride, Celebrate Unity" campaign, drew the ire of conservatives, with some groups launching a petition to have the artwork removed.

The petition said that the rainbow colours, symbolic of the LGBT community, are emasculating and deprive "all the strength and stamina of the original lions".

It said the statues are "causing annoyance to the feelings of many Hong Kong people as well as trampling on the existing family values".

The petition has been organised by Roger Wong, an outspoken figure against gay rights and the father of Joshua Wong, who famously led Hong Kong's pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in 2014.

The LGBT-friendly lions will be on show throughout December, following Hong Kong's annual pride march last month that saw thousands of gay rights supporters hit the streets of the international financial hub.

"Having a workforce that reflects the diversity of our millions of customers in Hong Kong and which draws on a wide range of perspectives makes us better able to serve the whole community," HSBC spokesman Adam Harper told AFP.

Despite the emergence of some LGBT-supporting initiatives in Hong Kong, conservative groups regularly hit back at the promotion of what they claim is an anti-family agenda.

The government has also been criticised by rights campaigners for a lack of anti-discrimination laws and little progress towards marriage equality.

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HSBC's Facebook page drew thousands of "likes" and many comments expressing admiration for its campaign, but some also expressed anger.

"Have you seen what effects a small group of gays would have on our society's systems and the next generation?... If HSBC continues to support the rainbow movement I'm definitely going to cancel my account," said one comment.

However, passers-by were overwhelmingly in favour of the statues, with some stopping to take photos.

"A bank needs to be more inclusive rather than just cater to one group of people," said Brian Yip, who works in finance.
A new National Geographic video showing humpback whales in a graceful ballet around a passenger boat in the South Pacific is a whale-watcher's dream.

The behavior of the whales is called "mugging," an all-purpose term marine biologists use to describe whales approaching a boat. Sometimes they stay for mere minutes, said Stephanie Stack, a marine biologist at the Pacific Whale Foundation in Hawaii. Other times they stay for hours.

Regulations prevent boat captains from running their engines within 100 yards of a whale, Stack told Live Science. Thus, the boat has to stay put until the whales, or "muggers," decide to swim away. [See Photos of Researchers Tracking Humpback Whales in the South Pacific]

"People don't seem to mind" that delay, Stack said. "It's the best thing that can happen on a whale watch."

The video, shared by National Geographic on Facebook, was taken near the New Caledonia archipelago in the South Pacific. Three whales circle a boat calmly, occasionally breaching with an eruption of spray from their blowholes. A drone captured the footage, creating a bird's-eye view in which the whales nearly dwarf the boat.

Here, a humpback whale breaches off Sydney, Australia, during a whale-watching tour on June 23, 2011. Humpback whales sometimes show "mugging" behavior where they encircle a boat, sometimes just out of curiosity. Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) can grow up to 60 feet (18 meters) in length, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The whales migrate farther than any other mammals, traveling from summer feeding grounds as far north as Maine and Alaska to winter calving grounds near Hawaii or the Dominican Republic, according to NOAA. They can eat up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) of tiny crustaceans, plankton and miniature fish a day, straining it through the comb-like baleen in their mouths.

Mugging seems to be motivated by curiosity, said Stack, who wasn't involved in the taping of the New Caledonia encounter. The whales aren't aggressive or stressed during these episodes, and sometimes engage in a behavior called "spy hopping." That's when a whale slowly lifts its head out of the water, bringing at least one eye above the waterline to find out what's happening above the surface.

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"They're just investigating," Stack said.

Occasionally, a female humpback will mug a boat while trying to avoid an unwanted suitor, Stack said. She will use the boat as a shield between her and a persistent male. In general, Stack said, mugging is relatively uncommon, but seems to happen more often off the coast of eastern Australia in the Pacific than near Hawaii.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
Chicago (AFP) - Hundreds of female and underage immigrants were released from detention centers in Texas after a state judge ruled that such sites could not legally house children, an immigrant advocacy group said Tuesday.

The 470 detainees were being held at two privately-run detention centers, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which confirmed their release.

Asylum-seeking immigrants are routinely released after their cases are initially processed, but the weekend's release was unusually high, according to the San Antonio-based group Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES).

At least four times more people were released than usual, said RAICES policy director Amy Fischer.

"We're in the process of moving them out, getting them on flights and buses," Fischer said.

The release came after a Friday ruling by Travis County District Court Judge Karin Crump that the detention sites could not be considered child care providers.

In a statement, ICE said that the releases were "scheduled as a part of normal operations and not in response to the court ruling," and that it is reviewing the judge's decision. The agency did not respond to AFP's request for comment on the size of the release.

- 'Failed experiment' -

The immigrants had been held at the South Texas Family Residential Center and the Karnes County Residential Center, both located south of San Antonio. Their detentions ranged in length from a few hours to a few weeks, Fischer said.

More than a quarter of the released detainees had not been interviewed to assess whether they fear persecution or torture in their home countries, a requisite step for asylum seekers, Fischer said.

One was also sent to a hospital for a severe, untreated leg infection, she said.

"The medical care in detention is extraordinarily poor," Fischer said, adding that underage detainees had in the past been released with untreated pneumonia.

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Undocumented female immigrants and their children have been held inside walled "family unit" detention sites since a 2014 spike of refugees arriving in the United States, most of them fleeing violence in Central America.

"We can only hope this is a sign that the Obama Administration is finally deciding to end this failed experiment in family detention," Jonathan Ryan, executive director of RAICES, said in a statement.

Texas immigration advocates had gone to court to stop housing children at the detention centers.

Considering the detention centers as child care facilities "runs counter to the general objectives of the Texas Human Resources Code," which protects the health, safety and well-being of children, Judge Crump said in her Friday ruling.

ICE said 2,393 immigrants are still held at the two facilities, with an additional 86 at a third detention site.
Ikea is doing something incredible for working parents, and other companies should take note

A hot topic during this election cycle was guaranteed paid family leave  an initiative that Hillary Clinton vowed to fight for as president. Unfortunately, Donald Trump doesnt share her views, and theres little hope that any national progress will be made under his administration. But, Ikea is doing something incredible for working parents  and other companies would be wise to follow their lead.

Beginning January 1, 2017, all Ikea workers in America will be eligible to take three months of paid parental leave if theyve been with the company for at least one year. Even more importantly, this new initiative doesnt apply solely to corporate employees. Every worker, including store-level sales associates and truck drivers, will be given the paid leave they deserve.

Lars Petersson, the president of Ikea U.S., tells The Huffington Post that its a matter of principle. The home is our arena, he says. We think that its really important that people working for us get a chance to experience their home, especially when youre welcoming a new family member.

Under the new plan, workers will receive their full pay for the first six weeks and 50 percent for the second six weeks. Employees who have been with the company for three or more years get four months of paid leave  theyll collect full pay for the first eight weeks and half pay for the second eight weeks.

But wait, it gets better  the plan is gender neutral and completely inclusive. Paternity leave matches maternity leave, and workers who adopt children are guaranteed the same benefits as biological parents.

At this time, America lags behind other developed nations in a major way. Under the Family Medical Leave Act, employees are only entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave  which means that taking time off is not an option for workers who dont bring home a considerably high salary.

With no federal mandate in sight, its up to individual companies to step up and offer paid leave. According to a 2014 report from the Bureau of Labor, only 13 percent of American workers had guaranteed paid time off after the birth of a child. Companies ought to take note of Ikeas example and offer a similar plan to their employees at all levels, from corporate to the sales floor.

Trump wont help working parents, but companies can take matters into their own hands and provide employees with the same rights that are given to workers in other developed nations.

The post Ikea is doing something incredible for working parents, and other companies should take note appeared first on HelloGiggles.
IM Global Television continues its expansion with the creation of an unscripted and alternative division, which will be led by prolific reality creator/producer Phil Gurin.

As President of Unscripted and Alternative Content, Gurin will lead a team tasked with creating, acquiring and co-developing ideas in all unscripted and alternative genres. The unscripted division will operate alongside IM Global Televisions scripted unit led by President Mark Stern. Both Gurin and Stern report to IM Global Television CEO Stuart Ford. Eli Shibley, President of IM Globals International TV Distribution and Co-Productions operation, and his team will handle international sales for any content produced by Gurins division.

We will instantly look to build a strong creative team here in Los Angeles, as well as in London, China and Latin America, Gurin said.

A division of Tang Media Partners-owned IM Global, IM Global Television is a television production joint venture between IM Global, TMP and Asian internet giant Tencent.

Phil gives IM Global TV a great opportunity to expand our participation beyond conventional unscripted television formats and to help innovate new formats for the global audience, said IM Global Executive Chairman Donald Tang.

Gurin, founder of The Gurin Company, has won three Primetime Emmy Awards as an executive producer of ABCs Shark Tank, and an international Rose dOr (Golden Rose) for the comedy game show Oh Sit! which he co-created for The CW. In the past year, Gurin has created and executive produced original new formats for ITV1 (UK), NBC (USA) and CBC (Canada). Following his appointment by IM Global TV, the Gurin Co. will remain and continue to serve as a production company on its existing slate of broadcast and cable television shows.

Gurin began his career as a writer on MTVs Remote Control and on Nickelodeons Double Dare, Make the Grade and Wild And Crazy Kids. Establishing his own company in 1997, he went on to produce CBS Candid Camera, which was followed by a slew of NBC shows, including Twenty One, Weakest Link, The Singing Bee, Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA. Other live events include Women Rock (Lifetime), US Olympic Hall of Fame (USA, NBC), New Years Eve Live!, Test the Nation, KISS Live! (FOX), and Joan and Melissa: Live From the Red Carpet (TVGN).

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The hire of Gurin comes on the heels of IM Globals recent appointment of Oscar-winning producer Greg Shapiro as president of Feature Film production and the signing of of a multi-year first look TV deal with David Goyer.

Gurin was repped in the negotiation by business manager Alan Goldman and attorney Eric Weissler.

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LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / Lundin Law PC (http://lundinlawpc.com/) announces that it is investigating claims against New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. ("New Oriental" or the "Company") (EDU) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.

To get more information about this investigation, please contact Brian Lundin, Esquire, of Lundin Law PC, at 888-713-1033, or via email at brian@lundinlawpc.com.

Reuters published an article December 2, 2016 revealing that New Oriental has been accused of engaging in college application fraud. The article states "[e]ight former and current New Oriental employeestold Reuters the firms have engaged in college application fraud, including writing application essays and teacher recommendations, and falsifying high school transcripts." The same day, Reuters released an update claiming that due to its earlier report detailing academic fraud allegations at New Oriental, the American International Recruitment Council ("AIRC") "will investigate the company in response to the report", and the AIRCs president-elect called the allegations "highly concerning." When this information was released to the public, the value of New Oriental fell sharply on December 2, 2016, causing investors harm.

Lundin Law PC was created by Brian Lundin, a securities litigator based in Los Angeles.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

Contact:

Lundin Law PC

Brian Lundin, Esq.

Telephone: 888-713-1033

Facsimile: 888-713-1125

brian@lundinlawpc.com

http://lundinlawpc.com/

SOURCE: Lundin Law PC
A controversial India-backed Aus$21.7 billion (US$16 billion) giant coal project near Australia's Great Barrier Reef is set to start construction by the middle of next year, the miner said Tuesday.

Adani Enterprises' Carmichael coal mine -- destined to be one of the world's biggest -- has encountered numerous regulatory and legal hurdles, leading to six years of delays.

It has also been criticised by environmentalists who say it will hurt the reef, a World Heritage-listed biodiverse site stretching along Australia's northeastern coast, which is already threatened by climate change.

"We want to start construction in the middle of next year," Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj told reporters after meeting with Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in the city of Townsville.

"There will be early works we plan to start in the quarter of June-July and we would want to start the main works from the last quarter of the year."

The development proposes exporting coal to India via a massive open-cut and underground coal mine 160 kilometres (100 miles) northwest of Clermont in central Queensland, and a 189-kilometre rail link to port.

Adani forecasts it will produce 60 million tonnes of thermal coal a year for export.

The project has been given the green light by the federal and state governments but is still waiting for a water license to be approved.

It also faces three ongoing legal challenges, although Janakaraj said he was heartened by support from the state government.

Palaszczuk said she had an "iron-clad guarantee" from Adani that the mine -- which she projected would create 10,000 jobs and be operational for up to six decades -- would not source workers from overseas and instead give Queenslanders priority.

Janakaraj would not comment on reports that the federal government was likely to contribute Aus$1.0 billion to the project's railway line.

Environmentalists have slammed the prospect of government funding, saying it placed the interest of polluters ahead of Australians.

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"Adani has a mining licence, but no social licence," the Australian Conservation Foundation said in a statement.

"Any investment in coal in the 21st century is a dud investment. Australians will lose this money and it will fund the death of the much-loved Great Barrier Reef."

The reef -- also under threat from farming run-off, development and the crown-of-thorns starfish -- experienced its worst-ever bleaching event this year, which has been blamed on global warming.

Janakaraj brushed away the criticism, saying the project was a "net positive impact on climate change in the world".

"India is a large consumer of coal either way. So if Australia doesn't produce and give India high-quality, highly sustainable mining, it is going to rely on coal that will come from lesser reliable geographies," he said.
Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia has extended legal protection for its wetlands and peat bogs by expanding a ban on the conversion of these carbon-rich swamps into plantations.

The move, if properly enforced, could drastically reduce Indonesia's sizeable carbon footprint and prevent a repeat of the annual forest fires that plague the region, conservationists say.

A moratorium on new conversions of certain peatland areas has been in place since 2011 in Indonesia.

But this latest revision -- signed into law by President Joko Widodo, and issued Monday -- clarifies and expands the law, ensuring that all peatlands are covered and that companies must restore areas they have degraded.

"We want to avoid any misinterpretation of the existing regulation, which gives the impression that land-clearing is still allowed," environment ministry spokesman Djati Witjaksono Hadi told AFP Tuesday.

Peatlands take thousands of years to form as layers of dense wet plant material compact into dense carbon stores.

When these ancient swamps are drained or cleared by fire to make way for commercial plantations -- such as for palm oil or pulp wood -- that carbon is released into the atmosphere.

Conservationists hailed the strengthened moratorium as a win for climate change.

"This regulation will be a major contribution to the Paris climate agreement," said the World Resources Institute's Nirarta Samadhi, referring to a binding agreement on reducing emissions.

Norway -- which pledged in 2010 to pay Indonesia up to $1 billion if it preserved its rain forests -- committed $25 million to restore peatlands in the wake of the announcement.

The moratorium could also help prevent the outbreak of deadly smog from forest fires that shrouds the region every year, causing widespread illness.

Peatlands are moist and unlikely to ignite unless drained.

Hadi said the new regulation provided clearer guidance, ensuring no burning or draining was permitted.

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Fires deliberately lit in 2015 across Indonesia's forests and peatlands were the worst in nearly two decades.

Research from Harvard and Columbia universities in the US estimate the crisis caused more than 100,000 premature deaths in Indonesia and neighbouring countries.

The World Bank put the economic impact at $16 billion -- twice Indonesia's clean-up bill in the wake of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
Police began torching about a tonne of illegal drugs in Jakarta on Tuesday, as Indonesian President Joko Widodo defended his tough war on narcotics.

Authorities wheeled out giant furnaces to incinerate some of the massive haul on display, including nearly half a tonne of methamphetamine, 190,000 ecstasy tablets and 420 kilogrammes (926 pounds) of marijuana.

Widodo and other top officials, wearing protective gloves and masks, inspected the drugs before tossing bags of pills into the incinerator.

Indonesia has tough drugs laws but Widodo has made combating narcotics a top priority since taking office in late 2014, resuming the execution of traffickers after an unofficial hiatus.

Eighteen convicted drug smugglers -- including 15 foreigners -- have been sent to the firing squad in Indonesia under his administration.

Widodo has defended his hardline stance, claiming Indonesia faces a "drugs emergency" and must act to protect the next generation.

"Every year 15,000 Indonesian youth die because of drugs. How many drug dealers and traffickers die every year?" he said.

"When I see this evidence, it becomes clear we once again have to declare a war on drugs," he added, to applause.

Indonesia's drugs agency said in 2016 nearly a tonne of methamphetamine, three tonnes of marijuana and roughly 600,000 ecstasy pills had been seized.

They said the production of synthetic drugs was shifting to countries that were traditionally transit points for narcotics, like Indonesia.

Widodo ordered an official investigation in August into allegations top police and military officers took kickbacks from a drug kingpin to protect his lucrative business.
(Reuters) - Industrial equipment hire group Ashtead Group Plc (AHT.L) hiked its annual results forecast on Tuesday, as both its divisions performed at the upper end of expectations and a weaker pound boosted earnings.

The company, which hires out diggers and tools on short-term contracts, said also underlying pretax profit at constant currency rose 9 percent to 425.9 million pounds ($543 million) for the six months ended Oct. 31.

Underlying rental revenue at constant currency rose 13 percent to 1.44 billion pounds.

The company has benefited from the rebound in U.S. construction markets, particularly in the private sector, and has outperformed peers such as United Rentals Inc (URI.N) which have more exposure to the struggling oil and gas sector.

Ashtead's shares have gained 24 percent since the Nov. 8 on hopes that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will make good on his plan to spend $1 trillion on roads and bridges.

Ashtead said on Tuesday it expected full-year result to be above its previous expectations. The company also increased its full-year capital expenditure guidance.

Analysts had expected pretax profit at constant currency of 760.85 million pounds on rental revenue of 3.013 billion pounds for the year ended April 30, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company also revised its capital expenditure guidance for the full year to between 1 billion pounds and 1.2 billion pounds at current exchange rates.

Ashtead's stock was up 2 percent at 1572 pence at 0806 GMT, making it the second-biggest percentage gainer on London's bluechip index (.FTSE) U.S. peer United Rentals Inc (URI.N) in October had forecast adjusted core earnings towards the upper end of its previous guidance, even as it noted strong U.S. growth in the third quarter.

(Reporting by Esha Vaish and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)
The country's infrasture budget for 2017 rose to IDR387t.

Fitch Ratings says in a new report that Indonesia's increased infrastructure budget for 2017 (IDR387t from IDR317t) is likely to spur economic growth and could lead indirectly to high demand for insurance products.

The rating outlook for Indonesia's life and non-life insurance sectors in 2017 is stable, underpinned by rising insurance awareness, conservative investment practices, economic growth, and enhancing reinsurance coverage.

The outlook also reflects Fitch's view that Indonesia's large population, low insurance coverage, growing middle-income sector and greater insurance awareness should also support sector growth.

Here's more from Fitch:

Generally conservative investment allocation is likely to mitigate against volatility in operating results. Meanwhile, the non-life insurance segment will still be driven mainly by motor and property insurance.

The government's decision to utilise the repatriated funds from the 2016 tax amnesty in funding the infrastructure development programme through the debt markets has boosted investors' trust in infrastructure bonds. Fitch sees the long duration on infrastructure bonds as an attractive investment option for the life insurance companies.

We believe that reinsurance companies would be looking for strong capitalisation and adequate protection against retained exposure. This is due to the favourable trend in insurance business over the past five years; optimisation of local reinsurance capacity imposed by the Indonesian Financial Services Authority, Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK); and a declining trend in the retention ratio of local insurance companies.

The stable outlook reflects Fitch's expectation that Indonesia's economic conditions remain manageable. The outlook could be revised to negative in the event of any extreme external shock in the form of an economic or financial crisis to which developing economies like Indonesia are more vulnerable. Unprecedented extreme equity-market volatility that translates into huge operating losses and severe capital erosion - and a significant, unexpected rise in insured losses from future catastrophe events in Indonesia - could lead to downward pressure on operating profitability.





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Shay Mitchell never understood why her mother had a formal living room that we were never allowed to go into.

Now that she has her own stunning starter home in Los Angeles, however, shes flip-flopping on the idea: This is the look room, she tells Architectural Digest of the sitting space that features plush furniture, custom art and a fireplace with dramatic black-and-white Moroccan tile.

After purchasing her new digs, and with her hit Freeform show, Pretty Little Liars, coming to a close, the actress found herself at a crossroads when it came to her decorating style. But with a new movie on the horizon, she was ready to look forward to the next chapter in her life, and turned to Mat Sanders and Brandon Quattrone of Consort Design, who also decked out her adorable guest house, to mark the occasion accordingly.

RELATED: Pretty Little Liars Troian Bellisarios Bachelorette Trip Pics Are the Definition of Squad Goals

Its crazy and bittersweetlike a high-school graduation on steroids, she says of the series concluding. And this is really about building that mature home that is the springboard for the next part of my career.

WATCH THIS: Jessie James Decker Brings PEOPLE Inside Her New Jersey Home

RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Shay Mitchell Shows Off her Glam Los Angeles Guesthouse

Quattrone adds, She really expressed to us that she feels her home, just like her fashion, is ever evolving, and she was ready for reinvention.

The two designers brought her personality to life in the home, mixing her glam style in spots like the chic walk-in closet, which was once a bedroom with her homebody preferences in areas like the den, for the perfect mix that gives the 29-year-old plenty of room to grow.

I love it here, she says.

For the full tour, visit Architectural Digest.




Instagram on Tuesday announced a slew of long-requested changes to the popular photo-sharing platform, including new options for users to turn off comments and remove followers from private accounts.

The company said in a blog post that the new tools are part of its efforts to encourage positivity and make the app a safe and welcoming place for everyone. The updates, coming in the next few weeks, include two new comment control features that give users the ability to turn comments off on any post and like comments by tapping a heart icon.

Instagram has also enabled a feature that lets private account holders remove followers. In the past, once you approved a follower, there was no simple way to undo that decision without blocking them, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom wrote in the blog post.

Users can also anonymously report posts from friends who they believe may be about to harm themselves. An Instagram team will review the reports and connect the reported user to groups that offer help.
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces a class action lawsuit against Xerox Corporation ("Xerox" or the "Company") (XRX). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between April 23, 2012 and October 23, 2015 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the December 23, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased Xerox shares during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Xerox repeatedly touted its new software product, Health Enterprise, as an important growth area for the Company, which would operate at low cost and high profit margin. The Company's statements pertaining to the profitability and growth prospects of the Health Enterprise business were materially false and misleading because Xerox failed to disclose: that the Company's existing Health Enterprise projects were experiencing major delays and cost overruns; that Xerox would be unable to deliver Health Enterprise implementations at sustainable profits; and that as a result of the above, the Company's statements about its business, operations, and prospects lacked a reasonable basis. On October 26, 2015, Xerox released its third quarter 2015 financial results which were disappointing due to costs associated with the implementation of Health Enterprise and the termination of Health Enterprise contracts with the state agencies of California and Montana. When this information emerged to the public, the stock price of Xerox fell, causing investors harm.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, at no charge to you, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

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This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contact:

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
Sears IMG_7007.JPG

Investors just got another sign that Sears Holdings' third quarter results could be particularly dismal.

Lands' End, a brand that's sold primarily in Sears' stores, reported a 14.3% drop in same-store sales in the third quarter.

The company blamed slowing shopper traffic at Sears for the drop.

"We ended the quarter with 219 shops at Sears and have continued to see weak traffic trends within malls and more specifically within our Sears locations," Lands' End Chief Financial Officer Jim Gooch said on an earnings call.

That's a troubling sign for Sears, which reports third-quarter earnings on Thursday, because Lands' End has tended to outperform Sears in same-store sales since it was spun off from the department-store chain in 2014.

Lands' End's same-store sales fell 9.3% last year, compared to an 11.1% drop at Sears stores.

In another ominous indicator for Sears, the company just lost two of its top executives last week.

And Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, which was spun off from Sears Holdings in 2012 but continues to sell Sears merchandise, also reported dismal quarterly results.

The company said last week that net losses in the third quarter widened from $5.5 million last year to $93.2 million this year.

The losses were driven in part by a 49% drop in apparel sales. The company blamed Sears Holdings for the precipitous drop in apparel sales, citing the "continuing impact of significantly reduced inventory availability from Sears Holdings, our sole source for this category."



"We do not expect inventory availability to improve and, as a consequence, we plan to continue to de-emphasize, and eventually exit, this category," Sears Hometown and Outlets said.

NOW WATCH: 7 things you shouldnt buy on Black Friday





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You can get involved with these organizations to help get female politicians elected

The results of this this Novembers presidential election shocked a lot of Americans, many of them women who were hoping to finally see a woman shatter the thickest glass ceiling of all: the one at the White House. While its easy to feel discouraged and disheartened after this defeat, its better to use those feelings to get motivated to find national organizations you can get involved with to help female politicians get elected. The 2016 presidential race may be over, but theres always another year.

When it comes to politics, women are largely underrepresented on every level. On a national scale, women are only 20% of the 100 person Senate and 19.3% of the 435 person House of Representatives. When you look at local-level positions, only about 19% of mayoral positions are held by women, and statewide executive level positions are filled by 25% women.

After this years election, headlines boasted news about a record number of women of color being elected to the Senate  but in reality, that record number was still sparse: only four.

Despite the fact that women are in the majority in the United States, and despite all the gains we have made in the areas of business, education, and technology, we are continually underrepresented in the politics that dictate what we can do with our bodies, how much we deserve to get paid, and how were protected against violence. We deserve a bigger say in the issues that really matter to us, and the best way to do that is to get involved.

Need help figuring out how? Heres a list of 5 national organizations you can get involved with to help female politicians get elected, because its time we broke the glass ceiling once and for all.

We must commit to flooding the pipeline of leadership with Democratic women who are eager to fight for what's right at... Nai-post ni Emerge America noong Lunes, Disyembre 5, 2016

Emerge America is a womens organization and in-depth training program for aspiring Democratic politicians in over 16 states, including Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. Since the first state launched in 2002, the Emerge network has trained over 2,000 Democratic women to run for office, and over 50% of the alumnae have either run for or been appointed to local boards of commission. A diverse group of successful women  70% of women who have run have won  39% are women of color.

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If youre interested in getting involved: Join the Emerge America network, recommend a woman to run for office, apply to the program, or contribute.

On her birthday we celebrate Shirley Chisholm, the first woman to launch a major bid for the Democratic presidential nomination! A photo posted by EMILY's List (@emilys_list) on Nov 30, 2016 at 3:06pm PST

The mission of EMILYs List is to elect pro-choice Democratic women to office  women who will help realize their vision of a government that reflects all of the people it serves equally. The organization has more than 3 million members and over 800 election victories to its name. Candidates theyve supported include Catherine Cortez Masto, Tammy Duckworth, Patty Murray, and, of course, Hillary Clinton.

If youre interested in getting involved: Support EMILYs List, attend an event, run for office, or apply for a job or internship.

A national nonpartisan political organization supporting women at all levels of office, Womens Campaign Fund believes in getting involved in the earliest stages of public life. They are committed to financially supporting women candidates on both sides of the aisle, and since their founding in 1974, they have helped nearly 2,000 women run their campaigns on the federal, statewide, and local level.

If youre interested in getting involved: Support the WCF, join the network, become a WCF BFF, join the leadership circle, apply for a fellowship, or support women candidates.

A photo posted by Running Start (@runningstart) on Mar 9, 2016 at 4:59pm PST

The goal of Running Start is simple: educate young women and girls about the importance of politics, and give them the skills they need to successfully run for office. Founded in 2007, Running Start introduces a select group of young women to the intricacies of politics, to the world on nonprofit organizations in Washington, D.C., and to the hard work it takes to see women in politics succeed.

If youre interested in getting involved: Contribute to Running Start or become a member, apply for one of their programs, or attend a summit.

A national network of women inspiring each other to get involved with politics, She Should Run is a non-partisan organization dedicated to expanding the pool of elected female leaders. Started in 2008, the She Should Run movement has helped over 100,000 women of all walks of life run for public office, and gotten thousands of others involved in the political process.

If youre interested in getting involved: Join the She Should Run campaign, become a Frontrunner, ask a woman to run for office, nominate yourself for office, or join the She Should Run Incubator.

And check out more organizations that can use your support here!

The post You can get involved with these organizations to help get female politicians elected appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Gunmen killed the head of a local radio station in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, the latest in a string of such murders in the troubled country.

"Unidentified gunmen driving a white car assassinated Mohammed Thabet al-Obeidi," a Kirkuk police colonel told AFP, adding that the journalist was on his way to work in the city centre when he was shot.

The 38-year-old was in charge of a radio station called Baba Gurgur that broadcasts in Arabic, Kurdish and Turkmen, and also worked for the state-run Iraqi Media Network.

Obeidi's colleague from the state-run Iraqiya channel, Roji Anwar, confirmed the killing.

Ziad Ajili, from the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, said Obeidi's killing may be politically motivated, but did not elaborate.

Kirkuk is an ethnic tinderbox in an oil-rich region on the country's new political fault line. It is theoretically under the authority of the Baghdad government but is controlled by Kurdish forces.

Obeidi's death came a few days after another Iraqi journalist was found dead near Dohuk, in Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The new chief spokesman for the Islamic State group (also called ISIS) promised attacks on the United States, Russia, Europe and Iran in his first address to the terrorist outfits followers, which was released Monday by ISISs al-Furqan media division.

The audio recording named Abu Hassan al-Muhajir as the successor to Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike near al-Bab, Syria, on Aug. 30.

In a chilling message  titled For You Will Remember What I Tell You  aimed at the West and ISIS's regional adversaries, Muhajir called on the group's fighters to target its enemies. According to a translation by Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, Muhajir said in the message: We will attack them in their own countries. Your operations make a difference  change the situation. Attack them in their markets, roads, clubs and any unexpected location and burn the ground under their feet.

While Muhajir promised attacks on U.S., Russia, Europe and Iran, he called for immediate attacks on Turkey when he told ISIS supporters to target the secular, apostate Turkish government in every security, military, economic and media place, even every embassy and consulate that represents it in all the world's countries.

Turkeys secular laws have made it the target of the extremist group repeatedly. In a November address, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi asked ISIS fighters to unleash the fire of their anger on Turkish troops. He added: Turkey entered the war with the Islamic State with cover and protection from Crusader jets Put it on your list of battlefields.

Turkey has troops stationed near Mosul, Iraq  one of ISISs crucial battlefields. Turkey is also facing the terror group in neighboring Syria where the government, rebels that oppose and ISIS are in a three-way fight. While Russia has backed President Bashar Assads government forces in Syria  against ISIS and rebel forces  the U.S. has backed the rebels, against ISIS and government troops.

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Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel knew its arch-enemy Iran held a stake in ThyssenKrupp when it planned to purchase submarines from the German firm, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday.

"We have known Iran was a shareholder in the German company since 2004," the minister said in comments broadcast by public television, referring to the year of a previous order.

Lieberman said Israel "had no other alternatives" apart from the German company to buy new submarines.

The Jewish state has been embroiled in controversy over the past few days after media reported Iranian holding company IFIC continues to own a 4.5 percent stake in the German firm.

Israel sees Iran as its main enemy, and suggestions that the Islamic republic would benefit from its defence purchases made headlines.

Israel was reportedly negotiating to buy three submarines at a combined price of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), to replace the oldest vessels in its existing Dolphin fleet, which began entering service in 1999.

Foreign military sources say the Dolphins can be equipped with missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

Israel is the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, refusing to confirm or deny that it has such weapons.

According to defence ministry officials quoted by the media, Israel obtained guarantees from the German firm that Iran did not have access to confidential information on the submarines it would receive.

ThyssenKrupp has said IFIC's shareholding dropped from 7 percent to 5 percent in 2003, but has not said what stake the Iranian holding company now owns.

Before the reports of Iran's link to the company, Israel's attorney general had already ordered police to examine allegations of improper conduct in the planned purchase of the submarines.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli far-right politicians on Tuesday welcomed initial approval of a bill to legalise some 4,000 settler homes in the West Bank, calling it a step towards annexation of most of the Palestinian territory.

The bill was given preliminary approval by parliament late on Monday despite a chorus of international criticism that it was an illegal land grab with dangerous implications for Middle East peace.

The bill must pass three more votes in parliament before it becomes law, with the first likely to be held on Wednesday.

Preliminary approval had been expected following an agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a right-wing rival, though Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has said he will not be able to defend it before the courts.

The bill has severely tested Netanyahu's coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history.

Strong supporters of the bill, including those who outright oppose a Palestinian state, rejoiced in the initial vote and said they hoped it could lead to eventual Israeli annexation of most of the occupied West Bank.

The bill's main backer, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, said Israel should tell its international allies that it was in the West Bank to stay.

An agreement between Netanyahu and Bennett has allowed the bill to move forward.

"It's time to say: 'Friends, we plan on staying in Maale Adumim, the Jordan Valley and Ofra and Ariel forever, because this is our land,'" he told army radio, naming settlement areas, some of them deep inside the West Bank.

Bennett has advocated annexing most of the territory, like other Israeli religious nationalists who point to the Jewish connection to the land from biblical times.

"With this law, the state of Israel has moved from the path leading to the creation of a Palestinian state to the path leading to (Israeli) sovereignty" over most of the West Bank, Bennett said on Monday.

Others from his party voiced similar sentiments, with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked saying the bill was "deepening our hold on our beloved land."

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Netanyahu says he still supports a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

- 'Most dangerous law' -

The international community considers all settlements in the West Bank, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, to be illegal, whether they are authorised by the government or not.

The Israeli government distinguishes between those it has approved and those it has not.

The UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, warned of the bill's implications.

He said it "has the objective of protecting illegal settlements and outposts built on private Palestinian property in the West Bank".

"If adopted, it will have far-reaching legal consequences for Israel, across the occupied West Bank and will greatly diminish the prospect of Arab-Israeli peace," Mladenov said.

Walid Assaf, the Palestinian minister responsible for monitoring Israeli settlements, called the bill "the most dangerous law issued by Israel since 1967."

Israeli occupied the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967 and subsequently annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.

Speaking on Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal.

He said "more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current government have publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state and that there will be no Palestinian state."

The agreement that has led to the bill moving forward saw a wildcat Jewish outpost in the West Bank, known as Amona, removed from its provisions.

Amona, where around 40 families live, is under a court order to be evacuated by December 25 since it was built on Palestinian land.

Some members of Netanyahu's coalition said they could not support the bill if Amona remained part of it because of the court ruling against it.

The agreement will instead see Amona residents temporarily moved to nearby land that Israeli officials describe as abandoned.

Human rights groups, however, say that land too is owned by Palestinians and that the move would violate international law.

According to settlement watchdog Peace Now, the bill, excluding Amona, would legalise some 3,881 housing units.

Most of the homes are in Israeli-approved settlements but were built on Palestinian land. Around 750 are located in outposts which Israel has not yet approved, Peace Now says.

Kerry said there are currently around 100 wildcat outposts in the West Bank and the bill would give retrospective Israeli approval to 54 of them.

Some 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, excluding east Jerusalem. The territory is home to around 2.6 million Palestinians.
LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Italian government bond yields pulled back from 3-week lows on Tuesday after an Italian minister said a new election could be held as soon as February.

Angelino Alfano, interior minister in Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's outgoing government, spoke after talking with Renzi.

The yield on Italy's 10-year government bond yield pulled back from three-week lows of around 1.888 percent after the comments.

However, it remained 5 basis points lower on the day at 1.97 percent. Expectations of a dovish tone from the European Central Bank at a meeting on Thursday have helped Italian bonds recover from a sell-off following Sunday's referendum.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe, editing by Nigel Stephenson)
A West Salem man killed his wife early Sept. 16 and tried to conceal her fatal injuries by staging an implausible traffic crash on a rural La Crosse County road, according to court records.

Prosecutors on Tuesday charged Todd Kendhammer, 46, with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his wife, Barbara Kendhammer. He is jailed on a $250,000 cash bond and returns to La Crosse County Circuit Court on Dec. 15 for a preliminary hearing.

Ive been working on this case for three months, and his arrest comes as a shock to us, said his attorney, Jonas Bednarek.

Kendhammer told authorities the couple left their home between 7:30 and 7:45 a.m. Sept. 16 for Holmen, where he planned to pick up a truck to replace its windshield.

Barbara Kendhammer was scheduled for work at 8 a.m. at West Salem Middle School and the owner of the truck said he did not arrange for Kendhammer to repair the damaged windshield, according to the criminal complaint.

Kendhammer said they were driving north on Hwy. M when a 53-inch pipe fell from an oncoming flatbed truck, bounced off the pavement and impaled the passenger side of the windshield, striking his 46-year-old wife, according to his initial statement to authorities.

He later said the pipe flew off the truck and did not strike the pavement before passing through the windshield. Before impact, he said he hit the windshield with his left hand to try to block the object, according to the complaint.

He turned onto nearby Bergum Coulee Road, a dead-end road seven miles from the couples home at N6617 E. Scotch Coulee Road, before backing the couples Toyota Camry off the road. He removed the pipe from the windshield and his wife from her seat to perform life-saving measures for three to five minutes before calling 911 at 8:06 a.m., according to the complaint.

An autopsy found Barbara Kendhammer died of blunt force injuries to her head and neck, including skull fractures, brain swelling and injury, fractured cartilage and neck muscle hemorrhaging.

She also had possible scratches and other injuries to her neck and torn fingernails, indicative of a struggle.

The pattern of her injuries  including a cut to her forehead, three to the back of her head, nasal fractures and others  were inconsistent with Todd Kendhammers account of the incident, according to the Dane County Medical Examiners Office.

Todd Kendhammer had scratches on his neck and chest and injuries to the knuckles of his left hand, inflicted because he said he works with glass all of the time and gets scratched up, according to the complaint.

A passerby who spotted the couples Camry in the ditch on Bergum Coulee Road noticed the passenger door open but did not see anyone around the car. There was no damage to the windshield, the complaint stated.

A Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory analyst found blood inside the car and on the rear passenger side wheel.

There were multiple impact points on the windshield, including one that indicated an object struck but did not shatter the glass.

Based on the spread of broken glass, the analyst found it was unlikely a passenger was inside the vehicle when the windshield shattered and that it likely broke when the passenger door was open, according to the complaint.
By Giselda Vagnoni and Steve Scherer ROME (Reuters) - Italy's President Sergio Mattarella wants parliament to draft a new electoral law before any ballot is held, a source close to the president said on Tuesday, a move likely to delay any vote after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigns. Renzi said he would step down after losing a referendum on constitutional reform on Sunday, but Mattarella asked him to stay on until parliament passes the 2017 budget, a vote scheduled for Wednesday.. The next parliamentary election is not scheduled until 2018 but on Tuesday there was growing consensus among party leaders for it to be held a year earlier. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the vote should be held in February. Senior members of Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) will meet on Wednesday to discuss the referendum defeat and the party's future strategy. On the eve of the meeting, two PD sources said the party would support a government of national unity, which would have to include parties that had been in opposition. If such a government is not possible, then the PD wants an early election. The president wants a new law to follow a Constitutional Court ruling on the legitimacy of the lower house voting law adopted last year, the source said, which is not due before a Jan. 24 hearing. Another voting law has been in place for the Senate since 2014. Voting with two different laws is widely seen as a recipe for continued political instability in a country that has seen 63 governments in 70 years. ELECTION IN SPRING? Infrastructure Minister Graziano Delrio, a PD member and close ally of Renzi's, said on television on Tuesday the best solution would be for an interim government to be put in place to quickly change the electoral law so an election could be held "in the spring". The final decision on when to dissolve parliament rests with Mattarella, and his conditions mean it would be virtually impossible to hold an election before the end of March. "I forecast there will be the will to go to elections in February," Alfano, head of a small center-right party that is part of Renzi's coalition, told Corriere della Sera daily on Tuesday, after discussing the issue with Renzi. The two largest opposition parties, the eurosceptic, anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing Northern League, are both pushing hard for an election. But it will take time for parties to hammer out a deal on a new voting system, and, after parliament is dissolved, 45 days must pass to allow time for campaigning ahead of the vote. Renzi is still leader of the PD, which has the largest number of parliamentarians, so it is unlikely any new government could be formed without his backing. (Additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, Massimiliano Di Giorgio, and Gavin Jones; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
ROME (Reuters) - Italian President Sergio Mattarella wants a new electoral law covering both houses of parliament before the country holds a national election, a source close to the president said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who lost a key referendum on constitutional reform on Sunday, is expected to hand in his resignation after parliament approves the 2017 budget, scheduled for Wednesday. Many opposition parties have called for early elections but the head of state's position means he prefers that current electoral laws - one for the lower house and another for the Senate - be unified first, the source said. (Reporting Giselda Vagnoni, Writing by Philip Pullella)
By Andrew M. Seaman (Reuters Health) - The two most effective hormonal birth control methods for women in general are also excellent options for women with diabetes, according to a new study. Intrauterine devices (IUDs) and contraceptive implants that are placed under the skin, both of which are highly effective, were linked with the lowest risk of blood clots in these higher-risk women. Hormonal contraceptives boost women's risk for clots, which can lead to heart attack and strokes. That's a particular problem for women with diabetes, who are at increased risk for blood clots to begin with. While many contraceptives use a combination of two hormones, estrogen and progestin, the World Health Organization advises that women at increased risk of a blockage caused by a blood clot - known as a thromboembolism - use contraceptives containing only progestin. Women with advanced diabetes and those with diabetes and other risk factors for heart disease are in that high-risk group, according to the authors of the new report. Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz of the University of California, Davis in Sacramento and her colleagues analyzed data on 146,080 U.S. women with diabetes, ages 14 to 44. As reported in Diabetes Care, the majority were not using hormonal contraceptive pills or devices during the study. Only 28 percent were using hormonal contraception, and most of those were taking estrogen-containing pills. Only 4 percent were using progestin-only contraception. During the study, the researchers identified 3,012 so-called thrombotic events. Blood clots were most common among women using estrogen-containing contraceptive patches, with 16 events each year for every 1,000 women. Progestin injections were tied to 12.5 blood clots per 1,000 women each year, the researchers found. Rates of blood clots were lowest for women using progestin-only IUDs and under-the-skin (subdermal) contraceptives. There were an average of only 3 events each year for every 1,000 women using the IUDs and less than 1 event per year among women using the subdermal implant. "In some ways, thats a convenient finding, because . . . IUDs and implants are the most effective form of contraceptive," Schwarz told Reuters Health. She noted, however, that the best form of birth control is the one women want to use. Schwarz also emphasized that the absolute risk of thromboembolism with contraception is low, even for women with diabetes. Dr. Natalie Whaley, an obstetrician/gynecologist and family planning provider at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, said the findings confirm earlier research about women's risk for thromboembolism with diabetes. "For women with chronic medical conditions where you can have poor obstetric outcomes including risk for fetal anomalies, it's even more important that women are getting highly effective contraception," said Whaley, who wasn't involved with the new study. She told Reuters Health that women with diabetes need to time their pregnancies for a number of reasons, including the fact that having good control of their blood sugar will reduce the risk of miscarriage and fetal anomalies. The new study had some limitations. The researchers did not have data on the women's family history of blood clots, and their information on whether women smoked or were obese may have been incomplete. Also, most women were enrolled in commercial health plans, and the results may not be applicable to uninsured women or those in publicly funded insurance programs. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2gZqgbX Diabetes Care, online November 29, 2016.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 5, 2016 / Real estate developer Jacob Frydman has come out in strong support of the NCFJE on November 20th, 2016. Frydman was Guest of Honor at the organization's 76th Annual Awards Dinner, which took place at the Edison Hotel Ballroom in Manhattan, and lent enthusiastic support to the organization's work in the Jewish community. The real estate mogul, a frequent guest on major news networks, punctuated his enthusiastic support of the NCFJE with a pledge of $180,000. The room was electrified by Frydman's announcement and his commitment to charity, philanthropy, and kindness.

In a recorded statement, Jacob Frydman praised the organization's flagship Jewish Released Time Program, which sends hundreds of volunteers across metropolitan New York to teach Jewish public school students. "Find me another organization that mobilizes, literally, an army of young men and women... to engage Jewish children all over metro New York, week after week..." He also praised the Machon LeYahadus, the organization's advanced Jewish Studies program for women, which he called "forward thinking" and "ground breaking". "The National Committee was decades ahead of the rest of the Jewish world, to recognize that there were young ladies, and many of them... thirsting for that knowledge."

NCFJE Chairman, Rabbi Shea Hecht said: "We really could not be more happy with our relationship with Mr. Frydman. He has shown a real concern for the welfare of the community at large, and is the kind of guy that really wants to help. You would think that someone involved with such massive projects is very removed from the concerns of the community, but Jacob is not like that at all. He is just an incredibly warm and loving person. I'm really impressed with him."

"I'm the kind of guy - I do things right, I do things with impact, or I don't do them," said Jacob Frydman, "I feel very fortunate to have discovered an organization that shares my approach."

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NCFJE was founded in 1941 by the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn to teach Torah to public school students through the Jewish Released Time Program. The organization is responsible for running 37 separate social, religious and educational programs, including Jewish Summer Camps, TOYS for Hospitalized Children, Food Pantry in Brooklyn, Anti Shmad, ILTSF (formerly known as ILTSE), and Operation Survival. In recent years, the organization has turned its focus upon the economically disadvantaged families in its home community of Crown Heights.

Jacob Frydman - Property Expert and Consultant: http://jacobfrydmannews.com

Jacob Frydman (@jacobfrydman) - Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacobfrydman

Jacob Frydman - Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/jacob-frydman

Jacob Frydman US Housing Market - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHS77IcaFwc

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SOURCE: Jacob Frydman
JP Morgan Chase and Company CEO Jamie Dimon answers a question at the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, June 13, 2012. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon wants to help President-elect Donald Trump improve the lives of lower-wage workers.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services conference, the Wall Street executive, who was reportedly under consideration for Treasury secretary before the selection of Steve Mnuchin, said he wouldn't be very suited for a role in the administration.

"I've always been fairly consistent that I love my job," Dimon said.

But he said he did "immediately" join a special economic advisory team alongside other Wall Street titans like Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

"I am a patriot  I want to help my country and help it grow," said Dimon, a lifelong Democrat. "I want to help lower-wage people more than I want to help you," he said to the conference audience.

He added that he wanted to do his share to help America "get better" and had a lot of thoughts on how to do that.

"I might even be better off doing that from the outside than doing it from the inside," he said.

The advisory group will advise Trump on how to institute policies to encourage job growth and improve productivity. Its first meeting will be in the first week of February.

NOW WATCH: Here's how much it costs to produce money in the U.S.





More From Business Insider


* Dec manufacturers' sentiment index +16 vs +14 in Nov

* Service-sector index +19 in Dec vs +15 in Nov

* Manufacturers' mood seen down ahead, service-sector up

* Reuters Tankan points to improvement in BOJ tankan

By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Izumi Nakagawa

TOKYO, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Japanese manufacturers' confidence rose for a fourth straight month to a 16-month high in December and the service sector's mood also rose, a Reuters poll showed, with a weaker yen brightening prospects for exporters.

The monthly Reuters Tankan - which tracks the Bank of Japan's key quarterly tankan - found sentiment at manufacturers and service-sector firms both up from three months ago, pointing to improvement in the central bank's survey out next week.

In the poll of 531 large- and mid-sized firms, carried out between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2 and in which 268 responded, the sentiment index for manufacturers rose to 16 from 14 in November, driven by steel and transport equipment makers.

It was the highest reading since August 2015, but it is expected to fall to 10 over the next three months.

Compared with three months ago, the index was up 11 points, indicating an improvement in the headline big manufacturers' index in the BOJ tankan due Dec. 14.

In written comments, Japanese exporters expressed concerns about uncertainty over the global outlook following the shock U.S. election victory by Donald Trump, while a subsequent dollar rebound buoyed sentiment among manufacturers.

"It's good that the yen has weakened. But the outlook is highly unclear," a manager at a chemicals firm wrote in the survey, which companies answer anonymously. "There's a mountain of problems such as Trump, South Korea, China and Russia."

The service-sector index rose to 19 from 15 in November, up five points compared with three months ago, a good sign for the upcoming BOJ tankan. It was the highest reading since May, and it is seen edging up further to 20 in March.

In a worrying sign for private consumption that constitutes about 60 percent of the economy, however, retailers' sentiment fell to minus 14 from zero in November, reflecting weak domestic demand.

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"Sales from inbound tourism are slowing and clothing sales remain poor," one retailer said. Another retailer said business conditions were not so good due to "high input prices caused by a weak yen, and a spike in unit costs of foodstuffs."

The BOJ's last tankan on Oct. 3 showed big Japanese manufacturers' mood held steady in the third quarter while service-sector sentiment fell to its lowest in nearly two years.

The central bank last month held off on expanding stimulus, underscoring a market view that it will stand pat unless a severe shock threatens to derail economic recovery. It holds the next rate review Dec. 19-20.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto and Izumi Nakagawa; Editing by Eric Meijer)
TOKYO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Japan is considering issuing additional deficit-covering bonds worth around 1.9 trillion yen ($17 billion) to offset an expected tax revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year to March, government sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

The government expects tax revenues to undershoot its initial forecast of 57.6 trillion yen by around 1.9 trillion yen, which would mark the first downward revision in seven years, the sources said.

The plan will be included in a proposed third supplementary budget expected to be approved by cabinet this month.

($1 = 113.5800 yen) (Reporting by Takaya Yamaguchi; Writing by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)
By Stanley White TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is arranging to meet Donald Trump about a week after he takes over as U.S. president on Jan. 20, Jiji news service reported on Tuesday. Abe met Trump in New York last month, soon after his election victory, and Jiji said Abe would meet him around Jan. 27. Trump's inauguration is due on Jan. 20. A spokesman for the Japanese prime minister's office said he was not aware of the meeting and declined further comment. The foreign ministry later issued a statement denying such arrangements were being made. Abe was the first foreign leader Trump met after his election win and he could potentially be the first foreign leader Trump meets after officially becoming president, suggesting strong ties with Japan are important to Trump. The U.S.-Japan military alliance is the cornerstone of Japan's defence and foreign policy, but Trump's comments during his campaign caused many people to doubt his commitment to it. Some also worry that Japan's export-dependent economy could be hurt if Trump adopts protectionist policies that curb global trade. Trump has vowed to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would be a blow to Japan, as it is looking to the free-trade deal to expand exports and encourage structural reforms to make its agriculture sector more competitive. It is rare for a new president to meet a foreign leader at the White House so soon after taking over, so some could view the meeting as an attempt to address Japan's concerns. Abe described Donald Trump as a "trustworthy leader" after a hastily arranged 90-minute meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan last month, but few details of the discussion have emerged. (Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez)
"It was hot," Oscar winner (Crazy Heart) Jeff Bridges told The Hollywood Reporter during the Actor Roundtable in regards to the shoot for his film Hell or High Water. "The hot or cold, it stimulates your acting, it kind of plugs you into the place you're in. That actually kind of helps."

"It's often a challenge when you're acting -- you just met and you're supposed to give the illusion that you've known each other for years and years," said Bridges. "Many actors, that's a challenge for us all, so we know we got to get in it quick, man. One way to do that is through music."

Bridges said he often plays music with his co-stars in order to get to know them quickly and intimately. "It's all about harmonizing, singing together, making music together. That's what making movies is all about."

Bridges noted "jamming with all these different artists" as his favorite thing about acting.

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.
Photo credit: Getty

From Cosmopolitan

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has initiated recount efforts in three states - Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan - where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a combined margin of 103,519 votes. (A fourth, partial recount is underway in Nevada, by independent presidential candidate Roque De La Fuente).

Though considered an "extreme long shot" by the New York Times, Stein's campaign raised her initial goal of $7 million - twice as much as she raised in her failed campaign bid - in just a matter of days. Clinton's campaign has cooperated with the effort.

However, Stein is not pursuing the recount to curry favor among Clintonites. Instead, her mission, she says, is to ensure voter integrity. Though there is no evidence of hacking or machine tampering, cyber security expert J. Alex Halderman suggested it was possible. Stein spoke to Cosmopolitan.com about the latest in the recount effort, how she plans to spend any excess in fundraising, and what's next.

How much have you used up of the money that youve raised, and what are you planning to do with the remaining funds, if any?

In order to handle the allegations that are being incurred right now from the state, from the boards of election, from the lawyers, from the efforts to publicize the campaign, and from the volunteer campaigns on the ground - which require a lot of support and management for the volunteers - we will require $9.5 million, and that does not include, for example, the $1 million that Pennsylvania wanted to add to the cost. Those could go up quite a bit depending on other actions of the state. What weve raised total was $7.1 million when I last looked, and I believe that was yesterday.

Assuming that it ends up not costing as much as you anticipate, if you do have leftover funds, how will they be used and how transparent will that process be in terms of what donors want?

So, the process will be completely transparent, and I should mention that the money is all raised and deposited into a dedicated and segregated account. The donor list, by the way, will be made public by the Federal Election Commission and that will happen this week. The rules for donations are basically the same rules that we used to fundraise with as a political campaign: that is a maximum donation of $2,700. However, we know that the average donation is approximately $47 or $48, and that there have been over 150,000 donors.

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If, by some miracle, there was money leftover, that money would be appropriated according to FEC guidelines, and the options, as I understand it, would be refunding the money or making a decision as to how to continue supporting election integrity efforts that can carry on the work of this campaign. And if that were to happen, what we would be actually very excited about doing is having every contributor vote on a set of options for exactly how that money would be spent, so that it could be a participatory democratic process whereby the donors decide, and we would use a voting system that we think should be used all the time - you rank your choices, and that way, we could come up with one or more options for exactly how those funds will be spent according to the wishes of the donors.

Tell me about the decision to pursue action in federal court instead of paying out the $1 million bond to the state of Pennsylvania.

Well, the problem was not that it was too expensive, but that it was a dead-end course of action. If you want to verify vote in Pennsylvania, it requires three voters to each go to a notary public and get a statement notarized. So three people have to do this in each precinct and there are 9,000 precincts, so if you want to do a full recount, you have to get 27,000 people to notarize legal statements and then get them filed with the precinct elections administration. So its extremely complicated and extremely labor-intensive and very, shall we say, not user-friendly to everyday people who want to ensure that they have verified vote. Then theres the other issue of the political entrenched court system where they put the recount campaign in an impossible situation by calling for a court date that would require evidence about the problems with the voting system before we would have the evidence. They advanced the date to a time that would make to impossible to actually present a case.

What are the next steps in each of the three states, and what are you expecting to happen?

We have nine lawsuits that are active right now in which these, basically, our right to a secure and fair vote is being fought out. In Wisconsin, we are moving ahead. Out of 72 different counties, all but about 10 are performing that hand-count, which is really a tribute I think to the court system and to the local elections people. Were still hoping that the remaining 10 or so counties that are not doing a hand-count will come around.

Then in Michigan, we just had this decision after midnight last night - we were all kind of flabbergasted - this incredibly inspired decision by a judge in Michigan who said that the hand-count should proceed, quickly. The recount was set to start on Friday until the Trump lot began to create all sorts of obstructions, which has delayed the process. However, Donald Trump and his cronies have filed a whole bunch of legalistic land mines that we have to now basically deal with and there are court cases that are going forward now. [Michigan] Attorney General [Bill Schuette], who is a political crony of Donald Trump himself, has filed a lawsuit that is attempting to stop the case from going forward, and I believe that is the next legal hurdle in Michigan.

And in Pennsylvania, we have basically a dead end. So we have now filed in federal court for the recount to go forward in order to ensure the constitutional right to vote is protected in Pennsylvania.

What is your response to those who say that it was your fault that Trump got elected, and have you faced any backlash for your campaign?

So a lot of people are looking for someone to blame the election outcome on. But if you look at the numbers, heres what you find: Exit polls tell us very clearly that Green voters - 61 percent of Green voters would not vote for Donald Trump or for Hillary Clinton. They would only vote Green, so these were not votes that were taken away. Its a myth that Green votes are taken away from Hillary Clinton or that they would automatically go to Democrats. There were many Trump supporters who were going to support Bernie Sanders. So there is surprising crossover here. The American voting public is complex. Simple rules dont apply.

We have a democracy which is in trouble. A lot of people didnt like their choices here. It was the most disliked and untrusted set of candidates in our history. And many people were interested in other choices.

What have you and Hillary Clinton discussed about the recount, if anything?

Nothing. We have had zero contact. Our lawyers have communicated with each other, so that we will not interfere and not get in each others way. There has otherwise been zero contact between our campaigns.

Youve said before that both candidates were not your candidate, but do you believe they are equally unfavorable, and do you think that the Green Party will have the same struggles under Trump that they would under Clinton?

The struggles are different, but in my view, its a sinking ship under Democrats and under Republicans. For example, you know, its a choice between coal - Trump supports - or fracking - which Clinton supports. Theyre both a dead end for the environment. In my view, this has been a bipartisan process that has essentially thrown everyday working people under the bus. Our jobs are going overseas, our wages are declining, a generation is locked in debt, over half of our discretionary budget is being spent on wars that are making us less secure, not more secure, so - and the climate is in meltdown, and Barack Obamas policy and the policy of two Democratic Houses of Congress with all of the above, which has been an absolute disaster.

Were not getting out of here alive under a Democratic or Republican leadership. Thats why I think its very important for us to stand up for a democracy that serves us. In order to do that, we have to start with a voting system that counts in which we the voters can have confidence that our votes are going to be counted, and, number two, that we need to move on from there and create a voting system in which we can vote our values, not our fears, and, number three, we need to open up our debates so that our voters can actually be informed and empowered to make real decisions because real choices were locked out of this election, and thats an incredible disservice to voters.

There was a spike in hate crimes and racially charged incidents in the aftermath of Trumps election. Do you think that that would have increased after Clintons win, if she had won?

Its hard to know because forces or racism and immigrant-bashing had really been released during the election. And would you have seen the frustration of those forces on account of Trumps loss? You know, I dont know. What I know is that its very important that we stand up with principled leadership on behalf of our communities who are at risk - the immigrant, the Muslim, the Latino, the LGBTQ community, women. We need to stand up not only in the streets but also in the halls of power, and we need to ensure that were moving forward. If you look at the policies of Hillary Clinton, unfortunately - well, and Bill Clinton as well that Hillary supported - this opened the floodgates to mass incarceration. It created the militarization of the border and the recruitment of local police into the anti-immigrant policies.

Its been a bipartisan problem that frontline communities are in the target areas and have already been in the target areas, although its more explicit under Donald Trump. It is absolutely unconscionable how both parties have contributed to this very difficult situation that were in right now, and it underscores that we need principled and new leadership going forward.

Will you run for office again?

I describe myself as a "mother on fire" and I am currently practicing political medicine because its the mother of all illnesses. As a medical doctor, thats how I come to be here. My concern when I get up out of bed in the morning is, are my kids going to make it? And I know my kids arent going to make it unless all kids are going to make it because right now were in a situation where theyre not, where theyre looking at this economy, which is a disaster zone for a generation locked in debt that doesnt have the jobs that enable them to even have a place to live, let alone start their own family. We have really a human rights disaster being lived out right now by an entire generation of young people. If you look at the catastrophe of the climate, it is only accelerating under Democrats as well as under Republicans.

I dont have a crystal ball. I just know that Im here and Im committed as long as Im breathing. Mothers fight for their kids, and thats what Im doing.

Your recount has generated more than your campaign did. How did that make you feel?

Oh, I think its great. I think its actually nothing short of miraculous that weve been able to stand up and fill the void of leadership now, and its full speed ahead. Hopefully, well come out of this not only with a vote count that we can trust and reforms to that voting system, but reforms to the election system, so that we dont have to have another election where people are voting against the candidate theyre most afraid of.

Follow Prachi on Twitter.

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Bobby Zarin isnt letting cancer get him down.

The husband of Real Housewives of New York alum Jill Zarin is recovering from his Nov. 29 Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, which he underwent at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas for the treatment of brain tumors he recently developed.

Just days later, he and Jill flew to Miami for the international art fair, Art Basel. Its all about attitude, Bobby tells PEOPLE. Thats how we are getting through this. We are being optimistic and very positive.

Bobby recently learned that his thyroid cancer, which was diagnosed in 2009, had spread to his brain. When he was first diagnosed, he had his thyroid removed and underwent radioactive iodine treatment. Radioactive iodine treatment works on most patients, but in his case, it didnt, says Jill.

But in 2015, Bobbys thyroid cancer spread to his lungs, which he learned during a routine checkup at the Princeton Longevity Center. We were very lucky they caught that, says Jill.

A Terrifying New Diagnosis

This time around, Bobbys doctor, Stephanie Fish, M.D. at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, was able to catch the brain tumors early by relying on a hunch, says Jill. Thats why its so critical to pick the best team from the get-go, because its a doctor who has a hunch that can mean the difference between life and death, says Jill.

Dr. Fish had been monitoring slight changes in Bobbys thyroglobulin levels, which are used to monitor patients with thyroid cancer.

The doctor saw an uptick in the thyroglobulin, say Jill. It was moving up a tiny bit every six months. When she looked at a PET scan of his lungs, she didnt see any growth there. So she said that next she wanted to do an MRI of his brain because if thyroid cancer grows, it can go to the brain.

Jill and Bobby were vacationing in Hawaii in early November when Dr. Fish called and told Bobby that the cancer had spread from his lungs to his brain. She said he had five or six tumors in his brain, says Jill.

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I was hysterically crying and went online and read all kinds of scary things and was completely freaked out, she says. We were shocked that it spread to the brain because that is so rare.

Dr. Fish then ordered Bobby to begin taking steroids and to immediately see a brain surgeon.

Team Bobby

Since Jill and Bobby were closer to Houston than to New York at the moment, they flew to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas to consult with doctors about the brain tumors. They did a spinal tap, a spinal MRI and a brain MRI  all in 24 hours, says Jill.

She and Bobby learned about the cancer center when a friend, philanthropist Andrew Sabin, called her after seeing a story about Bobbys cancer diagnosis in the July 13, 2015, issue of PEOPLE. He introduced them to Dr. Ron DePinho, the centers president, who introduced them to doctors he felt could help Bobby.

After their initial consultation in early November, Jill and Bobby returned to MD Anderson after Thanksgiving, so that Bobby could undergo the Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, in which high-powered beams of radiation are used to precisely target cancerous tumors. Our newest additions to Team Bobby  Mary McAleer, who is in the department of radiation oncology and Dr. Jeffrey Weinberg, who is a neurosurgeon  are amazing, says Jill.

While Bobbys recent diagnosis was difficult to handle, Jill says they remain hopeful about his prognosis. He is doing well and feels great, she says. We are hopeful that we get great news on Jan. 10 when he gets his first post-radiation MRI.

She and Bobby are grateful for the outpouring of support they have received from family and friends  and strangers alike. I cant tell you how much it means to Bobby when he reads comments on social media from fans who care about him, she says.

Most of all, she says she is thankful for the medical professionals who have helped treat Bobbys cancer since the beginning. We are so grateful, she says. They gave him back his life.




Vice President Joe Biden raised the possibility Monday he would seek the presidency in 2020, which, should he win the nomination and election, would make him the oldest U.S. president ever.

Biden, 74, in a brief exchange with reporters on Capitol Hill, was asked if he planned to run for anything again.

Yeah I am, Biden responded. I am going to run in 2020 so uh.

Asked what he was going to run for, Biden said, For president.

He then added he wasnt committing to anything but also not committing not to run. Biden had been expected to retire at the end of the current administration.

Biden toyed with running for president this cycle, but mourning the death of his son, Beau, to cancer left him without enough time to build an organization. He then threw his energy behind Hillary Clinton.

The vice president has said he plans to spend his time now working on finding a cure for cancer. He also has plans to write a book and maybe work on a policy project with a major university.

Biden first ran for president in 1988 and then again in 2008, failing in the primaries.

Biden began his political career on the New Castle County Council, winning his first election by less than 3,000 votes. In 1972, he took on incumbent Sen. J. Caleb Boggs, running a shoe-string campaign managed by his sister and pulling out an upset victory. He would spend the next 36 years in the Senate.

I love this place, Biden said Monday, referring to the Senate, which took up a cancer treatment bill renamed to honor his son.

Even though the results of the 2016 election have yet to be certified, the names of other possible 2020 candidates already have surfaced, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Clinton running mate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who was just elected to the Senate, as well as Sen. Corey Booker, D-N.J., and former Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley, who tried for the 2016 Democratic nomination.

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Kanye West announced at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards that he planned to run in 2020.

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By Dena Aubin

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge has rejected the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's request for a record $450,000 penalty against a former Miami budget director found liable for misleading municipal bond investors, fining the man $15,000 instead.

In an order on Monday, U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga said the SEC has already made an example of former budget director Michael Boudreaux in its first municipal securities fraud case to go to trial.

Boudreaux and the city of Miami were found liable by a jury in September for shifting money among accounts to hide the city's worsening financial condition from investors who bought over $150 million of Miami's bonds in 2009.

Though a jury found Boudreaux acted with severe recklessness, he did not gain financially from his conduct, Altonaga said, adding that the fine the SEC was seeking appeared "overreaching and punitive."

The SEC's 2013 lawsuit alleged the city's "shell game" helped it win favorable ratings for its bonds and exposed bondholders to substantial risk of losses.

Penalties were not part of the jury trial. Miami reached an agreement with the SEC in October to pay $1 million to settle its case.

A $450,000 penalty against Boudreaux would have been the largest ever against a municipal official by the SEC. In a motion in October, the SEC said the penalty was justified because Boudreaux orchestrated the fraud and directed multiple transfers of money over a two-year period.

In a statement on Monday, Boudreaux's lawyer Benedict Kuehne said his client was relieved by the reduced penalty.

SEC spokesman Ryan White declined comment.

In a motion in November, Kuehne had argued that the proposed penalty was "massively unfair." Boudreaux had already been financially ruined by the SEC's case and could no longer find work in municipal government, his lawyer said.

In Monday's order, Altonaga said the SEC failed to present any evidence that Boudreaux's conduct caused investor losses or a substantial risk of losses. It was also unreasonable to expect Boudreaux to individually pay almost half the amount paid by the city itself, she said.

Story continues

The judge also rejected the SEC's request for a permanent injunction barring Boudreaux from future violations of securities laws, saying there is "little to no chance" he will ever work for a municipality again, let alone with securities or bonds.

The case is Securities and Exchange Commission v City of Miami, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 13-22600

(Reporting by Dena Aubin; Editing by Anthony Lin and Tom Brown)
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Prosecutors were not surprised to learn Monday that Justin Ross Harris, recently convicted of murdering his toddler son in Georgia by leaving him to die in a hot car, will spend the rest of his life in prison. As lead prosecutor Chuck Boring tells PEOPLE, its not just a prison sentence that matches the law  its one that matches the nature of the crime.

In this case, it was nothing more than this defendant, his own selfish desires outweighed those of his childs life, says Boring, the senior assistant district attorney in Cobb County, Georgia, where Harris was arrested almost immediately after his son, Cooper, was killed in June 2014.

He chose a way to kill this child that would be agonizing and torturous, and he did it because he thought he had concocted a crime that he could get away with, Boring tells PEOPLE.

Expanding on that, Boring explains that he believes Harris chose to kill Cooper with a hot car because it is a widely known  and typically accidental  manner of death for children.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

I think our main concern was convincing people that somebodys capable of this type of evil, Boring says, drawing a line between an accident that a juror could understand and imagine and what happened to Cooper.

But this is so not that case, Boring says of comparing Harris prosecution to an accidental hot car death.

At trial, he and his team cast Harris as a callous father and sexually deviant husband, undercutting the defenses claims that Coopers death was a tragic accident. Instead, the state argued, evidence showed Harris visited online communities about the child-free lifestyle and people who die, searched strange phrases on Google such as how to survive in prison and even researched the deadly effects of being in a hot car.

Story continues

 Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenet Ramsey and more.

Further, prosecutors claimed that Harris sexted with multiple women, including on the day Cooper died, and had visited prostitutes  behavior the defense dismissed as irrelevant to a possible motive for murder.

He failed.  He is responsible. Only him. Nobody else, Harris defense attorney, Maddox Kilgore, said at trial. And he has acknowledged that from day one. He is responsible. But responsible is not the same thing as criminal. It is not.

Harris ex-wife, who is Coopers mother, also testified on his behalf and has called him a wonderful father. (She defended him following his conviction as well.)

But prosecutors thought the evidence was persuasive. The jury agreed, finding Harris guilty in November on eight felony counts, including malice murder. On Monday, Harris was sentenced to life in prison without parole as well as an additional 32 years.

Kilgore has said Harris will appeal the verdict, though he has not specified the grounds. (Harris did not speak at his sentencing, and Kilgore has not responded to PEOPLEs repeated inquiries.)

Boring says the timeline for any appeal is hard to estimate, but it will be a while. Because the case was heavily litigated, prosecutors know some of the issues that may be raised.

Boring says the intense scrutiny the case was under, from both the public and media, made the state work as hard and as diligently as possible. But he says they had no clue what this was going to become when Harris was first arrested.

This is the first case that Ive ever been a part of like this, in the social media age, Boring says. Its constant.

He says that had its perks, allowing officials to learn about prospective jurors, and even helping them prepare for trial because video of each day was so readily available for review. But the prosecution was draining, too, Boring says  not so much financially as in manpower and emotions.

So far in his career, its been a once-in-a-lifetime trial that isnt likely to be repeated soon.

With a small laugh, he says, Never again.
Justin Ross Harris, who was convicted last month of murder for intentionally leaving his 22-month-old son Cooper in a hot SUV to die in 2014, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Monday, December 5, reports the Associated Press.

Celebrity Health Scares

Judge Mary Stanley Clark sentenced Harris to life behind bars after a jury convicted him of malice and felony murder last month. The 36-year-old also was sentenced to an additional 32 years, to be served consecutively to the life sentence, after also being found guilty of child cruelty and sexual exploitation of a child, which stemmed from his lewd texts to an underage teenager.

Judge Clark told Harris at his sentencing, while referring to his defense claim, that he hoped the case would serve as a warning to other parents about the dangers of leaving children in hot cars: Perhaps not the way you intended, you in fact have accomplished that goal."

PHOTOS: Most Infamous Family Murders in History

She added that the jury "fairly deliberated and discharged their duties and found the defendant guilty of what factually was a horrendous, horrific experience for this 22-month-old child who had been placed in the trust of his father. And in violation and dereliction of duty to that child, if not love of that child, callously walked away and left that child in a hot car, in June, in Georgia, in the summer, to swelter and die," according to a report by ABC News.

Harris' lawyers insisted that he left his son in the SUV by accident in June 2014. However, prosecutors successfully argued during the trial that Harris intentionally killed the toddler in order to escape his unhappy marriage.

Cooper was found dead after Harris left him in the SUV for seven hours and went to his office, on a day when temperatures were in the 80s. Harris told police he forgot to drop the boy off at day care that morning and didnt realize hed left his son in his rear-facing car seat while he went to work, reports CNN. It was not until driving to a movie theater at around 4 p.m. that day that, Harris claimed, he noticed his son was still in the car, and pulled over to a nearby shopping center, where witnesses said he started screaming, according to CNN.

Story continues

However, investigators discovered Harris  who was married to Coopers mother, Leanna, at the time  had been conducting online and real-life affairs with other women, including with a sex worker and underage teenage girl, the AP reported. The couple finalized their divorce in April, but she testified as a witness for her ex-husband during the trial, and believes her sons death was a tragic accident.





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John Kasich

Presidential electors should not peel away from their Electoral College commitments to vote against President-elect Donald Trump, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said in a Tuesday statement.

"I am not a candidate for president and ask that electors not vote for me when they gather later this month," Kasich said in a statement posted to his Twitter account. "Our country had an election and Donald Trump won."

"The country is divided and there are certainly raw emotions on both sides stemming from the election," he continued. "But this approach, as well meaning as it is, will only serve to further divide our nation when unity is what we need. The election is over. Now is the time for all of us to come together as Americans."

The statement came in response to a group of Colorado and Washington state electors that were considering an effort to convince Republican electors to abandon Trump and cast their votes for Kasich.

The group, reported by Politico as the self-proclaimed "Hamilton Electors," are made up of Democrats and see Kasich, a 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, as a leading compromise pick to convince Republican electors.

The group would have to convince 37 Republican electors to join them in order to reach 270 electoral votes, if all Democratic electors were to join in. The group claims to have convinced one elector to abandon Trump so far.

Kasich did not endorse Trump following the Republican primary, but did call to congratulate him following his victory in November.

NOW WATCH: 'That hypocrisy is also real'  Jon Stewart takes liberals to task for calling all Trump supporters racist





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Married actors Kathryn Hahn and Ethan Sandler upgraded their residential circumstances, real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak whispered, with the $2.55 million purchase of a stylishly updated, 1920s Mediterranean villa in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The not-quite-4,100-square-foot residence, discreetly secreted behind a tall hedge on a 0.2-acre corner lot, has four bedrooms and four baths.

A grand, double-height foyer with snazzy, dark-stained, chevron-patterned hardwood floors steps down to a graciously proportioned living room with oversized windows on three walls that flood the room with natural light. The formal dining room connects through to a sleek and expensively outfitted all-white kitchen with a double-wide center island and an adjoining breakfast area set into a rounded bay that overlooks the backyard.

An en suite bedroom on the main floor is perfect for guests or a live-in maid. Two more guest/family bedrooms on the second floor share a vintage-tiled hall bathroom, and the oversized master suite includes what listing details describe as dual sleep chambers, along with a walk-in closet and a remodeled bathroom with a marble-topped, two-sink vanity, jetted tub, and a separate glass-enclosed steam shower. Outdoor recreation and leisure amenities include terra-cotta-tile terraces, a built-in grilling station, a petite swimming pool, a circular spa, and, along the side of the house, in the shade of a couple of mature trees, a bocce court.

Hahn  co-star of the comedy Bad Moms who also plays a tough but sensitive rabbi on the Amazon series Transparent  and her actor/producer husband (who occasionally pops up on Transparent and is listed as a co-executive producer on the sitcom New Girl) previously owned a substantially smaller 1920s Mediterranean in nearby Silver Lake that they bought in late 2004 for $825,000. They sold that earlier this year for a bit more than $1.6 million, well above its not-quite-$1.4-million asking price.

Story continues

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

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ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's energy minister plans to attend the Dec. 10 meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Vienna, he said on Tuesday without committing to any output cuts.

"We are not the biggest oil-producing country outside OPEC, we will see what out partners' position is," minister Kanat Bozumbayev told reporters when asked if Kazakhstan would reduce oil production.

Non-OPEC producers are expected to contribute a combined cut of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd), with the half coming from Russia, the world's top oil producer and the biggest producer outside OPEC.

(Reporting by Raushan Nurshayeva; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; editing by Katya Golubkova)
Prolonged softness in the energy-related markets has severely crippled the growth potential of companies operating in this domain. Over the past six months, premium engineering, procurement, and construction company, KBR, Inc.s KBR shares recorded an average return of 10.5%, underperforming the Zacks categorized Engineering/R&D Services industry average of 14.3%.

KBR has managed to beat estimates twice for the trailing four quarters, boasting an average positive earnings surprise of 3.9%. However, the companys earnings estimates have moved south in the past couple of months. Analysts have become increasingly bearish on the stock, as they have revised the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2016 earnings downward in the past 60 days, from $1.33 to $1.17, a move of 12.0%.

Whats Thwarting Growth?

Reduced capital budget of clients and lower operational expenditure budgets over the past few quarters have largely thwarted the companys growth momentum. Volatile oil and gas markets, with oversupply continuing to strain the prices and spending levels, have marred KBRs projects and orders.

Revenues were down 10.5% year over year to $1,073 million during third-quarter 2016, hit by depressed oil prices. As a matter of fact, over the eight quarters, the company recorded precipitous decline in revenues, largely attributable to macroeconomic woes. In addition to this, foreign currency fluctuations have been impacting the companys backlog levels. Moreover, slower activity on the LNG project in Australia as well as reduced capital expenditure by key clients including Pemex, have been weighing on the companys profits.

About a year ago, the company had three EPC power plants under construction, which is now down to one. In addition, a large LNG project in Australia, which is approaching completion, is likely to hurt the Engineering and Construction segments revenues. Going forward, we expect softness in the energy related markets to affect both Engineering & Construction and Technology & Consulting businesses for the rest of fiscal 2016, thus weighing down on the companys financials.

Story continues

Silver Lining

Despite tough times, we believe that the companys Government Services business will continue to act as a key profit churner for the upcoming quarters, battling some of these headwinds. Government services work, which is mostly low risk, helps in reducing volatility associated with the bottom line. This apart, the companys solid prospects in the hydrocarbon projects are adding to its strength. A healthy balance between hydrocarbon and government projects will enable KBR to offset the softness in Engineering and Construction segment, boosting growth.

Additionally, the companys recently completed acquisitions, namely Wyle Inc. and Honeywell International Inc.s HON technology development and engineering unit  Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc. ("HTSI")  are proving conducive to the growth of the companys Government business. Particularly, the acquisition of HTSI has assisted KBR to expand lifecycle service capabilities, such as cyber security and IT expertise, enabling it to take care of all the steps involved in the life cycle of aerospace and defense programs.

Further, it unlocks opportunities to foray into new services in the aerospace logistics and intelligence domain. These acquisitions contributed $200 million to the Government Services revenues during the fiscal third quarter.

Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

KBR currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).Better-ranked stocks in the industry include Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. AIT and Middleby Corporation MIDD. Both the stocks currently hold a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Applied Industrial Technologies managed to beat estimates thrice over the trailing four quarters and has a positive earnings surprise of 4.9%.

Middleby Corporation beat earnings in each of the trailing four quarters, resulting in an average surprise of 15.9%.

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Ken Burns says PBS new 18-hour documentary film series The Vietnam War is without a doubt the most ambitious project he and his partners ever have undertaken. This may come as a surprise to fans of the Civil War docuseries chronicling the deadliest war in American military history, that made Burns a household name and got him declared, by more than one pundit, the most accomplished documentary maker of his generation.

Even PBS, in todays trailer release, noted The Vietnam War, which it will debut in fall 2017, rounds out a trilogy of Florentine Films exploration of American wars that began with Burns landmark series The Civil War (1990), followed by Burns and Lynn Novicks seven-part series about World War II, The War (2007).

This new project, from Burns and Novick, was six years in the making.

There was no way we could avoid telling this story, Burns emotes in the trailer which, hopefully, he will explain fully at TCA in January.

In todays trailer release, Burns is quoted as saying The Vietnam War was a decade of agony that took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans, and that Not since the Civil War have we as a country been so torn apart  though maybe that quote was written before the presidential election.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex9MdsQzazs&w=620&h=340]

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Brussels (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday said he would try to get Syrian peace talks going again with Russia's help as government forces closed in on rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo.

Moscow launched an air campaign last year to help long-time ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who now appears on the verge of capturing all of Aleppo in what would be a huge blow to the rebel cause.

"We have been trying to find a way to get to the negotiating table ... but Assad has never shown any willingness," Kerry said at a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

"Russia says Assad is ready to come to the table ... and I am in favour of putting that to the test," he said.

Kerry, who has had repeated meetings on Syria with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, said he would have another discussion with him when the two meet later this week.

Even if Aleppo falls, "the war will continue," Kerry said, stressing that there had to be a negotiated settlement.

Talks between the Syrian government and western-backed rebels have made no progress, with both sides accusing each other of bad faith.

Kerry had earlier rejected charges by Lavrov that Washington was stalling talks on a rebel withdrawal from Aleppo in order to buy them time.

Moscow had the impression "a serious discussion with our American partners isn't working out," Lavrov said.

Lavrov on Monday had said Russia and the US would meet in Switzerland on either Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss a proposal put forward by Kerry last week on a complete rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo.

The rebels dismissed any withdrawal, prompting Lavrov to warn that "they will be destroyed" if they stay.

Russia and China on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in Aleppo.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f30064%2fkfccandle

Forget walking into your home to the scent of something baking, how about walking in to the scent of something frying? You know, like chicken?

That's the reality one lucky New Zealand resident enjoys now, thanks to a limited-edition candle released by KFC.

SEE ALSO: Getting paid $500 to review some fried chicken is a pretty tasty offer

Lucky Kiwis were able to enter the contest on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram by following KFC New Zealand's profiles and suggesting merchandise the company should make. There were reportedly more than 15,000 total comments and suggestions on the social media posts.

A photo posted by KFCNZ (@kfcnz) on Dec 1, 2016 at 6:32pm PST

Though such suggestions as popcorn chicken lip balm, KFC toilet freshener and KFC-branded bongs were suggested, Shiz Irani's suggestion of, "KFC stamps...cause the Colonel always delivers," won the much sought-after candle.

The company is still running social media contests for other prizes like hats and artwork, which are unfortunately not scented.

Interestingly, this is not the first time KFC has entered the candle world. In 2015, giftware company Kentucky for Kentucky released a Double Down sandwich scented candle. It seems the world can't get enough of that finger-lickin' fried chicken scent.

BONUS: Watch this cinnamon roll mastermind turn donuts into heavenly pastries
Photo credit: Caswell County Sheriff via The Daily Mail

From Esquire

Ever had to miss your own party? It's not a great feeling-just ask Chris Barker, Imperial Wizard of the North Carolina branch of the Ku Klux Klan. He helped arrange a rally reportedly to cheer Donald Trump's election victory where, according to the illustrious Daily Mail, dozens of KKK members drove through the state giving Nazi salutes and yelling "white power." But Barker, 37, wasn't there to see it, as he was holed up in a jail cell after his arrest in connection with a stabbing at a planning meeting for the event.

According to the victim, 47-year-old Richard Dillon, Barker urged on another KKK member, William Hagen (pictured above), as he attacked Dillon. Hagen allegedly slashed Dillon's face with a knife during a meeting at Barker's home. Barker also allegedly kicked Dillon as he fell to the ground. The victim was then dumped in the lobby of the local sheriff's office early Saturday morning. After a police raid of Barker's home, Hagen was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill; Barker was charged with felony aiding and abetting of the same.

However, the show must go on.

According to the Mail, the rally went ahead but "was marked by chaos and confusion" in the absence of the Imperial Wizard. A KKK spokesman known as the Exalted Cyclops (sticking with the Dungeons and Dragons theme) told a local TV station the rally would take place in and around the town of Pelham. But Barker's wife, Amanda, emerged from her home to explain the event would take place in Roxboro later in the day-and that it would take place in a convoy of vehicles because it was too cold to march.

Photo credit: undefined

"We actually kind of have the same views," she told the Mail of Donald Trump, explaining the event was to celebrate his victory. "A lot of white Americans felt the same way about the wall, immigration, terrorism. Donald Trump is going to do some very good things and turn this country around."

Story continues

Around 3 p.m., things did kick off in Roxboro. Around 30 vehicles flying Confederate Flags and the KKK white cross rolled in and men in black shirts leaned out to yell, "White power!" at Christmas shoppers. But the problems didn't end there.

"We were laughing at them because there weren't very many trucks," said a local sheriff's deputy. "Some looked like they was in those little rental cars you can get for $19."

Mrs. Barker, known as the Grand Kommander, explained an awards ceremony and a cross burning was planned for that evening "if the wind died down." It's unclear if that went through, but Barker and Hagen are most certainly due in Caswell County District Court on Wednesday.

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Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.

Business Insider is currently hosting its annual IGNITION event in New York.

You can watch the event live here, with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget interviewing AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson right now. Here are a couple headlines from the event so far:

President-elect Donald Trump continues to dominate the headlines. Here are the top stories from the past 24 hours:

In other news, Wall Street banks are having a great time in trading.

Chipotle is getting slammed after saying it's nervous about hitting its guidance for the year, and an activist investor sent a brutal letter to turn Buffalo Wild Wings franchisees against management.

Lastly, Business Insider is hiring a paid editorial intern for its finance team.

Here are the top Wall Street headlines at midday

Mark Carney: 'Every technological revolution mercilessly destroys jobs well before the new ones emerge' - Bank of England Governor Mark Carney thinks the jobs market is experiencing "great disruption" due to technology, and believes governments and corporations have a duty to help people manage the change.

Story continues

Crude oil is losing its OPEC rally - Crude-oil prices were lower Tuesday for the first day since OPEC agreed last Wednesday to limit its production.

BILL GROSS: The world's growing debt problem is just like the US prison system - Bill Gross, the Janus bond guru and legendary investor, thinks that America has two imprisonment problems.

Verizon to sell data centers to Equinix for $3.6 billion - Verizon Communications, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, has agreed to sell 29 data centers to Equinix for $3.6 billion.

The Supreme Court just dealt a blow to Wall Streeters accused of insider trading - The US Supreme Court, ruling in an insider trading case for the first time in two decades, on Tuesday upheld a Chicago man's conviction in a decision that could make it easier to prosecute people accused of profiting from confidential information.

GOLDMAN: Here are our biggest fears for 2017 - David Kostin, the chief US equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, thinks there is good news coming in 2017, but investors shouldn't be complacent.

How a misunderstanding led to a former CIA programmer getting the top job at Steve Cohens investment fund - Doug Haynes, president of New York's Point72 Capital Management, didn't have his sights set on a career in the hedge fund business. But that's where he ended up after a call from legendary money manager Steven Cohen in late-2013.

South Korea's president could be forced out of office amidst economic troubles - South Korea's president Park Geun-Hye could soon be out of office amid a corruption and influence-peddling scandal that has been front-and-center for weeks. However, it's unlikely that her exit would immediately smooth things over for Korea's economy.

Europe's best low-cost airline just got the green light to charge full-steam into America - Late Friday, the US Department of Transportation finalized its decision to grant Norwegian Air International approval to operate flights into the US.





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From a Kristen Stewart artsy diptych of a man's day in the life to a desperate con pulling off the perfect crime in so-called "Trump's America," the Sundance Shorts lineup will offer an eclectic group that touches on many of the timely issues already on view with the festival's broader roster.

In total, 68 shorts were selected as part of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and include narrative, animation and documentary work including Stewart's Come Swim and Joe Talbot's American Paradise. Other highlights include Garrett Bradley's doc short Alone, which investigates the layers of mass incarceration and how it shapes the modern black American family, and William Caballero's animated offering Victor & Isolina, visualized through 3D printing and revolving around two elderly Latinos who embark on a resonating he said/she said account of the events that led them to live separately after more than 50 quirky and stressful years together.

This year, the festival will launch The New Climate program, the first time it has ever dedicated programming to a specific theme. Two shorts will screen under that New Climate banner: Esteban Arrangoiz's The Diver and Jack Henry Robbins' Hot Winter: A Film by Dick Pierre. The fest is set to take place in and around Park City, Utah, from Jan. 19-29.

Stewart's Come Swim, which she also wrote, offers an highbrow exploration for the first-time helmer, described as half impressionist and half realist portraits.

"Each year we see more short films from around the country and from more regions around the world, which is exciting as we want to discover new voices to support," Mike Plante, senior programmer for the festival, said Tuesday in a statement. "This year's crop captures the full spectrum of what short films can be: emotional, hilarious, horrifying and touching - sometimes all at once."

Among the shorts the Festival has shown in recent years are World of Tomorrow, Thunder Road, Whiplash and The Tsunami. Whiplash went on to be adapted into a feature that became a Sundance breakout and a best picture Oscar nominee.

Story continues

The Short Film program is presented by YouTube. The complete lineup follows:

U.S. NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS

American Paradise / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Joe Talbot) - A desperate man in Trump's America tries to shift his luck with the perfect crime in this story inspired by true events.

Cecile on the Phone / U.S.A. (Director: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Screenwriters: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Ellen Greenberg) - Overwhelmed by doubt and confusion after her ex-boyfriend's return to New York, Cecile embarks on a series of telephone conversations that serve only to distract her from the one conversation she really needs to have.

Come Swim / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kristen Stewart) - This is a diptych of one man's day, half impressionist and half realist portraits.

Good Crazy / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Rosa Salazar) - A complex chick deals with a vanilla beau, a shitty brunch and a dead coyote all in a Los Angeles day. There's batshit crazy and then there's good crazy - she fits somewhere in between.

Hardware / U.S.A. (Director: Stephen Jacobson, Screenwriters: Ellen Stringer, Stephen Jacobson) - An amateur electronic-drum enthusiast travels to a housewares trade show looking to strike up the perfect business partnership. When things don't go as planned, he finds himself at the mercy of the electronic drumbeat playing in his head.

Hold On / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Christine Turner) - Family bonds are tested when a young man is left to care for his grandmother one morning.

Hot Seat / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Anna Kerrigan) - Teenaged Andrea uses a male stripper to gain the respect and admiration of cool girl Daphne in this exploration of coming-of-age sexuality and teen girls' complex relationships, based on a true story.

I Know You From Somewhere / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Andrew Fitzgerald) - A young woman incurs the wrath of the internet after she inadvertently becomes a viral sensation.

Kaiju Bunraku / U.S.A. (Directors: Lucas Leyva, Jillian Mayer, Screenwriter: Lucas Leyva) - Here's a day in the life of a husband and wife living in a world of giant monsters.

Laps / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Charlotte Wells) - On a routine morning, a woman on a crowded New York City subway is sexually assaulted in plain sight.

LostFound / U.S.A. (Director: Shakti Bhagchandani, Screenwriters: Shakti Bhagchandani, Emre Gulcan) - This story portrays a day in the life of a woman in the Nation of Islam.

Lucia, Before and After / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Anu Valia) - After traveling 200 miles, a young woman waits out Texas' state-mandated 24-hour waiting period before her abortion can proceed.

New Neighbors / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: E.G. Bailey) - How far will a mother go to protect her children?

Night Shift / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Marshall Tyler) - Get a glimpse into a day in the life of a bathroom attendant in a Los Angeles nightclub.

Rubber Heart / U.S.A. (Director: Lizzy Sanford, Screenwriters: Lizzy Sanford, Anna Cordell) - After a painful dry spell, a woman attempts to have a one-night stand.

Shinaab / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Lyle Corbine) - A young Anishinaabe man struggles with his place in the inner city of Minneapolis.

Toru / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Jonathan Minard, Scott Rashap) - An infant's life is transformed by a new technology.

INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS

5 Films About Technology / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Peter Huang) - Take a satirical look at the dumber side of technology.

And so we put goldfish in the pool. / Japan (Director and screenwriter: Makoto Nagahisa) - One summer day, 400 goldfish were found in the swimming pool of a secondary school. This is a story about the four 15-year-old girls who put them there.

And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow's Eye / Chile, U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Francisca Alegria) - Emeteria is visited by the ghost of her patron, Teodoro. She believes he has come to take her to the afterlife - but he has more devastating news.

Dadyaa - The Woodpeckers of Rotha / Nepal, France (Directors and screenwriters: Pooja Gurung, Bibhusan Basnet) - Atimaley and Devi's village is haunted by memories. When a dear friend leaves the village without saying goodbye, the old couple faces a dilemma: keep living with the memories or leave the village for good?

Dawn of the Deaf / U.K. (Director and screenwriter: Rob Savage) - When a strange sound wipes out the hearing population, a small group of deaf people must band together to survive.

Dear Mr. Shakespeare / U.K. (Director: Shola Amoo, Screenwriter: Phoebe Boswell) - An exploration of Shakespeare's intentions when writing Othello explores the play's racial themes in historical and contemporary settings, and draws wider parallels between immigration and blackness in the U.K. today.

The Geneva Convention / France (Director and screenwriter: Benoit Martin) - As Hakim is waiting for the bus after class, he is caught in a vendetta between teenagers. He's not exactly keen to be involved, but can he avoid it?

Heat / Poland (Directors and screenwriters: Agata Trzebuchowska, Mateusz Pacewicz) - A young boy does an unusual favor for a friend, assuming his identity to visit his senile grandmother. The woman takes him for a walk, and tells him about the biggest mystery of her life.

Kao Shi (A Test) / China (Director and screenwriter: Zuxiang Zhao) - In a small-town high school, days before the college entrance exam, teacher Chen Jun finds out that the father of his most promising student has died in a mining accident. Telling him - or not - bears heavy consequences.

MappaMundi / Austria (Director and screenwriter: Bady Minck) - Through the eyes of cosmic cartographers, the viewer takes a voyage through 950 million years of Earth history and 15,000 years of cartography. This accelerated journey visualizes the change in our world - a change unnoticeable in a single lifetime.

Mare Nostrum / France, Syrian Arab Republic (Directors: Rana Kazkaz, Anas Khalaf, Screenwriter: Rana Kazkaz) - On a Mediterranean shore, a Syrian father makes a decision that puts his daughter's life at risk.

Pedro / Portugal (Directors and screenwriters: Andre Santos, Marco Leao) - Pedro gets home at dawn. Before the young boy falls asleep, his lonely mother drags him to the beach.

Slapper / Australia (Director: Luci Schroder, Screenwriters: Luci Schroder, Sam West) - A broke and rebellious teen navigates a suburban wasteland, hustling money for the morning-after pill - before it's too late.

What Tears Us Apart / France (Director and screenwriter: Wei Hu) - A Chinese couple visits the daughter they gave up for adoption 30 years ago. While meeting the French adoptive parents, language barriers become apparent and the birth mother's hidden emotions rise to the surface.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS

Alone / U.S.A. (Director: Garrett Bradley) - This investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern black American family is seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans.

Bayard & Me / U.S.A. (Director: Matt Wolf) - Walter Naegle's boyfriend, Bayard Rustin, was a famous civil rights activist 30 years Walter's senior. In the 1980s, Bayard decided to adopt Walter for legal protection. This love story is about a time when gay marriage was inconceivable.

Close Ties / Poland (Director: Zofia Kowalewska) - Barbara and Zdzislaw will soon celebrate their 45th anniversary - despite their constant bickering, and the fact that Zdzislaw spent eight of those years living with another woman. This is a portrait of a relationship that, somewhat inexplicably, perseveres.

Deer Squad: The Movie / U.S.A. (Directors: Pipus Larsen, Kenneth Gug, Scott J. Ross) - Kelvin Pena, a charismatic 17-year-old from rural Pennsylvania, shares his story of going viral after befriending a group of wild deer in his backyard.

The Diver / Mexico (Director: Esteban Arrangoiz) - Julio Cesar Cu Camara is the chief diver in the Mexico City sewer system. His job is to repair pumps and dislodge garbage that flows into the gutters to maintain the circulation of sewage waters. THE NEW CLIMATE

Fish Story / U.K. (Director: Charlie Lyne) - Behind a fishy tale lies this search for the truth.

Hairat / Ethiopia (Director: Jessica Beshir) - This is a visual and lyrical exploration of the nightly ritual between a man in Eastern Ethiopia and his feral companions.

Legal Smuggling With Christine Choy / U.S.A. (Director: Lewie Kloster) - Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Christine Choy undergoes an adventure of wild proportions when she accidentally smuggles cigarettes.

My Father's Tools / Canada (Director: Heather Condo) - Stephen continues producing traditional baskets to honor his father and thus finds peace in his studio as he connects with the man who taught him the craft.

Project X / U.S.A. (Directors: Laura Poitras, Henrik Moltke) - A top secret handbook takes viewers on an undercover journey to the site of a hidden partnership. Based on NSA documents, this film reveals the inner workings of a windowless skyscraper in Manhattan.

The Rabbit Hunt / U.S.A. (Director: Patrick Bresnan) - On the weekends during the harvest season, 17-year-old Chris and his family hunt rabbits in the sugarcane fields of the Florida Everglades.

Ten Meter Tower / Sweden (Directors: Maximilien Van Aertryck, Axel Danielson) - People who have never been up a 10-meter diving tower must choose whether to jump or climb down in this entertaining study of people in a vulnerable position.

Tough / U.K. (Director: Jennifer Zheng) - New light is shed on childhood cultural misunderstandings when a Chinese mother and her British-born daughter speak as adults for the first time. Some things can only be understood with maturity.

Visions of an Island / U.S.A. (Director: Sky Hopinka) - Indigenous and foreign presences coexist on an Alaskan island in the center of the Bering Sea. THE NEW CLIMATE

Waiting for Hassana / Nigeria (Director: Ifunanya Maduka) - In 2014, 276 teenage girls came together for exams in Chibok, Nigeria - by dawn, nearly all had disappeared, and their school was burned to the ground. Jessica, an escapee, shares her haunting account of a friendship violently interrupted by Boko Haram.

White Riot: London / U.K. (Director: Rubika Shah) - In 1977, immigration divides Britain. What happens when a punk fanzine challenges the status quo?

MIDNIGHT SHORT FILMS

Do No Harm / New Zealand (Director and screenwriter: Roseanne Liang) - 3:00 a.m., 1980s Hongjing: In an aging private hospital, a single-minded surgeon is forced to break her physician's oath when violent gangsters storm in to stop a crucial operation.

F - ing Bunnies / Finland (Director: Teemu Niukkanen, Screenwriters: Antti Toivonen, Teemu Niukkanen) - Raimo's comfortable, middle-class bubble is burst when a Satan-worshipping sex cult moves in next door.

Hot Winter: A Film by Dick Pierre / U.S.A. (Director: Jack Henry Robbins, Screenwriters: Jack Henry Robbins, Nunzio Randazzo) - One of the first films in American cinema to address climate change, Hot Winter: A Film by Dick Pierre was also a hardcore porno. All sex scenes have been removed as to not distract from the conscious message. THE NEW CLIMATE

A Nearly Perfect Blue Sky (Un ciel bleu presque parfait) / France (Director and screenwriter: Quarxx) - You might think that Simon lives a monotonous life, but you would be wrong - contrary to appearances, he doesn't live alone among the ruins of an old farm. Between kidnapper and guardian angel, he never takes his eyes off his roommate.

Pussy / Poland (Director and screenwriter: Renata Gasiorowska) - Alone at home one evening, a young girl decides to have a solo pleasure session - but not everything goes according to plan.

The Robbery / U.S.A. (Director: Jim Cummings, Screenwriters: Jim Cummings, Dustin Hahn) - Crystal robs a liquor store - it goes pretty OK.

Summer's Puke Is Winter's Delight / Japan (Director and screenwriter: Sawako Kabuki) - Painful events become memories over time. Still, we vomit and eat again. Life is eco.

ANIMATED SHORT FILMS

The Bald Future / France (Director and screenwriter: Paul Cabon) - Being a bald man sucks. Knowing you'll become one is worse.

Black Holes / U.S.A., France (Directors and screenwriters: David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas) - Dave is about to lead the first mission to Mars when he's teamed up with a sentient melon, who claims to be the reincarnation of a fashion designer, upstaging his big moment and driving him to the brink of madness.

Broken - The Women's Prison at Hoheneck / Germany (Directors: Volker Schlecht, Alexander Lahl, Screenwriters: Alexander Lahl, Max Monch) - This animated documentary about Hoheneck, the main women's prison in former East Germany, is based on original interviews with former inmates. It's a film about political imprisonment, forced labor and enormous profits on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Drawn & Recorded: Teen Spirit / U.S.A. (Director: Drew Christie, Screenwriters: Drew Christie, Bill Flanagan) - This is the story behind one of the most iconic songs ever written, animated in the style of a pop-up book.

How's Your Prostate? / France (Directors: Jeanne Paturle, Cecile Rousset, Screenwriters: Jeanne Paturle, Cecile Rousset, Cecile Mille) - One friend tells the other about the very strange time when, beside a swimming pool, she learned about her father's prostate, his erectile function and his nighttime fantasies.

It's a Date / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Zachary Zezima) - This film explores miscommunication, perceptions and vulnerability in the modern world. Everyone is an alien at first.

Jonas and the Sea / Netherlands (Director: Marlies Van der Wel, Screenwriters: Ruben Picavet, Marlies Van der Wel) - Jonas has dreamed of living in the sea all his life, but it's impossible. Or is it?

The Laughing Spider / Japan (Director: Keiichi Tanaami) - The early childhood memory of aerial attacks leaves a lasting impression, with strong stimulus and disquiet.

Love / France, Hungary (Director and screenwriter: Reka Bucsi) - Abstract haiku-like situations reveal the changing atmosphere on one planet caused by a meteoric impact in a distant solar system. Inhabitants on this pulsing planet become one with each other, in various ways, in this three-chapter exploration of affection.

Nighthawk / Slovenia, Croatia (Director: Spela Cadez, Screenwriters: Gregor Zorc, Spela Cadez) - Attempting to remove an unresponsive badger from a dark road, a police patrol soon realizes that the animal is not dead but rather dead drunk. Things take an even stranger turn when the creature wakes up.

Nutag - Homeland / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Alisi Telengut) - This hand-painted visual poem explores the ideas of diaspora, homeland and the mass deportations of the Kalmyk people during World War II.

Summer Camp Island / U.S.A., South Korea (Director and screenwriter: Julia Pott) - Oscar and his best friend, Hedgehog, just got dropped off at summer camp. Once the parents leave the island, the strangeness lurking beneath the surface is revealed - aliens exist, horses become unicorns and there are monsters under the bed.

Trumpet Man / Hong Kong (Director and screenwriter: Emily Wong) - A turntable springs out a woman named Avocado; her instinct creates a man called Soul. Passion swings both, and an uncertain madness strikes Soul heavily. Seeds of passion breed conflict among five men, eventually leading Soul to a deeper understanding of life.

Victor & Isolina / U.S.A. (Director: William Caballero) - Creatively visualized through 3D printing, two elderly Latinos embark on a resonating he said/she said account of the events that led them to live separately after more than 50 quirky and stressful years together.
Starting her DreamWorks tenure as head of story, Kung Fu Panda 3 director Jennifer Yuh Nelson has had a varied career that is intimately tied to that particular franchise. Working on all three Kung Fu Panda Films, Nelson directed a dream sequence in the original, before assuming directing responsibilities for the next two features. Working on KFP3 alongside Alessandro Carloni, Nelson continued to believe in untapped story and world building potential within panda Pos elaborate universe. Below, Nelson discusses her career evolution and the Chinese audiences response to the franchise.

What was it that compelled you to return for a third Panda installment?

Ive always loved the Kung Fu Panda idea. When I first heard about it, I was head of story at DreamWorks and I had heard the title of itthat title, alone, made me so excited. I actually said, I dont care what Im doing on this. I just want to work on this movie, because I want to see it live. Its been a labor of love for all of us for 12 years; its been very much the same core crew of people that have made all three movies. We keep coming back to it because its something that we love. We love the characters, we love the world, and we just wanted to tell more about them.

You had segued into directing after directing a dream sequence in the original?

Yeah. The opening dream sequence, which was 2D animation. It was fun and stylized, and based on Manga and video games. We just wanted to do some sort of fan-crazy vision of what everybody wished they could do.

What was the thought process in finding new visual ideas and surprises for the third film?

The world has always been huge, much bigger than we could ever fit into each film. The idea on the third one was, Po has always been the one lone panda in the Valley of Peace. We put in that little teaser at the end of the second film, not to set up the third film, but when we went to visit the panda reserve in China, in Chengdu, we just saw how cute they were. Everybody loved them so much, and we couldnt imagine leaving people at the end of the second film, that all of the pandas were gone because of the storyline. It was just a reassurance. We cant leave people thinking that all of the pandas are gone. People were asking, Ooh, is he going to meet his panda father? That big homecoming and identity search seemed like a great fruition to Pos journey.

Story continues

You went through a thorough research process with this film, then?

Definitely. We always wanted to try to make something authentic. We dont want to make something that seemed like, These people are vaguely interested. No, were hardcore fans. The first time, we had to research it from afar, through internet searches, book searches. The crew was amazing at how close they got it to the point that we had a very surprising response from the Chinese audience. They embraced it so much. Thats why in the second one, we went to Chinato actually hold real pandas, which was quite an honor. We wandered all over China. The third one, because its a co-production, we were able to use a lot of the artists at Oriental DreamWorks and the expertise of people in Shanghai to give it an even bigger push.

What kind of world building was involved, going into the third film?

Its funny because Kai, the bad guy in the third film, was actually designed during the first film. The original dream sequence that Po had, he was battling a four-armed yak. So we always had the idea of this supernatural villain that was really crazy, somebody that Po could be able to fight against. Its always been important to put the hero on the back foot so that he has to push further in order to grow into an even greater level.

What goes into designing the films running action sequences?

It always starts with, What is the emotional pivot of these action scenes? Then, What is the coolest set piece we could come up with? We have a crazy bunch of folks working on it, to make it feel like a choreographed dance. Even though its extreme action, its always got something that will keep it from being super scary. Its got grit and stakes, but isnt super scary for the little kids.

Has the idea of integrating certain 2D sequences always been part of the fabric of this franchise?

When we first started, the idea of a 2D sequence was something that one of the directors came up with, because nobody was doing 2D animation anymore in the big studios. Its a gorgeous art form. You can do things in it that you just cant do in CGI, or its certainly harder to do in CGI. We wanted to do it as a tribute for This is whats cool. And we showed it that way. In the second film, we went for traditional Chinese shadow puppets. That gives a very different look. It was like 3D, but not. Also, we have the traditional 2D of Pos memories of his mom. That was, again, something else, which is an emotional, graphic look.

The third film, it was,  How do we make something look super ancient and historical, but super cool? Originally, Tai Lungs backstory was done as a living scroll. We tried to do this whole idea of living watercolor, and how do we make this calligraphy come to life? We went to China, actually, and saw this gigantic scroll. I believe its called, The River Walk. It was gorgeous. We thought, We need to do that and make it live. Technology has moved on and the artistry, people are able to push things even more. We managed to pull it off this time.

In your opinion, what is the reasoning behind the lack of 2D animation coming from the studios these days?

I think mainly its audience taste. Its a big pendulum where people are always excited about the new things. At the time of the first movie, when everything was transforming over to CGI, everyone was all excited about CGI and they became used to seeing it. 2D is such an amazing art form, and it cant be lost. It got to the point where a big, big studio production wouldnt do the 2D format. Strangely, if you dont do it, you dont have the pipeline to do it. It becomes actually harder to do.

The editing in the film is very strikingthe ways in which you use split-screen techniques, for example.

Clare [De Chenu] has been the editor on all three movies, and she is amazing. She has an incredible sense of rhythm and musical cutting style to her work. Shes also very calm and very smart, and a relaxed person. A lot of the idea of making it feel sort of percussive and set to the music is through what she brings to it.

What was your most challenging scene, this go-round?

I think one of the biggest challenges was trying to get the dragon right. This is a little bit of a spoiler but the final image of the dragon warrior was very difficult because you have to make it clear enough that you could tell its a dragon, but also make it look like its made out of moving fire, and make it act. It would be much simpler if we just did an effect and then, you know, its a cool effect. Because its Po, its a reflection of his personality, it had to be pushed, in order for it to be squashed and stretched, and do all of this stuff, in addition to being super cool. That took a lot.

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Photo credit: Kylie Jenner/Terry Richardson

From Cosmopolitan

Queen of merch Kylie Jenner has added yet another item to her latest wave of Kylie-branded items that will sell out faster than you can click refresh - a 2017 calendar shot by Terry Richardson. Kylie announced the news via Instagram on Sunday night, and shared the cover of the calendar (above) as well as the back cover, which features her reclining in a swimsuit with a python.

On Snapchat, Kylie also shared a preview of the April photo but declined to show any other months because she wanted to keep the rest of it a surprise. In that one, Kylie is wearing sparkly fishnets, pigtails, and a shirt that says, Please Insert Money while $100 bills hover around her head. Kylie describes this photo as so fucking bomb."



The calendar will be available in Kylies new online shop Dec. 10, and in her pop-up shop at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park, California. Set your calendar alerts now and/or figure out if you know anybody in Canoga Park.

Follow Eliza on Twitter.



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The FBI and Los Angeles law enforcement agencies held a news conference this evening to announce they will be ramping up security for the citys Metro rail system Tuesday after an anonymous tipster warned that the Metro Red Line station nearest NBCUniversals sprawling Universal Studios Hollywood complex would be attacked.

Officials said the threat was considered specific and imminent, and decided to make it public because they had little time to vet the threat as they do others. They said to expect an increased security presence of uniformed LAPD and LA County Sheriffs officers at stations and on trains, as well as bomb-sniffing dogs. Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said undercover operations would be ongoing throughout the day.

The FBI said the tip came from its international partners but that it was still being determined if the threat was credible or whether it is a hoax.

We are asking the public to take the same regular precautions you normally take. Remain calm but vigilant. We will have increased presence. pic.twitter.com/ANEiayW6Df  Jim McDonnell (@LACoSheriff) December 6, 2016

Mayor Garcetti will be riding the @metrolosangeles Red Line tomorrow morning. LA stands together. pic.twitter.com/f208Ow0kdz  Mayor of Los Angeles (@MayorOfLA) December 6, 2016

Universal City is home to the theme park, which now includes the holiday-themed Grinchmas installation as well as the new Wizarding World Of Harry Potter which opened in April. The 391-acre area parcel also includes Universal Studios, Universal CityWalk and the West Coast offices of NBCUni.

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Tripoli (AFP) - Forces loyal to Libya's unity government said Tuesday they were hunting down the last jihadists in the city of Sirte after the Islamic State group's ouster from its former bastion.

The loyalists said their soldiers were "chasing the last jihadists hiding in fewer than 10 houses" in the seafront district of Al-Giza al-Bahriya, the last to fall in the almost seven-month-long battle.

They also "managed to rescue a group of women and children that the defeated gangs of Daesh (IS) were using as human shields", the force backing the Government of National Accord (GNA) said on its Facebook page.

The pro-GNA force announced its full control of Sirte on Monday, in a major blow to the jihadists, and that dozens of IS fighters had surrendered.

Sirte's fall comes as IS also faces a string of military setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

Thirteen bodies of IS fighters were found Tuesday in Al-Giza al-Bahriya's streets, the pro-GNA force said.

The battle for the city, which was the last significant territory held by IS in Libya, cost the lives of nearly 700 loyalist troops and an unknown number of IS fighters.

"Today they helped many women and over 20 children, mostly infants and toddlers, who came out terrified and in dire need of medical and post-traumatic assistance", it said.

Libyan television stations have since Monday been broadcasting footage of women in black and small children, their hair covered with dust, emerging from Sirte homes, and of soldiers chanting to celebrate a hard-fought victory.

"The liberation of Sirte... is an historic day for Libya that must be celebrated across the nation," a GNA vice premier, Moussa el-Koni, wrote on Twitter.

- 'Rid of those monsters' -

He said the Mediterranean city, which IS had seized in June 2015, was "in the centre and capable of linking" the country which is politically divided between east and west.

But for inhabitants of Sirte, the home town of Moamer Kadhafi which was subsequently neglected in the aftermath of the 2011 revolt which ousted the longtime dictator, the outlook remains gloomy.

Story continues

"I used to live in Al-Giza al-Bahriya. No doubt my home has been destroyed," said Abdessalam al-Sirtawi, who took refuge in Tripoli and has been there with his family for several months.

"I don't know if (Sirte) will find the means to recover... But the important thing is that we've got rid of those monsters," he told AFP.

Loyalist forces launched the offensive against Sirte on May 12, quickly seizing large parts of the city and cornering the jihadists.

But IS put up fierce resistance with suicide car bombings, snipers and improvised explosive devices.

The offensive in Sirte, 450 kilometres (280 miles) east of Tripoli, has been backed since August by a US bombing campaign.

On the political front, the city's capture boosts the authority of the UN-backed GNA, which was set up in Tripoli in March but whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration in eastern Libya.

The country descended into chaos following the NATO-backed ousting of Kadhafi, with rival administrations emerging and well-armed militias vying for control of its vast oil wealth.

The infighting and lawlessness allowed extremist groups such as IS to seize several coastal regions, giving the jihadists a toehold on Europe's doorstep.

The fall of Sirte comes as IS also faces a series of military defeats in Syria and Iraq.
Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci is speaking out amid the recent backlash over a controversial rape scene in the 1973 film.

In a recently resurfaced interview at La Cinematheque Francaise in 2013, the director admitted that he and Marlon Brando came up with the idea for using butter as a lubricant for the rape scene that day  but chose not to tell the actress, Maria Schneider, about that element before shooting it.

The interview, which resurfaced online this weekend, sparked outraged, with celebrities like Jessica Chastain expressing disgust that the scene was sprung on the 19-year-old actress without her consent. I feel sick, the actress tweeted.

In a statement issued in Italian on Monday and reported by Variety, Bertolucci clarified his comments, saying, I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about Last Tango in Paris around the world.

RELATED: Last Tango in Paris Director Admits Rape Scene Wasnt Consensual

Several years ago at the Cinematheque Francaise someone asked me for details on the famous butter scene,  he continued. I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use . That is where the misunderstanding lies.

He added, Somebody thought, and thinks, that Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. That is false! Bertolucci explained, Maria knew everything because she had read the script, where it was all described. The only novelty was the idea of the butter. And that, as I learned many years later, offended Maria. Not the violence that she is subjected to in the scene, which was written in the screenplay.

Before her death in 2011, Schneider told the Daily Mail of the scene, 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 apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take.

According to Variety, at the time of her death, Bertolucci told Italian news agency ANSA, Her death came too soon, before I could tenderly hug her again, tell her that I felt close to her like the first day, and at least once, say I was sorry.




In 51 drug busts conducted by Philippine police that involved shooting, nearly every suspect was killed.

Thats according to an investigation conducted by Reuters, which found that of 103 drug suspects 100 were shot dead and just three injured  a 97% kill rate. Of the three who werent killed, two had played dead.

The figure powerfully undermines the official explanation that police open fire in self-defense and far exceeds the ratio of police killings to injuries in other jurisdictions  even in those whose police have been accused of perpetrating extrajudicial killings. In Rio de Janeiro, for example, police injured one person for every five people they killed between 2013 and 2015, according to Human Rights Watch figures cited by Reuters.

In the incidents examined by Reuters, police killed 33 people for every person injured.

The Philippine police meanwhile say that only 17 officers have died in antidrug operations since July 1. Thats one officer for every 118 suspects killed  far fewer than in Brazil, South Africa or the U.S.

More than 5,800 people have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte began his war on drugs five months ago. Of those deaths, more than 2,000 occurred during what were described as legitimate police operations.

However, Jun Nalangan, a special investigator at the government-funded Philippine Commission on Human Rights, told Reuters that there is no such thing.

He said: Instead of drug bust operations, they are conducting extrajudicial killings.

Read the full Reuters report here.
alphabet X project wing

The future is coming in the form of a Domino's pizza delivered by drone.

That's if Google parent company Alphabet has something to do with it, anyway: The tech giant wants to build an online marketplace for $6 drone deliveries it will dub "Wing Marketplace."

The company has reportedly met with Domino's Pizza, Whole Foods, and several other fast food chains and restaurants to try to get the program off the ground. Talks with Starbucks apparently failed because Google wanted too much control over the user experience.

That's according to The Wall Street Journal's Jack Nicas, who wrote a detailed explainer of the trials and tribulations of Alphabet's adventures in the world of drones.

Alphabet's moonshot factory, known simply as X, has been dabbling in drones for years, trying to get Project Wing, a drone delivery program, off the ground. Things haven't gone very well, as Nicas explains in his piece.

While Project Wing successfully delivered Chipotle burritos to students on Virginia Tech's campus in September, the project has gone through several iterations and several leaders. Competition is heating up from the likes of Amazon, and even Astro Teller, head of X, described the moonshot factory as "messy."

But according to The Journal, X has no plans to shut down the project, and remains committed to growing Wing.

Google declined to comment on the report.

For more on the project and the challenges Alphabet has faced in making drone deliveries a reality, head over to The Journal's website.

NOW WATCH: Domino's will be delivering pizza using drones by the end of the year





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By Greg Roumeliotis

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - More than 20 U.S. Congress members wrote to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Monday asking for the acquisition of U.S. chip maker Lattice Semiconductor Corp by a fund with ties to China's government to be blocked over security concerns.

The letter follows a Reuters report last week that revealed that Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, the buyout fund that agreed to acquire Lattice for $1.3 billion, is funded partly by cash originating from China's central government and has indirect links to its space program.

In their letter, the 22 lawmakers wrote that the deal could disrupt the U.S. military supply chain and possibly lead to a reliance on foreign-sourced technologies for many critical U.S. Defense Department programs.

They also pointed to a warning last month by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker that the United Stated will not accept China's "$150 billion industrial policy designed to appropriate this industry."

"Anything other than a rejection of the acquisition of Lattice by this People's Republic of China-front entity would seem to undermine Secretary Pritzker's public commitment," the lawmakers' letter stated.

The members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, wrote to Lew in his capacity as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government panel that scrutinizes the acquisitions of companies by foreign firms on national security grounds.

Representatives for CFIUS and Canyon Bridge did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lattice declined to comment.

Portland, Oregon-based Lattice makes programmable chips known as "field programmable gate arrays" that allow companies to put their own software on silicon chips for different uses. It does not sell chips to the U.S. military, but its two biggest rivals - Xilinx Inc and Intel Corp's Altera - make chips that are used in military technology.

China has been working to develop its space program for military, commercial and scientific purposes. As a result, the United States has been wary of China's motives in semiconductor deals, and this skepticism is expected to grow after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, which has already taunted China on issues ranging from trade to relations with Taiwan, is inaugurated next month.

In their letter, the lawmakers called on CFIUS to act as decisively as it did in the case of German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron SE. Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama upheld a recommendation by CFIUS to block Aixtron's 670 million euro ($717 million) sale to Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund over national security concerns.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in Washington; Additional reporting by Liana B. Baker and Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Over the course of the last several months, Atlantic staffers spoke to more than 100 American workers for a reporting series called Inside Jobs. At its inception the project was an attempt to humanize some of the data reflected in the Labor Departments monthly jobs report. Below, the projects leaders, Adrienne Green and Bourree Lam, discuss their experiences talking to dozens of American workers about their jobs and lives.

Bourree Lam: I cover the jobs report every month. The numbers in these reports, produced by thousands of people, are scrutinized closely by economists and policy makers. The idea of somehow humanizing the broader economic picture of America was a huge motivating factor for this project. We had done interviews with people who had kind of oddball jobs in the pastfor example, last year I had interviewed a retired hostage negotiator about his job and advice he had for things like salary negotiations. As fun as that was, at some point we started thinking not about unusual jobs but about those that are so common that they dont often make the news. We wanted to talk to Americans from different sectors of the economy, from every state, as well as from different demographic and educational backgrounds. To me, this meant that we could go beyond those big macro numbers, which can seem abstract, and tell the story of the American economy one worker at a time.

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Adrienne Green: At first, so much of my aspiration for this project was to hear from people affected by the realities that business writers so often cover: what its like to be a minority in a workplace, or the challenges of working parenthood, or the struggle to remain relevant as an industry changes. And we succeeded in finding those types of storiesfor example, the three female lawyers who started their own firm, or the coal miner who is adapting to the focus on clean energy. The ones that most stuck with me most were the people in the jobs many consider mundane, such as the janitor who so acutely equated peoples respect for his job with their ability to throw away their own trash, or workers outside of the traditional economy, such as the stay-at-home mother who struggled to find her place in a feminist movement that emphasizes womens professional achievements.

I was impressed with peoples candor about their struggles, how their occupations were (or were not) integral to their sense of self-worth, and the ease with which they could identify what would make their job better: a better wage, more people around that looked like them, or more time to invest in their lives outside of work altogether.

Lam: The interview with Mohamed Zaker, the janitor at Harvard, has come to my mind every single time Ive thrown something away since thenand I definitely havent left something on the ground for a janitor to deal with. I think one part of what I really appreciate about this series is the way the interviewees really made me reflect about the way my behavior directly affects other people. That came from them explaining what they actually do, and also from the many comments people made about how easily common decency can be achieved. I worry that we dont think enough about the people around us, perhaps because we ourselves sometimes feel ignored.

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It doesnt take a poll to tell you (although heres one) that for most Americans, a job or career gives a sense of identity and work can be deeply personal. In Asia, where I started my career, a job was often just a job. My relatives would say to me, Dont take things so personally at workits just a job. But in these interviews, I found that people just accepted that their work and their identity were closely intertwined. One dimension of this that was fascinating to me was that for Americans for whom faith or family was very important, those things shaped how they saw themselves as workers, and whether they judged themselves as a good person or not.

Another thing we discovered through these conversations is how very much alive professional associations are in American working life across many professions. The people involved are really excited about having peers to talk to and grow with, candid about their workplace and their career goals, and genuinely interested in being part of a work community outside of the office. Theres an aspect of self-actualization as well: Time and again, we heard interviewees tell us that their job wasnt for everyone, but it was for them. For me, that tied together why so many Americans are involved in professional organizations. Its a feeling of us outside of family, faith, and ones own workplace.

Green: Work is an organizing principle of American life. It dictates what most people do for a majority of their waking hours, their position within the societal hierarchy, and the amount of comfort they can provide for themselves and their dependents. While this is a general truth for American society at large, many of the interviewees revealed a more nuanced version of the balance between their work selves and their real selves. For some, their actual lives began where their work ended, for others their work was an all-consuming extension of their being (some called businesses and projects their babies). Others saw their communities as an extension of their working identities, such as Idahoans blue-collar mentality, or North Dakotans self-proclaimed legendary work ethic.

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I think it is easy to expect that people have lofty motivations for their work, like helping others or contributing to the greater good. But a lot of people were simply trying to put food on the table for their families or make enough money to pursue passions in what they consider their real lives. Im someone who is constantly concentrated on her professional aspirations, and the greatest lesson I took from this project is that its okay for work to only be a part of what makes a person.

One interview that I continue to come back to is one with Jeni Strand, a human-resources manager. During our interview, she said, Were getting more and more understanding about the fact that we're employing a whole being. We're employing their families, their history, what's happening in their life, and we better get really good at accepting that nobody just leaves everything else at the door. Whether they articulated it explicitly or not, so many of the stories about how folks navigated the workplace were tied to how they identified compared to those around them. Their experiences as men or women, or Black or Latinx, or LGBT or straight, or any combination of various identities impacted the way that others perceived them at work and how they perceived themselvesfor better many times, for worse at others. Of the 100 or so interviews, no one left themselves at the door, and thats what made this project so interesting to me.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
After a fire ripped through the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, California, and claimed 36 lives, the question lingers: What could have been done to prevent such a tragedy?

As the investigation into the cause of the fire  one of the deadliest structure fires in the U.S. in the past decade  continues, the buildings operator and master tenant, Derick Ion Almena, apologized for the tragedy in an emotional interview  but denied he had made it unsafe or shirked safety codes.

While tenants and neighbors claim that Almena illegally carved the building into living and studio spaces for artists, investigators declined to tell the Associated Press whether they believe Almena or the buildings owner, Chor N. Ng, bear any responsibility for the deaths.

The answer may turn out to be that both bear responsibility, Eustace de Saint Phalle, a San Francisco-based attorney for the firm Rains Lucia Stern tells PEOPLE.

It could be both, de Saint Phalle says of the responsible party. The property owner has certain responsibilities with regard to maintaining and inspecting their property and the person who is the property manager or master tenant also has individual responsibilities related to the maintenance and operation of a property consistent with its zoning.

The Ghost Ship warehouse was not permitted for residential use and its owner was under investigation for an illegal interior building structure, according to city records reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News. However, when inspectors visited the building on November 17, they couldnt gain access.

What I dont understand is why werent they able to gain access, and if that was the case, why didnt they stay there until they could? said Dan Vega, an Oakley mechanic whose 22-year-old brother Alex Vega is still missing, told the newspaper. They should have locked it up.

I dont think its fair that my brother had to lose his life because the city didnt know what to do.

Firefighters who battled the deadly blaze reported that its victims were likely trapped in the warehouse visitors said was full of wood and antiques like a tinderbox couldnt access a makeshift, one-way stairwell made of wooden pallets that connected the first and second floors, according to the East Bay Express.

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District attorney Nancy OMalley said that the ruins of the warehouse are a potential crime scene, at a Monday afternoon press conference, but added that, its too premature to know where the investigation will lead us.

Many have asked us what kind of criminal charges are available to us, OMalley said, according to The Guardian. The question is whether or not the range of charges could be murder all the way to involuntary manslaughter, and until we know what the evidence shows us.

If criminal charges are brought, victims families and survivors may receive financial restitution. De Saint Phalle says there is also potential for civil cases to be brought against the buildings owner, Almena and anyone who may have done work on the building.

Civil actions would look to the individuals who would be responsible for having created the condition that led to the fire and tragedy that happened there, he says.

He adds that after a grieving period, victims families may choose to bring civil lawsuits and pursue new legislation that could prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future. De Saint Phalle is currently involved in lawsuits and legislative efforts on behalf of the families of the victims of the Berkeley balcony collapse that killed six students and left seven injured in 2015.

In the Berkeley balcony collapse cases many of the families wanted to try to push for changes to legislation which is an ongoing process in the state of California, de Saint Phalle says. In this case, there may be an interest in trying to look at the building codes.

Many have blamed the Bay Areas housing crisis for forcing lower-income individuals into illegal and unsafe living spaces like the Ghost Ship. Schaaf said she has ordered an independent analysis of the citys handling of the building and others like it while. For now, de Saint Phalle urged building owners to ensure their spaces are up to code.

Sprinklers, smoke alarms and multiple exits are needed so people have some way of escaping, he says. Building codes were put in place to prevent tragedies like this.

While investigations are ongoing, Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf said the citys priority remains identifying victims and notifying their families. A statement from the city of Oakland said 33 of the 36 victims have been tentatively identified. The victims included musicians, artists and university students ranging in age from 17-35.




Apples Tim Cook and FBI director James Comey

In the past year, one Apple (AAPL) news story proved more memorable than the latest version of the iPhone. In February, the tech giant took a public stand against the FBIs request that it unlock a gunmans iPhone, and a weeks-long standoff ensued.

While the FBI eventually figured out how to access the phone without Apples help, its worth revisiting its fight against Apple. Other privacy disputes between the FBI and tech giants that guard your personal data and devices may very well play out in 2017 and beyond.

Moreover, on Jan. 20, the US will inaugurate a new president who called for a boycott of Apple products after it refused to help the FBI unlock the phone. Donald Trump, and his attorney general pick, Jeff Sessions, may end up valuing national security concerns over privacy, Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf told Yahoo Finance.

Even if all I cared about was security, its not obvious to me here that privacy is the enemy of security, said Dorf, who teaches Constitutional law, among other subjects. But I fear that the Trump/Sessions administration will simply view this through a conventional law and order lens and regard assertions of privacy as simply impeding security.

Of course, Apple also accused the FBI under the Obama administration of threatening the security of its customers data.

The dispute became public in February with a judges order mandating that Apple help the FBI unlock a phone used by a perpetrator of a mass shooting last year. Apple refused.

An unprecedented step

In December 2015, 14 people were killed in a shooting at a state-run facility in San Bernardino, Calif., which injured 22 others. Treating the massacre as a terrorist attack, the FBI asked Apple for help unlocking an iPhone used by one of the two perpetrators.

When Apple balked at the FBIs request, the US government filed a 40-page court document seeking to force the tech giant to unlock the phone used by Syed Farook, one of the two attackers along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik. Both died the day of their attack.

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However, before they died, Malik expressed her allegiance to the Islamic State. US investigators believed Farooks iPhone might hold clues about the attack on the Inland Regional Center, a facility for people with developmental disabilities. But the FBI couldnt unlock Farooks phone without his passcode. Whats more, agents couldnt even try to guess the password. Thats because Apple gives users the option to have all their iPhone data erased after 10 failed passcode attempts.

Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search, the US government argued in its request to the court.

After a federal magistrate judge in California granted that request, Apple pushed back more. The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in an open letter to its customers on Feb. 16. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

The US government, Cook argued, wanted Apple to open up a backdoor to the iPhone by creating a new version of its operating system that circumvented security features. Apple could not take the risk that this backdoor might be used again to violate consumers privacy.

[W]hile the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, Armstrong wrote, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The public weighs in on FBI v. Apple

Source: Bloomberg UK

Apples stand against the FBIs demands drummed up tech-industry support but stoked some criticism, as well. University of Chicago professor law professor Omri Ben-Shahar, for one, suggested in the Huffington Post that Apples privacy crusade was a marketing ploy and stood at odds with the companys practice of harvesting data for targeted advertising.

This is awfully rich, he wrote. The industry that makes a highly profitable living off of peoples data, now parading as the crusader of privacy.

Regardless of their motives, companies in that industry came out publicly to support Apple  including Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Amazon (AMZN). Those companies were among the dozens of companies and organizations that filed friend of the court briefs opposing the governments efforts to enlist Apple to unlock the phone.

The governments position, if it prevails, will undermine the security of Americans most sensitive data, stated one brief signed by the above-mentioned tech companies and several others including Yahoo Finance parent company, Yahoo (YHOO). Later, that brief added, The governments bid to have technology companies undermine their own security measures is all the more puzzling because the Executive has been encouraging companies to increase cybersecurity in consumer products.

Other friends of Apples cause included 32 law professors, the ACLU, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Airbnb, and a number of other groups and companies concerned with cybersecurity.

While one might assume consumers would also support increased cybersecurity, that wasnt necessarily the case amid the FBI v. Apple showdown. In February, 51% of adults surveyed by the Pew Research Center believed Apple should unlock the iPhone to help the FBI. Just 38% of the 1,002 people surveyed thought the tech giant shouldnt back down (the rest didnt have an opinion).

Its possible that many of the consumers in favor of the FBI thought it worthwhile to trade a little privacy to aid the government in investigating a terrorist attack. Still, as Michael Dorf, the Cornell law professor, told Yahoo Finance recently, sometimes privacy is a form of security.

Making devices more vulnerable to law enforcement scrutiny could easily have the unintended consequence of making those same devices easier for foreign governments and criminals to hack, added Dorf, who posts frequently on his blog Dorf on Law.

Indeed, hackers could theoretically access Apples theoretical backdoor software off of its own servers, The New York Times editorial board argued in an piece called Why Apple was right to challenge an order to help the FBI. In the end, Apple never had to create that software.

The government drops its case

Apple CEO Tim Cook Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty

In late March, the Justice Department revealed that a third party helped it unlock the iPhone  putting an anticlimactic end to a prolonged and public debate. Of course, the dispute over whether tech companies have to help investigators crack into their systems is far from over, especially since the California court never had an opportunity to weigh in on the Apple case. (Though a different judge, in New York, sided with Apple in a similar case in February.)

The case brought by the US government relied on a 227-year-old law called the All Writs Act, which says that courts can hand down all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.

This essentially means that courts can order parties  like Apple  to comply with court orders. In a digital age, where orders like the one Apple received can have broad ramifications, the use of the All Writs Act can pose new problems and let the government wield seemingly infinite power. If it can tell Apple, which has been accused of no wrongdoing, to sit down and write a custom operating system for it, what else could it do? Amy Davidson noted in The New Yorker.

If the case had proceeded, Dorf told me, theres a possibility Apple would have won given a Supreme Court ruling from 2014 finding cellphones cant be searched without a warrant. The Supreme Court rightly realized were in a new era, he said.

Even if Trump is able to appoint multiple Supreme Court justices, there could still be more precedent aimed at protecting digital privacy. For the most part, at least among legal elites, these issues do not have a clear left-right balance. Some of the conservatives are quite concerned about privacy, Dorf said. Regardless of which way the Supreme Court goes, the issue of digital privacy will certainly reach the justices again. Even if Trump doesnt like it, a justice (or justices) he appoints may end up curbing the kind of assistance the government can demand of tech companies like Apple.

Erin Fuchs is deputy managing editor of Yahoo Finance.
By Teis Jensen and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish toymaker Lego is to appoint its first foreign CEO and give its family owners a bigger role in developing the Lego brand under an organizational shake-up that will see incumbent Jorgen Vig Knudstorp step down by the end of the year.

Briton Bali Padda, currently chief operations officer, will replace Knudstorp, who was the first chief executive from outside the Kristiansen clan, Denmark's richest family. Knudstorp will now head up the Lego brand, the company said on Tuesday.

The change comes after more than a decade of impressive growth under Knudstorp, during which the company overtook My Little Pony producer Hasbro to become the world's second-largest toy maker and is now vying with Barbie doll maker Mattel to become the world's biggest.

The growth has come from rising demand in Asia and embracing the digital era. Even as the global toy market shrank after the 2008 financial crisis, Lego bucked the trend by tying up with global movie franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones in deals that span Lego sets, video games, movie franchises and smartphone applications.

The owner family will now become active in brand-related activities, including the group's stake in Merlin Entertainments, operator of the six Legoland theme parks, and in Lego Education used in schools.

Knudstorp, after becoming CEO at the age of 35 in 2004, a year after Lego flirted with bankruptcy, set about reviving Lego's core business. That included firing consultants and hiring new designers to come up with higher-margin products that were up to date but still looked like Lego, an abbreviation of the Danish "leg godt", meaning "play well".

"Bali is good at setting a direction," Knudstorp told Reuters on Tuesday, predicting that Padda will do a better job executing ideas than he has done.

"I'm more of a reflective introvert type who spends a lot of time thinking about what we should do and try to inspire others to do it," he said.

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"He has a more social and involving way of managing, and I think many in Lego look forward to that," Knudstorp said.

The change at Lego also reflects an attempt to keep the spirit of a family-owned business alive, after the company's staff increased to 18,500 from less than 5,000 in 2004, Knudstorp said.

Under his leadership, sales increased by more than 15 percent a year on average. Last year, revenue grew by 25 percent to 35.8 billion Danish crowns ($5.2 billion) with net profit of 9.2 billion crowns, making it the world's most profitable toymaker.

The Lego group was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen and his grandchild Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen is now the family's main representative.

"The growth looks more subdued this year, which I actually think is a really good thing because we need time to consolidate," Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen told Reuters on Tuesday.

The company said its new brand group will help it reap "untapped potential in the LEGO brand."

"With our recent growth and globalisation come new and exciting opportunities for the brand, and we establish the LEGO Brand Group to look into these new opportunities," said Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, fourth generation co-owner of the LEGO Group.

Lego wants to intensify existing partnerships, including with Merlin Entertainment, the operator of the Legoland theme parks. Lego owns 36 percent of Merlin.

Lego's colorful plastic bricks will remain at the center of its product range, said Knudstorp, who on a previous occasion told Reuters he personally spends on average two hours a week playing with Lego.

The toymaker's future growth will include expanding its presence in countries like China and India, where Padda was born and lived until he was 12.

"It has to build on what we call the Lego idea, which is the idea of being a creative problem solver, and that you can use your imagination to make an indefinite number of different things," Knudstorp said.

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Teis Jensen; Editing by Susan Fenton)
SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan forces said on Tuesday they were securing the last few buildings where Islamic State militants had been making a final stand in their former North African stronghold of Sirte. Officials said that women and children were in two of the buildings in the city's Ghiza Bahriya district and that a small number of militants were still in the area. Libyan forces, backed by U.S. air strikes, said on Monday they had gained control over the district on Monday after most of the militants still in the area were killed or captured. Islamic State has been holding out for weeks in the district, close to Sirte's Mediterranean sea front, at the end of a gruelling battle for Sirte that began in May. Dozens of women and children, some of them migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who were held captive by Islamic State, had escaped or had been released over recent days, allowing Libyan forces to move forward. Ibrahim Irfaida, a top field commander, said late on Monday there were up to 10 houses in Ghiza Bahriya that had yet to be secured and five more that had been destroyed by air strikes but had been not yet checked. "There are still some women and children and Islamic State fighters' bodies in those houses that we have not yet secured," he told Misrata FM radio. Another official, who asked not to be named, said some militants were still hiding in the buildings. Irfaida said that even once Ghiza Bahriya was fully under control, Libyan forces would need to try to secure villages and valleys south of Sirte where militants have been active. Libyan and Western officials say some Islamic State fighters escaped from Sirte in the early stages of the battle in order to wage an insurgent campaign from outside the city and there have already been attacks behind the front line. Islamic State took over Sirte in early 2015, turning it into their most important base outside the Middle East and recruiting large numbers of foreign fighters. Forces led by fighters from Misrata counter-attacked in May after jihadists moved along the coast towards the city. The brigades, nominally aligned with a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, advanced rapidly towards the centre of Sirte before suicide bombers, snipers and mines largely halted their progress. Since Aug. 1, the United States has carried out more than 490 air strikes in support of the Misrata-led forces. (Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Cara Delevingne made a catwalk comeback on Tuesday when she starred in the 2016 Chanel Metiers d'Art show in Paris.

The supermodel, actress and Karl Lagerfeld protegee, who has been focusing on her movie career recently, appeared early on in the show at the city's newly re-opened Ritz Hotel. She first appeared in a cream tweed suit, before changing into a black and gold flamenco-style embroidered dress, twirling through the restaurant tables that served as the setting for the event.

While it was return to business as usual for Delevingne, some models -- notably Lily-Rose Depp -- were making their runway debut for the house. Depp, who appeared in a black gown with sheer straps and a netted headpiece before closing the show in a sequined gold crop top and skirt, has starred in several campaigns for the house and been given roles on 'stage' in previous Chanel shows, but this was undoubtedly her most important to date.

Another star who took to the catwalk for Lagerfeld was artist and Chanel collaborator Pharrell Williams, who looked dapper in a navy tweed jacket and strings of pearls. Back in May the house revealed that the musician and designer was lending a helping hand in creating pieces from the Metiers d'Art collection. Up-and-coming model Sofia Richie was also spotted on the catwalk, rocking a tweed jacket paired with a pair of metallic pedal pusher pants. Could this be a sign that the calf-length trouser is about to make a comeback?
By Jonathan Saul LONDON (Reuters) - Liverpool's new container terminal expects to ramp up transatlantic shipping as British companies look to deepen business ties despite concerns that the U.S. election of Donald Trump could hinder free trade, the port operator's chief said. Private group Peel Ports has invested 400 million pounds in transforming Liverpool's existing facility into a deep-water container terminal that can receive bigger ships. The new development opened last month. Mark Whitworth, chief executive of Peel Ports, said Liverpool, on England's northwest coast, already had 45 percent of the UK's transatlantic trade and "there is no reason why our aspiration should not exceed 60 percent". A number of companies have made investments in the region, including spirits giant Diageo and car maker Jaguar Land Rover - both of which were targeting bigger transatlantic trade, Whitworth said. Britain's decision to leave the European Union is also driving efforts to bolster trade outside the bloc. At the same time, there have been worries about Trump's presidential campaign pledges on redrawing trade deals to win back U.S. jobs. Economists have warned such moves could spark a trade war and roll back decades of liberalisation, which has buoyed international shipping. "I genuinely believe that Brexit in conjunction with the U.S. presidency will force greater trade between us and the U.S.," Whitworth said, dismissing trade concerns over the election of Trump. "Liverpool particularly is extremely well placed to capitalise," he told Reuters. Whitworth said Liverpool port was also looking at closer ties with the Panama Canal and had signed a memorandum of understanding in recent weeks aiming to bolster trade with South America. The expanded canal opened in June, fitted with new locks that allow ships three times bigger than previously to pass through. The container sector continues to struggle with weak earnings due to softer consumer demand and oversupply, which has triggered a wave of mergers and acquisitions. The world's top container group, Maersk Line, said last week it would buy smaller rival Hamburg Sud. Whitworth said Peel Ports expected more consolidation next year, which would enable lines to become more innovative on trade routes including via the Panama Canal. Peel Ports, Britain's second-biggest operator in terms of cargo handled, competes with bigger private rival Associated British Ports (ABP). When contacted, ABP said Liverpool, like its own ports in the northeast Humber region, was "an important gateway" for Britain's north. "Investment in new port infrastructure and facilities is vital to ensure businesses up and down Britain benefit from the best possible access to international markets," ABP said. (Editing by Dale Hudson)
President-elect Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen broke a decades-long U.S. policy of avoiding direct contact between the U.S. government and Taiwanese leaders. Trump supporters said his maverick foreign policy instincts prompted the call; detractors accused him of rashly provoking China (which doesnt recognize the Taiwanese government, and considers the Island to be part of the mainland).

But theres another possible explanation: Trump may have been persuaded by paid lobbyists working on behalf of Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Taiwans de-facto embassy in D.C. TECRO spends $170,000 a month on lobbying, according to a tally by Politco  and one of its most prominent lobbyists is former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, the only former GOP presidential nominee who supported Trump's candidacy without reservation.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Dole, who works for the D.C. lobbying firm Alston & Bird, personally helped set up the call with Taiwan's president. Its fair to say that we may have had some influence, Dole said. Anonymous officials involved in the Trump transition confirmed that Dole had indeed arranged for Trump to speak with President Tsai Ing-wen.

Bob Dole and his firm have been at the center of a prolonged campaign to strengthen US-Taiwan ties. According to federal lobbying records, TECRO has been paying Alston & Bird a monthly retainer of between $20,000-$25,000 since 2003. In exchange, Dole and his firm have lobbied Congress to sell weapons to Taiwan, arranged trips for lawmakers to visit the island, and placed op-eds in newspapers  including a piece by Dole himself in the Wall Street Journal, calling for Taiwan to be given UN membership.





A recent letter outlining the firms relationship with TECRO, signed by Dole and filed March 18 2016 with the Foreign Agents Registration (FARA) Unit at the Justice department, says that the firm will help with scheduling meetings with Republican Party officials and candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination and in advancing client's agenda on party-related issues. Over the past year, Dole has also been lobbying to include Taiwan in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Obama administrations signature trade deal  which Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle.

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This is not the first time Dole has interceded on Taiwans behalf with the GOP leadership. In 2012, he repeatedly contacted the Mitt Romney campaign, helping to arrange a meeting between Romney's foreign policy team and the Taiwanese ambassador. In 2015 the Intercept revealed that lobbyists with Doles firm drafted a resolution for the Republican National Committee, calling on the White House to sell more weapons to the Taiwanese government.

That year, the Obama administration okayed nearly $2 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.

A summary of Doles activity on behalf of Taiwan over the past year shows the former GOP candidate has arranged contacts between Taiwanese officials and a long list of powerful American political figures including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He also set up a meeting with Trump's pick for attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, helped insert pro-Taiwan language into the latest Republican platform, and arranged for Taiwanese officials to visit the Republican National Convention, according to review of lobbying records by Politico.







Dole isn't the only big name lobbyist working for Taiwan: TECRO also pays former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt's firm a $25,000-a-month retainer.





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By Eric Auchard

LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - London's standing as Europe's leading destination for tech start-ups is at risk if the British government does not clarify how it plans to keep the best technical talent, entrepreneurs and investors have warned.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May, nine leading UK-based technology entrepreneurs and investors, including Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, pressed the government to act to ensure a continued flow of skilled migrants after Britain leaves the European Union. It also called on the government to address EU market access and other issues.

"The No. 1 concern for entrepreneurs post-Brexit is access to talent, in particular technical talent," they said in the letter. It was dated Dec. 6 and timed to coincide with the annual TechCrunch Disrupt London conference for start-ups and investors.

"Quotas on specific skills could severely limit the ability of new tech companies to grow," they said.

Signatories of the letter also included Balderton Capital partner Bernard Liautaud, the now London-based founder of French software firm Business Objects, as well as Brent Hoberman of Founders Forum and Sonali De Rycker, partner at Accel Partners.

The letter calls on the government to campaign for access to the European Union's digital single market and to ensure a simple and competitive framework for companies, labour, tax, stock options and bankruptcy protection.

"London is (still) the best place in Europe to launch a global tech company," said Zennstrom, who created pioneering messaging service Skype, then venture firm Atomico, which is best known for backing Finnish video games firm Supercell.

"What the UK government needs to make sure is that technology companies still have access to the best talent in the world. If (that happens) without a lot of red tape, we are going to be fine," Zennstrom said at TechCrunch on Monday.

Paris and Berlin are vying to displace London's lead in the European start-up scene, while other cities including Dublin, Amsterdam and Frankfurt are also promoting themselves as alternative tech hubs in the face of Brexit uncertainties.

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In fintech, a sector where London ranks as a global leader, funding for UK firms has slowed since Britain's vote in June to leave the EU. Germany's rival fintech scene has captured 35 percent more venture capital funding than Britain in the last two quarters, according to a report by KMPG and CBInsights.

SKILLED IMMIGRANTS

The British government has put forward a number of initiatives to support the tech sector, such as providing funding for more fibre-optic broadband and committing to boost investment through the British Business Bank to replace potentially lost EU funding.

It has touted plans by U.S. tech giants Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to build new offices in London and hire thousands more staff as a measure of confidence in the UK market. But it has so far avoided making commitments to ensure a continued flow of technically skilled migrants into Britain.

"I think we are in 'deer-in-the-headlights' mode, candidly. We do not have a clue what's happening," Accel's De Rycker said during a venture capital panel discussion at TechCrunch.

European firms considering moving to London to expand quickly as global businesses now worry whether they can count on hiring the technical talent in Britain they will need to grow over the next three years, De Rycker said.

"If you want to add 100 engineers over the next two years, we are pausing on that," she said of her company's recent investment decisions. "(UK tech firms) are thinking, 'Do I need to get a second centre of gravity (outside Britain)?'"

Forty percent of Accel's last 11 European investments have been in France while it has pared back on new UK firms for now, she said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Lonely Planet has named a town that's known as "Beer City USA" the most exciting place to visit in the US in 2017.

In their list of the Best in the US 2017, travel experts at Lonely Planet named Asheville, North Carolina as the No. 1 destination to visit next year for its creative spirit, eclectic architecture, thriving artistic community and booming food and drink scene, set against a mountain backdrop.

Asheville is likewise a beer lover's paradise.

In second spot, experts chose western Washington which had a starring role in the cult classic TV series "Twin Peaks." A reboot of the show is set to air next year.

And rounding out the top three spots is Lincoln, Nebraska, which fetes its 150th anniversary in 2017.

For the list, experts chose the 10 destinations that are expected to shine in 2017, whether they're up-and-coming, overlooked, or offer new reasons to visit in 2017.

Here are the top 10 best places to visit in the US, according to Lonely Planet:

1. Asheville, North Carolina - Appalachia's most surprising city

2. Western Washington - David Lynch fans, take note

3. Lincoln, Nebraska - Hip and happening in the heartland

4. California's Low Desert - LA meets a new generation

5. Montana's Flathead Valley - Big sky, big mountains, big bears

6. Atlanta, Georgia - The airport epicenter is flying high in 2017

7. Adirondack Mountains - New York's best views after Manhattan

8. Texas Hill Country wine region - The best wine country you've never heard of

9. Denver, Colorado - The "Mile-High City" has never been more fun

10. Florida's Emerald Coast - The "Redneck Riviera" no more
A longtime Texas sheriff's deputy was tragically killed this weekend after her car plunged into a massive sinkhole.

Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara, 69, crashed her personal car Sunday evening after a burst sewer line and heavy rains created the massive crater in San Antonio.

Read: Open Windows, Swim Feet First: Expert Tips to Escape Raging Water

Authorities said two passersby rescued another driver, a man in his 60s, Sunday night before first responders arrived and realized Nishihara's vehicle was already 90 percent submerged in the water, WFAA reported.

Rescuers believed it was not likely that Nishihara had survived. The other driver and one of his rescuers were taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries.

"We are heartbroken to confirm Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara passed away after her car fell into a sinkhole Sunday," read a statement from the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.

Nishihara had only recently transitioned to part-time after years with the department.

"Deputy Nishihara worked as a Reserve Deputy from August 2009 to October 2016 before transitioning to a part-time Deputy at the Bexar County Courthouse in October of this year," the statement read. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her friends and family.

Read: These Monstrous Sinkholes Have Swallowed Cars, Yards and Even People

"We are assisting her family as they deal with this tragedy."

A 100-ton crane was used at the scene to fish both vehicles from the sinkhole starting Monday morning. Nishihara's car, her body inside, was recovered at about 1 p.m.

Watch: This $200,000 Lamborghini Drives Through Flood Waters Like a Boss

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Though Lupe Fiasco won't be releasing three new albums this year as he had hoped, the Chicago wordsmith dropped a new record instead called "Killers" on Monday night.

On Sunday, Lupe teased on Twitter that he would drop "Killers" if video game player Nuckle Du walked away victorious with the Caption Cup. "I said if @LiquidNuckleDu won #CapcomCup2016 I'd drop 'Killers'.tomorrow night! #LandOfTheFree," he wrote. Nuckle Du then clinched the title.

"Killers" is an ode to the video game-obsessed. Fiasco flaunts his knowledge of Street Fighter, rapping on the opening verse, "Here comes a new challenger and I think they wanna battle/ I gotta show him and let him know I'm king of my castle."

Earlier this year, Fiasco showcased his skills as a gamer when he trounced the No. 1 Street Fighter player in the world at the Street Fighter V launch gala in San Francisco. A snippet of the song was originally used as a promo record during the event in July. Fortunately, fans can revel in the full track for their gaming pleasure below.

As Promised..."Killers"...congrats to @LiquidNuckleDu on winning CapcomCup #FGC -------- pic.twitter.com/mtmSI0xVrI

- Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco) December 5, 2016
This luxurious gingerbread house took more than 500 hours to build, is a legit dream home

A 6-foot long gingerbread house styled after an elaborate English mansion just put every gingerbread house weve ever made to shame  but we cant even be mad about it.

The elaborate gingerbread creation took more than 500 hours for London cookie company, Biscuiteer, to make. It features floor-to-ceiling icing reproductions of fine art (seriously!), gold-dipped furniture, ornate rugs, and perfectly-patterned bedding.

The company built the house to look like real-life Waddesdon Manor, a neo-renaissance estate known for its elaborate rooms sure to give you Downton Abbey vibes.

The replica only contains gingerbread and icing, according to House Beautiful, with no wood or cardboard to support walls or ceilings. The masterpiece required 240 eggs, 66 pounds of butter and sugar, and 480 pounds of icing.

Our recreation of the Waddesdon Manor State Bedroom, made completely of icing and gingerbread! See our #gingerbread Waddesdon over on our blog now or visit it in person until March 19th A photo posted by Biscuiteers Baking Company (@biscuiteersltd) on Nov 17, 2016 at 8:55am PST

Weve been working on our most spectacular project yet, and were so excited to unveil our recreation of Waddesdon Manor in gingerbread and icing! It took over 500 hours to create and 240 eggs, 216kg icing and 30kg. Its over 2 meters in size! On display at the manor until March 19th. A photo posted by Biscuiteers Baking Company (@biscuiteersltd) on Nov 11, 2016 at 2:49am PST

Anyone else hungry just looking at it? Youll have to satisfy your craving somewhere else. The house is on display until January 2nd  and with the sheer amount of work creating it required, you can be certain it isnt on the menu.

The post This luxurious gingerbread house took more than 500 hours to build, is a legit dream home appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Photo credit: Audemars Piguet

From Esquire

For Chinese artist Sun Xun, the existential questions explored in his artwork are the same existential questions he asks of himself. What is time? What is forever? What is history? What is the future? What is now?

Photo credit: Audemars Piguet

At the invitation of luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet, a site-specific artwork called "Reconstruction of the Universe" was unveiled for the second Audemars Piguet Art Commission at Art Basel in Miami this past weekend. It may not immediately seem like a natural pairing, but these compelling time-related concepts are shared by AP-a reflection upon the rapidly changing future of complicated fine watches. What seems to be a highly conceptual connection slowly reveals an important similarity between the artist and watchmaker.

The large-scale artwork consists of an open-air bamboo pavilion made up of two parts. The first is a walk-through gallery space with traditionally framed woodcut prints shown alongside giant glowing spheres featuring spinning animated images. A second theater-like space shows a compelling 3-D animated film, "Time Spy," featuring images of traditional Chinese themes like the deeply symbolic five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The film was created with thousands of woodblock prints; each image has to be hand carved to make the individual cels used to animate the mesmerizing 10-minute final cut.

Located on an expansive stretch of South Beach, the wave-like structure of the bamboo pavilion was initially inspired by the natural environment. "I visited the Audemars Piguet museum and got to see where the watches were made. I spoke with the people in Le Brassus and got the story behind the watches," Sun Xun explains. The Miami Beach Seaside may have provided the inspiration for the sculptural structure, but it was this trip to Audemars Piguet in Switzerland where the artist received his main inspiration.

Photo credit: Audemars Piguet

"I talk about time in my work, the concept of the beginning of the world. I also discussed the idea of time with Audemars Piguet, and discovered they don't only make a watch-they are creating art," he says. "There are a lot of similarities between our work, and this was the beginning-it's a similar process of starting with tradition moving into the future."

Story continues

Olivier Audemars (the great-grandson of Audemars Piguet's co-founder and the company's Vice Chairman of the Board) finds great inspiration in discovering these alternative points of view. "These encounters we have with artists help us to see things differently. Artists have the capacity to put into their art pieces their own ability to see the signals of the world. When you work with them it is an opportunity to see these signals," he explains.

Photo credit: Sun Xun

"You get a different understating of our surroundings, and through that we can transform the company and adapt better to a changing world," Audemars continues. "When you look at an art piece, like this one by Sun Xun, it helps bring us to a higher level. The questions that Sun Xun is asking about the meaning of time and the universe are the same questions that we are asking ourselves."

Olivier Audemars illustrates his point by showing me a perfect example, the watch on his wrist, a Royal Oak Concept Supersonnerie. A high-concept timepiece project developed about eight years ago, the minute repeater chimes the time with exceptional acoustic clarity. "Our ancestors-these early watchmakers-were looking at their surroundings, the stars, and the universe, and trying to replicate the movements into the small mechanism you have on your wrist," he says.

Photo credit: Audemars Piguet

"The Sonnerie involved physicists, engineers, instrument makers, musicians, watchmakers, and even neurologists. One thing that we discovered is that the harmonics that are produced by individual instruments are not the ones your brain is perceiving-your brain suppresses [some] and recreates other ones that don't exist. To master the right sound, the watch recreates the right harmonics that your brain perceives as the most beautiful."

It's a conceptual idea for fine watchmaking that's on par with much of the challenging artwork on display. "Working with artists gives us a deeper understanding of our ever-changing world," Audemars says. "We are both making things-objects or paintings or sculptures that speak much more to the heart than to the brain. Like visiting with a Cuban artist here at Art Basel Miami. You get a much a deeper level of understanding-better than the newspapers, business reports, or politics can provide."

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VERONA  The sighting of an invasive snail in a second stream in Dane County is alarming officials, though its not clear the tiny mollusk will create the ecological havoc feared when it arrived in this country 30 years ago.

New Zealand mudsnails were found last month in multiple locations of Badger Mill Creek, just a few hundred yards upstream from where it connects with the Sugar River south of Verona, according to Susan Graham, lakes management coordinator for the state Department of Natural Resources.

We are very concerned with how far they have spread in the system, Graham said. We are trying to figure out the extent of the range in the (Upper Sugar River) watershed.

The mudsnail was found three years ago in Black Earth Creek near South Valley Road in western Dane County. That marked the first time it had been found in an inland waterway in the Midwest, and there was immediate concern that it could wreck the popular trout fishing destination.

Although the snail grows to just one-eighth of an inch, it is asexual and can clone itself into a colony of nearly a million snails in one year. When densities of the creatures reach more than 500,000 per square meter, they can starve out native prey that fish eat and that will lead to smaller fish and other ecological problems, experts believe.

But there is no evidence of that happening in any streams or lakes in the United States, including Black Earth Creek, according to Edward Levri, a mudsnail expert from central Pennsylvania.

Graham confirmed that there are no data showing that the mudsnails have increased in density in Black Earth Creek. We dont know how it will play out there yet, she said.

She also said that experts believe the mudsnails in the Black Earth Creek were there long before they were discovered. Were finding out that not every location is a suitable habitat (for an explosion in snail density numbers), Graham said.

Levri believes the snails found in Badger Mill Creek most likely came from Black Earth Creek and were spread by people who used both streams for recreational purposes. Snails can survive out of water for nearly a month on the soles of shoes, clothing, on fishing equipment and boats.

If you take proper precautions you can limit their ability to spread, Levri said. The problem is not everybody will be as diligent as they need to be.

The state DNR has put up signs notifying the public of the mudsnails at the locations where they were found in Badger Mill Creek, Graham said. The signs include techniques for removing the snails that include using tap water and a brush. The DNR also plans to install boot brush stations where the mudsnails have been found, she said.

The mudsnails were first detected in this country in the Snake River in Idaho in 1987. Theorists believe they arrived in the country via a shipment of fish bound for a hatchery in Idaho.

Since that time, the snails have been found in streams in nearly every state in the West, in all of the Great Lakes and tributaries in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and New York, and in streams in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Geological Survey map that was updated last month.

How big an effect?

None of the ecological nightmares predicted by experts has occurred in any of the states, Levri said. Im sure they are having some kind of effect but the big question is if they are having a kind of effect people care about, he said.

What experts are finding at many locations is that the snails tend to burst out into high densities when they first arrive in a stream or lake but their numbers eventually drop, Levri said. He cited a stream near Yellowstone National Park that once had snail density levels of 700,000 per square meter, and that is now down to 5,000 to 10,000.

We dont know why, he said.

Levri didnt rule out that the snail has a predator, which goes against some other experts theories. He said an aquatic flatworm may be the reason mudsnail numbers are down in the stream near Yellowstone and said a fish called a round goby has kept the mudsnails in check in the Great Lakes.

Levri also believes the mudsnails are located in many more places than whats listed by the U.S. Geological Survey. While its possible that the mudsnails found in Black Earth Creek and the Badger Mill Creek could eventually reach the Mississippi River via the Wisconsin River and the Rock River, respectively, Levri thinks they are already living in the Mississippi River.

A couple of years ago the snails were found on rocks in a pet store in Des Moines. The people who brought the rocks in said they got them from the Mississippi River, Levri said. So my feeling is people arent reporting sightings as much anymore. Its not as an unusual thing. People are thinking its not a big deal.

Badger Mill Creek snails

The DNR was notified about the mudsnails in Badger Mill Creek on Nov. 1 by employees of the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, who found them in samples of invertebrates, Graham said.

Its too early to tell if Badger Mill Creek will become a more suitable habitat for the mudsnails than Black Earth Creek. But experts are watching it closely for a number of reasons.

For instance, the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District discharges 3 million gallons of high-quality treated water into the Badger Mill Creek every day, according to Wade Moder, executive director of the Upper Sugar Creek Watershed Association.

The creek also has problematic levels of phosphorus it picks up on its course through the cities of Madison, Fitchburg and Verona before it empties into the Sugar River. That waterway is already on the DNRs impaired list because it is loaded with phosphorus, Moder said.

The treated water means it probably has high nutrient levels, which the mudsnails like, Levri said. If the PH level is high with a high nutrient content, the snail will probably do all right there.
A petition decrying the lyrics of Maluma's hit single "Cuatro Babys" has been posted on Change.org, demanding the song's removal from digital platforms as it is "demeaning to women."

"Both the lyric and the images incite direct violence towards women, which are described as worthless, interchangeable and absolutely available bodies at the service of the authors' unlimited sexual desire," writes Laura Perez from Spain, who posted the petition. "The woman figure appears represented as a valueless entity, or power of decision, that exists only to satisfy the physical needs of a group of virile little boys with money."

Maluma teamed up with reggaeton artists Noriel, Juhn and Bryant Myers for "Cuatro." The song and the music video, directed by Jose Javy Ferrer, were released in October; the video already has over 185 million YouTube views.

Maluma reacted to the situation on social media: "You'll always be judged for one thing or another. Just do what comes out of your heart, what makes you happy. If they talked about Jesus Christ, why would it surprise you to have them talk about you?" he wrote.

Por una cosa o la otra siempre te van a juzgar, solo haz lo que te salga del corazon, lo que te haga feliz. Si hablaron de Jesucristo por que te sorprendes cuando hablan de ti?

A photo posted by MALUMA (@maluma) on Dec 5, 2016 at 12:02pm PST

The petition asked for 25,000 e-signatures and so far has collected more than 18,000. To read the full letter, click here.

At the moment, Maluma is in Argentina, where he's in the final dates of his world tour.
By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A man shot and killed after he crashed his car and struggled with an Ohio police officer was a 26-year-old college student and citizen of the United Arab Emirates, officials said on Tuesday.

Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri, a student at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University, died from a gunshot wound to the head on Sunday and his death has been ruled homicide, the Summit County Medical Examiner's office said.

Police officers responded to a call around 3 p.m. about an erratic driver on the Ohio Turnpike in Hudson, Ohio, 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Cleveland, police said in a statement. The driver, Alameri, eventually lost control of his vehicle, which flipped, and he fled into the nearby woods.

Alameri was eventually located by a police officer who shot him after a struggle, police said.

The officer, who has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, has not been identified. He was transported to Akron City Hospital for minor injuries after the shooting and released, police said.

Case Western Reserve spokesman Bill Lubinger said Alameri was a student, but did not release any further details.

Alameri's car was processed Tuesday by the state's Bureau of Criminal Investigation after Hudson Police asked for the state to take over the investigation into the shooting.

We are looking into what exactly happened and what led up to the shooting and then will hand the case over to the prosecutor, said Jill Del Greco, spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General.

She said it has not been determined if Alameri had a weapon at the time of the shooting.

Mohammed Mer Al Raisi, under-secretary at the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement on Tuesday that the UAE embassy was looking into the shooting.

"After details of the painful incident are clarified by the authorities, the Ministry will issue a more comprehensive statement," Al Raisi said.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer)
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LONDON  Another day, another man explaining something to a woman that knows hella more than he does on the topic.

SEE ALSO: People are sharing a brilliant poem about mansplaining on National Poetry Day

This time, the players are UKIP donor Arron Banks (the 'splainer) and renowned Cambridge University classicist Mary Beard (the 'splainee).

Here's how it went down.

Banks, whose self-proclaimed credentials in Roman history include history lessons from his schoolboy days and regular visits to the city (oh, and he likes to watch Gladiator), made this assertion:

True the Roman Empire was effectively destroyed by immigration. https://t.co/V7H6zF2K5a  Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) December 4, 2016

Beard, who has produced numerous BBC series on Rome, dropped in to say not so fast.

@Arron_banks i think you all need to do a bit more reading in Roman history before telling uswhat caused the fall of Rome. Facts guys!  mary beard (@wmarybeard) December 4, 2016

Undaunted, Banks persisted that his knowledge of history was indeed superior.

The Huns pushed the Goths south to the border of Italy,Rome mishandled the migration crisis, sound familiar, 2 yrs later they sacked Rome. https://t.co/FPWMdeTGHe  Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) December 5, 2016

I'm not a fancy academic like you but that's what I remember from my history lesson ( when schools taught history ) https://t.co/FPWMdeTGHe  Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) December 5, 2016

At this point, Beard called a spade a spade.

Story continues

@Mr__XYZ @Arron_banks sorry but you may have strong views but you guys don't know Roman history.  mary beard (@wmarybeard) December 5, 2016

Banks wasn't having any of it, though. Because by god, we live in a post-truth society, and if we don't like the facts we can make up our own!

I studied roman history extensively - you don't have a monopoly on history ! https://t.co/7hZH8fZZWE  Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) December 5, 2016

To which Beard suggested that this might be an instance where experts come in handy.

@Arron_banks @Mr__XYZ @Senor_gulicreza @Fraser91A sorry mr banks but this might be a subject on which to listen to experts!  mary beard (@wmarybeard) December 5, 2016

Twitter took the exchange as an excellent opportunity to take the piss out of the British businessman.

Aaron Banks today lecturing Prof Mary Beard on the Roman Empire is as close to real life imitating Monty Python as I can think of.  GhostofTomPaine (@champagne_lefty) December 5, 2016

Aaron Banks v Mary Beard!



Meanwhile, Stephen Hawking awaits the Tweet correcting his knowledge of black holes.  Samantha Ward (@s4mmyw) December 5, 2016

Next week he'll teach Tim Berners-Lee about the internet and define rock and roll to Paul McCartney https://t.co/BwLfkYGEgo  Jason Brown (@JPabloMarron) December 5, 2016

Tomorrow, Aaron Banks is going to explain quantum gravity to Stephen Hawking.  Willem Harvey (@willemharvey) December 5, 2016

But it was Twitter queen J.K. Rowling who came in with the ultimate shutdown. In response to Twitter user @Mr_XYZ who suggested that Beard's credentials were insufficient, Rowling replied with this gem:

Bloody Professors of Classics at Cambridge University, with their 'facts' and their books that they SELL for MONEY. pic.twitter.com/vovgJF5kdy  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 5, 2016

THANK YOU LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, you can all go home now  the queen has spoken.

BONUS: White People Whitesplain Whitesplaining
DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / Since Central Park was opened to the public in the winter of 1958, the surrounding land has produced some of the highest real estate values in not only New York, but also in the entire world. In June, with a listing price of $250 million, a property at 220 Central Park South became Manhattan's most expensive condo to date. Present-day analysts estimate that land bordering or near a park is worth up to 20 percent more than a comparable property on a typical city block. Texas developer Marcus HIles, the CEO of Western Rim Property Services, discusses the impact of one of the newest open urban spaces that follows the Central Park design trend, Uptown Dallas' Klyde Warren Park.

http://www.MarcusHiles-News.com

As Americans' conceptions of what cities are for and how they ought to be used changes, so does their urban design. From Atlanta's BeltLine to Philadelphia's Rail Park and Chicago's Bloomingdale Trail, unused railways and abandoned infrastructure are being revitalized in the form of converted trails, parks and promenades. The movement, referred to as landscape urbanism, follows the model of design which traces back to Frederick Law Olmsted, Central Park's famed architect. "Capping," or building green spaces over freeways, has become one of the hallmark innovations spurring from this trend, transforming expansive expressways into vital links among communities. In 2012, Klyde Warren Park capped the Woodall Rodgers Freeway in Dallas, connecting the Uptown and Downtown neighborhoods and allowing pedestrians to walk across the majority of the city, a previously impossible feat.

Almost immediately following the commencement ceremony of Klyde Warren Park, the area surrounding the deck park began changing dramatically, recalls Marcus Hiles. Since late 2012, lease rates on adjacent streets have more than doubled, and several new high-rises that will overlook the open space aim to drive prices even higher. In the neighboring Arts District, prices have climbed from $19 to $25 per square foot, and on the north side of the park rates have increased a staggering 64 percent, from $22 to $36 per square foot. At 5.4 acres, the influence of the park is especially impressive when compared to the size of Chicago's Millenium Park (24.5 acres) and New York City's Central Park (843 acres). "I don't think anyone could have predicted the impact," said Phil Puckett, the executive vice president of CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate firm. "Having worked in the downtown and uptown markets for 25 years, I have never seen anything like it. Klyde Warren Park has become the city's epicenter."

Marcus Hiles is a renowned Texas real estate developer and the Chairman & CEO of Western Rim Property Services with over two decades of experience creating affordable and sustainable luxury properties. Hiles' communities often utilize a Central Park style design, setting aside a minimum of five acres for open green areas, secluded jogging trails, scenic waterways, and comprehensive play areas.

Marcus Hiles - Chairman & CEO of Western Rim Property Services: http://www.MarcusHiles-News.com

Western Rim Property Services- Marcus Hiles - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Western-Rim-Property-Services-Marcus-Hiles-1013270532051763/

Marcus Hiles (@marcus_hiles) - Twitter: https://twitter.com/marcus_hiles

Marcus Hiles - New Luxury Apartments in Frisco, TX - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmsJNbfOh-g

Contact Information:

MarcusHiles-News.com

marcus@marcushiles-news.com

SOURCE: Marcus Hiles
mark zuckerberg oculus

Every month or two, Facebook asks its engineers to take the day off from their regular duties to tackle any project they want.

These so-called hackathons aren't unusual among Silicon Valley tech companies  Google is famous for them too. For Facebook, they often lead to important products, including its first video player, its developer platform, and its chat system.

After Facebook's engineers prototype their ideas, they present and vote on them among their colleagues. The highest voted ideas get presented to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the executive team.

As Facebook product chief Chris Cox puts it, "This is like our 'American Idol.'"

For Facebook's most recent hackathon, the most popular ideas were shown to Zuckerberg, Cox, and other top company execs during a livestream on Zuckerberg's personal Facebook page on Monday. Not all of these creations will become real products or features, but it sounds like Zuckerberg is already ready to greenlight some of them.

Here are the "hacks" that Facebook employees created:

Hand controllers for the Oculus VR headset that get physically hot and cold: An employee from Facebook-owned Oculus demoed modified hand controllers for its headset that simulate the feeling of heat and cold in virtual reality using embedded thermal coolers. "This is quite warm," remarked Zuckerberg while warming his hands at a virtual fire.

Location requests in Messenger for when a friend is missing: If you can't find a friend and become worried about their safety, Messenger could one day let you send a request to see their location. A timer would begin on the friend's phone that gives them a chance to approve or deny the request. If the timer expires on its own, their location would be sent to you automatically.

GIFs are coming to Facebook comments: Soon you'll be able to comment with GIFs in comments on Facebook. "I think this will be widely used," Zuckerberg said.

Offline messaging: A Facebook engineer demoed offline messaging in the company's stripped down Messenger Lite app for emerging markets. Once implemented, the feature will allow people without internet access to message each other using the WiFi signals in their phones. Zuckerberg seemed to really like this idea during the demo and even said that this is something that Ive thought we should build for awhile."

Shared photo and video galleries based on what people post in a person's comments. Facebook engineers demoed the use of machine learning to automatically create shared photo and video albums based on what people share in the comments of a post. So if you ask for photos people took at a wedding, what your friends share in your comments would be turned into a shared album for everyone to see.

An update on Zuckerberg's personal smart home AI assistant: After the hackathon demos, Zuckerberg shared on update on the artificially intelligent assistant he's been building for his home all year. It can do a bunch at this point," he said without getting into specifics. He plans to give a full demo before the end of the year. (No word on whether it will indeed be voiced by Robert Downey Jr. of 'Iron Man' fame.)

Story continues

NOW WATCH: A Facebook bug was telling people they died





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After its limited debut on December 23, Paramounts Martin Scorsese movie Silence will now expand on Golden Globes weekend January 6, and again on the four-day MLK weekend January 13. The movie just started screening in the past week for awards-season voters and press.

Yesterday, Silence came in as runner-up in the best supporting actor race with the Los Angeles Film critics for Japanese thespian Issey Ogata. Last week, the movie premiered at the Vatican and also screened before hundreds of Jesuits. Scorsese even had a private meeting with Pope Francis.

Silence tells the story about two 17th century Portuguese Jesuits (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver) who journey to Japan to find their master priest (Liam Neeson) who has gone missing. There they encounter persecution by the governing establishment as they attempt to spread Christianity to the rural communities. At yesterdays screening in Westwood, it was discussed at a Q&A how Silence is akin to Pier Paolo Pasolinis 1964The Gospel According To St. Matthew, an homage which Scorsese warmly acknowledged.

Rev. James J. Martin, S.J. has been a consultant to the film in various capacities, and describes Silence as though the viewer is living in a prayer.

Scorsese counts 12 Oscar nominations and one win for directing 2006s The Departed. His noms break down as follows: Eight directing (Raging Bull, Last Temptation Of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs Of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Hugo and The Wolf Of Wall Street), two writing (Goodfellas, Age Of Innocence) and two best picture (Wolf Of Wall Street, Hugo).

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Chennai (India) (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of mourners paid an emotional final farewell Tuesday to Indian politician Jayalalithaa Jayaram as the former movie star who enjoyed god-like status was buried alongside her on-screen lover.

A day after the 68-year-old died following a massive weekend cardiac arrest, huge crowds lined the streets of Chennai as Jayalalithaa's coffin was taken to its final resting place in India's main southern city.

Mourners showered the glass coffin with flowers and clambered onto statues, trees and soft drinks stalls that lined the city's Marina beach to view the cortege. Television put the number of mourners at around one million.

Despite being twice jailed over allegations of corruption, the woman known simply as Amma, or mother, was a revered figure in her fiefdom of Tamil Nadu state and one of India's most popular and successful politicians as a populist champion of the poor.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Chennai to pay his respects, streams of her supporters lined up outside a hall in the city centre where her casket was on display, many wearing scarves with the red, white and black colours of her party.

"It is a very sad day. She was an essential part of the state. She was meant for greatness," said Christina Paun, a 34-year-old university professor who was among those queueing to pay their respects.

"She had a very difficult life in a male-dominated society but she was always different. She was always great."

Famed for a vast sari collection that won her comparisons with Imelda Marcos, Jayalalithaa was also one of India's most polarising politicians, seen by some as an autocratic and secretive leader.

But nothing could dent her popularity in Tamil Nadu, where she was elected chief minister on four occasions in a period when it became one of India's most prosperous states.

Jayalalithaa first made her name starring in movies alongside M. G. Ramachandran, who later became her political mentor before his death nearly 30 years ago.

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Although most Hindus are cremated, she requested in her will that she be buried alongside her former co-star in his memorial building.

The pair were famously close and Ramachandran's death sparked a fierce battle between Jayalalithaa and his widow to inherit his political mantle.

As her coffin was lowered into the ground inside the mausoleum, thousands of petals were scattered on top.

Hundreds of devotees had kept a round-the-clock vigil outside the private hospital in Chennai -- the city formerly known as Madras -- since she was first admitted in September suffering from a fever.

When she first fell ill one supporter set himself on fire, while an elderly man suspended himself from a crane with steel hooks pierced through his skin.

"The people are very depressed. We were expecting her to recover even yesterday," said Manohar, a businessman who was among the queue of mourners.

- Populist schemes -

The southern state had been tense since Sunday after reports that her health had worsened and she had been put on life support.

On Monday scuffles broke out outside the hospital as many of her thousands of supporters there tried to break through police barricades.

When Ramachandran died in 1987, riots and looting broke out across the state.

Security had been reinforced across Tamil Nadu ahead of Jayalalithaa's death over fears of an emotional reaction.

Jayalalithaa earned the loyalty of many voters with a series of populist schemes, including "Amma canteens" that provided lunch for just three rupees (five cents) and vast election-time giveaways.

She also enjoyed a reputation for toughness and efficiency in a country renowned for bureaucratic delays.

"We called her the iron lady," said Ebenezer John, a furniture seller, outside the memorial where she was buried.

"She said the poor should be able to eat well, and she made it happen. It is a great loss."

Several of Jayalalithaa's supporters resorted to self-harm when she was briefly jailed in 2014 on charges of corruption.

Her conviction, later overturned on appeal, sparked mass protests and even some reported suicides.

Jayalalithaa's death has plunged one of India's most economically powerful states into a period of political uncertainty.

Her trusted cabinet aide, O Panneerselvam, was sworn in as chief minister, but observers are uncertain whether a loyalist who lacks mass support will be able to rule smoothly.
BEIJING (AP)  Matt Damon said Tuesday that his role in the new China-Hollywood production The Great Wall was always intended to be European, responding to criticism that an Asian actor should have been picked for the part.

Some critics have said Damons casting amounted to whitewashing, in which Caucasians are chosen for roles that should have gone to actors from other ethnicities.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the American actor said he thinks of whitewashing as applying to Caucasian actors applying makeup to appear to be of another race, as was common in the early days of film and television, when racism was much more overt.

That whole idea of whitewashing, I take that very seriously, Damon said, using the example of the Irish-American actor Chuck Connors, who played the lead character in the 1962 film Geronimo, about the famed Apache chief.

The 46-year-old Damon plays a British mercenary in the upcoming adventure fantasy helmed by acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou. The trailer sparked criticism in the U.S. that a white man had been chosen to play the lead in a film set in China meant to showcase Chinese culture.

Constance Wu, who stars in the U.S. comedy series Fresh Off the Boat, which is centered on Taiwanese immigrants, posted on Twitter, We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that a only (sic) white man can save the world.

The furor also came amid other accusations of a lack of diversity and opportunities for Asian actors in Hollywood.

Damon and Zhang told the AP that because of the demands of the story, Damons role was never envisaged for a Chinese actor.

Damon said he thought the controversy would subside once people see that its a monster movie and its a historical fantasy and I didnt take a role away from a Chinese actor  it wasnt altered because of me in any way.

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Damon, star of the Bourne franchise and Interstellar, also questioned whether the critical stories on online new sites based on a 30-second teaser trailer would have existed before the era of fake news and social media.

It suddenly becomes a story because people click on it, versus the traditional ways that a story would get vetted before it would get to that point, Damon said.

People fall for outrageous headlines, but eventually you stop clicking on some of those more outrageous things because you just realize there is nothing to the story when you get to it.

The Great Wall debuts in Chinese cinemas on Dec. 16 followed by other countries, including the United States in February.
London (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May indicated Tuesday she would accept demands by lawmakers to publish her plan for Brexit before starting formal exit talks, as long as they accept her timetable for leaving the EU.

May was facing a rebellion by up to 40 MPs from her Conservative party over an opposition motion which demanded she reveal her hand before triggering Article 50, the formal mechanism for leaving the EU.

In an amendment published Tuesday, May accepted the demand on the proviso that MPs "respect the wishes" of the June vote to leave the bloc and accept her timetable to trigger Article 50 by the end of March.

The move is designed to outmanoeuvre the opposition Labour party, which brought the original motion to pressure the government.

Up to 40 Conservative lawmakers had reportedly been planning to back the Labour motion in what could have been a symbolic blow against May's refusal to provide a "running commentary" on her Brexit strategy.

The government is currently fighting a legal challenge at the Supreme Court to stop parliament having the final say on a decision to trigger Article 50.

Brexit supporters fear that MPs, who were overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU in the June referendum, might seek to delay the process or soften the terms of the break.

Labour's motion "calls on the prime minister to commit to publishing the government's plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked".

It also "confirms that there should be no disclosure of material that could be reasonably judged to damage the UK in any negotiations".

The government's amendment, published on Twitter by Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker, adds that "this House will respect the wishes of the United Kingdom as expressed in the referendum on 23 June".

It adds: "And further calls on the government to invoke Article 50 by 31 March 2017."

The motion and amendment will be subject to a debate and non-binding vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday, although May will not be present as she is in Bahrain.

The government has repeatedly refused to outline its negotiating strategy for Brexit, but a spokeswoman denied the amendment was a U-turn.

"We have always said we would come forth with more detail as we near the moment of triggering Article 50," she told AFP.
From ELLE

This month, two books, alike in dignity (and indignation), examine how women have succeeded in the arts and sciences, often through channels men weren't interested in taking. The first, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars (Viking), by best-selling science writer Dava Sobel, is the little-known story of a group of remarkable female "computers" (their roles began as simple math-oriented clerking; many were relatives of male scientists) employed by the Harvard College Observatory beginning in the 1870s. An early scene from the book provides so perfect a metaphor for Sobel's narrative that it reads almost like fiction: In 1878, amateur astronomers Henry Draper and his wife, Anna, traveled to the Wyoming Territory from their home in upstate New York to witness a rare total solar eclipse. But, Sobel writes, "during that memorable interlude of midday darkness," while the men on the excursion, Thomas Edison among them, observed the phenomenon, "Mrs. Draper had dutifully called out the seconds of totality (165 in all) for the benefit of the entire expedition party from inside a tent, where she remained secluded, blind to the spectacle, lest the sight of it unnerve her and cause her to lose count."

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Heaven forbid that Mrs. Draper-an heiress, her husband's collaborator for 15 years, and the woman who went on to significantly fund the Harvard astronomy program after Henry's early death-be unnerved. In The Glass Universe, men trek into the wild to photograph the sky; women scrutinize the mathematical minutiae-from tents, and desks back in Cambridge-for answers to questions about space and time. Sobel (author of Galileo's Daughter) writes about more than a dozen of these pioneers. One, Cecilia Payne, in 1925 became the first female recipient of a Harvard PhD in astronomy, with a thesis about the composition of stars that, as Sobel notes, "challenged the very fabric of the universe." By specializing in the elegantly abstract-literally, space and time-they carved places for themselves in scientific history.

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Brilliant women finding ways around macho constructs in science and art-and turning them to their advantage-is also the topic of novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt's new essay collection, A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women (Simon & Schuster). Unlike Sobel's biographical history, Hustvedt's book is a psychosocial commentary and critique, its scope ranging from the racial and sexual politics of hair, to epigenetics, to art criticism. (She is also a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Medical School in New York.) In one essay, "Balloon Magic," Hustvedt compares a complex, innovative sculpture series by the twentieth-century artist Louise Bourgeois to Jeff Koons's giant orange balloon dog. For decades, Hustvedt writes in a later piece in the book, "Bourgeois stayed home and made sculptures." Hustvedt likens her to Emily Dickinson, who stayed home and wrote poems; I was reminded of the female computers inside their observatories, reading photographic plates. But Bourgeois saw her period of seclusion as good luck. After years honing her craft out of the limelight, in her late seventies she finally began receiving recognition-as Hustvedt says, "blasting out into the world."

Photo credit: undefined

Hustvedt draws a searing analogy between Bourgeois and Koons. For his Clifford-esque cartoon sculpture, Koons commanded $58.4 million from an anonymous buyer. Playing a statistics game, Hustvedt assumes the buyer was male: Men purchase the most expensive art, and because the ownership of art acts as an extension of the self, they tend to buy male artists, driving up those prices in a costly game of chicken-and-egg. Last year, Bourgeois set a record for the highest price paid for a sculpture made by a woman when one of her bronze spiders sold for $28 million.

"The 'feminine' has far more polluting power for a boy in our culture than the 'masculine' has for a girl," Hustvedt writes in another essay. Women read books by men and wear pants-and make massive bronze sculptures. Men are far less likely to read books by female authorsor wear skirts. Because of this bias, Bourgeois (like other female artists) "had to forge a trajectory for her art from another perspective," Hustvedt writes; whether painting or printmaking or the sculptures for which she's best known, her work is startling in its originality. "As [Bourgeois] said, 'The art world belonged to men.'"

At face value, Bourgeois's artistic pursuits might seem, well, light-years away from the work of the women at the Harvard College Observatory. But in reading Hustvedt's essays, I was catapulted back to those early Harvard women, barred from the rugged adventurism their male colleagues reveled in. The work of observation itself was deemed "too uncomfortable, too cold" for women, Sobel says, "not to mention [the taboo of] being out at night with these men." Yet still they found their way into space. Twenty-eight years after a Harvard professor named Edward H. Clarke cautioned in his book, Sex in Education: A Fair Chance for Girls, that intellectualism in girls could lead to shrunken uteri, neuralgia, hysteria, and insanity, Harvard astronomer Henrietta Leavitt published a 1912 study proving that certain stars ("Cepheid variables," named for their regularly fluctuating brightness) could be used to calculate distance in space up to 10 million light-years, 100,000 times farther than what was previously possible. In time, Leavitt's work helped calculate not only the size of the Milky Way, but something nearly incomprehensible-the age of the universe.

This article originally appeared in the December 2016 issue of ELLE.

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Photo credit: Kimberly Whiteundefined

From Popular Mechanics

The Breakthrough Prize gave away $25 million dollars to more than a thousand scientists on Sunday.

The Prize is the brainchild of Russian tech billionaire Yuri Milner. Milner, who also funds research investigating Tabby's Star (of "alien megastructure" fame), brought tech all-stars including Sergey Brin,Mark Zuckerberg, and Anne Wojcicki on board for the prize, which seeks to add a bit of glamour and excitement to the world of scientific prizes. Morgan Freeman hosted this year's awards, televised live on National Geographic and soon to be rebroadcast on Fox.

The awards acknowledged a wide variety of work. A special $3 million prize went to the LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which confirmed the century-old theory of gravitational waves. (One-third of the money went to the three founders of the LIGO, while the rest will be distributed to the 1,012 scientists who also worked on the project). Compared to the Nobel Prize, which has been criticized for promoting the "bygone romantic era of the myth of the lone genius," the distribution of money is downright progressive.

Three string theorists were also given a lot of money, with millions going to Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa from Harvard, and Joseph Polchinski of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Polchinski is known for, to quote Nature, "an analysis in 2012 that concluded that either black holes are surrounded by a ring of high-energy particles known as a firewall - a possibility that contradicts the general theory of relativity - or physicists' understanding of quantum theory is wrong." Vafa and Strominger have also completed important work examining the entropy of black holes.

Jean Bourgain at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, scored the Breakthrough Prize in mathematics. He's looked into everything from harmonic analysis to the geometry of Banach spaces.

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Five scientists were awarded life science prizes on a wide range of topics. They include

Dr. Huda Zoghbi, a professor of neurology at Baylor College of Medicine, who discovered a mutation to a gene known as SCA1. This mutation causes Spinocerebellar ataxia, which 150,000 people in the US and causes a loss of balance and coordination. Dr. Zoghbi didn't find a cure, but she established a groundwork for treatment where there was none.

Roeland Nusse, professor of developmental biology at Stanford University, who discovered the Wnt gene in 1982 with his academic advisor Harold Varmus. The Wnt gene is part of the carcinogenesis, or the formation of cancer. Wnt signalling pathways, which have also been the subject of Nobel-winning work, are crucial to our understanding of disease.

Stephen J. Elledge, a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School, was also given the Breakthrough Prize for work related to cancer. His work has analyzed how cells respond to cancer, and he has also focused on the spread of disease.

Harry F. Noller, a biochemist and director of the Center for Molecular Biology of RNA at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was given the prize for his focus on RNA and its role in protein synthesis. " Some argue," Nature says, "that he missed out on winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry because of the award's limitation to three winners."

Yoshinori Ohsumi, a cell biologist and honorary professor from the Institute of Innovative Research at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, was given the award in the same vein as Dr. Nusse: in recognition of vital work decades ago. In the 1990s Ohsumi was a pioneer in autophagy, the cellular regeneration process that comes from the Greek term "self-eating." Ohsumi also won the Nobel this year, and will present his lecture to that awards committee later this week.

The Breakthrough Prize also has a Juniors section, honoring teenagers working in scientific fields it streamed that part of its ceremony online, which you can watch below. An edited, one-hour version of the ceremony will air on Fox on December 18.

Source: New York Times

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The arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker over the alleged rape and murder of a German student in October has reignited the refugee debate in Germany. However, the countrys government urged people on Monday not to politicize the matter.

A 17-year-old Afghan boy was arrested last Friday after his DNA matched that found near the crime scene, where a 19-year-old died in the southwestern city of Freiburg on Oct. 15. The suspect, who arrived in Germany in 2015, was identified on surveillance footage.

The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD) said the crime occurred because of the uncontrolled influx of foreigners, and the chief of a police union reportedly warned against the dangers that always go along with massive immigration.

However, Chancellor Angela Merkels government said that this was not the first time that such a crime has taken place in the country.

If it turns out that it was an Afghan refugee, well then its absolutely condemnable, as any other murder would be, Merkel told public broadcaster ARD.

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel stated that all refugees should not be blamed for the crime.

Such horrible murders already happened before the first Afghan or Syrian refugee arrived here," Gabriel reportedly said. We will not allow incitement after such violent crimes, no matter who commits them.

The suspects arrest last week has triggered fresh criticism against Merkels open-door policy. Rainer Wendt, chairman of the German Police Workers Union, also blamed the crime on refugees and said it could have been stopped.

AfD co-chief Joerg Meuthen, said: We are shocked by this crime and at the same time we see that our warnings about the uncontrolled arrival of hundreds of thousands of young men from Islamic-patriarchal cultures are written off as populist.

On New Years Eve last year, a group of men  mostly Arab and African sexually assaulted hundreds of women in Cologne. The incident triggered outrage across Germany, which has attracted a massive number of refugees over the last few years, bringing Merkels refugee policy under fire.

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In 2015, about 890,000 refugee requests were made in Germany. However, the influx slowed down to 213,000 between January and September 2016, after a deal with Turkey and a series of border closures on the Balkan route.

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Germany could very well be the next European country to ban burqas and the veils known as hijabs. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Tuesday she was in favor of banning "full-face veils."

In a speech made in Essen, Germany, to fellow Christian Democratic Union party members, Merkel confirmed her stance on the garment in a bid for her fourth term as chancellor. Merkel was re-elected Tuesday to lead the CDU party after receiving almost 89.5 percent of the delegate votes.

During the speech, Merkel said full-facial covering should be banned," Bloomberg reported. Merkel's remarks sided with the sentiments of fellow CDU party members, who have expressed an interest in the past to ban the veils and burqas in Germany.

Burqas, a garment that covers the body from head to toe, are traditionally worn by those of Muslim faith. Hijabs are veils that typically cover a womans face from head to chest.

Following burkini bans over the summer on beaches in the French Riviera and a series of terror attacks across Western Europe, Germanys CDU party and affiliate party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) parties debated banning the burqa in August. The European country had proposed banning full-face veils in public places, such as registry offices, government offices and schools, CNN reported at the time.

The burqa is not a sign of freedom of religion, but a sign of the freedom and oppression of women. We can not accept this in Germany, Dennis Gladiator, domestic political speaker of the Christian Democrats, told German news outlet Die Welt in August.

Merkel, who ran unopposed as German chancellor for the CDU party, has had to address growing concerns regarding refugees who have arrived in Germany seeking asylum following Merkels decision to open the country to thousands of immigrants in 2015. Merkel announced Thursday she would not cap the number of refugees allowed to enter Germany.

France was the first country in Europe to ban the burqa, which went into effect in 2011. Belgium and Switzerland also have bans set in place.

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By Noah Barkin

ESSEN, Germany, Dec 6 (Reuters) - After a U.S. presidential election and Brexit campaign that were tarnished by lies, vicious political attacks and deceptive online news stories, Germany is promising to double down on facts, values and seriousness.

At a congress of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives on Tuesday, speaker after speaker talked about the importance of respect and moderation in politics, with some criticising social media platforms Facebook and Twitter for facilitating the spread of false news.

"The truth remains the truth, and lies remain lies," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told 1,000 delegates of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), gathered in a vast convention centre in the western city of Essen. "I don't want to live in a world in which algorithms determine political views."

Volker Bouffier, premier of the state of Hesse, told the audience that Germany must safeguard its "culture of respect".

"That is what differentiates us from the troublemakers, the extremists and those that think you can explain the world in 140 characters," he said, in an apparent dig at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has continued to send provocative tweets since his victory last month.

In Germany, where politicians rarely engage in personal attacks, Trump's campaign with its steady stream of unsubstantiated claims and vicious attacks on his opponent Hillary Clinton was watched with horror.

Berlin was also unsettled by misleading claims made by Brexit campaigners, who promised voters that hundreds of million of pounds per week would be freed up for the National Health Service if Britons voted to leave the EU.

The German government has been a leading critic of platforms like Facebook, with Merkel confronting the company's founder Mark Zuckerberg at the United Nations in New York last year and pressing him to do more to crack down on racist posts.

Supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the anti-Muslim Pegida movement have taken to chanting "Luegenpresse", or lying press, at rallies, a term used by the Nazis to discredit mainstream media.

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Breitbart News, a U.S. site that was run by Trump's campaign manager Stephen Bannon and has been a platform for white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theories, has said it plans to expand into Europe ahead of elections in France and Germany next year.

"The Internet is not a lawless place," Merkel said in her speech at the conference on Tuesday.

(Additional reporting by Paul Carrel; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
(Adds domestic sales, exports by country)

MEXICO CITY, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Mexican auto exports rose 9.6 percent in November compared with the same month a year earlier, while production was up 7.4 percent, the country's auto industry group AMIA said on Tuesday.

The total number of autos produced was 318,149 in November, while exports rose to 245,330 units, AMIA said in a statement.

Domestic sales jumped a dramatic 22.5 percent in November to 154,616 units compared with the same month last year, even as consumer confidence slumped to a nearly three year low in the same period.

Exports to the United States, which accounts for more than three quarters of the foreign market, picked up by 11 percent last month while shipments to Canada slipped by 9.2 percent.

(Reporting by Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein; Editing by Andrew Hay)
mexico exports nissan car manufacturing

Mexico is now exporting more to the US than Canada.

Exports from Mexico to the United States totaled $245 billion for the first 10 months of 2016, while exports from Canada to the US came in at $230 billion, according to figures released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, which we spotted first via Bloomberg's Gerg Quinn and Nacha Cattan.

If these trajectories continue, 2016 will be the first time the US bought more from Mexico than from Canada. China remains the number one exporter to the US, while Canada and Mexico finished 2015 tied for second.

Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico's economy has become more focused on manufacturing; over 80% of its exports went to the US in 2015. At least part of the country's attractiveness can be attributed to its lower wage costs relative to Canada (and the US).

Notably, the data from the Commerce Department suggests increased economic integration between the US and Mexico at a time when President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated a more protectionist agenda. During his campaign, he criticized Mexico (along with China and Japan), proposed taxing imports from Mexico, and called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) "the worst trade deal in the history of our country."

And since his election in early November, there have been questions about whether Mexico could get economically whacked once Trump steps into office come January. Several forecasts have predicted a recession if the President-elect follows through with his proposals, while a team at Capital Economics forecasts that "growth is set to be softer than we had previously expected due to weaker investment and tighter monetary policy"  although they stopped short of predicting an outright recession.

Screen Shot 2016 12 06 at 12.49.09 PM

For what it's worth, Mexico's GDP rose by 1.0% in the third quarter, following an upwardly revised 0.1% in the second quarter. And somewhat notably, the uptick was driven partially by Mexico's services sector, which you can see in the adjacent chart from Capital Economics.

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Another interesting thing to note is that the Mexican peso has weakened significantly against the US dollar over the last two years. This makes goods coming from Mexico cheaper for Americans which then, taking that a step forward, allows Americans to buy more for the same dollar amount relative to before.

While the Mexican peso ended up being one of the big market casualties of the US presidential election as it became something of a gauge of Trump's prospects, it's crucial to note that the currency started weakening before Trump started campaigning.

Neil Shearing, Capital Economics' chief emerging-markets economist, previously argued that this could be explained by a structural deterioration in the country's economic position amid long-run issues at Pemex, the state-owned oil company, and chronically weak productivity growth.

The Mexican peso is up by 0.9% at 20.4018 per dollar as of 2:20 p.m. ET.

Screen Shot 2016 12 06 at 12.58.22 PM

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When WWE missed out on booking Trish Stratus for NXT TakeOver: Toronto during Survivor Series weekend, they reached out to another female wrestling legend: the one and only Mickie James. (Arguably completing the long-con Single White Female-ing Mickie has been trying to perform on Trish since the beginning of her WWE career.) Mickie challenged NXT Womens Champion Asuka at TakeOver and lost, but she loved the experience and said she would be completely open to a full time main roster return. Well, good news for everyone, then!

After TakeOver, Triple H said in an interview that whether James would be back was up to her. According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, James has indeed been offered a main roster contract by WWE, and true to Triple Hs word, its just waiting on her to accept it. The womens rosters of Raw and Smackdown are in the single digits, so more wrestlers on television can always be appreciated, particularly a wrestler of Mickies caliber.

Theres no word on whether James would head to Raw or Smackdown if she accepted the offer, but there are plenty of arguments to be had for either. She could add star power and much needed depth to a seriously depleted Raw womens division, or she could be a non-Natalya veteran to help guide the great Smackdown Womens Six.

 Yeah, shell probably go to Raw. Between Natalya and Nikki, Smackdown is full up on wily veterans. Well bring you more news if this deal becomes official, but were just looking forward to Mickie James storylines where she (presumably) doesnt get murdered by a train.
President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he wants to review U.S. strategy to take on the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS), according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford. In his year-long presidential campaign, Trump criticized President Barack Obama and his administration for their policy to defeat the extremist group, which he called ineffective.

[There] are some things that we would probably bring in to the new administration for consideration because, obviously, theres a policy framework within which ... the military dimension of the strategy takes place today, Dunford said Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Well make sure that, as we go through transition, they understand what that policy framework is, they understand where there may be some flexibility to make changes in that policy framework, which will then inform maybe some course and speed corrections to our strategy, he said, adding. The one thing that we wont do as a team coming in is, were not going to be the folks in uniform that say, Look, weve thought of everything. Were comfortable where we are.

Trump has held his former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and Obama responsible for letting ISIS establish itself as worldwide problem. During the presidential campaign, Trump said he intends to join hands with Russia  even though NATO said less than 20 percent of Russian airstrikes actually targeted the extremist group  to fight the Sunni hardline group. He also plans to call on Israel, Jordan and Egypt to fight ISIS.

We cannot let this evil continue. Nor can we let the hateful ideology of radical Islam  its oppression of women, gays, children and nonbelievers  be allowed to reside or spread within our own countries, Trump said in an August speech. We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism, just as we have defeated every threat we have faced in every age before.

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millennials

Late in 2016 Deloitte published a fascinating market profile[1] of the millennial generation, basically anyone born between 1980 and 2000.

Considered as an important demographic, millennials will be the largest adult segment by the end of the current decade. Thats three years from now. And not just in the West: Already nearly two thirds of Asians are millennials.

Millennials are entering their peak years for earnings, consumption and investing. They are coming not just in numbers but with documented differences in the way they think about money.

From where I sit, the financial services industry doesnt know how unready it is for the millennial wave to break.

Companies in every industry commonly hire for the operating environment that is about to expire. Everyone concerned relies on their expert judgment of talent. It is a judgment formed in the old world and so they fish in the old talent pools. And they hire the wrong people.

In an age of talent shortages this costs them money and constrains growthnot just future growth but growth right now.

Recently Wholefoods, the big US grocer, conducted a search for a senior HR executive who would hack our people practices. Grocery retailing is far removed from the clients we serve at The Options Group, but I know exactly what Wholefoods is after. Id like to see a similar kind of impulse among financial-services firms to get themselves ready for the long wave of millennials coming down upon them.

Whole Foods

Here are some big ideas for doing just that.

Generation cautious

As they enter the most dynamic phase of their adult lives millennials will be building college funds and retirement nest eggs. And theyll be looking for ways to be self-sustaining to an unparalleled degree. More than half plan to start new business. More than a quarter already have. To a degree unprecedented in history they will have inherited wealth as their baby boomer parents pass from this earth.

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But bear this in mind: Millennials appear to be generationally cautious, and with reason. Terrorism and financial crises have occupied a large part of their lives. According to Deloitte, as a group the demographic is leery of stocks (which are less than a third of their net worth). They are attracted to alternative investmentswhatever those are. Millennials, according to Deloitte, acknowledge a broad lack of basic financial knowledge.

Given what appears to be a generational predisposition toward caution, trust will be an essential quality in millennial relationships with their financial-services firm. The capacity for building trust beyond conventional fiduciary obligations will require formation of authentic personal relationships different, perhaps, from the established conventions of what weve learned to think of professionalism.

Millennials are digital natives. They are not merely comfortable with technology. They assume technology. The implication for financial firms is that they will need to recruit for skill sets, naturally, but also recruit personalities who can simultaneously build relationships and think in innovative ways about investment products. Successful financial talent for the next 30 years will understand the intersection of technology and investing, certainly, and be simultaneously adaptable to the challenge this intersection poses to the industrys conventional revenue models.

Big Data Mining

This is a new talent profile for the financial-services industry, one most of the industries managers are not (yet) accustomed to recruiting. Ready or not, the industry is about to join the world of Big Data and talent analytics. And not a moment too soon.

Breaking with convention

The promise of Big Data solutions like predictive analytics does not lie in collecting information. Thats the least of it. The promise lies in using advanced statistical techniques to find previously obscured patterns and uncover hidden value.

Recently, for instance, a large financial-services client asked my firm to add assessment of cultural fit to our search activities on its behalf. It is a comparatively easy modification of our intake process that weve done before. It allows us to sort candidates better and faster, and focuses the clients attention on metrics aside from job history. It is a kind of baby step toward predictive analytics.

The conventional recruitment process is full of noise, to use a term of data scientists. The noise comes from resumes, job boards and hit-or-miss personal references. Then theres human elementthe interviewers. The interview process trusts in serendipity to an unnerving extent.

job interview

Its no secret that humans have a hard time with objectivity, and that even the most modest among us value our own opinion more highly than we should. Its well documented that even experts are susceptible to conscious and unconscious filters[2]and not the obvious prejudices either, like race and gender. Its been demonstrated again and again that the long-term unemployed, for example, make committed employees and yet the prejudice against them persists. Humans like to make quick decisions, after all. How much simpler to check a CV for a brand-name university and an uninterrupted job history.

Going in the direction of growth is harder when the experts running things all understand the world in pretty much the same way. My experience of the financial-services industry is that is a closed network in which the same strategic world view and the same measures of success are agreed upon. Management teams reflexively replicate the current generation of industry leaders in the hiring process. As they do with the suits they wear they prefer talent with a traditional fit. They hire the familiar. They hire themselves.

Just compare the profiles of leaders at fintech firms with those of established Wall Street investment bankers. I have, and the differences in background and personality type is stark. We find it hard, to put it plainly, to see beyond our own reflections in the mirror and spot what may be nontraditional candidates but who are exactly who we should be looking for if only we knew it. Thats where talent analytics will be transformational.

The promise of talent analytics

A conventional CV or a LinkedIn profile is a list of jobs held and skills acquired. By harvesting such lists every organization of any size has built a process for culling and tracking applicants. These processes might be called beginners analytics.

Lists of credentials, though, do not capture signals about talent and future performancequalities like motivation, cultural fit, learning style, comfort in collaboration and the distinctively human capacity for resilience and persistence. A CV or a LinkedIn profile wont surface predictive variables that none of the parties involved even realizes is a predictive variable. For example, Gallup discovered that a group of military trainees in a particular unit were 1.5 times more likely to complete a rigorous training program if they had a friend or family member who had served in the unit.[3]

The logo for LinkedIn Corporation is shown in Mountain View, California, U.S. February 6, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith/File Photo

One day soon talent analytics will be understood as a profoundly strategic tool. It is not hard to imagine, for instance, talent modelling with an analytics tool to directly address strategic questions like the probability of success for specific kinds of talent under different kinds of market risk. Or the right match of talent to alternative futures for an organizationthe investment patterns of millennials, say, versus those of their parents.

Predictive analytics are not yet commonplace even in large organizations. Right now they are largely a Big Data phenomenon. To justify their cost they are likely to be available only for large scale search needsfor the present. It is not hard at all to imagine a day sometime soon when even small firms have access to pools of raw data and the software for finding predictive patterns in it. When that happens talent analytics will become a commonplace feature of the search and recruitment process. Analytics will not be a standalone tool but one married to the human genius for framing problems and pursuing answers.

Predictive analytics will never wholly remove human wisdom from the talent-management algorithm, nor should they. Any algorithm is only as good as the questions it was developed to answer. Asking questions is what humans do best. Questions like, "How do I serve a demographic different in important ways from any Ive ever served before? A demographic thats going to dominate my business for the next 30 years?"

Richard Stein is chief growth officer at Options Group in New York.

[1] Millennials and Wealth Management: Trends and challenges of the new clientele. Kobler, Hauber & Ernst. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (UK).

[2] Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence. Paul E. Meehl. University of Minnesota Press, 1954. Cited in Minds and Machines: The art of forecasting in the age of artificial intelligence. Guszcza & Maddirala. Deloitte Review. Issue 19. July 25, 2016.

[3] Hiring Decisions: Big Data Isnt Enough. Rigoni & Nelson. Gallup Business Journal. February 25, 2016.

NOW WATCH: Here's why some people have a tiny hole above their ears





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Trump protests

Thousands of people took to the streets in the weeks after the election, outraged that Donald Trump is the new president-elect.

Over 4 million signed a petition to encourage the Electoral College to make Hillary Clinton president instead, partly because she won the popular vote.

The electors will gather at their state capitols on December 19, and vote to formally make Trump the 45th president.

With so many citizens calling on the Electoral College to choose Clinton, and some electors even saying they will switch their votes, could it happen?

How does the electoral vote stand right now?

Each state has an elector for every congressperson they have, plus D.C. gets three, resulting in 538 people in today's Electoral College.

Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, plus one of Maine's districts (which, along with Nebraska, splits up its electors by district), giving him 306 electoral votes.

While Clinton won over 1.3 million more votes than he did overall because she carried population-heavy states like California and New York, she only won the popular vote in 19 states plus D.C.  giving her 232 electoral votes.

final 2016 electoral map

How would electing Clinton work?

Members of the Electoral College who decide to go against their state laws or party rules telling them who to vote for are quite ominously called "faithless electors."

They're pretty rare in modern political history. Thomas H. Neale, an expert in American government and the electoral college for the Congressional Research Service, found that only eight electors have been faithless since 1900.

Only electors from the party that won the popular vote get to cast their ballots in December, so only Republican electors will vote in the states that Trump won, and only Democratic electors in the states Clinton carried.

That means Clinton would need 38 electors to vote for her instead. As Neale told Business Insider: "That would require a lot of electors to change their mind."

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What are the chances of it actually happening?

electoral college

Several barriers are in place preventing electors from turning "faithless."

First, Neale said, 30 states plus D.C. have laws on the books "binding" their electors to vote for the candidate who won the state's popular vote. Punishments for becoming a faithless elector range from paying a fine to being replaced with an elector who will follow the rules.

Trump has 155 unbound electoral votes, so there are technically enough electors who could decide to vote for Clinton and wouldn't get punished legally for it.

Second, electors are usually selected by the political parties in each state, Neale said. Because 306 electors voting in December will be Republicans, the petitioners encouraging them to vote for Clinton instead would have to convince them to abandon their party.

"The important point here to realize is these are all party loyalists, and they are pretty carefully vetted," Neale said. "Part of that is because there have been the occasional faithless electors in the past who have been an embarrassment to the party, and they want to make sure they avoid it."

A few electors have spoken out about voting for someone other than Trump, including Christopher Suprun from Texas. (The state doesn't have a law to punish faithless electors.)

"I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office," he wrote in a New York Times op-ed December 5. "The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country."

But unfortunately for Clinton, Suprun and other faithless electors (some call it being "moral") have said they plan to write in Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, or Sen. Bernie Sanders' name. For his part, Kasich released a statement December 6 urging electors not to vote for him:

Gov. John Kasich statement on the recent news about the upcoming Electoral College meeting: pic.twitter.com/dm9yOfBqwF  John Kasich (@JohnKasich) December 6, 2016

Even if they do turn faithless, members of Congress can formally protest elector votes, and have them thrown out, when they officially count the ballots in a joint session on January 6, 2017.

"One of my legal colleagues suggests that the joint session is the 'break glass in case of emergency'  it's the last line of defense against an election that may have been corrupted in some way," Neale said.

Finally, history isn't on Clinton's side.

"The argument can always be made that, 'Well, Sec. Clinton won the popular election and therefore she should win the presidency.' This is the core argument of the direct popular election reform movement to eliminate the electoral college," Neale said. "But that argument has been raised time and time again, and Congress hasn't acted on this proposal since 1979."

Plus, the few times faithless electors have gone against their party's nominee, they've never swung an election.

NOW WATCH: Turns out a presidential candidate could win the election with just 22% of the popular vote





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DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Five West African countries have agreed to stop importing toxic fuels from Europe in a move that could improve the health of more than 250 million people, according to the United Nations. Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Ivory Coast have pledged to introduce strict standards to ensure they use cleaner, low-sulphur fuels for their vehicles, effectively stopping Europe from exporting its dirty fuels, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) said. European trading firms have been exploiting weak regulations in West Africa to export fuels with levels of sulphur up to 300 times higher than is permitted in Europe, campaign group Public Eye said in a report published in September. Public Eye described the issue as a "ticking time bomb" as cities grow across Africa and populations boom in major hubs including Nigeria's Lagos and Ghana's Accra. "West Africa is sending a strong message that it is no longer accepting dirty fuels from Europe ... they are placing the health of their people first," said UNEP head Erik Solheim. "Air pollution is killing millions of people every year and we need to ensure that all countries urgently introduce cleaner fuels and vehicles to help reduce the shocking statistics," Solheim said in a statement released late on Monday. Sulphur is responsible for deadly heart and lung diseases, health experts say. The five countries have also agreed to upgrade the operations of their national refineries - public and privately owned - to improve the quality of their fuel by 2020, UNEP said. Nigeria's environment minister Amina Mohamed said the agreement would massively improve the air quality in its cities and allow the country to set modern vehicle standards. "For 20 years Nigeria has not been able to address the vehicle pollution crisis due to the poor fuels we have been importing," Mohamed said in a statement. A combination of low-sulphur fuels and advanced vehicles emissions standards can reduce harmful emissions by up to 90 percent, according to the UNEP. Outside of West Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Morocco have all increased fuel quality requirements in recent years. But better quality drives up costs, and with many nations facing severe shortages in public finances, they are wary of angering people with higher pump prices, analysts say. (Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
Photo credit: Associated Press

From Cosmopolitan

A South Carolina judge has declared a mistrial after a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of a white police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.

Circuit Judge Clifton Newman declared a mistrial in the case after a jury consisting of 11 white people and one African-American said it could not reach a verdict after deliberating more than 22 hours over four days.

Former patrolman Michael Slager was charged with murder in the April 4, 2015 shooting death of 50-year-old Walter Scott. The judge had said the jury could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Cellphone video taken by a bystander that showed Scott being shot in the back was shown widely in the media and on the internet and shocked the country, inflaming the national debate about how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers.

After the video went public, Slager was fired by the police department and charged with murder. Scott's family called for peace in the North Charleston community. Their calls for calm are believed to have helped prevent the kind of violence that erupted elsewhere when black men were killed in encounters with law enforcement.

It's the second time in recent weeks a jury has deadlocked in an officer-involved shooting. A mistrial was declared Nov. 12 when a jury in Cincinnati couldn't reach a verdict in the case of a former campus police officer who was also charged with shooting a black motorist.

The video in the Scott slaying renewed debate over how blacks are treated by white law officers. There have been similar debates over race and policing in places from New York to Ferguson, Missouri and from Tulsa, Oklahoma to North Carolina.

Scott was pulled over in North Charleston for having a broken taillight on his 1990 Mercedes and then fled the car, running into a vacant lot. Family members have said he may have run because he was worried about going to jail because he was $18,000 behind on child support.

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The prosecution argued that the 35-year-old Slager let his sense of authority get the better of him.

Photo credit: Associated Press

The defense maintained that the two men wrestled on the ground, that Scott got control of Slager's stun gun and then pointed the weapon at the 35-year-old officer before the shooting. The defense also contended there was no way the officer could tell if Scott was armed.

Much of the testimony at the trial centered on the cellphone video, which at times was blurry and shaky. The jurors saw the video numerous times, including several times frame by frame.

Last year, the city of North Charleston reached a $6.5 million civil settlement with Scott's family. In the wake of the shooting, the city also asked that the U.S. Justice Department conduct a review of its police department policies with an eye toward how the department can improve its relationship with residents.

Slager also faces trial next year in federal court on charges of depriving Scott of his civil rights.

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By Eric Auchard

LONDON (Reuters) - Smartphone-only bank Number26 is now offering its services in 17 countries in the euro zone, expanding from a smaller core of European markets it entered a year ago, it said on Tuesday.

The Berlin-based company is backed by Li Ka-shing, one of Asia's richest men and Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, along with other investors including Berlin's Earlybird Ventures and Zurich-based Red Alpine.

The company, which received its own banking license from German financial regulator Bafin this year, offers online accounts for cash withdrawals, savings and insurance services that users manage on their mobile phones.

It currently counts 200,000 customers in 8 countries.

Without the expense of branches or legacy computer infrastructure and by relying on selective outsourcing, mobile-first banks can challenge established banks by promising lower lending rates and higher rates on savings.

Established banks have responded by plowing more money into upgrading their own computer systems, rolling out mobile apps of their own, closing retail bank branches and investing in fintech startups.

N26, which first launched in 2015 in Germany and Austria, then moved into Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Slovakia, is now adding the Benelux countries, the Baltics, Finland, Portugal and Slovenia. (http://reut.rs/2haPW4b)

"We have built Europe's most modern mobile bank," Number26 Chief Executive and co-founder Valentin Stalf said in a presentation at the TechCrunch Disrupt London conference.

"We are getting closer to building a truly European bank."

(Reporting By Eric Auchard; Editing by Keith Weir)
The mother of two boys swept to their deaths by a raging river does not blame the two men charged with manslaughter in the tragic accident.

Never for one second, Sarah Giangregorio told Inside Edition in an exclusive interview. Its not in my heart. They loved the boys.

Read: TV News Anchor, 24, Dies in Accidental Plunge Off 185-Foot Waterfall

Tyler Jennings, 34, and Chad Staley, 32, have been charged second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the June deaths of Dylan Giangregorio, 9, and his brother, Preston, 6.

Jennings is the boys uncle.

Sarah had taken her sons for a picnic at Letchworth State Park in upstate New York, where breathtaking waterfalls and rocky cliffs rise from the verdant landscape. It has been called the Grand Canyon of the East.

The family was joined by her sister, Jennings and friends.

While she and her sister prepared the meal, Jennings and Staley took the boys and three other children for a hike.

They waded into the fast-moving Genesee River above the 70-foot-high Lower Falls, in a posted and restricted area, authorities said.

The children lost their footing and were swept over the falls with Jennings. Staley clung to a rock and didnt go over.

Read: Full-Blown Waterfall Seen Pouring Into D.C. Metro Station During Rush Hour

The boys were killed. The other children survived.

Sarah said she remembers hearing people screaming.

I knew right away they were gone. My sister kept saying, Dont say that. But I knew they were not with us anymore.

In November, a grand jury indicted both men. They have pleaded not guilty. Their next court appearance is scheduled for January.

Tyler [Jennings] was a mess, Sarah said. "Its very hard for him. He kept saying, my boys, my boys.

Watch: Man Who Almost Died Jumping Off Nearly 200-foot Waterfall Says He Would Do It Again

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With US film critics' circles having announced their awards for this year's movies, "Moonlight", "Manchester by the Sea" and "La La Land" have emerged as major winners which will likely secure a nomination for the 2017 Oscars.

Last week, "La La Land," a musical comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, was voted Best Picture by New York's film critics. On Sunday, December 4, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave its accolade to "Moonlight," which also garnered Best Feature at the Gotham Awards.

The second full-length feature by director Barry Jenkins, Moonlight, which has been greeted with virtually unanimous critical acclaim, is now tipped to win a much coveted gold statuette. First screened at the Telluride and Toronto festivals, and thereafter in New York, London and Rome, "Moonlight" has been hailed by the press in the US, and the independent picture is now viewed as this year's sleeper hit which could create an upset at the Oscars.

"Manchester by the Sea" is another serious contender for an Academy Award. The picture, which was named Best Film by the National Board of Review, has attracted praise for strong performances by actors Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck. Along with Adam Driver, who received the LAFCA award for his role in Paterson, the brother of Ben Affleck is now a hot favorite for Best Actor at the Oscars.

Huppert tipped for Best Actress

As the Oscar for Best Actress, Isabelle Huppert has virtually unanimous support from the critics. In the wake of victories at the Gotham and New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the French actress rounded out the week with a third accolade from the film critics of Los Angeles for her role in Paul Verhoeven's "Elle," which may well be the picture that represents France at the February 26 ceremony.

For the moment, Huppert has taken the lead among a prestigious group of contenders for the statuette, which includes Natalie Portman ("Jackie"), Amy Adams ("Arrival"), Emma Stone ("La La Land") and Annette Bening ("20th Century Women").

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will announce its nominations for the 2017 Oscars on January 24, and the 2017 ceremony, which will be the 89th in the history of the awards, will be held on February 26.
(Adds quote from report)

MEXICO CITY, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Mexico's banking system maintains reasonable capital levels when subject to adverse scenarios in recent stress tests, the central bank said on Monday, but added that some institutions could show capital deficiencies under certain conditions.

In an annual report, the central bank said that the economy and financial system are facing a challenging environment which could affect growth and the exchange rate.

While the central bank emphasized that Mexican banks have adhered to strict international capital requirements, it also urged caution among lenders, highlighting the financial system's exposure to risk.

"It is of paramount importance that credit institutions that operate in the country carefully assess their capacity for growth and maintain high origination standards, particularly in an environment of high volatility and moderate economic growth," the report said.

"Although in some contemplated scenarios certain institutions analyzed could suffer from a lack of capital, the overall system would remain solvent," it also said.

Jaime Gonzalez, president of Mexico's National Bank and Securities Commission (CNBV), said in an interview earlier this month that the stress test results revealed four or five banks needed to boost their capital buffers, but declined to name them, adding that the gap was not serious.

In November, Reuters reported that Mexican banking regulators had been performing extraordinary daily checks on the health of banks and brokerages since Donald Trump clinched the U.S. presidential election.

Mexico's peso took its biggest two-day tumble in more than 20 years following the surprise win for Trump, who has vowed to rework or scrap a regional free trade agreement and said he will make Mexico pay for a wall on the U.S. southern border.

Before the U.S. election, Mexico's financial authorities ordered the country's banks to conduct stress tests to assess the potential macroeconomic impact and volatility resulting from a Trump victory, in addition to a normal annual stress test.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Natalie Schachar, editing by G Crosse)
Most people have one home. I had two.

As the train began pulling away from platform no. 13, an all too familiar place, I had this recognizable uncomfortable feeling in my heart.

Misty eyes, glum faces, longing stares and frantic goodbyes, all disappeared into the beckoning whistle of the engine. All that was left were chains pulling at my heart, the same way it had when my flight took off from Kolkata two years ago to bring me to this city  Delhi.

Adapting to aloo tikki chaat from 'puchka was tough; from dada cholo na to bhaiya kyun nahi jaoge was even tougher. The addas had become HKV nights, the Rum had become Vodka, and aantels (Bengali word for pseudo intellectuals) were no longer the laughing stock, because now I had to make do with wannabe Drakes. This was to be my new life and my god was I cranky!

Late night drives past India Gate never get old. Image source: transindiatravel.com

To say that I was struck by a culture shock would be to underestimate how I felt. I was devastated, all screwed up. I had slipped into a kind of nascent depression.

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This was a strange place where even I was not loud enough and where Bollywood night was actually a bigger hit than the movies themselves. My mornings now comprised of new battles. I found myself desperately trying to draw parallels in my head, reminiscing in the unknown and indulging in self-convincing soliloquies far too many times

Yes Ma, I am in CP, its a lot like the Park Street here you know?

Sarojini feels like an open space New Market

C.R.Park is like an overpriced Golpark

JNU looks like an oversized JU

Short stints at Jama Masjid before Karims

Without the occurrence of anything even akin to an epiphany, I had just begun living this dual life, to-ing and fro-ing between Delhi and Calcutta. One moment I was craving the Chicken Jahangiri and Khamiri Roti at Karims (Jama Masjid) and the other moment I was salivating for Arsalans Chicken Biryani back home. Some Thursdays, I would sit by the window sill with a cup of tea in my rented flat in East of Kailash, missing Calcuttas Jazz Encounter Nights at Plush lounge and when in Calcutta, I would spend my Thursdays contemplating if my friends would enjoy Nizamuddin Dargas Qawwali. It was like a cultural Fight Club in my head.

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Khamiri rotis from Karims. Image credit: urbanhopperz.com

Drives down Babughat during vacations would make me think of the Hauz Khas Lake and luncheons at Mocambo were barely ever spent without this after thought- Big Chill is actually really F-ing good. As a foodie, there are restaurants like Peter Cat, BBQ, Golden Dragon, Benjarong and Hot Wok from Calcutta that I could absolutely vouch were the best in the world. Now, with my world enlarged, there were new additions to this list  Barcelos, Zu Tisch, Yeti and The All American Diner.

One time my friend from school happened to be visiting Delhi and we were hankering for some affordable Chinese food, so we headed out for Majnu Ka Tilla. I think we discussed how similar and dissimilar the vibe was at MKT as compared to our post-drinking Chinese breakfasts in Calcuttas China Town near Teritty Bazaar, after every bite of food.

Hazy times at Haus Khas

We went clubbing to Haus Khas the next day. It was ladies night. We hurled a million silent insults at the bartender for presuming women only drink Vodka. Months later, while doing it all over again in Park Street, we couldnt help but feel sorry for being so hypocritical. The truth was, getting into a club and getting a free drink, was colossally simpler in Delhi. There was also the factor of choice. Dont like the music at Moonshine? Cool! Lets go to Social. Here in Calcutta if we didnt so much as like the temperature inside a club, there was only one other place to go  home!

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My last autumn in Delhi, I couldnt make it back home for Durga Puja. My other Calcutta buddy and I were so heartbroken, we finished half a bottle of whisky in 20 minutes flat and headed out for the K block Puja in C.R. Park. We still dont know if it was the alcohol or the sound of the dhaak but it was almost as if like we had been magically transported to Maddox Square for those 30 mad minutes of dhunnuchi dancing. As a sober after-thought, it wasnt a patch on what Calcutta Pujos are like, but still, it was amazing.

Celebrating Durga Puja C.R.Park style

By now my head had become a sloppy concoction of preferences and biases. I would jump with joy every time I heard Bengali in Delhi and I would be MC, BC, Tenu, Menu-ing at friends that pissed me off in Calcutta. I had surely not gotten over good ol Maacher Jhol (fish curry) and Bhaat (rice), but I had developed this inexplicable love for Butter Chicken and Tengri Kabab as well.

Did I miss the Bangali bhadralok (gentleman) who would excuse themselves if they bumped into you by mistake on the dance floor? Yes! But I had also adapted to the high-fiving, back-slapping, Delhiite who thinks bumping into someone is downright hilarious.

I was so used to Delhi, that back home I would regularly ask my Dadas (taxi drivers) GK chaloge?, while they stared back at me with utter consternation. Roxy and Tantra Ladies night began feeling like a joke. I would get shitfaced, and start yelling at the top of my voice DJ wala babu mera gana baja do.

Somewhere between the to and fro of Sealdah-NDLS my life had changed. I had changed.

Sunset at Humayuns Tomb

The yellow of a vehicle that took me from one place to the other, was now symbolic of both Delhi autos and Calcutta taxis. Late night drives to get midnight munchies made me think of Qutub Institutional Area or India Gate, as much as it used to of Sharma Dhaba in Ballygunge. In my mind, when I thought of the skyline of my city it resembled one that only existed in my head; a skyline emerging from the merging of two. One that had Humayuns Tomb, Qutub Minar and the Lotus Temple, along with Victoria Memorial and Howrah Bridge.

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I was homesick all year round because my heart had now neatly divided itself into two halves, each one at a different home, in different cities, my new home being Delhi.

The very last goodbye before my train left NDLS

Delhi is a city thats neither made of the rush of Mumbai nor of the lyadh (referring to lethargy endearingly in Bengali) of Kolkata; it neither slept all day nor was it the kind to never sleep at all; where love felt non-existent initially because, unlike all things Delhi, it was the only thing that was subtlesubtle with a twist! Lurking behind the Banta stalls, peeking behind photocopy shops, codified in graffiti walls (and mostly because it was there in the movie Tamashaa); where kindness felt forever absent but hid behind koi nai and sahi and chaal na saali; where affection, was not 'baby but 'meri bandi and compliments, did not preempt any sense of chivalry but was instead a short and straightforward 'totta lag rahi hai. Delhi is not easy to fall in love with for an outsider until you learn to see it and accept it for what it is  Dilli! Unabashed in its Indian-ness, over-dramatic and thoroughly brash.

It just so happened, I realise, when I had stopped trying to embrace Delhi, Delhi gave me a warm, loving jhappi  one I was letting go of, as my train pulled away from platform no. 13.

101 Finding Kolkata in Delhi

1. Kolkata Biryani House for biryani cravings

2. Annapurna fish fry (Rs10) and prawn cutlet (Rs 30) is quintessentially Kolkata

3. C.R.Park market 2 for all things Bengali - shankha-pola (red and white traditional Bengali bangles) to narkel naru (cocnut and jaggery balls) to fish markets

4. Drive through Connaught Place for a Victoria-Fort William feel

4. JNU is the equivalent of Jadavpur University

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are independent views solely of the author(s) expressed in their private capacity and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of 101India.com.

By Suman Quazi

Photographs by Suman Quazi

Cover Photo Credit: blog.strollup.in
Editors Note: This story originally ran on December 6, 2016.

When a waiter comes to congratulate Naomie Harris for all those films on a bright afternoon at a West Hollywood hotel, its fairly clear which ones he means. The highest profile, of course, is her work as a different kind of Moneypenny in the Daniel Craig-era Bond series; there is also the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean, Miami Vice and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom on her filmography. But as Paula in Barry Jenkins Moonlight, Harris says, she gets fewer well-wishers than shes used to. The crack-addicted mother to lead character Chiron, Paula is troubled, aggressive and desperate to dull the pain.

Theres something romantic and beautiful about Moonlight, even as Chirons life is fraught with complication.



Its very rare you get a script like that and you get as deeply affected. It made me cry three or four times just reading it, and I thought it would make an extraordinary film. And then I watched Barry Jenkins previous film, Medicine for Melancholy. Its one of the best movies Ive ever seen and its so beautiful. Its another movie that just gets under your skin. I thought, if this filmmaker can make a film like that for $13,000, what is he going to do with a better budget and an amazing script like this?

Whats really interesting is that, for all the darkness in Chirons story, as well, hes still so pure. His heart is innocent and untouched. And maybe thats because he actually shuts downto keep people out. But maybe its that purity that we find so beautiful, because it taps into an untouched part of ourselves.

Even with the script, did you have any hesitation about taking on a character like this?

You feel an extra responsibility because its an amalgamation of Barrys story, and also [playwright] Tarell McCraneys story. Youve got to represent their mothers, and they know especially well what living under those circumstances is like. They know their mothers moods and behavior swings. It wasnt the kind of role you could phone in. There was no fooling them.

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To be honest, I underestimated how difficult the role would be. I didnt say yes to it lightly, because I had to be persuaded to play a crack-addicted character like this. I thought the hurdle was simply, Oh, I dont want to play a crack addict, I want to play positive images of women. I thought, once I got over that hurdle, everything would just be getting on with the work.

But it wasnt like that with Paula, because shes very, very complex. And also, for me, because Im Miss Teetotal. I dont drink, I dont smoke, I dont do anything like that. I felt this huge chasm between us. It was like she was on the other side of the world, and how was I going to reach her?

So how did you reach her?

I only had three days on set, but I had a month to prepare, and a lot of that time was really trying to understand this woman. YouTube was a big help. That was my resource. There were all these documentaries about crack addiction in the 1980s. Even documentaries about crack addiction in 80s Miami specifically. It gave me an incredible insight into the world of the film.

I also met a crack addict who was kind enough to share her journey with me. That was helpful in terms of putting all those puzzle pieces together and making it personal, because you can never find a character outside of yourself, I dont think. It always has to be an internal search.

The thing that really connected with me was a woman who described her relationship to drugs as like being in a relationship with a psychopath. She described being with someone who makes you feel like the most beautiful person in the world; the most loved, the most treasured, the most confident. And this is what psychopaths do: they mirror you to find out what you need, and then they give it to you. But once they have their claws into you, they start to ravage and destroy you, and thats precisely what drugs do. The first hit is apparently never the same as any hit that follows. Youre always chasing the euphoric feeling of that first hit, which youll never be able to repeat.

The other thing that helped me was that I noticed that, in every single caseevery single one of these women that were being interviewed about their crack addiction had been raped or sexually abused. It made me think about rape and social views, and it made me realize that nobody is ever raped just once. Its a trauma that gets repeated over and over in your head, usually on a daily basis, unless you get really great therapy. And someone like Paula doesnt have the resource for that, like most people. It becomes about living with a daily torment; emotionally and physically youre being tormented and remembering hideous things that you dont want to remember. You have this pain that you dont know how to deal with; its an open wound.

I realized I could understand why somebody reaches out to something that numbs their pain. I dont think you can play a character that you cant find any compassion for, and that was how I managed to find compassion for Paula. I loved her and I wanted to honor her journey in a way that wasnt about manipulating an audience. People have very strong reactions to Paula, and Im OK with that. All I wanted to do was honor her story and ensure I showed the full complexity of who she is. Shes ultimately a very damaged woman. She was never given the love she needed, and so she cant give it to her son. I dont think you can really judge someone for that. And you realize how lucky you are, to be given the tools that you take for granted, to love because youve been loved.

Was she a hard character to shake?

No, I didnt find playing Paula as dark as I did playing Winnie Mandela. A lot of what motivates her is hatred, and thats a really dark place to stay in. Paula is coming from a place of pain, and thats really sad, and it is really dark, but I just felt more compassion and connection to the pain, rather than the darkness of it all. Also, ultimately her story is hopeful, because she manages to turn her life around and she manages to become somebody who then dedicates her life to helping other people. She has the amazing ability to actually ask her son for forgiveness as well.

Paula is ultimately very human. Like the rest of the characters in this movie, there is no good and bad, only shades of grey.

Thats also really lovely because, as the characters are allowed to be their flawed, human selves, they reflect us, and the good and bad aspects inside of us. We cant all be one thing or the other, and we never are. It allows us to embrace our humanity in a different way; because we recognize that were contradictions and that thats OK. I find the movie really non-judgmental and non-dictatorial. I dont feel like Barry has any agendaor you dont feel it in the way he tells the story. I feel like hes just saying, Come into this world. This is the story I have to tell you, and youll take away from it what you want. When we go to Q&As and meet people whove seen the film, we get wildly different interpretations about what happens after the film ends, which is really interesting.

The other thing about Barry, is I think he was knocked off his journey a bit with this film. When he decided to do Moonlight, he did it because he recognized the similarities to his life but he thought hed be telling Terells story. He never thought it would be as personal to him as it became. It was only through the process of filming that he realized how personal it was, and how cathartic the journey proved to be. He had to really open up in a much deeper way than hed been expecting.

Considering how much of a presence Paula is, its amazing that you shot it all in three days.

We shot out of sequence; so we were going back and forth between older Paula, middle Paula and younger Paula. It was dependent on location, and we never intended it to be shot in three days. We were going to shoot over three weeks, with me coming back and forth from London, but I had visa issues, and we were doing the Spectre press tour at the same time. But at the time, it never felt rushed. Only on the last night was there a scene where Barry and I were like, Did we quite get that?

But its testament to Barry, and the fluidity of working on an indie movie, because we didnt have these massive lighting setups. You can center and the focus can be entirely on performance and getting that right.

Barrys very experimental, which I love. The first scene I shot was actually the middle scene, where Im chasing my son for money and pretending to be nice to him, to welcome him into the house because then I want to attack him for his money. We did the scene and got to the point of, OK, were moving on, when Barry said, I want you to do the whole scene to camera. That was never intended, but we did it to camera and then he was like, Now add this line in. Hes really that fluid, and its great because if you have someone fluid, it makes you feel as though you can be experimental and try a new thing, and theres no right or wrong.

Barrys open to the elements also. Hes open to what life will offer him in the moment. He often talks about the baptism scene, when Mahershala is teaching Alex Hibbert to swim. It was supposed to be six hours to shoot, but there was a storm coming in, so it ended up that they only had an hour and a half. There was a lot more dialogue, and it all had to be cut down to its bare essentials. Barry really embraced it and said, You know? Nothing will give me more than the elements can give me. Nature will always show you a better way, and he embraces that. Thats the greatest thing for a performer, because you can think, I can just use whatevers here. Thats the biggest thing you ever want from a director; to feel safe.

Whats also beautiful is that, when you have companies like Plan B and A24, who are looking for authentic voices in filmmakers, what theyre allowing the filmmaker to do is to run with their ideas and to have full autonomy over their work. I think what often happens, in bigger budget movies, is you get directed-by-committee. They mess with that voice and it gets polluted, and its a connection to the authentic voice that actually moves the audience. Thats what A24 and Plan B allowed Barry to do, and thats really special.

You mentioned the different ways the audience is reacting to the work. How did those first premieres out of Telluride and Toronto feel?

You know, its a funny thing, because with Paula I think often people feel some resistance. You watch a movie and you connect with these characters, and then you can meet the actor but you still see them as the character. I understand it. They see me as this really bad woman. [laughs]

But Telluride was extraordinary, because we came out of the theater and the audience had stayed to applaud us. The organizer said theyd never had that happen in the life of Telluride. It was really very special. And then Barry had a 70 year old man in his arms, and a young girl came up to me to speak about the film and she couldnt finishshe ended up crying in my arms. When you see that Its really hard to take it in, in a way. But its what you live for in terms of you want the film to be deeply affecting, because thats how it can bring about change. I dont think its overstating it to say that I think this film really changes the way people view themselves, and view life.

Youve been working with Andy Serkis on his mysterious Jungle Book project. What can we expect?

I worked with Andy on Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, and Ive always said hes the nicest, most down-to-earth man in the entire world. So when he said, Im doing Jungle Book, and he wanted me to be a part of it, I had no hesitation. I didnt have any idea about what he was going to be like as a director, but he directs exactly like he is as a person; endless amounts of enthusiasm and support, and just good energy.

I can remember I was doing a scene with Mowgli, saying how much Mowgli belongs in our tribe, and that he has no need to worry about the fact that he feels different. And Andy had tears in his eyes, and was choked up with emotion. Hes so great with his actors, and it was just a beautiful, dream job. I spent a week with dots on my face and the head camera, with no hair, no makeup, no costume, and you just get on your hands and knees and howl. It was like being back at drama school; I was a kid in the playground. Its completely liberating; its pure performance.

Im just so frustrated that it isnt coming out until 2018. [laughs]

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Official social media sponsor for leading annual investor conference

NEW YORK / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / NetworkNewsWire ("NNW") announces its role as the Official Social Media Sponsor for LD Micro Main Event 2016 taking place December 6-8 in Bel Air, California.

This year's event boasts a lineup of more than 236 innovative companies from around the world  representing industries ranging from technology, biotech, pharmaceuticals, mining, energy and others  which are set to present their operations and achievements to an audience of attending investors.

As a multifaceted financial news and publishing company, NNW will leverage its vast distribution capabilities to provide overview profiles in real-time, as each company begins its presentation.

To view the list of presenters, visit: http://nnw.fm/LDMicro2016

"This year's agenda brings together hundreds of outstanding companies, as well as a variety of social events, informative panels and keynote speakers," says Chris Lahiji, president of LD Micro. "Having NetworkNewsWire as the official social media sponsor adds another dimension of excitement to this event, especially for investors who are unable to attend but are interested in the presenting companies."

NNW's social communication solutions, news aggregation and syndication capabilities, and enhanced news release services are designed specifically to help public and private organizations find their voice and build market visibility. Using social media and a rapidly expanding distribution network of well over 5,000 key syndication outlets, NNW is able to reach vast audiences across the U.S.

"LD Micro's Main Event is among the most reputable annual investor conferences, and we are honored to use our distribution network of 5,000+ syndication outlets to provide each company extended coverage to the online investment community," says Sherri Franklin, director of Content Marketing for NNW. "It's always a pleasure working with Chris and his team, and we look forward to being a part of this exciting conference."

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About NetworkNewsWire

NetworkNewsWire (NNW) provides news aggregation and syndication, enhanced press release services and a full array of social communication solutions. As a multifaceted financial news and distribution company with an extensive team of journalists and writers, NNW is uniquely positioned to best serve private and public companies who need to reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public. NNW has an ever-growing distribution network of more than 5,000 key syndication outlets across the country. By cutting through the overload of information in today's market, NNW brings its clients unparalleled visibility, recognition and brand awareness. NNW is where news, content and information converge.

For more information, visit https://www.NetworkNewsWire.com

Please see full disclaimers on the NetworkNewsWire website: http://nnw.fm/Disclaimer

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SOURCE: NetworkNewsWire
News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson, who oversees Rupert Murdoch's publishing empire, on Tuesday renewed his attack on ad agencies for backing fake news sites with their program ad buys.

Thomson said ad agencies should be held to account for the audiences they're creating online, and exploiting. "We've gone from the year of Mad Men to mad metrics, and from a caricature of the martini song to the slightly techno tipsy," he told the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference as part of a presentation that was webcast.

Thomson's comments follow fake news stories and sites on the Internet becoming an issue following the recent U.S. presidential campaign and election on Nov. 8. Facebook and Google in particular were hit with the proliferation of fake news during the election, prompting some critics to question the role the social networks played in helping Donald Trump get elected.

"As a society, it's important that people understand the nature of content, who's writing it, why they're writing it, and people can make a judgment about its provenance, whatever your political views," Thomson said. Beyond digital distributors, ad agencies also need to help crack down on faux news sites.

"Ad companies make money out of fake news, and often advertisers will be aggregating audiences, so they're not just creating ads, they're serving ads to audiences that they have demographically defined," Thomson told investors. On the business front, the News Corp. boss noted that, while circulation revenue was up, "you're also seeing a significant decline in advertising revenue," including previously-announced 21 percent fall in ad sales for the Wall Street Journal during the most recent quarter.

That leaves the media company getting costs down, reconfiguring operations for the digital age, and needing to better understand how consumers access their news and information services to better evolve in the digital marketplace. But Thomson added clamping down on fake news posts could also help restore sanity to the advertising market.

"You would like to think that this debate over fake, over fallacious, over faux, over fraudulent will lead to advertisers in particular, and ad agencies to reassess the value of different platforms," he said. "The ad market is dysfunctional, and it's digitally dysfunctional," Thomson added.

Read more: Google to Prohibit Fake News Sites From Using Its Ad Software
Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel all referenced Donald Trump's controversial Taiwan call on the Monday episodes of their respective late-night shows.

Colbert said Trump "created an international oopsy-daisy" by speaking on the phone with Taiwan president Tsai Ing-Wen. He joked that Trump asked the Taiwanese leader what she was wearing, before explaining that in reality the call was a blunder because the U.S. hasn't recognized Taiwan as an independent nation since 1979, in order to appease the Chinese. "Basically it's like if Cheers refused to acknowledge that Frasier had become its own show," said Colbert.

He told Trump that if he ever got confused about which nation he was speaking with, he should remember that the China the U.S. talks to is "the one where they make your ties."

Colbert quoted The New York Times, which said that the "exchange touched the 'most sensitive spot' for China's foreign policy." He quipped, "Well no surprise - Donald Trump has a long history of sensitive-spot touching."

Seth Meyers worked his way up to tackling the Taiwan call by playing footage of Trump saying that if China ever slighted him like it did Obama - by not greeting him with a red-carpet staircase - he would just turn the plane around.

Meyers joked that in order to satisfy Trump, China may need a smoke machine, adding that China itself is a smoke machine. Then he moved on to the media reacting to Trump's Taiwan call, showing journalists talking about what an insult this is to China.

"Sounds like somebody's not getting the nice staircase," Meyers said.

Jimmy Kimmel also referenced the call in his monologue saying that the Taiwan president called had him to congratulate him for hosting the Oscars. "Just to be clear, she called me," he said, echoing Trump's defense of the call.

Read more: Oscars Host Jimmy Kimmel Jokes About Passing Out Weed on the Red Carpet
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Now there's a better drunk food than pizza.

A company in San Francisco called Regrained is selling beer granola bars. (Don't worry, they don't actually contain alcohol.)

SEE ALSO: The most enviable traits of a discerning wheat beer drinker

Because only 10 percent of the ingredients used to make beer make it to the final product, Regrained sought out a way to repurpose those leftovers.

With the slogan "Eat Beer," the company turns the scraps of grain left over from the beer-making process  along with ingredients like organic honey, puffed quinoa, chocolate and sea salt  into tasty snack bars.

Image: regrained

Image: regrained

The bars are rich in spent grain, which, as explained on the Regrained website, "contains fiber, protein, and as most curious homebrewers inevitably discover, it has a unique texture and flavor," which makes it "an ideal baking ingredient."

Image: regrained

The bars are available in two flavors: Chocolate Coffee Stout and Honey Almond IPA.

A 12-pack is priced at $24.99, so consider gifting them to a beer lover or bringing as a snack to a holiday party. The bars will taste much better than the warm 12-pack you picked up on your way over, anyway.

BONUS: Enjoy draft beer anywhere with this portable tap
GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian officials will not hold talks on Syria in Geneva this week, despite an announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that they would, sources familiar with the plans said on Tuesday. Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow would start talks with Washington on a rebel withdrawal from the Syrian city of Aleppo as Russian-backed Syrian forces fought to seize more territory from besieged rebels who are struggling to avoid a major defeat. The sources, who declined to be identified, said they could not rule out a possibility that U.S. and Russian officials might meet elsewhere later in the week. "The talks will not take place here but what is not clear is who really canceled them," a Western diplomat told Reuters. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; editing by Gareth Jones)
There's an additional consideration for up to $130m.

Noble Group announced that its 75%- owned subsidiary, Watt Power, has disposed of its entire 100% equity interests in each of the four power development companies, all incorporated in the United Kingdom, to Drax Developments Limited, a subsidiary of Drax Group plc, for an initial consideration of approximately US$23.5m(S$33m) with additional consideration payable dependent on the clearing price in future UK capacity market auctions of up to a maximum of approximately US$91.6m ($130m).

Shareholders should note that the quantum of the contingent consideration payable will depend on the outcome of the UK capacity market auctions during the period 2016 to 2020 and the actual quantum paid may be significantly lower than the stated maximum quantum.

The disposal will also result in outstanding bid and other security of approximately US$7.2 million (S$10.21m) being returned to Watt Power: Abergelli Power Limited (APL);Hirwaun Power Limited (HPL); Millbrook Power Limited (MPL); and Progress Power Limited (PPL).

The consideration will be satisfied in cash and was arrived at following arms length negotiations on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis, taking into account, inter alia, the relevant market and commercial considerations.

Upon completion of the Disposal, APL, HPL, MPL and PPL had ceased to be whollyowned subsidiaries of Watt Power.

Based on the latest unaudited consolidated financial statements of the Company for the period ended 30 September 2016, the book value attributable to the sale shares and the net tangible asset value attributable to the sale shares of each of APL, HPL, MPL and PPL was approximately US$0.8m ($1.13m), US$3m (S$4.26m), US$0.8m ($1.13m) and US$3.0m ($4.26m), respectively.





More From Singapore Business Review


South Korea announced its defense ministry's cyber wing had been attacked by hackers suspected to be North Korean. The cyberattack reportedly took place in September but the confirmation of the attack came Tuesday.

South Korean authorities are trying to determine the extent of the data leak following the attack. The cyber wing of the defense ministry was set up in January 2010 as part of the country's counter-hacking measures against attempts specifically carried out by Pyongyang.

"The military formed a cyber investigative team to look into this matter and found that some military data  including confidential information  has been leaked. It appears to be a North Korean act," the defense ministry said.

A South Korean military source said it had identified the source of the cyberattacks that targeted the internal networks of the military.

According to Yonhap news agency, the internet protocol (IP) address linked to the attacks origin was traced to a location in Shenyang, China, and a malicious code associated with the address was similar to the one used in North Korean cyberattacks against the South. This reportedly pointed to North Korean involvement in the hacking incident aimed at the army's intranet.

"It is our understanding the internal network of the military was hacked from an IP address in Shenyang," the military source told Yonhap. "The malicious code used in the hacking is similar to the code used in several computer breaches."

North Korea is believed to have carried out several cyberattacks in the past. In August, North Korea hackers were linked to the targeting of numerous South Korean government agencies.

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Things in the Arctic are just getting weirder and weirder. And not in a good way.

Freakishly high air and ocean temperatures during November caused sea ice to trail far behind typical levels, with sea ice extent ending the month at a record low. Sea ice extent averaged 3.51 million square miles for the month, which was 753,000 square miles below the 1981-2010 average for the period, according to data released Tuesday by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

The section of missing ice was about the same size as the entire country of Mexico. Or to put it in terms of U.S. states, the missing ice is greater than the states of Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico combined.

SEE ALSO: Large parts of West Antarctic Ice Sheet could collapse 'in our lifetimes'

During part of the month, sea ice actually declined when it would normally be growing with the arrival of the polar winter. The decline ate away 19,300 square miles of ice in an area of the Barents Sea, north of Norway, Finland and eastern Russia.

Sea ice extent compared to 1981-2010 average, with the arrow pointing to the dip in ice extent.

Image: NSIDC

According to the NSIDC, this large decrease in ice extent is nearly unprecedented for the month since satellite records began in 1979, though a far smaller dip occurred in 2013.

Remarkably, November is the seventh month this year to hit a record low ice extent, falling unusually far below the average  3.2 standard deviations, to be exact. November's ice extent was even more unusually below the norm than September 2012, which was when Arctic sea ice hit its all-time record low.

The reasons for the record lows have to do with prevailing weather patterns that have been  and in fact still are  pumping unusually high temperatures into the Arctic, along with longterm human-caused climate change that is propelling sweeping changes across the Far North. In addition, climate feedback loops are making it harder for sea ice to recover from missing summer ice, since the ocean waters retain a memory of the ice loss in the form of added heat absorbed from the sun.

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That heat is released relatively slowly during November, contributing to higher air temperatures and boosting precipitation in some areas through evaporation.

November Arctic sea ice extent in 2016 compared to previous Novembers.

Image: NSIDC

It looks like a triple whammya warm ocean, a warm atmosphere, and a wind pattern all working against the ice in the Arctic, said NSIDC director Mark Serreze, in a statement.

From northeast of Greenland toward Svalbard and Severnaya Zemlya in Norway and Russia, air temperatures averaged up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the month, which is an astonishingly large monthly anomaly.

On individual days, some areas saw temperatures that were more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit above average. For the next week to 10 days, air temperature departures from average could reach 50 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of the Arctic as this weather pattern continues.

This is the #Arctic sea ice story > long-term decline in total volume



Modeled (PIOMAS) Novembers from 1979 to 2016 [lowest on record]... pic.twitter.com/eIlpRL9J5t  Zack Labe (@ZLabe) December 5, 2016

A look at the spatial distribution of November air temperature anomalies (925 mb) over the satellite era... (NCEP/NCAR reanalysis) pic.twitter.com/jxA30MgoRX  Zack Labe (@ZLabe) December 5, 2016

Julienne Stroeve, an NSIDC researcher, was in Svalbard during November and noted the lack of sea ice.

Typically sea ice begins to form in the fjords at the beginning of November, but this year there was no ice to be found, she said.

Sea ice melt means more damaging waves hitting perilous Arctic villages in Alaska and elsewhere, fewer opportunities for walrus and polar bears to hunt for their prey and potentially altered weather patterns across the entire northern hemisphere.

Its startling to see how little sea ice is out there right now  a frightening situation for Arctic wildlife such as walruses and polar bears that need sea ice habitat for feeding and breeding," Margaret Williams, managing director for US Arctic programs at the World Wildlife Fund said in a statement. "As what will likely be the hottest year on record comes to an end, Arctic temperatures have been off the charts."

Southern Hemisphere sets records, too

The story of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere has been radically different than that in the Far North, with a longterm increase in the sea ice surrounding the Antarctic continent. This has often been a talking point for those who doubt the mainstream science on human-caused climate change, since sea ice was growing.

However, in November, the bottom dropped out on Antarctic sea ice, hitting a record low due to a shift in circumpolar winds and record high temperatures.

The average extent for November was 699,000 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 average, which was more than twice the previous record departure from average set in November 1986 and a staggering 5.7 standard deviations below the longterm average.

November Antarctic sea ice extent.

Image: NSIDC

Antarctic sea ice really went down the rabbit hole this time. There are a few things we can say about what happened, but we need to look deeper, said NSIDC scientist Ted Scambos said in a statement.

Overall, scientists remain more concerned about Arctic sea ice in a warming world, partly because it defines the circumpolar region. With Antarctica, the continent's land-based ice sheets are the bigger worry, since they could cause catastrophic sea level rise if they were to melt rapidly.

The Northern and Southern Hemisphere ice records mean that global ice extent has also hit a record low, but as the NSIDC noted, that metric is not useful for explaining what is going on at either pole, and is not an accurate way to track longterm ice trends due to global warming.

BONUS: Ship's voyage would not have happened without global warming
By Abhirup Roy and Rafael Nam

MUMBAI (Reuters) - National Stock Exchange will pursue plans to raise up to $1 billion via a public listing after Chief Executive Chitra Ramkrishna's decision to step down last week, said four sources familiar with the matter.

Two of those sources said the initial public offering (IPO) plans are now likely to move faster after Ramkrishna resigned over differences with the board about the IPO process.

The IPO, potentially India's biggest in six years, ran into internal hurdles last month after Ramkrishna told the NSE board she would not take part in a pre-listing investor roadshow due to start some time next year, the two sources said.

All four sources declined to be named because they have not been authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

Ramkrishna's resignation was accepted by the NSE board on Friday, because her lack of participation would have cast a shadow over the IPO process, two of the sources said.

"She did not want to be the face of the IPO to the outside world," one source told Reuters. "She had told a lot of people that she wasn't keen on continuing."

Some of the board members were already unhappy with aspects of her tenure, including her hiring of Chief Operating Officer Subramanian Anand, who was asked to leave after the board took issue with his hiring process and renumeration, said two sources.

Reuters could not reach Ramkrishna or Anand for comment on the matter.

A spokesman for the NSE denied she had stepped down over the IPO process.

"Ramkrishna resigned on personal grounds and it had nothing to do with her participation in IPO roadshows," said the NSE's head of communications Arindam Saha, adding that the NSE stood by its stated IPO timeline.

The NSE has previously stated it would file draft paperwork to start an IPO process by January.

The sources Reuters spoke with were unclear as to why Ramkrishna had objected to taking part in the roadshows. The NSE has yet to outline a timeline around the roadshows.

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Reuters had previously reported differences over the timing of the IPO had been causing friction between Ramkrishna and some of NSE's foreign shareholders.

The exchange on Monday named a new CEO search panel and one of the sources said the exchange wants to find a new CEO fast.

Bankers had previously said the NSE could raise as much as $1 billion in a listing that could be the biggest since Coal India's listing in 2010.

NSE's older rival BSE Ltd is also set to public next year in an IPO expected to raise about $150 million.

($1 = 67.9050 Indian rupees)

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Euan Rocha/Ruth Pitchford)
A public transit worker and an off-duty police officer were each the victims of recent hate crimes in New York City because they are Muslim, according to reports.

The latest instance was when a Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) employee was called a terrorist and pushed down a flight of stairs in a major commuter rail hub in Manhattan on Monday. Sosa Salama was wearing a hijab and her MTA uniform Monday when a man confronted her on the train heading to work, NBC New York reported Monday. On the train, the assailant yelled You are a terrorist and you shouldnt be working for the city to Salama, a 45-year-old mother of four originally from Egypt. When she exited the train at Grand Central Station, she was pushed her down the stairs, injuring her ankle and knee.

Days earlier, off-duty NYPD Officer Aml Elsokary was threatened by a man who reportedly said he would cut her throat on Saturday, the Huffington Post reported Monday. Christopher Nelson was arrested Sunday and charged with harassing Elsokary, who was in Brooklyn with her son at the time of the alleged incident. Nelson, 36, allegedly called Elsokary an ISIS b***h and threatened to slit her throat when she intervened on him verbally threatening her teenage son.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed the uptick in hate crimes in New York City since Election Day, including racially inspired graffiti emerging in public places throughout the city, the New York Post reported.

I was sick to my stomach when I heard that one of our officers was subjected to threats and taunting simply because of her faith, de Blasio said at a news conference Monday.

Hate crimes in New York City have risen 115 percent since Election Day with the NYPD reporting 43 cases through Sunday compared to 20 in the same time period last year.

Swastikas were found painted inside of a New York City commuter train Saturday. In Mineola village on Long Island, red swastikas and the words Make American White Again were also discovered spray-painted on a home Wednesday. Ku Klux Klan recruitment materials were also handed out in two Long Island commuter rail stations, according to local reports last month.

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"We've had an uptick in hate crimes, actually a little bit more than an uptick," NYPD Commissioner James O Neill told a New York radio station last month while saying he was greatly concerned by the recent pattern. "We're up 31 percent from last year. We had at this time last year 250, this year we have 328, specifically against the Muslim population in New York City  we went up from 12 to 25, and anti-Semitic is up, too, by 9 percent from 102 to 111."

Hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. rose by 67 percent in 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported last month. The racially-motivated incidents had previously increased by 14 percent in 2014 from 2013.

In response to the wave of hate crimes since the election, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the creation of a state police unit specifically for protecting civil rights.

The increase in hate crimes targeting Muslims could be attributed in part to rhetoric throughout Donald Trump's presidential campaign in which he associated Islam with the Islamic State group's terror attacks worldwide. Trump recently blamed U.S. immigration policies for last month's Ohio State University campus violence at the hands of a Somali refugee. The president-elect's proposal of implementing Muslim registries throughout the county has been compared to the creation of internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II.

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In the latest crackdown along the so-called iron pipeline, New York City police apprehended and indicted four men Monday hailing from Virginia and confiscated 110 firearms after an almost eight-months-long undercover operation, New York Daily News reported.

Clive Dixon was reportedly the ringleader of a group that allegedly participated in sales of 15 semiautomatic assault rifles, 65 pistols and three shotguns with an undercover NYPD detective. The investigation dates back to March after police received a tip.

All told, 28-year-old Dixon, of Virginia Beach, as well as his three alleged cohorts  Emmanuel Dentmond, Teal Holt and Antonio Williams  face 284 felony gun charges.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr., speaking at a press conference Monday with the pile of illegal weapons on a table before him, referenced some of the worst mass shootings in the countrys history.

In this pile youll find the .223-caliber semiautomatic assault rifle  the same style used to gun down most of the 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut, 12 theatergoers in Aurora, Colo., and the victims of the Beltway sniper in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002, Vance said.

Called the iron pipeline because of the materials found in guns, the name specifically addresses illegal weapons smuggling from southern states with more lax gun-control laws to stricter ones like New York along Interstate-95 on the East Coast.

Mondays bust was just the latest in New York City and comes on the heels of an even bigger arrest in October, when officials nabbed 19 people on gun trafficking, bank larceny and other weapons charges, according to CBS2.

In that instance, 27-year-old Colin Toney and two others were charged with bringing 40 guns from his home state of South Carolina and attempting to sell them in Brooklyn and Manhattan to undercover officers. The investigation eventually uncovered a larceny scheme to steal $60,000 from bank accounts.

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The landlord of the Oakland Warehouse where 36 people died in a massive fire that broke out during a rave over the weekend got combative with Today show anchors Matt Lauer and Tamron Hall Tuesday morning in an interview that had to be cut short after he got too emotional.

Its not a good morning. What am I doing here? Can I just say Im sorry? Derick Almena said before the NBC anchors pressed for details.

Lauer asked who should be held accountable for the 36 deaths.

Also Read: Oakland Rave Fire Criminal Probe Opens as Death Toll Rises to 36

What am I gonna say to that? I can barely stand here right now, Almena said. The landlord went on to explain that the victims were a group of artists making music, creating art and pursuing dreams. We created something together, he said.

Hall pushed, saying a past resident accused Almena of profiting and knowing the building was dangerous.

I dont want to talk about me This is a mass grave. Im only here to say one thing, that I am incredibly Im sorry, Almena said before getting even more emotional. I would rather get on the floor and be trampled by the parents. Id rather let them tear at my flesh than answer these ridiculous questions.

An extremely emotional Almena started to get combative toward Hall and Lauer before the interview was cut short.

Also Read: Oakland Rave Fire: Record Label That Put on Party Issues Statement About 'Unbelievable Tragedy'

Authorities announced Monday that upon further search of the building, they found almost four times more bodies than the nine that were initially discovered over the weekend, per NPR. They also said they expect to find more bodies before the search is over.

The search was called off around midnight local time on Sunday after firefighters noticed that one wall appeared to be in danger of collapsing. Oakland fire chief Teresa Deloach Reed estimates that 70 percent of the building has been searched.

Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriffs Department, told the Los Angeles Times that the district attorneys office has sent criminal investigators to work with the sheriffs arson task force and the Oakland Police Department to determine what started the blaze. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also assisting in the investigation.

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The call about the fire in the Fruitvale neighborhood came in at around 11:30 p.m, reported the New York Times. The party at 1305 31st Avenue had started at 9 p.m., and at least 100 people were in the building when the fire started, Reed said. Most of the deceased were on the second floor because there was only one way down on a stairway made of pallets, according to CNN.

Watch the video above.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Oakland Rave Fire Criminal Probe Opens as Death Toll Rises to 36

Oakland Fire Update: Facebook Post by Warehouse Leader Sparks Outrage

Oakland Rave Fire: Record Label That Put on Party Issues Statement About 'Unbelievable Tragedy'
Photo credit: Getty

From Cosmopolitan

Fire officials continue to discover victims at the scene of Fridays fatal Oakland, California, warehouse fire. About 50 people were in the building for a party, 36 are confirmed dead, and because authorities have only been able to search about 70 percent of the building so far, they absolutely believe more victims will be found, NBC News reports.



The cause of the fire is still unclear (though the Associated Press notes fire fighters believe they know where exactly the fire began), but those who managed to escape the warehouse in time are quick to clarify the concert that took place there Friday night was a calm one: I think its important to say this was not a rave, Michael Rosen, a partygoer who left the building for a few minutes and came back to find it in flames, told the Washington Post. This was a very intimate gathering. It wasnt a wild, out-of-control party where things got out of hand.

Satya Yuga, or Ghost Ship, as the warehouse is called locally, has long been considered a safe space for the California queer community. Were already struggling in so many other ways and were just trying to get by, Bailey Skye, a musician who performed with Cash Askew, a victim of the fire, also told the Post. Its almost at fault that we ignore some of these risks, but I think its hard to think about those things when youre mainly thinking about creating a safe space.

The warehouse was a tinderbox, another frequent attendee said of the debris, textiles, rugs, and wooden staircases that were housed inside. Artists would leave souvenirs of travels and other performances there because it reportedly felt like such a home away from home. The concert was being held on the second floor of the 10,000-square-foot venue, where most of the bodies have so far been found.

Only seven of the confirmed victims identities have been released, though the City of Oakland said they have identified an eighth but will not release the persons name because he or she is a 17-year-old minor. The identified deceased are Nick Gomez-Hall, 25; Sara Hoda, 30; Cash Askew, 22; David Cline, 24; Donna Kellogg, 32; Brandon Chase Wittenauer, 32; and Travis Hough, 35.

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Alex Vega, 22, is the one identified person who is still unaccounted for. Officials are expected to release more victims names later today and have asked families awaiting information about loved ones to keep toothbrushes and hairbrushes to help with the identification process when it gets to that point. You can donate to help victims and their families here.

Follow Tess on Twitter.

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The manager of the Oakland warehouse that caught on fire, killing at least 36 people over the weekend, spoke briefly to reporters on Sunday amid reports that the space was the subject of numerous safety complaints.

Derick Ion Almena told KGO at the Oakland Marriott City Center on Sunday night in a message to the victims, Theyre my children. Theyre my friends, theyre my family, theyre my loves, theyre my future. What else do I have to say? Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern said Monday that no more bodies are likely to be pulled from the rubble.

The 46-year-old has been scrutinized in the days since the fire as its been revealed that he and wife Micah Allison ran the organization  the Satya Yuga Collective  that operated the so-called Ghost Ship venue. According to records obtained by NBC Bay Area, the building was under investigation by the Oakland Planning and Building Department for habitability and illegal residential occupancy. Further, Almena reportedly failed to request a special permit for the rave being hosted at the building on Friday night, according to KGO.

The building itself was actually owned by a trust set by Chor N. Ng  not Almena  NBC Bay Area reported.

Former employees of Almena  who resided with Allison and their children (ages 13, 7 and 6, according to the New York Times) on the warehouses second floor  told KGO that he allegedly laughed off warnings about the buildings hazards from fire and police officials.

Danielle Boudreaux, who told the San Francisco Chronicle that she knew Almena for years, said that the police and Fire Department were there on more than one occasion. 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.

Numerous outlets reported that Almena initially responded to the fire in a since-deleted Facebook post, writing, 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.

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RELATED VIDEO: At Least 36 Dead In Oakland Warehouse Party Fire

After facing backlash, Almena further said in a written statement to NBC News, In my previous Facebook post, I had no idea there was loss of life. This tragic event consumes my every moment. My heart is broken. My heartfelt condolences to the family and friends who have suffered the loss of loved ones.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News, that aired Monday night, Almena tells correspondent Miguel Almaguer, I cant explain who I am anymore. Allison, who also appeared in the interview, tearfully revealed, Weve done everything that we possibly could afford to do.

Almena has previously dealt with personal legal problems. In Jan. 2015, he was charged with a felony of receiving stolen property, according to online court records. After reaching a deal, Alemna plead no contest to a misdemeanor and spent two days in jail. He was sentenced to 36 months probation, which started on Jan. 25, 2016.

Both the New York Times and the East Bay Express also reported that Almena and Allisons children were allegedly removed from their custody by the Alameda County Social Services Agency in March 2015 after relatives expressed concern for their safety. They were reportedly returned to their parents in June of this year. The agency did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment.

On Sunday, authorities confirmed they have launched a criminal investigation into the fire. The Oakland Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs requests from comment as to whether Almena will be or has been interviewed in connection to the investigation.




The operator who leased the Oakland warehouse known as the Ghost Ship where 36 people died on Friday night emotionally apologized for the deadly fire  but denied he made it unsafe and shirked safety codes.

A shaken Derick Ion Almena gave a live interview on the Today show Tuesday, where he was quick to express his sorrow for the blaze, which has been deemed one of the deadliest structure fires in the country over the past decade.

Its not a good morning, Almena said. What am I doing here? Can I just say Im sorry? The only reason why Im here is to put my face and my body here in front.

When asked if he should be held accountable for the loss, Almena broke down.

Am I the man who should be held accountable? Did I build something I mean what am I going to say to that? Should I be held accountable? I can barely stand here right now.

He continued to apologize up until the live interviews end.

I didnt do anything ever in my life that would lead me up to this moment, he said. Im an honorable man  Im a proud man. I would rather get on the floor and be trampled by the parents. I would rather let them tear at my flesh than answer these questions.

Im so sorry, he concluded. Im incredibly sorry.

Almena said the space wasnt initially intended to be a living quarters  but that it transformed into that when the artist commune grew.

I laid my body down there, he said. We put our children down there every night. We made music. We created art. We opened our home. It became our home. It didnt start off as our home. It started off as an initial dream  an ideal that would host anything from at risk youth to the gay community to artists that couldnt perform anywhere to performance art and alternative arts.

And eventually when you cant pay your rent because your dream is bigger than you pocketbook? When the need for housing and the need for people to sit down, and be warm, and take a shower, and take a bath and go to bed? he added. And so we created something together.

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RELATED VIDEO: Officials Say at Least 36 Dead After Fire Breaks Out During Warehouse Rave in Oakland

The Ghost Ship was a mixed-use artist space inside a warehouse at 1305 31st Avenue in Oakland, and had been in operation since at least 2014.

Photos from the Ghost Ships Tumblr show a large loft overstuffed with artful decorations  reclaimed wooden furniture draped in fabric, musical instruments stacked and scattered in corners, colorful lamps hanging from beams, divided mini-rooms created out of scraps of found wood and windows. There was also an outdoor space scattered with furniture.

Almena maintained that the building was up to code when he signed the lease  and that he was forced to make numerous improvements  including installing a hot water heater and a new electrical panel.

His partner, Micah Allison, told NBC News in a pre-taped interview that they couldnt often afford necessary safety upgrades.

We didnt have enough money to do the things that needed to be done there and there was no one helping us, she said, through tears.

One of the communes former residents, Shelly Mack, previously alleged on the Today show that Almena knew the space was dangerous when he rented it to her, but never spent a dime on anything but partying. She said he was out for personal profit from running the space.

Her words upset Almena.

I dont want to talk about it, he said. I dont want to talk about me. I dont want to talk about profiting. This is profit? The loss of mass lives. Im a father. I laid my three children down there every night. Profit? This is not profit. This is loss. This is a mass grave.

Im only here to say one thing  that Im incredibly sorry and that everything that I did was to make this a stronger more beautiful community and to bring people together, he said.

Almena was not home at the time of the fire. He, Allison, and his children had gotten a hotel room for the evening  leaving the warehouse as residents and guests held an event at the space which featured a performance from Madison, Wisconsin-based electronic act Golden Donna.

Approximately 100 people were there for the show.

On the night of the fire, did I know there was going to be a fire did I remove my children from the space and get a hotel because I wanted to avoid this? Almena said. Because I wanted to cast blame on other people. No  because I wanted to get a good sleep with my children. I wanted to let the young people do what they do.

Allison teared up discussing her kids in the interviews pre-recorded portions. As a mother, I am having a terrible time, she said. Im having a terrible time, and Im so sorry. Im so sorry for what has happened.

Im worried, Almena said, in tears. Im worried that my kids are going to be taken away from me.

No criminal charges have been filed against Almena.




By Ayesha Rascoe TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned that the United States would not be able to wipe out terrorism with military might as he offered a sweeping defense of his administration's national security record. In his final major speech on counterterrorism as president, Obama argued that his administration had been able to make al Qaeda "a shadow of its former self" and had put Islamic State on its heels, but said terrorism would remain a threat to the United States. "Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained," Obama said during a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Obama will turn over the White House on Jan. 20 to Republican President-elect Donald Trump who has been sharply critical of his administration's approach to fighting terrorism. Trump referred to Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as the "co-founders" of Islamic State during the presidential campaign, blaming them for the initial spread of the militant group. The White House said Obama's national security speech had been planned long before the Nov. 8 election and was not aimed specifically at the incoming Trump administration. But during his speech, Obama spoke of the importance of adhering to American laws and values and against reinstating the use of waterboarding or imposing a religious test on immigrants, two positions that Trump has supported in the past. "The whole objective of these terrorists is to scare us into changing who we are and our democracy," Obama said. Obama signed an executive order after taking office in January 2009 that banned waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" or EITs. Such executive orders can be rescinded by a president's successors. Many lawmakers and human rights groups have denounced waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, as torture. While Trump is now calling for "extreme vetting" of certain refugees admitted to the United States, during the campaign he proposed banning foreign-born Muslims from entering the country. Obama came into office planning to unwind U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and promising to focus on fighting militant groups that threatened the United States wherever they were. Instead, he has been forced to return some U.S. troops to Iraq and keep thousands in place in Afghanistan after more than 14-1/2 years of war. Obama said his administration's approach of providing support to local partners and not undertaking massive ground invasions has been effective and is making progress in the fight to take Mosul in Iraq from Islamic State. Some counterterrorism experts have pointed to the rise of Islamic State as an example of Obama being too slow to respond to an emerging threat. While the United States has been successful in killing some key militant leaders, Obama's "legacy has been tarnished by the way terrorist groups have regenerated and strengthened in the latter parts of his presidency," said Robin Simcox, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Peter Cooney and James Dalgleish)
Tampa (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday used his final address on global terror to defend his approach to the fight, calling for coalition-building to continue battlefield successes while rejecting the use of torture.

Highlighting the lines drawn during his eight years as commander in chief, Obama did not mention Donald Trump by name, but he clearly addressed his successor, who has yet to spell out his own counterterrorism strategy.

"Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat," Obama said.

"And we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained."

Obama claimed a clear break from the strategy under former president George W. Bush, highlighting the withdrawal of most US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, from 180,000 to about 15,000 today. That number also includes advisors in Syria.

"Instead of pushing all of the burden onto American ground troops, instead of trying to mount invasions wherever terrorists appear, we've built a network of partners," he said.

Obama also defended his approach to fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, much of it centered around an intense air strike campaign directed from MacDill Air Force Base.

The installation, where the president gave his speech, houses the headquarters of US Special Operations Command and CENTCOM, the US military's command for operations stretching from the Gulf to Central Asia.

The jihadist group that wants to establish a "caliphate" straddling the two countries has lost "more than half" its territory, Obama said.

"ISIL has lost control of major population centers. Its morale is plummeting. Its recruitment is drying up. Its commanders and external plotters are being taken out, and local populations are turning against it."

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Obama, who authorized the strike to take out Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said that the group was now "a shadow of its former self."

- 'Greatest strength' -

Obama stressed that the fight against terror should not come at the expense of civil rights and American democratic traditions.

"We need the wisdom to see that upholding our values and adhering to the rule of law is not a weakness. In the long term, it is our greatest strength," he said to sustained applause.

Trump, who has pledged to upend his predecessor's entire agenda including foreign and security policy, takes over in the White House in just over six weeks.

He has not yet announced a nominee to head the State Department and has been vague at best about how he plans to defeat IS, but on the campaign trail he insisted that America must be "unpredictable" in order to win.

Obama touched on issues like torture that had provoked controversy during Trump's White House run. The 44th president had banned extreme CIA interrogation techniques used on terror detainees as soon as he took office.

"We prohibited torture everywhere at all times and that includes tactics like waterboarding," he said.

"And at no time has anybody who has worked with me told me that doing so has cost us good intelligence."

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to restore waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning widely regarded as torture -- and permit "far, far worse."

But since his election, he seems to be softening his views -- a change that may reflect the influence of his nominee to head the Pentagon, retired marine general James Mattis.

- Long-term threat -

Still, the threat of global terror will remain an issue "for years to come," Obama said.

He cautioned that extremists do not represent American Muslims, and that the US should never impose a religious test on its people, a reference to another controversial Trump campaign proposal.

"We're a nation that believes freedom can never be taken for granted. And that each of us has a responsibility to sustain it, the universal right to speak your minds and to protest against authority, to live in a society that's open and free, that can criticize our president without retribution."
From executive producers Robert Redford and Paul Allen, Animal Planets new six-part series, Ocean Warriors, airs its third installment Sunday, Dec. 11. As you can see from the exclusive clip above, it shows exactly how difficult it is to police water even if, like 80 percent of the ocean surrounding the island nation of Palau in the North Pacific, it is protected as a marine reserve.

Theres only one vessel to patrol the vast area for illegal boats, which will ideally be burned to send a message to fishermen that Palau is not a place for shark finning.

I investigate environmental crime, but you need to find the crimes, and thats a near impossible task when youre faced with an area of ocean the size of Texas to patrol, says environmental journalist Jim Wickens of Ecostorm in the sneak peek. Its only by going out and spending a week at sea with these guys, the Palauan police, that you really get a sense of the challenges that they face in combating illegal fishing.

That is the true purpose of the series, Redford explains in a statement to Yahoo TV: The importance of preserving our oceans and the life they sustain has never been more critical. Ocean Warriors is about the brave and dedicated people who fight each day to protect the oceans. The series shines a light on the forces of good working for generations to come.

An episode airing Dec. 18 uncovers a vast human trafficking network of fishing slaves that extends from Africa to Indonesia.

Ocean Warriors airs back-to-back episodes Sundays, starting at 9 p.m., on Animal Planet.
By Scott DiSavino

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices on Tuesday ended lower for the first time since OPEC agreed on Nov. 30 to cut output, as data showing record high production in the producer group fed skepticism that it would be able to reduce supplies.

Brent futures (LCOc1) slid $1.01 to settle at $53.93 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures (CLc1) fell 86 cents to $50.93 per barrel. Crude had surged more than 15 percent in the four sessions since the Nov. 30 OPEC meeting.

"Prices fell for the first day in five in reaction to news that OPEC's output hit a record high last month," said James Williams, president of energy consultant WTRG Economics in Arkansas.

OPEC's output set another record high in November, rising to 34.19 million barrels per day (bpd) from 33.82 million bpd in October, according to a Reuters survey.

Oil prices pared losses slightly after inventory data released late Tuesday from the American Petroleum Institute showed U.S. crude stocks dropped more than expected last week despite a hefty build of 4 million barrels in Cushing, Oklahoma. [API/S]

If the Cushing build is reinforced in Wednesday's report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that would signal the largest weekly rise since January 2009, data showed.

As part of last week's decision, OPEC said major oil producers outside the group would cut 600,000 bpd of production on top of OPEC's 1.2 million bpd reduction. Those countries and OPEC meet this weekend to finalize the terms.

Russia reported average oil production in November of 11.21 million bpd, its highest in nearly 30 years. That means OPEC and Russia alone produced enough to cover almost half of global oil demand, which is just above 95 million bpd.

Market watchers had said OPEC's decision to cut output marked an about-face for Saudi Arabia, which has been battling to keep market share for the past two years by selling more, if cheaper, barrels rather than bolstering prices.

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But in a sign the fight for market share is not over, Saudi Aramco cut the January price for its Arab Light grade for Asian customers by $1.20 a barrel from December.

The U.S. EIA expects U.S. crude production to fall less than previously expected to 8.9 million bpd in 2016 and to 8.8 million bpd in 2017 from 9.4 million bpd in 2015, according to its monthly short term energy outlook.

(Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore and Polina Devitt and Anastasia Lyrchikova in Moscow; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Meredith Mazzilli and David Gregorio)
Olivia Munn looked like an actual snowflake in this totally sheer dress

We think Olivia Munns stylist might be a genius. Adding to her recent drool-worthy red carpet get-ups, The Office Christmas Party actress wore a sheer lacy dress on Monday for a screening of the film in New York City.

Once again, Munn was the style star of Hollywood at the event, hosted by The Cinema Society and Svedka vodka at NYCs Landmark Sunshine Cinema.

The short-sleeved, long gown featured floral lace that offered a modest peek at Munns bare chest.

@officexmasparty NY screening last night (tap for glam credits ) A photo posted by Olivia Munn (@oliviamunn) on Dec 6, 2016 at 4:50am PST

A dainty bow adorned her neck, and the lace cascaded to the floor.

Paramount Pictures with The Cinema Society & Svedka host a screening of "Office Christmas Party"

She complimented the gowns shimmery, beigey, rose-gold hue with a dark berry lip and a lightly smokey eye.

Celebrity Sightings In New York City - December 5, 2016

Meanwhile, Aniston, in a black jumpsuit, gushed about her funny co-star to ET.

Shes just a girls girl, Aniston said. Its nice to be around women that support women. I think its great and its important and its a good thing.

Paramount Pictures with The Cinema Society & Svedka host a screening of "Office Christmas Party"

The upcoming comedy, which looks hilarious btw, also stars Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, T.J. Miller, Kate McKinnon, Courtney B. Vance, Jillian Bell, Vanessa Bayer, Randall Parkbasically, everyone who makes us laugh til our sides hurt.

Office Christmas Party hits theatres Friday.

Were SO THERE and are scrubbing our closets for something lacy and sheer and goldey/beigey/rosey to wear. Oh, and a little black bow to affix at our collar.

The post Olivia Munn looked like an actual snowflake in this totally sheer dress appeared first on HelloGiggles.
By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - Its called holiday heart because it happens to binge drinkers who feel a flutter or irregular heartbeat after too many cocktails at parties. But a research review suggests it can happen after just one drink. Conventional wisdom, based on plenty of previous research, is that the occasional glass of wine or beer can be good for the heart, reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke as well as death from cardiovascular causes, lead study author Dr. Peter Kistler of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, told Reuters Health. For the current study, however, researchers examined data collected on almost 900,000 people and found an 8 percent risk increase for irregular heartbeat with each alcoholic drink consumed per day. Alcohol is not universally good for the heart, Kistler said. It is beneficial for the plumbing or blood supply to the heart muscle, but for the electrical part of the heart or the heartbeat it is not. The study focused on whats known as atrial fibrillation, a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. Untreated, the condition doubles the risk of heart-related deaths and is linked to a five-fold increased risk for stroke, according to the American Heart Association. While nobody should binge drink during the holidays, people with a history of atrial fibrillation should be especially vigilant about avoiding or limiting alcohol, Kistler said. Both men and women were equally at risk for holiday heart, researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study doesnt prove that an extra cocktail after dinner directly causes atrial fibrillation, the authors note. Still, they offer some theories about how spending too much time at the bar during holiday cocktail parties might be bad for the heartbeat. Drinking can damage heart cells directly and lead to small amounts of fibrous tissue within the heart causing an irregular heartbeat. The review found that people with atrial fibrillation who continue to drink are more likely to have ongoing irregular heartbeats even after a common surgery to repair the hearts electrical system and fix the source of the flutter. Heart muscle cells contract in a coordinated way by movement of electrical signals between cells. Over time, drinking may actually change these electrical signals, triggering irregular heartbeat. Alcohol may also trigger an irregular heartbeat by stimulating whats known as the autonomic nervous system, which controls bodily functions such as heart rate, digestion and breathing. More research still needs to be done to determine the specific mechanisms behind the relationship between alcohol and irregular heartbeat, the authors note. Causes may include alcohols contribution to obesity, sleep and breathing problems, and high blood pressure, the authors speculate. One challenge with the study and most research on the heart effects of alcohol is that researchers rely on people to accurately recall and report on how much they drink, a flawed process that often leads participants to underestimate their alcohol consumption, noted Tim Stockwell, director of the Center for Addictions Research and a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Often, studies that count former drinkers as abstainers can obscure the effects of alcohol on the heart, too, making occasional drinkers look healthier than abstainers, Stockwell, who wasnt involved in the study, said by email. Even so, there are some common sense steps anyone can take to lower the odds of heart rhythm problems after that next holiday party. Certainly drinking with food, interspersing with non-alcoholic drinks and generally keeping the dose of alcohol low are all recommended, Stockwell said. This all reduces the hearts exposure to cardiotoxins. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2gwD9cA Journal of the American College of Cardiology, online December 5, 2016.
Rome (AFP) - Matteo Renzi's downfall following the resounding 'No' to his constitutional reform has left a hole in the Italian political landscape and a host of figures jockeying to seize the vacated throne of power.

- The loser -

Renzi, 41, snatched power in February 2014 and pledged reforms across the board, from the education system to justice and employment. Vocal in the media and on social networks, he failed however to win the trust of the electorate and admitted Sunday to feeling "anger, disappointment, bitterness and sadness" after his crushing referendum defeat.

Italian press reports from "behind closed doors" in the PM's office painted a Renzi in tears who said he wanted nothing but to jet off to sunny climes for peace and quiet. For the time being he is still the head of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), and has in his pocket the votes of 13.4 million Italians who trusted him by voting 'Yes' to his reform.

Before the referendum, 31 percent of voters backed the PD according to polls.

- The impatient -

Beppe Grillo, 68, comic and founder of the anti-establishment Five Star movement (M5S), is dining out on a win many analysts see as a rejection of traditional parties and politics. The Five Stars snapped up a quarter of votes in the 2013 elections and have scored important victories since -- mayoral races in Rome and Turin in particular.

With up to 30 percent of voters supporting the anti-euro party, Grillo is calling for early elections. But the movement has refused to ally with other political parties from the start, and M5S would find it impossible to snap up the majority it needs to govern alone.

Matteo Salvini, 43, heads up the anti-immigrant Northern League party and has tried -- but largely failed -- to extend its reach beyond the rich north into the poorer southern heartlands by playing the anti-euro card and railing against migrants.

Though it can only boast up to 14 percent of voter support, the League also wants early elections, preceded by a primary in January to unite forces across the right and create a block to challenge the Five Stars and the left.

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- Ghosts -

Silvio Berlusconi, 80, is a three-time former prime minister and head of the centre-right Forza Italy party. Largely absent from politics -- though not the gossip pages -- following his ousting in 2011, he retired further from the spotlight after heart surgery in June. Jumping on the 'No' bandwagon at the last minute, he has now taken a place at the victors' table.

He wants early elections, has ruled out Salvini's plan for primaries, and demanded changes to the electoral law which would free him from having to form a coalition with the Northern League.

Pierluigi Bersani, 65, is head of old guard at the PD. Party leader before Renzi snatched his job, he fought against the reforms, saying they would give one man (Renzi) too much power. He wants a party congress, but not necessarily early elections.

Dario Franceschini, 58, is minister of culture, a former PD party secretary and a touch stone for influential left-wing Catholics. He has been named possible candidate to take over now from Renzi, though analysts say a non-politician is more likely for the job.

Mario Monti, 73, is a former European Commissioner who was appointed in 2011 to head up a "technical" government after Berlusconi's ouster. He urged voters to say 'No' to Renzi's reforms but did not want him to resign.

He has accused foreign analysts of hyping up coverage of the referendum and wrongly describing Renzi's downfall a victory of populism or anti-Europe sentiment. He wants a government based on the outgoing majority, which remains intact in parliament.
Analysts say production cuts likely wont happen, and an energy guru forecasts sharply higher oil prices starting in a year

opec

No sooner had the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced its first production cut in eight years, putting a powerful bid under oil and energy stocks, than the pushback began.

Energy analysts now cite six reasons to doubt that the recently announced OPEC reduction will make much of a difference.

The upshot for investors is that oil prices could retreat in the near term. So traders might want to book profits. But as well see in a moment, one little-known oil-price guru thinks oil will likely start to go up a lot in about 12 to 18 months. So long-term investors should just hold tight.

Energy analysts at Exxon Mobil and OPEC reject the peak oil thesis. They expect consumption to grow at least through 2040.



Heres a closer look, along with eight energy stocks that may benefit from higher prices down the road.

Six reasons to doubt the OPEC accord

Analysts cite the following reasons why you might want to curb your enthusiasm about the OPEC agreement.

Reason 1: OPEC producers are notorious cheaters. A look back at the last 17 production cuts (since 1982) shows that real cuts typically amount to about 60% of announced cuts, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.

Although the organization has agreed to reduce production, the question now becomes, Will each member abide by their allotted output?  says Stifel Nicolaus energy analyst Michael Scialla. Maybe not, given the history.

Reason 2: Its not clear that non-OPEC members are really on board. The agreement relies on substantial cuts by non-OPEC members, half of which will fall on Russia. Like OPEC members, Russia has a mixed record of compliance. It complied with cuts in 1998, but violated them by increasing production in April 1999 and January 2002, points out Goldman Sachs energy analyst Damien Courvalin.

As a result, our base case remains that Russian crude oil production will be flat, says Courvalin. Beyond Russia, its unclear what other non-OPEC oil producers will do, says Baird analyst Ethan Bellamy. Non-OPEC members will meet on Dec. 9 to work this out.

Story continues

Reason 3: The OPEC production cut is actually meant to reduce inventories and not increase oil prices, points out Courvalin, at Goldman Sachs. The two are not the same thing.

Reason 4: OPECs estimated cuts include some fuzzy math on Irans share, says Barclays energy sector analyst Michael Cohen. Thus hes highly skeptical that Iranian output will be lower in the first quarter. He also has doubts about Iraq.

Reason 5: The agreement takes production down to where it would have been anyway next year, according to Cohen. The meeting is highly unlikely to substantially affect the oil market balance.

Reason 6: The deal starts Jan. 1, and it will take at least three weeks of shipping data to get a sense of how well it is working. So any real-world data on cutbacks might not be available until late January, says Courvalin. This leaves plenty of time for doubts to set in  and oil prices to weaken.

For oil prices to keep going higher, well need to see confirmation of participation by non-OPEC producers, evidence of compliance by OPEC producers, and more clarity on what Iran has agreed to do, given conflicting numbers in the official agreement, says Courvalin.

We still hold limited confidence in the cartels ability to deliver on this curtailment accord, concludes Bellamy, the Baird analyst.

In short, if you are a trader and you have quick profits in energy stocks or oil, now might be the time to take them.

Long-term investors should just hold tight. Because oil is likely to be significantly higher 12 to 18 months from now, barring a global recession that would hurt demand.

The oil price guru youve never heard of

To see why, it pays to check in with a little-known oil price forecasting guru, who youve probably never heard of.

That would be Greg Armstrong, the CEO of Plains All American Pipeline PAA, +0.19%Plains is a master limited partnership (MLP) that runs the biggest midstream pipeline system in the U.S. and Canada. Armstrongs job is to make transport deals with energy sellers and buyers. This gives him a great window on the market.

Few, if any, energy-sector participants have a better picture of the North American crude oil market, says Bellamy, the Baird energy analyst. If there is any MLP earnings call that all energy investors should follow, Plains is it.

Plains has proprietary oilfield intelligence from its extensive North American oil logistics operation, and it likes to show it off with supply-demand analysis.

The upshot in all of this is that Armstrong has made some good calls on oil. Most recently, back in early 2014, for example, he forecast the oil price weakness that began later that year and went on to roil the markets.

Unbelievably optimistic

So what is Armstrongs outlook now? He forecasts a rapid rise in oil prices about 12 to 18 months from now.

We are unbelievably optimistic about the intermediate and long term, Armstrong said in the companys most recent earnings call. The stage is being set for a meaningful recovery in crude oil prices.

Heres his logic:

First, Armstrong isnt buying the peak demand theory thats been circulating recently. He thinks energy demand will continue to increase.

But its on the supply side that things get really interesting. The major oil producers have all cut back sharply on capital spending in the past two years, thanks to the oil-price rout. They dont bring capital spending back quickly. When you layer on the natural decline in production, the result is that energy markets will tighten, creating a sharp rise in energy prices in about 12 to 18 months, as the demand and supply lines cross.

Heres some greater detail on the moving parts in Armstrongs outlook.

The demand growth. Many analysts posit that the ongoing rise in alternative energy and carbon taxes means we are at or near all-time highs for oil demand  ever. This is called peak oil.

This may sound like a nice idea. But it is probably wishful thinking. Serious environmental issues aside, oil is a relatively cheap and convenient source of energy. Its used ubiquitously in the global economy, and it will be tough to wean people off it.

Armstrong thinks petroleum demand, at or near record levels, will continue to grow each year by about a million barrels a day. On top of 97 million barrels a day of demand right now, that represents over 1% growth a year. Analysts at Goldman Sachs go further and project 1.7% demand growth over the next 12 months. Energy analysts at Exxon Mobil XOM, +0.13% and OPEC also agree with Armstrong, and reject the peak oil thesis. They expect consumption to grow at least through 2040.

The supply shrinkage. Meanwhile, global base supply, excluding swing producers like U.S. shale operators, is contracting about 4% to 6% a year, or by about 4 million to 6 million barrels a day. This portends higher oil prices ahead, for two reasons.

1. OPECs excess production capacity is tight. Its at about 3% of global demand, compared with 26% during the late 1980s.

2. In response to plummeting oil prices, producers around the globe have cut their investments in new projects sharply for two years in a row, or 2015-2016. Thats the first time this has happened since 1986-1987. And the cutbacks are much larger this time around. Theyre at 23% and 26% compared to 31% and 6% in 1986-1987. This will make it harder for the industry to offset the natural production declines over the next few years. Once producers cut projects, they dont bring them back quickly. And when they do, projects take a while to bring online.

The upshot is that global oil supply and demand will rebalance in about 12 months or so, putting upward pressure on oil prices at that point, says Armstrong.

The limits to U.S. swing production. Much is made of the ability of U.S. shale producers to increase production quickly in response to higher prices. This is true, but their ability to do so may be exaggerated for at least two reasons.

First, U.S. oil wells developed with horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing have a very rapid production decline rate. Its 65%-80% in the first year. Second-year decline rates are pretty high, too, at 30%-40%.

This matters because at the start of this year, 55% of U.S. wells had been completed, or turned on, in the past two years. In other words, over half of U.S. production faces a very steep decline curve. The bottom line is that a high level of activity is necessary just to maintain U.S. production volumes, and raising production requires even more activity, says Armstrong.

Next, not all oilfield-services equipment, labor and wells are created equal. At todays reduced production levels, you can bet that the best of the best equipment, labor and wells are already in use.

Newly deployed equipment, labor and wells wont be as productive. This impedes production ramp-ups. In short, current production levels arent a good guide of what lies ahead, though investors might think they are.

Stocks

While energy companies with dodgier balance sheets and assets have seen some of the biggest bounces since the OPEC accord was announced, Scialla at Stifel thinks companies with high-quality assets, robust growth potential and strong balance sheets are the best way to go. He cites Anadarko Petroleum APC, -0.33% EOG Resources EOG, +0.36% SM Energy SM, +0.11% and Whiting PetroleumWLL, +0.49% as examples.

At my stock newsletter, Brush Up on Stocks, I like to use insider buying as a starting point to come up with investment suggestions. Energy insiders are often prescient. Since the start of September, the bullish insider buying at Apache APA, +0.38%Occidental Petroleum OXY, -0.04% Baker Hughes BHI, -0.77% and Matador Resources MTDR, -2.52% stands out.

In each case, the buying happened several points below current levels. One way around this would be to buy a portion of any positions in these names now, and then wait for weakness to accumulate.

Or else just keep in mind that insiders are not traders. They rarely buy for short-term moves of a few points, suggesting there is more room to the upside over the next few years as our energy gurus forecast plays out.

At the time of publication, Michael Brush had no positions in any stocks mentioned in this column. Brush has suggested APC, EOG, WLL, APA, OXY, BHI and MTDR in his stock newsletter, Brush Up on Stocks. Brush is a Manhattan-based financial writer who has covered business for the New York Times and The Economist group, and he attended Columbia Business School in the Knight-Bagehot program.



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heroin vancouver canada

During the first weekend of December, nine people died of apparent drug overdoses in and around Kensington, a neighborhood in northern Philadelphia.

Those deaths came just weeks after the city, which has become a "mecca" for addicts, saw 50 overdoses  five of them fatal  in one day on November 17.

Philadelphia's overdose deaths have put the city on pace to hit 900 fatal overdoses this year, a 30% increase over last year and a number that would triple the city's homicide rate, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The cause of death for the nine overdoses over the weekend has yet to be verified, but authorities said all seemed to be related to drug use.

The overdoses on November 17 are believed to be the result of heroin laced with fentanyl, a potent painkiller that can be 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The additional deaths this weekend may have also been caused by fentanyl, Jose Benitez, executive director of the nonprofit Prevention Point Philadelphia, told The Inquirer.

Philadelphia usually sees three overdoses a day, not all of which are fatal, said Benitez, whose organization provides health services to drug addicts. On a typical day, Benitez's group typically hands out four or five kits with the opioid antidote Naloxone.

On November 18, it handed out 75.

'It's killing people slowly'

fentanyl heroin

Philadelphia, and the neighborhood of Kensington in particular, has become a focal point for the US's deepening opioid crisis.

Reports this summer indicated the city was seeing an influx of a cheap, highly potent version of heroin, thought be pushed by Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, which has expanded heavily into the synthetic-drug trade recently.

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One addict who spoke to the LA Times in July said Philadelphia had become a "mecca" for out-of-towners looking for the drug.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney called Kensington the "epicenter of the city's opioid use" on Monday.

Kensington Philadelphia heroin use drug distribution map

"The purity is the best on the East Coast, and its easily accessible," Patrick Trainor, spokesman for the US Drug Enforcement Agency in Philadelphia, told the LA Times. "It definitely draws people."

The city is centrally located among the Mid-Atlantic's heroin markets, and it sits alongside Interstate 95, a major artery for illegal drug smuggling.

I-95 is also adjacent to Kensington, which narcotics officers who spoke to the LA Times this summer called one of the "most flagrant open-air drug markets" on the eastern seaboard.

Emergency responders and researchers are often behind the curve when it comes to identifying the drugs in use during such crises, The Inquirer notes.

Some labs have equipment that is not able to recognize newer drugs, and, in some cases, the amount of the narcotic in the bloodstream is so minute as to avoid detection.

"I'm really concerned by what we're hearing now," Roland Lamb, and official with Philadelphia's Department of Health, told The Inquirer. "I'm very concerned."

Hard drugs like heroin and related narcotics like fentanyl have gained traction with a broader base of users in recent years, in part because of profligate use of prescription pain medicine that often hooks users and leaves them craving stronger highs.

In response to those urges, many users turn to heroin, with additives like fentanyl seeping into batches as addicts clamor for stronger doses.

Mexican cartels heroin US

The spread of the crisis has stirred alarm around the US and prompted a resurgence of ineffective and counterproductive punitive responses. Opioid addiction and drug use has also become common in working-class and Rust Belt communities.

Victor Colon, a Philadelphia man who died of an overdose this weekend, had surgery for a knee infection at the beginning of this year, for which he was prescribed pain medication. According to The Inquirer, his family thinks that may have led him into heroin addiction.

"It's just this heroin. This heroin. It's killing people slowly," Colon's sister, Edna Villafane said. "I don't think the meaning of brotherly love is here anymore."

NOW WATCH: This 'heroin cave' could help addicts kick the habit





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By Marton Dunai and Shadia Nasralla BUDAPEST/VIENNA (Reuters) - People close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban are increasing their control over Hungarian media, raising concerns among government critics and international bodies over press freedom as an election approaches. Some journalists who spoke to Reuters said they were alarmed last month when the Austrian owner of Hungarian media group Mediaworks closed Hungary's largest opposition daily newspaper and sold the rest of the group to an Orban ally. Mediaworks suspended the 70-80 staffers at the leftist Nepszabadsag, then the new owners dismissed most of them and brought pro-government editors into other group publications. Mediaworks CEO Gabor Liszkay declined to comment. Orban has already taken steps to restrict the media, introducing tough legislation in 2010 and subsequently curbing the activities of state broadcasting outlets. His new drive for media control follows a falling out last year with one of his chief backers, business magnate Lajos Simicska, whose media outlets stopped supporting the prime minister, according to staffers and media analysts. Simicska, through an assistant, did not immediately reply to questions seeking comment. Since that parting of the ways, figures close to Orban have assumed prominent roles in the media industry after he used a broadcast interview to urge his supporters to invest in the sector. Those who support the ruling Fidesz party, he told Echo TV in May last year, should put their "personal and financial" energy into creating new media outlets. Within a year, his closest political communications adviser, Arpad Habony, started Modern Media Group, which disseminates tabloid content on websites and free papers. Andrew Vajna, the former Hollywood producer of the Rocky and Rambo movies and now the government's film commissioner, took over Hungary's No. 2 television group and acquired radio licenses. A group of business associates with personal, financial or family connections to central bank Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy, another Orban ally, now runs two prominent news web sites. Liszkay, a former Simicska associate, bought a business newspaper which now backs the government after a makeover. None of these entities or individuals had any comment in response to multiple Reuters inquiries about their ownership of, or influence over, the media. Orban's spokesman rejected suggestions of undue government influence over the media. "From the legal perspective our media structure is fine," Zoltan Kovacs said in response to Reuters questions at a press forum in Vienna last month. Asked about the growing presence of government-friendly media owners, he said: "You mix up media freedom with the ownership of media." He said Opimus, Mediaworks' new parent company, had nothing to do with the government. CRITICISM The control over large parts of the media exerted by business interests close to the prime minister, and the sense that this might increase ahead of parliamentary elections in 2018, has drawn criticism at home and abroad. "We think the recent state of affairs in Hungary's media is highly worrisome," said Balazs Nagy Navarro, chair of the supervisory board at the European Center for Press and Media Freedom. "We worry about the honesty of the elections as the media are not diverse enough and people's right of access to information has been limited," he told Reuters. The chairman of Hungary's opposition Socialist Party, Gyula Molnar, told Reuters that with a significant part of the media controlled by Fidesz, millions of Hungarians were not seeing stories that criticized the government. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an intergovernmental human rights and media freedom watchdog, said there had been a significant decline in media pluralism in Hungary, where media had become "highly vulnerable to political pressure". The radical nationalist Jobbik party's chairman, Gabor Vona, complained of untrue reports about him and his party in several pro-government outlets, saying the government was trying to divert attention from corruption. "You can buy up the entire Hungarian press, down to the last rural gazette, but you can no longer hide what you are doing to this country behind the veil of your media," Vona said in an attack on Fidesz in parliament this month. In his reply to Vona, Bence Tuzson, who speaks for Fidesz in parliament, ignored the remark. Orban's chief of staff, Janos Lazar, said some conservative businessmen had heeded the prime minister's call and bought media interests or helped media businesses. "As far as Hungary's media environment is concerned, I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with freedom, now that we have learned the lessons from the U.S. presidential elections," he told Reuters last month. "The entire American media was against Trump ... and he scored a landslide." PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPERS Mediaworks was acquired by Opimus, a publicly traded holding group. Lorinc Meszaros, the mayor of Orban's home village and a close friend of the premier, has denied media reports of links to Mediaworks or Opimus and neither he nor those companies responded to requests for comment. Company filings, however, show a link between Meszaros and those companies through an intermediary. One of Meszaros closest aides, a lawyer called Zoltan Csik, is an indirect owner in Opimus and sits in management or board positions in several other Opimus-linked firms, the filings show. Csik could not be reached for comment. Mediaworks is the largest player among provincial newspapers, which are read in the countryside where 80 percent of the electorate lives. In the sector, 12 newspapers and dozens of magazines are controlled by Mediaworks, with three media houses outside their control. Two of them, Russ Media and Lapcom, are seeking buyers. Russ Media, a family business of Austrian businessman Eugen Russ, owns three dailies in northeastern Hungary. Lapcom, controlled by London private equity group Elliott Advisors, publishes two regional dailies and a national tabloid. Russ has planned to leave the market for years for reasons that have not been disclosed, sources in the industry told Reuters. Russ did not reply to requests for comment. At an internal meeting, a representative of Lapcom's owners made clear to staff that the business was for sale, according to Zoltan Koti, editor-in-chief of the Lapcom daily Delmagyarorszag, who attended the meeting. Koti did not name the representative. Elliott Advisors, which owns Lapcom, declined to comment. Koti said Lapcom could come under the control of interests friendly to the government "It looks a lot like this full-court pressure will reach Lapcom sooner or later," Koti said. The new media companies often receive large amounts of advertising from the government, which has an $85 million annual advertising budget, making it the single largest player in the ad market, which totalled $3 billion last year in list prices before discounts. "They have spent more money than ever before, focused more precisely than ever before, at outlets loyal to the government," media analyst Agnes Urban, chair of the Mertek Institute in Budapest, told a conference last month. Antal Rogan, the minister responsible for state advertising, said Mediaworks had received ad spending worth nearly 1 billion forints. But he told news channel ATV last month: "If there is a left-wing media house that asks for the government's help, I have no problem helping them out." (Reporting by Marton Dunai; editing Giles Elgood)
Of all the world leaders whove seen their influence in Washington decline during Barack Obamas presidency, none cheered Donald Trumps November 8 electoral upset more loudly than Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He said watching the vote returns that night was the most fun hed had in a long while.

Orban was one of the first foreign politicians to voice support for then-candidate Trump. Since Election Day, he has only increased his praise for the president-elect. Orban is eying a rapprochement with Washington after enduring sustained criticism from the Obama White House for taking a tough stance on migration and presiding over democratic backsliding at home.

Signs point toward a new chapter for American-Hungarian relations, as Orban and Trump apparently hit it off in a late November courtesy call from the president-elect. In an interview with Vilaggazdasag, a Hungarian business daily, Orban said Trump had invited him to Washington and that he told the president-elect it had been a long since his last visit, since the Obama administration treated him like a black sheep. According to Orban, Trump laughed and said that they treated him the same way.

On December 1, Orban remarked that his country, once stigmatized throughout the West, today belongs to a winning team. He insisted the course charted by Hungary has now become the policy of winners.

That course has seen Hungary buck the political consensus in the United States and the European Union, denting its standing in the West along the way. It has included such measures as: building border walls to keep out migrants from the Middle East and North Africa; cozying up to the Kremlin despite EU sanctions against Russia; railing against political correctness in politics; and embracing so-called illiberal democracy, an ideology Orban has used as a cudgel against media and the judiciary in Hungary.

On a political level, Orban will develop a new rapport with the United States, Andras Simonyi, who served as Hungarys ambassador to Washington from 2002-2007, told Foreign Policy.

Story continues

But the same kind of politics  inflected with nationalism, nativism, and a general anti-establishment outlook  that have made Orban and Trump kindred spirits could well put them at loggerheads.

Orbans anti-establishment vitriol has at times taken aim at the one country that, since World War II, created and upheld the global establishment: America. Over the summer, for instance, he declared that one of the principal supporters of the pressure imposed on Hungary related to immigration is the United States. Orban believes unchecked migration will kill Hungary.

For some, like Simonyi, Orbans anti-Americanism is but a cynical ploy that comes in handy in Hungarys fractured political landscape  where the prime ministers main political rivals come from even further on the right  but ultimately he respects America a great deal and understands, all in all, that a stronger relationship with America is a good thing.

Others suggest Orban needs an international scapegoat, and that the United States will fill this role so long as U.S. diplomats continue to criticize Hungarys rollback of liberal democratic norms. The State Department already issues intermittent reports tracking human rights, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and other facets of Hungarian political life. A top aide to Orban has called them downright irritating.

The latest report was issued in late October, when the State Department put out a release noting the steady decline of media freedom in Hungary after a leading opposition newspaper, Nepszabadsag, shut its doors under mysterious circumstances.

Orban needs the United States as the prime enemy, said Professor Charles Gati of the Johns Hopkins Universitys School of Advanced International Studies.

Another potential source of friction between Orban and Trump could be NATO. Hungary currently spends approximately 0.95 percent of its GDP on defense, falling far short of the 2 percent target that Trump insists all alliance members meet. That alone could curtail the honeymoon.

The Trump administration will be clear that 2 percent is 2 percent, Simonyi said. While the love affair will be beautiful on the top level, its going to matter how Hungry contributes to NATO, because the U.S. cannot afford to give it preferential treatment.

Photo Credit: THIERRY CHARLIER/AFP/Getty Images
Jimmy Kimmel was just announced the host of the 2017 Oscars and he joked about his plans for the February event on his late-night show Monday.

Kimmel teased that he might wear jean shorts to the event and said that since recreational marijuana would be legal by then, maybe Guillermo (Rodriguez) could pass it out on the red carpet. "My goal is to somehow get arrested during the hosting of the show," said Kimmel.

"I got a very nice call of congratulations this morning from the president of Taiwan," laughed Kimmel, mocking Trump's controversial Taiwan call and even using the same defense as the president-elect: "Just to be clear, she called me."

Kimmel also had some exciting personal news to share. "My wife is hosting a baby inside her body so that's exciting." The baby will be Kimmel's fourth child, his second with wife Molly McNearney.

"Congratulations to me, I'm hosting the Oscars and I had sex," said Kimmel, to the cheers of the crowd. "Two things as a teenage boy I never thought would be possible."

Read more: Oscars: Jimmy Kimmel to Host This Year's Ceremony (Exclusive)
Photo credit: Associated Press

From Cosmopolitan

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - 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 wouldn't 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 Sheriff's 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 wouldn't have believed you," Kelly said. "I don't 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 sheriff's 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.

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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 Allison's parents and sister about a year ago that the warehouse was a dangerous place for the couple's three children to live.

Michael Allison of Portland, Oregon, the father of Almena's 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 family's 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 couldn't 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 building's owner as Nar Siu Chor. The Associated Press could not locate a telephone number for her Saturday. Efforts to reach her at other Oaklandaddresses associated with her were not successful.

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Parents of tweens and teens spend about nine hours per day using screens, according to a new report. And though they express many concerns about their kids relationships to technologyworrying that it keeps them from physical exercise or that they may become addicted to their phonesthe vast majority also see themselves as modeling good behavior for their children and see technology as a force for good in their childrens lives.

The report comes from Common Sense, an organization dedicated to supporting the development of children in the digital age. Though their researchers have issued several reports on kids exposure to media, this study is their first foray into looking at parents habits and attitudes. And the director of research, Michael Robb, thinks it is fair to say that the adults appear to have their noses in their phones just as much as their 13- to 18-year-olds.

Were not trying to make parents feel guilty, says Robb, but we are trying to make them more aware.

Those adults who have jobs where they stare at computers all day might presume that the nine-hour figure is the result of work. But, on average, the 1,786 nationally representative parents surveyed for the study attributed only 1.5 hours of screen time to their jobs. The remaining bulk was spent doing the same kinds of things their kids dosending texts, playing video games, watching shows, browsing websites, checking in on social mediaoften while at work. Lower-income and less-educated parents, the report found, spent the most time on screens.

Ask almost any young parent how technology affects their job as a mom or dad, and while they might not realize how many hours theyre using it, they are aware of how complicated the relationship is. The study explores those tensionslike parents fearing their kids will become anti-social because of technology but also believing that being tech savvy will be the key to them competing in the job market as adults. On the one hand, parents want their kids to take breaks from their phones, yet they often find themselves unable to resist the buzzes and beeps of their own phone in the other.

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The sheer amount of media and technology in all of our lives makes it challenging for parents to monitor their own use, says Robb, and their kids use.

In many aspects, parents tended to have a rosy view of their own habits. The amount of time they reported spending on screens is only possible because of multi-tasking, the study notes. About half of parents (48%) said they text while at work, 38% said they use social media, and 33% watch television. But about two-thirds believe that dividing their attention has no influence of the quality of their work. And 78% said that they are good technology role models for their kids in general.

That may be unrealistic. Other researchers have found, for example, that people think theyre better at multi-tasking than they actually are. While someone can still certainly do their job while texting, completing tasks accurately takes much more time, says Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University who explores these topics in his book, The Distracted Mind. There are also emotional consequences.

You may be able to do it just as well, he says, but it takes longer, and it adds a huge layer of stress to your body and your life.

The same, he says, goes for trying to parent while dividing ones attention between a child and a phonea circumstance that plagues many people in a culture where bosses, as well as friends and family, expect them to be available via their smartphones nearly instantly, nearly all the time. I think that parents are not aware of how often they self-interrupt during a day, heeding that little voice reminding them to check Instagram or Facebook, Rosen says. When the phone vibrates, it takes incredible will power not to pick it up.

Despite the vast array of parenting apps and websites, only 35% of parents surveyed by Common Sense said that technology like smartphones make parenting easier.

When asked about their kids use of media, about two-thirds of parents reported that their teens and tweens have their own cell phones, and 56% said they have their own social media accounts. They reported being most highly aware of what their kids were seeing on TV (82%), less so when it came to websites (58%), and social media (40%). And a strong majority (67%) said that monitoring their kids texts and snaps, for safetys sake, is more important than respecting their privacy. Nearly 80% said they have rules about what content is allowed and nearly 40% said that negotiating media use with their children causes conflicts.

Yet many of parents biggest concerns about their kids use of technology were related not to content but to things that device obsession could get in the way of: about half said they worry that social media and smartphones hurt their kids levels of physical activity; 34% said they believe devices interfere with their childrens sleep; and more than half (56%) expressed concern that their children might become addicted to technology.

In general, parents were more bullish on benefits than fearful about pitfalls. Roughly 70% or more agreed that technology helps with schoolwork, learning new skills, being exposed to other cultures, self-expression, and inspiring creativity. And when asked about most negative outcomesranging from porn exposure to oversharing personal details to school performanceit was rare for more than one-third of parents to say they worried about technologys influence. The majority, for example, said that social media and smartphones make no difference in their childs emotional well-being or their ability to communicate face-to-face (though some studies suggest thats not the case).

For those who want to make sure technology is a force for good in their homesif still an omnipresent oneCommon Senses Robb suggests consuming media together: watching the same show or playing the same game. California States Rosen suggests parents be strategic about when to take breaks. Over two-thirds of parents in the study said they allow their teens and tweens to use devices in cars, for example, and the car is one of those areas where your kids are a captive audience. Banning use in the hour before bed is helpful for making sure kids get good sleep, he says, and mealtime is another good place to start.

We exist with these conflicts within us, Robb says about peoples love-hate relationship with technology. Figuring out how and when and where and why devices fit into our lives, thats going to take a long time.
By Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Free haircuts, scientific funding, fish and tombstones are among the incentives being offered to Turks who answer President Tayyip Erdogan's call to convert their dollars to lira.

Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdogan has urged Turks to convert any dollars "under their pillows" into lira, and called on businesses to do more transactions in local currency.

"Since the crisis operation is being carried out through foreign currency, we must use our own currency wherever we can," Erdogan said in a speech on Saturday, when he was opening a shopping centre in Istanbul.

"It is now time to take hold of our economy, just as we took hold of our freedom on July 15," he said, referring to a coup attempt that failed. More than 240 people were killed.

Some shopkeepers and traders have responded by offering free goods and services to anyone with proof they sold dollars.

Sabahattin Bas, chairman of Borsa Gold, a jeweller and gold seller in Istanbul's historic Grand Bazaar, said he was only accepting liras, to fight what he called a renewed attack on Turkey by Western powers who had backed the failed coup.

"They are trying to open a new front and that is economic war," he said in his shop, a large ring glistening on his hand.

Several restaurants and barber shops in Istanbul suburbs have been offering free lunches and hair cuts to clients with a receipt showing they had sold dollars. One fisherman in Ankara told Reuters he had given free fish to dozens of people over the past few days as part of the same campaign.

A stonemason in the northwestern province of Bursa is offering free tombstones to clients who convert 2,000 dollars, according to the newspaper Hurriyet. A university in the eastern city of Van is advertising funding for foreign research for the first five people to convert 20,000.

The lira had its worst month since the 2008 financial crisis in November and has lost a fifth of its value this year, hit by a resurgent dollar and investor concern about Turkey's stability after the coup attempt.

"This is a battle for our sovereignty," said Sezai Orkmez, 57, a retired banker who said all of his savings were in lira. "If my country needs me, I will not hesitate to take my place at the front." (Additional reporting by Umit Bektas and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Larry King)
Heres what Paul has to say about his *forgettable* role on Gilmore Girls

We thought that she might end up with Jess, Logan, or even Dean, but we never expected Rory to be dating Paul in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Even though he didnt show up on screen much, actor Jack Carpenter spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his small, but important role in the Gilmore Girls revival. And hes fully aware that you were right there with Lorelai when you asked, Whos Paul? while bingeing A Year in the Life on Netflix since he called Paul a very forgettable character.

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life spoilers follow.

Pauls backstory  how he started dating Rory, why he keeps dating Rory  is just as mysterious to Carpenter as it is to us. As he told THR:

Yeah, no, I dont really know much about Paul either. I tried to just create a backstory for myself. He is a bit of device, you know, to further this storyline, but no, I didnt really know too much about him at all.

Phew, were glad Carpenter knows that his character was a funny plot device and not a full-fledged character. He continued:

The way I kind of approached it is Paul is this nice guy who cares about Rory and is perhaps trying to force something thats simply not there. Hes going to make someone happy, but its definitely not going to be Rory.

Yeah, yeah  we never thought Paul was a long-term thing for Rory since she legitimately kept FORGETTING HE WAS EVEN THERE in the first episode of the revival, Winter. Yet, does that forgive how she treated Paul? Making no effort to see him and cheating on him with Logan and a Wookiee??

Well, Carpenter makes the very good point that although Rory was cruel to Paul, creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino did totally throw fans off by introducing him.

I personally think what Amy and Dan did was fantastic. It was a complete mislead for the audience. They see Rory with a boyfriend who they didnt want to see her with. Its like, who is this guy? And then, literally, who is this guy? And then theres such a big payoff when you get to see Logan for the first time.

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And even though Carpenter hasnt had the opportunity to watch the revival yet (hes in Australia on vacation), he doesnt think that people should be too hard on Rory for how she treats her boyfriend.

Its been, what? Ten years since Gilmore Girls ended? So were seeing a new chapter in Rorys life and this is where shes at currently, but that doesnt define her. Shes going to change and grow.

So, kind of like Paul for most of A Year in the Life, Carpenter seems comfortable with his role in Rory Gilmores life.

Oh, and dont worry, Carpenter doesnt think his character is the dad of Rorys baby either saying, I guess I would doubt it, but I have no idea.

Welp, considering how forgettable Paul was to Rory, we doubt it too. But at least Gilmore Girls fans will always remember Paul even if the Gilmore women dont.

The post Heres what Paul has to say about his *forgettable* role on Gilmore Girls appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Paul Ryan

House Speaker Paul Ryan defended President-elect Donald Trump's call last week with Taiwan's president, saying the negative reaction was "much ado about nothing."

Ryan said he spoke with the president of Taiwan himself recently.

"I spoke with the president of Taiwan when she was transiting planes in Miami two months ago," Ryan told reporters on Tuesday.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy also brushed aside the implications of Trump's call, telling reporters that one congratulatory call would not change US policy.

Trump's call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen caused a firestorm late last week, and foreign-policy experts said it could strain US relations with China. Trump's call amounted to the first time a US president had directly spoken with Taiwan's leadership in more than 30 years.

The US suspended formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 after establishing a "One China" position in an effort to establish diplomatic channels with Beijing.

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* Pernod shares down around 7 pct in 2016

* Pernod posted higher Q1 sales in October

By Dominique Vidalon

PARIS, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Pernod Ricard is confident of hitting its goal for "mid-single digit" sales growth this financial year in its top U.S. market, which spurred sales growth in its first quarter.

The world's second-biggest spirits group after Diageo made the prediction in slides on its website on Tuesday ahead of a conference call on its North American business.

In October, Pernod reported a stronger-than-expected 4 percent rise in first-quarter underlying sales, helped by growth in the United States and improving demand in China.

Pernod said in the slides its main growth driver was Jameson Irish whiskey, while there was also strong growth at brands such as Malibu rum, Martell cognac and Altos tequila.

The company reiterated it aimed to stabilise sales of its key Absolut vodka brand, estimated by analysts at investment bank Jefferies to make about 30 percent of Pernod's U.S. sales, in the medium-term.

Absolut has been struggling as consumers have turned to rival spirits such as bourbon and more niche vodka brands such as Texas-based Tito's Handmade Vodka.

Pernod has been trying to revive the brand through the launch of luxury vodka Absolut Elyx, new packaging, and streamlining its flavoured vodka range.

Pernod shares were up 0.7 percent in early trading.

The stock is down around 7 percent since the start of 2016, underperforming a 1 percent fall on France's benchmark CAC equity index, while the broader STOXX Europe 600 Food & Beverages index is down 10 percent this year.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Mark Potter)
Peter Vaughan of Game of Thrones has sadly passed away

Its a lucky thing to get to do what you love your entire life. And the talented actor Peter Vaughan, who has passed away at 93, was fortunate enough to spend his final years acting.

Vaughan was best known in recent years for his unforgettable role as Maester Aemon (aka Aemon Targaryen) on Game of Thrones.

His character provided guidance and wisdom to Jon Snow. He appeared on five seasons of the HBO hit show. Aemon was memorable and beloved, just like the actor himself.

The news was confirmed by his long-time agent, according to Deadline.

Originally born Peter Olm, the actors longstanding career spanned many decades. He appeared in tons of unforgettable roles in TV, films, and in the theater.

Perhaps even more impressive than his incredible career is the fact that the UK-born actor was a veteran of World War II.

Vaughan was already an accomplished touring actor before taking time off to serve in Belgium, Normandy, and the Far East. When he returned from the war, he began acting again.

Though many in recent years know him for Game of Thrones, the actor was also known for his work with Terry Gilliam and a delightful character on the BBC sitcom, Porridge.

His fellow Game of Thrones actor, Brenock OConnor, spoke highly about Vaughan in a tweet after his passing.

Deeply saddened to hear that Peter Vaughan has passed away at 93. A kind and talented man. His watch is ended x pic.twitter.com/jOnusxuZ3N  Brenock O'Connor (@Brenock_OConnor) December 6, 2016

He is survived by his wife, Lillias Walker.

The post Peter Vaughan of Game of Thrones has sadly passed away appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Peter Vaughan, who played Nights Watch brother Maester Aemon on Game of Thrones, died on Tuesday at age 93.

His agent Sally Long-Innes confirmed the news in a statement to the BBC, saying, This is to confirm that very sadly Peter Vaughan passed away at approximately 10:30 this morning. He died peacefully with his family around him.

Vaughan was best known to American audiences for playing the blind maester for five seasons on Game of Thrones, but he has been well known to British audiences for decades. He began appearing on TV as early as the 1950s.

Also Read: Margaret Whitton, 'Secret of My Success' Actress, Dies at 67

His most memorable roles include his turn as the villain Harry Grout in Porridge, a series about a man trying to get through a five year prison term, and Felix Hutchinson in the miniseries Our Friends in the North, for which he earned a BAFTA nomination.

Vaughan also enjoyed a long film career. He collaborated with Terry Gilliam on both Brazil, in which he played Mr. Helpmann, and in Time Bandits, in which he played Winston the Ogre.

He also played Giles Corey in the film adaptation of The Crucible opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, and William Stevens in The Remains of the Day, which starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Van Williams, TV's Green Hornet, Dies at 82

Andrew Sachs, 'Fawlty Towers' Star, Dies at 86 (Report)

Nancy Biederman, Motion Picture & Television Fund Advocate, Dies of Leukemia
Brazil's state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. or Petrobras PBR recently announced that a Brazilian federal court has issued an order to block the sale of the interest of its subsidiary, BR Distribuidora. Also, the court has suspended the companys transfer of rights of oil and natural gas exploration, development and production of a set of onshore fields.

Petrobras, with net debt of around $103.56 billion, is the most indebted energy company in the world. The company is undergoing a deep financial crisis due to low oil prices and the loss of goodwill owing to the discovery of massive corruption within its ranks.

As a result, the company intended to sell its stake in BR Distribuidora  Brazil's largest fuel distribution company. Had the asset sale materialized, it would have substantially helped the company to reduce its large debt load.

However, the sale process was blocked on the request of the members of an oil workers union in the northern state of Sergipe. The workers argued that Petrobras should hold a public tender to sell the stake in the subsidiary instead of the current private negotiation. Petrobras intends to appeal the order.

Price Movement

Year-to-date, the Zacks categorized U.S. Oil and Gas Emerging Markets Integrated Industry has registered an impressive growth of 61.91%. However, the stock price of Petrobras has outperformed the industry mark by registering a growth of 143.02%.

Petrobras engages in the exploration, development and production of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. Additionally, the company sells crude oil and oil products produced at natural gas processing plants in domestic and foreign markets. It is also involved in the refining, logistics, transport, and trading of crude oil and oil products. Moreover, the firm exports ethanol and invests in petrochemical companies.

Petrobras currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which implies that the stock will perform in line with the broader U.S. equity market over the next one to three months.

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PETROBRAS-ADR C Price

PETROBRAS-ADR C Price | PETROBRAS-ADR C Quote

Some better-ranked players from the broader energy sector include Braskem S.A. BAK, Ocean Rig UDW LLC ORIG and McDermott International Inc. MDR. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

In the last four quarters, Braskem posted an average positive earnings surprise of 105.5%.

Ultra Petroleum, on the other hand, delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 65.91% in the last four quarters.

In the last four quarters, McDermott posted an average positive earnings surprise of 250.00%.

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(Reuters) - Philip Morris International Inc (PM.N) filed a much-awaited U.S. application to market a new type of cigarette that heats rather than burns tobacco and may carry fewer health risks.

The company's application is the first to seek U.S. approval to market a tobacco product as being less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

If approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the company's iQOS device could give it a significant marketing advantage over alternatives to tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, which are not allowed to make such a claim.

The device electronically heats tobacco to produce a vapor without burning it, and the company claims the vapor has less than 10 percent of the harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke.

"We are encouraged by the timeliness of PM's first FDA application submission...We continue to believe iQOS is a positive catalyst for both Philip Morris & Altria providing a unique competitive advantage," Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in a note.

Philip Morris, which was spun off from Altria Group Inc (MO.N) in 2008, sells brands such as Marlboro, Red and White and Longbeach in markets outside the United States.

The device is currently sold without a reduced harm claim in several countries, including Japan.

Most traditional tobacco companies are investing in tobacco alternatives as smoking in developed countries has declined.

(Reporting by Natalie Grover and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru and Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
(Reuters) - Philip Morris International Inc <PM.N> filed a much-awaited U.S. application to market a new type of cigarette that heats rather than burns tobacco and may carry fewer health risks.

The company's application is the first to seek U.S. approval to market a tobacco product as being less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

If approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the company's iQOS device could give it a significant marketing advantage over alternatives to tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, which are not allowed to make such a claim.

The device electronically heats tobacco to produce a vapor without burning it, and the company claims the vapor has less than 10 percent of the harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke.

"We are encouraged by the timeliness of PM's first FDA application submission...We continue to believe iQOS is a positive catalyst for both Philip Morris & Altria providing a unique competitive advantage," Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in a note.

Philip Morris, which was spun off from Altria Group Inc <MO.N> in 2008, sells brands such as Marlboro, Red and White and Longbeach in markets outside the United States.

The device is currently sold without a reduced harm claim in several countries, including Japan.

Most traditional tobacco companies are investing in tobacco alternatives as smoking in developed countries has declined.

(Reporting by Natalie Grover and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru and Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
Philippine police murdered a town mayor while he was helpless in a jail cell, justice department investigators said Tuesday, contradicting claims by the accused and President Rodrigo Duterte that he was killed in a gunbattle.

The accusations by the National Bureau of Investigation deepened concerns that police were carrying out summary executions as part of Duterte's controversial war on crime, which has claimed more than 5,100 lives in just over five months.

The NBI, equivalent to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, said police shot dead mayor Rolando Espinosa and cellmate Raul Yap last month as they were defenceless in a provincial jail cell.

"After conducting an exhaustive investigation of the incidents surrounding the killing of Mayor Espinosa and Yap, the NBI concluded that the testimonies of several witnesses had disputed the claim of an alleged shootout between the (police) operatives and inmates Mayor Espinosa and Raul Yap but (was) a 'rub out'," the NBI said in a statement.

"Rub out" is a local expression, referring to the police killing a suspect and then saying he died in a gunbattle.

"The pieces of evidence, both testimonial and the forensic evidence all agree. We believe we have a very strong case," NBI deputy director Ferdinand Lavin told reporters.

Lavin said the NBI had recommended murder and perjury charges against 24 officers for their alleged role in the killings and subsequent lies.

The justice department will then decide whether to file the murder charges.

- Police under fire -

The accused police had claimed they fired in self-defence at the pair when they went into the jail cell before dawn to carry out a search warrant.

The police alleged Espinosa, who was in jail after being arrested in October on drug and gun possession charges, had a firearm and methamphetamine in the cell.

Lawmakers, media groups and human rights advocates had ridiculed that version of events, asking why police had to carry out a search in a jail cell at night and why CCTV footage of the event had disappeared.

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They also asked how a man in jail could have a gun and drugs, and why he would shoot at police knowing he was outnumbered.

However Duterte, who has pledged never to let a policeman go to jail for waging his war on crime, repeatedly defended the officers involved.

Duterte had accused Espinosa, mayor of the town of Albuera in the eastern province of Leyte, of being a drug lord.

He had initially given police "shoot-to-kill" orders if Espinosa did not surrender, prompting the mayor to turn himself in.

In a speech late Monday, Duterte defended the police who killed Espinosa and said he believed their version of events.

"Do not force me to believe the theories and assumptions, even with the witnesses, that the mayor was killed (illegally) in the prison," he said.

Duterte had previously signalled he was happy Espinosa had been shot dead.

"You have here a guy, a government employee, using his office and money of government, cooking (illegal drugs) and destroying the lives of so many millions of Filipinos. So what is there for me to say about it?" he said last month.

Duterte's police chief initially stood down the police officer in charge of the raid pending an investigation, but the president immediately reinstated him.

Duterte, 71, won May elections in a landslide on a promise to kill tens of thousands of criminals to prevent the Philippines from becoming a narco-state.

His subsequent war on crime, in which an average of more than 30 people a day are being killed, has led to fears police are carrying out mass extrajudicial killings.

Duterte has repeatedly pledged to protect police from murder charges relating to his crime war, and pardon them if they are found guilty.
Life-changing decisions can occur at any moment. For photographer Anthony Supreme, the turning point in his life came to him while sitting in his Campervan, the vehicle he bought after he uprooted his life in Monroe, North Carolina to pursue a film career in Los Angeles.

"I sold my car and bought a camper. I wasn't poor, I just chose a lifestyle where I didn't want to spend a lot of money," Supreme tells Billboard of his move to the West Coast two years ago. "I remember being in the car just looking up and saying 'Why don't you just start doing photography?"

Supreme also recalled telling his girlfriend about his desire to work on an artist's album cover one day and his dreams soon turned into reality. His "in-the-moment" photography style drew the attention of director Scott Lazer, who helmed J. Cole's HBO special J. Cole Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming, which aired in January. Lazer reached out to Supreme for the chance to work on Cole's upcoming effort 4 Your Eyez Only, slated for release on Friday (Dec. 9).

The photographer toured with the Dreamville founder for two weeks documenting Cole's writing sessions to spontaneous outings, including a stroll in an Atlanta neighborhood reflected on the cover of J. Cole's forthcoming album. Billboard caught up with Supreme to discuss working with Cole, his North Carolina upbringing and social media's effect on photography.

When did you first get into photography?

I got into photography probably about two years ago, and then I've been directing content like film and music videos for like four or five years; I officially got serious with photography probably like two years ago once I moved to L.A. two years ago to kind of pursue everything.

Did you study photography in school or was it just a hobby that you took up?

Actually, it was something I kind of picked up. I never went to school for it. I picked it up one day like three, four years ago because I did mostly a lot of music videos around the Charlotte area with artists from Charlotte and I kind of felt a connection with it so I was like, maybe the best move is to go to LA.

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What was it like growing up in North Carolina?

North Carolina has a life of its own. It's like a country town -- there's black people, there's white people, dirtbiking and country kids for the most part. There's a lot of history in North Carolina. My dad and my grandma grew up in slavery, which isn't that many generations away and you can find the old heads in the area who can give you stories. My dad isn't even that old, he's like 60, but he has stories of when he was a kid seeing black men running down the street from the [Ku Klux Klan] in the countryside so that area has that setting. North Carolina isn't like that now of course but it's definitely a changing world.

How would you say your upbringing and experiences influenced your visual approach?

I'm amazed by the vintage trend and just trying to connect with the past along with the present so I think there's something special about the imperfections of an old image. Its imperfections give it this authenticity. We live in a world where everyone's trying to be perfect, a society where we try to perfect everything. Sometimes it's good to have imagery or anything that resembles imperfection. The imperfection gives it that characteristic. With some of the images I capture, it's not perfect but it makes you feel some type of way.

How did you develop your photography style?

I love the 35mm. I love black and white which is kind of cool that Cole picked the same aesthetic I like. I kind of developed it through testing different things and trying to figure out what I like and just staying on that path. I always had a fascination for albums and album covers. They're like a symbolization of time periods so I kind of developed my style by just trial and error. I think it's good to keep what you feel and not try to change up.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I draw my inspiration from everything. I watch photographers, I watch a lot of movies. There are Instagram accounts that give you photos everyday to draw inspiration from with different artists and photographers. Even from a visual standpoint, there's so much content. I think you can find inspiration anywhere. Inspiration for photography comes from other people and the world. I traveled a few places so it kind of gave me this different perspective of everything too.

Do you feel that social media ruins photography because everyone nowadays can be a photographer?

Yeah, pretty much but at the same time everything in life has cause and effect like Instagram or Tumblr or even the accessibility to cameras. The price range for having a DSLR camera is low and it gives people who don't have money the ability to be a creative person. It allows them to get their creative energy going so it's kind of a good and bad thing. If you're good at what you do then you're always gonna find a way to stand out. You take your circumstances and try to make the best of it.

How do you differentiate yourself given the circumstances?

Just connecting with people. Hustling, too. Trying to figure out my direction. At one point, I was trying to do the whole [shooting a] model thing and I realized the model stuff is just whack to me. During that whole discovery [period] to now, I'm just trying to figure out my own direction -- what do I love. Being a freelance photographer, I found the album, artist route. I love that.

For the J. Cole project, describe the overall direction you were going with while shooting the digital booklet.

It kind of goes along with the same theme as the cover. There's a lot more black and white [images] but it was really all Cole's idea. They shot "False Prophets" months ago and I remember Scott [Lazer] showing it to me back in July and then we just all got together, went outside and started to shoot. Scott liked my simple, in-the-moment shooting. Cole liked the fact that it was so spontaneous so he woke up one morning like, "Man, let's go outside and shoot some stuff and see what happens." He liked the fact that it wasn't what he's used to doing so that kind of sparked the idea for us to do the same thing with everything. We all got together on this two-week tour to create stuff. There's so much footage that's not even in the 40-minute documentary. Everything was coincidence.

{Part 2 of 3} #4youreyezonly I remember the day I pitch this photo to J.cole I was nervous as fuck ! It was in September and we were on a two week tour of creation for this album. I thought this was the perfect photo for his cover. It took me two days to build up enough confidence to show him 6-7 specific photos I felt stood out to me. But, this one stood out the most of this young boy in Atlanta. I was nervous to sit down with Cole & his manager to discuss my findings in the back of this huge tour bus. I described to Cole that there was just something about this young boys eyes. Because that day Cole, Scott and I just randomly stumbled upon this neighborhood in Atlanta while shooting footage for something later to come. This Atlanta neighborhood was just going crazy! People were running out of there house to take a photo of Cole and ask him questions but, their was something to me about this boy and how he kept looking at Cole as he walked around his neighborhood. I can see in his eyes how much this experience is slowly changing his life forever! The young boys face just stood out to me to capture. I saw in his eyes he knew nothing about J.Cole, but was some what amazed how everyone was reacting to him. The boy even asked Cole several times who he was. But, he couldn't understand what was going on in his world. Cole and I spent hours one night looking for photos for his album but nothing seem to stand out. Then a few days past and I finally found this photo that I felt represented the cover to most to me to pitch to him. Which at the time Cole felt something about this photo as well but wanted to think about it. {Continue to part 3} #foryoureyezonly #dreamville #4youreyezonly #jcole

A photo posted by ANTHONY SUPREME (@anthony_supreme) on Dec 2, 2016 at 6:28am PST

How do you think the album cover relates to the title 4 Your Eyez Only? In your Instagram post, you noted the boy's eyes.

There were people all around Cole like, "What are you doing here?" and the kid was amazed because he was reacting to everything around him. He didn't know who Cole was. He was just a kid living his life in this neighborhood like, "Why are people treating this person different?" Everybody in this world is born with a blank slate, we don't know anything about the world. The world kind of feeds us what we're supposed to be but in reality, we really are human beings, we're all connected and the kid was kind of like that to me. Because he didn't know Cole, he was just treating Cole like a regular person and in reality, that's what Cole is. Just because he has awards and money doesn't change the fact that he's just a regular person.

Everybody was trying to tell him, "Why you not reacting the same way we are towards him?" I shot 10,000 photos during the whole process. I had like six, seven of those photos, in that particular style and that kid was always involved in those photos and Cole told me if you see something, let me know or point it out so I built the confidence to actually go up to him and say, "I think these stood out to me. I feel like these would be a dope album cover." I'm not sure why Cole picked that specific photo but maybe the kid affected him the same way he affected me.

What was it like traveling and working with Cole?

It was amazing. A lot of the artists I've worked with are sometimes in that artist, fantasy world and Cole just wasn't like that. When I first met him, I didn't want to be too relaxed around him. Though he has that business mindset, he's still that type of person. As a photographer, I really don't ever have to do a cover again after this. [Laughs]

How did you approach this project differently from past projects?

I passed up on an opportunity to do an album cover before but I remember I was with my girlfriend in a record store and I kept seeing album covers. To me, album covers are pinnacles of time, there's so many of them and [I thought] it'd be great for me as a photographer to do it but I didn't know who. Then, a week or so later I was in my camper and then Scott texted me like, "Yo, you want to shoot these photos for Cole's album?" and I didn't see that coming. I'm not sure why that happened but this situation was like, "Here's your opportunity, this is everything you wanted, everything you f--ked up on prior to." You know what works for you, just go have fun.

You've directed multiple short films and music videos and done a lot of photography in the past. Is there a medium you prefer over the other?

I love directing probably more than photography but photography is more relaxing. Photography and film is the same in a sense because you get a feel of what something's supposed to look like. Both have helped me in multiple ways.

Looking back at your past works to this most recent project, how would you describe your evolution.

My evolution was s***ty as f**k, it was horrible. [Laughs] Just learning and thinking you know enough then realizing you don't know enough, I just kept going. It's an on-going process of trying to get it right in your mind. I think it's the same thing like Cole. He'd be in the back of the bus perfecting his craft while everybody is out partying. I think for me, it's that process of actually learning that part and then also being okay with myself and then being okay with my style and bettering it.
By Anshuman Daga

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Dublin-based AWAS has been put up for sale by its private equity owner in an auction that could value the aircraft lessor at $7 billion, including debt, and draw bids from Chinese lessors and other Asian investors, sources said.

Terra Firma is working with Goldman Sachs to conduct the auction, and potential bidders have already been contacted, two sources familiar with the matter said. One of them said any transaction could be worth about $7 billion including debt but the process is still at an early stage and the valuation could change.

Potential buyers for AWAS include the aviation leasing company backed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, the aircraft leasing arm of China's Ping An Insurance Group and other Asian lessors, mostly Chinese, financial industry sources said. Pension funds may also show interest, they said.

AWAS, among the world's 10 biggest aircraft lessors, is the latest asset to come up for sale in the red-hot aviation leasing business where owners are cashing in on a surge in interest from cash-rich Chinese financial firms looking to boost returns amid a growing air travel market.

"AWAS offers a good platform for lessors looking for a diverse portfolio," said one leasing executive who was not authorised to speak to the media. "The Chinese have money to spend and are keen to make a big splash."

Terra Firma, Goldman Sachs and Ping An declined to comment, while AWAS did not offer an immediate comment on the sale process. Cheung Kong did not respond to a request for comment.

Asian lessors, led by Chinese banks, are spending billions of dollars to expand in the $228 billion global aircraft leasing sector that offers long-term revenue in dollars and accounts for some 40 percent of the world's airline fleet.

AWAS offers a portfolio of about 200 planes and a leasing platform through which it caters to about 90 customers such as Singapore Airlines and Qantas Airways.

Its sale plan follows the acquisition in October of CIT Group's aircraft leasing business by Avolon Holdings, part of China's acquisitive HNA Group, for $10 billion including debt.

Story continues

SCALING UP

Avolon and Asian lessors such as BOC Aviation Ltd have scaled up their operations as they take on Western firms such as AerCap Holdings and General Electric's GECAS which still dominate the sector.

Terra Firma, run by British financier Guy Hands, bought 75 percent of AWAS from Morgan Stanley in 2006 in a deal worth $2.5 billion. A year later it acquired rival Pegasus for $5.2 billion, merging the groups to create what was then the world's third-largest plane lessor.

Over the past two years, the private equity firm has been paring its leasing assets.

Last year, it sold 90 AWAS planes to Macquarie Group for $4 billion. http://reut.rs/2fZ8AOJ

In March 2016, Reuters reported that Terra Firma had rejected two bids from HNA Group for AWAS.

The AWAS sale process comes at a time when AirAsia Bhd, Asia's biggest low-cost airline, is in the process of selling its fully owned leasing arm which it has valued at about $1 billion.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in PARIS and Pamela Barbaglia in LONDON; Editing by Denny Thomas and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Afterimage marks the final film by late Polish film director Andrzej Wajda who died in early October at the age of 90 from pulmonary failure.

Four of his movies were nominated for best foreign language Oscars: 1975s The Promised Land, 1979s The Maids of Wilko, 1981s Man of Iron (1981) 2007s and Katyn (2007), and once again Poland is appropriately submitting the filmmakers latest Afterimage as its Oscar contender this year. Sixteen years ago, Wajda received an honorary Oscar for his canon.

Wajda was part of the Polish Film School, a filmmaker collective, inspired by the Italian Neorealists like Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, that spanned the mid 1950s until the mid 1960s. Their works tackled Polish history during World War II and the German occupation; and their minds were still branded by the Warsaw uprising and the German concentration camps. Wajda was known for the symbolism in his movies and his titles centered around a number of political issues that weighed down his homeland.

Wajdas 1981 title Man of Iron was his commitment to Polands Solidarity movement, a sequel to The Man of Marble (which Solidarity leader Lech Walesa appeared in as himself). Man of Iron followed the 1980 summer events at the Gdansk shipyard, centering around an alcoholic journalists assignment to dig up dirt on a charismatic leader of striking shipyard workers. But the reporters radical spirit sets in, and vies to side with those striking. Wajdas involvement in the Solidarity movement forced the Polish government to close his production company, and the director wound up winning the Palme dOr that year at the Cannes Film Festival for Man of Iron.

Afterimage follows another type of rebel: Polish artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski who refused to trade in his abstract imagery for a propaganda Socialist Realist art style. The painter is fired from the National School of Fine Arts he co-founded, has his works destroyed and hes ultimately driven to a poor mans grave by the government that once honored him. In the wake of Wajdas death, Polish actor Boguslaw Linda who plays Strzeminski has taken up the torch to promote the movie, and here at a recent Deadline screening, explains to Deadlines senior editor Dominic Patten why and how he committed to Afterimage.

Story continues

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Poland's Supreme Court has rejected the government's request to extradite Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States over a 1977 child sex conviction.

Michael Laskowski, chairman of the Supreme Court, was quoted on Tuesday by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza as saying that the court found it "legally unacceptable" to cancel the October 2015 ruling by a Krakow court against the extradition of Polanski.

The director was not required to show up in court.

In May 2016, Zbigniew Ziobro, Polish justice minister and prosecutor general, asked the Supreme Court to overrule the original verdict in a move widely believed to be an attempt by Poland's new conservative government to strengthen its reputation.

Ziobro accepts the Supreme Court's decision but remains convinced that sexual offenses against minors should be prosecuted, regardless of who committed them and when, the Polish National Prosecutor's Office said in a statement, quoted by the newspaper Niezalezna.

U.S. authorities launched extradition proceedings after Polanski arrived in Krakow in 2014 to announce plans to make a film there.

The director lives in France but holds dual French and Polish citizenship and keeps an apartment in Krakow, southern Poland.

Read more: Oscars: Poland Selects 'Afterimage' for Foreign-Language Category
Drug seizure Spain Morocco

Spanish and Moroccan police seized 5,677 pounds of cocaine and arrested 24 suspects in what officials said was a blow against one of the main drug-trafficking organizations operating in Europe, Africa, and South America.

The seizure was part of an operation that started this summer and saw several failed attempts to interdict shipments sent by the multinational trafficking ring to Europe from South America.

This operation, undertaken by Spanish police and their Moroccan counterparts, took place about 100 miles off the coast of Dakhla, in Western Sahara, over which Morocco has de facto administrative control.

After spotting the boat believed to be carrying the drug shipment moving parallel to the coasts of Mauritania and Morocco, authorities moved in with a helicopter and two patrol boats.

With police closing in, 12 people on board, all of whom were arrested, reportedly began throwing bundles of cocaine overboard. Aboard, authorities also found documents, a satellite phone, and about $10,700.

In total, the operation led to the arrest of 18 people in Morocco and six people in Spain, among them two Colombians arrested in Madrid, one of whom was reportedly the leader of the group trying to travel to Colombia, and two Spaniards in Pontevedra, in the northern province of Galicia.

Primera operacion policial hispano-marroqui contra el #narcotrafico via maritima. Incautados 2.575kg de cocaina y 24 detenidos pic.twitter.com/KgjJTy4CXq  Policia Nacional (@policia) December 6, 2016

According to Spanish national police, the arrests targeted the "most active" group operating in Europe, Africa, and South America, which had a significant logistical and economic capacity allowing it to deploy a number of ships to move cocaine.

The group reportedly used three or four boats at a time to break up the size of the shipments and complicate police efforts to interdict them.

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The police investigation began at the start of summer in Galicia, Spain's northwestern-most province. The operation was stymied at first by the imprisonment (for another crime) of a Galician who was believed to be the contact person for drug shipments arriving in the province.

West Africa drug smuggling route

With that person in jail, responsibility for trafficking passed to a Colombian group that worked with a group in Galicia but was led out of Madrid and had links to Colombia, a major cocaine production center, and Venezuela, a major drug-transit area.

After some failed attempts to intercept shipments, agents from Spain and Morocco began monitoring a vessel departing South America with a new drug cargo. When that cargo reached the African coast near Western Sahara, authorities moved in.

The interdiction was the first joint Spanish-Moroccan anti-drug operation against international maritime cocaine trafficking.

Drug trafficking Europe South America Africa map

"This latest police action constitutes an important blow against one of the principal narco networks that operates on three continents," said Juan Ignacio Zoido, Spain's interior minister.

Europe's drug gateway

Overall, cocaine seizures in Europe have declined from highs reached in the mid- to late-2000s, but Spain and Portugal remain important entryways for illegal drugs headed to those countries and to other places on the continent.

According to data from the Spanish Interior Ministry, national police, civil guard, and customs authority, the country is seventh in the world in terms of cocaine seizures.

In 2015, the amount of the drug seized there rose to 40% of the continent's total, state security secretary Francisco Martinez said in November. (Martinez stepped down a few days later in a "mutual agreement" with Zoido.)

Northwestern Africa is also a major transit point for illegal drugs headed to Europe.

Overland routes carry drugs from West African countries to southern Europe, while Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, both off Africa's west coast, have also seen drug traffic, according to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction's 2016 report.

Drug shipments coming directly into Spain and Europe have increasingly come by container aboard cargo ships.

Spain cocaine bust in banana shipment

Traffickers in South America load drugs in with legitimate cargos, often with the help of ship or dockyard workers, in addition to Colombia, ports in Brazil and Argentina have also become major departure points for cocaine headed to Europe.

In September, police in southern Spain intercepted 2,000 pounds of cocaine concealed in a shipment of bananas from Colombia.

"The countries that seized the most cocaine over the period 201114 were Spain (accounting for about 50% of all seizures) and Belgium," followed by France, Italy, the UK, and Portugal, the EMCDDA reported.

NOW WATCH: Watch the US Coast Guard seize a narco sub laden with $73 million worth of cocaine





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Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazilian police fired percussion grenades and rubber bullets Tuesday at protesters angry over austerity measures in cash-strapped Rio de Janeiro state.

The clash broke out when the estimated 300 demonstrators, most of them civil servants, tried to overrun the state assembly in downtown Rio.

They were dispersed by police. Streets were blocked off and traffic was diverted.

Some within the group hurled projectiles at police and the assembly building. Police fought back with the percussion grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas.

The newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo said at least two people were hurt by rubber bullets.

Last month governor Luis Fernando Pezao presented a package of unpopular spending cuts and tax increases to try to fix heavily indebted Rio state's financial woes -- just one sad chapter of the overall national economic crisis and recession. Just months ago the city of Rio hosted the Summer Olympics.

Some of those measures were passed by decree, but others need to go through the legislature. The voting began Tuesday and is scheduled to last through next Monday.

State officials forecast for this year a deficit equivalent to 5.4 billion dollars. Without the austerity measures, they say, the shortfall would balloon to three times that by the end of 2018.

The package calls for a cut in spending on social programs, an increase in what workers pay into the state pension system, a rise in public transport fares and reductions in retirement pensions.

The economic crisis has wreaked havoc in health care and public safety, and the city has endured an alarming rise in the crime rate.
A police officer was shot at a police station in the Copenhagen suburb of Albertslund on Tuesday morning, December 6. Copenhagen Police said they had arrested a 26-year-old Danish man for the shooting, whom they believe acted alone.

The officers condition was described as serious, but not critical.

This video shows the suspects home in Gadager, west of Copenhagen, being searched by police after the arrest. Credit: Mathias gendal via Storyful
Warsaw (AFP) - Poland's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a bid to extradite Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States, where he faces sentencing over a decades-old case of statutory rape.

The 83-year-old French-Polish national did not attend the hearing but got the news via text message from his lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz, who told reporters: "We're very happy."

"We hope one day it will be over in the United States," Stachowicz added.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro had appealed to the court in May to overturn a 2015 ruling against extraditing Polanski, saying no one should be above the law.

The Supreme Court "is dismissing the appeal," said Judge Michal Laskowski, definitively ending Poland's part in the 1977 case.

Laskowski stressed that the Warsaw court's role was not to rule on the merits of the case but rather to make sure due process had been followed by the lower court.

"We did not find a flagrant violation of the law," he said alongside his two fellow judges.

He added however there were circumstances with no legal bearing that were hard to ignore completely: "More than 38 years have passed since the incident. The victim in this case publicly forgave Roman Polanski. He paid her the monetary damages she requested."

The government appeal had appeared to be part of what the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) government, which took office a year ago, touts as a moral revolution in strongly Catholic Poland.

- 'Avoiding double standards' -

Polanski is still wanted in the United States for sentencing over the 1977 statutory rape of Samantha Gailey after a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

He was arrested after Gailey, now Geimer, accused him of forcing her to have sex after drugging her.

She was 13 at the time. Polanski was 43.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, as part of a plea bargain under which he served 42 days in detention while undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

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But in 1978, convinced that a judge was going to scrap the deal and hand him a hefty prison sentence, Polanski fled for France.

In 2009 he was arrested in Switzerland on a US extradition request and spent 10 months under house arrest before Bern rejected the US order.

The US then asked Poland to extradite Polanski in January 2015, but the local court in the city of Krakow rejected the demand the following October.

"Had Poland accepted the US extradition request, it would have violated the rights of Mr Polanski and at the same time the European Convention on Human Rights," judge Dariusz Mazur said at the time.

The Krakow court was critical of the original US investigation into the filmmaker's case, saying US judges and prosecutors had flouted "the rules of a fair trial".

But after the PiS came to power in November 2015 and Ziobro became justice minister, he announced a review of the decision, saying he wanted to "avoid double standards".

Ziobro said he respected the Supreme Court decision but added: "Sexual offences against minors should be pursued all the way, regardless of who committed them and when."

- 'Grotesque case' -

Geimer published a book in 2013, saying she was made to drink champagne and given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson.

The mother-of-three said in her book she has forgiven him.

"My family never asked that Polanski be punished. We just wanted the legal machine to stop."

Polanki's French lawyer Herve Temime told AFP he was "delighted by this decision which puts an end to a grotesque case."

Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish Jewish parents, Polanski moved to Poland with his family before World War II.

When he was eight, the Nazis arrested his parents and sent them to concentration camps. His mother never returned.

He went on to win acclaim for his 1962 feature debut in Poland, "Knife in the Water", before arriving in Hollywood in 1968 to shoot his first big international hit, "Rosemary's Baby".

The following year his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four friends were murdered by cult leader Charles Manson and his followers.

Polanski now lives in France with his third wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, but he often visits Poland.

He has yet to return to the United States, however, not even in 2003 to pick up an Oscar for best director for his harrowing Holocaust drama, "The Pianist" -- one of his eight Academy Awards.
Donald Trump

A Morning Consult/Politico poll published Tuesday found that President-elect Donald Trump was viewed more favorably after announcing a deal with Carrier that led to roughly 1,100 jobs staying in the US.

The poll found that 60% of voters surveyed viewed Trump more favorably following the deal, including a whopping 89% of Trump voters and 32% of voters who cast ballots for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Four in 10 Democrats and 54% of independents said they now view Trump in a better light following the deal, which kept some of the jobs set to move to Mexico at the company's Indianapolis plant.

Trump's team negotiated the deal directly with Carrier, which reportedly received about $7 million in tax incentives over a 10-year period to keep the jobs in the Hoosier State, home of Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Additionally, 56% of voters said it was appropriate for a president to negotiate directly with a company on a case-by-case basis, and 62% said they approve of a president offering tax breaks and incentives to individual businesses if it led to jobs remaining in the US.

The deal has come under fire from some free-market conservatives, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin  a top Trump ally  who likened it to "crony capitalism."

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Portland, Oregon, could become the first city to tax companies in the city with CEOs earning exorbitant compensation. The five-member city council is expected to decide Wednesday on imposing the tax for CEO pay greater than the median salary of his or her workers by a ratio of 100-to-one, the Guardian reported.

The decision will come ahead of a new Security and Exchange Commission rule requiring businesses to publicly release their CEOs pay ratios being implemented in 2017.

The level of income inequality in the U.S. was the biggest challenge facing our society after global warming, said Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick, who proposed the additional tax. The proposal would also raise by 25 percent taxes on corporations with CEOs who are paid at a ratio greater than 250-to-one.

Novick said he was 95 percent confident the measure would acquire the three votes needed to pass the additional taxes.

Its been absolutely frightful to see the divide between regular folks and the richest-of-the-rich. Its economically destabilizing, its politically destabilizing, its unhealthy, Novick said.

The gap between the median amount of workers and their CEOs incomes has grown exponentially since the 1960s, when the average ratio was roughly 20-1. The level of wealth disparity has risen to more than 200-to-one, according to Glass Door, a group of economists and data scientists who conduct research on the status of the current labor markets. Glass Door found the company with the highest ratio of CEO pay to median worker salary was Discovery Communications, whose CEO David M. Zaslav made $156 million in 2014. The median pay of Discovery workers was $80,000.

The measure acts along the lines of a failed proposal in California from 2014 in which companies whose executives salaries were 200 times greater than the median pay of its workers would have had their state tax rates increased by more than 1 percentage point to 10 percent. If the ratio was 300-to-one, a company's tax rate would have been raised by 3 percentage points. If the ratio was greater than 400-to one, its tax rate would have been increased by 4-percentage points to nearly 50 percent, the Los Angeles Times reported on April 26, 2014.

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Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. POT said that it has priced an offering of $500 million total principal amount of 4% notes due Dec 15, 2026. The offering, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close on Dec 6, 2016.

Potash Corp. plans to utilize the proceeds of the offering to refinance existing debt, which may include repaying a portion of the outstanding amounts under its commercial paper facilities. Further, it may include redeeming its $500 million total principal amount of outstanding 3.250% notes before maturity on Dec 1, 2017.

Potash Corps price has gained 0.44% compared with the Zacks-categorized agribusiness industry rate which has fallen 2.84% in the past three months. Potash Corp.s adjusted earnings for the third quarter of 2016 beat Zacks Consensus Estimate. Sales fell by double digits on lower nutrient prices, and missed expectations. The company narrowed its earnings guidance for 2016.

Potash Corp. ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $153 million, a more than two-fold year over year rise. Long-term debt was $3,714 million at the end of the quarter compared with $3,709 million a year ago.

Potash Corp. faces headwinds associated with macroeconomic uncertainties stemming from weakness across specific developing markets. Further, it is exposed to challenges in its nitrogen business and a weak pricing environment. Weak pricing is expected to lead to lower potash and nitrogen margins in 2016. Soft agricultural commodity prices continue to hurt the fertilizer industry.

Nevertheless, Potash Corp. will benefit from expanded operational capability and improved demand for potash in the balance of 2016. The company expects strong customer engagement in fourth-quarter 2016 and healthy demand in North America in the fall application season.

Potash Corp. and Agrium AGU, in Sep 2016, agreed to combine their businesses to create a fertilizer giant with a pro forma enterprise value of $36 billion. The proposed merger would create the worlds largest crop nutrient supplier and the integrated company will be better placed to counter the headwinds in the crop nutrient markets. The combined company is expected to generate as much as $500 million of annual operating synergies.

Story continues

Zacks Rank

Potash Corp. currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked companies in the basic materials space include Celanese Corp. CE and The Mosaic Company MOS, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Celanese has an expected earnings growth of 9.5% for the current year.

Mosaic has an expected long-term growth of 9.5%.

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When it happened, Chick Takara was 12 years oldold enough to work on Sundays, alongside his brother, washing dishes in a restaurant in Honolulu to help pay their familys bills. Dec. 7, 1941, was a slow morning. A taxi driver, in for a cup of coffee, got the young dishwashers attention. Go look at the harbor, he said. The Navy is using live ammo for their drills today. The boys climbed a ladder to the roof and looked toward Pearl Harbor.

Sure enough, Takara now recalls, we see hundreds and hundreds of gray and white powder puffs all over the sky.

The boss told the boys to go homeabout a half an hour by trolley, even in streets eerily empty of cars, and then a sprint to the tenements where the Takaras lived. Chick Takara is 87 now, but he remembers that his mother was standing outside talking to a neighbor, their arms full of laundry. In his memory of the day, hes yelling as he runs: This is war, Mommy!

He was right.

The neighbor turned to go upstairs for the rest of her wash. A streak swooshed across the skygray, not red like in the movies. Loud. The bomb hit the house, with the neighbor inside.

Takara, watching, was too terrified to scream. Among the wooden tenements, the fire spread quickly.

Chicks father told the six Takara children to hold hands. The plan was that they would walk to a nearby stadium and sit down on the 50-yard line, where at least they would die together. But the principal of the local Japanese schoolpart of the large Japanese-American community that made up about 38% of the people living in Hawaii in 1940intercepted them, offering shelter. The family stayed for weeks at the school, sleeping on the tatami mats in the room where young girls once sat to learn to sew kimonos. The schools auditorium also became the clearinghouse for Japanese residents, now declared enemy aliens, to turn in the belongings that were no longer allowed to belong to them: radios, binoculars, weapons. When the family was allowed to try to salvage what they could from their home, Takara found coins melded together by the firea memento he keeps to this day.

Story continues

Now, 75 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the day that threw the United States into World War II has lived up to the prediction made by President Franklin Roosevelt that week. The date lives in infamy. Yet despite being one of the best-known days in modern American history, some of its stories are only just making their way into the world. Chick Takara, for example, says that for many years he felt that he must be the only one to have spent a lifetime with this particular side of the Pearl Harbor story, the perspective of a Japanese-American child in Hawaii. The story, however, is a valuable oneespecially as people who were young in 1941 become the only ones left who remember.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Edwin Nakasone was 14. He remembers eating Cornflakes when, through the screen door of his home, he saw the planes coming through Kolekole Pass, to strafe Schofield Barracks. Like Takara, his first thought was that the Navy must have made a terrible mistake in their drillsdrills were normal, planes overhead commonplaceuntil he looked up and saw the red circle marks under the wings of the planes overhead. The planes were Japanese.

I dashed back in the house, turned on the radio. And sure enough, Webley EdwardsI still remember the announcers name, there were only two stations in Hawaii at that time; Station KGMB, Webley Edwardswas saying, All service personnel, return to your base, Nakasone says.

Nakasone, like the other young Japanese-Americans of Hawaii at the time, encountered a strange world. Black-outs at night. Hiding under the bed at the sound of planes, hoping that the mattress would stop bullets. Martial law. But Hawaii was a true melting pot and, by virtue of distance and demographics, the large Japanese-American population did not face the same broad incarceration that was seen on the mainland during the war. But that didnt mean things were easy. Civilians of Japanese extraction who worked for the Army lost their jobs, and internment did happen, though it affected a much smaller portion of the population. Documents from the time show that President Roosevelt advocated removing Japanese people from Oahu, the island that is home to Pearl Harbor. Evidence suggests that the reason such a plan was not pursued was not moral outrage, but rather that the military officers who would have overseen such a move could tell that it would be impractical and a drain on labor resources. Nakasones parents made sure they had no pictures of the Japanese emperor in the home, or anything else that would raise suspicion.

In the years that would follow, Nakasoneperhaps because he became a history teacher, in Minnesotafound himself often discussing what had happened back then. What I saw is still imprinted on my mind, he says. That willingness to discuss the day, however, is not shared by everyone who was there.

Keiko Nakata was 17, working that morning with her mother and her sister Akiko in their familys taro patch in Kahaluu. She figured out that it wasnt just a drill when a bomb fell in a yard nearby. From her home she could hear the sound of gunfire.

In the days that followed, her parents burned the books they had brought from Japan. They built a bomb shelter and, when the children returned to school, they went with gas masks in tow.

Though certain memories of that time remain vivid to Nakata, some of the details of have since blurred. How long was she out of school? How long did she carry a gas mask every day? How many weeks did she sleep in the bomb shelter? For many years after, Nakata did not discuss what had happened. Her parents didnt talk about it with the family when she was young. She in turn did not discuss it with her own children.

We dont know their history, says Sandra Hino, 55, her daughter, who also lives on Oahu. This generation, they generally dont bring it up, because of bad feelings. They just have us focus on the future.

Hino says she didnt fully understand what her mother had been through until she herself was an adult. But she insists on talking with her own son about his grandmothers experience, trying to set a new precedent. Many in her age group are not here anymore, Hino says. So if she goes without sharing, then none of us will know the actual history.

Revisit 1941 in virtual reality with LIFE VRs Remembering Pearl Harbor

Walter Oka was 13. He was listening to the radio with five of his siblings when he heard the explosions; from their home in Aiea, they had a clear view of the harbor. When the USS Arizona exploded, the blast was strong enough to make him stagger. In his memory, the wooden coffins that were brought past his home that day, on their way to a temporary burial ground, were stained with blood.

In those first days after the attack, U.S. officials were the ones who seized his brothers ham radio equipment and, a few days later, FBI agents came back to the house. They had heard that one Walter Oka had been studying the coming and going of the ships in the harbor. When they found out their suspicious figure was only a 13-year-old boy curious about ships, they left. Even when the prejudice he faced then continued into later life, he says he was never really reluctant to discuss what happened. Instead, the reason he didnt discuss it was that there were few opportunities to do so.

Nobody asked, says Oka, and I never volunteered.

Recently, however, that has changed. Now that there are not many around who remember that day, he finds that people stop and think when they find out hes from Hawaii. Now, they want to know whether he was there during the attack. Hes happy to tell them. By this point, he even has a PowerPoint presentation prepared on the subject. People want to know what he saw, what he thinks, what there is to be said about what happened.

That fact is all too clear to Stacey Hayashi, a 41-year-old yonseifourth-generation Japanese-Americanwho grew up in Hawaii, one of many of her generation who did not know about what her elders had seen. When I was a young kid my dad would say stuff like, oh, Uncle Komy grandpas younger brotherwas in the [Japanese-American World War II Battalion], she says. Im thinking, wow, thats ancient history. Im a girl. Im 9. I dont care.

When she was in high school, she began to appreciate the remarkable ways the people in her grandparents generation responded to the coming of war, particularly the lengths they went to be able to serve in the military despite the barriers they faced due to their race. Hayashi, a former software engineer and dress designer by trade, has written a comic book about that story and is now working on a feature film project about it. That work has brought her into touch with many of the Japanese-American Hawaiians who lived through that timeincluding those who were too young to fight, people like Chick Takaraand has taught her how to coax out their stories.

[In Japanese culture] youre taught not to talk about yourself and to not share your stories, Hayashi says. Thats seen as bragging. A lot of them dont want to talk about their stories because theyre too painful, but with Japanese-American veterans theres this added layer.

But, as Hayashi sees it, breaking through that layer is crucial.

One reason goes back to the different experiences of people of Japanese descent on the West Coast of the mainland, who faced internment and exclusion during the war, and those in the larger and more integrated population in Hawaii. For example, the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Teamcomprised of Japanese-Americans, many from Hawaiibecame the most decorated combat unit, for its size and service, in all of American military history to that point. As Hayashi sees it, these two experiences illustrate the importance of embracing immigrant communities. [In Hawaii] you have this overwhelming response to help your country. Almost 10,000 guys signed up and the ones who didnt make it, they cried, because they wanted so badly to serve, Hayashi says. And yet on the West Coast you treat them like theyre suspected. Why would you want to fight for a country that treated you that way?

But, she says, having worked to gather these stories for over a decade, shes noticed the same shift that Oka has seen his daily life, the shift that Hino has seen in her own family.

With age, though some may find it more difficult to talk about the past, others of the veterans and survivors with whom she has become close have become more willing to share their stories. I think that while they were younger they felt like, well, lets just do what we can to make the world better, she says. That was their mindset, and it didnt occur to them that sharing their stories would be helpful in making the world better.
If you're writing up your holiday to-do list, here's one thing you can't afford to leave off -- reviewing your portfolio.

According to a 2015 Bankrate Money Pulse Survey, only about a quarter of Americans check their investment and retirement accounts more often than once a month. If you're part of the majority that doesn't track your investments regularly, you could be veering off course without realizing it.

As 2016 draws to a close, it's a good time for a little financial fine-tuning. Here's what you should be doing now to get your portfolio ready for the year ahead.

[See: 7 of the Best ETFs to Own in 2017.]

Start with investment fees. If you're paying a healthy amount in fees, you need to consider what kind of value you're getting, says Adam Torres, a certified financial planner and CEO of Century City Wealth Management in Beverly Hills, California.

Examine the management fee as well as the expense ratio of the investments in your portfolio and then compare it to the investment's track record. Torres offers an example of an international mutual fund with an expense ratio of 1.5 percent.

"That may seem like a lot, but it's not if the mutual fund manager is far outperforming his benchmark in excess of the additional basis points," Torres says. "You might be able to get a cheaper fund, but at what price related to the return?"

Mike Falco, an independent advisor and owner of Falco Wealth Management in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, says investors also need to think about the deductibility of the fees they're paying.

"This time of year, you want to look at your year-end statement and make sure you know the total amount paid in investment fees," Falco says, since they're considered investment expenses and may be deductible if you itemize.

Leverage the power of tax-loss harvesting. Harvesting investment losses is a wise move if you're concerned about offsetting capital gains at tax time and it may be particularly important this year.

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"With a potential reduction in income tax rates coming, now's the time to do tax-loss harvesting to get the most bang for your buck," says Josh Jalinski, president of Jalinski Advisory Group in Toms River, New Jersey.

Falco advises investors to start by thinking about the individual holdings in their taxable investment accounts and the cost basis of each one. Determining whether you have a capital loss or a capital gain is as simple as subtracting the cost basis from the current value. From there, you can decide which assets to sell.

"If you have a large gain in some areas and losses in others, match them up and sell the ones with big gains and big losses," Falco says. "Just keep in mind that the IRS will only allow a net loss of $3,000 per year on a tax return."

Dan McElwee, president of Ventura Wealth Management in Ewing, New Jersey, cautions investors to study all the angles before pulling the trigger on tax-loss harvesting.

"Before selling, an investor should question why the investment is down," McElwee says. "Are the fundamental and technical reasons they made the purchase still in place?"

If the reasoning behind the purchase of a particular investment no longer holds, the time may be ripe to realize the loss to offset gains, McElwee says. Harvesting for the sake of harvesting, on the other hand, isn't a sound strategy.

[Read: Boost Your Portfolio Before the New Year.]

Rebalance appropriately. Despite the post-election boom in stocks, investors shouldn't rule out the possibility of a downturn at some point, says Sean O'Hara, president of Pacer ETFs in Paoli, Pennsylvania.

"Many investors don't factor downside protection into their portfolio," O'Hara says.

When the market is riding a sustained high, it's easy to forget about the possibility of an eventual correction. Without some insulation against volatility, your portfolio may not be as diversified as you think.

O'Hara says investors need exposure to investments that can outperform when the market takes a dive. He suggests trend-following exchange-traded funds, as well as dividends, which can provide income during a market downturn.

Jalinski says investors should not chase last year's winners, encouraging them to seek out hidden values instead. He also recommends thinking about what investments may do well under a Trump presidency, such as U.S. stocks, infrastructure and energy.

"We're in an optimism trade; therefore, bonds and emerging markets may struggle," Jalinski says.

Tend your tax-advantaged accounts. Maximizing contributions to tax-advantaged accounts, such as a 401(k), individual retirement account or health savings account, takes on a new sense of urgency this year with talk of tax policy changes making the rounds.

"Investors in high income brackets may want to defer more income in 2016," McElwee says, which could allow them to withdraw those funds at lower rates in the future, assuming that marginal income tax rates are reduced.

Beyond the amount you're contributing, it's also essential to think about what you're investing in. Jeff Weeks, founding principal of Austin, Texas-based ATX Portfolio Advisors, says that when it comes to tax-advantaged versus taxable accounts, asset location is just as important as the allocation.

"By positioning the most tax inefficient investments in retirement accounts, such as taxable bonds and REITs, investors can leverage the tax deferral more effectively," Weeks says.

More efficient investments, like equity index funds, can be in either a taxable or retirement account. These can be less painful tax-wise, due to their low turnover and favorable tax treatment of dividends.

While reviewing your portfolio, take the time to evaluate which investments you're holding in both your retirement and taxable accounts to make sure you're investing as efficiently as possible from a tax perspective.

Formulate your larger financial plan. Kei Sasaki, chief regional investment officer with Wells Fargo Private Bank in New York City, says investors must think beyond near-term market projections when shaping their investment strategy.

"Investors should begin by understanding their unique goals and objectives, and tolerance for risk, as well as other considerations like time horizon, liquidity and tax sensitivities," Sasaki says.

Once you've developed a personalized financial plan, he says, you can build an "all weather" diversified portfolio that aligns with your goals. That doesn't mean, however, that you can take a completely hands-off approach going forward.

"I have many people come to see me who haven't looked at their portfolio in years," Falco says. "They assume someone else is doing it for them and that's not always the case."

He says staying in touch with your broker or advisor and being aware of how life changes can affect your investment choices are vital.

[Read: 5 Pit Stops for Better Retirement Planning.]

"The No. 1 thing I tell my clients is don't forget about your portfolio," Falco says.

Rebecca Lake has been writing about investing, finance and small business for nearly a decade. Her work has been featured on The Huffington Post, Fox Business and Investopedia. Follow her on Twitter @seemomwrite.
The month of December is meaningful for investors in many ways. After an unsuccessful constitutional referendum in Italy, the month is highly likely to see the sole Fed rate hike of this year and will continue to mull over how effective and prolonged the Trump rally will be in the U.S. market (read: Confident About Trump Rally? Play These Small-Cap Blend ETFs).

Investors should note thatthe Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi lost the referendum  arranged on December 4  by a wide margin, as about 60% voters went against streamlining the 68-year-old parliamentary system, intended at boosting the countrys ailing economy. At the current level, Renzi has agreed to continue his role until the Senate passes its 2017 budget in the coming days.

With this, market watchers expect political uncertainty and the likelihood of an early election in Italy. The anti-referendum movement was led by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement party commanded by Beppe Grillo. And if Grillo wins in an early election, he might dump euro, reintroduce the Italian lira and call for a situation like Brexit (read: UK Votes for Brexit: ETFs Winners & Losers).

Asset Classes Losers

Such a threat was strong enough to send the common currency Euro to a 20-month low, just after the result of the referendum though it steadied later. Such an event put CurrencyShares Euro ETF FXE in focus along with the pureplay Italy ETF iShares MSCI Italy Capped EWI. If Euro crumbles further, it would be prudent to go short on euro ETFs. Investors can short euro with ProShares UltraShort Euro EUO (read: Short the Euro with These ETFs).

Coming to inverse equity exposure, investors can play ProShares Short MSCI EAFE EFZ which offers negative exposure to the daily performance of the MSCI EAFE Index. Notably, the index has over 60% exposure to European stocks.

Though investors have not yet reacted that negatively to the defeat of the Italian government as evident from 0.8% gains in EWI on December 5, the coming days could be choppy. Already, shares of Italian banks took a hit on the vote.

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Global markets also stayed stable with all-world ETF iShares MSCI ACWI ACWI adding 0.7% on December 5, the U.S. gauge SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) advancing 0.6% and Europe ETF Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK) tacking on 1.55% gains.

Notably, this year's fastest growth rate in Euro zone business activity in November explains VGKs unexpected gains that ignored the likely threats from the Italian referendum. Analysts are of view that investors may have probably taken Italian risks lightly as nothing horrid is less likely to happen in the near term.

Still, investors not wanting to expose themselves to market risks may choose to play quality ETFs. This is especially true given the likely Fed rate hike this month and probable talks of faster policy tightening which may cause a crash in global markets. Below we highlight a few quality ETF options.

Quality ETFs in Focus

iShares Edge MSCI International Quality Factor ETF IQLT

The 285-stock fund gives exposure to large- and mid-cap developed international stocks with positive fundamentals like high return on equity, steady year-over-year earnings growth and low financial leverage. No stock accounts for more than 3.47% of the portfolio.

The $19.35-million fund is heavy on UK (19.36%), Switzerland (13.3%) and Japan (12.45%). France (8.85%), Germany (8.36%) and Canada (8.15%) round out the next three spots. Financials (22.82%) is the top sector of the fund followed by Industrials (13.83%) and Consumer Discretionary (11.68%). It charges 30 bps in fees.

WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Fund IHDG

With the Fed preparing for policy tightening in the near term and most other developed economies pursuing easy money policies, a currency-hedged approach would be intriguing to set off the effect of a surging greenback.

IHDG serves this purpose. Moreover, IHDG takes care of investors income as the fund selects dividend-paying companies with growth features in the developed world ex U.S. and Canada. This Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) ETF charges 58 bps in fees. UK (18.54%), Switzerland (11.96%), Japan (11.33%) and the Netherlands (11.02%) take the first four positions in the fund (see all Broad Developed World ETFs here).

FlexShares Quality Dividend ETF QDF

Investors fearing the spillover of the Italian referendum debacle to the U.S. shore can consider this U.S. quality ETF too. QDF here uses a proprietary model that includes factors like profitability, management efficiency and cash flow. The fund looks to provide exposure to the growth potential of U.S. securities that offer dividends as well. The fund yields 2.93% annually while it charges 37 bps in fees (read: Trump Rally to Wane? Buy These Quality ETFs).

VanEck Vectors Morningstar Intl Moat ETFMOTI

The fund gives exposure to global quality stocks that Morningstar believes have sustainable competitive advantages. Australia (20.9%), China (12.4%) and Singapore (9.6%) get considerable focus in the fund. The 75-stock fund charges 56 bps in fees.

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The biggest story in the world this year  markets, economics, politics, anything  was the US presidential election win by Donald Trump.

And no single chart told the story of Trumps election better than the following, which revealed the inconvenient truth about US manufacturing employment and US manufacturing output.

What we see in this chart is the red line showing US manufacturing employment levels about 10% below where they were a decade ago. The blue line shows manufacturing output, which in contrast has fully recovered from the recession and then some.

Source: FRED

In short, we find that US manufacturing workers are declining in total numbers while the ones that remain are more productive as a group  largely due to increased automation.

During his campaign, Trump made a point of promising to bring these kinds of jobs back to the US. And on the back of this kind of populist economic rhetoric, Trump pulled the upset to take the White House, forging his path to victory by winning states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, which all once served as manufacturing powerhouses.

But our chart of the year shows that the sector has moved on, moved forward, gotten more out of less. And that is why these jobs are never coming back.

Harry Holzer, a former chief economist for the Department of Labor who now teaches at Georgetown University, told Yahoo Finances Rick Newman in October, Trump is misleading people who really think hes going to bring back good jobs. Thats a pipe dream. The robots have eliminated a lot of them. Nobodys bringing those jobs back unless they come back at really low wages.

Wall Street analysts agree.

A recent wave of election results in developed markets is being interpreted as suggesting frustration among middle and lower income voters with both the Establishment and their economic lot, analysts at research firm Bernstein wrote in a recent note to clients.

One means of tapping into that frustration has been for politicians to promise a return of good, well-paying manufacturing jobs to developed markets (well, one developed market in particular). However, thanks to factory automation, that outcome is barely available in Shanghai and Shenzhen, let alone Shreveport [Louisiana] and Scranton [Pennsylvania]. (Emphasis added.)

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Because what the automation, or augmentation, or robotization of the workforce has done is make those who remain more effective at their jobs. This is the reality Trump fights when he cuts a tax deal with Carrier to keep 800 jobs in Indiana. And this is the reality Trump fights when he threatens a 35% tariff on goods produced by US companies that move production overseas and import these same goods back into the US.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at Carrier Corp Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

On Monday, United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes let slip that despite Trumps deal to keep some of Carriers jobs in Indiana (United Technologies owns Carrier) there will, in the end, be fewer jobs.

Were going to make a $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive, Hayes told CNBCs Jim Cramer, referencing the Carrier plants plan to remain open as part of Trumps deal with the company.

Hayes added, Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost of labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because well make the capital investments there But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.

In its note, Bernstein echoed Hayes commentary, writing that, in a world of low-cost and adaptable robots, even the role of the humble trade barrier is up-ended. It is still possible to force the relocation of production through the introduction of tariffs and quotas. However, if the point of the exercise is to restore well-paying, middle class jobs in manufacturing in the process, the result is going to disappoint.

Any such effort today is likely to result in greater and greater degrees of automation. The activity may come home, but there are simply no jobs to steal. Mandating a physical task be carried out in a high-cost labor market in 2017 is simply going to increase the chances the task is automated. (Emphasis added.)

And so while Hayes admitting that Trumps recent short-term political win is just that, hes simply relaying what our chart of the year says about the present, and future, of the manufacturing industry.

And no politician is about to change that story.



Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland
President Obama used his final national security speech to not only thank U.S. troops for their work over the past eight years, but also appeared to send a message to his successor, President-elect Donald Trump.

In his speech at the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, Obama seemingly touched on a variety of concerns about the president-elect that emerged during the campaign trail, including Trumps support of torture and generalizations about the Muslim community.

The president also said the U.S. should uphold its values both at home and abroad, explicitly saying that stigmatizing Muslims would be counterproductive to the larger goal of fighting terrorism.

We are fighting terrorists who claim to fight on behalf of Islam, but do they do not speak for over a billion Muslims around the world, Obama said. If we stigmatize Muslims, that just feeds the terrorist narrative.

The U.S., he added, is not a country that imposes religious tests as a price for freedom. Aides to the Trump transition team have suggested that under the incoming administration, there could be a registry for Muslims in the U.S. Obama also said the U.S. is a society where we can criticize a president without threat of retribution.

We are a nation thatat our besthas been defined by hope, and not fear, Obama said.

The president also spoke to what he believes should be the path forward for the future administration, from keeping the threat in perspective, to upholding American values by favoring seeking justice instead of torture to remaining transparent. The president said his administrations decision to release a memo that outlined the legal framework around military actionwhich many viewed as a hint to Trumpwas an example of that in practice.

At the beginning of his speech, Obama said the U.S. should be proud of the work his administration has done on national security during what is being billed as his final speech on the subject. We should take great pride in the progress that weve made over the past eight years, he said.

In touting his record, the president said that there has been no successful attack carried out by a major terrorist organization on the U.S. homeland over the past year years and that new partnerships have been built overseas. All of this progress is due to the work of men and women like you, the president told the crowd of troops. Its thanks to you.

The president acknowledged that there have been setbacks. And though there have been no attacks at the same level as 9/11, he said, the threat of terrorism has and will endured due to the spiderweb reach of groups like ISIS that use social media to recruit and spread hateful ideology. Obama said the threat is compounded by the ease with which people in the U.S., including those with terrorist leanings, can get their hands on powerful weapons. To say that weve made progress is not to say that the job is done. We know that the threat persists, Obama said. We have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, and pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained.
President Obama will travel to Tampa on Tuesday to deliver his last major national security speech as Commander-in-Chief. Obama will spend the bulk of the speech defending his military record and approach to counterterrorism over the past eight years, according to White House officials.

The president will speak from MacDill Air Force Base, home of the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command teams.

The Obama administration prides itself on how the White House has handled conflicts abroad. When Obama took office, there were 180,000 troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, there are 15,000, and leaders of major terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda have been killed by U.S. forces. Yet threats remain in the form of terrorist networks like ISIS, which took credit for an attack on Ohio State Universitys campus last week and attacks on cyber networks.

Republicans have been critical of the Obama administration strategy given the ongoing conflict in Syria and the troubling state Iraq is in today. On Tuesday, White House aides say Obama will review the administrations efforts to defeat ISIS, an approach National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes says represents a break from the approach that was taken in Iraq and Afghanistan due to the fact that there has been no large deployment of troops though there are military forces throughout the region leading the fight.

White House aides say the speech had been planned since October, before Donald Trump was voted to succeed the president. And yet given Trumps lack of experience in government positions of power, the speech will be President Obamas last major opportunity to make public a case for the approach hed hope his successor would follow. The White House argument is that utilizing partners on the ground in various region less resources spent, less casualties, in their view that has strengthened the U.S.s standing across the globe. Stepping away from enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture, in favor of utilizing the justice system, has strengthened us, not harmed us, Rhodes said Monday. Our greatest strength against terrorism is who we are as a country, he said.
Dec 6 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- The verbal confrontation between President-elect Donald Trump and the Chinese government escalated on Monday, as China responded harshly to attacks by Trump on its economic and security positions. http://on.wsj.com/2ge4jXO

- Amazon.com Inc unveiled Monday its first small-format grocery store, Amazon Go, one of at least three brick-and-mortar formats the online retail giant is exploring as it makes a play for an area of shopping that remains stubbornly in-store. http://on.wsj.com/2haHTIQ

- The euro rallied from early losses following Italian voters' rejection of government-backed constitutional changes, but the volatile day raises concerns about how the currency survives an era of populist politicians and diverging economies. http://on.wsj.com/2h1qv8W

- A day after the Obama administration put the brakes on a Midwest oil pipeline by denying a permit needed to finish the route, a spokesman for President-elect Donald Trump said the incoming administration supports completing the project. http://on.wsj.com/2gZxrRe

- President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a move that would place a former political adversary with little housing-policy expertise in a key administration post. http://on.wsj.com/2h9PXt5

- Investor materials show Theranos projected revenue of nearly $2 billion and net income of about $505 million this year. http://on.wsj.com/2h1bCmU

- Euroskeptic parties vary in their prescriptions but are putting pressure on mainstream politicians to address perceived flaws in the EU and common currency. Elections next year in several European nations will go far to determine the fate of continental integration. http://on.wsj.com/2h9SPSS

- New Zealand is facing a leadership contest following the surprise resignation of Prime Minister John Key that will pit his deputy, a former party leader, against at least two other prominent members. http://on.wsj.com/2gXlCe2

- The U.S. Senate Monday cleared the final hurdle to passage of broad legislation aimed at boosting federal funds for biomedical research and speeding up government approval of drug and medical-devices, a goal pursued by the pharmaceutical industry over the objections of some consumer advocates. http://on.wsj.com/2gXkjMl (Compiled by Aurindom Mukherjee in Bengaluru)
Pretty Little Liars star Tammin Sursok, who plays the role of Jenna, is known for being fierce in the hit Freeform TV series. However, the actress has struggled with some issues since she was a child.

While speaking with People Body, the 33-year-old mom shared a photo of herself as a young girl. These photos actually took me back to a place of painful memories. I remember the lack of self-love and the lack of compassion I had for myself, she said.

Sursoks self-appreciation post is very timely. After all, the actress said that a lot of people will be posting photos of their families, vacations and toned bodies during the holiday season. As for her, she wanted to be one with those who are struggling to lose weight, as well as those who think that they are not beautiful.

Toward the end of her lengthy post, Sursok clarified that its not just about weight loss, but waking up one day and realizing that she was enough. I love you all and I truly believe in every one of you, she wrote.

Meanwhile, Sursok will be joining some of her Pretty Little Liars co-stars in Brussels on Dec. 17 and 18. The A-Con is open to fans of the series. The event is a venue for those who want to receive spoilers for the upcoming 10 episodes of Pretty Little Liars. Tyler Blackburn, Vanessa Ray, Brant Daugherty and Keegan Allen will also be part of the gathering. After the two-day event, Sursok will head to London, France and Amsterdam where she will be meeting more fans.

Pretty Little Liars Season 7 is currently on a long hiatus. New episodes will air on Freeform starting April 2017.

Tammin Sursok

Photo: Freeform

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From Harper's BAZAAR

Prince Harry's royal visit to the Caribbean may have been overshadowed by his meet-and-greet (and resulting unexpected friendship) with Rihanna, but he spent a good chunk of time with the locals, too. During a trip to the Joshua House Children's Home in Guyana, the 32-year-old chatted with a group of women who wanted to know more about royal life at the Buckingham Palace.

"I don't get to spend much time there," Prince Harry revealed when a woman asked him about the royal residence. "The Queen spends quite a lot of time there, and the food is delicious. And there were a couple of thrones in there years and years and years ago."

He added, "It's very historical, of course it is. It's one of our biggest landmarks."

When a girl asked him how many maids were in the palace, the royal answered, "Oh, I don't know. Probably not as many as you think," which was met with a chorus of giggles.

Photo credit: undefined

Jokes aside, the prince got real when one woman asked him what being a prince was really like.

"Good and bad. There's lots of privileges, of course, that you get from when you were born, but then with privilege comes a lot of responsibility," he answered. "And being a prince means you've gotta [enhance] all the positivity and try to encourage people to see the good stuff about life."

Yesterday marked the last day of Prince Harry's Caribbean tour, which he took part in on behalf of the Queen. He visited seven countries in 15 days and is now traveling back to London. "It's been an incredible fortnight," Kensington Palace said of the two-week trip.

7 countries  15 days 



It's been an incredible fortnight for Prince Harry's Caribbean visit, on behalf of The Queen! pic.twitter.com/ITpjsKWu9N - Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) December 4, 2016

Watch Prince Harry's interview below.

"What's Buckingham Palace like?"



An impromptu interview with Prince Harry at Joshua House Children's Home #RoyalVisitGuyana pic.twitter.com/ePBMOrlhxd - Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) December 4, 2016

Related Video

For more celebrity videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

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Prince Harry went way out of his way to visit Meghan Markle and awww forever

Its not easy dating in the public eye. Its even more difficult to date when you both keep extremely busy schedules and live far apart. But if youre Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, you make it work.

The clearly-smitten Prince Harry traveled over 1,700 miles to visit girlfriend Meghan Markle and we are seriously impressed.

According to Us Weekly, Harry made the major detour just to spend some time with Meghan in her Toronto home before heading back to the UK. And we have no doubt she was happy to spend time with her royal BF.

Harry was on his way back from a trip to Barbados. While there, he spent his time doing some pretty wonderful things, including learning more about turtles and environmental conservation.

Prince Harry releases nested turtles out into the wild at Lovers Beach in Nevis. The Nevis Turtle Group conservation initiative is dedicated to developing a Sea Turtle Conservation Programme in Nevis, and involve the local community to ensure that sea turtles are protected for years to come. #RoyalVisitStKitts A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Nov 23, 2016 at 12:11pm PST

He also hung out with Rihanna to raise awareness for AIDS because hes not just a good boyfriend, but an all-around great guy.

Teamed up with Prince Harry today and got tested to raise awareness for #WorldAIDSDay. It's so important to know your status! Get tested. #ProTESTHIV A photo posted by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Dec 1, 2016 at 11:02am PST

After doing all that philanthropic work, it was time to hang out with his equally philanthropic girlfriend.

Though he was originally scheduled to go straight back to the UK, he made it clear where his priorities were and took some time just to hang out with Meghan in Canada.

We are so inspired by these two who are so clearly committed to making their relationship work, no matter what obstacles they may face.

The post Prince Harry went way out of his way to visit Meghan Markle and awww forever appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Prince William just released an important message about mental health, and we couldnt agree more

Know what a pretty stressful job must be? The job of a prince. Its probably not all glitz and glam (especially when you also have kids!) which is why its even more wonderful that Prince William recently discussed mental health and workplace stress during a meeting of the Heads Together campaign. The campaign, started by Prince William, Princess Kate, and Prince Harry, is on a mission to spread the word about mental health, and make it less of an unspoken issue.

One goal that the campaign has is for workplaces to start making mental health a priority among its employees. Since its something all of us have to handle, and some of us have to work hard to truly conquer, their message is an incredibly important one.

Prince William admitted that hes had his own battles with mental health, previously suffering from many sad, dark moments, which only helps to make many commonly invisible illnesses a bit more visible.

He also believes that its incredibly important for employers to address mental health issues seriously.

Mental health issues are the leading cause of sickness absence in the UK. Please share these stats by @Timetochange #HeadsTogether pic.twitter.com/yeGoVWx37h  Heads Together (@heads_together) December 5, 2016

I have also seen how an employer can create an environment where it is as unremarkable to talk about feeling a bit down as it is to admit to having a cold, he noted during the meeting, which was held at Unilever in London.

The Duke of Cambridge yesterday urged businesses to help change the conversation on #mentalhealth #HeadsTogether https://t.co/1Qt2CCqxE7 pic.twitter.com/isAMAbGmiY  Heads Together (@heads_together) December 6, 2016

We know where to turn, as practical help is well sign-posted, and we know that no one will judge us if we do admit to difficulties, he continued. Mental health exists just as physical health exists. It is no big deal.

Prince William thinks that solving a lot of these issues starts with the workplace. After all, companies in both Canada and the UK have been estimated to lose around $33 billion each year in lost productivity based on undiagnosed or untreated mental health issues with employees.

Knowing that the Prince himself knows how important it is to address mental health issues is such a relief. As if we needed yet another reason to love him, he proves that he truly cares about the general wellness of his community.

The post Prince William just released an important message about mental health, and we couldnt agree more appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Riyadh (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition made a mistake when it carried out a deadly bombing next to a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders in northern Yemen, an "independent" probe said Tuesday.

Many findings of the investigation contradict those of the charity, also known by its French initials MSF, which called the August 15 attack "unjustified and unprovoked".

In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes in Yemen against Iran-supported Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies after the rebels overran much of Yemen.

The coalition has faced repeated allegations of killing civilians in its campaign to support Yemen's internationally recognised government led by President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT), which the coalition says operates independently, numbered seven deaths in the strike on Abs hospital, although MSF said 19 people were killed.

Coalition forces which had attacked a Huthi leadership gathering that day noticed a vehicle leaving the area, JIAT spokesman Mansur al-Mansur told a press conference in Riyadh.

A pilot followed the vehicle and then bombed it next to a building that was not identifiable as a hospital, he said.

"There was no indication that it was a hospital prior to the bombing," Mansur said, adding that the vehicle was a "legitimate military target".

Because of the "unintentional mistake" of damage to the hospital, the coalition must apologise and provide assistance to the families of those affected, Mansur said.

The coalition must also investigate those responsible to find the extent of their violation of rules of engagement and "take proper action", he said.

MSF said the hospital was identifiable by logos, and its GPS coordinates had been provided.

It said the vehicle targeted was civilian, carrying patients believed to be victims of other strikes.

-- A team of 'experts' --

The attack prompted MSF to pull out from six hospitals in northern Yemen, including Abs.

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Mansur issued the JIAT's findings on four other cases in which the coalition was blamed for bombing civilian facilities.

MSF had accused the coalition of killing 10 children in a strike on a school in Haydan two days before the Abs incident.

But Mansur said the closest targets hit by the coalition were 10 kilometres (six miles) away from the school.

There was also no evidence coalition forces struck the Al-Aqel food factory in the rebel-held capital Sanaa on August 9, he said.

The factory director said 16 workers were killed.

Mansur said investigators also concluded the coalition did not attack a livestock market where 40 people allegedly died on July 6.

The coalition followed correct procedures when it bombed a school in Hodeida on August 25, he added at the briefing attended by Western military attaches.

Classes were suspended and the school was being used to store rebel weapons, meaning "it lost the legal protection afforded civil objects."

In October, the JIAT ruled that a coalition warplane acting on incorrect information had "wrongly targeted" a funeral in Sanaa, killing more than 140 people in one of the deadliest strikes of the war.

Asked about the members of the JIAT, drawn from coalition member states, Mansur said it is made up of military and legal experts.

"Of course the team is independent," he said. "Some of them are retired and some of them are on active duty."

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Washington, London and Paris to stop their deliveries of bombs and other weapons to Riyadh because of concerns over civilian casualties.
President-elect Donald Trump has called for allowing health insurers to sell coverage across state lines to encourage competition and provide consumers with greater choice of individual plans. The proposal is part of Trumps health care alternatives to Obamacare posted on his presidential transition website, and he talked about it frequently throughout the 2016 campaign.

Related: 8 Big Changes Under Tom Prices Obamacare Replacement Plan

"We have to get rid of the artificial lines around the states, where we stop insurance companies from coming in and competing," Trump said during the second presidential debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton in St. Louis in October.

The current system under Obamacare, in which every state and the District of Columbia establishes its own government-operated insurance market, gives the insurance companies essentially monopolies, Trump explained. "We want competition."

The 2010 Obamacare law carefully prescribes ground rules for insurers participating in the subsidized health insurance program, including a prohibition against taking into account a persons pre-existing medical conditions before determining whether to accept an applicant. The insurers can only consider an applicants age and location in setting premium prices, and they are obliged to offer every applicant a basic menu of coverage and benefits.

Trumps idea  echoed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Budget Chair Tom Price (R-GA), who has been nominated to be the next secretary of Health and Human Services -- is that by cutting through detailed regulations tied to state insurance regulations, insurance companies will be able to offer national plans with lower premiums and reduced administrative costs. That presumably would expand consumers choices as well as generate lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs.

Related: The Health Care Industry Is in a Panic Over Obamacare Repeal

In effect, insurance companies large and small could market their individual plans to consumers in any state as long as they are licensed in their home states and adhere to their home-state regulations.

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But as The Wall Street Journal has reported, Trumps interstate insurance marketing ideas are meeting resistance from state insurance regulators, the health insurance industry and independent health care analysts who say the approach has been tried before on a limited basis and is far from a panacea.

Edmund Haislmaier, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that while interstate sales might carry regional benefits, No one should be under the illusion you can dramatically lower the cost of insurance in Los Angeles if you buy an Arkansas policy. Moreover, state insurance commissioner have long challenged the efficacy of the concept as more myth than reality.

Some have suggested that allowing interstate sales of health insurance policies will make coverage more affordable and available, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said in a statement. In reality, interstate sales of insurance will allow insurers to choose their regulator, the very dynamic that led to the financial collapse that has left millions of Americans without jobs. It would also make insurance less available, make insurers less accountable, and prevent regulators from assisting consumers in their states.

The indictment of Trumps approach, which has been endorsed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and other GOP lawmakers and governors, is four-fold.

Related: Five Things Trump Says Hell Do That Liberals Would Love

First, state officials complain that federal legislation to authorize insurance sales across state lines would undercut the states traditional role in regulating the insurance industry. If an insurer licensed, say, in Indiana decided to offer its policies to consumers in Michigan or Wisconsin, it would be under no obligation to conform to the rules of Michigan or Wisconsin, provided it followed Indianas insurance regulations. In some ways, this would constitute even more invasive government big-footing by the federal government than the current law the Republicans want to get rid of.

Second, critics warn that as insurers invariably flock to states with the most limited requirements and standards, the result would be for insurance companies to offer consumers cheap policies but often without some of the most basic health care and prescription drug coverage. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners argue that interstate sales will start a race to the bottom by allowing companies to choose their regulators.

The state commissioners say that allowing insurers to pick and choose among markets in which to sell coverage is tantamount to allowing banks to choose their own regulators, a surefire way to create a financial crisis. Insurance companies would seek the state regulations that allow them to most aggressively select the healthiest risk, resulting in a situation in which the healthiest, youngest policy holders pay the least expensive premiums while older, sicker people would be confronted with steep premiums  provided they could find coverage at all.

Third, while some major health insurers already have experimented in recent years in selling coverage across the country, they nonetheless have had to meet state regulatory requirements. If insurers were free to sell their policies in states where they were unlicensed, the possibility of cheating, fraud or other irregularities would be substantially increased.

Finally  and perhaps most importantly  insurance premiums are closely linked to underlying health care costs, such as rate levels paid to local or regional doctors and hospitals and the projected health needs of the policy holders. In order to sell an insurance policy in a particular state, the insurer would have to have a local network of allied doctors, hospitals and other health care providers in order to make the system financially feasible.

Related: Ryan Declares GOP Has a Mandate to Enact Sweeping Changes

The liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in an analysis of the GOP health care proposals released Monday that, The few states that tried to open their markets to out-of-state insurers prior to health care reform generally had little to show for it, as insurers had problems establishing networks of providers outside their own states.

However, if insurers did succeed in entering other states markets, the out-of-state plans would likely attract healthier-than-average people with low health care costs, because such people have much less need for consumer protections such as requirements to cover certain benefits or limits on insurers ability to charge higher premiums based on age or gender, wrote Judith Solomon, an analyst with the non-partisan research organization.

Consequentially, the study said, those who remain in the plans offered by the in-state insurers would become less healthy as a group, and their premiums would rise accordingly.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
By Luiza Ilie

BUCHAREST, Dec 6 (Reuters) - When Nicusor Dan, a quiet mathematician with almost no political experience, addresses voters ahead of Romania's Dec. 11 parliamentary election, he makes no promises of public sector wage hikes or grand infrastructure works.

In a country where populist rhetoric during election campaigns is the norm, that may be a risky strategy. But Dan, 46, has succeeded in building a political party in under six months which may hold the balance of power after the election.

Promising an overhaul of public services, the former civic activist appears to have attracted younger, educated voters tired of unfinished reforms, graft and cronyism rife in Romania since the fall of communism in 1989.

"There is a (group) of people aware of the damage inflicted by the former political class and they are instinctively coming to the USR," Dan said, speaking from his tiny party headquarters in an apartment building.

Surveys show his Save Romania Union (USR) winning between eight and 19 percent of votes, potentially enough to build a centre-right coalition anchored around outgoing technocrat Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos, and defeat leftists now in the lead.

But the fresh nature of the USR can also be a weakness.

"The USR's qualities stem from ... the lack of image problems, its association with anti-corruption and protecting patrimony," said Sergiu Miscoiu, associate professor of political science at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj.

"Its main flaws are its all but total absence from villages, the fact its leaders are little known and a perception of its intelectual elitist superiority and the lack of a unifying ideology."

While the leftist Social Democrats (PSD) top opinion polls with roughly 40 percent of public support, without an outright majority they may lose its chance to form a government if a stronger coalition emerges. The main centre-right grouping, the PNL, scores some 18-27 percent in opinion polls.

International economists warn a PSD government, which has tapped into mounting public anger over austerity introduced in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, could cause friction with the European Union over budget spending.

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PRESERVING HERITAGE

Dan, who holds a doctorate in mathematics from a French university, shot into the spotlight as a campaigner to preserve historic buildings and green spaces in Bucharest, after winning dozens of lawsuits against officials and property developers.

Once a quietly elegant capital, with tree-lined boulevards and discreet villas designed by progressive Modernist architects in the 1920s and 30s, the city is now riddled with free-for-all construction.

Many buildings fail to meet fire and other regulations, with the blame put often on corruption in local administration.

Among them, a nightclub caught fire a year ago, killing 64 people, because it was filled beyond capacity, lacked emergency exits and fire safety permits.

The fire triggered some of Romania's biggest protests in years against corruption, lack of accountability and a politicized public administration and led to the collapse of the leftist government.

A caretaker cabinet of technocrats installed afterwards for one year has had some success in improving public transparency but many Romanians feel corruption and neglect still undermine prospects for meaningful improvement.

"I will vote for the young people, those willing to do something to keep us in the country and offer us as many possibilities to work and raise families here," said Sorina Stuparu, a Bucharest doctor.

(Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Ralph Boulton)
A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that damaging testimony Bill Cosby gave in an accuser's lawsuit can be used at his criminal sex assault trial.

The defense had insisted that Cosby only testified after being promised he wouldn't be charged in the Andrea Constand case.

WATCH: A Timeline of Bill Cosby's Alleged Sexual Assault Claims

Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill concluded Monday that Cosby never had a promise from prosecutors that he could never be charged.

The 79-year-old Cosby acknowledged in the 2006 deposition that he had given young women drugs or alcohol before sexual encounters. He called them consensual, but many of the women say they were drugged and molested.

The ruling on the deposition is one of two key pretrial issues. The judge must also decide if prosecutors can call 13 other accusers.

WATCH: Holly Madison Talks Bill Cosby-Hugh Hefner Lawsuit

The release of the deposition testimony last year prompted prosecutors to reopen Constand's 2005 criminal complaint.

(Originally published by CBS News on Monday, December 5, 2016 at 4:43 pm ET)

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Russia and Japan have been courting closer ties, hoping to solve a nettlesome territorial dispute, end World War II, and deepen economic ties between Moscow and Tokyo. Next week, President Vladimir Putin will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to make the courtship a bit more formal.

Putin has been serenading Tokyo from afar. In his annual address to the Russian Duma on Dec. 1, Putin said that he wanted better relations with Japan, with which it was looking to develop economic ties and develop energy resources in Russias Far East. And Japan is not playing hard to get: Abe has explicitly said that Russia should see Japan  and not just China  as Moscows gateway to Asia.

At first blush, closer ties between Japan, the principal U.S. ally in Asia, and Russia, which has steadily been moving closer to China, seem jarring. Relations between the two have been strained to different degrees since the final days of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union grabbed some of Japans most northerly islands and kept them.

But Chinas rise as an economic and military powerhouse, and especially its newly-aggressive attitude in Asia, is prompting a reshuffle of some old geopolitical alignments.

Its about maneuvering and trying to maintain a balance, said Michael Auslin, director of Japan studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Moscow and Tokyo are worried about Beijing, even though Putin and [Chinese president] Xi Jinping have a close relationship.

Russia, for its part, looks askance at the threat posed by Chinas huge population on the doorstep of its resource-rich but empty Far East. Japan, meanwhile, has warily watched Chinas assertive approach to Asian disputes, from the South China Sea to the spat over rocks in the East China Sea.

Russia is seen as a useful partner for Japan and vice versa in relation to China, and then when things get too cozy on either side, particularly Russia will always switch back to China, Auslin said.

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And Russia, which is eager to develop its Siberian energy resources and find ready buyers, sees Japan as a natural hedge against too much reliance on the Chinese market. In 2014, after a decade of talks, Russia and China signed a mammoth natural-gas export deal. But China drove a hard bargain on price, and has not moved quickly to pour investment capital into Russian projects. Japan, too, needs energy imports and could help Russia develop its buried riches.

Russia wants to avoid becoming a junior partner to China and be over-dependent on it, so Putin is keep to deepen ties with Japan, too, said Celine Pajon, a research fellow at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales

The geopolitical dance between Russia and Japan also comes just as the United States appears to be on the verge of re-writing big chunks of its foreign-policy dogma. President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly bashed Japan on the campaign trail, dismissed the defense treaty between the two countries, and helped scupper the Trans Pacific Partnership, a huge Asian trade pact. Meanwhile, Trump has sought closer and friendlier relations with Moscow, with whom hes pledged to work to combat terrorist groups like Islamic State.

The Putin-Abe meeting will be hard-pressed to resolve all the irritants between them. Despite hopes for a full-scale rapprochement, Russia is loath to return any of the Kuril Islands  known as the Northern Territories in Japan  that it has occupied since 1945, and recently has even made moves to upgrade defenses on the tiny outposts.

Japan recently put forth a new proposal, in which Japan would offer Russia financial assistance and investment in exchange for the return of at least two of the islands. But proponents shouldnt hold their breath. On Saturday, speaking with his Japanese counterpart in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, Its not easy to bridge the gap in the principal positions of both sides, the problem is difficult, which means the peace treaty between Russia and Japan is still unlikely to be finalized.

Lavrov pressed ahead and suggested economic development might not have to wait a solution to the territorial dispute. That reportedly includes an $880 billion fund to promote economic cooperation and development in Russias Far East, including investment in medical technologies and urban development. Further, Japanese banks are apparently consider a deal in which they would provide Russian gas giant Gazprom with 800 million euros worth of financing.

Japans willingness to seek closer ties with Russia, whether to balance against China or meet its own economic needs, could offer a path forward for the United States, Auslin said. U.S. diplomats and policymakers are so obsessed by Russias trouble-making role in Europe, he said, that they dont realize Russia shares plenty of U.S. goals in Asia, from safeguarding freedom of navigation, to containing a nuclear North Korea, to helping balance against a mightier China.

The problem with Washington, is that were really unable to divorce Russia policy from Europe, Auslin said. We should be looking for opportunities for new types of cooperation in Asia.

Photo credit: Alexander Vilf/Host Photo Agency via Getty Images
The Geffen Playhouse has tapped Quincy Jones and Mel Brooks for top honors at its 15th annual Backstage at the Geffen fundraiser.

The event - designed to honor leaders in the artistic community while supporting the Geffen's mission to produce original, quality works - is scheduled for March 19 inside the Geffen's Gil Cates Theater. Dana Delany will host the show, which also features unscripted surprise performers and storytellers sharing stories of theater life behind-the-scenes. City National Bank continues for the eighth consecutive year as title sponsor, while Audi of America returns as a presenting sponsor for a 12th time.

Jones, a founding board member of the Geffen Playhouse, will receive the Distinction in Service Award. During his impressive 60-plus years in the music business, Jones has earned an Emmy, a Tony, seven Oscar nominations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, 27 Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy's prestigious Trustees' Award and the Grammy Living Legend Award. He also is the all-time most-nominated Grammy artist with 79 nominations.

Known as a director, producer, writer and actor, Brooks will be honored with the Distinction in Theater Award. He is one of the few EGOT winners, having earned Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards in his career. He won his first Oscar in 1964 for writing and narrating the animated short The Critic and his second in 1969 for the screenplay of his first feature film, The Producers. For three successive seasons, Brooks won Emmys for Mad About You. He received three 2001 Tony Awards and two Grammy Awards for The Producers: The New Mel Brooks Musical, which ran on Broadway from 2001-2007. With 12 awards total, Producers holds the record for the most Tonys ever won by a Broadway musical.

"Backstage at the Geffen is a beloved Geffen Playhouse tradition for artists and art-lovers alike," Geffen Playhouse executive director Gil Cates Jr., who produces the show alongside Geffen Playhouse board member Kevin Bright, said in a statement. "Year after year, the event brings together the artistic community's most prominent players to share the magic of live performance through funny and heartfelt stories."

More information about the event can be found here.

Read more: Kennedy Center Honors: Al Pacino, The Eagles, James Taylor Among Those Feted
Photo credit: undefined

From Good Housekeeping

To many, the holidays wouldn't be the same without going out to the farm and cutting down a Christmas tree, then standing it up in your home and getting whiffs of pine for weeks to come. But since dry weather and droughts have ravaged the country this past year, it might cost way more than usual to buy these trees in upcoming seasons.

"This year's drought will have a long-lasting effect," a farmer from Alabama named Roger Schwerman told The Huffington Post. "It might drive many farms out of the tree business." But why? Well, the biggest problem is seedlings and young trees can't survive in dry conditions. In fact, Massachusetts saw a 100% failure rate for growing tree seedings this year and other states saw similar numbers.

Photo credit: Getty

Since most trees aren't sold until their eight to 10 years old, you'll likely be fine - for now. "I wouldn't say it's affected the crop this year, but the next year or two you'll see a shortage in the trees, because the amount of water and the weather depends on how much the tree grows," one grower told WWAY-TV. That means, there might be huge spikes in prices for trees in the upcoming seasons.

Oh, and did we mention for those of you lucky enough to get one, it'll probably be smaller than usual? That's because during this past year, trees without water might not have grown at all. Yikes. Perhaps this is just one more reason you should consider joining Team #FakeTree?

[h/t The Huffington Post]

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A record-breaking number of people have signed a petition asking the Electoral College to reverse the election results

Approximately one month after Donald Trumps shocking victory, a record-breaking number of people (4.7 million as of today) have signed a petition asking the Electoral College to reverse the election results. Its not a matter of being sore losers  Hillary Clinton currently leads the popular vote by 2.5 million, and this number is likely to increase because there are still uncounted ballots in California and New York  two of Americas most liberal states.

Although its highly unlikely, it is technically possible that the Electors can reverse the results when they cast their ballots on December 19th. In 14 of the states that Trump carried, Electors can choose to vote for Hillary Clinton without facing a legal penalty, The Independent reports.

The petition was started by Daniel Brezenoff, a clinical social worker and professor in California, and it isnt driven solely by the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by a significant margin.

When the Electoral College was set up, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 68 that the job of Electors is to stop people with [t]alents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity and individuals who would convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements from becoming president.

Over 200 years ago, it seems like Hamilton predicted that a demagogue like Trump may someday prevail  and, in that case, its the Electors job to protect the country by keeping him out of The White House.

As the petition states, Electors who cast their ballots for Clinton will preserve the majority rule and prevent the most unqualified candidate in history from moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January.

Never in our Republics 240 years has our President had no previous experience in an office of public trust, be it elected or appointed, civilian or military. Never has a President admitted to sexual assaults. Never has a President encouraged violence at campaign events, Brezenoff writes. There is no reason electors cannot vote with their conscience. They are not taking away the majority vote, and are not violating the Constitution.

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There are multiple reasons Electors should vote with their conscience and put their support behind Clinton. But, in a historically nightmarish election cycle, were not getting our hopes up.

Hillary Clinton Makes A Statement After Loss In Presidential Election

Still, this record-breaking petition is incredibly important. It sends the strong message that Trump is not the peoples president and, therefore, he has no mandate. Although the election results are devastating, we need to remember that more people said Stronger Together and voted for love over hate.

The post A record-breaking number of people have signed a petition asking the Electoral College to reverse the election results appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Nick Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images

Former San Francisco 49ers and current Washington Redskins tight end Vernon Davis is looking to snag a buyer for his massive Mediterranean-style estate in San Jose, CA. The stunning structure on the citys east side is on the market for $2.85 million.

Davis, aged 32 and still going stronghe earned a Super Bowl ring with the Denver Broncos last seasonnow plays in the nations capital on a one-year contract.

Records indicate he bought the sprawling property in November 2014 for $2.3 million. Built in 2008, the mansion measures 7,259 square feet and has six bedrooms and five bathrooms. Notable amenities include a huge cabana grilling area, a 9-foot-long kitchen island, a wet bar, a game room, and a personal gym. Outside, a covered deck wraps the home and a spa overlooks the gently rolling San Jose hills.

The longtime 49er sold another mansion in San Joses Silver Creek neighborhood in June for $2 million, after originally asking $2.45 million. The same home then re-emerged on the market earlier this month for $2.3 million and is now pending sale.

He joins a reverse gold rush of current and former 49ers leaving the area, including Aldon Smith, Joe Staley, Bruce Miller, and Colin Kaepernick.

The three-story home realtor.com

Front exterior realtor.com

Dining area realtor.com

Outdoor kitchen with fireplace realtor.com

Hot tub and deck realtor.com

The post Redskins Vernon Davis Lists Massive Mediterranean Home in San Jose for $2.8M appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com.
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / Reign Sapphire Corporation (RGNP), a jewelry company that sells branded Jewelry direct to consumers, announced today that it will be presenting at the 9th annual LD Micro Main Event on Wednesday, December 7 at 3:30PM PST at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. CEO of Reign Sapphire Corporation Joseph Segelman will be presenting, as well as meeting with investors.

The LD Micro Main Event is the largest independent conference for small/microcap companies and will feature 240 presenting names.

View Reign Sapphire Corporation's profile here: http://www.ldmicro.com/profile/RGNP

News Compliments of Accesswire.

About Reign Sapphire Corporation:

Based in Beverly Hills, California, Reign Sapphire Corporation is a fully reporting, DTC eligible company, established as a "mine-gate to retail" model for fine sapphires - rough sapphires to finished jewelry, a color gemstone brand, and a jewelry brand featuring Australian sapphires, https://www.reignsapphires.com.

Reign Brands (A Reign Sapphire Corporation subsidiary) includes Le Bloc and Coordinates Collection which combine quality craftsmanship and timeless designs to provide a personalized experience to commemorate life's favorite moments; http://www.coordinatescollection.com.

About LD Micro:

LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event).

In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe.



For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com/events for more information.

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Contact:

Name: Joseph Segelman

Phone: 213 457 3772

Email: info@reignsc.com

SOURCE: Reign Sapphire Corporation via LD Micro
By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is unlikely to release a massive report on the CIA's use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" widely considered torture, a top Democrat on the congressional intelligence committee said on Tuesday. Representative Adam Schiff told reporters it was more likely, before President Barack Obama leaves office next month, that the White House might take action so the report could be released someday via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. "The most that we might expect this administration to do... is to designate it as some kind of a record that would ultimately lead to its availability through FOIA, subject to redaction," Schiff said at a breakfast meeting with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. He said he supported "as much information being shared as possible." Senator Dianne Feinstein and other congressional Democrats have urged Obama to declassify and release the 6,700-page Senate Intelligence Committee report before Republican President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20. Feinstein chaired the panel as it researched and wrote the report, and she spearheaded the effort to expose the CIA's actions. The committee, then led by Democrats, released a 525-page executive summary of its findings in December 2014. But the full report has been seen as too sensitive to release. "I don't think the incoming administration will have any interest in publishing the greater part of the document," Schiff said. However, he added that he did not expect that waterboarding would resume. "Within the IC (intelligence community) there would be such massive resistance to this, it just isn't going to happen," Schiff said. Trump promised during his campaign that he would not only revive waterboarding, but bring back "a hell of a lot worse" if elected. However, he said more recently that retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, his nominee as secretary of defense, had persuasively argued against it. A White House spokesman said he had nothing to announce about the report, but reiterated Obama's opposition to torture. Obama ended the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" via executive order just after he took office in January 2009. Led by Republican Senator John McCain and Feinstein, Congress has since passed legislation outlawing their use. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Release dates for two celebrity-packed films, "How to Train Your Dragon 3" and the "Baywatch" have been shuffled.

Originally scheduled to bow May 18, 2018, the third installment of "How to Train Your Dragon" with Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett and Kristen Wiig will now hit theaters March 1, 2019.



Also scheduled for a March 2019 release is "Captain Marvel" and "Godzilla 2."



Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures has moved back Dwayne Johnson's action-comedy "Baywatch" a week to the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend.



The big-screen reboot of the cult lifeguarding hit from the 1990s stars Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, Priyanka Chopra, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson.

"Baywatch" will go head to head against the fifth iteration of "Pirates of the Caribbean."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Repealing Obamacare will be the first order of business in the U.S. Senate in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said on Tuesday. Republicans will replace President Barack Obama's signature health insurance program that provides coverage to millions of Americans "step by step," said Senator John Thune, another member of the Republican leadership. McConnell did not say when the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, as it is officially known, would go into effect. Senator John Barrasso said it might be effective in two or three years, and that the timeframe was still being debated. Democrats scoffed at the Republican plans, saying they do not even know what they want to replace Obamacare with. "Bring it on," said Senator Chuck Schumer, who will be the Democrats' leader in the Senate next year. Donald Trump's election as U.S. president last month means Republicans will control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in 2017. The new Congress opens on Jan. 3; Trump will be sworn in on Jan. 20. The Affordable Care Act has provided 25 million previously uninsured Americans with health coverage by expanding Medicaid and through online exchanges where consumers can receive income-based subsidies. Republicans have launched repeated legal and legislative efforts to dismantle the law, which they call a government overreach. The average Obamacare premium is set to rise 25 percent in 2017. Large national insurers including Aetna Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc and Anthem Inc have said they are losing money on the exchanges because patient costs are higher than anticipated and enrollment is lower than forecast. Both UnitedHealth and Aetna have pulled out of the exchanges for 2017. To repeal Obamacare, congressional Republicans are expected to resort to a special procedure known as budget reconciliation to get around Democrats in the Senate, where rules protect the rights of the minority party. Thune said Republicans hoped Democrats would work with them to replace Obamacare in a way that will give states, rather than the federal government, more control over healthcare issues and create more flexibility for small businesses in the way they offer healthcare benefits. But Senator Harry Reid, the outgoing Senate Democratic leader, dismissed the idea that Democrats would join in. "I think that any hope that we're going to buy into ruining healthcare in America, there's not a chance of it," he said. (Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Louise Casey, who authored a government report that found isolated communities, especially Muslim communities, need to be integrated to preserve national cohesion in Britain, defended her conclusions Monday, saying the problems no longer can be ignored.

Casey, who was asked to examine the issue by then-Prime Minister David Cameron last year, recommended efforts be intensified to integrate these communities to prevent Muslim extremists and far-right political forces from being able to claim modern British life is incompatible with Islam.

The report examined 682 electoral wards with nonwhite populations of more than 40 percent, focusing on Muslim and Hindu communities where women were twice as likely not to speak English as men.

Casey concluded women and children often bear the brunt of this isolation, and said efforts need to be made to educate the men in these communities on the importance of integrating with the greater society.

At the end of the day it is not the women in those communities that I have a problem with, she told the BBC. It is the men in those communities. It is the misogyny and the patriarchy that has to come to an end.

Immigration to Britain has doubled since 1997. The report called for increased English classes to be made available and for schoolchildren to be taught British values.

Black boys [are] still not getting jobs, white working class kids on free school meals still [are] doing badly in our education system, Muslim girls [are] getting good grades at school but no decent employment opportunities  these remain absolutely vital problems to tackle and get right to improve our society, Casey said in her forward.

But I also found other, equally worrying things including high levels of social and economic isolation in some places and cultural and religious practices in communities that are not only holding some of our citizens back but run contrary to British values and sometimes our laws. Time and time again I found it was women and children who were the targets of these regressive practices. And too often, leaders and institutions were not doing enough to stand up against them and protect those who were vulnerable.

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The Guardian noted the report mentions Muslims 249 times but refers to Polish communities only 14 times.

Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim to sit in the Cabinet, said the statistics in the report are out of date, charging the focus on Muslim women is unjustified, noting white women are more likely to be the victims of domestic abuse.

Bana Gora, chief executive of the Muslim Womens Council told the Guardian it is unfair to conclude the Muslim community is self-segregating. Rather, the broader picture needs to be examined, including racism.

We need to improve integration, and it needs to involve the active participation of all Britons, not just Muslims, said Harun Khan, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, adding the media provides an echo chamber that amplifies the misconception that Muslims and their faith are incompatible with life in Britain.

Shaista Gohir, chair of the Muslim Womens Network, said many factors fuel segregation, citing white flight when Muslim families move into areas.

But Chuka Umunna, member of Parliament representing Streatham, backed the report.

The fact people live parallel lives in modern Britain has been swept under the carpet for far too long and deemed too difficult to deal with, which has left a vacuum for extremists and peddlers of hate on all sides to exploit, he told the Evening Standard.

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On Monday, Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger were sworn in as the newest members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisorsreplacing retiring Supervisors Don Knabe and Michael Antonovich, respectively, and tipping the county scales of power in a decidedly female direction.

For the first time ever, the county's governing body will not only be compromised of more women than men, but the board will actually have a female supermajority as Barger and Hahn join current Supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl.

In fact, as of today, the five-member board responsible for governing the nation's most populous county includes only one man. What up, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas?

City Council (which currently has only one woman among its fifteen fourteen members) and the mayor tend to get more airplay than county politics, but the Board of Supervisors wields an enormous amount of power. County politics are far from sexy, and the Board of Supervisors might not be something you've ever discussed at a cocktail party, but they are a very big deal. As the L.A. Times explained in a story last month, "that unwarranted anonymity covers over the fact that counties are the chief entity responsible for basic human services: public health, public safety, jails, parks, hospitals, transportation, sanitation, care for the homeless, the jobless, the abused and neglected, and more."

The Five Little Kings, as they are occasionally referred to, control a nearly $30 billion annual budget, and are responsible for representing and overseeing services for roughly 10 million people. The board members are, as one lobbyist told Los Angeles Magazine in 2014, "five of the most powerful politicians in the United States."

Here's one way to wrap your head around the scope of the post: when Hahn, who gave up her seat in the U.S House of Representatives to run for the board, was representing California's 44th District in Congress, she had approximately 770,000 constituents, according to the L.A. Times. Now, she has two million.

I trust that it wont be overlooked that this board is going to be very diverse, Ridley-Thomas, who is African American, said Monday at the swearing-in ceremony. There are four women, but women who are very different in their background and experiences.

During its century-and-a-half long existence, the board has historically been overwhelmingly white and male. L.A. County didn't see its first female supervisor until 1992, when Ridley-Thomas's predecessor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke was sworn in. Up until last month, a mere four women had served as supervisors, ever (Solis, Kuehl, Burke, and former Supervisor Gloria Molina).

But as of todayin an America that suddenly seems like a far scarier place for women and minoritiesthe most powerful political body in Los Angeles doesn't include a single white man.
Donald Trump Mike Pence

Christopher Suprun, a Republican who is one of the 538 people tasked with casting electoral votes to officially appoint the next US president, says he will not vote for President-elect Donald Trump.

He's also urging the Electoral College at large to reject Trump when it convenes on December 19.

In a New York Times op-ed article published on Monday, Suprun argued that Trump had done little to reach beyond his base of supporters since winning the election last month, and he called it troubling that the president-elect had chosen to lean further into the bombast that defined his raucous campaign.

"He does not encourage civil discourse, but chooses to stoke fear and create outrage," Suprun wrote.

Suprun acknowledged others who had opposed Trump based on his policy positions or his defeat in the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton but said that was not his main rationale. For Suprun's part, he wrote, "I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office."

Suprun ran through a litany of what he characterized as Trump's missteps and shortcomings.

He punctuated his argument by saying: "The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country."

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Instead of accepting a jury's verdict that a Rolling Stone story defamed University of Virginia dean Nicole Eramo and writing her a seven-figure damages check, the magazine is asking the court to throw out the verdict completely.

The jury's decision raised eyebrows in both media and law circles because Rolling Stone wasn't being held liable for the original story, "A Rape on Campus," but rather a later version which contained an editor's note apologizing for holes in the story. The jury found that version to be a "republication" and, because at that point Rolling Stone knew the story wasn't true, decided the magazine had acted with actual malice in re-posting it.

Had Rolling Stone chosen not to add a disclaimer and left the original story as it was, they wouldn't have been found liable for defamation - at least by this group of jurors. The underlying lesson: Don't apologize.

"Plaintiff sought to confuse the jury by arguing that if the statements were not sufficiently retracted, they were "republished" - an argument that is flatly contradicted by black-letter law on republication as well as actual malice," states the motion. "In the end, the jury verdict acts as a million-dollar penalty against a publisher that sought to promptly put readers on notice of serious concerns with an article and, as such, violates basic public policy."

Attorneys for the magazine argue that the evidentiary record does not support the jury's finding that it is liable for defamation, according to a motion for judgment as a matter of law notwithstanding the jury's verdict filed Monday in Virginia federal court.

The post with the editor's note doesn't qualify as a republication, the magazine argues, because it didn't affirmatively reiterate the offending statements in an attempt to reach a new audience.

"There is no question that the Article's unraveling was a major black eye for Rolling Stone," states the motion. "It defies logic for a jury to find that by placing a prominent disclaimer on the Article notifying readers that Rolling Stone no longer stood behind Jackie as a source, apologizing, and promising a full investigation, Rolling Stone was actually trying to recruit a new audience and spread now-discredited information from Jackie - including each of the Article Statements attributed to her - more widely than it had previously been distributed."

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While there was a damages award of $1 million against Rolling Stone, and an additional $2 million against writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely, this move might not be just about the money. It could also be about overturning a decision that could set damaging precedent for journalists.

"If the jury's verdict is allowed to stand, the severe legal risk of adding a warning editor's note to a story will force publishers not to make the very disclosures that the law encourages," states the motion. "Such a result is not only at odds with the law, it flies in the face of common sense, public policy, and the best interests of an informed public."

The motion also seeks to overturn the jury's verdict that Erdely is personally liable for defamation. Because the court ruled that Eramo is a limited purpose public figure, in order to prevail on a defamation claim, the dean would have had to prove that Erdely knew the story wasor acted with reckless disregard for the truth - a burden attorneys argue she didn't meet.

Eramo's attorney Libby Lock sent The Hollywood Reporter a statement in response to the filing Monday afternoon: "Rolling Stone baldly told the jury that they heard and respected the verdict in this case. But that was obviously a lie. The very first thing that Rolling Stone filed after saying those words is a request to set the verdict aside. This is more evidence that Rolling Stone still doesn't get it."

Read more: Why the Defamation Verdict Against Rolling Stone Could Chill Media Apologies
Ending a years-long back-and-forth, Polands supreme court today upheld an earlier verdict that Roman Polanski cannot be extradited to the U.S. over a 1977 child sex conviction. In May this year, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said he would appeal a 2015 Polish court decision which had already rejected a request to return the Oscar-winning director to the States. At the time of that verdict, prosecutors had said they would not challenge the courts ruling, but Ziobro was a vocal critic of the decree, citing Polanskis celebrity status.

Polands staunchly conservative government merged the posts of Justice Minister and Prosecutor General earlier this year, opening an avenue to request an annulment of the lower courts ruling. Ziobro then filed for the annulment.

The supreme court today deemed the request groundless, Reuters reports. The decision brings a definitive end to the case in Poland. We are very happy that the case is finally over, one of Polanskis lawyers, Jan Olszewski, told the news agency. His lawyers also said the filmmaker has been deeply affected by the case, which prevented him attending the funeral of another Oscar-winning Polish film director, Andrzej Wajda, in October.

The case began with the now 83-year-old filmmakers 1977 conviction on five charges stemming from having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski, 43 at the time, cut a plea deal and served 42 days in prison but fled the U.S. on the eve of sentencing when it appeared the judge in the case had moved the legal goalposts. The Chinatown and Pianist director has been a fugitive from American justice ever since.

Polanski holds dual citizenship in Poland and France. While French law prohibits extradition of its citizens, Polish law does not. Polanski lives in Paris but also has an apartment in Krakow. Last years attempts to have him extradited were sparked in October 2014, when U.S. officials asked Polish prosecutors to question the director while he was in the country. He was eventually released, but U.S. authorities filed a formal extradition request in January 2015 in Poland where Polanski was working on a film about the Dreyfus Affair.

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Previously, in 2009, Polanski was placed under house arrest in Switzerland while a similar extradition request was examined. He was released after nine months.

Samantha Geimer, the victim, has repeatedly said she believes Polanskis exile has been punishment enough. But the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office has insisted he is subject to arrest in the United States.

We hope that this ruling becomes a stimulus for the American side to perhaps use existing legal opportunities to issue a ruling in absentia and consider the penalty served, Olszewski said.

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Paris (AFP) - Like his own films, the life of Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski has been haunted by horror, violence and scandal, turning him into one of the world's most visible fugitives from justice.

In the latest twist to a child sex case dating back nearly four decades, Poland's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a bid to extradite the 83-year-old Polish-French filmmaker to the United States.

Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Hollywood, but fled the US before sentencing.

His work has earned applause from critics and audiences alike, winning eight Academy Awards on 27 nominations.

But his admission that he had unlawful sex with 13-year-old Samantha Gailey after plying her with alcohol and pills, and his subsequent flight from justice, fuelled a torrent of disgusted criticism.

Polanski has since been engaged in a decades-long cat-and-mouse game with US officials seeking his extradition for trial, before a global audience split between continuing outrage and forgiveness for his acts.

When Poland's Supreme Court dismissed the appeal Tuesday, definitively ending the nation's part in the case, Polanski's lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz told reporters: "We hope one day it will be over in the United States."

- Nazi trauma, tragedy in LA -

Polanski was born in Paris in 1933 to Polish Jewish parents, who later brought the family back to their native country.

He was eight when the Nazis arrested his parents in Krakow's Jewish ghetto -- sending them to concentration camps from which his mother never returned.

He fled the ghetto and roamed the countryside, trying to survive, helped by Catholic Polish families, in a country occupied by German troops.

The experience lent a gripping autobiographical authenticity to his 2002 movie "The Pianist", the tale of a young Jewish man trying to evade the Nazis in occupied Warsaw.

His youthful observation of the human capacity for cruelty shaped Polanski's psychologically wrought work from the start.

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His 1962 feature debut in Poland, "Knife in the Water", was an erotic thriller about a couple inviting a switchblade-toting hitchhiker onto their yacht. While panned at home, it earned praise in the West, and was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

That reception prompted Polanski to move to England -- the first of many self-imposed exiles that nurtured a sense of alienation resonating throughout his work -- where he made "Repulsion" (1965), "Cul-de-Sac" (1966), and "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967).

Lured to Hollywood in 1968, Polanski shot his first big international hit, "Rosemary's Baby", starring Mia Farrow as an expecting mother carrying the devil's spawn.

But tragedy shattered Polanski's life again the following year when his heavily-pregnant wife, the model and actress Sharon Tate, and four friends were brutally slaughtered in the director's mansion by cult leader Charles Manson and his followers.

Devastated, Polanski left for Europe, then returned to achieve arguably his greatest triumph in 1974 with "Chinatown" -- an atmospheric film noir starring Jack Nicholson nominated for 11 Oscars, and still considered a Hollywood classic.

- Running from the law -

In 1977 Polanski was arrested after Gailey, now known as Samantha Geimer, charged that he forced her to have sex after drugging her.

The initial felony counts were reduced to unlawful sexual intercourse charges as part of a guilty plea bargain that saw Polanski serve 42 days in detention while undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

In 1978, convinced the judge was preparing to ignore the deal and hand him a heavy jail sentence, Polanski fled for France, beginning his new life as a fugitive.

Although he avoided returning to the US -- not even to accept the Oscar for "The Pianist" -- Polanski jousted with Justice Department authorities for years after.

In 2009 he was arrested in Switzerland by local authorities acting on Washington's extradition request.

Polanski spent 10 months under house arrest before Switzerland decided not to respect the US order, amid a din of international debate over whether he was a victim of vindictive US officials obsessed with decades-old allegations, or a criminal who should be tried like any other.

Geimer herself called for the charges to be dropped, complaining that in dogging Polanski for so long, antagonists had made him her co-victim in a case she wanted to put behind her.

"The publicity was so traumatic and so horrible that his punishment was secondary to just getting this whole thing to stop," Geimer told CNN in 2003.

Despite that view, Washington filed a request with Poland in January to extradite Polanski while shooting a film there.

A court in the city of Krakow ruled against the demand in 2015. Then on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by the government.

"We did not find a flagrant violation of the law," Judge Michal Laskowski said.
Russian officials are threatening to target anyone who refuses to leave the rebel-held eastern Aleppo, after another round of talks between Washington and Moscow failed to materialize on Tuesday.

As Syrian government forces and their allies continue to snatch neighborhoods away from rebels inside the city in bloody street-by-street fighting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that if somebody refuses to leave Aleppo on good terms, he will be eliminatedthere is no other way out.

Russian and Syrian warplanes have been bombarding the rebel-held half of Aleppo for months, targeting hospitals, aid workers, and civilian apartment blocks for destruction. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, with as many as 250,000 people trapped in the densely-packed city surrounded by government forces, and sharing space with a variety of rebel groups.

Last month, Syrian planes dropped leaflets over the city warning residents to save yourselves. You know that everyone has left you alone to face your doom and have offered you no help.

Moscow has long painted all anti-government rebels in Syria with the same brush, and refuses to acknowledge the differences between Islamist groups like the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and more moderate, U.S.- and Turkish-backed rebel units.

Its sad that the Western nations, which talk about their concern for human rights and the humanitarian situation in Aleppo and the rest of Syria, are in reality continuing their policy of supporting radicals and extremists, Lavrov said.

Russia and Syria seem intent on presenting President-elect Donald Trump with a fait accompli in Syria by taking Aleppo, one of the last major cities in rebel hands. On the campaign trail, Trump suggested letting Russia take the lead against Islamic State, later even offering to cooperate with Moscow to battle the terrorist group in Syria. That would mean abandoning the moderate rebels battling the regime of Bashar al Assad as well as the civilian population in areas targeted by Russian and Syrian attacks.

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One U.S. defense official, who spoke to FP on the condition of anonymity, said that Russian planes have been conducting daily sorties over Aleppo for weeks, and have also regularly bombed the Turkish- and U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army forces who are pushing toward the Islamic State stronghold of al Bab.

On Monday, Russia and China vetoed for the sixth time a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in Aleppo to allow humanitarian aid to move into the starving city, and to create more space for more talks on negotiating a withdrawal of rebel forces.

Also on Monday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that American diplomats are still open to working with the Russians, but it is hard to reach agreement. Russia, he said, is very concerned about the presence of the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Aleppo, while Washington is concerned about the daily bombardment of the civilian population of the city, along with the moderate Syrian opposition that should not and does not deserve to be bombed into submission.

The sparring between Russia and the United States over who is fighting terrorists  and which terrorists need to be fought  is hardly limited to Syria.

On Friday, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, told reporters at the Pentagon that Russia has lent legitimacy to the Taliban. Moscows special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, recently revealed that his government have contacts with the Taliban, and is working on a cease-fire. The Taliban are fighting in Afghanistan against the people we fought in Syria, thats why our interests coincide, he said, referring to ISIS.

Nicholson blasted the outreach, saying, 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. So, its not helpful.

Photo Credit: GEORGE OURFALIAN/AFP/Getty Images
Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Tuesday said it will take part in a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC members as oil prices wobbled on doubts over the impact of an output cut deal.

Energy Minister Alexander Novak will attend the meeting in Vienna on Saturday expected to nail down details on implementing the agreement reached last week.

After months of disagreement, OPEC members on November 30 hammered out a deal to cut oil output for the first time in eight years.

Moscow -- which is not a member of the oil cartel -- has said it is ready to reduce crude output by 300,000 barrels a day in the first half of 2017.

The OPEC agreement ended weeks of uncertainty and volatility on crude markets as the key players bickered over who would shoulder the biggest burden of the cuts.

Oil prices shot up on the announcement, which was more ambitious than many analysts had expected.

Prices reached a 16-month high late Monday on the back of an announcement by OPEC of the meeting with non-members but quickly dipped overnight as the lustre of OPEC's decision to cut production faded.

On Tuesday at 1345 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down $1.06 on the day at $50.73, while Brent North Sea crude had dropped 93 cents to $54.01.

- 'Reality bites' -

With crude prices above $50 dollars, US shale oil producers are dusting off dormant oil rigs as they gear up to raise production which could lessen the impact of any OPEC cuts.

"The price action speaks to me of a market that lacks conviction and momentum," said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.

"As reality bites in a world awash with oil, producing countries will have to show some meaningful backbone on compliance, for probably the first time ever, to achieve the meaningful rally in oil prices that they so desire."

Some analysts say that last week's deal will likely be finalised at Saturday's meeting but doubts over its implementation remain.

"Reports that the group once again increased output in November will raise fresh scepticism," analysts from Accendo Markets said.

Story continues

Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said that with Saudi Arabia trying to defend its market share, "it is hard to imagine how OPEC will convince non-OPEC producers to cut production".

Novak has called on Russia's oil companies to slash output to comply with the decision.

Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov told Russian news agencies that the country's oil companies would convene Wednesday for a meeting.

By cutting 300,000 barrels a day, Russian will produce some 10.9 million barrels a day -- a figure higher than when Russia had attempted to agree on a production freeze with OPEC members in the spring.

Emily Stromquist of Eurasia Group said Russia's commitment to slashing its production "should be viewed with scepticism."

After the first quarter of 2017, "Russia is likely to assume a flexible interpretation of its engagement and deliver only a portion of this 300,000 bpd cut in the best case scenario," Stromquist said.

The slide in oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis have pummelled the Russian economy.
Russia's energy ministry said Tuesday that OPEC and non-OPEC members would meet in Vienna Saturday following a decision to cut global oil output.

The ministry told AFP that Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak would be taking part in the meeting, which comes after Moscow said it was ready to reduce crude output by 300,000 barrels a day in the first half of 2017.

After months of disagreement, OPEC members last week hammered out a deal to cut oil output for the first time in eight years.

The agreement ended weeks of uncertainty and volatility on crude markets as the key players bickered over who would shoulder the biggest burden of the cuts.

Oil prices shot up on the announcement, which was more ambitious than many analysts had expected.

Prices reached a 16-month high over OPEC's announcement of the meeting late Monday but quickly dipped overnight as the lustre of OPEC's decision to cut production faded.

On Tuesday at 0830 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down 39 cents on the day at $51.40, while Brent North Sea crude had dropped 31 cents to $54.63.

With crude prices above $50 dollars, US shale oil producers are dusting off dormant oil rigs as they gear up to raise production which could lessen the impact of any OPEC cuts.

"The price action speaks to me of a market that lacks conviction and momentum," said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.

"As reality bites in a world awash with oil, producing countries will have to show some meaningful backbone on compliance, for probably the first time ever, to achieve the meaningful rally in oil prices that they so desire."

Some analysts say that last week's deal will likely be finalised at Saturday's meeting but doubts over its implementation remain.

"Reports that the group once again increased output in November will raise fresh scepticism," analysts from Accendo Markets said.

Novak has called on Russia's oil companies to slash output to comply with the decision.

By cutting 300,000 barrels a day, Russian will produce some 10.9 million barrels a day -- a figure higher than when Russia had attempted to agree on a production freeze with OPEC members in the spring.

The slide in oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis have pummelled the Russian economy.
Marc Benioff

There's at least one company that's not too happy that Microsoft has received European Union approval for its $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn: Microsoft's rival Salesforce.

Salesforce had been protesting to the EU about the deal, hoping that the EU would force Microsoft into promising that it would keep access to LinkedIn's treasure trove of data open to all competitors (such as Salesforce).

The EU did extract a rather lengthy list of concessions from Microsoft, but not about LinkedIn's data. The list centered on things like making Microsoft promise not to use its market position with Windows and MS Office to squash other social networks.

Salesforce, which tried to buy LinkedIn itself, is now warning that regulators will have to watch Microsoft closely and hints that if Microsoft does close access to LinkedIn's data, Salesforce won't accept the situation silently.

Here's the statement Salesforce sent us regarding Microsoft's approval of the LinkedIn deal (emphasis ours).

"Given Microsoft's history and existing monopolies, it will be necessary for antitrust enforcement agencies to be vigilant to ensure that Microsoft operates in a manner that promotes competition, rather than stifles it. As AI, machine learning and other technologies continue to advance, questions around access to critical datasets will only become more important and Salesforce will continue to share its views with regulators and policymakers around the world about the ways in which access to data is emerging as a key issue in competition policy."

Salesforce also sounds as if it is going to try and convince regulators to come up with new rules regarding how data should be treated in acquisitions involving companies with lots of data.

In the meantime, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has already been setting himself up to make anti-trust complaints, if need be. He's been saying things like, "The new Microsoft is actually the old Microsoft" and and telling an odd story accusing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella of duping him into revealing Salesforce's long-term strategy.

Story continues

The EU had previously monitored Microsoft for antitrust issues in a deal struck with the software giant in 2009. Then in 2013, slapped a big fine against Microsoft, accusing the company failing to comply.

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Voter fraud was a big topic during and after the election, especially when the president-elect is citing extremely fake statistics to discuss fraud in an election that he won. Election 2016 is the gift that keeps on giving, even when youve said your safe word. And with that continued focus, that means our late night hosts will continue down that same path. Given, Samantha Bee and The Daily Show are always going to be about politics. It just kinda kills the humor part of the show when its nothing but complaining.

But Samantha Bee does her best here while talking about the history of this voter fraud myth and some of the real aspects of voting that could be tampered with during an election. It seemed like most of the people who cited voter fraud during this election went too far into Tammany Hall, shave their heads and have them vote again territory. Poll watching became some valiant deed, people were all pointing at Russia, and Alex Jones was considered a viable news source by the guy poised to run the nation.

But it goes back further than just this election. Its just an aspect that has been given a shot and a few spotlights thanks to the internet, social media, and people running for office who dont know any better. Wonderful for people that love conspiracy theories, though. If youre watching Loose Change on repeat, this election and the craziness that has followed has been right up your alley.

(Via Full Frontal)
Samantha Bee's Full Frontal returned Monday and the host took on Donald Trump's recent tweet that, without evidence, claimed millions of Americans voted illegally in the election.

"One of the major questions being debated in our country today is whether it's OK for the president to lie his f - ing face off 24 hours a day," said Bee.

"For the record, massive voter fraud is a lie, but this lie didn't spring Athena-like from Donald's collapsing pumpkin of a head," continued the Full Frontal host. "He's a marketer, his big lies are like his buildings: He doesn't build them, he just slaps his brand on them and tricks the press into promoting them for free."

Bee fact-checked Trump on his erroneous assertion, musing on how he came to the conclusion that so many illegal votes occurred. One of the people she found who reported on illegal voting was Infowars' Alex Jones, whom Bee referred to as "noted Sandy Hook truther and moon-landing denier Alex Jones, who despite protests got approval to build a bullshit pipeline straight into the president-elect's brain."

However, in Bee's opinion, one of the biggest culprits is the GOP, who has claimed instances of voter fraud for years, proposing voting restriction laws to solve for a "thing Republicans just made up." Bee talked about how numerous Republicans have admitted they win when less people vote, dating back to 1980 when conservative Paul Weyrich spoke about the subject.

"If Trump manages to smash America's institutions, it will only be because GOP termites have been gnawing away at the foundation for years with baseless claims of election shenanigans," said Bee. She later added, "Remember, all the party wanted was an excuse to pass voter restrictions. But once you put a lie out there, it grows and takes on a life of its own."

Read more: Late-Night Hosts Joke About Trump's Taiwan Call
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Many people are pulling a Donald Trump and calling the hit Broadway musical Hamilton "rude." They struggled online for hours Monday to get tickets to the play before it comes to San Francisco next year. They mostly failed.

SEE ALSO: Trump picks fight with 'Hamilton', people wonder why

In what was an advance online ticketing event exclusively for American Express cardholders, tens of thousands lined up in an online "queue" at 10 a.m. Monday for tickets for the show that will be touring San Francisco beginning in March through August.

But via a randomized number system assigned to hungry theatergoers, a huge number of people didn't even get close to spending all their money on the hot musical.

The touring production is bringing New York City pricing with it too: tickets ranged from approximately $200-$500 per seat.

at one point roughly 10% of the population of #SanFrancisco was trying to buy #hamiltonSF tix. most of em failed... https://t.co/7mIk1NWumm  Jeremy Toeman (@jtoeman) December 5, 2016

Four hours later, the theater shattered all hope for the reportedly 60,000 or so still in line by announcing that presale tickets were sold out.

No tickets remain for the American Express Card-members presale for @HamiltonMusical in San Francisco (1/3)  shnsf (@shnsf) December 5, 2016

Somehow 77453 was not my lucky number and Hamilton tickets are gone. My heart is shattered. pic.twitter.com/80aAEBCp8S  Lindsey Cochran (@lindzgrace) December 5, 2016

Opening night Hamilton SF tickets are now on sale, my kids don't really need braces/college/food do they? Do they?! pic.twitter.com/HnaAkzAjUp  Cody Stark (@TVcody) December 5, 2016

A lucky few did manage to get into the site and scrounge for whatever tickets were still available. But even once users made it off the queue and into the site, there were plenty of posts about tickets disappearing and difficulty using the system.

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So I got #hamilton SF tickets but the process was incredibly painful. Website threw away my shot four or five times.#etailfail  Jeff Yang (@originalspin) December 5, 2016

if you got a ticket for hamilton sf:

1) congratulations 

2) I loathe you   Jingle Bala (@garrulousgabby) December 5, 2016

Willing friend with AmEx card - YAY! 4 unsuccessful hours in Hamilton SF queue - VERY opposite of yay. Current status: pic.twitter.com/UPXV2zfiGp  Stacey Jaros (@srj68) December 5, 2016

Kudos to you SF peeps who got Hamilton tix. I wasn't one of the lucky ones. pic.twitter.com/PcAVTJjz9l  John McCartney (@johnny_mac) December 5, 2016

Already on StubHub tickets are going for $700 a pop  and that's the cheapest price. Others are already over $1,000 for a 2 p.m. showing on a Tuesday in mid-March.

Mashable reached out to SHN, the theater company bringing Hamilton to the Bay Area masses, but has not heard back yet.

General tickets open to the public next Monday. No doubt that will be be even more brutal.
Santa arrived early  and in an armored truck, no less  at a childrens hospital in Nebraska.

Mr. Claus had a fancy ride as he rolled up to the Nebraska Medical Center in a convoy of Douglas County Sheriffs cruisers, all with lights flashing and sirens wailing.

Read: Santa Claus Is Coming to Dinner: Little Girl Meets Cop Whose Beard Makes Her Think He's St. Nick

The deputies came bearing holiday gift cards and Christmas cheer for the kids whose temporary home is now a hospital room.

A lot of kids have organ transplants, or are cancer patients, and some have traumatic injuries," hospital spokeswoman Jenny Nowatzke told InsideEdition.com.

These kids are in really bad shape and their parents dont have a lot of money. So with the gift cards, moms and dads can buy what their children desire for Christmas and tell them it came from Santa, she said.

Read: Dad Fights to Keep Cancer-Stricken Wife Alive So She Can Watch Their Son Open Christmas Gifts

There were 24 children eagerly awaiting the dramatic appearance of Santa on Saturday. Some had lost their hair to chemo, some were tethered to IV stands, and some of the sick fell asleep despite the excitement.

But most were very happy to see the deputies and their bearded, red-suited guest.

Its something the sheriffs department looks forward to as well.

They love giving back, Nowatzke said of the deputies. I think sometimes its more fun for them than it is for the kids.

Watch: See Military Mom Surprise 12-Year-Old Son During Photo Shoot With Santa

Related Articles:
A court in Saudi Arabia handed down death sentences to 15 people Tuesday for spying for Iran, according to reports. Fifteen other suspects were sentenced to jail terms ranging from six months to 25 years while two were acquitted.

The suspects comprised 30 Saudi Shia Muslims, one Iranian and an Afghan. They were detained in 2013 over espionage charges and stood trial in February. Prosecutors accused the suspects of forming a spy ring in collaboration with Iranian intelligence, and handing over classified information on Saudi military zones. The sentences can be appealed.

An elderly university professor, a pediatrician, a banker and two clerics were among those arrested in 2013. Most of the suspects hailed from al-Ahsa, a region in eastern Saudi Arabia home to both Shias and Sunnis.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran are regional rivals with a long and troubled history. The Shia community, which reportedly makes up about 10 to 15 percent of Saudi Arabia's population, alleges constant discrimination by Saudi officials. However, Riyadh has denied these allegations.

In January, the kingdom cut diplomatic relations with Iran after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was attacked over the execution of the prominent Saudi Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, and three other Shias. Saudi Arabia has maintained that Nimr was among 46 others who were accused of being terrorists or inciting violence against the Saudi royal family.

Nimr was a well-known critic of the Saudi regime and his execution further soured relations between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the region. Elsewhere in the Middle East, both Iran and Saudi Arabia are involved in a proxy war in Yemen, with the former supporting Houthi rebels looking to overthrow the existing regime supported by Saudi Arabia.

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* No major rules changes needed for Aramco IPO - CMA

* May need to look at operations for dual listing

* Nearly 10 applications for SME market received

* Prime index plan delayed due to SME bourse, T+2 changes (Adds detail on wider changes to Saudi markets)

By Katie Paul and Marwa Rashad

RIYADH, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco's (IPO-ARMO.SE) planned flotation is unlikely to require any major changes to Saudi Arabia's securities rules, the vice chairman of the kingdom's market regulator said.

The state oil giant is targeting 2018 for what is expected to be the world's biggest initial public offering, with a listing at home and overseas among the options.

Saudi Arabia's ambitious Vision 2030 plan to diversify away from oil includes greater private sector involvement and improving the efficiency of state-owned companies.

Should a dual listing happen, some work might be needed involving the management of shares between two markets, such as the mechanics on the sharing of information on trades, Mohammed bin Abdullah Elkuwaiz of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia has never before had a dual listing involving a company listed on its bourse, which is known as the Tadawul.

"If there is a decision to list in another exchange, whether it is Aramco or any other company, there would be something that will need to be done, but most of this is more on the operations side not the regulatory side," he said.

Ultimately it will depend on the structure which Aramco decides to employ on its listing, but from what the CMA is anticipating there would be no need for additional rule changes, Elkuwaiz added.

INITIATIVES

The CMA has made changes to existing regulations in recent months and introduced new initiatives aimed at developing the market and securing inclusion in global indices such as MSCI which are shadowed by international investors.

Among these are the gradual opening up to foreign capital - the latest incarnation coming into force at the beginning of September - and a switch to settlement of trades within two working days, which is on track for the first half of 2017, Elkuwaiz said.

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A market for small and medium-sized businesses, announced in April and expected to go live in early 2017, had received close to 10 applications even though the draft rules had not been approved yet, he added.

Elkuwaiz, who is heading the regulator after Mohammed al-Jadaan was named finance minister on Oct. 31, said it was unclear when a new CMA chairman will be appointed.

An unintended consequence of the settlements change and the SME market launch would be that plans for a prime section of the Tadawul - a new index which would contain top blue-chip stocks - would likely be delayed, Elkuwaiz said.

A new corporate governance law containing additional measures to protect shareholders was also close to being announced and may be used to judge which companies qualify for the prime index, he added.

(Writing by David French; Editing by Andrew Torchia and Alexander Smith)
By Katie Paul and Marwa Rashad

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco's planned flotation is unlikely to require any major changes to Saudi Arabia's securities rules, the vice chairman of the kingdom's market regulator said.

The state oil giant is targeting 2018 for what is expected to be the world's biggest initial public offering, with a listing at home and overseas among the options.

Saudi Arabia's ambitious Vision 2030 plan to diversify away from oil includes greater private sector involvement and improving the efficiency of state-owned companies.

Should a dual listing happen, some work might be needed involving the management of shares between two markets, such as the mechanics on the sharing of information on trades, Mohammed bin Abdullah Elkuwaiz of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia has never before had a dual listing involving a company listed on its bourse, which is known as the Tadawul.

"If there is a decision to list in another exchange, whether it is Aramco or any other company, there would be something that will need to be done, but most of this is more on the operations side not the regulatory side," he said.

Ultimately it will depend on the structure which Aramco decides to employ on its listing, but from what the CMA is anticipating there would be no need for additional rule changes, Elkuwaiz added.

INITIATIVES

The CMA has made changes to existing regulations in recent months and introduced new initiatives aimed at developing the market and securing inclusion in global indices such as MSCI which are shadowed by international investors.

Among these are the gradual opening up to foreign capital - the latest incarnation coming into force at the beginning of September - and a switch to settlement of trades within two working days, which is on track for the first half of 2017, Elkuwaiz said.

A market for small and medium-sized businesses, announced in April and expected to go live in early 2017, had received close to 10 applications even though the draft rules had not been approved yet, he added.

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Elkuwaiz, who is heading the regulator after Mohammed al-Jadaan was named finance minister on Oct. 31, said it was unclear when a new CMA chairman will be appointed.

An unintended consequence of the settlements change and the SME market launch would be that plans for a prime section of the Tadawul - a new index which would contain top blue-chip stocks - would likely be delayed, Elkuwaiz said.

A new corporate governance law containing additional measures to protect shareholders was also close to being announced and may be used to judge which companies qualify for the prime index, he added.

(Writing by David French; Editing by Andrew Torchia and Alexander Smith)
Riyadh (AFP) - A Saudi court Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom's rival Iran, local media and a source close to the case said, in a move likely to heighten regional tensions.

The source told AFP that most of the 15 Saudis were members of the kingdom's Shiite minority.

Tehran swiftly denied the espionage charges and urged Saudi Arabia not to "seek to bring baseless accusations against Iran with the intention of political gains and increasing tensions in the region".

The espionage trial opened in February, a month after Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran over the burning of the Saudi embassy and a consulate by Iranian demonstrators protesting against the kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The most serious charge levelled against the accused was high treason.

Prosecutors also alleged the accused had divulged defence secrets, tried to commit sabotage and recruit moles in government departments, to send coded information, and supported "riots" in the Shiite-dominated eastern district of Qatif, Saudi media reported.

The 15 were among a group of 32 people tried over the espionage allegations, Alriyadh newspaper said.

Some of the defendants were accused of meeting Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The death sentences will be appealed, said the source close to the case, who cannot be identified due to its sensitivity.

Two of the group were acquitted while the rest received jail sentences of between six months and 25 years.

Apart from one Iranian and an Afghan, all the defendants were Saudis. The source said that one of those acquitted was a foreigner.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said Riyadh had not passed on "any information to the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the alleged Iranian person" in the trial.

Amnesty International, in a statement, called Tuesday's sentence "a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights".

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"Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice," said Amnesty's Samah Hadid.

- Syria, Yemen tensions -

Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told AFP that the trial was "flawed from the beginning".

It was tainted by allegations that the accused did not have access to lawyers during interrogation, Coogle said.

They were also charged with offences that do not resemble recognisable crimes, including "supporting demonstrations", attempting to "spread the Shia confession" and "harming the reputation of the kingdom", he said.

"Criminal trials should not be merely legal 'window-dressing' where the verdict has been decided beforehand," he said.

HRW earlier cited a lawyer who represented some of the accused until March as saying the timing of the case "may relate to ongoing hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia".

All but one of the accused had been detained since 2013.

The region's leading Shiite and Sunni powers are at odds over a range of issues including the wars in Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has also expressed concern over an international agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for guarantees it would not pursue a nuclear weapons capability.

Riyadh fears the pact will lead to more Iranian "interference" in the region.

With relations at a low, Iranian pilgrims in September -- for the first time in nearly three decades -- did not attend the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia after the two countries failed to agree on security and logistics.

Nimr, the executed cleric whose case sent tensions soaring, was a driving force behind protests that began in 2011 among the Shiite minority, most of whom live in the kingdom's east which faces Iran across the Gulf.

The protests developed into a call for equality in the Sunni-dominated kingdom, where Shiites have long complained of marginalisation.

Nimr was convicted of terrorism and executed in January alongside 46 other people -- mostly Sunnis -- found guilty of the same crime.

Rights activists say more than two dozen other Shiites are on death row in Saudi Arabia.
Photo credit: Lincoln County Sheriff's Office

From Cosmopolitan

Photo credit: Lincoln County Sheriff's Office

Kenneth Cody Weber, the superintendent of Colorado's Karval School District, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with seven counts of sex assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. The 36-year-old educator had been hired as superintendent of Karval in June of this year, and the seven counts against him date back to January 2009, when he was working as an agricultural science teacher in the Colorado town of Limon.

"Part of the reason we ended up moving out here was for the wholesome, small-town environment and then we find out this," Limon-area parent Elizabeth Zertuche told Denver7 News. "You send your students to class thinking they're safe, and they may not be." As of now, it's unclear whether any alleged victim of Weber was his student at the time. The Karval School District sent a note to parents saying that school doors would be locked for the time being and that Weber had been placed on administrative leave. After posting a $100,000 bond, he was released from the Lincoln County Jail and is due to reappear in court on December 13.

Follow Hayley on Twitter.

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Kmart (69)

Sears has lost two top executives in the past week, sending a dire warning about the health of what was once America's leading retailer just days ahead of its quarterly earnings report.

Jeffrey Balagna, formerly Sears' executive vice president, left the company on Wednesday. Sears said in an SEC filing dated November 23 that he was leaving "in order to focus on his other business interests and pursue other career opportunities."

Joelle Maher, Sears' president and chief member officer, also left the company this week, Sears confirmed to Business Insider.

Balagna and Maher were two of Sears' top 14 executives. The company, which is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Thursday, has not named replacements for them.

Sears' stock price fell by more than 5% on Monday.

Sears did not announce or explain the departures, beyond what was stated in the filing on Balagna; however, the company was quick to scrub the former executives' names from its website last week.

Sears typically issues a press release or statement when executives are leaving.

For example, the company issued a press release Friday to explain Steven Mnuchin's resignation from its board of directors after President-elect Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Mnuchin for the position of Treasury secretary.

Sears also announced the departure of Robert Schriesheim as CFO in May.

Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School and the former CEO of Sears Canada, told Business Insider last week that the timing of these latest departures was "highly unusual," being in the middle of the critical holiday season and several days before earnings.

Cohen, who was fired from Sears in 2004, said the exits could be indicative of something "catastrophic" in the company's financial performance.

Sears, however, has had a long history of turnover in the executive suite, which makes the departures seem like a normal progression of an unfortunate trend for the company and not necessarily a sign of anything dire, Philip Emma, a retail analyst at Debtwire, told Business Insider.

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"They have had this revolving door for years," he said. "This is likely a continuation of that turnover. Given all the issues at Sears that are fairly substantial, I wouldn't necessarily view this as anything more significant."

That's not to say Wall Street is expecting anything but bad news from Sears this week, however, he said.

"I don't think there is anyone who would be surprised if Sears reported terrible numbers on Thursday," Emma said.

If you work at Sears or Kmart and have a story to share, reach out to this reporter at hpeterson@businessinsider.com.

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Dakar (AFP) - Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow, one of the giants of African art, was laid to rest in Dakar on Tuesday, five days after he died at the age of 81.

President Macky Sall was among those paying tribute to Sow before his funeral, attended by politicians and artistic leaders as well as his loved ones.

"The man we are accompanying today to his final resting place was a great man of Senegal," Sall said, cited by the official APS news agency, also calling him "a world-renowned artist" and a "resolute humanist".

Sow, who died last Thursday, "will remain an upstanding monument in the pantheon of great creators of the 20th and 21st centuries," added the head of state.

Sow was best known for his monumental sculptures of Nubian wrestlers inspired by the pictures taken in Sudan by the controversial German photographer Leni Riefenstahl.

Sow's series of striking bronzes of muscular African men -- "The Maasai", "The Zulus" and "The Fulani" -- were widely exhibited in France and at the prestigious Documenta festival in Germany and the Venice Biennale.

The former physiotherapist, who was the first African to be admitted to the French Academy of Beaux Arts, only began working seriously when he was 50.

Until then he used to have to destroy his sculptures as soon as he made them because he had nowhere to store them.

Although he lived between Senegal and Paris, his talent was only spotted when a friend told curators at the French Cultural Centre in Dakar about him.

They gave Sow an exhibition in 1987, and the unexpected rise of a man who said he "never dreamt of being an artist" up the contemporary art ladder began.

"Perhaps it was luck, but I do it for pleasure," he told AFP.
If youre interested in stories with happy endings, Patrick Warburtons Lemony Snicket warns in the second trailer for Netflixs A Series of Unfortunate Events, that story is streaming elsewhere.

RELATED2016 in Review: The 10 Best Comedies

I would advise all our viewers, he adds, to watch something more pleasant instead.

Nevertheless, we would be surprised if viewers were able to tear their eyes away from the fantastical promo that dropped Tuesday. In it, not only do we get to see Neil Patrick Harris wicked Count Olaf giving a hilarious new meaning to the term carpe diem, but we get a glimpse of the orphaned Baudelaire kids very terrible childhood.

Press PLAY on the video above to get a preview of the series (premiering Friday, Jan. 13), then hit the comments. Do you think youll like Harris Count Olaf more, less or about the same as Jim Carreys movie version?

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Seth Meyers Donald Trump foreign policy

In Seth Meyers latest A Closer Look segment on Late Night Monday, the host put his attention to not just the puzzling claims President-elect Trump has made about mass voter fraud (with no evidence to back it up), but also Trump's recent moves regarding foreign policy.

The biggie is Trump taking a call from the president of Taiwan, which might affect US-China relations.

Whatever your thoughts are on China, its a delicate, important relationship," Meyers said. "For example, we need their help dealing with North Koreas nuclear weapons program. So any action that China might see as provocative should be done only after a long period of careful study and consideration  or, if youre Trump, you could just say, screw it, lets piss them off right away and see what happens.

But theres also Trumps phone call with Pakistan, in which he told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that he would love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people, though hes tweeted this in the past:

Get it straight: Pakistan is not our friend. When our tremendous Navy SEALS took out Osama bin Laden, they did (cont) http://t.co/s6u5o8Co  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2011

Get it straight: Pakistan is not our friend. Weve given them billions and billions of dollars, and what (cont) http://t.co/O5S4cQV3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2012

And then theres his call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been accused of having death squads run his war on drugs that has killed thousands.

Duterte said Trump told him on the call that he was conducting his drug war the right way, Meyers said.

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When youre dealing with foreign powers in unstable regions, you need sober, analytical thinking and a firm grasp of reality  qualities you definitely do not associate with Donald Trump, Meyers concluded.

Watch the entire A Closer Look segment below:

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Paris (AFP) - People who shave, wax, or trim their pubic hair are at higher risk of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), but less likely to get lice, a study suggested on Tuesday.

A survey of more than 7,500 Americans aged 18 to 65, found that pubic groomers had an 80 percent higher STI risk than people who leave their nether regions hairy.

For certain infections, including herpes and chlamydia, the risk was highest among those who groomed most frequently and "intensely", the researchers found.

The study merely observed a correlation between grooming and STIs, and cannot conclude that one causes the other.

But the authors speculated that shaving or waxing may cause "microtears" in the skin, creating easy access for viruses.

Sharing tools such as razors may also be a risk, they said, citing a case of HIV transmission between brothers using the same blade.

"As a third possible explanation for our findings, individuals who groom may be more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours than those who do not groom," said the study published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Pubic hair grooming, it explained, "is correlated with an increased number of lifetime sexual partners and is viewed as a preparatory act to sexual engagement".

For the research, 7,580 people completed a questionnaire on their intimate hair-control, sex lives and STI history.

Seventy-four percent of respondents were pubic hair groomers -- 66 percent of men and 84 percent of women.

The trial participants were divided into "extreme groomers" who removed all pubic hair more than 11 times a year, high-frequency groomers who trimmed daily or weekly, low-frequency groomers, and non-groomers.

- 'Genital normalcy'? -

The main methods used were razors, scissors and wax. Men mostly used an electric razor and women a manual one.

One in five of both genders used scissors.

Groomers, the study found, were younger overall and reported a larger number of annual and total lifetime sexual partners -- even more so for extreme groomers.

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They also had more frequent weekly and daily sex than people who prefer to go "au naturel" down there.

A greater proportion of groomers, 14 percent, reported having had an STI during their lifetime, than non-groomers at eight percent, the study found.

For extreme groomers, the percentage was 18 percent.

STIs included herpes, syphilis, human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, HIV, gonorrhoea and a skin virus called Molluscum contagiosum, or MCV.

Such infections can have serious long-term consequences such as infertility, certain cancers and higher rates of HIV transmission.

On the other end of the spectrum, the team found, low-intensity groomers had a higher risk of pubic lice infestation.

This suggested "grooming might make it harder for lice to breed successfully," the team said in a statement.

Better understanding the relationship between pubic hair grooming and STIs may help single out "high-risk individuals" for safe-sex education, the team said.

They may also be advised to dehair less frequently or severely, or to delay sex after grooming to allow time for the skin to heal.

Pubic hair grooming has become a common phenomenon worldwide, with popular media changing people's definition of attractiveness, cleanliness and "genital normalcy", said the study.
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces a class action lawsuit against Pilgrim's Pride Corporation ("Pilgrim's Pride" or the "Company") (PPC). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between February 21, 2014 and October 6, 2016 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the December 19, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased Pilgrim's Pride shares during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Pilgrim's Pride made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: the Company systematically colluded with several of its industry peers to fix prices in the market for broiler chickens; that the foregoing conduct constituted a violation of federal antitrust laws; that Pilgrim's Pride's revenues during the class period were the result of illegal conduct; that as a result of the above, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On October 7, 2016, Pivotal Research downgraded its peer company Tyson Foods, Inc. from "buy" to "sell," due to fears of a class action against Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, and other peers over price collusion in the broiler-chicken market. Allegedly, in 2008, Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, and several other companies conspired by sharing proprietary data and reducing production to support prices. When this news was announced to the public, the stock price of Pilgrim's Pride decreased, causing investors harm.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, at no charge to you, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

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This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in certain jurisdictions.

Contact:

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
The return of Sherri Papini, the mother found on Thanksgiving morning after she disappeared while jogging on Nov. 2, was celebrated by hundreds of residents of Redding, California, Saturday at a public welcome-home party.

"We never lost hope," Redding Mayor Missy McArthur told the gathering of more than 200 community members, according to ABC News Monday. "We kept working and we made it happen. So, we're so proud of this community."

Sherri Papini was found by a passing motorist on the side of the Interstate 5 highway outside of Sacramento bound by restraints with her blond hair lopped off. Her husband, Keith Papini, had alerted local police about her disappearance after learning she didnt pick their two children up from day care, prompting law enforcement officials to scour through hundreds of phone tips and hours of video surveillance of the area she went missing for the next three weeks. Keith Papini said his wife weighed just 87 pound when he first visited her in the hospital after being discovered.

Authorities were still searching this week for the alleged kidnappers, who Sherri Papini described as two armed Hispanic women driving in a dark sport-utility vehicle. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko told ABC News last week there was no reason to disbelieve Papinis story, and that law enforcement officers were now focused on circumstances from her past, including her first spouse, divorce and online activity that could have had an impact on why she was kidnapped.

As the investigation continues, here are 10 quotes from Keith Papini about what happened to his wife:

-I received a text message from her at 10:37 a.m. that day asking me if I was coming home for lunch. I usually dont bring my personal phone in on my job. So I didnt respond to that message until 1:39 p.m. that day.

-Knowing that she didnt pick up our kids  there is no way that ever happens. She could drop her phone, but she would never in a million years not pick up our children on a time that she normally would have. Everybody who knows my wife knows that theres no reason for her to leave She was definitely taken against her will

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- The first thing I said was, What time did Sherri pick up the kids today? And she said, The kids are here. It was like, Something is wrong, there is something wrong right now.

-People would see me and start crying and give me hugs ... total strangers.

-I just said, Son, mommy went running and she didnt come home and were all looking for her right now. And we just held each other ... and I said, Were going to find her and were going to get her back.

-Immediately after that, my home phone rang. It was my wife screaming in the background, yelling my name, and a CHP [California High Patrol] officer that seemed somewhat confused at the moment, like, What is going on? [the officer] said, I need you to be calm. I need you to be calm.  I already know its her. I can tell her voice. I get the phone and, [I said], Oh my God, honey. And of course she's screaming. It's very emotional. And, I love you, I love you, I love you, Oh my God, you're here. You're back. Where are you?"

-My first sight was my wife in a hospital bed, her face covered in bruises ranging from yellow to black because of repeated beatings, the bridge of her nose broken."

-She has been branded and I could feel the rise of her scabs under my fingers.

- "She screamed so much, shes coughing up blood from the screaming trying to get somebody to stop"

-"She was bound  she had a metal chain around her waist. She had a bag over her head  she was chained anytime she was in a vehicle. They opened the door, she doesnt know because she had a bag over her head, they cut something to free her restraint that was holding her into the vehicle and then, kind of, pushed her out of the vehicle.

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Sherri Papini, a 34-year-old mother, went jogging in her neighborhood on Redding, California, on Nov. 2. When she didn't pick her up her children from daycare that day, her husband know something was very wrong.

More than a month later, the story of the abducted mother who was found tied up on the side of a highway on Thanksgiving Day has captivated the nation. Officials have not named any suspects or motive in the case and it's unclear what exactly happened to Papini during the three weeks she went missing.

With so many questions surrounding the case, here are 20 facts about the missing California mother who has become a national mystery.

1. On the day she went missing, her husband, Keith Papini, said he used the "Find My iPhone" feature on his smart phone to locate his wife's iPhone. He found it about a mile away from the house near their mailbox, along with her headphones and some strands of her blonde hair, Keith Papini said in a series of interviews on the ABC News program "20/20."

2. The family has two children, a 2-year-old daughter, Violet, and a 4-year-old son, Tyler.

3. Kevin Papini works as an audio-video specialist. He has denied that the abduction story is fake. "I understand people want the story, pictures, proof that this was not some sort of hoax, plan to gain money, or some fabricated race war," Keith Papini told Good Morning America. "I do not see a purpose in addressing each preposterous lie."

4. More than 100 people searched for Sherri Papini while she was gone. People would see me and start crying and give me hugs ... total strangers, Keith Papini said.

5. Keith Papini was a suspect for the first nine days of the investigation. "We were going through investigating hundreds of tips, looking at cellphone data," Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said.

6. Sherri Papini has an older sister, Sheila Koester, who is seven months pregnant. She helped take care of Keith Papini and his children while her sister was gone.

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I think Keith and I supported each other, she said. He made sure that I stayed in the house and wasnt traipsing through fields, going through places, because he knows I probably would have been doing that.

7. The Papini family started a GoFundMe account to raise money for the search. They collected nearly $50,000 in donations.

8. Keith Papini received a call on Thanksgiving Day on his cellphone from an unknown number. Immediately after that, my home phone rang, Keith said. It was my wife screaming in the background, yelling my name, and a CHP [California High Patrol] officer that seemed somewhat confused at the moment, like, What is going on? [the officer] said, I need you to be calm. I need you to be calm.  I already know its her. I can tell her voice.

9. Keith and Sherri Papini were finally reunited at a local hospital that day.

"The California Highway Patrol was able to connect her to her husband via cellphone and he immediately started responding to the Yolo County-Sacramento area. Of course, she was very emotional to be released and hear her husband's voice and then a few hours later to be reunited with him," Bosenko said.

10. When she was found, Sherri Papini appeared badly beaten. Her long hair was cut to above her shoulders. Almost 15 percent of her body weight was gone.

11. Sherri Papini told her husband she had been tied up in a vehicle with her alleged captors when they stopped on a road and pushed her onto the pavement about 150 miles away from the Papinis' Redding home.

12. Keith Papini said his wife ran for help after she was left on the side of a road. She flagged down a passing motorist, Alison Sutton, on Interstate 5 North in California.

"I saw a woman frantically waving what looked like a shirt up and down, trying to flag somebody down. I was started to see her. It was dark and she pretty much just came out of nowhere," Sutton told "20/20." "If I had swerved to the right at least a little bit, I would have hit her with my car. She had, like, a wide-eyed, panicked kind of look. I figured if she was willing to risk being hit by a car trying to get somebodys attention that she must really need some help."

Sutton told the New York Daily News that Papini "didn't look like she was hurt, but she did look scared."

13. Sherri Papini described her alleged captors as two Hispanic women armed with a gun and driving a dark SUV.

14. Sherri Papini's neighbors flooded local highways with signs reading "Missing Sherri: Papini" after she disappeared. After she came home, they held a celebration Saturday and wore pink, her favorite color, the Sacramento Bee reported.

This community is getting together to just wish this family well and welcome Sherri back, Redding health club owner Brady Frost said.

15. Redding Mayor Missy McArthur said people who question Sherri Papini's story are "just trolls." "We never lost hope," she said during the recent celebration marking Sherri Papini's return home. "We kept working and we made it happen. So, were so proud of this community."

16. Friends described Sherri Papini as a warmhearted person who would never fake her own abductions. "Its sick," said family friend Lisa Jeter about the rumors the Papinis made up the disappearance. "I mean, shes the sweetest, most warmhearted person you would ever meet, and for people to be that negative, that cruel, is disheartening and very, very sad."

17. The investigation was ongoing as of Tuesday. Detectives sought nearly 20 search warrants and said theyre examining cellphone records, bank accounts, email and social media profiles.

18. Sherri Papini's mother and father, Loretta and Rich Graeff, said their daughter wound never intentionally leave her children. "I believe that she was abducted, that someone knew her, someone took her. She wouldn't leave her babies, she wouldn't leave her family like this," said Loretta Graeff.

19. Sherri Papini allegedly only weighed 87 lbs when she was found.

20. Private investigator Bill Garcia, who worked with the Papini family during the search, told People magazine the abduction could be linked to sex trafficking.

"I literally got the chills. I know who it is, I know who did this, Garcia said. "Because of the injuries, the broken nose, apparently she had other burns, the discoloration."

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After annihilating his freestyle on Sway in the Morning last month, actor Shia LaBeouf gained the respect of avid rap junkies. He then followed up with another scathing freestyle aimed at Lil Yachty and Soulja Boy on Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club last week, which now apparently has him embroiled in a new beef with the "Crank That" rapper.

"Not a Nautica boy, I own myself/ This whole thing's a bit absurd but on my word/ Is Boat about to get this work/ You spit that dirt/ Him and Soulja on that shout out sh-t/ This is not, this a murder, this is tragedy man/ He's like Lil Romeo meets Raggedy Ann," rapped Shia in the Breakfast Club bar-fest.

On Sunday (Dec. 4), Soulja Boy responded to LaBeouf's diss with a video message on Instagram. "You a b-tch a-- n---a, you can't never come to Atlanta," he said. "You can't never come to the streets in the hood. You can never live my life, n---a. You need to stick to acting, real sh-t n---a."

LaBeouf then issued a fiery response (Dec. 5) with another freestyle aimed at Soulja. The Holes star even told the Atlanta rapper that he would drop by his hometown when his schedule permits.

In addition to dissing Shia, Soulja Boy later went on to attack Quavo on his new record "Beef," in which he boasted about introducing the Migos star to Travis Scott and Sean Kingston. "Quavo hit my phone, say he want beef/ Must not know I'll knock out his teeth/I grew up in the Northside, shoot with the 2-2-3/ Migos ain't sh-t to me."

Check out the disses below.

Fuck Shia LaBeouf!!!

A video posted by Big Soulja (@souljaboy) on Dec 3, 2016 at 6:02pm PST
By Andrew M. Seaman Skin-to-skin contact between mothers and newborns immediately after birth can be used to promote breastfeeding and may give babies a better start in life, according to a new review of existing evidence. Women who had skin-to-skin contact with their naked babies right after delivery were more likely to breastfeed longer and be breastfeeding months later than women who didn't have their babies placed on their skin right away, the researchers found. "The more you can do to place the mother and baby together and disturb them as little possible during that first hour, the better off theyll be," said lead author Elizabeth Moore, of the School of Nursing at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Moore and her colleagues write in the Cochrane Library November 25th that babies are often separated from their mothers at birth. The new review looked at whether placing naked babies on their mother's bare chest improved breastfeeding and other health outcomes. The review was coordinated by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates and reviews medical research. The researchers looked through medical literature and found 46 randomized controlled trials to include in their review. The trials included 3,850 women and their newborns from 21 countries. All babies were healthy and most were born at term. "We compared those trials to usual care, and usual care was very different depending on the trial," said Moore. Trials from the 1970s may have separated mothers from their babies for hours. In more modern trials, babies might be swaddled in a blanket before being handed to the mother. Compared to babies and mothers who received usual care, those who received skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth were about 24 percent more likely to still be breastfeeding one to four months later. Infants who received skin-to-skin care were also 32 percent more likely to successfully breastfeed on their first try. There was also evidence that women who got skin-to-skin contact breastfed longer and were more likely to exclusively breastfeed after leaving the hospital. Evidence also suggested babies did better after receiving skin-to-skin contact after birth. They had higher scores on a measure evaluating their heart and lung function, had higher blood sugar levels and had a similar body temperature to their swaddled counterparts. "Its just something that if at all possible should happen," Moore told Reuters Health. Skin-to-skin contact should begin as soon as possible and last for at least 60 minutes, she said. The hour will give babies time to recover from the birthing experience, find the mother's nipple and latch on. "Its not something you can do in just 15 minutes," she said. Moore said more research is needed on skin-to-skin contact after cesarean births and among babies born near full term. "I think skin-to-skin care or contact is a no-cost intervention that improves outcomes for mothers and babies," said Jeannette Crenshaw, of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing in Lubbock. Crenshaw, who is presently involved in a study of skin-to-skin contact after cesarean sections, said the current findings confirm the results of earlier, less rigorous studies that showed similar benefits. "We need to adjust our processes, normal routines and make system changes to make the best practice available to mothers and babies," said Crenshaw. Moore said receiving skin-to-skin contact is often dependent on doctors being comfortable with the practice. "I would recommend that a woman make sure she adds skin-to-skin to her birth plan," she said. "I think its a really good thing for a woman to put together a birth plan before she heads to the hospital and show it to her physicians or midwife."
When it comes to fame, Will Smith is never too busy for his fans.

Smith, 48, made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night, where he admitted that he loves being famous.

I want people to recognize me, he said laughing. Ive met a lot of people where fame can be a burden, and I just love it.

The Suicide Squad actor shared a funny run-in he had with a fan recently, where being one of Hollywoods top leading men really paid off  literally!

Smith recalled an incident when he was driving home only to discover that he was out of gas, and without his wallet. After pulling into a gas station, the actor did some quick thinking on how to get out of his predicament.

I looked over on the other side and I saw a dude. He was, like, 36, and I was like, That dude is a Fresh Prince fan. You can spot em! Smith said. So I kinda rolled the window down and after a couple of minutes, he was like, Will? 

Once the fan spotted him, the actor knew he was home free.

He said, Hey, man, can I get a picture? I said, Yeah man, I need about $10.,  he said.

Smith said he offered to pay the man back, but he wouldnt give him his information.

He was like Dude no way, no way. Thats yours. 




If the last few Chanel runway shows have taught us anything, its that you can always expect a sea of colorful tweed on the catwalk and the hottest group of young up-and-comers with uber-famous parents in attendance. Chanels creative director, Karl Lagerfeld, has hosted Lily-Rose Depp, the Pinkett-Smith children and Ava Phillippe (Reese Witherspoons daughter) to numerous brand events recently, but he took his bond with Hollywood offspring one step further at the annual Metiers dArt show in Paris Tuesday. He tapped Sofia Richie and Lily-Rose Depp to walk the runway (for the first time!) alongside his longtime muses Cara Delevingne and Pharrell Williams.

Depp has attended many, many shows in the past (and serves as the face of the brands eyewear and fragrance campaigns) but she made her first official catwalk appearance on Tuesday. She modeled two looks, the first a sparkly gold crop top with matching midi skirt, and the second, a black dress with tulle straps and a flared hem.





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Richie has been having quite an entrance into the modeling world, recently walking in Yeezy Season 4 in September and landing the cover of Complex this month. But this is officially the 18-year-olds most high-fashion runway gig to date (look out for her as the next Fashion Month breakout star come February). She sported the floral headpieces worn by every model in the show teamed with a black and white quilted jacket and a pair of shimmery cropped pants.

Williams has been a longtime muse of Lagerfelds and although hes performed at shows in the past (with Delevingne!) he made his first official catwalk debut modeling a navy outfit with iconic tweed jacket and Coco Chanels signature pearl necklaces.

While many models walked and shimmied along to the tune Puttin on the Ritz (the show was held at the remodeled Ritz Paris hotel), the show had a much more relaxed vibe, thanks in part to Depp and Delevingne. Depp was caught smiling at the ladies who lunch in attendance. But no one had more fun at the show than Delevingne. She interacted with guests and twirled around the restaurant all while still serving some serious Blue Steel throughout.

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As for other star-studded attendees, Lagerfeld tapped Willow Smith to entertain the crowd before the show by singing and playing guitar. While her big brother, Jaden, was seen entering the hotel wearing a black hoodie, sweatpants and multicolor scarf.

What do you think of Chanels runway models? How about the show? Share below!




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Dec 6 (Reuters) - Synchronoss Technologies Inc, which makes customer service software for mobile carriers, said on Tuesday it would buy cloud-based business software provider Intralinks Holdings Inc for $821 million in cash.

Synchronoss' offer of $13 per share represents a 15.4 percent premium to Intralinks' Monday close.

Intralinks' shares were up 15.3 percent at $12.99 in premarket trading on Tuesday.

Synchronoss also said it would divest a portion of its activation business to Sequential Technology International LLC for $146 million.

The company has been exploring strategic alternatives for the business, which manages back-end systems of communication service providers.

Ron Hovsepian, who heads Intralinks, is expected to be named chief executive of the combined company after the deal closes.

Synchronoss' founder and current CEO, Stephen Waldis, will become executive chairman.

The company said it expects to finance the deal with its existing cash, proceeds from the Sequential Technology transaction and $900 million of new debt.

Intralinks, which has over 90,000 clients, provides confidential cloud-based software that enables companies to securely manage, control, track, search, exchange and collaborate on sensitive information.

Synchronoss also said it expected 2017 revenue between $810 million and $820 million, compared with the average analyst estimate of $818.5 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Martina D'Couto)
Paris (AFP) - The climate-friendly electricity generated by solar panels in the past 40 years has all but cancelled out the polluting energy used to produce them, a study said Tuesday.

Indeed, by some calculations, the so-called "break-even point" between dirty energy input and clean output may already have arrived, researchers in the Netherlands reported.

"We show strong downward trends of environmental impact" of solar panel production, the team wrote in the journal Nature Communications.

The study sought to address concerns that solar technology may be using fossil fuel energy in the panels' manufacture, and emitting greenhouse gases, faster than it was able to offset.

The authors found that for every doubling in solar capacity installed, energy used to produce solar panels decreased by 12-13 percent, and greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 17-24 percent, depending on the material used.

Solar panels, which convert sunlight into electricity, are a key player in the fast-growing renewable energy sector, which also includes water- and wind-generated electricity.

Unlike energy from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, the generation of electricity by so-called photovoltaic (PV) panels does not release planet-harming carbon dioxide.

Solar panel capacity grew sharply, on average, by 45 percent per year from 1975 to reach 230 billion watts (Gigawatt or GW) in 2015.

In 1975, there were fewer than 10,000 solar panels around the world, compared to about a billion today, study co-author Wilfried Van Sark of Utrecht University in the Netherlands told AFP.

By the end of 2016, "we would have some 300 GW installed" -- about 1-1.5 percent of global electricity demand.

- Falling costs -

Over an average lifespan of 30-odd years, a PV system pays back the energy that was used in producing it "multiple times," said the study authors.

Looking at data since 1976, the researchers calculated that on a global scale, solar energy's "debt was likely already repaid in 2011" for both energy input and greenhouse gases.

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Even on the least optimistic data, break-even point will be reached at the latest next year for net energy, and in 2018 for greenhouse gases, they said.

The photovoltaic effect, by which certain materials convert the photon particles in sunlight into energy, was first identified by French physicist Edmund Bequerel in 1839.

The first photovoltaic battery was built in 1954 but was too expensive for widespread use.

The technology was used in the 1960s to generate power on spacecraft, and only started taking root on Earth in the 1970s.

From 1975, costs decreased by about 20 percent for every doubling in capacity, the study found.

In 1976, one would have paid about $80 (75 euros at today's rates) for one Watt-peak (Wp) unit, compared to about 64-67 US cents today.
By Abdiqani Hassan BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) - Soldiers allied to the Western-backed Somali government killed three fighters loyal to the Islamic State in northern Somalia on Monday as they pressed ahead toward the insurgents' main stronghold, officials said. The troops, alongside militia fighters, launched an offensive last week to wrest back control of the port town of Qandala in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. The insurgents launched counterattacks away from their stronghold, in areas along the route to Qandala, and that led to the fighting on Monday in an area west of the port. "Our forces attacked IS fighters in Obolohe valley today, killing three of their fighters and injuring two others," Mohamed Saiid, a Puntland military official involved in the operation, told Reuters. The Obolohe valley is on the outskirts of Bashaashin village some 34 kilometres west of Qandala. "Three were injured from our side. The (IS) fighters ran deeper into the hills," Saiid added. The militants are thought to number in the low hundreds and are led by Abdiqadir Mumin, who broke away from the main al Shabaab insurgency last year and swore allegiance to Islamic State. His group has no known operational links to Islamic State in the Middle East and Qandala is the first town that they seized. Al Shabaab is fighting the shaky U.N.-backed government to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law in Somalia, which has been at war for more than 25 years. (Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's economic growth slowed in the third quarter to 0.2 percent, figures showed Tuesday, highlighting the risk of a damaging credit rating downgrade next year.

The country was granted a reprieve in recent weeks when rating agencies did not drop it into "junk" investment category, but they warned of the impact of poor growth.

"The agriculture industry posted its seventh consecutive quarter of economic decline, on the back of one of the worst droughts in recent history," Statistics South Africa said in a statement.

It added that manufacturing and trade had also contracted, contributing to the reduced 0.2 percent annualised growth rate, which was slightly below expectations.

Standard & Poor's rating agency on Friday maintained South Africa's foreign currency debt status one notch above junk status, and kept its negative outlook.

Rumbling political frictions erupted again last week when President Jacob Zuma beat back an attempt by at least four ministers to oust him from power.

The rebellion was the most serious threat to the president since he took office in 2009.

Zuma has been engulfed by graft scandals, while South Africa's economic growth has fallen and unemployment hit a 13-year high.

Efforts to avoid junk status have been at the centre of wrangling for months, with Zuma at loggerheads with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a reformist widely respected among international investors.

Growth in the second quarter was revised upwards to 3.5 percent.
* Park says would wait for court to rule on impeachment motion

* President willing to accept suggestion she resign in April

* Corporate chiefs deny seeking favours

* Parliamentary impeachment vote set for Friday

By Ju-min Park and Se Young Lee

SEOUL, Dec 6 (Reuters) - South Korean President Park Geun-hye, engulfed in an influence peddling scandal, said if she was impeached she would wait for a court to uphold the decision, a party official said on Tuesday, a sign a political crisis could drag on for months.

Park's embattled presidency faces a critical juncture, with parliament expected to hold an impeachment vote on Friday. Even if the motion is passed, it must be upheld by the Constitutional Court, a process that could take at least months.

Separately, South Korea's most prominent corporate chiefs told a parliamentary panel they had not sought favours when they made contributions to two foundations at the heart of the scandal, even as one of them acknowledged it was hard to say "no" to the government.

"It's a South Korean reality that if there is a government request, it is difficult for companies to decline," said Huh Chang-soo, who heads the energy-to-retail GS Group and is also chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, the main lobby group for the conglomerates known as chaebol.

Park, 64, is under intense pressure to resign immediately, with big crowds taking to the streets every Saturday calling for her ouster. Her approval rating is at a record low of 4 percent.

She would be the first democratically elected South Korean president not to serve a full five-year term.

She is accused of colluding with a friend and a former aide to pressure big business owners to pay into two foundations set up to back policy initiatives. She has denied wrongdoing but apologised for carelessness in her ties with the friend, Choi Soon-sil.

Park met leaders of her Saenuri party and top official Chung Jin-suk later said the president was willing to accept her party's proposal that she step down in April - which has been rejected by the opposition - but gave no indication that she was willing to quit immediately.

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"Unless she says she is resigning immediately, whatever she says won't satisfy the public and won't make the opposition drop their impeachment motion," said Kim Man-heum, head of the Korea Academy of Politics and Leadership.

Opposition parties need at least 28 members from Park's Saenuri Party for the impeachment bill to pass with a two-thirds majority. At least 29 of them are believed to be planning to vote for the bill, members of a breakaway faction said.

Last week, Park offered to step down and asked parliament to decide how and when she should resign, a move opposition parties rejected as a ploy to buy time and avoid impeachment.

Rhee Jong-hoon, a political commentator at iGM Consulting, said Park would fight in the Constitutional Court to overturn an impeachment hearing.

"And if the motion is overturned? She will remain in office until her term is finished. Nothing matters after the Constitutional Court rules against the impeachment bill."

The heads of conglomerates controlling revenue equivalent to more than half the country's economy were questioned over whether they were pressured by Park or Choi to give money to non-profit foundations, which backed initiatives put forth by Park, in exchange for special treatment.

'HEAVY HEART'

Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee, who sat at the centre of the witness table, said Park had asked him during one-on-one meetings for support for boosting cultural and sports-related developments but did not specifically request money.

"There are often requests from various parts of society including for culture and sports. We have never contributed seeking quid pro quo. This case was the same," Lee said.

The 48-year-old Lee, the third-generation leader of the country's biggest conglomerate who received the lion's share of the panel's often-hectoring questioning, said he was embarrassed by the situation and was appearing with a "heavy heart".

Samsung donated 20.4 billion won ($17.46 million) to the two foundations, the most of any group, and prosecutors raided its offices last month.

The corporate titans ran a gauntlet of media and protesters as they entered the National Assembly for the first such parliamentary hearing featuring such a large group of chaebol bosses.

The family-controlled chaebol have long dominated Asia's fourth-largest economy, working closely with the government in a system that helped the country rebuild from the ravages of the 1950-53 Korean War.

But the system, critics say, is due for reform, including improved corporate governance and transparency.

None of the chaebol has been accused of any wrongdoing in the case, but a protester outside the assembly held a sign saying: "Arrest the chaebol chiefs".

($1 = 1,168.3000 won) (Reporting by Se Young Lee, Yun Hwan Chae, Jack Kim, Hyunjoo Jin, Ju-min Park, Jeong Eun Lee and Nataly Pak; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Sprint Corp. S plans to increase its spectrum leaseback transaction to $7 billion in order from $3.5 billion to pay off higher interest bearing loans. This October, Sprint announced a spectrum leaseback transaction to ease liquidity pressure on its balance sheet.

The wireless carrier plans to sell 14% of its spectrum assets to a wholly owned entity. Sprint will then lease back the same under a long-term agreement. The proceeds from the sale will help Sprint clear higher interest bearing loans which will improve the financial condition of the company. The airwaves in consideration for the transaction include those in the band of 1.9 Giga-hertz (Ghz) and 2.5 Ghz and are valued at around $16.4 billion. Although the total proceeds of the transaction will stand at $7 billion, Sprint may benefit through lease payments which will be lower than that of the market.

Will It Reduce Liquidity Woes?

Sprint is not new to such complex sale and leaseback transactions. Notably, in 2015, the company entered into a similar arrangement with another Special Purpose Entity (SPE), Mobile Leasing Solutions, LLC, for $1.1 billion in cash. Back then, Sprint had gone for aggressive mobile leasing plans to draw customers and the lease-back deal was intended to reduce one of Sprints biggest expenses  the cost of buying millions of new devices. The idea was to help the company lower equipment costs and free up resources to focus on new growth opportunities. However, intense competition in the U.S. telecom market from rivals like Verizon Communication Inc. VZ, AT&T Inc. T and T-Mobile U.S Inc. TMUS has impeded the companys strategic efforts, severely affecting its liquidity position. The company, as a result, has a debt-laden balance sheet now.

Price Performance of Sprint

Year to date, the Zacks categorized U.S. wireless industry has registered impressive growth of 14.56%. However, the stock price of Sprint has outperformed the industry mark. Notably, Sprint has registered growth of 122.38% in the same time period.

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We believe efficient usage of capital, reduction of cell sites, elimination of dual networks, backhaul efficiencies, reduced churn, lower roaming charges and energy cost savings bode well for Sprints long-term growth.

The Bottom Line

The sale and leaseback arrangement will help the company generate the cash it needs to expand its business. Although Sprint may incur higher operating expenses in the process, the tradeoff between lower lease payments and higher interest savings is sure to add value to Sprint.

Sprint presently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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Brussels (AFP) - EU and US consumer watchdogs announced Tuesday they are filing complaints against a clutch of smart toys that can "spy" on children and their homes, for allegedly breaching privacy and data protection laws.

The complaints target smart toys My Friend Cayla, i-QUE Intelligent Robot and Hello Barbie, according to the European Consumer Organisation BEUC and US groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

Complaints are being filed with French and other European authorities as well as the US Federal Trade Commission.

Internet-connected Cayla and i-QUE, manufactured by Los Angeles-based Genesis Toys, hook up with a user via a phone or tablet while Hello Barbie links to the internet through Wi-Fi, said the consultancy Bouvet on behalf of the Norwegian Consumer Council.

Hello Barbie is not sold in Europe.

"By purpose and design, these toys record and collect the private conversations of young children without any limitations on collection, use, or disclosure of this personal information," EPIC and other US watchdogs said in their complaint, which they say "concerns toys that spy".

"The toys subject young children to ongoing surveillance and are deployed in homes across the United States without any meaningful data protection standards," they said.

"They pose an imminent and immediate threat to the safety and security of children in the United States," they added.

BEUC, citing the study commissioned by the Norwegian Consumer Council, expressed security concerns.

"With simple steps, anyone can take control of the toys through a mobile phone. This makes it possible to talk and listen through the toy without having physical access to the toy," it added.

It alleged the terms breach the EU Unfair Contract Terms Directive and the EU Data Protection Directive and possibly the Toy Safety Directive.

"Anything the child tells the doll is transferred to the US-based company Nuance Communications, who specialises in speech recognition technologies," it said.

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"The company reserves the right to share this information with other third parties, and to use speech data for a wide variety of purposes," it said.

"The toys are embedded with pre-programmed phrases, where they endorse different commercial products," BEUC said.

EPIC and the other US groups like The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood urged the trade commission to investigate the collection, use and disclosure of the data.

They called for the body to halt Genesis' alleged failure to give enough notice of its information practices and stop its retention and use of children's personal information.

They also asked the commission to halt Genesis' failure to use "reasonable security measures" for bluetooth connections for Cayla and i-Que.

They urged the body to investigate and prevent US-based Nuance from using children's speech data to improve products and services sold to military, government and law enforcement agencies.
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux nation and their supporters gathered together on December 4 to celebrate the decision by the US Army to re-route the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In a statement posted on the US Armys website, the Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement which would have allowed for the proposed pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe. The Army Corps also stated that they will look for alternative routes for the $3.8 billion project while undertaking an environmental-impact assessment.

The Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters have been fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline since its construction was initially re-routed away from Bismark, North Dakota, due to fears of drinking water contamination by Bismark citizens. The Standing Rock Sioux hold the same fears, and the protests have gained international attention. Credit: Facebook/Nathalie Farfan via Storyful
By Ernest Scheyder FORT YATES, N.D (Reuters) - Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said Monday that non-Sioux protesters can leave the North Dakota protest camp after the government ruled in their favor in a controversial pipeline project adjacent to their lands. "I'm asking them to go. Their presence will only cause the environment to be unsafe," he said of the non-Sioux protesters, adding that he hopes to meet with incoming-president Donald Trump to educate him about the decision made and the future of the pipeline. The Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday declined an application from Energy Transfer Partners for an easement to tunnel its pipeline under the Missouri River, near to the Standing Rock Sioux tribal lands in North Dakota. That stretch is the only section of the line that has not been completed. In an interview with Reuters at tribal headquarters in Fort Yates, North Dakota, Archambault said that even if the Trump administration looks to change the decision, nothing is going to happen through the rest of the winter before he takes office on Jan. 20. (Reporting By Ernest Scheyder in Fort Yates, North Dakota; Editing by Alden Bentley)
OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian state-controlled oil company Statoil will not resume using Airbus's H225 Super Puma helicopters even if Norway's Civil Aviation Authority decides to lift a ban imposed after a fatal crash off Norway in April, the company said on Tuesday. Recent models of Super Puma, a workhorse of the offshore oil industry, were banned from commercial traffic in Norway and Britain following the accident that killed 13 oil workers flying from a Norwegian offshore oil platform operated by Statoil. "We have no plans to use this helicopter ever again, even if the Norwegian authorities decide to lift the ban", Statoil spokesman Morten Eek said. "It doesn't matter what the Aviation Authority says. We can specify the helicopter type we want to use and we have already built up capacity with a different helicopter, the Sikorsky S-92," he added. The announcement comes after unions representing oil workers expressed concern about the H225 helicopter and asked for a permanent ban. The helicopter that crashed in April was working for Statoil and operated by Canada-based group CHC Helicopter [CHCEL.UL]. Norwegian investigators have said in preliminary findings a technical fault caused the Super Puma's main rotor blades to spin away from the aircraft, killing everyone on board. The European Aviation Safety Agency lifted a flight ban in October after Airbus contained a potential weakness inside the gearbox. But national bans on the use of recent Super Pumas for commercial traffic remain in place in Norway and Britain. Airbus Group has expressed frustration at the local bans. "I regret the timing of Statoil's comments during a difficult time for the offshore community as a whole, at a time when we are working with the Norwegian authorities and investigation team to address the specific concerns regarding the return to service of the H225 and AS332-L2 in the region," Airbus Helicopters' chief executive Guillaume Faury said on Tuesday. In October Airbus Group's finance director Harald Wilhelm suggested Britain's decision to keep the aircraft grounded was related to the country's decision to leave the European Union. Britain's Civil Aviation Authority responded, saying that the decision was purely related to safety. The Super Puma has come under scrutiny after a series of incidents linked to gearbox problems including a 2009 crash off Scotland, in which the rotor also flew off and 16 people died. Analysts and industry executives say questions are growing over the future of at least the civil version of the Super Puma, which makes up 80 percent of the total, but Airbus says it has no plans to abandon the 18-year-old program. (Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg and Tim Hepher; Editing by Louise Heavens, Greg Mahlich)
Stephen Hawking warned us about the finale of Westworld two years ago

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Stephen Hawking couldve saved Westworld from being consumed by its own technology. Humans seem to find the idea of artificial intelligence totally fascinating, and have done for as long as its been a concept. But as Stephen Hawking pointed out in an interview two years ago, the end of Westworld was inevitable.

As far as hes concerned, artificial intelligence has its applications and is useful in its current state, but developing it to the point where its true AI (i.e., Dolores reaching the center of the maze) would mean basically rendering human beings irrelevant.

Prophetic of the Westworld finale, Professor Hawking said, The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.

Which is pretty much what seems to be happening at the end of Westworld. Maybe not the end of the human race (yet), but perhaps an end to all the humans inside the park. Usually in shows or movies or books about artificial intelligence, while we definitely have sympathy for the AIs struggling to find their independence and place in the world, were usually on the side of the humans by virtue of (most of us) being them. But Westworld is relatively unique in that  dunno about you guys  were definitely #TeamDolores.

Despite the fact that AI could mean the end of life as we know it, Professor Hawking is optimistic about the outcome of AI reaching its full potential.

I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realised [sic]We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we cant know if well be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it.

We wonder if Westworld will take such an optimistic stance.

The post Stephen Hawking warned us about the finale of Westworld two years ago appeared first on HelloGiggles.
(This December 2 story was corrected to change date of camp's liberation to April 29, 1945, from May 3) OSLO (Reuters) - An iron gate from Dachau concentration camp in Germany with the notorious "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work sets you free") slogan has been found in western Norway two years after it was stolen, police said on Friday. "The gate is in okay condition and will be returned to German authorities as soon as practical," police in the western city of Bergen wrote in a statement. Police got an anonymous tip that led to the find and a source said no arrests had been made. They issued two pictures of the gate propped up in a store room, apparently intact and mostly black with some flaking paint. German authorities made a replica of the gate, 1.87 meters (6.14 feet) high and weighing 108 kg (238 lbs), which they installed at Dachau last year to mark the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation by U.S. troops on April 29, 1945. The Nazis set up the camp in Dachau outside Munich only weeks after Adolf Hitler took power. Initially designed to detain political rivals, it became the prototype for a network of concentration camps where 6 million Jews were murdered. More than 41,000 died at Dachau and more than 200,000 people had been detained in the camp by the time it was liberated at the end of World War Two. Television footage showing piles of bodies and starved inmates of the camp were among the first images the world saw of the Holocaust. In December 2009, a similar "Arbeit macht frei" sign was stolen from the entry gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland by a Swedish man with far-right ties. (Reporting by Alister Doyle and Terje Solsvik; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Kevin Liffey)
Fergie Stars in Philipp Plein Spring Campaign [Instagram]

After performing in Philipp Plein's spring 2017 presentation in Milan in September, Fergie has reunited with the designer for the spring campaign, which debuted Tuesday on Instagram. Photographed by Steven Klein, the "Alice in Ghetto Land"-themed ads feature the pop star decked out in embellished denim and leather pieces while dominating a shirtless male model.

A video posted by Philipp Plein (@philippplein78) on Dec 6, 2016 at 9:01am PST

Irina Shayk, Carolyn Murphy Front Alberta Ferretti Spring Campaign [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

For her spring campaign, Alberta Ferretti (who showed her romantic spring collection in Milan in September) enlisted models Raquel Zimmerman, Vittoria Ceretti, Irina Shayk, Julia Nobis and Carolyn Murphy to be photographed for five unique images. Each of the looks were styled by Carine Roitfeld and shot by Steven Meisel. "The summer collection celebrates sensuality," Ferretti said in a release. "The five photos tell the stories of different women, seen together to form one complete and complex woman who is independent and in love."

A photo posted by Alberta Ferretti (@albertaferretti) on Dec 6, 2016 at 11:30am PST

A photo posted by Alberta Ferretti (@albertaferretti) on Dec 6, 2016 at 9:02am PST

A photo posted by Alberta Ferretti (@albertaferretti) on Dec 6, 2016 at 2:01am PST

Good American Reports $1 Million in Sales on First Day of Launch [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

Good American, the denim brand by Khloe Kardashian and Emma Grede whose launch was reported in October, reported $1 million in sales on its first day of release. The three styles, which are available in several washes and sizes 00-24, retail for $149-$205 at Nordstrom and GoodAmerican.com.

Opening Ceremony Designs Interactive Phone Case for Google [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

Opening Ceremony designers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon are the latest to launch a collection of interactive phone cases ($40, available on Google Store) for Google as part of its Artworks Live Cases collection. The duo created five designs for Google; customers who purchase the case will have access to the other four designs as wallpaper options once the case is connected. Previous collaborators for the Artworks Live Cases include Jeff Koons and Jeremy Scott.

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Uber Partners With Tipsy Elves for Free Ugly Christmas Sweaters [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

As part of Uber's five days of gifting promotion, the ride-sharing app has partnered with ugly Christmas sweater retailer Tipsy Elves (which also supplied sweaters for Office Christmas Party, in theaters Friday) to deliver free sweaters to residents of five participating cities: New York, Boston, Dallas, Denver and Chicago. Users will be able to order a sweater through the app on Thursday, just ahead of Ugly Christmas Sweater Day on Dec. 16.

Courtesy of Uber

Iris Apfel Is Selling Her Personal Jewelry Collection on One King's Lane [Fashionista]

Sytle icon Iris Apfel, 95, is selling her personal jewelry collection on One King's Lane. More than 82 colorful pieces from her vast collection are available now for between approximately $100 and $500 on OneKingsLane.com.

Louboutin Launches Holiday Fairytale Story [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

For its holiday campaign, Christian Louboutin is launching The Shoemaker and the Stolen Stars, a short fairytale film about a designer who wishes to make shoes as beautiful as the stars. The story as well as styles from the spring 2017 collection and the ShoePeaks clutch are brought to life through a series of dreamy illustrations by Remi Wyart. The full video will be launched on Dec. 22 on ChristianLouboutin.com.

Once upon a time, in a land of darkness, where neither the stars twinkled nor the moon shone, and the sun was nowhere to be seen, an artisan lived at the top of a dark stone tower. Many years before, when he was just a young man, the artisan borrowed the stars from the sky, you see. But why had he borrowed the stars? Follow the story here on #LouboutinWorld and we shall tell you.

A video posted by Christian Louboutin (@louboutinworld) on Dec 5, 2016 at 10:41am PST
Though President-elect Donald Trumps successful anti-establishment campaign won him the White House, his unconventional style, including his use of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), have rattle some and created uncertainty about his administration. But Sun Microsystems Co-Founder Scott McNealy said Trump has been awesome at determining things that frustrate the American public the most.

Hes sort of like a Boston cab driver, he doesnt really look up, he just tweets it and drives straight ahead. Almost like reading the newspaper while hes driving. And it scares everybody to death, but I think Its a good thing to get people rallied around the ideas. McNealy told the FOX Business Networks Neil Cavuto.

According to McNealy, the uncertainty that Trump has caused is creating a opportunity for real change as he staffs up his cabinet with experienced businesspeople.

Hes created an enormous amount of uncertainty and chaos, but that gives us an opportunity to reorder and do the right things, he said.

The practical experience a business leader will bring to the White House could be a positive for the U.S. economy, McNealy said.

The worst CEO is a thousand times better than the best politician, in terms of driving us forward and driving the market economy, personal responsibility, less regulation and liberty out there in the marketplace, he said.

Though McNealy saw Trump as causing some initial chaos, he was optimistic the president-elect was surrounding himself with a team that could help build a foundation for greater economic growth.

As a developer, youve got to bring the wrecking ball in first and again, create that chaos, create the urgency and get people scared enough to move and do something about it and I think thats what hes doing, I certainly hope thats what hes doing, McNealy said.

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A kidnapping suspect in Ohio characterized as a serial abductor and a monster has been apprehended by the FBI after a six-month search, PEOPLE confirms.

Justin Christian was arrested in Lorain, Ohio, and has been charged with kidnapping and rape, according to a statement from the FBIs Cleveland Division.

Christian, 29, is suspected in the May 21 abduction of a 6-year-old girl from her Cleveland home and the attempted kidnapping of a young girl from Elyria, Ohio, in February. He is being held on an unspecified amount of bail and has not entered a plea to his charges. It was not immediately clear if he has retained an attorney.

Investigators spent the last six months tracking down Christian, FBI spokeswoman and special agent Vicki Anderson tells PEOPLE. More than 200 agents worked to build a case against Christian, according to the bureau.

He kept eluding us, Anderson says, adding that Christian allegedly scrapped his 2002 Chevy Malibu because he knew authorities were searching for it.

Investigators allege Christian entered the 10-year-old Elyria girls home on Feb. 24, unlocking several windows and doors. The next day, he allegedly returned to the home, opening the girls bedroom window and grabbing her by the legs. Christian allegedly tried pulling the girl out through the window, but she struggled with her assailant, fighting him off before making a beeline for her fathers bedroom.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

FBI agents began looking for Christian after he allegedly kidnapped a 6-year-old Cleveland girl.

Surveillance video from the nearby homes shows him loitering outside the girls home on May 14, May 15 and May 20, and police believe he was staking out the neighborhood. Investigators allege he returned before sunrise on May 21, entered the girls home and removed her from her bed as she slept.

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Christian then allegedly drove the girl to a home in an undisclosed location and sexually assaulted her.

In interviews with detectives, the young victim was able to describe the bedroom she was held in for 17 hours and recalled hearing a womans voice ask her captor if he wanted anything to eat. (Authorities do not believe that woman was aware the kidnapped girl was inside the residence.)

As night fell, Christian allegedly dropped the girl off at an intersection, according to the FBI. She walked to the nearest house, rang the doorbell and asked for help. The homeowners recognized her face from media reports and called 911.

 Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenet Ramsey and more.

According to the FBI, such stranger abductions are considered extremely rare.

Our two young victims, their families, and the community can rest easier knowing this child predator is now behind bars, said FBI Agent-in-Charge Stephen Anthony in the statement. There is no higher priority than protecting our children and thanks to the hard work, persistence, and collaboration by numerous law enforcement professionals, Justin Christian has been brought to justice and will be held accountable for these terrible crimes.

Anyone with information about Christian is asked to call 216-622-6842.




BAMAKO (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants attacked a prison in the town of Niono in central Mali overnight and freed all the prisoners, officials said on Tuesday. Militants based in northern Mali have staged a series of high-profile attacks since 2015, extending their campaign beyond their desert camps into the central and southern regions of the country and the capital. "Dozens of prisoners escaped. The army was able to catch some and is launching a pursuit," said Defence Ministry spokesman Abdoulaye Sidibe. Army spokesman Diarran Kone said the attack bore the hallmarks of followers of radical Islamist preacher Amadou Koufa. It was unclear whether there were any suspected jihadists in the prison. Last month, gunmen broke into another prison in southern Mali with the aim of releasing two inmates who had already been moved, authorities said. Islamist groups hijacked a separatist Tuareg rebellion in 2012 to seize towns in Mali's vast desert north. French forces drove them back a year later, but they have since reorganised, and in recent months launched dozens of attacks. (Reporting by Adama Diarra and Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Miami (AFP) - Americans have found a mean-spirited, tongue-in-cheek way to get even when a relationship turns bad -- send a tweet saying they hope US President-elect Donald Trump does not deport their ex, but revealing their undocumented status and even their home address.

"I hope Donald Trump doesn't deport my illegal Dominican ex," wrote @eddiecabanas, who then gave the apartment address in Kentucky, with the specific note this person lives "at the top of the stairs."

Trump took a hard line against illegal immigration during his campaign, vowing to deport more than two million undocumented immigrants with criminal records after he takes office on January 20.

His promises have raised fears of deportation among the undocumented, most of them from Latin America, and estimated at 11 million in the country.

Some universities have declared sanctuaries for undocumented people and consultations with human rights organizations and immigration lawyers have been on the rise.

In that context, spurned, disenchanted and angry former husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends and partners have taken to Twitter to attack exes, knowing that Trump, @realDonaldTrump, is an avid user of the social network.

"Oh no! Trump please dont deport my ex-boyfriend Sergio, who lives @... in Davie, Florida... apartment number...," wrote @Marco_Rosano. AFP has omitted the address details, out of privacy concerns.

The vengeful tweets -- posted by users in Florida, New York, California and across the country -- sound sarcastic, using a formula to out an ex apparently by expressing just the opposite.

"I'm afraid Trump might deport my illegal Swedish ex-gf who cheated on me twice & lives at... & keeps a hide-a-key under the mat," wrote one Twitter user.

Tweets like these are mushrooming on the internet as worries spread about deportation and anti-immigrant bias.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremism in the United States, in the 10 days following the November 8 presidential election there were 867 racist or xenophobic incidents nationwide.

Of the total, 280 -- or 32 percent -- were motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment, the nonprofit organization reported last week.
Damascus (AFP) - President Bashar al-Assad said a victory for his army in Aleppo would be a "huge step" towards ending the country's five-year civil war, as rebels in Syria's second city lost more ground.

In an interview with Syrian daily Al-Watan, published Thursday, Assad said defeating the beleaguered rebels in Aleppo would not put an end to Syria's conflict.

"It's true that Aleppo will be a win for us, but let's be realistic -- it won't mean the end of the war in Syria," Assad said.

"But it will be a huge step towards this end."

In a blistering three-week offensive, Syrian government forces have seized about 80 percent of east Aleppo, a stronghold for rebel groups since 2012.

Increasingly cornered in a pocket of territory in the city's southeast, opposition factions on Wednesday called for an "immediate five-day humanitarian ceasefire".

When asked about the possibility of a truce in Aleppo, Assad said, "it's practically non-existent, of course".

"The Americans in particular are insisting on demanding a truce, because their terrorist agents are now in a difficult situation," Assad told Al-Watan.

US Secretary of State John Kerry held fresh talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Germany Wednesday but no breakthrough emerged on efforts to halt the fighting in the devastated city.

"We intend to meet again (Thursday) morning," Kerry said after the meeting.

Asked at the start of the session about Russia's agreement for an eventual ceasefire, Lavrov said: "I am in agreement, and I confirm support for the American proposal of December 2," referring to a meeting with Kerry in Rome at which they agreed on a plan to evacuate civilians and rebels from east Aleppo and on on new cease fire.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights 19 civilians were killed in the regime bombardment of east Aleppo on Wednesday.

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- 'Complete elimination of terrorism' -

Save the Children Syria Director Sonia Khush said tens of thousands of children in Aleppo have become "sitting targets".

"It defies belief that after nearly six years of suffering through this war, the international community is still willing to stand by as civilians are bombed with seeming impunity," she added.

Assad said a rebel loss in Aleppo "will mean the transformation of the course of the war across Syria" and would leave opposition factions and their backers with "no cards left to play".

Aleppo was once known as the beating heart of culture and commerce in Syria, but the outbreak of violence there four years ago left it divided between rebels in the east and government forces in the west.

In his wide-ranging interview, Assad pledged to fight rebels even beyond Aleppo, because "the war in Syria will not end until after the complete elimination of terrorism".

"Terrorists are present elsewhere -- even if we finish with Aleppo, we will continue our war against them," he said.

- 'Only available solution' -

Assad touted local agreements between his government and rebel groups as the best way to resolve Syria's complex conflict.

Such deals have seen opposition fighters quit a string of towns around Damascus in recent months, often in exchange for an end to regime bombardment.

"It is the only available solution, in parallel with striking the terrorists. Its success has been proven over the past two to three years, and is now speeding up," Assad told Al-Watan.

He said these agreements had protected Syrian civilians and infrastructure and allowed former rebels to "return to the bosom of the state. What more could we want?"

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with widespread demonstrations but has since turned into a brutal multi-front war drawing in world powers.

Many Western countries cut ties with Damascus in 2011 and have imposed crippling economic sanctions, but Assad said he remained open to better relations with them.

"We really do want ties with every country in the world, including the West, despite our previous knowledge of their hypocrisy."
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria rejects any ceasefire negotiated by any party in rebel-held eastern Aleppo unless what it describes as terrorist groups there depart, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday in a statement carried by state media. Moscow said on Monday that Russian and U.S. officials would meet this week to discuss a possible rebel withdrawal from Aleppo. A U.S. official told Reuters that Washington would embrace that as a step to save lives. The Syrian government describes all the rebel groups fighting to bring down President Bashar al-Assad as terrorists. The insurgents include groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist militants. Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Monday for a week-long ceasefire, with Moscow arguing that rebels used such pauses in the fighting to reinforce, causing more fighting and harm to civilians. Russia, Assad's most powerful foreign supporter, has conducted a campaign of air strikes against the rebels since September 2015, including in Aleppo. It says it is targeting the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, a former al Qaeda affiliate previously known as the Nusra Front, in the city. Rebels based in Aleppo say that Fateh al-Sham is not present there in significant numbers. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
Beirut (AFP) - Syrian government troops seized five new districts of eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, including the strategic Shaar neighbourhood, a monitoring group said.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fresh advance puts the government in control of more than 70 percent of the former rebel stronghold in Aleppo's east

"Regime forces took full control of Shaar, Dahret Awad, Juret Awad, Karam al-Beik, and Karam al-Jabal," the Britain-based monitor said on Tuesday.

"The regime is cornering the rebels even further," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Backed by allied militia, Syrian troops have waged a fierce three-week assault on eastern Aleppo, a rebel bastion since 2012.

Their rapid advance has left rebels reeling in their shrinking enclave in southeast Aleppo.

Abdel Rahman told AFP the government could now wage a "war of attrition" on encircled rebel groups.

Syrian state news agency SANA confirmed that Syrian troops overran Shaar and several other districts on Tuesday.

The fall of eastern Aleppo would deal the biggest blow yet to rebel forces since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011.

The regime's campaign has been met with global outrage, but Damascus and its steadfast ally Moscow have said any ceasefire must include a guarantee that all rebel fighters leave the city.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces recaptured several areas near Aleppo's Old City from rebels on Tuesday, state media and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The neighborhoods included al-Shaar, which a rebel official said on Monday was on the verge of falling. The areas captured were mostly to the east and northeast of the Old City, but the army and its allies were also pressing forward to its southeast, state television and the Observatory reported. If government forces close the less than one-mile gap between the Old City's citadel and a neighborhood to the east, it will seal off another pocket of rebel control and significantly reduce opposition-held territory that has shrunk rapidly in recent weeks. The recapture of Aleppo, long divided between government and opposition control in the country's nearly six-year civil war, is a strategic prize sought by President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Russia, Iran and Shi'ite fighters from Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. It was Syria's second-largest city before the war. Tens of thousands of civilians are believed to remain trapped in eastern, rebel-held areas which are being bombarded by government forces. (Reporting by John Davison and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
By John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Syria's army and allies pushed into rebel-held parts of Aleppo's Old City on Tuesday, a monitoring group said, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year-old civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold. A rebel official said they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats were preparing to discuss the surrender and evacuation of insurgents from territory they have held for years. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal would begin in Geneva as soon as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But sources familiar with the plans later told Reuters no talks would take place this week in the Swiss city. The rebels, who controlled large parts of eastern Aleppo for nearly five years, have lost around two thirds of their territory in the city over the past two weeks. Government forces entered rebel-held parts of the Old City late on Tuesday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported. A rebel official denied they had entered but said the army and its allies were trying to enter and battles continued. A military source said troops were "advancing in that direction". The government now appears closer to victory in the city than at any point since 2012, the year after rebels took up arms to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world's worst refugee crisis. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a week-long ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce. Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in rebel-held districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometers (miles) across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to government-controlled areas of the city, on Tuesday described "a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo". "There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians), there's no electricity and little internet access," said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters. Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation. But despite Lavrov's announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a U.S. official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations. Were not going to negotiate this publicly, the official said on condition of anonymity. Rebels have told U.S. officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week. "The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay ... we said this is our city, and we will defend it," Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters on Tuesday. The Cold War-era superpowers have backed opposing sides in the war, but Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'ite groups to back Assad. Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a U.S.-backed military aid program to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad's government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favor over the past year. The army said it had taken over areas to the east of the Old City including al-Shaar, Marja and Karm al-Qaterji, bringing them closer to cutting off another pocket of rebel control. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Shaar and some other areas had been taken, but did not immediately confirm the takeover of all the areas announced by the army. A Turkey-based rebel official denied al-Shaar had been taken but said fighting continued in the neighborhood. Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. The Observatory said a heavy Syrian and Russian aerial bombardment in the last three days in the mostly rebel-held Idlib province to the southwest had killed more than 100 people. WINTER IS COMING The rebels' loss of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the war, would be the biggest victory of the conflict so far for Assad, securing his grip on all Syria's main cities. It would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow's ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi'ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad. U.N. official Jens Laerke said: "Winter is approaching, it's already getting very, very cold so that has come up as a priority need ... Food is running out, the little food that is available is being sold at extremely inflated prices." While rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government assaults. Insurgents, meanwhile, have fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place on Monday within a kilometer (half a mile) of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City. With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets, the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting. Apart from their support for rebels fighting against Assad, Western countries are also taking part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group which broke away from other anti-Assad groups to proclaim a caliphate in territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. Moscow says helping Assad is the best way to defeat Islamic State. Western countries say the group gains strength from the fury unleashed by Assad's military crackdown on his enemies. France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, will convene foreign ministers of like-minded countries in Paris on Saturday to try to come up with some form of strategy in the wake of the Aleppo onslaught, although few diplomats expect anything concrete to be achieved. Western countries say that even if government forces take Aleppo, they will still not be able to end the conflict, as long as millions of Syrians see the government as a brutal enemy. "Aleppo falls, but the war goes on," said one U.S. official. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, John Irish in Paris, Angus McDowall, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Jonathan Landay, Yeganeh Torbati and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Peter Millership; Editing by Peter Graff and James Dalgleish)
Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen said Tuesday that her controversial phone conversation with President-elect Donald Trump four days ago does not indicate a policy shift and instead reflected a way for her to express [her] respect for the U.S. election.

Speaking to a small group of journalists in Taipei, Taiwans capital, Tsai Ing-wen said that one phone call does not mean a policy shift and instead was a way of congratulating Trump on his victory. I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region, she added, according to The Washington Post.

Last Friday, Trump went where no U.S. commander-in-chief had gone since diplomatic relations were restored with China in 1979by speaking directly to President Tsai Ing-wen. The island-state of 23 million is essentially an independent country but Beijing still considers it a renegade province to be reclaimed by force if necessary.

Following the 10-minute conversation, which Trump confirmed on Twitter, Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying that China firmly opposes any official interaction or military contact between [the] U.S. and Taiwan, Chinese state media reported. China also approached the Obama administration for clarification, though White House officials declined to reveal the details of what was said.
After days of frenzied speculation, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has said the historic phone call she shared with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump does not augur a change in the islands policy toward mainland China.

I have to stress that one phone call does not mean a policy shift, said Tsai in a Dec. 6 interview. The phone call was a way for us to express our respect for the U.S. election as well as congratulate President-elect Trump on his win. Tsai made the remarks to a small group of American journalists visiting the Taiwanese capital on a reporting trip organized by the East-West Center in Hawaii.

Trump has had phone calls with many world leaders since winning the Nov. 8 election, but this was different  the 10-minute conversation marked the first time a U.S. president and a Taiwanese president have had direct contact since relations between the United States and Taiwan were cut off in 1979. The United States adheres to the One China policy and recognizes Beijing as the sole head of government of that China. Although the United States maintains a representative office (short of an embassy) in Taipei, government officials do not refer to Taiwan as a country and do not refer to its elected leader as president. Trumps conversation with Tsai broke decades of tradition, and in a tweet, he also referred to Tsai as the president of Taiwan.

Many U.S. China hands declared the move reckless and detrimental to the bilateral relationship. Catching China by surprise on some of the most sensitive and longstanding areas of disagreement in our relationship, said Paul Haenle, who directs the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, presents enormous risks and potential detriment for this consequential relationship. The New Yorkers Evan Osnos wrote that China will regard this as a deeply destabilizing event.

Chinese analysts had similar views. This is a wake-up call for Beijing, Wang Dong, an associate professor at Peking Universitys School of International Studies, told the New York Times on Dec. 3. We should buckle up for a pretty rocky six months or year in the China-U.S. relationship.

Story continues

Others explained the phone call as typical Trumpian disregard for protocol and tradition, contending that it does not signal any strategic change in U.S. policy. As one colorful Dec. 4 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal put it, the U.S. media, still unaccustomed to Trumps tendency to break with protocol, had their 19th nervous breakdown Friday after the phone call was announced.

The view from Taiwan, however, is significantly different. On the one hand, Beijing is capable of wielding huge influence over Taiwans economy and trade relations, if it wishes to do so. China is Taiwans largest trading partner; 40 percent of the islands exports go to the mainland. When Tsai took office in May, she declined to explicitly affirm the 1992 consensus, a vague statement agreed between Beijing and Taipei affirming the existence of only one China (without, however, specifying which China is the real one) and which serves as the current foundation of peaceful cross-strait relations. Smarting from Tsais sin of omission, Beijing slowed down the flow of mainland tourists to Taiwan, which squeezed the local economy. The Chinese Communist Party could further choke off tourism to Taiwan to retaliate against Tsais call and could also pursue measures to further isolate Taiwan on the international stage, such as putting pressure on foreign countries to reject free trade agreements with Taiwan.

But on the other hand, Taiwans very existence as an autonomous entity displeases China; ceasing to push back at Beijing presents an even greater existential risk. If Taiwan keeps giving way, it faces the prospect of being entirely subsumed by China, slice by slice. Pushing back against the mainland is in Taiwans DNA. Any government that refuses to maintain sustainable autonomy from China is likely to be toppled by a populace that is well-aware its own freedom is at stake.

Taiwanese officials emphasize that although they seek to maintain stable relations, they will not compromise on their own core interests. Since May, China has put pressure on Taiwan in a coercive way, said Chiu Chui-cheng, the deputy minister of Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council. Our promise to the mainland is never changed. We will not succumb to pressure from the mainland side.

Tsai certainly took some risk in pursuing contact with the U.S. president-elect, but its less risky than it seems, according to Yen Chen-shen, an international relations scholar at National Chengchi University in Taipei. The previous detente under the KMT [Kuomintang] and Ma Ying-jeou government of 2008 to 2016 already came to an end, Yen told Foreign Policy, referring to the former presidents conciliatory policies toward Beijing that led to historically smooth cross-strait relations. Even though there appears to be low possibility of military conflicts across the Taiwan Strait, the existence of cold war is a reality we are facing already regardless of the phone call.

Beijings ire has been directed largely at Taiwan rather than the United States. Beijing has been critical of Tsai, who is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party; the Communist Party had preferred the more Beijing-friendly KMT candidate. It was, after all, the KMT that had hashed out the 1992 consensus in the first place. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed Taiwan for the call. According to a post attributed to the Foreign Ministry, Wang said, This is just the Taiwan side engaging in a petty action, and [it] cannot change the One China structure already formed by the international community. Wang continued: 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.

Tsai is, at heart, a technocrat. She is cautious, and she operates through policy, not impulse. News that Trump advisors had planned the phone call for weeks and even months in advance suggests that Tsai knew she wouldnt be taking a blind step  nor an overly risky one. It now seems Tsai aimed for a symbolic move that would raise Taiwans profile on the international stage without crossing Beijings red line by making actual moves toward greater independence. As she told FP on Dec. 6, I do not foresee major policy shifts in the future because we all see the value of stability in the region.

Any leader of Taiwan would do this, if you have the opportunity, Szu-chien Hsu, the president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, told FP. As a responsible Taiwanese leader, how could you reject this opportunity?

Tsais bold move has proved popular at home, and it may help shore up her flagging approval rating. Even so, the news cycle will soon move on, and Taiwan is likely to find itself in the same international position as it was before  but with an antagonized neighbor 100 miles to the west. It remains to be seen if the call will really have been worth the trouble.

Photo credit: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
We need to talk about Jennifer Lawrences early red carpet appearances (because they are perfection)

We look to Jennifer Lawrence as a sort of handbook on how celebs should behave. Her charm, her wit, even the movie roles she takes add to her undeniable charisma. Shes handled a leaked photo scandal with grace and pride as well as a few award snubs, and as far back as we can remember shes always brought Hollywood glam to the red carpet. But what about back before we can remember? You know, like Winters Bone-era Jennifer Lawrence, when she was nominated in 2010 and juuust beginning to get recognized as a big-time talent wrapped in girl-next-door packaging. Thankfully, theres the internet, and people whose jobs it is to document the very first time celebs like JLaw ever stepped a Target-brand ballerina flat on the red carpet.

Lets do a little lighthearted star-stalking, shall we?



15th Annual Movieguide Faith and Values Awards

Mirek Towski / WireImage

Heres Jennifer at the 15th Annual Movieguide Faith and Values Awards in 2007. Jen was just starting out, starring in small TV roles in shows like Medium and Monk. Lawrence is just 17 in this pic, and look how happy she is to be at a real official event! The kitten heels and updo serve some major Sweet 16-party realness. RIP the 2000s!

Patrick McMullan Archives

Um, can we talk about the flower head-wrap? This pic is from 2008, when JLaw attended the 6th Annual Teen Vogue Young Hollywood Party in Los Angeles, but it could easily be from today. In fact, were pretty sure Forever 21 is still selling hair accessories like these today. Peep those peep-toes, this asymmetrical shift dress and contrasting clutch. Somebodys feeling herself.

14th Annual Hollywood Awards Gala

Okay, the magic is starting to happen. This is 2010, at the 14th Annual Hollywood Awards Gala held at The Beverly Hilton hotel. Jennifer is giving us some major Ariel-wrapped-in-a-sheet vibes here, and we are loving it. The smolder is coming along nicely.

The year is 2011, the place: Palm Springs. Here comes JLaw in a dress that subtly nods to her X-Men: First Class character Mystique, the role that arguably won her the breakout role of Katniss Everdeen.

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83rd Annual Academy Awards - Arrivals

Another 2011 look, but a classic. Remember this Jessica Rabbit inspired slinky red gown? This was at the Academy Awards the year she filmed the stellar Silver Linings Playbook, although the film wouldnt be out for another year. Youre looking at a I made out with Bradley Cooper last week glow, ladies and gents.

39th Annual People's Choice Awards - Press Room

Cut to 2013, a brunette Jen attends the 39th Annual Peoples Choice Awards in a questionable number consisting of black sequins and a drop shoulder. Were all about a little sparkle in front of the camera, but whats with the glittery espadrilles? This isnt too long ago, so maybe we could still ask her what the thought process was with this one.

And finally, last year at the The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 premiere in Los Angeles. Jens summery pixie is growing out, and she stuns in yet another all-white (a trend, we think) gown with some gold embellishment. Jennifer Lawrence reminds us that confidence is all you need to rock whatever look youre feeling at the moment even if its metallic blue and kitten heels.

The post We need to talk about Jennifer Lawrences early red carpet appearances (because they are perfection) appeared first on HelloGiggles.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / Tauriga Sciences, Inc. (OTC PINK: TAUG) ("Tauriga" or the Company"), a company engaged in building businesses in the life sciences space, today announced that it has filed its Form 10-Q for the period ending September 30, 2016 (the Second Quarter Report of Fiscal Year 2017" or the "Second Quarter Report") and, as a result, becomes current in its periodic reporting requirements with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") for the first time since July 2015. As previously disclosed, the Company was delisted from the OTCQB as a result of its failure to file its Form 10-K for the period ended March 31, 2015 due to what the Company firmly believes to be malpractice committed by its predecessor audit firm. Since that time, the Company has fought with extreme determination to become current in its SEC periodic report filings.

While the due date for the Second Quarter Report had originally been November 14, 2016, the Company expects it will be timely in filing its Form 10-Q for the period ending December 31, 2016 (the "Third Quarter Report of Fiscal Year 2017" or the "Third Quarter Report") as well as all subsequent SEC filings.

As a result of this important corporate development, the Company has stopped accumulating additional liquidated damages arising from the July 31, 2015 delisting. The liquidated damages assessed to the Company which have accrued have been included in its ongoing litigation against its predecessor audit firm, Cowan Gunteski & Co. PA ("Cowan Gunteski").

In the short term the Company intends to discuss the uplisting of its shares, with OTC Markets, to the OTCQB Exchange (a conference call has been set up for Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 2:00 pm EST). Additionally, Tauriga believes being current in its filings with the SEC will aid in financing activities and is hopeful that will be a positive development for the Company and its shareholders. The Company is working diligently to fund its new business initiative in the natural wellness space and well as potential acquisition opportunities that had been previously impractical to contemplate.

With respect to the Company's ongoing litigation against Cowan Gunteski, Tauriga continues to progress towards its goal of trying the case in front of a jury in Federal District Court New Jersey. The Company has been focused on compiling its expert reports to help quantify both direct and collateral damages suffered by shareholders. The Company remains highly confident in the strength of its case as well as the evidentiary records and expects that it will seek at trial, monetary damages that exceed $4,000,000 USD. There can be no guaranty, however, that the ultimate outcome will be successful for the Company.

Tauriga's CEO, Mr. Seth M. Shaw expressed, "Tauriga Sciences has clearly understood for the past 18 months the importance of becoming current with its periodic SEC reports. This has posed a substantial handicap to the Company with respect to its efforts to restore and create shareholder value. At this time, the Company can now re-focus its efforts on funding operations, winning the lawsuit, and progressing towards the point at which it can hopefully generate meaningful revenue. The Company wishes to thank all of its shareholders for the support it has received under circumstances that were both difficult and undeserved."

NON SOLICITATION:

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of these securities, nor will there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale is not permitted. Any securities offered or issued in connection with the above-referenced merger and/or investment have not been registered, and will be offered pursuant to an exemption from registration.

DISCLAIMER:

Forward-Looking Statements: Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation: expectations, expects, anticipates, believes, hopes, beliefs, plans and objectives regarding the development, use and marketability of products as well as the attainment of certain corporate goals and milestones (i.e. SEC Periodic Filings, Filing of Proxies, etc). Such forward-looking statements are based on present circumstances and on Tauriga's predictions with respect to events that have not occurred, that may not occur, or that may occur with different consequences and timing than those now assumed or anticipated. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from the events or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include general economic and business conditions, the ability to successfully develop and market products, consumer and business consumption habits, the ability to fund operations and other factors over which Tauriga has little or no control. Such forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this release, and Tauriga assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Readers should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and other factors are discussed in documents filed from time to time by Tauriga with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release does not and shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of any offer to buy any of the securities, nor shall there be any sale of the securities, in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state. The securities have not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration, or an applicable exemption from registration, under the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws.

Contact:

Tauriga Sciences, Inc.

Mr. Seth Shaw

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: 1-917-796-9926

Email: sshaw@tauriga.com

SOURCE: Tauriga Sciences, Inc.
Photo credit: Facebook / Twitter

From Cosmopolitan

A 15-year-old in Lawrence, Massachusetts has been arrested and charged for the murder of his high school classmate, whose decapitated body was found by the Merrimack River north of Boston last week.

Photo credit: Facebook

On Saturday, Mathew Borges was charged with murdering and decapitating 16-year-old Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino, who first went missing on Nov. 18 after he left his grandmother's house but never returned home.



"It's shocking, it's heartbreaking," Lawrence Police Chief James Fitzpatrick said during a news conference. "I haven't seen anything like this in my career and I hope to never see anything like it again."



The decapitated and severely mutilated body of Viloria-Paulino was discovered by a woman walking her dog last Thursday. Police reportedly discovered the victim's head nearby to the body; however, Viloria-Paulino's forearms had also been cut off, and it's unclear if officers were able to recover them, as well.

Photo credit: Facebook

"There's no words," the victim's mother Katiuska Paulino told the Boston Herald. "No words ... There's nothing I can say that is going to change anything at all."



People reports that Borges "allegedly stabbed and mutilated Lees body so severely that his autopsy took 11 hours." Multiple sources report that the teens both attended Lawrence High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but the extent of their relationship and a motive for the gruesome murder still remains unclear.



Mugshot of Mathew Borges, 15, accused of killing, decapitating Lee Viloria-Paulino, 16, his classmate at Lawrence High. pic.twitter.com/bzgXWnEYRt - Laurel J. Sweet (@Laurel_Sweet) December 5, 2016

Borges reportedly told police that he had last seen Viloria-Paulino alive after the two went down to the river to smoke marijuana Nov. 18 before parting ways. However, a police report suggests that the 15-year-old confessed to the murder to a witness.



Story continues

"A witness told investigators that Mathew told him he did something bad," a police report states, according to the Washington Post. "Mathew then told him that he stabbed a kid and cut his head off, killing him. When Mathew said this he was motioning with his hands as if he was stabbing someone and cutting someone's head off. Mathew then walked out of the house."



Borges is currently being held without bail and will be due back in court Jan. 10. He is being tried as an adult.

Additional reporting from the Associated Press.



Follow Gina on Twitter.



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Tenet Healthcare Corporation THC recently signed a new three-year agreement with Centene Corp. CNC to enable the members of the latter and its newly acquired unit  Health Net  access Tenet Healthcares hospitals, outpatient centers and employed physicians in 18 states.

Tenet Healthcare has also inked an agreement with UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH to renew and extend their national relationship for four years.

Tenet Healthcare remains focused on inorganic growth strategies. Numerous mergers, acquisitions, alliances and partnerships have helped the company to leverage on a strong revenues base and solid earnings.

However, the stock price movement has not been much favorable for the company year to date. The Tenet Healthcare stock has lost 49.3% and substantially underperformed the Zacks categorized Medical-Hospitals industry, which has declined just 9.8%.We do not expect any respite in the near term owing to an uncertainty prevailing in the hospital industry as President-elect Donald Trump intends to repeal ObamaCare.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) under Obama greatly benefitted the hospital company by increasing the number of insured population and led to a decline in bad debts, which is unfavorable for the companies in this sector. Now that Trump intends to repeal most parts of the act, Universal HeTenet Healthcare is concerned regarding the new act and its effect on earnings.

Coming back, under the new contract with Centene, which will be effective from Jan 1, 2017, all insurance products of Centene and Health Net will be combined into a single contract. The deal comprises Health Insurance Marketplace/Exchange, TRICARE, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, Medicare-Medicaid Dual Eligible and the Department of Veterans Affairs Patient-Centered Community Care Program (PC3) products. This strategic alliance is expected to offer sustained network coverage of high-quality healthcare services to the members of both the companies.

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The agreement with UnitedHealth Group, on the other hand, enables the commercial and Medicare Advantage plan participants of the former to access to Tenet Healthcares hospitals, outpatient centers and employed physicians across the country. The new agreement, which is scheduled to be effective from Aug 1, 2017, comprises a value-based care component that rewards providers for providing efficient and quality care.

The alliance with UnitedHealth Group, one of the leading health benefit plan providers in the U.S, is expected to benefit Tenet Healthcare by enhancing focus on the changing healthcare needs of its customers. The agreement will make way for convenient, low cost yet premium quality solutions for optimum health.

Another company that has recently been leveraged by the strong value proposition of UnitedHealth Group is CVS Health Corporation CVS, whose retail division  CVS Pharmacy  partnered with UnitedHealth Groups OptumRx.

Zacks Rank

Tenet Healthcare presently carries Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here .

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If it is our fate to be the last flicker of the Jewish candle in Kolkata, then so be it.

Everyone agrees that Kolkata is one of Indias most beautiful cities. But not many know that a majority of the landmarks in the city were built not by the British, but by members of the Jewish community. Once several thousands strong, the community in the city is now down to just over 20 members.

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Immediately after the second world war, countries like Austalia and Canada opened their doors to immigrants from around the world. This, along with the formation of the state of Israel, spurred thousands of Jews to leave the country and go back to their homeland. Many gave up great jobs in India, just to live in tents in Israel.

Despite their diminished numbers, the Jews of Kolkata still own three Synagogues, three schools and a cemetary in Narkeldanga. Members of the community are now reaching out to Jewish communities in Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States, to see if they would help to manage Jewish affairs in the city. Members of the community are resigned to the fact that they may be the last generation of Jews in Kolkata. The way they see it, its the citys loss.

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101 Traces looks at the last of anything: ethnic communities, folk craftsmen, disappearing trades, forgotten people. It sketches portraits of these unique individuals, locked in a battle they cannot win: a battle against the future. Together, they represent the dying whispers of ancient heritage and traditional individuality. As India moves towards homogenized global pop culture, 101 Traces honors the people, the objects, and the skills that connect us to our ancient identity.
How a quiet paradise turned into a bustling market vibe.

The moment I saw the picture of the exotic blue-green waters of Devkund waterfalls posted by a travel company, I made up my mind to visit it.

In some way, the setting of the place with its azure waters and towering rocks reminded me of the Danny Boyle off the grid flick, The Beach.

The post called for trekking and road trip enthusiasts to join in for a one day trip to the waterfall. A quick Google search didnt reveal much about the place or how to get there. It really must be secluded, I thought. A couple of hours trek from the nearest village Bhira would take me to this hidden paradise. By the looks of it I was certain that this would be virgin territory with little human related disorder. I did not make it for the trip however.

Azure waters of the Devkund waterfalls

Life went on. Demonetisation hit. I got back to ranting on Facebook about long ATM queues. And then one day I stumbled upon another post by the travel company. It was an overnight trip to the falls. All right. Definitely going to join them this time even though Im not a big fan of travelling with groups.

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I booked online for the trek that included stay and food for my partner and me. The trip would start the following evening with a one night halt at a farmhouse and an early morning trek to the waterfalls. The plan was to meet the gang at Kalamboli McDonalds around the Pune Expressway at 4 pm. Enough time to sort out my chores in the morning, I figured. Withdraw some cash, tune my Thunderbird and pack some essentials for the trip.

With the gang before the trek

Come Saturday morning I rushed to my bank. Big mistake. Although an unavoidable one. I joined the queue to cash my cheque at 9.30 am and got my money in hand at 2.30 pm. By then my head was hot enough to fry a sunny side up on it. My partner was already nursing thoughts about ditching the plan. No way in hell, I insisted. Especially after wasting five hours to get cash for the trip.

Story continues

By the time we left Bombay it was already 4 pm.

By the way, Google maps navigator, if youre listening; people on bikes cannot enter the expressway for gods sake!

The location map was constantly directing me towards the expressway. Being on a bike I had to constantly ignore it and depend on good old word-of-mouth assistance from the locals to reach the farmhouse.

Stories and music doing the campfire round

THE NIGHT BEFORE:

After a dusty, unpaved and dark stretch of road ahead of Imagica, we finally reached the laidback farmhouse at a place called Pali Ganpati. The folks running the travel company, Sharad and Gunjan, met us at the entrance of the farmhouse and showed us to our dorm-like rooms.

Farmhouse graffiti

Electronic music was playing. Some folks were sipping beer and passing around a spliff. We instantly connected with these travellers. The property with its hammocks and art infused walls and a campfire in the making was good enough for me to breathe easy.

Following a quick introduction and briefing, we parked ourselves by the campfire for some booze, music and stories.

Sunrise at the river behind the farmhouse

We had decided on a 10 pm deadline to hit the bed so we could wake up fresh. But storytelling, drinks and sharing a spliff kept us up way past midnight.

We woke up to filter coffee and following a quick breakfast, left for Bhira, 40 kms away.

Early morning ride to Bhira village

Few bikers who didnt make it the night before joined in the morning. A rustic cavalcade of sorts.

THE TREK

The village on the banks of the scenic Bhira River is where the wheels come to a stop and legs take over.

The monsoon green is now a field of gold

A major part of the trek takes us through some semi-dried forests (this time of the year) with the river running parallel to us while sometimes crisscrossing through our route.

Be ready for some mosquito bites if you decide to take a break in the forest during the trek, which is 4 kms each way.

Taking an odomos break

The final part being an inclination that will make you break into a sweat. As the destination approached we could hear the faint rush of the waterfalls. My anticipation grew as I was curious to see this water body, so close to, but undiscovered from Mumbai. Although I had faith, my skeptical partner felt there was a chance the picture was photoshopped.

This is not going to be easy during the monsoon

The thing about Devkund falls is that you dont see it until you actually reach the spot. Much like the Taj Mahal, the magnanimity of the structure hits you only when you cross the arch entrance towards it.

Sit up here for a complete view

DEVKUND FALLS

At first glance the pencil thin falls making their way between the towering rocks into the sublime waters and look like a drop of heaven. The colours were real. See, I told you; I sniggered elatedly at Megha.

I wasnt kidding about the colour of the water

A bunch of youngsters from Mumbai were already there, but ready to leave. I wasnt too pleased to see more people around. They had camped there the night before.

It was time to test the waters and it was fucking cold. I saw one of us dive in with his GoPro. I took my time; legs first. In the end it was one of the most refreshing swims Ive ever had, with the side effect of a brain freeze, especially when I settled down right under the falls. We had two hours to spend. A few of us climbed to a nearby vantage point to get some panoramic photos of the falls. We snacked; some had a powernap on the rocks following the swim. Everything was peaceful and right with the world. I had forgotten about the sweltering heat back home, the cashless people, the long lines and the fact that I had Rs 2000 notes which had been kind of useless ever since I received them.

My reverie broke when all of a sudden people started pouring in. There were families, young kids, old, kids, aunties, uncles and more.

In no time the place looked more crowded than Dadar vegetable market. How? Why? What the?

For some reason, we like to make a commotion in a quiet, natural place drowning out the sounds of the waterfalls.

Secret waterfall? Well, not anymore!

Thankfully, it was time for us to head back.

People were still coming in like ants on a food hunt. This influx of trekkers was actually causing sporadic traffic jams in the forest path. I guess this happens only in India. Maybe in the near future we might need traffic lights in forests? Brrr. I shudder.

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The final highlight was having lunch at the home of one of the villagers. The food was exactly what I hoped for. Spicy chicken curry, fresh cucumber and tomato salad and some rustic vegetarian offerings with chapatti, rice and papad served by our humble and gracious village folks.

We hugged and said our goodbyes and dispersed. And then it was full throttle back to peaceful (in comparison) Mumbai for me and my fellow KTM biker.

Would I go back to Devkund falls? Definitely! Would I camp overnight? Definitely! Would I wait brave people pouring in for their day trip? A resounding, no!



101 Devkund

1. Get there early to beat the crowd.

2. Mosquito repellent is a good idea.

3. Lunch at a villagers house.

4. Definitely recommend a swim.

5. Pack snacks and water and take leftovers back with you.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are independent views solely of the author(s) expressed in their private capacity and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of 101india.com

By Mohan KK

Photographs by Mohan KK
sing sing correctional facility new york

Black inmates who go before the New York State Board of Parole have a dramatically lower chance for release than white inmates, a recent New York Times investigation found.

As part of a broader analysis into racial disparities in the New York state prison system, the Times reviewed three years' worth of parole decisions for male inmates, and found that one in four white inmates are released at their first parole hearings, while fewer than one in six black or Latino inmates are released.

Between 2013 and 2016, the board released 30% of white inmates who were convicted of property crimes, but just 18% of their black peers. The disparity is even more obvious among young inmates  with 30% of white inmates under 25 being released, and just 14% of black and Latino inmates.

The Times also compared the parole outcomes of several pairs of inmates with similar criminal histories and convictions, but different racial backgrounds and parole outcomes.

In one such case, the Times compared two inmates interviewed by separate parole commissioners at different times, but both with histories of petty crime and diagnosed mental illnesses. They even made similar pleas to the parole board, explaining that they didn't want to spend their lives in prison.

John Kelly, who was white, was homeless when he was arrested on charges of shoplifting from a Duane Reade. Darryl Dent, who was black, told the board he had been "confused" and hearing voices when he stole a wallet in a Manhattan church.

Kelly was granted parole. Dent was told his release would be "incompatible with the welfare of society."

Transcripts of board hearings also demonstrated how rushed and disorganized the parole hearing process can be, with dozens of inmates being brought before the board and given just 10-minute interviews, often over a video conference rather than in person.

"We were a mess," parole board commissioner Marc Coppola said in one videotaped board meeting in September. "We didn't even know who was in the chair."

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The understaffed board is also composed of predominantly white commissioners, many of whom earn six-figure salaries and have no background in rehabilitation. Meanwhile, the inmates they interview are mostly black and Latino.

A spokesman for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that his administration is a "strong proponent of bringing more diversity" to the parole board.

The Times notes that it's impossible to determine whether race factors into each individual parole decision, but a pattern of racial inequality is evident from the data.

Read the full New York Times report here 

NOW WATCH: 'That hypocrisy is also real'  Jon Stewart takes liberals to task for calling all Trump supporters racist





More From Business Insider


TUNIS (Reuters) - Several thousand Tunisian lawyers demonstrated on Tuesday in front of the prime minister's office, with some demanding his resignation as they escalated a protest against widely unpopular new taxes that will hit them and other high-end professions. Under a budget draft approved by parliament's finance committee on Monday, lawyers will pay tax of between about $8 to $20 on each file they present to court. The levy is part of austerity measures proposed for 2017 by a government under pressure from international lenders to cut the fiscal deficit. According to a Reuters witness some 3,500 of the country's 8,500 lawyers joined the protest in Tunis which, coming on top of an open-ended strike that the profession launched on Monday, will test the government's resolve to implement its reforms. The budget draft also includes a public sector wage freeze, in protest at which the UGTT union - the country's biggest - has called a general strike for Thursday. Sources told Reuters that the union was likely to cancel the planned strike after a new offer from the government. At Tuesday's protest, lawyers chanted: "We reject this unjust law" with some demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. Anxious to revive a struggling economy, the government has sent a budget to parliament that also includes higher company taxes and new taxes on other professions including medics and engineers. Chahed, who became prime minister in August, has proposed a broad package of initiatives to cut spending, spur growth and create jobs. But many Tunisians worry that taxes and austerity measures will exacerbate the economic difficulties they have experienced since an uprising in 2011. Last week Chahed called the 2017 budget the most controversial in Tunisia's history, but said his government "had the courage to begin these reforms in order to balance our public finances". Several other sectors have held or threatened strikes, while the UTICA industry and business employers' association, a major economic lobbying group, has rejected a proposed exceptional tax contribution on business. (Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Aidan Lewis and John Stonestreet)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Federal and local Los Angeles officials said on Monday a "specific" threat had been called in from another country against the city's Red Line commuter rail system, prompting them to alert the public.

"This threat is imminent ... it is very specific," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told an evening press conference. "But the credibility still needs to be vetted."

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Leslie Adler)
In the Friday episode of ABCs Last Man Standing, Tim Allens character tackled microaggressions on college campuses.

According to KSFO, Allen is asked in the episode to speak at his daughters business schools graduation ceremony, but must submit his speech beforehand so it can be examined for any microaggressions or objectionable words or phrases.

I know what microaggressions are, Allens character Mike Baxter says. Its the liberal attack on free speech and a lot of fun if you do them right.

Also Read: 'Last Man Standing' Sneak Peek: Jay Leno Returns as Guest Star (Exclusive Photos)

When Baxter begins to read his speech, his daughter immediately scolds him for using the phrase, ladies and gentlemen at the beginning of the statement.

No, uh, you cant say, Ladies and gentlemen,' Mandy (Molly Ephraim) says. Because it excludes those who dont identify as either.

Also Read: ABC Renews 'Last Man Standing,' Picks Up Minnie Driver Pilot 'Speechless' to Series

Baxter is stunned, saying that he thought there were only two genders. He then later reads his PC version of the speech to his wife Vanessa (Nancy Travis)  who unfortunately also finds his speech problematic.

To quote future Nobel Prize winner Lee Greenwood, Im proud to be an American, Mike reads. Not just because I have the right to speak my mind or carry an awesome gun, but because its the land of opportunity. Some whiny babies might not think so, but in America, if you work hard, anyone can be successful.

The thought police are never gonna approve that speech, she tells him.

Watch the clips below.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Jay Leno to Appear on Tim Allen's 'Last Man Standing'

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'Duck Dynasty' Stars to Guest on ABC's 'Last Man Standing'
Time Warner plans to boost HBOs programming budget, just as rivals including Netflix are doing, CEO Jeff Bewkes told an investor gathering today.

We have a pretty hefty budget, a couple of billion dollars, he told the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference. Were not spending our programming money on library product. Were doing original shows.  Weve been increasing it, and well keep increasing it.

The plans wont be hurt by AT&Ts new decision to offer HBO to DirecTV Now customers for an additional $5 a month  a surprisingly low amount.

Acknowledging that the pricing arrangements are complicated, Bewkes said Time Warner just controls HBOs wholesale price.

A lot of times the distributors have priced it very high in order to drive other pay TV services they bundled with it, he said. But Time Warner always wanted to [offer] HBO in a more affordable price range.  Its all aimed at providing good retail offerings for consumers.

RelatedAT&T Chief Offers Magna Carta For Time Warner Merger With Vows To Compete

The CEO offered nothing new about the status of AT&Ts $85 billion plan to buy Time Warner. He expects it to be done by the end of 2017, if not sooner.

Bewkes reiterated his belief that the union will motivate everybody including the cable operators to increase their capabilities to offer high-priced advertising targeted to specific viewers.

Its good for programming development and helps to take the burden of paying for media and puts it on advertising, which he says has been focused on two companies: Google and Facebook.

Speaking of the ad market, Bewkes said scatter pricing is up by a double-digit percentage versus the upfront market. Time Warner will be basically flat in Q4 with pressure overseas as local currencies lose value vs the strong dollar.

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Responding to questions about other parts of the company, Bewkes defended the approaches Warner Bros took to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad that irked some critics and fans.

We were launching new characters, he said. So we had triple duty to do: launching those characters and producing a good film. I dont think we fell short by a giant amount.

RelatedCNN Tops Cable News Target Ratings For First Time In 15 Years

The CEO also talked up CNN for having a killer year. It wasnt just due to coverage of the U.S. presidential election.

Its global news, not just American, and theres more going on in the world than things that go through the political process, he said. In addition to investing in global news coverage, CNN has built its Internet offerings.

We are the leading source of digitally accessed news around the world, Bewkes told the conference. In addition, CNN created a lot of great original shows, and almost all of them worked.

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Let this be a lesson to always believe in yourself, kids.

In a new interview with Esquire UK, Tom Hardy revealed that he made a bet with his The Revenant co-star Leonardo DiCaprio prior to the 2016 Academy Awards. DiCaprio predicted Hardy would get a nomination for his sinister role in the movie, but Hardy bet against himself, ironically losing the wager by winning an Oscar nomination for his supporting role.

READ: Tom Hardy Perfectly Shuts Down a Reporter Who Asks a Sexist Question About 'Mad Max: Fury Road'

The two agreed that the loser of the bet would have to get a tattoo of the winner's choosing, and DiCaprio's design is quite a doozy.

"He wrote, in this really s****y handwriting: 'Leo knows everything,'" Hardy told the magazine. "Ha! I was like, 'OK, I'll get it done, but you have to write it properly.'"

It's been 11 months since the nominations were announced, but Hardy has yet to follow through. He said that he has procrastinated on getting the ink simply "because it sucks."

READ: Charlize Theron Reveals It Was Rough Working With Tom Hardy on 'Mad Max: Fury Road'

While both Hardy and DiCaprio earned nominations for the 88th Academy Awards, only one of them walked away with a statuette. Hardy ended up losing the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role to Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies), while DiCaprio left the awards show as a winner for the first time when he accepted the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Hardy isn't likely to see too much pressure from DiCaprio to expedite the tattooing process, as the veteran movie star has had more important things on his mind this year.

As a part of his activist work, DiCaprio produced two environmental documentaries this year -- National Geographic Channel's Before the Flood and Netflix's The Ivory Game.

READ: 14 of the Biggest Celebrity Heroes of 2016

ET caught up with the 42-year-old actor at the Before the Flood premiere in October, where he revealed why he's so passionate about the issue of climate change.

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"This is the most monumental issue facing our generation and the next, and we need to solve it incredibly quickly," he said.

Related Articles
Political commenter and human flame emoji Tomi Lahren has been making videos for The Blaze since 2015, but she didnt have her mainstream moment until last month, after appearing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Now Lahrens the subject of a fancy New York Times profile, which called her the Rights Rising Media Star. Lahren, who has criticized President Obama, Beyonce, Colin Kaepernick, and the Black Lives Matter movement, leading to accusations of racism, told the Times that she would never be an advocate, a cheerleader, or an apologist for the K.K.K. or any other hate group.

Lahren agreed to be on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show to debate everything from Obamacare to President-elect Donald Trump with liberal snowflake host Noah  whose examples we should follow  to show an unfamiliar side to a progressive, more diverse audience. I find that when people are actually around me, its impossible not to like me, she said. People expect me to be angry, bitter. They expect to me be abrasive, aggressive. Im not.

A week later, Lahren, who gives herself credit for having the balls to walk on The Daily Show without a single Conservative or supporter in the crowd, is back in her studio in Dallas, where she uploaded a new video on Monday night: Daily Show Final Thoughts. She admitted that Noah is a good guy, but he likened to me a racist uncle before I stepped on the stage. It goes from there, but Lahrens general message is: Consider your bubble burst.

If Trevor Noah was booed/jeered by my audience, what do you think the mainstream would label those folks??https://t.co/m8LCGzwe9R  Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) December 6, 2016

Meanwhile:

Tomi Lahren has a quote by Tomi Lahren as her Twitter cover photo pic.twitter.com/7SzLnF1yTo  Mara Wilson (@MaraWilson) December 6, 2016

(Via the New York Times)
Tony Revolori, of The Grand Budapest Hotel and the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, is in final negotiations to star in the indie thriller Exchanged, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Geoff Haley - a camera operator on Avengers: Infinity War, Baywatch and Furious 7, among others - is directing the Meyers Media Group feature from his own screenplay, penned with David Chisholm.

Meyers Media Group's Lawrence Steven Meyers and Randy Dannenberg are producing, with John Evangelides and Jonathan Tybel as executive producers. MMG will also handle worldwide sales.

Revolori will play an autistic American high school senior who travels to Germany as part of a student exchange program, but learns that members of his host family are terrorists. Because he fears for his family's safety, he ends up becoming an accomplice to their plan.

Revolori's upcoming films also include Jeffrey Blitz's wedding comedy Table 19, Ben Lewin's writing film Please Stand By, Chester Tam's comedy Take the 10 and the friendship drama When We Were Pirates.

He is represented by UTA and Circle of Confusion.

Read more: How a Refugee Comedy Became Germany's Sleeper Hit of 2016
LONDON (Reuters) - A top-30 investor in Swiss pharmaceutical company Actelion (ATLN.S) said he would back a takeover approach for the whole company from U.S. rival Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) above 246 Swiss francs.

Actelion confirmed it was in talks with J&J on Nov. 25, without giving details. Media reports suggested an initial bid of 246 Swiss francs had been rejected, while subsequent reports have suggested a revised bid of around 250 Swiss francs and the potential for rival companies to also table an offer.

"If J&J is willing to consider a price higher than the one which has been quoted in the press as an initial offer, it could be a fair price for a straightforward acquisition of the business," the investor said.

"However, a more complex deal, involving a partial combination would not be beneficial for the remaining Actelion shareholders."

A tie-up with J&J could also represent a "win-win" for Actelion's shareholders and employees, the investor said, as J&J had a good track record of giving its research and development operations "freedom to innovate".

(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Rachel Armstrong)
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. (Photo: Danny Moloshok/Reuters)

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that President Obama could make a Senate report on the CIAs post-9/11 use of torture partly public before he leaves office in January.

Because it was created by Congress, the document is not currently subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But some transparency advocates have suggested that it could be used by federal agencies in a way that subjects it to that disclosure law.

Probably the most that we might expect this administration to do  and maybe expect is the wrong word  but the most it could probably accomplish is to designate it some kind of a record that would ultimately lead to its availability through FOIA, subject to redaction, obviously, said Schiff, who was speaking at a breakfast for reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor.

Yahoo News reported in May that the CIA inspector generals office  the spy agencys internal watchdog  had acknowledged it mistakenly destroyed its only copy of the Senate torture report. While the agency says it still possesses a copy on a disk in a vault, transparency advocates worry that the full report may never be public, perhaps not even preserved.

The Senate Intelligence Committee worked for years to compile the 6,700-page report, perhaps the most detailed and complete accounting of the CIAs use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other interrogation techniques that meet international definitions of torture. It includes original CIA cables and memos on the use of those methods at secret black site prisons overseas in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In December 2014, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committees outgoing chair, released a 500-page executive summary. It said that CIA interrogations after 9/11 were considerably more brutal than the agency has publicly acknowledged, and that the methods produced intelligence that often proved unreliable. The findings drew sharp dissents from the panels Republicans, who argued that the techniques were lawful and effective. Four former CIA directors also argued that the report distorted reality.

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Its not clear what Obama will do. The outgoing president in 2009 released legal memos drafted by the Bush administration to justify the use of what it described as enhanced interrogation techniques. But Obama declined to prosecute anyone involved.

President Obama. (Photo: Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Donald Trumps election has lent the debate fresh urgency. The president-elect has repeatedly promised to resume using torture, saying he will bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. And his pick to be CIA director, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., has defended the use of such tactics and objected to making the torture report executive summary public.

I dont think the incoming administration will have any interest in publishing any greater part of the document, Schiff said Tuesday.

I do think its very important that that information be shared as much as possible, particularly when so many people around the incoming administration, within the incoming administration, speak openly about reintroducing the idea of torture, or waterboarding or enhanced interrogation, Schiff said.

But, the California lawmaker added, returning to torture is never going to happen  even under Trump.

It doesnt matter what the president-elect thinks, it doesnt matter what his team thinks, Schiff said. Within the IC [intelligence community], there would be such massive resistance to this, it just isnt going to happen.

Anyone Trump orders to use such techniques should quit, the lawmaker said.

My recommendation to anyone in the IC thats asked to do this again: They ought to resign before they do it, Schiff said. And I think that will be the sentiment within the military.

Schiff praised retired Gen. James Mattis, whom Trump has picked to be defense secretary, citing his willingness to confront the president-elect and tell him that this is a bad idea. In a New York Times interview last month, Trump said he had discussed the effectiveness of waterboarding with Mattis.
By Naomi Tajitsu

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it will expand the development of its gasoline-hybrid technology over the next five years to speed up the introduction of lower-emission engines in the face of stricter global emissions standards.

The announcement was the latest by the Japanese firm aimed at making cars "greener" as global automakers face tighter regulations in China, the United States and other regions that will require more environment-friendly cars in the coming years.

Toyota is also stepping up the development of longer-range battery-electric cars, in a shift from an earlier strategy of promoting hydrogen fuel-cell technology as the future of zero-emission vehicles.

"We need to take an aggressive approach to deal with changing regulations," Toshiyuki Mizushima, president of Toyota's powertrain division, told reporters at a briefing.

Toyota said it would expand personnel on its hybrid technology development team by 30 percent through 2021, by which time it aims to introduce 19 new lower-emission powertrain components made on its recently introduced common manufacturing platform.

By 2021, at least 60 percent of Toyota vehicles sold in Japan, the United States, Europe and China will feature new components which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 15 percent or more compared with the average amount of emissions of vehicles sold in 2015, the automaker said.

Toyota's hybrid push comes as regulators require automakers to produce more electric cars, while hybrid technology, introduced in the Toyota Prius nearly 20 years ago, is increasingly considered as conventional technology.

But Mizushima said that hybrid technology would be key to developing more zero-emission vehicles.

"The core technology of plug-in hybrids and electric and fuel-cell vehicles is based on hybrid technology. By increasing our hybrid team, we can leverage new developments for use in electric powertrains," he said.

Toyota is speeding up the development of lower-emission cars, last month appointing President Akio Toyoda to lead a new electric car division to accelerate the development of battery-powered cars.

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The automaker, which sells around 10 million vehicles a year, has pledged to reduce global average CO2 emissions of its new vehicles by around 90 percent by 2050.

Towards this end, Mizushima said that he expected the take-up of hybrid vehicles to increase, accounting for around 20 percent of Toyota's global annual vehicle sales by 2025, from around 10 percent now.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu and Maki Shiraki; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
DailyFX.com -

Many traders attracted to trading FX due to availability of leverage

Clearly leverage can increase gains, but it also magnifies losses

We take a look at the statistics on real traders to learn how we might use leverage effectively

Many traders are attracted to the FX market due to the wide availability of leverage: the ability to control a trading position larger than your available capital. And arguably for good reason; leverage can be an effective tool in allowing an investor to achieve desired returns on trading capital. Yet leverage magnifies losses and represents a key risk, and indeed our data and experience shows that it is often misused and leads to very large losses.

We studied 13 million real trades conducted by users of a major FX broker's trading platforms to look for important insights into the use of leverage. Lets start with what might be obvious: excessive leverage can lead to outsized losses. In fact, our data shows that theres a fairly negative relationship between average leverage used and trader profitability.

Percentage of Profitable Traders Grouped by Average Effective Leverage Used

Trading Leverage  A Real Look at how Traders May Use it Effectively

Figure Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker's* accounts excluding Eligible Contract Participants, Clearing Accounts, Money Managers, Hong Kong, and Japan subsidiaries from 4/1/2014 to 3/31/2015 across all currency pairs.

To understand Figure 2 we need to introduce the concept of Effective Leverage: Trade Size / Account Equity

As an example, a trader has $10,000 in her account and has opened a position in the USD/JPY with 100,000 units. 100,000 USD/JPY divided by $10,000 = 10:1 Effective Leverage.

Immediately we see a substantial difference in percentage of traders profitable as we vary Effective Leverage. Our data showed that 40 percent of all traders who used an average per-position Effective Leverage of 5:1 or lower turned a profit in the 12 months captured. If we move above 25:1, that ratio drops by more than half to a mere 17 percent.

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The data suggests that using more and more leverage has made it significantly less likely that a trader is ultimately profitable. Why might this be the case?

In our first article on the Traits of Successful Traders, we highlighted the significance of trader psychology and why it could ultimately make the difference between profits and losses. Here we see a similar dynamic at play: using excessive leverage made traders less likely to ultimately turn a profit in a given trade.

Individual Trade Winning Percentage Became Worse as Leverage Increased

Trading Leverage  A Real Look at how Traders May Use it Effectively

Figure Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker's* accounts excluding Eligible Contract Participants, Clearing Accounts, Money Managers, Hong Kong, and Japan subsidiaries from 4/1/2014 to 3/31/2015 across all currency pairs.

An individual trade was more likely to be closed at a profit except when using over 25:1 leverage. The chart above shows that trades with leverage below 5:1 were profitable 61 percent of the time. On the opposite end, those with effective leverage above 25:1 were only profitable on 48 percent of all tradesa significant difference.

Excessive leverage can have key detrimental effects related to the mechanics of trading and a traders psychology. In terms of trade mechanics, using excessive leverage will give a trader has a smaller capital buffer against losses. If the trade initially goes against the trader there is a higher probability that the trader will run out of excess margin and receive a margin call. The trade does not have full room to draw down before it might ultimately move in the traders direction.

From a psychological perspective, controlling outsized positions can force a trader to act differently and less rationally than they would otherwise. In our first article we highlighted why natural human emotion might get in the way of trading success. With greater leverage comes greater individual risk on a tradelikely amplifying the effect of this key psychological bias. How might we look for a solution?

How Might we Fix This?

There are two inputs to the Effective Leverage equation: Trade Size and Equity. By varying either we can change the Effective Leverage used. What precisely might this mean? Lets say that a trader opens an account with $10,000 in equity. A maximum of 5:1 or even 10:1 leverage would mean opening positions no larger than $50,000 and $100,000 at a time. Another way to manage Effective Leverage is the second input: Equity.

Given what we know about the relationship between trader profitability and Effective Leverage, it should be relatively little surprise to see a fairly clear link between average equity used and trader performance. At the low end, a mere 21 percent of traders with average equity $1,000 turned a profit in the 12-month sampling period.

Percentage of Profitable Traders Grouped by Average Trading Equity

Trading Leverage  A Real Look at how Traders May Use it Effectively

Figure Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker's* accounts excluding Eligible Contract Participants, Clearing Accounts, Money Managers, Hong Kong, and Japan subsidiaries from 4/1/2014 to 3/31/2015 across all currency pairs.

Those with more than $10,000 in average equity were more than twice as likely to be profitable at 43 percent. These stats look very similar to those on Effective Leverage and theyre almost certainly related. And indeed, those with under $1,000 in average equity used an average of 28:1 Effective Leverage, while traders with over $10,000 used an average of 5:1.

Average Effective Leverage Used by Average Trading Equity

Trading Leverage  A Real Look at how Traders May Use it Effectively

Figure Data source: Derived from data from a major FX broker's* accounts excluding Eligible Contract Participants, Clearing Accounts, Money Managers, Hong Kong, and Japan subsidiaries from 4/1/2014 to 3/31/2015 across all currency pairs.

It makes sense that theres a link between average Effective Leverage used an equity, but what does this ultimately mean for the trader? Put simply: know how much you expect to risk and set trading capital accordingly.

Manage Position Size and Equity According to Risk

In our first article we described a critical reason on why its so important to manage risk, and the takeaway was simple: always stand to gain at least as much as you stand to lose. In this sense we can manage trade size, equity, and ultimately Effective Leverage.

Lets use an example to illustrate this point further. If a trader looks to open EUR/USD position sizes of 100,000 units, each pip move in the EUR/USD will be worth $10. A Euro move from $1.1500 to $1.1600 would be a difference of 100 pips. In this example a 100,000-unit trade would generate a profit or loss of $10 x 100 pips = $1,000.

Keeping our profit target in pips and dollars constant, we get a sense from our data that we want to use Effective Leverage below 10:1 or even 5:1. Our 100,000-unit EUR/USD represents $115,000 (100k * EUR/USD at $1.15), and thus we would want at least $11,500 in equity to control such a position. Equity below this level or a position size above 10 times trading would put us into a very high-risk category and as such well look to avoid.

We likewise saw that there was a positive link between account size and success rates. We can reasonably expect that many of those with greater account equity are those with more trading experience. And yet its difficult to ignore the fairly clear link between average Effective Leverage used and ultimate success rates.

Leverage used isnt the only factor in ultimate trader success, but this data suggests that it can certainly work against the trader. And indeed many of our most successful traders operate on lower levels of Effective Leverage.

*Data source: Derived from FXCM Inc. accounts excluding Eligible Contract Participants, Clearing Accounts, Money Managers, Hong Kong, and Japan subsidiaries from 4/1/2014 to 3/31/2015 across all currency pairs.

View the next articles in the Traits of Successful Series:

What is the Number One Mistake Forex Traders Make?

Do the Hours I Trade Matter? Yes - Quite a Bit

The Traits of Successful Traders

This article is a part of our Traits of Successful Traders series.

Over the past several months, The DailyFX Research team has been closely studying the trading trends of traders at a major FX broker. We have gone through an enormous number of statistics and anonymized trading records in order to answer one question: What separates successful traders from unsuccessful traders?. We have been using this unique resource to distill some of the best practices that successful traders follow, such as the best time of day, appropriate use of leverage, the best currency pairs, and more. Stay tuned for the next article in the Traits of Successful Traders Series.

Analysis prepared and written by David Rodriguez, Quantitative Strategist for DailyFX.com

Sign up to Davids e-mail distribution list to receive future e-mail updates on the Traits of Successful Traders series and other reports

Contact and follow David via Twitter: http://twitter.com/DRodriguezFX



original source

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from IG.
By Rina Chandran MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Transgender women in India face persistent bias that denies them education and jobs despite India having progressive laws for transgender people, according to a leading activist. In a landmark judgment in 2014, India's Supreme Court ruled that transgender people had equal rights under the law, and granted legal status to the third gender. Alongside the right to marry and inherit property, they are also eligible for quotas in jobs and educational institutions. But most of India's estimated 2 million transgender people face discrimination from a young age with transgender women particularly abused, reflecting the entrenched patriarchy in the country, said Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a founder of the Asia Pacific Transgender Network. She said many transgender people are thrown out of their homes by their families, lack a formal education and are denied jobs. They are forced into sex work, begging or dancing at weddings to make a living. "We have among the most progressive laws for transgender people: the 2014 judgment gives us the right to choose our gender identity, so if I believe I'm a woman, I'm a woman," Laxmi said at a panel hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Asia Society on Monday. "But people are still biased. That's why no one will hire us, except in the non-profit sector, and we have no choice but to beg or do sex work." Laxmi, who prefers to go by her first name, was born into an orthodox Brahmin family. She became one of the most flamboyant advocates for transgender people, petitioning to recognize the category on all official documents including passports. Transgender women, known as hijras, have long been considered auspicious in India. They are featured in Hindu mythology, and their blessings are sought at weddings and births, even as abuse and exploitation are common. TREATED AS INFERIOR Transgender people were included in India's census survey of 2011 for the first time. There are 490,000 transgender people in the country, according to official data, a number that activists say is only a fraction of the real number. But there are moves to extend more benefits to the community. The eastern state of Odisha this year became the first to give transgender people welfare benefits such as pension and housing. India is also revising its rehabilitation scheme for bonded laborers to include transgender people. Laxmi said while the law is supportive, biases against transgender women reflect the entrenched patriarchy in India, where the mistreatment of women has become a major issue in recent years. Indian women face a barrage of threats ranging from child marriage, dowry killings and human trafficking to rape and domestic violence, largely due to deep-rooted attitudes that view them as inferior to men. "When to be feminine itself is not acceptable, then everything becomes taboo: red lipstick is taboo, being flamboyant is taboo, dressing a certain way is taboo," said Laxmi, wearing a bright orange saree with chunky jewelry, and her trademark scarlet lipstick and red sindoor on her forehead. "When a woman still becomes powerful, the patriarchy assassinates her character and calls her names." But the community cannot wait for laws to improve its lot, and must continue to fight for its rights, she said. "No one will bring us our rights to our doorstep; we have to lobby, we have to all be activists. We have to demand and take our rights," she said. (Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)
The Hague (AFP) - War crimes prosecutors Tuesday unveiled a campaign of terror led by 'ferocious' Lord's Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen, including showing shocking images of an aftermath of an attack on a refugee camp.

The former LRA commander became the first-ever member of the notorious rebel group to go on trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, where he faces a litany of charges for his role in terrorising parts of northern Uganda.

Warning she was about to show "extremely disturbing images", ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda played gruesome videos of the scene after an LRA attack on Lukodi refugee camp, showing disemboweled children, and the charred bodies of babies in shallow graves.

"Dominic Ongwen became one of the most senior commanders in the LRA  following rapid promotion for his loyal fighting and ferocity," Bensouda said.

He was "enthusiastic" in adopting "the LRA's violent methods" and eager to show "he could be more active and more brutal" than others.

Ongwen, 41, denied 70 war crimes and crimes against humanity charges as he also became the first former child soldier to be tried by the ICC for his role in the infamous rebel group led by the elusive Joseph Kony.

"In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda," Ongwen said.

"It was the LRA who abducted people. It was the LRA who killed them," he insisted, maintaining he was "one of the people who had crimes committed" against them.

A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a bloody rebellion some three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda.

The UN says it has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it was set up in 1987.

- 'Nothing left alive' -

More than 4,000 victims are taking part in Ongwen's trial and scores were watching the proceedings in several sites in Uganda.

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About 500 people, mostly subsistence farmers, crammed into Lukodi primary school to watch, squeezed onto rows of dilapidated wooden benches.

"They burnt my grandmother in her own hut, and shot the son of my co-wife," Alanyo Juzima said as she wiped away tears, staring at Ongwen's flickering image on a screen.

"I feel like I could go to The Hague and kill Ongwen myself."

The son of Ugandan schoolteachers, Ongwen was abducted as a child while on his way to school, and likely suffered sadistic initiation rites into the militia's ranks.

But ICC prosecutors in The Hague say unlike some 9,000 people who escaped from the LRA, Ongwen chose to stay, helping orchestrate the abduction and enslavement "of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities".

Some were as young as six, said Bensouda recounting how one witness told of children being given military training but "they were so small that the muzzles of their AK47 rifles dragged on the ground."

- Moral responsibility -

The trial focuses on attacks on four refugee camps in northern Uganda from 2002 to 2005, in which people were killed, tortured, raped and children kidnapped to be "moulded" into the LRA's way of life.

Those who could not keep up were savagely beaten or killed while "nursing mothers" who were slowed down by their infants "watched as their babies were callously killed or were thrown into the bush and left behind," Bensouda said.

Ongwen also stands accused of systematically abducting young girls for sex, and distributing hundreds to his men.

In one attack on the Odek refugee camp in 2004, Ongwen instructed his troops to "kill civilians and to abduct beautiful girls and good boys," to act as soldiers, another prosecutor Benjamin Gumpert said.

"His last words were: 'Nothing should be left alive in Odek'."

Ongwen, who listened intently in court writing in a small notebook, is said to have had at least seven wives -- one was just 10 when she was first raped. DNA tests have revealed he fathered at least 11 children.

The defence says it is considering several arguments including that Ongwen is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and was acting under duress.

Observers say the trial raises deep questions about how to prosecute children who commit crimes after years of abuse.

But Bensouda said: "Having suffered victimisation in the past is not a justification or an excuse to victimise others."

Each human being is "endowed with moral responsibility for their actions," she said.

Ongwen surrendered himself to US forces in 2015. But Kony remains at large with about 150 followers hiding out in the jungles of the Central African Republic.
Shortly after news broke of Donald Trumps phone call with the head of Taiwanthe first direct communication between American and Taiwanese leaders in 37 yearsone of the leading Chinese scholars of U.S.-China relations offered a stunning proposal: If the U.S. president-elect took similar actions as president, the Chinese government should suspend the worlds most important (and precarious) partnership. I would close our embassy in Washington and withdraw our diplomats, said Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. I would be perfectly happy to end the relationship.

What made the recommendation especially notable was that, just days earlier, Shen had been arguing that Trumps victory was good for Chinamuch better than the election of Hillary Clinton would have been. So what was it about the Taiwan call that had so quickly soured Shen on Trump? Where did he now think the U.S.-China relationship was headed, and what might that mean for the wider world?

I asked Shen these questions during a moment of profound uncertainty for the two global powers. The Chinese government initially reacted to the call with restraint, suggesting that Taiwans leaders had tricked Trump into challenging a U.S. policyadopted in 1979 as a consequence of Richard Nixons opening to Chinathat the island of Taiwan be considered part of China rather than an independent country. But reports have since indicated that the call was a deliberate effort by Trump and his advisers to express solidarity with Taiwan and stake out a tough stance on China, which the U.S. president-elect accused throughout the campaign of exploiting the United States economically. On Sunday, Trump noted indignantly on Twitter that China had never asked U.S. permission to devalue its currency, tax U.S. imports, and construct military installations in the South China Sea. In other words, its getting harder for Chinese leaders to minimize Trumps provocations as inadvertent breaches of etiquette.

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Shens anger and ambivalence about Trumps call speak to broader anxiety in China right now about what to make of the U.S. president-elect and the trajectory of relations between the two countries. When I asked Shen whether he was concerned about a Trump presidency destabilizing international affairs, he told me disorder was already upon us. When I asked him whether he thought America, under Trump, would remain the most powerful nation on the planet, he answered without hesitation: No. An edited and condensed transcript of our conversation follows.

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Uri Friedman: Youve studied U.S.-China relations for a long time. What was your initial impression of Trumps Taiwan call?

Shen Dingli: I think the president-elect is still a private citizen. Any American private citizen has the right to say anything that goes against the U.S. government, [including] policy on China. The U.S. government can only make the government itself observe the line.

Friedman: Why do you make the distinction between a private citizen and the president? In just a couple months, Trump is going to be president.

Shen: Any bullshitter can say bullshit things. So I dont care what he says. But if [and when] he is president, I really care.

Taiwan is a part of China, so the U.S. should not touch [it]. Like how the Hawaii independence movement, the Texas independence movement, [should be considered] U.S. internal affairs that China should not touch.

Friedman: What is your sense of how the Chinese government is processing Trumps call to Taiwan so far?

Shen: [Chinese leaders] are downplaying it, [suggesting that] he has been played by Taiwan. The Washington Post is saying no, he played Taiwan. China has been hurt by Trump, but the Chinese government wants to protect Trump by saying no, he did not place the call, he is just inexperienced, so why do we care?

Friedman: Why do you think the Chinese government wants to protect Trump?

Shen: Because what can you do? Can you really cut off the official relationship with the U.S.? No, you cannot. You [may] hurt yourself more than America. So the Chinese government does not want to hurt China by hurting Trump. But I dont care. Im not the government.

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Friedman: In the days after the U.S. election, you cheered Trumps victory. People might be surprised to hear that, since Trump bashed China during the campaign and talked about imposing a 45-percent tariff on Chinese imports, which could risk a trade war. What made you say that at the time?

Shen: Trump does not care about human rights; he traded with China [as a businessman]. Democrats care more about human rightssometimes, they place values above trade. The Republicans, oftentimes, care more about trade. For trade, Obama created the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] that excludes China, that makes China less able to export competently. Trump would abolish the TPP, which would give China some breathing space.

Friedman: You said after the election that you thought a trade war between China and the United States was inconceivable. Do you still have that view today?

Shen: A trade war is not conceivable. China exports $440 billion [worth] of goods to America. If the U.S. imposed a 45-percent tariff then China couldnt export that much, so lots of Chinese would lose their jobs. But China would retaliate against America. Hundreds of thousands of Americans would lose their jobs as well. Therefore, a mature leader would not develop a confrontational trade relationship to that extent. They would use negotiation [and] eventually everybody would make some concessions, but each party would get a lot in return.

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Friedman: So you expect Trump to be a mature leader in that respect?

Shen: I think Trump would ultimately use bilateral negotiation and [World Trade Organization] arbitration, which is a multilateral process, to deal with China-U.S. trade unfairness and disputes.

Friedman: Youve been a vocal critic of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Can you explain, for those who may be unfamiliar with the issue, why Taiwan is such a sensitive topic in China? Why has the Chinese government so far tolerated U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan but not diplomatic recognition of Taiwan? In other words, whats so bad, from a Chinese perspective, about the U.S. president calling the leader of Taiwan?

Once you choose Taiwan, you cannot choose us. But if you choose us, you cannot maintain an official relationship with Taiwan.

Shen: Taiwan is a part of China, just like the mainland is a part of China, which is the consensus of the international community. The UN [shares] this consensus, so Taiwan was expelled from the UN and [China] entered the UN to replace Taiwan. The U.S. used to recognize one China before 1949, but after [Mao Zedongs revolution in] 1949 the U.S. government recognized the tiny island of Taiwan, [where Maos rival Chiang Kai-shek had fled], to represent the entire China. That seemed ridiculous because Taiwan had a small territory, a small population: How could it represent the entire China? That ridiculous argument was replaced by Jimmy Carter in 1979. From that time on, the U.S.s official statement has been that there is one China, [with its capital in] Beijing, and Taiwan is a part of [China].

You cannot count on Taiwan to stop North Korean nuclear weapons. You cannot count on Taiwan to stop the Iranian nuclear program. You cannot count on Taiwan to help America [fight] terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You cannot count on Taiwan to counter global climate change. You need to count on working with Beijing. Its your choice. We do not force your choice. We just tell the U.S.: Once you choose Taiwan, you cannot choose us. But if you choose us, you cannot maintain an official relationship [with Taiwan]. You can have an unofficial relationship. Thats our position.

Because we represent Taiwan, you are free to sell weapons to us or not to sell weapons to us. You cannot sell weapons to Taiwan without our permit. But [the U.S.] has three governments [in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches]. Congress has made a foreign policy that is the Taiwan Relations Act, which says, We have the right to sell weapons to Taiwan. On the same issue, each government says different things. We dont have three governments. We only have one government. The whole branch of the Chinese government would have the same policy with the U.S. So we are struggling to deal with the three governments in the U.S. In order to [have access to] U.S. capital, markets, and technology, we tolerated it for a long time. But there will be a time when [China is] strong enough that we will not tolerate a policy to recognize Beijing as representing China, but to sell weapons to a part of China without the government of China [approving].

Friedman: Whats the best-case scenario for U.S.-China relations during Trumps presidency?

Shen: Lets look at Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton allowed the Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-hui, to visit the U.S. [in 1995]. So what happened? China launched a missile exercise against Taiwan, and the U.S. sent two aircraft carriers into the Taiwan Strait. In Bill Clintons second term, he had a more stringent, tough policy on Taiwan. He came to China to deliver the three nos, [which included declarations that] the U.S. does not think Taiwan [should] have statehood, which means he would never call Taiwans leader president, and the U.S. would not change its One China policy.

George W. Bush, in April 2001, after Chinese and U.S. aircraft collided, said the U.S. would do whatever it took to defend Taiwan. That [went] beyond the limits of the Taiwan Relations Act. The next day, his spokesperson clarified that the U.S. position on One China had not changedthe president did not mean what he said.

So a future good case would be that Trump would not repeat his bullshit argument and would apologize to China for what he has already mistakenly stated. Or each time when he makes a bullshit statement, his press secretary would come out to say, The U.S. position on One China has not changed. Now he is not a president. He does not need a [press] secretary to say, He did not mean what he said. Every day he tweets to say, I mean what I said. Fine. You are not a president. But if you are president, Shen Dinglis China would cut off the [diplomatic] relationship with the U.S. completely so the U.S. cannot sell $120 billion [worth of] goods to China.

We prepared for how to work with Hillary Clinton. So were still probably reflecting on who Trump is.

[A breakdown of U.S.-China relations could mean] 2 million U.S. workers lose jobs, no more 3 million Chinese tourists coming to the U.S., each spending $10,000. Not many Chinese students would come, and U.S. universities would close.

Friedman: So thats a worst-case scenario?

Shen: [In addition, China would] not cooperate on Iran, on North Korea, on climate, on IS. America would have to take on all the burdens by itself.

Friedman: In the U.S., people are wondering whether foreign governments and foreign leaders are taking Trump literally, whether theyre taking Trump seriously. Do you think the Chinese government is taking him seriously? Literally?

Shen: We really dont know about him. We could not have predicted that he would be elected. We prepared for how to work with Hillary Clinton. So were still probably reflecting on who Trump is.

Friedman: Youre a physicist by training. Do you worry that the Trump Era will bring entropysystemic uncertainty and disorderto international affairs?

Shen: Already. Already. Already. He was a critic of TPP, and TPP would have given more order to the world. [As part of the agreement], the U.S., Japan, and the other 10 countries can better trade. He has said that he would quit the Paris climate-change agreement. If the U.S., the [worlds] number-two CO 2 emitter, will not cooperate, the world will have chaos. He already has created lots of chaos. And now with calling the Taiwanese leader president, he has created more chaos.

Friedman: Do you expect the United States to remain the most powerful country in the world and to lead the world under President Trump?

Shen: No. The U.S. will [experience] further decline. The Republican President George W. Bush mistakenly sent troops to Iraq. That made the U.S. decline. And Trumps quitting of TPP will make the U.S. decline. Trumps promise to quit the climate-change agreement will make the U.S. decline. When Trump campaigned, he said, I want to make the U.S. great again. But actually, he [seems to] want to make the U.S. decline more.

Would you like to respond to this interview? Please email your response to hello@theatlantic.com. (We may include it this discussion thread in Notes.)Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
President-elect Donald Trumps bold gesture last week of persuading Indianapolis-based Carrier Corporation to cancel plans to shift about 800 jobs to Mexico  and his threat to punish other companies contemplating similar moves -- has been met with widespread voter approval.

The hard-nosed New York real estate magnate signaled last week that he intends to use his formidable bargaining skills to bend U.S. industry to his will in pursuit of his America First agenda of preserving manufacturing jobs at home while imposing protective tariffs and tearing up international trade deals.

Related: Carrier Gets State Incentives, Trump Pledge for Keeping U.S. Jobs

Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences, Trump said during a tour of the Indianapolis furnace plant last Thursday that employs more than 1,100 workers. Not gonna happen. Its not gonna happen.

A new Morning Consult/Politico survey released on Tuesday found that six out of ten voters across the political spectrum view Trump in a more favorable light following his efforts to persuade Carrier officials to keep those jobs in this country. Even among those who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, 32 percent said the deal in which Carrier would receive $7 million in tax incentives from the state and assurances of major federal tax relief improved their view of Trump.

Now the president-elect appears to have his eyes on much bigger fish.

Trump on Tuesday called for the federal government to cancel a deal with Boeing, the premier aircraft manufacturer, for the development of a new generation of Air Force One, insisting that the multi-billion-dollar contract is far too costly. The Air Force signed agreements with Boeing in January and July to design and develop aspects of the new presidential aircraft, including its interior and electrical and power systems, according to USA Today. While only a small fraction of the total cost has been accounted for so far in the procurement process, the entire program likely will cost about $3.2 billion through fiscal 2020, the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated in March.



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However, without explaining how he came up with his figure, Trump insisted today that the real cost would be $4 billion and that as far as he was concerned that was out of the question. He tweeted:

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

Well, the plane is totally out of control, Trump later told reporters who were camped out in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. Its gonna be over $4 billion for the Air Force One program, and I think its ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much.

Trumps pronouncement clearly caught the Pentagon and Air Force by surprise, and the government had no immediate response. Boeing was first awarded the contract in January 2015 with virtually no competition, according to The Washington Post. Thats because Boeings 747-8 was the only plane manufactured in the U.S. that could meet the stringent national security and safety standards for a plane to carry the president, his family and top aides and guests around the world. The current Air Force One will be 30 years old next year and is slated to be replaced by 2020 at the earliest.

Todd Blecher, a spokesperson for Boeing, issued a statement saying that the company was currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States. He added, We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer.

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Trump, the master dealmaker who made billions of dollars in business ventures worldwide by keeping his rivals and contractors off balance, appears to be applying his same tactics as a successful CEO in trying to run roughshod over government bureaucrats and private contractors. In a conference call with reporters today, Trump spokesperson Jason Miller said that the president-elect intends to closely examine the Defense Departments budget in search of potential big savings.

I think this really speaks to the President-elects focus on keeping costs down across the board with regard to government spending, Miller said. I think people are really frustrated with some of the big price tags that are coming out for programs, even in addition to this one. So were going to look for areas.

Trumps concern about runaway defense spending and waste is clearly justified. The Pentagon has routinely been hit with criticism of massive waste and cost overruns, as in the case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The Washington Post reported today that the Pentagon had buried an internal audit that revealed $125 billion of administrative waste for fear that Congress would retaliate with cuts in its budget.

However, Trump may be signaling far bigger concerns about Boeing than simply what he is portraying as excessive spending on the next generation of Air Force One planes. The Obama administration reportedly is negotiating a deal with India that would allow Boeing and Lockheed Martin to build U.S. combat aircraft in India that would replace that countrys aging fleet of mostly Russian-built aircraft.

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Under that arrangement, Lockheed Martin and Boeing would outsource manufacturing of the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-18 Super Hornet to India to substantially save labor costs. In both cases, the aviation contractors would be building production plants in India, according to The Post. Indeed, Lockheed Martin is proposing to shift its entire F-16 assembly line from Texas to India, making India the sole producer of the single-engine combat aircraft, the newspaper reported.

It wouldnt be surprising if Trump  with his sharp focus on keeping U.S. jobs at home and bringing others back from overseas -- might have a different idea once he takes office Jan. 20. Although the president-elect made no mention about the brewing deal with India, which was first reported late yesterday. He may have decided to yank Boeings chain over the Air Force One contract to give company executives fair warning of a much bigger confrontation to come over their efforts to export manufacturing jobs.

Or, he may have been vexed by a speech delivered by Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg to a group of Illinois manufacturers last Friday that suggested that Trump and his allies temper their rhetoric about trade policy, as the Chicago Tribune noted today. "Anyone who paid attention to the recent campaigns and the election results realizes that one of the overarching themes was apprehension about free and fair trade," he said, without specifically mentioning Trump by name.

Afterward, Muilenburg told reporters that Free and fair global trade is important, and it definitely creates U.S. manufacturing jobs. We want to make sure that doesnt get lost in the political rhetoric, he added.

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President-elect Donald Trump made it very clear throughout his campaign that he wants more products boasting the made in America label.

Trump, who recently received high praise for striking a deal with air conditioning manufacturer Carrier and saved nearly 1,100 American jobs from moving to Mexico, has now sunk his teeth into Apple.

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, "Apple asked both Foxconn and Pegatron, the two iPhone assemblers, in June to look into making iPhones in the U.S."

While Pegatron declined to humor Apples request, Foxconn has been formulating a plan. However, according to Nikkeis source, Making iPhones in the U.S. means the cost will more than double."

Bringing back jobs to America was a staple of Trumps presidential campaign, and while speaking at an event at Liberty University in January, Trump said, "We're going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries."

However, that task might be tougher than he thinks.

President Obama wanted the same thing, but former Apple CEO, Steve Jobs told the President during a meeting back in 2010, Those jobs aren't coming back," according to a report by the New York Times.

Trip Miller, managing partner at hedge fund Gullane Capital Partners in Memphis, Tennessee, which counts Apple among the funds long holdings, said its highly unrealistic for Apple to move stateside, and what Trump should really be focusing on is making America a more desirable location for business.

The most important thing would be to create an environment in the U.S.  whether its taxes, regulation, labor force, where companies are attracted to and want to do more manufacturing in the U.S., said Miller. Its the idea of dangle the carrot instead of wave a stick. Instead of finding ways to force people to be here, or penalize them for not being here, create an environment where everyone wants to be here and do more business here than they currently are doing on the production side.

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There are many hurdles that would have to be addressed if Apple were to uproot all of its business operations, obstacles that would undoubtedly cost the consumer more money.

On the other hand, Trump did co-author The Art of The Deal, and met with former Vice President Al Gore on Monday regarding climate change. Gore also happens to be on the board of Apple.

However, unless Trump can get other companies on board to manufacture in America, it really wont make much of a difference.

When you look at a company, even the size of Apple, the fact that theyre creating a high dollar, high margin product might be good for a few cities where they might put their production, but the impact of only one company  I just dont think its that major in the scope of a country of 300 plus million people.

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Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline route in North Dakota may have won a victory this week, but Native Americans may have an even bigger fight on their hands if advisors to President-elect Donald Trump get their way.

Though American Indian reservations comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. land mass, they may contain as much as 20 percent of the nations oil, gas and coal reserves worth an estimated $1.5 trillion.

Reuters reported Monday some of Trumps advisers are suggesting those energy reserves should be freed from federal bureaucracy and put into private hands.

Tribal lands, some 56 million acres, are owned by the federal government not the tribes although members are free to exploit the resources and keep the profits, albeit under federal regulation. The reservations are ruled by tribal councils and treated as sovereign territory.

Protesters successfully blocked the Dakota Access Pipeline from being constructed beneath Lake Oahe at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The Army Corps of Engineers refused to issue an easement to allow the construction under the Missouri dam reservoir. Native Americans and activists had argued the pipeline would damage sacred lands and might contaminate the tribes water source.

Energy Transfer Partners, which is building the pipeline, said in a joint statement with its partner Sunoco Logistics Partners, it has no intention of exploring an alternate route. The 1,172-mile pipeline except for the 1 mile that was supposed to go beneath Lake Oahe. Protesters told Reuters they expect the Trump administration to try to reverse the corps decision.

dakota access pipeline

Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

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Though some tribal leaders favor the idea of privatizing tribal land resources, others charge it would violate tribal self-determination and culture.

"Our spiritual leaders are opposed to the privatization of our lands, which means the commoditization of the nature, water, air we hold sacred," Tom Goldtooth, a member of both the Navajo and the Dakota tribes, told Reuters. "Privatization has been the goal since colonization  to strip Native Nations of their sovereignty."

A 2015 Government Accountability Office report found widespread mismanagement by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, jeopardizing projects by taking as long as eight years to review documents. As a result, the report found, Indian energy resources hold significant potential for development but remain largely undeveloped.

"We should take tribal land away from public treatment," Cherokee tribe member Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who co-chairs Trumps Native American Affairs Coalition, told Reuters. "As long as we can do it without unintended consequences, I think we will have broad support around Indian country."

Rep. Benjamin Nageak, D-Alaska, who was born in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said in a 2015 video its wrong to make it so difficult for tribes to develop resources on their reservations, some of the poorest areas in the country.

The reservation system grew out of the treaties of 1778 and 1871 that ended wars between Native Americans and European settlers.

"The time it takes to go from lease to production is three times longer on trust lands than on private land," Mark Fox, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes in Forth Berthold, North Dakota, told Reuters.

"If privatizing has some kind of a meaning that rights are given to private entities over tribal land, then that is worrying. But if it has to do with undoing federal burdens that can occur, there might be some justification."

Trump said during the campaign he wanted to increase oil and gas production, as well as eliminate much of the nation's regulatory regime.

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By Amy Tennery and Timothy Gardner NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, a leading voice in the fight against climate change, and Donald Trump, who at one point called it a hoax, met on Monday in what Gore called a "productive" session. Gore, a Democrat, spent about 90 minutes in meetings at the Republican president-elect's Trump Tower apartment and office building in Manhattan. He also met briefly with Trump's daughter Ivanka, who has attended a series of high-level meetings since her father won the Nov. 8 election. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush, has been devoted for years to lowering carbon emissions blamed for climate change. As he campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton earlier this year, Gore, who was vice president under Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, warned that Trump would steer the world toward "climate catastrophe" if elected. That warning came as Trump gave speeches calling on the United States to drop out of last year's global climate accord, signed in Paris to lower carbon emissions blamed for a warming planet. Trump also referred to human-induced climate change as a hoax and had tweeted that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." Since then, however, in an interview with the New York Times, Trump has indicated he might have an open mind to joining the effort to battle climate change. 'EXTREMELY INTERESTING CONVERSATION' Gore had a more upbeat take on Trump after huddling with the wealthy New York real estate developer. "It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," Gore said. "I found it an extremely interesting conversation and, to be continued." Gore said on MSNBC later on Monday that Ivanka Trump was "very committed to having a climate policy that makes sense." He said he would not disclose details out of respect for the privacy of the conversations and out of hopes to keep discussing the issue with the president-elect. Aides to Trump gave no further insight into Monday's meeting. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, asked about the meeting as he left Trump Tower, declined to comment. He said Monday was "another productive day on the transition." After a day of meetings, Trump left his home on Monday evening to have dinner with his family at 21 Club, a New York restaurant. Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work urging action against the risks of global warming, was kicking off on Monday a 24-hour talk-a-thon to urge action in the battle against climate change, which threatens to raise sea levels, spread diseases and increase droughts in more regions around the world. Trump was scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp, who is being considered for the job of secretary of state. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Exxon Mobil has embraced the 2015 Paris Agreement that would lower global greenhouse gas emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. An aide to Gore said Trump's team reached out to him after the former vice president said he intended to do everything he could to work with the president-elect to ensure the United States remained a leader in the effort to address climate change. (Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Additional reporting by Melissa Fares in New York; Writing by Richard Cowan and Emily Stephenson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)
Its really great to be the king when you have Twitter at your disposal. Its also entertaining for anyone curious to see what President-elect Donald Trump will tweet next. But its also disconcerting to see the silly things he prioritizes for Twitter. His latest Twitter nonsense concerns Air Force One. Specifically, Trump says that Boeing should not build the next Air Force One due to high costs.

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Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion, Trump blasted. Cancel order!

As The Washington Post reports, Boeing won the contract to build the new Air Force One in January 2015, but it wasnt much of a competition. The 747-8 model is the only plane made in the States that meets the requirements of the Air Force One.

Trump isnt happy with the whole thing. The plane is totally out of control. Its going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program, and I think its ridiculous, he told reporters on Tuesday morning at Trump Tower. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.

Air Force One has unique communications, safety, and self-protection features so that the president can function under the most trying circumstances  like nuclear war, defense consultant Loren Thompson told the Post. The price tag is driven by the demands of the mission.

Teal Group aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia thinks Trumps tweet was completely nonsensical and based on exactly nothing. But its very difficult to adjudicate on complicated program management and military requirements questions with Twitter as your medium.

Trump previously criticized the Air Force Ones currently in operations on the campaign trail, saying that the old plans are a burden for taxpayers who are paying a fortune to keep them in operation.

Trump isnt wrong on maintenance costs, even though hed likely exaggerate them. The two Air Force One planes in use are close to reaching their 30-year life expectancy, Gizmodo reports. They need to be replaced, as its becoming way too expensive and way too difficult, according to Air Force executive Kevin W. Buckleys statements to Military.com earlier this year.

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But that doesnt mean Trumps $4 billion figure is accurate. The Air Force budgeted $1.65 billion for the new planes between 2015 and 2019. The list place of the Boeing 747-8 is $379 million, Gizmodo notes.

Air Force One planes arent your average planes either. Theyre equipped to handle classified information communication, evade surface-to-air missiles, and protect passengers from a nuclear blast. Such features likely cost money beyond what youd pay for a regular airliner. But Trumps tweet seems to indicate he might not be fully aware of how Air Force One works.

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See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Taipei (AFP) - A former senior US official with links to Donald Trump's transition team flew to Taipei Tuesday, sparking more speculation over relations with Taiwan after the president-elect's unprecedented call with the island's leader.

Stephen Yates, once a deputy national security advisor to former US vice president Dick Cheney, told journalists he was making a long-planned personal trip but did not rule out meetings with senior Taiwanese officials.

Tsai's call to Trump on Friday was the first between a Taiwanese leader and an incoming or serving US president since Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

Smashing established protocol, it prompted a protest from China -- which sees Taiwan as part of its territory -- and questions over Trump's diplomatic strategy.

Yates, who was named as the facilitator of the call in news reports but denied he set it up, told a packed press conference in Taipei that "we have very significant challenges" if Beijing "could be provoked to conflict of some kind based on a phone call".

Local media reported Yates was set to meet Tsai but her office said it was not aware of any appointment.

Media have also described Yates, who speaks fluent Mandarin, as a key adviser on Taiwan relations for Trump's camp.

Yates denied that he represented the Trump administration but said he speaks "with friends in the transition from time to time, in confidence".

He told AFP via email that he had not been approached for a position in the new administration, but had "several informal discussions with friends working for the transition".

Even though Washington has long shied away from formal communications with Taipei, the US remains Taiwan's key ally and leading arms supplier.

In a co-written opinion piece published Sunday on Fox News, Yates -- who now runs an Idaho-based advisory firm -- defended the Trump-Tsai call and said the fears it sparked showed "how absurd US-China policy has become".

Yates told AFP he has no affiliation with Trump's business empire as rumours swirl that it is looking to invest in a planned aviation and industrial hub near the island's main airport in Taoyuan.

A Trump Organization spokeswoman has denied any plans to expand into Taiwan.
By Phil Stewart and Amy Tennery WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump urged the government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co for a revamped Air Force One - a prominent symbol of the U.S. presidency - complaining that costs were out of control. It was the latest example of Trump using his podium, often via brief Twitter messages, to rattle companies and foreign countries as he seeks to shake up business as usual in Washington. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, took aim at what he called cost overruns even though the plane is only in development stages. "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!" Trump said on Twitter. It was not immediately clear what prompted the timing of his complaint. Trump, who has vowed to use his skills as a businessman to make good deals that benefit American taxpayers, then made a surprise appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, where he amplified his comments. "The plane is totally out of control. I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money," he told reporters. Boeing, which has built planes for U.S. presidents since 1943, has not yet begun building the two replacements for the current Air Force One planes, which are scheduled to be in service by 2024. Boeing has not yet been awarded the money to build the proposed replacements. "We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States," the company said in a statement. NOT A 'VANILLA' JUMBO JET The U.S. Air Force, which operates the presidential planes, first announced in January 2015 that Boeing's 747-8 would be used to replace the two current presidential planes. The planes can fly direct from Washington to Hong Kong, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) farther than the current Air Force One. They are designed to be an airborne White House able to fly in worst-case security scenarios, such as nuclear war. President Barack Obama, who was flying on the aging Air Force One to Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, has called the plane one of the best perks of the presidency. The Air Force said in a statement that it had budgeted $2.7 billion in the coming year for the initial stage of the project involving research, development, testing and evaluation. The current Air Force plan envisions extensive modifications to a Boeing 747-8, including military avionics, advanced communications and a self-defense system, according to budget documents seen by Reuters. "Of course its not like buying a vanilla Boeing jumbo jet," said defense consultant Loren Thompson, who has close ties to Boeing and other companies. A March report from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimated the cost of the overall program at $3.21 billion, including the purchase of two aircraft. But the GAO estimated the costs for research and development would be would be low, at just under $2 billion. If the GAO report used the same Air Force estimate for research and development, then its estimate would be around $4 billion. Boeing shares dipped after Trump's tweet but were flat at the end of the trading day. HIS OWN PLANE Trump is known for his love of his own Boeing 757 jet. In a 2015 Rolling Stone profile, he said his plane was "bigger than Air Force One, which is a step down from this in every way." "Did you know it was featured on the Discovery Channel as the world's most luxurious jetliner?" he said. Trump's broadside against Boeing comes as Washington's business lobbyists are bracing for a wild ride. A New York real estate developer, Trump took aim at big corporations during his campaign, saying that they often harm ordinary Americans by sending jobs abroad. Since winning the Nov. 8 election he has taken credit for pushing United Technologies Corp and Ford Motor Co to backtrack on outsourcing plans. Both Ford and United Technologies said they support Trump's efforts to cut corporate tax rates and overhaul regulations, which could save the companies billions in the long run. Trumps attack on Boeing was the main topic of discussion at the annual luncheon of the Aerospace Industries Association on Tuesday, where the groups CEO Dave Melcher urged the new administration to promote trade and bolster the high-paying manufacturing jobs that the $143 billion a year sector offers. Industry executives say they are seeing willingness from the Trump team to take another look at export controls that limit exports of U.S. weapons. But in the short term, his tweets and comments on Boeing put defense contractors on notice. "The chilling effect on industry is huge, if you are a contractor," said Franklin Turner, a partner specializing in government contracts at law firm McCarter & English. Boeing relies on the U.S. military and other arms of the federal government for a significant share of its defense, space and security business which is worth $30 billion a year. The company clashed during the past year with Republicans in Congress over the Export-Import Bank, a federal program Boeing uses to finance sales to certain overseas customers. Boeing executives have also been outspoken supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with Asia, which Trump opposed. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner, Emily Stephenson, Mike Stone, Susan Heavey, Andrea Shalal and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Ayesha Rascoe aboard Air Force One; Steve Holland, Alana Wise, Jeffrey Dastin, and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Frances Kerry and Alistair Bell)
Turns out, Donald Trump doesn't own stock in Boeing. Nor in Microsoft, or Ford, or Amazon, or AT&T, or any of several other companies whose policies may be affected by his future administration, and all of which he said he held as of a financial disclosure he made in May. He's gotten rid of all that stock, his spokesman Jason Miller said today. Sold it all in June, Miller said.

Miller made the comment on a call with the press regarding Trump's morning tweet criticizing Boeing for overcharging the government on the sale of a new version of Air Force One. Miller later confirmed to the AP that he did indeed mean that Trump had sold not just his Boeing stock, but all of his stocks at that time. The AP asked for proof, and Miller declined to provide it.

The Trump transition team did not respond to requests for comment on the stock sales or to provide any evidence of it.

The announcement comes amid growing conflict-of-interest concerns regarding Trump's business endeavors that are not necessarily shared by the president-elect, his family or his business associates. In his May 2016 financial disclosure, the self-described billionaire listed millions of dollars in investments in dozens of publicly-traded companies across a wide range of industries, including banking, technology, energy and autos.

Trump's camp has been rather coy regarding what will happen to his private business interests, including stock holdings, now that he has been elected. The Washington Post reported as recently as last week that a Trump spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment for one of its stories on Trump's stock portfolio. Trump announced on Twitter in late November that he will discuss what will happen with the Trump Organization at a December 15 news conference. There is no indication he will divest of the company, and signs point to him holding control over to his children instead.

Trump held positions in a number of companies about which he spoke frequently while campaigning and after his election. One such example is Apple , of which he previously held as much as $2.25 million in shares.

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On the campaign trail, the real estate magnate was at times critical of the tech giant, claiming that as president he would get Apple to manufacture their "damn computers" in America and at one point floating the idea of boycotting the company until it helped the FBI break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

After his election, the president-elect told the New York Times he had been in touch with Apple CEO Tim Cook and asked him to get the company to "build a big plant in the United States." He also said he told him his administration would be going after a "very large tax cut for corporations." Trump has proposed dropping the corporate tax rate to 15%.

Trump also told the Times that Microsoft founder Bill Gates had called him after the election. During a campaign speech in South Carolina a year ago, Trump said he would work on closing up parts of the Internet to fight terrorism by going to see Gates and "a lot of different people that really understand what's happening." In his May filing, he listed up to $600,000 in Microsoft shares.

He disclosed a position in Amazon of up to $100,000. Trump frequently criticized the e-commerce company's CEO, Jeff Bezos.

In May, Trump contended Amazon has a "huge antitrust problem" and said the company is "getting away with murder, tax-wise." He accused Bezos of using the Post, which he owns, to wield power over lawmakers to avoid taxes.

He disclosed holdings in Ford as well, which he frequently criticized for outsourcing on the campaign trail. After his election, he falsely took credit for the company's decision to keep one of its plants in Kentucky.

Trump listed holdings in companies about which his administration stands to make important decisions once he is in the White House.

He held shares of both AT&T and Time Warner , which announced an $85 billion merger in October that his Justice Department will oversee. Trump said he would seek to block the deal when it was first announced because it concentrated too much "power in the hands of too few." However, he may have since changed his tune. The Financial Times reported last week that AT&T was encouraged by Trump's appointments of two former competition antitrust officials with a hands-off record on enforcement.

He listed holdings in Wells Fargo as well, which earlier this year was flagged and fined by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau for creating millions of phony accounts.

Trump had also previously listed holdings in Energy Transfer Partners , the owner of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access pipeline that has become a political flashpoint in recent months. A Trump spokeswoman confirmed in late November he had sold off his stake over the summer. Trump has been supportive of the project, a stance Miller reaffirmed on Monday.

Also in the Trump portfolio was IBM , whose CEO, Ginni Rometty, reached out to Trump soon after his election in an open letter outlining areas for cooperation. She will now form part of a CEO advisory forum to Trump. And, he listed holdings of Goldman Sachs , where his Treasury Secretary nominee, Steve Mnuchin, was a former executive and his top adviser, Steve Bannon, worked as well.

This is not the first time Trump has said he bought and sold a significant number of stocks all at once.

When he made his first personal finance disclosure in July 2015, soon after announcing his candidacy, he claimed to have sold 45 stocks in January 2014 for a gain of more than $27 million. He said he made only five losing picks: Coca-Cola , D.R. Horton , Enbridge Inc. , Occidental Petroleum and PepsiCo .

The Trump camp did not return request for comment on how much the president-elect made on his stock sales this time around.

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Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET

President-elect Donald Trump has a message for Air Force One builder Boeing (NYSE:BA): Get off my plane.

Trump criticized Boeing on Tuesday for what he called out of control costs associated with a project to build two new Air Force One jets. He called for the federal government to cancel the companys contract.

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! Trump wrote in a message on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR).

Trump later spoke to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, saying the project is ridiculous.

I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number, Trump said. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money.

Boeing issued a statement saying the Chicago-based company is currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States.

We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer, Boeing said.

Shares of Boeing slipped as much as 1.4%, as investors reacted to Trumps remarks. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), the main defense contractor working on the $4.7 billion program to build new presidential helicopters, also fell in early-morning trading.

The U.S. Air Force announced in 2015 that it selected Boeings 747-8 jumbo jet as the next generation of Air Force One aircraft, which are expected to enter service around 2024. The Pentagon awarded an initial $25.8 million contract to Boeing in January to begin the research and design phase of the project. Boeing has since received additional funding as the project moves forward.

According to Fox News, a defense official confirmed that the total cost of the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program will likely be $4 billion. The Air Force has not officially disclosed the final value of the contract, but it has allocated $1.65 billion to fund the project between 2015 and 2019. The Government Accountability Office estimated a total cost of $3.2 billion through fiscal-year 2020 to pay for two jets.

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The contract initially called for up to three Air Force One jets, though the Air Force is now looking for a fleet of two planes.

This isnt the first time that Trump has targeted companies for their business practices. Ford (NYSE:F) was a frequent target during the campaign for its plan to build a new factory in Mexico. Trump also had harsh words for Carrier, an air conditioning company owned by United Technologies (NYSE:UTC), criticizing the companys plans to move jobs south of the border.

Both companies relented to varying degrees. Carrier came to a deal with Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the state of Indiana to keep most of the jobs at its Indianapolis plant. Bill Ford, the chairman of his familys car company, called Trump to inform him that Ford scrapped a plan to move production of the Lincoln MKC crossover from Louisville, Ky., to Mexico.

In 2013, Trump took to Twitter to say he bought shares in Boeing amid a stock decline fueled by negative headlines about the 787 Dreamliner. A spokesperson for the President-elects transition team on Tuesday told reporters that Trump sold all of his stock holdings in June. Trumps financial disclosure forms, submitted earlier this year, listed Boeing stock among his assets.

Trumps personal jet is a customized Boeing 757-200 that was previously owned by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen.

Related Articles
Michael Flynn Jr., the son of incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn who helped spread the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy, has no involvement in President-elect Donald Trumps transition, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on Tuesday.

Gen. Flynns son has no involvement in the transition whatsoever, Pence said on MSNBCs Morning Joe on Tuesday.

Pence admitted later Tuesday afternoon that he had understated the sons role. During a somewhat tense CNN interview, anchor Jake Tapper repeatedly pressed Pence as to whether he was aware that the transition had asked for Flynn Jr. to receive a security clearance.

I said this morning that his son had no involvement in the transition, but I have talked to Gen. Flynn, Pence said. His son was helping him a bit with scheduling and administrative items. But thats no longer the case.

During a conference call with reporters, Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Trump transition team, said Flynn Jr. was helping his father with administration and scheduling but is no longer involved with transition efforts.

Their comments came in response to a CNN report that Flynn Jr., who has reportedly served as his fathers chief of staff, was given a transition team email account.

Flynn Jr. has come under fire for promoting the fake news story that alleged Comet Ping Pong, a Washington pizzeria, was the center of a sex ring involving Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John Podesta.

Related: Pizza shop owner rips fake news after gunman opens fire

The #Pizzagate conspiracy began in late October during the FBIs investigation into emails discovered on the laptop of top Clinton aide Huma Abedins estranged husband, disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. A tweet claiming that the NYPD was looking into evidence of Clintons involvement in an international child enslavement ring made its way to fringe message boards and websites.

The fake news reports apparently led a North Carolina man who was self-investigating the baseless story to open fire inside the restaurant on Sunday.

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The 28-year-old gunman, Edgar Maddison Welch, told police he traveled to Washington from Salisbury, N.C., to free the child sex slaves that never existed.

But the incident did not deter the younger Flynn, who remained defiant.

Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, itll remain a story, Flynn Jr. tweeted. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many coincidences tied to it.

Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many "coincidences" tied to it. https://t.co/8HA9y30Yfp  Michael G Flynn???????? (@mflynnJR) December 5, 2016

He then retweeted a tweet from Jack Posobiec, special projects director for CitizensForTrump.com, who suggested that the gunman was an actor carrying out a false flag operation on behalf of the U.S. government.

CNNs Jake Tapper then sent Flynn Jr. a series of private messages sharply criticizing him for peddling in conspiracies.

Michael, the police called pizza gate a fictitious conspiracy theory, Tapper wrote. Does someone have to die before you take this s*** seriously?

Those messages were subsequently tweeted by both Flynn and Posobiec.

U decide  NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etcMUST READ! https://t.co/O0bVJT3QDr  General Flynn (@GenFlynn) November 3, 2016

Both Flynns have used their social media accounts to spread false news stories about the Clintons.

On Nov. 2, the elder Flynn shared a fake news story linking Clinton to sex crimes with minors, falsely stating that the NYPD was close to bringing charges against the Democratic nominee.
Last weeks historic phone call between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and the President of Taiwan broke almost four decades of diplomatic protocol, prompting measured rebukes from the Chinese leadership, which claims sovereignty over the self-governing island-state.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was careful not to send bilateral relations into an unrecoverable tailspin before Trump had even entered the Oval Office. Instead, they blamed the faux pas on a trick by Taiwans new Beijing-skeptic leadership, as well as the real estate mogul being a geopolitical neophyte.

Residents in China were far less forgiving, however, and tens of thousands have given Trump both barrels on Chinas own Twitter-like microblog, Weibo.

Read More: By Speaking to the President of Taiwan, Donald Trump Lays Down the Gauntlet to China

Lets wait and see Trump mess up America, posted one user. Lets get out chairs and prepare [traditional snacks of] sunflower seeds and peanuts, enjoying the chaos soon to engulf the U.S. Trump truly is a mad dog.

Lets ignore him, posted another. As just an Internet celebrity, Trump gets scared when nobody pays attention to him.

The subject of Taiwan, which effectively split from the mainland in 1949 following Chinas civil war, is an incredibly touchy subject for Chinese. Decades of CCP propaganda have ingrained the belief that Taiwan is inexorably part of China, even as the islands own citizens increasingly see themselves as distinct.

In fact, Taiwan was ruled by Japan during the early 20th century, and was placed under Chinese control after World War II. At the culmination of Chinas civil war, the Chinese Nationalists, who had ruled China since 1928, were defeated by the Communists and fled to Taiwan. The U.S. continued to recognize Taipei as the true Chinese government until 1979, when the Carter Administration switched to Beijing. The call Trump received was the first direct contact between the leaders of Washington and Taipei since that time.

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Trump only understands business profits, not geopolitics, posted one Weibo user. His election indicates the waning of the U.S.

I will express my anger by not using U.S. products: no iPhones, no McDonalds, no electricity! joked another.

Read More: Three Things to Know About Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen, Who Rattled China by Phoning Trump

Following Trumps phone call, Beijing lodged a complaint with the White House, which in turn insisted that nothing had changed regarding Washingtons relationship with Taiwan. Trump, however, unleashed a series of unrepentant tweets, asking why the U.S. can sell Taiwan weapons but their leaders cannot talk, and also alleging currency manipulation by Beijing and broaching Chinas expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea. Naturally, that really got Weibo riled.

China didnt approve the U.S. selling arms to Taiwan or deploying [the missile system] THAAD in South Korea, posted one user. Trump really shouldnt consider himself the big boss, as the U.S. is not a superpower anymore. A war would do no good for China, but it would be worse for the U.S.

Trump, I dare you to open an account on Chinas Weibo! taunted another.

Before the election, Trump was oddly popular in China considering his frequently Sinophobic rhetoric, with an approval rating polling just below Democratic rival Hillary Clinton at 39%. An old Instagram video of Trumps granddaughter Arabella reciting Chinese poetry went viral, and many Chinese saw him as probusiness and not as hawkish in East Asia as outgoing President Barack Obama. That perception, however, has dissipated after the Taiwan phone call.

After Trump talked to Taiwan, I really pity those Chinese who support Trump, posted one Weibo user.

Trumps unwise confrontation with China demonstrated his swindler mentality, posted another. Even though he won the election, he is not qualified as a President. Without the necessary virtues to rule, disaster will come.

 With reporting by Zhang Chi / Beijing
(Updates with Air Force statement)

By Phil Stewart and Amy Tennery

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump urged the government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co for a revamped Air Force One - a prominent symbol of the U.S. presidency - complaining that costs were out of control.

It was the latest example of Trump using his podium, often via brief Twitter messages, to rattle companies and foreign countries as he seeks to shake up business as usual in Washington. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, took aim at what he called cost overruns even though the plane is only in development stages.

"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!" Trump said on Twitter. It was not immediately clear what prompted the timing of his complaint.

Trump, who has vowed to use his skills as a businessman to make good deals that benefit American taxpayers, then made a surprise appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, where he amplified his comments.

"The plane is totally out of control. I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money," he told reporters.

Boeing, which has built planes for U.S. presidents since 1943, has not yet begun building the two replacements for the current Air Force One planes, which are scheduled to be in service by 2024.

Boeing has not yet been awarded the money to build the proposed replacements.

"We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States," the company said in a statement.

NOT A 'VANILLA' JUMBO JET

The U.S. Air Force, which operates the presidential planes, first announced in January 2015 that Boeing's 747-8 would be used to replace the two current presidential planes.

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The planes can fly direct from Washington to Hong Kong, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) farther than the current Air Force One. They are designed to be an airborne White House able to fly in worst-case security scenarios, such as nuclear war.

President Barack Obama, who was flying on the aging Air Force One to Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, has called the plane one of the best perks of the presidency.

The Air Force said in a statement that it had budgeted $2.7 billion in the coming year for the initial stage of the project involving research, development, testing and evaluation.

The current Air Force plan envisions extensive modifications to a Boeing 747-8, including military avionics, advanced communications and a self-defense system, according to budget documents seen by Reuters.

"Of course it's not like buying a vanilla Boeing jumbo jet," said defense consultant Loren Thompson, who has close ties to Boeing and other companies.

A March report from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimated the cost of the overall program at $3.21 billion, including the purchase of two aircraft.

But the GAO estimated the costs for research and development would be would be low, at just under $2 billion. If the GAO report used the same Air Force estimate for research and development, then its estimate would be around $4 billion.

Boeing shares dipped after Trump's tweet but were flat at the end of the trading day.

HIS OWN PLANE

Trump is known for his love of his own Boeing 757 jet. In a 2015 Rolling Stone profile, he said his plane was "bigger than Air Force One, which is a step down from this in every way."

"Did you know it was featured on the Discovery Channel as the world's most luxurious jetliner?" he said.

Trump's broadside against Boeing comes as Washington's business lobbyists are bracing for a wild ride.

A New York real estate developer, Trump took aim at big corporations during his campaign, saying that they often harm ordinary Americans by sending jobs abroad.

Since winning the Nov. 8 election he has taken credit for pushing United Technologies Corp and Ford Motor Co to backtrack on outsourcing plans.

Both Ford and United Technologies said they support Trump's efforts to cut corporate tax rates and overhaul regulations, which could save the companies billions in the long run.

Trump's attack on Boeing was the main topic of discussion at the annual luncheon of the Aerospace Industries Association on Tuesday, where the group's CEO Dave Melcher urged the new administration to promote trade and bolster the high-paying manufacturing jobs that the $143 billion a year sector offers.

Industry executives say they are seeing willingness from the Trump team to take another look at export controls that limit exports of U.S. weapons. But in the short term, his tweets and comments on Boeing put defense contractors on notice.

"The chilling effect on industry is huge, if you are a contractor," said Franklin Turner, a partner specializing in government contracts at law firm McCarter & English.

Boeing relies on the U.S. military and other arms of the federal government for a significant share of its defense, space and security business which is worth $30 billion a year.

The company clashed during the past year with Republicans in Congress over the Export-Import Bank, a federal program Boeing uses to finance sales to certain overseas customers. Boeing executives have also been outspoken supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with Asia, which Trump opposed.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner, Emily Stephenson, Mike Stone, Susan Heavey, Andrea Shalal and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Ayesha Rascoe aboard Air Force One; Steve Holland, Alana Wise, Jeffrey Dastin, and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Frances Kerry and Alistair Bell)
President-elect Donald Trump unexpectedly started negotiating with Boeing (BA) over the price of a new Air Force One on Tuesday morning.



First over Twitter (TWTR), Trump threatened to cancel the order for a new Air Force One, which would be used for future presidents. He said the cost of the new 747 was more than $4 billion.





Then in the Trump Tower lobby, the president-elect amplified his message.

"Well the plane is totally out of control, it's going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program," he said. "I think it's ridiculous, I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."



In January, Boeing won a contract to start preliminary work on a new Air Force One program. The Air Force awarded Boeing an initial contract worth nearly $26 million to reduce risk and lower cost, Reuters reported. The Air Force has previously said that it planned $1.65 billion for two replacement jets, Reuters reported.



Noting that the current Air Force One is 25 years old, a source familiar with the Boeing Air Force One contract told CNBC that if the program does not move forward, it could be years before the president ever flies on a new one.



In a statement, Boeing said: "We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the President of the United States. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer."

According to the Department of Defense budget there's about $2.8 billion dollars allotted on the project until fiscal 2021. The document didn't put a total figure on the cost. The figure was marked as "continuing" under cost to complete. The Government Accountability Office said last year the cost could be about $3.2 billion, NBC News reported. It added by the time the aircraft is delivered it could be over $4 billion.

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When asked by reporters about the money already spent by Boeing, Trump said, "They've got to work that out."

The White House said on Tuesday some of the statistics cited by Trump on Air Force One don't appear to reflect arrangements between Boeing and the Department of Defense, and Americans would expect future presidents would benefit from upgrades.

Before Trump's tweet, Boeing was trading at $152.16 a share. After the tweet, it fell, as much as 1 percent, but later recovered those losses and ended the session about flat.

In Trump's 2016 financial disclosure, filed in May, he listed owning $50,001 to $100,000 of Boeing shares and listed the income from those dividends at $1,001 to $2,500. Trump's spokesperson Jason Miller reportedly said the president-elect sold all of his Boeing stock back in June.



Last month, a report said that Trump can get paid for Secret Service agents that fly on his plane.

The stock is up more than 5 percent year to date.





CNBC's Steven Kopack and Eamon Javers contributed to this report.





More From CNBC


Donald Trump's deal with Carrier was a hit with voters, despite the red flags it raises.

A Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday shows the agreement the president-elect struck with United Technologies' Carrier last week to keep about 1,000 jobs in Indiana played well with the American electorate. Six out of 10 voters surveyed said Trump's intervention to keep the heating and air conditioning systems maker from shipping hundreds of jobs in Mexico made them view him in a more positive light, even as a growing chorus voices alarm about the real estate magnate's tactics toward governing business.

"The Carrier announcement was big for Trump," Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult cofounder and chief research officer, told Politico. "Rarely do we see numbers that high when looking at how specific messages and events shape public opinion."

The Carrier deal helped Trump across party lines. Four in 10 Democrats say they view him four favorably and 54% of independents. Even about a third of Hillary Clinton voters said it improved his standing.

Moreover, most voters say the tactics Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the current governor of Indiana, employed were appropriate. More than half of respondents said they believe it is acceptable for the pair to directly negotiate private business, offer tax breaks, incentives or government contracts to keep jobs in the United States, and negotiate with individual companies on a case-by-case basis.

The online survey polled 1,401 registered voters on December 1 and December 2 and has a margin of error of three percentage points.

Not everyone is so comfortable with the strategies Trump employed in negotiating the Carrier deal and what they may mean for governance after his inauguration.

Some have pointed out that while saving 1,000 jobs in the state of Indiana is a good thing for those workers, it is quantitatively insignificant when considering there are 150 million jobs in America, including 12 million to 13 million in manufacturing.

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Moreover, the president engaging in public stunts and behind-the-scenes deals with private companies sets an alarming precedent and could encourage others to adopt similar tactics. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last week maligned the deal as "crony capitalism," and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders declared that United Technologies "took Trump hostage and won."

While speaking at Carrier's Indianapolis factory in celebration of the deal on Thursday, Trump suggested he had forgotten about his pledge to keep it from moving jobs to Mexico, even though he invoked Carrier as a major talking point throughout his presidential campaign.

"I never thought I made that promise. Not with Carrier. I made it for everybody else. I didn't make it really for Carrier," he said.

As the Washington Post points out, he did make such a promise. "We're not going to let Carrier leave," he said in April. "Because say what you want, Indiana. I've been talking about Carrier now for four months, right?"

Trump's apparent campaign-pledge amnesia on Carrier and his actions since his election indicating he may not be so keen to keep his campaign promises have an increasing number of observers worried.

"Was it a bait and switch?" asked Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University in a recent CNN op-ed.

While Trump has painted himself as a sort of post-ideological policy renegade, a number of his maneuvers since November 8 signal a clear shift to the right. He has announced Steve Bannon, former Breitbart News chairman and alt-right champion, as his senior adviser and plans to nominate Senator Jeff Sessions, who takes a hard line on immigration and voting rights, as Attorney General.

He also plans to nominate Representative Tom Price, an ardent Obamacare opponent, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, despite promises to maintain parts of the healthcare law that would be structurally impossible to hold onto under repeal. And, he has pulled a number of former Goldman Sachs executives into his realm, including Bannon, his Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin and adviser Anthony Scaramucci, despite railing against his opponents' ties to the bank on the campaign trail. Last week, he met with Goldman COO Gary Cohn.

"For all the talk about divisions within the GOP and Trump's unorthodox policy position, this is really looking like a very traditional Republican administration, and one that will veer to the right, not the center, on domestic and foreign policy," wrote Zelizer.

"The white working class is about to be betrayed," wrote Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and economist, in an op-ed on Friday, pointing to the president-elect's promises on healthcare coverage and manufacturing jobs it will be difficult for him to keep once in the Oval office.

"One tactic, which we've already seen with this week's ostentatious announcement of a deal to keep some Carrier jobs in America, will be to distract the nation with bright, shiny, trivial objects," he wrote.

Judging by the Monday's poll, the tactic worked.

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Randall L. Stephenson, Conan O'Brien

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is quite optimistic about video, and thinks you'll be watching it nine hours a day, eventually.

There are only 24 hours in a day, so if Stephenson is correct, that means people will spend about 38% of their lives  including sleep  watching video. If you get eight hours of sleep, that's over half your waking life.

"We are going to be living in a world where video is pervasively in front of you," Stephenson said at Business Insider's IGNITION conference Tuesday.

Stephenson said that as companies like AT&T roll out 5G network capability, and supercharge how much data you can consume on the go, that will enable things like virtual reality and self-driving cars to flourish. And it will continue the explosion in video usage.

"Think about the world of autonomous cars," Stephenson said. What are you doing when you're in the car? Ain't nobody driving," he laughed.

Today the average person consumes five hours of video a day. "That seems amazing to me," Stephenson said. But he said in 10-15 years, AT&T thinks people will watch nine hours per day.

And AT&T is betting accordingly.

Last week, AT&T rolled out an internet TV package called DirecTV Now, which it thinks will make it a real competitor to cable TV eventually. The company also will buy Time Warner for about $85 billion, pending regulatory approval. Stephenson said he hopes to use Time Warner to bridge the gap between premium TV and mobile.

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ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained an adviser to the head of the main opposition party over suspected links to the July coup, the Hurriyet newspaper said, the first time someone close to the senior ranks of the secular opposition has been targeted. Fatih Gursul was detained on suspicion of having used the ByLock smartphone messaging app, Hurriyet said. The government says ByLock was used as a communication tool by supporters of the Muslim cleric whom it blames for the failed putsch. At a news conference in the parliament building, the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Ozgur Ozel said that Gursul was an unpaid senior adviser to the head of the party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Ozel did not say whether Gursul had been detained, but accused the government of failing to share information. "What we have been saying for months is that the state should share any information or documents on Gursul with the CHP if they have it, but there has been no contact or sharing with the CHP despite our calls," Ozel said. The detention raises concerns that the secular opposition may be targeted in the government's widening crackdown that has followed the abortive coup. The Istanbul prosecutor's office, which Hurriyet said had issued the detention order, declined to comment. Turkey's state intelligence agency has cracked ByLock's security features and say it has traced thousands of people it alleges are linked to the coup. Some 36,000 people have been jailed following the coup, and 125,000 military officers, police, teachers, judges, prosecutors and others have been sacked. Rights groups and some of Turkey's European allies fear President Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to crush dissent. The government says such measures are necessary to root out supporters of the cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, has denied orchestrating the coup, and condemned it. Separately, arrest warrants were issued for another 36 judges, prosecutors and judiciary personnel on Tuesday in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir over suspected links to Gulen's network, the provincial prosecutor's office said. Authorities also detained two mayors from the sister party of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in Diyarbakir over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), according to a statement from the local prosecutor's office. (Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Richard Lough)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attends the Central Asia Ministerial at the Department of State in Washington, U.S. August 3, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

The US was shut out of a new round of negotiations between Russia and Syrian rebel factions hosted by Turkish officials in Ankara, a source within the Syrian opposition told Business Insider on Monday.

The opposition source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the negotiations, said American officials were not invited to take part in the talks because of recent tensions between Turkey and the US.

"The US is totally out of these talks," this person said. "And they're pretty angry about it."

The State Department would neither confirm nor deny that the US had been shut out of the talks. But an official pushed back against the notion that the Obama administration was vexed by the Turkey-brokered negotiations.

"We have seen reports of talks taking place between Russians and Syrian rebels, and we would welcome any genuine efforts to ease the suffering of the Syrian people, particularly in Aleppo, which has endured so much hardship in recent months," a State Department official told Business Insider on Tuesday.

The official also said that US representatives are "deeply engaged" with various partners on Syria.

"The US remains deeply engaged with the Turks, Russians, Saudis, and Qataris, our European allies, and the opposition in Syria," the official said. "Secretary Kerry met with [Russian] Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov and Special Envoy [Staffan] de Mistura in Rome Friday, and has meetings with multilateral partners in Europe this week."

The State Department announced in October that the US was severing its bilateral channels with Russia over Syria amid Russia's "intensified attacks against civilian areas," aid workers, and hospitals in Aleppo. Kerry has continued to meet and speak regularly with Lavrov about Syria since then, however.

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kerry lavrov

Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, did not say last week whether Russian officials were negotiating with Syrian opposition factions in Ankara.

"We need no mediators with the Syrian opposition. We have direct contacts," he told the Russian news agency TASS.

Among those present at the Ankara talks, according to the opposition source, were representatives from the Islamist rebel coalition Ahrar al-Sham. The Islamist al-Zenki rebel faction, which received US-made anti-tank missiles between 2014 and 2015, was also present  at Russia's invitation, according to The Telegraph.

The talks have been aimed at securing a deal to deliver humanitarian aid to eastern Aleppo  the Syrian city that has been besieged and under relentless aerial bombardment for more than three weeks  in exchange for the evacuation of extremists groups like the former Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

"Russia has indicated it'd be willing to accept aid access and local council control of Aleppo's east in exchange for JFS's withdrawal," Charles Lister, a Syria researcher with close ties the opposition, tweeted on Saturday.

Separate negotiations between Russia and the US were apparently underway last week to evacuate rebel groups from Aleppo, allowing civilians to stay and receive humanitarian aid. But on Tuesday, Lavrov said from Moscow that "those who refuse to leave of their own accord will be wiped out."

"There is no other solution," he said.

The US has also been negotiating with rebel groups inside Aleppo to try to negotiate the terms of their departure from the city, according to The Washington Post.

syria

But the Free Syrian Army, a prominent coalition of rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, is not considering withdrawing from eastern Aleppo, said Asaad Hanna, a political officer in the FSA.

"We will keep fighting," Hanna told Business Insider on Tuesday. "There are no preparations being made for the FSA to evacuate, and civilians haven't asked us to either. They feel they need protection from the [Iran-backed] militias and Hezbollah."

Forces backing Assad, including Iranian-led Shia militias and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, took back roughly 40% of the rebels' territory in eastern Aleppo last week amid heavy airstrikes from Russian and Syrian warplanes.

Turkey, echoing a proposal put forward by the UN last week, has been urging Russia to stop the bombing long enough for the 100 to 400 JFS fighters in eastern Aleppo to exit the city so that they would no longer be embedded with more moderate rebel groups and civilians.

Amid thawing relations with Turkey, Russia  which believes there are thousands, and not hundreds, of JFS fighters in the city  was considering the request.

As of Tuesday, however, a deal had still not been finalized. The talks are expected to continue throughout the week.

aleppo syria

Further complicating the negotiations is the feeling that Russia, which changed the tide of the war when it intervened on behalf of Assad in October 2015, may be losing influence in Aleppo.

"The Russians would prefer to have a cease-fire to help their relations with Turkey and show they are interested in peace, but the regime and the Iranians, they don't care," Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who is now a political adviser to the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told The Guardian last week.

"They want to take all of Aleppo," Barabandi said. "For the Russians, failing to achieve a cease-fire in Aleppo will show just how weak they are."

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U.S. News Education will host a Twitter chat on Tuesday, Dec . 13, to provide prospective students with advice and information about paying for an online bachelor's degree program. Topics will include scholarships available to online students, additional fees to consider and the financial aid process.

Who: U.S. News Education will moderate a panel of experts, including representatives from UF Online ( @UFonline), the online undergraduate arm of the University of Florida; the for-profit Kaplan University ( @Kaplan_Univ); University of Maryland University College ( @UMUC); and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, an organization of nearly 20,000 financial assistance professionals at about 3,000 higher education institutions ( @nasfaa).

What: A Twitter chat offering tips on paying for an online bachelor's degree and exploring the financial aid process for online students.

Where: Join the conversation using the hashtag #OnlineEdTips.

When: 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 13

Why: In some ways, costs and financial aid for prospective online bachelor's students differ from those pursuing a traditional education. With so many different online undergraduate programs out there, gathering all the information needed to pay for one can seem daunting.

Jordan Friedman is an online education editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at jfriedman@usnews.com.


Three MPs, including the deputy leader, put their hand up Tuesday to be New Zealand's next prime minister following the bombshell resignation of the popular John Key.

Deputy Prime Minister Bill English and Health Minister Jonathan Coleman both confirmed they would contest the leadership following a government caucus meeting, with Police Minister Judith Collins throwing her hat in the ring about two hours later.

Three-term leader Key endorsed English as his successor after announcing Monday he was stepping down to spend more time with his family.

The National Party is expected to vote on its new leader next week, ahead of the country going to the polls next year.

The 54-year-old English, from a farming background, lacks the charisma of the affable Key but is recognised as the economic brain who guided the centre-right administration through the global financial crisis.

"I am announcing today that I will be a candidate for the leadership of the National Party," English said.

"I can see fantastic opportunities for stronger economic performance, for spreading the benefits of growth for all New Zealanders and for getting stuck into some of our most retractable social problems."

Although snap polls in local news media supported Key's decision to back his long-time deputy, the 50-year-old Coleman said it was time for a change.

"I am seeking party leadership and I am absolutely up for the challenge. I believe I've got the energy, I've got the relative youth on my side, and I am absolutely focused on winning this leadership contest," he said.

"I feel it needs generational change, it's going to need new thinking in policy areas, it's going to need new personnel."

Collins, 57, argued the National Party needed the best person at the helm "and I believe I'm that person".

"It's going to need someone who can make decisions, who can think on their feet, who can make hard calls and who can connect to New Zealanders, whether they're women, men or of any ethnicity -- and I believe I can do that," she said.

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English is a veteran MP, having entered parliament in 1990 and he was at the helm of the National Party when it suffered its worst election defeat in 2002.

Coleman was first elected to parliament 11 years ago after practising as a doctor in New Zealand, Britain and Australia. In 2014, he became the first doctor in 70 years to be responsible for New Zealand's health portfolio.

Collins was seen as a high-flyer when she entered parliament in 2002 but resigned as a cabinet minister in 2014 after a leaked email alleged she had undermined the work of a senior civil servant. She was restored as a minister a year ago.
Photo of a pair of handcuffs (Pixabay)

Two Singaporeans were charged in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday (5 December) in Australia for dealing with money suspected of being a proceed of crime.

The two men, both 34, were arrested at the Adelaide Airport on Sunday (4 December) after the Australian Federal Police (AFP) conducted a search on them, the AFP said in a media release on Monday.

The first man was approached by an AFP cash and drug detector dog in the check-in area and was found to be carry A$250,000 (S$264,404) in his luggage. The second man was subsequently identified and had his bag searched. He was found to be carrying A$270,450 (S$286,032).

Acting AFP Adelaide Airport police commander Gavin Stone said that the cash seizure is the largest detected by one of their dogs at the airport.

If convicted, both men face up to three years of imprisonment.

Travellers who carry more than A$10,000 (S$10,554) or equivalent have to declare the amount before departing Australia.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief executive of the U.S. Aerospace Industries Association urged President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday to quickly nominate new board members to the U.S. Export-Import Bank to allow the export financing agency to resume functioning. Dave Melcher said billions of dollars worth of potential orders were in limbo because the agency's board lacked the necessary number of board members to back important trade deals. "The Senate can protect American manufacturing jobs by restoring the quorum to the Export-Import Banks board of directors," Melcher said in a speech before more than 300 industry and media representatives Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia. Boeing Co, one of the largest U.S. exporters, and other aerospace companies have raised similar concerns. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)
DETROIT (Reuters) - A federal judge in Detroit on Tuesday granted a new trial for a Palestinian activist charged with immigration fraud for failing to disclose that she had been imprisoned in Israel in connection with a 1969 supermarket bombing there, court officials said.

A U.S. appeals court earlier this year threw out the conviction of Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, saying that the trial court should have allowed expert testimony that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to torture in prison and did not know her statements to immigration officials were false.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain to reinstate her conviction. In rejecting that motion, Drain cleared the way for a new trial for Odeh, scheduled to begin on Jan. 10 in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit was not immediately available for comment on the ruling.

Odeh was convicted in November 2014 of unlawful procurement of naturalization following a one-week trial. She was sentenced the following year to 18 months in prison and faced deportation following her release.

Federal prosecutors said she failed to reveal her criminal history when she immigrated from Jordan in 1995 and again when she was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2004.

Odeh and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were convicted by an Israeli military court for the supermarket bombing and for placing a bomb at the British consulate in Jerusalem.

Odeh, 68, has said her confession to the bombing was the result of severe torture by the Israeli military, including rape and electric shocks.

Odeh's attorneys had argued that she not be imprisoned at all, citing her age, poor health, and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
By Erica Teichert (Reuters) - A U.S. judge in New Jersey on Tuesday threw out a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that automaker Mercedes misled consumers about emissions standards in "BlueTec Clean Diesel" vehicles. U.S. District Judge Jose Linares said the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case. Plaintiffs claimed Mercedes falsely advertised the BlueTec vehicles as having lower emissions. They said that they later found that the emissions were higher than U.S. standards permitted. The judge said the plaintiffs failed to show they actually viewed any of Mercedes' advertisements touting the cleaner technology. He gave them leave to revise their complaint. Diesel car makers in the U.S. have been under increased scrutiny since Volkswagen AG admitted in September 2015 that it had rigged U.S. diesel emissions tests. Volkswagen ultimately agreed to pay $15.3 billion in settlements for owners as well as state and federal regulators. In April, the U.S. Department of Justice asked Daimler to investigate the emissions certification process for its Mercedes vehicles. The automaker said it would cooperate with U.S. authorities, but has not admitted to any wrongdoing. The BlueTec system uses urea to eliminate nitric oxide fumes from vehicle emissions. It is used mainly in heavier cars like sports utility vehicles or Daimlers large limousines. (Reporting by Erica Teichert; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Bernard Orr)
By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. failure to retaliate strongly for the 2014 cyber attack against Sony Pictures may have helped inspire Russian hackers who sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, a senior congressional Democrat said on Tuesday. "Russia may have concluded that they could hack American institutions and there'd be no price to pay," Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told a press breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Schiff suggested that Washington team up with European allies to impose sanctions that would hit the Russian economy. Russia was blamed for high-profile attacks on Democratic organizations that damaged the party during the 2016 election campaign, in which Republican Donald Trump won the presidency and his party kept control of the Senate and the House. Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the allegations as U.S. campaign rhetoric. Schiff was one of a group of senior House Democratic lawmakers who wrote to President Barack Obama on Tuesday asking administration officials to brief members of Congress on Russian efforts to influence or interfere in the Nov. 8 U.S. election. "Russia may have succeeded in weakening Americans' trust" in democratic institutions, said the letter, also signed by Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, and the ranking Democrats on the Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Oversight and Armed Services committees. Other lawmakers, including some Republicans, have asked for investigations or called for legislation to address the hacking issue. Reuters reported on Friday that James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, asked Congress to remove a provision in an upcoming intelligence authorization bill that would have created a special committee to combat Russian efforts to exert covert influence abroad. Schiff, who backs creation of the bipartisan committee, said on Tuesday the United States needed to do more to stop such hacking. "Unless we establish some kind of deterrent, this is going to be unending," he said. An Intelligence Committee aide said the panel had changed the provision independent of Clapper's letter and felt it had "appropriately addressed" intelligence community concerns. In 2016, the hacking benefited Trump, Schiff said. He added, however, that Russian hackers could turn on Trump once he is president if they do not approve of his policies. The Obama administration publicly blamed North Korea for the malicious breaches that crippled Sony in 2014. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
By Dana Feldman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Federal and Los Angeles officials said on Monday they had been alerted by authorities in another country to a "specific" threat against the city's Red Line commuter rail system, prompting them to beef up security and alert the public.

"This threat is imminent, ... it is very specific," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told an evening news conference. "But the credibility still needs to be vetted."

Law enforcement officials at the news conference said the threat had been relayed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by a law enforcement agency in another country, where the threat had originated. Officials did not identify the country.

The male caller, speaking in English, had warned authorities in that country of an attack against a Red Line station across the street from the Universal Studios theme park on Tuesday, Beck said.

The caller did not threaten to carry out the attack but said he was alerting law enforcement.

The Red Line runs between downtown Los Angeles and northern neighborhoods, including Hollywood and North Hollywood, and carries about 145,000 passengers a day as part of the city's larger transit system. It does not operate between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Beck and Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said law enforcement would be stepped up at the Universal City/Studio City station and elsewhere along the city's rail lines.

"You will see additional measures but they are out of an abundance of caution," Beck said.

Mayor Eric Garcetti said he would board the train at the Universal City station himself on Tuesday as a show of confidence.

"Everybody should go about their normal day tomorrow," Garcetti said. "People may see heightened security ... But don't let those (additional officers) frighten you."

(Reporting by Dana Feldman and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Leslie Adler and Paul Tait)
By Idrees Ali TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States military plans to return some land in Okinawa to the Japanese government by the end of the year, the largest transfer since 1972, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday. Resentment over the U.S. military presence surged this year after an American civilian working at a U.S. base, Kenneth Franklin, was arrested over the murder of a 20-year-old Japanese woman, Rina Shimabukuro. Carter made the announcement during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the capital, Tokyo. A senior U.S. defense official said the United States plans to return nearly 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of land in northern Okinawa, with a formal ceremony for the return set for Dec. 21 and 22. "It will be a positive development for the alliance, demonstrating the commitment of both governments to the realignment of U.S. forces," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was the first announcement of a specific timeline for the transfer, which the U.S. military had said in July it was preparing for. Okinawa, which was under U.S. occupation until 1972, hosts the bulk of the approximately 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan. Although agreed in 1996, the return of the land was delayed by protesters blocking the construction of helipads. The Japanese government recently resumed work at the site. Carter is in Japan to try to sooth anxieties caused by the victory of President-elect Donald Trump, who has called for allies to pay more to sustain U.S. forces, or face their possible withdrawal. (Reporting by Idrees Ali in Tokyo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
(Corrects company name to Editas Medicine from Editas Pharmaceuticals in paragraph 15) By Brendan Pierson (Reuters) - The U.S. patent agency on Tuesday will hear arguments in a heated dispute over who was first to invent a revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. Hundreds of millions of dollars may be at stake, as the technology promises commercial applications in treating genetic diseases, engineering crops, and other areas. CRISPR works as a type of molecular scissors that can trim away unwanted parts of the genome, and replace them with new stretches of DNA. It has quickly become the preferred method of gene editing in research labs because of its ease of use compared with older techniques. The hearing is before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board in Alexandria, Virginia. It will pit one group of researchers associated with the Broad Institute, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, against another group linked to the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Vienna in Austria. The latter team, led by Berkeley's Jennifer Doudna and Vienna's Emmanuelle Charpentier, applied for a CRISPR patent in 2013. The Broad team, led by MIT's Feng Zhang, filed a patent application months later, and became the first to obtain a CRISPR patent in 2014. It has since obtained additional patents. The Berkeley team has obtained CRISPR patents as well, though the 2013 application has not been granted. In April 2015, the Berkeley team petitioned the patent agency to launch a so-called interference proceeding, claiming Broad's patents covered the same invention as the Berkeley team's 2013 application. Tuesday's hearing will focus on preliminary motions, which the panel is expected to decide within the next few weeks. One of those motions, filed by Broad, could end the case. Broad has argued that its patents, which describe the use of CRISPR specifically in animal cells, represent a breakthrough beyond the Berkeley team's application, which described it more generally. CRISPR occurs naturally in bacteria. The two teams, Broad has said, are not really claiming the same invention at all. If the panel agrees, the interference proceeding will end, and Broad's patents will remain intact. Rulings from the panel can be appealed in federal court. Otherwise, the proceeding will likely go on for another year or more, as the panel weighs evidence to determine which team was first to invent the technology. Broad spokesman Lee McGuire said in a statement that the institute was confident of its case. Berkeley representatives could not be reached for comment. The CRISPR dispute is among the last-ever interference proceedings, which were phased out by a 2011 patent reform law. The America Invents Act changed the U.S. patent system from a "first to invent" to "first inventor to file" for patent applications after March 16, 2013. If the Berkeley team's challenge succeeds, Broad could lose its patent rights. Broad has already licensed its CRISPR patents for human therapeutics research to Editas Medicine, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech firm whose founders included both Zhang and Doudna, who has since left. It has also licensed its technology to large businesses, including agriculture company Monsanto Co and General Electric Co's medical technology subsidiary GE Healthcare. Doudna co-founded Berkeley biotech firm Caribou Biosciences, which licenses Berkeley's intellectual property and is working on CRISPR with other companies, including Novartis AG and Dupont. The case is The Broad Institute Inc v. Regents of the University of California, Patent Interference No. 106,048. (Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Matthew Lewis and Lisa Shumaker)
By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The top official at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tasked with reviewing corporate financial filings is leaving the agency, the SEC said on Tuesday, its latest resignation since the presidential election in November.

The SEC said Keith Higgins, head of the Division of Corporation Finance, plans to leave the agency in early January.

Turnover of high-ranking agency officials after a Presidential election is common. The SEC chairman, who is presidentially appointed, is responsible for hiring division directors.

President-elect Donald Trump has yet to announce who he plans to nominate for SEC Chair. Around Washington, some have wondered whether former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, who is helping oversee the transition for financial regulation, could be tapped.

Other names that have floated around include securities attorney Ralph Ferrara and former SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher. On Tuesday, NBC also reported that former U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang could be a contender.

Atkins has also been mentioned as a possible nominee for vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Higgins, who has worked at the SEC since June 2013, was responsible for overseeing the adoption of many rules required by the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, a law that loosened securities rules to help small companies raise capital.

He was also tasked with overseeing the "disclosure effectiveness" project designed to streamline corporate filings to make them more useful to investors. That project has been cheered by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but panned by progressives such as Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who fear it will result in less disclosure to investors.

Higgins is now the sixth top SEC official to announce he is departing since Trump won the election.

In November, SEC Chair Mary Jo White said she plans to leave at the end of the Obama administration in January.

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Others who have said they plan to depart include Trading and Markets Division Director Stephen Luparello, Chief Economist Mark Flannery, Chief Litigation Counsel Matthew Solomon and Chief Accountant James Schnurr, who is still recovering from a serious bicycle accident in April.

SEC Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney, who has worked alongside White for years in both private practice and at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, declined to say when he plans to depart when asked by Reuters on the sidelines of a conference on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by David Gregorio)
(Adds more details on situation, comments from Sen. Manchin)

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said he is pushing to extend expiring healthcare benefits for retired coal miners by including a provision in a spending bill Congress hopes to pass this week.

In a statement on the Senate floor, McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, said that in conversations with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan he has insisted that the Continuing Resolution include "a provision to address that issue so these retirees don't lose their healthcare benefit at the end of this year."

The fate of the United Mine Workers' health care and pension funds is up in the air as Congress weighs legislation to provide financial support for the soon-expiring benefits, which are at risk of default as coal companies grapple with bankruptcies.

Although the Senate Finance Committee in September passed a bill to provide funding for those benefits senior lawmakers are looking for ways to include the provision in the spending bill that has to be passed before existing government funding expires on Dec. 9.

Democratic Senators of coal-producing states - Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Mark Warner of Virginia and Joe Manchin of West Virginia - said they would block must-pass legislation until Congress takes action on the so-called Miners Protection Act.

"There's going to be 16,500 retired miners that are losing their healthcare benefits. There will be another 4,000 the first of next year," said Manchin on the Senate floor on Tuesday.

"We're fighting for those people that we promised, that we believe in, that have powered this nation, that have given us the country we have and now we're turning our backs on them," Manchin said.

Manchin is due to meet with President-elect Donald Trump later this week to discuss a potential role in the Republican's Cabinet.

Trump had repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to put coal miners back to work. His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Trump's views on protecting miners' pensions and health care benefits.

Grassroots group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth plan to deliver a 10,000 signature petition to McConnell Tuesday to call on him to pass the Miners Protection Act, as well as RECLAIM, a bill that would offer financial support to help coal communities diversify their economies, before Congress leaves for recess.

(Reporting By Richard Cowan and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Bernard Orr)
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, went 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.

- Punishment raids -

Boys were taken to be soldiers or porters, girls were taken as sex slaves or drafted into military ranks as fighters.

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 (4.6-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.
* Ukraine was promised visa-free regime by the European Union

* Kiev jittery about waning support in stand-off with Russia

* Ukraine minister sees 'complete impotence' in EU

* EU ambassador hopes for visa regime within weeks

By Pavel Polityuk and Matthias Williams

KIEV, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Ukraine feels let down by the European Union for not keeping to a promise to give its citizens visa-free travel in the bloc, senior Ukrainian officials said.

The comments, made by two senior officials in interviews with Reuters, were unusually outspoken and cut through the public displays of bonhomie shown at a Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels in November.

They are also a reflection of Ukraine's nervousness about being abandoned by Western backers in its stand-off with Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea and Moscow's support for separatist rebels in the Donbass region.

These worries have been heightened by events seen as playing into the Kremlin's hands, including the election of Donald Trump and the prospect of Francois Fillon, who favours thawing ties with the Kremlin, taking the French presidency next year.

Ukraine was promised visa liberalisation if it met a number of conditions, including steps to tackle corruption. But visa liberalisation has not materialised yet as the EU wants to put an emergency suspension mechanism in place first.

The mechanism would make it easier to suspend any visa-waivers if the bloc sees a sharp rise in overstays, asylum requests or readmission refusals from a non-EU state that has had travel rules relaxed.

"While of course the Ukrainian president and his delegation tried to keep optimism publicly, I understand very well if they return to Kiev somewhat disappointed," Anders Fogh Rasmussen, an adviser to Ukraine's president, said.

"I would even use a stronger word. I think it's a kind of betrayal from the EU side, taking into account that Ukraine has carefully fulfilled all necessary criteria for visa liberalisation," the former NATO chief said.

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"COMPLETE IMPOTENCE"

European Council President Donald Tusk, who spoke Ukrainian and exchanged jokes with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at a joint news conference at the Nov. 24 summit, said he hoped the visa-free regime would be in place by the end of the year.

But Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal said the Europeans had shown little desire to implement visa-free access.

"Only constant pressure and the constant raising of this issue may force them to move forward," she said in an interview at her office. "Maybe this is not diplomatic, this is probably not diplomatic: we see complete impotence in the European Union, and in the European institutions."

Giving an example of the prevailing attitudes, she recounted an incident when, weeks before the summit, the Ukrainians were told by the French and Germans not to expect a positive decision.

"When I asked if they believe that it is unfair, that we in many areas are discriminated against compared to others, the German ambassador in Brussels told me 'life is not fair and you should cope with this'," she said.

EU officials publicly say Ukraine and fellow aspirant Georgia have qualified for visa liberalisation, but behind the scenes Germany, France, Belgium and Italy appear to be stalling.

"The EU understands that, in the eyes of Ukraine, the visa-free regime is a question of the EU's reputation," said a European diplomat, who declined to be identified. "The EU will try to do our best to provide the visa-free regime to Ukraine based on the understanding of these risks," he said.

"Not everything in Brussels revolves around Ukraine."

TALKS ON WEDNESDAY

Representatives of EU states will discuss the issue again in Brussels on Wednesday.

Hugues Mingarelli, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said Ukraine would be granted a visa-free regime as soon as the emergency suspension mechanism was agreed.

"We all hope that this will happen in the next few weeks. I cannot say anything more precise," he told a local news agency in an interview published on Tuesday.

The EU and the United States propped up Ukraine with money and diplomatic support after the country plunged into turmoil in 2014 and a new, Western-backed leadership took charge.

But since then, Ukraine's international supporters have become increasingly irked by what they see as Kiev's patchy progress in tackling corruption and modernising the economy. Some EU member states want sanctions on Russia lifted.

Ukraine, in turn, has its own grievances. Kiev has bristled at signs of a European rapprochement with Russia.

It also resents being told to do more to uphold its side of the Minsk peace process, brokered between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, to end the separatist violence in eastern Ukraine, saying the onus is on Russia as the "aggressor" nation.

The Maidan street protests in 2013/2014 were sparked by Ukraine's Kremlin-backed leader reneging on a plan to sign a political and trade agreement with the EU. But the fate of that deal, which was later signed, is now uncertain after Dutch voters rejected it in a referendum in April.

"I think that there are many things that can be considered as a betrayal," Zerkal said, when asked if the visa issue constituted a betrayal.

"The decision on Opal was also a betrayal of Ukraine," she said, referring to the European Commission allowing Russia's Gazprom to use the Opal pipeline in Germany, opening the way to bypass Ukraine as a gas transit route.

(Additional reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko in KIEV and Gabriela Baczynska in BRUSSELS, editing by Peter Millership)
By Pavel Polityuk and Matthias Williams KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine feels let down by the European Union for not keeping to a promise to give its citizens visa-free travel in the bloc, senior Ukrainian officials said. The comments, made by two senior officials in interviews with Reuters, were unusually outspoken and cut through the public displays of bonhomie shown at a Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels in November. They are also a reflection of Ukraine's nervousness about being abandoned by Western backers in its stand-off with Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea and Moscow's support for separatist rebels in the Donbass region. These worries have been heightened by events seen as playing into the Kremlin's hands, including the election of Donald Trump and the prospect of Francois Fillon, who favors thawing ties with the Kremlin, taking the French presidency next year. Ukraine was promised visa liberalization if it met a number of conditions, including steps to tackle corruption. But visa liberalization has not materialized yet as the EU wants to put an emergency suspension mechanism in place first. The mechanism would make it easier to suspend any visa-waivers if the bloc sees a sharp rise in overstays, asylum requests or readmission refusals from a non-EU state that has had travel rules relaxed. "While of course the Ukrainian president and his delegation tried to keep optimism publicly, I understand very well if they return to Kiev somewhat disappointed," Anders Fogh Rasmussen, an adviser to Ukraine's president, said. "I would even use a stronger word. I think it's a kind of betrayal from the EU side, taking into account that Ukraine has carefully fulfilled all necessary criteria for visa liberalization," the former NATO chief said. "COMPLETE IMPOTENCE" European Council President Donald Tusk, who spoke Ukrainian and exchanged jokes with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at a joint news conference at the Nov. 24 summit, said he hoped the visa-free regime would be in place by the end of the year. But Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal said the Europeans had shown little desire to implement visa-free access. "Only constant pressure and the constant raising of this issue may force them to move forward," she said in an interview at her office. "Maybe this is not diplomatic, this is probably not diplomatic: we see complete impotence in the European Union, and in the European institutions." Giving an example of the prevailing attitudes, she recounted an incident when, weeks before the summit, the Ukrainians were told by the French and Germans not to expect a positive decision. "When I asked if they believe that it is unfair, that we in many areas are discriminated against compared to others, the German ambassador in Brussels told me 'life is not fair and you should cope with this'," she said. EU officials publicly say Ukraine and fellow aspirant Georgia have qualified for visa liberalization, but behind the scenes Germany, France, Belgium and Italy appear to be stalling. [IDnL8N1DX35W] "The EU understands that, in the eyes of Ukraine, the visa-free regime is a question of the EU's reputation," said a European diplomat, who declined to be identified. "The EU will try to do our best to provide the visa-free regime to Ukraine based on the understanding of these risks," he said. "Not everything in Brussels revolves around Ukraine." TALKS ON WEDNESDAY Representatives of EU states will discuss the issue again in Brussels on Wednesday. Hugues Mingarelli, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said Ukraine would be granted a visa-free regime as soon as the emergency suspension mechanism was agreed. "We all hope that this will happen in the next few weeks. I cannot say anything more precise," he told a local news agency in an interview published on Tuesday. The EU and the United States propped up Ukraine with money and diplomatic support after the country plunged into turmoil in 2014 and a new, Western-backed leadership took charge. But since then, Ukraine's international supporters have become increasingly irked by what they see as Kiev's patchy progress in tackling corruption and modernizing the economy. Some EU member states want sanctions on Russia lifted. Ukraine, in turn, has its own grievances. Kiev has bristled at signs of a European rapprochement with Russia. It also resents being told to do more to uphold its side of the Minsk peace process, brokered between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, to end the separatist violence in eastern Ukraine, saying the onus is on Russia as the "aggressor" nation. The Maidan street protests in 2013/2014 were sparked by Ukraine's Kremlin-backed leader reneging on a plan to sign a political and trade agreement with the EU. But the fate of that deal, which was later signed, is now uncertain after Dutch voters rejected it in a referendum in April. "I think that there are many things that can be considered as a betrayal," Zerkal said, when asked if the visa issue constituted a betrayal. "The decision on Opal was also a betrayal of Ukraine," she said, referring to the European Commission allowing Russia's Gazprom to use the Opal pipeline in Germany, opening the way to bypass Ukraine as a gas transit route. (Additional reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko in KIEV and Gabriela Baczynska in BRUSSELS, editing by Peter Millership)
(Reuters) - Britain's financial watchdog proposed tougher rules for retail financial spread betting products known as 'contracts for difference' (CFD) after finding that 82 percent of customers using them lost money.

"We have serious concerns that an increasing number of retail clients are trading in CFD products without an adequate understanding of the risks involved, and as a result can incur rapid, large and unexpected losses," the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Tuesday. http://bit.ly/2gxTBcg

CFDs, including spread bets and rolling spot foreign exchange products, are agreements between two parties to exchange the difference between the opening price and closing price of a contract.

Shares in UK's IG Group (IGG.L), which holds 40 percent of the UK financial spread betting market by number of active primary accounts, fell 22 percent to 611 pence in early trade.

Shares in retail brokerage CMC Markets (CMCX.L) were down 29.9 percent at 128.17 pence.

Both IG Group and CMC Markets did not immediately comment when contacted by Reuters.

"FCA seems to be imposing more penal rules than the Cypriot regulator last week... This will result in a much smaller less profitable CFD and spread-betting industry," Liberum analysts wrote in a note.

Cyprus's financial regulator CySEC last week issued a warning to the mass of retail currency brokers registered on the island over their use of bonus schemes to encourage trading in risky products and related poor treatment of clients.

The FCA said on Tuesday it would introduce stricter rules for CFDs to ensure the sector addresses the shortcomings identified, ensuring that retail clients are aware of the high risks involved in trading these "complex products".

Some of the proposed measures include standardized risk warnings and mandatory disclosure of profit-loss ratios on client accounts to highlight the risks and historical performance of these products and setting lower leverage limits for inexperienced retail clients.

Companies would also have to leverage at a maximum level of 50:1 for all retail clients and regulate leverage caps according to their risks. Firms would not be allowed to give form of trading or account opening bonuses or benefits to promote CFD products, the FCA said.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru, editing by Louise Heavens)
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations envoy to Libya called Tuesday for the creation of a "presidential guard" to protect government bodies in the war-ravaged country, including the UN-backed Government of National Accord.

"I give my full backing to the creation of the presidential guard which will provide protection to state institutions and embassies," envoy Martin Kobler told the UN Security Council.

"The presidential council and the Government of National Accord (GNA) must not be protected by armed groups," he said.

Kobler said the proposal to create the guard would be discussed at a "high-level meeting" set for December 13 by the UN mission in Libya.

Once launched, the guard could ask for exemptions to the arms embargo imposed on the oil-rich North African country so it could develop its defenses.

The embargo, which the GNA has sought to have eased, should be maintained and enforced "until Libya has a reliable and coherent security apparatus," the UN envoy said.

Among other measures Kobler recommended for 2017 is the progressive return of the UN mission to the capital Tripoli and steps to improve the economy, badly hit by the country's multiple armed conflicts.

Kobler's remarks to the Security Council came as forces loyal to the GNA said they were hunting down the last jihadists in the city of Sirte, a day after taking control of the Islamic State group's former bastion.

The UN envoy said that after the recapture of Sirte, "the economic recovery of Sirte and Benghazi must be a matter of priority."

Benghazi is Libya's second city and birthplace of the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi. It has been embroiled in clashes between the armed forces of Marshal Khalifa Haftar and jihadists holding onto pockets of the city.

Despite the victory over IS in Sirte, Kobler warned that the jihadists "continue to be a threat."

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"The fight against terrorism produced results. However, the gains are not irreversible," he said.

The recapture of Sirte could strengthen the UN-backed unity government of prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj, aimed at replacing the two rival administrations fighting for power in Libya.

The GNA, established in March, has not been able to solidify its authority despite the support of some militias.

It is challenged by Haftar in the east and Khalifa Ghweil, leader of the former Tripoli-based Government of National Salvation.
Montevideo (AFP) - Marijuana-friendly Uruguay will soon have a museum dedicated to pot.

"It is a way to connect people who love nature, art and science," said the director of the museum, Eduardo Blasina.

The museum, opening Friday in Montevideo, will help people learn more about one of the world's oldest crops, Blasina said.

What is more, marijuana is now one of humanity's most important plants because of its medicinal benefits, he added.

Amsterdam, which also has a hash and marijuana museum, is contributing items for display, Blasina said.

Uruguay is a global pioneer when it comes to pot: under a 2013 law, the government supervises production of it as part of a plan to undermine drug traffickers.

The government will also oversee sales of the drug through pharmacies. This was already supposed to have happened under the law but the policy has seen its implementation delayed. It is now scheduled for next year.

Under that same legislation, the government allows users of marijuana to grow it if they register as members of state-regulated smoking clubs.

Pot-smokers are also supposed to register if they want to purchase it from a pharmacy.

The law lets users buy up to 40 grams (1.4 ounces) a month. Authorized buyers will be identified by their fingerprints.
New York (AFP) - A top US business lobby Tuesday praised President-elect Donald Trump's emphasis on boosting US manufacturing jobs, but warned it could backfire if he provokes a trade war.

"I am at this point optimistic, although I am little bit worried about some of the rhetoric," said Doug Oberhelman, chief executive of Caterpillar and chairman of the Business Roundtable.

Oberhelman echoed other business groups that have broadly praised some of the early signals from the incoming Trump administration, including its emphasis on lower taxes and regulatory reform, as well as several cabinet picks who come from the private sector.

But groups like the Chamber of Commerce and many business leaders have expressed concern over Trump's threats of protectionism, against trading partners like China and Mexico, as well as companies that offshore jobs.

Oberhelman said in a conference call with reporters that threats by Trump to enact 35 percent punitive tariffs on imports could harm companies like Caterpillar, which employs thousands of workers at midwestern plants who produce heavy equipment that are sold in Brazil, China, India or other overseas markets.

Some of Caterpillar's plants export as much as 80 percent of the goods made here, said Oberhelman, who will step down from the iconic American manufacturer in March.

"There's a lot of hourly jobs and production jobs for our company and our country that are contingent on that" trade, Oberhelman said. "So I do worry about retaliation for a 35 percent tariff or some kind of unilateral action against a trade partner."

However, he was more positive about Trump's expressed goal of improving free trade agreements to get a better deal for America.

"I think the better way is if there's a positive engagement between the administration and business and those foreign countries to figure out how we can all win and I think that's exactly the debate that President-elect Trump spurred," he said. "Because if he thinks he can negotiate better, we ought to."

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The comments came as the Business Roundtable released its quarterly survey of 142 chief executives that showed 67 percent expected an increase in sales over the next six months, compared with 59 percent with that view in the prior quarter.

The survey also showed 35 percent of chief executives expected higher employment compared with 27 percent in the third quarter.

However, just 35 percent expect higher capital spending, down from 38 percent in the third quarter.

Business Roundtable President John Engler predicted the group's next survey would show bigger jumps in the components if CEOs believe "all this talk (from Trump) is being converted into reality."
New York (AFP) - US antitrust regulators approved Alaska Airlines' $4 billion acquisition of Virgin America on Tuesday, but will require it to scale back a route-sharing alliance with American Airlines.

Under the codeshare agreement, Alaska currently markets American flights on over 250 routes, an arrangement in which the companies "often behave more like partners than competitors," the Justice Department said.

Under Tuesday's agreement, the Justice Department prohibits sharing between Alaska and American on routes where Virgin and American now compete and where Alaska is likely to introduce service after the merger.

"Smaller airlines, such as Alaska and Virgin, provide a critical competitive check on the larger carriers," said Renata Hesse, acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division.

"Todays settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgin's assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers."

Alaska Airlines said the Justice Department's action will not affect the majority of the codeshare flights with American.

The acquisition of Virgin America is expected to close "in the very near future," Alaska said in a news release.

The addition of San Francisco-based Virgin America's main routes, which connect the US west and east coasts, will strengthen Alaska's coverage, which has built up from its roots connecting the huge, remote northwest state to the west coast.

Alaska Airlines will be the fifth biggest US carrier after the takeover.

Shares of Alaska Air Group rose 1.3 percent and Virgin American 0.6 percent.
Miami (AFP) - A man from the southern US state of Georgia got life in prison without possibility of parole for leaving his toddler son to die in a hot car while he sent sexually explicit messages from his office.

Justin Ross Harris, 36, was given the maximum sentence after lead prosecutor Chuck Boring said 22-month-old Cooper Harris perished in "the most torturous, horrific, unimaginable way possible."

Harris has said that he forgot to drop his son off at daycare on June 18, 2014 and didn't realize he had left the boy strapped into his car seat until after he had driven for a few minutes after leaving work.

Prosecutors had argued that Harris wanted to be free of family responsibilities.

An investigation revealed that Harris had made Internet searches about life without children and how to survive prison, and watched videos of animals dying in cars in the sun.

In an unexpected twist to the case, a police detective said Harris had texted sexually explicit messages to six women, one of them as young as 17, while his son was baking to his death.

A jury three weeks ago found him guilty of charges including malice murder, cruelty to children and sexual exploitation of children -- in reference to the teenage woman he texted.

In addition to the life term for the murder charge, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark tacked on 32 years for the other crimes.

"The evidence that was presented at trial and the jury's verdict basically says it all," Boring said. "The evidence showed that this defendant was driven by selfishness and committed an unspeakable act against his own flesh and blood."

Harris, who was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with his hands and ankles shackled, declined to speak at the sentencing. He frowned throughout the proceeding but did not show any emotion as the sentence was read out.

His attorney, Maddox Kilgore, said he planned to file a motion for a new trial.

Kilgore told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month that there had been "breakdowns" throughout the judicial process.

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Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, saying there weren't enough "aggravating factors," such as additional victims, in the unusual case.

Staley Clark said she recalled Harris had told police and his ex-wife that he hoped to be "an advocate so that people would never do this again to their children."

"I would say that, perhaps not in the way that you intended, you have in fact accomplished that goal," she said.
Washington (AFP) - The US trade deficit widened in October but remained smaller than a year earlier, and included a big jump in exports to China, especially cars, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

The overall trade gap for the month grew nearly 18 percent to $42.6 billion, an increase of $6.4 billion over the surprisingly low September deficit. The level was about in line with analyst expectations, which forecast $41.8 billion, as the deficit returned to trend.

The gap was 2.1 percent lower than October 2015, and for the year-to-date the trade deficit is tracking about $10 billion lower than the first 10 months of 2015.

However, economists warn that if exports remain soft in the final two months of the year it could create a drag on fourth quarter growth, while the strong dollar will only help boost imports.

Amid a steady stream of tweets from President-elect Donald Trump on China and trade, including threats to slap punitive tariffs on imports, trade with China stood out in the report as US exports to the country reached their highest level since December 2013 at $13 billion.

The deficit with China shrank 4.2 percent to 31.1 billion in the month, in part due to a 27 percent rise in US passenger car exports to $939 million, even while imports from China were at their highest in the past year at $44.3 billion.

For the first 10 months of this year, the deficit with China is $20 billion lower than at the same point of 2015, the data show.

Total US exports fell $3.4 billion to $186.4 billion as sales of soybeans fell 30 percent or $1 billion from the sharp surge in September. Corn exports fell 36 percent. Civilian aircraft engine sales were up nearly 5.0 percent to $3.2 billion but exports of aircraft fell 9.5 percent to $5.3 billion.

Economists say the decline in exports if continued in the fourth quarter will subtract more than half a point from growth, and potentially higher.

"If sustained in November/December, the October levels would result in net exports subtracting about a point from the real GDP growth rate in Q4, after they directly accounted for 0.9 points of the 3.2% growth rate in Q3," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief US economist for High Frequency Economics.

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While noting "exaggerated strength in farm exports in Q3," O'Sullivan nevertheless said in a research note that the drag is unlikely to be that big. "Our 2.3% forecast for the Q4 GDP growth rate assumes a 0.6-point drag from net exports."

Mickey Levy of Berenberg Capital Markets also looks for a 0.6-point drag on economic growth in the final quarter of the year, but said economic outlook is improving.

Even so, "foreign trade is a wild card because of the stronger US dollar and uncertainties about the policies of the incoming Trump administration and how they may affect trade," Levy said in a research note.

"For now, the expectation is that the boost in economic activity from likely tax reform, infrastructure spending and an easing of burdensome regulations will stimulate stronger economic growth while increasing the demand for foreign goods and widening the US foreign trade deficit," he said.

The report showed the surplus in services was about steady, with exports of $63.3 billion and imports of $42.4 billion. But the goods deficit remains substantial: exports fell in the month to $123.1 billion while imports rose slightly $186.5 billion.

Among the details about imports, Americans bought 24 percent fewer organic chemicals, valued at $1.8 billon for the month, and saw crude imports nudge 2.4 percent upwards to $9.1 billion. But they also imported 14 percent more computer accessories and 8.0 percent more pharmaceutical products, valued at $9.1 billion.
Brussels (AFP) - The US commitment to NATO will remain "unwavering" despite the change of administration following the election of Donald Trump as president, outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.

"The change of the administration will not change the unwavering commitment of the US to... our NATO obligations," Kerry said after talks with his NATO counterparts in Brussels.

"The US commitment to NATO and Article Five transcends politics," added Kerry, referring to the military alliance's collective defence policy in which an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Trump stoked concerns that Washington's near 70-year European defence guarantee might no longer hold when he said on the campaign trail he would think twice about helping NATO allies who did not pay their defence dues.

His commitments particularly alarmed eastern European NATO countries that are on edge about a more assertive Moscow following Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

But Kerry insisted that both the Trump administration and the US Congress would continue to back NATO.

"I'm absolutely confident that the next administration and Congress will stand together," Kerry said in his swansong to Europe.

"I am confident Article Five is not going to be held hostage to the lack of one country or other (to meet its defence spending commitments) ... Article Five is much larger, it is about principle."

The top US diplomat also gave his backing to Trump's pick for defense secretary, retired general James "Mad Dog" Mattis.

"I am confident in some of the people I have seen so far, General Mattis ... I am certain they will remain committed to the core components of the transatlantic alliance," Kerry said.

But he insisted he had no idea of his likely successor as secretary of state.

"The list of people replacing me is growing," Kerry said, with names bandied about for weeks including former Trump critic Mitt Romney, one-time CIA director David Petraeus, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker or even former UN ambassador John Bolton.

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Kerry meanwhile insisted that the historic nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump promised during his campaign to tear up, was worth keeping.

"The Iran nuclear agreement has made the world safer," he said.

Overall Kerry said that the world should wait to see what Trump actually does and "must not get all churned up over things that have not happened or appointments that have not been named."

"Common sense will prevail," he added.
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(3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (2) Aug 06 (2) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (2) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (2) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (1) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (2) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 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(3) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (5) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (7) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (2) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (5) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (2) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (6) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (8) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (2) May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) 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Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1)
(Recasts lead; adds details, quotes from interview)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - United Technologies Corp , parent company of Carrier Corp, got a "good deal" with President-elect Donald Trump that allowed it to shift most jobs at two Indiana plants to Mexico, its chief executive said on Monday in an interview with CNBC.

Greg Hayes, chief executive of UTC, said Trump did not make threats in negotiations over the plant's future or raise the company's U.S. military contracts.

Carrier, which in February had announced plans to close two Indiana plants and send 2,100 jobs to Mexico, agreed last week to keep its Indianapolis plant open and keep about 1,100 jobs in the state, including 800 at the plant. It did not change its decision to close its Huntington plant.

"I was born at night but not last night," Hayes told CNBC. "I also know that about 10 percent of our revenue comes from the U.S. government. And I know that a better regulatory environment, a lower tax rate can eventually help UTC over the long run. And so we weighed all of things in making the decision with the board."

UTC, which had revenue of $56 billion in 2015 and owns Pratt & Whitney, has significant U.S. military contracts.

Trump, who repeatedly threatened during the presidential campaign to impose a 35 percent tax on companies that moved jobs overseas, announced a deal last week in which UTC agreed to keep the Indianapolis plant open and invest at least $16 million in it. Indiana officials said UTC would receive up to $7 million in state tax incentives.

"We keep the plant open, we keep 1,100 people employed in Indianapolis. We still get to do the preponderance of the restructuring, which we were going to do anyways," Hayes told CNBC, calling it a "a good deal for UTC."

Hayes said there was "no quid pro quo" and said Trump did not tell him he would not impose taxes if the plant was kept open. "He simply said, 'Take a hard look at it,'" Hayes said.

Story continues

Hayes said the $16 million investment will help automate the plant "to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No."

Hayes said the company's military contracts did not come up in talks with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the Indiana governor.

Wayne Ranick, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers union, said the deal means that 730 union workers at the Indianapolis plant will keep their jobs and about 80 salaried workers. But work on fan coil manufacturing "is still going to Mexico, affecting about 600 employees."

The nearly 1,100 jobs also includes retaining about 300 jobs at Carrier's Indiana headquarters that were not scheduled to go Mexico.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)
VIENNA (Reuters) - The victory of former Greens party leader Alexander Van der Bellen over far-right rival Norbert Hofer in Sunday's presidential election was confirmed by provisional final results released on Tuesday. A count of postal ballots after Sunday's vote gave Van der Bellen 53.8 percent of all valid votes cast and Freedom Party candidate Hofer 46.2 percent, the Interior Ministry said. The most closely watched projection, by pollster SORA, had put Hofer on 46.7 percent and Van der Bellen on 53.3 percent. Hofer conceded defeat on Sunday evening after voters roundly rejected his bid to become the first freely elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two. (Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Francois Murphy)
vancouver

From Portland to New York, North American cities are exploring how they can persuade more residents to travel by subway, bus, or bike.

Vancouver might be the continent's biggest pedestrian and public transportation success story.

As Citylab notes, people in Vancouver take half of all trips by foot, bike, or transit as of 2015. This is considerably more than any US city of comparable size, including Seattle (21%) and Philadelphia (27%), according to a 2015 United Nations report.

Ten percent of Vancouver's commuters also bike to work (For comparison, that percentage is 3.4% in Seattle and 2.3% in Philly). In the U.S., 0.6% of workers commute by bike, while 5% use public transit.

In a new short film, the nonprofit Streetfilms interviewed key planning officials, who detail how Vancouver became such a success story.

Check it out below:

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More From Business Insider


London (AFP) - Drawing on her own experience as a wartime evacuee, British actress and campaigner Vanessa Redgrave told AFP her new film about refugees was aimed at ensuring people stay sensitive to the issue.

The Oscar-winner made her directing debut on Tuesday with "Sea Sorrow", premiering the film in Hammersmith, an area of west London that has been particularly active in welcoming migrants for years.

"I conceived the idea that as a narrator I should narrate what I know," the 79-year-old said in an interview in her home ahead of the premiere, surrounded by family photos and acting awards.

The child of actors, Redgrave became a leading actress on both stage and screen and credits her parents with teaching her the importance of a good storyline.

She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1978 for her role in Second World War drama "Julia" and has been nominated five other times for an Academy Award.

Redgrave said her parents took her and her brother from London to stay with a cousin in the countryside during the Second World War, when they also tried to secure visas for Jews fleeing Nazi occupied territories.

- Nightmares from Nazi blitz -

In the film, she recounts how she watched the city of Coventry burn from a distance after a massive Nazi bombardment in 1940 and suffered nightmares from it years later.

Her first experience of helping refugees was after the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 when many fled to London.

"I was in drama school. I thought 'I can't go on studying to be an actress with Soviet tanks mowing people down'," she said.

As a volunteer she said she "made tea, tried to cook, held hands, listened" to the Hungarian refugees living in squalid homes in Ladbroke Grove in west London.

Her new film, which also features actors Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes, recounts life for refugees in Europe over the last century and draws parallels between harsh government attitudes towards refugees in Britain in the 1930s and now.

Story continues

The film also hinges on the importance of the post-war Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Redgrave remembers hearing in 1948 for the first time.

"I felt a great sense of relief as a child because I thought countries have found a way to stop anything like the Holocaust and the Second World War happening again.

"I still remain of that childish view," she said.

- 'Keep people human' -

Fast forward nearly seven decades and Redgrave said she is incensed by the failure of the British government -- and of Europe as a whole -- to take in more child migrants in recent months.

"The shameful thing is that our government, my government, has done everything possible to prevent child refugees from having access to their actual legal rights under international protection law," she said.

But she said ordinary British people were as willing to help now as they were to take in Londoners during the Second World War.

"The international press seem to have invented a hostility to refugees... People in Britain are very willing to help," she said, although admitting that people can become tired of helping.

"What I hope, and I believe that the kind of film I've tried to make is, that it will help keep people human for trying to help."

Redgrave filmed "Sea Sorrow" in several countries including France, Greece, Italy and Lebanon, beginning the project after an image of a Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach went viral.

Nearly 12,000 people have died or gone missing crossing the Mediterranean Sea since the start of 2014, according to figures from the UN refugee agency.

After a peak of more than one million sea arrivals in Europe in 2015, so far this year more than 350,000 people have made the crossing.

Redgrave's film ends with Fiennes playing Prospero in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" when he is asked by his daughter Miranda: "How came we ashore?"

"By providence divine," he says, before embarking on his story about how they were set adrift on a boat, telling her: "Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow".
Venezuelas Vatican-backed peace talks are meant to ease the countrys political tensions. So far, they have failed to do so, and on Tuesday, the degree of that failure became clearer.

Jesus Torrealba, spokesperson for the political opposition, said on Tuesday it wouldnt be meeting with the government because the government has so far refused to make any concessions, such as releasing political prisoners. The opposition, for its part, suspended planned street protests in a bid to nudge the peace talks along. It is unclear when the talks will resume, or when they were expected to conclude. The longer they go on, some argue, Maduro can hold onto power and avoid early elections.

But Venezuelan politics is far from the countrys worst feature right now. The Venezuelan bolivar is so inflated that cashiers are weighing, not counting, banknotes. On Sunday, the central bank of Venezuela announced that it would issue larger-denomination banknotes  that is, bills from 500 to 20,000 bolivars. This may, as the bank said, facilitate commercial transactions, but will not solve the countrys deep-rooted fiscal problems. And the economic woes are only going to be exacerbated after Mercosur, a regional economic group including Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, suspended Venezuela for violating Mercosurs democratic principles.

The economic misery, not unlike President Nicolas Maduros refusal to hold early elections or make concessions to the opposition, is hitting Venezuelans hard. Women, desperate to raise enough cash to buy hard-to-find food and medicine, are reportedly crossing into Colombia to sell their hair. Many have taken to buying their food there, too, as non-subsidized food in Venezuela has gotten too expensive.

The Venezuelan government is not totally AWOL, though. On Monday, its U.N. ambassador joined Russia and China to reject, for the sixth time, a Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day humanitarian ceasefire in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo.

Photo credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images
One year after the South Korean-based computer giant Samsung handed over $548 million to American rival Apple in a bitter, long-running patent rights battle, the Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously gave Samsung a chance to get back at least some of that money. The Justices ruled that a lower court may have gone too far in declaring that Apple has a legal right to seize all of the profits that Samsung had made by selling any smartphone that used some of Apples patented designs.

(credit: TechStage)

This was not a final ruling for Samsung, however. The Justices returned the case of Samsung v. Apple to that lower court to decide, after the two sides file new legal arguments, whether the source of profits to be handed over to Apple must be only the Apple designs that Samsung copied, or the whole smartphone itself. The ruling said that the source legally can be either, but the Justices would not sort it out themselves.

The ruling, going beyond the high-stakes rivalry between the two leading makers of smartphones, appears to have the potential to limit the remedy that high-tech companies can gain when they sue each other for copying their innovative designs. If they prove infringement, they might be able to recover only the profits that can be traced to the specific design elements, not all of the profits made by selling the device, according to the new ruling written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The Supreme Court had last ruled on design patent law in 1894 dealing with such simple objects as a rug or a saddle. Samsung had told the court it was necessary to reopen the issue of what the law covers, because of a recent expansion in getting patents on specific elements of complex products, like the smartphone.

The decision also appeared to clear the way for Samsung to go ahead with a claim, before the U.S. Patent Office, that the Apple design patents at issue are invalid. That issue was not covered by the new ruling, because the Justices had chosen to bypass that question when Samsung tried to raise it.

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The new ruling was based on an interpretation of a federal law enacted in 1887 that provides protection for unique designs in an article of manufacture. Justice Sotomayor ruled that the phrase was broad enough to cover an entire product that is sold to consumers, or only one or more components of the product. It will now be the task of Samsungs lawyers to show that, in this instance, it should have to give up profits only calculated on what it earned from using Apple design elements.

Apple has patents on three designs for its popular smartphone, the iPhone: its black rectangular shape with rounded corners, surrounding that front face with a rim or bezel to keep it together if the device is dropped, and a colorful grid of 16 icons. Apple claimed that Samsung infringed on all three when it produced several of its own smartphones. A federal appeals court, upholding a jury finding of infringement and awarding Apple a total of $369 million  based on the entire profit that the company had made from selling its versions. (Thar figure later grew with interest charges.)

Samsung took the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the only article of commerce that it sold that could infringe were the specific design elements covered by Apples patents, so profits should be limited to what it earned from the sale of such elements.

Tuesdays decision declared that the federal appeals court ruling in Apples favor was wrong in declaring that individual design components of the Samsung smartphones could not legally be treated as articles of commerce. But the court then went on to leave it to the lower courts, from here on, to devise a test for how to measure the allocation of profits if limited to the design elements alone.

This was one of three unanimous rulings that the Justices issued on Tuesday. In one of the others, the court gave federal prosecutors a significant victory when they file charges of insider trading against investors who use confidential corporate information in the stock markets. The court declared that those to whom the inside information is passed along, in a chain of tips, can be prosecuted for using the tip to invest even if the original insider did not get any money or other tangible value out of sharing the tip The decision in Salman v. United States was based primarily upon a ruling the court had issued in 1983 dealing with tips that are passed along to an insiders relatives.

In the other decision, the court refused to block a claim by two insurance adjusters that the giant insurer, State Farm, had illegally told them to write up property losses from Hurricane Katrina as the result of flooding, not of high winds, so as to shift the payoff to the federal government as the backer of insurance policies for flooding only. Thar ruling came in the case State Farm v. Rigsby.

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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Singapores State Courts (Yahoo file photo)

A Vietnamese man who killed a friend after punching him in the head was sentenced to 10 months jail on Tuesday (6 December).

Nguyen Trong Phu, 28, who originally faced a murder charge, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of voluntarily causing hurt to Phan Duc Thang, 32, at a workers dormitory in Marsiling on 21 May 2016.

Phan was arguing with another friend over remitting money to his parents when Nguyen got involved and swung his fist at the victim, said deputy public prosecutor Gail Wong in the State Courts.

After suffering a blow to his left temple, Phan died of severe bleeding while he was being conveyed to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital on the same day.

The incident occurred during a drinking session when Nguyen consumed nine cans of beer, DPP Wong revealed.

The accused knew full well the effects of intoxicationThe gravity of harm must be given significance as a life was lost, said DPP Wong, who called for a jail sentence of at least 12 months to be imposed on Nguyen.

Another aggravating factor was that Nguyen attacked the victim with great force on a vulnerable body part, DPP Wong added. The accused had a choiceHe could have walked away.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Chong Yi Mei called for a lower jail sentence of nine months, arguing that the crime was committed out of personal anger and lack of judgement in response to provocation from Phan.

The victim had thrown a stool at Nguyen shortly before the attack, causing the latter to suffer laceration on his head and requiring two stitches to close the wound, Chong said.

Nguyen could have been jailed for up to two years and fined a maximum $5,000.
Walmart just helped the gay rights movement in a MAJOR way and heres why its important

While not necessarily known for their staunch LGBTQ+ advocacy, Walmart has helped the gay rights movement progress towards a huge victory.

The company, which is the largest private employer of in the country, recently announced its plans to add insurance coverage for its transgender workers and same sex couples. Given that in 28 states it is still legal for someone to loose their jobs for being gay, Walmart has joined the likes of Apple and Xerox to help protect employee rights.

Firstly, the company settled a legal battle that saw one of its employees, Jacqueline Cote, sued the company for not allowing her wife, Diana Smithson, to enroll in her healthcare plan after she lost her insurance. Smithson, who was suffering from ovarian cancer, later died this year, but not before the couple racked up over $150,000 in uninsured medical bills.

Cote decided to file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, stating that Walmart had violated the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which disallows employment discrimination because of sex.

walmart

In a historic battle, Cote claimed that anti-gay workplace discrimination was actually a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that it was, therefore, an illegal practice. While there is a movement to add LGBTQ+ discrimination to the Civil Rights Act, Cotes case argued that Title VII stops sex discrimination, and as a result sex discrimination also covered sexual orientation discrimination.

As Slate report, part of this was down to the fact that The Supreme Court has suggested that Title VII disallows something called sex stereotyping, which means that one doesnt have to adhere to gender norms. Thus, the assumption that man has to be with a woman and vice versa is essentially sex discrimination. Similarly, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also argues that discrimination against sexual orientation is actually just discrimination writ-large. They also cited Loving v. Virgina  the landmark civil rights case that saw an end to the discrimination against interracial relationships  as an analogous example.

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In a landmark move, however, Walmart chose not to contest Cote and her lawyers interpretation of Title VII.

Instead, the company concede, awarding Cotes $7.5 million in a settlement as compensation. Whats more, others who have suffered because of the antiquated insurance policies will also be awarded reimbursement and restitution of up to 200% for any costs incurred.

The implications of this, however, are astounding.

By agreeing with Cotes argument, Walmart have essentially agreed that LGBTQ+ discrimination falls under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Basically, Walmart have seem to have agreed that sexual orientation discrimination should already be considered a violation of the Civil Rights Act. Its a great step in the right direction seeing a major company support the EEOC and many courts and federal agencies, and could signal a step in the direction of The Supreme Court affirming Cotes interpretation of the law.

The trend lines are very positive, said P. David Lopez, general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to The New York Times. The courts have really drilled down and started to re-examine whether prior precedent makes sense. Walmart is the latest data point in what weve seen is a real fundamental shift.

Walmart has also come out in support of transgender workers, too.

The company also added insurance coverage for transgender employees to their policy, meaning that they now score a perfect 100 on Human Rights Campaigns Corporate Equality Index.

The company has previously spoken up in support of transgender and gay rights. Following his take over as CEO three years ago, Doug McMillon actively opposed the Arkansas governors religious freedom bill that saw LGBTQ+ people discriminated against when it came to employment, housing, and public accommodation on religious grounds.

Corporate America has risen to the top in terms of being a high-impact influencer on LGBT rights, Deena Fidas, director of the workplace equality project at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, told Bloomberg.

We have corporations going on the record at the federal level, at the judicial level, and certainly at the state level speaking out against what we would call anti-LGBT bills.

While there is still some way to go in terms of full equality, its incredible to see a company like Walmart speaking out against any sort of discrimination and rectifying its own past errors.

[H/T Slate]

The post Walmart just helped the gay rights movement in a MAJOR way and heres why its important appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Online Grocery

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "E-Commerce Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

Walmart is launching a new line of convenience stores, called Walmart Pickup and Fuel, which will offer free, same-day pickup of online grocery orders, pushing the mass merchant further into the competitive grocery e-commerce space, reports Business Insider.

The company has already opened two locations in Alabama and Colorado, but an expansion could pose a bigger threat to competitors as US consumers begin shifting online for these purchases.

Walmart Pickup and Fuel capitalizes on US shoppers finally coming around to the idea of ordering groceries online. Many online shoppers have been hesitant to buy online because they like to see and pick out their own items. But they are starting to warm to the idea  41% of US consumers have now purchased groceries online at least once, according to Brick Meets Click. And the number of shoppers who say they have bought groceries online "in the past 30 days" doubled to 21% in 2015 from 11% in 2013. The new convenience stores, coupled with Walmart's curbside pickup program at retail locations, could help the company grow its online grocery sales and onboard new customers via flexible fulfillment.

Walmart is posing a bigger threat to competitors. In addition to Walmart Pickup and Fuel, the company recently partnered with ItemMaster to freely use its vast database of consumer packaged good (CPG) product photos and videos, reports Internet Retailer. Enhancing the customer experience to include the most up-to-date photos and product information from manufacturers via ItemMaster could threaten competitors, like Amazon, that are also moving into the grocery e-commerce space.

In addition, Walmart maintains an advantage in its physical locations and could steal market share if it continues meeting varied consumer needs with new tools and fulfillment options.

E-commerce has been on the rise in the last several years, thanks in large part to titans in the industry such as Amazon and Alibaba. E-commerce will truly become the future of retail, as nearly all of the growth in the retail sector now takes place in the digital space.

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BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, forecasts that U.S. consumers will spend $385 billion online in 2016. Moreover, BI Intelligence predicts that number will grow to $632 billion in 2020.

This is hardly surprising considering e-commerce's healthy growth. Though the U.S. retail average growth rate in the first half of 2016 was just 2% for total retail, it was 16% for e-commerce.

The number of online shoppers has grown by nearly 20 million from 2015 to 2016. And these 224 million shoppers are spending more, as the total amount spent online grew from $61 billion in the first quarter of 2015 to $68 billion in Q1 2016. Finally, these customers are transacting more frequently, as the number of online transactions has risen by 115 million from 2015 to 2016.

But all of this shopping online creates its own set of challenges, both for consumers and the companies that are trying to get their products onto shoppers' screens and into their shopping carts. In short, you need a plan.

And to create your ultimate e-commerce battle plan, you need the right intel.

BI Intelligence is here to help.

Our team of industry experts has you covered on topics such as:

Shopping cart abandonment

Marketing effectiveness

Merchandise returns

Customer satisfaction

Social media monetization

Mobile payments

Accommodating shoppers at the 11th hour

And much more

Interested in getting the full bundle of nea lry 80 reports? Here are two ways to access it:

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase & download the full bundle from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORTS





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From Road & Track

As winter descends upon us this year, we're reminded that snow and ice can wreck havoc on our car's grip levels. This video, shot in Montreal today, gives us a visual of what it looks like to lose all control going down a hill.

This chain of events occurred after the Canadian city got its first real snowfall of the year, blanketing the roads in frozen water. As you can see, it seems some vehicles weren't prepared for the reduced traction.

WATCH: 2 buses, a police car & a snowplow slide down an icy hill in Montreal pic.twitter.com/XjcWMfhZwr - Breaking911 Weather (@B911Weather) December 5, 2016

The video begins with a bus careening down the hill straight into a pile of cars packed into an intersection. Soon after, we see a work truck carrying a ladder roll into the stranded people-carrier, followed by another bus, which has just as little luck slowing down before striking the sandwiched pickup.

After that, a Dodge Charger Pursuit police car shows up, but like the others, is caught off by the slippery slope. The rear-wheel-drive car slides backwards into the second bus, then gets hit head-on by an out-of-control snow plow.

Remember people, snow tires exist for a reason.

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There's no business like snow business for this adorable polar bear cub, who was seen going absolutely bonkers as the white stuff fell in Oregons for the first time this winter.

Nora captured the hearts of thousands when she was first introduced to the world at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio last year after the heartbreak of being rejected by her mother.

Read: The Ice Is Right: Baby Polar Bear Overjoyed as She Plays in Frozen Kiddie Pool

Since then, she has brightened up the atmosphere at her new home at the Oregon Zoo.

In a video posted to the Oregon Zoo's Facebook account Monday, Nora is seen jumping up and down in the snow, tossing around a bin and happily shoving her face into the ice.

The 1-year-old also kicks around a ball and is caught wiggling on her back against a pile of snow.

Many of Nora's admirers have been left disappointed recently as the zoo decided to close public viewing to minimize distractions as she adjusts to her new surroundings.

Visitors might see more of her in the coming weeks, but thats all up to Nora, said senior keeper Nicole Nicassio-Hiskey. We understand how excited people are to see her, and we appreciate everyones patience and understanding. Her welfare has always been the guiding principle for us."

Read: Polar Bear Cub Captures Hearts of Zoo Goers During First Public Appearance

In October, InsideEdition.com followed Nora as she had the time of her life in a kiddie pool filled with ice.

In the meantime, the Oregon Zoo website and Facebook page will keep Nora's fans updated with other insanely cute videos of their favorite polar bear and until a companion for Nora arrives.

For now zoo officials say they will "care for her with enrichment, positive-reinforcement training and opportunities to participate in conservation science."

Watch: Polar Bear Mom Nuzzles With Her Cub Right After Giving Birth

Story continues

Related Articles:
They may be known for their selfies, but these dogs arent selfish.

With help from (RED), 10 Instagram famous dogs have gathered together to recreate Kanyes controversial music video for Famous. In this version a naked Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift are replaced with adorably-clad canine cuties like @TunaMeltsMyHeart, @ChloetheMiniFrenchie and @ToastMeetsWorld.

Along with being a great Tuesday distraction, this video is a celebration of the new, limited edit (BEDHEAD) RED dog pajamas, which all the pup-stars are sporting in this parody.

The red and white checked jammers are available for $28 in sizes Small to Extra Large until on Dec. 31 at RED.org, and are a great gift for a dog who wants to dress like a celebrity.

Both this video and the pajamas are part of (RED)s international effort to raise money for the Global Fund to help in the fight against AIDS. Bedhead is supporting the initiative by donating enough money to (RED) to provide 50,000 days of life-saving HIV medication to sub-Saharan Africa.




The Weather Channel typically sticks to reporting on science and weather, but it waded into politics on Tuesday, after climate skeptics had appropriated its work and presented it in a context that the channel considers incorrect and irresponsible.

In an editorial posted to Weather.com, the Weather Channel singled out last weeks Breitbart News article, headed Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists. The gist of the column on Breitbart, a right-wing news site whose former executive chair, Steve Bannon, is now working with President-elect Donald Trump, was that global land temperatures have dropped by one degree Celsius since the middle of this year and that this has been greeted with silence by media outlets that are supposedly pushing an alarmist narrative.

The last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare, Breitbart columnist James Delingpole wrote.

Much to the Weather Channels chagrin, one of its videos  La Nina in Pacific Affects Weather in New England  was plastered prominently above the text.

Breitbart had the legal right to use this clip as part of a content-sharing agreement with another company, but there should be no assumption that the Weather Company endorses the article associated with it, the editorial reads.

According to the Weather Channel, the Breitbart column is a prime example of cherry-picking, in which a single item is taken out of context to build a misleading case. The article later attracted even more attention after the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology somewhat inexplicably shared it on Twitter.

But the Weather Channel, naturally, sides with the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is creating greenhouse gasses that are warming Earths climate  and will continue to do so.

To make its case, the Weather Channel refuted the Breitbart articles hypothesis: that global land temperatures have fallen by one degree Celsius since the middle of this year.

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This number comes from one satellite-based estimate of temperatures above land areas in the lower atmosphere. Data from the other two groups that regularly publish satellite-based temperature estimates show smaller drops more typical of the decline one would expect after a strong El Nino event, the Weather Channel said.

Temperatures over land give an incomplete picture of global-scale temperature. Most of the planet  about 70 percent  is covered by water, and the land surface warms and cools more quickly than the ocean. Land-plus-ocean data from the other two satellite groups, released after the Breitbart article, show that Earths lower atmosphere actually set a record high in November 2016.

A Breitbart editor, speaking anonymously to Business Insider, didnt back down in the face of the Weather Channels criticism. Environmentalist agenda drivers in the media can go back to their safe spaces now, the editor said sarcastically.
LCD Soundsystem, Weezer, Odesza, Cage the Elephant, PJ Harvey and Vince Staples top the initial list of artists who've signed on for the 2017 Forecastle Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. Also on the roster are Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Griz, X Ambassadors and Cashmere Cat.

The three-day festival (June 14-16), which takes place in the 85-acre Waterfront Park on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Louisville, will celebrate its 15th edition with another one of its typically eclectic lineups, mixing in hip-hop (Run the Jewels, Waka Flocka Flame), indie rock (Friends, Beach Slang) and soul (Charles Bradley and his Extraordinaires).

A number of additional acts will be added in early 2017, with general admission weekend passes available now at ForecastleFest.com.

Check out the full list of artists announced on Tuesday (Dec. 6):

Our *initial* lineup is out! Come #GetOnboard #Forecastle this year with @LCDSoundsystem, @Weezer, @Odesza, @CageTheElephant, and SO. MANY. MORE! GA, GA Plus, & VIP weekend passes are on sale now via the link in our profile!

A photo posted by Forecastle Festival  (@forecastlefest) on Dec 6, 2016 at 7:07am PST
(Adds quote, additional details)

By Mica Rosenberg and Ernest Scheyder

WASHINGTON/CANNON BALL, N.D., Dec 6 (Reuters) - The company building the Dakota Access Pipeline turned to a federal judge late on Monday for a permit to finish the job after the federal government ruled against the controversial pipeline.

The pipeline, which is being built by Energy Transfer Partners, has been the subject of protests from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and climate activists for months, due to its proximity to the tribe's reservation.

On Sunday, the federal government turned down ETP's request for an easement that will allow it to tunnel under the Missouri River, adjacent to the Standing Rock reservation. The tribe and others hailed the victory, even though they expected the fight with the company would continue.

In a legal filing on Monday, ETP asked a judge to grant the permit, saying that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in its decision, responded to "political pressure and an escalating campaign of violence and disorder waged by protesters" against the project.

Last month, ETP said that delays have already cost it $450 million, while it anticipates further monthly delays of about $83 million. The company did comment on the filing.

"This seems like a distraction to me from the real issues. The Army Corps knows whether or not it has granted an easement across federal property. The Army Corps has wide discretion in this issue," said Jan Hasselman, a lawyer with Earthjustice, which is representing the Standing Rock Sioux.

Protests have gathered momentum this year in both the United States and Canada, as climate activists have united with Native tribes to form a powerful coalition against pipeline development. Canada's natural resources minister was forced to apologize on Tuesday for remarks interpreted as favoring law enforcement violence against protesters.

This came after several clashes between police and activists in North Dakota, most recently a confrontation with several hundred protesters where police responded by spraying people with water and tear gas amid freezing temperatures.

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That galvanized hundreds of veterans to flock to the Dakota Access protests, where they met tribal leaders to protest over the weekend, just before the Army Corps' decision.

The chief of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, Dave Archambault, asked protesters on Monday to go home, saying they should go home to spend winter with their families.

That became impossible late on Monday, as conditions turned harsh at the Oceti Sakowin camp in North Dakota, when a blizzard rolled in and raged throughout Tuesday, forcing activists to hunker down in communal tents and cars.

A state travel warning was issued on Monday, imploring people in southern North Dakota, including the area around Cannon Ball and the capital of Bismarck, to avoid travel. Snow has accumulated rapidly, with wind gusts in the area exceeding 50 miles per hour (80 kmh), according to the National Weather Service, causing drifts and blocking roads.

Linda Black Elk, 42, a leader of the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council, said Tuesday there had been two cases of hypothermia in camp. She said volunteers walked around the camp through the evening visiting tipis and yurts to check on people.

Morton County, in a release, said it had set up shelters at several locations, where a number of protesters attempting to leave the camp had ended up due to difficult driving conditions. Blockades on Highway 1806, just north of camp, were still in place as of late Monday, as the blizzard approached.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in Washington and Ernest Scheyder in Cannon Ball; additional reporting by Terray Sylvester in Bismarck and Liz Hampton in Houston; Editing by David Gaffen and Alan Crosby)
Since April, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has been demonstrating against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) -- a $3.8 billion crude-oil pipeline slated to go through Sioux 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty land, sacred burial grounds and Standing Rock's direct water source, the Missouri River, against the tribe's consent. Over the past seven months, the protest has grown to over 3,000 Native and non-Native protesters organized in peaceful prayer camps along the construction site in Cannonball, North Dakota. But as the movement has grown, the private DAPL security and militarized state police forces have increased in their violence against the self-proclaimed water protectors, hitting them with tear gas, attack dogs, rubber bullets, water cannons and even concussion grenades.

Nataanii Means, an Oglala Sioux and Navajo hip-hop artist and son of prominent American Indian activist Russell Means, has been supporting the #NoDAPL movement on the front lines since August. The 25-year-old water protector has made the Oceti Sakowin Camp his home base, leaving for only a month's time back in October to perform his resonant, narrative-driven rap.

Means first began making music in 2009 while studying at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico - it was his first time living off the Navajo reservation in Chinle, Arizona where he was raised. "In college, I was in the white world and I was trying to get a degree, and then I'd go home and I'd be immersed into that culture and dysfunction that isn't normal in regular society," Means tells Billboard of his undergraduate experience. "Seeing friends drink themselves to death because they're depressed, it's a reality that America doesn't see, and I wanted to portray that in my music and tell them that we're not all just Hollywood Indians on the big screen." He dropped 2 Worlds in 2013, an ode to this double life contemporary Natives must navigate. In 2015, he was featured in MTV's Rebel Music: Native America and has since been championing indigenous issues with his music.

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Though many celebrated on Dec. 4th when the Army Corps of Engineer's denied easement for the DAPL -- which halts construction under the protested section of the Missouri River -- Means and other water protectors remain weary. The DAPL's parent company Energy Transfer Partners have already issued a pointed statement that calls the government's decision a "purely political action," meaning they intend to continue construction as originally planned once "President Obama is out of office." But with the political momentum of the #NoDAPL movement, including a petition signed by 100 artists like Billie Joe Armstrong and Sia, the fight for environmental and indigenous issues is not over. Below, Billboard speaks with Means about police brutality, the healing power of music, and what being a water protector means to him as an Oglala Sioux.

How has the camp changed since August?

It's grown bigger and the awareness has grown because of the non-violent, direct actions we have taken for the media to pick up on [in order] to delay the pipeline. There are a lot of allies that have been here since the beginning, and there are more allies here now. They realize this has been an indigenous movement and they have to take the backseat, but they also recognize that just the color of their skin allows them to do things we can't. We put them through training and a lot of them go to the front lines, try to de-escalate [police confrontations], or put themselves to be arrested first. But they have to know their place here and know that this is an indigenous movement and be respectful of that. This is a way of life for us, so they can't just come here and play Indian. And a delegation that wanted to start a veterans coming to Standing Rock thing have gotten about 2,000 veterans out.

All day was what my spirit needed. And to end the night in good spirits with familiar faces, new friends and family. Lately it's been hard, after what's happened the past week, after being arrested, this felony charge, today was a good one.

A video posted by Nataanii Means (@nataanii_means) on Nov 5, 2016 at 10:14pm PDT

What has your personal experience been with the police brutality happening at Standing Rock?

On October 27th, I was arrested and charged with a felony -- conspiracy to commit endangerment by fire -- and two misdemeanors. We had a frontlines camp that was established, people were camping up there and had their teepees up right on the pipeline route. Warren County, along with other sheriffs from around the country, came and they forcibly removed us from that camp. They beat us, they maced us in the faces, they shot off flash grenades, they set off the LRAD sound cannon. They had all kinds of toys that they were just unleashing on us. It was very traumatic for us because we were watching the workers continue to dig as we were being forcibly removed. That day, I was targeted and pulled in by my hair. They arrested 140 people that day.

How do you and fellow water protectors deal with this violence?

For me, it's been really hard and my spirit's been detached. When you see something that traumatic, you internalize it. It's hard for us - a lot of us are frustrated, angry, really depressed. A lot of us are detached from reality. Dealing with the PTSD of everyday with the helicopters and hearing the flash grenades, it's been real out here. They hit us with water cannons in [below] freezing temperatures.

We're just water protectors, we've been our here on the front lines. We've done this totally unarmed. There are a lot of young protectors out here who have earned their feathers and paint. In Lakota society, there's ways to earn your paint and feathers -- protect the land, protect the women, protect your children, [things] similar to what we've been doing here, and with that, you earn eagle feathers for your good deeds. They're not being acknowledged in the rightful way.

Literally fighting for clean water. You find a whole new kind of strength knowing you're the ethnicity to be most likely shot and killed by police at a higher rate than anyone else, while you're being surrounded face to face by militarized cops with assault rifles, and armored vehicles. You find another level of that strength when the company they are protecting are bulldozing thru your ancestors sacred sites and burial grounds at that very moment right in front of your eyes, all while you are unarmed and being asked to remain peaceful by others. I believe that takes a lot of strength, it also caused a lot of trauma. Pray for our people. . . Shoutout Unicorn Riot for staying in the front not afraid to document everything

A photo posted by Nataanii Means (@nataanii_means) on Nov 1, 2016 at 11:54am PDT

As a Native hip-hop artist, what does being a water protector mean to you?

The other day, I got a chance to be alone in my yurt, and I put on a beat and twelve bars came out of me really fast. It's just therapeutic, and it's bringing back the essence of what hip-hop is to a person and society in general. Hip-hop music is healing. But out here, I'm a hip-hop artist last. I'm an Oglala first, I'm an indigenous man first. I'm a protector and I'm here for the water and that's what's most important.

What do you wish mainstream media knew about water protectors?

Mainstream media has been very quiet on the subject. They will mention it here and there and they would [write] about an action but not tell the whole story -- they would go over the gist of it and not everything that Warren County did [to us]. Now, it's like this big huge thing, Oh, it's been denied! It's frustrating because we've been trying really hard to get this out there for months. There's just so much that was missed, so much that was misinterpreted that I start to get angry about it.

How are you feeling about the [Dec. 4] Army Corps of Engineer's easement denial?

Skeptical. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it - they've done things like this before [in September].

What do you think about celebrities and musicians leveraging their platform to talk about the Standing Rock's struggles?

Vic Mensa spent a couple days out here, he was in camp walking around and visiting. Just to have them have this on their radar and be socially conscious about our people, I commend them for that because they don't have to care. They don't have any ties to this land or they don't have any real reason to care about us. They can be asleep and be okay with it. But for them to be awake and conscious about our efforts and assisting the cause, that proves this isn't just [an indigenous] cause but it's a human problem. Thank you to all the people with big names that have helped with the awareness of what's happening here.

My brother Hank Crow and I a few months back. Since then we've slept in tipis, yurts, hotel room floors, and in jail cells haha..he locked down the other day in Minneapolis, sacrificing himself to make a statement for the well being of our future generations and water. #WeOutHere #Akicita #WildOglalas

A photo posted by Nataanii Means (@nataanii_means) on Dec 4, 2016 at 10:21pm PST

What are other issues in Native American communities you would like to see get this sort of attention?

Right now as we're speaking, a proposal for the Pinon Pipeline that BLM [Bureau of Land Management] is submitting into Navajo Nation. Line 3 pipelines just got approved in Canada by Prime Minister Trudeau, and that's supposedly supposed to go through Minnesota. There's the [Apache] Oakflat movement [in Arizona] where they've been fighting off copper mining for the past few years. And with Trump coming in promising to create more jobs with energy, we have our work cut out for us.
Massage therapists can sometimes cross the line  just as one did with Ali Vincent, who spoke about her experience over the weekend. (Photo: Getty Images)

This article has been updated since it was originally published.

Ali Vincent, winner of The Biggest Loser in 2008, announced on T.D. Jakes that she was joining Weight Watchers to get her weight back on track. She also admitted, according to People, that she is still dealing with the emotional aspects of being assaulted.

The Biggest Loser gave me the opportunity to believe in myself, and I dont know that I ever really did, Vincent said on the show. Everybody wanted me to and I wanted to for them, and I had results to prove it. But do I really deserve to have everything that I dream of? Do I deserve to have this happiness?

She admitted to the host that shes the one holding herself back.

I know that theres stuff that I have to deal with, and I know that it goes back way far, but then I also know that Im 41 years old  when am I going to own my own stuff? she said. When can I just let go?

Vincent recently shared, in a very personal interview, the trigger behind her subsequent weight gain: the trauma she experienced after being sexually assaulted during a massage.

I was getting a massage and I fell asleep, which I often do with massages, she recalled, tearing up, on an episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now? that aired on Oct. 8. And I felt so safe in this place. I had no guards up. And I woke up to  I woke up to someone feeling in my vagina. And I was just, like, in shock, like, What is going on? Whats happening? And then I just jumped up and ran out. It just hit, and I was just sitting there in a bog  shaking.

Vincent went on to explain that after the incident she got engaged to her now-wife and kept herself busy with wedding preparations because I didnt want to deal with what was coming up for me. After her wedding, she got caught in a mindless cycle of eating and drinking. She soon found herself back at the weight shed been when she first went on The Biggest Loser and joined Weight Watchers. The assault, Vincent added, remains something that Im working on.

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For anyone who has ever had a massage and knows that feeling of letting your guard down completely to find bliss and relaxation, the idea of that moment leading to sexual assault is terrifying. But such incidents are not exactly rare.

Ali Vincent in 2014. (Photo: Vincent Sandoval/WireImage)

I think its more common than people think  not necessarily rape, but inappropriate touching, inappropriate comments, Ben Benjamin, founder of the Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and co-author of the book The Ethics of Touch, tells Yahoo Beauty. There have been hundreds and hundreds of cases in the past five to 10 years that have occurred that are terrible. Benjamin adds that while 98 percent of massage therapists are decent, tremendous, good people, 2 percent of about 300,000 massage therapists in the U.S. is still a lot of people. And in any population, there are sexual predators.

To wit, recently reported cases include that of a male massage therapist at a Pennsylvania spa assaulting a woman at the start of a 20-minute treatment; a $5 million lawsuit against a high-end New York City spa where a woman says she was assaulted during her massage; a masseur who was charged with a felony count of sexual penetration during a massage at a Los Angeles gym; and multiple lawsuits against a national chain, Massage Envy Franchising, for several reports of sexual assault. A website dedicated to the issue, Rubbed the Wrong Way, archives details on many more.

While every type of sexual abuse is traumatic, there is a particular violation that occurs during a massage when you are so open and relaxed. Youre doing something unusual to start with  you go into a room with your clothes off and someone touches your body, Benjamin, a frequent expert witness for cases of sexual abuse in the healthcare and massage fields, explains. And you are putting a huge amount of trust into this individual and into the institution they work for. A person usually assaults many times before theyre caught. And for the victim, the fallout can be severe.

When you wind up being sexually assaulted, it can trigger lots of things  if you have PTSD, you may take drugs, get depressed, eat, Benjamin explains. It makes sense if you are traumatized that you are going to do things that are not so good for you.

If you find yourself a victim of sexual assault, according to the support and education organization RAINN (Rape Abuse and Incest National Network), you will want to first get yourself out of the situation and to a safe place  and then understand that what happened was not your fault. If youre not ready to involve police or even the management, you might consider starting with a call to the National Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-HOPE (4673), which will connect you with a trained staff member who will be able to provide guidance and support.

Benjamin blames the rise of these incidents on the fact that the booming business of massage therapy has led to massage training schools becoming more corporate and thus having less oversight.

The quality of training went way down, and ethics and sexuality have been taken out of the curriculum, so theyve now become factories where they accept anyone who has the money, he says. In the past, he adds, schools would interview people extensively, and if there was any boundary crossing, they would be kicked out. That doesnt happen anymore. So now we have a bunch of grads who dont have boundaries.

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A spirit distilled from rebellion, rye whiskey helped lubricate the United States struggle for independence from Great Britain, a legacy both celebrated and brought full circle with the WhistlePigs 2016 the Boss Hog: the Independent. The third expression to comprise the Boss Hog series, the latest release is 100-percent rye and pours one of the Vermont-based whiskey makers most distinctive drams yet. Interestingly, part of its singular stature is owed to a collaboration from across the pond, something unheard of in the early days.

When the colonists first came stateside from Europe, rum was the chaser of choice, and it was was strictly supplied by the British. When the revolution reared up, the rum ran dry and parched patriots made rye. Flash forward a couple of centuries and WhistlePigs master distiller Dave Pickerell decided to tap into Old World ways and rely on 66-gallon Scotch casks, known as hogsheads. After being refit with American oak heads they were used in the Independents finishing process after the juice had already aged for 14 years.

The Scots love to finish their whisky in used bourbon barrels, so we decided to hit one back over the fence to our friends across the Atlantic, says Pickerell. Finished in hogshead barrels, this Boss Hog has a flavor profile unique in American whiskey. Your move, Scotland.

The result comes in at about 120 proof and brings out both flavors of a refined rye (with notes of caramel) at the beginning followed by a lingering skosh of Scotch.

The Boss Hog is the absolute pinnacle of whiskey, asserts WhistlePigs founder and chief steward Raj Peter Bhakta. It is old, powerful, yet possessed of the grace and balance of a ballerina.

Topping off the tipple is a handcrafted, lead-free pewter presentation of the brands winged mascot Mortimer atop a cannona stopper as uncommon as the contents. With only 30 barrels produced, the Boss Hog: the Independent has been available since October at a price of $300 per bottle. (whistlepigwhiskey.com)

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With protestors for both sides engulfing the campus, white nationalist and alt-right movement leader Richard Spencer has been scheduled to speak at Texas A&M University Tuesday night in College Station, Texas.

Spencer, who recently gained national attention both for his speech at the National Policy Institutes national conference in Washington, D.C., last month and the Nazi salutes in the crowd that followed, is a journalist, writer and founder of ultra-conservative website AlternativeRight.com. His pending presence on the Texas campus has sparked protests both for and against his views. He was slated to speak at the schools Memorial Student Center.

During his National Policy Institute speech, the one statement that fueled significant backlash against Spencer and elicited the salutes was: Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!

For some, the calls and gestures were too reminiscent of the Nazi salute of Heil Hitler.

Spencer also made his views on which race should be dominant in the country.

America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us, he said at the conference.

In response, Texas A&M students have organized protests against and for Spencers views.

Nick Meindi, an international affairs graduate student, told the student-run newspaper The Battalion Sunday that he began organizing a silent protest at the schools Rudder Plaza after hearing Spencer would appear and plans to carry it out.

We want to show all these groups are united together in this common goal and they are not alone and they are supported by the whole of the university from a wide range of people, Meindle said. Were going to make it [the protest] silent because we believe Richard Spencer and his supporters are trying to intentionally get a negative response because he can use that to paint us all with the same brush and say were all horrible, violent people, which were not.

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But there will reportedly be a counter-protest from Spencer supporters on campus. A student alt-right group named European Aggies Alliance, which was started in the last month and has not gained recognition from the university, also intends to protest before and after Spencer speaks, The Battalion reported.

Spencer was not invited to speak by the university, but rather an alumni named Preston Wiginton on the grounds that the institution is a publicly funded school. Wiginton believes Spencer has points to make and considers widespread dismay at President-elect Donald Trumps ascension to the White House as a direct result of the alt-right, he said in an interview on CNN Monday.

"I think (the US) was at one time (a white nation)," he said. "I think the reaction to Trump being elected, and the reaction with the alt-right being popular, is a reaction to it declining as a white nation."

The speech is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. CST (8 p.m. EST). A live stream of the event can be viewed below.

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Its unusual that were having a national discussion about outsourcing in the wake of the Carrier plant deal with the Trump administration. The dominant political approach to American manufacturing losses has been silence; Rust Belt rage has supplanted that consensus with the appearance of action.

Those two approaches dont really represent the dividing line in this debate. I see four separate paths playing out, two for each party. And who triumphs will determine to some degree the next stage of U.S. politics.

Until 2016, the Republican laissez-faire approach was to never mention the steady flow of jobs moving overseas. It just wasnt presented as a necessary or important topic. If GOP politicians ignored outsourcing, CEO donors could keep pursuing it. Tax breaks and job-killing regulations were fair game, but the economic forces that provoke outsourcing were off limits. After Donald Trumps takeover of the Republican Party, this approach is no longer relevant, though it quietly echoes in Trumps strategies, as well see.

Related: Crony Capitalism Is Evident in Trumps Deal

The establishment Democratic approach is similar, albeit with more rationalization. Before his inauguration, President Obama attributed flat-lining wages and incomes in part to forces that are beyond everybody's control: globalization, technology and so forth. This June, he told a Carrier employee that some jobs just arent going to come back, mocking the idea that Trump could save them.

This isnt just bad public relations, or an inability to tout successes like the auto bailout. Saving an entire industry  including its executives  does not correspond to saving a thriving companys U.S. factory. Obama pursued the former but has resisted the latter, preferring to point to underlying economic forces driving de-industrialization. In his view, automation means manufacturers employ less people to produce the same number of goods, and globalization unleashes forces that cannot be suppressed. You can train people for the future, but trying to stop offshoring meddles with the primal forces of nature.

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I reject this implication that politicians are innocent bystanders, incidentally. The same people shrugging at the inevitability of globalization made the dubious choice to trade American labor for global stability. They now plead no alternative, but they shoulder blame for pursuing free trade policies while ignoring those who lost out in the bargain.

Related: Carrier Gets State Incentives, Trump Pledge for Keeping U.S. Jobs

Its also worth fact-checking Obamas claims. Running a persistent trade deficit clearly has an impact on manufacturing employment, one that is not pre-ordained so America can maintain global social order. The alleged manufacturing productivity growth is mostly centered in the building of computers, a small sub-sector. Anyway, were in the midst of an historic productivity slowdown, the opposite of a world where robots are making everyones jobs obsolete.

But even if you believe Obama, this approach is political poison, functionally identical to Republican neglect and abandonment. If you strip away Obamas personal likability and charisma, you get a Democratic Party that is currently in its worst position since the 1920s. Lecturing that an entire regions way of life is outdated and must be written off bred this backlash.

That leads us to Trumps deal-cutting approach. Crucially, Trump only saved 800 Carrier jobs; 1,300 more will go to Mexico. And one alleged core element of the deal, $700,000 a year in state-based tax incentives for a decade, still pales in comparison to Carriers estimate of $65 million in annual savings from moving plants to Mexico. Anyway, those tax breaks had already been offered and rejected. Theyre simply not why the deal got done.

Related: Trump Gets a Win With Carrier, but Some Conservatives See a Loss

Im not even certain threats to Carrier parent company United Technologies $6 billion in federal contracts were determinative; contractors know mere presidential whim cannot fully influence the procurement process. Trumps bluster about a 35 percent tariff on any goods produced with outsourced labor is certainly a sideshow; notice hes not threatening it on the air conditioning plant Carrier is taking to Mexico.

The real Trump approach combines loudmouth tactics to convince the public that hes fighting for them combined with the familiar tax cut-and-deregulation GOP playbook. Carrier admitted this: Its statement emphasized Trumps commitment to support the business community and create an improved, more competitive U.S. business climate. Every CEO in America understands that code. Trump made it more blunt it in his Carrier speech: Were going to do great things for business, theres no reason for them to leave anymore your taxes are going to be at the very, very low end and your unnecessary regulations are going to be gone.

In other words, this was about corporate welfare. Carrier keeping 800 jobs in Indianapolis is like them throwing a buck in the tip jar after hitting the lottery.

Related: Here Are the CEOS and Wall Street Titans Trump Will Turn to for Advice

Laissez-faire Republicans whine about a shakedown and decry crony capitalism. Laissez-faire Democrats, like Larry Summers, warn of dangers to capitalism (seeing Summers fret about the rule of law after he did nothing as 9 million families lost their homes based on fraudulent foreclosure documents is quite rich). But theyre only responding to Trumps mostly irrelevant public bluster. This lets Trump get away with a corporate enrichment strategy while selling it as a crackdown.

The laissez-faire crowd knows this and dutifully plays their role, distracting from their solutions lack of success. Less than half the jobs were saved, showing clear limitations to this type of bribery. Cities and states try these tax breaks all the time; there simply arent enough available to compete with a global framework that punishes workers for seeking dignified wages and privileges the movement of capital.

The fourth way, exemplified by Bernie Sanders, is the democratic approach. It does not resort to bribery, and it does not tell workers their days are numbered. It says simply that when you benefit from doing business in America  from our legal system and infrastructure and educated workforce and proximity to the worlds biggest purchasing power  you will play by a defined set of rules that protect workers and advance the economy. The corporation (or the shareholder) should not be in control; the people, through their elected government, should determine whats best for the nation. And you can write those rules into law.

Related: Sanders Tells Trump to Use Defense Contracts as Leverage for Carrier Jobs

This has the advantage of actually attacking the drivers of outsourcing, which include much more than just cheap labor. The strength of the U.S. dollar is a much larger cause of job loss; other countries evading international law and manipulating their currency unimpeded can be targeted. Offshoring allows multinationals to achieve on-paper shifts of profit to the lowest-tax regions; that can be dealt with, too. Allowing slave labor, child labor and environmental degradation abroad  indeed, covering for trade partners who do this  unlevels the playing field for U.S. workers.

These ideas run up against rules in trade pacts that disallow the U.S. to discourage outsourcing. To that I say, good. Thats the debate we must have: Whether it makes sense to discourage U.S. employment in favor of capital mobility. Who is in charge, the owners or the voters?

To those claiming a Sanders-style policy would drive corporations from America, presumably market access to 320 million, many with disposable incomes, has value. This argument is also an expression of blackmail, that the race to the bottom can never be stopped. But enforceable global worker standards, instead of the piteous version in our modern trade regime, can cut off that tactic.

Trump may or may not borrow some of these ideas; at least by early indications, hes a laissez-faire Republican in autocratic clothing. But the Democrats have a choice to make. Twenty-five years of Clinton/Obama policies have concentrated capital and increased corporate political power. Moreover, they posit the government as powerless in the face of underlying forces. The progressive insurgency rejects this as a false lack of choice. Progressives believe the law can be harnessed to produce fairer outcomes. Maybe theres a little bluster in there too, to try and change corporate norms of behavior. But really it reflects a simple rule: Let the people govern.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Heres why everyone is talking about Michelle Obamas green dress

In just a short time, the Obamas will no longer occupy the White House, meaning their time as the reigning first family is coming to a close. Their final Kennedy Center Honors ceremony may have been celebrating longtime entertainers like The Eagles, Al Pacino, and Mavis Maples, but it doubled as a farewell to the Obamas.

As usual, when the Obamas arrived, all eyes were on Michelle, who has made a name for herself over the last eight years as a major style icon. The First Lady wore a green Gucci dress so stunning, well really miss her ~flawless~ style.

While on the surface it just seems like another beautiful gown worn by our fashionable First Lady, theres more than meets the eye.

ENTERTAINMEMT-US-KENNEDY CENTER HONOREES

Obamas decision to wear the dress, made by the Italian designer, came on the same day that Italys Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, resigned after staking his political career on a referendum, which was voted down over the weekend. The occasion also marked the first time Obama has worn a dress by a non-American designer to the Kennedy Center Honors, notes The New York Times. In fact, this is only the second second she has even worn Gucci, with the first being a map dress she wore for a September taping of Ellen, according to Vanity Fair.

39th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

The First Lady has always used fashion as a diplomatic gesture when meeting with heads of state or visiting other countries. So, many saw Obamas decision to wear Gucci to the event as a message in support for Renzi, who has been a major advocate for the growth of Italys fashion industry.

Whether or not Obamas dress was a secret message to Renzi and the Italian Democratic Party, she looked gorgeous. Were really going to miss her stunning design fashion sense when her and President Obama leave the White house in January.

The post Heres why everyone is talking about Michelle Obamas green dress appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Especially in recent years, the list of Grammy nominees have been filled with both "duh!"s and "huh?"s, the obvious and the unexpected, the middle-of-the-roaders and the off-the-beaten-trackers. But the nominees for album of the year, the crown jewel of this most illustrious of mainstream music awards, have been relatively predictable, usually containing a couple of very obvious nominees, a couple of "hmm"s and one "woah!"

But for reasons that have nothing to do with its considerable musical merit, the album of the year category has never had a nominee as unlikely as Sturgill Simpson's A Sailor's Guide to Earth.

A look at all of the AOTY nominees going back to the early 1960s reveals plenty of surprises, but they generally can be explained in one of three ways (with occasional overlap):

1. The Belated Legacy Nod This is how albums like Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters (which, boosted by its Joni Mitchell theme and special guests, won album of the year in 2008), Steely Dan's Two Against Nature (2001's winner) and albums like Paul McCartney's hardly classic Flaming Pie or Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (nominated in 1998 and 2006, respectively) get into the AOTY mix. They are rarely among the artist's greatest work and are virtually Lifetime Achievement awards; they frequently rise to the top in years when there aren't more obvious winners, although that certainly wasn't the case in 2001, when Steely Dan topped Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP and Radiohead's Kid A. A happy exception is Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time, which -- more than 20 years into her career -- cleaned up at the 1990 awards and added several zeros to her annual income for years to come.

2. The Hit-Powered Relative Newcomer This is when albums by relatively new artists (to the Grammy electorate, anyway) ride into AOTY based on a hit single (like Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"-featuring St. Elsewhere or Sara Bareilles' "Brave" vehicle The Blessed Unrest) or mammoth sales (like Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, which is a stellar album but a long shot for AOTY). These rarely win, but exceptions were Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and Norah Jones' Come Away With Me -- the latter of which, like Adele's albums, sounds classic enough to appeal to the voters referenced above in category one.

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3. The Groundswell This is when an artist reaches an undeniable critical mass. As the Grammys have upgraded the awareness and savvy of their voting members -- a long process that has increasingly borne fruit over the past 15 years or so -- the bar here has gotten lower. For example, U2 winning album of the year in 1988 for The Joshua Tree (over Michael Jackson's Bad and Whitney Houston's Whitney, no less) and Lauryn Hill in 1999 for Miseducation felt like breakthroughs. Things had progressed enough by 2011 for Arcade Fire's The Suburbs -- the first independent-label release to win AOTY -- to beat out Eminem, Katy Perry and Ladies Gaga and Antebellum; and for Daft Punk's Random Access Memories to beat Taylor Swift's Red in 2014 (Daft Punk also beat out Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, which belongs in this category as well). And while none of these albums topped Swift's 1989 for AOTY earlier this year, the 2016 finalists were unprecedentedly left-field: Alabama Shakes for Sound & Color, Lamar for To Pimp a Butterfly, Chris Stapleton for Traveller and The Weeknd for Beauty Behind the Madness.

In fact, looking back over the past 50 years, the strangest nominee by far is the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which not only won in 2000 (upsetting Bob Dylan, Outkast and U2), but has gone on to sell a whopping 8 million copies in the U.S. to date (according to Nielsen Music) and exposed countless millions to glorious early country music. However, it was pegged to a hit film and thus falls under category 2.

Sturgill Simpson doesn't fit any of those models. It doesn't fit any model.

A Sailor's Guide to Earth is a bold and unorthodox album that, coming after the more straightforward country of his previous releases, took many fans and critics by surprise -- and, to put it mildly, probably puzzled the Nashville establishment. It doesn't fit into any country category -- nor, with its mix of twang, old-school Waylon Jennings balladry and Memphis-style horns, does it fit neatly into any category at all. And while the album garnered a bevy of critical plaudits, it's not the kind of galvanizing, fanbase-expanding album that the Shakes', Stapleton's or Arcade Fire's were.

All of which is probably the way Simpson intended things. As his first release on a major label (Atlantic), he seems determined to prove that he's going to follow his own star.

In fact, beyond its musical quality (which, as we've seen, is no guarantee of Grammy success!), it's a challenge trying to game Simpson's nomination, except possibly as an after-effect of Stapleton's success last year -- although Traveller didn't win AOTY. The point also may be fairly moot, as he's up against Adele, Beyonce, Justin Bieber and Drake.

Various colleagues have rolled their eyes and pshaw'ed some of the arguments above, citing Simpson's strong critical following. Not coincidentally, all of those pshaw-ers are critics. And while one instinct may be to say, snootily, "Who listens to critics anyway?" 

Well, one such critic, Alan Light, predicted Simpson might be an AOTY nominee on this very site.
Perhaps a Trump presidency wont be so bad after all. At least, not for giant corporations like AT&T.

Company CEO Randall Stephenson took part in the 2016 UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Tuesday morning, when he laid out a few reasons to be optimistic about President Trump.

Were hopeful that perhaps maybe a more moderate approach to some of these regulations is in the making under a Trump administration, Stephenson said of the incoming FCC regime.

He specifically cited a simpatico stance with the president-elects transition team when it comes to Title II and net neutrality.

Also Read: Republican Elector Cites 'SNL,' 'Rogue One' as Reasons He Won't Vote for Trump

Stephenson is also encouraged by Trumps ideas on corporate tax reform.

I do believe when youre the highest-taxed country in the developed world, that has an implication on investment, he said of the current United States climate under President Obama.

The executive trying to acquire Time Warner for $80 billion-plus believes that economists are even underestimating the impact of pulling back to a more rational level of regulation  [and] tax reform. For the first time in a long time, AT&Ts CPAs are forecasting best-case scenarios instead of worst, the big boss glowed.

So, yeah  you could say that Stephenson is welcoming the Republican takeover in 2017. Perhaps he missed the part where Trump said he wont approve the giant pending merger.

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Donald Trump's Foundation Gets Shaken in Mad Magazine's 'Dumbest People' Issue

Trevor Noah Warns Against Extremism in Post-Trump US: 'Divided People Are Easier to Rule'

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Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump struck a staunch tone against undocumented immigrants while remaining resolute over building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But once the New York billionaire became the president-elect, his support for the massive construction project seemed to gradually dissolve into a more moderate stance of tightening border security and increasing fencing, much to his base's dismay.

Despite Trump's softening position, many of his supporters are continuing to push for his promised "big, beautiful wall." As the White House transition team continues to fill out the cabinet, undocumented immigration opponents are slamming the president-elect for considering potential nominees who wouldnt definitively support building a border wall.

Rep. Michael McCaul, a leading contender for secretary of homeland security, recently received a deluge of criticism from right-wing sites for not being adamant enough in his opposition to undocumented immigration. The Texas Republican has since rebuked the criticisms, calling them "incredulous and inflammatory and ... slanderous" in a Fox News interview, pointing to his track record of voting against sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants.

McCaul then introduced a payment plan for the Mexican government to pay for the project in an op-ed for Fox News, writing, "We are going to build the wall. Period."

But critics still say McCaul is too friendly with Washington elites to follow through with his plans.

RTST0LB

Photo: Reuters

Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies blasted McCaul for being too "weak" on border security in an interview with The Hill, saying "after eight years of Obamas presidency, the anti-borders activists have become emboldened."

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"There are going to be human chains around [Immigrations and Custom Enforcement] offices. They are going to be posting the home addresses of ICE agents," he continued. "It's going to be that kind of potentially violent opposition to immigration enforcement. And I hope whoever is DHS secretary wont go wobbly."

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said McCaul's ties to Republican House Majority Leader Paul Ryan and other Capitol Hill figures could deter him from pursuing the campaign promise that helped secure Trump the GOP nomination.

"This was, along with trade, the issue that allowed Donald Trump to mow down 16 other viable and talented and capable contenders in the primary process," Stein told The Hill Monday. Stein added that "nobody can bring out, in rally after rally, Americans who lost loved ones because these immigration laws were not enforced  or Americans who lost jobs because of unfair labor displacement" without fulfilling that campaign promise.

Meanwhile, Trump recently said during the kickoff to his post-election "Thank You" tour across the states that helped him win the presidential election that he still intends on building a border wall.

"Trust me, were gonna build a wall," Trump said. "And by the way, people are gonna come through that wall. Were gonna have doors in that wall, but theyre gonna come through legally. And people are gonna come through on worker permits, to work the fields, were gonna have people, a lotta people, come through, but its gonna be done through a legal process. But one thing thats not gonna come through is drugs."

Also being considered for the homeland security role are retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who opposed President Obamas efforts to close Guantanamo Bay and clashed with his White House administration over women in combat, as well as Frances Townsend, former homeland security and counterterrorism official to the George W. Bush administration. Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke are also reportedly being considered to fill the role, among others. Aside from McCaul, no potential candidate has outlined proposals for building a border wall.

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Photo: Getty Images

A British woman is crying pregnancy discrimination after she had an employment offer retracted via text message.

Holly Holden, 20, is in her second trimester of pregnancy and had already signed a three-month agreement for an evening cleaning position with TCFM, a contract cleaning provider in the UK. But a day before she was supposed to start her new job in East Yorkshire, she received a disturbing text message.

According to Metro UK, after Holly inquired about what to wear for her first day of work, the interviewer responded via Facebook messenger:

Im really sorry but my area manager has over ruled (sic) my decision to take you on as your (sic) due in April and has someone else in mind for the job. If you want a job after youve had little baby then please come back, sorry

Holly Holden took a screenshot of the text exchange (Photo: Mercury Press)

Holden and her boyfriend Lewis are reportedly happy about having the baby, as she had previously been told that she couldnt have children but she said the whole incident made her feel ashamed of being pregnant.

She came forward with her story so she could highlight pregnancy discrimination.

Im probably not going to get anywhere with it, but I just want to shine some light on it and hopefully make sure it doesnt happen to anyone else, she said.

Pictured: Holly Holden with her growing baby bump. (Photo by Mercury Press)

In a statement, a TCFM spokesperson said that the incident does not represent the adherence to our anti-discrimination policy that is in place and our demonstrated commitment to pregnant women in particular.

The spokesman further claimed, We are concerned to learn about the distress this has caused to the individual and are therefore fully investigating the incident.

What do you think? Let us know by tweeting us @YahooStyleCA.




Lyle Denniston, Constitution Dailys Supreme Court correspondent, was at Mondays two-hour Supreme Court arguments about voting districts and race, where the eight Justices sought to make progress on an elusive issue.

The facade of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

Only one thing was really clear after the Supreme Court spent two hours on Monday trying anew to craft a workable constitutional standard for judging when redistricting maps are based too heavily upon the race of voters. It was that the Justices are growing increasingly frustrated that they have to face repeatedly a renewal of that elusive pursuit. They did not make notable progress on the problem this time, either.

Several times before, the court has said quite clearly that legislators can take racial factors into account in drawing new election boundaries after each 10-year census, but declared that it is unconstitutional if race is the predominant factor. How to define that phrase occupied the court in back-to-back hearings Monday, on a case involving maps for electing members of Virginias legislature (Bethune-Hill v. Virginia Board of Elections) and on a case involving maps for elections in two congressional districts in North Carolina (McCrory v. Harris).

Two lawyers appeared in both of the cases  Washington, D.C., attorney Marc E. Elias for the voters claiming an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in each case, and Washington attorney Paul D. Clement for the two states. Elias had the support in both cases from lawyers for the Obama administration.

From the opening question, asked by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., to attorney Elias  How do you understand predominance?  to the end of the hearings more than two hours later, the Justices explored a wide array of alternative ways to look at that question.

Is a court to rely simply on numbers (how many black voters were packed into a district compared to how many whites were moved out, into adjoining districts); or is a court to inquire into what the legislators intentions were and how is that to be proved.

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Or should a court find that race was too dominant only if the legislature drew oddly-shaped districts or sliced up cities and counties as the only ways to concentrate black voters; or should a court require those claiming a racial gerrymander to draw up competing maps to prove that the same political goals could be achieved without focusing on race; or should courts be more deferential to the state legislatures in the exceedingly difficult task of satisfying federal voting law as it seeks to assure that black voters have political power at the same time satisfying the Constitutions mandate of racial equality.

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., who seemed inclined to diminish the courts supervision of the redistricting process as a conservative judicial aspiration, nevertheless did seem to speak for all of the court as he mused that this process is very, very complicated because judges were having to apply a multi-factor, vague predominance factor which serves only as an invitation to litigation. Maybe, he lamented, there is no way around it.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer offered an exaggerated complaint about the Supreme Court being put into the position of the nineteenth court to be reviewing the evidence of whether or not there was forbidden racial gerrymandering in redistricting disputes.

One complicating factor that repeatedly cropped up was that there is a very high correlation between the way many blacks vote and their party preference  Democratic  so it can be quite difficult to sort out when a Republican-controlled legislature is using blacks race as a proxy for curbing Democratic power at the polls  a permissible goal, at least up to a point  or when the legislators real goal was to discriminate unconstitutionally against those voters political power because of their race. . While Justices and lawyers, alike, talked of how difficult that was to determine, it was not clear that there was a consensus on how to do that.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor made an effort, not noticeably successful, to pull the arguments back to what she called the constitutional evil  that is, the use of race to guide government action. Its easy to say its political, she commented, so if a legislature has acted because of race, its redistricting plans should be nullified and should be sent back to re-draw the boundaries. The comment served only to emphasize that the court was trying  here again, as at several times in prior rulings  to find a way to decide when race had been used as the determining goal in redistricting.

Attorney Clement answered her comment by saying, matter-of-factly, that the court did need a mechanism as to when or if it was race that had predominated. He went on to say that it would be profoundly damaging if state legislatures were told by the courts that they could not be believed when they explained their redistricting maps as having been guided by politics, rather than by use. Much of his argument was laced with references to the sovereignty of the states and their legislatures  a clear plea for judges to defer to them.

Attorney Elias focused his arguments in both cases on an attempt to simplify the predominance inquiry by stressing that the legislatures in both Virginia and North Carolina had started the process of redistricting by setting specific numbers targets  districts in which blacks already had a majority or a near-majority were loaded up even more with black voters (a minimum 50 percent was the goal in Virginia, 55 percent in North Carolina.

And, while he conceded that a mere numerical race target was not enough to prove that race predominated, he said that the specific aim to corral black voters into districts where they were already able to have their preferred candidates win was supported by very clear proof that the lawmakers had racial motives in mind.

Although it remains a possibility that the court might wind up splitting 4 to 4 in both cases, and thus deciding nothing for sure, the overall impression of Mondays hearings was more of puzzlement than of division.

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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The worlds best son (and Twitter!) saved the day when no one bought his moms goods at a craft fair, and it is so heartwarming

Make sure you have your tissues handy, because our daily cry is a doozy in the best way possible. With the help of Twitter, the worlds best son saved the day when no one bought his moms goods at a craft fair.

A few weeks ago, 28-year-old Martyn Hett of England checked in with his mom, Figen Murray, to see how her day was going. Her response broke his heart  she was feeling sad because shed set up a stall at a craft fair and hadnt made a single sale. Hett took to Twitter to bring attention to Murrays beautiful work  and, it resulted in more than just a few sales.

My mum has set up her own stall at a craft fair and has messaged me to say she hasn't sold anything yet and my heart is breaking pic.twitter.com/cdzHn77pM5  Martyn (@martynhett) November 26, 2016

People were swift to react to Hetts tweet  they headed to Murrays Depop page to purchase her handmade goods.

The art fair had been a major blow to Murrays confidence and shed been ready to give up knitting altogether  but it looks like that wont be an option, because she has a whole lot of orders to fill.

What a beautiful end to this story Im weeping. KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE HERE >> https://t.co/wjSvW7aX4ipic.twitter.com/wnHpNdPq0i  Martyn (@martynhett) December 1, 2016

After the story went viral, Murray began receiving requests from people overseas who want to buy her products  and Hett couldnt be prouder as he continues to chronicle his moms success via Twitter.

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This beautiful success story couldnt have happened to a better person. Murray, who is a counselor, sews and knits for therapeutic reasons. [S]he believes that being creative is good for the soul  its advice she often gives to her clients, Hett tells BuzzFeed. Murray plans to donate the proceeds from her sales to Beacon Counselling, a local charity dedicated to providing support for those suffering from mental illness.

Buyers have also taken to Twitter to express just how much they love their purchases  and it doesnt look like sales will be slowing down any time soon.

Thank you so much @FigenMurray for Flora, I promise to take so much care of her pic.twitter.com/XRIwRzlleQ  Liam (@LiamLambrini) December 2, 2016

Were not crying  you are. Oh, who are we kidding? Were all crying right now.

The post The worlds best son (and Twitter!) saved the day when no one bought his moms goods at a craft fair, and it is so heartwarming appeared first on HelloGiggles.
432 Park Avenue

Renters and buyers across Manhattan are revolting against rising prices.

Bloomberg's Oshrat Carmiel reported on Tuesday that 432 Park Ave., the slim skyscraper that's the tallest residential building in the world, has sold units this year for an average of 10% less than the original listing price.

The top-floor penthouse overlooking Central Park closed for $87.7 million, 8% less than the listing price, Bloomberg reported.

There are too many luxury buildings in New York, and more are being constructed, which has meant high-end buyers and renters have more options and bargaining power. Meanwhile, owners have to offer more concessions to fend off their competition.

"New York City's rental market has been mostly steady, except at the high end, where the inventory has risen and rents have drifted down," the Federal Reserve said in its most recent Beige Book, based on comments from its contacts in New York.

The Fed added that landlord concessions, from price cuts to free rent, were "increasingly prevalent" in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Jonathan Miller, president of the appraiser Miller Samuel, told Bloomberg that the 432 Park Ave. developer is likely covering for buyers' taxes because sales prices usually end in odd, unrounded numbers, suggesting subtractions were made.

NOW WATCH: A 58-story luxury apartment in San Francisco is sinking and people aren't sure why





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By Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indian security forces in Kashmir blocked medical care for injured protesters by firing on ambulances, holding up emergency vehicles and preying on hospital patients during clashes in the restive region this year, a health rights group said on Tuesday. At least 80 civilians were killed and more than 10,000 wounded in almost five months of clashes between protesters and security forces, sparked by the killing of a leading separatist militant in a joint army and police operation on July 8. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said not only did police and paramilitary forces use excessive force during the unrest, they also delayed wounded people seeking medical attention, increasing the likelihood of permanent injuries and deaths. "Such delays in care are violations of the longstanding protections afforded to medical workers and facilities in times of conflict and civil unrest," said Widney Brown, director of programs for PHR, a New York-headquartered advocacy group. "What's more, the doctors we interviewed said police were present in their hospitals, intimidating patients and monitoring those being admitted." The report also said security forces harassed medical workers attempting to treat protesters and prevented doctors from reaching the hospitals where they work. Police in Kashmir said they would respond to the allegations once they had studied the PHR report. Kashmir is at the center of a decades-old rivalry between India and Pakistan, which rules a northwestern section of the divided region, and backed an insurgency in the late 1980s and 1990s that Indian security forces largely crushed. The unrest, sparked by the killing of Burhan Wani, a popular separatist militant leader, is the worst in the Muslim-majority Himalayan region for six years, and critics accuse Indian security forces of heavy-handedness in quelling the protests. Many of those killed in the clashes died from shotgun pellets or rifle bullets fired by police and paramilitary troops. Hundreds of bystanders were blinded by the pellet rounds, the report said. While Indian authorities say the use of such weapons was meant to reduce the potential for injuries or fatalities, PHR found that their use actually caused serious injury and death. Police in Kashmir say pellet guns are non-lethal weapons but they have been fired from short distances in "unavoidable circumstances" when protesters target security forces. PHR's report - based on hospital records and interviews with doctors, witnesses and victims - found police used 12-gauge shotguns loaded with metal pellets that directly caused an estimated 5,200 injuries and at least a dozen deaths. "Injuries inflicted by 'less than lethal' weapons like pellets, rubber bullets, and shot guns require early medical intervention to avoid permanent or debilitating injury, including loss of life," said the report. "In Kashmir, delays in accessing medical care for hundreds of injured protesters increased the risk of permanent damage, including for those with eye injuries." (Reporting by Nita Bhalla. Additional reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar. Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
Shares of hotel company Wyndham Worldwide Corporation WYN had been underperforming the Zacks categorized Hotels & Motels industry by recording a decline of 12.8% from the beginning of year to Oct 26, while the industry grew 4.7%.



However, Wyndhams better-than-expected third-quarter results, declared on Oct 26, changed the scenario. After the earnings release, shares of the company outperformed the industry by recording growth of 16.8% till today, compared with the industrys growth of 14.7%.

On Dec 1, Wyndhams Hotel Group announced the acquisition of Latin America's leading Fen Hotels. With the purchase, Wyndham is poised to leverage Latin Americas upsurge in accommodation demand as the acquired company has 22 existing hotels in six countries and a strong developmental pipeline throughout the region.



Recently, Wyndham announced another move that has the potential to impact its performance further  Wyndham Vacation Rentals strategic partnership with Unique Ventures (Veeve).



Per the terms of the partnership, Wyndham Vacation Rentals UK will aid the expansion of Veeve's portfolio in London as well as globally. The financial details of the deal, however, have been kept under wraps.



The market leader in upscale rentals designed for short stays, Veeve owns a portfolio of above 1,000 homes across London. The company assists home owners in marketing, reservations, property management, and housekeeping, and connects these houses to the prospective guests.



Wyndham Vacation Rentals  part of Wyndham Destination Network and one of Wyndham Worldwides three business segments  encompasses a portfolio of 40,000 units to rent across the U.K. and Europe. This is included in its 108,000 vacation rental properties portfolio spanning across 600 destinations worldwide.



However, economic/political conditions in Europe are expected to be further challenging after U.K.s exit from the 28-member economic bloc. Business in Europe is clouded by the economic uncertainties in the northern region and deflation in the Eurozone which is hurting other hoteliers like Marriott International, Inc. MAR, Hyatt Hotels Corporation H and Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc. HLT.



Thus, it remains to be seen how this expansion impacts Wyndham in the near future as the company plans on generating more bookings and expand beyond this region.



Wyndham Worldwide currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



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YAS! Camilla Belle makes the ugly Christmas sweater look incredibly chic

Do the holidays exist if we dont rock at least one ugly Christmas sweater? Between our cute white sweater dresses and riding boots, ugly Christmas sweaters have always been a staple in our closets. So when we saw a picture of Camilla Belle attending a Brooks Brothers event, we couldnt help but notice that her reign as a style star has not let up. If she can make the ugly Christmas sweater look really chic, we think theres hope for all of us!

Brooks Brothers collaborated with St Judes Childrens Research Hospital for this star studded event and on Saturday, Belle attended the holiday bash. Of course we were obsessed with her entire outfit, but we could not help but notice her sweater. I mean seriously who can rock a blue Kate Spade jumper, that features what looks to be a camel wearing colorful tassels and black feathers protruding from its ears? Also to top off the look, Camillas name is etched in white cursive lettering on the front as well!

? : @hilaryhansen #ootd #brooksgivesthanks #holidayparty #stjude @stjude A photo posted by Camilla Belle (@camillabelle) on Dec 3, 2016 at 8:27pm PST

To finish off the daring holiday outfit Belle paired the jumper with a red, white and blue beaded skirt that had rows of tassels on it. She accessorized the outfit with bracelets, a metallic silver Halston clutch and black wedge Via Spiga Kennedy knee high boots.

And away we go! ? #brooksgivesthanks #stjude #holidayparty @stjude A photo posted by Camilla Belle (@camillabelle) on Dec 3, 2016 at 8:20pm PST

Since 2005, Brooks Brothers has raised over $14.4 million dollars for St. Jude Research Children Hospital and they have worked with actress Marlo Thomas for over a decade to raise money for children affected by Cancer. Camilla Belle has raised money for the hospital in the past by collaborating with Lily Aldridge and Ashley Tisdale when the three designed T-shirts for Velvet by Graham & Spencer in a limited edition collection. According to the Los Angeles Times, 50% of the proceeds from the Join the Fight collection went to St. Jude.

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Don't mind if I do... #brooksgivesthanks #stjude #holidayparty @stjude A photo posted by Camilla Belle (@camillabelle) on Dec 3, 2016 at 8:10pm PST

We love when celebrities use their voice and popularity to champion for charity events and causes. In Camilla Belles case she not only likes to participate in a good cause, but she is going to rock a killer look doing it!

The post YAS! Camilla Belle makes the ugly Christmas sweater look incredibly chic appeared first on HelloGiggles.
New York (AFP) - The New York Times has seen an exceptional surge in digital subscriptions in the period just before and after the November election, its top executive said Monday.

New York Times Co. chief executive Mark Thompson told a business conference the prestigious daily has added more than 200,000 net subscribers since late September.

"We're seeing a dramatic increase in the willingness to pay for serious independent journalism," Thompson told the UBS.

The newspaper had some 1.55 million subscribers at the end of September for digital services, including news and crossword puzzles.

Some weeks have seen new subscriptions at 10 times the pace of last year.

"We're getting very close to having three million overall subscriptions" for print, print and digital, digital only and crosswords, he said.

The newspaper said it saw a net increase of 41,000 paid subscriptions in the week after the November 8 vote, including print and digital, calling it the largest one-week subscription increase since it started its paywall in 2011.

The Times was among the media attacked by Donald Trump during his presidential race, as the newspaper launched a series of investigations that revealed his reported tax loss of more than $900 million.

After the election, the president-elect sat down with reporters and editors at the newspaper for a wide-ranging discussion, after which he called the daily a "world jewel."

While the Times has been struggling financially as it tries to make a transition to more digital readership, Thompson said the recent election may have been helpful to the newspaper.

He said some of the reasons for gains include "anxiety about fake news" and a "belief that politicians are saying things that are not true and need to be held to account."

He added: "We expect the lively new cycle to continue in America and given the events in Europe beyond America, well into 2017."
As the first official act of their brand new contracts with Ring of Honor and New Japan, the Young Bucks are jumping directly into a war with Matt Hardy and his broken brood. Broken Matt appeared via video at Ring of Honors Final Battle pay-per-view on Friday, challenging the Bucks of Youth to a match against the Hardys over WrestleMania weekend in Orlando. But things have already gotten personal, as the Bucks have unleashed a devastating attack on the Hardys emissary, Vanguard 1.

You may remember Vanguard 1 from The Final Deletion, or perhaps from DELETE OR DECAY, or maybe from the time it dressed up as a ghost for Halloween. At any rate, the drone is already a beloved character in the Broken Hardy mythos and has its own T-shirts on Pro Wrestling Tees. Because thats just the world were living in. During Sundays ROH television tapings in Philadelphia, Vanguard 1 showed up to terrorize (or perhaps just say hello to) the Bucks, and they responded in the only way they know how: with a Superkick Party.

Heres an alternate look at the superkick heard round the drone:

But perhaps the worst part? IT WASNT EVEN THE REAL VANGUARD 1 APPARENTLY.

MY CURRENT LOCATION: UK YOUR BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL WAL-MART DRONE IS INSULTING TO MY PRODIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY. UPGRADING OS FOR #APOCALYPTO https://t.co/UFAEtcELjJ  Vanguard1 (@Vanguard1AAR) December 5, 2016

Curse you, Bucks of Youth. Is there no depth of depravity to which you will not sink?

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While this isnt the first time the Hardys and Bucks have mixed it up, it will be the first time these two teams do so on a large stage and in their current incarnations. And while TNA and ROH are not officially working together for this cross-promotional match, the feud is apparently going to spill over onto this Thursdays episode of Impact Wrestling, according to Broken Matt himself:

What is this BLASPHEMOUS mockery? I will address & call out The Bucks of Youth THIS Thursday during #IMPACTonPOP. #TotalNonstopDELETION https://t.co/m3X1hN13Bk  #BROKEN Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) December 5, 2016

The most emotional pro wrestling storyline of 2017 is already a drone being kicked. Your move, WWE.
Diamond Smith began growing facial hair when she was 15 years old.

I have a beard, Smith, 23, says on Wednesdays episode of The Doctors, hosted by Dr. Travis Stork. I get ridiculed every day. People question my gender. No matter what I do, it just keeps coming back.

The Norfolk, Virginia-based woman says when she first noticed the growth, it wasnt yet excessive.

I would shave once a week, she says. There were times that people did notice and teased me about it, but I didnt really pay too much attention to it.

Then three years ago, It started to get really bad, says Smith. I had to start shaving every day.

Smith does not know what caused the growth, because she has been too ashamed about her condition to seek out a professional opinion.

I havent been to a doctor because Im embarrassed, she says. I fear what the results might be.

She even questions if she caused the hair growth by shaving her face.

If I never would have shaved my face, maybe it wouldnt have grown as bad as it did, says Smith. What mistake did I make?

Stork arranges for Smith to meet with OBGYN, Dr. Nita Landry.

Although were here to address the hair growth, we also need to address the emotional aspect of this, because at the end of the day, I want you to feel good when you look in the mirror, says Landry in the preview clip.

Landry explains that she is going to give Smith a physical exam and an ultrasound, and perform blood work to determine what could be causing her facial hair growth.

Once we get all of those results back, then Ill be able to give you a definitive diagnosis, she says, and were going to make Diamond feel good about herself inside and out.

To learn what is causing Smiths hair growth and if she could have prevented it, check your local listings and tune in on Wednesday.




Though Grace Helbig has yet to sell her first house (more on that in a minute), trusted celebrity real estate compadre Lucy Spillerguts snitched that the YouTube star, author, and podcaster has shelled out $915,000 for a renovated mid-century bungalow in the hipster-chic Glassell Park area of Los Angeles. Helbig, whose thrice-weekly vlogs get hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of views, must have wanted the property something fierce because she paid a whole lot more than the just-shy-of-$800,000 asking price.

Matte-finished and wide-planked maple floors run throughout the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house that measures in at around 1,300 square feet. The open-plan living and dining room has huge picture windows that provide a glittery view, and, in the dining area, French doors lead to an al fresco dining deck partly shaded by a vine-draped trellis. The remodeled kitchen is open to the dining area over a multi-stool snack peninsula, and is finished with marble countertops on white-beadboard-accented cabinets, classic white-subway-tile backsplashes, and average-grade stainless steel appliances. A corridor with floor-to-ceiling shelves leads to two guest/family bedrooms that share a hall bath.

Then theres the master suite that has 12-foot ceilings, a row of clerestory windows for ambient light, a walk-in closet, a separate office nook, and a renovated bathroom that opens to a private patio. The property includes a detached two-car carport and, unusual for a house in the hills, a flat expanse of lawn. The property was listed with Sara Reichling of Bryant/Reichling Real Estate for Sothebys International Realty.

Helbig, whose YourTube channel Its Grace has more than three million subscribers, continues to own a small two-bedroom, one-bathroom 1930s cottage with a detached office space atop a two-car garage in Silver Lake that she bought in the fall of 2014 for $900,000  well above its $800,000 asking price  and currently has on the market at not quite $990,000.

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By Swati Pandey and Charlotte Greenfield WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand's ruling center-right National Party is considering a new leader at a meeting on Tuesday, a day after Prime Minister John Key shocked the country with his abrupt resignation. Finance Minister Bill English is viewed by both lawmakers and political analysts as the front-runner for the top job, but others have not ruled themselves out, leaving the door open for a potential race. "Wait and see," English told reporters who questioned whether he planned to stand as a candidate as he entered the parliament building in Wellington ahead of the Caucus meeting. English, a former Treasury Department analyst who is also deputy leader of the party, said on Monday that he would talk with both his family and the 59-member caucus before he decided whether to run. Other potential candidates include senior cabinet minister Steven Joyce, fellow cabinet minister Paula Bennett, police minister Judith Collins and health minister Jonathan Coleman. Collins told reporters "we'll see how things go in caucus today." Coleman said he had been "taking some soundings, not doing numbers, but seeing what the appetite of the caucus for a contest is." A recent UMR survey of voters pegged English as the most favored replacement for Key on 21 percent, followed by Joyce on 16 percent, Bennett on 11 percent and Collins on 6 percent. Coleman was not ranked in the survey, which was conducted in early October, before Key's resignation. Key, who has been New Zealand's leader since 2008, is backing English to be the formal candidate ahead of a Caucus meeting to vote on Dec. 12. The party is part-way through a third, three-year term that has been marked by political stability and economic reform. Praised for his stewardship of New Zealand's $170 billion economy in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and two devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, he remains one of the world's most popular leaders. Moody's Investors Services said it did not expect to change New Zealand's Aaa credit rating as a result of Key's resignation, adding it expected the country's "very strong institutions to lead to a smooth tradition and policy continuity." National elections are not expected until late 2017. (Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
By Laura Benitez

LONDON, Dec 6 (IFR) - US firm Zimmer Biomet Holdings will be the first company to test the European debt market since Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's defeat in the referendum on Sunday sparked political uncertainty.

A two-day issuance hiatus in corporate bond issuance ended on Tuesday when Zimmer tapped investors for its debut euro bond, expected to total 1bn over two tranches.

"The market has been pretty resilient since the referendum result and we had a stable backdrop for new deals yesterday but no-one took it," a lead banker on the deal said.

Renzi said on Monday he would resign following the vote against constitutional reform in Sunday's referendum. This did little to shake the market however, despite heightened anticipation of a wider sell-off.

However, bankers and investors have complained about deteriorating liquidity as political uncertainty has been the key concern in recent weeks.

"It's been harder to trade generally, which is also expected for this time of year, but after 25 minutes of the books being open on Zimmer, investor interest is looking very good," the banker said.

After concluding investor meetings last Thursday, US medical device company Zimmer started marketing a six-year expected 500m tranche at 130bp area over mid-swaps, and a 10-year expected 500m tranche at 180bp area over mid-swaps.

"The price looks very generous, which factors in the volatility in rates that persists and higher than average premiums needed to access the market now," a banker away from the deal said.

Bankers away compared today's deal to a similarly structured transaction last week from US medical supplier Becton, Dickinson and Company.

The Baa2/BBB+ rated firm sold a six and 10-year 1bn deal at 80bp and 120bp over mid-swaps, respectively.

US names are well known for their pragmatic pricing approach, and typically appeal to investors looking to pick up yield.

CAUTION PREVAILS

Despite a relatively calm reaction to Italy's referendum result, investors have nonetheless been more cautious around buying new credit due to a recent rates sell off, causing premiums to surge.

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To safeguard themselves around Zimmer's low credit rating, investors during the roadshow demanded a 125bp sub-investment-grade coupon step-up, a lead banker on the deal said, due to it being classed as a crossover name.

The deal is rated Baa3/BBB (Moodys's negative/S&P stable).

Zimmer, which mandated BNP Paribas (B&D), HSBC and RBC, intends to use the proceeds to repurchase some of its outstanding debt via a cash tender offer.

German real estate group Aroundtown Property was also back in the market on Tuesday, in a what has been an aggressive year of debt financing for the firm.

Aroundtown has sold 1.75bn of bond issuance so far this year - excluding today's deal, compared with 700m last year and just over 200m in 2014, according to Eikon data.

Aroundtown via its ATF Netherlands issuing entity, is marketing a 500m 6.25-year senior unsecured deal at initial price thoughts of 200bp-205bp over mid-swaps.

Goldman Sachs is the sole bookrunner on the deal, which is expected to price later today.

The market is awaiting the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday, where the bank is expected to extend its QE programme and maintain the pace of its monthly purchases.

Three people with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Friday that much of the preparatory work has focused on a six-month extension at a steady pace of 80bn a month, while two other people were expecting an extension at lower volumes of 60bn a month.

(Reporting By Laura Benitez, editing by Helene Durand and Ian Edmonson)


Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty

Kaieteur Falls in Guyana is the highest single-drop waterfall in the world at almost 750 feet high, but Prince Harry had no problem hanging out on the edge of it. The South American country is one of the Prince's last stops on his tour of the Caribbean, and he certainly made the most of the incredible opportunity.

For his time in Guyana, Prince Harry wore an olive green button-down shirt and casual gray trousers. His first stop in the country was Surama Village, where he was welcomed by the locals and adorned with a stunning feather headdress and traditional necklace.

Prince Harry was presented with a traditional headdress as he arrived in Surama Village, as he travelled into the Hinterland on the second day of his visit to Guyana #RoyalVisitGuyana #RoyalVisitCaribbean A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 3, 2016 at 1:35pm PST

Thank you Konankaie, aged 8, for the beautiful necklace, presented to Prince Harry as he arrived in Surama Village! #RoyalVisitGuyana A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 3, 2016 at 1:37pm PST

The 32-year-old royal then visited a primary school, where he led a quick lesson and posed for pictures with the smiling students. The Kensington Palace Instagram account shared videos and pictures of the sweet visit, writing, "A lesson with teacher Prince Harry at the Primary School in Surama."

A lesson with teacher Prince Harry at the Primary School in Surama  #RoyalVisitCaribbean #RoyalVisitGuyana A video posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 3, 2016 at 1:51pm PST

Can you spot Prince Harry? On his visit to the Hinterland Prince Harry dropped in on the Primary Schools at Surama and Fair View, bringing with him some gifts for the children  #RoyalVisitCaribbean #RoyalVisitGuyana A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 3, 2016 at 3:00pm PST

RELATED: Must-See Photos from Prince Harry's Royal Visit to the Caribbean

Finally, the Prince headed out to Kaieteur Falls to take in the stunning vista from atop the waterfall. He fearlessly posed for pictures on the cliff--surely making his fan base swoon!

Prince Harry at Kaieteur Falls, the largest single drop waterfall in the world #RoyalVisitGuyana #RoyalVisitCaribbean A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 3, 2016 at 2:01pm PST

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Researchers are looking to the natural world for inspiration that will one day help them design life-saving robots.

Salto is a monopedal and somewhat skeletal 10.2-inch-tall robot that can jump higher and more quickly than most other robots in the world today. A team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, revealed the new hopping bot on Tuesday in a study published this week in the new journal Science Robotics.

Instead of taking just one big leap, Salto bounces off a wall with impressive force to complete an even bigger jump, much as a parkour expert might bound from a ledge to a wall and then fly through the air to his next perch. The new robot could be a predecessor to a future tool that may one day jump across dangerous terrain to aid in rescue missions.

SEE ALSO: Atlas humanoid robot can now tiptoe over rubble to track down wayward humans

The robot's bouncing ability is a feat previously only seen in nature, which makes sense since researchers drew inspiration from the fast and furry northern lesser galago (or bush baby).

You may have seen the adorable, nocturnal primate on any number of wall calendars or nature shows. It's gigantic eyes are mesmerizing, but it's also known for its incredible jumping capabilities.

The Salto and a bush baby.

Image: COMPOSITE/STEPHEN MCNALLY/MINDEN PICTURES/AP

With just a few leaps, the galago can cover almost a dozen yards in a matter of seconds. According to researchers, the galago's ability to store energy in its tendons accounts for its super-crouch jumping capability. The longer it crouches, the more energy it stores.

The research team at the University of California at Berkeley zeroed in on the jumpy primate after developing a brand-new jump-measurement system, called the Vertical Jumping Agility Metric, which looks at both the height and speed of jumping.

In a press conference on the robot breakthrough, Duncan Haldane, a PhD candidate at Berkeley and a co-author on the study, said the team used their new metric to "find animals like the galago that are weirdly good at jumping."

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Haldane told Mashable that while the team didn't study the galago in person, there was already a lot of source material like videos and previous studies on the animal's jumping behavior to pull from. When you watch the videos "it's really confusing because [the galago] shouldnt be able to jump that well if you look at the muscles," said Haldane.

Salto, which stands for Saltatorial Locomotion Terrain Obstacles, doesn't quite match the furry jumper, but researchers measured Salto's jumping agility at an impressive 1.75 meters per seconds. That's better than a bullfrog: 1.71 meters per second, but still below the galago, which can jump 2.24 m/s.

"In our lab, we're particularly focused on seeing if we can exceed the performance of animals" said Ronald Fearing, study co-author and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at Berkeley.

He added that they've focused on smaller animals. "We think a squirrel is more robust than an elephant and more agile."

Moving with leaps and bounds

To make these impressive leaps with just one robotic leg and foot, researchers had to build Salto with tremendous mechanical advantage.

Salto was constructed with relatively limited mobility "to keep it from spinning uncontrollably once it leaves the ground," according to Mark Plecnik, another Berkeley co-author of the study.

The construction, which Plecnick called "quite far from human intuition," also provides the necessary mechanical advantage or force multiplier for its vertical leap ability.

Duncan Haldane, a robotics Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley who led the work, holds Salto.

Image: Stephen McNally

More impressive is Salto's ability to, like the galago (and human parkour jumpers), immediately follow the first leap with a second, more powerful jump.

A motor inside the robot starts twisting a latex spring attached to it as soon as Salto's joints start crouching, instantly building up energy.

When Salto hits a wall foot-first after an initial leap  bending at the joints and twisting the latex spring  it's immediately building up new energy for that second jump. Instead of just bouncing off a wall, Salto is literally bounding.

How does Salto hit the wall foot first as opposed to face-planting?

The robot keeps track of its internal state and the relative position of the foot as it's flying throughout the air, according to the researchers.

"We control the leg to the right angle so it hits the wall as much as possible," said Haldane. A tail-like flywheel also helps provide counterbalance to keep the in-flight Salto in the right position.

How high does it go?

Salto is not the robot with the highest jump.

Haldane noted that there's a winding bot that crouches and builds up energy for three minutes before leaping three meters in the air. It's the speed, though, that may make the Salto robot and its progeny valuable.

"If you had a race up the stairs, we would be able to race up the stairs faster. The wind-up one might get a good head start, but we would win because we can jump more frequently," said Professor Fearing.

While there's no timeline for when these high-jumping robots will enter the mainstream, Haldane told us that he does hope other scientists adopt the team's newly-invented metric as a standard for measuring jumping prowess.

"We've done our best to make it a very fair metric," Haldane added.

Robots that can jump higher than humans and that don't need to prepare to jump again and again and again could come in handy in search and rescue missions where unsteady terrain and wide chasms make it difficult-to-impossible for people to traverse.

Professor Fearing admitted that it's possible for a non-leaping robot to serve in these situations, but said that a ground-crawling robot would cross gaps by climbing down one wall and then up another. Salto would simply jump across.

Speed matters in a rescue, said Haldane.

"You can plot that chance of survival against time," he added. "That plot never goes up, the clock is always ticking."

BONUS: This four-legged robot hopes to help in earthquake recovery
By Julia Love SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sales of the Apple Watch to consumers set a record during the first week of holiday shopping, and the current quarter is on track to be the best ever for the product, Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters. Responding to an email from Reuters, Cook said the gadget's sell-through - a measure of how many units are sold to consumers, rather than simply stocked on retailers' shelves - reached a new high. Cook's comments followed a report on Monday from technology research firm IDC estimating that the tech giant sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71 percent from the year-ago quarter. The comments offer a glimpse of the gadget's performance during the holiday quarter, which is typically Apple's strongest. "Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year," Cook wrote. "Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the products history. And as we expected, were on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch," he said. Cook did not respond to a request for specific sales figures for the gadget. Apple has disclosed few details about the performance of the Apple Watch, its first new product released under Cook. The company has not broken out sales of the gadget in its earnings, instead lumping it into an "other products" category that includes devices such as the iPod and Apple TV. Strong sales of the Apple Watch are to be expected during the holiday quarter as the gadget is a more natural gift than some of the company's other products such as the iPhone or Mac computer, said analyst Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research. Apple also lowered the price of the gadget this year, potentially helping the holiday sales comparison, O'Donnell noted. Apple is facing mounting pressure to show new sources of growth as sales of the iPhone, the company's lifeblood, begin to level off. O'Donnell said he remains skeptical the Apple Watch can fill the void, citing uncertain demand among consumers for smartwatches. "While Im not surprised that there is a good week, there are still, I think, significant concerns about the category," he said. IDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
We live in a world where we can work alongside our colleagues overseas through digital channels, and it should be no different while pursuing your degree online.

When considering an online program as an expat, frequent business traveler or overseas student, ask these four questions to ensure you meet your technology needs.

1. Do you have the right technology to succeed while traveling? Online programs require students to engage with technology in a way that in-person programs do not. Any student should have a reliable computer that is fast enough to watch streaming videos. You may also need a camera if programs require you to record yourself taking exams or work in teams.

Students living internationally should use an internet-based phone service account and app to save considerable phone fees when working with groups on projects, speaking to professors and, as in my program, call into live video class sessions. If money permits, a portable device such as a tablet is invaluable to study self-paced content as you travel.



[Learn to pursue an online degree program while overseas.]

2. Does your country have any internet restrictions? As an expat living in Saudi Arabia, programs such as FaceTime are not allowed on devices purchased here, so I bought my devices for the program from the U.S. prior to moving.

After consulting the school's website to determine what you need, research the country-specific restrictions you might face and explore ways to work around those restrictions or find alternatives.

3. Do you have reliable connectivity? Online programs are only a good option if you can secure a reliable internet connection. Before you start, conduct an audit of your personal connectivity. Determine barriers to connectivity from overseas or as you travel. Professors will not grant you special accommodations just because you are abroad.

Most programs post basic technology requirements on their "frequently asked questions" pages online. These markers can give you an idea of the minimum internet speed needed for engaging with class content. Consider reaching out in advance to the IT departments of the programs you are interested in to determine their help desk's hours -- which might be affected by time differences -- and ask specific questions.

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4. Is the course structure manageable from another country? Overseas students should determine the structure of their classes and decide if attending class is manageable from another country.

[Explore how to decide between live and self-paced online courses.]

Online programs typically have content that is either asynchronous, or self-paced; synchronous, or live; or a combination. Asynchronous sessions generally involve watching pre-recorded videos and posting responses, and this can usually be done easily while traveling.

But synchronous content typically relies on video delivery programs like Adobe Connect which allow you to join live class sessions and might also require greater internet speed. Determine what that means for you in your current time zone.

The takeaway: Pursuing a degree online from overseas can be a very rewarding and flexible way to complete your education, but it requires you to have the right technology. Make sure you have the right equipment and research whether the course structure will work for you in your time zone.
Apple claimed on its Chinese website Friday its iPhones would shut down rather than explode, to protect hardware from damage due to low voltages. On Tuesday, a Chinese consumer watchdog refuted the claim, saying it had received complaints of iPhones exploding and catching fire.

Shanghai Consumer Council called on Apple to address the complaints: Apple should be responsible for consumers. A lot of consumer complaints are not solved effectively.

The state-run consumer protection forum alleged it received eight reports of iPhones simultaneously combusting while being used or charged, in a report posted Friday on its website. The report quotes one woman saying her iPhone 6s exploded in August, shattering the display and blackening the back and battery of the phone. The council added it had seen a six-fold rise in the number of complaints in the past two months, including those related to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s.

This is not the first time that news of iPhones exploding has surfaced. On Oct. 1, an iPhone exploded in a student's back pocket in New Jersey and on Oct. 20, an iPhone exploded in an Australian man's car, burning down the vehicle.

Apple China addressed the issue of the accidental shutdown of a few iPhone 6s handsets Dec. 2 and said the complaints concerned only those handsets manufactured between September and October.

The consumer watchdog's report comes on the heels of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 scandal, where the recall of the exploding devices caused the South Korean company an estimated $5 billion. Apple has also seen a plunge in its profits and such incidents could hit the company further.

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FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler hinted at the governing body's interest in laying out regulations to ensure security protocols for Internet of Things devices in a letter to Virginia Senator Mark Warner, but the plans may be doomed under the incoming Trump administration.

A letter from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may lay out the framework for a regulatory policy for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as legislators search for ways to ensure the security of devices that are connected to the internet.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler acknowledged the governing bodys interest in beefing up the security protocols for connected devices in a letter to Virginia Senator Mark Warner.

We cannot rely solely on the market incentives of ISP to fully address the risk of malevolent cyber activities," Wheeler wrote, arguing that a combination of market-based incentives and regulatory oversight are necessary to establish basic cybersecurity protections for internet-connected consumer devices.

The message from Wheeler, published on Monday, was prompted by a letter from Senator Warner dated Oct. 25 of this year. Warners initial correspondence was prompted by the Mirai botnet attack that managed to take down a number of major websites. The attackers primarily utilized unsecured IoT devices to perform massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

According to research from HP, 70 percent of IoT devices are vulnerable to attacks like those that were used to assemble the Mirai botnet. Many devices lack basic security protocols one would expect to find on other internet-accessible devices; most devices tested had default passwords like 1234, more than half devices used unencrypted communications when sending and receiving data over the internet, and six in 10 devices used unsecured downloads for software updates.

Warner applauded the response from Wheeler, stating the letter from Wheeler validated his concerns about cyberattacks involving IoT devices.

The FCC chairman confirms that internet service providers already have the authority  if not the responsibility  to protect their networks by blocking malicious and harmful traffic, Warner said in a statement. I also am pleased to learn the FCC also has been discussing improved tools, including setting security standards for IoT devices, to better protect consumers as well as the broader Internet.

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The FCCs response to the inquiry regarding IoT security may be heartening to those concerned about the ongoing risks of DDoS attacks, but the implementation of the current FCCs agenda may be considerably more difficult as the government transitions from the President Barack Obama to the Donald Trump administration.

President-elect Trump is likely to replace Wheeler as the head of the FCC, and the appointments in charge of the body on the Trump transition team appear to want to see the FCCs regulatory powers weakened.

Jeffrey Eisenach, a former paid consultant for Verizon, and one time Sprint lobbyist Mark Jamison have been charged with shaping the FCC under Trump. Both have argued previously the for less regulation by the FCC and have hinted at their belief the board has outlived its purpose.

Eisenach and Jamison, along with recent addition to the Trump transition team Rosyln Layton, all have been staunch opponents to net neutrality, a signature policy of the FCC under Wheeler.

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is expanding the linguistic capabilities of the virtual assistant that powers its Allo messaging app with the news that it's now conversant in Hindi.

Google first announced the Google Assistant back in May, serving up a direct competitor to the likes of Microsoft's Cortana , Apple's Siri , and Amazon's Alexa . Google's incarnation is currently available to anyone via the Allo messaging app, which launched in September, though it is also integrated into the company's Pixel smartphones and the Google Home wireless speaker.

Allo represents Google's effort to create a smart messaging app that helps you stay in touch with all your friends, while also helping you plan events and find information. It promises to "keep your conversation going" through its intelligent assistant and offers a "smart reply" feature that suggests responses to messages based on the context of the conversation.

The app automatically detects what language you're chatting in and offers suggested responses based on the language. For example, if you're conversing in English, the app will only suggest English responses, but if you switch to Hindi, it will alter the suggestions accordingly. As of today's news, the Google Assistant in Allo can speak English, Hindi, Hinglish, German, and Brazilian Portuguese.

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The Hindi expansion represents a notable expansion for Google Assistant, given that Hindi is among the top five most-spoken first languages in the world. The addition is also in line with Google's long-stated aims of targeting the next billion internet users, as the internet giant continues to push its services in India. Indeed, back in September Google announced a new offline-first YouTube app for India called "YouTube Go" that's built from the ground up to work where there is poor connectivity or none at all. The company has also been rolling out free Wi-Fi to hundreds of train stations across the country, and it recently launched Google Station to extend the program beyond railway stations and outside of India. Elsewhere, the company launched its first-ever dedicated public transport app -- for New Delhi residents only -- and it also brought offline maps to users across India.

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"Over the last two months since we launched, Google Allo has received tremendous feedback, especially in India, which has one of the highest number of Google Allo users," explained Google product manager Amit Fulay, in a blog post.

Both Google and Facebook are going all-in to garner mindshare with the new and emerging smartphone-toting internet users in India, and speaking Hindi will certainly help Google gain further traction in the country.

This article originally appeared on VentureBeat. All rights reserved.

See original article on Fortune.com

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Being falsely accused of any crime is undoubtedly a stressful and frightening time for any individual, but being on the receiving end of a lawsuit that alleges you stole an Adam Sandler movie? Well thats a miscarriage of justice on the highest level imaginable. An Oregon man has endured that nightmare, and now the court thinks he deserves a cool $17,000 payout for the misguided accusations pushed upon him.

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Thomas Gonzales runs a foster care home for disabled adults, and recently found himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the filmmakers responsible for the 2014 Adam Sandler romp The Cobbler. As TorrentFreak reports, the suit claimed that Gonzales illegally downloaded a copy of the film, but the court wasnt convinced.

Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman pushed back against the filmmakers claims, declaring that there was no way to prove who downloaded the film due to the fact that multiple individuals had access to the internet. Further, the judge declared that the plaintiff used overly aggressive tactics in trying to win a settlement.

The Court shares Gonzales concern that Plaintiff is motivated, at least in large part, by extracting large settlements from individual consumers prior to any meaningful litigation, Beckerman wrote in a recommendation. On balance, the Court has concerns about the motivation behind Plaintiffs overaggressive litigation of this case and other cases, and that factor weighs in favor of fee shifting.

That fee comes in the amount of a $17,222 compensation to be paid to the defendant in order to cover attorney fees, along with another $255 in miscellaneous expenses. Its up to the film company as to whether they want to accept the ruling or object, though if they choose to continue the fight the eventual outcome might put them even further in the hole.

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As part of his transition process, President-Elect Trump has been meeting with senior executives from various industries. His meeting with the best of the news media, who he believes worked against his campaign, was described as a fucking firing squad. So hows the meeting with the best of the tech world, which is being blamed for his victory, going to go?

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According to a report from USA Today, Trumps team has sent out invitations for a December 14th meeting to leaders from the tech industry. Theyre not specified, but youd imagine the CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and the like to be on that list.

With the notable exception of PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley was notably pro-Clinton during the campaign. But that hasnt stopped accusations being thrown at Facebook and Google, which did little to tackle the problem of fake news during the election.

In theory, there should be a lot of technology-related topics to talk about. Trump did spend some time on the campaign trail talking about the cybers, so there might be some discussion of how to tackle the questions of national cybersecurity. With Apple in particular, theres the question of overseas manufacturing and taxes; Apple has reportedly started looking at the feasibility of bringing iPhone manufacturing back to the States, something Trump would be on board with.

Then theres darker topics like enlisting the help of technology companies with Trumps immigration policies. Any kind of national register of immigrants would be a massive technological undertaking that would need Silicon Valley support; even if tech companies dont work directly for the federal government, data-sharing and co-operation of the type that Edward Snowden revealed will probably be on the table.

Overall, theres a lot for Trump and the technology industry to discuss; lets just hope tha this meeting will be a little more productive than the firing squad of the news media.

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People are saying that AMCs top zombie show isnt what it used to be, and I largely agree. After that brutal premiere, we got a couple of okay episodes and then a couple of disappointing ones. The Walking Deads episode 6 picked up the pace but only focused on Taras adventures. Maybe too much. Which makes episode 7, which aired last night, too crowded. Its also an episode that could have been great, but AMC writers didnt go for the kill. Beware, major spoilers follow.

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Carl is a reckless teenager, a serial killer in the making, as Negan correctly labels him. And AMC could have made his daring attack a lot more exciting than they did. Carl was able to sneak outside of Alexandria and fool Jesus into leaving the truck. But when it comes to pulling the trigger at Negan, he failed to do so.

Yes, he killed two men in the process. But just imagine how much cooler the episode could have been. Imagine Carl shooting at Negan, with bullets either flying around the villain, grazing his skin, or even piercing an arm. Thats all AMC would have needed to make this episode amazing. Start everything with an unexpected bang, then just leave the entire episode as it is, with Negan surviving the whole incident partially harmed by Carls assault.

But no, AMC decided not to be daring. Instead, we got to see Carl playing it safe  why bother to get there if youre not going to act? But at least we got to see Negans massive kingdom.

Its fairly clear to anyone watching that Negans got a tight grip over his people. Its also clear that he doesnt have real friends in there, and that all it takes is a spark to ignite a dangerous mutiny.

Speaking of mutinies, Spencer may start one in Alexandria. And he might be entitled to do it, considering that hes partially right about Rick. The former policeman isnt always taking the best decisions for his people. At the same time, though, Spencer isnt in a position to claim any moral high grounds.

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Father Gabriels evolution is an amazing one. We may have not seen much of him, but he proved to us hes one of the best additions to the gang. He convinced Negan Maggie was dead, and now he showed tremendous loyalty to Rick in his fatherly chat with Spencer.

Getting back to Rick, Ill point out that theres a severe lack of leadership in Alexandria. Lets recap: Rick and Aaron fly off to a secret mission that nobody knows about, Michonne leaves on her own quest to kill Negan. Carl meanwhile does the same thing, Maggie is still at The Hilltop, and nobody tries to make contact with her. Morgan and Carol are missing in action, and nobody is looking for them. Rosita is on a revenge path of her own. Eugene is broken and worse than hes ever been.

In other words, Alexandria is in disarray. They may have talked about the way things are, but they did not come up with a cohesive plan to survive the new world order. Why is it that nobody else goes after supply? Why is it that nobody is tasked with reaching Maggie? Why is it that people can leave the town whenever they please without nobody knowing it happens  Im looking at you, Carl and Michonne.

It doesnt help us that the writers do not help us understand the Alexandrians. How much time did it pass since Negan killed Glenn and Abraham? A few days? More than a week? Because were always switching back and forth between plots and subplots that only focus on a few characters, its getting harder and harder to keep a timeline.

Time is an important element when it comes to dealing with traumatic experiences such as the encounter with Negan. Its only natural to assume that everyone is in shock after that night. But the more time passes, the clear the mind should be, and the clearer the following actions. Theres no clarity in what Alexandria is doing as a group. Negan shouldnt be afraid of a riot anytime soon. Well, aside from Carls outburst.

Also, who on earth goes through the trouble of creating massive stashes of supplies and writing about them in Latin, while also trying to survive in this particular zombie-filled environment? Thats something else the writers will hopefully explain in greater detail soon.

Unlike other episodes in season 7, this episode has plenty of characters in it, and its certainly better than last weeks unexpected ode to Tara.

Episode 7 also does a great job showing us the Saviors in their element. Theyre all utterly afraid of Negan. The scene where Negan scars a man who didnt obey the rules with an iron practically explains what happened to Dwight. And shows us why Negan is so respected, as he likes to describe it.

One other thing thats clearer and clearer about Negan is that hes a great judge of character. He knows how to make people do his bidding, and he recognizes great potential. Rick, Daryl, and Carl all have potential for him. But they all need to be broken.

Alexandria, might not be that organized at this point in time, but the Saviors are a force to be reckoned with. But thats as long as Negan lives. And make no mistake, theres something brewing too with the Saviors. Dwight is clearly unhappy with his life but sees no way out for the time being.

As I said a few episodes ago, Daryl might be the way out for Dwight. And I cant but wonder who sent Daryl that go now message. Is it Jesus? Dwight? Or Dwights ex-wife Sherry?

All in all episode 7 was a lot better than other episodes and sets us up for what could be a great mid-season finale. I just dont want to get my hopes up.

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Pauley Perrette understands that she will always be coping with trauma.

The NCIS star opened up to ET, a little over a year after her life-threatening attack by a homeless man, at the Trevor Project's Trevor Live event in Los Angeles on Sunday -- a benefit for the nationally accredited organization that advocates for LGBTQ youth, as well as providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services.

EXCLUSIVE: Pauley Perrette Still Can't Believe She Got Away From Her Alleged Attacker Alive

"It was one year ago on [Nov.] 12 that I was attacked. I'm doing all right. It was a really bizarre thing," the 47-year-old actress shared. "The anniversary of it was a strange day, and it was like I got attacked and almost lost my life, and when I finally fell asleep, I woke up, and the Paris attacks were happening."

"It was like the apocalypse," she added. "It was just a really bizarre time."

WATCH: Pauley Perrette Reports Another Scary Encounter With a Transient Months After Attack

And while admitting that the encounter continues to haunt her, Perrette doubled down on her commitment to those suffering from mental illness.

"Anyone that experiences any kind of trauma, it remains with you for the rest of your life. It definitely has," she said, while adding of those affected by mental illness, "I'll always help."

Original reporting by Brendon Geoffrion.

WATCH: Pauley Perrette on Facing Alleged Attacker in Court: 'It Was Terrifying'

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Separate-Ticket Premiere Welcomes Main Street Electrical

Parade Back to Disneyland Park on Thursday, Jan. 19

ANAHEIM, Calif. (Dec. 5, 2016) The Main Street Electrical Parade, one of the most popular of all Disney parades, returns to Disneyland Park Friday, Jan. 20, 2017, with all the lights, sounds, music and fun that have made it a beloved icon. With nightly performances through Sunday, June 18, guests will have a limited time to enjoy the parades encore performance.

The dazzling and colorful after-dark parade premiered in Disneyland in 1972 and has been seen at Disney Parks around the world. Although its last Disneyland Park performance was in November 1996, and at Disney California Adventure Park in 2010, it has continued to shine brightly in the memories of thousands of guests.

Guests who wish to be among the first to welcome the parade back to Disneyland may purchase a special, separate ticket for an after-hours premiere on Thursday evening, Jan.19. After the park closes, premiere ticket holders will enjoy a night of exclusive access to select Disneyland attractions and select restaurants from 7:30 to midnight, along with an exciting performance of the Main Street Electrical Parade before its official return on Jan. 20. Tickets to the premiere go on sale for Disneyland Resort Annual Passholders on Tuesday, Dec. 6, and to the general public on Tuesday, Dec. 13. They may be purchased at any Disneyland Resort ticket booth or by calling 714-781-INFO (714-781-4636).

Accompanied by treasured Disney tunes interwoven with the distinctive Baroque Hoedown synthesized soundtrack, the Main Street Electrical Parade brings a variety of beloved Disney stories to life in parade floats covered in approximately half a million twinkling lights. Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Goofy lead the way and Cinderella, Peter Pan, Snow White, Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland are among the characters whose stories unfold along the parade route. Tinker Bell now appears with other fairies on the Peter Pan float.

The parades return to Disneyland for the first time since 1996 also marks the return of the original Main Street Electrical Parade opening float. A whimsical train pulls a giant drum unit that proclaims Disneyland Presents  Main Street Electrical Parade in bright lights.

Some of the parades most impressive scenes are the 23-foot-tall Clock Tower looming over Cinderellas Ball, attended by elegant ballroom dancers in costumes covered with lights; and the 108-foot-long finale unit, a red-white-and-blue tribute to America. Elliot, the smoke-breathing, tail-wagging Petes Dragon, weighs more than 5,600 pounds and is 16 feet tall, more than 10 feet wide and 38 feet long. Guests will need to keep an eye out for Elliot, who disappears from time to time along the route.

The Main Street Electrical Parade was performed more than 3,600 times for more than 75 million guests during its original run in Disneyland Park. The enduring popularity of the parade led to Electrical Parades at Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The parade returned to the Disneyland Resort with an engagement in Disney California Adventure Park from 2001 to 2010.

A specially decorated Main Street Electrical Parade boat will appear in the 108th Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade, Dec. 14 through 18 in Newport Harbor. Mickey Mouse will serve as Grand Marshal for the popular boat parade on opening night, Wednesday, Dec. 14, accompanied by Disney Ambassador Allie Kawamoto.

Information about the Main Street Electrical Parade premiere party, happening after hours on Jan. 19, will be available on www.Disneyland.com beginning Tuesday, Dec. 6.

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The government in Cameroon says its security forces did not abuse protesters during demonstrations in two areas last month.

Students, teachers, and lawyers in English-speaking parts of the country were protesting the influence of the French language.

A government official told VOA that Cameroons military acted with restraint during the demonstrations, and showed respect for international rules on human rights.

Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma said the government is investigating the protests and the actions of military officers. He noted that if the government finds evidence of wrongdoing, it will take corrective action to punish the violators. He also said that Cameroon will not accept any attempts to ruin the country's hard-earned national unity.

The spokesman said he was reacting to a statement by the United States. He said the State Department released the statement on November 28.

The State Department expressed concern about the deaths, injuries and damage that resulted from protests in the capitals of Cameroon's Northwestern and Southwestern regions.

U.S. ambassador Michael Hoza expressed concerns over the violence. He met with Cameroon's president Paul Biya and explained that the United States respects Cameroons history of acceptance of diversity.

And both President Biya and I agreed that dialogue is the future for Cameroon. We know that there are many discussions and we are certain that Cameroon's people will find solutions and they have to live together in tolerance as they have for many, many years."

Cameroon has two official languages: English and French. English speakers make up about 20 percent of the population. Cameroons constitution says that English and French should be equally important.

However the protesters say the two languages are not treated equally.

English-speaking lawyers say some judges working in English-speaking areas have trouble speaking the language. Another issue is that the French-speaking regions operate under French civil law, but the English-speaking areas are based on English common law.

Teachers have said that the government continues to send teachers that only speak French to English-speaking parts of the country. Some students in those areas are worried that they will not be able to get good jobs after they finish school.

Im Phil Dierking.

Reporter Moki Edwin Kindzeka in Cameroon wrote this story for VOANews.com. Phil Dierking adapted his report for Learning English with additional sources. George Grow was the editor.

How do you feel education can influence children? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

dialogue  n. a discussion or series of discussions that two groups or countries have in order to end a disagreement

diversity  n. the quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.

solutions  n. something that solves a problem

spokesman  n. someone who speaks for or represents a person, company, etc.
Japan says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not apologize for his countrys 1941 attack on United States forces when he visits Pearl Harbor, Hawaii later this month.

Wednesday marks the 75th anniversary of the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.

Japanese warplanes dropped bombs that sunk the battleship USS Arizona. They also damaged or destroyed 20 other ships and 164 planes. More than 2,300 Americans were killed.

The attack led to the American entry into World War II. The day after the attack, Congress declared war on Japan.

The war ended after the U.S. military dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two attacks killed more than 210,000 people. Six months ago, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit a memorial to the bombing in Hiroshima while still in office.

Tuesday, Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said the prime minister will visit Pearl Harbor on December 26th and 27th. He said Abes visit is designed to show his commitment towards the future and to never repeat the tragedy of the World War, as well as to send a message of reconciliation between the U.S. and Japan."

Abes visit will be the first by a Japanese leader since the attack.

Matthew Linley is a professor in the Department of International Programs at Nagoya University. He said that Abe and his supporters consider the visit a sign that the two countries now have strong relations.

This is also seen within Japan as -- especially for Abe and his supporters -- as being kind of a final conclusion of the post-war period. For Japan, the post-war period, many of them feel that relations now are completely normalized between the two countries. And that, even though it was of course controversial for President Obama to visit Hiroshima and controversial for Prime Minister Abe to visit Pearl Harbor, I think especially within Japan theres a lot of support for Prime Minister Abe to make this visit.

"But the main point that the media seems to be making is that this is a good move, but its tied to a number of, of different things. One thing is of course the Donald Trump incoming presidency -- Japan really wants to create a good relationship with Donald Trump because Japan is very worried about China and the South China Sea and North Koreas missile program. Because Trump made some critical comments of Japan and the US-Japan alliance during the campaign, Japan is very concerned about trying to create good relation(s) with the United States and all eyes I think are on the Trump administration coming forward.

Linley noted that Abe was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump. The two spoke in New York last month.

During the campaign, Trump criticized Japan and other nations where the U.S. military has troops. He said they should be paying more for the security the troops provide.

Grant Newsham is a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum on Strategic Studies. Newsham says Trumps statements while he was a candidate suggesting that Japan was not doing enough for its defense and not paying enough for the services of U.S. forces really frightened the Japanese government.

Since Mr. Trump has been elected -- to the Japanese population and the Japanese governments great surprise -- the Japanese government has really been scrambling to try and build some sort of relationship with Mr. Trump. They didnt think he would win.

This week, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans to return to the Japanese government almost 4,000 hectares of land in Okinawa used for military training.

Im Christopher Jones-Cruise.

VOA Reporters Chris Hannas, Victor Beattie and Jeff Custer reported this story from Washington. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted their reports 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

reconciliation  n. the act of causing two people or groups to become friendly again after an argument or disagreement

commemorate  v. to do something special in order to remember and honor (an important event or person from the past)

atrocity  n. a very cruel or terrible act or action
LEXINGTON, Neb.  The Dawson County Sheriffs Office hosted a luncheon Monday honoring two dispatchers for their role in saving a childs life in June.

Carissa Ureste and Jackie Zacarias were presented Life Saver Awards and pins from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

Just after 5 p.m. on June 21, Dawson County Communications received a call reporting a 12-year-old boy who was found not breathing in a swimming pool at The Crossing at Lexington. CPR was being administered at the scene, and the Lexington Volunteer Fire Department and Lexington Police Department were dispatched. The child was transported to Lexington Regional Health Center.

Approximately one month later, the child and his mother went to the LVFD monthly meeting to thank those involved in saving his life, according to a DCSO statement. Ureste and Zacarias were invited as well, and made the young man a gift basket.

DCSO issued the following statement: We would like to commend Carissa Ureste and Jackie Zacarias for an outstanding job; they went above and beyond. Thank you both.

At the luncheon, Dawson County Sheriff Gary Reiber said when calls come in, its critically important that dispatchers receive and relay the correct information to responders.

Its a very important tool. Not just for law enforcement but for emergency response as well, Reiber said.

In this case, he continued, the dispatchers relayed the urgency in their dispatch, which was important as CPR was being administered to the child.

It was imperative that rescue personnel get there quickly, Reiber said.

Dispatchers act as a bridge between the people at the scene of an incident and the law enforcement or EMTs who will respond. The dispatcher has to not only relay correct information to responders, but to people already at the scene as well.

They (the dispatchers) undergo emergency medical dispatch training, so if someone asks, What do I do? they can tell them, Reiber said.

In this case, the care administered at the scene was obviously good, he continued, as the boy was resuscitated and survived his ordeal.

Experience and teamwork are important to dispatchers as well, Reiber said. It takes time, up to a year, before an officer or a dispatcher has enough experience and training to be considered proficient, he explained. If a dispatcher becomes emotional during a call, that means they arent getting the information they need to be getting. Sometimes, with a call such as this one, the two dispatchers may be working two separate parts of the same call. One might be speaking with the people at the scene, while the other overhears what is being said and relays the information to officers or rescuers.

Ureste has been a dispatcher since 2004, with a two-year break. Zacarias has five years of experience.

Both said the best part of their job is the opportunity to help people.
Louisiana will still have to make more than $600 million in midyear budget cuts over the next two months despite raising more than $1.5 billion in taxes last spring and cutting the popular TOPS scholarship program.



The state's budget cycle that ended in June had a $313 million budget deficit that must be made up in the current budget year. Louisiana's state taxes also aren't bringing in nearly as much money in the current year as projected. State budget chief Jay Dardenne said he expects an additional shortfall to be more than $300 million when its announced next month.



"I know many people thought we would have more money than we needed right now," said Ben Nevers, Gov. John Bel Edwards' chief of staff, during a budget meeting Monday (Dec. 6). "That just hasn't happened."



Dardenne said the governor will be proposing cuts to higher education, hospitals for the poor and uninsured as well as services for people with disabilities in the middle of the year because there isn't enough money to prevent those types of reductions.



Those cuts will be proposed despite the fact that legislators spent months in Baton Rouge last year looking for ways to spare higher education, hospitals and people with disabilities from budget cuts. The state's "rainy day" fund -- which is supposed to help cover unexpected financial shortfalls -- will also likely be used.

Remember those two legislative sessions this year when a bunch of whiny babies couldn't raise enough money to fix the state budget? Yeah, well, they didn't raise enough money On the one hand, the Republicans in the state House of Representatives (with moral support from Governor Treasurer Senator Kennedy) refused to do anything to help raise the money necessary to fix the gigantic holes Bobby Jindal had blown in the budget. Louisiana has a "spending problem, not a revenue problem ," Kennedy insisted. We just need to stop buying art or something.. oh and paying for poor people to go to the hospital.On the other hand, Bobby Jindal had already blown the hospital money helping his friends get rich . Nevertheless we were promised by Jindal and his acolytes that the privatization scheme would save the state money in the long run. ( Some of us were skeptical .) Anyway, it turns out today that a big part of the problem is....So, yeah, we do have a bit of a spending problem there.
Filmmaker Aditya Chopra has broken his silence of over two decades by releasing #TheBefikreSeries, a series of open letters that contain trivia pertaining to his next directorial release Befikre.

While the first open letter revolved around his desire to reinvent himself, the team of Befikre have now released a second open letter on the official Twitter handle of the film. This open letter refers to Chopra's confession of how he wrote the script of Befikre keeping the lead actor Ranveer Singh in mind.

Singh plays the character of Dharma in the film, who is a carefree soul. Chopra admits that he always wanted to be such an uninhibited soul but could not make that happen. No surprise there, as we have not seen much of Chopra in the last 22 years, except through the lens of his cinema.

Chopra claims that Singh represents the careless, the reckless and the uninhibited. He embodies the spirit of the film and that Chopra would not have made the film had the energetic actor not agreed to come on board.

He goes on to compare Singh with Shah Rukh Khan by drawing a parallel of how the two leading men of the Hindi film industry have covered his film making flaws. He pointed out that both of them share the same energy, brilliance and intellect though their acting styles and processes are different. However, Chopra adds that he is glad that Singh made it easier for him to direct a romantic film minus Khan, who has graced all three of Chopra's directorial ventures  Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Mohabbatein and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

Befikre also stars Vaani Kapoor and is produced under the banner of Yash Raj Films. The film, set in Paris, is slated to release on 9 December.
Jayalalitha finds her admirers across all quarters and all countries, including an Australia-based journalist who wrote a column on the deceased female actor in a weekly column back in 1980.

Brian Laul posted on Facebook an account of his interaction with 'Amma' along with pictures of the letter she wrote to him in response to his column that argued that Jayalalithaa was at that time, "struggling to stage a comeback." The actor refuted the claim by quoting an instance of a huge film that she had backed out of, out of choice.

"Perhaps you don't know that the heroine's role in Balaji's Billa, opposite Rajinikanth, was first offered to me. It was only after I refused to do the film that Balaji signed Sripriya for the role...If I am capable of turning down such a dazzling offer, does that not prove conclusively that I am not in the least 'struggling to stage a comeback'?," said Jayalalithaa in the letter to Laul.

Laul terms her as "a fiery, artistic 32-year-old with an enormous personality and the will to succeed at whatever she set her heart on." Snapshots of the handwritten letter also announce how Jayalalithaa was no longer interested in a film career and had earned enough money to "live like a queen for the rest of her life."
In an indication that the battle between the Tatas and Mistrys are escalating, both Cyrus Mistry and Ratan Tata camp made allegations and counter allegations days ahead of the extraordinary general meetings of six major Tata firms, including TCS and Tata Motors.

In a representation to shareholders of the the companies, ousted Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry on Monday said the government has an "inherent obligation" to "remedy and repair breakdown" in the governance of Tata Trusts, the major shareholder of the group's promoter firm Tata Sons, alleging absence of appropriate structure and ethical behaviour of trustees. Meanwhile, the Tatas have countered the allegations made by Mistry, according to a report in The Times of India.

The Tata group firms are to discuss a resolution seeking Mistry's removal as director at the EGMs.

In the representation to the shareholders, he said the "governance of Tata Trusts has to become more accountable, transparent" and that the Trusts enjoy many exemptions under law including exemptions from tax since they are solely for the benefit of the general public of India.

However, he said: "In the absence of an appropriate governance structure and ethical behaviour of trustees, it would become an inherent obligation of the government to remedy and repair breakdown in the governance of such trusts."

Seeking the government's intervention in his ongoing battle, Mistry said government must ensure the working of the Tata Trusts have a defined, transparent governance structure.

"People who have been complicit or have enabled ethical and legal transgressions or have demonstrated a blatant disregard for good governance should not be allowed continue," he added.

The governance charter across the Tata Group, including the holding and operating companies requires repair to conform to company law and global best pratices such as protection of interests of all stakeholders, including minority shareholder, Mistry said.

Stating that the governance of Tata Trusts has to become more accountable and transparent, he said: "At the heart of the sustainability of the Tata Group is governance reform, throughout the institution."

Asking the shareholders of the companies to vote against the resolution to oust him and Nusli Wadia, Mistry said: "The Tata Group is no one's personal fiefdom. It does not belong to any individual, not to the trustees of Tata Trusts, not to the Tata Sons directors, and not to the directors of the operating companies."

It belongs to all the stakeholders, including each and every shareholders, he added.

Mistry said that the very future of the Tata Group lies in how the trustees govern the Tata Trusts, since the main trust property is the holding of shares in Tata Sons.

"The conferment of all decision making power in one man or a 'high command' among them is unethical, improper and a breach of trust," he said.

It is critical that serious decisions of severe magnitude and consequence are not taken whimsically, without much thought, or for unstated collateral objectives,

Mistry said in his representation.

"It is necessary to have a strong method of checks and balances in the trustees' decisions, particularly if decisions they take could indirectly give them personal benefits," Mistry said.

Tatas counter

According to the Times of India report, Tata Sons has countered the allegations saying it was Mistry who "concentrated all power and authority only in his own hands as chairman of the major Tata companies" and that it was Mistry who tried made the company into his "personal fiefdom".

According to the company, his chairmanship in other Tata group companies was only a "corollary" to his position in Tata Sons. "Therefore, when he was removed as the chairman of Tata Sons, any other person would have stepped down from the chairmanship of Tata operating companies because he no longer enjoyed the support of the principal shareholder," the ToI report said citing a Tata Sons' statement.

The statement has also said that the Tata Trusts are governed by the individual wills of Jamsetji Tata, his two sons, Sir Dorabji Tata and Sir Ratan Tata and other founders and they trusts have been following the mandates in the wills.

"That is the reason the different Trusts continue in existence for decades. Even though disparate, the Trusts do their best to integrate their efforts and to bring about the right results," the statement said, coutering Mistry's allegations.

Earlier, Tata Sons in a nine-page letter had accused Mistry of trying to take control of one of Tata's units and creating distance between the promoter, Tata Sons, and its group companies. It also blamed him for nearly causing losses and eroding shareholder value.

Subsequently, the Mistrys had refuted the charges that he had any ulterior motive. To allege ulterior motive of taking over control of companies, demonstrated true independence is not there in keeping with Tata governance standards... The Tata Sons statement reflects desperation, a statement from Mistry's office had said.

With PTI
1 December: India although gained few positions retains a low ranking in enabling trade while its ICT adoption is actually stalling and losing grounds vis-a-vis other countries, a biennial report of the World Economic Forum (WEF) reveals.

All south Asian economies have improved their Enabling Trade Index (ETI) score over the past two years. Economies that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are now a more accessible market for trading goods than the EU or the US, says the Global Enabling Trade Report 2016 published on 30 November.

The report published by WEF and the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation contains the ETI which assesses the performance of 136 economies-- on domestic and foreign market access; border administration; transport and digital infrastructure; transport services; and operating environment.

How India fared for enabling trade

Although India has jumped four positions, it remains at a disappointing 102nd position out of the 136 ranked countries. Bhutan has jumped 12 places and has exceeded India in the ETI score with a 92 position. Immediately, following India is Sri Lanka ((103rd), Nepal (108th), Pakistan (122nd) and Bangladesh (123rd).

Although the south Asian region has improved its ETI score, but it remains the most closed region in the world and imposes an average tariff of 16.7 percent on imported products as compared to 15.8 percent in 2014 (though the ETI scores between 2014 and 2016 cannot be compared on some indicators because of a change in methodology of calculation).

The report reveals a mixed bag of achievements for India. There have been improvements in terms of border administration (4.4 score out of 7) and clearance efficiency but these gains were partially outweighed by a further deterioration of domestic market access conditions (second last globally), with only 13 percent of imported goods free of duty and an increase in average tariffs applied to the 13 percent, the report states.

There have been large improvements in terms of transport infrastructure (4.5 score out of 7) and services (4.6) but the local operating environment has improved slightly (4.2) with more openness to foreign participation.

Interestingly, for a government that plans to boost a cashless society, its ICT adoption is actually stalling and losing grounds vis-a-vis other countries in the diffusion of the most advanced technologies, such as mobile and fixed broadband, ranking an abysmally low 125th and 104th (out of 136 countries) respectively. Overall, availability and use of ICT has only a score of 3.4 out of a total of 7. The cellular telephone subscription is 78.8 per 100 people while mobile broadband subscription per 100 people is 9.4 and fixed-broadband internet subscriptions is 1.3 per hundred people. Internet use for biz-to-consumer transactions is 4.6 while ICT use for biz-to-biz transactions is lower with a score of 4.5.

The Indian economy is also the most closed (ranking 135 and scoring 2.8 out of 7) ahead only of Iran in terms of overall market access, the WEF report says, while foreign market access ranks 2.7 out of a total score of 7.

Indias trade openness is 31.8 percent and its share of world trade is a bare 1.99 percent.

The top seven factors that are termed problematic for Indian imports are high cost or delays caused by domestic transportation (15.6 score out of a highest score of 16), crime and theft (15), corruption at the border (13.1), tariffs and non-tariff barriers (12.3), burdensome import procedures (12), high cost or delays caused by international transportation (11.1), and inappropriate telecommunications infrastructure (10.7).

The top five factors inhibiting exports to India are corruption at foreign borders (11.4 out of a total score of 16), high cost or delays caused by domestic transportation (10.7), burdensome procedures at foreign borders (10.5), difficulties in meeting quality/quantity requirements of buyers (9.5) and identifying potential markets and buyers (9.3).

How the world fared for enabling trade

Singapore, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Sweden, Finland, Austria, the UK, Germany, Belgium were the top ten countries featuring in the ETI 2016 list.

Vast swaths of the global population are unable to participate in international trade or global value chainstherefore, more effort is needed to ensure that trade is inclusive.

Larger emerging markets in particular fare poorly in the ETI, with China representing the only top-10 most-populous nation in the top half of the index. Six others, home to 2.4 billion people, rank beyond the 100th mark  India (102nd), Brazil (110th), Russia (111th), Pakistan (122nd), Bangladesh (123rd), and Nigeria (127th), the report states.

The Hong Kong economy applies the lowest tariffs for importing followed by Singapore, Mauritius, Georgia, the EU and the US.

Among the countries that apply the highest tariff rates for imports are Iran, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Zimbabwe.

The five economies facing the highest tariffs while exporting to the world are Bhutan, Taiwan, Iran, Russia and Japan.

The Swiss have the most complex tariff system in the world with 6,710 distinct tariffs applied followed by the EU with 1,924 types of tariffs.

Singapore has the most transparent border administration.



The writer is journalist, United Nations Office at Geneva and World Trade Organization.
New Delhi: Condoling the demise of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, Corporate India on Tuesday said the country has lost a visionary, dynamic and inspiring leader.

CII president Naushad Forbes said that during her tenure, industry in Tamil Nadu had progressed remarkably well and the Vision 2023 launched by her was a landmark initiative towards ensuring inclusive and equitable growth in the state.

Ficci said the Indian industry is deeply saddened by the demise of the Tamil Nadu chief minister, who will be

remembered for making "relentless efforts" for the state's economic progress.

"Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary political leader who made relentless efforts for the economic progress of the Tamil Nadu and single-handedly conceptualised the vision document Vision 2023 Tamil Nadu, setting the plan for infrastructure development for the state," the chamber said in a statement.

Her connect with the people, concern for wellbeing of the poor, the women and marginalised will always be a source of inspiration and be cherished for years, it said.

"We share our deepest condolences with her family and the people of Tamil Nadu. Selvi Jayalalithaa was a visionary leader and will continue to inspire us in Indian industry. Her absence in the Indian Polity will create a void that would be very difficult to fill," said Ficci president Harshavardhan Neotia.

"During her tenure as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, the state has transformed and retained its leadership position as the most favoured investment destination in India with the presence of diverse industries," said Ramesh Kymal, chairman, CII Tamil Nadu State Council.
The word, Amma (mother) is used six times in Tamil Nadus 2016-17 budget document, presented by finance minister O Panneerselvam on 21 July, the adjective Puratchi Thalaivi is used once and references to chief minister 31 times.

Just like the verses of scriptures typically begins with a prayer to the cosmic force, Panneerselvam, appears to offer prayers to the AIADMK supreme leader often in the budget speech, thus making the whole 86 page budget document a humble submission at the feet of his and his party mens supreme mother.

A quick glance through Panneerselvams 2016-17 budget document reaffirms Jayalalithaas iconic, cult status. Terms like, unparalleled, unflinching historic, infinite love, affection are used to describe Mother Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night at Apollo hospital in Chennai, while serving her sixth term as the chief minister.

Perhaps, in these times, there is no other Indian state as TN where political leaders enjoy blind devotion of their followers, mostly the poor strata of the society. For most part of her life, Jayalalithaa carried the stature of a demigod, first as an actress and later as a politician, universally admired by her followers as mother, before whom they never shy to prostrate. For them she was never human.

Most of the social welfare schemes in TN are named after her -- Tamil Nadu Village Habitation Improvement (THAI) scheme (Thai in tamil means mother), Amma Unavagam (subsidised food), Amma Kudineer (drinking water scheme), Amma laptops, Amma Baby Care Kit,Amma Magapperu Sanjeevi and Amma Arogiya Thittam. There are a number of such schemes that carry her name. People adore those products/services as mothers blessings, thus melting the thin line between political populism and insane, often blind personality-driven politics.

The populist bandwagon

How did Jayalalithaa win the hearts of poor? To say the least, she was also the mother of all freebie schemes that ensured the support of middle and lower-income class in multiple areas. To be sure, some of these were transformative in nature in the areas of education, housing and aiding small entrepreneurs.

Certain examples include the World Bank-aided Pudhu Vaazhvu Project launched in 2005. Under this scheme, which the government claims to have given job-oriented skill training to 3.27 lakh youth. The THAI scheme, so far implemented in 71,126 habitations pertaining to 9,511 village panchayats and the housing scheme under which in the last four years, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board has constructed 10,059 units at a cost of Rs 565.92 crore, including 2,293 houses for the low income group.

Amma is also known for her investor-friendly approach, which explains the reason why the state is home to more industries and employment than any other Indian state, according to IndiaSpend research. TN is also home to a small-sector movement with the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector providing employment to 63.18 lakh persons.

No doubt. Jayalalithaa has been an able administrator. This is evident from the progress made by the state in the areas of poverty eradication, social welfare, investor-friendly measures and overall economic numbers. TNs Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), which fell to 3.4 percent in real terms, during 2012-13, was reversed to 7.3 percent towards 2013-14 -- higher than the national average growth rate of 4.7 percent of that period.

The state recorded a GSDP growth rate of 8.8 percent in 2015-16 as against the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 7.6 percent, based on the 2011-12 constant prices. The gross fixed capital formation, which indicates the investment activity too has improved significantly, touching Rs 34,091 crore in the fiscal year 2014 compared with Rs 23,054 crore when her predecessor, M Karunanidhi left office in 2010-11.

A TN debt-bomb in making?

But, in the process of rolling out freebies, she also built a debt bomb for the state. At this point, TNs debt is over Rs 2 lakh crore. But, according to an IndiaSpend analysis, TNs debt has witnessed a 92 percent increase over five years ending 2015. According to the Reserve Bank data, TN registered the highest gross fiscal deficit among all states in 2015-16 at Rs 31,830 crore. For current fiscal the TN government pegged its fiscal deficit at Rs 40,534 crore or 2.96 of GSDP.

In the last five years, when Jayalalithaa was in office, the debt level of Tamil Nadu has risen 105 percent from Rs 1.14 lakh crore to Rs 2.35 lakh crore. This is the sharpest increase in debt levels by a large state.

Of all Indian states, only Haryana has beaten TN with a 141 percent rise in public debt. It is needless to say most of this debt is the consequence of Jayalalithaas populist bandwagon aiming at the poor of the state. Other large industrial states like Maharashtra and Gujarat have seen their debt level increasing by a relatively better 64.5 percent and 60.3 percent in the same period.

There is no impressive trend in tax revenue correspondingly. According to 2016-17 TN budget, the tax revenue is estimated to increase to Rs 90,691.87 crore in revised budget estimates for 2016-2017 from Rs.86,537.70 crore as per the revised estimates 2015-2016.

For TN, Amma leaves an era of political populism and a debt bomb in making. Ammas presence will still be felt in the TN cabinet meetings through her image and the memories of her charismatic leadership. But, the task of dealing with the debt bomb in making is up to her trusted lieutenant O Panneerselvam and his AIADMK colleagues.

(Kishor Kadam contributed to this story)
Chennai: Chronology of major milestones in the four-decade political career of AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who passed away on Tuesday night.

24 June 1991: Sworn in Chief Minister for the first time after she leads AIADMK to a huge win in assembly elections.

May 1996: Amidst charges of corruption during its rule, AIADMK loses in the assembly elections. DMK returns to power.

11 July 1996: Then Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy files private complaint in a court accusing Jayalalithaa of amassing wealth worth Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate to her known sources of income during 1991 to 1996.

7 December: Jayalalithaa arrested. Charges of corruption, including accumulation of disproportionate assets, follows.

April, 1997: DMK Government sets up three special courts to try 47 corruption cases against Jayalalithaa, her former cabinet colleagues and others.

1997: Prosecution launched against Jayalalithaa, her close friend Sasikala and two others in a Chennai Court in DA case.

4 June 1997: Charge-sheeted in DA case.

1999: Discharged in coal import deal case by special court; upheld by Madras High Court.

2 February 2000: Special court convicts her in Pleasant Stay Hotel case related to permission granted for construction allegedly flouting rules.

October 2000: A special court in Chennai convicts Jayalalithaa in TANSI land deal case.

May 14, 2001: Jayalalithaa leads AIADMK to landslide win in assembly elections; Sworn in Chief Minister though she was disqualified to contest elections.

21 September 2001: Jayalalithaa unseated as CM after Supreme Court quashes her appointment as she was disqualified to contest polls due to TANSI case conviction.

4 December: Madras High Court acquits Jayalalithaa in the TANSI case and Pleasant Stay Hotel case.

21 February 2002: Jayalalithaa elected to Assembly in a bypoll from Andipatti constituency.

2 March: Jayalalithaa sworn in Chief Minister.

18 November 2003: On a petition by DMK, Supreme Court transfers the trial in DA case to Bengaluru.

24 November: Supreme Court upholds Jayalalithaa's acquittal in TANSI case.

23 January 2004: Acquitted by a special court in the Rs 28.28 crore SPIC disinvestment case.

11 May 2006: AIADMK loses in assembly elections, DMK returns to power.

16 May 2011: Jayalalithaa leads AIADMK to victory in assembly polls; sworn in as Chief Minister.

October/November 2011: Jayalalithaa deposes in Bengaluru Special Court in DA case and answers 1,339 questions by judge.

27 September 2014: The Special Court holds Jayalalithaa and three others guilty of corruption, awards four years' jail term to each, slaps Rs 100 crore fine on her, Rs 10 crore each on three other accused. Jayalalithaa unseated as Chief Minister after she attracts disqualification as an MLA due to the conviction.

18 October 2014: Jayalalithaa granted bail by Supreme Court, released from Bengaluru jail after spending 21 days.

11 May 2015: Karnataka High Court acquits Jayalaithaa.

22 May: Jayalalithaa elected leader of AIADMK legislature party.

23 May: Sworn in as Chief Minister for fifth time.

19 May 2016: Leads AIADMK to a record consecutive win in assembly elections.

22 September: Admitted to Apollo Hospitals with complaints of fever and dehydration.

2 Octtober: Hospital says CM being treated for infection, improving.

21 October: Hospital says Jayalalithaa interacting.

4 November: Hospital Chairman P C Reddy says Jayalalithaa "completely recovered"; she has to decide when to go home.

12 November: Apollo says Jaya needs recuperation, no date fixed for discharge.

13 November: In her first direct communication since her hospitalisation, Jayalalithaa says she has taken 'rebirth'

because of people's prayers; urges them to vote for AIADMK in the November 19 bypolls to three assembly constituencies.

19 November: Jayalalithaa shifted to private room from Critical Care Unit.

22 November: Jayalalithaa thanks voters for electing her party candidates in polls.

25 November: PC Reddy says Jayalalithaa speaking using tracheostomy tube valve.

4 December: AIADMK says AIIMS expert team confirms Jayalalithaa has recovered completely.

4 December: Jayalalithaa suffers massive cardiac arrest; put on extracorporeal membrane heart assist device.

5 December: Jayalalithaa passes away at 11.30 PM.
Srinagar: Separatist leaders, who have been spearheading the five-month-long unrest in Kashmir, in a surprise move, invited tourists and pilgrims to visit the Valley to enjoy the traditional hospitality of its people while promising them safety.

Leaders of the two factions of separatist group Hurriyat Conference issued a joint statement asking people from outside to visit the Valley, reminding them of the "exemplary hospitality" extended by the Kashmiris. "We have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests," the statement said.

"Tourists and pilgrims who intend to visit Kashmir are most welcome," the statement issued by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the moderate moderate Hurriyat faction Mirwaiz Muhammad Umer Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik said.

Extending wholehearted welcome to tourists and pilgrims, they said people of Kashmir have been taught "to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost". "This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethos and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history," they said.

Referring to the unrest of 2008, the statement said when there was an economic blockade and even baby food was scarce, people in the valley replied to that "tyranny with our exemplary hospitality". "We not only safeguarded them and provided them shelter, but also served them and kept the doors of our homes and localities open for them," they said, adding that the same practice was followed during 2014 devastating floods.

The Kashmir Valley is witnessing continued turmoil since the 8 July killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces which has thrown normal life into disarray, badly hitting the state's economy.
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That Tamil Nadu's political culture is famously opaque when it comes to disseminating information is well known. In this case, medical bulletins in the initial days only spoke of fever and dehydration and it was only when critical care specialist Dr Richard Beale was flown in from London to corroborate the line of treatment that people realised there was more than what meets the eye. For the better part of the 70-odd days, Jayalalithaa has been on the ventilator, as she is suffering from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome...

ANI reports that CRPF is on high alert across Tamil Nadu and the police presence has been beefed up outside Apollo Hospital, where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is on ECMO

CNN-News18 reports that Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu leaves for Chennai, while Health Minister JP Nadda updates PM Modi on the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's health.

He is, after all, her permanent understudy.

First was in September 2001, where he was the interim CM for six months when Jayalalithaa was disqualified by the Supreme Court in the Tansi land deal case and second in September 2014, after a Bangalore court sentenced Jayalalithaa to four years in jail and fined Rs 100 crore in a corruption case. The third time was earlier this year (in October) when he took over all the portfolios held by the Chief Minister.

This shouldn't come as a surprise considering the Amma loyalist has always stepped up when the party and their leader needed him. If he does, it would be the fourth time he has stepped up.

Rajya Sabha Subramanian Swamy tweets that an announcement on Jayalalithaa's health at 6 pm is likely.

75 percent of police staff should be assigned to bandobast, station to hold essential strength.

"Officers at all levels to be on duty until further notice. The entire city stands mobilised," reads the memorandum issued by the Chennai Commissioner of Police.

According to the statement of the Apollo Hospital that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalaithaa suffered a massive cardiac arrest which caused the death. Reports said that the hospital said that the body will be taken out in a couple of hours.

The channel also added that it will take 2-3 hours for the former chief minister's body to be taken out from the hospital and taken to Poes Garden. After that, Jayalalitha's mortal remains will be taken to Rajaji Mandapam for public to pay their last respects. The funeral will be held at Gandhi mandapam. Tamil Nadu government has announced a three-day mourning period, according to the channel.

According to CNN-News 18, Jayalalitha's handpicked successor O Panneerselvam has already been declared as the Assembly Head of AIADMK, paving the way for him to be named as the interim chief minister. The party has already made the formal announcement.

However, according to a few local reports, the days of state mourning has been extended for seven days from three days.

Schools and colleges to be shut for three days

Jayalalithaa's body will will be kept at Rajaji Hall for people to pay last respects

For all those readers who are joining us now, here's what has happened till now:

Jayalalithaa's demise will hard the supporters of AIADMK in a big way. Referred to as Amma, with love, supporters of Jayalalithaa and AIADMK were crestfallen after the news of the leader's demise surfaced.

CNN-News18 reports that security in capital Chennai will be tight. The Prime Minister and Union Ministers and important dignitaries will be present during Jayalalithaa's funeral.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh appeals to public maintain calm. I also appeal to the people of Tamil Nadu to remain calm in this hour of grief, he tweeted.

The killer tsunami of 2004 struck on 26 December, while the torrential unprecedented downpour in December 2015 left a scar in the minds of many harried citizens of Chennai, Kancheepuram, Cuddalore, Tiruvallore and Thoothukudi.

Both leaders had also gone through prolonged period of illness before their end came. Nature too had played havoc with citizens of the state in the last month of the year.

December seems to be jinxed for Tamil Nadu as it witnessed yet another major loss in the form of death of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa after that of her mentor M G Ramachandran, besides natural calamities of tsunami and floods. While AIADMK founder and charismatic actor-turned-politician MGR died on December 24, 1987, his protege Jayalalithaa breathed her last on Monday late night (5 December), leaving a striking similarity.

Her acting career peaked after she was paired with the legendary MG Ramachandran (fondly known as MGR). The success of their film Aayirathil Oruvan (1965) turned Jayalalithaa into a leading heroine in Tamil movies. The two were an instant hit on the silver screen and they becamse close in real life.

Jayalalithaa's first Tamil movie was Vennira Aadai in 1965. Over the decades, she acted in 140 films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and even one in Hindi, Izzat opposite Dharmendra.

The Hindu reports that Jayalalithaa's cremation will take place at 4 pm next to MGR memorial.

Jayalalithaa's supporters have, however, not left the gates of Poes Garden, reports said.

After a tumultous night, scene outside Apollo Hospital and late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's residence in Poes Garden is under control. A minor scuffle was reported to have taken place between the police and the AIADMK supporters. However, the situation is under control.

Emotions are running high and the state government and the police are leaving nothing to chance. Not just important dignitaries from Tamil Nadu will be in the capital today, but leaders and important poliitcal figures from India will be landing in Chennai to pay their last respects to Amma.

In a couple of hours, public will be allowed to pay their last respects to Jayalalithaa. According to reports, security in Chennai is extremely tight and the police are on guard.

Jayalalithaa will be laid to rest next to MGR

According to local channels, last minute rituals were being performed at the late chief minister's residence in Poes Garden.

Reports said the last remains of Jayalalithaa will be taken to Rajaji Hall any time soon now. The cavalcade is almost ready, News 18 reports.

Even as the sun may have set on her life and her career, a new sun rises in Tamil Nadu  will that sun be the DMK? Only time will tell.

It's perhaps bittersweet or more so symbolic that gentle dawn breaks as the cavalcade takes Jayalalithaa's remains to Rajaji Hall.

6th December 2016 declared as public holiday under Negotiable Instrument Act as a mark of respect to J Jayalalithaa, the government of Tamil Nadu announced.

Naidu also appealed supporters to maintain peace and calm at this tough time.

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu while addressing the nation early on Tuesday said that today Amma is no more among us but she will always be THE leader of AIADMK.

Long winding queues have formed since the supporters lined to see their favourite leader.

According to latest visuals, thousands have thronged Rajaji Hall, as early as 6 am, to pay their last respects to Jayalalithaa. Senior AIADMK members, including O Pannerselvam, who was sworn-in as the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, were seen sitting on the footsteps leading up to the coffin of the late Jayalalithaa.

Newly sworn-in Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu could not stop sobbing as he laid the wreath on late Jayalalithaa's body. The CM-designate prostrated at Jayalalithaa's feet.

As a mark of respect, the Kerala government declared a holiday on Tuesday to mourn the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Just days ago, Jayalalithaa, who was treated at Apollo hospital for acute lung infection, was moved from the critical care unit of the hospital to a private room fitted with state-of-the-art equipment. All clinical attempts were made to save the CM's life but she passed away at 11.30 pm, the Apollo Hospital press release said.

After paying homage to Babasaheb Ambedkar at Parliament House, shortly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for Chennai to pay homage to Jayalalithaa

"But the burden of carrying the party on her shoulders is tiring and frustrating sometimes. She knows encouraging a second-in-line as her political heir would be suicidal. Th ere is no one in sight anyway. She does not know what will happen to the party after her."

For a fascinating, fiery subject such as Jayalalithaa, it's a shame her life story has been limited to only 200 pages. Vaasanthi's biography of the current Tamil Nadu chief minister  Amma: Jayalalithaas Journey from Movie Star to Political Queen  feels like it ends even before it begins, although Amma's life story has been captured in its entirety.

Jayalalithaa's biography asks the same question: What after her?

The funeral will take place at Marina Beach at 4.30 pm today.

That aside, national mourning was declared and the state government also ordered for all flags to fly at half-mast.

After Apollo Hospitals and AIADMK confirmed the death of J Jayalalithaa, the government of Tamil Nadu declared full state honours for Amma at her funeral.

The Hindu reports mourners scale fence and break barricades to get into the Omandurar Estate premises. Police manage to disperse the crowd.

Suburban train services, however, were being operated in the city, albeit with lower passenger rush.

With even tea stalls, which usually do a brisk business in the early hours, remaining closed, mobile tea vendors could be seen dispensing the brew at some places. Hotels are also closed.

The focus today turned to Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's body is lying in state to enable public pay their homage.

A near total shutdown like situation prevailed in the city and several other parts of the state since Monday evening itself.

Public transport services, including autorickshaws, were off the roads while some private vehicles were seen plying in various parts of the city where police personnel kept a tight vigil at vantage points.

Life virtually came to a grinding halt in Chennai as the city woke up to deserted streets with shops, including eateries, remaining shut in the wake of the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

According to India Today, sources have informed the channel that iconic Poes Garden residence of Jayalalithaa in Chennai will go to Sasikala's nephew. The late chief minister's Kodanadu estate will go to Sasikala.

This is how Jayalalithaa's property is being divided

Reports have said that the Indian Air Force plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee developed a technical snag and returned to New Delhi.

Wailing, weeping and beating their chests, men, women and children file passed the body of Sheikh, which was kept in the Polo Ground in Srinagar as thousands came for the last glimpse. Exactly what is seen today (Tuesday) in Chennai.  IANS

When the news about his death was officially confirmed in the evening, an unprecedented gloom descended on Kashmir.

Thousands throughout the Valley waited with bated breath to know the latest on the Sheikh's health.

People in summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir sacrificed sheep in hundreds devotional offerings to disprove the news of Sheikh's death.

Hours before his death was officially confirmed, rumours had spread like wildfire saying the leader was no more.

Like her followers, the supporters of late Sheikh ridiculed, abused and even roughed up anyone who said that Sheikh had passed away.

Rumours of his death spread many times during his illness as these did in case of Jayalalithaa.

Like her, Sheikh remained in a critical state of health for many months before he passed away on 8 September, 1982.

"This is something which the death of Jayalalithaa and the Sheikh prove. Death of these icons had been unacceptable to their followers. Super humans can not die and that is what people who adored these two icons believed," said Muzaffar Ahmad, a professor.

The late Sheikh's persona, like that of Jayalalithaa grew out of its political borders and finally the two became to be seen as some kind of super humans who could not die.

Both these leaders were accused of corruption during their rule, but that did not matter to their supporters in whose eyes the two could do no wrong.

Like Jayalalithaa, Sheikh, who was born in 1903, ruled the hearts and minds of his followers and supporters.

The grief and mourning of thousands of supporters Jayalalithaa has unmistakable parallels with the death of iconic Kashmiri leader and founder of National Conference, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah.

Other politicians in the party were reduced to flunkies, and provided her the numbers in the legislature to look to the poor. Enduring images are those of ministers prostrating before her while she wouldnt even deign to glance at them. And of the public who stood in vigil outside the hospital as she battled for life, saying she was God, there would be a miracle; she cannot die.

She was both, ensuring she alone counted.

Or, was she a benign ruler who treated the states weak as those deserving of support by virtue of freebies and subsidising many essentials under the Amma brand?

Was she, the four-time chief minister of the leading southern state, to be seen as a despot before whom even elected representatives right up to those in Parliament from her party cringed?

At a psychological level, this is also because of the 'queen/king and subject' relationship that leaders like Jayalalithaa developed with the people of Tamil Nadu.

It is tough to explain this kind of irrational behaviour where grown-up men and women harm themselves for the sake of a relationship. It is based only on the connect they feel with the person  a connect that is based primarily on what they feel for the leader, floored by what they perceive she has done for them. Over the years, Jayalalithaa has gained from the very pro-poor welfare agenda she crafted.

That is not all, Jayalalithaa's role in helping the city retain hosting rights of the ATP tournament can't be overemphasised. It must be recalled that at a time when the event looked in the limbo as the original sponsor backed out in 2005, she stepped in and announced that the Tamilnadu government would step in to ensure it went on without any hitch. The government has since been one of the Platinum Sponsors and has been a key mover behind the championship's conduct with Jayalalithaa's guidance.

It was a momentous occasion for fans in these parts got to watch India's own legend in action against a prodigious talent, whose stock was rising. She took personal interest in conduct of the mega event and was present at the opening ceremony and drew the lots for choice of colour and gave away the prizes at the valedictory.

She was instrumental in Chennai hosting the prestigious World Chess Championship match between home favourite Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen. Jayalalithaa allocated Rs 29 crore for conduct of the world title match, which went on to become hugely followed.

From a city that was starved of top-flight sporting action to a hub of activity, that is the story of Chennai. And, a lot of credit for that goes to Jayalalithaa. She has been the driving force behind improving sports infrastructure in the city and other parts of the State.

Sportspersons in Tamil Nadu will forever remain indebted to former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for quite a few reasons. It is her far-sightedness that resulted in Chennai getting some impressive sporting arenas including the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium and the tennis stadium.

Jayalalithaa's coffin is now being lowered into her last resting place

The former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK leader, revered by many, has finally been laid to rest next to her political mentor MG Ramachandran, off the Marina beach in Chennai.

Apart from leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, US Ambassador to India Richard Verma also expressed grief over the AIADMK leader's demise.

World leaders, on Monday, condoled the death of the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's death.

However, Sasikala Natarajan, who is considered her close confidante and has been with her right till her last days, managed to maintain her calm as she performed the last rights of the popular leader.

Thousands of people bid a tearful goodbye to their beloved leader at Marina beach, as she was laid to rest next to her political mentor, MGR.

Dignitaries continue to come forward and offer flowers and tributes to the departed leader

The report further says that Jayalalitha considered the numbers 5 and 7 to be auspicious for herself. Incidentally, she breathed her last on the 5th, just half an hour before the date changed to 6 December.

According to a report by India Today , Jayalalithaa was a firm believer in astrology, citing the fact that she added an extra 'a' at the end of her name in compliance with the numerology principles. The report further states that the time of starting the funeral proceedings was chosen to be after 4:30 so as to avoid the Rahu Kala, considered inauspicious in astrology.

Why Jayalalithaa's funeral procession was taken out at 4:30 pm?

"I am deeply shocked and grieved to hear about the sad demise of Selvi J Jayalalithaa, the charismatic leader and the peoples Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," Rao said.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao condoled the death of J Jayalalithaa describing her a charismatic leader and people's chief Minister.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who pioneered pro-poor programmes and remained a pole for three decades, died here tonight leaving a big void in the state politcs. The 67-year-old leader, who suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, passed away at 11:30 pm on Monday tonight, after battling for life for 75 days, the Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.

Two hours after the announcement of her death, in a swift political transition, her loyalist O Panneerselvam was sworn in as Chief Minister at a sombre ceremony at the Raj Bhawan along with all the ministers in the erstwhile Jayalalithaa Cabinet.

Panneerselvam had stepped into her shoes twice earlier when she was convicted in corruption cases. As Finance Minister, he was given charge of the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa after her admission to Apollo Hospitals on 22 September.

In his third stint in the top office, O Panneerselvam was today sworn in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu hours after his predecessor and party supremo J Jayalalithaa passed away after a prolonged illness.

A grim-faced Panneerselvam, who was also seen sporting a beard, was sworn in around 1.15 AM by Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao at the Raj Bhavan amidst a scene of gloom. After he took oath of office, a total of 31 Ministers, all of them members of the previous Jayalalithaa cabinet, took oath in a simultaneous swearing-in.

Panneerselvam was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Rao, who air-dashed here from Mumbai yesterday after Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest. Panneerselvam (65), often hailed as Jayalalithaa's 'Man Friday', took oath in the name of God.

Even as her death was announced, the AIADMK MLAs met at the party headquarters to elect Panneerselvam as the successor to Jayalalithaa.

Jayalalithaa, who scored a historic win in the assembly elections in the state little over six months ago, was admitted to Apollo Hospitals on September 22 with fever and dehydration but she could never recover.

A tinsel heroine, who inherited the legacy of her mentor late MGR, had entered politics in the early 1980s as the propaganda secretary of AIADMK and was made the incharge of the noon meal scheme undertaken by the MGR government.

Born in a Brahmin family, Jayalalithaa emerged as a fiesty leader in a state where forces of social justice had thrown up an anti-Brahmin political movement even before independence.

She practised politics on her own terms and was one of the two poles in the state for nearly 30 years fighting the DMK headed by redoubtable M Karunanidhi.

Only hours earlier in the evening, the hospital had denied reports that Jayalalithaa had died as "baseless and false" when TV channels said she was no more.

"It is with indescribable grief, we announce the sad demise of our esteemed Honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Puratchi Thalaivi Amma at 11.30 PM today," Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.

"Our honourable Chief Minister Selvi J Jayalalithaa was admitted on 22.9.2016 with complaints of fever and dehydration and underlying co-morbidities. The honourable Chief Minister responded well to the multi-disciplinary care in the Critical Care Unit and subsequently recovered substantially to being able to take food orally.

"On this basis, honourable Chief Minister was shifted from the Advanced Critical Care Unit to the High Dependency Unit, where her health and vitals continued to improve under the close monitoring by our expert panel of specialists."

Unfortunately, the hospital release said, the Chief Minister suffered a massive cardiac arrest on the evening of December 4 even while the intensivist was in her room. The Chief Minister was immediately administered rescusitation (CPR) and provided ECMO support within the hour.

ECMO is the most advanced treatment currently available internationally. Every possible clinical attempt was made to sustain her revival. However, despite our best efforts, the Chief Minister's underlying conditions rendered her unable to recover and she passed away at 11:30 pm on Monday, the release said.

A five-time Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa pioneered a string of social sector schemes like 'cradle to baby scheme' aimed at fighting the curse of female foeticide, free gold coins for those who begot girl child.

She also opened a series of public welfare schemes under brand Amma, as she was popularly called, like 'Amma canteens' to low-priced food to the urban poor. There were similar schemes for the poor like 'Amma salt' 'Amma water' and 'Amma medicines'.

Jayalalithaa also attracted investment, especially from abroad, in sectors like automobile and IT.

A host of leaders including President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and a number of film personalities expressed grief over her death.

Modi, who shared good political equation with Jayalalisthaa said he was deeply saddened at her passing away which has left a "huge void" in Indian politics.

"I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa Ji. May her soul rest in peace," he said.
That the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa (her name is sometimes spelled Jayalalitha) was larger than life and endeared herself to millions of Tamils in Tamil Nadu is a given. But, the charismatic leader shared a love-hate relationship with her birth place, Karnataka. It was almost as though she wanted to prove to Tamil Nadu that she was more Tamil than the Tamilians.

Born in Mandya, Karnataka, the epicentre of the Cauvery dispute between the two states, one would have expected Jayalalithaa to take a softer stand on the water sharing formula, especially as those affected mostly were farmers from her hometown of Mandya. But, she was the Iron Lady when it came to negotiations with Karnataka on water sharing.

Although, the Cauvery basin spreads across the four states of Karrnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, the decades old dispute has largely been between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, with violent protests erupting in the two states, every other drought year. The issue might date back to 1892 when an agreement was filed between Madras Presidency and Mysore for arbitration. Several attempts were made to arbitrate between the two states by the Supreme Court and the Centre too. But, with high doses of jingoistic adrenaline pumping the politics of the two states, the Cauvery dispute between the two states was a call for the leaders of the two states down the years to either fuel these emotions or sit across the table in relative calm level headedness and reach a compromise solution.

In the recent violent protests and various bandhs called in Karnataka and Tamilnadu just months ago, protestors in both the states, targeted both the chief ministers of the two affected states, Siddaramaiah of Karnataka and J Jayalalithaa of Tamilnadu by burning their effigies and vandalizing their hoardings. While in the past, theatres, schools and Tamil speaking areas were targeted in Bengaluru by pro-Karnataka protestors, this year, even restaurants and bus carriers with roots in Tamilnadu were targets of violent vandalism.

Could the Cauvery dispute have found an easier solution, if Jayalalithaa had been partial to her birthplace and listened to the plight of the Mandya farmers as much as she did to those of the farmers from Tamilnadu?

Jayalalithaa had enough and more Karnataka links for anyone to think so. She was an Iyengar Tamil Brahmin born on 24 February 1948, at Melukote, in Pandavapura taluka, Mandya district. Her very name Jayalalithaa, came from the two homes where she lived as a child in Mysore. One was "Jaya Vilas" and the other "Lalitha Vilas".

Both sides of her parentage had links with two ubiquitous Karnataka legacies  the royal Wodeyars and Hindustan Aeronautics limited or HAL. Her paternal grandfather, Narasimhan Rengachary, was a court physician to Maharaja Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV and her maternal grandfather, Rangasamy Iyengar, worked with HAL in Mysore. After her father Jayaraman died, when she was two years old, her widowed mother Vedavalli returned to her father's home in Bangalore in 1950. Jayalalithaa was even a Cottonian, studying for a while at the Bishop Cottons Girls school on St. Marks School. The school has even put up a photo of Jayalalithaa in their school lobby. When her mother relocated to Madras to act in films, Jayalalithaa lived with her mother's sister Padmavalli and with maternal grandparents from 1950 to 1958 in Mysore.

With her fluency and skill with languages, she spoke fluent Kannada and even spoke Kannada with former Karnataka chief Ministers Jagadish Shettar 2012 and SM Krishna 2002, when they were in Delhi to discuss the Cauvery dispute. She also is known to have conversed in Kannada with co-stars from the state. So, what soured her memories of Karnataka and similarly turned Karnataka against their own daughter?

The Times of India report says that it was a statement seen as anti-Kannada that shortened Jayalalithaa's career in Sandalwood. In 1972, when she was shooting at Premier Studio in Mysuru for the Tamil film, Ganga Gowri, she made a rare political misstep, saying. "I know Kannada as I was born in Melkote in Karnataka, but I am Tamil." Her dance show scheduled as part of the Dasara celebration in Mysore was cancelled and a film she was to act with Kannada superstar Rajkumar was also called off.

However, what is interesting to note is that Jayalalithaa continued her spiritual links with Karnataka by even going to the Chamundeswari temple in Mysore for her 63rd birthday in 2011. For a Dravidian leader, being Brahmin, religious and also Convent educated were already too many negative combinations as it were, so perhaps keeping the strong Thevar community on her side, through her best friend Sasikala Natarajan and the present chief minister O Pannerselvam was a political imperative and eschewing her Karnataka Iyengar Brahmin roots might have been a political necessity too.

Perhaps, what also soured Jayalalithaas memories of Karnataka and made her bitter towards the state was her experience in a Karnataka jail. When the 18-year-old disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa and her aides was transferred to Bangalore, the Special Court in Bangalore in September, 2014, convicted Jayalalithaa to four years in jail and fined her 100 crore. This forced her to step down as chief minister. However, the very next year, in May 2015, the Karnataka High Court overturned the trial court's verdict and acquitted Jayalalithaa and others of all charges, which paved the way for Jayalalithaa to return to power as chief minister of Tamil Nadu last year.

The manifesto that brought her back to power had one salient feature  that the new government would solve the age  old Cauvery dispute with Karnataka. As chief minister, Jayalalithaa quickly put this into practice, by taking legal action against Karnataka for not adhering to the Cauvery Water Tribunals order of releasing water to Tamilnadu.

The mistrust and suspicion that grew between the two states was that of politics, however, the people of the two states have always shared a good rapport with several Kannadigas and Tamils living and working in both states. Now, we will have to see, how the political theatre between the two states will pan out, with the new Tamil Nadu chief minister, O Paneerselvam at its helm. Will the blow-hot blow-cold relationship between the two states improve?
VIENNA Austria plans to jail or fine asylum seekers who lie to the authorities, a move aimed partly at dissuading migrants from trying to settle, it said on Tuesday.The cabinet agreed on a draft law that would allow the authorities to punish asylum applicants who lie about their identities - for example by pretending to be Syrian so their claims have a better chance of being accepted - with a fine of up to 5,000 euros ($5,373) or three weeks in jail.Those who stay in Austria despite being ordered to leave face fines of between 5,000 and 15,000 euros or six weeks in jail, said the conservative People's Party (OVP), which is in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPO).The centrist government has this year tightened migration laws. The anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPO), whose candidate Norbert Hofer made it to Sunday's presidential election run-off, has been leading opinion polls with around 33 percent for months."Certainly these (measures) have in part a signalling effect," OVP junior economy minister, Harald Mahrer, said when asked if the law was designed to scare off migrants. "What kind of rule of law would we have in the republic if we said we do not punish these things?"The bill needs the approval of parliament.

Other European countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, have also toughened asylum laws or tightened border controls in recent months as European Union member states have failed to agree on a mechanism for distributing migrants among themselves. Austria's Greens criticised the bill and called for the costs of accepting asylum seekers to be spread among European Union member states.

"That way you can stop the nationalist competition for who can scare off asylum seekers the most," said Alev Korun of the Greens.Austria has announced a cap on asylum claims of 37,500 this year, having taken in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, when it was swept up in Europe's migration crisis. The Interior Ministry said it had received 37,000 asylum applications by the end of October, but only counted 30,000 as relevant to the cap as it strips out certain cases, including those it believes should be processed in other countries.

One SPO minister said emergency measures would not be needed this year or next year, when the cap falls to 35,000, to stay below the limit. (Reporting By Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel won a new two-year term on Tuesday as the leader of Germany's main conservative party, gaining solid backing after stressing her determination to prevent a repeat of last year's huge migrant influx.

Merkel, who ran unopposed, won 89.5 percent of delegates' votes at a congress of her Christian Democratic Union in the western city of Essen.

That was short of the 96.7 percent she won two years ago, but still a strong mandate as she prepares to seek a fourth term as chancellor in next year's German election.

The vote came after a speech in which she struck a decidedly conservative note, telling members that she wants to stem the influx of migrants and ban face-covering veils where possible.

Germany saw about 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year. Many came after Merkel decided in September 2015 to let in migrants who were stuck in Hungary. The numbers have since declined sharply, but Merkel's "we will cope" approach to the migrant crisis has provoked discord within the CDU, which has seen a string of poor state election results this year.

"A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated," Merkel told delegates.

While Merkel insists that Germany will continue to take in people who genuinely need protection, her government has moved to toughen asylum rules and declare several countries "safe", meaning people from there can't expect to get refuge.

Merkel was also a driving force behind an agreement between the European Union and Turkey in March to stem the flow of migrants.

Polls show a solid lead for the conservatives, although their support is still short of the 41.5 percent they won in Germany's 2013 election. They face new competition from the upstart nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has thrived by attacking Merkel's migrant policies.

"The 2017 election will be more difficult than any election before, at least since German reunification," Merkel said, citing the "strong polarization of our society." Merkel told delegates that "parallel societies" won't be tolerated and advocated banning the wearing of full-face veils used by some Muslim women where that's possible.

But she also hit out at anti-migrant and anti-government protesters who chant "We are the people!" or post hate messages on social media.

"Who the people are ... is something that we will all determine, not just a few, however loud they may be," she declared.

The EU's longest-serving head of government has often said her aim is for Europe to emerge stronger from crises such as the debt troubles that afflicted the common euro currency. Merkel said she still believes in that  but "we must in this situation ... first do everything so that Europe doesn't emerge even weaker from the crises than when it went in."
By Ahmed Rasheed and Patrick Markey

| BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraqi army units surged towards the centre of Mosul on Tuesday in an attack from the city's southeastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the seven-week-old battle for Islamic State's Iraqi stronghold.Campaign commander Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah was quoted by Iraqi television as saying troops had entered Salam Hospital, less than a mile (1.5 km) from the Tigris river running through the city centre.If confirmed, that would mark a significant advance by the Ninth Armoured Division, which had been tied up for more than a month in close-quarter combat with Islamic State on the southeastern fringes of the city.Residents of Islamic State-controlled districts of east Mosul said by telephone the army had punched deep into the east bank of the city, getting close to the Tigris."The fighting right now is very heavy - Iraqi forces have gone past our neighbourhood without entering it. Our area is now practically surrounded by the river and the Iraqi forces," said a resident of the Palestine neighbourhood.Islamic State's news agency appeared to confirm the advance, saying three car bombers struck the troops near Salam hospital.A Reuters team saw thick black smoke rising from the area around the hospital. "We made good advances today," said a soldier who identified himself as Abu Ahmed.Mosul is by far the largest city under Islamic State control and defeat there would roll back the self-styled caliphate it declared in 2014 after seizing large parts of Iraq and Syria. Some 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and mainly Shi'ite paramilitary forces are participating in the Mosul campaign that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

A colonel in the armoured division said Tuesday's assault, launched at 6 a.m., aimed to ultimately reach Mosul's Fourth Bridge, the southernmost of five bridges spanning the river.The bridge, like three others, has been hit by U.S.-led air strikes to prevent Islamic State sending reinforcements and suicide car bombs across the city to the eastern front. The last and oldest bridge, built in the 1930s, was targeted on Monday night, two residents said. The structure was not destroyed, but the air strikes made two large craters in the approach roads on both sides."I saw Daesh (Islamic State) using bulldozers to fill the craters with sand and by midday vehicles managed to cross the bridge normally. I drove my car to the other side of the bridge and saw also Daesh vehicles crossing," a taxi driver told Reuters.

NEW TACTICS

The army says it is facing the toughest urban warfare imaginable - hundreds of suicide car bomb attacks, mortar barrages, sniper fire and ambushes launched from a network of tunnels. More than a million civilians are still in the city. The colonel said Tuesday's offensive aimed to overwhelm the militants, who have put up stiff resistance but are hugely outnumbered by the attacking forces. "We are using a new tactic - increasing the numbers of advancing forces and also attacking from multiple fronts to take the initiative and prevent Daesh fighters from organising any counter-attacks," the colonel said by telephone.He said the four armoured division regiments, whose tanks and heavy armour have struggled to adapt to street-by-street fighting, had been reinforced by an infantry regiment.

They were aiming for the Wahda neighbourhood, a sprawling southeastern district. Wahda could serve as a launchpad for an advance to the Fourth Bridge, he said.The Sunni Muslim jihadists, who seized Mosul in mid-2014, are believed to be dug in across the city, but a U.S. general in the coalition supporting Iraqi forces told Reuters they appeared to have committed additional defences to the fight in the east.The west of the city is more densely populated than the east and has a greater concentration of Sunni Muslims."The quality of the enemy we are facing now is markedly declined from a month ago," said Brigadier General Scott Efflandt, a coalition deputy commander."What they were saving for the west side of the river they are now committing to the east." He said the number of militants in the city had probably fallen to around 3,000, from around 3,000-5,000 at the start of the campaign.Iraqi officials have not given any casualty figures for their own forces. Last week the United Nations said nearly 2,000 members of Iraq's security forces had been killed in November - a figure Baghdad says was based on unverified reports - and that more than 900 police and civilians had also been killed. (Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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Tokyo: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to become the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor, announcing on Monday a trip to the site of his country's surprise attack that launched World War II in the Pacific.

News of the journey comes just two days ahead of the 75th anniversary of the deadly 7 December, 1941 assault on the US naval base in Hawaii.

The war ended in August 1945 after the US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan and, although the countries have forged strong ties in the seven decades since, how the war began and concluded has cast a long shadow.

Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor also comes as Japan prepares to build a new relationship with Donald Trump, who will take over from President Barack Obama next month.

Trump sent shockwaves through Japan earlier this year when he appeared to call into question the two countries' security alliance, prompting Abe to become the first world leader to meet him after the election to confirm the relationship.

His journey to Pearl Harbor will be part of a 26-27 December visit to Obama's home state, where they will hold talks and visit the war site together.

It mirrors Obama's trip in May to Hiroshima  the first by a sitting US president  during which they went to the memorial to the dropping of the world's first atomic bomb.

Obama's visit had sparked speculation that Abe might go to Pearl Harbor in return, though the government had previously denied that was under consideration.

"It's a visit to commemorate the victims," Abe told reporters of his decision to go to Pearl Harbor. "We should not repeat the horror of war."

His words indicate that his gestures will strike a similar tone to what Obama did in Hiroshima, where the US leader lay a floral wreath, spoke of the suffering of the victims and reiterated his call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

No apology

But Obama offered no apology for the bombings and it is unlikely that Abe will either for Pearl Harbor.

Abe, a staunch nationalist who has called for Japan to revise the war-renouncing constitution imposed on it by US occupiers after the war, has made statements appearing to question whether his country was an aggressor.

And while standing by apologies made by his predecessors for the war in Asia, he said last year that Japan's future generations need not say sorry.

Japan's apologies have often been criticised overseas as vague or lacking sincerity, and are compared unfavourably with those of Germany's which came earlier and were seen as unequivocal.

Abe also stressed he wants his meeting with Obama to highlight the countries' close current relationship.

"I'd like to make it an opportunity to send a message to the world that we will further strengthen and maintain our alliance towards the future," he said, a signal to the incoming Trump administration.

The White House said Obama would meet with Abe on 27 December and accompany him to the USS Arizona Memorial to honour those killed.

"The two leaders' visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values," the White House statement said.

The US maintains numerous military bases in Japan along with about 47,000 troops under a security treaty that obliges it to protect the country, crucial for Tokyo given its restraints on waging war.

But Japan was shocked at Trump's statements on the campaign trail  that the Asian nation should pay more to support US troops and might even consider developing its own nuclear weapons.

Though he later walked back on the comments, they jolted public opinion in the world's only country to ever be attacked with atomic bombs.

Abe's Hawaii plan received positive reactions on social media.

"President Obama came to Hiroshima so Prime Minister Abe should go to Pearl Harbor," Twitter user @chikazoemakoto said. "I think Abe made a really good decision."
By Paul Carrel

| ESSEN, Germany

ESSEN, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel will rally her conservatives at a party conference on Tuesday to gird for a German election next year that she expects to be "tough like no other".Seeking a fourth term in office, Merkel must unite her Christian Democrats (CDU) and try to recapture some of her personal popularity, undermined by the crises that have rocked Europe.Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's referendum defeat on Sunday and the impending departure of French President Francois Hollande underline Merkel's status as Europe's most experienced leader, but she needs to win back disgruntled voters at home.The CDU has seen its support eroded by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has profited from popular concern about the influx into Germany last year of around a million migrants, many fleeing war in the Middle East."We know our world is changing. It always has been. Anyone who promises to be able to stop that isn't being honest," said CDU Secretary General Peter Tauber.

"What we are promising is to turn this change in a good direction for our country."With Britain poised to leave the EU, Russia testing the NATO alliance and southern Europe's economies struggling, the CDU will debate a main resolution entitled: "Orientation in difficult times - for a successful Germany and Europe".The conference is in Essen, a former industrial hub where unemployment is at 11.6 percent, twice the national average. It is where Merkel was first elected CDU party chairwoman in 2000.

Returning to Essen, Merkel, aged 62 and chancellor for 11 years, must rally her party to fight off the social media-savvy AfD while also appealing to the centre ground. Since declaring last month she would seek a fourth term, her conservatives have gained support.A survey by pollster Emnid published on Sunday showed support for the conservative bloc - Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union - rising by 2 points to 37 percent, the highest level since January.

With her current Social Democrat coalition partners trailing 15 points at 22 percent as her nearest rivals, Merkel is likely to win the election next September. But coalition building could then prove difficult, with the AfD likely to enter the national parliament for the first time."In Essen, we need to move into fight-mode," said one CDU official. (Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber; editing by Andrew Roche)

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By Ernest Scheyder and Terray Sylvester

| CANNON BALL, N.D.

CANNON BALL, N.D. A Native American leader asked thousands of protesters to return home after the federal government ruled against a controversial pipeline, despite the prospect of President-elect Donald Trump reversing the decision after he takes office.A coalition of Native American groups, environmentalists, Hollywood stars and veterans of the U.S. armed forces protested the $3.8 billion oil project. They said construction would damage sacred lands and any leaks could pollute the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.The tribe still wants to speak with Trump about the Dakota Access Pipeline to prevent him from approving the final phase of construction, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault told Reuters."The current administration did the right thing and we need to educate the incoming administration and help them understand the right decision was made," he said.Trump's transition team said on Monday it would review the decision to delay completion once he takes office Jan. 20."That's something that we support construction of and we'll review the full situation when we're in the White House and make the appropriate determination at that time," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said at a transition team news briefing.Archambault said nothing would happen over the winter before Trump takes power, so protesters should leave. Many had dug in for the harsh winter of the North Dakota plains, where a blizzard hit on Monday and 40 miles-per-hour (64 kmh) winds rattled tipis and tents. "We're thankful for everyone who joined this cause and stood with us," he said. "The people who are supporting us ... they can return home and enjoy this winter with their families. Same with law enforcement. I am asking them to go."It was unclear if protesters would heed Archambault's call to leave the Oceti Sakowin camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

SHORT-LIVED VICTORY

On Sunday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected an application for the pipeline to tunnel under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.The Army Corps said it would analyse possible alternate routes, although any other route is likely to cross the Missouri River.

The camp celebrated the decision, but some expressed concern their victory could be short-lived."I think this is just a rest," Charlotte Bad Cob, 30, of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, said on Sunday. "With a new government it could turn and we could be at it again." On Monday, tribal leaders and hundreds of veterans walked to Backwater Bridge, one of the focal points of the protests, and offered prayers and chanted after the victory.Several veterans said they had no plans to leave and suspected Sunday's decision was a ruse to empty the camp.

The company building the 1,172-mile (1,885-km) pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said late on Sunday that it had no plans to reroute the line, and expected to complete the project.The Obama administration's decision was a "political action", ETP said in a joint statement on Sunday with its partner Sunoco Logistics Partners (SXL.N).The pipeline is complete except for a 1-mile (1.61 km)segment that was to run under Lake Oahe, which required permission from federal authorities.The chief executive of ETP, Kelcy Warren, donated to Trump's campaign, while the president-elect has investments in ETP and Phillips 66 (PSX.N), another partner in the project. As of Trump's mid-2016 financial disclosure form, his stake in ETP was between $15,000 and $50,000, down from between $500,000 and $1 million in mid-2015. He had between $100,000 and $250,000 in shares of Phillips, according to federal forms. (Writing by David Gaffen and Simon Webb; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Alan Crosby)

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By Amy Tennery and Timothy Gardner

| NEW YORK/WASHINGTON

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Former Vice President Al Gore, a leading voice in the fight against climate change, and Donald Trump, who at one point called it a hoax, met on Monday in what Gore called a "productive" session.Gore, a Democrat, spent about 90 minutes in meetings at the president-elect's Trump Tower apartment and office building in Manhattan. In addition to seeing Trump, he also met briefly with the Republican's daughter, Ivanka, who attended a series of high-level meetings since her father won the Nov. 8 election.Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential campaign to Republican George W. Bush, has for years been devoted to lowering carbon emissions blamed for climate change.As he campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton earlier this year, Gore warned that Trump would steer the world toward "climate catastrophe" if elected.That warning came as Trump gave speeches calling on the United States to drop out of last year's global climate accord, signed in Paris to lower carbon emissions blamed for a warming planet. Trump also referred to human-induced climate change as a hoax and had tweeted that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

Since then, however, in an interview with The New York Times, Trump has indicated that he might have an open mind to joining the effort to battle climate change.Gore had a more upbeat take on Trump after huddling with the wealthy New York real estate developer and television reality star."It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," Gore said. "I found it an extremely interesting conversation and, to be continued."Aides to Trump gave no further detail on Monday's meeting. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, asked about the meeting as he left Trump Tower, declined to comment. He said Monday was "another productive day on the transition."

After a day of meetings, Trump left his home Monday evening to have dinner with his family at 21 Club, a New York City restaurant.TALK-A-THON

Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work urging action against the risks of global warming, was also kicking off on Monday a 24-hour talk-a-thon to urge action in the battle against climate change, which threatens to raise sea levels, spread diseases and increase droughts in more regions in the world.In a possibly related matter, Trump was scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) who possibly is being considered for the job of secretary of state. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.Exxon Mobil has embraced the 2015 Paris Agreement that would lower global greenhouse gas emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.An aide to Gore said Trump's team reached out to him after the former vice president said he intended to do everything he could to work with the president-elect to ensure that the United States remains a leader in the effort to address climate change. (Reporting By Amy Tennery in New York and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Additional reporting by Melissa Fares in New York; Writing by Richard Cowan and Emily Stephenson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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London: A British man was convicted of providing cash to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings. Zakaria Boufassil was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court of engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism by providing 3,000 to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in Birmingham, England.

Abrini is the "man in the hat" seen on video footage moments before the deadly 22 March bombings at Brussels airport that killed 16 people. He is also wanted in the 13 November, 2015, attacks on Paris.

Prosecutors said that Abrini visited England in July 2015 and received the cash from Boufassil, 26, and Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 27, who earlier pleaded guilty, at a rendezvous in a park.

Boufassil told the court during the trial that he was a marijuana user who practiced a "moderate and tolerant" form of Islam. He condemned Islamic State extremists as "worse than animals". He admitted meeting Abrini in the park, but said it had nothing to do with extremism.

But the jury endorsed prosecutors' claim that he knowingly provided the money for use in militant attacks. Prosecutor Max Hill said there is "no doubt" the money was given to Abrini to assist acts of terrorism.

Marcus Beale, assistant chief of the West Midlands Police, said the conviction was important because the money transfer "identified a dangerous link" to Abrini. He said the two men may face long prison sentences.

The two men will be sentenced on 12 December. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
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If youre using Instagram as a way to figure out where the cool kids are traveling, expect to be steered to the largest hotels on earth. At least thats the indication based on this years list of most Instagrammed luxury hotels, which the company has shared exclusively with Bloomberg. All the properties on the list were classified as five-star stays, but they didnt earn their spots on this list by virtue of their excellent service or comfortable beds. Theyre not purveyors of exclusivity or gateways to glamorous cities, but mega-destinations unto themselves. Forget Instagrammable moments  these hotels are Instagrammable universes. So heres what not to miss when you inevitably plan your own trip.

1. The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

The most Instagrammed hotel in the world is hands-down Las Vegass coolest. Go for drinks at the propertys burlesque-inspired Rose Rabbit Lie bar and make sure youre booked into one of 21 brand-new Boulevard Penthouse suites, which start at a massive 2,000 square feet and include private gaming salons.

2. Atlantis, the Palm, Dubai

As if the 113-acre Atlantis wasnt already big enough, its spawning a sibling resort called The Royal Atlantis next year with 44 floors and 800 rooms. The crown jewel of the USD1.4 billion project will be its duplex bridge suite, with a glass-bottomed pool that will literally hover between two sections of the building. But until that opens, youll have to settle for a glass-walled underwater room thats submerged in the stingray-filled Ambassador Lagoon.

3. Fontainebleau Miami Beach

Theres still time to get this years most coveted Fontainebleau Instagram: The hotel is hosting Justin Bieber for its New Years Eve celebration. But that just speaks to the nightlife prowess at this Miami Beach institution: Its where youll find epic clubs such as Liv, plus such lounge-y restaurants as Hakkasan and Michael Mina 74.

4. Wynn Las Vegas

Instagram: Instagram photo by Nikki Ekstein

Lots of visitors Instagram the Chihuly ceiling at the Bellagio when in Vegas, but the flower displays at the Wynn are even more eye-catching (where social media are concerned). Thats your money shot, but theres another, lesser-known photo opp you should hit up, too. The Lake of Dreams show, centered around a lit-up, 40-foot waterfall, runs nightly on the half hourlike the Bellagios fountain, but hipper. (Do you sense a theme?)

5. Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel

The fact that this hotel makes the top 10 list is a truly impressive feat, given that its open only during the summer season. But its where youll find Avicii and David Guetta pretty much every Sunday and Monday night next summerso you know its likely to appear on next years list, too. Dont even think about Instagramming the rooms here. If youre not shooting the scene, a snap of the oysters at the seaside champagne bar is de rigueur.

6. Venetian Macao

Instagram: Instagram photo by Daniel Wiguna

Those ubiquitous photos of the Grand Canals are mind benders: Are you in Vegas? Italy? Certainly not Asia. So have some fun with your followers and include some Chinese signage in your shot of the Venetianits what will set it apart. Then go shopping for Celine handbags at the duty-free shops and pose (with swag) in front of the Eiffel Tower replicayoull really throw your audience for a loop.

7. Aria Resort & Casino, Las Vegas

Heres the strategy for winning at Aria: Head straight to Carbone, where everything is served with a heaping side of dramatic effect, be it the Caesar Alla ZZ (tossed tableside) or the sticky sweet Cherry Pepper Ribs (a dish with foodie cred). Its as much a theatric experience as O, the Cirque de Soleil production that plays four nights a week near the Poker Room and the Buffet.

8. Atlantis Hotel & Casino, Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas

Since its really a complex of nine hotels (and 20 pools and 21 restaurants and 19 bars), its no wonder this massive property gets lots of traction on social media. Focus your attention on the Cove Club, the most luxurious place to stay on site. Then wake up early and grab a spot on the bright red daybeds that float in the middle of the Coves 9,000-square-foot pool for the best photo opp anywhere on the island.

9. Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

In keeping with Hard Rocks roots, this propertys Music Lab lets you get into a recording studio for a dayperhaps in hopes of hitting it big on YouTube. Not your jam? Hit the moon pool at cocktail hour for a #sunset shot that tops the charts.

10. W Barcelona

Its all about the views at this sleek city hotelset in a sailboat-shaped building right on the edge of the Barceloneta boardwalk. Request a high-floor room that faces both the city and the oceanor get your gram from the rooftop bar instead. Bloomberg
Chinese leaders face a challenge: How to deal with Donald Trump.

Weeks before taking office, the incoming American president is riling Beijing with confrontation and online statements that appear to foreshadow a tougher foreign policy toward China.

China awoke yesterday to sharp criticism posted by Trump on Twitter, days after Beijing responded to his telephone conversation with Taiwans president by accusing the Taiwanese of playing a small trick on Trump.

Trump wrote: 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. doesnt tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I dont think so!

That was apparently prompted by Chinas response to Trumps talk Friday with Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect is known to have spoken to a Taiwanese leader since the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations in 1979.

So far, China has avoided responding with open hostility. Yesterday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China would have no comment on what motivated the Trump team to make the tweets, but said he believed both sides would continue to support a sound and a stable bilateral relationship.

For us, for China, we do not comment on his personality, Lu said. We focus on his policies, especially his policies toward China.

Chinas reaction to Trumps call with Tsai was relatively low-

key given the sensitivity China places on Taiwan.

The U.S. and Taiwan retain strong unofficial ties, and the U.S. sells weapons to the self-

governing island. But American leaders have for decades avoided any official recognition in deference to China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, to be captured by force if necessary. Trumps reference in another tweet to Tsai as the President of Taiwan was sure to inflame China, which considers any reference to Taiwan having a president as a grave insult.

But China only said it would make a solemn representation in Washington, and Lu declined to expand on that statement yesterday. Instead, China seemed to offer Trump a face-saving way out of an apparent blunder by blaming the Taiwanese. English-language commentaries then appeared in two state-run newspapers known to be used by Chinas ruling Communist Party leadership to send messages abroad.

Trump might be looking for some opportunities by making waves, the Global Times said in an editorial headlined, Talk to Trump, punish Tsai administration.

However, he has zero diplomatic experience and is unaware of the repercussions of shaking up Sino-U.S. relations, the newspaper said. It is certain that Trump doesnt want a showdown with China, because it is not his ambition, and neither was it included in his promise to the electorate. He puts out feelers to sound China out and chalk up some petty benefits.

Chinas response was characteristically coded. But it now faces an incoming president who deals in outspoken tweets, not communiques.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on 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.

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  although some in Taiwan expressed hopes for strong U.S. support from the incoming administration.

In terms of Trumps criticisms, Chinese imports are taxed at standard U.S. rates, while Washington has recently slapped painful punitive tariffs on Chinese steel, solar panels and other goods.

And while China once kept a tight grip on the value of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, it now allows it to trade within a bandwidth 2 percent above or below a daily target set by the Peoples Bank of China.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Peoples University in Beijing, predicted China would not lash out immediately, but calibrate its response over the next several months after Trump enters the White House.

Trumps remarks will certainly raise the concerns of Chinese leaders, Shi said. But at the moment, they will be restrained and watch his moves closely. MDT/AP

Taiwan risks mainland wrath

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.

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. MDT/Bloomberg
Floods from torrential rains have killed 13 people in central Vietnam, with more rain forecast for the region. Local disaster officials said yesterday that floods since late November have killed six people in Binh Dinh province and three in Quang Nam province. The floods have largely receded, they said. The government said in a report that another four died in Quang Ngai. The floods damaged the regions infrastructure, agriculture and livestock, it said. The report says a cold spell from the north is expected to bring heavy rains to the region. Central Vietnam is one of the countrys poorest areas, and has suffered two bouts of floods since October, killing nearly 50 people. Vietnam is prone to floods and storms that kill hundreds of people each year.

India | Tamil Nadu leader in critical condition

The popular leader of Indias southern Tamil Nadu state was in critical condition after undergoing surgery yesterday morning, hours after suffering a heart attack, the hospital said. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalitha was being monitored by a team of experts, including cardiologists, pulmonologist and critical care specialists, according to a statement from Dr. Subbaiah Viswanathan at Apollo Hospital in the state capital of Chennai. Thousands of Jayalalithas supporters, wailing and crying, gathered outside the hospital to pray for her recovery. Police were deployed across the state to ensure security, out of fear that her death could trigger widespread violence and riots. The U.S. Consulate in Chennai put out an advisory urging Americans to be careful in the city and avoid large crowds. Affectionately called Amma, or Mother, by her supporters, Jayalalitha joined politics in the early 1980s after a successful film career. She has had three stints as chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

Pakistan | Police report hotel fire in Karachi

A massive fire swept through a four-star hotel in the southern port city of Karachi yesterday, killing at least 11 people, officials said. More than 50 people suffered injuries in the early morning blaze, which started in the hotel kitchen, police officer Tauqeer Naeem said. The exact cause of the fire was not yet known, he said, adding that four of the people who died were women. Dr. Semi Jamali at Karachis Jinnahs Hospital said some foreigners were among those being treated for burns. Suffocation caused more deaths, she said. TV footage of the incident showed guests at the hotel using bedsheets to climb down from windows. Meanwhile, a man standing at a balcony kept waving for help but the hotel did not have any means of reaching him, a survivor, Hamid Ali, recalled. He said the guests were sleeping when the fire broke out.
President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he attends the 80th anniversary of the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila on Nov. 14

The Philippine vice president resigned her Cabinet post yesterday after citing irreconcilable differences with President Rodrigo Duterte, who had banned her from attending Cabinet meetings, in a new political dilemma for the leader.

Robredo, who stepped down as housing secretary but will stay on as vice president, spoke of major differences in principles and values with the brash-talking president and a plot to remove her from the vice presidency. Duterte accepted her resignation with a heavy heart and immediately named a replacement.

In her resignation letter, Robredo told Duterte that she exerted all effort to put aside our differences, maintain a professional working relationship and work effectively despite the constraints. But she said Dutertes order banning her from Cabinet meetings had made it impossible for her to do her job at the housing agency.

Remaining in your Cabinet has become untenable, she said.

A human rights lawyer and respected political newcomer, Robredo said at a news conference that she would stay on in her elected post as vice president, adding that she would continue her anti-poverty projects.

In the Philippines, presidents and vice presidents are elected separately and often come from rival political parties, like Duterte and Robredo.

We will not allow the vice presidency to be stolen because that is against the voice of the majority, Robredo told reporters.

Robredo suggested that the Duterte administration may be supporting former Sen. Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr., her closest opponent in Mays vice presidential election. She did not mention the alleged plot to oust her from the vice presidency in her resignation letter.

Marcos Jr. is the namesake and son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was overthrown by a 1986 people power revolt. Robredo actively joined that uprising.

We have fought this battle before and won, Robredo said. We will never let anyone revise our history and twist it to turn evil into good.

Robredos resignation comes amid a political storm over Dutertes decision to allow the burial of the long-dead dictator Marcos in the countrys Heroes Cemetery and a bloody crackdown against illegal drugs that has alarmed Western governments and human rights watchdogs.

Robredo is the second official to resign from Dutertes administration in less than a week. Maria Serena Diokno quit as head of the governments historical commission last week to protest Dutertes decision to allow Marcos Nov. 18 burial in the cemetery.

Robredo has cited her strong opposition to the burial, the drug killings, Dutertes plan to reimpose the death penalty and sexual attacks against women among the issues on which she differed with Duterte, who took office on June 30.

The last straw, she said, was when she was notified Saturday by Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. through a text message about the presidents order for Robredo to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings starting from yesterday.

Evasco said Duterte decided to bar her from Cabinet meetings because of her irreconcilable differences with the Duterte administration.

Robredo did not provide details about the alleged plot to remove her from the vice presidency, but her electoral victory has been questioned by Marcos Jr., a friend of Duterte. Jim Gomez, Manila, AP
Chinas top securities regulator resorted to unusually harsh language to denounce leveraged acquisitions of shares in listed companies, as officials move to rein in financial risks associated with a surge in dealmaking.

China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman (CSRC) Liu Shiyu also questioned the legitimacy of the funding sources at acquirers that he didnt identify, saying their behavior challenges the nations rules, as well as their own professional ethics. Such acquisitions show retrogress and decay in humanity and commercial morals, and is by no means financial innovation, the 55-year-old Liu said.

By using improperly obtained money to conduct leveraged acquisitions, youve gone from strangers at the gate, to barbarians and eventually robbers of the industry, he said at a meeting of the Asset Management Association of China in Beijing on Saturday, a transcript of which was posted on the regulators website. Thats not allowed.

The comments came after China Evergrande Group, the countrys largest property developer, last month stepped up purchases of shares in rival China Vanke Co. in the weeks after a warning from the Shenzhen stock exchange that it is closely monitoring Evergrandes investments, some through its insurance unit, in listed companies. The bourse said it strengthened supervision after finding abnormal trading behaviors that affected share prices of Vanke and others.

This manifests top regulators stance on insurers buying spree, and it will be helpful for the market to develop along a healthy path, Zhou Min, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told Bloomberg, citing controversies surrounding insurance companies trading in the stock market.

While much of the money used for stock purchases by most acquisitive insurers was raised from high-yield, short-term products and poses large liquidity risks, such funds cant all be categorically called improperly obtained, Zhou said. But we cant exclude the possibility that the CSRC has collected some evidence of certain wrongdoings at some acquirers. MDT/Bloomberg
China has the means to convince many countries, particularly its neighbors, to establish asymmetrical win-win partnerships with itself  referred to as a good neighbor policy, according to Jean-Pierre Cabestan, head of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Speaking on the sidelines of the France Macau Business Association monthly breakfast meeting last week, the scholar reiterated that Chinas assertive foreign and security policy was initially a response to the global decline in the financial power of the U.S. in 2008. This policy assertiveness has since expanded its influence to neighboring regions as well.

Major foreign policy trends under Chinese President Xi Jinping have included an increase in the countrys international assertiveness, namely taking more risks and showing more initiative when it comes to global affairs. Cabestan pointed out that in order to understand this policy one must not forget the China Dream and the vision of overtaking the United States as the worlds major economic and diplomatic superpower.

The professor of international studies stated his belief that Xis foreign policy could succeed due to the increasing dependence of many countries on China.

Cabestan added that since Xi came into power, China-USA strategic polarization has become stronger, increasing risks of friction.

However, when questioned on how Chinas policy assertiveness could affect Macau, he said the risk is pretty low.

Macau is [] not bringing trouble to China; [its] very different from Hong Kong, Cabestan told the Times. What I think the Central Government is worried about is whether Hong Kong localists and new political movements in Hong Kong would [] have an impact on Macau. I think thats a major concern but I dont see it, he continued.

Earlier this month, thousands of Hong Kong residents took the streets to protest against the National Peoples Congress Standing Committees decision to disqualify anyone from office who fails to make a sincere and solemn oath. The demonstrators demanded that Chinas top legislative panel stop interfering with the SARs pro-independence advocates.

In Cabestans opinion, the political cultures of the MSAR and Hong Kong are dissimilar, as the HKSAR has an old tradition of questioning power. He noted that it is easier for China to buy [Macau] people and their support.

I would say [China was able to] buy their lack of involvement in politics, he said.

The scholar reiterated that Hong Kong would fail to obtain full democracy as long as China has a one-power policy system.

Meanwhile, what is influencing Macau should be Chinas international activism along the example of the Marshall Plan, which is the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the internationalization of Chinese society.

According to Cabestan, it is in the interests of China, along with the anti-corruption campaign, to keep Macau prosperous and happy.

Thus, the East Asian country will likely continue to allow masses of tourists to enter the MSAR. Cabestan also noted that China is keen on further involving Macau in the OBOR.

The scholar argued that China is benefiting from the current democracy crisis, as democratic governments across the globe undergo periods of uncertainty and hardship.

[Globally] they want more freedom, they want to have good [and] competent leaders, he explained.

With the growing disparities and inequalities in democratic societies worldwide, particularly regarding issues around the migrant crisis, the university department head noted that such issues have not been well addressed by global leaders.

How can [they] accept one or two million migrants when they have an 11 percent unemployment rate. Whos going to buy that? he said, adding, We need more responsible and pragmatic leaders.

Cabestan considers that Xis foreign and security policy assertiveness has been successful  so far.
Idahos senior U.S. senator will again head the committee responsible for committee assignments in the upcoming Congress.

For the seventh time in a row, Mike Crapo will be chairman of the Senate Republicans Committee on Committees, a panel which, every two years, is responsible for negotiating committee assignments for the upcoming Congress and assigning Republican senators to committees. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., will be helping him.

Mike is a trusted adviser and has the respect of his colleagues, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. He has a proven track record and the entire Republican conference is honored to have him once again leading our negotiations on committee assignments.

Crapo is the leading candidate himself to become chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, as its current chairman, Alabamas Richard Shelby, has to step down from the position because of GOP caucus rules term-limiting chairmen.

I appreciate the honor and continued trust represented by this appointment, Crapo said. Partnering with Senate Republican Leader McConnell, I look forward to working to ensure my colleagues have the best possible opportunities to make a mark on the important agenda of the 115th Congress. With majorities in both houses of Congress and with a Republican president-elect, we have an improved opportunity to deliver the results that have been demanded by voters.
TWIN FALLS  The drone flew over the brush, its camera searching the ground for the camouflage-clad men and the yellow Labrador.

I cant see you! pilot Jared VanderKooi shouted as he made his way toward the bank of the Snake River, where icy footprints were etched into the solid ground.

Momentarily, the actors emerged from the brush, and VanderKooi watched the tablets screen and controlled the drones flight as he got some more footage.

Reeder Flying Services is relatively new to filming promotional videos, but its a first step for the company thats made drones a part of its business.

Were focusing a lot right now on videography, said VanderKooi, manager and chief drone pilot for Reeder. Were going to be focusing primarily on agriculture as well, where we can start doing stuff with precision agriculture.

Founded in 1941, the company offers ground support for Joslin Field Magic Valley Regional Airport, handling passenger and pilot needs such as hotels and fuel. Additionally, Reeder Flying Services has five helicopters that it contracts out for assistance with forest fires, game surveys and snow counts.

Anything a helicopter does, we can do it, VanderKooi said.

But its an expensive operation  costing about $1,000 an hour to fly a helicopter, said drone pilot Jared Price. Seeing the potential for drones to completely change how these operations are done, VanderKooi wanted Reeder to stay competitive.

Its useful for safety, as well, Price said.

After more than eight months of jumping through hoops to get an exemption, new rules came into play to make it easier. As of Aug. 29, the company could legally fly drones commercially. It has two licensed and certified drone pilots, who took a test at a Federal Aviation Administration center.

There are a number of rules they have to follow.

A lot of its just to protect the airspace to make sure youre not being stupid and interfering with helicopters and planes, VanderKooi said.

Even though his $7,000 commercial drone can fly up to two miles away, the pilot has to be able to see the drone with his naked eye at all times. Thats to ensure he can watch out for things the drone cant see without 360-degree vision, such as other aircraft or birds.

Birds are something you definitely have to be careful with, Price said.

Birds of prey have been known to attack drones, but it isnt safe for a drone to encounter any bird.

Drones can fly a maximum height of 400 feet, and no earlier than a half-hour before sunrise or later than a half-hour after sunset. The drones never have the right of way, Price said.

You cant fly over people who arent involved in your actual operation, he said.

When flying over domestic animals, you have to have the owners permission, and you cant harass animals, Price said.

So far, Reeder Flying Services has created promotional video footage for the Twin Falls and Mini-Cassia chambers of commerce, Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization and Southern Idaho Tourism. The business also takes aerial photos of real estate.

On Friday, the crew went to Burley to film some footage for a promotional video about what people can do in the region during the winter. With assistance from a friend, Hunter Breshears of Burley, they took footage highlighting birding.

We wanted to get together with somebody who knew how it worked and had all the equipment, Price said.

Breshears, his dogs and Price were models and actors for the day. VanderKooi brought along extra batteries because the drone requires a battery change after about 15 minutes of flying.

But this was just a small piece of what VanderKooi would like to accomplish. Eventually, drones would perform a multitude of tasks currently done via helicopter  and more. VanderKooi imagines the possibilities for surveying plant health, irrigation equipment and wild game. Thermal cameras could assist with telling fire crews and helicopter pilots where to drop water onto a fire.

Drones can also help with search-and-rescue, or similar operations. The business already assisted someone in locating a bull that was missing.

Currently we operate two (drones), VanderKooi said. Were looking at getting upwards of five more at some point.
TWIN FALLS  The City Council unanimously voted Dec. 5 to appoint Christopher Reid as Councilman Don Halls replacement starting Jan. 16.

Hall is stepping down after being elected to the County Commission. Reid and Hall have known each other for years and share many of the same views, Hall said during a previous Council meeting.

The 35-year-old banker from Chicago says he looks forward to keeping the citys budget fiscally conservative and planning for the future.

I look forward to learning from you, Reid told the City Council. I realize I have very big shoes to fill.

Mayor Shawn Barigar recommended Reid after the city received 15 applications for the vacancy, which will be up for election in November 2017. One applicant was ineligible due to not living within the city limits, and another  Karlan Jensen  later withdrew her name.

It was not an easy decision, Barigar said. I believe that Chris has demonstrated dynamic leadership with the Citizens Committee for Wastewater Infrastructure. He is very well versed in development issues with future growth. As a current member of the Planning and Zoning Commission hes been involved with the comprehensive planning.

Barigar also saw value in Reids knowledge of financial issues, and his personal connectivity with a young family and desire to serve the people of Twin Falls. Reid is also on the committee for the new City Hall and Public Safety complex being built now.

Reid works for Zions Bank and has been in Twin Falls for five years. He lost a bid for City Council in 2011 and said he learned from the experience. He was appointed to the Planning and Zoning Commission two-and-a-half years ago.

One of the big things the city deals with is the budget, Reid told the Times-News. He hopes his financial experience will be a benefit to the council.

Reid also wants to plan for the future of the growing community making sure we grow in a constructive and safe way by hearing from and working together with citizens and businesses.

I dont have to be the smartest guy in the room, he said. I just have to be a good listener.

Council members were pleased with the number and diversity of candidates who applied.

I think this is an indication of the health of Twin Falls, Councilman Chris Talkington said.  They want to be part of the most efficient government there is and at the local level.

Also at the meeting, the City Council approved a five-year contract with People for Pets  Magic Valley Human Society. The new contract mandates a yearly audit, but staff has not established how that audit will be funded.
WASHINGTON  Boise fifth-grader Isabella Gerard flipped the switch on the Capitol tree Tuesday, lighting an 80-foot Engelmann spruce from Idahos Payette National Forest.

Isabella, whos 10 years old and attends St. Marys Catholic School in Boise, arrived in Washington on Friday, making her first trip to the city with her parents Josh and Annalyn, sister, grandparents, aunt, uncle and three cousins. Her itinerary included visits to the White House and Smithsonian museums and a tour of the monuments.

Isabella's poem Pristine Idaho Mountains was chosen as part of a statewide contest sponsored by Choose Outdoors, Alaska Airlines and other sponsors. Idaho State Police Trooper Brandalyn Crapo, who suffered injuries in an accident while leading the convoy moving the tree in Idaho, also attended.

Pristine Idaho Mountains by Isabella Gerard:

Idaho is blessed with beautiful mountains and immense forests.

In the winter the mountains and forests are covered with snow,

making the landscape look like never ending clouds with skyscrapers covered in snow.

Big tall trees.

Beautiful to look at.

Amazing to see.

Pristine mountains.

As I sit in the forest I find peace.

As the wind blows through the tall ponderosa pines I feel a sense of solitude and peacefulness.

To someone that has never been in an Idaho forest, it is hard to understand the size and beauty.

If only you could be here looking at these beautiful Idaho scenes.
CASTLEFORD  A 80-year-old woman crashed into a farm tractor's plow and rolled her car Monday evening.

Billee L. Dinges, of Buhl, was driving a 2007 Subaru Forester west on 3700 North when she hit a plow on a tractor driving in front of her at 1275 East. Dinges' vehicle rolled one time landing on its top, a statement from the Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office said.

The call about the crash came in at 5:45 p.m. Monday. The Sheriff's Office said Dinges was not taken to a hospital.

Larry D. Recta, 55, of Buhl, was the driver of the tractor. Recta was uninjured.

Dinges was wearing her seat belt. The sheriff's office said inattention may be a factor in the crash, but deputies didn't issue any citations.
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The first Idaho political issue I ever heard about was something called Add the Words. I understand it isnt the specific identification of a legislative bill. Its the name applied by a special interest looking for extra legal protection against discrimination. Today Id like to suggest a compromise.

Some years ago Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul gained some opprobrium for suggesting the government shouldnt be in the business of legislating politeness. While the government cant discriminate against you, private citizens have the God-given right to be discerning. Im in agreement. If some bloke wont serve you lunch, then you can go find another restaurant. If you were denied service because of a trait one business owner doesnt like, a rival will step in and take the profit. Its called capitalism. Since I dont believe Mr. Pauls view is anytime soon going to carry the day, then well keep living with etiquette laws.

If an element of the community demands special treatment under the law, then perhaps the same segment is willing to negotiate. In exchange for Add the Words, how about we protect cake-bakers, wedding photographers and pastors who refuse to cooperate with same-sex unions as conscientious objectors? If politics is compromise, then it surely isnt demand, demand, demand! One of my predecessors on the radio claimed evidence members of the LGBT community were being denied jobs and housing. Is this documented anywhere but anecdotally? Is it possible you didnt get the apartment for another reason? Is it possibly your credit rating?

I worked for seven years at a radio station licensed to Rehoboth Beach, Del. The city is to the East Coast what San Francisco it to the Left Coast. Business brought me into contact with dozens of members of the alternative lifestyle. And I noticed they shared something with the larger community. They all arent liberals. About the same number are Republicans as friends I call straight. Reagan Republicans, fiscal conservatives, neo-conservatives and Rotary Republicans. Most go about running their businesses and paying their bills and pining for smaller government. Over on the leftward side are the activists. Were here, were queer! is the refrain I recall. To claim the general population isnt tolerant is baloney. Life continued in the area with rarely any serious disputes. Yet, the militants on the left appeared to want something more than tolerance (which, by the way, isnt a Christian virtue). At a certain point it turns off vast swaths of the public and, in fact, Ill wager its a harmful approach. I suspect its an element in the Add the Words opposition.

Since I find it highly unlikely anyone is asking if youll be paying rent with 3-dollar bills, then its possible someone in the LGBT community decided to be provocative. Shouting your persuasion in a job interview could convince the human resources agent youre obnoxious and the agent may have nothing against your personal lifestyle. Maybe its the reason you didnt get hired. Not because youre gay but because you could be disruptive at work.

When I was a twenty-something and hunting for apartments I know there were landlords worried about renting to young, single men. Because sometimes young men play loud music and throw even more raucous parties. As a landlord I can attest I worry about someone punching holes in the walls of my house. The thing is even while Ive encountered hostile landlords when Ive been seeking a home there were always plenty of homes available and with a little shopping I found someone willing to rent me a flat and sometimes got a better deal.

A woman I worked with in Syracuse, N.Y., was a lesbian but a good conservative talk show host. Every summer she would throw a clambake and invite friends from all walks of her life. At one party she chided some of her LGBT guests when they attempted provoking the others. Am I offering anecdotes too? Of course, but they arent any less credible than Idahos discrimination claims and, again, if someone really denied you the apartment then look for another. You cant tell me youve got evidence the majority of property owners (or all of them) are out to spite you. Your feelings were hurt? Sheesh, mine have been getting hurt since I was a nearsighted little boy. Fight your own battles, Mom told me. Instead weve now got a couple of generations with entitlement complexes (and of all lifestyle orientations from those generations) and when something doesnt go their way they retreat to a safe-space and demand someone punish their tormenter.

Instead well get the usual legislative dog-and-pony show this spring. The alternative lifestyle folks will tear up for the cameras and therell be more front-page coverage than for funding of schools and repaving roads. Editorial pages will argue its the right thing. As if editorialists have cornered the market on righteousness. Never mind there isnt a consensus its the right thing. Well be told its done in Colorado/Oregon/California and we need to get out of the black-and-white 1950s and shred pages from our Bibles and prostrate ourselves before the new god of political correctness. Then when we go to our next wine-and-cheese party we can proclaim were enlightened and entitled to a place in civilized society.

Getting back to the compromise for religious objections: Well find out just how wholly enlightened the leftist activists are when they refuse to negotiate. This isnt about tolerating you or getting along with neighbors who follow thousands of years of tradition and ignore the latest cultural fads. Its about conquest and dominance and humiliating the Christian right. And until the homosexuals start challenging Muslim landlords and businesses in the same way, we cant take the movement seriously.
The spokesman for Bunyan Marsous militia group that is waging a war against ISIS in the coastal city of Sirte, Libya, has claimed that fighting will soon be over in the area. Mohammed al-Ghasri stated that Islamic States rule over Sirte is now over but was quick to add that hundreds of the extremist groups fighters could still cause chaos in the country. Sources stated that ISIS fighters are cornered in around 13 buildings in the Jiza al-Bahireh district; there last stronghold. The buildings are believed to have tunnels linking them.

ISIS took over Sirte in March 2015 and declared it as an extension of its Islamic State but efforts to quell their outreach began in May 2016 when the territory under its control began to expand towards Misrata. The extremist group capitalized on the instability and political conflict in the country to operate openly as it took control over more than 250 kilometer stretch of the coast.

There are reports that the Bunyan Marsous group has already emerged victorious in battling ISIS in Sirte but the group is refraining from declaring the town liberated until it fully secures the area. The extremist group has been occupying the area for almost two years but the seven-month long counter offensive of pro-Government of National Accord forces has helped to end their reign with international support from France, United Kingdom and US airstrikes.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011. The country has two governments backed by armed forces and militia groups both claiming legitimacy. Efforts by the UN to end the stalemate have provided limited progress.
Western-backed resolution for a seven-day ceasefire in embattled Aleppo has been vetoed by Russia and China on Monday at the UN Security Council with the Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin raising concerns that it could be used by the rebels to reinforce their defense. Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Michele Sison equaled the veto to a death sentence for innocent men, women and children in Aleppo. She argued that Moscows concerns are a made-up alibi because it is more focused on preserving its military gains than helping Aleppos citizens.

British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft scolded Russia and China for rejecting the resolution and accused them of having longstanding, misplaced faith in a despot who has killed nearly half a million of his own people. Chinas Ambassador to the UN Liu Jieyi reacted by blaming his British counterpart for poisoning the atmosphere and abusing the forum with his remarks.

Russia wants the talks with Washington scheduled to take place this week, for the withdrawal of rebel forces, to be concluded first before a truce can be introduced but the rebels have rejected calls to evacuate Aleppo. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the sooner the route and time frame of the withdrawal plan is agreed upon, the earlier the cease-fire can come into effect.

Syrias Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari blamed Western countries for pursuing the adoption of resolutions that are contrary to promoting international peace and security. He claimed that the government in Damascus is dedicated to fighting terrorism and will continue to protest against the cheap political blackmail practiced by some countries with regards to the Syrian war. He applauded the support received from President Assads allies.

Fighting is still continuing in Aleppo and the government has made significant gains since the beginning of the month with the support of Russian warplanes. Western countries heavily contest Moscows intervention in Syria because it has helped the government to recover a lot of territories that it lost to the rebel and extremist groups.
Efforts to revive peace talks between the warring parties in Yemen have been subjected to new conditions according to an official familiar with the matter. Speaking under the condition of anonymity, the official revealed that a road-map plan that will end the war and pave the way for an interim government was presented by UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to President Hadi but the latter had some remarks.

The Yemeni President proposed nine demands in return as he stressed that he will only hand over power to an elected government as well as supervise the political transition as stated in the peace plan brokered by Gulf States that strongly back his government. Hadis government controls some parts of Yemen while the Houthi Movement and their allies control the rest. Extremist groups also have authority over some areas.

According to the source, the plan proposed by the UN envoy contradicted the Gulf initiative in terms of the presidents powers by requesting that President Hadi should hand over his power to a vice president as part of the transition process.

For President Hadi, the road-map leading to the transition should include banning Former President Ali Abdullal Saleh and Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi from politics before sending them on exile to the country of their choice for 10 years. He demanded that international sanctions against them should be implemented while the Houthi Movement should be disarmed and transformed into a political party.

President Hadi also wants those behind the ousting of his government to be held accountable for staging a coup detat and the decisions made by them should be declared null and void as well as detainees released. He called for the implementation of transitional justice and compensating those who were harmed by the coup.

The rebel group has not commented the conditions forwarded by Hadi. The Houthis have always rejected calls for disarmament as they argue that a comprehensive agreement must be reached first before the country can embark on a transition.
Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
Presidential campaign in Ghana came to an end on Monday, as Ghanaians prepare to head to the polls on Wednesday.

According to the Electoral commission, about 15.8 million Ghanaians are registered to cast their votes, a figure that represents 57% of the West African nations population.

The election is widely seen as a two-horse race between the oppositions NPP (New Patriotic Party) candidate, Akufo-Addo and incumbent president John Mahama.

Akufo-Addo who is confident of winning the upcoming presidential election accused the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of worsening the plight of the average Ghanaian.

Our programme I think is more acceptable to the people because of the circumstances in the country, Akufo-Addo told media on Monday adding that president John Mahama and his party have run the economy of Ghana poorly and they brought a lot of difficulties for the Ghanaian people and thats why I think we have a good chance of winning.

Nana Addo whose campaign has been focused on reviving Ghanas struggling economy noted that numerous untapped economic opportunities existed in the country for growth.

Across the country we believe there are raw materials and economic opportunities in all the district of Ghana that can find expression in industrial, semi-industrial activities and enterprises, and we are going to encourage that.

Incumbent president John Dramani Mahama also faces five other candidates including a former first lady of the country, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings.
U.S president-elect Donald Trump named a Nigerian-born, Adebayo Ogunlesi, to serve as a strategist on his economic policy team.

The 16-member group will be led by Stephen Schwarzman of the American equity firm, Blackstone, CNN reported.

The 63 year-old Ogunlesi who is the chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm and one of Fortune 500 companies, is the only African face in the16-man team that will help the incoming president implement his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again.

Blackstone in a statement said Ogunlesi, who is also a board member at Goldman Sachs, joins some of Americas most highly respected and successful business leaders in the Presidents Strategic and Policy Forum, which will be called upon to meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implements his economic plans.

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 cable television said, quoting documents sourced from Blackstone.

Mr. Ogunlesi is the first Nigerian to be appointed by Mr. Trump as he continues to shop for top advisers following his victory last month.

As a reminder, Trump during the campaign period threatened to evacuate Nigerians from the country once he becomes president.
Five West African costal nations, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Ivory Coast have introduced strict standards for fuel imports to cut vehicle emissions for cleaner air, Nigerias Environment Minister Amina J. Mohamed said on Monday.

The joint decision will result in major air quality benefits in cities and will allow the authorities to set modern vehicle standards, Mohamed said.

In her words, for 20 years, Nigeria has not been able to address the vehicle pollution crisis due to the poor fuels we have been importing. Today we are taking a huge leap forward: limiting sulphur in fuels from 3,000 parts per million to 50 parts per million, she said at The Hague.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the move by the West African countries will cut off Europes market in the region and ensure the importation of cleaner, low sulphur diesel fuels.

West Africa is sending a strong message that it is no longer accepting dirty fuels from Europe. Their decision to set strict new standards for cleaner, safer fuels and advanced vehicle emissions standards shows they are placing the health of their people first, head of UNEP, Erik Solheim said.

Note that the five countries also agreed to upgrade their own public and private refineries to meet the same higher standards by 2020.

As a reminder, a report earlier this year by the non-governmental organization Public Eye exposed how European trading companies are exploiting weak regulatory standards in West African countries, thus allowing fuels with sulphur levels that are up to 300 times higher than those permitted in Europe.
California adolescents perceive smoking cigarettes to be riskier  and less socially acceptable  than they did a dozen years ago, according to a new study that comes amid a changing tobacco product landscape.

Fewer youth plan to smoke or think smoking makes them look mature, reported the study by UC San Francisco and Stanford University School of Medicine, while more teens believe that smoking is likely to trigger health problems such as heart attacks or lung cancer.

The paper examined surveys of nearly 700 students in California to assess whether there were changes between 2001 and 2015 in adolescent smoking behaviors, how youth viewed smoking, and whether they intended to smoke.

The study will be published Dec. 6, 2016, in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"It speaks to the importance of having strong, repeated tobacco control messages that perceptions have changed in the intended direction, even with the proliferation of new tobacco products," said first author Karma McKelvey, MPH, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

"Despite fears that with the advent of e-cigarettes, smoking will again be perceived as a normal activity, thereby eroding many years of tobacco control efforts, adolescent perceptions of cigarettes have actually become less favorable," McKelvey said. "Perhaps similar strategies can be employed to help stem the rising tide of e-cigarette adoption among adolescents."

National data have shown that adolescent smoking declined significantly between 2001 and 2015, from 23.9 percent to 7 percent, largely due to smoke-free policies and public health campaigns designed to increase knowledge about smoking risks and changing social norms.

In pinpointing gains and gaps in tobacco control, the researchers in the new report analyzed data from two California studies involving a total of nearly 700 students in California high schools. The two surveys contained detailed, nearly identical measures of cigarette-smoking perceptions, intentions, and use. The researchers found:

More students in 2015 intended not to smoke (94 percent in 2015 compared to 65 percent in 2001);

Fewer students in 2015 had ever smoked (5 percent of girls, 6 percent of boys in 2015 compared to 25 percent of girls and 28 percent of boys in 2001);

Fewer students in 2015 said smoking makes them look more mature (17 percent in 2015 compared to 28 percent in 2001);

More students in 2015 reported that smoking could land them "in trouble" (86 percent in 2015 compared to 77 percent in 2001);

More students reported that smoking could bring on a heart attack (76 percent in 2015, 69 percent in 2001), or lead to lung cancer (85 percent in 2015 compared to 78 percent in 2001).

The students surveyed in 2015 also perceived less likelihood of being able to quit smoking whenever they wanted or to experience short-term benefits.

"Our findings support the belief that adolescents today hold less favorable attitudes towards cigarettes," said senior author Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, a professor of pediatrics in the division of adolescent medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. "Still, perceptions of short-term harm and overall addiction were unchanged, which illuminates areas that could be improved for messaging to youth. Clinicians, public health professionals and policy-makers could draw upon this information to improve tobacco-related health messages and prevention efforts that specifically target adolescents."

"It's important to note that the perceptions that changed most from 2001 to 2015 were those that related most to tobacco control messages," Halpern-Felsher said. "Clearly, more tobacco control messages are needed, including those that address newer tobacco products such as electronic cigarettes and vapes."

The researchers said that because both studies were conducted in California, the results might not pertain throughout the U.S. or abroad. They also pointed out that other studies have shown that adolescents in general hold favorable attitudes toward e-cigarettes, are increasingly using them and are more likely to smoke cigarettes as a result.
Credit: Pixabay

Antipsychotic medication typically used to treat patients with delirium may be ineffective at best and hasten death at worst, new research shows.

A world-first trial of patients with delirium in hospice and palliative care has found patients were better off taking no medication for delirium than taking either of the commonly prescribed antipsychotic medicines risperidone and haloperidol.

"We found that not only do the drugs not work, but they actually make people worse by prolonging their delirium," said Professor Meera Agar, a palliative medicine physician in the UTS Centre for Cardiovascular and Chronic Care who led the study.

"Delirium for many people is preventable or at least treatable, yet these medicines are being widely used and that use is mostly inappropriate.

"There's a huge concern that it increases mortality for people with dementia which is very worrying. This trial was not designed to determine links with mortality but given how many patients in hospital have delirium, many people are at risk."

Professor Agar said the findings from the eight-year study are a call to action on one of the most common yet under-recognised emergency medical conditions. About one in 10 people have delirium when taken to hospital, and almost as many more will develop it while in hospital. This figure is even higher for people in palliative care.

Delirium is an acute condition which causes distressing changes in behaviour, communication and perception. People with delirium have an increased risk of death and falls and may not ever recover their cognitive function.

The study shows that identifying delirium early and treating the underlying causes reduces symptoms of distress better than an antipsychotic medication does. Simple things such as ensuring people wear their glasses and hearing aids, are regularly oriented to the hospital environment, are kept hydrated and well-nourished, and have enough sleep can prevent or better treat delirium in many people.

Professor David Currow from Flinders University, principal investigator for the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) which conducted the study, said the relatively small investment in running the trial will improve clinical care around the globe for decades to come.

"High-quality health care is built on the use of the best possible clinical data, yet long-used methods for managing delirium have never before been objectively assessed," said Professor Currow.

"Through the collaborative efforts of clinicians and researchers across the country, we have now found that the practices used to treat people with delirium are causing more harm than good."

The findings echo the Delirium Clinical Care Standard of the Australian Commission of Safety and Quality in Health Care, released in July 2016, which is aimed at ensuring effective treatment for people with delirium and rapid identification of people are risk, to prevent it occurring whenever possible.

Professor Gideon Caplan, of the Australasian Delirium Association and an investigator on the study, said the breakthrough finding on mortality is a huge contribution to global knowledge of how to treat delirium.

"It is critically important that we understand the message of this research," Dr Caplan said.

"In the complete absence of any safe, effective medicine for treating delirium, this study underscores the central role of excellent nursing care and other methods for managing the condition.

"At the same time, there is now an urgent need to find new, safe, effective treatments for delirium."

Meg Brassil, a consumer representative with the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative, became a palliative care advocate after the death of her son from leukaemia at age 20.

"The essence of palliative care is a combination of kind personal care, timely access to the best possible symptom management and inclusion of those dear to the dying person. Witnessing poorly managed symptoms is the greatest cause of distress for the patient's family and carers," said Ms Brassil.
Illustration of obstruction of ventilation. Credit: Habib Mhenni / public domain

Daniel Tarro had a bad snore. It kept his family up at night. It woke up the neighbors if the windows were open. It once disturbed a gymnasium full of sleeping rescue volunteers, forcing Tarro to move to a private area to sleep during the night.

"My daughter, at the age of 3, thought there was a lion in the house," said Tarro, 55, of suburban Minneapolis, describing the high-decibel effects of his severe obstructive sleep apnea. At the time, neither Tarro nor his family fully appreciated the negative health consequences for his brain and heart from episodes of oxygen deprivation at night caused by the apnea.

Today, Tarro says his snore is almost gone. But he had to undergo surgery to get there, including implantation of a pacemaker-like device developed in Minnesota, plus two skinny wires that run under the skin to monitor his breathing and deliver a mild electric current at night. He also had to first try out the cheaper and less-invasive option of an external continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine.

The medical device Tarro eventually had implanted is called the Inspire obstructive sleep apnea device, sold by Inspire Medical Systems. The company, based outside the Twin Cities, was founded nine years ago on technology spun out of Medtronic, which remains a key investor and also does Inspire's manufacturing.

"Medtronic has so many good ideas that they simply cannot fund every idea," said Inspire CEO Tim Herbert, who worked more than a decade at Medtronic before leaving to run Inspire Medical.

Tarro was the second patient at the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center to be implanted with the device last year. But nationally, Inspire Medical hit a major milestone in November with the implant of its 1,000th patient. The company also announced the appointment of Carlson Holdings co-CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson to its board of directors.

Inspire's implantable device for obstructive sleep apnea is similar to a cardiac pacemaker, except that it delivers current to the end of a motor nerve under the tongue called the hypoglossal nerve, rather than to the heart. The Inspire's voltage is regularly adjusted by the patient to fit his or her daily needs, and it is switched on with a handheld bedside remote that has large buttons so it can be usable at night.

Obstructive sleep apnea happens when breathing is blocked many times per night by tissues collapsing and blocking the upper airway. The lack of oxygen wakes up the patient just long enough to take a gasping breath, and then the cycle begins again. It can happen dozens of times per night, leading to lower blood-oxygen levels at night and daytime fatigue even when the snorer has spent enough time in bed.

The Inspire system monitors the patient's breathing during sleep. Based on these breathing patterns, it delivers mild stimulation to key airway muscles and gently moves the tongue and other soft tissues out of the airway, thereby opening the airway during sleep, the company says. Severe snoring doesn't cause apnea, but treating obstructive sleep apnea treats snoring because both are caused by blockages in the upper airway.

In 2014, the Food and Drug Administration approved Inspire's upper airway therapy for patients with obstructive sleep apnea who are unable to use CPAP therapy, which is cheaper but does not work for everyone.

Five-year outcomes data from the Inspire device will be released next year. The three-year data show a significant reduction in oxygen-desaturation events per hour of sleep, from a median of 25.4 events before the device, to 4.8 after using it for 36 months, based on data from 98 patients.

But it takes both science and money to launch a new medical device therapy. This month Inspire announced its Series F financing round of $37.5 million, led by new investor Amzak Health. The sixth-round financing from 10 funders, including Medtronic and its competitor Johnson & Johnson, is coming to Inspire in two rounds.

"We believe that we can get to cash-flow break-even with this financing," Herbert said. "Maybe we will do another financing round. But I think if we can work on the reimbursement over the next year and a half ... this company may be in a very good position to do an IPO," or initial public offering of stock.

Getting insurance companies to pay for a new therapy can require as much gumption as inventing and testing the device in the first place. Herbert declined to release the price that hospitals are asked to pay for the device, but he said the all-in cost of the procedure including the physicians' time and the hospital stay typically runs about $30,000.

So far about 140 insurers have covered the device, typically after an appeal. Smaller insurers like Preferred One in Minnesota have formal coverage policies, but Inspire is still working toward policies with big payers like UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.

"We have over a thousand cases. So we can demonstrate that insurance companies are willing to pay for it" on a case-by-case basis, Herbert said.

2016 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Credit: Peter Griffin/Public Domain

The smartphones that nearly all Americans carry could transform how people manage their health, especially for the tens of millions who have chronic conditions or complex health needs.

But a new study suggests that app makers are falling short on many counts when it comes to actually serving those who could get the most benefit from mobile health, or mHealth, apps.

The findings come from a team led by a University of Michigan Medical School mobile health researcher, and his colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital, who publish their findings in the new issue of Health Affairs.

It's based on a comprehensive review of 137 of the most highly rated or often recommended mHealth apps aimed at people with chronic conditions. They selected only the cream of the crop from the Apple and Google app stores that are aimed at people with high health needs. Such people have high health costs and may have care needs that are complicated by lower income or level of health knowledge.

But even these "best" apps for these patients fell short, say the researchers, led by first author Karandeep Singh, M.D., MMSc., an assistant professor of learning health sciences at U-M. Their key findings:

People with some conditions - such as diabetes and depression - can find a wide range of highly rated apps that offer to help them. But people with other conditions - such as arthritis or pain - find few options when they search for high-quality apps.

App store ratings, supplied by other users, aren't always a reliable guide even with highly rated apps. The researchers found that physicians and non-physicians on their evaluation team often rated apps much higher, or lower, than the app store ratings, based on how usable or useful they found the apps to be for actual patients.

Nearly all the apps (121) let people enter information into their phone about their health that day, such as a daily blood sugar or blood pressure level or whether they were feeling suicidal. But only 28 of these apps reacted appropriately when the reviewers entered a dangerous value - a blood pressure that was sky-high, a super-low blood sugar level, or a suicidal mood, for instance.

The results were somewhat better for apps aimed at certain populations: half of the apps aimed at people with asthma or stroke, and half of the few aimed targeted specifically at elderly people, responded appropriately to dangerous values entered by users.

Many apps offered tracking functions, education, reminders and alerts that could be useful to a high need, high cost population. But few provided tailored guidance based on what the user actually entered into the tracking interface, or offered ongoing engagement that rewarded "good" results.

Most of the apps allow users to share their health information with others, but the researchers found that often this was through insecure methods. Half the apps allowed sharing by email, and 17 percent allowed text-message sharing. The apps were tested in 2015, after the launch of Apple and Google options for secure sharing of health information, but only a minority allowed this kind of sharing. And only one allowed users to share data directly into the electronic health record that their medical team uses.

Only two-thirds of the apps had a written privacy policy spelling out how they protect or use the information supplied by users. This is better than previous studies of all mHealth apps have found, but still troubling to the researchers because the apps in this study were supposed to be the most top-notch.

"Clearly there is a large-scale proliferation of apps happening related to health, and people have made the switch over to smartphones," says Singh. "But the question is, to what extent are apps serving the needs of patients with chronic diseases, and their caregivers, as opposed to generally healthy people seeking help with wellness."

He adds, "We found that the consumer-generated rating on the app store is a very poor marker of how usable an app is, and whether a physician would recommend it. Clearly, the work is not done once consumers have rated an app. Going forward, we need to evaluate apps on the basis of what would it take for physicians, and organizations that issue clinical guidelines, to start recommending them to patients."

Singh led the study with senior author David W. Bates, M.D., M.Sc., the chief innovation officer at BWH, with funding from the Commonwealth Fund. The study grew out of previous work by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Academy of Medicine to look at mHealth and its implications for the population of patients who use the most health care, and account for a huge percentage of the nation's health care costs.

The team evaluated apps aimed at people who live with asthma, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, lung disease, liver disease, kidney disease, heart failure and addiction to drugs, alcohol or tobacco. They also looked at apps for people who have survived a stroke, battled cancer, been diagnosed with memory loss or dementia, or are obese or living with pain.

These "high need, high cost" patients, who often face social and economic barriers to health care, and have complex health needs, have been seen as a key group for mHealth options.

App makers have created more than 165,000 mHealth applications. Many aim to help people track their condition day-to-day, stay on track with medication or at-home testing, share information electronically with their care teams and get education and encouragement between doctor's appointments. Theoretically, this could help them avoid emergencies and long-term problems - and reduce the high cost of their care.

The researchers call for app developers to do better at alerting users about dangerous levels and giving them a course of action - such as calling for help if they're feeling suicidal or alerting their key contacts if their blood sugar is dangerously low and they're at risk of passing out.

"Do we really want our mHealth apps to be passive observers, or should we expect that they do more than that, and model themselves after crisis hotlines with specific action plans?" Singh asks.

The lack of direct advice to the user may have something to do with how mHealth apps are regulated, Singh and his colleagues note. Apps are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, which can respond to misleading claims, the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees compliance with health privacy laws, and the Food and Drug Administration, which can require app makers to remove their apps from the app store but does not have to review most mHealth apps before they're made available.

Clinicians also need to adapt their thinking to the new age of mHealth apps that their patients are likely using, he notes. "Clinicians still think of apps the way they think of pen and paper - a patient enters information that they need to track, and then communicate it to their health providers on the phone or when they have an appointment," he says. "But if the information logged in an app is important, it should get dealt with right away. We need to think about care models that allow information to be acted on in real time - so that a blood pressure of 250 uploaded at 3 a.m. gets prompt attention."

More information: K. Singh et al, Many Mobile Health Apps Target High-Need, High-Cost Populations, But Gaps Remain, Health Affairs (2016). Journal information: Health Affairs K. Singh et al, Many Mobile Health Apps Target High-Need, High-Cost Populations, But Gaps Remain,(2016). DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0578
Previous research has determined that poverty can harm children's educational, social-emotional, and physical health, in part by damaging the bodily systems that respond to the chronically high levels of stress that children in poverty are more likely to experience. A new study has found that intensive arts programsmusic, dance, and visual artsmay address this phenomenon by lowering the stress levels of economically disadvantaged preschoolers, as measured through cortisol.

The study, by scientists at West Chester University and the University of Delaware, appears in the journal Child Development.

"Our study is the first we know of that demonstrates that the arts may help alleviate the impact of poverty on children's physiological functioning," notes Eleanor Brown, professor of psychology and director of the Early Childhood Cognition and Emotions Lab (ECCEL) at West Chester University, who was the study's primary investigator.

Researchers looked at 310 economically disadvantaged 3- to 5-year-olds attending a Head Start preschool program in Philadelphia that serves children from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. While all Head Start programs have some arts programming, this programSettlement Music School's Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Programis unique in that it fully incorporates arts into the curriculum. Children have multiple arts classes each day and these are taught in fully equipped studios by credentialed artteachers. The arts classes are used not only to develop children's artistic skills but also to promote learning in core early childhood domains like language, literacy, and math.

The study randomly assigned preschoolers by classroom to different types and numbers of arts classes. Researchers measured cortisol levels by analyzing 7,000 samples of children's saliva; samples were collected at morning baseline, and after arts and homeroom classes on two different days at the start, middle, and end of the school year.

The researchers found that cortisol levels were lower after arts classes than after homeroom, suggesting that taking part in arts programming helped reduce the stress levels of these children.

"The study has important implications," says Brown. "In an ideal world, no child would grow up in poverty. Working toward this ideal requires attention to not only economic inequities but also to the many related inequities that harm children who grow up poor and to the opportunities for disrupting the strong predictive relationship between poverty and negative outcomes. This study demonstrates that a nonmonetary intervention can reduce cortisol levels. In this case, the intervention is the arts."

Researchers saw these positive effects at the middle and end of the year, but not at the start of the school year. "The physiological benefits of arts programming may not be seen when children are first exposed," explains Mallory Garnett, research coordinator at ECCEL, who also worked on the study. "The benefits may depend on children adjusting to the classes and accumulating skills from the programming."

Adds Dr. Brown: "Our study is notable in rigorously demonstrating that arts programs of high intensity can reduce cortisol levels. This study sets the stage for further investigation regarding the arts as a vehicle for promoting well-being among children from disadvantaged families."

More information: Can the Arts Get Under the Skin? Arts Classes and Cortisol Levels for Economically Disadvantaged Preschool Children, Child Development, 2016. Journal information: Child Development Can the Arts Get Under the Skin? Arts Classes and Cortisol Levels for Economically Disadvantaged Preschool Children,, 2016.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Around the clock monitoring during daily activity revealed masked, or undetected, high blood pressure among otherwise healthy adults who had normal readings in the clinic, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

The reverse of "white coat hypertension" (higher blood pressure readings at the doctor's office than outside the clinic setting), "masked hypertension" is normal blood pressure in the doctor's office but high readings outside of the office.

Masked hypertension is easy to miss, and can occur during the day or night. Masked hypertension is uncovered with 24-hour ambulatory, or around the clock, monitoring. Patients go about their daily activities while wearing a blood pressure cuff on their arm, attached to a small, portable device. Compared to clinic blood pressure, ambulatory blood pressure is recognized as a better predictor of future cardiovascular disease.

The common belief was that ambulatory blood pressure is usually lower than clinic blood pressure, in part because of the so-called "white-coat effect" caused by increased anxiety from clinic testing.

In this study, researchers compared clinic blood pressure measurements to ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in 888 healthy, middle-aged participants enrolled in the Masked Hypertension Study at Stony Brook University and Columbia University in New York between 2005 and 2012.

They found:

15.7 percent of participants with normal clinic blood pressure had masked hypertension based on ambulatory monitoring, regardless of sex, race, or ethnicity.

Younger, normal-weight participants were more likely than older, overweight participants to have ambulatory blood pressure readings higher than their clinic readings.

"These findings debunk the widely held belief that ambulatory blood pressure is usually lower than clinic blood pressure," Joseph E. Schwartz, Ph.D., study lead author and professor of psychiatry and sociology, at Stony Brook University, in Stony Brook, New York. "It is important for healthcare providers to know that there is a systematic tendency for ambulatory blood pressure to exceed clinic blood pressure in healthy, untreated individuals evaluated for hypertension during well-patient visits. Our study's results may not apply to those who have previously been diagnosed as having hypertension or are already being treated for hypertension."

Study participants had three blood-pressure readings taken during each of three clinic visits and completed one 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure recording (with readings taken approximately every 30 minutes). At the time of the study, all participants were employed and were not taking medication to lower blood pressure. More than half of participants were female, and their average age was 45. Most participants were white, 7 percent were African American, and 12 percent were Hispanic.

All participants were employed which excluded retired, older people who are more likely than younger adults to have high blood pressure. Researchers said their research needs to be confirmed in further studies with more diverse populations.

There are a substantial number of otherwise healthy individuals who have masked hypertension and should have their blood pressure monitored regularly; it is critical that future research determine if these individuals would benefit from treatment, researchers said.


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      1  2022    2  290,9  ,   18%     2021    36,6%       .
Law on Occupied Territories discussed

By Messenger Staff

Georgias new Parliaments Committee of Defense and Security will consider the draft amendments that envisaged certain liberalization of responsibility for violating the entry rules in the countrys two occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia), recognised as independent republics by Russia in the wake of the Russia-Georgia War in August 2008.The United National Movement opposition party, with 27 lawmakers out of the 150-member Parliament, is strongly against the amendments, saying they reveal the current Georgian Governments loyal attitude to Russia.The third party in Parliament, the Alliance of Patriots, which has six lawmakers, is meanwhile supporting the changes and easing of certain rules.Member of the party Emzar Kvitsiani says the initial version of the law drafted under the previous ruling United National Movement was agreed with Russia and served the Russian interests.He said sending people to prison for entering the occupied territories deprived many Georgians with Russian citizenship to settle there, and that helped Russia to populate the regions with ethnic Russians and other nationals.The Association Agenda between the European Union (EU) and Georgia is calling for Georgia to continue its policy of peaceful conflict resolution and review relevant legislation, such as the Law on Occupied Territories.Initiated and discussed in the Parliament of Georgia in 2013, shortly after the Georgian Dream coalition defeated the nine-year rule of the United National Movement in October 2012, changes to the Law on Occupied Territories were opposed by an opposition United National Movement party, which led to lengthy discussions."We should not accept any European demand. Instead of this we could offer our own arguments as a country," said United National Movement member Givi Targamadze.The Law on Occupied Regions is frequently speculated by Russian side in different occasions.The country, which occupies 20% of Georgia's territory, this year addressed its citizens who wished to visit Georgia be careful about the law, as several Russian citizens have already faced penalties for entering Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.The law needs to be very cautiously discussed and a final solution must be taken on a large-scaled consensus.Georgia should clearly state that its regions are occupied, that Russia is an occupant and people must not enter areas which ignore Georgian law. But on the other hand the country should first of all warn people who enter Georgia beforehand and explain to them that they may be violating the law.
The News in Brief

Creation of combined armed units between Russia and Sokhumi discussed in OSCE Permanent Council



The ratification of the so-called agreement signed between the Russian Federation and the Sokhumi occupation regime on the creation of a combined military units was discussed within the framework of the OSCE Permanent Council.



As IPN was told by the Foreign Ministry, the issue was discussed on the initiative of Permanent Mission of Georgia to the OSCE on November 24.



A report was delivered on the issue by the Deputy Permanent Representative of Georgia to the OSCE, Maka Botchorishvili, who condemned the signing of the law on the ratification of the so-called agreement by the Russian President. He noted that Russia's provocative steps neglects fundamental principles of international law and is directed at annexation of the Georgian regions.



According to the Ministry, statements supporting Georgia were made at the meeting by representatives of the US, Canada and the European Union. The EU statement was joined by former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Norway, Iceland, Ukraine and Moldova.



The EU expressed concern about Russia's move and said that such agreements have no legal force.

(IPN)







TSU students begin new sit-in, demand election be cancelled



Studenst at Tbilisis largest university began another round of protests this week, breaking into building number 6 of TSU and refusing to leave until there are reforms in the education system.



Using the same name as the ad hoc group during a wave of protests last spring, the students of Auditorium 115 called out the government for failing to fulfill promises given to them then.



They also want the elections for student government scheduled for Friday to be cancelled and the body changed into a student council, as they think there has been misspending of university money.



About 20 student activists broke into the building and warned that they will resist holding the election for student government. As a tradition, Auditorium 115 displayed a massive red banner with the message: We want education reform.



Their main demands are that Parliament must consider a bill proposed by the students to amend the law on higher education which will abolish the student government body and replace it with student councils.



Among their other demands are to renovate the student dormitories and increase the funding for science.



A series of negotiations between Auditorium 115 and the state ended without any results. Despite a number of promises, the government did not fulfill any of our demands, Auditorium 115 wrote in a statement.



We all remember the statements from top officials, including the Prime Minister, claiming that our demands were legitimate and promising to fulfill them.

(DF watch)







Abducted Georgian citizen released



Mikheil Khubulashvili, 18, who was abducted from the village of Jariasheni in the Gori municipality, has been released by the occupants as a result of negotiations.



Georgias State Security Service has informed IPN about this.



A resident of the Gori municipality, Khubulashvili was abducted from the village of Jariashen today.



As reported, he was abducted from the territory along the so-called border with the Tskhinvali region.

(IPN)







Dnipro Mayor demands extradition of Mikheil Saakashvili



Boris Filatov, the Mayor of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, has demanded the extradition of former Odessa Governor and former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from Ukraine.



Boris Filatov did not like Mikheil Saakashvilis words at a rally in Kiev yesterday. In particular, Filatov did not like when Saakashvili said he was against the decentralization of the country, as it might lead Ukraine to bribery.



Filatov posted the abovementioned comment on his facebook page. At the end of the post, he also demanded that Saakashvili undergo a drug test.

(Interpressnews)




ALERT: Help Mike McGuff fight Alzheimer's disease by donating to his 2022 Walk to End Alzheimer's team
FORT WORTH, Texas  The phone call came just before lunch on a Tuesday in April.

Kristi Evans was teaching kindergarten that day in Godley. She remembers a fellow teacher ushering her students out of the classroom, and she remembers the odd sensation of watching this happen to someone else, certainly not her.

Then Evans remembers the woman on the phone saying the words that would change everything: You have breast cancer.

It really does turn everything upside down, Evans said. You experience every emotion possible in a span of about three minutes.

For Evans, the cancer diagnosis led to a bilateral mastectomy, follow-up surgeries and chemotherapy, but it also sparked a change in career and what she called a new calling.

After teaching for nearly 20 years in Godley and Joshua, Texas, Evans is now a certified cancer navigator at the Joan Katz Breast Center at Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth.

Part of a nine-member team, Evans guides cancer patients through treatments, helps them understand their diagnosis and provides support to patients and their families. She is available to her clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I am the chief hand-holder and purveyor of hugs and hope, said Evans, 57. As a survivor, I am the emotional support.

Since the Joan Katz center opened in 2010, it has served more than 5,700 cancer patients  free of charge. The center is funded by donations.

Kim Kenneson, a teacher in Godley who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, said Evans acted as a cheerleader and mentor. She recalled sending Evans lengthy text messages about sores, swollen feet or just feeling afraid.

She never talked to me like a doctor, Kenneson said. She talked to me like a friend.

A SAFETY NET

The morning after her own diagnosis, Evans, her husband and two daughters met with nurse navigator Sheree Bennett at the Joan Katz Breast Center. Armed with questions, she and her family cried, laughed and tried to understand what the next few weeks would bring.

Bennett, a survivor, gave Evans hope.

I did not think I would ever be normal again. I thought this would always be my world, Evans said. So to see someone who had been through this who was now laughing and talking and living was very powerful.

One month after her diagnosis, which began with a routine mammogram, Evans underwent a bilateral mastectomy. Again, her nurse navigator, and lay navigator Sue Cook, provided answers and comfort.

They checked on Evans before surgery and fetched drinks for her husband and daughters while they waited. After surgery, they brought her heart-shaped pillows, often used by breast cancer patients post operation for comfort. They instructed her to call with questions at any time.

They took away the fear and anxiety, and they gave me a safety net, she said. I could not imagine going through this journey without them and this center.

Weeks after the mastectomy, she learned she would need chemotherapy. In despair, she again turned to her navigators for support and education.

For some reason, I had closed the door on the idea of chemotherapy. In my head, I had a Hollywood image of what chemo would be like, and it scared me, she said. They had to calm me down and talk me off the ledge.

A NEW PATH

As she completed chemotherapy, Evans began wondering what her next move would be. She had not returned to the classroom since her diagnosis and thought she might be ready for a change.

In spring 2012, about one year after her initial diagnosis, she began volunteering at the Joan Katz Breast Center. Six months later, she accepted a full-time position as a lay navigator.

It was one of the happiest days of my life, she said. And I still feel like a teacher, but with better behaved students.

Evans guides patients through surgeries and treatments, holding their hands, praying and offering personal insight. Patients ask her how painful a procedure will be, what is reconstruction like, when will they feel normal, or what Evans calls the new normal.

When Jennifer Dias, a professor at Tarleton State University, was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 42, she knew almost no one who had undergone these treatments. Evans became a sort of lifeline.

Going through this without her would have been so overwhelming. Kristi was a godsend, Dias said. She radiates faith and love. She was my calming agent.

Kenneson, the teacher in Godley, said she has recommended that friends and acquaintances diagnosed with cancer visit Evans and other Joan Katz navigators.

The doctors are wonderful, but Kristi was the angel on my shoulder, Kenneson said. She made me feel like everything would be OK.
Coming soon

Health Education class  "Caregivers and Executors Matter," 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, Marcy Daly Hospital Blodgett/Canyon View Conference Rooms. Instructor Katherine Herczeg, MSN, APRN, Bitterroot Physicians Clinic South and Larry Johnson, Attorney at Law. Call 406-375-4589.

Red Cross blood drives  The American Red Cross encourages eligible donors to give blood to help ensure a readily available blood supply for emergencies. Donors of all blood types are needed. To make an appointment to give blood, download the Red Cross Blood Donor app, visit redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767. Donors are encouraged to make appointments and complete the RapidPass online health history questionnaire at redcrossblood.org/rapidpass to help reduce wait times. Upcoming blood drives:

MISSOULA: Tuesday, Dec. 6, City/County offices on Ryman, 10 a.m.-2:15 p.m., the city and county duke it out in number of donations, visit redcrossblood.org and enter sponsor code citycounty; Wednesday, Dec. 7, St. Anthony's Church, 217 Tremont, 2-6:15 p.m., all donors are entered to win a free T-shirt, register and enter sponsor code stanthony. Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, 301 S. Sixth St. W., 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 10, free piece of baklava with donation, register and enter sponsor code annunciation.

DEER LODGE: Thursday, Dec. 8, Community Center, 416 Cottonwood, 1-6:15 p.m., call 406-846-4046 to schedule appointment.

Red Willow Center  For more information on the following classes at the learning center, 825 W. Kent, call 406-721-0033 or visit redwillowlearning.org:

Ongoing classes include "Yoga for Wellness" at noon Mondays, $12 or $40 for four weeks; "Mindfulness Meditation" at 12:10 p.m. Tuesdays, $12 or $40 for four weeks; "Yoga Beyond Cancer" at 4 p.m. Tuesdays, $40 for four weeks; "Yoga for Wellness" at 10 a.m. Wednesdays, $12 or $40 for four weeks; "Yoga for Chronic Pain" at 5 p.m. Wednesdays, $40 for four weeks plus $50 for prerequisite screening' "Meditation for Veterans" at 1:15 p.m. Thursdays at Missoula Vet Center, 910 Brooks, free.

Ongoing programs

AA and Al-Anon  For the latest Alcoholics Anonymous meetings list, visit aa-montana.org or call the Missoula hotline at 406-543-0011. For more information on Al-Anon and Alateen, which are 12-step recovery programs for relatives and friends whose lives have been affected by alcoholism, visit mt.al-anon.alateen.org.

Acupuncture for cancer caregivers  Missoula Community Acupuncture, located in the Radio Central Building, 127 E Main St., Suite 314, offers free acupuncture treatments for friends, family, nurses, doctors or anyone who takes care of cancer patients 5-7 p.m. Wednesdays. No appointment is necessary. For more information, call Michael Peluso at 406-926-1611.

Adult Asperger's support group  An open meeting for those with Asperger's as well as their family and friends is held 6-7:30 p.m. every Thursday at the University Center, Room 215, on campus. Contact Monique Casbeer at 406-721-3947 or Cindy Bacon Janego at cjanego@communitymed.org for more information.

Alzheimers support  Meets the second Wednesday of each month at noon at the Summit Independent Living conference room, 700 S.W. Higgins Ave. Another group meets the fourth Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Missoula Senior Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave. For more information, contact Jackie Johnson at 406-549-3433 or jackiej45@yahoo.com.

Alzheimers caregivers support group  Meets the fourth Monday at 6:30 p.m. of each month at the Missoula Senior Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave. For more information, call Jackie Johnson at 406-549-3433.

Arthritis programs  The Montana Arthritis Program offers physical activity and self-management education programs, such as the Arthritis Foundation Exercise Program, Walk with Ease and Stanfords Chronic Disease Self-Management Program. Classes are available in several communities including Florence, Hamilton, Kalispell, Libby, Missoula, Plains and Polson. To find a class or for more information, visit dphhs.mt.gov/publichealth/arthritis.

Bereavement support groups  Frontier Hospice offers open door meetings 6-7 p.m. Thursdays at the following locations: The Springs at Whitefish on the first Thursday; Rising Mountains Assisted Living Community in Bigfork on the third Thursday; and Frontier Hospice in Kalispell on the second and fourth Thursdays. Call 406-755-4923 for more information.

Breast cancer support group  Meets the first and third Wednesday of the month from 11 a.m. to noon at the Montana Cancer Center, St. Patrick Hospital Broadway Building, second floor. Call 406-329-5656.

Cancer Center support group  Meets noon-1:30 p.m. the second Thursday of each month at the Montana Cancer Center, 500 W. Broadway. For more information, call Bonnie at 406-240-0996.

Cancer Resource Guide  The online guide covers resources including support groups, treatment centers, camps and retreats, in Missoula, Mineral and Ravalli counties. It is available at cancerresourcesMT.org.

Cancer support group  A support group for anyone affected by cancer meets noon-1 p.m. on the second and fourth Mondays at the Polson United Methodist Church, 301 16th Ave. For more information, call Tammy at 406-883-7284 or 406-824-2868.

Celebrate Recovery  The Christian-based 12-step recovery program meets 6-9:30 p.m. every Friday at Christian Assembly Foursquare Church, 1001 Cleveland St. Dinner is available from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and child care is provided for ages birth to 11. For more information, call 406-721-6884 or email cafc@4bible.com.

Cheerful Heart  Lake County cancer patients in treatment can receive a massage and help with hair and skin problems, free of charge, from local therapists and cosmetologists. Other non-medical services include transportation to treatment and doctor appointments, running errands, yard work and meal preparation. Appointments may be scheduled by calling 406-883-3070.

Colorectal Cancer Support Group  Meets 1-2 p.m. the third Friday of every month through March 20, Community Cancer Care Conference Room, 2827 Fort Missoula Road.

"Coping, Education & Support for Women with All Cancer Types"  The support group for women in all stages of cancer treatment or survivorship will be held noon-1:30 p.m. the second Monday of every month through March 14, 2016, at the Community Cancer Care Conference Room, 2837 Fort Missoula Road. For more information, call Deb Rivey at 327-3912, Terri Paxinos at 406-327-3957 or Kimberly Hardwick at 406-327-3906.

Diabetes program  At 6:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of every month, there will be a short presentation on a topic related to the management of Type 1 diabetes at the YMCA, 3000 S. Russell St. It will be followed by the option for socializing in the foyer or being active together at the Y. A fee of $5 per person will be collected at the door for those choosing to use the facility. Designed for ages 14 and older, children are welcome but must be accompanied by a parent/caregiver.

Double Trouble in Recovery  The 12-step program for people with mental health and addiction issues meets 3-4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Winds of Change Recovery Mall, 2685 Palmer St., No. C (second floor). Coffee is provided. For more information, call Veronica at 406-721-2038.

Epilepsy support group  Meets the first Monday of the month from 2-3:30 p.m. at the Summit Independent Living Center, 700 S.W. Higgins Ave., Suite 101. Patients, friends, family and caregivers welcome. Call Debbie at 406-721-0707 for more information.

Free health exams  Women ages 30 to 64 who meet necessary income guidelines and either have no health insurance or have insurance that will not pay for breast and cervical health exams can receive free exams through Partnership Health Centers Montana Cancer Screening Program. Call 406-258-4162 for more information.

Gentle yoga class  The Missoula Senior Citizen Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave., offers a class that focuses on balance training, back strength and core conditioning through gentle yoga matwork every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 9 a.m. Fee is $4 per class. All ages welcome. For more information, call 406-543-7154.

Health Insurance Assistance Service  Montana cancer patients can call the American Cancer Societys 24-hour toll-free number to be connected to a health insurance specialist to ask about coverage and insurance programs specific to the state. The number is 800-227-2345.

Mens cancer support group  Open to men in all phases of testing, treatment and followup, the group meets the fourth Tuesday of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Montana Cancer Center, 500 W. Broadway. It is facilitated by Gary Weisbrich and Tom King. Call 406-329-5628 or email gary.weisbrich@providence.org for more information.

Narcotics Anonymous  Meets at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Alano Club, 8 Third Ave. W., Polson. Call 406-883-4135.

National Alliance on Mental Illness  NAMI Missoula meets every Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon in the lower level (behind the cafeteria) of the Providence Center. It is open to anyone affected by mental illness or interested in learning more about the group. The NAMI Connection group for adults living with mental illness meets 1:30-3 p.m. Thursdays at the NAMI offices, 202 Brooks St., Room 210. Call 406-880-1013 with questions.

NAMI Family Support Group  National Alliance on Mental Illness Missoula meets Wednesdays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 Brooks St., in Room 210. The peer-led support for adult family members, caregivers and loved ones of individuals with mental illness is free. For more information, call 406-880-1013 or email namimissoula@gmail.com.

My No-Nonsense Nutrition Program  A seven-week webinar course to improve your nutrition and fitness. Faith-based approach to better health. Free initial consult with Judy Gilman, registered nurse, diabetes and wellness educator. mynononsensenutrition.com or 406-546-7819.

Overeaters Anonymous  Local meetings include 7 p.m. Monday and 9 a.m. Saturday at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 Brooks St. A meeting for newcomers is at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday followed by a "Back to Basics" meeting at 7 p.m. at St. Paul's. Everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively is welcome. There are no dues, weigh-ins or lectures. For more meeting information, visit oa.org.

SAA  For the latest Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting list visit saa-recovery.org, call the Missoula hotline at 406-241-4005 or email MissoulaBetterway@yahoo.com. SAA is a 12-step fellowship of men and women who share experience, strength and hope for the purpose of finding freedom from addictive sexual behavior and helping others recover from sex addiction.

S-Anon  Local meetings are held weekly for this recovery program for people affected by another persons sexual behavior. Visit sanonmontana.org or call 406-544-1271 to learn more.

Stroke and Brain Injury Support Group  Meets the second Thursday of each month from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Providence Center, 902 N. Orange St., in the dining area on the fourth floor. For details, call 406-329-5784.

Tai Chi for Arthritis  Class offered 9:15 a.m. Mondays at the Missoula Senior Citizens Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave. $4 per class. All ages welcome.

Tai Chi Chih  Classes are offered at the following locations: Missoula Senior Citizens Center, 705 S. Higgins Ave., 9:15 a.m. Wednesdays, $4 per class; PEAK Health & Wellness Center, 5000 Blue Mountain Road, 11 a.m. Tuesdays, call 251-3344; and The Womens Club, 2105 Bow St., 9 a.m. Fridays, call 406-728-4410.

TOPS  Take Off Pounds Sensibly, an affordable, nonprofit, weight-loss support and wellness organization, meets at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the First Christian Church, 2701 S. Russell St. Another TOPS meeting is 6:30 p.m. Monday at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 2512 Sunset Lane. For additional meetings, go to tops.org, click on "Find a Meeting" and enter your ZIP code or call 800-932-8677.
Receiving medical care outside your local community can be challenging. This is especially true for Montanas rural patients who sometimes travel great distances in order to access medical services unavailable in their local communities. For many rural patients, traveling for care is burdensome and involves additional costs including transportation and lodging for family members.

Over time, the length of hospital stays has become shorter and shorter. For example, in years past, patients undergoing knee replacement surgery may have been hospitalized for a week or more, but now they can often expect to be discharged after just two nights in the hospital. This means a bulk of the recovery process happens in the patients home and in their local community.

In order to ensure a successful recovery, access to local supports and services is paramount. Obtaining resources in rural communities can be challenging, as they are often sparse and difficult to access. Patients transitioning from hospital to home need access to medical resources, local pharmacies, durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs and crutches, and rehabilitation services such as physical and occupational therapy. In addition to medical resources, patients also need to be able to meet their basic needs, including nutritional foods and safe shelter.

Discharge planning (with the rural patient in mind) and transitional support services may assist in creating a better recovery process for rural patients. Discharge planning, described simply, is the process of facilitating a smooth transition from hospital care to recovery at home. Transition support services include a warm handoff between hospital and rural providers, meaning that an actual conversation happens between caregivers on both ends. Transition support services include assistance in accessing local services and follow up care. This requires collaboration and communication between providers, nurses and social workers working together on interdisciplinary teams in order to meet patient needs.

The Montana ROADMAP Project is a research study on the effectiveness of an enhanced discharge planning and rural transitions process for patients from four rural Montana counties  Beaverhead, Powell, Sanders and Lake. ROADMAP stands for Rural Options at Discharge Model of Active Planning. The Montana ROADMAP Research Project is funded through the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The project is unique in its efforts to look at patients functional needs upon discharge from the hospital.

In the study, researchers interviewed and surveyed patients in each of the four counties to learn more about their experiences after discharge from the hospital. The researchers then developed an intervention to enhance the discharge planning process and provide additional transition support services. The researchers are in the final stages of data collection for the study, and next will examine how this unique approach impacts rural patient outcomes and re-hospitalizations.

Much has been learned from the study to date, including the benefit of transitional support services, the importance of communication between providers, and the intersection of medical and social determinants of health. By doing research studies such as this, we can learn about the unique needs of our rural neighbors in order to ensure that they receive safe, compassionate care.
Animal advocates are asking the University of Montana to hold a public forum to discuss the pros and cons of doing research on pigs  and the possibility of using non-animal models.

Top officials at UM have been recruiting a researcher with experience in spinal cord injuries and porcine testing. Pigs and miniature pigs are used in biomedical research because their biological systems are similar to those of humans.

Monday, UM vice president for research Scott Whittenburg declined to comment on the status of the hire or UM's willingness to hold or participate in a forum. UM has been looking for a head of its Neural Injury Center in the College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences.

Last month, Whittenburg stressed the hire was not a done deal and not ripe for public discussion, but he said he hoped it would come to pass.

Already, the idea has raised concerns and questions among some animal rights groups.

"This sort of research sounds so horrifying," said Kristian Cantens, president of Advocates for Animals on the UM campus. "They cause these spinal injuries in these animals."

Pigs are intelligent and emotional beings, he said, and Advocates for Animals plans to express its opposition to pig research to faculty members involved in selecting the head of the Neural Injury Center. The group has 10 to 12 active members and a mailing list of 200.

Kevin Boileau, co-director of Freedom 4 Animals, said he wants UM to engage the wider community about the research if the hire is still on the table.

Boileau, based in Missoula, said researchers use pigs in intermediate testing after work on rodents. A pig's spinal cord more closely resembles that of humans and offers a more accurate picture of the potential methods of healing spinal cord injuries in humans.

But the research is violent, he said; it simulates car wrecks, airplane crashes and gunfire. Scientists harm the spinal cords of the pigs in order to try to learn better ways of helping humans heal, but Boileau questioned the efficacy of the methods.

"To date, we are unaware that this kind of research has had any positive conclusory outcomes for spinal cord repair in human beings," said Boileau, also active in animal rights and other causes in California. "I want to emphasize this. As such, the research is highly speculative."

Boileau spoke generally about pig research; he does not have information about what UM may be planning. However, he wants a public discussion that addresses the scientific, moral, and cultural implications of animal research before UM gives any proposal a green light.

Last month, Whittenburg said questions about how UM might proceed with the position and any lab were premature.

UM has been recruiting researcher Candace Floyd of the University of Alabama School of Medicine. The school's Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation website identifies its spinal cord research program as having the only porcine lab in the United States.

Last month, Floyd, who works in the porcine facility, said she had provided information to UM about coming to work in Missoula, but she did not know how the university was proceeding. She did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment.

Boileau and Freedom 4 Animals co-director Nazarita Goldhammer hope UM will turn to non-animal models for research. Goldhammer also said evidence shows a relationship between violent episodes and communities that are using research methods that damage animals.

"We're seeing a correlation in the communities that there is escalating violence, maybe unconsciously," Goldhammer said.

She said she did not yet have peer-reviewed studies but was working on them.

Many advances in medicine are linked to pigs, though, and an organization called Understanding Animal Research lists some of them. Based in the United Kingdom, the organization aims to explain the reasons animals are used in medical and scientific research.

"Pig blood will keep you alive if transfused into your body," it said.

Each year, heart valves from pigs are placed in 60,000 patients, according to Understanding Animal Research. It notes clinicians practice new surgical techniques on pigs because their organs are a similar size to those of humans, and that the CT Scan was developed using pig tissue.

"The first tissue-engineered whole-organ transplant was performed in 2008 following pre-clinical studies in pigs," the organization notes.

Nonetheless, opponents will track the issue and press UM for more information.

Cantens, with Advocates for Animals, met Monday with a UM official and said he learned any pig research is contingent upon Floyd being hired. He also said it's likely the testing would not take place on campus but at a separate animal research facility.

"And it wouldn't be funded by the university, but would be funded by some federal grant," Cantens said.
A man and his children who went out into the backcountry to find a Christmas tree on Sunday are safe after being found by Missoula County Search and Rescue.

Around 2:30 p.m. Sunday, the man  along with his 5-year-old and 8-year-old children  left Missoula and went to the Schwartz Creek area near Clinton to find a tree, said Brenda Bassett, public information officer with the Missoula County Sheriffs Office.

He told family he would be gone for about two hours. The family contacted the sheriffs office around 8 p.m. when he hadn't returned home, and his cell phone appeared to be either turned off or without a signal, Bassett said.

Deputies searched the area before calling in members of Search and Rescue, which used snowmobiles to comb the area and found the family around 10:30 p.m. more than a mile up the road. Two Bear Air from Whitefish was called in but turned around after the family was were found.

Bassett said the mans truck wouldnt start when they tried to leave, but that he had been able to start a fire and the children were dressed in warm clothes.

She said that with the colder weather and winter conditions setting in, it was important to always make sure other people know where you are going when you head into the backcountry.

Originally, we only were told the Wallace Creek area, so also if you change locations make sure to let people know, she said. Montana weather conditions can change quick and last night was a good example of that.
A Missoula man is in jail on a $100,000 bail after being charged with sexually assaulting a boy repeatedly over the course of several months.

Joshua Dwayne Moody, who faces a count of felony sexual assault, made his initial appearance Monday in Missoula County Justice Court.

A court affidavit said that during the summer, Moody repeatedly sexually assaulted the elementary-school-age boy by rubbing the childs genitals through his clothing, allegedly almost every day. In an interview with police, Moody allegedly said he had accidentally touched the boy twice.

In court, deputy county attorney Amber Henning said Moody, 29, had a prior molestation case in Louisiana when he was a juvenile.

Justice of the Peace Marie Andersen imposed the bail recommendation from Henning, allowed Moody to be screened for pretrial supervision, and appointed the Office of the State Public Defender to represent him.
Four community organizations are joining forces to bring sexuality education to Missoula middle-schoolers, an effort to build on what the schools teach and fill in the gaps.

Our Whole Lives is a sex-education curriculum developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association and United Church of Christ.

OWL's curriculum focuses on four core values: self-worth, sexual health, responsibility, and justice and inclusivity.

"It's based on an experiential model, using scenarios to help people think through these issues," said EmpowerMT development and communications specialist Jesse Jaeger. "It helps to have these conversations before it's real."

Christopher Coburn, an OWL-certifed trainer, added: "We feel by supporting the efforts the schools are putting forward, this can only benefit the youth able to participate to get more education.

"A lot of it is reinforcing what schools are teaching, but we'll also give them the space and time to explore topics more in-depth, like body image, impacts of social media on sexuality and the intersections between different components of sexuality,'' he said.

Although the curriculum was developed by religious groups, religion only comes into play in a "faith add-on," which is not included in the program being offered in Missoula next year.

OWL has programs for grades K-1, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12, as well as for young adults and adults. But Missoula will be using only the grades 7-9 curriculum, and only offering it to seventh- and eighth-graders.

"Those are the ages with the most going on, developmentally, of their sexuality, physically they're maturing, their first romantic pairings," Jaeger said. "It's an important time in their lives."

It's also to "break out of" abstinence-only education, though "redefining abstinence" is one of 25 workshops in OWL's curriculum. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2014 School Health Policies and Practices Study, 76 percent of high schools taught abstinence as the most effective method to avoid pregnancy, HIV and other STDs.

A University of Washington study found that teens who received comprehensive sex ed were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than teens who received abstinence-only education.

Public schools' sex ed is also nearly entirely heterosexual-focused. OWL includes LGBTQ perspectives and information.

"Across the spectrum, we are all sexual beings," Jaeger said.

***

The pilot program will be taught by OWL-certified trainers Coburn, Kelly McGuire and Leah Fitch. Coburn is the outreach coordinator for Planned Parenthood of Montana in Missoula, McGuire is the prevention coordinator for Missoula City-County Relationship Violence Services, and Fitch is Missoula Forum for Children and Youth's outreach coordinator.

"A year and a half ago, me, Kim Spurzem, Christopher Coburn and Kelly McGuire started meeting and talking about doing more around comprehensive sex education in the community," Jaeger said. "We'd been hearing from the youth population that they wanted something more in-depth."

Because the county has signed on to the program, it dropped the faith-based add-on.

The Office of Public Instruction's 2016 Montana School Health Profiles Report found significant gaps in sex education across Montana: 19 percent of high school and middle school lead health education teachers received professional development on human sexuality during the past two years.

That's compared to 73 percent of high school and 68 percent of middle school lead health education teachers who want professional development on human sexuality.

Montana recently updated its health enhancement standards, which are vague when it comes to sex education.

Elise Guest, Missoula County Public Schools executive director of teaching and learning, said all curricula are under constant review (a change from years past when curricula review, both in MCPS and statewide, was done on a five-year rotation).

How sexuality is taught to students is determined on a local level.

In a broad sense, it starts in fourth grade with education about personal health, disease prevention and risky behaviors in general. They become more specific as students get older, Guest said.

"Curriculum, when it comes to those health enhancement lessons, are the responsibility of the health enhancement teacher," she said. "Sometimes in the elementary schools, specifically, counselors may join in teaching to some of the standards. It's part of demonstrating to kids ... that health is much more than physical health. It's emotional, behavioral and personal."

In that vein, sexuality is one piece of the puzzle.

"I think we get hung up on the sex education piece, but I think it's one variable to a much bigger illustration of trying to help children with a whole personal well-being, and helping them make good decisions for themselves, whether it's about sexual education or nutrition or abuse prevention or anti-bullying. I think it's a much bigger topic than that one variable."

Jaeger agreed, pointing out that "sexuality is more than just sex." The OWL curriculum also delves into relationship skills, bullying, body image and more.

"This is not about the schools doing a bad job," he said. "It's another layer of support. It's about the community working together to create solid, comprehensive sexuality education."

***

OWL's Missoula facilitators don't think the program will get push back  at least nothing like the controversy surrounding a sex-ed program in Helena schools in 2010.

"We're really lucky to live in a community that's really supportive of education," Coburn said. "We know that everyone, all people, all backgrounds, all abilities, all beliefs experience sexuality at some point in their lives. It looks different for each person, but it's a common thread that all people have.

"We're actually pretty fortunate here in Missoula to have pretty decent sex education in the schools. But some of the data coming out from the Office of Public Instruction regarding the type of sex education in schools, whether it be content or frequency or support for people who are implementing it, is not super great."

Jaeger previously served as an OWL national coordinator for the Unitarians.

"There's always limits to what a school can do around sex ed," he said. "We recognize it can't all be on the schools."
Many Montanans have been writing legislators about the Electoral College. They want the legislature to change Montana law to require our three Electoral College electors to vote in accordance with the national popular vote.

It does seem undemocratic that Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by approximately 2.5 million votes this year, but the Electoral College will probably elect Donald Trump on Dec. 19. Al Gore won in 2000, yet the Electoral College overturned our decision in that election as well. The power of the Electoral College means Montanans votes never really matter. Presidential winners are declared long before Montana poll results are tallied.

Should Montana law require our electoral representatives to vote to uphold the national popular vote? Whats the purpose of the Electoral College?

At the 1787 Philadelphia constitutional convention, James Madison argued, The people at large are the fittest source of presidential election  as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished character.

However, in 1787, although most men were eligible to vote in Northern states, many were not eligible in the South. Southern states argued that unfairly limited their influence in the choice of president. The Electoral College was created to give the South power without penalizing it for keeping slaves and for denying poor white men the right to vote.

So, Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution was written: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress 

Montana law addressing the Electoral College was amended in 2011. Electors nominated by political parties or independent candidates are now required to sign the following pledge: If selected for the position of elector, I agree to serve and to mark my ballots for president and vice president for the nominees of the political party that nominated me.

In 1787 discussions of the Electoral College, constitution delegates contended that well-respected representatives elected from each district of a state could override a bad decision by voters. The Electoral College was to practice independent judgement regardless of the popular vote to avoid election of an unqualified president.

Today, most of us believe all Americans of legal age should practice their responsibility as citizens to vote. Montana voting rights laws are strong compared to states like North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where voters have been blocked from voting through discriminatory laws and redistricting plans that are slowly being overridden by courts. In the meantime, Americans have been deprived of the right to vote.

The Montana Legislature could amend our electoral law to read, I agree to serve and to mark my ballots in accordance with the national popular vote. If we truly want the Electoral College to be merely ceremonial, as Montana Republican Party Chair Jeff Essmann has said, lets make it purely ceremonial to confirm the national popular vote.

Thereafter, my vote and the votes of all Montanans will count. Only 55 percent of eligible Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election. Less than half of that 55 percent voted for the man who is on track to become our next president. Its time to put slavery and disenfranchisement behind us. Its time to encourage all Americans to vote and to let every vote count. Electoral College electors should uphold the national popular vote. Then, well confirm our pledge that we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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.
I opened my Facebook page recently and saw the reminder of the sad day six years ago when Montana Highway Patrol Trooper David DeLaittre was gunned down. The wife of another trooper had called me with the news, since her husband was one of those in the state searching for the killer and the roads were icy, so we prayed for hours.

Troopers travel many miles across our state, alone, far from backup, at high speeds, on two-lane, bad roads, because it is what they do for us, to keep us safe. They leave families at home, never knowing for sure when they will return. Their shifts are long, many times going hours without a real meal. All to keep Montana safe from border to border.

The second post I saw was Gov. Steve Bullocks proposal to cut the Highway Patrols funding by $7.7 million, a 10 percent reduction, the largest he has called for since 2012, or 27 troopers. His reason, spokesman Tim Crowe said: its a proportional share of necessary reductions in gas taxes. And yet the tax on gas has been 27 cents since 1994. That is 26 years! Something doesnt add up. But I found this true in so much of Bullocks spending habits and reasoning. He doesnt drive our roads to need our MHP, but flies from Helena to Dillon.

We have great people in our legislature, so I have faith that Bullocks proposal will not pass. These people care about our troopers and everyones safety.

My daughter in Oregon is a sergeant and her husband is a lieutenant. So this issue is very dear to my heart, Gov. Bullock. Ever ride out alone with an officer on a two-lane road, far from backup, in the middle of the night?

Pat Earnest,

Hamilton
BILLINGS  A semitrailer hauling cattle and a Montana Department of Transportation snow plow were involved in an interstate highway crash in Big Horn County a few miles north of the Montana-Wyoming border Monday afternoon, according to a press release from the Montana Department of Transportation.

The crash was reported at about 3:20 p.m. on Interstate 90 East at mile marker 553, according to the Montana High Patrol's online incident tracking website.

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Jack Rhodes said the semitrailer rear-ended the snow plow, causing the snow plow to roll once.

The man driving the snow plow and the man driving the semitrailer driver were uninjured and the approximately 95 cattle that were being transported also appeared to be fine, Rhodes said.

Blowing snow at the time of the incident is believed to have played a role in the crash, Rhodes said. Rhodes said that no lanes of traffic were closed by the crash.

Rhodes encouraged drivers in the area to watch their speed. He said that he left from Hardin to respond to the crash and observed icy road conditions from Crow Agency to the site of the crash.
HELENA  An East Helena police officer has been found guilty of assault for striking a 70-year-old man after a car crash.

Following a Monday afternoon bench trial, a judge found Robert John Gutowski, 27, guilty of misdemeanor assault. He received a year deferred imposition of sentence and was ordered to pay a $340 fine.

Gutowski had previously planned on pleading guilty to the charge in Helena Municipal Court, but once he began speaking about the September incident he maintained his innocence.

Gutowski was off-duty when he was involved in a four-vehicle crash on Montana Avenue in Helena Sept 6. He contended he did not assault the man, but "shoved him in the shoulder a few times" to get his attention.

After hearing testimony from witnesses and Gutowski, Judge Bob Wood said he had enough evidence to find Gutowski guilty.

"He hit him -- that's an assault," Wood said.

The victim estimated his minivan was going a maximum of 10 mph when he accidentally rear-ended the PT Cruiser Gutowski was driving.

"This guy jumped out and came running toward me," he testified from his mobility scooter. "He started beating on my arm."

"He hit this arm four times. It hurt like hell to put it bluntly," the 70-year-old said.

The victim said his arm was sore for at least another week. He also testified he was unaware Gutowski was a police officer until he saw an article about the charge in the newspaper.

"Holy mackerel -- it was a cop. I didn't know he was a cop," he testified.

Gutowski was cited for the assault the next day. He was put on unpaid leave for a week, then reinstated by East Helena Mayor James Schell.

The Helena police officer who wrote the ticket said Gutowski admitted to punching the man in the arm. Two other witnesses recalled seeing Gutowski assaulting the man.

Some of the testimony focused on Gutowski's passenger, his mother, who was recovering from brain surgery. She said she bent over to pick her phone up from the floor when the collision occurred, and her head struck the dashboard several times.

"I thought I was dying," she said.

Gutowski said he was distraught and concerned for his mother when he confronted the victim.

"I did shove the driver of the van in the arm," he testified.

"I thought he'd just killed my mom and I wanted him to know that," Gutowski added.

His defense attorney argued that although Gutowski admitted to purposely shoving the man, testimony did not prove the victim suffered pain due to the assault.

Judge Wood said he understood Gutowski's concern for his mother, but assaulting the other driver was "not the appropriate reaction."

Schell did not return a call Monday afternoon to comment on whether the outcome of the trial would affect Gutowski's employment.

East Helena Police Chief Dale Aschim had previously said he told the mayor to fire Gutowski. He also told the Independent Record the state council that oversees police certification is reviewing the case. The Montana Public Safety Officer Standard and Training Council could revoke Gutowski's certificates, which would make him ineligible to be a police officer.

When contacted after the verdict, Aschim deferred questions to Schell.
THOMPSON FALLS  A Plains man received a six-year deferred sentence late last month in the death of his 3-month-old son, after a District Court judge rejected a motion to set aside the guilty verdict.

Gunner Dyes attorney had argued, among other things, that Sanders County jurors couldnt give Dye a fair trial because their education level is below average.

Public defender Ashley Morigeau also said the states objection to a bench trial violated Dyes right to a fair trial, that jurors had been prejudiced by the showing of a Period of Purple Crying video during the trial, and that evidence presented to jurors was overwhelmingly contradictory.

Dye was convicted of negligent homicide in May. His son, Shane Gabriel-Leon Dye, had died more than two years earlier, in April 2014.

Dye maintained the baby had appeared to choke on food. A medical examiner said the child was the victim of shaken-baby syndrome.

Dye received credit for 466 days he spent in jail, and was also fined $1,000. However, Judge James Manley struck other conditions of the deferred sentence, including that Dye be required to pay for the cost of the trial ($16,463), and that he be prohibited from drinking and gambling during the six years he will be on probation.

***

In her motion asking Manley to change the verdict to not guilty, Morgieau cited statistics showing Sanders County residents fall below Montanas average educational level, and said only 16 percent have earned bachelors degrees or higher.

This case was extremely medically and scientifically complex and heard by jurors who are below the average educational level, she wrote.

The defendant now claims that this case was too complex for the uneducated folks of Sanders County, prosecutors Bob Zimmerman and Catherine Truman responded in court documents, but made no attempt during (jury selection) to parse out this idea, or why someone needs to be educated to understand this type of evidence.

The case was not complex, they maintained.

It did not involve complex financial or tax records or evidence extending over months or years, or multiple defendants with complex evidence going to each defendant, the prosecutors said. It involved one defendant, one victim, and a very short time frame.

The babys mother, Rachel Iberra, was at work and Dye was alone with the child on the night of April 16, 2014, when he said his son appeared to choke on food. He summoned help from Iberras mother, Karla, who lived next door.

Court documents dont indicate which of them called 911, but the Plains police officer who was first on the scene found Dye crying, and Karla Iberra performing maneuvers on her grandson consistent with first aid and CPR.

The boy died two days later in a Missoula hospital.

Both Rachel and Karla Iberra told authorities they did not believe Dye would ever intentionally hurt his son. The medical examiner said there was clear and convincing evidence that the manner of death is homicide, while a forensic pathologist for the defense testified it was due to complications from an infection.

***

Morigeau argued that the Period of Purple Crying video about shaken baby syndrome evoked an emotional response from the jury and prejudiced Dye.

Prosecutors countered that the video was relevant because Dye had watched it at the hospital when his son was born.

The video rebuts the defendants statements where he said many things, including that he didnt know shaking the baby up and down would hurt him.  The jury could see the video clearly explained to the defendant how fragile babies necks are, prosecutors wrote.

Dye eventually told investigators the child was crying, and he had bounced the baby up and down.

I didnt shake him intentionally. I didnt shake him to kill him, court documents say he told police.

Dye said it only lasted for 10 to 15 seconds, and he just went limp.

I didnt know it would hurt him so much, Dye went on. And I wish I could take it back. I wish I could go back to that day and not even pick him up. I wouldve just left the room and let him cry. I shouldve just let him cry until he either went to sleep or got focused on something else or just calmed down or something.

I feel like the (expletive) person in the world and I deserve to die. My life is not worth Shanes.
BILLINGS  Scott Austin Price was handed a life sentence Monday for fatally stabbing his 78-year-old landlord in the neck.

Price, 38, was sentenced to Montana State Prison, with no chance of parole, for killing Ed Martin on Dec. 14, 2015. Price pleaded guilty in September to deliberate homicide and aggravated kidnapping, according to Custer County District Court records. An additional 10 years was added to the sentence for use of a weapon during the homicide.

Martin's wife, Helen Martin, was granted restitution in the amount of about $8,200. Price was convicted of assaulting and tying Martin up. Price must also pay about $3,700 to the Crime Victims Fund. Helen Martin's son and daughter testified on her behalf during the sentencing.

Probation and Parole officer Kristi Moore requested that Price not be allowed to return to Custer County. Price has six prior felony convictions, Moore said.

Price received credit for 350 days in jail prior to trial.

Price will also be sentenced on charges out of Missoula County District Court for deliberate homicide, attempted deliberate homicide, conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping, solicitation to commit theft and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

Chief Deputy Missoula County Attorney Jason Marks said in September he will recommend Price spend life in prison without the possibility of parole. That sentencing is scheduled for later this month.

Price and a co-conspirator, 32-year-old Sarah McKnight, were both charged in two separate attacks that took place in Missoula a week after Ed Martin's death. Prosecutors say on Dec. 21, 2015, Price stabbed a woman in a grocery store parking lot and later killed Lonette Keehner, a 56-year-old housekeeper at a Super 8 hotel.
BUTTE  Montana Resources officials say they won't have a final tally of snow geese that perished last week in the contaminated Berkeley Pit water until mid-week at the earliest.

Federal officials say once the count is complete, the Environmental Protection Agency will determine if MR was adhering to the bird hazing program appropriately. Fines could be levied if the geese landed due to company negligence, say EPA officials.

The program, based on loud noises to scare birds, was put in place due to the 1995 snow geese die-off when 342 died on the pit. State and federal agencies designed the program.

"Trying to get some idea of mortality has been difficult," said EPA Montana Superfund director Joe Vranka.

The problem is due to the lack of access to the lake. The southeast walls have been unreliable for the last few years. As a result, officials cannot take a boat out on the water. Officials must rely on overhead imagery to get the numbers, said Vranka.

Using both telescope, drone and aircraft, mine officials began counting the dead birds over the weekend. MR officials said Monday they are still counting.

Mark Thompson, the mine's manager of environmental affairs, would only say to expect the count to be bigger than the 1995 incident.

At that time, the 342 snow geese died due to drinking pit water, which is high in sulfuric acid. Necropsies also showed that those birds had high levels of heavy metals in their kidneys. That die-off gained national media attention.

The mining company estimates that as many as 10,000 migrating snow geese landed in the pit water the night of Nov. 28. The usual landing spot for migrating snow geese  Freezout Lake west of Great Falls  was largely frozen when the geese passed over, according to previous reports from the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Warm Springs Ponds, south of Deer Lodge, another popular layover spot for migrating birds, were also mostly frozen, according to a previous story.

Three snow geese were found elsewhere in Butte last week, said Butte-Silver Bow community enrichment director Ed Randall.

An individual reported to animal control on Thursday that there were two dead geese in the Walmart parking lot, Randall said. Another person found a live goose in front of a casino on the 2200 block of Amherst Avenue Wednesday. That goose died Thursday while still in animal control custody, Randall said. All three dead birds were turned over to MR.

MR officials said they collected 20 dead snow geese for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to analyze. They say they are also holding the three dead found in town in case federal officials want to perform necropsies on those birds.

Thompson said about 50 live snow geese remain in the pit, swimming on the pit's toxic lake a week after landing.

***

According to a 2002 report on Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield Companys bird hazing program, the pit is too large for either netting or Styrofoam bird balls to be practical. Currently the contaminated lake is around 700 acres in size.

ARCO and MR are the responsible parties for the Berkeley Pit Superfund site.

The passive hazing program, which is noise-based, has been largely successful, according to the report. Between 1996 and 2001, over 22,000 birds were observed at the Berkeley Pit; 75 bird mortalities were reported during those years.

Mine officials say they are checking with federal officials to see if they should expect any additional large bird migrations headed this way.

Vranka said EPA is in contact with officials at Freezout Lake to watch for more birds. MR is continuing round-the-clock hazing efforts to keep birds out of the pit, said Vranka.
In 1988, Nagorno-Karabakhs Armenian majority  then part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic  voted to become part of the Armenian Soviet Republic. (In the 1920s, Karabakhs Armenians had insisted that self-determination was their prerogative under the Soviet constitution. Nevertheless, in 1923, Joseph Stalin gave Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.) But the Soviet Union was incapable of managing the violence that erupted  including Azeri rage directed at Armenians in the Azerbaijani cities of Baku and Sumgait  forcing most Armenians to flee to Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh. On Sept. 2, 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed itself an independent country, and for the next three years its Armenians fought a war with the Azeris, which they would win in 1994, with the help of Armenia itself. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 people would die, and perhaps as many as one million were displaced.

Nagorno-Karabakh is largely unrecognized by the international community (though seven American states have passed resolutions urging the United States government to support its independence). The republic is a fledgling democracy of 140,000 people, facing off against an oil-rich dictatorship with a population of 9.5 million. Its only ally is Armenia, which is often the small republics lifeline. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has assigned diplomats from France, Russia and the United States to try to broker a permanent agreement, but theyve made little progress.

Azerbaijan has shown consistently it is incapable of governing Nagorno-Karabakh, said Ruben Melikyan to me when we had coffee recently in the Nagorno-Karabakh capital of Stepanakert. Mr. Melikyan is the countrys ombudsman, or human rights defender. Its not merely an issue of a peoples right to self-determination. Its a peoples right to self-determination who are in peril of extermination.

Image Capt. Gegham Grigoryan near a grave just beyond the trenches where a Nagorno-Karabakh soldier was buried this spring. Credit... Knar Babayan

This is no small distinction. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has threatened to shoot down passenger planes that fly into the new Stepanakert airport; the airport has yet to open. He promoted to major the Azeri soldier who murdered an Armenian soldier in his sleep during a peaceful, NATO-sponsored training seminar in Budapest. And most recently President Aliyev broke the cease-fire with a huge, unprovoked offensive into Nagorno-Karabakh in April, an onslaught that included the shelling of two schools. (It was nighttime so the schools were empty, but among the first casualties in the war was a 12-year-old boy killed in a missile attack.)

After spending time with people in Nagorno-Karabakh, its clear to me that the only way the nation will ever again be a part of Azerbaijan is if Azerbaijan conquers it. And despite Azerbaijans being vastly larger, I cant imagine that ever will happen. Armenians had lived on this land for centuries before it was incorporated into Azerbaijan. My first day there I went to a baptism of 39 Armenian children in a church built in 1673. Dadivank, the Armenian monastery in the north, began construction in the ninth century. Its frescoes, which date from 1297, are as lovely as any Ive seen in Tuscany.

Its people are fiercely protective of their home. Among the parents I met at that baptism were Anton and Areknaz Abkarian. Their three children, all under 5, were baptized that afternoon. They have a small farm. But when the Azeris attacked in April, Mr. Abkarian went straight to the front lines as a volunteer. His wife and his mother ran the farm.
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This dream. Something is in the house, somethings breaking, the things I love are going away. I reach for Laura, she becomes translucent, evaporates. I wake up, telling myself this dream means Im worried about how tired and worn Laura has grown from years of activist work trying to get people out of prison. Ive always nagged her about doing too much, and now, with Donald Trump slouching towards Washington, thats inevitable. Doing too much will be a necessity.

Laura and I were married a little over three years ago, but weve actually been together in one form or another since 1988, when I, on assignment for a feminist newspaper, interviewed her in the DC Jail. Laura and five other political prisoners were charged for the protest-bombings of U.S. government sites, including the Capitol Building. Our relationship has since been built on years of rock-solid personal insecurities and constant political arguing; also writing and activism. I had hoped that, by now, we could start to kick back and, in our debilitating golden years, embrace a pinko form of bourgeois individualism. Then: Trump.

What will be taken away? I dont have to mention, do I, how drastically against gay marriage the Trump administration will be? Last time I checked, the legal right of queers to marry was upheld by the Supreme Court. But that neednt stop Trump, who recently proposed jail time and loss of citizenship for burning the American flag  an act twice protected by the Supremes. And, given already rising hate crimes, there will be equal opportunity suffering. Ecological accords will be broken. Walls will be built. . .

People often compare the ascendance of Trump and his cabinet of deplorables to the rise of the Nazis  taking momentary refuge in the fact that 1933 Germany didnt have the nuclear option. Apropos of Trumps take on flag burning, one of the first things Hitler did as chancellor was to rescind freedom of speech, assembly, the press. . . Then the arrest of political opponents, the forcing of Jews to register their property, wear Stars of David. Remember those good Germans, who may have lamented, but went along because they could  because they still fit in to what remained normal?

Here and now, mainstream pundits talk about how we should never take for granted, or normalize, the Trump regime. But the Trump phenomenon grows from the fact that Americans have already normalized too much: steadily eroding unions and labor laws; the devastation of welfare; prison expansion; the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq; millions of immigrants already deported  all of which rests on an implicit White-uber-alles that allows most of us to conduct business as usual, as Black citizens are regularly gunned down by cops. Face it: this Trump thing has been coming on for years.

In the activist communities I inhabit, normalizing will be less a problem than figuring out new ways to fight Trump. The old ways  demonstrations, petition signing, sit-ins  may connect us and make us feel better, but will they work?

Since November 8, there have been, in Manhattan alone, scores of Facebook-generated demonstrations. Can we keep this up four more years? Just how do we take on a growing list of execrations, in an increasingly complicated world where social media can mean self-surveillance? How, for instance, do we confront Trumps proposed registration of Muslims?

There was a piece in The Forward recently: All Jews Should Register as Muslims: Because We Know the Horrors of Religious Registration All Too Well. And Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, announced, This proud Jew would register as a Muslim.

Hey, what about me? I thought. Registration for everyone! Then I noticed a hashtag: #RegisterMeFirst. I began to think just how and when I would join Laura and her fellow Jews to register as Muslim, in keeping with proud decades of to-the-barricades protest 

But wait. Later, I was in a conversation with our friend Arun Kundnani, author of the book, The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror. Arun said he was unconvinced by this kind of activism. Speaking of normalizing, what I hadnt considered was that there is already in this country a history of registering Muslims, as well as an ensconced surveillance system.

According to Arun, some version of the National Security Entry-Exit Registry System (NSEERS) that George Bush used from 2002 to 2005 to register over 80,000 non-immigrant visitors (students, temp workers, etc.) from 24 Muslim countries could be expanded to include permanent residents and naturalized citizens. But this system wouldnt be as obvious as forcing Muslims to wear crescents on the street. In fact, Muslims need not be required to come forth and identify themselves. There is at work what Arun calls Algorithmic Fascism, by which the National Security Agency scans millions of online and social media records of everyone in the United States and analyzes metadata (with 99% accuracy, Arun estimates) to determine whether theyre Muslim or not. The government could then ask selected individuals to register.

That means, says Arun, it wont work for non-Muslims to resist by voluntarily registering themselves as Muslim in solidarity. Better, he adds, to work on an approach like sanctuaries to protect Muslims who refuse to cooperate when the feds call them to appear.

This is only one issue. How do we stop the hell of a lot worse than waterboarding that Trump wants to use in interrogations? How do we fight the criminalization of abortion and forced conversion therapy of young queers that may soon be routine? How do we reach people in prison whose lives are already getting worse? How do we support organizations like Black Lives Matter and BDS? How do we love each other in the face of this oncoming hatred?

Here in our little NYC apartment, Laura and I are quieter than usual. Watching the light fade, treasuring what of our lives we suspect will disappear, maybe suddenly; maybe over years, without our consciously realizing. Soon, Laura will turn 72. I hold her thin, tired body as she sleeps, listen to her breaths. There is so much more to come. And we are already so tired.

Susie Day is a writer. Her book Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power is available from Abdingdon Square Publishing: <www.abingdonsquarepublishing.com/snidelines.htm>.
HELENA  A state Senate seat in north-central Montana will have to be filled after it was announced Tuesday that Sen. Kristin Hansen, R-Havre, is stepping down to take a job in the state auditor's office under incoming Auditor Matt Rosendale.

Hansen sent her letter of resignation to the Secretary of State's office on Tuesday.

She said her main motivation for resigning the seat and moving to the auditor's office, where she will be chief legal counsel, is the role she can play in heath insurance.

"I feel like the skyrocketing cost of health insurance is one of the biggest issues facing Montanans today," she said.

She said that whether president-elect Republican Donald J. Trump repeals the Affordable Care Act, has he promised during the campaign, or makes changes, the auditor's office will play a key role in what happens for Montana.

"The auditor's office will be responsible for implementing those policies and if Congress gets bogged down, the auditor's office has the ability and responsibility to see what can be done."

State law calls for the central committee of the departing senator's party to pick a group of candidates, which are voted on by county commissioners from the counties in the Senate district, in this case SD 14.

Those counties are Hill, Liberty, Cascade and Chouteau and the committee is the Hill County Republican Central Committee. The Gazette State Bureau has reached out to the committee chairman, Andrew Brekke, for comment.

Within seven days of being notified of the vacancy, the Secretary of State must notify the county commissioners in all of the counties of the district and the state party that is responsible for notifying the county central committee of the county where the vacating legislator is a resident, in this case Havre.

The county central committee has 45 days to propose a list of prospective appointees and send it to the county commissioners. The commissioners have 15 days to vote and notify the Secretary of State of the appointee.

When it's time to vote on candidates, the chair of the board in the county where Hansen lives will call a meeting of the commissioners of the four counties.

Each commissioner's vote is weighted by the percent of Hansen's 2014 votes that came from his or her county and the amount of commissioners in the county.

For example, about 47 percent of Hansen's vote came from Hill County, which has three commissioners. That means each Hill County commissioner's vote will be worth about 15 points.

Each county has three commissioners. Hansen got 1,908 votes in Hill County, 1,326 in Chouteau, 581 in Liberty and 265 in Cascade.

The person who gets the most points above 50 will fill the seat. If none of the candidates receives a number higher than 50, the selection board shall cast its votes again for the two people who got the most points.

The process is sped up to a five-day notification process, a five-day submission period and a five-day appointment period if the Legislature was in session.
WOMAN ASSAULTED

A 53-year-old Butte woman called police just before 1 a.m. Monday after she said a woman broke into her home and attacked her. According to the victim, Krystal Jarvis, 36, knocked on her door in the middle of the night. When the victim didn't answer, she said Jarvis got into her house, possibly through a window, and woke her up in bed. The women got into an argument, which escalated into a fight, with the victim suffering cuts on her face and a swollen eye. Jarvis was arrested for aggravated burglary, a felony, and violating her probation.

ARREST RESISTED

Police arrested a 22-year-old Butte man at 9:30 p.m. Friday after he allegedly violated a restraining order against his girlfriend and then resisted arrest. The victim, a 20-year-old woman, fled her home and ran to the nearby convenience store to call police after she said her ex-boyfriend appeared at her home.

According to police, the victim's ex-boyfriend, Jared Weldon, followed her to the convenience store and left before police arrived. When police tracked Weldon to the 1800 block of Oregon, he fought back and had to be forcibly arrested, the report said.

At the jail, police said Weldon told them his wrists had been hurt by the handcuffs, and he was transported to St. James Healthcare. Police said Weldon swore at nurses, and when it was determined his wrists were not hurt, he was returned to the jail, where he is being held for twice violating his restraining order, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

AGGRAVATED DUI

Police were called to Montana and Platinum at 2:30 a.m. Saturday on reports of a Dodge Avenger being driven erratically and too close to other vehicles. Police pulled over the driver, Cassandra Fleming, 21, who police said smelled of alcohol and had two opened Twisted Teas in the car. Police said Fleming failed field sobriety tests, and blew twice the legal driving limit. Fleming was booked for aggravated DUI and careless driving.
Several thousand migrating snow geese perished in the toxic Berkeley Pit water where they landed last week, mine officials said Tuesday.

Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield Company officials say they are not yet ready to release a hard number because federal and state agencies have to verify numbers collected. But MR manager of environmental affairs Mark Thompson said the mining company expects the final number to be several times greater than the 1995 snow goose die-off incident.

The mine estimates that as many as 10,000 snow geese landed on the pits contaminated water the night of Nov. 28. Thompson said previously that the pits 700-acre lake was white with birds.

Since then, MR and ARCO  the responsible parties for the Berkeley Pit Superfund site  worked around the clock to get the birds to leave and to keep any additional birds from landing, say federal officials.

A spokesman from the Environmental Protection Agency also says the companies and EPA are keeping an eye on additional flocks headed toward Butte.

The preliminary number released Tuesday is based on photos taken from drone and aircraft flights over the pit. The counting is not yet complete, said Thompson.

Butte-Silver Bow community enrichment director Ed Randall said an animal control officer picked up another live snow goose on Amherst Avenue Tuesday morning. That bird was taken to a veterinarian for care.

Including the live bird, as many as six have been found around town since last week. Two more dead geese were reported Tuesday south of Butte, said Thompson. Two dead geese were found by individuals in the Walmart parking lot last Thursday. A third was found alive on Amherst Avenue last Wednesday, but it later died.

Thompson said MR has directed Butte-Silver Bow animal control to do everything possible to try to save any birds found alive. Randall said the veterinarian treatment involves flushing the birds both inside and out to get everything out of them. The pit water contains sulfuric acid and heavy metals.

MR will foot the vet bills, said an EPA spokesperson.

Randall said if any birds found in town survive, BSB will release them back into the wild.

A spokesperson for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency will pick up the 23 dead snow geese MR has already collected Wednesday. Those birds will be sent to a lab for necropsies.

MR and ARCO could receive fines if EPA determines the companies were not in compliance with the bird hazing program. That program was designed by state and federal agencies in response to the 1995 snow geese die-off when 342 birds died.

Thompson said he is confident EPA will find that the companies were in compliance.

If it wasnt for the diligence and dedication of MR and ARCO people out there 24-7, trying everything and really giving it their heart and soul, this would be much, much worse. These guys really cared, said Thompson.

MR reported that as many as 50 snow geese were alive Monday on the Berkeley Pit. Thompson said Tuesday that all the birds are now dead.
Montana Resources officials say they won't have a final tally of snow geese that perished last week in the contaminated Berkeley Pit water until mid-week at the earliest.

Federal officials say once the count is complete, the Environmental Protection Agency will determine if MR was adhering to the bird hazing program appropriately. Fines could be levied if the geese landed due to company negligence, say EPA officials.

The program, based on loud noises to scare birds, was put in place due to the 1995 snow geese die-off when 342 died on the pit. State and federal agencies designed the program.

"Trying to get some idea of mortality has been difficult," said EPA Montana Superfund director Joe Vranka.

The problem is due to the lack of access to the lake. The southeast walls have been unreliable for the last few years. As a result, officials cannot take a boat out on the water. Officials must rely on overhead imagery to get the numbers, said Vranka.

Using both telescope, drone and aircraft, mine officials began counting the dead birds over the weekend. MR officials said Monday they are still counting.

Mark Thompson, the mine's manager of environmental affairs, would only say to expect the count to be bigger than the 1995 incident.

At that time, the 342 snow geese died due to drinking pit water, which is high in sulfuric acid. Necropsies also showed that those birds had high levels of heavy metals in their kidneys. That die-off gained national media attention.

The mining company estimates that as many as 10,000 migrating snow geese landed in the pit water the night of Nov. 28. The usual landing spot for migrating snow geese  Freezout Lake west of Great Falls  was largely frozen when the geese passed over, according to previous reports from the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Warm Springs Ponds, south of Deer Lodge, another popular layover spot for migrating birds, were also mostly frozen, according to a previous story.

Three snow geese were found elsewhere in Butte last week, said Butte-Silver Bow community enrichment director Ed Randall.

An individual reported to animal control on Thursday that there were two dead geese in the Walmart parking lot, Randall said. Another person found a live goose in front of a casino on the 2200 block of Amherst Avenue Wednesday. That goose died Thursday while still in animal control custody, Randall said. All three dead birds were turned over to MR.

MR officials said they collected 20 dead snow geese for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to analyze. They say they are also holding the three dead found in town in case federal officials want to perform necropsies on those birds.

Thompson said about 50 live snow geese remain in the pit, swimming on the pit's toxic lake a week after landing.

According to a 2002 report on Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield Companys bird hazing program, the pit is too large for either netting or Styrofoam bird balls to be practical. Currently the contaminated lake is around 700 acres in size.

ARCO and MR are the responsible parties for the Berkeley Pit Superfund site.

The passive hazing program, which is noise-based, has been largely successful, according to the report. Between 1996 and 2001, over 22,000 birds were observed at the Berkeley Pit; 75 bird mortalities were reported during those years.

Mine officials say they are checking with federal officials to see if they should expect any additional large bird migrations headed this way.

Vranka said EPA is in contact with officials at Freezout Lake to watch for more birds. MR is continuing round-the-clock hazing efforts to keep birds out of the pit, said Vranka.
Family caregivers are an invaluable part of our state. Over 118,000 family caregivers provide about $1.4 billion in unpaid care. Their commitment allows loved ones to stay at home, with their families in their own communities as they age.

As the state director for AARP in Montana I believe that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to this silent army of family caregivers who quietly go about taking care of their loved ones. That is why AARP is strongly supportive of the Montana Caregiver Act bill, sponsored by Rep. Geraldine Custer, R-Forsyth.

The Montana Caregiver Act is a common sense solution to help those caring for their loved ones so they can live independently, as well as help provide assistance and education to the over 118,000 caregivers who work tirelessly throughout the state.

This bill ensures that family caregivers have support as their loved ones go into the hospital and as they transition home. Key provisions of the bill include: 1) Designating and recording your name on the medical record of your loved ones as the primary caregiver; 2) informing you when your loved one is to be discharged to another facility or back home; and 3) giving you education and instruction on the medical tasks you will need to perform at home, like managing medication or changing bandages.

This proposal is a win-win  caregivers will be more confident and competent, and hospitals will have better medical results and face fewer financial penalties when fewer patients are readmitted with complications due to inadequate home care. As a result, many hospital associations in states across the country, including neighboring states, have supported similar measures. We hope our hospital association will join us in supporting Montanas caregivers.

Since many caregivers have the responsibility of a full-time job, along with caring for loved ones, caregiving becomes a very stressful and time-consuming responsibility. By eliminating some of the stress that comes with being a caregiver and providing assistance with hospitals and their transition back home, this bill will allow for caregivers to free up time for themselves as well as their loved ones.

This is increasingly important as many caregivers dedicate so much time to caring for their loved ones that they forget to care for themselves. They push aside much needed relaxation and me time needed to allow them to focus on their own health and well-being, both of which are essential when it comes to being a caregiver. The Montana Caregiver Act can help caregivers be better at caregiving, as well as focus on keeping themselves healthy.

If passed, Montana will become the 34th state (including Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) to enact this type of legislation. AARP Montana encourages you to reach out to your legislators and ask them to support the Montana Caregiver Act, sponsored by Representative Custer.
It is interesting that our American system providing free speech for everyone also provides opportunities for some to write letters to the editor that do not contain a shred of truth. Such is the 11/24/2016 article in the Washington Examiner Forest Service trying to seize private land from Montana ranchers.

The author makes his case for the Wonder Ranch, near Ennis, by proclaiming a lot of hogwash about the government: Statements like hulking government and scowling bully are not worthy of comment.

What is important is the truth about the Forest Service. First established as Federal Forest Management Office in 1876, and in 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt gave management of our forest reserves to the newly established U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Their purpose is to take care of our forest lands; forest lands that belong to every citizen of this country. Every American has the right to use public lands whether for hunting, fishing, sightseeing, backpacking or other uses not destructive.

Unfortunately some of these public lands are only accessible through private lands. Recent changes in our country have resulted in conflicts as a result of changing attitudes about land use. Older Montanans remember a time when crossing someones land would result in a neighborly visit, a cup of coffee, or lunch if it were that time of day. Those days are gone. Newcomers from many states move to Montana because of the open, rather relaxed, atmosphere we enjoy, yet, incredibly, many try to make Montana just like the state they left because of undesirable conditions. The results are no trespassing signs, orange painted fence posts, rocks, and trees, blocked public roads, blocked access to public property, and blocked access to private property.

In Montana, there is a legal provision (prescriptive easement) that addresses certain access disputes and protects American interests. According to Gregory J. Petesch, Legal Services Director for the Montana Legal Services Division, prescriptive easement actions require proof of open, notorious, exclusive, adverse, and continuous possession or use for a statutory period of 5 years. The burden is on the party seeking to establish a prescriptive easement, and all elements must be proved. Tanner v. Dream Island, Inc., 275 Mont. 414, 913 P.2d 641 (1996).

In the case of the Wonder Ranch, all of the easement actions required by Montana law are fulfilled. The trail through the corner of the Wonder Ranch was probably used by Indians before white mans arrival. The earliest record of the trail's existence is a U.S. Geological Survey map from 1888. The Trail also appears on a map of the Gallatin Forest Reserve published in 1905. In 1940, the USFS designated the Indian Creek Trail as USFS Trail number 328. Thousands of sheep and cattle have been moved over the trail to and from summer pasture over the years and it has been used by thousands of hunters, fishermen, hikers, and outfitters to access forest land and the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. The trail was used to haul logs out of the area. Therefore, the five-year statutory requirement of the State of Montana was certainly fulfilled. The requirement of continuous and uninterrupted use of the trail was documented by over 30 witnesses who related their use of the trail over many years.

This legal action taken by the Wonder Ranch is a result of visions of grandeur by the owners. They simply dont want citizens of the United States, who own Indian Creek, the federal lands beyond, and Lee Metcalf Wilderness, to have access.

Any argument that this is a taking of private land is nonsense. This lawsuit is about denying Americans access to their property.
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You and each of you are hereby notified: I . The written contract dated January 5, 2007, and executed by Tim D. Nelson and Diane L. Nelson as vendors, and David M. Waldron Jr. and Valarie L. Cookson as vendees, recorded on January 10, 2007, in the office of the Muscatine County Recorder, recorded as document reference number 2007-00257, for the sale of the following described real estate:

Locally known as: 702 Walnut St., Muscatine, IA 52761 and legally described as: The Northerly sixty-four (64) feet-of the-Southerly one hundred (100) feet of Lot Five (5) in Block One Hundred Forty-six (146), in the City of Muscatine, Muscatine County, Iowa

has not been complied with in the following particulars:

(a) Weekly payments from 4/8/16-11/11/16 $4,096.00

(b) $

(c) $

(d) $

Total $4,096.00

2. The contract shall stand forfeited unless the parties in default, within 30 days after the completed service of this notice, shall perform the terms and conditions in default, and in addition pay the reasonable costs of serving this notice.

3. The amount of attorney fees claimed by the Vendors pursuant to Section 656.7 of the Code of Iowa is $ 50.00 (not to exceed $50.00). Payment of the attorney fees is not required to comply with this notice in order to prevent forfeiture.

Diane L. Nelson, Vendor

Tim D. Nelson, Vendor

(or Successors in Interest)

By John Wunder, Attorney

ICIS PIN No: AT0008702

300 E. Second Street, Suite 301

Muscatine, Iowa 52761
MUSCATINE, Iowa The Muscatine Police Department is investigating an alleged hit and run involving an 18-year-old Muscatine resident.

Taylor Sheppeard, of Muscatine, was allegedly hit by an older model, 1970s style pickup truck, either dark red or dark blue in the 1800 block of Hershey Avenue Friday night.

Taylor reported the accident to have taken place about 30 minutes before calling 911, around 10:22 p.m. Taylor reportedly went to UnityPoint Health-Trinity Muscatine Hospital by way of personal vehicle and did not sustain any life threatening injuries.

The vehicle has not been located.

The public is asked to contact the Muscatine Police Department with any information concerning the incident at 563-263-9922 ext. 242. Callers may remain anonymous.
WAPELLO, Iowa  After investigating a rash of vehicle thefts and parties involving drugs and alcohol with minors present, the Wapello Police Department has arrested five individuals, and announced any minors out past curfew and their parents will be cited.

The investigation is ongoing, and more arrests are expected, according to a press release from the Wapello Police Department.

A 17-year-old from New London has been arrested and charged with first-degree theft, a class C felony, second-degree theft, a class D felony, and second-degree criminal mischief, a class D felony, in alleged connection with a vehicle theft.

Also in alleged connection with a vehicle theft, a 16-year-old and a 15-year old, also of New London, have both been charged with first-degree theft, a class C felony, and second-degree criminal mischief, a class D felony.

Jasper Dominquez, 20, of Wapello, has been charged with accessory after the fact, and aggravated misdemeanor, and providing false information to law enforcement, a simple misdemeanor.

Chet Williams, 51, of Wapello, has been charged with maintaining a premise which is resorted to by using illegal drugs, an aggravated misdemeanor, and gatherings where controlled substances are unlawfully used, a serious misdemeanor, in alleged connection with a party that occurred on Nov. 24.

Feral Youths have been coming to Wapello to party, bringing with them their criminal actions," said Wapello Police Chief Wayne Crump in the email press release. "We have vehicles getting stolen, criminal mischief incidents, etc. This has not been a positive influence on our local youths. We will not tolerate this. These individuals must think this is the Promised Land where they can do as they wish and prey upon the hardworking citizens. This isnt going to happen.

The police department recommends all residents lock their vehicles and take their keys. The Wapello Police Department has already issued multiple curfew violations, as well as violations to parents/legal guardians, according to the press release.

Curfew in the City of Wapello is listed as 10 p.m.-6 a.m. for children 15 and under, and 11 p.m.-6 a.m. Sunday-Thursday, and 12-6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday for minors age 16 and 17. Exceptions include when a minor is present at or traveling between home and their place of employment, religious activity, or school activity.

For more information about curfew in Wapello, see the city code section 46.01.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  Thanks to the quick actions of a young boy, household pets, and a smoke detector, a local family will still be able to spend the holidays in their home.

Around 4:30 a.m. Monday (Dec. 5), Chace Bassett, 12, noticed a strange smell coming from his bathroom.

"I checked the toy room, I didn't smell anything, I checked the front room, didn't smell anything, and so then I checked my bathroom again and it smelled like smoke," he said. "And so I told my dad, 'There's something that smells really weird in the bathroom,' and then the fire alarm went off."

His mother, Lori Bassett, had been awakened by her small dog, Holly, who was scratching at the bed. Lori said she thought Holly had to go outside, or was having problems sleeping.

"And then my cat was like meowing like real loud, like 'Mrrowww' and then when I heard that sound we thought she just wanted food, but boy my mom was wrong," Chace said.

After Chace woke up his parents, Lori said they took Chace, Holly, and Molly, the cat, to the car and then called 911.

The smoke never developed into flames, Lori said, just smoldered.

"There's been a lot of fires out here, and usually when a trailer has a fire they're gone really quick," she sad. "I mean we're just so lucky, somebody was watching over us."

The Muscatine Fire Department responded to the call in the 1400 block of B Avenue, and were able to quickly stop the smoke from developing into a fire.

Mike Hartman, assistant fire chief and fire marshal at the Muscatine Fire Department, said the investigation is ongoing, but the beginnings of the fire appeared to be electrical.

The incident, he said, was an example of the importance of having a working smoke alarm in the home. Without the smoke detector, he said, the family may not have had a home for the holidays.
DES MOINES, Iowa - Colds and flu are common this time of year, but health experts say those illnesses and other infections often can be prevented with just a little soap and water.

It is National Handwashing Awareness Week, and medical professionals are reminding Iowans about the importance of good hand hygiene.

Dr. Jenny Butler, president of the Iowa Academy of Family Physicians, recommends washing hands both when they're dirty and before eating. And she notes it really doesn't take much time to do it right.

"Wet your hands first, cover every area with the soap, and if you sing yourself the 'Happy Birthday' song that's going to be about the right amount of time to get everything off," he explains. "Make sure you clean around the fingernails, rinse properly and then, dry adequately."

When hand washing isn't feasible, Butler says an alcohol-based hand sanitizer is a good alternative. And besides regular hand washing, she says it's also important to avoid touching what's called the T-zone - your eyes nose and mouth - all of which are entry points for germs.

Butler says washing hands frequently while preparing food is advised, because it prevents food-borne illness and spreading germs to others.

"Not only is it protecting you but the people you're cooking for - because unfortunately, food sometimes can be that factor that transmits that organism that gets other people sick," she explains.

And while germs can easily be spread among people, Butler says that shouldn't limit interaction. She says you should still give hugs and still shake hands - just wash your hands afterward.

"Unfortunately, in health care, sometimes we see people who become so afraid of germs that they miss out on that interaction with other people that makes us who we are," she relates. "And I would just hate for somebody to get so nervous about germs that they miss out on that."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hand washing also can reduce the amount of antibiotics people use and the likelihood of antibiotic resistance.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  When she was nine, eighth grader Samantha Ruiz saw poverty first hand. She and her uncle went to Davenport to spend her birthday money and they saw homeless people in the street.

We had extra money left from my birthday, so we made the decision to go and get them meals  so that they werent hungry, she said.

The encounter left a lasting impression on Ruiz.

I started to realize, theres a lot of homeless people in the world, and they dont get presents and  theyre cold right now, so I just figured that I should step up and do something, she said.

They would repeat that act of generosity every weekend. But Ruiz, 14, wanted to do more. So she asked her fellow classmates at West Middle School to help her raise even more money. In the next two weeks, she and more than 15 her classmates will take shifts ringing the bell at The Salvation Army kettle on the Highway 61 Walmart.

Salvation Army gives gifts to little kids and homeless people with the money that we raise, Ruiz said. So I just thought I could help out people in need cause I know Im going to get presents for Christmas and I know not a lot of other people (will).

On a frigid Monday night, as Christmas shoppers sought refuge at the Walmart, Ruiz rang the bell for three hours. Many people hurried past, but some stopped to put spare change into the red kettle. Some donated even more.

Fifteen minutes after I started, a group of girls came by and donated bills, she said.

Ruizs friend, Lucy Brookhart, 13, joined her at the kettle. It wasnt long before the willowy teen began to shiver, but she smiled warmly at those who stopped by to donate.

She and Ruiz knew they wanted to help and their guidance counselor and principal helped them come up with the idea of helping The Salvation Army. They quickly turned the idea into action.

Sam and I were talking about it and we thought it was so cool how it went from an idea that morning to actually happening that day, Brookhart said.

Brookhart was especially happy to know where the donations go.

The money that we raise will go to food, utilities, the organizations funding and stuff for the year and I thought that was cool, she said.
DES MOINES  Its official. Republican Donald Trump outpolled Democrat Hillary Clinton by 147,314 votes in Iowas general-election balloting to claim the states six presidential electoral votes.

Four members of the Iowa Executive Council  acting as the states Board of Canvass  unanimously certified the Nov. 8 election results on Monday closing the books on a near-record turnout year that drew 1,581,371 absentee and Election-day participants.

Iowans take elections seriously, said Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a council member who also serves as the states election commissioner. They turned out, they voted and we had a good clean, open and honest election and we saw some real participation.

Iowas official election outcome saw Trump put Iowa in the Republican column by polling 800,983 votes to Clintons 653,669 votes  with 934,219 ballots cast on Election Day and 647,152 absentee, which was down a couple percentage points from absentee votes cast in 2012, Pate said. Overall, more than 72 percent of eligible Iowans cast ballots  a level about 9,000 higher than four years ago but not higher than the 2008 record turnout, he added.

Trump won 93 of Iowas 99 counties  including traditional Democratic strongholds of Dubuque, Des Moines, Wapello, Lee and Jasper counties, Branstad noted.

Iowa was one of the battleground states and I would say we may be the most successful, Branstad told his weekly news conference, a state that was carried by Obama twice  34 counties that went for Obama went for Trump, he carried 93 of 99 counties, he carried counties that historically Republicans have not carried.

Branstad, who plans to be on hand Thursday when Trump makes a triumphant return to Iowa for a victory rally, said Trump connected with people on a personal level and in a way that had people underestimating him  including Branstad initially  throughout the process.

All of the elites and all of the experts were wrong. The people still decide elections in this country, the Iowa governor added.

Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson finished third behind Trump and Clinton in Iowas presidential balloting with 59,186 votes, while Evan McMullin drew 12,366 by petition, Green Party candidate Jill Stein garnered 11,479 and 17,746 votes went to write-in candidates.

Johnsons total was significant because the 3.8 percent support surpassed the 2 percent threshold needed to qualify the Libertarian Party to be granted the same major-party status as the Republican and Democratic parties  meaning future Libertarian candidates automatically will be on Iowas primary-election ballot and have access to checkoff money as one of the eligible parties listed on the state income tax return, Pate said.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley was the top vote-getter on Iowas Nov. 8 ballot with 926,007 to Democratic challenger Patty Judges 549,460. Incumbent Reps. Rod Blum, R-Dubuque; David Loebsack, D-Iowa City; David Young, R-Van Meter; and Steve King, R-Kiron; also were certified as winners in their respective congressional races.

Mondays canvass also certified winners in 25 state Senate races and 100 House contests that positioned Republicans with majorities of 59 representatives and 29 senators with an open Senate seat in Davenport to be decided later this month. Also, more than 60 judges on the ballot won retention although the number of ballots cast was only about a third of the total turnout, Pate told the Board of Canvass.

Turnout in four Iowa counties topped 80 percent: Harrison, 87.91 percent; Sioux 83.57 percent; Ringgold, 82.99 percent; and Fayette, 80.81 percent.

We had a great team effort. We feel really good about what happened, Branstad said of GOP victories up and down the ballot. I continue to think the future looks very encouraging for us with the quality of the people that were elected and their age.

During his news conference, Branstad contended the 2016 election outcome indicated the Democratic Party is now the party of wealth and privilege, not us, while Republicans represent the working class  statements that drew immediate challenges from Ben Foecke, executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Gov. Branstad's claim that the Democratic Party is now the party of wealth and privilege and the Republican Party represents the working class reminds me of that time when Donald Trump said nobody respects women more than me. Everybody knows it's not true, Foecke said in a statement.

"Republicans tried to block Democrats' efforts to raise to the state's minimum wage. Republicans have repeatedly underfunded public education, raised college tuition rates, and they have fought against Democrats' efforts to preserve collective bargaining rights that allow public employees, including police, fire, and emergency responders to negotiate fair wages, benefits, and workplace safety, he added.

"The truth is that Branstad and his Republican-controlled Legislature's first priorities in 2017 will be passing tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, writing legislation that weakens public employee organizations, and cutting funding to Iowa's public schools, Foecke said.
Winter Nature Camps Offered

WAPELLO, Iowa - Winter Nature Camp registration is now open as youth can shake off the winter blues and have some outdoor fun. Four camps are offered at the Langwood Education Center over winter break with sessions divided by grade level. Langwood is located three miles southeast of Grandview on H Avenue.

Youth in Pre-School & Kindergarten can attend from 9:00-11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 28with a parent/grandparent. First and second grade camp will be held 9:00-11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 29, third and fourth grade camp is 12:30-3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 28, and fifth and sixth graders are invited to attend from 12:30-3:00 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 29.

The camps will feature outdoor adventures, hands-on experiments, games, and crafts. Campers will learn about different strategies that animals use to survive the winter. Youth should dress in layers because they will be spending time both indoors and out. A snack will be provided during the camp.

Each camp is limited to 12 children with pre-registration required by December 19. However, camps often fill before the deadline so do not delay. Confirmation letters with carpool lists will be sent out to help working parents get their children to camp.

For more information, contact Louisa County Conservation at 319-523-8381 or lmccomb@lccb.org. Forms are available online at LouisaCountyConservation.org and at our office. Registration form and payment of $10/child is required to reserve a spot and can be mailed to: Winter Nature Camp, Louisa County Conservation, 12635 County Road G56 Suite 101, Wapello, IA 52653.
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 []
South African mobile users can pay as much as R583,700 per GB for international data roaming when they travel abroad.

To put this in perspective, using a gigabyte of data in some countries while roaming can cost you more than a Mercedes Benz C-Class.

Cell Cs subscribers face the highest roaming charges, with the price of mobile data as high as R583.70 per MB in Mauritania and R581.70 per MB in Jordan.

These high prices are, however, not only limited to developing nations. Cell C subscribers who roam on the Vodafone network in the UK will pay R351.30 per MB, while the cost on T-Mobile in the US is R281.60 per MB.

MTN subscribers will pay up to R500 per MB (or R500,000 per GB) when roaming in Argentina, while the price in various other countries is R400 per MB.

Vodacoms peak international roaming rates are lower than Cell C and MTN in most countries, but they will still break the bank if you are not careful.

In many countries, Vodacom subscribers will pay R128 per MB, or R128,000 per GB, for international roaming.

The days of only measuring mobile data use in megabytes are long gone, and loading a website or downloading a large email can consume between 1MB-5MB.

Anyone travelling overseas will therefore be well advised to take the SIM out of their phone when they leave South Africa and purchase a local SIM in the country which they are visiting.

Ways to contain roaming costs

If you insist on using your South African SIM card when roaming, there are a few things you can do to ease the pain.

Switch off all automatic updates on your device.

Use Wi-Fi hotspots instead of mobile networks for your data.

Vodacoms contract customers save on roaming rates with its Travel Saver service , with data rates of between R2.00 and R7.50 per MB.

, with data rates of between R2.00 and R7.50 per MB. MTN subscribers can use SMS roaming , where all voice and data capabilities will be switched off and you can only send and receive SMS messages.

, where all voice and data capabilities will be switched off and you can only send and receive SMS messages. MTNs HelloWorld Roaming offers discounted roaming rates.

offers discounted roaming rates. Use Cell Cs Wi-Fi Calling to reduce roaming call rates.

Now read: MTN Hello World roaming rates launched
MyBroadbands 2016 Technology Survey has revealed that Dell is the favourite PC brand of South African techies.

The survey was completed by 2,134 respondents, of which 64% were either an IT professional, IT manager, or general techie.

Respondents were asked an array of questions, including what their favorite PC, component, and peripheral brands were.

Dell was the big winner among the brands, taking top spot in the vote for favourite PC brand and second spot in the monitor brand category.

The graphic below details the results of the 2016 Technology Survey.

2016 Technology Survey Results

Now read: New Seagate 1TB drive automatically copies files to Amazon cloud
Napas Bill Dodd stood in the state Capitols red-carpeted Senate chamber Monday and took the oath of office that officially transformed him from assemblyman to senator.

It was a day of change. Dodd replaced termed-out Sen. Lois Wolk and Winters Mayor Cecilia Aguiar-Curry took Dodds vacated Assembly seat in accordance with the Nov. 8 election results.

With the oaths taken, Napa County had its new state Legislature team. The county will turn to Dodd and Aguiar-Curry when it seeks such things as state money for farmworker housing and a new jail.

Dodd sat in his Capitol office before the ceremonies and reflected on it all.

I think its kind of an awesome taking an office representing almost one million people  its a responsibility I take very seriously, Dodd said.

The size of his 3rd Senate District can certainly inspire aweas of the 2010 Census, it had 928,167 residents. It covers all of Napa and Solano counties and parts of Contra Costa, Sacramento, Sonoma and Yolo counties.

Two years ago, Dodd took the oath of office for his first  and as it turned out, only  two-year term in the Assembly. He had previously served on the Napa County Board of Supervisors.

Just as he did on the day he became an assemblyman, Dodd signed papers Monday morning so he could introduce a bill during his first Senate session. This bill addresses the rights of consumers when facing fraud by banks and financial institutions and is a response to the recent Wells Fargo scandal.

Dodds office released a paper showing Dodd during his Assembly tenure introduced 38 bills and four others with the Assembly Agriculture Committee, which he chaired. Of those 42 bills total, 29 became law.

Dodd considered what laws he takes the most pride in. He quickly mentioned Assembly bill 1755 requiring the state to better coordinate water use data. He also mentioned Assembly Bill 2888 that adds mandatory prison sentences for certain sexual assault cases, a response to a recent, notorious Stanford University sexual assault trial.

Hes moving from the Assembly with 80 members to the Senate with 40 members.

I think the Senate is more deliberative, and more  Dodd paused, searching for the right word  calm.

He can be even more effective and have a bigger voice amid the smaller body. Thats one reason he sought the Senate seat, Dodd said.

His office has such decorative touches as a red pennant from his alma mater California State University, Chico, a photograph of him and President Barack Obama and, fittingly enough for a Napa representative, a small, wooden wine rack. But hell soon be moving everything.

This was Wolks office and is a temporary landing place for Dodd until new Senate offices are assigned. Dodd noted with a smile that a freshman senator is unlikely to land a fifth-story office with a view of the trees and lawns of Capitol Park.

Ive been in Sacramento for two years and Im in the Senate, but Im a freshman, Dodd said.

But Dodd may someday return to that office with a view. All he needs is some Senate seniority.

I intend to be here for the long run, Dodd said.

He expects to work well with Aguiar-Curry as the two address issues in districts that, while not identical, both include Napa County.

It will go phenomenally well, Dodd said. We are good friends. I was her assembly member for the last two years and actually knew her before then. Weve kept in touch.

Meanwhile, Aguiar-Curry ended up in Dodds former second-story Assembly office in another part of the sprawling Capitol, at least for now. She smiled Monday morning as family members and well-wishers crowded in.

Its exciting, Aguiar-Curry said as the swearing-in ceremony neared. Im really gratified. Im grateful to be in the position Im in to help change lives.

Her 4th Assembly District has 466,385 residents. But, though it has far fewer people than Dodds Senate District, it covers plenty of territory  all of Napa and Lake counties and parts of Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties.

Among the priorities Aguiar-Curry mentioned are two topics familiar to Napa County  transportation and affordable housing.

Dodd and Aguiar-Curry immediately began working together, if only in a small, symbolic way. They teamed up to hold a joint afternoon reception at Mulvaneys B&L to celebrate their new elected posts.
The Napa County Office of Education has been chosen as one of 56 recipients of the states leading educational honor, the Golden Bell Award.

The Golden Bell Award, now in its 37th year, is sponsored by the California School Boards Association and recognizes public school programs that are innovative, sustainable and focus on meeting the needs of all public school students.

NCOE received the award at a recognition ceremony last Saturday at the associations annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Francisco at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis.

The association is honoring the four-year Animal Science pathway at Vintage High School. The program aims to prepare students for the real world through hands-on learning, exploration and application.

College and career readiness for all students is a focus of the Animal Science pathway, demonstrated by the fact that courses in each level of the four-year program meets UC/CSU a-g admission requirements.

Students are engaged in creating entrepreneurial and business projects that connect them to the professional agriculture community and allow them to build experience in areas of agriculture that interest them. Funded and coordinated through the Napa County Office of Educations College and Career Readiness Department in partnership with the Napa Valley Unified School District, over 130 students are enrolled in the program.

Dr. Barbara Nemko, Napa County Superintendent of Schools, said, We are proud and excited to win this award. Career and technical education is a critical part of high school for many students and motivates them to work harder in academic subjects because they clearly see the relevance of the academics to what they want to do.
For Victor Burt, World War II started months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Burt, now 97 and living in Napa, was then a 22-year-old pharmacists mate aboard the destroyer USS Eberle based in Portland, Maine.

Since the summer of 1941, the Eberle and other Navy ships had been escorting convoys of war supplies, destined for the beleaguered British and Russians, to Iceland, a shadow war in which the United States was officially at peace with Germany even as their young men were shooting at each other almost daily.

The wolf packs were out then, recalls Burt, speaking of the teams of German submarines that prowled the North Atlantic, trying to stop the convoys. I dont believe we took a convoy as far as Iceland where we didnt lose at least one freighter.

On Dec. 7, 1941, around 5 p.m. Eastern Time, as he recalls, the men of the Eberle received word of the attack on their fellow Navy vessels far away in Pearl Harbor.

The men were angry, of course, but in many ways It didnt make a bit of difference to us  already we were at war.

The next day, the destroyer was back in the North Atlantic escorting convoys, still at war, but this time out of the shadows and as an acknowledged combatant in the largest global conflict in history.

Burt is one of a dwindling number of veterans of World War II. About 16 million men and women put on an American uniform during the conflict, but according to government estimates, only about 600,000 are alive today. Even the youngest are well into their 80s at this point.

Burt went on to a long career in the Navy. He had enlisted in 1938 and considered getting out. But by the time the war ended, he didnt relish competing for civilian jobs with the millions of returning GIs flooding the economy, so he remained in the Navy until he retired in 1957.

His post-Pearl Harbor service took him first to support the American landing in North Africa, and then to the Pacific, where he served aboard an LST, one of the large landing vessels that made the island-hopping strategy possible. He said his ship participated in 22 opposed landings against the Japanese, primarily in the Solomon Islands, famous for the gruesome Guadalcanal campaign.

That was pretty wicked, he said.

One of the worst parts, he said, was there was no place to go on liberty  there was nothing down there.

The combat-weary men had no way to get off their ships, except for a few precious hours on some island beach. By 1943, he said, he had been at sea almost continuously for three years. He got a lucky transfer to the quiet home front, patrolling the Great Lakes, but that lasted less than a year, when he was ordered to head back to the South Pacific for his most serious assignment yet.

On Guam, he was assigned to an LSM, a smaller type of landing ship, being fitted out for the pending invasion of Japan. His ship had picked up a pontoon bridge destined for a landing site near Tokyo when news reached their port that the war was over following the twin atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That was a celebration, he said. There were nine small craft in the dry dock; they started blowing whistles, anything that would make noise. It was deafening.

Later, his small squadron was assigned to sail to Japan to show the American flag as occupation forces were organized. They wound up tied up in an abandoned but largely undamaged shipyard in Nagasaki.

We stayed there a week, he said. There was nobody there, nothing there but four square miles of debris that had been the city center.

Now, seven decades later, it is getting ever harder for Burt to find people who remember the war at all.

I dont have very many friends any more that were part of what I was involved with, he said. I dont have many people to talk to about it.

Thats why he picked up the phone to call the Napa Valley Register this week after reading an article about the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the shrinking number of World War II vets left alive.

I thought you might like to know Napa has one of us left, he explained.
I felt the need to respond to the George Runners guest column about liberal academics ("Academics are stunned by Trumps win -- and thats a bad thing," Dec. 1).

I found a sad irony in his accusations of professors intolerance with young impressionable students. I experienced something similar in college in the late '60s, only it was ridicule from outspoken, conservative professors. I remember at least three different classes where the professor made snarky remarks about how silly we were at our concerns and fears over what was going on with civil rights and the Vietnam war.

In one history class, ironically studying the French Revolution, the professor was so abusive in his remarks that I left the class and never returned.

This is during the time when Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated and the four students at Kent State were killed by National Guardsmen who had been called to the campus because of a demonstration. (Why did they have loaded rifles?) I was in school in Sacramento, right across the levy from the National Guard headquarters and then Gov. Reagans response to the deaths in Ohio was, If its a blood bath they want, lets give it to them.

Is it any wonder that many people were upset and concerned about the direction the country was going? Many of us are concerned today; I am one of those stunned by Trump. Im hopeful that the young people Runner was concerned about are going to pay attention and become involved in the direction of this country and the planet. Its their future. Good luck.

Laurie Puzo

Napa
SANTA ROSA -- A registered high-risk sex offender pleaded no contest Friday to falsely imprisoning two of his mental health monitors at a motel in April.

Jonathan Michael Hoppner faces two years in prison when he is sentenced March 9 in Sonoma County Superior Court. A misdemeanor battery charge will be dismissed at sentencing.

Hoppner, 24, was involved in an altercation with the victims who were monitoring his release as a high-risk sex offender on parole in Sonoma County. The altercation occurred at America's Best Value Inn at 1800 Santa Rosa Ave. in Santa Rosa on April 27.

Hoppner had been incarcerated for annoying or molesting a child under age 18 and sexual battery, and his past victims included girls and women ages 15 and 50.

Hoppner initially was located to Petaluma after his release from prison on March 1. Petaluma police objected to his presence in Petaluma and notified the public of his release.
Monday, Nov. 28

1042 -- A cars drivers-side mirror was vandalized on Saturday night. The owner believed someone had hit it with a bat, since only the mirror was damaged.

1121 -- A Spring Mountain Road resident said she was disabled in a wheelchair and needed help removing a deceased rat from behind her refrigerator.

1245 -- A small bird was stuck inside a Main Street gallery.

1349 -- Police conducted a probation search on Monte Vista Avenue.

1546 -- A car with no front license plate had been parked on Hunt Avenue since Friday.

1554 -- Police provided traffic control for three cars blocking Spring Mountain Road.

1628 -- Medical aid for a woman with nausea and shortness of breath on Doris Court.

1646 -- A caller requested extra patrol on Church Street, due to cars speeding.

Tuesday, Nov. 29

0913 -- Report of a suspicious woman peeking into classrooms on Adams Street. There was also a suspicious van circling the block, but the caller wasnt sure if they were connected.

0915 -- Report of a suspicious woman on a bike on Adams Street. She was seen opening the door of a black pickup, then riding down Adams toward Main Street. Police checked the area.

0926 -- A caller said someone had entered his unlocked car 10 minutes ago and stolen some items. Police took a report.

0944 -- A suspicious womens bike (yellow) was left at a Main Street gas station.

0951 -- Medical aid on Voorhees Circle for a 65-year-old man feeling faint.

1200 -- A Madrona Avenue resident found some doors open in his basement after being gone for a short time.

1630 -- A package was reported stolen from Stockton Street on Saturday.

1711 -- Packages were reported stolen from Signorelli Circle on Nov. 9.

1809 -- A Chiles Avenue resident said a box was delivered to her porch on Nov. 14, but she never received it.

1842 -- Someone entered an unlocked car on Kearney Street and stole some items.

1923 -- A Kearney Street resident said his bike was stolen from his front porch at about 10:30. He found it a short time later in the Pine/Oak area. The helmet was missing.

Wednesday, Nov. 30

0439 -- Medical aid on Hunt Avenue.

0845 -- Report of an ongoing problem with a car parking in a blue zone on Dowdell Lane.

1025 -- Report of a utility/landscape trailer parked for about a week on Madrona Avenue, making it hard for traffic to pass by.

1103 -- A package was reported stolen from Meadowcreek Circle.

1122 -- Some items that had been reported stolen on Tuesday turned up.

1254 -- Police arrested a 47-year-old Napa man for two felony warrants from Napa County and one misdemeanor warrant from Contra Costa County. His business partner was cited for working as a contractor without a license.

1440 -- Someone left political graffiti on the Sulphur Creek bridge at Main Street. Public Works cleaned it up the next day.

1508 -- Someone entered a locked car on Henry Court and stole a flashlight, change and some tools.

1524 -- A package was reported stolen from Hunt Avenue.

Thursday, Dec. 1

0221 -- A car with expired registration was towed from the Spring/Oak area.

0227 -- A car with expired registration and false tabs was towed from the McCormick/Vintage area.

0817 -- A caller requested extra patrol on Hillview Place when school is getting out, due to cars parking in red zones, making illegal U-turns on the sidewalk, and disobeying crossing guards.

0959 -- Police took a petty theft report on Spring Mountain Road.

1014 -- A man yelled Youre going to fail! into the door of a Main Street business while he was standing outside. Police said he hadnt committed a crime, but officers would be advised of the incident.

1034 -- Non-injury hit-and-run involving a parked car at Main/Spring.

1055 -- A package was reported stolen from Signorelli Circle.

1258 -- An elderly woman asked for help after she locked herself out of her car on Library Lane.

1422 -- Report of a person passed out in a pickup on Grayson Avenue, with an open container of Coors Light. Police arrested the 65-year-old St. Helenan on suspicion of public intoxication and possession of an open container of alcohol in a car.

1520 -- Report of someone fraudulently buying several vehicles in someone elses name. The suspect had been found and arrested in one of the cars, which also contained fraudulent checks. Police took a report.

1525 -- A package was reported stolen from Hudson Avenue.

2018 -- Medical aid for an 18-year-old girl on Grayson Avenue.

Friday, Dec. 2

0001 -- Following a traffic stop at Adams/Railroad, police arrested a 22-year-old Kent, Washington woman on suspicion of DUI.

0425 -- Report of a damaged car parked on McCorkle Avenue.

0735 -- Medical aid for a woman having trouble breathing in a car near Main/Spring.

0835 -- Report of a noisy leaf blower being used before 9 a.m. Police gave the operator a warning.

0847 -- A caller said that a car involved in a collision had been towed to a location on McCorkle Avenue and had been there for too long. Police had already confirmed that the car was legally parked on private property. The owners insurance company was planning to tow it away.

1026 -- A package was stolen from Park Street on Nov. 19.

1416 -- A caller requested extra speed patrol on the west end of Spring Street.

1628 -- Police picked up a very friendly white bull terrier near Pope Street and Mariposa Lane.

1631 -- Report of a tree down blocking both lanes of Pratt Avenue about a quarter of a mile from Silverado Trail.

1738 -- Report of a dog left inside a car for three hours near Main/Spring. The weather was cool and the dog didnt seem to be in distress.

2045 -- Report of a car weaving, traveling at varying rates of speed, and braking excessively on Main Street.

2251 -- Medical aid for a man with low blood sugar on Hunt Avenue.

2254 -- Report of a Jeep weaving and moving at 30 mph in a 55 mph zone on southbound Highway 29.

Saturday, Dec. 3

0205 -- Medical aid for a man with possible alcohol poisoning on Pope Street.

0829 -- A caller reported that a landscape truck and trailer had just illegally crossed the Pope Street bridge. The dispatcher said an officer has to witness the violation in order to issue a citation. The caller said the truck had just passed an officer on Pope Street. Police checked the area.

1048 -- Police cited a car with expired registration at Hunt/Main.

1256 -- Multiple callers reported a manhole cover off on Highway 29 south of Rutherford, with a thick wire sticking up into the southbound lane.

1308 -- Report of Jehovahs Witnesses going door to door on Spring Street without a permit. Religious groups are exempt from the citys anti-peddling ordinance, so police took no action.

1334 -- Report of a woman either sleeping or drunk in an SUV parked on the side of Spring Mountain Road. Police checked the area.

1356 -- Report of an abandoned bike tied to a tree near Main/Charter Oak. Police checked the area.

1710 -- Report of a man with his face down on the steering wheel of a parked car on Railroad Avenue. Police checked the area.

2024 -- A shoplifter reportedly left a Hunt Avenue store with a 30-pack of beer. Police took a report.

2045 -- Report of a car weaving, traveling at varying rates of speed, and braking excessively on Main Street.

2251 -- Medical aid for a man with low blood sugar on Hunt Avenue.

Sunday, Dec. 4

0637 -- Non-injury hit-and-run at Main/Pope.

1005 -- A caller reported finding vomit at the bus stop at Hunt/Edwards.

1156 -- Report of two loose dogs at Edwards/Hunt. Police checked the area but didnt see them.

1222 -- Report of a car alarm going off for more than two hours near Adams/Stockton.

1324 -- Report of a woman screaming and talking to herself on a bench on Railroad Avenue.

1358 -- Report of a man stumbling and punching traffic cones on Highway 29 near Whitehall Lane. Police arrested the 25-year-old Woodland man on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs.

1435 -- Report of a reckless driver weaving in and out of traffic and driving at erratic speeds on Main Street.

1517 -- Medical aid for a woman feeling faint on Spring Street.

1801 -- Report of a dog barking for two days and two nights at a house on Chiles Avenue.

1808 -- A drivers license was reported lost near Adams/Library.

Monday, Dec. 5

0949 -- Report of drug activity on Grayson Avenue.

1018 -- A drivers license was found on Adams Street.

1103 -- Medical aid for a fall victim on Edwards Street.

1230 -- Report of a very agitated woman screaming in Lyman Park.

1624 -- Medical aid for a 2-year-old having an asthma attack on Pine Street.

2300 -- Police were notified of possible harassment.

2309 -- A German shepherd/corgi mix was reported missing from Hudson Avenue.

2310 -- Following a traffic stop at Main/Grayson, police arrested a 44-year-old Davis woman on suspicion of DUI.
NATO Foreign Ministers start two days of talks in Brussels on Tuesday (6 December 2016), focused on NATOs adaptation to todays security challenges. In the days first meeting  attended by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini as well as Finland and Sweden  NATO ministers are expected to agree a set of 40 concrete proposals to boost cooperation between NATO and the EU, including on so-called hybrid threats, boosting cyber defence and working together at sea.

Later in the day, ministers will discuss the Alliances efforts to project stability beyond its borders  including NATO support to the Counter-ISIL Coalition, the training of Iraqi officers, and maritime operations in the Mediterranean. The situation in the Western Balkans and the Alliances commitment to its partners in the region will also be on the agenda.

On Wednesday morning, ministers from the 41 countries supporting NATOs training mission in Afghanistan will meet Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani to reaffirm NATOs commitment to Afghanistan and to discuss progress in the country. Ministers will stress that NATOs mission to train, assist and advise Afghan security forces makes a substantial contribution to international efforts to fight terrorism. The gathering will wrap up Wednesday afternoon with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission with Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. Ministers are expected to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine and reaffirm their strong political and practical support for Kiev.
(As delivered)

Good morning.

Today and tomorrow, NATOs Foreign Ministers will address some of the security challenges we are all facing and we will do that by addressing a wide range of the issues but at the core of the meeting is the importance of the transatlantic bond, the bond between Europe and North America. One way of strengthening the bond between North America and Europe is by strengthening the cooperation between NATO and EU. And we have a momentum now when it comes to NATO-EU cooperation. In July, I signed a Joint Declaration with Presidents Tusk and Juncker and at the meeting today we will decide how we turn that declaration into concrete action.

So this afternoon, we will meet with EU High Representative/Vice President Federica Mogherini and all Allies will endorse over 40 proposals to deepen our cooperation in seven key areas. These include agreements to do more on land, at sea, and in cyberspace  including to counter hybrid threats.

We will also commit to working more closely to support our partners in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Our proposals are pragmatic, but ambitious and we will continue to work in this spirit.

Later today, we will focus on NATOs efforts to project stability beyond our borders  to the south and to the east. We have made progress since the Warsaw Summit. Our AWACS surveillance planes have started to provide information to the Counter-ISIL Coalition. We have trained many Iraqi officers and are now expanding that training. And our new operation Sea Guardian is now supporting EUs Operation Sophia in the Central Mediterranean. We will also address NATOs support for the Western Balkans, which requires our continued attention and effort.

Tomorrow, we will begin with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. Underscoring the Alliances enduring support for Ukraine. We will take stock of NATOs support, and of the governments reforms.

The ministerial will close with a meeting on Afghanistan and our Resolute Support mission. We will reconfirm our strong commitment to Afghanistans security and we will get an update on the governments reform agenda, which is essential for Afghanistans long-term stability and prosperity.

And with that, Im ready to take your questions.

Q: Secretary General, after the agreement on logistics signed today between the US and the EU, are you concerned at all that this sidesteps NATO? And, how can real NATO-EU cooperation move forward without a peace deal on Cyprus?

Secretary General: I welcome the agreement that is signed between the United States and the EU today. Because that is one building bloc of what we are going to do later on here at NATO, and that is to strengthen the transatlantic bond, by strengthening the cooperation between NATO and the European Union. And we think this is more important than ever, partly because we are faced with new kinds of threats. This combination of military and non-military means of aggression, hybrid, cyber, terrorism that requires that NATO and the European Union work together. We also think that stronger NATO-EU cooperation is even more important, because the European Union is now more focused on strengthening a European defence. And we welcome stronger European defence, but to make sure that this is done in a way which is complementary to NATO, we need even closer cooperation between NATO and the European Union. Also the fact that there have been questions, that questions have been asked related to the strength of the transatlantic bond, I think the best way to respond to those questions is to deliver stronger NATO-EU cooperation, which strengthens the transatlantic bond. And today, we will endorse 40 concrete proposals on cyber, on hybrid, on exercises, on maritime cooperation and in many other areas. So the agreement between the US and the European Union is something we welcome; we regard it as a building bloc in the broader effort of strengthening the transatlantic bond.

On the Cyprus conflict, I will just say that I strongly support the efforts, the UN-led efforts to find a solution between the two communities at Cyprus. There has been some progress, but still I think its not sure to say whether they will succeed or not. But I think what we have proven over the last couple of years is that even with the conflict in Cyprus unsolved, we have been able to move forward on strengthening NATO-EU cooperation. We have seen that in the Aegean Sea, where NATO and the European Union work together; we have seen it now in the Central Mediterranean with Sea Guardian and Operation Sophia and we see today with the 40 concrete proposals. So, yes I would like to see a solution to the conflict in Cyprus, but no, thats not a precondition on moving forward on NATO-EU cooperation.

Q: in the war against Daesh NATO is participating in support of the Coalition, can you tell us the first result of NATO contribution in this war against Daesh in Syria and Iraq? And maybe will the Sea Guardian Operation be useful in monitoring and may be fighting the movement of Daesh fighters from Iraq and Syria to Libya, because according to many security experts this will be one of their options.

Secretary General: All NATO Allies participate in the counter-ISIL Coalition. And for the Coalition it is important and a great advantage that through decades of NATO exercises and decades of NATO operations, NATO allies and partners have developed interoperability, the ability to work closely together in military operations, as we now see in Syria and Iraq. So NATO Allies participate and the Coalition[inaudible]. Second, we decided in July to increase our support from NATO to the Counter-ISIL Coalition. We have done that by providing AWACS support and AWACS planes have started to fly and to provide information supporting the counter-ISIL Coalition to improve their air picture over Iraq and Syria; and we have trained Iraqi officers; we will increase that by also starting now in-country training in Iraq from January; and we will then assess and look into whether we are going to do even more based on the experience from the activity that will start in Iraq in January.

Our Sea Guardian operation is a Maritime Security Operation. Its a flexible operation. It can be used to different tasks, depending on decisions by the 28 Allies. We have already started to provide support to Operation Sophia; we provide logistical support and also information-sharing with Sea Guardian. Sea Guardian will not operate in Libyan territorial waters. It will operate in international waters, but of course improved situational awareness and better understanding of whats going on also in the Mediterranean sea contributes to our overall effort to counter terrorism in the region.

Q: In Russian President Putins state of the union speech last week and his foreign policy document, he expressed the wish to try to [inaudible] cooperation with the US and the new President. What is your take on the speech and on the foreign policy document? Is there anything for NATO there to work for better relations with the Russians?

Secretary General: I welcome any toning down of the rhetoric, because words matter. Less aggressive rhetoric can be a first step towards also better dialogue. At the same time, words matter but of course deeds matter even more. Therefore the important thing is what we see, what kinds of actions we see from the Russian side. We will continue to pursue a dual track approach with Russia based on strength, based on deterrence and collective defence combined with dialogue and by keeping the channels for political dialogue open with Russia. This was the message the first day I arrived in NATO the 1st of October 2014, that we need defence and dialogue not defence or dialogue. Therefore, we welcome anything that can improve the conditions for dialogue with Russia. We believe that especially when tensions run high it is particularly important to have dialogue to have direct communications, and we do not want a new cold war, we dont seek confrontation with Russia. We will continue to strive for a more constructive relationship with Russia.

Q: Mr Secretary General, there will be an informal discussion about the future relationship with Russia. Could you give us an insight why the Alliance is always trying to reconsider to look for another approach to make the ties with Russia better if there is no reciprocity from the Moscow side.

Secretary General: One of the reasons why we think it is important to sit down is also to discuss those issues where we disagree. So far this year we have been able to convene two meetings of the NATO-Russia Council. And there we have also discussed also issues like Ukraine. We didnt come to any agreement, we continue to disagree but I think just to meet, to sit around the table and to have a frank and open discussion on also the difficult issues is important. We will continue to keep that kind of dialogue open in different ways but also through the Nato-Russia Council. Then we will also continue to work for reciprocity when it comes to transparency, risk reduction, and also the full implementation of the different agreements we have, for instance in the OSCE framework on transparency and risk reduction. We have something called the Vienna document and something called the open skies document. These documents regulate how you notify military exercises, how international observers are allowed to inspect military exercises, and one of the issues we have very much focused on in our dialogue with Russia is exactly how we can strengthen and improve these kind of mechanisms, partly by making sure that existing mechanisms are fully implemented and partly by improving some of the mechanism. So we are strengthening the tools to avoid incidents and accidents, like for instance the downing of a Russian plane over Turkey last tear. Or some of the very dangerous situations we have seen in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, where Russian planes have been very close to NATO or US planes and ships. So we need to strengthen the tools we have to avoid these kind of dangerous situations and if they happen, to make sure that they do not spiral out of control. This is of course about reciprocity and that is exactly what we are discussing for instance in the NATO-Russia Council.
Learn more about scholarships Students interested in learning more about the Schwarzman Scholars Program and other prestigious awards should contact Megan Friddle in the National Scholarships and Fellowships Program. Find more information or schedule an appointment through the National Scholarships & Fellowships Program website.

Emory senior Caiwei Huang and alumnus Zihao Zhang have won the 2017 Schwarzman Scholarships for graduate study next year at Tsinghua University in China.

Huang, an Emory Scholar expected to earn her dual bachelors and masters degrees in political science in 2017, and Zhang, who graduated with highest honors in 2016 with a bachelor of business administration and bachelor of arts in mathematics and economics, are Emorys first Schwarzman Scholars.

They are among 129 students from across the globe who will earn masters degrees from one of Chinas leading universities, in a program designed to bridge the academic and professional worlds to educate students about leadership and Chinas expanding global role.

Huang and Zhang both excelled at Emory and will bring important university connections  including the Carter Center, faculty with interest in East Asia and student groups focusing on the region  to their new community, says Joanne Brzinski, senior associate dean for undergraduate education.

Both have contributed to a better understanding of China in their activities at Emory, and reflect the innovative and engaged international students attending Emory, Brzinski says.

Each scholar will earn a masters degree in global affairs, with a focus in one of three disciplines: economics and business, international studies and public policy. Classes are taught in English.

Huang: Energy policies and the environment

Huang is a native of Henan Province in Central China, though she and her mother left the country for Singapore when Huang was 8 years old.

She transferred to Emory in fall 2014, having completed her freshman year at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and immediately began working on Chinese-English translations and other events in the China Program at the Carter Center.

My dad jokes that I dont understand China, except what I have studied, says Huang, a Deans Achievement Scholar who also served as president of the East Asia Collective. Even as a Chinese student, my understanding of China is not complete.

She credits Thomas Remington, the Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science, with sparking an interest in local government policy in China.

Her work as Remingtons research assistant has evolved into a joint project showing the research value of Chinese work reports and her emerging interest in energy policy and its impact on the environment.

She attended the United Nations climate change conference in Paris as an official observer last year and also worked as an intern with the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

Huang plans to use the Schwarzman to potentially launch into a doctoral program or may work within China, on the domestic policy issues, especially environment and energy policy, that she has studied.

One very important part of my study is improving communication between Chinese and American students, and now I will work on that understanding with Chinese and American leaders," she says.

Zhang: Small businesses and economic growth

Zhang, who is also from China, was selected for Emory's 100 Senior Honorary in 2016. He has already begun working as an actuarial analyst at Willis Towers Watson in Atlanta.

His work focuses on helping mid-size and large companies design ways to control health care costs, but Zhang plans to further study economics and business at Tsinghua University in a bid to help smaller Chinese firms  like his parents company in Anhui province in Eastern China that connects steel factories with raw materials  navigate the slowing economy there.

The prosperity of small businesses I think is the key to economic growth, Zhang says. It was not hard to see that prosperity when Chinas economy was growing so fast, but now there are challenges.

His tenure at Emory will help with preparations. While on campus, he founded and served as editor-in-chief for the bilingual Sino-Emory Newsletter, Emorys only monthly bilingual newspaper.

Zhang also launched a collaboration with the Carter Center to publish the U.S.-China Relationship Report in English and Mandarin and, as head of the Emory Media Council, spearheaded an effort with the Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library to archive campus publications.

He served as co-president of the Goizueta Actuarial Science Association and vice president of Omicron Delta Kappa while starting his own investment firm, Z Capital Management.

I understand how the network is important, Zhang says. I like the idea that future leaders can solve global problems through learning and building connections.
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KOLKATA: Scientists at Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur have unlocked the secret to ramp up yields of biofuel sourced from commonly found aquatic weeds such as water hyacinths.

In a new study published on December 1 in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers have shown that this weed -- which contains up to 50 pct hemicelluloses -- can now be used as an economic and abundant source of biofuel.

"We show that the secret to rapidly producing soluble sugars from amorphous natural polymers such as hemicelluloses lies in their smallest scale-the pores," said Saikat Chakraborty, faculty member at the Department of Chemical Engineering and lead researcher of the Bioenergy Research Group at IIT - Kharagpur.

Chakraborty and co-author Sajal Kanti Dutta have uncovered the pore-scale phenomena that result in "fourfold increase in the yields of fermentable sugars and bioethanol" from hemicelluloses.

"It turns out that three quarters of the soluble sugars we obtain for generation of bioethanol are produced from the pore-scale reactions. So increasing the polymer's porosity and degree of swelling will enhance the deconstruction of hemicelluloses from plant cell walls, thus increasing bioethanol," the authors said.

Hemicelluloses are the second most abundant natural polymer on earth -- after cellulose -- and a new technology engendered from this pore-scale phenomena could rapidly produce biofuels from locally available plant sources, added Chakraborty.

Apart from water-hyacinth, hemicellulose-based bioethanol can also be produced from commonly available grasses, red and green algae, etc., which have 2.5 to 3 times more hemicellulose than cellulose.

Scientists at the institute's chemical engineering department and PK Sinha Centre for Bioenergy are now working to transform these fundamental insights into new biofuel technologies that would help fight climate change.

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Bat populations in some places in North America appear to have developed resistance to the deadly fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome. Researchers from UC Santa Cruz analyzed infection data and population trends of the little brown bat in the eastern United States and found that populations in New York that had stabilized after initial declines had much lower infection levels at the end of winter than populations that were still declining.

The little brown bat was previously one of the most abundant bat species in the eastern United States, but was reduced to less than 10 percent of its former population with the arrival of white-nose syndrome. The fungus was introduced to New York State in 2006, and it continues to spread in the United States and Canada, causing declines of 90 percent or more in several species.

UC Santa Cruz researchers led by biologists Marm Kilpatrick and Winifred Frick have been at the forefront of research on the disease, conducting field surveys to help track its spread and studying the dynamics of disease transmission and the impacts on bat populations.

In the new study, researchers sampled hibernating bats at nine sites in New York, Illinois, and Virginia, using a standardized sampling technique to detect and quantify the amount of fungus on each bat. They then used mathematical modeling techniques to examine differences in disease dynamics between persisting and declining populations. Their findings were published December 5 in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

Populations of little brown bats have declined dramatically across their range. There have been several reports that populations in New York, where the disease was first introduced, are no longer declining, but no one understood why, said first author Kate Langwig, who worked on the study as a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz and is now at Harvard University. This study is the first to indicate that little brown bats appear to have evolved resistance to the disease.

The researchers considered several possible hypotheses for the ability of some bats to persist with the fungus: host resistance, host tolerance, and lower transmission. Their results pointed toward host resistance causing lower growth rates of the fungus during late winter. The results did not support the other hypotheses, Langwig said.

The mechanism underlying the resistance of little brown bats remains unknown. It could be changes in arousal behavior, differences in skin microbes, or an activation of the immune response by bats after infection has reached a moderate level. Future studies are needed to uncover these details, Langwig said.

The authors emphasized that they have only examined populations of a single bat species. For other species, like the northern long-eared bat, we dont have evidence to suggest populations are persisting inside hibernacula, Langwig said. While this study is good news for some colonies of little brown bats, other species show little sign of being able to persist with the disease.

In addition to Langwig, the coauthors of the paper include Winifred Frick and Marm Kilpatrick, both faculty members in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz; Joseph Hoyt, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz; and Katy Parise and Jeffrey Foster at the University of New Hampshire. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Woodtiger Fund, and Bat Conservation International.
Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night, was "totally dedicated to the welfare of the people she represented" and was dearly loved by her people, Sirisena said in a statement.

"India loses a leading female politician and a truly pro-poor leader, whom people fondly called 'Amma'.

"At this time of grief, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu," he added.

Jayalalithaa frequently denounced the arrests of Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy. Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are separated by a strip of sea.

--IANS mr/

( 133 Words)

2016-12-06-13:58:13 (IANS)
Hollywood actor Matt Damon today defended his starring role in upcoming Hollywood film "The Great Wall", saying that accusations of "whitewashing", or the use Caucasian stars over actors of other ethnicities, were unfounded."Zhang Yimou called me and asked me to be in his movie," Damon said in Beijing, referring to the film's director who joined him on a panel.Damon, also joined by co-star Andy Lau, said he would be "mortified" if he felt the accusations were merited.Critics decried the decision to cast Damon for the fantasy film set in ancient China.Damon said the issue was "very important" but drew a distinction between the practice and his role in "The Great Wall"."When I think of 'whitewashing' I think Chuck Connors playing Geronimo, that's whitewashing and that's unacceptable," he said, referring to a Caucasian actor who played the Native American chief Geronimo in a 1962 Western.Zhang, the acclaimed director behind "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", said the accusations were "unfair" to Damon."Once you've seen the film you'll see it's not like that," he said."It's a group of people, a group of heroes, and as it's set to the backdrop of a Chinese story so there are lots of Chinese heroes.""The Great Wall", out in China in this month and in the United States in February, features Zhang's trademarks of martial arts and saturated filters, and is centred around the mysterious origins of The Great Wall of China and what the wall's original purpose was.Strict censorship laws have prevented many Hollywood films from being released in mainland China. To counter that, US studios are co-producing big budget movies with Chinese investors.Hong Kong actor Andy Lau, an Asian super-star, said it remained to be seen whether Zhang's "mission" to bring Chinese culture to the West through film would succeed."It might not be that successful in foreign markets, and I don't know whether people in our Chinese market will appreciate this style, but I think this is a new direction," he said.REUTERS JW BD1846 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0139-1054049.Xml
Bhandari and Prachanda sent separate messages of condolences to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, respectively.

In their messages, the Nepal President and the Prime Minister expressed heartfelt condolences to their Indian counterparts and through them to the bereaved family, according to a statement issued here by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Jayalalithaa died on Monday night at a hospital in Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

--IANS giri/tsb/dg

( 103 Words)

2016-12-06-19:36:14 (IANS)
New Delhi [India], Dec. 5 (AN): More than 20 British companies are participating in Petrotech - India's flagship event on oil and natural gas, to exchange views, expertise and experiences in the field. The event, which is being held from December 4-7, will witness a UK trade mission that includes world-leading companies that bring real competitive advantage to the economy. British expertise and knowledge in oil and gas is in demand across the world and Scotland has become a significant global hub for development in this area. The visit has been organised by Scottish Development International (SDI) and the Department for International Trade (DIT), in response to supply chain opportunities presented by recent announcements from the Government of India (GOI) and a visit to Aberdeen from India's Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan in September. Scotland's oil and gas industry is a 50 year success story and has played a critical role in the world's economy. Despite global recession, Scotland's world class expertise has allowed record exports of products and services in oil and gas. Total supply chain sales are now worth in excess of 22bn a year, with direct international sales accounting for almost half that figure. Cherise Mascarenhas, Country Head - India, Scottish Development International said, "Scotland's Energy sector is a force to be reckoned with and I am delighted to welcome such a large delegation representing Scotland's Oil & Gas industry. In recent times, the global climate in the Oil & Gas sector has been challenging and it is very encouraging that Scotland's supply chain continues to seek opportunities both domestically and in overseas markets. Scotland recognises India's ambitious plans for the Energy sector and is keen to be a strategic partner in this journey. I look forward to significant partnerships and trade deals being forged as a result of this mission." At Petrotech, a new Gas Forum designed with UK support will be launched on December 6 to provide stakeholders with a platform to shape the development of India's gas market. British companies are also participating in the exhibition and showcasing their cutting edge technologies. (ANI)
Exemplifying extraordinary brilliance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government, enabled auto-rickshaw based hyper-local startup Jugnoo has announced the launch of its UPI enabled payment solution, 'Jugnoo Pay' by solving their issues within 48 hours of a tweet to PM. Aligning itself to the Government of India's vision of making India a cashless economy, Jugnoo had been working towards the launch of a UPI enabled payment solution since past few months but the brand had been facing certain technical issues in terms of SDK. However, Jugnoo managed to get immediate government support through the social networking and micro blogging site, Twitter. Samar Singla, Founder and CEO, Jugnoo tweeted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about their problem and validating the government's stance towards the startup ecosystem, the issue was resolved within 48 hours of the tweet. Giving a better perspective on 'Jugnoo Pay', it is a UPI enabled payment solution that allows merchants to request and consumers to approve payments directly using their respective bank accounts with their mobile number as an identifier. Adding to the insights, following the launch announcement of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) application by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) towards the end of November this year, there were 30 banks offering the UPI app on Google play store. Not only were these banks conferred with the authority to offer the payment service to its customers but were also given the control to further proliferate the technology to other merchants. Thus betting big on payment solutions and aiding the vision of cashless economy, Jugnoo collaborated with YES Bank to enhance the reach of UPI based payment solutions. Therefore, Jugnoo Pay works with all the NPCI approved 19 banks across the country at present. "UPI enabled Jugnoo Pay is the latest offering from Jugnoo to our customers. Factoring in the array of drawbacks in e-wallets, UPI is the next big thing and digital wallets will eventually become obsolete. So, we have enabled customers with a new and more hassle free payment option. Furthermore, the current government's pro-activity towards fulfilling its vision is commendable," said VP Engineering Jugnoo, Ronak Goyal. "Our collaboration with YES bank not only gave us access to the UPI software kit, but also to the NPCI's tech library that immensely helped us create Jugnoo Pay. In this new era of governance, where the government has made itself so easily accessible to the public, I believe the nation should come together to make the most of technology and collectively take India to new heights," added Goyal. The recent move of demonetizing 500 and 1000 currency notes, made it absolutely clear of what the government intends. Tiding on these trends, while Jugnoo had already announced that it will introduce UPI to its app in the September 2016, however, after demonetization, the brand nailed it with the launch of Jugnoo Pay. Post the announcement of 'Startup India Campaign' the entire entrepreneur's fraternity stood in unanimity to support the mission not only in words but through various innovative startups. These startups not only make life easier for public, but are also enhancing the economy of the country. Treading on these line-of-thoughts, Jugnoo Pay offers hassle free money transaction directly through a user's bank to their friend's bank account via UPI. "In next iteration, Jugnoo Pay will be integrated as a payment option in Jugnoo app so that users can pay their ride amount, groceries and meals directly from their bank accounts. Furthermore, it will soon be open for other e-commerce and businesses as payment solution. Jugnoo is also working on offline solution to ensure financial inclusion for all," added Ronak. Jugnoo Pay mobile application is available on Google Play store for Android users and will be soon available on Apple App store for Apple users. (ANI)
Available on Google Play Store, the gaming app includes several gaming categories including sports, simulation, puzzles and so on and can be accessed till December 15.

"We present 'Vodafone U Game-A-Thon' where our customers will get a choice of 18 Indie games to indulge and enjoy," said Siddharth Banerjee, National Brand Head, Vodafone India.

"Game-a-Thon" is currently live and has already been downloaded more than one million times.

"There will be one winner per game, per day. Every winner will receive a Vodafone U hamper with a pair of Sony U Branded headphones," the company said.

There will also be one winner per game at the end of the offer period who will receive a Vodafone U hamper with a Google Pixel smartphone.

--IANS qd/na/bg

( 159 Words)

2016-12-06-15:56:13 (IANS)
As many as 47,465 visitors in the first 10 months of 2016 went to the Austrian capital and 102,701 overnight stays between January and October 2016.

Located in the heart of Europe, Vienna has the right mix of culture, diversity and modernity. The city represents North European lifestyle and South European efficiency.

"Vienna got an overwhelming response from travellers from India exceeding the target of 100,000 overnight stays for 2016 by Indian tourists in just 10 months," said Isabella Rauter, Public Relations Manager of Vienna Tourist Board, in a statement.

Air India, currently offering a thrice-a-week direct flight from Delhi to Vienna and back, also contributed to more Indians flocking to the Austrian capital.

"Indians love to stroll around the fabulously green city, with half its metro area dotted with 2,000 green spaces, 850 parks and 400 species of rose, perhaps unmatched by any other city in the world," added Rauter.

--IANS som/sm/vt

( 194 Words)

2016-12-06-16:22:13 (IANS)
The teaser showed a sneak peek to the episode where the trio were seen at their candid best!

Salman, while speaking about his relationships, said, "I am not the nicest guy when it comes to relationships," to which Karan Johar interrupted, "But you had some very serious relationships."

The actor replied back, "I was not good with them."

Looks like there's a lot more in store! (ANI)
"Not just Tamil Nadu but the whole of India lost a brave daughter. May her soul rest in peace," Rajinikanth tweeted.

Actor Ajith Kumar, who is currently shooting for his upcoming yet-untitled Tamil film in Bulgaria, said the news came to him as a "shock".

In a statement, he said, "She had fought many battles and stood tall among the leaders of our times. I pray to the almighty to give us the strength during this time of grief."

Recalling her meeting with Jayalalithaa, Trisha wrote on Twitter: "RIP my most favourite person. The throne awaits you on the other side. Truly proud and honoured to have met you."

Describing Jayalalithaa as one of the bravest women, Shruti Haasan wrote, "TN loses one of its greatest leaders and bravest women. Deeply saddened by this great loss. Words cannot express."

Calling her a "fighter", actress Radikaa Sarath Kumar said the passing away of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has left a void in her.

"A people's person, strong-spirited, classy and a fighter to the end. Leaves a vacuum in people's heart, but leaves a piece of her in everyone who met her. You inspire all," Radikaa tweeted.

Among others who condoled the death of Jayalalithaa, once a reigning queen of Tamil cinema, include Gautham Vasudev Menon, R. Parthepan, R. Madhavan, Nakul and Jayam Ravi.

--IANS hp/lok

( 270 Words)

2016-12-06-07:32:13 (IANS)
Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, A.R. Rahman, Ram Gopal Varma and Shankar Mahadevan paid their tributes to the AIADMK leader, who died on Monday night, on social media.

Here's what the celebrities said:

Amitabh Bachchan: Deeply grieved... a strong woman.

Shah Rukh Khan: Sad to hear of the passing away. May her soul rest in peace.

A.R. Rahman: Respect and condolences to the people who love Puratchi Thalaivi Jayalalithaa... We will miss her forever.

Randeep Hooda: An actor who did so many real things that affected so many people. A real woman in the time of feminism...

Hema Malini: Tamil Nadu admired and adored her as did people all over India. She was a much respected leader who held her own in a world of men.

Prabhudheva: You are our inspiration, greatest Chief Minister in many ways. You will always be remembered.

Shankar Mahadevan: A great leader of the masses has left us! She will be remembered forever. Heartfelt condolences.

Ranganathan Madhavan: Deeply saddened, shocked and moved. Such a dynamic lady and powerful leader. Vacuum in TN.

Shruti Haasan: TN loses one of its greatest leaders and bravest women.

Ram Gopal Varma: The only time ever I went to an award function. Recieving from the one and only Amma, the best director award for 'Kshana Kshanam'.

Darshan Kumaar: May her soul rest in peace.

Raveena Tandon: What a remarkable woman. A true fighter.

Kunal Kohli: Jayalalithaa, in a man's world, she was a woman of substance. Tougher than a man. No family, yet Amma to millions.

Kailash Kher: Jayalalithaa still lives in millions of hearts. A politician with the soul of an artiste.

--IANS ks/nv/mr

( 311 Words)

2016-12-06-13:16:13 (IANS)
In a statement released after Jayalalithaa died on Monday night, the hospital, where she was admitted on September 22, said its doctors and paramedical staff "strived hard to provide the highest standards of care" to her.

The statement said Jayalalithaa earlier "responded well" to the treatment and "subsequently recovered substantially to be able to take food orally".

"On this basis, (the) Chief Minister was shifted from the advanced Critical Care Unit to the High Dependency Unit, where her health and vitals continued to improve under the close monitoring of our expert panel of specialists."

This was before Jayalalithaa suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

She was given resuscitation and provided life support system of "extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)" -- the most advanced treatment currently available internationally for patients who suffer a cardiac arrest, the hospital said.

"Every possible clinical attempt was made to sustain her revival. However, despite our best efforts the Chief Minister's underlying conditions rendered her unable to recover and she passed away."

--IANS sar/mr

( 203 Words)

2016-12-06-03:06:13 (IANS)
The Tamil Nadu chief minister was shifted back to the Intensive Care Unit of Chennai's Apollo Hospital last evening and underwent an angioplasty operation early this morning. According to doctors at the hospital, she has been put on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a heart assist device.

What is ECMO?

ECMO stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

It is also known as extracorporeal life support (ECLS).

In 1975, Bartlett et al were the first to successfully use ECMO in neonates with severe respiratory distress.

It provides both cardiac and respiratory support to people whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange to sustain life.

Mostly used on children, ECMO is now seeing more use in adults with cardiac and respiratory failure.

Patients on ECMO have a survival rate from 50 to 70 percent. (ANI)
Prayers of millions of people in Tamil Nadu have gone to waste with the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, said an AIADMK spokesperson on Tuesday. "Why did God take back Amma? She was in a good condition till 4 p.m. on Sunday. We all were confident that Amma will come out of hospital," a sobbing C.R. Saraswathi told IANS. "All our prayers have gone waste. It is not the age for her to die," she said, adding "Amma will continue to guide the party". --IANS vj/vd/sar ( 99 Words) 2016-12-06-03:08:13 (IANS)
"She stood as a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for her sagacity and sharp intellect," he said.

Affectionately called as "Amma", she was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled with indefatigable spirit, he added.

"Her passing away has caused an irreparable loss to the nation in general and to Tamil Nadu in particular," he said.

--IANS vj/vd

( 93 Words)

2016-12-06-03:24:13 (IANS)
Lanba on Monday left for Mumbai to assess the situation.

At about 1:50 p.m. today, INS Betwa was in the process of undocking in Mumbai's Naval Dockyard when she slipped from her dock blocks and tilted.

Immediate action was taken to get all personnel to safety; however, two sailors succumbed to injuries, while other 14 minor were injured.

The injured were later discharged after they were given first-aid at the Indian Naval Hospital (INHS) Asvini.

Meanwhile, a Technical evaluation for making of the ship upright is in progress and an inquiry into the incident has been ordered. (ANI)
"Not doubting his Indianness, but I wish to see Rahul Gandhi sing our national anthem, want to see if he knows the words or not," said the veteran actor.

Kher, who was delivering speech at VCCI Expo in Vadodara, backed the government's demonetisation decision.

On being asked about common people's plight post-demonetisation, the 61-year-old actor said the decision to ban Rs.500 and Rs. 1000 note was matter of privacy and that is why it was not disclosed to anybody beforehand.

Condemning the opposition for protesting against the demonetisation drive, he said they are showing intolerance on the matter.

Kher often raises his voice in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP. (ANI)
With the Apollo Hospitals declaring the health condition of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa as "grave", the opposition leaders in the state expressed hope that the "strong-willed" AIADMK supremo would recover and take charge. Calling Jayalalithaa as his sister, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) Vaiko said the Chief Minister despite suffering from Septicemia was able to ward off the disease, adding cardiac arrest will not have major implications on her health. "Jayalalithaa detained me under anti-terror law, but apart from the politics she is like a sister to me. I hope she will come out of crisis. She had Septicemia, but was able to come out of it... You can call it a miracle. I am sure that she will recover from this setback. Lakhs of AIADMK cadres, people of Tamil Nadu have been praying for her recovery," he said after inquiring about her health condition. Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) state president Tamilisai Soundararajan, who is also a physician, also expressed hope that the Chief Minister recovers soon. "She is critical, but there are incidents when such critical patients have improved drastically. We have to think positively and what all advance treatment one can think of has been given to her. Let us hope she responds," Soundarajan told ANI. The Apollo Hospitals in the latest health update has said Jayalalithaa, who suffered a cardiac arrest last evening, continues to be very critical. Subbiah Viswanathan, the Chief Operating Officer of the hospital, in a press release said the Chief Minister is closely monitored by a team of doctors, who are trying their very best. She was administered Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) after her condition became a cause for concern. London based intensivist Richard Beale has also said the Chief Minister's health continues to be grave. "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. She is being cared for by a highly expert multidisciplinary team, and is now on extra-corporal life support. This is the most advanced level of support available, and is the approach the best centres internationally would take in this situation," he said in a statement. In view of the situation, Director General of Police T.K.Rajendran held a meeting with the counterparts of neighbouring states to take stock of the law and order situation. (ANI)
The police custody of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) chief Harminder Singh 'Mintoo', who along with five others escaped after the high security Nabha jailbreak and was arrested by the Delhi Police near Delhi Railway Station, was extended by seven days by a Delhi Court on Monday. The self-styled KLF chief had reportedly told interrogators about expansion plans of KLF through Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Days before the Nabha jailbreak, he had his last Skype chat his Pakistan handler Harmeet, a KLF militant who managed to flee to Pakistan, and is living in a safe house under protection of ISI at Dera Chall village in Lahore. ISI had plans to bring militancy in Punjab through KLF under Mintoo's leadership, said sources. Mintoo has base in countries like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and ISI had plans to bring back militancy through these sleepers said sources, adding that Mintoo made these contacts during 2009-14. Germany based KLF sympathisers were sending money to Mintoo through Western Union Money Transfer. On the day of jailbreak, on November 27, around lakhs of rupees were deposited in a bank account, which was supposed to be handed over to Mintoo by Shagun Sweets owner, who was arrested by the Punjab Police, but Mintoo managed to flee, so he couldn't get the money, said sources. Sources said a KLF sympathiser, Sandeep, who is based in England, has also sent him money through Hawala channel. He was staying in Malaysia with a fake passport in the name of Bakshish Singh. "Harminder has accepted of being a Mastermind of the jailbreak. Six months back, he first contacted an inmate Gurpreet Singh Sekhon, who later contacted Vicky to arrange his local criminals to wait for the day suitable for the attack. Parminder being close to Satnam Kaur, Daughter of KLF militant, was given responsibility to arrange the arms. The Punjab police are probing arms trail with assistance of UP police," said sources. "Mintoo has revealed of having strong base in Goa. His family shifted to Goa in 1989 and raids are being carried out in Punjab to look for Satnam Kaur. Police teams will also be going to Goa to look for Mintoo's aide," sources added. (ANI)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had come as a chaiwala (tea seller) and would run away with the nation's money like a 'feriwala' (rag picker). "It is a financial crisis in Delhi today, people are being forcefully bulldozed. Many people have died while standing in long queues. We all are against black money. Soon days will come when people will be left without money-- neither even new nor old notes. Prime Minister has come as 'chaiwala' and might run away as 'feriwala' with a pocket full of money," Banerjee said in the assembly. Banerjee further said that there should be an investigation on whoever goes abroad with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and why doesn't he take themedia along with him. "Why is the Prime Minister giving ads for Pay tm? Have we ever seen any Prime Minister giving ads to a private company? Only for this issue, Prime Minister Modi should resign. In Bengal Rs. 500 notes are not available. But in Patna it is available. In Uttar Pradesh, there are no Rs. 500 notes. Why is there discrimination? " she asked. The West Bengal Chief Minister added that, "the states which are supporting him are getting notes. In 21 days, 21 new decisions have been made. He is Big Bazaar's big boss." (ANI)
The intruder was seen moving suspiciously on the Indian side of LoC when he was engaged by the troops and apprehended., said a statement issued by the Ministry of Defence.

The intruder suffered minor injuries and was administered first-aid and is now in the process of being handed over to the local police authorities.

Further details are likely to emerge after his interrogation by intelligence agencies.

On November 22, a suspicious Pakistani national was gunned down by the Border Security Force (BSF) troops in R.S. Pura sector, after he crossed the border early.

After crossing the border, the man took advantage of the cover of fog and reached very close to the Indian fence.

He was immediately challenged by the troops and when he did not pay heed to the repeated warning, he was shot down. (ANI)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa "continues to be under grave situation", but everything is being done to give her the best chance of surviving, said London-based intensivist Dr. Richard Beale on Monday. He said in spite of the progress she had made, her underlying health conditions inevitably meant that the "risk of further problems always remained". He further said the Chief Minister is now on extra-corporal support, which is the most advance support level. "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. She is being cared for by a highly expert multidisciplinary team, and is now on extra-corporal life support. This is the most advanced level of support available, and is the approach the best centres internationally would take in this situation," he said in a statement. Jayalalithaa, who was undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals here, suffered a cardiac arrest Sunday evening. Meanwhile, the government swung into action, as the Centre's brass got in touch with the state governor C. Vidyasagar Rao and assured complete central assistance. Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu spoke to the Governor and state Chief Secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao enquiring about her health and will also fly down to Chennai to assess the situation. Also, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also spoke to the Governor in regard with the law and order situation in the state given the tense state of affairs regarding Jayalalithaa, and was assured that the situation was under control. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju also assured Tamil Nadu government that the Centre is always willing to help if they require extra force in regards with maintaining law and order. (ANI)
Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday questioned the stand taken by the opposition parties on demonetisation as Parliament witnessed continuous logjam with the Centre being cornered over the step taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "We made it clear that the government is ready to discuss all the aspects. I am not able to understand the logic behind the Congress and other parties raising the issue," Naidu said. "Are you against black money; are you ready to support government's stand on black money; where do you stand" he asked the opposition parties. Asserting that the opposition is failing badly in their responsibility, the Union Minister further said Parliament is there to solve problem. Home Minister Rajnath Singh, however, expressed his gratitude to the opposition parties "for not questioning government's intention on demonetisation". He said, the government is ready to address the hardships of the people and the suggestions made by the members during the discussion will be acted upon. Singh said the decision has been taken in the national interest to curb black money, terror funding and circulation of counterfeit currency. He also appealed to the opposition to leave the matter of rule, under which discussion should take place, at the discretion of the Chair. When the Lok Sabha reassembled at noon after first adjournment, the Speaker disallowed all the adjournment motion notices brought by various opposition leaders on several issues including discussion on demonetisation. She asked the members to start discussion without insisting on any rule. She however said, as the discussion on the matter is listed under rule 193 with no provision of voting and the discussion can be taken up immediately. Earlier, Mallikarjun Kharge of Congress alleged that manufacturing has come to a standstill and people have lost their jobs after scrapping of high value notes. He said, the matter is very important and it must be discussed under rule with voting. He said, a group of 17 opposition parties decided to move a resolution to discuss the matter under rule 184 which provides for voting. The opposition members trooped into the well shouting slogans. The Speaker conducted the Zero Hour proceedings amid din and later adjourned the House for the day as opposition continued noisy protests on demonetisation. The Rajya Sabha was also adjourned till 2 PM with the Opposition continuing their protest against demonetization. As soon as the House re-assembled at Noon after its first adjournment, Congress members raised slogans from their seats forcing Chairman Mohammed Hamid Ansari to adjourn the House for the second time. He repeatedly urged the agitating members to allow the House to take up Question Hour. But they remained unrelented forcing the Chair to adjourn the House. Trinamool Congress (TMC) today protested inside the Parliament premises against demonetisation. Displaying posters, the party MPs shouted slogans against the government. Talking to reporters, TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay accused the government of not doing anything to ease the hardship faced by the people. He reiterated the Opposition demand for discussion on the issue in the Lok Sabha under the rule which entails voting. Earlier, the Opposition leaders including Congress, TMC and the Left met at Parliament House and discussed their strategy to counter the government in both the Houses. (ANI)
A recent scientific review of the winter floods of 2015/2016 in UK confirms that the event was one of the most extreme and severe hydrological events of the last century. The new hydrological appraisal - 'The Winter Floods of 2015/2016 in the UK', funded by Natural Environment Research Council, brought together both river flow and meteorological data in an analysis of the events that led to extensive river flooding in northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of Wales over a three month period. The study recognizes that the Winter 2015/2016 episode ranks alongside the floods of 1947 as one of the two largest flood events of the last 100 years at least. Storm Desmond alone caused an estimated insurance bill of more than 1.3 billion euro when it struck on the 5th and 6th December last year. The review also highlights that 16,000 properties in England were flooded during the three months of 'remarkably persistent and exceptionally mild cyclonic' activity which, along with Storm Desmond, included the major storms of Abigail, Frank and Gertrude. Lead author Terry Marsh said, "'At a national scale the winter floods of 2015/16 were the most extreme on record." The November to January period was the wettest three-month sequence in the UK rainfall series - which begins in 1910. Correspondingly, river flows across much of the country exceeded bankfull for extended periods. "The associated flooding was both extensive and repetitive, and total river outflows from Great Britain following the passage of Storm Desmond in December exceeded the previous maximum by a substantial margin," he said. Ed Henderson, a co-author of the review from the British Hydrological Society, said, "The effects of the floods are personal. Thousands of Cumbrians, like people in other flood-affected parts of the country, have seen their lives upturned. Many have experienced life-changing financial losses and incredible stress." Adding, "Speaking with flood victims, the words that come out are despair, fear and anxiety - fear of flooding again and the anxiety of an approaching winter. Floods don't just take your home, the place where you should feel safe, they often take your future as well." The review highlights: -That December was the wettest and, on average, the warmest on record in the UK, in records going back to 1910. -The highest ever recorded rainfall in the UK was measured when 341.4mm of rain fell at Honister Pass in the Lake District in the 24 hours leading up to 6pm on the 5th December 2015. -Record peak flows occurred at the rivers Eden, Tyne and Lune in England of around 1,700 cumecs (cubic metres per second). This volume of water is enough to fill London's Royal Albert Hall in under a minute. -Other record peak flows also took place at the rivers Nith, Tweed, Clyde, Forth and Tay in Scotland and the Mourne in Northern Ireland. Co-author Jamie Hannaford said, "Last winter's devastating floods follow the winter 2013/2014 flooding in southern England and other severe events of recent years including the 2005 and 2009 floods in Cumbria. Understandably, this leads to speculation that flood risk is increasing due to climate change." Adding, "There are trends towards higher river flows over the last five decades, especially in western Britain. But records are short and there is much natural year-to-year variability, which makes it hard to attribute observed trends to climate change. Nevertheless, recent modelling studies do point towards human-induced warming having a role to play in these and other recent floods." (ANI)
Abdullah said the two Asian neighbours will have to sit and talk and put an end to the prolonged impasse.

"One day the two nations will have to sit and talk to resolve their differences. There is no second way here. The two nations should restrain themselves from further igniting the tension, as both nations get adversely affected," he told the media here.

The National Conference leader expressed hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would definitely resume talks with the Asian neighbour and restore peace between the two countries.

"I believe that Prime Minister of India wants that the issue between India and Pakistan should get resolved by any means. And I have a firm hope that one day he will resume dialogue with Pakistan," said Abdullah.

The former chief minister's assertion came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a united effort to combat regional terrorism.

The Prime Minister, who did not name Pakistan, made this assertion at the 'Heart of Asia' conference in Amritsar, Punjab. (ANI)
Parliament was adjourned till 2 p.m. on Monday, as the opposition members continued to raise their voices against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation move. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tried to run the Question Hour, as the opposition kept demanding answers from Prime Minister Modi. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh stated that demonetisation was good for the country. "Demonetisation is for national interest. I thank the opposition that they never doubted the government's motive behind demonetisation," he added. Singh urged the opposition to start the discussion as the government is fully prepared for it. He added that the Centre would incorporate suggestions from the opposition over demonetisation move. "We are ready to debate on this issue right now. We want to know what difficulties are there in implementation. We will work on any implementation difficulty pointed out. The prime minister took this step to stop terrorism, black money and corruption," he added. "Don't send out wrong message that opposition is against discussion. Are we wrong if we talk of people their plight? The government has majority. They are elected representatives but are still running away from voting," Singh said. Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge asked the government not to send wrong message that the opposition is against discussion. "The government has majority. They are elected representatives but are still running away from voting," he said. "People are dying. They are not getting their salaries. Unemployment is on the rise and GDP is falling," Kharge added. The Rajya Sabha was also adjourned till 2 p.m. today as the opposition Congress members continued to protest against demonetisation. As soon as the House re-assembled at noon after its first adjournment, Congress members raised slogans from their seats forcing Chairman Mohammed Hamid Ansari to adjourn the House for the second time. He repeatedly asked the agitating members to allow the House to take up Question Hour. Earlier, as the House met for the day, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed concern over non-availability of cash to the people following demonetisation. He alleged that ATMs are made non-functional intentionally. Congress members trooped into the well raising slogans against the government. Deputy Chairman Prof. P. J. Kurien asked the members to go back to their seats and start discussion on the issue. Stating that discussion is the only solution to address the issue, he said the government is ready to reply. Later he adjourned the House as noisy scene continued. (ANI)
The U.S. Consulate General in Chennai has temporarily suspended appointments for routine services to U.S. citizens and visa applicants and will operate with reduced staffing today following Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa suffering a heart attack last night. A statement issued by the Consulate said that the applicants will be informed by email and the Consulate will provide updates when routine services are restored. "Review your personal security plans; remain aware of your surroundings, including local events; and monitor local news stations for updates. Maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security." the statement read. The consulate U.S. citizens requiring emergency services may contact the Consulate at +91-44-2857-4000. In the event there is no response at this phone number, please direct your request for emergency services to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi at +91-11-2419-8000. Consulate asked U.S. citizens to avoid areas of demonstrations, and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations and also advised them that even gatherings intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence. (ANI)
Meanwhile, scores of the AIADMK supremo's supporters and party cadres have been thronging outside the Apollo Hospital in Chennai and praying for her health.

Jayalalithaa's health condition deteriorated after she suffered a cardiac arrest last evening.

The Tamil Nadu Government has sought the help of the para military forces to handle the crowd in case of any emergency.

Jayalalithaa is being closely monitored by an expert team of doctors at the Apollo Hospital, where she has been undergoing treatment for more than two months.

The 68-year-old Chief Minister is still on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation through a heart assist device. (ANI)
The Prime Minister fondly recalled his visit to Vietnam in September, during which the bilateral relationship was upgraded to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. He added that Vietnam is a key pillar of India's "Act East" policy an official statement said here. General Lich briefed the Prime Minister on the progress achieved in bilateral defence cooperation. The Prime Minister noted that India and Vietnam have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship in the field of defence, and reiterated India's resolve to strengthen defence ties further.

The Prime Minister said that closer cooperation between India and Vietnam in all sectors will contribute to the stability, security and prosperity of the entire region. UNI MK CJ SB 0958

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1053099.Xml
Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung today expressed his deep sorrow at the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaraman. In his condolence message, Lt. Governor Jung said, "She was one of the greatest political leaders of contemporary India and was a source of inspiration to many." He added, "In her sad demise, India has lost a unique leader, who touched the lives of millions of people. She was an extraordinary politician with exceptional administrative skills and immense following, which made her a distinct leader in Indian politics."UNI AR CJ SB 1144 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1053194.Xml
US Ambassador to India Richard R Verma today paid rich tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who passed away in Chennai last night. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India, Mr Verma said in a statement here. ''On behalf of the United States, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu following her passing,. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu during this time of sorrow,'' he said. UNI NAZ SV 0905 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1053064.Xml
Mr Modi is expected to arrive at Rajaji hall in the Tamil Nadu capital at around 1200 hrs.

The Prime Minister has said her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics.

The iconic leader passed away at 1130 hrs at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai. She had suffered a massive heart attack on Sunday.UNI NAZ SV 0914

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1053072.Xml
All the restrictions imposed in and around the historic Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of the summer capital, have been lifted.

Barbed wires from the roads leading to main chowk have been removed.

Roads leading to the chowk were closed at Court road, Janglat Mandi, SRTC bus stand, Lala Rusk hotel and Aftab Gali yesterday morning to foil separatist march.

Both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC) and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) had called for Lal Chowk Chalo march yesterday. The separatists, spearheading the agitation since July 9, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Burhan Wani and two other militants were killed in an encounter in Anantnag, have already extended strike till December 8.

However, chairmen of both the factions of the HC Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq were put under house arrest while JKLF chief Mohammad Yaseen Malik was taken into preventive custody after he tried to march towards Lal Chowk from Sarai Bala yesterday.

The busy Amira Kadal over river Jhelum, linking main business hub Hari Singh High Street (HSHS) with Lal Chowk was also closed with barbed wire and even pedestrians were not being allowed yesterday.

However, today the barbed wire has been removed and there was no restriction on pedestrian or vehicular movement over the bridge.

Similarly, all roads leading to Maisuma, stronghold of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), were open as security forces had removed barbed wire today.

However, security forces and police personnel remained deployed in strength to prevent any demonstrations in the city.

Shops and business establishments remained closed in the civil lines, including Lal Chowk, Budshah Chowk, Maisuma, HSHS, Regal chowk, Polo View and other areas.

However, private vehicles and some public transport was plying in the civil lines, including on Moulana Azad road and Residency roads.UNI BAS SV SB 1145

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Uttar Pradesh has scored a 'duck' after the Centre declared 362 towns and cities in 15 states open defecation free with Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra topping the chart. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan aims to make the whole country open-defecation-free by 2019. A senior official in the government said here today that Praveen Prakash, joint secretary, Union Urban Development Ministry has sent a list about towns and states that have been declared ODF (Open Defecation Free) but unfortunately UP has failed to find a place in this list. "The Uttar Pradesh government is working in this direction. It is a big state. We need resources. Unfortunately, the Centre has not released adequate funds for UP. In the absence of funds we cannot achieve target within stipulated time," the official said declaring that UP's share stands at Rs 487 crore which the Centre has not released so far. A ward or city can be declared free of open defecation if, during a verification drive, not a single person is found defecating in the open. Under the ministry's protocol, a ward or a city first declares itself open-defecation-free; then the state informs the ministry, which gets the claim verified through a third party which is Quality Council of India, set up by Government in collaboration with industry. Experts from this body carry out multiple inspections at different times of the day on at least five places in each zone in a city or town. These places must include a slum, a school, a public area like a market or a religious place, a residential area, and a bus stand or railway station. In Gujarat, 167 urban local bodies have been provided with open-defecation-free certificates, followed by 91 in Andhra Pradesh and 70 in Maharashtra. The official said that the state governments and civic bodies were asked to reach out to community representatives for an effective audit of both household and community toilets. "How can we carry out the audit without funds. We have taken some initiatives from our own resources and result will be there for every one will to see," he said. According to the Ministry of Urban Development, 405 cities and towns have declared themselves Open Defecation Free. The mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with its urban and rural component handled by the respective ministries, aims to make the country ODF by 2019.UNI MB SB 1124 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1053151.Xml
Modi recalled his visit to Vietnam in September when the bilateral relationship was upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, said a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Vietnam is a key pillar of India's Act East policy," the statement quoted Modi as saying.

"General Ngo briefed the Prime Minister on the progress achieved in bilateral defence cooperation. The PM noted that India and Vietnam have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship in the field of defence, and reiterated India's resolve to strengthen defence ties further."

Modi said closer cooperation between India and Vietnam in all sectors would contribute to the stability, security and prosperity of the entire region.

During Modi's visit, India offered a $500-million defence credit line, a part of which will be used for the construction of offshore patrol boats by, among others, the Vietnam Border Guards.

Vietnam is among the countries which have a dispute with China over the South China Sea.

--IANS ab/ahm/mr

( 183 Words)

2016-12-06-12:42:12 (IANS)
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today described the demise of his Tamil Nadu counterpart Selvi J Jayalalitha as a great national loss.Moving an obituary motion in the state Assembly here, Mr Patnaik said the people of Odisha stand solidly with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief and bereavement."She is no more but she will continue to live in the hearts of millions of people especially among the women whom she cared for deeply," he said. The chief minister described Jayalalitha as the leader of the masses who made immense contribution to the development and welfare of people of Tamil Nadu.The people of her state affectionately referred her as "Amma" and she enjoyed a huge mandate and was known for administrative caliber and political sagacity. She was the iron lady of Tamil Nadu who steered the state in the path of progress and prosperity, Mr Patnaik said.Jayalalithaji had a special relationship with Odisha and its people, the chief minister said, adding that she had always stood by us both in our good and bad times. She had been a great admirer of Biju Babu and had always displayed her reverence for him. During the time of natural calamity she had been very helpful to us and was very supportive in the protection of migrant labourers working in Tamil Nadu, Mr Patnaik said. The chief minister said when Biju Janata Dal floated the name of Mr P A Sangma for the presidency of India, Jayalalitha ji was one of the first political leaders to support us unequivocally.UNI DP AD1227 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0108-1053280.Xml
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today wrote a personal tribute to AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa , who died here last night, following a massive heart attack. Ms Banerjee said an incident of death is always sad. "We never want anybody to die. Rather, we wish for a long life. But, truth is to be accepted, however shocking it is."There are some deaths which not only make us sad, but also rip our heart. Today is the day to talk about one such death, she said.State mourning is also being observed. We are all extremely saddened.As a mark of respect to late Jayalalitha Ji, our Assembly has been adjourned for today with a deep sense of grief and sorrow. Ms Banerjee said,''Jaya ji could have stayed with us for a few more years. She infused a spirit of dynamism in everyone through her actions. Her passing is somewhat untimely.''"While the passing of a lady of her stature is extremely unfortunate, Jaya Ji attained this position for herself through a life of struggle. It takes a lot of time and hard work to create such an illustrious legacy. Specially in 'public life'. It needs a lot of strength, courage and toughness to to earn the trust of people by working for them and to lead a political party from the grassroots level to achieve success in Assembly as well as Parliamentary elections. Jaya Ji emerged a winner in all spheres from the court to vote," she added.Ms Banerjee in appreciation of Jayalalithaa saying, "extreme stress during the Lok Sabha elections compounded by the high level of blood sugar led to her subsequent illness. How we wish this final attack could have come years later.""I believe, her health started deteriorating when she was sent to jail in another State. The baggage of dishonour of being sent to prison in another State must have ripped her apart. The shock of dishonour had worn her out. The untimely loss may have been the result of that shock. I tried speaking with Jaya Ji when she was being taken to Bengaluru after being arrested on corruption charges, but could not do so. If that was possible, I would have advised her to take care of her health," the chief minister said."She returned from jail; she returned as a Chief Minister. But she could not regain her lost health. The Tamil people lost their Amma, the country lost a mass leader and AIADMK lost its matriarch. An empty space has been created in politics. With Jayalalitha, we have lost an able and courageous administrator," Ms Banerjee remembered'"We have lost a spontaneous, workaholic leader who was always full of fresh ideas. We may have had difference of opinion on ideological matters but I can never deny the perfection of her thoughts. She was always firm on her arguments and never bowed down," she said.The chief minister said, "I must share with you something no one knows. Jaya Ji was hospitalised when the demonetisation announcement was made. AIADMK's Parliamentary Party leader and the present Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, in personal conversations with Trinamool's Parliamentary Party leader in the Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandyopadhyay a few days back, said that Jaya Ji supported our movement against demonetisation. She said the movement taken up by Mamata against demonetisation is on the right track.""I have known about Jayalalitha for a long time. She has been the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu much earlier than I became the Chief Minister. She is very popular. I knew that after the death of MG Ramachandran, it was she who kept her party united. I came to know her personally much later." Ms Banerjee said.The chief minister remembered, "in 1998, the first NDA government was in power at the Centre. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. Trinamool was a newly-formed party back then and we had seven MPs. We were supporting NDA. Jaya Ji played a pivotal role in making Atal Ji the Prime Minister. AIADMK had 29 MPs. Her support was crucial for Atal Ji.""We witnessed her power and influence back then. At NDA meetings, even Atal Ji would wait for Jaya Ji to arrive. He would even leave his chair for her. Only one other leader received such reverence. It was Chandrababu Naidu,"she said.Ms Banerjee said, I first met jaya Ji during NDA times. She entered politics after a successful career on silver screen. But she adapted well with the political life with ease. Full-sleeved blouse, a saree covering her full body and a baggy coat. I had spoken with her couple of times after becoming Railway Minister. She spoke less but spoke so well.""After the Nandigram incident, I had visited Kerala with a delegation. During that visit I also dropped in at Chennai to meet Jaya Ji. Although I had heard she generally never meets outsiders at her residence, she called me to her residence. She took great care of us. I had taken a saree for her as a gift. It was a very plain saree. But she was very happy to have received it. She had said, "It is beautiful. The colour is beautiful," she remembered.''We had taken the initiative to make Dr APJ Abdul Kalam the President for a second term. I had spoken to her back then," Ms Banerjee said.She said, "AIADMK won 39 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Trinamool won 34. Together we could have been 73 in Lok Sabha. But that did not come through. Jalay Ji did not join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, though. The Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha is from their party.""I have read the papers from Tamil Nadu at inter-state council meetings. They always made strong arguments. Such clarity of language, too. This is only possible for an able and strong-willed administrator like her. This is what makes 'Jayalalitha' what she is today," the chief minister said.Ms Banerjee said, "Jayalalitha showed us how to command respect despite honouring the constitutional limits of a Chief Minister, solely through her strong will and gravity. It is difficult to match her personality in today's times. One may not like her but they definitely cannot ignore her. And thus she stands out.""I understand how fighting against all odds feels like. I have been facing a volley of abuses and conspiracies myself for some time now.Jaya Ji's struggle is somewhat similar. She emerged a winner solely because of her political wisdom, administrative expertise and strength of character. History will always remember her as a strong female politician," she said. "Just got details about funeral timings of dear Amma Jayalalitha. Was very eager to be present but flight availability/timings from Kolkata not making it possible," Ms Banerjee tweeted."Sending our 2 MPs, Derek and Kalyan from Delhi on my behalf," she further added.UNI BM RN 1424 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0311-1053480.Xml
Firecracker traders today moved the Supreme Court seeking modification in the apex court's earlier order of banning sell of their products in Delhi and national capital region(NCR). A three judge bench of the court headed by Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and also comprising Justices DY Chandra Chud and L Nageshwar Rao, expected to hear the matter in the next week. The traders have approached the court in their individual capacity for seeking relief from ban of sell of crackers. The top court in its order had banned the sale of fire crackers in Delhi and the NCR, keeping in view the deteriorating environmental balance. The court passed the order after hearing various petitioners, including environmentalists, and NGO. UNI XC CJ SS -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1053321.Xml
French Ambassador to India Alexandre Ziegler today condoled the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Mr Ziegler while paying rich tributes to Jayalalithaa said she was a prominent leader who was loved and admired by millions. "On behalf of France, I express my heartfelt condolences on the demise of Hon'ble Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a prominent leader who was loved and admired by millions. My thoughts and sympathy go out to her near and dear ones and the grief-stricken people of Tamil Nadu and India," Mr Ziegler said. Jayalalithaa died in Chennai late last night after suffering a cardiac arrest on December 4.UNI RBE AE SNU 1437 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1053482.Xml
As soon as the proceedings began, Speaker Sitasaran Sharma informed the House about her demise. Finance Minister Jayant Malaiya said Ms Jayalalithaa had carved out a place for herself in people's hearts by virtue of poverty-oriented schemes launched by her.

Pointing out that she served five terms as chief minister, he said it indicated the support she received from people. He noted that the mid-day meal scheme enforced by her had received worldwide recognition and adopted by several states.

Deputy Leader of Opposition Bala Bachchan and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satyaprakash Sakhwar also paid tributes. A brief silence was observed and the House adjourned for 10 minutes as a mark of respect to the departed leader.UNI PS SWSNU 1504

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In a condolence message, the Governor said, ''I am deeply shocked and grieved to hear about the sad demise of Selvi J Jayalalithaa, the charismatic leader and the people's Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.''

She stood as a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for her sagacity and sharp intellect.

Affectionately called as 'Amma', she was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled withindefatigable spirit. She was known for her noble qualities and sacrificed her life for the cause of the poor and downtrodden.

Jayalalithaa has struggled for more than two months in the hospital and fought the death valiantly with her indomitable willpower. It is sad that the clutches of death have snatched away the life of the leader of masses.

''I fondly remember the day she received me at the Chennai Airport when I came to assume office as the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Her affectionate gesture and kind words are still afresh in my memory,'' he said.

Her passing away has caused an irreparable loss to the nation in general and to Tamil Nadu in particular.

''I express my sincere condolences from the bottom of my heart to the people of Tamil Nadu and pray to God to rest her soul in peace,'' Ch Rao added. UNI NV SV SB 1313

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The low-key inauguration was done by Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Khattar told the media that cultural and other celebratory events have been cancelled at the Mahotsav.

Other events like seminars and discussions will be held as scheduled.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Haryana was preparing for the past over one year for the Rs 100-crore extravaganza on Hindu scripture 'Bhagvad Gita' from December 6.

The holy land of Kurukshetra, where Lord Krishna had delivered the celestial message of Bhagvad Gita to Pandava warrior Arjun, is about 100 km from here. The Bhagvad Gita is a 5,000-year-old scripture.

The Mahotsav, to be held from December 6 to 10, will see the participation of scholars from across the country and abroad.

--IANS js/tsb/vt

( 175 Words)

2016-12-06-16:12:16 (IANS)
Thousands of people mourned the death of "Peoples' Chief Minister" Ms.J.Jayalalitha across Southern districts of Tamil Nadu, today. Men and women garlanded the portraits of "Amma" (Jayayalalitha was fondly called as Amma) placed at various spots in Madurai, Virudhunagar, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram, Theni, Dindigul, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Kanyakumari districts. In a spontaneous outpouring of grief, several men tonsured their heads at various places in Madurai, Dindigul, Tirunelveli and Theni districts, ahead of the scheduled final rites of Ms.Jayalalitha at 1630 hours in Chennai. People from all walks of life took out silent processions at various places and garlanded Ms Jayalalitha's portraits. All shops and business establishments remain closed since late last evening in Southern districts that were brought under a blanket of security. Barring stray incidents of stone pelting on government buses in Madurai and Dindigul, no untoward incidents were reported from any part of South Tamil Nadu. According to reports reaching here, a 77-year-old AIADMK worker namely Kaliyappan allegedly committed suicide by consuming pesticide in his house at Ayakkaranpulam village near Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam district. His family members claimed that he committed suicide unable to bear the demise of Ms.Jayalalithaa. UNI GSM CS 1556 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1053586.Xml
The last journey of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa started on Tuesday evening from the Rajaji Bhavan for the Marina Beach where her last rites will be held. Soon after President Pranab Mukherjee and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi paid floral tributes to Jayalalithaa, the coffin was loaded on to a military vehicle, which proceeded slowly through the streets packed with mourners towards Marina Beach. --IANS vj/vd ( 75 Words) 2016-12-06-17:00:13 (IANS)
Besides 20 others also received minor injuries in the three accidents which took place during midnight.

There was a pile up involving eight vehicles on the Mumbai corridor, when a speeding truck carrying oil rammed into a trailer truck, causing the oil to spill. A tempo then skidded on the oil, and rammed into the oil truck. Next, two private luxury buses travelling to Mumbai collided with the stationary vehicles on the spot. One person was severely injured in the pile up while others escaped with minor injuries.

The second accident took place near Khopoli exit. According to highway safety patrol (HSP), the driver of a private luxury bus which was moving towards Mumbai lost control over the vehicle, causing the bus to crashinto the mountain wall. Six passengers sustained serious injuries in the accident.

Later, a private bus ferrying a wedding party rammed into a truck causing minor injuries to eight of itspassengers, police said. UNI SP NV SW RJ 1712

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BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi today said the Congress and some other political parties have completely failed in their strategy in Parliament to corner the Modi Government over demonetisation and stood exposed before the people. "This time these parties are acting in complete disconnect with the masses, as the "poor people" for whom they were crying hoarse, were completely ready to bear with the inconvenience caused to them due to the decision of scrapping the Rs 500 and Rs 100 notes. They have by their behaviour in Parliament shown to the whole nation that it was they who were running from the debate, she said talking to UNI. "In fact they frittered away a good chance to debate and put out their point of view to the people by rejecting to participate in the debate the Government tried to initiate under Rule 193 in the Lok Sabha yesterday, which has sent out a message that they had nothing constructive to offer,'' Ms Lelkhi said. The Opposition parties were entrapped in their make believe world failing to see the writing on the wall, she added. The BJP MP also expressed the confidence that the problems being faced due to cash crunch would be overcome by the time (50 days) sought by the Prime Minister ends. The BJP MP, who has launched a campaign to promote cashless transactions, said the poor could make do with little amount of money, so cash crunch was not so much pinching them, as the Opposition was trying to propagate. The elimination of cash from the system was going to work ultimately in the interest of the poor and honest as it would eliminate the chance of corruption. She said that if one looked at the issue with any bias, one would find that the black money was behind so many organised crimes, including the funding of terror, to curb which a cashless society could be a powerful tool to strike at. "The long-term benefits of the historic move taken by the Prime Minister should be weighed against the short-term problems caused to the people," she said.UNI NAZ SNU 1839 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1053982.Xml
Ahmed Al Banna, United Arab Ejmirates (UAE) Ambassador to India, has said that UAE looks at India as a strategic partner and enhanced collaboration between both the countries will be fruitful in the new world order. In a public session on "India-UAE Relations: New Dimensions and Challenges", organised by Ananta Centre, Mr. Banna said, "There are around 2.8-million people living in the UAE and it is of considerable importance to us." He added that there are about 55-billion dollar of investments by Indian investors in UAE, with small percentage in FDI and 10-billion-dollar of investment in India from UAE with 4-billion dollar in FDI." He further highlighted that during the past one year the UAE's investments in India have increased to nearly $1-billion as bilateral trade between the two countries continues to strengthen. On the occasion Ambassador SK Lambah, Chairman, Ananta Aspen Centre and Former Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of India gave in his inaugural remarks stressed the importance of the strong presence of eight-million Indians in the Gulf region, the largest expat community as UAE continues to be India's third largest trading partner. India and the United Arab Emirates share close historical, cultural, economic and political ties. These historic ties entered the realm of a "strategic partnership" with the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the UAE in August 2015 and the return visit of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in February 2016. This strategic partnership will acquire a formal recognition with the arrival of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in January 2017 as the Chief Guest at India's Republic Day celebrations.UNI ADP SNU 1925 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0429-1054082.Xml
Last year, 650 prisoners were released and this year it wasproposed to release 250 on good behaviour and other grounds, he added.

Speaking after inaugurating CCTV Control Room at Central Prisonbuilt at a cost of Rs 18 Crore here, the Home Minister said thegovernment will streamline monitoring and functioning of Prisons inthe State.

He said that new Central Prison built at a cost of Rs 100 croreat Shivamogga was ready and in Port town of Mangaluru there is aproposal to build a new Prison as there is congestion in the jail.There is also proposal to set up new prisons about 50 km away fromthe Port city.

On this occasion, Mr Parameshwara distributed Presidents Medalsto 11 Police Officers serving in the area.UNI MSP RS CS 1906

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The Assistant Engineer has been identified as K R Mahesh and theACB team was led by Superintendent of Police B.T. Kavitha.

The 30-member team raided Mahesh's plush house, the MUDA office,his family apartment at J P Nagar, his commercial complex owned byhim at Dattagalli. Besides the police also raided Sapthagiri Academythat he owned on the Contour Road at Gokulam.

The team seized property documents from these places.

Mr Mahesh had joined MUDA as Junior Engineer and was promotedas Assistant Engineer and has been in MUDA since 20 years. Accordingto ACB sleuths, they had received several complaints against Maheshand the team had elaborately planned the raid for a fortnight. TheACB had registered a suo moto case against the officer.

The two-floor house - worth over Rs 1 crore - had expensiveinteriors and Mahesh owned three cars - a Honda City and twohigh-end Volkswagen cars

This apart, the officer owned a posh apartment at JP Nagar worthRs. 75 lakh, a commercial complex at Dattagalli worth Rs. 3 crore,one site of 6,000 sqft opposite Aditya Hospital on the Contour Road,Gokulam, where he had established "Sapthagiri Academy" that wasmanaged by his wife.

From his house, ACB sleuths recovered one kilogram gold, Rs.50,000 in cash and 23 expensive watches. According to initialestimates, the property owned by Mahesh was worth more than Rs. 15crore. "We have not yet opened his bank lockers. The searches willcontinue and the exact worth of the property can be revealed only bythis evening," ACB sources said.UNI BSP RS ADB1957

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Led by Pradesh Mahila Congress president Sashmita Behera, the women congress leaders and workers took out a procession form the Congress Bhawan and staged demonstration near the Master Canteen.

Strongly condemning the action of the police in removing the scarf and stoles of the women attending the Chief Minister's rally at Sundargarh on December 4 last, the Mahila Congress held the District Collector and Superintendent of police responsible for the incident and demanded strong action against them for tarnishing the dignity of the women.

Describing the removal of scarf and stoles by the police at the CM's meeting is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of the women and an insult to the women society, the Women Congress leaders demanded resignation of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The Pradesh Women Congress members had already lodged a complaint with the local Mahila police station in connection with the incident

The issue had rocked the Odisha Assembly yesterday and a vociferous Opposition Congress and the BJP members stalled the proceedings of the house demanding an apology from the Chief Minister.The house which was adjourned for the day without transacting any business.

Expressing his displeasure over the incident,the Chief Minister had asked the Director General of Police to conduct an inquiry and submit a report.UNI DP BM

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Agriculture Minister VS Sunil Kumar today said the discussions is going on to give permission to Cooperative sector for the procurement of coconut in the state. Minister Sunil Kumar while inaugurating the district convention of Kisan Sabha said in the past, procurement of Coconut was done through zonal agents which resulted in irregularities of Rs 62 crore, during the last UDF government. Investigations is going on by Vigilance department in this regard. A crisis is faced by the Coconut farmers due to the delay of payment through zonal agents. 49000 metric tons of Coconut is lying in godowns and the Kerafeds are also running with loss. Agricultural Sector is facing a huge crisis due to change in climatic condition in Kerala and the coming drought situation should create a tension among the farmers said Mr Kumar. Government is trying to settle the issues of farmer. During 2012 to 2016, an amount of Rs72 crore is pending as arrears to farmers, however, the LDF government had allotted Rs 27 crore to the farmers of Wayanad, for their back log of rs 28 Crore, within the last four months. District President K P Kunhikrishnan presided over the function, National Kisan Sabha Secretary Sathyan Mokeri, CPI district secretary P Santhosh Kumar and other district leaders of CPI and Kisan Sabha attended the function.UNI AK APA VS SHK 2037 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0440-1053926.Xml
As per the order Rajesh Sekhri, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Jammu, is transferred and posted as Additional District Judge (Bank Cases), Jammu, vice Ashok Kumar.

Shahzad Azeem, President, Divisional Consumer Protection Forum, Jammu, is transferred and posted as Additional District and Sessions Judge, Jammu, vice Rajesh Sekhri.

Ashok Kumar, Additional District Judge (Bank Cases), Jammu, is transferred and posted as President, Divisional Consumer Protection Forum, Jammu, vice Shahzad Azeem.

Rajesh Kumar Abrol, Sub Judge, presently attached with the Registrar Judicial, High Court of J&K, Jammu Wing, awaiting posting orders, is transferred and posted as Sub Judge, Chadoora, vice Vinod Kumar.

Vinod Kumar, Sub Judge, Chadoora, is transferred and posted as Sub Judge, Leave Reserve Post in the High Court of J&K, Jammu Wing. The services of the officer shall be utilized as and when desired by Chief Justice.

Additional charge of the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kargil, for the time being is given to the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Leh, with the direction to hold the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate at Kargil, for one week in a month, keeping in view the workload and urgency. UNI VBH PY SHK 2202

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Speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here, Ramdev said he was misquoted by the media about his opinion on the Trinamool Congress supremo during his recent visit to Bengal.

"I praised her austere life to which some people asked me if she could become the Prime Minister... I replied that it was a democracy and anyone can dream of becoming the Prime Minister.

"I did not say that Mamata will become the Prime Minister someday. The media misquoted me," he said.

About himself, Ramdev said he will never be directly involved in politics but continue to work for turning the country into a superpower.

--IANS and/vd

( 139 Words)

2016-12-06-23:10:12 (IANS)
Some of the business establishment in the Old City at many places were closed. Police had tightened the security as a precautionary measures.

Earlier in the day, a delegation of MBT (Majlis Bachao Tahreek) leaders led by its president Majeed Ullah Khan alias Farhat Khan, submitted a memorandum to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan for reconstruction of Babri Masjid at its original place.

The MBT President, who sent a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee said,"in view of the coming Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections once again the issue of Ram Bhoomi is being politicised by the very elements who demolish Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 under the patronage of NDA-BJP government at the Central Government and there is a open threat by the fascist forces, of violation of the order of Supreme Court maintaining the status quo at Babri Masjid side."

The MBT requested the President to clearly direct the Centre to maintain status quo till the Apex court delivers the final verdict.

It also requested Mr Mukherjee to direct the government to establish a special court to expedite the Babri Masjid case and settle it once and for all as "Justice delayed in justice denied."UNI KNR PY SHK 2256

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Appealing tourist and yatries from around the world, including India, to come and enjoy hospitality and the beauty of the valley, separatists said Kashmir has ensured safety and security of travelers for centuries. The appeal by the separatists comes after over more than four months of unrest that has left business and other activities paralyzed since July 9 in Kashmir valley, where over 90 civilians have lost their lives and thousands others have been injured in security force action. But, the separatists in its latest calendar have extended the strike till December 8. "From centuries Kashmiris have been safeguarding and providing exemplary hospitality and safety to tourists and yatries from around the world, including India as we have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests by our great religion," a joint statement of both the factions of Hurriyat Conference and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) said. While wholeheartedly welcoming the tourists and yatries who intend to visit Kashmir, the separatists said, "Our religion Islam and the Prophet of Islam have taught us to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost." This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethics and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history, they said. The separatists said that millions of tourists from the world including India have been visiting Kashmir, from centuries and enjoying the mesmerizing beauty of this paradise on earth and also the unparallel hospitality of our people. "Our history bears a witness that we as a nation have always stood firm with these ethics and teachings and we have always respected, safeguarded and served our guest during hardest of times and worst calamites and have never shun this attribute of our national life," they said. "In 2008, when chauvinist forces in Jammu blockaded us and life saving drugs and baby-food was even stopped from coming to us, we as a nation replied this tyranny with our exemplary hospitality to yatries and tourist who were in Kashmir that time," they alleged. They said Kashmiris not only safeguarded them and provided they shelter, but also served them and kept the doors of their homes and localities open for them. "Same was done during devastating floods of 2014 when we as a nation were shattered but looked after our guests with passion and zeal," they said. Welcoming everyone intending to visit Kashmir whole heartedly and warmly, the separatists said that everyone from the world including India is most welcome to Kashmir. "We invite them to come to Kashmir and enjoy our hospitality and the beauty of paradise on earth," they added. UNI ABS SHK 2214 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1054368.Xml
Speaking after inaugurating the first project at SanguemIndustrial Estate, a beverage plant of Varun Beverages Limited whichis a Pepsico franchisee at Xelpem Sanguem in South Goa, around 60 kmfrom here, he said similarly 25 projects were under process whichwould soon be made operational.

Initially, tourism and mining industry were the major sourcesof revenue for the state's economy and now the manufacturingindustries has been added, he said and pointed out that both revenueand employment would increase with people's cooperation.

Stating that government was focusing on non-pollutingenvironment-friendly projects, the Chief Minister claimed that noneof the projects approved by IPFB was power guzzler.

Mr Parsekar expressed government's commitment to the welfareof the citizens of state and added that before according approval,employment potential of every project was taken into consideration.

Industries Minister Mahadev Naik informed that government hadapproved projects worth Rs 165 crore for Sanguem Industrial Estate.

The 134 projects approved by IPFB would create 23,360 jobs,he added.UNI AKM SS HK 2221

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A case was registered at Sangamner Rural Police station inAhmednagar district yesterday against ten people including the twoleaders and eight others who have reported to be absconding, police said.

The accused duo -- Gangaram Malle (40) and Ramdas Phulmali (35) -- were arrested yesterday and remanded to police custody tillDecember nine by a court in Sangamner today.

Advocate Ranjana Pagar-Gawande of Andhshraddha NirmulanSamiti (ANS) said that the jat panchayat had boycotted ManikHanumant Hatkar (28), a member of the community, along with 10 otherfamilies related to him for marrying Mahananda (25) from another community.

The other families asked the jat panchayat to take them backinto the community, but to no avail.

In September, the jat panchayat had held a meeting atZarekathe village in Sangamner tehsil of Ahmednagar and ordered the10 families to pay Rs 27 lakh as fine.

Adv Pagar-Gawande said that a law against community boycotthas been passed by the Maharashtra Legislature and it has been sentto the central government for approval.

''Once the law comes into effect, strict action can be takenagainst the accused,'' she added.UNI RDS SS HK SHK 2228

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become the first sitting Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor, as he announced on Monday a symbolic visit this month to the site of the Japanese attack 75 years ago that pulled the United States into World War II. Abe said in a news conference that he would travel to the American naval base with outgoing US President Barack Obama during a trip to Hawaii on December 26 and 27, reports the New York Times. By visiting Pearl Harbor, Abe will be reciprocating a trip President Obama made in May to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb at the end of the war with Japan in 1945. "We must never repeat the horror of war. I want to express that determination as we look to the future, and at the same time send a message about the value of U.S.-Japanese reconciliation," said Abe. Abe's visit will come just a few weeks after the 75th anniversary of the attack, which occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Carried out by Japanese bombers and fighter planes launched from aircraft carriers that had quietly slipped within striking distance of Hawaii, the attack killed more than 2,000 Americans and sank a number of United States warships, including the battleship Arizona, whose wreck has become a memorial to the battle. Obama's trip to Hiroshima this year was also a first by any sitting American president. In a statement, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the two leaders would visit the Arizona memorial together to honor those killed at Pearl Harbor. (ANI)
Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari has urged all the political parties to work towards ending the current stalemate over the constitution amendment bill for the sake of implementing the charter by holding the elections. During an all-party meeting held at Sheetal Niwas on Sunday, President Bhandari advised the ruling coalition of the CPN (Maoist Centre) and the Nepali Congress, the main opposition CPN-UML and the Madhes-based parties to work jointly on holding the three layers of elections to be held by January, 2018, reports the Kathmandu Post. The President stressed that it was because of consensus among the political parties that the country had come so far with the new constitution. The government registered a constitution amendment bill in Parliament last Tuesday with an aim to address the demands of the Madhes-based parties, mainly over the provincial boundaries, citizenship, language and representation in the Upper House. However, the amendment bill seems to have further polarised the political forces, with the UML objecting to the proposed reshaping of Province 5 and the Madhesi Morcha refusing to accept the bill in its present form. The UML has hit the streets and obstructed parliamentary proceedings demanding that the ruling coalition withdraw the amendment bill. In the meeting, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is learnt to have expressed his readiness to seek political consensus with the UML and the Madhesi Morcha for the sake of implementing the constitution. Talking to reporters after the meeting, the Madhes-based forces said they had apprised the President on the need for revising the bill. UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli reportedly told the ruling parties and the President that his party was fully committed to holding the polls. (ANI)
Activists and political leaders of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) held a protest outside the Press Club in Rawalpindi to demand a ban on the activities of extremists in their territory. They accused Islamabad of providing shelter to terrorists in PoK who are misleading the youth towards `Jihad'. The event was organized by the National Action Front, a coalition of several nationalist parties from PoK, including the United Kashmir People's National Party. The protesters raised their voices against the use of religion as a tool to mislead the youth of Kashmir. Ishaq Mir, a leader of the Jammu Kashmir People's National Party (JKPNP), said, "This is not `jihad'. Our children are being exploited and pushed towards `jihad'. On 31 July 1987, when an explosion took place at Srinagar airport, the Islamic extremists announced a `jihad'. Since then, a joke is going on in the name of jihad and extremist organisations have committed mass murder. I don't want to repeat the past, but some 110,000 people, including children and women, have been killed. Our sisters and daughters have been sexually exploited". The protesters demanded the withdrawal of National Action Plan as it's been used against nationalist and political leaders in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan by the Pakistan Army. Many youth are being arrested and they are suffering atrocities at the hands of the security agencies. Pakistan has been using the PoK for its proxy war against India and has given shelter to banned terrorist organizations. On September 29, India conducted surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in PoK and killed at least 38 terrorists. (ANI)
With this, Michigan, where President-elect Donald Trump won 16 electoral votes by just 0.2 percent, will become the second state to conduct a recount of ballot casts during the last month presidential election as recount is already underway in Wisconsin, reports the CNN.

The ruling follows a request from Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who yesterday ended her state-wide ballot recount efforts in Pennsylvania.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, last week filed a lawsuit to stop the recount.

Stein has spearheaded a recount effort in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- three states where Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton.

Stein's campaign this weekend said that she would instead file the lawsuit seeking a statewide recount in federal court on Monday. (ANI)
"God forbid! After Syria and Iraq, the next target of ISIS is Pakistan," The Express Tribune quoted Qadri, as saying at a peace conference held at Nishtar Park here.

"ISIS is gradually gaining a foothold in Pakistan . Its influence is also expanding," he added.

Qadri claimed that ISIS has already launched terrorist activities in the country.

Stating that foreign elements did not want Pakistan to prosper, he said that they were engaged in instigating extremism and turmoil in the country.

Qadri said the good name of Islam was being tarnished by the terrorists and the poor people of Pakistan are also being exploited by them.

Asserting that the doctrines of al Qaeda and ISIS were almost the same, he said, "The mindset is the same, only the name has changed."

Qadri said that they have to eliminate the acceptance of terrorism

PAT chief quoting Hadiths said that prophecy about the rise of ISIS was made by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 1,400 years ago.

"Followers of black flags will lay claim to the Islamic State," he said while citing another Hadiths. (ANI)
South Korean corporate chiefs told a parliamentary panel today that they were not seeking favours when they made contributions to two foundations at the heart of a scandal that appears poised to bring down President Park Geun-hye.Still, the head of the GS Group, one of the nine conglomerate bosses summoned to appear at the unprecedented televised hearing, acknowledged that it was hard to say no to the government."It's a South Korean reality that if there is a government request, it is difficult for companies to decline," said Huh Chang-soo, who heads the energy-to-retail GS Group and is also chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, the main lobby group for the conglomerates known as chaebol.The bosses of conglomerates controlling revenue equivalent to more than half the country's economy were questioned over whether they were pressured by Park or a friend and aide to give money to non-profit foundations, which backed initiatives put forth by Park, in exchange for special treatment.Park faces an impeachment vote on Friday over the scandal.Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee, who sat at the centre of the witness table, said Park had asked him during one-on-one meetings for support for boosting cultural and sports-related developments but did not specifically request money."There are often requests from various parts of society including for culture and sports. We have never contributed seeking quid pro quo. This case was the same," Lee said, adding that he was embarrassed by the situation and was appearing with a "heavy heart."Samsung donated 20.4 billion won (17.46 million dollars) to the two foundations, the most of any group, and prosecutors raided its offices last month."I will take all responsibility related to the current situation, legal or ethical, if there is any," said the 48-year-old Lee, the third-generation leader of the country's biggest conglomerate, who received the lion's share of the panel's questioning in the first two hours.The family-controlled chaebol have long dominated Asia's fourth-largest economy, working closely with the government in a system that helped the country rebuild from the ravages of the 1950-53 Korean war but that critics say is due for reforms, including improved corporate governance and transparency.RUNNING THE GAUNTLETThe corporate titans ran a gauntlet of media and protesters as they entered the National Assembly building that sits along the southern bank of the Han River.None of the chaebol, which are among 53 corporate groups that gave money to the foundations, has been accused of any wrongdoing in the case, but a protestor outside the parliamentary building could be seen holding a sign saying: "Arrest the chaebol chiefs."Friday's impeachment vote sets the stage for Park to be the first democratically elected South Korean leader to leave office early in disgrace. Huge demonstrations have called for her to quit and her approval rating has plunged to just 4 per cent.Last week she asked parliament to find a way and a time for her to step down, an offer that was rejected by the opposition Democratic Party as a stalling tactic. Media reports said she may make a speech this week offering to step down in April, a recommendation made by her conservative Saenuri Party.Middle school students who were leaving the parliamentary building as chaebol bosses arrived chanted "Park Geun-hye step down!" and a scuffle between metal workers' union members and men who appeared to be guards broke out when Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo, 78, arrived with his son and presumed successor, Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun.It is the first time such a large group of major Korean corporate chieftains has appeared for a parliamentary hearing."This will be a good opportunity to express corporations' position," the chairman of the Hanwha Group, Kim Seung-youn, told reporters on his way into the building.Each witness was allowed to bring one lawyer and one company official to the hearing, and, if needed, an aide for medical support, according to a lawmaker's office.REUTERS PS RAI1004 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1053115.Xml
Importing fine foods from Spain has been a good trade for London firm Brindisa, but like many food and wine businesses that rely on the free movement of goods and workers within the European Union, it has been badly hit by Britain's vote to leave.Launched on a shoestring by entrepreneur Monika Linton 28 years ago, Brindisa now employs 300 people in five London restaurants, two shops and a warehouse.It is part of a sector that encompasses more than 27,500 businesses in London, generating an annual turnover above 14 billion pounds (17 billion). Food and wine is one of the city's most vibrant service industries but also one of the most exposed to the process of leaving the EU, known as Brexit."In terms of Brexit we're probably almost the government's least favourite company because we ship everything in and we employ a lot of non-British people," Linton told Reuters at her shop in Borough Market, a foodie's paradise south of the Thames.The plunge in the value of the pound against the euro following the vote yanked up the cost of the artisan cheeses, fine hams and other products Brindisa gets from all over Spain."We've had to increase prices," said Linton. "The valuation has tumbled so far that we couldn't sustain our margin."The import and distribution arm of Brindisa buys 11 million euros a year to purchase goods in Spain, so the pound's post-referendum plunge could cost the business about 2 million pounds compared with the exchange rate this time last year."EXCEEDINGLY WORRIED"For small firms, which dominate the food and drinks sector, weathering a currency shock can be all-consuming, because they do not have enough staff to divert to contingency planning."It takes all our attention," said Giles Budibent, co-owner with his brother of wine importer and distributor Barton Brownsdon & Sadler (BBS). "We only have so much. We can't be running around looking for new business."The firm imports from EU members France, Italy and Spain, as well as from Chile, South Africa and Australia. It developed a more sophisticated approach to currency hedging after the 2008 global financial crisis, softening the initial Brexit blow, but in October it too had to raise prices.It would be a major challenge for BBS and Brindisa if the deal Britain eventually negotiates with the 27 remaining EU members involves a return of trade barriers."We're exceedingly worried about that. It's just so easy at the moment. You want to import something from Europe, you just go on and do it," said Budibent.Brindisa imports a lot of short-life products such as young farmhouse cheeses and fresh meat. "We might end up where we were before, where you've got masses of paperwork but you've also got the risk of things getting held up on the border," said Linton.She was also worried about what would happen to rules about labelling, food traceability, product safety and authenticity."If Britain is going to have to set up its own rules, all the suppliers are going to have to have labels for Britain instead of labels for Europe, which is a really expensive and slow process," she said.But the number one concern for Linton and the rest of the industry is that Brexit will bring restrictions on immigration, shrinking the pool of cheap foreign labour on which it relies."The restaurant trade is an immigrants' trade," said Peter Harden, co-founder of Harden's London Restaurants, a respected annual guide now in its 26th year, during an interview in the elegant dining room of Michelin-starred restaurant Chez Bruce.There are no official statistics on the proportion of foreign workers in London's food and drinks trade, but some in the industry estimate it is well over half, or even two thirds. Londoners are accustomed to hearing a wide variety of accents whenever they dine out, buy take-away food or go to a cafe.NOT JUST ROCKET SCIENTISTSWhile the government has not revealed exactly how it wants to manage immigration post-Brexit, the broad thrust of policy seems to be tougher restrictions on unskilled labour, with more avenues for skilled workers. This greatly concerns Harden."Yes, we do all agree that we'd love as many rocket scientists and brain surgeons to move to the UK as possible but the hospitality and tourism trade is incredibly important too. And in general, it's reliant on unskilled labour," he said."It's a hard topic to broach because the second you do, it's very easy for you to be attacked and for people to say that you're somehow doing down the local labour force."The median wage of waiters and waitresses in London is 7.33 pounds per hour, just above the legal minimum wage of 7.20 for people aged 25 and over, according to official statistics.Bruce Poole, proprietor of Chez Bruce and two other London restaurants, said his business would simply not manage without foreign workers, notably from the EU."Most of the staff of the dining room tend to be from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, what have you," he said during an interview in the kitchen at Chez Bruce, amid the clattering of pans and the aroma of freshly baked brioche."It's been my job to try and reassure them as far as I can, but of course I don't know what's going to happen either."Poole said foreign workers had been crucial to the transformation of Britain's food culture, which a few decades ago was the butt of jokes by European neighbours but is now one of the most varied and innovative in the world."You'll hear people talk about the revolution in restaurants in the UK, particularly London, in the last 20 years," he said. "That is absolutely down to the people who work in the industry here ... We employ people from all over the place and that's definitely added to the diverse culture of our food.Reuters CJ RAI1209 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1053211.Xml
A Thai teenager born and raised in Japan lost an appeal today against a lower court ruling that upheld his deportation order, highlighting the country's deep reluctance to accept foreigners even as its population ages and shrinks.The Tokyo High Court ruled that Utinan Won, a 16-year-old high school student living without a visa, should leave Japan. Won's mother had already left Japan after lower court judges said her son could win residency if she returned to Thailand."Of course I want to stay in Japan," Won told reporters after the ruling. "I'd waited so long for this decision. I'm so sad and pained that it was made so quickly."The High Court judges made their ruling in little more than 10 seconds, with cries of "Why?" and "Terrible" coming from a packed public gallery.Won's case has drawn sharp focus on the plight of hundreds of children who, like him, live on "provisional release" - a status that allows those without visas to stay in Japan while banning them from working and travelling freely.Last month, Reuters exposed the agonising pathway to residency offered by the Japanese immigration authorities and courts to some families living on provisional release: Children can stay in Japan legally if their parents return to their country of origin.Tokyo District Court judges said in June Won could win a special residence permit if his mother - who at the time was also on provisional release - left Japan, and if he found another guardian.Won's mother, Lonsan Phaphakdee, returned to Bangkok in September to give her son a chance to continue life in the only country he has known. Won now lives with a Japanese man who has been supporting the family.The High Court judges said in a written ruling: "We must say that the (lower court's) decision and the deportation order are legally legitimate."Although Won does not read or write Thai, he is able to speak the language and is young enough to adapt to life back in Thailand, the judges said.Won's lawyer, Koichi Kodama, said the judges did not take into consideration the fact that the mother had left Japan and only re-evaluated evidence submitted to the lower court.Wearing his school uniform and sneakers, Won remained impassive throughout the ruling, his head bowed slightly. Representatives from the government, the defendant in the case, were not present at the hearing.His lawyer said Won had not yet decided whether to appeal against the latest ruling. REUTERS PS RAI1240 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1053290.Xml
British Prime Minister Theresa May's government will have to put forward a parliamentary bill if it loses a Supreme Court case over whether it can begin Brexit talks without lawmakers' approval, a government lawyer said today."It would require not just parliamentary involvement ... but primary legislation," lawyer James Eadie told the Supreme Court."The reason it requires primary legislation is (because) you are being asked to declare ... unlawful the exercise of the prerogative power to give Article 50 notice as the first step in the process."The government is appealing to the Supreme Court against a High Court ruling last month that it could not invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which begins a two-year exit process from the European Union, without parliamentary assent.REUTERS JW AS1720 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1053791.Xml
Former UN chief Kofi Annan today urged Myanmar security forces to act within the rule of law in the country's northwest, where an army crackdown has killed at least 86 people and sent 10,000 fleeing over the border to Bangladesh.The violence is the biggest challenge faced by Aung San Suu Kyi's eight-month-old government and has prompted calls for the Nobel Peace laureate to do more to help the Rohingya minority, who are denied citizenship and access to basic services.Security operations must not compromise citizens' civil rights, said Annan, who heads a government-appointed panel tasked with finding solutions to the conflict between Myanmar's Buddhists and the Muslim Rohingyas."There is no trade-off between security and civil liberties," he told reporters in Yangon, the commercial capital, after meeting state counsellor Suu Kyi and commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing on his second visit to the country."Wherever security operations might be necessary, civilians must be protected at all times and I urge the security services to act in full compliance with the rule of law."The committee was "deeply concerned by reports of alleged human rights abuses," Annan said.Myanmar authorities have rejected allegations by residents and rights groups that soldiers raped Rohingya women, burnt homes and killed civilians during a crackdown in response to coordinated attacks on three border posts along the frontier with Bangladesh.Suu Kyi appointed the nine-member panel before the current fighting erupted to advise on the restive state, where ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims have lived separately since clashes in 2012 that killed more than 100 people.Protesters across Southeast Asia have turned out for demonstrations against the violence, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, which have predominantly Muslim populations.In Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, more than 10,000 people took to the streets today to protest outside the Myanmar embassy against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims, a city police official told Reuters.More than 10,000 people had fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, United Nations officials said last week. REUTERS JW PM1812 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1053948.Xml
The head of Europe's police agency said it would "look again" at the largest migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean this year after an investigation by Reuters and BBC Newsnight exposed a gap in the response by law enforcement.Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said his agency would reconsider the shipwreck, given "the absence of any clear answers."The Reuters investigation into an incident on April 9, in which an estimated 500 people drowned, raised "uncomfortable" issues, Wainwright said. It found that no official body, national or international, has held anyone to account for the deaths or even opened an inquiry into the shipwreck.Only 37 people survived when an Egyptian trawler capsized as its crew of smugglers loaded more migrants on board from a smaller feeder boat. The survivors, who eventually reached Greece on April 16, said that the smugglers abandoned the scene, leaving up to 100 people still alive in the sea. They said the smugglers used force to stop survivors on the feeder boat rescuing others.Among the dead were an estimated 190 Somalis, around 150 Ethiopians, 80 Egyptians, and some 85 people from Sudan, Syria and other countries.In interviews with Reuters and BBC Newsnight, Wainwright said that in hindsight his agency should have investigated the April sinking, and the media inquiries might have exposed a "gap here in the collective response by Europe" to such cases.Italy, where the ship was headed, has not investigated the sinking. Nor has Greece, where the survivors landed. Both countries judged that no crime had occurred within their jurisdiction.There has been no investigation by any United Nations body, the European Union's frontier agency, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or the EU naval task force in the Mediterranean. All said investigating the incident was not within their mandate.Reuters has identified the owners of the doomed ship and the ringleaders of the voyage, as well as the alleged people-brokers who assembled the migrants in Cairo and Alexandria and took their money.The investigation also revealed that, under pressure from smugglers, some survivors initially lied about the journey, stating that they left from Tobruk, Libya, instead of Alexandria, Egypt, their real departure point.In Egypt, Judge Khaled al-Nashar, assistant to Egypt's Minister of Justice for Parliamentary and Media Affairs, said he could not confirm what inquiries had taken place into the April sinking.But he said Egypt had just passed new laws against illegal migration and was determined to take action against smugglers.He said further action over the April sinking was not ruled out. "If the occurrence of such a crime is proven, Egypt certainly will not hesitate to conduct the necessary investigations to uncover it and arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice."Some Egyptian lawyers believe the smugglers' actions may have amounted to murder."I consider putting 500 people on this boat to be murder. There is no other way to describe it," said Sabry Tolba, an Egyptian lawyer hired by the families of some of those who died.REUTERS JW PM1838 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1053970.Xml
Austria plans to jail or fine asylum seekers who lie to the authorities, a move aimed partly at dissuading migrants from trying to settle, it said today.The cabinet agreed on a draft law that would allow the authorities to punish asylum applicants who lie about their identities - for example by pretending to be Syrian so their claims have a better chance of being accepted - with a fine of up to 5,000 euros ( 5,373 dollars) or three weeks in jail.Those who stay in Austria despite being ordered to leave face fines of between 5,000 and 15,000 euros or six weeks in jail, said the conservative People's Party (OVP), which is in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPO).The centrist government has this year tightened migration laws. The anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPO), whose candidate Norbert Hofer made it to Sunday's presidential election run-off, has been leading opinion polls with around 33 per cent for months."Certainly these (measures) have in part a signalling effect," OVP junior economy minister, Harald Mahrer, said when asked if the law was designed to scare off migrants. "What kind of rule of law would we have in the republic if we said we do not punish these things?"The bill needs the approval of parliament.Other European countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, have also toughened asylum laws or tightened border controls in recent months as European Union member states have failed to agree on a mechanism for distributing migrants among themselves.Austria's Greens criticised the bill and called for the costs of accepting asylum seekers to be spread among European Union member states."That way you can stop the nationalist competition for who can scare off asylum seekers the most," said Alev Korun of the Greens.Austria has announced a cap on asylum claims of 37,500 this year, having taken in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, when it was swept up in Europe's migration crisis.The Interior Ministry said it had received 37,000 asylum applications by the end of October, but only counted 30,000 as relevant to the cap as it strips out certain cases, including those it believes should be processed in other countries.One SPO minister said emergency measures would not be needed this year or next year, when the cap falls to 35,000, to stay below the limit.REUTERS JW PM1957 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-1054222.Xml
Russia's defence ministry said today that Syrian government forces had taken control of five more districts of eastern Aleppo, Russian news agencies reported.The Syrian army has now taken over 35 districts that were previously controlled by rebels opposed to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, the ministry was quoted as saying.Russia backs Assad in the Syrian conflict. REUTERS PY PM2225 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1054385.Xml
Brazilian Senator Renan Calheiros said today he was staying on as president of the Senate, defying a Supreme Court injunction ordering him to step down because of an indictment for embezzlement.Calheiros said the Supreme Court injunction violated the separation of powers between the judiciary and the legislature. He called on the top court's plenary, which is due to consider an appeal on Wednesday, to overturn the order issued by one of its 11 members.REUTERS PY BD2320 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1054397.Xml
BEIJING, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A two-day international seminar on the right to development concluded Monday, urging continued global commitment to offering equal opportunities for development and sharing its benefits.

At the seminar marking the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations' "Declaration on the Right to Development," participants agreed that peace and development remain the dominant themes in today's world.

The fundamental cause of poverty, the refugee crisis, conflicts, war, terrorism and extremism lies in underdevelopment, and solutions to all these problems must be sought through development, they said.

More than 150 representatives from over 40 countries, regions and international organizations attended the event.

They called on governments to continue to improve conditions to facilitate the development of all nations and individuals so that all people can pursue personal development with dignity, contribute to society and share opportunities to achieve their full potential and dreams.

The North-South gap in economic development is still very wide, attendees said, calling on the international community to make poverty and hunger elimination its primary task, tackle imbalances in development and promote sustainable development.

Development is the eternal theme of human society, and the right to development is a universal and inalienable human right, according to proposals made during the seminar, which was co-hosted by the State Council Information Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"All countries have the responsibility to implement their right to development on the state and international level. They should accomplish development based on equality and non-discrimination principles," said Zamir Akram, chair-rapporteur of the Working Group on the Right to Development at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Akram added that all countries should reduce poverty domestically and around the world through cooperation with the international community.

The participants also spoke highly of the achievements made by many developing countries, including China, in ensuring their people's rights to development.

"Over 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty in such a short period. This is a great accomplishment of China," Akram said.

Li Erping, a professor from Kunming University of Science and Technology in southwest China's Yunnan Province, said that achieving common prosperity through targeted poverty alleviation is a crucial part of the Chinese government's efforts and a tool to ensure the right to development.

Li noted that some regions, families or individuals, due to remote location, disability or other reasons, may not have shaken off poverty yet.

Targeted poverty alleviation requires precision in choosing whom to help, how to arrange programs and how to spend the money, Li added.

"Poverty reduction is the most telling evidence of China's progress in human rights," according to a white paper on China's progress in poverty reduction and human rights issued by China's State Council Information Office in October.

"Since the launch of reform and opening up, more than 700 million Chinese people have been raised out of poverty. The number of rural poor had fallen to 55.75 million by 2015, with the incidence of poverty dropping to 5.7 percent. Notable improvement has been made to infrastructure and basic public services, and poverty-reduction mechanisms have been innovated, contributing to the guarantee of the basic rights of the impoverished population," the white paper said.

According to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in China fell from 61 percent in 1990 to 4.2 percent in 2014, with the number of people China has raised from poverty accounting for 70 percent of the world's total.

China is the first developing country to have met the MDG and contributed actively to the global course of poverty alleviation.

Related:

Full Text: Beijing Proposal -- In Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development
Fan Changlong (R), vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, meets with Djibouti Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Zakaria Cheikh Ibrahim in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 5, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Zhenhua)

BEIJING, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese military official on Monday said that the Chinese army is willing to strengthen dialogue and coordination with Djiboutian troops.

Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while meeting with Zakaria Cheikh Ibrahim, Chief of General Staff of the Djibouti Armed Forces.

Fan spoke about the sound cooperation between the two armies in international peacekeeping, staff training, medical and health care and equipment maintenance.

Zakaria said Djibouti is willing to make joint efforts with China to strengthen pragmatic cooperation and boost relations between the two armies.
BEIJING, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The International Seminar on the 30th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development concluded on Monday with a Beijing Proposal.

Following is the full text of the document.

Beijing Proposal

-- In Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development

The International Seminar on the 30th Anniversary of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Right to Development was held in Beijing on Dec. 4-5, 2016. Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a letter of congratulation to the seminar. Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and head of the CPC Central Committee's Publicity Department, attended the seminar and made a speech. The seminar, co-hosted by the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was attended by more than 150 representatives from over 40 countries, regions and international organizations.

It was agreed at the seminar that the Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted by the United Nations 30 years ago, has played an important role in promoting the development and progress of human society. The participants spoke highly of the achievements made by many developing countries, including China, in ensuring their people's right to development, and praised China's active efforts in implementing the Declaration on the Right to Development, the Millennium Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The participants agreed that peace and development remain the dominant themes in today's world. Underdevelopment is one of the causes of many problems faced by the world. The fundamental cause of poverty, the refugee crisis, conflicts, war, terrorism and extremism lies in underdevelopment, and solutions to all these problems have to be sought through development. Presently, the North-South gap in economic development is still very wide. The international community should therefore make poverty and hunger elimination its primary task, tackle imbalances in development and promote sustainable development.

At the seminar, participants engaged in brainstorming and discussed "sharing development for the benefit of people from all countries." They made the following proposals:

-- Development is the eternal theme of human society, and the right to development is a universal and inalienable human right. It is the ideal pursuit of human society to offer equal opportunities for development, share the fruits of development, enable everyone to enjoy full development and personal dignity, and realize the right to development. The development of human society is presently at a transitional stage. It remains a long-term task for human society to ensure people from all countries enjoy adequate right to development and to seek more advanced stages of development.

-- The right to development is a general and basic human right that is closely related to all other human rights. Guarantee of the right to development is manifested in the realization of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, and in the acquirement of civil and political rights. The international community should therefore attach equal importance to the promotion and protection of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights as well as civil and political rights.

-- The right to development is an individual as well as a collective right. All people enjoy, individually and collectively, the right to development to pursue more comprehensive development. Governments are obliged to keep improving conditions to facilitate the development of all nations and individuals, so that each individual can pursue personal development with dignity, contribute to society and share opportunities to achieve their personal full potential and their dreams.

-- The right to development requires sustainability. Countries, societies and individuals should all bear obligations and responsibilities for sustainable development. To realize and guarantee the right to development, they need to conform to the concept of balanced and sustainable growth, and promote harmony between man and nature, economy and society. Consumption and production should be conducted in a sustainable manner. All countries should manage the Earth's natural resources in a scientific way and take a sustainable and renewable approach while seeking economic and social development.

-- People all over the world should enjoy the right to development, and countries should seek ways to work together to promote development and remove barriers. The realization of the right to development requires governments to map out strategies and policies consistent with their countries' domestic situations. It also requires the international community to seek equitable, open, all-round and innovation-driven development, enhance cooperation, strengthen support for developing countries, especially for the least developed countries, promote inclusive development and build a community with shared future for mankind.
FUZHOU, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A former executive deputy mayor of Xiamen City of east China's Fujian Province has been arrested for corruption, authorities said Monday.

Zheng Yunfeng was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes, according to the People's Procuratorate of Fujian Province.

Zheng was put under investigation in August for "serious violation of discipline."

Further investigation into his bribe-taking case continues.
NEW DELHI, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- One of India's most charismatic and popular politicians, Chief Minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalitha, died at a private hospital in state capital Chennai late Monday night at the age of 68, the hospital announced Tuesday.

The South Indian film star-turned-politician, who had been in a critical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest Sunday evening, passed away at 11.30 p.m. (local time) Monday, the Apollo Hospital where Jayalalitha was being treated for the past four months said in a statement.

Local TV channels showed footage of millions of people in Chennai, who had been standing vigil outside the hospital in Chennai since Sunday, breaking down in tears.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other top politicians took to social media site Twitter to express their condolences. "In her passing away, the nation has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions," the Indian president tweeted.

"I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief," Modi tweeted.

Jayalalitha was first hospitalised in September and her regional ruling AIADMK party had then said it was for dehydration and fever. But it soon became clear that her illness was more serious. She spent weeks on respiratory support, with specialists arriving from London to monitor her.

She has been Tamil Nadu chief minister four times and is revered by many in the state. With the extreme devotion she inspires among her supporters, many of whom refer to her as "Amma" (mother), who had a roller-coaster ride to power.

Experts say there will be a political vaccum in the state, which would be very difficult to fill in though time will be the judge.
LUSAKA, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A conference aimed at sharing information on the development of renewable energies in the southern African nation opened here Monday with Zambian Vice-President Inonge Wina calling for diversification of power generation sources in view of poor rainfall patterns.

The conference dubbed "Southern Africa for a Renewable Future" has been organized by the French Embassy in view of the energy deficit facing countries in the region due to growing population and economic progress which have put a strain on power supply.

The Zambian vice-president said hydropower generation will drastically reduce if the poor rainfall pattern continues hence the need to explore alternative renewable energy sources.

Countries, she said, were seeking renewable energy technologies in diversifying the source of power generation in order to mitigate the negative impact of power deficit.

According to her, the conference has brought together key players in the sector to discuss the role of renewable energy in mitigating effects of climate change and increasing energy access, adding that sharing of knowledge at a regional and global level was key in scaling up the use of renewable energy in the region.

She has since challenged the private sector to take advantage of the potential existing in Zambia's energy sector where only 50 percent of the country's installed 2,700 megawatts of hydro power was being produced.

French Ambassador to Zambia said his government was ready to partner with Zambia and other countries in the region in the development of renewable energy and advised the countries to access financing and technology for development of renewable energy.

The conference has attracted participants from Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

According to a statement from the French Embassy, the southern African region had a unique opportunity to pursue sustainable energy development as a basis for long-term prosperity especially that the region was endowed with renewable energy sources.
Photo taken on Dec. 5, 2016, shows the United Nations Security Council's voting on a resolution on Aleppo Truce at the United Nations headquarters in New York, on Dec. 5, 2016. The UN Security Council on Monday failed to adopt a resolution on humanitarian situation in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as Russia and China vetoed it. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Monday failed to adopt a resolution on humanitarian situation in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as Russia and China vetoed it.

Before the vote, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said that putting the draft resolution into vote violates the Security Council's working procedure since the document can only be put into vote on Tuesday morning under the council's rule.

Churkin said the council needs more time to take into account new circumstances in Syria and to reach consensus on a resolution that can contribute to improving humanitarian in Syria, particularly in Aleppo.
LONDON, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The film "American Honey" was the big winner at the British Independent Film Awards, scooping four prizes.

Andrea Arnold's middle America roadtrip odyssey "American Honey" won the awards for best director, best actress for Sasha Lane, best British independent film, and the prize for outstanding craft for cinematographer Robbie Ryan.

The film "I, Daniel Blake" was also a prominent winner in the annual awards ceremony held on Sunday evening in the Old Billingsgate Market in central London.

Director Ken Loach's "I, Daniel Blake", won awards for best actor and for best newcomer. The film tells the deeply personal story of poor people struggling to survive in contemporary Britain without a job and with dwindling support from welfare authorities.

Dave Johns who won the award for best actor, in his feature film debut, told Xinhua: "It's been a crazy time, I never felt it would have the impact it has had -- audiences are loving and reviewers are loving it. It has got something to say."

Hayley Squires, who won the award as best newcomer for her performance as Katy, a struggling single mother, told Xinhua: "We did a lot of research. I met people in homeless hostels, in Katy's position; and I visited a food bank about four days before we did the scene. It is pretty delicate research; you are stepping into people's lives, who are in crisis."

"You are talking about people's lives and what they go through daily; if you let go of that, then there is a lack of truth in you."

The prize for best international indie film went to Barry Jenkins' drama "Moonlight" about growing up in the contemporary United States against a background of racial and sexual identity.
South African Vice President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during an event commemorating the third anniversary of former South African president Nelson Mandela's death in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Dec. 5, 2016. South Africans on Monday marked the 3rd anniversary of former president Nelson Mandela's death, vowing to honour his legacy by upholding his values and principles. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan)

CAPE TOWN, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- South Africans on Monday marked the 3rd anniversary of former president Nelson Mandela's death, vowing to honour his legacy by upholding his values and principles.

South African Vice President Cyril Ramaphosa has taken the opportunity to call on South Africans to strengthen unity.

"It is only through unity, that we become effective agents of social change. It is only through unity, that we can improve people's lives," Ramaphosa said at the Nelson Mandela Memorial Dialogue, taking place in Johannesburg.

Mandela, founder of new South Africa, died on December 5, 2013 at the age of 95.

Three years after Mandela's death, South Africa has been gripped by discord within the state and in some of its public institutions. This can be demonstrated by declining support for the ANC and growing factionalism within the party.

"While we should be cautious not to exaggerate reports of discord within the state and in some of our public institutions, we cannot ignore the fault lines that appear to have emerged in our body politic," Ramaphosa said.

He stressed the importance of unity, saying that without unity, South Africa cannot collectively counter the effects of patronage, corruption and the unrestrained scramble for positions and resources, Ramaphosa noted.

"It is only through unity that we can defeat the virus of consumerism, individualism and greed," said Ramaphosa.

The unity that South Africans must work with great urgency to build should be underpinned by the discipline and principles that leaders such as Mandela subscribed to as well as the values contained in the Constitution and the vision of a free, just and united nation that it describes, Ramaphosa said.

"For unless we have leaders who are united, who are credible, who are honest, who listen, who are inspirational, we will not be able to unite our movement or unite our nation," he said.

Despite the progress of the last two decades, it must be acknowledged that South Africans have not transformed their economy to serve the interests of the majority, according to Ramaphosa.

"Although we have experienced periods of economic growth, we have not built up an industrial base of the scale and diversity required to extract optimal value from the natural resources we possess in abundance," he said.

At the centre of the historical mission of the ANC is the task of uniting all South Africans for the complete liberation of the people from all forms of discrimination and oppression, said Ramaphosa.

"As we confront the manifold challenges of the present, we need to place this imperative at the centre of our efforts. For this is a moment that calls for the unity of the movement and the unity of the people. It calls for unity in action," he stressed.
TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Eight soldiers were killed and 10 wounded on Monday in clashes with Islamic State (IS) militants during a military operation in the northern part of the Iraqi central province of Salahudin, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

The clashes occurred in the afternoon when the security forces attacked IS positions in villages scattered on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in Shirqat area, some 280 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source said without giving further details about the casualty among the extremist militants.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led warplanes attacked a vehicle carrying IS militants in east of Shirqat, killing the five militants aboard, the source said.

The security forces have launched an operation during the past few days to clear the part of Shirqat on the east bank of the river from IS militants as well as many other villages at the adjacent vast rural area.

Late in September, the security forces and allied tribal fighters retook control of the town of Shirqat, which located on the western bank of Tigris River.

The liberation of Shirqat was part of a major offensive to liberate the IS stronghold in Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh.

The Sunni-dominated province of Salahudin has witnessed a series of deadly attacks since security forces and allied paramilitary units, known as Hashd Shaabi, retook the province from IS militants who seized a large part of it in June 2014.
ALGIERS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Algerian Defense Ministry on Monday said its troops seized a load of war weapons on the borderline with Mali.

"Part of anti-terrorism efforts and border security, vigilant army troops discovered on Monday a bunker full of arms and ammunition in the southern province of Adrar, near the Malian border," the ministry said.

The troops retrieved 20 Kalashnikov machine-guns, 13 ammunition boxes and 516 bullets of different calibers, it said.

Algeria has deployed thousands of troops on the borderline with Mali and Libya to thwart intrusions of arms and militants.

Algerian troops have managed to arrest hundreds of terrorists coming from neighboring countries, and discovered many bunkers where weapons and ammunition were hidden.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The world is facing a humanitarian crisis that will require a record 22.2 billion U.S. dollars in funding for 2017 to support nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said here Monday.

"In order to deliver urgent relief, protection and support to nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people in 2017, we launched earlier today an appeal for 22.2 billion dollars in funding -- the highest consolidated humanitarian appeal ever launched," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here, quoting the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which launched a relief aid appeal on Monday.

The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O'Brien, said that the scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded in 1945.

"At the start of 2017, the plans presented collectively to the international donor community today will support vital humanitarian operations in 33 countries, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria," Dujarric said.

Eighty percent of the needs stem from man-made conflicts, many of which are not protracted and push up demand for relief every year, the spokesman said. "At the same time, the impact of El Nino-triggered droughts, floods and extreme weather is pushing vulnerable communities to the brink of survival."

So far in 2016, international donors have generously provided 11.4 billion U.S. dollars to the current global appeal which, over the year, has risen from 20.1 billion dollars to 22.1 billion dollars. However, this represents only 52 percent of the requirements, and humanitarian organizations approach the end of this year with a funding gap of a record 10.7 billion dollars, the largest gap ever.

"Not in living memory have so many people needed our support and solidarity to survive and live in safety and dignity," O'Brien, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator, said when he was launching the humanitarian appeal in Geneva.

"Funding in support of the plans will translate into life-saving food assistance to people on the brink of starvation in the Lake Chad Basin and South Sudan; it will provide protection for the most vulnerable people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen," O'Brien said.

"The lives of millions of women, girls, boys and men are in our hands," the UN relief chief said. "By responding generously and delivering fully on this appeal we will prove to them that we will not let them down."

The humanitarian appeal 2017 is based on Humanitarian Response Plans in Afghanistan, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. Other appeals cover Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal.

Burundi, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria are crises that affect entire regions and their neighbouring countries are included in regional response plans, bringing the number of countries included to 33.
JERUSALEM, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli parliament on Monday night gave preliminary approval to a bill to allow the State to expropriate private Palestinian lands in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The controversial legislation passed its first hurdle with a 60-49 vote but still needs to be voted in three more readings in the 120-member parliament.

A previous version of the bill passed a preliminary reading last month.

It triggered international criticism while its main supporter, Education Minister Naftali Bennet, hailing it as a first step towards an annexation of the West Bank.

The bill was the result of a compromise between the ruling coalition's far-right party of the Jewish Home, and the center-right Kulanu party.

The new version excluded a clause which would have allowed the government to legalize the unauthorized outpost of Amona retroactively.

Under the new bill, the ownership of private Palestinian lands would remain Palestinian, but the State of Israel could expropriate the right to use the land.

The law would apply to settlements that the government involved in their construction, and not to outposts that the government did not approve. Israel would financially compensate Palestinian landowners, "after they had proved their ownership over the land," the bill read.

The next vote on the bill was scheduled for Wednesday.

The bill is expected to draw condemnations internationally, with Israeli opposition leaders already warning that it contradicts international law.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said the law might not be constitutional, according to a report in the Times of Israel.

The bill is part of a political crisis that threatens Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition over a demand by the pro-settler Jewish Home to retroactively legalize Amona.

Amona, east of Ramallah city, is the largest among the so-called "unauthorized outposts," communities built by far-right Israelis without permits from the government. There are about 100 unauthorized outposts, and additional 120 settlements that Israel considers legal.

Both outposts and settlements are illegal under international law as they were built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) has concluded its investigative process on the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against Burundian and Gabonese contingents deployed in Dekoa, Kemo prefecture, in the Central African Republic (CAR), a UN spokesman told reporters here Monday.

"These allegations referred to incidents between 2014 and 2015," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here. "OIOS has conducted joint investigations with Burundian and Gabonese national investigative officers."

Overall, 139 possible victims were interviewed and their accounts were investigated, Dujarric noted. "By means of photo array and/or other corroborating evidence a total of 41 alleged perpetrators (16 from Gabon and 25 from Burundi) were identified by 45 interviewees; eight persons were unable to identify perpetrators through photo array or other corroborating evidence but were able to describe some distinctive traits; 83 were not able to identify perpetrators or provide corroborating evidence; and three accounts were considered unreliable."

"A total of 25 minors asserted they had been sexually abused," he said. "A total of eight paternity claims were filed, including by six minors."

The United Nations has shared the OIOS report with both Burundi and Gabon, including the names of the identified alleged perpetrators and has requested for appropriate judicial actions to ensure criminal accountability, he said.

"Responsibility for further investigations lies with Burundi and Gabon," the spokesman said. "The United Nations has requested from the Burundian and Gabonese authorities that they review the OIOS findings and conduct the interviews of the alleged perpetrators who had all been rotated out from the Central African Republic before the allegations surfaced."

"The United Nations has asked for a copy of the final national investigation reports to be transmitted urgently," he said.

"The alleged perpetrators, if allegations against them are substantiated, and, if warranted, their commanding officers, will not be accepted again for deployment in peacekeeping operations," he said.

The UN Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has strengthened its prevention measures and reinforced its outreach among communities and peacekeepers across the country, especially in high-risk areas to improve awareness and reporting on sexual exploitation and abuse and other forms of misconduct, said the spokesman.

"The Mission is also regularly monitoring conditions and behaviour of mission's personnel and has partnered with United Nations agencies and implementing partners in Central African Republic that provide psychosocial, medical and legal assistance to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse," he said,

"The United Nations condemns, in the strongest terms, all acts of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by peacekeepers or any other UN personnel and will maintain follow up so that perpetrators of these abhorrent acts are brought to justice," the spokesman added.

In late February, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared "zero-tolerance" to sexual abuse and violations by UN peacekeepers deployed across the world.

In March, the United Nations vowed to promote transparency and accountability in addressing the issue of sexual abuse in the UN system, months after UN peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) were alleged to conduct sexual abuse against children last year.

The world body has published a report on measures of preventing sexual exploitation and abuse, saying the total number of allegations of such misconduct recorded in 2015 in the UN system was 99, and 69 of them took place in countries where peacekeeping operations are deployed.

At least 22 children were sexually abused by peacekeepers, according to the report.

Investigations started in April 2016, a few days after the allegations were brought to the attention of the United Nations and lasted for more than four months, the spokesman said. "The investigators relied primarily on the testimony of possible victims and witnesses given the lack of medical, forensic or any other physical evidence."

"This was due to the fact that the majority of the allegations referred to incidents that took place a year or more earlier," he said. "Everyone who came forward with claims, both minors and adults, were assisted by national and international partners."
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Monday called on the Security Council to make continued efforts to "speak with one voice" to the outside world and to avoid the politicalization of the humanitarian issue in Syria.

Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, made the appeal after the 15-nation council voted on a draft resolution that calls for a seven-day humanitarian truce in Syria's Aleppo.

The Security Council failed to adopt the resolution as Russia and China vetoed it. Eleven council members voted in favor, Venezuela voted against and Angola abstained.

Liu said the draft resolution just voted on by the Security Council contains concrete measures for the easing of the humanitarian situation in Syria.

"Council members...have made great efforts to seek consensus," said Liu. "These efforts could have continued so that the Security Council can speak with one voice to the outside world and avoid the politicalization of the humanitarian issue."

Liu said action on the draft resolution while there are still serious differences is not conducive to the diplomatic efforts by the countries concerned nor is helpful to the improvement of the situation in Syria.

"The Security Council should maintain unity on the question of Syria, speak with one voice and work together to play a constructive role for an early political settlement of the question of Syria," he added.

Recently, the conflict in Syria has kept escalating, causing serious worsening of the humanitarian situation in some areas and plunging the Syrian people into deep sufferings.

"China expresses its deep concern over the situation in Syria and feels for the Syrian people in the sufferings in the conflict," said Liu.

He called on the international community to work together to push the Syrian issue back to the track of seeking a solution through peaceful negotiations and dialogue and find a fundamental way out of the conflict as soon as possible.

"Action by the Security Council on the question of Syria should be conducive to the work of the four tracks of resumption of ceasefire, political peace talks, cooperation in counter-terrorism and humanitarian relief," he added.

Before the vote, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said to the council that putting the draft resolution into vote violates the Security Council's working procedure since under the council's rule, the document should have been voted on Tuesday morning.

Churkin said the council needs more time to take into account new circumstances in Syria and to reach consensus on a resolution that can contribute to improving humanitarian in Syria, particularly in Aleppo.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has presented a paper to the European Union (EU), calling for far-reaching reform of Europe's global refugee policies, including its asylum system, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said here Monday.

"UNHCR says more strategic and targeted support needs to be provided to countries of origin and that Europe needs to investment more in the integration of arriving refugees, including housing, employment and language training," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

The paper, titled "Better Protecting Refugees in the EU and Globally," also called on European countries to review contingency preparations to respond to large refugee and migrant arrivals and to put in place a more efficient and better-managed asylum system.

In the paper, UNHCR also urged Europe to improve support, preparations, and response aspects of its engagement with the refugees.

The UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, stressed in a speech to the European Policy Centre in Brussels that last year Europe failed to implement a collective response to help over a million refugees and migrants.

In light of the resultant breakdown in public trust and the fact that the issue was seized upon by those who wanted to turn refugees into scapegoats, it is important that EU member States show, through collective action, "that Europe is capable of engaging effectively and in a principled manner with refugee movements, helping to stabilize refugee flows over the long term through more strategic external engagement -- while at the same time, continuing to welcome refugees in Europe," he added.

The UN agency has also proposed efforts to outline measures to address the reasons why refugees are fleeing, and simplifying an asylum system that would make the process of identifying and registering more efficient.

The system also builds on elements of the existing Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and some reforms proposed by the European Commission. The reform would also guarantee the right to asylum, enhance security screening, and improve management of population movements.

"History has demonstrated that Europe is stronger when it addresses its challenges together; and I firmly believe that this is still possible today," Grandi said, adding that it is time for a new vision for Europe's engagement with the global refugee crisis.

According to UNHCR, the system will also include a common European registration system, a common approach to unaccompanied and separated children, and efficient system for returning individuals who are not in need of protection to their countries of origin.
COPENHAGEN, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Denmark's capital city of Copenhagen has been selected to co-host the Beijing Design Week in 2018, which would be a unique chance to showcase Danish design to the Chinese audience, Copenhagen mayor Frank Jensen said.

Jensen, who is in China to attend the ongoing China-Denmark Cities and Regions Forum, made the remarks in a statement.

In 2018, Danish designers, architects and urban planners will be able to showcase their work during the annual fortnight event, which has become the leading international platform for design in China since its founding in 2009.

"I am certain that this will benefit Copenhagen's creative businesses, help boost Danish exports and attract more Chinese visitors to Denmark," Jensen said.

According to Jensen, Copenhagen will invite Danish organizations and businesses working with design to become part of the co-host effort by having an exhibit -- ranging from artistic design and gastronomy to innovative urban planning and programming computer games -- in Beijing's 798 arts district during the event.

"We intend to use Beijing Design Week 2018 as an opportunity to make design an even bigger part of our efforts to promote Copenhagen and encourage more people to visit here," says Mikkel Aaroe Hansen, the managing director of Wonderful Copenhagen, the city's official tourism bureau.

According to a report by Wonderful Copenhagen, design is an important motivation for Chinese travellers' decision to visit Copenhagen. About 80 percent of Chinese visiting Copenhagen are interested in buying Danish design products.

Every year, Beijing Design Week hosts a guest city's representatives to share their wisdom and experience, aiming to promote institutional exchange as well as commercial and economic opportunities amongst the two cities. Past participants have been London, Milan, Dubai, Amsterdam, Seoul and Barcelona.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Monday called for "a free, fair, credible, inclusive, transparent elections" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and called upon all political parties and their supports to "exercise maximum restraint in their actions and statements."

A presidential statement, adopted here by the 15-nation UN body, said, "The Security Council urges the government as well as all relevant parties to ensure an environment conducive to a free, fair, credible, inclusive, transparent elections" in the country.

"The Security Council stresses the importance for the government of the DRC and its national partners to take all steps to accelerate preparations for the elections without further delays, including by expediting the update of the voter registry," the statement said.

"The Security Council calls on the authorities to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially the right of peaceful assembly, and to exercise maximum restraint in their response to protests, and also calls upon the opposition forces, on their side, to show responsibility by ensuring the peaceful character of their demonstrations," the statement said.

"The Security Council reiterates its call upon all political parties, their supporters, and other political actors to exercise maximum restraint in their actions and statements, to refrain from violence, violent speeches or the provocations and to address their differences peacefully," said the statement.

"The Security Council calls on the government of the DRC to hold accountable those responsible for the killings on 19-20 September 2016 and all violations and abuses of human rights," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the statement said that "the Security Council is also deeply concerned by the human situation that continues to severely affect the civilian population in eastern DRC and the persistence of violence in eastern DRC," in particular in North Kivu Province where nearly 840,000 people were internally displaced as of Sept. 30, 2016, and more than 700 civilians have been killed since October 2014, the statement said.

"The Security Council urges authorities to hold accountable those deemed responsible for the violence," the statement said.

In late August, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on political stakeholders in the DRC to engage in an inclusive dialogue to overcome the impasse in the country's electoral process.

Ban stressed the importance of a credible political dialogue to ensure peaceful and timely presidential and legislative elections in line with the country's constitution.

The register of voters in the DRC started in July this year, and the country's electoral commission said the review of electoral register will take 16 months and will be concluded in September 2017.

DRC President Joseph Kabila has said the elections will be held after the operation of registering voters.

According to the DRC constitution, Kabila's second five-year term is supposed to end on Dec. 19, 2016.

The country's opposition parties have been calling for the elections to be held before the end of the year when Kabila's term ends.
BRATISLAVA, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The livestock farming sector in the Visegrad Four countries is facing serious problems with a surplus of goods that has accumulated as a result of the Russian embargo, Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber (SPPK) spokesperson Jana Holeciova said on Monday.

The chambers of the four countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, said their countries need to be allowed access to the Russian market again and called on the European Union to remove trade barriers as soon as possible.

"The situation has become even more urgent due to the fact that other international players have begun filling the gap on the Russian market," stressed Holeciova.

The four chambers discussed this year's excellent harvests, but they noted that unstable commodity prices this year have resulted in lower actual incomes for farmers than in past years.

Another topic of discussion was the TTIP and CETA international trade treaties.

"We need more studies to be able to evaluate the benefits and disadvantages of these agreements. We can't take a positive stance without detailed analyses," added Holeciova.
MELBOURNE, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Melbourne is responsible for almost a third of Australia's economic growth, a report has found.

Australia's two most populated cities. Melbourne and Sydney, were responsible for more than half of Australia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the financial year ending in 2016 while regional areas continued to languish.

The Australian Cities Accounts report, released by Melbourne-based firm SGS Economics and Planning on Tuesday, found that Melbourne drove 28.4 percent of Australia's GDP growth in 2015/2016, the highest figure ever recorded for an Australian city.

Terry Rawsley, an economist at SGS Economics and Planning, said that while Melbourne continued to thrive, regional Victoria's growth fell by 1 percent, representing a fourth consecutive year of decline.

Rawsley said that a broad range of industries contributed to Melbourne's strong growth.

"Financial and insurance services and construction were the largest contributors."

"The construction industry's contribution to Melbourne's GDP was the second highest on record, driven by apartment construction and infrastructure projects."

"Manufacturing detracted from economic growth in 2015-16 and its share of Melbourne's economy is at a record low of 6.9 per cent."

The report found that manufacturing in Victoria has dropped more than 20 percent since 2005/06 due to a number of plants shutting down.

Rawsley said that the disparity in growth from state to state, which is larger than ever before, represented a huge challenge for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

"The RBA has to manage booming economies in Sydney and Melbourne while the rest of the country is struggling to grow in the face of a range of headwinds," Rawsley told News Limited on Tuesday.
TURIN, Italy, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Turin here in the capital of Piemonte in northern Italy.

The two institutions sealed an MoU to activate specific future agreements in the fields of law, economics, literature, security, urbanization, environmental protection and social sciences.

Cooperation will include joint activities, such as organizations of conferences on topics of interest, academic exchanges between researchers and experts from both universities, exchanges of students from both universities, cooperative research, joint publication of relevant academic products and translation of works.

"The deal signed today is a framework intended to allow more specific agreements. University of Turin and CASS had already had contacts, but a memorandum was needed to enable cooperation. In the next two months specific areas will be defined," professor Stefania Stafutti, former director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing and professor of the University of Turin, told Xinhua.

CASS conducts research at a very high level, "so the agreements will be on research," she said.

Cooperation relations and agreements between the University of Turin and Chinese institutions are longstanding but in the last three to four years have been increasing, Stafutti said.

"In some sectors we have longstanding relations, such as biotechnology, veterinary, medicine. Also in the literature field there is a lot of cooperation between University of Turin and Chinese universities. In our literature departments, Chinese is very much studied," she said.
HELSINKI, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- As Finland celebrates its 99th Independence Day on Tuesday, downtown Helsinki is expected be the scene of an unprecedented number of demonstrators.

The police have been prepared to keep rightwing demonstrators and their opponents away from close encounters, the national broadcaster Yle reported.

The populist right-wing demonstrations are expected to focus on anti-immigration, nationalist and anti-European Union themes. One of them is the Nordic Resistance Movement, which has been associated with violent behavior on several occasions in recent years.

On the opposing side, a demonstration called "Helsinki Free of Nazis" will convene near the Main Railroad Station, where an outsider got killed in September allegedly hit by a Resistance Movement activist.

Participants of several right-wing demonstrations are expected to convene later for a torch march towards the military cemeteries.

For decades, the independence day was solemn and saw only the traditional torch march by students from the military cemeteries to downtown.

The official highlight of the day is the annual reception at the Presidential Palace, hosted by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and his spouse, Jenni Haukio.

The traditional emphasis on the legacy of World War Two for the day will continue. Veterans of the wars during 1939-1945, now in old age, are guests of honor. This year, Finland has also invited Estonians and Swedes who used to fight in Finland as volunteers.

The national military parade on Independence Days rotates between cities and will be arranged this year in Kajaani. The north-central town is home to the largest infantry base of the defence forces.
Veterans march with activists near Backwater Bridge just outside the Oceti Sakowin camp during a snow fall as "water protectors" continue to demonstrate against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline adjacent to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball,North Dakota, the U.S., December 5, 2016. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have decided to halt an underwater pipeline project in North Dakota that environmentalists warn may damage local water qualities.

The decision was made after a long standing protest prevented the Dakota Access Pipeline, set to channel oil through Lake Oahe, from construction.

"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 Army's Assistant Secretary of Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said Sunday.

The decision to postpone further construction means that President-elect Donald Trump would need to address the issue soon after taking office.

A Trump spokesman said Monday "That's something we support construction of, and will review the full situation in the White House and make an appropriate determination at that time."

The project have ignited a debate among many groups whether the benefit brought by the project can outweigh its risks.

The environmental conservation community have largely refuted the pipeline, saying soil and water contamination and air pollution may damage the environment and wildlife along the pipeline route, a concern shared by many farmers in the region.

The fact that the Lake Oahe is located in Indian reserve land also prompted the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to object, saying the project threatens the tribe's "way of life, water, people and land."

But proponents of the pipeline says giving up would bode ill for Trump's tenure, which he promised to dedicate sizable resources to updating infrastructure.

"Roads, bridges, transmission lines, pipelines, wind farms and water lines will be very difficult, if not impossible, to build when criminal behaviour is rewarded this way," North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer said in a statement.

The controversial project is an approximately 1,900 km pipeline that connects the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota and Patoka Illinois, the 3.78 billion U.S. dollar project was planned to function by Jan.1, 2017, nearly 90 percent is reported to have been completed.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday called upon the international community to "resolutely promote the political process" and "vigorously promote peace and stability" in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Wu Haitao, the deputy permanent representative of China to the United Nations, made the remarks as he was speaking at an open meeting of the UN Security Council on the current situation in the DRC.

"The political process in the DRC is at a critical juncture," Wu said. "President (Joseph) Kabila and the DRC government are committed to advancing the national dialogue, safeguarding stability and promoting economic and social development, which China welcomes."

"In the meantime, the political situation in the DRC is pretty fragile," he noted. "The realization of lasting peace and prosperity development is an arduous task and has a long way to go. Hence, it needs the continuous support of the international community."

A UN Secuerity Council mission visited the DRC and Angola early last month, showing the greater attention given by the 15-nation UN body to the problem of the DRC.

On the efforts to promote the political process in the DRC, he said that the DRC government and relevant opposition parties have signed a political agreement on the election schedule and the establishment of political transition, and the appointment of a prime minister.

"China welcomes this development and we call on the opposition parties which have not yet been part of the national dialogue to sign the political agreement as soon as possible, resolve their difference through dialogue and dedicate themselves to peace, stability and development in the country," he said.

"The international community should respect the development path independently chosen by the DRC and provide constructive assistance to the country on the basis of respect for the sovereignty of the DRC," he said.

Touching upon the efforts to promote peace and security in the DRC, the senior Chinese diplomat noted that the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC, known as the MONUSCO, and the DRC government forces have made a positive headway in their fight against armed groups.

"Countries in the Great Lakes region are inter-dependent and their security is closely inter-connected," he said. "China encourages the countries in the region to continue the implementation of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the region, and to make a big progress in implementing the Nairobi Declaration in response to the threat posed by armed groups."

Meanwhile, Wu also called for the efforts to give a full play to the roles of regional and sub-regional organizations.

"The African Union has played an important role in facilitating the national dialogue in the DRC," he said. "The United Nations should give a full play to these regional and sub-regional organizations."

"China appreciates and supports the positive role of the UN mission in promoting peace and stability and advancing the political dialogue in the country aimed at the disarmament and dismoblization," he said.

"The Chinese government has all along supported the peace process of the DRC and has over the years provided assistance to their nation-building efforts within our capacity," he said.

China also sent peacekeepers to the UN mission in the DRC, he said

"Along with the wide international community, China stands ready to continue our positive role in the realization of peace, stability and development in the DRC," he said.

Earlier Monday, the Security Council adopted a presidential statement to call for "a free, fair, credible, inclusive, transparent elections" in the DRC, and called upon all political parties and their supports to "exercise maximum restraint in their actions and statements."
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chiefs of South Korea's major conglomerates on Tuesday attended a parliamentary hearing for a scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her longtime confidante.

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo entered the National Assembly building, where scores of journalists surrounded them, local TV footage showed.

Also attending the hearing were Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won as well as heads of CJ, LG, Hanwha and Hanjin.

They are expected to be questioned over donating tens of millions of U.S. dollars to two nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi Soon-sil, President Park's decades-long friend who has been indicted on multiple counts including abuse of power and extortion.

It is rare here to see the country's chaebol heads appear and be interrogated in the unicameral assembly. It will be broadcast live and is expected to last until late at night. It kicked off at about 10 a.m. local time (0100 GMT).

The latest parliamentary hearing of chaebol chief over corruption involving the country's chief executive happened in late 1988.

At the time, opposition lawmakers having a majority seat quizzed Chung Ju-yung, the founder of all Hyundai groups, over the corruption scandal involving former military strongman Chun Doo-hwan who ruled the country until early 1988.
WELLINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's military on Tuesday warned fishing vessels in the Antarctic waters that it was serious about enforcing compliance with international fishing regulations.

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) maritime and aerial surveillance patrols in the Southern Ocean had so far boarded and checked nine licensed fishing vessels, said Major General Tim Gall, Commander Joint Forces New Zealand.

"Our patrols covered a lot of ground in the first week of operations. There was no mistaking the message that we want to get across -- we are serious about ensuring compliance with fishing regulations in the Southern Ocean," Gall said in a statement.

The NZDF was "committed to enforcing the government's pledge to safeguard the unique and fragile environment of the Southern Ocean."

The NZDF had deployed offshore patrol vessel HMNZS Wellington and a P-3K2 Orion surveillance aircraft to carry out the compliance patrols in support of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

The licensed CCAMLR fishing season in the Ross Sea region south of New Zealand started on Dec. 1 and will continue until the agreed limits are reached in January or early February 2017.

Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said last month that New Zealand was working closely with international partners to stamp out illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the Southern Ocean.

The 25-member CCAMLR unanimously agreed to the New Zealand-United States proposal to establish the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) in October.

The Ross Sea will be home the world's biggest MPA when it comes into force.

It will cover roughly 1.55 million square kilometers, of which 1.12 million square km will be a no-fishing zone.

The Ross Sea region has an unbroken food-chain, still with all of its top-level predators, according to New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
by Matt Walsh

CANBERRA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Australia's peak science body has called for an implementation of an emissions trading scheme just a day after the government announced a feasibility review into reintroducing a stripped back version of the nation's controversial "carbon tax."

Australia's carbon tax, brought in by the Gillard Labor government in 2011, required all businesses which emitted more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon per year to pay for "emissions permits," but the plan was scrapped by Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2014, shortly after coming to power.

Energy Minister and Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg on Monday announced the Department of Environment and Energy would be conducting an internal review into a potential new carbon tax for electricity generators, considering they are responsible for up to a third of the nation's total carbon emissions.

On Tuesday, Australia's peak scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), backed the government's call, and said the average Australian household would save up to 180 U.S dollars if a new carbon emissions trading scheme, similar to the one being probed by government, was brought into effect.

In addition, Energy Networks Australia's (ENA) John Bradley confirmed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday that it would also be the cheapest way for Australia to reach its carbon reduction targets.

"We think the emission intensity scheme is the clearest area where there is potential for consensus among the various policy-makers in state and federal governments beyond the election cycle," Bradley said.

"We focus on the outcome - which is the emission reduction - and we allow the market to produce the solutions.

"Customers could save (up to 180 U.S dollars) per year through technology-neutral approaches like an emission intensity scheme compared to current business-as-usual policies."

Frydenberg said the government review into a low-level carbon "emissions intensity" scheme would determine the feasibility of penalizing energy generators which produce the most carbon and reward those that produce less carbon.

He added that while the government was exploring a "carbon tax" of sorts, it would not be an "economy-wide" tax, rather a "sector-by-sector" tax - ruling out a return to Labor's all-encompassing carbon trading scheme.

"We reject an economy-wide approach," Frydenberg told the ABC. "What this review has indicated is we will look at a sector-by-sector approach.

"The electricity sector is the one which produces the most emissions - around a third of Australia's emissions come from that sector.

"We know that there have been a number of bodies that have recommended an emissions intensity scheme."

However Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will need to quash the growing discontent brewing within the government's ranks and convince colleagues of the plan's merits; outspoken conservative Senator Cory Bernardi described the plan as "one of the dumbest things" he has heard, while deputy PM and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said the "carbon tax" ship had well and truly sailed.

"I can only tell you what the position of the Coalition is now, and I can tell you what the position of the National Party is now, we don't support a carbon tax," Joyce told the ABC overnight.

"We're (already) going to meet our commitments to the Paris protocol - in fact we're going to outdo it."

According to Fairfax Media, there are at least 10 government MPs "scathing" at the prospect of re-introducing a Labor-style carbon pricing scheme, while Opposition Leader Bill Shortens said he believes any carbon trading scheme needs to be holistic and not a "sector-by-sector" based plan.
Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo speaks during a press conference in Quezon City, the Philippines, Dec. 5, 2016. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)

MANILA, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday accepted the resignation from his cabinet of Vice President Leni Robredo who quit after she was asked to "desist" from attending the future cabinet meetings.

"It is with a heavy heart that I accept the resignation of Vice President Leni Robredo," Communications Secretary Martin Andanar quoted the President.

Robredo's letter of resignation as the chairwoman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), dated December 5 and addressed to the President, was formally received by the Office of Executive Secretary around 9:07 am.

Robredo said, in her letter, that she had initially accepted the position, despite her differences in opinions and policies with the President, because of their shared commitment to help the poor and marginalized.

"I have exerted all efforts to put aside our differences, maintain a professional working relationship and work effectively despite the constraints because the Filipino people deserve no less. However, your directive for me to 'desist from attending all Cabinet meetings' has effectively made it impossible for me to do my job. Remaining in your Cabinet has become untenable," she added.

Andanar said it was "sad" that the Vice President had to quit the Duterte Cabinet. He also said the President appointed Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. as a concurrent HUDCC chairman.

The President, through Evasco, instructed Robredo to desist from attending Cabinet meetings starting December 5.

Evasco, who texted the President's instruction to Robredo, said Duterte mentioned that his "irreconcilable differences" with the Vice President prompted the directive.

Evasco, in a statement issued, said Cabinet members accept their appointments with the implicit agreement that they agree with Duterte's program, platform and policies.

"While there may be matters they take issue with, these are to be handled consensually because it is vital for the Cabinet to be united. It is important that while one is a member of the Cabinet to express one's views discreetly and not be adversarial publicly," Evasco said.
YANGON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw and Chairman of the government-appointed Rakhine State Advisory Commission Kofi Annan have stressed the need to promote understanding and cooperation between the two communities residing in the country's western Rakhine state through positive interaction, official media reported Tuesday.

Issues discussed by the pair on Monday at Presidential Palace Nay Pyi Taw included the importance of humanitarian aid for the two communities in the state and releasing of information with transparency in quick response to rumors and fabricated news.

The pair also discussed matters on promoting prospects for development of the economy and for conducting vocational training as part of efforts for socio-economic development.

They also exchanged views on the rights of the peoples in Rakhine state for citizenship in accordance with the 1982 Citizenship Law and fighting drug trafficking in the country.

The nine-member advisory commission, headed by former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, was formed by the Myanmar government in August aimed at resolving the protracted Rakhine regional issue.

The commission is expected to submit its interim report on the regional issue to the president within the first two months of next year and the final report to follow a year from now.

Annan has been in the state since Nov. 29 listening to the voices of local officials and residents as part of the process to compile the report.

Tension is going on in the western state, especially after Oct. 9 violent attacks by armed men on three border posts in Maungtaw.

Relating to the incident, Annan has expressed deep concern over the recent violence in Maungtaw, which he warned as plunging into a renewed instability and creating new displacement.

In his November statement over the situation, Annan called on all communities to renounce violence, urging the security services to act in full compliance with the rule of law.

Meanwhile, Islamic extremists were exposed as being involved in the attacks, which were supported financially by foreign terrorist organizations, the government said.
MANILA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Senate on Monday voted 20-1 to approve the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), according to Senator Loren Legarda on Tuesday.

Legarda, who sponsored the Committee Report on the AIIB Treaty, hailed the Senate's approval of the Agreement, stressing that the Philippines' membership to the AIIB would help achieve its growth targets through accelerated infrastructure spending.

"Infrastructure bottlenecks have stifled our growth potential for many years. More investment is required not only to build new projects but also to maintain existing infrastructure. The AIIB can broaden our infrastructure funding sources," said Legarda.

The AIIB is a multilateral lending institution aimed at promoting economic development in Asia.

The AIIB's 57 members include China, India, Russia, France, Germany and Britain.

The Philippines signed the Articles of Agreement on Dec. 31, 2015 in China.
CARACAS, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan government on Monday called for a negotiated solution to the dispute about its membership in the South American trade bloc Mercosur, in which it is the newest member.

The other four Mercosur members, namely, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, agreed on Friday to suspend Venezuela for allegedly failing to comply with the bloc's regulations.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez posted a letter on Twitter, requesting talks to resolve the dispute.

According to the Venezuelan diplomat, Venezuela has complied with 95 percent of Mercosur's stipulations and will continue to occupy the bloc's rotating presidency.

The proposed talks would be held in Uruguay's capital Montevideo, where Mercosur is headquartered.

"Venezuela, as a member state, called for the start of the mechanism to resolve Mercosur disputes in Montevideo," Rodriguez wrote.

Venezuela joined the bloc in 2012, and claimed that it took over the rotating presidency of Mercosur on July 30, 2016 from Uruguay. But Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay refused to recognize Caracas' presidency, saying the country's political and economic woes prevented it from playing an effective role.
LONDON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A 101-year-old man in Britain, believed to be the oldest defendant in the country's legal history, has stood trial for a string of child sex abuse charges, local media reported on Monday.

Ralph Clarke, a Birmingham resident, denies all 31 offences he was accused of committing between 1974 and 1983 against three children, including two boys and a girl, and one of them was only seven, according to a BBC report.

Two of the alleged victims walked into a police station in August last year to make a complaint against Clarke, revealing "a history of a catalogue of serious sexual abuse," a prosecutor told jurors at the start of the trial.

The former lorry driver was granted unconditional bail after a brief hearing in May. Due to his age and health condition, the court will only hear evidence for four hours per day during his two-week trial.

But the prosecutor insisted that age was no barrier to a defendant being tried, "as long as the trial is fair and the evidence is clear."
QUITO, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Ecuadorian political observers hailed China's commitment to long-term cooperation with Latin America, which is carried in a Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean it recently published.

"I welcome this new Chinese document, which stresses cooperation," former foreign minister Jose Ayala Lasso told Xinhua, noting the concrete pledges made towards promoting joint development.

"If that is the emphasis that China wants to place on future ties with Latin America, it is positive," said Ayala.

Ayala, who also served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the 1990s, said the paper, issued in late November, "reflects a new and nascent interest" in both spurring development in the region and expanding China-Latin America cooperation to all fields.

"China is a very serious country and Chinese culture is thousands of years old. It never looks to just the short term, but to the medium and long term, " said Ayala.

Having applied medium- and long-term visions and a target-based planning in "the initial stage" of relations-building in Latin America, "in this secondary stage, (China) is putting the stress on cooperation," said Ayala, "I think that is very positive."

"In addition, it is pursuing equality and mutual respect, so we should opt for robust cooperation," said Ayala.

Former deputy foreign minister Marcelo Fernandez de Cordoba believed boosting cooperation is "mutually beneficial."

China is the world's second largest economy, and it has become a leading trade partner and source of investment for Latin America, especially in the sectors of energy and infrastructure, both of which are essential for development, Fernandez noted.

"It is desirable for Chinese cooperation to increase in areas that benefit both that country and this region," he said, adding that "expanding cooperation is mutually beneficial."

The two political observers agreed that ties between China and Latin America have developed significantly in the past eight years.

Ayala said, "The relationship has gotten much stronger, especially in the financial sector. China has offered Latin America credit lines and enormously financed development programs."

This has led to "good political results in the region," he noted.

What's more, said Fernandez, during Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent visit, Ecuador and China raised bilateral ties to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership.

"China views Latin America as a partner, and as an important destination for Chinese investment and financing. It is to be expected that with this new document, (cooperation ) will expand even further," he added.

This is China's second policy paper on the region. The first was issued in 2008.
CANBERRA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government Tuesday released its latest list of terrorist organizations recognized under the nation's Criminal Code, through a joint statement from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Attorney-General George Brandis.

Al-Qa'ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Islamic State (IS) Sinai Province and IS in Libya are the three groups listed.

"The Government has re-listed al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, which was first listed as a terrorist organization in Australia in November 2010," the joint statement said.

The government said its listings follow the advice from Australia's security agencies that these organizations are either directly or indirectly engaged in "preparing, planning, assisting or fostering terrorist attacks."

"We know that al-Qa'ida in the Indian Subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula seek to advance al-Qa'ida's ideology in the South Asia region and the Middle East," the statement said.

"Islamic State Sinai Province claimed responsibility for downing Russian Metrojet flight 9268, and has also committed attacks on Western interests and security forces in Egypt.

"And Islamic State in Libya has been responsible for kidnappings and terrorist attacks against Western interests in North Africa and Libya."

The government also reminded Australians that assisting these organizations in any way is punishable by law -- carrying sentences of up to 25 years.

"It is an offense to be a member of, participate in, train with, or provide support to, a terrorist organization. These offenses attract penalties of up to 25 years imprisonment," the statement said.
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Almost eight out of 10 South Koreans demanded embattled President Park Geun-hye immediately step down or be impeached, a local survey showed on Tuesday.

According to an online poll of 1,000 people aged 15-69 living in capital Seoul and other major cities, 62.4 percent replied that President Park must immediately resign.

The majority of respondents still called for the immediate voluntary resignation as impeachment process takes long, but 14.4 percent said Park should be impeached through parliament and the constitutional court.

The 300-seat National Assembly handed in a bill to impeach President Park, heralding an impeachment vote during a plenary session scheduled for Friday.

To overcome the two-thirds threshold, at least 28 lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party are required to vote for it as there are 172 opposition and independent legislators who jointly put forward the impeachment motion last Saturday.

If the impeachment motion is passed through the unicameral assembly, President Park will immediately be stripped of all powers. It is required to be upheld by the two-thirds of the nine-judge constitutional court, which has as long as 180 days to deliberate on it.

Only 13.1 percent preferred the scandal-hit president's voluntary resignation in April next year to hold an early presidential election two months later.

Meanwhile, 76.7 percent of respondents said President Park is held the most responsible for the scandal involving herself and her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil.

Choi has been charged with extorting tens of millions of U.S. dollars from major conglomerates to set up two nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi.

The decades-long friend of the president has also been accused of receiving secret presidential documents to meddling in state affairs from the shadows.

Among the respondents, 10.2 percent said Choi and her family members must take the most responsibility for the scandal.
TOKYO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo shares closed the morning session higher on Tuesday as investors shake off political uncertainty in Italy sparked by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's lose in a referendum over his proposals for constitutional reforms.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average rose 95.84 points, or 0.52 percent, from Monday to 18,370.83.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was up 10.27 points, or 0.70 percent, to 1,477.23.

Gainers were led by iron and steel, marine transportation and securities issues.
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Criminal probe has been initiated against the warehouse fire in Oakland, California, as the death toll of the worst fire in the city's history climbed to 36 as of Monday morning.

The search for survivors was suspended on Sunday night as the warehouse seemed to be unstable, and was resumed at 9:00 a.m. (1700 GMT) on Monday, Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson told a press briefing shortly before noon.

It was still unclear how many bodies would be found. Officials initially estimated that the fatalities could be up to 40, but Sergeant Ray Kelly of Alameda County Sheriff's Office declined to speculate, only saying that the number would continue to rise.

"We are no closer to finding the cause, and we absolutely believe that the number of fire fatalities will increase," Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton was also quoted as saying at the site.

However, the AP reported that Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern has said that sheriff's officials don't believe additional bodies will be found in the fire. Rescue crews have gone through roughly three-quarters of the building.

On Monday, authorities said they have identified a total of 11 victims. Names of seven victims that had been identified were also released overnight.

All of them were Californians in their 20s and 30s, including four local residents and two others from nearby cities in northern California. The name of an additional victim, a 17-year-old minor, was withheld.

Some victims were from other countries and regions like South Korea, Finland and South America, Kelly said, adding some of the victims had died from smoke inhalation.

Prosecutors said murder charges are possible. The site of the deadly blaze, which started Friday night and lasted into Saturday morning, was treated as a crime scene. ' Oakland Mayor Libby Schaafa said Sunday afternoon that a criminal investigation team was "activated" to search for evidence of a crime.

A growing number of local people sent flowers, candles and notes to pay tribute to the victims.

Police were reportedly planning to use camera footages, emergency calls and other information to help determine the cause of the fire and whether criminal charges should be filed.

The warehouse, known as "The Oakland Ghost Ship," was permitted by the city only for storage purposes. However, the two-story structure in an industrial neighborhood of East Oakland was converted into art studios, a party venue and probably a residence.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed said Saturday there was no sign of fire alarms and no evidence of a sprinkler system.
by Abdul Haleem, Sayed Mominzada

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- "Growing saffron is much easier than growing poppies and its price is several times more than poppies and therefore I am calling upon the farmers in the southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces to substitute poppies with saffron," a farmer in the eastern Ghazni province, Jilani Ahmadi, told Xinhua recently.

Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces where anti-government militants including the Taliban are active are the areas responsible for producing a major part of all poppies harvested to produce opium in Afghanistan annually.

Despite the government's tireless war on drugs, people in unregulated areas have been taking advantage of the situation to grow poppies to fuel the highly lucrative international heroin trade.

The growing of poppies and their byproducts have been on a constant rise in Afghanistan since the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

A survey conducted by the Afghan Ministry for Counter-Narcotics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released in October, revealed a 43 percent increase in the amount of drugs harvested, compared to last year.

The estimated opium production in 2016, according to the survey, was 4,800 tons, compared to 3,300 tons in 2015 and, similarly, the land used to cultivate poppies in the current year had increased 10 percent to 201,000 hectares compared to last year.

The majority of Afghan opium, the raw material used in the manufacturing of heroin, according to officials, has been produced in the troubled provinces where Taliban militants are active and security is fragile.

Gathering the beautiful purple flowers of saffron on his small piece of land, Ahmadi, the hardworking farmer, said happily that the price of one gram of saffron here in Ghazni is worth 500 afghanis (around 8 U.S. dollars), whereas 1 kg of poppies costs some 10,000 to 12,000 afghanis (150 U.S. dollars to 180 U.S. dollars) depending on its quality.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Zakria Hotak, Director of Agriculture Department in Ghazni province said that his administration has been encouraging the farmers since 2014 to grow saffron on their lands.

"The Agriculture Department in Ghazni has been distributing saffron seeds to the farmers over the past three years and the result so far is promising," Hotak told Xinhua.

Numerous farmers have abandoned poppy cultivation and begun growing saffron over the past couple of years, the official said.

He also added optimistically that three hectares of land would be used to grow saffron next year in Ghazni province, saying that the saffron plantation would be gradually expanded to replace the poppies.

Afghanistan's saffron in terms of quality has been named as the world's "best saffron" by the International Taste and Quality Institute in Brussels and the war-torn country produces more than 4.5 tons of saffron annually.
New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bill English holds a press conference about Prime Minister John Key's resignation in Wellington Dec. 5, 2016. John Key on Monday shocked the nation and his cabinet by announcing resignation after eight years at the head of one of the most popular governments in the country's recent history. (Xinhua/Su Liang)

WELLINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Three Cabinet ministers from New Zealand's ruling center-right National Party emerged Tuesday in the contest for the next prime minister.

Other big names were keeping tight-lipped on whether they would enter the ring following Prime Minister John Key's surprise announcement Monday that he is resigning after eight years in power and retiring from Parliament.

Key has endorsed Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bill English in the race, which is set to be decided by National Party Members of Parliament on Dec. 12.

However, a smooth succession was thrown into doubt Tuesday when Health Minister Jonathan Coleman announced he would contest the leadership followed by the nomination of Judith Collins, who holds the Police and Corrections portfolios.

English, 54, remains the presumptive favorite despite his previous experience of leading the party to a disastrous election defeat in 2002.

English told Radio New Zealand Tuesday that the circumstances were different now.

"The National Party was different, the political environment was quite different, I've worked closely with the Prime Minister, learnt an awful lot in those 15 years and I think it's partly because of that experience can see the opportunities ahead," he said.

English said in a social media statement Tuesday that he had "a particular interest in grappling with our most intractable social problems."

"After 10 years under John Key's (party) leadership, we are reshaping government to more effectively support people with complicated needs and to work with them to become independent, but there is more to be done," he said.

As well as Key, English has picked up the support of six other Cabinet ministers.

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman emerged as the self-proclaimed change to "the status quo" with "relative youth" on his side.

In a video posted on his Facebook page, Coleman, 50, said the party would have to build on its achievements in power over the last eight years.

"I feel it needs generational change. It's going to need new thinking in policy areas. It's going to need some new personnel - so combining the best of the current line-up with those who are coming through the caucus," he said.

However, Coleman's time in the health portfolio has been blighted by criticisms that the public health system is underfunded and failing to cope as well as a recent strike by junior hospital doctors.

Judith Collins, 57, is considered to be one of the more polarizing figures in the Cabinet and has a reputation for a combative style.

Collins has a history of controversy, having been forced to resign from Cabinet and her Justice portfolio in 2014 after e-mail leaks alleged she had colluded with a right-wing "attack blogger" in a bid to undermine the head of the Serious Fraud Office.

A controversial inquiry cleared her of the allegations, and in December last year Key recalled Collins to Cabinet in her current portfolios.

She told Radio New Zealand after announcing she would stand on Tuesday that she had "never been one to shy away from tough decisions."

Asked if it was important to have a woman in the race, she replied, "I think it's actually really important that the best people for the jobs get them and I happen to think I am, in fact, one of those people."

A poll taken in September and October - before Key's resignation announcement - asked the public who they would prefer to succeed Key in the event of his resignation.

The UMR Research poll found English as the favorite on 21 percent, followed by Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce on 16 percent, Climate Change Issues Minister Paula Bennett on 11 percent and Collins on 6 percent.

Related:

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key resigns "for family reasons"

WELLINGTON, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Monday shocked the nation and his cabinet by announcing his resignation after eight years at the head of one of the most popular governments in the country's recent history.
by Xue Lei, Nguon Sovan

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian senior officials and scholars say that 2016 marked the year that Sino-Cambodian relations hit "new highs" thanks to the recent exchange of visits by the top leaders of the two countries.

The historic visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Cambodia in October, preceded by the state visit of Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni to China in June, clearly underscored the closer relations and increasing cooperation between the two countries, Phay Siphan, a spokesperson for the Council of Ministers, told Xinhua.

"Cambodia-China relations are the best they've been this year. Our bilateral ties should be viewed as a gold standard of relations between country and country," he said.

He praised China for treating a smaller country like Cambodia equally and thanked China for having provided support to Cambodia for its socio-economic development and poverty reduction.

"China's assistance has no strings attached," Siphan elucidated. "It has helped strengthen political stability here, develop infrastructure, boost economic growth and reduce poverty in Cambodia."

"We will never forget the good deeds of the leaders and people of China towards Cambodia," the spokesperson said.

Lawmaker Sok Eysan, a spokesperson for the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), said the exchange of visits by the top leaders had added a new momentum to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation that the two countries forged in 2010.

"Relations between Cambodia and China are currently at their highest level," he told Xinhua. "The recent exchange of top-level visits has further deepened strategic partnerships and cooperation between our two countries."

With strong commitments made by the leaders of the two countries, he was confident that such bilateral relations and cooperation would continue to be strengthened and expanded in the future, he added.

Eysan said the close ties between the two countries had provided Cambodia a lot of advantages, particularly in terms of economy, trade, investment, and tourism.

China is one of Cambodia's biggest trading partners with the bilateral trade volume valued at 4.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 and projected to hit 5 billon U.S. dollars by 2017.

On the investment side, China is the largest investor here with a cumulative investment of more than 14 billion U.S. dollars from 1994 to October 2016, according to Cambodian government figures.

In the tourism sector, China is the second-largest source of revenue to Cambodia with some 577,300 Chinese tourists visiting the country in the first nine months of 2016, up 12.5 percent compared to the same period last year, according to official tourism statistics.

In addition, China has helped build the longest road of about 1,500 kilometers and seven bridges spanning approximately 3.1 kilometers in Cambodia.

Chheang Vannarith, chairman of the Cambodian Institute for Strategic Studies, said 2016 marked the "new highs" in the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation between the two countries.

"It is a milestone year. Both countries have reached a new high in their bilateral strategic partnership," he said. "The first state visit of President Xi to Cambodia created a new momentum in deepening comprehensive bilateral ties; from those pertaining to the economy and security, to people-to-people ties."

The expert envisaged that the Sino-Cambodian strategic partnership would continue to grow both vertically and horizontally, saying that deepening "people-to-people ties" would be the core foundation of a long-term partnership.

Mey Kalyan, chairman of the state-run Royal University of Phnom Penh's board of trustees, said Sino-Cambodian ties in 2016 had been further developed and taken a step ahead and intensified in all fields in the right direction.

"This shows the maturity of relations and trust between the leaders and peoples of the two countries," he told Xinhua.

The close Sino-Cambodian relations has provided benefits to both sides, he said, adding that, for Cambodia, the benefits were predominantly in economics, security, and diplomacy.

"It is clear that in economics, China is instrumental as it provides official development assistance (ODA) to support infrastructure and energy that Cambodia badly needs, and foreign direct investment (FDI) in all sectors to promote growth and jobs creation," he said.

"We expect more Chinese investors to come as China is restructuring its economy. But Cambodia needs to learn lessons from China, and pay more attention to social and environmental impacts," he added.

Joseph Matthews, director of ASEAN Education Center, concurred that 2016 was undoubtedly considered the most important year in China-Cambodia relations.

"This year marks a successful and fruitful year for both countries and peoples," he said. "The most outstanding event was President Xi's visit to Cambodia in October and the signing of 31 bilateral cooperation documents."

Xi's visit could be highlighted as the most high-profile visit to Cambodia in 2016, he said, adding that although the visit was brief, its impact was still being felt in Cambodia and in the region.

Sharing his view on the future of Sino-Cambodian ties, the scholar said the existing bonds of friendship between the two fraternal countries would continue to go from strength to strength, and their "all-weather" strategic partnership would continue to serve the interests of the two countries and enhance peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

"The friendship between Cambodia and China is a role model of good-neighborly relations," he said. "The steady growth in Cambodia-China cooperation across all areas and commitments shown by both sides will take the bilateral relations to a higher level."
TOKYO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo shares closed higher Tuesday as investors shake off political uncertainty in Italy sparked by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's lose in a referendum over his proposals for constitutional reforms.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended up 85.55 points, or 0.47 percent, from Monday at 18,360.54.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange finished 10.24 points, or 0.70 percent, higher at 1,477.20.

Gainers were led by marine transportation, iron and steel, and nonferrous metal issues.

The day's turnover was about 2,693.5 billion yen (around 23.67 billion U.S. dollars).
by Jon Day

TOKYO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's planned visit to Pearl Harbor later this month purportedly to remember the thousands killed by Japan's surprise attack on a naval base there is aimed at scoring bonus points from the public here, while showing the incoming U.S. administration that it still holds its ally in the highest regard, observers here said Tuesday.

Along with stating contentiously that "no apology would be offered" for the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a catalyst for the United States to join World War II, Abe's top spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshida Suga, said Tuesday that Abe's planned visit to Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27 to mark the invasion by Japan 75 years ago, also has nothing to do with Barack Obama becoming the first serving U.S. president to visit Hiroshima.

Along with Nagasaki, Hiroshima was obliterated by a U.S. nuclear attack on Aug. 6, 1945, which brought an end to World War II following Japan's surrender.

"This visit is an opportunity to remember those who died in war, demonstrate a resolve that the horrors of war must never be repeated, and at the same time send a message about the reconciliation between Japan and the United States," Suga told a press conference Tuesday.

Suga added, however, that "The prime minister said everything there is to say about his feelings on the war in his statement in August last year to mark 70 years since the end of the war."

Many political watchers believed that Abe in his war statement squandered a golden opportunity to apologize for the actions of the Imperial Japanese Army and the barbaric acts of violence it unleashed during its reign of terror and occupation of numerous countries in Asia before and during World War II.

Calls from the international community had been rife for Abe to squarely face history in his war speech, and for his administration's actions to match his words, and reverse the reigniting of its military machine, as well as chart a course of constitutionally sanctioned peace and forge better relations with its regional neighbors brutalized by Japan during the war.

However, with the forcing of new security legislation through parliament, increased military spending and the expansion of Japanese forces' operational scope, as well as an ever-increasing right-leaning political stance of Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party-led bloc, bellicose attitude towards its closest neighbors and rampant revisionism, observers have said Abe's Pearl Harbor gesture is a hollow one, aimed simply at scoring popularity points.

Japan launched a sneak attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii in 1941, killing some 2,400 U.S. military personnel and civilians.

While Abe's lack of apology for the attack will likely be nauseating for some U.S. military veterans, solidifying the Japan-U.S. alliance in these uncertain times is a central tenet of the duplicitous move, as the government also pointed out Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said that the visit by Abe would "serve as the culmination of the two leaders' efforts to build the Japan-U.S. alliance over the past four years."

But observers have pointed out that the visit may be geared towards helping boost his popularity rating here as Japan tries to show its solidarity with the U.S. ahead of president-elect Donald Trump taking the helm in the White House, against a backdrop of intimating that Japan should do more to take care of its own defense issues, or at least pay more for the U.S.'s services.

"Together with Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbor visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration," Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, was quoted as saying.

In addition, if Abe's ratings here were to get a boost from the visit, then it would make it easier for Abe to call a snap election in January, despite his promises to the contrary, and catch opposition parties off guard, noted another prominent Japan-based political scholar.

Extending his grip on power in the more powerful lower house of parliament by preemptively minimizing losses to the opposition camp, would be another step towards Abe calling a national referendum on amending Japan's constitution and a key pacifist clause therein, political watchers have proffered.

While Abe's planned visit to Pearl Harbor may be deemed shrewd on one hand and disingenuous on the other, some political experts however believe the notion may be completely vacuous altogether, considering the current uncertain global political climate and foreign policy directions of the U.S. under a Trump presidency.

"The Pearl Harbor visit and Abe's commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance are tantamount to giving a blank check to Trump despite the uncertainty over bilateral relations under his administration," said Koichi Nakano, a professor of international politics at Tokyo's Sophia University.
By Xinhua Writer Zhu Dongyang

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Instead of making a genuine reconciliatory gesture to Washington, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's surprise announcement to visit the U.S. Pearl Harbor seems to harbor a deceptive design too calculative to wipe off Japan's original sins on history.

Abe, who will be accompanied by U.S. President Barack Obama on his visit, will become the first serving Japanese prime minister to visit the site of the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941. Japan's brutality then and later dragged the United States into World War II, claiming the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers and civilians.

Abe's intention is as clear as daylight: to relieve Japan of its past war debts to the United States and promote in Washington and the whole country the illusory image of a loyal ally and devoted peacekeeper.

Tokyo's calls for a reassuring military alliance with Washington are becoming increasingly imperative, as the outgoing Obama administration will soon be replaced by the defiant billionaire Donald Trump, who in May denounced on Twitter Japan's "sneak attack on Pearl Harbor" that caused "thousands of American lives lost."

But it is prudent to judge a person not only by his words, but also his deeds. Abe by no means intends to serve as a committed "peacekeeper" or play a constructive role in the U.S. Asia strategy as he claimed, as shown by his reckless efforts to scrap Japan's pacifist constitution, lift the ban on Japanese forces to combat overseas, and renounce any possibility to apologize for his country's heinous invasions.

As for speculations that Abe's upcoming visit merely reciprocates Obama's May visit to Hiroshima, a Japanese city razed to the ground by the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing, it needs to be made clear that Obama has been unable to bring about a historical reconciliation with the island country.

During his eight-year term in the Oval Office, Obama failed to prevent his country's Asian ally from instigating trouble with its neighbors through provocative words and deeds.

As a new slap in the face of the Obama administration, Japan said after announcing Abe's Pearl Harbor visit that the Japanese leader will not apologize for his nation's attack 75 years ago.

It has sparked speculation what motive behind Abe's visit is, especially after White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that he is "confident that many (war veterans and survivors of World War II ) will set aside their own personal bitterness ... because they recognize how important this moment is for the United States."

It is a fact that Tokyo will never become fully trustworthy in the international community without sincere repentance for its past war brutalities; nor can it salvage its reputation through any backdoor deals for self-serving purposes.

For those U.S. veterans who lost their lives in Pearl Harbor while defending their country more than seven decades ago, ultimate closure may come only when Japan sincerely repents for its wartime atrocities and makes reparations.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye addresses the nation at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 29, 2016. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday that she will follow parliamentary decision including her shortened presidency. (Xinhua/Blue House)

SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday that she will calmly accept the impeachment if it is passed in the scheduled parliamentary vote three days later.

Her comments were made during the one-hour meeting with the ruling Saenuri Party's chairman and floor leader in the presidential office that kicked off at about 2:30 p.m. local time.

Saenuri Party whip Chung Jin-suk told reporters after coming back to the National Assembly building that President Park has continued to consider accepting the party's call to let the president resign by next April to hold an early presidential election two months later.

Park said she will calmly accept the impeachment if it is passed through the unicameral assembly slated for this Friday, vowing to make every effort she can if the impeachment bill is approved.

Opposition and independent lawmakers handed in the bill to impeach the first South Korean female leader last Saturday. As there are 172 legislators from the opposition bloc, at least 28 Saenuri lawmakers must endorse the bill to overcome the two-thirds threshold of the 300-seat parliament.

President Park also agreed to allow the governing party lawmakers to freely vote on the impeachment motion. Tens of lawmakers of the party's faction, who are not loyal to Park, have agreed to vote for the impeachment, raising possibility for the passage of the bill, according to local media speculations.

Saenuri Party chief Lee Jung-hyun estimated that President Park seemed to prefer the April resignation to the impeachment, but the president is expected to be stripped of all powers if the bill is passed through the parliament.

For the final approval, the impeachment motion is required to be upheld by the constitutional court though Park will be suspended immediate after the parliamentary passage.

The constitutional court will have as long as 180 days to rule on it, and the two-thirds of the nine-judge court must endorse it to formally impeach the scandal-hit president.

Related:

News Analysis: Will S. Korean president be impeached?

SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's parliament has put forward a historic bill to impeach President Park Geun-hye, but it has a long way to go when taking into account the political bickering between rival parties and uncertainty about the constitutional court ruling.
HANOI, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam imported some 97,000 automobiles in the first 11 months of 2016, down 12.9 percent year-on-year, due to tax rise, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Tuesday.

From January to November, the country spent 2.083 billion U.S. dollars on auto imports, down 19.6 percent year-on-year.

The declines in auto imports were attributed to the changes in Vietnam's tax policy.

Specifically, from January 1, 2016, a new special consumption tax on cars with 24 seats and below has been imposed, based on the importers' price, instead of the previous calculating way of cost, insurance, and freight (CIF) value plus current import tariff.

The new calculation method is estimated to cause an estimated 5-percent increase in the price of imported cars.

Also, from July 1, 2016, the special consumption tax applied on cars with larger engines has risen remarkably. To certain car types, the tax has increase from 60 percent to 150 percent.

Under such decreases in both volume and value so far, Vietnam's auto imports in 2016 are forecast to stay lower than the previous year, said local insiders.

In 2015, Vietnam spent nearly 2.97 billion U.S. dollars on importing 125,000 autos, up 87.7 percent in value and 76.6 percent in volume year-on-year, said the GSO.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- It took years before optical scientist Shan Xiaonan decided to start his own business.

Shan had been working for two decades in Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics in Jilin Province, northeast China, before setting up RaysLaser, a hi-tech company researching high-power lasers, last December.

In just three months, he received more than 500 orders worth 20 million yuan (6.9 million U.S. dollars).

"I always wanted to start my own business, but did not dare do so without policy support," Shan said.

Jilin recorded 6.9 percent GDP growth in the first three quarters of the year, the first time it exceeded the national average since 2014.

The economy regained signs of recovery this year due to its innovation-oriented development. In Jilin alone, the proportion of commercialized scientific research findings increased by 15.1 percentage points compared with 2010.

While China's economy is expected to follow an "L-shaped" path, meaning the downturn will bottom out but growth will not rebound to the double-digit rates of the past decade any time soon, the country is innovating to encourage hi-tech sectors to become new engines of growth.

To encourage more institutions to bring hi-tech achievements to the market, China revised its Law on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements last year.

The revision states that contributing scientists should retain at least half of the invention's commercial worth. Jilin further raised it to 70 percent.

"Researchers are greatly motivated [by the new revision]. We are confident about the future," Shan said.

Previously, researchers had to go through complex approval processes before they could put scientific advancements on the market. Those who did were only rewarded a 20 percent of total profits.

Northeast China, of which Jilin is a major part, relied on heavy and chemical industries, energy resources, raw materials and a large number of state-owned enterprises for decades before its economic growth pattern came to a dead end.

Its double digit GDP growth plummeted to almost the lowest in China as the country began cutting capacity in high-polluting industries, the region's major growth engine.

Forced to change, Jilin, home to more than 100 research institutions of municipal level and above, has turned to hi-tech manufacturing for solutions. It encourages science research units in hi-tech companies to partner with universities in product development.

"Researchers have more mature ideas when going into business, so they can create better business chances if they become entrepreneurs," said Yang Limin, who now leads a 3D-printing company after resigning from a state-owned automaker in 2010.

Yang's company is engaged in 3D development, manufacturing and services, especially for automobile and education sectors. His research team has included post-graduates from overseas.

His company is located in Changchun Beihu Science Park where 80 hi-tech startups have settled. To date 18 hi-tech company bases like Beihu have been founded in the province. More than 300 companies are established at these bases, most of which were started by scientists and researchers in universities and other institutions.

In mid-November, China issued guidelines to rejuvenate the northeast rust belt. The country will support the region to establish industrial investment funds, request it creates a three-year plan to cultivate emerging sectors, and offer fiscal support. Startups have also been encouraged to locate in the cities of Changchun and Harbin, where preferential investment and financial support is given.

In Jilin's neighboring Heilongjiang Province, domestic investors have been encouraged to create nine hi-tech risk control funds totalling 5.35 billion yuan, offering capital support to hi-tech enterprises and projects.

At an industrial park in Jixi City, a machine makes a graphite catalytic cylinder every three seconds at Jixi Haoshi New Energy Material.

"The products, made to process diamonds, sell at up to 80,000 yuan per cylinder, 30 times greater than what the value of graphite would have been as a raw material," said Zhao Jianmin, general manager of the company.

High-end products in graphite, organic food and medicine are helping the city to reduce its traditional dependence on coal.

Benefiting from these innovative products, share of coal industry has dropped from 80 percent to about 50 percent, said Kang Zhiwen, Party chief of the city, adding that economic growth in the first half of the year in the city stayed at 4 percent, up 2.9 percentage points year on year.

Over the past two years, more than 2,900 hi-tech companies have been established in Heilongjiang, according to the provincial science and technology department. The province also allows university students to suspend their studies, taking a break for a maximum of eight years to start their own businesses.

Unlike the northeastern region that is striving to keep pace with the national level, southwestern Chongqing Municipality has led the country's economic growth in 11 consecutive quarters with a growth rate of 10.7 percent as of September.

Tu Xingyong, deputy director with the municipal commission of economy and information technology, said the double-digit growth miracle lies in innovation of its key industries, IT and automobile manufacturing, as well as exploring emerging industries based on the country's import demands.

The municipality has selected 10 emerging industries, aimed at addressing domestic demand by substituting the imported products.

"Energy, for example, is China's second largest sector in import value. With abundant shale gas resources, Chongqing has already seen the bright future in exploitation," he said.
PARIS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- French President Francois Holland on Tuesday appointed Bernard Cazeneuve, current interior minister, as the new prime minister to replace Manuel Valls as the latter decided to quit the job, according to the Elysee.

Valls announced his candidacy for the left primary in preparation for the 2017 presidential election on Monday in Evry, a commune in the suburb of Paris, proposing a new path for "an independent France uncompromising on its values." He presented his resignation to Holland earlier Tuesday.
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday that she will calmly accept the impeachment if it is passed in the scheduled parliamentary vote later this week while waiting for the constitutional court ruling.

Her comments were made during the one-hour meeting with the ruling Saenuri Party's chairman and floor leader in the presidential office that kicked off at about 2:30 p.m. local time.

Saenuri Party whip Chung Jin-suk told reporters after coming back to the National Assembly building that President Park continued to consider accepting the party's call to let the president resign by next April to hold an early presidential election two months later.

The first South Korean female leader said she will calmly and composedly accept the impeachment if it is passed on the parliamentary vote slated for this Friday, vowing to make every effort she can if the impeachment bill is approved.

Opposition and independent lawmakers put forward the bill to impeach the embattled president last Saturday. As there are 172 legislators from the opposition bloc, at least 28 Saenuri lawmakers must endorse the bill to overcome the two-thirds threshold of the 300-seat parliament.

During the meeting, Park also agreed to allow the governing party lawmakers to freely vote on the impeachment motion. Tens of lawmakers of the party's faction, who are not loyal to Park, have agreed to vote for it, raising possibility for the passage of the bill, according to local media speculations.

Saenuri Party chief Lee Jung-hyun estimated that President Park seemed to prefer her April resignation to the impeachment, but possibility is high for the president to be stripped of all powers if the bill is passed through the unicameral assembly.

For the final approval, the impeachment motion is required to be upheld by the constitutional court though Park will be suspended immediately after the parliamentary passage. In 2004, late President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached by lawmakers, but the court rejected the bill, returning Roh back to office.

The constitutional court will have as long as 180 days to rule on it, and the two-thirds of the nine-judge court must endorse it to formally impeach the scandal-hit president. If endorsed, President Park will become the first sitting South Korean leader to be impeached in its constitutional history for seven decades.

The opposition bloc was originally supposed to vote on the impeachment bill last Friday, but it was delayed as the ruling party's anti-Park faction refrained from doing it after Park's third address to the nation last week.

The scandal-plagued president issued her third public speech over the scandal involving herself and her longtime confidante, but it enraged South Koreans further as Park admitted to no wrongdoing and said she hadn't pursed any personal gains "for a flash."

Last Saturday's protest rally, the sixth since the scandal emerged in October, drew 2.3 million demonstrators across the country, topping the record turnout of 1.9 million tallied in the previous weekend demonstration.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC), will run a commentary Wednesday on the ongoing election of delegates to the Party's 19th National Congress.

The 2,300 elected delegates will represent more than 88 million CPC members and 4.4 million Party organizations, and they will perform duties according to the Party's will and the people's expectations, according to the commentary seen by Xinhua on Tuesday.

During the congress, delegates will hear and examine reports from the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), listen to Party members and the general public, discuss and decide on major issues of the Party, and elect a new central committee of the CPC and a new CCDI.

The quality of the delegates matters to the future of the Party and national stability and order, the article underscored.

Party organs at all levels were asked to understand the significance of the election and do all in their power to ensure the election's success.

Delegates to the 19th National Congress of the CPC should be excellent Party members, the commentary reads, political standards are the primary criterion for selecting candidates, and their beliefs, political integrity and moral qualities will be examined. They must also be loyal and have successfully implemented the central authorities' decisions.

In order to better represent Party members, the number of delegates from the production sector, such as factory workers, will be increased; excellent members who have made outstanding contributions to science or poverty relief should also be recommended; and female delegates and ethnic minorities should account for a certain proportion of the total, it said.
HONG KONG, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Eight people were injured in a chemical spill incident at Tai Po Industrial Estate of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Tuesday.

The incident took place at around 11:30 a.m., when a lab worker was dealing with chemical material, which was claimed as overdue hydrogen peroxide, a spokesperson for the Hong Kongs the Fire Services Department said, adding that about 120 people were evacuated.

The spokesperson said that among the eight injured people, one man got hurt in the face and one woman felt unwell in her eyes. The two were rushed to the hospitals and in stable conditions, while the rest, who complained of feeling unwell, recovered afterwards.

The cause of the incident is still under investigation.
by Xinhua writer Chen Shilei

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. strategy on the Asia-Pacific under whichever administration should not be contemplated to the detriment of the interests of other countries, and any miscalculation thereof could lead to regional instability.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who is scheduled to step down in January, started Monday a tour in Asia that takes him to Japan and India.

The tour, which seems to reassure America's Asia allies amid anxieties caused by Donald Trump's election, also brings a big question mark over the Trump administration's future policies on the Asia-Pacific.

During U.S. President Barack Obama's nearly-eight-year tenure, Washington has shifted its foreign policy focus from the Mideast war quagmire to the Asia-Pacific, which many believe is aimed at containing a rising China.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have escalated after the United States decided to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea.

The South China Sea issue emerged as a hot topic after the United States hyped the concept of "freedom of navigation" and embolden the former Philippine government to initiate a case about maritime territorial disputes with China at a ragtag international arbitral tribunal, which ran from 2013 to July 2016. Carter even boarded a U.S. aircraft carrier in the South China Sea in late 2015 to "show muscle".

Facts show that the U.S. rebalance to the Asia-Pacific has not brought about any peace and stability in the region, but, on the contrary, has put regional situation at risk in the end.

Under such a circumstance, it is high time for Washington to reconsider and reassess its policy on the Asia-Pacific, which could usher in a strategic opportunity for the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, U.S. long-time allies, particularly Japan, may feel relieved after Trump's rhetoric of challenging their alliance during the presidential campaign has been played down.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's meeting with Trump in mid-November -- Trump's first face-to-face meeting with a foreign leader since his election, Carter's visit to Japan and Abe's upcoming visit to Hawaii including Pear Harbor, the site of Japan's surprise attack that dragged the United States into World War II, have demonstrated both's eagerness to maintain their close ties.

But such an alliance along with Washington's future Asia-Pacific strategy should not be established on the basis of harming the interests of third parties and challenging their bottom line.

A far more stable Asia-Pacific serves the interests of all countries in the region, including the United States and its allies.
ANKARA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Tuesday arrested the chief adviser to the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in ongoing probe into a coup attempt, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Fatih Gursul, adviser to CHP chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu, had reportedly used ByLock, an encrypted messaging application that was used by the Gulen movement.

Gursul, who is associate professor, was arrested at his residence in Ankara.

He is expected to be transferred to Istanbul for legal proceedings.

Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic preacher, is accused by the Turkish government of orchestrating the failed coup attempt on July 15.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Goldman Sachs expects China to register lower annual growth in 2017 as property and auto sales are likely to slow down.

The bank forecasts a slight slowing in China's GDP growth to 6.5 percent in 2017, from a forecast of 6.7 percent in 2016.

Although Goldman Sachs only expects a modest slowing in real estate investment in 2017, it sees both price and transaction growth slowing significantly, meaning a much lower contribution to China's GDP growth from the housing sector in 2017.

In a report to clients, the bank noted auto sales growth may slow sharply to 3 percent in 2017, from an estimated 15 percent this year, as the government is likely to cut tax rebates for auto purchases in half.

Despite the challenges to growth, the bank said China's 2017 growth will be near the 6.5 percent "bottom line" with a combination of a better external environment and supportive policies.

To lift growth, Goldman Sachs expects China's central bank to cut the reserve requirement ratio at least twice next year to ensure supportive liquidity conditions in the banking system.
Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng (R) shakes hands with Li Bin, minister in charge of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Dec. 6, 2016. Cambodia and China signed four Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) on Tuesday, focusing their bilateral cooperation on the combat of infectious diseases, maternal and child care, capacity building and research, said a press release from the Cambodian government. (Xinhua/Sovannara)

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and China signed four Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) here on Tuesday, focusing their bilateral cooperation on the combat of infectious diseases, maternal and child care, capacity building and research, said a press release from the Cambodian government.

Cambodian health minister Mam Bunheng and Li Bin, minister in charge of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, inked two MoUs on the control of emerging infectious diseases, prevention of HIV/AIDS, control of malaria, traditional medicine, trauma surgery, and maternal and child care, the press release said.

The two ministers also witnessed the signing of two other MoUs on capacity building for health professionals and medical research, which were reached between Cambodia's National Pediatric Hospital and China's Hunan Hospital, and between Cambodia's College of Stomatology and Guangxi Medical University, it added.

Speaking after the signing ceremony, Bunheng said the deals were very important to help develop health sector in Cambodia.

"The MoUs we signed today are a testament to China's high attention to the well-being of the Cambodian people," he said.

"These cooperation agreements will help improve the health of Cambodian people and contribute to the development of health sector in Cambodia."

Li said China was pleased to support Cambodia in the development of health sector and hoped that more Cambodian people would get benefits from this bilateral cooperation.

"I'm confident that the signed MoUs will open a new chapter of our bilateral cooperation in health sector and will contribute further to deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries," she said.
JAKARTA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Tuesday declared a big war against drug as the country has been on emergency against the danger of drug abuses.

President Widodo revealed that over 15,000 Indonesian citizens were killed by drug annually. "...once again, we must declare a big war against narcotic," Widodo said at the national park.

President Widodo remained that most of the victims of drug abuses were Indonesian youngsters.

"A total of over 15,000 our young generation dies every year due to narcotics," he said.

Widodo hinted that the number of drug dealers undergoing death penalty was significantly lower that the number of the victim.

President Widodo has taken stern actions against drug offenders, including his rejection on dozens of requests for clemency by drug dealers who had been in a raw for death penalty.

This year, Indonesia executed four drug convicts, including foreigners, after 14 people convicted by of drug crimes faced a firing squad last year.
PARIS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appointed incumbent Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve the new prime minister to replace Manuel Valls, as the latter has decided to quit the job, according to the Elysee.

Hollande has picked Cazeneuve to succeed Valls as the prime minister until May and charged him to form a new government, the Elysee said in a statement.

Hollande has also accepted the resignation of Valls who launched a bid to seek for the Left nomination to book a ticket for presidential race, it added.

Valls announced his candidacy for the left primary in preparation for the 2017 presidential election on Monday in Evry, a commune in the suburb of Paris, proposing a new path for "an independent France uncompromising on its values." He presented his resignation to Holland earlier Tuesday.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Vice President of the United States Joe Biden on late Monday hinted at the possibility of entering the 2020 presidential campaign.

"I'm gonna run in 2020," Biden said when chatting with reporters after presiding over a Senate debate.

In an audio recorded by an NBC News correspondent, someone asked Biden what he will run for and the vice president said "for president."

"I'm not committing not to run. I'm not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago fate has a strange way of intervening," Biden enlarged on the idea.

Biden last October gave up the 2016 presidency bid after months' contemplation following his son Beau Biden's death, with concerns for "the emotional energy" of the grieving family.

"Your whole family is engaged, so for us, it's a family decision," said Biden in an interview with U.S. news organization America Media aired last September.

"I just have to be comfortable that this will be good for the family," he added.

The outgoing vice president has mounted unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 2008 and 1988. If Biden decides to run for president in 2020, he would be one of the oldest contestants for the presidency, at the age of 77.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)industry is facing a dilemma. Should it replace tiger bones and rhino horns in its medicine to please animal-rights activists at the cost of reducing potential healing effects?

China issued its first white paper on TCM Tuesday, highlighting both the development of the modern TCM pharmaceutical industry and the traditional roots of ancient therapies.

Animal-rights activists have long raised questions on TCM because many traditional formula contain animal parts or elements extracted from them.

Zheng Jin, head of the Yunnan provincial TCM administration, said with rising public awareness on animal protection, the TCM industry is promoting the use of substitutes for wild animal parts.

There are generally two ways for making substitutes of animal products in TCM -- finding alternative, more acceptable animals or artificial synthesis, Zheng said.

In January, the scientific development of synthetic muskone to replace that extracted from musk deer won first prize at the China National Science and Technology Progress Awards. The element is widely used in TCM drugs to help blood circulation and treat minor strokes.

Zheng said a number of companies in Yunnan are conducting experiments in raising rhinos, as rhino horns are one of the components in both TCM and medicine in countries in the Middle East and Asia. It is said to have effects treating typhus and snake poison.

Zheng said by artificial feeding, the companies gather rhino horn like "trimming a finger nail," with the horns regenerating.

Feng Ming, vice president of Shanxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said it is not new for people to oppose using rare animals in TCM remedies.

"As early as the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), Sun Simiao, known as the King of Medicine in China, was against the use of animal parts," he said.

In Sun's book, he said Chinese Medicine was aimed at saving people. "How could we do so at the expense of animals' lives?"

It is now common among TCM doctors to replace rhino horn with buffalo horn, as well as using two other ingredients to replace bear gall. But many TCM doctors say such replacements undermine the effectiveness of the medicine.

Lin Yanfang, chief expert of Dai ethnic minority TCM in southwest China's Yunnan, said that both mainstream TCM and traditional therapy used by people of Chinese ethnic minority groups have traditional recipes noting the importance of animal parts.

"Traditional formulas say gall bladder from a wild bull has detoxifying functions, which can be used for treating therioma. However, wild oxen have become endangered. We have tried to extract gall from water buffalo," Lin said.

But the medicine composed from water buffalo has proved less effective than that from wild bull.

"Sometimes we are confused which should come first. Animals or patients?" Lin said.

A Chinese bear bile company has quit its IPO bid twice after animal-rights activists waged a media war condemning it for raising bears and extracting bile from their gall bladders.

Fujian Guizhentang Pharmaceutical based in southeast China's Fujian Province has stuck to the use of bear bile in making traditional medicine.

Qiu Liping, chair of the company, on Tuesday declined Xinhua's interview request.

The company has its own bear farm for the extraction of bile from live caged bears via catheters in their bodies. The practice is considered cruel and painful.

Despite the uproar, the company insists that tonics produced with bear bile ensure the medicine works according to the traditional recipe.

Although TCM was developed in the daily lives of the Chinese people in their fight against diseases, it has been widely accepted as a medical science.

Yang Jukui, retired head of a Shanxi TCM factory, noted that China is lagging behind Japan and Germany in TCM pharmacological studies and techniques to extract effective components.

"The pharmacological basis of many traditional formulas remain unknown. Some ingredients have different effects if handled in different ways and temperatures, but no one knows why," he said.

Beijing Tongrentang (Group), one of China's most prestigious TCM pharmacies, said it has set up 130 overseas subsidiaries in 25 countries and regions since 1993.

Tian Ruihua, chief engineer of the company, told Xinhua on Tuesday that 60 of the overseas stores have TCM doctors. More than 30 million people have received TCM formula drugs, therapy or medical consultations via Tongrentang stores.

Many Tongrentang medicines use synthetics to replace animal elements, including tiger bones and musk.

"The technology for making artificial substitutes is now very mature. The substitutes provide a good supplement," Tian said. "However, as TCM culture is getting more and more popular in the West, Tongrentang as a century-old TCM pharmacy aims to return to the traditional TCM methods to preserve the essence of ancient therapy."
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A local prosecutor vowed to thoroughly look into the Friday night warehouse fire in Oakland, California, which has killed 36 people as of Monday afternoon.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, appearing in public for the first time since the deadly fire which erupted during a dance party, told a press briefing that investigators would try to find criminal evidence and those liable.

Charges to be brought against those liable, O'Malley said, could be homicide or involuntary manslaughter.

Declining to go into details and reassuring her determination to seek justice for the victims and their families, she said experts would examine debris from the two-story warehouse and extra charges would be possible.

Investigators had already interviewed "several people" related to the fire, she added.

At the same briefing, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern said of the 36 bodies recovered from the scene, including three added to the total on Monday morning, 33 had been "tentatively identified."

Among them, three were foreign nationals from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala, and their families had been notified, Ahern said.

Noting that about 75 percent of the site had been cleaned up, Ahern said earlier "we can't locate any other deceased victims" and "we are not anticipating any more huge numbers."

However, three days after the disaster took place, nobody knows how many people were inside the building.

After the worst fire in Oakland's history, Mayor Libby Schaaf and other city officials faced criticism that the city had ignored complaints from residents about the specific building.

Schaaf said priorities for now are to recover the victims and help their families.

The warehouse, known as "The Oakland Ghost Ship," was only permitted to be used for storage. However, the structure in an industrial neighborhood of East Oakland was converted into art studios, a party venue and probably a residence.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed said on Saturday there was no sign of fire alarms and no evidence of a sprinkler system.

The fire started at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday (0730 GMT Saturday) and continued into Saturday morning, trapping people at an underground music event.

Overnight, authorities have released the names of seven victims that had been definitely identified. All of them were in their 20s and 30s and Californians, including four Oakland residents and two others from nearby cities. The name of an additional victim, a 17-year-old minor, was withheld.

An internal wall of the building was found unstable on Sunday night, forcing firefighters to stop searching for victims for several hours. The operation resumed in the morning, and a big crane was brought in to help with the work.
COLOMBO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka on Tuesday condoled over the death of India's Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram, who was very outspoken on issues related to Sri Lanka.

President Maithripala Sirisena said former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram was dearly loved by her people.

The President expressed his condolences over the death of Jayalalithaa who passed away on Monday after suffering from cardiac arrest.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," he said.

Sri Lanka's parliament also noted Jayalalithaa's death with the main minority Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, recalling the interest she showed on Sri Lankan affairs.

Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian Mavai Senathirajah told parliament Jayalalithaa was very active on the fishing disputes involving Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen.

Jayalalithaa has been pushing for the release of Indian boats in Sri Lankan custody and for a permanent solution to the issue.

Indian fishermen are often arrested for poaching in Sri Lankan waters and their boats are not released.

Jayalalithaa has also been a strong advocate on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue, demanding a political solution for the Tamils in the North who suffered during 30 years of war.
TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan security forces have cleared several villages in surrounding areas of Tirin Kot city, capital of southern Uruzgan province, police said on Tuesday.

In early September, the Taliban militants launched a coordinated attack and tired to capture control of Tirin Kot, posing an imminent threat to the city. Since then, sporadic clashes between security forces and Taliban have been continuing in the city, 370 km south of Kabul.

"Military and cleanup operations to fight back militants in outer sides of Tirin Kot have been continuing. The security forces made advancement in Talani and Paynawa, the last unclear pockets in outskirts of the city, clearing most of areas from militants on Monday, now, the security threats on Tirin Kot have been zeroed," provincial police chief Wali Jan Sarhadi told Xinhua.

The clearing operations will continue until the city and surrounding villages are cleared of the militants, he said.

During the ongoing operations, huge quantity of arms, ammunition and explosive were seized, he noted.

The Taliban militants have been on the rampage since April when they launched a so-called annual rebel offensive in different places in Afghanistan, including the capital of Kabul, killing and injuring hundreds.
CAIRO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Egypt and China on Tuesday signed a currency swap agreement worth 18 billion yuan (about 2.62 billion U.S. dollars) to bolster economic activities in the north African country.

The deal, signed between the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and the People's Bank of China, will last three years and can be extended upon agreement of both sides, CBE said in a statement.

"The currency swap is a mutually beneficial arrangement between both countries, and mirrored China's support for the Egyptian economic reform program," it added.

The deal also complemented a series of measures taken by Egypt for unleashing the enormous potentials of its economy and instill confidence by bolstering economic activities, the statement added.

It allows the two institutions to exchange payments in one currency for equivalent amounts in the other, to facilitate bilateral trade settlements and provide liquidity support to financial markets.

The deal came as Egypt adopted some measures for economic reform to revive its ailing economy, varying from raising the subsidized fuel prices and floating the Egyptian pound.

Egypt and China celebrate this year the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the two countries and high-profile delegations at all levels have been meeting frequently since 2015.
by Tan Shih Ming

SINGAPORE, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Singapore shares closed 0.21 percent higher on Tuesday, as investors shrugged off Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's resignation, following voters' rejection of his constitutional reforms.

The Italian referendum stoked worries about Italy's political stability and its banking system, but investors took some comforts from the defeat in Austria's presidential election of a far-right candidate by a pro-European one.

Meanwhile, U.S. stocks continued to rise on Monday amid rally in oil prices. Overnight, Brent crude futures once rose above 55 U.S. dollars a barrel for the first time since July last year.

Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index rose 6.07 points to 2,949.12 points. Trading volume was 1.75 billion shares worth 1.14 billion Singapore dollars. Advancers slightly outnumbered decliners 218 to 209, while 672 stocks did not move.

Among top actives, Yuuzoo Corporation rose 2 percent to 15.5 Singapore cents. It has launched YuuWallet, a proprietary electronic wallet designed for use in developing markets as well as developed markets with low credit card penetration. YuuWallet will be fully embedded into YuuZoo's social e-commerce platform, and marketed through the latter's network of franchisees and partners.

Super Group rose 0.8 percent to 1.275 Singapore dollars. Its net profit edged down slightly to 7.4 million Singapore dollars for the three months ended September. Its revenue declined by 1 percent during the period to 119.5 million Singapore dollars as food ingredient sales shrank 5 percent to 40 million Singapore dollars due to a slowdown in South-east Asia, especially in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Among the top gainers, Jardine Cycle and Carriage rose 2.9 percent to 41.56 Singapore dollars, whereas Jardine Matheson became one of the top losers by falling 1.6 percent to 54.08 U.S. dollars. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 1.42 Singapore dollars)
An aerial view of the area close to Zhongshan Station of China. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

China's research vessel and icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, finally arrived at "the edge of the globe" on November 29, nearly one month after traveling all the way south from Shanghai for the country's 33rd Antarctic expedition.

The sun never sets during the polar day.

Antarctic ice sheet bathed in sunshine. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

Xuelong got trapped in an ice zone about 31 kilometers away from Zhongshan Station. The expedition team decided to use a helicopter to explore a way on ice and find a safe path for Xuelong's unloading at Zhongshan.

Zhongshan Station of China is located at the Larsemann Hills, a series of coastal hills along the Prydz Bay in east Antarctica. Established in February 1989, Zhongshan serves as one of the country's four research stations in the continent of ice.

Since its establishment, Chinese researchers come to Zhongshan to work there twice a year when the summer begins and the winter ends.

Icebreaker Xuelong. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

The 31-km-long flight began from the deck of the trapped icebreaker in the Prydz Bay. Seen from the sky, the 167-meter-long vessel is the only colorful element on the vast land of ice and snow. Ice fragments trail behind on the water path.

An area of pressure ridges. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

In front of Xuelong is an area of pressure ridges that extends over 10 kilometers. When angular ice blocks, of various sizes, collide with or pile up on each other, pressure ridges form as a result.

A rift on ice sheet. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

Between the area of pressure ridges and the journey's destination Zhongshan Station, there is a very flat area, looking smooth from the helicopter. However, driving over such areas can be dangerous.

A rift on ice sheet. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

Under the influence of tides, the rifts on the ice sheet can be as long as several kilometers. The rift seems very narrow at the beginning, but wider and wider when you go further. Vehicles may fall together with the thin and fragile ice sheets into the sea anytime.

Zhongshan Station of China. (Xinhua/Rong Qihan)

After flying across the flat area, soon you will see a land of rocks and soil, where several buildings and oil tanks lie. It looks like another planet. It's Zhongshan Station, the end of our exploration flight.
Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen (R) meets with Li Bin, minister in charge of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Dec. 6, 2016. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Tuesday asked China to help the country eliminate all malaria cases by 2025, a senior official said. (Xinhua/Sovannara)

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Tuesday asked China to help the country eliminate all malaria cases by 2025, a senior official said.

He made the suggestion during a meeting here with Li Bin, minister in charge of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, according to Eang Sophalleth, an aide to the prime minister.

"The prime minister had requested Li to help Cambodia achieve the goal of zero malaria case by 2025," he told reporters after the meeting.

The Southeast Asian country launched in January a 142-million-U.S.-dollar, five-year plan to eliminate the death from malaria by 2020 and set the target to wipe out all malaria cases by 2025. The country reported 51,000 malaria cases in 2015, killing 10 people.

During the meeting, Hun Sen also highly valued health cooperation between Cambodia and China, saying that China's assistance was essential to improve the well-being of the Cambodian people.

For her part, Li said her visit to Cambodia was to further enhance bilateral relations in health sector.

She said earlier in the day that she and Cambodian health minister Mam Bunheng reached four Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), focusing bilateral cooperation on combating infectious diseases, maternal and child care, capacity building, and medical research.
A view of the jet assembly line at a Cessna manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kansas. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

DUBAI, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Providers of executive jets in the Middle East Business Aviation Association (Mebaa) show expected rise in demand for business jets in the Middle East due to the recent oil production cut deal.

Speaking to Xinhua at the ongoing 10th edition of Mebaa show at Dubai's Al-Maktoum International Airport, Manal Obeid, Head of Sales and Marketing at Jordanian business aviation provider Arab Wings, said "the last two years were challenging as the rout in oil prices weighed on the business sentiment in the region."

However, following the agreement by the 13 oil exporting states of the OPEC cartel last Wednesday, oil prices climbed from 45 U.S. dollars per barrel last week to nearly 55 dollars per barrel earlier Tuesday.

"Therefore we are optimistic for 2017. We expect the Gulf Arab economies to recover by next year, hence demand for executive jet services will pick up, too."

According to Japan's Honda Aircraft, whose new HA-420 HondaJet made its debut at the Mebaa, the bizav sector in the region is a 4.85 billion dollar market.

UBS, the largest Swiss bank UBS, said "The energy sector is set to remain an important source of wealth in the years ahead," as diversification in the Gulf states remains "a long road ahead."

Mike Berry, Vice President Middle East at global bizav provider ExecuJet from Switzerland, said while he also expects a recovery, "we see 2017 as a rather flat year as the economic recovery will take time." Therefore, he would see rising demand among the "happy few" from 2018 onward.

David Chang, Director Customer Flight Support at China's Saint Royal Aviation, which is specialized in private jet service in China, said "demand for business jet flights from Mainland China to the Gulf is not so dependent on oil because bilateral trade between China and the Gulf. Since 2014, China is the biggest trade partner of Dubai.

"We do a lot of bizav flights from Beijing to Dubai and Abu Dhabi," said Chang.

Statistics show trade between the UAE and China is expected to hit 60 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2016, up from 54.8 billion dollars in 2014.

The Mebaa show 2016 which attracted 460 exhibitors from 45 countries along with 50 aircraft on display runs from Tuesday to Thursday.
RAMALLAH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official said Tuesday that the Israeli draft bill aiming at "legalizing random settlement outposts" in the West Bank may destroy the two-state solution completely.

Ahmand Majdlani, member of the PLO Executive Committee, told Xinhua that the bill "is a very dangerous aggressive step by the right wing and extremist government in Israel."

Majdalani accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "exploiting the current vacuum in the American Administration to impose new realities on the ground and destroy the two state solution completely."

He added that the bill is considered "a challenge to the international community, international law and the four Geneva Conventions, and approving it would put an end to any peaceful solution under the two state solution."

He called on the international community to move promptly to end this "racist step, if it was sincerely interested in protecting the law and its enforcement."

Majdalani urged the Palestinian leadership and the Arab states to take the settlement activity file and the draft bill to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a "war crime."

The Israeli Knesset approved Monday night, initially, an amended draft of the bill to "legalize random outposts" in the West Bank, by 60 votes in favor and 49 against.

According to the Israeli public radio, the amended draft excluded the article that allows the enforcement of the law in retrospect on locations in which Israeli courts have already issued rulings about.

The radio station reported that the bill would compensate with land and money those who prove that Jewish settlers took away their privately owned lands.

The Knesset is expected to vote on the bill in first reading on Wednesday, despite the objection of the Attorney General of Israel Avichai Mandelblit.

UN special Middle East peace envoy Nikolay Mladenov said that the draft bill is considered a step toward annexation of the West Bank, and that the issue has long term legal consequences including the undermining the chance to achieve peace.

The issue of settlements is considered one of the most complicates issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and a reason for freezing peace talks between the two sides.
YANGON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Kofi Annan, chairman of Myanmar government-appointed Rakhine State Advisory Commission, on Tuesday called for stability in Myanmar's Rakhine state for development of the region.

Annan made the remarks at a press conference here at the end of his eight-day trip to the state on a fact-finding mission as tasked by the government.

He said that his commission would submit its interim report on the issue to the President within the first two months of next year and the final report to follow a year from now.

Meeting with leaders and peoples of the two communities in Rakhine state during his trip, Annan discussed with them reconciliation, freedom of movement, citizenship verification, economic and social development of the state as well as preservation and promotion of rich cultural heritage of the state, he said.

These issues had been touched upon when he met with President U Htin Kyaw on Monday and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday, he said.

During the past few days, Annan visited parts of northern Rakhine state affected by recent violence as well as areas that remained peaceful, he said, stressing civilians must be protected all times and security services must comply with the rule of law.

The nine-member advisory commission was formed by the Myanmar government in August with the aim of resolving the protracted Rakhine regional issue.

Tension has been going on in the northern state, especially after Oct. 9 violent attacks by armed men on three government border posts in Maungtaw.
RAMALLAH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A senior Palestinian official said on Tuesday that France has informed the Palestinian leadership that it will hold an international peace conference on Dec. 21.

The conference will be attended by the foreign ministers of 70 states, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Secretary General Saeb Erekat told the official Voice of Palestine radio.

Paris hosted an international ministerial meeting on June 3, which was attended by the foreign ministers of 25 countries, including four Arab states. It debated the revival of the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, sponsored by the U.S, collapsed in April 2014, after nine months of futile efforts.
COPENHAGEN, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A police officer was shot by gunfire on Tuesday morning at a police station in the western suburbs of Copenhagen, local media reported.

The officer, supposedly a dog handler, was shot in the head at the police station around 8:20 a.m. (0720 GMT) in Albertslund, some 25 km west of the capital, according to Danish news agency Ritzau.

The condition of the officer is not immediately known, and a possible perpetrator has been arrested, Ritzau reported.

Police districts across Denmark have since stepped up security to guard police stations, Ritzau said, citing police sources.
HONG KONG, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The launch of Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect is expected to further support office demand from Chinese mainland financial services firms in Hong Kong's Central area, with an estimated up to 5 percent increase in rental in 2017, Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL) said here on Tuesday.

Central's Grade A office rents have risen 9.2 percent year-on-year through the first 11 months of 2016, mainly driven by the sustained demand from mainland financial companies, the property consultancy said in its Year-end Property Review 2016 published on Tuesday.

Head of Leasing at JLL Ben Dickinson said the launch of Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect should further support the demand, helping Central buck the trend to reach zero to 5 percent rental growth in 2017, on the back of a tight vacancy environment.

JLL expects the overall leasing demand in Kong Kong to moderate next year owing to the modest growth forecast for the local economy, while Central is estimated to be the only submarket to record rental growth in 2017, it said.

All other office submarkets are expected to post declines with rents in Kowloon East, where vacancy is concentrated, under the greatest pressure, JLL said.

The report also said the tenant decentralization gathered pace in 2016 as the rental gap between core and non-core office areas widened to their largest levels in five years.

Grade A office rents in Central are now, on average, up to 3.3 times higher than those in non-core areas, the report said, adding a couple of UK law firms have relocated to Hong Kong East from Central, a trend that had previously not been seen in the market.
LONDON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- British contemporary artist Helen Marten on Monday night was named as the 2016 winner of the prestigious Turner Prize.

The Turner is one of Britain's top visual arts competitions for contemporary art for artists aged 50 or under. The art competition is aimed at promoting public debate around new developments in contemporary art.

Four finalists were in the frame for the top accolade and the prize of 25,000 pounds (31,851.22 U.S. dollars) for winning the 32nd Turner Prize. The winner was announced at Tate Britain in London where the entries are currently on show until Jan. 2, 2017.

For the 31-year-old artist from Cheshire in Northern England, it was second big win in the art world within a month. Winning the coveted Turner Prize positions her as one of Britain's most exciting young artists.

Marten, who is based in London, was praised for her entry of sculptural work, with the panel of judges saying it reflected the condition of the world.

Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, who chaired the panel of judges, said Marten, who is based in London, made work which had real longevity, using objects, forms and images in a similar way to a poet using language.

He commented: "The judges were impressed by the complexity of the work, its amazing formal qualities, its disparate materials and techniques and also how it relates to the world, how it often suggests meaning, but those meanings are all in flux somehow. One image, one form becomes another."

Her winning sculptures were made out of a range of materials to form a complex tableau of ideas.

The judges added that Marten is "making an exceptional contribution to the continuing development of contemporary visual art".

Last month Marten won the inaugural Hepworth Prize for sculpture, saying she planned to share her prize money with the other finalists.
MANILA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The failure of Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairwoman Patricia Licuanan to submit her courtesy resignation triggered President Duterte's decision to bar her from attending cabinet meetings, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Tuesday.

Abella said during a press conference that while Licuanan has a fixed term, the memorandum circular issued in August by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, on the orders of the President, covered all appointees under the previous Aquino administration.

On Monday, Licuanan said she received a text message from Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. to desist from attending the Cabinet meetings starting December 5.

The message is similar to what Vice President Leni Robredo received on Dec 3, also from Evasco, which prompted Robredo to resign as the Housing Secretary. She called it the "last straw" in a series of efforts to prevent her from performing her duties.

However, unlike the Vice President's response, Licuanan said she would continue with her work, but followed Duterte's order for her not to attend Cabinet meetings.

Abella said the courtesy resignation aims to give the new President "a free hand" in selecting the people he wants and ridding the government of corruption.

"On August 22, a letter, a memorandum, a circular was given. It was asking for the courtesy resignations of presidential appointees... But when I checked with the Office of the Executive Secretary, apparently there was no letter submitted from the Commissioner," he said.

He added that Memorandum Circular No. 4 was never revoked, even if it specified that the appointees from the previous administration were given seven days to comply.

Asked why it took the President five months before deciding to bar Licunan from the attending the Cabinet after her failure to comply with the circular, Abella said it "implies that the President is somehow a gentleman".

Abella added despite the order for Licuanan to desist from attending the Cabinet meetings, the operations and functions of her role as chairwoman of Commission on Higher Education (CHED) would not be affected.
KUNMING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province have detained a suspect after six people were found dead in their home in the city of Anning, the city's public security bureau said Tuesday.

The police received report of the case in an apartment building at 9:09 p.m. Thursday.

The victims were a 63-year-old man and five of his family members. The suspect, surnamed Wang, is the man's son, the bureau said.

Further investigation is underway.
ATHENS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Greece's shadow economy is estimated at about 40 billion euros (43 billion U.S. dollars) a year, depriving the state coffers of some 16 billion euros (17.2 billion dollars) in taxes and social security contributions, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

On average, Greek citizens are spending at least 750 euros (802.5 dollars) per year on undeclared products and services, Macedonia University assistant professor Aristidis Bitzenis, who supervised the study, told Greek daily Kathimerini.

Greek experts noted that the steep recession of the past seven years has also hit the underground economy, which was estimated at 25.4 percent of Greece's gross domestic product in 2010, but shrank to 23.6 percent by 2015.

Regarding the reasons why Greeks are turning to the underground economy, Bitzenis said that a key cause was the spike in direct and indirect taxes and social security contributions.

For example, Greece's value-added tax (VAT) rate of 24 percent is among the highest in Europe.

Greece is among the EU member states with a low per capita income but a high tax rate, which could be up to 55 percent of income.

In addition, the percentage paid in social security payments is among the three highest in Europe, Bitzenis explained.

The report which was submitted to the Greek Labor Ministry calls for immediate measures to restrict the shadow economy.

It calls for a stable tax regime, more audits and stricter penalties for tax dodgers.
JERUSALEM, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Israel's army held a large-scale drill near the Gaza fence on Tuesday, simulating another flare-up with the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The exercise is led by the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza Division, which tested the army's preparedness to a sudden attack in which Gaza gunmen on motorcycles infiltrate Israel through cross-border tunnels and storm communities in southern Israel.

"The exercise simulates a variety of scenarios at the front as well as deeper into the fighting," a senior official in the Southern Command told Israel's Jerusalem Post.

Israel concluded a bloody 51-day military campaign in Gaza in the summer of 2014, claiming the lives of at least 2,251 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 72 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Since then, Gaza militants have been firing rockets toward southern Israel, usually without causing damage or injuries, and Israel responses with airstrikes. However, the tension has not escalated to a full-blown war.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's top insurance regulator has begun to check the "barbaric" behavior of insurers as the government pushes to control financial risks brought about by speculative stake buyouts.

China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) on Monday ordered Foresea Life Insurance, a subsidiary of financial conglomerate Baoneng, to stop offering its "questionable" insurance product.

The authorities are concerned that the product, which promises high returns, is more akin to a wealth management product than an insurance product.

The CIRC put a halt on the insurer's cash-cow business just two days after the head of the securities regulator condemned leveraged acquisitions by some asset managers using questionable funds as "barbaric."

Any attempt to acquire a majority stake in a listed firm using funds from questionable sources is crossing the line, said Liu Shiyu, head of China Securities Regulatory Commission. The statement was seen by many as a thinly-veiled allusion to a recent slew of high-profile A-shares acquisitions, such as a bid by property developer China Evergrande Group to acquire a 14.07 percent stake in its peer China Vanke Co. Ltd.

Insurers such as Anbang and Funde Sino Life have also initiated stake buyouts of listed-property developers and undervalued blue-chip companies since 2013. Insurers had bought stakes in about 120 listed companies by the end of November, raising market and regulator concerns.

It has been argued that the stake buyouts this year were driven by lower returns on fixed-income products, forcing many insurers to seek higher profits in the equity market to cover rising costs, according to Cao Deyun, secretary of Insurance Asset Management Association of China.

It must be said that insurers' focus on long-term and value-based investment on the stock markets is, on paper, good news for the market. The problem arises, however, when insurers overly rely on investment-related services, and use speculative investment to turn a quick profit -- bad habits that might be emulated by other institutional investors, Cao added.

Meanwhile, the inflow of short-term speculative insurance capital into the stock market could have an adverse affect on the structure and management of the listed companies concerned, and result in wild market fluctuations.

Dong Mingzhu, board chairman with China's leading appliances maker Gree Electric Appliances, suggested that investors should profit from the growth of the real economy rather than speculative investment, as any change to the structure and management of firms could hurt the sector, manufacturing in Gree's case.

The Gree share price has been on a roller coaster ride over the past three trading days. It shot up by as much as ten percent last Thursday after Foresea raised its stake in the company by more than 3 percent, and then plunged by ten percent on Monday after Liu's remarks dampened market sentiment.

Speculative stake buyouts are not technically illegal and are, for now, a regulatory grey area. The increase in their frequency has not gone unnoticed, however, and next on the agenda for the country's financial regulators is drafting a detailed regulatory framework for stake acquisition.

To this end, China could look to other countries for inspiration. Other markets ask large stakeholders of listed companies to report big buying or selling moves to the public to ensure investors are informed and to avoid wild price swings, said Gui Haoming, head of the research department with Shenwan Hongyuan Securities.

Wang Guojun, an insurance professor with the University of International Business and Economics, said better intra-government collaboration and communication would help define clear rules for stake buyouts.

In the first ten months of the year, 14.4 percent of insurers capital was used to buy to purchase stock and securities' products. The CIRC is expected to roll out more policies to regulate the use of insurance capital.
WARSAW, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Highest Court in Poland on Tuesday ruled against the extradition of Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States.

The ruling was made following the appeal by the Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro against the decision of a lower court in Krakow.

Polanski, 83, is wanted by the U.S. for involvement in a sexual intercourse with minor in 1977.

Polanski has been under U.S. warrant for nearly 40 years since he left the country in February 1978 hours before sentencing.

The court of Krakow ruled last October against extraditing Polanski for fear that the court in Los Angeles won't be able to provide impartial and independent ruling.

However, Ziobro filed the case to the Highest Court in May, demanding an overturn to the decision made by the court of Krakow.

Polanski is the author of famous movies: Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Pianist.

Pianist received Oscar in 2003, which Polanski never got, for fear of stepping onto U.S. territories.
GENEVA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- More than 82,000 civilians have fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and its adjacent districts since military operations to recapture one of the Islamic State (IS)'s last strongholds began on Oct.17, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported Tuesday.

"Thousands of Iraqis continue to be displaced by military operations in Mosul every week," said IOM Iraq Chief of Mission Thomas Lothar Weiss in a statement.

"They have had to flee their homes despite great risk, many by foot, and are in need of comprehensive humanitarian assistance," he added.

Accounting for 13,678 families, IOM said that most of those who fled their homes originated from the districts of Mosul (88 percent), Tilkaif (5 percent) and Al-Hamdaniya (over 3 percent).

IOM revealed that 81 percent of those recently displaced by military operations are living in formal camps.

A further 14 percent have taken shelter in private settings, while four percent are in critical shelter arrangements and one percent are passing through screening sites.

With winter already in full swing, IOM said that it has distributed emergency items including winter kits to almost 100,000 displaced people, host communities and returnees since last month.

Supported by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Iraqi troops kicked off operations in October to take back the city which fell into IS hands in June 2014 after government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.

International aircraft as well as Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition artillery units are supporting ground operations there.

According to reports, more than 5,000 IS militants were initially holed up in Mosul, though they are losing ground amid ongoing military operations.
ATHENS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Greece's government Tuesday welcomed the Eurogroup's decision on the implementation of short-term debt relief measures in the upcoming months.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' office said in a statement that the decision was "a significant success and one more decisive step so that the Greek economy exits the crisis."

The council of finance ministers of the eurozone (the so-called Eurogroup) in Brussels on Monday endorsed short-term debt relieving measures for Greece proposed by the European Stability Mechanism.

The measures will lower Greece's debt burden by some 22 percent, or at least 45 billion euros (48.4 billion U.S. dollars) by 2060, according to the statement.

Greek opposition parties, as well as the International Monetary Fund, said that the measures announced in Brussels were not sufficient to ensure the sustainability of the Greek debt burden and give substantial space to recession-hit enterprises to boost growth.

The opposition parties expressed disappointment over the Eurogroup decision, forecasting new rounds of austerity policies in Greece in exchange for the Eurogroup decision.
Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng (R) shakes hands with Li Bin, minister in charge of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Dec. 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Sovannara)

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and China signed four Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) here on Tuesday, focusing their bilateral cooperation on the combat of infectious diseases, maternal and child care, capacity building and research, said a press release from the Cambodian government.

Cambodian health minister Mam Bunheng and Li Bin, minister in charge of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, inked two MoUs on the control of emerging infectious diseases, prevention of HIV/AIDS, control of malaria, traditional medicine, trauma surgery, and maternal and child care, the press release said.

The two ministers also witnessed the signing of two other MoUs on capacity building for health professionals and medical research, which were reached between Cambodia's National Pediatric Hospital and China's Hunan Hospital, and between Cambodia's College of Stomatology and Guangxi Medical University, it added.

Speaking after the signing ceremony, Bunheng said the deals were very important to help develop health sector in Cambodia.

"The MoUs we signed today are a testament to China's high attention to the well-being of the Cambodian people," he said.

"These cooperation agreements will help improve the health of Cambodian people and contribute to the development of health sector in Cambodia."

Li said China was pleased to support Cambodia in the development of health sector and hoped that more Cambodian people would get benefits from this bilateral cooperation.

"I'm confident that the signed MoUs will open a new chapter of our bilateral cooperation in health sector and will contribute further to deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries," she said.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Chairman of the Senate of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 6, 2016. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) - China and Kazakhstan on Tuesday pledged to further enhance parliamentary cooperation.

The pledge was made during the talks between China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang and Chairman of the Senate of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the Great Hall of the People.

Speaking highly of the close exchanges between the legislatures of the two countries, Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said the two sides should further strengthen political support to each other and promote bilateral cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Zhang said the two legislatures should strengthen coordination and cooperation in bilateral and multilateral activities, support each other's efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development, support each other to choose a suitable development path and jointly fight against the "three evil forces" of separatism, extremism and terrorism to maintain regional security and stability.

Zhang called on the two sides to promote the integration of the Belt and Road Initiative and Kazakhstan's new Bright Road economic policy while further enhancing cooperation in production capacity and trade.

The two sides should conduct timely communication on policy and law and timely adjustment and improvement of relevant laws and regulations to provide institutional and legal guarantees for cooperation between the two countries, Zhang said.

He also called on the two sides to help promote exchanges on culture and between localities, universities, youth and think tanks of the two countries.

Tokayev said he is looking forward to more exchanges and cooperation with the NPC, and contributing to the friendship between the two countries.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also met with Tokayev on Tuesday.

Li said he hopes the two legislatures could further strengthen exchanges and cooperation to provide legal and institutional guarantees for development of bilateral relations.

During the meeting, Li also briefed Tokayev about China's economic situation.

Li said China has maintained stable economic growth and made positive progress in economic transformation and upgrading.

He expressed confidence in completing this year's major tasks and targets for economic and social development, which will lay a good foundation for China's economic development in the coming year.

Tokayev was invited by Zhang to visit China from Monday to Wednesday.
DAMASCUS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian government forces on Tuesday fully captured a key rebel-held neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo, as part of an ongoing assault to drive out the rebels from the city, a military source told Xinhua.
SOFIA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian fiscal inspectors have captured 64 tons of illegal pork and veal meat carried by three trucks entering from Romania, officials said here on Tuesday.

The drivers, two Polish and one Bulgarian citizen, declared they were transporting dough, the National Revenue Agency said in a statement.

However, a subsequent inspection of the cargo revealed that the trucks were loaded with frozen meat.

The investigation has been taken over by the Ministry of Interior.

Since the beginning of 2016, the fiscal control unit at the National Revenue Agency has tracked the movement of nearly 1 billion kg of risk goods such as meat, fruit and vegetables, sugar, flour, milk and dairy products, according to an official statement.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Xinhuanet.com, the website of Xinhua News Agency, and Taiwan-based Commercial Times jointly organized a cross-Strait forum on the "new economy" on Tuesday.

The forum, supported by Xinhua News Agency and Taiwan-based Want Want China Times Group, focused on the mainland's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) and opportunities for cross-Strait cooperation in economy and trade.

More than 100 entrepreneurs, representatives of small- and medium-sized companies and experts attended the event, discussing subjects including ways to upgrade industrial cooperation and seize opportunities brought by the "new economy" to strengthen financial cooperation and exchanges.

The "new economy" refers to fostering new growth drivers for overall economic transformation. It includes emerging forms of businesses and industries, such as e-commerce and cloud computing.

While addressing the opening ceremony of the forum, Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao said the mainland is steadily implementing the five-year plan, aiming for sustainable, healthy and stable development of the economy and society by pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development and supply-side structural reform.

Rare opportunities have been presented for entrepreneurs and enterprises in Taiwan to make investments and carry out the transformation and upgrading of industries, Cai said, urging entrepreneurs and enterprises on both sides of the Strait to enhance cooperation.

A charity drive to allow 30 university students from Taiwan to visit and intern in Internet firms in Beijing annually starting next year was launched on Tuesday by Xinhuanet.com and Want Want China Times Group, according to Cai.

"Hopefully, the forum will help innovation take root in industries across the Strait, make cooperation a common language spoken by both sides, help Taiwan compatriots share the fruits of the mainland's economic growth, and strengthen cross-Strait cooperation for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Tsai Eng-Meng, chairman of Want Want China Times Group, told the forum.

In his speech, Zhang Zhijun, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, called for maintaining the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, thus creating a favorable environment for economic cooperation.

"The key is to adhere to the 1992 Consensus that embodies the one-China principle. Businesses on both sides have promoted and benefited from the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, and they should also be steadfast in upholding such development," Zhang said.

Zhang also urged stronger cross-Strait cooperation in developing new technologies and fostering new industries, as well as greater efforts to promote exchanges and cooperation between small- and medium-sized enterprises and young people on the two sides.
A truce was previously observed in Aleppo, but both the government and the rebels exchanged accusations for weak attempts toward maintaining it. (AFP photo)

DAMASCUS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Syria's Foreign Ministry rejected on Tuesday all attempts to establish a ceasefire in the country's focal city of Aleppo, unless all terrorists leave the city, according to state news agency SANA.

The ministry's remarks came against the backdrop of a resolution voted upon a day earlier at the UN Security Council, calling for a ceasefire in the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo in northern Syria.

"We have stressed that we will not leave our citizens hostage for terrorists in eastern Aleppo and we will exert all efforts to set them free, and thus we reject any attempt, from any party, to establish a ceasefire in Aleppo, unless all terrorists evacuate the city," the ministry stated.

Calls by western powers for a cessation of hostilities in eastern Aleppo were negated by a double veto from Russia and China.

The ministry expressed its gratitude to both countries for their veto, saying the veto hindered attempts by foreign powers to enable terrorists in eastern Aleppo to regroup and empower themselves.

This comes as the Syrian army has regained control of two thirds of rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, part of a major offensive recently launched to liberate the eastern part of the city from all rebel presence.

Noteworthy, a truce was previously observed in Aleppo, but both the government and the rebels exchanged accusations for weak attempts toward maintaining it.

Currently, as rebel-held areas fall like dominos, the Syrian army and its allies are unwilling to repeat previous mistakes, expressing their resolve to drive out all the rebels once and for all.

Over 30,000 civilians fled eastern Aleppo in the past two weeks toward government-controlled areas in the western part of the city.

The Syrian army says it will continue its operation until all rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo are recaptured.

The rebels captured eastern Aleppo in 2012, and government forces recently imposed a siege on the area before unleashing a broad offensive for its recapture.

Humanitarian organizations sounded the alarm about the dire situation of 250,000 people living in eastern Aleppo, and the government promised to improve the situation of those relocated to government-controlled areas.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League held a plenary session Tuesday in Beijing, reviewing its work in 2016 and discussing a plan for a national congress next year.

Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League is one of the eight non-communist parties in the Chinese mainland. It consists of Taiwan natives living in the mainland and was founded in 1947. It has more than 2,700 registered members.

Lin Wenyi, chairwoman of the party's central committee, said in a work report that the league had played its role in promoting people-to-people exchanges across the Taiwan Strait over the past year.

The league will stay true to its mission to cooperate with the Communist Party of China (CPC) in pursuing the peaceful reunification of the Chinese nation and realizing the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, Lin said.

Under China's multi-party cooperation system, the CPC and non-communist parties work together and supervise one another.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Tuesday released preferential tax policies on companies' restructuring activities in an effort to tackle high corporate debt.

The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation detailed multiple favorable tax breaks to businesses engaged in mergers, acquisitions and debt restructuring.

They asked local authorities to pay close attention to the implementation of the policies.

The move came as China's State Council in October announced measures to reduce companies' leverage by encouraging mergers and acquisitions and through debt-for-equity swaps.

High corporate leverage in China has become a major threat to financial stability in recent years, especially as China's growth has faced persistent pressure.

China has made deleveraging one of the priorities to push supply-side structural reform, which is believed to be key to sustaining economic growth, together with tackling industrial overcapacity, reduction of housing inventories, lowering companies' financing costs and shoring up weak growth areas.
VIENTIANE, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Lao Elephant Festival 2017 is scheduled to be held from Feb. 13 to 19, 2017 in the northern Xayabouly province with the expectation of almost 70 elephants joining activities during the festival.

The festival is one of the major events of the province and represents past times when the elephant population included countless numbers of elephants. As a result, Laos was then known as the Land of a Million Elephants, Deputy Governor of Xayabouly Province Yanhyong Sipasert was quoted by Lao state-run news agency KPL as saying on Tuesday.

Elephant stories have been blended into the culture and livelihood of Lao multi-ethnic people from time immemorial. The Elephant Festival has been held for almost 10 years. In addition to entertaining and educating spectators about elephants, the festival aims to raise awareness of these endangered animals and calls for the protection within Laos and around the world.

The elephant holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the locals, which comes out in full form at this event, said Yanhyong, who is also in charge of organizing the Elephant Festival.

The Elephant Festival 2017 will feature activities including domesticated elephant shows, elephant parades, beautiful elephant contest, shows about how elephants are trained, elephant buffet featuring several types of elephants' favorite foods, elephant bathing, and elephants riding, among others.

Taking place alongside the festival, a trade fair will be organized, featuring both domestic and overseas products, such as agricultural products, and a traditional food tasting event.

The Elephant Festival will also feature cultural performances by ethnic people in the province, a show by the National Art Troupe, and a music performance.
LUSAKA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A trade union representing workers in the financial sector in Zambia on Tuesday called on the government to revive a bill that was meant to establish a Deposit Protection Scheme in order to protect depositors in times of a bank becoming insolvent.

The Zambia Union of Financial Institutions and Allied Workers said the Ministry of Finance should consider reviving the Deposit Protection Bill in the wake of the abrupt closure of one commercial bank which has left depositors stranded.

Ackim Mweemba, the union's president said the volatility in the market demands that a Deposit Protection Scheme be put in place to ensure that depositors' monies were reimbursed in the event of bank failure.

According to him, it was important to actualize the Deposit Protection Bill because it will not only create a safety net for depositors but also enhance public confidence in the banking sector as a whole.

He said in a statement that the establishment of a Deposit Protection Scheme will make both depositors and workers not overreact to bad news of bank failure, adding that the schemes have proved useful in other countries where they have been established.

"It is high time that both the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security put their acts together and ensure that workers are equally protected and their benefits are prioritized and guaranteed," he said in a statement.

According to him, commercial banks by their nature were highly leveraged institutions and susceptible to liquidity and insolvency challenges hence the need to have safety net measures to protect both the depositors and workers.

Last week, the country's central bank, the Bank of Zambia, took over operations of Intermarket Banking Corporation after it became insolvent and not in a position to meet its obligations as they fall due.

This has caused consternation among stakeholders, with unconfirmed reports indicating that more banks are expected to be closed because of the high minimum capital requirement.
GENEVA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The international community should improve the governance of global migration by taking comprehensive measures, and China will continue to support the International Organization of Migrants (IOM) in playing a greater leading and coordinating role, a senior Chinese diplomat said here on Tuesday.

Addressing the general debate of the 107th Session of the IOM Council to elaborate on China's views on migration, Ma Zhaoxu, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that China is ready to continue to work with all parties concerned to actively participate in international cooperation in migration.

"In recent years, the Chinese government has been improving laws and regulations on entry and departure, increasing the capacity of customs clearance and the application of information technology, developing and updating policies on entry, departure and stay, and facilitating the integration of foreigners into local communities," Ma noted.

According to him, countries of origin, transit and destination should assume their respective responsibilities, keeping open the legal channels for orderly migration and joining hands to combat smuggling and human trafficking.

He stressed that the positive effects of migration on economic and social development should be recognized, and on the other hand, the national migration system and policies must be respected and a "one-size-fits-all" approach must be avoided.

"States should be encouraged to implement migration-related goals in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development on the basis of their national conditions," he said.

The senior Chinese diplomat also argued that disputes should be settled through peaceful means and the development should be given top priority.

"Developed countries should earnestly fulfill their aid commitments to developing countries and bridge the gap between the North and the South," he noted, adding that the international community should tackle the problem of forced migration by treating both the symptoms and the root causes.
Wang Qishan , secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), visits a community in Zhenjiang City of east China's Jiangsu Province, Dec. 5, 2016. Wang visited Zhenjiang City on Monday and Tuesday and chaired a symposium attended by senior disciplinary inspectors from provincial regions and solicited opinions on drafting a regulation on the work of CPC discipline inspection agencies. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

NANJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's top graft-buster Wang Qishan has stressed that discipline inspection agencies should have their power to supervise and exercise discipline restricted through regulations.

Wang, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), made the remarks while visiting Zhenjiang City in eastern Jiangsu Province on Monday and Tuesday.

During the tour, Wang chaired a symposium attended by senior disciplinary inspectors from provincial regions and solicited opinions on drafting a regulation on the work of CPC discipline inspection agencies.

"Trust cannot take the place of supervision. Discipline inspection agencies should be supervised primarily by Party committees at various levels," Wang said.

He urged discipline inspection agencies to integrate self-discipline with other forms of supervision, including supervision within the Party and by the people, and enforce regulations in a strict manner.

"Unrestricted power is dangerous. Regulations should serve as a check and balance on power," Wang said.
PARIS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- French President Francois Hollande will board the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier on Friday to show the country's determination to combat Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, his office said on Tuesday.

"By meeting (the warship) crew, the president intends to underline France's commitment and its determination to fight this terrorist organization," the Elysee said in a statement.

A year ago, when France intensified strikes against IS targets after the Paris attacks, Hollande visited France's largest warship in the eastern Mediterranean.

In November 2015, the French president decided to send the country's only nuclear-powered surface vessel off Syrian coasts in order to boost the U.S.-led military operation against IS after growing terror threats at home.

France was one of the first European countries to join the international coalition against the IS. Its fighter jets bombed the group in Iraq in 2014 and then IS targets in Syria last year.
KUNMING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province, which borders Myanmar, have captured six drug-trafficking suspects and seized 33.764 kg of methamphetamine.

The six suspects, one from China and five others from Myanmar, were arrested on Saturday when they were transporting the drugs on a road in Ximeng County, the county's public security bureau said Tuesday.

They confessed that they had attempted to smuggle the drug to China for trade, the police said.
HARARE, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese investor Beijing Pinchang is set to inject 100 million U.S. dollars into a tin mine in Zimbabwe in a deal that will see the company and Zimbabwe's state mining entity jointly owning the firm, according to a Zimbabwean cabinet minister.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa was quoted by the state news agency New Ziana as saying Tuesday that Beijing Pinchang agreed to a deal which would see it injecting 100 million dollars into Kamativi tin mine for a 49 percent stake in the joint venture with the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC).

The mine, which has been closed for 21 years, has around 40 million tons of open cast reserves and is considered one of the best tin mines around the world.

The minister said a team of six geologists and metallurgists were currently also on the ground carrying out valuations of other minerals found along with tin.

In terms of the agreement, the mine would be jointly managed in line with the shareholding structure.

Chidhakwa said though the ZMDC had strong balance sheet in terms of asset base and concessions compared to all mining companies in Zimbabwe, it had failed the nation due to under performance.

He said the ZMDC had several mining companies that were lying idle, which include asbestos mine and several gold mines.
KIEV, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) will launch 94 humanitarian projects next year under its Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) to support people affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian parliament press service said late Monday in a statement.

"Under the plan, the assistance will be provided to 2.6 million people, who were hit by the conflict," Neal Walker, UN resident coordinator in Ukraine, was quoted as saying in the statement.

The UN has requested a total of 214 million U.S. dollars from international donors to implement the humanitarian projects, Walker said, adding that it is critically important to collect at least 127 million dollars to help people in urgent need of assistance.

The international aid will allow the UN to improve access to safe water, sanitation, healthcare services, food and education.

Furthermore, the assistance is crucial to meet the needs of residents for protection, shelter and non-food items.

A total of 45 organizations, including 10 UN agencies, are expected to participate in the HRP, which would provide the aid to people living in the areas controlled by Kiev as well as in the territories that fall beyond government control.

The UN estimates that the 31-month-old conflict in eastern Ukraine has left some 3.8 million local residents in need of humanitarian assistance.
A Russian soldier inspects the damage at a field hospital that was reportedly destroyed by rebel shelling on December 5, 2016 in the Furqan neighbourhood of the government-held side of west Aleppo. (AFP/Xinhua)

DAMASCUS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Syrian government forces have fully recaptured a key rebel-held neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday during its ongoing assault to drive out the rebels from the city, a military source told Xinhua.

The Syrian army and its allied fighters fully recaptured the neighborhood of al-Sha'ar in eastern Aleppo, killing tens of rebels and destroying their ammunition, the source said, on condition of anonymity.

He added that bomb squads are currently dismantling explosives the rebels left behind in the neighborhood.

Recapturing al-Sha'ar neighborhood in the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo is strategically important as it's the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front's main stronghold, which recently claimed it has cut its ties with al-Qaida.

The neighborhood also contained the Nusra Front's largest weapon depots.

It was a tough victory as Nusra militants had several snipers positioned atop tall buildings in al-Sha'ar, one of Aleppo's largest neighborhoods.

In 2011 at the beginning of the crisis, 200,000 people lived in al-Sha'ar, however that number dwindled when the war engulfed Aleppo in 2012.

Ali Maksud, a retired military colonel, told Xinhua that al-Sha'ar is considered the Nusra Front's backbone in eastern Aleppo, and recapturing it dealt the strongest blow for Nusra militants in Aleppo.

Maksud also pointed out that recapturing al-Sha'ar signals the beginning of the end for rebels in the southeastern part of Aleppo, only a week after the army recaptured all of the northeastern areas.

He added that recapturing this neighborhood also secures the road toward Aleppo's international airport.

The military source added that army forces recaptured the Shurta hilltop in eastern Aleppo after al-Sha'ar, only 800 meters away from the rebel-held part of the ancient citadel of Aleppo.

Following the two-week long major offensive, the Syrian army currently controls two thirds of the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, during its recently launched major offensive to liberate the eastern part of the city from any rebel presence.

Over 30,000 civilians fled eastern Aleppo in the past two weeks toward government-controlled areas in the western part of the city.

The Syrian army said it will continue the operation until all rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo are recaptured.

The rebels captured eastern Aleppo in 2012, and government forces recently imposed a siege on that area before unleashing a broad offensive for its recapture.

Humanitarian organizations sounded the alarm about the dire situation of 250,000 people living in eastern Aleppo, and the government promised to improve the situation of those relocated to government-controlled areas.
KIGALI, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda President Paul Kagame has called for more investments both foreign and local in the country in a bid to accelerate Rwanda's economic growth to attain middle income status.

He was addressing about 2,000 members of the local and foreign business community during the Meet the President dialogue at the Kigali Convention Centre late Monday in Rwandan capital Kigali.

The President said investments will generate employment opportunities and create wealth that will lead to equitable development of the small central African country.

"My ambition is to see the country moving towards middle income status and this will be achieved through massive investments both local and foreign. We are aiming at having an inclusive development process where citizens can feel that they are part and parcel of the development agenda of the nation," he noted.

Kagame emphasized that his government is committed to creating an environment conducive for doing business, adding that the role of government is not to do business but to facilitate investment.

"The prevailing environment in Rwanda was conducive for investment. We are looking forward to more investors exploring untapped business opportunities in our country," he said.

The Rwandan leader pointed out that the government will continue to invest in infrastructure in order to bring down the cost of doing business in the country.

According to Benjamin Gasamagera, the chairperson of the Rwanda Private Sector Federation, the local investors are committed to reducing imports, especially agriculture products.

"As members of the private sector we are targeting to increase exports by 28 percent annually through 2018. We are looking at investing in new energy projects and creating more jobs for the youth," he said.

Rwanda has put in place a good business environment that is corruption free and reducing the hours of registering a business from 24 hours to 6 hours hence attracting both local and foreign investors.

The country has also opened strategic business offices in different countries like Turkey, Canada, UK, US, South Africa, Singapore and China, with the aim of promoting investments in those countries.

Available statistics indicate that in 2014, Rwanda registered investments worth 549 million U.S. dollars, out of it, 213 million U.S. dollars were Foreign Direct Investments, while 159 million U.S. dollars through joint ventures with local investors.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of illegal accounts have been shut down by Beijing-based live streaming websites since a regulation went into effect on Dec. 1, authorities said Tuesday.

Reports of violent, obscene and vulgar content on live streaming websites abound. In November, the Cyberspace Administration of China published a regulation that bans the use of live streams to undermine national security, destabilize society, disturb social order, infringe upon others' rights and interests, and disseminate inappropriate content, including pornography.

According to the regulation, service providers are obliged to censor content before releasing it and are instructed to establish a system that would allow them to block improper live streams immediately.

So far, more than 4,500 accounts on the Beijing-based websites were closed and more than 3,100 illegal live streaming programs have been removed, according to Beijing's cyberspace administration.

Officials with the administration said they will enhance regulation efforts to "safeguard order in the Internet industry." They also called on the public to join in supervision.
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- From electronics producers to railway contractors, Chinese businesses all face the same problems promoting their brands overseas.

One of China's most influential commercial symbols, Lenovo, has overtaken HP as the world's leading PC manufacturer, partly through acquisition of foreign peers, but its executives remain on the alert.

"For a domestic firm eager to expand, the biggest challenge comes from cultural differences which cannot be solved by buying companies. It is crucial to integrate into the community, speak the same language and share the same values," said Wang Chuandong, Lenovo China's vice president and chief marketing officer.

New York consultancy Interbrand ranked Lenovo as the world's 99th most valuable brand at 4 billion U.S. dollars. HP, however, is ranked 48th with a value more than double that of Lenovo. The other Chinese company on the top 100 list is Huawei, a rising tech star.

Of the top 100, 52 originate in the United States, 10 come from Germany, 8 from France and 6 from Japan. Considering that China is the world's second largest economy, homegrown businesses are lagging far behind.

In a nutshell, Chinese companies are faring poorly in promoting their products overseas and "Made in China" is still widely perceived as substandard.

"We have a staff of 65,000 worldwide, with nearly 30,000 non-Chinese. American Yolanda Lee Conyers is our chief diversity officer. Our CEO Yang Yuanqing worked and lived in the United States for many years. This improves global cohesion inside the group," Wang said.

Lenovo's smartphone Moto Z, with its souped-up, snap-on music accessory, enjoyed stellar sales in Mexico where music is a significant part of the local culture. In the first three quarters, 1 million Moto Z were sold around the world.

Chinese companies must take local customs and local benefits into account when trying to win local hearts, Paul Haenle, director of Beijing's Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, said.

Rolling stock manufacturer CRRC set a good example in creating a bond with local people when overhauling an old industry base and building new factories in Springfield, Massachusetts.

"There was an old building to be torn down, but we found out that it had a history of more than 100 years and had stood witness to the industrialization of the region and people had an emotional bond with it," said Li Min, a marketing executive of CRRC.

The company preserved the structure, renovating it and turning it into an office building, receiving much praise from local people.

The move smoothed a somewhat frosty reception which CRRC had encountered in the United States and, in March, the company was awarded a billion-dollar order to supply 850 railcars to Chicago, its largest deal ever in a developed country.

"Chinese companies should respect local customs and learn the history of their new homes," said Mao Yixiang of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The United States and the European Union on Tuesday signed an agreement to boost cooperation in U.S.-EU security and crisis response management, the U.S. State Department said.

The U.S.-EU Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) will facilitate reciprocal provision of reimbursable logistic support, supplies, and services between the United States and EU during military deployments and operations, said a statement by the U.S. State Department.

"The signing of the ACSA marks a major milestone in U.S.-EU military cooperation in enabling crisis response and promoting security around the world. U.S. and EU personnel and forces continue to work hand-in-hand to address crises in international security, particularly in Africa," said the statement.

"The ACSA will also help to reinforce the strategic partnership between NATO and the EU as they work together to strengthen defense and security in Europe and project stability among neighbors and partners," it added.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives to attend a press conference in Berlin, capital of Germany, on July 23, 2016. (Xinhua/Guo Yang)

BERLIN, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday was reelected chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the annual convention of the party with a support rate of 89.5 percent, paving the way for her to seek a new term of chancellorship.

Merkel announced her decision to stand in next year's elections for a fourth term in Berlin on Dec. 20, saying that her motivation was based on serving Germany.

"I told the CDU that I was ready to stand again," she said to the media when announcing her candidacy. "This election will be even more difficult than those we have had before as we are facing a strong polarisation" in the community, she added.

The announcement ended months of speculation at a time when Europe is plunged into uncertainty among rising populism.

But the 89.5 percent support rate she got at the convention in Essen was the second lowest for her to be elected chairman of the center-right party, only slightly higher than the 88.4 percent in 2004.

During her stay in Essen, Merkel reportedly criticized populists for attempting to exploit Germany's refugees influx, but vowed at the same time there would be no repeat of massive refugee arrivals as what happened last year.
ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni police forces arrested eight terrorists linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by Aden Police.

Anti-terrorism soldiers conducted an overnight operation, busting the terrorist cell responsible for a series of drive-by assassinations and attacks in the port city of Aden, and storming several locations in the province of Aden.

Silent pistols, letters, and various jihadist leaflets sent to the terrorist militants from IS leaders in Iraq and Syria were seized from the raided houses, the police statement said.

The southern port city of Aden is the headquarters of Yemen's internationally-backed President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government.

Aden witnessed several well-planned assassinations and armed attacks after Saudi-backed forces drove the Shiite Houthi rebels out from the strategic city in July 2015.

However, the newly-trained anti-terrorism troops supported by UAE armored vehicles made substantial achievements in recent weeks, disabling several explosive material factories used by terrorists to manufacture car bombs in Aden.

In addition, several commanders of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch were captured in the successful raids conducted by the UAE-backed Yemeni forces in Aden and neighboring provinces.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional Al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.

The Yemen-based Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known locally as "Ansar al-Sharia," emerged in January 2009, claiming responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks against Yemen's army and governmental institutions.

The AQAP and the IS-linked terrorists took advantage of the security vacuum and ongoing civil war to expand their influence and seize more territories in southern Yemen.

Security in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

Over 10,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, many of them civilians.
by Samuel Egadu, Ronald Ssekandi

KAMPALA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Dressed in a grey suit, wearing a pink shirt and a blue tie, Dominic Ongwen, a former Ugandan rebel commander on Tuesday appeared before the judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the northern part of the country.

Thousands of miles away, back here in Uganda where he allegedly committed the crimes, his victims were glued to live screens as the trial was telecast live. The victims were finally seeing their tormentor starting to face justice.

Ongwen was one of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel commanders who were indicted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The LRA have been blamed for the killing of tens of thousands of people and making over two million others homeless and living in squalid internally displaced persons camps.

The outfit until 2006 when the war ended in Uganda was accused of willful killings, murder of innocent civilians, sexual enslavement, rape, abductions, mutilations, maiming and burning villages.

Ongwen is facing 70 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As Ongwen faces the court, analysts argue that the court will have an uphill task considering that Ongwen was captured by the LRA when he was a minor (aged 10 years) and later rose through the ranks, becoming a fierce commander.

Herman Von Hebel, the ICC Court Registrar who is in Uganda to watch with the victims the trial of Ongwen argued that it is going to be a complex case due to Ongwen being both a victim and a perpetrator.

"It's a difficult situation. It's about accountability. Was Ongwen responsible for the atrocities? What the lawyers will present is what the judges will use to base to get the verdict," said Hebel.

"This is historic for the victims. But it's going to be a long process. Both views and statements will be heard. By the end of the proceedings, the judges will determine whether he is guilty or not guilty," he said.

Ongwen in his submission in Court argued that he was a victim of the LRA atrocities and that it was not him who committed the heinous crimes. He said he did not understand that the charges against him.

The judges however argued that Ongwen understood the charges basing on his previous submissions.

"The Chamber is not persuaded that Ongwen does not understand the charges," one of the judges read out the Chamber's decision after a 15-minute break.

Asked by the judges what his plea was about the charges, Ongwen pleaded not guilty.

"In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda," Ongwen said.

According to the Court Registrar, over 4,000 victims of the fighting between the LRA and government troops in the two-decade insurgency will participate in the trial.

Witness protection is one of the key issues that are likely to come up during the trial. There is fear that incriminating Ongwen will have repercussions.

Hebel argued that the Court would protect its witnesses to avoid cases of intermediation and interference.

He also noted that reparations for thousands of victims in the region would only be possible if Ongwen is found guilty or convicted.

"Reparations are only possible when a decision of guilty is reached. The accused person has to pay reparations to the victims. The question will be whether he can be able to pay. If he can't, then we can look for other options," said Hebel.

Ongwen now becomes one of the other African warlords that are facing the global court. Warlords from the war torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have faced trials.

The Court has also indicted some African leaders for instance Sudanese President Omar al Bashir provoking protests from leaders who accuse the Court of targeting them.

As this trial starts, the Court faces a tide of African countries that want to break away from it.

South Africa and Gambia have already given notice that they want to leave the ICC while another group of African countries are expected to announce their decisions when their leaders meet next month at the African Union summit.
Former Ugandan rebenl commander Dominic Ongwen.(Photo seen on ICC website)

KAMPALA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Dressed in a grey suit, wearing a pink shirt and a blue tie, Dominic Ongwen, a former Ugandan rebel commander on Tuesday appeared before the judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the northern part of the country.

Thousands of miles away, back here in Uganda where he allegedly committed the crimes, his victims were glued to live screens as the trial was telecast live. The victims were finally seeing their tormentor starting to face justice.

Ongwen was one of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel commanders who were indicted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The LRA have been blamed for the killing of tens of thousands of people and making over two million others homeless and living in squalid internally displaced persons camps.

The outfit until 2006 when the war ended in Uganda was accused of willful killings, murder of innocent civilians, sexual enslavement, rape, abductions, mutilations, maiming and burning villages.

Ongwen is facing 70 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As Ongwen faces the court, analysts argue that the court will have an uphill task considering that Ongwen was captured by the LRA when he was a minor (aged 10 years) and later rose through the ranks, becoming a fierce commander.

Herman Von Hebel, the ICC Court Registrar who is in Uganda to watch with the victims the trial of Ongwen argued that it is going to be a complex case due to Ongwen being both a victim and a perpetrator.

"It's a difficult situation. It's about accountability. Was Ongwen responsible for the atrocities? What the lawyers will present is what the judges will use to base to get the verdict," said Hebel.

"This is historic for the victims. But it's going to be a long process. Both views and statements will be heard. By the end of the proceedings, the judges will determine whether he is guilty or not guilty," he said.

Ongwen in his submission in Court argued that he was a victim of the LRA atrocities and that it was not him who committed the heinous crimes. He said he did not understand that the charges against him.

The judges however argued that Ongwen understood the charges basing on his previous submissions.

"The Chamber is not persuaded that Ongwen does not understand the charges," one of the judges read out the Chamber's decision after a 15-minute break.

Asked by the judges what his plea was about the charges, Ongwen pleaded not guilty.

"In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda," Ongwen said.

According to the Court Registrar, over 4,000 victims of the fighting between the LRA and government troops in the two-decade insurgency will participate in the trial.

Witness protection is one of the key issues that are likely to come up during the trial. There is fear that incriminating Ongwen will have repercussions.

Hebel argued that the Court would protect its witnesses to avoid cases of intermediation and interference.

He also noted that reparations for thousands of victims in the region would only be possible if Ongwen is found guilty or convicted.

"Reparations are only possible when a decision of guilty is reached. The accused person has to pay reparations to the victims. The question will be whether he can be able to pay. If he can't, then we can look for other options," said Hebel.

Ongwen now becomes one of the other African warlords that are facing the global court. Warlords from the war torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have faced trials.

The Court has also indicted some African leaders for instance Sudanese President Omar al Bashir provoking protests from leaders who accuse the Court of targeting them.

As this trial starts, the Court faces a tide of African countries that want to break away from it.

South Africa and Gambia have already given notice that they want to leave the ICC while another group of African countries are expected to announce their decisions when their leaders meet next month at the African Union summit.
ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese telecom giant Huawei and China Electric Power Equipment and Technology (CET) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ethiopian Electric Utility to build better connected intelligent grid in Ethiopia.

As part of the agreement inked on Tuesday in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, the two Chinese companies will share their experiences with the EEU, and help the East African country build a smart grid system.

The two Chinese companies also made a donation to the EEU of a smart power distribution pilot project, which will be tested and verified so as to check its competence in the Ethiopian context.

Speaking on the occasion, Ni Zheng, Vice president of Huawei North Africa Regional Office, noted that the newly introduced smart grid would increase revenue to the Ethiopian Electric Utility, while at the same time improve the quality of power supply to end users.

"I am very confident that Huawei and CET will help EEU to shift to smart grid with continuous research and innovation," he said.

He said the two Chinese companies would further deepen their cooperation with their Ethiopian counterpart through their advanced materials, and contribute to the betterment of EEU in particular and Ethiopia in general.

CET, which has conducted successful operations in Ethiopia during the past five years, said the partnership with Huawei through the smart grid system would reduce operation cost, support business construction, improve service and enhance consumer satisfaction.

Gosaye Mengistie, CEO of Ethiopian Electric Utility, hailed the donation made by the two Chinese companies.

The donation will contribute to the efforts being made towards the realization of Ethiopia's five-year Second Growth and Transformation Plan, said Gosaye.

The smart distribution solution agreement is the first of its kind advanced technology in Ethiopia.

"I am certainly sure that with the help offered by this program, Ethiopia has the possibility to leapfrog from low-meters to smart-meters," said Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia La Yifan during the signing ceremony.

He also noted that the smart power grid in Ethiopia, one of the top three electric power generators in Africa, would contribute to the industrialization of its neighboring countries such as Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan are greeted by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and his wife Anne Malherbe at the airport in Quito, Ecuador, Nov. 17, 2016. Xi arrived here Thursday for a state visit to Ecuador. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

QUITO, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Ecuadorian political observers hailed China's commitment to long-term cooperation with Latin America, which is carried in a Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean it recently published.

"I welcome this new Chinese document, which stresses cooperation," former foreign minister Jose Ayala Lasso told Xinhua, noting the concrete pledges made towards promoting joint development.

"If that is the emphasis that China wants to place on future ties with Latin America, it is positive," said Ayala.

Ayala, who also served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the 1990s, said the paper, issued in late November, "reflects a new and nascent interest" in both spurring development in the region and expanding China-Latin America cooperation to all fields.

"China is a very serious country and Chinese culture is thousands of years old. It never looks to just the short term, but to the medium and long term, " said Ayala.

Having applied medium- and long-term visions and a target-based planning in "the initial stage" of relations-building in Latin America, "in this secondary stage, (China) is putting the stress on cooperation," said Ayala, "I think that is very positive."

"In addition, it is pursuing equality and mutual respect, so we should opt for robust cooperation," said Ayala.

Former deputy foreign minister Marcelo Fernandez de Cordoba believed boosting cooperation is "mutually beneficial."

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in Quito, Ecuador, Nov. 17, 2016. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

China is the world's second largest economy, and it has become a leading trade partner and source of investment for Latin America, especially in the sectors of energy and infrastructure, both of which are essential for development, Fernandez noted.

"It is desirable for Chinese cooperation to increase in areas that benefit both that country and this region," he said, adding that "expanding cooperation is mutually beneficial."

The two political observers agreed that ties between China and Latin America have developed significantly in the past eight years.

Ayala said, "The relationship has gotten much stronger, especially in the financial sector. China has offered Latin America credit lines and enormously financed development programs."

This has led to "good political results in the region," he noted.

What's more, said Fernandez, during Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent visit, Ecuador and China raised bilateral ties to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership.

"China views Latin America as a partner, and as an important destination for Chinese investment and financing. It is to be expected that with this new document, (cooperation ) will expand even further," he added.

This is China's second policy paper on the region. The first was issued in 2008.
DAMASCUS, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Airstrikes on rebel-held areas in the country's northwestern city of Idlib killed 25 people on Tuesday, a monitor group reported.

The airstrikes targeted several areas in the countryside of Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog said the death toll could likely rise due to a large number of critically wounded people.

It added that the airstrikes are suspected to be carried out by Russians.

The Observatory also said that five people were killed and 15 others wounded on Tuesday by rebel shelling on the Shiite towns of Kafraya and Foa in Idlib countryside.

On Sunday, at least 34 people were killed by similar airstrikes in Idlib, according to the watchdog.

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.
Yemeni supporters of Shiite Huthi rebels demonstrate to support the new government, that they formed, on December 6, 2016 in the capital Sanaa. (AFP/Xinhua)

ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni police forces arrested eight terrorists linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by Aden Police.

Anti-terrorism soldiers conducted an overnight operation, busting the terrorist cell responsible for a series of drive-by assassinations and attacks in the port city of Aden, and storming several locations in the province of Aden.

Silent pistols, letters, and various jihadist leaflets sent to the terrorist militants from IS leaders in Iraq and Syria were seized from the raided houses, the police statement said.

The southern port city of Aden is the headquarters of Yemen's internationally-backed President Abdu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government.

Aden witnessed several well-planned assassinations and armed attacks after Saudi-backed forces drove the Shiite Houthi rebels out from the strategic city in July 2015.

However, the newly-trained anti-terrorism troops supported by UAE armored vehicles made substantial achievements in recent weeks, disabling several explosive material factories used by terrorists to manufacture car bombs in Aden.

In addition, several commanders of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch were captured in the successful raids conducted by the UAE-backed Yemeni forces in Aden and neighboring provinces.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional Al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.

The Yemen-based Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known locally as "Ansar al-Sharia," emerged in January 2009, claiming responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks against Yemen's army and governmental institutions.

The AQAP and the IS-linked terrorists took advantage of the security vacuum and ongoing civil war to expand their influence and seize more territories in southern Yemen.

Security in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

Over 10,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, many of them civilians.
SKOPJE, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Macedonian Prime Minister Emil Dimitriev and State Election Commission (SEC) members met Tuesday to discuss activities related to the election process and election day scheduled on Dec. 11.

During the meeting, they agreed on the common goal for organizing fair, democratic and credible elections, deeming that all conditions to that effect have been met, Dimitriev's press office said.

According to the Macedonian premier, for the last few months, the government and SEC here have been fully dedicated to completing all activities for preparing the elections.

Dimitriev said that he expect a successful election, when citizens of Macedonia will be able to freely express their will.

SEC chairman Aleksandar Cicakovski thanked the government for the constructive cooperation, deeming it very important for this process.

He assured Dimitriev everything was ready for Macedonia to have fair, democratic and credible elections on Dec. 11.
Saudi commuters drive down a main street in the capital Riyadh, on October 18, 2016. (AFP/Xinhua)

RIYADH, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A Saudi court on Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death on charges of spying for Iran, Al Arabiya news reported.

The convicts are part of a network of 32 people. Two were acquitted and 15 others were handed down jail terms ranging from six months to 25 years.

Most of the convicts, who are 30 Saudis, an Iranian and Afghani, work in the military and diplomatic sectors. They were detained in 2013 and went on trial in February.

The court charged them of forming a group to spy for the Iranian intelligence to provide sensitive military information about the kingdom and some of the network members met the Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei in coordination with the Iranian intelligence.

Some of the convicts were occupying high posts in economic, financial and academic sectors, the report said.

Saudi Arabia has been accusing Iran of standing behind regional disturbances by interfering in the internal affairs of countries, such as Bahrain and Yemen, allegations that have been dismissed by Iran.

Saudi Arabia cut its ties with Iran earlier this year and asked its envoy to leave the country.
A file photo taken on July 16, 2016 shows the then U.S. presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in New York, the United States. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- President-elect Donald Trump is likely to shake up U.S. foreign policy on a number of fronts, and may take action on areas such as Russia, Cuba and the Korean Peninsula, according to experts.

Trump shocked the world last month when he pulled off a surprise victory against rival Hillary Clinton and clinched the White House, proving wrong the vast majority of polls and experts who predicted that Clinton would be the next president.

Now, the Trump team is scrambling to fill a number of cabinet positions, including that of the nation's top diplomat, the U.S. Secretary of State. Trump is expected to create a cabinet encompassing mostly hardliners, and experts said that will color U.S. foreign policy for the next four years.

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua that Trump may seek to triangulate Russia against China. Trump was very critical of Chinese trade and military policy, and may try to use closer ties with Russia to pressure China on foreign policy, West said. Trump said he wants what he refers to as better trade deals, and also wants more U.S. companies to keep their operations within the United States, West said.

West added that Trump may also scale back the recent historic re-opening of ties with neighboring Cuba, only two years after U.S. President Barack Obama opened relations with its former enemy, which lies just off the coast of the U.S. State of Florida. While it remains unknown what steps Trump may take, experts said he is likely to reverse at least some of Obama's overtures to the island nation, although he may not entirely roll back relations to their former Cold War status.

Trump may also encourage China to pressure the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on its nuclear testing, West said, referring to the issue that has been a major East Asian issue in recent years.

Dan Mahaffee, an analyst with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, said the major world powers will face an interesting challenge in terms of areas where cooperation is needed, while also avoiding miscalculation in terms of potential conflict areas such as Eastern Europe or the maritime disputes in East Asia.

He noted that the worst historical example is that of World War I, where even as trade between nations boomed, nationalism and miscalculation allowed a small flashpoint to ignite a brutal, global conflict.

For the United States and Russia, much of the difficulty will surround how the U.S. relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies is managed, and whether there can continue to be a close coordination between the United States and European allies. That is especially the case given that the Trump Administration will likely demand greater NATO defense spending and investment, Mahaffee said.

The U.S.-China relationship will continue to be colored by the complex balance of issues where U.S.-China dialogue and cooperation is vital, such as global economic stability, global warming and counterterrorism. It will also be colored by areas where there will be difficulties, Mahaffee said.

As for the India-Pakistan confrontation, the issue is more fragile than many outside observers assume, and U.S.-China cooperation may be key to urging restraint from both sides, Mahaffee said.

As for Latin America, a possible violent collapse or internal instability in Venezuela may raise the possibility of significant disruptions to energy markets and the mass movement of displaced persons into neighboring countries, as well as into Mexico and the United States, he said.
This photo taken on March 21 ,2011, shows Air Force One takes off from the Aero Base of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 21, 2011. (Xinhua/Song Weiwei)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The White House defended the deal of new Air Force One aircrafts with Boeing company, after President-elect Donald Trump called for cancelling the order claiming the new aircraft too expensive in a Twitter post earlier on Tuesday.

"I think the American people would expect that future presidents would benefit from unique and upgraded capabilities while flying aboard Air Force One," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on board the presidential plane flying to Tampa, Florida.

However, it's up to the Trump administration to determine whether the project will be completed, said Earnest.

"The updated Air Force One is not set to come online until 2023," he said. "This is a longer-range plan, but ultimately the planning work that we have done on behalf of future presidents is something the next administration will have to decide to carry forward." he said.

"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!" Trump tweeted.

"We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money," he then told reporters in a briefing.

File photo taken on Feb. 1, 2016 shows Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the United States. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

However, the 4-billion-dollar price tag Trump claimed for the cost of the new aircraft couldn't be immediately confirmed.

Earnest said some of the data Trump referenced to "don't appear to reflect the nature of the financial agreement between Boeing and the Department of Defense."

The upgrades to the new plane, which include security enhancements, are being made per the recommendation of national security experts, he added.

Also on Tuesday, Boeing said in a statement that the company is "currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States."

The two 747-200 aircrafts currently used as Air Force One has been in flight since the Reagon era in 1980s. Though the two planes have been heavily modified, they are due to reach the end of their planned 30-year life in 2017.

In January, Boeing secured a contract from the Pentagon to start development work on the 747-8 jumbo jets that would replace the aging planes, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Boeing was the U.S. government's second biggest federal contractor last year behind Lockheed Martin Corp., according to federal procurement data.
Chinas media group conducts interview in Saint Petersburg State University. (Photo: CNTV)

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- An enthusiasm for studying Chinese has swept St. Petersburg and other places in Russia.

To meet the increasing demand of fluent Chinese speakers in the job market, many Russian parents are encouraging their kids to learn the language, according to Babelyuk Ekaterina Gennadievna, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of the Saint Petersburg State University.

We need people who understand Chinese to promote bilateral cooperation in various fields, so as to advance the development of Belt and Road Initiative, she said.

Students trained by her school have flexible career prospects, either work at the Chinese-funded enterprises in Russia or those Russian enterprises in China, she said.

Some excellent students have the chance to enter governmental sectors or public institutions such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she added.

Chinas media group conducts interview in Saint Petersburg State University. (Photo: CNTV)

Talking about specific learning, Alexey Rodionov, deputy director of the Department of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg State University, noted that reading and writing are not the biggest barrier for the students. Rather, the difficulty for the Russian students, he stressed, lies in cultivating a Chinese way of thinking and deepening their understanding about Chinese culture.

To help them in this respect, he explained, the university has opened a Confucius institute with accomplished Chinese teachers and therefore remarkable results could be expected.

Besides, St. Petersburg State University has signed 53 cooperation treaties with major Chinese education institutions, including Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Renmin University of China.
Chamber hits lack of US$

Addressing the Chambers annual Christmas dinner at Achievors banquet hall, Duncan Village, San Fernando recently Chamber president Shiva Roopnarine pointed out that members were being placed on a lengthy waiting list for US currency due to the current shortage despite the, controlled release of US dollars to the banks, even after the one billion US dollars oversubscribed loan secured by the minister of Finance. Members have issues accessing foreign exchange and if they do, the waiting time could be weeks, Roopnarine said, adding, we need foreign exchange in an equitable manner, just like any other business community in Trinidad and Tobago from the local commercial banks. He said the Central Bank governor had to respond to the call from the business community and monitor the allocation of US Dollars to these institutions and wondered whether the country would be able to hold the TT dollar at its present value to the US dollar considering the high demand. Will we now be able to know who is using the majority of the US dollars or will this lead to the loss of another Central Bank Governor, he said, asking, where the US money gone? He said the shortage was forcing businesses to incur additional expenses which included using credit cards to purchase goods and services which attract credit card fees.

Suppliers are not willing to absorb the three to five percent charged to them by the credit card companies and members feel exploited by the commercial banks since the cannot get US for cash or wire transfers but have little problems paying their US credit card bills, he said, adding, we call on the banking sector to immediately correct this dilemma, assist us in conducting our business and end this banking monopoly. You need our business as much as we require your services. He noted that fear continued to, permeate the country as crime and security continued unabated and once again called for a concerted effort in prosecuting criminals and a reduction in legal red tapes bugging the judicial system. The policy makers must set this right and afford us the right to live in the absence of fear, he said, and reiterated the need for CCTV cameras throughput the Penal Debe area.

In a wide ranging address, Roopnarine also noted that agriculture had be given greater priority as the national food import bill continue to be higher than desired and called for lands once owned by Caroni Limited to be allocated to farming.

He also congratulated Chamber members on their decision to bite the bullet, work more efficiently and effectively, and keeping workers employed in this trying and difficult economic period. On behalf of the hundreds of families depending on you, the chamber says Thank You. This is indeed a difficult period for business and we hope that things will get better soon, he said.
Sickly grandpa murdered

Police reported that shortly after 1 pm, the relative entered the house at Arena Road near Tewarie Trace North Extension, when he made the discovery. Police believe the killer broke into the home and beat the frail old man to death.

Maharaj a father of five and grandfather of six, lived with his elderly mother Rampiare Seenanan, 86, who left the country on Saturday. Maharajs brother-inlaw Joseph Chanjar that the deceased suffered a stroke about three years ago followed by a heart attack.

Due to his ailments, Chanjar believe that the killer/s did not have to put much effort to take Maharajs life.

If she (Seenanan) was in the country, this would have been a double-homicide. He could have never fight back anybody (sic). It really hard to know that Ramesh died in this manner and not naturally. He was a sickly man.

For the past few years, I spend plenty time with him taking him to doctor and for other things, Chanjar said. Another relative told Newsday that Maharaj was a quiet man who never interfered with anyone.

The relative said: We are yet to go inside the house so we dont know how inside is. He never interfered with anyone. We do not know what, or if anything, is missing. This is really shocking.
8 held in Sea Lots lockdown

At about 3 am, officers led by Senior Superintendents Boxhill, Hodge Griffith and ASP Ajith Persad descended upon the Sea Lots area and cordoned off all points of entry and exit.

The exercise was initiated following the murder of known gang leader Ronnie Hogan on Friday night. During the exercise, homes were searched as well as suspected drug dens and eight persons were detained. One of the persons was held for making threats to a police officer who lives in the area as well as other offences.

Others were held for robberies and outstanding warrants.

During the exercise, residents who were asleep were awakened as police announced their presence as they carried out searches.

Some of the residents welcomed the police presence claiming there was a series of illegal activities taking place in their community and they wanted peace returned.

Residents also expect reprisal killings as a result of Hogans murder in their area.

Newsday understands that during the five hour operation K-9 dogs were also used in a bid to search for drugs and this was also welcomed by residents who claim that the sale of drugs was destroying their community.

Newsday understands similar exercises will be carried out for the month of December leading up to the Yuletide period.

The exercise formed part of the anti-crime initiative to deal with crime throughout the country.
Cashier caught red-handed with profits

Narine returned about ten minutes later and allegedly saw the cashier placing $86,200, which represented the days sales, into her handbag. Narine intervened and searched the womans handbag where he found the cash.

Officers of the Cunupia police were alerted and the cashier detained.

Investigations are continuing.
Cops granted fresh bail

Bail which had been granted to constables Ronald Modeste and Anderson Richards, at the police station where they were being held, was rescinded and they were both granted fresh bail in the sum of $90,000 and $60,000 respectively after it was revealed that the bailor for both men had acted as surety for two other persons within the last year.

Modeste and Richards as well as constable Nicholas Henry were were assigned to the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) and were charged on Saturday night by officers of the Professional Standards Bureau (PSB) of the TT Police Service.

Henry was granted bail in the sum of $80,000. Aged 26, 34 and 36, they have been serving officers in the Police Service for six, ten and 11 years respectively.

The formal charges are two counts of misbehaviour in public office by corruptly soliciting and receiving from a member of the public, namely Dion Babb, a quantity of cash ($4,500), as well as an amount of $2,000 as an inducement to not investigate a suspected criminal offence of human trafficking.

Modeste is on three charges, while Henry has been charged with two offences and Anderson one.

The SRPs were arrested between November 30 and December 1 and have been in custody since.

The offences were said to have taken place on November 27 at St Lucien Road, Diego Martin.

It was alleged that the three police officers attempted to extort money from a landlord whose tenants are Venezuelan nationals.

The landlord was allegedly approached by the three SRPs who allegedly told him he had to pay them $4,500 every Monday for a month or else he would be detained and handed over to the Immigration Department for harbouring illegal Venezuelans.

They will all return to court on January 3.
Wife struck with vodka bottle

Tamar Johnson, 37, walked out the San Fernando Magistrates Court yesterday seemingly shocked that a magistrate had ordered her husband, Roland Dillon,45, to stay 500 meters from her. Dillon, of Simpson Brown Terrace, Cocoyea Village, San Fernando, appeared before Senior Magistrate Nanette Forde-John in the San Fernando Magistrates Court. He was arrested on Friday. Forde-John read a charge to Dillon, that on Friday, at about 3pm, he maliciously wounded Johnson at their home. The charge was laid indictably, but court police prosecutor, PC Cleyon Seedan, recommended a summary trial.

Dillion was asked by Forde-John how he pleaded and he answered, Not Guilty! The charge was laid by Corporal Shannon Ali of the Mon Repos Police Station.

Johnson stood on the other side of the courtroom during the hearing, with a bandage across the left eyelid.

Forde-John granted Dillion bail in the sum of $40,000, but warned him that he is not to go to the matrimonial home. The accused man was further warned by the magistrate, that he must not even write letters to Johnson, try to telephone her, or attempt to make contact via any social network such as text messages, emails and Whatsapp.

The magistrate ordered Dillon to report every day to the Mon Repos Police Station.

When the matter was adjourned and Dillion was taken back into the prisoners holding bay downstairs, Johnson sat in the lobby and waited for Seedan to emerge from the courtroom.

She complained to him that she had hoped to tell the magistrate that she no longer wanted to pursue the case.

Johnson then told the Newsday outside the court that her children are ages six, five and four.

He is my husband and if he goes to jail, I need him to pay our rent and mind we children. If he go to jail, what would be my position? Johnson asked.

The woman said that when next the case is called on December 30, she plans to tell the magistrate that she would not give evidence.
High Court rules in favour of Salvation Army

Justice Frank Seepersad yesterday ruled that Chunilal Guiness, who wanted to destroy the wall which separated both properties, had no greater right to the structure than the Salvation Army and by moving to demolish the wall, was guilty of trespass.

Guiness was ordered to pay the Salvation Army damages in the sum of $7,500 as well as costs and has been restrained from damaging or interfering with the wall.

The Salvation Army had, last year, filed a lawsuit against Guiness, the owner of the other parcel of land, who intended to have the wall demolished, claiming it was partly on his property.

In its claim form, the Salvation Army stated that it had been given permission by the previous owners of the land to construct the wall which measures approximately 150 feet in length and about 15 feet high. However, in August last year, Guiness became the new owner of the parcel of land and attempted to destroy the wall without a licence or consent of the claimants and despite repeated demands to cease, Guiness failed to cease demolition of the wall.

The Salvation Army also claimed that the defendant trespassed on its property and caused damage to property belonging to the claimants. With the granting of the injunction,Seepersad ordered that Guiness or his workmen refrain from carrying out any type of demolition work on the wall and trespassing on its property until the owners of the properties are determined during trial.

Chris Selochan and Tamara Dolsingh appeared for the Salvation Army while Anthony Manwar represented Guiness.
Punjab dance at UTT

The training was conducted by Shri Ashwani Kumar Sharma and members of the Asian Punjabi Folk Dance Club from India. The aim of the Asian Punjabi Folk Dance Club is to safeguard the timeless heritage of Punjab while promoting cultural entrepreneurship.

The 12-member dance troupe was in Trinidad, on a seven-day visit from November 28 to December 4, as part of ongoing cultural exchange initiatives with India.

The groups visit was the first of its kind to the Caribbean region. This cultural exchange was facilitated by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts in collaboration with the High Commission of India and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Co-operation.

More than 25 dance students and lecturers from the Dance Department at the UTT attended the workshop held at the UTT Campus at NAPA, Port-of-Spain, last Thursday. The programme began with an explanation of the traditional musical instruments of Punjab such as the been (the snake charmers instrument), sap, kato and khundra.

Then, there were a series of demonstrations of the Punjab dance styles with emphasis on the bhangra, folk orchestra, Malwai Giddha, harvesting dance Kirti Di Kuli, Jawabi Chaallan and the solo folk dance. Additionally, students were given the opportunity to interact with the artists and obtain hands-on experience.

The workshop concluded with Nancy Herrera, head of the Dance Department thanking the group for sharing their culture and creativity.
Robocops brother shot dead

Police report stated that about 9 pm on Sunday, Alexis was at the familys mini mart at Freedom Street, Enterprise, where gunshots rang out. When the shooting noises stopped, relatives discovered Alexis with gunshot wounds to his upper body. He was rushed to the Chaguanas District Health Centre where he succumbed to his injuries, shortly after .

Only on July 17 last, his brother Selwyn, 51, was shot and killed in a shootout at his carwash businessplace located on the said Freedom Street. Also killed in this shooting were Alexis customer Kevin Escayg and Thomas Hamza Sharpe, who was believed to be one of the hitmen who ambushed the notorious businessman. Escaygs four-yearold son Kirchard Scott, was also shot but survived the ordeal.
Homless man victorious in Court

Hugh Bernard, who in September had been refused permission to pursue his judicial review claim against the Corporation for implementing the measure without providing alternative facilities, three appellate court judges reversed the decision.

Justices of Appeal Peter Jamadar, Gregory Smith and Charmaine Pemberton yesterday granted leave to Bernard to pursue his case, and the city corporation has given its assurances that the final gate to the square will not be locked until the matter is resolved in the courts. In September, Justice Eleanor Donaldson- Honeywell dismissed Bernards claim even as she praised him for raising awareness of the plight of homeless people in TT.

In the lawsuit, Bernard claimed the homeless were adversely affected by the corporations decision to place locks on the gates which denied them and other members of the public entry into the square.

In December of last year, the Corporation erected a fence around the perimeter of Tamarind Square, and towards the end of January, locks and chains were placed on the gates.

Four of the five gates around the square have been locked and the fifth gate has a padlock but has not yet been locked as the others.

The lawsuit contended that if this fifth gate to Tamarind Square was locked, the socially displaced will have nowhere left to go.

Bernard argued that it was unfair to him and the other homeless people that they will be denied entry into the square without any alternative arrangements being made to accommodate them.

He also sought to have the court make an order requiring the City Corporation to leave the gates open until viable alternatives are made for them and that tents and portable toilets be placed in the square.

Representing Bernard were Christopher Hamel Smith SC, Imran Ali and Krystal Richardson while John Jeremie SC and Kerwyn Garcia appeared for the Corporation.
Dillon: Army base in Enterprise soon

Dillon made this disclosure as he commented on the latest set of murders that took place in TT over the weekend and yesterday.

Among the persons murdered was a relative of Selwyn Robocop Alexis, who was murdered earlier this year.

Speaking with reporters during a break in an Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative seminar at Tower D of the Port-of- Spain International Waterfront Centre, Dillon said, My concern is really reducing the murder rate as much as possible. All efforts are geared towards that. After he noted the murders of Alexis relative and other persons, reporters asked Dillon whether any drastic measures would be taking place next year to bring the murder rate down.

Dillon said, We continue to improve our operational capabilities, we continue to provide what is required for the police service to do what is necessary to provide continued support to them by the Defence Force. Dillon, a former Chief of Staff of the Defence Force, then disclosed, To that extent, we are in fact going to be setting up a sort of a forward base in Enterprise with the Army.

Informing reporters that the Army now operates out of El Socorro, Dillon envisioned the establishment of, a firm base in Enterprise within the next week or so, where we will have a presence in Enterprise. Reiterating that there is always room for improvement in terms of anti-crime measures, Dillon said, Strategies are tested on the ground and we continue to adjust as we go along. He told reporters, You would have seen the police doing operations in Enterprise. This morning, you will them in Sea Lots and they continue to do so in various areas where they have identified, based on intelligence, a number of activities are taking place. Noting intelligence is what drives security operations, Dillon explained, To a large extent, if your intel is sound, you have a better chance of success in your operations. Dillon said he was pleased to see the commanders of various police divisions starting to take charge of the areas under their jurisdiction and hoped this would go further.

I want see that drill down, not only to just the commanders but down to station inspector, down to the sergeant, down to corporals, down to the constables on the beat, the minister said.

Dillon said there is a statistical element to crime that cannot be measured, in terms of the lives of somebodys brother, somebodys sister, somebodys nephew. On the community policing initiative which Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley spoke about on October 30, Dillon said that strategy is being adopted and advanced by Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams.

While he could not give a time frame for the rollout of this initiative, he admitted that community policing has been tried before.

Dillon said the focus needs to be more refined to the extent, where the police and the community are in a symbiotic relationship. On October 30, Rowley also spoke about the launch of a Nationwide Crime Prevention Education and Mobilisation Programme that will give every citizen from elementary school age and upwards an opportunity to become involved in finding solutions to deal with crime.
Vietnamese Defence Minister calls on Modi

Delhi,National,Defence/Security,Diplomacy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Vietnamese Defence Minister General Ngo Xuan Lich called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Tuesday.

Modi recalled his visit to Vietnam in September when the bilateral relationship was upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, said a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Vietnam is a key pillar of India's Act East policy," the statement quoted Modi as saying.

"General Ngo briefed the Prime Minister on the progress achieved in bilateral defence cooperation. The PM noted that India and Vietnam have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship in the field of defence, and reiterated India's resolve to strengthen defence ties further."

Modi said closer cooperation between India and Vietnam in all sectors would contribute to the stability, security and prosperity of the entire region.

During Modi's visit, India offered a $500-million defence credit line, a part of which will be used for the construction of offshore patrol boats by, among others, the Vietnam Border Guards.

Vietnam is among the countries which have a dispute with China over the South China Sea.

--IANS

ab/ahm/mr
Man strangles five children, commits suicide

Pakistan,Indo-Pak/Pakistan,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Islamabad, Dec 6 (IANS) A man strangled his five children to death before committing suicide in Pakistans Punjab province on Tuesday, the media reported.

Hussain, a resident of Lalian tehsil, killed his daughter and four sons, police officer Mustansar Feroz was quoted as saying. Hussain reportedly took the extreme step after his wife deserted him.

--IANS

ahm/mr
US Ambassador condoles death of Jayalalithaa

Delhi,National,Politics,Diplomacy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) US Ambassador Richard Verma on Tuesday condoled the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

"On behalf of the US, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Jayalalithaa, and the people of Tamil Nadu," Verma said in a statement.

"Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the US and India," he said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu during this time of sorrow."

Jayalalithaa died on Monday night in Chennai after suffering a cardiac arrest on Sunday.

--IANS

ab/py/vm
Journalist beaten up by bank security men in Imphal

Manipur,National,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Imphal, Dec 6 (IANS) Rakesh Sharma, a reporter with a local English newspaper, was beaten up while he was photographing how people were jumping the queue at United Bank of India in Imphal with the help of bank security personnel.

All Manipur Working Journalists' Union has taken up the issue at the highest level and has demanded exemplary action against the personnel.

Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has directed the police to take suitable action against the three accused.

Sharma, who is working with Imphal Free Press, had gone to the M.G. Avenue branch of UBI on Monday to cover the hardships people were facing due to the demonetisation.

Some bank security personnel rushed out and beat up the scribe who was later dragged inside the bank.

--IANS

ahm/vt
OPEC move to cut production may adversely affect India (Column: Active Voice)

Delhi,National,Opinion/Commentary,Business/Economy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

The decision at the just-concluded 171st ministerial meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reduce production by 1.2 million barrels per day to 32.5 mb/day (effective from January 2017) may have important implications for both oil producers and, more importantly, oil consumers like India.

First, a bit about the context of the deal. Global commodity prices saw a dip but then started to rise after the global financial crisis. This is a counter-intuitive thing that happened due to a kind of a hysteresis and slowdown in demand, and thus the resulting price drop actually happened much later.

The prices peaked in 2012 when the OPEC average yearly crude oil price touched a high of almost $110. Intra-day prices reached much higher. Economies exporting oil at that time were making merry. But then prices began to plummet -- touching a low of $40 in 2016. The intra-day prices dropped to much lower levels.

A pertinent question to ask at this juncture is: What were the factors at play which resulted in the price rise and later the collapse? Factors which had a bearing on the latter were oversupply in the international markets due to decrease in Chinese demand as well as the slowdown in the developed world and the ensuing impact on world trade.

Also important was the shale oil boom in the US which requires less upfront investment and helped pushing up oil supply. Another factor was the removal of economic sanctions against Iran and it consequently ramping up production. Finally, the OPEC members not being able to reach an agreement was yet another factor for oversupply.

Due to all these factors, oil prices have been at rock bottom level for almost two years.

The winners and the losers of this overall situation have been clearly a distinct set of countries. Oil-consuming countries like India (importing about 81 per cent of its energy needs) have seen a windfall due to this almost threefold reduction in prices. On the other hand, economies like Russia, OPEC members and countries like Venezuela (all big oil producers) have borne the brunt of the price collapse. These economies have seen job cuts, have been undergoing economic turmoil and are now in the throes of deep recession.

Saudi Arabia, the biggest OPEC member, has seen a reversal of economic strategy away from a very oil-dependent future to one which is seen diversifying its bets. Part of the process is also privatisation to a limited extent of Aramco, the world's biggest oil company that is slated to go for an IPO in the near future.

On the consumer side, the Indian windfall has added to fiscal space in its economy and let it choose where to look for its energy needs.

After the OPEC decision, the price of crude oil has already inched upwards and is now hovering around the $50 mark. It would be more interesting to see how the countries (especially producers) outside the OPEC respond to this curb on production levels. Russia already is looking at limiting supplies. A concerted effort from oil producers can have a critical impact on the economies of oil-consuming economies of the world.

The macro-economic developments have given policymakers in India and elsewhere adequate leeway to invest in alternative forms of energy as well as invest in development of CNG and LPG. A recent report in The Economist points to this.

An uncertainty for India is the election of Donald Trump as the new US President. This has has already seen capital outflows from developing countries like India to the US. Given India's macro-economic situation, the most pertinent thing for New Delhi to do at this juncture is to plan for the future with a lesser dependence on fossil fuels, especially crude oil. But that is easier said than done.

The OPEC deal has once again shown that strategic interests of nation states can converge (with both Saudi Arabia and Iran agreeing to the deal) and that OPEC as a cartel is not dead. It still is important in deciding the price of oil, impacting geopolitical outcomes in several countries. Countries like India must invest in cleaner technology development, reducing their overt dependence on oil -- else they risk being adversely affected each time the price of crude oil starts to rise.

(The article is co-authored with Sankalp Sharma, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Competitiveness, India. Amit Kapoor is Chair, Institute for Competitiveness, India & Editor of Thinkers. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya)

--IANS

amitk/vm/hs
Bakery introduces scrapped 500, 1,000 notes for desserts

West Bengal,National,Business/Economy,Human Interest/Society, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Kolkata, Dec 6 (IANS) The bitter pill of demonetisation for dessert lovers has turned into sweet delight in the eastern metropolis.

Scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, that have made national and international headlines in the last one month, are now etched in sugar and chocolate forever, courtesy a Kolkata-based bakery's creative twist to the demonetisation move.

The bakery has come out with dark chocolate replicas of the scrapped notes. Priced at Rs 100 each, these thin chocolate slices will perhaps, offer some solace, after you have borne the brunt of queuing up in front of ATMs and laid hands on cash.

"The base is chocolate and the layout of the notes is painted with edible sugar paint. They were introduced right after demonetisation was announced," an official of Krazy for Chocolates, a bakery specialising in chocolates, pastries, customised cakes among others, told IANS.

At its outlets across numerous city malls, salespersons have been assailed with questions over its edibility.

"Some people give it a second look because they think it's incredible. It has raised a lot of eyebrows and the curiosity is good for business," a salesperson manning a counter at City Centre 2 mall, told IANS.

According to Vinay Sethia from the bakery company, around 20 to 30 pieces of the chocolates are being sold on a daily basis since November.

"Since we customise our products, organisers of small parties and events have ordered these chocolates. They have become very popular. People are eager to have them on cakes. Someone also ordered chocolates resembling the new Rs 500 notes yesterday (on Monday). As long as they continue selling, we will produce them," Sethia told IANS.

--IANS

sgh/ssp/sm/vt
Proud of 'Appatlo Okadundevadu': Nara Rohith

Tamil Nadu,Cinema/Showbiz,Southern Cinema,Sports, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Chennai, Dec 6 (IANS) Nara Rohith is proud of his upcoming Telugu action-thriller "Appatlo Okadundevadu", which he has also produced. The film is based on real events that unfolded between the years 1992 and 1996 in Hyderabad.

"I was working on multiple projects when I started working on 'Appatlo Okadundevadu', and it really got difficult to devote much time. Thanks to my co-producers Vijay and Prashanti, the film was handled well. I was proud of the output when I recently watched the film," Rohith told IANS.

Directed by Sagar Chandra, the film also stars Sri Vishnu and Brahmaji.

Rohith plays an honest police officer in the film, which is gearing up for release soon.

"It will be a unique film and not another run-of-the-mill commercial one. This is the kind of film that will inspire others to try something different," he said.

--IANS

hp/nv/vt
By year-end, India won't have black money: Amit Shah

Delhi,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday rubbished charges of illegalities in the party's land deals prior to the demonetisation announcement and asserted that by 2016-end, the country will become free of all black money.

"The opposition parties are pointing fingers at the land deals by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but these deals were authorised in January 2015 only," Shah said at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

"In January 2015, we had announced to have party offices in all the districts of the country, and these land deals are in pursuance of that," said Shah

The party purchased land across the country at 170 locations between January 2015 and November 2016, he added.

Opposition parties have alleged the BJP had prior information about demonetisation and the land deals were done to turn black money into white.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday demanded a judicial probe into the BJP's land deals.

Earlier, the CPI-M in Parliament raised the issue, pointing to deposit of "huge amounts of money in banks" on the morning of November 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the evening announced the decision to spike Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Shah asserted that the allegations of the opposition were baseless.

"The deposit of money in the bank accounts is a mere coincidence. Moreover, the opposition should try to think logically. Why we would deposit money on November 8 and raise suspicion? This is nothing but a mere coincidence," said Shah.

"Earlier, the opposition used to ask Modi what have you done to bring back black money. And now post-demonetisation, the opposition is crying why you did this, Modi?" said Shah, ridiculing the opposition.

Talking about demonetisation, Shah said it is a historic, and asserted that the economy will get rid of black money.

"By December 30, the country will get rid of entire black money. The black money will either come back to the system through deposits in the banks, or if people fearing penalty don't deposit, then in that case the money with them will be useless after December 31. So both ways, the black money will be eliminated from the system," added Shah.

--IANS

and/nir/vt
Love others, be kind to yourself: Santa Claus's message to Indians

Delhi,Cinema/Showbiz,Lifestyle/Fashion, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) For almost 50 years, he has played Santa Claus -- and now during his second visit to India, Timo Alarik Pakkanen from Finland advises people of this country to love others and be generous and kind to themselves.

"Love each other and be kind to yourself and to others, that's my message to Indians," Pakkanen, dressed in a Santa outfit, told IANS during an interaction at the Finland embassy here. He was accompanied by Nina Vaskunlahti, the Ambassador of Finland to India.

Pakkanen, who has committed himself to the task of being Santa Claus, comes from the mysterious Korvatunturi ("Ear Fell") in Finnish Lapland.

Perhaps one of the most famous names on the planet, this Santa Claus recognises his global influence and the responsibility that comes with it. He spends his time at the Santa Claus Village very day of the year to take care of his mission in life -- to enhance the well being of children and the kindness of grown-ups, as well as spreading the message of love and goodwill of the Christmas Spirit across the globe.

For almost 40 years, he has lived the life of the fabled Santa Claus and has met and talked to people from over 82 countries and from 40 US states, 55 German cities and 24 cities from Britain.

He calls his experience of playing Santa as magical and the Christmas eve, magic.

"The Christmas eve is a magical evening and that's where all the magic happens. Whenever I meet people, they give me a smile and positivity and that's the thing I like the most. So I get happiness from children," he said.

He last visited India six years back as Santa Claus and this year has been equally special for him as people are more acceptable.

"Over the years, it has become more acceptable but I feel it's the same everywhere. Some people are excited and some are a bit afraid and it's same with children. Someone comes and hugs you immediately while some start to cry so it's very different like the way people are different.

"It's the same every where you go. It doesn't mater from where you come, whether it is Canada, China, India or Europe, it's always kind of same thing," he told IANS.

He landed in the capital on Sunday and started his trip by meeting a few school children in Vasant Vihar followed by a brunch at Hotel Leela Palace here. On Monday, he visited Gandhi Smriti and India Gate. On Tuesday, he was to visit Taj Mahal in Agra along with a few other places.

Asked how he plans to spread smiles in India at a time when demonetisation is the talk of the town, he told IANS: "My most important mission is to make people happy around me. Give happiness, joy and laughter but I am not here to solve your political problems or anything like that."

(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)

--IANS

nv/dg
Vodafone offers 'Game-a-Thon' for gaming enthusiasts

Delhi,National,Technology,Business/Economy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Vodafone India has announced to offer "Vodafone U Game-a-Thon" to gaming enthusiasts as part of its first-ever 15-day "Online Gaming Fest" in the country.

Available on Google Play Store, the gaming app includes several gaming categories including sports, simulation, puzzles and so on and can be accessed till December 15.

"We present 'Vodafone U Game-A-Thon' where our customers will get a choice of 18 Indie games to indulge and enjoy," said Siddharth Banerjee, National Brand Head, Vodafone India.

"Game-a-Thon" is currently live and has already been downloaded more than one million times.

"There will be one winner per game, per day. Every winner will receive a Vodafone U hamper with a pair of Sony U Branded headphones," the company said.

There will also be one winner per game at the end of the offer period who will receive a Vodafone U hamper with a Google Pixel smartphone.

--IANS

qd/na/bg
Telugu film industry mourns loss of Jayalalithaa

Andhra Pradesh,National,Politics,Cinema/Showbiz, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Hyderabad, Dec 6 (IANS) Telugu film industry Tuesday mourned the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa with her co-stars paying her rich tributes.

Veteran actors Jamuna, Krishna and Mohan Babu recalled the moments they shared with her on and off the sets.

Jamuna said Jayalalithaa was a model for women as she fought all odds to chart her own course and reached the dizzy heights of fame and success.

Jamuna, who acted with Jayalalithaa in "Sri Krishna Vijayam" (1969), said she was fortunate to get an opportunity to work with her.

Interestingly, Jayalalithaa, who was then an upcoming actress played the main lead role in this film with legendary N.T. Rama Rao.

The veteran actress said even after becoming the Chief Minister, Jayalalitha did not forget her co-stars and used to enquire about their well-being.

Jamuna said Jayalalitha had great concern for all artistes, especially poor.

Superstar of yesteryears Krishna also paid rich tributes to Jayalalitha, who acted in about 25 Telugu films.

Krishna, who worked with Jayalalitha in "Goodachari 116" (1967), described her as an affable and softspoken person.

Another veteran actor Mohan Babu, expressing profound grief over Jayalalitha's demise, described her as the symbol of woman power.

"And the curtains come down to the journey of one of the most charismatic and humble humans being #jayalalithaa Garu. Symbol of woman power. Had the honor of meeting her first when I was starting my career & many times after that.An amazing actor & an example for women &men alike Praying alongside my Tamil brothers and sisters. No words can express this loss. May her soul Rest In Peace," he tweeted.

"Rip my dearest super woman Jayalalitha Garu. You'll always be with us through your inspiration, " tweeted Jayasudha, another veteran actress.

Jayalalitha had a memorable stint in Telugu films during which she was romantically linked with actor Sobhan Babu.

Several top actors of Tollywood have condoled the death of Jayalalitha.

"#Ripamma Great era comes to an end.But her majestic charisma and determination will continue to live and inspire many women in our country," tweeted Junior NTR.

"Deeply saddened at the loss of J Jayalalithaa garu. May her family and the whole of Tamil Nadu find strength at this time," said another popular actor Mahesh Babu.

"I remember my father speaking with great respect and fondness whenever he spoke of Jayalalitha Ji/May her Soul rest in peace," tweeted Nagarjuna Akkineni, whose legendary father Akkineni Nageswara Rao paired with Jayalalitha in some movies.

"Your life has been a series of fighting and winning.U gave us the will to fight and the hope that we can win. U will never die #AmmaForever, " tweeted leading actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu:

"We've lost an inspiring woman who's been a true fighter in every sense. She'll always be remembered. May her soul rest in peace. #RipAmma," was how Tamannaah paid her tributes.

--IANS

ms/vd
2 IS extremists arrested in Morocco

Malta,Defence/Security,Terrorism, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Rabat, Dec 6 (IANS/MAP) Two Islamic State (IS) extremists active in Morocco's Casablanca city have been arrested, media reported on Tuesday.

According to preliminary investigations, the two suspects imbued with IS's ideas and fully acquainted with the terrorist organisation's agenda, sought to acquire the process of manufacturing an explosive device to carry out a terrorist operation against one of the sensitive targets in Morocco, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The suspects, arrested on Sunday, will be brought to trial once the investigation is completed.

--IANS/MAP

sm/dg
Black money will be banished by year-end: Amit Shah

Delhi,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday rubbished charges of illegalities in the party's land deals prior to the demonetisation decision and asserted that by 2016-end, the country will become free of black money.

"The opposition parties are pointing fingers at the land deals by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but these deals were authorised in January 2015 only," said Shah speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

"In January 2015, we had announced to have party offices in all the districts of the country, and these land deals are in pursuance of that announcement only," said Shah

The party purchased land across the country at 170 locations between January 2015 and November 2016, he added.

Opposition parties have alleged the BJP had prior information about demonetisation and the land deals were done to turn black money into white.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday demanded a judicial probe into the BJP's land deals.

Earlier, the CPI-M in Parliament raised the issue, pointing to deposit of "huge amounts of money in banks" on November 8, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing in the evening the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Shah asserted that the allegations of the opposition were baseless.

"The deposit of money in the bank accounts is a mere coincidence. Moreover, the opposition should try to think logically. Why we would deposit money on November 8 and raise suspicion? This is nothing but a mere coincidence," said Shah.

"Earlier, the opposition used to ask Modi what have you done to bring black money back. And now, post-demonetisation, the opposition is crying why you did this, Modi," said Shah, ridiculing the opposition.

Talking about demonetisation, the BJP President said it is a historic decision, and asserted that the economy will get rid of black money.

"By December 30, the country will get rid of entire black money," Shah asserted adding that: "The black money will either come back to the system through deposits in the banks or, if people don't deposit fearing penalty, then the money with them will become useless after December 31.

"So both ways, the black money will be eliminated from the system," he said.

Shah ridiculed former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for opposing demonetisation.

On his stinging attack against demonetisation in Parliament recently, Shah said the world reknowned economists, who long had been part of the country's economic policy-making, should answer about India's economic performance during the erstwhile UPA regime.

"From 1975 till 2014, Singh, in various capacities, had been part of the country's economic policy-making. Can he answer why the GDP growth rate fell to four per cent during his reign from the 8 per cent it had achived under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is not an economist?

"Again a 'chaiwala' (Modi) is running the country and the econmy is growing at 7.6 per cent. It is for Singh to asnwer this," said Shah who also said that "after seeing Singh, I don't want to be an economist".

Talking about the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Shah asserted that the BJP would come to power, claiming that demonetisation has created a level playing field for all the parties.

"Because of demonetisation, now there will be no black money in the elections. It has created a level playing field for all. If any party says it is having problems, then that means the party doesn't want black money to be removed from the system," said Shah.

"In Uttar Pradesh, this time it will be politics of performance. Days of dynasty politics, caste politics and money politics are over," added Shah.

--IANS

and/nir/dg
Trump, Al Gore hold 'interesting conversation' in New York

United States,Politics, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New York, Dec 6 (IANS) Former US Vice President Al Gore on Monday held an "interesting conversation" in New York with President-elect Donald Trump, but he offered no details about their meeting.

Initially, Gore had been scheduled to meet with Trump's daughter Ivanka, to discuss environmental issues, official sources said, but upon leaving the meeting he said that he had also met with the President-elect, EFE news reported.

"I had a lengthy and very productive session with the President-elect," Gore told reporters after meeting at Trump Tower with the real-estate mogul and his daughter.

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the President-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that," he added.

Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and is the US politician who has been most active in defending the environment, served as Vice President during Bill Clinton's 1993-2001 presidency.

Gore was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000 but he was defeated in the election by Republican George W. Bush in a controversial and extraordinarily close contest that wound up being settled with a Supreme Court decision.

Ivanka Trump is a member of the transition team's executive committee.

--IANS

lok/
Saudi court sentences 15 to death for spying for Iran

Saudi Arabia,Defence/Security, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Riyadh, Dec 6 (IANS) A Saudi court on Tuesday sentenced 15 persons to death on charges of spying for Iran, media reported.

The convicts are part of a network of 32 persons. Two were acquitted and 15 others were handed down jail terms ranging from six months to 25 years, Xinhua news agency reported.

Most of the convicts, who are 30 Saudis, an Iranian and an Afghani, worked in the military and diplomatic sectors. They were detained in 2013 and went on trial in February.

The court charged them with forming a group to spy for the Iranian intelligence to provide sensitive military information about the kingdom and some of the network members met Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in coordination with the Iranian intelligence.

Some of the convicts were occupying high posts in economic, financial and academic sectors.

Saudi Arabia has been accusing Iran of standing behind regional disturbances by interfering in the internal affairs of countries, such as Bahrain and Yemen, allegations that were dismissed by Iran.

Saudi Arabia cut its ties with Iran earlier this year and asked its envoy to leave the country.

--IANS

sm/vt
Love learning curse words: Vaani Kapoor

Delhi,Cinema/Showbiz,Bollywood, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Actress Vaani Kapoor, who is gearing up for the release of her forthcoming film "Befikre", says she loves learning "curse words" in various languages.

Asked how much French they learnt for "Befikre", which has been shot in Paris, Vaani's co-star Ranveer Singh said here at a promotion event for their film: "I didn't learn much...I learnt only the flirty lines...Rest Vaani knows."

Vaani quipped: "I love learning curse words, be it in any language...even in Tamil that was the first thing I learnt (curse words)."

Helmed by filmmaker Aditya Chopra, "Befikre" will see Vaani playing the role of a girl named Shyra and Ranveer essaying the role of a boy named Dharam.

The film is set to hit the screens on Friday.

--IANS

dc/nv/vt
Who can ever replace Amma, ask Tamils in Delhi

Delhi,National,Politics,Human Interest/Society, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Tamils in the Indian capital on Tuesday paid homage to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, insisting it will be impossible for anyone to fill the void created by her death.

From blue collar workers to the poor, Tamil men and women IANS spoke to were unanimous that Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night at age 68, was truly an iconic leader.

And the main reason for her widespread popularity in populous Tamil Nadu was her genuine concern for the underprivileged.

"No one can be more popular than Amma because she always wanted to do something for the public," G.N.D. Elangovan said in a brief conversation at the Delhi Tamil Sangam.

A cine star when she entered politics, Jayalalitha became another MGR or M.G. Ramachandran -- her mentor, legendary actor and founder leader of the AIADMK.

"MGR was like her too," Elangovan said. "After his death (in 1987), she filled the void. She provided free electricity, mixers, grinders, fans and all those small items the poor could not afford to buy."

In her later years, she introduced the Amma Canteen where one could get sumptuous food for as little as Rs 10.

"No other leader in India is so popular in India," said Elangogan.

S. Kandasamy, who earns a pittance at the Qutub Minar tomb, readily agreed.

"She was our Amma, she was a good person for the poor," Kandasamy said, shedding tears as he spoke. "She never thought of having a family. Her only concern were the poor in Tamil Nadu."

Kandasamy was among the many Tamils who made it to the Delhi Tamil Sangam complex where a framed portrait of a younger looking Jayalalithaa was placed on a table, overflowing with rose petals.

Many Tamils living and working in Delhi maintain close links with Tamil Nadu. Some vote in the state. But even those who don't had a good thing or two to say about the AIADMK leader.

"She worked for the Tamil community and women in particular," said M.S. Ravi, a Tamil who made Delhi his home a long time back.

He said Jayalalithaa, as the five-time Chief Minister, provided houses to the poor, potable water for Rs 10 a bottle, financial aid to conduct the wedding of poor girls which included gold and money.

Her government also gave 20 kg of rice free to the poor and free bus passes and books, laptop and cycle to the students in the state.

"We cannot forget Amma as long as we live," Ravi told IANS.

Mukundan, the Delhi Tamil Sangam Secretary, described Jayalalithaa, who was a spinster, as a messiah for the poor.

"She was a mass leader. She was the highest paid actress of her time."

Other Tamils said she was a bold lady who knew how to succeed in a male dominated world.

A retired government official who did not want to be quoted by name said she was also an able administrator.

"I cannot see any leader of her stature to fill the gap her death has created," he said.

Many said her greatest achievement was the way she put down, with an iron hand, "goondaism" in Tamil Nadu.

She also banned liquor in the state, earning the frenzied support of poor women tormented by drunkard husbands. And in an earlier stint, she gave a free hand to police kill notorious sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.

"Can anyone take her place? No, no one can do that," said Muthusamy, a Delhi-based man who hails from Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu.

Almost all Tamil-owned shops in Delhi were shuttered on Tuesday as a mark of respect for Jayalalithaa.

Even the Tamil street vendors who make a living selling the hugely popular dosas, vadas and idlis prefered to suffer loss than work on a day their favourite leader would be laid to rest on the Chennai beach.

(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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So many things to learn from Nawazuddin: Tiger Shroff

Maharashtra,Cinema/Showbiz,Bollywood, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Mumbai, Dec 6 (IANS) Actor Tiger Shroff, who will be seen sharing screen space with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the upcoming "Munna Micheal", calls him an amazing actor and says that he has learnt a lot from him.

Speaking on Monday at the Nickelodeon Host Kids Choice Awards, Tiger said: "Working with Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a superb experience for me. He is an amazing actor. There are so many things to learn from him."

The film stars Tiger Shroff in the lead and Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the main antagonist.

It is also said that Tiger as a Michael Jackson fanatic will be showcasing some of his smooth moves inspired by Michael Jackson , and Nawazuddin Siddiqui will be matching steps with him.

"I think fans are going to enjoy his character. It is quite a different type of character. So I think his fans are definitely going to be happy to see him in this film," said Tiger.

Wearing a casual black and golden jacket, Tiger was looking sporty and cool. When asked about his bearded look, Tiger replied: 'It is for Munna Michael'.

Directed by Sabbir Khan, the dance-based musical also stars Nidhhi Agerwal and is slated to release on July 7.

--IANS

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Kejriwal to denounce demonetisation in Varanasi

Delhi,National,Politics, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will on Wednesday denounce demonetisation at a rally in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the rally will be held at Benia Bagh to explain the real reasons behind the November 8 decision to scrap the 1,000 and 500 rupee notes.

Kejriwal took on Modi in Varanasi during the Lok Sabha election but lost the battle.

With Uttar Pradesh going to the polls early next year, Kejriwal addressed a rally against the note ban in Meerut on December 1 where he asked people to vote against the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He is expected to address a similar rally in Lucknow on December 18.

--IANS

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BJP is anti-Ambedkar, anti-Constitution: Mayawati

Uttar Pradesh,National,Politics, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Lucknow, Dec 6 (IANS) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Tuesday dubbed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre as anti-Ambedkar and anti-Constitution.

Addressing a gathering after paying floral tributes to Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, popularly known as Babasaheb, on his death anniversary at the local Ambedkar Park here, Mayawati criticised "political parties for creating confusions about Babasaheb".

"They (political parties) create rift between the Dalits and backward classes, whereas the fact is that it was under the BSP rule that these sections of society got their rights in true sense," she said.

Training guns on the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP, the BSP chief said: "These people do not like the Constitution... They want to change it. So, you need to guard against it.

"Ambedkar's Constitution accords equal status to all castes and religions, but the BJP is trying to impose the agenda of Hindutva on the country."

She stressed that if Muslims are safe in the country today, it is because of Babasaheb.

"It was only after the 'master key' of Uttar Pradesh came in the hands of the Dalits that emancipation of backward classes and the Dalits could be possible, much against the wishes of the BJP and the Congress," Mayawati said.

The BJP withdrew support to the V.P. Singh government on the issue of reservation, which is a proof that this party is anti-Dalit, anti-backward classes and anti-minorities, she said.

Also, since the BJP does not want to give due honour and respect to Babasaheb, they chose December 6 -- the death anniversary of Dr Ambedkar -- to demolish the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the BSP chief alleged.

--IANS

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Karnataka fondly recalls its 'Komalavalli' nee Jayalalithaa

Karnataka,National,Human Interest/Society, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Bengaluru, Dec 6 (IANS) Hundreds of people across Karnataka on Tuesday fondly recalled its 'daughter' and late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and paid glowing tributes to her, as she was born at Melkote near Mysuru and spent her early days in Bengaluru.

Having spent her childhood in the state capital, she had moved to Chennai in the late 1950s.

As the news about her death spread on Monday-Tuesday night, a pall of gloom descended on Melkote in Pandavapura taluk of Mandya district, about 130 km from here, and her contemporaries remembered her origins and recalled her parents.

"Jayalalithaa, who was born on February 24, 1948 at Melkote near Mysuru, was named Komalavalli by her father Dr Jayaram and mother Vedavalli, whose screen name was Sandhya," said Sidda Lingappa, a native of Mandya.

When Komalavalli entered the tinsel world in then Madras, she chose to be Jayalalithaa, with 'Jaya' from 'Jaya Vilas' and 'lalithaa' from 'Lalitha Vilas', the two houses her grandfather N. Rangasamy Iyengar lived at in Mysuru and where she spent her holidays with her brother and mother.

Iyengar had migrated to Mysuru from Srirangam in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu state.

When Jayalalithaa's father Dr Jayaram died in 1950-51, she moved to Bengaluru from Mysuru with her mother and aunts Ambujavalli and Padmavalli for schooling.

As Hindu goddess Chamundeshwari atop a hill near Mysuru was also her family deity, Jayalalithaa used to regularly visit the temple to worship and pray there.

Jayalalithaa's step-brother N.J. Vasudevan, born to her father's first wife L.K. Jayammal, still lives at Srirangarajapuram village in T. Narsipur taluk of Mysuru district.

Before shifting to Madras to join her actress mother Sandhya, Jayalalithaa went to Bishop Cotton Girls High School in the city centre for studying up to Grade IV from nursery.

"I vividly remember Komlavalli with wide eyes and a pony tail, as she was one of my classmates in the primary school during the mid-1950s," said Stella Samuel.

"Though she migrated to Madras and became a popular actress, she maintained contact with her relatives and remained in touch with her fans and supporters at Mysuru and Bengaluru," recalled 70-year-old Lingappa, a farmer.

Veteran lensman Bhavni Lakshminarayana from Chikkaballapur, has a collection of Jayalalithaa's pictures, more in black and white, as he did still photography for two Kannada films in which she acted as heroine.

"I had shot her pictures atop Nandi Hills near Bengaluru when the shooting of a Kannada movie 'Maavana Magalu' took place with Kalyankumar as hero," Lakshminarayana told a local news channel earlier in the day.

Ironically, Jayalalithaa's last visit to the state and Bengaluru was over two years ago when a trial court convicted and sentenced her to a four-year jail term on September 27, 2014 in a disproportionate assets case here.

She spent three weeks in Central Jail on the city's outskirts before flying back to Chennai on October 18, 2014 after the Supreme Court granted her bail a day earlier.

--IANS

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Patanjali targets reaching one lakh crore production by 2020

Delhi,National,Politics,Business/Economy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Yoga guru turned businessman Ramdev on Tuesday said his FMCG venture Patanjali Ayurved is targetting to shore up its production to Rs one lakh crore by 2020.

"Patanjali has been registering 100 percent growth for the last four years and this year too we have been growing at the same pace. Our target is to take our inhouse production to Rs 50,000 crore in the next two-three years and ulmately reach the target of Rs one lakh crore by 2020," Ramdev said at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

The aim to end the hegemoney of international companies on the Indian economy, he said.

"Our imports consist of over Rs 25 lakh crore while another Rs 25 lakh crore is taken away by foreign companies. If we need to break this hegemoney and our dependence on foreign companies, we need in house prodcution of at least Rs.100 lakh crore. Our endeavour is to create and promote Indian entreprenurship," said Ramdev.

While hailing the Narendra Modi government's move to demonetise higher denomintion notes, Ramdev said it was essential to continue taking further steps to check and prevent corruption and black money.

"Demonetisation has broken the back of terrorism and Naxalism (Maoism) as their entire funding was in black money. This move will effectively address the issue of black money. However, the government should continue to take further steps to ensure black money does not make a comeback to the system," he said.

Admitting that demonetisation has caused hardships for the common people, Ramdev said: "Maybe there was needed some more preparation for implementing the scheme but at the same time, it could have lead to leaking of information and the entire exercise would have failed."

He also said that the government needed to reconsider its decision to introduce the Rs 2,000 notes.

--IANS

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US groups pay tributes to Jayalalithaa

United States,Politics,Diaspora, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New York, Dec 6 (IANS) The American Tamil Sangam (ATS) and the US Friends of AIADMK (USFAIADMK) have paid tributes to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

"Struggle was her middle name and victory was her last name," ATS President Prakash Swamy said in a statement. Recalling the various adversitites she had faced, he said: "Her path was strewn with thorns and rocks but she overcame all with her unmatched grit and determination."

USFAIADMK President Koshy O. Thomas said Tamils all over the world have lost a leader who was a mother to them. "We have become orphans and no words can console us," he added.

ATS Chairman John Joseph eecalled Jayalalithaa's welfare programmes, especially for women and students, and said she was a charismatic leader.

Earlier ATS and USFAIADMK had held prayers for Jayalalithaa's recovery at the Saneeswarar Temple in the city that was attended by Hindus and Christians.

In 2011, Hillary Clinton, who was then the Secretary of State, met Jayalalithaa at her office in Fort St. George in Chennai. A press release issued at that time said that they had discussed the problems of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and social welfare programmes.

An ATS press release said that at initiative of the then-Deputy Speaker Upendra Chivkula, the New Jersey State Assembly had issued a proclamation honouring Jayalalithaa after her election in 2011.

--IANS

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Over 4,7000 migrants perish in Mediterranean

Italy,Crime/Disaster/Accident,Immigration/Law/Rights, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Rome, Dec 6 (IANS/AKI) A record 4,715 boat migrants have died Mediterranean this year, while 351,080 migrants have landed in southern Europe, mainly in Greece and Italy till December 4, the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday.

Although the number of arrivals has dropped by more than half compared with the 883,393 migrants who arrived during the same period of 2015, 1,148 more people have drowned, IOM said.

The total number of migrant and refugee fatalities in the Mediterranean this year till November 27 is 4,715 - 1,148 more deaths than in the same period of 2015.

The overwhelming majority of the fatalities (4,223) occurred on the perilous central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy, according to IOM. The United Nations refugees agency expects the death-toll to reach 5,000 by the year's end, its chief Filippo Grandi warned on Friday.

The number of migrants who landed in Greece this year fell by over three-quarters to 171,875 from 739,188 in 2015, following a landmark deal between the European Union and Turkey in March under which the country agreed to take back any asylum-seekers.

IOM said some 173,571 people have arrived by sea in Italy this year, up from 144,205 in 2015, as more mainly African migrants attempt the crossing from Libya.

Italy is struggling to cope with the growing influx of migrants and has threatened to veto the EU's 2017 budget unless it does more to help, including relocating 39,600 asylum seekers from its soil to other European countries.

--IANS/AKI

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Italian minister foresees February general election

Italy,Politics, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Rome, Dec 6 (IANS/AKI) A member of Premier Matteo Renzi's outgoing government on Tuesday predicted that Italy could have a general election as early as February after the resounding "No" vote on Renzi's constitutional reforms.

"I forecast the will to go to the polls in February," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

He was speaking after Renzi said he would step down following Sunday's referendum in which 60 percent of Italians voted against his proposals to strengthen the central government's powers and rein in the upper house of parliament and the regions.

"Faced with this (referendum) result, (Renzi's) resignation and early elections seemed inevitable.

"But clearly, it is up to the head of state (Sergio) Mattarella to decide on this, not us," Alfano said.

Alfano, who heads a small centre-right party that is a crucial part of Renzi's ruling coalition, said he made his forecast after discussing the issue with Renzi.

Mattarella has asked Renzi to stay on as Prime Minister until the Italian parliament approves the budget law, possibly by Wednesday.

Renzi's ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) is due to meet on Thursday to discuss the referendum defeat.

Renzi had staked his political future on the outcome of the referendum, but is still leader of the PD, which has the largest number of lawmakers, so it is unlikely any new government can be formed without his backing.

Italy's two largest opposition parties, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the anti-immigrant Northern League are both demanding snap elections.

Italy's constitutional court is expected to rule in January on the legitimacy of the current electoral law, which gives a large bonus of seats in the lower house of parliament to the party winning the biggest share of votes in order to ensure it a governing majority.

At present, two different systems are in place for the lower and the upper houses of parliament, which is widely viewed as a recipe for political instability.

--IANS/AKI

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Kerala delegation to visit Chennai to pay respect to Jayalalithaa

Kerala,National,Politics, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 6 (IANS) A high level Kerala delegation led by Governor P. Sathasivam and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, will on Tuesday visit Chennai to pay their last respects to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Jayalalithaa, one of the country's most charismatic political leaders, died in Chennai on Monday night after suffering a cardiac arrest on Sunday. She was 68.

Sathasivam, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, hails from Tamil Nadu.

Besides the two, former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala will also visit Chennai. They all are travelling together.

All of them in the past had at one point or the other called on the ailing leader.

Paying glowing tributes to his former Tamil Nadu counterpart, Vijayan said Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary politician the country has seen.

"Entering the political arena straight from the film world, in a very short time she proved her administrative skills. She always ensured that there was a perfect harmony between the people of our two states," said Vijayan.

"She proved to be a leader of the masses and her concern for the poor was what made her dear to them. She was always firmly in control of the administration. She will be missed by all," Chandy said.

As a mark of respect to the departed AIADKM leader, the Kerala government declared a holiday on Tuesday to mourn the demise of Jayalalithaa.

All government offices and educational institutions remain closed on Tuesday.

--IANS

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Publishing industry still to overcome shock of demonetisation

Delhi,Business/Economy,Art/Culture/Books, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) India's otherwise booming publishing industry is now undergoing a crucial phase as sales have dropped by almost 30-60 per cent since November 8, after the government's decision to invalidate the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes.

The Nielsen Book Report had estimated the Indian book market in 2015 to be worth $3.9 billion (Rs 27,000 crore) and growing by around 20 percent a year. This includes imports, which are particularly important in a market where 55 per cent of all sales (and about 90 per cent of all professional titles sold) are English language titles.

Thomas Abraham, of Hachette India, said that the drop in sales may be attributed to the fact that books are not regarded as a primary necessity.

"There have been varying reports of sales drops from 30 per cent to 60 per cent in book retail stores. And this despite most bookstores having a large chunk of credit card customers," he told IANS, adding: "So this is more the shock effect of general confidence and a drop in people going out to shop. Books are not seen as a primary necessity; so secondary purchases are being deferred is what one can guess from this."

"If so, one can expect the effect to last as long as the situation remains short-changed, which the trade collectively hopes will be just a week or so more," added Abraham.

Ajay Mago, Publisher, Om Books International, also said that demonetisation has had a direct impact on the publishing industry.

"As citizens of India, we appreciate Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to ban notes of certain denominations. Demonetisation, however, has had a direct impact on the publishing industry. Book sales have dropped by approximately 60 per cent.

"With limited money in hand, and unsure of when the situation is likely to stabilise, buyers are being cautious even about online purchases," Mago told IANS.

The November-March period is generally good for the publishing industry, but the focus on essential commodities has completely changed the scenario this time.

"Essential commodities have taken priority over much else in what is otherwise peak sale season across the country. We all hope that the government shall take adequate measures and quickly to restore the balance," Mago hoped.

Four weeks down the line, leading bookstores now have digital payment methods installed, but this has brought little relief in terms of sales.

Most bookstores in the capital refused to share their sales figures since demonetisation and also refrained from commenting at present.

A leading bookshop owner from one of Delhi's upmarket locations, on condition of anonymity, told IANS: "The book business is completely destroyed."

"If I were to talk in terms of figures, the number of books sold since demonetisation is actually less than what one sells in one day during the peak season. Parents are even cutting down on stationery at this point of time. You cannot blame it on digital payments alone. We were always accepting cards. The fact is that people do not have money in their hands and this will continue till the situation normalises," he said.

Online platforms, Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal primarily, had witnessed a rising number of book buyers in the past few years, but the abrupt dip in sales has left many wondering. The customers, according to Amazon, are now fast adopting electronic payments.

"While we saw a limited short-term impact due to the recent currency change announcement, we have already tremendous customer response in adopting electronic payment methods at delivery with a tenfold growth in electronic payments," an Amazon spokesperson told IANS.

The effect is worse for small-time booksellers at traffic signals and crowded city destinations, including the Daryaganj book market, on Sundays, the spokesperson said, adding that business there has "collapsed".

Sundar Kumar, a migrant from Bihar, who sells bargain books in Connaught Place, said: "I used to easily make around 300 to 400 rupees every day, but now that nobody has money to buy even important things, there is no significant sale. I have not sold anything since morning."

Sprawled across the isolated lanes of Old Delhi, in Daryaganj, the once bustling Sunday book market for the past two weeks wears a deserted look. The number of booksellers has dropped too, let alone the number of buyers.

"Nobody is coming here. People are not even going to buy vegetables and fruits. After two weeks of uncertain sales, half of the sellers did not turn up today. We sell books at a cheap price and even then there is a bargain on any normal Sunday. Now when there is no money at all in their pockets, how will they come," asked Vijendar Singh, who has been selling books in Daryaganj for seven years.

On switching to electronic payments, he said: "The rich can do this but we will not be able to afford it. Our incomes are so low that it will not be affordable for us. If the government has a plan to help us out from this mess, then it is fine; otherwise our business will be over."

India is the world's seventh-largest book publishing country. There are more than 16,000 publishers in India, the majority of them small players and family-owned. India is also the world's third-largest book market, with more than 80,000 new titles in 24 different languages published every year.

(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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Doctor, another held for raping student in hospital

Delhi,National,Crime/Disaster/Accident, Wed, 07 Dec 2016 IANS

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New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Two people, including a doctor at a civic body-run hospital here, were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly gang-raping a student after promising her a job, police said.

The incident occurred at the Charak Palika Hospital run by NDMC at Moti Bagh in south Delhi where the 22-year-old student of Institute of Public Health and Hygiene was working as an intern. She was allegedly raped by the doctor, two of his assistants and one other person.

The arrested were identified as Afzal Khan, 40, a Medical Officer, and Krishan Pal, 53, a dark room assistant.

The other accused - Surender, 50, also a dark room assistant, and Dharam Singh, 40 - are absconding, a senior police officer said.

The incident came to light on Tuesday when the victim, a student of a college in Mahipalpur area complained to Moti Bagh Police station.

"The victim in her statement said that she was doing internship in Charak Palika Hospital run by NDMC and she was lured by all the accused persons on the pretext of providing employment. She was later physically assaulted by all the four accused," said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Manishi Chandra.

The victim said she was first gang-raped in the last week of October when Krishan Pal called her and offered to her find a job, but coerced her into a non-consensual relationship with Afzal Khan and Dharam Singh, Chandra said.

Condemning the incident, Hospital Director Ranbir Singh noted that the victim was not part of the hospital from last two months and did not complain against the accused to higher authorities but assured "necessary action" will be taken.

--IANS

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Legendary Politician Jayalalithaa Passed Away at 68

New Delhi, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 NI Wire

The legendary politician J Jayalalitha passed away yesterday at the age of 68. She was lauded as one of the most charismatic personalities in Indian politics. Immediately following the news her supporters from all over the state of Tamilnadu came out on the streets and grief stricken wailing followed. For millions of people Jayalalitha was like the mother soul as she was often called with the epithet 'Amma'. With the death of 'Amma' an era in Indian politics ended.

Jayalalitha who served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu until her death faced serious condition following a heart attack on Sunday night and after a day long struggle in Apollo Hospital of Chennai died at 23:30 local time on Monday. Ever since her hospitalisation thousands of her supporters gathered outside the hospital to pray for her health and recovery.

Before starting her political career Jayalalitha was a popular film actress with massive fan following in the state and entire South India. Her political career spanned over four decades gave her an iconic popularity ever seen and experienced in Indian politics. Former film icon turned politician turned Amma for millions of people was proclaimed by her supporters as the 'Goddess' of Tamilnadu.

Jayalalitha who served as chief minister of the state for four times was also known for her charismatic personality that uprising women in society still now hail as their source of inspiration. Despite the political differences most politicians agreed on the tremendous influence Jayalalitha had in changing the patriarchal mindset of Tamil politics and making avenues for women to take bigger responsibilities in the political and administrative systems. It is during her tenures the state has seen many daring steps to elevate the status of women in political system.

Following her death condolences and tributes began to usher from eminent personalities all over the country. The party she belonged to AIADMK lowered their flags in mourning and tweeted "our beloved leader, the Iron lady of India... Amma, is no more". Thousands of supporters took on the streets and lined outside the hospital and the approaching road just to catch a glimpse of their beloved Amma. With the desperate crowd jostling to get closer to the ambulance carrying her body, police had a tough time in keeping the mob in control.

Amidst the chaos and mourning, senior AIADMK politician, O Panneerselvam was given the responsibility to serve as the chief minister as the Twitter account of AIADMK confirmed today.

        , Jayalalithaa's death, big loss for Tamil Nadu
PM Modi arrives in Chennai to pay last respects to Amma

Chennai, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 NI Wire

The Prime Minister arrived in Chennai to pay respects to the late AIADMK leader. After the death of the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayaram Jayalalithaa, ministers and supporters were paying respect.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay a floral wreath on Jayalalithaasbody at Rajaji Hall, where a mass of people are paying their last respects to the AIADMK leader.

The Prime Minister also tweeted earlier, I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace.

Earlier, the PM Modi also said in a tweet May the Almighty grant them the strength to bear this irreparable loss with courage and fortitude.

The Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal also arrived at Chennai and paid his last respects to Jayalalithaa.

The President Pranab Mukherjee will also visit in Chennai to pay his last respect but the schedule of the President was delayed after the technical fault in his plane.

J. Jayalalithaa died on Monday night at Apollo hospital after suffering from a cardiac arrest on Sunday. She was admitted in the hospital from September 22, and after 74 days of battle she died and left her supporters with the great immense and grief.

        | PM Modi reached

Jayalalithaa's cremation will be done at Marina Beach in Chennai at 4 p.m.

--with agency inputs
Central government plans 3 more LNG terminals

Delhi, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 NI Wire

At the ongoing Petrotech International conference on hydrocarbons, the central government plans to build three more liquified natural gas terminals on the east coast.

Additional Secretary in the Petroleum Ministry A.P. Sawhney said that the three new terminals planned will be located at Ennore, Kakinada and Dhamra ports.

Sawhney said, The government is also looking at reviving stranded gas-based power generation capacity in the country.

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said here last week that India plans to double its natural gas consumption from the current 120 million standard cubic metres a day to 240 mscmd in five years.

Pradhan also said, To increase the use of gas as a clean fuel India had drawn up major investment plans, particularly for the eastern and southern regions which have low gas use.

He further said, Around $20 billion investment has been planned in the next five-seven years for gas exploration, specifically from the eastern offshore and for deepwater wells exploration.

The three fertiliser unitsin the eastern region were being revived with the help of gas which would aid in the re-industrialisation of 20 cities, as Pradhan said.

He further added, GAIL is undertaking the Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra natural gas pipeline project and a series of LNG terminals are planned along the east coast.

Earlier, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the country needs energy which will accessible to the poor. He also said, over 300 million people in India do not have access to electricity, amid the global uncertainities, India needs energy security.

--with agency inputs
Vaani Kapoor loves watching Ranveers films as an audience

Delhi, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 NI Wire

Actress Vaani Kapoor says that she loves watching films of her co-star Ranveer Singhs films. The movie Befikre features actress Vaani Kapoor and actor Ranveer Singh, is a romantic drama film written and directed by Aditya Chopra.

Actress Vaani Kapoor said, I couldn't have asked for a better co-star. I have been saying that I want to work with Ranveer. I like him as an actor and as an audience, I love watching his films.

She also said that she is lucky that she got to star along Ranveer Singh in her second film.

Actress Vaani Kapoor, who made her Bollywood debut with Shuddh Desi Romance said that, I guess I am lucky that I got an opportunity in my second film...He's a great person.

Actress Vaani Kapoor and actor Ranveer Singhs movie Befikre will release on Friday.

It was shot extensively in Paris. It is a story that celebrates being carefree in love. A quintessential Delhi boy Dharam (Ranveer Singh) comes to Paris for work in search of an adventure. Just when he was about to embark on this journey of his life he bumps into a wild, free spirited, French born Indian girl Shyra (Vaani Kapoor).

They were battling their ups and downs in the movie and then they both realize that love is a leap of faith that can only be taken by those who dare to love.

--with agency inputs
Amit Shah says, country will be free of black money by year end

Delhi, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 NI Wire

BJP President Amit Shah rubbished charges of illegalities in the partys land deals prior to the demonetisation decision and asserted that by the end of the year, the country will become free of black money.

Amit Shah said, The opposition parties are pointing fingers at the land deals by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but these deals were authorised in January 2015 only.

He also said, In January 2015, we had announced to have party offices in all the districts of the country, and these land deals are in pursuance of that announcement only.

He added that the BJP party purchased land across the country at 170 locations between January 2015 and November 2016. Opposition parties have alleged the BJP had prior information about demonetisation and the land deals were done to turn black money into white.

On the other hand, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee x demanded a judicial probe into the BJP's land deals.

Earlier, the CPI-M in Parliament raised the issue, pointing to deposit of "huge amounts of money in banks" on November 8, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing in the evening the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Amit Shah asserted that the allegations of the opposition were baseless.

On these allegations Amit Shah said, The deposit of money in the bank accounts is a mere coincidence. Moreover, the opposition should try to think logically. Why we would deposit money on November 8 and raise suspicion? This is nothing but a mere coincidence.

By ridiculing the opposition, Shah said, Earlier, the opposition used to ask Modi what have you done to bring black money back. And now, post-demonetisation, the opposition is crying why you did this, Modi.

The BJP President said talking about demonetisation, that it is a historic decision, and he asserted that the economy will get rid of black money.

He added, by December 30, the country will get rid of entire black money, The black money will either come back to the system through deposits in the banks or, if people don't deposit fearing penalty, then the money with them will become useless after December 31. So both ways, the black money will be eliminated from the system.

On Manmohan Singhs stinging attack against demonetisation in Parliament recently, Amit Shah said the world reknowned economists, who long had been part of the country's economic policy-making, should answer about India's economic performance during the erstwhile UPA regime.

From 1975 till 2014, Singh, in various capacities, had been part of the country's economic policy-making. Can he answer why the GDP growth rate fell to four per cent during his reign from the 8 per cent it had achieved under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is not an economist?

"Again a 'chaiwala' (Modi) is running the country and the econmy is growing at 7.6 per cent. It is for Singh to asnwer this, said Shah who also said that "after seeing Singh, I don't want to be an economist".

Talking about the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Shah asserted that the BJP would come to power, claiming that demonetisation has created a level playing field for all the parties.

Shah said because of demonetisation, now there will be no black money in the elections. It has created a level playing field for all. If any party says it is having problems, then that means the party doesn't want black money to be removed from the system,.

Shah added In Uttar Pradesh, this time it will be politics of performance. Days of dynasty politics, caste politics and money politics are over.

The opposition members are protesting against the demonetisation move of government on November 8 by which the old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 considered as illegal tender from the date of announcement.

The Opposition members are raising questions and demanding a discussion. They are raising the problems of common man due to the shortage of new currency notes and its circulation.

They also raising questions about the preparations for the implementation of this move and wants the Prime Minister to answer their questions.

--with agency inputs
Kejriwal will visit Chennai to pay homage to Amma

Delhi, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 NI Wire

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu passes away last night in Apollo Hospital after suffering from Cardiac arrest. She was admitted there from September 22 because of fever and dehydration but later J. Jayalalitha suffered cardiac arrest on Monday morning. After that her condition went extremely grave.

According to the official sources, the :Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal will visit to Chennai to pay his last respect to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha.

Arvind Kejriwal will arrive in Chennai around 12:30 p.m. to pay homage to the deceased AIADMK leader and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms. J. Jayalalitha at Rajaji Hall.

After hearing about the death of Jayalalitha, the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, Very sad to hear the demiseof Amma. Avery very popular leader, Aam Aadmis leader. May her soul rest in peace.

Every one is paying respect after demise of Amma and Tamil Nadu flooded with tears after hearing the news of death of the Chief Minister. Her supporters were gathered outside the hospital premises and prayed all day long on Monday.

Jayalalithaa died at 11:30 p.m. on Monday, at the age of 68. The whole state triggered with immense grief.

--with agency inputs
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Managing the infrastructure for delivering today's communications solutions is very complex, and getting more complicated by the day. As the level of complexity continues to increase, automated systems will be essential to monitor, manage and operate the next generation communications solutions service providers will be offering their customers. Nokia CloudBand Application Manager is the first templating system for VNF lifecycle management that will let suppliers support multi-vendor networks.





Based on the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's Network Functions Virtualization (ETSI (News - Alert) NFV) specifications, CloudBand has access to open tools and it provides a data model for the VNF Descriptor. This type of access enables suppliers, operators and service providers to automate VNF lifecycle management processes and streamline VNF onboarding and integration in the deployment of next generation communications services. It is a ready-to-use Virtualized Network Function Manager (VNFM).

The CloudBand Application Manager has standards-based APIs designed to simplify the integration with vendor's VNF Element Management System (EMS), Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM), and NFV Orchestrator (NFVO).

One of the goals of NFV has been to foster an open ecosystem of VNF suppliers to give service providers maximum choice in the capabilities they integrate, and to offer subscribers the best available services. By creating an open system that improves the management of VNFs, we aim to make it easier for service providers to quickly add new value-added services to differentiate their offerings, generate new revenue opportunities, and deliver better user experiences, said Ron Haberman, head of Nokia (News - Alert)'s CloudBand product unit.

According to Nokia, by supporting both Nokia and third-party VNFs, the system gives service providers a much wider selection of virtualized network services they can offer subscribers. This includes next generation communications services that rely on optimized systems and vendor agnostic solutions. This will require standards that will be adopted by the entire industry, and Nokia is collaborating with fellow members of ETSI and TOSCA to complete development of VNF templating standards.

The Nokia CloudBand Application Manager templating system delivers multi-vendor support for interoperability, elimination of manual processes and costly custom development to minimize the potential for human error, and a standards-based system built upon common scripting and description languages.

Managing VNF lifecycles is time consuming and costly, and in order to ensure the long-term success of network function virtualization, having a standard-based approach that automates the onboarding process and lowers the complexity can go a long way in bringing together the fragmented approaches for many vendors in the segment. Nokia's CloudBand is a solution that can help bring vendors together to simplify the integration, deployment and management of NFV.

Edited by Alicia Young
I used to be one of those parents who took a second look at their kids bags of candy theyd gotten Halloween night and think, Wait a minute. Is that a full-size Butterfingers bar? Why would a kid need that much candy in one serving? Id either then ask if they really wanted that item or I
As it heads straight towards a spiral of economic and social turmoil reminiscent of the situation that it experienced in the late 1980s and the 1990s, Algeria tries desperately to catch up with its western neighbor Morocco.

As Rabat increasingly outmanoeuvres Algiers on the continent thanks to a decades-long coherent African strategy underpinned by south-south cooperation and economic partnerships, the military junta in Algeria is losing track feeling paranoid by a continental dynamic in favor of Morocco.

In a failed endeavor to counter Moroccos growing clout in Africa, Algeria attempted to hold a forum for African investors, but the event closed on a tone of utter fiasco amid tensions between the government and the association of Algerian investors organizing the event.

Yet, the roots of Algerian failure in boosting its influence as a model and credible economic partner in Africa are to be found in the structure of its rentier economy.

With its widespread corruption, complete dependence on hydrocarbons, underdeveloped banking system, over-subsidized and uncompetitive enterprises and dwindling foreign reserves, Algeria came to represent all that is wrong in the African economy.

At the image of its ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria is stuck in a Cold War mindset where ideology takes primacy. The antagonism of Algerian officials makes them myopic to the changes experienced in Africa where many countries, such as Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda are posting some of the highest economic growth rates globally.

Africa is a two speed continent where some countries are making fast progress while others lag behind due to lack of good governance and political will. Algeria is certainly on the side that is lagging behind.

The failure of Algerias Africa policy stands in stark contrast to the success of Moroccos south-south cooperation approach with Africa. The recent trips by King Mohammed VI to several countries in Africa, many of them former allies of Algeria on the Sahara issue, reflect the clout that the Kingdom has gained in Africa as a credible economic and political partner offering win-win co-development partnerships.

As the legitimacy of the Algerian regime erodes at home, its ideological alliances built on generous oil money handouts are gradually dismantled, since Africa lives in a new dawn where genuine win-win partnerships, technology transfer and investments are the best way to strengthen bilateral relations. To that end Morocco, joining action to words, has geared 60% of its investments to Africa. In the meantime, Algeria remains a tinder box waiting to explode from within.
Morocco has reiterated its commitment in favor of strong ties with Russia and its attachment to the strategic partnership between the two countries, which was established during a Royal visit in Moscow earlier this year.

This came during a meeting in Rabat between Moroccos Foreign Minister and the Russian Ambassador in Rabat.

The Russian Ambassador, who was received at his request by the Moroccan Foreign Minister, expressed concern at the statements uttered recently by PJD Secretary General Abdelilah Benkirane.

Benkirane, who has been entrusted by King Mohammed VI with forming the government following the October 7 elections, accused Russia of responsibility over the destruction of Syria.

Moscow immediately expressed concerns over Benkiranes statement to Al Quds newspaper.

During the meeting, the Foreign Minister made it clear that Morocco remains attached to the strategic partnership with Russia which was established during the visit King Mohammed VI paid to Moscow in March this year.

He then reiterated Moroccos stance regarding the crisis in Syria, saying that the Kingdom supports efforts to reach a political solution to ensure the stability, territorial integrity and unity of Syria.

On the same occasion, the Moroccan official stressed the need for the involvement of the international community and for action on the ground to influence the course of events. In this regard, he commended Russias efforts as well as it role on several other international issues.
French socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls Monday resigned from his position as he announced his candidacy for the countrys top job.

I have learned a lot from my countrymen, so yes, I am candidate for the presidency, Valls told his supporters at Evry (15 miles from Paris).

I have that force in me, the willingness to serve my country, it is beyond words, it is a total conviction, I want to give everything to France which has been given me a lot.

Announcement of his candidacy was not a surprise as the 54 years old politician recently alluded to the intention. His candidacy comes in the heels of President France Hollandes last week announcement not to run for a second term.

Valls will contest partys primaries along with former members of his cabinet, namely Arnaud Montebourg, Benoit Hamon other underdogs. Primaries will take place on December 22 and 29.

Voices within the socialist party have already expressed their doubt on Vallss capacity to unite the party. Some accuse him of not displaying partys values while others see him very conservative.

For Martine Aubry, former first secretary of the socialist party and current mayor of Lille, Valls is not the right candidate.

Some other figures of the party argue that his bad legacy will over him.

President Holland, with Vallss resignation is expected to appoint a new Premier. Names such as Bernard Cazeneuve (Minister of interior), Jean-Yves Le Drian (of Defense), Stephane Le Foll (Agriculture), Marisol Touraine (Health), Michel Sapin (Finances) or Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (Minstry Education) reportedly have been shortlisted for the task.
British lawmakers are mulling over provisions of Criminal Finances Bill 2016 to freeze assets of world human rights abusers and dictators who hide their money and acquire properties in the British capital, reports say.

The move comes from backbench MPs who are looking to insert a clause that will target those who commit human rights abuses outside of the UK, the Qatari London-based media The New Arab reports.

The bill if adopted will target dictators, corrupt politicians and human rights abusers who have hid their money in banks based in London or have bought luxurious properties in the world financial capital.

The bill expected to be adopted in January will be used as a powerful weapon by Human Rights groups to sue individuals.

The bill is also deemed as a strong instrument to be used by British authorities to clean up image of the British capital which has been dubbed safe haven for dirty money.

People with blood on their hands  for the worst human rights abuses  should not be able to funnel their dirty money into the UK, said Conservative MP Dominic Rabb.

This change in the law will protect Britain from becoming a safe place for despots and dictators to hide their money.

It is reported that around $127bn of dubious money passes through the UK every year.

London mayor Sadiq Khan in September vowed to take the bull by the horns.
Or maybe not. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

For the past month, Republicans have been basking in the post-election glow, gushing about how theyll finally destroy Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood. Even those who were less than enthusiastic about Donald Trump during the election have been willing to turn a blind eye to the president-elects outrageous behavior. For instance, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he doesnt think Trumps business conflicts are worth investigating at the moment. And when asked about Trumps false claim on Twitter that millions voted illegally, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, It doesnt matter to me. He won the election.

But in 44 days, congressional Republicans will have to start working with the Trump administration to actually govern, and that means theyll have to figure out which of his conflicting policy proposals were meant to be taken literally.

In a weekend tweetstorm, Trump reiterated his threat to impose a 35 percent import tariff on U.S. companies that move jobs overseas, and several top Republicans decided that they could no longer remain silent.

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

Trumps hostility to free trade is one of his biggest departures from Republican orthodoxy, and while he may have brought many GOP voters to his side, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy could not bring himself to say hed go along with 35 percent tariffs. When asked about Trumps tweets, McCarthy initially suggested they were only meant to express a vague desire to help American workers. I think the point the president-elect was trying to make was he wants to create jobs in America, McCarthy said. But when pressed on whether Trumps tariff threat makes him uneasy, McCarthy said, I dont want to get into some kind of trade war.

The tax on our soon to be strong border would have to pass through Congress, and other Republicans said they were equally opposed to pursuing high tariffs.

Some of these things do have to face a harsh reality but you have to be very careful if youre going to add costly tariffs, said Senator Orrin Hatch. Were all going back to the 30s when they started playing around with this and that and caused a lot of trouble.

When asked if he supports the 35 percent tariff, Senator John McCain scoffed and said, No!

Others focused on their support for tax reform as a way to entice businesses to remain in the U.S., rather than their opposition to Trumps proposal.

I think tax reform to entice people to stay is the right approach, said Senator Lindsey Graham. Tax penalties to keep them from leaving really gets into the boardrooms of every business in the United States.

I think we can get at the goal here, Paul Ryan said in an interview with a Wisconsin paper on Monday, which is to keep American businesses American, build things in America and sell them overseas  that can be properly addressed with comprehensive tax reform.

The most diplomatic response came, appropriately, from Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, whos in the running to be Trumps secretary of State. He called himself not much of a tariff-oriented individual.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the incoming Democratic leader, told the New York Times that Trump won, in part, by challenging the Republican Establishment on economic issues. If he wants to get something done for working families in this country, hell have to stand up to them when it comes time to govern, too, he said.

The economy isnt the only area where Republicans will have to confront deep divisions within the party. The House Freedom Caucus has declared that in 2017 it intends to challenge both Establishment Republicans and President Trump.

Representative Mark Meadows, who is set to become the groups leader, told Politico that while Republican leaders are said to be coalescing around a plan to phase out Obamacare over a period of up to three years, that will meet with major resistance from Freedom Caucus members, who number roughly 40.

It should be repealed and replaced, and all of that should be done in the 115th Congress  the two-year period starting in January through 2018  and not left to a future Congress to deal with, Meadows said. He suggested the Affordable Care Act could even be replaced before the 2018 enrollment period next fall.

The group, which pushed out Speaker John Boehner, could theoretically block legislation that replaces Obamacare over a three-year period. Representative Jim Jordan, the caucuss current chairman, said theyre concerned that Establishment Republicans will try to water down the good thing that the president-elect campaigned on, that [Freedom Caucus] members campaigned on  and not make them as strong as they should be and frankly what voters expected them to be.

But the Freedom Caucus intends to take on the Trump administration as well, introducing several bills that would limit executive-branch powers. Theyre working on legislation that would require the executive branch to write all rules and regulations related to a particular bill within three years of its passage, to prevent creative interpretation by future administrations. We do anticipate push-back from the administration because were trying to limit their powers, Meadows said. But, he added, We believe its good policy going forward.



The Freedom Caucus is likely asserting its goals now to counter claims that its become obsolete. As the Washington Posts Jennifer Rubin noted, accusing GOP leaders of being insufficiently conservative probably wont work anymore. Apparently, the Freedom Caucus zealots missed the election of a non-conservative populist president with few, if any, objectives other than maintaining public adoration, she said.

The idea that the House leadership cant count on the Freedom Caucuss support adds another layer of uncertainty to the next legislative session. Theoretically, congressional leaders could craft detailed plans for lowering corporate taxes or replacing Obamacare, only to see them undone by opposition from the Freedom Caucus and a handful of random tweets in which President Trump reverses his position. But Republicans wont have to worry about intraparty squabbling unless lawmakers actually follow through on their promises to take a principled stand against Trump, if necessary  and there wasnt a lot of that happening during the election.
Air Force None. Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images

The president-elect woke up Tuesday morning, logged onto Twitter, and canceled an order of new Air Force One jets  sending the share price of one of Americas largest companies sliding in the process.

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

Its not clear how Trump arrived at that $4 billion figure. The projected fiscal cost of the Air Force One program from 2015 to 2021 is $2.87 billion, according to budget documents obtained by Reuters. The Air Force has already awarded Boeing an initial contract of roughly $26 million, to conduct cost estimates on the White Houses desired features for the plane, which include a more secure system for communicating in the midst of a nuclear war (an innovation thats looking more and more timely). In July, the Defense Department provided the company with a $127.3 million contract to develop interior, power and electronic specifications for the plane, according to aviation-industry publication FlightGlobal.

Its also unclear why Trump decided to publicly cancel these contracts now, when he is still weeks away from having the authority to do anything of the kind. (Talking Points Memo notes that Trumps tweet was sent 20 minutes after the publication of a Chicago Tribune story on Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburgs antipathy for Trumps trade policies).



The plane is totally out of control. Its going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program and I think its ridiculous, Trump told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower, shortly after sending his tweet. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.

Boeing responded to Trumps remarks in a statement obtained by CNBC:

We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the President of the United States, The aviation giant said. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer.

Boeings share price fell 1.6 percent following Trumps tweet, to a low of $149.75  but, as of this writing, its stock has recovered to $151.33, just 0.55 percent below the pre-tweet price.

Nonetheless, politicians tweets have moved markets (particularly in pharmaceuticals) many times over the past few months. And, assuming the president-elect does not delete his account upon inauguration, were likely to see quite a bit more Twitter-induced volatility over the next four years.
Sad! Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Only 19 percent of New Jersey residents approve of the job Governor Chris Christie is doing, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Its the lowest approval rating ever recorded for a governor in the 20-year history of the universitys poll.

In November 2012, after the Hurricane Sandy recovery, Christies approval rating reached a high of 72 percent in the Quinnipiac survey. Its fallen ever since, and now theres not a single demographic in the state that approves of him. Asked to give the governor a letter grade, the majority of New Jerseyans hit him with an F.
Soha Salama. Photo: ABC7

MTA agent Soha Salama wore her transit uniform and her hijab on her way to work Monday morning, when a man approached her on the 7 train and reportedly said, Youre a terrorist, go back to your own country! He also allegedly pointed at her MTA patch and told her she shouldnt be working there.

Salama got off the train at Grand Central Terminal. The man followed her, and he pushed her down a flight of stairs, according to police. Salama, a 45-year-old Queens mom of four whos lived in the U.S. for two decades, was badly bruised, sore, and twisted her ankle. I wasnt able to say anything. I was running for my life, Salama told WCBS 2. I was afraid he was going to throw me down the tracks or do more bad to me than he already did. He was like pushing me down.

Salama said this is the first time shes dealt with something like this living here. Police are investigating the incident, and the suspect is still at large.

NYPD officials said the city is witnessing a big spike in hate crimes since Donald Trump won the election  43 cases since November 8, which is more than double (up 115 percent) the number reported over the same period last year, reports the New York Times. In 2016 overall, reported hate crimes are up more than 35 percent from 2015. Many include reports of anti-Semitic harassment, including swastikas drawn on the 1 and B trains. Commuters also discovered KKK flyers on the LIRR this month.

But Salamas story echoes a string of apparent anti-Muslim incidents in recent days. Last week, an 18-year-old Muslim woman, wearing a hijab, told police three men  all apparently drunk  came up to her on the 6 train and shouted, Donald Trump! Donald Trump! They reportedly tried to remove her hijab, telling her: Get that fucking thing off your head!

And over the weekend, an off-duty NYPD cop  who was also wearing her hijab  and her 16-year-old son were threatened in their Bay Ridge neighborhood by a man and his pit bull. NYPD cop Aml Elsokary found the suspect pushing and shouting expletives at her son; when she approached the man he reportedly screamed something about ISIS, saying I will cut your throat, go back to your country! The suspect, 36-year-old Christopher Nelson, was arrested and arraigned Monday. He has been charged with menacing as a hate crime, a felony.
Paul Ryan is being as honest as always. Photo: CBS

Paul Ryan has devised a tax plan that, when fully phased in, would confer 99.6 percent of its benefits upon the richest one percent of the country. This is a fact Ryan prefers not to advertise. In his interview with 60 Minutes, the Speaker of the House bats away the charge first by talking about growth, and then switching over to talking about small business:

Scott Pelley: Do you think the rich will benefit the most from your tax reform plan?

Paul Ryan: Heres the point of our tax plan. Grow jobs. Get this economy growing. Raise wages. Simplify the tax system, so its easy to comply with.

Scott Pelley: You  youre a little shy, when I ask you about the rich receiving the greatest part of the

Paul Ryan: Well, heres the problem when you

Scott Pelley: of the tax cuts.

Paul Ryan: when you ask these things. Most of that income is small-business income. You have to remember, eight out of ten businesses in America, they file their business as individuals, as people. And so we think of that as the rich. But its that business in the in the business park outta Janesville, Wisconsin, that has 50 employees. And do I want to lower their tax rates? You bet I do.

Ryan is using a common fallacy employed by his party to defend regressive tax cuts. To be one of the richest one percent of Americans, you need an income higher than $700,000 a year. Many Americans in that income category receive pass-through income  their income is profit from a business. One of those Americans is Donald Trump, according to his 1995 tax return.

Of course, Ryan doesnt want to talk about giving a gigantic tax cut to Trump. Instead, he wants to fool his audience into believing that his tax cuts for rich people mostly benefit small business, which is simply not true.

If Paul Ryan wants to direct tax breaks to people who work at the business park in Janesville, Wisconsin  or to other Americans in that presumably modest income category  there are ways to do it. Instead, he wants to direct tax cuts to the very wealthy, and then obfuscate about his intent to do so.
Ben Carson didnt grow up in public housing, but he did grow up in a house. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The argument that Ben Carson is qualified to serve as HUD Secretary because he once lived in public housing never made any sense. Hes also been on a debate stage, but theres not a middle school in the country that would hire him to lead its debate team. Still, supporters of his, including Mike Huckabee, trumpeted the fact. And now we know its not a fact at all.

Dr. Carson's mother worked 3 jobs at a time to keep them out of public housing, but he grew up around many who utilized housing programs.  Armstrong Williams (@Arightside) December 6, 2016

Carsons spokesman Armstrong Williams, who had previously told the New York Times that his boss grew up in public housing, backtracked Monday night, leading the paper to publish a correction.

Using information from a close friend of Ben Carson, the nominee for housing secretary, an earlier version of this article misstated that Mr. Carson spent part of his childhood in public housing. The friend, Armstrong Williams, said Monday that Mr. Carson had never lived in government housing, the Times wrote.

As CNN notes, Carson has previously said he lived in the ghetto and in dire poverty, but his mother refused to accept welfare. I grew up in Detroit, and I grew up in Boston. In Boston, we lived in the ghetto. There were a lot of violent episodes there. There were rats, there were roaches. It was dire poverty, he said in February.
Donald Trump. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

I was hoping that Michael Lewiss new book, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, would offer up a bit of post-election escapism. In the book, which is published by W.W. Norton & Company and came out today, Lewis tells the story of Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two Israeli psychologists whose friendship and collaboration changed the way we look at human behavior forever.

Together, the extroverted Tversky and much more withdrawn Kahneman effectively rewrote the rules of psychology, developing behavioral economics, a subfield concerned with human biases in perception and decision-making. By asking countless respondents a never-ending series of questions involving everything from estimates of various figures to their preferences between two bets with different odds and payouts, the researchers realized that all over the place, fields like psychology and economics were operating under false assumptions about how people make judgments and decisions  in many cases because the models in use assumed humans to be more rational and better at calculating than we really are.

It would be hard to imagine an area of psychology with more practical applications: Anywhere human beings make judgments or decisions, behavioral economics matters. Kahneman laid out most of his lifes work in the sensational 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow, which is a must-read for anyone interested in behavioral science. In The Undoing Project, Lewis dives deeply into the extremely passionate and sometimes-fraught friendship that spawned that work, tracing the relationship and how Kahneman and Tversky influenced everything from Israeli military policy to how doctors make life and death diagnoses.

Its a fantastic read, and I relished the opportunity to drift away from the troubled contemporary real world as I read about some of the most important psychological research produced in the 20th century. That is, until I hit this paragraph in the latter part of the book:

In late 1973 or early 1974, Danny gave a talk, which he would later deliver more than once, and which he called Cognitive Limitations and Public Decision Making. It was troubling to consider, he began, an organism equipped with an affective and hormonal system not much different from that of the jungle rat being given the ability to destroy every living thing by pushing a few buttons. Given the work on human judgment that he and Amos had just finished, he found it further troubling to think that crucial decisions are made, today as thousands of years ago, in terms of the intuitive guesses and preferences of a few men in positions of authority. The failure of decision makers to grapple with the inner workings of their own minds, and their desire to indulge their gut feelings, made it quite likely that the fate of entire societies may be sealed by a series of avoidable mistakes committed by their leaders.

At this stage in their careers, Kahneman and Tversky imagined that they, and the researchers who would follow them, could play a key role in advising decision-makers of the limitation of their own perceptions and gut impulses. They hoped, as Lewis puts it, that their work on human judgment would find its way into high-stakes real-world decision making, in the form of a new science called decision analysis.

Just a few hours before I got to this part, Donald Trump had taken to Twitter to start griping about Chinese trade policy and its military presence in the South China Sea. Why? Who knows. Was it part of a concerted strategy involving the State Department or other experts? Almost certainly not. Based on what we know of Trump and his personality, this seemed to be the affective and hormonal system at its worst. As has so often been the case, Trump refused to allow any barrier between his brain and his tweeting thumbs. Now that hes president-elect, these sorts of tweets will have consequences. The passage jumped off the page at me, screaming TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! in blood red. Jungle-rat brain, indeed 

Kahneman is right, of course, that the fate of entire societies may be sealed by a series of avoidable mistakes committed by their leaders. The parent of all these mistakes, at least arguably, is overconfidence in ones own abilities and perception. Here the divide between Trump and Barack Obama is profound. Say what you will of Obama, he recognized human fallibility: The first president to express active interest in applying cutting-edge behavioral science to his role as chief executive, Obama famously told Lewis that he had decided to wear only two colors of suits to cut down on the potential for decision fatigue  a concept straight from the decision-science literature (though part of a cluster of findings facing replication issues)  to color his judgments. Obama also launched the so-called Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, the homepage of which prominently displays this quote from the president: A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights  research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them  can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people 

Not all leaders are this interested in understanding human biases and how to account for them, unfortunately, as Kahneman and Tversky would soon find out. Exactly how some decision analyst would persuade any business, military, or political leader to allow him to edit his thinking was unclear, explained Lewis. Its a challenging proposition given that important people didnt want their gut feelings pinned down, even by themselves. Soon, Kahneman and Tversky realized that they found decision analysis promising but ultimately futile, and moved on to other ways to try to nudge elite decision-making in the correct direction.

Kahneman and Tversky still had many brilliant insights ahead of them, among them so-called prospect theory, their single biggest and likely longest-lasting contribution to our understanding of human decision-making, which netted Kahneman a Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 (Tversky died in 1996, but the Nobel announcement notes his importance in developing the theory with Kahneman). And as the Obama example shows, smart leaders have, in fact, embraced many of these findings. But its hard not to wince at the realization that despite all the evidence we now have to the contrary, many leaders are wrongly convinced their own gut impulses and judgments are enough. I suspect well be doing a lot of such wincing in the years to come.
For over a year now, there have been persistent rumors that Amazon was serious about opening up brick-and-mortar stores focused on grocery shopping. Today, Amazon revealed its hand: a real store coming to Seattle in 2017 that will let you scan your phone, walk around, put food in your bag, and walk out  no cashier or automated checkout machine needed.

The store, judging from the video, has a very office worker on a lunch break vibe  lots of premade items and meal kits. Once youre inside, the Amazon Go system will be able to tell when you pick up items (or put them back) through a mixture of what the company is calling computer vision, deep learning algorithms, and sensor fusion.



Which is not extremely informative! My best guess is that Amazon will use a mixture of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags (already used in many retail stores to prevent shoplifting) and QR codes on your phone for the grunt work, while having some sort of AI-assisted oversight to make sure nobody is getting charged when they shouldnt be  or is not being charged when they should. But that could be completely off-base; Amazon isnt revealing much beyond that. The first store will open up in Seattle, Washington, and is currently open to Amazon employees only.

This food-focused retail spot represents another part of Amazons growing retail ambitions. The online-shopping giant already has a brick-and-mortar book store in Seattle, with expansions planned for Chicago, New York City, and Portland. Its also working to set up pop-up shops to show off its growing line of consumer hardware devices.

But this push into food is especially interesting. At the same time that grocery-store chains are suddenly scrambling to meet consumer demand for online food shopping, Amazon is diving into the prepared-foods side of things (one of the biggest profit drivers for traditional grocery stores) with an AI-enhanced version of the Automat.
At 35, with two kids, not only has supermodel Adriana Lima walked in 16 Victorias Secret Fashion Shows (thats the record), she also still boxes and can throw a hell of a punch.

Produced by Kenny Wassus.
Photo: Peter Bauza

Ianka Barbosa, 18, grew up in Campina Grande, Brazil, an impoverished northeastern city thats been described as ground zero of the Zika epidemic. Her boyfriend, Thersio Felipe Wanderley, 19, was also raised in Campina Grande. The son of a pastor, though generally not a big church-goer, he met Barbosa at church four years ago  hed gone for his fathers birthday. Within two weeks, the couple was serious, and soon after, Barbosa became unexpectedly pregnant. They moved in together but didnt marry, much to the chagrin of family members. Their son, Emanuel, was born on April 20, 2014: He was happy and energetic as an infant.

When we got Zika, we didnt even know what it was, Barbosa says. All three showed symptoms. I only had splotchy red patches and a rash, she says. Emanuel had it the worst. He was really sick. At the time, Barbosa was three months pregnant with their second child. Wanderley remembers running a fever, drinking lots of fluids  and then, after a few days, returning to life as usual. They began to worry only later, when they started hearing about Zika on the news.

Photo: Peter Bauza

For most of Barbosas pregnancy, regular ultrasounds showed that their baby was growing normally. But at seven months, when they measured her head, it was different, Barbosa remembers. The doctor says she might have Zika and then left me alone. Someone else came in and explained she would probably have microcephaly. One nurse noticed Barbosas distress and tried to comfort her. Oh, dont worry, she told Barbosa. Most babies with microcephaly are born dead.

The diagnosis rocked the small family. Thersio left me then, Barbosa says. You disgust me, she remembers him saying when they broke up. I thought he blamed me. She took Emanuel and moved back in with her parents. Wanderley started smoking again. They all waited. The way the doctors and nurses talked, it was like microcephaly was the worst possible thing in the world, Wanderley says. Because of what they were saying, I wasnt really afraid about her having microcephaly, Barbosa says. I was more worried that she would be born dead, or that she would die soon after her birth. Sophia was born on January 30, 2016  with microcephaly, as the doctors had predicted.

I was so happy she was alive, Barbosa says. I was so excited to kiss her, and hug her, and hold her I didnt notice anything wrong with her head.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Wanderley and Barbosa got back together three months after Sophia was born. I couldnt stand not seeing my children with their father, Barbosa says. The government-appointed psychologist for mothers at the local hospitals microcephaly unit had encouraged their reconciliation. For a while, the family lived with her parents, but two months ago, they moved into a rental apartment together. Barbosa calls it a really good situation.

Microcephaly is a birth defect characterized by a lack of brain development and an atypically small head, and though the severity of its effects can vary, the condition typically involves significant neurological problems, intellectual disability, and developmental delays. There is currently no standard treatment for microcephaly, but physical therapy is common. (And, while the heads of babies like Sophia have become a potent symbol of the Zika epidemic, researchers fear that many infants who initially appear unaffected by in-utero exposure to Zika may eventually show other problems of their own.) An X-ray Barbosa and Wanderley have in their home shows irreversible calcification in Sophias brain.

Though theyre back together, Barbosa and Wanderley are still unsure about marriage. For me, marriage has to be for life, Wanderley explains. There is no room for regrets.

Photo: Peter Bauza

With nearly 65 percent of Brazils population identifying as Catholic and abortion almost entirely illegal, the Zika epidemic has raised questions about birth control, abortion, and faith. Though Wanderley and Barbosa belong to an Evangelical church rather than a Catholic one, theyve dealt with stigma surrounding sex before marriage. We got shamed and yelled at, but mostly, for parents, it is about sex before marriage and not about using birth control, Wanderley says. My mother was always very understanding. She says that having sex before marriage was wrong, but if we were going to do it, to use condoms or birth control. Like many other teenagers they know, Barbosa was able to get free birth-control pills from a local clinic. She was taking them when she became pregnant with Sophia.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Emanuel immediately connected with his little sister from their first meeting at the hospital. I couldnt imagine that hed love her so much from the beginning, but he really did, Barbosa says. He especially enjoys taking care of her. Sometimes I have to ask him if I can help with Sophia, but more often Im saying, Youre too young to do that. You cant give her a bath, Barbosa says. Emanuel is also fiercely protective. As Wanderley says, whenever someone he doesnt know picks up Sophia, he says, Please give her back to my mama.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Malvinas, the neighborhood where Barbosa and Wanderley found an affordable apartment, was intended as middle-class housing when it was built in the early 80s. Construction stalled before infrastructure was complete, and residents soon moved into the vacant homes as squatters  though today theres running water and electricity. Still, like many of their neighbors, Barbosa and Wanderley live in an apartment carved out of an unfinished house. Wanderley has a scooter but not the money for a license, so he can only ride it in the neighborhood. Transportation is really an issue, Barbosa says. We dont get out too much. If we want to go somewhere, we usually have to wait until the evening, when Thersios dad can pick us up.

As recently as July, 90 percent of Brazils microcephaly cases were reported in the small region of the countrys northeastern tip where the family lives. Barbosa knows approximately 45 other mothers like her in their area. And it was in Campina Grande that fetal-health specialist Adriana Melo confirmed Zika in two patients amniotic fluid, an essential breakthrough in establishing the connection between Zika and microcephaly.

Zika is spread primarily by mosquitoes: Standing water, like that seen here in Malvinas, provides a perfect breeding place.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Wanderleys mother pays for the familys internet and Netflix subscription  they often watch at night, when Sophia has trouble sleeping.

Photo: Peter Bauza

It was very emotional for me to see Sophia for the first time, Wanderley remembers. Id heard all this bad news, but when I saw her, I knew she was my daughter no matter what.

Photo: Peter Bauza

When you become a parent, it is your job to learn how to parent your child best, Barbosa says. She bristles at any implication that her life is ruined or that Sophia is a disappointment, calling her daughter the greatest joy. And as her daughter has slowly progressed, Barbosa herself has grown into the role of Sophias champion. I used to be more hesitant, she says. But now Im not afraid to ask for what I need for my children.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Sophia has this way of being that is amazing, Barbosa says. She has this willpower and this special way of looking at people. Everyone comments on the fact that even Sophias cry has a soothing element. We dont understand  but thats the way it is.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Because Sophia is still so young, her neurological and physical delays are hard to assess. As the babies with microcephaly in the community reach and then pass their 1st birthdays, its still not clear when or if theyll walk and talk. We can see where she lags by comparing her development to where Emanuel was at the same time, Wanderley says. At 10 months old, Sophia has trouble holding her head up, does not crawl, and cannot stand without support. But there are some signs of promise, too. Local doctors are heartened by the improvements theyve seen with early intervention. And though Sophia is mostly calm and quiet, Barbosa has been encouraging her to speak: Three weeks ago, I was trying to get her to talk, and when I stopped to pay attention to something else, she says Mama. It was incredible  an unforgettable moment.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Zikas rise in Brazil this year sparked a global panic, with medical experts calling for the cancellation of the Rio Olympics and the World Health Organization labeling Zika an international public-health emergency. Incidence of microcephaly in Brazil shot up to 2,000 cases. But as Zika spread throughout the Americas, the anticipated explosion of microcephaly didnt follow: In Colombia, which has the second-highest rate of Zika in the world, doctors predicted 700 cases, but so far, only 47 have materialized. And while increased use of birth control, precautionary abortions, and slightly different counting metrics may explain some inconsistency between the two countries, such a vast disparity complicates the relationship between microcephaly and Zika.

Scientists and doctors believe other factors may help determine whether a baby develops microcephaly. Environmental and socioeconomic differences could play a role: Most women who have given birth to babies with microcephaly in Brazil are young, single, and poor. Theres the possibility that co-infection  contracting Zika along with another virus  could make microcephaly more likely. And low rates of vaccination against yellow fever have been linked to microcephaly clusters, suggesting that the vaccine may offer some protection from Zika (which is in the same viral family). The Brazilian Ministry of Health recently announced it would investigate whether Zika alone is responsible for microcephaly.

Sophia has frequent visits to the doctor: Above, shes examined by a neurologist.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Campina Grandes health specialists have set up a microcephaly unit in a local public hospital, where they offer free physical therapy twice a week as well as donated formula and diapers. In physical therapy, Sophia works on motor development and receives sensory stimulation through toys and games; Barbosa learns exercises to do at home with Sophia. The clinic tracks her development. It seems that Sophia does better than a lot of other microcephaly babies, Wanderley says. So we think her case might be less severe.

For Barbosa, the government-sponsored van rides to and from physical therapy have been more than just a means of transport. Spending time together with other mothers in the same situation has made them a close-knit group. The rides are playful; the women have become family, Barbosa says. Outside of physical therapy, they communicate via a WhatsApp group. We message all the time, she says. Its nice to let off steam or share concerns. Some of the mothers have babies who are a little older, so I can ask them for advice. Generally, though, the other moms remind me to be strong and have patience.

The women and their babies recently went on a hospital-sponsored trip to the beach, which is two hours away. The doctors thought it would be good for the babies to get different types of stimulation, like the sand and the water, Barbosa says. Ive actually never been [to the beach] before, so it was my first trip too  I loved it. Sophia did not like the water, though. She cried.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Its humiliating for me to say, but Sophia is the one who sustains us, Wanderley says. The government provides 880 reals (about $250) a month because of her microcephaly; her condition will be reviewed every three years. Wanderley is trained as a carpenter but has been unable to find work: I have tried in many ways, but companies today are laying off workers, not hiring. So mostly he stays home with Barbosa and the children during the day: He tries to keep Emanuel entertained and to support Barbosa, while also continuing to look for a job. The family has a hard time getting by on the government stipend. I give my children love and affection, Wanderley says. But a good father would also provide for them, put food on the table, and I cant do that right now.

Inspired by Sophias condition, he hopes to go to medical school. Hes beginning a nursing class in January.

Photo: Peter Bauza

Barbosa organized an online fundraiser called Amor Maior (Bigger Love) for mothers like her using a crowdfunding platform. I talk to the other mothers, and when I saw that we all needed financial help, I decided to try and help us all, not just my own family, she says. The first fundraiser brought in 40,000 reals (about $11,000). After deducting the cost of the platform and the bank fees, Barbosa was able to distribute 1,200 reals (about $345) to 25 mothers.

Photo: Peter Bauza

On November 18, the World Health Organization declared that Zika was no longer a global health emergency; instead, the organization says, it should be regarded as an ongoing, seasonal threat, like other mosquito-borne diseases. Some experts worried that the move would stall efforts to fight Zika internationally.

For the women in Campina Grande  women who have participated in studies and scans, women who offered their amniotic fluid and babies blood up for research  Zikas effects arent going anywhere. Their babies are growing or not growing; they think about small steps, baby steps, if walking is really a possibility at all.

The difficult part is that while Sophia is getting help and making progress, there are things she just will never be able to do, Barbosa says. When you have a child, its so fun to imagine all the things they will do and see, to dream of who they might become. With Sophia, it doesnt work like that. We really dont know what her future holds.

Photo: Peter Bauza

*Interviews were translated from Portuguese by Kevin Pires.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a burka ban in her pitch for a fourth term. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

In a speech to launch her bid for a fourth term, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a ban on burkas, the full-body veil worn by some Muslim women. The full-face veil is not acceptable in our country, she said. It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible. According to the Independent, her comments were met with rapturous applause.

Merkel has served as chancellor for 11 years, but shes come under fire this term for her handling of the refugee crisis. About 890,000 asylum-seekers arrived in Germany last year after Merkel decided to let migrants who were stuck in Hungary into the country, The Telegraph reports. On Tuesday, she said the crisis should not and must not be repeated  That was and is our, and my, declared political aim.

The burka ban was first proposed in August by Thomas de Maiziere, the countrys interior minister and one of Merkels confidants. We all reject the full veil  not only the burka but also other types of full veil that only leave the eyes visible. They have no place in our society, he said at the time. He added, showing your face is essential for our communication, co-existence and social cohesion.

Merkel spoke out in support of the ban at the time, saying, From my point of view, a fully veiled woman in Germany has barely any chance of integrating.

If Germany does ban the burka, it will be one of a handful of European countries to do so  burkas have been banned in France since 2004 and in Belgium since 2011, and other countries such as Spain and the Netherlands have imposed restrictions on where and when Muslim women can wear burkas.
Photo: Damon Winter/Courtesy of Facebook/lpolgreen

After Arianna Huffingtons departure from her namesake media company in August, it had not been decided who would replace her. Today, the first ever nonArianna Huffington editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post was announced. Lydia Polgreen, formerly of the New York Times, will take the helm.

The Huffington Post reports that Polgreen will be leaving the Times, where she worked for 15 years as an associate masthead editor and the editorial director of NYT Global, to take on the editor-in-chief role. On her new responsibilities, Polgreen had this to say:

I feel like were living in a moment right now where media has to fundamentally rethink its position vis-a-vis power. I think that the election of Donald Trump and the basic difficulty that the media had in anticipating it tells us something really profound about the echo chamber in which we live, the ways in which journalism has failed to reach beyond its own inner limits.

Huffington herself seemed pleased by the decision, tweeting a photo of herself with Polgreen and her wife.

So excited that my successor as EIC of HuffPost will be Lydia Polgreen, who I know will take HP to new heights. Here w/ Lydia & her wife. pic.twitter.com/UBiFLuEKl8  Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) December 6, 2016

Polgreen said that The Huffington Post is a truly great global, progressive news platform.
#balegdeh



Edited at 2016-12-06 12:36 am (UTC) ha transformation into jesy dolezal is nearing completion #rip

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wait is she not a woc / biracial? i was going to add a note but i wasnt sure if she was part african or not.

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she has some photos as a child where she looks like she has a vague olive undertone to her skin but i'm like 99% sure she's just regular anglo-white. but she is from essex which i've apparently heard compared to the jersey shore in a way (like tacky, maybe chavs? idk i'm not from the uk someone who is can probably explain it better) so i wouldn't be surprised if growing up she just gravitated toward that look.



Edited at 2016-12-06 12:53 am (UTC) as far as i know, she's white.she has some photos as a child where she looks like she has a vague olive undertone to her skin but i'm like 99% sure she's just regular anglo-white. but she is from essex which i've apparently heard compared to the jersey shore in a way (like tacky, maybe chavs? idk i'm not from the uk someone who is can probably explain it better) so i wouldn't be surprised if growing up she just gravitated toward that look.

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racist

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it was hard for me to understand what she was saying (her normal accent is hard to me) but i think she was imitating a male celebs (african) accent? but turned it into a african womans accent since she is a woman.



or she is doing a generic african accent because she heard another celeb make fun of it and thought it would be funny to do? not sure.



Edited at 2016-12-06 12:43 am (UTC)

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She was imitating a guy from TV who does accents or something like that. Leigh says his name.



Edited at 2016-12-06 12:48 am (UTC)

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She was imitating a guy who imitates accents. I guess the accent he does is African? Is what they were saying

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What does AA mean?

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Jade was the one who tried to prank Taylor once when she was drunk.

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ugh they make it so hard for me to like them away from the music

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hmmmmmmmT 

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OP, your summary is weird. She said that she was imitating a guy who does accents and he always uses that accent. Leigh says the name, but I can't really understand her well because she's laughing. Jackal? Or something like that.

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her (normal accent) is to confusing for me sorry.

so she wasnt imitating a male (african) celebritys normal accent but a non african celebritys fake african accent that he does to make fun of african peoples accents?

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Someone just said who the guy is. He's from a show called Fonejacker and that it's pretty popular in the UK.



Edited at 2016-12-06 12:57 am (UTC)

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Lmao she says Fonejacker



It was a uk show





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Wow Im late af sorry

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I'd call the cops too. Prank calls like this are so 2003.

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after that incident with the nurse at the hospital where the duchess of cambridge was staying, i'm just no longer amused by prank calls in general.

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Exactly, or before that with Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross calling... I can't remember who but leaving a message saying he'd fucked their granddaughter. It's just gross and childish, or at worst as you pointed out, deadly.

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That was horrifying. Regardless of how it turned out the must've known how serious that would've been for her. They were assholes.

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what incident?

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that was a really extreme incident. you can prank call people as a PRANK, that was severe bullying of someone who was already suffering from depression.

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mte. i hate when youtubers do prank call videos.

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ia especially for celebrities who have deranged stalkers, it must be so scary to not know who is calling or where they are. I would be scared to get a prank call, can't imagine it as a celeb

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Found it!



Fonejacker is a British comedy programme broadcast on E4 featuring a series of prank calls involving a number of different characters performed by British Iranian television actor Kayvan Novak.

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...i can't believe she's white. why does she tan herself within an inch of her life? her and ariana need to stop the madness.

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Because she's from the British version of Jersey Shore.

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ariana is italian lol

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she's not naturally that color tho...

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yeah ik, and she bathes herself in too much tanner as well...like its borderline brownface.

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idgi either. i would just be worried about it rubbing/sweating off everywhere?? plus your hairline would give it away. perrie seems to do the same.

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bye lol

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mess @ jesy's accent, mess @ leigh laughing it off like that



and they KNOW it's wrong... the way jesy hesitated to reveal what she was doing when leigh was like egging her to do it proves it



also, they're so childish. who does prank calls @ 25....



Edited at 2016-12-06 01:13 am (UTC)

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Why would she admit something like this?

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LMAO I was waiting for this to be posted

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the show sounds so unrealistic and boring

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mte

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The play was excellent

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The play was really good, actually.

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can't tom hardy get her some better roles? this is lifetime movie bad.

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aw come on, charlotte riley deserves better than this...

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Does she though?

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I think so.

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What if he conked out before his ma tho?

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the lines "i'm a republican" -- "but you're beautiful" were hilarious.

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Psh. Imo, the real drama after QE2 dies in the familial infighting that will happen when Charles ascends. Supposedly he wants to keep royal duties limited to himself, Camilla, his kids + their spouses. I suspect that there is going to be draaaaama between him and his siblings because of it.

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that's adorable assuming he outlives his mother, the way the queen's going strong right now at 90+

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lol tru



QE2 will outlive us all. Or maybe she'll be replaced by a robot like in The Great Mouse Detective.

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I think it'll be really fun when Charles corrects the order of precedence and makes Camilla and Kate the first and second ranking women. QEII made too many exceptions to keep blood relatives happy and it's currently a mind boggling flustercluck trying to figure who curtsys to who in which situation.

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maybe with ed and sophie. andrews kids are partying and anne's kids don't really seem to care.

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wow, i just read this play last week! it's actually really good -- i rec it to anyone who would enjoy a semi-serious modern take on shakespeare.

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Ok so I just read the summary of the play on wiki and L M A O

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I know people are laughing but I actually really enjoyed the play. Even if you didn't it's a pretty prestige-y project.

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catherine isn't crosseyed tho

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I thought it was already stipulated somewhere that Charles will never be King, it will go to William?

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No. That's just people's wishful thinking. Charles is definitely going to be king if he outlives his mother (though I doubt he chooses Charles as a regnant name).

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that's so silly. he's waiting for this his entire life and he's not gonna just pass it to his son because will and kate have cute kids.

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I thought it was something the Queen had stipulated, not that Charles had chosen to forfeit.

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If Charles were as unpopular now as he was like 20 years ago, then I could maaaaybe see it happening in the interest of preserving stability. But people are mostly ok with him now, so yeah, he's gonna be king, unless of course QE2 outlives him.

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I saw the play on Broadway last year and couldn't stop groaning at the parts with Prince Harry tbh

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what was his story line?

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He meets a wacky cool art student who teaches him that life is about LOVE and FREEDOM, matures and wants to become a private citizen and then has to turn his back on it because Will&Kate need him to be a loyal fool who takes attention off them with a high profile life

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gross @ the ghost of princess diana being a character in this. the fuck???

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It actually worked in the play.

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Does anyone want a King Charles tho?

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nope they want William ,but with Charles at least he wants to be king William wants to put it off as long as he can

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The usage of the old hollywood tag is killing me lmfao. Marlon Brando did not die for this!!



Edited at 2016-12-06 12:37 am (UTC)

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I mean he sexually assaulted a women so I feel like he deserves worse then being compared to shia

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it was really bad timing to compare himself to brando just after news hes a rapist came out.

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oop, I know practically nothing about Brando's personal life. Thanks for the knowledge lol :x thought I was just making a harmless lil joke

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Anyway, all this mess reminded me of was that I haven't watched that Sia video in a while and that he was great in it.

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why is he promoting a movie about a war soldier with ptsd with lame raps and freestyles on radio stations... who approved this

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Stop white people 2k17

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I remember seeing this video of him showing off his gross stick and poke knee tattoos of Biggie and 2pac ughhh ~so ironic~

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If only stop white people 500bc happened

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honestly

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I really don't think he should be encouraged in this. He's not good.

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lmao

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i swear (and i guess this must have been a dream) that i fully believed all shia ledouche posts were banned here and i was happy about that

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For real though, why is he doing this? Someone give him a record deal.

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lmao this gif is lit

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Is that Monica?

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lmao what is happening in this gif

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Yas @ dis gif lmao

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His career has been interesting. He went from goofy child star to make a comeback after years into a (debatable) blockbuster Hollywood hunk and now he's like wanna be indie artist~

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He's basically Joaquin Phoenix lol

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omg thus explains my incredibly shameful attraction to them both

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unfair on Joaquin tbh. other than the I'm Still Here mockumentary phase in which he remained in character in public appearances as a publicity stunt, nothing he ever did really compares to Shia levels of ridiculous.

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that's enough, cuck

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The saddest part is that he is better than some of those name drops. Soulja Boy is pissed and responded that he should stick of acting but Soulja Boy should not be the one commenting on rapping skills when that's kind of his job and he kinda sucks at it.

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There's been more than one!?!?!?!?!?!? Oh, Louis. This year is just an all-time low.

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MTE

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Wtf is happening?? Omg this year. I cannot.

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Oh lord....

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What is this? Wasn't he recently exposed for stealing lines from an obscure female rapper or s/t? Why is this still happening? I find this whole thing upsetting.

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After rallying to 16 month highs on the back of the OPEC output deal, oil is falling as a result of record OPEC production, complicating the proposed cuts.

(Click to enlarge)

Chart of the Week

(Click to enlarge)

 U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico are set to rise as new pipelines come online connecting the two countries.

 Pipeline capacity currently stands at 7.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), but will double to more than 14 Bcf/d by 2018.

 The U.S. has already become a net exporter of gas this year with the commissioning of an LNG export terminal along the Gulf Coast. Texas shale fields will find the market for their gas is set to grow with the new cross-border pipelines over the next two years.

Market Movers

 Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) is selling a 20 percent stake in offshore oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico to Mitsui (OTCPK: MITSY) for an undisclosed figure. The fields hold an estimated 100 million barrels of oil equivalent.

 Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) saw its share price shoot up more than 5 percent after it announced its decision to sell part of its Haynesville Shale acreage for $450 million.

 Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) and Sunoco Logistics Partners (NYSE: SXL) lost more than 3 percent at the market opening on Monday after the Obama administration rejected an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline (more below). Both the companies saw their share prices recover some of those losses later on Monday.

Tuesday December 6, 2016

Oil prices fell back from 16-month highs on Tuesday, after fresh data showed that OPEC hit another record high in production in November. Brent briefly rose above a key threshold of $55 per barrel on Monday for the first time since the summer of 2015, but retreated on Tuesday to $53 per barrel.

Since the OPEC agreement was announced last week, WTI climbed 19 percent and Brent prices are up 16 percent. "OPEC sentiment continues to support oil markets. Speculative short positions are still at elevated levels and as more traders unwind these positions they could trigger more support for oil prices," Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro, told Reuters.

OPEC production hit record in November. But OPECs collective production set a record high in November, rising to 34.19 million barrels per day. That means the group will need to cut 1.69 mb/d from their production levels, not just the 1.2 mb/d in announced cuts last week in Vienna. However, the problem for OPEC is that a lot of the gains came from countries that are exempted under the November deal. Angola, Libya and Nigeria all added output in November from the month before. To offset those gains, OPEC would have to make deeper cuts, but since that was not specified in the agreement, there is little chance that it will happen. The data caused oil prices to fall more than 2 percent on Tuesday. Related: OPEC Winners: Iran Brags It Can Now Sell As Much Oil As It Wants

OPEC meets with non-OPEC producers. OPEC is set to meet with non-OPEC producers to finalize the technical details of their agreement. Non-OPEC producers have agreed to cut 600,000 barrels per day beginning in January, which will come on top of the 1.2 mb/d cut from OPEC. Russia alone will cut 300,000 barrels per day, although Russian officials have said that they would do so gradually.

Questions about implementation. By any measure, OPECs latest meeting was its most successful in years. But there is still some uncertainty surrounding the cartels ability to implement the deal, and the willingness of individual members to adhere to their prescribed production allotments. OPEC has a history of not living up to agreements, with each member having the individual incentive to produce more than they say they will. The markets rallied last week on the severe cuts OPEC agreed to, but if the cuts are not carried out as promised, it will eventually undermine the effectiveness of the deal. "The only tool they have is to constrain production," former Saudi oil minister and legendary OPEC icon Ali al-Naimi said at an event in Washington, D.C last week. "The unfortunate part is we tend to cheat."

Dakota Access denied. The Army Corps of Engineers rejected an easement needed for Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) to finish up the construction of the more than 1,000 mile pipeline. The pipeline is not dead yet, but delayed until at least President-elect Donald Trump assumes the Oval Office. Most analysts expect the Trump administration to move quickly on reversing this policy, but the pipeline delay will cost the companies involved. According to court filings, Energy Transfer Partners is under contract to have the pipeline operational by January 1, meaning its customers will have the opportunity to back out of contracts to ship their oil through the pipeline if it is not completed in the next few weeks. Related: Is The Pain Finally Over For Oilfield Services?

Trump could privatize Indian lands. Not only will the Trump administration move to support the Dakota Access Pipeline, but Reuters reports that some Trump advisers want to make even more radical change in Indian country. A few advisers close to Donald Trump, sources told Reuters, want to loosen the rule regarding drilling on Native lands, which are subject to more onerous conditions. The move would divide Native Americans, who differ on whether or not to promote fossil fuel production on their ancestral homelands. A full privatization would be much more politically explosive, Reuters says, but something under consideration as part of the incoming administrations efforts at promoting drilling and development.

Citi bullish on commodities. Citigroup expects commodity prices to rise in 2017 on the back of faster economic growth and the tightening of supply after several years of a glut. Citi sees prices for oil, copper, zinc and wheat rising for the next six to 12 months. For commodities in general, the oversupply that was induced by high prices in the first decade of this century are finally being balanced, Citi analysts wrote in a recent research note. Whats more, the cost structures across commodities are reaching an end of a period of persistent and record deflation.

Mexico offshore auction a success. Mexico pulled off a successful auction for offshore blocks in the Gulf of Mexico, with twice as many awards issued than officials had expected. The auction led to the sale of eight of the 10 blocks offered, which could ultimately lead to investment of some $40 billion over time. The winners included ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Cnooc, and BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP). BHP will join state-owned Pemex in developing the Trion oil field, the most sought after offer because the field is already discovered. The auction was the latest offering from Mexico, stemming from its historic liberalization legislation from a few years ago.

Oil hedging rises. With oil prices shooting above $50 per barrel, more oil producers are starting to hedge their production for 2017 and 2018. Bloomberg says that a rash of new hedges could ensure U.S. oil production rises next year. But that will also flatten the futures curve, locking in oil at around $50 per barrel for futures for 2017 and 2018. "The curve is screaming producer hedging," Adam Ritchie, founder of consultant AR Oil Consulting, told Bloomberg.

ISIS loses control of Sirte. U.S. airstrikes helped Libyan forces push ISIS out of Sirte, its last main stronghold in the country. ISIS militants have controlled the city for almost two years. Libya is still crippled by political infighting between factions, but the losses that ISIS have suffered bodes well for the countrys prospects. It also is a sign that more oil production could be forthcoming. Libya has a goal of tripling its output from 2016 levels to 900,000 barrels per day next year.

By Evan Kelly of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Having rallied to 16-month-highs on the back of OPECs deal to cut oil supply, oil prices dipped on Tuesday after figures showed that November output at both OPEC and Russia had reached record highs in November.

As of 7:46 AM (EST), WTI Crude had dipped 1.49 percent at US$51.02, while Brent Crude was trading down 1.04 percent at US$54.37.

OPECs November production jumped by 370,000 bpd from October to stand at 34.19 million bpd, a Reuters survey based on shipping data and information from industry sources found on Monday. Within OPEC, output rose mainly in Angola, Nigeria, Libya, Iran, and Iraq.

This figure is way higher than the 32.5 million bpd OPEC set as a ceiling in its deal to reduce collective production. In that agreement, OPEC said that its cuts, which are to begin in January, are contingent on non-OPEC nations, including Russia, cutting around another 600,000 bpd.

Another worry to traders was the fact that Russias output increased to 11.21 million bpd last monththe highest level since the Soviet era. Deputy energy minister Kirill Molodtsov said Russia would use the November figures as reference to cut 300,000 bpd it has pledged to help OPEC cut global supply.

Related: Dakota Pipeline Activists Shouldnt Celebrate Just Yet

Analysts are already seeing that the euphoric rally since last Wednesdays deal is starting to wane after seeing high production figures being reported for OPEC and Russia.

Most of the position adjustments that the OPEC decision forced upon traders have now run their course and it leaves the market exposed to profit taking, Ole Hansen, head of commodities strategy at Saxo Bank, told Reuters.

The meeting on Saturday between OPEC and non-OPEC producers will be crucial in order to maintain the bullish sentiment seen since last Wednesday, the analyst noted.

Recent reports and indications by NOPEC point to most non-OPEC countries agreeing that cuts are needed and some, such as Russia, pledging specific figures for cuts.

The market is (again) left hinging on another meeting.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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A high-ranking terrorist with the Islamic State, the so-called ISIS oil minister Abu Izzam, was killed by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces east of Mosul on Monday, Fars news agency reports, quoting the anti-terrorism forces commander Wahab al-Saedi.

Abu Izzam, ISILs oil minister, was killed by Iraqi security forces during the operations in areas and villages East of the city of Mosul, al-Saedi said, as quoted by FNA.

Oil is a major source of income for the Islamic State terrorists, but their revenues have been dwindling with the advance of the Iraqi forces. In the summer, Iraqi media reported that the terrorists oil revenues had shrunk by up to 90 percent.

In June of this year, the ISIS oil ministry headquarters near Mosul was destroyed in ground and air strikes.

Then, in the middle of October, a massive offensive to free Mosul from Islamic State began, involving the Iraqi army, its U.S.-led coalition allies and the Peshmerga, the armed forces of the Kurdistan autonomous region.

Mosul has been under the terrorist groups control since 2014 and is the largest stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. Restoring government control over it is seen as a turning point in the fight against the terrorists.



Related: The Wider Ramifications Of The OPEC Deal

In the ongoing battle, Iraqi forces regained control over four villages north of Mosul on Sunday, according to Fars news agency.

Again yesterday, U.S. and coalition military forces destroyed near Mosul mortar systems, four ISIS-held buildings, vehicles, a vehicle bomb factory, and a front-end loader, the U.S. Department of Defense said today.

Peter Cook, spokesman for the Pentagon, tweeted on Saturday an update from the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter:

This is a complex mission that will take time to accomplish, but I am confident ISIL's days in Mosul are numbered.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Crude oil production in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq will not be affected much by OPECs agreement last week to prop up international oil prices by cutting production across the group.

According to Kurdistans Minister of Natural Resources, Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdistan Regional Government has not yet heard from the central government in Baghdad with regard to the actual cuts that will need to be made.

Iraq agreed to slash its production by almost 200,000 bpd to support market rebalancing efforts initiated by Saudi Arabia in September. Still, Hawrami said, the KRG was ready to cooperate with Baghdad on the cut.

In October, oilfields in Kurdistan yielded an average 564,683 barrels of crude, most of which was exported via the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Iraqs total was 4.48 million bpd in the same month.

While Minister Hawrami said that communication between Erbil, where the KRG is based, and Baghdad had improved substantially, the budget transfers from the central government to Kurdistan for 2017 have not yet been agreed upon.

Kurdistan is home to some of the biggest producing fields in the country, and has been locked in a dispute about revenue distribution with the central government for months. Baghdad cannot force Erbil to curb output at its fields, and Erbil has plans to tender 20 oil and gas blocks next year.

This, coupled with Iraqs vital need for oil revenues amid the final push against Islamic State and massive public spending, has raised questions about the countrys actual plans after the output cut agreement. Some observers note that the country simply cannot afford to cut production with public spending exceeding 50 percent of GDP and the fight against IS still ongoing.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Omani authorities say the country will cooperate in OPECs planned output cut, but is holding out on a specific cut commitment until the cartels 10 December meeting in Vienna, news agencies report.

OPEC has agreed to cut a total of 1.2 million barrels per day of crude oil production, and now non-OPEC members are being brought into the fold, with the terms of individual member participation to be discussed in Vienna next week, with cuts to be implemented at the beginning of the New Year.

We will discuss the terms and conditions of a production freeze or cut with other countries. Oman will co-operate to achieve the planned target. Our percentage decrease in production will depend on the meeting and how much we are asked to cut, Times of Oman quoted Omans oil and gas minister, Dr Mohammed Al Rumhy, as saying.

On Sunday, Oman, the largest non-OPEC producer in the Middle East, confirmed that it would attend the 10 December meeting. OPEC is holding out for non-cartel countries to slash 600,000 bpd in crude output, of which Russia has agreed to cut 300,000 bpd on its own.

How much Oman is likely to cut is pure speculation at this point. While the oil and gas minister noted that other non-OPEC producers were throwing about suggestions of a 3-4-percent reduction in output, Oman may be considering bigger cuts. In the past, Oman has indicated that it might be willing to cut between 5 percent and 10 percent of its production in order to help rebalance the market, Reuters reported.

Oman is producing about 1 million bpd, and the Minister Rumhy is eying $50-$60/barrel oil prices next year, assuming the OPEC cuts go forward.

OPEC hit record output in November of 34.19 million bpd, up from 33.82 million bpd the previous month, according to a Reuters survey. Likewise, Russia averaged 11.21 million bpd in November, a 30-year record.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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The US$11 billion in proceeds which Russia expects to reap from the privatization of 19.5 percent in oil giant Rosneft might not end up in government coffers straight away, Bloomberg reports, quoting people with knowledge on the matter.

The money is expected to first go to Rosneftegaz, the government-owned holding group that is selling the stake and is majority shareholder of Rosneft.

After having delayed in August Rosnefts privatization due to low oil prices, Russias government authorized in early November the beginning of the privatization of 19.5 percent of Rosneftegazs shares in Rosneft. Rosneftegaz currently holds 69.5 percent in Rosneft.

In the government decree from November, Russia set the deadline for the deal for December 5, 2016, and the deadline for transaction with the buyer for December 15. The decree also stipulates that the proceeds be transferred to the federal budget by December 31, 2016.

Rosneft itself is expected to have bought the shares of Rosneftegaz, to sell them later to another investor.

Meanwhile, Russias government has been waiting for years to get the money from the previous Rosneft share salewhich Rosneftegaz is holding, Bloomberg quoted Sberbank CIB analyst Alexey Bulgakov as saying.

Given this, it is unclear to us why the government thinks it will be able to get the proceeds from this one, Bulgakov said in a report, as quoted by Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg, Rosneftegaz is retaining cash to pay dividends and invest in selected projects more than it is transferring money to the federal budget. In addition, close ties between Vladimir Putin and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin lead to Rosneftegaz being accountable mostly to Putin and Sechin, Bloombergs sources say.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin is confident that it will receive the proceeds from the Rosneft privatization for the budget on December 15, Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov as saying on Monday.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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WikiLeaks published on Monday a searchable archive of nearly 58,000 emails from the private email account of Berat Albayrak - Turkeys incumbent energy minister and son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan  revealing the influence Albayrak has in Turkey and his correspondence regarding Powertrans, a company implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.

The emails encompass 16 years between April 2000 and September 23, 2016. A search by the Powertrans keyword in the published WikiLeaks emails returns 32 results, including emails sent to Albayrak regarding personnel and salary issues at Powertrans.

Turkey banned oil transportation by road or railway in or out of the country in November 2011, but included a provision in the same bill that it could revoke the ban in specific cases, such as meeting the needs of the military. The Turkish government later gave exclusive privilege to Powertrans for transit of oil, WikiLeaks says.

Allegations that Erdogan and members of his family are linked to ISIS oil trade are not new. Last year, almost to the date, opposition lawmaker Eren Erdem said he would soon provide proof of Erdogans role in the smuggling of Islamic State oil. Just two weeks later Erdem found himself facing charges of treason.

In October 2014, the U.S. Department of The Treasury published remarks by the then U.S. Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David S. Cohen, who is now deputy director at the CIA. Cohen said in 2014:

According to our information, as of last month, ISIL was selling oil at substantially discounted prices to a variety of middlemen, including some from Turkey, who then transported the oil to be resold. It also appears that some of the oil emanating from territory where ISIL operates has been sold to Kurds in Iraq, and then resold into Turkey.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Laly Cholak arrives on Capitol Hill to lobby Congress on behalf of the VFA

(Image by Brittany Huckabee) Details DMCA



"Every day is Veteran's Day," says a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW ) team in After Fire , a documentary by Brittany Huckabee .

They are canvassing Capitol Hill on behalf of top issues impacting those who have served.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

After Fire takes an on-the-ground look at how three female veterans are struggling to cope and move forward in the aftermath of their service.

Huckabee places her account in San Antonio, Texas, where one of the biggest populations of female veterans in the nation resides.

Before unrolling the narratives of her main characters, Huckabee presents stats on women in the military:

One in five new recruits to the military are women.

Women are the fastest growing group of veterans.

Among women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimates show that one in ten suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reports that one in five women have PTSD; one in four are victims of rape or Military Sexual Trauma (MST).

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In June, US aerospace company Boeing inked an agreement with Iran Air to produce 109 passenger aircraft. Estimated value: $25 billion. The agreement represents the biggest business interaction between the US and Iran since that country's 1979 Islamic revolution.

On November 17, the US House of Representatives voted 243-174 to block the deal. The Senate seems unlikely to follow suit president Barack Obama would almost certainly veto the bill, but Boeing's stock took a temporary 2% tumble on the vote.

Why do House Republicans (the vote was pretty much party-line) want to destroy thousands of American jobs and hammer the revenues of a major American manufacturer?

The stock answers:

Iran has an active nuclear weapons program (the US and Israeli intelligence communities say it doesn't).

Iran is violating the 2015 deal to end the non-existent program (the International Atomic Energy Agency says it isn't, apart from a few ten thousandths of one percent more heavy water than the deal allows them).

Iran sponsors terrorism (even if that's true, the US lacks moral credibility to complain about it given its 25-year, 24/7 terror campaign comprising hundreds of thousands of killings across the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa).

Those are the War Party's talking points. The conventional wisdom among the non-insane population looks more like this:

For nearly 40 years -- ever since the Iranian people rose up and overthrew the authoritarian monarchy installed by the US in a 1953 coup against its democratically elected government -- enmity with Iran has been a sacrament of American political class religion. It's one of those cold war relic feuds that our politicians just don't quite know how to let go of.

I think that conventional wisdom gives the political class too much credit for morals and too little credit for guile. The truth, in my opinion, is more along these lines:

Boeing builds swords and it builds plowshares. That is, it builds military aircraft and weapons systems on one hand, and civilian passenger aircraft on the other.

When Boeing builds plowshares, the only thing it's beholden to the political class for is permission. It shouldn't even have to ask pretty please, but unfortunately does. The politicians don't hold the purse strings, though. It's legitimate business.

When Boeing builds swords, on the other hand, it works directly for the politicians. The end user is either the US armed forces or a foreign military approved of, and probably funded by, American politicians. Kiss the ring, Boeing.

The War Party (both Republican and Democratic wings in tag-team fashion), given the opportunity, prefers to forbid Boeing to build plowshares and keep it in the position of begging to build swords.

Not that Boeing is innocent in all this. Since World War II, the primary mission of the US government has been to transfer money from your pockets to the pockets of Boeing and other "defense" contractors.

But Boeing's 150,000 employees are relatively innocent. Those employees have families and friends. All of them who vote should remember which members of Congress tried to send them to the unemployment line on November 17.
From Mondoweiss

John Kerry offered yet another tough-love talk to Israel at the pro-Israel Saban Forum yesterday. The United States gives Israel more than half of the aid that we give "to the entire world," and Israel simply ignores us when we warn it about new settlements.

Kerry:Every president, Republican and Democrat, has been opposed to settlements -- we issue a warning today when we see a new settlement announced. Nothing happens. It's ignored, a new settlement goes up. New units, new sales. So the issue -- Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg: You're describing a situation in which you have zero leverage. Kerry: I think we do -- I think we do have leverage -- Goldberg: But they never listen to you. Kerry: No, they don't, and they haven't listened on settlements, that's correct.

Here's how much money we give Israel to ignore us.

"I've watched while we, the Obama Administration, have put $23.5 billion on the line for foreign military financing. More than 50 percent of the total that we give to the entire world has gone to Israel. We have just signed an agreement for $38 billion over 10 years, $3.8 billion a year, up from 3.1."

Goldberg, the new editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, played the innocent. He knows damn well why the U.S. government has no leverage over Israel; because of Israel-loving journalists like himself and Israel-loving donors like Haim Saban. He ventured that the two-state solution (which he did as much as anyone to kill) is dead because there are now so many settlers in the West Bank there can never be a Palestinian state:

MR GOLDBERG: Have we not passed the tipping point already? SECRETARY KERRY: No, no. MR GOLDBERG: Why have we not passed the tipping point? It seems like it. SECRETARY KERRY: No, we haven't, but we're getting very -- we're getting -- I'll tell you why we haven't. Because this is a function of leadership. It's a function of belief. It's a function of what choices are being put to the people of Israel. So let me -- MR GOLDBERG: You know how hard it is to move 10,000, 8,000 settlers from Gaza. You're talking about 90,000 --

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Newspaper forest green

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A Democratic Party connected pizza restaurant, which just happens to be run by a gay man, is under siege from right-wing extremists, and even Alex Jones has tried to distance himself from the more obvious bullshit (after promoting it in the first place).

The alleged child sex ring run out of a DC pizza parlor, "#pizzagate," has been debunked repeatedly, but that doesn't matter to a whole lot of post-truth personalities you'll run across on Facebook. A Youtube rumor mill churns out twists and turns daily, and these obvious propaganda pieces get re-posted unquestioningly. Lies always outpace the truth.

I've blocked several people whom I'm not sure genuinely believe what they're posting. Some do, and that's just as problematic. Snopes has a pretty good summation of this fiasco to date.

Now that assult-rifle-wielding vigilantes have taken up the cause we had all better take a step back and consider where we are as a nation. Most Americans believe mountains of bullshit all the time. And I do mean you, the reader. With the corporate media's credibility at all-time lows the information void has been filled by trolls, scammers, political dirty tricksters, and all other varieties of dark intelligence type mercenaries. Much of what comes across the feeds is wholesale bullshit deliberately fabricated to push buttons.

What's most damaging about all this is that it erodes the truth, making it more difficult to find or to care about. The noise barrage prompts apathy among the many and insane overreactions within a few.

There are real conspiracies. Powerful people do commit crimes, lots of them. They are not, however, so inept and incompetent about it to be running child sex slave rings out of pizzarias! To believe such nonsense requires a level of gullibility that is shocking. It requires one to be divorced from reality, living in a TV type world where such crimes are easily perpetrated and plot holes don't matter. And neither does credible evidence.

Things have become more dire, news wise, with the recent hysteria over alleged Russian propaganda. Similarly debunked claims of Russian state involvement were sanctioned by the Washington Post. Evidence, of Russian connections to US independent media, is non-existent. Specious fake journalism appeared right in the supposed bastion of truth, where the US government routinely proclaims its objectives and floats its excuses. There is no shortage of "fake news" to rail against.

The #pizzagate fiasco was clearly the work of Trump supporters acting anonymously to drum up a hot-button smear against Hillary Clinton, just prior to Election Day. But the mainstream media has taken up the banner to try and assail all alternative news sources--alternative to them--their direct competitors. With this new escalation into the realm of vigilante violence, and with the multitude of hate crimes witnessed since the election, the country teeters in a state of trepidation over what will come next when Trump takes over.

But #pizzagate is not over yet. We still have the unfortunate business of Jeffrey Epstein to contend with.

"Epstein, who counts among his pals royal figures, heads of state, celebrities and fellow billionaires, spent 13 months in prison and home detention for solicitation and procurement of minors for prostitution. He allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on 'Orgy Island,' an estate on Epstein's 72-acre island, called Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands." ("Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender's jet much more than previously known", Fox News, May 13, 2016)

And it's not just right-wing sources reporting on Epstein. Says :The Daily Beast:

"Epstein's little black book and flight logs read like a virtual Who's Who: Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Larry Summers, Kevin Spacey, Prince Andrew, and Naomi Campbell all hitched rides on Epstein's private planes... In 2008, Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from an underage girl and quietly paid settlements to scores of alleged victims who said he serially molested them... Epstein had 14 private numbers for Trump and his family in his little black book. Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary Clinton have remained mum about their ties to the Palm Beach pedophile--despite evidence that shows Bill was one of the most famous and frequent passengers on Epstein's 'Lolita Express' and that Epstein donated money to the Clinton Foundation even after his conviction."

I am reminded of Sibel Edmonds' take on the elites and how politicians are vetted to insure they do have skeletons in their closets, so that they can be controlled by the Deep State. All of these crimes are known to intelligence at the highest levels, and that is why these people are allowed to rise into positions of power. It is expressly because they have dark secrets that these individuals become our so-called "leaders."

We can see why the trolls wanted to limit the pedophilia charges to a Democrat friendly pizza parlor in D.C., now that Donald Trump himself has been connected to Jeffrey Epstein's "Lolita Express." The hysteria was carefully focused and localized, no matter how glaringly false it happened to be.



Don't look for Alex Jones to pursue Donald Trump's link to Epstein, however. He's already been busy attempting to deflect the charges. Don't look for that link to go wider among the right-wing trolls, even though the President-Elect has been exposed exactly as Bill Clinton was. The right cares nothing for reality, but instead creates a false reality daily to suit their political ambitions. It is a lust for power, not for justice.

#pizzagate #hypocrisy

Joe Giambrone is an author and filmmaker and an enemy to propagandists of all stripes.
-- The Man Who Shook the World --

Considering the deluge of bitterness and pique oozing from many in the U.S. political establishment in response to the death recently of Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro, even some folks with more than a passing knowledge of key world events and history in general, might've been left wondering what all the fuss was about. Castro -- a man as reviled as he was revered -- led the 1959 Cuban revolution, one of the most portentous tipping points in the Cold War, if not in modern history.

The following might serve at the outset to give such people an idea as to why his passing provoked such a bilious response from Washington. As Wayne Smith, a former U.S. diplomat and ambassador to Cuba in the early years of Castro's reign under president Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower (later President Jimmy Carter's Cuban representative), once memorably opined,

'Cuba seems to have the same effect on US administrations as the full moon has on werewolves.'

Now Smith might've said this almost three decades ago, but as the reaction to the Cuban leader's death indicated, this reality persists, despite the recent thaw in official relations initiated by President Obama.

To be sure, there's rarely been a shortage of countries that could lay claim to having this transformative effect on the collective psyche of U.S. political establishment, Iran being a prime example. But it is Cuba that stands out as an exemplar, and so much of that has to do with Castro himself.

Put simply, amongst the iconic revolutionary's many talents was an unerring ability to get up Uncle Sam's nose, and get away with it so often for so long. Suffice to say, since they seem to have inherited the same basic instincts as their forbears, the bulk of present day Washington's "Werewolves" must've been privately 'howling at the moon' as it were at the Comandante's demise.

Castro was the only world leader who resisted U.S. hegemony and lived to tell the tale as it were, surviving by some accounts more than 630 separate assassination attempts over decades. Indeed if the individual who came up with the expression "terminate with extreme prejudice" had Fidel in mind, it would hardly be surprising.

Such is the animus towards all things Cuba and Castro, president George Bush refused his offer to provide teams of doctors to assist the Hurricane Katrina relief effort 2005, one of America's worst modern natural disasters. And with folks like Newt Gingrich labeling Castro as "tyrant", and likewise president-elect Donald Trump dismissing the former Cuban leader as a "brutal dictator" (whilst also placing in doubt the future of the recent rapprochement with Cuba), it's clear that "animus" is still alive and kicking. For many, Castro's passing is unlikely to change this much. The Werewolves have long memories.

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The chilling Professor Watch List, a website that personally targets college professors, states the following purpose:

"The mission of Professor Watch List is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."

Like it or not, we have lost our precarious democracy, a travesty I wrote extensively about in my recent book, America Abandoned. This is an atrocity all its own, but what is even more terrifying is what is quickly replacing that lost democracy, something that is shaking the very foundations of our society. Call me an alarmist if you will, and I will wear the label proudly.

In these times, it will behoove us to be reminded of Pastor Martin Niemoller's poem about the cowardice of the German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the resulting human purge:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me"and there was no one left to speak for me."

The sad truth is that the Nazi madness did not just target socialists, trade unionists, and Jews. They also targeted the mentally ill, physically disabled, homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, artists, and, yes, even professors. This is not mere hyperbole, my friends; as Irish philosopher Edmund Burke put it, "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." If we care about America's future, we must be aware of the faults of the past.

The Professor Watch List website is divided into two sections for searching, schools and professors; I counted 125 colleges and 150 professors during my visit. Interestingly, some college listings do not mention professors, as if certain campuses are being watched for possible future transgressions. Bearing this in mind, a few frightening questions must be answered:

What authority determines what professor(s) should be watched, and who ultimately decides to publicly display and label them, complete with names and photos? What criteria and standards are utilized?

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Protesters in Washington the first time the ACA was challenged

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It's the weekend after Thanksgiving and for once, I'm not scheduled to work at the hospital. Yet, on Friday evening I found myself fastening my badge to my clothes and walking into the Intensive Care Unit.

One of my most beloved patients, Ms. Chhem is passing away. I've come to say goodbye. It's not a complete surprise as she's had serious chronic medical issues for years, but after being part of her care team for a countless number of prior hospitalizations, it's hard to believe that this will be her last.

When I first met her five years ago, I was shocked at the number of hospitalizations she had survived. Her chart identified her as a refugee from Cambodia with significant psychological trauma, two kinds of hepatitis from poor healthcare, and end-stage kidney disease requiring dialysis three times a week. She had low health literacy, few resources and didn't speak English. I was terrified to be the young doctor in charge of coordinating her care and keeping track of all the pieces that inevitably get lost in our complex medical system.

Of course, in real life, she was nothing like the chronically ill patient her chart suggested. Despite the physical and emotional trauma her life had brought, she was always upbeat, laughing, and ready to experience life's next moment. Or perhaps it was because of that trauma that she learned that this was the only way to cope.

During our visits her delightful pragmatism grounded me in what otherwise seemed like an impossibly chaotic healthcare plan. Our last visit had only been only 72 hours ago. As I walked into the exam room she had erupted into laughter, jumped up, and grabbed my hands with both of hers in greeting. It was a relaxed visit. Ironically, for once I was feeling good about her medical care. All of the loose ends I had been trying to resolve had recently been tied up.

So despite being familiar with intubated patients, it was jarring to see Ms. Chhem, the same woman who just a few days ago was relating to me the hilarity of coping with recently misplaced dentures, as a patient, intubated, sedated, and surrounded by machines and IV drips. Death doesn't impact me the way it used to when I first became a doctor, but I still choked up as I held her hand and said goodbye.

As I walked home, I reflected on how, despite all the obstacles, she had received top quality medical care in her lifetime. For Ms. Chhem, medicine did exactly what it was supposed to do: prolong and improve health to allow patients to lead more fulfilling lives.

And then my thoughts darkened. What would happen to my patients if the Affordable Care Act is repealed?

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A Trump supporter writing at opednews wrote: " What concerns me is the reckless endangerment of the lives of millions of human beings by the neocons and their liberal interventionist allies, it is these zealots who are hellbent at risking a nuclear confrontation in order to impose their messianic dogma of regime change upon the planet."

It is not the technical errors (4) in one run-on sentence, but the failure to point out that Trump the Great has appointed the neo-cons to his staff, including the chief propagandist for Bush, Woolsey of the CIA and Wall St, Hadley the spy chief, and Bolton, who is urging bombing Iran. Trump is stuffing his administration with war hawks....what could go wrong? Who better to bring peace than a gang of seasoned warriors with a plan for US hegemony through war?

"

But who is urging us to threaten Russia militarily? It is not a liberal. Who is urging bombing Iran, Russia's (and China's) military ally? It's that liberal zealot, John Bolton, the most radical of the neo -cons, who if he is not selected Secy of State may well be in line for NSA chief. He's on board and he screaming for war. Is this the path to peace?

We will threaten those motherf...kers...and if they don't cave in, bombs away!!!

""Mr. Giuliani, 72, is believed to be one of two front-runners for the top foreign policy job in the Trump administration.

The other widely-tipped contender is John Bolton, a hawkish former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who was a key supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and last year called for the United States to bomb Iran. " telegraph.co

So the neo -con plan for world domination by endless war continues, with the most radical neo-cons moving into the White House. It appears these are not liberal zealots but far right war mongers.

I think it critical to point that out, as it totally contrasts Trump's choices with his propaganda rhetoric.

Your article is a valuable contribution,except for ignoring that Trump is hiring neo -cons to run the show..... I feel it needs to include the coup regime planning to take power in a few months, despite, having lost the election by 2.5 million.

Bush also lost, and that turned out really well, didn't it? He also promised a "humble foreign policy" and "no nation building," while actually starting several criminal wars and slaughtering half a million and wasting 4 trillion, all borrowed.

These are the liberal zealots who brought us the Iraq War, many of whom have been hired by Trump to "bring peace."

It appears that Trump is loading up with war hawks, and it is questionable whether that means we will have peace.....threatening Russia militarily or attacking their ally, Iran, both run the risk of thermonuclear war.......but perhaps what has failed in the past will work this time: look how successful bullies like Hitler and Mussolini were: threatening nuclear war may just be the path to peace. What do you think?

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From RecountNow.org:

Thank you for signing up to volunteer. Volunteers are needed on the ground in states where there are recounts AND for projects that can be done from anywhere, via the internet and phone.

If you want to be an observer for the presidential recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, the Stein campaign is organizing those observers. Please volunteer through them by going to one of these links:

For Michigan Volunteers

For Pennsylvania Volunteers

For Wisconsin Volunteer



On-the-ground volunteers will likely also be needed in Nevada and possibly other places as well. Please keep your eye on your email for updates.

If you'd like to volunteer in other ways from wherever you are, I'd love to get you connected to a project. But first ...

Will you tell us a little more about yourself:

What are your skills?

What are your interests?

How do you envision your interaction with this recount? For example, now much time do you have available to dedicate?

Please reply to this message with your answers. It will help me get you connected to a project that you can make the most difference with.

In 2004 I was an observer for the presidential recount here in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. There were lots of volunteers, the problem was that we were inexperienced and didn't know what to look for. It turns out that the recount here was fraudulent (there were trials and people were sentenced to prison). The precincts that we recounted not only were not randomly chosen--they were presorted ("recounted") before the recount ever started! The Board of Elections put on a good show, and we, in our ignorance, bought it.

RecountNow's goal is to make sure this doesn't happen again. We want to make sure each board of elections proceeds with the recounts accurately. We've had some setbacks in all three states, but there is still much that we can learn even in the counties that are recounting by machine.

Our primary focus at this time is to get experienced eyes on the ground in the recount states. We have a handful of people on the ground now and are mobilizing more. These are people who have been a part of the election integrity movement for years, have been through recounts before, have interacted with the companies that count our ballots, and know what to look out for. So fundraising is one of our greatest needs.

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by Dennis Crouch

Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corp. (Supreme Court 2016) [LifeTechTranscript]

Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in LifeTech v. Promega. The case focuses on the statutory interpretation of 35 U.S.C.  271(f)(1) (export of components of patented invention). The ordinary rule of U.S. patent law is that patent rights are territorial  a U.S. patent covers only infringement within the US territorial lines. As they say, if you want to sue someone for infringing acts in the UK, then get a UK patent (or perhaps soon an EPO patent). Section 271(f) of the US patent act pushes a bit against the extra-territorial limitation by creating liability for unauthorized supply or export from the US of all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention . . . in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components outside of the US in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the US.

The case at hand involves a patented genetic test being performed in the UK. The accused infringer had exported from the US a commodity enzyme (Taq polymerase) necessary for the test. LifeTech argues: the only contact that any of this has with the United States is the fact that a single, commodity product is shipped to England as part of the process for the fabrication of these particular kits. As a point of fact, there was some debate at oral arguments about whether, at the time when infringement began, quality Taq was available from non-US sources.

The question before the Supreme Court is whether this single commodity component can satisfy the statutory test of all or a substantial portion of the components of the patented invention.

Issue: Whether the Federal Circuit erred in holding that supplying a single, commodity component of a multi-component invention from the United States is an infringing act under 35 U.S.C.  271(f)(1), exposing the manufacturer to liability for all worldwide sales.

Because the Federal Circuit sided with the patentee (finding infringement) oral arguments began with petitioner (adjudged infringer) represented by Carter Phillips. The Obama Administration (DOJ brief not signed by PTO) sided with the petitioner and was represented by Zachary Tripp; and Seth Waxman represented the patentee-resondent.

Although I see this is a statutory interpretation question Carter Phillips began the discussion with a statement that this is largely an international trade case. The purpose of that focus is to remind the court of its prior international trade jurisprudence, including Microsoft v. AT&T, where it tends to interpret US law in order to limit extraterritorial application.

On the actual statutory interpretation, Justice Alito asked Does substantial portion mean a majority? Phillips replied: I think it means substantially more than a majority. I would say that it has to be approximating or very close or tantamount to all. [In the case at hand] I would have thought at least four [of the five components] would have to be [exported]. But you know, in many instances, my guess is the right answer may well be five [out of five]. The US Govt largely agreed with this  arguing that there should never be 271(f)(1) liability for exporting a single component but instead the export must reach all or something tantamount to all of the components.

Returning to the substantial portion language, Justice Kagan offered the following hypothetical:

JUSTICE KAGAN: If I said to you, Mr. Tripp, a substantial portion of my former clerks have gone into government work, how many would I mean? MR. TRIPP: I think with any of these things, the interpretation of substantial depends entirely on its context and its purpose, and  and  and so this term is used in just, like, a countless array of ways in the law. JUSTICE KAGAN: So youre not pinning this on the  on the language here, the substantial portion means almost all? MR. TRIPP: Well, no 

Essentially, the Goverments response here matches with LifeTechs argument that substantial portion is rather ambiguous and so the court must supply a meaning while keeping in mind the principle against extra-territorial application.

Carter Phillips interpretation that a substantial portion means approximately all comes from the background behind the enactment of 271(f)  that is the overruling of Deepsouth where all the components were being exported but in an unassembled fashion.

JUSTICE KAGAN: Where  where do you get that from? Whats the principle there? MR. PHILLIPS: Because all Congress wanted to do was to close a loophole [created by Deepsouth] where youre essentially doing nothing but violating U.S. patent law and avoiding it by simply offloading it at the last second. JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, how do we know that thats all Congress wanted to do? MR. PHILLIPS: [Changing the subject] the presumption against extraterritoriality would drive you in the opposite direction. Even if you could reasonably read the language either way. MR. TRIPP: [answering the same question] So were trying to give a gloss on substantiality in light of the context and purpose of this statue as  as we understand all of 271(f) is designed to shore up the basic restrictioning and is actually making a patented invention in the United States and then shipping it abroad. Both of the provisions get at that. We think (f)(1) [should be limmited to] situations that resemble the Deepsouth paradigm.

Mr. Waxman rejected this analysis and instead argued that the statute can be read in a commonsense way. In addition, Mr. Waxman noted that 271(f)(2) itself overturns Deepsouth.

LifeTech has also argued for a quantitative approach to finding substantial portion of the components  counting the number of components  rather than a qualitative approach. Pushing-back, Chief Justice Roberts noted It seems to me that the significance of the component would be the most important consideration. Mr. Tripp responded that the significance question would be a black hole thats not going to get you anywhere. Of course, the Court has entered into this black hole on several occasions. Consider, for instance Quanta, where the court focused on the inventive or core aspects of the claims.

Regarding the quantitative approach, Mr. Waxman interjected here with a pharmaceutical example:

MR. WAXMAN: Lets assume that you have a patented pharmaceutical, a tablet that, you know, remediates a disease. As is commonplace in these combinations, it has one active ingredient, and it has five inert ingredients that are as easy to pick up as you can imagine. The thing that is exported the factory overseas, which by the way is never liable under the statute because the statute only applies to conduct in the United States, they theyre happy to go down to their local warehouse and get the the five inert ingredients. But the molecule that does all the work, they import from the United States.

Under the approaches proposed by Lifetech and the US Govt, the exporter here would not be liable (perhaps rightly so). One thing that Mr. Waxman failed to argue was an actual positive test for what counts as a substantial portion. His approach instead would be to simply give the case to the jury to decide whether a substantial portion had been supplied or exported. As a back-up, perhaps instruct the jury that substantial means considerable in importance and/or amount.

In Microsoft, the Supreme Court suggested that components for 271(f) purposes are the elements of a claimed invention. Focusing on that point, Justice Sotomayor astutely asked When a [patent] claim is [issued], how is the determination made of what the elements are? Do the elements determinations sort out the common from the uncommon in a patent claim? My answer here is that there is no specific definition by the patent office of what counts as an element or component and what is simply a limitation associated with a component. Responding, the US Govt simply said that in most cases it actually wont be that difficult. For the case-at-hand, the parties apparently agreed that the patent lists five components.

Perhaps channeling the Samsung v. Apple decision also released on December 6, 2016, Justice Breyer challenged the US Govt approach as too complex:

JUSTICE BREYER: But why do we have to go into the details here? I mean, it did strike me as an instance where maybe the less said by us the better. I mean, would you be happy if we say it means what it says? All or substantially all means a whole lot. Or what you said, tantamount to all.

Of course, as is his wont, Justice Breyer here confused the language. The statute does not require all or substantially all but instead all or a substantial portion. Mr. Tripp did not correct Justice Breyer on this even though he had full opportunity. Mr. Waxman did offer the correction And, Justice Breyer, I do want to correct one thing. You  you inadvertently kept saying this is all or substantially all. Its not all or substantially all  Its all or a substantial portion.' As a point of interpretation, Mr. Waxman indicated that many statutes do use the term substantially all and that should be seen as more rigorous of a standard than a substantial portion.

As with all Federal Circuit patent cases before the Supreme Court, reversal is likely. However, I expect the reversal to be primarily a rejection of a hard-line interpretation of the Federal Circuit opinion. I do not expect the Supreme Court to impose a quantitative limit on substantial but instead leave that question as one that must be proven to a jury as an element of infringement under Section 271(f).
Of course. You would have to be be barking mad to want to bring this rabble to NZ. But then socialists are mad by definition. It's not as if we don't have...
Members of the Cuban trained Ghanaian professionals have impressed on government to grant them permission to name a location in Ghana after the late Cuban leader, Fidel Castro. The group known as Esbecans made the call when they visited the residence of the Cuban Ambassador to Ghana Pedro Louis Gonzalez.

According to the Esbecans, Ghanaians can best celebrate the legacy and policies of the revolutionary leader, if a monument is raised in his honor or a specific location in Ghana is dedicated to his memory. Presenting the petition through the Cuban Ambassador, president of the group Kofi Asafo Agyei, said the act will strengthen the already existing CubaGhana relations. Fidel Castro and Cuba as a whole, has contributed immensely to the socio-economic development of Ghana and just as it has been done for others who contribute to the history of the world, the contributions of Fidel Castro cannot be overlooked in Ghana and our plea will be a step in the right direction.

The Esbecans who are made up of medical doctors, engineers, pharmacists, accountants and a host of professionals expressed their gratitude to the Cuban Embassy and also signed the book of condolence, in memory of the revolutionary leader.

Source: 3news.com









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Former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, has alleged that the Ford Expedition car gifted President John Mahama in 2012 by a Burkinabe contractor, was part of a plot to smuggle money into the country to fund the Mahama 2012 campaign for the presidency.



Mr. Amidu, in a statement, said his claim is based on a letter from the Ghana Embassy in Burkina Faso to the border authorities at Paga, dated 29th October, 2012.



According to him, after President Mahama had assumed office following former President John Evans Atta Mills death, he was heading into the elections of 2012 unprepared financially.



However, the Presidents friend and beneficiary of contracts, when the President had assumed office, was ready to provide financial support, the former AG narrated.



He indicated that the only way funds could be unconstitutionally imported into Ghana from Burkina Faso was to be ingenious through the Ford Expedition and a wrapper, wrapping the many dollars needed for the Mahama Campaign.



No searches, no questions. Mr. Amidu added that the money would have been retrieved from the vehicle in Accra and the Ford Expedition is useless thereafter to the President.



CHRAJ investigation a farce Mr. Amidu also slammed the Commission on Human rights and Administrative Justices (CHRAJ) investigation into the Ford gift saga as a sham.



CHRAJ has no jurisdiction but the President was too happy to have his own institution purport to clear him  a farce to make the public believe the President has the peoples interests at heart and that his institutions will protect the public purse.



But all this while, it covered an unconstitutional scheme at election time, Mr Amidu stated. Find here Mr. Amidus statement Background Earlier in 2016, President Mahama came under intense public criticism for accepting the Ford gift worth about US$100,000 allegedly to influence him when he was vice President in 2012.



The Burkinabe contractor in question, Djibril Kanazoe, admitted giving President Mahama the Ford Expedition vehicle, for which the President called to thank him.



The gift, according to reports, was prior to an attempt by the contractor, to win a bid to execute the Dodo Pepeso-Nkwanta road construction project.



The same contractor had also been contracted to build a wall, at a cost of over half a million dollars, for the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou. CHRAJ, following its investigation of the matter, stated that President Mahama breached the gift policy when he accepted the gift,



The Commission, however, stated that the Presidents action did not constitute a conflict of interest, bribery or fraud, as the petitioners to it, the youth wing of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), and the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), had claimed.





Source: Daily Guide









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President John Dramani Mahama has told supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) not to do anything to mar the reputation of the country during this weeks elections.



President Mahama, who addressed a rally in Tamale on Saturday night as part of the last leg of his campaign tour of the Northern Region, said the country was highly rated in the comity of nations and all must play by the rules to safeguard her reputation.



He described the rally in Tamale as the biggest that I have seen so far adding God was on the side of the NDC and victory was assured on December 7.



He said: The NDC is the only Party that has the most credible and the most well-thought out programmes for the country.



He introduced the NDCs Parliamentary Candidates for Tamale South, Tamale Central, Tamale North and Sagnarigu Constituencies to the supporters at the rally as well as taught them how to cast their ballots so that their ballots would not be rejected.

Source: GNA









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" " President Barack Obama makes a statement to the news media during a meeting with his Cabinet in 2015. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It's a potent image of the United States government at work: The president, vice president, and the secretaries of each and every major federal department seated around the same mahogany table, forging solutions to the most critical matters facing the nation and the world. This is the Cabinet, the collective seat of executive power and the engine of the American president's policy agenda.

The U.S. Constitution establishes a government composed of three branches: the Executive, Legislative and Judicial. According to Article II of the Constitution, the power of the Executive Branch is vested in the president, who is also the head of state and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. While not mentioned by name, the Cabinet is established in Section 2 of Article II, which states that the president "... may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices ..."

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Aside from this brief mention of "executive departments," the Constitution doesn't elaborate on department names or functions. In one of his first acts as president, George Washington asked Congress to approve the creation of the Departments of Foreign Affairs (later renamed State), Treasury and War (later named Defense) [source: WhiteHouseMuseum.gov]. Today, there are 15 executive departments. The most recent addition was the Department of Homeland Security in 2002. Each of these executive departments is responsible for administering and enforcing federal law.

The Cabinet doesn't have the authority to write or enforce laws or policy. It's simply an advisory board to the president composed of handpicked senior officials. The Cabinet includes the heads of all 15 executive departments  all called Secretaries, with the exception of the Attorney General  plus the vice president and seven "cabinet-level" officials including the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Chief of Staff.

Here is a full list of the departments, agencies and offices represented in the Cabinet:

Vice President

Department of State

Department of the Treasury

Department of Defense

Department of Justice

Department of the Interior

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Labor

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of Transportation

Department of Energy

Department of Education

Department of Veterans Affairs

Department of Homeland Security

Cabinet-level appointees:

White House Chief of Staff

Environmental Protection Agency

Office of Management and Budget

United States Trade Representative

United States Ambassador to the United Nations

Council of Economic Advisors

Small Business Administration

Members of the Cabinet are appointed by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate by a simple majority (51 votes). The Senate has rejected fewer than two percent of Cabinet nominees since 1789 [source: Senate.gov]. The list of Cabinet posts above also represents the official order of succession to the presidency from vice president through the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Now let's look at the history of the Cabinet in America.
Researchers explain biodiversityvariables (EBVs) by comparing to the stock market. Credit: UFZ

Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) have the potential to help stop species loss. An international research team is using an analogy to explain what these variables are. Just as the price of a share varies according to supply and demand and the prices of all individual shares are used to calculate the index of a stock exchange, data from observations of nature is used to calculate biodiversity variables. From these it is possible to calculate indices which are crucial to policy decisions. By using this analogy, the researchers aim to show how important EBVs are to the protection of biodiversity and where efforts in this area are being hampered by global gaps in our knowledge.

In its history, the Earth has experienced five major species extinctions. Researchers believe that we are now witnessing a sixth extinction event, with thousands of species disappearing every year. To counter this massive species loss, 193 countries  including Germany  signed the UN Biodiversity Convention, committing themselves to halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020. But compared with climate change, the data on changes in biodiversity is fairly thin  and without data, this target cannot be implemented or verified. So in 2013, GEO BON (Group of Earth Observation Biodiversity Observation Network)  an international initiative which carries out monitoring and compiles data on global biodiversity  developed the concept of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs). The international GEO BON office is located at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig.

"At the beginning there was a lot of hype surrounding the biodiversity variables," says UFZ researcher Dr. Dirk Schmeller. "There was widespread discussion about them, but many people don't really understand what they are and what they can do." Since this is precisely what environmental policymakers need to know, an international research team led by the ecologists and conservation researchers in Leipzig has now published a study in which they use an analogy, comparing the biodiversity variables with share prices (Brummitt et al.).

Similarly to the way in which the index of a stock exchange is calculated from the prices of all individual shares, a biodiversity index contains information from one or several individual biodiversity variables. The researchers explain this using the example of the Living Planet Index (LPI), an indicator of the global population of vertebrates. Scientists worldwide monitor fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals living on land, in the oceans and in freshwater. The species correspond to the shares listed on a stock exchange, which belong to different companies. Just as the price of a share rises or falls according to supply and demand from shareholders, individual populations grow or shrink over time. The parameter of 'abundance', or the number of individuals of a particular species in a given habitat over time, provides the corresponding biodiversity variable  just as the share price describes the value of a share. From the individual EBVs, scientists can then calculate other indices such as the Living Planet Index.

"The EBVs are the link between the raw data and the indices," explains Schmeller. "They enable us to document critical changes in biodiversity and provide the data basis on which politically relevant indices can be calculated, so that appropriate decisions can be made." As a result they are extremely important to conservation policy, as a second study shows (Proenca et al.). In this study, the researchers describe how EBVs not only help to organise data but also identify where there are gaps in our knowledge. "So we can say to decision-makers, we need more monitoring or more capacity in this or that area," says Schmeller.

In a third study (Turak et al.), researchers have demonstrated how the concept of biodiversity variables can be implemented in practice, at least at regional level. They asked what kind of information environmental policymakers need and which EBVs supply the necessary data. Using this approach, the researchers identified eleven EBVs for the state of New South Wales in Australia which can detect changes in the native fauna and flora.

"The tricky thing is that there are still no global data standards," the ecologist continues. "It's like comparing a mouse with an elephant." To fill the knowledge gaps in global biodiversity, the data and the way it is gathered will need to be standardised so that it can be compared. The data collected, but not published, by local and national authorities also needs to be made globally available. And finally, more monitoring must take place  especially in areas of the world where little is known about the level of biodiversity.

"It will take a few years before everything works in the way we envisage," says Schmeller. But he is nonetheless optimistic: "The more information we can provide about biodiversity, the more it will influence policy decisions  even though biodiversity still often takes a back seat where economic affairs are concerned."

More information: Neil Brummitt et al. Taking stock of nature: Essential biodiversity variables explained, Biological Conservation (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.09.006 Journal information: Biological Conservation
VisioBioShapeR is an image processing program applicable to all study fields that require characterization of image contour. Credit: Universidad de Barcelona

Characterizing weather radar images, identifying mollusk shells deformities due to pollutants or classifying an insect collection according to their wing shape are some of the applications of VisioBioShaper, an innovative program of biological image processing to enable the automatic description of shapes and contours, designed by the experts Biel Stela and Antonio Monleon-Getino, from the Statistics Section from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the University of Barcelona.

An article published in the scientific journal Open Access Library Journal (OALib) describes the properties of the new program VisioBioShaper, based on the physics of sound waves and applicable to any study field requiring characterization of image processing (ecology, zoology, meteorology, etc.).

Identifying images with the language of R programming

In general, scientific teams use a wide range of programs during the researching activity but they don't use the ones focused on biological image processing. Nowadays there are programs of great interest used for several reasons from acquiring images to treating data to get results- but they require specific knowledge and, in addition, they are usually exclusive and have a high cost.

"The objective of the VisioBioShape pack for R is to add functions to the language of R programming, which is a free programming environment for computing and statistic graphics used by the scientific and technical community worldwide" says Professor Antonio Monleon-Getino, member of the Research Group on Biostatistics and Bioinformatics (GRBIO), team member of the platform Bioinformatics Barcelona (BIB).

"R is gathered and carried out in a wide range of Unix, Windows and MacOS platforms" continues Monleon-Getino. "Therefore, researchers who use this R language for data treatment don't have to get into another language or program which can be more complex regarding these kinds of image analyses".

VisioBioShapeR: describing contour with harmonics

The technique used by the experts is based on the field of sound treatment, a field in which acoustic waves are described with a series of simple harmonics. "It happens the same with contour: the description of a "wave" that adapts to the contour and the harmonics of this wave are used as descriptors. With the obtained descriptors, we can carry out several analyses on the variation of contour. Using the program VisioBioSpaher, computers identify the contours listening to the shapes" says Biel Stela, expert in programming and automatic identification of images, and first author of the article.

The concept of listening to these shapes comes from representing information of images with harmonics and their coefficient. With this, the computer can work on a numerical representation of the contour, where each harmonic is a trait. According to the authors, this methodology enables the classification with automatic learning algorithms.

VisioBioShapeR is based on the Fourier descriptor method (MDF), a technique which is widely used in the field of telecommunications and computing science. This technology, first applied in the eighties, for contour description, was firstly used to identify handwritten characters. Now its field of usage has spread to different fields of machine vision.

This new program allows its use during the researching process by the users that know the language of R programming. In addition, the tools of image analysis are integrated in the work in a very accessible and easy way.

Most formats are readable by R, a characteristic that enables the application of VisioBioShaper. This system requires the content of the image to be binary, that is, it has to have two pixel value (one for background and another for the object description). To go from a colored image to a binary image, it is necessary to use a threshold value. According to the image characteristics, this can be a complex process which requires a specialized program for the image treatment. According to the authors, "VisioBioShapeR can be used to study any organism or object that can be characterized by its environment".

The authors are currently collaborating with the group GAMA (Group on Meteorological Hazard Analysis) of the University of Barcelona and Servei Meteorologic de Catalunya to create a model able to identify shapes of weather radars in real time, to improve the knowledge of the life cycle of storms.

More information: Biel Stela et al. Facilitating the Automatic Characterisation, Classification and Description of Biological Images with the VisionBioShape Package for R, OALib (2016). DOI: 10.4236/oalib.1103108
The causes of the caribou's decline include encroachment of its habitat by forestry and mining, and global warming, which is more pronounced in the Arctic

Canada's caribou population has reached "all-time low" levels, particularly in the eastern Arctic, where the animal was classified as endangered Monday along with the monarch butterfly, according to a committee of scientific experts.

"Caribou are, sadly, very sensitive to human disturbances, and we are disturbing caribou more and more," Justina Ray said in a report by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (Cosewic).

"These stressors seem to be interacting in complicated ways with rapid warming in the North," she added.

"Many of the great northern caribou herds have now fallen to all-time lows, and there is cause for concern that they will not rebound in the same way they have before," according to the committee responsible for making recommendations to the government on the status of wildlife at risk.

Cosewic studied two populations of caribou: the tundra herdwhich it considers "threatened"and the rarer Torngat Mountain caribou in far northeastern Canada, which it assessed at an even higher risk"endangered." The latter is facing "imminent" destruction or extinction.

The causes of the caribou's decline include encroachment of its habitat by forestry and mining, and global warming, which is more pronounced in the Arctic.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in October expressed alarm over the decline of Canadian caribou herds over the past three decades.

Cosewic also classified the monarch butterfly, another migratory species, as endangered. The committee said that the "remarkably tiny wintering grounds where monarchs congregate continue to be chipped away by habitat loss."

The insects travel 4,000 kilometers from Canada to Mexico each fall to escape the snow. The report calls for conservation of its habitat in Canada, along its migratory path through the United States and critical overwintering areas in Mexico.

"Otherwise, monarch migration may disappear, and Canada may lose this iconic species," it concluded.

In June, 200 American, Mexican and Canadian academics, scientists and artists wrote to the leaders of the three countries calling for banning mining and illegal logging in the Mexican reserve where monarchs spend the winter.

They also demanded a ban on the use of pesticides on plots where milkweed grows to preserve the only plant Monarch caterpillars eat.

The committee pointed to a particularly destructive herbicide used on genetically modified corn and soybean crops.

 2016 AFP
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Educators, policymakers, and parents have begun to focus more on children's math learning in the earliest years. Yet parents and teachers still find it challenging to know which kinds of early math skills merit attention in the classroom. Determining how to help children achieve in math is important, particularly for children from low-income families who often enter school with weaker math knowledge than their peers. A new longitudinal study conducted in Tennessee has found that low-income children's math knowledge in preschool was related to their later achievementbut not all types of math knowledge were related equally. The findings suggest that educators and school administrators may want to consider carefully which areas of math study they shift attention to as they develop curricula for the early years.

Conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt University, the study appears in the journal Child Development.

The study followed 517 low-income children from ages 4 to 11; the children were primarily Black and all qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty. When the children were in the last year of preschool and near the end of first grade, researchers tested general skills (including self-regulated behavior, work-related skills, and reading) and six math skills (patterning, counting objects, comparing quantities, understanding written numbers, calculating, and understanding shapes). When the children were at the end of fifth grade, researchers tested a range of math knowledge, including knowledge about numbers, algebra, and geometry. The aim of the study was to determine whether children's math skills at ages 4 and 5 predicted their math achievement at age 11.

Preschool math skills supported first-grade math skills, which in turn supported fifth-grade math knowledge, according to the study. In preschool, children's skills in patterning, comparing quantities, and counting objects were stronger predictors of their math achievement in fifth grade than other skills, the study found. By first grade, patterning remained important, and understanding written numbers and calculating emerged as important predictors of later achievement.

Because not all types of math knowledge were equally important, the study's authors suggest that certain early math topics should get more attention than they currently do. "Counting, calculating, and understanding written numbers already get a lot of attention from teachers and parents, for good reasons," notes Bethany Rittle-Johnson, professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University, who led the study. "However, comparing quantities may merit more attention in preschool, and patterning knowledge may merit more attention in both preschool and the early elementary grades."

For example, the study's authors note, Common Core content standards for school math include shape but not patterning knowledge, and they focus little on comparing quantities. Since patterning skills in the early years predicted math achievement in fifth grade in this study, the authors suggest that teachers and parents engage young children in activities that help them find, extend, and discuss predictable sequences in objects (patterns) and compare quantities, without needing to count, such as estimating who has more pennies or more Halloween candy. A next important step will be to systematically vary how much of this content young children receive and look at their math achievement over time.

"Our findings extend those of other studies that have focused on fewer math skills over shorter periods of time and that looked at children from more advantaged homes," explains Emily R. Fyfe, assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University, who was part of the study when she was a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. "This suggests that children from low-income homes develop math knowledge in ways similar to children from more-advantaged homes, and it supports a more comprehensive understanding of the trajectory of math development from the early years to the later years."

More information: Early Math Trajectories: Low-Income Children's Mathematics Knowledge From Age 4 to 11, Child Development, 2016. Journal information: Child Development
It's not a new story, although "the reproducibility crisis" may seem to be. For life sciences, I think it started in the late 1950s. Problems caused in clinical research burst into the open in a very public way then.

But before we get to that, what is "research reproducibility"? It's a euphemism for unreliable research or research reporting. Steve Goodman and colleagues (2016) say 3 dimensions of science that affect reliability are at play:

Methods reproducibility  enough detail available to enable a study to be repeated;

Results reproducibility  the findings are replicated by others;

Inferential reproducibility  similar conclusions are drawn about results, which brings statistics and interpretation squarely into the mix.

There is a lot of history behind each of those. Here are some of the milestones in awareness and proposed solutions that stick out for me.

1950s

Estes Kefauver was a U.S. Senator and Adlai Stevenson's presidential running mate. He had become famous at the start of the decade with hearings into organized crime. More than 30 million people watched some of those hearings, on television or free in movie theaters.

He turned his attention to the pharmaceutical industry at the end of the decade, holding hearings into drug prices in 1958 and 1959. One of the issues that emerged was the "sorry state of science supporting drug effectiveness". This outcry about research reproducibility led to a major change in research requirements for FDA approval in 1962.

Part of the problem's solution had a major milestone in 1959, too. Austin Bradford Hill led a meeting in Vienna that codified the methodology for controlled clinical trials.

Earlier in the 1950s, though, there was a development that stands as a milestone in fueling science's reproducibility crisis by inadvertently introducing a perverse incentive: Eugene Garfield proposed the journal impact factor in 1955.

1960s

In 1962, the Kefauver-Harris amendments required "adequate and well-controlled clinical investigations" for FDA approval: adequate was at least 2 studies  a major step in expecting replication of results.

A new problem in biological research was revealed in 1966 at a conference in Bethesda. Stanley Gartler was the first to report contamination in cell lines in cancer research (reported in Nature, 1968). Still not adequately dealt with, that's grown into a juggernaut of un-reproducibility, making thousands of studies unreliable.

That year also saw what may be the first example of the science of systematically studying science's methods  what John Ioannidis and colleagues have dubbed meta-research. It was a study of statistics and methods of evaluation in medical journal publications (discussed here).

1970s

The 70s brought us 2 key methods: systematically reviewing evidence (1971) and meta-analysis: a way to analyze the results of several studies at once (1976) (explainer here). Those methods didn't just help make sense of bodies of evidence. They also propelled meta-research.

And 1977 surfaced a problem in scientists' behavior that allows unreliable scientific findings to take root and thrive. Michael Mahoney showed confirmation bias thrived in peer review:

Confirmatory bias is the tendency to emphasize and believe experiences which support one's views and to ignore or discredit those which do not[R]eviewers were strongly biased against manuscripts which reported results contrary to their theoretical perspective.

1980s

Analyzing the reliability of studies took a formal step forward in 1981, with the publication of a method for assessing the quality of clinical trials.

Doug Altman and colleagues took on the issue of problems with the use and interpretation of statistics, with 1983 statistical guidelines for medical journals.

And a way forward was proposed for the problem of unpublished research results. The unpublished research results are often the disappointing ones. That leaves us with a deceptive public record of science.

John Simes called for an international registry of clinical trials in 1986. Registering the details of all research before it is actually done would mean we could at least identify gaps in the published research record down the line.

1990s

According to Goodman & co (2016), the term "reproducible research" was coined in 1992. Computer scientist Jon Claerbout used it in the sense of methods reproducibility  enough published details for someone else to be able to reproduce the steps of a study.

Formal standardized guidelines for reporting research  one of the key strategies for trying to improve research reproducibility  arrived in clinical research in the 1990s. The CONSORT statement for clinical trials in 1996 is the milestone here.

2000s

The registration of clinical trials at inception took a giant leap forward in 2004 when the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) announced they would not publish a trial that had not been registered.

"Why most research findings are false" landed like a bomb on science's landscape in 2005. John Ioannidis' paper has now been viewed more than 1.8 million times, and definitely counts as a milestone in awareness of science's reproducibility problems. (I wrote about the article and controversies around it here.)

In 2007, FDAA, the FDA amendments act, added public results reporting to an earlier requirement that drug clinical trials be registered at inception. Final Rules and NIH policies that give those requirements teeth go into effect in January 2017.

2010s

Pre-clinical research got a major jolt in 2012, when Begley and Ellis at the biotech company Amgen set out to confirm cancer research findings:

Fifty-three papers were deemed 'landmark' studies[S]cientific findings were confirmed in only 6 (11%) cases. Even knowing the limitations of preclinical research, this was a shocking result.

In 2013, registering studies at inception took a leap at the journal Cortex with registered reports. Registered reports are peer reviewed detailed protocols, with the journal's commitment to publishing the results after the study is completed. (A tally of journals following suit is kept here.)

In 2014, the NIH began reporting on its strategies for addressing reproducibility, including reporting guidelines for preclinical research, and PubMed Commons, which had arrived in 2013. That's the commenting system in PubMed, the largest biomedical literature database.

Psychology's big jolt came in 2015, when the Open Science Collaboration reported that they replicated between a third and a half of 100 experiments and correlation studies.

And in 2016, the American Statistical Association (ASA) issued its first-ever guidance, trying to stem the tide of misuse and misinterpretation of p values. (Explainer here.)

2016 is ending, though, with a potential roll-back in the clinical research rigor and transparency required for FDA approval. Lesser levels of evidence than adequately controlled clinical trials might be back, and full raw data might not be necessary, either.

We have a "reproducibility crisis" because we need to do more to try to prevent bias in research design, conduct, interpretation, and reporting. And after that we need others to interrogate what's found and replicate it in different contexts. As Christie Aschwanden points out, that's just plain hard to do. But "science isn't really scientific without all of that, is it?

This story is republished courtesy of PLOS Blogs: blogs.plos.org.
This photo provided by Google shows windmills at a wind farm in Minco, Okla., that provides Google with some of its renewable energy. Google says it believes that beginning in 2017, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world. (Tim Boyles Photography/Google via AP)

Google is crossing a milestone in its quest to reduce pollution caused by its digital services that devour massive amounts of electricity.

The internet company believes that beginning next year, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world.

That's significant, given Google's ravenous appetite for electricity to power its offices and the huge data centers that process requests on its dominant search engine, store Gmail, YouTube video clips and photos for more than a billion people.

Google says its 13 data centers and offices consume about 5.7 terawatt hours of electricity annuallynearly the same amount as San Francisco, where more than 800,000 people live and tens of thousands of others come to work and visit.

The accomplishment announced Tuesday doesn't mean Google will be able to power its operations solely on wind and solar power. That's not possible because of the complicated way that power grids and regulations are set up around the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Google instead believes it is now in a position to offset every megawatt hour of electricity supplied by a power plant running on fossil fuels with renewable energy that the Mountain View, California, company has purchased through a variety of contracts. About 95 percent of Google's renewable energy deals come from wind power farms, with the remainder from solar power.

Nearly 20 other technology companies also have pledged to secure enough renewable energy to power their worldwide operations, said Gary Cook, senior energy campaigner for the environmental group Greenpeace.

Google made its commitment four years ago and appears to be the first big company to have fulfilled the promise.

Apple is getting close to matching its rival. The iPhone maker says it has secured enough renewable energy to power about 93 percent of its worldwide operations. Apple is also trying to convert more of the overseas suppliers that manufacture the iPhone and other devices to renewable energy sources, but that goal is expected take years to reach.

Cook said the symbolic message sent by Google's achievement is important to environmental experts who believe electricity generated with coal and natural gas is causing damage that is contributing to extreme swings in the climate.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump dismissed the need for climate control during his campaign for office, and he has pledged to undo a number of regulations to protect the environment.

"More than ever, companies must show this sort of leadership on renewable energy," Cook said Tuesday. "Now is not the time to be silent."

Google still hopes to work with power utilities and regulators around the world to make it possible for all of its renewable energy to be directly piped into its offices and data centers around the clock.

For now, Google sells its supply of renewable energy to other electricity grids whenever it isn't possible for its own operations to use the power.

Google Inc. declined to disclose how much it has spent on its stockpile of renewable energy or the size of its annual electricity bill.

 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, on Monday announced she co-sponsored legislation Rep. Kathleen Clark, D-Mass., introduced Sept. 8 to increase access to medication for adolescents and young adults addicted to opioids.

"Substance abuse at a young age can have especially devastating consequences," Stefanik said, in a press release.

The legislation would reauthorize and broaden eligibility for substance abuse treatment under existing public health law, authorize projects to demonstration the feasibility of using treatment that includes medication as a component, and appropriate $5 million in grants to fund the projects.

Stefanik is a member of the bipartisan congressional Heroin Task Force.

The legislation -- HR 5956, had four co-sponsors, as of Monday -- two Republicans and two Democrats, according to the Library of Congress government information web site.
HUDSON FALLS  A 25-year-old Hudson Falls man has been charged with first-degree rape for allegedly having sex with a 12-year-old girl during what police described as a sex party that will likely lead to additional arrests.

Daniel W. Clary of Maple Street was arrested after an investigation that began in late July when relatives of the girl confronted him and other young men they believed took part in sexual acts with the girl and another underage teen, police said.

That confrontation took place July 17 at a park in Hudson Falls, starting a police investigation into alleged sexual encounters that police believe involved the 12-year-old, a 16-year-old girl and three young men in a Hudson Falls home, police said.

Hudson Falls Police Chief Randy Diamond said the investigation was ongoing, and additional arrests were likely.

Police initially received a call about a fight that they learned stemmed from relatives of the younger girl learning of the encounters, police said.

Clary is accused of having sex with the 12-year-old and at least one other suspect with the 16-year-old, both of whom are too young to legally consent to sex because of their ages. The age of consent in New York is 17.

The guys said they (the girls) told them they were 17, Diamond said.

Under state law though, statements the girls made would not absolve the defendants of criminal liability.

There were no allegations of physical force being used.

The Hudson Falls Police investigation included collection of possible DNA evidence and statements from a number of witnesses, the chief said.

Hudson Falls Police Detective Scott Gillis said Clary was charged in recent days after police received results of a forensic analysis of unspecified evidence. Authorities also received a court order to take a sample of Clarys DNA for possible comparison to evidence collected in the case.

Clary was arraigned and sent to Washington County Jail for lack of $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bail bond. The Washington County District Attorneys Office is assisting with the investigation.

First-degree rape is punishable by up to 25 years in state prison.
BALLSTON SPA -- A Wilton man was sentenced to 2.5 years in state prison Wednesday for having sex with an underage girl.

Andre R. Allen, 29, pleaded guilty to third-degree rape, a felony, for having sex with a teen under the age of 17. The encounter happened in Malta in February.

Saratoga County Judge James Murphy sentenced Allen to 2.5 years in prison to be followed by 10 years on parole.

Allen was arrested by State Police in June.
FORT EDWARD  Washington County may reduce maintenance for lesser-traveled roads, in an effort to put more money into the main thoroughfares.

Public Works Superintendent Steve Haskins proposed adopting a different maintenance standard for low volume roads, such as county Road 3 in Putnam.

That would be roads that carry fewer than 400 cars per day, he said.

There really should be a different standard, he said. These are very low volume roads. You try to put your money where you have more traffic.

He would repave those roads less often and rebuild them to a lower standard, in which the thickness of the road from base to surface is several inches less than on main roads, he said. That would make the rebuilding cheaper, allowing him to send more money to the main roads.

The county could also adopt a policy of minimum maintenance for roads with fewer than 50 vehicles a day, he said in his written proposal.

State law prohibits the county from abandoning such roads for at least six years after adopting a minimum maintenance plan.

But the plan isnt to ignore the roads that get little use.

Instead, some roads might get paved once every 15 years, and some once every eight years, said Budget Officer and Hebron Supervisor Brian Campbell.

Currently, on average, the roads are all repaved every 12 years. Thats too long a gap for heavily traveled roads, which Haskins defined as roads that carry more than 1,000 cars a day. Those include Burgoyne Avenue, Schuyler Street, Feeder Street and Route 23, he said.

The county has been trying to increase the number of miles of road it repaves every year. Just five years ago, the county was repairing about 11 miles of road a year.

And we were looking forward  looking forward!  to doing that again the next year, Campbell said, reading from his 2012 budget presentation. We worked hard to put the money in because the roads were going to shambles.

The county budgeted to spend $13.7 million in the highway fund this year, up from $10.5 million in 2013.

The county still relies on savings for a great deal of the highway budget. Campbell has been slowly reducing that reliance. It has been hard to do that while simultaneously increasing the miles of roads that get repaved, but it had to be done or the county would spend more on repairs as roads fell apart, he said.

The goal was to repave each road every 10 years. County officials thought they would have to find the money to repave about 28 miles of road a year to reach that goal. As of this year, they managed to squeeze money throughout the budget to cover repaving 23 miles of road a year.

The new proposal might make it possible to keep the roads paved without squeezing further.

Maybe were there. Maybe we dont have to get to 25 or 30 miles a year, Campbell said.

Haskins has been working to grade all the county roads for more than a year, evaluating them and giving them a score based on their condition, usage, and other factors. All that work was building toward this plan, Campbell said.
Local Green Party activist Matt Funiciello is defending Green Party presidential candidate Jill Steins election recount effort.

Funiciello said although money for the recount may be coming from individual angry Democrats, Steins motive is to draw attention to voting irregularities, not to put Democrat Hillary Clinton in office.

There is no love there. We are not trying to get Hillary elected, he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Any inconsistencies that can be pointed out in a recount are of value. Its the Green position that a full audit of every election that ever takes place should always be done, he said.

Funiciello, who arranged for Stein to campaign in Glens Falls and Fort Edward in June, said the recount push is controversial, even among Green Party members.

There has been divisiveness among the Greens about the recount nationally, with some suggesting it is a symbolic alliance with Democrats, said Funiciello, the local Green Party candidate for Congress in 2014 and 2016.

Stein has raised money to force presidential election recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, states where Republican Donald Trump narrowly defeated Clinton.

Stein has suggested, without evidence, that votes cast were susceptible to computer hacking.

Funiciello said evidence of hacking is not necessary to make the case that it is possible, and that all states should use paper ballots and scanning devices, as New York does.

Separately, three central Florida residents have filed a lawsuit seeking a recount in Florida, which Trump won, and Reform Party presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuentes campaign has paid for a recount in 93 precincts in Nevada, which Clinton won.

Trump has said Steins recount effort is a fundraising scheme.

I think it has been entertaining to watch. I dont think it has really shown anything, said Ray Scollin, the state Republican Committee regional vice chairman for the 21st Congressional District.

Scollin said the recount shows liberals dont recognize the national shift in voter attitude.

I just dont think theres been any understanding, certainly by Hillary Clinton or the left, on why people are moving their political ideology to the right, he said.

Warren County Democratic Chairwoman Lynne Boecher said Clinton staff are participating in the recount merely to monitor the process.

There is no evidence of any tampering with those votes, and so it is what it is, she said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Im enormously disappointed with the results, but with that said, you accept them and you move forward, she said.

Warren County Libertarian Party Chairman Adam Pensel said Steins recount effort appears to be about fundraising and publicity, but the motive is not necessarily wrong.

Politically, I think its a pretty smart move on their part, taking advantage of some people who are upset about the way things happened and trying to capitalize on setting themselves up to have a larger base next election, he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

Pensel said he doubts the recount will change the election outcome.

I think were set where we are, and we need to find ways of improving our lives on the local level and go from there, he said.

Funiciello said theres no question the Green Party is looking to gain exposure and expand its donor base, as every political organization is.

There is that element in everything we do. Were a political party, he said. I think Jills guilty.

Ideally, Stein would have also sought a recount in states that Clinton won, but there was not enough funding for that, he said.
Seven years ago, as an Airman 1st Class, Benjamin Hutchins dove into the icy Bala Murghab River in Afghanistan and braved rifle fire while trying to save two soldiers.

The soldiers, members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, had fallen in the river, trying to get to an air-dropped supply package

For two days, while searching for their bodies, Hutchins and three others charged an enemy fighting position across an open field to take out heavily armed fighters.

Early last month Hutchins, a 2003 graduate of Indian Lake Central School, received the U.S. militarys third-highest honor for gallantry in action, the Silver Star.

Hutchins, who is retired from the service, lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he runs a construction business called American Woodworkery. He said he was humbled and honored to receive the award, according to an Air Force press release about his award ceremony.

The work that I did those days gets done every day by individuals that dont receive this recognition, he said. I am just representing for them. I just hope it can inspire those airmen under me and set that example.

During the second incident, Hutchins killed one enemy armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, at close range, before the enemy could fire, and wounded another. He provided targeting information to a drone that destroyed a second enemy fighting position with a missile.

Hutchins, the son of Kate and Paul Hutchins of Indian Lake, was awarded his Silver Star during ceremonies at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Nov. 4.

To everybody else, its heroics, Hutchins said at the ceremony. But to all these guys out there, its part of the job. This is me getting recognized for something they would do every day if needed.

Maj. Gen. Thomas H. Deale pinned the Silver Star on Hutchins. Deale is the Air Forces senior A-10 pilot. Hutchins was a joint terminal attack controller, working on the ground and guiding air support, including drones.

According to the official Air Force citation, Hutchins repeatedly risked his own life while trying to protect others when he was deployed to Afghanistan with soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

He was part of a group sent to retrieve an aerial resupply in the early hours of a cold November morning, according to officials.

With enemy fighters watching, one of the supply bundles landed in the Bala Murghab River, and the two soldiers who originally went to retrieve it were swept away.

Hutchins dropped his protective gear and dove into the cold water to try to save the soldiers, Sgt. Brandon Islip and Spc. Benjamin Sherman.

Two days later, while on a patrol near the river and searching for the bodies of the drowned men, Hutchins and three other soldiers, disregarding their own safety, charged an enemy machine-gun nest. They battled two enemy fighters who were attempting to fire rocket-propelled grenades at a friendly patrol.

Before they could reach adequate cover, the squad endured heavy sniper fire from an insurgent on a rooftop. While seeking cover and under fire, Airman Hutchins called for a precision missile strike from an orbiting MQ-1 Predator, taking out the sniper and saving his platoon.

Hutchins was severely injured by an improvised explosive device in 2012 and retired as a staff sergeant in 2014. He had served with the 14th Air Support Operations Squadron, 18th Air Support Operations Group at Fort Bragg.

The Silver Star is awarded to members of any branch in the military and represents heroic achievement or service.

Air Force Air Combat Command said Hutchins was originally going to be awarded two Bronze Stars with Valor devices for his bravery those two days, but they were consolidated into a Silver Star.
LAKE GEORGE  The task force exploring a potential link between construction projects at Lake George schools and health problems of staff and student alumni is raising money for a consultant to review whether best practices were followed.

The group has established a GoFundMe page to raise $15,000 for the work. Chairman John Conway said the task force wants to hire the Queensbury-based Consulting for Health, Air, Nature and a Greener Environment, LLC to conduct an independent review of projects.

Earlier this year, local residents expressed concern about what they say is a disproportionate number of former students and faculty coming down with a variety of illnesses. Among the reasons they have advanced is asbestos removal work that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Exposure to asbestos can cause cancer and other diseases.

In July, crews doing construction work at Lake George Elementary School found vermiculite, which is used as insulation in attics and walls. More than 70 percent of the vermiculite sold in the United States between 1919 and 1990 came from a mine in Libby, Montana, which was contaminated from a deposit of asbestos. School officials had crews vacuum up any flakes or particulates that came loose and recaulked areas to make sure no vermiculite escaped.

Conway said school officials have been helpful. They have turned over several documents related to the construction projects. Additional files with documents related to the project are being stored in the basement of the school. The district has agreed to let the task force look at those, Conway said.

Now, he said the task force wants to hire Timothy McAuley, founder and head of Consulting for Health, Air, Nature and a Greener Environment, to review the documents.

He vets different contractors and can analyze the process that has already taken place. Thats what he does for a living  to make sure best practices were followed, specializing in hazardous materials, Conway said.

Lake George Interim Superintendent Jon Hunter said he and board President Tim Collins had a conference call with Conway in August, and the district sent some follow-up documents on construction projects. They have not been in touch since then.

Weve opened up the communications, and if we can help, if we can support them, if we can make sure this is handled in a respectful way, thats what its all about, he said.

McAuley said he first learned of the Lake George task force when someone contacted him.

His background is in domestic and international air quality studies and human health risk assessments.

Among the questions he is looking to find answers to are the following: when the renovations were completed, who the contractors were, whether they submitted a proposal or scope of work and whether they adhered to best management practices.

Youve got to make sure people did what they said what theyre going to do, he said. There were only a couple absestos/environmental contractors that were involved.

McAuley said he would review the records, evaluate the data and try to draw some scientific conclusions.

McAuley, who himself is a graduate of Lake George, cautioned that there may not necessarily be a direct link between the construction projects and the illnesses of staff and student alumni.

He said people can develop illnesses for a variety of reasons, including their genetics, their occupation and other factors. He added that, sometimes, it can take 20 to 30 years before health problems develop from asbestos exposure.

The type of asbestos that people were exposed to also could be an issue, he said.

McAuley estimated that the process would take about six months once he has the signed contract.

McAuley has a doctorate in environmental science and engineering from Clarkson University, a masters degree in chemistry from Clarkson and a bachelors degree in biochemistry from the College of Saint Rose.
The nearly four-year-old lawsuit between a longtime Lake George business owner and Warren County over alleged damage to his property has been postponed indefinitely as the two sides talk about a possible settlement of the case.

Jack Gillette, owner of Magic Forest Family Fun Park, sued in state Supreme Court in April 2013 over conflicts he had been having with the county.

Lawyers in the case met in recent weeks to discuss a possible settlement that would include an unspecified payment to Gillette. But it was unclear whether he planned to accept it, or push for a trial that would likely be held early next year.

There have been some discussions, said Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors.

Gillettes lawyer, Dana Salazar of Albany, also acknowledged there had been settlement talks, and said the county has filed a notice indicating it may appeal a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Stan Pritzker that allows the lawsuit to continue to trial.

Neither side would detail what the proposed settlement would entail.

I think there may be more to report on in a month or so, Salazar said.

Warren County was unsuccessful arguing to dismiss it earlier this year, but no trial date or further court dates have been set.

The lawsuit was the culmination of a years-long dispute between Gillette and Warren County over the Warren County Bikeway that runs in front of Magic Forest, and a decision to allow snowmobiles to use a section of the bike path that runs in front of his business. Gillette has said that the snowmobile use is not legal because of an agreement when it was created that no motorized vehicles would use the path.

The county also removed boulders Gillette or his staff had placed around the edges of Magic Forests parking lot as the dispute escalated, claiming they were a hazard in the countys right of way.

Gillette has had a disagreement with the county over who owns a portion of land in front of his business.

Gillette also sued in U.S. District Court in Albany, arguing federal constitutional rights violations, but that lawsuit has been stayed pending disposition of the state Supreme Court case.

He had been represented by lawyer Brian Reichenbach, but Reichenbach had to step away from the case after he was appointed Warren County attorney last year. Geraghty said Reichenbach has had no involvement with the case since he changed sides, and First Assistant County Attorney Mary Elizabeth Kissane has been working with the countys appointed counsel.

The county has been represented by the firm of Lemire, Johnson & Higgins LLC. A call to the firm was not returned Tuesday afternoon.

The county has paid the firm $46,347 for its work on the lawsuit, with another $20,000 or so in invoices still to be reviewed for possible payment.
HUDSON FALLS  On a windy Tuesday morning, in a snow-covered cemetery, Matt Rozells history class took a somber turn.

Rozell and about 25 Hudson Falls High School seniors stood in the fresh snow at a memorial stone that read, H. Randolph Holmes, followed by the words, Died in action at Pearl Harbor, Age 19 yrs and U.S. Navy.

Holmes had been a student in Hudson Falls Class of 1942 but left school early, joined the Navy and was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

We wanted to make sure we didnt forget Randy, Rozell told the group, which had taken a quick bus ride on Route 4 to the Moss Street Cemetery. Especially you in the Class of 2017 because its the 75th anniversary of the year he should have graduated.

Holmes was aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma during the attack and was one of 429 men killed when the ship was struck and capsized. Like many of the sailors on the Oklahoma, his body was not recovered for 18 months and has never been identified. Holmes was buried, with the other unknown Oklahoma sailors, in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl.

Several years ago, one of Rozells students located Holmes name on the memorial to those who died on the Oklahoma.

Two of Rozells students said Tuesday they had no idea a former Hudson Falls student had died at Pearl Harbor.

I had no clue, said Alex Prouty, who went on to talk about what she and her classmates had learned about the attack. We learned that there was a loss of a lot of lives and that a lot of people went missing. No one was prepared for it, and our military did the best they could to protect us.

Jacob Fabian said he learned about Holmes in class as well.

Before class, no, I didnt know anything, but now, yes, because of Mr. Rozells book, Fabian said. We learned a lot about Pearl Harbor, what its effects were, why and how it happened and how monumental it was.

During the brief ceremony Tuesday morning, one of the students held up a picture of Holmes from the Class of 1942 yearbook and another held the yearbook itself as they stood by the memorial stone. Rozell had a student hand out black stones, and the students wrote on them and left them on the stone.

This years yearbook is also going to have a page for Randy, said Rozell, who has written two books on World War II and is working on several more. Its important for us to remember him.

Identification ongoing

Holmes may yet come home.

Five formerly unknown sailors from the USS Oklahoma were identified in January, using medical records. The identifications are the first to come from a project that began in April 2015 when the Defense Department announced plans to exhume an estimated 388 of the Oklahomas unknowns.

The first exhumations took place June 8, 2015, and the last four caskets were dug up Nov. 9, 2015.

Sixty-one caskets were retrieved from 45 graves. The caskets were heavily corroded and had to be forced open.

The remains were removed and cleaned and photographed. The skeletons were flown to the lab in Nebraska for further analysis, but skulls were retained in Hawaii, where the Defense Departments forensic dentists are based.
The Knesset plenum on Monday approved a new draft of a bill to recognize West Bank settlement outposts, a controversial measure castigated by its opponents as an illegal land grab that paves the way for Israel to recognize some 4,000 settler homes built on private Palestinian land.

After a raucous plenary session that saw opposition lawmakers screaming and ripping up copies of the proposed legislation, the revised so-called Regulation Bill  which received ministerial approval just hours before  sailed through Israels parliament, clearing its first legislative hurdle by a count of 60 MKs for and 49 against.

The Knesset discussion on the bill began stormily with a speech by Jewish Home MK Betzalel Smotrich that descended into chaos, as opposition lawmakers attempted to shout him down and drown him out by banging on tables.

Following the vote, the legislation was sent to committee and could be brought to a first reading in the plenum as soon as Tuesday.

Barring intervention from government leaders, the bill is expected to speed through the Knesset after gaining coalition support in an emergency meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation Monday night. If passed, it would then inevitably be challenged before the Israeli High Court.





Settlement watchdog Peace Now says the Regulation Bill will legalize 55 outposts and 4,000 housing units in existing Jewish outposts and settlements in the West Bank, cast over some 8,000 dunams (3 square miles) of privately-owned Palestinian plots.





Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett on Monday praised the measure as the first step toward annexing West Bank land for Israel. Today, the Israeli Knesset shifted from a path to establish a Palestinian state, to a path of extending sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. Let there be no doubt, the regulation bill is what will spearhead the extension of [Israeli] sovereignty, a smiling Bennett said.

















Right-wing parties claimed victory on Monday over the so-called Regulation Bill that will allow Israel to recognize outposts built on private Palestinian plots, with one senior minister saying its passage would pave the way for Israel to de facto annex West Bank land.

Despite the fact that the bill will not include a clause to save the Amona outpost from bulldozers, its original raison detre, the Jewish Home party and others in the government still praised the legislation, while many in the opposition derided it as a measure that will bolster lawlessness.





Today, the Israeli Knesset shifted from a path to establish a Palestinian state, to a path of extending sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. Let there be no doubt, the Regulation Bill is what will spearhead the extension of [Israeli] sovereignty, said a smiling Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, after the coalition agreed to forge ahead with the measure.

Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni, a former justice minister, wrote on Twitter that the new bill was really a legalized land grab.

Michal Rozin of the left-wing Meretz party said that the proposed legislation raises fundamental questions of Israels future identity. Given that the Regulation Bill will annex parts of the West Bank to Israel and mitigates against any future two-state solution, Rozin asked what a future one-state solution would look like.

How will Israel view the one-state solution? Will you go to concern yourselves with Palestinian schools? Will the Palestinians vote in the elections? Will there [one day] be a Palestinian prime minister [of Israel]? she asked on Facebook.












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He reportedly charged his London fans 20 to get a selfie with him.

This happened at a recent event he organised in London tagged Meet, greet and chill with Bobrisky which was held at the Northpole Shisha Bar, Greenwich High Road London, according to Punch News.

A video posted on his Instagram page showed a fan spraying him with some Pounds notes while he was seated.

This is coming a week after one of his customer, Timileyin Abiola, accused him of a scam.

Abiola reportedly paid Bobrisky a sum of N30,000 for the purchase of a beauty product which was not delivered at the time of the report.

The bleaching cream expert however denied the allegation.
Checks by Pulse.com.gh at various bus terminals in Accra indicate that several of the buses apparently have been hired by the political parties for political purposes.

Some drivers who spoke with Pulse Ghanas George Saliah at the VIP Bus terminal say there are currently no buses available for the Accra-Kumasi route.

A similar situation has occurred at the Intercity STC Bus Terminal, where the maintenance officer explains that 70% of their buses have been hired by the government.
He said the driver when stopped by highway police for interrogation could not tell the owner of the money found in his car.

At the time the driver was arrested, he did not tell us whom he was transporting the money to. He was quiet and even his name he didnt disclose to us, ASP Otchere told Accra-based Joy FM.
The personnel are expected to protect ballot boxes, electoral officials, voters and generally ensure peaceful polls.

The Police Service has assured that personnel who could not vote during the special voting will be deployed to where they can vote early and later continue with their duties.

To ensure a successful and peaceful process, the Police has called on the general public to cooperate with them and observe all electoral regulation and procedures.

Meanwhile, the police would like to in case of any emergency, the public are advised to call the police on MTN and Vodafone.
Nana Addo, the flagbearer of the NPP has been heavily criticised by President John Mahama and leaders of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) over what they call internal wrangling within the party which saw national Chairman Paul Afoko, General Secretary Kwabena Agyapong and Vice Chairman Sammy Crabbe suspended indefinitely late last year.

The suspended trio are believed to be the confidants of the former president, John Kufuor, particularly, Kwabena Agyapong being his spokesperson when he was in power.

Nana Akufo-Addo has urged leaders and supporters to bury all differences they may have and join forces with the party to win the upcoming elections.

But Mr Amissah-Arthur believes the NPP cannot continue to be boasting of projects and social intervention programmes which were primarily handled by some of the suspended executives of the party under the Kufuor government.

He said that during the NPPs last rally on Sunday, he saw Mr Kufuor with none of the people who helped him to administer this country supporting. His entourage is no more part of the NPP campaign. We wish him well, but we know his people are no longer part of it.
According to the group, Nana Addo has the right policies and competent men to lead the country towards economic growth and development.

READ ALSO: Full Text

Addressing a news conference in Kumasi, Paul Sarpong, the leader of the group said their decision also comes on the back of what he calls insulting remarks by the NDC against diminutive figures.

If the president says short people are complaining because they cannot see his achievements, then it is an insult to us he lamented.

READ ALSO: A look at the evolution of Ghanaian elections
Superintendent Henry Amankwating, who confirmed the incident said the violence began at about 8:30pm Monday after the two parties had ended their separate rallies.

He said the NPP held a rally in a border town, Wanthiki while the NDC held theirs at Wanguga.

He explained that even though the venues were far apart, supporters from the two parties after their separate rallies decided to roam the streets on motorbikes amidst jubilation to demonstrate their support.

The supporters in the process provoked each until the situation turned chaotic.

"They were cutlassing people, burning stores and there were gunshots" Supt. Amankwating told Accra-based Joy FM.

The deceased has so far been identified as 31-year old Abdulai Nnambe.
Below are details of the statement:The office of Mr Woyome was broken into three times.Computers, documents etc were taken away.The case has been with the Legon Police ever since.Juju was planted and sprinkled on the compound of the office.The police have all the records.Akomea now says he got some documents from Mr Woyome's office?Some of those documents include the cheque studs he is displaying.Mr Woyome has been supporting the NDC heavily since 2001.The support increased before 2008 and beyond.Steve Kpordzi was repaid monies he borrowed to Mr Woyome personally.Koku Anyidoho was supposed to refund a debt of printed party T-Shirts that Mr Woyome promised to refund on behalf of the Party.Business men also pay for NPP electioneering materials.Don't they.Mr. Woyome did all these for his party without expectations.Mr. Woyome and his companies have never borrowed from the ADB.All monies paid to Mr Woyome was paid legally as a result of a court order.How Mr. Woyome spend his money is his own business, private and personal to him.It has never happened in the history of Ghana or anywhere else where a private individual's personal life is abused in such a proportion blatantly.Mr. Woyome will test the law.The Court of Appeal found NPP cabinet culpable and the cause of the Judgement debt.What is worrying is that EOCO headed by Akpadzi Mortey, The AG Department personified by Martin Amidu, National Security headed by Gbevlo Lartey used the EOCO law and obtained all of Mr. Woyome's bank transactions Countrywide and through Martin Amidu handed it over to the NPP to create the impression to Ghanaians and the whole wide world as though something has been wrongfully done.Mr. Woyome is not a GoG official, he is not the Court, he is also not an armed rubber.Never in the history of civilise Nations has the Judgement of a Court of competent Jurisdiction basterdised and criminalised.Yesterday, Dr Bawumia and his wife also mislead the whole world on an NPP final Rally platform in the tradefair center by insulting and maligning Mr Woyome and his entire family.Dr Bawumia was in the Bank of Ghana and worked with the research department that tested and passed the documentary Financial Document , termed the letter of Support, that was ascertained by Central Tender Review Board through a concurrent approval.The NPP knows that this singular case will lead to the arrest of over 30 members of their Cabinet including Akomea, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, etc.They actually pre meditated the crime as evidenced by the famous cabinet memo authored by Yaw Osarfo Marfo who testified in court and is on record to blame it on the rest of the cabinet members.The Court of Appeals of the Republic of Ghana has clearly said Mr. Woyome was rightly paid while the Supreme Court says it was unconstitutional.The International Courts and Tribunals are yet to come out with their decisions.How then did Mr. Woyome loot?We call on the AG to as a matter of fairness and the respect for the rule of Law pursue the issue of the criminal cabinet memo now without any further delay.President John Mahama has nothing to do with this case as a Vice President nor as a President.Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has a lot to do with it through the Akosombo cabinet meeting and subsequent decisions which included the illegal Chinese deals and the Barclays 100 million dollar loan.The people in the NDC who were bent on covering Akomea and Co Cabinet and and tried to perscute me for the NPP thereby creating all these situations should be ashamed of themselves by now.Mr. Woyome never said any where that he was going to expose anybody.How?This is also one of the usual NPP concocted lies.Alfred Woyome's lawyers and the Police are working on the case.A cold case in the police station concerning the breaking into Mr. Woyome's office has become hot.Issued by The Office of Alfred Agbesi WoyomeSigned :Reginald Seth Dogbey.
Nana Akomea, NPPs Communications Director, at a news conference in Accra Monday alleged that Mr Woyome wrote down the names of all the beneficiaries of the money and indicated the exact reasons why the money is being paid to them.

According to Nana Akomea, the key beneficiaries include;

(a)A GHC1 million payment was made to the NDC party on 15 February 2011

(b)GHC75,000 was given to Professor Awunor on 28 June 2011

(c)GHC60,000 was given to Jewel Ackah on 16 June 2011

(d)GHC20,000 was given to NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia

popularly known as General Mosquito on 2 September 2011

(e)GHC60,000 former head of Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), Steve Kpordzih 2011

(f)GHC8,000 to one Suhyini of Radio Gold in 2011

(g)GHC2,000 Managing Editor of Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt in 2011

(h)GHC15,000 to NDC branch in Hohoe in 2011

(i)GHC42,000 to NDC to buy 30 motorbikes

(j)GHC100,000 to NDC Deputy General Secretary, Koku Anyidoho

(k)GHC30,000 to renovate NDC party office on 29 March 2011

(l)GHC13,000 NDC Deputy General Secretary, Koku Anyidoho 1 May 2011

(m)GHC30,000 8 February 2011 to NDC Greater Accra Regional Chairman, Ade Coker

But Mr Kwesi Pratt has told Pulse.com.gh that the allegations are silly and shows desperation on the part of the NPP.
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
People sometimes believe that localisation drives up costs, but thats not true. We have to understand the obstacles that contribute to the increase in costs. One of the obstacles in Nigeria, for example, is the erratic supply of electricity which affects local manufacturing. There are also issues in the region around taxation, fiscal regimes and import, export costs that add to the overall project costs, said Oseragbaje, who believes that addressing these structural issues will have a positive impact on overall project costs.

GEs philosophy is that localisation is worth investing in. This thinking has seen the complexity of supply chains reduced, costs of transporting parts decreased and the creation of jobs having a positive impact on local economies. GE recently built locomotives in South Africa and given that a high percentage of the leadership team was made up of business leaders from the SSA region, this proved that localisation was having a positive impact on the development of skills in Africa.

We have to start somewhere and if we dont, then 30 years from now, well still be having the same conversation. There will be marginal increases in cost as you try ramp up, but thereafter, you would have built up sufficient competency to compete on a global scale, said Oseragbaje.

GE manufactures its , which are used for shallow water and deep water oil drilling, in Aberdeen, Brazil, Luanda, Australia and in Onne, Nigeria. Onne is one of five places in the world where we are able to do this. It took us about two-and-a-half years to build this capability in Nigeria. We went ahead and made the investment, and the next step is that we get to a point where we can bring trees from other countries and refurbish them in-country for Nigeria, said Oseragbaje.

GE considers SSA to be one of the fastest growing regions, which has significant opportunities for the development of products and services across its energy sectors. From a resource perspective, Nigeria and Angola are considered to be two of the most interesting places on the continent due to their significant resource bases. The challenge is to create the right enabling environments that allows companies to get excited about investing in these countries. All industry players have to work together to come up with models that bring development costs down, but which also ensure that projects are still viable.

When asked about the future of the oil and gas industry, Oseragbaje said that GE was a digital industrial company that was constantly evolving.
Belo, a native of Gabaza Farm located in Mashonaland East of that country, allegedly went berserk after catching his wife in a steamy session with her secret lover and murdered her before killing himself.

After killing her, he was said to have buried the wife in a shallow grave and later confided in a close friend before hanging himself inside his house.

According to family sources, Bwanali had to Darwendale in Harare on October 29, 2016, to his in-laws' place and told his father-in-law, James Simani, that he had caught his wife with another man.

When he returned home, he allegedly killed his wife and buried her. When neighbours noticed the absence of the wife, he allegedly informed them that she had eloped with her boyfriend.
The Nation reports that woman identified simply as Mama Biola, was attacked barely two days after giving birth at her home in front of her children.

It was gathered that the hoodlums stormed the womans home at about 4am after they broke in through the window. The victim was said to have been in the apartment with her four children when the rapists came.

They reportedly locked her children in a room and then attacked the woman, mutilating her severely. Thinking the woman was dead, the attackers were said to have left and went to two other homes but were pursued by residents.

Neighbours were said to have discovered that Mama Biola was attacked and rushed her to the General Hospital in Ikorodu but the doctors there referred the unconscious woman to a private hospital where doctors battled for several hours to save her life.

A resident who spoke about the attack said people were deserting the area for fear of falling victims to the gang.
According to the Minister, other forms of meat including Kilishi (spicy dried cow meat) and Ngwo-Ngwo, (assorted meat pepper soup), also lead to the death of many Nigerians as they cause hypertension leading cardiovascular disease in Nigeria and can result in stroke if untreated.

Prof. Adewole, while delivering a keynote address during the First Annual Black Tie Gala event organized by the Tristate Heart Foundation (THF), to raise N500 million in support of cardiovascular care in Nigeria, remarked that one in every five Nigerians is hypertensive and at risk of premature death.

The Minister said:

Sadly, there is widespread low consumption of proteins, fruits and vegetables and increasing patronage of fast food outlets by the population.

There is also a large promotion of sweetened products such as carbonated drinks, pastries, candies and other refined sugars, while excessive intake of salt is promoted by food additives such as monosodium glutamate common in delicacies such as Suya, percent, Isi-percent, Ngwo-ngwo, among others.

Prof. Adewole added that current estimates show that death rate from stroke is 40-50 per cent within the first three months of diagnosis, while 39 per cent of those who survived stroke after three months die within a year, with 12 percent developing severe disability.

I can say without fear of contradiction that at least five out of 10 adults seated here tonight have elevated blood pressure and more than half of these are not aware of their situation.

This is frightening because the dire consequence of neglected hypertension is stroke without warning. Unless we take drastic and sustained actions, we will keep counting losses, he said.
In the European nation of Holland, racism exists in the form of a Christmas character known as Black Pete. The black companion of St. Nicholas or Sinterklaas (the Dutch Father Christmas) is in the midst of a racial row in the country.

According to Dutch folklore, Sinterklaas comes out every December 5 (the Dutch and Belgian Christmas) to reward good kids. His companion Black Pete is tasked with the job of kidnapping kids who have been naughty all year long.

During Christmas celebrations, thousands of men in Holland dress up as Sinterklaas and parade on the streets during the Christmas celebration. Here comes the problem, thousands of white men paint their faces black (known as black face) and play the role of Black Peter.

ALSO READ: Meet the first black Santa at the Mall of America

Blackface is a very sensitive issue in race relations. When white actors wanted to depict black people on stage they painted their faces black with big lips and big noses. This still goes in today in America though not as popular as decades before.

The culture of Black Pete is still very strong in Holland. There have been protests against the Christmas character and its racist implications. While some white Dutch people indeed see Black Pete as a racist figure, a lot of people claim that Black Pete isn't racist but cultural.

There have been death threats to people and politicians who have openly opposed Black Pete.
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that Tor-Agbidyes was rescued by men of the State Police Command on Tuesday, November 6, 2016, with no ransom paid by her family.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Moses Yamu, who confirmed the release of the Radio Benue Editor, whose husband is the FCMB Zonal manager in the state, reunited with her family after she was released in the early hours of Tuesday.
Oladejo, who works at a printing firm on Ashaka Road, Itamaya area, Foko, Ibadan, is facing a charge of stealing.

The Prosecutor, Cpl. Philip Amusan, told the court that the accused allegedly stole one Samsung cell phone screen touch, valued at N22, 000, and a Techno cell phone worth N15,000.

Amusan said the phones belonged to one Omoniyi Rotifa of No. 11, Lodge St. Oke-Ado, Ibadan, who employed the accused as casual worker at his printing office.

He said Oladejo who was employed on Sept. 22, allegedly stole the cell phones and other phones belonging to a staff of the company and escaped.

Since then Oladejo was not seen at the shop, but luck ran against him when the complainant saw him and took him to the police Station, Amusan added.

He said the offence contravened Section 390 (9) of the Criminal Code Cap 38, Vol. II Laws of Oyo State, 2000.

The accused pleaded not guilty.
Ogunsola was charged by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on one count of illegal drug deal.

The convict, who pleaded innocent when he was first arraigned on June 11, however, requested to change his plea at the resumed hearing of the case on Monday.

Following his request, Ogunsola was re-arraigned, and he pleaded guilty.

The prosecutor, Mr Jeremiah Aernan, consequently reviewed the facts of the case and tendered evidence which the court admitted.

He tendered a written statement of the accused, a bulk of the exhibit, a request for scientific aid form and a drug analysis form.

In her judgment, Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo found the accused guilty as charged, and accordingly convicted him.

The convict is hereby sentenced to a term of two years imprisonment, beginning from the date of his arrest, she held.

The judge also ordered that the drug should be destroyed by the NDLEA within 90 days if no appeal would be filed against the judgment.

At Ogunsolas arraignment, the prosecutor told the court that he committed the offence on June 11.

Aernan said that the convict was arrested at Shyllon Street in Ilupeju, Lagos, in possession of the banned substance.
Even a respected Economist such as Tunji Andrews couldn't keep his cool when talking about MMM.

Andrews blamed the harsh and anti-policy CBN policies that have forced Nigerians to take in a clear Ponzi scheme such as MMM.

He also said that Nigeria as a country hasn't learnt any lesson about the failed Ponzi schemes that rocked the country in 2007 and 2008. Tunji Andrews actually has a point or two in his brief video.

In a live poll by Pulse Nigeria on Thursday, December 1, 2016, Nigerians said that popular Ponzi scheme MMM has better interest for them than the Central Bank of Nigeria.

A total of 917 Nigerians voted for MMM while 147 Nigerians voted for the CBN.

ALSO READ: 5 reasons Nigerians love MMM

"MMM has healed the wound of Nigerian wise citizens caused by Nigerian corrupt government... MMM is the best testimony after good health" wrote Ikem Azubike on Pulse Nigeria's Facebook page.

Chidiebere Ukagha was of a different opinion. "I support CBN am afraid MMM killing the future of Nigeria. because of MMM nothing like creativity. MMM shows how the level of lazy folks we have in our country Nigeria."

By the result of the poll, it is evident that Nigerians have lost faith in this administration and are relying on Ponzi schemes such as MMM Nigeria and Ultimate Cycler to survive.
Every new year brings with it excitement, hopes and aspirations and Nigerians will also look forward to the year with great expectations.

But what are your expectations? What do you think Nigerians should look forward to in the coming year?

Let us look at the eight things Nigerians hope to see in the year 2017.

1. End of Recession

It is no longer news that Nigeria has slipped into a most horrendous recession that has caused serious hardship in the land. The cost of living has risen drastically, with many losing their jobs by the day.

Businesses have folded up with companies running out of the country because of the harsh economic situation.

The Naira has been on a free fall and there seems to be no hope in sight as the government seems at a loss on what to do, often coming up with draconian policies that seem to push the situation out of hand.

So, Nigerians are praying that the year 2017 brings the recession to an end and spare them the current suffering they are being made to go through.

2. Looting politicians getting jailed

Even with the generality of Nigerians going through tough times with no visible hope in sight, politicians who loot the countrys money are walking about free.

Some of them are hailed as saints once they cross-carpet to the ruling party while others are told to refund a fraction of what they stole and go home to sin no more.

All we see are the media prosecution with none of them getting jailed. So in the year 2017, Nigerians want to see these looting politicians getting jailed for stealing the country blind.

3. Fulfillment of promises made by the government

Before the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) came into power, its campaign was full of promises and a vow to give Nigerians the change they well deserve.

But since they came into power in 2015, all those promises have been broken with many of them out rightly denied.

They have gone back on so many of those campaign promises that Nigerians are even confused and are beginning to wonder if they did not make a mistake by voting for this government.

In the coming year 2017, Nigerians want to see the government of President Muhammadu Buhari living up to its campaign promises instead of shifting the goal posts all the time.

4. Stop blaming the past government

Even staunch supporters of the APC-led government are getting tired of the constant blame game this government embarks on instead of rolling its trousers and getting down to work.

In the past one and half years, all the government does have been to blame its failures on the past governments. All they do from the President to the Vice President, from the presidential spokesmen and ministers, have been to blame the regime of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan and by so doing, taking its eyes off the trail and not able to get anything done.

Nigerians want this government to forget the past and sit up for the real work ahead of them and stop the blame game in 2017.

5. APC should probe its members

Nigerians seem to agree unanimously that the APC has a way of shielding any of its member who has been accused of one corruption or the other.

The funniest thing is that any politician indicted in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), takes a jump to the APC and that would be the end of the case against him as he is now seen to have moved to the camp of the saints.

In 2017, Nigerians want the government to also probe the likes of Rotimi Amaechi, Orji Uzor Kalu, Atiku Abubakar, Joshua Dariye and other politicians who have any allegation hanging over their head within the fold of the APC.

6. Legislators who pass favourable laws

Nigeria seems to be cursed with the choice of its legislators as members of the National Assembly are always there for what they can get and not make laws that will be of benefit to the people who voted them in.

Any time our Senators and members of the House of Representatives are heard is when they are fighting for money and sharing expensive vehicles.

The budget padding scandal that plagued the House has been swept under the carpet while the false asset declaration case involving the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, seems to take a backstage as they only look after themselves instead of looking after Nigerians.

So, everyone is praying that the year 2017 brings with it legislators who will make favourable laws for them.

7. Steady power supply

Nigerians want a country, where there will be steady power supply in 2017. This is based on the premise that it will not only attract companies and investors, but this will also increase the productivity of Nigerians and businesses already established in the country.

After all, the current Minister of Power, Babatunde Fashola once said providing power to Nigerians is not rocket science, but over one year now, the wish to have steady power supply has remained a mirage.
Kambaza told newsmen in Birnin Kebbi on Monday that the amount would be spent on the rehabilitation of 13 hospitals and primary health-care centres as well as provision of drugs and recruitment of qualified personnel.

The commissioner said the state had not failed in the prompt settlement of counterpart funding to national and foreign health-care delivery partners.

He said a new maternity facility would be provided in Argungu in addition to the rehabilitation of the general hospital, stressing that the Sir Yahaya Memorial Hospital in the Kebbi metropolis would be expanded.

He said the amount would also be spent on the rehabilitation of general hospitals in the first phase of the project that included those in Bagudo, Kamba, Jega, Dirin Daji, Zuru, Koko, Yauri, Zauro and Kambaza.

He said other hospitals and health-care centres would be rehabilitated in the second phase of the project.

He said Saudi Arabia had assisted in the treatment of 5,000 eye patients, while 7,000 were operated upon.
Dr Nuradeen Abubakar, the state Programmme Officer of the NGO, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gusau.

Abubakar said that the programme, an initiative of the daughter of Zamfara State governor, Hajiya Zainab Abdulaziz, was mainly targeted at addressing the health challenges of vulnerable children such as the Almajiri.

We considered Almajiri islamic schools for this programme because the Almajirai have not been given much care by their parents, which makes them to be more vulnerable to various diseases.

We plan to register 50,000 vulnerable children including those that are not Almajirai across the state for the take-off of the programme in 2017.

We will collaborate with the management of Almajiri schools in the state in order for the programme to succeed, he said.

According to him, the programme is aimed at complementing the state governments efforts at improving healthcare and child development in the state.

He stated that the NGO is planning series of other programmes on education and empowerment aimed at improving the lives of the people especially at the grassroots.
Malam Junaidu Gwandu, the Director of Heath in the council, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Bunza town, that the council had received 80,000 doses of vaccines for exercise.

Gwandu said appropriate personnel have been assembled and trained for the exercise.

We will conduct house-to-house and school-to-school exercise to ensure that all the target persons are reached, he said.

Gwandu explained that the area had not recorded any case of polio outbreak in the last four years and that the council hopes to sustain the record.

He called on parents to make their children available for the immunization.

Gwandu stressed that his department would closely monitor the exercise to stem incidences of rejection by some parents.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ambode on Monday announced an increment in the benefits for police officers who die in active service in the state to N10 million.

The governor raised the benefits from N1 million for rank and file, and N2 million for senior officers, saying that his administration would stop at nothing to ensure the safety of all residents.

The Spokesman for the House, Tunde Braimoh, told NAN that the gesture would increase commitment of policemen and officers and consequently improve security in the state.

Braimoh, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Strategy and Security, said: It is another epoch-making trail blazer.

This gesture of the pragmatic Governor of Lagos, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, is unprecedented, unparalleled and unsurpassed in the history of public service in Nigeria.

When policemen are slain in their encounter with men of the underworld, we wear long faces and make emotive dirges without walking our talks.

The woes of the dependents left behind by such officers are exacerbated by economic drought and despondency.

No doubt, there is no sum of money that equals any life, but then, when things come to compensation, it is only meaningful if it is adequate, sufficient and has the desired effect, he said.

The legislator noted that the clamour for the insurance scheme had been on for long.

Braimoh (APC-Kosofe ll) urged the police to live up to the expectations of the government and people of the state.

It is hoped that officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force in Lagos will appreciate and reciprocate this non-cosmetic, considerate and compassionate approach to governance.

NAN reports that the governor made the announcement after he was presented with two awards recently won in South Africa by the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the AFBA support was expressed at a News conference in Sokoto on Tuesday after the Associations Executive Council Meeting.

Its President, Mr Hannibal Uwaifo, said that corruption and impunity were the bane of development in Africa.

He added that AFBA also supports any government that governs its people well and respects their needs.

 We also support any government that is Pan-African and we concern ourselves with the rights of women, children and vulnerable groups.

Uwaifo said the Association frowned at any acts that trampled on human rights.

He noted that the AFBA was not fighting any government and we are ready to contribute our quota to national development.

The president of the Association said AFBA was, however, against press gagging or any acts of aggression against journalists.

He stressed the need for the judiciary to diligently play its role as an arbiter, saying the rule of law was a direct prerequisite of any vibrant democracy.

There must be a functional judiciary that speedily and honestly dispenses justice if democracy must thrive, he added.

Uwaifo commended Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State for hosting the meeting and the hospitality of the people of the state.
The President said this in Dakar, Senegal, while speaking at a meeting with a group of Nigerians in the Diaspora, on the sidelines of the 3rd Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa.

In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu on Tuesday, Buhari, however, called on the Nigerian elite to stop insisting that things should be done the old way, which impoverished the nation.

President Buhari told the 11-man Nigerian delegation based in Senegal and Cote D Ivoire, that the last 16 years of poor handling of the nations resources and infrastructure had continued to impact negatively on the country.

This administration is pleased we won the election, we are pleased Nigerians are cooperating with us.

But the problems are so enormous that we need the cooperation of Nigerians, particularly the elite.

They (elite) should reflect on the condition of the country, and stop making expensive demands because things cannot be done the old way, he said.

On the welfare of Nigerians in the Diaspora, President Buhari assured them that the Federal Government would continue to promote good neighbourliness and improve the negative perception about Nigerians abroad.

Nigerians are known for their competitiveness and I am very passionate about Nigeria.

I will continue to preach good neighbourliness and work hard to improve the numerous human and material resources in the country, he added.

In his remarks, the President of the Nigerian community, Cote D Ivoire, Alhaji Adebayo Yahaya, commended the president for his bold and unflinching fight against corruption.

He said Nigerians are praying for your success, dont relent, do not lose hope, the Almighty God is behind you.
Buhari praised Jammeh, who has ruled for 22 years, for conceding defeat to election winner, Adama Barrow.

Soyinka criticized Buhariafter apparently assuming that the Nigerian president was congratulating Jammeh for winning the elections.

Please help me beg President Buhari, I dont say he shouldnt congratulate Trump because there is no way one can avoid Trump but you can avoid petty little dictators like Jammeh of Gambia who is the opposite of everything one would expect of the true African leader for his or he citizens. Please President Buhari, restrict yourself to those you absolutely have to congratulate, the Nobel laureate said.

In his apology to Buhari, Soyinka explained that he had reacted based on a miscommunication.

Just before setting off for my media chat at Freedom Park, I was handed a Sunday newspaper with a comment on the recently concluded Gambian Presidential elections. I totally misheard the comment and thought that ex-President Jammeh had again succeeded in manipulating the votes to remain on the continents sit-tight roll of dishonour, he said.

It turned out that I had obtained the wrong picture. The torturer and notorious administrator of hallucinogenic broths to citizens had been dethroned. I therefore take back my criticism of Nigerias message of congratulations.

Let the entire West African sub-region and indeed the entire continent rejoice in the overthrow of the monatrocity who had sworn to rule for a billion years, a throw-back autocrat with delusions of eternal power who casually tossed opposition in dungeons and threw the keys away.

Once again, my apologies for the miscommunication. I rejoice with the long-suffering citizens of Gambia, encourage the rehabilitation of that land strip, and recovery of its existence in full liberty, freed of fear, and restored to dignity as part of the sentient species," he added.

ALSO READ: Buhari congratulates Gambian President-elect
Ogungbemi, a Lokoja-based journalist and publisher, was arrested and detained by the DSS on Nov. 30 over alleged offensive publication in the Nov. 23  Dec. 15, 2016 edition of the Policy and Lawmakers magazine.

The NUJ, which filed the suit on behalf of the journalist, is seeking enforcement of his Fundamental Human Rights and N5 million damages for unlawful incarceration and infringement on his fundamental rights.

The NUJs counsel, J.U. Usman filed the Motion on Notice on Tuesday.

Usman sought four reliefs, including an order enforcing the journalists rights to personal liberty, freedom of movement and fair hearing being violated by the respondent since Nov. 30.

He also sought an order of the court to enforce the rights being infringed upon by the respondents continued detention of Ogungbemi at the DSS detention facility which is unreasonable, illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.

The NUJ also demanded N5 million only as compensation for his unlawful arrest and detention and asked for further order(s) the court might consider just and appropriate to make for the redress of the infringement of his rights.

The reliefs, according to the counsel, are based on three grounds including that the applicant had no criminal records and that his arrest and continued detention over the publication was unreasonable, illegal and unconstitutional.

He also held that there was a competent court of jurisdiction within 16-kilometer radius from the detention facility of the respondent wherein the applicant was detained but the respondent refused or neglected to charge him to court within the constitutional period.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the motion was supported by a seven-paragraph affidavit deposed to by one T.S. Luka Esq. of J.U. Usman and Co. law firm, Lokoja.

In the written address in support of the applicants Motion on Notice, the counsel raised two issues for determination.
Fayose said this while presenting the 2017 budget, which he tagged: Budget of Higher Height, to the state House of Assembly.

The Governor also revealed that the state could not achieve more than 89% of its budget projections because of the economic hardship in the country.

He said Our Social Security Scheme will receive additional boost with provision for widows and women empowerment."

Fayose said The performance of the budget is a reflection of the state of the Nigerian economy. It must be noted that Ekiti State is not immuned to the shocks and depression of the national socio-economic scene. It is no longer news that the economy of the nation is in trauma and this had impacted negatively on the finances of the state.

The budget items presented reveals that recurrent expenditure is N55.02 billion which is 59 percent of the budget, while Capital Expenditure is N38.42 billion or 41 percent of the estimates, Daily Post reports.

According to Premium Times, Fayose said The ongoing works on the Ado Ekiti Flyover bridge, Oja Oba Modern Market, Ikere Road Dualization, Construction of Governors Office and High Court Complex among others shall continue.

We shall also dualize more roads in some Local Government Headquarters. We hope to complete some ongoing rural electrification projects and start new ones in Ile Ona, Iwaji, Igeede, Ilokun and Aba Igbira Waste Plant among others. We intend to boost our capacity in Agriculture by supporting our farmers in Cocoa and Rice production.

The Speaker of the Ekiti state Assembly, in his response, commended the Governor for judiciously managing the states resources.
The resolution of the House followed a motion by Rep. Olufemi Fakeye (Osun-Osun), which was unanimously adopted by members through a voice vote.

Moving the motion, Fakeye expressed concern over the media reports, last week, on the demise of Oladepo while at the Kano orientation camp.

He noted that Oladepo, before her demise, was aged 26, a first class graduate in Aviation Transport Management of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho and a native of Osun.

Fakeye explained that Oladepo became, sick few days after she reported at the orientation camp on Nov.25, 2016 and reported her condition to the camp authorities.

The lawmaker further informed the house that, the late Oladepo was admitted at the camp clinic under the supervision of an NYSC doctor, supported by NYSC nurses.

Fakeye further expressed concern that the camp clinic might not have been adequately equipped adding that the late Oladepo was reportedly given placebo.

Placebo is a pill or substance given to patient like a drug but has no physical effect on the patient.

He explained that Oladepo was later injected with some substances which he said worsened her health condition.

Fakeye said that because Oladepos medical condition did not improve many hours after being admitted at the clinic, she was "belatedly evacuated" to another hospital where she reportedly died.

Contributing to the motion, the Leader of the House, Rep. Femi Gbajebiamila, described the death of Oladepo as one death too many, a development he said should not be overlooked.

He said that all involved in "the negligence of the act" should be made to appear before the Committees on Healthcare Services, Youths Development and Justice.

Gbajebiamila called on the management of NYSC to work with state governments for the provision of better health care services in all the NYSC camps in the country.

The House also resolved that health insurance should be provided for all youth corps members in the country.

The Speaker of the House, Mr Yakubu Dogara, therefore, referred the motion to the committees concerned for compliance and report back to the House within four weeks.
The move followed the second reading of a Bill for an Act to alter the 1999 Constitution to introduce the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation separate from the Minister of Justice.

Presenting the Bill, Rep Mohammed Monguno (APC-Borno), said that if passed, it would emphasise the independence of the AGFs office and ensure it was not subjected to political consideration.

Monguno said that separation of the AGFs office would allow for effective separation of power, adding that the two offices would be given the necessary environment to function optimally.

Monguno said, The Attorney-General of the Federation, being the Chief Law Officer is empowered in Section 150 and 195 respectively of the 1999 Constitution to enter nolle prosequi.

Nolle prosequi is an entry on the record of a legal action that denotes that the prosecutor or plaintiff will proceed no further in an action of suit either as a whole or as to some count or as to one or more of several defendants.

The lawmaker added that, The power can only be exercised if office is free from any political interference.

The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation is such an office that should be seen to be Independent and not be subjected to some political consideration,

His appointment should be seen to meet some standard in legal profession.

The fact that the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) performs some quasi judicial functions hence, the need for the office to be separated from the Minister of or Commissioner for Justice.

According to him, the AGF is the Chief Law Officer of the federation and advises the government whether at the federal or state levels on matters relating to law generally.

He said Whereas, the office of the Minister of or Commissioner for justice is political in nature, if read alongside other ministers or commissioners."

Monguno further advised that the office of the AGF should be based on merit and competence and the National Judicial Council be involved.

He said It should be shielded from the vicissitudes of political influence.
The directive was contained in a communique issued in Lokoja after an emergency congress meeting following failure of all entreaties to the state government and Department of the State Services (DSS) to secure the release of Ogungbemi.

The Communique said that Ogungbemi, a publisher, was arrested by agents of the (DSS) on Wednesday night over alleged offensive publication in the November 23  December 15, 2016 edition of the Policy and Lawmakers magazine.

In view of the gross abuse of office by the DSS, probably acting on the directive of some highly placed groups or individuals, journalists should indefinitely boycott the coverage of all government activities in the state, the union directed.

According to the communique, the union views the detention of the journalist who was arrested on November 30, at his residence in Lokoja as an affront on the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the 1948 United Nations Human Rights Charter.

The NUJ noted with dismay, the ordeal of the publisher as well as the psychological trauma being experienced by his family.

The state council of the NUJ, having exhausted all avenues to secure the release of Mr Friday Ogungbemi, calls on the DSS, Kogi State, to secure his release without further delay as his arrest amounts to abuse of his fundamental Human Rights.

The NUJ, the communique said, considered the action of the law enforcement agency as an attempt to thwart the efforts of the media in the state and as well, muzzle the press from performing its function as watchdog of the society.

It noted that aggrieved persons had options available to them to explore rather than resort to illegal arrests and unwarranted detention of journalists using state security apparatus.
Mr Jonathan Vatsa, Commissioner for Information, announced this shortly after conducting media practitioners round two state broadcasting outfits on Monday.

Vatsa said that so far, all facilities needed had been on ground ready for installation and for commencement of test transmission by early January 2017.

He explained that arrangements had been completed to send four engineers to Italy for training on how to effectively handle the new digital equipment.

By next week, our officials will be traveling to Italy for the training to meet up the digitisation deadline of June 2017, Vatsa said.

He also said that reporters would be re-trained to acquire more knowledge to meet the modern day practice of journalism.
The group made the comment via a statement released by its spokesman, Emma Powerful.

The statement reads:

The IPOB devices a means of Operation David dance which is recognized by the God Almighty in the Bible which was used by King David to dance against Goliath at the battle front because God Almighty does not sleep.

We are also aware that the world knows that the annual report from Amnesty International against the cold blooded killing of unarmed members of IPOB in Nigeria by the security agents are correct and even the soldiers know that the reports are correct.

We blame them for killing innocent civilians because we are not in the war era and it is now gathering momentum around the world, that is why they are running helter-skelter to cover the crime committed in a broad daylight.

There is no way you can deny something that happened in a broad daylight and every single individual saw how they killed people at random in the streets.

Amnesty International is a well-recognized NGO in the world today and cannot be pushed to deliver a fake or manufactured report against anybody, groups or governments around the world.

However, all those saboteurs manufacturing fake NGOs and groups called STAND UP NIGERIA, with Rev. Christie Amor as the coordinator of the group have now realized that the people around the globe know that they are not real.

Moreover, IPOB is a properly organised group which adopted non-violent approach towards the realization of Gods project and truth comes out from there and God Almighty is actually using the group to liberate his people here.

Above all, God Almighty, Chukwu Okike Abiama is on the side of Biafrans, that is why he appointed his servant Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to come and liberate his people from the shackles of bondage and other people in the world today.

ALSO READ: Soludo advises Buhari to release Nnamdi Kanu
According to Punch, the spokesman of the group, Emma Powerful said God will not allow its members to be killed by the military.

Powerful also said IPOB worldwide advises the people of Biafran and IPOB members to be sure they dont fall victim in the hands of the pharaohs soldiers called operation python dance in the south east.

The IPOB devises a means of operation David dance which is recognized by the God Almighty in the Bible.

It was the dance that gave David victory against Goliath at the battle front because God Almighty does not sleep.

We are also aware that the world knows that the annual report from Amnesty international against the cold blooded killing of unarmed members of IPOB in Nigeria by the security agents are correct and even the soldiers knows that the reports were correct.

He also said IPOB is committed to achieving its goals through non-violent means.
Ndume told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola that the Senate could not found any evidence of diversion against the NEMA officials.

No NEMA members of staff will be involved in diversion or stealing of any relief items meant for the IDPs, Ndume said.

He said that the allegation of diversion of relief materials meant for the IDPs in Borno and Yobe was raised by him, adding that the contractor involved was the suspect.

The senate leader said that the contractor had been invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for interrogation.

I personally raised the allegation of the said diversion of the relief materials meant for our people (IDPs) living in various camps across the North-East region.

What actually happened is that grains were ordered from strategic national grains reserves.

It was awarded to a contractor to transport, but along the line, some got missing. The contractor is now before the EFCC, he said.

Ndume, who visited some IDPs camps in Yola, said that strong commitment of the government was to shut the camps and return the IDPs back home.

He explained that all the IDPs camps visited were ready to be shut down as all people in various camps had shown enthusiasm to return to their homes.

Also, during the visit, Gov. Muhammadu Jibrillah of Adamawa, said he would join hands with the Borno and Yobe Governments to evacuate the remaining IDPs back home.

Jibrillah said, now that relative peace had returned to most areas, his government would support any move to evacuate the IDPs back home.
Recall that in September, attempts by oil giant, Chevron, to frustrate the Federal Governments effort in recovering stolen oil revenues from notable International Oil Companies, was scuttled by the court.

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos had on September 30, 2016 struck out the preliminary objection filed by Chevron Nigeria Limited seeking to have the suit by the Federal Government of Nigeria stopped.

According to the ruling: "In the suit, it was discovered that the crude oil declared in the United States of America to have been exported from Nigeria, were neither declared nor inspected by the relevant authorities in Nigeria's bureaucracy.

According to latest reports from the House of representatives, Nigeria lost close to N4trillion in non-declared oil lifting by international oil companies, between 2010 and 2014.

The preliminary objection dated March 24, 2016, which came on the heels of the lawsuits filed by the FGN against notable multinational oil corporations, sought an order of the Court striking out the suit filed by the FGN on the grounds that the FGN has failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action against the Defendant.

In opposition to the preliminary objection, the Federal Government through its Legal Team led by Professor Fabian Ajogwu (SAN) filed a counter affidavit; praying the court to discountenance the prayers of Brasoil and hold that there exists a right and a reasonable cause of action against the Defendant.
They are not Army of occupation as being labelled by some people, especially on the online media.

Nobody will be molested, Obiano told the people but warned criminal elements to steer clear of the state as the exercise would not be friendly to them.

He recalled that when he took over the mantle of leadership of the state, there was insecurity, making many indigenes to stay away from the state.

The governor, however, noted that the trend had been reversed with the task force he had set up to deal with the situation, adding that incidents of kidnapping and other forms of criminality had been checked in the state.

In a remark at the launch, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai, said the exercise was a training programme like others launched in other parts of the country.

Buratai stressed that the exercise was part of the Armys constitutional responsibility to aid civil authority in maintaining internal security.

ALSO READ:IPOB launches Operation David Dance to counter Army
Osinbajo also assured that all Nigerians would come out of the recession happy.

The Vice President made the comments during a town hall meeting in Kano State.

Im confident everyone of us would come out of this recession happy. Lets be patient, lets work hard, and we are lucky with the kind of President we have, he is an honest man, he said according to Vanguard.

This country needs honest leadership, we need somebody like Buhari who is not going to steal your money, he added.

ALSO READ:Buhari holds secret meeting with Saraki
Buhari made the disclosure in a letter written to the Assembly and read by Senate President, Bukola Saraki on Tuesday, December 6, during the Senate plenary session.

Saraki had earlier assured Nigerians that the new budget would be passed sooner than the 2016 budget.

We are ready. Once the document comes to us, we are ready, the Senate President said after a meeting with Buhari at the Presidential Villa on Thursday, December 1.

I think this time around, a lot of work has taken place behind the scene. There is a lot of more collaboration and you will see the result of that in the time frame it will take after the president will have presented it.

I am sure that very soon, that matter will be concluded. But I am very optimistic that this years budget will be passed much more sooner than what we saw in the past....I am sure within the next 10 days, it will be presented, he added.

Saraki also promised that the passing of the 2017 budget would not be as controversial as the process surrounding the 2016 budget.

ALSO READ: FEC approves 2017 Appropriation Bill
THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

TSA inflows cover governments borrowings, CBN tells Sanusi

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday debunked its former Governor and now Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusis II claim last week that the Federal Government, under the President Muhammadu Buharis administration had overdrawn on its account with the apex Bank to the tune of N4.7 trillion.

Billing controversy threatens electricity supply to South East

Electricity consumers in the Southeast are threatening a showdown with the only service provider, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), over alleged outrageous billings and mass disconnection of debtors.

Rivers government alleges plot to kill Wike as police withdraw CSO

Rivers State government has expressed fear that Governor Nyesom Wike might have been marked for assassination following the sudden removal of his chief security officer yesterday.

VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

Soyinka to hold private funeral on Trumps swearing-in day

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Monday, vowed to hold a private funeral on January 20, 2017, the day the United States President-elect, Donald Trump, will be sworn in, threatening to also move his foundation out of the country in protest against unwarranted commentaries generated by the Green card issue.

No quitting APC, Tinubu vows; Buhari deceived the North with Islam says Junaid

Former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has vowed not to defect from the All Progressives Congress, APC, saying he would not abandon a house he helped to build to form another mega party.

Sanusi lied; CBNs lending to FG is N1.467 trn  Presidency

New facts emerged yesterday that the CBN advanced the Federal Government the sum of N1.193 trillion as Ways and Means as at 2nd December 2016. A fact sheet of the accounts of the Federal Government with the CBN, obtained yesterday from Presidency sources disclosed that the Federal Government did not borrow above its limit from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

THE NATION NEWSPAPER

Fed Govts account balance in credit

The Federal Governments account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is in credit, contrary to Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi 11s claim to the contrary, it was learnt yesterday.

Green card: Soyinka slams critics

Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka yesterday came down hard on Nigerians who questioned the sincerity of his claim that he had dumped his United States green card.

$180m Halliburton scam: Ex-Heads of States indictment scared Jonathan

There are new insights on why the $180million Halliburton bribery probe is lingering without the trial of some highly-placed Nigerians.

THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER

FG presses fresh charges against Justice Ademola

The Federal Government has preferred fresh charges against Justice Adeniyi Ademola of a Federal High Court in Abuja and his wife, Olabowale, who is the Head of Service of Lagos State, before a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Maitama, Abuja.

I wont abandon APC, says Tinubu

The National leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has reiterated his commitment to the governing All Progressives Congress.

Adeosun, Emefiele back BoI scrapping, bank kicks
According to AFP, the state government also said the leader of the sect, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky should be tried for the group's alleged lawlessness for the past 30 years.

It said El-Zakzaky should also be held responsible, fully investigated and prosecuted for all the acts of lawlessness committed by the organisation.

According to Daily Post, the Director of MURIC, Ishaq Akintola, issued a statement saying The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) rejects this new label for an otherwise pacific organization. The new declaration is nothing short of calling a dog a bad name in other to hang it. Kaduna State government is being economical with the truth, killing a fly with a sledge hammer and engaging in executive tyranny.

This is a very dangerous dimension. Coming shortly after a competent court of law ordered the release of the IMN leader, Shaykh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky from detention, this stigmatization is just another attempt by the state government to jump the gun. The declaration is short in equity, long in injustice. But we must remember Martin Luthers warning that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Kaduna government is pregnant with ingredients of all the five evils which Chamberlain spoke about, viz, brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution. Why is it that the only thing men learn from history is that they learn nothing from history? Kaduna has not learnt anything from the Boko Haram phenomenon. Kaduna has chosen to prove both Hegel and Karl Marx right in their postulate that history always repeats itself.

MURIC is however constrained to remind all stakeholders of the divine warning contained in Quran 8:25 Fear a tumult which will affect those who caused it as well as the innocent ones. Was this not how Boko Haram started? Police brutality and extra-judicial killing of the groups leader caused its metamorphosis into a terror machine. But is it the police alone that are facing the consequences today?

MURIC calls on well-meaning Nigerians to speak out. It was the great Shaykh Uthman Bin Fudi (Uthman Dan Fodio) who said, In an unjust society, silence is a crime Let us speak up now before it is too late.

But members of the IMN also need to do some self-assessment. Something must be wrong with a system against which so many neighbours testify. Several people (including Muslims) confirm that they had had bitter encounters with members of the IMN. They complain about the groups open display of arrogance. All those people could not have been lying. Something must be wrong with a doctrine which embarrasses the rest of The Muslim Ummah and from which they dissociate themselves.

We commend the leadership of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) for its efforts in resolving the IMN debacle and the maturity it has manifested in handling the matter. Due to the sensitive nature of the issue, NSCIA has engaged in quiet diplomatic shuttling between governments and the IMN from the beginning. We urge the NSCIA to continue the dialogue.

In conclusion, we appeal to the Kaduna State government to de-label IMN and begin a process of reconciliation and reorientation for its members. That is the path of visionary leadership and responsible governance. It is the path of peace. On its own part, IMN must improve its relationship with other Islamic organizations.
Bello also explained the steps his administration would take to solve the states problems.

A number of investors have started Operations in Kogi State and we are expecting a good number of others to come and invest in our State to create jobs and prosperity, Bello said while addressing a group of investors in Lokoja.

We are the mineral capital of Nigeria and my administration will ensure the State taps into this stupendous advantage for progress and development. I wish to thank the international community for believing in Kogi State; for believing in our dreams and for their readiness to partner with us to take the State to new heights.

With the abundance of mineral resources in Kogi State, we shouldnt have had anything to do with poverty. Poverty of ideas is worse than poverty of resources. My administration will match ideas with our resources to make Kogi State better.

We have made salary payment a continuous process. Those who have been certified to be genuine workers will continue to receive their wages until we are able to defray all their arrears. Pensioners will also be receiving their pensions as my administration hope to defray all salary and pension arrears before the end of the year.

A good number of workers that have been cleared as well as pensioners have been paid. But we shall not rest until every genuine worker or pensioner is paid. The rot in the system is humongous. The report will shock our critics. But what is paramount to us now is for all genuine workers and pensioners to receive their pay and have food on their table.

The reports are being processed by some professionals. At the end of the day, we would have achieved our aim of stopping the flow of our resources into unintended pockets, Bello added.

ALSO READ: Exclusive pictures as Kogi Governor arrives Nigeria
George also said that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has failed to put smiles on the faces of Nigerians.

The PDP chieftain made the comments on Monday, December 5, during a meeting with the South-West zonal executive of the party in Lagos.

Nigerians have seen the two sides of the coin and they have an opportunity to decide, based on your performance, based on the trust that they have in you. God is a God of second chance, he said according to The Sun.

I have been advising my oga (boss), Mr. President, what does he want to be remembered for? I am talking now as a general, not as a politician. If anybody is telling him, all is well; all is not well. Whatever he will do to alleviate the despondency in the land, he must do.

If we [PDP] want to win, we must tell ourselves some home truths and go back to our drawing board. We must be just, we must be fair and we must be equitable.

We should learn from the mistakes of the past. The penchant that I am in charge, I can do and undo, it must end. So, let us learn that there must be justice, fairness and equity. It is a tripod: if we remove any of these three legs, we are going nowhere. If we dont do that, we are wasting our time.

So, all we need to do is gather ourselves together and let us give the best hands to manage us through this storm. We need experienced captains to take us to our destination. I wish them well.

I will just appeal to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff: enough is enough. The political rascality, judicial rascality must stop for posterity. All these unnecessary litigations.

There is an adage in Yoruba that when you see a bush rat dancing in the middle of the road, the drummers are in the bush. Let him take it easy, for the sake of the future generations of this country. Those who invited him, I hope they have learnt a lesson. It takes one terrible person to throw a stone into the well, one million professors wont be able to find that stone, he added.

ALSO READ:Why PDP will lose woefully in 2019
Akinyele told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the poll was credible, blaming PDPs defeat on divisions and rancour in the party.

NAN reports that Mr Nurudeen Akinwunmi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the poll, which resulted from the death of Mr Elijah Adewale, who represented the constituency in the House of Representatives.

Adewale died in Abuja on July 20.

According to Akinyele, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was neutral in the poll.

The electoral body, with what I saw, was neutral; I did not see any bias from it. INEC did its job well.

I think INEC has improved; the way and manner it conducted this election was good.

I analysed the results, polling unit by polling unit; APC candidate, as far as I am concerned, won and the INEC was neutral.

There is no reason I should not congratulate the winner. If I have Akinwunmis phone contact, I would have called him.

Our politics should be devoid of violence and should not be a do-or-die affair, if we want to ever achieve our dream of a better Nigeria, Akinyele said.

The candidate, who lauded INECs introduction of simultaneous accreditation and voting, said that the development made the process efficient.

He, however, said that he would have won the election if there was no rancour or division in his party.

Akinyele said: I did well; the only challenge was the strength of the party behind me. It was Akinyele against APC. The support of my party was not as it should have been.

Our house is divided and when a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand, and there is no way it can win an election.

On voter apathy at the election, the candidate said that he expected such but not to the magnitude experienced.

Only about 10,000 out of over 70,000 people who voted in 2015 general elections came out to vote, he said.

NAN reports that Akinwunmi of the APC polled 7,640 votes to defeat Akinyele of the PDP, who polled 1,771 votes.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) polled five votes, Action Alliance (AA) had 14 votes, and African Democratic Congress (ADC) 158 votes, while Alliance for Democracy (AD) had 101 votes.
Idimogu (PDP-Oshodi/Isolo) made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

He said that peaceful conduct of the elections was important to give the residents representation in government.

NAN reports that the rerun was sequel to court nullification of the elections of some senators, members of the House of Representatives and the state House of Assembly in the 2015 general elections in Rivers.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had organised a rerun on March 19 but the polls were cancelled in six local government areas over violence and irregularities.

The inconclusive elections, which were subsequently rescheduled for July 30, were postponed over tension before they were fixed for Dec. 10.

The lawmaker said: It is not good that people from the state hinder themselves from having representatives at the National Assembly as well as the state assembly.

I look forward to a peaceful election. Rivers people should give peace a chance. Election is not a do-or-die affair.

Let politicians and their followers consider the interest of the ordinary people.

The state has suffered much of non-representation. All stakeholders should give room for peace. Whatever it is, let there be peace.

Idimogu urged the residents and politicians to take cue from the Nov. 8, U.S. election.

The legislator commended the senate for mandating INEC to conduct the polls.

He urged the electoral body to conduct credible elections that Nigerians would be proud of.
Ganduje earlier told newsmen after a meeting with President Buhari that free and fair elections in Rivers state is not normal.

According to Vanguard, PDPs spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye described Gandujes comments as absurd.

Adeyeye also said the Kano Governors comment is an indictment on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He said Gandujes statement is a veiled threat that the coming election in Rivers State will be manipulated as usual by the APC using the INEC and the security apparatus of State. If free and fair Elections have been abnormal in the Region according to the Governor, it is due to the manipulation and the win-at-all-cost attitude of the APC.

This desperation of the APC to win at all cost was exposed by the recent decision of the Court of Appeal which upturned the Re-Run Election in Opobo/Nkoro State Constituency of Rivers State in favour of our Candidate, Mr. Diri Adonye; wherein the Appeal Court emphatically stated that the Election was massively rigged. Nigerians can now see who has been manipulating elections and causing the State of abnormality in the Region.

Alhaji Gandujes statement is also an indictment on INEC because the Governor is saying in effect that INEC has never conducted a free and fair election in the Region and INEC should respond immediately to defend its own integrity.

We are therefore calling on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to demonstrate its independence by ensuring that the forthcoming election in Rivers State is free, fair and credible. The Electoral umpire since the inception of this APC Administration has been wobbling from Inconclusive Elections to Advanced Rigging and we wish to urge INEC to graduate from this macabre dance to conducting free and fair elections in order to regain the confidence and trust of Nigerians and the international community as a neutral and an unbiased umpire that it is supposed to be.

We also call on Security Agencies in Nigeria to continue to maintain their Constitutional role and duty of protecting lives and properties in the Country and maintaining law and order during elections.

Finally, we call on all our members, teeming supporters and the electorates in Rivers State to come out en-mass on Saturday, the 10th of December 2016 to cast their votes in the remaining Re-Run Elections in favour of the Candidates of our Party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Rivers State is home of the PDP and we are sure of victory in all the Re-Run Elections.
The police officer, Aml Elsokary, said she found the accused shouting and disturbing her 16-year-old son, screaming "go back to your country".

According to Elsokary, Nelson made reference to the Islamic State and threatened to cut her by the throat.

The victim, who joined the police force after the 9/11 attacks in New York said she has gone about her duties without preferences for faith.

"I became a police officer to show the positive side of a New Yorker, a Muslim woman, that can do the job,"

"I help everybody, no matter what your religion, what's your faith, what you do in New York. I'm born and raised here."

The activities of Islamic terrorists all over the world have caused serious tensions and strained tolerance for Muslims.

ALSO READ: Adamant muslim woman agrees to lift her veil

This is as a result of ongoing violent attacks being perpetrated by Islamic extremist all over the world.
The city had earlier complained on the high cost of providing security for Trump, who has an apartment at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

De Blasio, who described the issue as truly unusual, revealed that he has sent letters President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders on the matter.

The mayor said he asked the government to provide funds needed to provide security to Trump till he is sworn in as President.

Speaking on the nature of the neighbourhood where the President elects residence is located, de Blasio said "This is a highly-trafficked, dense urban environment, and one that presents an unprecedented and unique target for potential terrorist activity.

No other president in modern history has had his primary residence located in such a densely-populated neighbourhood."

According to Reuters, he also revealed that the city will continue to request for funds for Trumps security, when he becomes President.

The mayor also added that he has discussed the issue with the President-elects nominee for treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin.

Reports say Trump has also hinted that he will come to New York often, and Melania Trump will remain in New York throughout the school year with their son.
The Athens appeals court said that the three -- out of eight officers seeking asylum in Greece -- should be sent back for "attempting to topple the regime" of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a judicial source said.

Earlier in the day, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the Greek authorities would abide with the court rulings on the case "irrespective of the political cost."

The ruling came a day after the same court rejected extradition for another three of the officers, deeming that Turkish authorities had not provided sufficient evidence, and that their personal safety was in jeopardy at home.

That decision outraged Ankara, which has arrested tens of thousands of people as part of a wide-ranging crackdown since the attempted putsch.

"Greece is in the NATO alliance with Turkey and is a ally. Our expectation is that the Greek government make every effort to return" those individuals to Turkey, Defence Minister Fikri Isik said Monday.

The court is expected to decide the fate of the remaining two officers on Thursday.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that the court prosecutor had lodged an appeal against Monday's ruling, arguing that the case should be heard by the Supreme Court.

The two Turkish commanders, four captains and two sergeants requested asylum in Greece after landing a military helicopter in the northern city of Alexandroupoli shortly after the attempted government takeover in mid-July.

The officers are currently also appealing against a Greek refusal to grant them asylum in September.

Ankara has asked Athens to extradite them all to face trial in Turkey for their alleged role in the failed coup, including an alleged attempt on Erdogan's life.

In Tuesday's ruling to extradite, the court said it had not received conclusive evidence linking the three officers to an attack on Erdogan.

The eight officers say they would not receive a fair trial in Turkey, where the authorities have detained thousands of people over the coup, including top generals.

The case is awkward for Greece, which depends on Turkey to stem the flow of tens of thousands of migrants to its shores.

Several Turkish nationals, including civil servants and businessmen, have sought refuge in Greece following the coup attempt.
The loss of the coastal city is the toughest blow yet to the group's ambitions to seize and control territory in Libya along the lines of its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq.

"The retaking of Sirte is certainly a negative blow to IS affiliates in Libya because they will no longer have a territorial stronghold in the country," said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at the International Crisis Group.

But the group is likely to maintain cells in other parts of the country, she said.

IS took advantage of the chaos following the fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 to gain a foothold on Libya's Mediterranean coast, just a few hundred kilometres from Italy.

As rival militias fought for control, it had free rein to implant itself in Kadhafi's home town, where it took control in 2015.

"Conquering Sirte and establishing a wilayat (a province in the 'caliphate') was a big propaganda coup which attracted fighters from all over North Africa and the Sahel," said Mattia Toaldo, a Libya expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

"Losing it could cause a momentary loss of traction, but a lot will depend on what happens in Syria and Iraq and whether the ungoverned spaces in Libya will remain such."

A new base

According to French and American sources, some 5,000-7,000 IS fighters are present across Libya.

It is impossible to say how many were killed during the seven-month battle for Sirte. Those who escaped may try to set up a new base elsewhere in Libya, said Gazzini.

She said IS militants may still have a presence around the capital Tripoli and in second city Benghazi in the east.

Fighters who escaped Sirte have likely moved south to Sebha, closer to Libya's borders with Algeria and Niger, she said.

The lawless south is an important base for arms and people smugglers across the Sahel region.

"Southern Libya offers ISIS some haven and logistical benefits but its remoteness is also a liability," said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, using another name for the group.

"For it to find a place to govern and rule it would need to find a locale suffering from marginalisation and some sort of tribal or social constituency," he said.

To operate, the group also needs money. IS fighters in Libya have had few financial resources compared to their colleagues in Iraq, who seized assets from local banks and sold oil and archeological treasures to fill the coffers of their "state".

"(IS in Libya) didn't manage to seize any considerable source of revenue," Toaldo said.

"What they found in the banks in Sirte was not comparable to what they found in (the Iraqi city of) Mosul, nor was there an equivalent weapons stockpile."

Foreign diplomats hope that the fall of Sirte will strengthen the Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been operating in the capital since the spring but has little clout across vast areas of the country.

Experts fear the jihadists may operate an underground network to carry out attacks against the GNA.
Millions watched in astonishment as the televised hearing showed the heads of the country's eight largest conglomerates being publicly harangued over donations their companies made to dubious foundations controlled by Choi Soo-Sil, a close friend of President Park Geun-Hye.

"Do you know anything?" one legislator chided Lee as he repeatedly claimed ignorance of who in Samsung authorised cash transfers to a foundation in Germany that funded the equestrian training of Choi's daughter.

"Do you think you're doing a good job as the head of a global company like Samsung by saying that you don't know?" the legislator demanded.

The vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics and de facto head of the entire Samsung Group looked deeply uncomfortable as he sought to bat away questions with what sounded like rehearsed expressions of remorse and contrition.

"I have so many weaknesses and Samsung has things to correct," Lee responded when asked if he agreed with the public perception that the conglomerates known as chaebols had knowingly connived with Choi.

'We need to change'

"This crisis made me realise that we need to change ourselves," Lee added, ignoring demands to answer the question and prompting one exasperated committee member to shout: "Stop giving ridiculous answers and excuses!"

Choi Soon-Sil is currently awaiting trial on charges of coercion and abuse of power. Park on Friday faces an impeachment vote in parliament which is almost certain to be adopted with the backing of more than 30 members of her own Saenuri Party.

Park is accused of colluding in Choi's efforts to strong-arm the companies represented at Tuesday's hearing into funding two foundations that Choi allegedly used as personal ATMs.

Samsung made the biggest contributions of 20 billion won (now $17 million), followed by Hyundai, SK, LG and Lotte whose chairman were also grilled at Tuesday's hearing.

Their giant family-run corporations, or "chaebols", have dominated the export-driven direction of Asia's fourth largest economy for decades.

They all denied providing funds in return for favours but suggested they regularly came under pressure from high-level political circles.

"It's difficult for corporations to turn down a request from the (presidential) Blue House," said Huh Chang-Soo, chair of the GS Group and head of the Federation of Korean Industries.

Lee told the hearing that Samsung received many requests for funding, but "never provided support or gave donations in return for something".

Pressure to donate

He also recalled Park pushing for donations during a meeting in July, but said there was no mention of specific foundations.

He denied any personal relationship with Choi Soon-Sil and, while acknowledging payments had been made that benefited her daughter, stressed that he had not been consulted.

"I will advise my aides to ensure something like this will never happen in the future," Lee said.

It was the first such hearing in nearly 30 years.

In 1988 -- a year after the restoration of presidential democracy -- the chaebol heads were questioned by lawmakers over donations they had made to a slush fund for former military strongman Chun Doo-Hwan.

The current scandal has triggered massive street protests and lifted the lid on simmering anger over widening income gaps and resentment at the gilded life and privileges of the political and business elite.

"It's extremely rare for these people to be exposed to the public eye in this way," Chung Sun-Sup, CEO of Chaebol.com, a website that tracks corporate assets and practices, told AFP.

"People hate them for their behaviour and envy them their wealth. For many, the sight of them being summoned to parliament for a grilling will be quite cathartic," Chung said.
"As a result of a shell directly hitting the reception area of the hospital, one Russian female military medic was killed," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

A photographer who supplies AFP with photos described seeing burned tents and charred boxes of medical supplies at the scene.

Konashenkov said the attack had "undoubtedly been carried out by 'opposition' fighters" and laid the blame at the door of Western nations -- including the US, Britain and France -- that have backed those fighting its ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

"We understand who gave the fighters the exact information and coordinates of the reception area of the Russian hospital as it was starting its work," Konashenkov added.

"Our servicemen's blood is on the hands of those who ordered this murder."

Syrian rebels are battling forces loyal to Assad after sweeping advances saw the government seize back large chunks of territory in eastern Aleppo.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that President Vladimir Putin had ordered that field hospitals be sent to war-ravaged Aleppo.

Russia has been flying air raids in Syria since September 2015, intervening at the request of Assad, Moscow's longtime ally.

Russia says it has halted air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo since October 18 following international condemnation over its ferocious bombardment of the city.
"Anxieties are building up in a lot of places and they're manifesting themselves in the politics day to day all over the world," said the top American diplomat.

Kerry was speaking in Berlin at the start of his European farewell tour, six weeks before he and the rest of President Barack Obama's administration hand over to the Trump team on January 20.

The populist billionaire has vowed to rip up key diplomatic achievements reached under Kerry -- from the Iran nuclear deal to a trans-Pacific trade pact -- and is now looking for a successor at the helm of the State Department.

Kerry did not mention Trump but alluded to the US election and pointed to other political upheavals: Brexit, Sunday's Italian referendum that cost Prime Minister Matteo Renzi his job, and the Austrian presidential vote where a far-right candidate came in a strong second.

"You see it in the anxieties of Italy voiced yesterday or the anxieties of Austria, where the election came out a different way but the anxieties were there," said Kerry.

"You see it in Brexit," he said on Britain's shock vote in June to leave the EU.

But Kerry added confidently, as he accepted the German Cross of Merit from his counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, that this was no time to "put your head in the sand" and added: "We are gonna to be ok."

For seven decades "our alliance has helped move this continent and our planet toward greater peace, security, and freedom", he said.

This had been true "regardless of partisan political affiliations" on either side, "and that cannot, and must never, change"

'A thousand miles away'

Kerry from Tuesday joins a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels which, a US diplomat said, aims to help "strengthen NATO's security .. and to strengthen NATO-EU cooperation".

Yet partners will also seek clarity after Trump has suggested Washington might think twice about coming to the rescue of a NATO ally under threat if it had not paid its dues to the alliance.

On Wednesday Kerry will travel to the northern German city of Hamburg for a foreign ministers' meeting of the 57-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Also there will be Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Kerry's counterpart amid tensions over the Ukraine conflict and the Syrian war, where Moscow backs the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Trump's team was searching for a candidate to replace Kerry, as the president-elect has been firing off diplomatic broadsides on Twitter, including one accusing China of military expansionism and currency manipulation.

Whoever becomes the nominee to succeed Kerry, said Trump's senior aide Kellyanne Conway, must be ready to "implement and adhere to the president-elect's America First foreign policy, if you will, his view of the world".

Kerry at the weekend said he was "working to stay a thousand miles away from the Trump transition and the process".

Asked whether the Trump team had sought State Department input so far as it has made contact with foreign leaders, Kerry said "we have not been contacted before any of these conversations".

In Europe, some fear the worst if Trump, as promised, steers the superpower toward an isolationist nationalism.

Germany's former foreign minister Joschka Fischer wrote Monday that "Europe is far too weak and divided to stand in for the US strategically, and, without US leadership, the West cannot survive".
Amb. Sung Kim thanked Duterte for a warm welcome as he presented his credentials, just five days after he arrived in Manila.

According to presidential spokesman, Ernesto Abella, they spoke for about an hour.

Over the weeks, months and years ahead, I look forward to working closely with the Philippines government and Filipino people.

Also to expand our relationship and to engage in many areas of mutual interest.

I am confident that our mutual respect combined with the close ties, shared history and values.

I will ensure stability in our relationship over the long term and the years and decades to come, Kim said after the meeting.

Since he took office in June, Duterte has criticised the U.S. in various statements and vowed to separate the Philippines from America by following foreign policy that does not mimic that of Washingtons.

He had wanted to scrap annual joint military exercises between Filipino and American troops, but later agreed to a reduced number of war games after defence officials noted the benefits of the activities.

Duterte has also vowed to review a 10-year enhanced defence agreement with the U.S. signed in 2014.
China made the call days after President-elect Donald Trump irked Beijing by speaking to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent.

China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island nation that Beijing regards as a renegade province, it reported.

Her call with Trump on Friday was the first by a U.S. president-elect or president with a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979.

Tsai is due to visit Guatemala, one of its small bands of diplomatic allies, on Jan. 11 to Jan.12, its Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales told newsmen.

He gave no details on what President Jimmy Morales and Tsai would discuss.

Meanwhile, Taiwans Liberty Times has reported on Monday that she was planning to transit in New York early January on her way to visit Central American allies Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Taiwan has not formally confirmed Tsais trip, but visits to its allies in the region are normally combined with transit stops in the U.S. and meetings with Taiwan-friendly officials.

Asked about the possibility of a Tsai stopover in the U.S., Chinas Foreign Ministry said the one China principle, which states Taiwan is part of China, was commonly recognised by the international community.

As for the issue you raise of a transit in the U.S. by the leader of the Taiwan region, her real aim is self-evident.

China hopes the U.S. does not allow her transit, and does not send any wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces, the ministry said in a statement.

Taiwan has been self governing since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after defeat by Mao Zedongs communists in Chinas civil war.

Taiwans Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were excessive speculation.

In Taipei, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Eleanor Wang reiterated that any presidential travel details would be issued at the appropriate time.

El Salvadors government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January, but gave no specific dates.

However, the government of Nicaragua had no immediate comment.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is set to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10, however, so Tsais trip to Guatemala would dovetail with that ceremony.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner will bring his pen to the Quad-Cities and Clinton, Illinois, on Wednesday to sign a bill that will keep open Exelon nuclear plants in both areas.

The Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce confirmed Monday that Rauner is planning a bill-signing ceremony at 9:30 a.m. at Riverdale High School in Port Byron. The event will include leadership and employees from Exelon Quad-Cities Station in nearby Cordova as well as chamber, business and community leaders.

The Clinton, Illinois, chamber announced Sunday on its Facebook page that Rauner plans to sign the bill at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Clinton High School.

The governor's office did not respond immediately Monday to a request for confirmation, and as of Monday afternoon, the bill hadn't been sent to his desk.

Energy giant Exelon said it would close the unprofitable Quad-City and Clinton nuclear plants if the General Assembly did not approve a new energy policy. The massive package, approved Thursday on the final day of the veto session, overhauls the state's energy policy and creates $235 million in annual ratepayer subsidies to the two plants.

The company says the subsidies are warranted because nuclear generation, like subsidized wind and solar power, doesn't produce climate-damaging carbon pollution.

Exelon had said that without the legislation it would take steps to shut down the Clinton plant in 2017 and the Cordova plant in 2018. Together, the plants employ about 1,500 people.

The plants also generate millions in property tax revenue for schools and local governments. Exelon is Rock Island County's single largest property taxpayer.

The House and Senate voted in a bipartisan fashion last week to approve the deal, which also includes increased investments in renewable power and energy efficiency.

After late involvement from Rauner's office, the final version of the bill included caps on rate increases for electricity customers of all sizes, from large industrial companies to individual families.

Still, the final deal was criticized by some business and consumer groups for its lack of clarity on how those protections will work.
The Mistletoe Secret

Richard Paul Evans

Simon & Schuster

$19.99

309 pages

Youve got big plans this holiday season.

If everything comes together, itll be the perfect Christmas with a little traveling, a package or two arriving on time, colorful wrap, big silky bows, and food. Lots of food. And in the new book The Mistletoe Secret by Richard Paul Evans, youre going to work those plans  or else.

Christmas was supposed to be happy and jolly and merry, and whatever.

It had been almost a year since Alex Bartletts wife, Jill, left him for another man  a man who couldnt spell, no less  and Alex was still smarting from it. He knew his job-travels were causing problems in his marriage, but he hadnt known Jill was cheating on him. She left him around the holidays and Merry stupid Christmas.

He was so lonely. If it werent for his work pals, Nate and Dale, Alex was pretty sure he wouldnt have survived. Then again, if it wasnt for his work pals, he wouldnt be filling out a very long online form in search of love that he wasnt sure he wanted.

But there, on his computer screen in the wee small hours of several mornings, was a blog from someone who understood loneliness. Alex was stunned at what the anonymous woman said, and how much her words resonated in his life. Suddenly, a relationship didnt sound so bad, if it could be with her. She gave few clues for her location, but he eventually figured out where she was, and booked a plane to Utah.

LBH. Those were the initials the blogger used to identify herself, which was really no identity at all. Even so, Alex found twenty possibilities in tiny Midway, Utah, where everybody knew everybody else. Was LBH an older woman or a teenager? Would Alex recognize her soul, or would he run up against a heart as cold as the snow that covered Midway?

Or, better question: after meeting a beautiful waitress at a local diner  a woman who seemed to be a perfect match for him, who was gorgeous and funny  did he even want to finish his quest?

As holiday romances go, Id have to say that The Mistletoe Secret is a notch above. I think its better because there really is a secret inside this book.

Really, author Richard Paul Evans could have taken readers in any one of several different directions, but the enjoyment would be the same. Evans Alex is your basic nice guy  one whos still a bit befuddled at his sudden singlehood, but whos willing to try something new to meet women. The characters that surround Alex, both at home in Florida and while searching in Utah, are also very likeable people; even the nasty ex is given the soft glove. Whats not to love?

Be aware that theres a surprising (for this series) but mostly-chaste love scene here, though it shouldnt stop you from sharing this book with Grandma or teen. If either of them needs something merry, The Mistletoe Secret is a book to plan for.
Central High School Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) will hold its fifth annual commemoration for members of the armed forces who were killed in action at 10 a.m. today in the school library, 1120 Main St., Davenport.

The event will honor Davenport men and women from all branches of the armed forces who were killed in action. A special focus will be on alumni of the former Davenport High School, which now is Davenport Central.

Davenport Community School District Superintendent and retired U.S. Army Col. Art Tate and Davenport Alderman Mike Matson, 7th Ward, will speak.

Families and friends of Central alumni killed in action are invited, along with U.S. veterans and the public.
DES MOINES  Teachers in Iowa schools that participate in the states teacher mentoring program report better resources for helping teachers, more effective leadership and more collaboration, according to a report issued Tuesday.

However, student achievement in schools that employ the program dipped slightly in the one year of data available for the study.

Commissioned by the state, the research report on Iowas Teacher Leadership and Compensation program was published by American Institutes for Research, a Washington, D.C.-based social science research organization.

This interim report shows were heading in the right direction, but at the same time, we have a lot of work ahead, Iowa education department director Ryan Wise said on a conference call with reporters.

The Teacher Leadership and Compensation program was included in sweeping education legislation passed in 2013. It was implemented over three years, including the current school year.

Under the program, top teachers enter compensated leadership positions in which they mentor younger, inexperienced or struggling teachers.

Compared to schools that do not employ the program, the report suggests teachers in schools that do employ the program think their school provides better resources and supports for teachers; have a greater familiarity with and higher opinion of teacher leadership roles; and report more collaboration among teachers. Teachers also said the program has had a positive impact on teaching instruction.

Overall, the teacher leadership system has been very beneficial to Nevada and the students of Iowa, said Kevin Erickson, a special education teacher in the Nevada Community School District, one of three educators who participated in the conference call.

The report also showed, however, that in the 2014-15 school year, the only in which the data was available for the study, students at schools that employed the teacher leadership program improved at a rate slightly slower than students at schools without the program, by roughly 1 to 2 points on Iowa assessments that span 200 points, according to the report.

The difference is small, but statistically significant, the report says.

Wise said one year of data is not sufficient to draw broad conclusions about the programs impact on student achievement, and he thinks student achievement will improve as the program grows.

Improvement in student achievement doesnt happen overnight, Wise said. We believe putting these foundations in place ... will ultimately lead to an improvement in achievement over time.

A common criticism of the teacher leadership program is that it takes the best teachers out of the classroom.

Wise and others on the conference call Tuesday said the program allows top teachers to spread their influence over more students than just a single classroom.

Its allowed us to use our strong leaders in education in new and better ways to reach even further than they were able prior to the development of this system, said Paul Gausman, superintendent for the Sioux City Community School District. Weve taken some of the strongest leaders we have in the instructional positions in our district and shared that knowledge and leadership across many classes and many content areas. ...

In Sioux City, as a result of this leadership system in place, I think were going to be, over the long term, better for that leadership.

Wise said the study cost $285,000 and was paid for by state funds designated specifically for program implementation. He said the state has contracted with American Institutes for Research for up to three years, and he hopes to commission more reports on the programs implementation and success.
CEDAR RAPIDS  Gov. Terry Branstad met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York City on Tuesday but had no announcement about a post in the new administration.

The meeting followed speculation that Branstad, who has had a longtime working friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and was a strong supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign, is the president-elects top choice to be ambassador to China. If nominated, Branstad would then face Senate confirmation.

Following the meeting, Branstad, who was accompanied by his wife, Chris, and staffers, briefly spoke to reporters, saying he is excited about the quality of people Trump is attracting to his administration, according to Radio Iowa. However, he deflected questions about the China post.

Although he and Trump had an opportunity to talk about a number of things, Branstad said he cant comment on that at this point in time.

His office released the following statement:

I appreciate the invitation that President-elect Trump extended to my wife and me today.  I truly appreciated the opportunity to meet. We had a very cordial conversation about the role Iowa played in his overall success by winning 93 of 99 counties and flipping 34 counties that previously went for President Obama.

Its clear that his jobs message resonated with Iowans and the rest of the country. Its refreshing to see his bold leadership that will put people to work, give power back to the states and 'Make America Great Again.

We also talked about the transition and his new administration. He is putting together a great cabinet that will serve the American people well.

While there has been speculation regarding an appointment to serve in this Administration, I have no announcement to make at this time.

Branstad met with the president-elect at Trump Tower while in New York City for a previously scheduled economic development trip. He plans to return to Iowa in time for Trumps Thursday afternoon victory tour rally in Des Moines.

The meeting with Trump was Branstads second with the new administration. He met recently with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in Washington, D.C., during a trip that also included visits with Iowas congressional delegation and top national Republicans.

He talked to Pence about a desire for fewer federal government regulations on business, and Branstad said he expected to deliver a similar message to Trump.

Branstad and Xi became acquainted in 1985 when Xi was a Hebei provincial official and director of the Shijiazhuang prefecture feed association. On a visit to Iowa as part of a sister state/province program, Xi stayed with a Muscatine family and met Branstad at his formal Statehouse office as part of a visiting delegation. Xi returned to Iowa as Chinese vice president in 2012 to renew his friendships with Branstad and other Iowans.
The Twin Bridges Motor Inn's days are numbered as the Bettendorf City Council is ready to accept a development agreement that calls for the construction of a $22 million apartment complex in its place.

Atop its council goals for this year, Bettendorf has sought the redevelopment of the site it considers blighted and in poor condition.

Bettendorf is now set to approve a development agreement with Twin Bridges Associates LP to purchase the existing site, demolish the existing structures and replace it with a 135-unit market rate apartment complex.

Developer Frank Levy intends to construct two five-story buildings connected by a vestibule.

The development agreement calls for construction to commence within 120 days of council approval.

As part of the incentive package, the agreement calls for a $750,000 forgiveable economic development loan, 100 percent tax increment financing rebate for 20 years and vacation of Gilbert Street from 15th to 16th streets.

Economic Development Director Jeff Reiter said the developer will certify revenues and expenditures each year and provide payments toward the economic loan should revenues exceed the guaranteed rates of return to investors.

With the complex set to be built in phases, Levy said the development agreement protects the city from offering the economic incentives should the project not be completed as envisioned.

"If we don't get that second phase built within approximately a year of next summer, all of our benefits go away," Levy said.

Both the Scott County Board of Supervisors and Bettendorf Community School District provided letters of support for the development and establishing a tax increment financing district.

"After reviewing the information provided, this School Board also concurs that redevelopment of this site will mitigate the previously mentioned blight, as well as reducing the demands placed on City and County health and public safety officials," school board president Gordon Stanley wrote. "This redevelopment will provide tremendous new opportunities for living in a downtown setting, while serving as a catalyst for future economic growth."
Give the man a box of fabric, and he will stitch together a stylish winter coat.

Hand him a book, however, and Donte Williams will struggle to sound out the first sentence.

At 36, the Chicago native, who now calls East Moline home, is illiterate. But thanks to assistance and encouragement from his employer and friends, hes tackling the issue head on that has hindered him for decades.

Tuesday marked Williams first session with a volunteer tutor at Black Hawk College.

I couldnt sleep I was so excited, Williams said by phone Tuesday morning. No sewing today. Ive got to do some reading.

And thats saying something, considering the Quad-City transplant, who moved here in 2013 from Burlington, said he used to sleep next to his sewing machine.

I love being creative, said Williams, who picked up his passion for art and design from his mother, a painter, and his grandfather, a tailor.

He works part time doing upholstery jobs for Rayz Barber College in Moline and fills the rest of his days sharpening his range of skills, pursuing commissioned art projects and babysitting his roommates toddler.

Im always trying to do something to get myself out there, he said, and being able to share my art with people is a wonderful thing.

Williams previously taught drop-in art classes for children at the Scott County Family Y in downtown Davenport, a part-time gig he landed shortly after arriving here.

Frank Klipsch IV said he hired Williams, one of his favorite employees, after seeing his drawings.

He helped create the culture I want here, said Klipsch, who praised Williams' creativity, energy and hands-on work with children. We cant have enough Donte's in the world.

But its taken years of hard work for Williams to reach this point of comfort and stability in his life.

In 1998, the then-18-year-old, who didnt know any better and got involved with the wrong crowd, suffered a gunshot wound that nearly paralyzed him. Running away from an altercation, a low-caliber bullet ricocheted off his belt and struck two inches away from his spinal cord.

After his stay in the hospital, Williams fled Chicago to live with his grandmother in Arkansas, where he finished high school and received his diploma.

I told my mother I needed to get out of this, he said. I feel that was one of the greatest moves I ever made.

He later returned to the Windy City to study at the Illinois Institute of Art but dropped out after a semester because of his lack of reading and writing skills.

Looking back, Williams doesnt blame his single mother, who worked full time and had five other children, for his struggles.

I got a diploma, but I dont feel like I earned it, Williams said. "I was passed on."

At Black Hawk College, he's scheduled for two two-hour lessons every week provided by the institution's cost-free adult literacy program. But Williams said he's determined to practice reading every day. He plans to record his sessions so he can review them at home on his own time.

In the future, Williams wants to move into his own place, reunite with his 14-year-old son who lives in Louisiana and eventually open his own school for children stuck in the same shoes he escaped.

I was there, so I can relate to them, he said. "It's part of my calling to reach out to them and show them when you put yourself around positive people, dreams come true."
BETTENDORF  Deborah Lynn Mingo, 58, of Bettendorf, died Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, at Clarissa C. Cook Hospice House, Bettendorf and went to be in the presence of her Savior, Jesus. She fought a six-year battle with cancer with courage, humor and grace.

Services will be 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 9, at Crossroads Independent Baptist Church, Davenport, where she was a member. Visitation is 4-7 p.m. Thursday at McGinnis-Chambers Funeral Home, Bettendorf and 10-11 a.m. Friday at the church. Private burial services will be at Pleasant Valley Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the family to benefit Deborahs sons education.

She was born to John and MaryEllen (Iliffe) Seddon on Nov. 7, 1958, in Camden, New Jersey. Debbie graduated from the Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf in New Jersey in 1978 and earned a THG degree in theology from Temple Deaf College, Peoria, Illinois, in 1985. She married Albert Mingo in 1986 in Mickleton, New Jersey and then moved to Davenport to be with her husband.

She was proud of being a housewife and a loving, devoted mother to her son. She loved to read the Bible and devotions and attending ladies' retreats through her church.

She is survived by her husband, Albert; son, Abraham, of Bettendorf; sister, Cyn Laughin, of Westville, New Jersey; one nephew; one niece; four grand-nieces; a great-grand-nephew; and several cousins.

She was preceded by her parents and her brother, John Seddon Jr.

The family would like to express their deepest thanks to the medical team, hospital staff and sign-language interpreters at University Hospitals, Iowa City and the staff of Clarissa C. Cook Hospice House. Without their expert care, tender hearts and sincere love, this journey would've been even more difficult for Debbie. Also, they would like to extend special thanks to their church, Crossroads Independent Baptist Church and their Morning Star Academy family for their help and support during this time.

Online condolences may be expressed to the family by visiting Debbies obituary at www.McGinnis-Chambers.com.
Jon Alexander Editorial Page Editor Editorial Page Editor, Quad-City Times Follow Jon Alexander Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Gov. Terry Branstad might assume one of the most critical posts in president-elect Donald Trump's administration. And, should Trump and Branstad both head that direction, it could reshape Iowa politics in the near term, especially for Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and those looking to challenge her claim to state Republican Party dominance.

Branstad is scheduled to meet Tuesday with Trump about a possible appointment as ambassador to China, Bloomberg reported Friday, calling him the "likely pick." Branstad has a long relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping built over years of trade. Trump even highlighted Branstad's relationships with Bejing during campaign stops. Maybe of even greater significance for a president-elect who values loyalty above all else, Branstad stayed true to Trump throughout the tumultuous general election cycle. In July, the Iowa delegation didn't walk out in protest, like other states that went for a different candidate in the primary. Branstad's son, Eric, even ran Trump's winning Iowa operation.

Accepting the job would be a "big family decision," Branstad told reporters Monday. Talk about an understatement.

Trump is already blowing holes in accepted diplomatic protocol. Bejing's hackles are already up following his call to Taiwan, a disputed territory few presidents even recognize. China was a regular target of Trump's throughout the campaign. China's increasingly bold expansion into the South China Sea is putting U.S. and Chinese warships into close proximity. And don't forget China's Asian neighbor, Russia.

Bejing and Moscow: Whoever assumes those jobs will have their hands full, especially under a president who rejects most forms of cordiality.

Make no mistake, Branstad wouldn't be accepting some cushy gig. He wouldn't be ambassador to Fiji. Iowa nice would only go so far.

Back at home, the move wouldn't rise to trade wars and tangling warships. But it would most certainly send tremors throughout the political landscape. Lt. Gov Reynolds would suddenly be an incumbent in 2018.

That would take some of the wind out of the sails of Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett. The former Iowa House speaker has been touring the state with his conservative think tank, Engage Iowa. Corbett might be talking pro-farm ways to fund water quality initiatives, but he's really signaling his desire to replace Branstad. State Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey's name is also circling among Republicans as a contender. Both men would likely stand a good chance against Lt. Gov. Reynolds, whose position as Branstad's protege is probably what she's known for statewide.

That all changes should Reynolds have a couple years in office to solidify her hold on party politics, especially with total GOP control of the Capitol.

But Reynolds' hold on the standard of Iowa's GOP would be contingent on a number of issues she'd almost certainly face while finishing Branstad's term. Iowa, and dozens of other states that expanded Medicaid, face the pending dismantling of Obamacare. Iowa's now-privatized Medicaid system isn't exactly going swimmingly. There's still no agreement on how to fund water quality measures and who should pay for it. The school funding problem isn't going anywhere.

After tomorrow, Iowa's venerable governor could face the decision of a lifetime, a critical position in a critical time for U.S.-China relations. And, as the dominoes fall, Reynolds could suddenly find herself atop Iowa's GOP ahead of schedule.

The real question is if she could stay there.
Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain, a statement so important to Iowans it adorns our state seal and flag. Many have forgotten what liberty means. Liberty is the freedom to live as we choose and raise our children in the customs and beliefs we hold dear.

The recent elections forced many citizens to reflect on their personal morals and political beliefs. For me, this election distilled to a couple no-compromise issues. Education being one.

The Iowa Legislature will be convening soon and education will again be a hot topic. Parents deserve access to education that best meets their childs needs, but often that choice is dictated by their neighborhood or income level. Education Savings Accounts (ESA) are an effective tool to give families freedom of choice and could transform education in our state.

ESAs are like flexible spending accounts; the state deposits a portion of a childs share of school funding into the account. Parents can then choose the best education for their child. Every child is different and what works for one may not work for another. Parents want and need the ability to secure the educational option that best fits their child.

Access to education is an undeniable right, but we must also allow parents the liberty to pursue the educational choice that is best for their child. Iowas future of education should be based on freedom of choice. I encourage the state legislators, and all Iowans to support the creation of ESAs.

Matthew A. Henning

Davenport
When Donald Trump first strides into the Oval Office as president, his perfect day is likely to be ruined by a file marked North Korea. Trumps first term in office may include either a messy confrontation with an unpredictable and highly combustible regime, or a rogue nation gaining the power to destroy large portions of Los Angeles with nuclear weapons. Or both.

Consider the viewpoint of North Koreas leader Kim Jong Un  which is not easy since the exercise, properly done, should include platform shoes, Dennis Rodman and a pleasure squad of teen virgins. Kim looks at South Korea and sees political chaos, as its president is overwhelmed by a corruption scandal. He looks at the United States and sees massive uncertainty, created by an untested leader who has promised to reconsider security arrangements with South Korea and Japan and may begin an attention-diverting trade war with China.

Americas new president will look at North Korea and see a sworn enemy from a bloody war that has never officially ended, sprinting toward the capability to mount nuclear weapons on long-range missiles. The regime is not in need of new technologies or facilities; it is adapting capabilities that it already possesses. Between 2009 and 2016, North Korea conducted 64 missile tests and nuclear detonations. By some estimates, it may have the ability to strike the West Coast in four years. Or less.

President Trump will also see a regime of vast, bottomless cruelty, running gulags that contain more than 100,000 people subjected to violent punishment, rape, hard labor, malnutrition and execution. These ongoing crimes against humanity can be watched via satellite.

The picture is bleak, but not completely bleak. South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in the midst of her crisis, has taken the unpopular but necessary step of strengthening military ties with Japan, including the pooling of intelligence. A landmark 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry report on North Korean human rights abuses has subjected the regime to increased scrutiny and criticism.

But the Obama administrations policy of strategic patience has been hard to distinguish from paralysis in the face of bad choices. If the incoming president is searching for options to jump-start American policy, he could do worse than a new report from the Human Freedom Initiative at the Bush Center. Light Through the Darkness was written by two Korea experts, Victor Cha and Robert Gallucci, who come from different party backgrounds.

The authors make a strong case that leadership in confronting the problem cant be subcontracted to China. They set out smart proposals such as targeting the North Korean regimes export of slave labor (which helps fund proliferation) and increasing information flows into the closed and isolated country. But Cha and Gallucci are most creative in the way they integrate a focus on security and a focus on human rights into a single approach. They argue that the threat of North Korea emerges from the nature of the regime itself and that human rights criticism can be a source of leverage.

What matters more than incremental policy choices, however, is where the American red line is really, truly placed  not the announced one, but the red line in the back of the presidents mind. Is it acceptable to have North Korean nuclear weapons targeted on American cities?

Plenty of experts will give a firm no. Accommodating the North Korean nuclear threat to America would send the message that anti-proliferation efforts are essentially dead. It would put immense destructive power in the hands of a psychopathic leader. It would invite and enable emulation. It might provide North Korea with a sense of impunity, encouraging catastrophic miscalculations.

But some experts would reluctantly argue that North Korea is deterrable. Kims government is essentially a crime family, not a death cult, and would respond to the disincentive of incineration. In a certain sense, North Korea is already being deterred, because its missiles can already reach Seoul and Tokyo.

Would the American people be ready for the effective resumption of the Korean War? Would South Korea be willing to risk the shelling of its capital to enforce an American nuclear red line?

Strategic realities and hard choices, not business-book negotiating skills, will determine the outcome of the Korea crisis. This is reality television  minus the television.
PIERRE | State Attorney General Marty Jackley says government entities aren't automatically blocked from releasing information about crimes to the public under a new victims' rights constitutional amendment.

Confusion has swirled since voters approved the amendment, commonly called "Marsy's Law," last month. It establishes rights for victims, including privacy, protection from harassment or abuse, and timely notice of trial, sentencing and post-judgment proceedings.

However, the amendment has caused some law enforcement agencies to stop providing details to news media such as the locations of crimes or the names of victimized businesses.

Attorney general opinions offer guidance on legal issues until the Legislature changes the law or a court rules on them.
STURGIS | The Sturgis City Council will consider in two weeks whether to allow adults to carry event cups containing alcoholic beverages on and immediately around Main Street during the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally.

Upon hearing about the proposal, many citizens called their council members, which prompted the council to table the matter and take it up at its Dec. 19 meeting.

Bryan Carter, co-owner and general manager of the Knuckle Saloon in Sturgis, said the city needs to take some bold steps to promote rally attendance, which dropped dramatically from about 739,000 in the 75th anniversary year in 2015 to about 448,000 this year.

"As business owners, we are looking for ways to make the rally bigger and better," Carter said. "We knew rally numbers would be down this year, but it was way worse than what any of us thought it could be. We need to look at how we are going to market the rally."

Downtown business owners weren't always in favor of having alcoholic beverages on Main Street.

"Now, with declining rally numbers, I think it would create more of a customer-friendly-type atmosphere similar to what Deadwood has," Carter said.

Although Deadwood does allow open containers for several big events throughout the year, including the annual Oktoberfest and Kool Deadwood Nites, the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce hasn't moved forward with a similar request for open containers during the Sturgis motorcycle rally.

"We've discussed the issue informally, but it hasn't grown legs," said Lee Harstad, director of the Deadwood chamber. "The concerns are that it is very crowded (during the rally) and it would be difficult to enforce."

Jerry Cole, Sturgis motorcycle rally director, said the city has worked for several years on developing ideas to keep people in the downtown area longer.

"The city is taking this up because there were several property owners who thought it (open containers) was a good idea," Cole said.

The open container area would be bordered by Sherman Street on the south and Lazelle Street on the north. It would span from Middle Street on the east to Fourth Street on the west. The area on the east would include the Sturgis Vets Club.

Interestingly, state law does not allow crossing a state highway (Lazelle Street/S.D. 34), with an open container.

City Manager Daniel Ainslie said those who bought an event cup could take it with them across the road, but it would have to be empty.

The move to allow open containers is part of the city's plan to make sure the rally continues to be a success not only for Sturgis but also for the Black Hills and state of South Dakota, Ainslie said.

He said Sturgis business owners and those in surrounding communities approached the city after this year's rally, concerned about how the city planned to market the event for years to come.

"We need to enhance our efforts to ensure that the crowds return," Ainslie said.

Ainslie said he and other city officials spoke with organizers of big events in Daytona, Fla., Laconia, N.H., and even in Las Vegas about how open container laws work there.

"Most rallies have open containers to enhance hospitality to visitors," he said.

The city of Sturgis does allow open container in specialty cups for its annual Mustang Rally on Labor Day weekend and Camaro Rally in June.

In Deadwood, the Chamber of Commerce is the "keeper of the cups," said Harstad. It distributes cups to businesses that want to participate and hangs up all signs associated with open containers. The Deadwood City Commission approves the open container resolution before community events, which outlines open container areas and hours when it will be allowed.

Having open containers during the rally is one part of a five-pronged approach to improving the rally, which would also include hiring a new advertising agency, developing marketing partnerships with the South Dakota Department of Tourism and area businesses and improving vendor relations.
Chestnuts may be roasting over an open fire as the mercury plummets this week, but here's a Christmas story to warm your heart. Since The Salvation Army's bells started ringing around the area, two of its donations have been a 1-ounce silver bar and a gold South African Krugerrand coin deposited in two of its red kettles.

The 1998 silver bar with a commemorative Christmas theme, valued at more than $16, was dropped into a kettle at Hobby Lobby on Wednesday. A day later, the quarter-ounce gold 1982 Krugerrand, valued at $350-400, was discovered in a kettle at the westside Safeway, Salvation Army officials said Monday.

This is giving at its best, said Maj. Nathan Johnson, Black Hills coordinator for The Salvation Army. Its from the heart, and it proves theres still gold in them thar hills.

Bell ringer Michael Bailey said he was working at the Hobby Lobby kettle last week when a man dropped the 1-ounce silver bar into his kettle.

He just walked by and dropped it in, Bailey said Monday. I didnt even get a chance to see his face.

Bailey said later in the week The Salvation Army tried to sell the silver bar at a local coin shop.

They offered $16.75 for it, so I came back and told them I would give them $20 to keep it as a souvenir, Bailey said after pulling the bar out of his pocket. I thought it would be a nice thing to do to help out the cause.

The generosity is appreciated by Salvation Army officials, who say donations dropped in its 24 Rapid City kettles and 11 other kettles scattered throughout the Black Hills have fallen short of expectations, probably because of last weeks snowstorms, which kept many people homebound.

Our fundraising goal this holiday season is $393,000, and to date were at about one-third of our goal, Johnson said. The snow days last week cost us $3,000 to $5,000 in the Northern Hills, and we understand people want to play it safe and stay inside.

But we hope as we near the holidays and people are out doing their last-minute shopping, that theyll come to our aid."

Coins and bills dropped into The Salvation Army kettles, as well as seasonal contributions made directly, support the nonprofit organizations charitable activities, which this year will include distribution of 2,200 boxes of food, purchase of hundreds of toys, assistance with utility payments, and vouchers for clothing and household items at Salvation Army thrift stores, Johnson noted.

Approximately 8,000 people across the Hills area will be served by The Salvation Army at Christmastime, he said. Everything we raise will stay right here and help meet the needs of the less fortunate in our communities.

Johnson said Salvation Army efforts had been bolstered by dozens of volunteers from local banks, churches, area Realtors, members of Rotary, Kiwanis and Optimist clubs, and the regions veterans.

There are just families of volunteers that all impact the mission and ministry of The Salvation Army, he said. Its absolutely amazing.

Gold coins and valuable medallions have been dropped into Black Hills kettles in the past. The week before Christmas 2013, a Krugerrand appeared in a Sturgis kettle, and a 1-ounce gold Robert Frost medal was deposited in a kettle outside a Rapid City store. Each gold coin had a $100 bill wrapped around it.

Johnson and Lt. Crystal Sherack, The Salvation Armys assistant pastor and coordinator of this years kettle drive, said they had seen a variety of items dropped into the buckets this year, including $50 worth of Canadian coins, washers, watch batteries, car wash tokens, a 2016 Liberty silver dollar, and $1 and $5 chips from Deadwood gaming halls.

But they said the silver bar and the gold coin illuminated the compassion of local residents intent on carrying on a tradition of caring for the needy.

To me the anonymity of it all makes it so special, because those who made these donations are not doing it for fanfare or attention, Sherack said. They are doing it out of the genuine kindness of their heart.

Those wishing to contribute to the 2016 Spirit of Christmas fundraiser may do so by mailing a check to: The Salvation Army, P.O. Box 3269, Rapid City, SD 57709-3269.
CANNON BALL, N.D. | Oil industry leaders hope president-elect Donald Trump will reverse the Armys decision not to issue a permit for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross under the Missouri River when he takes office next month. Trump isnt committing himself either way.

And although the Army's decision doesn't end the debate over the $3.8 billion pipeline, industry analysts and the chairman of the Native American tribe that has led the protests said Monday they don't expect any developments for months. Theyre urging protesters to go home, but many are vowing to stay put.

Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault lauded the Army's decision as taking "tremendous courage," and National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby said it showed "respect for tribal sovereignty."

The Standing Rock tribe believes the 1,200-mile pipeline to transport North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois threatens drinking water and cultural sites. Dallas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners has denied that and said the pipeline will be safe. The segment under Lake Oahe is the only remaining big chunk of construction.

"I am hopeful President-elect Trump will reject the Obama administration's shameful actions to deny this vital energy project," American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement late Sunday. The institute represents the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller said Monday that Trump supports construction of the pipeline, but he wouldn't say whether Trump would reverse the Army's decision.

"We will review the full situation when we're in the White House and make the appropriate determination at that time," Miller said.

Assistant Army Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy's announcement does not actually deny an easement for the project, but her release said additional review is needed. That means the pipeline company cannot file an appeal because the project was not formally rejected.

Energy Transfer Partners slammed the decision as politically motivated and alleged that President Barack Obama's administration was determined to delay the matter until he leaves office. The company is awaiting a decision from a federal judge it asked earlier to give it permission to drill under the lake.

Court cases remain pending on the issue, and any move by the new administration is sure to face a legal challenge from one side or the other.

Energy Transfer Partners had hoped to begin piping oil in the spring, but now the project is likely to be delayed until summer or fall at the earliest, said Christi Tezak, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based research firm.

Hundreds of people describing themselves as "water protectors" have been staying in the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, protest encampment along the intended pipeline route in southern North Dakota. Archambault, anticipating no changes for months, on Monday urged them to go home as dangerous wintry weather sets in.

"Their purpose has been served," he said. "I'm thankful for all the people who have come, all the people who have stood by us, but there's no need ... to put people's lives at risk."

As a storm was bringing snow, strong winds and bitter cold temperatures to the area Monday, some were ignoring Archambaults advice.

"I plan on staying until it's over," said Andy Shute, 30, of St. Louis.

Law enforcement officials in the protest area have withdrawn from the Backwater Bridge on N.D. Highway 1806 to try to reduce conflict.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said police pulled back from the bridge Sunday afternoon, complying with an agreement reached Friday between police and camp organizers. Officers will not be manning the bridge constantly but will continue to monitor it.

The only time we approach the bridge is if there are individuals on the bridge, trespassing or messing with the barricades," Kirchmeier said Monday.

The snow-covered bridge is reinforced with concrete Jersey barriers and razor wire, which will remain in place until the bridge is inspected for safety, he added.
LANTRY | Hundreds of wild horses belonging to an embattled nonprofit in north-central South Dakota will be put up for sale at a public auction Dec. 20 at Philip Livestock Auction, according to Dewey County officials.

An approximate time for the horse sale, which will follow the sale barn's regular weekly cattle sale, has not yet been determined.

The wild horses have been impounded since October at the ranch of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros near here. Dewey and Ziebach county authorities took over the care of the horses at the ranch after a state-employed veterinarian determined that a condition of neglect existed. One former society employee alleged horses were dying of starvation-related causes.

There were 810 horses on the small ranch when the impounding began, but authorities have said perhaps 200 horses have since departed through adoptions or private sales facilitated by the society.

The society and its president, Karen Sussman, were given various deadlines and extensions to pay back the impounding costs and to raise enough money or obtain feed for 18 months of operations. A county official said the society has paid $52,000 toward the estimated $100,000 cost of the impounding (and the counties have independently received $24,000 in grants and donations), but the society has produced no evidence of feed or funding sufficient for 18 months of operations. That's what triggered the decision to schedule the auction.

Howard Paley, an Arizona-based fundraiser working for the society, called the Journal on Sussman's behalf Monday. He has helped the organization raise more than $300,000 since September, he said, although much of that has been absorbed by outstanding hay bills.

Paley said authorities are insisting that the society have $480,000 in the bank for 18 months of operations to get at least 400 horses returned.

"That's unreasonable," Paley said. "It's unachievable."

Paley urged local authorities to reconsider their position or risk a public relations nightmare if the horses are sold to buyers for foreign slaughter plants. There are no horse-slaughter plants in the United States, but plants that process horses for human consumption do exist elsewhere.

Dewey County State's Attorney Steven Aberle said wild-horse advocates could work a last-minute deal with Sussman to adopt or buy the society's horses before the auction. But any deal would have to reimburse the counties, he added, and any further extensions of time would put too much financial burden on local taxpayers.

"What the ISPMB is asking for is local taxpayers in Dewey and Ziebach counties to financially bail out their organization for a management shortfall," Aberle said, "and I believe that imposing that type of financial hardship on the taxpayers and residents of Dewey and Ziebach counties would have more serious consequences."

If the horses are auctioned, the proceeds will first be applied to the impounding costs borne by the counties, which share a border straddled by the society's ranch. Any remaining proceeds after that may be distributed to the society.
UGLY: The large decline in farm income since 2011 that is plowing across South Dakota will certainly be on the mind of Gov. Dennis Daugaard when he makes his annual budget address to lawmakers today in the state capitol. According to the Bureau of Finance and Management, farm and ranch income has dropped from $3.8 billion in 2011 to an estimated $900 million in 2016. The 76 percent decline in agricultural income means that those in the industry are spending less, which is having a significant impact on sales tax collections statewide. According to previous reports, the state collected $20 million less in sales tax from July to October than was forecast. It is unlikely that prices for corn, soybeans and wheat are going to rebound anytime soon on the global markets, which means South Dakotans can expect some lean times ahead.

BAD: While many employers were likely making plans to hold Christmas parties or other celebrations for employees, the franchisee for Rapid City TGI Fridays was planning a surprise for its staff  and it was as cold as the northerly winds now whipping through the Black Hills. On Dec. 1, restaurant employees learned they no longer had a job when they reported to work; others were notified via a text message. The company later said it had talked to other restaurants that need workers so it should be a smooth transition for staff. No matter how you spin it, there is nothing smooth about losing your job with no warning and then have to go job hunting during the holiday season. Hopefully, they will find another job soon and still be able to enjoy their holidays.

GOOD: The holiday spirit of giving and helping others received a boost when silver and gold were recently deposited into Salvation Army red kettles. According to the faith-based organization, a one-ounce silver bar with a Christmas theme and a one-quarter ounce 1982 South African Krugerrand were found in red kettles in Rapid City. It is not the first time an anonymous donor has dropped a valuable coin into a red kettle in Rapid City, but these contributions are especially welcome this year. Due to harsh winter weather that recently closed some bell-ringer stations for two days in the Northern Hills donations are lagging this year while the need for help has not waned. The Christmas Campaign red-kettle goal is $210,000 and the overall goal is $393,000. To help out, you only need to drop your loose change into a kettle or send a check to: The Salvation Army, P.O. Box 3269, Rapid City, S.D., 57709-3269.
A powerful earthquake that struck the Hebgen Lake area near Yellowstone National Park in 1959 also left a powerful mark on a 7-year-old boy who was asleep in his Idaho Falls home.

Historian and author Larry E. Morris said he didnt wake up. My mom certainly did. I think a jar fell and broke, he said.

The 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed 28 people, including an Idaho Falls family of five who was believed to have been entombed by a massive, quake-triggered landslide that buried a campground and plugged the Madison River about 9 miles downstream from the Hebgen Lake Dam.

The slide took less than a minute and brought down more than 80 million tons of rock into the river, forming what became Earthquake Lake. At the time, the earthquake was the second strongest in the lower 48 states in the 20th century, said the Forest Service, which operates the Earthquake Lake Visitor Center.

It made quite an impression on me from the start, Morris said.

Morris, who lives in Salt Lake City, is the author of a book titled The 1959 Yellowstone Earthquake, released in July by Arcadia Publishing and The History Press.

The book tells the story of the earthquake with a focus on the victims and survivors and those who responded to the emergency.

The book also features a forward by Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone National Park historian.

Morris said his parents took him and his siblings to the memorial site on top of the landslide in the early 1960s, before the visitors center was built, heard a Forest Service ranger talk about the earthquake and toured the area.

All those dead trees and Earthquake Lake. And one cabin tilted squeewampus. But that plaque with the names on it and how the folks were buried there made a powerful impression on me, Morris said.

Morris has been captivated by the story ever since and has taken his own family to the site.

It was a natural subject for a book. I find the story so compelling, Morris said.

***

Morris initially began research for a book in 1990 but got sidetracked by other projects and put the earthquake story aside. But, he said, he always knew hed return to it. A few years ago, Morris resumed his research and finished his book.

I was really thinking of the human interest, both survivors and first responders. Its just one incredible story after another. Its amazing, he said.

One of the first responders was Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Glen Stevens, who was dispatched from his Whitehall home to warn residents in the Madison River Valley of flooding should the Hebgen Dam fail. In the hours after the 11:37 p.m. earthquake, there were conflicting reports about whether the dam had held or failed.

I had a nice phone interview with him. He seemed to remember it quite well, Morris said. Stevens, now deceased, a deputy sheriff and two others drove up the valley, working their way toward the dam.

They were one of the first people to reach Cliff Lake, where a boulder dislodged and killed Edgar H. Stryker and his wife, Ethel M. Stryker, who were camping with Edgars three young sons, Morris said. The boys, who were in a separate tent nearby, were unhurt.

After helping at Cliff Lake, Stevens and his companions drove on toward the Madison River where they encountered the massive landslide. There they helped Irene Bennett and her son, Phil Bennett, who had camped with their family on the downstream side of the slide. Irenes husband, Purley, and their three other children, died in the quake.

Morris also interviewed Carole Painter, who was 16 at the time and the daughter of Myrtle L. Painter, who later died of injuries in a Bozeman hospital.

And Morris interviewed Billings resident Mildred Tootie Greene, a nurse who was camped with her family upstream of the slide. The Greene family survived uninjured, and Greene spent the night and next day aiding others, including Myrtle Painter.

Morris said he spent an afternoon about a year ago with Greene at her Billings home. She was fantastic and sharp as a tack. Shes one of the great heroes. She really stayed cool. I think she probably saved some lives, Morris said.

She had a healthy attitude toward the tragedy, Morris said. Greene has been extremely cooperative with anyone who ever asked about the experience, he said.

Another nurse, Frances Donegan of Ohio, was camped with her husband, Fred, and their children near the dam, Morris said. His book recounts how Donegan rushed to help others who had gathered at what became known as Refuge Point.

Fred Donegan also helped rescue Grover and Lillian Mault, an elderly couple who had clung to a tree for hours as water rose around them.

They deserve a lot of credit, Morris said. The Donegans went back to Ohio and didnt make a lot of noise themselves. They really did a great job and deserve to be remembered, he said.

***

Morris book features more than 100 photographs from national government archives, from survivors who contributed family photos and Morris own photographs. The front and back cover photographs, he said, came from the Gallatin History Museum in Bozeman.

Morris started his research at the museum. They were really great in helping me, he said.

Morris also credits Joanne Girvin, a Forest Service employee at the Earthquake Lake Visitor Center, with keeping the story alive.

The Forest Service opened the center on top of the slide in 1967. More than 50,000 visitors stop annually at the site, the agency said.

Morris dedicated the book to the memory of Ernest Bruffey, the 29th victim of the earthquake. Morris said Bruffey, a Havre resident, had told others of his plan to hike Granite Peak in the Beartooth Mountains between Aug. 16 and 19. Bruffey was never heard from again.

Strong shocks were recorded in the area after the initial quake and there were slides on Granite Peak, Morris said. Searchers never found Bruffeys body and his name was never included on official victim lists, he said. But evidence suggests Bruffey was a victim of the earthquake and deserves to be remembered, he said.

Morris will be coming to Montana for several book signings. He will speak at the Montana Book Festival in Missoula, from Sept. 20 to 25, and will speak at a meeting of the Montana Historical Society in Helena on Sept. 29.

His interest in Montana extends beyond the 1959 earthquake. He authored, The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers after the Expedition, and co-authored, The Mystery of John Colter: The Man Who Discovered Yellowstone.

Morris is an independent writer and historian and has a masters degree in American literature and a bachelors degree in philosophy, both from Brigham Young University.
Comments and links to reports on science, and its applications.
KATHMANDU, Dec 6: The Ministry of Energy (moE) has issued a public notice, seeking clarifications from three members on the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Board of Directors over their performance in office.

NEA Board members Manoj Kumar Mishra, Laxman Prasad Agrawal and Suraj Lamichhane, have, through the public notice, been asked to receive letters dispatched by the Ministry towards that end and submit clarifications within a week.

The Ministry decided to seek clarifications from them as it realized that their performance is against the office code of conducts. It took to the public notice as Mishra, Agrawal and Lamichhane refused to accept the letters send to them by the Ministry Friday.

Thorough the public notice, the Ministry forewarned of action as per the existing law if the trio do not receive the letters and respond within the deadline.

The trio have been accused of summoning the Board meetings unilaterally and forcing the NEA administration to implement decisions of such meetings. Besides, they have been charged with creating hurdles in the implementation of the load-shedding free campaign. RSS
Nepal: Nepali Congress General Secretary Shashanka Koirala

Kathmandu, Nepal: Nepali Congress General Secretary Shashanka Koirala has said that the Constitution amendment bill registered at the Parliament was against the sentiments of the people.

Nepali Congress General Secretary Koiralas statement has come in the mean time when demonstration against the amendment bill has hit hard the normal life of the people in all the districts of province number 5.

The government had registered the constitution amendment bill seeking to separate the hilly districts of Palpa, Arghakhanchi, Gulmi, Rolpa and Pyuthan from the Province No. 5 and to add them to Province No. 4.

Talking to media persons in Bharatpur on Tuesday, Nepali Congress General Secretary Koirala said that the amendment bill would not be endorsed from the parliament.
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 "No Bars: Unlocking the Economic Power of the Formerly Incarcerated" | Main | "The Link Between Race and Solitary Confinement: Men of color are overrepresented in isolation, while whites are typically underrepresented." 

December 5, 2016

Is Georgia really "rushing" to execute a defendant convicted of murder in 1990?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this new New York Times commentary authored by Norman Fletcher, who "served on the Supreme Court of Georgia for over 15 years and was its chief justice from 2001 to 2005." The NY Times gave this commentary the headline "Georgias Dangerous Rush to Execution," but the first sentence of the commentary states: "Tomorrow, the State of Georgia intends to execute William Sallie, who was convicted of killing a man in 1990." Though there could be many problems with Georgia's capital system, conducting an execution 26 years after a capital conviction does not seem to me like a "rush job." That lingo aside, here is what former Justice Fletcher goes on to explain in his commentary:

I served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia for over 15 years. During that time I participated in dozens of death-penalty cases and affirmed many of them. That experience, though, exposed me to some of the significant flaws in the system  not just the injustice of the death penalty itself, but specific problems with the way capital cases are handled. Mr. Sallies case is a prime example. Perhaps the biggest problem with Georgias system, and one of the reasons the state carries out so many executions, is that it often fails to provide people with lawyers. Mr. Sallie, for example, missed a filing deadline for a federal review of his case by eight days, in part because he didnt have a lawyer at the time to help him. And this isnt just a delay tactic; he has several strong claims about constitutional failings during his trial that, if proved, could require the reversal of his conviction. As things stand, he will be executed without review. Fundamental fairness, due process and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment require the courts to provide an attorney throughout the entire legal process to review a death sentence. Virtually every capital-punishment state has this safeguard. Georgia is an outlier. I saw this firsthand as the presiding justice on the State Supreme Court in 1999, in an appeal of a post-conviction hearing for a man named Exzavious Gibson, who was 17 at the time of his crime. It was a critical proceeding, where a lawyer should have raised important details about whether he received adequate representation during his trial  except that, ironically, no volunteer attorney was available. Mr. Gibson, who was poor and apparently, from the records, intellectually disabled and afflicted by acute mental health problems, was forced to represent himself. That sham of a proceeding is one of the most deplorable vignettes in Georgias legal history. But a majority of my fellow justices were less moved, and the court decided, 4-3, that people with death-penalty convictions have no right to counsel at that critical post-conviction stage  a ruling still in force today. As a result, a door that would have been open to Mr. Sallie in almost any other state was closed to him in Georgia. If it were open, he would be able to present the facts about his trial, which appear to show serious problems with juror bias. Mr. Sallies lawyers amassed volumes of public records and witness statements showing that one of the jurors, despite having a known bias, apparently misled the trial judge and the parties in order to join the jury. (She omitted vital, likely disqualifying information, including striking similarities between her traumatic history of divorce and interstate child custody fights and the domestic strife at the center of Mr. Sallies case.) In 2012, after his conviction, she bragged to an investigator that she had persuaded the jury, which was evenly divided between life and death, to vote unanimously for death. The problem is not just Georgia. The United States Supreme Court has not ruled that the Constitution guarantees a right to an attorney during the critical post-conviction review stage in state courts. Georgia continues to deny counsel  and denies a man like William Sallie the opportunity to defend his life.

December 5, 2016 at 06:41 PM | Permalink

Comments

I would not focus on the headline, which the writer of the piece (an insider who knows of what he speaks) very well (often the case) had no role in choosing. Yes, lingo aside.

Posted by: Joe | Dec 5, 2016 9:00:30 PM

Doug,

Did you miss the missed AEDPA deadline (8 days out of time) that the state is hiding behind to prevent review the claim of pretty extreme juror bias?

https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/night-lights-went-out-georgia

I guess we agree that the Times editorial choice to focus on the "rush" was a poor one, but, as Joe suggests, why continue the emphasis?

Posted by: John | Dec 5, 2016 11:14:05 PM

I think there is a cycle at work here:

miscarriages of justice => more protections for defendants => things take longer => people look for work-arounds for the protections => miscarriages of justice . . .

Posted by: William Jockusch | Dec 6, 2016 3:33:52 AM

I prosecution waiver of the statute of limitations defense would have taken the wind out of the sails of this one. Why hide the pro se petitioner being eight days out of time?

Posted by: John | Dec 6, 2016 4:24:00 AM

John et al,

1. I agree 100% that the real "problem" in this case is not a rush but a slavish concern for AEDPA limits on federal review. That said, the criticism in this case ought to be focused on (a) the failure of Congress to create formal equitable exceptions to AEDPA limits, and/or (b) the failure of GA officials to be willing to waive strict AEDPA limits, and/or (c) the failure of pro bono lawyers to help preserve his claims under AEDPA limits, and/or (d) the failure of GA courts to consider the defendant's juror bias claim on the merits.

2. Upon reading the Brennan Center analysis, I must admit to not being all that deeply troubled by the juror bias claims. Here is how the bias claim is explained by Andrew Cohen: "Heres how Sallies lawyers frame their case: You have a man scheduled to be executed next week who was represented by an arguably incompetent attorney, then judged by a dishonest juror who believed that Biblical law trumped the Constitution, and then sentenced by a judge who forgot or ignored the fact that the juror against whom bias was alleged had been a frequent presence in his own courtroom in cases eerily similar to the Sallie case."

As stated, I will readily state that Sallie's death sentence resulted from an imperfect/impure process. But the Constitution does not demand perfection, and Sallie intriguingly had a prior death sentence for his crime reversed based on a (weak?) conflict-of-interest claim. In other words, both times Sallie's case has gone to a jury, the jury has returned with a death sentence. And that is not all that surprising given the aggravated nature of his crime(s): "In a violent rampage against his ex-wife and her family on March 31, 1990, Mr. Sallie shot to death John Lee Moore and wounded Mr. Moore's wife. He then kidnapped his ex-wife and her sister and took them to Liberty County where he repeatedly raped both women."

3. I say all this not to defend what Georgia is doing, but rather to highlight that only a hard-core capital punishment abolitionist is likely to find this case to be a marker of some great rule-of-law tragedy. For those of us agnostic about the use of the death penalty as a state response to the worst-of-the-worst murders, there are many defendants who committed crime much less awful that Sallie who have gotten a legal/sentencing process that was much less friendly.

Posted by: Doug B. | Dec 6, 2016 8:35:10 AM

gimme a break---AEDPA is there so that you don't have judges acting like the Ninth Circuit . . . . so you have to live with what you think are problematic decisions ....

We've wasted enough time on this criminal---give him the big jab. Does anyone yap about Troy Davis anymore?

Posted by: federalist | Dec 6, 2016 9:18:47 AM

Doug,

Respectfully, I think the courts would disagree about the merits of the juror bias claim. However, we won't find out b/c the state is hiding behind eight days that a pro se inmate missed. The litigation on behalf of Mr. Sallie is all about 1(b), (c), & (d).

Federalist,

No one is talking about Mr. Davis because he is dead, not because any concerns about his case have been addressed. To repeat a note above, if the state had waived the SOL defense and obtained a favorable ruling on the merits, this would likely be over. So query who and what is creating the waste of time.

Posted by: John | Dec 6, 2016 11:05:03 AM

Re: Davis. My point exactly---get it done, and the issue goes away. As for this: "if the state had waived the SOL defense and obtained a favorable ruling on the merits"

Why would it? So that courts don't have to act lawlessly?

Posted by: federalist | Dec 6, 2016 12:22:49 PM

"the Constitution does not demand perfection"

Doesn't sound like the op-ed is demanding "perfection."

So, the debate is how "impure" it has to be.

Posted by: Joe | Dec 6, 2016 6:57:50 PM

More contentious idiocy from Joe.

Posted by: federalist | Dec 7, 2016 8:04:55 AM

Call me crazy, but I think "the representative . . . of a sovereign . . . whose interest . . . in a criminal case is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done." Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935)

Maybe waiving an available procedural defense could serve . . .

wait for it . . .

justice.

Posted by: John | Dec 7, 2016 6:57:08 PM

Actually, it was more than eight days late. Sallie filed his state collateral review petition eight days after the time for filing his federal petition. He did not file his federal petition until over six years later, three weeks after the end of his state court case. His basis for equitable tolling is that the Georgia group that manages finding attorneys for capital collateral review was unable to find an attorney to formally enter in his case (until after the filing of the petition) but did provide assistance in the preparation of the state petition. In short, Georgia probably should do something (post-Martinez) to clean up its state collateral review system (and it would be good practice to require the initial filing to take place before the deadline for filing for federal habeas) but this is not a case where the federal filing was just a little bit late.

Posted by: tmm | Dec 8, 2016 1:00:14 PM

Post a comment
 Bring it, Jeff: why I seriously doubt future AG Sessions will start a foolish new weed war federal offensive | Main | Is Georgia really "rushing" to execute a defendant convicted of murder in 1990? 

December 5, 2016

"No Bars: Unlocking the Economic Power of the Formerly Incarcerated"

The title of this post is the title of this intriguing little paper authored by Emily Fetsch for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

One in three Americans has a criminal record. Given the significant size of this population, the ability for these individuals to attain economic success after they leave prison has tremendous implications for our economy and economic mobility. But formerly incarcerated individuals face substantial obstacles to employment when they leave prison, from discrimination in hiring to occupational licensing requirements that exclude those with criminal records from specific professions. This paper summarizes recent research on the employment of formerly incarcerated individuals, focusing in particular on the disproportionate effect of occupational licensing requirements. The paper concludes with suggestions for policy changes that would reduce the friction this population experiences in the labor market. These policies would help these individuals become more economically independent and have a positive impact on the economy as a whole.

December 5, 2016 at 06:28 PM | Permalink

Comments

In Pennsylvania, the crime has to be relevant to the job to be disqualifying. Yet, all employers are reluctant. If the employee gets into a crash at work, they will be liable, not for the crash, but for negligent hiring. Every tiny item in the criminal record will be blown up and dramatically amplified, to take the assets of the business.

A gross negligence standard should be imposed on any hiring of felons, rather than ordinary negligence.

Posted by: David Behar | Dec 6, 2016 12:40:20 AM

Once someone has done their time, they should be given a second chance, NO STRINGS ATTACHED!

Posted by: kat | Dec 6, 2016 9:44:42 AM

Few Americans realize that six percent (6%) of the adult population of America (about 18 million people) has a felony conviction, which effectively keeps them out of most decent and higher paying jobs. Even Starbucks has a corporate policy against hiring a convicted felon, no matter what the felony was (in Ky., my favorite is not having paid child support!) or how much time has gone by since the former felon returned to society.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | Dec 6, 2016 10:55:04 AM

How many were falsely convicted without evidence, like in Montague County, Texas just for benefits? I can name a few. I agree with David Behar that once someone has done their time - NO STRINGS ATTACHED, too many bad DA's have put 10 year probation (fees) just to yank them back into the system. Montague County Probation Officer was not even legal.

Posted by: LC in Texas | Dec 6, 2016 5:38:51 PM

Post a comment
With the June death of 41-year-old Heather Miller likely on the minds of some, community members gathered Saturday at Golden Gate Parks County Fair Building to propose different approaches the city of San Francisco could take to make Golden Gate Park safer for pedestrians and cyclists. As The Examiner reports, park neighbors and visitors suggested a variety of solutions  up to and including closing the park off to most private vehicle traffic.

Changes are also being considered for the approach to the park, with The Examiner reporting that some neighbors are angling for protected bike lanes to run along the Panhandle.

Saturday's meeting was convened both by SF Rec and Parks and officials with the SFMTA, and was spurred in part by a plan announced in August by Mayor Ed Lee that sought to reduce injuries and fatalities on our city streets. And while the ideas proffered on Saturday are merely pie in the sky requests now, there could be big changes in the park's future. That is in part because the 1998 Golden Gate Park Master Plan prioritizes different types of traffic in the park, with pedestrians first, cyclists seconds, and cars last.

Written on sticky notes by those in attendance were specific ideas for reshaping Golden Gate Park, as well as the acknowledgement that cars already have plenty of space nearby. This street is NOT necessary for cars, the Great Highway is only 5 blocks away, read one such note. A number of cyclists reportedly suggested making the entire park car-free, but at least one driver was in attendance to push back.

What if you have a picnic? asked 30-year-old Daniel Thomas. Would you take a picnic basket on a bike or a bus?" he continued, apparently not realizing that many people do in fact ride bikes or take buses to picnics in the park.

And while drivers like Thomas may not be ready for any substantial changes to the rules of Golden Gate Park's roads, officials appear to be at least considering them. SFMTA Board of Directors Vice Chair Cheryl Brinkman, for one, said the city should "go bold" in its decision.

Maybe Thomas could invest in a bike with a front rack? We've heard picnic baskets fit quite well on those.

Related: Cyclist Injured After Striking Minivan In Golden Gate Park
As President-Elect Donald Trump continues to make cabinet appointments, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has stepped into the fray by highlighting his latest appointment as particularly egregious  even for Trump. The Associated Press reports that Pelosi called one-time presidential candidate Ben Carson, Trump's pick to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, "a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice."

Carson, who believes that the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built to store grain and bragged about receiving a "most honest" student award in a nonexistent Yale class, has no experience with housing policy. Indeed, much like Trump himself, Carson has no government experience of any kind  a fact seemingly not lost on him. The Hill reports that Carson's business manager just last month said the ex-neurosurgeon would turn down a Trump appointment. "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency," Armstrong Williams told the publication. "The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency."

Carson vocally agreed, telling The Washington Post last month that "Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water, quite frankly."

It appears that today is a new day and those concerns have gone out the window, as Reuters reports that Carson has accepted Trump's offer to head the $48 billion agency. "I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need," Carson explained in a statement.

Pelosi disagrees. "Our country deserves a HUD Secretary with the relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters, particularly in low income and minority communities, and to ensure that everyone in our country can have access to safe and affordable housing without facing discrimination or homelessness," she wrote in a statement released today. "There is no evidence that Dr. Carson brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America."

Pelosi is right about that, but if only she had been right when she said "Donald Trump knows he shouldn't be President."

Related: According To Facebook Likes, Californians Love Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump (And Ben Carson)
Several hundred people gathered last night around a white pagoda adjacent to Oakland's Lake Merritt to mourn the confirmed 36 people lost in Friday's Ghost Ship warehouse fire. Friends and family members of the deceased were in attendance along with uniformed members of the Oakland Fire Department, and the Chronicle reports that speakers included Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. ABC 7 notes that the father of victim Travis Hough also spoke.

Many vigil attendees, who for the most part eschewed candles in favor of LEDs or other similar artificial flames in deference to the fire victims, were seen holding back tears or openly crying. And while city officials have opened a criminal probe into the blaze, those gathered last night mostly avoided finger pointing. We took a devastating hit and all we want to do is honor those people and not put any blame on anybody, 34-year-old James Morales told the paper. "The people, the artists, the musicians are what make Oakland so tight."

Berkeley Mayor-elect Jesse Arreguin was also on the scene, and BuzzFeed reports that his remarks regarding artist safety were met with applause. "I want to make sure artists have a safe place to live and to work," he told the mourners.

The obvious heartbreak and frustration that many of those in attendance were surely feeling did creep through, however, when Mayor Schaaf took the stage. She was met with some boos, and a shout from the crowd that she should "go home." Schaaf, for her part, told those gathered that she understood their frustration. Its OK," the Chron reports her as responding. "This city is going to go through a lot of emotions and one of them is going to be anger. Its my job to hear that and feel that.

Meanwhile, donations keep coming in to support the victims of the fire and their families. The New York Times reports that a fundraising drive organized by Gray Area Foundation for the Arts has already raised close to $400,000, with a separate drive started by the Oakland A's pulling in approximately $310,000 as of Tuesday morning. All of these funds will be used specifically for the purposes of supporting to victims of this fire, Schaaf told the paper.

Flowers and messages lamenting the loss of life were still visible this morning, and will likely remain for some time as the community continues to processes the magnitude of the loss.

Separately, in Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro Monday night, a small vigil was held to remember the three transgender victims in the tragedy: Cash Askew, 22, of San Francisco; Feral Pines, 29, of Berkeley; and Em Bohlka, 33, of Oakland.

Flowers, candles, notes and pictures line the edge of the pergola at Lake Merritt after last night's vigil for #oaklandfire victims #ABC7now pic.twitter.com/2TIFPSvOYW  Kate Eby (@blueeyed_kate) December 6, 2016

All previous coverage of the Ghost Ship Fire on SFist.


Two skateboarders who were photographing one another's tricks lost their work Monday, when a team of miscreants took their camera.

The crime went down at 2 p.m. Monday, near Jules and Holloway Avenues, Police say that the two victims, aged 19 and 20, were "taking pictures of each other while skateboarding."

A car pulled up, the San Francisco Police Department reports, containing two men aged somewhere between 18 and 25. One of the men stepped out of the car, approached the skateboarders, and demanded their camera.

Police say that "a struggle ensued," but in the end the thief was triumphant, snatching the camera and hopping back into the vehicle.

The suspects fled west on Holloway, police say, camera in their clutches. As of Tuesday morning, they remain at large.

Related: Deplorable Teen Robs Skateboarding Filmmaker
SIOUX CITY | En route to approving a grant application for a proposed viaduct on 18th Street, Sioux City Council members on Monday discussed how the city would account for nearly $4 million in remaining costs for the project.

Councilman Dan Moore said that amount, which is about two times what the city had anticipated to pay for the project earlier this year, gave him pause.

"I'm a little nervous about this balance," Moore said. "We're really coming up short."

The proposed $19.3 million viaduct on 18th Street would stretch from Floyd Boulevard to Steuben Street and span the Union Pacific Railroad and Canadian National Railway tracks, eliminating long wait times at train crossings.

The federal Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies, or FASTLANE, grant, which the council voted 5-0 to apply for, would cover 60 percent, or about $11.6 million, of the project if approved by the federal Department of Transportation.

Councilman Keith Radig said even if the city needs to pitch in $4 million, he believes transportation should be a top priority. Radig mentioned the city could look into reallocating funds from other areas, if necessary, to complete the project.

"If youre getting a $20 million bridge for $4 million, youre getting a bargain," he said. "Transportation should come first."

The city in October submitted an application for a $1 million Clean Air Attainment Program grant through the Iowa DOT. Railroad companies and Cargill, which has a soy processing complex that straddles the street, have also pledged a combined $1.5 to $2 million toward the project.

The approximately $4 million remaining if all funding sources come through is about double what the city had anticipated to pay before it was denied a $14.8 federal transportation grant earlier this year.

City staff told the council they plan to continue to seek alternate funding sources for the project to make up the difference.

Mayor Bob Scott said if other funding sources don't come through, the council could decline the grant if deemed necessary.

South Cypress Street extension

In other action Monday, the council approved a $1.14 million contract with Steve Harris Construction of Homer, Nebraska, for work on the South Cypress Street Extension project. The project will construct a water main, storm sewer, sidewalks and new pavement between Lincoln Way and the end of the existing South Cypress Street.

The project will also include reconfiguration of the Mayhew Avenue entrance to East High School and Nodland Elementary School. The city is sharing a portion of the cost with the Sioux City Community School District.

Hamilton-Wesley urban revitalization area

The council also voted to extend the Hamilton-Wesley II Urban Revitalization Area Plan through the end of 2021.

The plan, which began in 2007, offers either a three-year 100 percent tax break or 10-year graduated tax break for improvements or new construction in the area and is meant to encourage existing businesses to make improvements and to draw new developments to the area.
Trump is slated to speak at 7 p.m. while other guest speakers are set to start at 4 p.m. Both Reynolds and Grassley will speak as will Brenna Bird who's looking to unseat longtime Democratic Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.
SIOUX CITY | It could be months, if ever, before criminal indictments result from last week's FBI seizure of city computer data related to an investigation into the management of the city's wastewater treatment plant, attorneys said Monday.

Execution of search warrants is just one step in the investigation process, and it doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges against current or former city employees and/or officials will be filed, said Tony Morfitt, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa.

"Search warrants are routinely done before there are any arrests or indictments," Morfitt said.

Guy Cook, a Des Moines attorney retained to represent the city, mayor, city council and city staff in the wastewater-related litigation, said that when it comes to gathering digital information, it is not uncommon for FBI agents to capture images of documents and records needed for an investigation.

"The mere service of a search warrant by itself is not proof of any wrongdoing," Cook said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant Thursday on the joint city-county Information Technology Department housed in the Woodbury County Courthouse. Cook said Monday that FBI agents visited at least one other offsite location to gather digital information, but he declined to confirm if it was the wastewater treatment plant.

Because the search warrant is sealed, Morfitt said he could not disclose what information was being sought, or who was listed in the warrant.

Assistant City Attorney Justin Vondrak said Monday FBI agents did not take any city servers, hard drives or other computer equipment.

"They didn't leave with any physical items," Vondrak said. "I believe they secured all the items they were after."

The city is compiling other information requested by both the U.S. Attorney and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Vondrak said.

"We are continuing to comply with any requests from the U.S. Attorney's Office and the EPA," Vondrak said.

Morfitt said he could not comment on whether Thursday's search was done in conjunction with an EPA investigation.

"Our offices do routinely work together," he said.

EPA officials on Monday referred questions to the U.S. Attorney.

Morfitt and Cook said they could not comment on whether any city officials had been interviewed by a federal grand jury. Grand jury proceedings are, by federal law, kept secret. If the investigation were to result in federal charges, the case would at some point be reviewed by a grand jury.

The city's wastewater treatment practices came under scrutiny in 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. The attorney general's office also could determine if criminal charges are warranted.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Jacob Larson said Monday that the attorney general's office continues to review the case.

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.
DAKOTA CITY | Go into any government office nowadays and chances are you're filling out forms on a computer. That is, if you're even going into the office. Many departments enable applicants to file forms electronically via home computers or smartphones.

If you do fill out government documents by hand, it's likely the information will be entered into a computer and saved on a server.

In our digital society, we assume all those important records can be called up later with a couple keystrokes.

But for some government records meant to be kept forever, digital storage isn't necessarily the best method, or at least not the preferred one.

As Dakota County officials found out recently, microfilm, those rolls that many of us have scrolled through while trying to find old newspaper articles at the library, are still very much current technology.

In September, Dakota County was notified by the Nebraska State Archives that it needed to replace 202 rolls of aging 35-millimeter film stored in Lincoln. Those rolls contained images of Dakota County's mortgage documents and land deeds dating back to the 1850s. The cellulose acetate film holding those documents was in the beginning process of breaking down and emitting a vinegar smell.

Nebraska state statutes require that those records be kept forever, so the film had to be duplicated. The Dakota County Board of Commissioners voted to pay $13,130 to do so.

"It seems a little archaic," said Joan Spencer, Dakota County Clerk/Election Commissioner/Register of Deeds.

Especially when you consider that since 1998, Dakota county's record-keeping has been computerized. All those records in the register of deeds office are now entered via computer and saved there. At the end of each business day, records are saved to several servers, including one in Lincoln.

"I suppose they're thinking someday this (computer network) could crash. You can still view on the old (film) system," said Cherie Conley, deputy Dakota County clerk.

Bob Fountaine, the division manager at Multicounty Information and Programming Services Inc., also known as MIPS Inc., which archives records for the majority of Nebraska's 93 counties, posed a simple question when asked why film is preferred over digital storage. When is the last time you saw a floppy disk?

A film reader doesn't become obsolete. Computer technology often does.

"If you go back 20, 40 years, you can't read it," Fountaine said of some electronic archiving. "Unfortunately, digitized images are not archivable."

With new film technology, records should last much longer. Gayla Koerting, state archivist and curator of government records at the Nebraska State Historical Society, said the cellulose acetate film that many counties' records were saved on has been obsolete since the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, those records are archived on a film containing polyester, which has a much longer lifespan.

"Film is still the standard. It lasts for 500 years," Koerting said.

In a vault in the Dakota County Register of Deeds office are big, heavy books containing all those records the county must keep. They date back to the 1850s, before Nebraska was even a state. Handwritten in flowing penmanship, the oldest records refer to the Nebraska Territory.

For years, Deb Benton, a deputy in the register of deeds office, has spent spare office time scanning those documents into the computer. She currently has records scanned back to 1968.

Researchers, usually genealogists, come into the register of deeds office to look through those old documents. Having them in a digital format seems to make sense.

"It's faster, saves time and takes up less space," Spencer said.

That works well for county offices, where there's more foot traffic. As a repository charged with maintaining those documents, the state archives may not have constant traffic, but accessibility, not only now, but into the future, is important.

As Fountaine said, if you store it digitally but can't access it once computer technology changes, what good is it?

It's an interesting question, one that few in a society constantly looking for the next technology upgrade probably pause to consider.

Microfilm storage may seem like a blast from the past, but, as it turns out, it may be the best way to preserve our past.
DAKOTA CITY | Two men accused of killing and dismembering an Emerson, Nebraska, man were bound over to district court Tuesday to face murder charges.

Andres Surber, 25, and Brayan Galvan-Hernandez, 18, both of Wakefield, Nebraska, waived their preliminary hearings in Dakota County Court.

Judge Kurt Rager set their arraignments for Jan. 10 in Dakota County District Court. Rager also continued the $5 million bond on which each is being held in custody.

Both are charged with first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony.

Surber, who was released from a Nebraska state prison in May after serving 34 months of a five-year sentence for felony charges, has also been charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

The two are accused of killing Kraig D. Kubik, 41, with a 9 mm firearm on Nov. 1.

Authorities stopped at Kubik's home at 2605 Highway 35 near Emerson the morning of Nov. 2 after his young son made statements at school that his father had been killed or harmed, court documents said.

Evidence eventually led authorities to a severed arm and leg in the trunk of a Chevrolet Impala located at 86975 579th Ave. in rural Dixon County. The rest of Kubik's remains were found four days later in a creek about four miles away.

Using a national database, authorities matched the fingerprints to those belonging to Kubik. Autopsy results showed a gunshot wound to Kubik's head.
SIOUX CITY | A Moville, Iowa, man who was arrested while transporting methamphetamine to his grandmother's house was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in federal prison.

Andrew Tucker-Moreno, 30, had pleaded guilty in August in U.S. District Court in Sioux City to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Tucker-Moreno was arrested March 21 after a traffic stop in Moville. Authorities found more than a pound of meth inside his truck. He told authorities he was taking it to his grandmother's house.

A co-defendant, Justin Miller, 28, of South Sioux City, was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison last month on drug and firearms charges.

According to court documents, the two conspired with each other and other people from 2015 through March to sell 500 grams or more of meth.
Image Group LA/ABCTwenty One Pilots and David Bowie lead the rock nominations at the 59th annual Grammy Awards. Both the Columbus, Ohio duo and the late music icon are recognized in five categories.

Twenty One Pilots' mega-hit "Stressed Out" earned nominations for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, while "Heathens" is up for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Song Written For Visual Media.

Bowie, meanwhile, is up for Best Alternative Music Album for Blackstar, while its title track is nominated for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. Blackstar also received a nod in the Best Recording Package and the Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical categories.

The Best Rock Performance category also includes Alabama Shakes' "Joe," Disturbed's "The Sound of Silence" and Jack White's collaboration with Beyonce, "Don't Hurt Yourself," while Metallica's "Hardwired," Highly Suspect's "My Name Is Human" and Radiohead's "Burn the Witch" are up for Best Rock Song.

In the album categories, the Best Rock Album nominees include Blink-182's California, Cage the Elephant's Tell Me I'm Pretty, Weezer's Weezer (White Album), Panic! at the Disco's Death of a Bachelor and Gojira's Magma.

Joining Bowie in the Best Alternative Music Album category are Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool, Iggy Pop's Post Pop Depression, PJ Harvey's The Hope Six Demolition Project and Bon Iver's 22, A Million.

Finally, the Best Metal Performance nominees are Korn's "Rotting in Vain," Megadeth's "Dystopia," Periphery's "The Price Is Wrong," Baroness' "Shock Me" and Gojira's "Silvera."

Other rock nominees include Coldplay's "Up&Up" for Best Music Video and Jack White's "City Lights" for Best American Roots Song.

The 2017 Grammys will take place February 12.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON -- On the first stop of his "thank you" tour in Ohio Thursday, president-elect Donald Trump hit replay on several of his campaign tropes.

Among the crowd pleasers, he heckled the "crooked media," prompting boos from the audience, and reiterated his pledge to criminalize flag burning.

And he's not even president yet. More than a month and a half away from Inauguration Day, Trump's only discipline seems to be making good on bad faith. His attacks both on the media and on those who, rather rarely, burn an American flag, are fundamentally assaults on the Constitution and the First Amendment.

Do Trump followers really not care about these founding documents and their bearing on all the freedoms we take for granted? Or, could they really not know any better?

Most disturbing is the absence of objections from the right. Where are the Republicans when the leader of their party speaks so dismissively toward our principles of freedom and the journalists, many of whom they know personally, who practice in good faith the spirit of the law? How long before Trump's words convince some off-balanced Second Amendment "patriot" to take out a "crooked" media person, fully expecting to be applauded by the president-elect?

We the people believe in free speech and a free press not so that we can burn flags but so that we can expose government corruption, protest oppression, and express opinions that others may find disagreeable without fear of repercussion.

As offensive as flag burning is to patriotic Americans, it can also be an act of patriotism, a proposition I offer as argument, not endorsement. If you love your country and fear that it's being led toward tyranny, you might well burn a flag to demonstrate such concerns. To the extent that the flag is a symbol of freedom, burning it is also a symbolic act. I would argue that many if not most veterans, including those in my family, fought, suffered and died for the right of all Americans to speak freely.

Indeed, it is the objectionable expression that is the true test of the strength of our freedoms. We don't need a First Amendment to protect get well cards or love letters. We don't need it to protect Christmas carols. But should someone challenge the latter, given its religious content, wouldn't many of those Ohioans cheering Trump's demagogic illogic be grateful that free speech protects their right to stroll the streets singing songs of praise?

Understanding the crucial importance of free speech and a free press to all other freedoms compelled the Supreme Court to rule that even flag burning is protected. And this is why Trump, a man who professes to love freedom and has presented himself as the best person to lead the free world, should be roundly condemned for suggesting that anyone who burns a flag should be punished by imprisonment or even loss of citizenship.

Or why his persistent attacks on the media, threatening to restrict press freedom, are so misplaced, potentially dangerous and, not least, impossible for him to do constitutionally. Either Trump knows this, which makes his crowd-baiting not only offensive but irresponsible, or he's unfamiliar with the Constitution, the defense of which is one of the primary functions of the presidency.

As to the crooked media, Trump's gibes are patently ludicrous. Was he over-covered? Perhaps, but he was early on the Republican frontrunner and subsequently the nominee. The media could hardly ignore him, much as many of us would have liked to. Yes, some members of the media are biased, but not most, and they're usually drummed out through peer review.

It should be obvious that without the so-called mainstream media, especially newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, no one would know anything that has any basis in objective fact -- and yes there is such a thing. We will rue the day we forgot that newsgathering is a profession with demanding standards regarding performance and ethics. Notwithstanding the billion-member global newsroom, it's nice to have smart, well-educated, experienced reporters and editors to pluck the pearls from the muck.

Therefore, the highest service the president of the United States could perform would be to actively engage the media in the national interest of nurturing an informed populace, without which a democratic Republic cannot long survive.

To do otherwise is the first act of the dictator.
DES MOINES  Gov. Terry Branstad confirmed he will meet this week with President-elect Donald Trump amid growing speculation Trump will ask Branstad to serve as the U.S. ambassador to China.

Since Trumps Nov. 8 election victory, political observers and reporters have speculated Trump may offer the post to Branstad, who was a strong supporter of Trump during the general election and has a longtime working friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

This past weekend, a Bloomberg Politics report said Branstad is the frontrunner for the post.

Branstad will be in New York from Tuesday through Thursday on a previously scheduled economic development trip. He confirmed Monday, during his weekly news conference, that at some point during the trip, he will meet with Trump.

As he has in recent weeks, Branstad deferred when asked whether he would accept the post if offered.

It hasnt been offered, and I love my job as governor, Branstad said Monday. This is my focus. Its my intent to continue to focus on this.

Branstad met recently with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in Washington, D.C., during a trip that also included visits with Iowas congressional delegation and top national Republicans.

Branstad said he discussed with Pence a desire for fewer federal government regulations on business. The governor said he expects to deliver a similar message to President-elect Trump.

Well talk about that and other subjects as well, Branstad said.

Trump plans to be in Iowa on Thursday for a rally as part of his victory tour. Branstad said he plans to be back in Iowa in time for the event.

Should Trump offer the U.S. ambassadorship to China and should Branstad accept, upon Branstads resignation, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds would be promoted to governor. She would become the states first female governor.

Branstad has touted Reynolds as a possible successor and says he keeps her involved in critical aspects of the administration. He said Monday he has not discussed with Reynolds the possibility of him resigning and her assuming the governorship, but he touted her preparedness.

I think shes very well prepared and has great leadership ability, Branstad said of Reynolds.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the state Republican Party, expressed confidence in Reynolds should she be promoted to governor in Branstads absence.

Ive been following Iowa politics a long time, and I have never seen a partnership where she has been included in so many aspects of the job, from the policy of the job to the campaigning to the moments when Iowans need to be encouraged, Kaufmann said. I think Kim Reynolds is as ready as any lieutenant governor weve ever had.

Should Branstad resign and Reynolds be promoted, she would be free to appoint a new lieutenant governor, according to Iowa law and confirmed by the state Secretary of States office. Reynolds and her lieutenant governor would serve the remainder of the term, which expires at the end of 2018.

Should that happen, possible lieutenant governor picks for Reynolds could come from current state department heads, including Debi Durham in economic development, who ran as a running mate to Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross in 2002, or Bill Northey in agriculture. Reynolds also could pick a member of the Iowa Legislature, where she served as a state senator in 2009 and 2010 before joining Branstad.
CEDAR RAPIDS | Gov. Terry Branstad met with the President-elect Donald Trump in New York Tuesday, but had no announcement about a post in the new administration.

The meeting followed speculation that Branstad, who has had a longtime working friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and was a strong supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign, is the president-elects top choice to be ambassador to China. If nominated, Branstad would then face Senate confirmation.

Following the meeting, Branstad, who was accompanied by his wife, Chris, and staffers, briefly spoke to reporters, saying he is excited about the quality of people Trump is attracting to his administration, according to Radio Iowa. However, he deflected questions about the China post.

Although he and Trump had an opportunity to talk about a number of things, Branstad said he cant comment on that at this point in time.

His office releases the following statement:

I appreciate the invitation that President-elect Trump extended to my wife and me today.  I truly appreciated the opportunity to meet. We had a very cordial conversation about the role Iowa played in his overall success by winning 93 or 99 counties and flipping 34 counties that previously went for President Obama.

Its clear that his jobs message resonated with Iowans and the rest of the country. Its refreshing to see his bold leadership that will put people to work, give power back to the states and Make America Great Again.

We also talked about the transition and his new administration. He is putting together a great cabinet that will serve the American people well.

While there has been speculation regarding an appointment to serve in this Administration, I have no announcement to make at this time.

Branstad met with the president-elect at Trump Tower while in New York for a previously scheduled economic development trip. He plans to return to Iowa in time for Trumps Thursday afternoon victory tour rally in Des Moines.

The meeting with Trump was Branstads second with the new administration. He met recently with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in Washington, D.C., during a trip that also included visits with Iowas congressional delegation and top national Republicans.

He talked to Pence about a desire for fewer federal government regulations on business, and Branstad said he expected to deliver a similar message to Trump.

Branstad and Xi became acquainted in 1985 when Xi was a Hebei provincial official and director of the Shijiazhuang prefecture feed association. On a visit to Iowa as part of a sister state/province program, Xi stayed with a Muscatine family and met Branstad at his formal Statehouse office as part of a visiting delegation. Xi returned to Iowa as Chinese vice president in 2012 to renew his friendships with Branstad and other Iowans.
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.
The following companies are subsidiares of Cummins: Anvl, Apollo FC Holdings Ltd., Atlantis Acquisitionco Canada Corporation, Atlantis Holdco UK Limited, Brammo, CIFC Worldwide Partner C.V., CMI Africa Holdings BV, CMI CGT Holdings LLC, CMI Canada Financing Ltd., CMI Canada LP, CMI Foreign Holdings B.V., CMI Global Equity Holdings B.V., CMI Global Equity Holdings C.V., CMI Global Holdings B.V., CMI Global Partner 2 C.V., CMI Global Partners B.V., CMI Group Holdings B.V., CMI Group Holdings Cooperatief U.A., CMI International Finance Partner 1 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 2 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 3 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 4 LLC, CMI International Finance Partner 5 LLC, CMI Mexico LLC, CMI Netherlands Holdings B.V., CMI PGI Holdings LLC, CMI PGI International Holdings LLC, CMI Turkish Holdings B.V., CMI UK Finance LP, CMI UK Financing LP, Cherry Island Renewable Energy LLC, Consolidated Diesel Company, Consolidated Diesel Inc., Consolidated Diesel of North Carolina Inc., Cummins (China) Investment Co. 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International Relations, Labour  December 6, 2016  SooKyung Nam

For the sixth straight weekend, hundreds of thousands of Koreans came out in Seoul (and with other Korean cities estimates approaching 2 million people on the streets) to demand the resignation of President Park Geun-hye. This Saturday December 3, the protests marched on the

Presidential Blue House. The three opposition parties introduced a bill last week to impeach the President, supported by a majority of the

parliament (171 of 300 members), for abuse of power in an influence-peddling scandal. But the vote needs a 2/3 majority and requires a rump of Parks Saenuri party to break and support the opposition to pass the bill. These are the largest demonstrations in South Korea since the pro-democracy movement of the 1980s. But the street protests are also against the neoliberal reforms Park has pursued and the attacks on the KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions), and an emphatic statement that all politics is not forming in a populist hard right. The below essays were written just after the fourth demonstration weekend.

Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets in Seoul demanding President Park Geun-hyes immediate resignation on November 19. This protest was the fourth in a series of weekly mass demonstrations since October when it was first reported that Park was being secretly advised by Choi Soon-sil, a friend of 40 years who holds no official government title.

The scandal involving Parks cronyism and corruption has triggered the worst political crisis in South Korea in decades. The biggest demonstration so far took place on November 12, when about 1 million people gathered in central Seoul. This was the largest anti-government protest since the June 1987 democracy movement when South Koreans forced the military regime to hold a free presidential election and eventually paved the way to ending the dictatorship.

President Park is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, a military dictator who ruled South Korea for 18 years, from 1961 when he took power via a coup until he was assassinated in 1979. While her father was in power, the current President Park acted as first lady at the age of 22 after her mother was killed in an assassination attempt against Park in 1975.

The friendship between Park and her confidante Choi Soon-sil dates back to the 1970s when Park first met Chois father, the founder of a religious cult who was believed to have become Parks mentor and exercised cult-like control over Park until his death in 1994.

Choi is suspected of using her close ties to Park to pressure large corporations, the so-called chaebol, to donate nearly 77.4-billion won (about $70-million) to two foundations she runs. She is also suspected of meddling in state affairs and government decisions on personnel and policy behind the scenes, while gaining unauthorized access to classified information.

Choi has been charged with abuse of power and fraud. Two of Parks aides have also been charged with abuse of power and extortion, and are suspected of helping Choi extract huge sums of money from big businesses, including Samsung, which alone is reported to have given $20-million to Choi in return for a favor.

Choi-gate

Initially, the corruption scandal was dubbed as Choi-gate and public anger was directed mainly at the shadow president  implying that Choi exercised an undue influence over Park and used her personal connection to coerce businesses into donating money to her foundations, amass an illicit fortune and win favors for herself and her family.

But according to leaks from sources describing the investigations, it turned out that President Park is the main culprit in this corruption scandal. On November 20, prosecutors issued an indictment against Choi in which they indicated that Park was an accomplice in the crimes, effectively making her a suspect rather than a witness.

According to prosecutors, Park played a large role in the efforts to raise money from the businesses to set up the foundations run by Choi. However, the South Korean constitution bars bringing criminal charges against a sitting president, except in cases of insurrection or treason  though investigations are permitted.

The allegations of corruption, abuse of power, embezzlement and cronyism stirred public anger and outcry for Parks resignation or impeachment. Parks approval ratings have plummeted to 5 per cent, the lowest in the history of South Korea.

While denying any involvement in wrongdoing, Park has issued public apologies twice since the corruption scandal broke out.

In an attempt to defuse public fury, Park initially vowed that she would cooperate with the investigation into any possible fraud and embezzlement involving her friend. But on November 20, after the release of the prosecutions indictment of Choi, Park indicated through her attorney that she would not answer any of the prosecutions questions.

Moreover, according to an insider, when she was advised to step down to quell a wave of popular fury, she allegedly responded by saying, What did I do wrong?  signaling that she wasnt willing to hear the voices of the people and would hold out no matter what until her five-year term ends at the end of 2017.

This arrogance has fueled more public anger against Park. Its expected that more people will participate in the next scheduled mass protest this coming Saturday demanding her resignation.

While people in the streets are demanding Parks immediate resignation, opposition parties, though emboldened by the massive protests, have yet to seriously push for Parks resignation over fears of negatively impacting next years presidential election. It seems that what theyre most interested in is containing peoples anger and channeling it into their electoral victory next year.

Attacks on Workers Have Intensified

South Koreans are angry over the corruption involving Park and those around her. But that isnt the only reason theres such huge outcry. When she became South Koreas first female present in 2013, Park promised sweeping economic reforms to bridge the growing income inequality between rich and poor and address unemployment and a stagnant economy.

She said that she would help the country repeat the so-called Miracle on the Han River  a reference to the rapid economic development seen under her fathers presidency. Park promised to create jobs and build a creative economy that would be less dependent on South Koreas dominant big businesses, called chaebol, and would bring about economic democratization by prioritizing job creation in science and technology.

During the last four years, however, she has demonstrated her heavy-handed leadership style and lack of transparency, which very much resembles her fathers authoritarian rule. Just like her father, under Parks presidency, attacks on workers rights, working conditions and wages have intensified, and a ruthless crackdown on dissent has continued.

For example, Han Sang-gyun, president of South Koreas independent Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), was arrested last year and is still in prison after being sentenced to five years imprisonment for organizing a series of demonstrations against the Park administration.

Moreover, in an attempt to glorifying her fathers military dictatorship, Park is trying to rewrite school history textbooks. Conservatives have charged that left-leaning authors poisoned the current history textbooks and students minds with their ideological biases. The government has announced that they will replace the current history textbooks taught in schools with government-issued textbooks. This has been criticized as an attempt to return education to the countrys authoritarian past.

Privatization of healthcare and railroads is also underway, which has prompted recent strikes by workers in these sectors. In coordination with the U.S., the Park administration is about to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense in a rural town in South Korea, threatening the environment and the farmers who live there.

In summary, Parks promise of repeating the Miracle on the Han River has become a nightmare for ordinary South Koreans. As public discontent has grown, Parks party, the ruling Saenuri Party, has lost its parliamentary majority in the general election held in April 2016. 

SooKyung Nam writes for the Socialist Worker , where this article first appeared.

Korean Unions Plan National Actions

as Park Government Faces Public Backlash

Korean national trade union centre KCTU held a general strike on November 30 to protest the governments labour policies, as opposition to embattled President Park Guen-hye grows.

The other main national centre FKTU held a national rally November 19. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on 12 November, demanding that Park, whose Presidency is under siege over allegations of corruption including illicit payments by Korean chaebol conglomerates including scandal-ridden Samsung. The national parliament has now appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations. Samsung and other chaebols, with opaque governance practices and riddled with nepotism, are coming under intense scrutiny, including for their covert relationships with Parks entourage.

Parks term in office has been marked by aggressive repression of trade unions, with KCTU President Han Sang-gyun imprisoned for five years in the Seoul Detention Centre for helping to organize previous public protests. Han, who is one of twenty union leaders currently in prison, met a delegation of global union representatives which was present in Seoul during the weekend protest.

The Park governments crackdown on legitimate union activity is having terrible consequences for Korean workers. Workers are being forced to do up to 100 hours of overtime per month, threatened with dismissal if they dont comply, and employers frequently sack workers who try to join unions. In many companies, health and safety standards are appalling, sexual harassment is rife and workers are treated with total contempt by their bosses, said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Korean companies such as Samsung and LG are well known for their opposition to unions in their supply chains, with supplier companies closely monitored for any sign of workers organizing. Suppliers know that if a union is formed, their company faces exclusion from the supply chain. Hyundai too has engaged in union-busting in its supplier companies.

The government has already decreed the KCTUs planned strike to be illegal. 

This article originally published on the ituc-csi.org website.
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.
It is to this religion that we call youIt is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah, so that Allahs Word and religion reign Supreme.

There is no doubt that Allah commanded us to strike the Kuffar (unbeliever), kill them and fight them by all means necessary.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq which later morphed into ISIS

Support the religion of Allah through jihad in the path of Allah. Go forth, O mujahidin in the path of Allah.





In the wake of Abdul Artans car and knife attack at Ohio State University, the usual questions are being asked: What was his motive? Did he have psychological problems? Will there be a backlash against the Muslim community?But to those of us who suspect we already know the motive, the most pertinent question is the question of what can be done to defeat Islamic terrorism. The answer according to many experts is that you cant defeat jihad without first defeating the ideology behind it. We must, it is said, so thoroughly discredit and delegitimize that ideology that the enemy ceases to believe in it and therefore loses the will to fight.So far, so good. That all makes sense. We should do everything we can to undermine the ideology that inspires ISIS, al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Lone Wolves. So, what exactly is this ideology? Here, things become a bit murky. Ive read a number of authors whove written about the subject, but most come up short on specifics. They seem to assume that calling the beast radical Islamic terror is sufficient.The reason for the evasiveness is that the elusive ideology of the terrorists is strikingly similar to Islam itself. When terrorist leaders speak of their ideology, they do so by citing the Koran and the commands of Allah. Heres a sampling:Hmm. It seems that the ideology that motivates terrorists is a religious ideology. And what religion might that be? Heres where the religion-that-must-not-be-named syndrome kicks in. Say what awful things you want about al-Qaeda and ISIS, just dont say they have anything to do with Islam.But how can you criticize the ideology of the Islamic State without also criticizing Islam? And if you cant criticize Islamic beliefs, how can you defeat the ideology of the Islamic State?Criticize Islamic beliefs? The reason we dont want to go there is that many consider such criticism to be tantamount to declaring war on Islam. For example, intelligence expert Sebastian Gorka , who makes a very good case for waging ideological war against ISIS et al., also insists that we are not at war with Islam. I understand the prudential reason for saying that. The vernacular expression of the rationale goes something like this: Do you want to go to war with 1.6 billion Muslims?Still, if you cant criticize Islam, how can you defeat the ideology of the terroristsan ideology that is inextricably bound up with Islam?Gorka, along with others, says we should base our fight against terrorism on the Cold War model of our fight against communism. But in the Cold War we didnt wage ideological war against perversions or misunderstandings of communism, but against mainstream communism itself. We didnt urge Russians and East Europeans to practice a more moderate form of communism. We urged them to separate themselves altogether from that pernicious ideology. If we were to follow the Cold War model, we would indeed have to criticize Islam itselfor, at least, many aspects of it. It is faith in Islam, not faith in violent extremism that fuels jihad. Jihadists dont kill people for the hell of it. In fact, they do it to avoid hell, and to reap a heavenly reward.Which brings us back to the Ohio State jihadist. Last I heard, the authorities were still looking for a motive to explain why Abdul Ali Artan drove his car into a crowd of fellow students. Apparently, if you dont find an official ISIS photo ID in his wallet, theres just no way of telling. At the risk of sounding simplistic, let me advance a novel hypothesis. My guess is that a large part of Mr. Artans motivation was the promise that several dozen virgins were anxiously awaiting his appearance in the afterlife. Oh sure, I suppose he had other motives, as wellanger over Islamophobia, anger about all the Muslims who have been killed by American troops, and so on. But there are plenty of angry eighteen-year olds and the vast majority of them find other ways to express their anger than plowing their cars into pedestrians. On the other hand, the religion of Allah provides constructive things to do with your anger and frustrations. You can, as Mr. al-Zarqawi suggests, follow the command of Allah to kill them (the unbelievers) and fight them by all means necessary. And you can be sure that you will be abundantly rewarded in a much happier life in the hereafter.Are there other ways of claiming your reward? Yes, there are. But the only surefire method according to Islamic tradition is the one chosen by Artan. When Muhammad was asked by a companion if there were any deed that equaled jihad in heavenly reward, he replied I do not find such a deed (Bukhari 4.56.2785).Did Artan leave any record of a desire to join the promised brides? Probably not. For some sensitive souls, some topics are just too delicate to be bandied about. Besides, as a cum laude graduate like Artan would understand, it sounds much nobler to say you are doing this deed in  retribution  for Muslim deaths than to say I am doing this cause I want my 72 virgins.There is however, evidence from diaries, letters, posts, and interviews that the virgins are very much on the mind of jihadists and would-be-jihadists. Take Mohamed Atta . Due to an airport error, his suitcase was left behind on the day of the 9/11 flight. In it were a wedding suit, a bottle of cologne, and a touching letter addressed to his brides to be.Three thousand Americans are dead because Mr. Atta and his companions wanted to be with virgins in paradise. So it makes sense that in order to defeat the ideology of jihad you should train your ideological weapons on that adolescent fantasy and blast it to smithereens. Take away the virgins and you take away one of the chief incentives for jihad.But do you really want to go there? It just so happens that this particular fantasy is shared by the vast majority of Muslim males. Its part of their religion. Here we come back to the general reluctance to criticize Islam. Part of that reluctance, as Ive said, stems from the fear that criticism will precipitate World War III. The other reasons for the reluctance is the (largely secular) notion that religion is a private matter between an individual and his God and therefore its none of our business what another person believes.That, of course, is sheer nonsense, and especially in regard to Islam. Islam is a very public religion that aims to regulate every aspects of a Muslims life down to how he should wash his hands.Moreover, Islam is an expansionist religion that seeks dominance over all other cultures and religionsby force, if necessary. Its not exactly a private matter when a Muslim warrior takes a sex-slave in Mosul, or flies a plane into the World Trade Center, or plows his car into a campus crowd. Islam doesnt consider itself to be a private religion and neither should you. You have a personal stake in what Muslims believe just as Poles, Hungarians, and East Germans had a personal stake in what communists believed.Some say that Islam is a political ideology, some say that it is a religion, and some say that it is a mixture of both. But from one perspective, it doesnt really matter. Islam is a belief system, and since those beliefs can have dire consequences for non-believers, they ought to be subject to public examination and criticism. There is certainly a risk in doing so, but its difficult to imagine anything more risky than the current policy of see-no- Islam. Ideological cold wars do not always lead to hot wars. The Wests Cold War victory over the Soviet Bloc seems to have prevented one. On the other hand, our reluctance to engage the more problematic aspects of Islamic thought only insures that more young men like Abdul Artan will be attracted to them. The jihad is accelerating, but our ideological war against it is still stuck in first gear.
(SS) A set of proposed government ethics reforms won approval Friday from a group of Broward's top ethics experts.

Offered by Broward Inspector General John Scott, the slate of reforms could appear on the 2018 ballot. But they're likely to be subject of intense debate between now and then.

Scott proposes:

Empowering an ethics commission or ethics czar to interpret the Broward Code of Ethics that applies to elected officials, city and county employees and local government vendors across Broward. Currently, the code is interpreted by city and county attorneys.

Banning cities from making any changes to the ethics code. Currently, cities can opt out of elements of the ethics code by changing the city charter. A handful of cities have done so.

The ideas were embraced Friday at the fifth annual performance evaluation of Broward's first and only inspector general.

Broward voters created Scott's post after a parade of public officials and their family members were charged with public corruption. He reports to an oversight board, which last year granted him a second four-year term. Friday, they focused on his proposed reforms, endorsing them as ways to help him police local government officials better.

"I saw where we've been, and I see where we're at, and I see where you want us to go and take us,'' said oversight board member Tim Donnelly, in charge of the public corruption unit at the Broward State Attorney's Office. "... You're proficient and professional, maybe one day even popular.''

While Scott is popular with his bosses, his continued advocacy for a uniform code and a centralized way to interpret it hasn't won him friends in city halls.

"It has not been and will not be embraced, shall we say, by the Broward League of Cities and therefore probably not by the County Commission,'' former Broward State Attorney Phil Shailer said, invoking memories of past debates of the changes.

Cooper City Mayor Greg Ross, who is chairman of the Broward League of Cities, said the current setup and changes that were made to the code in 2015 provide "ample infrastructure to ensure that Broward County and its municipalities operate in an ethical manner. The League believes that our elected officials strive to conduct themselves above and beyond the guidelines of the county ordinance.''

But the county's Charter Review Commission is considering the proposals, former County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger, a charter member, said. And it has the ability to send proposals directly to the 2018 ballot.

"Nothing's off the table,'' said Charter Review Commission Executive Director Carlos Verney.

The countywide ethics code was created to apply to elected officials, government vendors and government employees across Broward. Wording in the county charter says the county's rules prevail over any city ordinance on the topic. But the wording doesn't mention city charters, so a handful of cities changed their charters in recent years to opt out of some elements.

"Just my personal feeling, that offends me,'' said former Florida attorney general Bob Butterworth, an oversight board member.

Jennifer Merino, general counsel for the inspector general's office, said a city could negate the entire ethics code if it wanted to, using the loophole.

"There's nothing but their honor that would prevent them from doing so,'' she said Friday.

Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick said in an interview after the meeting that the proposal "sounds nice'' but is unnecessary.

His city altered its charter so that elected officials can appear as lobbyists in other Broward cities, something banned in the countywide ethics code. Resnick, a land use attorney and lobbyist, said he thinks the county's prohibition is unconstitutional, anyway. Wilton Manors also nixed a requirement that elected officials submit a more detailed financial disclosure than state law required.

"What's the point that they're actually trying to address?'' Resnick asked. "I haven't heard at all over the years this has been in effect, that there's any problems with it.''

Resnick also questioned the proposal to create a countywide ethics commission, saying it could be costly and isn't needed. Currently, a city elected official who's unsure how the ethics code applies to a fuzzy scenario can ask the city attorney.

But Scott says that creates a patchwork of 31 city attorneys and a county attorney, all possibly giving different advice on similar sets of facts.

"I really don't understand turf wars over ethics,'' oversight board member Jan Jacobowitz said Friday. Jacobowitz is director of the Professional Responsibility and Ethics Program at the University of Miami. "I'm an ethics professor, and there's a lot of gray. Why wouldn't you want to have a central location where everyone gets the same answer. I feel like saying, 'What's up Broward?' I really don't get it.''
(CNN) Sen. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's pick to be United States attorney general, launched a public campaign as Alabama attorney general in 1996 to prevent a gay rights group from holding a conference at the University of Alabama, according to a KFile review of contemporaneous press accounts and legal filings.

Sessions's record in public office is coming under increased scrutiny now that he has been selected as Trump's attorney general. He has been a staunch opponent of the LGBT rights movement. He dubbed the Supreme Court's 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage an "effort to secularize, by force and intimidation." And in 2000 and 2009 he voted against measures expanding hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation. He's also co-sponsor, along with other prominent Republicans, of The First Amendment Defense Act, a bill opponents have dubbed "a right to discriminate." President-Elect Donald Trump has vowed he'd sign the measure.

As Alabama's attorney general in 1996, Sessions attempted to stop the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference from meeting at the University of Alabama under a state law passed in 1992 that made it illegal for public universities to fund in any way a group that promotes "actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws."

The stated mission of the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference was to educate and start a dialogue about the LGBT community. Scheduled events at the conference included a workshop on coming out, an interfaith panel of LGBT issues, a discussion on preventing STDs, and discussions on the Internet and substance abuse.

Fob James, the Republican governor of Alabama, said he believed the conference violated the 1992 law. Sessions agreed, though initially said he wouldn't take legal action to intervene. A spokeswoman for Sessions told the Birmingham News that the law was "fuzzy" on such events, and it would be hard to take legal action to stop the conference.

"This is a matter that the university and board of trustees need to deal with,'' Sessions was quoted as saying by the Mobile Register. Still, Sessions opinion was clear. "University officials say they're going to try to obey the law,'' Sessions was quoted as saying. "I don't see how it can be done without canceling this conference.''

A spokesperson for Sessions declined to comment for this story.

Sessions wrote a letter to University President Roger Sayers giving his opinion the conference violated state law and asking that it be cancelled.

"I remain hopeful that if the administration does not act, the board of trustees will,'' Sessions stated, adding there were limits on restricting free speech on college campuses and that taxpayers should not have to pay for the conference.

University officials saw the conference as a First Amendment issue, and fought for it to go forward.

"We are reviewing the attorney general's letter,'' Culpepper Clark, an aide to the school president was quoted as saying at the time by the Mobile Register. "We will consider his recommendation. As the attorney general knows and is clear and well established in law, the university has a duty to err on the side of the First Amendment.'"

Sessions then stepped up his efforts.

At a news conference reported by multiple news outlets at the time, he said he might try to get a court order to stop the conference. Several days later, a federal judge struck down Alabama's 1992 law as unconstitutional.

US District Judge Myron Thompson, in his opinion striking down the law, wrote that it was "an open effort by the State Legislature to limit the sexuality discussion in institutions of higher learning to only one viewpoint: that of heterosexual people. This viewpoint limitation violates the first amendment."

Sessions vowed to appeal, and told reporters he would even seek an injunction to stop the conference.

"I intend to do everything I can to stop that conference," Sessions said, according to the Huntsville Times. "The Legislature gave serious thought to trying to craft a statute that passed muster,'' Sessions added. "And I believe that my responsibility is to defend the laws of the Legislature.''

As the fight over the conference made national press, interest and opposition in it swelled.

Sessions' attempts to block the conference, however, would come up short. On the Tuesday before the weekend conference was set to begin, Judge Thompson reiterated his opinion that the conference could not be stopped.

In response, Sessions argued before Thompson that he sought the ability to monitor the conference for violations of the law, not to stop it.

"The State of Alabama will experience irreparable harm by funding a conference and activities in violation of state law," Sessions argued. His request for a stay on the ruling was denied.

In a press conference after the ruling, Sessions said they would look at further options, if possible, but options were limited.

"We feel like the Alabama statute needs to defended and we do plan to appeal Judge Thompson's ruling," Sessions. "We've got to make a decision about what we'll do about the actual conference. Judge Thompson's ruling said that on its face the Alabama statute is unconstitutional and indicated that any attempt to enforce it he would stop and so we've got evaluate whether or not there's anything we do can with the university at this point."

"We have done everything we can," a Sessions spokesperson later told the Birmingham News.

The event began that Friday to little protest. The conference's attendance, however, was said to have increased.

"It was probably better attended than it would have been. So, in some ways what they did backfired," said Cathy Lopez Wessel, a conference organizer told CNN.

Still, she said she had been caught off guard at the resistance. "What really struck me was that this seemed clearly to be about free speech and peaceable assembly. I feel like Jeff Sessions used the full power of his office position to deny a student group the right to have a conference."

Sessions would go on to successfully run for the US Senate that year.

Later attempts to appeal the ruling to the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals failed. A three-judge panel on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals would affirm the 1996 decision. The state ultimately decided to not appeal that ruling.
The Gambia is over for Yahya Jammeh. Jammeh, President of Gambia  who once promised to slit the throats of all homosexuals  lost his bid for re-election.

After 22 years in power, Jammeh was defeated by opposition leader Adama Barrow in last weeks election. Gambia, a western African country of just over two million people, borders the northern Atlantic Ocean and is surrounded by Senegal.

A new Gambia is born, Barrow told the Associated Press on Saturday after receiving 45 percent of the vote to 36 percent for Jammeh. We want everybody on board now. This is Gambia, politics is over.

Jammeh seized control of the country in a military coup in 1994. He proceeded to make outrageous statements about gays and decreed in November of 2014 the act of homosexuality to be punishable by life in prison.

A devout Muslim, Jammeh called gays vermin and said his government would deal with LGBT people as if they were malaria-carrying mosquitos.

Following Jammeh's crackdown on gays, the United States dropped Gambia from its African free trade agreement.

In the elections aftermath, Jammeh said on state television that he would help Barrow work towards the transition. The BBC reports Jammeh, 51, seemed bewildered by the result. Previously, the dictator had stated he would rule the Gambia for one billion years if Allah willed it.

Frank Mugisha, an African LGBT rights activist, applauded the election results, tweeting, At least some good news from Gambia, restoring some hope in the year 2016.
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.




NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 5 December 2016. NASA

The Expedition 50 crew is getting ready for next weeks arrival and capture of Japans sixth resupply ship, the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-6). The six station residents also worked on a pair of spacesuits and conducted a variety of human research experiments.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is set to launch its HTV-6 resupply ship Friday at 8:26 a.m. EST from the Tanegashima Space Center. Nicknamed Kounotori, the HTV-6 is delivering fresh fruit, experiment hardware, Cubesats, life support gear and new lithium-ion batteries. NASA Television will broadcast the HTV-6 launch live as well as its arrival next Tuesday at 6 a.m.

The new lithium-ion batteries will replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries located on the S4 truss structure and upgrade the stations power output. The replacement work will take place using a series of robotics maneuvers and spacewalks through mid-January.

Commander Shane Kimbrough and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet practiced next weeks HTV-6 robotic capture activities. The duo also reviewed the cargo crafts rendezvous and approach maneuvers before its capture and installation to the Harmony module.

Kimbrough started his day with some plumbing work before scrubbing the cooling loops on two U.S. spacesuits. Pesquet assisted NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson in the morning with an ultrasound scan for the Cardio Ox study that explores the long-term risk of atherosclerosis in astronauts.

Whitson then moved on to collecting gear with cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov for upcoming work on the Fluid Shifts experiment. That experiment researches the pressure an astronaut experiences on the brain and eyes. Veteran cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Oleg Novitskiy worked on numerous Russian science experiments and life support systems.

On-Orbit Status Report

Human Research Program (HRP) collections and operations: Over the weekend, the crew continued sample collections for Biochem Profile, Repository, and Cardio Ox investigations. This morning the Cardio Ox subject donned an Electrocardiogram (ECG) and with operator assistance performed ultrasound scans of the Brachial and Carotid arteries.

The Biochem Profile experiment tests blood and urine samples obtained from astronauts before, during and after spaceflight. Specific proteins and chemicals in the samples are used as biomarkers, or indicators of health. Post-flight analysis yields a database of samples and test results, which scientists can use to study the effects of spaceflight on the body.

Repository is a storage bank that is used to maintain biological specimens over extended periods of time and under well-controlled conditions. This investigation archives biosamples for use as a resource for future space flight related research.

Cardio Ox determines whether biological markers of oxidative and inflammatory stress are elevated during and after space flight and whether this results in an increased, long-term risk of atherosclerosis in astronauts.

At Home in Space: The crew answered the first of two At Home in Space questionnaires, the second to be scheduled at roughly Return-30 days (R-30). The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) experiment, At Home in Space assesses culture, values, and psychosocial adaptation of astronauts to a space environment shared by multinational crews on long-duration missions. It is hypothesized that astronauts develop a shared space culture that is an adaptive strategy for handling cultural differences and they deal with the isolated confined environment of the space craft by creating a home in space. At Home In Space uses a questionnaire battery to investigate individual and culturally related differences, family functioning, values, coping with stress, and post-experience growth.

Galley Rack Mod Kit Utility Outlet Panel (UOP) Power Cable Routing: The crew routed the UOP Power Cable for the Galley Rack from the Node 1 (N1) Port Hatch location to the Galley Rack Utility Interface Panel (UIP). This is one of several mod kit procedures to install power, data, cooling, and general outfitting of the Galley Rack prior to the activation of the N1 Galley rack and associated relocation of the Potable Water Dispenser (PWD) and Microgravity Experiment Research Locker Incubators (MERLINs) from the Lab to Node 1.

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Cooling Loop Maintenance: The crew completed EMU 3003 and 3008 cooling loop maintenance. The maintenance included an ionic and particulate filtration (scrubbing) and biocidal maintenance (iodination) of both EMU suits and the Airlock cooling water loops.

On-Board Training (OBT) Robotics On-Board Trainer (ROBoT): The crew performed a training session during which they completed three HTV capture point hold runs. During this training session the crew practiced free drift timing, malfunction responses, and nominal rate approaches. This activity is in preparation for HII Transfer Vehicle 6 (HTV-6) capture currently planned on 13-December.

Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) Operations: Over the weekend Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Serving System (MSS) cameras and lights and maneuvered Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) Arm1 as required to perform a second RELL survey of Radiator Beam Valve Module 1 (RBVM1) to gather more data as RELL spotted ammonia in this area on GMT 336-337. The SSRMS and SPDM were than maneuvered to install RELL on the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Airlock Slide Table. After the Japanese Experiment Module Orbital Replaceable Unit Transfer Interface (JOTI) was closed on RELL, SPDM Orbital Replaceable Unit (ORU) Tool Changeout Mechanism 1 (OTCM1) released RELL. MSS was maneuvered to park position, while JEM Slide table was retracted into the airlock with the RELL.

Todays Planned Activities

All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

ARED Software Familiarization

Acoustic Dosimeter Setup Day 1

Ultrasound 2 HRF Rack 1 Setup Power On

Health Maintenance System (HMS) Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool for Windows (WinSCAT) Test

ARED Software Familiarization

Cardio Ox Ultrasound Preparation

EveryWear Biometric Patch charging

Cardio Ox Ultrasound Operations

Study Of Cardiac Bioelectric Activity At Rest

PILOT-T. Photography during Experiment Ops

??? maintenance

Cardio Ox CDL Holter Arterial BP Unit Battery Installation  Subject

Cardio Ox CDL Holter Arterial BP Measurement  Subject

Health Maintenance System (HMS) Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool for Windows (WinSCAT) Test

Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (RGN) WSTA Fill

Cardio Ox CDL Holter Arterial BP Hardware Doff  Subject

At Home In Space Questionnaire

Environmental Health System (EHS) Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Water Recovery System (WRS) Sample Analysis

DAN. Experiment Ops. Tagup with specialists

Galley Rack Mod Kit Utility Outlet Panel (UOP) Power Cable Routing

Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (RGN) WSTA Fill

Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) Recycle Tank Fill Part 3

BAR. Experiment Ops

Galley Utility Outlet Panel (UOP) Assist

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Cooling Loop Maintenance

Exercise data D/L via OCA

??-2 Log file D/L

????-1? (pos. A301) Temperature Measurement.

Environmental Health System (EHS) Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Sample Data Record

SM Interior Panels Locks Audit

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Cooling Loop Maintenance  Post Scrub Water Sample

Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (RGN) WSTA Fill

MRM2 comm config to support the Experiment Ops

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Cooling Loop Maintenance

KULONOVSKIY KRISTALL. Experiment Ops

Robotic Workstation (RWS) Setup

On-board Training (OBT) HTV Robotics Onboard Trainer (ROBoT) Session 1

MRM2 Comm Reconfig for Nominal Ops

????-1? (pos. A301) Temperature Measurement.

Packed Bed Reactor Experiment Lab Video Setup

Fluid Shifts Hardware USOS Gather

KULONOVSKIY KRISTALL. Data Copy and Downlink Data

MRM1 ????1, ????2 Cartridges Replacement (???1??_?_4 ????? 433-14 (00058352R). Update IMS)

FLUID SHIFTS. Connecting Ultrasound Equipment to Power Outlet

SM Interior Panels Locks Audit

EVA Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Cooling Loop Scrub Deconfiguration

Fluid Shifts Hardware RSOS Transfer

Fluid Shifts Ultrasound Service Module Setup

N2 Nadir Hatch to Unlatch Hardstop

Packed Bed Reactor Experiment Lab Video Return

Completed Task List Items

EVA Tool Gather for S4 Battery R&R [Completed Saturday]

Laptop Hardware Trash [Completed Saturday]

Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) Frame Relabel [Completed Saturday]

Plug-in Plan (PiP)  Deploy Multi-Port USB Charger Station  NOD2 [Completed Saturday]

USB Jumpdrive return to MagVector front [Completed Saturday]

ER4 M1 Drawer Audit [Completed Sunday]

ESA PAO Recorded Message France Info [Completed Sunday]

ESA PAO Recorded Message Space Food [Completed Sunday]

ESA PAO Recorded Message TF1 Video Postcard Crew Quarters [Completed Sunday]

US Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Airlock Unstow [Completed Sunday]

EVA RET Inspection [Completed Sunday]

US Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Tether Inspection [Completed Sunday]

Fluid System Servicer (FSS) Payload Water Reservoir (PWR) Gather [Completed Sunday]

SSC (Station Support Computer) 5 Battery Swap [Completed Sunday]

Stowage PMM Reconfiguration [Completed Sunday]

Crew Evaluation of New Food Items

Ground Activities

All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

MT Translation WS7 to WS5

SPDM RMCT Stow

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Tuesday, 12:06: JPM Cabin Smoke Detector Cleaning, HTV Offset Grapple OBT, Fine Motor Skills

Wednesday, 12:07: IMV Flow Measurements, JEMAL Slide Table Extend and RELL Removal, Fluid Shifts

Thursday, 12/08: FSS ITCS Coolant Loop Refill, Solar Array Mast Imagery

QUICK ISS Status  Environmental Control Group:

Component  Status

Elektron  On

Vozdukh  Manual

[???] 1  SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1)  Off

[???] 2  SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2)  On

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab  Standby

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3  Operate

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab  Operate

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3  Idle

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA)  Process

Urine Processing Assembly (UPA)  Process

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab  Off

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3  Full Up
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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Brussels, Dec 5, 2016 (SPS)  Polisario Front Representative to the European Union Mohamed Sidati has urged the European Union to take immediate steps to rectify Moroccos use of EU funding in contravention of EU law, by immediately ceasing all funding for projects taking place in Western Sahara.

In a letter Friday to EU High Representative Frederica Mogherini and EU Foreign Ministers, in a response to a report issued last week by Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), Polisarios EU Representative Mohamed Sidati wrote "EU sectoral support for Moroccan development projects must therefore not include Western Sahara, and must not facilitate Moroccos illegal theft of Sahrawi natural resources.

The WSRW report exposed in detail how Morocco has invested EU development funds in projects located in occupied Western Sahara. Under the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement, Morocco receives 14m annually for development in the fisheries sector. Nearly 60% of this funding in the past year has been spent in Western Sahara, in violation of EU law.

It should be recalled that in September, European Court of Justice Advocate-General Melchior Wathelet issued a legal opinion that EU trade deals with Morocco cannot apply the territory of Western Sahara. The ECJ will release a final ruling on the EU-Morocco trade deals on December 21 2016. No United Nations Member State recognises Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which has been occupied since 1975. (SPS)

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Media Outlets Spread Misinformation About Infant Dignity Laws that Provide Families Compassionate Choices

Contact: Kristi Hamrick, Americans United for Life, 202-289-1478, press@aul.org



WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /Standard Newswire/ -- Abortion advocates have recently released a flood of outlandish and deceptive claims intended to defeat and discredit efforts to ensure that deceased infants (no matter how they died) receive dignified and respectful treatment, noted Americans United for Life (AUL) staff attorney Anna Paprocki. In response and in advance of the 2017 state legislative sessions where such laws will be introduced and debated, AUL, the legal arm of the pro-life movement, has released a Myths and Facts analysis to confront the abortion industry's hysterical crusade to castigate these infant dignity laws as clandestine abortion regulations designed to deny women choices and shutter clinics. "Even in death, unborn infants receive no respect from an abortion industry anxious to portray such human beings as trash," observed Paprocki, who also wrote about these efforts to discredit the legislation for The Federalist.



Paprocki wrote: "In reality, these laws do not address, much less regulate, a woman's access to abortion. Infant dignity laws give families more choices when grieving the loss of their tiniest members."



States began considering "infant dignity" laws in response to diverse and tragic occurrencessome of which followed abortions, and many that did not. Hospitals refused to release miscarried infants' remains to their mothers for burial, families were unable to obtain certificates of stillbirth because their infants were miscarried too early, and, not surprisingly, deceased infants' body parts were discovered in dumpsters behind abortion clinics.



One fallacy that the abortion industry asserts is that such laws place a burden on women, when in fact it requires facilities  whether abortion clinic or hospital  to respectfully care for the bodies of infants who did not survive to birth. The institution is then required to ensure that an infant's remains are cremated or buriednot incinerated, tossed in dumpsters, or flushed through a sewer system with medical waste. A mother who suffers miscarriage or stillbirth has the additional option of donating her infant's remains in compliance with her state's Anatomical Gifts Act.



Americans United for Life's Unborn Infants Dignity Act, frequently consulted by state legislators, addresses these tragedies by regulating the actions of healthcare "institutions," not patients. The model law requires abortion clinics, hospitals, and other medical facilities to offer women the opportunity to bury or cremate their deceased unborn children when they have reached a stage of development where they have recognizable body parts. If a woman does not choose to make these arrangements, the institution must simply obtain her consent before disposing of her infant's remains.



Abortion advocates' contentions that they cannot comply with infant dignity laws because they are vague or too costly are also patently ridiculous.

Paprocki noted: "The Eighth Circuit rejected a claim that an infant dignity law in Minnesota was vague because, at times, it might be difficult to determine the need for compliance (i.e., in some first-trimester abortions). Like the AUL model, the Minnesota law requires burial or cremation once an infant has 'cartilaginous structures' and 'fetal or skeletal parts.' The court held that, while these cases may present challenges, 'marginal cases cannot defeat the statute.'"

To learn more about AUL's model Unborn Infants Dignity Act, click here.



Americans United for Life (AUL) is the legal architect of the pro-life movement. We are accumulating victories, building momentum, and advancing a culture of life in America. Our vision is a nation in which everyone is welcomed in life and protected in law. The first national pro-life organization in America, AUL has been committed to defending human life since 1971.
Suspect Circumstances Lead to Activist's Death, Family Demands Autopsy

Contact: ChinaAid Media Team, 432-553-1080 cell, 888-889-7757, 432-689-6985, media@chinaaid.org



MIDLAND, Texas, Dec. 6, 2016 /Standard Newswire/ -- Family members are demanding an independently-conducted autopsy following the mysterious death of an imprisoned Christian and veteran human rights activist on Tuesday.



Peng Ming, a pro-democracy dissident known for establishing the China Development Union (also known as the China Development Federation) and publishing a work offering suggestions to China's development model, known as The Fourth Monument, allegedly fainted on Nov. 29 while watching television. He was rushed to the hospital.



Officials phoned his brother, who had visited Peng just three days before, and relayed the news to him. By the time he reached the hospital, Peng had already been declared dead and transferred to a funeral home.



His sister, who lives in California, said she received a phone call from her living brother, but she only heard heavy breathing. After a few seconds, officials took the phone from his hands and relayed their version of the details to her.



However, authorities did not issue a death certificate, leaving his cause of death unclear. As a result, his family members have demanded an autopsy by an "international, independent medical authority acceptable to the family" and stated that a similar procedure conducted by the Chinese government will not be considered conclusive.



Officials have warned his overseas family members not to attend the funeral.



In response to these events, the family has released an official statement, which has been included below.



Following the government's ban the China Development Union, Peng received a sentence of 18 months of re-education-through-labor on a charge unrelated to his political activities. In August 2000, he was released and fled to Thailand with his family, where they were granted refugee status until they resettled in the United States a year later. There, Peng was baptized in a San Francisco church in July 2002.



When Peng returned to Thailand in 2004 to visit his aging parents, Chinese special agents devised a plan to lure him into Burma and abduct him back to China. Once he arrived in his homeland, he was charged with organizing and leading a terrorist organization, kidnapping and possessing counterfeit money. He was given a life sentence.



Peng's case attracted international advocates such as the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the organizations involved in the China 18 campaign.



The Peng family has asked that sympathizers honor his memory by making donations to China Aid and requested that their privacy be respected.



China Aid reports abuses, such as those experienced by the late Peng Ming and his family, in order to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and promote human rights and religious freedom in China.

Statement by Peng Ming's Family



December 3, 2016



We have recently received news of Mr. Peng Ming's sudden passing on the twenty ninth of November in Xianning Prison in Hubei Provence. He had been illegally arrested in May 2004 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison for his advocacy of human rights, democracy, environmentalism, and freedom.



The cause and details of his death are not shared with us. No death certificate is issued.



We have three requests:

Viewing rights of his body for all family members.

Autopsy by an international, independent medical authority acceptable to the family. Otherwise, no autopsy is requested. An autopsy by the government of China is not acceptable to the family.

Return to his family all of Peng Ming's personal possessions.

Our family is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our loving father, son, brother, and uncle, and someone who has served as a source of hope for many others throughout his life.



At this moment, we request privacy for our family. We are deeply grateful for the support we have received, and we thank you for your thoughts and prayers.



In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to China Aid in memory of Mr. Peng Ming.



-Family of Peng Ming
The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
GPP2017

Argentina

Your City, Anywhere in the World

Are you more the "learn by doing" type?As in, "Don't tell me, show me?"Then you may be interested in one of the 2017 Strobist location workshops that are already planned. Or perhaps you would like to know how to schedule an in-person workshop of your ownfor your photo exposition, camera club, orKeep reading to learn how to make the monkey dance... __________As in most years, I am on the faculty at Gulf Photo Plus' Photo Week in Dubai. GPP is probably the premier week of photo workshops in the world, in a location that can best be described as "off the scale." In 2017, GPP is happening February 10th-17th.Many people make the mistake of thinking that Dubai is too expensive a destination, when the truth is that you can get there pretty cheaply from most of the world. And hotels can easily be had for $100 a night. GPP Photo Week has some of the best instructors in the world () and a "world family" envoronment that is hard to adequately describe.This year, I'll be teaching both one-day and two-day Lighting Bootcamps, and a blue-hour shoot at the jaw-dropping Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in nearby Abu Dhabi (transport included). Please join meor belly up to the veritable smorgasboard of GPP Photo Week's other offerings I'm excited to be heading to South America for the first time, teaching in Argentina in late October. I cannot yet go into any more detail than that, as the details are as-yet unannounced. But suffice to say, if you are local to that part of the world please stay tuned...Serisously, not even kidding.While I no longer self-produce/schedule/book/etc. seminars or workshops, that doesn't mean I'm not still teaching in various cities around the world. I'm just not self-producing them publicly through Strobist.com. Due to time constraints, I now instead work at the beck and call of others.Be it just for a day, or a full week, you can learn more about how to book a private workshop for your organization or club by downloading my Strobist on Location info packet. (FYI: You need to be signed in to Google to download it.)Hope to see you soon.-David
It's Election season and our editor's mailbox is overflowing. Who do your neighbors support? Read about it here.
Cowlitz County sheriffs deputies arrested a King County man Saturday after he allegedly robbed a truck stop in Kalama and fled the scene in a stolen vehicle.

Robert Craig Rowland, 20, of Kenmore was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail on suspicion of attempted taking a motor vehicle without permission, third-degree driving with a suspended license, felony eluding, hit and run, possession of burglary tools, possession of a stolen vehicle, second-degree robbery and a drug violation.

Shortly before about 1:40 p.m., Rowland allegedly walked into the Rebel Truck Stop on Pacific Highway at the Todd Road exit to I-5 and made as if to purchase two cups of coffee and two packs of cigarettes (worth about $20), according to Cowlitz County Sheriffs office and Kalama Police Department. But instead of paying, Rowland allegedly took out pepper spray and pointed it at the store clerk, refusing to pay.

He then fled the scene in a red Dodge Dart heading south on the freeway, with Washington State Patrol troopers on his heels. Rowland then took exit 22 and led the trooper on a chase from about 1800 block of Lewis River Road until the 3100 block, where troopers lost sight of him, said Charlie Rosenzweig, chief criminal deputy with the Cowlitz County Sheriffs Department.

During the chase, the Dodge scraped the side of another car in Woodland, but Rowland kept driving, Rosenzweig said.

Eventually a sheriffs deputy found Rowland on Hawks View Road in Woodland, Rosenzweig said. Rowland then got out of the Dodge Dart and tried to break in to another car, Rosenzweig said. Deputy Brady Spaulding was finally able to arrest him on multiple charges and he was booked into Cowlitz County Jail at about 4 p.m. Saturday

The Dodge Dart was found to be stolen out of Marysville, Wash., Rosenzweig said he did not know if the original owner had been contacted Monday.

Rowland also allegedly had a pipe in his possession with a small amount of methamphetamine, according to Kalama police and the sheriffs office.

Woodland Police also assisted in a hit-and-run incident during the chase.

This is a good example of how our law enforcement agencies in the area continue to work together, Rosenzweig said.
Wendy and Loren Arnett are a very rare breed of married couple.

They bond over auto mechanics.

Loren Arnett, 47, has been a car mechanic for more than 30 years. Wendy Arnett, 44, grew up with a father and a grandfather who fixed cars and fell in love, too, with spark plugs, grease and camshafts. Shes been the gate manager for Washougal Motocross Park for the last 12 years.

So it was only natural that last month the couple opened Courtesy Auto Repair at 965 15th Ave. in Longview, the former home of the Brake Team. Its the second auto business Loren Arnett has run. He shut down the first, Pinkerton Auto Mechanics, in Vancouver during a divorce.

The Arnetts, who live in Yacolt, named the business after the standards theyve set for its service: courteous and ethical.

Loren Arnett said after working for at least 10 different auto repair shops over more than 30 years, he was tired of working for unethical people. So he went into business for himself.

We wanted to be honest and good to people, Wendy Arnett said.

As part of that mission, they charge flat rates  as opposed to hourly  for their jobs.

I want somebody to come, and I want to fix whatever is wrong with their car and not charge for extra hours, Wendy Arnett said.

For example, a full brake job (pad and rotor replacement and fluid flush) costs between $200 and $300; a basic transmission service costs $130; and a one-hour diagnostic test costs $89.89.

For now, the only service they dont provide is wheel alignments, which they hope will happen in the next six months.

In taking over the shop, the Arnetts extended the office, redid the bathroom and ventilation system and will soon paint over the white and yellow exterior with white and red to help distinguish the new business from the former Brake Team location.

The Arnetts got their whole family together  children and grandchildren  to help out with the new business. Wendy Arnetts daughter Cam Fairbanks works in the office as her moms assistant and has taken over much of her moms house cleaning business in the meantime.

Both Arnetts are doing what they love.

I wanted to be a mechanic when I was a little kid, said Loren Arnett, who is a certified Chrysler mechanic, Automotive Service Excellence certified (a standard in the repair industry) and is also licensed to do gas and emissions diagnostics in Washington. When a car comes in on a hook, I figure it out.  When no one can fix it, they send it to me.

As Fairbanks calls it, his skills are an all-you-can-eat buffet.Contact Daily News reporter Lauren Kronebusch at 360-577-2532.
In a breakthrough, researchers have decoded the 51.7 million-year-old genetic secret to a theory given by the father of evolution Charles Darwin nearly 150 years ago.

Since the start of 16th century, biologists knew that different forms of flowers are due to different positions of the male and female sex organs and Darwin named this phenomenon as heterostyly nearly 150 years ago. The phenomenon prevents pollinating insects from fertilising flowers of the same type which is crucial because it promotes cross-pollination between different types of plants and produces different types of offspring through natural selection.

Darwin stated that some plant species have evolved to have two distinct forms of flower where male and female reproductive organs are of different lengths, and have evolved to promote cross-pollination by insects.

His two forms of flowers are now known as pins (female stigma and style are greatly elongated, male anthers are shortened) and thrums (the pins reverse  female parts shortened and male organs extended) which are foundation of modern genetic theory. These clusters of genes are called supergenes because they act together as a unit and control complex biological mechanisms. The heterostyly supergene is called S locus.

After centuries, researchers have now decoded which part of the genetic code made them that way. Researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK have conducted the study and found that the genetic code that results in such variation is due to a process that occurred more than 51 million years ago.

To identify the genes which control the biology noted by Darwin is an exciting moment. Many studies have been done over the past decades to explore the genetic basis of this phenomenon but now we have pinpointed the supergene directly responsible, the S locus, said Professor Philip Gilmartin from UEAs School of Biological Sciences.

Researchers sequenced the Primula genome and found that the supergene is a duplicate of six-year-old gene that controls the identity of petals on a Primula flower. Study authors revealed that the gene duplicates itself, inserts itself in the S locus and mutates to control the position of the anther in the flower. Researchers solved the mystery of mutation by finding the duplicate gene which was not known yet.

Understanding of the genetics which underpin flower development and reproduction of a species broadens our knowledge about the entire system of pollination, which underpins biodiversity and food security, noted Gilmartin about the studys importance.

With challenges such as climate change and its effects on plants, crops and their insect pollinators, its even more important to understand pollination mechanisms and how species can and will react.

The study appeared in the journal Nature Plants.
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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Queensland, Australia Smart City Consortium (ASCC) on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to help India build smart cities. The ASCC is a group of companies that will work on the government's 'smart city mission' that aims to cover 100 cities in the next five years. "It is a huge challenge as India faces huge urban explosion," Chris Elstoft, Australian Deputy High Commissioner to India, told reporters here.

"India's mission of smart city is about sustainability," added Soma Banerjee, Principal (Energy and Infrastructure) CII, adding that the motive of CII is to build the nation and smart city is one such step. This comes after Australian companies can help solve cyber security challenges in the country with home-grown technologies and solutions, a senior official said on Thursday.

John Madew, Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner, Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) visited India with a six-member delegation from November 21-24 to expand linkages between technology and innovation and the Indian IT sector. This mission is an excellent opportunity for Indian IT companies to learn more about Australias advanced capabilities in

"This mission is an excellent opportunity for Indian IT companies to learn more about Australias advanced capabilities in cybersecurity and how they can integrate novel Australian cybersecurity solutions into their supply chain and offer them for their global clients, Madew told reporters here.

With inputs from IANS
tech2 News Staff

There are two types of artificial intelligence. Specific, or Narrow AI implementations uses machine learning and neural networks to train artificial intelligences for particular tasks. General AI can handle new circumstances and novel situations that it has not been explicitly trained for. The latter better approximates the results of human like intelligence, and can go beyond the capabilities of humans.

General purpose intelligence evolved in the natural world because of rich environments with a variety of challenges. DeepMind Lab hopes to simulate these rich environments to better train AI. The Lab was being used internally by DeepMind researchers. The Lab is a platform similar to a 3D game engine, which can be used to train agents for various tasks. These include navigating procedurally generated environments, remembering paths through mazes, collecting rewards, avoiding hazards, navigating past obstacles or having to evaluate a decision between risk and reward.

Motor control, planning, strategy, navigation and 3D vision are some of the tasks that agents can learn in the environment. There are built in tools for level creation. The rewards, gameplay logic, items, and in-game messages can be customised. This can be used for example, to test out how a trained agent behaves in a novel environment. The assets, along with the code, map and level scripts will be hosted on GitHub. Google hopes that researchers will contribute towards shaping the platform. Here is DeepMind playing laser tag.

Google DeepMind research is focused on building better AI for more demanding cognitive tasks, and building superior environments that can train these advanced AI better. DeepMind has opened sourced its research platform, DeepMind Lab, for broader use by the research community. A GitHub repository for Google DeepMind Lab is expected to go live later this week.
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London could lose its position as the leading destination for start-ups in Europe if it does not remain open to the best talent after the British vote to leave the European Union, investors warned on Monday. Six months after the referendum, tech investors used the TechCrunch Disrupt London conference, a major annual gathering for hot start-ups, to call on the government to answer many lingering questions around immigration policy.

Many of the 52 percent of Britons who backed leaving the bloc were motivated by concerns about immigration from the EU, which defends free movement of labor as a key principle. James Wise, partner at venture capital firm Balderton Capital, said that Britain employed 31 percent of all the people in Europe working in tech start-ups, and a significant number of them had moved to the country to start their businesses.

Government initiatives to support the tech sector, for example funding for more fiber-optic broadband, were welcome, Wise said, but he believes the British government needs to show more leadership and clarify the many questions hanging over the free movement of talent.

"The number one concern is still access to talent, and while the raft of announcements are all very welcome, very few of them deal with the ability to attract global talent to the UK to build companies here," he told Reuters in an interview. More than 40 percent of tech companies founded in London in the last year have at least one non-British native as a founder, he said. Balderton was an early backer of gaming firm Betfair, online retailer Yoox and the CityMapper app.

Reshma Sohoni, a partner with Seedcamp, which invests in very early stage companies, said funding for such companies had tightened considerably following the June vote. "We definitely see a narrowing of the kind of companies that can get series A or series B funding," Sohoni said, referring to early rounds of venture funding that young companies need to grow. "Combining the uncertainty and the trouble getting visas, absolutely it (Brexit) is a problem," she said at the event. Responding to the complaints, Matt Hancock, minister for the digital economy, said Britain needed "to be open and welcoming to the brightest and best from around the world".

"Over the last few years, we've had freedom of movement within the European Union but outside we've had a fairly tight visa system, and we need to make sure we are clearly attracting and winning the global war for talent," he told the audience.

He said the government had to make sure it had the most effective systems in place to ensure the most talented people were able to get visas. "We've been doing this with visas for individual countries over the past few years, improving significantly for instance the visa system for China," he said. "Clearly we've got to get this right."

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

The death of a 27-year-old woman in Kerala is being blamed on obscene Facebook posts and the failure of local police to act on her complaint about them.

The victim, identified as Vijitha, was found hanging in her residence in Cheranaloor near Kochi by her husband on Sunday night.

A New Indian Express report quoted an unnamed neighbour of the victim as saying that she had filed a case with the local police around two months back against a man for posting obscene messages about her on Facebook. CNN-IBN quoted unnamed family members as saying that the police hadn't taken action on the complaint.

The report quoted local police officials as saying that a case was not registered due to lack of evidence and the matter had been settled amicably after the accused, identified as Ratheesh, and she were called to discuss the matter.

"We got an oral complaint, following which we called Ratheesh and Vijitha to the police station. Following which Ratheesh had deleted obscene posts about her from Facebook. It is not correct to say that the police had not taken any action," G Vidhyadhara Kumar, an official from the Cheranaloor police station, was quoted as saying by the New Indian Express.

The woman had reportedly approached the police seeking a complaint under Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act be filed against the accused. She also filed a petition in the Kerala High Court on 15 January and the police have yet to file their reply in the case.

However, her family has alleged that Ratheesh had been harassing Vijitha with text messages as well. Ratheesh's family is allegedly involved in a legal battle over a plot of land with the victim's family.
tech2 News Staff

Lenovo recently launched its new updated range of Phab series of large screened smartphones in India. The first handset in the range was the Phab2 Plus and today the company has launched the most affordable option. The new Phab2 is officially in India which comes at a price of Rs 11,999. The smartphone will be available through a flash sale model on Flipkart with the first one to happen on 9 December.

The Phab2 is a step down from the Phab2 Plus. Just like the Phab2 Plus, it has a 6.4-inch display however it has a lower 720p IPS panel. Inside there is a quad-core MediaTek 8735 processor with 3GB of RAM and a 13MP+5MP camera combo. The internal storage is 32GB with an option to expand it further using a microSD card.

Like the Phab2 Plus the Phab2 will feature an AR mode which will let users create more unique photos and videos by superimposing effects such as virtual backgrounds or cartoons onto your pictures. We tried this feature on the Phab2 Plus and didn't find it all that interesting.

Rest of the features include Dolby Atmos audio support, 4G LTE with VoLTE support, dual-SIM support, a 4,050mAH battery, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS/A-GPS and FM Radio. The smartphone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and will arrive in two colour options, Champagne Gold and Gunmetal Grey.

The company is also expected to launch the Phab2 Pro which comes equipped with Google Tango 3D mapping capabilities.
tech2 News Staff

Lenovo's subsidiary ZUK is all set to release its third handset - the ZUK Edge - on 7 December according to an image uploaded by Lenovo VP Chang Cheng.

According to GizmoChina, the poster seen on Weibo shows a ZUK edge handset showing its thin side bezels. The black variant looks somewhat similar to the Galaxy Note 7 is one observes closely. It also mentions that the phone will go on sale on Jingdong Mall (JD.com) on 7 December at 3PM China time. It seems like the vice president is sharing other teasers of the phone launch as well.

The phone is expected to come with a 5.5-inch FullHD display with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset with a 2.35GHz processor inside. The ZUK Edge is expected to come with 6GB RAM and 64GB of storage. It will also be launching with Android Nougat 7.0 out of the box, making it the first Lenovo phone to do so.

On the camera front, the speculations say that there will be a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facing camera. The phone will be housing a 3000 mAh battery.
Kunal Khullar

We hardly saw LG launching any interesting devices this year. The company's flagship, G5 seemed like a promising product, but it turned out be an unsuccessful due to it's unconventional modular design. It never picked up all that well. On top of that, the Nexus lineup was axed in favour of the Pixel, taking away LG's last hope to sell another Nexus smartphone.

The company announced the V20 back in September for limited markets which in my opinion sounded like flagship material. Successor to the V10, the new V20 has made its way to India, probably to cover up the losses of the G5. But is it too late? Here is my initial impression of the smartphone.

Build and Design

The smartphone has a metal finish and a removable back panel. Something which you don't see on smartphones these days. The back panel looks and even feels like solid metal when its shut, take it out and it feels light, almost like a thin sheet of aluminum. LG has added a special button on the right edge to pop open the back panel and thankfully it isn't as flimsy as the module ejector on the G5.

A bunch of the design elements seem to be taken from the G5. The dual camera setup on the back and the rounded edges look familiar. The front is mostly dominated by a glass panel covering the display with a slim plastic forehead and chin. Just like the V10, there are two displays, a primary 5.7-inch and a small strip on top which is always on. The always on display strip, just like before, gives you access to notifications, quick toggles, time and date as well as shortcuts to your most used apps. I didn't get to use this feature on the V10, but the low-end LG X-Screen offers the same feature and I quite liked it.

Moving back to the build, I was quite satisfied with the overall quality of the device. The company says that one doesn't have to worry about dropping the device as the back panel pops open upon impact and pushes the battery out. Now this doesn't mean that it is unbreakable, but it does offer some amount of assurance.

Going into the elements, the volume buttons are placed on the left edge while the headphone jack, speaker and the USB Type-C port is on the bottom. At the back is the primary dual-camera and a fingerprint scanner which doubles up as the power button. Removing the back panel unveils the battery, the SIM card slot and microSD card slot.

Display

As I mentioned, there are two displays but let me talk about the main 5.7-inch IPS LCD panel that offers brilliant 2560x1440 resolution. The pixel density here is 513ppi and the whole front glass panel is made out of Gorilla Glass 4. The panel feels a lot like an OLED, but then I only used the smartphone during night time with a black wallpaper.

Moving onto the small display strip sitting on top of the main display. It measures 2.1 inches and has a 1040x160 pixels resolution which makes it really sharp. It is mostly monochromatic when showing the time or the toggles, but does offer colour when showing recently used or pinned app icons. You can swipe away to scroll through the different options and of course it works when the phone is locked.

Chipset, RAM and Storage

The smartphone is big on hardware as you get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor paired with 4GB of RAM and an Adreno 530 GPU. This makes it at par with high-end flagship smartphones that were launched this year in the first half. Storage offered is 64GB onboard with an option to expand it further using a microSD card.

We do have new smartphones like the Pixel XL and the OnePlus 3T that are offering the new Snapdragon 821 chipset, but having said that, the 820 is no slouch when it comes to processing power. And well, LG made the phone when the 821 was not available so I have no complaints here.

OS

The V20, at its time of international launch, became the first smartphone apart from the Pixel/Pixel XL that came with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. It does come with LG's skin called UX 5.0 which brings in a bunch customisations, custom icons, themes and some changes to the settings menu. It also gives you option to either add or remove the apps drawer. Overall, it felt smooth and didn't give me any issues, but again I did take some time to understand the UI as it isn't completely stock.

Camera

Similar to the G5, the V20 uses a dual-lens camera setup. One of the cameras is a 16MP unit with an f/1.8 aperture while the second one is an 8MP unit with an f/2.4 aperture. You get laser auto-focus, OIS and a dual-LED flash. The front camera comes with a 5MP unit with an f/1.9 aperture.

I tried the camera for sometime and I quite liked the performance. It maintains sharpness and colours are also well balanced. The best thing is that camera offers manual controls in photo as well as video mode.

Battery and Connectivity

The V20 features a 3,200mAh battery that can be user replaced. This means that one can actually swap batteries, just like the good old days. The battery is charged via a USB Type-C port with support for Quick Charge 3.0. In the connnectivity department you get 4G LTE, GPS/A-GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 and even an infra-red port.

I like to also mention the fact that LG has added a special DAC for high-quality audio experience. The company has worked with B&O and the smartphone offer 24-bit HD audio recording and 32-bit playback support. The company says it supports every single audio format and and bundles a pair of B&O Play earphones with the smartphone.

Conclusion

In the few minutes that I used the smartphone, I was quite impressed. The smartphone is sturdy and seems to offer a good user experience. The camera and audio experience was impressive, although I would need further testing. Having a removable back panel is also quite interesting.

The smartphone is priced at Rs 60,000 with the best buy price going at Rs 54,999. That is a notch higher than smartphones like the Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10 and almost getting into the territories of the iPhone 7/7 Plus and the Google Pixel/Pixel XL. A more relaxed pricing would have made more sense and personally I think the smartphone has been launched a bit too late. If LG had got this device around the time of its unveiling, it would have made a lot more sense.
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A state prosecutor's office in Pennsylvania was among hundreds of thousands of victims of a now-shuttered international cyber crime operation, paying nearly $1,400 in a bitcoin ransom to free up its infected computer network, authorities disclosed Monday.

Federal prosecutors said in court documents only that an unidentified state government entity had been victimized by the ring known as the Avalanche network. But the Allegheny County district attorney, Stephen Zappala Jr., confirmed to The Associated Press that it was his office.

The disabling of the Avalanche network by the European Union and U.S. authorities was announced last week in Europe. Federal documents unsealed in Pittsburgh on Monday provided additional details.

The Avalanche group had operated since at least 2010 and infected at least 500,000 computers worldwide, said Soo Song, acting U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh. "The takedown of Avalanche was unprecedented in its scope, scale, reach and level of cooperation among 40 countries," Song said. Avalanche was a platform to distribute malware to people who wanted to buy it and use it to infect the computers of people and businesses.

In general, there were two broad types of malware. One was used to steal online banking information from computers so people known as "money mules" could transfer funds from those victims to overseas banks. The other was ransomware, which locks up a computer network until the victim agrees to pay a ransom.

The prosecutor's office was hit by ransomware in January 2015 when an employee clicked on a link embedded in phishing email, Zappala said. Phishing is a process computer hackers use to try to get people to unwittingly install malware on their computer by clicking on what appears to be a legitimate internet link.

The employee "opened the link because it appeared to go back to a legitimate government agency," Zappala said. The link compromised the district attorney's computer system, which has since been upgraded to fend off similar attacks, he said.

The payment of a bitcoin ransom to free up the computer network was noted in federal court documents. Zappala said his detectives traced the email to Australia but didn't identify the specific source and didn't alert other authorities. He said he's content to let federal authorities prosecute the case because "the penalties the federal government can impose are much more substantial than we can impose."

So far, infected computers have been found in 189 countries worldwide, Song said, and five people have been arrested. They're in custody on charges lodged by authorities in the countries where they're being held, though Song said they eventually could face federal charges and be tried in the United States. The identities of suspects have not yet been released.

Two unidentified Pennsylvania companies also were targets of the cyber crime operation, documents showed. Money mules unsuccessfully attempted to steal more than $243,000 from a New Castle company using seven fraudulent wire transactions earlier this year, Song said. Unidentified people also transferred $387,500 from a Carnegie firm's bank account to one in Bulgaria in April, but the money was recovered.

Overseas officials, and specifically the Germans, began investigating Avalanche about four years ago. U.S. authorities were asked to get involved two years ago, Song said. Pittsburgh is home to the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a group consisting of the FBI and other law enforcement groups working with private businesses and academics, including computer experts at Carnegie Mellon University.

Associated Press
tech2 News Staff

Samsung has not yet released results of its investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 battery explosion fiasco, and there is no official explanation yet. Instrumental.ai, a company that provides analytics services to manufacturers to identify and fix problems in the production line, says it has figured out the problem with the phone.

Samsung rushed the devices to the market to make their flagship devices available to the public before the Apple iPhone 7 launch. The rush to get the device out was one of the speculated reasons for the exploding batteries. Samsung compromised on safety to get the device on the market sooner. According to Instrumental.ai, Samsung actually compromised on safety in an effort to make the phone as slim as possible.

If the problem was with the batteries, then the replacement phones should have not exploded as well. The fact that the phones were replaced, and still exploded, shows a fundamental design flaw in the device, one that is not restricted to just the battery.

Inside the battery is a positive layer made out of lithium cobalt-oxide, a negative layer made out of graphite, and two polymer layers soaked in electrolyte to separate the positive from the negative. If the positive layer and the negative layer touch each other for any reason, the flowing energy heats the electrolyte, causing the battery to explode.

Other theories on the Samsung Note 7 Explosion

Batteries supplied by two companies were both defective according to a report in Bloomberg

Pressure on contact plates, report in CNET, which is similar to the Instrumental.ai report

which is similar to the Instrumental.ai report Curved edges on the phone put pressure on the batteries, according to Phone Arena

Industrial Sabotage, according to speculation in Hackaday

Overcharging due to fast charging feature, according to a report in Financial Times

Rectangular batteries are inherently unsafe in slim smartphones according to a report in Forbes

According to Instrumental.ai, Samsung was so aggressive in designing a slim phone, that they compromised on the safety of the polymer layers in the batteries. The positive and negative layers can touch each other over the course of regular use, the battery swelling, or pressure on the casing. Samsung Engineer pushed the limits of the thinness of the polymer layers, to make the device slimmer, but compromising on the quality.

Battery testing is a time consuming process, and can take up to a year for thorough testing. Samsung apparently just did not have enough time to rigorous testing of the batteries. Charging the batteries leads to mechanical swell. Apparently, the batteries were such a tight fit, that over the years, natural mechanical swelling of the batteries would have pushed the phone apart, even if the batteries did not explode.

The battery in the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is just housed too close to the body to be safe, according to a teardown that Instrumental.ai did with a fire extinguisher nearby.

Samsung could have reduced the dimensions of the batteries, but that would mean lowering the capacity well below that of the iPhone 7 or the previous device in the series, the Note 5. Alternatively, Samsung could have made a thicker phone. The Vivo V5 Max, the Oppo R5, the Gionee Elfie S5.1 and the Huawei Ascend P6 are some of the devices that are considerably thinner than the Galaxy Note 7, and yet did not have any problems with spontaneous smartphone combustion.

This is not the first time that Samsung has recalled defective phones. According to Android Authority, the very first wireless phones by Samsung were revolutionary technology, but suffered from an alarmingly high defective rate of almost 12 percent. Samsung recalled 150,000 phones from the market and destroyed the phones in front of 2000 employees. The company went on to attain great success after the incident.

The damage to Samsung has not been much, with fans demanding a replacement device, and Note series users looking at the episode as a one time problem, but battery supplier and affiliate Samsung SDI is struggling. Samsung and affiliate Samsung SDI are expected to announce the results of their own investigations into the Galaxy Note 7 battery explosions by the end of the year.
Anuradha Shetty

The Madras HC has directed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to put an end to the menace of obscene messages being sent to harried customers without their consent. In doing so, Justice Chitra Venkataraman of the Madras HC also noted that it was high time that the regulator got rid of the problem.

By now, most would know of this issue plaguing cellphone users  receiving obscene messages without consent. The Madras HC, by way of its order, acted upon the petition of a certain V S Suresh, who stated that he was using a private service provider two years ago when he received such obscene messages without his consent. He added that despite filing a complaint, the slew of messages continued and he was also charged money for it.

Madras HC directs TRAI to end the menace of obscene messages (Image credit: Getty Images)

Suresh then moved to a local court, after the police paid no heed to his complaint. It was only after the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's court directed that the police registered his case, following which an FIR was filed in January last year. Suresh has further alleged that the police took his mobile phone for investigation, which they are yet to return. He added that his petition seeking direction to the authorities to return his mobile phone was also pending. Last year, Suresh sent representatiosn twice to Chairman, TRAI and Telecommunications Secretary seeking action against the service provider, and it is after he got no response from them that he filed the writ petition.

In his ruling, Justice Venkataraman noted, "Considering the nature of the complaint made, which is a matter of common agony for even those who may not be petitioners before this court, this court feels that it is time that the first respondent (TRAI) looks into the grievance of the petitioner and put an end to the harassment sent through messages, immediately." Suresh has now been asked to give a copy of the representation to the service provider, who would be required to look into the matter and do the necessary.

In a written reply to Lok Sabha recently, Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora shared that TRAI had received 2,140 service related complaints against operators till June in 2012-13 fiscal. Deora said, "Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has received 2,140 service related complaints, which include deficient and unsatisfactory services in 2012-13, up to June 2012, against telecom operators, including BSNL and MTNL."

Deora went on to add that the regulatory body received 3,551 complaints in 2009-10, 2,401 in 2010-11 and as many as 4,133 complaints in 2011-12. He affirmed that the individual complaints had been forwarded to the concerned provider for redressal. According to Deora, the regulatory body has put into effect a web-based 'Telecom Consumers Complaint Monitoring System' that will allow consumers to file their complaints with their service providers. This way, consumers can check the status of their complaints online, based on the docket number.

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Best teacher in Pabna attends training in Delhi

Bhangura(Pabna) Corespondent :

Habiba Khandoker Eva, best teacher in Pabna district and head teacher of Sarutiya Gov. Primary School under Bhangura upazila officially reached Delhi, India on Monday to participate in the Study Tour and Training Programme "Audio Visual Learning Material & Development of Digital Training Programme".

In her tour she is expecting to present papers on ICT in education system in the primary education of Bangladesh and development of children's moral education and quality. Five best female teachers in Rajshahi division Shila Rani Das under Tarash upazila in Sirajganj district, Shirin Akhter,under Sariakandi upazila in Bogra district, Tajakara Khatun under Nachole Upazila in Chapainawabganj district, Fatima Khatun under Sadar Upazila in Naogaon district, Shahida Parveen under Mohanpur upazila in Rajshahi district are accompanying her.

Members of the team will visit a few Government Primary schools and interact with teachers and students in Delhi. They will also visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, Fort William, residence of Emperor Akbar and others important historical places.

They will take part in the dinner in honor of Bangladeshi teachers at the Palace of Emperor Shahjahan to be organised by the provincial education department in Delhi.




7 lakh children to be fed Vitamin A in 4 dists

Staff Reporter, Kishoreganj :

Health Department organised an advocacy meeting on vitamin A Plus Campaign to be launched on December 10, 2016 at Sadar Upazila autidorium on Monday.

Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer Dr. Syed Monjurul Hoque presided over the advocacy meeting while Sadar Upazila Chairman Advocate Shariful Islam attended as chief guest.

UNO Abdullah Al-Masud and Deputy Director Social Service Md. Rabiul Islam attended as special guest.

It was addressed among others by Vice-chairman Masul Al-Mamun Khan, District Press Club President Mostafa Kamal, Chowdashata UP Chairman A.B Siddique Khoka, UNICEF Program Officer Saiful Islam.

BSS from Pirojpu reports: All preparations have been completed to make the National Vitamin "A" Plus Campaign-2016 successful in Jamalpur and Pirojpur districts.

A total of 3,20,837 children of 6 months to 5 years age group will be brought under vitamin-A capsule feeding programme in seven upazilas of Jamalpur district, said civil surgeon Dr. Moshaerul Islam Ratan yesterday.

Meanwhile, 1,782 centers have been set up across the district for administering vitamin-A capsule under the supervision of the district civil surgeon office. Of the total centers, 1,689 are permanent, 67 additional and 26 mobile centers. Vitamin A one of the most important micronutrients for the children survival, growth and vision, the civil surgeon said.

Besides, a total of 1,21389 children of 6 months to 5 years age group will be brought under vitamin-A capsule feeding programme in Pirojpur district, said civil surgeon Dr Fakrul Alam.

A total of 1,280 temporary centers, 8 permanent centers and 96 mobile centers have been set up in the district, the surgeon said.

BSS from Faridpur adds: As part of the countrywide vitamin 'A' plus campaign with the object of reducing the night blindness and growing resistance power in the children against diseases due to malnutrition, district health department will conduct the day long campaign on December 10 across the district.

It was learnt officially from district health department that the children numbering 41020 with the age range of 6 months to 11 months will be administered blue color vitamin A capsule(1 lakh IU) and 258168 children with the age range of 12 months to 59 months will be administered red color vitamin A capsule(2 lakh IU). In this connection an orientation meeting was held today at local circuit house.

It was further learnt that feeding of Vit-A will not bring any side effects or any after effects to the administered children. However, there may be some sort of vomiting tendency among some which is nothing serious or a matter of worry.

Official sources said that the campaign will be carried out 2100 regular vaccination centers of 79 unions of nine upazillas and four pourashavas of the district.

6300 field level workers of health department and family planning department along with the volunteers will be deployed at the centers to make the campaign successful.

All preparatory works of the campaign are now completed, Sources said.
Trump may move closer to India to balance China

\"Donald Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi,\" the Chinese state media report said.

PTI, Beijing :

The Indo-US relations will become an important part of President-elect Donald Trump's diplomacy to "suppress" China, but it will have limited impact on Beijing as New Delhi may not accept a "quasi-alliance" with Washington to retain its independent foreign policy, the Chinese state media commented today.

"US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trump's diplomacy. With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India," an article in the state-run Global Times said today.

"However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease," it said.

"As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes," the article said, assessing policies options for Trump after he takes over the Presidency next month said.

"Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and India's concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China," the article titled 'Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi' said.

"In other words, the US attempts of establishing a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China may not be accepted by India as the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition," it said.

When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said.

"His will reduce India's trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to," it said.

"To sum up, US-Indian relations during Trump's term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trump's adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China," it said.

"Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on China's influence on regional trade," it said. Chinese official media began attacking Trump after his tweets yesterday questioning for the first time after his election, China's currency devaluation and the Beijing's claims on South China Sea.

AP adds: Whether by accident or design, President-elect Donald Trump is signaling a tougher American policy toward China, sparking warnings from both the outgoing Obama administration and Beijing.

On Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said progress with the Chinese could be "undermined" by a flare-up over the sovereignty of Taiwan, the self-governing island the US broke diplomatic ties with in 1979. That split was part of an agreement with China, which claims the island as its own territory, although the U.S. continues to sell Taiwan billions in military equipment and has other economic ties.

Trump broke protocol last week by speaking with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, then took to Twitter to challenge China's trade and military policies.

"It's unclear exactly what the strategic effort is," Earnest said. "I'll leave that to them to explain."

So far, Trump's advisers have struggled to explain his action, sending mixed messages about whether the conversation with Taiwan's leader was a step toward a new policy or simply a congratulatory call. Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Trump "knew exactly what was happening" when he spoke with Tsai, but Vice President-elect Mike Pence described the interaction as "nothing more than taking a courtesy call of congratulations."

Trump has pledged to be more "unpredictable" on the world stage, billing the approach as a much-needed change from President Barack Obama's deliberative style and public forecasting about U.S. policy. But Trump's unpredictability is likely to unnerve both allies and adversaries, leaving glaring questions about whether the foreign policy novice is carrying out planned strategies or acting on impulse.

China's authoritarian government likes predictability in its dealings with other nations, particularly the United States. The US and China are the world's two largest economies with bilateral trade in goods and services reaching nearly $660 billion last year.

While there have been sharp differences between Beijing and Washington on China's island building in the South China Sea and over alleged Chinese cybertheft of US commercial secrets, the two powers have cooperated effectively on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.

Taiwan split from the Chinese mainland in 1949. American policy acknowledges the Chinese view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, yet the U.S. considers Taiwan's status as unsettled. The US is Taiwan's main source of weapons, with $14 billion in approved arms sales since 2009.

US diplomats were shocked by Trump's telephone call with the Taiwanese leader. Several officials privately expressed deep unease that Trump's team did not inform the administration in advance or give it a chance to provide input.

Max Baucus, the US ambassador to China, spoke about the matter Saturday with China's vice foreign minister to reiterate America's one-China policy on behalf of the current administration.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday that China would have "no comment on what motivated the Trump team" to make the tweets, and he said he believed both sides would continue to support a "sound and a stable bilateral relationship."




CMP special team to pay state honour to FFs

Chittagong District Police is going to form a special team in order to pay due state honour to the freedom fighters on the eve of their burial. The team comprising of a smart contingent of police with a trained band party from now on will show the last respect to the valiant sons of the soil.

Superintendent of Police (SP), Chittagong District Nur-E-Alam Mina on Monday announced this while exchanging views with freedom fighters on the occasion of the Victory Day at his office. He said the team will go to the burial site of the deceased freedom fighter upon information three hours prior to the burial. "Sometimes police cannot complete the procedure of showing state honour to the freedom fighters because of busy duties at respective police stations but it is our state duty which in no way can be neglected", he asserted.

Terming the freedom fighters (FF) as the greatest sons of the soil, the SP also said any kind of dishonour or disrespect to the freedom fighters will not be tolerated and police will have to pay heed to and consider the complaints of the FF with importance.


Shoshee to start new life soon

Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Viewers choice popular actress Sharmin Zoha Shoshee is going to start a new life soon. For the last two years her marriage news was talked for several times. This time she is really going to marry with parents choice. She confirmed the matter yesterday. She is now taking preparation in this regard. Though her groom is fixed but she yet not confirmed the date and venue.

While talking in this regard Shoshee told this correspondent, Earlier everybody asked me when I would get married. Now I can get relief from that question. This time I am going to marry by parents' choice. I am going to marry him by whom my parents have chosen for me. Right now I do not want to disclose about him more. In media, my guardian or elder sister is popular TV actress Richi Apu, also hailed from Rangpur. When she will remain in Bangladesh I will tie the nuptial knot. In my wedding ceremony, she will not be here, I cannot accept it. So when Richi Apu will come back to Bangladesh I will get married, Inshallah.

Recently Shoshee acted news serials are: Chhoto Bou, Joley Bheja Rong and Prem Noi. In Chhoto Bou, she is playing the title role. Therefore Shoshee acted two serials - Amlan Biswas Shunyota and Amirul Islam Aruns Shefali - are being aired now.

In 2003, Shoshee was in top 5 in Lux-Channel i Photo Beauty Pageant contest. To act in role of Tuni in Kohinur Akhter Suchanda directed movie Hazar Bochhor Dhorey Shoshee came into limelight in the field of acting.

Today is her birthday. She has no special plan to celebrate her birthday. While talking in this regard Shoshee informed that she has to be engaged with shooting of serial Chhoto Bou today. Later she will pass time with her parents, brother and friends, she added.
President reaches Singapore



President Abdul Hamid on Tuesday reached Singapore on a six-day visit for his medical checkup.

"A VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, carrying the President, landed at Changi Airport at about 4.50 pm (Singapore local time), President's Press Secretary Joynal Abedin told BSS over phone from Singapore.

On his arrival at the airport, the President was received by Bangladesh High Commissioner to Singapore Mahbub Uz Zaman.

Earlier, Abdul Hamid left here for Singapore at 10.30 am.

Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Dhaka, the cabinet secretary, the Chiefs of the three services and high civil and military officials concerned saw him off at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

The President is expected to return home on December 11.
Sepp Blatter loses appeal

Sepp Blatter lost his appeal against a six-year ban by FIFA on Monday, and now has more serious legal cases lined up against him.

Blatter said in a statement it was "difficult" to accept the Court of Arbitration for Sport's verdict, but that "the way the case progressed, no other verdict could be expected."

The former FIFA president, who was banned for approving a $2 million payment to Michel Platini in 2011, said he will accept the decision. He could have pursued a further appeal at Switzerland's supreme court.
7 Nigerians among 8 held on charge of fraud

RAB members nabbed eight people, including seven Nigerians of a fraud gang, from the city\'s Mirpur and Dakkhin Khan areas on Tuesday for allegedly deceiving people through mobile phone calls.

Staff Reporter :

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested eight members of a fraud gang, including seven Nigerian nationals, on charge of fraudulence and cheating in city's Mirpur and Dakkhinkhan area.

The elite force also recovered 22 mobile phone sets, 3500 naira (currency of Nigeria), 301 dollar (US), 500 dinar (currency of Bahrain) and Tk 1,41,000 from their possession.

They had been identified as Ugochukwu Alfred, Anukwu Donatus Eswealor, Chidi Ibewuike, Michael Onyedika Nneji, Obum Samuel Chukwu Dulo, Henry Esiak, Anayo Ogagba and Bangladeshi Ariful Islam, RAB official said.

Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, Assistant Director of Legal and Media Wing of the RAB

Headquarters, said, "The members of RAB-4 conducted separate drives at Mirpur and Dakkhinkhan areas and netted them."

They used to lure people in the name of lottery and cheated them big sum of money, the RAB official said.

The arrested men were being interrogated in this connection, he said, adding the Nigerians were all staying in Bangladesh illegally, he said.
ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Amidst his broadening search for a secretary of state, President-elect Donald Trump is slated to meet Tuesday with ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, according to a senior Trump transition officials.



The Texas oil executive is under consideration for the United States' top diplomat, the official said.



The emergence of new names indicates that Trump may be conflicted about his short list and may be facing persistent division in his inner circle of advisers over the key choice. The Trump transition team says Trump is considering as many as nine candidates for secretary of state, with the selection process appearing to be far from over.



Tillerson, who has worked at Exxon for more than 40 years, has been at the helm as CEO since 2006. He has no formal diplomatic experience. While Tillerson was CEO of ExxonMobil, the company issued a statement on Nov. 4 supporting the Paris climate agreement.



In 2013, Tillerson was also awarded the Order of Friendship by Russian President Vladimir Putin -- a symbolic gesture of his closeness to the Kremlin. Tillerson was at one time responsible for Exxon's holdings in Russia and the Caspian Sea as well as operations offshore of Sakhalin Island, Russia, according to his bio on the ExxonMobil website.



Trump has been criticized for his perceived closeness to Russia and questions about his posture towards the country were a recurring issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
BNP`s proposal on EC sent to President

Staff Reporter :

A delegation of the BNP on Tuesday sent two copies of its Chairperson Khaleda Zia's 13-point proposal for reconstituting the neutral Election Commission to Bangabhaban.

A team of BNP leaders led by BNP Vice-Chairman Ruhul Alam Chowdhury and Senior Joint-Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi submitted the copies of the proposal around 11:15am.

The President's Assistant Military Secretary Brigadier General Md Mainur Rahman received the proposals on behalf of the President who had gone to Singapore for his treatment.

After submitting the proposals, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said, "We have handed the proposals to the military secretary of the President. He told us that after coming back the President will meet all the registered political parties regarding the forming of the new EC. The President will return from Singapore after December 11."

Replying to a question, Rizvi said, if the President calls us, we will attend the meeting.

Earlier on November 18, BNP Chairperson placed the 13-point proposals and called for reconstituting the EC in consultation with representatives of all registered political parties or with representatives of all those political parties who had their representatives in the National Parliament.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said about the BNP chief's proposal that, "Khaleda Zia drafted a proposal and she can now tell the President about it. We have nothing to say."

The Prime Minister said it at a press conference on December 3.


Earnings totalled $13.69b

Staff Reporter :

Bangladesh's exports during the July-November period of the current fiscal rose 5.5 per cent from a year earlier, driven by stronger garment sales.

Export earnings during the said period totalled $13.69 billion compared with the $12.87 billion during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal (2015-16), according to an official figure released by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) on Tuesday.

However, the export earnings fell short by 4.17 per cent of the strategic export target of $14.28 billion fixed for the first five months of the fiscal year 2016-17.

According to the EPB statistics, Bangladesh eared $11.13 billion from sales of ready-made garments, comprising knitwear and woven items during July-November period of the fiscal year, showing a rise by 6.4 per cent from a year earlier.

The country's major exports to the foreign markets during the July-November period were woven garment ($5498.61 million), knitwear ($5632.74 million), jute and jute goods (387.23 million), home textiles ($277.77 million), frozen shrimp ($245.89 million) and leather footwear (232.89 million).

"Our exports have remained stable and are maintaining a steady growth, buoyed by bright shipment performance from the garment sector," Mafruha Sultana, Vice-Chairman of EPB told The New Nation yesterday.

She said that although it missed the government's growth target by 4.17 per cent for July-November period, exports were continuing to expand compared with that of the previous fiscal, contributing to GDP growth and generating more jobs for workers, particularly in the manufacturing sector

"Bangladeshi exporters are largely integrating themselves with the global export trade helping boost the country's overall export earnings," said Mafruha Sultana.

She also said that the US and the EU remained Bangladesh's main export markets. But the

government and exporters are working together to explore new export markets in order to increase the country's exports significantly.

"The initiative has already achieved notable success and the country's exports to non-traditional markets are on the rise," said Mafruha Sultana.

When asked, she said, the current trend of exports makes us optimistic over achieving this year's export target.

The EPB figure also showed that Bangladesh's export earnings from the month of November totalled $2899.32 million compared with the $2749.34 million during the corresponding month of the last year (2015).

Bangladesh earned $34.25 billion from exports in the fiscal year 2015-16.

Bangladesh's achievements in exports are attributed to the improvement of support policies for exports and trade promotion by the government.

Earlier, the government fixed $37 billion export target for the current fiscal.
Car crushes 2 sleeping street women

A private car crashed into the boundary wall of the High Court in Dhaka after running over two sleeping poor women on the footpath on Tuesday.

Staff Reporter :

Two homeless sleeping women were killed and another was injured as a private car drove into them on the footpath in front of the Supreme Court main gate in the city on Tuesday.

Shahera Khatun, 45, died on the spot while Hasina, 25, succumbed to her injuries on the way to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, said Bachchu Miah, in-charge of DMCH Police Outpost.

Shahbag Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Abu Bakar Siddiqi said that the driver of the private car run over the three floating people around 1:00am while they were asleep on the footpath, leaving two critically injured. Another with minor injuries took primary treatment at the DMCH.

The police seized the car but its driver managed to escape soon after the accident.

Police detained a man who was in the back seat. They discovered the documents of the private car registered in the name of BRAC Bank Ltd.
EC President to hold talks with pol parties

He would play a vital role, BNP hopes: He would seek a proposal from AL as biggest party, says AL

Staff Reporter :

President Abdul Hamid will hold dialogue with the country's all registered political parties after December 16 over the formation of a new Election Commission (EC) that will conduct the next general election scheduled to be held in 2019.

"The President will hold the dialogue as per the article 118 before appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and commissioners. The dialogue is expected to begin after December 16," President's Press Secretary Joynal Abedin told journalists on Tuesday morning.

In 2012, the then late President Zillur Rahman appointed the incumbent CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad to lead the five-member EC through a search committee after holding meetings with political parties.

The tenure of current EC expires in February next. There are 40 registered political parties now in the country.

As the President Abdul Hamid on Tuesday left Dhaka for Singapore on a six-day visit for his medical checkup there, the dialogue is expected to take place after his return. The President is likely to return home on December 11.

As the tenure of the incumbent EC will expire in mid-February next and as Law Minister Anisul Huq on September 15 hinted that a search committee would be formed to constitute the new EC, major political partiers especially BNP continued to put pressure on the government to reconstitute the commission through dialogue.

They said any election without the participation of all parties must be a problematic one. "Reconstitute the EC on the basis of all political parties and create an environment so that all parties will participate in it", they said.

Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad also made a five-point proposal, including enactment of laws, to constitute EC

Apart from the country's political parties, members of civil society also called for initiating a process right now for the reconstitution of a strong EC on the basis of opinions of all political parties.

Besides, foreign diplomats also continued to support dialogue to achieve a political solution to reconstitute of EC.

Earlier on November 18, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia rolled out a 13-point proposal for reconstitution of the EC and urged the President to constitute a search committee on the basis of consensus among all registered political parties or the ones that had representation in the Parliament since the country's independence.

Later on Saturday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a press conference said Khaleda Zia made her proposal; now she could tell the president about it, and he (President) would take the decision  she has nothing to say.

She added that according to the rules, the president may consider their proposal. Hasina, however, said there was nothing important in Khaleda Zia's proposals.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Awami League Publicity and Publication Secretary Hasan Mahmud at a discussion in the city on Tuesday urged the President to reconstitute EC with in consultation with political parties having representation in the parliament.

Referring to submission of EC reconstitution proposal by BNP to the President, he hoped that the President would seek a proposal on the issue from the AL as the biggest party.

He urged the BNP leaders to abide by decision of the President regarding the EC reconstitution as they have submitted their proposals to him.

Meanwhile, BNP handed over its proposals to Bangabhaban on reconstitution of the EC, President's Assistant Press Secretary Mahmudul Hasan said.

BNP's vice-chairperson Major General (retd) Ruhul Alam Chowdhury and senior joint-secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi handed over the proposals to President's Assistant Military Secretary Brigadier General Md Mainur Rahman at Bangabhaban

After submitting the proposals around 11:30am, Rizvi Ahmed expressed hope that President would consider their proposals and play a vital role in reconstituting a strong new EC.

Brig Gen Mainur Rahman, Assistant Military Secretary to the president, received the papers on behalf of the President as he left for Singapore on Tuesday morning.
Police probing incident of 4 missing youths

Staff Reporter :

Police have been investigating the incident of the sudden disappearance of four youths in the city, including two students of North South University, DMP sources said.

Though six days have already been elapsed, law enforcers are yet to find any clue to their sudden disappearance or whether they have any links to militancy.

Masudur Rahman, Deputy Commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said two missing diaries have been recorded in this regard and police are discharging their earnest efforts to trace them.

The sudden disappearance has caused serious concern to their families, given that the Holey Artisan Bakery attackers and many other militant suspects disappeared in a similar fashion, the police official said.

Of them, Zain Hossain Khan Pavel and Shafayat Hossain are students of North South University and childhood friends, while Mahedi Hasan is a student of BM College in Barisal and Md Sujan is an employee at an advertising firm in capital Dhaka, according to their families.Sohel Rana, Sub-Inspector at Banani Police Station and investigating officer of the case, said they have collected security camera footage of a restaurant where the four had snacks together moments before they went traceless and their mobile phones became unreachable. The family members of Pavel, Mahedi and Sujan, ruled out the possibility of their involvement in militancy, the SI said. On Friday, Pavel's father Ismail Hossain Khan filed a general diary with Banani Police Station about the disappearance of Pavel, Shafayat and Sujan. According to the GD, Pavel, 23, went to Banani Super Market between 8:00pm and 8:30pm on Thursday to get some papers photocopied, and didn't return home.

It was also mentioned that his two friends Shafayat and Sujan, who were with him at that time, also went missing.

The families of Pavel and Sujan live in the same building in the capital's Banani area. Pavel's father Ismail Khan said, "I have been in touch with law enforcement agencies ... I hope they will find him soon." Sujan's elder brother Suman filed a GD with Banani Police Station on Friday. He said that he had been looking for his brother at hospitals and morgues in the capital. Mahedi's uncle Mahabub Hawladar said, Mahedi and Sujan are from the same village in Barisal. Mahedi came to the capital on November 26 for a job interview and had been staying at one of his aunt's house.

"He told his aunt that he was going to meet Sujan to fix some issues with his laptop computer he bought from Sujan," said Mahabub. Mahedi recently got married and was desperately looking for a job, he added.
None can take law into his own hands: CJ

Staff Reporter :

The Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on Tuesday said, 'No one can take the law into his own hands in a civilized society. If any one does so, it means that he refuses the Constitution, the Law and the Country.'

The Chief Justice also said that our Constitution preserved the right of all sections of people. It was the spirit of our independence war. But we are departing from the spirit of the independence. He also said, 'If anybody commits any crime, then he will face the law. But no one should take the law in his own hands.' He said this while addressing in 'Bijoya' reunion as the chief guest arranged in the Supreme Court Bar Auditorium. The Supreme Court Bar Association hosted the program. Supreme Court Bar President Advocate Yusuf Hussain Humayun presided over the program. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, Bangladesh Bar Council Vice-Chairman Advocate Abdul Baset Majumder, Principal of Ramkrisna Mission and Shrine Shremoth Swami Durgeshananda Moharaj, Convener of the program Advocate Satyendra Chandra Bhokta also gave speech in the program. The Chief Justice said to the lawyers that they should condemn those who were sowing the seeds of communalism in the country. He also said, 'We see that the Syrian refugees are not going to Saudi Arabia, but to Germany, which is giving them shelter. So, caste or religion is nothing for a country. Humanity is the greatest question,' he said.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that the real religion is to feel people, to remove discrimination and to ensure equal opportunity for all the people. He also said that they had to go far to eliminate violence from the society. He also said that they needed a secular education system to get free from fundamentalism. Advocate Abdul Baset Majumder said that people of all religions of our country contained the spirit of non-communalism. "We are also trying relentlessly to make a non-communal Bangladesh. But Rohingyas are thrown in a inhuman situation. Nobody is saying about the issue", he added. Advocate Yusuf Hussain Humayun said that they believed in non-communalism. He called to build a country of non-communalism.
BNP forms body sans Jamaat

Staff Reporter :

The BNP-led 20-party alliance on Tuesday formed a coordination committee, excluding Jamaat-e-Islami, to carry out election campaign in favour of BNP's mayor candidate in Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) polls.

Jatiya Party (Kazi Zafar) Secretary General Mostofa Jamal Haider has been made Coordinator of the committee with Bangladesh NAP Secretary General Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan as Member-Secretary.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir announced the committee after a meeting of the alliance at BNP's Naya Paltan office. The general secretaries of all the partners attended the meeting.

Mirza Fakhrul said, the committee has been formed sans any representative of the Jamaat-e-Islami as the party did not send any name on its behalf. He said the coordination committee has been divided into three groups. Bangladesh Kalyan Party (BKP), Bangladesh-NAP, Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP), NDP and Democratic League (DL) are in the first group.

The second group comprises Jatiya Party (Kazi Zafar), JAGPA, NPP, People's League, Labour Party and Bangladesher Samyabadi Dal.

Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam, Islami Oikya Jote, Khelafat Majlish, Islamic Party, NAP-Bhashani and Bangladesh Muslim League are in the third group.

The BNP Secretary General said, the alliance leaders will start campaigning in favour of BNP mayor candidate Advocate Sakhawat Hossain Khan from December 10.

They will also distribute leaflets in favour of Sakhawat Hossain, the BNP leader added, saying he will surely win the NCC polls if a fair election is held.
PM`s Spl assistant`s body found in city`s Japanese eatery

5 employees detained: He had cardiac arrest, says Hanif

Staff Reporter :

Prime Minister's special assistant Mahabubul Haque Shakil, 48, died at a Japanese restaurant in the city on Tuesday.

Police recovered his body from Samdado Japanese Cuisine, one of the city's oldest Japanese restaurants, at House No-27, Road No-35, Gulshan-2 at about 2.30 pm yesterday.

Officials said Shakil, a former central leader of Bangladesh Chhatra League, used to visit the restaurant often. He died yesterday while taking launch in the restaurant.

When contacted, PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim said that he had heard about the death and was going to the spot.

"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has mourned the death. She also prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul and conveyed profound sympathy to the bereaved family," she said. Police instantly could not tell the reason behind the death. But the Gulshan police picked up five employees of the restaurant for interrogation in connection with the incident.

"As per preliminary information, Shakil died of cardiac arrest. However, it will be confirmed after getting report from the doctors It is confirmed that he is no more," Joint General Secretary of Awami League Mahabubul Alam Hanif said while he went to visit the spot at about 4:00pm.

The body was taken away by an ambulance from the restaurant at 5:50pm. "Shakil's body would be kept at the mortuary of BIRDEM. His namaz-e-janaza will be held at Dhaka University central mosque at 11:00am today [Wednesday]. An autopsy will be conducted before the namaz-e-janaza," State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid Bipu said.

Bipu said: "The body of Shakil will be buried in his family graveyard at Baghmarha of Mymensingh."

The forensic experts of Criminal Investigation Department [CID] entered the restaurant to examine the evidences at about 5:00pm. Officer-in-Charge [investigation] Gulshan Police Station Md Salauddin said the police were thoroughly searching the spot for clues to know the actual reason of his death.

Awami League presidium member Syed Ashraful Islam came to the site at about 5:30pm. Prime Minister's military secretary Maj Gen Miah Md Joynul Abedin also visited the spot.

Meanwhile, a huge number of party activists, supporters and followers thronged the restaurant after the news spread in the city. Speaker of the National Parliament Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury expressed condolence over the death.

Unconfirmed sources said that Shakil went to the restaurant on Monday night and stayed at a room there. Hearing no sound from him, the employees of the restaurant broke the door open and found him dead.

Meanwhile, a strong rumour spread after his death that Shakil had committed suicide. It was learnt that he posted a status in his facebook timeline [a 12-line poem] on Monday where he mentioned about the death.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police [Gulshan Zone] refrained from making any comment over the issues despite repeated attempts last night.

Shakil left behind his lawyer wife, a daughter, a host of relatives and well-wishers to mourn his death. He was chief executive officer of the Centre for Research and Information [CRI], the research cell of Awami League, formed after the 2001 election. He was appointed deputy press secretary to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the Awami League came to power in 2008.

In 2014, he was given the role of her special assistant for media. Shakil was born in Tangail on December 20, 1968. His father lawyer Jahirul Hoque Khoka is the president of the Awami League's unit in Mymensingh district. His mother Nur-un Nahar Khan is a teacher. He received his honours and masters degree on sociology from Dhaka University.

He was also a poet and his two books of poems - 'Khero khatar pata theke' and 'Mon kharaper gari' -- were published from a renowned publication house.
KL condemns violence against Rohingyas

The Independent Online :

Boys stand among debris after fire destroyed shelters at a camp for internally displaced Rohingya Muslims in the western Rakhine State near Sittwe, Myanmar Reuters

Malaysia has branded the treatment of Burma's Rohingya Muslim minority "ethnic cleansing", following reports of escalating violence and allegations of potential human rights abuses in the country.

The Muslim-majority nation issued the deeply critical statement ahead of a planned solidarity march in Kuala Lumpur, expected to be led by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Burma recently warned Malaysia that it must respect policy held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) and not interfere in its internal affairs.

Yet Malaysia's foreign ministry in a statement: "The fact that only one particular ethnicity is being driven out is by definition ethnic cleansing.

"This practice must stop, and must be stopped immediately in order to bring back security and stability to the Southeast Asian region."

The foreign ministry said that since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had fled the largely Buddhist country in recent years, including around 56,000 to Malaysia, the issue was of international concern. Malaysia's language towards Burma has become increasingly stern in response to violence in the country's northern Rakhine State, where there has been a army-led crackdown, sending hundreds fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.

Satellite imagery have revealed hundreds of buildings burned to the ground across multiple villages, with the true scale of destruction difficult to gauge because of government-imposed media and foreign aid restrictions.

A convoy carrying the former UN chief Kofi Annanarrived outside the Rohingya village of Wapeik on Saturday morning, which has seen signficant damage from fire.

But non-state media journalists were stopped by police from coming near the convoy or entering the village, an AFP photographer at the scene reported. In recent weeks Rohingya women in the Rakhine state have alleged that Burmese soldiers have raped and sexually assaulted them at gunpoint. The surge in violence was triggered by the killings of nine police officers at border posts on 9 October in Rakhine, home to some 800,000 Rohingya.

Several government officials blamed a militant Rohingya group for the attacks. Security forces then sealed off access to Maungdaw district and launched a counter-insurgency operation.

There have been no arrests, and a formerly unknown Islamist militant group has taken responsibility.

Burmese government officials deny that they are responsible for the attacks on the Rakhine district, and have alleged that the Rohingya are burning down their own houses.

But in November, a senior UN official John McKissick said Burmese security forces are striving towards the "ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in Myanmar".

Diplomats and United Nations officials have privately said the 9 October attacks and subsequent crackdown have dismantled years of work rebuilding trust between the Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine after ethnic and religious violence broke out there in 2012, Reuters reported.

There has been disappointment that Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party took power this year from the military, has failed to ease the suffering of the Rohingya.
An attempted genocide

21,000 Rohingyas flee to Bangladesh

Rohingya Muslims displaced from their homes by communal violence. Reuters photo

Staff Reporter :

Around 21,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks to escape from an attempted genocide by Myanmar army, an official of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.



Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border trying to stem the tide of refugees who have been fleeing a bloody crackdown by Myanmar's army in the western state of Rakhine since early October.



But Sanjukta Sahany, head of the IOM office in Bangladesh's southeastern district of Cox's Bazar bordering Rakhine said an estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Cox's Bazar district between October 9 and December 2.



"It is based on the figures collected by UN agencies and international non-governmental organizations," she told AFP.



Sahany also said the members of the stateless ethnic minority had crossed over in the past two months. "The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements," she added.



Those interviewed by AFP inside Bangladesh had horrifying stories of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's security forces.



Analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.



Rohingya is a Muslim minority community in Myanmar.



Myanmar authorities have denied allegations of abuse but have banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from accessing the area.



The government of Myanmar also criticised media reports of violence against the Rohingya, and lodged a formal protest against a UN official in Bangladesh who said the state was carrying out "ethnic cleansing". Myanmar's Nobel peace laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has also faced a growing international backlash for the army crackdown in the country. At the weekend, the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak led a protest rally against what he called the "genocide" of the Rohingya minority, saying "enough is enough". Last week, Suu Kyi vowed to work for "peace and national reconciliation", saying her country faced many challenges, but did not mention the violence in Rakhine state.



Bangladesh has reinforced its border posts and deployed coastguard ships to try to prevent a fresh influx of refugees. In the past two months, Bangladeshi border guards have prevented hundreds of boats packed with Rohingya women and children from entering the country.



The Bangladesh government has been under pressure from Muslim groups and the opposition to open its border to the fleeing Rohingya. On Tuesday, police stopped thousands of Muslims from marching to the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka to protest at the ongoing "genocide" of Rohingya.



Shiblee Noman, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka police, told AFP about 10,000 Muslims joined the march, which was halted at central Dhaka's Nightingale Crossing.



"They were peaceful," he said.



More than 230,000 Rohingya are already living in Bangladesh, most of them illegally, although around 32,000 are formally registered as refugees.
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.
Here's how the exploit work:

North Korea's own homegrown computer operating system, that's supposed to be fully hacker proof and more secure than foreign OS, like Microsoft's Windows, can easily be hacked remotely.A group of hackers managed to break into Red Star OS  North Korea's government sanctioned Linux-based OS  using just a link.Red Star OS is North Korea's own homegrown OS that looks remarkably just like Apple's OS X and gives North Korean authorities more control over the computers, providing not only security but also spying tools that help track files in a way that if the government wants, every bit of user's data can be traced easily.According to the information security company Hacker House , Red Star OS contains a critical vulnerability that makes it possible for hackers to gain remote access to any PC running North Korea's OS just by tricking victims into opening a hyperlink.The latest version of Red Star OS ships with a Firefox-based web browser called, and according to researchers, the "trivial remote exploit attack vectors" contained in the web browser allows attackers to hack into the system.The Hacker House hackers exploited a particular Red Star application that handles Uniform Request Identifiers (URI)  a string of characters used to identify resources in a network.Hackers noted that the "mailto" URI request used for email could be exploited by hackers to remotely "execute arbitrary commands."Since this particular URI does not remove requests from the application's command line, hackers could "trivially obtain code execution" just by injecting malicious links into the command line."Whilst probing for vulnerabilities it was noticed that registered URL handlers were passed to a command line utility '.' This application (aside from having null ptr de-refs and other cute bugs) takes URI arguments for registered URI handlers when handling application requests such as 'mailto' and 'cal,' the Hacker House hackers explains."Naenara doesn't sanitize the command line when handling these URI argument requests and as such you can trivially obtain code execution by passing malformed links to the nnrurlshow binary."In short, this security flaw can be used easily to install malware or exploit PCs running the Red Star operating system.Rival South Korea has long blamed North Korea for mounting various cyber attacks against its government, military, and other organizations.Just recently, the South Korean military blamed North Korea for breaching its military cyber command. A spokesman for the military cyber command told BBC that classified information was thought to have been stolen, although it's not clear exactly what data was accessed.
Early voting was sluggish in advance of this weekend's runoff election, with fewer than 6 percent of Louisiana's 3 million registered voters casting ballots.

About 171,000 voters went to the polls in advance, during the just-ended early voting period for the Saturday election that will decide an open U.S. Senate seat and two open U.S. House seats, along with dozens of local elections.

That's only a third of the people who early voted ahead of last month's primary election, which had the attention-grabbing presidential race on the ballot.

December elections historically have had low turnouts, and Secretary of State Tom Schedler's office expects about 35 percent of voters statewide to show up for the election, compared to 68 percent for the presidential election.

SENATE RACE

Top of the ballot is the competition for a U.S. Senate seat between Democrat Foster Campbell, a state utility regulator with the Public Service Commission, and Republican John Kennedy, the state treasurer.

Louisiana's runoff will decide the nation's last U.S. Senate seat, and Kennedy is the front-runner. Early voting data appears to be more favorable to the Republican contender.

White voters cast early ballots in greater proportions than black voters during the week-long early voting period, according to statistics released Monday by Schedler's office.

While 31 percent of registered voters are African-American, only 24 percent of those who cast ballots ahead of Election Day were black. That's a problem for Campbell, who needs strong turnout from black voters, who traditionally support Democratic candidates.

Republicans also turned out in greater proportions than their Democratic and independent counterparts. While 30 percent of state voters are registered with the GOP, they made up 42 percent of the early voters, according to the data.

OTHER RACES

Also on the ballot are races for two U.S. House seats, left open because Republican incumbents Charles Boustany and John Fleming unsuccessfully ran for the Senate instead of re-election.

The 3rd District seat representing southwest and south central Louisiana is a competition between two Republicans: Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, the third-place finisher in last year's governor's race; and former sheriff's Capt. Clay Higgins, dubbed the "Cajun John Wayne" for his attention-drawing Crime Stoppers segments.

The 4th District seat representing northwest Louisiana is a competition between Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson of Benton and Democratic lawyer Marshall Jones of Shreveport.

Demographer John Couvillon reviewed early voting data and said in his analysis that both districts have shown a larger Republican tilt among voters who cast early ballots for the runoff election.

Several judgeships and municipal races also will be settled Saturday, along with propositions across 44 parishes, according to Schedler's office.
Last week a Lafayette Parish grand jury tacked two additional felony charges onto embattled Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope, both of which are related to his use of public funds to pay legal bills.

A review of Popes legal bills shows that the dates listed in the indictment coincide with two payments of legal fees to local criminal defense attorneys Jonathan T. Jarrett and Katherine Guilbeau Guillot.

City Marshal Brian Pope Image courtesy LPCC

While he would not comment specifically on the Jarrett and Guillot bills, District Attorney Keith Stutes confirms that the two new charges stem from the payment by public funds of certain legal bills. Those legal bills are related to Popes ongoing public records battle with The IND  which has sought to establish that Pope abused his office to advance Chad Leger's campaign for sheriff last year  and the now seven felony counts of perjury and malfeasance lodged against him by the grand jury.

That Pope might be popped on two additional malfeasance charges should come as welcome news to local residents incensed that the city marshal has been draining his office coffers to pay his legal fees, which have swelled to approximately $150,000 (he still owes The IND about $200,000 for legal fees, costs and penalties awarded by the court in the civil case). While there is certainly some question as to whether Pope can legally use his office to pay his legal fees on the civil side, he cannot do so on the criminal side (though he can seek reimbursement if hes exonerated). The latter is where he got himself into more trouble last week with the grand jury, which initially indicted him on five felony counts in August.

The specific date listed on the Nov. 30 indictment for Count 6 is June 13, 2016, the same day the marshals cost account cut a check to attorney Jonathan Jarrett for $1,175, according to legal bills obtained by The IND in a public records request. Among the references in the partially redacted bill, dated May 16-May 18 of this year, is Telephone Conference with Alan Haney. Haney is the assistant district attorney prosecuting Pope, which means Jarrett's legal work is related to criminal case and not the civil case with The IND. Jarrett, whose hourly rate on the invoice is $200, declined to comment on what other services he provided to Pope.

The date for Count 7 is July 13, 2016, the day the marshals cost account cut a $10,000 check to Katherine Guilbeau Guillot, another criminal defense attorney who worked on Popes appeal of 15th Judicial District Court Judge Edwards decision to hold the marshal in criminal contempt of court, an appeal Pope lost. Guillot says in the partially redacted invoice that her hourly rate for appellant work is $250.

Attorney Chuck Middleton Image courtesy LPCC

Last week it was also revealed that Pope might even bring a local attorney down with him in what started more than a year ago as a simple public records request from this paper (and would likely have ended there had he just complied). Chuck Middleton, the first attorney Pope hired who later withdrew from the case, was also indicted on a single count of perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury. And, as it turns out, Pope may have escaped an additional malfeasance charge from a July 2016 Middleton invoice, which also references Haney, the grand jury and District Judge David Smith (who has been assigned the criminal case), because the marshal stopped paying Middleton in May, public records show. Middleton's last bill, which he calls a demand for payment, says he is due $10,910 for legal services in May, June and July.

A pre-trial hearing for Pope is set for Jan. 19; a criminal defense attorney has yet to enroll on Popes behalf.

Read more about the indictments against Pope and Middleton here.
A place to exercise ideas before writing about them with greater discipline.
If youre like most Southern Illinois business owners, January represents more than simply turning over a new leaf. It signifies turning over more profit, new business opportunities and innovative ways to keep your customers engaged. Not to mention creating better operational processes and more inclusive workplace cultures.

Come to think of it, January 2017 is a springboard for how the rest of your business calendar will shake out. That makes December 2016 your last chance to position your company for a successful new year. Are you prepared?

Local experts in marketing, advertising, social media and consulting have loads of advice for you to propel your business into 2017 and beyond. And doing so may be simpler than you think  especially if you are committed to building relationships with your customers through social media.

Over the past three years we have seen a shift in marketing money going toward social media more than it ever has, said Tom Harness, owner and president of Harness Digital Marketing in Carterville. I think we will see more small businesses investing their time and money on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. They are going to research each platform and find where their current, future and potential customers will be.

Employee engagement

One way business owners can enhance their growth potential in 2017 is by doubling down on their commitment to employee engagement.

American-based organizations currently invest approximately $720 million annually in engagement improvement, according to research by the California-based firm Bersin & Associates. This spending frenzy has yet to produce major improvements in employee engagement, as a recent survey from Towers Watson shows that 63 percent of U.S. workers are not fully engaged in their work and are struggling to cope with work situations that dont provide sufficient support.

Here at home, companies can find creative ways to keep their workers happy. Incentive planning, contests, flexible work schedules and corporate retreats are a few ways employers can re-establish connections with their employees on a more personal level.

Hilary Holdinghausen, marketing and business development director at The HUB in Marion, says her organizations corporate discounts for gym memberships are popular among employers looking to incentivize their work forces.

I think a corporate package or discount makes a big difference when an employee is debating whether or not to get a gym membership, she said. Employees are more apt to sign up when they can save money while improving their overall health and wellness, which in turn boosts moral, increases employee longevity and helps keep healthcare costs down.

Holdinghausen has seen many new members walking The HUBs track on their lunchbreaks as a way to clear their minds and sneak in a quick workout. Knowing that their employer is invested in their personal health and well-being can lead to higher levels of engagement at work.

We have some companies who pay a portion of their employees memberships each month, we have some who reimburse their employees if they use it a given number of times and we offer some corporate discounts for companies that are also sponsors of our facility, she said. Each agreement is catered to meet the needs of the company best.

Prepare for challenges  and communicate with your staff

Another aspect of keeping employees more satisfied at work is utilizing a transparent leadership approach. That advice comes from Berardino Baratta, an independent business consultant in Carbondale who has helped local organizations like Giant City Stables and Longbranch Cafe & Bakery overcome operational challenges.

He co-founded Specialized Equine Services & Therapeutic Riding in Carbondale, which uses equine services to help children, adults and veterans with psychological, neurological and physical conditions. Prior to moving to Carbondale, Baratta served as chief technology officer and vice president of the Linux Solutions Group for Metrowerks, A Motorola Company, in Austin.

Throughout his experience as a global business leader, Baratta has found a few guiding principles to be true, regardless of industry of size of company. And they are principles every local business owner can put into place as 2016 morphs into 2017.

You always have to plan for the unexpected and most importantly, be straightforward with your staff about any changes that you see coming, he said. No one plans a business thinking they are going to fail. Not being prepared for challenges is what brings businesses down.

Pledging to be more honest with your staff in 2017 is a great way to effectively kick off your new year. Without employee trust, Baratta says, companies are bound to fail. Whether its in good times or bad, your employees are looking to feel engaged in the business, he said. If you have the means, give them something special at the end of the year as a holiday bonus. But most importantly, engage them in honest conversations about the business future and youll see greater loyalty immediately.

Baratta recommends a simple exercise for anticipating your possible pain points in 2017. It is based in the advice he received from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at an executive retreat: A lot of times, the unknown is actually a known that you didnt want to think about.

Take inventory of what may have derailed you in 2016 and instead of running from it, be honest with yourself about how you should have predicted it, Baratta said. Dont change all of your plans based on the things you fear, but be prepared for crisis and be ready to pivot with your employees behind you.

Social media and digital marketing

Harness recommends a similarly honest approach when it comes to social media content development and management. He has seen many trends come and go since opening his digital marketing company. Social media is no passing fad, he says  especially if you follow a strategic plan of action.

Remember that the content you are creating is not for you, he said. What you like is irrelevant. Its what your customers and potential customer want to see and interact with that is important.

Harness recommends that small business owners take hold of the technologies available to them. These innovations have made doing business on a global scale easier than ever. They have also made connecting to local consumer bases ultra convenient. Video is one medium in particular that business owners can use to resonate with their target audience.

All platforms will push more video, Harness said. Facebook Live, Periscope and Snapchat will invest heavily into this area and find ways to make it more social and beneficial to businesses and brands.

Angie Wyatt, partner at Growing Media Marketing in Carterville, agrees.

There is power in video because it works across all mediums, she said. Video is the most effective form of advertising and no longer has to feel or appear like a traditional commercial. Through storytelling, a video can reach an audience on an emotional level, making a more meaningful impression on the targeted market.

Growing Media Marketing reports that video traffic will account for 69 percent of all consumer internet traffic in 2017. This means big opportunities for companies in Southern Illinois.

Being able to reach people on their cellphones allows forward-thinking business owners to set themselves apart by using professionally produced video content and corresponding static imagery, Wyatt said. This gives them a cohesive and captivating presence that leads to top-of-mind awareness.

Harness also predicts more growth opportunities for savvy business owners focused on connecting with already-established entrepreneurs and social superstars. With the right strategy, companies can accelerate the deployment of their messaging across all major media channels.

We are going to see a rise in influencers who have personal brands and work with businesses to promote their product or services, he said. Basically we are going to see a lot of small infomercials done by people with big followings.

Many companies are focused on catching magic in a bottle with that next big social media post that goes viral. Instead of stressing over the details of each and every word you write for a Facebook post, know the ins and outs of the platform to maximize your message.

The number one thing to remember is that social media is not just about posting content, Harness said. You need to have a plan and do the following: Be consistent, create great content and support your social media presence with great customer service.

Know your customer demographics and match them accordingly with the appropriate social media platforms. Dont be afraid to be original and step outside your comfort zone.
Caritas Family Solutions in Carterville is looking for people to help Santa by sponsoring foster children at Christmas.

According to Administrative Coordinator Jennifer Davidson, Caritas serves about 250 children and teens through age 19 from the Carterville office. They still need Secret Santa sponsors for 120 children.

Sponsors can select the age and gender of a child, and Davidson can email the childs letter to Santa.

Secret Santas are given the childs wish list and asked to shop for the childs specific requests, spending about $100 per child. Unwrapped gifts are delivered to the Carterville office. Caseworkers will deliver the gifts to the children.

This needs to be done as quickly as possible, Davidson said.

The original deadline for gifts to be brought to Caritas was Dec. 3, but the deadline was extended with the hope of finding more sponsors.

We will also take any cash donations. With the cash donations, we do the shopping ourselves, Davidson said.

Anyone interested in sponsoring a child is asked to contact Davidson at 618-985-2000, ext. 230, or Jennifer.Davidson@caritasfamily.org.

 The Southern
SPRINGFIELD  When Susana Mendoza took the oath of office Monday to become Illinois next comptroller, she didnt just inherit an office previously held by Democrat Dawn Clark Netsch and Republican Judy Baar Topinka, political role models whom she praised as equally unforgettable and completely awesome.

As the person now in charge of the states checkbook, Mendoza, a 44-year-old Chicago Democrat, also inherited a backlog of bills topping $10 billion and a lawsuit that a group of Democratic lawmakers filed against her Republican predecessor, Leslie Munger, for delaying their paychecks amid the ongoing budget stalemate. The pile of unpaid bills has grown as Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly have failed to agree on a full budget during Rauners nearly two years in office.

For Mendoza, who was a state representative for a decade before serving as Chicago city clerk since 2011, the bill backlog, which is climbing toward $11 billion, is about more than just dollars and cents.

That $11 billion signifies people who need us to do the right thing for them, Mendoza said. Theyre not numbers on a spreadsheet.

Mendoza said that as she campaigned throughout the state, she saw firsthand how the failure to produce a budget is hurting Illinois residents.

During a visit to Charleston this summer, for example, she met former Eastern Illinois University employees who had been laid off as a result of the lack of full funding for higher education. She said they were being given vouchers to buy food.

I was so moved by these professors, who had done nothing wrong, Mendoza said. And its not just the loss of a job. Its the loss of pride and the loss of identity that comes with having a job.

There was a sense of embarrassment, she said, as though they had done something wrong.

Those professors did nothing wrong; their state government did them wrong, Mendoza said. Those professors shouldnt feel embarrassed; this dysfunctional government should be embarrassed.

Mendoza said she would work with the powers given to her by the Illinois Constitution to prioritize payments to social service providers and other state vendors most in need.

She said that will mean continuing her predecessors practice of putting paychecks for lawmakers, and herself, at the bottom of the pile unless a court instructs her to do otherwise.

Wearing a red suit that used to belong to Topinka and taking the oath of office on the late former comptrollers family Bible, Mendoza vowed to work across the partisan divide, just as Topinka did. But she also vowed to stand up to anyone, including the governor, to fight for what she believes in.

Speaking at an Illinois Farm Bureau event in Chicago on Monday, Rauner didnt congratulate Mendoza on her inauguration but rather called on her to continue fighting the lawmakers lawsuit, which was filed in Cook County on Friday, just as Mungers term was drawing to an end. The lawmakers argue that its a violation of the state constitutions separation of powers for the comptroller to withhold their pay.

I hope, and I would request, that Comptroller Mendoza fight as hard as Comptroller Munger has against this lawsuit, Rauner said. I hope that shell speak out against it every day. I hope that she will get her own special counsel and not purely count on the attorney general, (Lisa) Madigan, to fight the lawsuit.

Urging the six Democratic lawmakers who filed the lawsuit to drop it, Rauner called it pretty clearly  an orchestrated effort that was timed so as not to embarrass their new comptroller.

Mendoza and her staff appreciate the governors advice, spokesman Abdon Pallasch wrote in an emailed statement.

But as an independent constitutional office, well explore our best legal options on this case and any others, Pallasch added.

Mendoza was elected Nov. 8 to fill the reminder of Topinkas term, which runs through early 2019. Topinka died shortly after winning re-election in 2014, and Rauner appointed Munger to replace her. The Legislature then passed a law establishing a special election for the second half of the term.
ANNA  Marion Blumenthal Lazan takes her responsibility as a witness of the atrocities of the Holocaust seriously.

We are running out of time. This is the last generation who will hear the story from survivors firsthand, Lazan said.

She is grateful to have the opportunity to speak to people of all ages, especially young people. She spoke Monday evening, Dec. 5, at Anna Arts Center to a full house. She told the crowd, which contained many students and young people, the fact they attended is an indication that they are concerned and involved individuals.

She shared a quote from English statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Lazan was not quite five years old when her family fled Germany for Holland in 1939. They ended up in Westerbork, a refugee camp run by the Dutch government. The family shared two small rooms, then eventually another family shared the space.

The Blumenthals had visas to come to the U.S., but their trip was delayed. While they waited, the Nazis invaded Holland. The Nazis took control of the camp.

Lazan said each Monday morning lists were posted with names of families to be transferred to concentration and extermination camps. The families were packed into trains for departure at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays.

They ended up in Bergen-Belsen. Men and women were separated into barracks that housed about 600 people each. Lazan said the structures were built to house 100 people. They slept in triple-decker bunk beds, two persons to a bed.

Can you imagine two strangers who were adults sharing a small bunk? Lazan said.

She was fortunate to share a bunk with her mother. Conditions were dismal. Each bunk had one thin blanket, and German winters were harsh and lasted a long time.

The title of her book, Four Perfect Pebbles, comes from one of the many imaginary games she made up to occupy her mind at Bergen-Belsen. She said it was her imagination that helped her survive the horrors of the camp.

If I could find four perfect pebbles, my four family members would survive, Lazan said.

All four members of her family did survive, but her father had contracted typhus. He died about six weeks after liberation.

In 1948, three years after liberation, Lazan, her mother, Ruth, and brother, Albert, relocated to the United States and ended up in Peoria. Because she did not speak English, the 13-year-old was put into fourth grade with 9-year-olds. She worked very hard at her studies and was able to graduate from Peoria Central High School five years later, ranking eighth in a class of 267 students.

Perseverance, determination and hope can overcome just about everything, according to Lazan.

In Peoria, she met and married Nathaniel Lazan, a student at Bradley University. They have been married 63 years and have three children, nine grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. They live in New York.

Kasie Craft was a sophomore at Anna-Jonesboro High School when Marion Blumenthal Lazan came to the school to speak in 2002. Craft was moved by the presentation and stayed to talk to Lazan for a little while.

In 2015, Craft was working as an aide at Shawnee School District, and her students were studying the Holocaust. She told her students she had met someone who survived the Holocaust and would try to bring her to the school, if she was still speaking to groups.

That was last November. This morning I actually got to fulfill that promise, Craft said. Just hearing her story again was amazing. Its like Im hearing it for the first time again.

The story of how Lazan returned to Southern Illinois to speak illustrates why she reaches out to young people.

Someday they will have to bear witness [to the Holocaust]. The subject matter must be taught and kept alive to prevent it from happening again, Lazan said.

Lazan will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, at First United Methodist Church in Carbondale. She also has speaking engagements at Anna-Jonesboro, Carbondale and Marion high schools.

"These pebbles have created quite a ripple," Nathaniel Lazan said.
CARBONDALE  A team from a southern university is the latest group planning to travel to Southern Illinois University next summer for the total solar eclipse.

The team, made up of students and researchers from Louisiana State University and two to three other Louisiana institutions, plans to launch two large weather balloons from Saluki Stadium about 90 minutes or so before the eclipse totality, which is set for 1:21 p.m. on Aug. 21. The team will attempt to coordinate the expected climb rate of the balloons to coincide with the event, in order to capture live video and conduct student-driven experiments.

T. Gregory Guzik, director of the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium at LSUs Department of Physics and Astronomy, said his students have conducted such balloon launches in the past to study a variety of phenomena, but never for an eclipse.

The difference this time will be the precision of the launch, both from a particular site and within a margin of error of about 15 minutes or so, Guzik said. We want the balloons to be at about 90,000 feet when totality begins, and they typically ascend at about 1,000 feet per minute.

Balloons at that height will assuredly be above any unfortunate cloud layer that day  although weather patterns typically call for clear skies that time of year in Southern Illinois. The balloon equipped with a video camera payload will send back real-time images as the moon blots out the sun. The feed will be made available to the NASA television program, Edge, which also will be broadcasting from SIU that day.

Southern Illinois will be the site of the longest duration of the upcoming total solar eclipse. SIU is gearing up to play a major role in the event, which will feature the first total solar eclipse over the mainland United States since 1979. As many as 50,000 eclipse enthusiasts are expected in Carbondale in the days and hours leading up to the event.

Not only that, but a second such event is due in 2024. The intersection of the two eclipse path centerlines is just south of Carbondale near Cedar Lake. The region offers a unique opportunity to observe these two eclipses from the same ground-based spot.

The university is planning a variety of activities for the 2017 eclipse, including the Crossroads Art and Craft Fair, the Crossroads Astronomy, Science and Technology Expo and educational programming provided by the Adler Planetarium of Chicago. The main event, of course, will be eclipse viewing in Saluki Stadium. More information, including ticket prices, is available at eclipse.siu.edu.

The second balloon the LSU team plans to launch will carry up to five scientific experiments currently being designed by students at other Louisiana institutions as part of a competition, Guzik said.

The exercise will help train students to think like scientists do in developing such payloads, as well as build presentation and leadership skills. The eclipse, he said, is an excellent opportunity to fire such imaginations and motivations.

They are getting the opportunity to develop something with their own hands that will travel to the edge of space, Guzik said. Space is a good draw, and the scientific focus of the eclipse makes it even sweeter.

The balloon launches in Carbondale that day will be among about 50 similar launches stretching all across the country as eclipse totality sweeps from northwest to southeast. Teams will launch balloons with video and experimental payloads all along that path as part of an effort led by the Montana Space Grant Consortium and funded through the NASA National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, and the NASA Science Mission Directorate.

Guzik, whose work as a scientist focuses on cosmic radiation, said he has been involved with launching such high-altitude balloons for 20 years. Students have become more involved in the practice during the last 12 years, while newer, more affordable video and global positioning system equipment has made launching balloons to the edge of space even more commonplace than ever before. Its not difficult to find examples of such projects on popular internet sites.

At 90,000 feet, the video camera will be able to see some 200 miles out toward the horizon. Guzik said it may be possible to see the moons shadow coming toward Carbondale at a distance, though the group will have little or no control over which way the camera is pointed at any given time.

The video picture hopefully will become more stable once the balloon is above 50,000 feet or so, where the wind turbulence is less, he said.

The video balloon will use a wireless serial link  essentially a wireless Ethernet modem  to transmit the data back down to the ground. Two ground stations, one on the roof of the Neckers science building and one top of the Saluki Stadium Club, will pick up the signal and pass it along.

Federal Aviation Administration rules restrict unpiloted balloons to carrying less than 12 pounds of total suspended weight, including parachutes, beacons and other payloads.

During a test of the video system in September in New Mexico, Guzik said the team achieved good video data transmission from as far as about 40 miles line-of-sight. During the eclipse event, researchers expect the balloon to only be about 25 miles away.

So we hope to have some very good video, Guzik said.

After the event, and once the balloons reach about 100,000 feet, the teams will activate a terminate device which will send the equipment falling back to Earth before parachutes activate. Guzik said the team expects the equipment to land about 35 miles northeast of Carbondale, and chase vehicles with GPS equipment will be ready to track them down.

The LSU teams involvement is only the latest development as SIU prepares for the event. The university also recently completed pouring a series of concrete pads at a spot near the University Farms in the countryside west of campus that will provide scientists as well as amateur astronomers with firm, level resting spots for their telescopes
South Carolina can't have it both ways. It can't get criminals off the street and into jail cells and fail to pay prison staff adequately.

If those criminals are jailed but not supervised, the state can expect more prison security problems, including riots and attacks on guards  causing more staff to quit and even fewer people on hand to keep prisons safe and secure.

For years it was easy for the S.C. Legislature to look the other way. When courting voters, they never hear people demanding more money for prisons.

Then came a blistering court decision in 2014 finding that the S.C. Department of Corrections mistreated patients with mental illness to shocking degrees. The state was ordered to fix things. And doing that costs money.

The department has indeed made progress toward meeting the judge's order. But those steps did not include raising the pay of people who work in the prisons  among the lowest-paying positions on the state payroll. And it hasn't done enough to fill the positions that employees had fled because of low pay and dangerous working conditions.

At McCormick Correction Institution near Greenwood, almost half the jobs were empty as of Nov. 1. Statewide, only 70.4 percent of correctional officer jobs were filled.

It isn't difficult to figure out why: Their starting salary is $26,375  $4,000 less than a garbage truck driver in Charleston, according to reporter Maya T. Prabhu. And that is $1,500 more than last year. Until that bump in pay, officers had not gotten a pay raise in at least 15 years.

What happens when staff members are underpaid is that they spend just enough time at a prison to be trained and certified and then take jobs elsewhere with salaries that are $10,000 higher.

And a few will succumb to temptation and get in league with prisoners, smuggling in contraband like cell phones in order to supplement their pay.

South Carolina isn't the only state dealing with budgetary and staffing shortages in prisons. Dire staffing shortages have been reported in New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Michigan, Missouri and West Virginia, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

One obvious factor is that the United States incarcerates people at a rate higher than any other country in the world. South Carolina has worked to reform sentencing laws so that violent criminals are locked up but non-violent criminals like those caught with drugs are dealt with in the community. Clearly, the state has more to do in that regard.

And the Legislature cannot wait until prison populations drop before it addresses the untenable practice of underpaying prison officers so dramatically as to make it difficult to fill positions, thus endangering prison staff and prisoners.

One of state government's core functions is to provide for the safety of citizens  including those who work in prisons and those who have been sentenced to prison.

That begins with paying people fair and reasonable salaries to do thankless and dangerous work.

This editorial from The Post and Courier of Charleston via The Associated Press.
We're happy to host Charlene Whitman's COLORADO DREAM book blast today! Please leave a comment to let her know you stopped by!

Title: COLORADO DREAM

Author: Charlene Whitman

Publisher: Ubiquitous Press

Pages: 450

Genre: Sweet Historical Western Romance





Yearning to become a concert musician, a young woman from New York travels to Colorado to purchase a violin, but when she meets a wild, untamable cowboy, her dream is threatened and her heart torn ...

In New York in 1877, Angela Bellini longs to become a concert violinist and get away from her abusive father. When her dream takes her to Greeley , Colorado , to purchase a violin from a master instrument maker, she learns she must wait three weeks until her violin is ready before she can head home.

Angela is determined not to let anything or anyone waylay her dream, but when she meets rough-and-tumble cowboy Brett Hendricks, her heart is torn. He is her opposite in every wayuncouth, cocky, and reckless. But she is hopelessly drawn to him, like a moth to flame.

Brett Hendricks is on the runnot just from an angry rancher who is tracking him down for shooting his son but from a dark and troubled past plaguing him with guilt and shame. A wild, untamable cowboy, Brett can break any horse with a soft touch and soothing word, but nothing in the world can bring him peace. He fears he will never stop running, never see his dreams of ranching realized.

But then, one evening, he hears sweet violin music that seeps deep into his soul--music that floods him with peace. He falls hard for Angela but knows she plans to leave Colorado . All his attempts to win her heart fail disastrously, and though he buries himself in the cattle roundup, when he helps thwart a rustling outfit, his enemies multiply.

Somehow he must find a way to gain Angela's heart and trust. And somehow Angela must break past her distrust of men to discover the love awaiting her with open arms.

Pick up your copy at:









Book Excerpt:

Chapter 1





September 9, 1877

New York City, New York





The slap on Angela Bellinis cheek burned, but not as fiercely as the hurt in her heart. The pain and disappointment smoldering there sizzled like hot embers, threatening to reduce her to a pile of ash. She glared at her fathers back as he stomped out of the room.

Why couldnt her papa understand? She would not marry Pietro, no matter how wealthy his family was, no matter how many years her papa and his had planned such an arrangement. It is our way, Angela, he had told her again, his face hard and eyes dark and menacing, leaving no room for debate. And you will marry him. You are twenty years of ageyou are lucky he is still willing. Youve made him wait long enough.

When she forced her objections past the rock lodged in her aching throat, she knew what would follow. What always followed. Her papas rage erupted in a torrent of Italian curses that ended with a slap that knocked her nearly senseless against the foyer wall before he stormed out the apartment.

As she slid down in a heap by the front door, she had caught a glimpse of her mama in the kitchen, her back turned to her in unspoken submission. Angela huffed. I will never marry and become like you, Mamasquashed under the thumb of some man who wants only subservience and a crowded apartment full of squalling babies.

She swallowed back tears. She would not crynot today. Today she would take the first stepsreal stepstoward her dream. And no one, not even the powerful and prominent Giusepe Bellini could stop her.

Their tiny stuffy apartment rumbledas it always did six times a day and twice each nightfrom the Third Avenue El Train fifty feet away. The noise of the wheels clacking and the platform rattling mingled with the loud voices of her downstairs neighbors arguingMr. Paolinos tenor to his wifes shrill soprano. Outside her window, carriages clattered on cobblestones in sharp staccato, and shoppers and merchants carried on in boisterous conversation, sounding no more pacifying than an orchestra tuning their instruments.

On most days Angela could drown out the suffocating symphony of Mulberry Bend by rehearsing violin caprices in her head, imagining her fingers flying over the fingerboard, her right hand bowing the strings, eliciting the sweet and sonorous timbre of her instrument.

But on this stifling, humid September afternoon, the many pieces shed memorizedno, absorbed into her very soul, as if food that nourished herflitted away, out of reach, as she pulled down the heavy carpetbag from the hall closeta bag that shed found months ago stuffed behind a stack of wool blankets.

She stopped and listened. Her mama was humming in the back room as she folded laundry. Her two younger siblings were off playing with neighborhood childrenin the street, no doubt, as the sweltering heat was worse indoors.

Angelas hands shook as she dabbed her perspiring forehead and neck with a handkerchief and went through her mental list of all she would need on her trip. Not muchshed only be gone ten, perhaps, twelve days, if all went as planned. She pushed from her thoughts her papas impending fury at her insolence and the resulting punishments that would await her upon her return. But she had made her decision, and there was no turning back.

Hurry , she told herself. Her papa had gone downstairs to the corner market, and while he often spent an hour or more on Sunday afternoons smoking cigars with the men of the neighborhood, discussing the politics of her close-knit Italian community and their various business venturesand arranging their daughters marriages, she thought bitterlyhe could return at any time.

In her bedroom, she gathered the neat stack of clothes she had put in her bottom dresser drawer, then stuffed them into the traveling bag along with her few womanly items, her prayer book, some sheets of music, and a spare pair of shoes. She checked her reticule and found the roll of billsthe money shed earned over the last two years from babysitting and teaching music lessons through Signore Bianchis instrument shop on Second Avenue. She hoped it would be enough for the quality of violin she planned to buy.

Mr. Fisk hadnt answered her inquiry regarding pricing in his letter. He merely assured her he would provide her with an exceptional instrument and that they would work out the financial details once she arrived in Greeley, Colorado.

Would her meager savings be enough? It had to be, for she couldnt return to New York and face the audition committee without a proper instrument.

The directors words still stung. Youre a talented musician, Miss Bellini. But you bring shame to your craft by playing on such an inferior violin. Come back when you have an appropriate instrument. The three committee members had politely frowned when she flustered an apology and hurried to the exit of the symphony hall, pressing down her humiliation and frustration as tears welled in her eyes.

Her papa could well afford to buy her a violin of exceptional quality, and every year at Christmas she begged him to indulge her love of playing with the purchase of a new one, but he only laughed in cool disdain and waved her away. Give up your foolish dreams, Angela. Your place is in the home, with a husband and children. Not on the stage. Her papa regarded music appropriate only at holidays and festivals and family gatherings, and only traditional song and instrumentation. He didntcouldntunderstand this dream she nursed. The dream to play in the New York Philharmonic, to play on stage before an audience, to be a part of the creation of ethereal music that filled a great performance hall and moved listeners to tears.

To make matters worse, her older brother, Bartolomeo, sided with their papa, constantly nagging her to get married already and stop being a burden on the family. Although he was but two years older, he and Dora had three children. And Doraand most of Angelas other girlfriends from her school days, who were also marriedgave her constant looks of pity, as if Angela was missing out on lifes greatest joy. But they just didnt understand.

She had to fan the tiny spark of her dream to keep it alive, to prevent it from being snuffed out by her papas stern expectations and societys demands. And it had nearly been extinguished a month ago, upon her papas brash public announcement of her engagement to Pietroan arrogant youngest son of a successful wine merchant who had no love for musicnone whatsoever. She harbored no hope that he would ever understand her passionate need to play the violin, and no doubt hed forbid her pursuit of her dream.

And then shed read an article in the Times about one George Fisk, a master violin maker in a newly founded town in the Westa place called Greeley. On a whim shed written him. Why? She didnt know. She could purchase a violin in Manhattanone of sufficient quality. But there was something about the description of this man, Fisk. The way he spoke about the instruments he made. The care and time and love he put into each one. He built his instruments with a passion and love for beauty and music that resonated with her. For, she wanted more than a good violin. She wanted one that spoke to her soul, one made just for her. George Fisk promised he could provide just that. But she had to travel halfway across the continent. Was she willing? hed asked her.

Yes, she wrote him. Yes, more than willing. Although, shed never traveled outside of the city, and the thought of venturing into wild country, alone, made her stomach twist. But Fisk had told her not to worry. He would see to her accommodations and show her around his wonderful little Western town. And she had to admitshe was ready for an adventure.

She looked around her cramped tiny bedroom situated in a crowded apartment in a busy, noisy city. Im more than ready for peace and quiet, and to get away from Papas mean spirit and violent temper.

What must it be like to stand under a wide-open sky spattered with stars, with no neighbors quarreling or trains rattling or horses hooves clacking on stones? Her heart yearned for such open space, for such silence. Silence that longed to be filled with beautiful music. She imagined nature itself performing a symphony of birdsong and coyote howls and water cascading over rocks. Those were some of the images her mind drifted to as she played, and she longed to merge her own musical voice to that of creation, if even just for a day or two.

About the Author




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Political and cultural commentary from the perspective of radical common sense. Opposition to the AMERICAN BIPOLARCHY and ideological fanaticism in all forms. Don't take our word for anything: figure it out for yourself.
Recently an executive in the domain industry asked me to comment on the main differences between China and the west in domain names. First of all, when people say the west, I think they are mostly referring to the US. So the question now becomes: what are the differences between China and the US in domain names?

One difference lies in the domain extension. In the US, .com is king both in terms of registration number and domain prices. In China, .cn rules with its 20 million registrations (versus 11 million in .com) but .com is still the king in terms of prices. And I think this trend will continue because a domain name is considered the door to the world of a Chinese enterprise, and every Chinese company aspires to have a grand entrance.

Another difference is in the love for numeric domain names. While I have not come across even one American company using a numeric domain name as its corporate website, I regularly see Chinese companies using numbers. In the domain industry alone, you can find 4.cn, 10.cn, and 22.cn being used as official websites. The most famous example may be 1688.com, the official website of Alibaba in China.

In most cases, a number when pronounced in English has no meaning. For example, 520.com is five two zero which does not mean anything and so is difficult to remember. However, when you pronounce 520 in Chinese, it rhymes with (sounds like) the Chinese characters  (I love you), which is perfect for a dating website for example. Chinese consumers have no problem at all to remember this domain name. (520.com is owned in China but unfortunately does not resolve.)

The third difference is that Chinese companies like to upgrade their domain names to acronym names, which is not common in the US. For example, Jing Dong upgraded from JingDong.com (and 360buy.com) to JD.com and Zhu Ba Jie from Zhubajie.com to ZBJ.com. This is possible because these acronym names correspond to the fully spelled out Pinyin names. In other words, Chinese consumers have no difficulty remembering either an acronym name or its fully spelled out Pinyin name.

These three are the major differences between China and the US in domain names that came to my mind. There may be some more, which will be covered in the future if I find them.

This first appeared on Coreile.com
By Trend





Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev congratulated president-elect of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, on December 5.

I extend my most sincere congratulations to you on the occasion of your election as President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.

I am confident that our joint efforts will focus on strengthening and developing strategic partnership, overall cooperation and multifaceted mutual activity of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in the best interests of our nations and for peace, stability and security in the region, he noted.

Dear Mr Shavkat Miromonovich, I wish you robust health, prosperity in your state activity for the development of the brotherly people of Uzbekistan, added President Aliyev.
By Trend





Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on the occasion of Independence Day in Finland.

On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my most sincere congratulations to you and your people on the occasion of the national holiday of the Republic of Finland - Independence Day, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.

On this remarkable day I extend my best regards to you, and wish the friendly people of Finland everlasting peace and prosperity, added the president.
By Azertac





Azerbaijan and Serbia have discussed inter-parliamentary ties, as Speaker of Azerbaijan`s Parliament Ogtay Asadov met Interior Minister of Serbia Nebojsa Stefanovic.

The speaker said this visit would contribute to developing ties between Azerbaijan and Serbia, Azertac reported.

Asadov stressed the role of the heads of the states in developing bonds. He also highlighted steadily developing inter-parliamentary ties between Azerbaijan and Serbia and stressed the importance of boosting economic relations.

The parties praised cultural and humanitarian bonds.

Asadov further highlighted the support of both countries within the international organizations.

Serbia supports Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity. This is the vivid evidence of the highest level of our political ties, the Speaker added.

Nebojsa Stefanovic, in turn, stressed the importance of reciprocal visits in further developing bonds between Azerbaijan and Serbia. He said Serbia supported Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity.

During his Baku visit, Stefanovic was earlier received by President Ilham Aliyev, who hailed the very high level of Azerbaijan-Serbia relations.
By Azernews





By Gunay Hasanova

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed a law on ratification of the agreement with Russia on the Turkish Stream gas pipelines construction project, Turkeys Resmi Gazete reported.

The Turkish Stream project was announced in late 2014 by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his state visit to Turkey.

In November 2015, the project was suspended after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed by a Turkish F-16 fighter in Syria. A thaw in relations between Moscow and Ankara began last June following Turkey's apology to Russia.

Moscow and Ankara signed an intergovernmental agreement October 10 on the implementation of the Turkish Stream project.

The agreement involves the construction of two branches of the main gas pipeline under the Black Sea, the power of each branch being 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas.

One branch is provided to supply gas directly to the Turkish market, the other for the supply of gas by transit through Turkey to Europe. The intergovernmental agreement also stipulates that these two offshore branches should be built by December 2019.

The projects total cost is estimated at 11.4 billion, with the cost of the first line amounting to 4.3 billion.

The Turkish parliament has approved the agreement on "Turkish Stream" last week. The Russian Parliament is expected to ratify the agreement in the near future.
More than 1,300 leading regional and international players in the global finance sector are taking part in the ongoing World Islamic Banking Conference (WIBC) in Bahrain.



The WIBC has established its reputation as the worlds largest and most influential gathering of international Islamic banking and finance leaders for over two decades.



With the strategic support of the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), the next generation conference will focus on transforming Islamic finance into a global proposition by facilitating strategic opportunities, addressing systematic challenges and connecting international market players and institutional investors to the industry's catalysts, thought leaders, partners and institutions.



During the key industry summit, the regional and international powerhouses will discuss ways to navigate the complexity of the global financial system.



It is being held under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa, The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain at the ART Rotana Hotel, Amwaj Islands in Bahrain.



The worlds definitive compass of the Islamic banking and finance industry engaged industry leaders from across the globe including the Americas, UK and Europe at the 23rd edition of WIBC.



In the morning, conference hosted two Central Bank Governors, featuring speeches by the Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) Dr Ahmed Abdulkarim Alkholifey, and Governor of the CBB Rasheed Mohammed Al Maraj.



The keynote speeches also included the Governor of Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), Dr. Kairat Kelimbetov.



Opening the historic forum, Al Maraj said: "Keeping in line with the theme of the conference - economic uncertainties: vigilance and growth - I would like to draw your attention to three areas today. First, we need to be more risk-sensitive in uncertain economic conditions. Risk management practices must be up to date, awareness levels high and risk mitigation in place."



"The second point I would like to make is to groom a second line of management, a set of people whose ethical conduct, strategic thinking, leadership qualities and technical knowledge are above par. This is the only way to ensure, as much as possible, a lasting institutional legacy behind us," remarked Al Maraj.



The third point is about the smart use of technology, which is a game-changer in the banking business. Islamic banks must make full use of these technological enhancements and invest more in this space. Financial Technology (Fintech) is leading the way. The CBB believes in embracing new technology and will soon be issuing regulations to facilitate Fintech solutions. We would like to see Islamic banks come forward and take the lead in this area," he added.



Dr Alkholifey said: "As part of our commitment to enhance financial stability, we will continue to provide full regulatory support to Islamic finance and encourage its growth."



The Governors remarks were followed with an exceptional line-up of seasoned and respected industry practitioners who took stock of the challenges faced by Islamic banking on the global front and the stagnation in Sukuk issuance worldwide.



The speakers also engaged in discussions relating to coping with the evolving global banking environment and the changes necessitated by the Basel III regulations. These talks were followed by the launch of 3 insightful intelligence reports and sessions on ethical finance and asset management.



The conveners of WIBC, Middle East Global Advisors - an intelligence platform serving the Middle East North Africa Southeast Asia region for the last 23 years - organized an incredible line-up of speakers for the rest of the afternoon of the 6th of December.



They include industry leaders such as Kishore Mahbubani, Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and Iqbal Khan, CEO, Fajr Capital.



The final day of WIBC 2016 tomorrow (December 7) will feature the highly anticipated speeches by Khalid Hamad Abdul-Rahman Hamad, the executive director - Banking Supervision, CBB and Abdulla Mohammed Al Awar, CEO, Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre.-TradeArabia News Service
Kuwait Municipality has appointed a global consortium comprising Dar and Perkins+Will to draw up Kuwait's fourth Master Plan, in line with the vision of His Highness the Emir to transform the country into a commercial and financial hub by 2040.

The contract was signed by David Green, principal at leading consultancy Perkins+Will, and Beshara Wakim, the director of operations of Dar Al Handasah for design and consultancy in the presence of His Highness Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al Moubarak Al Hamad Al Sabah, reported Kuna.



The municipality said it has embarked on steps, in cooperation with the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA), for identifying the financial areas in the country where foreign firms will be allowed to operate with no local agents, and permitted to own these areas with tax and customs exemptions, it stated.



Several other government bodies have been involved in the process, like the Ministries of Commerce and Industry, and Finance, offering administrative facilities to the foreign firms in these areas.



Head of structural planning at the Kuwait Municipality, Saad Al-Muhilbi referred to the Fourth Structural Plan 2040 as the country's "urban constitution and roadmap for development projects.



Kuwait has been among the first countries of the region that adopted structural plans, which made it free of slums, said the report.



Green stressed the importance of the Fourth Plan that will turn Kuwait into an innovation center.



The fourth structural plan of Kuwait contributes significantly to the implementation of the visuals Amir transform Kuwait into a financial and commercial center regionally and internationally, attractive investment climate, saving, and conservation of natural and environmental resources of the country, said the report.



The development plan set by the Kuwaiti Government reflects the state's clear vision for the future, it stated.
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Manara Developments, a leading real estate development company, has reaffirmed its role as a strategic sponsor of the Gulf Property Show 2017, a boutique showcase forthe real estate and property development sectors in the Northern Gulf.



The event, being organised by Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE), will be held from April 25 to 27 under the patronage of Bahrain's Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre.



On the partnership, Dr Hasan Al Bastaki, the managing director of Manara Developments, said Gulf Property Show was highly respected around the GCC for promoting Bahrains real estate sector.



"Manara has set a standard for real estate development in Bahrain that creates a sustainable environment for the community that lives in it. Our association with Gulf Property Show will continue to promote our core values," he stated.



At this year's event, Manara Developments had originally launched three residential projects including the Investment Gateway - a Bahrain project which is built as an initiative to encourage the establishment of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and foreign investments in Bahrain.



During the Gulf Property Show, we will be focusing on three of our major residential projects  Wahati, Kenaz Al Bahrain and the large seafront property, Hasabi. The show has been a successful platform over the years for us to sell our real estate products," remarked Dr Al Bastaki.



Jubran Abdulrahman, the managing director of HCE, said: "Manara Developments have established themselves as the voice of our society through their real estate developments. We are humbled by their continued support and encouragement in the ongoing growth of Gulf Property Show as Bahrains leading real estate showcase."



Manara will be a key sponsor of Gulf Property Show 2017 alongside Bahrains urban developers Diyar Al Muharraq and also First Bahrain Real Estate Development and Bahrain Marina Development Company who have signed up as Gold sponsors.-TradeArabia News Service
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has received investments totalling over $100 million which includes the closing of an equity investment of $31.8 million along with total in kind investment and land value of $75 million.



The company received an equity investment from EdgeWater Investments of $30 million. This investment is in addition to previous investments including several million from individual team members along with numerous other contributions.



To date, HTT has received $31.8 million total in cash, $26 million in man-hours and services. Land rights to HTT are valued at more than $22 million. An additional $27 million of commitments and in kind investment have also been confirmed by several companies that have joined the team.



These companies are Carbures Europe SA, the leading composite manufacturer and supplier for airplane manufacturers worldwide; WS Atkins and Partners, the leading global construction engineering firm, responsible for many renowned projects around the world like the Dubai Metro as well as the Burj Khalifa; Anomaly Communications LLC, the leading brand and marketing firm; Reflekt GMBH, Europe's leading AR and VR company, involved in the development of HTTs augmented windows; Leybold Vacuum, the inventor of the vacuum pump and now part of Atlas Copco, together the largest manufacturer in the world for vacuum equipment.



HTT currently has over 800 members consisting of over 600 individual team members and 44 companies in over 35 countries, in the likes of top rated international law firm Paul Hastings, one of Austrias most innovative software developer Catalyst, and PriestmanGoode, the worlds leading travel and transport design consultancy. Most of these contributors are working in exchange for stock options of the company.



Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is more than a company, it is a movement, said HTT CEO Dirk Ahlborn. We have many people who followed their passion and joined the company at the beginning, working only in exchange for stock options. This latest investment makes their options worth millions.



We are on track with our progress to date. We plotted a course and maintained it. The equity funding and in-kind investment from these respected industry leaders is validation of our model, and prepares us for our next steps, said HTT chairman Bibop Gresta.



Hyperloop Transportation Technologies model is unique, said Joel Ornstein, chairman of EdgeWater Investments Europe. The company has tremendous momentum, is building a strong value for investors while being smart in utilizing cash normally necessary in these kind of projects.



Founded in 2013 by JumpStarter, US-based HTT is a global team focused on removing barriers of speed and congestion in transportation. HTT melds technology, breakthrough innovation, and the power of a global community of passionate professionals to bring disruptive innovation to the public transportation industry.  TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the regulatory body for Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), signed an agreement with the Smart Dubai Office (SDO) that aims to transform Dubai into the smartest and happiest city on earth.



The partnership is an opportunity for both parties to collaborate on developing a fully comprehensive framework for institutional happiness, as well as to raise the bar for current and future projects and initiatives that contribute to the emirates happiness. In addition, it facilitates joint efforts to find ideal solutions that help achieve the Happiness Agenda and the most appropriate ways of their implementation across Dubai.



Dr Mohammed Alzarooni, DSOA vice chairman and CEO, and Dr Aisha Butti Bin Bishr, SDO director general, signed the MoU during Dr Bin Bishrs visit to Dubai Silicon Oasis.



Dr Alzarooni said: We are proud to have been the first entity to shape a comprehensive Happiest People Strategy as a pillar of the DSOA 2021 Strategy. We are actively working on exchanging knowledge and expertise with various partners, to reach a practical implementation of the concept of happiness. DSO is keen on setting a real-life example of the role happiness plays in Dubai and the wider UAE.



Dr Bin Bishr said: The strategy we follow in transforming Dubai into a smart city prioritizes happiness over technology. Smart Dubai is based on the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to focus the citys unified efforts towards its most valued asset - its people - and make their happiness the highest indicator of success. Therefore, happiness holds a top priority among our objectives.



During her visit, Dr Bin Bishr witnessed the launch of the worlds first-of-its-kind Corporate Happiness Program. Delivered by Gallup and RIT Dubai in conjunction with Smart Dubai, it aims to educate senior professionals on the key aspects of corporate happiness and provide them with the tools to put the concept into practice in their respective organizations.



Through six modules over the course of three months, the program offers better understanding of the scientific notions of happiness, combining theoretical and practical methods of learning through lectures, research, case studies, and project work. It covers a variety of topics from how to assess an organization in terms of individual and corporate happiness, how to apply the corporate happiness concept, how to develop and implement a Corporate Happiness Strategic Plan, as well as best practices of corporate happiness measures.



On her tour of Dubai Silicon Oasis premises, Dr Bin Bishr familiarized herself with the high-tech parks projects and initiatives, such as the Dubai Technology Entrepreneur Centre (Dtec), which supports start-ups in the fields of technology, digital Islamic economy, and Arabic content. The largest centre of its kind in the Middle East provides budding entrepreneurs with a chance to establish their businesses, as well as consultation support, workspace, and networking opportunities.



Dr Bin Bishr also visited Intelak, a joint initiative between The Emirates Group, General Electric, Etisalat, and DSOA, which serves as an incubator for travel, technology, and aviation start-ups. She admired a model of Silicon Park, one of the prominent large-scale developments at DSO and the first fully integrated smart city project in Dubai that will span across an area of 150,000 sq m.



Upon conclusion of the visit, she was also presented with a list of smart projects and initiatives adopted at the high-tech park, such as the Smart Lamp Posts, Smart Weather Pole, Smart Sub-Surface Irrigation System, and Smart Waste Management System.



A wholly-owned entity of the government of Dubai, DSO operates as a free zone technology park for large enterprises, medium and small companies looking to set up their offices in Dubai.  TradeArabia News Service
Ericsson and Zain Group entered into an agreement on 5G research and development during the Zain Technology Conference held this week in Amman, Jordan.



The collaboration aims to develop w 5G use cases, requirements and deployment scenarios, as well as evaluate performance and applicability of potential 5G key technology components. The partnership ensures both parties can pave the way for 5G deployment in the Middle East supporting Zains transformation towards digitization.



Hisham Allam, chief technology officer, Zain Group said, As a leading 4G operator, we are always working to ensure that we are first to market with new innovations for our customers. Working with Ericsson will enable us to gain additional insights into our customer market and potential growth areas supporting our vision of being a digital lifestyle operator.



Tarek Saadi, head of GCC and Pakistan at Ericsson, said, 5G will lay the foundation to the industrial internet. 5G will make it possible to deploy IoT devices with a battery life lasting 10 times longer than today. Working together with Zain will enable us to explore new opportunities for use cases that we havent yet dreamed of, new markets, and radically new business models.  TradeArabia News Service
J Jayalalitha, the chief minister of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of India's most influential politicians, has died at 68.



The chief minister suffered a heart attack on Sunday night and died at 23:30 local time (18:00 GMT) on Monday, Chennai's Apollo Hospital said.



Thousands of her supporters had gathered to pray for her recovery, reported the BBC.



The former film star served as Tamil Nadu chief minister four times. She had been receiving treatment for months.



Jayalalitha is revered by many but seen by her critics as having created a cult of personality over the years.



There are fears her death could spark unrest given the extreme devotion she inspires among her supporters, many of whom refer to her as "Amma" (mother).



Earlier reports of her death, which were swiftly withdrawn, prompted scuffles between police and her supporters outside the private hospital.



Tributes began to pour in for Ms Jayalalitha as soon as her death was confirmed by Apollo, which had been treating her since 22 September.



Ms Jayalalitha's party AIADMK - which had earlier lowered the flag to half-mast before hoisting it up once more - also confirmed she had died, tweeting "our beloved leader, the Iron lady of India... Amma, is no more".



Senior AIADMK politician O Panneerselvam was sworn in as chief of Tamil Nadu within hours of her death, the party's Twitter account confirmed.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to offer his condolences.



"I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji (honorific). May her soul rest in peace," he tweeted.



Khushboo Sundar, film actress and Congress party spokesperson, told the BBC: "It's very painful for me. Despite our political differences, I had respected her. We were hoping against hope, none of us wanted her to lose this battle."



"She was a symbol of strength for women like me. She fought against so many odds to make a name for herself in a male-dominated profession like politics. We have a lost a great politician, and a great champion of women's rights," she added.



Smriti Z Irani, a senior BJP leader and Union Cabinet Minister of Textiles, paid respects to the tall leader.



"My deepest condolences to J. Jayalalithaa jis loved ones and supporters in Tamilnadu & across India in this hour of grief. Aum Shanti!," she said in her twitter message.



Ms Jayalalitha lived a dramatic life, both on screen and off. She appeared in more than 100 films before turning her hand to politics in the early 1980s.



Ms Jayalalitha later won control of the AIADMK from its late founder's wife, before leading it to victory in 1991, the first of four occasions she would do so.



She was accused of corruption on several occasions, and spent two short spells in prison - most recently in 2014.



But a Karnataka high court order in 2015, which cleared her of involvement in a corruption scandal, paved the way for her return to power.



Ms Jayalalitha's admirers remain unbowed in their admiration for her and argue she has played a key role in the development of Tamil Nadu as one of India's most economically influential states.
Leading hospitality chain Rotana has announced key appointments in Bahrain aimed at further streamlining its robust operations.



Lilian Roger has been appointed as the new general manager of ART Rotana Amwaj Islands, the luxury hotel located in the heart of Amwaj Islands, while Patrice Cornee has taken over as the general manager of Downtown Rotana, the latest five-star property launched by the group in the heart of Manama.



The decision comes in light of our rapid expansion into Bahrain. A core element of our strategy is to appoint talent that will enhance our growth plans and further strengthen the companys footprint in the Kingdom of Bahrain, said area vice president at Rotana, Mohammad Haj Hassan.



Bahrains hospitality sector is one of the most vibrant sectors and we are committed to playing a key role in supporting its overall development. The new appointments will further drive our strategic growth in the kingdom, he added.



Backed by over 20 years of experience in the hospitality sector, Roger worked in various international hotel chains across three continents.

Commenting on his appointment, he said: I am thrilled to be joining the team at ART Rotana Amwaj Island. I have long admired the hotels stunning facilities and long-standing reputation as one of the Kingdoms top hotels. I look forward to working with the team to enhance that reputation and to continue our efforts in offering guests an enjoyable experience.



Spanning over 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry and prior to joining the Rotana Group, Cornee held senior positions in luxury five-star properties across the UK, USA, Korea, Hong Kong and most recently in the Gulf Region.



I am eagerly looking forward to working with the team at Downtown Rotana who have achieved great milestones in just a few months since the hotel opened its doors. Our efforts will continue to build on the successes achieved and we will focus on boosting our occupancy and visitor levels through ongoing enhancements in our facilities, outlets, and above all a commitment to service excellence," said Cornee. - TradeArabia News Service


Empire Aviation Group (EAG), the Dubai-based global private aviation specialist, has added a third new Gulfstream G650 to its managed fleet.



The G650 ultra long-range business jet was acquired by EAG for an existing owner upgrading a previous aircraft. EAG was involved in the entire process which included the acquisition, purchase, registration and the delivery of the aircraft.



The Gulfstream G650 is a large cabin, Rolls-Royce powered business jet with a long-range cruise speed of Mach 0.85 and a range of 7,000 nautical miles/12,964 km (nonstop) with eight passengers and four crew. The G650 can be configured for up to 18 passengers and offers the comforts of a wide cabin with large panoramic windows and low cabin pressure, and a bundle of inflight technology including broadband internet to keep passengers connected, informed and entertained, whilst putting them in control of the environment through a cabin management system. Advanced cockpit technology helps pilots improve aircraft performance.



Paras P. Dhamecha, executive director of Empire Aviation Group, said: EAG has developed really strong experience of managing and operating the G650 for owners - based on our current two aircraft - and we are now delighted to add a third to the fleet. The G650 is a very impressive business jet and it is no surprise that some existing aircraft owners are looking to upgrade to this very long-range and comfortable plane.



Empire Aviation Group has rapidly expanded its international operations over the last three years, with the groups first fully fledged overseas branch in Bangalore, India; a dedicated US aircraft sales office in Scottsdale, Arizona, US; new operations set up in Hong Kong; as well as a San Marino branch. - TradeArabia News Service
Business jet makers are forecast to deliver close to 8,600 new planes worth $255 billion between 2016 and 2026, representing a 6 to 7 per cent reduction from the values noted in the 2015 outlook, a new report has unveiled.



According to the 25th annual Global Business Aviation Outlook released today by Honeywell, the business aviation industry continues to face a slow near-term pace of orders due to a slow-growth economic environment across many global markets along with many political uncertainties.



We continue to see relatively slow economic growth projections in many mature business jet markets. While developed economies are generally faring better, commodities demand, foreign exchange and political uncertainties remain as concerns, said Brian Sill, president, Commercial Aviation, Honeywell Aerospace. These factors continue to affect near- term purchases, but the survey responses this year indicate there is improved interest in new aircraft acquisition in the medium term, particularly in the 201819 period. In the meantime, operators we surveyed this year indicated plans to increase usage of current aircraft modestly in the next 12 months, providing some welcome momentum to aftermarket activity, which has been flat recently.



Key global findings in the 2016 Honeywell outlook include:



 Deliveries of approximately 650 to 675 new jets in 2016, a low- to mid-single-digit percentage decline year over year. The pullback in deliveries expected in 2016 comes on the heels of a small increase in 2015 and is largely due to slower order rates for mature models and a stabilization in fractional-usage type of aircraft deliveries.



 2017 deliveries are projected to be slightly lower, reflecting transitions to new models slated for late 2017 and 2018 service entry.



 Operators plan to make new jet purchases equivalent to about 27 per cent of their fleets over the next five years as replacements or additions to their current fleet, an encouraging increase but one that is less than firm in timing.



 Of the total purchase plans for new business jets, 21 per cent are intended to occur by the end of 2017, while 18 per cent are scheduled for 2018 and 2019, respectively.



 Operators continue to focus on larger-cabin aircraft classes, ranging from super mid-size through ultralong-range and business liner, which are expected to account for more than 85 per cent of all expenditures on new business jets in the next five years.



 The longer-range forecast through 2026 projects a 3 to 4 per cent average annual growth rate despite the lower short-term outlook as new models and improved economic performance contribute to industry growth.



 Gains in five-year operator purchase plans are offset in the long-term forecast based on changes in new program timing, slower economic growth projections, and political and currency uncertainties, resulting in a moderately lower overall outlook.



Breakdown by Region



Middle East and Africa  Improved purchase plans were reported, which was unexpected given only moderately improved oil prices and ongoing conflicts in parts of the region.



 The share of projected five-year global demand attributed to the Middle East and Africa recovered to just below its historical range of 4 to 7 per cent this year.



 In the Middle East and Africa, 21 per cent of respondents said they will replace or add to their fleet with a new jet purchase, up from 16 per cent last year but still below the overall world average. Considerable strength was present in the oil-producing nations and South Africa.



 Operators responding to the survey seem to be looking past current regional concerns, with potential buyers in the region scheduling their purchases sooner in the next five-year window compared with last year, with 49 percent of purchases planned before 2019. These improved survey responses appear at odds with the obstinate nature of the issues facing the region.



Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC)  Continued improvements in Chinese and Russian purchase plans compared with last year, coupled with slight gains in the larger Brazilian survey outlook, drive improved BRIC results.



 BRIC industry purchase plans rebounded off 2015 lows, reaching just over 32 percent in this years survey. The 32 percent rate returns the BRIC composite to a rate exceeding the world purchase plan rate. These purchase plans would reverse several years of decline.



 Brazil remained a bright spot by recording the strongest new aircraft purchase plans in the survey from a major aircraft market, though overall buying plans rose only slightly year over year.



 The combined BRIC countries near-term demand profile has shifted somewhat later in the forecast period this year, with 38 percent of intended new jet purchases scheduled for the next two years.



Asia Pacific  Despite ongoing regional tensions and government austerity initiatives, operator enthusiasm seems to be improving.



 Operators in Asia Pacific report new jet acquisition plans for 28 percent of their fleet over the next five years, roughly doubling from 2015 levels and reflecting optimism extending beyond the China market.



 Based on the improved level of purchase plans, Asia Pacific could garner up to a 6 percent share of global new jet demand over the next five years.



 Only 33 per cent of Asian respondents plan to schedule their new purchases within the first two years of the five-year horizon.



Latin America  2016 results pulled back in line with the world average, but planned acquisitions remain more front-loaded than the world average.



Slightly higher Brazilian purchase plans partially offset broader declines from other countries.



 Nearly 27 per cent of the Latin America sample fleet is expected to be replaced or added to with new jet purchases  2 to 3 points lower than last years survey. Some of the larger traditional markets in the region reset purchase plans to lower levels this year, particularly those linked strongly to commodities markets. Resilience in the Brazilian operator base helped offset some of the darker mood elsewhere in the region.



 With 47 to 48 per cent of this regions projected purchases planned to occur between 2016 and 2018, this indicates some potential deferral of purchases suggested last year for the 20152017 period, which was equally front-loaded.



 Based on the current purchase plan levels, Latin Americas 12 percent share of total projected demand slipped several points compared with a year ago.



North America  New aircraft acquisition plans in North America are very important given the regions size and the unsettled conditions elsewhere around the world.



 An estimated 65 per cent of projected demand comes from North American operators, up 4 points from the 2015 survey.



 New jet purchase plan levels rose 5 points in North America, the industrys largest market, and helped drive the world average up to 27 per cent.



 Current plan levels are now in alignment with the averages of the 20082012 period. Though buying plan rates are just under the overall world average, the fleet and operator base have expanded, supporting solid demand levels.



Europe  Despite operators still contending with sluggish growth and elevated political tensions, the uncertain effects of the Brexit vote, a refugee and migrant surge, and depreciated currencies, new jet purchase plans actually improved.



 Europes purchase expectations improved this year to 30 per cent, in line with averages seen since 2009.



 Despite the improved new jet purchase plans. Europes share of estimated global five-year demand remained at 14 per cent in the 2016 survey. This outcome is due in large part to the fact that the European fleet has not expanded in recent years. Many aircraft have migrated to other regions, resulting in an active fleet that is slightly lower despite an infusion of new jet deliveries.



 A comparison of the planned timing for European purchases indicates uneven proportions of demand in the next three years of the five-year window, with about 26 percent allocated through 2017 followed by a dip to 15 per cent each in 2018 and 2019, suggesting a cautious approach to timing the replacement of expansion of the fleets with new acquisitions.



Used Jets and Flight Activity



Turning to used jets and flight activity, over the course of the past year, the pace of flight activity has not recovered. On a positive note, operators responding to the 2016 survey report they plan to increase aircraft usage in the next 12 months to a modest extent. With respect to the used jet market:



 Roughly 10 per cent of todays fleet is up for resale, down from a high of nearly 16 percent in 2009 but up from the low point achieved last year. Current levels are still within a reasonable aggregate level in light of the past decades history, but inventory levels are trending up. Meanwhile, asking prices continue to drift lower.



 In 2016, the total number of recent model jets (less than 10 years old) listed for resale rose significantly to about 675 aircraft, excluding personal jets and business liners. In proportion to the level of overall listings, the share of recent model jets for sale has risen noticeably.



 Operator respondents reduced their used jet acquisition plans by about 8 points, equating to 24 per cent of their fleets in the next five years. All regions used jet purchase plans fell. The decline in used jet purchase plans clearly aligns with the expansion of used inventory for sale and continued price pressure on used jets.



 Weaker used aircraft purchase plans may slow the pace of aircraft upgrades. - TradeArabia News Service




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A Casper man suspected of throwing his 2-year-old daughter against a wall and fracturing her skull pleaded not guilty Tuesday morning at his district court arraignment to a felony child abuse charge.

Police arrested Justin Thomas Ross on Oct. 13 after the childs mother brought the child to the Wyoming Medical Center emergency room, according to court documents.

Doctors found that the child had a fractured skull, two broken ribs and severe bruising all over her body. The child had been staying with Ross for the past week, the documents state.

The toddlers mother told police that she had dropped off the girl with Ross on Oct. 5 and that the girl was in good health at the time. When the mother picked up the child on Oct. 11, she noticed bruising on the girls face and neck. Ross told the mother that the child had fallen from a bed.

Later that evening, the mother was bathing the girl when she noticed bruising to the rest of her body and later brought the girl to the hospital.

An older sibling who had been with Ross and the child on for part of the day on Oct. 5 told police that he didnt like Ross because he was mean, according to court documents. The sibling told police that Ross had choked the toddler like he was trying to pop her head off and then threw the child against the wall.

In an interview with police, Ross said he had custody of the child between Oct. 5 and Oct. 11 and that the girl didnt have any bruising when he picked her up, the documents state.

Ross told police that he heard a loud crash come from the girls room one of the nights she was staying with him. He ran into the room and saw the girl on the floor. He said he thought the child had been jumping on the bed and fell off, according to the documents.

When detectives confronted Ross with evidence of the other injuries, Ross said that the marks on the face could have happened when he pinched her as discipline. He said the the bruising to her buttocks could have happened when he gave her two small swats as discipline on another occasion, the documents state.

When police told Ross about what the sibling had told them and the seriousness of the skull fracture, Ross said that perhaps the child had fallen into the fall on her own or had fallen off the bed multiple times.

Police then arrested Ross. Investigators later searched the mans home and found a small crack in the wall that appeared to be the impact site of where the child was thrown into, according to court documents. There was hair that appeared to match the childs stuck in the crack.

Prosecutors charged Ross with aggravated child abuse. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 25 years and a $10,000 fine.

Ross was previously released in lieu of $50,000 bond and appeared for his arraignment in Natrona County District Court Tuesday in a black suit along with a hired defense attorney.

Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine Wilking modified Ross bond to allow him to travel to Campbell County to meet with his lawyers, who are based there, and to Platte County for work.
A Casper teen suspected of raping and attempting to murder a young girl in September entered a mental illness plea to four felony charges at his arraignment Tuesday morning in Natrona County District Court.

Casper police arrested Brandtly Bedsaul, 19, in September after they received a call that he was raping a young girl in the front yard of the Casper home where he lived. When officers arrived, they found the unresponsive victim covered in blood and later learned she had been strangled.

Prosecutors charged him with attempted homicide, first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, aggravated assault and aggravated child abuse. If convicted, Bedsaul could face life imprisonment.

Bedsaul appeared at the courtroom Tuesday morning in red jail scrubs, his long brown hair almost covering his eyes. He spoke quietly when responding to the judge.

His attorney did not offer an explanation in court as to why Bedsaul was pursuing a mental illness defense. The judge ordered a competency evaluation to be performed at the state hospital in Evanston.

The girl had been attending an event with family at the house where Bedsaul lived when one of the residents noticed that the girl was missing from the group of children, according to court documents. The man went outside to look for the girl and found Bedsaul choking the girl, who was naked from the waist down, near some bushes on the front lawn of the home, the documents state.

The man ran to Bedsaul and punched him in the face. The girls father tackled Bedsaul as he tried to run and held the shirtless teen on the ground while others called 911.

When police arrived, they found the bloodied girl almost unconscious in her mothers arms, the documents state. The mother yelled at the firefighters and police to please help my baby girl.

The girl woke up while a firefighter carried her to an ambulance and started screaming, according to the documents. She was taken to the Wyoming Medical Center, where doctors found trauma to the childs genital area that indicated a sexual assault as well as swelling to her throat consistent with being choked. She was later flown to Denver Childrens Hospital, where doctors completed a full sexual assault examination. They also found bruising and cuts on her face and bruises around her neck.

Bedsaul repeatedly screamed for his mother and repeated his birthday as he was arrested. He spat in the patrol car during the ride to the police station, where the teen briefly spoke to investigators before requesting a lawyer. Police wrote in later court documents that Bedsaul appeared to be under the influence of drugs at the time he was arrested.

Bedsaul previously spent time living at the Wyoming Behavioral Institute, an acute-care psychiatric hospital in Casper, according to court documents.

Bedsaul pleaded guilty to two unrelated charges of burglary Nov. 16 for breaking into parked cars in May. The teen was out on $10,000 bond for the burglary charges when he allegedly attacked the girl.

Natrona County District Court Judge W. Thomas Sullins continued Bedsauls $1 million bond previously set in circuit court. As Bedsaul left the courtroom to return to the Natrona County Detention Center, he turned and quickly waved to three women in the audience.
University of Wyoming instructors and alumni asked president Laurie Nichols to protect their programs in the face of dwindling state funds during a listening session Monday at Casper College.

The meeting was the sixth of 10 such events Nichols and various UW officials will hold as the university looks to draft a strategic plan for its next five years. The university officials did not answer questions but listened to comments and concerns from some of the roughly 80 attendees. Those perspectives will be taken into account as UW makes its strategic plan, Nichols said. The majority were related to state budget cuts.

UWs board approved $10 million in cuts and adjustments in November, on top of $19.3 million in reductions rolling into effect this fiscal year. The budget cuts are necessary because of the universitys declining state block grant: The university has lost $41 million in state funding in the two-year budget cycle that began July 1.

Nichols estimated that several hundred people have attended the sessions so far. In Casper, she and other officials, including the interim dean of the school of outreach, Alyson Hagy, gave a brief presentation on the state of the school before opening the floor to the audience.

The comments from those who rose to speak Monday night varied from enhancing UWs geology program to greasing the wheels for transfer students coming to UW, but many involved the universitys College of Agriculture and the schools career technology education (CTE) program, which is one of roughly 15 UW programs under review.

I think where some of their concerns come from is simply in the number of faculty, Nichols said of the concerns about the ag school. As weve gone through this budget cut ... Ive had to eliminate some faculty lines. Theres been faculty lines eliminated in ag, and I dont think theyre happy about it.

Cut to the bone

Indeed, a trio of men, including state veterinarian Jim Logan and college of agriculture adviser Bob Kidd, quickly defended the ag school.

The agriculture industry relies a great deal on the University of Wyoming to survive, Logan said, pointing out that agriculture is the third-largest economic factor in the state. Please, as you consider this strategic plan and these budgets, please remember the land-grant university programs.

He also urged Nichols to protect and enhance the schools agriculture extensions across the state.

Should the world-class scientists working in the vet labs retire and not be replaced, it would be a blow, Logan said, because of the reliance the agriculture industry has on veterinarians. UW has been eliminating staff and faculty positions through attrition recently, with a new round of buyouts announced in November.

Kidd lamented the energy downturn and its effect on the state and UW.

Its better to have boomed and bust than not to have boomed at all, he said.

A rancher, Kidd told Nichols that the budget cuts had sliced through the fat already. Were starting to cut onto bone, he said.

A man sitting near Kidd said that losing faculty at the ag school would cost students their inspiring mentors. The school helps feed Wyoming and the rest of the world, he said, and he pleaded with Nichols not to lose sight of the heart of the school.

Human resources are the most important, he said.

Unfairly punished

Next came a wave of people advocating for the career in technical education program, which is under review by UW because of low enrollment, Nichols said. Originally, there were around 25 programs being considered, and that list has been narrowed to roughly 15.

Two technical education teachers in Natrona County spoke to the programs importance in keeping Wyoming professionals in the state.

Its one of the few programs in the country, there are only a handful of them, teacher Mance Hurley said. Most of the kids are from Wyoming and they want to stay in Wyoming. ... When youre considering cutting programs, even though the demand may not be large, the demand for those students is very high.

UW professor Rod Thompson, who is in charge of the CTE program, spoke passionately about the students whove gone through the program. He pointed to the need to diversify the energy-reliant Wyoming economy, a problem that Nichols acknowledged at the beginning of the meeting and Gov. Matt Mead highlighted last week.

Students in the CTE program, he said, will stay and diversify Wyoming.

He also suggested that an important reason many Wyoming high school students graduate is because of their technical education experiences.

I think a large percentage of those are encouraged to graduate because of their experiences in our CTE classrooms, he said. CTE is Wyoming, strong and proud.

One woman stood up after Thompson and blamed the programs low enrollment on a lack of promotion.

I think part of the reason that its been small is because its historically been underrepresented in terms of university recruiting, she said. Many of the recruiters going around the state havent been even been aware of the fact that theres a program here. And I think that this program is being unfairly punished for that lack of attention.

Looking ahead

Nichols said after the meeting that the evaluation of school programs like CTE is ongoing and that the minefield of more budget cuts are on the forefront of many peoples minds.

Theres some people who think that we had to cut because the economys down and were a big part of the states budget, she said. And then you hear people here who say, We shouldnt have had to cut anything; we want to go back to 2012 funding levels, and that was back before any cuts happened.

Nichols said the university would have to become more self-reliant. Private giving to UW was over $60 million in 2016.

Were going to ask the foundation to step up and do more, Nichols said of the universitys fundraising arm.

As for any future budget cuts, Nichols said it was too early to say but that she felt the university had done all it could do, and if more cuts came down, it would have to take a hard look at more services and programs.

Were going to have to go much deeper than weve had to up to this point, she said.
BILLINGS, Mont.  A Billings man who stabbed his elderly landlord to death in Miles City has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Scott Austin Price, 38, was sentenced Monday for stabbing 78-year-old Ed Martin in the neck Dec. 14, 2015. Price pleaded guilty in September to deliberate homicide.

He also is scheduled to be sentenced later this month on several Missoula County charges including deliberate homicide and attempted deliberate homicide.

In that case, he and his co-defendant, 32-year-old Sarah McKnight, were charged in two separate attacks that took place in Missoula a week after Martin's death. Price stabbed a woman in a grocery store parking lot and later killed Lonette Keehner, a 56-year-old housekeeper.

Prosecutors say Price was using methamphetamine during the week of the attacks.
In 2015, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it had to lay off nearly all its Wyoming employees because of a loss in funding. The groups absence was notable in the Legislature, as the ACLU is one of the most vocal advocates in Wyoming for privacy, gay, voting and prisoner rights.

But roughly 18 months later, the organization hired a policy director, who is based in Laramie. Sabrina King will attend the 2017 legislative session to keep any eye on bills. She monitored the Nov. 8 election, when new U.S. citizens received letters saying theyd have to prove their citizenship to vote in Wyoming. She is also organizing people throughout the state to fight for their rights and is talking with policymakers at the state and local level.

When the ALCUs Wyoming office closed in 2015, an ACLU official told the Star-Tribune she believed Wyoming was the only state without a local office.

King hails from Utah. She worked for the Utah Legislature as part of its nonpartisan staff. She lobbied in South Dakota for four years for a group that helped family farmers and ranchers, she said.

She started at the ACLU on Sept. 6.

The 64th Wyoming Legislature convenes Jan. 10. In Cheyenne, there are a handful of bills that interest the civil liberties group. King said the ACLU generally supports a sentencing reform bill that would send more nonviolent, first-time offenders to substance abuse and behavioral treatment instead of locking them behind bars.

King said she will keep tabs on all the marijuana legislation expected to move through the Legislature.

We have a lot of concerns about the over criminalization of marijuana, she said, And the effects it has disproportionately on minority and low-income populations.

When the ACLU office closed in Wyoming in 2015, one person continued to work for the organization. Her position was funded through a grant and she sought to improve rights for LGBT Wyomingites. She has since stepped down, King said.

The national organization always intended to have full-time staff in Wyoming, King said.

King wasnt entirely certain whether money for her work in Wyoming was paid for through contributions from Cowboy State residents or from donors outside the state. A call to her boss seeking clarity on the issue was not returned.

I have talked to a lot of people who made a lot of noise when they closed the office, King said. People really wanted the ACLU here. That was definitely heard.

A civil rights watchdog in Wyoming is important at this time, as Donald Trump is about to become president, said state Rep. Charles Pelkey, a Laramie Democrat who has worked on ACLU cases as an attorney.

Trump pledged on the campaign trail to deport undocumented immigrants and bar Muslims from entering the country.

As far as Im concerned its a great thing, Pelkey said on Kings arrival to Wyoming. No matter what your view of the ACLU is, their mission is important and I think we need somebody in Wyoming speaking up for civil rights, particularly going into the political environment that were going into.

The ACLU is nearly 100 years old. Civil liberties advocates debate whether Trump will make good on his many campaign promises, and whether any new policies from the White House will violate peoples rights.

Weve always held presidents accountable, King said. I think there are concerns well have to hold this president more accountable than others.
Ventana Medical Systems/Roche Tissue Diagnostics has laid off 84 employees at its Oro Valley operation to address a challenging business environment, the company said.

A variety of positions were affected across departments including research and development, marketing and human resources, Ventana spokesowman Jacquie Bucher said.

Ventana/Roche is one of Southern Arizonas biggest employers, reporting 1,286 full-time equivalent workers at the start of 2016 in the Star 200 survey of the regions major employers.

The affected employees will have the opportunity to apply for open positions at Ventana, or the broader Roche organization, she said.

Through the course of normal business, we constantly review our performance, resources and spends, Bucher said in an email. This action was taken to address the challenging business environment and to rebalance our headcount to meet the needs of our current projects.

The recent job moves are unrelated to a plan Roche announced in November 2015 to restructure its small-molecule drug manufacturing network, she said.

Roche recently agreed to sell a drug manufacturing plant in Florence, South Carolina, to another drug company after announcing it would close the plant along with three plants in Europe in a cost-saving move.

Ventana develops and makes diagnostic instruments and tissue tests for cancer and other infectious diseases, including so-called companion tests to match patients to Roche drugs for breast, lung and skin cancer.

In October, Swiss-based Roche reported strong sales growth in the third quarter, with a 7 sales at its diagnostics division rising 7 percent to $8.3 million.

Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, has expanded its facilities and workforce at Ventana since it acquired the University of Arizona technology spinoff for $3.4 billion in 2008. The company had about 800 local workers at the end of 2008.
PHOENIX  Claiming Tucson is violating Arizona law, Attorney General Mark Brnovich asked today that the Arizona Supreme Court cut off the city's state aid.

Tucson received $172 million in state aid last year.

The lawsuit follows by just hours the unanimous decision by the Tucson City Council to reject Brnovich's demand that it repeal the city's ordinance requiring the destruction of seized firearms.

Today's action is the first test of a controversial new law, signed earlier this year by the governor, giving Brnovich the power to pressure cities to change policies he believes contradict the wishes of Arizona lawmakers.

The fight is over a 2005 ordinance which says that the police department, after it seizes a handgun or a semi-automatic weapon, "shall dispose of such firearm by destroying the firearm.''

The key exception is when the weapon is needed as evidence. There also are exceptions when the police department wants to keep a gun for its own purposes, to transfer it to another law enforcement agency, or lend or transfer it to a museum.

Brnovich, however, said that runs afoul of several state laws.

The first, enacted in 2000, explicitly prohibits local governments from enacting any ordinances dealing with the acquisition, licensing, registration or use of firearms.

More specific is a 2013 law which bars law enforcement agencies from destroying firearms. And a companion measure says the only proper way to dispose of a seized weapon is to sell it.

And Brnovich rejected arguments by Tucson city council members and other local officials that cities have a right to make their own decisions.
PHOENIX  The Arizona Board of Regents voted Monday to settle claims that it illegally retaliated against the Arizona Students Association by withholding funds over a political difference.

Without admitting they did anything wrong, regents agreed to pay the association $250,000. Thats an estimate of the amount the students group contends the regents illegally withheld.

In exchange, the association will not pursue other funds it claims it may be owed.

The association also will not challenge a 2013 state law that permanently changed how the association is funded and undermined its major source of cash, said its attorney, Stephen Montoya.

He said association members concluded it was time to move on. They learned that they needed to get over it and look at other methods of funding, Montoya said. That means convincing students at the three state universities to join the association and pay a fee, as well as seeking outside grants.

I think the regents realized they needed to work with and preserve ASA, he said. And ASA realized it needed to work with the Board of Regents. So both sides agreed to disagree and compromise so they could productively move on.

In a prepared statement, the regents said they are pleased to resolve the differences with the students and look forward to working together towards their common goals as they have done for many decades.

The deal ends more than three years of litigation.

According to court records, the regents directly funded the association from 1974 through 1988.

That year, students voted to impose a $1-per-student fee each semester; it was increased, also by student vote, to $2 in 2008.

It was an opt-out system, meaning students who objected could request a refund.

All that changed in 2012 during the debate over Proposition 204, a measure on the Arizona ballot that would have made permanent a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase approved by state voters two years earlier. A large portion of the funds would have been earmarked for education, including some for the universities.

The ASA was involved in drafting the initiative. It collected more than 20,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot, campaigned for it and used $120,000 of its student-fee income to promote its support.

All that was against the wishes of then-Gov. Jan Brewer, who also sat on the Board of Regents, which opposed the sales-tax measure. Several regents also criticized the association for its support of the ballot measure.

Shortly after the initiative failed, the regents called a special meeting where they suspended collection of the student fee and voted to withhold the income that already had been collected for the spring 2013 semester.

Several weeks later, the board had another special meeting, permanently changing its policies to collect the fee only from students who opted in, turning the opt-out policy on its head. The regents also voted to require the association to reimburse the universities for the administrative cost of collecting the fees.

Moreover, after implementing the opt-in policy, the board never remitted the fees already paid by students for the spring 2013 semester.

The association sued, charging that the regents action violated the associations constitutional free-speech rights, causing a chilling effect on ASAs political speech and depriving it of its only source of income.

A trial judge threw out the case, ruling that it was voluntary for the state to collect the fee and that the policy change wasnt a First Amendment violation.

But in a ruling earlier this year a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the students did have a case.

Appellate Judge Richard Paez, writing for the court, acknowledged nothing in law required the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) to collect a fee from students to run the association and support its political activities.

But having done so for 15 years at no cost, ABOR could not deprive ASA of the benefit of its fee collection and remittance services in retaliation for the ASAs exercise of its First Amendment rights, Paez wrote. He said the sudden change by the governmental agency in depriving the association of the benefits of the free collection was sufficiently valuable to give rise to a retaliation claim.

Mondays settlement means that claim wont go to trial. It does not mean, however, the regents will start collecting the fee again.

After the regents first acted, the Arizona Legislature voted to bar universities from collecting the fee.
The Tucson City Council voted 7-0 Tuesday to fight a new state law that dilutes local control.

The council will go to court to fight for its right to continue destroying confiscated handguns and semi-automatic weapons, rather than selling them as required by the state.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office had issued an ultimatum that the city stop destroying guns that police seize, or be taken to court.

In a motion following more than two-hour long executive session, the council authorized City Attorney Mike Rankin to "take all legal action necessary and appropriate to defend the City's rights, including its constitutional authority under its voter-approved Charter; and to challenge the constitutionality of SB1487 in all respects."

SB 1487, which was signed earlier this year by the governor, bars cities from passing laws that conflict with state legislation.

The Council directed Tucson City Manager Mike Rankin and Chief of Police Chris Magnus to suspend the destruction of firearms until the legal fight has been resolved.

"The Mayor and Council hereby reaffirm that the destruction of firearms acquired by TPD through its law enforcement activities serves important and compelling local interests, including the protection of public safety and the safety of Tucson's police officers, and that the City is exercising its constitutional authority under its Charter through TC 2-142, which was adopted in 2005," Councilman Steve Kozachik said as part of his motion.
The Arizona Attorney Generals Office has issued an ultimatum to Tucson over its policy of destroying confiscated handguns and automatic rifles.

Stop the practice immediately or face an expensive court battle, the office has warned city officials.

To be clear, if the Council does not intend to promptly undertake such action to remedy the issues regarding the destruction of firearms identified in the Offices report, then the Office plans to file a petition for special action with the Arizona Supreme Court shortly thereafter to obtain a resolution, Assistant Attorney General Brunn Roysden wrote in a letter to city officials last week.

The Tucson City Council will meet in executive session Tuesday, Dec. 6, with City Attorney Mike Rankin to discuss legal strategies about the long-established city policy of turning most guns taken in by police into scrap metal.

Several members of the City Council have publicly defended the policy, saying destroying the firearms is lawful because the disposition of municipal property is a local concern.

The issue involves a new state law known as SB 1487. Signed by Gov. Doug Ducey earlier this year, it restricts local governments from passing any laws that conflict with state laws, and jeopardizes their state-shared revenue if they dont repeal such laws.

Tucson received $172 million from the state last year.

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said, whether through the guns case or another, the state law will eventually be challenged in court. He noted officials of other towns and cities are also concerned about the law, which could impact local decisions ranging from minimum wages to banning the use of plastic bags.

Tucson Councilman Steve Kozachik contends the law violates the state constitution. Its like these guys legislate to litigate and ignore theyre wasting taxpayer money, he said.

If the city defends the policy in court, it is required to post a $70 million bond just to fight SB 1487, Kozachik said.

State Rep. Mark Finchem, an Oro Valley Republican, filed the complaint with the Attorney Generals Office earlier this year, stating Tucson is violating a 2013 Arizona law that requires the sale of otherwise legal guns obtained by law enforcement agencies.

The Tucson Police Department has destroyed 4,820 guns since the beginning of 2013, city records show.
Next time Yaqui guitarist Gabriel Ayala goes to North Dakota near the Missouri River, it will be to celebrate, not to protest.

Ayala, a Tucsonan whose classical, jazz and flamenco guitar work has taken him to concerts worldwide, spent three weeks over the last three months as a water protector at a camp near the Missouri. He stood with many thousands of others in support of the Standing Rock Sioux tribes fight against a proposed $3.8 billion oil pipeline.

On Sunday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it wont approve a Dakota Access pipeline route under a Missouri River reservoir, a route that had drawn the protests. The Corps will consider alternatives to the proposed route the Sioux said threatened its water source and cultural sites.

Im ecstatic and excited that somebody finally took the initiative to stop this pipeline. Its been way overdue. Its been months in the making, Ayala said Monday in an interview in Tucson.

The pipelines future is uncertain. President-Elect Donald Trump has said he supports it. On Monday, a Trump spokesman reiterated his boss support, but declined to speculate on how hell act. The pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, says it wont move the route; it has finished most of the project. For supporters, the pipeline is seen as one more way of achieving energy independence.

If Trump pursues the disputed route, Ayala said he and many others will return in full force. They were slated for eviction from the site by the Army Corps on Monday before the agency reversed course Sunday.

Well return in double, Ayala said. Weve seen obviously that this has worked.

For now, he only plans to go back in a week and a half to visit what he calls his family, a group of pipeline opponents with whom hes gotten close since September.

Reflecting on the past three months, Ayala said, Its unfortunate that people had to get seriously injured, lose an arm and finally get shot at before something was done.

He was referring to a recent incident in which a 21-year-old female protestor had much of an arm blown off in an explosion that authorities and protestors blamed on each other.

At the pipeline site, Ayala would stand in silence, pray, perform, sing at rallies and walk near a tributary to the Missouri River to protest construction.

The project would transport oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to an existing Illinois pipeline for shipment to Midwest and Gulf Coast oil markets.

Ayala left the thousands of what he calls protectors, not protestors at the encampment about a week ago after his last visit, after repeatedly flying to and from the pipeline area and on to concert engagements.

About 525 people were arrested during the protests, mainly for trespassing on the pipeline site on private land. The protests centered on an unbuilt section under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir.

At times, authorities pepper-sprayed and shot rubber bullets at the protestors, with the two groups disagreeing over whether those actions were provoked.

Ayala wasnt arrested or pepper-sprayed, but said his nephew Tiki was shot with a rubber bullet, arrested and strip-searched at a local detention facility.

Rob Keller, a Morton County Sheriffs Department spokesman, said, Law enforcement uses less-than-lethal force and matches the aggressive actions of the protesters who refuse to obey orders given multiple times. ... Pepper spray and tear gas are used as a means to control the crowd.

Speaking of the protests, the 44-year-old Ayala said, So many things are happening across the U.S. in Indian country, hopefully now there is an awareness and people understand what weve been fighting for. Weve been fighting 500 years. No matter what they try to do with mental tactics to humiliate us and hold us down, physically try to abuse us, they have never broken our spirit.
Help India!

By IANS



Panaji : The Congress was set to retain power in Goa with its ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after winning 19 seats in a fractured verdict and promptly securing more support to gain a majority in the 40-member assembly.

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After being locked in a neck and neck race for power at one time during vote count, a disappointed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finished with just 14 seats, giving it no chance to cobble a workable coalition.

Smaller parties and independents claimed seven crucial seats, and at least four of them indicated that they were willing to back a Congress-NCP government in the former Portuguese colony.

Among the other parties that made it to the assembly were the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Save Goa Front and United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP).

Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane's son Vishwajit, who won as an independent candidate, announced that he would support the Congress, effectively taking the Congress-NCP tally to 20, just one short of a clear majority.

Congress sources said the one seat required for majority could come from MGP, which won two seats and was part of outgoing Rane government, or from another independent Anil Salgaonkar, who won from Sanvordem seat.

The Goa victory has come as a morale booster for the Congress, which in recent months has lost control of Punjab and Uttarakhand and was mauled in Uttar Pradesh.

Chief Minister Rane won from Poriem while former BJP chief minister Manohar Parrikar bagged the Panaji seat.

The verdict showed that Goa's minority Catholic vote might have shifted to the small anti-Congress parties and independents.

But the results were very much a repetition of elections of 1999 and 2002 when too the battle of ballot threw up fractured legislatures.

BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who until Tuesday afternoon was hopeful of his party emerging as the single largest group in the assembly, conceded defeat. "We did not perform as we expected," he said.

The Congress said its legislators would meet soon to discuss "the future strategy" in detail.

On Tuesday, both the Congress and BJP saw some of their stalwarts lose but they retained a few of their strongholds.

Save Goa Front candidate Alexo Louraco defeated Speaker Fransisco Sardinha in Curtorim.

The Front is a brainchild of former chief minister Churchill Alemao, a Congress MP who quit the Lok Sabha and formed the group ahead of the state elections.

Among the star losers are three time chief minister Wilfred de Souza (NCP), six-term legislator Luizinho Faleiro, senior leader Jitendra Deshprabhu and former state ministers Harish Zantye, Subhash Shirodkar and Sanjay Bandekar.

Former BJP minister Ramrao Desai lost in Curchorem.

Congress' Digambar Kamat won from Margao. Ravi Naik, who too returned to Congress after serving as deputy chief minister in the BJP government, retained his Ponda seat.

Congress' Aleixo Sequeira won in Loutolim, Goa's only Catholic minority constituency in the coastal south.

But former central minister Ramakant Khalap, who joined the Congress after leaving the regional MGP, lost in North Goa to BJP.
Help India!

Dr. Shah Alam Khan

Mayawati, the chief minister of the most populous state of India is in news yet again. Her fondness to Greek Parthenon-style memorials has landed her in trouble with the highest court in the country. I wonder what the Supreme Court of India would have done to the likes of Shahjahan, Akbar, Cholas of Southern India and Rajputs of Rajasthan if it existed in their times.

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Surely, Mayawati is not a Shahjahan and her parks nothing compared to the beauty of Taj and the Thanjavur temple. Well, that is not the point I am arguing. No sensible person on earth can defend the exorbitant and vulgar waste of public money in building stone monuments even when more than half of states children perish with malnutrition and disease. In fact I can argue with more fervor against the building of Mayawatis parks and her loathness with development projects in the state.

What we need is a more thoughtful insight into the reasons which go into the execution of this agenda of capricious commemoration. The sensitivity involved in Mayawatis parks is more heart aching than the stone sculptures they represent. I see these parks as embodiments of pride and smugness. They are a means to leave an imprint in the sand of time by those who are tasting power maybe for the first time. The startling size of the statues is in direct proportion to the degree of throttle which the dalit community struggled with in the centuries gone by. I believe by building parks and grotesque statues, a subtle message goes: we have arrived!

The building of statues and memorials is not new to us. Every dynasty and every ruler has tried to leave his impression in stone. Even if we ignore the rulers of ancient and medieval India, it is presumed that the largest number of statues came up immediately after independence, in the new, vibrant and democratic India. Each freedom fighter was celebrated in stone. That was our way of showing to the world that we have arrived. We called it different names. We never questioned its absurdity. Even as the country struggled to find solutions to the problems of illiteracy, hunger and poverty, more and more statues came up. More memorials were built and even more were planned for the next decade. Each statue came with adjectives like honor, pride and respect. Our courts never questioned their correctness.

Baba Saheb was himself idolized in stone across thousands of small dalit villages and mohallas in India. His not very alluring statue, with the pointing finger, pock marked the country in unprecedented numbers. Was this an attempt to immortalize his philosophy? Surely not. Those who build his statues are alien to his philosophy. They are too illiterate to read the volumes of literature he has written. Their understanding limits itself to self pride and gratification. It is a celebration of their freedom within the tiny confines of the shadow of his statue. It is scientifically proven that statue building is a method of emotional ex-pression. We can surely see the emotions which go in building the statues of the most respected dalit leader of all times. To me, Mayawatis parks are an expanded and a vulgar version of this statue of Ambedkar.

So where does this all lead us to? With hands across our hearts we need to ask difficult questions. Are we reacting to Mayawatis parks and statues because she comes from a background to which we, the Indian elite, are not used to getting ruled by? Are we not being more stringent with her than with her predecessors? Are we not disturbed in our comfortable cocoons with the political rise of dalits in this country? The charges of corruption against her are extremely serious. But are we not being too self righteous in approaching her? Is it new that a Chief Minister has been charged with corruption? Well we have sitting Chief Ministers with charges of murder! Surely two wrongs do not make a right but the judgment of right and wrong has to come with a clear, un-jaundiced vision. We accepted Mulayam and Lalu, the abbreviated versions of dalit leaders, but to accept Mayawati is getting difficult for us. She represents a community which was meant to be ruled, to be decimated at will. She surely stands guilty of breaking this rule.







Mayawatis dream project comes up in Lucknow [TCN photo]



Baba Saheb Ambedkar had once written, Political power cannot be a panacea for the ills of the depressed classes. Their salvation lies in their social elevation. They must cleanse their evil habits. They must improve their bad ways of living. I am sure if he was alive today; he would have been pained to see the contemptible misuse of money in building parks and statues. Mayawati too needs to learn from this message of salvation and social elevation. Political power is temporary, social elevation permanent. Statues can be a way to display social arrival and arrogance but surely it would be better if the same money is used for genuine emancipation of the most depressed sections of the Indian society. I wonder why Barrack Obama doesnt start building statues of all those who toiled for the rights of the African-American community in the USA? He wont because a level of education has taught him the correct way of achieving salvation. The blacks of America will not be benefited by a statue of Frederick Douglas but they surely will benefit from the health reforms on the agenda. We may like it or not, but Mayawati is a change which we have to come to terms with. Her statues may be a representation of corruption in the political class but surely they are much more than mere stone idols. As Indians, the only way in which we can stop this vulgar display of symbols of emancipation, is to give life to the thoughts of people who are idolized in these statues. By imbibing the thoughts of Ambedkar, we will no longer have to face his pointing finger.

[Amedekar statue photo by John Wigham]


Help India!

By TCN Staff Reporter,

New Delhi: In a serious and historic effort to provide standard education opportunities to Muslim children and improve the standard of Muslim schools, the community leaders have unanimously decided to form a board on the patterns of CBSE and ICSE. The board will be recognized by the Government of India.

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The decision to form the board was taken at a brain storming session held in Delhi on August 5, 2010, which was attended by Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and several Muslim educationists and intellectuals. More importantly Kapil Sibal, in his address at the session, welcomed the idea of the Board and assured the community every government help in this regard.





August 5 conference on Challenges on Compulsory Education at India Islamic Cultural Centre in Delhi [TCN Photo]



Almost all the prominent Muslim organization like All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Jamiat Ulama-E-Hind, Jamaat-e-islami Hind and All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat attended the meeting.

A committee has been formed to draft the blueprint of the proposed Board, which will subsequently be presented to the government of India.

Talking to TwoCircles.net, Niaz Ahmad Farooqui, one of the members of the committee and General Secretary, Jamiat Ulama-E-Hind, said: We need to have a Board which caters to thousands of Muslim schools which dont get recognition from either CBSE or ICSE because of variety of reasons, ranging from small infrastructure and financial constrains to the medium of study, which in some cases is Urdu. Thats why we are planning to come with a Board for Muslim schools.

Like CBSE and ICSE its jobs will be to regulate and set a standard curriculum for all Muslim schools, which will in turn, bring about uniformity in terms of curriculum being run in those schools, he added.

He categorically rejected the media reports which said the Board would also regulate Madarsa education.

The Board has no intention to interfere in Madarsa education and will concentrate only on Muslim schools, many of which are also run by madarsa management, he said.

The committee includes Faizan K. Mustafa, Vice Chancellor, Central Law University, Vidhisha, S.M.A. Kazmi, former chairman, Uttar Pradesh Minorities Commission, Justice Fakhruddin, E.A. Inamdar, leading educationist and Niaz Ahmad Farooqui, advocate, Supreme Court.


Help India!

By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,

Hyderabad: There seems no sigh of relief for Hyderabadis as communal mischievous incidents are taking place in the city. The latest is desecration of four mosques in two days causing tension. However, people have remained peaceful. Police patrolling has been further increased.

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Four mosques in the city have been targeted by unidentified miscreants. Masjid-e-Azeemia in Narayanguda area of the city became the first target when pork was thrown on the roof of the mosque by unidentified bikers. In a similar incident Masjid-e-Thagi Jail became the next target when in similar fashion pork was thrown on its main gate at the time of Namaz-e-Fajr two days back.





The Moazzin of Thagi Jail mosque Mohd Mateen told TCN, When I woke up at 4:45 a.m. I found head of the pig on the veranda of the mosque and its leg with tail on the main gate, police immediately reached the spot and took away those animal parts, and the local Namazis had to wash the whole mosque before the prayer.

This was first such incident in the area. Mohd Sajid who runs a beef shop near the mosque said that he has been living in this locality for 30 years and never such kind of incident had happened.

These incidents led to rumors and tensions in the adjoining localities. Local Muslims protested on the streets against the desecration of the mosques.

Even as police were trying to pacify Muslims and those incidents were still hot in rumor market the very next day two more mosques were subjected to desecration. In Kachiguda Masjid-e-Noor Alam became the target of same old fashion pork attack. And in Bilal Masjid of Bahadurpura miscreants went a step ahead and threw a dead dog in the mosque.





Secretary of Masjid-e-Noor Alam told TCN, At broad daylight nearly at 11:30 a.m. some miscreants threw half body of pig in the back side stairs of the mosque, they might have climbed from the back side wall. He even said, Muslims and Hindus in this locality have really good relations. I have been living here for 50 years but there has never been such kind of vulgar incident. Some people from outside are doing this kind of acts to destroy communal harmony in this locality.

These incidents have kept the whole city on its nerve. In the view of above incidents police have intensified patrolling, and forcing business establishments to close down even before the evening. Police have also issued prohibitory orders on double riding on two wheeler bikes between 11: p.m. to 6: a.m. Anti- naxal operation group Grey Hound police are being deployed in the old city area.

Meanwhile curfew has been relaxed for five hours 11: a.m. to 4: p.m. from yesterday in Madanapet and Saidabad area, but there is no word from the police on total lifting of curfew.





Till now no major progress has been made by the police to arrest those persons responsible for the violence on Sunday in the city. However, Special Investigation Team formed to nab the culprits has arrested 7 persons in connection with the violence, 6 of them are from the minority community even as general people hold right wing Hindu groups responsible for the incident.


Gabina VOA is designed to be an infotainment youth radio show broadcasting to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Amharic language. The show brings varied perspectives on issues concerning young people in the Horn of Africa region. Gabina in the Amharic language is a front row taxi ridesymbolic of the shows content as a fun ride that takes audiences from point A to point B. Gabina VOAs main goal is Enlightening young people, introducing them to cutting-edge technological innovations, exposing them to new processes and ideas so they can be productive, informed and self-governing citizens.
Help India!

By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net

Call it political compulsion or protocol: while former Chief Minister Mayawati invoked Dr Ambedkar on his 61st death anniversary at a memorial constructed during her regime, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav completed the formality of attending a similar function in front of Vidhan Sabha but did not address the audience.

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CM Akhilesh paying tributes to Dr Ambedkar in Lucknow



Firstly the scene at Ambedkar Smarak in Lucknow was bustling with crowd as BSP has organized a function to pay tributes to Dr Ambedkar. Its workers from Lucknow division and Barabanki districts attended the function. BSP has scrapped the idea of holding a big rally to avoid mishap as had been the case on previous occasion claiming several lives.

On her target was Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati did not refrain from addressing her as Babua. She said that the progress made by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam and his Babua is due to Dr Ambedkar. Referring to comments of Akhilesh, she stated that he is really a babua as he states in his speeches that elephant statues in these memorials have not moved an inch. Just tell him that statues installed in Janeshwar Mishra Park are also standing at same place. Only a babua can make such comment, she said. She however claimed that such statements are giving free publicity to her election symbol Elephant. She also claimed that Yadav family for their recreation organizes festivals in Saifai.





BSP president Mayawati addressing party workers on Dr Ambedkar anniversary at Lucknow.



Mayawati also blasted Congress for not giving Bharat Ratna to Dr Ambedkar. She also targeted PM Narendra Modi stating that he was exploiting Dalits for the benefit of upper class. He warned her workers to remain cautious of BJP-RSS. She blamed BJP for not implementing reservation in private sector.

Nearly two kilometers away, CM Akhilesh Yadav also reached in a similar function organized by Ambedkar Mahasabha. He garlanded the statue of Dr Ambedkar and paid tributes to the mortal remains of Dr Ambedkar. After few minutes he left the venue without addressing the audience.

The SP government after assuming power cancelled the holiday on December 6, but with elections approaching however the holiday has been reinstated.
Help India!

By Amit Kumar, Twocircles.net

Sixty one members of the Rajya Sabha have submitted a petition to Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari on Monday for initiating the impeachment process of Justice C V Nagarjuna Reddy of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High court for alleged victimisation of a Dalit district court judge, along with amassing assets disproportionate to his income.

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The 15-page petition details how Reddy misused his power in order to save his brother, and assaulted a Dalit judge who was investigating the matter. In the letter, the signatories point out that in November 2012, junior civil judge S Rama Krishna, was allegedly assaulted by Reddy and his brother, Pawan Kumar Reddy after he refused to remove the name of Reddys brother from a dying declaration. The said declaration was of a servant employed with Reddys brother who had accused Reddys brother of setting him on fire for not agreeing to sign on a blank paper.

The petition further adds that Reddy did not stop at this; in fact, he ensured that Krishna was also transferred from Rayachoty before completion of his stipulated tenure.More worryingly, Krishna was then placed under suspension based on an anonymous complaint regarding corruption allegations against him. Importantly, copies of various complaints made by the district court judge to the police, High Court vigilance registrar, Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and to the Chief Justice of India have been attached with the notice as annexures.

The petition also alleged that Reddy possessed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income, and that he did not declare his assets to the Chief Justice and to the public in violation of the full court resolution of 1997.

Also, the petition pointed out that there were other cases when the family of Reddy had used its position to abuse Dalits. In a case pertaining to Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, an FIR was filed against Reddys daughter and wife for abusing the tenants who were Dalits. The applicants pointed out that the family would use its power in this case, and expectedly, the matter was closed. Similarly, a Hyderabad-based NGO recently issued a pamphlet bringing attention to various other cases of misconduct and unfair use of power by Reddy, and especially his brother. The NGO alleged that Pavan Reddy had recently captured land meant for Dalits. They also alleged that the funds meant for Dalit families were embezzled by the family.

Meanwhile, Krishna, the Dalit judge who was suspended, continues to live in fear and remains underground.

The Judges Inquiry Act, 1968, which was cited in the petition, says that a complaint against a Judge has to be made through a resolution either by 100 members of the Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members.

Commenting on the issue, the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, which has helped Krishna appeal to a number of authorities said, Rajya Sabha will now form a three-member committee to look into the charges framed against the Judge in question. At the end of the fact-finding by the committee, a report with the recommendations will be submitted to them. If the the committee recommends that the judge be impeached, the Rajya Sabha will vote on the same. A two third majority of at least half the strength concurs, then the motion of impeachment shall be placed before the President for his assent.

Even though there exists discrimination in the higher judiciary as there have been many instances but the evidence was difficult to gather and the concerned witnesses and victims were unwilling to come and take a strong stand fearing any repercussions. This will be therefore the first case of impeachment on caste-based discrimination, NCDHR added in the press release.
Help India!

Photos and text By Afroz Alam Shail, TwoCircles.net

New Delhi: December 6 is a significant day in the history of independent India. On this day in 1992, Hindu kar sevaks (volunteers) led by RSS, BJP, Bajrang Dal and VHP demolished the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya. The mosque was demolished after a communal frenzy was created under the under Ram Janm Bhoomi Temple on the pretext that the mosque was built by Mir Baqi, a general of Mughal Emperor Babur after demolishing an ancient Hindu temple of Lord Rama at his birth place.

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On the 24th anniversary of the babri Mosque demolition TwoCircles.net visited Delhis protest site Jantar Mantar to find Muslim groups mourning the day as Black Day while several left, liberal minded and other secular groups were commemorating the day as Anti Communalism Day.

On the other hand, Shiv Sena and other Hindutva groups under the banner Hindu United Front were found rejoicing and celebrating Shaurya Divas or Vijay Divas (Victory Day).
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Steve Harvey  His Wife, Kids & Height Steve Harvey is an American comedian, actor, radio and TV show host, producer and an author of different relationship advice books. Steve Harveys Early Life Born in Welch, West Virginia, on January 17, 1957, as Broderick Stephen Harvey, Steve was the last of five children. His family relocated to Cleveland when he was young and there, he attended Glenville High School from ...

Intriguing Things You Should Know About Danny Kokers Rise to Fame and Who His Wife Is Danny Koker is popular as the star of the History Channel reality TV series, Counting Cars. Prior to him appearing on the show, the TV personality was a musician who had embarked on a number of national tours with his rock group, Counts 77. He and his group have released quite a number of songs ...

Fun Facts You Didnt Know About Andy Cohens Rise to Prominence and His Partner Andy Cohen is one of Americas top media personalities who gained prominence after helping to bring the Bravo network back to life. He also hosted a couple of shows on the network, including the popular nightly series Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. After rising to the position of head of production and development at ...

Tracing Isha Sesays Career Until CNN, Her Worth And Why She Divorce Her Husband As far as journalists of African origin go, Isha Sesay is one of the most famous on the continent  and by extension, the world. The Sierra Leonean and British journalist has had a successful career since she joined the industry in 1998. In that time, she has worked for a host of major media ...

Open Secrets of How Joanna Gaines Balances Her Career With Being a Wife and Mother Joanna Gaines is the co-founder of Magnolia Homes, a business she runs with one goal: converting houses to homes. She doubles as the lead designer of the company which she co-owns with her husband, Chip Gaines. Lady Gaines gained massive popularity when she became a co-star with her husband on the HGTVs show, Fixer Upper. ...

Juicy Details of Ayesha Currys Love Story With Stephen, Her Family Members and Recent Pursuits When your husband is one of the greatest basketballers that the NBA has ever seen, then it bestows on you the status of a celebrity wife  and may not even demand that you do anything extra to maintain that status. However, Ayesha Curry, the wife of multiple NBA champion, Steph Curry, is not one ...

What Is Tarek el Moussas Ethnicity, Why Did He Divorce His Wife and Who Is He Dating? Tarek El Moussa has made himself one of the most recognizable men on reality television, especially to fans of HGTV. Thanks to his expertise in the world of real estate, Tarek has become a national star. But even to his hardcore followers, there are questions about Tarek El Moussa that remain unanswered, such as his ...

Fun Facts About Natalie Beckers Lonely Childhood and Eventual Career Success Natalie Becker is an actress of South African descent who became famous for her appearance in films like The World Unseen and The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A multitalented individual, Natalie is also a television/radio presenter. She is also a co-founder of the Thought Leader Global Media which she runs together with ...

Top 3 Female CNN News Anchors You Didnt Know Were Africans CNN is one of the leading news agencies in the world. The satellite and cable news network was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner and has been one of the best sources of news for a number of years. It also boasts of the best journalists and presenters all around in media broadcasting. The company is a ...

Channels That Aided Katie Pavlichs Growth as a Journalist and All About Her Marriage To Friedson If you have ever come across any Fast and Furious featuring Barack Obama, it is the handiwork of Katie Pavlich. The book which claims to have exposed Obamas bloodiest scandal and the shameless cover-up thereof, has been earning Pavlich much praise and fame ever since it was published in 2012. Nonetheless, Pavlich is more famed ...

Is Oprah Winfrey Married? Husband, Children, Biography, House, Facts Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire philanthropist, talk show icon, producer, actress, and writer. The media icon famously dubbed The Queen Of All Media owns and hosts the highest-rated television program in the media circle. Read more about the powerful television star below. Oprah Winfrey Biography Oprah was born as Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954, to a ...

Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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2022, Oct/Nov Interview with Spirituality & Health.

2022, Oct/Nov issue Featured artist of the month Spirituality & Health.

2021, Summer Pre-Sales for new book coming in fall about Walter the cat.

2021, May Community Champion Honor on Spirituality & Heath Magazine.

2020, July Interview about the book "White Dog" on Madame Mayo's blog.

2020, May "White Dog" an illustrated memoir is published.

2019, Illustration for Notre Dame Magainze

2019, October Apifera Collection with Goldfinch Modern Textiles.

2019 Writing a monthly article for Lincoln County News Maine with stories from Apifera called "Tails and Tales from Apifera Farm"

2018, October Apifera given the "Be The Change" Award from Spirituality and Health Magaine .

2018, September Art showcasedon Spirituality and Health Magaine .

2018, August Interview of Katherineand how she got to where she is today in Voyage Atlanta magazine .

2018, July Little Tulip a new illustrated book is published .

Spring 2018 Featured in Sundance Catalog

Uppercase Magazine Issue 30 article features an article about me and Apifera and rural living and art making.

My article about working as a shepherdess but also helping the the endangered species living in our fields in the 2nd issue of the new Wild Hope Magazine.

Interview with Katherine at Miss Marple's blog.

My new article in Mabel Magazine Issue 4. is out.

The healing aspects of donkeys at Apifera, for Modern Farmer for Modern Farmer.

Article about raising sheep at Apifera for Modern Farmer.

Ellie Garber of Ellie + Friends will be selling my book in indie shops out East. Thrilled!

New article in Mingle Winter 2014 about Apifera and Pino Pie Day

Buy a copy of "Misfits of Love"Apifera Press!

"Bucket & Donkey" now available as ebook!

Interviewed in Summer 2013 issue of Willamette Valley Life.

Solo show in May at The Adamson Gallery in Sacramento, CA.

Featured article in The Jacksonville Review about my Rosie and Stevie.

Feature article on Apifera and my art and life helping animals and sharing pie. July issue of Willamette Valley Life Magazine, July, 2012 issue [see spread 10/11].

Four new illustrations for University of Notre Dame Magazine summer issue.

Had fun chatting with Mark Lipinski about "Misfits of Love". Podcast for 1/25/12 episode here. I'm the first interview.

I'm going to do some writing for "Life with Dogs".

Interview at Blu Penny about life and career.

Podcast with Rice Freeman-Zachary about Pino, the farm, art and more.

Interviewed by Mark Lipinski on Creative Mojo.

I was interviewed by Lesley Riley of Blog Talk Radio/Art+ Soul. Airs May 9, 7PM EST.

I'll be writing regular posts on the Huffington Post. Here's the first one.

Wow, I'm thrilled, the new book is part of the Top 10 Editor Picks for Arts 2010 at Amazon!



Somerset Life/April,'08: To Wear an Apron > article written by Katherine on life as an artist/farmer/apron wearer.



Somerset Life/July,'08: Donkey Dreams > article written by Katherine on pie,donkeys and her Donkey Dream.




Enlightenment-Age philosopher Voltaire said: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Though written centuries before the Holocaust or the rise of modern-age Islamic Jihadism, Voltaires keen observation explains both. No rational person thinks the German masses of the 1930s or todays 1.6 billion Muslims are all inherently evil, murderous people. But millions in each group bought into absurdities fed to them by propaganda machines  for the 1930s Germans, that Jews were sub-human animals sent to Nazi "concentration" not death camps; for todays Muslims, that Allah wants all unbelievers dead or converted.

Absurdities believed leads to atrocities

Once those absurdities were swallowed, the masses complicity in the atrocities the propaganda was designed to enable, at a minimum passive in nature, was assured. Such passive complicity of the masses is crucial to the commission of atrocities by dictators  they outnumber the soldiers 1000s to one.

Hillary Clintons innocence was another such absurdity -- fed by a propaganda machine en masse to U.S. Liberals, which they swallowed hook, line and sinker. Privacy over Yoga and Chelseas wedding emails never explained the extraordinary steps Hillary took in establishing her own homebrew server or acid washing of emails; indeed, there was never any explanation for her treasonous exposure of state secrets on an unencrypted unsecured non .gov account other than the justice-obstructing destruction of evidence that wouldve exposed the massive bribe-taking criminal enterprise she and Bill Clinton ran for years under the guise of the Clinton Foundation.

As Voltaire predicted, the masses acceptance of her absurd explanation paved the way for atrocities. Young Nepalese women, housemaids to rich Qatar Arabs, continued to be arrested after childbirth for out-of-wedlock sex, a Sharia crime; and these birth-control deprived young women, to avoid their own arrest, continued to perform dangerous self-abortions; gays continued to be persecuted in Saudi Arabia including imprisonment and even death for coming out; the Congolese continued to be oppressed by corrupt Rwandan dictator and friend of Bill Paul Kagame; Moroccos King Mohammed VI continued to enslave Sahrawi tribesmen in the Western Sahara to mine phosphates for fertilizers; and the impoverished blacks of earthquake-torn Haiti never saw the great bulk of their relief funds.

In each instance, the oppressors paid off the Clintons staggering bribes running into millions, sometimes tens of millions, of dollars; and American liberals passively accepted by non-objection the Clintons giving the bribe-paying dictators what they paid so dearly for  legitimization on the world stage by a former and presumptive next U.S.

president, thereby affording them continued freedom to commit egregious human rights' violationsa throwback to 19th century Colonialism.

Not hard to conjure up more atrocities

It remains to be seen what atrocities come from Hillarys approval while State Secretary of the sale of U.S. uranium interests to Russias Rosatom, a political favor directly contrary to U.S. national security interests for which the Clintons were paid a staggering $145 million. Given the cozy relationship between Russia and Iran, Irans notorious dedication to terrorism, and the need for enriched uranium to manufacture an atomic bomb, its not hard to conjure up further atrocities, if not a second holocaust, from this mega-bribe.

This leaves us with a burning question Voltaire wasnt good enough to answer: how is it that the masses are so easily duped into believing absurdities?
President-elect Donald Trumps choice for national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has been secretly pushing the conspiracy theories against Hillary Clinton. He has a chequered past with regards to pushing conspiracy theories, such as those about the attack on U.S. diplomatic soil in Benghazi about which Michael Bay made his best film in years starring Jim Halpert, and about Islamic law making its way into Western mainstream culture.

Flynn tweeted the fake news about Pizzagate

Less than a week before the Presidential election, Flynn tweeted the fake news story about Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington DC being the base for an underground child sex abuse ring headed by Clinton.

The story said that New York police had found evidence of this in Clintons leaked emails, however, no such evidence has been found by any law enforcement agency.

Flynn used to be the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and is now Trumps choice for national security adviser. His tweet, which is said to have lost Hillary votes in the election, accused Clinton and her staff of money laundering, sex trafficking, child molestation, and perjury, before simply writing, U decide, to the voters. Well, they did decide, and a good many Americans believe they made the wrong decision.

Flynn is to blame for all the Pizzagate consequences

Flynn is behind all of this. Its his fault that James Alefantis, a good man, local business owner, and avid Hillary supporter, is being terrorised along with his staff and his and their families for a heinous crime they did not commit, his name and that of his business being tarnished by the media.

Its Flynns fault that an armed man stormed the pizzeria to, in his own words, self-investigate and threatened the employees with a loaded assault rifle, firing shots before being taken down by Washington police. Its Flynns fault that Hillary lost the election (which Im sure hes very happy with since hes got this nice new job in charge of national security, Im sure Americans will be able to sleep easy knowing thats his responsibility).

Thank you, Flynn.

There is still not a single scrap of evidence whatsoever to support the Pizzagate conspiracy theories, and yet many Trump supporters are still spreading the story around as fact, making Alefantis life hell, as well as sullying Hillary Clintons name with outrageous lies about paedophilia. Michael G. Flynn, Lt.

Gen. Flynns son, spoke out on Sunday after the shooting to say that the shooter was doing the right thing, since Pizzagate still has yet to be proven false. (It still has yet to be proven right too, Michael. So far, its just something someone said one day that a load of Trump-loving hicks have jumped on as fact because they want to believe shes even worse than him and they chose the right candidate.)

Flynns son is even worse than his dad

The younger Flynn seems to have even more of a proclivity for spreading conspiracy theories about Clinton. Take a look at his Twitter feed and youll see that he blames Hillary and Obama for the conflict in Syria, and has accused Bill Clinton of raping a teenage girl.

He also wrote a tweet suggesting that whites-only dating sites were fine, comparing them to the black audience-skewering TV network BET (not the same type of thing, white people are allowed to watch BET), but he deleted it when it was discovered by CNN.
Whether it is a negotiating ploy such as businessman Trump is famous for or he seriously intends to cancel the contract, the President-Elects call to cancel the order with Boeing for two new airplanes which would serve as air force one because of the enormous cost is certainly good news for tax payers of all political leanings.

Air Force One is not a specific airplane, it is the air traffic controller call sign for any airplane when The President is onboard, for example, if the Vice President is on the same airplane but The President is not onboard, then the exact same aircraft has the air traffic controller call sign Air Force Two.

The helicopters you see Presidents boarding on the White House lawn are designated Marine One and are the responsibility of the U.S. Marine Corps. If Trump flew on one of his private jets that would become Air Force One. That's not likely to happen, but the call sign for an airplane with the First Lady aboard is Executive One Foxtrot.

Calling the projected cost ridiculous President-Elect trump says there is no need for a massive new investment in the presidential aircraft. Trying to nip the inevitable cost overruns in the bud while the Boeing contract is only in the early stages and the only contract let so far is a preliminary planning contract budgeted at $169 million, or 10% of the planned cost of one new aircraft.

Two is the minimum and the Air Force would prefer three new airplanes.

Opposition claims

Some news outlets, in particular the Business Insider, claim Trumps $4B cost claim for the modified 747-8 aircraft to be used as Air Force One is not true, citing a GAO (Government Accounting Office) March 2016 Defense Acquisitions report that it would only cost $3.21B, not $4B.

Of course thats the original projection, cost overruns on military contracts are widespread, even expected according to many DoD and other reports such as An Analysis of Contract Overruns and The Impacts, Released by The Defense Technical information Center (DTIC)

Of the 65 contracts examined in the report, the average cost overruns mostly happened when the project was between 15% and 85% completed, in other words once a lot of money was spent it becomes a lot more difficult for the government to abandon a project than to agree to pay more to complete it.

Whether President-Elect Trump really intends to cancel the contract to replace the current airplanes which were ordered by President Reagan, or is just letting Boeing know that he wont stand for overcharging, it has to be good news for the budget deficit and it cant be said he is doing it for personal reasons since the contract doesnt call for the new aircraft to enter service until 2024.

The case for replacement aircraft

Reports that the current Air Force One Boeing 747-200 (actually two almost identical airplanes) only have a service life of 30 years. By the time new aircraft could be delivered the current 747s would be 36 years old. The Air Force, which is responsible for maintaining and operating the aircraft says that it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain 100% reliability on the aging airplanes.

The budgeted $1.69B is actually for only a part of the eventual cost because it only runs through 2019 and the new Air Force One aircraft aren't scheduled to be completed for another 6 years after that.

(NOTE - Disclaimer: I was involved in reporting on acquisitions and cost overruns for 25 years as a columnist)
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.
Avaya Brings Unified Communications to McMaster University

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By Alicia Young

Web Editor By Alicia YoungWeb Editor

College campuses have gone through some major changes in the past few years. As technology continues to advance, universities around the world have to race to keep up. Prospective students expect the latest technology when applying to schools, and universities that are more advanced and promoting the next best thing for learning are likely to get chosen over others.





Thats why it is critical to stay up to date on the latest communications and collaboration technologies. With online classes and homework being assigned through Internet portals, its essential that universities have reliable software and unified communications in place.

McMaster University, one of the worlds top 100 post-secondary educational institutions, located in Ontario, Canada, has made a move towards better communications by choosing Avaya (News - Alert). By choosing to implement Avayas unified communications technology, McMaster University will be providing more modern, mobile communications and collaboration capabilities to its staff, faculty and students.

The purpose of this conversion is to enable seamless unified communications and collaboration through various devices. Students and faculty alike have several different devices on which they choose to do their work or check assignmentssmartphones, tablets, and laptops are all popular choices among the student body. Even conference room video systems are a critical part of college campuses, especially one that holds many online sessions for remote students.

With Avaya, the platforms and systems available for these technologies will be simplified and improved. The old system at McMaster University will be blended in with the new system, enabling the school to save money where possible. This migration will also limit the disruptions faculty and students face when using the new platform, because it wont be a completely new, foreign platform.

The university has chosen to implement the Avaya platform in a multi-phase process. The Avaya Aura Platform was immediately installed in the two newest buildings, and the rest of the buildings will follow suit over the next few years. This will help with user adoption because its a gradual process, rather than just dropping a new system in everyones laps and hoping they figure it out.

People on campus who have already migrated to the new platform are happy with the results so far. Faculty and staff have found it easier to work from anywhere and still be easily accessible to their colleagues and students. Mobility is becoming increasingly popular, and now McMaster University can add that to its list of attributes to attract prospective students.

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Edited by Stefania Viscusi
Pareto Chooses Qumu for UC Development

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By Casey Houser

Contributing Writer By Casey HouserContributing Writer

Qumu develops software that helps businesses around the globe measure the effectiveness of their videos. Clients that develop marketing campaigns, training portfolios, or materials for shareholders and partners can use Qumu products to show how such video-based content, an important part of unified communications setups, has affected various populations.





One such client, the global investment bank Pareto Securities, has now chosen Qumu to help improve its videos that address the finance industry. Qumu did not, however, tackle this new clients demands alone; it sought assistance from software asset management (SAM) application developer Crayon Group to allow Qumu to improve the effectiveness of Paretos current installation of Pexip, an application for managing videoconferences.

Crayon representative Thomas Rekdal, in short, commented that Qumu makes the Pexip installation richer and more flexible. Qumu adds another layer onto Pexip by allowing Pareto employees to interact on various communications channels outside of the Pexip application. When those same employees are ready share or record video, they can then easily jump to Pexip to handle their videoconferencing needs.

This link between Qumu and Pexip sits on a solid foundation. The two companies worked together earlier this year to support Microsoft Skype (News - Alert) for Business as an extension of the Pexip Infinity meeting application. In that situation, while Pexip helps businesses record and stream live video, Qumu helps those services scale to archive potentially millions of streams.

Qumu also helps secure the unified communications of its clients by capturing information relevant to audits and retaining specific content in compliance with corporate or state policies. Furthermore, it secures recordings by integrating with identity management systems that can separate users from protected content.

Vern Hanzlik, the CEO of Qumu; Torgrim Takle, the CEO of Crayon Group; and Asmund O. Fodstad, the CEO of Pexip all commented on this venture, noting their belief in the expected scalability and reliability of Paretos unified communications.

Karl Oscar Strm, an equity sales lead at Pareto, also spoke about his companys communications. He said Pareto chose Qumu for its softwares ease of use and the companys expertise in finance, which extends to a dozen top financial institutions. Their visions for success line up; now Peretos improved videos can begin paying dividends for itself and its shareholders.

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Edited by Alicia Young
I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

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1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
President Barack Obama's administration reaffirmed the United States' one-China policy on Monday in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen last Friday.

After taking much heat from China and many foreign policy experts in the US, Trump tweeted on Sunday: "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!"

Asked if there was any change of impression regarding Trump following the phone call and his latest tweets, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in Beijing on Monday: "We never comment on other countries' politicians and their personalities. We focus on their policies, especially policies toward China."

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest reiterated on Monday that the US is committed to the one-China policy, saying it is a policy that's been in place for almost 40 years and one that has been aimed at promoting peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits.

"I am not sure how that benefits the United States. I'm not sure how that benefits the United States relationship with Taiwan. I am not sure how that benefits the Taiwanese people. I am not sure how that benefits the US relationship with China," he said of Trump's latest actions.

State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner made similar comments on Monday at the daily briefing. He credited stable and peaceful cross-strait relations since 1979 to the fact the US has been pursuing the one-China policy.

"That has not changed previous to or since the phone call by the president-elect," he said.

He said "it's only through consistency and implementing this policy, standing by this policy, you have, I said, stable cross-Straits relations."

US Vice-President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday downplayed the conversation with Tsai, saying it was a "courtesy" call and not intended to show a shift in US policy on China, according to foreign media reports.

Jeffrey Bader, a senior fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution and a former Obama administration official, described Trump's phone call as heightening concerns about his foreign policy deftness.

"There are serious risks posed by his failure to take briefings by government professionals, and he appears to have little respect for the potential damage of actions taken without understanding long-standing US national security concerns," Bader wrote on the Brookings website.

"It has always been understood that direct conversations would cross a line not worth challenging," he said.

Bader explained that the US government does not suddenly, without preparation or reflection, change essential features in a framework that has served US interests, those of Taiwan and those of the US-China relationship. "And most importantly, that has kept the peace in the region," he said.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said there is no need to overinterpret Trump's tweets. "We should still wait and see whether they will turn into policies after Jan 20, when he is sworn in."

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, said: "We hope China-US relations will remain stable during Trump's term. However, we should be mentally prepared for one thing, that is the huge impact on bilateral trade and economic ties possibly brought by Trump's administration."
Music is the language Peng Rongxin uses to share his stories of struggle and hope.

"I create melodies with narratives as my inspiration, like a screenwriter. Coming to my concert is like going to a movie," said Peng, a piano and composition graduate student at the Manhattan School of Music.

On Friday, Peng premiered three new orchestral works to a thousand-strong audience in the main auditorium of Carnegie Hall. It was said it made him the first Chinese composer to hold a composition recital at the 125-year-old institution.

The concert featured a violin concerto, a piano concerto and a trio of symphonic songs titled Escape, Fight Fire and There.

Drawing from his personal experience as an international student coming from China six years ago and stories he has heard from friends, Peng said the whole concert tells a three-act coming-of-age story about someone who goes through a journey from the desire to escape to facing challenges and finally discovering a better self.

"I named the last symphonic song There," he explained. "It's a yearning for the future, for a wonderland."

The concert was a big success for Peng and his team, selling more than 1,000 tickets.

"We were all sold out," said producer Yao Min, who admitted that she was at first skeptical about the idea when Peng reached out to her last year.

"Then I listened to his work, and I loved it," said Yao, who has produced several Carnegie Hall concerts for Chinese musicians who are studying in New York. "There have been so few Chinese composers on the international stage. We are changing that one small step at a time."

Yang Feifei, who promoted Peng's show, said that what brought the musicians together was the goal of building a better platform for Chinese musicians, and for that they were willing to put in many extra hours.

"As China progresses, Chinese are taking music more seriously," said Yang. "First lady Peng Liyuan visited Juilliard during President Xi's state visit, and Julliard is opening a campus in Tianjin. All these developments adding up will change the landscape of Chinese music and musicians."

"We will do more concerts," she said. "It's not just about promoting one person; it's also building recognition for Chinese musicians among the American audience."

hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com
Bilateral economic cooperation between the US and China was emphasized by political and business leaders at a Houston business gathering.

More than 200 officials and business executives of both Chinese and American companies attended the first annual gala and award ceremony of the China General Chamber of Commerce-Houston (CGCC-Houston) on Friday to celebrate bilateral economic cooperation.

At the gala, Chinese company Sinopec America and American company Yates Construction won an Outstanding Member Award, TPCO America Corp won the Community Champion Award; Harmonia Capital USA won the Annual Rising Star Award and Ernst & Young won the Annual Outstanding Contribution Award.

"Since 2015, we have acquired 71 members, and CGCC-Houston has now become the commercial service organization for Chinese and US companies in Houston and eight other states in the Southern US," said Li Shaolin, president of CGCC-Houston and Petro China America, Inc.

Li said that an increasing number of Chinese businesses have expanded their operations into the US and some of them have become market leaders here. "Chinese firms have invested in the US nearly $29 billion so far in 2016, and investments of Chinese private enterprises exceeded the state-owned ones for the first time," said Li.

Xu Chen, chairman of the CGCC and president and CEO of Bank of China USA, said that this year China has overtaken the US to become the largest asset acquirer in the world. Also, the annual flow of foreign direct investment from China to the US has exceeded that of the US to China.

"China and the US, as the world's two largest economies, are still at the early stages of realizing the full potential of bilateral investment cooperation," Xu said, adding that with the improving oil price and the new US administration's plan for infrastructural construction, the bilateral economic cooperation will bring more benefits to Houston.

Li Qiangmin, consul general of China in Houston, said that in the eight Southern states covered by the consulate, Chinese companies registered number more than 220 with more than $20 billion in investments, resulting in the creation of 5,000 jobs in local communities.

"I believe a lot of Chinese companies haven't registered with us and the actual numbers are bigger," Li said.

Li also pointed out that the Chinese investment in the US has been fast growing, with a 30 to 40 percent rate of increase in the past a years. As the No. 1 and No. 2 GDP nations of the world, it's important for China and US to continue to work together," Li said.

US Congressman Al Green congratulated Li Shaolin for reaching a significant number of members within one year of the establishment of the organization.

"I believe our relationship with China should continue and grow. We are entering into uncharted waters," Green said.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com
Acquaintances paint a devastating picture of couple that illegally reconfigured warehouse

The founder of a ramshackle Oakland artists' colony where dozens of people burned to death saw himself as a kind of guru and loved to surround himself with followers but showed chilling disregard for their well-being, according to relatives, neighbors and acquaintances.

Derick Ion Almena, 46, leased and operated the cluttered warehouse where a blaze erupted Friday night during a dance party, leaving at least 36 people dead in the nation's most lethal building fire in over a decade.

Neighbors and occupants of the building said he had illegally carved it into rented living and studio space for artists, calling it the Satya Yuga collective.

On Monday, prosecutors watched over the scene to preserve evidence as bodies were pulled from the blackened ruins. Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said that if prosecutors believe criminal charges are warranted, charges could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder.

Acquaintances painted a devastating portrait of Almena and his longtime partner, Micah Allison.

"Honestly, I don't think he is capable of feeling any kind of remorse or guilt," said Allison's father, Michael Allison of Portland, Oregon. "I've never seen him ever really care about anyone else."

He described the couple as users of methamphetamine, heroin and crack and said their three young children were taken away from them by social service authorities for several months beginning last year. The youngsters were found hungry, infested with lice and ill-clothed, he said.

Michael Allison recalled Almena and Micah overcome with laughter once when they told of a fire-breather accidentally setting himself on fire at one of their many parties at the building, which was widely known as the Ghost Ship.

Almena "surrounds himself with people who are going to treat him like he's some sort of guru," said Danielle Boudreaux, who said she was a friend of the couple for eight years. "He enjoyed having minions around to do his tasks for him and help build this great - he thinks he's building this artistic empire."

Late Sunday, San Francisco's KGO-TV reached him for comment at a hotel and asked his thoughts on those killed in the fire.

"They're my children. They're my friends, they're my family, they're my loves, they're my future. What else do I have to say?" Almena said and walked away.

In a Facebook post hours after the fire, he made no mention of the deaths. "Everything I worked so hard for is gone," he wrote then, while noting that his partner and their children had been safe at a hotel during the blaze.

Survivors recounted having to struggle to escape the burning warehouse, where many of the victims were on a makeshift second floor served by a rickety staircase of wooden pallets. Visitors described the structure as a warren of scrap wood, sofas, old pianos and electrical cables, with only two exits.

Investigators have declined to say whether they believe Almena or the building's owner bear any responsibility in the deaths.

Oakland building inspectors had opened an investigation into the warehouse last month. Acquaintances and local authorities described repeatedly confronting Almena about what they saw as unsafe and unsanitary conditions for his children and others living there.
Shanghai's Consumer Council has urged Apple to give timely explanations concerning a series of reports of its mobile phone products spontaneously bursting into flames.

According to statistics from the council, they have received eight complaints in the last three months regarding self-combustion during normal use of Apple's iPhone 6 series products.

The eight consumers were each compensated with a new phone thanks to the reconciliation of the council.

But Apple hasn't yet given any explanation for the fires.

Earlier this year, there were also reports of iPhone 6 products shutting down even though the remaining battery was still at 50 percent.

Apple later announced that the abnormal power-off was due to battery quality, and promised a change of battery free of charge.
Canada wants to expand co-operation with China on environmental protection and climate change, a senior official from the Northern American country says.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said on Monday that Canada looked forward to building on our accomplishments and working with China.

"We are confident that we will continue to achieve important results through these exchanges," she said. "Together, we will continue to build a new global clean economy."

McKenna, who arrived in Guangzhou on Sunday, is leading a clean technology advocacy program with Canadian and Chinese companies in Guangzhou and Foshan.

While in Foshan, McKenna participated in the official unveiling of the new Canada  China Technology Transfer Institute. This new technology facility will be built jointly by Ontario-based Canada Clean Tech Capital (China) Inc and Foshan University.

In Guangzhou, McKenna met senior officials from the Guangdong provincial development and reform commission to discuss co-operation between Canada and Guangdong province.

McKenna left Guangzhou and flew to Beijing on Monday night.

Before flying out, McKenna attended opening ceremony of the new premises of the Consulate General of Canada in Guangzhou which has a consular territory consisting of the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hainan, Hunan and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Monday.

"The new premises of the Consulate General in Guangzhou are a concrete expression of Canada's commitment to strengthening its long-standing ties with China, across a wide range of sectors," said McKenna.

"This new expanded Consulate General in Guangzhou, in addition to the whole China network of diplomatic missions, provides a dynamic platform to bring our countries and people together to increase our mutual economic prosperity and protect our global environment."

Charge d'Affaires of Canada to China Cindy Termorshuizen said: "Canada places a great deal of importance upon further developing and sustaining a robust and strong relationship with China. The growth and expansion of this Consulate General in Guangzhou is one demonstration of this."

Consul General of Canada in Guangzhou, Rachael Bedlington, said: "Besides assisting Canadians in need, the Consulate will serve to reinforce the already deep commercial, academic, cultural and people-to-people ties between Canada and South China."

Guangdong Provincial Office of Foreign Affairs deputy director Luo Jun said Guangdong and Canada have already established very close economic and win-win relations in recent years.

The foreign trade volume between Guangdong and Canada reached more than $4 billion in the first six months of the year.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) approved the name and symbols for four elements: nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts), and oganesson (Og), respectively for element 113, 115, 117, and 118, Armenpress was informed from the official website of the IUPAC. Oganesson was named in honor of Armenian scientist Yuri Oganessian.

In concordance with and following the earlier reports that the claims for discovery of these elements have been fulfilled, the discoverers have been invited to propose names. Keeping with tradition, the newly discovered elements have been named after a place or geographical region, or a scientist. The ending of the names also reflects and maintains historical and chemical consistency: -ium for elements 113 and 115 and as for all new elements of groups 1 to 16, -ine for element 117 and belonging to group 17 and -on for element 118 element belonging to group 18.

The name nihonium with the symbol Nh for element 113 was proposed by the discoverers at RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science (Japan); the name came from Nihon which is one of the two ways to say Japan in Japanese, and literally mean the Land of Rising Sun.

Moscovium with the symbol Mc for element 115 and tennessine with the symbol Ts for element 117 were proposed by the discoverers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russia), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), Vanderbilt University (USA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA). Both are in line with tradition honoring a place or geographical region. Moscovium is in recognition of the Moscow region and honors the ancient Russian land that is the home of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, where the discovery experiments were conducted using the Dubna Gas-Filled Recoil Separator in combination with the heavy ion accelerator capabilities of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions. Tennessine is in recognition of the contribution of the Tennessee region of the United States, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, to superheavy element research.

Lastly, and in line with the tradition of honoring a scientist, the name oganesson and symbol Og for element 118 was proposed by the collaborating teams of discoverers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russia) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA) and recognizes Professor Yuri Oganessian (born 1933) for his pioneering contributions to transactinoid elements research. His many achievements include the discovery of superheavy elements and significant advances in the nuclear physics of superheavy nuclei including experimental evidence for the island of stability.
BEIJING - China on Monday urged the United States to stop making groundless accusations against Chinese companies and politicizing normal acquisition cases.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks in response to US President Barack Obama's block of a Chinese company's purchase of the US business of German chip equipment maker Aixtron.

Obama issued an order directing China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC) to "fully and permanently abandon" the proposed acquisition of Aixtron's US business, the US Department of Treasury said in a statement on Friday.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), which reviews foreign purchases of US companies, and Obama assess that "the transaction poses a risk to the national security of the United States that cannot be resolved through mitigation," the statement said.

"The Chinese company's acquisition is purely market behavior," Lu told a regular press briefing.

China is opposed to politicization of and political intervention in normal acquisitions, he said.

Lu urged the United States to offer a fair environment and convenience for investment by Chinese companies.

The Chinese government always encourages Chinese companies to carry out overseas investment and cooperation in accordance with market and international rules as well as local laws, he added.
Will US President-elect Donald Trump, who has challenged globalization and trading agreements, be a threat to innovation and information flow between Silicon Valley and the rest of the world after he takes office?

Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to bring back millions of manufacturing jobs to the US that he said were lost to globalization.

He probably won't be able to do that, according to a group of scholars and entrepreneurs at a seminar which was organized by participants from the US, Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

About 10 speakers from academia and industry, including Stanford University, the National University of Singapore and Silicon Valley-based startups, shared their thoughts on innovation in a globalized environment at the China-US-Singapore Globalized Economic Innovation Forum at the Santa Clara Convention Center on Saturday.

President Xi Jinping urged all nations in his keynote speech at the Business 20 Summit in Hangzhou in September to work together to build an innovative and open world economy.

Citing Xi's remarks that "the world economy should become interconnected and inclusive to forge interactive synergy and strengthen the foundation for win-win outcomes", Ren Faqiang, deputy consul general at the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco, said innovation is the key to unleashing growth potential.

Pedram Mokrian, professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford, refuted the assumption that "the start of the Trump administration will bring the end to globalization".

The best practices and the best types of innovation that happen in one part of the world (in the Silicon Valley) are, and will be, just freely transferred to entrepreneurs and innovators in other parts of the world, Mokrain said, adding that this kind of exchange and ecosystem won't terminate "regardless whatever administration is in place" in a globalized world.

Trump recently made headlines by successfully reaching a deal with the air conditioner maker Carrier to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in Indiana instead of outsourcing them to Mexico.

"However, this kind of practice (of keeping low-technology job in the US) won't help America gain international competence," said Song Zhaoli, associate professor in management and organization in the business school at the National University of Singapore, who is in charge of a Chinese-student exchange program. "America's core competence is its innovation and technology, not the low-paying manufacturing jobs," he said.

"Innovators all over the world need to communicate, to share and to learn from each other," said Zhang Ruwei, one of the seminar organizers with the Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs Association (US).

He said his association was established in September in New York to function as a platform through which researchers, scholars, policymakers and entrepreneurs in the US and China can integrate resources and share academic research.

Barry Chang, mayor of Cupertino, said, "Without globalization and innovation, the valley will lose its luster."

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Within the framework of the ongoing criminal case regarding the disappearance of a painting from Istanbuls Armenian Patriarchate, Archbishop Aram Ateshyan has been questioned as a witness, the investigative committee of Armenia told ARMENPRESS.

Several expertise analyses are underway to determine some significantly important matters.

The criminal case has been initiated on November 20 on an attempted grand larceny/fraud.

According to Istanbuls Zhamanak daily, the story of the paintings disappearance goes back to the 2000s. The author of the painting is Aram Khchaturyan, it was painted in 1903. Patriarch Mutafyan ordered the painting to be transported from the Patriarchate, in order for the author to make a copy. After that, the painting was not returned. Sometime later, reports reach the Patriarchate that the painting has been seen in Yerevan. Moreover, the painting has been presented as being painted by Ivan Aivazovsky.

Becoming the Patriarchal Vicar, Archbishop Ateshyan inherited this problem. Taking into account the information they had, he contacted Armenian law enforcement agencies. Few details emerged in the process. The Bishop received information that the painting was sent to Russia, were it was put up for sale for half a million Euros, as a piece by Aivazovsky. Ateshyan has also seen an expert bulletin-conclusion of the painting in Armenia, made in Russian. Armenian law enforcement agencies vowed to determine all circumstances.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls is set to resign on December 6. The 54 year old announced he is running to become the Socialist candidate in the 2017 presidential election in France.

"I am a candidate for the presidency of the republic," Valls said at his headquarters in the Parisian suburb of Evry.

"I want to give everything for France," he stressed, adding that he cannot be Prime Minister while being a candidate," he said. The 54-year-old Spanish-born prime minister announced that his government will resign on Tuesday, RT reports.

Valls wrote on Twitter that his candidacy is also a revolt against the idea that the left is disqualified from this presidential election.

During his speech, Valls adopted an assertive tone, stating that he is running for president because he wants an independent France  inflexible in its values [when] faced with the China of Xi Jinping, the Russia of Vladimir Putin, [and] the America of Donald Trump.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Constitutional court of Turkey rejected to discuss the request of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia demanding the return of the Sis Catholicosate, reports Armenpress.

The Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia will submit a legal case of over the return of the Sis Catholicosate to the European Court of Human Rights.

Tomorrow, on December 6, will be an important day for the Armenian people in general and the Armenian church in particular, Catholicos Aram I announced in a live video address from the current seat of the Catholicosate in Antelias, Lebanon.

This is the first legal action taken against Turkey after the Armenian Genocide of 1915. This legal action is the result of a long and serious reflection, consultation, and study, and is based on the provisions of international law, including the decisions of the Lausanne Conference of 1932 pertaining to the minorities living within the boundaries of the Republic of Turkey, Catholicos Aram I said.

He said this is the high time to pass from the recognition to reparation stage, on this way not forgetting about the importance of the Armenian Genocide recognition.

On December 6, our demand on the return of the SIS Catholicosate must be officially submitted to the ECHR in Strasbourg. The next day, on December 7, in Brussels, a press conference will take place with the participation of four members of our legal team. And through this press conference, our representatives will explain the various stages and dimensions, and expectations pertaining to this lawsuit, he said.

We have started with this conscious and must continue this legal action. We must continue the process of the Armenian Genocide recognition. At the same time, I do believe that time has come that we, Armenia and Diaspora, together with all our organizations must enter into a legal field. We are a demanding people, he said.

The Armenian cause is the case of justice. It is the cause of violations of human rights. It is the cause of our people. We never forget the Armenian Genocide. Recognition and reparation: this is our clear and firm position as a people and a church. We want justice from the international community, Catholicos Aram I said.
Uralkali, a Russian potash producer, has indicated that they expect prices for potash, the popular fertilizer ingredient, to bottom out by year end. They said prices, however, may not fall quite as low as previously forecasted as the market begins to stablilize after the collapse of what has been called an informal global pricing cartel.

The prediction was announced as Uralkali said it had boosted production during the third quarter. The production increase was a move toward a volume-over-price strategy that threatens to lower prices even more. It is being blamed for catapulting the global market into disarray.

During July, Uralkali decided it would leave a trade partnership with Belarus. The partnership had served as a key component of the cartel. Buyers decided to wait on new orders, and in turn have demanded larger discounts until it becomes evident as to how the $22 billion marketplace will end up reorganizing.

When Uralkali left the partnership with Belarus, the companys CEO, who was arrested in Belarus on charges related to the breakup, had made the prediction that potash prices would fall as much as 25% by year end, making it sell for $300 per ton. The sales director for the company, Oleg Petrov, does not expect prices to drop that low, but believes they will continue to drop until a contract is signed later this year in China. China is the worlds largest consumer of potash.

Uralkali does boast the lowest production cost of any potash producer, so it is looking to increase capacity in order to boost its market share. Ukrakali has announced that its third-quarter output improved to 12.5% on the year and 3.8% on the quarter, reaching 2.7 million tons. It would have to operate at 100% capacity in order to meets its annual production target. That would mean producing 3.24 million tons during the fourth quarter.

Indias largest buyer, Indian Potash Ltd., said it received a 12% discount from Uralkali on remaining deliveries on the deal that it had signed back in February. However, experts say that India is not a bellwether for the potash market, since the price cut was driven by the depreciation of the rupee.
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YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. US Secretary of State John Kerry on December 5 said the deal signed with Iran and world powers made the world more secure, reports Interfax.

It is more secure in the region, it became more secure in Germany and US, in Europe and Israel, it is more secure in the world. Maintaining this depends on all of us, Kerry said.

He said Barack Obama has already spoken about the nuclear deal with the US President-elect Donald Trump.

Earlier Trump called the deal with Iran as a disaster and the worst deal over which there were talks.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. 75 foreign citizens have applied for asylum in Armenia during 2016, and only 40 were granted, who were citizens of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Ukraine, Petros Aghababyan, head of the asylum department of the state migration service of the ministry of territorial administration and development told ARMENPRESS. According to him, the asylum seekers are mainly ethnic Armenians, there are also Iranians and Arabs. Since the beginning of the Syrian War, more than 20 thousand Syrian-Armenians arrived in Armenia, however only 1200 applied for a status of refugee.

A three-month period is defined by law for discussing the applications, during this period a decision is made whether or not to grant asylum to individual applicants. Applications of those who have arrived in Armenia as reulst of war, for example our compatriots of Syria, are discussed by an accelerated procedure. I can say, refugee status was in most cases granted to our compatriots who applied to us, Aghababyan said.

According to him, in order to have the right of protection of the Republic of Armenia, some grounds are necessary: persecution for political views, religion, race, social group. War operations, which resulted in citizens leaving their country and are unable to return, can also be considered grounds. In such cases a refugee status is granted. Aghababyan said the indicator of received applications has decreased compared to the previous year. Last year 315 applications were received. The seekers were again from the same countries : Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Iran.

Since 1988, 3500 people have applied for asylum in Armenia. 2800 were granted asylum. They are mainly ethnic Armenians, however representatives of other nationalities are also among them: Cameroon, Benin, Ivory Coast and others.

When a citizen is applying for asylum, we temporarily accommodate him in a special facility. The citizen remains there until the discussion of the application is completed. If after denying asylum the issue is appealed in court, then he continues to remain in the facility. During this period the individuals are provided with food, Aghababyan said.

According to him, several legislative changes were made with the purpose of harmonizing the rights of asylum seekers with European standards.
HA NOI  Viet Nam Business Forum (VBF) 2016 has proposed the Government remove import taxes on auto components and parts which are not yet produced in Viet Nam.

The aim is to make prices competitive for locally-made products.

The proposal, based on the report from VBFs auto-motorbike research group, was made at the annual forum organised by the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank Group in collaboration with Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment in Ha Noi on December 6.

VBF said the production cost for a locally-manufactured car could be 20 per cent higher than the cost of a similar vehicle made in Thailand and Indonesia when the tax on complete built up units (CBU) is down to zero per cent in 2018, under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement.

According to the report, this year, the sale of CBUs and complete knock down units was estimated to increase by 300,000 units, a year-on-year rise of 22 per cent. However, development of the entire automobile industry, with more than 20 companies and 40 brand names in Viet Nam, has not met the targets of the Government and investors since its total capacity is just nearly 500,000 units per year.

VBF said the failure in reaching full capacity could worry investors and even force them to question the possibility of new investment in the future.

According to the VBF report, domestic automakers are facing many disadvantages due to small-scale production. They have to import almost all the components for assembling; it is costly to pay expenses for transport and package services, besides also paying import taxes.

To boost the local automobile industry, VBF also asked the Government to tighten and make supervision of the import of CBUs and used vehicles more transparent.

In addition, the Government should clarify the content of its policies to support domestic automobile production, which is mentioned in the prime ministers Decision 229/QD-TTg, issued on February 4, 2016.

VBF said the support policies were crucial for domestic automakers to develop their business. However, they were unclear, so it was difficult for automakers to prepare production projects and ask the Government for support.  VNS
HA NOI  Many textile and garment enterprises are investing in textile and dyeing complexes to ensure material for sustainable development, Vietnam Television (VTV)reported recently.

To avail themselves of business opportunities from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, many textile and garment firms have over the past two years started building textile and dyeing complexes. For instance, 10 enterprises have invested hundreds of millions of US dollars in those complexes in southern Binh Duong Province.

However, US President-elect Donald Trump said his country would leave the TPP but investment to those industrial complexes would still continue for long-term development strategies.

Esquel Garment Manufacturing Viet Nam Co Ltd has operated in Viet Nam for 10 years and mainly imported material from China. In 2015, the company invested in a textile and dyeing factory in Binh Duong partly for availing business opportunities from the TPP. The factory has completed construction of the building in the first stage and it will begin operations in a year.

With information emerging that the US could leave the TPP, the company would consider carefully its investment plans for the factory in the second and third stages.

However, Nguyen Van Luong, deputy general director of Esquel Garment Manufacturing Viet Nam, said the decision on investment was under the companys long-term development strategy in Viet Nam but not only for TPP.

Textile and garment enterprises said that TPP has prompted them to increase investment in textile and dyeing for production of garment products. In the long-term, development of textile and dyeing would help Viet Nam complete its production process for garment products and avoid dependence on material imports as being done at present, VTV reported.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Xuan Duong, chairman of Hung Yen Garment Company said TPP would present more opportunities to local textile garment firms to export to the US, but if there was no TPP, exports to the US would have no effect.

During his election campaign, President-elect Donald Trump had said that if he won the elections the US would impose import tariff of 45 per cent on Chinese products. So, Duong said, garment producers who have investments in China could consider moving their business to other countries, including Viet Nam, to avoid high import tariff for products imported from China, the Dien an Doanh nghiep newspaper reported.

Duong said that Viet Nams textile and garment exports next year would face many difficulties as expectations. Hung Yen Garment Company has signed contracts to produce garment for exports until March and April 2017.

He expected the company to receive more export orders after Tet (the Lunar New Year) festival to produce stable exports until October 2017.

According to the General Statistics Office, Viet Nam gained a year-on-year increase of 4.5 per cent in export value to US$21.5 billion for the first 11 months of this year.

This year, the nation expected to gain a total export value of textile and garment at around $29 billion.  VNS
Xuan Huong

HCM CITY  Viet Nam has become the second Asian country to achieve a fine flavour cocoa (FFC) designation from the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO).

Forty per cent of the countrys cocoa exports have received this designation. Indonesia was the first Asian country to receive the recognition in 2011, but it applied to only 1 per cent of that countrys cocoa exports.

ICCO uses many criteria to assess the quality of fine flavour cocoa. Among them are the genetic origin of the planting material, morphological characteristics of the plant, flavour characteristics of the cocoa beans, chemical characteristics of the beans and colour of the beans and nibs.

Other criteria include the degree of fermentation, drying, acidity, off-flavours, percentage of internal mould, insect infestation, and percentage of impurities.

Twenty-three countries are included on ICCOs list of producing countries exporting exclusively FFC or partially FFC beans.

The world cocoa market distinguishes between two broad categories of cocoa beans  fine flavour cocoa beans, and bulk or ordinary cocoa beans.

According to ICCO, fine flavour cocoa accounts for about 6 per cent of global cocoa exports and their prices are always 5-10 per cent higher than the floor price at the London and New York markets.

This recognition is good news for the Vietnamese cocoa industry.

In 2013, Puratos Grand-Place Viet Nam also won an international award for producing the best cocoa in the Asia-Pacific region.

The award was part of the Cocoa of Excellence programme to celebrate the diversity of cocoa flavours from all over the world and to recognise overall excellence in processing the beans.

Despite some encouraging results, Viet Nams cocoa sector has not enjoyed stable development in the past decade, according to the Crop Production Department.

A Government plan until 2020 targeted having 35,000ha of cocoa cultivation by 2015 and 50,000ha by 2020.

But the cocoa cultivation area had shrunk dramatically to 11,229 ha last year compared to the peak of 25,700ha in 2012 because many farmers have switched to more profitable crops, said Nguyen Nhu Hien of the department.

Low productivity and price volatility were among the key factors affecting farmers, he said.

Cacao-Trace programme

To encourage cocoa cultivation, Puratos Grand-Place Viet Nam, the countrys biggest cocoa buyer, which buys 40 per cent of the countrys total cocoa output, has developed a Cacao-Trace programme in which it works directly with farmers.

The programme is dedicated to creating long-term sustainable cocoa production and added value for the entire cocoa supply chain, from the farmer to the final consumer, said Gricha Safarian, the companys managing director.

The programme provides farmers with agricultural training so they can achieve the best profit; offers them a 40 per cent seedling price subsidy; and gives farmers US$170 for every tonne of cocoa the company buys from them.

Were working towards achieving full vertical integration from cocoa beans to chocolate, Safarian said.

Ho Thi Thanh Truc, in charge of the companys cocoa development programme, said by applying its productivity packages, which combine good seedlings, proper pruning and pest control and fertiliser, farmers can raise annual productivity to three kilos of dried beans per tree from the current figure of 0.5-0.8 kilos, thus greatly improving their income.

Truc said its Cocoa Development Centre in Ben Tre Province in 2014 trained more than 1,000 cocoa farmers and targets raising the number to 3,000 by the end of this year.

Ho Thanh Van, a farmer in Chau Thanh District of Ben Tre Province who took part in the Cacao-Trace programme, said he planted 1,000 cocoa trees under other crops like coconut and longan on 1.2ha of land, with productivity in 2011 reaching five tonnes of fresh fruits (21 kilos of fresh fruits offer 1 kilo of dried beans).

In 2011, Puratos applied its productivity packages on Vans 80 cocoa trees. As a result of increased productivity, Van decided to apply the packages to 400 trees and had an output of 19 tonnes of fresh fruits in 2014. The figure is expected to reach 24 tonnes this year.

Last year, his earnings from cocoa cultivation reached VN100 million (US$4,421), much higher from that of coconut or longan, he said.

More than 2,000 cocoa farmers have participated in the programme.

With global demand for cocoa increasing, experts forecast a shortage of one million tonnes by 2020, offering producers, including Viet Nam, a great opportunity for export sales.

In Viet Nam, cocoa is grown mainly in three regions: the Central Highlands, the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, and the southeastern part of the country.

Cocoa is a commodity surrounded by healthy claims in terms of the presence of anti-oxidant, which add to the attraction of the product to consumers, said Safarian.

We sincerely hope that Viet Nam will not miss that commodity on the map of its development plans as we see a bright future for the demand and for the price of of cocoa in the next decades."  VNS
HA NOI  The private sector, including FDI (foreign direct investment) firms, plays a crucial role in national development, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said yesterday.

Addressing the 2016 Vietnam Business Forum held in Ha Noi, he also said the Government accords equal importance to all sectors and businesses.

In order for the Vietnamese economy to advance and develop, the private sector must have a strong growth potential as well.

The Government holds all businesses, domestic and foreign, in equal regard. And in the foreseeable future, policies and regulations will continue to be updated and re-issued in accordance with international law and markets," Phuc said at the annual forum.

The PM welcomed this years focus on the role that the private sector has played in economic development over the last 30 years after the nation embarked on its market-oriented renovation policy.

Ryu Hang Ha, Joint Chairman of the Vietnam Business Forums Management Board, stressed the need for domestic businesses to improve their relationship with FDI companies based in Viet Nam through a common information network. He said this would boost domestic businesses inner strengths and drive the economy forward.

In response, Phuc said he hoped that FDI companies, which enjoy technological, financial, marketing and managerial advantages, will commit themselves to concrete actions in working with domestic businesses, helping the grow on the basis of mutual benefit.

The PM urged businesses to propose initiatives and policy suggestions, as well as investment projects according to the environmentally friendly sustainable development goals set by the Government.

He mentioned many significant achievements by FDI companies as well as domestic small and medium enterprises.

A total of 21,000 foreign firms were operating in Viet Nam with nearly US$300 billion in capital, he noted, adding that this illustrated the importance and potential of this economic sector as a large revenue generator for Vietnamese economy.

However, he also warned that Viet Nam will not welcome investors using the country as a tax haven to launder money, avoid environmental responsibilities, and act against the basic principles and core values of entrepreneurship. Such actions would harm national interests and undermine the goal of sustainable development, not to mention deter other potential foreign investors, he said

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Co-Chairman of the 2016 Vietnam Business Forum, said many current economic policies were not comprehensive enough, inspection processes were slow and overlapping, and administrative procedures continued to be ambiguous and cumbersome.

These caused a number of difficulties for businesses in accessing credit, land-use rights and created several tax and non-tax barriers, he said.

Virginia B. Foote, Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam , said administrative burdens can become a deadweight for human resource development and slow down private sector growth.

The PM urged the Vietnamese business community to actively participate in the economic reconstruction process, through diversification of investments, paying particular attention to public-private partnerships (PPP). This would encourage the entrepreneurial spirit, drive innovation, increase competitiveness and product quality, he said.

He said that the Vietnamese government would continue the task of completing a national legal framework for the market economy, and persist with administrative reforms to create a favourable investment and business environment.

The goal, he said, is to increase national competitiveness and facilitate private sector growth towards meeting the ASEAN4 standards set by the World Bank (WB) and World Economic Forum by 2020.

Phuc reiterated his interest in having FDI companies working together with the Government and other domestic businesses, promoting technology transfer, human resource training, sharing of managerial experiences and undertaking responsibility for social and environmental concerns.

He said the Government would also prioritise domestic supporting industries, specially in the small and medium scale sector, to gain access to manufacturing technologies.

He said they should work with FDI companies to bring Vietnamese products into regional and international distribution chains.

Other areas that the conference focused on included the upgrade of infrastructure and PPP frameworks, development of clean and renewable energy, climate change adaptation and environment protection.

It was noted that in recent years, Viet Nam had made significant progress in terms of business growth, with more than 600,000 registered enterprises and more than 3.5 million individual small businesses. In 2016 alone, more than 100,000 new businesses were registered. Many domestic companies like Vietnam Airlines, Vinamilk, TH True Milk, Saigon Tourist and Viet Jet have become well-known, internationally.

The 2016 Annual Vietnam Business Forum was organised by the International Finance Corporation and the WB Group in collaboration with Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment. VNS
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wiped away tears during a roundtable with Syrian refugees and sponsors, when one of them a Syrian-Armenian Vanig Garabedian recalled being greeted by the PM when he arrived in Canada one year ago, CBC News reported.

During the discussion at Torontos restaurant, the PM, Vanig Garabedian and others discussed the first year of the Syrian refugee program.

When the plane landed at the airport, the first person we shook hands was the prime minister, Garabedian said, after which the PM grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped his eyes.

Garabedian said landing in Toronto not only meant that he, his wife and daughters were safe, but also that they took "the responsibility of joining the Canadian family and trying to build this Canada, this country, this great nation.

"When I met Mr. Prime Minister at that moment, he said two words: 'Welcome home.' So imagine you are living in a warzone, you are leaving your home and you are welcomed by two words: welcome home," Garabedian saying as quoted by CBC News. "So my memories of that moment went back to Syria before war, our life, our happiness there, and the horrible moments we went through during war. So I felt myself that I'm proud to be here, he said.

In his turn the Canadian PM spoke about the importance of hosting over 25.000 Syrian refugees in Canada.

"Watching you and your girls walk through this airport toward me was a moment in which I understood just the kinds of things that we can do as a country and that I get to help this country do," the PM saying as quoted by CBC News.
HCM CITY  Viet Nam is going through a construction boom, with apartment and office buildings mushrooming, and energy efficiency is imperative, Nguyen Cong Thinh, head of the Ministry of Constructions science, technology and environment department, told a seminar in HCM City yesterday.

The ministry would like to build a complete legal framework to support energy saving in buildings. That is a task we must accomplish for green construction and the economy, he added.

A project called Energy Efficiency Improvement in Commercial and High-Rise Residential Builidings in Viet Nam has been rolled out by the ministry for 2016 -19 under the sponsorship of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The US$3.2 million project aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the long run, will review and seek better energy-saving methods and create a framework for the task.

We will try to improve the ability to design, construct and operate energy-efficient commercial and apartment buildings around the country, inh Chinh Loi, the project co-ordinator, said.

In the first stage the project will study energy consumption in 100 commercial and apartment buildings in the country.

Based on that, a legal framework will be created along with a financial support system, and then centres for Energy and Energy Efficiency Business (CEEB) will follow.

We plan to build 16 energy-efficient buildings in the next five years, Loi said.

A representative of the Energy Conservation Centre in HCM City said electricity consumption in buildings would reduce by 14  36 per cent if they follow new criteria.

With an addition of 1  4 per cent to construction cost, offices, hospitals, schools, apartments, trade complexes and hotels can reduce their energy consumption by 14  36 per cent and recoup the additional investment in one to five years.

He said new buildings should pay attention to construction materials, air conditioning and ventilation systems, lighting, elevators, automatic power cut-off, and hot water system.

To reduce heat from outside, light concrete bricks and 3D partition should be encouraged and creepers should be grown.

Heatproof film should be stuck on glass windows and corrugated roofs, he said.

Ventilation should be designed using natural breezes and automatic timers should be used for air conditioning, ventilation and pumping systems.

The lightning system should take advantage of natural light, and all lamps should be new-generation energy-saving ones, he said.

Solar energy for heating water is a good solution, he said.

Energy savings would be 20  35 per cent in office buildings and 15  25 per cent in malls and hotels.

Also at the seminar, partly private company Viet Energy Consultant and Investment Corporation (Viet ESCO) offered financial support for those looking for energy-saving solutions.

We will provide comprehensive energy saving solutions through contracts, Diep The Cuong, its director, said.

The customers do not need to invest in any technology or equipment, and merely have to pay the company a part of the savings achieved through its solutions.

They will have the right to keep all the equipment after the contract finishes, Cuong said.

He also offered two other kinds of contracts that would see Viet ESCO buy energy during non-peak hours and sell to customers during peak hours

Or we can sign an energy savings guarantee contract with customers. Viet ESCO will be responsible to ensure the saving is achieved,  VNS
HA NOI  The first photographic book covering all of Viet Nams primate species was launched last week, kicking off a project initiated by business leaders turned conservation pioneers.

Entitled The Conservation of Vietnams Threatened Primates - Edge of Extinction, the book is divided into four chapters based on the endangered levels of the primate species: critically endangered species, endangered species, vulnerable species and near threatened and least concern species.

The 150-page book not only shows the magnificence of Vietnamese primates and the natural ecosystem of Viet Nams primeval forests but also sets alarm bells ringing about the urgency of protecting Viet Nams unique and endangered primates.

Many of Viet Nams natural reserves are face an uphill battle against the unsustainable illegal hunting of primate species for meat, imagined medicinal powers and the pet trade. As a consequence, these beautiful primates, and the rest of Viet Nams persecuted wildlife are literally running for their lives in a desperate struggle for survival.

Viet Nams primates should be seen as a gift of nature, symbols of national pride and the responsibility of conserving them should be a top priority for the Vietnamese people. Many of the primate species found in Viet Nam, such as the langurs, are found nowhere else in the world.

The launch of this book heralds a call for the conservation of the countrys nature and biodiversity by more than 50 of Viet Nams top business leaders. Viet Nams business magazine, Nhip Cau au Tu, serves as a bridge among Viet Nams business leaders for conservation projects preserving the biodiversity of Viet Nams nature and environment.

These leaders of the business community have joined hands to protect Viet Nams natural environment and encourage all Vietnamese to conserve the precious gift of nature. The new book has been made possible thanks to the hard work and dedication of naturalists Jonathan Eames, Nguyen Van Truong, Le Khac Quyet and photographer Nicolas Cornet.  VNS
LOS ANGELES  Late night television presenter Jimmy Kimmel on Monday ended months of speculation over who would host the 89th Oscars in February -- announcing that he has been tapped to front the glitzy ceremony.

It will be the first time for the comedian, who has hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC since it launched in 2003 and garnered praise for his work as host of this years Emmys television awards.

"Yes, I am hosting the Oscars. This is not a prank. And if it is, my revenge on @TheAcademy will be terrible & sweet," the 49-year-old New Yorker joked on Twitter.

His selection is expected to be announced officially by Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd, who have multiple Oscar and Emmy nominations between them and were tapped last month to produce the ceremony.

The Academy did not respond immediately to requests for confirmation of Kimmels selection to front the show, which airs live on ABC on February 26, but it retweeted his announcement.

The network, which pays the Academy a reported US$75 million a year to broadcast the Oscars, struck a new deal in August giving executives more input into creative aspects of the ceremony.

Kimmels appointment comes unusually late this time around, as the host is usually booked months in advance of the Oscars.

It will end speculation over several other possibilities for presenter, including fellow comedians Ellen DeGeneres and Tina Fey.

Chris Rock hosted the 2016 ceremony, which suffered an eight-year low in ratings, averaging 34.5 million viewers.

The African-American comic actors second stint presenting was overshadowed by a social media backlash against the lack of racial diversity among the nominees, under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

Ironically, a group of 25 Academy members of Asian descent, including Oscar-winning film director Ang Lee and Star Trek actor George Takei, subsequently complained about racist jokes at the ceremony.

It featured a section in which Rock introduced children of Asian descent as Academy accountants and an ad-libbed insinuation by actor Sacha Baron Cohen that Asian men were not well-endowed.  AFP
President Tran ai Quang (R) receives Myanmar Minister of Home Affairs Kyaw Swe in Ha Noi yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang

HA NOI  President Tran ai Quang pledged that Viet Nam will encourage its business community to invest in Myanmar, especially in agriculture, fish farming, mining and tourism.

At a meeting with visiting Myanmar Minister of Home Affairs Kyaw Swe in Ha Noi yesterday, the President said that Viet Nam and Myanmar have untapped potential for cooperation.

The bilateral partnership has made progress, especially in 12 prioritised areas of agriculture, industrial tree plantation, aquaculture, financial-banking, aviation, telecommunication, oil and gas, and investment, he noted.

He also lauded Myanmar for its close coordination at regional and international forums as well as within the framework of ASEAN, the Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV) cooperation, the UN, and the Mekong River Commission.

The Vietnamese State leader suggested that the two sides continue working closely to promote the sound partnership and expand bilateral friendship for the interest of both peoples as well as the successful building of the ASEAN Community of peace, stability, cooperation and development.

He also spoke highly of the outcomes of the talks between Kyaw Swe and Minister of Public Security To Lam, especially their agreement on specific measures to further boost the bilateral affiliation in law enforcement and security.

He affirmed Viet Nams constant policy of paying attention to the development of traditional friendship and multi-faceted cooperation with Myanmar.

For his part, Minister Kyaw Swe shared his strong impression during his first visit to Viet Nam, expressing his admiration of the countrys national construction and development achievements.

He stated that Viet Nam is a development model for many countries in the region and the world, including Myanmar.

He highlighted the determination to enhance ties between Myanmars Ministry of Home Affairs and Viet Nams Ministry of Public Security, thus contributing to the expansion of cooperation between the two countries.

Kyaw Swe vowed that Myanmar will create optimal conditions for Vietnamese investors and do its utmost to protect their legitimate rights.

Stronger security ties

Viet Nams Minister of Public Security To Lam and Minister Kyaw Swe have agreed to strengthen the exchange of law enforcement experience and information of crimes to better prevent and combat trans-national and emerging crimes.

The ministries will coordinate closely in ensuring security for investment and trade activities as well as for workers, students and tourists of the two countries.

Minister To Lam noted that the two Governments signed an agreement on anti-crime in 2004, laying the foundation for the two ministries to expand their partnership in the field.

Amidst complicated regional and world situations, the two sides should forge stronger affiliation and more effective mutual support, while continuing building and completing the legal framework for their cooperation in crime prevention and fight, said Lam.

He also suggested that the two sides strengthen consultations and coordination at multilateral forums such as Interpol and ASEANPOL, thus effectively contributing to the building of an ASEAN Community of peace, stability, cooperation and development.

Meanwhile, Minister Kyaw Swe highly valued the strong political trust and sound cooperation between the two countries as well as the close coordination between the two ministries at the world arena for the safeguarding of interests and security in each country.

He expressed his hope that in the future, the ministries will further promote the outcomes of their partnership and continuously boost their ties so to firmly protect national security and social order and safety in both Vietnam and Myanmar.

During the talks, the two ministers also signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between the two ministries.VNS
the Informal Senior Officials Meeting (ISOM) 2015 in Manila, the Philippines last year.  Photo outoftownblog.com

HA NOI  Senior officials from the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) member economies will gather at the Informal Senior Officials Meeting (ISOM) in Ha Noi on Friday to discuss priorities and key activities for the 2017 APEC, to be hosted by Viet Nam.

The priorities of the 2017 APEC include creating new momentum for the future of the Asia-Pacific, promoting sustainable and creative growth, the role of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSEMs) and their competitiveness capacity and creativity in the digital era, and enhancing food security and sustainable agriculture and in a way that adapts to climate change, said a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at a press briefing yesterday.

A dialogue between AEPC and businesses will be held on the sidelines of the ISOM with the theme of creating new momentum to promote APEC growth and connection as a Vietnamese initiative.

A first international conference of Viet Nam on hosting the 2017 APEC is scheduled to be held later of the day.

Around 200 events, conferences and workshops will be held across the country in the framework of APEC 2017.

Viet Nam has prepared for hosting the 2017 APEC since 2013, when it was given the task at the summit in Indonesia. In late 2013 and 2014 Viet Nam formed an intersectoral working group and in July 2015 organized a National Committee for APEC 2017 preparations.

Viet Nam joined APEC in 1998, an important milestone for Viet Nam in implementing its external policy of diversification and multilateralisation. Viet Nam successfully hosted APEC 14 in 2006, which laid a foundation for the Asia-Pacific Free Trade areas and adopted the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Bogor goals and initiatives to improve co-operation within APEC.

Established in 1989, APEC comprises 21 economies, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Viet Nam.  VNS
NEW DELHI  Viet Nam and India on Monday reiterated their desire to improve their bilateral defence co-operation for mutual benefit, peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

During talks with Indias Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in New Delhi, Defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich said India has always been a close, reliable friend and Viet Nam attaches great importance to their defence co-operation.

The friendship between the two nations was established by late President Ho Chi Minh and late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and since then, the relationship has been nurtured, by generations of leaders and citizens.

People in Viet Nam remember Indias help in the cause of its Independence and reform, Lich said. While India considers Viet Nam a key pillar in its Act East Policy, Viet Nam is also willing to serve as a bridge for India to develop ties with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Raising bilateral defence collaboration to a new level will contribute to the comprehensive strategic partnership agreed by the top leaders in September, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the country.

Lich and Parrikar expressed their pleasure at the bilateral collaboration in training, peace-keeping, strategies research and exchanges of ideas at multilateral forums, as well as the signing of a co-operation programme between the two countries peacekeeping centres and a joint exercise between Vietnamese marine police and Indian coast guard in October 2016.

The Viet Nam Peoples Navy and the Indian Navy have signed an agreement to share information on non-military marine services, while the Indian firm Larsen & Toubro has inked a contract to build patrol vessels for Viet Nam Coast Guard through the Indian governments US$100-million credit package.

The two ministers agreed on a number of issues, such as the implementation of a Joint Vision Statement on Viet Nam-India Defence Relations for the 2015-2020 period, which involves increasing all-level delegation exchanges, especially among young military officials, promoting deputy ministerial-level defence policy dialogue, and enhancing collaboration in training.

India has pledged to help Viet Nam train officials, while Viet Nam has agreed to receive Indian students to study Vietnamese and open training courses for senior officials at the Viet Nam National Defence Academy.

The two sides also highlighted the importance of naval co-operation to carry out search-and-rescue operations at sea and implement the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea.

Both nations have agreed to entrust responsible bodies to complete necessary procedures to implement the $500 million credit package that Modi has offered Viet Nam to carry out joint projects in bilateral defence co-operation.

After talks, the ministers witnessed the signing of a co-operation agreement between the Viet Nam Air Defence and Air Force and the Indian Air Force.

A roundtable conference was also held the same day to discuss bilateral co-operation between defence enterprises of both countries.

Defence Minister Lich will end his four-day visit to India tomorrow.  VNS
Many new regulations regarding school personnel have made it hard to ensure safety and quality in teaching, according to the HCM City Department of Education and Training.  Photo nhandan.com.vn

HCM CITY  Many new regulations regarding school personnel have made it hard to ensure safety and quality in teaching, according to the HCM City Department of Education and Training.

An example is a regulation that freezes the hiring of accountants and health officials at schools, which came into effect last year, Nguyen Tien at, the departments deputy head, said at a meeting with National Assemblys Committee for Culture, Education, Youth and Child held last Friday.

at said school principals could easily go to prison if they are not assisted by an accountant in bookkeeping, audits and inspecting financial records.

"Moreover, each school has thousands of students. If there are no health officials, it is very dangerous for them," he added.

According to the department, schools need to employ staff for psychological counselling as the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) requires counselling at schools.

Nurses are also vital for kindergartens in the city because as many as 40 to 45 kids are in each classroom.

However, the MoET and Ministry of Home Affairs do not regulate these positions at schools. This means that schools who want to employ them have to pay a salary with their own budget.

Nguyen Van Hieu, the departments deputy head, said that it is very difficult for the city to reduce the number of students in each classroom.

In peak years, the number of students in the city increased by 85,000 and averages more than 60,000 additional students each year, he said.

The city builds 1,500 to 2,000 new classrooms every year, but always fails to meet the increasing number of students, he added.

Moreover, the MoET bans primary schools from employing English teachers as full-time state employees.

They only employ these teachers under short-term contracts, Hieu said.

According to him, this is difficult for primary schools in HCM City because they have taught intensive English since 1998. As of now, 81 per cent of the citys primary students learn English under different training programmes.

"The salary for English teachers at primary schools is too low to keep qualified teachers," Hieu added.

English teachers at primary schools are required to teach 23 classes a week. They only receive an additional payment from the 24th class. Meanwhile, their colleagues in junior high schools and high schools need to teach 19 and 17 classes, respectively.

Another problem, according to Truong Van Hung, head of the professional and higher education division at the department, is there have not yet been preferential tax or money policies for using land for private education facilities as required by the Law on Higher Education.

Moreover, there is no detailed policy on land planning to meet the criteria of 55 sq m for each student set by the MoET.

The consequence is that private schools lease too many facilities for teaching, Hung said, adding that it is very difficult for the department to monitor.

Because of leasing, many private schools lack necessary equipment for teaching, he added.  VNS
HCM CITY The American Chamber of Commerce in Viet Nam last Saturday (December 3) awarded 50 scholarships worth a total of VN 620 million (US$27,300) to university students in HCM City.

The 50 awardees received scholarships worth VN10 million each and will attend a soft skills training programme costing VN120 million.

After 16 years the AmCham Scholarship is given to students of 13 leading universities in the city.

The three-month long assessment process for this years scholarships included four rounds: application form screening, English test (Axcela Test format), ability test (SHL Test) and an interview in English by human resources specialists.

More than 320 applications, distributed evenly among all majors like economics, business, social sciences, and science and technology, were received.

Starting with 10 scholarships and three university partners in 2001, AmCham has so far given away 755 scholarships. VNS
HA NOI  With the Ministry of Public Security having set a deadline of December 31 to complete all legal formalities for transfer of ownership of motorbikes or three-wheeled bikes, the capital citys traffic police has reported a sudden surge in registration requests, requiring it to mobilise additional resources to deal with the rush.

The ministry last year issued Decree 15 stating that individuals or organisations which have bought or are in possession of motorbikes, three-wheeled or electric bikes but have not completed the formalities to effect a change of ownership in the records, must finish the paperwork for transferring vehicle ownership by the end of this month.

Police officer Ngo Anh Tuan from the ong a Districts traffic police on Monday said the unit had to mobilise more staff since it was receiving about 130 dossiers every day from people seeking to update their vehicle ownership information.

From early mornings, a traffic polices registration centre in the districts Thai Ha Street, witnessed people queuing up, waiting for their turn to complete their vehicle ownership transfer procedure. As people sat inside the waiting room, parked outside were hundreds of old motorbikes which were to undergo police checks.

Meanwhile, police in Hoan Kiem District said, in recent days, they were receiving 10 to 20 times more applications than usual for transfer of motor ownership. Previously, they used to receive only about five dossiers but now the number had increased to 50. That forced the district police to mobilise more staff.

Lieutenant Colonel ao Van Xuyen said transferring fee for vehicles of which original ownership papers were not to be found and new ones had to be obtained, was between VN500,000 (US$22) and about VN4 million (US$176), depending on the value of the vehicle.

However, procedure in such cases was certainly simple and convenient, according to Xuyen.

Earlier, municipal Peoples Committee Chairman Nguyen uc Chung said Ha Noi police would be given smart devices to check whether motorbike drivers had correctly transferred their vehicle ownership. This technology will be applied with effect from January 1, 2017, Chung said.

Accordingly, instead of checking the paperwork reflecting vehicle ownership, police would only need to access a database of motorbike registrations to check vehicle ownership transfer details.

Decree 46 issued by the Ministry of Public Security, stated that from next year, individual motorbike owners will incur a fine of VN100,000-200,000 ($4.5-9) if they fail to transfer vehicle ownership.

However, clarifying the controversial regulation, Major General Tran The Quan, deputy head of the Department of Legal Affairs under the ministry, told local media that police officers were not allowed to stop motorbikes to check vehicle ownership. They were authorised to check ownership only when the vehicles are ordered to stop for having violated traffic rules.  VNS
QUANG NINH  Police in the northern Quang Ninh Provinces Hai Ha District on Tuesday destroyed 2.8 tonnes of food, including plaice and oranges, of which origins were unknown.

On Monday afternoon, the traffic police in Hai Ha Districts Quang Ha Town stopped a truck transporting 1 tonne of plaice in foam boxes from Mong Cai City to Hai Phong City.

However, truck driver o Ngoc Tinh, 28, a resident of Cam Pha City, had no papers to show where the fish was coming from.

On the same day, the police also seized 1.8 tonnes of oranges from a truck on National Highway 18A that was passing through Quang Ha Town. The driver, Ngo uc Tam, 32, said he had been hired to transport the fruits from Mong Cai City to the province, and he did not have any papers indicating their place of origin. -- VNS
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Join us  by saying NO to gender based violence in sex selective abortions. Healthcare minister Levon Altunyan has also joined the 16-day campaign against gender violence.

The healthcare ministry told ARMENPRESS according to UN Population Fund, Armenia looses 1400 future moms in a potential way.

The 16-day campaign against gender violence is a global campaign held annually from November 25 to December 10.
KON TUM  Prolonged heavy rainfall and impact of the strong cold air over the week have caused serious landslides paralysing the Truong Son ong route through the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Kon Tum, authority has said.

This is the third time during the rainy season that the route suffered landslides, with over 25,000 tonnes of rock falling down, causing difficulties for road users, according to the provincial Peoples Committee.

The rocks and trees drifting from upstream had damaged the barriers and avalanches had occurred intermittently, due to which residents in Ngoc Tem Commune were completely isolated.

ang Thanh Nam, deputy chairman of the Peoples Committee of Kon Plong District, said local authorities were coordinating with the road management board to repair the damage.

It was expected that the landslide route would be cleared today, said Nam.

Measures to actively prevent disasters and deal with the aftermath of heavy rainfall were also being strengthened, according to Nam.

Locals were advised not to walk around areas affected by landslides. Families at a high risk of flashfloods and landslides would be removed to safer areas, he said.  VNS
CHARLESTON  The judge in the murder trial of a white former South Carolina policeman accused of shooting an unarmed black suspect in the back declared a mistrial on Monday after the jury said it was deadlocked.

The case was one of several fatal shootings of black suspects across the United States that have thrown the spotlight on how police use deadly force - and whether a suspects race leads to bias in that decision.

The jury had indicated on Friday that it was within one vote of returning a guilty verdict against Michael Slager in the killing of Walter Scott after the 50-year-old fled a traffic stop and struggled with the officer on April 4, 2015 in North Charleston.

Lawyers for Slager - who could have been convicted of either murder and voluntary manslaughter - argued that Scotts disregard for authority, aberrant behavior and aggressive actions justified the deadly encounter.

"I so declare this case a mistrial," Judge Clifton Newman told the court in the historic port city of Charleston. "Were back to square one".

The jury - which had been locked in deliberations since the middle of last week after a month of testimony - ultimately said Monday it was unable to reach a unanimous decision "despite the best efforts of all members."

Newman had pleaded for the panel to come to a decision, saying a mistrial would only mean a new trial with the same evidence argued in front of different jurors. Prosecutors have said they will retry the case.

"While I cannot overstate our disappointment that this case was not resolved, I commend those who sacrificed so much time, energy and effort to serve on this jury," said lead prosecutor Scarlett Wilson.

"We will try Michael Slager again. We hope the federal and state courts will coordinate efforts regarding any future trial dates but we stand ready whenever the court calls."

Missed opportunity

Scott family attorney L. Chris Stewart called the mistrial a "missed opportunity to heal a lot of wounds in this country."

His colleague Justin Bamberg added: "We all know that its difficult to convict law enforcement officers in this country. But every case is different. I dont believe there is a person with a soul who believes what Michael Slager did is OK, or not wrong."

"I dont think questions of fact were the issue for this jury. I think the issue was interpretation of the law... I dont think were going to have this problem next time."

"Officers need to know you cant do these things and at the end of the day when Michael Slager is convicted, that message is going to ring loud and clear," Bamberg added.

Slager also faces trial in federal court next year on charges of violating Scotts civil rights.

Lone holdout

North Charleston, which borders Charleston, has a history of strained race relations between the citys police department and large black community.

Scotts death had set off protests in the area, but on Monday, his brother Anthony urged would-be protesters to remain peaceful.

Much of the trial focused on a single piece of evidence: a bystanders video that captured a portion of the struggle, Scotts attempt to flee and Slager firing eight shots at the suspect, five of them hitting their mark.

The 34-year-old Slager has said he feared for his life when he tried to subdue the suspect, alleging that Scott grabbed his stun gun and charged at him.

On Friday, confusion reigned in the courtroom - jurors first asked to rehear testimony from Feidin Santana, who made the video and was the lone eyewitness to the encounter between Slager and Scott.

Santana had disputed Slagers account of the struggle, saying Scott never charged at him, and was only attempting to flee the policemans grip.

But only 12 minutes later, the jurors said they did not need to review the testimony and that they could not reach a consensus. It appeared the jury had just one holdout.

Newman ordered the jury to try again, but to no avail.

Slager had faced a sentence of 30 years to life imprisonment if convicted of murder. The manslaughter charge carried a sentence of two to 30 years.

"Im not sad," Scotts mother, Judy Scott, told reporters in an emotional address. "I know that justice will be served."

"I dont care what men say. I dont care how it looks," she said. "Its not over. You all hear me, its not over till God says its over."  AFP
Isola Leads a Financial Services Delegation to Morocco

The Hon Albert Isola, the Minister for Commerce, led a financial services delegation to Morocco from Monday 28th to Wednesday the 30th November; attending and hosting a series of meetings and a breakfast conference.

The Minister first attended private meetings in Marrakech including a two hour series of presentations on Gibraltar and Morocco at a hotel venue organised by Deloitte Gibraltar. The 12 or so participants included senior representatives from Deloitte, tax and accounting specialists from firms in Marrakech as well as delegates from the Marrakech business development agency. Separately, the Minister was also the guest of honour at a private luncheon attended by Marrakech based financiers and businessmen.

In Casablanca, the Minister visited the offices of a Gibraltar linked investment services firm that is a member of the Casablanca Finance City or CFC and was subsequently invited to a dinner with investment banking professionals and senior lawyers specialising in corporate finance.

On the morning of Wednesday 30th November, Minister Isola hosted a breakfast conference at the equivalent of the Confederation of Moroccan Industry (Confederation Generale Des Enterprises Du Maroc) CGEM. The breakfast conference was co-hosted by the Vice-president of the CGEM, Mr Hakim Marrakchi and was attended by, amongst others, financial services delegates from Gibraltar and member firms from the CGEM. Minister Isola commented on the vision and strategic drive being implemented by the Moroccan Government over many years and urged a greater level of cooperation between Gibraltar and Moroccan business partners. There were also presentations by Aon Gibraltar on behalf of the insurance industry as well by Hyperion Gibraltar; the latter taking the opportunity to comment on social and cultural links as well as speaking on behalf of the investment industry generally.

Minister Isola said, This visit to two of Moroccos major cities has, in great part, been an opportunity to learn more about the very significant developments in Moroccos economy. I have been stunned by Moroccos diversification of its economy from the more traditional areas of agriculture, fishing and phosphates into such sectors such as automobile production and aviation high end support supply. It is clear that Morocco is leading an investment charge into neighbouring countries in Africa and others further afield; providing services in technology, specialist construction and banking to name but a few. We have also taken advantage during this visit to update and inform potential business partners of the specialist areas of financial services being offered from Gibraltar.

The Minister was accompanied by the Finance Centre Director, James Tipping and the Chief Ministers Chief of Staff, Gareth Flower. Logistics and marketing personnel from Gibraltar Finance were involved in the preparation of meetings and events ahead of the visit.





Minister Isola addressing a meeting in Marrakech

Minister Isola addressing financial services professionals in Marrakech

Minister Isola and Mr Hakim Marrakchi, the Vice President of the Confederation of Moroccan Industry based in Casablanca

The breakfast seminar in Casablanca
Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundations Advanced Technological Education program, the Geospatial Technician Education-Unmanned Aircraft Systems project is one step closer to offering Virginias community college students training on operating small unmanned aircraft, commonly referred to as drones.

John McGee, professor in Virginia Techs College of Natural Resources and Environment and Virginia Cooperative Extension geospatial specialist, has worked alongside the Virginia Space Grant Consortium and the Virginia Community College System on expanding geospatial technician education at the community college level for almost nine years. Emerging technology has led to changing goals for the organization.

Unmanned aircraft are facilitating data acquisition efforts. These aircraft are transforming how industries do business, McGee said. Theres a lot of activity in this field in Virginia already. We want to make sure that Virginias workforce is well poised to meet emerging industry needs.

Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) can be outfitted with a variety of cameras and sensors depending on the specific data researchers seek to collect. In addition to providing incredibly diverse sets of data, these aircraft can cover hundreds of acres in a 45-minute flight.

According to McGee, the possible industrial uses for drones are practically endless.

They can be used for wildlife habitat mapping, for public safety, to support land-use management, or to aid in precision farming, he said. They could even be used to inspect bridges and transmission lines and take away the human risk from those types of inspections.

To ensure that Virginias community college students have the knowledge and skills necessary to utilize this expanding technology, McGee and the Virginia Space Grant Consortium have partnered with faculty from Thomas Nelson, Mountain Empire, and John Tyler community colleges to develop a curriculum chart that will help community college instructors establish courses that will benefit students.

McGee said the project seeks to provide students with a range of options, from individual courses to various levels of certificate programs.

McGee recently led the effort to develop a curriculum chart by bringing together a focus group of professional sUAS technicians and technician managers. McGee and his colleagues learned about their day-to-day responsibilities and developed a list of their crucial tasks and duties, which will inform the development of components for a successful curriculum.

The curriculum chart maps the skills and knowledge that students will need into categories like flight planning, maintenance, and safety. Based on the chart, educators can begin to develop course objectives and goals that will shape how various courses are organized.

Were providing educators with a curriculum roadmap that they can use to enhance existing courses, create new courses, and support sUAS certificate programs, McGee explained. These courses and programs will be a natural fit for students entering an array of industries, including natural resources conservation, agricultural technology, engineering, public safety, computer programming, and information technology.

McGee expects that students could see sUAS courses in Virginia's community college system within the next year.

According to Cherie Aukland, associate professor of information technology at Thomas Nelson Community College, courses will focus on helping the students develop the skills necessary to maintain and pilot devices safely, use and analyze data from a variety of sensors, and pass the Federal Aviation Administrations remote pilot certificate exam.

There is a lot going on with drones in Virginia right now, and more jobs are on the way, Aukland explained. We want to be able to train technicians who can finish their training and transition immediately into the workforce.

Until late August, the Federal Aviation Administration required that sUAS operators have a pilots license, but new regulations have paved the way for others to pilot the aircrafts. That makes now the ideal time to introduce the technology into Virginias community colleges, McGee said.

According to Chris Carter, deputy director of the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, the sUAS curriculum chart is only the first step in the latest Geospatial Technician Education initiative.

During summer 2017, Virginia Tech will host a weeklong professional development session for community college faculty who are interested in teaching sUAS courses. These faculty will team up with mentors from the Geospatial Technician Education project to learn the best ways to teach sUAS courses to their students.

The Virginia Community College System serves as a pipeline for the workforce and for universities. Its in everyones best interest to support these community colleges, Carter said.
Paul Grey Weissend, an undergraduate senior from Richmond, Virginia, has been selected as a Schwarzman Scholar, an international award for graduate study in China that was inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship.

Weissend is a finance major in the Pamplin College of Business with minors in leadership and international business and a member of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets and the Honors College.

He was among more than 2,700 candidates from 119 countries who competed for 129 spots in the 2018 class of the program, established by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of leading investment firm Blackstone.

Aimed at preparing the next generation of global leaders, the program gives students the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and professional networks through a one-year masters degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing.



I am incredibly excited to further challenge myself in a country that is absolutely foreign to me, said Weissend, who has long been interested in business and entrepreneurship.

In high school, he founded a company to buy electronic accessories from China wholesale and resell them on eBay and Amazon. Coordinating with companies like Alibaba, he realized he needed to acquire a deeper understanding of China to be a successful leader.

At Virginia Tech, Weissend serves as chief investment officer of SEED, a student group that manages $5 million for the Virginia Tech Foundation through stock investments.

His work experience includes summer internships as an analyst at J.P. Morgan in New York City and GE Capital in Norwalk, Connecticut.

In the Corps, Weissend served as first sergeant of Delta Company and protocol officer of Citizen-Leader Track Battalion. Such positions, he said, developed me fundamentally as a leader, helping me learn to motivate and empathize with an array of others.

He spent the past spring semester in Europe as one of the universitys Presidential Global Scholars, conducting research on the refugee crisis.

The research team, which included three other Virginia Tech students, interviewed refugees at a camp in Calais, France and at a temporary stay center in Melilla, Spain. Weissend focused on entrepreneurs and their business development within the camps. His project culminated in an essay he wrote on microfinancing for refugees.

As his field research got underway, Weissend realized that he wanted to change the rhetoric of refugees being liabilities, he said. The ingenuity and perseverance of refugees are incredible benefits to the communities they settle in. I thought highlighting businesses created by refugees would be a great tool to change some of the current perceptions. I wanted to focus on empowering refugees to become self-sufficient members of their communities and how the whole community benefits as a result.

His travels in Europe intensified his desire to see and understand more of the world.

Learning what drives people from different cultures is vital to helping affect world progress," said Weissend, who is a graduate of Maggie L. Walker Governors School

in Richmond.

He added his ultimate goal is to facilitate cross-border business development and collaboration. He hopes to use his banking and entrepreneurial background and his Schwarzman Scholar experience to encourage investment and overcome cultural and political hurdles.

Students interested in applying for a Schwarzman Scholarship should contact Christina McIntyre, cmcintyre@vt.edu.

Learn more at www.schwarzmanscholars.org.
In the history of our country no one single individual has done more damage to America, the American people, American values and American democracy than Donald Trump.

It is vitally important that ALL intelligent and patriotic Americans vote against ALL Republican candidates in ALL elections at ALL levels who do not publicly and aggressively oppose, denounce and disavow Trump and his lies  even if this means voting Democrat.



This is not because Democratic, or liberal, policy and philosophy is better than traditional Republican, and true conservative, policy and philosophy  but because current Republican Party policy and philosophy, which embraces Trump and his lies, is a very serious threat to American democracy and American values.
Hot-car death brings life sentence

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP)  A judge Monday sentenced a Georgia man to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury found that he intentionally left his toddler son in a hot SUV to die.

Jurors last month convicted Justin Ross Harris, 36, of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.

Prosecutors argued throughout the trial Harris was unhappily married and intentionally killed his son because he wanted an escape from family life. Defense attorneys maintained Harris was a loving father and while he was responsible for the boys death, it was a tragic accident.

Fake news tied to pizzeria attack

WASHINGTON (AP)  The bizarre rumors began with a leaked email referencing Hillary Clinton and sinister interpretations of references to pizza parties. It morphed into fake online news stories about a child sex trafficking ring run by prominent Democrats operating out of a Washington, D.C., pizza joint.

On Sunday, it culminated in violence when police say a North Carolina man fired an assault rifle multiple times inside the Comet Ping Pong restaurant as he attempted to self-investigate the conspiracy theory known in the Twitterverse as Pizzagate.

No one was hurt and the man was arrested. But the shooting alarmed those from neighboring businesses all the way to the White House about the real life dangers of fake news on the internet. One of those posting on the conspiracy theory is the son of President-elect Donald Trumps proposed national security adviser.

2 Russian nurses killed i

n Aleppo

ALEPPO, Syria (AP)  Rebel shelling killed two Russian nurses and eight civilians Monday in Aleppo, and a Russian fighter jet crashed as it was returning to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean after a sortie over Syria, but the pilot ejected safely, Moscow officials said.

The shelling that targeted government-controlled western Aleppo was one of the most intense in recent days. It coincided with a crushing air and ground assault that has seen forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad recapture more than half of opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

Police nab 2 men, fowl in break-in

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (AP)  Two suspects in a weekend break-in at a Massachusetts convenience store had a fowl accomplice.

Officers investigating a robbery at a store at about 3:45 a.m. Sunday quickly found two men and a live rooster in a nearby car.

The men were arrested. The rooster was not charged and was taken to an animal shelter.

There was no word on why the suspects had the bird.

Childrens book parody pulled

NEW YORK (AP)  Publication has been halted for a provocative satire of childrens stories, Bad Little Childrens Books, which had been criticized by online commenters for poor taste and reinforcing racial and cultural stereotypes.

Released in September by Abrams and written by Arthur C. Gackley, a pen name, the book used old-fashioned illustrations to make jokes about alcoholism, sexual abuse and murder. It also included references to Indians transmitting smallpox and a Muslim girl carrying a gift with a bomb ticking inside.

Abrams is not withdrawing copies already in print, but will no longer print new ones.
CEDAR FALLS  Artist Gary Kelley has listened to American composer and bandleader Duke Ellingtons The Nutcracker Suite so many times in recent months that he doesnt have to turn on the stereo.

He hears it in his head.

I hope I dont get tired of it, but I dont think I will, the noted artist says, smiling. Since its Ellingtons Nutcracker, that makes it more interesting. I love jazz, and Ellington and Billy Strayhorn put their own story and arrangements to Tchaikovskys Nutcracker, and thats very appealing.

The wcfsymphony will perform Ellingtons version in The New Nutcracker, paired with visual storytelling through Kelleys collection of 25 or so pastels, to create a holiday classic. The family concert is at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center.

Gary has done quite a bit of work for young people, but he hasnt done a project that was focused on families. This was an opportunity to take another aspect of Garys artwork and bring that to the fore, says Jason Weinberger, wcfsymphony conductor.

Kelley and Weinberger have collaborated on other unusual projects, as well, including several versions of Gustav Holsts The Planets and a blues project marrying George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. Turning the focus on Ellington for the holiday season seemed like a natural fit.

On the musical side, we see lots of Tchaikovskys Nutcrackers at this time of year, and thats not something were ever going to do. Instead we wanted to try something a little different, give it a twist and create a project that could come back every other year or so, Weinberger explains.

One of the biggest reasons of all is the amazing story and depth to what Ellington created in adapting Tchaikovsky  a great black 20th-century composer adapting this great story by a 19th-century composer, and Gary brings yet another layer of artistic interest and depth.

Although Ellingtons Nutcracker Suite was originally released in 1960, Kelleys collection of about 25 pastels for the 17-minute, five-movement suite creates a stylized 1920s and 1930s Harlem Renaissance setting  very smooth and elegant, like an upscale New York City jazz club.

Kelley also found inspiration in the Expressionist artwork of Lyonel Feininger, who also was a famous comic strip artist who illustrated such popular early 20th-century comics as The Kin-der-Kids. While visiting the Chicago Art Institute, Kelley studied one of Feiningers works, then stumbled across another at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport. He also had a book on Feininger on his own studio shelves.

All of a sudden it just came into focus  Feiningers use of color, composition and stylized shapes. That was my carrot at the end of the stick, and sort of legitimized the direction I was going with the work, Kelley explains.

In addition, the wcfsymphony program features A Charlie Brown Christmas, Sleigh Ride and the traditional carol sing-along, as well as selections with the Waterloo West Chamber Choir, directed by James Healy.

Kelleys original artworks will be on display at Cup of Joe in downtown Cedar Falls following the concert debut, and will be offered for sale with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the symphony.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan has appeared in an unfavorable position and entered a deadlock in the negotiations process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Eduard Sharmazanov told reporters, speaking about the latest scandalous announcement of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Lately the Azerbaijani President is delivering scandalous announcements typical to him. Why is Aliyev so noisy? Its very clear why. Because he is in an unfavorable situation in the negotiations process, he entered a deadlock. Azerbaijan is in a deadlock, and Aliyev himself said that the international community is forcing him to recognize the independence of Nagorno Karabakh. That is, for the first time in these years, Azerbaijans leadership is stating its unfavorable positions in the negotiations process, he said.

Sharmazanov reminded that for several times he had suggested the leadership of Azerbaijan to read the works of ancient Greek and Roman historians in order to understand the reality and the history of Azerbaijan.

They failed to do so with the well known stubbornness of an animal. Afterwards, since they like traveling very much, I suggested them to visit Rome and look at the map of the ancient world. There, they will definitely find Armenia, but wont find Azerbaijan, however since they didnt do this either, I am proposing the third option. Since the leadership of Azerbaijan very much likes to travel in luxurious cars, just one urge: let them read the history of Audi and Mercedes Benz cars and find out that Audi is 9 years older than Azerbaijan and Mercedes Benz is 2 years older, he said.
WATERLOO  Mikia Key got outfitted with a coat, hat, gloves and scarf Monday.

Now the Fred Becker Elementary School first-grader was on the hunt for some snow pants.

Got any pink ones? the girl asked Julie Ehlers as she approached the boxes full of snow pants. I wear size six.

Ehlers dug through the boxes and had her try a black pair to see how they fit. After more digging, she found a pink pair that was the right size. Ehlers and a group of volunteers with Koats 4 Kids were distributing winter wear to needy students, the first of four days of visits to Cedar Valley schools.

For the first year, snow pants are being given to children during the annual distribution that started in 2012. Its a measure of how generous people have been with their donations.

A total of a 142 individuals or organizations gave $24,007 this year, which allowed for the purchase of 807 coats, 663 pairs of boots and 522 pairs of snow pants. Staff at 24 schools in Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Evansdale, Hudson, Dunkerton and La Porte City identify the students with the most need to benefit from the effort.

Thats our best year, said Ehlers, who organizes the give-away. She noted the Waterloo Community Foundation is now the fiscal agent for Koats 4 Kids, allowing it to apply for grants. Were still taking donations, because I dont think the requests for snow pants will ever end.

They also had plenty of hats, gloves and scarves to hand out. Women in the community and the East High School leadership class donated more than 800 fleece scarves they made. Each student is being invited to take a second scarf and pass the kindness on to a friend or a sibling, said Ehlers.

Once Key put on her snow paints, the first-grader was almost satisfied.

I think I like all the stuff, she said. I thought they would give out the snow boots. I like those pink boots over there, because they match my coat and pants.

A shelf against one wall was lined with dozens of boots. In order to move students through the line quickly, the school planned to fit children for the boots on a later day.

Across the room, a pair of fourth-grade boys were suited up in their new outer wear, posing in two full-length mirrors.

We both got Star Wars, said Taijian Taylor, showing his gloved hands to reveal the movie series logo. Classmate Zeddicus Albrights new gloves showed the helmet of a storm trooper.

The boys said they were in need of some items to be better prepared for the winter weather. I lost my boots and I lost my snow pants, said Albright.

My scarf was left at my old house, added Taylor.

Two third-grade girls found matching pink and gray leopard print coats. We got everything the same, said Jasmine Slifka, including pink hats and gloves and matching scarves.

Because we like to be the same, added Dayna McMullen.

Fourth-grader James Tippetts found a red and black coat to replace the one he had been wearing out in the cold weather. This one is actually a lot warmer than the other one I had, he said, noting the other was a rain coat.

He also was grateful for the new scarf and gloves. Tippetts did not have those at home, but his dad had been planning to buy the items for him.

I guess I can tell him I dont need them anymore, he said.
CEDAR FALLS -- The Board of Regents approved a 2 percent increase for resident tuition rates at Iowa's three public universities during its meeting Monday on the University of Northern Iowa campus.

The board approved the rate hike for the 2017-2018 year with little discussion. Students had provided input at an October meeting.

Board President Bruce Rastetter offered brief remarks addressing concerns students, particularly at Iowa State University, had expressed.

As there is questions and comments about our process, I want to make sure that its clear that this process began last summer; it is well-organized, Rastetter said. The support of the presidents is greatly appreciated.

The resident tuition rate at the University of Northern Iowa will increase $142 to $7,240. The nonresident tuition rate will increase by the same dollar figure, an 0.8 percent increase, to $17,782.

Graduate student rates will increase by $142, and rates for upper division business students will increase by $176. Those figures apply to both resident and nonresident students.

Rastetter stressed the work the board has done to try to make its tuition rates more predictable.

The board has proposed a 2 percent increase in tuition for each of the next two years, as well as a 2 percent increase in state appropriations for each of the next two years, plus an additional $2.5 million increase in funding for UNI. Rastetter said the tuition proposal for next year would be contingent on the legislative appropriation.

Northern Iowa Student Government President Hunter Flesch said during the October meeting a survey conducted on campus showed support for the idea of predictability in tuition levels. But students were less receptive to the 2 percent increase the board adopted Monday.

Flesch joined Iowa State Universitys President Cole Staudt in raising concerns about the growing gap between resident and nonresident tuition rates.

Iowa State and University of Iowa both will see higher than 2 percent increases for nonresident students, which is not the case at UNI. ISU students also have voiced concerns about the extra costs associated with certain programs, less of a factor on the UNI campus where only the business program carries an extra cost, though it still amounts to a 2 percent increase for residents.

Rastetter said the board prefers to distinguish the cost of certain programs -- particularly those with laboratory classes -- rather than further raise the rates across the board.

The Board of Regents has made clear that one of its priorities in providing as much predictability as possible, Rastetter said.

The board also adopted an increase in mandatory fees that amounts to a $32 increase for UNI students to $1,243, a 2.64 increase. The increases are spread throughout the various fees the campus has adopted.

With room and board, the estimated total cost to attend UNI for resident students next year would be $20,192, or 1.5 percent more than the current year.
DES MOINES  Gov. Terry Branstad confirmed he will meet this week with President-elect Donald Trump amid speculation Trump will ask Branstad to serve as the U.S. ambassador to China.

Since Trumps Nov. 8 election victory, political observers have speculated Trump may offer the post to Branstad, a strong Trump supporter who has a longtime friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Over the weekend, a Bloomberg Politics report said Branstad is the front-runner for the post.

Branstad will be in New York today through Thursday on a previously scheduled economic development trip. He confirmed Monday at some point he will meet with Trump.

Branstad deferred when asked whether he would accept the post if offered.

It hasnt been offered, and I love my job as governor, Branstad said Monday. This is my focus. Its my intent to continue to focus on this.

Branstad met recently with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in Washington, D.C., during a trip that also included visits with Iowas congressional delegation and top national Republicans.

Trump plans to be in Iowa on Thursday for a rally as part of his victory tour. Branstad said he plans to be back in Iowa in time for the event.

Should Trump offer the post should Branstad accept, upon Branstads resignation, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds would be promoted to governor. She would become the states first female governor.

Branstad has touted Reynolds as a possible successor and says he keeps her involved in critical aspects of the administration. He said Monday he has not discussed with Reynolds the possibility of him resigning and her assuming the governorship, but he touted her preparedness.

I think shes very well prepared and has great leadership ability, Branstad said of Reynolds.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the state Republican Party, expressed confidence in Reynolds should she be promoted to governor in Branstads absence.

Ive been following Iowa politics a long time, and I have never seen a partnership where she has been included in so many aspects of the job, from the policy of the job to the campaigning to the moments when Iowans need to be encouraged, Kaufmann said. I think Kim Reynolds is as ready as any lieutenant governor weve ever had.

Should Branstad resign and Reynolds be promoted, she would be free to appoint a new lieutenant governor, according to Iowa law and confirmed by the state Secretary of States office. Reynolds and her lieutenant governor would serve the remainder of the term, which expires at the end of 2018.

Should that happen, possible lieutenant governor picks for Reynolds could come from current state department heads, including Debi Durham in economic development, who ran as a running mate to Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross in 2002, or Bill Northey in agriculture. Reynolds also could pick a member of the Iowa Legislature, where she served as a state senator in 2009 and 2010 before joining Branstad.

Branstads son, Eric, will also meet with Trump during the New York trip, according to the governor. The younger Branstad served as state director of Trumps campaign during the election and organized events in Iowa.

Branstad is currently serving his sixth non-consecutive term and is the longest-serving governor in U.S. history. If he accepts any formal invitation to serve under a Trump presidency, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds would take over the job for the remainder of the governors term, which ends in early 2019. She would also make history, becoming Iowas first female governor.
President-elect Donald Trump offered the post of U.S. ambassador to China to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a longtime friend of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to three people close to the matter.

Branstad, a Republican, has accepted the offer, said the three people, who asked for anonymity.

Branstad arrived at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday afternoonwith his wife, Chris. An hour after Branstad went up the elevator to Trumps office, he re-emerged in the lobby, where he told reporters he wouldnt comment on the China Post.

Im really excited about the quality of people that hes attracting to the cabinet, Branstad said. Im very proud to have supported Donald Trump for president.

Victory tour

Trump will be in Iowa on Thursday for a stop on his post-election victory tour. The longest-serving governor in U.S. history, Branstad, 70, started a second run as governor in 2011. He previously held the job from 1983 to 1999.

Branstads friendship with Xi may be one of the reasons Trump picked him for the ambassador post. Branstad and Xi met when Chinas leader made his first trip to Iowa in 1985 during a sister-state exchange. At the time Xi was a young agricultural official from Hebei province.

Branstad, unlike some establishment Republicans in other states, was an enthusiastic backer of Trump. The governors older son, Eric, served as state director for Trumps campaign.

If Branstad is confirmed, Iowa would get its first female governor with the ascension of Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, 59, his desired political heir.
Pearl Harbor

event planned

TOLEDO  The Sons of the American Legion will host a Remembering Pearl Harbor open house from 1 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Tama County Historical Society, 200 N. Broadway.

On display will be items highlighting Tama County connections to the 1941 attack. Included are the personal effects of William Parks of Tama, assigned to the USS Oklahoma, which was capsized that day.

For more information, call (641) 484-6767 or go to www.tamacountyhistory.org.

Human rights

observance set

WATERLOO  Multiple community organizations will sponsor an International Human Rights Day observance, The American I Believe In, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Jubilee United Methodist Church Resource Center, 1621 E. Fourth St.

Speakers will address the recent surge in bullying, hate speech, harassment, discrimination, racial and ethnic tensions and the need for equal protection of fundamental human rights. This is an opportunity to collectively speak out about human rights and state a continued commitment to human rights in Iowa and in the country.

The event, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Cedar Valley United Nations Association and co-sponsored by the human rights commissions of the cities of Waterloo and Cedar Falls and Cedar Falls AAUW.
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 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 U.S. 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.
During the 2016 legislative session, state lawmakers once again failed to meet their self-imposed deadlines on school funding.

By law, they are supposed to set the rate for school funding increases more than a year in advance so local school boards have the time and information necessary to put together a budget. This means legislators should have set the rate for fiscal year 2018 in the first 30 days of their 2016 session. That didnt happen. As in years past, the lawmakers were late even in setting the rate of funding for the upcoming school year.

For decades, Iowa school officials have complained about the various ways in which the Legislature fails to do its job and, because of that failure, makes it harder for school administrators to do their jobs. At times, lawmakers have acknowledged the problem and promised to do better. In fact, the self-imposed statutory deadline for funding approval is an example of their good intentions.

The trouble is, our lawmakers dont respect that particular law. They ignore it.

So it should come as no surprise Iowas school districts are now bristling over some of the other state-imposed controls on their budgeting process. Among them: the spending earmarks designed to ensure Iowa schools use state money only for the specific purposes outlined by the Legislature. This school year, these specially earmarked dollars total $1.1 billion, according to the Iowa Department of Revenue.

At first glance, it probably seems like a good idea for the Iowa Legislature to exert some control over the way state money is spent at the district level, even though it diminishes local control. But in actual practice, it just doesnt work.

There are 338 school districts in Iowa, and each has its own particular set of needs. The earmarks have created funding silos  segregated, categorized pools of money that can only be spent for specific purposes, regardless of the districts actual needs.

As the Des Moines Register reported last month, Iowa districts are sitting on more than $145 million they havent spent. About half of Iowas school districts have at least one fund with a balance of more than $50,000, and more than 70 districts have at least one fund with more than $100,000. More than two dozen districts have $1 million in unspent money sitting in categorized accounts.

In Davenport, which has had to impose major budget cuts in recent years, the money earmarked for preschool programs is approaching $1 million. The superintendent says the district supports preschool but cant entice enough families to enroll in the specific type of program allowed by the state. As a result, the money simply piles up.

In the small southeast Iowa district of Harmony, a fund for home-schooling has more than $300,000 sitting in it. But the district served only 11 home-schooled students last year, which means it cant spend the money fast enough to keep the balance from growing. At the same time, however, Harmony has had to impose deep budget cuts and has eliminated more than a dozen staff positions.

Some have proposed legislation that would let Iowa schools spend 10 to 20 percent of their earmarked dollars however they choose. But that would only solve 10 to 20 percent of the problem.

Why not let school districts petition the Iowa Department of Education for a waiver on the use of earmarked money?

For each categorized account that a district hopes to use for other purposes, it could provide evidence as to why the money cant be used for the designated purpose and should instead be diverted elsewhere.

For that to happen, though, Iowa law would need to be changed  and that means state legislators will have to acknowledge that locally elected school boards deserve a greater say in how students are educated and how state money is spent.

 Des Moines Register
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Additional opportunities will be provided to people with disabilities to take part in Armenias upcoming elections, press service of the Central Electoral Commission told Armenpress.

Diabled people will be allowed to use their personal facsimile signatures, as well as all electoral commissions will be provided with magnifying lenses to give it to disabled voters in case of necessity.

Manuals to clarify the voting procedure (magnified fonts) will be developed and will be provided to the disabled people through NGOs.

The community leaders, taking into account the requirements by the Electoral Code and the existing opportunities, will set the polling stations in such buildings adapted for wheelchair movement.

During the voting day, in case of queues, people with disabilities will be invited by the chairman of the local electoral commission to the voting room at a special regime.

The broadcast videos of the Central Electoral Commission on the clarification of the voting procedure will be combined with in sign language translation.

The parties, party alliances and candidates participating in the elections will be offered to combine their election campaign broadcast videos with in sign language translation.

Karen Khachatryan
Q: Do Donald Trumps policies lean more toward fascism than a democracy?

A: While Trump has fascist qualities  his racial demagoguery and calls to restore lost greatness  he cant be reasonably compared to Hilter or Mussolini. He doesnt have a paramilitary organization that beats up his political rivals for instance, and he hasnt explicitly called for an end of democracy.

Q: Since The Courier put a front page report about bullying, will you do the opposite side how people have been verbally abused, protested in writing, hit and abused otherwise because they were Trump supporters?

A: Part of journalism is bringing to light problems of people who are finding no other recourse. If you or your children are having issues and not getting the help you are needing from the proper places, regardless of your political leaning, we want to hear from you.

Q: Why does the city of Cedar Falls continue to allow nonresidents to take their yard waste to its yard waste facility?

A: Mark Ripplinger, director of municipal operations and programs with the city of Cedar Falls, responds: This city is reviewing incidents of nonresidents and contractors dumping at the yard waste facility. To address this, changes to the hours of operation and/or staffing of the Cedar Falls facility may occur in 2017. The public is encouraged to contact the Public Works/Park Division at 273-8629 with the license plate number and description of the vehicle if they suspect nonresident and contractor dumping is occurring.

Q: There was an editorial in The Courier concerning Area Education Agency 267 buying a building that cost $4.1 million. Can you explain what AEA 267 does? Why do they think they need a building like this? Are they part of a federal program? How are they funded?

A: Area Education Agency 267 works with 53 public school districts and 18 nonpublic school systems in 18 counties of north central and Northeast Iowa. It provides support to students and educators in local school districts in the areas of special education, information and technology services, and educational services. AEA 267 receives state and federal funding as well as funding from local school districts it serves, but has no taxing authority. Currently, AEA 267s Cedar Falls offices are spread across three buildings officials say need $3.1 million in renovations. Space constraints are one of the reasons officials said they are buying the Park Place Events Center. They have noted the agency hosted about 2,000 professional training sessions during the past year, attended by 6,000 people. One recent session had to be moved to Cedar Rapids because of a lack of space. The existing conference center holds 180 people while the new building would hold 600.
WATERLOO  Two men have been arrested after one of them left a spare handgun magazine loaded with ammunition in a coin-operated laundry machine late Sunday.

According to police, Michael Jamal Liggions had a permit to carry weapons, but he wasnt wearing a belt to hold the firearm so he had his friend, Airrington L. Sykes, hold onto the weapon when they went to Clean Laundry on Sovia Drive on Sunday night.

Around 11:50 p.m., a woman who also was doing laundry found the magazine mixed in with her clothing and reported the item to police.

When officers arrived, they found Sykes carrying the loaded .40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol in his pants pocket, which was a problem because he didnt have a permit and because he has a felony conviction from Illinois from 2012, according to court records.

Sykes, 23, of Evergreen Park, Ill., was arrested for felon in possession of a firearm, carrying weapons and giving false identification information for allegedly misspelling his name and providing the wrong date of birth when police asked.

Liggions was arrested for transfer of a pistol to an unauthorized person and possession of marijuana for a bag of marijuana found in his coat.

Man sentenced for sexual abuse

CHARLES CITY (AP)  A Charles City man has been given 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a house guest.

Stephen Brodersen Jr., of Greene, was sentenced Friday. A jury had convicted him of sexual abuse.

The 47-year-old admitted in court he briefly had sexual intercourse with the 25-year-old woman May 21, but he said it was an accident after he had removed the womans pants. He also contended the woman never said no during the encounter.

Prosecutors say the woman did say no several times, but Brodersen ignored her.

Search turns up gun, other items

DUNKERTON  A Dunkerton man was arrested after police found stolen items, a gun and marijuana while searching his home Friday.

Patrick Ryan Lindquist, 37, of 206 Sycamore St., was arrested for third-degree burglary, first-degree theft, felon in possession of a firearm and possession of marijuana. He was taken to the Black Hawk County Jail, and bond was set at $30,000.

According to court records, Waterloo police were at Lindquists home Friday investigating a burglary to a Waterloo business when they found three containers of marijuana, a container of THC oil and a loaded firearm in a box in his backyard.

Police allege he took the gun during a burglary to Lovells Truck and Trailer Repair, 170 W. 18th St., Waterloo. Authorities said Lindquist also took more than $10,000 worth of tools and electronic equipment from Grey Transportation, 81 W. 18th St., Waterloo, in November, and he was found with two hair smoothing irons and other items taken during a burglary at Rivers Edge Hair Salon, 100 N. Canfield Road, Dunkerton.

Lindquist is barred from handling firearms because of a prior burglary conviction. In February 2000, he broke in to a mobile home that had served as Dunkertons police station and city hall after the original buildings had been damaged by flooding. He took two pistols from the police department and $1,200 in cash that had been collected for the flooded library. A judge sentenced him to up to 10 years in prison.

Waterloo woman injured in crash

FAYETTE  A Waterloo woman was hurt in a crash near Fayette on Sunday.

The crash was reported shortly before 6 a.m. in the area of 110th Street on Highway 150.

The Fayette County Sheriffs Office identified the driver as Sarah Wallace, 20. Deputies said she was traveling north on Highway 150 when, due to weather conditions, she lost control of her Buick van and entered the east ditch. Wallaces vehicle briefly went airborne over a box culvert and came to rest in a creek bed.

Wallace was transported to Palmer Hospital in West Union and treated for injuries. Her vehicle is believed to be a total loss.

Woman arrested after shot fired

WATERLOO  A gunshot fired in a Waterloo apartment Monday morninghas led to one arrest.

No injuries were reported in the incident, which happened about 12:15 a.m. Monday at 935 W. Third St.

Theresa Ann Boyd, 23, of 1001 W. Third St., was arrested for intimidation with a weapon and going armed with intent. She was later released from the Black Hawk County Jail.

Police were called to Apt. 9 and found Boyd with an empty holster and a loaded .38-caliber revolver with the hammer cocked in her pants. Witnesses told police Boyd had entered the apartment, pointed the gun at Edward Degraffinreed and demanded he return some property, court records state. She then fired once into the floor and threatened to shoot Degraffinreed in the face, records state.

Police continue to investigate the incident.
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MANILA - The Senate on Monday voted 20-1 to approve the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), according to Senator Loren Legarda on Tuesday.

Legarda, who sponsored the Committee Report on the AIIB Treaty, hailed the Senate's approval of the Agreement, stressing that the Philippines' membership to the AIIB would help achieve its growth targets through accelerated infrastructure spending.

"Infrastructure bottlenecks have stifled our growth potential for many years. More investment is required not only to build new projects but also to maintain existing infrastructure. The AIIB can broaden our infrastructure funding sources," said Legarda.

The AIIB is a multilateral lending institution aimed at promoting economic development in Asia.

The AIIB's 57 members include China, India, Russia, France, Germany and Britain.

The Philippines signed the Articles of Agreement on Dec 31, 2015 in China.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Agriculture Ignati Arakelyan on December 6 held a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Armenia Yogeshwar Sangwan, press service of the Ministry told Armenpress.

The sides discussed issues related to the Armenian-Indian cooperation in the agricultural sector.

The Indian Ambassador expressed satisfaction over the meeting of the Armenian-Indian working group on cooperation in the agricultural sector.

A great cooperation potential in the agricultural sector exists between Armenia and India, and it is necessary to take active steps to develop that cooperation at the directions outlined by the working group. We are always open and ready to discuss all mutually beneficial proposals, the Armenian Minister said.

The sides also attached importance to boosting mutual cooperation in plant growing, animal husbandry, processing industry and other sectors.

They exchanged views also on a number of issues of mutual interest related to the 2nd session of the Armenian-Indian working group to be held in India in 2017.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan convened a consultation on December 6 to discuss the development prospects of civil service system of Armenia. Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of International Economic Integration and Reforms of Armenia Vache Gabrielyan, Minister - Chief of Government Staff of Armenia Davit Harutyunyan, Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan, Chairman of Civil Service Council Manvel Badalyan and other officials participated in the consultation.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, the President expressed conviction that the Civil Service Council as an independent body has had a significant role in the efficient and natural conduct of a number of state agencies. According to the President the centralized model in the initial phase of the establishment of this system was fully justified, but the social developments require new approaches and emerges a necessity to elaborate new solutions. We have always focused on the improvement of the civil service system and it remains one of the priority issues for the state. I think it is already high time for us to try to develop this system applying new model, President Sargsyan stated.

Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of International Economic Integration and Reforms of Armenia Vache Gabrielyan presented the necessity for improving the civil service system, the results of the researches, the pros and cons of the models based on these results. According to Vache Gabrielyan, the Governments vision on the issue assumes a change of the status of the Council which will naturally lead to a revision of responsibilities of the Council.

The President presented his approaches and gave instructions.
SOUTH PARK, CO, December 06, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Haleigh's Hope is excited to announce that genotyping of their novel hemp strain has been completed. Haleigh's Hope, consisting of four unique strains, was carefully bred and cultivated over seven years to ensure a specific chemotypic profile (potency and terpene profiles). Once the desired ratio, potency, and terpene profiles were achieved, the breeding process was concluded and the Haleigh's Hope plant was sent for next generation DNA sequencing with Medicinal Genomics.



"We are very excited to be one of the very first high CBD strains to be registered under the StrainSEEK program," says Jason Cranford, founder of Haleigh's Hope. "This is the first step in the StrainSEEK certification process that will confirm the homogeneity of Haleigh's Hope products with each and every batch. This process will also protect Haleigh's Hope's intellectual property from counterfeit and unscrupulous imitators, therefore giving additional piece of mind to patients that their Haleigh's Hope product is safe and authentic."



The genotypic characterization was performed through strategic partnerships with PhytaTech Labs of Denver, Colorado and Medicinal Genomics of Woburn, Massachusetts. PhytaTech performed the chemotypic test types and DNA extractions while Medicinal Genomics performed the StrainSEEK genotypic analysis using next generation DNA sequencing. The genotypic results, in combination with the chemotypic results, allow for the unique digital profile of the cannabis strain to be recorded in the cloud using the Bitcoin Blockchain to establish an indelible timestamped ownership record.



Medicinal Genomics' StrainSEEK strain identification and registration service was employed to read over 700,000 DNA bases from Haleigh's Hope hemp samples, and then compared those bases to the current reference genome to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs. SNPs are DNA bases that differ from the reference as the result of mutations and serve as the basis for establishing genetic relatedness.



The unique profile of SNPs from Haleigh's Hope hemp samples was used to determine its genetic distance from the reference and also for comparison to several cannabis land races and many modern cultivars. The genetics of the Haleigh's Hope hemp samples investigated were found to be unique with the nearest genetic relatives quite distant (http://www.kannapedia.net/cannabis-phylotree/), validating that Haleigh's Hope is a distinct strain and is not another strain renamed.



About PhytaTech: PhytaTech CO, LLC is a certified Cannabis testing facility operating in Denver, Colorado. PhytaTech offers the complete range of State of Colorado mandated Cannabis tests, as well as a suite of other R&D tests to support all Cannabis businesses statewide. For more information on PhytaTech's fast, friendly, efficient, and comprehensive services, please call 303.427.2379 or visit http://www.phytatech.com/



About Medicinal Genomics Corporation: Medicinal Genomics Corporation applies state-of-the-art life science technology to Cannabis plant genetics. Our products help growers, dispensaries, and safety testing laboratories characterize and understand the quality of medicinal cannabis. Medicinal Genomics utilizes a highly sophisticated Next Generation Sequencing laboratory, bioinformatics system, and DNA based technologies to deliver unmatched technical solutions to decipher the genetic code and quality level of medicinal Cannabis. Medicinal Genomics is a wholly owned subsidiary of Courtagen Life Sciences, Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.medicinalgenomics.com



About Haleigh's Hope: Haleigh's Hope is the producer of hemp derived products. It is Haleigh's Hope's mission to provide safe, effective, high-quality products to health-focused individuals worldwide. For more information, please visit https://haleighshope.com



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Dec 6, 2016 | By Tess

Nuclear medicine, an area of medicine which involves the application of radioactive substances to the body, can be a crucial part of diagnosing and determining the seriousness of a patients disease. Predictably, however, the use of radioactive equipment also comes with certain risks. Radiation can be harmful to the body, so a crucial part of nuclear medicine has been to control and reduce the amount of radioactive materials that are injected into the body, whether orally or intravenously. And thats where 3D printing comes into play: A team of researchers from the University of Wurzburg in Germany has demonstrated how 3D printed organ models could have an important role in testing dosage amounts of radioactive materials for clinical prototyping.

For those unfamiliar with nuclear medicine practices, they essentially consist of injecting small amounts of radioactive materials into the body, which are then captured through external detectors and which give doctors a clear indication on how abnormalities and diseases such as cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders, etc. are manifesting within the body. The new 3D printing research project, which was published as a study in the December issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, outlines how low-cost 3D printed organ models can give better insight into how much radioactive material should be injected into a particular patients body. Johannes Tran-Gia, a PhD candidate and one of the studys authors, said: This research shows a way of producing inexpensive models of patient-specific organs/lesions for providing direct and patient-specific calibration constants. This is particularly important for imaging systems suffering from poor spatial resolution and ill-defined quantification, such as SPECT/CT. (SPECT stands for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography).

As part of the study, the researchers 3D printed a set of kidney models in order to demonstrate how their technique could be advantageous to medical professionals. Kidneys were chosen as the test organs because of their sensitivity to radionuclide therapies. As you can see in the photos, the 3D printed kidneys are rather rudimentary, but each of their sizes reflect the volumes of different ages. The smallest, which holds 8mL, represents a newborn babys kidney, and the largest, 123 mL, is the average adult size. According to the researchers, the sizes are based on kidney dimensions provided by Medical Internal Radiation Dose (MIRD) guidelines.

The phantom kidney models were 3D printed using an FDM 3D printer and were made from a waterproof and chemically stable plastic material. Importantly, the 3D printed phantom kidneys are refillable, so the researchers have been able to test various amounts of radioactive materials within them to see how much is needed for a SPECT or CT scan. As the research states, Nuclide-dependent SPECT/CT calibration factors for technetium-99m (Tc-99m), lutetium-177 (Lu-177), and iodine-131 (I-131) were then determined to assess the accuracy of quantitative imaging for internal renal dosimetry...Although in our study the kidneys were modeled as a relatively simple one-compartment model, the study represents an important step towards a reliable determination of absorbed doses and, therefore, an individualized patient dosimetry of other critical organs in addition to kidneys.

The research conducted by the team at the University of Wurzburg demonstrates how 3D printing can be used within the field of nuclear medicine and how low-cost 3D printable models can be advantageous for clinical prototyping.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Dec 6, 2016 | By Tess

Italian 3D printer manufacturer Roboze recently announced a new partnership with 3D printing supplier 3D-Center. The partnership consists of a distribution agreement through which 3D-Center will resell Robozes 3D printers in the Nordics, Baltics, and Poland. In other words, the Italian 3D printer maker is heading North to expand its market.

Roboze, which is based in Bari, Italy, has made a name for itself within the 3D printer world with its beltless desktop 3D printers, most notably the Roboze One and Roboze One +400. The company, which has been seeking to expand its additive manufacturing products abroad, has reached a new milestone with its 3D-Center reselling agreement.

3D-Center, for its part, is a Swedish provider of advanced additive manufacturing solutions that has been in operation since 2012. The company, which offers consulting, training, and technical support in the realm of 3D printing, is the largest reseller of 3D printers in Northern Europe and is active within Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Iceland.

Ulf Qviberg, CEO of 3D-Center, commented on the new agreement: We are excited to partner with Roboze. The companys 3D printing technology, which is based on a unique beltless system, offer the ability to print industrial grade materials like PEEK & PEI (ULTEM), that is suitable for advanced production applications. That brings a very interesting value proposition to the market, mostly for professional users who are looking for innovative solutions around new materials. Roboze technology strengthens our product portfolio allowing us to empower users with these new capabilities.

The partnership is just one of many recent agreements that Roboze has made in an effort to expand the scope of its 3D printer sales. Not long ago the company entered into a distribution agreement with VSD Enterprise to resell Roboze 3D printers across India, as well as with distributors in the UK, Romania, Slovakia, and Turkey. The company also recently announced it would be expanding into the industrial 3D printing market in the U.S. and was looking for new team members.

Alessio Lorusso, Roboze Founder and CEO, said of the 3D-Center agreement: We are very happy to join forces with 3D-Center, one of the leading 3D resellers in the North part of Europe. These regions are extremely important for us due to the high awareness of 3D printing in general, and the presence of well-developed heavy industries that are yearning for innovative 3D technologies. This is the perfect ground for Roboze to deploy a professional and experienced partner such as 3D-Center, that has the right know-how in offering AM and production solutions based on 3D printing.

Evidently, with its slew of recent partnerships and distribution agreements, Roboze has its sights set on becoming a big player within the 3D printing market, within Europe and abroad.

Posted in 3D Printer Company

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Phil Torres in Motherboard (at Vice):

Motherboard: Trump has repeatedly painted an apocalyptic picture of contemporary America. He has talked about (black) people getting shot while walking down the street, about terrorists disguising themselves as refugeesfleeing the atrocities of Syria, and about Mexico sending its criminals and rapists across the southern border. Could you briefly explain why this characterization of the contemporary US is factually wrong?

Steven Pinker: Unfortunately, its all too easy for newsreaders to believe that apocalyptic picture. The news media give lavish coverage to violent incidents, seldom follow up on negative reportage in the past, and rarely put events in statistical or historical perspective. Worse, they allow themselves to be played by violence impresarios, namely terrorists and rampage killers, who correctly anticipate that they can attract the worlds attention by killing a number of innocent people at once. This is true not just of tabloids and cable news chasing eyeballs and clicks, but of high-quality outlets who feel that by highlighting what goes wrong, they are discharging their duty as watchdogs, muckrakers, and afflicters of the comfortable.

The facts are as follows. The rate of violent crime is lower now than it was at any time between 1966 and 2009. Immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime than American citizens. Terrorists kill just three-tenths of one percent of all American homicide victims. The rate of death from terrorism in the United States was higher in the early 1970s than it is today. And since 2002, more Americans have been killed by right-wing American terrorists than by Islamic terrorists. Its true that the rate of violent crime went up between 2014 and 2015, most likely a consequence of the retreat of active policing since Ferguson. But its a small uptick in the context of the massive downward trend since 1992.

More here.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development the assets of which is managed by the Eurasian Development Bank has affirmed the disbursement of the second loan tranche of $ 100 million to the Republic of Armenia. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the EDB the transfer of the sum will take place in 2017.

The key areas of reforms supported under the EFSD programme include strengthening the financial soundness of the energy sector, raising the efficiency of the public finance management, and improving the investment climate.

Armenia has already received $40 million loan for modernizing irrigation systems and $150 million for the construction of the the 4th stage of North-South highway.

On November 4, 2015, an agreement was signed to provide Armenia with 300 million USD loan as a budget assistance program with 100 million USD tranches annually.

Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) is an international financial institution founded by Russia and Kazakhstan in January 2006 with the mission to facilitate the development of market economies, sustainable economic growth, and the expansion of mutual trade and other economic ties in its member states. EDBs charter capital totals US $7 billion. The member states of the Bank are the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of Tajikistan.

The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD) amounting to US $8.513 billion was formed on 9 June 2009 by the governments of the six countries. The objectives of the EFSD are to assist its member countries in overcoming the consequences of the global financial crisis, ensure their economic and financial stability, and foster integration processes in the region. The EFSD member countries signed the Fund Management Agreement with EDB giving it the role of the EFSD Resources Manager.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian National Committee of France hails the appointment of senior Socialist lawmaker Bruno Le Roux as new Interior Minister of France. Chairman of the Committee Mardirosian issues a statement for Armenpress, stating that for years Bruno Le Roux has been a devoted advocate of raising issues of Armenian concern.

Together we have paid numerous visits to Armenia and Karabakh and every time we reaffirmed our commitment to strengthen relations between Armenia and France. He was standing side by side with us in 2014 when commemorated the 100th anniversary of Jean Jauress death, as well as in 2015 when we held a conference at the French parliament over the reimbursements for the Armenian Genocide attended by the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of France (CDCA) Harout Mardirosian. He also added that it was with the direct participation and support of Bruno Le Roux that the French parliament discussed, voted and adopted the resolution recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, as well as criminalizing its denial.

Former Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has been appointed as Prime Minister, who in his turn replaced Manuel Valls who resigned on December 6 in order to run for presidency.
Uzbekistans acting President Shavkat Mirziyaev won the December 4 presidential election with more than 88 percent of the vote, RFE/RL reports, citing the countrys Central Election Commission.

December 5, 2016, 16:53 Uzbekistan elects second ever president

STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 5, ARTSAKHPRESS: The vote was called to determine a new leader following the death in early September of longtime autocratic ruler Islam Karimov.

The official turnout was 87.83%, with more than 17.9 million out of some 20 million eligible voters taking part.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) said in a statement on December 5 that the presidential election underscored "the need for comprehensive reforms" in the country.

None of the six previous post-Soviet elections observed in Uzbekistan by ODHIR monitors has been deemed democratic and fair.

Mirziyaev, who had been the countrys prime minister since 2003, was widely expected to win a five-year term after he moved quickly to consolidate his power in the wake of Karimovs death.

The 59-year-old 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.

Mirziyaev has said that he intends to largely follow the political course of Karimov.

There were 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 supported the government.

Ketmanov and Umarov both 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.

Mirziyaev was a loyal ally of Karimov for two decades -- first as a regional governor and then as prime minister.

He has been described by former associates as a strict boss with a violent streak.

A central question about how he will govern is whether he intends to ease the authoritarian rule imposed by Karimov or veer from his policies.

Mirziyaev 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.
Fact-based market research, penetrating industry insights and validated forecasts to help you make better decisions for a stronger future

Research Report on Corrosion Inhibitors Market Analysis, Trends and Future Outlook, Market Size, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts, 2016 To 2024

The global Corrosion Inhibitors Market size is anticipated to grow beyond USD 8 billion by 2024 on account of the growing metal processing, construction, and power generation sectors.

Browse Report summary and TOC of Corrosion Inhibitors Market@

https://www.hexaresearch.com/research-report/corrosion-inhibitors-market

Corrosion inhibitors have gained popularity in the last few years as they provide reduced maintenance costs and enhanced equipment service life. The growing applications in power generation, water treatment, refining, mining, and construction industries are expected to augment the product demands during the forecast period (from 2016 to 2024). However, the ill-effects of conventional inhibitors on the plant, marine, and human biology coupled with the rising disposal issues are likely to hamper the industry growth.

The global market is categorized as end-uses, products, applications, and regions. The end-use sector includes oil & gas, power generation, pulp & paper, metal processing, and chemical processing. Power generation was the dominant sector in 2015. It is further expected to grow due to the increasing government investments for various power generation projects in order to fulfill the rising energy needs. Oil & gas is estimated to become the fastest-growing sector.

The product sector of the corrosion inhibitors market involves organic and inorganic inhibitors. The organic inhibitors sector is projected to experience rapid revenue growth with a CAGR of over 6 % over the next eight years. The inorganic inhibitors sector is also said to witness increased demands on account of the favorable ecological regulations on these inhibitors in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.

Related Reports @

Activated Bleaching Earth Market

Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3) & Fluorine Gas (F2) Market

The applications sector comprises oil-based and water-based applications. The water-based sector is anticipated to experience fast growth, specifically in water treatment sector, as a result of lower emissions of Volatile Organic Content (VOC) as compared to the solvent-based applications. The oil-based applications are likely to witness slow growth due to their limited application base, safety hazards, and high flammability. However, steady performance of oil-based inhibitors is projected to boost the demands in the near future.

The North American market will have lucrative growth with a CAGR of over 5 % from 2016 to 2024. The Middle East & Africa is anticipated to grow significantly due to the factors such as the presence of various oil & gas reserves and growing infrastructural development in different countries including Saudi Arabia, South Africa, etc.

Some of the major companies in the corrosion inhibitors market are Ashland Inc.; Cortec Corp.; and Ecolab Inc.

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Hexa Research is a market research and consulting organization, offering industry reports, custom research and consulting services to a host of key industries across the globe. We offer comprehensive business intelligence in the form of industry reports which help our clients obtain clarity about their business environment and enable them to undertake strategic growth initiatives.

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Globalization needs to be managed and not abandoned. We need to pay greater attention to those who have been disadvantaged in globalization. We need world leadership who see that the advantages of globalization far outweigh the disadvantages. This is the

Globalization has historically been considered a positive attribute for world economic success. Today many Western populations have lost faith in the benefits of globalization, making it harder for executives to conduct business in the usual ways.

Students, who will become the next generation of global leaders, will need to adapt to these challenges, and begin to achieve a more complex understanding of the culture of doing business in Asia.

Globalization has historically been considered a positive attribute for world economic success. Unfortunately, in todays ever-changing economic and political climate, many Western populations have lost faith in the benefits of globalization, making it harder for executives to conduct business in the usual ways.

Students, who will become the next generation of global leaders, will need to adapt to these challenges, and begin to achieve a more complex understanding of the culture of doing business in Asia.

At the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) within the National University of Singapore, a new Master in International Affairs program was created to meet the needs of students internationally, to enable them to study the relationships between regions, countries and nations. LKY Schools faculty encourages the world to accept globalization, while it may appear difficult in the light of Brexit, the results of the U.S. presidential election, and the rise of right wing movements in Europe.

Globalization needs to be managed and not abandoned. We need to pay greater attention to those who have been disadvantaged in globalization. We need world leadership who see that the advantages of globalization far outweigh the disadvantages. This is the core of what it will take for students to become successful business leaders in this new world climate  to acknowledge the challenges of this new world and constantly reinvent themselves, said Prof Danny Quah, Li Ka Shing Professor of Economics at LKY School.

Prof Khong Yuen Foong, Li Ka Shing Professor of Political Science at the LKY School who returned to Asia after 27 years abroad as a professor at Oxford and Harvard advises students on the importance of gaining international perspectives.

According to Professor Khong, Studying foreign policy in Asia exposes you to a debate of diverse views from people of different nationalities who have been at the receiving end of U.S. foreign policy. This diversity instills in students an ability to learn new skills and adapt to different dynamics which is crucial in todays changing world.

Asias imprint on the global economy, politics, trade and security are tremendous and growing. It is important to step out of your comfort zone into Asia, a completely different region to decipher its changing economic-security dynamics and implications on the rest of the world, added Prof Khong.

The LKY School has extensive collaborations within the global academic community and has strategic partnerships with the Harvard Kennedy School, as well as with the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN), which includes Columbia University, London School of Economics and Political Science and Sciences Po. LKY School is located at the National University of Singapore. Located in the heart of Asia, Singapore is one of the most economically competitive countries with public policies studied by governments all over the world.

For more information on the Lee Kuan Yew Schools Master in International Relations program, visit http://lkyspp.sg/MIAProgUS.

###

About the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

The LKY School is an autonomous, professional graduate school of the National University of Singapore. Its mission is to educate and train policy-makers and leaders, with the objective of raising the standards of governance throughout the region, improving the lives of its people, and, in so doing, contributing to the transformation of Asia and beyond. In addition to Masters and PhD programs, the LKY School offers high quality customized Executive Programs that cater to the needs of time-constrained senior managers and professionals, with the aim of delivering creative solutions to real management and leadership challenges.

Media Contact

Company Name: CATHY CALLEGARI PUBLIC RELATIONS INC

Contact Person: Cathy Callegari

Email: cathy@callprinc.com

Phone: 2125791370

Address:220 Riverside Boulevard  14G

City: New York

State: NY

Country: United States

Website: www.callprinc.com
US  06 Dec, 2016 Thomas Jacobsen has an impressive academic record. Having dedicated a great part of his life to unveiling the archeological treasures of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean region, he oversaw the report of those findings in numerous volumes published by Indiana University Press. He also taught at Indiana-Bloomington for 26 years.

When his academic career ended with his retirement, Jacobsen decided to move to New Orleans. The citys atmosphere, coupled with his interest in jazz which dated back to his teenage years, led him to assume a new role: that of an astute observer of the citys fabled jazz scene. With his articles on jazz appearing in a variety of jazz magazines and periodicals, Jacobsen felt the urge to make a lasting contribution in the field of music journalism by authoring a series of books on the recent history of jazz in New Orleans.

Jacobsen published his first book, Traditional New Orleans Jazz: Conversations With The Men That Make The Music, in 2011, wherein he hosts intimate discussions with veteran musicians and up-and-coming talent that elicits honest, witty, and sometimes controversial dialogue devoted to the perpetuation of the music inspired by the citys pioneer jazzmen.

Three years later, Jacobsen penned The New Orleans Jazz Scene, 1970-2000: A Personal Retrospective, a timeline of the resurgence of the New Orleans jazz scene during the last 30 years of the 20th century. He chronicles local developments culminating with the flourishing decade of the 1990s and weaves them into the larger context of the national jazz scene, interspersing his personal experiences and photographic archives with facts gathered through his research.

In his latest book, The New Orleans Jazz Scene Today: A Guide To The Musicians, Live Jazz Venues, And More, Jacobsen recounts the scenes rise from the ruins of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, along with its evolutionary course at the dawn of the 21st century. He shows how the city rivals New York as a mecca for hearing live jazz and how it has become a nationally recognized center of jazz education, continuing to produce artists of international standing. The Los Angeles Jazz Scene has called the book indispensable for those traveling to jazzs birthplace.

Jacobsen remains active in jazz journalism and book authorship, archiving his work on his personal website. Since 2014, he has relocated in St. Louis, where he lives with his wife, Sharyn, to be closer to their youngest grandchildren.

To learn more about Mr. Jacobsen and his works, please visit: http://www.neworleansnotes.com/

Media Contact

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Email: Dan@bluebirdbookpub.com

Phone: (314) 918-9800

Country: United States

Website: http://www.neworleansnotes.com/
Lekki Lagos, February 1st 2019. Rilla Web Hosting, one of the top players in domain registration and web hosting has announces its full ...
Leaders of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board pledged Tuesday to continue their work together, even after completing their major convergence projects for harmonizing standards.

Cohn, Michael

First, I would count the completion of our joint revenue recognition standard as a major success for both the FASB and the IASB, said FASB chairman Russell Golden during the American Institute of CPAs conference on current SEC and PCAOB developments in Washington, D.C. And while our boards came to different answers on leases and credit losses, we agreed on the important things: namely, that all leases belong on the balance sheet, and that we needed a more forward-looking model for credit losses. I believe that working toward the development of more comparable global accounting standards is important to reducing complexity in financial reporting. Thats why we continue to collaborate and cooperate with the IASB and national standards-setters with an eye toward agreeing on and adopting standards that promote common outcomes.

Golden, who was recently appointed to a second three-year term as chairman of FASB, noted that over the past three years, FASB has contributed to improving International Financial Reporting Standards through its membership in the IASBs Accounting Standards Advisory Forum. FASB has also met individually with standard-setters from Canada, Japan, China, South Korea and other countries to share their ideas on improving their national standards.

Cohn, Michael

IASB chairman Hans Hoogervorst also spoke at the conference Tuesday and noted that he had breakfasted earlier that morning with Golden. Even though the U.S. does not permit domestic use of IFRS standards, you have a great deal invested in our success, said Hoogervorst. U.S. investors have more than $7 trillion invested in companies that report using IFRS standards. Many American companies have subsidiaries that will be producing IFRS-compliant financial statements, while nearly 500 foreign companies listed on U.S. markets report using our standards. For these reasons, the IASB is keen to keep IFRS standards as closely converged as possible to U.S. GAAP. And I promise you, if the Financial Accounting Standards Board comes up with good ideas before we do, then we will steal them as quickly as possible. We have no shame, and good accounting ideas cannot be patented!

Hoogervorst opened his remarks by expressing his appreciation for outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White, thanking her for her cooperation. He said he agreed with the SECs concerns about non-GAAP financial measures and pointed to similar issues with non-IFRS measures. We also see increasing use of non-IFRS alternative performance measures, also known as non-GAAP, which tend to dominate press releases and investor information packs, he said. Let me make clear that we do not intend to ban alternative performance measures, because some of them clearly have added value. Yet, we share the SECs concern that non-GAAP generally paints a rosier picture of a companys performance than GAAP. This is not in the interest of investors and I even believe it is not in the interest of preparers themselves.

Hoogervorst said the IASB plans to issue its long-awaited insurance contracts standard in the first half of 2017 and said it would help end the accounting anarchy in the world of insurance.

We began this project back in 1997, so the new standard will not come one day too soon, he said. Should you have forgotten what a world without global accounting standards looks like, just look at the accounting anarchy in the world of insurance. Just about every country in the world does its own thing and it doesnt look pretty.

Golden said FASB is also planning to issue final standards on insurance and hedge accounting next year. Last week, FASB hosted roundtable discussions on hedge accounting to help make decisions on the project and expects to issue a final standard by the end of 2017. In September, FASB issued a proposed standard on long-duration insurance contracts, such as life insurance and annuities. FASB plans to host a roundtable discussion in the first quarter of 2017, he noted, and hopes to have a final standard sometime next year.

FASB also plans to continue to improve its simplification initiatives. In early 2017, FASB expects to issue final guidance to reduce the cost and complexity of determining the current versus noncurrent balance sheet classification of debt. The board also plans to issue a final standard next year to improve the accounting for nonemployee share-based payment awards issued by public and private companies. FASB also intends to focus on completing its conceptual and disclosure framework projects.

Golden hopes to leverage technology and international partnerships to advance FASBs work.

Technology gives us our greatest opportunity to improve financial reporting, he said. Over the next few years, we will focus on figuring out how financial reporting can keep pace with advances in technology so that investors get more relevant information, more quickly. Were already seen the possibilities with XBRL. Finally, on the international front, we will continue to engage with the IASB and other national standard-setters. We expect to have joint meetings with these standard-setters in 2017 to talk about our respective priorities and future initiatives. Such relationships help us improve financial reporting, while at the same time bringing us all closer to common solutions around the globe.


The Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh told that the Azerbaijani forces made more than 60 ceasefire violations across the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 6, ARTSAKHPRESS: The Ministrys announcement reads: Overnight December 5-6 the Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire regime more than 60 times by firing over 700 shots at the Armenian positions in different parts of the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. Compared to the previous days, the Azerbaijani forces made ceasefire violations by firing mainly from machine guns and heavy machine guns, as well as sniper rifles (73 shots).
Tata Communications, a leading provider of A New World of Communications today announced the launch of a major multi-channel brand campaign in India. Designed to highlight the companys diverse services portfolio that enables digital transformation for businesses and its contribution to the Make in India narrative, the campaign will roll out in December 2016 through to the end of June 2017. The campaign will look to celebrate the companys customers and partners in India.

Unfolding across Indias busiest airports of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune, and reaching over 100 million travelers, this campaign also includes the sponsorship of major industry and technology events in India as well as an extensive online advertising campaign with leading business publications, generating over 100 million impressions on all its digital channels.

The roll-out of this campaign coincides with Tata Communications 15th year anniversary of a successful public-private partnership, which has seen the company evolve into the countrys business transformation leader, with services across network, mobility, cloud enablement and security.

Julie Woods-Moss, Chief Marketing Officer, Tata Communications, said: India continues to ascend the global competitiveness index. We are committed to playing a role in nurturing the countrys business potential and enabling outstanding customer value by simplifying digital transformation across industries. Our new brand campaign celebrates the spirit of India and showcases our innovative portfolio of products and services across network, cloud, mobility and security.

Tata Communications portfolio of services is underpinned by the companys leading global network infrastructure. The company owns and operates the worlds largest and most advanced subsea fibre cable network, including the only wholly-owned fibre ring around the world. This network enables customers and partners to reach 99.7% of the worlds GDP, with connectivity to over 240 countries and territories.

To help its customers drive their digital transformation through cloud computing, Tata Communications introduced its game-changing IZO cloud enablement platform. Harnessing the companys unparalleled global reach, IZO now connects to all of the worlds biggest clouds of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Google Cloud Platform and Salesforce. Tata Communications is also continually strengthening the IZO portfolio with new services, including the recently launched IZO SDWAN, which is available in 130 countries.

In addition to showcasing Tata Communications cloud, network, mobility and security expertise, the new brand platform will serve to build employee pride around the evolution of the company and the role it plays in shaping India. The company was recently recognised by Aon Hewitt as a Top 25 Employer in the country, and ranked by LinkedIn as the 13th most attractive employer in India in the social networks Top Attractors list.

This campaign builds on the successful campaign in Silicon Valley (2014) and Tata Communications ongoing sponsorship of the Heathrow Express in London that started in 2015.

Tata Communications partnered with global agencies Initiative (media agency) and Brilliant Noise (marketing & communications agency) for the Indian campaign.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Icelandic flight meta-search website Dohop was awarded "The World's Leading Flight Comparison Website" at the 2016 World Travel Awards. The prestigious award ceremony was held in the Maldives on the 2nd of December.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322197LOGO )



This is the second time Dohop wins the award and the fourth time the company is nominated.

Eight companies were nominated in the category, all well-known brands in the flight meta-search industry.

The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry.

"We are thrilled to have been voted World's Leading Flight Comparison Website at the 2016 World Travel Awards. The award is a great recognition of the constant hard work we put into improving the technology that powers Dohop." - David Gunnarsson, Dohop CEO.

The World Travel Awards are voted on by travel industry professionals and high-end tourism consumers.

About The World Travel Awards

The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all key sectors of the travel tourism & hospitality industry. Today, the World Travel Awards brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

About Dohop

Dohop is a global flight search engine, where users can find the cheapest flights from a range of airlines and online travel agencies, using its unique Self-Connect technology. Today, the range of services also includes hotels and car rentals, as well as a travel affiliate program for airlines, airports and travel websites. Dohop is available worldwide in 29 languages and has its headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland.

SOURCE Dohop
Dun-Bri Group has today announced that recruitment for up to 5 jobs is to start this week, following the announcement that it will be opening a new branch in the Kingston Park area of Peterborough in early 2017.

Branded as Dun-Bri Cambridgeshire, the new building will act as a local trade counter and distribution hub for its ever expanding customer base of commercial and emergency vehicle lighting, as well as auto-electrical products.

The new roles are for full and part-time positions and cover a range of areas, including sales and customer service persons and drivers for a new daily delivery service. It will also see the start of a new Apprenticeship scheme locally, with the help of Opportunity Peterborough.

First established in 1989, the group is the United Kingdoms leading and only specialist distributor of commercial vehicle lighting and auto-electrical products. Currently, they supply 11,000 different product lines with 90% held in stock for overnight delivery across the country.

Dun-Bri Group has also confirmed the appointment of Craig Garner as the new branch manager. Craig has been with the company for two and a half years having previously worked within our National Sales Office, as well as within Unipart Group.

Procurement of the new site has been completed and the group will begin fitting the new branch in the beginning of the New Year to welcome customers in March. The new 3,000 sq. ft. branch will provide the very latest the company has to offer, including an extended range of vehicle lighting products and automotive consumables tailored to the local market.

Andrew Strath, the Group Managing Director, said We have been overwhelmed by the interest in our coming to Peterborough.

We want to get the branch absolutely right to welcome our new customers and have just started work to allow the new branch to open, and give our team time to bed in before having an Official Opening ceremony in April 2017.

The decision by Dun-Bri Group to choose Peterborough as its base in the region was supported by Opportunity Peterborough, the citys economic development company. Opportunity Peterborough works to aid sustainable growth in Peterborough by encouraging inward investment, enterprise development and delivering innovative projects that tackle business challenges.

Opportunity Peterborough chief executive, Steve Bowyer said, We were delighted to assist Dun-Bri with their decision to expand into Peterborough. Our extensive knowledge of local service providers, key business contacts and economic insight helped inform their strategic decision making and we're pleased their move to Peterborough now enables the business to expand. Dun-Bri Cambridgeshire is a great addition to Peterborough and were looking forward to continuing to work closely with the team as they settle here in the city.

The upcoming opening of the branch in Peterborough takes the companys total sites to six, located across England.

Ends

Notes to editors:

1. Photographs and other images are available on request.

2. This press release and future press releases can be sent to you via email, fax or by post and is available in plain text as well as formatted PDF.

3. Dun-Bri Group first started trading in 1989. With its head office in Buntingford, Hertfordshire, it is the UK leader in the manufacture and distribution of light bars, flashing beacons and directional LED lighting for both the amber and emergency services; wiring harnesses; commercial vehicle after-market lighting and auto-electrical products. Further information on the company can be found at www.dun-bri-group.com.

4. The company now operates from locations in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire servicing customers in the UK and Europe.

www.dun-bri-group.com

www.facebook.com/dunbrigroup

www.youtube.com/c/dunbrigroup

@DunBriGroup

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005640/en/

Dun-Bri Group

Kristian Snell

Media & Press Office

Tel: 01305 820492

Email: kris@dun-bri.com
SHANGHAI, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 5, 2016, Infinitus (China) Company Ltd., a member of LKK Health Products Group (LKKHPG), was certified by Top Employers Institute as "Top Employer China 2017" at the grand Certification Dinner held in Shanghai. Infinitus and its employees celebrated the honor the next day at the Infinitus Center in Guangzhou. This is the second consecutive year for Infinitus to attain this certification thanks to its outstanding HR polices.

Top Employers Institute recognized Infinitus' competitive employment environment, innovative management practices and unique corporate culture, as well as helping its employees achieve a tri-balance among health, family and business. Infinitus was one of the 69 companies to qualify this year out of the 250 participants across China.

Mr. Harry Yeung, Senior Vice President of LKKHPG, said, "Our sustainable development is rooted in our excellent employee engagement and satisfaction. Amid a new market environment, we continuously provide our employees a preferred working environment which supports personal development and job satisfaction. To receive the certification again not only enhances our brand image, but also serves as a professional recognition of what we have done for our employees' development."

Over the past year, Infinitus has implemented a series of HR management programs to drive business development, including overseas working opportunities and global talent mobility programs. In particular, Infinitus has launched an internal ideas sharing platform to tap into employee potential and generate innovative ideas. Some of those ideas have already obtained financial support and been put into practice.

Furthermore, Infinitus continues to create a "feel good" working atmosphere for its employees. In addition to personalized employee benefits, flexible working hours and an annual "Happy Family Day", which provides an opportunity for employees to interact with their family members. Infinitus has also invited an expert to design a healthy exercise regime for its employees in order to encourage them to integrate healthy living habits into their work.

The company's people-oriented working environment also extends to the new 10,000-square meter R&D center, which delivers a better working experience not only through cutting-edge equipment, but also sidewalk cafes, creative meeting rooms, gyro chairs and treadmills.

Besides that, Infinitus continually optimizes its management model through proactive partnerships with authoritative third-party HR institutions to guarantee competitive employee conditions and personal development opportunities. According to the latest satisfaction survey undertaken by a third party, Infinitus scored 8.85 out of 10 in terms of employee satisfaction, an all-time high for the company.

Mr. David Pink, CEO of Top Employers Institute, said, "This year's number of certified Top Employers in China set a record. Compared with this increase, we are more than glad to see that the overall performance of the nominees is much better than ever before. It indicates that the companies didn't rest on their achievements, but continued making sustained efforts."

Headquartered in Netherlands, the Top Employers Institute is a professional and independent institution which globally certifies leading employers that create excellent conditions for their people to develop. The certification program now covers over 100 countries and regions with a surveyed population of 16 million. Responded surveys are audited independently to ensure the validity of the certification.

Learn more about LKK Health Products Group: www.lkkhpg.com

Learn more about Top Employers Institute: www.top-employers.com/

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445610

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445958

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/infinitus-recertified-as-top-employer-china-by-top-employers-institute-300373504.html

SOURCE LKK Health Products Group
WATERLOO, Canada, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- APrivacy announced today the launch of its new leading edge product, Secure Messaging, which for the first time enables Financial Services companies to leverage consumer messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Line and FB Messenger, to communicate with their clients while meeting all compliance requirements. This new service enables Financial Services companies to service clients over their preferred communication channels, offering them a unique and enhanced digital experience.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161202/445019LOGO

A preview of the technology was recently shown at the Singapore FinTech Festival. APrivacy was one of the 20 FinTech firms selected by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) into its Hackcelerator."The reaction we got from the audience was very encouraging. People have been asking their banks and insurance providers for something like for a long time," says APrivacy Founder and CEO Dr. Cedric Jeannot. "This cutting-edge product extends and complements our product portfolio, where each product combines both data security and a seamless user experience."

This solution - first of its kind - comes from APrivacy's patented platform that provides a security layer over any messaging app, therefore protecting and providing an audit trail of all information sent or received. APrivacy's data-centric security technology encrypts the data itself, whether it is a sentence, text, voice or any type of file directly at the byte level. Once secured, the data can only be read or consumed seamlessly by the intended recipient(s) without the need for passwords, tokens or multi-step login processes.

Financial service companies can now communicate and provide new innovative services over their customers' preferred communication channel, maximizing engagement and revenue potential. All communications are recorded meeting regulatory and compliance requirements.

Find out more about Secure Messaging and APrivacy's solutions by visiting www.aprivacy.com or request more information at info@aprivacy.com.

About APrivacy

Digital Security Perfected - APrivacy Ltd. is an award-winning company which combines military-grade data security with seamless user experience on any platform, any device, anywhere. APrivacy Ltd.'s enabling technology now allows the financial services industry to confidently communicate with clients using their favourite channels leading to increased revenues and reduced costs while meeting the strictest regulatory requirements.

For any further media inquiries, please contact: media@aprivacy.com

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SOURCE APrivacy
LONDON, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Summary

In terms of seat capacity, the global low cost carrier (LCC) industry is expanding. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), LCCs hold 26% share in Asia-Pacific, 54% in Southeast Asia, and 26% globally. More than 12 airlines started operating in Asia-Pacific during the period 2005-2015. The fast growth in Asia-Pacific can be attributed to the fact that it has some of the fastest-growing economies including China and India



Key Findings

- The US is the largest market in the world in terms of revenues and seats sold. In 2015, its revenues stood at US$31.6 billion and the number of passengers carried totaled 216.6 million. Spain and the UK held second and third position in terms of seats sold, while Japan was the fastest-growing market at a CAGR of 33.7% during the historic period (2011-2015). Switzerland (90.6%) had the highest load factor in 2015, followed by France (90.5%) and Mexico (89.9%). In terms of revenue per passenger, New Zealand was the largest market while China was the fastest-growing market at a CAGR of 3.7% during the historic period



- LCCs are increasingly gaining a foothold in the global aviation industry and their growth is not driven only by leisure customers. Today, LCCs are also adding direct flights to business destinations. For instance, Wizz Air and Ryanair run flights from London to Vilnius, the economic hub of Lithuania and one of the biggest financial centers of the Baltic States. Europe's two leading LCCs in terms of seats sold - Ryanair and Easyjet - are also making profits. In 2015, Ryanair (101.4 million) sold more seats than IAG (95 million), which owns Iberia, British Airways, Vueling, and Aer Lingus



- LCCs in general do not add anything extra, which increases the cost; however, the trend is changing. For instance, flydubai offers free meals on flights from Prague to Dubai



- LCCs usually operate on short-haul routes and do not fly on long-haul networks because of the additional expense incurred in flying over six hours. However, this is changing as airlines such as Norwegian and Scoot are able to operate on long-haul routes as they are using more fuel-efficient aircraft such as the Dreamliner 787. Norwegian runs flights on transatlantic routes.





Synopsis

Canadean's report - The Global Low-Cost Airline Market to 2020 - provides detailed information on global low-cost airlines industry, analyzing market data and providing insights.



What else does this report offer?



- Historic and forecast revenue of global low-cost airlines market covering 40 countries



- Detailed region-wise (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa) of low-cost airlines' key performance indicators such as the number of seats available and seats sold, load factor, average revenue per passenger, total revenues, revenue generating passenger kilometers and passenger kilometers available for the historic (2011-2015) and forecast (2016-2020) periods



- Brief analysis of global low-cost airlines market and the present scenario



- Detailed analysis of the markets trends in key low-cost airlines' markets





Reasons To Buy

- Make strategic business decisions using historic and forecast market data related to global low-cost airlines industry



- Understand the demand-side dynamics within the industry to identify key market trends and growth opportunities







Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4407892/



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STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 6, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: Lately the Azerbaijani President is delivering scandalous announcements typical to him. Why is Aliyev so noisy? Its very clear why. Because he is in an unfavorable situation in the negotiations process, he entered a deadlock. Azerbaijan is in a deadlock, and Aliyev himself said that the international community is forcing him to recognize the independence of Nagorno Karabakh. That is, for the first time in these years, Azerbaijans leadership is stating its unfavorable positions in the negotiations process, he said.

Sharmazanov reminded that for several times he had suggested the leadership of Azerbaijan to read the works of ancient Greek and Roman historians in order to understand the reality and the history of Azerbaijan.

They failed to do so with the well known stubbornness of an animal. Afterwards, since they like traveling very much, I suggested them to visit Rome and look at the map of the ancient world. There, they will definitely find Armenia, but wont find Azerbaijan, however since they didnt do this either, I am proposing the third option. Since the leadership of Azerbaijan very much likes to travel in luxurious cars, just one urge: let them read the history of Audi and Mercedes Benz cars and find out that Audi is 9 years older than Azerbaijan and Mercedes Benz is 2 years older, he said.
UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, DC 20549 FORM 8-K CURRENT REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 Date of report (Date of earliest event reported): December 5, 2016 SYNCHRONOSS TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter) Delaware 000-52049 06-1594540 (State or Other Jurisdiction

of Incorporation) (Commission

File Number) (IRS Employer

Identification No.) 200 Crossing Boulevard, 8th Floor

Bridgewater, New Jersey 08807 (Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code) Registrants telephone number, including area code: (866) 620-3940 Not Applicable (Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last Report) Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions: o Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425) o Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12) x Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)) o Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement. Merger Agreement On December 5, 2016, Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation (Parent), GL Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent (Merger Sub), and Intralinks Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation (Intralinks) entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the Merger Agreement). The Merger Agreement provides that, upon the terms and subject to the conditions of the Merger Agreement, Merger Sub will commence a cash tender offer (the Offer) to purchase all of the outstanding shares (the Shares) of Intralinks common stock, $0.001 par value, at a price of $13.00 per share (the Offer Price), without interest and subject to any required withholding taxes. The Offer is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2017. Consummation of the Offer is subject to various conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement, including, but not limited to (i) at least a majority of shares of Intralinks common stock then outstanding being validly tendered into, and not withdrawn from, the Offer, (ii) the receipt of required approvals, waivers and consents, and (iii) other conditions set forth in Exhibit A to the Merger Agreement. The Offer will expire at one minute after 11:59 P.M., New York City time, at the end of the 20th business day (calculated in accordance with the rules of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) following the commencement date of the Offer unless extended in accordance with the terms of the Offer and the Merger Agreement and the applicable rules and regulations of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC). Following consummation of the Offer, Merger Sub will merge with and into Intralinks with Intralinks surviving as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Parent (the Merger). Pursuant to the terms of the Merger, each outstanding Share that is not validly tendered and accepted pursuant to the Offer (other than the Shares held in the treasury of Intralinks, Shares held directly or indirectly by Parent or its subsidiaries, and Shares as to which appraisal rights have been perfected in accordance with applicable law) will be cancelled and converted into the right to receive the Offer Price, on the terms and conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement. The Merger Agreement provides that the Merger will be governed by Section 251(h) of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the DGCL) and shall be effected by Merger Sub and Intralinks as soon as practicable following the consummation of the Offer without a stockholders meeting pursuant to the DGCL. Parent intends to fund the acquisition with cash on hand, including proceeds from the Divestiture described below in Item 2.01 of this Current Report on Form 8-K, and up to $900 million under a new term loan facility. On December 5, 2016, Parent entered into a commitment letter (the Commitment Letter) with Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Credit Suisse AG and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (the Lenders), pursuant to which, subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein, the Lenders have committed to provide a $900 million term loan, the proceeds of which may be used for the payment of the Offer Price contemplated by, and the payment of fees and expenses incurred in connection with, the Merger Agreement and the Offer. The commitment to provide the financing is subject to certain conditions, including the negotiation of definitive documentation and other customary closing conditions consistent with the Merger Agreement and Commitment Letter. The definitive agreement for the term loan facility will contain, among other terms, affirmative covenants, negative covenants, financial covenants and events of default, in each case to be negotiated by the parties consistent with the Commitment Letter. Parent will pay customary fees and expenses in connection with obtaining the term loan facility. The foregoing description of the Commitment Letter does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the Commitment Letter, which is filed as Exhibit 10.1 hereto and is incorporated herein by this reference. The Merger Agreement contains customary representations and warranties by Parent, Merger Sub and Intralinks. The Merger Agreement also contains customary covenants and agreements, including with respect to the operations of the business of Intralinks and its subsidiaries between signing and closing, restrictions on responses by Intralinks with respect to alternative transactions, governmental filings and approvals and other matters. The Merger Agreement generally prohibits Intralinks solicitation of proposals relating to alternative business combination transactions and restricts Intralinks ability to furnish non-public information to, or participate in any discussions or negotiations with, any third party with respect to any such transaction, subject to certain limited exceptions. The Merger Agreement contains termination rights for each of Parent, Merger Sub and Intralinks. The Merger Agreement 2

further provides that upon termination of the Merger Agreement under specified circumstances (i) Intralinks may be required to pay Parent a termination fee of $24.6 million and (ii) Parent may be required to pay Intralinks a termination fee of $49.2 million. A copy of the Merger Agreement is attached hereto as Exhibit 2.1 and is incorporated herein by reference. The foregoing description of the Merger Agreement is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full text of the Merger Agreement. The Merger Agreement has been attached to provide investors with information regarding its terms. It is not intended to provide any other factual information about Parent, Merger Sub or Intralinks. In particular, the assertions embodied in the representations and warranties contained in the Merger Agreement are qualified by information in confidential disclosure schedules provided by the parties thereto in connection with the signing of the Merger Agreement. These disclosure schedules include information that modifies, qualifies and creates exceptions to the representations, warranties and covenants set forth in the Merger Agreement. Moreover, certain representations and warranties in the Merger Agreement were used for the purpose of allocating risk between Parent, Merger Sub and Intralinks, rather than establishing matters of fact. Accordingly, the representations and warranties in the Merger Agreement may not constitute the actual state of facts about Parent, Merger Sub or Intralinks. Tender and Support Agreements Concurrently with the execution of the Merger Agreement, Intralinks Chief Executive Officer and certain greater than 10% holders of the Companys common stock entered into Tender and Support Agreements with Parent and Merger Sub (the Tender and Support Agreements), which provide, among other things, that such persons will tender their Shares in the Offer. The Tender and Support Agreements will terminate upon termination of the Merger Agreement and certain other specified events. The foregoing description of the Tender and Support Agreements does not purport to be complete and is subject to, and qualified in its entirety by, the full text of the form of Tender and Support Agreement, which is attached as Exhibit 99.1 hereto and incorporated herein by reference. Item 2.01 Completion of Acquisition or Disposition of Assets. On December 5, 2016, Parent entered into a purchase and sale and amended and restated operating agreement (the Operating Agreement) by and among Sequential Technology International, LLC (STI), Parent and Sequential Technology International Holdings, LLC (Sequential) pursuant to which Parent sold a 70% interest (the Divestiture) in STI to Sequential in return for a cash payment of $146 million to Parent. Parent previously formed STI and contributed certain of its activation business assets to STI in return for its initial membership interest in STI. As part of the transactions contemplated by the Divestiture, Parent issued a promissory note to Sequential, which is secured by Sequentials interest in STI. In addition, Parent is retaining a 30% interest in STI. Pursuant to the terms of the Operating Agreement, Parent has certain put rights whereby Sequential would be required to purchase Parents interest in STI in certain circumstances and Sequential has a corresponding call right where Sequential would be required to purchase Parents interest in STI in certain circumstances. Item 7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure. On December 6, 2016, Parent and Intralinks issued a joint press release announcing entry into the Merger Agreement. The companies also announced that following the closing of the transaction, Ron Hovsepian, Chief Executive Officer of Intralinks, is expected to be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Parent and join Parents Board of Directors, with Parents Founder and current Chief Executive Office Stephen G. Waldis transitioning into being an active Executive Chairman of the Board. The full text of the press release is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.2 and incorporated herein by reference. In addition, on December 6, 2016, Parent and Intralinks will also hold a conference call for analysts and investors that will include a presentation containing supplemental information regarding the proposed transaction. A copy of the presentation is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.3. The information under Item 7.01 in this Form 8-K and in Exhibits 99.2 and 99.3 shall be deemed furnished and not filed for the purpose of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section, and shall not be incorporated by reference into any registration statement or other document. The information under Item 7.01 in this Form 8-K 3

shall not be incorporated by reference into any registration statement or other document filed under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Exchange Act, except as shall be expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing. Additional Information and Where to Find It In connection with the proposed acquisition of Intralinks, Synchronoss will commence a tender offer for the outstanding shares of Intralinks. The tender offer has not yet commenced. This document is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of Intralinks, nor is it a substitute for the tender offer materials that Synchronoss and Merger Sub will file with the SEC upon commencement of the tender offer. At the time the tender is commenced, Synchronoss and Merger Sub will file tender offer materials on Schedule TO, and Intralinks will file a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC with respect to the tender offer. The tender offer materials (including an Offer to Purchase, a related Letter of Transmittal and certain other tender offer documents) and the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement will contain important information. Holders of shares of Intralinks are urged to read these documents when they become available because they will contain important information that holders of Intralinks securities should consider before making any decision regarding tendering their securities. The Offer to Purchase, the related Letter of Transmittal and certain other tender offer documents, as well as the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement, will be made available to all holders of shares of Intralinks at no expense to them. The tender offer materials and the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement will be made available for free at the SECs web site at www.sec.gov. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements either contained in or incorporated by reference into this report, other than purely historical information, including estimates, projections and statements relating to Intralinks and Synchronoss business plans, objectives and expected operating results, and the assumptions upon which those statements are based, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding acquisition synergies and benefits to Synchronoss, the growth of the market and demand for Synchronoss offerings, growth opportunities, the closing of the debt financing and acquisition and impact of such transactions, momentum in Synchronoss business and momentum with the offerings discussed in this press release, potential growth of Synchronoss business, product performance, the ability to successfully integrate the companies and their respective products, and the timing of the transaction. Although Synchronoss attempts to be accurate in making forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. Important factors that could cause results to differ materially from the statements herein include the following: general economic risks; execution risks with acquisitions; closing conditions; risks associated with sales not materializing based on a change in circumstances; disruption to sales following acquisitions; increasing competitiveness in the enterprise and mobile solutions market; ability to retain key personnel following the acquisition; the dynamic nature of the markets in which the companies operate; specific economic risks in different geographies, and among different customer segments; changes in foreign currency exchange rates; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; uncertainties around continued success in sales growth and market share gains; failure to convert sales pipeline into final sales; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products and other product functionality risks; execution risks around new product development and introductions and innovation; product defects; unexpected costs, assumption of unknown liabilities and increased costs for any reason; litigation and disputes and the potential cost, distraction and damage to sales and reputation caused thereby; market acceptance of new products and services; the ability to attract and retain personnel; changes in strategy; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles, particularly in larger organizations; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; risks associated with the adoption of, and demand for, our model in general and by specific customer segments; competition and pricing pressure; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in Synchronoss most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and our other filings with the SEC, copies of which are available free of charge at the SECs website at www.sec.gov or upon request from Synchronoss investor relations department. All forward-looking statements herein reflect Synchronoss opinions only as of the date of this release, and Synchronoss undertakes no obligation, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to update forward-looking statements herein in light of new information or future events. Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits. (a) Financial Statements of Businesses Acquired. None. (b) Pro Forma Financial Information. To the extent that pro forma financial information regarding the Divestiture is required, it will be filed by amendment 4

to this Current Report on Form 8-K within seventy-one (71) calendar days after the date of filing hereof. (c) Shell Company Transactions. None. (d) Exhibits Exhibit

Number Description 2.1* Agreement and Plan of Merger by and among Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., GL Merger Sub, Inc. and Intralinks Holdings, Inc. dated December 5, 2016. 10.1 Commitment Letter, dated as of December 5, 2016, by and among Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. and Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Credit Suisse AG and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC. 99.1 Form of Tender and Support Agreement by and between Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., GL Merger Sub, Inc. and certain stockholders of Intralinks Holdings, Inc. dated December 5, 2016. 99.2 Joint Press Release issued by Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. and Intralinks Holdings, Inc. on December 6, 2016. 99.3 Investor Presentation Materials, dated December 6, 2016. * Certain schedules have been omitted and Parent agrees to furnish supplementally to the Securities and Exchange Commission a copy of any omitted exhibits and schedules upon request. 5

SIGNATURES Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized. SYNCHRONOSS TECHNOLOGIES, INC. Date: December 6, 2016 By: /s/ Stephen G. Waldis Name: Stephen G. Waldis Title: Chairman of the Board of Directors And Chief Executive Officer 6

EXHIBIT INDEX Exhibit

Number Description 2.1* Agreement and Plan of Merger by and among Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., GL Merger Sub, Inc. and Intralinks Holdings, Inc. dated December 5, 2016. 10.1 Commitment Letter, dated as of December 5, 2016, by and among Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. and Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Credit Suisse AG and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC. 99.1 Form of Tender and Support Agreement by and between Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., GL Merger Sub, Inc. and certain stockholders of Intralinks Holdings, Inc. dated December 5, 2016. 99.2 Joint Press Release issued by Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. and Intralinks Holdings, Inc. on December 6, 2016. 99.3 Investor Presentation Materials, dated December 6, 2016. * Certain schedules have been omitted and Parent agrees to furnish supplementally to the Securities and Exchange Commission a copy of any omitted exhibits and schedules upon request. 7
Operation Christmas Drop begins at Guam

Military members from the U.S. Air Force, Coast Guard and Navy, with international support from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and Royal Australian Air Force are joining forces to airdrop and deliver donated toys, clothes, food items and other necessities to remote islands across the Pacific Ocean as part of Operation Christmas Drop 2016.



The annual training mission officially kicked off during a ceremony Dec. 6 at Andersen Air Force Base, where military leaders across the island pushed the first pallet of donated goods into a C-130 Hercules.



Im proud that Andersen is hosting Operation Christmas Drop, said Brig. Gen. Douglas Cox, the 36th Wing commander. I am happy to welcome our partners from Australia and Japan, it is wonderful to have you with us this holiday season.



C-130s from the 36th Airlift Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan; RAAF; and Japan Air Self-Defense Force will be flying over the Pacific to airdrop goods to the islanders. More than 45 airmen are participating from both the RAAF and the JASDF.



Sixty-five years in the running, Christmas Drop is the Defense Departments longest-running humanitarian airlift operation. The tradition began during the Christmas season in 1952 when a B-29 Superfortress aircrew saw islanders waving at them from the island of Kapingamarangi, 3,500 miles southwest of Hawaii. In the spirit of Christmas the aircrew dropped a bundle of supplies attached to a parachute to the islanders below, giving the operation its name. This year brings together three nations, three corporate sponsors and three U.S. military branches. Today, airdrop operations include more than 50 islands and thousands of people.



It feels great to give back no matter what background you come from, said Capt. Aaron Bowens, from the 734th Air Mobility Squadron and an Operation Christmas Drop organizer. Its also a great training opportunity because everything we do now for the drops is useful in the real world.



More than 11 months of planning and preparing went into the operation, Bowens said. The Operation Christmas Drop volunteers at Andersen AFB and Yokota AB raised more than $52,000 from fundraisers and collected more than $20,000 in donated goods to aid in the humanitarian mission.



Military and civilian volunteers loaded 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of clothes, rice, fishhooks and other necessities into large-capacity boxes, before Airmen weighed and secured the boxes in preparation for delivery.



Twenty-two sorties are scheduled to be flown, covering more than 50 islands, where 140 boxes of donated goods will be dropped.



Even though military cargo aircraft are much louder than Santas sleigh, they are just as ready to bring joy to the island families.
BARKSDALE AFB, La. -- Air Force Global Strike Command specializes in delivering flexible and responsive capabilities and applying persistent combat power to targets around the world. It is a capability that is measured in minutes and hours, rather than days, and relies on the commands ability to maintain the nations fleet of strategic bombers and long-range missiles.



Air Force Global Strike Command would not be able to carry out this mission without support from the Air Force Sustainment Center, based at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. For this reason, AFGSC wing, vice wing and operations group commanders attended the Senior Officer Sustainment Course at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, Nov. 29-30, giving them an opportunity to learn from sustainment personnel, including the AFSC commander.



Im your supporting commander for readiness, said Lt. Gen. Lee K. Levy II, commander, Air Force Sustainment Center. Your destiny and my commands destiny is inextricably linked and its our job to support AFGSC in maintaining a credible strategic deterrent.



The two-day course gave commanders insight into considerations needed when coordinating with AFSC, which takes place through AFGSCs Directorate of Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection.



We want to focus on engaging and leveraging logistics systems to obtain the support, resources and capabilities required at the wing, said Lawrence Kingsley, A4 director. Its important that commanders and units know what the desired output for a part will be and understand how it works. They also need to recognize that they shouldnt go it alone to implement a tactical-level solution when the demand-signal needs to be sent to energize the sustainment system to deliver comprehensive institutional support to field-level issues.



The course gave AFGSC commanders insight into the types of requests AFSC can support and the specialization of each of its wings. Regardless, the Air Force Sustainment Center stands ready to support the around-the-clock readiness of the nations strategic force. AFSC is a critical enabler of the nuclear enterprise, with its Air Logistics Complexes and wings providing support across bombers, ICBMs, and nuclear communications systems, according to Levy.



All of our [AFSC] wings are interconnected, Levy said. Parts of that aircraft will have to travel to multiple locations for repairs. Having said that, our wings rise and fall together. They really depend on each other to be successful.



In addition to weapon systems, course speakers touched on the maintenance requirements for supporting systems, including items that fall within the realm of nuclear support equipment, communications, transportation or maintenance, to name a few.



Subject matter experts also stressed the need for forward planning and an eye towards budget constraints. Such considerations would strengthen efforts between AFGSC and AFSC in returning a part to the field or flightline, according to Levy, facilitating synchronization of logistics capabilities between AFGSC and AFSC.



The Air Force Sustainment Center is there to provide competent, energized, sustainment support, Levy said. This is something we do for the Air Force as a whole. If you cant repair these components at your level, please coordinate with your A4 here so that we can hold the system accountable and make it perform the way it was designed.



The course also gave attendees a firsthand look at Air Force sustainment processes and how they have been streamlined over time. Speakers used case studies and lessons learned to illustrate that efficient and effective logistics is a means to bring about increased combat capability.



My number one priority has always been supporting the war fighter, Levy said. If were not winning our nations wars, then everything else is interesting, but irrelevant.




The Air Force has received an additional $400,000, for a total of $1 million, for its 2017 civilian tuition assistance program, and all permanent, full-time appropriated fund employees, including those in wage-grade positions, are now eligible to participate.Employees are required to have a current acceptable performance appraisal on file and are eligible whether or not they occupy a centrally managed position.New for 2017, the standard TA rates have increased to 75 percent of the cost of tuition, not to exceed $250 per semester hour versus $187.50. The new fiscal year limit increases by $1,000 in 2017, up to a maximum of $4,500.Air Force civilian post-secondary tuition assistance is intended to support civilians in their continued self-development, including coursework at the associate, bachelor and master levels, said Mark Schinzel, an Air Force Personnel Center human resources specialist.Starting in January, TA for all civilians will be administratively managed through the Air Force Automated Education Management System, except for members in the Palace Acquire formal training program. These interns will be added once the software is updated. Until January, civilians are asked to use the current paper SF 182, Request, Authorization, Agreement and Certification for Training Form, while applying the new rules.We want our people to use tuition assistance for courses that contribute to occupational and institutional competencies, special-interest needs and readiness by supporting the current and anticipated needs of the Air Force, Schinzel said.Additional changes for CTAP include TA allowed for one course at any given time. Course start and finish dates cannot overlap. TA is available for courses offered by a fully accredited academic institution but cannot be used for courses leading to a second degree of the same level already attained, such as a second bachelor or masters degree; nor is TA available for doctorate-level course work.Stay informed on the most current civilian tuition assistance information on the Civilian Force Development page on myPers . Click the Force Development link on the far left from the civilian employee landing page; CTAP can be found under the General heading.For more information about Air Force personnel programs, go to the myPers website. Individuals who do not have a myPers account can request one by following the instructions on the Air Force Retirees Services website
A Pakistani court has charged the brother of a social media star with her murder.

Muhammad Waseem admitted strangling 26-year-old model Qandeel Baloch, who shot to fame with her selfies, in the family home in July.

He confessed at a news conference to killing her because she had brought shame on their family with her intolerable behaviour.

He has denied murder and says he does not regret what he did.

The charge is the final step before a trial begins in what is likely to be one of the countrys highest-profile honour killings.

Ms Balochs provocative selfies and videos  which would seem relatively tame by Western standards  divided the traditionally conservative Muslim country.

Supporters praised her for daring to challenge Pakistans views on women, while critics derided her for her demeaning behaviour.

Waseem appeared before a court in the central city of Multan on Monday together with his cousin Haq Nawaz, who police accused of being an accomplice but did not explain what his involvement was.

A second man, taxi driver Abdul Basit, has been released on bail.
Lesser number of people turned up at Chaityabhoomi due to notes ban and vendors business was also affected.

There has been a sharp decline in the number of people visiting Chaityabhoomi for paying tributes to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar on the occasion of his 60th death anniversary due to the demonetisation campaign of the Modi government. At a time, when people are struggling to make both ends meet due to shortage of money many of them choose to stay away from visiting Ambedkars cremation site this year. Even though the Central Railway had ran special trains for serving passengers but many of them failed to turn up at Chaityabhoomi as they were running short of cash. There was a huge dip in the sale of books, CDs, busts, souvenirs and other memorabilia related to the Dalit leader. Even fewer vendors had erected their stall at the site as they expected a decline in their business due to notes ban.

Every year, I visit Chaityabhoomi for paying tributes to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar but this time I had to skip the function due to massive cash crunch. If I had visited the site then, I would have had to incur travelling and food expenditure. The governments demonetisation campaign is causing severe hardships to the common man, said Satish Korde from Akola.

This year very few customers had turned up at my stall to buy, books, CDs of Dr Ambedkar due to demonetisation. The government should have made some alternative arrangements before making such decision. It has become difficult for me to run my business. However this year I am not worried about offering change to customers as they are handing over 50 and 100 rupee notes to me, said Samir More a vendor from Dadar.

Every year, I used to purchase posters of Dr Ambedkar while visiting Chaityabhoomi. However, this year I am trying to save money as I am facing hardships while withdrawing my own money from the bank after demonetisation. The government had asked the citizens to bear the inconvenience for 50 days but now more than three weeks have passed but people are struggling to withdraw and deposit their hard earned money in banks. I have to stand in queue outside banks for depositing my money, said Sudhir Gaekwad from Beed.

Farmers have been affected due to demonetisation campaign as they are unable to withdraw money for purchasing seeds. The restriction imposed on co-operative society for carrying out banking transactions has created further problems for us. The government should disburse money to co-operative banks else farmers will be in trouble, said Dinkar Kamble a farmer from Ahmednagar, who visited the spot inspite of cash crunch.
Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha Jayarams funeral was held at Marina Beach with full state honours. Her body was buried in sandalwood casket next to her mentor and political guru MG Ramachandran. Her close aide Sasikala performed the last rites. Whereas some shocking incident of suicides and suicide attempts also comes when their beloved CM passes away news spread in the state.

The former Chief Ministers body, draped in the national flag in a glass casket, was placed on a platform at a public hall for viewing through the day, drawing a humongous audience. Strewn with flowers, the casket was moved in an open-top army truck to Chennais famous Marina Beach, about three kilometres away.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee are among those attending the state funeral. Chief ministers of eight states like Delhis Arvind Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi attended Ms Jayalalithaas funeral. Apart from leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, US Ambassador to India Richard Verma also expressed grief over the AIADMK leaders demise.

Her grave is located next to that of her mentor, MG Ramachandran.

Ramachandran, an actor turned politician, was instrumental in introducing her to politics. The fact that Jayalalitha was buried is unusual, as members of her caste are always cremated.

Thousands lined the route of the funeral procession and showered the hearse with flowers. Big photographs of Ms Jayalalithaa were placed all around the coffin and Ms Jayalalithaas long-time companion, Sasikala Natarajan and her family were seated next to it. Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who took oath last night hours after Ms Jayalalithaa died, also traveled on the hearse.

However, Sasikala Natarajan, who is considered her close confidante and has been with her right till her last days, managed to maintain her calm as she performed the last rights of the popular leader.

Extra police have been deployed in the state amid fears of unrest due to the extreme devotion she inspires among her supporters, many of whom refer to her as Amma (mother). There were concerns that they could resort to self-harm or violence, but crowds have been orderly and disciplined apart from a few minor scuffles.

In huge relief for the administration, there has been no violence since the news of Ms Jayalalithaas death. For lakhs whose devotion to her bordered on the religious, self-harming shows of loyalty were not uncommon. When she was arrested on corruption charges in 2014, her party said 200 people committed suicide in anger and sorrow. Public buses were set on fire. From within jail, the politician asked  as urged by the Supreme Court  for calm to be maintained.

Three people died apparently due to shock and two cases of suicide attempts were reported from Tamil Nadus Coimbatore district after the news of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa demise spread.

In Singanallur, a 65-year-old painter complained of chest pain while watching television news on Jayalalithaas health in his house and died before being taken to the hospital, police said.

In another incident, Palaniammal (62) of Thudiyalur, died of shock after watching the TV news in her house, they said.
Up against Tata Sons move to remove him as director of Tata Steel, ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry defended his leadership of the company, especially the handling of European operations, saying that the huge capital employed in it was earning negative returns and posed a risk to the entire group.

He also lashed out at insinuations that Tata Steel board only looked at UK investments through a short term financial lens saying it was furthest from the truth.

In a representation to the Board of Directors of Tata Steel ahead of an EGM, which is to consider a special resolution moved by Tata Sons to remove him as director on December 21, Mistry said the sole premise of the step was his removal from the Chairmanship of Tata Sons, which was illegal to begin with.

There have been insinuations that the Board of Tata Steel only looked at the UK investments through a short term financial lens. This is furthest from the truth, he wrote.

Mistry cited continued investments in these assets, as well as the significant amount of management bandwidth devoted to optimise operations in order to refute the allegations.

While asking the board to circulate his representation to its shareholders so that they can take an informed decision, he drew attention to the European operations saying the total amount of capital employed there, which is earning negative returns posed a risk to the overall group.

Total capital employed in Tata Steel Europe grew from Rs 67,000 cr in FY12 to Rs 93,500 cr in FY15, he said.

Defending decisions to divest in the UK operations, Mistry said: While pursuing a long term solution to the current issue, it is important to balance the needs of nearly one million shareholders of the company, who have supported the company for decades and many of whom rely on Tata Steel to supplement their income.

He added: Our aim has always been to have a robust and resilient global operations. To ensure this outcome, we believe it is important to tackle some of the structural challenges with the UK assets, namely the potential high pension deficits, high energy costs and high taxes.
Russia has strongly protested with India on cash shortage affecting the working of its mission after demonetisation, and wants a quick resolution of the issue, failing which it may explore other options including summoning Indian diplomat in Moscow.

Russian Government sources told that Ambassador Alexander Kadakin is waiting for a reply to his letter to the Ministry of External Affairs on December 2. Moscow, say sources, may summon the Indian envoy this week to protest against the Rs. 50,000 a week limit on withdrawals since the notes ban on November 8.

In his letter, dated December 2, Alexander said that the restrictions on withdrawal of cash had severely affected the New Delhi Embassys functioning as the withdrawal limit was not even enough to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant.

Please just imagine if we in Moscow mirror this order of SBI (State Bank of India) when 50,000 roubles will not be enough to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant, not to mention functioning of such a big embassy as ours in New Delhi or Indias in Moscow, the letter reads.

SBI informed the Embassy that the cash withdrawal limit available to the Embassy is now Rs 50,000 per week under the government of India directives with no exceptions unless otherwise advised by the RBI. Such an amount is totally inadequate as regards the embassys salary and operational expenditure requirements, he wrote.

The letter further mentioned that the Russian embassy has staff strength of 200 (excluding family members) and with the new withdrawal limit the cash at hand for one person comes to Rs. 250 a week.

The envoy also urged the MEA to intervene into the matter and exempt Embassy staff from the withdrawal limit.

Earlier, the Dean of Diplomatic Corps had also raised the issue, complaining about the problems faced by the missions. It is also understood that some other countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also protested to the ministry.

After the demonetisation last month, MEA had said it has approached Department of Economic Affairs over three or four types of requests including those related to maintaining sufficient flow of funds to diplomatic missions following the demonetization and was awaiting a decision from it.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wont apologize for Japans attack when he visits the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour later this month, the government spokesman said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology.

Abe announced late Monday that he would have a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Hawaii and visit Pearl Harbour. He will be the first Japanese leader to go to the site of the Japanese attack that propelled the United States into World War II.

The unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the US atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.

We must never repeat the tragedy of the war, Abe said. I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the US.

The White House confirmed that Obama and Abe would visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on December 27. It said the two leaders visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, on an official trip to Japan, said he would tell Abe at a meeting later Tuesday how pleased Obama and the US are.

The announcement of the summit comes as Japan worries about the direction of US foreign policy under Obamas successor, Donald Trump.

Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said that together with Obamas visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbour visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration.
Culturally speaking, equality in most parts of Papua New Guinea has always been uneven. The female gender is ranked second in rights, status and advantage while the male gender is ranked first.

But this dictionary definition will only come true if individuals take ownership of upholding equality.

THE Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines equality as the fact of being equal in rights, status, advantage, etc .

A contribution to My Walk to Equality, the first anthology of PNG womens writing, which will be published on International Womens Day on 8 March next year

Unfortunately, this traditional structure has continued in the contemporary setting of our country.

As a result, the social, spiritual, physical and intellectual ability of an individual is not determined by performance but by traditional and outdated rules about gender.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, gender equality is one of the top issues under the microscope in PNG. Many organisations now promote on merit and more women are running them.

The Division of Education in Simbu effectively upholds gender equality by promoting female teachers as principals and head teachers in secondary, technical, high, primary and elementary schools.

These women have demonstrated high standards of honesty, reliability, trust and accountability. Their promotions come with challenges, of course, and the three most significant are rejection, transparency and discipline.

Let me first consider rejection.

Bias against women in senior positions is experienced from the beginning of the school year. A minority of male heads make it difficult for female heads to effectively carry out their appointed duties.

At the beginning of the 2016 academic year, a female colleague of mine was promoted to be principal of a secondary school. Upon her arrival, she was welcomed with a banner across the school gate reading: We want our former principal back; the new principal is not welcome. She stayed at that school for only a month.

The Division of Education sent a memo to the schools Board of Governance stating that the former principal could remain in that position but would not receive wages. The message was crystal clear.

And so the female principal returned to the school. However, on her arrival she found that the door to the principals office and house were fixed shut with six-inch nails. It was tough for her but she managed to settle in and undertake her duties.

As the academic year went by, people began to see her competency and efficiency in administration and managing the school. No further complaints were raised and things returned to normal. Unfortunately other female heads have faced similar experiences and treatment.

Transparency is the second challenge encountered by female heads of school.

There was an occasion when a woman was promoted to had a rundown primary school. The school was in poor condition because of constant abuse of subsidies, leaving the school with a huge debt.

Being innovative, the new head teacher undertook a successful fundraising project that offset three-quarters of the schools debt. During Parents and Citizens Day, the head gave an update on the schools financial status.

This transparent approach provoked the subsidy leechers to retaliate, but the head teacher stood her ground. As a result, the Simbu Division of Education stepped in and dismantled the board and elected new members. Today, the school and its board members are progressing well.

The third challenge is discipline.

The teachers of today seem to have a negative attitude to constructive criticism, unlike the teachers of yesteryear.

Teaching is a profession and teachers must be role models for students. Positive attitudes results in student unity and quality outcomes. Teachers who project negativity produce students who become increasingly ignorant and rebellious.

It is admirable to see female head teachers displaying patience and gently reminding their staff to display good behaviour. This positive approach pays off well, especially when the tiem comes for teachers to be appraised for their performance over the year.

Rejection, transparency and discipline are just three of the many challenges faced by female heads in schools.

So, as a secondary school head, what is my own contribution to support female teachers at times of loneliness or discouragement?

People say females are gossips but, I disagree. I believe in positive words of encouragement and affirmation that restores hope and confidence back to an individual who is feeling low and discouraged. A person suffering unnecessary stress can break without support.

I play my part by being positive. Positive words of encouragement are a strength and I apply that principle constantly. An affirmative approach engenders hope among female teachers, including head teachers.

Also, continued support from the Division of Education boosts the desire to continue the walk to equality in education. Seeing these competitive women tackling challenges positively gives me great satisfaction. They are setting positive standards for teachers, regardless of gender.

To conclude, a teacher, whether male or female, has the responsibility to mould and shape their students holistically to be a positive citizen of this country. A walk to equality in education requires teamwork for quality outcomes.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2016  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has reissued a position limits rule, giving life to a proposal last seen in 2013.

The commission voted unanimously to repropose regulations implementing limits on speculative futures and swaps positions as called for in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The decision would reissue limits on speculative positions in 25 core physical commodity futures contracts and their economically equivalent futures, options, and swaps.

CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad defended the proposed rule in a written statement, saying similar limits are not a new or untested concept.

While speculators play a necessary and important role in our markets, position limits can prevent the type of excessive speculation by a few large participants that leads to corners, squeezes and other activity that can distort markets and be unfair to other participants, Massad said Position limits can also promote convergence without compromising market liquidity.

(Position limits) have been in place in our markets for decades, he continued, either through federal limits or exchange-set limits, and they have worked well.

Massad also pointed out that CFTC is in a time of transition, so hes supporting issuing a new proposed rule rather than choosing to adopt a final rule today that the Commission would choose not to implement or defend next year.

Opposition to the proposed rule has already been signaled from Capitol Hill. In a statement, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair and Kansas Republican Pat Roberts condemned some of the language and said he was grateful it remains a proposal and not a final rule.

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Though I do not appreciate so-called midnight rulemaking and certainly am not in favor of limiting farmers, ranchers, and end-users risk management tools, I am encouraged that the CFTC decided not to make the controversial parts of this rule final, Roberts said. With the new administration preparing to hit the ground running and critical issues remaining unresolved, Im hopeful the CFTC will not take away valuable risk management tools for our farmers, ranchers, and end-users. They need more tools  not less.





Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, the committee's lead Democrat, disagreed. She said she was "disappointed that the CFTC is not finalizing the position limits rule in its entirety this year." She added that finalizing a new rule "should be the first priority of the Commission next year."



House Ag Committee Chair Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said limiting this to a proposal will offer concerned groups that have reached out to the committee "the opportunity to refine this rule and ensure that it does not negatively impact their ability to manage their risks."



The public can comment on the proposed rule for 60 days once it is published in the Federal Register. Separately, CFTC is also reproposing the definition of a bona fide hedging position and exemptions for bona find hedging positions in physical commodities.

(Story updated to include additional reaction.)

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2016 - Farmers in Californias drought-stricken Central Valley could get additional irrigation water in coming years under bipartisan provisions included in a congressional agreement to reauthorize water projects.

The provisions worked out between Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who represents the Bakersfield, Calif., area, would allow for diversion of more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the Central Valley Project for up to five years. Water releases have been limited because of endangered species protections for the salmon and Delta smelt.

Feinsteins Democratic colleague, Barbara Boxer, expressed outrage at the provisions and pledged to try and block the bill on the Senate floor if they werent dropped, but Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said he expected the legislation to pass. One Democrat, Gary Peters of Michigan, said he was disappointed that the drought provisions were included but indicated that his primary concern was the drinking water assistance for Flint, Mich., that the bill also contained.

Boxer, who is retiring, is the ranking Democrat on Environment and Public Works, which has jurisdiction over the water projects bill, the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act.

Feinstein said that enacting the provision was preferable to taking the risk that the next Congress would open up the Endangered Species Act with the support of the Trump administration.

Action is long overdue, Feinstein said. California is entering its sixth year of drought. Experts state it will take four or more years to recover. We are seeing water wells in the thousands running dry.

The bill contains some long-term provisions to aid the salmon and smelt recovery, including $15 million that would be used in part to improve spawning habitat on the Sacramento River, as well as the five-year provisions that Boxer opposes. The latter will ensure the system is operated using science, not intuition. They will help operate the water system more efficiently, pumping water when fish are not nearby and reducing pumping when they are close, Feinstein said.

One of the short-term provisions would end a winter payback requirement. Agencies could increase pumping during winter storms so long as they do not violate the environmental requirements and would no longer be required pay back the pumped water when storms end.

The bill includes $43 million for salmon and smelt habitat restoration that the next Congress is unlikely to include, she said.

Rural electric cooperatives, meanwhile, applauded language included in the bill authorizing states to regulate coal ash. The Senate provisions inject greatly needed certainty into the regulation of coal ash by giving states clear permitting authority and reducing litigation, while providing for its continued beneficial use, said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

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Boxer called the drought provisions an outrageous poison pill that the Trump administration could use administratively to increase water flows without future congressional action.

We have a big disagreement on this, Boxer said of Feinstein. We just dont see it the same way.

Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations for Defenders of Wildlife, called the provisions an example of backroom dealmaking gone wrong.

But several water agencies in the Central Valley endorsed the provisions. If Congress had failed to act, the state ran the risk of losing the ability to deliver water to areas that have suffered socially and economically as a result of water supply shortages and to replenish reservoirs and groundwater levels that provide critical supplies during the months of low precipitation, the agencies wrote.

McCarthy had announced the deal earlier Monday, describing the provision as a little, small agreement that would provide some short-term relief to the Central Valley. He said it was critical for Congress to act now so water storage could be increased this winter. The rainy season does not wait for Congress, he said.





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WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2016  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy continued her farewell tour today, telling an audience in Washington, D.C., that shes confident her successor will understand the importance of the agencys mission to protect the nations air, water and land.

We have a great mission that I know will sustain, because people kind of like clean air and water and healthy land. I think people still pretty much care about those things, she told a group of journalists and other interested parties at an event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor at the St. Regis Hotel.

Asked by Agri-Pulse whether she would have done anything differently in rolling out the Clean Water Rule, aka WOTUS (waters of the U.S.), McCarthy reiterated the message she has conveyed at previous forums and before Congress.

I think the agency did a great job with the Clean Water Rule in terms of doing outreach, she said. I know I went to every agriculture forum I could.

The agricultural community has been nearly unanimous in criticizing the rule, which has been stayed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Thirty-one states and dozens of industry and municipal groups, including agricultural trade associations, challenged the rule, claiming it stretched the limits of the Clean Water Act well beyond its legal authority.

McCarthy, however, said the agency tried to be as respectful as it could be towards the needs of the farm community, especially by not adding to the permitting burden faced by farmers.

McCarthy said 117 million people in the U.S. rely for their drinking water on rivers and streams that are essentially unprotected today and that half of rivers and streams dont have living ecosystems  thats not a statistic I cite with pride.

Rather than build expensive water treatment systems, Its a lot easier to work with agriculture and with the stormwater challenges in urban areas, McCarthy said.

I expect we will have our full day in court; I expect the next administration will understand the challenges that we faced and hopefully work with us to make the case to agriculture and others, McCarthy said. If we can do that, I think we will get this over the finish line.

The administrator touted the new Renewable Fuel Standard requirements, released Nov. 23. The final biofuel usage mandate includes 15 billion gallons of conventional corn ethanol, the same level as the annual target in the 2007 energy law.

The message gleaned from that rule should be (that) were doing the best we can to move our fuels towards a cleaner and cleaner system but there needs to be consistent investment in advanced (biofuels) in order to be effective.

Advanced biofuels include biodiesel, cellulosic biofuels and other biofuels that have 50-percent lower carbon emissions than conventional fuels, including sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil.

As she did at her speech at the National Press Club a couple of weeks ago, McCarthy defended the agencys efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, most significantly through the Clean Power Plan, and said the changes in the energy sector  such as the continued move away from coal as a source of electricity  are a result of market forces. The CPP, which also is being challenged in court, includes goals for states to reduce CO 2 emissions from fossil-fueled power plants.

McCarthy said she is dedicated to a smooth transition to the new administration, but that except for one individual who came a couple days before Thanksgiving, no one from the transition team for President-Elect Donald Trump has contacted the agency.

Asked whether she could name a Republican who could be her successor, McCarthy said, Oh, good Lord, Im not going to answer that question. As far as a message for the incoming administrator, she added, The only thing I would impress upon anybody is to make sure people understand the mission of the agency, and follow science and the law in implementation of it.

A number of names have been floated as possible EPA heads in the new administration, including Kathleen Hartnett White, former chairwoman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; Scott Pruitt, Oklahomas attorney general; Jeff Holmstead, who headed EPAs air programs under President George W. Bush and is now a lobbyist for Bracewell; and Myron Ebell, who heads up energy and environment programs for the Competitive Enterprise Institute and is leading the administrations transition efforts for EPA.

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If you are planning on buying toys as presents for a child this holiday season, it is important to make sure the toys are safe. One way is to make sure you are buying age-appropriate toys. Packaging of toys typically has specific ages listed on it. Another way is make sure toys made of fabric are labeled flame-resistant or flame-retardant. If you are buying stuffed animal toys, make sure the fabric is washable. Any art supplies or materials should say "nontoxic" on the packaging. Here are some other great tips!

Preventing children from choking is important. When it comes to purchasing toys, some may have small pieces associated with them or pieces that are not affixed, and small children may be at risk for choking. Keeping an eye on our children is important. When little ones are on the floor crawling around, they tend to place things in their mouths. Keep small objects away from children. This includes items such as balloons, coins, marbles, button-type batteries, medicine syringes, small stones, tiny figures, screws, rings, earrings, crayons, erasers, pen or marker caps, toys with small parts, and holiday decorations including tinsel, ornaments and lights. Inspect all toys regularly for breakage or loose parts. Infant toys, such as rattles, squeeze toys and teethers, should be large enough so that they cannot enter and become lodged in an infants throat. Also, be careful of toys that have strings or cords, as they may become wrapped around the childs head and neck.

A Consumer Product Safety Commission regulation prohibits sharp points in new toys and other articles intended for use by children younger than 8. With use, older toys may break. Toys that have been broken may have dangerous points or prongs. Stuffed toys may have wires inside the toy that could cut or stab if exposed.

Although lead paint was banned in the United States in 1978, most of our childrens toys are not manufactured here in the states, and lead is still found in imported toys. Parents need to know that toys not made in the United States of America, or which have been passed down through generations, can put children at risk for lead exposure. Lead can also be found in toys that are made of plastic. The use of lead in plastics has not yet been banned in the United States.

Lead is not absorbed through the skin; it is usually ingested. Childrens exposure to lead can happen through normal hand-to-mouth activity. Small children are always putting their toys and fingers in their mouths, and parents may not realize that their children could be ingesting lead.

Children who are exposed to lead and who have not been tested are put at a greater risk. Lead poisoning can have serious health consequences. If you are worried that your child has been exposed to lead, you can ask your doctor or call the health department to get your child tested. A lead test is the only way to assess lead levels in your child. In New York state, lead tests are required for children ages 1 and 2, but many children do not get these tests.

Looking for a deal on toys? If you are buying toys from a consignment store, be sure to check with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for a listing of recalled toys. Also, be mindful of toys that are at dollar stores; those toys typically are made in China.

Now is also a good time to check your childs older toys, even hand-me-downs from friends and family, to make sure they have not been recalled. Those toys might have sentimental value and are certainly cost-effective, but they may not meet current safety standards and may be so worn from play that they can break and become hazardous. Anyone interested in viewing the list of recalled toys can visit cpsc.gov or call (800) 638-2772. Now is also a good time to check your childs current toys to see if they have been recalled. If you discover that your child has a recalled toy, take it away from them immediately.

Resources to help you this holiday season:

 If you would like more information on lead poisoning prevention, or to see if your child has ever been tested, call the Cayuga County Health Department at (315) 253-1560 or visit our website:, cayugacounty.us/lead.

 To view a listing of toys that were tested and approved by kids, visit childrensmuseum.org/blog/kid-tested-2016.

 The 2016 National Toy Hall of Fame Inductees were announced and include Dungeons & Dragons, Fisher-Price Little People and the swing. To see what other toys made the list, visit museumofplay.org.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Mostly clear. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Mostly clear. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable.
Kurdish Authorities Preventing Assyrian Soldiers From Returning to Their Posts

(AINA) -- In an interview with AssyriaTV, a Sweden based Internet television station, Jameel al-Jameel, a member of the Nineveh Plains Protection Units (NPU), an Assyrian force fighting ISIS and maintaining security, says that Kurdish soldiers who man checkpoints are preventing NPU members from returning to the Nineveh Plains after they have visited their families in Noohadra (Dohuk) or Arbel.

According to Mr. al-Jameel, Kurds stopped a group of eight Assyrian NPU members at a checkpoint, interrogated them, and berated them once they learned they were Assyrians and members of NPU. In another incident, several NPU members were detained for two days at a checkpoint.

Mr. al-Jameel states also that a group of 750 Assyrian civilians was stopped at a checkpoint and not allowed to go into the Nineveh Plains unless they signed certain papers. He does not specify what these papers were.
Iraq's Assyrians Turn to Militia for Protection

Mubarak Tuwaya, a commander in a militia protecting the area around the largest Christian town in Iraq, said "This is the land of our fathers, we have to defend it." ( Juan Carlos/WSJ) QARAQOSH, Iraq -- Two years ago, Mubarak Tuwaya fled when Islamic State militants made a triumphant charge through northern Iraq. Now he is back in his hometown, wearing the uniform of an Iraqi militia that is helping drive out the extremists--and aiming to secure a place for Christians and other local minorities in Iraq's future. Capt. Tuwaya's U.S.-trained force is made up of about 500 troops and 300 unpaid volunteers, most of them Assyrian Christians from Hamdaniya, a district east of Mosul that is home to Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian town. The Iraqi army's 9th Division captured the district with the militia's support in late October, in the early days of the current U.S-backed campaign to retake Mosul, the Sunni extremist group's last major stronghold in the country. The army then largely handed responsibility for holding Hamdaniya to the militia, whose next mission is to persuade other Christians it is safe to return. "This is the land of our fathers, we have to defend it," Capt. Tuwaya, a farmer and retired Iraqi army officer, said as he sat in the militia's makeshift headquarters, a former veterinary clinic, beneath the group's flag, a blue cross on a white background. Iraq's once sizable Christian population has dropped by as much as half since Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, to roughly half-a-million people today. When Islamic State seized swaths of Iraqi territory in 2014, more than 150,000 Christians fled their homes. Many of them lived in Hamdaniya, which is on the Nineveh Plain, a fertile region that inspired the militia's name: the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, or NPU. Members of the Christian community are now pressing the central government to grant Nineveh Plain the status of a province, a step intended to safeguard vulnerable minority groups, which also include Yazidis and ethnic Shabaks. The Mar Gorgis Church in Qaraqosh was damaged in the battle to recapture the town from Islamic State. A building in the church compound, above, was used by the militants as a bomb workshop. ( Juan Carlos/WSJ) "It's a turning point in our history: to be or not to be in our homeland," said Yunadim Kanna, a Christian member of parliament in Baghdad. Militia leaders want the force to remain in charge of security in that territory even after Islamic State's defeat. The militia was formed in the fall of 2014 by displaced Christians who felt that Iraqi and Kurdish troops had abandoned them during Islamic State's advance. The militia was initially funded through donations. Members speak a modern version of Aramaic, the language of Jesus. The NPU reports to the central government, which earlier this year began paying for salaries and supplying assault rifles. The militia hopes to expand to around 1,000 troops and several hundred new recruits are currently in training. U.S. special operations forces helped train the militiamen over the summer, and recently supplied them with 200 rifles, machine guns and ammunition, said Capt. Tuwaya. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State didn't comment. The NPU's existence is a sign of the Christian minority's tenacity, and of how Islamic State's emergence deepened ethnic and religious fractures in Iraq, despite efforts to present a common front against the insurgency. Troops from the semiautonomous Kurdish region and Iran-backed Shiite militias are playing important roles in the campaign against Islamic State. But those groups have separate command structures, and the various armed forces are sometimes wary of one another. ( Juan Carlos/WSJ) Several NPU members said Iraqi Sunnis--many of whom initially supported Islamic State--wouldn't be welcome if they returned to the Nineveh Plain. The militia's capabilities are limited. Kurdish and U.S. forces had to intervene in May to repel Islamic State militants who attacked a town north of Mosul that the militia was holding, in a battle that left one U.S. Navy SEAL dead. And its members' methods can be raw. At a checkpoint outside Qaraqosh, one young militiaman boasted that he beheaded an Islamic State fighter with his pocketknife on his first day of combat. He showed a photo on his phone of the militant's head. Qaraqosh, where some 40,000 people once lived, is now a ghost town. The main street is littered with debris and charred furniture, the shops burned and their windows shattered. Airstrikes flattened buildings. The town's walls and churches are scrawled with depictions of Islamic State's black-and-white flag--and now also with graffiti of the NPU. "It's from this direction that we are expecting attacks," said Capt. Nimroud Moma, who commands a company of some 90 NPU militiamen, pointing out at the open desert toward territory still contested by Islamic State. Militiamen positioned heavy machine guns on the balconies of abandoned homes. Capt. Tuwaya said he joined the militia because he wants Iraqi Christians to return to their ancestral lands. Two of his six children have left Iraq, and the other family members share a two-bedroom apartment in Erbil. "I am doing this first for Iraq, and second for Hamdaniya," he said. After family members fled Qaraqosh, their house was looted and Islamic State militants moved in. When Capt. Tuwaya returned for the first time, in November, he said almost everything was gone. But he found a portrait of the Virgin Mary under a sofa, brushed off the broken glass and hung it back on the wall.
BELGRADE - Serbia expects serious results from the Belt and Road Initiative, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said in a brief interview with Xinhua recently, explaining Serbia stands to benefit from Chinese investments by increasing its exports and GDP growth.

Dacic, also the deputy prime minister of Serbia, said that the country sees the Belt and Road Initiative as most significant, and wishes to have the best possible relations with China both through cooperation within the Initiative as well as bilaterally.

"This initiative of the People's Republic of China is maybe one of the most important ones in the whole world. It represents a result of deep consideration not only of Chinese political circles, but also scientific institutions," he said, adding that the cooperation includes areas of economy, infrastructure, communications, education, science, as well as cooperation between young generations.

"This, in a way, represents a global initiative approved and well received by a great number of countries including both EU members and countries that are not part of the EU, both EU candidate countries and those that are not candidates. I think that it is one serious initiative and that it will produce serious results in all areas," he said.

Dacic explained that the initiative is implemented in Serbia in two ways: through bilateral projects with China, as well as through the 16+1 mechanism of China and Central and East European countries.

He recalled that Serbia made agreements over several initiatives at the recent 16+1 summit in Riga. "Definitely, the most important agreement that has been arranged for past several years is the revitalization of the railway from Budapest to Belgrade, as well as its extension towards Thessaloniki and Athens, which is a way to connect with Chinese investments in Greece," Dacic said.

He added that there are great Chinese investments in other areas such as bridges, roads and energy facilities, mentioning the steel mill in Smederevo which was purchased this year by China's Hesteel.

"Certainly one of the most important is the investment of Chinese company into the steel mill in Smederevo which will definitely contribute to the increase of Serbia's export and GDP growth," Dacic explained.

He said Serbia and China are friendly countries and that the two sides agreed to establish a visa-free regime, which will, according to Dacic, most probably be put into force from Jan 1 after it gets ratified.

"We wish to have best possible bilateral relations with China in all areas, and I expect a lot from this global initiative as well as from our good bilateral relations," Dacic said.
If you have young kids, its important to find out whether or not they have been exposed to lead. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are approximately half a million U.S. children ages 1 to 5 with elevated blood lead levels.

Lead, a naturally occurring metal used in everything from construction materials to batteries, is toxic to everyone, but unborn babies and young children are at greatest risk for health problems from lead poisoning. Their smaller, growing bodies are still developing and absorb it more easily than adults.

Long-term exposure to lead can cause serious health problems in children, including decreased bone and muscle growth, behavior and learning problems, and damage to the kidneys. In pregnant women, lead is linked to miscarriages, premature birth, low birth weight and toxic effects on the developing fetal brain.

The good news is that you can protect your family from lead poisoning. Talk to your doctor about potential lead sources in your home, especially if you have children younger than 3 years old. The Cayuga County Healthy Neighborhoods Program is also a great resource in our community. The program offers resources to homeowners, renters and families who think their home might be a source of lead exposure. To learn more about this program, call (315) 252-4212.

It is also very important for kids to be tested for lead, as there are mandated programs in New York to ensure the safety of children. Amy Difabio, M.D. at East Hill Family Medicals pediatric office, agrees that all kids should be tested: I think its crucial for all children to be tested, as lead intoxication is a preventable disease in young children. At East Hill, we assess all children at their 1- and 2-year-old well visits for risk of lead exposure, as well as obtain a blood lead test on all children found to be at risk.

If a child does have an elevated lead level, follow-up testing is recommended. It is extremely important that parents take their child for the follow-up testing. East Hill Family Medical works closely with the Cayuga County Health Department to make sure their patients are receiving the correct follow-up testing and care. This includes educating parents on potential lead hazards as well as doing developmental assessments.

Protecting children from exposure to lead is important to lifelong good health. If you think your child has been in contact with lead, contact your childs health care provider. He or she can help you decide whether to test your childs blood to see if it has high levels of lead. East Hill Family Medicals pediatric office is also here to help. If you have any questions or concerns about lead poisoning and testing, call (315) 255-1171.
ELBRIDGE  At least two people were injured in a head-on vehicle collision Tuesday along an Elbridge road, according to New York State Police.

Emergency responders were dispatched at around 1:30 p.m. to the area of 1130 Whiting Road, located east of the village of Jordan near Sandbank Road.

Following a preliminary investigation, on-scene investigators said a Ford was traveling west along Whiting Road at a high rate of speed when it crossed over double-yellow lines into the path of an eastbound Nissan.

The crash occurred at a sharp curve in the roadway.

Troopers said the driver of the Ford suffered an arm injury, while the Nissan's operator was transported for evaluation. Investigators said both were taken to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, while a rear passenger in the Ford was taken to Community General Hospital with reported hip pain.

Both vehicles sustained visible front-end damage and were towed from the scene. Tire marks, scorched along parts of the road, were left in their wake.

An investigation is ongoing. Authorities have not yet determined whether any charges will be filed or if there was any indication of drugs or alcohol involved. The names of the involved individuals have not yet been released.

Along with state police stationed in Elbridge, responders included SAVES Ambulance and Jordan Ambulance as well as fire departments from Elbridge and Jordan.
December 5, 2016

BAGHDAD  The political crisis in Anbar province has reached its peak with the vote of Anbars provincial council on the dismissal of the councils head, Sabah Karhut, and the appointment Nov. 26 of Hamid al-Alwani as its new president.

After the election of the new president, the council reneged on its decision to sack Gov. Suhaib al-Rawi, as a result of political leverage and a decision by the Iraqi judiciary.

On Aug. 29, the council had dismissed Rawi, but he objected to this decision and did not relinquish his position until the court decided to revoke the dismissal decision Nov. 14. As a reaction to the courts decision, the council decided to freeze Rawis financial powers Nov. 15.

The councils decision to renege on the dismissal of Rawi cannot be seen as a decisive one, as the problems dimensions are complex. The council has been plagued by a great divide between the Reform bloc and the Islamic Party, of which Rawi is a member. The Islamic Party is supported by al-Hall (Solution) bloc, which is led by Jamal Karbouli and calls for the dissolution of the council. The Reform bloc includes 17 council members (out of 30) from two other blocs, the Loyalty to Anbar bloc and Al-Arabiya bloc, supported by Sheikh Abdul Latif al-Hamim, the head of the Sunni Waqf, and Sheikh Ahmad Abu Risha, the head of Iraqs Awakening Conference. The Reform bloc is seeking to dismiss Rawi.

The local elections that were scheduled to be held in April 2017 were the much anticipated solution to this complex issue. However, the three authorities  the president, prime minister and parliament speaker  agreed Nov. 11 to postpone the local council elections and hold them at the same time as the general parliamentary election in 2018. This has placed the different political parties in a position of ongoing struggle without any sign of a solution for the ongoing conflict in sight.

Hamed al-Mutlaq, a member of parliament for the Anbar governorate, told Al-Monitor, Anbar needs to hold the elections on the planned date despite the parliaments decision to postpone the elections across the country. We will submit this proposal to all political blocs.

He added, The elections are the best solution to end this dilemma and ensure a smooth and democratic change. The reason for the late return of the displaced and the start of the reconstruction process is due to the sharp political differences and the lack of trust among the different parties in the governorate.

On June 17, Iraqi forces announced the liberation of Fallujah, the Islamic State's (IS) most important stronghold in Anbar. However, the border town of al-Qaim remains in the clutches of IS, which the terrorist organization now calls the "Euphrates state." While the Iraqi forces headed to the north for the liberation of Mosul, IS militants undertook several terrorist attacks in Fallujah and other places in Anbar.

Most of the displaced families have not been able to return to Anbar because of the slow pace of the reconstruction and the reinstatement of public services.

Rajeh al-Isawi, a member of the Anbar local council, said that Sunni leaders and tribal sheikhs (whom he refused to name) are now in Turkey and Jordan, and are the reason behind the political stalemate causing a delayed return of the displaced, as they are seeking to get hold of power and the funds allocated for the reconstruction process.

Isawi told Al-Monitor via telephone, Freezing the financial powers of the governor is enough proof of some parties unwillingness to move forward on the path to bring back normal life to Anbar and the return of the displaced persons.

He added, Dissolving the council and holding early elections is the solution to the current political stalemate. However, the parliament turned down this proposal. Some of Anbars tribal sheikhs are seeking to hold a reconciliation conference in the governorate, but we do not expect all the parties to answer this call.

On Nov. 16, in a statement on the decision to freeze his financial powers, Rawi said, We call on everyone not to be dragged into the political conflicts, which brought nothing for our people but harm at the humanitarian, security and economic levels.

Rawi also renewed his call to the Anbar council to rise above personal differences and advance the best interest of the governorate and its people by joining hands to work for one single goal: Anbar.

In contrast, the Reform bloc in the council continues to insist on freezing Rawis powers and on the need to dismiss the Islamic Party and distance it from power.

Azzal al-Dulaimi, a member of the Reform bloc, told Al-Monitor, Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri stands firm with the decision to keep Rawi in his position as the governor of Anbar because they both belong to the Islamic Party.

Dulaimi said that his bloc believes that the Islamic Party has been the main reason behind the economic and security problems plaguing Anbar, therefore it refuses to have this party control all official positions in the governorate.

He added, The decision to freeze the powers of the governor is at the heart of the provincial council jurisdiction, which is the least of the measures that could be taken now until the holding of elections that would lead to the birth of a new local government."

According to all the parties that spoke to Al-Monitor, the Baghdad-based central government and the international donors are refusing to use the reconstruction funds in light of the ongoing political crisis.

In sum, the central authorities procrastination in finding a solution to the crisis and maintaining the status quo will further delay the return of the displaced and weaken the local governments ability to maintain security in the liberated areas.
December 5, 2016

Bahrain is hosting its 45th National Day bash at Donald Trump's new Washington, DC, hotel on Dec. 7, but the president-elect is the one who could get stuck with the hangover.

Trump spent much of the presidential campaign accusing his opponent Hillary Clinton of "pay-to-play" politics by accepting foreign government's donations to her family's foundation. Now Democrats are more than happy to turn the tables on Trump amid growing complaints that his eponymous business interests are creating massive conflicts of interest even before he's sworn in.

"The American people deserve a president and White House that will act solely in our countrys interests, not those of any foreign government or business. Your private commercial dealings with repressive governments endanger this fundamental expectation of the president and deeply trouble many who care about human rights, Rep. James McGovern, co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, wrote in a letter to Trump on Monday. I urge you to immediately and completely end your business dealings with the Bahraini and other foreign governments.

McGovern, D-Mass., has long been critical of Bahrain's crackdown on civil society and political opponents and was denied entry into the country two years ago. The country is ruled by a Sunni minority backed by Saudi Arabia and hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, restricting the US government's ability to press for reforms.

In his letter, McGovern goes on to request that Trump reject all business income from Bahrain and other foreign governments; release all commercial correspondence regarding the Dec. 7 event, including price negotiations and final contracts; and release all correspondence between Trump businesses and any foreign government since Trump announced his candidacy in January 2015.

Another frequent critic of Bahrain, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also accused Trump of endangering the White House's ability to conduct US policy in the nations interest. Bahrain says it is opening up its political system but must operate within constraints posed by the threat of Iran-backed terrorism.

"When its time for the president to decide whether to continue selling arms to a regime that brutally suppresses dissent, Americans need to know that decision is being made based on whats best for our nation, and not for his familys bank account," Wyden told Al-Monitor in an emailed statement. "This looks like the most egregious example to date of a foreign regime looking to score points with the next administration by spending money at the president-elects hotel. In my view, President-elect Trump should fully divest his holdings to ensure he doesnt have to choose between whats best for America and whats best for his bottom line."

Wyden has led the charge on Capitol Hill to restrict weapons transfers to Bahrain, along with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Rubio's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has said he would hand over his company to his children when he takes office. Critics insist he should put it in a blind trust or sell the company outright instead.

Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush administration, told Politico last week that the reception could violate laws banning presidential gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval. Trump's new hotel on the site of the historic Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue has drawn additional scrutiny because of concerns that the president-elect is in effect violating the terms of his lease from the federal government by becoming a top public official.

Adding to Trump's woes, Bahraini activists announced Dec. 5 their intention to picket the event outside Trump's hotel.

"By holding the event at the president-elects hotel, it paints a clear picture that Bahraini authorities are willing to use their money to silence any sort of calls for reform," the nonprofit Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain said in a statement Dec. 5. "This mixture of money and politics is dangerous, potentially illegal and further undermines US credibility in the international arena."
December 5, 2016

The possibility of normalization between Egypt and Israel resurfaces whenever any form of cooperation between both countries appears. One such example would be when the Israeli Embassy in Cairo recently posted on Facebook about its gratitude for the Egyptian government's help in extinguishing wildfires in November.

The United States once was considered the playmaker of Israeli-Egyptian normalization. But relations between Washington and Cairo chilled after the Egyptian army ousted then-President Mohammed Morsi, who is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, in July 2013. Though there had been mass demonstrations against Morsi, Washington was quick to point out that he was Egypt's first democratically elected president.

Obama's stance also did not sit well with Israel, which was worried about the Muslim Brotherhood because of its ties with Hamas. Adding to that, tensions increased between Washington and Tel Aviv after the US nuclear agreement with Iran in July 2015.

Perhaps the new administration will want to resume the US role in normalization. There are opportunities. But will any of the three players really see an advantage to such a process?

One of US President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, told Israeli financial newspaper The Marker on Nov. 10, Cooperation between Israel and Egypt is vital for the stability of [Egyptian] President Abdel Fattah al-Sisis regime.

Walid Phares, another Trump foreign policy adviser, announced in September, after Sisi met with Trump, that Trump wants to cooperate with Egypt in fighting terrorism and wants to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. Trump had also said in a March statement to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States, that he intended to cancel the Iranian nuclear deal. However, Phares later toned down those statements, saying Trump only wants to reconsider the deal rather than cancel it.

Israel didn't oppose the Brotherhood in power in Egypt, despite worries revealed by former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack's report to the Knesset in December 2011 about relations between the Brotherhood and Hamas. Israel did, however, show slight discomfort toward Obama's policy toward Egypt and his inferred support of the Brotherhood after Morsi was ousted in July 2013, and the United States halted military aid to Egypt soon after. Egyptian security forces had broken up August sit-ins held in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi.

However, Mounir Mahmoud, a researcher specializing in Israeli affairs at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor that Israel's worries were, and are, unfounded.

The Israeli concerns and even the rejection of Islamic currents, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are baseless. The Muslim Brotherhood's support in Egypt for Hamas in Gaza, despite all the struggles between Hamas and Israel, isn't enough reason for Israel to antagonize Islamic currents generally," Mahmoud said.

"In fact, Israel gained many benefits from the political rise of the Brotherhood with the support of Obama, and one of these benefits was reaching the first agreement with Hamas to stop hostilities in 2012 through the mediation of the Brotherhood and Morsi. I don't think that Israel will support Trump's rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood, he added.

The rise of political Islamic currents in the region actually had a positive effect on Israel on various levels.

First, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government, which ruled during most of the Arab Spring period in 2011, managed to increase the number of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land by 55%, according to an Arab League statement issued in February 2016. Meanwhile, the international community was preoccupied with the Arab Spring crises and the terrorism that has been largely linked to the rise of political Islamic currents, as is the case in Syria. The number of bills the United Nations Security Council proposed regarding the Palestinian cause declined in the wake of the Arab Spring to two, both of which were foiled by US vetoes in 2011 and 2014.

Second, amid the shaky situation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assads regime due to Islamist currents like the opposition factions or terrorist groups, Israel tightened its grip on the disputed Golan Heights in Syria and increased its ability to shell Hezbollah in Syria. Perhaps Israel, through its raids on the Syrian regime since 2013, might have leverage to pressure Assad's ally Russia to ease up on its condemnation of Israeli settlements.

Third, Russia and Egypt signed an armament agreement worth $3.5 billion in 2014  maybe as a show of Russian support for its ally Sisi against Islamist currents in Sinai, and against US pressure to halt military aid. Then, perhaps to maintain the military balance, the United States signed an agreement worth $38 billion in military aid to Israel in September 2016.

Israel was on the record last year as opposing the Iran nuclear deal, and Egypt was alleged by the Jerusalem Post to have the same attitude, according to statements made to the paper by congressional sources who visited Egypt. So, perhaps the odds of Israeli-Egyptian rapprochement are increasing  to hold Trump to his word?

Perhaps not. Each country's aversion to the deal may have lessened a bit. Part of Egypt's objection might have been due to its once-strong relations with Saudi Arabia, Iran's archenemy. Those relations have deteriorated since October, when Saudi Aramco stopped exporting petroleum to Egypt.

And Israel might not want the United States to cancel the Iranian nuclear deal completely.

Israel does not object to the nuclear deal per se," Mustafa el-Labbad, an expert on Iranian affairs and director of Al-Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor. "It rather does not want Iran to play an influential role in the region after sanctions are lifted as under the deal. The Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, do not want Iranian influence to spread either. I dont think Egypt would benefit if the deal was canceled, because the growing Iranian influence would push Gulf states to renew their ties with Egypt as a strategic ally.
December 5, 2016

CAIRO  The Egyptian parliament announced its final approval for a draft law regulating the activities of civil organizations in Egypt, amid criticism by representatives of civil society and rights organizations. These considered the law to be a new tool in the hands of the government to impose its total control over the works of these organizations and hinder their activities. Such a measure blatantly violates the Egyptian Constitution, according to which all citizens have the right to establish their own associations and to work freely away from the intervention of administrative bodies.

In a controversial and surprising move, the Egyptian House of Representatives announced Nov. 29 that it had consented to the draft law regulating the activities of civil associations and establishments. The bill was presented by member of parliament Abdel-Hadi al-Qasabi, the chairman of the parliaments Social Solidarity Committee and a member of the Support Egypt Coalition. Qasabi is known for his close ties to the government and for defending President Abdel Fattah al-Sisis policies. The bill has garnered the support of over 200 parliamentarians. For the first time since it was called into session in January, parliament is working to settle a law of this level of importance and with this degree of haste without involving either the government or representatives of civil society.

Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal said Nov. 14 that the law, which had been prepared in the Social Solidarity Committee, represented a positive development for this parliament, as it targets those areas that have remained thorny for a long time. In his view, it is all the more significant since there are internal and external pressures working to prevent the laws passage.

Members of parliament consider the law a tool to combat the chaos of civil society organizations and suspicious nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which in their view have exploited the events that have rocked Egypt since the January 25 Revolution. Many believe these groups seek to profit from and incite chaos by writing erroneous reports about the situation in Egypt. Some observers view the law as a new tool to exert complete and absolute control over civilian activist organizations, and hinder their work in a manner that violates the constitution and all the international agreements that Egypt has signed in relation to civil society activism.

In this context, on Dec. 1, NGO Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights asked all civil society organizations and citizens to sign a petition in protest to the law. The Maat campaign also called upon Sisi to use his constitutional powers to oppose the law and return it to parliament again, to open a real civil dialogue on the law before it is issued.

The text of the law consists of 89 articles and nine chapters and requires that all civil organizations fix their status in accordance with the law within one year, instead of six months under the former draft law, or else they will be dissolved.

Articles 70-72 are among the most controversial. These provide for the establishment of a national agency to regulate foreign NGOs in Egypt and monitor foreign funding of Egyptian civil society organizations. Its authorities would extend to cover everything pertaining to the establishment and operation of these organizations. That body would concern itself with agreeing to their operation; granting them licenses to operate; permitting them to send money, aid or donations with the goal of carrying out development projects; verifying that those funds were spent on their designated purposes; and taking any necessary actions in the event that those funds or foreign financing are spent for purposes other than that for which they were allocated. This agency will be composed of representatives from 10 other bodies, namely the Interior Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, Justice Ministry, International Assistance Ministry, General Intelligence, Administrative Oversight, Central Bank, Money-Laundering Unit, in addition to the Ministry of Social Solidarity, which is most concerned with these developments.

Article 87 of the law states that those found to have accepted funds from foreign bodies, raised donations in violation of the law or spent foreign funds for purposes other than originally specified shall be punished by imprisonment of 1-5 years, and a fine of no less than 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,782) and no more than 1 million Egyptian pounds ($55,651).

The same article prescribes the same punishment for anyone found to have participated in or assisted a foreign organization in engaging in civil activism in Egypt without obtaining a license from the agency, or from anyone found to have conducted or participated in conducting opinion polls in the field of civic activism without obtaining official consent from the agency beforehand.

Article 66 of the law warns against all workers in civil society organizations from seeking the assistance of foreigners  whether in the form of experts, or temporary or permanent staff members  without first obtaining a license from the agency in accordance with the procedures specified in the laws executive guidelines.

Hafez Abu Seada, the president of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), told Al-Monitor that the presence of 10 agencies to decide on foreign funding hinders the performance of civil society organizations, given that these agencies take a great deal of time to meet until they decide on donations or funding that Egyptian NGOs receive. He said, It is enough to have one or two agencies; we dont need all [10] of them.

He added, It is also interesting that this article [72] ignores the representation of civil organizations or their general unions. The government has the right to know the source of funding [for NGOs], but it doesnt have the right to halt the activity of civil society organizations. This article must be modified so that the organizations can do their part without being disadvantaged.

Gamal Eid, the director of the Arab Information Network for Human Rights, told Al-Monitor, This law is much worse than Law 84 of 2002, which we viewed as restricting freedoms. It is very unfortunate that the state is attempting to tighten the stranglehold on civil society organizations and fight them with every available tool. Now it is seeking to kill these organizations once and for all through this law.

Eid added, This law does not help entrench a culture of civic activism. It seeks to create offices subservient to the Ministry of Social Solidarity instead of [allowing civil] organizations to exercise their freedom and development role. Indeed, it has gotten to the point that this law prevents NGOs from conducting opinion polls of ordinary Egyptians. How can a state that thinks in this way possibly move forward?

Legal activist Negad el-Borai attacked the law on his Twitter account, writing Nov. 13, I swear to God that the law not only runs counter to the constitution, but counter to reason. The government would not dare to submit a proposal that kills civil organizations, and so it deputized the MPs in parliament to commit this crime [on their behalf].

In another tweet the same day, Borai wrote, The government imagines that foreigners cannot possibly know any information about the civil associations law until after it is issued, [as though it will come] as some sort of surprise to them.  You all are crazy.

Article 75 of the constitution gives Egyptian citizens the right to form civic associations or institutions on a democratic basis, with legal character upon incorporation. It allows them to operate freely, without any administrative body intervening in their affairs.

For his part, parliamentarian Alaa Abed, the chairman of the parliaments Human Rights Committee, said in statements to the press Nov. 10 that the law seeks to put in place controls on funding to civil society organizations that would prevent money from reaching suspicious organizations, which seek to undermine the Egyptian state. He stressed that this law distinguishes between associations that bring a public benefit and suspicious organizations that seek to destroy the country.
December 6, 2016

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems omnipotent, but few doubt that he is grooming Berat Albayrak as his successor. Foreign officials have described Albayrak to Al-Monitor as Turkeys most powerful man after Erdogan. Some go as far as to suggest that he is already de facto running the country. Those who want to glean more about Albayrak, Turkeys energy minister and Erdogan's son-in-law, can now sift through more than 57,000 emails supposedly associated with his personal email account that WikiLeaks released Dec. 6.

The missives, spanning the years 2000 to 2016, cast a rare light on Erdogan and his inner circle and their interactions with business, the government and the media. Some of the juiciest tidbits in Berats box are found in exchanges between Albayrak and his brother Serhat, who runs the pro-government Turkvuaz Medya conglomerate and is a board member of Calik Holding, a giant Turkish company with interests in energy, construction and telecoms, among other things.

In the emails, Serhat forwards his conversations with Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, US President-elect Donald Trumps business partner in Turkey. Yalcindag is the son-in-law of the Turkish media mogul Aydin Dogan and has close relations with Albayrak. He arranged the Nov. 9 telephone conversation between Trump and Erdogan after Trump's election victory.

The emails reveal that Yalcindag used his position to censor Dogan-affiliated journalists critical of the president. Yalcindag was forced to step down as CEO of Dogan Publishing after Albayraks emails were first leaked in September by RedHack, a Turkish hacktivist group. RedHack made good on its threat to make them public after the government spurned its demands to release several left-wing activists from detention.

The government swiftly blocked access to the emails, but not before some of the more controversial content hit social media, notably information purportedly linking Albayrak to the Turkish energy company Powertrans, with which Albayrak denies any association. The correspondence, if authentic, suggests that Albayrak had a say over Powertrans affairs. This, in turn, raises conflict of interest issues because of his personal connection to Erdogan.

Powertrans, which was granted a controversial monopoly to transport crude from Iraqi Kurdistan, has been accused of mixing in oil produced in neighboring Syria by the Islamic State. The oil from IS was allegedly trucked to Iraqi Kurdistan and added to local shipments being transported by Powertrans to Turkey. Energy sources in Iraqi Kurdistan who spoke to Al-Monitor on strict condition of anonymity, however, said that if any oil were being trucked from eastern Syria and mixed in, it would be from wells operated by the Syrian Kurds, not IS. Besides, much of Powertrans trucking business in Iraqi Kurdistan was farmed out to subcontractors. The claims against Powertrans have yet to be backed by firm evidence of any kind.

Of course, Turkeys loose monitoring of its 565-mile (909-kilometer) border with Syria did allow IS to move fighters, arms and oil through it for some time. Indeed, in September 2014, Al-Monitor columnist Fehim Tastekin documented the existence of an illicit pipeline carrying oil from Syria to Turkey. Turkish authorities have since destroyed the network.

Energy sales have served as a critical source of financing for IS terrorist and other activities. The trade took a big hit when Abu Sayyaf, the group's emir for oil and gas, was killed by US special operations forces in a daring raid on his headquarters in eastern Syria in May 2015. The tip-off about his whereabouts came from a teenage Yazidi girl he had enslaved but who managed to flee and make her way to Iraqi Kurdistan, where she was picked up by US special forces.

The Delta Force operation gave the United States access to a treasure trove of information about IS financial network. A senior Western official contacted soon after told Al-Monitor that although IS used some Turkish middlemen for its oil and other businesses, there was no proof that the Turkish government was either implicated or involved in any way.
December 5, 2016

Iranian hard-liners have piled pressure on President Hassan Rouhani's administration in recent weeks, especially on Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led Irans nuclear negotiating team. After the recent move by the US Congress to renew sanctions on Iran, one prominent Iranian extremist went so far as to call Zarif an American spy.

The US House of Representatives voted to renew the Iran Sanctions Act on Nov. 15, and the Senate approved a 10-year extension of the act on Dec. 1. President Barack Obama is expected to approve the measure. Iranian politicians and lawmakers have in past days argued that the extension of US sanctions violates the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In this vein, Rouhani, in a Dec. 4 address before the Iranian parliament, condemned the US renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act.

On Dec. 3, Hossein Allahkaram, the head of the coordination council of Ansar-e Hezbollah, a semi-official paramilitary organization, alluded to Irans foreign minister being a US spy. On his official Instagram page, Allahkaram wrote, Some believe that [Zarifs] exceptional ties with American intelligence entities are undeniable.  Reuters had reported that the phone numbers of American politicians and intelligence officials, such as [Vice President] Joe Biden and [former Secretary of Defense] Chuck Hagel, are saved in Zarifs cellphone, which [Zarif] hurriedly denied. Allahkarams post continued, Interestingly, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, in a secret meeting with a high-ranking [Iranian] official, said that according to our information, Zarif is an American agent.

Though the reasons for what happened next remain unclear  with some speculating that the Office of the Supreme Leader directly chastised Allahkaram  he subsequently did a U-turn and edited the Instagram post to remove the espionage allegation against Zarif and apologized for any misunderstanding [he] might have caused. Yet a screenshot of his original post was widely shared by Iranian social media users, especially on Twitter. One user tweeted, Is it not a crime to [falsely] accuse [the] FM? Mr. Prosecutor, you have again showed favoritism.

Allahkaram is known in Iran for extremism and controversy. In a reaction to his post about Zarif on Instagram, the conservative Sobh-e No daily introduced Allahkaram in a Dec. 4 article as one of the most active figures of Hezbollah, who, with his bunch, was called the pressure group or plainclothes by the Reformist administration [of former President Mohammad Khatami].

According to Sobh-e No, Reformists also accused Allahkaram of playing a role in the attack on Tehran University's student dormitory in 1999; the violent demonstration in front of Qods Cinema [in opposition to the screening of a controversial Iranian movie] in 1996; the incident of Khorramabad Airport being surrounded [by paramilitary forces to prevent Reformist figures from joining a conference in the western city of Khorramabad] in 2000; and many other political convulsions.

The Reformist Aftab-e Yazd daily also reacted to Allahkarams accusations against Zarif on the front page of its Dec. 4 edition. Under the headline To Kill Zarif, the article began: Apparently, these days  more than any other time  [Zarif] should listen and be tolerant; he should gentlemanly and pay no attention to accusations, to being named a traitor and, most recently, to being called a spy. However, he is used to all these swear words.

The daily compared Zarif to prominent figures in Iranian mythology, such as Arash Kamangir, and historic political figures, such as Amir Kabir and Mohammad Mossadegh, who are widely hailed for their efforts to fight foreign domination throughout Iran's history. Aftab-e Yazd added, Since the nuclear deal was reached, the worried ones [the hard-liners opposed to the JCPOA] have been waiting for a suitable excuse to attack Zarif.  What better excuse than the 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act? Now is the perfect moment to say that the Iranian national hero is an American spy.
December 5, 2016

On Nov. 29, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone conversation during which Rouhani noted that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran in fighting terrorism in Syria had a historic effect on regional stability. The conversation came a few days after the announcement that Tehran is considering the possibility of letting Moscow use its Hamadan Air Base, which could further boost cooperation between the two states.

Meanwhile, given the history, geopolitics and the current state of the relationship, Russia is particularly watchful of the forthcoming presidential election in Iran. The election may have significant implications for the Middle East and beyond. However, it wouldnt be an overestimation to argue that for Moscow, the 2017 Iranian election means a lot more than previous elections, as the foreign policies of the two countries are more congruent than in the past.

Forecasting election results in Iran at this stage is a difficult task for local experts, let alone Russian ones. What makes any forecasts particularly challenging is that in the absence of a formal party structure in Iran, virtually any independent candidate may come on the scene. Moreover, the division between the two outstanding political streams in Iran  those that crowd around the Combatant Clergy Association (Jame-ye Rouhaniyat-e Mobarez) and the Reformists represented by a number of political groups, such as the Association of Combatant Clergy (Majma-e Rouhaniyun-e Mobarez)  is blurred. The process of regrouping in Iranian politics began with the appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. Despite the fact that the former president was supported by the Combatant Clergy Association, he neither acknowledged the dominance of this group nor its leaders  high-ranking people in the Islamic Republic. Yet at the same time, his rebellious behavior was one of the main reasons of his success at the ballot box.

Even Rouhani, who is said to belong to the Combatant Clergy Association, competed for the presidency on the independent basis with the slogan Prudence and Hope.

Today, however, analysts  including those in Russia  are dealing with a more complicated political environment in Iran: Old political factions are barely offering a fresh agenda, and the need for a new discourse is desperately sensed.

Against this backdrop, Russian analysts are trying to foresee what the possible outcomes will mean for Moscows relationship with Tehran. There are two important issues to consider. First, Irans motivation to preserve a good relationship with Moscow is to a certain extent independent of the single variable (the president) and is tied to the structural variable (the political conditions of the regional and international scene). Second, the president of the Islamic Republic is not the only figure who can make strategic decisions about things like Russia-Iran cooperation in Syria.

The first aspect is believed to emanate from the historical experience of Iran, as its own security is directly affected by the regional environment. Thus, through the course of its history, Tehran attempted to create various coalitions to counter external threats. The recent cooperation with Russia in Syria reflects this trend. On the other hand, cooperation with Russia  a big military power with a veto vote at the UN Security Council  may be seen on all accounts as a wise and long-term strategy, as Russias recent foreign policy is emphatically independent from the West.

The second aspect is attributed to the decision-making processes in Irans politics. In military and security issues, especially those on transborder operations, the presidents opinion is more of a consultative one. The remarks of Deputy Speaker of Parliament Masoud Pezeshkian on Russias use of Hamedan Air Base is an example of such a power configuration. Pezeshkian denounced accusations about the parliament not having held a special session to discuss cooperation with Russia saying, Political and security matters of this kind are more related to the supreme leader and Security Council, rather than to the parliament. There is no way for such actions to be taken without rahbars [the supreme leaders] permission. So in all of this, experts can conclude that regardless of the outcome in May 2017, the general orientation of Tehran vis-a-vis cooperation with Moscow will be maintained.

Nevertheless, Irans acting government has its own share of influence on foreign policy, like Rouhanis administration favoring the rebuilding of the relationship with the West. Therefore, amidst abundant talk of Russia-Iran cooperation in security, other areas of cooperation are currently lacking substance. For instance, in 2009-2010 during Ahmadinejads presidency, the total trade balance between the two states was $1.216 billion, while in 2015-2016 under Rouhani the numbers decreased to $842 million. And although this drop is not the sole result of Rouhanis inclination toward the West, it had its impact. Most likely, both sides did not make enough effort to mitigate custom limitations to bilateral trade  even at the time when oil prices were high  as well as to ease financial interactions after 2012 (with regard to Irans disconnection from SWIFT, in particular).

Therefore, at this stage, different aspects of Tehrans relationship with Moscow should be considered.

First, it can be presumed that as long as Russia maintains its competitive relationship with the United States over influence in the Middle East, and as long as Moscow strives to provide better security to the region  as Tehran sees it  Iran will do its best to keep and empower this bilateral relationship.

Second, the rise to power of personalities from the principlist camp  independents such as Ezzatollah Zarghami, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, Ahmad Tavakoli or sympathizers of the Steadfast Front (Jebhe-ye Paydari) or YEKTA Front such as Kamran Bagheri-Lankarani, Parviz Fattah and Saeed Jalili  might benefit Russia, as the new administration would be leaning in the opposite direction of the government of prudence and hope. On the opposite side, the rise of the Reformists like Mohammad Reza Aref or moderates like Mohammad Javad Zarif are likely to tilt the balance toward the West.

The general feeling in Moscow is that any outcome of this election will most likely keep the relationship within the paradigm of what came to be known in the Russian school of Iranian studies as an alert partnership, unless the parties decide to take revolutionary measures to change the trend and turn it into a strategic one.

Vahid Hosseinzadeh contributed to this story from Moscow.
December 5, 2016

In an interview with the Iran-based news outlet Parsineh in April last year, an Iranian Baluchi woman relayed some of the perils of Irans current civil code. Born in poverty, she said that she was married off to an Afghan man at the age of 12. After fathering seven children, her spouse returned to Afghanistan, leaving her behind with their children  all of whom lack birth certificates. Fearing deportation, she is now staying in a remote mountain home with no running water or electricity.

Based on Irans civil code, the marriage of an Iranian woman to a foreign national is dependent upon special permission from the Foreign Ministry. In practice, this means that Iranian women need to get permission to marry non-Iranian Muslims. Iran's civil code forbids Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men. An estimated 70,000 marriages between Iranian women and Afghan men are not registered with the National Organization for Civil Registration. Meanwhile, Irans Interior Ministry has declared all marriages between Iranian women and Afghan men that took place after 2001 invalid.

In contrast, Iranian men may marry Muslim or non-Muslim women and Iranian or non-Iranian women without obtaining permission from the Foreign Ministry. Under Iranian law, children born to an Iranian father  whether residing in Iran or abroad  are considered Iranian. Meanwhile, children born to Iranian mothers are not granted automatic citizenship rights, creating a complicated situation for Iranian women who marry non-Iranian citizens. Statistics released in 2011 by the Tehran Governors Office of Foreign Nationality shows around 32,000 children in Iran do not have birth certificates because their fathers are not Iranian citizens.

Iranian women living abroad naturally may want to marry foreign men. But without permission to register the union, their marriages will not be accepted by Iranian law.

There are many women in Iran who are married to foreign nationals. For instance, many Afghan nationals have long lived in Iran and are married to Iranian women. Due to the complications in registering such marriages with the authorities, they have only religious certificates for their marriages. These unregistered marriages do not guarantee any rights to the Iranian wife and her children. They are not entitled to birth certificates and are therefore prevented from accessing many basic rights that the state is obliged to provide for its citizens.

On Sept. 24, 2006, the Iranian Parliament ratified a single-clause bill determining the citizenship of children of Iranian women married to foreign men. According to this bill, these children, if born in Iran, can obtain Iranian nationality after turning 18. On Aug. 2, 2011, some lawmakers proposed amendments to the bill to grant Iranian nationality to children born to Iranian mothers. The parliamentary Judiciary and Legal Commission, which was responsible for examining the proposed amendment, rejected it on the basis of security and political considerations. Nayereh Akhavan Bitaraf, a member of the commission, stated that the bill was rejected because of security concerns, explaining that children born to Iranian mothers and foreign fathers could, upon acquiring Iranian citizenship, be entitled to work in government agencies.

The amendment was finally debated in parliament on May 6, 2012, and it was decided that children born to Iranian mothers would obtain permanent residency in Iran and enjoy rights to education, health and social services. On May 16, 10 days later, head of the National Organization for Civil Registry Mohammad Nazemi Ardekani stated that children born to Iranian women and foreigners would receive birth certificates and the same treatment as children whose parents are both Iranian. This statement, however, is confusing, as the bill did not provide children born to Iranian women automatic Iranian nationality. It only granted them some social rights, including the right to education. The citizenship of children born to Iranian women married to foreign men was discussed once again in parliament last year, when lawmakers rejected the bill. Thus, the issue remains unresolved.

Since there is no religious basis for these legal provisions, it seems that the prohibition against marriage between an Iranian woman and a non-Iranian man is the result of a traditional perspective on women and their rights, intertwined with politics. The traditional understanding of marriage in the Iranian context positions men as the heads of families. This provision is codified in Irans civil code. By a broad interpretation, the domination of a foreign husband over his family may be seen as the domination of his government over Iranian authority. The Iranian government is not willing to provide equal rights for women in relation to nationality for political reasons.

Ali Younesi, the presidential adviser for religious and minority affairs, has correctly stated that Irans current nationality law is strict, old-fashioned and racist. The discriminatory law stands in stark contrast to the significant advances Iranian women have made in other spheres during the past three decades. As such, now is the time to revise this law. But as Younesi has said, Every time the revision of these rules are discussed, many fear and try to prevent any changes. It is important that the Interior Ministry and National Security Council find a solution to this problem."

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."

Given the wide-ranging implications of the current legal provisions, including the promotion of violence against women, amending these laws is an important first step toward solving a challenge thousands of Iranian women face on a daily basis.
December 6, 2016

Closed elections are being held right now for Hamas Shura Council. These elections will shape not only the future composition of the Shura Council, but also the movements overall leadership. Senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh is expected to be elected head of the movements political bureau  and in effect, leader of Hamas. Haniyeh left Gaza Sept. 5 with most of his family members to focus on Hamas fateful election campaign. This will be a new era following that of outgoing political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal.

In the past, the Shura Council was composed of dozens of religious leaders and imams, but over the years, other forces have entered the council. They include well-educated individuals and professionals from Gaza and the West Bank as well as top Palestinian lecturers from well-known universities around the world. These members keep their Shura Council affiliation a secret. The list of council members is confidential out of concern for the threat of Israeli assassination of Hamas officials. However, over time, their names have been occasionally leaked as the threat has declined.

From intelligence gathered over the years (for example, interrogations of Hamas prisoners in Israeli prisons), it is possible to assemble an almost complete profile of the Shura Council. It shows how the movement has changed over time, consistent with processes taking place within it. For example, when Hamas became a political movement, its leaderships center of gravity shifted. The composition of the Shura Council shifted from religious figures to members of the political wing.

In the elections currently underway, the makeup of the Shura Council is expected to radically change once again. A high-level source in the Gaza Strip told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that this time, the movements military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is more adamant than ever to be part of the council and participate in mapping out its future path. The desire of high-level military members to compete for a foothold in the council was inevitable. Ever since Hamas took control of Gaza and following the subsequent frequent armed conflicts with Israel, power has been concentrated in the military wing, where crucial decisions are made  sometimes over the heads of the political echelon and against resolutions of the Shura Council.

One of the most interesting phenomena in these elections is that Gazas youth revolution seems to have seeped into fundamentalist Hamas. Youths who completed their studies in Gazas Islamic University and were active in student associations view themselves as the next generation of Hamas leadership. They expect to inject new spirit into a movement that they feel has been stuck in a dead end under the recent years of Meshaals leadership.

Some members of Hamas younger generation belong to the movements military wing, while others play important roles in the movement's welfare organization. Many of them are tired of a stagnant leadership that offers no solutions for the coming years. As far as they are concerned, the election of Haniyeh to lead the movement represents a refreshing change, but it is not enough. They feel the revolution will not be complete until they, the youths, become part of Hamas new policy-making elite in the post-Meshaal era. The central question that troubles them is how long Hamas can rule the Gaza Strip under an ongoing closure and without hope for an end. They are also upset that the movements old guard is unwilling to grant them entrance to the decision-making hubs of power.

A high-level Fatah official in the Gaza Strip who views himself as sharing good relations with Hamas activists told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that in the past, the leadership turnover within Hamas had been very high in the era when Israel killed [Hamas leaders], mainly during the second intifada years." He said, "In that period, position-holders were frequently exchanged, allowing for new players to enter the ring. This was not only the result of the assassinations but also due to the emergency atmosphere that prevailed in Hamas at the time and required many workers in a broad variety of spheres. But those days have passed.

According to the same source, Hamas is presently stagnating. There are almost no recent changes in key positions in the movement. This situation created a bottleneck among members of the younger generation, movement activists aged 30-40 who want to advance and exert political influence over the way their movement will look in the coming years.

During preparations for the Shura Council elections, certain political deals within Hamas emerged. The deals between various Hamas factions were designed to allow new names to squeeze into Hamas closed, fossilized list of Shura Council members. The same source reported that Mushir al-Masri  one of the movements intermediate generation leaders and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council  has become the address for Hamas younger generation, which views him as the key to their success.

Over the years, Masri's outreach activities made him a well-liked man. According to the senior Palestinian source, Masri encourages youths who studied in the Islamic University to compete for a place on the council, even if their chances of being elected are small in the competition against the military-wing activists. Masris motto is that in order to achieve success, factions in the movement must organize themselves into lobbying groups.

At this stage, its impossible to know whether these efforts will bear fruit. No one outside the council knows for sure whether the elections are held under democratic, impartial and fair conditions, and no one knows what the members of the military wing are doing to consolidate their power and retain their positions. But one thing is clear: In the Shura Council elections, Hamas is likely to undergo a great shake-up.

Al-Monitor asked a Hamas activist in Gaza, What would members of the younger generation view as an achievement? He answered on condition of anonymity, When the leaders of the past know that they cannot continue to decide things on their own, that other people in the movement also have opinions and a say in the matter.

The election results will be revealed at the end of December. Then we will also know whether Haniyeh prefers to remain in Qatar or return to Gaza and live among his people and the youths who view his election as a harbinger of change.
December 6, 2016

The court-ordered evacuation of the illegal Amona outpost in the West Bank (scheduled for Dec. 25 at the latest), and the proposed outpost Regularization law, are wars of yesteryear  limited skirmishes that divert attention from a far greater and more important war. The new battleground was inaugurated at the height of the battle for Amona and the imbroglio over the controversial bill granting legal status to wildcat West Bank outposts.

Giant billboards displaying the portraits of late President Shimon Peres, late Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin, and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak have in recent weeks augured the impending clash. The clever campaign slogan says following in their footsteps. Next to the portrait of each leader is a citation advocating the annexation of the settlement town of Maale Adumim to Israel. For example, Sharon pledged that Maale Adumim will be built as part of the State of Israel for ever more. A petition, website, Facebook page, rally and especially pressure running across party lines have all been mobilized to promote a diplomatic measure the likes of which Israel has not undertaken since annexing the Golan Heights in 1981. The Knessets Land of Israel lobby, the settlement umbrella organization Yesha Council and the pro-settlement Regavim Movement have all joined forces with Benny Kashriel, the three-term mayor of Maale Adumim and a veteran Likud Party politico, in a bid to push through legislation at the Knessets winter session imposing Israeli sovereignty over the town.

At a rally in late October, Welfare and Social Services Minister Haim Katz, the chairman of the Likud Central Committee, pledged to do everything possible to ensure that Israeli sovereignty is applied in Maale Adumin. Knesset member David Bitan of the Likud, the chairman of the ruling coalition, announced, We will do it despite all the international problems and US pressure. We shouldnt be at all scared. Kashriel issued the following appeal to the government and its members: If almost 80% of the people of Israel [according to a survey conducted by pollsters Mano Geva and Mina Tzemach] call on you to impose sovereignty, you have to listen to them. There is no reason not to impose sovereignty and [not] to begin building.

But behind the call for Israeli sovereignty over the settlement on the edges of the Green Line  a move that in itself has massive explosive potential in the regional and international arena  is a hidden, lethal booby trap. It is known as the E1 zone, a West Bank area under the municipal jurisdiction of Maale Adumim, located adjacent to and northeast of East Jerusalem and to the west of Ma'ale Adumim. According to the towns website, the municipal jurisdiction was recently expanded westward toward Jerusalem and spans 48,000 dunams (11,861 acres), and this place already has a name: Mevaseret Adumim. The website reads, This area includes the E1 zone  the neighborhood of Mevaseret Adumim, destined for tourism development, the construction of a particularly high-end residential compound of 3,500 units, and a commercial and employment area.

According to those eager to implement the construction plan for Jews in the E1 zone, this move would create an urban continuum linking the settlement of Maale Adumim and Jerusalem. Still, the only way to achieve this territorial continuity is by annexing a strip of Palestinian villages, including Anata, A-Zaim and Azariya, separating the two cities. Be that as it may, construction in E1 would further exacerbate the severing of predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem from other parts of the West Bank, and disrupt the territorial contiguity between the southern and northern parts of the West Bank.

In addition, to carry out the building plans, Israels military authorities intend to expel the Bedouin communities living in the E1 zone. Such an expulsion would violate international humanitarian law  namely the Fourth Geneva Convention  that bans forcible removal of protected civilians, such as the residents of these communities. Forcible transfer is allowed only under exceptional circumstances, and even then, only temporarily. Whats more, the E1 area is dotted with privately owned Palestinian enclaves covering a total of some 775 dunams (191 acres). Israel cannot declare them state lands, and they are not included in official planning for the area. But the plan would nonetheless greatly curtail the Palestinians access to their lands.

Given the strategic importance of E1 for both sides, Israeli plans to build there are considered a unilateral determination of facts on the ground, generating international opposition that goes beyond the usual objections to any Israeli construction across the Green Line. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made clear that the encirclement of Jerusalem by Israeli construction in E1 and its cutoff from the northern part of the West Bank would put the kibosh on a diplomatic arrangement with Israel. Recent American presidents, Democratic and Republican alike, European leaders and UN secretaries-general have all understood that construction in E1 is a game changer in the Israeli-Arab arena. They have therefore drawn a line in the sand of the Mevaseret Adumim neighborhood that Israel must not cross.

According to media reports, already in 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised US President Barack Obama to avoid building in E1. (Netanyahu has denied the reports.) Now, Mevaseret Adumim awaits word from the next president, Donald Trump. In his first months in office, Trump appears likely to make two crucial decisions regarding Jerusalem. One is whether to sign the waiver preventing the transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thereby angering his right-wing backers, or to move the embassy to the Israeli capital and turn the Muslim world against him. The other is whether to stop Israel before it crosses the red line in Maale Adumim, thereby angering Republican casino mogul and Netanyahu backer Sheldon Adelson, or to look away and get rid of the festering Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

A poll conducted by the University of Maryland after the Nov. 8 US presidential elections indicates that the American public is sick of Israeli settlements. The poll, carried out under the supervision of professor Shibley Telhami, reveals a significant change in American views on the conflict and the settlements. Sixty percent of Democrats expressed support for economic sanctions against Israel or harsher measures against it. In November 2015, that group constituted 49% of respondents. Among Republicans, an increase was recorded from 26% to 31%. Overall, the percentage of those favoring sanctions against the settlements rose this year from 37% to 46%.

Assuming that the new administration will heed American public opinion, Netanyahu should start praying for someone to petition the Supreme Court against the Regularization law proposal legalizing West Bank outposts, and for the court to stop the settlers and their Knesset henchmen before they get to the red line in Maale Adumim.
December 5, 2016

One of the most popular words used to describe Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan these days is "dictator." That really doesn't come as much of a shock. What is surprising, though, is that Erdogan doesn't seem to mind. In fact, he seems to be embracing it as a title.

Use of the word didn't start off quietly.

Dictator Erdogan: Where does it all end? a headline blared Nov. 4 in German newspaper Bild.

Erdogan's response? "It goes in one ear and out the other." He doesn't care if the West calls him a dictator, and said he will not back off his controversial decisions, like arresting Kurdish politicians, because of international pressure.

On Nov. 16, Erdogan again made headlines, this time when one of his female senior advisers posted a petty, sexist and offensive tweet to a French journalist.

Your mama is a dictator," the public official told Jean-Paul Ney, who had dared use the word to describe Erdogan.

But Erdogan is smarter than the aggressive adviser and the troll army working on his behalf. On Nov. 22, speaking at the opening ceremony of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Erdogan again was the center of attention with the D-word. He said, The West rolls out a red carpet for tyrants, [yet] labels its critics dictators. So if the West calls someone a dictator, in my view that is a good thing.

The press was perplexed. Prominent columnist Levent Gultekin tweeted, He really lost it. It is a pity, a real pity. So [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] is a good person in [his] view? Several other people on a forum website ridiculed Erdogan's statement, saying it is not just the West who sees him as a dictator.

For almost a decade, domestic and international observers have been debating whether to call Erdogan a dictator and, if anyone should dare, what would be the most appropriate method of doing so without landing in jail or being deported from Turkey.

Now the dilemma has been answered, as Erdogan, intriguingly, accepts the title. On Nov. 25, he lashed out against the European Parliaments recommendation to freeze European Union talks with Turkey. Facing a cheering crowd and referring to himself in third person, he said, There is an Erdogan you refer to as a dictator. This Erdogan is a dictator against such a mentality [of excluding Turkey from the EU]. But against those who are sincere, he is generous and merciful.

Erdogan has a habit of repeating himself frequently and developing his views further as he speaks about the same theme to different audiences within the same day or week. In his speeches after mid-November, another common theme was US President-elect Donald Trump. Erdogan complained that the West was calling Trump a dictator and Europeans were refusing to accept the results of the election. He repeatedly asked, Are you not Democrats? Then respect the ballot box. Those who would not accept the vote must be fake Democrats, he concluded. The international press picked up on Erdogans efforts to defend Trump.

Considering Erdogan once suggested removing Trumps name from the high-rise towers in Istanbul  to counter Trump's threats during his presidential campaign of starting a Muslim registry and banning Muslims from entering the United States  this newfound affection for Trump is noteworthy. However, we need to see that Erdogan is just trying to shield himself from harsh and valid criticisms of his implacable efforts to consolidate power. Turkey is now seen as being in the last stage of sliding into a dictatorship, with Erdogan and his men removing one obstacle at a time in their path.

Timur Kuran, an economics and political science professor at Duke University, told Al-Monitor, Many of Erdogans supporters admire him for the strength he projects. When he bullies rivals, demeans them and questions their patriotism, he pleases these supporters, who see the aggression as evidence that he is fighting for the masses. They infer that he will not accept unreasonable foreign demands or easily fall under the control of dark internal forces."

He added, "Erdogan thus draws power from the very trait that accounts substantially for the success of Trump, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, [Philippines President Rodrigo] Duterte and various other popular politicians with an authoritarian streak. Each of these leaders projects power precisely because he is able to displease powerful rivals and still remain standing.

Those calling Erdogan a dictator include Westernized Turks, Gulenists, Americans, EU leaders and the liberal global media  all groups viewed as very powerful.

"By saying, 'If the West calls me a dictator, that is good,' Erdogan is signaling that he would rather have these groups call him names than bend to their will," Kuran said. "A weak leaders response would be to take steps meant to please these groups; for instance, to make a point of releasing jailed journalists or relaxing restrictions on [nongovernmental organizations]. A strong leader, he is saying, does not back down even when powerful rivals and enemies try to scare him into backing down."

Kerem Efe Sozeri, an analyst who researches the media, emphasized there is a strong correlation between increasing populist rhetoric and a country's deepening isolation.

This kind of populism pumps the ego of the people by demeaning usually local elites; however, after 14 years of AKP [Justice and Development Party] rule, there are no more elites to blame in the country, so the best way out is to hold on to rhetoric like Trumps anti-establishment [talk] and blame the West, Sozeri told Al-Monitor.

Sozeri does not view this method as a way of bragging. He added, Erdogan is a dictator by international standards. Instead of changing his ways, he criticizes these standards. It is a step toward warming up to the dictatorship. Sozeri is right, as crowds in different settings throughout November have been cheering Erdogans newfound dictatorship rhetoric.

Are the crowds happy with a dictatorship, then? How did Erdogan not only come to accept the term but also find a way to get the masses to cheer him into the position? Kuran provides valuable insights to these questions.

Over the past year, Erdogans surrogates have repeatedly blamed many of Turkeys problems on weak and divided leadership. Centralizing power in the hands of a single leader with vision, they have been saying, will prevent mistakes in governance," he said.

He added, "By reminding Turks with increasing frequency that Turkeys internal and external enemies consider him a dictator, he draws attention to a simple fact: that Erdogans favored new political regime is a fait accompli. It thus signals to anyone who might think of opposing him that he already commands formidable powers. Vast numbers of Turks are consumed by fears of persecution. Making them believe that opposition would be futile turns the claim that Erdogan is establishing a dictatorship into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Erdogan has taken a leap from if I were a dictator to I am a dictator and if the West calls one a dictator, it is good. We can expect him to oscillate between those two approaches in the coming months, as crowds in Turkey keep cheering him on.
December 5, 2016

The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favor of freezing Turkeys European Union accession talks, citing numerous examples of Ankaras disproportionate and repressive measures under the state of emergency.

Specifically, the group noted Turkey's breaches of basic rights and freedoms, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and the media, the arrest of 10 Kurdish lawmakers and some 150 journalists, President Recep Tayyip Erdogans stance in favor of reinstating the death penalty and statements disputing the Treaty of Lausanne, which defines the borders of modern Turkey and has contributed to safeguarding peace and stability in the region for almost a century.

No doubt, those are all realistic observations. The question now is: How will the resolution bear on EU-Turkey relations and what will the consequences be?

The Nov. 24 resolution is not a binding one, but rather a recommendation to EU leaders, who are scheduled to meet Dec. 15-16 in Brussels. The summit is not expected to result in a decision to suspend Turkeys accession talks, yet how exactly the vote will impact the balance remains unclear. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has warned Ankara against underestimating the vote because, although not binding, It will produce effects in the capitals of EU states.

The Turkish government, however, has not only played down the resolution, but adopted a defiant stance, making the issue a tool in domestic politics. Shortly after the vote, Minister of EU Affairs Omer Celik called the resolution null and void, while Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said it had no importance for Ankara. Then Erdogan stepped in, drawing a bargaining link with the refugee deal that Turkey had struck with the EU in March. If you go any further, the border gates will be opened, Erdogan said, threatening to unleash a new wave of refugees on Europe. Given Europes need for Turkish cooperation to curb the influx of refugees, the threat is not groundless. Yet the EU has certain principles and balances, which means that interest-based bargaining could be possible only for a certain period of time and under certain conditions.

European Parliament resolutions are important because they reflect prevailing political sentiments in Europe and even serve as a harbinger of the course of events. Thus, the Nov. 24 vote carries symbolic significance in terms of EU principles, values and ties with Turkey. The vote is important for Turkey, no matter how much Turkish leaders try to ignore it. And in the context of Turkish democracy, its importance is not only symbolic but very much tangible and even alarming. Why?

Twelve years have passed since December 2004, when the European Parliament convened in an exactly opposite climate with an exactly opposite sentiment to approve overwhelmingly a resolution urging the start of accession talks with Turkey without undue delay. Much of those 12 years saw a Turkey devoted to reform. The EU played a crucial role in the countrys democratic, economic and political progress until the 2010-2011 period.

In terms of democracy, the EU provided Ankara with tailwinds for constitutional and legal amendments, a relative demilitarization process, the expansion of basic rights and religious, cultural and political freedoms, and efforts to seek a political settlement to the Kurdish question. Ankaras adoption and application of the EUs Copenhagen criteria meant a parallel course of remarkable democratization.

In terms of economy, the membership talks became a major stability factor and growth booster for the Turkish economy. In the words of prominent Turkish economist Seyfettin Gursel, Starting in 2005, foreign direct investments increased five of six times, exceeding $15 billion.  Lets note that 75% of foreign investments came from Europe. This is a huge boon for an economy with a big savings deficit and therefore an external deficit, because it contributes to financing the external deficit without increasing the external debt, supports investment and provides technology transfer.

He continued, "Moreover, as the negotiations advanced and the Turkish legal system aligned with European legal norms, the process [was] seen as the guarantee of a democratic system and a functioning market economy. It was thanks to this guarantee that local banks and companies were able to easily borrow from the international market thus far.

In political terms, the EU precipitated a big political split within Turkeys Islamic tradition. Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party moved away from narratives and policies that were unwelcoming to the West and portrayed the EU as a Christian club. Though this course stemmed from identity and existential needs, it activated a drive to reconcile religious, national and local values with universal ones. As a result, Turkey won for some time the title of a model country demonstrating that Islam and democracy could coexist. This was a trend that blocked radical Islamist movements and had a special significance for both Europe and the Muslim world, beyond Turkey. The EU-Turkey relationship nurtured anticipation, prospects or dreams of building a bridge between West and East, between the Christian and Muslim civilizations, especially the Middle Eastern countries in Turkeys neighborhood.

No doubt, the collapse of this dream and the severe damage inflicted on the sole bridge of hope was not caused only by Erdogans authoritarian shift. The violence waves, security-centered policies and introversion trend have stemmed from various sources from West to East. Still, Turkey holds one major individual responsibility, which is its shift away from both the EU and its norms and Turkeys own endeavor to synthesize Western and Eastern values.

That Turkey has entered a course of regress from the gains it had made with the EU is plain as day. The toll of what is already lost and will be lost in the future includes democratic, economic and political gains alike.

And here lies the two-pronged significance of the European Parliaments vote. The resolution represents a critical threshold in the rupture in Turkey-EU ties, which has been debated for some time. Apart from recommending the suspension of membership talks, the resolutions impact in the EU and Turkey seems bound to further erode Turkeys weakening bonds with democratic values and a market economy. This is already evidenced by Ankaras serious breaches of basic rights and freedoms, a trend toward a single-party state, foreign capital flights from Turkey, the free fall of the Turkish lira and inclinations toward economic introversion. The bells seem to be tolling for Turkey.
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.
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The Birmingham Candy Co. crew at Pepper Place Farmers Market. Photo by Kelsey Freeman.

Photos by Kelsey Freeman

This story appears in Birmingham magazine's December 2016 issue. Subscribe today!

In August of 2015, Wayne and Cassie Bolden moved back to Birmingham from Savannah, Georgia. Less than two months later, they debuted The Birmingham Candy Co. at Pepper Place Farmer's Market. Since then, the business has only continued to gain steam--the results of which have culminated in a holiday pop-up shop at The Summit, and with any luck, a brick and mortar store opening within the next year. We caught up with the couple behind the candy to see what they have cooking for the coming months.

Birmingham Magazine: Tell us a little about how you got the business started.

Wayne Bolden: The business got started based on our wedding. Cassie and I both met in Savannah, where I was working for a candy company at the time. We decided that for our wedding in Birmingham, we were going to do a candy table. I cooked everything for it and had plenty of backup candy on reserve. After the ceremony, we scuttled away to eat our dinner, and when we came back to the reception, all the candy was all gone. Everyone was raving about it and said, "There's nothing like this in Birmingham; y'all need to move here and get this going." Give or take three years later, we finally had certain pieces fall into place, and we said it's either now or never. Let's do this. Let's give it a shot.

BM: What has the reception for your business been like in the past year?

Cassie Bolden: It's been unbelievable. There are other candy companies, but there's nobody that holds onto the craft of how chocolate works and stays true to traditions. It's just been such a warm welcome. People love that the company is local and that they get to know us and meet us because we're at every event that we do.

WB: We officially started the business in October of last year at Pepper Place Farmers Market, and by the time November hit, I had to ask my wife to leave her job. We started getting inundated with corporate orders and businesses that were so much in need of our services.

BM: What challenges have you faced in running your business and how did you overcome them?

CB: One of the most challenging things that we ran into this past year was dealing with the summer heat. We planned all these events at summer farmers' markets, and we get out there for our first one and everything starts melting. We had to shift gears on what we could do to still make sales. I envisioned doing s'mores, so I embraced the heat and decided we were going to make marshmallows from scratch and create the entire experience. What we do now at farmers' markets is we take our marshmallows and we torch them in front of you, then drizzle sauce on them and slap it all between graham crackers. That was something cool that came out of something really challenging and hard.

BM: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs in town?

WB: Don't be scared. Take the leap of faith. Don't wonder "What if?"

CB: That's why we started this business. We didn't want to live our lives wondering what if we would have started that candy company.

BM: How do you work together to keep the company successful?

WB: We have a motto that we go by, and it's to stay in our lanes. I tell people quite often, "My taste is in my mouth," and that's why I stick with the candy making. Everything else that looks good is due to Cassie and her background in design.

CB: I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design, so having that creative background, I kind of have the marketing and brand development experience.

BM: So what's next for the Candy Company?

CB: We've been honored this year to be one of four temporary pop-up stores connected with the Summit's Santa's Workshop holiday experience. This is the first time they're partnering with local businesses so we'll be there in a location near Sur La Table and Sak's.

WB: We also want to do a brick and mortar, but we want it be an institution for the city of Birmingham. We're proud to call ourselves The Birmingham Candy Co. and we want to be a good representation of Birmingham and something that friends, families, loved ones, visitors, everyone can come to and say they got a little piece of Birmingham. Our toughest decision right now is deciding where we want that brick and mortar.

CB: We want the brick and mortar to have the candy-making experience. We want to cook in front of you and let you taste a fresh sample. We want it to be very interactive and different. We want it to have a small town feel.

Details

Candy is available for purchase online at birminghamcandyco.com, as well as at area events and farmers' markets. They will have a pop-up store on the lower level of the Summit open every day from Black Friday until Christmas Eve from 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Keep up with The Birmingham Candy Co. on Instagram @birminghamcandy and on Facebook at facebook.com/birminghamcandy.
Johnny Montgomery, CEO of Southland Tube

Johnny Montgomery, CEO of Southland Tube, stands in one of the mills where the steel tubes are manufactured, Wednesday December 7,2011. (File/The Birmingham News/Tamika Moore)

(TAMIKA MOORE)

Charlotte-based steelmaker Nucor (NYSE: NUE) has agreed to buy Birmingham's Southland Tube for $130 million, the companies announced Tuesday.

Southland Tube was founded in Birmingham in 1987 and acquired by the Montgomery family in 1995. It makes and sells tubular products used mostly in the construction industry.

The Birmingham facility employs about 280 non-union workers and produces 240,000 tons annually. According to Nucor, Southland Tube has the third largest market share in hollow structural section tubing.

"The acquisition of Southland Tube is an excellent fit for our Nucor family and our strategy for profitable growth," John Ferriola, Chairman, CEO and President of Nucor, said in a statement.

Nucor Steel already has a presence in Alabama. It has a steel manufacturing facility in Decatur that employs more than 700 people as well as a facility in Tuscaloosa.

AL.com will update this developing story.
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Chris Rock returns to Birmingham on March 24, 2017, for a performance at the BJCC Concert Hall. The comedian made his last appearance here in 2003, at the same venue. (Chris Rock Facebook photo)

Chris Rock has announced nearly 30 dates for his "Total Blackout" tour in 2017, including a show in Birmingham. The comedian and actor is set to perform on March 24 at 8 p.m. at the BJCC Concert Hall, 2100 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. North.

Tickets are $47.50-$123, on sale Friday, Dec. 9, at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster. A round of presales starts on Wednesday at 10 a.m. and runs through Thursday at 10 p.m.

Other Southern cities on Rock's tour include Durham, N.C. (Feb. 14); Richmond, Va. (March 5); New Orleans (March 25); Cherokee, N.C. (May 25); and Atlanta (May 26). Right now, Birmingham is the only Alabama stop on his schedule.

Rock, 51, mentioned the new tour in a Dec. 5 video on his Facebook page, filmed outside The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. In the clip, he touted "Total Blackout" as his first tour in nine years.

Rock made his last appearance in Birmingham in November 2003, also at the BJCC Concert Hall. At the time, he was traveling on a "Black Ambition" tour, offering material pruned and polished in nightclubs across the country, including the Comedy Club Stardome in Hoover.

Rock did four shows at the Stardome earlier that year, during a two-night engagement in August. The dates were quickly scheduled, quietly announced and immediately sold out. During a 2003 phone interview with The Birmingham News, the comedian said it was easy to tell if his new jokes would be keepers.

"Either they're laughing or they're not," Rock said. "You know right away if it's good or bad."

Rock, a native of South Carolina, first earned fame as a stand-up comedian, appearing at influential clubs such as Catch a Rising Star in New York City. He was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live," 1990-1993, and appeared on TV series such as "In Living Color," "Martin" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

Rock hosted his own late-night talk show on HBO, "The Chris Rock Show," 1997-2000, and appeared on several comedy specials. He's also forged a thriving movie career, starring in films such as "I Think I Love My Wife," "Top Five," "Down to Earth," "2 Days in New York," "Bad Company" and "Head of State."

Rock has won several awards over the years, including three Grammys for best comedy album, two Emmys and a couple of Kids Choice Awards. He's also a two-time host for the Academy Awards ceremony, helming the TV broadcast in 2005 and 2016.

The Oscars were rocked by controversy this year, over a lack of racial diversity in the nominees. Rock addressed the topic in his opening monologue.
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Carlos Izcaray is the new conductor of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. (Courtesy)

By Brooke Fleming and James Kling, founders of Birmingham Creative Roundtable

As creative professionals in the city of Birmingham, we share a passion to create and a struggle to sustain. This is why we formed Birmingham Creative Roundtable, as a community support network for creatives in our city. It is our goal to fan the flames that burn within the hundreds of people that have attended our meetings and push individuals and small creative companies toward sustainable success. We do this by holding our meetings in inspiring spaces in downtown Birmingham and enlisting speakers who are experts in their field and pass along best practices for success along with words of encouragement to keep pursing our dreams.

Over the past four years of organizing Birmingham Creative Roundtable, our December meetings have always been our favorites, and this year is no exception. Join us for "Birmingham and the Music Road." Carlos Izcaray, acclaimed music director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, will join us as our speaker. He will share the story of his journey to Birmingham and talk about why music education is a great passion of his.

Praised by the international press, Carlos won top prizes at the 2007 Aspen Music Festival and later at the 2008 Toscanini International Conducting Competition. Since then he has appeared with numerous ensembles across five continents and is now firmly established as one of the leading conductors of his generation.

A strong believer of supporting the younger generations, Carlos has worked extensively with the world's top talents and leading music institutions, including his native Venezuela's own El Sistema. Building on his passion for music education, he recently became the music director of the American Youth Symphony.

A distinguished instrumentalist himself, Izcaray has featured as concert soloist and chamber musician worldwide, and served as principal cello and artistic president of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra prior to dedicating his career fully to the podium.

Carlos was born into a family of several artistic generations in Caracas. At age 3 he was enrolled in Venezuela's public system of youth orchestras, continuing at the Emil Friedman Conservatory, where he was a boy chorister as well as an instrumentalist. He studied conducting with his father since he was a teenager, and went on to become a distinguished fellow at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen. Izcaray is an alumnus of the Interlochen Arts Academy, New World School of the Arts and Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. He is a dual citizen of Spain and Venezuela, and lives in Homewood with his wife Yolanda Serafimov and their three young children.

Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to hear from Maestro Carlos. We will have thought-provoking roundtable discussion about why the symphony is important in Birmingham's community. Plus, there will be some extra-special surprises, like a short history lesson on the Thomas Jefferson Tower and a performance by a local string quartet.

Birmingham Creative Roundtable's October meeting will take place Thursday at the Thomas Jefferson Tower. The event begins at 7:30 a.m. and includes coffee from Seeds and pastries from The Baking Bandits. The free event is also sponsored by Shipt. RSVP on Facebook or by emailing bhamcreativeroundtable@gmail.com.
The founder of one of Alabama's most unique businesses is being mourned this weekend.

Doyle Owens, who founded Scottsboro's Unclaimed Baggage Center, died Saturday at the age of 85.

Owens was a part-time insurance salesman in Scottsboro in 1970 when he started the business along with his wife Mollie Sue. The son of a general store merchant, he used a $300 loan and a pick-up truck he borrowed. They sold their first unclaimed luggage purchase on card tables in a rented house.

The inspiration for the business came because Owens had a friend working at a bus line in Washington, D.C.. The friend asked Owens if he wanted to buy lost luggage from buses. He drove to Washington to pick up the luggage and the business began. Mollie Sue opened, sorted and priced the items, then arranged them for display.

Four years later airline luggage was added. Since then, the store has expanded to car rental companies, commuter trains and covers a city block. It attracts almost 1 million visitors to Scottsboro each year.

Owens was known for his persistence. In a 2015 reminiscence written by his son Bryan, Bryan remembered that Owens asked Mollie Sue to marry him nine times before she finally said yes.

The family will receive visitors Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Scottsboro Funeral Home. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. at Calvary Baptist Church in Scottsboro, with burial at Cedar Hill Cemetery, located near the corner of W. Willow Street and Lost Luggage Lane.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Samaritan's Purse. Written condolences for the family can be sent to: The Owens Family, care of Unclaimed Baggage Center, 509 W. Willow Street, Scottsboro, Alabama 35768.
A fire caused significant damage to the administration building at Union Springs Academy on Saturday, rendering the structure uninhabitable as authorities investigate further.

Crews were dispatched at 1:42 p.m. Saturday to the Union Springs Academy campus, at 40 Spring St. The academy is a Seventh-day Adventist boarding high school.

Union Springs Fire Chief Garret Waldron said Sunday that first responders reported black smoke pouring from the administration building, which has classrooms, offices and the gym. The structure, he said, was reportedly last occupied the night before, with the nearest dormitory roughly 150 feet away.

Union Springs Academy staff met Sunday to discuss a plan to continue school in the wake of the blaze, according to a post Saturday night on the academy's Facebook page.

Forty-eight students are enrolled at Union Springs Academy. Principal Jere Clayburn said Monday that classes have been relocated to the on-campus Seventh-day Adventist Church as staff works to assess the damage.

Clayburn said he expects any structural rehabilitation to take months. However, he said the students and staff are in high spirits.

"We're moving forward and making the best of a challenging situation," he said.

He described the structure as heavily damaged by smoke. The power has been shut off at the building, the academy's hub for landline phone and internet access. Staff is working to set up internet at the church, said Jeremy Garlock, superintendent of schools for the New York Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Students and staff are unable to retrieve any supplies they left in the building, including books and teaching materials. In the meantime, Clayburn said academy staff picked up some supplies from Staples on Sunday.

Further, Clayburn said the Union Springs Central School District has also reached out and offered support. Union Springs Superintendent Jarrett Powers could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.

"The show of support that we've been getting with our community, even though they've had nothing to do with the Seventh-day Adventist Church up to this point, has been very, very encouraging," Clayburn said.

Waldron said the fire started in a foyer of the building and spread to the ceiling, causing extensive heat and smoke damage throughout the structure. The chief said crews later spotted a secondary fire at 4:17 p.m. in a part of the ceiling. Firefighters did not clear the scene until around 9:30 p.m.

No injuries were reported. An investigation into the cause of the blaze is ongoing, but Waldron said it currently looks unintentional. He said Cayuga County fire investigators are using video surveillance footage from the academy.

"A section of the building is going to have to be redone or torn down to make it habitable again," Waldron said.

Fire damages building at Union Springs Academy Firefighting crews from multiple departments were called back to the scene of a fire on the 

Structural factors and some village water infrastructure issues challenged firefighters. A nativity scene set up in the foyer  a "large" setup, Waldron described, with hay and straw bales  fueled the fire. Further, the fire chief said the building's construction, with concrete block walls and steel roofing, trapped a lot of heat inside the building.

Waldron said firefighters were a little hampered after finding that two of the three closest fire hydrants were inadequate. He said one had a reduced flow while the other could not provide water at all.

Crews found another hydrant roughly 300 feet away, and Waldron said the additional setup time did not factor into the extent of the damage.

"We had a good water supply to start and were trying to establish a secondary water supply, which is when we found out about the two hydrants," he said. "We had a good hydrant on the initial attack."

Responding fire departments included Aurelius, Aurora, Cayuga, Fleming stations 1 and 2, Poplar Ridge and Scipio.
HIT: To the Cayuga County Deputy Sheriff's Benevolent Association, for its Shop With A Cop program that gives less fortunate area children a chance to buy some Christmas gifts.

For the fourth year, uniformed officers took kids on a shopping spree at the Auburn Wal-Mart on Saturday.

So many organizations and volunteers come together to make this special event happen, and the smiles on the faces of the participating children provide all the thanks that's needed.

Deputy Brian Myers put it well when he spoke about the program on Saturday: "There's really no greater gift than a happy kid at the holidays."

MISS: To a tragic fire in Elbridge.

Family: Man injured in Elbridge house fire dies ELBRIDGE  The man pulled unconscious from a burning Elbridge home on Thursday has died, his

A 43-year-old man, Scott Dombroski, who was trying to save the many animals inside the home where MaxMan Reptile Rescue operates, died in the hospital a day after he was removed unconscious from the burning structure.

Anyone who has been to a few community events in central New York over the years has probably encountered Diana Sleiertin and her reptiles doing an educational presentation. In recent years, Dombroski, her husband, was an integral part of her rescue operation. Our condolences go out to her and her family dealing with unimaginable loss.

HIT: To the members of Quilters of the Finger Lakes, who have provided unique hand-made quilts for more than 200 veterans.

The group's Quilts of Valor program stopped Saturday at Scipio Baptist Church to present these gifts of thanks to about a dozen area veterans.

MISS: To a fire that significantly damaged the main building on the campus of Union Springs Academy.

The Seventh Day Adventist boarding school is trying to move forward after the Saturday blaze in the facility that houses classrooms, offices and the gymnasium. Classes resumed in the church on Monday, and school leaders are figuring out how they will rebuild.

As devastating as this was, the school community is also grateful that no one was hurt and that so many local residents and alumni from around the country are providing support.
Bangalore, India  On November 8, as the world waited anxiously to find out whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States, in India, a radical economic decision was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The decision: that 500 ($7.30) and 1,000 ($14.60) rupee notes  about 86 percent of Indias currency in circulation  would no longer be considered legal tender. The move would come into effect less than four hours after Modis announcement.

It has been described by Lawrence Summers, the former US treasury secretary, writing in the Financial Times, as the most sweeping change in currency policy that has occurred anywhere in the world in decades.

The rationale for the decision, the government explained, was a war against unaccounted cash, known as black money.

The ban would counter anti-national and anti-social elements, Modi said, and combat the widespread use of counterfeit currency and illicit income.

[These] will become mere pieces of paper, Modi said.

To reimburse those with the now-useless currency, Modi announced a period of 50 days, in which the old notes could be exchanged for new 500 rupee and 2,000 rupee ($29) ones.





He framed the policy in terms of a national spirit of sacrifice. Coming soon after Diwali, Hinduisms most important festival, the process of demonetisation was described as a new festival of honesty.

For a few days, Modi said, we can all bear some inconvenience.

Initially hailed as a masterstroke by many in Indias upper and middle classes, it seemed that Modi, who campaigned in 2014 on an agenda of economic transformation, was finally delivering on his promise.

It has proved to be anything but, however, as it quickly became clear that the policy was poorly thought out and its execution chaotic.

At the time of the announcement, only a fraction of the replacement notes had been printed. Moreover, the new notes were smaller in size than the old currency, which meant that the approximately 220,000 cash machines across the country would have to be modified. As of Thursday, December 1 about 90 percent of the machines had been recalibrated, but many are running empty, according to the Hindu newspaper. Banks were ordered to end over-the-counter exchanges from November 25, with people now expected to deposit their banned notes by the end of this month.

There are concerns, too, about the logic of a denomination like the new 2,000 rupee bill, given that the high-value notes were seen to be fostering corruption.

WATCH: Indian farmers hit hard by demonetisation

Cash crunch

The ramifications of the policy on the ground have been reflected in scenes of chaos, with Indians queuing for hours outside banks and cash machines.

As consumer spending has fallen, usually bustling markets in Indias cities and towns have worn a deserted look.

Indias vast informal economy, almost entirely dependent on cash, has been the worst hit, putting the marginalised and economically vulnerable  farmers, daily-wage labourers, street vendors  at risk.

As a severe cash crunch took root, many of these people at the bottom of the economic ladder were skipping meals and falling into debt. Small and medium-sized businesses are also struggling.

Mohammed Iqbal, 30, who runs a mobile accessories shop in Bangalores City Market, said his revenue had shrunk by as much as 80 percent.

I used to make 4,000-4,500 [rupees] a day, he said. Since the note ban, Im struggling to make even 700.

As his sales sank, Iqbal found himself unable to pay wholesalers. Two weekends ago, short of supplies and dogged by a lack of customers, Iqbal shut his shop for two days, queuing for hours outside his bank and neighbourhood cash machine in an attempt to restore some liquidity to his business.

How could Modi do this without proper planning? he asked. I am worried about my rent and the school fees for my three children. How will we survive without cash?

The long queues outside banks posed a dilemma for Iqbal  whether to spend time in his shop or queuing.

Its a lose-lose situation, he said.

The has also been a cost in human lives. More than 50 deaths linked to demonetisation have been reported. Elderly people have died of exhaustion waiting to withdraw cash. Bank employees have collapsed from overwork.

There have been stampedes outside banks and cash machines, resulting in at least one death, that of a 65-year-old man in Uttar Pradesh.

Indias Supreme Court two weeks ago expressed concern and warned of riots if the situation didnt improve.

K Nataraju, 56, a fruit vendor in KR Market in Bangalore, used to make 500 rupees a day selling watermelons, oranges and sweet lime. After Modis announcement, his sales have fallen to an average of 100 rupees ($1.45) a day. Like the overwhelming majority of poor Indians, Nataraju has no bank account.

Despite the hardship, he remains supportive of Modis move.

Black money will come out, he said. Rents will come down, things will become cheaper for us.

Ajay Kumar, 43, a marketing professional, speaking on November 20, had been in a bank queue for more than two hours. It was the third time he had done so in the past week, Kumar said, but he was full of praise for the Indian prime minister

Modi has shown he is a strong leader, he said. Sometimes we should be ready for a little pain for the larger national good.

Prabhat Gowda, a taxi driver, said his income had fallen by more than 60 percent. He drives a cab for Ola, a rival service to Uber. I was earning 4,000 rupees a day, he said. After the move, my income has come down to 1,500. In India, mobile taxi services still conduct a substantial chunk of business in cash.

Demonetisation had caused stress in Gowdas life in a very personal way. On November 15, a week after the announcement, his daughter had fallen seriously ill. When he took her to the hospital, the cashiers refused to accept the old notes as payment for her treatment. (Though hospitals had been exempted from the demonetisation ban until November 24, and ordered to accept old notes, there have been widespread reports of private hospitals openly flouting the ban).

Gowda eventually had to ask for help from a neighbour, who allowed him to use his credit card to pay for the treatment. It was all the more humiliating, he said, because I had the money for my daughters treatment. Before doing this, Modi didnt think of the poor, the old and our children.

In a strong editorial, the Economist said Modis perceived need for secrecy (to take cash-hoarders by surprise) fed into the innate sense he has of his own infallibility and his misplaced faith in his technocratic skills.

Kaushik Basu, a former chief economist at the World Bank, said in an op-ed in the New York Times that demonetisation was likely to cause the economy to nosedive. Demonetization may have been well-intentioned, but it was a major mistake, Basu wrote. The government should reverse it.

Assessing the impact of demonetisation four weeks later, TN Ninan, the editor of the Business Standard, wrote that Modis move at this stage looks like a bad idea, badly executed on the basis of some half-baked notions.
A revolutionary Marxist guerrilla group created by farmers, the FARC, evolved to become the largest guerrilla group in South America.

Following 52 years of conflict involving various armed groups, right-wing paramilitaries, government forces, drug cartels and leftist guerrillas, the country was left with more than 200,000 people dead, 27,000 kidnapped, and six million displaced from their homes.

More than 30,000 remain disappeared from the last war in the Americas.

On September 26, Colombia President and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize Juan Manuel Santos signed a peace treaty with the top FARC commander after four years of negotiations in Havana, Cuba.

The pact was signed in the presence of UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon as well as top leaders of the world.

Against all odds and opinion polls, the treaty was rejected in a referendum in October following an intense campaign by opposition parties and led by former President Alvaro Uribe.

FARC convened a national vigil for peace on October 30, a unique occasion that allowed civilian and religious groups to enter its camps and open a dialogue.

A revised peace deal was finally validated through Congress on November 30.
Yuen Chan is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Journalism at City, University of London.

On December 11, Ill be going to the polling station. I wont be voting for a district councillor or a representative in Hong Kongs mini-parliament. Nor will I be voting for the citys top leader, the chief executive.

The election for that post will be held next year. Instead, Ill be voting for 30 people who will sit on a 1,200 member Election Committee that will elect the chief executive in March.

It sounds complicated and arcane, and it is.

A Beijing-dominated Election Committee

Many had hoped the process would be simpler by now, that Hong Kong people would be able to elect their leader in a direct election, as had been promised.

But after the failure of 2014s Occupy Movement (also known as the Umbrella Movement) to secure any concessions from Beijing, the citys pro-democracy lawmakers rejected a fake universal suffrage plan that would have seen candidates pre-screened by Chinese leaders. They reasoned that accepting Chinas plan would be to legitimise a rigged election.

The rejection means that nearly 20 years after Britain transferred sovereignty of Hong Kong to China, it will still be up to a committee supposedly broadly representative of Hong Kong society to pick Hong Kongs leader. Since 2012, 1,200 members have been drawn from 38 sub-sectors, covering areas such as business and commerce, industries, the professions, religion, labour, social sectors and politics.





In reality, the proportion of seats allocated to pro-establishment business, industrial and trade sub-sectors give Beijing the upper-hand.

Many voters in these sub-sectors are corporate electors rather than individuals. For instance, the finance sub-sector has 122 registered voters and 18 seats, whereas the education sub-sector has 80,643 registered voters who will return 30 seats.

Beijing can also influence the Election Committee members drawn from the ranks of Hong Kong representatives to Chinas national parliament and top advisory body. 300 candidates from the pro-establishment sectors will be returned unopposed.

Democracy supporters have always expressed lukewarm interest in what they call a small-circle election. But this year has seen a sea-change and a record number of 364 pro-democracy candidates are vying for seats.

The sub-sectors where pro-democracy candidates do well are in the professions, with larger individual voter electoral bases. In 2011, they fielded 212 candidates and won 173 seats. This year, theyre hoping to win at least 300 in sectors such as accounting, law, medicine, social work, architecture, education and IT.

Do whatever you can

With the cards stacked heavily in Beijings favour, this seems futile. They would still be unable to elect a pro-democracy candidate, as the winner needs to get more than half of the maximum 1,200 votes. So why are so many pro-democracy groups mobilising for this election?

One reason may be the post-Umbrella Movement factor. The civil disobedience of the Occupy Movement street protests was a response to the failure of 30 years of democratic struggle through the ballot box, conventional, peaceful demonstrations and negotiations to achieve universal suffrage. Protesters felt they had to try non-traditional methods, outside of the established rules and institutions.

OPINION: Oathgate will hurt Hong Kong democracy

Ironically, after the movement failed to achieve its goal, participants turned their sights on those same established institutions, leading to increased numbers of pro-democracy candidates and high voter turnout rates for post-Umbrella Movement elections in 2015 and earlier this year.

Sociology professor Chan Kin-man, who co-initiated the Occupy Central campaign that led to the Umbrella Movement, and who is standing for election in the Higher Education sub-sector, described this to me as an extension of the spirit of the movement.

Most candidates reject the idea that a pro-democracy bloc could act as a 'kingmaker', but some hope they can form a critical minority. by

That spirit was that you should do whatever you can, wherever you can. So, even if we cant turn the overall [political] situation around right now, we can still fight smaller battles, said Chan. The subsector election is really like a series of mini-referendums in each sector where people are asked do you support democracy? Do you support [incumbent Chief Executive] CY Leung?'

In a conversation with me, political scientist Ma Ngok predicted that the pro-democracy forces will do well. He pointed out many progressive small professional groups formed after the Umbrella Movement, made up of people who were fed-up with being represented by traditional conservative factions in their sectors.

In the past two years, Hong Kong seems close to breaking point. Everyone is very dissatisfied, its not limited to young people, but also the middle-aged and the professionals, said Ma. Theres no universal suffrage, so people ask what can we do? Should we try to crack the system?'

Blocking Leungs re-election

Another factor uniting a large number of pro-democracy candidates is their desire to prevent the highly unpopular incumbent Leung Chun-ying (also known as CY Leung) from seeking and getting a second term. Leung is a polarising figure who took a hard line stance against the Occupy Movements calls for democracy and recently initiated moves to disqualify lawmakers who made political statements in taking their oaths of office.





Most candidates reject the idea that a pro-democracy bloc could act as a kingmaker, but some hope they can form a critical minority. Francis Fong, who is a member of the IT Vision ticket contesting the 30 IT sub-sector seats, is one of them.

Its not so much about being a critical minority who can actually decide who wins, but helping to create a momentum that can create change in the early stage of the process, that can influence who gets to run in the first place, Fong told me.

Fong is referring to the fact that, at this stage in the run-up to the 2012 chief executive election, the hopefuls had all declared their candidacies

This time, with the election little over three months away, Beijing does not appear to have given either Leung or his possible rival and Financial Secretary John Tsang the green light to run. Commentators like Ma believe Chinese leaders are waiting to see what the results of the sub-sector elections will be.

Francis Fong hopes a good showing for pro-democracy candidates will pave the way for a less hardline and combative candidate to have a shot at the top job, even though he doesnt have any illusions that such a leader would be either willing or able to stand up to Beijing under the current system.

Right now, society cant function. We want to prevent further deterioration, to start healing. Thats the bottom line, he said.

Yuen Chan is Senior Lecturer at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Ambiguity surrounds the Russian intervention with the 2016 US elections and the measures taken to prevent it.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is a professor at Harvard and author of The Future of Power.

In early November, US President Barack Obama reportedly contacted Russian President Vladimir Putin personally to warn against cyberattacks aimed at the American presidential election.

The previous month, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, publicly accused Russias most senior officials of using cyberattacks to interfere with the US election process.

In the aftermath of the November 8 election, no firm evidence has emerged that hacking interfered with voting machines or other electoral equipment. But in an election that turned on 100,000 votes in three key states, some observers argue that Russian cyber-interference in the political process may have had a significant impact.

Can such Russian behaviour be deterred in the future? Deterrence always depends on who and what one is trying to deter.

Blurred lines in cyber-warfare

Ironically, deterring states from using force may be easier than deterring them from actions that do not rise to that level.

The threat of a surprise attack such as a cyber Pearl Harbor has probably been exaggerated. Critical infrastructures such as electricity or communications systems are vulnerable, but major state actors are likely to be constrained by interdependence.

And the United States has made clear that deterrence is not limited to cyber-retaliation  though that is possible  but can target other sectors with any tools it chooses, ranging from naming-and-shaming and economic sanctions to nuclear weapons.

The US and others, including Russia, have agreed that the laws of armed conflict apply in cyberspace. Whether a cyber-operation is treated as an armed attack depends on its consequences, rather than on the instruments used. It would have to result in destruction of property or injury or death to individuals.

But what about deterring operations that are not equivalent to an armed attack? There are grey areas in which important targets, say, a free political process, are not strategically vital in the same way as the electrical grid or the financial system. Destroying the latter two could damage lives and property; interference with the former threatens deeply held political values.

In 2015, a United Nations group of government experts (including representatives from the US, Russia, China, and most states with significant cyber-capabilities) agreed to a norm of not targeting civilian facilities in peacetime. This agreement was endorsed by the G20 countries at their summit in Turkey in November 2015.

The Obama administration had previously made efforts to rank the seriousness of cyber attacks, but without sorting out the ambiguities of these grey areas. by

When an anonymous cyberattack interfered with the Ukrainian electric grid the following month, some analysts suspected the Russian government of using cyber-weapons in its continuing hybrid warfare against Ukraine. If true, it would mean that Russia had violated the agreement it had just signed.

But how should one interpret Russian behaviour in regard to the American election? According to US officials, Russian intelligence agencies hacked into the email accounts of important Democratic Party officials and provided the materials to WikiLeaks to dribble out over the course of the campaign, thereby ensuring a continuous stream of news stories that were unfavourable to Hillary Clinton.

This alleged Russian disruption of the Democratic presidential campaign fell into a grey area that could be interpreted as a propaganda response to Clintons 2010 proclamation of a freedom agenda for the internet or retaliation for what Russian officials saw as her critical comments about Putins election in 2012.

Whatever the motive, it looked like an effort to skew the US political process  precisely the type of non-lethal, political threat that one would want to deter in the future.

Russian hacks v US electoral integrity

The Obama administration had previously made efforts to rank the seriousness of cyberattacks, but without sorting out the ambiguities of these grey areas.

In 2016, Obama faced difficult choices in estimating the escalatory potential of responding with cyber-measures or with a cross-sector response such as sanctions.

The administration did not want to take steps that might themselves disrupt the election. So, eight days before the vote, the US sent Russia a warning about election meddling over a hotline  created three years earlier to deal with major cyber-incidents  that connects the Nuclear Risk Reduction centres in both countries.

Because Russian hacking activity seemed to slow or halt, the Obama administration cited the warning as a successful exercise in deterrence. But some critics say the Russians had already achieved their main goals.

Three weeks after the election, the administration said that it remained confident in the overall integrity of Americas electoral infrastructure, and that the election was free and fair from a cyber-security perspective.

But intelligence officials continued to investigate the impact of a broader Russian information warfare campaign, in which fake stories about Clinton appeared intended to influence voters.

OPINION: Will Putin expend Snowden for Trump?

Many of the false reports originated from RT News and Sputnik, two state-funded Russian outlets. Should this be treated as traditional propaganda or something new?

A number of critics believe that the level of official Russian state involvement in the 2016 US election process crossed a line and should not be dismissed as a form of tolerable grey-area behaviour.

These critics have urged the Obama administration to go further in naming and shaming, by providing a fuller public description of what US intelligence knows about Russias behaviour, and by imposing financial and travel sanctions against high-level Russian officials who are identified.

Other US officials, however, are reluctant to jeopardise the intelligence means used for attribution, and are wary of escalation.

Russias involvement in the 2016 US election was a watershed. With important elections coming in a number of western democracies, analysts will be watching closely to see what lessons the Kremlin draws from it.

Joseph S Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defence, is a professor at Harvard University and the author of Is the American Century Over?

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.

Copyright: Project Syndicate 2016  The Kremlin and the US Election
Specific to the Executives Speech humiliating to Daimler Trucks and Buses (China) Ltd., on midnight 22 November, Daimler issued a statement and announced removing the Executive in China from office and apologizing to the public and society.

According to data, In 2015, the accumulative total operating income of Daimler reached 149.5 billion Euros, edit rose 25% to 13.5 billion Euros, net profit even breakthrough 8.9 billion Euros, with 12% profit growth. Compared with pre-tax profit and net profit in 2010, 2015 almost double.

As the Daimler has opened the money-making pattern, business in China also growing vigorously, it triggers social intense attention because of humiliating to China by Rainer Gartner, the President and chief executive of Daimler.

Industry insiders reveal that for the foreign executives, going to work in China is a plum assignment. They can get not only high salary but also high performance possibility. But a lot of joint venture feel an unusually strong sense of entitlement, they get rich profit, at the same time, their technical ability is abate and enterprise discipline is lax.

The performance rose up while also the temper

Currently,the business of China of Daimler mainly includes two parts: one is sales of vehicle in import way by Daimler Trucks and Buses (China) Ltd; another is the localized production and sales of the vehicle and engine through the joint venture company, Fukuda Daimler.

This year the market of heavy truck in China tends to be stable, from January to September, the accumulative total sales of Fukuda heavy truck (including Oman and other brands) are 55900 units, 4% more than last year., Industry insiders say that due to the events of humiliating China by Daimler may to have a negative impact on Fukuda heavy truck, future sales may be slow.

In fact, as one of the world's largest truck market, China's economy is moving from infrastructure investment to consumption, China's market demand is also from construction vehicles to the long-distance transportation vehicles, these changes also led to the increase in the number of vehicle teams in China. For Daimler, it certainly hope there is a steady rise in the Chinese market, making greater profits in market outside Europe.

On the one hand, it declared the extreme importance to the Chinese market, on the one hand, it made evil abusive attack. The parties concerned said they are unlikely to say Such discrimination against Chinese people if they do not have Deep prejudice against Chinese. it is hard to imagine a leader who has so deep discrimination against Chinese people and malicious how to work for the Benz China automotive business conscientiously, and it is easy to remind us of the previous news that the Mercedes Benz uses toxic asphalt damping piece.

Executives who humiliates to China was removed

Shortly after the incident, Daimler immediately issued a statement and expressed regrets to the private disputes, explaining that any personal remarks of employees do not on behalf of the company's position. However industry generally believes that Rainer Gartner works in China for business means that his words and deeds not only on behalf of the individual, also on behalf of the company. Daimler must bear corresponding responsibility for words and deeds of their employee in overseas. Rainer Gartners speech humiliating to China, not only hurt the feelings of Chinese people, but also damage Daimler companys image.

May be under the Public pressure, Daimler released the second statement in that evening, in which Daimler said the recent incident reported by a media of a company members completely belongs to individual events. Relevant departments has finished inquiries of this event and at the request of the parties, it has been settled privately through consultation.

The employees behavior in the incident contrary to the values "equality, respect" of Daimler. We are very sorry to cause a great deal of attention and controversy. We would like to express our sincere apologies to the public and society.

The reporter understands that since the 1980s, China has been making cooperation with international mainstream car company and introducing foreign technology, building joint ventures, hoping to get technology with market. Now the market has been saturate , China has also developed a large number of high level talents, but dominance of technology is still in the hands of the foreign party. In order to embody the principle of reciprocity, the foreign party often work with China to take up the post of top executives, if China as the first, then foreign party as the second, next year switch, including general manager and the subordinate departments head.

At the same time, because China has become the world's largest car market, so many foreign executives of a joint venture has got further promotion after exercising in the Chinese market.

Industry insiders reveal that for the foreign executives, going to work in China is a plum assignment they can get not only high salary but also high performance possibility. But a lot of joint venture feel an unusually strong sense of entitlement, they get rich profit, at the same time, their technical ability is abate and enterprise discipline is lax.

In fact, most of multinational companies set up a "zero tolerance" policy currently to the behavior of making abusive to other countries in the personnel use. These people says Daimler should take notice and make corresponding policy as soon as possible, otherwise, in the development of overseas markets such as China, it is likely to to have a negative impact on enterprise development, leading to the overseas markets alienation and distrust of Daimler group and its brands and products.
Donald Trumps exchange with Taiwans leader broke with nearly four decades of the one China policy.

J Berkshire Miller is the director of the Council on International Policy.

Last week, the US President-elect Donald Trump accepted a phone call from Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen and discussed common economic and security interests with Taipei. The phone call also offered Tsai an opportunity to congratulate Trump on his surprising election victory last month over Democratic favourite Hillary Clinton.

Normally such a call would be benign, but due to the delicate role Taiwan plays in relations between China and the United States, the call has raised alarm bells on the clarity and caution by which Trump will conduct his relations with the worlds second biggest economy.

Having a direct exchange with the Taiwanese leader broke with the one-China policy to which the US has adhered for nearly four decades. Acceptance of this policy over the years has been bipartisan and not breached even during the low points in Washingtons ties with Beijing.

China regards Taiwan as part of its inherent territory and has always been tough on attempts by either Taipei or the international community to legitimatise its status as independent.

Washingtons relationship with Taipei is most sensitive due to its security guarantees and support for Taiwan  enshrined in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

Beijing has responded to Trumps move with concern but also caution, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi directing the blame towards Taiwan by describing the phone call as a petty trick by Tsai.

Beijing also directed solemn representations to US diplomatic officials  a reminder of Taiwans integral part of the grand bargain of the one-China policy, and US-China relations more broadly.

Trump has looked to shift the attention towards Taipei  stressing that the exchange originated from Taiwan. This is a dangerous move as it provides an opening and justification for Beijing to turn the screws harder on the Tsai government.

Shaking-up the old policies

Cross-strait ties were already floundering after Tsais election back in January, through which her Democratic Progressive Party, with a large pro-independence support base, was catapulted into power, curbing decades of political control by the nationalist Kuomintang party.

Tsais ability to secure an exchange with the next US president is thus a blessing and a curse, as it draws Washington closer on the one hand but opens the gates to more potential conflict with the Chinese mainland.

In typical Trump fashion, the president-elect is unapologetic and resents criticism from Beijing and the US foreign policy elite.

Trump was less vociferous during the pre-election period on China's destabilising activities in East Asia, causing consternation among most of Beijing's neighbours. by

Indeed, Trump publicly lambasted Beijing for daring to criticise his conversation with Taipei: Did China ask us [the 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 doesnt tax them) or build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I dont think so!

Why would Trump look to break away from decades of established US policy? The approach to Taiwan is an example that further clouds how Trump might govern US interests in Asia.

OPINION: The new Taiwan crisis

Indeed, he and his advisers may be looking to shake up China policy and derail the attitude Beijing has adopted, especially over the past eight years, that it can essentially have carte-blanche on regional security matters with little real interference from Washington.

That said, it is important not to overstate any shifts. Trumps exchange with Tsai may be an example of diplomatic naivety and his shoot-from-the-hip style, rather than any calculated plan to upend decades of US-China policy.

Indeed, this is not the first puzzling diplomatic gaffe Trump has made since being elected  as demonstrated by his bizarre phone call with Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. However, words matter in international affairs and Trump  and his successors  will have to carry this incident, and it consequences, into his administration.

China wants predictability

Shortly after Trumps surprise election last month, China was scrambling to understand how the new administration would orient its foreign policy and, most importantly, how it would approach US-China relations.

Trump, the campaigner, frequently castigated Beijing for its unfair trade practices and promised to tighten the vice by labelling it a currency manipulator and imposing tariffs of Chinese imports.

On the other hand, Trump was less vociferous during the pre-election period about Chinas destabilising activities  especially in the maritime domain  in East Asia, causing consternation among most of Beijings neighbours.

REPORTERS NOTEBOOK: Trumps Taiwan call opens questions about his Asia agenda

Moreover, Beijing was no fan of Hillary Clinton and appeared to celebrate her stunning defeat with high hopes for Trumps unique brand of fusing populism at home with isolationist tendencies abroad.

China also eagerly watched the election campaign as Trump slammed the importance of long-standing US alliances with Asian allies  including Japan and South Korea  and described the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, a key plank of Obamas Asia policy, as a disaster.

This mini-honeymoon has now come to an abrupt halt and China is realising that sometimes predictability, even if you dont like its trappings, is easier to navigate in its relations with Washington.

J Berkshire Miller is the director of the Council on International Policy and is a fellow on East Asia for the EastWest Institute.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
German leader seeks her partys support ahead of election, promising tougher refugee policy and calling for a veil ban.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a public ban on the full-face veil as her political party gears up to back her for a fourth term in office.

The suggested policy won Merkel overwhelming applause on Tuesday from about 1,000 delegates ahead of her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) party conference vote, which is expected to return her for the ninth time as its chief.

She said the Muslim full-face veil was not compatible with German culture.

Here we say show your face. So full veiling is not appropriate here. It should be prohibited wherever legally possible, she told the crowd to cheers.

A year ago, the CDU rejected such a ban.

READ MORE: German minister proposes partial veil ban

The party has already begun drawing up plans for banning the full veil in areas such as courts, police checks, and while driving vehicles.

Merkel also told delegates that last years influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees would not happen again.

A situation like that [in] the summer of 2015 can and should not be repeated, Merkel said at the two-day conference in the western industrial city of Essen. This was and remains our declared political goal.

She told the conference refugees had found protection in Germany against war, persecution, and lack of perspective in their troubled homelands. But she also said not every refugee can stay.

Merkels promises come a month after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and at a time when Europe is reeling from a surge in far-right populism and Britains vote to leave the European Union.





Delegates celebrated the chancellors one-and-half hour speech with an 11-minute standing ovation.

AfD challenge

The CDUs moves to forge a stricter approach to refugees at its conference comes in the wake of a string of state election successes by the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).

In particular, the AfD has siphoned votes from the CDU after capitalising on anger in parts of the German electorate over Merkels liberal refugee policy.

Polls show nevertheless that her CDU is the clear frontrunner in the general election, expected in September 2017.

The AfD is currently polling at about 12 percent nationally.

Merkels government has attempted to address public fears surrounding last years record influx of nearly 1.1 million refugees and migrants, mostly from predominantly Muslim countries.

Merkel, who has led Germany for 11 years, last month confirmed she would run for a fourth term but acknowledged the election would be more difficult than any other she has contested.
Al Jazeera journalist refused entry into Manama despite having submitted required paperwork on time.

Doha, Qatar  Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) has been blocked from covering the 37th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Manama by Bahraini authorities.

Al Jazeera journalist Jamal Elshayyal was refused entry at Bahrain International Airport on Tuesday even though AJMN had followed all necessary procedures and submitted all requested documents to the relevant authorities on time.

We applied for accreditation well before the deadline, submitting the names and passports as requested, Elshayyal said in Qatars capital, Doha, after his return.

I flew out to Manama this morning and upon reaching the immigration counter, I filled out the required form specifying I was a journalist and I was there to cover the summit.

I was asked to sit on the side by the immigration officer who later informed me the Ministry of Information said Al Jazeera was not allowed to cover the event and I was rejected entry.

Bahrains information ministry did not immediately return repeated calls and emails seeking comment.

Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said he did not have details on the incident but noted the Gulf kingdoms track record on press freedom.

Bahrain has jailed journalists, repeatedly cracked down on local and international coverage of protests, and banned international journalists from covering human rights abuses in the kingdom, Mansour told Al Jazeera.

Manama previously blocked Al Jazeeras reporters from covering the 30th GCC summit, without providing convincing reasons. by AJMN statement

It was not the first time Bahraini authorities have prevented Al Jazeera from reporting on events in the country.

Manama previously blocked Al Jazeeras reporters from covering the 30th GCC summit, without providing convincing reasons, AJMN said in a statement released on Tuesday.

The network had prepared for special, comprehensive coverage of this important event, it added.

No official reason has been received from Bahraini officials on why AJMN was refused entry.

Al Jazeera condemns this measure, which is a deviation from the normal media protocols of host countries, and affirms that it will continue to cover news and events in Bahrain regardless of this ban, the statement said.

The two-day summit in Bahrains capital is hosting Arab and Gulf leaders who are discussing regional and international issues, including the wars in Yemen and Syria.

This years summit is also being attended by British Prime Minister Theresa May, on her first visit to the region.
Manuel Valls announces presidential run just days after President Hollande, also a Socialist, said he would not run.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has resigned after announcing his candidacy for the Socialist nomination in next years presidential election.

Stepping down on Tuesday after serving as prime minister for the past two-and-a-half years, Valls said he would now try to rally the fractured left in the run-up to the partys primary in January.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was named as his successor for the six months until the next legislative elections.

Cazeneuve has overseen the French governments response to recent attacks in France claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

The governments crackdown, under the special state of emergency status, has met harsh criticism from rights groups and the countrys Muslim population.

READ MORE: France and the impossible Trump domino effect

Valls announcement on Monday came four days after President Francois Hollande announced he would bow out after a single term, paving the way for Valls to try to become the lefts new standard bearer.

In his speech, the 54-year-old vowed to take the fight to the conservative opposition and the far-right National Front, both of whom are leading the Socialists in election polls.

My candidacy is one of reconciliation, Valls, seen as a divisive figure, said in a speech from his political base in the Paris suburb of Evry.

He warned of the risk of far-right leader Marine Le Pen pulling off a repeat of Frances 2002 electoral upset when her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, edged the Socialist candidate for a place in the presidential runoff.

Le Pens nationalist policies would ruin the working class, he said.

Polls show Marine Le Pen winning or being placed second in the opening round of the election on April 23, but later being defeated by the conservative Francois Fillon.





Valls attacked the Thatcherite, Fillon, accusing him of rehashing the old recipes of the 1980s by promising to cut spending and social programmes.

Were told that Francois Fillon is the next president of the Republic. Nothing is set in stone, he said defiantly.

Divided Socialists

Valls faces an uphill task to unite the divided French left, reeling after four tumultuous years under Hollande.

The prime minister himself is a polarising figure who has turned off many lifelong Socialists by using decrees to force contested labour reforms through parliament, and endorsing controversial bans last summer on the so-called burkini swimsuit.

His governments bleak economic record could also clip his wings.

On Monday, he said he wanted to help the working class regain its dignity in the face of globalisation.

He faces a challenge from at least seven other candidates in the two-round primary on January 22 and 29.

Martine Aubry, a veteran Socialist and the mayor of the northern city of Lille, said on Monday it was not a given that she would back him.

Polls show Valls nonetheless winning the nomination, but trailing in the presidential race, dragged down by competition on the left from business-friendly former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, an independent, and the hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon of the Left Party.

When Valls last sought the Socialist nomination five years ago, he garnered only 5.6 percent.

He went on to become a spokesman for Hollandes campaign and was later rewarded with the interior portfolio.

In 2014, he was promoted to prime minister with a mandate to rein in a group of unruly ministers who were undermining Hollandes authority.

Within months he had a rival for the title of reformer-in-chief in the telegenic banker-turned-economy minister Macron, a protege of Hollande.

In August, Macron walked out on his boss to further his own leadership ambitions while Valls remained by Hollandes side.
Gaza City  Serag Tafesh and Hassan el-Qaied are at risk of dying if the power goes off. Both are two-month-old babies in an intensive care unit at Al Dura, a childrens hospital in Gaza, and their life-saving medical equipment stops working when the electricity goes off.

The two babies were born with congenital malformations that have left them comatose.

Yousef Reziq, a doctor at the hospital, told Al Jazeera that the intensive care unit, or ICU, is the ward most affected by the severe fuel shortages in Gaza, that has been besieged by Israel since 2007. When the power goes off, the cardiac monitors and the artificial respiration machines by which the two babies can struggle to survive stop working. This means that they might die in less than five minutes, Reziq said.

If the crisis drags on and the necessary amount of fuel has not been obtained in time, we will have to transfer the children to other hospitals.

With Gazas blackouts lasting 16 hours a day, hospitals have had to resort to using electrical generators. But fuel to operate the generators is increasingly scarce and expensive, posing an intractable challenge.

My heart is heavy with pain seeing my little baby in this condition and there is nothing I can do to save him. by Mona, mother of Hassan el-Qaied

The hospitals medical personnel are also uncomfortable with the reliability and sustainability of these generators, complaining of frequent power fluctuations that take a heavy toll on the sensitive medical equipment.

Continued attention around the clock is required to make sure that the equipment is functioning properly and our patients receive the intensive needed care, Hakiem Hamoda, a nurse, told Al Jazeera.

However, these generators deplete the little fuel available, and the hospital staff fear they might run out of fuel in three days. Gazas health ministry issued warnings early last week that Al Durra would be out of commission if the hospital did not receive sufficient fuel, and other local hospitals are likely to be confronted with the same risks as well.

According to Ashraf el-Qidra, the spokesman for Gazas health ministry, hospitals in Gaza need 420,000 litres of fuel each month to operate the generators for the eight hours a day in which there is no electricity, so that hospitals can treat patients during the power cuts.

The Gaza Strip has been subjected to a chronic electricity crisis since its sole power plant was partly destroyed by Israel during its 2006 and 2014 assaults on Gaza. The plant has not operated at full capacity since then.

Meanwhile, the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade has made Gazas electricity crisis worse, by making it nearly impossible to import adequate amounts of fuel into the territory.

Dr Majed Hamada, the head of Al Dura, told Al Jazeera that the health ministry instructed his hospital to prepare urgent plans to deal with emergency cases if it runs out of fuel.

Our plan relies on implementing severe cuts at our health services that are presented to our children, though we receive more cases during winter months. We have to consume as little fuel as possible so that we can somehow reduce the crisis impact on the hospital, Hamada said.

Hamada noted that all the hospitals medical departments face major difficulties in responding to the needs of its visitors. The infant incubators, which are used to care for babies born prematurely, have been forced to operate at the minimum level, and children who suffer from coughing and respiratory problems have to wait for their turn to use the nebuliser.

The doctor has sent out appeals to international organisations to save the childrens lives and preserve their right to dignified, proper medical care. The ministry has contacted the Jeddah-based Islamic Bank for Development, added Hamada, to supply the health sector with fuel.

He called on other international health organisations to respond to their repeated appeals and intervene to end the crisis.





As if the ongoing crisis were not enough, the hospital is also overcrowded, creating a high risk that contagious illnesses could spread.

Mahdi Hijazi, a three-year-old patient, has been in hospital for six days for convulsions. His grandmother Nisreen is worried that he might get an infection from other children in his room. The rooms numbers and sizes are not proportional to the high number of patients inside them, Nisreen told Al Jazeera as she pacified her crying grandson.

Meanwhile, the power cuts continue to imperil the delivery of basic health services. Children with kidney failure are not able to undergo dialysis treatment as frequently, which may damage their health.

Seven-year-old Saher Faied normally receives dialysis treatment three times a week, said his father, Ahmed. But because of the electricity crisis, he only receives one session at Al Dura, and must commute twice a week to Al Shifa Compound, where he receives two more weekly sessions.

Yahia Mousa, the head of Hamas legislative bloc in the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera that the crisis is the fault of the Israeli occupation and its foreign supporters, adding that its goal is to undermine the Palestinian armed resistance and to make Gazans believe that this resistance will not solve their problems.

We keep channels open with regional and international groups to lessen the damaging consequences of the crippling practices adopted against Gaza in the fields of health, electricity, employment, and education, said Mousa.

We appreciate all the exerted efforts to break the siege and diminish its strain on the Palestinians lives, but more can be done to lift it once and for ever.

Meanwhile, Hassan el-Qaieds mother, Mona, says she is extremely worried about the diminishing possibilities of survival at these critical conditions.The two-month-old baby was sent to a hospital in Israel for two weeks but according to her, doctors said his health status was chronic and nothing can be done to improve it.

My heart is heavy with pain seeing my little baby in this condition and there is nothing I can do to save him.
Indian security forces have been accused of blocking medical treatment for wounded protesters in the disputed region of Kashmir by holding up ambulances and harassing hospitalised patients.

Physicians for Human Rights said not only did police and paramilitary forces use excessive force during months of unrest, they also hindered people from seeking medical attention, increasing the likelihood of permanent injuries and deaths.

Such delays in care are violations of the long-standing protections afforded to medical workers and facilities in times of conflict and civil unrest, said Widney Brown from the New York-headquartered advocacy group.

Whats more, the doctors we interviewed said police were present in their hospitals, intimidating patients, and monitoring those being admitted.

The report also said security forces harassed medical workers attempting to treat protesters and prevented doctors from reaching the hospitals where they work.

OPINION: Kashmir and the myth of indivisible India

Police in Kashmir said they would respond to the allegations once they had studied the PHR report.



Protesters and police clash in Kashmir

At least 80 civilians were killed and about 12,000 wounded in almost five months of confrontation between demonstrators and security forces, sparked by the killing of a leading separatist fighter in a joint army and police operation on July 8.

Kashmir is at the centre of a decades-old rivalry between India and Pakistan, which rules a northwestern section of the divided region.

An insurgency gripped the Himalayan region in the late 1980s and 1990s that Indian security forces largely crushed.

The latest unrest, sparked by the killing of Burhan Wani, a popular separatist leader, is the worst in the Muslim-majority region for six years, and critics accuse Indian security forces of heavy-handedness in quelling the protests.

Many of those killed in the clashes died from shotgun pellets or rifle rounds fired by police and paramilitary troops. Hundreds of bystanders were blinded by the pellet rounds, the report said.

While Indian authorities say the use of such weapons was meant to reduce the potential for injuries or fatalities, PHR found that their use actually caused serious wounds and death.

Police in Kashmir say pellet guns are non-lethal weapons, but they have been fired from short distances in unavoidable circumstances when protesters target security forces.

READ MORE: The doctors treating Kashmiris wounded by pellets

PHRs report  based on hospital records and interviews with doctors, witnesses and victims  found police used 12-gauge shotguns loaded with metal pellets that directly caused an estimated 5,200 injuries and at least a dozen deaths.

Injuries inflicted by less than lethal weapons like pellets, rubber bullets, and shotguns require early medical intervention to avoid permanent or debilitating injury, including loss of life, said the report.

In Kashmir, delays in accessing medical care for hundreds of injured protesters increased the risk of permanent damage, including for those with eye injuries.

In August, the Indian government said it would review the use of pellets, while a spokesperson for the Jammu and Kashmir government told Al Jazeera the weapons would be phased out.
Philippine police killed a town mayor linked to illegal drugs while he was helpless in a prison cell, justice department investigators alleged.

The National Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday that it filed murder complaints against two dozen police officers and personnel last week after a probe showed they shot dead Mayor Rolando Espinosa and his cellmate Raul Yap in the central province of Leyte in November.

The pieces of evidence, both testimonial and the forensic evidence, all agree. We believe we have a very strong case, said Ferdinand Lavin, the NBIs deputy director.

READ MORE: Duterte says Trump wished him success in war on drugs

Prosecutors will rule whether there is enough evidence to indict the policemen.

The finding contradicted claims by the accused and President Rodrigo Duterte that the victims were killed in a gun battle.

Duterte had accused Espinosa, mayor of the town of Albuera in the eastern province of Leyte, of being a drug lord. He had initially given police shoot-to-kill orders if Espinosa did not surrender, prompting the mayor to turn himself in.

NBI said the policemen most likely planted pistols and illegal drugs in their jail cells to justify a police raid.

Shoot-to-kill





A few days before police raided the Leyte jail, authorities made a thorough search of the detention centre but found no guns or illegal drugs, so it was impossible for Espinosa and Yap to have weapons and narcotics in their cells, the NBI said.

Duterte, 71, won May elections in a landslide on a promise to kill thousands of criminals to prevent the Philippines from becoming a narco-state.

Mondays accusations deepened concerns that police were carrying out summary executions as part of Dutertes controversial war on drugs, which has claimed more than 5,100 lives in about five months.

In a speech late on Monday, Duterte defended the police who killed Espinosa and said he believed their version of events.

Do not force me to believe the theories and assumptions, even with the witnesses, that the mayor was killed [illegally] in the prison, he said.

READ MORE: Philippines  Playing dead to survive Dutertes drug war

Duterte had previously signalled that he was happy Espinosa had been shot dead.

You have here a guy, a government employee, using his office and money of government, cooking [illegal drugs] and destroying the lives of so many millions of Filipinos. So what is there for me to say about it? he said last month.

Dutertes police chief initially stood down the police officer in charge of the raid pending an investigation, but the president immediately reinstated him.
After weeks of close-quarter combat, Iraqi soldiers aim to sever important ISIL fighter route over the Tigris River.

Iraqi soldiers bore down on a vital bridge over the Tigris River in Mosuls city centre as the seven-week battle to recapture ISILs last stronghold in the country intensified, the army said.

Lieutenant-General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah, the campaigns commander, was quoted by Iraqi television as saying on Tuesday that troops had entered Al-Salam Hospital, less than 1.5km from the Tigris, which runs through Iraqs second-largest city.

Air raids by the US-led coalition aided the ground advance in the Salam neighbourhood.

Starting before dawn, we heard more than 20 air strikes, said Fathii Muhammad Yousef, who took cover from the clashes with his family in their home just a block from the front.

INTERACTIVE: Battle for Mosul  Who controls what

For the past month Iraqi forces have battled ISIL fighters on the streets just outside Yousefs home. Four of his neighbours have been wounded by gunfire and shrapnel so far in the operation, he said.

The offensive involved the armys Ninth Armoured Division, which had been tied up for more than a month in close-quarter combat with fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) on Mosuls southeastern edges.

A colonel in the armoured division said Tuesdays assault aimed to push towards the river and ultimately reach Mosuls Fourth Bridge, the southernmost of five bridges spanning the Tigris, which splits the city in two.

We are using a new tactic  increasing the numbers of advancing forces and also attacking from multiple fronts to take the initiative and prevent Daesh [ISIL] fighters from organising any counterattacks, the colonel said on condition of anonymity.





The bridge, like three others, has been hit by US-led air strikes to prevent ISIL sending reinforcements and suicide car bombs across the city to the eastern front, where counterterrorism troops have spearheaded the army campaign.

The last and oldest bridge, built of iron in the 1930s, was targeted on Monday night. The structure was not destroyed, but the air strikes made two large craters in the approach roads on both sides.

ISIL soon after began to fill the craters, sources told Al Jazeera.

The army push in the southeast comes as federal police units stationed west of the Tigris prepare a separate advance towards the airport on the southwestern edge of the city.

Defeating ISIL in Mosul would roll back the self-styled caliphate it declared in Iraq and Syria in 2014 after seizing large parts of both countries.

About 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and mainly Shia paramilitary forces are participating in the Mosul campaign that began on October 17.

READ MORE: Mosul residents wont leave despite dire conditions

Although it has made advances inside eastern Mosul, the army says it is battling in the toughest urban warfare imaginable  facing hundreds of suicide car bomb attacks, mortar barrages, sniper fire, and ambushes launched from a network of tunnels.

Its advance has also been slowed by the presence of more than one million residents in the city.

The battle for Mosul has created a burgeoning humanitarian crisis with an estimated 650,000 people without potable water.

As the fight has ground on, Yousefs family has run out of water and is running low on food.

All we have now is well water. Its not clean enough to drink, but what else can we do? he said, adding that the water is making some of his youngest children sick.
Israeli Knesset gives initial approval to bill that would legalise 4,000 homes in the settlement outposts.

Israels parliament gave initial approval on Monday to a controversial bill that would legalise unauthorised Israeli settlement outposts built on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

The proposed law, which has already drawn sharp international condemnation and strained relations within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus governing right-wing coalition, would legalise 4,000 settler homes.

Palestinians and Israeli critics have called it a land grab that would further distance prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.





The draft is the fruit of a compromise between Netanyahu and the bills main backer, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has called it the start of Israels eventual annexation of most of the West Bank.

Agreement between the two is expected to assure the draft bills eventual passage through the Knesset, Israels parliament.

Bennett, from the religious nationalist Jewish Home party, is among members of Netanyahus coalition who have made no secret of opposing a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu says that he still backs a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, who leads the Labour Party, denounced the law by equating its adoption to a national suicide.

The bill has severely tested Netanyahus coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history. A previous version was given preliminary approval last month.

With this law, the state of Israel has moved from the path leading to the creation of a Palestinian state to the path leading to [Israeli] sovereignty over most of the West Bank, Bennett told army radio.

In a stormy session on Monday, Israels Knesset voted 60-49 in favour of the revised bill. It must pass three more votes at unspecified future dates before becoming law.

READ MORE: How US security aid to PA sustains Israels occupation

Israel captured the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East war. In the five decades since, it has built about 120 settlements, which the international community has deemed illegal and an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.

In addition to the formal, government-recognised and supported settlements, settlers have established more than 100 outposts across the occupied West Bank.

A recent report on the bill by leading Israeli human rights organisation BTselem said: Dispossession of Palestinians was never a matter contingent on this legislation. It has been integral to the settlement enterprise from its very inception and is one of the most consistent trends in Israeli policy over the decades.

International rights group Peace Now called the proposed bill grand law robbery, adding that its passage would not only lead to a moral deterioration by approving the theft of private lands, but will also be a devastating blow to the two-state solution as it will allow the establishment and expansion of new settlements, far from the Green Line.

Speaking on Sunday in Washington at a think-tank conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry pushed Israel to rein in settlement construction on West Bank land that Palestinians want as part of a future state.

There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace, Kerry said.

The international community considers all settlements in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank to be illegal, whether they are authorised by the government or not.

Court order

The Israeli government differentiates between settlements it has officially approved and those it has not.

Before Mondays vote, Netanyahu and Bennett agreed on a vote on the draft bill and the displacement of some 40 families from the outpost settlement of Amona, near Ramallah, which was under a court order to be evacuated by December 25.

Some members of Netanyahus coalition had previously said that they could not support the bill if Amona remained part of it because of the court ruling against it.

The agreement will instead see Amona residents temporarily moved to nearby land that Israeli officials describe as abandoned, until a permanent solution is found.

READ MORE: Palestinian villages get two hours of water a week

Rights groups say that land is owned by Palestinians and that the move would violate international law.

Amona residents would be able to stay on the hill where they are settled but move a few tens of metres, Netanyahu told his Likud parliamentary group.

They would be able to stay there as a community, and this is very important news.

The bills progress has alarmed many in the international community.

The UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, said the legislation has the objective of protecting illegal settlements built on private Palestinian property in the West Bank.

It is a very worrying initiative. I encourage Israeli legislators to reconsider such a move that would have far-reaching legal consequences across the occupied West Bank.
Forces wary of storming buildings as ISIL believed to be using women and children as human shields.

Forces aligned to Libyas UN-backed national unity government said they were hunting down the last remaining ISIL fighters in Sirte after the groups ouster from its former bastion.

Soldiers were said to be chasing the last jihadists hiding in fewer than 10 houses on Tuesday in the seafront district of Al-Giza al-Bahriya, the last strip to fall in the almost seven-month-long battle.

They also managed to rescue a group of women and children that the defeated gangs of Daesh were using as human shields, the force backing the Government of National Accord (GNA) said on its Facebook page.

Mufath al-Fadeel, head of the pro-government 154th Brigade, told Al Jazeera that while Sirte was now under military control operations were ongoing.





The city is free of ISIL and we are tracking down some who fled, to finish them off, Fadeel said. The city is liberated but the military operation is not over yet. It goes on until we ensure they are all tracked down.

The pro-GNA force had announced full control of Sirte on Monday in a major blow to the armed group, and that dozens of its fighters had surrendered.

Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdel Wahed, reporting from Sirte, said government fighters were cautious in storming some buildings believed to house holdouts.

The most important reason behind this is trapped families, women and children which ISIL are using as human shields, he said.

Another reason was to force ISIL fighters to surrender after the siege imposed on them. We have seen some ISIL fighters handing themselves over to the forces after they ran out of ammunition and food supplies. There is fighting going on in nearby buildings, where ISIL fighters are fortified.

While government forces were telling families to flee, eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera ISIL was shooting anyone trying to leave Sirte.

Akram Glawan, Misrata Hospital spokesman, told The Associated Press news agency in addition to the 711 Libyan fighters killed in the battle for Sirte, another 3,200 have been wounded.

In Pictures: Embedded with the Libyan forces fighting ISIL in Sirte

Libyan television stations have broadcast footage of women in black and children, their hair covered with dust, emerging from Sirte homes, and of soldiers celebrating a hard-fought victory.

The liberation of Sirte  is a historic day for Libya that must be celebrated across the nation, a GNA vice-premier, Moussa el-Koni, wrote on Twitter.

ISIL fighters are still thought to be present in several parts of southern and eastern Libya, but no longer control any towns.

Despite the apparent victory in Sirte, Libya remains deeply divided, with the national unity government, based in the capital Tripoli, unable to gain recognition from the elected parliament, based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Forces loyal to Tobruk military strongman, General Khalifa Haftar, have made major advances in recent months, seizing the countrys critical oil ports from forces aligned to the unity government.

Analysts say Haftars growing strength means the UN-backed deal setting up the national unity government is increasingly out of step with the balance of power on the ground and should be revisited.

Even in Tripoli, the unity governments rule is far from secure, with a third rival administration backed by hardline armed groups recently attempting a comeback.
Ford Motor Co. plans next year to hire an additional 12 to 24 adults with autism, expanding a program with the Autism Alliance of Michigan that has more than 30 other local companies signed on.

The programs are growing quickly. For the companies, people with autism represent untapped talent, and the jobs mean an opportunity to earn a living for those on the spectrum who have typically been left behind.

In June, the automaker launched its pilot program by hiring four adults with autism who have college degrees to work in its product development department at its world headquarters. Those four were on temporary status, but have since been become regular employees at the automaker. Ford originally committed to hiring five employees, but two part-time positions were combined to create one full-time position to accommodate an exemplary candidate.

"When we started, we wanted to make sure we could do this and do it sustainably," said Kirstin Queen, manager of diversity and inclusion at Ford. "The program was found to be very successful, and the supervisors have said these individuals brought a new energy that spread to other employees."

The challenge of employing an adult with autism, while all are different, usually lies in the realm of social interactions. Employees with autism can lack social skills and social imagination and are often brutally honest, which can come across as rudeness.

The program was developed with the Autism Alliance of Michigan, a nonprofit founded by Dave Meador, vice chairman and chief administrative officer at DTE Energy Co. Autism Alliance trained Ford staffers how to interact with their new colleagues with autism, including creating direct, concise job functions as well as understanding the employees' social limitations.

Ford's vehicle evaluation and verification test lab participated in the pilot program, and Ford will expand the new hires into information technology and digital innovation departments, Queen said.

The 60- to 90-day ramp-up process has begun, and the jobs are expected to be filled in January.

The new positions will require a bachelor's degree, as did the previous positions.

Ford receives a federal work opportunity tax credit of $2,400 per adult with autism it hires. That credit, however, does not completely offset the costs of the program, said Colleen Allen, president and CEO of the Autism Alliance.

Since Ford began its program in June, dozens of other companies have sought similar programs through the Autism Alliance. The organization is working with 38 companies, either on creating programs or are already commencing pilot programs.

Allen declined to name the other companies as they navigate through their initial pilot programs, but they include 10 banking and finance firms, seven manufacturing companies, three IT companies and others in different industries.

"The expressed interest has shot through the roof this year," Allen said. "We're definitely ahead of the curve nationally."

Allen said the only limitation is the organizations' ability to keep up with demand. Roughly 200 adults with autism are looking to get placed.

"We're not in a hurry; we're not going to just dump someone in an open position," Allen said. "This is a thoughtful process, and we want to make sure we get it right" to benefit the employee and encourage the company to participate further.

Autism represents a hefty economic question as more and more of those diagnosed reach working age. It's imperative that employers adapt or miss out on a productive population with specialized skills, Allen said.

Autism's costs are growing -- estimated at $268 billion annually in the U.S. on treatment and loss of productivity in 2015, rising to $461 billion, or 1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, by 2025, according to a 2015 study by researchers at the University of California-Davis and the University of Denver. Diabetes and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder are the only diseases that cost more than autism, and neither generally prevents people who have them from working.

In the U.S., it's estimated that more than 3.5 million people and one in 68 children (one in 42 for boys) being born have autism spectrum disorder  a complex brain condition associated with poor communication skills  according to a 2014 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. In Michigan, the state estimates there are 50,000 or more adults with autism, and growing.

It's called a spectrum because the symptoms can range from not understanding nonverbal communication, to lack of empathy, to obsessive-compulsive behavior, to never speaking. Less-severe cases are often called Asperger's syndrome, but many experts no longer use that term.

More than half of people diagnosed with autism have average to above-average intelligence, according to a 2014 study.

Companies are becoming more aware of the benefits of hiring adults with autism, thanks to early adopters like Walgreen Co.

In 2007, Walgreens opened a distribution center in Anderson, S.C., and piloted a program to employ workers with disabilities -- 33 percent of the nearly 300 workers at that time -- many of whom had autism. To accommodate workers with autism, managers are instructed to avoid metaphors and use direct instruction and outfit a break room with beanbag chairs and puzzles to calm workers with autism who may feel sensory overload from the loud, often frantic pace of a distribution center, Workforce magazine reported in 2012.

The Anderson center now employs more than 40 percent with disabilities, and Walgreen opened a similar facility in Connecticut in 2009.

Allen said Southeast Michigan will be successful when autism hiring expands beyond seeking highly skilled adults with autism and looks to match those in every category with jobs they can do.

"There's a perception now that those on the spectrum are these really smart, highly functional people," Allen said. "Not everyone has three degrees."




Dominic Ongwen faces charges of rape, murder, forced marriage and the use of child soldiers.

Child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen denied 70 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity on Tuesday when he became the first member of Ugandas brutal Lords Resistance Army ever to go on trial.

Ongwen, 41, is also the first former child soldier to be tried by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his role in the notorious rebel group led by the elusive Joseph Kony.

In the name of God, I deny all these charges in respect to the war in northern Uganda, Ongwen said when he was asked to plead after all 70 charges containing a litany of horrific crimes were read out to him.

I am not the LRA. The LRA is Joseph Kony, who is the leader, he told the court.





It was the LRA who abducted people. It was the LRA who killed them, Ongwen said, adding that he was one of the people who had crimes committed against them.

A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a bloody rebellion against Kampala some three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeeras Neave Barker said Ongwens trial was a huge test of what the ICC is really able to achieve.

There is a tremendous amount of hope as to whether or not the ICC will be able to deliver, Barker added.

Among the charges he faces are murder, rape, and enslavement, including the enslavement of more than 30,000 children as child troops to fight in the frontlines of the Lords Resistance Army.

Sadistic rituals

More than 4,000 victims are taking part in Ongwens trial and scores of others are expected to watch the trial unfold at four viewing sites in northern Uganda.

About 150 people, mostly subsistence farmers, crammed themselves into a room at Lukodi Primary School in northern Uganda to watch the opening day of the trial.

Squeezed onto rows of dilapidated wooden benches, villagers sat patiently waiting for the live transmission from the court to begin.

READ MORE: ICC debate  Africa vs Infamous Caucasian Court?

We have been waiting almost 11 years for justice, said Vincent Oyet, secretary of the local victims group.

Victims have recounted the LRAs sadistic initiation rites imposed on kidnapped youngsters, who were forced to bite and batter friends and family to death, or to drink their blood.

The son of Ugandan schoolteachers, Ongwen was abducted as a child while on his way to school and most likely endured such horrors himself.

But ICC prosecutors say when Ongwen became an adult he turned abuser, helping to orchestrate the abduction and enslavement of children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities.

Systematic killings

Prosecutors allege that from 2002 to 2005, Ongwen bears significant responsibility for attacks in northern Uganda, systematically ordering the killings of civilians sheltering in four camps including in Lukodi.

Victims died in an orgy of violence, while survivors had their lips and ears cut off. In one case, a witness said Ongwen ordered his troops to cook and eat civilians.

The defence, however, says it is considering several arguments including that Ongwen is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. His lawyers also maintain he was acting under duress, as he lived under the constant threat of being killed by Kony and his commanders.





A last-minute defence bid on Tuesday to have the hearings delayed for medical reports was denied by the judges.

Observers say Ongwens trial raises deep questions about how to prosecute crimes involving children who were subjected to years of abuse.

Dominic Ongwens past experience as a child soldier is not a defence in itself, said Isabelle Guitard, from Child Soldiers International.

It cannot exonerate him of the responsibility of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity as an adult, she said.

Ongwen surrendered himself to US forces in 2015. But Kony remains at large with about 150 followers hiding out in the jungles of the Central African Republic.
Prosecutors plan to retry police officer Michael Slager, who is also facing civil charges over Walter Scotts killing.

Prosecutors in the United States have vowed to retry a South Carolina police officer for murder over shooting dead of an unarmed black man after a hung jury resulted in a mistrial.





Circuit Judge Clifton Newman announced the mistrial after a jury said on Monday that it was unable to reach a unanimous agreement on a verdict for Michael Slager, the police officer who shot and killed Walter Scott.

Slager was standing trial for killing 50-year-old Scott in North Charleston after stopping him for having a broken taillight in April 2015.

Following news of the mistrial, solicitor Scarlett Wilson said she planned to retry Slager.

While I cannot overstate our disappointment that this case was not resolved, I commend those who sacrificed so much time, energy and effort to serve on this jury, Wilson said in a statement.

We will try Michael Slager again.

Injustice will not prevail

Scotts mother Judy said outside court that she knew justice would be served. God is my strength and I know without a doubt that he is a just God and injustice will not prevail, she said.

I dont care how it looks, its not over  you all hear me  its not over until God says its over.

The judge had told jurors they could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Scotts murder in April 2015 was captured on a mobile phone video taken by a bystander, which showed him being shot in the back.

READ MORE: Black Lives Matter  The backlash against US police

The footage, which was widely shown in the media and online, shocked the country.

After the video went public, Slager was fired by the police department and charged with murder. Scotts family called for peace in the North Charleston community.

Their calls for calm are believed to have helped prevent the kind of violence that erupted elsewhere when black men were killed in encounters with police.

The video renewed debate over how blacks are treated by white police officers. There have been similar debates over race and policing in places from New York to Ferguson, Missouri and from Tulsa, Oklahoma to North Carolina.

Slager also faces trial in federal court next year on charges of violating Scotts civil rights.

Police killings

Racism was never made a major issue at trial, even though Slager is white and Scott was black.

On Monday, a note said a majority of the jurors on the panel of 11 white people and one black person were still undecided. They would have needed to reach a unanimous decision in order to convict the officer.

The jury told Circuit Judge Clifton Newman on two separate occasions on Friday they were deadlocked but then the jury foreman said he thought the jurors could reach a verdict.

The defence claimed that the two men wrestled on the ground, that Scott got control of Slagers stun gun and then pointed the weapon at the 34-year-old officer before the shooting.

North Charleston, which borders Charleston, has a history of strained relations between the citys police department and its large black community.

Scotts death had set off protests in the area, but on Monday, his brother Anthony urged would-be protesters to remain peaceful.

US police have killed at least 990 people so far this year, according to The Guardians The Counted database.

Black Americans make up around 13 percent of the US population, and account for nearly 24 percent of those killed by police.

Police killings of black Americans sparked the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, a nationwide civil rights movement aimed at ending police violence and working for equal treatment in the criminal justice system.
Senior Turkish official rejects accusations that dozens of Syrian refugees were killed this year trying to cross border.

A senior official from Turkey has rejected accusations that its border guards shot dead dozens of Syrian refugees and beat many others attempting to cross into the country this year.

Yasin Aktay, vice chairman of the ruling AK party, told Al Jazeera the allegations of deadly or excessive force against civilians fleeing the Syrian war were fabricated.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement on Tuesday that Turkish snipers had targeted refugees  alleging 163 killings in total, including 31 children and 15 women, since the beginning of 2016.

The Turkish Ganderma killed dozens of civilians, and beat dozens [of] others leading to permanent deep scars in their bodies, while others were arrested and turned back to the Syrian lands, said the Syrian Observatory, a UK-based war-monitor group that relies on activists on the ground for information.

READ MORE: Turkey official denies Syrian refugee expulsions

Alktay, however, adamantly denied that Turkey had any policies against civilians.

He added Turkey  which hosts up to three million Syrian refugees  is trying to create a safe zone in a northern Syrian border area as part of an initiative to help without them coming to Turkey.

We are trying to create a zone free from terrorism and attacks, Alktay said.

Raed Fares, a Syrian activist in Idlib, a northeastern Syrian city that borders Turkey, told Al Jazeera he has received many reports of Turkish security forces attacking refugees.

He described one incident in which 11 members of a family  who fled the eastern Syrian province of Raqqa  were shot dead after crossing into Turkey from Idlib province in August.

New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a report in May making similar allegations.

There have been accusations before, but until now none have been proven, Alktay told Al Jazeera, calling them baseless and ungrounded.
Some protesters are skeptical of governments decision to refuse permission for controversial oil pipeline project.

A Native American leader has asked thousands of protesters to return home after the federal government ruled against a controversial pipeline, despite the prospect of President-elect Donald Trump reversing the decision.

A coalition of Native American groups, environmentalists, Hollywood stars and veterans of the US armed forces protested against the $3.8bn Dakota Access Pipeline project, arguing that construction would damage sacred lands and any leaks could pollute the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

On Monday, the US Army Corps of Engineers turned down a permit for the project running through North Dakota but the tribe still wants to speak to Trump and prevent him from approving the final phase of construction, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said.



North Dakota pipeline project halted

The current administration did the right thing and we need to educate the incoming administration and help them understand the right decision was made, Archambault told Reuters news agency.

On Monday, Trumps transition team said it would review the decision to delay completion once he takes office on January 20.

Archambault said nothing would happen over the winter before Trump takes office, so protesters should leave.

Were thankful for everyone who joined this cause and stood with us, he said.

The people who are supporting us  they can return home and enjoy this winter with their families. Same with law enforcement. I am asking them to go.

It was unclear if protesters would heed Archambaults call to leave the Oceti Sakowin camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

IN PICTURES: Protesters celebrate as army halts Dakota pipeline work

The Army Corps said it would analyse possible alternate routes, although any other route is likely to cross the Missouri River.

The camp celebrated the decision, but some expressed concern that their victory could be short-lived.

I think this is just a rest, said Charlotte Bad Cob, 30, of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. With a new government it could turn and we could be at it again.

The company building the 1,885km pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said late on Sunday that it had no plans to reroute the line, and expected to complete the project.

The pipeline is complete except for a 1.61km segment that was to run under Lake Oahe, which required permission from federal authorities.
South Korean corporate chiefs have been accused of seeking favours when they made contributions to two foundations at the heart of a scandal that threatens the office of President Park Geun-hye.





On Tuesday, the corporate figures denied the charges in front of a parliamentary panel.

Nonetheless, the head of the GS Group, one of the nine conglomerate bosses summoned to appear at the unprecedented televised hearing, acknowledged that it was hard to say no to the government.

Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Seoul, said the questioning is a rare occurrence in South Korea.

These people have an enormous amount of power, of influence, and a huge chunk of the South Korean economy  and yet they very rarely, if ever, submit themselves to this kind of questioning, he said.

The bosses of conglomerates controlling revenue equivalent to more than half the countrys economy were questioned over whether they were pressured by Park, or a friend and aide, to give money to non-profit foundations, which backed initiatives put forth by Park, in exchange for special treatment.

Its a South Korean reality that if there is a government request, it is difficult for companies to decline, said Huh Chang-soo, who heads the energy-to-retail GS Group and is also chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, the main lobby group for the conglomerates known as chaebol.

Choi Soo-sil, a close friend of President Park Geun-hye, is currently awaiting trial on charges of coercion and abuse of power, while Park faces an impeachment vote in parliament on Friday which is almost certain to be adopted with the backing of more than 30 members of her own Saenuri Party.

Business elite

The witness list was a whos who of South Koreas business elite  including Samsung Electronics vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motors chairman Chung Mong-koo and Lotte chairman Shin Dong-bin.

Samsung, South Koreas largest business group, made the biggest contributions of 20 billion won ($17m) to Chois foundations, followed by Hyundai, SK, LG and Lotte.

Samsung is separately accused of funnelling millions of dollars to Choi to bankroll her daughters equestrian training in Germany.

Samsung Group leader Lee Jae-yong, who sat at the centre of the witness table, said Park had asked him during one-on-one meetings for support in boosting cultural and sports-related developments, but did not specifically request money.

OPINION: South Koreas political morass

There are often requests from various parts of society, including for culture and sports. We have never contributed seeking quid pro quo. This case was the same, Lee said, adding that he was embarrassed by the situation and was appearing with a heavy heart.

I have so many weaknesses and Samsung has things to correct, Lee responded when asked if he agreed with the public perception that the chaebols had knowingly colluded with Choi.

I will take all responsibility related to the current situation, legal or ethical, if there is any, said the 48-year-old Lee, the third-generation leader of the countrys biggest conglomerate, who received most of the panels questioning in the first two hours.

Arrest the chaebol chiefs

The family-controlled chaebol  a term used to describe business conglomerates in South Korea  have long dominated Asias fourth-largest economy, working closely with the government in a system that helped the country rebuild from the ravages of the 1950-53 Korean war. But critics say they are due for reforms, including improved corporate governance and transparency.

The corporate titans ran a gauntlet of media and protesters as they entered the National Assembly building that sits along the southern bank of the Han River.

None of the chaebol, which are among 53 corporate groups that gave money to foundations linked to Park and Choi, has been accused of any wrongdoing in the case, but a protester outside the parliamentary building could be seen holding a sign saying: Arrest the chaebol chiefs.

Fridays impeachment vote sets the stage for Park to be the first democratically elected South Korean leader to leave office early in disgrace. Huge demonstrations have called for her to quit and her approval rating has plunged to just four percent.

Last week she asked parliament to find a way and a time for her to step down, an offer that was rejected by the opposition Democratic Party as a stalling tactic.

Media reports said she may make a speech this week, offering to step down in April, a recommendation made by her conservative Saenuri Party.
Syrian forces close in on crucial Shaar district as Damascus and Russia pledge to destroy rebels who dont leave.

Syrian forces were on the verge of seizing a key rebel-held district of east Aleppo on Tuesday as Damascus and ally Moscow warned that rebels who failed to leave the city peacefully would be destroyed.

After retaking control of about two-thirds of opposition-held east Aleppo over the past week, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad advanced on the large residential district of Shaar. With the capture of Shaar, the army would hold nearly 70 percent of east Aleppo, four years after rebels first seized it and divided the ancient city.

In Damascus, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried on the state SANA news agency that the government would not allow rebels a chance to regroup and repeat their crimes in Aleppo.

On Monday, Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the UN Security Council demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded, and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food and medicine in.

Russia, a main backer of the Syrian government supporting the governments offensive in the city, has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria.

Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, speaking of the Syrian rebels. There is no other way.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights , a monitoring group, said if Shaar district is retaken rebel forces will be reduced to a war of attrition with the army.

It is the most important neighbourhood in the heart of east Aleppo, and is on the brink of falling, Syrian Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP news agency, adding that regime forces were already in control of a third of the district.

The governments rapid gains have left opposition fighters scrambling to defend the shrinking enclave they still control in Aleppos southeastern districts.

The frontlines are moving. Yesterday, the Syrian government and its allies made significant headway in the east, reaching about 800 metres away from the old citadel that the government holds as well, and almost practically cutting what is left of the rebel-held area in half, Al Jazeeras Stefanie Dekker said, reporting from Gaziantep along the Turkey-Syria border.

The international community has also struggled over how to respond, despite widespread concern over the fate of tens of thousands of civilians still in rebel-held areas, many of whom have been left with little-to-no shelter.

Attempt to buy time

Russia had announced talks with the United States in Geneva for Tuesday or Wednesday with the intent of organising a full rebel withdrawal from Aleppo leading to a ceasefire.

But the government in Damascus on Tuesday said it would not agree to a ceasefire in Aleppo unless it guarantees a full withdrawal of rebel factions from the city.

Syria will not leave its citizens in east Aleppo to be held hostage by terrorists, and will exert every effort to liberate them, said the foreign ministry statement.

It therefore rejects any attempt by any side to reach a ceasefire in east Aleppo that would not include the exit of all terrorists.

OPINION: How Facebook hurt the Syrian Revolution

Lavrov accused Washington, which has backed rebel groups against Assad, of backtracking.

It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves, Lavrov told journalists, adding that Moscow had the impression that a serious discussion with our American partners isnt working out.

Washington, for its part, accused Moscow of stalling for time after Russia and China blocked the UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire.

The rebels have so far rejected any talk of leaving the city, with Yasser al-Youssef of the leading Nureddin al-Zinki faction describing the proposal as unacceptable.

Key battleground

The loss of Aleppo would be the biggest blow yet to opposition forces in Syrias nearly six-year civil war, which erupted in March 2011 with popular protests calling for Assads ousting.

At least 400,000 people have been killed since violence began and millions have been forced from their homes.

Aleppo, once Syrias celebrated commercial and cultural hub, has been a key battleground of the war and suffered some of its worst violence.

The most recent offensive has left more than 341 people dead in east Aleppo, including 44 children, the Syrian Observatory says.

Rebel fire into the government-held west of the city has killed 81 people, including 31 children, in the same period.

Tens of thousands of east Aleppo residents have also fled to different parts of the city, including to government-held areas in the west and other rebel neighbourhoods.

Increasing bombardment of the neighbouring opposition-held province of Idlib has also left dozens dead in recent days.
In a white paper released yesterday on the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry (JCI) into the clashes between the Nigeria Army and IMN in Zaria, the government said the commission failed to consider many observations included in the memos submitted to it by individuals and groups.

The JCI had in its report blamed the Army, the federal and Kaduna State governments as well as the IMN for the clash and the high number of casualties.

Briefing newsmen on the white paper, media aide to the Kaduna State governor, Samuel Aruwan, said All IMN members and its leadership are jointly and severally liable for all violations of the law in the last 30 years, and are therefore responsible for the clashes and its consequences.

The white paper, Aruwan said, also noted that members of the IMN owed absolute loyalty to Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky.  He therefore bears responsibility for all the acts of lawlessness committed by the organisation and should therefore be held responsible, fully investigated and prosecuted, he said.

The state government said the commission did not consider the years during which the activities of the IMN in Gyallesu had threatened peace and security.

The White Paper also acknowledged that for all intent and purpose, the IMN is an insurgent group and ought to be treated as such, Aruwan said, adding that two other Shia groups  Al-Thaqalayn and RasulAazam  are active in Kaduna State, and both gave testimony to the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, affirming that the Shia faith can be observed and ought to be protected within the boundaries set and permitted by the Nigerian constitution and other laws.

The white paper also rejected suggestion that the burial of the victims did not conform to the law.

Government observes that its officials complied with the Burial Law of the State. Section 7 sub-section 1 of the Burial Law Cap 20 Laws of Kaduna State Government 1991 requires the burial of persons who die in this type of circumstances within 24hrs. The Interpretation section of Rule 115 Geneva Convention also states that in circumstances of this nature, dead bodies could be buried in a mass grave.

Aruwan noted that the white paper also rejected the Judicial Commission of Inquirys view on actions taken to clear structures at the scenes of the clashes, saying the debris at the Hussainiyya Baqiyatullah and at the residence of Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky were removed on the grounds of Public Health and safety.

All the IMN buildings that were demolished were constructed without statutory title and building permit as required by the Land Use Act and Section 26 of the KASUPDA Law No.12 of 2015, he explained.

The governors spokesman said with regards to the findings of the Commission on the conduct of the Nigerian Army, the State Government noted the recommendation that members of the Nigerian Army that may have been involved in the unlawful killing of 347 citizens should be brought to trial before a Court of competent jurisdiction.

The Kaduna State Government is assured that the Federal Government will not condone unlawful killing of any citizen and that this conduct will be further investigated and any culprits identified will first be subjected to court martial by the federal authorities, followed by civil prosecution by the state government, he said.

The state government said it had however accepted the recommendations of the commission that all incidents of violence and aggression by the members of the IMN against individuals, groups or communities be fully investigated and culprits brought to book and here appropriate, compensations should be paid.

The State Government said it also accepted that it should investigate and repossess all illegally acquired public lands from IMN and utilize same for Public Interest.

Aruwan said the Kaduna State Government had already acted on some of the recommendations and will now take steps to implement the others while those recommendations that are solely within the powers of the Federal Government have been referred for further necessary action.

Government has already acted to declare the IMN an unlawful society and is prosecuting the IMN members alleged to be involved in the killing of Corporal Dan Kaduna Yakubu. Government has also ensured that property destroyed in the clashes have been valued to ascertain reasonable compensation to circumstantial victims, he added.

There was no immediate response by the IMN yesterday, but the group did not appear before the JCI, insisting that their leader must be released as a precondition for participation.

The white paper is coming one year after the clash in which 347 persons were killed.
Last week, we released our analysis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's request for information (RFI) on data-aggregation services. Like many CFPB initiatives, this one has been widely discounted on grounds that the CFPB will soon be disemboweled. Maybe so, but the data-aggregation debate isn't a typical one between financial institutions and consumer advocates. It's a critical battle between different industry sectors over the most precious asset owned now by every established financial services firm: its customer database. If third-party service providers unlock this door to targeted marketing and cross-sell cherry-picking, the fundamental structure of every diversified financial services company will be profoundly undermined. Talk about a disruptor.

Decades ago, Walter Wriston, CEO of Citibank, said, "Banking is a branch of the information business." He proved it then by turning Citi into a global retail-finance giant brought low only years later by actions far away from this game-changing insight. Since his era, all the big-bank CEOs agree with the Wriston dictum  yes, it's that iconic  as does every CEO I know at large brokerage, insurance, and retail asset management shops.

However, like many sanctimonious statements, bowing before the information gods has generally not led to strategic action to propitiate them. Secure in the "stickiness" of consumer accounts because of the time it takes to change a financial services provider, most diversified financial companies have done little to make their consumers really happy or to effectively cross-sell (see my prior comment on cross-selling post-Wells Fargo for examples of failure here).

CEOs don't have this comfort zone anymore. Consumer accounts aren't close to sticky because data aggregators have their WD40 readily at hand. The CFPB's RFI clearly thinks that allowing these nonbank service providers and cross-marketers into proprietary consumer data is  assuming consumer consent  a very good thing. The RFI is replete with CFPB observations about how data aggregation could promote financial inclusion  a sweet thought, but hard to accomplish unless aggregators are a good deal more philanthropic than I suspect them to be. The bureau also talks much about the benefits consumers would achieve if, for example, a third party reached into their data, saw a bit of cash lying around, and then proffered commercial products such as vacation packages.

The New York Times on Wednesday had a story about subprime auto finance that starts with the tale of an older woman living on a small fixed income sold a used car with a $20,000 loan because she liked the idea of getting the "pearl" necklace and fishing pole that came with the car. Her fishing pole was real, but the image is a compelling one for data aggregation  give third parties a line into our data and we could well get painfully hooked.

Are big, diversified financial companies stalwart champions of the consumer data they now control? Of course not. Wells Fargo is a sad testament to the sorry state of cross-selling. However, it's important to recognize that the cross-sell scandal at Wells isn't the result of data use  it's the consequence of inappropriate incentive compensation. Wells employees didn't use data to find vulnerable customers  they reportedly ran to nursing homes, bus stops and similar venues to snag the unwary even as they stole data to open fraudulent accounts.

What's to stop a third-party aggregator from establishing incentive structures that make Wells' look ladylike? No rules apply and startup business models almost surely mean that the heat will be on for sales, and lots of it.

The battle over data aggregation thus is not only about saving the franchise value of diversified retail-finance companies. It's also about recognizing that personal financial data is different from video-streaming or coffee-maker shopping selections. Big data may well expand our purchasing options when it comes to these nonfinancial products  although what I've seen on offer makes me doubt this increasingly axiomatic assumption. But financial data is different.

Financial data is the future of each individual and household in terms of wealth accumulation, educational access, retirement security and other life-critical objectives far, far different than getting a really good deal on a pair of socks in my size and preferred color. Large financial services firms are right to fight data-aggregation access to protect their franchises, but they'll lose this fight to arguments based on innovation and "inclusion" if they do not quickly enhance their own value proposition so that explaining why a regulated company protects consumers better than highflying startups is a truly credible defense to a very skeptical Congress, CFPB and Trump administration.

Karen Shaw Petrou is managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics.
As the administration of President-elect Donald Trump takes shape, there is a lot of discussion about deregulation and rolling back the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation. At the same time, there is continued debate about how to restrain the power of the largest banks. Most of the latter focuses on raising capital requirements for the biggest banks to excessive levels, an extension of the false narrative created since 2008 that a lack of capital caused the financial crisis.

Before we can have a rational discussion about how to end the systemic risk posed by the largest banks, we must first understand the root of the problem. First and foremost, the top banks are big because the Federal Reserve and other regulators have over the past several decades allowed and even encouraged a series of mergers between strong banks and weak. By countenancing these mergers and leaving inefficient operations intact, the Fed created enormous firms that are clearly too big to manage and generally do not generate positive risk-adjusted or even nominal returns.

Second, prudential regulations give the largest banks with active securities businesses an unfair advantage compared with smaller institutions. These regulations allow the largest banks to swell to enormous size, both in terms of their visible balance sheets and less apparent off-balance-sheet obligations (OBS). Part of the issue has to do with how regulators classify different types of funding, and the tendency of large banks to cut corners by characterizing securities transactions as "true sales" when they are really secured borrowings.

Starting in the 1980s, the Fed and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. under Paul Volcker and William Isaac, respectively, essentially helped create the problem of "too big to fail" by allowing large banks to engage in high-risk OBS securities transactions  liabilities that were not supported by capital. The 2008 crisis was the unfortunate end result of these policies, when banks like Countrywide, Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Citigroup failed under the weight of hidden OBS liabilities that were mischaracterized as sales. The Fed also actively encouraged the creation of the market for over-the-counter derivatives to enhance large bank profits.

Why was this done? Well, in nominal terms, large banks actually tend to be far less profitable than observers may realize, particularly when compared to smaller banks. If one considers risk-adjusted "real" returns on equity, large banks are value destroyers. Only by allowing large banks to be creative in the reporting of their liabilities and to deal in OTC derivatives could the Fed and other regulators help them maintain the facade of profitability. The Fed sees the big banks as "conduits" for monetary policy; all central banks have an institutional bias in favor of mega institutions.

Rather than seek to address these structural issues by imposing impractical levels of capital, the Fed and other regulators can make a few subtle changes to law and regulation that will force the shrinkage of the largest banks gradually over time.

First, one little-discussed advantage large banks have is in how they settle deposits for periodic payments. Funds that a consumer "pays" for, say, a mortgage, or that a company sends to payroll, may linger on the paying bank's balance sheet for weeks before being processed with the receiving institution. Under current rules, the paying bank holds on to that cash as a deposit. With large banks dominating the market for fiduciary balances, this is just another factor inflating their balance sheet.

If regulators no longer allowed the largest banks to use these in-process balances as deposits  putting them in a trust account, instead  it would gradually force the downsizing of such institutions. Smaller banks could be given greater leeway with respect to these transactional deposits, but banks above say $500 billion in assets should be entirely prohibited from using these in-process payments to support leverage. Unlike smaller lenders, big banks do not primarily intermediate credit, but instead take huge duration risk in government and agency securities, and prime mortgage loans.

Second, all banks should be subject to far greater scrutiny as to how they characterize OBS transactions. While generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) tend to give all U.S. firms greater leeway in terms of "true sales," U.S. regulators should impose on commercial banks a regime that is far closer to international standards. This would effectively force banks to move to an asset securitization model akin to covered bonds in Europe, where debt is issued to fund specific assets. This change would prevent banks from mischaracterizing asset securitizations as "true sales" and would reduce effective leverage in the banking system without requiring unrealistic levels of capital.

The result of the second change would be to see the migration of asset securitization back to the nonbank sector, which is a necessary condition of limiting OBS exposures and the systemic risk of large banks. Well-capitalized broker-dealers and nonbanks in the mortgage sector, for example, would be a welcome counterpoint to commercial banks and would help to diversify the risk in the financial markets away from the TBTF banks.

Finally, commercial banks should be prohibited from trading any cash debt securities or credit derivatives. The idea that a bank can act as a lender, on the one hand, while at the same time trading the cash debt or credit derivatives of the same issuer is obviously a gross conflict of interest. The Volcker Rule partially addressed this issue and should be expanded, not repealed.

The trading of debt and credit derivatives should be encouraged to move to independent broker-dealers and other nondepositories. Indeed, this migration is already in process thanks to the Volcker Rule, but a total prohibition is required to be completely effective. Indeed, one area where the incoming Trump administration should not seek to roll back the Dodd-Frank law is the Volcker Rule.

Dealing with the threat of TBTF and systemic risk more generally can be addressed without resorting to punitive capital requirements or reimposing draconian laws such as Glass-Steagall. Policymakers can address many of the most egregious systemic risks in the U.S. banking system simply by understanding why large banks are big in the first place.

Christopher Whalen is senior managing director and head of research at Kroll Bond Rating Agency. He can be reached on Twitter @rcwhalen.
The China manufacturing base is an integral part of Volvo's global strategy. Through this whole strategic plan, we intend to move the production of the most technologically advanced and luxurious models to China, such as the 90 series. The long-wheelbase S90 launched this morning is entirely produced in China, and with China as the production base, it will be exported to overseas markets (Mr. Samuelsson announced earlier at the event that the production of the regular-wheelbase version of the S90, which is Volvos flagship sedan, would also be moved from Europe to Daqing, China).

Volvo intends to move the production of the most technologically advanced and luxurious models to China.

Last week, the Volvo Cars Global Manufacturing Strategy Conference and the Volvo All-New S90 Long-Wheelbase Luxury Sedan World Premier took place in Shanghai. During the event, Hakan Samuelsson, President and CEO of Volvo Car Group, and Lars Danielson, Senior Vice President and CEO of Asia Pacific Region gave interviews to mainstream media including International Business Daily, and talked about some hot topics, such as moving production of their most technologically advanced and luxurious model to China, the pace of localization, and the new brand LYNK & CO.

Moving the production of their most luxurious model to China and exporting it globally

Hakan Samuelsson: For various reasons, for example reducing costs and customs duties and being closer to the second local market and Chinese consumers, we have launched the China Growth Plan. To date, this strategy has been very successful. Fundamentally speaking, it has been mainly about production in China. Five years ago, almost all our products were imported, but now 3/4 of the Volvo products bought by Chinese customers are produced in China. Five years ago, Volvo had only 100 employees in China, but now there are 6,000. In the past five years, Volvo has built three plants and brought them into service  two vehicle assemby plants and one engine plant.

Over the past five years, we have been moving towards our strategic goals. The long-wheelbase S90 sedan, launched this morning, is the most luxurious car ever produced in China and will lay a very good foundation for our further success and ultimately the full realization of our strategy.

Volvo has a very unique strength - its parent company is a Chinese company, so there is no conflict of interest, and China is Volvos local market, so the China manufacturing base is an integral part of Volvo's global strategy. Through this whole strategic plan, we intend to move the production of the most technologically advanced and luxurious models to China, such as the 90 series. The long-wheelbase S90 launched this morning is entirely produced in China, and with China as the production base, it will be exported to overseas markets (Mr. Samuelsson announced earlier at the event that the production of the regular-wheelbase version of the S90, which is Volvos flagship sedan, would also be moved from Europe to Daqing, China). By utilizing our local strengths in China, and by exploiting the fundamental power of unreserved technology-sharing within the group, we are also contributing to the development of the Chinese auto industry.

The XC90 will see a sales boom

Hakan Samuelsson: The size of the market segment which the XC90 targets is about 250,000 vehicles. In the U.S., this market segment is twice as big. In China, the prices of Volvos major models are now being increased from the range of RMB 250,000-400,000 Yuan to over RMB 750,000 Yuan. All our prices are benchmarked against those of the competitors models in the same series or class.

In terms of pricing, we have always adopted a consistent global strategy, because our products are very competitive and cost-effective. From the time that the XC90 was launched until now, sales growth has been a little slow, but now that we have built a good market base, the XC90 is ready to see a sales boom.

Lars Danielson: Regarding the price of the XC90, during the sales promotion, we did a lot of work with dealers, including marketing and training, and we also reached a common understanding with them that, from the perspectives of technology and the value it can bring to the customers, our price is very competitive compared with similar products. By setting a price like this, we also hope to deliver a message to the customer - the technologies and the values contained within this product are worth the price we are asking, which is our basic principle in the pricing of the X90.

So far we have localized more than 75% of our models

Hakan Samuelsson: We really regard China as our local market. Volvo started late here, but it can be seen from everthing we are doing now in China that we really are treating this country as our second local market.

In China, we have three plants as well as a new facility in Luqiao and an R&D center in Shanghai. In order to get closer to our Chinese customers, we will further increase our R&D investment in China and design and produce a series of tailored products.

At the same time, we have also established a comprehensive supplier system in China. So far we have localized over 75% of models in China. All these efforts demonstrate that Volvo is not treating China as some target for general business investment. We are creating a comprehensive industrial setup in China because we really regard this country as our local market. I believe, with our solid efforts, our market share will gradually increase.

LYNK & CO is not a competitor to Volvo

Hakan Samuelsson: LYNK & CO and Volvo have completely different brand images and target completely different segments. We never think of LYNK & CO as Volvos competitor, just as Audi never regards Skoda as a competitor. These two brands complement and support each other. LYNK &COs success will bring greater success to both Volvo and Geely, especially to Volvos business development and product promotion. So LYNK &CO is actually an important support rather than a competitor.

With its help, we can enhance our industrial synergy, reduce costs, and better achieve economies of scale. So whether in terms of business or market, LYNK & COs success will be really helpful to Volvo.
A host of mobile apps push consumers to spend less and save more. Some siphon off extra money into a savings account. Others shock the user with alerts about profligate spending: You have spent $87 on coffee this month! Most keep users informed about their current balances versus their goals. Some banks even offer incentives to customers if they save more.

Most of these apps also share a limitation, though. They don't help customers see the bigger picture of their entire financial lives, nor weigh the relative merits of their different short- and long-term goals against one another.

"The temptation is, once you fill up a bucket or reach your goal, you spend that money," said Brett King, founder and CEO of Moven, the company behind one of the first digital-only "neobanks."

The objective for the next version of Moven's app (we got a preview) is not to fill lots of buckets in a traditional goal-oriented or budgetary approach, but simply to increase savings month over month. Once the user has accumulated a pool of savings, the app will help her decide what to spend her savings on  and walk her through short-term versus long-term decisions.

"The reality is, life is not that simple," King said. "If you have $500 in a savings account and decide to put another $100 in to buy a new iPhone, you may not be able to have the Christmas vacation with the kids. Life is about trade-offs."

The upcoming features in Moven's app, which stands on its own and is white-labeled by TD Bank and Westpac New Zealand, will provide savings account balance updates accompanied by a "Wish List Timeline." The timeline might show a goal that's been met (the checked-off sneakers below), alongside unmet goals like a laptop and a Caribbean vacation.

The app gently nudges the user to think about far-off goals. She might want to put off buying sneakers in order to make sure she can take her family on that winter holiday.

"It's a really interesting psychology and gamification structure that's built into your daily routine," King said. (King is also host of the Breaking Banks podcast, which is syndicated by American Banker.)

It's like a financial conscience, except that it doesn't tell you if you're making good or bad decisions.

"It's just designed to push you towards healthier financial decisions," King said. "Just by being aware of what you're spending, that elicits enough of a shift in behavior to get you to spend less and start to put that money away."

Apps such as Digit, Level Money, Chime, Dyme, Qapital, Simple and Moven have generally worked well in helping their users save money, according to Wei Ke, a partner at New York consultancy Simon-Kucher in New York. About 30% of American consumers have a strong need for help with saving, he said.

"These disruptors are changing the customer experience, streamlining the process, and reducing the threshold of pain for savings," he said. Some, for instance, send the customer a text message. If the customer taps the 'yes' button, "boom, the money gets automatically transferred to a savings account," Ke said. "The result is more client engagement."

Ke agreed that an app that makes sure these goals don't compete with each other would be helpful.

However, one challenge to this approach is that it asks more of the customer.

"You don't want to make it onerous to set up these ongoing goals," Ke said. "If using the app starts to feel like homework, it doesn't work."

This is why many banks' personal financial management and budgeting apps have low adoption rates, he said: they're too much work to set up. King said the items in Moven's upcoming wishlist take seconds each to set up.

Do Savings Apps Change Behavior?

Some consumer advocates question if savings apps actually have the intended effect of improving people's financial health.

"The real savings challenge for nonprime Americans is related to income and access to credit, and won't be solved by general savings advice or organizational tools," said Jonathan Walker, executive director of Elevate's Center for the New Middle Class, a recently formed research arm of Elevate, a provider of online credit to the financially underserved. The group defines nonprime people as those with credit scores below 700 and little or no savings.

"While technology can certainly help people save money and organize their lives in general, most nonprime consumers report that they are already managing their finances as well as can be expected."

In a survey over the summer, the Center for the New Middle Class found that 52% of nonprime consumers say they deny themselves basic comforts in order to save money. Two in three say they are careful spenders. Over half cite month-to-month income volatility that can make it tough to establish a regular savings plan  even though 72% say they know how to budget. 37% say that they can't make financial progress because of a lack of credit  not a lack of savings apps.

But King says daily users of Moven have already reduced their overall monthly spend, and thereby increased savings balances. TD Bank Canada customers who use MySpend (the bank's white-labeled version of Moven) more than five times a month save an average of $150 more a month than customers who don't use it. (The bank knows this because it can compare MySpend users to a control group of TD Bank customers who registered for the app but don't use it.)

Moven is targeting the 57% of American adults who are struggling financially and are looking for help to achieve financial health, King said. The app provides daily updates, a spending meter and periodic reminders to save. Customers can choose to stash money at any time or when Moven detects and recommends an opportune savings moment. Through a partnership with Envestnet and its Yodlee financial data platform, Moven integrates with customers' other investment and retirement savings accounts.

"All this changes people's habits in terms of spending, then they lock away the savings," King said.

As part of the upgrade, Moven will introduce a Fitbit-like feature that has users compete against themselves to increase the amount of savings they put away every month, the way users of fitness trackers sometimes become obsessed with increasing their steps.

"We gamify that element as well," King said. "We say, 'Hey, you saved $600 this month, can you beat it next month?' "

Ke wonders if people will care enough to respond to this psychological inducement. "Setting a goal for savings is definitely coherent from a cognitive standpoint, but setting up competitive saving is further removed," he said. "Nobody goes around and talks about their savings."

This could work, however, within a close circle of friends who are saving, say, for a group vacation. "There's peer pressure, there's stuff you're able to buy through more diligent savings behavior," Ke said. "It could work if everyone's working toward that."

Ready to Launch

Moven's revised app is currently being used by staff, friends and family and will likely be launched to the public later this month or in early January  ideally, to coincide with New Year's resolutions, King said.

Along with the updated app, Moven last week began offering a 5% annual percentage rate on up to $5,000 in its Smart Savings Account for customers who spend $500 a month on the Moven debit card. The standard rate is 0.5%.

The 5% return is remarkably high.

"We hope it gets some attention, some noise," King said. "This is a trial thing; I don't know if we'll be able to sustain it." The company may end up charging those who receive the higher APR a higher monthly fee. "That's the great thing about being a startup," King said. "You can try it out, pivot or iterate."

Editor at Large Penny Crosman welcomes feedback on her posts at penny.crosman@sourcemedia.com.
Vernon Hill is back.

The legendary founder and CEO of the former Commerce Bank in Cherry Hill, N.J., on Monday was named chairman at Republic First Bancorp in Philadelphia. Hill has been a major investor in and a consultant to the $1.7 billion-asset Republic First since late last decade and over the years Republic First has added many Commerce-like features to its branches, including seven-day-a-week banking and free coin counting.

Hill's appointment to chairman coincided with the announcement that Republic has raised $100 million of new capital through the sale of common stock. Republic has opened eight new branches over the past three years and in a news release it said it intends to use a portion of the proceeds to open at least six new locations next year.

Republic First's shares soared on the news of the capital raise and Hill's appointment. The stock was trading at $5.75 late Monday, up 7.5% from Friday's closing price.

"Our expansion plan represents the bank's commitment to world-class service and convenience," said Harry Madonna, Republic's founder and CEO.

Hill is currently the chairman of the $12 billion-asset Metro Bank, a London-based retail bank he co-founded in 2010. But he made his mark in banking at Commerce, which he founded in 1973 and over the next 34 years built it into a deposit-gathering powerhouse with roughly $50 billion of assets and more than 450 branches stretching from New England to Florida.

In 2007, Hill was forced to resign as Commerce's chairman and CEO after regulators barred the bank from doing business with firms controlled by Hill's family. His wife, Shirley, ran an architectural design firm that designed many of Commerce's branches.

Later that year, Commerce announced that it was selling itself to TD Bank for $8.5 billion. TD still uses the "America's Most Convenient Bank" tagline that Commerce coined under Hill.
A coordinated bargaining group comprised of six rail unions representing more than 58 percent of the workforce has applied to the National Mediation Board for the assignment of a federal mediator to assist with current negotiations with railway employers.



Rail labor unions are asking the National Mediation Board (NMB) to step in as negotiations with Class I railways has completely stalled, according to a statement from the unions.

A coordinated bargaining group comprised of six rail labor unions representing 85,000 workers, more than 58 percent of the total workforce, has applied to the NMB for the assignment of a federal mediator to assist with current negotiations with railway employers, the group said.

Members of the group include the American Train Dispatchers Association; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (a Division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters); the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers; the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers/SEIU; and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.

The group said the recent slowdown in negotiations is very disappointing, following two years of voluntary settlement talks. During those two years, initial carrier employer demands were unacceptable to our bargaining team, and would be found equally unacceptable by our collective membership, the group said.

Nevertheless, the Unions went to the table last week with the intention of reaching a satisfactory voluntary settlement that would fairly address the needs of both sides, but that did not happen, the group added. Unfortunately, the railroads apparently believe that the national elections in November have tipped the labor-management balance in this country heavily in their favor, as they made clear that no reasonable and fair resolution is any longer in the offing.

The unions said the railroads continue to demand extreme concessions that would erode our members standard of living and earned benefits.

We cautiously anticipate that the involvement of the NMB will cause the industry to refocus on addressing the legitimate needs of the men and women whose labor generates their positive financial returns, the group said.

Reached for comment, the National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents the thirty-four railroads in this round of national bargaining with the thirteen rail unions said its members welcome the NMBs assistance in helping the parties bridge their significant differences in how to address the formidable challenges facing the freight rail industry and its employees in the current round of national bargaining. The railroads will continue to make every effort to reach voluntary agreements.
In the wake of the 2016 election, there have been efforts at soul searching by politicians on both left and right. But neither side has been able to focus on the fact that the river of history is at a flood stage and is washing away the banks on both the left and right sides of the river. This has gone unnoticed for the most part, but as with most things in life, it is easy to see if you just change your perspective, and an historical perspective is what is called for here.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press by pouring molten lead into molds to form the individual letters which could be moved and reused to print pages and pages of information on a scale never before seen. Prior to this invention, books were hand scribed, illuminated, illustrated and sewn into a binding which, when finished, was more of a work of art than a volume of reference material. The advent of cheaper and more plentiful books resulted in the widespread availability of information and the Age of Enlightenment began.

This new availability of information, in the form of printed books, resulted in a flood of cultural revolutions with high water marks such as the Reformation in religion, the Copernican Revolution in science and ultimately, in the political arena, the American Revolution.

The printing press gave rise to newspaper empires such as the New York Times, the Washington Post , and the UK Guardian. These newspapers help to shape the world we live in today by selecting, or omitting, what information to print based upon editorial guidelines.

Fast Forward to the late 20th Century  in 1989, a man by the name of Tim Berners-Lee, while working at CERN in Switzerland, developed computer code that enabled the Internet to become the ubiquitous font of knowledge in all of our lives. It will be left to future historians what this new age of information should be christened. Arguably, the computer code authored by Tim Berners-Lees is on par with what Gutenberg did. Despite this, it will come as no surprise to the readers of AT that Dr. Berners-Lee has not been recognized for his work by the Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway.

As a result of this advancement in computer technology the Internet was made available to the public through internet service providers like Prodigy and CompuServe in 1992. The public now had ability to read the Washington Post in Honolulu, Hawaii or the UK Guardian in Jacksonville, Florida. Just as with Gutenbergs printing press there was an unanticipated outcome of this flood of information. The U.S. House of Representatives changed hands in the election of 1994, when, for the first time in forty years, the Republican Party won a majority of seats. Transparency was having an effect. Oddly, the new Congress saw the World Wide Web as a means for the public to follow, in detail, without filtration, the daily legislative activities of our representatives in Washington and established a portal of unprecedented access in 1995. The portal was christened THOMAS but now has been superseded by Congress.gov which includes a Twitter account to track legislation.

The election results of 2016, when viewed from the perspective numbers, comes into clear focus. The Washington Post has a daily circulation of less than 500,000. The New York Times has a daily Circulation of just over 500,000. By contrast the Drudge Report had more than a billion hits in the month of November. The aggregate numbers dwarf the traditional newspaper circulations and even the viewership of network news outlets. These hard, cold facts make the methodology of selective omission a pointless endeavor on the part of traditional news sources. Broadcast news is not immune to this flood tide and now has to compete with the likes of the syndicated radio talk shows of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity, etc. which are heard on hundreds and hundreds of radio stations racking up a daily listenership in the tens of millions over the air waves, and many millions more via the Internet. The rise of Internet-based news channels like GBTV and CRTV will likely begin to produce more floodwaters of information, albeit filtered.

The numbers add up to one undeniable fact; the mainstream media is no longer mainstream. The vast majority of millennials obtain their news via internet sites of one kind or another. This is why newspaper circulation and network news shows ratings, have been in a free fall for more than a decade. By contrast, Internet sites like the American Thinker and the Drudge Report continue to see growth. The mainstream media has committed the sin of omission by failing to be balanced and objective, and everyone knows it. They no longer report the news, instead they try to shape the narrative. In the past eighteen months, the mainstream media tried to do to Donald Trump what they successfully did to Barry Goldwater. They wanted to create an image of Mr. Trump as the apocalyptic candidate. But the reach of the mainstream media was not as wide as other more trusted news sources on the World Wide Web, where an alternative narrative was presented.

The current outgoing president, who is now almost irrelevant, stated in Rolling Stone magazine, that the Democrats loss in the 2016 election was due in part to fake news. This was an ironic assertion to make to Rolling Stone, which just lost a major court battle concerning a faked news story about a rape on a college campus. The president did not elaborate on what exactly he meant by fake news, but the unspoken message might be fake news is news that makes the Democrats look bad. Whether the president and other leaders in his party believe this analysis or not, is also almost irrelevant. I would prefer that the leftists remained clueless about how they lost (fortunately, many will).

The Democrats used to say that all politics are local. But the current Democrat party has lost touch with that mantra as they have pushed for more and more globalism created in the image of the European Union. They did this naively believing that we were not watching; or if we were watching, that we are too stupid to understand. The 2016 election has proven that all politics are local. And the localities that voted for Donald Trump were the parts of the country that were not getting ahead in a stagnated economy.

The Democrats, and probably many Republicans too, have failed to see the raging floodwaters of information lapping on the doorstep of every household as any sort of significant force. But the World Wide Web is changing the course of history. Each household can now observe, without filtration, what politicians are doing on their behalf. These flood waters of unfiltered information are washing out the stagnated swamp, and as with the Biblical Flood, a new beginning has been ushered in.
The United States is importing people with a religious and cultural propensity to commit horrific acts of hatred and revenge against Western Civilization. This is madness rooted in politics.

On November 28, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali-born Muslim inspired by ISIS, went on a rampage at Ohio State University. He injured 11 when he rammed his car into a group of students with murderous intent and then immediately went on a knife attack before campus security shot him dead.

No soon had this fanatic's body reached room temperature then Stephanie Clemons Thompson, employed as something called an assistant director of resident life a Ohio State, started calling for sympathy and compassion for Artan and lamented that he was taken out so quickly. In her Facebook posing, Thompson refers to Artan as a "BUCKEYE, a member of our family."

Photo: The Ohio State University

True, Artan was no doubt properly enrolled at OSU, just as he was legally in the U.S., brought here as a refugee sponsored by Catholic Charities. But although the i's may have been dotted, the t's crossed, and all the technicalities satisfied, this man was never a Buckeye or an American in any true sense. He was an alien in our society, brought here perhaps with good intentions but with no critical thinking involved.

This incident at OSU is an example of the Obama administration's reckless refugee resettlement policy. One has to wonder how many others like Abdul Razak Ali Artan are here existing like potential time bombs, ready to explode if America does not show what they consider to be proper deference to them and their religion.

There can be no question that the current refugee resettlement program is extremely risky. To understand why many people in power support and defend it is to understand how far the madness of multiculturalism and diversity has affected policy.

Multiculturalism is the belief that all cultures are the same and should be placed on equal footing. It is a tolerance for all values. At its beginning, even the strongest proponents of multiculturalism never believed that multiculturalism was valid. They pushed this philosophy so as not to appear to be overly condescending to those from, shall we say, developing cultures. Think of it as a type of noblesse oblige, if you will. But as is so often the case of those pushing a false narrative, the multiculturalists came to believe their own propaganda over time.

Now in elite circles, it's goodbye Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the Constitution and hello to diversity. And don't think multiculturalism isn't buried within the motive of Hampshire College in Amherst, MA to lower the U.S. flag on campus after the election, restoring it after protests.

In the recent campaign, Hillary Clinton, a person who came frighteningly close to being elected president, said she thought that America's commitment to diversity is a reaffirmation as to who we are as Americans. It is as if the American character is now to be defined by its unlimited openness to diversity and to other cultures.

Judging from the actions of Democrat politicians, immigrants who come here from Third World cultures and with Third World mindsets are not expected to blend in. Heaven forbid, as that would be an affront to their "dignity" and go against the grain of multiculturalism. As a result, separate enclaves are popping up across the country, even in the heartland. The Democratic Party celebrates Balkanization as this enlarges their constituency base, never caring how it weakens overall American culture and strength.

In a commencement address, Secretary of State John Kerry echoed this theme. He lectured Americans that we must be prepared to live in a borderless world, a world that he and his fellow globalists are busily trying to construct. And here, Kerry did not mean borderless in terms of only goods and services and capital. He meant people, too. And John Kerry's position is in full accord with the agenda of the globalist elite.

As Prof. Edward J. Erler notes, taken to its logical conclusion, proof of one's true commitment to diversity requires -- nay, demands -- that security and national sovereignty be sacrificed for its sake. In the distorted minds of the elite, one way to do this is to open the flood gates to people who are alien to our values and harbor at the very least a latent hostility to the American way of life. Frau Merkel of Germany is the ultimate example of this form of national suicide. Prof. Erler's point is that massive overdosing on multiculturalism and diversity goes a long way to explain why refugees from Islamic terrorist areas are not being vetted before gaining entrance to the US.

Of course, the commitment of the elites to multiculturalism smacks of hypocrisy. When you consider that among all of us, they are the most insulated from the adverse affects of their insane policy, due to their wealth and power. One has to wonder what the elite reaction would be if Muslim terrorists periodically ran amok in murderous rampages in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. or at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, the inner sanctums of the elite, instead of at a state university catering to the middle class.

So it is in this poisonous environment of multiculturalism uber alles that the likes of a thoroughly brainwashed university administrator can openly grieve over the passing of Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the terrorist at Ohio State.

With the election of Donald Trump and a Republican Congress, America dodged a bullet. There is now a chance for sanity to prevail regarding immigration. But draining all the politically correct swamps at universities and colleges across the country where all must bow before the idols of multiculturalism and diversity will take more than a new president to accomplish. But it must be done. Mitch Daniels at Purdue University is an example of how to push back the multicultural madness. And when this process begins in earnest, don't be surprised at what crawls out.
Why is the U.S. in Syria? Why is the U.S. in Yemen? What was the point of dumping Khadafi in Libya? Do you have a clue what is going on? I dont have a clue about any of that either.

And thats the story of the Obama administration. He never tells us why.

Why not? Its because the Democratic operatives in the media will support him, willy-nilly, so he never feels he has to appeal to the American people for our support. And if we knew the real reason for his actions we wouldnt like them.

The result is that we dont have a clue what the Obama policy is, what his strategy is, how he sees the world and Americas place in it. The same goes for Hillary McSauce.

Notice the difference with the notorious Reality TV president-elect. Ill bet you a nickel that Trumps supporters have a pretty good idea what he intends to do as president. Its because he told us, again and again.

This whole thing reached clarity for me when I read a story about retired Gen. James Mattis, Trumps nominee for defense secretary. A young captain reports in 1994 to his commanding officer Col. Mattis for what he thinks is a five-minute go get em Tiger interview. Instead, Mattis sits the youngster down in his own chair, and then talks to him, man to man, for an hour.

Mattis laid out his warfighting philosophy, vision, goals, and expectations He laid out history, culture, religion, and politics, and he saw very clearly not only where we would fight, but how the Seventh Marines, a desert battalion, fit into that fight.

Many years later he was proven precisely right.

Of course, a president cannot just sit down with the American people and outline his philosophy, vision, and goals, plus history and culture and all the rest. But he should certainly do a better job than President Obama.

We know why President Obama is such an enigma. His problem is, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, that liberals cannot tell us who they are. That came through loud and clear in the presidents equivocal statement on the death of Fidel Castro. Obama knew he could not praise Castro. So he could not tell us that he venerates Castro as a revolutionary and a practitioner of fundamental transformation. Nor could he tell us what he is really doing with ObamaCare or what his grand strategy is in Syria.

If he did, we wouldnt like it.

President-elect Trump does not have that problem, because he is right where the American people are. He believes in economic growth, but also protecting American jobs, and he says so. He believes in repealing ObamacCare but retaining the right to health insurance with a pre-existing condition. He wants to drain the swamp but not touch Social Security. Trump attacks political correctness but wants to bring jobs to the inner city.

You may say that Trumps goals add up to fundamental contradiction, and you would be right. But which would you prefer? Trumps blustering contradiction or Obamas weaseling equivocation?

The reason we have Brexit and Trump and the French Front National and the German Alternativ fur Deutschland is that the elitist-globalist pay no attention to that man behind the curtain weaseling equivocation has finally lost the support of the people. It has lost that support because it pretends to support the peoples patriotism while sneering at them behind their backs.

Meanwhile all educated people agree that the worst thing in the world would be a return to fascism, that rancid combination of nationalism and socialism.

Well yes, snowflakes, except that nationalism-socialism rather nicely combines a sense of belonging to something greater than a tribe with the age-old promise to protect you if things turn south. That is what the political geniuses Mussolini and Hitler found lying in the street in the 1920s. The trouble was that they were evil geniuses.

Also, they were dumb. They could not appreciate the genius of a Bismarck, who ginned up a nice little war with France, unified the whole German nation, got his king proclaimed Kaiser of the Germans in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, and then went home.

The modern equivalent would be for the European elite to gin up a nice little war with Islam, beat the crap out of them at Dabiq, declare a European nation on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and then go home.

Meanwhile we have Trump. Somehow, I dont see him as a man behind a curtain. His presidency is likely to address the question of what we Americans believe in, what we owe to our country, and what our country owes to us. Right in plain sight.

Nobody will doubt what President Trump thinks about the world, and what he proposes to do about it.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also see his American Manifesto and get his Road to the Middle Class.
Donald Trump is assembling the most prepared and credible national security team since the end of World War II. You can be assured that the team of James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford know and understand the foundational necessity of drilling the basics at every level of command and partnership. They will rightly be leery of any new and expensive platform proposals that divert funding from the basics. I seriously doubt we would have wasted billions on the Zumwalt destroyer on their watch. This no-nonsense team is already making potential adversaries nervous.

Military actions are distilled down to shooting, moving, and communicating. These foundational concepts have stood the test of time. In todays information-rich, tech-savvy environment, its easy to get distracted by the latest shiny object. Dont get me wrong; we dont ever want to be caught on the battlefield with a technological disadvantage. Polish horse cavalry did not fare well against German tanks in 1939. But, its the fundamentals that will make a good military a great military.

The most dynamic of the basics is shooting, and shooting well requires technique, accuracy, effect on target, and an understanding of what you are shooting at. This is a complex skill set, including everything from rifles/artillery to submarine-launched precision-guided missiles and close air support. Those that are doing the shooting and those that are directing the shooting need to be trained and exercised constantly. And, if we are going to work effectively in a joint and combined team environment, all the players involved need to practice working together. These are skills that oxidize quickly if not exercised, and that need to be sharp when employed.

Movement is another broad topic with multitiered aspects. Tactical movement involves closing with or outmaneuvering the enemy in front of you. This is done in the air, on land, and sea. Although, you can argue that we have not been tactically tested recently in the air or on the sea. Operational movement is the effort to get forces and fires at the right place at the decisive time to ensure the tactical movement is overwhelmingly successful. And strategic movement is the deployment of people, equipment and material from bases to the theater of operations. All of these levels of movement need to be practiced and rehearsed in order to do them correctly/effectively. All three of these levels of movement become increasingly difficult when you factor in the urgency of a real combat situation, and another order of magnitude when you combine forces with allies.

The foundation of our military effectiveness is our ability to project force anywhere in the world. In order to be great, we have to be best in class at getting there, setting the force and decisively closing with the enemy. Nobody else in the world can do what we do, and it requires a lot of practice to orchestrate these types of movements. Again, this is not flashy or politically exciting, but we have to carve out the budget to ensure we are trained and exercised effectively in all three levels of movement.

Communication has never been more complex than it is now in the Information Age. The requirements of military communication are not complicated, but information management is hugely complicated. The basic concept of military communication hasnt changed much: get enough credible information to make effective decisions faster than your enemy. The challenge today is managing information overload, and tweezing out the information you need. That has to be practiced in realistic situations: not easy.

Another communication challenge is the protection of information. Our military information flow has to be the best-protected networks in the world period. We have zero tolerance for having substandard information flow when we put our national treasure in harms way. Keeping up with advancing technologies in this arena is certainly a budgetary challenge, but, again, training in the basics of military communication is the key. Technology is guaranteed to fail at some point (typically when you least expect it), but the well-trained will adapt, overcome and prevail.

Training has to be a high priority in the defense budget. It costs money to train effectively, although its not as politically exciting. Rolling out advanced ships and weapons systems are big events, typically years in the making, and politicians get to tout every milestone along the way: winning the contract, increasing district employment for many years, launching the finished product, etc. I get that, and agree we need to keep our large capital equipment up to date, but we cannot neglect the basics while doing so.

We will certainly field shiny, cutting-edge drones that launch precision missiles, loiter over the battlefield and communicate images of goosebumps on our enemys neck from 10,000 feet, but we better know how to use that capability. The same goes for radar-evading ships, joint multirole fighter jets, and non-line of sight targeting systems.

The basics are simple, but dont be tempted to neglect them. Shoot, move, and communicate. These three simple words have always represented the basics, and are the foundation of a great military. Each of these basics applies from tactical to operational to strategic levels, and every level requires continuous and effective exercising to keep them best-in-class. Dont try to sell this new national security team on a new-fangled system unless it enhanced shooting, moving, or communicating. Cutting-edge technology is good, but knowing how to employ effectively is great.

Carry on!

Ray McFall is a former US Marine Corps infantry officer, Senior advisor at the US Department of State, and was tasked with assessing the buildup of combat power in Kuwait in preparation of the allied offensive to remove the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
It is a hyperbolic overstatement to say that the center cannot hold and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, but it is fair to recognize that the tectonic plates of European politics are shifting. In one week in November-December 2016 this actuality was illustrated by electoral results in France and Italy, and to a lesser extent in Austria.

In France, after the victory on November 28, 2016 of Francois Fillon to be the candidate of the right-wing Republic party in the 2017 presidential election, and the growing popularity of Marine Le Pen the leader and candidate of the far right Front National, the incumbent socialist President Francois Holland declared he would not compete in the presidential election. The public opinion polls indicate that since Fillon and Le Pen are leading, a socialist candidate, whether Prime Minister Manuel Valls or someone else, is unlikely to get to the second round, let alone win.

In Italy, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi faced a crisis over referendum that was defeated by 55% to 45% on Sunday December 4, 2016. The 41-year-old center-left Renzi wanted by a complex referendum to change the constitutional system by which both chambers of parliament had virtually equal powers, and often blocked legislation. Renzi proposed limiting the power of the Senate, thus facilitating the legislative process, and reduce the power of Italy's regional governments, thus providing stronger central government.

The complex referendum, not easily understood by voters, in essence became one on Renzi and his leadership, and on Italian nationalism. For some voters implicitly expressing unhappiness with the EU, the vote was in favor of Exit Italia, the Italian version of Brexit. More important, it showed, as has been the case in other European countries, opposition to immigration. So far in 2016 Italy has taken in 171,000 migrants.

The referendum was primarily opposed by the left-leaning Five Star Movement (MSS), by the far right Northern League, and to some extent by the center right Forza Italia. The MSS, founded in 2009 and led by former comedian turned politician Beppe Grillo, who wants Italy to abandon the euro, is a populist, anti-establishment, environmental group. He sees Italy as a country stuck in the mud. In the 2013 parliamentary election it gained the second highest number of votes, and won 109 of the 630 parliamentary deputies. The MSS has done well in mayoral elections throughout Italy, as well as in parliamentary elections.

The right-wing Northern League founded in 1991 wants Italy to become a federal state, and sometimes called for the north to secede and form its own system. It gets about 4 % of the poll.

The advances of the far right in European politics however were halted on December 4, 2016 with the defeat of Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the far-right Freedom party, as a candidate to become president of Austria. A victory would have been symbolically important, making him the first far-right politician to become head of state in a European country since the end of World War II. Nevertheless, his relatively strong performance will be an encouragement to his own party and also to similar nationalist ones seeking power in other countries.

Norbert Hofer had almost won the presidency in May 2016 obtaining 49.7% of the vote when his opponent Green party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen obtained 50.3 %, an advantage of 30,800 votes. However, because of irregularities in postal ballots in 94 of 117 districts the election result was declared invalid and a rerun was held on December 4, 2016.

The Austrian Freedom party was founded in 1955 by a former general in the Nazi SS and has a history of anti-Semitism. Today, some members of the party wear blue cornflowers on their clothes, a symbol of German nationalism that was used by Nazi Germans as a secret symbol.

The chair of the party since 2005, Heinz-Christian Strache, is a populist, far-right politician, more extreme than Hofer. In April 2012, he posted on Facebook a caricature of a Jewish banker with hooked nose. He called Nazi death camps punishment facilities. He has attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for allowing an unlimited number of migrants into Europe. His platform states, the uncontrolled influx of migrants alien to our culture who seep into our social welfare system makes civil war in the medium-term not unlikely.

Presidential candidate Hofer is a 45-year-old former aeronautical engineer who carries both a walking stick as a result of a paragliding accident in 2003, and a pistol. Like Marine Le Pen and unlike Strache, Hofer distanced himself from anti-Semitism, past and present.

Hofers policy is similar to other European far-right groups: anti-immigration, fear of Islamic terrorism, anti-elite, opposition to globalization, and emphasis on national identity. One of his main slogans in his electoral campaign resembles similar rhetoric in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign: Your homeland needs you now. Vienna, he declares, must not become Istanbul. As a strong nationalist, Hofer expresses concern about Turkey and Turks entering Austria. He expresses concern about Turkey and Turks entering Austria.

If elected, he would have called for a referendum on membership of the EU, and for South Tyrol (Alto Adige), which came under Italian control in 1919 and has been an autonomous province since 1948, to be incorporated into Austria. Even more strongly he argued that Islam is not part of Austrian values, and that criminal penalties should be imposed on immigrants committing crimes like rape.

This attempt to limit immigration of Muslims into Europe comes at a moment when the belief that Muslims may not be part of the national community is understandable. A poll in UK in December 2016 shows that Muslims in the country live in enclaves on their own housing estates, have their own schools, and TV channels. Paradoxically, the report criticizes the British police for pandering to ethnic minorities.

43% of Muslims in the country want at least some aspects of Sharia law to be in force and to replace British law. It is disconcerting that a considerable number of Muslims in UK believe conspiracy theories. Some 31% believe that the U.S. government and 7% believe that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Only 4% blamed al Qaeda for the terrorist attack on the U.S.

Many other European countries have seen electoral gains by far-right and nationalist parties. They include Switzerland (Swiss Peoples Party with 29%), Hungary (Jobbik with 21%), Denmark (Danish Peoples Party 21%), Netherlands Freedom Party 10%), Greece (Golden Dawn 7%). Even in Germany the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in September 2016 got 14% of the vote in the Berlin state election, entering that state parliament for the first time. Indeed, the AfD is now represented in 10 out of Germanys 16 state parliaments.

In all these countries, there is revolt and popular anger against what is seen as the elite and the centrist politics of the country. The populist backlash that took Trump to the White House and Britain out of the European Union is continuing. President Trump and his administration must formulate policy in the light of the growing populist strength in Europe and the growth of anti-system, extremist nationalist parties.
We hear about the alt-right and the alt-left, but the real issue is the alt-reality.

Most Americans' perceptions of the world are shaped by information they get from primarily liberal sources such as the media, academia, and government.

That's why many Americans live in an alternate reality where Hillary did nothing wrong at Benghazi, abortions occur only due to rape, global warming is supported by 97% of scientists, the economy is doing great, emotions are good and reasoning is bad, Republicans are racists, Castro was a kind and caring man, and Trump is an insane tyrant.

The reason liberals have been able to get away with lying for so long is that most of these issues don't affect the average voter. The average voter doesn't care about Cuba, is not planning on having an abortion herself, and didn't lose anyone at Benghazi. As a result, many people don't bother to see if what they hear is in fact true.

In addition, most people aren't exposed to any information sources that contradict the liberal narrative. Hence, the average person who's working hard to support their family and raise their children never has any reason to question liberal propaganda.

Even worse, when the "accepted" information sources all say any position they don't agree with is "fake," the average Joe or Jane will simply assume that his brother-in-law who is a conservative is just mistaken. After all, would the nightly news anchor who looks so honest really lie?

Finally, the liberal alt-reality machine constantly acts as though virtually all Americans agree with liberal values  that anyone who doesn't accept liberal views is a deplorable or an idiot. That tends to keep people from expressing their conservative views, or the fact that they were going to vote for Trump, because no one wants to be labeled a fool by others. This helps limit the spread by word of mouth of news sources the liberals don't control.

What led to the Trump win is that the liberals have become so out of step with reality that many Americans decided to completely distrust them.

When the media told people it is evil to object to any man who self-identifies as a woman, at that instant, using the same bathroom as a 10-year-old girl, most people stopped and realized that that is insane.

When people saw how tough their economic situation was and how many of their friends couldn't find a job, but the liberal establishment said how much Obama had improved the economy, most people began to realize that maybe they were being lied to.

When people saw cops who acted in self-defense having their lives destroyed and other cops being hunted down and assassinated, all while they were hearing that saying "all lives matter" is racist, they began to understand that the establishment voices were on the side of the crooks, not the cops, on the side of blacks but not whites.

That's why most Americans distrust the media, academia, and the government.

This long delayed realization by so many Americans that the cultural elites are lying to them is what has triggered the liberals' sudden fascination with "fake" news.

Liberals know that the great unwashed masses who cling to their guns and religion won't accept liberalism. That's why the liberals constantly have to lie about their vision for America. After all, who'd sign up for a world where your liberal "betters" control every aspect of your life, including how much soda you can drink?.

That's why liberals are now hell-bent on ensuring that any voice other than their own is labeled "fake." They know that their only hope to get and retain the power they are so addicted to is to have a monopoly on information.

For decades, anyone who has disagreed with liberals was automatically labeled a racist. This worked to delegitimize conservatives precisely because neither conservatives nor America in general is racist. Do you think Democrat Senator Byrd in his KKK days would have been bothered if he'd been called a racist? But people who aren't racists don't want to be branded as racists.

It's time we fought back and made sure that Americans don't return to trusting the liberal "h8rs."

Given that the best antidote to liberalism is truth, here are some bits of sand you can throw into the left's media machine:

Mention that liberals must be pretty stupid not to be able to recognize the difference between The Onion and real news sites.

Ask why we should believe attacks on conservatives by the NYT after it said it should be biased in its coverage against Trump.

Point out that the liberals are the racists, given that the only time they care about a black being shot is when a white, a "white Latino," or a cop does it. Thousands of blacks are murdered in Democrat run cities every year, and the liberal chattering heads say nothing.

Ask why, if the economy is so great, household income has been stagnant, and so many people have only part-time jobs.

Wonder why the media was totally wrong about Trump winning.Ask if it isn't fascist of universities to suppress speech they don't like.

All of us have an amazing opportunity to delegitimize the establishment information sources.

While the Trump revolution has returned control of the Congress and presidency to the people we still need to overthrow the modern Goebbelses, whose propaganda conceals the racist and fascist nature of modern liberalism.

People of all political stripes are beginning to question whether or not they're being fed a pack of lies. We need to get them to take a good hard look at the gaping chasm between what they've been told is true and what they see with their own eyes.

We don't want to silence liberal voices, but we do want to make sure everyone knows that liberals are liars, not trusted family friends who have our best interests in mind.

We need to ensure that the vast majority of Americans know that ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the rest of the liberal voices are even more biased and less reliable than Fox News.

When the vast majority of Americans realize they can't just watch the evening news or pick up their local paper in order to find out what's real and what isn't, America will be ready to truly return to being a representative republic.

You can read more of Tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious, and feel free to follow him on Twitter.
A decade ago the Chinese made a big push to try and establish themselves in Europe. It was a disaster. The first wave of cars had outdated designs and technology as well as powertrains that weren't ready to meet Europes tough emissions standards. The quality of the cars was subpar and, most worryingly, they scored terribly in independent crash tests.

As a result, since 2006 Chinese brands have been a non-factor in Europe. Light vehicle sales peaked last year at 3,866 units in a market with a total volume of 14.1 million, according to JATO Dynamics. Most of those sales came from either MG Motor in the UK or Great Wall in Italy.

Fast forward to 2016 and things have changed dramatically. Geely Automobile's Lynk & CO brand looks like it will be a serious contender when it debuts in Europe in two years because of the design and engineering help it is getting from sister brand Volvo. Meanwhile Borgward, a storied German brand revived with Chinese backing, also appears to be in position to succeed thanks to help from former Daimler executives as well as leading German suppliers such as Robert Bosch, Webasto and Schaeffler. With their forthcoming models, the two Chinese automakers will also try to tap into growing European demand for SUVs and alternative powertrains. Borgward's BX7 midsize SUV will only be offered with a battery-powered drivetrain while Lynk & CO's 01 crossover will be sold as a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid. Both brands plan to only offer vehicles with internal combustion engines in China.

The brands have also either committed to building vehicles in Europe or have the possibility to do so. Borgward, once Germanys third-largest automaker, in 2018 plans to start assembling 10,000 BX7s a year from kits shipped from China at a factory in Bremen, its former home.

"Production will be designed to be flexible and organized in such a way that we can adjust  and thus increase  production output and the number of models," Borgward CEO Ulrich Walker said in a statement. Walker is Daimler's former China boss. His team includes Tilo Schweers, who is now Borgward's head of powertrain electrification after playing a key role in Daimler's development of alternative drive systems, and Florian Herbold, who leads Borgward's transmission development after holding a similar job with Daimler.

The Lynk & CO 01 will be underpinned by the compact modular architecture (CMA) that Geely developed with sister brand Volvo Car Group. Volvo will use the CMA for its 40-series compact cars, which will also be built alongside Lynk & CO models in China.

Volvo's factory in Ghent, Belgium, will also produce vehicles using the CMA platform, which has led to speculation that Lynk & CO cars would also roll off the lines there. This is because the combination of transportation costs and tariffs would make it difficult for Lynk & CO to make money on its European sales unless the cars are make locally. Volvo said that there are no current plans to make Lynk & CO vehicles in Ghent.

Even if Lynk & CO shipped China-built cars to Europe it is likely customers would give them a chance. A number of well-established automakers have proved that the quality of cars made in China is on par with models made in Europe. Most left-hand-drive versions of the Honda Jazz sold in Europe are built in China. In addition, the China-made long-wheelbase version of the Volvo S60 that is exported to North America has achieved a top rating from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

This success helped convince Volvo to make China its exclusive global export hub for its S90 flagship sedan. The S90 was previously made only in Sweden.

Another advantage that both Chinese firms have is the support of an owner with deep pockets. For Lynk & CO it is Chinese billionaire Li Shufu, whose Zhejiang Geely Holding Group also includes Geely and Volvo. Meanwhile, Borgward is part of state-owned Chinese truckmaker Beiqi Foton Motor.

Despite all the pluses, market watchers  as well as Zhejiang Geely's Li -- remain cautious because of the problems Chinese brands have experienced in the region and because Europe is considered the most competitive market in the world. "We don't have the ambition of influencing the whole European market," Li said.

Added IHS Markit analyst Namrita Chow: "Both Lynk & CO and Borgward allegedly have solid financial bases behind them, but they have yet to launch products in Europe, with linked dealership and aftersales services."

Robin Zhu, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Singapore, views Lynk & CO's and Borgward's export plans as a way to prove to Chinese consumers and the local government that locally made vehicles are no longer inferior to those made outside the country.

"There is a huge desire on the part of the Chinese government to create an industry champion, and to have something they can export with pride. I think Lynk & CO will definitely try, I have less clarity on Borgward, but perhaps it's possible too," Zhu said.

Christoph Stuermer, global lead analyst for PwC Autofacts, said Chinese automakers will only succeed in Europe if their designs are compelling and their brand history is interesting. "Lynk & CO is trying to stand out by using design cues from many premium brands, while Borgward is using its German heritage to make a difference," he said.
Many conservatives are worried that Al Gore ascended the elevators at Trump Tower and met first with Ivanka Trump and then with the president-elect:

I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground, Gore told reporters after spending about 90 minutes at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the lunch hour Monday. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that.

Donald Trumps approach to his presidency seems to include talking to former and current opponents. Far from inhabiting a bubble, he makes sure to hear the views of others. And Gore has plenty of connections to the world of high tech (he is on Apples Board), a community that now realizes it backed the weak horse in the election and now has few connections to the incoming administration. That is an unnatural vacuum.

It is far too soon to panic. Sharing and even amplifying my calming views, Russell Cook, one of the leading debunkers of claims that critics of global warming theory are in the pay of oil companies, makes three critical observations about the meeting:

There is much more coming down the road for warmist dogma. Trump is a skeptic, and skeptics dont change their minds because of a short meeting with a beefy, wealthy former vice president. Gores words do not indicate he persuaded anyone of anything.
Barack Obama lived in the ivory tower of academia, from which he selected much of his cabinet. Those selections appear to be have been more grounded in perceptions of intellect than abilities or the promise of extraordinary contribution. Degrees and theories were paramount, while real-life experiences would take a back seat.

Former secretary of defense Robert Gates discusses leadership in his book, A Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public Service. Gates revealed that at one point, Obama declared in a cabinet meeting that he, Obama, could perform the duties of each cabinet post better than those he had selected for the positions.

You know, the president is quoted as having said at one point to his staff, I can do every one of your jobs better than you can, Gates said on MSNBCs Morning Joe.

The arrogance is stifling, but upon examination, the declaration is actually an exposure of poor leadership. Obama's self-absorption does not permit this man to detect such a glaring admission. For if indeed Obama could have performed each cabinet position in a more proficient manner than those he selected, it seems that the selections were placeholders, because as Obama essentially pronounced, he couldnt be everywhere at the same time.

One might ask what the appointment thresholds were, exactly.

Leaders should, as Gates suggests, surround themselves with people who bring talents and knowledge from different segments of the spectrum. The appointees should possess unique talents that are appropriately applicable to the tasks at hand. Those selected should be at the ready to use special abilities, their presence being a net increase in the horsepower of the cabinet team.

Now we witness Donald Trump filling his cabinet positions. His style and substance are in sharp contrast to the outgoing presidents. Trumps selections elevate each position, and each appointee delivers real-life experiences and proven talents. I am certain that Trump would admit each pick in the selected position offers abilities beyond his own. The team is designed to deliver proficiencies and elevate the collective efforts of the cabinet.

Trumps construction experiences required that he surround himself with engineers, architects, lawyers, and financiers. Each brought special talents and expertise. He would not tell them he knew their jobs better than they themselves. It is with this style, this sharp contrast to the outgoing president, that we witness the opening moves of a welcome contrast in leadership.
Its politically incorrect to call a fireman a fireman. Because the liberal party line goes (come on, lets all pretend together) that women can do any job as well as men. Well, they cant. At least not when it comes to firefighting. Recall the sight of women training in California in bunker gear and air packs, unable to get over a fence in the obstacle course and just hanging there? Undoubtedly, there are women with enough upper body strength and stamina to fight fires, and my hats off to them. But of the three hundred-odd fireman who died on 9/11, not one was a woman. Its just not their schtick.

Enter the face of Oaklands firemen  Battalion Chief of Fire Melinda Drayton, a woman who gets paraded for public occasions such as a news conference about the horrific recent fire in Oakland. There she stands in a spotlessly clean turnout coat, spotless white fire helmet, with goggles perched at a rakish angle atop her abundant hair. Her background? As near as I can tell...a degree in psychology. Her mission: to perpetuate the feminist myth that women can be firemen, too.

Look at me, look at me, look at me!

Sitting at my desk, I raise my eyes from the picture of Battalion Chief of Fire Melinda Drayton posing for the press in that parade-worthy fashionable helmet up to the wall where my dads battered FDNY helmet hangs in a place of honor. Its burned, scarred, and partially crushed from when he fell ten stories down an elevator shaft in Brooklyn and was saved by a cushion of burning debris. It went into the Hudson River with him at the Hoboken Pier fire, its still scented with whiskey from the VAT 69 warehouse fire, and he was wearing it when he saved his company at a gas main fire an act of selflessness and love that was memorialized fifty years later on the outside wall of Ladder 122 in Park Slope.

Thats a helmet. That was a fireman. That was my dad.

The sight of a pretentious female psychologist trying to act like him makes me want to throw up.

Richard F. Miniter is the author of The Things I Want Most, Random House, BDD. See it here. He lives and writes in the colonial-era hamlet of Stone Ridge, New York; blogs here; and can also be reached at miniterhome@gmail.com.
Joe Biden seemed to be joking around with a few reporters after a visit to the Senate in order to preside over a vote on a cancer research bill named after his son. Speaking to the scribes after the ceremonial appearance, he waxed sentimental and got hit with a question that was either craftily planted or a complete surprise.

Every time I come up here, I feel invigorated, he said. I love this place. I mean, this is, this is, where I spent my life. Are you going to run again? CNN producer Ted Barrett asked. Yeah, I am, Biden, 74, replied. Im going to run in 2020. For what? Associated Press reporter Alan Fram asked. For president, he said, deadpan. What the hell, man.

What the hell, man? seems to be evidence that he is just toying with the idea.

NBC News reporter Kelly ODonnell warned him: Were gonna run with that sir, you know. Thats okay, he said, deadpan again. Later, Fram followed up with Biden: Just to be clear, were you kidding about running for president in 2020? Biden paused and laid his hand on a Washington Post reporters shoulder.

(According to NBC News reporter Hallie Jackson, the pause lasted four seconds, an eternity when speaking to reporters.)

Im not committing not to run, he said. Im not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago fate has a strange way of intervening. Anyway, nice to see you guys.

While it is possible that Biden is planning a run and made sure that the question got asked, the four-second pause gives me pause. I think his last statement, that fate has a strange way of intervening, is what is really going on in his mind and heart. He sees that his party has very few strong candidates for national office right now. The bench is so empty that Biden, even though he would be 77 on inauguration day 2021, may be the best alternative for the party claiming the loyalty of the young.

Four years is time to build up a fresh new face for the Democrats to hype as the next Obama. Keep an eye on Kamala Harris, elected to the Senate with 63% of the vote in California. She's female, articulate, and biracial (Indian/African-American), and good-looking enough to add a bit of glamor to her marketing package. The media branch of the Democratic Party has a lot to work with, building her up over the next four years. If Soros gets behind her, the skys the limit.
The narrative constructed by reality show genius and master persuader President-Elect Donald Trump is already causing the public to regard him more favorably  even among Democrats, according to polling published by Politico:

Donald Trumps first major action as president-elect  the deal he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence struck last week with Carrier Corp.  is earning high marks from American voters, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll shows. Voters surveyed overwhelmingly view Trumps negotiations with Carrier  which resulted in about 1,000 manufacturing jobs at the heating, ventilation and air conditioning company remaining in Indiana rather than moving to Mexico  as an appropriate use of presidential prerogative. And a majority of voters say the Carrier deal gives them a more favorable view of Trump, though his overall favorability ratings were virtually unchanged from mid-November.

Trump is beginning the process of redefining himself, a re-branding as President Donald Trump. He is a man of action who moves at lightning speed and is untroubled by the conventional wisdom about the way things should be done in Washington, D.C. And hes out to help the little guys:

Sixty percent of voters say Carriers decision to keep some manufacturing jobs in Indiana, where Pence is still serving as governor, gives them a more favorable view of Trump. That includes not only 87 percent of self-identified Republicans, but also 54 percent of independents and 40 percent of Democrats. Only 9 percent say it makes them view Trump less favorably, while 22 percent say it doesnt have an impact either way. The Carrier announcement was big for Trump, said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult co-founder and chief research officer. Rarely do we see numbers that high when looking at how specific messages and events shape public opinion.

This is still the first part of his transition. I am certain that Trump has many more persuasive reality shows for us. He is still being underestimated by his enemies, and he knows how to take advantage of that attitude.
After losing a lawsuit and facing a $7.8-million judgment, Service Employees International Union Texas, alias SEIU District Five, has declared bankruptcy in order to escape the judgment. The plaintiff is going after the national union, as it should, so stand by for lots more court appeals, So far, the SEIU is losing at every step.

Bill McMorris has an excellent account of the case and its background at the Free Beacon. I recommend it.

The bare bones of the story of this case paint a picture of a thuggish organization, in my opinion. It expanded into Texas by sending representatives down to fresh turf in Houston, and once there, they took advantage of undemocratic procedures that deprive workers of a secret ballot. And abuse the courts to coerce its target, Professional Janitorial Services Houston (PJS), in my opinion:

SEIU Texas was formed by workers from the Chicago-based SEIU Local 1, which sent organizers to the state to rally employees in the janitorial and service sectors to join the union. Those organizers waged a three-year organizing campaign to pressure PJS into accepting card check unionization rather than a secret ballot election organized by the National Labor Relations Board, the top federal labor arbiter. The union filed 19 unfair labor practice complaints to the NLRB over the course of its campaign, a popular delaying and pressure tactic utilized by union organizers. All of those complaints were dismissed or withdrawn. The janitorial company filed its initial suit in 2007 and was awarded over $5.3 million in damages by a jury. On September 26, a district judge ordered the union to hand over an additional $2.5 million for interest accrued during the lengthy legal proceedings. The company said in a release that a bankruptcy declaration does not allow the union to duck the jurys decision about the cost of its actions. The jury determined SEIU owes PJS a lot of money, and there is no way they can pretend to be broke based on what we now know, PJS President Floyd Mahanay said in a statement. The only question is how long they want to drag this out while we make sure every business in Texas joins our cause.

The SEIU is a pillar of the Democratic Party and represents many government workers.
The remote archipelago of St Kilda, off the west coast of the Scottish mainland, is truly an isolated place. Located some 64 km west of the Outer Hebrides, it is the most remote part of the British Isles. The island is full of jagged granite boulders and towering cliffs that bear the full force of the wild North Atlantic weather. The wind is so strong here that trees refuse to grow.

In this hostile climate, a small community had clung to their most basic existence, surviving largely by eating sea birds and their eggs. This extraordinary group of men, women and children lived in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, scaling sheer cliff faces to catch gannets, fulmars and puffins, and farming meager crops, right into the early decades of the 20th Century. After thousands of years of isolation, the entire population of the island evacuated to the mainland to escape the failing harvests, the lack of communication and the lack of medical care. The story of these islanders and their gradual loss of self-sufficiency have been the object of enduring fascination for the rest of Scotland and the wider world.

The abandoned Village Bay, on the island of Hirta, St Kilda. Photo credit: CaptainOates/Flickr

St Kilda was inhabited continuously for some 4,000 years. Its only settlement, the Village Bay, was located on a low lying land on the archipelago's largest island Hirta.

The windswept island was not suitable for farming. The islanders did grow small amount of barley, oats and potatoes, but the high winds and saltwater would often damage crops. The sea was too rough for fishing, so the islanders didnt eat fish. Their favorite food was birds, and there was plenty of them on the island.

St Kilda is the breeding ground for many important seabird species such as gannets, petrels, puffins and fulmars. It has the world's largest colonies of northern gannets, amounting to 24% of the global population, and almost 90% of the European population of Leach's petrels bred here. It is said that St Kildans used to eat puffins for a snack, just like a packet of crisps. According to one report, each person on St Kilda ate 115 fulmars every year. In 1876 it was said that the islanders consumed more than 89,600 puffins.

Catching the birds were not easy, but the islanders had mastered the art. During the spring and summer months, the men clambered barefoot down steep cliff faces on ropes, and collected young birds and eggs from the nests. Nothing was wasted. Feathers were used to stuff pillows and bedding, the skin of gannets were used to make shoes, and the oil in the stomachs of fulmars was used as fuel. The birds were available for only half the year. During autumn and winter they headed out into the Atlantic Ocean. To prevent themselves from starving, the islanders built stone cairns, known as cleits, where they stored the carcasses of the birds.

From the middle of the 19th century, the islanders started receiving tourists and they themselves ventured overseas. The increasing contact with the outside world made them aware of a different way of life, and their own inadequacies on the island. The residents began importing food, fuel and building materials in a bid to improve life on the island, and gradually they became dependent on these supplies. During the First World War, the presence of the Royal Navy on the island improved communication with the mainland. But for the first time in history, there were regular deliveries of mail and food. When these services were withdrawn at end of war feelings of isolation increased. Food shortages became more acute and more frequent. The lack of medical care was sorely missed.

The final straw came with the death of a young woman who fell ill with appendicitis in January 1930, and was taken to the mainland for treatment. After that incident, a collective decision was taken to leave the island for good. A petition signed by twenty islanders was written to the government requesting evacuation.

They stated that the population of the island was decreasing and several more men had decided to leave. Without them to tend the sheep, weave cloth and look after the widows, "it would be impossible to stay on the island another winter," they wrote. The petition continued: "We do not ask to be settled together as a separate community, but in the meantime we would collectively be very grateful of assistance, and transference elsewhere, where there would be a better opportunity of securing our livelihood."

On August 29, 1930, the remaining thirty six inhabitants of St Kilda were evacuated and resettled on the mainland. In 1986, the islands became the first place in Scotland to be inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is one of only 24 places on the planet to be awarded this status for both its natural and cultural significance. Thousands of tourists visit the island of Hirta today to explore the abandoned town.

Petition to the Secretary of State for Scotland requesting assistance to leave St Kilda, 1930.

St. Kildans sitting on the village street, 1886.

A group of tourists watching an islander spin.

St Kildans evacuating the island in 1930.

Photo credit: Colin Campbell/Flickr

Photo credit: Kirsteen/Flickr

Photo credit: scotproof/Flickr

Photo credit: scotproof/Flickr

Photo credit: IrenicRhonda/Flickr

Photo credit: IrenicRhonda/Flickr

Photo credit: IrenicRhonda/Flickr

Photo credit: IrenicRhonda/Flickr

Sources: Wikipedia / www.kilda.org.uk / Wild About Scotland / Scotsman / BBC / National Record of Scotland
As is usual with any new service launch, the company behind it always have some internal goals, be it revenue, profits or subscribers. In the case of AT&T and DIRECTV, the company has revealed that they hit their December goal for new subscribers on DIRECTV NOWs launch day, something that came as a pretty big surprise to the carrier.

AT&Ts CEO Randall Stephenson has called the early demand for the service rather dramatic, yet something the company is sure to be pleased about considering their significant investments into on-demand content. DIRECTV alone cost the carrier a total of $48.5 billion last year, while, more recently, they have agreed on a deal to acquire Time Warner for a whopping $85.4 billion, showing consumers that the company is very serious about online content. Now, the rapid success of DIRECTV NOW since its launch is perhaps not surprising considering AT&T has priced the service at just $35 per month for 100 channels which can be streamed to any mobile device or set-top box. On top of this, the company offers a series of add-ons such as HBO or Cinemax which cost an extra $5 per month, which appear to be meeting the companies adoption expectations. Aside from the pricing of the service, though, the CEO hinted at incoming upgrades to the AT&T network, specifically 5G. Now, this upgrade is still some way off, but the CEO appeared to hint that, as demand grows for services such as DIRECTV NOW, the need for faster networks will also grow, something that could eventually lead to faster network upgrades.

Moving away from DIRECTV NOW service, the CEO also mentioned the incoming presidency of Donald Trump and mentioned that the possible lowering of corporate tax could not only benefit the companies but the customers and the economy as a whole, due to the savings that the lower rates could mean for all customers. As well as this, he also mentioned the fact that net-neutrality rules could be relaxed, allowing for increased benefits for customers and carriers.

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Under current net-neutrality rules, AT&T is facing an investigation as to whether the pricing of DIRECTV NOW is unfair for the competition but with Donald Trump set to take office in January, the company may see the investigation called off, allowing them to continue pricing the service as they currently do. It remains to be seen what outcome the new presidency will have on services like DIRECTV NOW, but, at least for now, its fair to say that things are looking pretty bright, at least according to AT&Ts CEO.
Last week, AT&T debuted DIRECTV NOW, the companys latest video streaming service which offers users a plethora of various video content for between $35 and $80 per month. However, one particular line of content that is not included with the new service is the content on offer from CBS. While a few premium networks like HBO arent present in any standard DIRECTV NOW package, users can at least pay extra to get access to them via AT&Ts service, while the same isnt true for CBS which isnt present on DIRECTV NOW in any shape or form.

However, that hole in AT&Ts program is likely to be fixed soon, at least according to the CBS Chairman, Leslie Moonves. While speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York City earlier today, Moonves suggested that CBS programming should be added to DIRECTV NOW offerings shortly, providing that the two companies can come to an agreement. Moonves seemingly isnt too troubled by the fact that CBS content wasnt available on DIRECTV NOW at launch as he lightheartedly stated we are not unreasonable people here. Adding that he believes AT&T and CBS can certainly come to an agreement in the future.

However, its almost a given that AT&T already approached CBS before launching DIRECTV NOW. After all, the said television network owns a whole lot of fan-favorite shows including NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, Survivor, and Supergirl. In other words, it doesnt seem likely that AT&T thought people wouldnt notice the lack of CBS content on its new streaming service. Therefore, the assumption is that negotiations more than likely stalled over fees. So, its probable that this statement from Moonves was intended to ease some pressure off tense negotiations with the second largest wireless carrier in the country.

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In addition to DIRECTV NOW, the CBS Chairman also revealed that the network is currently negotiating with YouTubes upcoming online TV service which the Google-owned company has yet to officially announce. Moonves concluded his speech by asserting that CBS will stay in touch with modern methods of consuming media content, reminding everyone attending the said conference that CBS All Access has kicked off and that already serves over a million subscribers.
The wearable market might not have turned out to be the goldmine that many shareholders would have hoped for, but it is still doing pretty well for itself. Thats the key takeaway from the latest report released yesterday by IDC (International Data Corporation), which reveals that the overall industry grew 3.1% Year-on-Year during the third quarter of this year. However, even though the wearables sector as a whole is becoming comparatively more mainstream with every passing day, smartwatch sales have continued to remain lackluster. According to IDCs Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker for Q3 2016, 23 million wearables were shipped globally during the quarter, although only about 15% of that are smartwatches.

IDCs report also says that fitness bands and health trackers currently make up around 85% of the global wearables market and is experiencing a double-digit growth, thanks largely to the launch of new models in the market. The Framingham, Massachusetts-based market research firm also says that it expects the industry to sustain its momentum going into the peak holiday season, so sales during the current quarter should also be pretty decent if the companys research is anything to go by. According to the senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers, Mr. Jitesh Ubrani, simplicity and a focus on fashion rather than technology are two of the major factors that have been fueling growth in the segment.

IDC, however, remains bullish on the prospects of smartwatches and other more complex wearables going forward. The research manager for the companys wearables team, Mr. Ramon Llamas, believes that consumer tastes will evolve with the advent of new technology, and so will their needs. That being the case, smart wearables with multi-functionality and third-party applications will definitely be more popular going forward, according to him. However, he also cautioned that to get there, the industry will need to innovate and provide users with more intuitive user interfaces, seamless user experiences, standalone connectivity and applications that go beyond health and fitness and into personal and professional productivity.

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For now, though, Fitbit remains king of the hill, thanks to its large portfolio of devices available at many different price points. The company managed to shift 5.3 million devices during the quarter, earning itself a market share of 23% during the quarter. Xiaomi, with its Mi band 2, comes in at number 2 with 3.8 million units shipped, which gave it a market share of 16.5%. Garmin, Apple and Samsung take up the third, fourth and fifth places on the ladder with 1.3%, 1.1% and 1.0% shares of the market respectively.
The launch of Xiaomi Mi MIX managed to surprise many people. People were expecting Xiaomi to introduce only the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 back in October, and instead, Xiaomi introduced two high-end phablets. Xiaomi refers to the Mi MIX as the concept smartphone, as it is considerably different than everything out there at the moment, and it is already available for purchase. This phablet features a 91.3% screen-to-body ratio, and it is made out of ceramic, click here if youd like to know more.

Soon after Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi Mi MIX rumors and leaks started popping up saying that other Chinese smartphone manufacturers are also working on their unique smartphones. Meizus bezel-less smartphone leaked several times, and so did Huaweis. Recent rumors suggested that Huawei is working on a new device that will ship without physical buttons, and one of the companys execs confirmed that theyre planning to launch a new phone in December, though he did not release any additional details aside from the fact that the device will ship with the companys new fast charging technology. In addition to that, rumors suggested that such a device will be equipped with fast charging technology which will let it charge up to 50% in just 5 minutes. Having that in mind, some new info just surfaced in China. An industry insider said earlier today that a new Honor-branded smartphone is coming tomorrow, and that this is the concept smartphone that everyone is talking about. If the info is to be believed, Huawei wants to avoid conflicts with their Huawei Mate 9 Pro and Porsche Design Mate 9 devices, as this smartphone will be rather unique, which is why it is launching under the Honor brand. According to some additional rumored info, the phone will actually miss some crucial smartphone hardware components, like a camera and a speaker, but will come with a set of peripherals that will provide required functions.

Honor actually shared a teaser image on their official Weibo (Chinas social network) page which suggests something new is coming tomorrow, so the aforementioned rumor might as well be true, unless this teaser announces the launch of the Honor 6S which leaked recently. In any case, well share more info tomorrow when the company introduces their mysterious smartphone, and if this is truly the concept smartphone that was talked about recently, were in for an interesting announcement, thats for sure.
Lenovo might not be one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in China, at least based on sales numbers, but theyre still one of the largest Chinese tech companies. Lenovo has been trying to leave their mark in the smartphone world for a while now, and they have been succeeding, to an extent. Lenovos devices are quite popular in China, and also in India, where the company often releases new products. Speaking of which, Lenovo has just introduced a new phablet in India, the Lenovo PHAB 2.

The Lenovo PHAB 2 was originally announced back in June, alongside the Tango-enabled Lenovo PHAB 2 Pro. The company had recently promised that this phone is coming to India, and theyve just fulfilled that promise. The Lenovo PHAB 2 is made out of metal, and were looking at a really huge device here. This phablet comes with a 6.4-inch 720p (1280 x 720) display, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable internal storage. This phablet is fueled by MediaTeks MT8735 64-bit octa-core SoC which runs at 1.3GHz, and the Mali-T720 GPU is here for graphics rendering. The 13-megapixel camera (PDAF) is placed on the back of the Lenovo PHAB 2, and a 5-megapixel camera (85-degree wide-angle lens) is available on the front side of this phablet. The 4,050mAh battery comes with this device as well, and it is not removable. There are two SIM card slots (hybrid dual SIM) inside of the Lenovo PHAB 2, and you do get 4G LTE connectivity on this phone as well. Lenovo had also included the Dolby Atmos audio support with 5.1 Dolby Audio Capture here, and the Triple Array Microphone with Active Noise-Cancellation is also a part of the Lenovo PHAB 2 package. Android 6.0 Marshmallow comes pre-installed on this phablet with Lenovos Vibe UI. The Lenovo PHAB 2 measures 175 x 88.5 x 5.5  9.6mm, while it weighs 225 grams.

The Lenovo PHAB 2 comes in Gunmetal Gray and Champagne Gold color variants, while it costs Rs. 11,999 ($177) in India. Those of you who are interested in this handset, keep in mind that youll be able to purchase it exclusively via Flipkart starting from December 9th, which is only a couple of days away at this point.
Meizu have, for some time now, been a major force in the smartphone market in China, and while theyve yet to catch up to Xiaomi on the international stage, theyve recently announced the Meizu PRO 6. One area that Xiaomi has been experimenting in for some time now has been the wearable market. Both generations of the Mi Band have been affordable and well received, but now Meizu is entering the wearable market with their own fitness tracker, the 229 Yuan ($33) Meizu Band.

While its a simple affair, the Meizu Band has a lot going for it, including a sleek and understated design that will appeal to both men and women, as well as blend in to the majority of wardrobes. The Meizu band features a 7 day battery life, which is a little longer than the majority of fitness trackers out there, but not quite as long as something like the Amazfit Arc. A simple OLED display is hidden beneath the black silicon band, and displays simple content, such as your heart rate when exercising, as well as your step count for the day. Combined with the Meizu Health app, the Meizu Band is aiming to take on the Fitbit Flex 2, while offering a few more features. Not only does it also track your sleep, but it will display the time, as well as offer incoming call notifications and wake you up in the morning, too. All of which are features that the Fitbit Flex 2 and other fitness trackers at this sort of price dont have.

Theres a lot on offer here with the Meizu Band, especially at its price tag of a little over $30. At the time of writing, however, the Meizu Health app isnt available in English, and theres not much here that you cant get on other fitness trackers, but the price here is definitely the unique selling point. For those looking for a well-made and affordable fitness tracker outside of China, however, they might want to rethink the Meizu Band as there are few signs that the band will be available internationally. Either way, those interested in the Meizu Band can take a look at the band down below and a review will be coming soon.
Earlier this year Lenovo and Motorola have put the concept of modularity into practice and announced the Moto Z series and the so-called Moto Mods. These high-end smartphones are treated with a magnetic back panel which can accommodate a series of magnetic covers  Moto Mods  designed to enhance their functionality, but up until now only a handful of Mods have been released to consumers. Nonetheless, Lenovo is apparently planning on making more Moto Mods available to Moto Z owners, and according to a recent interview, Lenovo and Motorola are now committed to releasing around 12 Moto Mods every year.

According to a recent CNET report citing Lenovos Moto Mods director, John Touvannas, the companys goal is to get more Mods out this year than we did last year, no question. As a matter of fact, the report adds that earlier this week, Lenovos Motorola executives told a small group of journalists that the company is committed to launching at least 12 new Moto Mods every year. Its worth noting that Lenovos fiscal year starts in April, but regardless, January 2017 will also be an interesting month for Moto Z owners as Lenovo intends to launch an Indiegogo campaign next month in order to get more developers invested in their concept. Thus, throughout the campaign, developers who will showcase the best ideas for Moto Mods will receive a Mods kit which will help them with creating their own prototypes.

As for what future Moto Mods will have in store for consumers, Lenovo and Motorola havent really touched on this particular subject, but there is a possibility that at least some future Mods will aim to improve photography. Much like the JBL speaker Moto Mod replaces the on-board speaker of a Moto Z smartphone with a more powerful alternative, a camera-centric Moto Mod could push the handsets image capturing and recording capabilities to new heights. There already are plenty of other interesting ideas for what could make a Moto Mod appealing, including Mods for 5G networking, remote controls, game controllers, and e-readers to name a few. Last month Motorola confirmed that the Moto Z could receive support for Google Tango through a Mod, and the company has also experimented with the concept of a Moto Mod equipped with a small display, which would allow users to capture selfie shots with more ease using the smartphones rear-facing camera. Needless to say, as more Mods will be making their way on the market, 2017 should be a much more interesting year for Moto Z enthusiasts.
Over the course of 2016, the music industry earned more than $1 billion from YouTube advertising, the Google-owned company announced in a release published earlier today. As Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer at YouTube revealed, the music industry finally recorded revenue growth in 2016, after over a decade of disappointing financial results. Kyncl believes this growth can mostly be attributed to the rising popularity of music subscription services, possibly suggesting that YouTube RED played an important part in the revival of the music industry. However, YouTubes executive also pointed out that the advertising sector of the music industry has never been stronger, revealing the $1 billion figure mentioned above.

Not surprisingly, Kyncl interpreted this as a fantastic sign for the YouTube ecosystem, adding that multiple business models existing and succeeding next to each other are a clear sign of great things to come. As YouTubes Chief Business Officer put it, all of this is just the beginning. The Czech-born businessman expects a lot more advertising resources will move from traditional media such as print, television, and radio to online services like YouTube in the coming years. According to him, the music business has the potential to operate like modern television, i.e. earn an equal amount of money from both subscriptions and advertising, in addition to generating profits from physical and digital sales. Of course, thats just an ambitious prediction and not a reality, but Kyncl asserted that YouTube is planning to help the music business achieve its potential.

All in all, even after 11 years in the industry, YouTube is still growing and breaking records. This latest revelation will likely just fuel further speculation about Google spinning off its video-sharing service into its own company even though the tech giant never announced such intentions. However, while YouTube is positioning itself to be in the center of the upcoming second golden age of the music industry, not everyone is thrilled with that fact. In fact, major music labels have often criticized the Google-owned company over low royalties its paying to artists. Regardless of that, theres little doubt that YouTube is expected to generate a lot more revenue from the music industry in the coming years, as several analysts are predicting this industrys value will double by 2026.
The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is one of the most powerful smartphones announced this year. This is Xiaomis flagship phablet, and it was introduced two months ago alongside the Xiaomi Mi MIX, Xiaomis bezel-less phablet which managed to intrigue quite a few people. The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is currently available in China, though its availability is still limited, as the company is trying to meet the demand. That being said, weve seen some rumors recently stating that Xiaomi might introduce yet another variant of the Mi Note 2, a variant which will sport a flat display, compared to the curved one the regular Mi Note 2 comes with. Well, Xiaomi has now officially decided to respond to such rumors, read on.

Xiaomis Marketing Director, Zang Zhiyuan, basically said that Xiaomi has no plans to release the flat-screened variant of the Xiaomi Mi Note 2. Some consumers were expecting this model to be released mainly because the device surfaced on TENAA, Chinas equivalent to the FCC, but it seems like that wont happen. This device was supposed to be identical to the already available Mi Note 2 handset in all aspects except its display, and it was supposed to be slightly cheaper because of that. Mr. Zhiyuan seems rather adamant, and it seems we wont be seeing another Mi Note 2 variant at all, at least not the one that will sport a flat display, and that is perfectly logical from a business standpoint, the Mi Note 2 is quite popular as it is and the curved display makes it stand out from most other phones in the same category (phablets).

The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is made out of metal and glass, and the device is quite powerful. The Mi Note 2 comes with a 5.7-inch fullHD (1920 x 1080) curved AMOLED display, 4GB / 6GB of RAM and 64GB / 128GB of native storage. The device is fueled by the Snapdragon 821 64-bit quad-core SoC, and a 4,070mAh battery is available on the inside, while Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging is also included in this package. The 22.5-megapixel shooter is placed on the back of this phablet, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow comes out of the box with MIUI 8. If youd like to take a look at a more detailed spec sheet, click here.

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The Internet of Things (IoT) industry is still young, and people are only now getting accustomed to the idea of controlling their lights with their voice, telling their speaker to put on some music, and adjusting their pets feeding schedule with their smartphone. However, while consumers are yet to completely embrace the convenience brought to us by IoT devices, the tech industry is hard at work developing new products. Given how Samsung is one of the largest tech giants on the planet, its not surprising that the Seoul-based conglomerate is also leading these IoT advances.

Among other things, Samsung is currently working on a new generation of smart displays called Mirror Displays. The companys latest achievement is an evolution of the so-called smart mirror concept which Samsung debuted in mid-2015. Earlier this year, the company presented its new technology during New York Fashion Week, one of the most popular fashion events on the planet. Working in collaboration with a production company FTL Moda, Samsung ennobled the latest New York Fashion Week by equipping its venue with a number of interactive mirrors which visitors could use to get a glimpse into the future of shopping. For example, if a person tried out some piece of clothing in front of Samsungs connected mirror, the said device would make recommendations regarding other products and colors which complemented their pick. Naturally, this experience can be customized by retailers who can use smart mirrors to highlight specific products or product combinations to customers.

So, in addition to offering a solution for engaging customers, Samsungs smart mirrors are also a useful tool for informing consumers. If that doesnt sound appealing, how about augmented reality filters? Samsungs solution also allows customers to try out clothes like they would try out Snapchat filters. While Samsung is already offering Mirror Displays to shops through resellers, itll probably be a while before they really catch on. However, the South Korean tech giant firmly believes that technology is the future of the fashion industry which is why its more than adamant at being a part of that future. It remains to be seen whether Mirror Displays are the ideal entry point to the fashion industry Samsung is looking for, but even if theyre not, the tech giant is bound to continue trying.
Earlier today, nine of Samsungs top executives started testifying at a parliamentary hearing in Seoul regarding the latest political scandal Samsung got involved into last month. Jay Y. Lee, the Vice Chairman of the South Korean conglomerate, promised the members of the parliament that he will do everything he can to avoid any additional political scandals, but still denied all accusations laid out against Samsung.

The hearing was held in regards to allegations that a close confidante of the South Korean president pressured Samsung into donating money to certain non-profit organizations and other firms in exchange for political influence. More specifically, President Park and her friend Choi Soon-sil have recently been accused of using political power for personal gain. These charges are even more serious in the context of the fact that Ms. Choi holds no official position of power in South Korea and never did. However, the High Prosecutors Office believes that both Ms. Choi and her daughter profited directly from Samsung which provided financial support to them on several occasions for dubious reasons.

These allegations were the reason why Samsungs South Korean offices have already been raided twice over the course of the last few weeks and why several of the companys top executives were questioned by the High Prosecutors Office in November. Today, the Vice Chairman of Samsung Group denied all accusations in front of the South Korean parliament, explicitly stating that the tech giant never provided any financial support to non-profit organizations or other companies with expectations of getting something illegal in return. However, Lee did not deny that any of the questionable transactions actually happened, so it may be a while before this scandal unfolds as the South Korean authorities have already announced further investigations into the matter.

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All in all, while both Seoul and Samsung would certainly like to put this thing to bed as soon as possible, that probably wont be possible given how all of the involved parties are denying accusations. President Park has already refused to cooperate with authorities after becoming the first Korean president to be called for questioning in a criminal investigation and rejecting the proposal through her lawyers.
Supporters of Microsofts Windows Phone mobile ecosystem, now on to the somewhat new Windows 10 Mobile, have a number of differentiating features to look to in their OS. Windows 10 Mobile features Continuum, a technology that makes it easy to make your phone pretend its a computer, and Microsoft is reportedly even thinking about allowing users to run full desktop Windows apps in this mode. The HP Elite X3, for example, includes this functionality in a very early form, but the apps are virtual and run far slower than they would on a native x86-based system. There has been talk of an actual x86-based Windows Phone running full Windows 10, and that wouldnt be too far-fetched  many a phone actually have used Intels processors in the past, and some LTE Windows tablets in sizes almost considered small enough to be a phone do exist, but thats a suboptimal solution for those looking for a true all-in-one device. Microsofts other non-traditional hardware platform, the Microsoft Band family, also has its concerned fans, saying that a lack of new features and updates has let the Microsoft Band unable to compete with similar solutions on the market.

With these concerns in hand, shareholders at a recent meeting demanded that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explain how the company plans to address these issues and bring their non-PC hardware lineup up to speed with the rest of the industry. In response, Nadella said that Microsoft is focusing on what makes their mobile ecosystem different, playing to its strengths in a bid to make it more appealing to users who would normally go for more niche entries in the Android world, or for iOS devices. Features like device security and content and function interlock with other devices often draw users to the iOS and Mac ecosystem, or to Googles tightly-knit Android and Chrome OS ecosystem, and Microsoft is hoping to appeal to these users with the features unique to the Windows ecosystem. One of the problems with that, however, is a limited app ecosystem, and thats a problem that Microsoft actually seems to be contributing to. Apps like Outlook have ended up being available on Android and iOS before Windows 10 Mobile. According to Nadella, however, this is intentional; Microsoft holds from the ground up control of the current Windows Mobile ecosystem, including the hardware of Lumia phones. This allows them to integrate into the system the kind of functions that are baked into dedicated apps on other mobile ecosystems. There is, however, still the issue of waning developer interest; essentially, without some kind of mass appeal to developers, surge in user numbers, or adding in x86 and Win32 compatibility, the Windows Mobile ecosystem will always be inherently limited compared to the competition.

Essentially, it seems at this point that Nadella is determined to turn Windows into a cohesive ecosystem like the Google and Apple worlds, rather than the bastion of one-size-fits-all utility that it has been in the past. With more and more users jumping ship from the traditional Windows ecosystem as apps that had bound them to it make their way to other ecosystems, Microsoft is left scrambling to catch Windows up in other ways in order to see the ecosystem and OS flourish. Right now, accessing all of your files seamlessly across your phone and computer is something that users of all ecosystems can do, but it may be difficult for an Android user with a Windows PC or a Mac user with a Windows phone, which can help to discourage people from using Microsofts ecosystem because of Windows Phones arguably limited functionality. There are a few ways that Microsoft could reverse this trend, and Nadella seems set on playing to the ecosystems inherent strengths to draw users, which would in turn attract developers. Only time will tell if this gamble will work out.
When it comes to providing monthly security updates, Sony is one of the best Android manufacturers out there that roll out security patches to its flagship devices as soon as possible. The companys Xperia X-series devices have already received November security patches released by Google last month, and now it appears that some of the Xperia Z series smartphones will also be updated with the latest security patches, the Xperia Z5, Xperia Z4 Tablet, and Xperia Z3+.

A new software update is now rolling out gradually for the Xperia Z5, Xperia Z4 Tablet, and Xperia Z3+, the new update comes with security patches released by Google for the month of November and will bump the firmware version from 32.2.A.0.305 to 32.2.A.5.11. The November security update will fix dozens of vulnerabilities and exposures found in Android OS, so its highly recommended that you update your device with this new security update to make your device secured against possible security threats. The update seems to be rolling out for all the variants of the aforementioned devices (carrier variants not included), including dual-SIM variants, across multiple regions so if youre owning one of the supported devices, keep an eye on an OTA update notification. Since this is an OTA rollout, which is often carried out in stages, the update might take some time to land on your device so dont worry if youre not seeing any update notification on your device yet, meanwhile, you can also check for an update manually by navigating your devices settings. While the size of this update is not yet known, its recommended that you connect to a WiFi network when you download this update so you dont end up incurring additional mobile data costs. Also, make sure that you have at least 50% of battery power remaining before you start downloading the update.

Speaking of the Android 7.0 Nougat rollout for the Xperia devices, the company has already started rolling out Android Nougat for the Xperia XZ and the Xperia X Performance, and the good news is that the Xperia Z5, Xperia Z3+, and the Xperia Z4 Tablet are also on the list of devices which will get the Android Nougat update.
Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, November 8, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Troubled by strained relations with its Western allies, Turkey is renewing efforts to knit closer ties with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an attempt which may well bear fruit this time, analysts believe.

"The chances for Turkey to be upgraded to the observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization seem to be stronger now than they were several months ago," observed Yasar Yakis, a former Turkish foreign minister.

Turkey has been a dialogue partner to the organization since June 2012.

The debate on the SCO flared up lately in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once again expressed the country's aspiration to further ties with the SCO, saying "Why shouldn't Turkey be in the Shanghai Five?"

He argued on his way back from Uzbekistan two weeks ago that the European Union had never wished Turkey well, adding that Turkey could act comfortably if it were a SCO member.

The SCO's founding countries -- China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- were referred to as the Shanghai Five until Uzbekistan joined the club in 2001.

"Turkey may get observer status. In fact, full membership is not out of the question," remarked Alev Kilic, director of the Ankara-based Center for Eurasian Studies (AVIM).

Back in 2013, Turkey failed in its attempt to convince SCO members to upgrade its status to an observer, reportedly due to a member nation's opposition.

In contrast, the group was quick this time in responding positively to the Turkish president's remarks.

Turkey has been selected to chair the organization's Energy Club in 2017, becoming the first non-SCO country to hold the term presidency, the Turkish Ministry of Energy noted last week.

Turkey is deeply frustrated by its Western allies, in particular the EU and the United States, which it accuses of harboring criminals and providing weapons to the Kurdistan Workers' Party outlawed by Ankara.

Turkey has also recently blasted the EU for unfair treatment in its membership talks as well as the European Parliament's vote in favor of freezing the talks.

Erdogan's talk of the SCO came after the Turkish government had been widely criticized, following a failed coup in July, by the EU for mass detentions, purge of tens of thousands of public servants, and crackdown on freedom of expression and the press.

A day after Erdogan's remarks appeared in the Turkish press, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang stated that China "attaches importance to Turkey's aspiration to further deepen its cooperation with the SCO."
The Northern Arizona University Faculty Senate unanimously approved a resolution in support of undocumented students and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program at its meeting Monday afternoon.

The resolution in support of so-called "Dreamers," which was amended during the meeting to be renamed the Resolution for Diversity and Universal Safety instead of the Resolution for Diversity and Sanctuary was supported by the senate, along with about 60 members of the community, including NAU faculty and students, who attended the meeting.

A total of 11 people, including faculty senate members and community members, spoke in favor of the resolution, which calls on NAU to refuse to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deportation of law abiding, but undocumented, students, faculty and staff.

Two amendments that were added to the resolution during the meeting also called for the university to support opening a Student Legal Resource Center, which broadens the scope of the original resolution that called for an immigrant student resource center to be established. The other amendment called for NAU to seek out funding to keep in-state tuition for DACA recipients, should the program be dissolved.

Public Humanities professor Gioia Woods presented the resolution at the meeting, and said the resolution was prepared in response to the countrys political climate and rhetoric from President-elect Donald Trump regarding dissolving the DACA program when he becomes president.

Woods said there are more than 34,000 DACA recipients in the state of Arizona, and said the university should be vocal about enhancing its support for undocumented students and DACA recipients.

Woods referenced a petition that has been circulating through NAU, and has been signed by 621 people as of Monday night, which called for the Faculty Senate to pass the resolution.

At the meeting, faculty members and students voiced their support for the measure, though some worried the word sanctuary, which was ultimately changed in the resolutions title, might affect federal funding to the university. The term sanctuary remains present in the remainder of the resolution.

In the language of the resolution, it calls for the Faculty Senate to resolve to Protect all students, including undocumented students and students with DACA by declaring NAU a sanctuary for higher education. A sanctuary for higher education is a university, college, or community college that provides all students, including undocumented and DACAmented students, the opportunity to study and learn in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, and fear of deportation.

The resolution states sanctuary status can be ensured by limiting the ability of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to come on to our campus without exigent circumstance, and by guaranteeing that any documents identifying student immigration status remain private and secure.

The resolution also calls on the Faculty Senate to reaffirm our commitment to inclusion and access for ALL NAU students, faculty, and staff, regardless of their immigration status, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, ability, or orientations.

Criminology and Criminal Justice professor Luis Fernandez said there has been an increase in hate crimes against immigrants and other minority groups throughout the campaign season and after the election, and said immigrants are afraid for their safety.

Lecturer Leah Mundell said she has worked with students who are eligible to receive the schools Lumberjack scholarship due to their grades, but are not allowed to receive aid because they are undocumented. She said the university is already losing talented students with good grades, and said they would stand to lose more if they did not pass a resolution in support of undocumented students and DACA recipients.

Woods said the resolution does not suggest NAU do anything illegal, and pointed out the law already includes universities as sensitive spaces, and said ICE already cannot perform immigration sweeps on a university campus.

One faculty member asked if the resolution was a reaction from the election, and said he wondered if there would be the same action from the group if Trump had not been elected.

The situation following the election created this particular context, Woods said. It just so happens Hillary Clinton did not promise to end DACA. So this is a reaction but it is a measured reaction.
PHOENIX -- The Arizona Board of Regents voted Monday settle claims by the Arizona Students Association that it illegally retaliated against the organization.

Without admitting they did anything wrong, board members agreed to give the association $250,000. That's an estimate of the amount the group contends was illegally withheld.

In exchange, the association will not pursue other funds it claims it may be owed.

Potentially more significant, attorney Stephen Montoya said his client will not challenge a separate 2013 state law which permanently changed how the association is funded and undermined its major source of cash. He said association members concluded it was time to move on.

"They learned that they needed to get over it and look at other methods of funding,'' Montoya said. That means both convincing students at the three state universities to join voluntarily as well as seeking outside grants.

"I think the regents realized they needed to work with and preserve ASA,'' he said.

"And ASA realized it needed to work with the Board of Regents,'' Montoya continued. "So both sides agreed to disagree and compromise so they could productively move on.''

In a prepared statement, the board said it was pleased to resolve the differences "and look forward to working together towards their common goals as they have done for many decades.''

The deal ends more than three years of litigation.

According to court records, the regents directly funded the association from 1974 through 1988.

That year students voted to impose a one-dollar-per-student fee each semester; it was increased, also by student vote, to $2 in 2008.

It was an "opt-out'' system, meaning those who objected could request a refund.

All that changed in 2012 during the debate over Proposition 204, a measure that would have made permanent a temporary one-cent sales tax increase approved by voters two years earlier. A large portion of those funds would have been earmarked for education, including some for the universities.

The association was involved in drafting the initiative. It collected more than 20,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot, campaigned for it and, perhaps most significant politically, used $120,000 of its student-fee income to promote its support.

All that was against the wishes of then-Gov. Jan Brewer who also sits on the board, who opposed the 2012 vote. Several regents also criticized the association for its support of the ballot measure.

Shortly after the initiative failed, the regents called a special meeting where they suspended collection of the fee and voted to withhold the income that already had been collected for the spring 2013 semester.

Several weeks later the board had another special meeting, permanently changing its policies to collect the fee only from students who "opted in,'' turning the "opt-out'' policy on its head. The regents also voted to require the association to reimburse the universities for the administrative cost of collecting the fees.

And there was something else: After implementing the opt-in policy, the board never remitted the fees already paid by students for the spring 2013 semester.

The association sued, charging that the regents' action violates the associations' constitutional free-speech rights, "causing a chilling effect on ASA's political speech'' and depriving it of its only source of income.

A trial judge threw out the case, ruling that it was voluntary for the state to collect the fee and that the policy change wasn't a First Amendment violation.

But in a ruling earlier this year a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the students do have a case.

Appellate Judge Richard Paez, writing for the court, acknowledged nothing in law ever actually required the regents to collect a fee from students to run the association and support its political activities.

"But having done so for 15 years at no cost, ABOR could not deprive ASA of the benefit of its fee collection and remittance services in retaliation for the ASA's exercise of its First Amendment rights,'' Paez wrote. And he said the sudden change by the governmental agency in depriving the association of the benefits of the free collection is "sufficiently valuable to give rise to a retaliation claim.''

Monday's settlement means that claim will never go to trial. It does not mean, however, the regents will start collecting the fee again.

After the regents first acted, the legislature voted to bar universities from collecting any funds from students that would go to an organization not under the regents' jurisdiction or recognized as an official university student organization.
(ANSA) - Sao Paulo, December 5 - Brazilian police said Tuesday they are seeking a gang of five people who stabbed to death an Italian during a robbery of the villa he had rented with his wife in the town of Beberibe.

Alberto Baroli, 51, from Milan but residing in Paris, was murdered by the gang who entered the seaside vacation home in the northeastern state of Ceara', police said.

They said that one of the five robbers, Gilmar Paiva de Moraes, 23, delivered the mortal wounds with a large kitchen knife.

De Moraes is a defendant in two robbery trials and wears and electronic bracelet, police told a press conference. Baroli's wife was locked in the bathroom by the criminals while he tried to stop the robbers, according to police.

The robbers escaped with the victim's iPhone, a notebook and about 5,000 euros in cash.

Police say that the group had committed another home robbery not far from that of the Italian tourist couple. Local police have arrested a woman - Damiana Paiva da Silva, 27 - on homicide charges and say that they have arrested and are looking for her accomplices: three men and a 16-year-old boy.

The Italian embassy in Brasilia and the consulate in Recife are following the case. They are in close contact with family members and are providing the necessary assistance to them, foreign ministry sources say.

Baroli is the second Italian in a matter of weeks to meet a violent death in Brazil.

On November 17, Ragusa native Pamela Canzonieri, 39, was strangled in her apartment in the Morro di San Paolo tourist resort in the state of Bahia.


(ANSA) - Rome, December 6 - British Ambassador to Italy Jill Morris told an ANSA Forum on Tuesday that she was hopeful Brexit negotiations can lead to a win-win outcome for all involved.

She also expressed optimism that relations with Rome will continue to flourish after the Italian people voted to reject the government's Constitutional reform on Sunday, prompting Matteo Renzi to announce he would resign as premier. "Now our job is to finish the path to a Brexit that protects our interests, but not only those of the UK," Morris, who became Britain's first woman ambassador in Rome earlier this year, explained in fluent Italian.

"At the end of the negotiations there must be a win-win situation. "The EU must be stronger and Britain must be stronger in its new relationship with Europe.

"Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has stressed that it's not in our interests to have a weak Europe.

"On the contrary, we want a strong EU and good relations with the individual member States".

She acknowledged that Britain's decision to leave the EU had had an "emotional impact" on "friends and partners overseas", many of whom had been hoping for a different outcome.

Morris said negotiations should not be based on a model derived from any of the other countries, such as Norway, that are strongly linked to the European Union while not being members.

"The important thing is to find a British model," she said.

"During our period as a member of the EU, we've had a specific relationship, special to Britain.

"So its so logical to have a relationship that is specific after we leave too, a British model that works well for us and our partners. "Britain will play an important role in security and foreign policy for example".

Morris said the British government was aware that uncertainty over the Brexit process could be damaging for the UK and Europe.

She said this is the reason Prime Minister Theresa May is determined to meet the deadline she has set of triggering Article 50 by the end of March, even if the government loses a legal challenge and is forced to consult parliament before doing so.

The ambassador told the forum that London wants to guarantee the right of EU citizens currently living in Britain, including some 600,000 Italians, to stay.

But she said this depended on EU member States making the same pledge for British nationals living in their countries.

"The one condition is reciprocity. If British citizens' rights are respected, we see no problem," the ambassador said.

"Our prime minister has said it would be best to address this issue at the start of the (Brexit) negotiations.

"It would be best to resolve this at the start so citizens don't have to worry". Morris said the No victory in Sunday's Constitutional reform referendum "was a democratic choice of the Italian people". "Italy is and remains an important partner for us, both on a bilateral level and in the EU," she said.

"Relations between Britain and Italy are already very strong and will be deepened in future.

"Britain will continue to collaborate with any Italian government to address common challenges and work on the many interests we share".


Libya: ISIS, 18 'apostates' killed and wounded in Sirte Fighting ongoing in the last Islamic State stronghold

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, DECEMBER 6 - ISIS has announced on Twitter that it has killed and wounded 18 militants in clashes in Sirte.



In a statement signed by the 'Islamic State of Tripoli', the jihadists announced that, ''as part of heroic fighting by the Caliphate in Sirte, clashes were reported between soldiers of the Caliph and apostates of the Agreement with 18 victims, including dead and wounded in Giza Bahareya'', one of the districts of Sirte.



Yesterday, Libyan militias announced they had ''defeated the Islamic State in their last stronghold in the coastal city''. A spokesman for the Libyan forces added that ''the city has not been completely freed from the presence of a few dozen of jihadists hidden in a few homes''. (ANSAmed)
Russia, Turkey in joint fight against terrorism  Yildirim Strategic relations after 'difficult period' - Turkish premier

(ANSAmed) - MOSCOW, DECEMBER 6 - Russia and Turkey must join together to fight terrorism, Turkish Premier Binali Yildirim told his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev during a meeting in the Russian capital, the pro-Kremlin news service Sputnik reported Tuesday. "Relations (between the two countries) went through a difficult period last year," said Yildirim in reference to the downing of a Russian fighter plane on the Turkish border.



"After this experience (the two governments) intend to develop relations on a strategic level," the Turkish premier added.



Dialogue between Russia and Turkey "has now resumed and is taking place fully," his Russian counterpart said.



"With regards to the humanitarian situation and other matters, including the fight against terrorism and the terrorist organisations currently operating in Syria, comunication on these issues is fairly good, not only between our respective presidents but also between the armed forces and other bodies." Yildirim later met President Vladimir Putin, too. Turkey has long been accused of backing various rebel groups in Syria, while Russia is providing military support to President Assad. (ANSAmed).




Serbia: export to Greece could be higher,Chamber of Commerce 'Athens big investor but not all potentials have been exploited'

(ANSAmed) - BELGRADE, 6 DECEMBER - Greece is among the biggest investors in Serbia, but not all the potentials have been exploited for the economic cooperation of the two countries, it was said at the business forum of Serbia and Greece in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS).



President of that association, Marko Cadez, said that in the last ten years the overall annual exchange between Serbia and Greece was 260 to 390 million euros, which is about three times less than the exchange which Serbia has with the other countries in the region, the PKS announced. Greece has so far invested 2.5 billion euros in Serbia.(ANSAmed)
Over 4,000 rebels killed or wounded in Sirte Hospital sources put death toll at 713

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, DECEMBER 6 - Libyan rebels engaged in the military campaign against ISIS in Sirte have registered over 4,000 deaths or injuries since the beginning of May, medical sources said Tuesday.



"713 militants have been killed and 3,210 injured in Sirte," said the spokesman for the central hospital in Misurata, Akram Kaliouan, cited by the website Alwasat.



The campaign by the rebels loyal to the government of national accord to liberate the coastal city began on May 12.



(ANSAmed)
ROME - A reported 748 million people worldwide (one in eight) live without access to drinking water and 2.5 billion have no hygienic-sanitary services due to wars and natural catastrophes, according to the new report '#Savinglives: water emergency' published by Oxfam on Tuesday.



And the situation is getting worse for men, women and children affected by wars devastating countries like Syria, Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan or forcing nine million others to flee attacks by Boko Haram in the area around the lake Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Chad.



Natural disasters also play a role in areas including Haiti and Sudan.



Riccardo Sandone, the humanitarian coordinator of Oxfam Italia said the organization's work is essential in providing clean water and services and that it has reached over 13.7 million people in the gravest emergencies worldwide, although more can be done.



And in order to reach more people, Oxfam has launched the #Savinglives campaign for the holidays.



Over 20 million people in Syria and Iraq are without water and food, the Oxfam report said: in Syria, after almost six years of war, the situation is critical with 13.5 million people relying on humanitarian aid and, among them, three million with irrelevant or gravely insufficient access to food and clean water.



Each day almost 7,000 Syrians have to leave their country, in East Aleppo over 275,000 people, with winter arriving, remain trapped under bombardments with food and water getting scarce.



Oxfam has provided relief by crossing conflict areas from west Aleppo (controlled by the government) to Aleppo east (under the control of opposition forces), succeeding in installing a generator and thus guaranteeing clean water across Aleppo.



As serious is the humanitarian impact of the conflict in Iraq after the ongoing offensive to reconquer Mosul from ISIS, which could generate hundreds of thousands of refugees, raising their number to over 10 million, half of them children, of those who are in desperate need of aid. Oxfam is currently working to guarantee by the end of December water and essential services to at least 60,000 displaced who are fleeing the war to refugee camps.



Sansone said the organization is ''working against time to guarantee the survival of people trapped in war zones, bringing clean water and first aid and to prevent epidemics in crisis areas that are already very poor, where infrastructure and sanitary systems are minimal''.



''In Yemen we have reached almost one million people in areas already affected by war, in South Sudan we have succeeded in bringing drinking water and hygienic services to over 860,000 people, preventing the spread of cholera''.
Sentence on April 2015 migrant shipwreck due 13/12 Tunisian 'captain' and Syrian 'cabin boy' face 18 and 6 years

(ANSAmed) - CATANIA, DECEMBER 6 - A preliminary hearings judge in Catania will on December 13 hand down a sentence in a fast-track trial against two men held responsible for a migrant boat tragedy that resulted in the death of approximately 700 people off the coast of Libya on April 18, 2015, sources said on Tuesday.



The defendants are Tunisian national Mohamed Ali' Malek, 27, the alleged captain of the boat, and his supposed cabin boy, Mahmud Bikhit, 25, from Syria.



Both men are accused of favouring illegal immigration and Malek also faces charges of multiple manslaughter and shipwreck.



Both maintain their innocence, claiming they were merely passengers. Prosecutors have called for 18 years and a 3-million euro compensation order for Malek and 6 years for Bikhit. The prosecution claims the shipwreck "was brought about by a series of joint causes, including overcrowding on board the vessel and erroneous maneuvers carried out by 'captain' Malek that led the fishing boat to collide with the merchant vessel King Jacob", which had arrived to rescue the migrants. The boat and the bodies trapped inside were recovered and transferred to a Siracusa port in a defence ministry operation.



(ANSAmed).




(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, DECEMBER 6 - Turkey's military operations against the PKK in the Kurdish-majority south-east have caused in the summer of 2015 ''hundreds of thousands of displaced'' civilians, expropriating or destroying their homes, Amnesty International denounced on Tuesday.



The organization published a report on the district of Sur, the historic center of the Kurdish 'capital' Diyarbakir, where there are an estimated 24,000 displaced.



''The ongoing process in the region overall suggests a premeditated plan to chase residents, destroy and rebuild the areas to safeguard security through changes in infrastructure and the transfer of populations'', the report said.



Ankara's authorities have so far not responded to the NGO's allegations. (ANSAmed)
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, DECEMBER 6 - These are some of the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area: ROME - Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.



ROME - Doctors Without Borders (MSF) demonstration to stop the bombing of Aleppo.



BRUSSELS - conference on the 'EU Agricultural Outlook Conference 2016'.



BRUSSELS - meeting of NATO foreign ministers (also 7/12). GENEVE - Possible meeting of American and Russian experts o discuss militias withdrawal from eastern Aleppo. (ANSAmed).




Loyalist forces advance on eastern Aleppo 70% of rebel-held territory recaptured in 10 days

(ANSAMed) - BEIRUT, DECEMBER 6 - Syrian loyalist forces continued their advance on eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, drawing near to the ancient Citadel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, media sources report. The pro-Iranian TV broadcaster al Mayadin and the Syrian news agency Sana both report that the loyalists have taken the entire district of Shaar, as well as the Shaykh Lutfi and Marje neighbourhoods. The loyalists have taken approximately 70% of eastern Aleppo since beginning their offensive to reclaim rebel-held territory on November 25. (ANSAMed).




TEL AVIV - The Israeli parliament (Knesset) has given preliminary approval to a bill legalizing thousands of homes in Jewish settlements built on Palestinian private land in the West Bank.



The draft legislation - voted by 60 lawmakers against 49 and the outcome of an agreement between the government right-wing coalition and centrist party 'Kulanu' - also provides for the Amona settler outpost,, the origin of the problem, to be moved from its current location to another one in an unclaimed Palestinian property.



The agreement unblocked a dossier that has caused problems to the majority in government. The Supreme Court has ruled that the settler outpost of Amona needs to be evacuated by the second half of December and the Attorney General still needs to decide on the mediation reached between majority parties. Amona residents have said they are against the agreement and that they don't want to leave the outpost. UN representative Nicolay Mladenov stressed opposition to the draft legislation that ''would diminish prospects of peace''.
Saudi Arabia condemns 15 to death for 'spying' for Iran Trial 'travesty of justice', 'human rights violation' - Amnesty

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, DECEMBER 6 - Amnesty International on Tuesday described the death sentences handed down against 15 people in Saudi Arabia for alleged espionage for Iran as "a travesty of justice" and "a serious violation of human rights".



A further 15 people were handed down prison sentences on the same charges. In a statement Amnesty said all the convicts were Saudi nationals with the exception of one Iranian national who was sentenced to four years in jail. A defence lawyer said the defendants were all arrested between 2013 and 2014 without a warrant and were held in isolation for three months and interrogated without a lawyer present.



"Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice," said Samah Hadid, Deputy Director for Campaigns at Amnesty International's Beirut regional office.



Tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia is running high after Riyadh executed a Shia religious leader and 46 others last January. Saudi Arabia suspended diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters attacked its embassy in Tehran. (ANSAmed).




MOSCOW - Russian and American experts will not discuss about the situation in Syria in Geneva on Wednesday, Russian Foreign minister Serghey Lavrov said on Tuesday. ''Yesterday we received'' from the American side ''a message according to which unfortunately they won't be able to meet us tomorrow'' in Geneva because ''they have changed ideas'' on how to solve the situation in Aleppo.

President Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, assured that contacts on Syria between US and Russian experts will continue in Geneva. He denied that Moscow does not want to find an agreement with Washington on Syria before Donald Trump takes office.

Lavrov, U.S. proposal on Aleppo 'unacceptable'. 'Attempt to allow militants to catch breath'

The US have withdrawn a proposal on Aleppo advanced on December 2 in Rome on the sidelines of the Med Dialogues 2016 Conference and sent another one ''yesterday'' to Moscow in an attempt to ''gain time to enable militants to catch breath and get provisions'', Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a joint press conference with the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland.

''There is awareness that it is not possible to have serious talks with our American partners'', Lavrov said. ''This happened with the September 9 agreements that had been reached and come into effect, but then the US started looking for pretexts to get out of them and found them in the end'', Lavrov added. ''Now the situation is very similar''.

Militants not leaving Aleppo will be killed, says Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday said the fact that militants ''have refused to leave'' Aleppo ''doesn't mean anything". "There is nothing to refuse, the agreements have not been concluded yet'' and anyone refusing to get out of East Aleppo ''will be eliminated, there is no alternative'', the minister said after meeting in Moscow with the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland.

Loyalist forces advance on eastern Aleppo. 70% of rebel-held territory recaptured in 10 days

BEIRUT - Syrian loyalist forces continued their advance on eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, drawing near to the ancient Citadel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, media sources report. The pro-Iranian TV broadcaster al Mayadin and the Syrian news agency Sana both report that the loyalists have taken the entire district of Shaar, as well as the Shaykh Lutfi and Marje neighbourhoods. The loyalists have taken approximately 70% of eastern Aleppo since beginning their offensive to reclaim rebel-held territory on November 25.
PARIS - The mission of Bernard Cazeneuve as France's new premier is to "protect", President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday in reference not only to security and the terrorist threat but also to welfare, employment and society as a whole. The new executive "must go the whole way in preparing the future," Hollande added after appointing the former interior minister to replace Manuel Valls, who is running as a candidate in the Socialist Party's presidential primary ahead of elections next spring.



The official hand-over is due to take place at 5 pm local time at Matignon palace.

Valls steps down, Bernard Cazeneuve premier

French Premier Manuel Valls has resigned and Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, is the new premier, the Elysee palace has said. Valls, the socialist candidate in primary elections for the presidential vote, stepped down as prime minister before 9 a.m. after arriving at the Elysee palace where President Francois Hollande was waiting for him. Hollande and Valls, who announced yesterday he was running in the primaries ahead of presidential elections in the spring, also spoke about the situation of the gauche and the successor at the helm of the government.

Bruno Le Roux replaces Cazeneuve as interior minister

French President Francois Hollande appointed Socialist Party whip Bruno Le Roux to replace Bernard Cazeneuve as minister of the interior on Tuesday after the latter was nominated to take over from Manuel Valls as premier earlier in the day. The cabinet reshuffle, triggered by Valls' decision to run in the Socialist Party presidential primary, has also seen Andre Vallini become undersecretary for relations with parliament in lieu of Jean-Marie Le Guen, the new undersecretary for development and the Francophone world.
Tunisia: minister, tourism up 4.7% in first 11 months 2016 Encouraging data for next year

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, DECEMBER 6 - The Tunisian minister for tourism and crafts, Salma Elloumi Rekik, has said that tourism has increased by 4.7% in the first 11 months of 2016 compared to the same period last year. Some five million and 190,000 foreign tourists have visited as of November 30, the minister told Parliament.



The data is encouraging, also due to the increased number of Algerian tourists, up 16% in a positive sign for 2017, when tourism could make up for 14% of GDP, Elloumi said. (ANSAmed).




Real Good Food is to ramp up activity targeting amateur bakers after identifying them as a growth market.

The business  which includes the Renshaw cake decorations brand, ingredients supplier Garrett and premium bakery Haydens  revealed the strategy as it announced its results for the six months ending 30 September 2016.

Real Good Food reported a 5% hike in group sales to 49m, which it said had been driven primarily by the performance of the premium bakery division, alongside the integration of the Chantilly business it acquired this year. Gross profit rose slightly to 13m, while EBITDA fell from 1.2m a year ago to 0.8m as a result of increased investment costs and volatile commodity pricings.

The business pointed out that it made the majority of its profits in the second half of the year, which included its important third-quarter trading period in the run-up to Christmas.

Cake decorations

Real Good Food said the cake decorations market had not been as buoyant this summer as in recent years  although sales improved with the return of The Great British Bake-Off to TV screens in the autumn.

Activity in the first half of the year included the relaunch of the UK Renshaw Professional range and the introduction of new product Renshaw Extra, which is targeted at the European market.

Retail sales of soft icings would be a focus for the cake decorating division, group marketing director Andrew Brown told British Baker.

Our brand has been focussed on professional customers, but we believe there is a lot of growth to be found in the amateur bakery market, he said. We believe we can attract a different audience to the brand.

Renshaw launched new business Renshaw Americas this year, opening a warehouse in Rockaway, New Jersey.

Brown said the business had a US team in place and stock in the New Jersey warehouse, and would be kicking off distribution in the US in the first quarter of next year.

Real Good Food also has big plans for its Renshaw Academy training centre and Development Centre in Liverpool, and will be launching a full range of courses in 2017, added Brown. The company said the Development Centre was beginning to pay dividends following high-profile customer visits.

Ingredients

The Garrett Ingredients business and Haydens had been hit by the weakening of sterling, reported the business.

Sugar supplies had become critically short, which would constrain Garrett volumes, it said. Brown added the business had sufficient sugar supplies to satisfy its contracted customers.

The company said Haydens faced challenges in the second half of the year, with the price of butter and cream doubling recently as a result of a drop in EU milk production and the weakness of sterling.

It added that the price rises in the sugar and dairy markets would present Garretts with a number of opportunities, through its sourcing expertise.

Premium bakery

Haydens enjoyed a strong year, Real Good Food reported, with good sales through Waitrose and new business gained at Marks & Spencer. It added that growth at Chantilly had been constrained by a delay in moving to new premises, which would now happen early in 2017.

We have continued to make good progress on developing our growth strategies in each business division, said group executive chairman Pieter Totte. With the exception of Garrett Ingredients, where the dairy and sugar markets have continued to be difficult, exacerbated by recent currency fluctuations, trading performance has been broadly in line with the boards expectations.

The opening of our own sales and warehousing operation in the US will enable significant sales growth from early 2017. At the same time, we are finalising other investment plans at our sites in Liverpool and Devizes to improve our operational efficiency over the medium term.
The weather in the Middle East is very tough on aircraft, from the strong sun to the battering aircraft take from desert sand. We knew that our experience in working in varying weather conditions would prove to be very valuable here, said CEO Dennis Cruz.

The company introduced its dry wash to the region upon opening and showed that a wet wash wasnt what was needed in the Middle East.

A typical frequent wet wash for a Hawker 800 will utilise approximately 1,000 litres of fresh water, whereas dry washing will require less than eight litres of water to clean the same aircraft, said Cruz.

However, the company has now come up with an even better alternative for the region called the hybrid wash.

We have taken the dry wash and wet wash and blended it and coined it the hybrid wash, said Cruz. The hybrid gives what the aircraft needs on the flat service and crown  it provides a rinse of all the environmental fallout. All the corrosion on sensitive areas such as the belly, landing gear and everything under the wings needs the dry wash.

After three years, the company has grown massively in the UAE with services at DXB, DWC, Al Bateen and Sharjah.

We service for aircraft up to Jumbo Jets, added VP, Marc Lelah.

As well as having a fleet of 8,000 litre trucks to service all over the UAE, we service every MRO and every FBO at those airports. We are the first independent company to sign a contract with Emirates for aircraft appearance. Nobody has this equipment.

And now the company is expanding within the Middle East. It announced at MEBAA, while in-between taking care of aircraft at the show, that it has opened branches in Saudi Arabia.

We have finally found the right local partner in Saudi Arabia that shares our vision, said Cruz. One branch is in Riyadh at the Business Gate, and one in Jeddah.

We signed our off-shore agreement in March this year and will start operating in the first quarter of 2017.

We serve a lot of Saudis and it makes sense to service on their own soil. It also shows we are happy to make the step and go to customers in Saudi. Its great to have our flagpole in the ground there.

CEO Dennis Cruz, and VP - Marc Lelah.
Previously Spectrum Aeromed equipped a BAe Jetstream 32 EP and another Bombardier Learjet 45 for Redstar Aviation. The new aircraft will begin operation in January of 2017.

We have a working relationship with Redstar Aviation that has been in existence for many years, said vice president and Account Representative Thomas Redder from the Munich, Germany office of Spectrum Aeromed. On their previous aircraft we equipped them with a dual ICU stretcher configuration. We are thankful that they will be using our equipment once more on their new aircraft.

Redstar Aviation is an air ambulance company that has been in operation since 1989 and is a subsidiary of Gulf Helicopters Company from Doha, State of Qatar. Redstar Aviation is the first private air ambulance company in Turkey.

Redstar has been using Spectrum products for more than a decade and we are very happy with Spectrum Aeromeds solutions, said Redstar Aviation accountable manager Emre Dursun. The support and solution-oriented approach of Spectrum Aeromed is vital for Redstar for this long-lasting relation between our organisations.

Redstar Aviation is already planning another purchase of an additional Bombardier Learjet 45XR that will be equipped with more Spectrum Aeromed equipment.
President Xi Jinping welcomes visiting Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing before their meeting on Dec 1, 2016. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma said China's decision to write off his country's debts will now give the West African republic breathing space to focus on other priorities.

China canceled that debt at the start of the president's six-day visit to the country, a visit that marked the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

"We welcome such a pronouncement because it is helping us out of a very difficult situation. Giving us this relief will help us address other important issues," Koroma said in an interview with China Daily in Beijing.

Sierra Leone's economy was one of the fastest growing in Africa in the past decade but was hit by two devastating events - the collapse of the price of iron ore, its main export, and the Ebola epidemic, which killed 3,590 people. Its GDP contracted by 21.5 percent in 2015.

"It has been very difficult, but with the help of friends like China, we have been able to roll out programs of recovery to restore our utilities, get our services back and provide support for our private sector to get the market properly operating again," he said.

Koroma, president since 2007, said the economy was now on target to grow by 4.7 percent this year and by 5.4 percent in 2017.

"This shows that although, yes, it has been difficult, the measures adopted, including austerity ones, have resulted in things taking shape. And in the not too distant future, we will be able to restore ourselves to pre-Ebola status and become one of the fastest growing economies in the world again."

One of the biggest investors in Sierra Leone is Shandong Iron and Steel, which owns the country's Tonkolili iron ore mine. It ceased production during the Ebola crisis but resumed activity last year. The president made a visit to Shandong on Saturday.

"We need to visit them to encourage them to scale up their activities. The projections they have made before, they are not currently hitting. We are, therefore, looking for assurances," he said.

Koroma welcomed China's commitment to Africa and, in particular, President Xi Jinping's tripling of financial support to $60 billion at the second Forum on China Africa Cooperation Summit in Johannesburg in December of last year.

During his visit, an agreement was also signed by the two sides to support the establishment of a center for disease control in the country.

"Ebola is new to us all, including China at the time, and we have learned lots of lessons and are still learning. There is no complete study on Ebola, but this is an opportunity for us to continue to study the virus."

Koroma said he believes in developing a market-led approach to Sierra Leone's development.

"We have an open market and we want to create an environment that is friendly and supportive to external investors. We are not an exclusively Chinese market. We have other players, but it seems that the Chinese are getting an upper hand," he said.

Koroma said he hoped some Chinese manufacturing, particularly in resources processing, would now move to Sierra Leone as it has done with some other African countries.

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn
Relax.

Breathe.

Donald Trumps phone call with the president of Taiwan wasnt a blunder by an inexperienced president-elect unschooled in the niceties of cross-straits diplomacy.

It was a deliberate move  and a brilliant one at that.

The phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen was reportedly carefully planned, and Trump was fully briefed before the call, according to The Post. Its not that Trump was unfamiliar with the Three Communiques or unaware of the fiction that there is One China. Trump knew precisely what he was doing in taking the call. He was serving notice on Beijing that it is dealing with a different kind of president  an outsider who will not be encumbered by the same Lilliputian diplomatic threads that tied down previous administrations. The message, as John Bolton correctly put it, was that the president of the United States [will] talk to whomever he wants if he thinks its in the interest of the United States, and nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to.

Amen to that.

And if that message was lost on Beijing, Trump underscored it on Sunday, tweeting: 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. doesnt tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I dont think so! He does not need Beijings permission to speak to anyone. No more kowtowing in a Trump administration.

Trump promised during the campaign that he would take a tougher stand with China, and supporting Taiwan has always been part of his get-tough approach to Beijing. As far back as 2011, Trump tweeted: Why is @BarackObama delaying the sale of F-16 aircraft to Taiwan? Wrong message to send to China. #TimeToGetTough. Indeed, the very idea that Trump could not speak to Taiwans president because it would anger Beijing is precisely the kind of weak-kneed subservience that Trump promised to eliminate as president.

Trumps call with the Taiwanese president sent a message not only to Beijing, but also to the striped-pants foreign-policy establishment in Washington. It is telling how so many in that establishment immediately assumed Trump had committed an unintended gaffe. Bottomless pig-ignorance is how one liberal foreign-policy commentator described Trumps decision to speak with Tsai. Trump just shocked the world by winning the presidential election, yet they still underestimate him. The irony is that the hyperventilation in Washington has far outpaced the measured response from Beijing. When American foreign-policy elites are more upset than China, perhaps its time for some introspection.

[Trumps Taiwan charade]

The hypocrisy is rank. When President Obama broke with decades of U.S. policy and extended diplomatic recognition to a murderous dictatorship in Cuba, the foreign-policy establishment swooned. Democrats on Capitol Hill praised Obama for taking action that was long overdue. Former President Jimmy Carter raved about how Obama had shown such wisdom, while the New York Times gushed that Obama was acting courageously and ushering in a transformational era for millions of Cubans who have suffered as a result of more than 50 years of hostility between the two nations.

But when Trump broke with decades of U.S. diplomatic practice and had a phone call with the democratically elected leader of Taiwan, he was declared a buffoon. Well, if they didnt like that phone call, his critics may hate what could come next even more. Trump now has an opportunity to do with Taiwan what Obama did with Cuba  normalize relations.

There are a number of steps the Trump administration can take to strengthen our military, economic and diplomatic ties with Taiwan. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Derek Scissors has suggested that Trump could negotiate a new free-trade agreement with Taiwan. Taiwans tiny population means there is no jobs threat, Scissors says, but Taiwan is also the United States ninth-largest trading partner. A free-trade agreement would be economically beneficial to both sides and would send a message to friend and foe alike in Asia that, despite Trumps planned withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the United States is not withdrawing from the region.

On the military front, Trump could begin sending general officers to Taipei once again to coordinate with their Taiwanese counterparts and hold joint military exercises. On the diplomatic front, Bolton says the new administration could start 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 Taiwans 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.

Beijing would be wise not to overreact to any overtures Trump makes to Taiwan. When China tested President George W. Bush in his first months in office by scrambling fighters and forcing a U.S. EP-3 aircraft to land on the Chinese island of Hainan, its actions backfired. After the incident, Bush approved a $30 billion arms package for Taiwan, announced that Taiwan would be treated as a major non-NATO ally and declared that the United States would do whatever it took to defend Taiwan. His actions not only strengthened U.S. ties with Taiwan but also set the stage for good relations with Beijing throughout his presidency.

China does not want to make the same mistake and overplay its hand with Trump. Trumps call with Taiwans president was a smart, calculated move designed to send a clear message: The days of pushing the United States around are over.

That may horrify official Washington, but its the right message to send.
The biggest European Media Holding Publicis Groupe is union of world-famous advertising agencies: Publicis, Leo Burnett, Saatchi&Saatchi, and several large media groups. Few years ago Boris Voskoboynikov's studio VOX Architects started collaboration with this company. The new need for a project appeared when the Holding decided to move, aiming optimization process, and actually united all the numerous agencies under one roof. As a result, VOX Architects got a chance to collaborate with an interesting, creative client once again.

The architectural situation onsite was quite favorable. Publicis Russia got an attic floor area with a void above in the center area of future office space. Brick walls of historical building were preserved. Barring structures: columns, floor slabs were replaced with the modern ones. There are no need for any structural alterations of the space, so the most important task for the design team was to create a comfortable and attractive working space which would meet all the requirements of the office owners.

As the agency is the head office and it represents a French company, there was a need to point it out, to celebrate this fact. The emblem of the Holding is the Sun Lion. This symbol are presented as an art installation made of 4500 hollow aluminium spheres coated with chrome.

Attic walls are decorated with French accents, helping maintain which remains Paris atmosphere. The usage of Bolon coating on the podium in the office center ironically reconsiders home coziness. It is a dense wicker PVC covering cut by the factory to form herringbone design making an idea of genuine French parquet. On the one hand, this finishing is highly aesthetic and soft, on an other hand it is very resistant  perfectly suits to the main general office space. Besides, usage of concept with bright colors communicates a strong visual emphasis to the central space of the holding by pointing out to its logical center.

The European management principles and striving for democracy are reflected in the plan solution of the work areas: almost the whole office is an open space containing workstations. Separate offices and rooms are decided only for directors and for specific departments such as TV studio, clipping room, accounting. Reception and waiting area are separated from the office work space by glass partition. Directly behind it there is an expressive central space with a podium, which is lit by of impressive void in the roof. Plan of the office is in fact developing around it. Principal public life spot has many small working areas equipped with tall sofas Vitra, model Alcove, where most meeting and brainstorms take place. Such a solution permits the central space to clear up from furniture at any time, so that work or informal events  meetings, presentations or video demonstrations (for the purpose of which big flip-out screen and projecting
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Italys President Sergio Mattarella asked Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to delay his resignation until the 2017 state budget will be approved, the Presidents administration said, reports Armenpress.

The President of the Republic, taking into account the necessity of completing the parliamentary process on approving the budget law, asked the President of the Ministers Council to delay the resignation in order to fulfill that task, the statement reads.

The budget draft can be approved by the Senate on December 9.

Earlier on December 5, Matteo Renzi announced that he resigns. He took the responsibility for the defeat in a referendum over constitutional reforms proposed by the Government.

Photo by Reuters
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh told Armenpress the Azerbaijani forces made more than 60 ceasefire violations across the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

The Ministrys announcement reads: Overnight December 5-6 the Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire regime more than 60 times by firing over 700 shots at the Armenian positions in different parts of the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. Compared to the previous days, the Azerbaijani forces made ceasefire violations by firing mainly from machine guns and heavy machine guns, as well as sniper rifles (73 shots).

The Defense Army forces were carefully controlling the situation in the line of contact and took countermeasures only in case of strict necessity.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. India supports speedy integration with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), G. Balasubramanian, Deputy Chief of Mission of Indian Embassy in Russia said, RIA Novosti reported.

India is considered as the Eurasian Economic Unions primary partner, and the working group, that has worked during the last year, released its instructions and stated that business between India and the EAEU will develop quite well, the diplomat said at the 3rd Eurasian Economic Congress.

He said a great potential for cooperation exists between India and the EAEU.

We would like to see progress in this sector, talks will launch soon between India and the Eurasian Economic Commission, and we are in favor of integration with the EAEU as quickly as possible, he said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The new spokesperson of the Islamic State, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, called on supporters to carry out attacks on Turkish embassies and consulates, Demokrathaber.net reports.

In a published recording, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir urged not to flee the battlefield, and said : this is the last war of the crusaders.

Further in the recording he urged to attack Turkish structures throughout the world, particularly embassies and consulates.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) plans to stand for the upcoming parliamentary elections without forming coalition with other forces. In an interview with reporters at the National Assembly head of ARF parliamentary faction Armen Rustamyan stated that they have always participated in elections on their own and now there is nothing that could make them form coalition. We will see in the future. But as there is still a little time and we dont know hwo will submit applications, what kind of programs they will have its still a bit early to talk about that, Armenpress reports Rustamyan saying.

Referring to the cooperation with the Republican Party, Rustamyan said that the cooperation with the ruling party does not depend on the elections or the process of cabinet formation. We have announced about that cooperation by promulgating our goals and our cooperation goes on in the sidelines of those goals. We have set no deadlines for our cooperation. The general logic of the cooperation is rather clear. It is mainly about bringing into life the provisions of the new Constitution, the head of ARF faction said, noting that it is a large-scale transformation.

Armen Rustamyan also expressed conviction that the upcoming elections will be unprecedented. According to him, all the issues that could play a role in the reproduction of the authorities have been eliminated and now an electoral mechanism has been put into force by which the authorities can be re-elected but not reproduced, and at the same time the opposition can succeed and take the power.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. HDP MP Garo Paylan tabled a parliamentary question about Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus's Giaour statement which he made on December 3. As Armenpress was informed from Istanbul-based Agos periodical, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister said. For us, independence means to stand against the giaours and to be able to call them giaours.

Paylan asked the following questions to Deputy Prime Minister Kurtulmus:

1. According to Turkish Language Association (TDK), giaour means (1) a nonbeliever person, (2) non-Muslim. According to linguist Sevan Nisanyan, it means (1) Zoroastrian, fire-worshiper, (2) non-Muslim, heretic. Do you think that you insulted the Christians and non-Muslim peoples of Turkey by using the word of giaour, which is used in a pejorative way in many Turkish idioms and proverbs and which people often use to insult or defame certain groups or individuals?

2. Given that hate speech is defined as speaking in an insulting or threatening manner on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability or sexual orientation, do you think that your statement is a form of hate speech?

3. Regarding the fact that such statements often lead to hate crimes, do you think that your statement may cause hate crimes?
The biannual Exercise Cerberus is taking place in Germany this year. It is the largest British Army Field exercise of the year and the largest to take place in central Europe for more than a decade.
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Electric rates are staying the same for Beatrice customers next year, despite a rate increase from the citys power provider.

The Beatrice City Council discussed the .6 percent rate increase Nebraska Public Power District is passing on to the city in 2017, but the council isnt planning to pass the increase on to residents.

Tobias Tempelmeyer, City Administrator and BPW Manager, discussed the cause of NPPDs rate increase with the council.

For the 2017 year, NPPD is imposing a .6 percent rate increase on the city of Beatrice, he said. This increase is a result of increase in transmission charges. Those are charges we will pay if were with NPPD or anybody else out there in the market.

Not increasing electric rates for Beatrice customers was also the consensus of the Board of Public Works, which discussed the issue last Wednesday before passing on its recommendation to the City Council.

Tempelmeyer added the electric department has enough cash reserves to absorb the increase.

We made the recommendation that we do not pass on this increase, he said. While NPPD is raising rates, our recommendation is that the city of Beatrice use our cash reserves, absorb this rate increase and wait to see what happens next year.

It was stated at the BPW meeting that for Beatrice, a .6 percent increase from NPPD translates to around $70,000 for the year.

While rates are planned to hold steady, Tempelmeyer added NPPD could raise them again later in the year.

They have the right to do that, he said. If an ice storm came through next week or something else occurred, they would have the ability to do that. You would also have the ability to reassess their rate increase at that point and decide how you want to respond to that.

Last year, Beatrice reached an agreement with AEP Energy Partners Inc., based out of Columbus, Ohio.

Beatrice will gradually reduce the amount of energy purchased from NPPD as it purchases more from AEP, completing the transition when its NPPD contract expires in 2021.
The two star in his latest directorial, 'Befikre,' slated to release on December 9.

Mumbai: Aditya Chopra might have given Shah Rukh Khan a rest on his latest feature, opting for a younger cast, on a story based around a genre that he himself was hitherto alien to.

However, Adi being the passionate taskmaster that he is, absolutely own his act, appropriating himself as a nobody, hiring French technicians, going positively faux anonymous, and liberally dealing with his baby, 'Befikre'.

Ranveer being the dedicated actor that he is, surrendered completely, to SLB's vision. Vaani, who debuted in 'Shuddh Desi Romance'

Adi, known to be a recluse, even shared a picture of himself, guiding Ranveer and Vani through a scene, alongside an open letter, elaborating on his motivations and fears while making 'Befikre'.

Adi, who'd written a letter addressed to his late father Yash Chopra, announcing 'Befikre,' has once again decided to pen an open letter, addressing his fears and motivations while making the film.

Earlier, it had been revealed that the film was an homage to the 48-year old director's wife Rani Mukherjee.

Adi (director Aditya Chopra) wrote this script as a homage to his own marriage. Both Rani and Adi love Paris more than any city in the world. Ranveer was director Adis first and last choice to play the dilli ka chokra Dharam. For the role of Kyra, Adi was extremely keen to cast Vaani, who he feels has tremendous potential. He made her learn French with a French tutor from scratch and made sure she sounded like a half-French girl," a source had said.

'Befikre,' will release on December 9.

Watch the video here:
The Chief Minister's body will be kept at Rajaji Hall for people to pay last respects.

New Delhi: Tributes poured in for late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar among leaders condoling her death.

Jayalalithaa passed away at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai at 11.30 pm on Monday night after being admitted there on September 22.

Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Jayalalithaa's death as having left a 'huge void in Indian politics'. Modi, who shared excellent rapport with Jayalalithaa, tweeted, "Jayalalithaa jis connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief."

May the Almighty grant them the strength to bear this irreparable loss with courage and fortitude. I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace, Modi said.

Pranab Mukherjee

In her passing away, the nation has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions. Her contribution to the progress and development of Tamil Nadu will be long remembered, President Pranab Mukherjee said.

Sonia Gandhi

Describing Jayalalithaa as a towering figure in the national and political life, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the Congress Party, her family and she personally share the grief and pain of the people of the state and her devoted supporters in the AIADMK, who have lost their beloved 'Amma'.

"She was a towering figure in our national and political life, who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state, and her dedication to the honour of India. I am deeply grieved to learn of the passing away of Selvi J Jayalalithaa," said Gandhi in a statement issued in Delhi.

She further said, "Selvi Jayalalithaa lived her entire life with the same indomitable courage with which she battled her last illness. As the leader of the AIADMK and as five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, she had a unique and deep empathy with the needs and hopes of the people, and put in place policies that immeasurably improved their lives."

"Whether it was her welfare schemes for the rural and urban poor, her swift relief measures in the aftermath of the Tsunami or her vision for Tamil Nadu's industrial development, her leadership qualities and administrative abilities were truly outstanding," she added.

Rahul Gandhi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's official Twitter handle 'OfficeOfRG' tweeted, "We lost a great leader today. Women,farmers,fishermen &the marginalised dreamt through her eyes. We will miss Jayalalithaa ji, Amma to millions."

Karunanidhi

I offer deep condolences on the passing away of Jayalalithaa , wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal, DMK supremo M Karunanidhi said.

There may have been many differences of opinion between DMK and AIADMK but there can be no doubts she "bravely" worked for her partymen's welfare, he said in a statement.

"Although she might have died at a young age (68), there is no doubt that her fame will remain forever," he said.

Recalling Jayalalithaa's film career, Karunanidhi said she had paired with matinee idol MG Ramachandran who later groomed her in politics after founding AIADMK.

Randeep Singh Surjewala (Official Congress statement)

Stating that the entire nation is shocked and deeply saddened by the demise of Jayalalithaa, the Congress Party described her as a leader that ordinary people could reach out to and a leader who worked tirelessly for the people of the state till the very end.

"The entire nation is shocked and deeply saddened by her demise. She will always be remembered not only as Amma, but a leader that ordinary people could reach out to; a leader who changed and healed by the touch and affection she displayed and a leader who worked tirelessly for the people of Tamil Nadu till the very end," Congress media in charge Randeep Singh Surjewala told ANI.

Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Jayalalithaa was a Popular, strong, bold, efficient, people- friendly and charismatic leader.

Amma. Always at the heart of people. Big loss. I am shocked and saddened. I humbly urge the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK to face this big loss with courage and greatness. May she Rest in Peace, she tweeted in English and Tamil.

Venkaiah Naidu

Felt very sad about the demise of Madam Selvi Jayalalitha, had hopes till last movement,doctors made every possible attempt, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said.

Rajnath Singh

I pay my heartfelt tributes to the departed soul. I also appeal to the people of Tamil Nadu to remain calm in this hour of grief, said Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Chandrababu Naidu

"In deep anguish over the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, a long-time friend & a leader with indomitable spirit who is loved by all," Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu said.

K Chandrasekhar Rao

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Tuesday expressed his shock over the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and said that it was indeed a great loss to the people of Tamil Nadu and a void in political scenario of the state.

"In her passing, the state of Tamil Nadu has a great void which is difficult to fill in. It is a great loss to Tamil society," Rao said.

He further said that the AIADMK supremo was regarded as Purachi Thalavi and a revolutionary leader in Tamil Nadu politics.

Lauding her political journey, Rao said, "It was both challenging and inspirational at a time when women entering politics was rare. Jayalalitha created a political history in contemporary Tamil Nadu politics by becoming the AIADMK's general secretary and later on as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu."

Rao described Jayalalithaa as a unique person in Tamil Nadu politics for winning the assembly elections consecutively for two terms and forming the government, setting a record of sorts.

Arvind Kejriwal

"V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admi's leader. May her soul rest in peace," Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.

MK Stalin

"Deeply saddened by the demise of our CM Selvi Jayalalithaa. My deepest condolences to the party cadres & well wishers in this hour of grief," MK Stalin said.

Nitish Kumar

Expressing his grief over the demise of late AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday described it is as a huge loss not only for Tamil Nadu politics, but also for the nation.

"It is an unfortunate loss, not only for Tamil Nadu politics but also for rest of the country" said the JD(U) supremo, adding that one-day mourning has been declared in the state.

Lalu Prasad Yadav

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav also expressed his condolence over Jayalalithaa's demise saying "At a time when the country is inclining towards dictatorship, such leader was needed," adding it was a huge loss for the country.

Ghulam Nabi Azad

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "India has lost one of its shining stars and it is most unfortunate. It was an untimely death. She made her mark both as an artist and a politician. She was a most soft spoken politician in the country and yet she was a great administrator and famous for her poverty elevation programs."

Azad further said that Jayalalithaa will always be always remembered for her good works she had done for the people of Tamil Nadu.

P Chidambaram

Congress veteran and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday expressed grief over the death of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa, saying she "brought a hard, uncompromising style" to politics and governance that won praise and criticism.

In a series of tweets, Chidambaram also said that the late Chief Minister acquired loyal following that equalled that of her mentor MG Ramachandran.

"She brought a hard uncompromising style to politics and governance that won praise and criticism.. Jayalalithaa acquired large loyal following that equalled that of her mentor MGR," he said.

Jayalalithaa was the "most dominant political personality of Tamil Nadu in the last 25 years," he said, adding, "AIADMK must carry on and provide a government for remaining over four years."

Smriti Irani

"My deepest condolences to J. Jayalalithaa jis loved ones and supporters in Tamilnadu & across India in this hour of grief. Aum Shanti!, said Smriti Irani.

Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said, "I express my grief and deep sorrow on the demise of Tamilnadu CM J Jayalalithaa."

Manohar Parrikar

Expressing grief over Jayalalithaa's death, Parikkar said in a Twitter post: "I express my condolences on the passing away of TN CM J Jayalalithaa. I pray for strength to the people of Tamil Nadu at this sad hour."

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

RSS on Tuesday condoled the death ofthe late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her national spirit and ability to face challenges.

"Though she ruled state politics, she had unflinching faith in national integrity. She also was a believer," RSS State President ML Raja said in a statement.

She "sparkled" as a star both in the fields of cinema and politics, he said.

Jayalalithaa had faced many challenges in personal and professional lives "all by herself and overcame them," he said, adding, her death was a great loss to the country.

Richard R Verma

US Ambassador to India, Richard R Verma also condoled the death of the AIADMK supremo.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu during this time of sorrow," he said in a statement.

Announcing her demise at 12.13 am, Apollo Hospitals in a statement said, "The Chief Minister suffered a massive cardiac arrest on the evening of the December 4, even while our intensivist was in her room. She was immediately administered resuscitation (CPR), and provided ECMO support within the hour, which is the most advanced treatment currently available internationally. Every possible clinical attempt was made to sustain her revival. However, despite our best efforts the Chief Ministerm'st underlying conditions rendered her unable to recover and she passed away at 11.30 p.m. today."

Her body has been kept at Rajaji Hall for people to pay last respects.

Meanwhile, a seven-day state mourning has been declared from Tuesday morning to mourn the death of the late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. A three-day holiday has also been announced for educational institutions in the state.
President Mukherjee earlier said that Jayalalithaa was a fighter who fought till her last breath against cruelty and suffering.

New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday paid tribute to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night following a cardiac arrest.

Mukherjee left for Chennai again, after the Indian Air Force (IAF) plane carrying him to Tamil Nadu earlier on Tuesday for late Jayalalithaas funeral returned to Delhi due to a technical snag.

He took off in the same aircraft after about an hour after returning to Delhi once the technical fault was fixed.

Earlier this morning, the aircraft had to return to Delhi 30 minutes into the flight was a technical snag was detected.

Sources said using a different aircraft for flying President to Chennai was mulled, but the technical snag was "minor" and fixed quickly to enable the President take the same craft to Chennai.

There was a problem with one of the filters, they said.

The aircraft had reached Agra when the snag was detected.

Earlier, remembering Jayalalithaa from the early days of his political career, Mukherjee on Tuesday expressed his condolences and said that she was a fighter having a wonderful mastery over facts and theories.

Speaking to ANI in Delhi, the President recalled Jayalalithaa entering into the Rajya Sabha when he was the Leader of the House around early 1980's.

"On many occasions I had interactions with her on all subjects concerning development and administration. She had a wonderful mastery over facts and theories," he said ahead of his departure to Chennai, where he will pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa.

Asserting that she was a fighter who fought till her last breath, President Mukherjee further said that she fought against the cruelty of disease and suffering.

"All other battles she won, but perhaps everybody has to lose one battle and she has lost that," he said.

Jayalalithaa passed away at 11:30 pm on Monday night after suffering a cardiac arrest at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai the previous day. Her funeral will be held at Marina beach in the city at 4:30 pm on Tuesday.
A Government Order (GO) said the notified public holiday will apply to all state government offices, undertakings, corporations and boards.

Supporters of late Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa pay their respects to her body in Chennai. (Photo: AP)

Chennai/Thiruvananthapuram: The Tamil Nadu government has announced on Tuesday as a holiday for its offices under the Negotiable Instruments Act, as a mark of respect to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

A Government Order (GO) said the notified public holiday will apply to all state government offices, undertakings, corporations and boards.

"Under the Explanation to Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 read with Notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs No.20-25-26, Public-1, dated 8th June 1957 the Government of Tamil Nadu hereby declares that Tuesday, the 6th of December, 2016 as a public holiday as a mark of respect to the late Selvi J Jayalalithaa, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," it said.

The day will be also treated as a paid holiday for all industrial employees on regular work charge and industrial establishments and the labour hired on daily wages, it said.

The government also issued another order declaring three days holidays for "all educational institutions" starting today.

The holidays were being declared "as a mark of respect" to the late leader, the GO said.

Meanwhile, government offices and educational institutions in Kerala will also remain shut today as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa.

In a press statement, the government declared a holiday today for all government offices, including state owned Public Sector Undertakings and educational institutions.

Expressing his deep sorrow at the demise of Jayalalithaa who died last night, State Governor P Sathasivam said she was the greatest woman political leader in contemporary India.

"In her we saw the perfect blending of the strong will of an able administrator and the compassion of a philanthropist".

"In her sad demise, we have lost a unique mother's touch that had brightened the lives of millions of people during the last three decades".

In his condolence message, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described Jayalalithaa as an extraordinary politician with a rare political acumen and administrative skills which made her a distinct leader in Indian politics.

She had a special liking for Kerala and always strived to uphold and maintain relations, Vijayan said. "We do not have any other Chief Ministers in our country who have influenced people like this. Her passing away is not only a major loss to Tamil Nadu, but for the entire country.

Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala was among those who condoled her death.

Meanwhile, to prevent any untoward incidents, Kerala police strengthened security in the districts bordering Tamil Nadu with additional forces being deployed in the border areas of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki and Palakkad districts.
Security in Ayodhya was tightened on Monday with the deployment of 10 extra companies of paramilitary forces.

Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prohibits the assembly of five or more people, was in force in Ayodhya and Faizabad. (Photo: File)

Ayodhya: The district administration of Ayodhya and Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh has put the twin cities on high alert for the 24th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition on Tuesday.

According to reports, security in Ayodhya was tightened on Monday with the deployment of 10 extra companies of paramilitary forces.

Faizabad district magistrate Vivek Kumar and senior superintendent of police Anant Dev jointly monitored the security arrangements. Vigil was also tightened in the nearby towns of Rudauli and Bhadarsa.

The administration has told people not to pay heed to rumours, especially on social media, said the report.

Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prohibits the assembly of five or more people, was in force in the two cities, said the report.

Police are searching hotels, lodges, guest houses, bus stations, railway stations and other public places for suspicious objects or persons.

Every temple in the two cities has been asked to maintain a visitors register and record the name of every outstation pilgrim, said the report.

Meanwhile, security was beefed up across Madurai district of Tamil Nadu on Monday in view of the anniversary.

Adequate number of Armed Reserve and Tamil Nadu Special Police personnel with good number of vehicles have been kept ready for any untoward incident, said a report in The Hindu.

Besides installing door-frame metal detectors at the entrance of Tirunelveli Railway Junction, traveler baggage is being checked by police personnel with hand-held metal detectors.

Similar security arrangements have been made at all important temples in the district, including Swami Nellaiyappar Temple in Tirunelveli, Sri Kasi Viswanathar Temple in Tenkasi and Sri Sankaranarayanar Temple in Sankarankovil.

A fresh proposal for settlement of Ayodhya dispute was submitted to Faizabad divisional commissioner on November 13 suggesting that a temple and a mosque be built at the site of the Babri Mosque.

The petition was reportedly signed by about 10,000 members from both Hindu and Muslim communities with former High Court judge Palok Basu leading the initiative.

Divisional Commissioner Surya Prakash Mishra, who is the receiver of the disputed site, said, "I received a memorandum regarding the dispute of Ayodhya and a bunch of photocopies containing some signatures. I have yet to decide what to do in this matter."

Basu said that they were hopeful that the Supreme Court will take note of it.
Retaliatory options before the Russians may include restriction on cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats posted in Russia.

New Delhi: In an embarrassment to the government on account of demonetisation, Russia has lodged a strong protest over cash shortage affecting the functioning of its embassy in Delhi and threatening retaliatory action, adding that the money permitted to be withdrawn will not be enough (even) to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant, not to mention functioning of such a big embassy.

Russian ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin has written to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to get the restrictions on cash withdrawals by Russian diplomats lifted, saying the embassys normal functioning was getting affected with the inadequate withdrawal limit of Rs 50,000 per week.

The State Bank of India has informed us that the cash withdrawal limit is now Rs 50,000 per week under the Government of India directives, with no exceptions unless otherwise advised by the RBI, his letter said. Such an amount is totally inadequate as regards the embassys salary and operational expenditure requirements, the letter was quoted by news agencies as stating.

Please just imagine if we in Moscow mirror this order of SBI (State Bank of India) when 50,000 roubles will not be enough to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant, not to mention functioning of such a big embassy as ours in New Delhi or India's in Moscow, the Russian envoy was quoted in other media reports as stating in the letter.

We are awaiting a reply from the MEA and hope that this will be resolved quickly. Otherwise, we will be forced to explore other options which may include raising the issue in Moscow with your Embassy by summoning Indian Minister Counsellor, a senior Russian embassy official said here.

According to news agency reports, other retaliatory options before the Russians may include restriction on cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats posted in Russia, the official indicated.

There are approximately 200 staffers in Russian diplomatic mission in the national capital. There was no immediate reaction from the Indian side on the Russia complaint.

It is also understood that some other countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also raised the issue with the external affairs ministry.

The governments demonetisation move had put foreign diplomats and tourists in New Delhi, foreigners coming to India for medical treatment, and NRIs as well as money changer associations abroad in a spot following which the department of economic affairs (DEA) of the finance ministry had formed an inter-ministerial committee to examine the difficulties faced by these categories and recommend measures to the MEA. The committee was constituted after the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in New Delhi had complained to the MEA about the problems being faced by foreign diplomats.

MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup had earlier said, Basically we have received three or four types of different requests on the issue of demonetisation which pertain to the MEA. The first concerns the diplomats who are based in Delhi. Some of them have told us that diplomatic missions require bigger funds and the existing limits will not be sufficient for them, and if those can be increased for diplomatic missions. Some of them have said that they collect consular and visa fees. If they are collected in old notes how will they be deposited and how will they be exchanged. So, that is the first set of issues that has been brought to our notice by the resident diplomats. The Dean of the Diplomatic Corps has had a meeting with us and has brought these to our attention.

The second set of issues are what you just raised - NRIs having cash, having Indian currency abroad. As you know there are specified limits as to the amount of Indian currency that can be taken abroad. But within those limits if somebody has money abroad, and is not travelling to India immediately, what happens? How does he get new notes for those old notes? The third set of issues is by the money changes associations abroad. This is quite interesting because we dont have full convertibility. But it shows the strength of the Indian rupee, that we have money changers association abroad which are ready to dispense Indian rupees. So they have asked us the same question that what they would do with the stacks they have. How do they convert those? the MEA pointed out.

The MEA had added, And, finally you have the cases of foreign visitors, tourists particularly those coming for medical tourism asking us that we have specific requirements, and we need to have certain higher thresholds. So what we have done is we have referred all these matters to Deptt of Economic Affairs. The Department of Economic Affairs has now formed an inter-ministerial committee headed at the level of an Additional Secretary. A senior Joint Secretary from the Ministry of External Affairs is also a member of that committee and we await their guidance, their advice and their recommendation which can then be shared with those various categories who have approached us.
Chennai: In what seems to be a major faux pas at Chennai airport on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was forced to sit inside the IAF aircraft for nearly one hour after he landed at 12 noon on his way to pay tributes to Jayalalithaa, because the helicopter which was supposed to take him to INS Adyar did not had enough fuel. From INS Adyar, the PM was to travel by road to Rajaji Hall to pay tributes to former TN CM.

As the PM was waiting inside the aircraft, flight carrying Kerala Governor Justice P Sathasivam, CM Pinarayi Vijayan, former CM Ommen Chandy and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala was diverted to Coimbatore while many other flights were forced make rounds in the sky.

According to police sources, Modi arrived at the Old Airport at around 12.02 pm on Tuesday. The helicopter on which he was to travel to INS Adyar was kept ready in bay number 6. Security personnel accompanying the PM went and checked the chopper as a routine exercise found that there was not enough fuel in the helicopter. According to PMs security officers, the minimum quantity of fuel, required when VVIP is travelling, was not there in the chopper, an airport source said.

The IAF helicopter crew tried to tell PMs high profile guards that there was enough fuel to go and come back to INS Adyar near Marina beach, they were not convinced and insisted on fuel filling.

It took another one hour for IAF to get ready with required fuel and Modi took off at around 1.04 pm from the Old Airport to INS Adyar. Because of the presence of PMs aircraft, the primary runway was not given to commercial aircrafts due to security reason.

This resulted in diversion of Indigo Airlines from Thiruvananthapuram, in which Kerala governor and politicians were traveling to Coimbatore airport. At least four other flights supposed to land between 12 noon and 1 pm were asked to make rounds in the sky and landed after 1 pm.

Eight flights, which were to take off during the time, had to wait till PMs helicopter left the airport to INS Adyar. Kerala governor and CM with political leaders from that state returned from Coimbatore and landed in Chennai by 3 pm and rushed to Rajaji Hall to pay respects to Jayalalithaa.
Modi paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa, with whom he shared an excellent rapport.

Chennai: Indias top political leadership joined hundreds and thousands of mourners in paying an emotional final farewell to J Jayalalithaa.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, besides several Union ministers and chief ministers flew to Chennai on Tuesday to pay their last respects to the departed leader.

Mr Modi paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa, with whom he shared an excellent rapport since his days as Gujarats chief minister, calling her an able administrator and saying that she left a void in Indias political arena. He walked into Rajaji Hall a little after 1.30 pm and placed a wreath on the body and consoled Sasikala and AIADMK leaders and ministers.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who had earlier visited Jayalalithaa at the Apollo Hospitals in October, also joined millions of mourners by leading a delegation and attended the funeral on the Marina Beach late Tuesday evening. That Jayalalithaa made friends across the political spectrum was evident from the fact that chief ministers from various parties paid their respects in person. They included: N. Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), Pinnarayi Vijayan (Kerala), Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra), Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), Siddaramaiah (Karnataka), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Narayanasamy (Puducherry).

Some of the other chief ministers who could not attend the funeral of the five-time chief minister of Tamil Nadu in person sent their representatives. Former Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah and a few other national leaders also attended the funeral and paid their last respects.

The impression that the departed chief minister made in the hearts and minds of Indias political leadership was at full display when President Mukherjee refused to cancel his visit even after a snag was reported in his aircraft. He landed back in Delhi and flew to Chennai in the same aircraft after the minor snag was rectified.

The 68-year-old leader, described by her party AIADMK as the Iron Lady of India, died late Monday after suffering a massive cardiac arrest at the weekend following a long period of ill health.

The US and several other countries condoled her death. Leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore also expressed grief over the AIADMK leaders demise.
The man in Delhi doesn't beg but plays music at public spaces in cities across the country and cells his CDs for money.

New Delhi: India is a country filled with talent but sadly a lot of artists and musicians go unnoticed and are either forced to look for alternate professions or live a life filled with struggles. While foreign tourists were seen performing in Pushkar to raise money due to the cash crunch, a musician from Kolkata struck a chord with netizens.

The violinist named Swapan Sett has been trying to raise money for his wifes cancer treatment by travelling across the country and playing in public spaces. But support came pouring in for Sett when a close aide of former president APJ Abdul Kalam, Srijan Pal Singh shared a video of Sett playing in Delhis Connaught Place.

The video went viral on the internet with 23 thousand shares so far, and was followed by several users asking for Setts bank account details to help, as Singh also shared Setts mobile number in case people wanted to get in touch.

Sett is also a talented painter and had been selling his work everywhere he went, while many people did mention having met him at different locations in Jaipur and Dehradun. The 72-year-old doesnt beg for money but plays music and sells his CDs for money.

Setts wife has been suffering from cancer for the past 14 years and is getting treatment in Mumbais Tata Memorial Hospital.
The corporation has set a target of 50 MW solar power by installing rooftop solar power plants on its buildings by 2021.

At present, the Delhi Metro has a peak power requirement of 150MW, which is likely to go up to 250MW by the time the third phase of its construction is completed.

New Delhi: Taking a major leap toward green energy initiatives, Delhi Metro trains will be powered by solar energy by mid 2017. Speaking to this newspaper, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation chief Mangu Singh said that the Delhi Metro has signed an agreement with a solar power facility which will be used to operate Delhi Metro trains. Solar energy till now had been used for the ancillary purposes such as lighting of the Metro stations.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has signed a power purchase agreement with a solar facility in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh. Under the agreement, DMRC will receive 250 MW from the upcoming 750 MW plant, he said.

He, however, added that the corporation will use a power back-up for the train operations due to unreliability of solar power.

The Delhi Metro has about 7.2 MW of installed solar rooftop capacity at present but for the overall operations 250 MW additional power will be required. From 2017 onwards, the corporation will start receiving power from the facility. Though solar power has its own limitations and cannot be 100 per cent reliable, it can still be used as a primary source for the train operations with an alternate power back-up, Mr Singh added.

At present, the Delhi Metro has a peak power requirement of 150MW, which is likely to go up to 250MW by the time the third phase of its construction is completed.

In a bid to decrease its carbon footprint and to insulate itself from the electricity hike, which has increased by at least 20 per cent in the last five years, the corporation had planned to purchase power from the alternate sources, an official said.

Mr Singh further said that to meet the ancillary power requirements such as lighting, solar plants are being installed at Delhi Metros Yamuna Bank, Ajaronda, Kalindi Kunj depot and an 880 KW plant at Kalindi Kunj. He said that by 2017, DMRC will start receiving 20 MW and by 2018 31 MW solar power.

The corporation has set a target of 50 MW solar power by installing rooftop solar power plants on its buildings by 2021.

He said that this will meet the ancillary power consumption such as lighting of the stations.
In publishing the Annual, we are presented with a fantastic and unique opportunity to showcase some of the best emerging and established literary talent from across the world. The result is a collection of new writing of outstanding quality, which you can return to time and time again; it will continue to spark your passion for new writing.
The police is also investigating whether the woman had been sexually assaulted before being murdered.

The woman, who was in her 30s, hasnt been identified yet. (Representational image)

New Delhi: A man, suspected to be mentally challenged, was caught having unnatural sex with an unidentified female body in Sarai Kale Khan on Sunday evening.

The accused has been identified as Anil (24), who is a drug addict and is also not mentally stable, said a senior police officer.

The police said that on December 4, a pedestrian saw Anil trying to have unnatural sex with the dead body of a woman that was found abandoned along the bank of Yamuna River near Sarai Kale Khan bus stand at around 3.45 pm.

The passerby made a PCR call, following which a team was sent to the spot and the accused was arrested.

The accused has been sent to judicial custody, looking at his mental condition. The jail authorities have been asked to get him medically and psychologically examined, the officer said.

The woman, who was in her 30s, hasnt been identified yet.

The womans face has been smashed with a stone and she was strangulated to death, said the officer. Anil said that he, along with another person, had sexually assaulted the womans body. The police is probing about the involvement of the other person, he added.

Anil, however, has denied murdering the woman and police is looking for clues that could help them identify the deceased woman and her murderer. The police is also investigating whether the woman had been sexually assaulted before being murdered. Deputy commissioner of police (Southeast) Romil Baaniya said that the arrested man, Anil, remains the primary suspect of the case.
Incident leaves 18, mostly kids, injured

The Volkswagen first rammed into a bus and then ploughed over several predestrians. (Photo: Asian Age)

Kolkata: Three persons including a teenaged girl were killed in a road accident at Belvedere Road-AJC Bose Road crossing in Alipore on Monday afternoon when a speeding Volkswagen first hit a bus, then rammed into two motorcycles and eventually ploughed into a group of pedestrians on the pavement.

The group had come to the city for sightseeing from Bhangor in South 24 Parganas district. They were returning from the Alipore Zoo.

One of them was Halima Khatun (15) from Mathurapur in Chendeshwar who lost her life in the accident. Two others victims were Sushanta Mondal (52), a resident of Yadav Ghosh Road in Sarsuna, and Rajib Kumar Roy (35) of Ramnagar Mondalpara in Maheshtala.

The vehicle reportedl jumped the traffic signal around 2.05 pm and hit a bus and two motorcycles coming from the opposite direction. It then mounted the pavement where it hit 20 people, police said. Two of them were killed on the spot while another succumbed to injuries at SSKM Hospital.

Seventeen others, many of whom were teenagers and children, were left injured. They were later admitted to SSKM Hospital. The accused, Saroj Kumar Banik (37), also suffered injuries. He will be arrested once he recovers from his injuries, said a senior officer of the Hastings police station.

The resident of Alipur Park Road and two injured motorcycle riders  Shyamal Pal (43) of Dashdrone in Rajarhat and Shubhojit Sen (26) of Bangur Avenue in Lake Town  have been admitted to Curzon Ward.

Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee, urban development minister Firhad Hakim and PWD minister Aroop Biswas rushed to the hospital. Mr Chatterjee said, Three persons were killed. 18 others were injured. Many of them were released after first-aid. Condition of seven is critical, Mr Chatterjee said.

Mr Hakim said, There was gross violation of traffic rules which led to the accident. The police is investigating the condition in which the driver was at the wheels. It was a sad incident.

The police said the sedan belongs to tea merchant Sharad Bajoria, one of the directors of New Chumta Tea Company.
Every year on the anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition, the ruling TMC, CPI(M) and other Left parties observe communal harmony day.

Trinamul Congress members at a rally during the Sanghati Diwas meeting, marking the 24th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, and tribute to former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa in Kolkata.

Kolkata: Demonetisation issue dominated the communal harmony day which both ruling Trinamul Congress and opposition CPI(M) observe on December 6 every year. Both CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Trinamul Congress leader and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim while addressing separate rallies targeted Narendra Modi government for imposing an undeclared financial Emergency in the country.

Rupees 15.3 lakh crore was in circulation in Rs 500 and 1000 currency notes. Till latest reports, an amount of Rs 12.6 lakh crore has been deposited in bank. If the remaining Rs 2.7 lakh crore is deposited in the bank by December 30, which is the deadline, then it means that the Prime Minister helped people convert their black money into white. As a result, majority of common people have been harassed and only the rich have been helped in this entire exercise, Mr Yechury said at a public meeting today at Shahid Minar Ground which was organised to mark the demolition of Babari Masjid, 24 years ago.

The Centre has imposed an undeclared financial emergency in the country and people are scared with the prevailing situation. The government should allow the circulation of old currency notes till adequate new currency notes are available in market, he added.

Meanwhile, addressing a separate rally at Mayo Road-Dufferin Road crossing, state urban development minister Firhad Hakim said that Prime Minister Narendra Modis strong pitch for plastic economy was actually his effort to privatise the economy of the country. The ruling party was observing National Integration Day on Tuesday. Economy of the country will be in the hands of the multinationals. Farmers will be compelled to surrender their own rights of ploughing their own land to some multinational companies. This is the real intention of Prime Minister, Mr Hakim said.

He also held the Prime Ministers demonetisation drive responsible for the death of more than 80 people who died across the country since the announcement of note ban. Modiji has become a tyrant like Hirak Raja. (Hirak Raja is a character from Satyajit Rays film Hirak Rajar Deshe who was a tyrant). he added.

Every year on the anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition, the ruling TMC, CPI(M) and other Left parties observe communal harmony day. Needless to say that on this occasion all these secular parties indulged in aggressive BJP bashing. The BJP bashing continued this year too but for different reason.

Meanwhile, state parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee slammed the Centre for indulging in divisive politics and appealed to all people to take the streets in protest. I appeal to all to take the streets for protesting against the Centre which is trying to divide people in the name of religion, he said.
When asked if she would like to work with the 74-year-old star, Iulia said,

Amitabh Bachchan and Iulia Vantur at the launch of Himesh Reshammiya's new album on Monday. (Photo: Twitter)

Mumbai: Romanian actress-model Iulia Vantur says Amitabh Bachchan is very popular in her home country and she is also a huge fan of the megastar.

Iulia, who has lent her voice to one of the songs from music composer Himesh Reshammiya's album 'Aap Se Mausiiquii,' was speaking at the album launch where Bachchan was the special guest.

"In Romania we know only two stars and Amitabh Bachchan is one of them. Everyone knows him including me for sure. It's a big honour to share same stage with sir," Iulia told reporters.

When asked if she would like to work with the 74-year-old star, Iulia said, "I think everyone wants to do that."

Bachchan jokingly replied saying, "Now I will have to play the role of a grandfather". The 'Pink' star also praised Iulia for her singing skills.

"She is so beautiful who wouldn't want to work with her...Even her voice is beautiful," he added.
Washington: The government should cancel its multibillion-dollar order for new Air Force One presidential planes, Donald Trump declared Tuesday, serving notice he's ready to jump in and start making decisions six weeks before his inauguration.

Costs for the two Boeing 747s are "totally out of control," Trump told reporters in the lobby of his New York skyscraper.

The government has contracted with Boeing to build two or more new planes, which would go into service around 2024. That means Trump wouldn't fly on the new planes, which carry U.S. presidents around the globe, unless he pursued and won a second term. But the Air Force has pressed for a faster schedule, saying the current planes are becoming too expensive to repair and keep in good flying shape.

The contract for the planes was to be about $3 billion, but costs have been reported to be rising. Trump tweeted early Tuesday, "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!"

Later, he said the costs are ridiculous: "I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.

The price of Boeing stock dipped after his comments but not drastically.

Asked for comment about Trump's statements, Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said, "We are going to have to get back to you after we figure out what's going on."

Trump now uses his own plane, a Boeing 757, but as president he would travel aboard the Air Force jet, which is equipped with special safety, defensive and communications equipment.

Later Tuesday, Trump is making the second stop of this "thank you" tour in North Carolina, less than a week after his bombastic return to rallies at an Ohio appearance that felt more like a raucous campaign stop than a traditional speech by a president-to-be.

At that Cincinnati stop, Trump disparaged the media as "dishonest," inspired loud "Build the wall" chants, took swipes at fellow Republicans and stunned his own aides with his surprise announcement from the stage that he was appointing retired Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense.

Mattis' selection was being formally announced Tuesday, and Mattis will appear with Trump at the evening event in Fayetteville, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Later this week there will be rallies in Iowa and Michigan as Trump barnstorms the country to salute his supporters who delivered the victories in the battleground states he needed to capture the White House.

The North Carolina rally comes a day after Trump chose retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, raising fresh concerns about the lack of experience some of Trump's Cabinet picks have with agencies they're now being chosen to lead.

Carson, who opposed Trump in the Republican primaries, has no background in government or running a large bureaucracy.

Pence defended Carson's selection, saying he was "absolutely qualified" for the post.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump's choice to be ambassador to the United Nations, has no foreign policy experience. Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood executive, is Trump's man to lead the Treasury Department but has never worked in government. And Mattis, a widely praised battlefield commander, spent decades in the Marines but now is tapped to run the nation's largest government agency, the Defense Department, with 740,000 civilian employees in addition to 1.3 million service personnel.

Democrats swiftly criticized Carson's qualifications for his job. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called him a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice." And New York Sen. Charles Schumer said he had "serious concerns about Dr. Carson's lack of expertise and experience in dealing with housing issues. Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least."

Carson would oversee a budget of nearly $50 billion that provides rental assistance for more than 5 million households. Demand for that assistance is high in part because housing costs are rising faster than incomes. HUD also promotes home ownership with the Federal Housing Administration underwriting about 1 in 6 mortgages issued in the U.S. The agency is charged with enforcing federal fair housing laws, too.

In a statement, Trump said he was "thrilled to nominate" Carson, citing his "brilliant mind" and his passion "about strengthening communities and families within those communities."

Carson, who grew up poor, quickly endorsed Trump after ending his own presidential bid despite Trump noting what he called Carson's "pathological temper." Carson has been coy about joining the new administration, saying shortly after Trump's election victory that he wasn't certain he'd fit into a Cabinet-style role in a job like Health and Human Services secretary.

Trump's selections also highlight a frequent divide between the two major political parties in their strategies in filling out a Cabinet: In early 2009, Republicans criticized incoming President Barack Obama for not making enough selections with private-sector experience.
Brunswick: Obsessed with seeking sex outside his marriage, a Georgia man left his 22-month-old son to die inside a hot SUV car so he could "escape from one life into another."

Prosecutors opened their case Monday against Justin Ross Harris, who is charged with malice murder and other crimes in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper. Assistant District Attorney Chuck Boring called Harris a deceptive man who saw his wife and child as obstacles to fulfilling his sexual desires.

"This case is about death, deception and a double life," Boring told a jury evenly split between men and women during his opening statement Monday.

Harris' defense attorneys will get their first chance to speak to the jury Tuesday morning. The defense team's opening statement got pushed back after court was delayed for 90 minutes late Monday afternoon. Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark recessed for the evening without giving an explanation.

Authorities say Cooper died after sweltering for seven hours in the parking lot of the Home Depot office where his father worked as a computer technician in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County. Citing pretrial publicity, the judge moved the case 275 miles to Brunswick, on the Georgia coast.

Harris' attorneys have previously called the boy's death a tragic accident. Harris told police he watched cartoons with his son that morning, took him to breakfast at a Chick-fil-A restaurant and kissed Cooper while strapping him into his car seat. But Harris said he forgot to drop his son off at day care and drove to work, forgetting the boy was in the back seat.

Boring told the jury Harris' account doesn't make sense. He said the minutes before leaving his son to die, Harris posted an online message that read: "I love my son and all, but we both need escapes."

He said Harris and his son ate breakfast just over half a mile from the Home Depot office where Harris worked as a computer technician, and Harris parked his SUV by backing up between two vehicles - which would have required looking over his shoulder toward the backseat where his son sat.

Later that day, Harris opened his vehicle to toss in a bag of lightbulbs he bought during his lunch break, Boring said. After leaving work, he drove a few miles to a shopping center without stopping, the prosecutor said, though police later reported the SUV reeked from "sweat, a dirty diaper, the smell of death."

"Hold this man responsible for trying to escape from one life into another by killing a child in one of the most horrible, unimaginable ways possible," Boring told the jury.

Boring said on the day Cooper died, his father sent more than 30 messages on his phone "mostly to women, mostly about sex."

He said Harris was unhappy in his marriage to the boy's mother and was obsessed with finding other sex partners. The month before his son died, Boring said, Harris met a prostitute for sex at a hotel. He had also been trying to persuade an underage, 17-year-old girl to send him a photo of her genitals. Harris was also charged for sending the girl sexually explicit text messages and photos.

Sixteen total jurors - eight men and eight women - were seated Monday morning to hear the case. Four of them will serve as alternate jurors, who will have a final say in the trial only if one more of the 12 main jurors are dismissed. The judge did not specify which jury members were alternates.

Harris, who moved to Georgia from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 2012, faces life in prison if he's convicted of murder. Prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty.
The Ecumenical Patriarch attended Mass in Baris Basilica of St Nicholas. We cannot be silent before the scandal of the commodification of people, of religious fundamentalism that claims to act in the Gods name, of man's exploitation of man, of the depletion of natural resources for the benefit of a few to the detriment of the many, especially the poorest.

Bari (AsiaNews)  Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I made a heartfelt appeal today during Mass in Baris Basilica of St Nicholas, telling Christians that they cannot be indifferent to human exploitation, the suffering of those forced to leave their land, or the "religious fundamentalism that claims to act in Gods name."

The patriarch was in Bari (Italy) where he received yesterday the Saint Nicholas Ecumenical Prize from the Apulian Theological Faculty (Facolta Teologica Pugliese).

During the homily, the patriarch mentioned first Apulias "ecumenical vocation and hospitable style", a "welcoming land in the past as in the present," as evinced by the number of people who found refuge in the past, most notably "Christians persecuted as a result of foreign invasions, fratricidal wars and ensuing famines in the countries on the other side of the sea as well as in the very recent past, when this land welcomed people fleeing from totalitarian countries, where it was not possible to be a disciple of Christ."

"Unfortunately today, once again, the Mediterranean Sea, a sea of culture, a sea solidarity, a sea of cooperation, has become a sea of waves of refugees and immigrants from everywhere.

As Christians we do not remain indifferent to this cry of pain  and we know that this land continues to do its part  but at the same time we cannot be silent before the scandal of the commodification of people, of religious fundamentalism that claims to act in Gods name, of man's exploitation of man, of the depletion of natural resources for the benefit of a few to the detriment of the many, especially the poorest.

The common house, the natural environment, belongs to God and we are not only its stewards, we are not new godless people. For this reason, we have raised the cry along with our beloved Brother in Rome, Pope Francis, from the island of Lesbos to all the powerful of the earth, to those who have the fate of humanity in their hands, and we continue to do so in the name of God, the Father Almighty, the Merciful Father."

"However, as Christians, we have a strong weapon, a weapon of peace, an invincible weapon, which is prayer, and tonight we are here to pray together in our saint of unity", namely, Saint Nicholas. He "was a bishop beloved by his people, a bishop who lived for the truth of the faith, in his battle against the Arian heresy of his time, but also the right bishop in his Church.

Defender of the poor, implacable judge in front of the injustices of the powerful, and a steely fighter of sin, he was also a gentle man, full of self-constraint, forgiving, full of compassion for the weaknesses of the faithful  which began to manifest itself with the freedom for the Christian faith following the Edict of Milan  and a firm aide in defending traditions and righteousness.

This is why his fame spread beyond the boundaries of his Church in Myra, Lycia. May he continue to be our friend and companion on the way of salvation and unity."
Draft norm that legalizes houses and settlements, in violation of international law, approved. Three more votes needed for entry into force. Main supporters include Bennet. B'Tselem study shows the dynamics of expropriation of land and denounces the frustration of the Palestinians. "Distorted" interpretation the law

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - The Israeli Parliament has given the green light to a law that, in the event of final approval, would lead to the legalization of thousands of Jewish houses - illegal under international law - in the West Bank.

The norm would also be applied to the "outposts" [settlements made without official approval in the areas occupied by Israel since 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War] with the exception of Amona that remains subject to an eviction decree.

For Palestinians, the settlements (and outposts) represent the main obstacle on the path of peace. The Authority (PNA) has long demanded the cancellation in all territories of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Their presence, in fact, prevents the emergence of a future state of Palestine.

The law under discussion in the Parliament wants to legalize 4 thousand settlers' houses, built in recent years in the West Bank on Palestinian land belonging to private citizens. Expropriation The Israeli government has expropriated the land in return for paltry compensation for the population.

The norm, which has received the preliminary go-ahead with 60 votes in favor and 47 against, must be approved in three readings by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, composed of 120 deputies. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, is among the main supporters who hopes the norm could be the beginning of the Israeli "annexation" of most of the occupied territory.

Analysts and Middle East policy experts point out that the decision of Israel is the confirmation of an expansionist policy that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to support following the US presidential victory of Donald Trump. The executive hawks, heedless of international protests, believe that the new administration will be less critical of the settlements, compared to Barack Obama.

The land appropriation policy was the subject of an in-depth study prepared by B'Tselem experts, an Israeli NGO that campaigns against the occupation in the Palestinian territories, recently targeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a study published yesterday, entitled "Expel and Exploit: The Israeli Practice of Taking over Palestinian Rural Land", the activists presented the case of three Palestinian villages - Azmut, Deir al-Hatab and Salem, Nablus - whose territory has been subject to progressive fragmentation and dispossession.

The case study shows how these three Palestinian villages have undergone, a land division process since 1980 with the birth of the settlement of Elon Moreh that has arrived at completely separating homes from grazing, cultivation, harvesting areas. The local economy is linked to traditional agriculture, the olive and fruit trees, vegetables and cereals as well as breeding of livestock, based on natural pastures on the hilly expanses of al-Jabal al-Kbir.

In time, Israel has laid the foundations for a territorial separation, which resulted in 1996 in the construction of a road, inaccessible for Palestinians, which has effectively cut the territory in two: on one side the villages, on the other the earth. The 42-year old Palestinian Mahyoub 'Ahed' Abdallah Shtiyeh tells that some colonists, no more than five, "more than how many sheep we possess all of us in the village." We inhabitants of Salem, adds, "We are the owners of the land, but we cannot cross the street. We are forced to keep the sheep in the pens, we are denied access to pasture. "

"The separation created by Israel among the Palestinians and the land used for farming and grazing - say the B'Tselem experts - allows the settlers to build homes unpunished, outposts [...] and take over water resources. At the same time, residents are subject to physical attacks ". These laws, they conclude, "are in violation of international law and are based on a biased interpretation of the norms applied by Israel in the West Bank".

According to the latest statistics provided by Peace Now, Israel gave the green light to 2,623 housing units in the West Bank, including 756 illegally-built homes that have been retrospectively "legalised.

About 570,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements built by Israel after it seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Under international law these settlements are illegal, a view disputed by the Israeli government, which has boosted its expansionist policy in recent years.

Peace talks between the two sides broke down in 2014, triggering an escalation of violence in the region.
by Sumon Corraya

Dhaka (AsiaNews) - "I lost my childhood, I wanted to go to school. I loved studying, but my parents

received a good proposal and organized the wedding despite my opposition, Sumi Akter, 17 year old Muslim girl married off when she was 14 tells AsiaNews. Hers is one of many cases of child marriage, a scourge that afflicts the whole of Bangladesh society.



Poverty and traditional Islamic culture are the main factors driving families to arrange marriage for girls at an early age. The phenomenon cuts across all religious communities, except for Catholics who do not support early marriages.



The practice is especially widespread in the Islamic community. Sumi today is the mother of a two year old, has two sisters and two brothers. She said that her father, a simple worker, "could not carry on maintaining the family. So they made me marry hiding my real age. " She risked her life at birth, due to severe bleeding. She's was care of, but the child was born under-weight and has had several problems. For all these reasons, she says, "I strongly oppose the passage of the law authorizing the marriages before age 18".



The reference is to a law approved last month by the Dhaka authorities. According to the draft of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act - 2016, the juvenile marriages will be permitted only in "special circumstances", such as "accidental or illegal pregnancies", so as "to save the honor of the girl."



According to current provisions, the legal age for marriage is 21 years for males and 18 for females. Several activists complain that the bill would legalize forced marriages to repair for pregnancies that are the result of sexual violence, which is widespread in the country.



Official figures show that Bangladesh is the Asian country with the highest rate of child brides. 52% of brides are under 18 years old and 18% under 15 years old.



The juvenile marriages also affect the Hindu community. Bristy Rani was married at 16 years with a boy of 25. Her parents have chosen marriage as a means to "ensure my safety. When I was in school I was the target of several guys who made me marriage proposals and insulted me. Given the situation, my family members agreed. " According Bristy, poverty and insecurity would push parents to arrange the marriage of their daughters. "Bangladesh is not a safe place for girls - she says - and we cannot move freely. Government and associations must reduce poverty".



In the Catholic community in general there are few incidents of early marriages. Church authorities do not support the marriage of minors. The rare exception is to Probitro Rozario and Pronoti Gomes (fictional names), spouses at age 16. The local Church has allowed their marriage because Pronoti was pregnant. Irrespective of their case, Probitro believes that "juvenile marriages are wrong. The Church has to transmit good values to pupils, teaching Christians not contract marriage in childhood. "
Aleppo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Moscow and Beijing have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven day ceasefire in Aleppo, where a raging battle between the government and rebel opposition threatens to turn the city into a "giant graveyard." According to Russia the document violates one of the Security Council rules, giving at least 24 hours to each member country in order to analyze the content and come to a final decision.



The US replied that these claims are a "prepackaged excuse" to maintain military conquests of recent weeks; and, in the near future, facilitate the return of the whole city to government control, which could happen within a few weeks.



Local sources said that the loyalist soldiers have captured about 70% of the areas so far in hands to the rebels. There are about 100 thousand people under siege in the districts still controlled by rebel militias and jihadist groups. The humanitarian situation is becoming more critical; lack of food, basic necessities, there is almost no relief supplies and no hospitals or clinics working to ensure medical care.



Before the war, Aleppo was the second most important city of Syria, as well as its main economic and commercial engine. Since 2012 it is divided into two sectors: the western, home to 1.2 million people, under the control of the government; the east, about 250 thousand people, in the hands of rebel groups and jihadist groups.



The resolution adopted yesterday by the Security Council - and rejected by Russia and China, both with vetos - was presented by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain. Venezuela has also voted against it, while Angola abstained. 11 Member States voted in favor.



This memorandum called for the temporary suspension of the bombing, to allow the entry of aid to Aleppo east. According to Moscow a suspension will be possible only after a summit between Russian and US military experts, scheduled for today or tomorrow in Geneva, Switzerland. Moreover, the Kremlin does not want to give the rebels time to regroup - and rearm - after recent heavy military defeats.



Rebel groups and militias in Aleppo east once again reject the proposed "safe retreat" from Aleppo. Yasser al-Youssef, a leader of al-Zangi Nureddine faction, called the plan "unacceptable". He added that "the Russians are the ones who have to leave."



The loss of the northern metropolis would be the most important defeat for the rebels since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011. Sources for the London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an add that since the beginning of the offensive 324 people have died, including 44 children.



Finally, a few days ago the US Congress granted - for the first time explicitly  the green light to the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syrian rebels. The vote was pushed through to force the incoming Trump administration, to continue support for anti-Assad militias and further undermine relations with Russia, which the future tenant of the White House intended to revitalize. And to turn the conflict into an open confrontation between the two superpowers.
The early days of Adolf Hitler's evil reign, when his National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi) consolidated its power: Above.

The interview between the aforementioned Mathew Blanchard and Tucker Carlson, who made great subtle fun of this liberal fool: Below.

I am updating this post to include this video from Louder With Crowder. Steven Crowder is an excellent spokesman for truth, and very entertaining as well. If there is a theme to this video by Crowder, it would be, 'if you're going to throw stones, don't live in a glass house': Below.

Regardless of who was your champion in this past presidential election: Will you recognize the duly elected leader of the Free World? I will never recognize President Donald J. Trump because he is not worthy. I will recognize President Donald J. Trump, providing he respects the office in which he holds. "At this point, what difference does it make?" 89 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



Incredibly, the current accepted definition of Fascism is partially flawed, describing Fascists as "right-wing", who despise "liberalism, "Marxism and anarchism", and even cite these "right-wingers" as "Authoritarians", which is the truest connotation of Fascism; however, "right-wingers" have no lock on the worship of Authority. Regardless of Liberals' profound misunderstandings, with our historical perspective of Fascists and Fascism here in modern times, beginning in the 20 century, there is no excuse to not know the look of Fascism, especially if one uses the word in great abundance as an epithet, even while debating large Liberal issues.Within the parameters of what is American here in these Modern times on the subject of what is Fascist, what is Fascism, I am more right in my understanding of any acceptable definition written by a Liberals, and, moreover, I understand this political epithet more than the Liberals that love to throw the word around so casually, without significant forethought of its meaning.At the heart of my "right" argument is the simple premise that Fascists, at their core, are Authoritarians, or, conversely, those that crave the iron fist of Authority to which they surrender their lives unto its crushing weight. Wrongly, the accepted definition by Liberals of Fascism accuses the "Right-wing", not "liberalism, Marxism and anarchism" as the major condition of the "Authoritarianism" of Fascism - that which takes large sums from one to give to another - to keep Liberals in power.Years ago, as a multi-term Conservative (a.k.a. "right-wing") county commissioner (I have mentioned this before), my core politics were evaluated by the UNC School of Government - no bastion of the "Right-wing" - through an extensive testing, a political catechism of sorts. In my years as a Conservative county commissioner, no one ever questioned my credentials as a Conservative; I reckon I was bona fide. So, did the UNC School of Government get it wrong when they evaluated me, at my political core, and determined that I was the direct antithesis of an Authoritarian? Me, Stan Deatherage, the "Right-wing" Conservative?So, who is right: the UNC School Government, with Conservative County Commissioner Stan Deatherage as its perfect "petri dish", or the Liberals writing inaccurate definitions of Fascism, and throwing the word around that they can't etymologically fathom?Remarkably, the word Fascist, and the act of Fascism is a modern political phenomenon, just beginning in Italy about 90 years ago, with the advent of Benito Mussolini. One would think that Liberals struggling to own the word Fascist, as an epithet, would have done more in an academic sense to understand the word, then use it properly.Accordingly, I write this in light of two pieces of news last week: one large, one very small, so, let's begin with the very small. Last week a disgruntled Liberal; an Authoritarian of sorts, and a L. Hillary supporter, who runs a business regarding the nebulous Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practice, admonished all that voted for Donald Trump or may appear to have voted for Donald Trump, that he would no longer do business with them. His name is CEO Mathew Blanchard of 1st in SEO The intolerant, pathetically smug Mathew Blanchard, a purveyor of the hocus /pocus business of SEO, which was invented to fool Search Engines and those customers that would also be fooled by the SEO gimmick, was the perfect foil to adamantly work the divisive message of the Left. However, I do not admonish Mr. Blanchard for his gimmicky business, I admonish him for freely throwing the word Fascist and Fascism around, and even misrepresenting the history of it. SEO Purveyor Blanchard claimed that, which is wrong. Hitler was not rightfully elected in 1932, and it gets complicated how he consolidated power in 1933, so let's understand that for what it is - Blanchard's meaningless Leftist blather to make a Leftist point, as if he actually knew what he was talking about, which he did not.Instead, Mr. Blanchard misused his time on national television to further meltdown within his "Basket of Deplorables" moment, and a perceptively quick Tucker Carlson destroyed this SEO Fool for his hypocrisy in the intolerance of others extensively unlike himself, of which, hopefully, there are many.This SEO Fool, Mathew Blanchard, was not created in a vacuum. He enjoys a vast support group that reaffirms his oblivious stupidity, his overt prejudice, and intolerance, revealing there must be a concerted effort by committed Liberals to keep their "Sheople" intellectually malleable for their needs. Marxist pioneer Vladimir Lenin referred to this management of these low-information types as "useful idiots".Useful Idiot Mathew Blanchard well manifests how a bold Leftist spokesman does step to the fore to venomously speak for the other less bold liberal "Sheople", who either don't know what they speak of, or, are indoctrinated to ignorance through far too many years of "higher" education by stridently ideological professors; most also educated far beyond their ability of significant comprehension.As I pivot from the Why and the How of such ignorance, I bring to the fore the second much larger piece of news - the much anticipated death last week of Cuba's Dictator Fidel Castro, a strongman, who many "Marxists" and "Anarchists" well admire.Why was a "Marxist" Communist dictator: who ruled as a supreme "Authoritarian", who murdered and imprisoned tens of thousands of his political opponents and even like minded rivals, so revered by Liberals?Continuing that line of thought, how is it that Conservatives, decried as "right-wing" American Fascists, construed as so dysfunctional that Liberal zealots, like the aforementioned Blanchard , would discriminate so vehemently against Republicans or Conservatives, who would support someone other than L. Hillary Clinton ; a deeply flawed American politician?The answer: The Democrat party is now the party that has been hijacked by ultra Liberals and Socialists, and, taking a page out of the political playbook of the ultra Liberals /closet Communists of the 1930s /40s /50's, who revered the political machinations of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, are now pushing America hard and fast toward the stance of a full Socialist government. To accomplish that feat of crushing Capitalism for the benefit of the forced sharing other people's property, "Authoritarianism" will need to play a major role. For Socialists like Hussein Obama, the Alinsky method , ofis always a viable option.In the real world that is at the core of Capitalism, one cannot forcibly take the property of others without first limiting certain liberties, thereby, plowing the path to take that which is owned by the productive to redistribute to the supporters of authoritative Socialism. That is the way it works, even to the extent that the seizing of taxes, by legislative fiat in today's Capitalistic America, is termed Police Power. Thankfully, democratic Capitalist will call it for what it is.You will not get that thread of honesty from Liberal /Socialist zealots, who toss around their unknowable word of Fascist like so much confetti. What you will get from this brand of Liberal is stupid talk, while attempting to sound smart , about a historical perspective that is far beyond their level of comprehension, as it also is unknowable to other like minded individuals that are no smarter.Ironically, this bubble knowledge, which is spread quickly through Social Media or Collegiate indoctrination by some members of the Education Industry, retards many young adults from understanding the real history of this real World. These nubile Liberals are not fathoming that words have power, and they should know the meaning of what they say long before they proffer it. Otherwise, they need to stay quiet, or thought a fool, like social gadfly Miley Cyrus or the aforementioned Mathew Blanchard.If I am wrong here, which I am not, please show me how Conservative "right-winger" Ronald Reagan was an Authoritative Fascist, and, alternately, Authoritative Marxists Joseph Stalin and Mao Mao Tse-tung were not. This philosophical construct fits within the definition of Fascists, and regardless of how Liberals spin words about a subject that they have little knowledge of - Fascism - there is an ongoing truth that Libertarian /Conservatives in today's America adhere to a political philosophy of smaller, more effective government, more freedom, more liberty, thereby, less "Authoritarianism", and, therefore, no Fascism.We'll leave the world of Fascism to the hypocritical Socialist Left to grapple with.
Vatican City (AsiaNews)  We should "give our sins to God, so that he can transform us, "re-create us" said Pope Francis at Mass this morning in Santa Marta, in which he encouraged to "get to the bottom of our sins and then give them to the Lord, because He erase them and help us to move forward with faith."



The desert will bloom, the blind see, the deaf hear. The first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, "speaks to us of renewal." Everything will be changed "from the ugly to the beautiful, the good from the bad." "A change for the better": this was what the people of Israel expected from the Messiah. And Jesus, as shown in today's Gospel, healed, "showed a path of change to the people and that's why people followed him."

They did not follow him, he said, "because he was relevant: They followed him because the message of Jesus struck their heart." And then "the people saw that Jesus healed and followed him" for that too. "But what Jesus did was not only a change from ugly to beautiful, from bad to good: Jesus brought transformation. He did not beautify a problem, he did not cover it up or mask it: He changed everything from within! He changed through re-creation: God created the world; man fell into sin; Jesus came to re-create the world. And this is the message, the message of the Gospel, we can clearly see it: before healing man, Jesus forgives his sins. He goes there, to re-create, re-create man from the condition of sinner: He re-creates him as just . He does it again, totally new. And this shocked people: this scandalized! "



This is why the doctors of the Law "began to argue, to murmur" because they could not accept his authority. Jesus "is capable of making us - us sinners - new people." Mary Magdalene sensed this, she was healthy, "but he had a wound inside: she was a sinner." She realized then, that this "man could not heal the body, but the wounded soul. He could re-create it! And this takes so much faith. "



The Lord "help us to prepare for Christmas with great faith", "because the healing of the soul, for the existential healing, the re-creation that Jesus brings takes great faith."

"Being transformed this is the healthy grace that leads us to Jesus." We must overcome the temptation to say "I cannot do it", but let us instead, allow ourselves to be "transformed", "re-created by Jesus." "Courage" is the word of God. "We are all sinners, but look at the root of your sin and the Lord will go down there and re-create; and make the bitter root bloom, flourish with the works of justice; and you'll be a new man, a new woman. But if we: 'Yes, yes, I have of sins; I go, I confess ... a few words, and then I continue on like before ... ', I will not be re-created by the Lord. Only two strokes of paint and we believe thats an end to the story! No! My sins, name and surname: I did this, this, this and I feel ashamed in my heart! And I open my heart: 'Lord. Re-create me!. This is how we find the courage to go forward with true faith - as we are asked - towards Christmas. "

The Pope added "we try to hide the seriousness of our sins." For example, when we diminish envy. This, however, said Francis "is a terrible thing! It 's like the snake's poison "that seeks" to destroy the other. "



The Pope encourages, therefore, to "get to the bottom of our sins and then give them to the Lord, so that he can erase them and help us to move forward with faith." He underlined this passage, telling a story of a saint, a "Bible scholar" who had very strong character, with a lot of pent up anger and who would ask forgiveness from the Lord, making many sacrifices and penances. "The Saint, talking to the Lord would say, 'Are you happy, Lord?' - 'No!' - 'But I gave you everything!' - 'No, something is missing ...'. And this poor man did another penance, another prayer, another vigil: 'I gave you this, Lord? Okay? '-' No! Something is missing ... '-' But what's missing, Lord? '-' Your sins! Give me your sins! '. This is what, today, the Lord asks us: 'Come on! Give me your sins, and I will make you a new man and a new woman '. May the Lord give us the faith to believe it. "
Leni Robredo, 51, quit the cabinet yesterday after she was banned from its meetings. President Duterte does not like her opposition to the killing of suspected drug dealers, to the death penalty and to Marcoss burial as a hero. The late dictators son, who had lost the race for the vice-presidency, could get the post after all if the Supreme Court rules in his favour.

Manila (AsiaNews)  Filipino Vice President Leni Robredo has quit the Filipino cabinet because of her opposition to President Rodrigo Dutertes policies.

This is not the time for fear. It is a time for conviction. It is a time for courage, she said yesterday after announcing her decision to leave the government.

A lawyer by profession, she was told that she had been banned from cabinet meetings, so she decided to quit.

The president and the vice president are elected separately in the Philippines, and the current pair belong to rival parties. However, Robredo joined the cabinet, following a tradition in which the vice president is given a cabinet position.

Robredo is a member of the Liberal Party, the same as former President Benigno Aquino, whose presidential candidate, Manuel Roxas, was defeated by Duterte at the polls.

The current vice president won by a narrow margin against Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator.

A source told AsiaNews that Robredo was invited to attend the cabinet two weeks after Duterte took office. Her critical views with respect to the president's political line are well known."

In particular, the vice president has openly criticised the presidents war on drug, which has claimed more than 4,800 lives and led to accusations that the government is engaged in widespread extrajudicial killings.

I will oppose all policies with a stronger voice . . . that I think are detrimental to the Filipino people, Robredo said.

She also vowed to speak out against plans by the Duterte administration to bring back the death penalty.

Robredos dismissal, said the source, "increases speculation about Marcos Jr who has challenged the outcome of the election for the vice presidency. The Marcos family is very close to Duterte.

During his visit to China in late October, the president introduced the late dictators son as a potential vice-president for next year.

Since the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Marcoss burial in the Heroes Cemetery, many people think that judges are well disposed to changing the outcome of the elections," the source said.

Robredo said that she would not allow her electoral victory to be taken from her.
Best Straight Razors

Bring on the Barbershop Shave With These Straight Razors

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

With additions by Barret Wertz.

Fashioning the vogue of the mountain man or growing out the beard for any number of reasons remains a cool thing to do at the moment. We get it. The so-called recession beard period is no more. But maybe when The New York Times claims the beard has gone mainstream, like every other style trend thats come (and gone), its time to pick up a straight razor for the era of the lumberjack look might officially be done. Finished. Caput. So start thinking about shaving it off.

RELATED: The 8 Best Razors for Men

Why Straight Razors?

Theres no more manly way to bask in the satisfaction of a smooth face than by running a single-steel blade across that mug of yours. Straight razors have the one-up in several areas over electric razors, multi blade razors, and even some of the industrys best safety razors. As far as gains:

Using a straight or single blade razor is viewed as the more elegant and skilled way to lose the scruff

Very low continuous costs, once youre equipped with the right tools

More economical, for they last close to a lifetime depending on maintenance

They are environmentally-friendly, as blades are less frequently replaced or thrown away in comparison to plastic cartridge-based razors

Were talking the closest shave possible

What to Look For

The market is stocked with a lot of different options, but to tell you the truth, the majority are generally the same. Construction plays a vital role and only a handful of reputable straight razor manufacturers make the cut and prove worthy of the investment. Just a couple of pointers to take into consideration when shopping for an elite model:

Blade quality: You want the most important component of the razor to be built from carbon or stainless steel. Carbon can be hardened to a larger extent, is more flexible, and conforms to the face easier. Stainless is resistant to rust and water damage, with the edges lasting longer.

You want the most important component of the razor to be built from carbon or stainless steel. Carbon can be hardened to a larger extent, is more flexible, and conforms to the face easier. Stainless is resistant to rust and water damage, with the edges lasting longer. Handle build: Three options are afforded to you. Wood and resin handles bear a hard wooden finish, whereas celluloid, bone, and horn models are the most durable for better handling. Polymer handles come in an avoidable plastic-type form.

Three options are afforded to you. Wood and resin handles bear a hard wooden finish, whereas celluloid, bone, and horn models are the most durable for better handling. Polymer handles come in an avoidable plastic-type form. Stropability: Invest in a blade designed for long-term honing and requiring the least amount of laps (strokes between the blade and strop).

Invest in a blade designed for long-term honing and requiring the least amount of laps (strokes between the blade and strop). Versatility: Any blade within the 5/8 inch to 6/8 inch range is ideal for beginners looking to reduce their chances of cuts. Experienced types can work with a 9/16 inch or even 4/8 inch razor for better maneuverability and closer shaves.

Also remember when operating a straight razor to shave going with the grain in the direction your beard grows, rinsing the blade as needed. Hold it at a 90-degree angle as you take the strokes. If you dont, you might want to stock up on Band-Aids.

Now that youre prepped, read on for the best blades money can buy, plus all the accessories you'll need to master your new morning ritual.

Best Straight Razors

Best Overall Straight Razor

Dovo Shavette

Why we love it: The interchangeable blade holders allow use for a variety of blades.

A coveted selection by most experts, the Dovo Shavette is a versatile shaver with several convenience factors that cater to the frequent flyer who wants to maintain a clean-cut profile. For one, it supports all types of blades. Size works to its advantage with a smaller design suitable for dopp kit storage. In addition, the lightweight feel provides good balance to give you excellent maneuverability when practicing special shaving techniques. Stainless steel housing wears well against wet shaves, too. The additional travel case comes in handy to hoist the extra clear and black blade holder bundled with the package, which actually serves great for protecting users from unwanted nicks.

$60 at Amazon.com

Best Luxury Straight Razor

Feather DX Folding Wood Handle Razor

Why we love it: Supports any of the four Artist Club blades including light, professional, super, and ProGuard

Popular demand places this classic on any list. The Feather DX screams opulence, from the resinated wooden handle to the stainless steel body. Sharpness proves to be the brands speciality, for the device is actually treated with whats been described as a finishing material that blesses the razor head and blade glide with suave stroking action against all surfaces. The end result is a smooth AF kisser, but one wrong move will result in a nasty gusher. Beware. Great weight balanced with strong grip control lets you dominate the shaving experience. The high price tag does nothing to diminish the razors infinite value for disposable blades over the years will equate to more than what youll actually drop on this vintage-inspired cutter.

$253 at Amazon.com

Best Budget Straight Razor

Equinox Professional Straight Edge Razor

Why we love it: It's the No. 1 best seller on Amazon for a reason

Made from top notch, quality stainless steel, this affordable straight edge razor is designed to last you a long time. Guaranteed, in fact. It will never rust or tarnish after all the uses youll give it, since it will obviously be a regular part of your new shaving routine. Built with an easy-open blade guard, you can exchange each blade after a could shaves with ease. Built with comfort and stability in mind, the Equinox Professional Straight Edge Razor provides the right holding angle and does one hell of a good job shaving. Pro tip: Be sure to gently squeeze the protection cap before closing it to ensure a tight and secure grip so your blade will not fall out.

$16.97 at Amazon.com

More Great Straight Razors

Parker SR1 Stainless Steel Straight Razor

Why we love it: No holders are required for use. None. Perfect for barber kits.

This Amazon favorite has the customer reviews to solidify its shaving prowess. Parkers stainless steel slicer has the prestige of a premium razor, only at a far more affordable rate and backed by a large community of seasoned barbers. The genuine stainless steel housing gives it a swank look most costly razors fail to emulate. Then comes the rounded edge on the blade compartment that works amazingly to reduce lesions when paired with a grade-A shaving soap. A snap-lock mechanism holds the blade in place so no discomfort or wiggling is present when skimming facial surfaces. Plus the fact that it accepts single-edge or one half double-edge blades favors its placement.

$19.99 at Amazon.com

Utopia Care Professional Barber Straight Edge Razor

This sleek and stylish stainless steel straight blade is covered in a black matte finish giving it a stealth look while also helping prevent rust for long-lasting performance. Featuring easy-flip blade cover and comfortable metal grip allowing for easy maneuvering and a close shave, this razor comes stocked with enough blades  100 premium derby blades to be precise  to get you through the year, if not more.

$19.99 at Amazon.com

Facon Professional Classic Straight Edge Barber Razor

Another affordable option that doesnt skimp on quality, the Facon Professional Straight Edge Barber Razor is a safe bet for those experienced and novice alike. This 100% genuine Japanese stainless steel razor has a unique black powder coating and comes in 20% heavier and more balanced than similarly-styled razors, allowing for a more ergonomic design for better articulated control. Whats more, the adjustable screws mean extra comfort and flexible maneuvering. All that, and its guaranteed for life.

$19.95 at Amazon.com

Accessories

Cremo 100% Cruelty-Free Shave Brush

To create a rich, creamy lather, nothing beats a good shave brush. The premium bristles of a facial sweeper soak up shaving cream or soap incredibly well to create a nice lubrication surface that lifts the whiskers and spreads delicately across your grille. Cremo offers a budget-friendly, cruelty-free option made from horse hair that makes for a sweet addition to any straight razor set with a vintage off white acrylic handle for great grip. This prevents any slippage when venturing into wet shaves.

$19.33 at Amazon.com

Proraso Refreshing Shaving Soap

Listen. The shaving cream market is an overpopulated one with tons of great options that benefit every style of shave. But if you want our professional opinion, Proraso offers an amazing shaving solution that works well with a straight blade. The combination of natural glycerin and coconut oil delivers a slickness that keeps the skin taut, providing the steadiest of strokes. Lather build-up is incredibly generous to where only a dollop is necessary to generate a nice and thick froth that wont damage the quality of your blades. You cant go wrong here. Then again, every man has his own taste. For more expert suggestions, check out AskMens roundup of the best shaving creams.

$10 at Amazon.com

Baxter of California After Shave Balm

Even the smoothest of cuts can result in a minor nick, or several  not to mention some inflammation depending on your skin sensitivity. The answer is as clear as an aftershave balm. Baxters remains an AskMen favorite for the lotion-cool sensation it leaves on the face. Its deeply enriched in glycerin that produces enough hydration to replace your everyday moisturizer, while other key ingredients like allantoin treat irritations after completing a straight shave. The subtle yet zesty aroma of lime and mint is a fitting fragrance that completes the sophisticated grooming task.

$19 at Amazon.com

Arkansas Knife Sharpening Stone

Blade sharpening is a critical technique for straight razor shaving. A sharpening stone will definitely get the job done and provide that shear cutting edge you desire when stroking with the grain. This one in particular is requested by knifesmen of multiple trades including chefs, craftsmen, and professional barbers. The stone shows unnoticeable wear and tear after a year, still producing an exceptional taper of the blade. It also carries special properties that bless the cutter with a polish after each sharpening. Commit to a few minutes of sharpening for every session to get the razor-sharp results you desire.

$56.95 at Amazon.com

Product photos from retailer site.

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How To Make Parks Safe For Public Sex

Trending News: This City Might Consider Making It Legal To Get Frisky In Public

Long Story Short

A Toronto urban planner says cities have to start planning for couples looking to screw in public parks. This follows an undercover sting operation by police that targeted people having sex in a popular suburban park, and which critics say chiefly targeted LGBTQ men.

Long Story

When we talk about safe spaces, we dont often mean shady groves in public parks where people can have sex with each other without the worry of being busted. And yet thats what at least one urban planner in Canada thinks we should consider following a crackdown on public sex in Marie Curtis Park in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke last month.

The Toronto polices Project Marie was a six-week undercover operation that relied on plainclothes officers to find people soliciting sex. The operation resulted in 89 charges against 78 people, most of them men. Only one of the charges was a criminal charge; all the others were bylaw infractions.

The operation drew a lot of flak from many corners, including from the LGBTQ community who felt police were dedicating a disproportionate amount of resources towards men seeking sex with men. Urban planner Jen Roberton says there are ways to accommodate those who want to have night-time flings in the woods, and that those people should be protected.

She says the experience of Amsterdams Vondelpark could be replicated in Toronto.

In that park, she says, public sex is allowed as long as the people engaging in it dont litter, have sex at night and keep away from playgrounds. Marie Curtis Park, she believes, is a safe haven for men who are often targeted by gay bashers.

The men having sex in the park, they're also Torontonians, they're also part of the community, she told the CBC, Canadas public broadcaster.

To Roberton and other critics, gay men need protection from discrimination and violence, as well as from police.

Heterosexual couples do have sex in parks as well, but more often than not, they're asked to move along, she says. I would be very surprised if this amount of costly undercover policing was put into a sting operation against heterosexuals. This seems very much a targeting of gay men having sex.

Nearby residents, however, say they feel unsafe and have been followed by men they dont know.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Would you take advantage of a park where outdoor sex was allowed, provided you didnt litter?

Drop This Fact

Toronto police deny the operation targeted gay men and insist they were simply following a municipal bylaw.
Gov. McCrory leaves a tremendous positive legacy for our state and deserves a great deal of credit for graciously conceding an election that brought much-needed attention to the potential for fraud, and other weaknesses, in our state's election system. We will work with Gov.-elect Cooper to address these problems and to make certain voters have confidence in the outcome of future elections.

We hope Gov.-elect Cooper is willing to work with us to continue improving public education and cutting taxes on families and job creators - policies championed by Gov. McCrory that have generated budget surpluses, robust economic growth and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Given that Gov.-elect Cooper won his new office with a razor-thin plurality, it is clear there is no groundswell of public support for his campaign pledge of a massive income tax increase on our state's citizens and businesses.

I'm proud to have received the support of so many who believe that we can come together to make a North Carolina that works for everyone. It will be the honor of my life to serve this great state.

I also want to thank Governor McCrory and his wife Ann for their service to our state.

While this was a divisive election season, I know there is still more that unites us than divides us.

In a video message released at noon Monday, Gov. Pat McCrory conceded the 2016 election to Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper.McCrory saidbut he respectsMcCrory added.Reaction to the governor's concession came quickly.State Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes highlighted McCrory's policy agenda:Many elected officials tried to reform North Carolina's tax system before Governor McCrory, but none of them were nearly as successful. His tax reform plan provided tax relief to every class of taxpayers, and freed North Carolina from the highest tax rates in the Southeast.His record on job creation is unmatched, as North Carolina's jobless rate moved from one of the worst in the nation to among the best. The governor's leadership on infrastructure and energy will pay dividends for years to come as our citizens drive to work, heat their homes, educate their children and enjoy our state's beauty from Manteo to Murphy.Demanding accountability in public education while providing the largest teacher pay raise in the nation, as well as providing unprecedented school choice, are all critical measures in reforming and improving our education system.said Republican Governors Association Chairman Gov. Scott Walker.State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, paid tribute to the outgoing governor while issuing a challenge to the incoming one:In a statement from his campaign, Cooper offered gratitude and a desire for unity.See the governor's video message below.
syd10 said: Interesting! Just a couple of thoughts:



But the resume is more about achievements, skills & strengths than simple job descriptions. How does this system handle this?



If an employee was fired from their job, would the employer write something favourable?



Also with most people having multiple employers, does each employer write a portion of the resume? Click to expand...

Hi,Thanks for replying.The system can accept both job descriptions and references (strengths and weaknesses etc...)At the moment, I want to create a place where employees can have a profile that is written by former employers/managers so recruiters can do a quick job confirmation check to make sure that the candidate did worked where he said he work.It won't be replacing resume anytime soon, maybe one dayIf the employee was fired then the situation is no different than it is right now. If you got fired from your job, would you use your manager as a referee?Yes, each employer would have written a portion of the employee's profile. Having something written down have more benefits than you think. Let say I'd asked you to be my referee, you agree to it. I go to my new job, 6 months later, I'm not happy at my new work place, I want to move elsewhere so I message you asking you to be my referee again.Unless something happens, you will most likely to say yes. Essentially, you be giving more or less the same reference that you gave 6 months earlier but if you written it on my profile, that reference report can be reuse.Can I ask do you still work in recruiting? If so, which industry?
naush123 said: Hi



I need to ask a question. My friend applied for Canadian Permanent Residency and application got rejected and banned. Her husband then applied for Australian PR 190 and got granted recently. He forgot to mention about canadian PR rejection and still got australian PR. Would it effect anything ? or is he good to move forward now..



Regards, Click to expand...

The rejection should have been declared if it was asked in the application form, but I am more concerned about him being "banned" and not declaring it. Either way, it seems he may have provided incorrect information. I can't really tell you how to deal with it.
The last answer you would think of is "give the car its own set of emotions," which is probably why you don't work for Honda. The Japanese carmaker took a look at the current crop of cars and decided they all lacked something: soul.Well, we're still some time away from being able to transfer our consciousness into an object, but since the advent of the self-driving technology meant that future cars would have very powerful computers on board, why not do more with the AI than simply have it drive you around in complete safety? Honda will be presenting this intriguing new concept called NeuV at next year's CES in Las Vegas, which is probably the most appropriate venue considering it focuses so much on the technology inside. The company refers to NeuV's AI as an "emotion engine," but what exactly that translates to in real life is anyone's guess.This new kind of engine is described by Honda as a set of technologies that "enable machines to artificially generate their own emotions." Well, somebody should tell Honda that the last thing we need when driving is another " emotional " being screaming that we drive too fast.Emotions are hard to deal with, and that's because they are so easily misinterpreted. How exactly will Honda NeuV's emotions show is still a mystery, but whatever the case, expect all this to be just a gimmick meant to generate a little buzz.The Japanese carmaker says the NeuV is designed for commuters, which presumably means it sacrifices style for practicality. Well, the minimalist design with the unconventionally shaped greenhouse might actually appeal to some, but the boxy shape lets everyone know what kind of interior space they should expect once the wide door is open.The good news - and one that could suggest there's a tiny chance something remotely based on the NeuV will enter production - is that the concept has a steering wheel, despite claims of having self-driving capabilities. The length of the vehicle, however, makes it hard to imagine how the NeuV could accommodate more than two people on board. Then again, you'd be tempted to say the same thing about the Toyota iQ, and you'd be terribly wrong.
Available either as a five-door hatchback or as a station wagon , the newest take on the Renault Megane IV comes as standard with a 6-speed automatic. The EDC transmission is one gear down on the 7-speeder in the the 2016 Renault Megane GT with the Energy TCe 205 1.6-liter turbocharged engine.Displacing 1.6 liters, enhanced by two turbochargers, and based on the dCi 160 available for the Talisman sedan and Espace people carrier, the powerplant that animates the Megane GT Diesel develops 165 PS (163 hp) and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft) from 1,750 rpm. The French manufacturer has yet to come up with specs such as the acceleration time to 100 km/h (62 mph).Surprisingly, however, the TCe 205 EDC and the dCi 165 EDC develop the same amount of torque. The only difference, though, is how that torque is delivered. In the high-octane application, the driver needs to hit 2,400 rpm to enjoy all the go-faster goodies of the Megane GT . Another plus point for the diesel variant is, drum roll please, fuel economy: 4.6 l/100 km (61.4 UK mpg).Bearer of the GT designation , even the diesel-powered model employs the segment-first four-wheel steering system dubbed 4Control. What that means is that the Megane GT Diesel isnt simply nice to drive, but it benefits from dampers, springs, brakes, and stability control calibrated by Renaultsport. You know, the Renaultsport that's now working on the Megane RS? Yeah, them.The order books for the 2017 Renault Megane GT Diesel are now open in France. Whereas the five-door hatchback version starts at 32,200 for the TCe 205 EDC, the dCi 165 EDC is more expensive at 34,300. In the family-oriented wagons case, that'll be 33,100 and 35,200, respectively.
SUV

The Crewe specialists are weighing the various options, with the most feasible versions (in the order of their production likelihood) being a coupe-like mode, a long-wheelbase version and even a performance-orientated model that could remind collectors of the Continental GT3-R Im confident that it [the Bentayga Coupe] will happen and our team is working on the case for this car, but it is not yet approved for production, Bentley CEO Wolfgang Durheimer told Autocar . We are the first in the luxury SUV space and at the moment unopposed, but there are lots of rivals coming to the sector. The question we need to answer is if there is space for all these different bodystyles,Given the Flying B badge requirements, the challenge for the Bentayga Coupe would be to keep the rear passenger headroom at a generous level, while switching to a sloping roofline.As for the elongated Bentayga derivative, which Bentley might have already begun testing, we need to look no further than in Range Rover's yard to understand the business case for such anappears to be solid. Factor in Bentley's Mulsanne EWB and such a model seems almost certain.When it comes to the velocity-focused Bentayga derivative, we're not talking about the Bentayga Speed, which has reportedly been confirmed by the CEO at the Beijing Motor Show back in April. Instead, this model would be built around the idea of delivering a sharper response, but the carmaker has strict requirements when it comes to such proposals."If we have enough people who want the car, and they are new to the brand rather than people who will choose this Bentley rather than another one, then we will consider it, Rolf French, Bentley 's Engineering Chief, told the British publication. "We can make dynamically focused cars that are extreme, but only for very special occasions,To us, this sounds like a model that could come out towards the end of the Bentayga's life cycle, so it's a bit early to discuss it. For now, we can keep our eyes on next year's plans for the Bentayga - now that a diesel option has been added to the range, the Bentayga will become the first Bentley plug-in hybrid next year.
EV

As governments clamp down automakers with ever-stringent laws regarding emissions and fuel economy, Toyota turned this downer into an opportunity. In this regard, the manufacturer developed all-new or improved engines, transmissions, and hybrid systems with a single purpose in mind: to reduce CO2 emissions by 15 percent by 2021 in markets that include the U.S.First up, theres a new 2.5-liter direct injection engine in the offing. The Dynamic Force Engine is, at heart, an improvement of the so-called 2AR-FXE found in the 2016 Toyota Camry Hybrid. Adapted for the TNGA architecture, the Atkinson-cycle powerplant boasts a thermal efficiency of 41 percent in hybrid vehicle applications. Its a given, then, that the upcoming 2018 Toyota Camry is gunning for more than 40 mpg combined in Hybrid attire.Next up, Toyota is proud to announce two automatic transmissions: the Direct Shift-8AT and Direct Shift-10AT. The one with the fewer gears is already available in the V6-powered 2017 Toyota Highlander , whereas the 10-speeder is currently employed by the 2017 Lexus LC 500h . In both cases, Toyotas engineers took the measures to heighten efficiency and refinement. It should be noted that the 10-ratio transmission is meant for rear-wheel-drive applications, which include the fifth-generation Lexus LS sedan.Inspired by the technologies imbued in the fourth-generation Prius , Toyota enhanced the hybrid system for 2.5-liter engines. Dubbed Multistage THS II and developed for RWD vehicles, the powertrain will find its way in future plug-in hybrid models. Joined by a large-capacity lithium-ion battery, Toyota is adamantmode is good for a range of 60 kilometers (37 miles) or more.More detailed information on these newities is available in the release found under the adjacent press briefing video. On that note, the Japanese manufacturer promises to introduce 17 versions of nine engines, 10 versions of four transmissions, and 10 versions of six hybrid systems by 2021.


Sen. Richard Burr thanks supporters at his victory speech Nov. 8 in Winston-Salem. (CJ photo by Dan Way)

During the fall campaign in North Carolina, the presidential and gubernatorial races captured most of the attention. That was understandable. But the reelection of Sen. Richard Burr deserves at least as much post-election attention, for two compelling reasons.The first is political. Often underestimated during his decades in office, Burr has proven to be one of most successful North Carolina politicians of the modern era. After a decade representing a Triad-area district in the U.S. House of Representatives, Burr ran in 2004 for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by John Edwards, the Democratic nominee for vice president. His opponent, Erskine Bowles, was capable, well-funded, and well-known statewide after a 2002 Senate bid against Elizabeth Dole. Burr came from behind in the last weeks of the campaign to win 52 percent of the vote.Burr's first reelection bid, in 2010, wasn't much of a challenge. But this year's race was highly competitive. The Democratic nominee, former state legislator Deborah Ross, raised lots of money and received lots of outside help. As in 2004, Burr came on strong at the end of the campaign, winning 51 percent of the vote to 45 percent for Ross. (The Libertarian, perennial candidate Sean Haugh, got about four percent.)How did Burr outperform Donald Trump in North Carolina? Well, the two Republicans got about the same percentage of the vote in suburban and rural areas. But Burr did better in urban counties such as Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, and Forsyth. (Pat McCrory, by the way, equaled Trump's support in urban areas but didn't get the same vote in the suburbs and rural areas that Burr and the president-elect received.)Another way to see the difference is through an ideological lens. According to exit polls, both Burr and Trump got 83 percent of voters who identified themselves as conservatives. But Burr got more votes from moderates, and slightly fewer votes from liberals, than Trump received.North Carolina tends to stage competitive contests for Senate. Of all the senators elected since 1972, in fact, only two - Burr and Jesse Helms - have served more than a single term. During the 2016 campaign, Burr announced that his coming third term will be his last.That brings me to the second compelling reason why Burr deserves your close attention. Over the next six years, he will likely play a key role on two significant issues. In the fight against Islamist terrorism and other threats to our security and freedom, Burr's service as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee will help shape America's strategy. And as one of the two primary sponsors of the Senate Republicans' most widely supported replacement for Obamacare, Burr will help write the next chapter in health care reform.His Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (Patient CARE) legislation, introduced with Sen. Orrin Hatch, repeals the individual mandate and other major Obamacare provisions. In their place, Patient CARE offers tax credits for the purchase of private plans in a far less regulated market. Differences with the main House alternative, drafted by Speaker Paul Ryan and his team, include how to apportion the tax credits, how to approach gaps in insurance coverage, and how to clean up the Medicaid mess that Obamacare has made worse over the past six years.Republicans nationwide have more electoral heft and policy influence today than they've had since the 1920s, with control of Congress, the White House, most state governments, and (within a few months) the U.S. Supreme Court. This didn't happen overnight. It took many decades of work at such tasks as recruiting candidates, establishing organizations, building networks, and developing policy prescriptions that were both politically salable and practically useful.Many of the people who did this work weren't flashy media hounds. Like Richard Burr, they've kept a relatively low profile. The savviest among them also recognize that their recent successes will prove fleeting if they let it go to their heads. Their best political strategy at this point is to enact good public policy. Burr can help.
Screen shot of ignition interlock device courtesy of Intoxalock via YouTube.

Four states  Arizona, Maryland, Mississippi, and West Virginia  are taking more legislative measures than others to end drunk driving, according to a new report from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

In the report, states are awarded stars in different categories related to the implementation of drunk driving laws and other proven countermeasures. A perfect score is five stars. Arizona, Maryland, Mississippi, and West Virginia earned overall scores of 4.5 stars. The lowest-scoring states were Montana (0.5 star) and Michigan (one star).

MADDs judging criteria include whether the state is conducting sobriety checkpoints, requiring ignition interlocks for all drunk driving offenders, creating tougher penalties for those who drive drunk with children in the vehicle, participating in no refusal activities for drunk driving suspects, and using administrative license revocation for drunk driving offenders.

The holiday season marks a particularly deadly period of drunk driving crashes. In 2015, 973 people were killed in drunk driving crashes between Thanksgiving and New Years Day  nearly 10% of all drunk driving crashes for the year. On the day before and day of Thanksgiving and Christmas, 33% to 39% of all traffic fatalities were caused by drunk driving, according to federal statistics.

The MADD report serves as a reminder that every state can do more to eliminate the tragedies caused by drunk driving, and every individual can do his or her part by always planning for a non-drinking driver to get them home safely, said MADD National President Colleen Sheehey-Church.

The report also highlights progress made in 2016. Washington D.C., Vermont, Maryland, and Rhode Island each passed all-offender ignition interlock laws. Pennsylvania passed legislation requiring ignition interlocks for first-time offenders with a .10 BAC and above.

Additionally, California passed a law that adds incentives to first-time offenders to choose an interlock and that requires an interlock for repeat offenders. Since Georgia also enacted a first-time offender interlock law, only Massachusetts and Idaho are states that still dont use interlocks for first-time offenders.

To download the report, click here.
Photo via Wikimedia.

The national average price of gasoline increased five cents to $2.18 following an agreement from oil-producing countries in the Middle East to cut production.

Prices increased for seven days to reach a level that's 14 cents higher than the same date a year ago. The average price is four cents lower than a month ago, reports AAA.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to cut production at a Nov. 30 meeting in Vienna. The deal will go into effect in January.

Typically, fuel prices fall at this time of year because refiners sell the winter blend that's cheaper to produce.

Average gas prices are below $2 per gallon in eight states including Arkansas ($1.95), Texas ($1.96), Missouri ($1.97), Oklahoma ($1.97), Kansas ($1.98), Mississippi ($1.98), South Carolina ($1.98) and Alabama ($1.98), according to AAA.

The biggest weekly price increases are reflected in Kentucky (+14), Ohio (+14), Michigan (+12), Indiana (+11), Delaware (+11), Illinois (+10), West Virginia (+10), Florida (+9), Maryland (+9) and New Jersey (+9).

The national average price of a gallon of unleaded increased 5.4 cents to $2.208 for the week ending Dec. 5, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The price is 15.5 cents higher than a year ago.

Meanwhile, the average price of diesel increased 6 cents to $2.48. Diesel is now 10.1 cents higher than a year ago.
2018 is gearing up to be a big year for Jeep enthusiasts: the highly-anticipated Jeep Wrangler is set to premiere in the middle of that year, and now FCA may start providing hybrid versions of both Jeep and Ram models in 2018. No further news was given, but specualation has it that FCA will produce mild hybrids, according to Daily Sun.

In order to go about this venture, a possible parts-sharing initiative between the 2018 Jeep Wrangler and 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid could be in the works. But Daily Sun explained why this might not be the case, given that the smaller Jeep Wrangler may be unable to have batteries placed below the passenger seat.

The fact that the Jeep Wrangler will need to be suited for off-roading could also derail part-sharing efforts, because having batteries stationed below would put it in danger of being damaged when the Wrangler drives on rugged terrain, as it is designed to do. The incentive to go hybrid for the 2018 Jeep Wrangler are still high, however, as more motorists become invested in vehicles with better fuel ecomony, lighter treading and even making more environmentally conscious decisions.

Mercedes-Benz may be setting a good model for the future Jeep Wrangler, as its upcoming line of inline-six engine contains a 48-volt setup suitable to the Wrangler. The Chrysler Pacifica has adopted a full hybrid setup, another notable vision of the Jeep to strive toward, but it may not have all the resources for such a system quite yet.

The new Jeep Wrangler, depending on the month of its debut, may actually not be available to the public until 2019. In the meantime, anxious Jeep drivers have the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk to look forward to: a more powerful, high-performance upgrade to the Jeep Grand Cherokee, according to Road and Track. It will debut at the New York International Auto Show next April.
6 December 2016 11:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is ready to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Azerbaijan, a source in the countrys government told Trend.

The Bank offers to support business by opening credit lines for local banks, according to the source.

"Thus, the ADB wants to provide support to banks in Azerbaijan and contribute to the development of SMEs," said the source.

The source further said that Azerbaijans government currently doesnt hold any discussions with the ADB regarding any concrete project.

"The ADB has expressed readiness to lend to SMEs in Azerbaijan, but we have to consider how this funding will affect our external debt," the source in Azerbaijans government said. "In this context, the government has decided not to appeal to the ADB for the financing of the project for now."

The business plan of the Bank for 2017-2019 is expected to be approved in the next few weeks, while rendering assistance in implementing the structural reforms will be one of the directions of the banks new three-year plan on Azerbaijan.

ADBs core ongoing operations in Azerbaijan include support for transport, energy, urban infrastructure, and the private sector, as well as technical assistance and program in various areas, including knowledge sharing of best international practices on finance, education, governance and economic development. Moreover, ADB is currently seeking new potential areas for cooperation with Azerbaijan, including vocational education, urban governance and development of alternative energy sources.

ADB, based in Manila, was established in 1966 and has 67 members. Azerbaijan became the organizations member on December 22, 1999. The country has 0.5 percent share in the banks capital.

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6 December 2016 11:03 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan`s Finance Minister Samir Sharifov has met Chairman of the Management Board at Eurasian Development Bank Dmitry Pankin to discuss the bilateral cooperation opportunities.

The Azerbaijani minister highlighted the macroeconomic situation in the country, economic reforms implemented by the government under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, the local and regional projects, as well as transnational projects involving Azerbaijan, Azertac reported.

Stressing that they attach great importance to cooperation with Azerbaijan, Pankin noted the opportunities for the Bank to fund projects in the transport, transit, energy, private sector and other areas.

EDB was established by Russia and Kazakhstan in 2006. The authorized capital makes up $7 billion. The banks shareholders are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

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6 December 2016 12:45 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The export missions of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs will visit Pakistan and Afghanistan in February 2017.

Azerbaijans Economy Ministry reported that the mission to Pakistan will be organized on February 5-8, while the mission to Afghanistan on February 9-11.

Both missions are related to the fields of production of fruits and vegetables, mineral water, fruit juice, sugar and confectionery products, cotton, as well as chemical and other industrial products.

The composition of export missions will be formed on the basis of a competition, to be held on January 12, 2017, at the office of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO).

Applicants will be selected on the basis of the following criteria:

Production potential of goods  10 points;

Export potential of goods  10 points;

Experience in goods export (by indicating the export volume for 2015)  5 points.

Minimum passing score is 20 points.

For additional information please call:

Phone: (+994 12) 598-01-47/48 (int. 141)

Contact person: Fuad Jafarov

E-mail: [email protected]

Azerbaijan is sending trade missions to various countries since November 2016 in order to increase its exports. In particular, missions have already been organized to China and the UAE, and it is planned to send a mission to Egypt until the end of 2016.

Today Azerbaijan outputs more than 250 kinds of home-made products in food, light, heavy and construction industries.

To bring the economy to a new level Azerbaijan started promoting the Made in Azerbaijan brand in foreign markets. The presidential decree, dated October 5, approves the form of the report On the work carried out to encourage the export of non-oil products of Azerbaijani origin and helps promoting Made in Azerbaijan brand in foreign markets.

To finance the support of these measures, some 3 million manats (about $1.7 million) were allocated from the Azerbaijani Presidents Reserve Fund in the 2016 State Budget.

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6 December 2016 15:22 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan is one of the seven largest markets for the international payment system Visa in the CIS region and South-Eastern Europe, the regional Manager of Visa International Mandy Lamb said at a presentation of the "Zero liability" policy in Baku on December 6.

Azerbaijan has great potential for the development of cashless payments. For Visa, the Azerbaijani market is of great interest, Lamb said.

She added that Azerbaijan managed to save about $70 million during 2011-2015 due to the transition to cashless payments.

VISA is a global payment system that provides cardholders, merchants, financial and governmental institutions in more than 200 countries to fast, secure and reliable electronic payment network. The company was founded in 1958 in California, U.S. Currently, 35 of 37 Azerbaijani banks are memebers of VISA.

In October 2016, the turnover on payment cards through ATMs and POS terminals in Azerbaijan amounted to $610 million. This is by four percent more than the data for the same period of 2015, according to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.

The total number of transactions with payment cards over this period made up almost $4.05 million.

Meanwhile, the number of transactions on debit cards made up 6.26 million in the amount of $535 million.

As for use of credit cards in October, bank customers carried out 847,000 transactions for a total amount of $75.2 million.

Most of the cards (4.64 million) are debit cards, in particular, 2.51 million are social, 1.51 million are salary cards, and 620,000 are other types. There were 688,000 credit card holders in country as of October, 2016.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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6 December 2016 18:24 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

A total of 12 state-owned properties were sold during the auction held in the framework of the new privatization program.

Two small state objects out of the privatized facilities, as well as two unused non-residential areas, are located in Baku. Other objects are located in Shirvan, Sabirabad and Saatli regions, while five other objects are vehicles, Azerbaijan's State Committee on Property Issues reported on December 6.

The next auction will be held on December 13 and it will involve a total of 101 objects of state property.

The third stage of privatization started in the framework of the decree dated May 19, 2016 by the presidential decree. Under the decree, the acceleration of the state property privatization process has been defined as an important direction of the economic policy.

The portal for privatization  privatization.az, launched in July 2016, reflects all necessary information about the facilities, their addresses, location, and even initial cost and aims at facilitation of the process. The website is available in two languages - Azerbaijani and English. Why Azerbaijan is special section available on the website explains the reasons and advantages of investing in the country.

The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as improve the business environment of Azerbaijan.

The full list of the state enterprises put up for privatization is available at http://www.privatization.az/index.php/az/component/content/article?layout=edit&id=916

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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6 December 2016 16:46 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan's Parliament has today launched its three-day plenary session to discuss the draft budget and the concept of socio-economic development for 2017 and the next three years.

Azerbaijani Finance Minister Samir Sharifov, addressing the session, said that the government has increased the parameters of the countrys state budget for 2017.

He said that the budget revenues are projected at 16,255 million manats ($9.263 million), and expenditures at 16,900 million manats ($6.631 million).

Revenues of the 2017 consolidated budget are projected at 20,020 million manats ($11.409 million), and expenditures at 21,267 million manats, the minister added.

Earlier, the budget revenues for 2017 were projected at 15,955 million manats, and expenditures at 16.6 billion manats, while the consolidated budget revenues were projected at 19,720.7 million manats, and expenditures at 20,967.2 million manats.

Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev, for his part, said the share of the non-oil sector in the country`s Gross Domestic Product will reach 68 percent.

He said that the national economy is forecast to grow 1 percent. The growth will be more than 2 percent on average in the next few years, the minister said, adding that the non-oil sector will increase 2.5 percent in 2017.

Central Bank of Azerbaijan Chairman Elman Rustamov, in turn, said that the CBA spent $6 billion to sterilize money supply in 2016.

Rustamov said that the (CBA) will carry out tight monetary policy in 2017.

Due to transition to a floating exchange rate of Azerbaijani manat, we switched to targeting of the growth of money supply, he said. Our main goal is to prevent additional currency emission and not to exert pressure on the manat exchange rate and, thus, to prevent the growth of inflation.

Rustamov added that the volumes of sterilization will be increased in 2017 to ensure financial stability and liquidity of the banking sector, and interest rates will be revised if necessary. At the same time, in 2016, the CBA already withdrew about 6 billion manats for sterilization of the money supply, he noted.

We plan to increase the flexibility of Azerbaijani manat and neutralize the existing negative expectations related to the macroeconomic stability, Rustamov said.

Fiscal policy plays an important role in ensuring macroeconomic stability and an additional consolidation is needed in the medium term in this context, he added.

Chairman of Economic Policy, Industry and Entrepreneurship Committee Ziyad Samadzade said that in four years, Azerbaijan's GDP can reach 91 billion manats ($52 billion).

He noted that the country can achieve these parameters in case the annual GDP growth will make up three percent on an average.

"By 2020, we forecast that GDP will increase by 12 billion manats ($6.8 billion) and will amount to 70 billion manats ($39.8 billion). Given our real economic opportunity, I think we can achieve these figures. Thus, we can improve the image of Azerbaijan in the international arena," Samadzade clarified.

Under the draft concept of socio-economic development, the volume of GDP in Azerbaijan will amount to 61.419 million manats with growth of the economy by one percent next year, by 1.5 percent in 2018, by 2.8 percent in 2019 and by 2.4 percent in 2020.

Speaker of the Parliament Ogtay Asadov stressed that the slowdown of the world economy, as well as the deterioration of the macroeconomic indicators have an impact on the economy of Azerbaijan.

The sharp drop in oil prices on the world market and the reduction of the country's foreign exchange earnings have created a need to make changes to the monetary policy of the Central Bank.

Despite the current problems, the Azerbaijani economy maintained its stability, and according to the budget package for 2017 and the next three years, real growth in the economy is projected," he said, adding that the main factor for this growth will be the further development of non-oil sector by the gradual weakening of the countrys dependence on oil.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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6 December 2016 17:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company and Kazakhstan Railways signed an agreement on strategic cooperation and joint ventures.

The agreement was undersigned by Caspian Shipping Company Chairman Rauf Valiyev and Kazakhstan Railways head Kanat Alpisbaev, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Kazakhstan reported on December 6. The meeting took place in the framework of the visit of Azerbaijani delegation to Kazakhstan.

Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan carry out extensive work on the improvement of transport infrastructure and increase of transit capacity. Azerbaijan is engaged in the construction of the Baku international sea trade port, construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, while Kazakhstan is expanding its rail networks and port infrastructure, which allow developing cooperation and implementing joint projects, "- said Valiyev

The sides also discussed issues of cooperation in the framework of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, and following the talks, signed the agreement.

Under the deal, the sides agreed on attraction of investments in existing and future transportation projects, enhancement transportation between the ports of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, preparation of working plan on transportation in various directions, joint use of existing infrastructure and other areas.

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company plays a connecting role in the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA), provides marine transportation of goods and passengers, as well as offshore support services for oil and gas operations.

Shipping is considered to be the least environmentally damaging form of commercial transport, as well as a comparatively minor contributor to marine pollution. Nearly 90 percent of world trade is implemented by means of the international shipping industry, which facilitates import and export procedures.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are the littoral states of the Caspian Sea and possess a common maritime border.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan totaled $76.9 million in January-September 2015, or 2.5 times less than in the same period of 2014, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

More than 700 operating companies with Azerbaijani capital have been registered in Kazakhstan. Some 60 companies with Kazakh capital have been registered in Azerbaijan.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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Order by three-judge panel will not affect all 170 legislative districts, possibly confusing voters, experts say.



Unless the U.S. Supreme Court restores the legislative maps drawn in 2011 (Senate map shown above), new legislative elections will have to be held in several of these districts next year. (N.C. General Assembly map)

Low voter turnout is one of several challenges resulting from a court order setting a deadline to redraw legislative districts and establish special legislative elections next year.Judge James Wynn Jr., who sits on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote the opinion throwing out the current legislative districts and the order setting a March 15, 2017, deadline for the General Assembly to draw new legislative districts. The order requires the state to hold special elections for members of the General Assembly in affected districts. The panel's opinion has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear the appeal sometime in its current session.said Michael Crowell, a retired election attorney who also taught at the UNC School of Government.Wynn's order, signed by U.S District Court Judges Thomas Schroeder and Catherine Eagles, acknowledged as much.the order says.State Board of Elections Executive Director Kim Strach, in a document prepared for the court, noted that turnout was 8 percent in a stand-alone primary in September 1998 primary for congressional races, compared with 18 percent for a regularly scheduled primary held in May that year. The June primary held this year for congressional races and an N.C. Supreme Court seat drew a turnout of less than 8 percent, Strach wrote. (See related story here .)Crowell said turnout is highest during presidential elections, as evidenced by numbers approaching 70 percent this year. But there's not nearly as much interest in elections during odd-numbered years, when, typically, municipal elections are held.Crowell said.And many voters, simply put, are weary of the process.Crowell said.A retiring state senator who oversaw redrawing of the legislative districts the federal court ruled unconstitutional went further. The order, says Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, disenfranchises voters who elected legislators who will inherit truncated terms. Newly elected lawmakers would, in effect, serve one-year terms, as opposed to the two years they expected.said.Primary elections would be held in late August or early September. The general election would be held in early November.The order comes after the three-judge panel ruled in August that nine state Senate districts and 19 state House districts were "racial gerrymanders" and violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.The court ruled the state no longer could use the maps after November 2016. But because the date of the order fell so close to the November elections, the court begrudgingly allowed the 2016 legislative elections to move forward under the challenged maps drawn in 2011.The latest order, which came Nov. 29, voids a state constitutional requirement that members live in their district for one year prior to their election. The order allows people to run for office as long as they live in the district by the closing day of the filing period for the 2017 special election.The court admonished the legislature for failing to move forward in complying with the order for redistricting.Michael Curtis, a professor of constitutional and public law at the Wake Forest University School of Law and a nationally respected expert on constitutional law, said throwing out the districts was justified. Curtis says racial gerrymandersThe U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a challenge to the racial composition of the state's 13 congressional districts.Curtis said that lawmakers packed targeted voters into a few districts, wasting their votes.Curtis said.Supreme Court justices, Curtis said, consider gerrymandering anti-democratic, though they often have not given legislators much direction in how to avoid drawing districts that are too partisan.Curtis said.The order didn't call for 2017 elections in all 120 House districts and 50 Senate districts, but rather only for those districts that change when the legislature redraws the maps. The order requires the legislature to redraw all nine Senate districts and all 19 House districts declared unconstitutional, although the order inevitably will affect adjoining districts.There could be a domino effect.Crowell said.Rucho predicted "chaos" and "confusion" will result as voters ask,Rucho said legislative leaders plan to appeal the order to the U.S. Supreme Court and ask the high court for a stay - or delay - in implementing the order until an appeal can be heard.he said.
6 December 2016 17:12 (UTC+04:00)

The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) announced Request for Service Proposal (RFP) for passive equity management in accordance with Chapter 5 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Public Procurements".

The benchmark for the proposed equity portfolio is the MSCI World Index.

Investment management firms (managers) have to meet the following requirements:

Having at least $50 billion under the passive equity management as of December 31, 2015;

Being a registered investment advisor under the US Investment Advisers Act of 1940, or the regulations of the other state in which the manager operates;

Having at the minimum, a five-year track record managing the proposed product for the period ending December 31, 2015;

Having a composite performance record should exhibit an annualized tracking error of less than 0.3% against the MSCI World Index over the trailing five-year period;

Being designated to sign a procurement agreement;

Possession of free and unlimited disposal right over its property, also payment ability;

Not being declared bankrupt, its property shouldnt have been seized, not having any collateral charged and being a legal entity whose activities havent been suspended by a court decision;

Not having any overdue liabilities on taxes or other compulsory payments due to the Republic of Azerbaijan;

During the last 5 years firms professional activity shouldnt have been suspended by a court decision due to the conviction of falsely stating the professional activity of the firm, its counterparties, employees or its qualification indicators with the purpose of signing a procurement agreement.

To obtain RFP documentation, managers may address below contact persons:

Farhad Zeynalov

Tel: +994 (12) 498 77 53 (ext. 1626)

Leyli Jabbarli

Tel: +994 (12) 498 77 53 (ext. 1622)

Fax: +994 (12) 565 87 55

E-mail: [email protected]

The proposals have to be sent to the following address not later than 18:00 local time, January 11, 2017:

165 Heydar Aliyev Avenue, Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan, AZ1029

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6 December 2016 15:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The first audition for a beauty contest Miss & Mister Azerbaijan has been held in Baku, Trend Life reported.

More than 40 beauties and handsome men demonstrated their wit and charm.

The models were evaluated not only by their look, but also personal qualities: the level of culture and education, communication skills, and the ability to present them.

The results of the first selection will be published after the second audition, which will take place on December 10 at Xoxo Lounge.

Send your applications no later than December 10.

You can fill in a questionnaire here:

http://www.missazerbaijan.org/form2017

The contestants must have a photo and ID card.

"Miss & Mister Azerbaijan-2016" contest has been held in Azerbaijan since 1996. In 2015, Natalia Sokolevsklaya and Elvin Mammadov became the winners of the beauty contest.

Media partners of the event are Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az, Azernews.az

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6 December 2016 12:48 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Resolution of the conflicts in the OSCE area, in particular the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of the main issues on the agenda of the U.S. for many years.

U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Daniel Baer made the remark while answering a question during an online press conference in Brussels, Trend reported.

Baer said that the U.S. and other OSCE Minsk Group members intend to discuss a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg.

We will talk about the unacceptability of the status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the diplomat said.

Meeting of the OSCE countries Foreign Ministerial Council will take place in Hamburg on December 8- 9. Azerbaijan`s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will attend the event.

Earlier, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia were expected to hold a meeting in the 3+2 format (three co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group and Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers) on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council.

However, Armenia hasnt confirmed its consent yet for the 3+2 format meeting, while Baku has voiced its readiness to any contacts with Armenia, in any format.

The ambassador further added that the U.S. is closely watching the developments around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Secretary of State John Kerry was directly involved in the conflict resolution, meetings were held in Vienna and St. Petersburg. We, together with our colleagues from Russia, will continue to work towards a peaceful solution to the conflict, said Bayer.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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6 December 2016 14:38 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

After the meetings of Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in Vienna and St. Petersburg in May and June 2016 respectively to discuss the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the negotiation process came into stagnation. Armenia, a party to the negotiation process, shows reluctance, thus tremendously hampering the peace process.

Soon after France proposed to hold the 3+2 format meeting [three co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group and Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers], Azerbaijan positively responded to the initiative. However, Yerevan has yet to give neither yes or no answer. This position indeed demonstrates Armenia's interest in preserving the status quo in the region.

Some experts suppose that Russia, a co-chairing country at the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh problem, has its individual plan of solution to the protracted Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Fed of the inaction and destructive behavior of Yerevan, Moscow may have decided to take matters into their own hands, and, apparently, has its own plan, given a number of features and deep knowledge of the region.

This can be regarded as a response to inactivity of the Minsk Group in the settlement of the conflict, which can bring new countries to resolution of the problem.

Russia had the initiative to settle the conflict out of the OSCE Minsk group, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Baku after meeting with his Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov in Turkish Alanya on December 1. It is noteworthy that the Turkish Minister arrived in Baku after meeting with Lavrov, which also shows that a serious process has been launched around the Nagorno-Karabakh process.

Lavrov recently spoke positively about the role that Turkey could play in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. In his opinion, the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will only benefit from the participation of Ankara. In turn, while in Baku, Cavusoglu said that Turkey will support Russia's efforts in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.

The fact that Russia will further seek resolution to the conflict is seen in the new Russian foreign policy concept, which reads that the country will support settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Thus, it is evident that big regional players have started to show activity in the negotiation process, which Yerevan, mired in internal strife and problems, tries to refuse.

Given the fact that the Minsk Group could not gain significant progress in finding solution to the problem for more than twenty years, activities of Russia, Turkey and other possible countries may finally solve the conflict and bring peace in the region.

Today, when the aggressor country distanced itself and actually refused to negotiate, Azerbaijan, which makes every endeavor to finish the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, may have a real chance of progress in the issue. That is because negotiating with sane mediators to the conflict seems more worthwhile than endlessly trying to contact a country that cannot sit down at the negotiating table and solve the problem.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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6 December 2016 10:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

A regular meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) Organization for Democracy and Economic Development will be held in Hamburg on the sidelines of the 23rd OSCE Ministerial Council (December 8-9), GUAM Secretary General Altay Efendiyev told Trend on December 5.

The agenda of OSCE Ministerial Council will include issues of cooperation in the political and economic spheres, in particular, expansion of cooperation in trade, transport, the fight against crime, illegal migration and human trafficking, he said.

Cooperation issues of GUAM with other states and international organizations will be also discussed at the ministerial council, Efendiyev added.

It is also scheduled to hold a meeting in the GUAM-Japan format within the framework of the ministerial council, he noted.

The GUAM format was created by the post-Soviet states in 1997 during the summit of heads of states of the European Union in Strasbourg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the format and four years later withdrew. In 2006, Ukraine and Azerbaijan announced plans to further increase the GUAM member relations by renaming the organization as GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development and establishing its headquarters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Azerbaijan assumed the chairmanship in GUAM on January 1, 2016.

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6 December 2016 09:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev congratulated president-elect of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, on December 5.

I extend my most sincere congratulations to you on the occasion of your election as President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.

I am confident that our joint efforts will focus on strengthening and developing strategic partnership, overall cooperation and multifaceted mutual activity of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in the best interests of our nations and for peace, stability and security in the region, he noted.

Dear Mr Shavkat Miromonovich, I wish you robust health, prosperity in your state activity for the development of the brotherly people of Uzbekistan, added President Aliyev.

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6 December 2016 09:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on the occasion of Independence Day in Finland.

On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my most sincere congratulations to you and your people on the occasion of the national holiday of the Republic of Finland - Independence Day, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.

On this remarkable day I extend my best regards to you, and wish the friendly people of Finland everlasting peace and prosperity, added the president.

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6 December 2016 11:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Serbia supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Azerbaijan.

Nebojsa Stefanovic, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister of Serbia made the remark as he met with Azerbaijan`s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Baku on December 6.

The ministers hailed the level of relations between the two countries and mutual support within international organizations.

Stefanovic highlighted his country`s tourism and healthcare potential, and invited Azerbaijani companies to invest in Serbia.

The sides also discussed the prospects for bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Serbia, and ways of further developing the relations in a variety of fields.

Stressing the importance of joint fight against terrorism and organized crime, they emphasized the necessity of strengthening the exchange of information between law enforcement agencies of the two countries.

Touching upon the activity of Serbian companies in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani companies in Serbia, Minister Mammadyarov said that there is great potential for further cooperation.

He expressed his hope that this visit will contribute to the bilateral cooperation in political, economic, cultural, humanitarian and tourism spheres.

The sides also exchanged views on the strengthening of the legal framework.

Later, Stefanovic held talks with Azerbaijan`s Interior Minister Ramil Usubov, who said relations between both countries have historical and deep roots.

Usubov highlighted the socio-political developments after the country gained its state independence, the enormous efforts of national leader Heydar Aliyev made for construction of legal-democratic state, the socio-economic reforms conducted under his leadership, as well as the reforms in the legal-enforcement bodies to establish stability in the country.

The Minister highlighted the activities of Azerbaijan`s ministry of internal affairs, particularly its fight against organized crime. Usubov stressed the necessity of combining efforts in order to combat international terrorism, illegal migration, illegal drugs trade and cybercrimes.

Nebojsa Stefanovic, in turn, applauded cooperation between the states and nations of both countries. He said they were interested in further deepening cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan.

During his Baku visit, Stefanovic also met Minister of Emergency Situations Kamaladdin Heydarov.

Heydarov highlighted what has been done in Azerbaijan to tackle emergency situations, as well as the country`s cooperation with international organizations. The minister said there were wide opportunities for cooperation between the relevant bodies of both countries.

Stefanovic, in turn, said they were interested in further deepening cooperation with the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan.

The Minister noted wide potential of bilateral relations would create an opportunity for further boosting cooperation.

The Serbian minister was earlier received by President Ilham Aliyev and Parliamentary Speaker Ogtay asadov.

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6 December 2016 10:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The Anglo-Azerbaijani Society has held an annual dinner at the Peers Hall, the UK House of Lords.

The participants in the event included co-chair of the Anglo-Azerbaijani Society Lord German on behalf of the UK, Azerbaijani Ambassador to the country Tahir Taghizade, as well as members of the Society, representatives of Azerbaijani diaspora in the UK and other countries, Azertac reported.

Lord German expressed his gratitude to Co-Chair of the Society Professor Nargiz Pashayeva on behalf of Azerbaijan, who could not attend the event due to her busy schedule, for her contributions to the activity of the organization.

He said the Society implements cultural, humanitarian and charitable projects both in Azerbaijan and the UK since its establishment in 1997.

Lord German highlighted the works done by the Society and lauded opportunities for cooperation between Purcell music school in the UK and a music school named after Bulbul in Azerbaijan.

The event participants were informed about one of the most memorable events of the current year - a round table which was co-organized by the Anglo-Azerbaijani co-chairs Nargiz Pashayeva and Lord German at the UK House of Lords in March.

Lord German also recalled his meeting with Nargiz Pashayeva and Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Azerbaijan Carole Mary Crofts and other senior officials this October.

He further hailed the projects the Society has carried out in Baku, as well as a charity event including prominent scientists and public figures, culture and art figures, businessmen and foreign guests.

Tahir Taghizade, in turn, hailed the Anglo-Azerbaijani Society's significant contributions to the development of cultural and humanitarian ties between the two countries.

The event then featured performance by young British violinists Sophie Marter, Willemijn Steenbakkers, Virginia Slater and Madeleine Ridd.

The Anglo-Azerbaijani Society, established in 1997, supports Azerbaijani-British relations in all spheres and assists charitable endeavors in Azerbaijan, as well as keeps members closely informed on developments in Azerbaijan and increases public awareness about Azerbaijan in the UK.

The membership comprises corporate companies such as BP, Amec, Connaught Investments, KCA Deutag, ITE Exhibitions, CB&I, and Rapid Solutions, SOCAR and Caspian Broking, along with many smaller firms, as well as individuals who have worked in or have an interest in Azerbaijan.

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6 December 2016 11:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The Japanese Embassy in Baku hosted a reception to mark Emperor's birthday on December 5.

The grand reception brought together officials of the state and the government of Azerbaijan, MPs, ambassadors of foreign countries in Baku, representatives of the public.

After the national anthems of the two countries were performed, Ambassador Tsuguo Takahashi welcomed the guests. He informed that under the Constitution the Emperor is the symbol of the unity of the Japanese people, and his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday.

Stressing the high level of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Japan, the ambassador expressed confidence that relations between the two countries will make good progress in the future.

He further added that Azerbaijan is a leading economic power in the South Caucasus.

"Along with this, Azerbaijan is also an important player in ensuring international energy security. Japan attaches great importance to friendly relations with Azerbaijan, which plays a strategic role in ensuring stability in the region," said the ambassador.

In turn, Azerbaijans Minister of Education Mikayil Jabbarov on behalf of the Azerbaijan government congratulated the Japanese people on the significant day, conveyed greetings and best wishes.



Stressing that Azerbaijan and Japan cooperate in various areas, the minister expressed confidence that the bilateral relations will gradually be further strengthened and expanded.

"The two countries have formed a stable turnover, which has the potential for expansion in the future," Jabbarov said.

Azerbaijan is grateful to Japan for the financing and development of a number of projects implemented in the republic, the minister added.

He also praised the level of Japanese education, noting that the Azerbaijani students are studying at Japanese universities under the various educational programs.

The diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Japan established in 1992, is developing steadily.

Japan was one of the first countries to support Azerbaijan's forward-looking oil strategy. The country ainly cooperates with Azerbaijan in the energy and oil spheres.

Japan repeatedly stated that its companies are keen to develop cooperation in a number of areas with Azerbaijan and the country is interested in broader economic cooperation.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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Contact: McCrory Communications

McCrory Communications govpress@nc.gov

Governor Pat McCrory applauded North Carolina's Christmas tree industry today as he received the official trees and wreaths for the State Capitol during a ceremony.Governor McCrory said.The governor was joined by members of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association as he welcomed this year's winners of the association's contests for the State Capitol trees and wreaths. This year, the trees are provided by Lynn Smith from Merlyn Farms in Banner Elk, N.C. Smith is the 2016 Grand Champion winner of the annual North Carolina Christmas Tree Association Tree Contest and will compete in the 2018 National Christmas Tree Association Tree & Wreath Contest for a chance to be named "Best in the Nation" and provide the Official White House Christmas Tree.The wreaths are provided by Peak Farms in Jefferson, N.C. owned by Rusty and Beau Estes. They are the Grand Champion wreath winners of the annual North Carolina Christmas Tree Association Wreath Contest. Members of the Estes family were on hand to present Governor McCrory with several wreaths that will decorate the State Capitol.North Carolina Christmas tree growers produce an estimated 37 million trees grown on 32,000 acres. More than four million trees are harvested annually. North Carolina produces over 20 percent of the real Christmas trees grown in the U.S.The top five Christmas tree-producing counties in North Carolina are Ashe, Avery, Alleghany, Watauga and Jackson.North Carolina Fraser Firs have been judged Grand Champions through the National Christmas Tree Association and chosen for the White House 12 times - more than any other state.
6 December 2016 17:58 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Adrian Steirn, an award-winning fine art, wildlife, portrait photographer and filmmaker, has visited Azerbaijan in search of Caucasian leopard.

This near-mythical creature is on the brink of extinction in a land of remarkable biodiversity and stark contrasts between ancient heritage and rapid modernization.

Steirn, accompanied by a group of experts, including Russian scientist, African pathfinder and a local "leopard man", organizes a search on mountains - the habitat of leopards in Azerbaijan.

During the film to be aired by Nat Geo Wild on December 8 at 20:00, the viewers will get acquainted with "leopard man" Babakhan. Steirn says he has never seen a man who is so found of his profession. The Azerbaijani pathfinder did not rest during the filming, the filmmaker say.

Could Steirns team take a shoot of a leopard to prove its existence in Azerbaijan? You can find the answer to this question after watching the film.

The Caucasian leopard is one of the biggest of the eight recognized sub species of leopard. They live mainly in remote, mountainous habitats which can range from dry and arid areas to forested regions and even extend up into snowy mountain ranges.

Until the early 2000s, very little information was available about leopards living in the territory of Azerbaijan. But thanks to the studies of past years, Azerbaijani zoologists discovered their traces in Hirkan forest, Nakhchivan and Mingachevir water reservoir.

With the aim of protecting and increasing the number of wild nature, IDEA Public Association identified the Caucasus Big Five project which also envisages protection of Caucasian leopard.

Considering symbol of the Caucasus and the regions main living beauty, leopards, are also protected, under the Protection of Leopards project, which hold various events aimed at public education, including summer camps, scientific seminars and workshops for students.

The Caucasian leopard is found across several different countries, including Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Georgia.

Azerbaijan and Russia plan to create a reserve for the restoration of leopard population in

the Caucasus in the near future. The reserve is proposed to become a part of Zagatala State Nature Reserve (Azerbaijan) and Federal Reserve Tlyaratinsky (Republic of Dagestan).

Lately, the Azerbaijani Ecology Ministry announced about birth of five leopard cubs in the country.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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6 December 2016 15:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Gulgiz Muradova

It finally happened. The OPEC and Russia, the major oil producer outside the cartel, agreed to stem production last week giving producers and investors a hope that prices can begin to recover after the two-year fall.

The deal first since 2008 pushed the prices up and crude rose above $55 a barrel to hit a 16-month high on December 5. However, still theres no guarantee the prices will keep rising, as other market forces are at play.

By 11:15 a.m. Eastern [1615 GMT], Brent crude LCOc1 rose 49 cents to $54.95 a barrel, a 0.9 percent gain, after hitting $55.33, its highest since July 2015, Reuters reported. U.S. crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) CLc1 futures rose 23 cents to $51.91 a barrel, a 0.5 percent gain. WTI traded at a peak point for the day of $52.42, also the highest since July 2015.

The price of a barrel of Azeri Light crude oil increased $0.91 to stand at $55.95 on the world markets.

After the oil supply glut gathered momentum, it has become urgent to bring all oil players together, both OPEC and non-OPEC members, to reach a consensus.

Todays glut is mainly attributed to OPEC overproduction, and most notably to Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have been raising production ahead of output talks. The record output levels from OPEC, and the worlds top two oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, saturated oil markets to record levels, crushing prices down to the mid-$20s level in January, though they later recovered into the $40s range.

Many analysts regard OPECs production cut as constructive for the market in the near term, but the issue is that American producers are ready to bring more oil to the market, in case oil prices rise significantly.

American shale producers are taking advantage of the post-OPEC rally to hedge their oil price risk for next year and 2018 above $50 a barrel, bankers, merchants and brokers said, pushing the forward oil curve upside down, Bloomberg reports.

The rush to hedge -- locking in future cash flows and sales prices -- could translate into higher U.S. oil production next year, offsetting the long-awaited OPEC deal. Since May, the number of active oil rigs in North America jumped by 50 percent to 474, as of November 23.

On the demand side, higher prices could spell trouble in emerging countries whose currencies have weakened against the U.S. dollar in recent months, especially since Donald Trump won the presidential election. Because oil is priced in dollars, its become more expensive in China and India, the second and third largest oil consumers following the U.S, Forbes reports.

The third issue keeping pressure on the possible higher prices is doubt about whether OPEC and Russia will continue to curb supply when the deal ends in six months, as no one knows whats going to happen then.

The OPEC deal aims to reduce production by 1.2 million barrels a day, or about 1 percent of global output. Russia has also agreed to trim production - by about 300,000 barrels a day - the first time its cooperated with the OPEC since 2001.

Some investors are understandably cautious, as the cartel, which controls a third of all oil production, doesnt have the authority to enforce compliance from its 14 member-nations.

Meanwhile, non-OPEC producers are expected to agree to add an output cut of 600,000 bpd in Vienna on December 10. The invited countries are Russia, Mexico, Oman, Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Colombia, Congo, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Brunei and Uzbekistan.

Some analysts remain skeptical that non-OPEC producers will line up to pledge their own reductions when OPECs announcement last week already largely took responsibility for rebalancing the market.

Still the deal reached after the long talks has the potential to balance the market, as long as everybody sticks to it.

Now, its up to producing countries to make good on their pledges to actually cut oil output.

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6 December 2016 11:47 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed a law on ratification of the agreement with Russia on the Turkish Stream gas pipelines construction project, Turkeys Resmi Gazete reported.

The Turkish Stream project was announced in late 2014 by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his state visit to Turkey.

In November 2015, the project was suspended after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed by a Turkish F-16 fighter in Syria. A thaw in relations between Moscow and Ankara began last June following Turkey's apology to Russia.

Moscow and Ankara signed an intergovernmental agreement October 10 on the implementation of the Turkish Stream project.

The agreement involves the construction of two branches of the main gas pipeline under the Black Sea, the power of each branch being 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas.

One branch is provided to supply gas directly to the Turkish market, the other for the supply of gas by transit through Turkey to Europe. The intergovernmental agreement also stipulates that these two offshore branches should be built by December 2019.

The projects total cost is estimated at 11.4 billion, with the cost of the first line amounting to 4.3 billion.

The Turkish parliament has approved the agreement on "Turkish Stream" last week. The Russian Parliament is expected to ratify the agreement in the near future.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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6 December 2016 15:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

Uzbekistans acting President Shavkat Mirziyaev won a tremendous victory in the countrys first presidential elections with nearly 88 percent voter turnout since the death of former leader Islam Karimov.

The vote was called to determine a new leader following the death in early September of Islam Karimov, who headed the country for the past 25 years.

Being elected as the President of Uzbekistan for the next five years, Mirziyaev thanked the Uzbek people for trusting in him.

"I thank the people of Uzbekistan for their support," he said at a rally of the Uzbek Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP) supporters, which was held after the announcement of the preliminary voting results.

Addressing the rally, Mirziyaev said that over the past 25 years, under the leadership of the first Uzbek President Islam Karimov significant changes had been made in all spheres of the countrys life - the principles of market economy were introduced, the foundations of sovereignty were fortified, as well as a democratic legal state and strong civil society were formed.

"Further consistent continuation of this extensive work is the main purpose of our people. Since the main idea of our independence is to secure bright future for our Motherland and welfare of its people, said the newly elected president.

Mirziyaev, who had been the countrys prime minister since 2003, conductor of the policy of the first President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, who has vast experience in management of multifaceted economy of the country, was widely expected to win a five-year term in the election after he moved quickly to consolidate his power in the wake of Karimovs death.

The 59-year-old 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.

Mirziyaev, who represented the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan in the elections, has repeatedly stressed that he was going to follow the policy of his predecessor Islam Karimov.

In a speech on his first day as acting president, he 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.

Previously, Mirziyaev also said that he would focus on improving the countrys economy further, as well as, foreign-exchange controls that have benefited various power groups within the government.

During his term as acting president, Mirziyaev has already taken certain steps to improve relations with other central Asian countries.

He has also taken steps to liberalize the currency market, and a presidential order open to revisions until December 14 is aimed at cutting some regulations that have hindered economic growth.

Experts consider that Uzbekistans foreign policy may face a considerable shift since Shavkat Mirziyaev enjoys a better relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin than the former president.

In addition, Mirziyaev 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.

In turn, President Putin sent a congratulatory note less than 20 minutes following the announcement of Mirziyaevs win.

Uzbekistan, a major grower of cotton and a producer of natural gas, borders 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, which includes Russia and China.

The Government of Uzbekistan reported GDP growth at 7.8 percent in the first half of 2016, down from the 8.1 percent recorded in the same period of 2015, reflecting a weaker external environment and slower growth in the industry.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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6 December 2016 13:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

The Iranian administration and people will not permit the U.S. president-elect, Donald Trump to undermine the nuclear deal signed between Tehran and the six world powers, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said.

Rouhani made the remarks during a ceremony marking National Student Day at Tehran University on December 6, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported.

We and our nation will not let Trump rip up the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action aka nuclear deal), Rouhani said.

The US lawmakers have recently re-authorized 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, Tehran has sharply criticized the motion describing it as a breach of the last years landmark nuclear deal.

The Iranian government described the Senate vote as a violation of the nuclear agreement, and the developments angered Iranian President Rouhani, who has become the face of the deal and Irans outreach to the West and his administration.

Rouhani further said that the ISA is violating the JCPOA and if comes into force Iran will sharply respond to that.

Iran will react to the ISA even if the U.S. president waves the bill after signing it, he added.

Rouhani mentioned that the issue will be discussed on December 7 and Iran will determine its appropriate reaction regarding the issue.

The Iranian president also said that no step was taken by Irans administration during the nuclear talks without the approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, emphasizing that the decisions regarding the nuclear talks were made after hours of meetings with Khamenei.

Previously, Rouhani has demanded President Barack Obama to allow sanctions on Tehran to expire before he leaves office in January.



Rouhani added that Obama is "obliged" to let the sanctions expire and not sign the bill extending the blockade.

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.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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6 December 2016 16:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Hasanova

Turkeys Prime Minister Binali Yildirim used his first visit to Moscow as Turkish premier on December 6 to say the halt in relations between Russia and Turkey was over, Anadolu Agency reported.

Yildirim, addressing a conference at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) University, described November 2015s downing of a Russian warplane as an unfortunate event.

He said relations with Moscow had faced a "test" but added: "Thanks to mutual political will, we have endured the difficult situation."

He recalled the "normalization process" which started after the August 9 meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.

"Due to the nature of the region, we [as Russia, as Turkey] have a crucial duty. At the same time we have the responsibility in the region," Yildirim added.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who met with his Turkish counterpart on the same day, also stressed that Russia and Turkey have all possibilities to increase cooperation in economic and humanitarian spheres and implement major joint projects.

"We have the opportunity to build them, implement a lot of major joint projects and the task of this meeting is to give additional impetus to the economic, investment and humanitarian cooperation, Medvedev added.

Later, Binali Yildirim will be received by Russian President Vladimir Putin

A wide range of issues, including bilateral relations, particularly in the economic field, as well as regional and international developments will be discussed during Yildirim's visit.

Relations between Turkey and Russia broke down for about seven months after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015. However, relations have improved since the August meeting of the two presidents.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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Bakersfield, CA (93308)

Today

Overcast with rain showers at times. Low 47F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

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Overcast with rain showers at times. Low 47F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
China is willing to strengthen security cooperation and enhance dialogue and coordination on major international and regional issues with Djibouti, a senior Chinese military official said.

Fan Changlong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks when meeting with Zakaria Cheikh Ibrahim, Chief of General Staff of the Djibouti Armed Forces, on Monday, the Defense Ministry said.

China attaches great importance to Sino-Djibouti relations, Fan said, adding that relations between the two militaries are growing steadily.

The consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and his counterpart Ismail Omar Guelleh last year, which includes improving political trust, facilitating pragmatic cooperation, and jointly developing win-win situations and growth in developing countries have pointed the direction for cooperation for the two militaries, Fan added.

Zakaria said Djibouti appreciates China's support in building infrastructure. Djibouti is willing to make joint efforts with China to uphold the consensus made by top leaders, strengthen pragmatic cooperation and boost relations between the two militaries, he said.
NC spends millions to keep schools safe from intruders

System for checking teacher background is inadequate

NC DPI should adopt recommendations from 2010 SBE report or implement new legislation

"I'd say that our success rate is over 99 percent ... Of course having just one person in the classroom who should not be there is one too many. But in the big scheme of things, I think that our system has been effective over 99 percent of the time."

In recent years North Carolina has spent millions to make school buildings safe from intruders and ensure that school and emergency personnel can respond promptly to every eventuality ... from outside the school's walls. While policies have focused great attention and expense on addressing potential external threats, policymakers are however failing to ensure that students are safe and protected once they are inside the school.WRAL.com recently ran an excellent story about a Johnston county teacher, Latoya Snead, who over the course of three months earlier this year had sent hundreds of text messages to one of her eighth-grade male students. The texts, sent at all hours of the day and night, contained many expressions of the teacher's affection and compassion for the boy. The mother of the student discovered the texts and thought the teacher's actions clearly crossed the line. She contacted WRAL and school district authorities, who commenced an investigation. Snead was suspended by the school while the investigation was ongoing but later resigned her position.Several weeks later, however, Snead was hired as an eighth-grade teacher at Union Middle School in Sampson County. After learning of the WRAL.com investigation , Sampson County officials suspended Snead with pay, pending the results of their own investigation.Parents barely had time to catch their breath before the News & Observer reported last Friday that Devon Ross Lategan, a science teacher at Athens Drive High School in Raleigh, is facing felony criminal charges for having sex with a high school student when he worked at Henderson County Public Schools. According to a spokesman for the Wake County Public Schools, Lategan has been suspended with pay, pending the results of his case. Lategan resigned his teaching position with Wake County Public Schools on Nov. 28.The same story mentioned that earlier in the month another Wake County teacher, Timothy Allen Bennett, a music teacher at Sanderson High School, was also arrested on charges of having sex with a 17-year-old male student when Bennett worked at South Lenoir High School.These stories assault our moral senses and our sensibilities. They also shatter our vision of schools as safe and nurturing environments where children can learn, explore and grow. How does this happen? That's a question we must ask - especially when we're told we already have laws and administrative processes on the books to prevent such problems.What happened - or didn't happen - in Johnston and Sampson County in part helps to answer that question. Since Snead resigned her position in Johnston County before the conclusion of a formal investigation, there was no formal complaint, criminal allegation or paper trail following her. According to the WRAL investigation, after Snead resigned, Johnston County Schools forwarded the case to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which oversees cases involving ethics and teacher licensure. In the meantime, Snead was hired by Sampson County Schools because investigators found she had a "clean" record. When asked, Sampson County Schools officials said they had no knowledge of any investigation or allegations against Snead. School officials even said Snead had been a "model employee."When the Department of Public Instruction receives a case such as this, its Ethics Advisory Committee (EAC) handles the investigation. EAC makes recommendations to the state superintendent regarding teacher licensing and ethics. In mid-August the EAC recommended that Superintendent June Atkinson - who later agreed - "not to take any disciplinary action against your North Carolina teaching license", in reference to Ms. Snead.Mindboggling is the only way to describe the decision. However, the same word comes to mind when you realize EAC bureaucrats had not even seen the texts before they recommended that Atkinson not take any disciplinary action. When asked about the case, Atkinson said the committee never received the texts and that teacher licenses have been suspended for far less serious violations. Of course, you might also say EAC never asked for them, as dumbfounding as it sounds.You can't pass a law requiring all the evidence to be available before you make a major decision. That's a common sense test. Unfortunately, EAC, DPI and Johnston County Schools all flunked that test. The case clearly fell through the cracks.However, there are cracks that DPI seems unwilling to remedy. Johnston County officials said they sent materials to DPI. However, aside from licensure there was no other question DPI was investigating, even though they likely knew of the investigations. The problem is rooted in a lack of communication, from district to DPI or DPI to district. It's a simple step, but as you can see, when there is a lack of communication and a lack of uniform processes, and screening is inaccurate, it compromises the entire screening process. The consequences are significant.In light of these developments, Atkinson said the department is reviewing their processes. It was the right thing to say but inactions speak louder than words. This is not a new problem.In 2008, a young staff attorney with the State Board of Education, Katie Cornetto, saw a less-than-stellar system for checking teacher licensure and backgrounding. She saw a problem and pushed for a task force to address teacher licensing and ethics issues. (I blogged on this topic here .)In 2010 Atkinson received the report containing fifteen recommendations [i] . The recommendations included hiring more investigators to prosecute teacher misconduct, fingerprinting and allowing the State Board to share background information with local school districts. Six years later not one of the recommendations has been implemented.You could say nothing has happened. But that wouldn't be true - a lot has happened. A July 2015 news investigation by WNCN stated that between 2010 and 2015, North Carolina teachers have been charged more than 700 times with sexual misconduct with students.North Carolina's lax teacher backgrounding has earned the state a reputation for being a "cesspool" for the teaching profession. Teachers who were fleeing troubled pasts or are trying to find a new start might be more likely to resurface in North Carolina.How bad is the problem? Earlier this year, USA Today reported about the poor quality of systems tracking teacher discipline around the country. The article ranked states on the quality of their systems for checking teacher backgrounds. North Carolina was one of the worst offenders, having received a failing grade, F.Tonya Maxwell of the (Asheville) Citizen-Times wrote an excellent article about how this issue plays out in school districts across North Carolina - and how teachers with checkered backgrounds moved around from district to district.The report generated considerable discussion in North Carolina, as well as proposed legislation. In a News & Observer article on the subject, Atkinson defended the state's process for backgrounding teachers. Atkinson said some steps are being taken to ensure the identification of people who should not be in the classroom or get licenses, such as an electronic licensing system that incorporated automatic checks with a national database. Atkinson continued:I don't know if many of the students, parents or teachers involved in North Carolina public schools would agree with Atkinson's statements. Screening teachers to make sure our classrooms are safe learning environments and making sure districts have the information they need when making personnel decisions is something with which few would disagree.Last session, state Sen. Chad Barefoot (R-Wake) introduced the Protect Children in Schools Act that among other things would have provided for centralizing licensing in the State Board of Education. The bill also called for providing fingerprinting and criminal background histories to local boards of education. The bill, however, did not pass.While that's disappointing, it's important to realize legislation is not required to solve this problem. Many believe legislation is not even needed. DPI just needs to collect the right information and serve as a clearinghouse for background checking. It's not rocket science.What's even more disappointing is that there doesn't seem to be a will to correct this problem. That leaders of our state's education system tolerated lax protections for students and teachers for so long is shameful. If they are truly committed to keeping our schools safe, more needs to be done to protect our children.If they continue to do the same, we only guarantee the horror stories will continue. [i] The report is no longer available on the State Board of Education web site. When a copy is obtained, the link will be activated.
A Billings man who pleaded guilty to robbing a Billings casino in January was sentenced Monday to 10 years with the Montana Department of Corrections.

Steven Richard Gill, 39, was sentenced by Yellowstone County District Court Judge Gregory Todd for the Jan. 2 holdup of Gabbys Casino on Fifth Street West. Todd sentenced Gill to a 15-year commitment with the DOC and suspended five of those years.

In January, Gill entered the casino with another man while wearing ski masks, according to court documents. A casino employee told the men to show their faces. One of them then approached the bar, produced a gun and demanded money from the till.

Documents said Gill stood guard at the door with a can of bear spray. The gunman grabbed the cash the employee placed on the counter and left through the front door. Gill sprayed the bear spray into the casino as he left.

The men got away with about $2,300 and ran to Gill's truck parked nearby.
Another member of a seven-person forgery ring was charged Monday for her involvement in a manufactured-check scheme that stole more than $100,000.

Pacheco was charged for forging at least three checks amounting to more than $17,000 in stolen funds, according to court documents. Court documents named six other defendants. The court has sentenced Matthew Lee Dustin, 36, who was sentenced on Dec. 1 to 30 years in prison with 20 suspended.
HELENA  The State Board of Canvassers has signed off on the passage of a ballot initiative that will add a new "victims rights" section to Montana's Constitution, but it's unclear when the law will take effect.

Constitutional Initiative 116, also known as Marsy's Law, passed with 66 percent of the vote in November. But disagreement over when the law should be implemented twice last week stopped the board, which certifies election results, from validating its passage.

In a rapid response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Montana on Friday, the state Supreme Court ordered Secretary of State Linda McCulloch to not declare an effective date for the law. The court will now determine when the law takes effect.

The ACLU, along with two of the three board members  state Auditor Monica Lindeen and Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau  believed that the law should go into effect in July 2017, even though voters statewide saw on ballots the language:

CI-116, if passed by the electorate, will become effective immediately.

The confusion came about after the Justice Department, which sits under Attorney General Tim Fox, the board's third member, interpreted language in the law itself saying it is "self-executing" to mean immediately effective and added that language to the ballot title.

That ballot title was on the certificate the board must sign to approve results.

On Monday, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, who oversees elections and the board but is not a board member, said that based on legal advice she created an amended certificate that references the lawsuit and says the effective date of the law has not been determined. That's what representatives for the board members signed, and attached to it was the ballot title with the original language calling for an immediate effective date.

"We need to certify the ballot issue because we don't want to be in a lawsuit again for not certifying the ballot," McCulloch said. Monday was the deadline to certify election results. The board meets again Thursday to certify a recount of Senate District 26, which took place Monday in Billings. In that recount, Sen. Margie MacDonald won against Republican Don Roberts by 19 votes.

The lawsuit was brought by the ACLU, the Montana County Attorneys Association, the Montana League of Cities and Towns, the Montana Association of Counties, Lewis and Clark County Attorney Leo Gallagher and Helena City Attorney Thomas Jodoin.

McCulloch and Fox have two weeks to respond to the suit.

Chuch Denowh, Marsy's Law For Montana State director, said he was pleased with the board's actions. "I'm glad the Board of Canvassers has filled their duty," he said, adding he's frustrated with the lawsuit.

"It's ironic the ACLU would seek to delay creating rights for victims of crimes," he said.

The ACLU in a release last week said: "A July 1, 2017, effective date is not only legally required, but makes practical sense as it allows for organizations time to comply with the procedures mandated by CI 116."
A New Jersey state trooper killed in a head-on collision while on the job has Polk County ties.

Trooper Frankie Williams was 31 years old

Had recently joined NJ force, wed

Trooper Frankie Williams, 31, was killed Monday while responding to a call. He had only been an officer for a couple of months.

Williams was also a newlywed.

Polk County resident Derrick Bennett served as best man at Williams' wedding in Atlantic City.



"It's devastating for everybody. I feel so bad for Kim," Bennett said. "I was so glad to see them at their wedding, the happiest day of both of their lives. They were only married for less than two months."



The Polk County Sheriff's Office posted a tribute to Williams on its Facebook page.



Former neighbor Donna Wood, who also works at the Polk County Sheriff's Office, remembers Trooper Williams as "Frankie," the fearless little boy she used to watch play in her back yard. He grew up with Wood's children.



"It seemed like all the pieces in his life had finally come together and were fitting perfectly into a life he should have had, that he deserved. Unfortunately, it was cut entirely too short," Wood said.



It is unclear when Trooper Williams will be laid to rest.


HELENA  A state Senate seat in north-central Montana will have to be filled after it was announced Tuesday that Sen. Kristin Hansen, R-Havre, is stepping down to take a job in the state auditor's office under incoming Auditor Matt Rosendale.

Hansen sent her letter of resignation to the Secretary of State's office Tuesday.

She said her main motivation for resigning the seat and moving to the auditor's office, where she will be chief legal counsel, is the role she can play in heath insurance.

"I feel like the skyrocketing cost of health insurance is one of the biggest issues facing Montanans today," she said.

She said that whether president-elect Republican Donald J. Trump repeals the Affordable Care Act, as he promised during the campaign, or makes changes, the auditor's office will play a key role in what happens for Montana.

"The auditor's office will be responsible for implementing those policies and if Congress gets bogged down, the auditor's office has the ability and responsibility to see what can be done."

State law calls for the central committee of the departing senator's party to pick a group of candidates, who are voted on by county commissioners from the counties in the Senate district, in this case SD 14.

Those counties are Hill, Liberty, Cascade and Chouteau.

Andrew Brekke, chairman for Hill County Republican Central Committee, said the committee has started the process of gathering names and hopes a new senator is appointed by the start of or soon after the state Legislature convenes Jan. 2

Brekke said three Republican central committees  from Hill, Chouteau and Cascade counties  will decide on at least three candidates to send to the county commissioners, who will vote to pick the appointee. Liberty County does not have a central committee. He hopes to get the commissioners a list in the next 10 days.

I dont think its right to waste too much time, he said. It puts that individual at a disadvantage going into the session.

Brekke, who has gone through the process of appointing a replacement state legislator before, said its not uncommon for the commissioners to go through several votes before making their choice.

He didnt give names, but Brekke said among those being considered are a former legislator and people who have legislative experience. He is also looking at people who have run for the seat in the past. Others may submit their names for consideration, he said.

What were looking for in a candidate is someone who can serve the needs of a large rural district.We want someone with political experience. Becoming a senator is not a simple task.

He added hed like to see a candidate who would run to keep the seat in two years, when the term is up.

Within seven days of being notified of the vacancy, the secretary of state must notify the relevant county commissioners and party officials.

The county central committee has 45 days to propose a list of prospective appointees and send it to the county commissioners. The commissioners then have 15 days to vote and notify the Secretary of State of the appointee.

When it's time to vote on candidates, the chair of the board in the county where Hansen lives will call a meeting of the commissioners of the four counties.

Each commissioner's vote is weighted by the percent of Hansen's 2014 votes that came from his or her county and the amount of commissioners in the county.

For example, about 47 percent of Hansen's vote came from Hill County, which has three commissioners. That means each Hill County commissioner's vote will be worth about 15 points.

Each county has three commissioners. Hansen got 1,908 votes in Hill County, 1,326 in Chouteau, 581 in Liberty and 265 in Cascade.

The person who gets the most points above 50 will fill the seat and there must be a consensus among commissioners. If none of the candidates receives a number higher than 50, the selection board will cast its votes again for the two people who got the most points.

The process would be sped up to a five-day notification process, a five-day submission period and a five-day appointment period if the Legislature was in session.
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 were 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 began 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.

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 and 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.

Jergeson had many teens work with his 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 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 Chairman 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."

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, 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 aged 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 roleplaying 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 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."
The president and CEO of the Billings Chamber of Commerce has publicly called out a city councilman for comments he made during a Nov. 25 city council meeting.

In a Friday letter posted on the citys website and addressed to Mayor Tom Hanel and all council members, John Brewer wrote to Councilman Chris Friedel over Friedel's response to School District 2 Superintendent Terry Bouck. Bouck was one of at least a dozen local leaders to testify on behalf of an effort to lobby the Montana Legislature to allow communities to vote on whether to levy a local option tax.

When Bouck talked about how a similar move by the Washington Legislature had benefited communities in that state while Bouck was working there, Friedel, according to Brewer, replied something to the effect of, If you liked it there so much, why didnt you stay?

I left the meeting wondering if I heard you wrong or possibly misinterpreted your intent or tone because it sounded like you might be saying, You are not welcome here, Brewer wrote to Friedel. Based on emails, texts and phone calls I received, others were asking themselves the same thing.

Although you represent your designated Ward, Brewer wrote, I am sure you understand that as a community elected official, there is an expectation of statesmanship that is demanded in your very public role. A perceived insult to anyone, regardless of actual intent, can damage the councils credibility, let alone a perceived insult to someone such as Mr. Bouck whose tireless work for our community has brought him great esteem.

Bouck said Friday in an email he would have no comment on Brewers letter or Friedels comment. Friedel said following Mondays work session he would have no rebuttal to Brewers letter.

While the Billings City Code has little to say about the comportment of the city's top elected officials, the City Council Strategic Plan for 2015-2019 affirms four values: integrity, collaboration, stewardship and service.

Under integrity, the council says it strives through accessibility and transparency to earn the trust of the community to which we are responsible.

Collaboration is achieved by committing to provide opportunities to achieve common goals through positive communications and interaction with individuals, and with public and private organizations.

While theres nothing under stewardship that speaks to the comportment of council members, under service the council agrees to perform all of our duties by delivering services with courtesy and respect while meeting our customers needs.
Visitors to Wesley United Methodist Church's "Road to Bethlehem" were greeted with a census form to take with them on their journey through Bethlehem, which had taken shape in the church's auditorium. Roman guards led the way through the town as travelers learned about oil lamps, how to play dreidel and weave baskets and blankets on their way to see Joseph and Mary with newborn Jesus in a stable.
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Jefferson County Courthouse killer Bartholomew Granger is asking the state's highest criminal court to order a hearing to address his post-conviction claims, which have been rejected twice by a local judge.

Attorneys for Granger, who was sentenced to death in the fatal 2012 courthouse shooting of 79-year-old Minnie Ray Sebolt, say proceedings over the last several months have been "a sham" and that the court's conclusions, made from written pleadings, are unreliable without a hearing.

Granger alleges his trial lawyer was ineffective, and that prosecutors and jurors engaged in misconduct.

District Judge Kent Walston in 2015 ruled against Granger, but his appeal was delayed by an unusual conflict of interest. Former district judge Bob Wortham, who presided over Granger's trial, subsequently was elected Jefferson County district attorney, representing the state in the appeal.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in February ordered an independent prosecutor take over, which voided previous rulings and effectively reset the appeal process.

Thomas Roebuck was appointed as the new prosecutor and submitted a response to Granger's claims that was similar to the district attorney's.

Walston sided with Roebuck without conducting a hearing.

"The trial court did no more than hastily go through the same gestures all over again," Granger's Austin-based attorney, Gretchen Sween, wrote Friday.

Granger has argued he intended to kill Claudia Jackson, his daughter's mother, not Sebolt, who was a bystander.

Prosecutors acknowledge Granger targeted Jackson, who had previously testified against Granger in a sexual assault case. Because they won a conviction of Granger for retaliation against a witness, the charge was elevated to capital murder.

At trial, prosecutors successfully made a case that Granger's intent to kill Jackson transferred to Sebolt. The appeal relies largely on the argument that prosecutors could not transfer the intent of murder in a capital case.

On March 14, 2012, Granger opened fire in the courthouse parking lot during a break after his daughter and Jackson testified.

Granger shot his daughter and ran over her with his vehicle, but she survived. Another bystander was wounded and survived.

BScott@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/BrandonKScott
A state law capping the rate New Jersey hospitals and physicians can charge for involuntary out-of-network care would not threaten most providers' financial viability, Health Affairs argues in its December issue.

The study concerns a proposed New Jersey bill that aimed to mitigate financially devastating medical bills caused by involuntary out-of-network care by limiting providers' billing rate to between 90 and 250 percent of the corresponding Medicare rate.

The bill was tabled Monday after stirring heated debate among healthcare industry stakeholders this past legislative session.

To understand how the legislation could financially impact providers, Health Affairs' researchers used Health Care Cost Institute's database of 2014 claims information from Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare to examine the distribution of out-of-network inpatient claims in New Jersey, California and Florida.

Here are three report findings.

1. In New Jersey, 33 out of 60 hospitals had no out-of-network inpatient facility claims in 2014. This suggests regulating out-of-network inpatient rates would not financially affect a majority of state hospitals. Overall, about 38.2 percent of total admissions occurred at hospitals with no out-of-network in patient facility claims.

2. In California, 118 out 144 hospitals had no out-of-network inpatient facility claims. About 86.6 percent of total admissions occurred at hospitals that did not have any out-of-network inpatient facility claims.

3. In Florida, 102 out of 138 hospitals did not have out-of-network inpatient facility claims. About 47.8 percent of total admissions occurred at hospitals that did not have any out-of-network inpatient facility claims.

The findings contest a report published Nov. 23 by Rand Corporation and commissioned by for-profit CarePoint Health in Jersey City, N.J., which claimed regulating out-of-network billing rates could devastate the majority of New Jersey hospitals and physicians.

More articles on revenue cycle management:
New Jersey Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Woodbridge) abruptly canceled the committee hearing for a bill designed to rein in out-of-network charges by hospitals and physicians due to concern from industry stakeholders, reports The Record.

"Over the course of this past weekend, we have heard from a number of stakeholders who have long supported the bill, asking that we allow additional time," Sen. Vitale said in a statement.

A number of changes made to the proposed legislation during the negotiation process raised concern among some supporters, who requested additional time to fully understand the bill before submitting it for consideration to a budget and appropriations committee.

Under current New Jersey law, patients who involuntarily receive out-of-network care in emergency situations are billed at the hospital's in-network rate for the same services. The patient's insurance company is responsible for footing any outstanding costs.

Proposed legislation, known as the Out-of-network Consumer Protection, Transparency, Cost Containment and Accountability Act, would have limited the amount hospitals can bill insurance companies for involuntary out-of-network care to between 90 percent and 250 percent of the corresponding Medicare payment rate.This aimed to prohibit providers from billing patients for the difference between the insurer's in-network payment rate and the provider's out-of-network charge.

New Jersey Bill A1952 was one of the most lobbied bills in the last legislative session.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa  Montana State University Billings Chancellor Mark Nook has been selected as the 11th president of the University of Northern Iowa.

Nook was unanimously selected by the Iowa Board of Regents Tuesday afternoon. He has been serving as MSU Billings chancellor since 2014. He starts his new job Feb. 1, 2017.

The Iowa Board of Regents approved Nook for a three-year contract, and he will receive an annual salary of $358,110.

He joined MSUB just as the school began to implement sharp cuts to its budget in response to sliding enrollment. The school's full-time equivalent student count has dropped 19 percent since 2006.

As a result, Nook oversaw the beginning of a $4.4 million budget cut that continues through the 2017 fiscal year.

As enrollment dropped again this fall, the university shifted focus to retention and recruitment programs. Gains in performance-based funding helped the effort.

MSUB is also in the middle of a $5 million fundraising campaign, led by the university foundation, to fund a renovation to its science building. Earlier this fall, the school received approval to launch an online bachelor's degree program for nursing students who completed the two-year program at City College.

Clayton Christian, Montana commissioner of higher education, said that there's never a good time for a university's top official to leave, but he congratulated Nook on the opportunity.

As part of the Montana University System, MSUB reports to Montana State University in Bozeman. MSU President Waded Cruzado will aid in the selection process to find Nook's replacement.

I am very proud of Mark and knew he had the leadership abilities to be president. The University of Northern Iowa has made a wise choice and I know UNIs students, faculty, staff and alumni will enjoy working with Mark, Cruzado said in a release.

Aaron Clingingsmith, director of university relations at MSUB, and Cruzado said that Nook sought the UNI position in part because it brought him closer to family. Nook is an Iowa native.

Were happy for Mark and Cheryl in that it's an opportunity for them to return home," Clingingsmith said. "To understand that the opportunity at UNI is once-in-a-lifetime. Were happy at this juncture that hes been selected and look forward to working through the transition process.

He will be heading up a significantly larger university. UNI has roughly four times the student population as MSUB.

Nook stressed in his public forum on the UNI campus last week that he saw the UNI community as special, one that worked to shape the future leaders of Iowa in Iowa.

I believe the future is bright of regional comprehensive universities, public comprehensive universities but especially here, because I have seen a commitment from the students, from the faculty and the staff to making this a place focused on student success, Nook said.

Jim Wohlpart, one of the finalists and UNIs provost and executive vice president of academic affairs, has held the interim president position at UNI since July, when former UNI President Bill Ruud left to take a position as president of the small, liberal arts Marietta College in Ohio. Ruud announced his departure in May.

The UNI presidential search committee has been meeting since August to name a successor to Ruud.

It initially looked at 46 applicants, which was narrowed in October to seven semi-finalists. Six of those semi-finalists interviewed at an off-site location in November, and four were selected as finalists.

Three finalists ultimately came to campus last week to interview for the job.

Aside from Nook, the finalists were Wohlpart and former Temple University President Neil Theobald.

The search committee offered little insight during a Monday meeting on the UNI campus. The committee met in closed session to discuss the finalists campus visits and the results of surveys from faculty, staff, students, administration and community members. It then spent an hour in closed session with the Iowa Board of Regents to continue that discussion.

The board met each of the candidates in person Tuesday for a 90-minute interview. It deliberated for about 90 minutes before announcing its selection.

UNIs United Faculty expressed its strong support for the selection of Nook. United Faculty President Joe Gorton said the search process and Nooks selection reflect well on the search committee.

I think the board and the committee deserve to be congratulated on a job well done. Their methods align closely with presidential search guidelines established by the American Association of University Professors, Gorton said in a statement.

He added the boards decision is consistent with the findings from our survey of UNI professors and instructors.

While Gorton noted the executive experience Nook has as a likely factor in him getting the position, he said its also important that he is eager to have a genuine collaboration with faculty.

The search for the next MSUB chancellor will be coordinated through MSUB and MSU in Bozeman, which oversees the Billings institution. Christian's office, which includes the Board of Regents, will have to sign off on the final selection.

Christian said that the process will begin immediately, though they will want to be able to conduct much of the search when students, faculty and staff return from winter break.

We want to make sure that were ready to hit the ground running when hes ready to move to his next job and well go from there," he said. "Its kind of a challenging time for us, because we certainly want to do this stuff while faculty and students are on campus.
A nurse at Glendale (Calif.) Adventist Medical Center was fired Nov. 30 after accessing more than 500 patient records without authorization, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Glendale Adventist officials discovered the breach during a security review in June. Officials later uncovered that the source of the breach was an employee and not an external hack.

The nurse accessed 528 patients' information without authorization, including 88 records from Glendale Adventist's sister hospital White Memorial Medical Center based in Boyle Heights, Calif.

Glendale Adventist officials did not disclose what type of information was accessed, but officials said it's possible the data included patient demographics, names, dates of birth, addresses, diagnoses and Social Security numbers.

Medical center officials have reportedly notified all affected patients of the breach.

"We take this breach very seriously, and as a result we are taking additional steps to both ensure this event is resolved as well as ensuring these events don't happen in the future," a hospital statement reads.
President-elect Donald Trump officially plans to nominate Ben Carson, MD, retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate, for the office of Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Trump-Pence transition team announced Monday morning.

"Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities," Mr. Trump said in the nomination statement. "We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up."

Dr. Carson said in the statement he is honored to accept the HUD position. Though Dr. Carson does not have government experience, he overcame a "troubled youth" in inner-city Detroit to become a neurosurgeon. Dr. Carson was named one of the Library of Congress' "Living Legends," one of the 20 the most prominent physicians and scientists by CNN and Time magazine, and a Spingarn Medal recipient, the NAACP's highest honor.

"I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need," Dr. Carson said in the statement. "We have much work to do in enhancing every aspect of our nation and ensuring that our nation's housing needs are met."

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President Barack Obama recently made a public appeal on social media, calling for the protection of the ACA by encouraging Americans to sign up for health coverage.

His appeal came via a Facebook video posted Friday afternoon. In the video, President Obama touts the ACA, pointing to the approximately 20 million additional people who have gained insurance coverage under the health law. He then encouraged people to sign up for insurance coverage.

"If you haven't gotten covered, now is the time to do it. You can go to Healthcare.gov right now and with a few clicks start comparing plans to see which one is right for you and your family," he said, adding that more than 2 million Americans signed up in the first month of open enrollment, which began Nov. 1.

He went on to acknowledge President-elect Donald Trump's plans to repeal the ACA.

"I know that lately there's been yet another debate in Washington about healthcare reform, and it might make it sound like your insurance is somehow at risk, but here's the bottom line: the most important thing for you to do is to get you and your family covered right away for 2017," the president said. "Enrollment is open right now but only until Jan. 31. If you sign up by Dec. 15, youll be covered starting Jan. 1."

He added, "Repealing the ACA would take away the protections that millions of Americans rely on Don't let Republicans in Congress take us back to the days when you could be denied insurance for having a pre-existing condition or you could be charged more simply for being a woman. Tell them you want to build on the progress we've made, not abandon it."

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The following healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships took place or were announced in the past week.

1. UMass Memorial moves forward with plan to merge 2 hospitals

UMass Memorial Health Care, a four-hospital system based in Worcester, Mass., moved forward with plans to merge two of its hospitals in Leominster, Mass., and Clinton, Mass.

2. Radiology Partners adds 16 sites, expands partnerships in Midwest, Texas

El Segundo, Calif.-based Radiology Partners added 16 sites through newly created and expanded partnerships with various hospital and health systems in the Midwest and Texas.

3. OCH Health System to purchase Oklahoma clinic

Springfield, Mo.-based Ozarks Community Hospital Health System will acquire Jay (Okla.) Family Medicine Clinic, effective Jan. 1.

4. Longtime rivals Carolinas, Novant in talks to collaborate care for distressed neighborhoods

The CEOs of Charlotte, N.C.-based Carolinas HealthCare System and Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health launched a partnership to improve access to healthcare for distressed communities in Charlotte, N.C.

5. 2 Connecticut radiology practices collaborate on new venture

East Hartford, Conn.-based Jefferson Radiology and Shelton, Conn.-based Advanced Radiology Consultants partnered to launch a new collaborative entity.

6. Medical facility sells for $29.8M in California

A medical device manufacturing facility in Morgan Hill, Calif. sold for $29.8 million.

7. Medtronic to help manage UH Cleveland Medical Center's labs

Dublin, Ireland-based Medtronic and Cleveland-based University Hospitals signed an agreement allowing Medtronic to manage select laboratories at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

8. Global Medical REIT to acquire three hospitals for $68M

Bethesda, Md.-based Global Medical REIT will purchase three rehabilitation hospitals for an aggregate of $68,093,000.

9. North Kansas City Hospital to partner with local health center for prenatal care

North Kansas City (Mo.) Hospital partnered with Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center, also in Kansas City, to provide area patients better access to prenatal care.

10. WellSpan Health purchases Rothsville Medical Center

York, Pa.-based WellSpan Health purchased Lititz, Pa.-based Rothsville Medical Center.

11. Cherokee County approves partnership with Northside Hospital-Cherokee

The Cherokee County board of commissioners approved a partnership agreement with Canton, Ga.-based Northside Hospital-Cherokee to support local child safety and wellness programs.

12. Highland Hospital calls off deal with Acadia Healthcare

Highland Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Charleston, W.Va., called off an agreement to sell its facilities to Franklin, Tenn.-based Acadia Healthcare.

13. Quorum Health completes sale of NC hospital

Quorum Health Corp., the 38-hospital spinoff of Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, sold 64-bed Sandhills Regional Medical Center in Hamlet, N.C., to First Health of the Carolinas in Pinehurst, N.C.

14. Neshoba Regional Medical Center ends affiliation with Anderson Regional

Philadelphia, Miss.-based Neshoba General Hospital officials said the hospital plans to end its loose affiliation with Meridian, Miss.-based Anderson Regional Medical Center.

15. Nebraska cancer center to partner with Chinese hospital

Omaha-based University of Nebraska Medical Center signed an agreement for its cancer center to become sister hospitals with the Hubei Cancer Hospital in the Hubei Province in China.

16. SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital, NAACP team up to provide scholarship

Mt. Vernon, Ill.-based SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital and the Jefferson County, Ill., branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons teamed up to provide a $2,500 scholarship to eligible participants.
Police arrested a 21-year-old man on Monday for reportedly attempting to enter Pekin (Ill.) Hospital with a gun, according to the Woodford Times.

Pekin Police Public Information Officer Mike Eeten told the Woodford Times that a relative of Brandon Ihnes contacted police early Monday morning and said Mr. Ihnes was on his way to Pekin Hospital and may have a gun.

The hospital was placed on lockdown while police inside and outside the facility looked for Mr. Ihnes, according to the report.

Authorities said Mr. Ihnes was in possession of a gun when police arrested him shortly before 8:00 a.m. on Monday as he was attempting to enter the hospital. Police do not know why he was going to the hospital with the gun.

Mr. Ihnes was charged with possession of a firearm without a Firearm Owners Identification card or a concealed carry permit. On Monday, he was being held in Tazewell County jail.

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The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled that Pittsburgh-based health giants UPMC and Highmark Health should settle their feud over the pricing of cancer treatment services in court, reports The Legal Intelligencer.

Here are seven things to know about the feud.

1. The feud between UPMC and Highmark dates back to 2010, when Highmark claims UPMC began overbilling for its oncology drugs and services. In April 2014, Highmark changed its fee schedule and stopped paying UPMC the higher rates, which cost UPMC about $200 million in reimbursements annually.

2. UPMC claimed Highmark changing its fee schedule was a breach of the their contract.

3. While the dispute was going on, UPMC, Highmark and state representatives prepared a consent decree as part of a transition plan to address how the organizations should handle the expiration of commercial contracts that were set to end in 2014.

4. Shortly after UPMC and Highmark entered into the consent decree, Highmark sued UPMC for breach of contract and unjust enrichment, challenging the allegedly inflated oncology bills dating back to 2010, the report states.

5. UPMC claimed the terms of the consent decree required the dispute to be settled through arbitration and asked the court to dismiss Highmark's suit.

6. The Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas determined that only the underlying contracts, and not the consent decree, should be relevant to the feud and rejected UPMC's attempts to dismiss the case, according to the report. A unanimous three-judge panel of the superior court affirmed the lower court's decision Dec. 2.

7. Superior Court Judge John T. Bender noted that the state attorney general's office, the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance and the state health department had exclusive jurisdiction to enforce the terms of the consent decree, and it was clear those state agencies had not done so, reports The Legal Intelligencer.

"If Highmark violated the consent decree by filing this lawsuit, commonwealth officials  and, notably, not UPMC  have exclusive jurisdiction to enforce the arbitration provisions of the consent decrees and compel Highmark to dismiss this lawsuit," Judge Bender said. "It is undisputed between the parties that commonwealth officials have taken no such enforcement action to stop this litigation from proceeding. Further, because commonwealth officials have not sought to dismiss this lawsuit or compel arbitration, we must conclude that the arbitration provisions in the consent decree do not require arbitration of the issues raised in Highmark's complaint."

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A 27-year-old woman who was an employee of Florida Hospital Celebration Health was found dead at the hospital on Monday, according to a WFTV news report.

The Osceola County Sheriff's Office is investigating the woman's death. Police said the woman, whose name has not been released, was found in a "workroom" in the hospital.

The cause of the woman's death has not been released. Authorities told WFTV the death is not suspicious.

Florida Hospital did not immediately respond to Becker's request for comment.

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American Medical Association President Andrew Gurman, MD, issued a statement Monday in support of blocking Aetna's acquisition of Humana.

The two payers are up against the U.S. Department of Justice in a second antitrust trial that began Monday, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

"Together [Aetna and Humana] would create an insurer Goliath with the market power to raise premiums, lower plan quality and eliminate choice for a vulnerable population of seniors in the Medicare Advantage program," Dr. Gurman said in a statement. As two of the four largest sellers of Medicare Advantage plans, a merger would put seniors at risk, Dr. Gurman said.

Despite Aetna's argument the merger would lower costs by creating efficiencies, Dr. Gruman cited an AMA analysis that found the proposed merger would reduce competition in 19 states. Reduced competition would increase costs, he said.

"The AMA stands by the conclusion that Medicare Advantage is a distinct product market where competition is important and Aetna's argument to the contrary  that it competes with the federal government offering traditional Medicare  is a flawed defense of a highly anticompetitive merger."

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The following payers made headlines this past week. They are listed below, beginning with the most recent.

1. Anthem, Owensboro Health to add 50 physicians to network

Indianapolis-based Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Owensboro (Ky.) Health are in negotiations to expand in-network care in western Kentucky and southern Indiana.

2. BCBS may fine Anthem $3B if Cigna deal closes

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association could make Anthem pay a $3 billion noncompliance fee if Anthem acquires Cigna but fails to bring in the majority of the resulting insurer's revenue through Blue-branded plans.

3. Anthem starts Cigna deal defense

Anthem officials testified for the company's $54 billion acquisition of Cigna Nov. 29, arguing the resulting entity would be innovative and not compromise health insurance marketplace competition.

4. Aetna says ACA withdrawal is a 'sideshow' in antitrust case

As Aetna and Humana head to trial Dec. 5 to defend Aetna's $37 billion acquisition of Humana, Aetna says its decision to leave the majority of ACA exchanges it participated in this year should not hold clout over the court's ruling.

5. Humana, JSA Medical Group link up for Florida Medicare Advantage practice

Louisville, Ky.-based Humana and St. Petersburg, Fla.-based JSA Medical Group partnered for one primary care practice in Humana's Florida Medicare Advantage network.

6. Aetna-Humana trial commences this week

U.S. District Judge John Bates will begin hearing testimonies from Aetna and Humana Dec. 5 as they defend their $37 billion acquisition agreement against a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit.

7. AlohaCare names Laura Esslinger CEO

Honolulu-based nonprofit payer AlohaCare appointed Laura Esslinger CEO effective Dec. 1.

8. Sutter Health negotiates contract renewals with Blue Shield, other insurers

Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health is in talks with Blue Shield, Cigna and Health Net regarding contract renewals for 2017.

9. Cigna projects $2B in operating profits this year

Ahead of investor and analyst meetings Cigna plans to attend over the next several weeks, the Bloomfield, Conn.-based payer disclosed its full-year operating profits will surpass $2 billion, according to a Nov. 28 regulatory filing.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas will drop Arlington-based Texas Health Resources from its network Jan. 1, unless the two organizations reach a new contract by the end of the year, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The insurer said THR's demands for higher reimbursement rates have caused contract negotiations to break down.

"As one of the major insurance companies in the state, we have been tasked with trying to bring some sanity to the price structure," Paul Hain, MD, market president for Blue Cross in North Texas told The Dallas Morning News. "Negotiations are difficult when providers demand huge increases ... because the rates are already way too high."

Dr. Hain said THR has requested a $57 million increase to the existing contract. Texas Health Resources CEO Barclay Berdan told The Dallas Morning News that number "should be taken with a truckload of salt."

Mr. Berdan said the health system is dedicated to reaching an agreement with BCBS of Texas.

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China's school pupils ranked in the top ten for science and maths in the latest international assessment of educational standards published on Tuesday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The organisation's influential Programme for International Student Assessment, better known as the "Pisa test", assesses the attainment of half a million 15-year-olds in more than 70 countries and regions in science, maths and reading every three years.

Singapore topped the rankings in all three subjects, ahead of schools in Europe and north and south America. Shanghai came first in earlier tests but in the latest assessment it was grouped with Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong to achieve an overall mainland score of 10th in science and 6th in maths.

In reading, the mainland regions came in at 27th place, around the international average.

Among the other Asian school systems that made it into the top 10 for maths were Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

In a separate report on China, identified as one of a trio of top performers alongside Singapore and Estonia, the OECD noted that it had in recent years made great efforts to promote the equity and quality of the education system, focusing attention on disadvantaged regions and people.

It said that in 2015, the year the latest tests were carried out, China had faced the challenge that more than 13.5 million students were internal migrants, mostly having moved with their parents from rural areas to cities.

"In recent years, more than 80 percent of migrant children studied in local public schools, and up to 86 percent of migrant children were supported by government finances," the report said, adding that some 15 percent of the students in state schools who sat the Pisa test were migrant students.

At the launch of the report in London, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria cautioned even the top performers not to be complacent.

"A decade of scientific breakthroughs has failed to translate into breakthroughs in science performance in schools," he said.

"Every country has room for improvement, even the top performers. With high levels of youth unemployment, rising inequality, a significant gender gap, and an urgent need to boost inclusive growth in many countries, more must be done to ensure every child has the best education possible."
Perhaps we can help Donald Trump bring us together on the most important issue facing humankind. More than 97 percent of climate scientists have given him a flying start. Theyve proven that global warming is real, and we are causing it by burning too much fossil fuel. Backed by that scientific consensus, hopefully he can demonstrate his leadership ability by bringing climate change deniers and doubters on board. Eighteen U.S. scientific organizations and the National Academies of Science from 80 countries want to help. They already support the consensus view.

Their scientists are joined by every major religious faith in officially acknowledging that human-caused climate change is not a hoax. Climate change and our reinforcement of it no more requires a belief to be real than does gravity. The damage were doing to the planet has not and will not spare the children of deniers, Democrats or Republicans. Since, faith leaders want to see the country unite, joining with them on this issue would be a good place to begin.

In Trump's own political party, four (Republican) former Environmental Protection Agency administrators also know human-caused climate change is not a hoax. Please bring the rest of the GOP together with them.

And those secret briefings Trump will now get? Many of us respect the generals involved. Their studies advise of threats to U.S. national security within the next 20 years posed by global warming: political instability, mass refugee migration, terrorism, or conflicts over water and other resources. They conclude that human-caused climate change is at least as great a threat to our security as terrorism. Surely we can be duty-bound together in support of our military and intelligence professionals from the National Intelligence Council classified study for Congress, Council on Foreign Relations, Center for Navel Analysis, CIA, U.S. Defense Department and Institute for Strategic Studies.

Nobody wants to see projections from the World Bank and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change come true. They warn that unless we put the brakes on global warming, more economic migrants will be clamoring at our door as increased desertification and higher seas from melting ice help drive hundreds of millions from their homes to ours.

And the Paris Climate Accord Trump vowed to scuttle  as of Nov. 23, 114 nations completed the process with ratification. They comprise 78.96 percent of global CO2 emissions.

We owe a debt to fossil fuel workers who built our world economy. They should not be disadvantaged because the world is transitioning to an economy where electricity from the wind and sun is now cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuel. The Pew Research Centers May-June 2016 poll indicated support for renewable energy is overwhelming. It found 89 percent of us want more solar farms; 83 percent want more wind farms. Thus, fossil fuel workers will need climate justice along with those in countless areas becoming dryer or more riddled with the stronger cold and warm weather becoming the norm in our changing climate. We must care for fossil fuel workers, just as we need to look after the innumerable jobs in agricultural, ocean-food, ski, sport-fishing, tourism and other industries that will continue to be damaged if we warm the earth even more.

So be a great leader Mr. President-elect. Bring us together. Embrace the POWER+ plan put forth by President Obama to help coal communities find new routes to economic prosperity. Or champion similar measures suggested by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders which ease acceptance into the renewable energy economy. Humankind needs bold leadership to survive.
Four staff members at the Oklahoma Veterans Center at Talihina resigned after staff discovered maggots in the wound of a resident who later died, according to Tulsa World.

Myles Deering, executive director of the Oklahoma VA center, which is designed to provide nursing care to veterans, said the maggots were discovered while 73-year-old Owen Peterson was alive, but the maggots did not play a role in his death. Instead, Mr. Peterson died Oct. 3 of sepsis resulting from an infection, Mr. Deering told the World

Mr. Deering said staff members discovered the maggots and the organization reported the incident to the Oklahoma State Department of Health and the district attorney to see if charges should be filed, according to the report.

The VA center reportedly conducted an internal investigation into the incident. A physician's assistant and three nurses, including the director of nursing, resigned in the wake of the investigation, according to the report.

Jamie Dukes, a spokesperson for the state DOH, said the agency received the incident report on Oct. 13. Ms. Dukes said based on the report, DOH officials concluded that "the [VA center] fully investigated the incident and took any appropriate actions," according to the article.

District Attorney Jeff Smith said his office had not yet received the report, but was made aware of the incident by the VA facility.

Beckers Hospital Review reached out to the Oklahoma VA center for comment. A spokesperson for the VA center said the agency is no longer commenting on the incident because the investigation has been officially closed.
A dentist working at the Tomah (Wis.) Veterans Affairs Medical Center put nearly 600 patients at risk for infection by not following proper sterilization protocols.

The dentist subsequently resigned after state politicians expressed outrage at the dentist's continued employment after the hospital announced the lapse in sterilization protocols, according to the Journal Sentinel.

On Nov. 29, Victoria Brahm, acting director of the VA hospital, announced the VA was in the process of notifying 592 veterans treated by the dentist from October 2015 to October 2016 about potential exposure to hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV. The VA is offering these patients free screenings for these illnesses and will provide treatment for those found to be infected. On Dec. 2, Ms. Brahm reported the dentist had resigned prior to a summary review board meeting to determine if firing was warranted, according to the Journal Sentinel.

The former VA dentist was reportedly using his own tools, cleaning them and reusing them, thereby violating the VA's regulations, which call for the use of sterile and disposable equipment.

"During all of the orientation, he used all of our equipment," said Ms. Brahm at a news conference, according to the Sentinel. "He used it appropriately, so it was very purposeful from what we found in our investigation that he knew exactly what he was doing and preferred to use his own equipment against procedure."

According to the Sentinel, the VA referred the case to the inspector general to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

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The Forbes Healthcare Summit, which took placeoccurred in New York City last week, featured an unlikely critic of high drug prices: Regeneron Pharmaceutical's CEO Leonard Schleifer.

During a panel entitled "Restoring Pharma's Reputation," Mr. Schleifer accused fellow pharmaceutical executives  sitting on stage with him  of raising drug prices to hide a lack of innovation, reports Bloomberg.

"The real reason we're not liked, in my opinion, is because we as an industry have used price increases to cover up the gaps in innovation. That's just a fact," he said during the discussion, according to the report. "It's ridiculous ... I hate us also when I see all this stuff."

Joining Mr. Schleifer on the panel were Ian Read, CEO of Pfizer; David Ricks, incoming CEO of Eli Lilly & Co.; Jim Robinson, president of U.S. operations for Astellas Pharma and John Milligan, PhD, CEO of Gilead Sciences.

Mr. Read responded to Mr. Schleifer's comments saying that despite individual price increases, "the total cost of drugs as a percentage of healthcare has not changed in two decades," according to Business Insider.

The discussion quickly turned into a shouting match, which ended when another panelist jumped in to say the drug industry should present a unified message regarding drug prices. As the conversation continued, Mr. Read and Mr. Schleifer found common ground regarding issues with unfairly low drug prices in Europe.

The two men embraced after the panelists left the stage, reports Business Insider.

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Jakob Riis, president of the Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, posted an open letter on the company's website Wednesday, vowing he would not raise the list price of any medicine by more than a single-digit percentage annually, reports STAT News.

In the letter, Mr. Riis discussed the company's position on drug affordability and listed three main initiatives the company will take that revolve around creating more pricing predictability, transforming the drug pricing system and reducing the burden of out-of-pocket costs to patients.

"We hear from more and more people living with diabetes about the challenges they face affording healthcare, including the medicines we make. We take this issue seriously and have been thinking about what we can do to better support patients," Mr. Riss wrote in the letter. "This has become a responsibility that needs to be shared among all those involved in healthcare and were going to do our part."

Mr. Riis' initiative follows the stance Allergan CEO Brent Saunders took against high drug prices in September when he promised to limit price increases through a social contract with consumers.

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The Senate Finance Committee is releasing a new report, outlining recommendations for hospitals concerning concurrent surgeries, according to Boston Globe.

Here are five takeaways:

1. The committee asked hospitals to ban surgeons from performing concurrent surgeries, which involve the same surgeon performing two operations, "whose critical parts occur at the same time," according to Boston Globe.

2. Additionally, the committee stated hospitals should clearly note when it proves safe for surgeons to schedule overlapping surgeries, by pinpointing the critical sections of each surgery and ensuring they don't coincide.

3. The Senate Finance Committee also recommended allowing anesthesiologists to cancel procedures if surgeons don't inform patients of overlapping surgeries or plan on performing concurrent surgeries.

4. Opponents of concurrent surgeries argue surgeons face difficulties in focusing fully on two patients, which they fear could lead to patient safety issues.

5. Although the American College of Surgeons released guidelines in April 2016 suggesting hospitals tell patients if their surgeon is elsewhere during the surgery, the new Senate report argued these voluntary guidelines are too lax.





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With not one but two Michelin starred Belfast restaurants, and numerous award winning eateries and producers, Northern Irelands food experiences are most firmly on the gastronomic map.

Michelin Starred Food Experiences in Northern Ireland

Earning its Michelin Star in 2015, Ox Belfast, with its stunning riverside location, offers views across to the Titanic Quarter and a fantastic array of flavoursome dishes and fine wines. With a changing seasonal menu, crafted with only the freshest of ingredients, Deanes Eipic  awarded their Michelin Star in 2015  is the creation of renowned Belfast restauranteur, Michael Deane.

Retaining its Michelin Bib Gourmand status in 2016, Northern Irelands James Street South, Deanes at Queens and Home in Belfast, alongside Fontana in Holywood and the Old Schoolhouse Inn in Lisbane, County Down are proof that our food scene is best in class.

Newcomers to the Bib Gourmand accolade, Wine & Brine in Moira, County Armagh received the title for the first time and was recently crowned the UKs Best Local Restaurant by The Good Food Guide. With a keenly priced menu and locally sourced produce a core part of the restaurants offering, diners can expect a showcase of pickled, brined and fermented foods served with a unique approach.

Joining the award winning eateries are seven of Northern Irelands pubs, six of whom hail from County Down. So if youre out and about in the county check out the Pheasant in Annahilt, the Parsons Nose and Plough Inn, Hillsborough, Pier 36 in Donaghadee, Balloo House in Killinchy and the Poachers Pocket in Comber. Also included in the Michelin Eating Out In Pubs Guide 2017 is Billy Andys, near Larne.

Award Winning Food Experiences

In Armagh city youll also find 4 Vicars Hill, winner of the Georgina Campbells Casual Dining Restaurant of the Year 2017. Situated in a beautiful converted Georgian listed building, and adjacent to 5 Vicars Hill - a Grade A listed building that houses a number of historic collections  the restaurant serves the best of local produce in a 'simple and elegant way'.

We love to give visitors an authentic taste of Northern Ireland  its just in our nature! Ask anyone about a food experience in Northern Ireland and St Georges Market in Belfast is sure to crop up in conversation. Recently awarded 'Best Market' at the annual Observer Food Monthly Awards, its the ultimate foodie hotspot.

Read more at discovernorthernireland.com
Hilden Brewing Company was established in 1981 by Seamus and Ann Scullion. Northern Ireland Tourist Board

Discover Northern Ireland travels the highways and byways on a brewery tour, but dont forget the designated driver!

Given our love of a great brew, where better to start our tour than at S D Bells in Belfast, Irelands oldest independent tea importers and coffee roasters.

Sit back and savour one of the many exquisite teas, or sample a fine coffee, at one of their famous Javva Jazz brunches.

Refreshed and ready to hit the road, we take the short trip into Belfast city centre to the award-winning John Hewitt Bar.

Located in Belfasts Cathedral Quarter, we meet Gerry White, Manager and purveyor of Jawbox Belfast Dry Gin, Irelands first 'single estate gin'.

Created in association with Echinville Distillery, Gerry says the gin has a juniper berry profile and a more classic flavour than other small-batch varieties available on the market.

We continue the gin theme and travel through the stunning countryside of Co Down to our next stop, Rademon Estate Distillery in Crossgar. Here we meet husband and wife team David and Fiona Boyd-Armstrong producers of Shortcross Gin, Northern Irelands first premium craft gin.

With the help of their enormous bespoke still, they mix their home-grown botanicals with imported juniper and other quality ingredients to produce Shortcross Premium Gin.

We leave Downpatrick and travel through the spectacular mountainous landscape of the Mournes to our next destination, Kilkeel. Here we visit Northern Irelands largest microbrewery, Whitewater Brewery.

Producing a fine selection of cask beers, a lager in keg and three bottled beers, Whitewater has a string of awards to its name, including gold stars in the Great Taste Awards 2015.

Its time to walk to the Cider Mill

Onwards and upwards we go to the orchard county of Ireland, Armagh. Here we meet with two local cider producers, Long Meadow Cider and Armagh Cider Company.

A family-run business, Long Meadows motto is 'From Plant to Pour  the perfect drink, and their Irish Craft Cider is 100% natural with no concentrates, artificial colours or ingredients added.

Their neighbouring brewer, the Troughton Family, produce a range of ciders, apple juice and cider vinegars all hand crafted and completely natural. Established in 2005, the Armagh Cider Company was the first commercial draft cider company in Northern Ireland.

We cross the county border, astride the Sperrin Mountains, into Tyrone where we meet with Darren Nugent, Owner of Pokertree Brewing Company.

Named after a famous local legend from the village of Carrickmore, the brewery hand crafts small batch beer, with every brew fermented and conditioned in the traditional way.

Double the Brew

Our penultimate pit stop is Derry~Londonderry, where we have the pleasure of visiting two breweries  Northbound and the Walled City Brewery.

Northbound Brewery, under the guidance of Master Brewer, David Rogers, believes all of our senses should be used when savouring beers which has led him to bottle their brew in 500ml beer bottles  better for savouring, he says!

Opening its premises on the historic former army base in Ebrington Square, owner James Hueys fully operational brewery, the Walled City Brewery, provides locals and tourist with a taste of the North West with its craft beers and onsite restaurant.

Brewing up a storm in Belfast

We take leave of the walled city and head back towards Belfast where our final stop is the Hercules Brewing Company. The first craft brewery to open in Belfast in 160 years, it originally operated in Hercules Street in Belfast between 1845 and 1855.

Its small batch brew lager, Yardsman, pays homage to the great men who worked in the Linen mills, yards and factories.

Of course, Northern Ireland has many more fantastic brewers and distillers to visit including our legendary Old Bushmills Distillery and Hilden Brewery, to name but a few.

Find out more at discovernorthernireland.com
Almost 500 jobs are to be cut by engineering company Doosan Babcock

Engineering group Doosan Babcock is to cut almost 500 jobs across its UK sites, with the majority in Scotland.

The company, which employs around 3,800 people across the UK, said the bulk of the positions affected are in management, back-office support services and at the machining and assembly facility in Renfrew, which is to close.

A total of 470 jobs are at risk and a consultation has started with affected staff.

Doosan said 800 people are employed at its Renfrew site with 270 of the workforce to be involved in the consultation process, 40 of whom are employed in the machining and assembly facility.

A spokesman said the Renfrew facility will continue to focus on areas such as thermal, nuclear, renewables and asset integrity management.

Other Doosan UK sites are in Newcastle, Cumbria, Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Bristol and Crawley.

Doosan, which provides services to the energy, pharmaceutical and petrochemical sectors, said it foresees a "long-term downturn in certain market sectors which mean the current position is unsustainable".

Chief executive Andrew Hunt said: "Over the last year we have worked hard to rebalance the business, adapting to changing market dynamics and reacting to industry requirements for a low-carbon future.

"Unfortunately, we foresee long-term downturn in certain market sectors which mean the current position is unsustainable.

"It is with much regret that we now have to enter into the statutory consultation period on redundancies.

"This is particularly difficult for a company which places great importance on staff development and we will do our utmost to support our colleagues during this period of change.

"The continued long-term growth of the business across the UK and in strategic international markets remains a priority.

"We have made significant progress in transforming and future-proofing the business but this will only prove successful if we also reduce our cost base in parallel.

"Until the consultation period has concluded it would be inappropriate to provide further comment."

Unite regional officer Alison MacLean said: "We are angered and dismayed that the company has started a consultation with virtually no notice to the union and without giving a clear breakdown of where it wants to make changes.

"Pushing ahead with this consultation at this time of this year is particularly distressing for our members.

"We will be seeking an early meeting with the company to get the information our members need and to ensure that their employment rights are fully protected."
The owner of a Hawaiian restaurant in Belfast has said his first year in business has been "challenging" but that he still committed to quality and good customer service.

Kua 'Aina opened a year ago in Belfast's Victoria Square - and since then, has served more than 35,000 burgers and 3,000 fillets of mahi mahi fish, a tropical speciality.

The company was founded in Hawaii but has also opened franchises in Japan and London.

Owner Patrick Gray (33) left his native Northern Ireland aged three but always wanted to return to set up a business.

Now he says he hopes to open another restaurant in the region and several others in continental Europe. He said his first year in business had been a "steep learning curve" but that he believes in listening to customers and knows when it's time to adapt.

"I honestly find it heartbreaking when I get negative feedback because everything in the restaurant has been picked my myself, down to the menu, the knives and the style of service - my parents still live here and I want to be proud of the restaurant when I call in - but I do listen to feedback and have made changes.

"Everywhere else we serve the burger on a plate on its own, but in Northern Ireland that didn't go down well.

"While it's seen as okay elsewhere, customers here expect their burger to come with something, so now we serve it with pickles and coleslaw."

But there are some things he's not willing to compromise on. When he opened the restaurant Patrick made the decision to focus on quality regardless of the price and focus on good customer service. "Some people will look at our menu and say 6 is a bit steep for a burger but I wouldn't expect anyone to eat in the restaurant every day. When you do I want you to have a really good experience and to enjoy it. Marks & Spencer don't do a 1 jumper just because Primark do."

Patrick moved to Bristol as a child and while he now lives between London and Spain, he flies to Belfast every week to check on the restaurant and visit his parents.

The Belfast branch works with suppliers such as Carnbrook Meats and bakery French Village.
BUTTE  In the 2015 documentary Sky Line, a group of scientists proposes what seems like a pie-in-the-sky idea: an elevator to space.

As the documentary unfolds, the scientists envision a ribbon descending from a stationary, geosynchronous satellite that extends all the way to earth, from where an elevator can climb to the heavens.

However, there is only one material they can think of that would be strong enough to make their vision come to life: carbon nanotubes.

Proponents of carbon nanotubes have touted all sorts of applications for the super-strong, lightweight material  including in the aforementioned elevator to space.

But one Butte company is proposing a much more terrestrial application of the carbon-based technology.

In October, Montana Tech announced that two of its faculty members, Dario Prieto and Jack Skinner, along with Ronda Coguill, testing director for the universitys Center for Advanced Mineral and Metallurgical Processing, will partner with Butte-based sp2nano to test a polymer for use in bulletproof vests.

The man behind sp2nano is Hugh Craig, who said his company and Colorado-based Oaks Technology are paying Tech $200,000 to test and prototype the material, which is composed of carbon nanotubes and a related material called graphene.

Craig said the two substances are ideal for bulletproof vests because they are simultaneously lightweight and strong  a rarity in the world of anti-ballistic materials.

We expect that we are going to be twice as good, which means that well weigh half as much as what the existing bulletproof vests weigh, said Craig. Existing bulletproof vests are limited to low-velocity bullets, such as pistols. High velocity bullets like an AK-47 and those things are not intercepted and stopped by (existing) bulletproof vests. Our goal is to try to make something that will stop that within the weight parameters that are existing right now.

So what are carbon nanotubes and graphene exactly?

Both materials are made up of units, or platelets, of graphite  the same material youll find in pencil lead.

Graphite is composed of a series of hexagons, and each hexagon is made up of six carbon atoms bonded together.

Incidentally, the great thing about hexagons is they can be arranged side-by-side to make a variety of shapes (just ask the common honeybee).

For example, when the graphite hexagons are arranged side by side in a single layer (imagine a chain-link fence) they make graphene. When graphene is rolled up in the shape of a scroll, it makes a nanotube.

Craig said graphene and nanotubes derive their strength from the hexagonal structure of graphite, but they are also incredibly small.

A single layer of graphene is only an atom thick, while one nanotube is 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.

While all of this may seem highly technical, Craig said the scientists who first demonstrated graphite could be arranged in a single, virtually two-dimensional layer employed some pretty low-grade techniques.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from Manchester University in the U.K. were responsible for the discovery, which involved two objects you can find in most grade-school classrooms: pencil lead and tape.

Its actually pretty interesting, said Craig, explaining how the scientists made graphene by repeatedly dabbing a streak of pencil lead with tape until the only thing left was a single layer of graphite platelets.

Incidentally, Geim and Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery. Since then, Craig said, a whole host of applications for polymers made with graphene and nanotubes have emerged, including for use in electronics; polymer composites; and ink used to create radio-frequency identification tags, which Craig said could one day replace the bulky barcodes we see in todays retail stores. He added that the reinforced fabrics that are being developed in his current project will eventually find widespread use in products such as shoes, luggage, sails, and parachutes.

Whats more, Craig said, materials made with graphene and carbon nanotubes are some of the strongest on the planet.

(Graphene) is the strongest, stiffest, most electrically conductive, and most thermally conductive material ever identified, Craig said on the sp2nano website.

Thus, why not make them into bulletproof vests?

If the results from the testing at Tech are favorable, Craig said, the next phase in the process would be to look for financing to turn the reinforced Kevlar fabric into a product and get the business up and running.

Craig said he imagines a scenario in which Oaks Technology will cut and sew the vest product while sp2nano will be focused on making the materials. He said hed like to keep the fabric side of the business in Butte because of its proximity to Montana Tech, but the ultimate location of the enterprise isnt a done deal yet.

Oaks Technology, meanwhile, is a Denver-based company that boasts two former U.S. Air Force colonels as its principal agents: Bart Oaks and his brother Derek Oaks.

Craig, on the other hand, is a Butte native who splits his time between Butte; Sedona, Arizona; and the United Kingdom, his wifes home country.

All in all, he said, graphene and nanotubes have a lot in common with copper: both are thermally and electrically conductive.

100 years ago Butte electrified the world, Craig wrote on the sp2nano website. Today we have an equal opportunity to develop a new material and technology that will replace copper and define the new century.

As for the space elevator, Craig said by the time technology has advanced to overcome the obvious hurdles involved, we will have come up with alternative, more practical methods of traveling to space.

However, he noted that theres nothing impossible.
The financial services sector contributed 71.4 billion pounds in tax last year, a report has said

The financial services sector contributed 71.4 billion in tax last year, highlighting the potential hit to Government coffers if Brexit results in restricted access to the EU's single market.

A report by the City of London Corporation and accountancy giant PwC shows that that nearly a quarter of financial services' turnover in the last financial year "went straight to the public coffers," and accounted for 11.5% of the UK's total tax receipts for the 12 months to March 31.

It marks the sector's highest tax total in the report's nine year history, thanks in part to corporate tax reforms that delivered 8.4 billion in the last financial year, and the bank levy which saw lenders pay out 3.4 billion over the same period.

But those contributions hang in the balance ahead of Brexit negotiations with the EU.

London's financial firms have become increasingly concerned about their ability to trade with Europe if the UK Government opts for a "hard Brexit" and pulls Britain out of the single market.

They are waiting with bated breath to discover whether the UK can hold on to passporting rights which allow lenders to trade freely across EU.

Restricted access could hit revenues and subsequently impact tax payments.

Financial services currently employ 1.1 million people across the UK, amounting to 3.4% of the national workforce - with the average employment tax per worker reaching 32,000.

Mark Boleat, policy chairman for the City of London, said: "In light of the UK's decision to leave the EU, these new findings not only demonstrate the significant contribution made to Government revenues, but are also key in helping us to understand the potential impact of Brexit on different sub-sectors within financial services."

"As one of the UK's biggest service exporters, it's understandable the sector also contributes a considerable amount of tax. Despite this, the sector arguably stands most to lose as negotiations loom.

"It makes it clear the argument that Government should be engaging with firms as it approaches talks with the remaining EU 27, and the pulling of the political trigger."

His comments come amid fears that rival financial centres like Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris could end up siphoning off some of the City's business and capitalising on the uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

But a survey released by Synechron and TABB Group last month showed that 72% of UK financial service executives see London reigning supreme as the regional financial centre in five years' time - despite Brexit.

Firms would also have to consider the costs of moving house. Synechron previously found that it would costs 50,000 per employee to relocate staff from London to another financial hub in Europe.

Chancellor Philip Hammond and Brexit Secretary David Davis met with leading bankers and insurance chiefs earlier this week - including Lloyd's of London CEO Inga Beale, London Stock Exchange Group boss Nikhil Rathi and Barclay's chairman John McFarlane - in a bid to reassure them about the Government's plans to protect the City after Brexit.

In a joint statement, Mr Hammond and Mr Davis said: "As the UK exits the EU, we are determined that our country remains a great place to invest and to do business.

"We want the best deal for trade in UK goods and services, including our world-leading financial services industry. That is why these meetings, where we listen closely to the sector's views on the potential impact and opportunities offered by us leaving the EU, are so important.

"Our financial services sector makes a crucial contribution to our economy and we will work together to ensure it continues as the hub for both Europe and the rest of the world."
A disused customs post on the border between Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland and Newry in Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland Executive must fight to remain in the customs union to avoid a return to a hard-border with the Republic which would have a "disruptive" and "unique threat" to cross-border trade, a leading think tank has warned.

And if the UK leaves the union, it will mean a return to border checks with the Republic, according to the Nevin Economic Research Institute (Neri).

It says it is a "ridiculous" concept that the UK could leave the customs union, but not introduce border checks.

Economist Paul MacFlynn said it is an "in or out" decision.

Neri has called on Stormont and Westminster to prioritise remaining part of the customs union amid Brexit talks, which will have a significantly bigger impact on Northern Ireland, rather than staying in the single market.

Countries within the customs union, which are not part of the EU or single market, include Turkey.

Neri is also calling on the Executive to fight for the retention, and further devolution of powers around employment law, energy and consumer issues following the EU exit.

But it appears the vote to exit the EU has had little impact on the economy here, according to its latest quarterly forecast.

Neri says there has been "little indication of any slow-down in the UK economy post-referendum and the prospects for the Northern Ireland economy in the very short-term look reasonably stable.

Mr MacFlynn said it is possible that Northern Ireland remains in the customs union in the event of a hard Brexit. In his report, he said Brexit, and leaving the customs union, will have an immediate and direct threat to trade for Northern Ireland.

The report said that there is an economic case for Northern Ireland to remain in the customs union, even if the rest of the UK leaves.

However, while that would mean no hard-border with the Republic, it could lead to custom checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, Neri said.

The report has said the impact of a hard Brexit in Northern Ireland could mean a 0.5% cut in real wages, due to the weakness in sterling, an erosion of cross-border trade as input costs increase, and a restriction on inward migration hitting skills and economic activity here.

As for agri-business, Northern Ireland could be hit with tariffs as high as 22.3%, according to the World Trade Organisation.

And on freedom of movement, Neri said Northern Ireland has benefited from migration.

On the upside, the report said the weakness in sterling is likely to have boosted cross-border trade as well as increasing employment in retail and hospitality.

Meanwhile, speaking about the case for reducing corporation tax to 12.5% here, Mr MacFlynn  which has been critical of slashing the levy  said it is dead and its time to bury it.
Energy experts at Jefferies said the moves signalled a 'reinvention' for Drax

Power station owner Drax has announced a 340 million deal to buy gas and electricity supplier Opus Energy as part of a bold strategy overhaul.

The group said the takeover of small business supplier Opus - which has more than 265,000 customer meters - will combine with its existing Haven Power provider to create Britain's fifth biggest non-domestic energy retailer.

Shares in Drax - owner of Britain's biggest power station - soared by as much as 20% at one stage after chief executive Dorothy Thompson unveiled the acquisition as well as a move to buy four gas stations.

The group wants to switch to direct energy supply and back-up power, given that its station in North Yorkshire faces an uncertain future with coal plants forced to close by 2025.

Half of the plant has been converted to run on biomass, but the Government has not supported the conversion of the remaining coal units.

Alongside the Opus deal, Drax said it would pay 18.5 million to buy four projects to build open cycle gas turbines.

Ms Thompson said: "These initiatives mark an important step in delivering our strategy, contributing to stronger, more predictable, long-term, financial performance, through greater diversification of the businesses."

Opus Energy is the biggest provider to the business market, outside of the Big Six.

It was f ounded in 2002 and has around 870 staff across offices in Northampton, Oxford and Cardiff.

Drax's existing supplier business Haven Power supplies the industrial and commercial market.

But while Drax said the announcements would boost its financial performance in the future, it warned 2016 underlying earnings would be around the bottom end of City forecasts.

Energy experts at Jefferies said the moves signalled a "reinvention" for Drax.

But they added: "This is the first time that the company is making a step into the small and medium-sized business retail market, therefore it remains to be seen whether Drax has the necessary expertise to manage this successfully."
The quality of engineering teaching and research at Queen's University helped convince a US tech firm to set up in Northern Ireland, its chief executive has said.

APriori Technologies is opening up in Belfast with the creation of 15 technology jobs, paying an average of 40,000.

The Massachusetts-based firm sells software to manufacturers such as Boeing, Ford and Tetra Pak which helps monitor the manufacturing process and the cost of products.

Economic development agency Invest NI said it had offered the firm nearly 100,000 to help fund the posts, which include engineers and costs modellers.

Stephanie Feraday, the firm's president and chief executive, said: "Cost modelling and implementation of product costing solutions requires particular expertise and with growing customer demands we realised the need to recruit more staff to support the company's continued development.

"Invest NI has been working with us over the past 16 months as we considered our options and its support with our investment was a significant factor in our decision to locate a new technical centre in Northern Ireland.

"The quality of research and teaching at Queen's University's School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering impressed us and we are confident that we can find the qualified technical staff we need among Northern Ireland's engineering talent base."
Businesses need to have a plan in place for data protection

As the UK faces up to Article 50 negotiations next year, businesses seeking certainty may have found it in short supply. Indeed, in the famous parlance of former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, there are many "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns".

Helpfully, though, one major issue for business can be moved across to the 'known known' column - data protection.

UK Digital Minister Matt Hancock MP recently announced the Government's intention to adopt the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in 2018, irrespective of where the UK sits in the Brexit process.

So, how will this impact for Northern Ireland businesses?

The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) currently has the power to impose monetary penalties of up to 500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.

The 400,000 fine recently issued to internet service provider TalkTalk for a major data breach is the highest penalty the ICO has ever issued.

Under the GDPR, data protection authorities will be able to impose fines of up to 4% of the annual global turnover of a business, or 20m, whichever is the higher.

Analysis carried out by Pinsent Masons, has revealed that the top 100 companies by revenue in Northern Ireland could face a substantial hike in fines  indeed the total fines which could be faced collectively by the top 10 companies in Northern Ireland by revenue at the maximum of 4% of turnover would be close to a staggering 300m for their Northern Ireland figures alone - a drop in the ocean when you add in global revenues.

Data protection issues are rocketing up the agendas of many boards, given the potential risk of huge fines, damaging publicity and loss of customer confidence if a breach occurs.

This risk is compounded by the fact that the new regime requires mandatory reporting of serious breaches to the Regulator within 72 hours of their occurrence.

GDPR will become law on May 25, 2018. Businesses therefore have less than 18 months to ensure that they are GDPR-ready.

To be prepared for GDPR, businesses should carry out an internal review immediately to identify any gaps or weaknesses in supply chain, staff training, IT infrastructure and procedures. Under data protection laws, an organisation must have adequate technical and organisational measures to protect information. This means that being a "victim" of a cyber attack could also lead to enforcement by the Regulator for not having adequate security. Time is ticking and a thorough audit now will allow businesses to implement any necessary changes before the new regime becomes law.

In addition, businesses should have in place an incident response plan, so that if a breach were to occur, a clear process exists to make sure the organisation knows how to respond within the short 72 hour window.

With Brexit placing many businesses in a state of flux, this concrete action will enable firms to plan one central part of business strategy in the months of uncertainty ahead.

Laura Gillespie is the litigation and regulatory partner at Pinsent Masons
Holiday firm Thomas Cook is to buy out its high street travel agent partner in a move that will see the Co-operative Travel brand disappear from the high street.

Thomas Cook said it will take full ownership of the 764-strong network of travel branches, buying the Co-operative Group's 30% stake and Central England Co-operative's 3.5% stake for 55.8 million.

All stores will be rebranded as Thomas Cook stores over the next two years.

The deal brings to an end the partnership launched in October 2011 when Thomas Cook, the Co-operative Group and the then Midlands Co-operative, now Central England Co-operative, merged to create the UK's largest travel agent.

It follows a decision by the Co-op to take up its right to sell its stake, which was part of the original deal.

Thomas Cook Group chief executive Peter Fankhauser said: "This purchase gives us full control over our retail store network, enabling us to better integrate our stores with our online offering, while also helping us to focus on growing sales of added extras such as holiday-related financial services.

"Over the next two years, we will bring all of our UK stores under the Thomas Cook banner so we can make full use of the best brand in travel."

Thomas Cook will have the right to carry on using the Co-operative Travel brand until November 2018.

Rod Bulmer, chief executive of consumer services at the Co-op, said: "Going forward, having a minority stake in a travel business does not fit with the strategy of the Co-op."

The Co-op plans to invest the cash from the deal back in to the business.

The joint venture with the Co-op initially had more than 1,200 shops, but has since shrunk dramatically as Thomas Cook axed costs from the merged network and amid competition from online holiday rivals.

Co-operative Travel started life as a day excursion business in 1905.

Thomas Cook recently reported a 41% tumble in underlying profits on a like-for-like basis to 308 million as it said it suffered amid a "difficult year for tourism".

The industry has been hit by European terror attacks and political instability in once- popular sun-seeker destination Turkey.
Pictured from right is Mark Gibson, Business Development Manager for NI Direct at BT Business in Northern Ireland; Shaun McCann, Head of Business Transformation, Access NI and; Tom Clarke, General Manager, Access NI

The benefits of digitalisation can, in many cases, go beyond pure economics. That's particularly true when it comes to transforming the way a government department charged with protecting society operates.

AccessNI - part of the Department of Justice (DOJ) - is in charge of criminal record checks in Northern Ireland for anyone seeking to work with children or vulnerable adults and, until recently, had been relying on an outdated paper-based disclosure system.

The benefits digitalisation could bring to this most important of tasks were obvious - from faster clearance times to reduced administration costs - and the process of delivering the transformation of such a vital service, one which holds accuracy at its heart, needed a confident and proficient hand on the tiller.

That's where BT Business in Northern Ireland came in, working through the NI Direct Strategic Partnership with the Digital Transformation Service (DTS) which provides Public Sector organisations with access to a network of IT services and partners to digitally transform the delivery of public services.

Mark Gibson, BT's Business Development Manager for NI Direct said: "Given the high level of security required, the need for 100% accuracy, not to mention the opportunity to significantly improve the customer experience, the project could have been seen as a tall order but we identified a solution, developed it and delivered it on time and under budget.

"We created an online disclosure service which allowed users to track cases and the business unit to report in a much more efficient fashion, all located on shared government infrastructure and integrated with other UK agencies."

"We realised significant efficiencies by going on-line" Tom Clarke, General Manager at AccessNI, said. "We reduced staff costs, removed layers of work no longer necessary such as checking of poorly completed paper forms, improved the quality of the jobs in AccessNI leading to better morale and, most importantly provided a better and quicker service to our customers, including the ability to track the progress of cases."

Implementing the project, delivered by BT Business in Northern Ireland with DTS and partner Civica, called for a collaborative approach involving stakeholders at all stages of the process.

"We were able to bring organisations that apply for AccessNI checks on board at an early stage to develop a solution which worked for them and us," Tom said. "We developed an animated slide show explaining how the on-line application process would work and took it on a roadshow around our customers to demonstrate the benefits that we would all gain from going online."

Shaun McCann, Head of Business Transformation at AccessNI, said: "The benefits of BT Business in Northern Ireland's agile approach were clearly evidenced by the 80% uptake of online services within two months of its launch and a current utilization of 96.7%."

Some benefits were more unexpected such as the reduction in disputes about the criminal record information disclosed and an increase in applications from individual's who wanted a basic check in order to obtain employment in the public and private sectors.

Positive feedback from applicants included: "We are getting Enhanced Disclosures back within a day. We never thought this was possible."

And it hasn't stopped there, according to Shaun, who lists further digital transformation on the horizon.

For instance, AccessNI is planning to develop an update service which means applicants won't need to obtain a new disclosure check for each new role or volunteering position. If an applicant opts to join that service their disclosure certificate can be updated with any changes to the criminal record on information about them held by the police. Employers will be able to access that information with a free on-line check.

These are just some of the benefits which BT Business in Northern Ireland has helped bring to AccessNI's digitalisation process, one which has proven transformational benefits, not just for the organisation, but for everyone involved, including the protection of society as a whole.

For further information and to contact BT Business in Northern Ireland please email enterprise.accounts@bt.com
Is Facebook a media company? No. Is it the world's biggest distribution system for media? Yes. What, then, are its responsibilities when it comes to influencing major societal events? Should it be regulated? Should it have to answer for content in the same way more conventional publishers do? Is Mark Zuckerberg the new Rupert Murdoch?

Facebook has been accused of swinging the US presidential election for Donald Trump. Some critics charge that its failure to deal with "fake news" sites (mostly favouring Trump) helped put the Donald over the top.

Others say that Facebook must now square up to its role as a "media company" and, if it's not willing to do this, that we should start to regulate it as we do other media companies.

But how clearly are we thinking about this?

And if Facebook is a media company, is Twitter? Is Snapchat? Is YouTube?

Current apparatus for adjudicating on traditional media interests seem a little half-baked for an entity such as Facebook.

Part of the problem with this issue is in trying to separate entrenched commercial interests from what's best for society overall.

For example, many of Facebook's loudest critics - on this and other issues - are journalists and executives from traditional media companies. By and large, they are simmering with resentment at the way Facebook and Google have captured so much of their advertising income in such a short time period.

Facebook, they fume, gets a free ride on the back of media companies' content creation just as such companies face annihilation from the inexorable drain of ad income away to social media companies and search engines.

Surely, such critics reason, there must be some justifiable regulatory device to get at Facebook? If it is wielding so much influence with advertisers and society, how come it gets so many free passes on correctional elements?

To be sure, Facebook has some pretty big intrinsic advantages in media law compared to traditional publishers.

It largely escapes defamation cases because it has established itself as a mere distributor of opinions and news items, policed by its own users, rather than an original publisher of such content.

This is undoubtedly one strong reason why Facebook doesn't want a "media company" tag.

It also has increasing power as to how, when and in what way a publisher's content will reach members of the public.

Its controlled algorithms can make or break a news story, opinion piece or feature. Some estimates put Facebook's share at up to 50% of news consumption in European and US markets.

Thus, it has been able to tell media publishers that their stories should now appear in certain formats (such as Instant Articles) to gain larger audiences.

But these are largely the same arguments thrown at Google 10 years ago. Lest we forget, a large number of people were initially outraged at Google's apparent control over the flow of information. Today, we accept Google as a (mostly) benign utility rather than a deliberate actor.

But what of Facebook's 'fake news' problem? What of the thriving industry in sites posting made-up news for ad dollars that game Facebook's distribution algorithms?

During the US election, a Buzzfeed investigation found that the majority of such sites were targeted at Trump supporters. Churned out in Eastern Europe by kids looking for an easy way to earn advertising money, they had names such as USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co and USADailyPolitics.com.

In failing to deal with such fake news sites, angry media critics point to this as evidence that Facebook is more than just a neutral platform, that it is a critical player capable of influencing the most important election in the world.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg attempted to answer criticisms by claiming (in a Facebook post) that less than 1% of posts on Facebook contain "fake news", hoaxes or scams.

Furthermore, he said that Facebook has systems in place to try and prevent the spread of what it calls "inaccurate information" and "misinformation".

It's possible that Facebook should beef up its algorithms. But challenging fake news sites with a denial of distribution surely has freedom of expression difficulties.

If this newspaper publishes a false or made-up story, it can certainly be sued (in a case of harm done to an individual's reputation).

But it's fanciful to ask Centra to look through every paper to make sure it is satisfied that all stories are correct before distributing it in its stores.

This is not to glibly conflate a manual distribution model with a digital one. It's simply to note that made-up stories can be hard to detect at the point of publishing.

And even if they're obviously false (but perhaps not defamatory) does it automatically follow that they should be censored? Are the same critics calling for an outright ban on the US National Enquirer? Or EU-related stories from the UK's Daily Express?

Facebook is not a media company, nor does it act much like one. We're going to have to get used to its presence in news distribution.
Magician Richard Jones said he was excited about the show

The Duchess of Cornwall greets British singer Lady Gaga during the Royal Variety Performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in London last night.

The Duchess of Cornwall told Lady Gaga "my grandchildren call me Gaga", as she arrived at the Royal Variety Performance.

Camilla, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, also met Robbie Williams and charity bosses before the show.

The Duchess was given flowers by the young granddaughter of Bill Kenwright, producer of the performance, before the royal couple took their seats in the Hammersmith Apollo, London.

Host and comedian David Walliams led a group of people to the royal box, asking Charles and Camilla "can I see your tickets please?", before joking to the group: "There's some riff-raff here sitting in your seats."

Gaga and Williams will perform alongside Sting and Emeli Sande, while magician and Britain's Got Talent winner Richard Jones will also take to the stage.

Speaking during rehearsals for the big night, which is broadcast on ITV next Tuesday, Lance Corporal Jones told the Press Association: "It's a really exciting performance, telling a really poignant story which is really important to my family in particular, but it should also touch the hearts of many people watching around the country.

"It's a big, heart-warming moment for the forces - but I don't want to spill the beans too much."

The soldier, from Essex, blew the nation away with his magical illusions on the TV talent contest earlier this year, earning himself the opportunity to perform in front of a royal audience.

L/Cpl Jones, 26, added: "I feel very privileged and honoured to be here, performing for the Royal Family as well, and then in front of the nation."

He said he remains passionate about his main job as a military musician, a role in which he performed in front of the Queen at her 90th birthday celebrations this year.

During L/Cpl Jones's magic act, the Prince appeared as a special guest. He wrote a two-digit number on a piece of paper, screwed it up and threw it into the audience.

With the help of the band of the Household Cavalry and an audience member, L/Cpl Jones revealed he knew the number - and had in fact predicted it at the start of the show.

He then told the story of his older brother, a member of the British bomb disposal team, using playing cards.

L/Cpl Jones's brother, who had worked in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, then arrived on stage with members of his team.

The poignant performance earned L/Cpl Jones a standing ovation from the audience and the royal couple.

The show also featured Williams singing Something Stupid - the song he released with Nicole Kidman - as a duet with host Walliams.

Amber Riley, known for her role in American series Glee, wowed the audience with her rendition of And I Am Telling You
HELENA  Incoming State Auditor Matt Rosendale announced several of his initial appointments Tuesday, including one that leaves a vacancy in a north-central Montana state Senate seat.

Rosendale takes office at the start of next year. He replaces Monica Lindeen, who was term-limited from running for that job again and unsuccessfully ran for Secretary of State. Rosendale beat Jesse Laslovich, who worked as the top lawyer in the auditor's office, with 53 percent of the vote.

State Sen. Kristen Hansen, R-Havre, will be chief legal counsel in Rosendale's office. Hansen will resign her seat in the state Senate District 14, which represents parts of Cascade, Hill, Liberty and Choteau counties and includes the town of Havre. She beat Democrat Greg Jergeson in 2014 to win a four-year term.

In addition to serving in the state House and Senate, Hansen has worked in private practice as an attorney, for the CIA, clerked for a judge with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and for the Montana Supreme Court. She was also a judge advocate in the Montana Army National Guard, deployed to Iraq in 2007 and served as the chief deputy prosecutor for the Hill County Attorneys office.

She is a graduate of the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

Rosendale said Hansen's "legal experience will play a major role in our efforts to protect the public against violations of insurance and securities statutes.

Nancy Butler, who most recently served as general counsel for the Montana State Fund, will be deputy state auditor. She worked at the state fund for 32 years before retiring in January. She has lived in Helena for 33 years and has a bachelors degree from Fort Hays State University in Kansas and a law degree from the University of Tulsa.

In a press release, Rosendale said Butler has an impressive resume and is respected in the insurance industry.

Other initial appointments include:

Marissa Stockton, of Helena, who ran for a Helena-area Senate district in 2014

Kendall Cotton, of Florence, to the position of policy administrator

Kyle Schmauch, of Kalispell, who was northwest field representative for U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, to the position of media specialist

Dan Stusek, of Billings, who was a regional director for Daines, to the position of Land Board adviser and director of government affairs

This story has been corrected to note that Hansen clerked for a federal judge in Illinois. She has not served as a federal judge.
Bernie Fox (54), from Moy was studying for a nursing degree when she had her stroke. She is married to food technologist Aidan (54) and has one son, Patrick (24). She says:

I have had to weather a lot of storms in a very short space of time. I had worked as a healthcare assistant for many years and was studying for a nursing degree when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo surgery for an aortic valve replacement.

Six months later, when I was undergoing chemotherapy in 2014, I had a stroke.

I was getting ready to go down to Belfast for radiotherapy with my sister when I took the stroke.

I was having a shower when I just felt a weakness in my right side. And I thought to myself - that's strange, it's very like a stroke. I went to get up and I couldn't, so I just sat for a while.

In the meantime, my sister had arrived at the door to pick me up.

I don't know how I got down the stairs, but I managed to and then opened the door and my sister lifted me into the living room and rang for an ambulance.

I thought I was talking to her, but I wasn't. She was saying to me that I had no speech at all. When I went into Craigavon Hospital, I seemed to get worse as the day went on.

Having spent five days in hospital, I then moved into my sister's house for a while after being discharged.

My speech was badly affected, but the stroke specialist and speech therapist were very supportive and my sister's children also helped to bring my recovery on.

They kept saying: 'What's that you're saying' and were constantly making me go over the words.

While I am able to drive again, I suffer from exhaustion a lot and can become tongue tied on certain occasions.

When I am very tired, my husband says: 'I can't understand a word that comes out of your mouth'. It's the way the aphasia affects you. Everything I lift, I seem to drop all the time.

During the day I'm fine, but I prefer not to drive at night - I find it very hard. Stroke can affect you in a lot of ways.

Memory loss is part and parcel of a stroke. You do see something but you can't remember what you were going to say.

My son looked after me when I was ill - he came home for a year. Now he finds that every time he is speaking to me my speech has got better.

I have had to leave work and the stroke has knocked my self-confidence.

I had been training to be a nurse prior to my illness and the stroke left me unable to continue with that.

There is a gym in Armagh which offers 30-minute keep fit sessions, which is as much as I can do. I make sure I do cardiovascular work to keep myself right.

I had put a lot of weight on but I've taken it off again now.

The only advice I could give to other stroke patients is to keep working at it. You have to keep working at it every day.

Some days you'll not be fit to do anything.

There are days when I'll get home and just lie down and sleep, but then I have good days when I try my best to get up and go and that's the only thing you can do. Keep prastising saying words - even if you can't say them properly - it's a great help.

The support I have had from Stroke Recovery co-ordinator Valerie Dale has been invaluable.

When Valerie arrived at my sister's house after the stroke, she was like a breath of fresh air coming in.

Her personality is lovely and she gives me hope and that I think that is important.

Hope is the best thing you have.

She invited me to attend the Stroke Association's Young Women's Stroke Support Group, which helped me find my words again and gave me back my confidence.

I got to meet other young women who have had a stroke and their friendship and support has really aided my recovery.

We all have each other. We have a laugh, because we all forget things but can joke about it.

Their shared experience really helped me, as before I could hardly speak - now I've spoken on Stroke Association videos and have been invited to speak at other events - it's really helped.

The aphasia still affects me to this day, but I've learnt how to cope and how to use it to share my story and to let people know that there is help out there."

Andreas Tage (45), originally from Magdeburg in Germany and now living in Lisburn, works in catering at Parliament Buildings, Stormont. He is married to Anita (53). He says:

I suffered two strokes in rapid succession. I woke up in bed one Monday morning feeling ill. I fell out of bed after losing my balance. My wife and I went to the hospital but they couldnt really help and sent me home and gave me an appointment at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

Then the same afternoon, I was having lunch and I couldnt find my mouth with my fork. The doctor sent me straight to the Royal and I was in hospital for 17 weeks.

The first eight weeks was spent in the Royal Victoria Hospital where they concentrated on bringing back my speech.

Being from Germany I probably had language problems already, but I had to learn everything again. The first two or three weeks were all to do with speech and the ability to talk again.

The medical staff gave me a mirror to see the expression when I was talking, to see how I could pronounce words. They even gave me homework to do when I was lying in bed at night.

Mind you, the doctor did say that being from Germany may have helped me  because I was bilingual, my brain was more active than someone who spoke only one language. But when the stroke hit, it wiped everything out  I had to go back to point zero.

If I hadnt got the speech back, the implications are unbelievable  I couldnt make phone calls and I couldnt communicate with my family back in Germany.

After leaving hospital, I was treated for nine weeks at the Regional Acquired Brain Injury Unit in Musgrave Park Hospital where I concentrated on regaining my physical functions.

Ive still lost the use of my arm, but I am able to walk a short distance with the help of a cane and a leg splint.

Thankfully Im able to drive again, which is a big help. It means I can now explore the option of going back to work.

Life is quite slow now  there are certain things I can do and cant do. I accept that now. My wife is the best  she helps me so much.

I cant tie my shoelaces. I cant cut my own fingernails. She has to do everything now  its the small things you dont think about. Getting dressed takes forever.

After I was discharged from hospital in June I began volunteering with the Stroke Association to see what life returning to work would be like.

Ive come a long way from there. I can have a conversation on the phone.

I will never forget what it was like losing my speech in the aftermath of the stroke  it was horrendous. The fear that youd not be able to communicate with your loved ones is something you just dont think about when youre 45.

Symptoms of stroke

sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body.

difficulty finding words.

sudden blurred vision or loss of sight.

sudden confusion, dizziness or unsteadiness.

a sudden, severe headache.

During November and December the Stroke Associations Lost for Words campaign aims to raise awareness of stroke and the impact of communication disability. Visit Stroke Association at stroke.org.uk. For details on the Stroke Associations Speech and Language programme, tel: 028 9050 8020 or ni@stroke.org.uk
Special place: Anusha Ramessur says the Hare Krishna Temple in Dunmurry is very important to her

Chloe Hemphill lives in Ballymoney with her husband Paul and their daughters Rosabelle (7) and Ariella (3). A former youth worker, she is now a stay at home mum. She says:

My dad was a minister, so I have been around the church all my life. But my church-going experiences have been mixed.

Despite this, I believe the right church is good for your soul, your health and your overall wellbeing.

As a family we moved to Ballymoney six years ago, where we joined the Church of Ireland, in the united parishes of Finvoy, Rasharkin and Ballymoney.

Since then we have had a real sense of belonging here and have become part of the church family.

It is about so much more than just going to worship on a Sunday morning; with this church it is about being involved in and helping the community.

I could be busy with church activities every day of the week.

As a leader in Sunday club, I work with teenagers and attend parent and toddler events during the week.

Last week in Sunday club, one of the young girls came in and she was distraught as she had been with Reece Meenan, the young teenager who died in Coleraine in a car accident. She had been with him that night.

The group talked with her and we prayed.

Afterwards her mum thanked us and said she wasnt going to go (to the club) that day but had got so much love and support out of it she was feeling stronger and really glad she came.

My daughter Rosabelle has a genetic heart condition and at times she can be very unwell, and she can have up to three hospital appointments a week.

The church family have really supported us through some very difficult times.

They are there to pray and offer pastoral care, but they also offer practical help, too.

Even the doctors say Rosabelle is a miracle child  which I put down to the support of the church family.

For me that is what church should be about  what goes on everyday outside the building and in the community.

The church is not the building but the people in it, and that is what our minister Andrew Sweeney imparts.

A few years ago my husband Paul was made redundant with one weeks notice.

Things were really tight financially and the church family rallied around us to help out in practical ways.

I came home one night and there were two bags of coal sitting on the doorstep. Small things like that mean so much.

They also gave the girls gifts and presents, which meant they werent missing out.

I dont know what I would do without the church family, especially when things are difficult  for example, when Rosabelle is ill. They surround us all in prayer and keep our spirits lifted when times are tough.

Our church is about being part of a community.

One day I went to a lunch and I didnt know anyone there, and an older lady from the church gestured to me and said never sit on your own, you can always sit with me. It is intergenerational.

Both myself and the girls have made life-long friendships thanks to the church.

I am an older mum and it took us a while to get pregnant, so my faith was important during that time, too.

Jenni Spice (48), lives in Dromore with her husband Chris, who is retired, and their two children, Caitlin (16) and Oliver (13). She owns The Good Room gift shop in the town. She says:

For a long time, I didnt go to church, as I had been let down and disappointed by previous churches. It took me a while to find a church where I felt comfortable and that I belonged to  but I found that in Redeemer Central in Belfast (the church follows the principle of The Apostles Creed and The Nicene Creed, which are summations of the faith handed down from the earliest Christian communities).

I was invited along to an event in the church with my book club and I just liked the vibe so much, I thought I would go along one Sunday  and I loved it.

There is a real sense of community at the church  which is a true expression of Gods love.

People are welcomed from all different backgrounds and stages of life. Everyone had a story and a past, which appeals to me.

I am not typically religious; I just have a faith and realise that I have had a strong belief all my life.

As people, we are all wired for connection and we enjoy being with other people.

I found somewhere that I fit in and could make new friends.

And it has certainly benefited my health.

Whatever issues I have had, the church family has been there for me with love and support.

When I struggled with depression, they were there for me and their prayers were so uplifting. It didnt make me feel weak or incomplete. Life is up and down but there is always someone from the church there for you  you are never alone.

Previously, I had a lot of anger towards churches, but that was all about someones interpretation of religion  not Gods love, which is just a humble and straightforward way to be.

I realised I could be angry at church but not at God.

Now the church offers a time of calm in a frantic world. It is a place to go to feel grounded.

One of my friends from church says: No matter what I know; all I know is I am His and He is mine.

Its as simple as that and as simple as we want it to be. Now, I just try to reflect Gods love in my everyday life and I have found a sense of healing from the church community.

It should be where the broken go to find peace among like-minded people.

Sometimes, I just go and sit at the back and have a cup of tea, and just be there. Im not actually taking part and that is enough for me.

Now I feel like I am learning and growing all the time. I have a sense of peace and contentment.

I go to church on my own at the minute, as I wouldnt force it on my husband or children. It is something they have to find out for themselves.

Anusha Ramessur (30), a biology tutor, lives in Belfast with her husband Aleksandrs Turs. They are expecting their first baby in January. She says:

My husband and I have been going to the Hare Krishna Temple in Dunmurry for the last six years. We are very involved in the church and go along every Sunday to the morning programme.

There is something very calming and soothing about going to the temple and it brings me a real sense of peace.

I am from Mauritius and came over to Birmingham to study and then met Aleksandrs, who is from Latvia. Then we moved over to Belfast for work.

We got married in Belfast City Hall in 2013 and then went back to Mauritius where my family had planned a full-blown Hindu wedding which was beautiful and a wonderful experience.

The spiritual side of the marriage was very important to both of us.

Going to the temple brings a calmness to live among the stresses and busyness of everyday life.

We meditate together and have a spiritual meditation mantra which is very soothing. I always feel happy when I am in the temple.

There is a strong sense of well-being attached to going to the temple. And the spiritual teachers, who are self-realised souls, often visit to offer guidance and impart spiritual knowledge.

They are there to answer questions we have about life, death and God. These are things you couldnt gain from reading books or studying at university.

We also have a strong social circle of people we met at the temple  they are like-minded people who we socialise with.

This sense of belonging is really important especially as our families are so far away. It gives me a sense of ease about the baby coming as I know I will be supported.

People rally round and help each other and there is always someone there for you.

We connect with God in the temple and connect into a real reservoir of happiness. You cant get that from anywhere else.

Going to the temple definitely makes me feel better, stronger and more complete.
Michel Barnier, Chief Negotiator for the Preparation and Conduct of the Negotiations with the United Kingdom under Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union, speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Thierry Monasse)

The EU Commission's chief negotiator has warned that a deal with the UK on Brexit should be reached by October 2018.

Michel Barniers call for the tight schedule, in his first briefing on preparations for Article 50 negotiations, increases pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May to reveal details of her negotiating position.

The EU official, with a reputation for being a tough negotiator, said "third countries" like the UK could not expect to receive the same benefits as full members.

Mr Barnier said: "Should the UK notify the council by the end of March '17 [that it is triggering Article 50], as Prime Minister Theresa May said she would, it is safe to say that negotiation would start a few weeks later and an Article 50 agreement be reached by October '18."

After that date there would need to be four or five months for ratification, he said. His comments mirror those of the European Parliaments chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, who predicted a tense period of 15 months for talks after Article 50 is triggered in March 2017.

Mr Barnier said the EU and UK have "a common interest" in not prolonging uncertainty around Brexit, but stuck doggedly to the EU's negotiating line, that the "single market and its four freedoms are indivisible", highlighting the difficulty Theresa May will have in trying to win access to the trading bloc while imposing tighter immigration controls.

He said: "Being a member of the European Union comes with rights and benefits. Third countries can never have the same rights and benefits since they are not subject to the same obligations."

Mr Barnier underlined that it is up to the UK tell the EU what it wants from its future relations and for the 27 member states to respond.

The EU negotiator went on to suggest a transitional period could be agreed, but that it is difficult while there is so little known about what the UK requires from its future relationship.

He said: "Until we know what the intentions of a request from the UK are, what they would like and what they are prepared to accept with this new partnership, its going to be difficult to talk about a transitional period.

"The term transitional period only has sense if it prepares the way for a future relationship, and once again, first and foremost, we need to know the dimensions, the content, the new dimension of what this relationship is going to be in order to see how to possibly prepare it."

Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, Chairman of the Treasury Committee, said: "Mr Barniers latest contribution is of just the type calculated to raise the political temperature at a time when he should be lowering it. He should have the economic wellbeing of Europe and its citizens as his overriding objective, not grandstanding to Brussels.

"Both sides in the negotiations can gain together or lose together. So his first priority should be thinking about how to re-establish a close economic relationship between the EU and the UK, after Brexit."

It came as Ms May faced domestic pressure to set out her Brexit plans, even frustrating some of her own MPs with her reluctance to spell out her goals.

Up to 40 potential Tory rebels are thought to be prepared to back a Labour motion on the issue on Wednesday, that acknowledges some elements of the negotiating position should remain secret, while urging the Prime Minister to "commit to publishing the Government's plan for leaving the EU" before the formal Article 50 Brexit process begins.
A man has been treated in hospital after he was assaulted by a number of men armed with hammers.

It happened in the Friendly Street area of Belfast on Sunday December 4.

At approximately 3.00pm police received a report that a man aged in his 20s was assaulted by a number of men thought to be armed with hammers.

He was taken to hospital for treatment to his injuries which are not believed to be life threatening.

Detective Sergeant McPhillips would appeal to anyone who may have witnessed this incident to contact Detectives at Reactive and Organised Crime at Musgrave on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 773 04/12/16.

Alternatively, if someone would prefer to provide information without giving their details they can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers and speak to them anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Organisation claimed the move would have grave and disastrous consequences for its ability to fund schemes

A decision to abolish payments worth millions of pounds to organisations running accommodation schemes for the frail and elderly in Northern Ireland was fundamentally flawed, a High Court judge ruled today.

Mr Justice Horner backed Fold Housing Association's legal challenge to a Stormont department's withdrawal of a Special Needs Management Allowance (SNMA) after identifying a lack of proper consultation.

The organisation claimed the move, announced in April 2013, would have grave and disastrous consequences for its ability to fund schemes for vulnerable residents, including some suffering from dementia.

Judicial review proceedings were launched against the then Department for Social Development in a bid to have the plans declared unlawful.

The court heard that housing associations would lose around 2.2m through the ending of SNMA payments to organisations providing housing with care schemes (HWCS).

Government lawyers insisted money saved will be reinvested to develop, promote and support independent accommodation schemes.

Fold runs five housing with care schemes, including Loughview Fold in Holywood, Co Down, which was at the centre of the challenge.

Counsel for the association argued the former minister removed the SNMA without passing amended legislation as required.

It was also contended that he ignored relevant evidence and failed to make a fair comparison between the services offered by an HWCS and residential care homes (RCH) run by the private sector.

Other grounds of challenge included a claim that the Minister failed to take into account the impact of removing the allowance on residents and their families.

In his judgment Mr Justice Horner said: "There has been no objective attempt to even consider the housing support services that the payment of SNMA permits Fold and other housing associations to provide to their vulnerable residents, and which RCH do not provide to their residents."

He held that the Minister cannot completely ignore, as he seems to have done, a duty to assess and understand the services purchased with the special needs allowance, and also fail to objectively assess whether they are in accord with independent living before deciding if the payment should be discontinued.

The judge also identified a "conspicuous unfairness" due to a failure to consult with the housing associations.

"I have no hesitation in concluding that the decision to remove the payment of SNMA to HWCS was fundamentally flawed," he confirmed.

"The respondent quite obviously took into account considerations it should not have taken into account and ignored others which it should have taken into account.

"It did so, largely because it failed to consult adequately before reaching a decision.

"It is likely that had there been genuine engagement the errors the respondent made would not have occurred."

A further hearing next week will determine if the decision should now be formally quashed.
An English spa has won a stormy legal battle against a company led by a Northern Ireland property developer over the naming of Liverpool's Titanic Hotel.

In a complex judgment running to more than 15,000 words, Mr Justice Carr ruled on the bitter trademark dispute between two major hotel and property companies.

Property Renaissance Ltd set up Huddersfield's Titanic Spa, while Stanley Dock Hotel Ltd and Stanley Dock Properties Ltd - who trade as, and run, Titanic Hotel Liverpool - hit troubled waters over the use of the doomed Belfast-built liner's name.

The driving force behind the Liverpool ventures is Northern Ireland property developer Patrick Doherty.

The judge said the "battle" was over trademarks, which include the name Titanic. He said Property Renaissance set up the Titanic Spa in the Edwardian former textile mill in Huddersfield, which was known as Titanic Mills because of its size.

The spa opened in 2006, has 33 serviced apartments and it's turnover last year was 4.8m. It registered the name Titanic Spa as a trademark in 2011.

However, the Stanley Dock companies opened the Titanic Hotel Liverpool in 2014, and included references to the hotel having a spa, referred to as 'T-Spa'.

Titanic Huddersfield subsequently launched a complaint about use of the name T-Spa. In December 2014, however, the Liverpool venture was renamed 'The Spa', and in April this year there was further rebranding, and it became 'Maya Blue Spa'.

However, the judge said the Huddersfield Titanic company still took action - claiming that use of the word Titanic in the hotel name was a breach of its trademark.

Use of the Titanic name for the Liverpool hotel stemmed from the fact that the driving force for the venture was Mr Doherty.

He is the man behind redevelopment of Belfast's Titanic Quarter - one of Europe's largest regeneration schemes.

The judge said the Titanic Hotel in Liverpool was given the name because Mr Doherty wanted to expand the "Titanic brand" to areas where there was a connection with the Titanic.

After detailed analysis, the judge ruled that there had been infringement of the Titanic Spa trademark as a result of the Liverpool hotel operation. However, he said that steps already taken to change the name and further steps proposed would avoid the likelihood of future confusion.

In these circumstances, he upheld the Huddersfield operation's claim that there had been 'passing off' of its name Titanic Spa in the past. But he said that in view of the changes already made, and proposed, there would be no further 'passing off' of it in the future.

But he did not ban the Belfast company from using the word Titanic.

He said it was "legitimately entitled to use the signs 'Titanic Quarter' and 'Titanic Quarter Hotel Liverpool' in relation to hotels in the UK.

But he rejected a claim by those behind the Liverpool operation that the Huddersfield operation's use of the name Titanic Spa, had in fact, breached its trademarks.

In summing up, the judge resorted to the words of one of the Titanic rescue heroes, Captain Arthur H Rostron, to describe the legal fight.

Capt Rostron wrote: "Icebergs loomed up and fell astern and we never slackened. It was an anxious time with the Titanic's fateful experience very close to our minds."

Mr Justice Carr said: "This seems a reasonable description of the commencement, continuance and possible outcome of this dispute."

He said both sides had valuable businesses and the "very high-risk litigation" put in jeopardy the goodwill both had built up.
Victim is understood to live at the Downpatrick address with her young child

A man was remanded in custody today accused of attempting to murder a woman at a house in Co Down.

Michael O'Connor, 30, appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court after being charged by police investigating an alleged attack in Downpatrick last Friday.

The woman was critically injured during the incident in the Thomas Russell Park area of the town.

O'Connor, of Westrock Grove in Belfast, faces one count of attempted murder.

Standing arms folded in the dock, he nodded to confirm that he understood the allegation against him. A detective constable said he could connect him to the charge.

No further details were disclosed during the brief hearing.

O'Connor was also brought before the court on an arrest warrant issued in connection with separate alleged motoring offences in March this year.

Defence solicitor Michael Madden confirmed his client was not seeking bail at this stage.

District Judge Fiona Bagnall then remanded O'Connor into custody to appear again by video-link at Downpatrick Court on December 29.
Victim is understood to live at the Downpatrick address with her young child

A woman remains critically ill in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital following a "heinous and violent" attack at her Co Down home.

Police and ambulance services were called to a house in Thomas Russell Park, Downpatrick, on Friday afternoon following an altercation. Police were still at the scene near St Patrick's Church yesterday afternoon.

The victim, who is understood to live at the address with her young child, was rushed to hospital as a result of serious injuries sustained in the incident.

South Down MP Margaret Ritchie appealed for anyone with information to "provide it to the police to assist them with their investigations into this heinous and violent attack upon this woman.

"I want to offer her my sympathy, support and prayers for a speedy recovery. Such a traumatic incident is totally alien to this quiet neighbourhood in the centre of Downpatrick," the SDLP MP said.

A 30-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the assault. He remained in police custody yesterday evening.
The decision not to prosecute a man over the death of his partner two years ago will not be judicially reviewed, a coroner's court has been told.

Thirty-six-year-old Mairead McCallion died on February 24 2014, a day after she was found with head injuries at a flat in Omagh.

At a preliminary inquest hearing in Belfast, a barrister for the Coroners Service said the McCallion family had previously indicated they were considering a judicial review but did not now intend to pursue the matter.

Philip Henry told the court: "No judicial review proceedings are going to be issued."

Ms McCallion, a trainee accountant, alleged she was grabbed by the hair and had her head struck against a wall during an assault.

She died from bleeding on the brain a day later at the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen.

Her partner, Noel Knox, was initially charged with murder but the case was dramatically dropped after prosecutors raised concerns about inconclusive medical evidence.

A PPS statement from September 2014 said: "We have carefully considered all the available evidence and consider that this does not meet the test for prosecution.

"To pass the test there must be sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction. In this case, there were particular concerns about the inconclusive aspect of the expert medical evidence."

The controversial case was also reviewed by the Police Ombudsman's office which recommended two police officers be disciplined for their handling of it.

Coroner Patrick McGurgan said he proposed to write to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Police Ombudsman and medical experts requesting disclosure of documentation.

Any documentation provided may have to be assessed for redactions, the court was told.

Meanwhile, the inquest is likely to be held at a venue outside of Belfast, possibly in Omagh and may sit without a jury.

Mr McGurgan said he was minded not to have a jury but has invited submissions on the issue from legal teams.

He said: "My preliminary view is that I do not believe a jury is required in this matter but that's simply a preliminary view."

No one from the McCallion family was in court for the short hearing.
Mairtin O Muilleoir has warned about the dangers of Brexit

A post-Brexit recession will hit Northern Ireland harder and longer than the rest of the UK, Mairtin O Muilleoir has warned.

The Stormont Finance Minister also cautioned that anyone believing London will plug a European funding hole in the region - running into hundreds of millions - must "believe in fairies".

Mr O Muilleoir made his remarks before a parliamentary committee in Dublin investigating the expected impact of Brexit on jobs and the economy across the island.

"At the minute, north of the border, we are staring into this Brexit black hole," he told the hearing.

"I see no economic opportunity, no cultural opportunity, no opportunities for community uplift, and no opportunities for peace-building in a Brexit."

Flagging Chancellor Philip Hammond's forecast that the decision to leave the EU would cost the UK 60 billion, Mr O Muilleoir predicted Northern Ireland would be worse hit than regions across the Irish Sea.

"All those negative impacts will be magnified north of the border," he said.

"The recession and the downturn predicted in Britain will be worse north of the border and will last longer."

The finance minister said it was incumbent on politicians north and south to work together to mitigate the looming problems.

Some sort of "special case or special status" must be secured for Northern Ireland, which allows it to continue to enjoy the benefits of EU membership in the times ahead, he told the committee.

"The people north of the border want to continue to enjoy the bounty of Europe," he said.

A 56% majority of Northern Ireland voters backed the Remain camp in last June's in/out referendum.

However, the region's largest party, the DUP, supported Leave and has insisted the overall UK result is what counts.

Stormont Infratructure Minister Chris Hazzard said the decision to "drag" Northern Ireland out of the EU with the rest of the UK is profoundly undemocratic.

Before the same hearing, he said: "The unilateral decision being taken at this time by the British government to withdraw from membership of the EU and drag the North of Ireland with it without our consent, is both disastrous and profoundly undemocratic."

Mr Hazzard also said it was essential to argue the case in Brexit negotiations with the EU for a designated special status for Northern Ireland within the EU.
Northern Ireland finance minister Mairtin O Muilleoir outside Leinster House in Dublin where he appeared before the Oireachtas Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation committee.

Stormont Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir has said Northern Ireland's entire political system has been corrupted by the controversial 1.2 billion euro Project Eagle property sale.

Mr O Muilleoir further alleged that the region's business world, as well as its legal and accounting professions, has been left tainted by the deal between Nama and US vulture fund Cerberus.

The "race to the bottom" that Cerberus brought to Ireland when it secured the property loan portfolio in 2014 is "absolutely shameful", he told a parliamentary committee in Dublin.

Mr O Muilleoir was being questioned about recent reports that Cerberus paid almost no tax on huge multimillion-pound profits reaped by its acquisition of the so-called Project Eagle portfolio.

A number of investigations are ongoing into the sale of the Northern Ireland property loans by the Republic's "bad bank" Nama, set up to clean up the mess left in Irish banking by the 2008 property crash.

"I think it has been a shame on this land what Cerberus has done - it is absolutely shameful," Mr O Muilleoir told Dublin's Oireachtas Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation committee.

"Ordinary people's businesses destroyed, then picking their winners and chosen few.

"Then, worse than that, corrupting the entire political, business, legal, accountancy profession north of the border, for sure, by their practices."

Mr O Muilleoir said reports Cerberus were able to use an entirely legal loophole - which has since been shut - to pay very little tax on its substantial profits did not surprise him for a minute.

"The only thing that surprises me is that they paid any taxes - even a thousand euro - that they paid any tax at all," he said.

"Because that is the values of the race to the bottom they have brought to the business world here."

Independent TD Stephen Donnelly, told the committee that accounts filed in recent days showed Cerberus, whose chairman is former US vice president Dan Quayle, made a taxable profit of 168 million on its Project Eagle property portfolio.

However, it was obliged to pay just 1,596 tax on the profits, an effective tax rate of 0.001%, Mr Donnelly said.

The TD said if the completely legal tax loophole had continued, the Irish exchequer would have lost up to 20 billion euro from vulture funds who have bought up 40 billion euro worth of Irish commercial property assets in recent years.

The Project Eagle portfolio was bought by Cerberus in April 2014.

Another US company Pimco, a leading bidder in the sale, has said it pulled out weeks earlier because it was asked for a fixer payment of 16 million for three parties behind the scenes.

The money was to be shared equally by Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan, US law firm Brown Rudnick and Ian Coulter, a managing partner of Belfast solicitors Tughans, Pimco previously told a parliamentary committee.

Mr Cushnahan was formerly a Nama adviser on Northern Ireland, on the recommendation of the Democratic Unionists.

All parties have denied any wrongdoing.

The UK's National Crime Agency, the US Department of Justice and its Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as parliamentary committees in Dublin and Belfast are all investigating the Project Eagle sale.
Simon Hamilton said new measures were being put in place to mitigate any costs to the public purse from the Renewable Heat Incentive

Criminal prosecutions should be brought against anyone who abused a green energy scheme set to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds, the Economy Minister has warned.

Simon Hamilton has also rejected claims his predecessors were "asleep at the wheel" when the controversial Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) was rolled out by the former Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI).

He was quizzed about the botched initiative during Question Time at the Assembly.

Mr Hamilton said: "I am absolutely adamant that where there is proof and evidence of abuse of the scheme, that appropriate action including, if required, criminal proceedings should begin against anybody who has abused the scheme or defrauded the scheme."

The RHI aimed to cut the cost of green energy to encourage people off fossil fuels but ended up landing ministers with a massive overspend.

It encouraged the installation of costly eco-friendly heating systems by paying a tariff per kilowatt of heat burned over a 20-year period.

However, unlike in the rest of the UK, in Northern Ireland no cap or payment tier system was placed on the money that could be claimed in proportion to the size of boiler and the hours it was operated.

That effectively enabled a business to burn unnecessary heat 24/7 just to make money.

Management of the scheme is currently being examined by MLAs on Stormont's public accounts committee.

Mr Hamilton said new measures were being put in place to mitigate any costs to the public purse and revealed that a consultation is expected to be brought forward early next year.

He added: "These are serious, serious issues which I am very seized of the importance of and am dealing with on an ongoing basis to try and find a resolution to many of the issues that have flowed from the allegations and concerns there have been with regards the Renewable Heat Incentive.

"My department is currently developing a proposal for changes to the Renewable Heat Incentive which, if accepted, would lead to significant reduction of future costs to the Northern Ireland Executive."

Thousands signed up to the RHI - a deluge that ultimately forced its closure, but not before Stormont had been left exposed to a huge overspend.

Overall, more than 1 billion of public money will be paid by 2036 to Northern Ireland-based businesses which signed up to the scheme.

Branding the scheme a "squander made in Stormont", Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister posed the question: "It might cost him his job but would the Minister agree, that at least one of his predecessors, particularly Mrs (Arlene) Foster was asleep at the wheel in terms of failing to exercise ministerial supervision and ensuring that there were adequate cost controls in place."

However, Mr Hamilton hit back and said previous ministers had been ill-advised by policy officials.

"It is very clear to me that the ministers followed all advice given to them and because that advice was wrong; it was based on bad grounds the scheme was badly designed," he said.

"Nobody has denied, least of all me that this was shocking and we need to deal with those problems."
Taxpayers shelled out 45m in the last year to cover payments drawn illegally - around 800,000 every week

30,000 benefits fraudster Michael Rennick and his wife Brenda Rennick at Belfast Crown Court after admitting guilt.

The cost of fraud in Northern Ireland's benefits system has reached its highest level for more than a decade, a damning report reveals today.

Taxpayers shelled out 45m in the last year to cover payments drawn illegally - around 800,000 every week.

The bill for fraudulent claims has climbed to an 11-year high, auditors said.

An investigation found "significant levels of estimated fraud and error" in housing benefit claims.

The shocking details are revealed in a report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office.

It reports on the results of financial audit work undertaken on the 2015-16 accounts of Government departments and other public sector bodies.

One of its most shocking findings concerns Northern Ireland's ballooning benefits bill.

The total expenditure on benefits in the 12 months to April was 5.8bn - a staggering 15.8m a day.

That is up 100m from 5.7bn in the previous financial year.

On all benefits, except the State Pension, the former Department for Social Development estimated overpayments due to fraud and error of 75.3m.

This has fallen from last year - mainly due to less money being lost through official error.

However, the amount lost through fraud has spiralled, Auditor General Kieran Donnelly warns.

His report states: "From an overall departmental point of view, the estimated levels of overpayments and underpayments due to fraud and error were 1.7% this year compared to 2% in 2014-15.

"Customer error and underpayments due to official error have fallen significantly.

"But the estimated levels of customer fraud in the benefit payments made by the Social Security Agency, Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) and Land and Property Services (LPS) increased to 45.1m and is now at its highest level since 2004-05."

The NIHE was a particular concern, with "significant levels of estimated fraud and error in housing benefit expenditure" reported.

Robin Swann, who chairs Stormont's Public Accounts Committee, said worries over the extent of benefit fraud have been raised in a series of Audit Office reports.

"The auditor has been consistently concerned with benefits," he said.

"We are in the middle of a whole reform of the benefits system at the minute, so it is how that actually works out to countering fraud. On benefit fraud the numbers are actually down on previous years, but the level of customer fraud has increased.

"The committee will get a briefing on this report at our first meeting back in January."

The report says: "Despite the initiatives used by SSA (Social Security Agency) to counteract fraud and error, the level of overpayments remained at 1% of total benefit expenditure, the same as in 2014 against a rise in annual benefit expenditure of 2.1%.

"SSA continues to face a significant challenge to administer a complex benefits system to a high degree of accuracy in a cost effective way

"The level of estimated fraud and error remains significant - out of total benefit expenditure (other than State Pension) of 3bn, estimated over and under payments total 60.2m."

In terms of LPS, the report found total housing benefit expenditure administered by it in 2014/15 was 42.3m.

"Within this, the levels of fraud and error estimated by DSD's Standards Assurance Unit amounts to 8.6m in 2014/15," Mr Donnelly's report says.

"I also reported on the level of outstanding ratepayer debt at year end, and the amount written off in year. The ratepayer debt outstanding at March 31 2015 was 156.4m, compared to 162.1m at March 31 2014. The amount written off in 2014-15 was 25.3m compared to 31.6m in 2013-14."

The Department for Communities said it was committed to tackling fraud and error and would highlight its success during 2015 in reducing both loss and underpayments, due to benefit fraud and error, from the levels reported in 2014.

"Nonetheless, the department recognises fully that any level of loss, while at 1.4% of benefit expenditure, still represents a significant loss of public funds," it said.

"The department is determined to ensure the focus and investment in driving high levels of accuracy and low levels of fraud continues and the integrity of the benefit system, designed to help those in need, is protected."

The Audit Office report also finds:

11.9m was spent in 2015-16 on the non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive scheme without the necessary approvals. The renewable energy subsidy scheme has previously been described as "potentially the biggest scandal since devolution began".

Northern Ireland's legal aid bill was under-stated by between 9m and 33m.

Phase 2 of the Londonderry to Coleraine rail line, originally estimated to cost 20m, is due to be completed this month at a cost of 46.4m, more than twice the value of the original estimate and nearly a year later than planned.

The former Department of Agriculture lost 17.4m of EU funding through not properly administering the European Agricultural Funds.

However, the report praised the retention of students at higher education institutions in Northern Ireland in 2013-14, when we had the joint highest average student retention rates in the UK.

Couple who pocketed 30,000 avoid prison

In May Dunmurry couple Michael (56) and Brenda Rennick (52) were handed suspended sentences for benefit fraud.

Belfast Crown Court heard that during the time they made false declarations to the Social Security Agency, Michael Rennick was registered as company secretary at Lagmore Securities Limited, and Brenda Rennick was the company director of BR Pets Limited, trading as Micks Pet Food. Michael Rennick pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to declare a change in circumstances that would affect his Income Support between 2007 and 2008. He also admitted two counts of making a false declaration with a view to obtaining Income Support in 2008 and in 2010.

Brenda Rennick admitted one count of failing to notify a change of circumstances that would affect her Carers Allowance between 2007 and 2008. Crown prosecutor Gareth Purvis said Michael Rennicks offending amounted to a total of 20,474.35 in Income Support, while his wife was paid 9,837 in Carers Allowance. He got a 12-month sentence, and his wife got a nine-month sentence. Both terms were suspended for two years.

Cheating accountants phantom flats scam

In June accountant James Joseph Heaney, from Spruce Meadows in Londonderry, was sentenced to 200 hours of community service after he admitted fraudulently claiming and receiving almost 10,000 in housing benefits for nine flats which did not exist.

A prosecution barrister said Heaneys offending was discovered by accident after police called at the Northern Ireland Housing Executive offices at Richmond Chambers in Derry to investigate a totally unrelated matter.

Heaney filled in housing benefit forms in other peoples names for nine flats at Dacre Terrace, and the benefits were paid into his personal account. The prosecutor said the Dacre Terrace property, which is owned by another man, had no residential accommodation.

When Heaney was interviewed by police about his offending he tried to blame other people  including the innocent owner of a house at De Burgh Terrace.

The prosecution said the PPS considered taking a case against the people named on Heaneys application forms, but there was insufficient evidence to do so.
Chris Hazzard said purposely included Derry in the plans

A train passes under the Peace Bridge in Derry. An integrated hub is planned for the old Waterside station

Northern Ireland will be "investing heavily" in a direct rail link between Londonderry and Dublin, Stormont's infrastructure minister has vowed.

Chris Hazzard said that he was specifically including the north-west's premier city in a wider planned rail expansion along the eastern seaboard.

The proposed cross-border railway investment - part of a "high-level study" into expanding an eastern economic corridor - will also reach as far as Cork on the southern tip of the island, he told a parliamentary committee.

"I purposely include Derry in that also," he said of the plans.

"I think we need to look at Derry, Belfast, Dublin - and Cork also - when we look at rail expansion.

"That is something we will be investing heavily in."

Mr Hazzard is meeting with Dublin's transport minister Shane Ross about the proposals later this month.

The infrastructure minister said there is a growing demand for rail travel among the public.

His department is also looking at plans to enhance the existing Newry to Belfast service, where there are capacity issues, he told Dublin's Oireachtas Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation committee.

"In recent weeks I've also taken the decision, and certainly will be working with colleagues in Dublin, to include the ability for passengers in Dublin to be able to board a train for Derry," he added.

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"To date, we have not had the opportunity to see Derry on a board when you are standing at (Dublin's) Connolly Station.

"So it is important to make people aware that you can get the train from Dublin to Derry also."

In October, Mr Hazzard gave the green light for a 26 million scheme to revamp Derry's historic Waterside railway station as part of a plan to boost transport links in the city.

It is expected to be completed by 2020.
The ongoing police operation is linked to the activities of an organised crime gang

Two men aged 30 and 48 have been arrested as part of a major police crackdown on drugs.

The suspects were detained at separate addresses in Coleraine on Tuesday.

Mobile phones, SIM cards, walkie talkies, cash and a small quantity of cannabis were also seized.

The ongoing police operation is linked to the activities of an organised crime gang and the seizure of an estimated 600,000 of cocaine in Belfast and Nutts Corner over the past year.

Detective Inspector Tom McClure, from Police Service of Northern Ireland's reactive and organised crime branch, said: " A total of eight arrests have been made over recent months following these seizures and five men have been charged with a variety of drugs offences.

"We believe an organised crime group has been operating in the Coleraine area and spreading its reach to other parts of the country including Derry and Claudy.

"We are aware of community concerns about illegal drugs. We share those concerns and are continuing with a phased sequence of investigative and enforcement activity to address the issues raised by local people.

"This investigation will continue for some time."
Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said 103 people have been arrested in connection with terrorism this year

The threat level from terrorism in Northern Ireland remains severe, the Government has warned, as it emerged six people have died in paramilitary attacks this year.

Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire also said 103 people have been arrested in connection with terrorism in the country in 2016, as he called for vigilance "in the face of this continuing threat" from dissident republicans.

In a written statement to Parliament, Mr Brokenshire said the threat level in Northern Ireland remains severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.

He added that the threat to the mainland remains substantial, having been raised from moderate in May, which means an attack is a strong possibility.

Mr Brokenshire said: "In Northern Ireland, these terrorists have targeted the brave people who serve the community day in, day out, including the police, prison officers and the military.

"Dissident republicans are relatively small, disparate and factional groupings, but they are also determined and have lethal intent."

Six people been have killed as a result of paramilitary activity this year, Mr Brokenshire said, with 17 people injured in shootings and 57 in assaults.

The statement also said there had been 103 arrests, 17 people charged and five recent convictions in connection to terrorist activity in Northern Ireland throughout 2016.

"There never has been and there never will be any place for terrorism or paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland," said Mr Brokenshire.

"We must all play our part in ensuring that Northern Ireland continues to flourish, free of any such pernicious activity."

There have also been three further attacks on security personnel since the death of prison officer Adrian Ismay in March, Mr Brokenshire said.

However, there have been just four national security attacks in 2016, down from 16 last year and 40 in 2010.

"Although there has been a reduction in the overall number of national security incidents so far this year, terrorist attack planning continues with lethal intent and capability as the murder of Adrian Ismay underlines," said Mr Brokenshire.

"Vigilance in the face of this continuing threat remains essential."

The statement makes reference to the discovery of "a large amount" of terrorist material in Northern Ireland, such as firearms, high explosives, chemicals and a range of improvised explosive devices, as well as the arrest of one individual which led to the recovery of a "significant amount" of terrorist material.
The DUP Environment Minister has ruled out introducing Northern Ireland-specific legislation to tackle climate change.

Michelle McIlveen told the Assembly there is no need for a Climate Change Bill. Stormont is the only administration in the UK and Ireland not to have produced its own laws to cut carbon.

Ms McIlveen said UK-wide Government legislation that set long-term targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is delivering results.

She also noted progress in cutting carbon will be monitored under the Executive's proposed Programme for Government.

Specifically, she told MLAs that a "progress report" would be submitted by the administration's cross-departmental working group on climate change. She said the annual report would "summarise progress made toward the reduction of greenhouse gas".

She added: "I am satisfied that progress has been made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Northern Ireland.

"I am content with the plans currently in place, or being developed, that will reduce our emissions further and, in these circumstances, I currently see no need to introduce a Northern Ireland Climate Change Bill."

During Assembly question time, Ms McIlveen was asked by Alliance MLA, Chris Lyttle, whether she intends to bring forward a Bill.

Former Environment Minister, Mark H Durkan, previously branded a failure to enact climate change laws in Northern Ireland, due to a lack of political consensus, as an "embarrassment" to Stormont.
White claimed that he had carried out the required checks under the pharamacy Standard Operation Procedures

An 'overworked' pharmacist in Northern Ireland made a tragic error and gave out the wrong pills to a grandmother who took ill within moments and later died, a court has heard.

The 45-year-old pharmacist Martin White, of Belfast Road, Muckamore, on the outskirts of Antrim, admitted filling out the wrong perscription for 67-year-old Ethna Walsh on February 6, 2014.

Prosecution barrister Michael Chambers told Antrim Crown Court that Mrs Walsh had gone with her husband Joe to the Clear Pharamacy on Antrim's Station Road giving her prescription for COPD medication, Prednisolone.

Mr Chambers told Judge Gordon Kerr QC that instead of picking up the drug, White picked up a box of Propranolol.

He added that back at home Mr Walsh gave his wife some of the tablets which she took, but within moments had difficulty in breathing and became unwell. He immediately phoned for an ambulance, and although rushed to hospital she later died.

Mr Chambers said that White later told the police that he "must have mistakenly picked up the Propranolol instead of the Prednisolone", adding that the two boxes were "side by side on the shelf and have similar branding".

The court heard that while White claimed that he had carried out the required checks under the pharamacy Standard Operation Procedures, he'd also complained of the "cramped working space", and that at the time he had been to his own GP about his feelings of low mood, tiredness and fatigue.

An expert who later examined what had happened said that accuracy checks should have been carried out but weren't and this led to the tragic error.

However the expert deemed that White was guilty only of "poor professional performance" as opposed to "professional misconduct".

Defence QC John Kearney revealed that since the tragedy White has been too frightened to return to work because he was so racked with guilt and has been receiving psychiatric help.

Mr Kearney said that White had expressly instructed him "to offer his abject apology to each and every member of Mrs Walsh's family...although he accepts it may not be very well received".

Earlier the defence lawyer had described White as a man with a hither to unblemished character and said that the tragic consequences of his mistake had left him "racked with guilt and destroyed with remorse".

White, Mr Kearney said was accutely aware that he was responsible for the tragedy "and will carry it for the rest of his life, and if he could turn the clock back he would".

Mr Kearney suggested that what had happened occured because White was "and ordinary man who struggled because he worked too hard...regularly working up to 60 hours a week...always on call..

"This is his first mistake after almost a quarter of a century, 24 years of employment," said Mr Kearney.

Judge Kerr adjourned sentencing until later in the month given the importance of the case.
Members of the Crow Nation gathered Monday to celebrate the new tribal administration, led by Alvin "AJ" Not Afraid.

Not Afraid, 40, said that he wants to be humble in his new role as tribal chairman, and said in a speech that he's a servant of more than 13,000 enrolled members.

"The Crow chief in the past would give his shirt off his back to someone who needs it," he said.

The daylong inauguration took place at the multi-purpose building in Crow Agency, where the tribal government's headquarters sit blocks away. Crow Tribal Chief Judge Leroy Not Afraid conducted the swearing-in ceremonies.

In addition to Not Afraid, the event included the inaugurations of Vice Chairman Carlson Goes Ahead, Secretary Rudolph Knute Old Crow and Vice Secretary Shawn E. Backbone.

Not Afraid, who was tribal secretary in the previous administration, unseated Darrin Old Coyote in the Nov. 5 tribal election to become chairman. Backbone also served in the previous administration in the same role.

As the first order of business in the new administration, Not Afraid said he plans to create a financial report for the tribe to serve as a baseline moving forward.

"We're going to get a detailed inventory of all the tribe's assets," he said.

He noted community development, infrastructure and drug prevention as top priorities, but financial matters will likely top the list.

The Crow have been on uncertain footing this year as coal revenues declined. The Absaloka Coal Mine has long been a main source of revenue for the tribe, and a second operation is in the works. But sliding coal revenue has hit the tribe's pocketbook, leading to furloughs earlier this year.

Not Afraid called the coal outlook "bleak," adding that he'll look to diversify revenue sources.

The tribe has so much economic and cultural potential," he said. "Wed like to use that in the 21st century.

Officials from elsewhere in Montana attended Monday's inauguration, including Attorney General Tim Fox and Northern Cheyenne Tribal President Lawrence "Jace" Killsback, who took office two weeks ago.

Mark Azure, president of the Fort Belknap Tribal Council, was also on hand to speak on behalf of Not Afraid. He characterized the new Crow chairman as someone who "does his homework" and doesn't beat around the bush.

"You've made a great choice in selecting AJ," Azure said.

A parade and powwow scheduled around the inauguration were canceled in honor of Elias Goes Ahead, the Crow tribal historian who died on Friday.

He was the brother of Vice Chairman Carlson Goes Ahead, who said at his inauguration Monday that sometimes "the best times come at the worst times."

But in the spirit of the day, he too spoke in terms of the future for the Crow.

"We have to move forward," Carlson Goes Ahead said. "We reset and find that mission, find that purpose."
James Eadie QC, First Treasury Counsel, speaks at the Supreme Court in London, where the Government is appealing against a ruling that the Prime Minister must seek MPs' approval to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union.

The eleven Justices Of The Supreme Court who will hear the Government's appeal against the High Court decision on triggering Article 50

Attorney General Jeremy Wright speaks at the Supreme Court in London, where the Government is appealing against a ruling that the Prime Minister must seek MPs' approval to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union.

Jeremy Corbyn said that if the Supreme Court's decision meant the Government was required to bring forward legislation, Labour would seek to amend it

Members of the pro-European movement Britain for Europe pose on a double decker bus dressed as judges outside the Supreme court building in London on the first day of a four-day hearing on December 5, 2016.

Satirical artist Kaya Mar with one of his political paintings outside the Supreme Court in London

The Government has rejected the suggestion that its Brexit strategy is an 'affront' to parliamentary sovereignty.

Eleven Supreme Court justices were told on the second day of the historic hearing in London that the case put forward by those challenging the Government's plan represented "a serious constitutional trap".

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other judges decided at the High Court in November that Prime Minister 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.

James Eadie QC, for the Government, told the packed court: "It is said that the Government giving Article 50 notice is an affront to parliamentary sovereignty because Parliament has created rights and only it can alter them."

Rejecting the claim, he declared: "Our case fully respects, and offers no affront, to parliamentary sovereignty."

Mr Eadie was continuing his arguments in an attempt to persuade the panel of justices, headed by the Supreme Court's president Lord Neuberger, to rule in its favour over its planned strategy for exiting the European Union.

He is urging the judges to overturn the High Court's ruling. In a case of "great constitutional importance", the Supreme Court has heard a claim that it is for the Government to exercise prerogative powers in the conduct of the UK's affairs on the international plane.

The case, which will finish on Thursday, with a judgment reserved until the new year, has attracted worldwide attention.

Mr Eadie told the court that the idea that Parliament would not be involved in the Article 50 triggering of Brexit "cannot possibly be sustained".

Opposition motions were due to be debated in the House of Commons this week, he said, while Parliament would be involved in subsequent questions of legislation.

An opposition debate was set down for Wednesday - and no party in Parliament had "called for parliamentary legislation to be enacted in advance of the giving of notice".

Mr Eadie told the court: "Parliament does not seem to want the obligation the Divisional Court (High Court) has thrust upon them."

The QC told the court: "Article 50 merely starts the process. It effects in itself no change in the law, and negotiation will be needed. The outcome can't be known.

"The aim will be to seek agreement. The negotiations will no doubt be long and arduous.

"Parliament will inevitably be involved in that process of withdrawal."

Mr Eadie said the Government would "address policy area by policy area" to see "what the brave new world should look like".

He argued that the "apparent simplicity" of the case put forward by those challenging the Government's use of the prerogative "represents, we submit, a serious constitutional trap".

If the Supreme Court ruled against the Government, then the "courts would be imposing, in effect, a new control of the most serious kind in a highly controversial, and by Parliament, a carefully considered, area", he said.

If the justices ruled in favour of the challengers then "this would take the court over the line".

The justices have emphasised that the appeal concerns an issue of law and is not about the wider political questions surrounding the UK's departure from the EU.
The artist Helen Marten has scooped a 25,000 jackpot after she was named winner of the 2016 Turner Prize.

In a presentation, broadcast live by the BBC at London's Tate Britain last night, she was praised for her "exceptional contribution to contemporary visual art".

The jury described her portfolio of work, including Lunar Nibs, which was featured at the 56th Venice Biennale, and Eucalyptus Let Us In, her solo exhibition at Greene Naftali in New York, as "outstanding for its extraordinary range of materials and form".

A spokeswoman for Tate Britain, which hosts the competition, added that the jury "admire the work's poetic and enigmatic qualities which reflect the complexities and challenges of being in the world today".

The London-based artist's installation for the Turner Prize piece was divided into three sections, using handmade and found objects from daily life, including coins, cotton buds, shoe soles and eggs, as well as more unusual materials, such as snakeskin, to create a playful collage.

Other shortlisted artists Michael Dean, Anthea Hamilton and Josephine Pryde each received 5,000 for the work, which will be exhibited at Tate Britain until January 2, 2017.

Born in Macclesfield in 1985, London-based Marten has studied in some of the country's most prestigious institutions, including the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, the University of Oxford, and Central Saint Martins.

But the success of her work has stretched around the globe, with pieces and exhibitions featured in Norway, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Miami and New York.

The 25,000 jackpot she received for her Turner Prize installation on Monday will add to the 30,000 she scooped last month for winning the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture.
Britain needs to engage with Gulf states on human rights rather than "snipe" from the sidelines, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister moved to fend off criticism she was putting profits before principles during her two day visit to Bahrain for the Gulf Co-operation Council summit.

Bahrain has been the subject of strong international condemnation for the way it suppressed demonstrations during the Arab Spring, but Mrs May insisted dialogue was the best way forward.

The PM told Sky News: "If we look at this issue, it's important that we see there isn't an either or. While we talk about trade, we also talk about human rights issues.

"What is important, if you are going to raise these issues of human rights, if we are going to work to see that it is being addressed, is that we are engaging with these states, that we are here and we are talking to them, not that we are just sniping from the sidelines."

Mrs May also used the visit to stress the Royal Navy will play a key role in supporting the UK's presence on the world stage after Brexit as she addressed personnel from the deck of the fleet's flagship.

The Prime Minister used an address onboard HMS Ocean to praise the work done by the navy and Royal Marines in the fight against Islamic State terrorists.

In a reference to the UK's changing international role, Mrs May told the assembled personnel: "Today, as we face multiple global challenges and an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world, you are vital to protecting our nation's interests and provide a clear demonstration of the UK's enduring security commitment to the Gulf.

"And as Britain steps up to forge a new, positive, confident role for our country on the global stage, the Royal Navy will be an important part of our vision, pursuing our objectives of security on land and at sea and helping to ensure the free flow of international trade."

Flanked by two Jackal armoured vehicles from 42 Commando, the Prime Minister said: "Britain takes enormous pride in our Royal Navy, known the world over for its professionalism and expertise and for the dedication and courage of its sailors, Royal Marines and its officers."
Al Gore after meeting President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York (AP)

Former US vice president Al Gore has said he had a "productive" meeting with Donald Trump.

Mr Gore met the president-elect at Trump Tower and spoke briefly to reporters afterwards.

He categorised his meeting as a "sincere search for common ground".

Mr Gore also dubbed it "an extremely interesting conversation" but when asked what was discussed, he only said "to be continued" before leaving.

He said he also met Ivanka Trump, the president-elect's daughter.

Transition officials said earlier that the two would discuss climate change, which is Mr Gore's signature issue.

The president-elect called man-made climate change a hoax and has pledged to undo a number of regulations to protect the environment.

AP
King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa (C) arrives to welcome officials upon their arrival for the 37th on December 6, 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. British Prime Minister Theresa May was to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGERSTRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa (R) welcomes Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz upon his arrival for the 37th on December 6, 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. British Prime Minister Theresa May was to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGERSTRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa (R) welcomes the UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (L) upon his arrival for the 37th on December 6, 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. British Prime Minister Theresa May was to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGERSTRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Theresa May meets King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia in Manama, Bahrain, where she is on a three day visit to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council summit. PA

King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa (R) welcomes the Oman's Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi (L) upon his arrival for the 37th on December 6, 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. British Prime Minister Theresa May was to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGERSTRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Theresa May meets King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia (left) in Manama, Bahrain, where she is on a three day visit to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council summit. PA

Theresa May is visiting Bahrain to meet with leaders of Gulf states, who are in the country for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

She will attend a dinner with the 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.

The Prime Minister will use the visit to announce a new working group with regional nations to combat the financing of terrorists. The UK will provide three specialist cyber experts to the Gulf states to help deal with extremism.

She will also unveil a new permanent British defence staff in Dubai to co-ordinate regional activities, and a dedicated military officer embedded with Bahrain's Ministry of Interior bomb disposal unit to provide management support and training.

Expand Close King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa (R) welcomes the Oman's Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi (L) upon his arrival for the 37th on December 6, 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. British Prime Minister Theresa May was to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGERSTRINGER/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa (R) welcomes the Oman's Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi (L) upon his arrival for the 37th on December 6, 2016 in the Bahraini capital Manama. British Prime Minister Theresa May was to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGERSTRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

One thing that unites the regions countries are their terrible human rights records.

Bahrain

Police fired live ammunition into crowds during the Arab Spring protests



Authorities have shut down newspapers and TV stations that air criticism of the Government



Security services used torture in response to protests  with methods so extreme they resulted in deaths

Oman

Hereditary monarchy with no democratic institutions



Tight restrictions on protesting and freedom of assembly



Reporters of journalists and activists critical of government disappearing

Saudi Arabia

Read More

Read more

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Qatar

Provides clandestine financial and logistical support to Isis ( according to Hillary Clinton )



) Forced labour of migrant workers with hundreds of deaths reported on major projects



Flogging enforceable as a punishment under Sharia law for drinking alcohol or illicit sexual relations



Death penalty or prison sentences for gay people

United Arab Emirates

No democratically elected government



Has not signed international human rights and workers rights treaties



Death penalty or prison for gay people

Kuwait
BISMARCK, N.D.  A blizzard pushed eastward across North Dakota after dumping up to 7 inches of snow in Bismarck on Tuesday.

The National Weather Service said winds Tuesday evening were still gusting up to 45 mph near Jamestown, N.D., with visibility cut to a half-mile.

A wind chill advisory was out for western North Dakota until noon Central time Wednesday. Wind-chill readings could drop to 25 degrees below zero through Wednesday morning.

Parts of major highways, including Interstates 94 and 29, were closed in North Dakota because of the blowing and drifting snow.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation and Highway Patrol extended the 230-mile closure of Interstate 94 further east to Fargo on Tuesday. Both lanes of I-94 were closed from Dickinson to Fargo.

Northbound and southbound Interstate 29 was also closed between Fargo and the Canadian border due to zero visibility and blowing and drifting snow.

The NDDOT and the Highway Patrol said Highway 2 from Lakota to the Grand Forks Airport closed at 3 p.m. on Tuesday due to strong winds, areas of zero visibility with blowing and drifting snow. That's about a 60-mile stretch.

Officials said motorists who drive past a road closure barrier could be fined up to $250.

The Minot International Airport canceled all flights because of low visibility.

Schools, businesses, government offices and major interstates also were closed Tuesday.

Residents were asked not to travel in Minot, Devils Lake, Bismarck, Valley City, Fargo, Grand Forks and surrounding areas.

Some government offices, including Bismarck and Burleigh County didn't open Tuesday.
Myanmars President U. Htin Kyaw, right, greets Malaysian Chief of Armed Forces Zulkifeli Mohd Zin at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw.

Malaysia is facing a backlash from Myanmars government following Prime Minister Najib Razaks appearance at a weekend rally in Kuala Lumpur during which he condemned violence against Rohingya Muslims as genocide.

Myanmar President U. Htin Kyaw and Commander-in-Chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing confronted the visiting chief of Malaysias armed forces on the issue during a meeting on Monday at the Presidential Palace in Nay Pyi Taw, their offices said in statements issued Tuesday.

Hlaing told his Malaysian counterpart that no human rights violations had taken place against Muslim Rohingya, the Myanmar Times said in quoting from Hlaings statement.

During his meeting with Malaysian military chief Zulkifeli Mohd Zin, the Myanmar president discussed concerns over false news about violence in Maungtaw, a township in western Rakhine state where the Rohingya minority is concentrated, according to Htin Kyaws statement.

The president clarified the efforts of the new government in handling the Rakhine state issue in accordance with the existing laws and human rights standards and norms and measures being taken by the Rakhine State Advisory Commission and investigation commission, the statement said.

Zulkifelis visit was not to discuss the Rohingya issue but part of a travel program in the region prior to his retirement on Dec. 16, a Malaysian Defense Ministry official told BenarNews.

Najib responds

In a message posted Tuesday night on Twitter, Najib said the rally to show solidarity for the plight of the Rohingya drew the attention of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and Malaysia was working with the Muslim world body to organize a meeting of foreign ministers from member-states to discuss the Rohingya issue.

At Sundays rally, the Malaysian prime minister criticized Myanmar for citing the non-interference clause in the charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which prevents members of the regional bloc from meddling in the domestic affairs of other member-states.

The rally occurred a day after Malaysia accused the Myanmar government of ethnic cleansing, and former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited a village in Rakhine where thousands of Rohingya had fled their homes.

Rakhine violence

Myanmars army has conducted security sweeps in the northern part of the state that borders Bangladesh, following deadly attacks on Burmese border-guard posts in early October, which authorities have blamed on Rohingya militants.

In the crackdown soldiers have been accused of committing extrajudicial killings, rape and arson in Rohingya communities. The military has denied committing any atrocities and has blamed the arson that has reportedly destroyed hundreds of homes on Rohingya.

The violence has caused thousands of Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh. On Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that thousands of Rohingya had crossed into southeastern Bangladesh to escape the violence in Rakhine.

The inter-agency coordination team, consisting of U.N. agencies and international NGOs with a presence in the district, is constantly assessing the humanitarian situation and has identified about 22,000 new arrivals since late November, IOM said in a statement.

Many of the new arrivals are in a vulnerable state and it is a priority to us that they get access to the available services, said the agency that has been coordinating humanitarian assistance to undocumented Myanmar nationals in Coxs Bazar district in Bangladesh since 2013.

Domestic backlash

Sundays rally saw Najib sitting on the same stage as Abdul Hadi Awang, president of the Pan-Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS)  a traditional rival of Najibs United Malay National Organization (UMNO) party.

On Monday, a coalition of Myanmar Muslim Civil Society Groups issued an open letter accusing Najib of exploiting the rally for his self-interest and political purposes.

In such a time, we are dismayed by poorly informed initiatives like the rally in Malaysia, which could further worsen the already difficult situation and be considered as a threat to the unity and stability of the ASEAN community.

We hereby reassert that the Muslim community in Myanmar does not take it as a religious persecution, but a controversial ethnic issue, the statement said.

Apart from the backlash from Myanmar, Najib is facing criticism at home for his appearance at the rally.

Questioning Najibs sincerity, members of opposition parties in Malaysia pointed to two motions, one in 2012 to condemn actions in Myanmar and another a week before the rally to discuss concerns over ethnic cleansing, being rejected by parliament.

As early as November 2012, MP Nurul Izzah Anwar called for an emergency motion regarding the Rohingya issue. Parliament should have debated it then. Why was it rejected, Malek Hussin, head of Parliamentary Affairs Office of the Opposition Leader told BenarNews.

On Nov. 24, a similar motion raised by opposition party National Trust Party was rejected by the speaker on the basis it would interfere with Myanmars sovereignty.

Malaysian Armed Forces chief Zulkifeli Mohd Zin, left, meets with Myanmar Commander-in-Chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. [Courtesy of Myanmar Commander-in-Chief's office]

Hata Wahari in Kuala Lumpur and Kamran Reza Chowdhury in Dhaka contributed to this report.
CASPER, Wyo.  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 governor's recommendation for funding necessary repairs to the state's 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 isn't 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 (he'd) 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 state's rainy day fund to care for inmates should the Rawlins prison fail. The money would pay to relocate the prison's 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 father of a Thai activist said his son showed no fear as he became the first person arrested and charged under Thailands strict royal defamation laws since King Maha Vajiralongkorn ascended to the throne.

Two days after the new kings ascension, Jatupat Pai Boonpattararaksa, a student activist from Khon Kaen University in the northeast, was taken into custody on Saturday under the so-called Lese-Majeste law for allegedly sharing a BBC Thai profile of the new monarch on Facebook.

Jatupat was among hundreds of people who shared the kings profile by the BBC on social media pages, Agence France-Presse quoted an anti-junta activist group, the New Democracy Movement, as saying. A screen grab of the new kings profile on a Facebook page showed it had more than 2,500 shares.

Jatupat, who was released Sunday after posting 400,000 baht (U.S. $11,210) for bail, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the charge, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. He is due to appear at Khon Kaen court on Jan. 23.

According to Jatupats father, Viboon Boonpattararaksa, a large number of police arrived in at least four pickup trucks when they came to arrest the student in Chaiyapoom province on Saturday.

My son has not been issued a summons, but the court issued an arrest warrant and police came to arrest him, Viboon told BenarNews in a phone interview Monday. He was not allowed to contact his relatives or his lawyer even though his lawyer was waiting at the Khon Kaen police station.

Police tried to provide a lawyer for Jatupat, but he refused, according to his father.

Pai was not scared. They argued over his rights until the police allowed him to contact his own lawyer, Viboon said, who himself is an attorney.

Khon Kaen police said they could not comment on the case.

Impartial, independent

Meanwhile, BBC News stood by its Thai language services article on King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

BBC Thai was established to bring impartial, independent, and accurate news to a country where the media faces restrictions, and we are confident that this article adheres to the BBCs editorial principles. While we do not comment on individual cases, we do everything we can to ensure the safety of all our staff around the world, Charlotte Morgan, a spokeswoman for BBC News in London, told BenarNews via email.

Last week the then-crown prince accepted an invitation from parliament to succeed his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in October after 70 years on the throne.

On Monday, people across Thailand marked the birthday of the late king, who would have turned 89 on Dec. 5. Thais have been in mourning since his death, and, in the troubled Deep South, Buddhists gave alms and food to monks as they honored Bhumibols memory on his birthday.

Lese-Majeste charges increase

Since taking power in 2014, a junta led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha has sharply increased filing charges over perceived slights against the monarchy. In July, Thai police questioned the wife of a British journalist who posted to social media photos of the then-crown prince even though the photos were taken at a German airport and the journalist did not live in Thailand.

Record-breaking 25- and 30-year sentences have been handed down for people over Facebook posts, while a man found himself arrested for making sarcastic comments about Bhumibols late dog. Many convictions are not made public because Thai journalists censor themselves when reporting cases to avoid falling foul of the law.
A bid from Pulte Homes to rezone and add 465 residences and possibly a school near Sandy Run Creek on Jedburg Road wasn't met with open arms at a Oct. 26 community meeting on the part of local homeowners seeking to preserve the area's rural characteristics. Read moreJedburg Road residents tell Pulte Homes: 'Keep it rural'
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At its Dec. 8 board meeting in Cheyenne, the Wyoming Business Council Board of Directors will consider 13 grant and loan requests to cities and towns across Wyoming. It will also hear economic development reports across the region, along with information regarding the agencys expansion efforts and recruitment.

The State Loan and Investment Board  made of Wyomings top five elected officials  will make final decisions on the requests at 8 a.m. on Jan. 19 in Cheyenne.

Before presenting to the board, Business Council staff members review applications and make site visits or conference calls when planning grants. They then present proposals to subcommittees. Staff members recommended full funding unless otherwise noted.

Projects are as follows:

The city of Laramie requested $3 million to build a 20,000-square-foot building for the Laramie-based firearms accessories manufacturer, HiViz Shooting Systems. The company planned to create 20 jobs in its first three years but has created 42 to date and has since outgrown its building. The expansion is meant to help HiViz sustain 32 percent annual sales growth for the next five years. The company has stated a goal that by 2020, it wishes to create 128 positions.

To redevelop the Empress Lot, Laramie also requested $3 million. The money will go into reconstructing a two-story downtown building with retail space on the first floor and tenant space on the second. The ground floor has been pre-leased to Big Hollow Food Co-op, a local business. This reconstruction is expected to create 12 jobs along with capital investment of at least $600,000 during the next five years. The revenue generated from the lease and sale of building space will be reinvested in state economic development efforts and Laramie Main Street projects.

The Joint Powers Board of Lincoln County requested a $3 million grant and $1.25 million loan. The money would be used to purchase the Glencoe Junction facility to create an industrial park with rail access. The site allows access to rail and truck transport. Business Council staff does not recommend full funding due to limited available funding.

In order to renovate the Wyoming Frontier Prison Guards Quarters in Rawlins, the Old Pen Joint Powers Board requested a $500,000 grant. The building will provide office space for the Carbon County Visitors Council, along with a conference room and additional restrooms. This renovation builds on the planning and strategy done to increase Rawlins tourism.

Albany County requested a $499,857 grant to complete the second phase of the Greater Wyoming Big Brothers Big Sisters facility renovation that serves 315 children. This renovation will provide storage, program expansion, and allow for consolidation of services. The staff recommends partial funding for this second phase.

To expand the Ten Sleep Library to accommodate the Ten Sleep Youth Learning Center and other community needs, Washakie County requests a $136,117 grant that would save the 300-person community $9,900 annually.

Fort Laramie asked for a $322,229 grant to remove and replace clay sewer lines with PVC lines to improve lagoon wastewater treatment and update outdated water lines made of asbestos cement.

Deaver requested $489,000 to redesign its water distribution system and upgrade isolation valves, fire hydrants and lines. The project will minimize line breaks, reduce costs of maintenance and minimize chances of the town losing water entirely.

Evansville applied for a $356,000 grant to build sidewalks to access the Evansville Elementary School, Evansville Town Hall and two bus stops.

In order to beautify and develop new uses in the Bunning Park neighborhood, Rock Springs requested a $500,000 grant. The plans include creating 12 handicapped-accessible parking spaces and the purchase of 23 dilapidated and abandoned houses.

Rawlins requested a $500,000 grant to renovate the Historic Guards Quarters on the Wyoming Frontier Prison grounds. Benefits of this project will allow the Carbon County Visitors Council to move into the prison and serve up to 15,000 visitors annually. Approximately 900 square feet of space will be for rent to a tourism-related business.
Bismarck and Mandan school districts have announced school will be closed Tuesday in anticipation of blizzard conditions that will continue through the day.

Schools officials in Bismarck and Mandan announced on Facebook and Twitter Monday night that classes will be canceled because of hazardous road conditions. A blizzard warning was issued Monday for central and northern North Dakota through Tuesday.

As of 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Interstate 94 remained closed from Dickinson to Valley City, with the exception of the Bismarck-Mandan metro area, according to a news release from the North Dakota Department of Transportation. A no-travel advisory remains in effect for Bismarck, Mandan, Williston, Jamestown, Valley City, Minot, Devils Lake and surrounding areas.

A no-travel advisory has also been extended to Fargo, Grand Forks and surrounding areas, according to the release.

Bismarck State College and United Tribes Technical college announced Monday night they would cancel classes Tuesday. The University of Mary canceled classes at its main campus on Tuesday.

Bismarck and Mandan school districts reported technical issues with their emergency alert notification systems, which alert parents via phone to inform them of school closings.

Renae Hoffmann Walker, a spokeswoman for Bismarck Public Schools, said in an email that a phone message did not go through Monday night, but was sent to parents Tuesday morning.

Light of Christ Catholic Schools, Shiloh Christian School and King Elementary and Montessori School in Mandan are also closed Tuesday.

Other closings, cancellations, postponements:

All CHI St. Alexius Health clinics in Bismarck will be closed Tuesday. Appointments will be rescheduled at a later time. CHI St. Alexius Health Mandan and Minot Medical Plazas are also closed Tuesday.

Sanford Health walk-in clinic will open at noon on Tuesday. All other Sanford clinics in Bismarck and Mandan, including Sanford Children's Clinic, will be closed Tuesday.

Veterans Affairs clinics in Bismarck, Jamestown, Devils Lake, Minot and Grafton are closed Tuesday.

First Choice Clinic in Bismarck is closed Tuesday.

Bismarck city government offices will be closed Tuesday. Bismarck Board of City Commissioners' special meeting on Tuesday night has been canceled.

Burleigh County government offices will be closed Tuesday. Emergency services will continue.

The Morton County Courthouse and the Morton County-Mandan Law Enforcement Center are closed Tuesday.

Missouri Valley Family YMCA will be closed Tuesday.

West Central Human Service Center in Bismarck is closed Tuesday to clients only.

Dakota Square Mall is closed Tuesday.

Gateway to Science will be closed on Tuesday. Also canceled are the Giving Hearts Day Collaborative meeting and Science Discovery Club.

Kirkwood Mall will close at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Notice of closings, cancellations and postponements can be emailed to blair.emerson@bismarcktribune.com.
by Ryan Pemberton

Cole, Jen, and I attended a fireworks display in Oxfords South Parks one Saturday night in November. He told us it was to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, a British holiday neither of us were familiar with.

In something of an informal history lesson, Cole told us that Guy Fawkes was a man who made plans to blow up parliament a few hundred years ago, and how he was discovered and thwarted at the last minute. He told us the British still celebrate catching Guy Fawkes to this day by lighting giant wooden effigies of him on fire each year, all around the country. They top the whole thing off with a fireworks display.

It was dark when we made it to the park, along with hundreds of other people, all funneling through a small iron gate. The ground was covered in straw and the park was filled with the sweet, salty smell of fried food as carnival rides lit up the night sky with neon bulbs and childrens laughter. It felt like we had walked into a county fair.

We settled on hot pork sandwiches for dinner and found a spot in the crowd to enjoy the show. The air was cold and steam rose upward, pouring out from our sandwiches. It wasnt long before the fireworks began. The crowd was gathered together tightly. Everyones heads were craned upward, taking in the show.

I looked over at Cole about halfway through the fireworks and asked him how much hed give me to start singing, God Bless America. He laughed, and he told me hed give me a pat on the back. I decided against it, figuring I didnt need an effigy in my honor.

The fireworks really were beautiful, though. And I found myself remembering something I had read a few days before, a quote from a British journalist named Matthew Parris, a professed atheist.

"The New Testament offers a picture of a God who does not sound at all vague to me. He has sent his son to Earth. He has distinct plans both for his son and for mankind. He knows each of us personally and can communicate directly with us. We are capable of forming a direct relationship, individually with him, and are commanded to try. We are told this can be done only through his son. And we are offered the prospect of eternal lifean afterlife of happy, blissful, or glorious circumstances.... Friends, if I believe that, or even a tenth of that... I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with the desire to know more and, when I had found out more, to act upon it and tell others" (Matthew Parris, originally published in The TImes).

As I watched the fireworks light up the black canopy overhead with bright whites and blues and reds and oranges, I found myself thinking about the kind of Christianity the atheist Matthew Parris had described. Watching the fireworks explode in a bouquet of colors, I thought how beautiful that kind of Christian faith would be. Like fireworks, it would stand out. I think it would be so captivating that people would stop to take it in when they heard about it. When they had seen it for themselves, I think theyd tell their friends. And, as they closed their eyes to go to bed at night, I think the scene would play again before the darks of their eyelids. Theyd fall asleep with a smile on their face, thinking about how beautiful it was. Just like fireworks.

This pre-released excerpt is from the memoir Called: My Journey to C.S. Lewis's House and Back Again by Jesus' Economy board member Ryan J. Pemberton. You can preorder Called here.

A volunteer board member of Jesus Economy, Ryan Pemberton is a graduate of Oxford, Duke Divinity School, and is the past President of the Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society. A communications consultant, Ryan has authored two books, including the forthcoming memoir, Called: My Journey to C.S. Lewis's House and Back Again.




First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices


For Immediate Release, December 6, 2016 Contacts: Lisa Belenky, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 385-5694, lbelenky@biologicaldiversity.org

Jeff Kuyper, Los Padres ForestWatch, (805) 617-4610 x 1

Pamela Flick, Defenders of Wildlife, (916) 203-6927 Forest Service Agrees to Halt Oil, Gas Leasing in Los Padres National Forest Agency's Decision Follows Conservationists Threat to Sue Over Risks of

Drilling, Fracking to Climate, Wildlife, Water Supplies SANTA BARBARA, Calif. The U.S. Forest Service is halting new oil and gas leasing throughout the Los Padres National Forest, which prompted a federal court today to stay ongoing litigation against the agency by conservation groups. The leasing suspension will allow the Forest Service to consider the risks of fracking and drilling in the southern and central California forest to air and water quality and endangered animals like the California condor. The Forest Service suspended its leasing plan in response to an October 2016 notice of intent to sue from the Center for Biological Diversity, Los Padres ForestWatch and Defenders of Wildlife. That notice was accompanied by a letter detailing significant new information about fracking and oil development, not known when the Service approved the plan more than a decade ago. The leasing suspension places a hold on a decade-long legal battle initiated by the conservation groups to protect public lands slated for oil development. The agency agreed to suspend its 2005 decision that allowed expanded oil and gas leasing and development throughout the forest. The Forest Services suspension oil and gas leasing will allow officials to complete additional environmental review and consult with federal wildlife biologists under the Endangered Species Act. The stay will remain in effect while the agency considers an avalanche of new information on more extreme fracking technology that was virtually unknown at the time of the 2005 plan, along with climate change and regional drought that may lead to greater harms to water quality, air quality, and endangered species and their habitats. In a related action, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew its August 2016 biological opinion that would have allowed leasing to go forward in the Los Padres National Forest despite significant risks to California condors and other endangered wildlife. Expanded oil and gas operations  including fracking  would further industrialize public lands, cause climate pollution, harm endangered species like steelhead trout and California condor, and threaten to pollute water supplies amidst the states historic drought. The Los Padres National Forest attracts millions of visitors each year to enjoy a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, said Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch. We are thrilled that the Forest Service recognizes the need to hit the pause button and reevaluate whether it is worth it to auction off these treasured landscapes to the highest bidder, placing them  and the clean water they provide to our wildlife and communities  at grave risk from oil development and fracking. Fracking and drilling can pollute our air and water and cause devastating harm to condors and other wildlife in the Los Padres National Forest, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. We're glad to see that the Forest Service took our legal threat seriously and agreed to do more to protect Californias public lands and waters from oil and gas leasing and development. The decision follows several other environmental victories related to oil and gas along Californias central coast. In a separate court ruling in September 2016, a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Managements Bakersfield office violated the law when it adopted a plan to allow oil and gas operations across millions of acres of public lands, including those in the Los Padres, without considering the environmental risks of fracking. Similarly, in 2013 a federal judge ruled that the agency violated the law when it issued oil leases in Monterey County without considering the environmental risks of fracking. The Center for Biological Diversity, Los Padres ForestWatch and Defenders of Wildlife previously challenged the 2005 Los Padres leasing plan for failing to fully analyze impacts of oil and gas operations under the National Environmental Policy Act. Wildlife and habitat across the country are already feeling the effects of climate change, said Pamela Flick, California representative with Defenders of Wildlife. These issues must be fully considered before the Forest Service agrees to any new oil and gas leasing that would increase our climate emissions on public lands, further threatening endangered species, at a time when our state, nation and the world are joining together to curb carbon emissions  all for just a days supply of oil. Background

The Forest Service approved an expansion of oil and gas leasing activities on the Los Padres National Forest in a 2005 decision that opened more than 52,000 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties to new oil and gas development, including more than 4,200 acres that could be affected by new infrastructure. The plan would allow surface drilling adjacent to three wilderness areas and permit slant drilling beneath three creeks designated or proposed for protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, as well as calling for new surface drilling next to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge. In April 2007  following a massive oil spill that coated three miles of a creek adjacent to the Sespe Wilderness  the Center for Biological Diversity joined with Defenders of Wildlife and Los Padres ForestWatch in a lawsuit contesting that the new plan violates the National Environmental Policy Act and National Forest Management Act. In response to the 2007 lawsuit, the Forest Service agreed to revise its analysis of the plan's impacts on endangered species. The parties agreed to stay the lawsuit until the new analysis was completed and a new biological opinion was issued in August 2016. In October 2016 the conservation groups provided a notice to the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service that the project still failed to comply with the Endangered Species Act because it would hurt wildlife, including the extremely imperiled California condor and numerous other species that are listed under the Act. In addition, the conservation groups provided significant new information that showed that the 2005 decision and environmental review were woefully outdated and urged that no new leasing proceed without additional updated environmental review. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With more than 1 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to www.defenders.org. Los Padres ForestWatch is a local nonprofit conservation organization working to protect wildlife, wilderness landscapes, and the great outdoors in the Los Padres National Forest and other public lands along Californias Central Coast. For more information, as well as background information on the 2005 oil leasing plan, visit www.LPFW.org.


For Immediate Release, December 5, 2016 Contact: Nathan Donley, (971) 717-6406, ndonley@biologicaldiversity.org Pro-pesticide Trade Group Urges EPA to Ignore Science on

Dangerous Neurotoxin Chlorpyrifos, Keep Pesticide on Store Shelves PORTLAND, Ore. In response to the Environmental Protection Agencys proposal to cancel all food uses of the dangerous 1960s-era pesticide chlorpyrifos, Crop Life America has launched a desperate last-ditch effort to keep the known neurotoxin on store shelves. The EPAs proposed decision is based, in part, on data from a peer-reviewed epidemiological study that found a positive correlation between chlorpyrifos levels in fetal cord blood and adverse effects on memory and IQ in children. The EPAs own recent evaluation of chlorpyrifos also found that it is likely to adversely affect an astounding 97 percent of all 1,700 federally protected species, including whooping cranes and San Joaquin kit foxes. Despite abundant evidence that chlorpyrifos is too dangerous to have any place in our agricultural system, and an order from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals mandating a decision on the proposed ban by March of 2017, Crop Life America continues to fight the ban. Crop Life America is copying the tactics of the tobacco industry, scrambling to defame good science as inadequate in order to delay commonsense, research-backed regulatory action, said Dr. Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. The companys request that the EPA disregard high-quality research on the pesticides harm to humans and revert to relying solely on animal studies is absurd. Five million pounds of chlorpyrifos are used in the United States every year on crops such as corn, peanuts, plums and wheat. A recent study at the University of California at Berkeley found that an alarming 87 percent of umbilical-cord blood samples tested had detectable levels of chlorpyrifos. Early childhood exposure to organophosphates has been linked to cognitive delay and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Organophosphates were used as nerve agents in chemical warfare and have been linked to Gulf War syndrome, which causes fatigue, headaches, skin problems and breathing disorders. The science is clear. There is no excuse for the EPA to delay banning this dangerous pesticide on food crops, said Donley. Organophosphates are not compatible with healthy food production, nor are they necessary for high crop yields. We urge the EPA to deny Crop Lifes petition and move forward with its action to ban this toxic pesticide in food. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Abstract Background and Aims

Wild grapevine, considered the ancestor relative of cultivated vines, has a large gene pool that is currently endangered in Europe. These plants can contribute to improving adaptation capacity to stresses due to climate change. The aim of this study was to evaluate the key ampelographic traits to identify true wild individuals supporting the preservation and use of wild populations.

Methods and Results

Prospections performed since 2002 enabled the inventory of 51 localities with wild grapevines, most of which were located along Spanish riverbank forests. A morphological study of 192 individuals grafted in the grapevine collection of El Encin (Alcala de Henares, Spain) was carried out ex situ, and results were compared with data from 182 Spanish commercial cultivars grown in the same collection. Wild individuals presented morphological differences with cultivars, but only a few significant differences were found within wild individuals when comparing their geographic origin and plant sex. Ten morphological traits were relevant to discriminate wild and cultivated specimens.

Conclusions

Ampelography, supported by previous molecular screening, is recommended to identify wild grape plants, although it is not advisable to establish relationships among wild genotypes by geographical location or gender.

Significance of the Study

Results are expected to contribute to improved discovery, preservation and use of this important phytogenetic resource.
Publication date:

15 January 2017

Autoren: Author(s): Allan K. Alencar, Guilherme C. Montes, Tadeu Montagnoli, Ananssa M. Silva, Sabrina T. Martinez, Aline G. Fraga, Hao Wang, Leanne Groban, Roberto T. Sudo, Gisele Zapata-Sudo Journal: European Journal of Pharmaceutical Science Jahrgang: 2016 Erscheinungsdatum: 04.12.2016

Source:European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Volume 97Author(s): Allan K. Alencar, Guilherme C. Montes, Tadeu Montagnoli, Ananssa M. Silva, Sabrina T. Martinez, Aline G. Fraga, Hao Wang, Leanne Groban, Roberto T. Sudo, Gisele Zapata-SudoRationale Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is characterized by pulmonary vascular remodeling that leads to pulmonary congestion, uncompensated right-ventricle (RV) failure, and premature death. Preclinical studies have demonstrated that the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER) is cardioprotective in male rats and that its activation elicits vascular relaxation in rats of either sex. Objectives To study the effects of GPER on the cardiopulmonary system by the administration of its selective agonist G1 in male rats with monocrotaline (MCT)-induced PH. Methods Rats received a single intraperitoneal injection of MCT (60mg/kg) for PH induction. Experimental groups were as follows: control, MCT+vehicle, and MCT+G1 (400g/kg/daysubcutaneous). Animals (n=5pergroup) were treated with vehicle or G1 for 14days after disease onset. Measurements and Main Results Activation of GPER attenuated exercise intolerance and reduced RV overload in PH rats. Rats with PH exhibited echocardiographic alterations, such as reduced pulmonary flow, RV hypertrophy, and left-ventricle dysfunction, by the end of protocol. G1 treatment reversed these PH-related abnormalities of cardiopulmonary function and structure, in part by promoting pulmonary endothelial nitric oxide synthesis, Cahandling regulation and reduction of inflammation in cardiomyocytes, and a decrease of collagen deposition by acting in pulmonary and cardiac fibroblasts. Conclusions G1 was effective to reverse PH-induced RV dysfunction and exercise intolerance in male rats, a finding that have important implications for ongoing clinical evaluation of new cardioprotective and vasodilator drugs for the treatment of the disease.Graphical abstract
Discover Irelands Birds

In Ireland we have around 200 regularly occurring bird species, some of which are here all year round and others that migrate to spend part of the year here. Of those migratory species, some come here for the summer to nest and other comes here to spend the winter. If we include rare vagrant species, then over 450 bird species have been recorded in Ireland.
Montana's road and traffic safety systems have become dangerously underfunded.

A solution is obvious: Raise the state fuel tax to meet these public safety demands.

The state's 27-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline and diesel provides the state funds for highways and partially funds the Montana Highway Patrol. That tax hasn't been raised in many years and now falls short of maintaining the road and patrol services at the levels budgeted in 2015.

Every dollar of state money spent on highway-related projects leverages several federal dollars. Montana has been getting 87 percent of its highway funding from the federal government. But to get the federal money, there must be state money to partially match the U.S. grants.

Neither Gov. Steve Bullock's biennial budget proposal nor bill drafts from the Legislature's interim committee on revenue and transportation offer a fix for the shortfall in the transportation and justice departments.

But cities, counties, economic development councils, private contractors and other Montanans have recognized the problem. The Montana Infrastructure Coalition, which counts the city of Billings among about 80 members statewide, is proposing a 10-cent-per-gallon increase in the state's fuel taxes.

That change would generate about $80 million in additional revenue, according to Darryl James, coalition executive director in Helena. The coalition is promoting a plan to split that new revenue with cities and counties whose share of the state fuel tax has been capped at about $16 million for decades. That's right; present state law directs only $16.7 million annually to be divided among cities and counties all across our great, big state.

Without new revenue, the Montana Highway Patrol will have a 10 percent cut ($7.7 million for the biennium) to reduce spending to the level of expected fuel tax revenue, according to Bullock's budget. The 27 trooper vacancies statewide wouldn't be filled.

The Montana Department of Transportation will take a much bigger hit if the fuel tax isn't changed. The Bullock budget for the next biennium would cut MDOT construction and maintenance by $222 million from the current biennium appropriation.

Here's how the Montana Infrastructure Coalition pitches a fuel tax increase: "With a 10-cent-per-gallon increase in the fuel tax and additional adjustments in the fuel tax revenue distribution formula, Montana can fully leverage available federal highway funds, and provide a long-overdue funding increase for city and county roadway and bridge improvements."

No elected Montana official is eager to sign onto a gas tax increase. Bullock didn't put it in his budget. Attorney General Tim Fox decried Bullock's lack of leadership, but Fox didn't tell the Associated Press that the tax should be raised.

Smart legislators - who will do the right thing, even if it means promoting a tax increase - must step up. An increase in the state fuel tax will keep our state running safer. Those fuel tax dollars will be spent in Montana, supporting jobs in public safety and construction. The coalition's idea for sharing new revenue with local governments also would take some pressure off cities and counties to raise property taxes to cover local road projects.

Along with us 1 million Montanans, nearly 12 million tourists pay our fuel tax every year. Those out-of-state visitors spend $3.66 billion annually in Montana, and fuel is the No. 1 purchase they make in many of our communities. Remember: Each dollar of Montana fuel tax can net $6 in federal transportation funds.

This is a great return on Montanans' money. Let's consider paying a dime more for gas because we need better roads, adequate safety patrols and good jobs for Montanans.

-- Billings (Mont.) Gazette
Global entrepreneurship community Metta has officially launched its members-only club in Nairobi, opening the doors to a dedicated space for entrepreneurs and investors to network and collaborate.

Image by 123RF

The Metta Nairobi space opened its doors at a launch event on Friday, December 2, 2016, with local personalities, business leaders, government and city leaders, convening to celebrate the launch.

Metta is a members-only, global entrepreneurs club which is built upon three founding principles: establishing a global business network, hosting meaningful events, and operating an exclusive space that entrepreneurs call home.

The club aims to facilitate collaboration within the entrepreneurship ecosystem, by providing a platform which brings together founders and startups, industry influencers, media, investors, educators, professionals, innovators and forward-thinking corporations from all industries, cities, and continents.

Metta Nairobi will also host regular events curated by its members, to drive thought leadership and encourage collaboration on topics around business and innovation.

Kenya is on the frontline of innovation and entrepreneurship. Despite the creative and driven talent in Nairobi, significant difficulties remain for entrepreneurs. Metta is built to connect the dots in the startup ecosystem but ultimately is here to provide startups and entrepreneurs with access and resources needed to succeed, Metta said.

Mettas unprecedented, unlimited pool of resources exists to move the world forward through collaboration and innovation. Simply put, this is our DNA.

The inaugural Metta club launched in Hong Kong in May 2016, and has registered more than 800 members within the first six months.

The opening of Metta Nairobi promises give local entrepreneurs direct access to Asias thriving startup ecosystems, and connect Kenyan entrepreneurs with investors, new business leads, and opportunities to scale into new markets.
RABAT, Morocco - With contracts across Africa running into billions of dollars, Morocco is placing business at the heart of its strategy to win support for its re-entry into the African Union.

Image by 123RF

From Senegal to Madagascar, King Mohammed VI is leading a drive to invest in banking, insurance, telecoms, manufacturing and construction projects.

And while it has long nurtured warm ties with its francophone neighbours in West Africa, Morocco is now using mega-projects to mend ties with East African countries long at odds with Rabat over the Western Sahara issue.

Rabat officially requested in September to rejoin the African Union, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member.

"The Moroccan vision consists of making its national companies real ambassadors in Africa," said Amine Dafir, professor at Hassan II University in Mohammedia near Rabat, who labels the strategy "economic diplomacy".

It is a drive that has seen the monarch lead a cohort of ministers and business leaders on official visits across the continent. In recent months they have been hosted by Rwanda, Tanzania, Gabon, Senegal, Ethiopia and Madagascar, where they finished a 10-day visit on Thursday. Nigeria and Zambia are next on the list. Each trip has resulted in a flurry of business deals.

The king's trip to Madagascar in November produced 22 agreements including a vast project to "upgrade" the Pangalanes canal, a series of waterways that extends around 700 kilometres (430 miles) along the country's east coast.

Also in November, Morocco signed an agreement to build a giant factory aimed at making Ethiopia self-reliant in fertiliser by 2025. The announcement came during as King Mohammed visited Addis Ababa - seat of the African Union.

Morocco quit what was then called the Organisation of African Unity in 1984 to protest at the admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic declared by the Polisario independence movement.

Morocco maintains that Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony under its control, is an integral part of the kingdom. The Polisario Front, which campaigns for the territory's independence, demands a referendum on self-determination.

Isolated in Africa for decades, Morocco launched an "African Strategy" in the early 2000s in partnership with its "national champions" - Moroccan firms that have developed branches across the continent.

Since then, the kingdom has inked around 500 deals in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Moroccan think tank OCP Policy Center. The region is now the target of more than 60% of its foreign investments.

Until 2016, those investments mainly targeted Rabat's francophone West African neighbours, which largely support its position on Western Sahara.

For example, Morocco is the biggest foreign investor in the Ivory Coast, where Moroccan companies are working on a vast $160 million (150 million euro) project to revamp the Cocody bay in the economic capital Abidjan.

But its desire to rejoin the African Union prompted Rabat to change tack, with King Mohammed paying unprecedented visits to other parts of the continent, where many countries support the Western Sahara's Polisario Front.

He has played up "south-south cooperation" to promote Moroccan outreach, with a touch of anti-colonial rhetoric. "During my visits to Africa and through the projects I have launched there, it is not at all about giving lessons, it is about sharing experiences," he told the Madagascan press during his recent visit.

On the front line of those projects are Morocco's champion businesses, many of which are partly owned by the royal family's investment group, the National Investment Company (SNI). Attijariwafa Bank, the country's top banking group, through investments and acquisitions, has gained a presence in 12 countries across the continent.

State-owned firms are also involved, with phosphate mining company OCP - one of the world's top fertiliser producers - leading the charge. OCP plans to pump roughly $15 billion (14 billion euros) into African projects over the next 15 years.

Driss Grini, professor at the University of Marrakesh, said attempts by world powers to invest in the continent are often "badly perceived by Africans".

"On the other hand, Morocco's relations with sub-Saharan African countries are seen in a positive light," he said. "They are governed by a vision of common interests and a win-win logic."

Source: AFP.
Vega School has just launched a new ad campaign calling for students to find their purpose during times of uncertainty, just as potential students are considering their choices for the upcoming year.

At the core of the campaign is a video featuring Vega students honouring the mindset of Generation V (the current generation of Vega students, alumni, employees and stakeholders) and which taps into the internal Generation V positioning, developed by Vega.

Shevon Lurie, MD at Vega said, By branding it Generation V and articulating its identity, Vega has strongly positioned itself as the only design, brand and business school that understands the elusive spirit of this generation. By coining the term Generation V, we have furthermore created a powerful hook upon which to hang the whole complex set of values, attitudes, beliefs and behavioural patterns that define this generation.

Generation V is a mindset that combines the unique personality of Vega with the traits of the youth that characterise ideal students. The school believes that brands can have meaning and add value to how people live their lives. We believe an organisation stands responsible for every decision and action it takes. We believe in creativity and its power to influence what people think and feel. We are committed to graduating individuals that meet challenges with original solutions.

The campaign, which will run online and on social media, shows a number of students talking about finding their purpose, through finding a career and passion that suits them, finding a place in the world and playing a part in bettering it. In the video, they talk about shaping their future, finding new solutions to old problems and building a better tomorrow through 2020's most sought-after skills - complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity.

Carla Enslin, co-founder of Vega explains, Vega believes that the only meaningful social, cultural and economic exchange is that which adds value to the lives of all people. The campaign aims to inspire our youth and communicate how finding purpose, paired with creativity, passion and the power of ideas, can reshape South Africas future.

We are experiencing a time of change and uncertainty, but the new generation believes that they can take a stand and fight the good fight. The role that we can play in society is so much more than it was in the times of boomers and early millennials. An idea has never been as powerful as it is today, and we believe that the students of tomorrow have the power to change the world, concludes Lurie.

The campaign will roll out over digital and social media for the month of December and January. View the campaign below:
The 2016 winners of the Mohair Trophy for the excellent quality of their mohair production have been selected. They are F E Colborne & Sons, which won the Mohair Trophy for the tenth time since the establishment of the Trophy, while P H Viljoen and Neil Colborne won second and third place respectively. The winners were awarded a silver plate, created by Italian silversmith Bandimarte Guscelli.

The Mohair Trophy, an annual competition established in 1970 to select and award the finest quality mohair fibre, is sponsored by the luxury Italian designer group, Ermenegildo Zegna and Mohair South Africa, a non-profit organisation representing the entire mohair industry.

Ermenegildo Zegna has once again reaffirmed the significance of the superior quality of raw materials by purchasing the top three winning bales of the 2016 edition and has demonstrated its ongoing support of South African mohair, encouraging producers to deliver the highest standards of kid mohair fibres.

Starting with the 45th anniversary edition, an exclusive special auction was established for the mohair lots participating in the Trophy. The peculiarity of this new auction is that the bales are sold anonymously and the identity of the farmer is announced only upon its conclusion.

During the auction this year, a mohair lot was sold at a price corresponding to the highest price ever paid for kid mohair. It was revealed only after the awarding ceremony that the record-breaking lot was actually the winning bale from the 46th Mohair Trophy, signalling that both the judges and the market independently deemed the lot to be the best.

Lanificio Ermenegildo Zegna, the heart and soul of the Zegna Group, commits to buying the winning lots, including the record-breaking lot and the second and third place Trophy winners. Located in Trivero, in Northern Italy, the Lanificio then transforms these lots into the exclusive, limited edition fabric known as Mohair Trophy Selection, an example of the excellence and quality the group stands for.

Weve been celebrating the best quality mohair since 1970 and it is always a pleasure to award the efforts and achievements of the mohair growers, said Paolo Zegna, chairman of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, who attended the intimate gala dinner. The trophy programme is a testament of the importance of the mohair industry, as well as the commitment of our group to maintain the high qualitative standards of the raw materials we use for our most precious fabrics, such as wool, mohair, cashmere, vicuna and silk. On behalf of the entire group, I extend my congratulations to the winners and sincerely thank all the participants to whom I encourage to continue their hard work in targeting excellence.

It is an accolade for South Africa and the South African mohair industry to be recognised as a partner by a brand such as Ermenegildo Zegna. South Africa prides itself on producing the best mohair in the world, delivered by top quality South African mohair farmers. The relationship with

Ermenegildo Zegna has been key in the positioning of the South African mohair brand as a reputable supplier of top quality mohair to the world.

We extend our personal gratitude to Zegna for his support over the last forty plus years and we hope that we can continue with this collaboration for many years to come. Congratulations to the farmers for the excellent quality mohair, which they produce, the efforts they put into producing this exquisite fibre for Zegna to tailor top class garments for their stores across the world, said Deon Saayman, MD of Mohair South Africa.
As the festive fever finally begins to take hold, retailers that can connect more to their customers while still offering world-class products and services will find themselves in high demand.

The days of retailers just being traders are over. Far more is required to succeed in todays fast-paced and competitive industry, with weak spending power by consumers, the rise of online providers and globalisation just some of the myriad of challenges being faced.

Black Friday certainly marked the beginning of the 2016 festive shopping season. Initial feedback is that most consumers focused on specials and discounts, with the grocers attracting a large number of consumers.

Our footfall showed double digit increases over this weekend in some of our larger assets. While Black Friday is growing in popularity in South Africa, the company does not think that this will result in a better than expected festive spend but has seen customers bring festive shopping earlier, says Antoinette Coetzee, retail asset manager for Redefine Properties.

Consumers have become far more discerning due to persistently tough economic conditions. A high degree of uncertainty continues to prevail with the dreaded ratings downgrade still looming over the economy and retailers will need to connect with customers to bring cheer this festive season.

Food to perform well

When looking at key sectors and trends, food categories are expected to perform well over the festive season again this year, as will health and beauty. The effect of currency volatility on electronics and imported luxury goods, however, could see people being more circumspect in that segment of the market.

As always, convenience and good infrastructure will remain important differentiators when it comes to choosing where to shop. The urbanisation of shopping is a major driver and landlords that remain on top of their game can truly assist in helping retailers maximise the opportunities.

Grabbing the consumers attention, however, has become so competitive that attention is the new retail currency. Retailers need to embrace an omnichannel approach, giving the consumer seamless experience whether they are shopping on a mobile phone, by telephone or at a till and we expect to see more of click and collect shopping this year, especially if it saves costs and ensures desired products are secured. Personalisation is about the customer feeling as if they have been spoken to.

To leverage this personalisation opportunity, retailers must analyse both online and offline data for a more comprehensive picture of the consumers decision journey. Meanwhile, experiential gifting, also known as experience gifts, is the in trend this season and is bound to grow exponentially as consumers take to the gifting experience over material gifts.

Pop-ups mark key trend

In another key trend, pop-ups are literally popping up all over the place, as flexible lease terms become popular with start-ups wanting to test the water, as well as for established brands looking to create a more personalised experience around new and exclusive launches.

For us, pop-ups provide the flexibility to keep the tenant mix exciting and dynamic, so that we can offer customers a new experience every time they visit our malls. As retailers and brands begin to understand that experience is everything, pop-ups provide the ideal interface to create new and memorable experiences that keep consumers interested.

This trend dovetails with the demand for bargains as many consumers trade down. As the stress of a slowdown takes over the spending habits, the more cautious spender is more likely to put off purchases to benefit from the post-festive season markdowns. However, retailers who can collaborate, personalise and be responsive to the ever-demanding consumer will own the future.

Seismic shifts in retailing can be overcome

It is no secret that retailing has undergone seismic shifts over the past few years largely on the back of a fractured economy. In the same vein, the unabated growth of social networking and digital devices is providing the sector with a new revenue stream.

The connectedness of digital has offered retailers more choices than ever when considering how they want to reach the consumer. Whether the business was digital first or physical first, retailers are blurring the lines and putting the customer first. Click & collect is the new trend in fulfilment of online orders when on time delivery is not a nice to have but a prerequisite.

Engaging customers takes more than just good marketing and malls. In todays competitive retail environment where goods are bought and sold long after the malls have closed for business, it is vital for us to give the customers an invaluable experience. In a world of brand polygamy, retention and loyalty is about crafting memories that capture the consumers imagination so they come back for more, concludes Coetzee.
Fashion fundies across SA will soon get their threads as easily as they get an Uber with retailer TFG testing its 'deliver 2 me' service for online purchases.

The service, which is in pilot phase in Cape Town, will make TFG the first retailer locally to apply the technology in this way. Deliver 2 me uses a geolocation tracking system like that seen in the Uber application, allowing customers to pinpoint their exact location for delivery.

TFG chief information officer Brent Curry said the innovation would add convenience for customers as it was "the most compelling delivery option in the industry".

"When the parcel is ready, TFG will send the customer an SMS. If they choose the deliver now option, the parcel will be delivered in their specific location within three hours.

"Customers are able to change their location while delivery is taking place. If that is the case, TFG will automatically prompt them to drop a pin at their new location," said Curry.

The service will be offered in partnership with Wumdrop. Plans are to take it live in February in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.

The introduction of the service comes as retailers start trying to capture slices of the growing e-commerce market in SA. Clothing retailers, in particular, have been slow to offer e-tailing in addition to their bricks-and-mortar stores.

Strictly web-based players, such as Spree and Zando, have been game-changers, forcing an acceleration of innovation in the industry. Studies have shown that consumers who shop online spend more than they do in-store.

Curry said the group was on track to have all 20 local stores on its eMall by the end of 2018 and to hit a target of R550m in annual online sales by the end of 2020. UK operations Whistles and Phase 8 would join in 2019.

"International brands that have been trading online for many years achieve 5% of their sales online. Already we are operating at more than 1% of total sales and our goal is to reach 5% within six to eight years," said Curry.
The acquisition of Sovereign Foods would not be a financial burden for Country Bird Holdings (CBH), CEO Marthinus Stander said in response to charges by Sovereign that his company was using the acquisition to get out of financial difficulty.

Stander said CBH not only had sufficient funds for the purchase of Sovereign, but had the resources to fund the merged entitys growth plans. Far from planning to rationalise the merged business, "CBH considers it likely that jobs will be created by the future growth of the combined entity", said Stander.

CBH, which owned 34.1% of Sovereign, was blocked from acquiring a controlling share by the Takeover Regulation Panel. In November, the panel ruled that CBHs offer had lapsed and it had to wait 12 months to make another offer.

Before the offer lapsed, CBH applied to the Competition Commission for approval of the deal. The commission gave its approval in November.

Within weeks Sovereign announced it was taking that decision on review.

In its application, CBH gave an undertaking to the commission that there would be no retrenchments as a result of the merger and said that all employees, including management, would be retained with conditions of employment that were no less favourable than those they enjoyed now.

The undertaking would be in place for three years.

In its application to review the commissions decision, Sovereign said CBH was financially constrained and that this would raise adverse public interest concerns. Sovereign also said the merger would lead to a reduction in competition and would increase the incentive to foreclose.

Stander said that for several months Sovereign had been trying to create perceptions in the marketplace that CBH did not have the necessary financial resources. He said this was part of Sovereign boards attempt to stymie the deal. "This perception is simply incorrect. Synapp International, Proterra Investment Partners and the International Finance Corporation are united in their resolve to conclude the successful acquisition of Sovereign." CBH had outperformed Sovereign in the past two financial years, he said.

Sovereign recently reported a R36.4m loss for the six months to August. CBH, which is unlisted and does not publish results, said it had made an after-tax profit of about R30m over the same period. CBH had also been investing outside SA and Stander said it had just spent R500m in Nigeria "towards one of quite a few expansion projects in Africa".

Stander said it was regrettable that Sovereign CEO Chris Coombes had rejected a number of attempts to set up a meeting.

"CBH continues to believe that the combined entity will be appropriately diversified across a great number of product categories with the requisite scale to weather the severe headwinds currently facing the industry," he said.

Vunani analyst Anthony Clark said "no matter the cost, no matter the time or impact on earnings, Sovereign management will do anything to stay independent and keep their jobs and perks".

Sovereigns share price, which dropped from a high of 930c when the Takeover Regulation Panel announced CBHs offer had lapsed, closed at 780c on Monday, up 2.63% on the day.

Analysts said this level, which was comparatively strong given the outlook for the industry, suggested that investors believed there was still an opportunity for a deal.
A number of countries around the world have declared ambitions to reduce their carbon-generated power drastically, turning to the power of the sun as a clean alternative.

The government of India has recently unveiled a major stepping stone toward achieving its goal to produce 40% of its power from non-fossil fuels by 2030. It is a super solar power plant, officially the largest of its kind, situated in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu.

The site covers an area of 10km2 and its solar panel field consists of 2.5-million individual solar panel units. It snatches the title of worlds largest solar energy plant from Topaz Solar Farm in California, USA.

The massive clean-energy undertaking was funded by Adani Group and cost approximately $679m. The site will allow India to generate about 648MW of additional electricity, powering roughly 150,000 homes with the suns energy. It is hoped that this solar power project will help the country combat its problem of bad air quality, as the capital city of New Delhi recently saw its worst levels of pollution in 17 years.

Similarly, Moroccos largest solar power plant is situated on the edge of the Saharan desert. Though it is still under construction and will only be completed in 2018, the plants first wing has been activated and is already supplying the local town of Quarzazate with carbon-free power.

Once the entire site is running at full capacity, it is estimated that it will generate 580MW of power  saving Morocco hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions each year and providing approximately 1.1-million Moroccans with sustainable power. The north African countrys government plans to have 42% of its entire power demand supplied by solar energy by 2020 and further 52% by the year 2030.

The island of Singapore has similar ambitious solar energy plans, but without the luxury of vast open deserts to build on. In fact, Singapore faces a major real estate problem and without natural infrastructure in the form of rivers to generate hydroelectricity from, engineers have had to ramp up their creativity to maintain a future vision of clean energy for the small island.

Solar energy is the only source and option of renewable energy for Singapore, says Thomas Reindl, deputy CEO of Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore. Other forms like hydroelectric power, wind turbines and geothermal energy are not feasible because the country lacks the space and natural infrastructure like a major river system.

One of Singapores chief solutions is called solar leasing which involves the use of rooftops as a spot to install solar panels without additional costs to whoever lives below, as Ronnie Tay, CEO of the National Environment Agency of Singapore, explains: The solar leasing business model, which involves the sale of solar electricity to building owners rather than the sale of solar modules, has quickly gained ground in Singapore. This allows solar systems to be installed on building rooftops, without any upfront capital costs to the building owners. As a consequence, the base of solar adopters in Singapore is growing, and today includes many industrial and commercial players.
The heavyweights of world trade, including the United States, China and Japan, meet in Geneva this weekend to establish a list of environmentally friendly products for which tariffs can be eliminated or reduced.

The green products include solar panels, wind turbines and air quality monitors "that can help achieve environmental and climate protection goals," the World Trade Organisation said.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem is expected at the WTO talks on Saturday, 10 December, along with senior officials of 17 countries, including US Trade Representative Michael Froman.

The officials hope to finalise an accord on Sunday but nothing is guaranteed, a source close to the WTO said.

Talks on the Environmental Goods Agreement began in July 2014, based on a proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos six months earlier.

Malmstroem said some 300 environment-related products would be considered at the Geneva talks.

Over $1,000bn (940bn) worth of goods in this sector are traded every year, according to the WTO.

If a deal is reached this weekend, countries will next year establish a list of reduced tariffs for each product, a WTO spokeswoman said on Friday.

The WTO said the benefits of any agreement would be extended to all of its members.

Source: AFP
FBNBank Ghana unveils TransFast Money to widen customer base

FBNBank Ghana has introduced TransFast Money, a global remittance service as it seeks to increase its customer base and foothold.

Managing Director of the bank, Gbenga Odeyemi said the addition is to present customers with a range of options when sending remittances for business transactions and to their families back home.



According to the World Bank, one in seven people worldwide are migrant workers and we know that within the global percentage are many Ghanaians and Nigerians who need to remit money regularly to their family and friends back home and at FBNBank Ghana, we want to ensure that no matter where our customers and their relations are, they can send money said Mr. Odeyemi.



We also know that the Global remittance economy is a huge economy which is fast expanding and as a player in the global money economy, we want to play our part in its growth. With TransFast, FBNBank Ghana is proud to introduce a renowned brand to its customers and potential customers. He added.



TransFast Money is the latest addition to other money transfer services offered by the bank such as Western Union, MoneyGram, Ria, Sigue and Integrity. With its headquarters in New York, TransFast provides multi-currency, cross-border payments for companies and individuals through a wholly owned direct-to-bank network in accordance with all international laws and safeguarding customers information.



For any money transaction, safety, reliability and convenience are critical and FBNBank Ghana strives to give our customers that and more in a comfortable and friendly environment. Mr. Gbenga Odeyemi said.



Aside FBNBank Branches in Ghana and some West African countries, TransFast can be accessed around the world in First Bank of Nigeria branches and agencies all over the globe, as well as from 200,000 pay points across 120 countries.

www.firstbanknigeria.com
As a major blizzard struck central North Dakota on Monday, the Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman put out a clear message: It's time to go home.

"There is no need for the water protectors or for anybody to be putting ourselves in unsafe environments. We have a winter storm, we have cold weather coming," Dave Archambault II said in a video statement.

He thanked the thousands of people who opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, leading to the the Department of the Army announcing Sunday it would not approve an easement under Lake Oahe and recommended an Environmental Impact Statement and further consideration of alternative routes, treaty rights and potential spills.

He also expressed confidence the pipeline had been halted for the time being and that the company would not try to drill across the river without permission, as many protesters fear.

"If they violate that easement, it is going to threaten all the investor's money. It's going to threaten the project entirely, because they will never get the easement if they cross the boundary," he said.

Energy Transfer Partners said Sunday night it remained "fully committed" to the current route. On Monday, its lawyers filed in federal court to move up a hearing on its claim that the federal government already authorized construction under the river crossing with the initial permits.

A spokeswoman for the company confirmed Tuesday there would be no drilling under Lake Oahe without the government's consent.

"We will not drill under Lake Oahe until we have the approval to do so," Vicki Granado wrote in an email.

Archambault also warned the protesters that continued direct action could endanger the tribe's win. He said he is working to convince the current administration, the Trump administration and state government officials that the right decision about the easement had been made.

"The pipeline company is going to try to antagonize us. They're going to try to make us react," he said. "If we try to commit a crime like hurt somebody, hurt law enforcement, take over a pad, destroy equipment. When we do stuff like that, that's an illegal act. And that's what the company wants us to do so that this project, this pipeline, can go through in its current location."

But whether people will heed Archambault's warning remains to be seen.

Mark Tilsen, of South Dakota, who was at camp on Tuesday, said lots of people were leaving with the blizzard, but he was not.

"Ain't over until I'm smoking a cigar on the drill pad," he wrote in a Facebook message.

Dallas Goldtooth, a protest organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said he thinks people should do as they see fit.

"I am in the middle. It's of people's choosing," said Goldtooth, who's currently in Chicago. "There's some folks with really strong opinions about staying that are based on some legitimate reasons: the fact that this pipeline is not officially dead. It's not officially over. There's legitimate treaty rights that are reinforced with the prolonged encampment."

However, he said he respects Archambault's leadership, and he expects many will heed the chairman's call and warning.

"He has legitimate concerns for people's safety," Goldtooth said. "People should do what they feel is right, what they feel is safe."

Goldtooth said conversations are ongoing within his organization and with the tribe about cleanup of the land.
Some of the key issues affecting smallholder farmers' access to good quality seeds include limited knowledge, lack of access to information, high costs of seeds and a lack of seed laws. These issues came up at a recent two-day Access to Seeds Index workshop held by the Southern African Confederation of Farmers Union (SACAU) and Access to Seeds Foundation (ATSF) in Johannesburg.

Thanachot Pongpanich via 123RF

The workshop was attended by SACAU member organisations from Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The various farmer organisations were given a platform to learn, share challenges and understand access to seeds in the Eastern and Southern Africa region. The workshop also looked at how the Access to Seeds Index can mitigate these challenges.

We need more planning and strategic thinking for the future generations of farmers. We must start with a good seed and this is fundamental, said SACAU CEO Ishmael Sunga. Access to this seed at the right time, at the right cost, at the right place, and with the right quality is one of the key drivers of productivity, he said.

The Access to Seeds Index (ATSI), published in February 2016, measures and compares the worlds leading seed companies based on their efforts to improve access to seeds for smallholder farmers. It is also the first index to assess regional companies alongside their global peers, focusing for the first time on Eastern Africa.

Quality of seed can make a difference

Engagement is needed to improve access to seeds for smallholder farmers, said Jack Vera, agricultural counsellor at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. We need to feed nine billion people, and thats mainly why the Netherlands is involved, he said.

The executive director of the Access to Seeds Foundation (ATSF) in Netherlands, Ido Verhagen, reiterated the importance of access to good quality seeds. In the past 50 years, farmers in Europe and the USA tripled their yields in large part thanks to improved high yielding varieties  the quality of seed can make a difference, said Verhagen. He also informed delegates that there is evidence that shows that there is business in supplying smallholder farmers.

The Access to Seeds Index evaluates company performance in seven measurement areas where stakeholders expect or desire company activity, which are Governance & Strategy, Public Policy & Stakeholder Engagement, Genetic Resources & Intellectual Property, Research & Development, Marketing & Sales, Capacity Building and Local Seed Sector Advancement.

Farmers organisations and the seed industry need to develop mutually beneficial partnerships at sub-national, national and regional levels, said Sunga.
The livestock industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of the agricultural economy, contributing approximately 40 percent of the global value of agricultural production. Most of this growth is in response to global changes such as a growing and increasingly urbanised human population, accompanied by an increase in meat consumption.

sspiehs3 via pixabay

This trend is also reflected in Southern Africa where livestock production contributes up to 40 percent of agriculture GDP in some countries. Of increasing importance is the contribution of livestock to household income, food, and nutrition security. For most of the smallholder farmers and pastoralists, livestock is essential for diversifying income sources, investment and risk management, providing manure/fertilizer, draught power, and transportation as well as for social and customary functions.

Livestock sector impacted by climate change

Lately, however, livestock production in the region has been severely affected by evolving climatic patterns that have resulted in an upsurge in livestock diseases, rangeland degradation, and limited access to water. The 2015/16 El Nino-induced drought resulted in more than 640,000 livestock deaths, mainly in Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

Outbreaks of anthrax were reported in Lesotho and Zimbabwe, and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreaks, in northern Namibia, southern Angola and Zimbabwe. It is not surprising therefore that livestock-related interventions are a crucial component of emergency agricultural responses.

Findings from livestock needs assessments, conducted recently in several countries in the subregion, revealed the limited capacity of in-country agencies and government staff involved in the design, implementation and assessment of emergency livestock programmes, to effectively respond to the effects of El Nino on the assets and livelihoods of vulnerable livestock keepers. In addition, the findings showed significant/serious gaps in the governments and partners capacities to prepare for emergencies, design and implement response and recovery interventions.

Read the full article on Agri Africa.
There has been an increase in demand of more than 100% for senior leaders from South African companies over the past three months, as businesses urgently play catch-up to fill their top posts.

 Rabia Elif Aksoy  123RF.com

Debbie Goodman-Bhyat, CEO of executive search firm Jack Hammer, says there has been a wave of briefings from across all sectors since September.

Comparing the months of September to November from 2015 to 2016, it shows that there has been a massive spike in hiring demand at a leadership level, with a year-on-year increase for these periods of just over 100%, she says.

And although some of the demand is spurred by the need for companies to make key hires in line with their transformation policies, it is not significantly more than usual.

Rather, the recent rush can be ascribed to a combination of macro-economic factors, the local political context, and business imperatives.

All of these factors of course play a role in general. But the way they have converged in this instance, has led to an interesting trend in the leadership space, she says.

Very recently, Statistics SA released the third quarter labour force survey, which showed that unemployment levels in the country now stand at their highest in 13 years, at 27.1%. Many analysts are predicting that the situation is set to get worse, not better. Yet an opposite trend is starting to become evident at senior levels.

Goodman-Bhyat says that despite SAs ongoing economic woes, there is a greater than ever  and increasing  demand for top leaders across the retail, FMCG, financial services, NGO and education sectors.

Impact of commodities crisis in China

Last year, the commodities crisis and shakiness in China in August 2015 had a bigger impact than expected on the South African economy, resulting in caution and conservatism regarding senior management hiring, she says.

This played out in the three months following, with a tapering of the demand that had been relatively consistent throughout 2015. One might have expected this to continue into 2016 given the ructions particularly around the Finance Ministry and Treasury, and SAs tenuous political and economic situation, however that proved to not be the case.

Goodman-Bhyat says that typically, after a lag in hiring at executive levels, a period of catch-up follows where companies rush to fill roles that have remained vacant for some time.

This correction started early in 2016 and has escalated throughout the year, with a lull only in July during the local and international holiday period. However even given this consistent growth, the past three months has seen a tremendous spike in search and hiring activity.

Despite tough markets globally and locally, organisations are fully cognisant of the fact that they need key people to drive growth and navigate complexity  to do anything else is to accept organisational demise. And to postpone critical hiring any further places an already back-footed company at a significant disadvantage.

New trend in executive search

Meanwhile, Goodman-Bhyat says that an interesting new and growing presence in the executive search space are companies seeking suitably qualified and experienced leaders in the online education sector.

A number of local and global companies offering a range of education offerings, from early learning to tertiary, in digital and online formats are emerging, and we expect to see consistent growth in this sector for the foreseeable future, she says.
German automaker Daimler has announced the appointment of Andreas Engling as CEO and executive director manufacturing of Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA). Arno van der Merwe, currently in this position, will start a new chapter in his career as president and CEO of Beijing Benz Automotive Co. Ltd (BBAC).

Arno van der Merwe

Van der Merwe succeeds Peter Schabert, who retires after 31 years at Daimler AG. Schabert has been president and CEO of BBAC since August 2015.

"We have reached one of our most significant milestones to date under the lead of Peter Schabert: last year China became the largest market for Mercedes-Benz Cars. Schabert successfully and continuously increased the capacity, productivity and flexibility of our plant in Beijing. We are deeply grateful for his commitment in Germany and in China and we are now looking forward to the collaboration with Mr Van der Merwe," says Hubertus Troska, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, responsible for Daimler Greater China.

Van der Merwe, designated president and CEO of BBAC, brings many years of experience in automotive production. He has been CEO and executive director manufacturing of MBSA since March 2014. Prior to that, he held the position of plant leader from 2011 to 2014. Under his leadership, the East London plant saw productivity increases and received six consecutive JD Power awards in the US market for quality excellence. He has enjoyed a diverse career path within Daimler since joining the South African operations in 1996.

"It is an honour to have been entrusted with such an important role. The leadership team at BBAC has created an excellent foundation for growth and I am excited to be part of this ongoing journey of collaboration and teamwork," says Van der Merwe of his new role.

Andreas Engling

Andreas Engling has been with the Daimler organisation for more than 30 years. He is currently head of engine production for Daimler's Unterturkheim plant in Germany and was previously in the position of CEO of MDC Power, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daimler AG. Before this he held various positions in the company.

"I am excited about this new opportunity to lead the East London plant further on its path of quality and productivity excellence. I look forward to working collaboratively with all stakeholders of the larger Mercedes-Benz South Africa group of companies and building on the rich heritage of the company of more than 65 years in the country."

Both of these appointments are effective 1 April 2017.
Cape Town's busiest time of the year is approaching with tourists and locals visiting beaches, shoppings centres, attractions and popular destinations. For this reason, Transport for Cape Town will extend the operating hours of the MyCiTi bus service during the festive season.

Diriye Amey via Wikimedia Commons

"Those driving around the city would have noticed the increase in traffic already. With the weather improving and the start of the festive season only a few weeks off, we expect the number of visitors to increase significantly. I want to remind residents and visitors that the MyCiTi service operates a number of routes to our local beaches and places of interest such as Table Mountain and the V&A Waterfront.

Visitors are encouraged to opt for the MyCiTi buses which offer a convenient and scheduled service. Also, part of winding down is not having to drive yourself and to search for parking  I thus advise our locals to give the MyCiTi service a try. Why hassle with congested roads when the buses on the inner-city routes, to Hout Bay and Melkbosstrand will drop you off within walking distance of your destination," said the Citys Mayoral Committee Member: Transport for Cape Town, Councillor Brett Herron.

In addition to being a convenient alternative to private transport, the City will also extend the operational hours of the MyCiTi bus service on routes to shopping centres, tourist attractions, and the beaches, and on New Years Eve during the festive season.

"The MyCiTi service will operate later than usual to accommodate those who want to do late-night shopping at the V&A Waterfront and Canal Walk. Additional trips will be added after 9.30pm as from Friday 2 December until Thursday 23 December 2016," said Herron.

Additonal buses

Additional buses will depart from the Waterfront on the T01 trunk route to Table View and Dunoon, on Route 214 to Parklands, Route 104 to Sea Point, Route D01 to Khayelitsha East and Route D04 to Kapteinsklip in Mitchells Plain. Later buses will also operate on Routes 251 (Century City), the T03 trunk route (Atlantis, Table View, Omuramba), and the T04 trunk route (Dunoon, Century City).

"We will also add more buses on routes to and from the popular beaches on 16, 25, 26, 27 and 31 December 2016, as well as on 1 and 2 January 2017. I want to urge beachgoers to rather park in the vicinity of the Civic Centre station in the central business district and take a MyCiTi bus to Sea Point, Camps Bay, and Hout Bay. The main routes along the Atlantic Seaboard are notorious for bumper-to-bumper traffic during the festive season and limited on-street parking. Taking the bus is the most convenient option," said Herron.

Additional buses will operate between the Civic Centre station and Camps Bay (Route 107), Hout Bay and town via Sea Point (Route 108), and between Table View, the Blouberg beachfront and Melkbosstrand (Route 217).

"The MyCiTi service will operate late into the night to accommodate those who want to celebrate New Years Eve at popular spots around the city. It is a safe and hassle-free option with additional buses operating between 9.30pm and 2am on selected routes and at intervals of 20 to 30 minutes," said Herron.

The last bus will leave the Waterfront to Table View and Usasaza (T01) at 1am; from the Civic Centre to Camps Bay (Route 107) at 1am; from the Table View station to Melkbosstrand (Route 217) at 1am; and from the Table View station to Parklands (Route 214) at 2am.

The MyCiTi schedules will also be adjusted to cater for quieter morning and afternoon peak-hour periods due to the annual holiday period as from Monday 19 December 2016 to Friday 6 January 2017.
SAN FRANCISCO: Apple has revealed it is investing heavily in autonomous vehicles in a letter asking the government to make it easier to develop self-driving cars.

Denys Kuvaiev via 123RF

The company is "excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation," Apple said in a 22 November letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration offering Apple's opinion about draft regulations for the sector.

"Apple looks forward to collaborating with NHTSA and other stakeholders so that the significant societal benefits of automated vehicles can be realised safely, responsibly, and expeditiously," the company's director of product integrity Steve Kenner wrote.

Apple issued the letter because it is "investing heavily in machine learning and autonomous systems," an Apple spokesman said in an email to AFP.

"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."

Rumors about Apple's ambitions in the sector have circulated for years. The company has a separate organisation called "Project Titan" that is developing automotive projects. Although Apple has never officially confirmed the project, several of CEO Tim Cook's comments have fueled speculation.

After a $1 billion investment in a Chinese ride-hailing service called Didi Chuxing, he spoke of "some strategic things that the companies can do together over time."

However, in early September, The New York Times reported that the group had narrowed its ambitions, laying off dozens of staff as part of the project's "reboot." Instead of designing and producing a complete self-driving car, the group will now concentrate on developing underlying technologies for autonomous vehicles.

In its letter, Apple urges the NHTSA not to penalise new participants in the sector by restricting the testing of cars under development on public roads, for which established automakers generally have exemptions.

"To maximise the safety benefits of automated vehicles, encourage innovation, and promote fair competition, established manufacturers and new entrants should be treated equally," it says.

Apple also encourages data sharing, particularly for accidents, saying that would enable the industry to "build a more comprehensive dataset than any one company could create alone."

Most major auto manufacturers and many technology groups are currently developing autonomous vehicles, considered to be the future of the automobile, along with electric power, with first production models promised for around 2020.

Source: AFP
According to Fortinet South Africa, the shortfall in specialised IT security skills is increasing the risk profile of South African organisations. Addressing this shortfall demands an increased focus on developing a skills pipeline within public-private sector partnerships.

Ron Harris, major account manager: public sector at Fortinet South Africa, says the IT security skills shortfall is a global problem. In South Africa, we see cyber risk exposure increasing due to the skills shortfall, as well as due to ageing security infrastructure that is inadequate for mitigating increasingly sophisticated attacks. This problem is particularly apparent in the public sector, he says.

Global issue

However, South Africa is not alone in this. Global studies indicate a drastic need for more cyber security experts in public sector, with a 451 Research study of more than 1,000 IT professionals finding security managers reporting significant obstacles in implementing desired security projects due to lack of staff expertise (34.5 percent) and inadequate staffing (26.4 percent).

As recently as 12 July, 2016, the US Office of Management and Budget issued a Memorandum entitled 'Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Strategy' discussing how the federal government was attempting to address recruitment challenges for the federal cybersecurity workforce. On a broader industry scale, current estimates show up to one million cyber security job openings with demand expected to rise to 6 million globally by 2019.

Public sector awareness

Harris believes that in South Africa, the public sector is well aware of the risks of cyber attack, non-compliance, reputational damage and service delivery impact. We see many public sector organisations moving to improve their levels of IT security. However, many others are challenged by budget constraints and skills shortages, resulting in their running ageing and varied point solutions, and requiring outside assistance for patching and maintenance.

These, he notes, are expensive and risky approaches to securing systems and information. Often, there is also a disconnect between network performance and security, with organisations focusing their energies on improving network performance at the cost of security, he says.

Two immediate solutions to these challenges include integrating and updating enterprise security, and building a skills pipeline, says Harris.

By updating ageing solutions and integrating them into a single stack, organisations gain easier management, a single view of the environment, and require fewer skilled resources to manage IT security. By aligning network performance and security performance and the associated IP, the organisation stands to gain both optimal security and network performance, he says.

Investing in skills development

Skills development is a longer-term, but crucial investment, he notes. A number of South African IT stakeholders, and many local organisations, are investing in IT security skills development. However, these programmes need to be beefed up if we are to achieve the level of IT security skills we need in the country.

Public and private sector need to embark on focused cyber security training and certification programmes that deliver both theoretical and practical training, in order to support governments strategic objectives to reduce unemployment, develop the economy and enhance service delivery, Harris says.

Fortinet Network Security Academy

Aiming to contribute to a local IT security skills pipeline, Fortinet South Africa is in talks with local tertiary institutions to bring the Fortinet Network Security Academy (FNSA) to South Africa. The FNSA is a global initiative introduced earlier this year to develop and train action-oriented cyber security experts to manage new and advanced threats on the horizon. Through tertiary institutions, the Academy provides theoretical and practical Fortinet training and certification to students around the world.

The programme has already been rolled out in the U.S. at institutions such as Cape Coral Technical College in Florida, Per Scholas in Atlanta, New York, Columbus and Cincinnati, the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University in New York; at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada; Willis College in Ottawa, Canada; and HTL Rennweg in Austria. Twenty additional organisations are expected to become Academy sites soon.

Harris says: Fortinet has recently started talks with South African IT-focused education facilities on bringing the FNSA programme to South Africa. Our contribution to this training would include the necessary technologies, network security expert level four training and the exam, fully integrated into the related faculty degree or diploma course. This programme would make students more marketable on graduation and would also serve to take much-needed advanced cyber security skills into the workplace.

In addition to promoting the FNSA, Fortinet is also upskilling its partner ecosystem through partner and end-user technical break-away sessions lead by both local and international systems engineering teams, where IT professionals participate in in-depth workshops to update their skills on the latest technologies.

We, and other industry players, need to work with public and private sector organisations to focus on training more learners to prevent cybercrime, and continue to expose more IT professionals to the latest security technologies and trends, says Harris.
Cloud computing will experience even greater innovation in the next 10 years than it has over the past decade, as the cloud becomes ubiquitous among slower adopters, such as large companies and governments, says Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services, Amazon.com's cloud computing firm.

Developers had spent a great deal of time and energy over the past 10 years exploring whether companies and governments would use the cloud for mission-critical applications, as well as convincing them they could, Jassy said at Amazon Web Services's re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

"A whole generation of builders will emerge who are not wasting energy on that, but using all their time and capabilities to build businesses we've never imagined, and transforming the customer experience among existing businesses," Jassy said.

Cloud computing refers to the use of an internet platform for database storage, IT services and applications.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the US, the largest independent securities industry regulator in the world, completed the move of its market surveillance system from private data centres to a public cloud in July. Several thousand members of the financial services industry were attending the conference, Jassy said.

Over the past two to three years, this and industries such as healthcare had adopted a more open approach to cloud-based services. "All of these companies want to take advantage of the capabilities that everyone else can."

On the sidelines of the event, WorldWideWorx MD Arthur Goldstuck said SA was behind countries such as Kenya and Nigeria with cloud migration. "Companies in those countries are driven [to cloud adoption] by the unreliability of infrastructure and power supply," he said.

Since SA's infrastructure was more stable, there was less of an incentive. "A lot of companies remain in a comfort zone, whereas there's no comfort zone in other African countries."

Yet the cloud offered huge cost savings and speed advantages, Goldstuck said.

"As soon as companies see their cloud-embracing competitors racing ahead of them, there's going to be crisis management  rather than a steady migration  to get into the cloud."

Source: Business Day
While the government says its road safety strategies are having an impact on road deaths, critics say the human and economic toll is far higher than reported. They also claim the available information is insufficient to fully inform safety strategies.

PublicDomainPictures via pixabay

SA is more than halfway through the UN's Decade of Action on Road Safety, which calls for a halving of road fatalities by 2020.

Costs and death toll under reported

The cost of accidents is estimated to be the equivalent of 3.4% of GDP annually, but critics say the figure could be far higher. They also say the death toll may be almost twice that of official figures.

The total cost of accidents on SA's roads in 2015 amounted to about R142.95bn, according to a 2016 study conducted by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) and the Council For Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). According to the joint study, 13,967 people were killed in road accidents in 2010 and 12,702 in 2014, but these figures are widely disputed.

Philip Hull, director of private advocacy group Road Safety Foundation, said the relatively stable figures for road accident deaths, in an environment of increased traffic, might mean policies were working. But the figures didn't tally with information from hospitals or the foundation's own research, and the fatality figure could be as high as 20,000 to 25,000.

There was under-reporting, and police information often relied only on records when individuals were declared dead at the scene, said Hull.

DA transport spokesman Manny de Freitas said the last solid statistical data available was from 2008 - a year many agencies, including the RTMC and the South African National Roads Agency Limited, were established. Much of the institutional memory and many of the experienced personnel who used to conduct such research had since moved on.

RTMC spokesman Simon Zwane denied claims by civil society groups that the corporation had failed to make available statistics to them. He said the RTMC continued to work closely with stakeholders.

But according to the RTMC-CSIR report, in 2015 a total of 12,944 fatalities were recorded, although the report increased this by 5% due to underreporting - globally a problem. The report notes it had relied on RTMC information, which does not account for slight injuries or collisions where there was only damage. Numerous agencies and entities - from metropolitan police to insurance providers - were asked for information but no useful data was obtained, the report notes.

State interventions and strategies

A number of state interventions were imminent or continuing, including six commissions that are probing road safety related to regulation, commuter mobility and the capacity of emergency services.

Addressing the third national road safety summit in November, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters outlined numerous strategies, ranging from enforcement to the inclusion of road safety in the basic education curriculum. "Through the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Bill, we intend implementing the driver demerit point system and enhancing the adjudication process of road traffic infringements," Peters said. By 2017, community road safety councils would be established in all provinces, she said.

Hull said what may be needed was a new road safety agency - jointly funded by the state and private sector - that would coordinate strategy.

"There is no sustainability or continuity in planning. If it is a pure government initiative, the private sector doesn't take it that seriously; if it is private sector, the government doesn't take it that seriously."

Source: Business Day
Zebra Technologies Corporation, a global provider of solutions and services that give enterprises real-time visibility into their operations, has announced that global leaders from healthcare, retail, transportation and logistics (T&L), and manufacturing validate the 'intelligent enterprise' as the defining trend of the decade for industries globally.

The concept of the intelligent enterprise is about making businesses as smart and connected as the world that surrounds us. A sensor may seem like a small device, but when married with the troves of data and the ability to understand  and act on  it brings a big wave of technological innovation, creativity and new levels of intelligence to our world. To make the intelligent enterprise a reality, companies from across industries must band together to come up with and agree upon standard practices and guidelines so all enterprises can connect and be more intelligent, says Anders Gustafsson, CEO, Zebra Technologies.

2016 Innovation Symposium

Zebra, in partnership with the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) assembled 40 top executives, industry experts and policymakers for the 2016 Innovation Symposium: The Intelligent Enterprise. Executives from organisations such as Google, GE Healthcare and IBM defined the intelligent enterprise and explored best practices and opportunities for organisations of varying sizes and industries related to the Internet of Things (IoT).

The TECH has released a whitepaper summarising the outcomes of the discussion along with some considerations that are paramount to the successful adoption and deployment of IoT solutions and how organisations can harness their full potential. Zebras EAI Consulting Practice brings methodologies, tools and vertical expertise to help define the right future state for operational efficiency and accelerate desired business outcomes.

Multi-industry intelligence

Organisations across industries are already making strides to make the intelligent enterprise a reality:

 The MIT Senseable City Lab focuses on the creative applications of sensors in urban environments to generate new data streams, promoting resilient, efficient, and intelligent cities. Sensors placed in the sewers in Cambridge, Massachusetts are gathering biochemical data related to viruses, bacteria, chemicals, what people are eating, what medications they are taking and more.

Until recently, information technology had a fundamental limitation: it depended on human beings to give it its data. The 21st century is all about real-time, automatic data streaming and processing where decisions can happen automatically from machine learning systems. Organisations across industries are already using automated data capture and processing today to gain an advantage. This leaves organisations a choice: become an industry leader and embrace the future today by harnessing the full potential of IoT, or fall behind, states Kevin Ashton, co-founder, Auto ID Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 Transit X is a solar-powered personal mass transit system that can replace buses, trains and cars. Ultra-light podcars quietly glide above traffic under a thin rail carrying an individual or up to a family of five. Destinations are entered via a smart phone or kiosk, and a podcar is waiting at a small platform that is as convenient as a bus stop. Once seated, podcars accelerate to merge onto the system, travelling non-stop to the destination, with guaranteed arrival times.

 Google is exploring cloud technology and machine learning, including making Google Apps like Gmail, Docs, and Hangouts more intelligent. Google Search will include speech recognition, Gmail will get a smart reply feature, Google Photos will get a more sophisticated search function, and so much more.

 GE Healthcares Dose Management solutions are designed to automatically collect and analyse patient radiation exposure across multi-facility, multi-modality and multi-vendor imaging environments. It enables healthcare professionals to monitor the radiation exposure of patients, evaluate their practices and make improvements so the right dose is used to provide the best patient outcome.

Tim Kottak, CTO, GE Healthcare comments: "Change is happening at a rapid pace. Todays hospitals are up against changes in regulation, cost pressures, competition and higher standards for patient safety. Because of this, GE has used data and machine learning to become a partner that provides not only medical equipment, but also solutions that improve outcomes. We believe IoT holds endless opportunities in healthcare, from predictive patient care to the way pharmaceuticals are made  and weve only just begun.
GRAND FORKS  Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., is under advanced consideration for energy secretary, he said Monday after a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.

Cramer recounted the discussion, which included talks of him joining Trumps Cabinet, hours after speaking with Trump and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

I will tell you this: He was interested in talking to me about a possible Cabinet post, specifically secretary of energy, Cramer said, noting that Trump asked what Cramer would do if he were offered the post -- would he stay in the House of Representatives or join the administration?

He kept saying, well, which one would you rather do? Cramer said. Theres strong pluses to both, and Id be honored to do either one. Id do both with enthusiasm and all the influence I have.

Cramers name has been included in Cabinet speculation for weeks. He addressed the possibility in November following Trumps electoral victory, but he said hed prefer to have the influence I have as a congressman. He also said, though, that nobody should lightly say no to a president and called a Cabinet offer a tough call.

Trump also hosted Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., on Friday. Their meeting prompted speculation that she was under consideration for a Cabinet position as well, though Heitkamp insisted the topic wasnt broached. Instead, the two spoke about issues such as human trafficking, energy and the Dakota Access Pipeline.

"I think the president-elect wanted to better understand what my thinking was, what my priorities were," she said. "He's a very busy person. To spend an hour just really hashing around a lot of issues, I so appreciated the opportunity to really talk about things that are so important to North Dakota."

Cramer said that he, Trump and Priebus spoke for between 45 minutes and an hour.

We talked about politics; we talked about North Dakota. (Trump) kept saying, I love North Dakota, I love North Dakota, Cramer said, adding that he briefly spoke with Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, before the meeting took place.

Cramer added that, as energy secretary, he would weigh technologies that help make coal production more environmentally friendly and move away from what he framed as a politicized preference for renewable energies within the Energy Department.

It was a nice conversation -- thats the way to put it, Cramer said, adding that their conversation also touched on the Dakota Access Pipeline and climate change. We talked about energy policy, basically, and we talked about the Cabinet.

A Cabinet appointment for either Cramer or Heitkamp would prompt North Dakotas governor to call for a special election to fill the vacated seat in Congress.
Do you want to be a trailblazer in the mobile space?

Join Mobitainment and mCordis in March 2017 for the first industry-accredited Professional Qualification in Mobile Marketing.

Mobitainment will host mCordis, the mobile and connected marketing education and advisory service company based in the UK and USA, here in South Africa, for an exclusive mobile course delivered by Paul Berney, the co-founder of mCordis and a recognised global leader in mobile marketing.

The two-day mobile course will take place in March 2017 and you will have the option to complete the online exam to qualify for your accredited qualification in partnership with the Institute of Direct & Digital Marketing.

Make mobile marketing a strategic priority for your brand

This interactive mobile marketing qualification course is designed to give you a comprehensive understanding of mobile marketing and the skills to start applying it in your marketing mix and overall business. You will leave the course with a solid understanding of how and when to apply a variety of strategies and techniques to effectively communicate with and engage your audience via mobile.

This intimate, hands-on course, through presentations, case study review, individual and group exercises, will help you understand the state of mobile and its impact on marketing. Upon completion of the course youll have gained the key insights to:

Understand the current state of mobile-influenced consumer behaviour and its impact on marketing



Articulate the evolution of mobility and marketing



Understand current and proposed regulations and other laws affecting mobile marketing practices



Express how the industry is structured and means of identifying partners and key resources



Understand how mobile works differently across geographies, markets and individual constituencies within particular markets



Use data and insight to plan, monitor and measure the success of your mobile presence and mobile-enabled marketing campaigns and the overall ROI of your efforts



Leverage a number of frameworks for evaluating mobile and the industry



Develop a thoughtful and reasoned marketing strategy that actively includes mobile



Be prepared to sit for The IDM Award in Mobile Marketing Qualification exam

Receive a Professional Qualification Award by taking the IDM online exam

After successfully completing the mCordis course, the first industry-recognised professional accreditation course in mobile marketing, and the IDM qualification exam, participants will receive an internationally recognised IDM Award in Mobile Marketing. They'll have the right to include the designation in their signature as well as receive the IDM graduate logo that they can use on their website and related materials.

Developed and taught by recognised industry experts

The mCordis Professional Qualification in Mobile Marketing has been developed and is led by Michael Becker and Paul Berney, internationally recognised leaders in digital and mobile marketing, who have worked with hundreds of brands, agencies and technology companies around the world.

Who is this course for?

The course is for marketers looking to become professionally recognised mobile marketing practitioners and equip themselves with the knowledge and tools to create and execute effective mobile strategies for their organisation.

Requirements

No prior knowledge of mobile marketing is required, although it is anticipated that attendees will be experienced marketers with a good understanding of the marketing mix and have responsibility for formulating and executing marketing plans.

Interested?

Email Carmen Murray at az.oc.tnemniatibom@nemrac if you are interested, require more information or to book.




WASHINGTON, USA - A big rise in drone use is likely to lead to a new wave of "dronejackings" by cybercriminals, security experts warned.

Image by 123RF

A report by Intel's McAfee Labs said hackers are expected to start targeting drones used for deliveries, law enforcement or camera crews, in addition to hobbyists.

"Drones are well on the way to becoming a major tool for shippers, law enforcement agencies, photographers, farmers, the news media, and more," said Intel Security's Bruce Snell, in the company's annual threat report.

Snell said the concept of dronejacking was demonstrated at a security conference last year, where researchers showed how someone could easily take control of a toy drone.

"Although taking over a kid's drone may seem amusing and not that big of an issue, once we look at the increase in drone usage, potential problems starts to arise," he said. The report noted that many consumer drones lack adequate security, which makes it easy for an outside hacker to take control.

Companies like Amazon and UPS are expected to use drones for package deliveries - becoming potential targets for criminals, the report said. "Someone looking to 'dronejack' deliveries could find a location with regular drone traffic and wait for the targets to appear," the report said.

"Once a package delivery drone is overhead, the drone could be sent to the ground, allowing the criminal to steal the package." The researchers said criminals may also look to steal expensive photographic equipment carried by drones, to knock out surveillance cameras used by law enforcement.

Intel said it expects to see dronejacking "toolkits" traded on "dark web" marketplaces in 2017. "Once these toolkits start making the rounds, it is just a matter of time before we see stories of hijacked drones showing up in the evening news," the report said.

Other predictions in the report included a decrease in so-called "ransomware" attacks as defenses improve, but a rise in mobile attacks that enable cyber thieves to steal bank account or credit card information.

The report also noted that cybercriminals will begin using more sophisticated artificial intelligence or "machine learning" techniques and employ fake online ads.

Source: AFP.
Deep Heat South has announced the launch of its new website that will honour every kind of athlete who inspires everyone to #KeepGoing.

The Deep Heat website will post monthly urban athlete stories of regular Joe's who have taken a step in the right direction to get healthy and fit. They will also feature South Africans who are taking on physical challenges and tasks in order to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate.

The new site will offer advice from sporting experts and will keep readers up-to-date on sporting events taking place across the country where they'll find the Deep Heat physio team.

You can visit the Deep Heat South Africa website here.
Developers of the Dakota Access Pipeline say they are fully committed to completing the project without rerouting the pipeline and filed a motion in federal court Monday seeking to expedite a federal judges decision.

Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, requested Monday to make oral arguments at the courts earliest convenience in its cross claim against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The company suggests Friday as a possible hearing date.

In a motion for summary judgment, Dakota Access wants a U.S. District Court judge to declare that the corps already authorized construction of the Lake Oahe crossing north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Attorneys for Dakota Access argue the corps approved the crossing with its July 25, 2016, final environmental assessment but is bowing to political pressure and the lawless acts of numerous protesters.

The paperwork comes in response to the Department of the Army announcing Sunday that it would not grant an easement for the crossing without an Environmental Impact Statement and additional analysis of alternative routes.

The companies called the decision from the Army a purely political action, pointing out that two federal courts have already sided with the corps review process.

The Army corps confirmed this again today when it stated its policy decision does not alter the Armys position that the corps prior reviews and actions have comported with legal requirements, the statement read.

The companies added they are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe.

The Army ordered additional review of alternative routes, including more detailed information on a route Dakota Access considered early in its planning that would have crossed the Missouri River about 10 miles north of Bismarck.

But previously, in the environmental assessment, the corps concluded the Bismarck route was not a viable alternative for several reasons, including its proximity to wellhead source water protection areas that are avoided to protect municipal water supply wells.

The Bismarck route also would have been 11 miles longer, required crossing more waterbodies and wetlands and would have crossed an area considered by federal pipeline regulators as a high consequence area, which is an area determined to have the most significant adverse consequences in the event of a pipeline spill, the corps concluded.

Companies have testified to the North Dakota Public Service Commission that a full Environmental Impact Statement can take up to a couple of years to complete, Chairwoman Julie Fedorchak said Monday.

That EIS is a pretty in-depth process and is not short, she said.

If the Dakota Access Pipeline were to be rerouted, the new portion of the route would have to go through a full hearing and review process with the PSC.

The agency would need at least four to six months to conduct that review, which would come after the company acquired new easements, conducted cultural resource and environmental assessments and additional requirements, Fedorchak said.

Wed review all of that documentation as if its a new proposal for that portion of the route, she said.

In court records, Dakota Access estimated delays of the pipeline will cost the company $2.7 million in lost revenue every day after Jan. 1.

Any significant delays of the project could prompt some existing landowner easements to be renegotiated. Attorney Derrick Braaten, who represented about 10 percent of the landowners along the North Dakota portion of the route, said easements for his clients will be released if the pipeline is not used for two consecutive years.

Jan Hasselman, attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice that represents the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said the consequences to the company are their own fault for building the $3.8 billion pipeline on either side of the Missouri River without an easement to go under it.

Whatever consequences arise from this decision are on them, Hasselman said. They took a reckless gamble and it didnt pay off.

Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said he thinks companies that planned to ship oil on Dakota Access will remain committed to the project despite the delay. The 1,172-mile pipeline will transport oil to Patoka, Ill., en route to refineries in the Gulf Coast.

I dont think its going to change any long-term commitments of any companies, Ness said. A few more months or weeks or whatever it may be is certainly detrimental and costly, but probably not unanticipated.

In the meantime, more Bakken crude will continue being shipped by rail or truck, Ness said, noting Mondays winter weather in North Dakota made those methods riskier than shipping by pipeline.

If this pipeline was up and flowing today, that oil would be moving safely and consistently to market without any interruption, Ness said.
Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com.
STANDING ROCK SIOUX RESERVATION -- As blizzard conditions mounted, a representative of the protest camps just south of the Dakota Access Pipeline construction zone issued a clear message on Monday.

As water protectors, we have a responsibility to be stewards of the water, said John Bigelow, head of the camps media committee and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux. We declare here today, we are not going anywhere.

Bigelow spoke at an afternoon press conference held in the large central dome used as a gathering and meeting hall by protesters in the Oceti Sakowin camp, which is based at the confluence between the Missouri and Cannonball rivers north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

His declaration came on the heels of a victory for protesters with the Sunday decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny an easement to Energy Transfer Partners -- the Texas-based company building the pipeline -- to drill beneath the Missouri River to provide a crucial crossing for the near-complete infrastructure project.

Bigelow described the easement denial as one battle in a larger movement against injustice and said he found it unlikely that President-elect Donald Trump, who has voiced support for the pipeline, would prioritize enforcement of the corps' decision. He also doubted the Trump administration would apply punitive action if Energy Transfer Partners defied the corps and drilled its intended route beneath the Lake Oahe reservoir on the Missouri River without an easement.

A statement from Energy Transfer Partners issued in response to the corps decision stated the denial will not change its plans and the company will not consider rerouting the pipeline.

Earlier Monday, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said protesters should leave the camps, Reuters reported. Archambault anticipated that no additional construction work would go forward over the winter season and said he would focus efforts on communications with Trump.

In response to Archambaults statement regarding non-Sioux protesters, Bigelow said the chairman represents the tribe and has been working with the Oceti Sakowin camp for a very long time. However, he said the interests of the camp and the tribe may not always align.

Our interests here go as far as keeping people in camp safe, and it takes of all of our attention to do that, he said. We allow the tribal council to work on their things on their side, but we have a little narrower focus here. We welcome all who want to come and stand beside us -- we just want them to bring very warm shoes.

Digging in

Many of the protesters across the camp this past weekend were busy preparing for an arduous North Dakota winter. The summer tents and casual camping gear have largely been put aside; many of the thin consumer tents collapsed under the weight of recent snowfall and are now being reused to winterize larger structures, such as teepees, temporary wooden structures and boxy military surplus tents.

Volunteers have distributed insulating bales of straw around the camp, though not all of the living spaces are so equipped. Stovepipes rise above most of the bigger tents, and propane heaters have become commonplace.

To address some of the risks of the heating methods, carbon monoxide detectors are included with the various cold-weather supplies distributed to protesters in the camp.

As day turned to night Monday, 40 mph winds and driving snow created white-out conditions. Temperatures are expected to fall into the single digits later this week.

Glenn Scott, a member of the Chippewa tribe and a native of Wausau, Wis., was among the protesters gathered in the falling snow around noon at the camps central fire, a site used for ritual and prayer.

Scott, a military veteran who served in the Vietnam War era, said he felt drawn to camp last summer, but was spurred to action by the recent call to veterans. He came bearing a staff and eagle feathers in honor of his brother.

Despite the easement denial and the suggestion from Archambault, Scott said protesters were holding their ground.

What Ive been hearing so far is that people are not leaving, he said. People are staying behind to make sure they follow through, and they want to see (Energy Transfer Partners) take their equipment, pull out and go. I think, until that happens, a lot of these people are going to stay -- and even then, there might be some who stay behind even longer to make sure.

Other protesters echoed that sentiment.

I know that the oil companies could give a damn about any permits, said Karl Wood, of Los Angeles. Im not certain how much we can do out here, but I also dont trust that theyre going to stop drilling.

Wood believed the protest movement was not just about Standing Rock, but rather a piece of a larger environmental movement. Still, he said non-Sioux protesters should heed the wishes of Archambault and the tribe if asked to leave.

Were here by invitation; its their land, Wood said. Staying on without welcome would just be further colonization and would not be respecting the very things theyre asking for.

Jeremiah Soft, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux who lives in Minnesota, said he wasnt certain what the future of the camp will hold.

Ill pray for the best, he said.

Soft was happy with the welcome hed received at camp and said volunteers have been helpful and kind in ensuring the comfort of new arrivals. He wasnt sure how he felt about Archambaults suggestion that non-Sioux protesters should leave the camp.

I think people should be respectful of the wishes of the elders and the chairman and not try to go off and do their own thing, he said. But we need all the help we can get out here. All the supporters are needed, and people keep coming in left and right.
Donald Trump has invited Milos Zeman, the islamophobic president of the Czech Republic to visit the White House

6. 12. 2016

cas cteni 2 minuty





On Tuesday 6th December, Donald Trump spoke by telephone with Milos Zeman, the islamophobic and populist president of the Czech Republic, says a press release from the Czech Presidential Office (in Czech) HERE.



In the telephone conversation, Trump expressed his appreciation that Zeman "was the only European president to publicly support him" before the US presidential elections in November. Trump has invited Zeman to visit the White House. The visit is to take place in April 2017. Trump has accepted Zeman's invitation to the Czech Republic. (One of Donald Trump's former wives was Czech and his children are half-Czech.)

The Czech president Milos Zeman stands seriously apart from most Czech politicians due to his strong xenophobia and islamophobia. Many commentators point to the fact that Zeman is, in fact, Europe's answer to Donald Trump. Zeman has been disseminating hate speech, making strongly anti-islamic, unsubstantiated public statements in order to whip up popular support for himself. He has been condemned for this by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein for disseminating hate.

Last year during the Czech National Day on 17th November, President Zeman sang the national anthem on stage with a proponent of concentration camps and gas chambers for muslims:







Zeman has been repeatedly warning in public against what he sees as the "menace of islam". This is one of his notorious statements:

"Unfaithful women will be stoned, thieves hands will be cut off and we will be deprived of the beauty of women because they will have to have their faces covered. I can imagine that in some cases this might be beneficial, though."

Here is a selection of some of other recent statements by president Zeman:

The UNHCR educational project about the refugees, which uses a comic and a film to allow schoolchildren to feel what it is like to be a refugee, is idiotic and dangerous, says Milos Zeman

Milos Zeman recommends that Czech citizens should be afraid of terrorist attacks and should obtain guns,

Milos Zeman: "Muslims would not work, they only come for welfare payments"

Czech President Milos Zeman has publicly mocked the two Pakistani refugees who tried to hang themselves in Athens: "If these two Pakistani refugees tried to hang themselves, maybe it was a pretend suicide, just for show. You know, if you really mean to hang yourself, you will not survive," laughed Zeman.





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A U.S. Army medic staying at the Oceti Sakowin camp during Monday's blizzard said medics and camp security checked every dwelling in the pipeline protest encampment and provided assistance in the bitter cold weather.

There are some tents that are no longer weatherproof, and theyve been asking those who can leave to do so, said Christa McDermont, a member of a veterans group from Los Angeles, who joined Standing Rock's protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline over the weekend.

McDermont said medics treated some cases of lower-grade hypothermia Tuesday, but none severe enough to require hospitalization. The goal of checking on everyone in the sprawling encampment was to ensure that everyone was safe in the storm and provide 24-hour medical care as backup to the established medic facility at the camp.

Hundreds of people have pledged to stay the winter at there, living in teepees, yurts, motor homes, tarped-over tents surrounded by straw bales and other structures on an open area just north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

This is despite continued winter weather warnings from government agencies and the tribal chairman. The governor ordered a mandatory evacuation of the camp prior to last week's blizzard, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the camp would close Monday due to the weather and confrontations with law enforcement. Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II issued a video statement Monday requesting everyone go home in the wake of the army's decision to not approve the easement and to avoid the harsh winter.

All warnings have gone largely unheeded by the protesters, who want to see the pipeline officially stopped.

There was no official evacuation during the storm, but several hundred took shelter at the Prairie Knights Casino and the community center in Fort Yates, with some others at the Cannon Ball gym, said Elliott Ward, Sioux County's emergency manager. On Tuesday afternoon, Ward was preparing to open the gym at the Standing Rock High School for extra relief.

Ward said many people got stuck in the storm as they tried to leave the protest camps on Monday night.

"The storm hit so fast that people didnt have a chance to get anywhere," Ward said. "Weve been telling people at that camp this is not a good place to be in wintertime, especially with wind chills dropping."

North Dakota agencies also stepped in with assistance. The Department of Transportation diverted snow plows to highways in the camp area for safety reasons. In cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Morton County asked protest leaders if any additional help was needed, but none was requested, according to the Morton County emergency dispatch center. The North Dakota National Guard remained on standby with six buses, and emergency shelters were available in Morton County.

About three dozen protesters took shelter in Morton County Monday night, including at the school in Flasher, the Mandan Braves Center and an auditorium in New Salem, according to the release.

Dallas Goldtooth, a protest organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, reported that, with deteriorating conditions, the camps medic council had a handful of people transported to the hospital for non-critical situations. He added that the police roadblock on the Backwater Bridge, where vehicles burned in October, is delaying a medical run to Bismarck by an hour and a half.

Bruno Gex, a documentary journalist from France whos covering the protest, was at the casino Tuesday afternoon and said people were still arriving.

People are coming in with backpacks and sleeping bags. More and more people are coming in. They look cold, wet and tired, said Gex, adding he was stranded overnight in the casino and made do on the pavilion floor after rooms quickly filled up. Theyre trying to get some food, but there are so many people.

Stormy Johnston, of Kansas, was trying to sleep in a green army barracks tent at the Oceti Sakowin protest camp went it collapsed under the weight of wind and snow and sent all 50 people inside scrambling in the dark early Tuesday morning.

Johnston and her group arrived Sunday with the 2,000-strong Veterans Stand for Standing Rock group and said the plan to stay a few more days ended with the storms advance.

It was cold, and I was shivering, trying to stay warm. The winds were gusting up to 50 miles an hour. At about 3:30 a.m., our tent started collapsing, so we put out the wood stove. We went to another tent to warm up and from there, we all went to the casino, Johnston said.

She talked only a few minutes and said her group was going to take advantage of a window in the storm conditions mid-afternoon and head back to Kansas.

Were figuring to get out now, said Johnston, adding that, though she had one good night in the barracks tent Sunday followed by one where it all fell apart, shed do it again to help the protesters.

We met others who stand with us and who want change to make things better, Johnston said.

Maj. Amber Balken, of the North Dakota National Guard, said the guard has not had any request to provide fuel or other services to the camp, despite widespread rumors to that effect.

Everett Iron Eyes Jr., manager of the casino, said he opened the pavilion after all 200 rooms at the casino were booked. Many are laid out wall-to-wall on the bleachers of the concert pavilion, he said.

I was not going to turn people out into the cold, he said."Whatever it takes to help people. I dont care who it is."

By mid-afternoon Tuesday, conditions were starting to lift and people were starting to move out and about.

Visibility was the biggest issue. I just looked out and traffic is starting to flow again, he said.

The casinos supplies  and hot water  were holding up, but another day with that kind of demand on food services might have been a problem, he said.
The national-level political talks is broken down into 3 groups; ethnic-based political talks, region-based political talks, and topic-based political talks.

Most of the UPDJC [Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee] members have proposed to hold the talks in areas that are prepared. However, those areas must be the ones where the commanding armed groups signed the NCA. Therefore, Mon State will not be able to hold the ethnic-based talks, said Min Kyaw Zeya Oo, member of the UPDJC and the Mon National Party (MNP).

The ethnic-based political talks will be conducted by political parties and NCA-signatory ethnic armed groups, region-based talks will be held by the state or regional government, and topic-based talks will be held by civil society organizations, according to UPDJCs project directory.

Our Mon people can participate in the region-based talks, but in Tenasserism Division the Tenasserism Division government will lead the talks. The Mon people can discuss further based on the topics given, said Min Kyaw Zeya Oo.

Min Kyaw Zeya Oo continued that the Tatmadaw [Burma army] proposed the ethnic based political talks will be held in Karen State, the region-based talks will be held in Tenasserim Division, and the topic-based talks will be held in Nay Pyi Taw.

The government does not agree in allowing the non-NCA signatories to hold national-level political talks. What I want to suggest is for NCA-signatory groups and UNFC members continue anyway and try to reach agreements with the government. As a result, there wont be the question on whether this area or that area can exclusively hold the talks, said Sai Kyaw Nyunt, UPDJCs secretary member.

The NMSP, which is a member of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) and the Mon peoples major armed group, signed state level and Union level ceasefire agreements with the government in 2012, but it hasnt yet signed the NCA.
On 2 December, Defense Minister LtGen Sein Win proposed to the Lower House that the Parliament should consider labeling the NA-B that launched offensives in Shan State as a coalition of terrorist organizations.

He said: Because the offensives are causing senseless death and injuries to the innocent civilians, destroying non-military targets like buildings, motor vehicles and economy of the people, (I) proposed that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA) should be considered as terrorist organizations by the Parliament.

The Defense Minister further stressed and urged the Parliament that the help of NGOs and INGOs under the heading of humanitarian aids should also be curtailed.

Buttressing the Tatmadaws hard-line stance, the military MP Col Than Aung said that tough actions should be taken against the main perpetrators including United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) chairman NBan La, KIA leader Gam Shawng, TNLA leader Tar Aik Bong, MNDAA leaders Peng Jiasheng and U Peng Daxun and the AAs commander Tun Myat Naing, in line with existing statutes, according to the antiterrorism law.

However, the Tatmadaws motion, including twelve lawmakers debate were recorded without any decision made. Thus the debate over an urgent proposal by Dr. Maung Thin of Meiktila Constituency on NA-Bs offensive issue, which was said to have caused death, injuries and displacement of civilians and affected national sovereignty, rule of law, stability and the countrys peace process, was decided only to be recorded by 244 against 141 votes.

The NLD and ethnic parliamentary representatives were said to have discussed the issue and opted for speedy negotiation around the table.

UNFC response

Understandably, the UNFC has responded by saying that the Tatmadaw MPs fervent insistence within the Parliament to label head of the UNFC NBan La, whose organization has constantly been in touch with the government regarding the ongoing peace negotiation, reflected the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaings opinion on the UNFC, said Tun Zaw one of its spokesperson.

He further elaborated that the KIA, through the UNFCs good office, has time and again requested the Tatmadaw for talks to stop the offensives and deescalate the armed conflict, but were only met with a deafening silence.

He stressed that the UNFC is still for peaceful negotiation to end the conflict and it now depends solely upon the attitude of the government and the Tatmadaw, whether they would be ready to come around to the negotiation table.

Accordingly, there has been a widespread believe that the government is not in a position to say or discuss anything regarding the Tatmadaws military undertakings.

Aung San Suu Kyi

During the State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyis recent visit to Singapore, on 1 December, about 7,000 Burmese people attended the event at the Big Box Event Hall in Singapores Jurong East neighborhood, where she touched on selected questions posed by the community.

From all the questions posed, two of them are quite relevant as it concerns the issues of rape and the impact of the NA-B offensives on the 21st Century Panglong Conference.

Regarding the series of highprofile child rape cases over the past few months, It is also a social issue, she said. We have to analyze why there are so many rape cases against minors and what kind of weak points our society has.

We need to analyze these cases from a social perspective, and then we will decide how we should resolve these cases in every possible way, she stressed.

But surprisingly enough she had not made any mentioning on the Tatmadaws long employment of rape as a weapon of war against the ethnic population, which were so widespread and well documented, in connection with the rape issue discussed. The high profile rape case of the two Kachin teachers by the Burma Army troops, in northern Shan State in January last year, is still a fresh reminder for many of the ethnic women that still have to live with the constant fear and worry within the conflict zones.

Concerning the recent clashes in northern Shan State, which have pointed a spotlight on the importance of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference, she said: Some dont have the courage to achieve peace, when the mistrust [between communities] is bigger than the desire for peace.

However, Suu Kyi is quite vague in addressing the root cause of mistrust and what could be done to achieve trust that has been depleted. She clearly failed to mention the month-long Tatmadaw offensives in Kachin and Shan States that have contributed to the depletion of the little trust that the ethnic might have ever accumulated on the government.

Chinese mediation

Meanwhile, the Chinese planned mediation between representatives of the Northern Alliance and officials from Burmas National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) on 1 December in Kunming, China to discuss a possible end to the two-week-old conflict fell apart, as the opposing sides could not agree on the basic format of the meeting, according to ethnic armed group leaders.

According to Radio Free Aisa, one Northern Alliance negotiator, Col Tar Phone Kyaw of the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) said: We, members of the NA-B all four, wanted to meet as one group together, but Dr. Tin Myo Wins group (NRPC) wants to meet separately; first with TNLA, later Kokang and AA only. As we cant agree, were going back.

Remarkably, the NRPC made no mention of wanting to meet the KIA.

Frustrated, Col Tar Phone Kyaw said Now lets go back to our territory and launch this war again, after the talks failed to materialize, reported The Irrawaddy.

On 29 November, Mr. Wang Wei, Deputy Director of the Yunnan Foreign Affairs Office, met the Myanmar media delegation in Kunming World Trade Center was interviewed.

When asked what would be Chinas position on accusation that the Chinese government had provided help to the ethnic armed groups after some of their members entered China following the conflict that broke out, replied: If any injured people come into China, the Chinese authorities will provide medical treatment to them in the first place. At such a critical moment, we dont have any time to investigate the identity of the injured. But what I want to stress is the stance of the Chinese government, which is no action by anyone is acceptable to undermine the peace and stability in the border area, and no one is acceptable to rely on China to fight others. The Chinese government hopes that Myanmar would restore peace via political means. We think such information carried by foreign media is inaccurate. We hope that the Myanmar media may obtain detailed and accurate information via this field investigation.

The point to be noted here is that China is not going to take sides, but humanitarian aids would go on, where necessary.

Perspective

Looking at the recent development, the future outlook of the peace process looks dim. Suu Kyi is unable to rein in on the military to stop its offensives in Kachin and Shan States; the two-tier administration seems to become the order of the day, with the military making and implementing its own policy in ethnic areas, while the NLD rules over in areas where wars are absent; the polarization of positions between the Tatmadaw and the NA-B, which also indirectly involves the UNFC; and the Tatmadaws commitment to carry on the war of attrition rather than a negotiated settlement.

Besides, the Tatmadaws attitude on the ethnic population within the conflict zone is worrying, which is unreasonable and outright inhumane, as curtailing humanitarian aids would mean starvation and slow death for the people caught in the war between two warring groups.

As such, pessimism has taken over the political landscape and in particular, the much promoted 21 Century Panglong Conference and peace process achievement are now really in doubt.

But there is still a glimmer of hope for not all has gone down the drain yet, when Home Minister General Kyaw Swe said that even though the four EAOs that formed the NA-B could now be announced as terrorist organizations, in order not to affect the governments peace process, they were abstaining from doing it.

This considerate stance, in contrast to the Defense Minister urging to label the NA-B as terrorist groups, has at least leave the door of negotiation open for now.

But the immediate task of the warring parties has now being tested militarily in Mong Ko area, given the intense firefights with the NA-B trying to route out the Tatmadaws hill top garrison to take control of the whole area and while subsequent, retaliation and bombarding of the Tatmadaw, using combat aircraft from above are said to be also hitting civilian targets, would be the defining moment, if the protracted war could be capped and negotiation would resume.

It is now up to the warring parties, if they wanted to be reasonable or whether to make or break the peace process. For neither Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also in no position to influence the Tatmadaw, nor the Chinese, who could only persuade the warring parties to be logical, could stop the ongoing armed conflict, as only the people involved in it would have to decide for themselves. One could only hope that rational sense would prevail and the war could be stopped, at least, for the benefit of the suffering people, if not for anybody.
New Salem opened its doors to about 30 stranded travelers overnight.

People were welcomed into the city auditorium at 6 p.m. Monday for a warm place to sleep after the state closed Interstate 94, said New Salem Mayor Lynette Fitterer. There were quite a few who had pulled into the towns gas stations, and city staff went out four times to escort drivers to the auditorium.

The post to the citys Facebook page offering shelter got about 11,000 views and 200 shares.

The city also had alerted Morton County Emergency Management and law enforcement that travelers could be sheltered there. A few people who stayed had to be picked up off the interstate, leaving their vehicles stranded in the storm.

Fitterer said many of New Salems residents helped, too, bringing sleeping bags and blankets.

City employees worked two-hour shifts at the auditorium, keeping watch in case anyone needed medical attention or other help. One man from the park board and fire department stayed all night, Fitterer said.

In the morning, Fitterer delivered breakfast pizza, milk and juice for people to eat. The grocery store provided sandwiches and chips for lunch.

A woman who had left behind her thyroid medication was able to get help from the local pharmacy.

Its going very well, Fitterer said, and the travelers were grateful for the aid.

Most of the people who stayed at the auditorium had been headed west when the interstate closed, Fitterer said. The furthest from home was a Bloomington, Minn., resident on the way to Seattle.

By Tuesday, many of the travelers were able to get out within the city, eating at the cafes and filling gas tanks so they would be ready to go once the storm cleared.

Fitterer said the town was still accepting travelers in need of shelter on Tuesday. In fact, she had already arranged a ride to pick up one stranded person that morning and sent a local farmer who she knew had a big tractor to find a South Dakota man who had gotten stuck on Old Highway 10.

Once the visibility clears up, Fitterer expects people will be on their way.

Its not snowing here; its just blowing now, she said Tuesday morning.
Menopause Linked To Breathing Problems, Fatigue Wellness oi-Lekhaka

Menopausal women are likely to experience an accelerated decline in lung function, leading to increase in shortness of breath, reduced work capacity and fatigue, a study says.

The researchers found that menopause was more likely to cause restrictive, rather than obstructive, breathing problems.

Obstructive breathing problems make it difficult to exhale air from the lungs while restrictive breathing problems make it difficult to fully expand the lungs upon inhaling.

"Whether obstructive or restrictive, the decline in lung function may cause an increase in shortness of breath, reduced work capacity and fatigue," said lead author Kai Triebner from University of Bergen in Norway.

"Symptoms depend upon how much lung capacity is reduced, and a few women may actually develop respiratory failure as a result of this decline," Triebner said.

For the study - published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine -- the researchers analysed data from 1,438 women enrolled in the European Respiratory Health Survey.

Participants in the study ranged in age from 25 to 48 at enrollment, and none was menopausal when the study began.

They were followed for 20 years and during that time most went through the menopausal transition or became postmenopausal.

The authors said there were several possible explanations for their findings. Menopause brings hormonal changes that have been linked to systemic inflammation, which itself is associated with lung function decline.

Hormonal changes are also implicated in osteoporosis, which shortens the height of the chest vertebrae and may, in turn, limit the amount of air a person can inhale.

"Women, and their physicians, should be aware that respiratory health might decline considerably during and after the menopausal transition," Triebner said.

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FARGO  A man considered a suspect in the disappearance of a Twin Cities woman has been charged with manslaughter following the discovery of human remains in rural Cass County, according to the sheriff's office.

Sheriffs deputies found the remains Friday while searching a specific location for the missing woman, 45-year-old Michelle Newell of Vadnais Heights, Minn. The suspect, 51-year-old Timothy Barr, had told authorities where to look, the sheriffs office said.

Identification of the remains is pending, but Sgt. Tim Briggeman of the Cass County sheriffs office said hes hopeful the discovery can help the investigation into what happened to the 45-year-old mother of four.

Anytime there is new information like this in a case, its very encouraging, Briggeman said. If we can provide some type of closure for the family, that is obviously very important as well.

Barr, of St. Paul, was charged Monday in Cass County District Court with two felonies: manslaughter and duty in accident involving death or injury.

Acquaintances of Barr told investigators with the Ramsey County Sheriffs Office in St. Paul that he had told them he accidentally backed over Newell when she was trying to hide from him, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

Barr told his acquaintances that Newell was hiding under his car because she had stolen a pound of meth from him and stashed it in the woods, according to the affidavit.

On Friday, Barr met with Ramsey County investigators and used a map to show them her remains were within 5 to 10 feet of a certain culvert in rural Cass County, the affidavit stated.

The same day, investigators with the Cass County Sheriffs Office and North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation went to the site and found human remains including hair, teeth, a forearm bone and other bones, the affidavit said.

Authorities have not released the exact location, but the affidavit said it was on a minimum maintenance road, near the middle of a field.

Only someone with complete knowledge of where Ms. Newell was would be able to pinpoint where we found her, the affidavit said.

The date of Newells death is not clear. Aug. 28 was the last time anyone heard from her, and she was reported missing Sept. 8.

The couple was seen on a surveillance video at a Taco Bell in North Dakota on Aug. 28 and then on a mans private property the following day.

Cass County Sheriffs Office officials and Highway Patrol officers had contact with Barr a couple of days later after someone called to report a man lying in a ditch just west of Embden, off Interstate 94.

Barr told them at the time that his car had broken down a few miles away and he was resting. When authorities spotted his car nearby, he said he had initially lied about his cars whereabouts because he was scared he would be in trouble for being on private property.

He later told officials he and his girlfriend had stopped at the spot to have sex. When asked where his girlfriend had gone, Barr reportedly said shed left with another boyfriend because his car had broken down, court documents say.

Court documents say Barr recklessly caused the death of Newell sometime between Aug. 31 and Sept. 17.

Its unclear why Barr disclosed the location of her remains to authorities. An acquaintance of his reportedly contacted law enforcement the day before to say Barr was ready to cooperate.

Brooke Newell, Michelle Newells oldest daughter, said Monday that shed been told it was Barrs mother who persuaded him to talk to authorities.

If it was her, I really appreciate that, said Newell, 21.

She added that she is still trying to process everything thats happened. A part of her had held out hope that her mother would be found alive, she said.

I think you always want to hold on to that, Newell said. A part of me kind of knew right away that she was gone, but you always hold on to (hope), you know, until you cant anymore.  I kind of just feel really numb now, just really in shock.

One of Michelle Newells children died years ago. She and Gregory Newell were divorced in 2013. He is in federal prison in Colorado serving a 15-year sentence for felony drug possession.

Brooke Newell has said both of her parents struggled with drug addiction. Michelle Newell also suffered from brain injuries caused by a car accident and from domestic violence sustained in an earlier relationship.

Friends of Michelle Newells said she and Barr were acquaintances who had been spending more time together in the lead-up to her death.

None of Barrs relatives could be reached for comment.

Barr is in custody in Minnesota awaiting an extradition hearing in regard to the Cass County charges. Court records did not list an attorney for him.
MINOT -- Suspended Ward County Sheriff Steve Kukowski and his lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss charges pending against him.

Kukowski is facing two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor charge of public servant refusing to perform public duty.

The charges, dated October 6, 2015, stem from operation of the Ward County Jail and the death of inmate Dustin Irwin while in the custody of Burleigh County about nine hours after being transferred from Ward County.

Irwin was arrested and taken to Ward County Jail on Oct. 3, 2015. He appeared in district court later the same day to enter a plea of guilty to driving under suspension. Irwin was transferred three days later by Kukowski and Cpt. Michael Nason to the custody of a Burleigh County deputy who met them at Coleharbor. Irwin had to be physically loaded into the Burleigh County vehicle for transportation to Bismarck.

According to Kukowski's statement, he had "no information to suggest that Mr. Irwin's condition was not suitable for transport" and that he "did nothing to create a risk of serious injury or death to Mr. Irwin." The complaint filed against Kukowski says "specifically, defendant was aware of Mr. Irwin's medical state and did not attempt to get Mr. Irwin any medical care."

The complaint filed against Kukowski also alleges the sheriff "knowingly employed correctional facility staff and that staff did not have adequate training," and that "Mr. Kukowski also did not ensure that inmates had adequate medical care."

In their motion to dismiss the charges against Kukowski, the Vogel Law Firm of Fargo responded that the "sheriff's general obligation of keeping and maintaining the county jail is shared" with the Ward County commissioners and the North Dakota Department of Corrections.

The complaint against Kukowski alleges he "maintained an inmate population 150 percent over the suggested population for a correctional center of its size during the time of this incident."

Kukowski contends that he made "regular reports to Ward County commissioners on the status of jail staff, inmate population, hiring, training and turnover."

In addition, Kukowski says in an affidavit filed with the North Central District Court that "all population issues were monitored and supervised by the NDDOC and jail inspector Steve Engen," and that he "sought guidance from NDDOC" as to the number of inmates that could be housed at the Ward County Jail.

Kukowski contends he was directed by Engen to "ask the fire marshal."

The Vogel Law Firm's response is that "NDDOC personnel who provided advice accuse Sheriff Kukowski of criminal wrongdoing," and the "court must intervene, dismissing the criminal charges before more harm is done." Furthermore, Kukowski's attorneys say "failure to provide adequate medical care and employing officers without adequate training are facility responsibilities, not crimes."

A hearing on the motion to dismiss is scheduled for Dec. 23 before Judge Lolita G. Hartl Romanick of Grand Forks. The hearing is expected to be conducted by videoconference in a Ward County courtroom. A Jan. 3 jury trial for Kukowski remains on the court calendar.

Kukowski was suspended from his sheriff's post on June 15 following a recommendation by North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem to Gov. Jack Dalrymple. The county has continued to pay his salary of $9,405 per month until a resolution of the charges against him occurs.

County commissioners have appointed Maj. Bob Barnard interim sheriff in Kukowski's absence.
Nigeria and Morocco sign gas pipeline deal to link Africa to Europe

Nigeria and Morocco have signed a joint venture to construct a gas pipeline that will connect the two nations as well as some other African countries to Europe, Nigeria's minister of foreign affairs said on Saturday.

The agreement was reached during a visit by the Morocco's King Mohammed to the Nigerian capital Abuja, Geoffrey Onyema, the minister, said, adding that the pipeline project would be designed with the participation of all stakeholders.

"In this agreement both countries agreed to study and take concrete steps toward the promotion of a regional gas pipeline project that will connect Nigeria's gas resources, those of several West African countries and Morocco," Onyema told reporters in Abuja.

Onyema said the project aimed to create a competitive regional electricity market with the potential to be connected to the European energy markets.

No timeline was given for when the pipeline construction work will start and how much it will cost.

Nigeria is rich in hydrocarbons but produces little electricity, making its industries uncompetitive. Its economy now faces a recession caused by a plunge in crude prices.

Militants in its oil producing heartland of the Niger Delta have also blown up pipelines in a quest for a bigger share of Nigeria's oil wealth, which has cut crude output this year.

"Nigeria and the Kingdom of Morocco also agreed to develop integrated industrial clusters in the sub-region in sectors such as manufacturing, Agro-business and fertilizers to attract foreign capital and improve export competitiveness" the foreign minister added.

www.af.reuters.com
Czech President Zeman has publicly mocked the two Pakistani refugees who tried to hang themselves in Athens

29. 2. 2016

cas cteni 2 minuty





"If these two Pakistani refugees tried to hang themselves, maybe it was a pretend suicide, just for show. You know, if you really mean to hang yourself, you will not survive," laughed the Czech President Milos Zeman when he was asked about the two Pakistani refugees who tried to hang themselves in Athens. He did so during his interview with a controversial Czech website Parlamentni listy, which disseminates alarmist anti-refugee nonsense and islamophobic propaganda in the Czech Republic.

Milos Zeman continued: "In any case, these two men have just demonstrated that they were expecting a better living standard for themselves than what they had in Pakistan and their expectations have not been fulfilled yet. They were given food and drink, they have been given accommodation in heated tents. If they wanted more, I do not understand why they did not stay in their native country since there is no fighting there.

"For good reasons, because they have broken the Dublin Regulation, I call these people illegal immigrants. I am really surprised that many of them are coming from countries where there is no fighting. Yet they do keep coming in large numbers and it is a question whether even those people who come from those countries where there is a war on are really escaping from war or are simply trying to get into such countries where they could comfortably live on social welfare. This applies to all immigrants."

Milos Zeman also attacked Greece in the interview: "The Greek government has a special liking for withdrawing its ambassadors. It first recalled its ambassador from the Czech Republic and now it has recalled its ambassador from Austria. There are still about 25 more countries for them to withdraw their ambassadors from and it is obvious that their ambassadors will be evidently travelling a lot in the near future. No EU country is willing to solve Greek problems. We cannot possibly move the refugees who are in Greece into other countries for the simple reason that they do not want to go to those other countries. How many people have applied for asylum in Macedonia? I think no one."

Source in Czech HERE

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Czech President Zeman: "Muslims would not work, they only come for welfare payments"

19. 5. 2016

cas cteni 1 minuta





During his visit to Moravia, Czech President Milos Zeman criticised the European Union for having failed to defend its external borders. He warned again against a "flood of immigrants" and demanded that the police and the army be used agaist (non-existent) refugees in the Czech Republic. "Just look at what is happening in Germany and in Austria," said Zeman. He praised Hungary which has fought against the refugees by building fences and using tear gas and water cannon against them. As a result, the "Hungarian territory is now basically without migrants, most of them went to Germany in search of high social welfare payments". "Have no illusions, migrants do not come here to work, they come here to collect social welfare payments," said Zeman.

Source in Czech HERE

There are stories like this in the Czech Republic every day that never make it to the outside world because of a lack of translation. You can support us and help reveal what's happening in Central Europe today. Please make a contribution today on www.paypal.com and send your donation to redakce@blisty.cz. We fully rely on crowdfunding in our work. Thank you.

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Weve all been in those meetings. The subject of the companys brand purpose comes up and the C-level executives around the table roll their eyes or become fidgety.

For them, the P-word is a soft thing, nice words, lofty and aspirational, and notoriously difficult to measure. Purpose may remind them of a plaque in the boardroom which makes employees cynical about hollow leadership initiatives and mantras. Or it may sound like a branding, public relations or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) tactic, not worthy of a board-level discussion.

But they would be wise not to dismiss the P-word. In fact, today many leading CEOs and companies are finding that embracing a core purpose is not only a good thing to do but also drives top corporate performance. Bottom line? Purpose means growth, and growth means profit.

What Is Brand Purpose?

Purpose is the reason the company exists not only materially and economically but also emotionally and spiritually. It is the enterprises unifying statement of commitment to customers, employees and the larger world it operates in.

A higher purpose connects the business and peoples work to societal goals such as reducing hunger in the developing world or improving public health in the US.

Purpose, more than money, motivates the best employees to come to work every day and make a difference. A strong, values-based direction helps a company attract and retain the highest performers.

If a companys brand positioning statement appeals to customers functional and emotional needs, then its purpose statement expresses the companys soul, defining how it serves Customers, the Organization and the Rest of the World (its COR stakeholders).

Procter & Gambles Purpose: We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the worlds consumers, now and for generations to come. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.

Most companies have visions, missions and values; but having a purpose goes deeper: it establishes a reason for being (beyond economic) and defines individual employee and collective meaning and direction.

The Case For Brand Purpose

Harvard Business School professors John Kotter and Rosabeth Moss Kanter helped put the purpose concept on the corporate strategy map (along with Jim Collins prior). They published works asserting a causal relationship between a company being a good global citizen and making good profits.

Kotter referenced a multi-year study with 200 companies to argue that ideals-based businesses outperform the others in revenues by 400 percent. Babson professor and Whole Foods advisor, Raj Sisojdia, studied 28 companies from 1996-2011 and concluded: purpose-driven enterprises (firms of endearment) grew by 1647 percent compared to the S&P 500 average of 157 percent.

Competitive strategy legend, Michael Porter, a colleague of Kotter and Kanter, broadened the argument and began a revolution with his Shared Value paper. In it, he called for a remaking of the corporation, and of capitalism itself, to serve rather than compete against societal aims such as decreasing obesity or carbon emissions. According to Porters thesis, the companys own economic interests would ultimately be better served by structuring and operating the business to achieve these greater goals.

Still, scholars and case studies divide over the relationship between corporate purpose and profits. One camp led by Porter argues that profits should not be the primary corporate goal but rather the byproduct of an effective implementation of a purpose-based system. Another school holds that profit-focus and achievement is a precursor and the most effective way to fulfill a great purpose. Some strategists say purpose and profits should be twin objectives and reinforce each other.

Can a company become great, in every sense of the word, by operating with social purpose at the core of its business model? Or does a company become great only after it has built the capabilities to make a better world? Give forward or give back? For Porter, the give back corporate philanthropy and more recent CSR movements have failed in tackling social problems and often end up hurting the economic and social interests of the company.

Notwithstanding chicken-and-egg arguments, the large body of data supports the case that purpose-driven companies are high performing ones.

Companies should embrace a higher purpose by serving and creating distinct value for its COR shareholdersCustomers, Organization, and Rest of the World. Only when they do this authentically, operationally and comprehensively, will their long-term financial objectives be realized.

A companys higher purpose should speak to the needs of the three COR audiences: Customers, Organization and Rest of the world.

Serving, Creating Value For CUSTOMERS And Improving The Category

Many companies marketing efforts have taken on an almost religious tone in their emphasis on serving customers needs (e.g. voice of the customer research, customer intimacy strategies); these strategies though often dont consider the other two COR stakeholders. Customer-centricity should acknowledge that customers today want to identify and align with the companys purpose and values, as an expression and extension of their own. A McKinsey study with business-to-business customers found they value the following attributes most in a company:

Cares about open, honest dialogue with its customers and society

Acts responsibility across its supply chain

Fits in well with my values and beliefs

Millennial customers  who now drive the majority of marketplace transactions  care more about whom they buy from and do business with than other generations do. They value brand authenticity and want purpose to be intrinsic to the company and operation, not merely part of a giving back campaign. For them, actions speak louder than words; Purpose needs to be more than just the copy in an About Us section on the corporate web site.

Serving, Creating Value For The ORGANIZATION And Employees

Taking care of employees is good business. Porter cites the example of Johnson & Johnson saving $250 million by investing in employee wellness programs. Some companies take it a step further: they operate as employee-centric with a purpose that taps into workers spiritual needs. Southwest Airlines (Spirit is a corporate Value) has carried the employees-first mantle for decades. It boldly asserts that colleagues come before customers. Founder Herb Kelleher once said, If the employee comes first, then theyre happyA motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders.

The airline company just reported its 43rd consecutive year of profitability. Companies like Southwest that actively engage their employees through a shared purpose are the ones that perform the best.

Millennial workers, to a greater degree than other cohorts, seek to participate in a purpose-driven enterprise. Purpose is also a powerful recruiting and retention tool and provides a company with a strong competitive advantage.

Serving, Creating Value For REST OF THE WORLD And Communities

Porters model challenges all companies, business-to-consumer and business-to-business, to carefully consider and act on their role in the wider world. Shared value means the company should integrate external social needs into its core offering. It also means employees are incented to make a difference in their communities and beyond  through their personal brand initiatives or corporate means (e.g. Citizen IBM or its Peace Corps-like Corporate Service Corps). Smarter Planet is more than a campaign. It continues to be operationalized in many ways.

GEs ecomagination business ($12 billion invested, $160 billion in revenues by 2013) is an example of social offerings borne from core purpose. No longer can companies afford to be on the sidelines leaving government and non-profits to tackle the worlds social ills. Companies should exist to solve these problems, argues Porter.

Best Practices



Purpose-driven, high performing enterprises have been adept at building their system in four phases:

1. Customers. The companys leadership should work in an inclusive way across the organization to craft a purpose statement that is credible, authentic and compelling for COR stakeholders. The statement can be a simple few words, like Disneys to make people happy or a paragraph like Procter & Gambles. Successful statements are rarely earth-shattering  but they need to be clear, genuine and motivating.

2. Communication. Once the purpose is established, leaders should communicate it first to the organization, then to customers and the wider world. Great purpose-based companies (e.g. Whole Foods, Zappos, Tata Group) tend to have charismatic CEOs or founders who evangelize the purpose.

3. Operationalization. The hardest part is organizing, acculturating and operating the business around the purpose while staying focused on market and financial imperatives. All employees need to understand and execute against the purpose, individually and collectively.

4. Measurement. Another challenge is establishing metrics that focus accountability and push progress. Some purpose-driven companies have used the Net Promoter Score or Brand Equity Measurement to measure customer and employee value and impact. Procter & Gamble West Africa asks its employees in their performance reviews to account for how they have bettered the world and saved lives.

Building on his corporate shared value work, Porter has expanded his view and metrics to national social advancement and well-being with his Social Progress Index.

How Are You Determining Progress At The Corporate Level?

The next time you are in a meeting with the leadership of a company lacking core direction, you should make a business case for the P-word. It would be highly profitable for them to listen and act.

The Blake Project Can Help: Meet the new requirements of competitive advantage in the Branding 4.0 Business 4.0 Workshop



Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Efforts to fill more than 1,000 Christmas hampers are already well underway in the basement of the Brandon Public Library.

A clear jump from last years 940 Christmas hampers, organizer Myrna Lane pointed to a downturn in the oil sector as a possible reason for this years increase in hamper requests, but whos to know?

Families fall into difficult financial times for a variety of reasons, she said, noting that Brandon has always boasted a strong collection of community stewards eager to help out those in need.

Colin Corneau/The Brandon Sun Volunteers Joyce Shewan, left, and Evelyn Comfrey help pack Christmas Cheer hampers on Monday.

This Saturday will find some of these community members attend the Brandon West and East Progressive Conservative Associations 30th annual Christmas Cheer Breakfast.

The event will take place on Saturday at the North End Community Centre (1313 Stickney Ave.) from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

The annual catered breakfast, complete with a silent auction consisting of items donated by local businesses, has raised more than $45,000 for Brandon-Westman Christmas Cheer Registry during the past 30 years.

While there has been some grumbling of late about this years Christmas Cheer Breakfast being their last, Brandon West Progressive Conservative Party Association president Bob Harrison hopes to see the event push on.

I think its very important for families that dont have groceries for Christmas, to bring a smile on those families faces, he said. Its the least we can do, frankly  I think its too important to give up.

Harrisons counterpart in Brandon East, Corey Roberts, agrees.

As membership grows older, efforts such as the Christmas Cheer Breakfast tend to lose steam, he explained, adding that he hopes to see others step in to fill vacated positions in order to keep the annual tradition running.

While the events future remains unclear, Roberts clarified that those who attend this years breakfast will be met by the same things theyve come to expect.

Although Saturdays event has been organized by a political organization and will find both of Brandons MLAs in attendance, Harrison noted that it is not a political activity and that anyone interested in showing up in solidarity with Brandon-Westman Christmas Cheer is encouraged to do so.

Colin Corneau/The Brandon Sun Myrna Lane at the Christmas Cheer Registry on Monday.

Tickets cost $25 and are available by calling Roberts at 204-725-0629.

He encourages people to call him as soon as possible so theyre able to co-ordinate things properly with the caterer.

Roberts has offered to personally deliver tickets if delivery is required.

Were going to really try to push a few more dollars into the pocket of Christmas Cheer.

 tclarke@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: TylerClarkePA
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Dakota Access pipeline may not drill under a Missouri River reservoir called Lake Oahe, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared on Sunday, denying an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline near Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

While the decision will directly affect the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which has been fighting against the pipeline tooth and nail, Manitoba First Nations have also been watching the internationally broadcast story very closely.

Indigenous advocacy success south of the border might affect how Manitoba First Nations respond to future pipeline projects in their home province, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Derek Nepinak suggested.

Peaceful and non-violent and prayerful resistance to energy projects that threaten the sustainability of our future environment are very powerful, and they have the ability to move mountains when people come together to pray in a peaceful way, he said on Monday, adding, Thats what I take away from that.

Last week saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announce the approval of Enbridge Line 3, which will replace an existing pipeline that stretches through Westman, effectively doubling the existing lines capacity to 760,000 barrels of U.S.-bound crude oil from Albertas oilsands per day.

While this pipeline has already been approved, Nepinak said that hes certain the project will still face resistance.

Nepinak said that he is personally not a fan of the pipeline.

Canupawakpa Dakota Nation Chief Viola Eastman is more ambivalent about the pipeline expansion, which runs about 10 kilometres north of her community.

A few women from Canupawakpa Dakota Nation have already approached her with opposition to the pipeline expansion, and Eastman remains uncertain as to what she intends to do with these community members concerns.

On one hand, she supports the efforts ability to provide an economic boost to its affected area, providing her community with job opportunities.

On the other hand, pipelines can break, putting their surrounding environment and area communities drinking water at risk.

The previous Canupawakpa Dakota Nation has already signed an agreement with Enbridge, which makes Eastmans position all the more difficult.

Even so, she does not expect her community to remain silent when it comes to Line 3.

Nepinak agrees.

I know that there will be resistance on Line 3, he said, a sentiment he said will also apply to TransCanadas Energy East, should that project face approval.

Even when acts of public protest are not being held, he said that internal conflicts will burn among communities whose chiefs and council have spoken out in favour of pipelines.

While some degree of conflict might be inevitable, Nepinak said, Were all in this mess together and we all have to come out of it together, somehow, in the long run.

Firmly in this mess is Dakota Tipi Chief Keith Pashe, whose primary concern is with the TransCanada Energy East pipeline currently in consultation, whose path runs past his community near Portage la Prairie.

Humans are mere keepers of the land, he said. We have to make a stand for that some day in the future because these oil companies are just going to keep messing up.

Pashe is travelling to Ottawa this week to share his concerns with the federal government.

Locally, the Brandon University Aboriginal Students Collective remains committed to pipeline opposition, president Darian Kennedy affirmed on Monday, relaying the findings of a meeting hed just been a part of with student representatives.

While the Dakota Access pipelines rerouting around Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is a positive, the pipeline will still carry the same environmental impacts, Kennedy said, Just somewhere else.

We, as aboriginal people, shouldnt put our guard down, he said. Just because its not affecting us doesnt mean its not affecting others.

Early in the new year, the organization plans on holding a flash mob round dance in opposition to Enbridge Line 3. The event will be similar to the event they held last month in opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline, at which about 100 supporters came out in solidarity, but with more time for preparation.

We, as people on this Earth, were only here for a short amount of time, Kennedy said. We have to look forward to the future for our future generations.

 tclarke@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @TylerClarkePA
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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A bust in which police found crack cocaine and a shotgun and shells in a car began when the driver failed to use his turn signals, the Crown alleges.

While it appears the incident wasnt directly linked to a series of shootings in Brandon this summer, Crown attorney Grant Hughes still expressed concern.

Guns and drugs certainly dont mix and when they do theyre a very bad mixture, especially in the city, Hughes said in Brandon provincial court on Monday.

The accuseds bail hearing marked the first time that many details of the arrest have been publicly available.

Hughes said that police were on patrol on the 400 block of Princess Avenue in Brandon on Sept. 23 when they noticed the driver making a couple of lane changes, then fail to use a turn signal while making a turn.

They then followed and the driver failed to use his turn signal again as he made a turn so the red Dodge Charger was pulled over on the 500 block of Rosser Avenue.

The driver was known to police, and a check showed that he was banned from driving in Manitoba for life.

The driver was notified that the vehicle would be impounded. As part of the procedure for impounding the car, an inventory search was done.

In the trunk, police found a 12-gauge shotgun and a bag that held 59 cartridges.

The driver was on two separate orders at the time that banned him from having firearms.

As the search continued, officers found a black leather case under the front passenger seat that held 17 grams of crack cocaine. They also found $740 cash, a scale and 3.5 grams more of crack cocaine in four separate baggies and one gram of marijuana in a baggie in the trunk.

The concern over guns in Brandon comes after three shootings here during the late summer, including one in which a man was shot in the torso.

Marlon Hotain, 39, disputes the charges against him, which includes possession of an illegal drug for trafficking and weapon offences.

His lawyer, Andrew Synyshyn, said there were three other people in the car when it was stopped.

Hotain was denied on Monday and he remains in custody.

 ihitchen@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @IanHitchen
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The winter storm has prompted road closures, school and bus cancellations, delayed and cancelled Brandon Sun newspaper delivery outside city limits, and prompted WestJet to cancel its Calgary-Brandon route today.

Blowing snow, poor road conditions that have caused several collisions, and poor visibility have forced the RCMP to close the Trans-Canada Highway eastbound Brandon to Portage and Westbound Brandon to Virden.

The potential for further collisions on the highway necessitated the closure, RCMP state. Vehicles are potentially travelling south on highway 10 to bypass the closure, but conditions on Highway 10 at this time are very poor, with significant snow cover on the travel portion of the highway from the Brandon Hills south.

RCMP warn against travel until road and weather conditions improve.

As of 9:43 this morning, Manitoba Infrastructure also issued highway closure notices for Highway 2 from Highway 100 to Elm Creek, highway 3 from Highway 100 to Morden, and Highway 13 from the Trans Canada to Carman.

Road conditions have also delayed or outright cancelled paper delivery of The Brandon Sun outside the city of Brandon. If you have any questions regarding your paper delivery, please contact our circulation department at (204) 571-7425.

Also do to the weather, WestJet cancelled its Calgary to Brandon flight that was scheduled to arrive at the Brandon Municipal Airport at 12:46 p.m. this afternoon, as well as the 1:20 p.m. return flight to Calgary. For further flight status information, please check here.

School buses in the Brandon School Division will not be operating outside the City of Brandon for all of Tuesday, Dec. 6.

Alexander, OKelly and Spring Valley schools are all closed. However, buses are running within the city of Brandon.

Attendance at schools will be at parental discretion where travel is required. If your child is not attending school, parents are asked to call their school adminitration to let them know.
Czech President Zeman: People should arm themselves against refugees

1. 8. 2016

cas cteni 1 minuta





The Czech President Milos Zeman recommends that Czech citizens should be afraid of terrorist attacks and should obtain guns. He has also demanded that those individuals whose applications for asylum have been rejected, should be deported and that the Czech Republic should build a fence on its border.

"It is cheap just to condemn terrorist attacks. The only solution is to get rid of what causes them and what causes them are the illegal immigrants," said Zeman.

He added that it is necessary to realise that amongst the large numbers of refugees, arriving in Europe there is a certain percentage of jihadists. "The solution is to deport everyone who is refused asylum in a particular country. As we know, most refugees are refused asylum." Zeman also wants to deport the "fanatical imams" who "sow hatred in the mosques".

Zeman added that in his view, all the refugees who have refused to accept asylum in a particular European country are illegal immigrants. Such people want to go to Germany in order to access social welfare there. "Have no illusions. They do not want to work there. They just want to get social welfare," said Zeman.

There are no refugees in the Czech Republic.

Source in Czech HERE

There are stories like this in the Czech Republic every day that never make it to the outside world because of a lack of translation. You can support us and help reveal what's happening in Central Europe today. Please make a contribution today on www.paypal.com and send your donation to redakce@blisty.cz. We fully rely on crowdfunding in our work. Thank you.

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 Iranian Ship Threatens U.S. Helicopter, Media MIA | Main | FBI: American Jews Most Targeted Minority for Hate Crimes in 2015 

December 05, 2016

Defense One Notes Israels Security Challenges



Israel is employing innovative methods to confront an increasingly complex security environment, according to a recent article in Defense One (In Israel, Race to Safeguard Borders From Multi-Dimensional Threats,? Nov. 28, 2016). The report, by correspondent Barbara Opall-Rome, offered a detailed and informative look at Israeli strategy that is seldom noted by other news media outlets.

Opall-Rome highlighted that Israel continues to face the danger posed by Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip. During its 2014 war, Hamas employed underground tunnels to attack Israelis. The reporter pointed out that:

Since then, Israel has fast-tracked prewar development plans for a number of technological solutions aimed at detecting, mapping and operating in the subterranean environment, spending about $200 million in the process. Earlier this year, through improved operational and technological methods  most of which remain classified  Israel discovered another two tunnels reaching into its territory from Gaza.?

The U.S. has been working with Israel to develop counter-tunnel technologies since 2008. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense received $40 million to expand the project. Israel is expected to fund an an equal amount in cash or in kind,? Defense One said.

The joint program has benefits for both sides; an anonymous U.S. defense official told Opall-Rome that terror tunnels are a problem for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well.

The threats that Israel faces differ in nature. As a result, the Jewish state employs different strategies to confront them.

Israel employs border barriers in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip to deter terror attacks. On its northern border, Israels concerns extend past terror tunnels and include worries over a full assault by Lebanese-based Hezbollah or its allies.? A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, told Defense One:

Up north, we view the threat differently. The topography is completely different, so what weve done on the border with Lebanon, weve created artificial cliffs that create an extremely difficult terrain for forces to easily storm into a civilian community or a military base along the border.?

Lerner stated that, in addition to altering the terrain, the IDF has expanded surveillance capabilities and established quick reaction forces to immediately confront an attack. Additionally, the IDF has created an evacuation plan for the 22 civilian communities who are likely to come under direct threat from an attack by Hezbollah.

As CAMERA noted in a April 30, 2016 Times of Israel Op-Ed Media Fails to Connect the Dots on Hezbollahs Next War,? the media has often failed to note Hezbollahs growing capabilities. The Iranian-funded, U.S.-designated terror group hasin violation of several U.N. resolutions requiring the group to be disarmedan arsenal that includes drones and more than 120,00 missiles. The group calls for Israels destruction and intentionally targets Israeli civilians while using human shields? as covera double war crime.

However, the media often fails to note Hezbollahs aims and tactics.

Defense Ones report provided readers with important details about Israels security challenges and how the country is addressing them. The article by Barbara Opall-Rome can be found here.

Posted by SD at December 5, 2016 01:23 PM

how do I get your reports? I am glad that Obama and his anti-Israeli posture is almost gone

Posted by: victor bekker at December 18, 2016 07:32 PM

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Opinion

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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG  In November, Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen announced plans to engage stakeholders in a consultation process to identify the best path toward establishing the self-regulation of Manitoba paramedics, as recommended in December 2014 by the Health Professions Advisory Council.

Following that announcement, an op-ed appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press (Self-regulation Not The Answer For EMS, Dec. 2) suggesting that problems in emergency medical service delivery and rural working conditions were driving the call for paramedic self-regulation in our province. It went on to allege that self-regulation will be costly, create an additional level of bureaucracy and have a negative impact on paramedic services across Manitoba. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Paramedics are one of the very few health-care providers in Manitoba not currently included in the Regulated Health Professions Act, legislation that ensures openness, transparency and public participation in the regulation of health professions. This legislation focuses on public safety and accountability. It provides direction for the self-regulation of doctors, nurses, midwives, respiratory therapists and 17 other medical professions.

Manitobans expect the paramedic who is treating them or their loved ones to be held to the same standards as all other health-care providers. Assuring that public interest is what drives the need for change and the recent government decision to move forward with self-regulation for paramedics.

Paramedic self-regulation will not be costly to taxpayers, and in fact, it stands to save the public more than half a million dollars annually. Paramedics in Manitoba are currently regulated by the Department of Health, Seniors and Active Living, and, as such, all associated costs are paid for by the provincial government. A transition from government regulation to self-regulation would shift that financial responsibility, in whole, to members of the profession, saving the provincial government and Manitoba taxpayers a considerable amount every year.

Even more importantly, though, the shift from government regulation to paramedic self-regulation ensures the profession is acting in the best interest of the public and is able to be more responsive to public health-care needs. Despite best intentions, by nature, government regulation is too often slow to respond and adapt to change. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba has called the current government model for paramedic regulation archaic.

Self-regulation is based on the concept that members of a profession, based on their knowledge, skills and judgment, are best suited to oversee their profession in the public interest. Conversion from government regulation to self-regulation is just that: a change from what exists today to a more responsive and patient-oriented governance model. It is not the creation of a secondary or additional level of bureaucracy, as has been suggested by those who fear a self-regulatory structure.

The role of paramedicine has changed considerably over the past two decades and continues to evolve rapidly. Demands placed on health services, an aging population, our ability to provide more definitive treatments outside the hospital environment and mounting public expectations have entrenched paramedics firmly in the health-care system. The emphasis on increasing paramedic education, qualifications and scope of practice has followed the progression of other health professions such as nursing, midwifery and therapy disciplines. With increased responsibility comes a need for the type of robust and accountable regulatory mechanism provided by self-regulation under the Regulated Health Professions Act.

Self-regulation will enhance the level of professionalism and ensure protection of the public. Whether a paramedic goes to work in an ambulance, a fire truck, a helicopter or an airplane, they are providing medical care. In one thing we can all agree: our aim is to provide the best medical care possible to the citizens of Manitoba. Now is not the time for negative union messaging and battles over power and dominance. Rather it is time to bring paramedic standards and professional oversight to the level that we all expect from every other health care provider.

Premier Brain Pallister and his cabinet have said that paramedics should be designated as health professionals through self-regulation, and that this change is necessary to ensure the highest standards in paramedical care for patients. I applaud the governments commitment to fulfil its promise to make that change in the interests of safety and protection for all Manitobans.

 Eric Glass is the administrative director of the Paramedic Association of Manitoba. His article was recently published by the Winnipeg Free Press.
Opinion

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This article was published 06/12/2016 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government needs to pay attention to the rural men and women of southwestern Manitoba who are fed up with illegal poaching of area wildlife.

Illegal hunters are abandoning the carcasses of big game and livestock in and around the Turtle Mountain region, and the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous.

As the Sun reported yesterday, there are increasing stories coming out of the southwest corner of nighttime gunfire startling landowners, widespread trespassing and declining wildlife populations particularly of moose. Many of the hunters, believed to live outside the region, are leaving most of the carcasses of their kills behind, after removing only the most desirable meat.

A few of the images that were submitted to the Sun are quite graphic in nature. One has the bloody head of a deer  a buck  hanging from a birch tree. Another shows a split screen image of two deer  one skinned with the rest of the carcass seemingly left to rot, while the other has been cut in half, with its hind quarters missing. Again the rest of the carcass is left behind.

The two other photos, ones that were published in The Brandon Sun, show a dead buck lying in a grassy field, and a dead moose.

The situation is bad enough that reeves and councillors joined with area residents from six rural municipalities at a meeting in Pipestone last month, for what was dubbed a call to action. That meeting drew about 50 people.

What these residents and landowners demand is not unreasonable, given the circumstances. They want an end to night hunting, the implementation of a five-year moratorium on moose harvesting in southwestern Manitoba, and the hiring of more conservation officers for policing and increased education.

According to RM of Pipestone Reeve Archie McPherson, only two conservation officers patrol much of southwestern Manitoba. He believes more policing is needed to combat illegal hunting.

You have better luck of winning a lottery than your odds are of getting stopped by a game warden in hunting season when they have 10,000 square miles to check, McPherson told The Sun.

And hes right. Two officers cannot hope to properly police an area so vast. But better policing  including increased manpower is only part of the solution. But the elimination of night hunting, which stops wildlife in their tracks by using powerful artificial light, is at odds with First Nations people, since the practice is currently legal for Indigenous hunters on Crown lands or private lands where they have received permission.

However, if its true that the majority of these illegal hunters are not from the local region, but rather from outside southwestern Manitoba  or outside Manitoba  then local indigenous and Metis hunters stand to lose a valuable hunting resource that they use for food should these hunting practices not be curbed.

It is in the best interests of every local landowner and responsible hunter  aboriginal or otherwise  to find a solution to these illegal acts. For not only is this an issue of a loss of big game in the region, this comes down to human safety. Night hunting puts everyone in danger, whether it be the hunters themselves or the area residents who live in the region.

Earlier this year, we brought you the story of a 24-year-old man from Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, who was fatally shot by a member of his own hunting party. A 37-year-old Sioux Valley man has been charged with the young mans death.

There is a very real danger to human life when it comes to night hunting, and the practice should be outlawed.

And with landowners becoming fearful for their own safety  or just plain angry at the fact that these hunters feel they are above the law  how long will it be before someone with a rifle and an axe to grind who lacks confidence in governments willingness to address the problem, tries to take the situation into their own hands?

We certainly hope no one will be so foolish. But the situation is becoming more and more dangerous, and the Manitoba government needs to step in before disaster strikes.

In the meantime, if you suspect there is poaching going on in your neck of the woods, call the province at 1-800-782-0076 and report it. Be part of the solution.
Labour has called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to apologise on behalf of the State to gay and lesbian people who were jailed and criminalised in Ireland under "chilling" laws before 1993.

Fiachra O Cionnaith of the Irish Examiner writes that senators Ged Nash and Ivana Bacik made the request today as they launched an opposition bill seeking the move in order to "address the historic wrong by the State".

Until 1993 - just 23 years ago - homosexuality was illegal in Ireland, with roughly 2,000 people brought before the courts under the controversial rules over the first seven decades of Irish independence.

Speaking to reporters outside the Dail, Labour's equality spokesperson Mr Nash said the reality is these people have never received a formal apology for what happened.

He added that while Mr Kenny was not responsible for the situation which occurred in the past, he as sitting Taoiseach should apologise on the State's behalf.

"We've come a long way in the last 23 years since homosexuality was decriminalised, but we still have a long way to go.

"What we're trying to do here is address an historic wrong that was committed through the State.

"Nobody can remove the wrongs, but this is a very important gesture. There are a considerable number of LGBT citizens who haven't been able to live and love in the climate we have in Ireland today.

"There are probably a couple of thousand, many who are still alive and some who sadly are not," he said.

Both Mr Nash and senator Ivana Bacik said they are "anxious" to receive all-party backing to the apology plan, which is outlined in the Conviction for Certain Sexual Offences (Apology and Exoneration) Bill 2016.

While admitting they have yet to receive confirmation of formal support for the bill, published this morning, they do not believe any rival party is likely to be opposed to the move.
Update, 4.05pm: The two young children of a man shot in West Dublin last night were in the house at the time of the shooting.

The 38-year-old received a number of gunshot wounds and is in a serious, but stable, condition in hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

The incident happened at Parslickstown Green at about 8.15pm last night, when several shots were fired into the rear of a house.

Gardai say he was shot by a man in dark clothing wearing a balaclava, who escaped in a dark, medium-sized car.

Superintendent Liam Carolan from Blanchardstown Garda station said: "Anyone who was in the Parlickstown estate or the Greater Mulhuddart area between the hours of 5pm and 9pm, anybody who has CCTV - be it on their home, commercial premises or dashcams - we would be anxious that they contact us.

"We will obviously examine that to see ifthere is anything evidential in that."

Earlier: Gardai say a lone gunman is believed to have been behind a shooting incident in Dublin overnight which left its victim in a serious condition.

It is believed the 38-year-old man was shot up to six times in the incident at Parlickstown Green, Mulhuddart, Dublin 15 last night.

Gardai and emergency services attended the scene. The man was taken to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown where his condition is described as critical.

It appears from initial investigations that a lone gunman fired a number of shots through a rear kitchen window of a house injuring the man. The gunman is believed to have left the scene in a car.

No other injuries were reported. No arrests have been made.

The scene has been preserved for technical examination.

Gardai are appealing for witnesses and anyone with information is asked to contact them at Blanchardstown Garda Station on 01 6667000, The Garda Confidential Line, 1800 666111 or any Garda station.
A man is in a serious in condition in hospital after he was shot up to six times in Dublin overnight.

It is understood he suffered a number of injuries in the incident at Parslickstown Green in Mulhuddart just after 8pm.
A 32-year-old man who stabbed his retired psychiatrist mother to death with a kitchen knife before attacking his sister and a passer-by, has been found not guilty of murder and assault by reason of insanity.

Fionn Braidwood with an address at Clarinda Park East, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin was charged with murdering his mother Jane Braidwood (aged 65) on January 20, 2015 at the same address.

Mr Braidwood pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Braidwood at the Central Criminal Court.

Mr Braidwood also pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Ceili Braidwood and Anthony Maguire at the same address and on the same date.

Ms Braidwood died after receiving three stab wounds to anterior and posterior parts of her chest.

Two consultant psychiatrists gave evidence during the trial that Mr Braidwood was suffering from schizophrenia and would have been unable to refrain from his actions.

They both said that he met the requirements for the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Today after a period of 32 minutes deliberating, a jury of two men and 10 women returned verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity on the three counts.

After they had delivered their verdict, Ms Justice Carmel Stewart thanked the jury for their attention and commitment to the case.

"This was a short trial but that doesn't make it any less distressing on the issues you have had to listen to," she said.

The judge then exempted them from further jury service for a period of 10 years.

Ms Justice Stewart then made an order committing Mr Braidwood to go to the Central Mental Hospital today and to be brought back before the court on December 16.

The judge also directed the preparation of a psychiatric assessment by an approved medical officer.

Ms Justice Stewart finally expressed her sympathies to the Braidwood family on what they had to endure.

"It's been a very distressing case," she said.

Opening the case for the prosecution on Monday, Mr Alex Owens SC told the jury that the central issue they would be asked to consider is whether they should bring in a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity against Mr Braidwood.

The court heard evidence by video link from Mr Braidwood's sister, Ms Ceili Braidwood. She told Mr Owens that she was living with her mother in the family home in Dun Laoghaire on January 20, 2015.

Mr Braidwood had also been living in the family home on and off since Christmas."

The witness agreed with Mr Owens that her brother began to experience fairly severe psychiatric symptoms in his early twenties which went on for quite a number of years.

The court heard her father had died some years previously.

Both her parents had been practising psychiatrists and her mother had recently retired.

Mr Braidwood went off his medication in November 2014 and had been on medication for bipolar disorder, manic depression and schizophrenia, the court heard.

Ms Braidwood agreed with counsel that when her brother went off his medication his conduct would deteriorate.

In the couple of weeks leading up to January 2015, Mr Braidwood spent a lot of time in the house and was sleeping all day.

He had also made a decision not to eat.

His mother, Jane Braidwood, was trying to look after him but was having difficulty convincing him to drink water, the court heard.

The accused was very tense and would spend long periods sitting in the kitchen and not talking. He would sometimes go upstairs to let off steam.

Mr Braidwood was under the care of Cluain Mhuire, who were giving him psychiatric assistance but he wasnt taking their assistance at this time.

On January 20, 2015, Ms Braidwood was at home with her mother and her brother.

At about 4.30pm, Mr Braidwood made an appearance as he had been in bed previously in his bedroom which was on the top floor of the house.

Ms Braidwood told the court she was working from home that day and she then heard her brother ask her mother some questions.

Mr Braidwood wanted his mother to facilitate him going to Australia.

He wanted her to ask our aunts in Australia to help him and let him stay as they lived over there. He didnt need a VISA as we have double citizenship, she said.

The court heard that Jane Braidwood didnt think her son was well enough to take the trip. The deceased then tried to persuade her son that it was a bad idea to go to Australia and he was in no condition to do it.

The witness told the court that she was sitting at the bay window in the kitchen when she saw her mother between the window and table looking out onto the road.

There was also a discussion about the accuseds medication and then Mr Braidwood went silent.

This was the point he lost control and became quite angry, she said. Mr Braidwood then strode purposely towards the knife drawer beside the oven.

She said he had never been violent towards her or her mother before and it was always towards the house or objects.

Ms Braidwood said she heard her mother screaming something at her son as he took a long and sharp knife from the drawer, but it happened very quickly.

The witness said she then observed her brother struggling with her mother as her mother tried to run away.

Ms Braidwood then observed her brother stabbing her mother on a number of occasions.

She recalled her brother jabbing her mother with the knife before she tried to separate them from each other.

The witness said her brother then let go of the knife and punched her in the right side of her head on a number of occasions before knocking her onto the couch.

The knife was in her mother's back and Fionn Braidwood looked like he was going towards the knife drawer again, she said.

Ms Braidwood then locked herself in the bathroom and dialled the emergency services.

Ms Braidwood then came out and checked on her mother in the kitchen, but she was in the same place and not moving.

The accused was still standing at the knife drawer in the kitchen.

The court heard she then got to the front door of the house and started shouting for help.

She observed Anthony Maguire across the road and asked him for assistance. Mr Maguire rang the emergency services on his mobile phone.

Ms Braidwood then asked her brother to stay at the front door of the house as she did not want him around her mother in the kitchen with the knives.

The accused then got angry with Mr Maguire and started to punch him in the head.

Ms Braidwood said her mother was still lying in the kitchen with the knife in her back and tried to attend to her as the ambulance services arrived.

Defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC called consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Brenda Wright from the Central Mental Hospital to take the stand.

Dr Wright told the court that Jane Braidwood told her son on the day of the offence that she did not think it was a good idea for him to go to Australia as he wasnt taking care of himself and not showering.

His illness was significantly complicated by non-compliance with medication and non-engagement with mental health teams, she said.

Dr Wright told the jury that Mr Braidwood was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offence and would have been unable to refrain from his actions.

Prosecuting counsel, Alex Owens SC, called consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Ronan Mullaney from the Central Mental Hospital to give evidence.

From Autumn 2014 up until January 2015, Dr Mullaney said there was a history of the accused not taking fairly strong anti-psychotic medication.

The witness agreed with Mr Owens that Mr Braidwood was suffering from schizophrenia on January 20, 2015 and was very unwell at the time.

He also agreed that the accused had a very significant need for regular medication in order to prevent any deterioration in his mental state.

Dr Mullaney also agreed with counsel that people can intrinsically lack insight into their illness and dont appreciate they need treatment or benefit from treatment.

The court heard this has been a feature of Mr Braidwood's illness for a long number of years.

The witness said that the accused was off an injection of an anti-psychotic nature up to January 2015.

People who have difficulty taking medication but still require it can turn up to a depot clinic and get this medication. Mr Braidwood decided he did not want to do that for several months, said Dr Mullaney.

The witness agreed with counsel that Mr Braidwood was very, very unwell at the time of the offence and would have been unable to refrain from committing the act.

He also agreed that the accused needs continuing treatment and care at the Central Mental Hospital.

Dr Mullaney agreed with defence counsel, Patrick Gageby SC, that Mr Braidwoods illness was of at least 10 years standing.

He also agreed with Mr Gageby that the accused is not frank with the world about his symptoms and downplays them.

What I would say is that he fails to recognise them as symptoms of an illness and it has always been very distressing for him to have the diagnosis he has. He lacked insight into this diagnosis and it caused fear for him that people might detain him against his will, said Dr Mullaney.

The court heard that Mr Braidwood has only understood the nature of his illness in recent months.

Mr Braidwood's family have been very attentive to his needs but the accused would have seen them as intrusions rather than support".

Dr Mullaney agreed that minding her son would have been quite an exhaustive process for Jane Braidwood and consequently the same would have happened for those who were left to care for him in Australia.

The witness agreed with Mr Gageby that Jane Braidwood trying to stop her son from going abroad was a rational and caring approach.
A married couple who describe themselves as a bishop and vicar are bringing religious devotion to new heights after they transformed their rented apartment into a church, according to Cork's Evening Echo.

Bishop Denis Dineen, founder of the Celtic Community Church in Ireland - an organisation originally founded by Saint Patrick, Saint Columba and other Celtic saints - is a Mallow-based organisation which describes itself as a traditional Anglican Catholic denomination.

He devised the idea with his wife Vicar Elena Aloysius.

Now 72 years old, the Mallow resident found religion later in life and is hoping his faith will serve as a beacon to those in dire straits.

Vicar Aloysius from Switzerland, who joined the order four years ago at just 18 years old, described their unconventional north Cork abode.

If you walk into our home it looks like a monastery, she said. The first thing youll see are holy pictures everywhere and a bible on the table.

Its effectively a mini church with an altar, flowers and statues. We have a couple of people who come to us regularly but a lot of our masses are streamed online as well. Over time we hope to build our community and eventually acquire a bigger chapel.

She opened up about home life and the months leading up to their marriage last February.

Our church is connected all over the world so it was suggested that I travel to Ireland in order for Bishop Denis and I to work together. My boss at the time didnt believe I would make it a month. For most of the beginning we would just sit with a homeless person at the side of the street. Our lifestyle is very strict. We do the sacraments, pray, and dont own any properties.

Neither of us own a car because we feel it brings us away from the people. We meet so many people through public transport and get all kinds of reactions. She recalled their no-frills wedding ceremony.

We try to keep our lives very simple and get along very well. Bishop Denis and I had a civil ceremony for our wedding before blessing the rings at our own chapel. Our lives are not romantic. My main concentration is the priesthood as Ive been living a vow of chastity since the age of 18 years old. As husband and wife we are good companions and do everything together. We definitely have a different relationship to most married couples.

The couple favour helping the homeless over date nights. We travel on foot armed with backpacks filled with sandwiches and soup. Much of our time is spent going to grocery stores and asking for things we can give to the poor. Ive never gone out at night or been in a pub or club. Even in my teenage years I spent my free time serving at Mass.

This article first appeared in today's Evening Echo.
Minister for Transport Shane Ross has told the Cabinet that Bus Eireann is "at a crisis point" and could be insolvent within two years.

The gloomy briefing on the bus company's financial position comes at a time when the Labour Court is hearing a 21% pay claim from workers at the firm.
Health Minister Simon Harris says he'll be discussing co-operation with his EU counterparts in relation to the drug Orkambi, at a meeting in Lisbon tomorrow.

There's renewed pressure for the HSE to make the potentially life-changing drug available to Cystic Fibrosis sufferers.
President Barack Obama said the fight he has led against Islamic State has been relentless, sustainable and multilateral.

Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, in his last major national security speech before leaving office, Mr Obama said the action demonstrates a shift in how the US takes on terrorists around the world.

He noted that he is poised to become the first president to serve two full terms at war, and defended a counter-terrorism strategy that has relied on US special forces and local groups rather than large-scale American ground forces.

The US has built a "network of partners" to help fight extremists and it is "breaking the back" of IS, he said.

His speech at the home of US Special Operations Command came as allies and foes alike await a potentially dramatic shift in American strategy towards addressing extremist threats overseas after Donald Trump takes office.

Before taking to the stage for his speech, Mr Obama told about 250 US service members gathered in a gym that it had been the privilege of his lifetime to serve as their commander-in-chief.

"I have been consistently in awe of your performance and the way you carried out your missions," Mr Obama said.

For the outgoing president, who came into office telling a war-weary nation he would wind down two wars and prevent new ones, the inclination towards smaller-scale, limited military involvement was a natural extension of his foreign policy philosophy. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Mr Obama had believed that large troop presences in Iraq and Afghanistan were unsustainable.

"The strategy that President Obama has put in place is more effective, it keeps us safe, it has fewer American men and women in harm's way, and it costs American taxpayers a lot less," Mr Earnest said.

But Mr Obama's approach has most notably come up short in Syria, where he long ago predicted that US-backed forces would eventually prevail over Syrian president Bashar Assad. But Assad's grip on power appears stronger than it has in years while the brutal civil war continues to rage.

Mr Trump has said little about how he intends to shift course in Syria and whether he would continue Mr Obama's strategy in other regions destabilised by extremist groups. He has argued that ambiguity and unpredictability are assets that deny the enemy a chance to plan ahead.

Still, all signs suggest he will pursue a more muscular, military-driven approach to extremist groups like the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Mr Trump has argued that Mr Obama's decision to withdraw the bulk of troops from Iraq, rather than negotiating harder with Baghdad to leave some there, created a power vacuum that allowed IS to form and seize territory.

During the presidential campaign, he said he would listen to top military officers about the need for ground troops to fight IS, at one point floating a figure of 20,000 to 30,000. Meanwhile, he has suggested that ousting Assad is not a top priority and that closer alignment between the US and Russia, which backs Assad, would be positive.

In the absence of more details from Mr Trump, attention has turned to the advisers he has selected to form his team, including retired General Michael T Flynn, tapped for national security adviser.

Gen Flynn, who has attracted controversy over his comments critical of Islam, has urged a far more aggressive military campaign against IS.

Mr Obama was promoting the benefits of his more limited approach on Tuesday.

Under his leadership, the number of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has dropped from roughly 180,000 to 15,000 today, according to deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

Meanwhile, the US has been able to take out key al-Qaida leaders, most notably Obama bin Laden, and has started edging the Islamic State group out of strongholds like Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

AP
Poland's Supreme Court begins examining a fresh bid to extradite Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski to the United States - where he is accused having sex with a minor nearly 40 years ago.

A Polish court rejected the US request last year.

But Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro revived the case in May - just months after the conservative government took office.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles. In a deal with the judge, he served 42 days in prison, but then fled the US.

The US has been seeking to bring Polanski back and put him before a court.

Last year, the Krakow judge ruling on the case found that Polanski served his punishment in confinement in the US, and later for 10 months - partly under house arrest - in Switzerland in 2009-2010 when the US unsuccessfully sought his extradition there.

He argued that US judges and prosecutors in the case violated legal procedures, broke the plea bargain in 1977, denied Polanski the right to proper defence and appeared biased.

At that time, the victim in the rape case Samantha Geimer, now 52, said in an interview with NBC News that the Polish courts did the right thing in refusing to extradite.

She said: I believe they did the right thing and made the right decision given all the facts ... Since Im well aware of how long this has been going on, Im very pleased and happy.

Now, Ziobro argues that Polanski's celebrity status was the only thing shielding the 83-year-old from being extradited.

Polanski grew up in Poland, but he now has homes in France and Switzerland. The case has made him cancel plans to film in Poland.

The court was expected Tuesday to either overturn or confirm the extradition refusal or to return the case to a lower court.
Prosecutors say murder charges are possible after a warehouse fire killed at least 36 people in Oakland, California.

Alameda County district attorney Nancy O'Malley said her office has just started its probe and has not yet determined whether a crime occurred, but charges could range from murder to involuntary manslaughter.

Investigators with the district attorney's office are making sure crews removing debris do not jeopardise any evidence in a potential criminal investigation.

The fire erupted during a dance party late on Friday night. It is still unclear how it started.

Hundreds of family members and friends face an agonising wait as firefighters continue the painstaking search for victims.

The laborious job of digging with shovels and buckets through the debris was suspended overnight because of a dangerously unstable wall.

The cluttered warehouse had been converted to artists' studios and illegal living spaces, and former residents said it was a death trap of piled wood, furniture, snaking electrical cords and only two exits.

Ms O'Malley said. "We just started our investigation, and we owe it to the community and those who perished in this fire, and those who survived the fire, to be methodical, to be thorough, and to take the amount of time it takes to be able to look at every piece of potential evidence."

Oakland city councillor Noel Gallo, who lives a block from the warehouse, said he confronted the property's manager - Derick Ion Almena - several times about neighbours' concerns over rubbish in the street and in front of the warehouse.

Mr Gallo said Mr Almena essentially told authorities to "mind their own business" and appeared resistant to addressing complaints and complying with city codes.

Mr Almena and his partner Micah Allison ran the building's arts colony, called the Satya Yuga collective. They were believed to have been away at the time of the blaze.

The warehouse is owned by Chor N Ng, her daughter Eva Ng told the Los Angeles Times. She said the warehouse was leased as studio space for an art collective and was not being used as a dwelling.

"We are also trying to figure out what's going on like everybody else," the family wrote in a statement to NBC Bay Area. "Our condolences go out to the families and friends of those injured and those who lost their lives."

Questions persisted about whether city officials could have done more to prevent the fire. Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints about the warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises could not get inside, said Darin Ranelletti, of Oakland Planning Department.

Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf said city officials are putting together a record of what they knew about the property.

Investigators said they believe they have located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has appealed for calm as his government battles to contain a debilitating economic crisis.

The 92-year-old president appeared frail but jovial, struggling with his lines a bit as he delivered a 30-minute State of the Nation address.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has warned Syrian rebels in Aleppo that they will be wiped out unless they agree to stop fighting and quit the besieged city.

Mr Lavrov said that "those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed", adding: "There is no other way."

Mr Lavrov also lamented what he described as attempts by the United States to obtain a pause in the fighting in Aleppo to allow rebels to re-arm and re-supply.

He said that "serious conversations with our American partners are not working".

Syrian government forces are closely backed by Russian air power in the Middle East country's civil war.

Government forces recently launched a new push to retake rebel-held eastern Aleppo neighbourhoods and seized large parts of the city.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Kremlin regrets a "more than modest" reaction by the international community following the deadly attack on a Russian military hospital in Aleppo on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov singled out the United States for what he said was a muted reaction to the "tragedy" in the Syrian city. Two Russian nurses were killed in the attack.

Russian officials have said the artillery attack was deliberately planned and suggested that the coordinates of the hospital were supplied to rebels in Aleppo by a foreign power.

Russia's defence ministry said a statement from the International Red Cross about the incident was "cynical" and showed the organisation was "indifferent to the murder of Russian medics in Aleppo".

The Syrian government said it rejects any ceasefire for Aleppo unless it includes the departure of all rebels from the eastern part of the city.

Syria's foreign ministry said in a statement carried on the state SANA news agency that the government will not allow the rebels a chance to "regroup and repeat their crimes" in the divided city.

The statement comes a day after Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the UN Security Council demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel shelling of Aleppo's government-held districts killed 81 civilians in the past three weeks. The government's offensive to take eastern Aleppo killed 341 civilians over the same period and displaced tens of thousands over the past week.
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by guest blogger Marketa Trimble

At the recent Law, Borders, and Speech conference at Stanford, several participants debated the relevance of server location in determining jurisdiction. Some Silicon Valley attorneys at the conference argued that the location of a server should not be just one of the factors in a jurisdictional inquiry, but that it should be the determinative factor for jurisdiction. Support for this position is consistent with the recent Microsoft (Data Stored in Ireland) decision in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in dicta, suggested that the location of a server containing data should determine jurisdiction over that data (for commentaries on the decision see, for example, here and here). Does it make sense for internet companies (ISPs, content providers, etc.) to take this position?

The position that the location of a server should be determinative in a jurisdictional inquiry makes sense in the context of the companies fight against data location requirements  the rules through which countries mandate that companies locate their servers (and data) in the countries territory if the companies want to do business there. The USTR has criticized these data location requirements and has included data localization [sic] requirements among the Key Barriers to Digital Trade. [I favor the phrase data location over data localization for reasons I explain at the end of this post.]

Data location requirements have also been discussed in the ongoing negotiations of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA): the May 2015 version of the Agreements draft Annex on Electronic Commerce included a provision that would prohibit countries from requiring a service supplier to locate servers in their territory as a condition for supplying a service or investing in [the countries] territory (Article 9(1)). The October 2015 version of the draft was more nuanced, recognizing that some countries may have a legitimate public policy objective for which they may mandate that data be located within their territory (Article 9(3)).

The interaction between mandated server location and jurisdiction based on server location can play out in the following four scenarios. For purposes of the following brief analysis of the four scenarios, the term jurisdiction refers to both prescriptive jurisdiction (jurisdiction to prescribe laws and regulations) and adjudicatory jurisdiction (jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes), and refers to jurisdiction over internet companies  ISPs, content providers, etc. The analysis assumes that in each scenario, all countries would adopt the same rules for that particular scenario.

In Scenario 1, countries impose no data location requirements, but jurisdiction is based on the location of the server. This seems to be the scenario that internet companies currently promote. Using the location of a server to determine jurisdiction is not as common as sometimes alleged; although the Second Circuit Court did suggest in Microsoft (Data Stored in Ireland) that jurisdiction should depend on server location, courts do not usually find jurisdiction over actors not domiciled within a courts jurisdiction based on server location alone. In the United States, for example, courts have found jurisdiction based on the location of servers when the servers were where a tort occurred (e.g., misappropriation of trade secrets). In other cases, however, courts take server location into account as one of several factors in the jurisdictional analysis, but do not determine jurisdiction solely based on server location.

Scenario 1 is useful for internet companies; they can freely decide where to locate their servers because there is no data location requirement; at the same time, locating their servers in a territory enables them to choose the jurisdiction that governs their activity. (Of course, the decision would not be completely free, as many factors influence the best location for servers, but the decision is free in the sense that server location is not mandated.) The scenario allows internet companies to shop for the most advantageous jurisdiction and benefit from the legal certainty of being subject to their jurisdiction of choice.

Whether this scenario is the best scenario for governments and users is questionable. Governments might lose the ability to extend jurisdiction in many instances when they might have legitimate policy reasons to have that ability; users are at the mercy of internet companies regarding the jurisdiction to which the users data is subject. Additionally, the scenario seems problematic from a technological perspective because it might be difficult to confine data to a single server or a group of servers in a single jurisdiction. (See also, for example, here and here.)

In Scenario 2, countries impose data location requirements, but jurisdiction is not based on the location of the server. Scenario 2 exists currently, for example, for regulated online gambling; jurisdictions (countries, states, etc.) that regulate online gambling typically require that data be located in their territory (see, for example, Nevada here). However, jurisdictions do not base their jurisdiction on the location of servers; rather, they exercise their jurisdiction based on where online gambling companies are doing business. For governments, the location of servers is not important for reasons of jurisdiction; rather, servers are the last resort for enforcement against companies that might have no assets or few assets located in the jurisdictions territory (physically absent operators). Access to a switch and/or the possibility to seize servers provides governments some enforcement power  even if the power is illusory to a certain degree, given the redundancy of data on the internet.

The importance of server location for enforcement rather than jurisdiction may be illustrated in the case of gambling regulation by Alderney: the island of Alderney is unsuitable as a server location, which is why Alderney allows online gambling operators to locate their servers in other jurisdictions  but for physically absent operators the server location may be only in jurisdictions from which Alderney can receive assistance with enforcement, if necessary (see here and here).

Scenario 2 is not appealing from the point of view of internet companies; they cannot choose where to locate their servers, nor do they have choice of jurisdiction. In this scenario, companies cannot benefit fully from the internet cloud model, nor will they receive the benefit of being subject to a single jurisdiction of their choosing. If jurisdiction is not based on server location, internet companies may be exposed to jurisdiction based on various other factors; for example, governments and courts may find grounds for jurisdiction over companies based on doing business or committing torts in the countries.

In Scenario 3, countries do not impose data location requirements, and jurisdiction is not based on the location of the server. Scenario 3 carries the same significant disadvantage for internet companies as Scenario 2 with regard to jurisdiction; companies cannot select which jurisdiction they will be subject to. It is true that without data location requirements, companies can choose where they locate data and therefore may fully utilize the cloud model; although their choice is subject to practical constraints, it is untainted by jurisdictional concerns because server location does not determine jurisdiction. But, as in Scenario 2, in Scenario 3 companies are not permitted to select a jurisdiction, and therefore are uncertain about which jurisdictions laws and adjudication they will be subject to. As suggested above, governments will find ways to extend their jurisdiction over operators on grounds other than a companys server locations; for instance, in the right to be forgotten decisions, courts and agencies in the European Union countries found grounds for jurisdiction over ISPs without basing their jurisdiction on the location of ISP servers. As opposed to the case in Scenario 2, in Scenario 3 a government might face difficulties with enforcement against physically absent operators.

In Scenario 4, countries impose data location requirements, and jurisdiction is based on the location of the server. Scenario 4 is the ideal situation for governments; they dictate that servers be located in their territory and also base their jurisdiction on the location of the servers. Not only can governments promote their own policies by imposing their laws and decisions on the operators, but the servers, being within the governments physical reach, are a last resort for enforcement against physically absent operators. For companies, Scenario 4 is highly unappealing; while it provides certainty for companies regarding the jurisdiction to which they will be subject, under this scenario it is impossible for companies to fully utilize the advantages of the cloud. Although the scenario does result in legal certainty for companies, it deprives them of the opportunity for jurisdiction shopping.

As the above review of the four scenarios suggests, it is not surprising that companies would promote Scenario 1 through lobbying for the elimination of data location requirements and simultaneously making legal arguments in favor of server location as the determinative factor for jurisdiction. The question is whether Scenario 1 is the best for society as a whole, and a single scenario might not be ideal in all circumstances. As the previous paragraphs indicate, which scenario should apply and when cannot be answered by looking at the two components separately.

Coordinating the approaches for the two components is also complicated by the fact that the discussions of the approaches do not take place in the same fora; judiciaries seek to clarify rules for jurisdiction on the internet, while executives are exploring possibilities for eliminating or limiting data location requirements through international treaties. Thus far, attempts to align internationally the jurisdictional rules in civil and commercial matters have generally failed (see here).

Companies arguments against data location requirements are reinforced by the fact that the same requirements are used by repressive regimes that aim to restrict free speech. The elimination of the requirements is therefore presented as a solution that would both advance efficiency and combat governmental censorship. Nevertheless, the elimination of the requirements together with jurisdiction based solely on the location of the server might not be the best solution for society as a whole. As I explained elsewhere (see here), Scenario 3 (with no server location mandated and jurisdiction not based solely on server location) might make the most sense if the scenario is combined with a strengthened means of enforcement cooperation that provides sufficient safeguards for internationally-recognized fundamental rights and freedoms.

__

Note about Nomenclature

When countries mandate that data be located in their territory, it is correct to say that they create data location requirements, but not that they create data localization requirements.

To localize means to adapt oneself  in order to conform to local circumstances or surroundings, to make local in character, or to associate with a particular place or location in the sense of to find or determine the location of. (Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/109560?redirectedFrom=localize& (accessed November 28, 2016)). For example, content providers may localize advertising, meaning that the content providers will display ads on a webpage based on an internet users location. In conflict of laws, localization refers to the process of the determination of the locality of  elements (Josef Unger, The Place of Classification in Private International Law, 19 Bell Yard: J.L. Socy Sch. L. 3 (1937)). In this context, a localization requirement may indeed exist; for example, Article 4 of the proposed EU Cross-Border Portability Regulation mandates a particular localization of [t]he provision of an online content service to, as well as the access to and the use of this service by, a subscriber when it states that the acts shall be deemed to occur solely in the Member State of residence (see Article 4 on page 17 here).

To locate means to establish, site, or place in a particular location (Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/109569?isAdvanced=false&result=2&rskey=ESU48d& (accessed November 28, 2016)).
KUPIANSK: The head of Ukraine's railway vowed to keep trains running and to repair the damage done to the network by...
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Developers -- including one tied to an Ocean Springs project -- have agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice accusing the developers of violating the Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) by building apartment complexes inaccessible to disabled persons.

Developers Ike W. Thrash, Dawn Properties Inc., Southern Cross Construction and affiliated companies have agreed to pay $350,000 to settle the case. The settlement includes $250,000 in compensation to 25 people harmed by the inaccessible housing and $100,000 in civil penalties, in addition to costs to retrofit the properties to meet legal requirements.

"Housing impacts critical areas of one's daily life," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the USDOJ Civil Rights Division. "This comprehensive settlement demonstrates the Justice Department's commitment to protecting the rights of persons with disabilities to reside in and visit the housing of their choice."

Ike Thrash is the founder and managing partner of the Thrash Group, which in February 2011 announced its intentions to construct a $30 million mixed use development along U.S. 90 in Ocean Springs. Construction on the project, dubbed "Bay Village," has yet to begin.

Six properties with a total of 500 units were cited in the suit, including two in St. Martin -- The Belmont Apartments and The Grand Biscayne Apartments. The others were The Beach Club Apartments in Long Beach, The Belmont Apartments in Hattiesburg, The Lexington Apartments in Ridgeland, and the Inn by the Sea Condominiums in Pass Christian.

The Justice Department filed the suit in May 2014 after completing an investigation prompted by complaints received through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Had a settlement not been reached, the case would have gone to trial Jan. 3, 2017.

Under the agreement, the developers will make retrofits including eliminating steps, making bathrooms more usable, providing accessible curb ramps and parking, and providing accessible walks to site amenities such as clubhouses, pools and mailboxes.

"Barriers created by inaccessible housing and public accommodations deny the fundamental protection afforded by the Fair Housing Act," said U. S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis of the Southern District of Mississippi. "The retrofits required by this agreement will provide accessible housing to people with disabilities in several key commercial areas of the Southern District of Mississippi."

The Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of disability, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, and familiar status. Under the act, multifamily housing constructed after March 1991 must have basic accessibility features, including accessible routes without steps to ground floor units, as well as units accessible by wheelchair and for others with disabilities.

"When housing fails to meet the Fair Housing Act's design and construction requirements it further limits the type of housing persons with disabilities need the most," said Gustavo Velasquez, HUD's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. "Hopefully today's action will help developers to better understand the importance of meeting their obligation to comply with the law."

The ADA requires that places of public accommodation, including rental offices at multifamily complexes built after January 1993 be accessible to persons with disabilities.

Along with the financial settlement, the developers will have to go through Justice Department-approved sensitivity training, ensure that all future construction meets federal accessibility standards, and make periodic reports to the USDOJ.
Autopsy results from a 10-year-old boy who was allegedly accidentally killed by his brother in Queanbeyan revealed an undiagnosed brain condition which could have impacted his death, a court has heard. A 15-year-old charged with assault causing the death of his little brother faced Queanbeyan Children's Court on Tuesday. A teenager appeared in the Queanbeyan Children's Court on a charge of assault causing the death of his little brother. Credit:AFR Queanbeyan teen charged over death of 10-year-old brother The incident allegedly occurred on May 23. It is alleged the teenager grabbed hold of the 10-year-old's wrist and punched him in the ribs. The younger boy attempted to get away when the 15-year-old allegedly pushed him, causing the boy to hit his head on the corner of the door frame.

The 15-year-old and his mother commenced CPR on the boy, however he was pronounced dead at the Canberra Hospital days after the incident when his life support was switched off. The teenager's solicitor, Michael Bartlett, said in court on Tuesday that the autopsy found the 10-year-old had a tissue disorder affecting his cerebral artery. He said there was an issue with whether the death was caused by the assault or the existing condition. Mr Bartlett called for a second opinion of the autopsy results by a neuropathologist. Magistrate Michael Antrum said he had no hesitation in allowing the autopsy information for to be released to inform the second opinion.
Parents of the artist who was shot dead at his Watson unit last month have pleaded for information that could lead to his killer.

Police were called to the Windeyer Street unit about 7.45pm on November 3, and when officers arrived they discovered 37-year-old Eden Waugh already dead with a single, fatal gunshot wound.

Eden Waugh with his parents Elaine and David, who have appealed for people to come forward with information about his death.

No one has been arrested or charged over the killing.

Elaine and David Waugh addressed the media outside the City Police Station in Civic on Tuesday, where Ms Waugh said she could not think of anyone who would want to hurt her son.
The employee can't directly demand proof that the super contributions have been paid and can't treat non-payment in the same way as non-payment of wages. If employees were stealing $3.6billion a year from employers no doubt police action would follow. But there's no similar risk for employers. Christopher Hood, Queanbeyan If you believe our PM all unionists are corrupt, lying psychopaths. Yet once again we are seeing how the business community rips off its employees.

Banks, 7/11s, Woolworths and Coles have all been caught out. The biggest rip off of all is superannuation. [But] not a dicky bird from the PM. Roger Laws, Bonython This government and its right-wing business colleagues are so focused on vilifying the union movement there seems little energy or appetite left over to express outrage and take action about the alleged rorts and dishonest dealings of rogue employers. Where is the comprehensive investigation (dare I say it  a royal commission) into employers who fail to pay award wages and correct superannuation, who engage in sham contracting, who behave in a form of slaving, and who appear to act with impunity in their exploitation of workers?

The small numbers who have been caught and prosecuted and the [low] risk of any sanction still makes such behaviour highly lucrative. Annette Gilmour, Melba Be more considerate It's distressing to hear of a death caused by a cyclist riding too fast (The Canberra Times, 5/12/2016, "Tuggeranong woman's dog run over"). Offroad paths can't be assumed to be safe. When two or more parties traverse the environment, they constitute traffic, with potential for conflict. It's also important not to overreact to such an incident. A cyclist travelling too slowly is a danger to themselves as well as those around them.

Asking cyclists to dismount for a short stretch is unrealistic, as is a separate path for walkers and another for cyclists, since experience shows neither restriction is respected, by either; or their children or dogs. Paths with good sightlines are vital, as is a culture of good traffic manners. It comes down to consideration for other people. Rosemary Sharples, Penshurst As a regular of the shared paths, both as a cyclist and pedestrian, I have to agree almost entirely with Patricia Worthy ("Ring those bells", CT Letters, Dec 5)  there are certainly a good number of discourteous cyclists.

[But] pedestrians are not always perfect. There are those with buds in their ears, preventing them from hearing my bell, the groups of recreational walkers who occupy the whole path, and, most dangerously, the dog owners who, unlike Ms Worthy, do not have their dogs on leads. Few dog owners seem aware it is a legal requirement to keep one's dog on a lead in all public places except designated areas. About two years ago a friend died as a result of an uncontrolled dog knocking him from his bicycle (septicaemia following a broken leg). More recently, I was forced to dismount and ask an owner to control his dog before I could continue.

John Rogers, Cook Riding a bike at 50km/h on any shared recreation path is potentially lethal! If that is the allowable speed on our paths it needs urgent review. Fred Barnes, Bruce Maybe the [bicycle bell] problem lies with Terry George's (Letters, Dec 6 2016 ) ears. Do we need more musical cycle bells? If bells were more musical; rather than the cacophony Terry fears, a mobile two-wheeled harmonium could grace our shared pathways.

Matt Ford, Crookwell Turn rundown building into hotel Head, but no heart. That's the Finance Department in assessing the important matching Anzac Park East and West buildings ("Knock them down", December 6, p1). If the west one can be refurbished for long-term use, then so can its neglected eastern counterpart. It should become a budget hotel, particularly enabling Australians of modest means to enjoy up close, the National Capital they paid for.

Oh, and for those wanting twin world war monuments at the bottom of Anzac Parade, then the west building could be named WW1, and the east WW2. Jack Kershaw, Kambah Keep up the fight Your report "Hoops out of bounds" (December 6, p6) made me think immediately of that great Canberran Gus Petersilka who died in 1994, but whose legendary battles with the bureaucracy meant we now can enjoy sitting lawfully outside a cafe to drink our coffee (truly). The Farrer cafe owner, Alex Piris, ought visit the modest bronze plaque in the footpath on Bunda Street, Civic, outside the former Gus Cafe, and be inspired by Gus, to keep up the fight.

Gus once had a sign "Do it now. Tomorrow there may be a law against it." T. W. Campbell, Bruce Beware DVA scam The Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) is currently conducting the 2016 Client Satisfaction Survey. DVA has become aware of a scam asking clients for their personal details from a caller claiming to be conducting a survey on behalf of DVA.

Any such requests are a scam and are not legitimate. The official DVA survey will not ask for any personal information beyond confirming your name and, where a carer/spouse is completing the survey on your behalf, their relationship with you. If you should receive one of these calls hang up and report the call to Scamwatch on 1300 795 995. Ray Payne OAM, Veteranweb Network Pothole puzzles Your article (December 5) on the death of motorcyclist Jamie Hughes on Saturday, October 4, 2015, when he hit a pothole on Oallen Ford Bridge brought back memories to me.

I drove over that bridge the previous day. The pothole a metre wide, which the article says caused the accident, wasn't there, or any evidence of it. It must have formed very quickly. Stan Marks, Hawker Claim lacks evidence Damon Fraser's letter "Equal in Opportunity" (November 29) made me laugh out loud. As a woman who has enjoyed a career in IT spanning 40-plus years, I disagree with Mr Fraser's closing sentence that the men in IT outperform the women in IT when judged on merit. On what measure, you have to ask?

Mr Fraser has provided neither a definition of meritorious performance nor any evidence to support his claim. A. M. Tarry, Giralang Iodine works well Concerning Murray Upton's letter (December 3) on antiseptics, I recall that in the 1930s, "iodine" (iodine dissolved in alcohol) was the staple for cuts and grazes. Agonising sting. Then came Dettol, and in the early 1940s, Acriflavine, comfortably painless and a strong yellow die. In the '60s, when I asked for it from a Canberra pharmacist, I was referred to Betadine, iodine again. No pain, plenty of stain though. Seems to work pretty well.

Jack Palmer, Watson Favourable figures Shane Rattenbury's message the ACT is showing other areas of Australia how to reduce emissions ("ACT leading Australia on climate response", December 3, p24) is misleading essentially because it compares the total amount of electricity the ACT has contracted to receive from renewables with the ACT's total electricity supply. The reality is that the electricity supplied at night generally, if not exclusively, has been sourced from non-renewable sources. Comparing the emissions generated by producing the electricity that has been actually consumed in the ACT with other jurisdictions would be more accurate and less flattering to the ACT. Bruce Paine, Red Hill

Language skills For a long time I've been a fan of SBS's TV news. But now I find it almost impossible to watch thanks to its wholesale slaughter of the English language. I'm not talking about reporters from non-English speaking backgrounds, whose English is generally impeccable, but those who seem to be speakers of English as their first language. We're rightly concerned about the decline in our maths and science educational standards, but we should be equally concerned about our performance in English. Knowledge of basic English grammar should be a prerequisite for jobs in the media, journalism and advertising  and teaching.

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen Refugee stance News may be slow to reach Casuarina in the Northern Territory, but surely Harold Gotting (Letters, December 5) knows by now the Australian Government, with the support of the ALP, refuses to bring the refugees to Australia. And while I have some sympathy with Gerry Murphy's suggestion (Letters, December6) that rubber bullets be used to control LNP and ALP MPs' thuggish behaviour during Question Time, I suspect that there may be some constitutional problems with the idea. Peter Marshall, Captains Flat

I would like to point out to Harold Gotting (Letters, December 5) that the activists in Federal Parliament can't open their doors to "refugees/asylum seekers" and offer hospitality because the latter can't come to Australia. The disruption to Parliament is nothing compared to the disruption to their lives in our concentration camps. Felicity Chivas, Scullin Low expectations What else can you expect from a politician [Barnaby Joyce] whose only achievement to date is his threat to euthanase Johnny Depp's dogs?

John Galvin, Weston TO THE POINT MILK SOUR My daughter and a friend attended the spilt milk festival on Saturday. Tickets were over $200 each. They had to wait 45 minutes to enter; there were long queues for food and drink. It was advertised with art and culture of which there was very little, according to my daughter. W. Cook, Monash

LOST OPPORTUNITY I'm worried about the intergenerational transfer of traditions among the hoods of Canberra's south. There may yet be a few windows to smash and walls to deface in the Alexander and Albermarle buildings, but this government offers no guarantees this crop of vandals' kids will have the same opportunities. Matt Gately, Rivett FLYING BLIND As a proud geologist I didn't like the comment by Gerry Murphy (letters, December 5) "There are none so blind as those educated in geology and geophysics". There are none so blind about the materials, structure, and history of our planet and its hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere than those not educated in geology and geophysics.

Max Brown, Mawson Is Gerry Murphy (To The Point) saying his unsupported denials of climate change are justified by "those educated in geology and geophysics" not knowing what they're talking about, or that his own education in these fields entitles him to say "Ain't so" without a reasoned counter-argument? Mark Chapman, Palmerston RESPITE AT LAST It seems odd that the rising of Parliament for its summer recess is said to herald the silly season when in fact it affords some respite from inanity.

M. F. Horton, Adelaide VILE SENTIMENT Gerry Murphy's (Letters, December 5) advice to shoot protesters with rubber bullets is violent, irresponsible and extremist. Shame on The Canberra Times to publish his vile sentiment and thus endorse police violence against protests based on human rights and democracy. Joyce Wu, Lyneham

WHITES IN CROSS HAIRS The UN special rapporteur on racism appears to be a global white basher. Rod Matthews, Melbourne RUNNING EMPTY John Key, Malcolm's best mate, is resigning. He thinks "he had nothing left in the tank". Malcolm never had a tank to start with.
When I was elected as Labor leader 10 years ago, it was against the concerted opposition of the most powerful union-based factions of the party. And this came 40 years after Whitlam's famous confrontation with the faceless, factional men of the party's federal executive. Yet 50 years after Whitlam's reforms, the power of these factions remains as strong as ever.

For Labor to form government from opposition, its leaders need to rise above the demands of the union-based factions, to broaden the progressive tent beyond the sectional interests of the faceless men and to appeal to the best instincts of the Australian people writ large.

We should be the party of union members, of working families, of small business, of small businesses with an ambition to become big businesses, for those who can't find a job and those who want decent conditions in the jobs they have, of those with disabilities and those with none, of those who have no home and those who aspire to buy their first. We should be the party of our first peoples, of those who come to our country to start a new life and those from across society concerned about the sustainability of the planet that sustains us all. Above all, we should always be the party of the future, with a path forward for all people, not just the few. And doing so fully mindful of fundamental economic disciplines so that social justice is not delivered by fine speeches, but by sustainable fiscal measures.

With declining union membership, and the radically changing nature of work, there is less and less prospect of the party winning without embracing an ever-broadening political constituency. We cannot simply conclude that the party will win the next election by default. Or that victory will be delivered off the back of the flailing efforts and rolling contradictions of the most ineffective conservative Prime Minister we have seen since Billy McMahon. The Liberal Party are not sentimentalists. They will not sail happily into the next election with a leader taking them steadfastly into political oblivion. They will act.
Last week in front of 1400 people at a Fairfax Media subscriber event I was outed as a "pathological optimist" by an anonymous reader, who wanted to know how I got that way.

It reminded me of Dylan Thomas, who went into a pub in America and got beaten up by some big bruiser  a future Trump voter, no doubt  for calling him heterosexual.

But, since you ask, I'll tell you  much as I hate talking about myself.

I think it's partly heredity, and partly by choice. When you grow up in the Salvos, professing to be "saved", it's natural to be happy with life and confident Someone Upstairs will look after you.
Do you "like"? Do you "tweet"? Do you tube? Does your business do any or all of these things and, if so, does it really ...
HATTIESBURG, Mississippi -- The University of Southern Mississippi has been named No. 1 in the nation for affordability of its online offerings. Affordable Colleges Online ranked Southern Miss as the most affordable online college in the U.S.

Tom Hutchinson, interim director of the Office of Online Learning, tells The Hattiesburg American Affordable Colleges Online includes researchers and higher education experts who analyze data from every college and university in the country to identify those with the lowest out-of-pocket costs that also score high on academic rigor and student support. He says the ranking includes student-to-faculty ratio, graduation rates and number and breadth of online programs available.

The university offers 11 undergraduate, 22 graduate and eight certificate programs through online learning courses.

Online students at Southern Miss have doubled in one year.
I've just returned from Barwon maximum security adult prison. I found myself squatting on the floor to talk to one of our clients  a 16-year-old child  through the trapdoor to his cell. The tight steel opening so small I could only see his anxious eyes. He is being held in solitary confinement; pacing his cell, uncertain when he will be let out. He hasn't seen the sky since Thursday.

This is my second time visiting the children being held in Barwon jail. The prison is unfit for this purpose.

The Grevillea wing, Barwon Prison. Credit:Ken Irwin

There is no escaping how ominous Barwon is. This is where the state's most dangerous, most unpredictable criminals are locked up. There is razor wire and searing concrete walls in every direction. Changing its name cannot change these facts  calling Barwon jail a youth justice facility does not make it so.

Whatever the challenge the Victorian government faced after the incidents and resulting damage at Parkville Youth Detention Centre, treating children cruelly should never have been part of the answer.
There are some sights that Natasha Stott Despoja will never wipe from memory. Like the women she met in some clinics in Papua New Guinea, who came in just having had their hands or feet severed. Or the children she came across  in Bhutan, Madagascar and elsewhere  who had been trafficked for sex.

Such encounters, says Australia's outgoing ambassador for women and girls, have left her forever changed.

"Everywhere I went I saw the effects of violence [against women and girls], the shame and the stigma, the aftermath both physical and emotional" she said.

"There are people I have met and things I've seen in the last few years that have shaken me. I have seen the best and worst of humanity in this job, occasionally it just saps your energy. But then I spend time with women and men advocating for gender equality and changing lives all over the world, and every day I've been inspired [by them]."
As the Coalition backs away from a pledge to consider a climate change policy that the energy industry says it needs, a new study is projecting a rapidly growing mass electricity generator for Australia in the decades ahead: the public.

Consumers using rooftop solar panels and batteries will produce between a third and half of Australia's electricity by mid-century if the right policies are introduced, according to a roadmap from the CSIRO and power and gas transmission body Energy Networks Australia.

The two-year analysis also found an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector - a form of carbon trading that was to be considered by a government climate policy review until that plan was abandoned on Tuesday afternoon - would be the cheapest way to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

It suggests it could save customers $200 a year by 2030, while helping create a reliable electricity grid with zero emissions by 2050.
Donald Trump is not only a political renegade, he's now a fashion turncoat.

The President-elect, who is worth an estimated $4 billion, is now shunning elitist accessories like tie clips, instead preferring to sticky tape his silk neck adornments.

President-elect Donald Trump modelling his latest fashion statement. Credit:AP

Trump showcased his new styling hack on a recent trip to Indiana to visit the Carrier airconditioning and heating company.

As he stepped off his private plane a gust of wind caught his red tie allowing photographers to catch a glimpse of two large pieces of tape going to work underneath.
A young American tourist who was killed in a lightning strike on the summit of Mount Warning has been remembered by his friends as a fun-loving adventurer who had lived life to the fullest.

Sam Beattie, 24,and his girlfriend, Michele Segalla, 23, had flown into Sydney in early October from their home in New York, and were planning to spend a year travelling across Australia in a campervan.

"Fit our lives into five bags (minus 2 neck pillows)," Mr Beattie wrote on Instagram, beside a photograph of the pair sitting on a plane. "Next stop Sydney!"

In the first eight weeks of their dream trip, the couple had already travelled along the NSW and Queensland coasts, posting photographs on social media showing them enjoying themselves in Seal Rocks and Byron Bay, sipping wine in the Gold Coast Hinterland and swimming with dolphins on Stradbroke Island.
In the darkness before dawn, Scott Richardson woke up on a sofa in his Redfern flat after a party, and looked across the lounge room.

"I saw someone on the other sofa," Mr Richardson said.

Scott Harry Richardson, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual intercourse without consent. Credit:Facebook

"I thought it was my friend James."

Mr Richardson said he went over to the sofa, and leant over the doona as if to hug his friend.
The Scouting movement has a "long history" of child sex abuse allegations and a lot of work to do to effectively respond to victims, a royal commission has heard.

Scouts NSW was one of the first institutions to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, with senior members of the organisation called to give evidence about improvements in child safety on Tuesday.

Commission chairman Peter McClellan acknowledged the organisation has made some progress on child protection since first appearing at the sex abuse inquiry in 2013.

"It would seem that there is still work to be done in your organisation - probably quite a lot - to bring an effective national response to these problems," Justice McClellan said.
Brisbane 's Victoria Bridge may become a green-bridge only - scrapping cars - as Brisbane City Council on Tuesday night launched a major campaign to have the Queensland Government approve the change.

From Monday an extra 50 buses an hour will be added to the 200 buses an hour that already crawl across the Victoria Bridge in peak hour, because of road closures linked to the new casino.

Victoria Bridge has only two lanes dedicated to buses, with cars using the other two lanes.

The major changes to Brisbane's bus routes begin on Monday, December 12 when the major road closures in Brisbane's CBD will let work start on the multi-billion dollar casino resort complex in Brisbane's Queens Wharf Precinct, between George and William Street.
Police will no longer need court approval to get DNA samples from suspects under new powers to be granted as part of the Labor government's strategy to tackle law and order.

Currently police can only forcibly obtain a sample from a suspect with a court order if a person refuses.

Illustration: Judy Green

But under the new powers, Victoria police will be able to collect DNA from a person, aged over 15, suspected of committing an indictable offence - including burglary, theft, sex offences, assaults and murder - without court approval.

Premier Daniel Andrews has been under increasing pressure to tackle rising crime and to neutralise attacks that his Labor government is weak on crime.
Melbourne City Council will build a $5 million elevated greenhouse nine metres above Queen Street to provide space for fruit and vegetable traders during the $250 million redevelopment of the Queen Victoria Market.

The council has awarded the design of the project to architects Breathe, which proposed the construction of a 200-metre long and 16-metre wide commercial greenhouse  suspended on columns above Queen Street.

Traders from the Queen Victoria Market's upper sheds - the market's A, B, C and D sheds near Victoria and Peel streets - will be asked to move into the greenhouse spaces.

The greenhouse will be able to digest some of the green waste from the market for reuse, and so that plants can be grown in it. The plan for the greenhouse was shown to around 50 Queen Victoria Market traders on Tuesday.
Even after 11 months, Simon Lewis can't forget the faces of the children.

In January, the surf lifesaver left the golden sands of St Kilda beach to join an international crew rescuing refugees off the Greek coast.

St Kilda surf lifesaver Simon Lewis will spend the festive period on the coast of Libya to help rescue drowning refugees. Credit:Paul Jeffers

"Lesbos is still with me," Mr Lewis says.

"Having that frozen little baby, passing it down the line to the Norwegians, the French, the Germans...
It's raining in Coffs Harbour when I speak to Miguel Maestre, the motor-mouthed celebrity chef famous for his Spanish influenced cooking and hosting Ten's 'The Living Room'.

He's in Queensland to film an episode on bananas, and dares me to ask him a question about them.

"I can tell you everything! We went out to a farm where they grow five different types, Cavendish to Lady Fingers," he enthuses.

"You live in paradise in Australia. A perfect island where every climate in the world can be found. Fly to Queensland and its tropical, go to the South West of WA it's Mediterranean. And that gives such great fresh produce. That's why Australia is my home."
As Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi fights to survive her long-running expenses scandal, it's emerged that she wants to subpoena former City of Perth CEO Gary Stevenson to corroborate what she was told about disclosure requirements.

Ms Scaffidi will face a five-day public hearing before the State Administrative Tribunal on February 6 over allegations she breached the Local Government Act 45 times between 2008 and 2015.

Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi with former CEO Gary Stevenson when he was appointed in 2012. Credit:Facebook / City of Perth

The Department of Local Government alleges she accepted prohibited gifts and travel and failed to properly declare others.

Some of the parties involved, including BHP Billiton and Hawaiian Investments, later benefited financially from City of Perth council decisions the Lord Mayor herself presided over.
West Australia's biggest hospitality trainer has called for more WA residents to answer the chef's as demand for kitchen skills soars in the state.

Iain McDougall, general manager of the Hospitality Group Training, said the demand for chefs and cooks within the local industry is high in WA, with an abundance of new bars and restaurants opening all the time.

Despite the rise of shows like Masterchef and My Kitchen Rules, chefs are at a premium within WA.

"We're probably left with 70 or 80 chefs coming out of the training system (each year) in the metro area.. the number of new venues coming up need 2000 additional chefs in the next three years," Mr McDougall said.

Currently on Seek there are 300 jobs relating to 'Chef', with many advertising for more than one position within their ads, 'Cook' turns up an additional 182 jobs.
Anya Taylor was supposed to go the party on Friday night. She wanted to be by her girlfriend's side, enjoying a night of electronic music with their fellow musician friends - the "bunch of beautiful, weird queers" they felt accepted them most.

But, realising she had to work her job at a coffee shop early the following morning, Taylor decided not to go to the party. When her girlfriend, Cash Askew, didn't respond to her texts that night, Taylor assumed she was having fun, dancing to the music. Then she saw the news online: a fire had erupted at an Oakland warehouse.

She rushed to the scene with other friends and, for four agonising hours, silently watched the inferno rage, consuming the person she loved most.

"We knew our girls were in there," Taylor said. "All we could do was stand there."
President-elect Donald Trump sold all his shares in companies in June, his spokesman said on Tuesday, a move that could have created a cash windfall as he ramped up to begin a costly general election presidential campaign that at the time he claimed he would personally support with "major contributions."

The sell-off could help address conflict-of-interest worries about his stock portfolio, a sizable part of Trump's financial life that was worth roughly as much as $US40 million as of December 2015, a May disclosure filing shows.

Trump's stock portfolio, the May filing shows, included shares in a number of banks, oil giants and other companies with business pending before the US government and whose value could rise due to Trump's decisions in office.

Those stock holdings, ethics advisers said, offered a potentially troublesome facet of Trump's private finances that could entangle his public decision-making. Beyond comments to The Post, Trump representatives have not provided records of stock transactions or other details since the May filing.
Congratulations to Eric Morgan for having his research featured in Planet Earth II. Eric Morgan received funding from NERC to investigate causes of the saiga die-off.

Being in the middle of vast herds of calving saiga during my PhD studies nearly 20 years ago has stayed with me: nature on the grandest scale. Thanks to poaching I thought I would be among the last to see this phenomenon, but the saiga bounced back from that and let's hope it can bounce back from this disease outbreak too. I'm glad more people now know about this strange and surprising animal as a result of the Planet Earth footage, and appreciate the need now more than ever to help conserve it. Visit: saiga-conservation.org



-Eric Morgan

On the remote steppes of central Kazakhstan, a truly extraordinary  and tragic  event unfolded in May 2015. Female saigas gathered in huge numbers to give birth on the open plain over a period of just 10 days  and a BBC camera crew and the research team they were with watched them die in their hundreds of thousands in the space of just a fortnight. The animals are captured in the latest episode of BBC nature documentary Planet Earth II.

The Cause The saiga antelope once roamed across Europe and North America alongside mammoths and sabre-toothed cats. Saigas live in some of the harshest lands in the world, often migrating long distances between summer and winter pastures. Their unique physiology is ideally suited for this climate and habitat. Once numbering in the millions, the saiga population crashed by 95% in fifteen years, the fastest decline ever recorded for a mammal species. They are now critically endangered. In May and early June of 2015, over 200,000 saiga in central Kazakhstan died suddenly due to a respiratory illness. The fate of the saiga is also closely tied to the economic downfall of the USSR in the 1990s, and illegal poaching to sell the horns for medicine.
SWARTHMORE RALLY PHOTO.jpg

Students rally on the campus of Swarthmore College (Inquirer photo)

Good Tuesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

Now that they've

officials at the University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College are trying to work out exactly what that means and what it could entail for the two liberal arts schools.

As NewsWorks/WHYY-FM reports this morning, the two schools have publicly declared that they won't allow immigration officials on their respective campuses without a warrant.

The schools are also expected to continue a tradition of calling on the federal government to continue the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows children brought into the country illegally to continue their studies without fear of deportation, the station reported.

As NewsWorks reports, "more than 450 college and university presidents who have signed a nationwide petition supporting DACA and offering to meet with U.S. leaders about it. That includes Penn State, Saint Joseph's, Villanova, Rutgers, Temple and the University of Delaware. The program affects 5,118 students in Pennsylvania, 1,363, in Delaware, and 20,308 in New Jersey, according to the latest federal statistics."

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end the DACA program, as it's commonly known, and that's left students with a lot of questions.

More from NewsWorks:

"[One student] wants to know what Penn will do if that happens and she's no longer authorized for the work-study program that helps pay for her education. She also wants to know what would become of students who are citizens, but whose parents face deportation.

"Let's say their parents are undocumented and... if they are deported, how do you re-evaluate their financial aid here at the university and how quickly can the university do that?" she asked.

According to [Penn President Amy] Gutmann's statement, undocumented students would still qualify for work-study and the university would provide the aid necessary for them to complete their studies."

As NewsWorks reports, there are real consequences for schools that refuse to cooperate with the federal government.

Penn, for instance, receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants each year. That money could be cut off if the White House decides to play hardball.

Even so, some professors see a chance to make a political statement by refusing to cooperate with the feds.

"I also think that there is a kind of political opportunity for schools of all kinds to publicly resist the kinds of policies that Trump is pursuing," Lara Cohen, a Swarthmore professor, told the station.

The rest of the day's news starts now.

At this weekend's Pennsylvania Society celebration in Manhattan, there won't be much to celebrate, The Inquirer reports.

Private college presidents are seeing salary boosts from deferred compensation, The Post-Gazette reports.

"Call Center-Gate?" Stop it, Scott Wagner. Yes, it's a problem. No, it's not a "-gate."

Pa. recount supporters took their case to the state Capitol on Monday, PennLive's Wallace McKelvey reports.

A presidential recount in Allegheny County found no discrepancies, The Tribune-Review reports.

Not in Philly, neither, BillyPenn reports.

Here's your #Harrisburg Instagram of the Day:

Be sure to look down the alleyways while walking around the city. #Harrisburg #streetscene #alleyway #dome #cathedral #beautifularchitecture #Harrisburg A photo posted by today's the day Harrisburg (@todaysthedayhbg) on Dec 5, 2016 at 6:02pm PST

After years of turmoil, a refugee feels at home in Harrisburg,

WITF-FM

reports. Listen to the story:

A Phillies food vendor who supports white nationalism has been fired, The Associated Press reports (via The Morning Call).

Is Veep Joe Biden eyeing a 2020 White House bid? Maybbbeeee ....

Ex-GOP prez candidate Jeb Bush has signed on with Pa. mega-law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll, PoliticsPA reports.

Here's Politico on how the Trump kids' forays into international diplomacy have rattled the State Department.

What Goes On.

11 a.m., Capitol Media Center: Auditor General Eugene DePasquale audits gas well impact fees.

12 p.m., Main Rotunda: Rally against domestic violence

2 p.m., Gov's Residence: First Lady Frances Wolf previews holiday decorations.

WolfWatch

At 7:15 p.m., Gov. Tom Wolf will phone in for a live interview on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

You Say It's Your Birthday Dept.

Best wishes go out this morning to longtime Friend O'the Blog, Zainab Javed, director of digital operations for the state Democratic Party. Congratulations and enjoy the day.

Heavy Rotation.

Because any day there is new

Elbow

music in the world is a good day, that's why.

And now you're up to date.
Latest News MKM Capital becomes MA Money Rebrand designed to align with non-bank's parent company

How to find a good private lender 10 questions brokers should ask to select the right one

ASIC has permanently banned former Perth-based finance broker Mr Paul Cheaib from engaging in credit activities.

ASIC found that Mr Cheaib engaged in misleading conduct by providing false income supporting documents to Westpac Banking Corporation Limited in support of home loan applications for three of his clients in 2015. Only one of the three loan applications was approved.

At the time, Mr Cheaib was operating his own finance broking business through his own credit licence under the trading name Active Approvals. Mr Cheaib's credit licence was cancelled in April 2016 at his request.

ASIC Deputy Chairman Peter Kell said the banning reinforces the strong message to any broker considering engaging in misleading conduct.

"ASIC will not hesitate to permanently remove those who engage in misleading conduct from the industry," Mr Kell said.

Mr Cheaib has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC's decision.
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On the drawing board: Nine locations where the city is considering building a school  including the landmarked 68th Precinct Station House. Map by Caroline Spivack Nine locations where the city is considering building a school  including the landmarked 68th Precinct Station House.

A, B, C  always be constructing.

City workers scrambling to ease school overcrowding are cold-calling property owners in Sunset Park and asking whether they will sell their land so the city can build new classrooms, according to a letter the School Construction Authority recently sent to local leaders outlining eight potential new class sites in District 15, which stretches from Sunset Park to Cobble Hill.

The tremendous challenge facing us is a difficulty finding sites that are large enough and suitable for building new schools, agency head Lorraine Grillo recently wrote in a letter to local leaders. In neighborhoods such as Sunset Park, where capacity needs are great, our brokers will cold call property owners in an effort to identify new opportunities and create new connections.

But the good leads  the proverbial Glengarry leads  are coming from Community Board 7, which has helped the agency identify seven potential construction sites in Sunset Park.

And the city dont walk on a lot lest it wants to buy  officials have set aside more than $325 million to create roughly 3,800 seats  more than 2,000 in Sunset Park alone  over the next five years.

The other properties identified in the letter are apartment buildings and warehouses between Fourth and 51st streets. The Authority is still studying whether the sites meet its guidelines for lot size, location, and property history.

Just over 32,630 students are enrolled in the district  2,600 more than the collective number of school seats in the district, according to enrollment and school capacity records from the Department of Education.

The School Construction Authority has also begun looking at industrial sections between Third Avenue and the waterfront, though the area is not ideal because it would require kids cross busy Third Avenue and because building schools there might have a negative impact on the areas struggling manufacturing industry, according to Community Board 7 district manager Jeremy Laufer.

I dont think we are quite so interested in that, said Laufer. Remember, we want to preserve our industrial area, and I dont think crossing under the expressway for younger students is a great idea. I think for general education were concentrating within residential districts.

Officials are still considering the landmarked 68th Precinct Station House on Fourth Avenue, though they would likely have to demolish the building.

The city is planning to build a 676-seat school on the waterfront side of Third Avenue at 59th Street using a series of mostly empty lots that it obtained through eminent domain earlier this year  though the school would serve the Bay Ridge-to-Bensonhurst 20th School District rather than Sunset Parks 15th school district.
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Hate has gone underground.

A vandal scrawled F Allah on a bench inside the Fort Hamilton Parkway F and G station on the border between Windsor Terrace and Kensington sometime before Monday, shocking local leaders who say it is the first Islamophobic graffiti theyd seen in the area in more than a year and that they blame Donald Trumps victory for emboldening bigots to once again blight the area with their hate.

We didnt have any problems and now with the election a lot of people are taking advantage, said Mamnunul Haq, a leader in the areas large Bangladeshi Muslim community and member of Community Board 12. It was gone for a while, but for this to happen today is really shocking.

Louts attacked Kensington with both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic graffiti for several years beginning in 2013, according to Haq  especially along Ocean Parkway, where mailboxes and storefronts could frequently be found debased with swastikas and messages defaming Allah.

But local politicians and officers of the 66th Precinct made a concerted effort to stamp out the rash of racist vandalism, and Haq said he hadnt heard of any offensive scribbles since 2015  until Monday.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority was not aware of the vandalism until contacted by the paper, and the agency dispatched a cleanup crew in response, according to an agency spokesman.

Councilman Brad Lander (DKensington) says he contacted police to investigate the subway vandalism and vowed to hold a community gathering to discuss the issue.

Police are now investigating the offensive words as a hate crime, according to a spokesman.

It is just the latest in a series of hate-filled outbursts in Brooklyn since the election of Trump  who during his campaign said that he would ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. and make all practitioners of Islam register with a national database  Lander noted.

Unfortunately, weve seen a welling up of hatred and Islamophobia in the weeks since the Trump election, he said. What you have to do is get it very quickly investigated, painted over, and see that the community comes out together against hate in support of our Muslim neighbors.

Amongst other incidents, someone drew swastikas and Go Trump! in a Brooklyn Heights playground, another wrote Trump! on the door of the Muslim prayer room at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering Downtown, and a Trump supporter punched a woman in the face after a political argument in a Boerum Hill bistro.
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Thats all she wrote.

The owners of beloved Cobble Hill book shop BookCourt have sold their Court street storefront and are closing the emporium at the end of the year after 35 years in business, crushing local booklovers who say it will leave a huge hole in the lit-loving neighborhood.

Im absolutely devastated, said George Washington Francis Gaw Jr., a Boerum Hill resident who frequents the store at least once a week. I think its a tremendous loss for the neighborhood  its like losing a good friend.

Owners Henry Zook and Mary Gannett broke the bad news of their retirement on Tuesday. The husband and wife duo opened the store in September 1981 and expanded three times as its popularity grew, most recently opening an event space in 2008, where they hosted big names including Jonathan Lethem, R.L. Stine, Michel Gondry, and Jonathan Franzen.

Zook wouldnt say who the buyer is and said he doesnt know who will succeed their mom and pop shop in the two spaces they occupied between Dean and Pacific streets, but customers are already dreading a dull replacement.

Packed in: Lit lovers filled the store for a nine-hour marathon reading by Jonathen Lethem in 2009. The Brooklyn Paper / Andy Campbell

Its really tragic, its such a part of the neighborhood, said Debra Robbins, who has lived in Cobble Hill for 32 years. I dont want to see another bank come in here or a nail salon.

BookCourt is the second loss for Court Street bibliophiles this year  the owner of notoriously cluttered used literary boutique Community Bookstore recently shut up shop after three decades at the corner of Warren Street, also cashing in on the strips rising real estate fortunes to the tune of $5.5 million.

BookCourt will remain open for Christmas shopping, and its last day will be Dec. 31.

But the neighborhood might not be without an indie bookstore for long  former BookCourt employee and author Emma Straub announced on her website on Tuesday that she and her husband are planning on opening her own shop in the area called Books Are Magic. She said she has secured some funds and has been looking at spaces, but did not offer any further details on the forthcoming store.

Go do all your Christmas shopping at BookCourt [163 Court St. between Dean and Pacific streets in Cobble Hill, (718) 8753677, www.bookc ourt.com ]. Closing Dec. 31.

Mom and pop shop: Henry Zook, Zack Zook, and Mary Gannett out the back of the store in 2007 before one of their many expansions.
A "Festival of Christmas Lessons and Carols" at Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church

A "Festival of Christmas Lessons & Carols" will be presented at Blessed Sacrament Church on Tuesday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m.

(Third-Party-Submitted)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Parishioners will present their annual "A Festival of Lessons and Carols" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13, in the Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church festooned with magnificent Christmas florals at 1091 Forest Avenue in West Brighton.

"Lessons and Carols" is an advent service of scripture and song that dates back to the late 19th century and is followed around the world.

Through poignant readings from the Old and New Testament, interspersed with beautiful music, it allows the congregation to reflect on the birth of Jesus, in the context of it's significance in history.

Choral music will be provided by the Blessed Sacrament Choir, under the direction of Amanda Barricella and John Gippa, with cantoring by Ed Callahan.

FYI: The first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, England, was held on Christmas Eve in 1918. It was introduced by Eric Milner-White the dean of the college, whose experience as an army chaplain had led him to believe that a more creative form of worship was needed by the Church of England.

Admission to "A Festival of Lessons and Carols" at Blessed Sacrament is free and open to the community of Staten Island and beyond.
Yardley Friends Meeting at 65 N. Main Street in Yardley will host the documentary Organic Roots on Friday, November 18 at 7 p.m. Join director Al Johnson for a showing of this film followed by a discussion of the last 50 years of this movement. Organic foods are part of our life today and a tool in our concern for...
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October 31, 2022

Buddy TV

In November, there are hundreds of new and returning TV showsit can be overwhelming to try and choose what to watch. That's why we've selected some of the best options...
Day 5

Since Cusco's altitude is kind of high (3,400 m or 11,200 ft.), we took it easy yesterday, only went to the two big churches at the main plaza. Today's our main sightseeing day in Cusco, we walked all over the place, including San Blas neighborhood and San Cristobal Church up on the hill.

1. Walking around Cusco, these three ladies saw us coming, asking us if we wanted to take pictures with them, I said no, but they literally stood on either side of me so I couldn't go and gestured Dave to take pictures, so he took one. Then they suggested Dave to take picture with them, so I took one for him as well. I thought I just need to give them some change, but they demanded 10 Soles ($3) for each picture! Oh well, our fault for not asking price first.

2. Qurikancha / Convento de Santo Domingo. Qurikancha (Quechua for Golden Courtyard) was once the richest temple in the Inca Empire, unfortunately all the treasure was looted and melted down by the conquistadors, and a church was built on the site.

3. Convento de Santo Domingo.

4. Cusco from Convento de Santo Domingo.

5. Convento de Santo Domingo.

6. Inca walls.

7. Inca walls.

8. Inca walls.

9. 12-angled stone.

10. Going up to San Blas neighborhood.

11.

12.

13.

14. Cusco from Plaza San Cristobal.

15. Plaza San Cristobal.

16. Plaza San Cristobal.

I was wondering why souvenir vendor bothered to setup shop here since there weren't many tourists coming here. It turned out that right behind the plaza, up another set of steep stairs is Saqsaywaman. Some people will take a taxi to Saqsaywaman, and then walk their way down to Cusco through here.

17. San Cristobal Church.

18. Stairs to go back down.

19. Half way down the stairs we walked past this restaurant. I googled it, it serves whole guinea pig with head on and it reviewed really good, so we decided to come here for dinner later.

20.

21. Back to the main square.

22. Can you see San Cristobal Church up on the hill?

23. Roasted guinea pig at Kusikuy (70 Soles) that came with a giant stuffed pepper and a tamale, enough for us to share.

24.

(To be continued)
President-elect Donald Trumps pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, would be the first person to head the department in its more than 35-year history who hasnt either attended public schools or sent her own children to them.

DeVos, a Michigan philanthropist and GOP political donor who still needs to get through U.S. Senate confirmation before she can assume the helm of the agency, studied at private schools through her entire K-12 career, graduating from Holland Christian High School in Michigan, according to a family spokesman, John Truscott. She later went on to Calvin College.

And DeVos, a school choice and voucher advocate, sent each of her own children to private schools as well, Truscott said. He noted that some of DeVos son and daughter-in-laws attended public schools.

She believes all parents should have access to the same choices her children had, said Matt Frendewey, a spokesman for the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy organization that DeVos chaired until recently.

DeVos background is a departure from all past education secretaries, each of whom either attended public schools for at least a portion of their K-12 schooling, sent their own children to public schools, or both, according to a review by the Education Week Research Center of their records and of published reports.

Shed also be one of only a few secretaries entering the job without experience teaching in a K-12 school, or college; running a university, school system or state education agency, or overseeing public education as a governor, or governors education aide. (Want a breakdown of which secretaries went to public school and which went to private, and where they sent their kids? Scroll down.)

Can DeVos make good decisions about public schools without having any personal experience with them? It depends on who you ask.

The lack of experience in public education for somebody who is going to be the nations top policy person on public education is shocking, said Doug Pratt, the director of public affairs for the Michigan Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association. It would be impossible to find somebody less qualified to talk about what happens in a public school. She just doesnt have the experience as an educator, as a student, as a parent, anything.

But Frendewey pointed out that President Barack Obama attended elite schools for part of his K-12 educational career and sent his own daughters to prestigious private schools.

President Obama spent his [formative] K-12 years at the exclusive private Punahou School and he received his undergraduate and law degree from two of the nations most exclusive private universities, Frendewey said. He later sent his children to the most exclusive private school in Washington, D.C. Does this qualify President Obama as being anti-public schools, or merely anti-choice in so much as he opposes offering low-income families equal opportunities he had a child and he exercised for his own children?

And he noted that even policymakers who have attended or worked in public schoolssuch as both of Obamas education secretariesarent safe from criticism from what he called the education establishment, including the presidents of both teachers unions.

The attacks are a result of the education establishment fearing any sort of accountability, any sort of reform and being wildly out of touch with the average parent who supports public charters and school choice, Frendewey said in an email.

Personal Connection

The past three education secretariesJohn B. King Jr., Arne Duncan, and Margaret Spellingshave each spoken publicly about how their own experiences with public schools informed their work.

For instance, back in 2006, Spellings told us that having a child in 8th grade was influential in her roles as both a White House domestic policy advisor and secretary of education . For one thing, it made her sympathetic to parents who show up at school and get hit with a tidal wave of jargon.

I have a feeling for what parents experience when they go into a school and hear about, you know, AYP [adequate yearly progress] and HQT [highly qualified teacher] and Read 180 and Success for All, said Spellings, who served at the helm of the department during President George W. Bushs second term. " [Its a] what the heck are they talking about kind of thing, and Im the secretary of education. I mean obviously I know what theyre talking about, but only because Ive had years of practice.

King, who was orphaned at an early age, attended Public School 276 and Mark Twain Junior High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., as well as the prestigious Phillips Andover Academy, a private boarding school. (King cut class at Andover, was expelled and ultimately moved in with family in Cherry Hill, N.J.) King credits New York City public school teachers with saving my life and making him feel safe and valued during a tumultuous period.

Whats more, King, who has made school integration a focus of his short tenure at the helm of the department, has also spoken in interviews about his decision to send his own daughters to public schools in Marylands Montgomery County Public School system, a diverse and highly regarded district.

Similarly, Duncan, who attended the University of Chicagos Laboratory School, a private school, sent his own kids to diverse schools in the northern Virginia, and said that the integration there was really important to him and his wife.

So, for your next trivia night, where did other education secretaries go to school? And where did they send their own children?

Heres what we were able to find out:

John B. King Jr . - Serving under Obama. Attended P.S. 276 and Mark Twain Junior High in Brooklyn, N.Y. Attended Phillips Andover Academy but was expelled. Sends his daughters to public school in Montgomery County, Md. Was a high school social studies teacher and state chief in New York.

Arne Duncan - Served under Obama. Attended University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Children attended public schools in northern Virginia. Was superintendent of Chicago public schools.

Margaret Spellings - Served under George H.W. Bush. Attended public schools in Houston, graduating from Sharpstown High School. Sent her daughters to public schools in Virginia as well as private Catholic schools.

Roderick Paige - Served under Bush. Attended Lawrence County Training High School, Monticello, Miss. Unclear if his own children attended public school. Was superintendent of Houston public schools, and taught health and physical education.

Richard Riley - Served under President Bill Clinton. Attended Greenville Senior High School in South Carolina. Sent his kids to public schools. Former governor of South Carolina.

Lamar Alexander - Served under President George H.W. Bush. Attended Maryville High School in Maryville, Tenn. Sent his own kids to private school. Served as governor of Tennessee, and as president of the University of Tennessee before becoming secretary. Now Senate education committee chairman.

Lauro F. Cavazos - Served under George H.W. Bush under President Ronald Reagan. Attended the Flato School, a public school in Kingsville, Texas. Was the president of Texas Tech University, and taught at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston before becoming secretary.

William J. Bennett - Served under Reagan. Briefly attended P.S. 92 in New York Cit y before switching to parochial school. Sent his own kids to Georgetown Preparatory School, a private school.

Terrel H. Bell - Served under Reagan. Attended a one-room public school in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Served as a chemistry teacher, district superintendent and state chief. Unclear if his own children attended public school.

Shirley Hufstedler - Served under President Jimmy Carter. Attended 12 different schools, graduating from Albuquerque High School in New Mexico. Unclear if her son attended public school.



Library Intern Maya Riser-Kositsky contributed to this story.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
The Tata group said on Monday that Cyrus Mistry had converted the group into his personal fiefdom, which finally led to his ouster as chairman.
With rising demand, players like Mahindra, Escorts, and Captain are looking to tap the market with higher horse power (HP) mini tractors, especially in northern and southern parts.
Indian Oil Corporation chairman B Ashok believes that crude oil prices in the range of $45 to $55 a barrel will be comfortable for India, post the production cut by the Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). Speaking to Shine Jacob in an exclusive interview, he also states that the company has so far had the minimal impact of demonetisation and will sort out its West Coast land hurdles within a quarter.
Ltd, the nation's largest importer of liquid gas, is set to foray into retail sales of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through fuel outlets across the country.
Housing.com, the real-estate startup which made more headlines for its founders antics than its business, just announced a return to its roots.
North Carolinas two virtual charter schools earned D grades from the state in their first year of operation, and had student withdrawal rates above the maximum allowed by state law.

Those are among some of the data points highlighted in a draft report detailing the progress of North Carolinas online charter school pilot, and a state board of education member is warning that the program needs to be closely monitored.

Both schools are operated by two for-profit companies that run virtual schools all over the country: K12 Inc. and Connections Education.

The states report is part of an ongoing evaluation of the 4-year pilot program. The statute creating the program was tucked into the 2014 budget bill, despite reservations expressed by the state board of education.

In the three years leading up to the pilot programs creation, K12 Inc. spent nearly half a million dollars on lobbying in North Carolina. Collectively, K12 Inc. and Connections have spent more than $14 million lobbying lawmakers across the country, according to an extensive review done by Education Week of a decades worth of publicly reported lobbying expenditures in over 20 states. (Click here to read the full investigation .)

Critics of K12 Inc. and Connections say that lobbying allows virtual charter operators to manipulate state regulations to their advantage. The companies counter that lobbying is necessary to have a seat at the table along with other key players in education, such as teachers unions and school districts.

During a meeting last week to discuss the report, Becky Taylor, a member of North Carolinas board of education, warned that they needed to monitor the schools closely, according to WRAL , a local NBC affiliate station.

The last thing we want is to be in the newspaper like some other states have been. We want to have good articles in the end ... We need to be on our toes, she said.

Indeed, more than a decade of news media reports, state investigations, and research have documented major issues in online charter schools across the countrywhich Education Week compiled into an interactive map .

However, the vast majority of parents with children enrolled in North Carolinas online charter schools said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the program, according to surveys administered by the state as part of the programs evaluation.

Parents make up a vocal and powerful base of support for online charter schools nationally.

Ohios Largest Online Charter School Loses Appeal

In other cyber charter-related news, Ohios largest online charter school recently lost an appeal to block the state from accessing its attendance records.

Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, or ECOT, doesnt want to provide details around how long students are logged into its system to the Ohio Department of Education. The Franklin County Court of Appeals ruled in the states favor.

This all follows a state audit that found evidence that ECOT and seven other online charter schools may be inflating their attendance numbers. ECOT could end up repaying more than $60 million to the state of Ohio, and the other schools could collectively owe more than $20 million.

An administrative appeal ECOT filed with the states department of education is scheduled to be heard today, Dec. 5, according to the Associated Press.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid tributes to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the father of Indian Constitution, on his 60th death anniversary and said that India will always be thankful to Babasaheb for his rich service to the nation.

Meanwhile, a special event was held at the Parliament complex to commemorate his death, which was attended by the Vice President Hamid Ansari, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran leader LK Adavani, former prime minister Manmohan Singh among other political top brass.

Later in the day, lakhs of people are expected to converge at Chaitya Bhoomi today, where Ambedkar's ashes have been interred.

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai - MCGM has made adequate arrangements for pilgrims who come to visit Chaityabhoomi on Mahaparinirvan Diwas.

MCGM has set up 10 control rooms to guide visitors and almost 11 ambulances have been stationed at various locations around Shivaji Park and Chaityabhoomi.

More than 400 stalls, about 200 mobile toilets, water tankers, utility vehicles and fire engines have also been set up to aid the visitors.

Around 750 workers have been put on duty round the clock at the venue and Dadar Chowpatty beach, which has the book stalls.

With lakhs of people expected to visit Chaityabhoomi, the venue will also be kept under constant CCTV surveillance.

Mumbai Police too has made elaborate arrangements to maintain law and order and also to ensure smooth flow of traffic.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday described Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's demise as a loss while the state assembly was adjourned for the day after paying tributes to the departed leader.

Expressing grief over the death of Jayalalithaa in Chennai last night, Patnaik, who would be attending the AIADMK supremo's funeral, while adding that she was a leader of the masses and contributed immensely to the development and welfare of Tamil Nadu.

Moving the obituary motion on Jayalalithaa's death, in the Assembly, Patnaik described her as the 'Iron Lady' of Tamil Nadu.

Patnaik said, "Her benevolent measures endeared her to one and all. The people of Tamil Nadu affectionately referred her as Amma. She enjoyed a huge mandate and was known for her administrative calibre and political wisdom. She steered the state on the path of progress and prosperity."

Her death is a great loss, Patnaik said adding the people of Odisha stand in solidarity with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief and bereavement.

"I would also like to mention that I am proceeding to Chennai to attend her funeral," Patnaik said.

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra and BJP legislature party leader K V Singhdeo also paid tributes to Jayalalithaa and members of the Assembly stood in silence for a minute as a mark of respect, before Speaker Niranjan Pujari adjourned the house for the day.
Amma is no more! The entire nation is aggrieved. She has, however, left behind an epoch that speaks of bravery, endowment, discretion and austerity. J was an iconic leader, who baked a road from cinema to politics and became the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. She was a leader who skilfully mastered the art of comeback, despite setbacks. died on Monday night after a day of suspense and political drama in Chennai, losing a 75-day battle with a severe illness that ended in a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.
Tamil Nadu is estimated to have suffered a loss of about Rs 1,500 crore on Tuesday, as industries and businesses in the state remained shut in the wake of the demise of former chief minister J late and a statewide seven-day mourning announced thereafter.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday led the state in paying homage to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night.

"In the demise of AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa, we have lost an important woman leader who had an impact on politics," Fadnavis said in his condolence message.

"She was showered with immense love, affection and support by the people of Tamil Nadu which very few leaders get. She took decisive steps for the welfare of the people," Fadnavis said.

The Chief Minister said Jayalalithaa's death was a great loss to the country.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar said he was deeply saddened by the death of Jayalalithaa.

"She'll always be remembered as 'Peoples Amma' whom except death, nothing could dissuade from serving the weaker and poor," Pawar said.

Congress Opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil also mourned the leader's death.

"My deepest condolences on the demise of the towering leader of India," Vikhe-Patil said.

NCP Opposition leader Dhananjay Munde said he was "deeply saddened by the demise of Jayalalithaa".

The 68-year-old leader, among the tallest leaders of Tamil Nadu, died at 11.30 pm on Monday night after suffering a cardiac arrest on Sunday.
The Supreme Court today sought responses from real estate barons Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal on pleas of the CBI and the victims' body seeking review of the 2015 verdict in the Uphaar fire tragedy case asking them to serve a two-year jail term if they fail to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, which fixed the review pleas for open court hearing on December 14, also extended the order restraining the Ansal brothers from leaving India till disposal of the petitions.

"We issue notice and will hear the review petitions on next Wednesday. In the meantime, we direct you (Sushil and Gopal Ansal) not to leave the country till disposal of review petitions," the bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel, said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing CBI, said that "the issue is on narrow compass" and the notices can be issued to the respondents on both the review petitions filed by the agency and Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT).

Senior lawyer Salman Khurshid, appearing for the Ansal brothers, accepted notices and sought some time to prepare his responses to the review pleas saying "we do not know what are the grounds in them."



He also assured the bench on behalf of that they will not leave the country till disposal of the review pleas.

AVUT, represented by another senior lawyer K T S Tulsi, said it was ready for advancing arguments and should be granted adequate time on December 14 when the pleas are heard. The bench said it would try to conclude the hearing on next date itself.

Yesterday, the apex court had restrained Sushil and Gopal Ansal from leaving the country till listing of the review plea of AVUT which, citing a media report, had apprehended that they may flee.

59 people had died of asphyxia when a fire broke out during the screening of Bollywood movie 'Border' in Uphaar theatre in Green Park area of South Delhi on June 13, 1997. Over 100 were also injured in the subsequent stampede.

(Reopens LGD22)



Earlier, Tulsi had said that the be restrained from travelling abroad without seeking the permission of the court during the pendency of present review petition.

AVUT, through its President Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who had lost her two teenaged children in the blaze, cited a report claiming the convicts were "on the verge of fleeing the country".

Recently, AVUT was assured by the court that a new bench would be constituted to hear the review petitions filed by the CBI and the Association.

The apex court had, on August 19, 2015 sent the brothers to two years rigorous jail term if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each within three months. Both the convicts deposited the fines to avoid further jail term.

While Sushil has spent over five months in prison, Gopal was in jail for over four months soon after the incident.

AVUT and the CBI have sought the review of the verdict in an open court hearing which was accepted by a three-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave, now retired.

In its review plea, AVUT had said the apex court judgement "bestow an unwarranted leniency on convicts whose conviction in the most heinous of offences has been upheld by all courts including this court and sentences imposed on them have been substituted with fine without assigning any reason."



"The sentences of the convicts have been reduced to the period undergone without taking into account the gravity of their offence," it had said.

The CBI, in its review plea, has said the apex court did not give it time to put its views forth which resulted in "miscarriage of justice".

The agency has said "due to the paucity of time on the day on which this case was heard, the prosecution could not adequately put across the reasons why this court should not substitute jail sentence with a monetary fine.

"This petition also seeks to raise issue of an apparent error of law in the judgement and order of this court which has occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice."



CBI had also claimed that "callousness" of Ansal brothers led to 59 people being trapped and suffocated to death in the theatre.

The apex court, in its 2015 verdict, had sent Ansal



brothers to two years rigorous jail term if they failed to pay Rs 30 crore each within three months.

In a judgement on September 23, 2015, the bench had said the "magnitude" of the case "calls for a higher sentence" but the court has to limit itself to the choice available under the law.

Earlier, a two-judge bench of justices T S Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra (since retired) had in a March 5, 2014 order differed on the quantum of sentence for Ansal brothers.

While Justice Thakur had retained the one-year jail term awarded by Delhi High Court in 2008, Justice Misra had pronounced the maximum punishment of two years with a rider that it can be reduced to the period already undergone behind bars on joint payment of Rs 100 crore as fine by them.

The matter was later referred to a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dave (since retired) which enhanced the sentence to the maximum period of two years under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of IPC if they failed to pay the fine amount.

The three-judge bench had also said that on principle of parity, the case of Gopal will stand on the same footing as that of Sushil.
Bank unions are planning agitation, including strike, to highlight the heavy work pressure faced by employees in the wake of and lack of improvement in supply of currency notes.

While the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) say there has been some improvement in supply for currency notes in the system, the ground reality is different, say the unions.

C H Venkatachalam, general secretary of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), told Business Standard that if the problems for bank employees continue, the unions would be compelled to strike.

According to Venkatachalam, many ATMs are running out of cash and people have to stand in long queues at bank branches, making them restless and unruly, escalating into quarrels with bank staff. Having to work under such circumstances affects employees physical as well as mental health, he added.

He said the situation is increasingly becoming unbearable and employees, including officers, are on the brink of losing their patience owing to sheer fatigue. They are unable to tell customers when the normal supply and flow of cash would be restored, AIBEA said.

While the problem of cash crunch still persists, lack of enough supply of small-denomination currency notes is also a problem because the banks are yet to get the new Rs 500 currency notes and customers are reluctant to accept Rs 2,000 notes.

Similarly, Rs 100 notes are also in short supply. As a result, ATMs are non-functional and branches are finding it tough to deal with agitated customers, the union noted.

Another problem is that RBI is supplying soiled and damaged Rs 100 currency notes, which customers are unwilling to accept. For employees also, dealing with soiled notes is a big health hazard, AIBEA said.
Alleging RBI is "discriminating" against urban cooperative banks (UCBs) in matters related to exchange of defunct notes and supply of new currencies, an association representing members of such lenders today staged a demonstration and submitted a charter of demands.

Hundreds of office-bearers of the association and account holders of city-based UCBs, barred by the RBI from exchanging decommissioned Rs 500/1,000 notes and depositing old bills post-demonetisation, took part in the protest.

The demonstration was organised under the aegis of the Pune District Urban Cooperative Banks Association. Protesters later submitted a charter of demands to Collector. One of the demands included ensuring adequate supply of new currency notes to the co-operative banks.

The association threatened to shutdown these banks in the city if the demands are not met.

"Post- of high-value denomination notes, cooperative banks are subjected to discriminatory treatment (by RBI) as adequate number of new currencies are not being provided to these banks, who have no cash.

"There are over 50 lakh account holders with urban cooperative banks in the district and they are the ones who are getting adversely affected by the decision," stated a release issued by the association.

If the RBI fails to supply adequate cash to these banks within the next eight days, they will call for an indefinite "bandh".

According to the association, after the November 8 note recall exercise, cooperative banks are facing huge cash crunch. "As a result, the office-bearers and employees of these banks have to face the ire of account holders," it said.

Maharashtra accounts for about a third of the 1,575 UCBs operating in the country.
Employees of state-run and private sector banks have come under the scanner of finance ministry over alleged irregularities in converting old currency into new notes post the demonetisation drive.
The overall number of high school graduates has been increasing steadily over the last decade-plusbut according to a new report, that growth is coming to a halt as the United States heads into a period of stagnation.

The number of U.S. high school graduates is expected to show virtually no growth for the next seven years and will likely decline this school year, says the report by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, a regional nonprofit that aims to expand access to high-quality higher education. The report was funded with support from ACT Inc. and the College Board.

There have been steady increases in the overall number of high school graduates over the last 15 yearsand, at last count, the high school graduation rate increased 1 percentage point to 83.2 percent from the 2013-14 school year to 2014-15. That bump marked the fourth year in a row high school graduation rates have increased.

But according to WICHEs projections, the country actually will produce 81,000 fewer

graduates2.3 percent lessin 2017 and the decline may be largely due to changing demographics. The United States is projected to produce fewer high school graduates each year from 2014 to 2023, compared to the highest recorded number of graduates in 2013. There will be a short period of growth between 2024 to 2026, but between 2027 and 2032, the average size of graduating classes is expected to be smaller than it was in 2013.

The number of students graduating from private high schools will decline even more sharplyby 26 percent, or 80,000 fewer graduates, from 2011 to the early 2030s. This is due to declining enrollments in private schools, particularly in Roman Catholic schools, the report notes.

The report projects significant increases in nonwhite high school graduates, coupled with steady declines in the numbers of white graduates. By 2030, the number of white public school graduates is projected to decrease by 14 percent when compared to 2013. But the number of nonwhite public school graduates is expected to counterbalance some of that decline, particularly among Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander graduates.

The number of Hispanic public high school graduates is projected to increase by 50 percent or more from 2014 to 2025. There is expected to be a 30 percent increase in Asian or Pacific Islander graduates from 2013 to the early 2030s.

However, the number of black, non-Hispanic public high school graduates is projected to decline by about 6 percent between now and the early 2030s.

As graduations level out and even decline in many states, and the minority students increase across the board, states and their K-12 and higher education leaders have an important opportunity to ensure that they close achievement gaps for low-income students and students of color, said Joe Garcia, the president of WICHE, in a statement. Equally important, our higher education systems must establish policies and practices that will lead to greater attainment of degrees and certificates for students of color.

Garcia said on a press call that historically, higher education institutions focus recruitment on well-prepared, well-resourced students. But now, with the shifting demographics of high school graduates, colleges and universities must alter their policies, he said.

Its hard to make the argument to institutions that they need to recruit academically unprepared or less-resourced students, but those are the students that we have, Garcia said. If institutions continue to do the things they have always done, but with a different population, theyre going to have worse results, lower enrollments, and theyre going to lose [the students] to other institutions that are more ... forward-looking.

Garcia said that to make sure that Hispanic, African-American, and first-generation students of all races are prepared to succeed in college, they need better counseling and advice starting in high school.

And educators need to set high expectations for all students, said William Serrata, the president of El Paso Community College, on the call.

We need to develop that college-going culture when students are still in elementary school, he said.

Dual-enrollment programs are also effective for getting students on the college track, he said.

The report also looks at regional differences in the numbers of high school graduates. The Northeast and the Midwest will experience continuing declines, while the West will see slight increases. Meanwhile, the report projects the South will see significant and steady increases. Readers can see individual state profiles and an interactive map here .

Images via WICHE report


QR codes  those cryptic matrix barcodes that contain scannable information  arrived in China from Japan way back in 2010. But it really took off a couple of years later, after ecommerce giant Alibaba and social network titan Tencent adopted it to push digital payments for their businesses. Now you see them everywhere in Chinese cities  its in fact the most popular payment method in China.


Business Standard reporters have attempted to piece together stories of how new currencies are being printed after at the
A Russian diplomat in New Delhi reportedly criticised the Centre's policy by sending out a protest letter against a cash withdrawal cap of Rs 50,000 to the Indian government. Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Sudan have signed letters of protest demanding that diplomatic staff be exempted from the withdrawal limit of Rs 50,000 per week, reported the Economic Times.





Russian ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin in his letter to the Ministry of External Affairs: "With so little cash, ou cant even have a decent dinner, forget running regular diplomatic business."



He added, Please just imagine if we in Moscow mirror this order of SBI (State Bank of India) when 50,000 roubles will not be enough to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant, not to mention functioning of such a big embassy as ours in New Delhi or Indias in Moscow.
The Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP), the main price setting body of the government has a vital role to play in ensuring that farmers income is doubled in line with the Centres objective. In an interaction with Sanjeeb Mukherjee, CACP chairman Vijay Paul Sharma said that MSP is just one tool to boost farm growth and so far it has declared an MSP which is more than cost. He also disregarded the need for a separate agency to manage buffer stock. Edited Excerpts
Dr. Ambedkars birth day to be celebrated as Water Day-Uma Bharti National seminar on Marching ahead on Dr. Ambedkars path of water resources management for inclusive growth held

Lauding the contribution of Dr. B R Ambedkar in water resources management of the country Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti has announced that his birth day 14th April will be celebrated as Water Day". She was addressing a National Seminar on Marching ahead on Dr. Ambedkars path of water resources management for inclusive growth organized by Central Water Commission in New Delhi today as Chief guest.

The Minister said In the coming days water is going to become an important agenda of the government". She said time has come to think that whether we require treated water for every work and we have to find out how to use treated and non treated water in a better way.

Underlining the role of water in different plans and schemes the Union Water Resources Minister said there is a need to reform the water resources management in the country and those who are misusing the water should be punished. Referring to the Dr. Mihir Shah report on restructuring of Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board the Minister said We have to bring reforms, but it should be acceptable to all".

Referring to the 99 Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme (AIBP) schemes undertaken by her Ministry the Minister said on the completion of these projects we would be able to irrigate 80 Lakh hact. additional land.

She said to complete these project by the year 2020 CWC has sent teams of it young scientist to various parts of the country who will submit their reports very soon.

Referring to flood management the Union Water Resources Minister said There is a need to redefine flood management so that it can be taken to a positive direction". She said we have to ensure that flood management does not change into corruption management. Underlining the importance of State Government and local administration in flood management the Minister said it is their responsibility to identify flood prone areas in advance and to ensure that there is no human settlement there. If still there is human settlement the people residing there should be constantly warned of the flood, she added.

The day long seminar was attended by Dr. Amerjit Singh, OSD Ministry of Water Resources, Shri S D Dubey, Charimen CEA, Dr Sukhadeo Throat, Professor Emeritus, Central for the study of Regional Development, JNU, Shri Suresh Chandra, Former Chairman CWC, Dr. Urmila Chandel, Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, Shri M E Haque, Former Member, CWC, Shri Sanjeev Agrawal Chief Engineer, CWC and Prof. Avdhesh Pratap,Water Law Expert. During the Technical session of the seminar, the contribution of Dr. Ambedkar in the field of water management and way forward for ensuring inclusive growth of all sections of the society was discussed.

Samir/jk
IIIDEM Conducts Training for Saarc Nations on Election Management

With the aim of conducting free, fair, peaceful and inclusive elections in the country, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has brought together delegates from Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of SAARC Countries. The officials are here for training at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM). The course is being sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

The course commenced on December 5th, 2016 at the Election Commission of Indias training wing and will continue until December 15th, 2016. The 11 day course encapsulates several sessions on principles and practices for election management.

Mr. A. K.

Joti - Election Commissioner of India and senior officials from the ECI welcomed participants from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan on Monday.

In his welcome address Mr. A. K. Joti affirmed, For any nation to revolutionize its election scenario, it is important to accept change and evolve." He also spoke about growing technological advancements in Indian Elections as the leading reason behind successful elections across India.

During the program, the 28 participants from SAARC countries will share their experiences on election situation in their respective countries. Additionally, the program aims to train officials on various aspects of election management like capacity building of stakeholders, code of conduct, voter inclusion and registration et al.

Following the welcome address, participatory sessions on Free, Fair Elections and International Standards, Electoral Systems and Practices, Principles of Voter Registration and Type of Voter Registers to name a few, have already been conducted, with many more lined up for the coming days.

The participants have unanimously agreed on the continuous need for exchange of experiences and expertise between the SAARC Electoral Bodies for improved election management. Leadership training sessions and a field visit to voter registration centre has also been planned for the program. The course ends on December 15th, 2016 with a valedictory address.

RM/
Manipur Councillors Seek Doner Minister's Intervention for Financial Assistance

Dr Jitendra Singh, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space met with representatives of Manipur Autonomous District Councils (ADCs), at New Delhi today.

A delegation of Manipur Councillors led by Sh Gennei Khup Vaiphei, Convener of the Coordination Committee of Manipur Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) and Sh Yaronsho Ngalung, Chairman, Autonomous District Council (ADC) Ukhrul, called on the Minister and discussed with him their demand for extension of provisions of Schedule-VI of the Indian Constitution to hill areas of Manipur (non Schedule-VI areas) which, according to them, will give more financial assistance and pave the way for a lasting solution to a number of long-standing problems of the region. The delegation brought to the notice of the DoNER Minister that the ADCs in the State of Manipur were established over four decades ago following the passage of the Manipur Hill Areas District Councils Act, 1971, but these are still controlled by the State government denying them adequate empowerment. It will be pertinent to mention that Schedule-VI of the Indian Constitution provides for greater financial power and direct funding of district councils from Centre. It also enables appropriate judicial and legislative powers conducive to the powers of the region and tribals. However, the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) in para 9.109 of its Report has stated that areas under Schedule-VI in Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Assam, the areas in the hill districts of Manipur, rural areas of Nagaland and Mizoram will remain outside the ambit of the measures recommended for Panchayats and Municipalities. Through a representation submitted to the DoNER Minister, the Manipur Councillors raised the issue of allocation of funds to ADCs of Manipur which do not fall under the Schedule-VI of the Constitution. It was also stated that in 2015-16 Rs. 1,000 Cr was released as one-time special assistance to the areas covered under Schedule-VI of the Constitution. Further, in 2016-17 budget also, provision of Rs. 1,000 Cr was made for grants to Autonomous Council areas covered under Schedule-VI and it is demanded to consider assistance also for development of the areas excluded from the consideration of the Fourteenth Finance Commission. Dr. Jitendra Singh told the delegation that the issue has been under deliberation for the last one year. He said, the DoNER Ministry will further follow it up with the Ministry of Finance as well as with Niti Aayog and the Ministries of Panchayati Raj and Tribal Affairs.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Matteo Renzi

A 5 billion euro ($5.33 billion) rescue plan for Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena hung by a thread on Monday after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's defeat in a referendum and pledge to resign.

The world's oldest bank, saddled with 46 billion euros of bad loans, needs to raise the money by the end of the month to avoid being wound down, but investors are reluctant to back the cash call after Renzi said he would quit following voters' rejection of his plans for constitutional change.

Monte dei Paschi, rated the weakest lender in European stress tests this summer, had planned to secure a firm commitment from one or more anchor investors and launch a share sale as early as Wednesday or Thursday.

However, investment banks deciding whether to underwrite the capital raise will wait for three or four days before making up their minds in the hope of a clearer political situation, two sources close to the matter said. Under a pre-underwriting deal, they can drop the transaction due to adverse market conditions.

Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which could inject up to 1 billion euros in the Tuscan lender, and other big investors also want to have more visibility on what kind of government will succeed Renzi's and whether early elections are a possibility.

"The Qataris won't commit until there's clarity on the government," said a banker close to the consortium. "At the moment Monte dei Paschi is not in a position to speak to investors, they have nothing new to tell them  they need to wait until the Qataris make up their mind."

QIA declined to comment. Monte dei Paschi, which is due to hold a board meeting on Tuesday, had no immediate comment.

If Monte dei Paschi's private recapitalisation plan fails, the Italian government is expected to step in and pump public money into the bank to avoid a crisis, bankers and European officials said.

The lender's shares fell 6 percent in late afternoon trade, dragging down the whole banking sector on concerns that instability in the euro zone's third-largest could ignite a wider financial crisis.

Renzi is expected to formally tender his resignation on Monday evening. The head of state will consult with party leaders before naming a new prime minister, with Minister Pier Carlo Padoan seen as a possible candidate to replace Renzi. Snap polls next year cannot be ruled out.

Whether a few days will be enough to persuade investors to back Monte dei Paschi's third recapitalisation in as many years remains unclear.

European officials and allies played down the prospect of a broader euro zone crisis. European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said Italy, which unlike Germany and other European countries has used very little public money to prop up its lenders, might have to bail out some banks.

But he said market concerns about Italian lenders should be kept in perspective and any problems there were manageable.

Any state intervention to help Monte dei Paschi would entail losses for the bank's subordinated bondholders in line with European bank crisis rules - something Renzi's government had desperately sought to avoid to stave off the risk of a run on deposits and a domino effect engulfing other lenders.

It was not immediately clear to what extent retail investors, who hold 2.1 billion euros of Monte dei Paschi junior debt, could be spared in the event of a state rescue.

Even at the height of the euro zone's debt crisis, Italy had resisted calls to inject cash into its banks or ask for an EU bailout. But it is running out of private solutions to cure the sector, which is burdened by 360 billion euros of bad loans accumulated during a harsh recession.

Italy's 4.25 billion euro Atlas fund, created this year to help channel private funds into struggling banks, has seen its coffers dry up as banking crises mushroom around it.

Two banks from the Veneto region that were rescued with a 2.5 billion euro capital injection by the fund in the spring need another 2.5 billion euros in fresh capital soon. And four small lenders bailed out by healthier banks last year also need more money to clean up their balance sheets.

Meanwhile, a failure of Monte dei Paschi's cash call could complicate UniCredit's own capital-raising plans. Italy's largest bank by assets is expected to unveil on Dec. 13 a cash call for up to 13 billion euros, to be launched early next year.
German Chancellor has denounced the rape and killing of a university student as a "tragic event," responding for the first time to a case that has inflamed passions since police arrested a 17-year-old Afghan migrant last week.

A nationalist party has seized on the death to argue that Merkel's government bears a share of the blame.

"If it turns out that (the perpetrator) was an Afghan refugee then that needs to be condemned, absolutely, just like with any other murderer," Merkel said in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.

"But that shouldn't be combined with a rejection of an entire group, just like we don't draw conclusions about an entire group from (the actions of) one person in other instances," she added.

The victim, a 19-year-old medical student, vanished in mid-October on her way home from a party in the southwestern city of Freiburg. Her body was found in a river.

Police say the suspect, who was arrested on Friday, was linked to the crime through DNA evidence and video footage from near the scene. The teenager, who entered Germany last year as an unaccompanied minor, hasn't made a statement. His arrest, however, has played into ongoing tensions about the arrival in Germany last year of hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Joerg Meuthen, a co-leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, argued Sunday that Merkel and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel bear "a decisive share of the responsibility for this cruel act and many other 'isolated cases' that have happened daily in Germany since the unhindered entry of illegal immigrants."



The nationalist party rose in polls following last year's migrant influx and hopes to enter the national Parliament in an election next year in which Merkel is seeking a fourth term. In the US, businessman Donald Trump focused on crimes linked to immigrants in the country illegally as part of his successful presidential campaign.

Merkel's deputy said the student's death must not be used for "rabble-rousing and conspiracy propaganda."



"It is clear to everyone that refugees can commit equally terrible crimes as people born in Germany," Gabriel told yesterday's edition of the Bild daily.

Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, condemned the "appalling crime," telling reporters in Berlin that "the perpetrator must be punished with the full force of our laws." While many Germans have welcomed refugees, there has been strong opposition from a vocal minority.

A string of sexual assaults and robberies on New Year's Eve in Cologne blamed primarily on foreigners also fed fears, as well as accusations that the media were slow to report on such incidents.
Accidental Discharge of a Firearm Criminal Charges

Accidents happen to the best of us. But some accidents are more dangerous than others, and some accidents can carry criminal charges and penalties. So it is with accidental shootings.

Accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm can be a criminal offense, depending on state laws. Criminal charges are most likely to apply when a person is acting recklessly while handling a gun. Here's a look at a few state statutes on accidental shootings and the criminal penalties involved.

The Sunshine State

Florida's law against discharging firearms in public or on residential property stipulates: "any person who ... recklessly or negligently discharges a firearm outdoors on any property used primarily as the site of a dwelling ... or zoned exclusively for residential use commits a misdemeanor of the first degree." The penalties for first degree misdemeanors in Florida include up to 12 months in jail and/or up $1,000.00 in fines.

But it can be difficult for accidental shootings to be considered recklessness or negligence under the statute. In a tragic 2015 case, a man accidentally pulled the trigger of a gun while twirling it on his finger, fatally shooting a pregnant woman in the head. Prosecutors did not press charges because the unintentional shooting did not rise to the standard of "culpable negligence" or a "showing reckless disregard for human life." As Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway told 48 Hours' Crimesider at the time, "If you're just being careless with a gun and it goes off, that's not a crime."

The Golden State

Even under California law, a person is only guilty of a crime if he or she "willfully discharges a firearm in a grossly negligent manner which could result in injury or death to a person." If convicted, a person could be guilty of either a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison, or a felony facing two or three years in prison.

And accidentally shooting a gun doesn't qualify as a crime -- a person must intentionally pull the trigger, even if he or she did not intend the consequences.

The Old Dominion State

Virginia's criminal statutes generally deal with intentional firing of guns, but one section criminalizes the reckless handling of firearms: "It shall be unlawful for any person to handle recklessly any firearm so as to endanger the life, limb or property of any person." While merely recklessly handling a gun can lead to a misdemeanor conviction, handling a firearm "in a manner so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life and causes the serious bodily injury of another person resulting in permanent and significant physical impairment" classifies as a Class 6 felony, which could get you five years in prison.

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President-elect Donald J. Trumps motives for his unorthodox call with the leader of Taiwan remain mysterious, but some Republicans are hailing his improvisational diplomacy as a refreshing break with diplomatic rituals that date to the Richard M. Nixon administration. It could lay the groundwork, they say, for a healthier relationship with China.
House Republican leaders signalled on Monday that they would not support President-elect Donald J Trumps threat to impose a heavy tax on companies that move jobs overseas, the first significant confrontation over the conservative economic orthodoxy that Trump relishes trampling.
The outgoing Obama administration appears to be in differences with President-elect Donald Trump over the China policy, saying it has been in contact with the Chinese officials to reiterate its continued support to the long-standing one-China policy.

Responding to questions, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest even tended to question the impact of such a policy could have on stability in the region and its impact on not only the United States (US), China but also Taiwan.

When asked about Trump's phone call to Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-wen, he said that it is hard to determine exactly what the aim was of the President-elect.

"If the President-elect's team has a different aim, I will leave it on them to describe," Earnest said.

"I know both the Vice President-elect and his campaign manager were, when asked about this over the weekend, indicated that these were courtesy calls or that this was a courtesy call and the President-elect was merely returning that call. The Washington Post today (December 6) tells a different story, with some Trump aides indicating that this was a long-planned call and that this is part of a broader strategic effort.

"It is unclear exactly what the strategic effort is, what the aim of the strategic effort is, and it is unclear exactly what potential benefit could be experienced by the US, China or Taiwan but I will leave that on them to explain," he said.

Trump last week spoke over the phone with Taiwanese President, the first by a top American leader since 1979, and then in a series of tweets slammed China for alleged currency manipulation and military build-up in the South China Sea.

His top aides have tended to dismiss the concerns, saying that this was merely a courtesy call. Trump's one of the election campaign promises was to declare China a currency manipulator.

"I am aware of two different phone conversations with officials at the National Security Council with their Chinese counterparts. What we have made clear in a couple of different phone conversations is that the administration is committed to our nation's pursuit of a one-China policy rooted in three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act," Earnest said.

"This is a policy that has been in place for nearly 40 years, and it has been focused on promoting and preserving peace and stability in the strait. The adherence to and commitment to this policy has advanced the ability of the US to make progress in our relationship with China and of course has benefited the people of Taiwan," he said.

Earnest said that Taiwan, after all, is the ninth-largest trading partner of the US, and they certainly benefit from peace and stability in the strait and pursuit of and commitment to that peace and stability advances US interests.
The November election put Republicans in full control of a record number of state legislatures around the country, a level of power that gives the party an unprecedented opportunity: change the US Constitution.

Republicans already control Congress, the White House and more governors' offices than they have in nearly a century. But it's the state legislatures that hold perhaps the greatest promise for lasting change.

The GOP now holds numerical majorities in 33 legislatures, one shy of the two-thirds required to initiate a convention on constitutional amendments. There is no credible talk of using that power for amendments on hot-button social issues, such as banning abortion or gay marriage. But conservatives have a list of bread-and-butter governing issues they would like to see enshrined in the Constitution. One, to require a balanced federal budget, is already approaching the level of support that would trigger a convention. Beyond that, a major state-level push is planned during 2017 for a constitutional convention that could also consider amendments to impose term limits on members of Congress and rein in various federal powers.

President-elect has pledged support for an amendment on congressional term limits.

"The possibility of constitutional change is in the air," said law professor Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a nonprofit museum that is hosting academic debates and symposiums about the efforts to amend the Constitution.

The US Constitution has been amended 27 times since it was ratified in 1788, and its Article V spells out two ways to propose amendments. By a two-thirds vote of each chamber, the US House and Senate can refer an amendment to the states. Or two-thirds of the state legislatures can request that Congress call a convention of the states.

Both scenarios require three-fourths of the states or 38 to ratify an amendment before it takes effect.

If the supporters of a balanced budget amendment succeed, it would be the first time in the nation's history that states initiated the process. That scenario has become more likely as a result of the November election.

It takes 34 states to trigger a convention for constitutional amendments, meaning a unified Republican push would need the help of only a few Democrats in a single state to reach the mark.
The Allahabad High Court will on Tuesday announce the verdict on petition challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

Justice Vikram Nath earlier on November 24 passed the order after arguments were presented by petitioner Ajay Rai as well as from the respondent's side.

The court also granted time to both parties till December 1 for filing any further written submissions.

Rai, who is a sitting Congress MLA from Pindra assembly segment of Uttar Pradesh, was the party's candidate from Varanasi in the 2014 general elections.

He has challenged the election of Prime Minister Modi on a number of grounds, including alleged discrepancies in his nomination papers, expenditure on election campaign and use of religious sentiments for garnering votes.

The contentions made by Rai have been strongly repudiated by Modi's team of counsels led by Satya Pal Jain, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Additional Solicitor General of India.

Jain had argued that the petition was "not maintainable" and prayed for dismissing the same "in limine".

The team of lawyers arguing on behalf of Rai was led by senior high court advocate Umesh Narain Sharma, who is a former head of the legal cell of the Congress party's state unit.
As the nation observes the 24th anniversary of the Babri Mosque demolition, those who have proposed the construction of the Ram Temple and those who have opposed the demolition of the mosque, are banking upon the Supreme Court to give a favourable verdict.

The Samajwadi Party, whose government was at the power when the demolition took place, described the incident as one of the "painful memories" and expressed hope that the Supreme Court will give a decision that will uphold the principles of constitutional democracy.

"That was one of the painful memories for Uttar Pradesh. It was the time when the social harmony of Uttar Pradesh was disrupted. We take this issue very seriously. The matter is in Supreme Court, and we believe that the court will take the decision soon. We will try to maintain law and order here. We and the people of Uttar Pradesh consider to be a scar," SP leader Juhi Singh told ANI.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was at the forefront of the movement along with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is hoping that the Supreme Court will consider the findings of the Archeological Survey of India.

"I don't have any objection to those who are observing a Black Day, since we live in a democracy, and everybody has their right to express. But every authentic survey agency like the ASI has supported our claim. Since the case is under the purview of the Supreme Court, hence the party would not like to comment further," BJP leader Hardev Narayan told ANI.

In view of the 24th anniversary the Uttar Pradesh government has sounded a high alert to prevent any unforeseen circumstances.

The VHP will be holding a Kar Sevak programme here tomorrow.

On 6 December 1992, the VHP and the BJP jointly organized a rally at the site involving 150,000 volunteers. The rally turned violent, and the crowd overwhelmed security forces and tore down the mosque. A subsequent inquiry into the incident found 68 people responsible for the demolition, including several leaders of the BJP and the VHP. On September 30,2010, the Allahabad High Court in a verdict awarded the two- third area of the disputed land to the Hindu petitioners. Presently, the case is pending before the apex court.
Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid will be holding talks with all registered political parties of the country on the formation of a new Election Commission (EC).

The president's press secretary Joynal Abedin, said on Tuesday morning, "As per Article 118 of the Constitution, the president will hold a dialogue with registered political parties before appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and commissioners. The dialogue will begin after December 16."

The Dhaka Tribune quoted a source at Bangabhaban, as saying that the dialogue will begin on December 18 with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

There are 40 registered political parties in Bangladesh.

The Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh, Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad's term will end in February 2017 and a new election commissioner will oversee the next general elections.

He was appointed in 2012 by then President Zillur Rahman through a search committee after holding meetings with political parties.

Ahead of the next general polls, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia had proposed the formation and empowerment of the Election Commission.

Earlier, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had said that her party will accept whatever is decided by the president over the constitution of a new election commission.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British researchers have revealed that a chemotherapy drug combination, commonly used to target cancer, may increase the number of non-growing eggs in women's ovaries.

A study indicates that a therapy commonly used to target Hodgkin's lymphoma appears to have increased the number of non-growing eggs in women's ovaries.

The findings - published in the journal Human Reproduction - were supported by the Medical Research Council.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh in London analysed samples of ovary tissue donated by 14 women, who had undergone chemotherapy, and from 12 other healthy women.

They found that the ovaries of eight of the cancer patients, who had been treated with a drug combination known as Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine and Dacarbazine (ABVD) , had a much greater incidence of immature or non-growing eggs compared with the tissue from women, who had received a different chemotherapy or from healthy women of a similar age.

The ovary tissues were seen to be in healthy condition, appearing similar to tissue from young women ovaries.

If further research can reveal the mechanism by which treatment with ABVD results in increased production of eggs, this would aid understanding of how women might be able to produce more eggs during their lifetime, which was until recently thought to be impossible.

The researchers had set out to better understand why treatment with ABVD is one of the few cancer drug combinations that does not impact women's fertility.

"This study involves only a few patients, but its findings were consistent and its outcome may be significant and far-reaching. We need to know more about how this drug combination acts on the ovaries, and the implications of this," said lead researcher Evelyn Telfer from University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences.

The researchers say it is too soon to link the outcome to fertility, but they believe more researches required for better understanding of the findings and their implications.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The commander of China's People's Liberation Army, Western Theatre, General Zhao Zongqi Commaon met Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan General Qamar Javed Bajwa at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Chinese General Zhao Zongqi congratulated General Qamar Javed Bajwa on his assuming command of Pakistan Army.

During the meeting, both discussed matters of regional security and professional interest.

The Chinese general lauded the Pakistan Army's achievements in the fight against terrorism and continued efforts for regional peace and stability.

General Bajwa reaffirmed the Pakistan Army's unwavering support for CPEC security.

Earlier on arrival at the general headquarters, a smartly turned out contingent of Pakistan Army presented guard of honour to the visiting dignitary.

The Chinese General laid a floral wreath at Yadgar-e-Shuhada in homage to the martyrs of Pakistan Army.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Manipur Chief Minister O. Ibobi Singh inaugurated the state's first food processing park at Nilakuthi. The total cost of the park is around 45 crores and it has a total of 49 plots of 600 square meters each which are to be allotted to entrepreneurs.

The park has facilities like cold storage, warehouse, drainage sewerage and one affluent treatment plant.

The park aims to provide space and basic infrastructures, like power, water etc. to several unemployed youths who wanted to start up their entrepreneurship in food processing at the Food Processing Park and establish their business.

Speaking on the occasion, Singh stressed the role of private participation in giving employment to unemployed youth. He said that the economy of the state would improve if there is the habit of working without wasting time.

"The government is seriously putting its efforts to provide employment to the unemployed youths of the state. To this end, the state government has already taken a policy decision to introduce the Manipur Start Up Policy which will benefit both skilled and unskilled unemployed youth in the state, he continued. Only some states of India like Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat and West Bengal have introduced such a policy and the government is examining which model would be most appropriate for Manipur," he said.

Singh also said that the Nilakuthi Food Proceesing Park will facilitate entrepreneurs to establish their business. The objective of the park is to give employment opportunities and improve the economy.

"When there is employment opportunity and employment is given to our unemployed youth, then peace will prevail, and if peace prevails, then development will follow, he added.

Speaking as the president of the function, the state's Commerce and Industries Minister Govindas Konthoujam said that the food park has been set up with the aim of creating a sustainable agro-based industry in the region.

Saying that there has been a notable industrial growth in the last 15 years Govindas said there has been a growth of 40 percent in the handloom sector, 25.8 percent in the food processing sector and 20 percent in the MSME sector.

The government had also inaugurated two industrial estates, one each in Thoubal and Bishnupur Districts and a central poultry farm in Imphal West recently. All this, shows the commitment of the government in providing jobs to the unemployed in the state.

Giving the welcome and keynote address, Principal Secretary (Commerce and Industries) L. Lakher said that the total cost of the park is around 45 crores and has facilities like cold storage, warehouse, drainage sewerage and one affluent treatment plant.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
San Francisco Judges Toss 66,000 Arrest Warrants

The San Francisco criminal courts recently tossed out approximately 66,000 arrest warrants issued by local judges for defendants who failed to appear in court on quality of life crimes over the last 5 years. Generally, minor crimes such as urinating on a sidewalk, or being drunk in public, are characterized as quality of life crimes and punished by fines rather than jail.

However, San Francisco's justices have seen that the local homeless population, who cannot afford the fines, overwhelmingly commit these quality of life crimes. Although the San Francisco court has dropped the outstanding bench warrants for these, the charges/crimes have not been dropped.

What's a Bench Warrant?

A bench warrant is an arrest warrant that gets issued by a judge, most commonly for failing to appear in court when summoned. When a bench warrant is issued for failing to appear in court, law enforcement are notified and requested to arrest the individual so they can be brought before the court. Then, on top of the charges that person was originally facing, the failure to appear can land a person a few extra nights in jail.

Even minor crimes, including unpaid traffic citations, can end up with a bench warrant being issued if they are ignored.

Only in San Francisco

Although failing to appear for court is a serious offense, in San Francisco, the judges have seen homeless offenders being disproportionately affected. Because homeless offenders generally cannot pay the fines, when the court discovers that a fine was not paid by the deadline, a notice to appear in court gets issued. If a homeless person does not have a current mailing address on file, then they will likely not receive the notice to appear, and thus they will have a bench warrant issued for a failing to appear. Logistically, that then becomes a short stay in jail because of an unpaid fine.

To combat this problem, the San Francisco court stopped issuing bench warrants for these types of crimes last year, and recommended police departments refer offenders to treatment programs. Police are concerned about the court's new position leading to an increase in these quality of life crimes.

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The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on Tuesday said it was deeply saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

In a statement, FICCI President Harshavardhan Neotia said, "Ms Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary political leader who made relentless efforts for the economic progress of the Tamil Nadu and single-handedly conceptualised the vision document Vision 2023 Tamil Nadu ("Vision 2023"), setting the plan for infrastructure development for the state. Her connect with the people, concern for wellbeing of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration and be cherished for years.

"We share our deepest condolences with her family and the people of Tamil Nadu. Selvi Jayalalithaa was a visionary leader and will continue to inspire us in Indian industry. Her absence in the Indian polity will create a void that would be very difficult to fill," Neotia added.

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The capital witnessed the launch of the Legislators- Forum jointly organized by FICCI and the Climate Parliament India.

The "Legislators- Forum on Low Carbon Local Area Development" is aimed at creating an interface between legislators and corporates, where they can discover common interests for executing local area low carbon initiatives .

The forum was jointly inaugurated by Hon'ble Minister of State(IC), Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, and Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon'ble Minister(IC) for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines. They expressed that this platform will open up opportunities to explore the avenues for collaboration between legislators and corporate implementing low carbon projects at the grassroots. Ms Naina Lal Kidwai, Past President FICCI and Chair of the FICCI Council on Sustainability, Energy and Water joined the Ministers for the launch of the Forum.

The launch was attended by eminent parliamentarians across different party lines, CEOs and CSR heads of companies, who are implementing low-carbon solutions. They provided insights on how industry can collaborate with legislators to execute low carbon projects on the ground in the various geographies encompassing the legislative constituencies.

"The Forum is being launched at a crucial time when India needs to balance its economic growth imperatives with environmental sustainability. Decentralized low-carbon solutions targeted at rural, remote and marginalized populations are key catalysts for India's inclusive growth, keeping our development deficit in mind", Dr. A Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI.

"The need of the hour is to build on successful service and entrepreneurship models towards the private provisioning of public goods in areas of clean energy, water, waste management and sanitation, where this Forum could help push local entrepreneurship by legislators and in turn help in creating jobs and wealth for huge chunk of the population" Ms Naina Lal Kidwai, Past President FICCI and Chairman Max Financial Services.

"I believe, this endeavor can escalate the potential to scale up low carbon growth exponentially, this Forum will not only showcase our collective resolve in climate change, but also promote ' bottom up' low carbon growth", said Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State (IC), Skill Development & Entrepreneurship.

"India is leading from the front in terms of carrying out the most massive renewable energy expansion program in the world. The share of LED lighting has moved from 0.2% to 16% in India. Going forward, this forum should expand its engagement to press, public, businesses, policy makers, and state legislators to encourage others. Moreover, there is a need to change the mindset of India that everything needs to rest on the laurels of subsidies, but instead could be made into economically viable projects. I am very happy that FICCI and Climate Parliament have taken up this unique initiative between members of parliament and the corporate sector", added Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines.

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Describing late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa's demise as a loss, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday said the former was the leader of the masses and made immense contribution to the development and welfare of the people.

Patnaik described the late AIADMK supremo as the 'Iron Lady' of Tamil Nadu.

"I am deeply shocked on the passing away of Jayalalithaa. She was a leader of the masses. She was known for her administrative caliber. She was the iron lady of Tamil Nadu," he said.

"The people of Tamil Nadu affectionately referred her as 'Amma'. She enjoyed a huge mandate and was known for her administrative caliber and political wisdom. She steered the state on the path of progress and prosperity," he added.

He further said the people of Odisha stand in solidarity with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief and bereavement.

Echoing similar sentiments, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said, "The work which she did for the people is remarkable. She was a very popular leader as we can see the whole state is mourning (her death)."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid floral tributes to Jayalalithaa, who died of a cardiac arrest last night.

He also offered his condolences to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala, the members of her family and to Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.

The Centre has declared one-day mourning in view of the demise of Jayalalithaa, whereas the state government has declared seven-day mourning.

Jayalalithaa's last rites will be performed today at 4.30 p.m. at MGR Memorial, Marina beach, Chennai.

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The mortal remains of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa was buried beside her mentor M.G. Ramachandran's burial at Marina Beach here on Tuesday evening with full state honours.

Jayalalithaa's last rites were performed by her confidante Sasikala Natarajan. Her body, draped in the flag and kept in a sandalwood coffin, was buried with full state honours and was given one gun salute by the army.

Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad were prominent people who attended the funeral.

An army truck, which served as a hearse, took at least an hour to cover a three-km journey from Rajaji Hall to Marina Beach.

Thousands of people lined up along the route to pay respect to their beloved Amma, who served them fiver terms as the chief minister.

People showered flowers at the hearse. Big photographs of the late chief minister were placed all around the coffin and her long-time companion Sasikala and her family were seated next to it. Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam also travelled on the hearse.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee paid their last respect to Jayalalithaa.

Prime Minister Modi was seen condoling Sasikala, who stood by Jayalalithaa's body all day.

A seven-day state mourning has been declared from today morning to mourn the death of the five-time Chief Minister and a three-day holiday has also been announced for all the educational institutions in the state.

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Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Tuesday expressed his shock over the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and said that it was indeed a great loss to the people of Tamil Nadu and a void in political scenario of the state.

"In her passing, the state of Tamil Nadu has a great void which is difficult to fill in. It is a great loss to Tamil society," Rao said.

He further said that the AIADMK supremo was regarded as Purachi Thalavi and a revolutionary leader in Tamil Nadu politics.

Lauding her political journey, Rao said, "It was both challenging and inspirational at a time when women entering politics was rare. Jayalalitha created a political history in contemporary Tamil Nadu politics by becoming the AIADMK's general secretary and later on as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu."

Rao described Jayalalithaa as a unique person in Tamil Nadu politics for winning the assembly elections consecutively for two terms and forming the government, setting a record of sorts.

Meanwhile, tributes are being paid to Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall in Chennai where her mortal remains have been kept in the state.

Preparations are currently underway at MGR Memorial at Marina Beach, Chennai, for her last rites.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are travelling to Chennai to pay their last respects to the departed leader.

The Government of India has, as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa announced that the flag will fly at half-mast in capitals of all states and UTs.

The government has also decided to accord a state funeral to the departed leader which will take place at 4.30 p.m. in Chennai.

The 68-year old AIADMK supremo breathed her last at 11:30 p.m. at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai.

Jayalalithaa, who had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, was admitted to the hospital on September 22 following complaints of fever and dehydration.

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be cremated with full state honours at Marina Beach here today at 4

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will fly down here to pay their respects at Rajaji Hall, where her body has been kept.

Amma's loyalist O Panneerselvam was sworn in as Chief Minister at a sombre ceremony at the Raj Bhawan along with all the ministers in the erstwhile Jayalalithaa Cabinet last night.

A host of leaders including President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have expressed grief over the demise of Jayalalithaa.

"Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief. I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace," the Prime Minister said in a series of tweets.

Describing Jayalalithaa as a towering figure in the and political life, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the Congress Party, her family and she personally share the grief and pain of the people of the state and her devoted supporters in the AIADMK, who have lost their beloved 'Amma'.

"She was a towering figure in our and political life, who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state, and her dedication to the honour of India. I am deeply grieved to learn of the passing away of Selvi J Jayalalithaa," said Gandhi in a statement.

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu asserted that Jaya will go down in the history as a real revolutionary leader as she lived and breathed for the people of her state, adding that she will forever live in the hearts of her people.

Remembering Jayalalithaa as an able administrator who had conviction and courage, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu told ANI here that Amma became a household name in Tamil Nadu because of her pro-poor, pro-people initiatives.

"I personally consider that she has brought a revolution in politics coming from an ordinary background, fighting against all odds by political rivals and her own party. She always thought about the interest of Tamil Nadu," Naidu said.

Meanwhile, a seven-day state mourning has been declared from today morning to mourn the death of the beloved six-time Chief Minister and a three-day holiday has also been announced for educational institutions in the state.

The neighbouring union territory of Puducherry has also announced a holiday for all government offices and educational institutions today as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa.

Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Bihar have also declared a one-day state mourning as a mark of respect.

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Paying his tributes to late chief minister Jayalalithaa, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday asserted that she was a woman in a man's world, who filled the shoes of her political mentor Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, adding that she exceeded him in many ways in terms of her 25 years of dominance in state politics.

"She was a remarkably iconic leader. Jayalalithaa was a woman in a man's world who dominated with the combination of the charisma of her movie star career as well as the authority that came from her leadership of the party," Tharoor told ANI here.

Emphasising that she was an extremely powerful leader, Tharoor stated that it was quite an unusual sight to see her cabinet ministers prostrating themselves at her feet, adding that there were simply no leaders in her party who could match her.

"She had a reputation of being a populist leader for the poor. All the amma programmes, her name and face were visible on laptops for children, bags of rice, amma canteen and she managed to extended welfare benefits to lots of people," Tharoor said.

Praising Jayalalithaa's extraordinary contribution as an administrator, the Congress leader recalled her role after the tsunami saying that Tamil Nadu coped very well under her government at the time.

"The coastal people were very appreciative of her role. There was a lot that was done by the Tamil Nadu Government under her leadership," he said.

"Today she has passed into history. It is difficult to say now what will happen next. Will the party that has a majority in the assembly hold together? Will they be able to maintain their strength? To find ways to move forwards or will there be a risk of others to exploit the nature of the situation. At the moment there is a concern that she leaves behind a very big void in Tamil Nadu politics," Tharoor added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid floral tributes at Rajaji Hall in Chennai, placing a wreath on her mortal remains.

The Prime Minister, on reaching Chennai airport, boarded an IAF helicopter and landed at INS Adayar.

He also offered his condolences and blessings to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala who stood close to Jayalalithaa's body, members of her family and to Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam among other.

President Pranab Mukherjee has also departed again from Delhi to pay tribute to Jayalalithaa, after the IAF plane carrying him returned to Delhi following a technical swag.

Earlier, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu also visited Rajaji Hall.

Karnataka CM Siddaramiah, Odisha CM Naveen Pattnaik will be attending Jayalalithaa's funeral ceremony.

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishnan will also be attending her last rites. Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda will also be a part of the funeral ceremony.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will also be leaving for Chennai to pay his last respects.

The Centre has declared one-day mourning in view of the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, whereas the state government has declared seven-day mourning.

Jayalalithaa's last rites will be performed today at 4.30 p.m. at MGR Memorial, Marina beach.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Asserting that late chief minister Jayalalithaa's demise will leave a huge gap in women empowerment in India, noted Malayalam actor Mammootty on Tuesday said that she was an 'Iron Lady' of the present time.

Speaking to ANI here, Mammootty joined the nation and the grieving people of Tamil Nadu to pay condolences to Jayalalithaa, who passed away last night at Apollo Hospital in Chennai.

Meanwhile, several names from the Tollywood industry including superstar Rajnikant and Dhanush besides noted Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu paid tributes to Amma at Rajaji Hall in Chennai, where her body has been kept.

As soon as the announcement was made notifying the saddening passing away of Jayalalithaa, condolence and tributes for the veteran actor-turned-politician started pouring in, not only from politicians and supporters, but also from the entire film fraternity.

From Thalaiva Rajinikath to Shehenshah Amitabh Bachchan to Badshah Shah Rukh Khan, all took to their respective Twitter handles to pay tribute to the late "bold leader."

"Not only Tamil Nadu, but the entire India has lost a bold leader. I pray the Almighty for the peace of soul to our honourable Chief Minister," tweeted Rajinikanth.

"Deeply grieved at the passing of Jayalalita ji... a strong woman... Jayalalitha ji (is) the only chief minister of a state that celebrated 100 years of Indian Cinema .. from all regions .. most admirable," wrote Big-B.

SRK shared, "Sad to hear of the passing away of Jayalalithaaji.May her soul rest in peace."

"#RIPAmma. The end of THE most inspirational era of Tamilnadu Politics. You leave behind a vast vacuum. #IronLady. #Shattered #empty #darkday," tweeted Dhanush.

"TN loses one of its greatest leaders and bravest women- deeply saddened by this great loss - words cannot express," wrote Shruti Haasan.

"A good heart has stopped beating, a good soul ascended to heaven. You were an inspiration to many . RIP #amma . #jayalalithaa ji #respect," tweeted Hansika Motwani.

"I remember my father speaking with great respect and fondness whenever he spoke of Jayalalitha Ji/May her Soul rest in peace," wrote Nagarjuna Akkineni.

"Very upset to hear about Jayalalitha's passing away. She was strong, had tremendous will power and carved a special niche for herself in politics," tweeted Hema Malini.

'Rang De Basanti' fame actor Siddharth "It is the end of an era! Arguably the most unparalleled daughter of Tamil Nadu... #RIP #PuratchiThalaivi Honbl. Chief Minister #Jayalalithaa."

"Heartbroken at Amma's passing. A great lady who led us wth strength, vision, compassion n love. You left us too soon amma RIP #Jayalalithaa," wrote Gautami.

"We have lost a people's leader, deeply grieved..!! #Ripamma #Ironlady," tweeted Suriya Sivakumar.

Ram Gopal Varma shared, "The only time ever I went to a award function..Recieving from the one and only Amma,the best director award for Kshana kshanam."

"RIP #Amma, You are our inspiration, greatest CM in many ways. You will always be remembered," tweeted Prabhudeva.

"CM Jayalalithaa still lives in millions of heart. A politician with the soul of an artiste. May your soul rest in peace," wrote Kailash Kher.

Amma will be cremated will full state honours at Marina beach today at 4:30 pm.

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Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram today paid tribute to late chief minister Jayalalithaa who passed away on Monday night, saying that that she was both praised and criticised for her "hard, uncompromising style" to politics and governance.

"She brought a hard uncompromising style to politics and governance that won praise and criticism. Tamil Nadu was regarded as among the better governed States. AIADMK must carry on and provide a government for remaining over 4 years," Chidambaram said in a series of tweets.

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu asserted that she will go down in the history as a real revolutionary leader as she lived and breathed for the people of her state, adding that she will forever live in the hearts of her people.

Remembering Jayalalithaa as an able administrator who had conviction and courage, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu told ANI here that 'Amma' became a household name in Tamil Nadu because of her pro-poor, pro-people initiatives.

"I personally consider that she has brought a revolution in politics coming from an ordinary background, fighting against all odds by political rivals and her own party. She always thought about the interest of Tamil Nadu," Naidu said.

Meanwhile, the Central Government declared one-day mourning after the demise of five-time chief minister Jayalalithaa.

Tamil Nadu government has declared a seven-day state mourning has been declared and a three-day holiday has also been announced for educational institutions, while the neighbouring union territory of Puducherry has also announced a holiday for all government offices and educational institutions today as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa.

Also, Kerala Government has declared a holiday for all government offices and educational institutions in the state and Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Bihar have also declared a one-day state mourning as a mark of respect.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will pay floral tributes at Rajaji Hall in Chennai, where her body has been kept.

Amma will be cremated with full state honours at Marina Beach here today at 4:30 pm, which will be attended by the nation's political top brass.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
5-Hour Energy Drinks Counterfeiters Found Guilty

The real makers of the popular energy supplement 5-Hour Energy, Living Essential, were pleased this week when a California jury found two individuals guilty of manufacturing counterfeit 5-Hour Energy drinks. The federal charges allege that the criminal drink makers produced millions of counterfeit bottles using unknown ingredients in an unsanitary facility. The couple could face over a decade in jail and $2 million in fines. Their conviction comes after the resolution of the consolidated civil suit earlier this year against more than 20 individuals, all involved in a conspiracy to make and sell fake 5-Hour Energy shots.

The convicted Southern California couple initially had a legitimate deal with Living Essential to distribute 5-Hour Energy drinks in Mexico. However, the initial deal provided the couple with Spanish labeled bottles which they relabeled and then sold in the US below the US market rate. The following year, the couple set up the manufacturing scheme to make the counterfeit drinks.

Legal Troubles Lasting Longer Than 5 Hours

Since 2012, Living Essential has been trying to rid the market of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy drinks. At that time, the FDA began an investigation into the claims that several people had died as a result of drinking the popular energy drink. During their own investigation, Living Essential discovered over 2 million bottles of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy drinks.

When they discovered the problem of fake products, they aggressively began pursuing the individuals making and selling the products. As part of their civil lawsuit, they have been awarded $20 million. The judgment was awarded against numerous individuals, including the two Southern Californians that were recently convicted.

First FDA Counterfeit Food and Beverage Prosecution

While the FDA does quite a bit to keep consumers and the public safe, prosecuting individuals for counterfeiting food and beverage items had never been done before. The fake drink was being produced in unsanitary conditions. Additionally, millions of bottles had been produced. The FDA most frequently protects consumers by utilizing preventative measures such as inspections. However, as this recent case shows, the FDA has the power to bring criminal and civil prosecutions to stop violators.

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Offering condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu over the demise of chief minister Jayalalithaa, her Jammu and Kashmir counterpart Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said Amma was a godmother for the women of her state.

Mehbooba said, "In our political regime, her death is a loss for the nation because was not only a compassionate person but very brave, a daredevil and also a very cosmopolitan. People of a particular religion were not connected but all the religions; especially she was a god mother for the women of her state."

She further said Jayalalithaa is an eminent personality and the most learned leader of the nation.

"The whole country is mourning. People lovingly called her 'Amma'. She was the people's chief minister. I offer my condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu because they have suffered losses and I pray she goes to heaven." Mufti added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid floral tributes to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

He also offered his condolences and blessings to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala, members of her family and to Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and others.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Christmas is the time of love, laughter and happiness shared among families, companions, friends and acquaintances all around the world.

To keep this tradition alive, every December the real Santa Claus from Finland leaves from his home in Lapland, Northern Finland and visits many countries all around the world.

This year Santa decided to visit India! With his distinct "Ho, Ho, Ho" baritone voice and the signature red bag full of goodies, Santa made his way to meet and greet the crowd in Select City Walk, New Delhi.

Santa said, "I am so excited to visit India and meet Indian people of all ages. As an ambassador of good will and peace, I wish to spread the magic of love and happiness where ever I go. I hope to meet many people during my trip and hear their stories. I am also looking forward to visiting important sights in India and, of course, tasting Indian food."

The man that we all grew up loving, who always came dressed in the reminiscing red suit, with his sparkling white beard and child-like charm, visited Select City Walk mall and enchanted the mall goers with his charisma.

It was a memorable moment for people visiting the mall after they witnessed and realised that the imaginary man who flew around the world in his reindeer sleigh, distributing gifts for children, leaving cookie bread crumbs as a sign of his visit; was right there in front of them distributing gifts to doting children.

Santa's visit to the mall astonished many Indians as he celebrated the Christmas magic with everyone, making this year's Christmas merrier than ever!

The Real Santa Claus' India visit became a reality with the help of the Embassy of Finland in New Delhi. The Embassy of Finland enhances cooperation, trade and economic ties between Finland and India. They also follow India's vibrant domestic policy, its development as well as foreign and security policies. The relations between India and Finland have always been good and free of political problems.

Apart from topping many international indexes, the world's largest travel guide book publisher, Lonely Planet, ranks Finland as The Third Best Travel Destination for 2017. Finland welcomes Indian travelers to Finland to explore not only Northern lights but also to its pristine nature, appealing and urban city culture, not to forget, great food! The direct flight connection between Helsinki and Delhi, operated by Finnair since 2006, forms the fastest gateway from India to Europe.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As in life, so in death, Jayalalithaa Jayaraman, Tamil Nadu's six-time chief minister, was an enigma at a personal as well as at a political level.

Popularly referred to as Amma, Puratchi Thalaivi, Thanga Gopuram, Thanga Chillai and Thanga Tharagai (Golden Maiden) by members and supporters of her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party, she was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 1991 to 1996, again in 2001, then from 2002 to 2006,from 2011 to 2014 and from 2015 to 2016.

Before her entry into politics in the 1980s, she was an actress who appeared in 140 films, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi.

As a leading actress in films from 1961 to 1980, she was considered both prolific and versatile, performing in different genres and essaying a wide variety of characters. She was also known for her dancing skills and at one time was referred to as the "Queen of Tamil Cinema".

As an actress, she frequently worked with another actor-turned-politician, M. G. Ramachandran (MGR). This led to wide speculation that Jayalalitha was introduced to politics by MGR. However, she has denied these claims and stated that she had entered politics by choice.

She was a member of the Rajya Sabha, elected from Tamil Nadu, from 1984 to 1989. Soon after the death of MGR, Jayalalitha proclaimed herself his political heir. She was Tamil Nadu's second woman female chief minister after Janaki Ramachandran.

She also was the first incumbent chief minister in India to be disqualified from holding office due to conviction in a disproportionate assets case on September 27, 2014, but was acquitted on May 11, 2015 by the Karnataka High Court, and resumed as chief minister on May 23, 2015.

She was subsequently re-elected to the Tamil Nadu State Assembly by the electorate of the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar constituency of North Chennai in a by-election held on June 7, 2015.

Jayalalitha was born on February 24, 1948 at Melukote, in Pandavapura taluka, Mandya district, then in Mysore State (now Karnataka) to Jayaram and Vedavalli in a Tamil Iyengar family.

Jayalalitha was given her grandmother's name Koamalavalli at the time of birth. As per Brahmin custom, two names are given - one ancestral grandmother name and other being personal name. The personal name Jayalalitha was adopted at the age of one for the purpose of using the same in school and colleges. It was derived from the names of two houses where she resided in Mysore. One was "Jaya Vilas" and the other "Lalitha Vilas".

Her paternal grandfather, Narasimhan Rengachary, was in the service of the Mysore kingdom as a surgeon, and served as the court physician to Maharaja Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV of Mysore.

Her maternal grandfather, Rangasamy Iyengar, moved to Mysore from Srirangam to work with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

He had one son and three daughters - Ambujavalli, Vedavalli and Padmavalli. Vedavalli was given in marriage to Narasimhan Rengachary's son, Jayaram.

The couple Jayaram-Vedvalli had two children: a son Jayakumar and a daughter, Jayalalitha. Her mother, her relatives and later co-stars and friends referred her as Ammu.

Jayalalitha's father, Jayaram, was a lawyer, but never worked and squandered most of the family money. He died when Jayalalitha was two years old.

The widowed Vedavalli returned to her father's home in Bangalore in 1950. Vedavalli learnt shorthand and typewriting to take up a clerical position to help support the family in 1950.

Vedavalli's younger sister Ambujavalli had moved to Madras and was working as an air hostess since 1948 and was also acting in dramas and films using the screen name Vidyaavathy since 1951.

After a while, on insistence of Ambujavalli, Jayalalithaa's mother Vedavalli also relocated to Madras and stayed with her sister from 1952.

Vedavalli worked in a commercial firm in Madras and began dabbling in acting under screen name Sandhya. Jayalalitha remained under care of her mother's sister Padmavalli and with maternal grandparents from 1950 to 1958 in Mysore.

While still in Bangalore, Jayalalithaa attended Bishop Cotton Girls' School.In later interviews, Jayalalithaa spoke emotionally about how she missed her mother growing up in a different city, but visited her during the summer vacations.

After her aunt Padmavalli's marriage in 1958, Jayalalitha moved to Chennai and began to live with her mother. She completed her childhood education at Sacred Heart Matriculation School (popularly known as Church Park Presentation Convent or Presentation Church Park Convent) in Chennai.

She excelled at school and was offered a government scholarship to pursue further education.

She won Gold State Award for coming first in 10th standard in not just her school but also in Tamil Nadu.

She appears not to have accepted the admission offered to her at Stella Maris College, Chennai.

She was fluent in several languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam and English.

In Chennai, Jayalalitha trained in classical music, western classical piano, and various forms of classical dance, including Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam, Manipuri and Kathak.[21] She learnt Bharatnatyam and dance forms under K.J. Sarasa. She became an accomplished dancer and gave her debut dance performance at the Rasika Ranjani Sabha in Mylapore in May 1960.

The chief guest at the Arangetram was famed actor Shivaji Ganesan, who expressed wish that Jayalalitha become a film star in the future.

In the mid-1960s, Shankar Giri, the son of the former Indian President V. V. Giri, saw her essay a small role in the English play Tea Houses of August Moon and was impressed. Shankar Giri approached her mother Sandhya and told he wanted to cast her daughter in an English film called The Epistle. Sandhya reluctantly agreed with the condition that shooting should be held only during weekends or school holidays.

Sandhya had acted in the 1964 Tamil film Karnan, produced and directed by Kannada film-maker B. R. Panthulu. Jayalalithaa accompanied her mother to a party related to the film and was spotted by Panthulu, who then decided to cast her opposite Kalyankumar in the Kannada movie Chinnada Gombe. He promised to finish all shooting within two months in order not to interfere with her education. Jayalalithaa started acting and she was paid Rs. 3,000. Panthulu kept his promise and completed shooting in six weeks.

Jayalalithaa had forgotten all about films after acting in her Kannada debut film, but it became a blockbuster in 1964 and she became a well-known face.

She made her debut as the lead actress in Kannada films while still in school, age 15, in Chinnada Gombe (1964). She also appeared in a dance sequence of a song named "Malligeya Hoovinantha" in the movie Amarashilpi Jakannachari (1964).

She made her debut in Tamil theatre in April 1964, when she played a sales girl in the drama named Undersecretary. Parthasarthy and Sandhya were the lead characters, while Jayalalitha and Cho Ramaswamy were paired together and A. R. Srinivasan was also involved. The play was based on the lives of middle aged couple and Jayalalitha played the character of a sales girl in the drama. Her performance led Parthasarthy to make her lead heroine in a drama named Malathy.

Meanwhile, the films she had shot during her vacation in April-May 1964 - Chinnada Gombe and Manushulu Mamathalu - became blockbusters. By end of 1965 she had become popular among film producers and directors. She was approached by C. V. Sridhar for her Tamil film debut as well. Between 1964 and 1966 she did around 35 shows of drama named Malathy and later discontinued as she became very busy in films.

It was during the year 1964, financial debts had increased of Sandhaya and she suggested her daughter to make use of the increasing film offers coming her way.

Jayalalithaa's debut in Tamil cinema was the leading role in Vennira Aadai (1965), directed by C. V. Sridhar. She made her debut in Telugu films as lead actress in Manushulu Mamathalu opposite Akkineni Nageshwara Rao. Her last Telugu release was also opposite Akkineni Nageswara Rao in the film Nayakudu Vinayakudu, which was released in 1980.

She was the first heroine to appear in skirts in Tamil films. She acted in one Hindi film called Izzat, with Dharmendra as her male co-star in 1968.

She starred in 28 box-office hit films with M.G. Ramachandran between 1965 and 1973.The first with MGR was B.R. Panthalu's Aayirathil Oruvan in 1965 and their last film together was Pattikaattu Ponnaiya in 1973.

She became a regular heroine for production house Devar films from 1966.

Jayalalithaa claimed that M G Ramachandran, who had been chief minister for the state since 1977, was instrumental in introducing her to politics.

She joined the AIADMK in 1982. Her maiden public speech, "Pennin Perumai" ("The Greatness of a Woman"), was delivered at the AIADMK's political conference in the same year. In 1983, she became the party's propaganda secretary and was selected as its candidate in the by-election for the Tiruchendur Assembly constituency.

Ramachandran wanted her to be a member of the Rajya Sabha because of her fluency in English. Jayalalithaa was nominated and elected to that body in 1984 and retained her seat until 1989.

Her success as propaganda secretary caused resentment among high-ranking members of the party. By engineering a rift between her and Ramachandran, these members influenced Ramachandran to stop her writing about her personal life in a Tamil magazine.

Despite these machinations, she remained admired by the rank and file of the party.

In 1984, when Ramachandran was incapacitated due to a stroke, Jayalalithaa was said to have attempted to take over the position of chief minister or the party on the pretext that his health would prevent him from the proper execution of his duties.

She successfully led the campaign in the 1984 general elections, in which the ADMK allied with the Congress.

Following MGR's death in 1987, the AIADMK split into two factions: one supported his widow, Janaki Ramachandran, and the other by Jayalalithaa.

Janaki was selected as chief minister on January 7, 1988 with the support of 96 members; due in part to irregularities by the Speaker P.H. Pandian, who dismissed six members to ease her victory, she won a motion of confidence in the house.

However, the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi used Article 356 of the Constitution of India to dismiss the Janaki-led government and impose president's rule on the state.

Jayalithaa contested the subsequent 1989 elections on the basis of being MGR's political heir.

She was elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 1989 as a representative of the Bodinayakkanur (State Assembly Constituency). This election saw the Jayalalithaa-led faction of the AIADMK win 27 seats and Jayalalithaa became the first woman to be elected Leader of the Opposition. In February 1989, the two factions of ADMK merged and they unanimously accepted Jayalalithaa as their leader and the "Two leaves" symbol of the party was restored.

On March 25, 1989, one of the worst incidents took place inside the Tamil Nadu Assembly, when the ruling DMK party members brutally attacked and visibly molested Jayalalitha in front of the assembly speaker at the behest of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.

Jayalalitha left the assembly with her sari torn and this scene created huge sympathy wave for her. She used the incident as a parallel with the shameful disrobing of Draupadi in the epic Mahabharata.

The incident got a lot of media coverage and sympathy from the public.

During the 1989 general elections, the ADMK allied with the Congress party and had a significant victory. The ADMK, under her leadership, won the by-elections in Marungapuri, Madurai East and Peranamallur assembly constituencies.

In 1991, following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi days before the elections, her alliance with the Indian Congress enabled her to ride the wave of sympathy that gave the coalition victory. The AIDMK alliance with the Congress won 225 out of the 234 seats contested and won all 39 constituencies in the centre.

Re-elected to the assembly, she became the first female, and the youngest, chief minister, of Tamil Nadu, to serve a full term (June 24, 1991 to May 12, 1996).

In 1992, her government introduced the "Cradle Baby Scheme". At that time the ratio of male to female in some parts of Tamil Nadu was skewed by the practice of female infanticide and the abortion of female foetuses.

The government established centres in some areas, these being equipped to receive and place into adoption unwanted female babies.

The scheme was extended in 2011.

Her party had 26 elected members to the assembly. Her government was the first to introduce police stations operated solely by women.

She introduced a 30 percent quota for women in all police jobs and established as many as 57 all-women police stations.

There were other all-women establishments like libraries, stores, banks and co-operative elections.

The Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK lost power in the 1996 elections, when it won 4 of the 168 seats that they contested. Jayalalithaa was herself defeated by the DMK candidate in Bargur Constituency.

The outcome has been attributed to an anti-incumbency sentiment and several allegations of corruption and malfeasance against her and her ministers.

The wedding of her foster son Sudhakaran, who married a granddaughter of the Tamil film actor Shivaji Ganesan, was held on September 7, 1995 at Chennai and was viewed on large screens by over 150,000 people.

The event holds two Guinness World Records: one is for the most guests at a wedding and the other is for being the largest wedding banquet.

Subsequently, in November 2011, Jayalalithaa told a special court than the entire Rs. 6 crore expenses associated with the wedding were paid for by the family of the bride.

There were several corruption cases filed against her by the ruling DMK government headed by Karunanidhi. Jayalalitha was arrested on December 7, 1996 and was remanded to 30-day judicial custody in connection with the Colour TV scam, which charged her with receiving kickbacks to the tune of Rs.10.13 crore.

The investigation alleged that TV dealers routed the money in the form of cheques to a relative of her close aide Sasikala, who had quoted Jayalalitha's residence as hers.

She earlier filed an anticipatory bail in the trail court, which was rejected on December 7, 1996. She was acquitted in the case on May 30, 2000 by the trial court and the high court upheld the order of the lower court.

Jayalalithaa was barred from standing as a candidate in the 2001 elections because she had been found guilty of criminal offences, including allegedly obtaining property belonging to a state-operated agency called TANSI. Although she appealed to the Supreme Court, having been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, the matter had not been resolved at the time of the elections.

Despite this, the AIADMK won a majority and she was installed as chief minister as a non-elected member of the state assembly on May 14, 2001.

She was also convicted in Pleasant Stay Hotel case on February 3, 2000 by a trial court to one year imprisonment. Jayalalithaa was acquitted in both the TANSI and Pleasant Stay Hotel cases on December 4, 2001.

In March 2003, Jayalalithaa assumed the position of chief minister once more, having been acquitted of some more charges by the Madras High Court. She thereafter contested a mid-term poll in the Andipatti constituency, after the sitting MLA for the seat, gave up his membership, which she won by a handsome margin.

India's first company of female police commandos was set up in Tamil Nadu in 2003. They underwent the same training as their male counterparts, covering the handling of weapons, detection and disposal of bombs, driving, horse riding, and adventure sports.

In April 2011, the AIADMK was part of a 13-party alliance that won the 14th state assembly elections. Jayalalithaa was sworn in as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for the third time on 16 May 2011, having been elected unanimously as the leader of the AIADMK party subsequent to those elections.

On December 19, 2011, Jayalalithaa expelled her long-time close aide Sasikala Natarajan and 13 others from the AIADMK.

Most of the party members welcomed her decision, and on 2 February 2012, Tehelka magazine claimed that Natarajan and some of her relatives were conspiring to kill her by poisoning her food over a period of time.

The matter was resolved by March 31, when Sasikala Natarajan was reinstated as a party member after issuing a written apology.

On September 27, 2014, Jayalalithaa was sentenced to four years in jail and fined Rs 100 crore by the Special Court in Bangalore. She was convicted in an 18-year-old disproportionate assets case that was launched by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy (now member of Bharatiya Janata Party) on 20 August 1996 on the basis of Income Tax Department report on her.

Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala Natarajan, her niece Ilavarasi, her nephew and the chief minister's disowned foster son Sudhakaran were also convicted.

They were sentenced to four years in jail and fined Rs 10 crores each. Special Judge John Michael D'Cunha convicted her of owning assets to the tune of Rs 66.65 crores (which included 2,000 acres of land, 30 kilograms of gold and 12,000 saris) disproportionate to her known sources of income during 1991-96 when she was chief minister for the first time.

The verdict was delivered by a makeshift court in the Parappana Agrahara prison complex in the presence of Jayalalithaa and the other accused. She was automatically disqualified from the post of chief minister and the legislative assembly of Tamil Nadu.

O. Panneerselvam, a minister in her party, succeeded her as chief minister on September 29, 2014.

On October 17, 2014, the Supreme Court granted her two months' bail and suspended her sentence. On May 11, 2015, a special Bench of the Karnataka High Court set aside her conviction on appeal, acquitting her and also her alleged associates.

The acquittal allowed her once again to hold office for the fifth time. She was subsequently re-elected by the electorate of the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar (State Assembly Constituency) of North Chennai in the by-election held on 27 June 2015. In a landslide victory, she polled more than 88 per cent votes of the 74.4 per cent turnout, winning by a margin of over 1.6 lakh votes.

Jayalalithaa was again elected as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in the May 2016 elections. She retained the R. K. Nagar constituency with a margin of 39,545 votes over her DMK rival.

She was the second chief minister after M. G. Ramachandran, to serve consecutive terms.

Jayalalithaa passed away on the night of December 5, 2016 after spending 75 days in Apollo Hospitals, Chennai in critical condition.

AIADMK MLAs were summoned to the hospital to sign a declaration naming O. Panneerselvam as her successor.

The hospital officially announced the death of the chief minister at 11.30 p.m.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Philippine Senate has approved the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with a vote count of 20-1, said Senator Loren Legarda on Tuesday.

Hailing the senate's approval of the agreement, Legarda, who sponsored the Committee Report on the AIIB Treaty, said that the agreement would help the country achieve growth targets through accelerated infrastructure spending as a member of the AIIB.

"Infrastructure bottlenecks have stifled our growth potential for many years. More investment is required not only to build new projects but also to maintain existing infrastructure. The AIIB can broaden our infrastructure funding sources," Xinhua news agency quoted Legarda as saying.

AIIB is an international financial institution which was proposed as an initiative by the government of China. It aims at promoting economic development in Asia.

The bank has 57 member states including China, India, Russia, France, Germany and Britain.

The Articles of Agreement of AIIB was signed by Philippines in China on December 31, 2015.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid floral tributes to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who died of a cardiac arrest last night.

The Prime Minister, on reaching Chennai airport, boarded an IAF helicopter and landed at INS Adayar. The PM then reached Rajaji Hall where he paid tribute to the late leader.

He also offered his condolences and blessings to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala, members of her family and to Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and others.

President Pranab Mukherjee has also departed again from Delhi to pay tribute to Jayalalithaa, after the IAF plane carrying him returned to Delhi following a technical swag.

Earlier, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu also visited Rajaji Hall.

Karnataka CM Siddaramiah, Odisha CM Naveen Pattnaik will be attending Jayalalithaa's funeral ceremony.

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishnan will also be attending her last rites. Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda will also be a part of the funeral ceremony.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will also be leaving for Chennai to pay his last respects.

The Centre has declared one-day mourning in view of the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, whereas the state government has declared seven-day mourning.

Jayalalithaa's last rites will be performed today at 4.30 p.m. at MGR Memorial, Marina beach.

Jayalalithaa suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday, after which she was admitted in city's Apollo Hospital. Her condition was grave and was kept on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) and other life support systems. A team from Delhi's AIIMS was rushed to Chennai for her treatment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Due to the outbreak of many diseases following the use of chemical fertilizers for growing crops, Rajkot has initiated a new process of pranic healing in the field of agriculture.

With the implementation of this healing, there is an improvement in the quality and amount of wheat, peanut and vegetables production.

Sonalben Shah, Principal of the Kadvi Bai Veerani School, told ANI about how it all started and what actually this process is.

"We have been visiting Pranayog Ashram in All India Pranic Healing Foundation Trust Headquarter, Odisha since last two years to learn pranic healing and Organic Yoga. The cultivation there is not done by using any chemical or organic fertilizer, but by the way of pranic healing. Our school, since then, has been teaching children to concentrate and improve their academic performance by means of pranic healing, meditation and chanting," she said.

"We are trying to analyse how spiritual energy affects children," she added.

Shifting focus towards farming, the Principal told that they had performed the same process in a farm which actually led to astonishing result.

"Our children visit a farm every Sunday and meditate here for half an hour and do mantra chanting for an hour. The owner of the farm told that the pests of the field have been eradicated. It is a matter of delight for us," she said.

Shyam Sundar, a farmer told that the process has yielded better results and that the crops produced are of better quality.

"Gujarat is the first place where this process of healing has been used. It has been used on gram, wheat and corn and no pests have been found so far in these crops. The best part about this is that we have been able to avoid the use of fertilizers, which has helped in retaining the nutritional value of the crops," he said.

This being the first attempt in the farming industry, the use of it would be further encouraged. The vegetable produced by means of this process would be of the best quality, which will ensure better health and quality of life.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Activists and political leaders of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) held a protest rally in Rawalpindi and chanted slogans against Pakistan Army for allegedly supporting extremists and terrorists in their territory.

They chanted "Yeh jo dehshat gardi hai, isle piche vardi hai" (The people in uniform are behind these terrorist activities).

The protesters accused Islamabad of providing shelter to terrorists in PoK who are misleading the youth towards 'Jihad'.

The event was organised by the National Action Front, a coalition of several nationalist parties from PoK, including the United Kashmir People's National Party.

The protesters raised their voices against the use of religion as a tool to mislead the youth of Kashmir.

The protesters demanded the withdrawal of National Action Plan as it's been used against nationalist and political leaders in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan by the Pakistan Army.

Many youth are being arrested and they are suffering atrocities at the hands of the security agencies.

Pakistan has been using the PoK for its proxy war against India and has given shelter to banned terrorist organisations.

On September 29, India conducted surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in PoK and killed at least 38 terrorists.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As the nation mourns the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who passed away at 11

Remembering Jayalalithaa as an able administrator who had conviction and courage, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu told ANI here that Amma became a household name in Tamil Nadu because of her pro-poor, pro-people initiatives.

"I personally consider that she has brought a revolution in politics coming from an ordinary background, fighting against all odds by political rivals and her own party. She always thought about the interest of Tamil Nadu," Naidu said.

Recalling his last meeting with her, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister said that that Jayalalithaa was always affectionate towards him.

"Today she is no more but she is lives in the heart of the people of her state. No matter who is the Chief Minister now, she will always be the leader. I appeal of the Tamil Nadu to maintain calm and peace and see that tributes are paid in the dignified manner," Naidu added.

Announcing her demise at 12.13 a.m., Apollo Hospitals in a statement said, "The Chief Minister suffered a massive cardiac arrest on the evening of the December 4, even while our intensivist was in her room. She was immediately administered resuscitation (CPR), and provided ECMO support within the hour, which is the most advanced treatment currently available internationally. Every possible clinical attempt was made to sustain her revival. However, despite our best efforts the Chief Minister's underlying conditions rendered her unable to recover and she passed away at 11.30 p.m. today."

Her body will be kept at Rajaji Hall for people to pay last respects.

Meanwhile, a seven-day state mourning has been declared from today morning to mourn the death of five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. A three-day holiday has also been announced for educational institutions in the state.

The neighbouring union territory of Puducherry has also announced a holiday for all government offices and educational institutions today as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled her demise.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Real Madrid star striker Critiano Ronaldo has been reportedly informed that he will be crowned this year's Ballon d'or winner.

Ronaldo is a front runner to win the coveted award after inspiring Zinedine Zidane's side to the Champions League glory and Portugal to Euro 2016 trophy.

According to Sport24, a Spanish newspaper reported that Ronaldo and Real Madrid have already been informed that voting for the award suggested the Portugal star would outclass his Barcelona rival Lionel Messi to pick the world's best player award.

If reports come true, Ronaldo will lift the award for the fourth time, thus closing the gap to long-time rival, Messi who has lifted the award for a record five times.

Ronaldo, who won the prestigious gong in 2008, 2013 and 2014, scored a total of 51 goals in all competitions for Madrid last season.

The prestigious individual prize will be judged solely by a panel of journalists after FIFA World Player of the Year award and Ballon d'Or ended their partnership this year.

The Ballon d'Or ceremony is slated to take place on January 9.

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South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday said she will accept her impeachment if it is passed in the scheduled parliamentary vote on December 9.

Her comments were made during the one-hour meeting with the ruling Saenuri Party's chairman and floor leader in the presidential office, reports Xinhua.

Park said she will calmly accept the impeachment if it is passed through the unicameral assembly and vowed to cooperate if the bill is approved.

Opposition and independent lawmakers handed over the bill to impeach the first South Korean female leader last Saturday. The bill states that President Park comprehensively and gravely violated laws and the constitution in her office for nearly four years since she came to power in February 2013.

The constitutional violations, according to the impeachment bill, include the President's permission to her long-time confidante Choi Soon-sil and other associates to meddle in state affairs and influence the appointment of government officials behind the scenes.

As there are 172 legislators from the opposition, at least 28 Saenuri lawmakers from the ruling party must endorse the bill to overcome the two-third threshold of the 300-seat parliament.

President Park also agreed to allow the governing party lawmakers to freely vote on the impeachment motion.

Tens of lawmakers of the party's faction not loyal to Park have agreed to vote for the impeachment, raising possibility for the passage of the bill.

Saenuri Party chief Lee Jung-hyun estimated that President Park seemed to prefer the April resignation to the impeachment, but she is expected to be stripped of all powers if the bill is passed through the parliament.

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Saw Tar Mu Lar, the Karen National Union (KNU) Chairmans Office Secretary, said: People are very keen to know about this issue [federalism]. We wont get what we want if we dont know about this [federalism], so, we arranged this [workshop] to teach about federalism.

The workshop was organised by the Euro-Burma Office (EBO) and the Forum of Federation (FOF), 69 people attended. They included representatives from: the KNU, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army-Peace Council (KNU/KNLA-PC), the Phalon-Sawaw Democratic Party, the United Karen National Democratic Party, the Karen State Democracy and Development Party, and the Karen Democratic Party.

During the workshop, FOF discussed: federalism and decentralisation, distribution of power, opportunities for decentralisation, diversity management in federalism, decentralisation and regional governments, schemes for distribution of finances and research relating to federalism.

U Khaing Kyaw Moe, a senior FOF trainer, said that ethnic groups have stated that federalism is one of their goals, so they need to know that peace and federalism always go hand in hand.

EBO is a non-governmental organisation that is financed by Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland with the aim of assisting in Burmas peace process by doing things such as arranging meetings between the Burmese government and ethnic armed organisations and giving training.

Since the KNU, DKBA and KNU/KNLA-PC signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) last October they have been cooperating more with international groups, social organisations and experts helping them to hold workshops and training sessions that will help the peace process.

Reporting by SPhan Shaung for KIC News

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
Actors turned politicians Paresh Rawal and Shatrughan Sinha expressed their heartfelt condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa today.

Applauding her uniqueness, Lok Sabha MP Paresh Rawal talked about the bond Jayalalithaa shared with the people.

"She was a great woman, a great leader; seldom does one find such a leader. The connect which she had with people can be seen in their tears," Rawal told ANI.

Rajya Sabha MP Shatrughan Sinha appreciated Jayalalithaa's magnanimous personality and will power to achieve things.

"Jayalalithaa was an iron lady, magnetic lady, hypnotic lady, heroine of India. The pain is even more because she belonged to the same industry as ours i.e. film industry. She was a role-model, who, after stepping out of the film industry, established herself in the political arena with her hardwork and struggle," he told ANI.

"She proved that if one has determination, commitment and passion, then he can attain great heights" he added.

The Rajya Sabha MP also pointed out her down-to-earth attitude.

"In spite of being popular and powerful, she was kind and polite. She took over the role of Amma and played it responsibly," he said.

Admiring her dedication as an actor, he said, "At every stage of her career, she worked hard and paved her way to success."

"Jayalalithaa is irreplaceable and it is difficult to find one like her in past or future," he said.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid floral tributes to Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall, where her mortal remains are kept.

The funeral ceremony of Jayalalithaa will take place today at 4.30 p.m. at MGR Hall, Marina Beach.

Many eminent personalities from the political fraternity will be attending her last rites including Union Minister Venkaiah Nadu, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and former prime minister H. D. Deve Gowda.

Jayalalithaa breathed her last yesterday night after suffering a cardiac arrest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Social media today can do much more than just connect and communicate. It can also help save lives.

Taqi Hassan, a resident of Lucknow, was able to undergo a complex life-saving surgery with the help of funds raised through social media appeals for help. He received eight lakhs through donations by Sikh and Muslim communities from USA and Australia which was used to remove a tumour via an anterior craniofacial resection surgery in October 2016 by a team headed by Dr Mandeep S Malhotra, Head, Department of Head, Neck and Breast Oncoplasty and Dr Rana Patir, Director and HOD, Neurosurgery at Fortis Flt. Lt. Rajan Dhall Hospital, Vasant Kunj.

Taqi Hassan had dreams like all of us and to fulfill these, he went abroad to work as an electrician. However, an accidental fall caused serious injuries to his head, bringing life to a brief halt. He resumed work after a few weeks but fell down the stairs once again after a bout of dizziness.

Taqi knew something was amiss and decided to return home to Lucknow to consult a doctor and get treatment. Initially he was treated for his dizzy spells, however, he developed a swelling, diagnosed as a tumour on the forehead above his right eye.

He underwent his first surgery in Lucknow to get it removed. Soon after, the tumour recurred twice at the same spot for which he underwent repeated surgeries. Post his fourth surgery, Taqi was mentally, physically, financially and emotionally drained. He had no money and had lost all hope while the tumor appeared again and was spreading rapidly to the orbit, eyeball and face, almost touching his brain cells.

It was then that a relative residing in Australia suggested appealing for funds on social media. His story resulted in support pouring from all quarters, even from across the border. Sikh and Muslim well-wishers from Australia and USA came forward to help fund his fifth surgery. A sum of eight lakhs was raised to assist in the surgery at the facility.

Taqi underwent anterior craniofacial resection surgery on October 13th at Fortis Flt Lt Rajan Dhall Hospital. A large mass of 11cm X 7cm with solid cysts involving right frontal sinus and right orbit with defects was removed from his right forehead. His right eye ball was dissected and a flap transplant was done where a section of skin was taken from his waist and stitched up as a flap around the hollow space on his right forehead extending up to his ears.

The complex surgery lasting 16 hours was conducted under the supervision of Dr Mandeep S Malhotra, HOD, Head, Neck and Breast Oncoplasty and Dr Rana Patir, Director and HOD, Neurosurgery at Fortis Flt. Lt. Rajan Dhall Hospital. While Dr Mandeep removed his tumour, Dr Rana helped in salvaging the affected part of his brain.

Dr Mandeep S Malhotra, Department head of Head, Neck and Breast Oncoplasty, Fortis Flt. Lt. Rajan Dhall Hospital said, "After analyzing his condition, it was found that his surgery could be life-threatening due to its complexity and the spread of the malignant tumour. The previous surgeries had resulted in complications, resulting in the loss of the right eye. Our team spent days planning the surgery and when we came out of the OT after 16 hrs, we knew that Taqi had helped us win the battle."

"A part of his brain was also affected, hence the surgery became complicated as we had to remove the skin layer of the brain. His forehead was infected and we planned to remove it. Bone grafting wasn't possible in his case so we decided to construct the skull part with skin only. I was overwhelmed to see his recovery," said Dr Rana Patir, Director and HOD, Neurosurgery, Fortis Flt. Lt. Rajan Dhall Hospital.

Mr Abrar Ali Dalal, Facility Director, Fortis Flt. Lt. Rajan Dhall Hospital shared, "I am glad that we have a team of excellent doctors who are renowned for handling delicate cases. This surgery was rarest among the rare and when I met the patient at the time of discharge, it was more than satisfactory to see him smiling."

Today Taqi is disease-free and will be leading a normal life soon post check-ups and follow ups. In his words, "I had lost all hope and money and coming to Delhi was not an option for me. But the support of funds from generous well-wishes combined with the skills of Dr Mandeep & Dr Patir have saved my life. I am cancer free now and feel like I am born again.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
South Korea on Tuesday accused Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) of hacking its military intranet and leaking confidential information.

The accusation was made in a news briefing by South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun, reports the CNN.

"We've identified that malicious codes had spread to some computers in the intranet system," he said.

"The Ministry of National Defense assembled a joint investigation team, and after the investigation, we've confirmed that some military data, including confidential information, was leaked. North Korea is assumed to be behind this," he added.

However, the South Korean military still has not determined what exactly has been leaked, but said it was possible the hack could lead the command to rewrite military operation plans.

If the accusations are true, it wouldn't be DPRK's first breach of South Korea's cybersecurity this year.

In March, top South Korean government officials' smartphones were hacked by DPRK, according to the country's spy agency, stealing text messages and voice communications by "sending enticing text messages.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a notice to Ansal brothers on the plea of The Association of Victims of Uphaar Fire Tragedy (AVUT), seeking an order to restrain them from flying abroad.

The next hearing in this case will take place on December 14.

Real estate barons Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal gave an undertaking to the apex court that they would not leave India till it commences hearing on the plea of the victims' association of the 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy seeking review of its 2015 verdict.

The apex court had in 2015 said that the real estate barons were required to serve two years jail term if they failed to pay Rs. 30 crore each as fine in the matter.

A bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar on Monday asked the counsel representing Ansals to give an undertaking that his clients will not leave the country till the apex court hears the review plea in the case.

Senior advocate KTS Tulsi, appearing for Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), said Ansals may flee the country and an order be passed to restrain them. The court then sought an undertaking which was given by the counsel on behalf of Ansals.

In 2015, an apex court bench headed by Justice A. R. Dave decided to hear in an open court the petitions filed by the CBI and AVUT seeking review of the 2015 verdict. Following the judgment, the Ansals had deposited the amount.

As many as 59 people were killed at Uphaar Cinema due to asphyxiation and stampede after a fire broke out when an overheated generator exploded in the building's basement during the screening of blockbuster 'Border' on June 13, 1997.

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On 08 December 2016 s

Bloom Industries announced that Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company will be held on 08 December 2016, inter alia, to transact the following Business:

1. To Consider and decide sale of Company's Land, Building and Other Assets.

2. Shifting the Registered Office of the Company from its present location to 5, Devpark, Opp. Chandan Cinema, J,V.P.D.Scheme, Juhu, Vile-Parle (W), Mumbai - 400049, under Section 12 of the Companies Act, 2013.

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Dabur India declined 1.48% to Rs 281.05 at 11:35 IST on BSE after the company foresees some near term pressure on the business on account of scarcity of cash with customers and trade due to demonetization.

The company gave an update on impact of demonetization by the government on the company after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 115.36 points, or 0.44%, to 26,470.30.

On the BSE, 20,113 shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volume of 95,340 shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 284.95 and a low of Rs 280.25 so far during the day.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 176.15 crore. Face value per share is Re 1.

Dabur India said that the impact varies across channels and geographies and stress is highest for wholesalers and small town grocery shops, who are facing a severe liquidity crisis and are destocking. The impact is likely to be positive on modern trade outlets and plastic money enabled retailers who are likely to benefit from this change.

On account of continuity of current uncertain situation it is difficult to quantify the impact on Q3 December 2016 at this point of time, however it is temporary in nature and situation will improve with increase in availability of new currency.

In the meanwhile, the company is focusing more on modern retail, e-commerce and institutional sales and also is encouraging general trade retailers to adopt cashless payment systems. This will help in mitigating the overall impact of demonetization and pave the way for normalization in the next few months, Dabur added.

It may be recalled that government from 9 November 2016 had banned legal tender of higher denomination notes; namely Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, dubbed as demonetization in its crackdown on black money.

Dabur India is one of the largest FMCG companies in India. The company operates in key consumer products categories like hair care, oral care, health care, skin care, home care & foods.

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In the recent years, advancements in banking technology, progress in mobile banking and innovative technologies to facilitate digital payments have enabled large number of small denomination transactions to be handled smoothly in electronic mode. The Government of India has taken policy decisions encouraging cashless/electronic transactions.

In its endeavour on moving towards the electronic payments, the Central Government Ministries/Departments have been crediting the salary and other payments for the majority of its employees electronically, direct into the designated bank accounts of the employees. Given the progress made in banking technology, it is assumed that each employee would be in possession of a Debit/ATM card linked to his/her bank account.

Ensuring and encouraging Government Employees to maximise the usage of Debit cards for personal related transactions instead of cash would go a long way serving with the employees serving as 'ambassadors' for the digital push and also motivate, encourage the general public in taking-up the cause.

All Ministries/Departments are requested to encourage their employees to make use of Debit Cards for personal related transactions instead of cash. Ministries/Departments should liaise with their accredited banks and set-up special camps to facilitate obtaining of and ensure that all its employees are in possession of Debit Cards. Ministries/Departments may also issue similar advisories to their attached/subordinate offices, PSUs, Autonomous Bodies etc.

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With effect from 15 March 2016

Nestle India announced that Aristides Protonotarios, Whole-time Director of the Company designated as Director - Technical shall be taking up a new assignment in another Nestle Affiliate with effect from 15 March 2017 and shall therefore cease to be Whole-time Director from 15 March 2017.

Martin Roemkens, currently Technical Director, Nestle North East Africa Region, Cairo, Egypt, is proposed to be appointed in place of Aristides Protonotarios, subject to necessary approvals.

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Oracle Financial Services Software declined 0.8% to Rs 3.004.50 at 10:30 IST on BSE after the company is estimating a charge of Rs 60 crore on its receivables from customers in Egypt during the current quarter.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 82.16 points, or 0.31%, to 26,431.26.

On BSE, so far 220 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 2,109 shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 3,020 and a low of Rs 2,994.40 so far during the day.

The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 42.51 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

Oracle Financial Services Software announced that due to significant devaluation of Egyptian Pound post the recent liberalization of the exchange rates by the Egypt Government, the company is estimating a charge of Rs 60 crore on its receivables from customers in Egypt during the current quarter.

Oracle Financial Services Software is a world leader in providing products and services to the financial services industry and is a majority owned subsidiary of Oracle Corporation.

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Tata Power Company announced that its strategic engineering division, Tata Power SED won a prestigious order from Ministry of Defence for supply of Command post and launcher of Pinaka multi rocket launcher system of one regiment to Indian Army. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Lupin announced that Lupin Somerset also known as Novel Laboratories, Inc received final approval for its Hydrocodone Bitartrate and Acetaminophen Tablets, USP, 5mg/325mg, 7.5 mg/325 mg and 10 mg/325 mg from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market a generic equivalent of Allergan Sales LLC's Norco Tablets 5 mg/325 mg, 7.5 mg/325 mg and 10 mg/325 mg. The company shall launch the product shortly. It is indicated for the relief of moderate to moderately severe pain. It has US sales of $849.50 million as per IMS MAT September 2016. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Canara Bank announced that the sub-committee of the board of the bank, vide orders dated 2 December 2016, permitted the bank to float an RFP for empanelling the investment/merchant bankers for diluting the bank's stake of 70% in Canbank Factors Ltd, an unlisted company and of 13.45% in Can Fin Homes Ltd, a listed company. Accordingly, the bank is taking steps to float an RFP for empanelling the investment/merchant bankers for the subject purpose. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Oracle Financial Services Software announced that due to significant devaluation of Egyptian Pound post the recent liberalization of the exchange rates by the Egypt Government, the company is estimating a charge of Rs 60 crore on its receivables from customers in Egypt during the current quarter. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Ballarpur Industries reported consolidated net loss of Rs 452.03 crore in Q2 September 2016 compared with net loss of Rs 18.06 crore in Q2 September 2015. Net total income from operations fell 56.56% to Rs 461.76 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. The result was announced before market hours today, 6 December 2016.

Bank of India intimated of marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) applicable from 7 December 2016. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016. Overnight MCLR was fixed at 9%, one month MCLR was fixed at 9.05%, three month MCLR was fixed at 9.1%, six months MCLR was fixed at 9.15% and one year MCLR was fixed at 9.25%.

JM Financial announced that JM Financial Products Limited, a subsidiary of the company, on 2 December 2016, acquired further 15.05 lakh equity shares of India Home Loan Limited (IHL) through preferential allotment route. After the acquisition, JM Financial Products Limited holds an aggregate of 34.99 lakh equity shares of IHL representing 24.5% of the total post issue paid up equity share capital of IHL. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

OM Metals Infraprojects announced that the company has been awarded a works contract for hydro mechanical works package for modernization and renovation of 180 megawatts Baira Siul hydro electric power station in Himachal Pradesh by NHPC. The contract value is Rs 19.91 crore and this contract has to be executed in 28 months time period. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Goa Carbon announced that the operations at the company's Bilaspur Plant located at 34-40, Sector B, Sirgitti Industrial Area, Bilaspur (Chattisgarh) has been temporarily shut down from Saturday, 3 December 2016. There would not be any financial impact due to the temporary shutdown of the Company's Bilaspur Unit as there is sufficient inventory to service the orders in hand. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

Future Enterprises announced that the Committee of Directors of the company has at a meeting held on 5 December 2016, considered, approved & allotted of 60, 9.75% secured, redeemable non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of Rs 10 lakh each (NCD Series XV - E) and 290, 9.80% secured redeemable non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of Rs 10 lakh each, (NCD Series XV - F) aggregating to Rs 35 crore, on private placement basis. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 5 December 2016.

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Many "progressives" looked the other way while the Obama administration asserted unprecedented presidential powers, like the right to murder anyone the president feels like, anywhere in the world, using drones and other technologies; and the right to spy on everyone, all the time. Now that Donald Trump is about to inherit those powers, the Obama administration has released a 61-page report insisting that the president's powers should be drastically curtailed and made accountable and transparent.



I could not agree more. This is an excellent paper. But I wish this paper was released 8 years ago, when it could have had a chance of making a difference. Now, it's too late: a man who wants to "bomb the shit" out of anyone he doesn't like, and wants to do "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding" to the people who survive the bombs.

The Obama administration fashioned many enduring weapons that future administrations will wield, from surveillance powers to the right to wage secret, global war. If there was ever a moment for Democrats and progressives to ponder the dangers of fronting leaders who embrace war and big finance, this is it (if only because Trump's use of the Obama surveillance system will give him the power to spy on and disrupt any future discussions after January 19).

Obama dramatically escalated the use of drones to kill alleged terrorists far away from recognized warzones. In an October interview with New York Magazine, Obama noted that his executive reforms to the drone program were motivated by concern he would hand off a killing program with no oversight or controls. "You end up with a president who can carry on perpetual wars all over the world, and a lot of them covert, without any accountability or democratic debate," said Obama. But more quietly, Obama has continued to expand the power of the president to wage covert war. The Washington Post reported last month that Obama was elevating Joint Special Operations Command  the government's high-level team for global killing missions  into a " new multiagency intelligence and action force," with expanded power to launch attacks on terrorist groups around the world. As for its discussion of the drone program, Monday's report repackages many of the Obama administration's favorite propaganda lines for the next president: The report refers to assassinations with the hazy phrase "targeted lethal force"; It adamantly maintains that the U.S. has a preference for capturing terrorists over killing them, while it has routinely demonstrated the opposite; and the report celebrates the clandestine killing program for its "transparency," despite the fact that the president did not publicly discuss the program until 2013. In addition, most of the documents made public from the program were released due to leaks, Congressional pressure, and lawsuits.



REPORT ON THE LEGAL AND POLICY

FRAMEWORKS GUIDING THE

UNITED STATES' USE OF MILITARY

FORCE AND RELATED NATIONAL

SECURITY OPERATIONS [The White House]





After 8 Years of Expanding Them, Obama Insists That Presidential War Powers Are Limited [Alex Emmons/The Intercept]
Rabat, Dec 6 (IANS/MAP) Two Islamic State (IS) extremists active in Morocco's Casablanca city have been arrested, media reported on Tuesday.

According to preliminary investigations, the two suspects imbued with IS's ideas and fully acquainted with the terrorist organisation's agenda, sought to acquire the process of manufacturing an explosive device to carry out a terrorist operation against one of the sensitive targets in Morocco, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The suspects, arrested on Sunday, will be brought to trial once the investigation is completed.

--IANS/MAP

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The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Tuesday asked the Delhi Police to file an FIR against a police officer for alleged harassment of 24 policewomen.

In a notice issued to Delhi Police Commissioner Alok Verma, DCW chief Swati Maliwal said that disciplinary action should be taken against the officer, if found guilty.

She also asked Verma to reconstitute Internal Complaints Committee at the Police Headquarter level in accordance with the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013.

"...the Commission has learnt that the Internal Complaints Committees have not been constituted in accordance to the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013, as they do not consist of a minimum of four members and an external member," the notice said.

According to the notice, 24 policewomen raised "serious allegations" against Inspector S.B. Yadav.

"However, the response of the establishment on the complaint is not satisfactory for no FIR has been registered against the accused till date," the notice said.

It added that one of the complainants has informed the Commission that the accused has not been shifted out of the unit despite the same having been ordered by the Delhi Police.

"Also, the complainant has stated that she along with other female staff who had complained against the accused have instead been transferred out of the unit," it said.

Maliwal, in the notice, asked the Police Commissioner to revoke the transfer orders of the complainants.

--IANS

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The Delhi government on Tuesday said it will provide free MRI scan in private labs to bonafide residents of the capital whose annual income is less than Rs 3 lakh.

"This will cover over 95 percent of the population of Delhi... The scheme has already started from December 1," Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told the media.

Asked about the financial implications, Jain said money saved from timely construction of flyovers would be used to fund the scheme.

It often takes years to get a MRI scan done in government hospitals in Delhi. There have been complaints that patients had been told to wait till 2019 for an MRI or CT scan.

"As per Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's instructions, we have decided to use the money saved from early construction of flyovers to provide free medicines and medical tests for patients," Jain said.

According to the Delhi government, over Rs 350 crore have been saved by building flyovers in Delhi at much below the sanctioned budget.

Jain said the decision to rope in private labs was taken in view of the long dates given for MRI and CT scan in government hospitals, particularly the G.B. Pant Hospital.

"We are also working on public private partnership model to have more MRI machines at government hospitals. But that may take a few years," the minister said.

"So as an immediate measure, we have decided to rope in accredited private labs," he said.

Jain said the government had identified seven private MRI scan centres accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH).

"We have authorised 10 Delhi government hospitals which can refer patients to these labs and they will then provide cashless MRI and CT scans to patients."

The Delhi government will directly pay the labs.

The government hospitals authorised to refer patients for free MRI tests include G.B. Pant Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital, G.T.B. Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Dr Baba Saheb Aambedkar Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital, Janakpuri Super Specialty Hospital, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Delhi State Cancer Institute and Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya.

"This facility shall substantially decrease the load of MRI/CT scan in Delhi government hospitals and, consequently, shorten the waiting list for patients undergoing treatment there," a government statement said.

An MRI scan from NABH accredited centre costs anything between Rs 2,500 and Rs 5,600.

--IANS

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A court here on Tuesday sent, to judicial custody, former Delhi legislator Rambeer Shokeen who was arrested under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for allegedly running an organised crime syndicate.

Additional Sessions Judge Rakesh Pandit remanded Shokeen to judicial custody till December 15 after Delhi Police informed it that accused is not required for further custodial interrogration.A

Shokeen, who was declared proclaimed offender, was arrested on Sunday evening from outer Delhi.

The other accused in the case are jailed gangster Neeraj Bawana, Pankaj Sehrawat, Sunil Rathi, Rahul Dabas, Naveen Dabas alias Bali, Naveen Hooda alias Bhanja, Amit Malik alias Bhura and Gurpreet Singh and Deepak Dabas alias Deepa -- who were chargesheeted under stringent charges of MCOCA in October 2015.

Bawana was arrested on April 7 last year from west Delhi's Mundka area and is in judicial custody with eight other accused.

Police said in its chargesheet that all the accused were running an crime syndicate which has been committing extortion and murders apart from land grabbing and settling property disputes all aimed at pecuniary benefits.

Police has described Bawana as "a symbol of lawlessness" and "kingpin" of the racket while Shokeen as the "political face" of the syndicate.

Shokeen was found using the clout of these criminals to contest MLA election to "further his political ambitions and gaining pecuniary benefits", police alleged.

--IANS

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INS Betwa will be made upright and seaworthy again in the shortest possible time, the Indian Navy said here on Tuesday after navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba visited the naval dockyard here where the accident took place.

The 3,850-tonne guided missile frigate slipped and keeled over while undocking on Monday at the naval dockyard in Mumbai, where it was undergoing a refit. The accident left two naval personnel, Rai and Ashutosh Pandey, dead and 14 others injured.

Admiral Lanba, who rushed here late Monday night after the accident, visited the naval dockyard on Tuesday and also met the injured personnel.

An official statement said the navy chief during his visit was briefed on the incident and the options available to salvage the Brahmaputra-class vessel.

He directed that the ship "in due course of time be made upright and her refit completed to rejoin the fleet".

Admiral Lanba also met the family of one of the deceased, N.K. Rai, and visited INHS Asvini in Colaba to meet the injured personnel, the navy said in a statement.

The navy is making arrangements to fly out the mortal remains of the two deceased -- Rai to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, and Pandey to Satna in Madhya Pradesh -- by a Service aircraft on Wednesday.

Simultaneously, the Navy has set up a Board of Inquiry, headed by Rear Admiral Deepak Bali, Flag Officer, Offshore Defence Advisory Group, which has since started a technical evaluation to make the Betwa upright.

A specialist team is expected to arrive in Mumbai on Wednesday and complete its initial assessment within a couple of days on the extent of damage the battle ship has suffered and chalk out plans to make the 126-metre frigate upright.

A navy statement on Tuesday said the ship "slipped from her dock blocks and listed (tilted) to her port side".

One of the key warships of the Western Naval Command commissioned in 2004, INS Betwa is armed with anti-ship missiles, Barak 1 surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes, and has taken part in several domestic and international operations.

Incidentally, in an earlier mishap, INS Betwa had reported a cracked sonar dome in January 2014, or the bottom of the vessel, which was the subject of a probe.

This is the third major serving Indian warship involved in a major accident while docked for repairs in the past five years.

In August 2013, 18 sailors were killed when INS Sindhurakshak submarine caught fire in the Mumbai harbour.

In February 2014, a major fire broke out aboard nuclear submarine INS Sindhuratna and left two officers dead.

--IANS

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, who died in Chennai on Monday night, had a long and special bond with Hyderabad.

The connection, which began with her acting in Telugu films, grew stronger when she purchased few properties here.

At Kompally, on the city's outskirts, she owned an 18-acre farm, on which grapes, coconuts and bananas are grown.

The property, situated on the highway, was bought in the late 1960s. She also got a bungalow built in the farm.

A young actress then, she used to frequently visit Hyderabad to work in Telugu films.

It was during this period that she purchased a house in Srinagar Colony, a prime residential area in the city, the farm land at Jeedimetla and couple of other properties on the outskirts.

During her visits to Hyderabad, she used to stay at her Srinagar Colony house. Her visits became rare after she became active in and the building was later given to a company on lease.

Outside Chennai, Hyderabad was the only city where Jayalalitha had purchased properties and used to stay during her visits.

Jayalalitha's advisor and confidant Sashikala also used to visit the city to look after the farm house and other properties.

Jayalalitha's last visit to the city was in 2007 when she along with TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu and leaders of other regional parties announced the formation of a front to provide an alternative to Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA.

--IANS

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Bollywood on Tuesday expressed sorrow over the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, a veteran actor who went on to become a successful politician.

Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, A.R. Rahman, Ram Gopal Varma and Shankar Mahadevan paid their tributes to the AIADMK leader, who died on Monday night, on social media.

Here's what the celebrities said:

Amitabh Bachchan: Deeply grieved... a strong woman.

Shah Rukh Khan: Sad to hear of the passing away. May her soul rest in peace.

A.R. Rahman: Respect and condolences to the people who love Puratchi Thalaivi Jayalalithaa... We will miss her forever.

Randeep Hooda: An actor who did so many real things that affected so many people. A real woman in the time of feminism...

Hema Malini: Tamil Nadu admired and adored her as did people all over India. She was a much respected leader who held her own in a world of men.

Prabhudheva: You are our inspiration, greatest Chief Minister in many ways. You will always be remembered.

Shankar Mahadevan: A great leader of the masses has left us! She will be remembered forever. Heartfelt condolences.

Ranganathan Madhavan: Deeply saddened, shocked and moved. Such a dynamic lady and powerful leader. Vacuum in TN.

Shruti Haasan: TN loses one of its greatest leaders and bravest women.

Ram Gopal Varma: The only time ever I went to an award function. Recieving from the one and only Amma, the best director award for 'Kshana Kshanam'.

Darshan Kumaar: May her soul rest in peace.

Raveena Tandon: What a remarkable woman. A true fighter.

Kunal Kohli: Jayalalithaa, in a man's world, she was a woman of substance. Tougher than a man. No family, yet Amma to millions.

Kailash Kher: Jayalalithaa still lives in millions of hearts. A politician with the soul of an artiste.

--IANS

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will on Wednesday denounce demonetisation at a rally in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the rally will be held at Benia Bagh to explain the real reasons behind the November 8 decision to scrap the 1,000 and 500 rupee notes.

Kejriwal took on Modi in Varanasi during the Lok Sabha election but lost the battle.

With Uttar Pradesh going to the polls early next year, Kejriwal addressed a rally against the note ban in Meerut on December 1 where he asked people to vote against the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He is expected to address a similar rally in Lucknow on December 18.

--IANS

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Tamil superstar Rajinikanth and popular actors Vijay and Dhanush paid their last respects to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa who died here on Monday night.

Vijay was among the first stars from Tamil filmdom to pay homage to the veteran star of Tamil cinema at Rajaji Hall, where her body has been kept for people to pay their homage.

Rajinikanth paid his respects with his wife and daughters.

Other actors who mourned the death of Jayalalithaa include Dhanush, Sivakarthikeyan, Sathyaraj, Karthi and Vijay Sethupathi. The final rites will be performed on Tuesday evening.

--IANS

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More than 800 American energy and Earth science researchers have signed a letter to Donald Trump outlining six steps they're urging him to take to address human-caused climate change to protect "America's economy, national security, and public health and safety." The letter is accompanied by a public change.org petition to "Tell Trump To #ActOnClimate." Here is that open letter:





To President-elect Trump



We, the undersigned, urge you to take immediate and sustained action against human-caused climate change. We write as concerned individuals, united in recognizing that the science is unequivocal and America must respond.



Climate change threatens America's economy, national security, and public health and safety. Some communities are already experiencing its impacts, with low-income and minority groups disproportionately affected.



At this crucial juncture in human history, countries look to the United States to pick up the mantle of leadership: to take steps to strengthen, not weaken, this nation's efforts to tackle this crisis. With the eyes of the world upon us, and amidst uncertainty and concern about how your administration will address this issue, we ask that you begin by taking the following steps upon taking office:





1. Make America a clean energy leader.The vast majority of Americans  whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent  support renewable energy research and deployment5. Embrace the enormous economic opportunities of transitioning to an energy-efficient, low-carbon society. Use part of your $1 trillion commitment to infrastructure development to expand democratized clean energy, boost U.S. competitiveness, and put America to work8. Since 2008, the cleantech industry has created one out of every 33 jobs in the United States. "Wind technician" is the fastest growing job category in America, and the solar industry has hired more veterans than any other sector.



2. Reduce carbon pollution and America's dependence on fossil fuels. The majority of Americans are in favor of this5. Assure them that the policies helping to cut greenhouse gas emissions, curb air and water pollution, and accelerate clean energy growth, innovation, and jobs  such as the Clean Power Plan, renewable energy tax credits, and auto-efficiency standards  will stay in place. Continued funding and flexibility of federal agencies to address climate change, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, are key to achieving these goals.



3. Enhance America's climate preparedness and resilience. In the past 5 years alone, storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires caused over $250 billion in damages10. As climate change continues to increase the frequency and severity of these extreme events, so too grows the burden on all taxpayers to pay for disaster relief and recovery. Help protect and strengthen America's communities, economy, and natural resources by investing in modern, climate-resilient energy, transport, building, and water infrastructure.



4. Publicly acknowledge that climate change is a real, human-caused, and urgent threat. If not, you will become the only government leader in the world to deny climate science11. Your position will be at odds with virtually all climate scientists, most economists, military experts, fossil fuel companies and other business leaders, and the two-thirds of Americans worried about this issue.



5. Protect scientific integrity in policymaking. During your campaign, you said that your "administration will ensure that there will be [scientific] transparency and accountability without political bias16." Uphold these standards by appointing scientific advisors, Cabinet members, and federal agency leaders who respect and rely on science-based decision-making. This would exclude many of your Cabinet and transition team appointees to date, who deny the scientific realities of human-caused climate change.



6. Uphold America's commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. Reneging from this treaty  the product of 25 years of negotiations between almost every country on Earth  would undermine our best chance to avoid dangerous climate change. It would also poorly represent the American people, the majority of whom support US participation in the Paris Agreement19. The United States will lose its seat of influence at the international negotiating table, and will cede to China, the EU, and other countries its authority as a political, technological, and moral leader.



You have the support of the majority of companies, military leaders, scientists, engineers, and citizens to respond to the threats posed by climate change by reducing carbon pollution and expanding clean energy. Many of America's largest cities and states are already committed to doing so. We urge you to decide if you want your Presidency to be defined by denial and disaster, or acceptance and action.
A Saudi court on Tuesday sentenced 15 persons to death on charges of spying for Iran, media reported.

The convicts are part of a network of 32 persons. Two were acquitted and 15 others were handed down jail terms ranging from six months to 25 years, Xinhua news agency reported.

Most of the convicts, who are 30 Saudis, an Iranian and an Afghani, worked in the military and diplomatic sectors. They were detained in 2013 and went on trial in February.

The court charged them with forming a group to spy for the Iranian intelligence to provide sensitive military information about the kingdom and some of the network members met Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in coordination with the Iranian intelligence.

Some of the convicts were occupying high posts in economic, financial and academic sectors.

Saudi Arabia has been accusing Iran of standing behind regional disturbances by interfering in the internal affairs of countries, such as Bahrain and Yemen, allegations that were dismissed by Iran.

Saudi Arabia cut its ties with Iran earlier this year and asked its envoy to leave the country.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao expressed his shock over the demise of his Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa.

He said that her followers and admirers regarded her as the Purachi Thalavi and as revolutionary leader in Tamil Nadu .

"In her passing, the state of Tamil Nadu had a great void which is difficult to fill in. It was a great loss to Tamil society," Rao said.

He hailed Jayalalitha as the political heir of the great M.G. Ramachandran.

"It was both challenging and inspirational. At a time when women entering was rare, Jayalalitha created a political history in the contemporary Tamil Nadu politics, by becoming AIADMK's General Secretary and later on as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," he said.

The TRS chief described Jayalalitha as the unique person in Tamil Nadu to have won the state legislative assembly elections consecutively for two terms and formed the government.

She also excelled as a film artiste and proved herself in the arena of politics too, which is a record, he added.

The CM expressed his heartfelt sympathies and conveyed his condolences to the members of the bereaved family and people of Tamil Nadu.

--IANS

ms/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Telangana would introduce Left-ruled Tripura's model of success in literacy, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari said here on Tuesday after a three-day tour of the northeastern state.

Accompanied by top education department officials, Srihari since Sunday visited various villages and literacy centres in Tripura to study the success of literacy in the northeastern state, which attained the literacy rate of 96.82 per cent targeting to reach 100 per cent at the earliest.

"I am personally overwhelmed by the success of Tripura in literacy. At the interior areas and villages, people especially the women and tribals are very glad after becoming literate," the visiting minister, who also holds the education portfolio of Telangana government, told reporters before leaving for Hyderabad.

He said: "The literacy rate of Telangana is 66 per cent which is less than the national literacy rate (the national literacy rate, according to the 2011 census, is 74.04 per cent). After returning to my state, we would discuss and study Tripura's success and implementing method and again sought the help of the state (Tripura) if required."

Srihari, who held a series of meetings here with Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty, Finance and Information Minister Bhanulal Saha and top education department officials of Tripura, said that his government might bring resource persons from Tripura to execute the literacy road-map.

"In attaining success in literacy, the three-tier gram panchayats and volunteers have played a significant role in Tripura. This is very instructive," he added.

"Tripura attained 87.75 per cent literacy in the 2011 census. After three phases of massive state-wide literacy campaign since 2011, the literacy rate now stands at 96.82 per cent and it would touch 100 per cent soon," Tripura education minister Tapan Chakraborty told reporters after meeting the Telangana deputy Chief Minister at the state guest house.

He said that Tripura has gone up from 12th position as per the 2001 census to the fourth position in the 2011 census in literacy among different states of the country.

Chakraborty said that the final evaluation of the neo-literate people was conducted across the state under the supervision of the (Kolkata-based) Indian Statistical Institution (ISI) and (Noida-based) National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

--IANS

sc/sm/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Kerala government on Tuesday declared a three-day mourning as a mark of respect to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night.

The Kerala cabinet on Tuesday morning, without taking up the listed agenda, wound up the meeting after condoling the death of the 68-year-old AIADMK leader.

The state government also declared a holiday on Tuesday to mourn the death.

A high level delegation led by Governor P. Sathasivam and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan left for Chennai to pay their last respects to the deceased leader.

Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala are also expected to visit Chennai.

Paying glowing tributes to his former Tamil Nadu counterpart, Vijayan said Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary politician who, "in a very short time, proved her administrative skills".

She always ensured that there was a perfect harmony between the people of our two (neighbouring) states."

Chandy said she was a "leader of the masses and her concern for the poor was what made her dear to them".

Kerala Police has sealed the borders in four districts that lie close to Tamil Nadu. Vehicles were only allowed to proceed after a strict checking. The state owned road transport corporation buses terminated their journey at the border.

People a Tamil-dominated colony in Kochi grieved the death of their leader.

"We wish to go to see her one last time, but were told that there are no interstate buses. Hence we decided to sit in prayers here," said a person in a group of Tamil migrants praying in front of Jayalalithaa's picture.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The American Tamil Sangam (ATS) and the US Friends of AIADMK (USFAIADMK) have paid tributes to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

"Struggle was her middle name and victory was her last name," ATS President Prakash Swamy said in a statement. Recalling the various adversitites she had faced, he said: "Her path was strewn with thorns and rocks but she overcame all with her unmatched grit and determination."

USFAIADMK President Koshy O. Thomas said Tamils all over the world have lost a leader who was a mother to them. "We have become orphans and no words can console us," he added.

ATS Chairman John Joseph eecalled Jayalalithaa's welfare programmes, especially for women and students, and said she was a charismatic leader.

Earlier ATS and USFAIADMK had held prayers for Jayalalithaa's recovery at the Saneeswarar Temple in the city that was attended by Hindus and Christians.

In 2011, Hillary Clinton, who was then the Secretary of State, met Jayalalithaa at her office in Fort St. George in Chennai. A press release issued at that time said that they had discussed the problems of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and social welfare programmes.

An ATS press release said that at initiative of the then-Deputy Speaker Upendra Chivkula, the New Jersey State Assembly had issued a proclamation honouring Jayalalithaa after her election in 2011.

--IANS

al/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vietnamese Defence Minister General Ngo Xuan Lich called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Tuesday.

Modi recalled his visit to Vietnam in September when the bilateral relationship was upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, said a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Vietnam is a key pillar of India's Act East policy," the statement quoted Modi as saying.

"General Ngo briefed the Prime Minister on the progress achieved in bilateral defence cooperation. The PM noted that India and Vietnam have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship in the field of defence, and reiterated India's resolve to strengthen defence ties further."

Modi said closer cooperation between India and Vietnam in all sectors would contribute to the stability, security and prosperity of the entire region.

During Modi's visit, India offered a $500-million defence credit line, a part of which will be used for the construction of offshore patrol boats by, among others, the Vietnam Border Guards.

Vietnam is among the countries which have a dispute with China over the South China Sea.

--IANS

ab/ahm/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday ridiculed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her claim of 'near-coup' following deployment of the army at two toll plazas in the state "without informing the state".

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress chief, spent Thursday night at the state secretariat to protest the deployment of army personnel at toll plazas in the state, claiming it was done without any prior information.

Both the central government and army rubbished the allegations, with the army later releasing documents to prove that both the state government and the police were duly informed about the exercise.

"The deployment of army is a regular exercise and has been taking place across the country. Such exercise was also carried out in other states, but there was no problem," said Shah.

"But in Bengal there was so much drama," said Shah while speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

Referring to Banerjee's claims of a 'near-coup', Shah asked as to why there would be a coup attempt in Kolkata.

"When the national capital is Delhi, why would there be coup attempt in Kolkata," he asked with a chuckle.

Besides Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of anti-demonisation protests, Shah also ridiculed BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

"People across the country, particularly the common people, have supported demonisation. Only those with black money have problems," he said.

"Perhaps Mamata has been left the most red-faced because of the demonetisation," said Shah.

Shah has been attacking Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress over the multi-crore rupee Saradha scam as well as a sting operation in which several of the Trinamool leaders were purportedly shown taking bribes.

Talking about Mayawati, who has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of imposing a financial Emergency through demonisation, Shah said: "It seems the financial Emergency is for her. It's not for the country."

Shah also asserted that demonisation would get popular support to the BJP and the party would come to power in Uttar Pradesh that goes to the polls early next year.

--IANS

and/nir/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Paying his tributes to late chief minister Jayalalithaa, Congress leader on Tuesday asserted that she was a woman in a man's world, who filled the shoes of her political mentor Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, adding that she exceeded him in many ways in terms of her 25 years of dominance in state .

"She was a remarkably iconic leader. Jayalalithaa was a woman in a man's world who dominated with the combination of the charisma of her movie star career as well as the authority that came from her leadership of the party," Tharoor told ANI here.

Emphasising that she was an extremely powerful leader, Tharoor stated that it was quite an unusual sight to see her cabinet ministers prostrating themselves at her feet, adding that there were simply no leaders in her party who could match her.

"She had a reputation of being a populist leader for the poor. All the amma programmes, her name and face were visible on laptops for children, bags of rice, amma canteen and she managed to extended welfare benefits to lots of people," Tharoor said.

Praising Jayalalithaa's extraordinary contribution as an administrator, the Congress leader recalled her role after the tsunami saying that Tamil Nadu coped very well under her government at the time.

"The coastal people were very appreciative of her role. There was a lot that was done by the Tamil Nadu Government under her leadership," he said.

"Today, she has passed into history. It is difficult to say now what will happen next. Will the party that has a majority in the assembly hold together? Will they be able to maintain their strength? To find ways to move forwards or will there be a risk of others to exploit the nature of the situation. At the moment there is a concern that she leaves behind a very big void in Tamil Nadu politics," Tharoor added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid floral tributes at Rajaji Hall in Chennai, placing a wreath on her mortal remains.

The Prime Minister, on reaching Chennai airport, boarded an IAF helicopter and landed at INS Adayar.

He also offered his condolences and blessings to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala who stood close to Jayalalithaa's body, members of her family and to Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam among other.

President Pranab Mukherjee has also departed again from Delhi to pay tribute to Jayalalithaa, after the IAF plane carrying him returned to Delhi following a technical swag.

Earlier, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu also visited Rajaji Hall.

Karnataka CM Siddaramiah, Odisha CM Naveen Pattnaik will be attending Jayalalithaa's funeral ceremony.

Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishnan will also be attending her last rites. Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda will also be a part of the funeral ceremony.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will also be leaving for Chennai to pay his last respects.

The Centre has declared one-day mourning in view of the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, whereas the state government has declared seven-day mourning.

Jayalalithaa's last rites will be performed today at 4.30 p.m. at MGR Memorial, Marina beach.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) Supremo J (68) passed away at a private hospital in Chennai on Monday following a cardiac arrest the previous evening. She had suffered a cardiac arrest barely hours after the party announced that she had recovered from all her ailments.
It's been six years since I quite Facebook and not a day goes by that I don't realize that my life is better for it.



Cathy "Weapons of Math Destruction" O'Neil quit Facebook without meaning to (Facebook prompted her to change her password and she just kept putting it off until she realized that she didn't want to go back) and describes a life of joy ever since.

If Donald Trump is going to round up 11 million undocumented workers and spy on 3 million Muslims in the USA, Facebook  whose board of directors includes Peter Thiel, and whose newsfeed algorithm was instrumental to his victory  will be his first port of call.

But even if you don't care about (or don't believe in) that risk, leaving Facebook makes your day better, your friendships stronger, and your teeth whiter (results may vary).



It's pretty simple. I was like you, spending more time than I was comfortable with on Facebook. The truth is, I didn't even go there on purpose. It was more like I'd find myself there, scrolling down in what can only be described as a fetid swamp of echo-chamber-y hyper partisan news, the same old disagreements about the same old topics. So many petitions. I wasn't happy but I didn't really know how to control myself.

I quit Facebook and my life is better now

[Cathy O'Neil/Mathbabe]
For the third time, O Panneerselvam, known as OPS, took oath as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu to replace All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo . But this time, things are different as the swearing in ceremony was hardly a couple of hours after Jayalalithaa passed away on December 5.
The 'SHE teams' of Telangana police, formed to check eve-teasing and other crimes against women, today caught 11 people, including three minors, while teasing women in the city.

Two minors who were making rounds on a bike and creating nuisance near a private college were caught at Saidabad in the city, a police release said.

In Krishna Kant Park at Yusufguda area, seven students who had bunked classes were caught while teasing women.

SHE teams caught them with video evidence and counselled them in parents' present.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 155 Dalits converted to Buddhism at a function here today on the 60th death anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar, observed as 'Mahaparinirvan Divas' even as Banaskantha District Collector said the administration had not given permission for the conversion programme.

Dalits, mostly from Banaskantha and a few from Kutch district, converted to Buddhism at Ramapir temple here at the program organised by Banaskantha District Dalit Sangathan.

"The decision to embrace Buddhism was taken after Una Dalit atrocity case. Members of our community wanted to protest against growing inequality and atrocities against Dalits in Gujarat," said the organiser Dalpatbhai Bhatiya.

The incident at Una in Gujarat, where cow vigilantes beat up some Dalit youths alleging that they had killed a cow, had rocked the state earlier this year.

"After the Una incident we had intimated district administration about the decision of 191 Dalits to convert to Buddhism this day. Of them, 155 converted today at a function presided over by a Buddhist monk from Porbandar," Bhatiya said.

Such event will be organised every year on Mahaparinirvan Divas, he claimed.

"If (despite) being Hindus we are not allowed to enter the temple, play garba during Navratri or draw water from the common well because we are Dalits, then there is no point being a Hindu. This is why we decided to convert to Buddhism," said Amrut Valmiki, who converted along with his three children.

Banaskantha collector Jenu Devan said the administration had refused permission for conversion programme.

"We had earlier rejected the application seeking permission for conversion. We had not given them permission for today's event and we will conduct an inquiry," Devan said.

In October, on Vijaya Dashami, more than 300 Dalits converted to Buddhism at various places in Gujarat and also at Nagpur. Una incident was cited as the main reason for high number of participants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Around 2,000 tribal youths from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha will be taken to ten important cities as part of 9th Adivasi cultural programme.

The selection of youths including girls was made at the 158th Battalion camp of the CRPF here.

Flagging off the first batch from Jharkhand, Commandant of the battalion Manoj Kumar Gupta told reporters that the batch would visit Baroda as part of a tribal cultural exchange programme to interact with people there, understand their culture, development process and also visit tourist spots.

Altogether 70 tribal girls and boys selected from the state have been divided into four groups, he said adding, while the first batch left for Baroda today, the second batch would leave for Pune on January 4, third batch to Chennai on January 24 and fourth batch to Bangalore on February 4.

The objective behind the programme was to make the tribal youth understand about the places they visit and interact with people and know their culture, he said.

This would encourage the youths to play a role in the development process in their villages affected by Maoist activities, Gupta said.

Gupta expressed confidence that the youths would play a role in the development process in and around their villages on return.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rebel shelling killed two Russian nurses and eight civilians in Aleppo, and a Russian fighter jet crashed as it was returning to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean after a sortie over Syria, but the pilot ejected safely, Moscow officials said.

The shelling yesterday that targeted government-controlled western Aleppo was one of the most intense in recent days. It coincided with a crushing air and ground assault that has seen forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad recapture more than half of opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

Russia and militias allied with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah have been staunch supporters of Assad in his country's bitter civil war, now in its sixth year.

The shelling initially killed one female nurse and wounded two Russian medics working in a field hospital, a Russian officer told reporters in the northern city. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Moscow had sent hospital equipment to the government-controlled Furqan neighbourhood on Sunday.

Another nurse who was wounded in the shelling later died, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"The Russian and Syrian doctors tried their best to save her," Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov said in an emailed statement. Another Russian, a pediatrician, remains in critical condition.

He urged international organisations such as the Red Cross to condemn the attack on the health workers "who were doing their medical duty to help the civilians of Aleppo."



At the UN Security Council, Russia and China blocked a draft resolution demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food aid and medicine into the city.

Russia has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said talks would be held with the United States this week in Geneva on a rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, Russian agencies reported.

The Russians have tried before to coax rebels into leaving the territory, setting up corridors out of the district, but the fighters have refused because they want to retain their control over parts of the city. Some fear the Russians and their Syrian allies would not ensure their safety.

Yesterday's fighting was the worst in days. Syrian government artillery, tanks and warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of the city for hours. The airstrikes were so intense that buildings on the western side of the city shook.

Opposition activists and rescue workers said four people were killed in a barrel bomb attack on a rebel-held district, and three more were trapped in the rubble.

Insurgents also struck back in the government-held western parts of the city with dozens of mortar shells. At least eight civilians were killed in different neighbourhoods, according to state agency SANA.

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Pakistan has deployed more than 200,000 troops backed by air force in its northern areas and along border with Afghanistan to flush out militants from the region and demolish their hideouts, a top official said today.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi, who is visiting the US to seek better ties with America under President-elect Donald Trump, made the remarks during an interaction with media.

"Pakistan has deputed more than 200,000 troops in its northern areas and along Pak-Afghan border and these troops are being used with full force along-with the F-16s by Pakistan Air Force in bursting terrorists' networks and demolishing their hideouts," he said.

Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement that highlighting Pakistan's unflinching commitment to putting an end to terrorism and militancy, Fatemi narrated that Pakistan lost more than 5,000 soldiers in a ruthless war against terrorism.

"It's an uphill task and Pakistan has paid a very heavy price. Pakistan today has far less and far few incidents of militancy and terrorism. At present, terrorists are on the run and are targeting soft targets out of frustration," he told reporters at Pakistan Embassy in Washington.

He said Pakistan was implementing the National Action Plan to eliminate militancy and entire country was united in getting rid of terrorism in all its manifestations.

"We are acting upon the National Action Plan to curb the menace of terrorism. Pakistan has already made remarkable all round progress on economic front particularly in overcoming the energy crises," he said.

He underscored that Pakistan is looking forward to work closely with the new US administration and wants the bilateral relations to be further strengthened in future, the FO said.

"Once President-elect Donald Trump assumes his office, Pakistan is looking forward to meaningful engagement with USA in further improving bilateral relations and playing its role in the context of regional and international issues," he said.

Pakistan can play an instrumental role in promoting peace not only in Afghanistan but in the entire region, Fatemi said.

"Pakistan has confluence of interests with USA and there is a solid track record of US and Pakistan working together over seven decades to promote peace and tranquillity at regional as well as international levels.

"Historically speaking, Pakistan stood with USA during Cold War and is now a frontline state in a global war against terrorism for the last many years," he said.

Fatemi also underlined a need for a dialogue between Pakistan and India to resolve the issue of Kashmir.

"Pakistan will be forthcoming in cooperating with new administration in US in achieving peace in Afghanistan and making Pakistan-India relations better for the sake of peace in the region," he said.

Fatemi's trip to the US came at the heels of telephonic talks between Trump and Sharif last week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Around 21,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks to escape violence in neighbouring Myanmar, an official of the International Organisation for Migration said today.

Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border to try to stem the tide of refugees fleeing a bloody crackdown by Myanmar's army in the western state of Rakhine since early October.

But Sanjukta Sahany, head of the IOM office in Bangladesh's southeastern district of Cox's Bazar bordering Rakhine, said around 21,000 members of the stateless ethnic minority had crossed over in the past two months.

The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements, official refugee camps and villages, said Sahany.

"An estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Cox's Bazar district between October 9 and December 2," she told AFP by phone.

"It is based on the figures collected by UN agencies and international NGOs" (non-governmental organisations).

Those interviewed by AFP inside Bangladesh told horrifying stories of gang-rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's security forces.

Analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse but has banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from accessing the area.

Myanmar's Nobel peace laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced a growing international backlash for what a UN official has said amounts to a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, a Muslim group loathed by many of Myanmar's Buddhist majority.

Last week she vowed to work for "peace and national reconciliation", saying her country faced many challenges, but did not mention the violence in Rakhine state.

Bangladesh has reinforced its border posts and deployed coastguard ships to try to prevent a fresh influx of refugees.

In the past two months Bangladeshi border guards have prevented hundreds of boats packed with Rohingya women and children from entering the country.

The Bangladesh government has been under pressure from Muslim groups and the opposition to open its border to the fleeing Rohingya.

Today police stopped thousands of hardline Muslims from marching to the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka to protest at the ongoing "genocide" of Rohingya.

Shiblee Noman, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka police, told AFP about 10,000 Muslims joined the march, which was halted at central Dhaka's Nightingale Crossing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 219 sub-inspectors were promoted as inspectors by the Delhi Police while 200 assistant sub-inspector have been also promoted as SIs.

Police said during the year, the force made progress on all the fronts but utmost achievement of the year was on the promotion front.

"Because of lack of adequate promotional avenues in the higher posts, there was a great deal of disenchantment in the lower functionaries who have been seeking time-bound promotion in their career," it said in a statement.

"The police personnel were not able to achieve more than one or two regular promotions and many of them were getting it only towards the fag end of their career," it noted.

In all, during the year 2016, Delhi Police has given promotions or next higher ranks to 23,236 police personnel of different cadres.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three persons have been arrested after they robbed an autorickshaw driver at gunpoint in northeast Delhi's Jagjit Nagar area and tried to fire at two head constables chased them, police said today.

Yesterday, around 4 AM, Rambhawan, the autorickshaw driver, complained to head constables Gajraj and Satender on picket duty that three persons robbed him of his valuables at gunpoint near Jagjit Nagar, DCP(northeast), A K Singhla, said.

When the head constables spotted the accused near Tisra Pushta nalla and chased them, the trio entered a house and tried to fire at Gajraj and Satender. But the country-made pistol malfunctioned, he said.

The two head constables managed to overpower Mohammad Kafil and Mohammad Ali, and recovered the pistol, a wallet of Rambhawan containing cash and other items. Their accomplice, Pramod, was later arrested, Singhla said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three Indian men have been accused of stealing 1 million dirhams by hacking into a Dubai businessman's mobile banking application after obtaining a duplicate SIM card using forged papers.

The Indian trio, who have not been named - a 38-year-old worker, a 27-year-old visitor and a 26-year-old mechanic - allegedly visited an outlet and claimed that one of them had lost a SIM card in May.

Upon being asked to fill in the required details on the form to obtain a duplicate SIM, according to records, the trio provided the businessman's details and his phone number, the Gulf reported.

Then they used the duplicate SIM to hack into the businessman's bank account through the mobile banking application and transferred Dh1 million from his account to another account.

Once the businessman realised that money had been withdrawn from his account, he contacted the bank and was informed that the transfer happened through the smartphone banking application.

Police were informed that the money had been transferred to an Indian man's account. Investigation disclosed that the 38-year-old and the 27-year-old collected the money in the form of cheques that were issued to them.

Prosecutors accused the Indian trio of forging papers to obtain a duplicate SIM card and hacking into the businessman's banking application to steal his money.

The three suspects were not present at the Dubai Court of First Instance where they were scheduled to enter their pleas yesterday.

According to the charge-sheet, prosecutors said the Indian trio conspired with two or more than other suspects, who remain at large.

A banker told prosecutors that the businessman called in to find out why his money went missing from his account.

"After checking out on his account operations, we discovered that the money had been transferred via the mobile banking application to another account. According to the bank's findings, the mobile banking application had been activated at a date recent to the incident using the businessman's contact number...Then cheques were issued to the 38-year-old and the 27-year-old," he testified to prosecutors.

A police lieutenant told prosecutors that they first arrested the worker, who admitted to obtaining the duplicate SIM.

"He confessed that he handed the duplicate SIM to one of the runaway suspects, who paid him money. The visitor was apprehended while trying to cash one of the cheques. The 27-year-old claimed that he had agreed with a man to cash the cheque for him against a certain commission. He also alleged that one of the runaway suspects gave him a number of bank cards and their pin codes to withdraw cash," he said.

The court will hand down a ruling in the case on December 29.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


UPDATE: As I had cautioned, The Mirror indeed had its "facts" muddled. According to this October article in Vice, the photos seen here are actually from the woods around the University of Virginia's Mountain Lake Biological Station. No idea if the fellow was actually tripping or thought he was a Siberian tiger. Shame, as the below story is quite delightful.





Original uncorrected post:





This gentleman from Liberec, Czech Republic was reportedly tripping on LSD to combat depression when he began to hallucinate that he was a Siberian tiger. He then stripped naked and pursued imaginary prey for miles along the Czech-Poland border where he was spotted on trailcams. According to the Mirror, "police said that, because the man did not have any drugs with him, he was only fined and will not face any further charges."



If this story is true, I hope the fellow had fun and that the experience alleviated his depression.




Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph has suspended three judges after an enquiry found them guilty of misconduct.

The enquiry into an anonymous complaint of misconduct was carried out by the Registrar General of the High Court Narendra Dutt in compliance with the chief justice's order.

Following the enquiry, Presiding Officer of Labour Court Haldwani Neetu Joshi was suspended yesterday.

Joint Director of Uttarakhand Judicial and Legal Academy (UJALA) Bhowali, Pradeep Kumar Mani and Judicial Magistrate Haldwani Durga were handed over their suspension orders today.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Thirty Kendriya Vidyalayas are among the around 250 schools selected for NITI Ayog's 'Atal Tinkering Labs' (ATL) scheme which aims to groom one million children in the country as modern innovators.

ATL is a work space where young minds can give shape to their ideas through do-it-yourself mode and learn innovation skills.

Thirty Kendriya Vidyalayas are among the around 250 schools selected for the ATL scheme. Nearly 13,000 schools had applied for the scheme under the Atal Innovation Mission, a release by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan said.

Each Atal Tinkering Lab will be eligible for a one-time establishment fund of Rs 10 lakh. An addition amount of Rs 10 lakh as operation expenditure for a maximum period of five years will also be provided.

Children will get to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). ATL will also contain educational and learning 'do-it-yourself' kits and equipment on science, electronics, robotics.

Other desirable facilities include meeting rooms and video conferencing facility.

The vision is to 'cultivate one million children in India as Neoteric Innovators' and foster curiosity and creativity as well as encourage computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing, among others.

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Seven persons have been arrested in the eastern part of the city for their alleged involvement in smuggling coal, police said.

Mastermind Rajesh Jha (46), Lokesh Singh (35), Manish Joshi (44), Krishna Murari Kayel (44), Sayan Majumdar (29), Partha Chatterjee (41) and Subham Bhowmik (28) were arrested late last night by the Special Task Force of Kolkata Police, a senior officer of the force said.

"Acting on a tip-off, STF intercepted a vehicle last night when they were travelling along Bidhan Shishu Uddan Sarani. After a search, several illegal firearms, ammunition and Rs 33 lakh in cash were seized from them, the IPS officer said.

Suspected to be the main brain behind the coal mafia of Durgapur-Asansol belt, Rajesh Jha of Durgapur in Burdwan district was arrested and an improvised semi-automatic pistol fitted with magazine having two live cartridges, and a mobile phone were seized from him, the officer said.

"After grilling others and Lokesh Singh, a search operation was conducted at his flat at Baguihati," the officer said.

The seven arrested persons have been booked under section 120B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) of IPC and relevant sections of the Arms Act. They have been remanded in police custody till December 9, he said.

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may have won a majority in Punjab if the assembly elections were held a year ago but is unlikely to get seats in double digit in the polls next year, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said.

"With every visit of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to Punjab, AAP loses more seats as people have seen through him. Even if the elections were held in Delhi today, the AAP will not get majority there also," Badal claimed.

"Punjabis like to try new things now they have seen AAP and they have seen that Kejriwal promises something, does something else. They have discarded him," Badal said while responding to a question on AAP at Agenda Aaj Tak.

A confident Badal said the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) will complete its "hat-trick" in Punjab as he ruled out AAP from the race while indicating that the contest was between his party and Congress.

"If assembly elections were held a year ago, AAP might have won 70 seats, but now the scenario has totally changed (and) as of now, the party will not get more than nine seats, whereas Congress may get 35-40 seats and we will get 70 seats," Badal said.

Replying to questions on the issue of drug menace in Punjab, Badal said it was a "propaganda" to defame the youth of the state.

"All this started when (Congress Vice President) Rahul Gandhi came to Punjab and read from a paper saying 70 per cent of youth in the state are drug addicts. Whereas the reality was that 70 per cent of drug addicts were youth, his problem is he can only read from what is given to him written on a paper," the SAD president said.

He further said it has been established that with latest police recruitment that very negligible percentage youth are taking drugs.

"Recently our government conducted recruitment for the state police and for which more than four lakh youngsters applied. We conducted tests and only 1.26 per cent were found taking drugs. And that is half the national average. This result should finally put to rest the startling figures of drug abuse in Punjab that have been making rounds," Badal said.

He said the "propaganda" is "defaming the youth" in Punjab and is against the state and should be stopped.

However, he said the Border Security Force, which guards the border Punjab shares with Pakistan, needs to be more vigilant to check the flow of drugs from across the state.

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Indian energy giant today said it will start construction at the 21.7 billion dollars Carmichael mine in Australia by the middle of next year and vowed to give priority local workers for the project, which is expected to generate some 10,000 jobs.

The announcement came a day after secured the final approval for a permanent rail line for the controversy-hit project despite protests from green groups.

Adani's efforts to build one of the world's largest coal mine project in Australia's Queensland state has been hampered time and again since its launch six years ago.

"We want to start construction in the middle of next year," Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj told reporters after meeting with Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in the city of Townsville.

"There will be early works we plan to start in the quarter of June-July and we would want to start the main works from the last quarter of the year."



Janakaraj said it was a significant day for the company, with the mine "back on track".

"We have gone through processes, through difficult situations but this has been resolved with a lot of resolve in terms of the government and stakeholders who have been involved," he said.

Adani also announced that it will set up regional centres for providingvital support services for the projectand associated infrastructure and headquarters for its rail and portoperations.

Janakaraj said Townsville would become Adani mining's regional headquarters, while the Mackay-Bowen area would become the regional headquarters for its rail and port operations.

The company said itsshift to the regional Queensland centres wouldallow itto more directly harness the skills and enthusiasm of the local industries, local communities and workforce.

Adani group chairman Gautam Adani met Palaszczuk today to discussregional project centres, as well as progress on the mine and associated infrastructure.

Palaszczuk said, "I have got an ironclad guarantee from Mr Adani that there will be no 457 visas as part of the workforce for this major project."



"Adani is committed to remaining engaged in the development of the indigenous and regional communities as demonstrated in today's announcement," Adani said.

"Adani group is committed to nation building projects in the energy and infrastructure space which will create thousands of jobs in regional Queensland and alleviate millions in India of poverty," he added.

Janakaraj said, "This is a significant commitment by Adani



to regional Queensland where the Carmichael mine and associated projects will generate10,000 jobs directly and indirectly, and I ampleased that each of the regional centreswillbenefit from the Carmichael projects."



Meanwhile, anti-mine campaigners continued to protest against Adani's coal and mine project in the state.

The controversial project involves dredging 1.1 million cubic metres of spoil near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which will then be disposed off on land.

A federal court in August last year had revoked the original approval to the project due to environmental concerns. In October last year, the project got a new lease of life after the Australian government gave its re-approval.

In October this year, the Queensland Government announced invoking special powers to help progress the Adani's project by giving it special 'prescribed project status'.
Indian energy giant Adani today said it will start construction work at the 21.7 billion dollars Carmichael mine in Australia by the middle of next year and vowed to give priority to local workers at the controversy-hit project, which is expected to generate some 10,000 jobs.

"We want to start construction in the middle of next year," Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj told reporters after a meeting between Queensland state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and group chairman Gautam Adani in the city of Townsville.

The two discussedregional project centres as well as progress on the mine and associated infrastructure.

Palaszczuk said, "I have got an ironclad guarantee from Mr Adani that there will be no 457 visas as part of the workforce for this major project."



"Adani is committed to remaining engaged in the development of the indigenous and regional communities as demonstrated in today's announcement," Adani said.

"Adani group is committed to nation building projects in the energy and infrastructure space which will create thousands of jobs in regional Queensland and alleviate millions in India of poverty," he added.

Today's announcement came a day after Adani secured the final approval for a permanent rail line for the project despite protests from green groups.

Adani's efforts to build one of the world's largest coal mine project in Australia's Queensland state has been hampered time and again since its launch six years ago.

"There will be early works we plan to start in the quarter of June-July and we would want to start the main works from the last quarter of the year," Janakaraj said, adding that it was a significant day for the company, with the mine "back on track".

"We have gone through processes, through difficult situations but this has been resolved with a lot of resolve in terms of the government and stakeholders who have been involved," he said.

Adani also announced that it will set up regional centres for providingvital support services for the projectand associated infrastructure and headquarters for its rail and portoperations.

Janakaraj said Townsville would become Adani mining's regional headquarters, while the Mackay-Bowen area would become the regional headquarters for its rail and port operations.

The company said itsshift to the regional Queensland centres wouldallow itto more directly harness the skills and enthusiasm of the local industries, local communities and workforce.

Janakaraj said, "This is a significant commitment by Adani



to regional Queensland where the Carmichael mine and associated projects will generate10,000 jobs directly and indirectly, and I ampleased that each of the regional centreswillbenefit from the Carmichael projects."



Meanwhile, anti-mine campaigners continued to protest against Adani's coal and mine project in the state.

The controversial project involves dredging 1.1 million cubic metres of spoil near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which will then be disposed off on land.

A federal court in August last year had revoked the original approval to the project due to environmental concerns. In October last year, the project got a new lease of life after the Australian government gave its re-approval.

In October this year, the Queensland Government announced invoking special powers to help progress the Adani's project by giving it special 'prescribed project status'.
A delegation-led by National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) has sought the government to allow district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) to accept demonetised notes towards exchange and deposits.

A memorandum in this regard was submitted by the National Federation of State Cooperative Banks Ltd (NAFSCOB) to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday. NAFSCOB was also part of the delegation.

"Union Finance Minister yesterday assured the delegation to talk to NABARD Chairman and RBI Governor on the issues concerning DCCBs which are affected by demonetisation," NCUI said in a statement.

The delegation, which was led by NCUI President and Rajya Sabha MP Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, apprised the Minister that the demonetisation will cripple the growth of DCCBs, which are on the verge of closure.

Yadav informed Jaitely that while all other cooperative banks including urban cooperative banks have been permitted to exchange and deposit of specified bank notes (SBNs), the DCCBs have been denied this, which is highly discriminatory.

"DCCBs are complying all regulatory and statutory requirements and these are supervised and regulated by NABARD. As DCCBs have been denied to exchange and deposit SBNs, this is harming the interest of small and marginal farmers and other stakeholders who are major customers of DCCBs," the statement said quoting Yadav.

Farmers, who have taken loans from the banks, are not able to repay it. They are unable to take fresh loan which is required for purchasing the agri-inputs, he said.

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Chief Minister V Narayanasamy



led the Union Territory of Puducherry to pay homage to the champion of the downtrodden and renowned jurist Dr B R Ambedkar on the occasion of his 60th repeat 60th death anniversary today.

Speaker of Puducherry Assembly V Vaithilingam, Ministers, legislators and delegates of different outfits were among those who paid floral tributes at the statue of the leader opposite the Assembly premises here.

Delegates of various outfits championing the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes garlanded the statue.

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The government will observe B R Ambedkar's birth anniversary as "Water Day" in view of his contribution toward management of the country's resources, Union minister Uma Bharti said today.

Speaking at a national seminar, organised by the Central Water Commission (CWC) here to mark Babasaheb's 61st death anniversary, she also made a pitch for bringing about reforms for managing water resources and suggested punishment to deter people from misusing water.

"In view of his contribution toward the country's water resources management, Ambedkar's birth anniversary (April 14) will be observed as Water Day," the Union Water Resources Minister said.

Bharti said water is a key issue on the government's agenda and stressed on using recycled water for non-potable purposes.

"Those who are misusing water should be punished. We have to bring about reforms, but it should be acceptable to all," she said, referring to the Mihir Shah panel's report on restructuring of the CWC.

She said 99 projects under the Ministry's accelerated irrigation benefits programme (AIBP), will help irrigate 80 lakh hectares of additional land.

Ambedkar, during his tenure as Member (Labour) of the Viceroy's Executive Council (1942-1946), had steered formation of an all-India policy for the development of water resources in the country. For this purpose, he had laid the foundation of the Central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission (CWINC) which was the forerunner of the present-day CWC.

Ambedkar advocated the concept of River Valley Authority or corporation for integrated development of rivers. He introduced the concept of multi-purpose development of river basins and his efforts in this direction culminated with multipurpose development of Damodar, Mahanadi and other rivers immediately after independence.

He was instrumental in inclusion of Entry 56 of List 1 and introduction of Article 262 concerning the adjudication of disputes related to waters of inter-sate rivers or river valleys.

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Eight terrorists have been killed and 12 others, including brother of a dangerous militant leader were arrested today in Egypt's North Sinai province, army spokesperson said.

Army spokesperson Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said four other people who cooperated with terrorists were arrested.

The four people included brother of one of the dangerous takfiri terrorist leaders.

Samir did not mention the name of the leader.

Eight other suspects were arrested during the raids. The raids targeted a number of areas in North Sinai, Samir said.

Since the January 2011 revolution that toppled ex-president Hosni Mubarak, North Sinai has witnessed many violent attacks by militants.

The attacks targeting police and military increased after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by military following massive protests against his rule.

Over 700 security personnel have been reported killed since then. The military has launched security campaigns in the area, arrested suspects and demolished houses that belong to terrorists, including those facilitating tunnels leading to the Gaza Strip.

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In a heartwarming incident, a poor Bangladeshi man working as a cleaner in Saudi Arabia was gifted a host of freebies from a gold set to smartphones by people who came out in his support after he was mocked online over a photo of him staring at a jewellery shop display.

An Instagram user had mocked the cleaner, who works in Riyadh, by sharing the picture, writing, "this man deserves to only look at rubbish".

The comment prompted an outpouring of support for the cleaner on social media, and Abdullah al Qahtani, the owner of the Twitter account Ensaniyat (humanitarianism), started a campaign to find the man in the photo.

Qahtani told Al-Arabiya that he managed to find the cleaner to give him his gifts.

The cleaner was identified as Nuzroul Abdulkareem, and his monthly salary was said to be USD 187 (700 Saudi riyal).

"More money is being sent to Nuzroul," Qahtani said, without specifying how much.

In addition to a gold set, bags of rice and honey, Abdulkareem has so far received "two-way tickets to his home country, and two phones -- one iPhone 7 and one Samsung Galaxy."



Saudis on the social media platform tweeted, vowing to send more gifts to the cleaner, including one user who said a gift of USD 533 (2,000 Saudi riyal) would be given.

"I am very thankful," Abdulkareem said.

Qahtani described him as "very hardworking".

"Abdulkareem also takes care of homeless kittens on the street where he works," Qahtani said.

The picture of him staring at the gold shop display went viral and many Saudi users insisted on buying the cleaner a gold set.

An account then published photographs of the cleaner holding the gold set gifted to him.

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A Bangladeshi court today ordered authorities to scrap names from memorial plaques and tablets of people who were opposed to the country's 1971 independence from Pakistan.

"The two-member bench issued the order asking the secretaries of education and local government ministries to remove the names of all anti-liberation people from the plaques in schools or other establishments and roads and highways," a court official said on the order by the High Court bench.

He added that the bench comprising Justice Kazi Rezaul Haque and Justice Mohammad Ullah asked top bureaucrats of the two ministries to submit compliance reports in next 60 days.

Court officials said the order came on a supplementary petition on a writ filed three years ago when the court in a primary ruling ordered renaming of a historic highway, Jessore Road, and auditorium of state-run Kushtia Islamic University, as those were named after Khan A Sabur and Shah Azizur Rahman.

Sabur was a top Muslim League leader and minister at the time of the war while Azizur was prime minister in the now defunct presidential system under slain president Ziaur Rahman.

Both were opposed to the country's independence from Pakistan and were arrested and tried as collaborators of the Pakistani junta after the emergence of Bangladesh.

But later they managed to regain a space in politics after the August 15, 1975 coup which toppled the post independence government killing the country's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members.

The development came as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Awami League has launched a massive campaign to restore the "liberation war spirit" which in recent years saw the trial of the leading perpetrators of crimes against humanity during the liberation war.

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Flaunting a booze session on Facebook proved costly for five youths who were arrested here and sent to jail hours after posting a photo on the social network showing an IMFL bottle, police said today.

The incident, the first of its kind after promulgation of total prohibition in the state by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in April, occurred late Sunday night in this headquarter town of Nalanda district.

Nalanda is also the native district of the chief minister.

Kumar Ashish, Nalanda Superintendent of Police, tracked the photograph following which Vicky Arya was arrested from his house in the Laheri police station area hours after posting the photograph.

Arya divulged details of his four friends who had accompanied him in the revelry and they were arrested too, the SP said.

The five have been booked under new Excise Act and forwarded to jail, he said, adding the IMFL bottle shown in the photo was also recovered from them.

Alcohol, spiced, domestic liquor as well as IMFL have been completely banned in Bihar since April 5, 2016 and the new Excise Act has the provision of jail as well heavy penalty for those found violating it.

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A supreme court judge in Brazil has suspended the Senate's powerful speaker, a key ally to President Michel Temer, before he goes on trial for alleged corruption.

The interim decision to strip Renan Calheiros, 61, of his duties worsens the outlook for Temer as he struggles to lift Latin America's biggest economy out of crisis.

It also deepens the perception that the country is inextricably mired in political graft.

The suspension ordered by judge Marco Aurelio Mello has "immediate effect," but needs to be confirmed by a majority of judges on the supreme court bench, a court official said yesterday.

An opposition group, Rede, had called for the suspension, arguing that an official in line for presidential succession -- as the Senate speaker is -- cannot hold his or her position while facing trial.

The supreme court last week ordered Calheiros to face trial for alleged embezzlement. He has denied accusations he used public funds to make maintenance payments to a woman with whom he had a child.

In a separate case, Calheiros is also among numerous top politicians including an ex-president and lawmakers accused of helping steal billions from state oil firm Petrobras.

Protesters on Sunday held demonstrations demanding Calheiros' ouster, with a crowd in Brasilia chanting "Lock Renan up!" as they performed a mock funeral with a coffin inscribed "corruption."



Calheiros had tried unsuccessfully last week to push through an urgent reform that would challenge judges' powers to investigate corruption.

Temer went from vice-president to president this year when he and Calheiros drove proceedings that saw Brazil's previous president, Dilma Rousseff, impeached for fiddling the government's books.

Rousseff's own predecessor, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, is facing three corruption-related court cases related to the Petrobras affair.

Although Temer has not been formally investigated himself over the Petrobras scandal, it has forced the resignation of several of his ministers.

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Brazil's Senate today rejected a judge's order to suspend its speaker who faces trial for alleged embezzlement in a scandal that threatens to destabilize President Michel Temer.

The chamber's governing panel said it would keep speaker Renan Calheiros in his post until a full session of all 11 judges in the Supreme Court rules on whether he should be suspended.

"Removing the speaker of the Senate from his post nine days before the end of his term... Through a monocratic decision... Even in Brazil, democracy does not deserve such a fate," Calheiros told reporters after meeting with the panel.

Supreme court judge Marco Aurelio Mello yesterday ordered the suspension of Calheiros, 61, the third most powerful official in Brazil.

That decision deepened the political drama in Brazil, worsening the outlook for Temer as he struggles to lift Latin America's biggest economy out of crisis.

It threatened to derail his legislation for a cap on public spending.

Calheiros's allies in the Senate filed an appeal at the Supreme Court today arguing that his suspension poses "an enormous risk to the normal functioning of legislative work."



The supreme court last week ordered Calheiros to face trial on embezzlement charges. He has denied accusations he used public money to make support payments to a woman with whom he had a child.

In a separate case, Calheiros is among numerous top politicians including an ex-president and lawmakers accused of helping steal billions from the state oil firm Petrobras.

Calheiros had tried unsuccessfully last week to push through an urgent reform that would challenge judges' powers to investigate corruption.

Temer went from vice-president to president this year when he and Calheiros drove proceedings that saw Brazil's previous president, Dilma Rousseff, impeached for fiddling with government books.

Although Temer has not been formally investigated himself over the Petrobras scandal, it has forced the resignation of several of his ministers.

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British Prime Minister Theresa May is to meet Gulf leaders who opened today their annual summit in Bahrain, for talks on trade ties after Britain leaves the European Union.

King Salman of Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia opened the summit with a call for "doubling of efforts" to face regional challenges.

May is expected to meet the leaders before addressing the summit tomorrow, when she will become the first British premier and the first woman to attend the annual gathering of the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Defence ties are also expected to be high on the agenda as Britain builds a new naval base in Bahrain, while advocacy groups have urged May to raise human rights concerns.

May's two-day visit comes as her government faces mounting domestic criticism that it has not done enough to avoid post-Brexit disruption to British trade, which is currently carried out under EU agreements.

"I will have the opportunity to talk to all six leaders about how we can develop our trade relationship, as well as cooperation on security and defence," May said before arriving in Manama late yesterday.

Her office said May will discuss possibilities for post-Brexit free trade arrangements with the GCC states -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf," the British premier said.

Ahead of the summit, May met King Salman, Bahrain's King Hamad, the emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

In October last year, Britain began building a naval base at Mina Salman, outside Manama, its first new permanent base in the Middle East in four decades.

May told 300 Royal Navy officers aboard HMS Ocean that she wanted to "step up our defence and security cooperation to keep British citizens safe at home and abroad".

Britain's force already stationed in Bahrain was "a clear demonstration of the UK's enduring security commitment to the Gulf", she said.

Western ties with Bahrain, however, have come under criticism from international human rights groups.

Bahrain's Sunni minority rulers have cracked down on dissent since they crushed protests in 2011 led by the Shiite majority for a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

The main Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, once the largest in parliament, has been dissolved and scores of Shiites have been stripped of their citizenship.

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The brother and cousin of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch were among three persons charged by a court in Punjab province for her murder in July, an 'honour killing' incident that shocked the Muslim-majority country.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Saeed Ahmad Raza of the district court in Multan city yesterday indicted the three accused -- Qandeel's brother Waseem, her cousin Haq Nawaz and taxi driver Abdul Basit.

However, the suspects denied committing the crime. The fourth co-accused, Zafar Hussain Khosa, has been declared an absconder by the court.

Police claimed that Waseem had made a confession of killing her sister in the presence of an area magistrate. But the counsel for the accused denied any such confession.

The court fixed December 8 as next date of hearing while issuing directions to the witnesses to appear before it. On the other hand, Lahore High Court, Multan bench, granted bail to driver Abdul Basit.

25-year-old Qandeel was found strangled in her house in Multan, some 350km from Lahore, on July 16. Her father had alleged that she was killed by her younger brother, Waseem, in the name of honour.

Waseem had confessed to having killed his sister 'in the name of honour'.

In his confession video, Waseem expressed no regret in killing his sister. "I am proud of what I did. I drugged her first then I killed her. She was bringing dishonour to our family," Waseem said.

Qandeel rose to fame due to her bold videos and pictures many considered as 'obscene' she posted on her Facebook account.

Honour killing is common in Pakistan and every year hundreds of women are killed by male relatives for allegedly dishonouring the family.

In October Pakistan Parliament passed a bill seeking to curb murders in the name of honour.

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Cambodia's leader has taken a poke at pro-democracy activists and a slap at the United States, suggesting that if the capital's designated political protest venue is not moved out of town, it might be situated in front of the US Embassy.

Hun Sen said today that he plans to have Freedom Park, known as Democracy Square, moved to a location six kilometers out of Phnom Penh. He said the existing park has become a site for anarchistic activity, which was inappropriate because of its central location and proximity to the historic Wat Phnom temple.

He said, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that if local advocacy groups supported by the United States objected, the park could be situated in front of the US Embassy. The embassy is already quite near the park's present site.

Human rights groups and community organizations are among Hun Sen's biggest critics, and he has moved in recent years to place legal limits on their activities.

Hun Sen said that even if the new location is a bit far away, people could watch the protests on Facebook.

Hun Sen has been the country's autocratic ruler for three decades, even though Cambodia has a framework of democracy. He has pushed back against criticism by human rights groups and Western governments.

In remarks at the opening of a Coca-Cola bottling plant, he suggested that the United States was misguided to complain about Cambodia's treatment of protesters when anti-Trump demonstrators had been arrested in the United States in post-election protests, US government-supported Radio Free Asia reported. Hun Sen had expressed his preference for Trump before the election.

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The Delhi High Court today said it can hear and grant stay on the execution of a man held guilty for murder of five persons, including two children, in 2004 in Chhattisgarh, as the decision rejecting his mercy plea was taken here by the President of India.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel said this while dismissing the plea of the Chhattisgarh government that the Delhi High Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the matter.

The state government had contended that rejection of mercy plea by the President and the Governor of Chhattisgarh does not give rise to any cause of action.

The high court, however, refused to accept the contention, saying mercy petition was the "last thread" between convict and the gallows and its rejection, which leads to issuance of warrants of execution, "closes the last hope upon which his very life is reliant".

"Therefore, in our view, the rejection of mercy petition does give rise to a cause of action at Delhi," it said.

The bench also said, "The material to be examined is the advice tendered by the cabinet and all the documents and records pertaining to the same are in Delhi and the decision has also been taken in Delhi.

"Further the location of the convict also makes no difference, as the convict being the dominus litis (the main litigant) is free to invoke the jurisdiction of this court."



The court also rejected the state government's argument that cause of action was linked with crime, saying that "concept of cause of action in respect of criminal proceedings cannot apply sensu stricto (strict sense) to the present proceedings as the same are not a continuation of the judicial proceedings but premised upon executive orders".

It said that the act of the President of India under the constitutional power is entirely different from the judicial power and cannot be regarded as an extension of it.

"Accordingly, it cannot be said that the power exercised by the President of India (rejecting the mercy plea) is in continuation of the judicial proceedings," it said.

The state government's application was filed in the main



petition of the convict, Sonu Sardar, who has sought that his death penalty be commuted to life imprisonment on account of delay in deciding his mercy plea as well as for allegedly keeping him in "solitary confinement illegally".

The Delhi High Court had on March 2, 2015 stayed the execution of Sardar after which the state government had approached the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court's jurisdiction to hear the matter. The apex court had asked the high court to decide the state's application in four weeks.

Sardar, along with his brother and accomplices, had killed five persons of a family, including a woman and two children, during a dacoity bid in Chhattisgarh's Cher village on November 26, 2004. The trial court had slapped death penalty on him and the Chhattisgarh High Court had upheld it.

The Supreme Court in February 2012 had concurred with the findings of two courts below and affirmed the punishment. His mercy petition was also dismissed by both the state Governor and the President of India. In February 2015, the apex court had also rejected his review plea.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was appointed as the new prime minister today after Manuel Valls resigned to seek the Socialist nomination in next year's presidential election.

Cazeneuve, who has overseen the security forces' reaction to a string of jihadist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, will take control of the Socialist government until the election in May.

The widely-respected former lawyer was named to the post after President Francois Hollande accepted Valls's resignation early today.

Cazeneuve, 53, has served in various government roles, including budget minister and minister in charge of European affairs, before becoming interior minister in April 2014.

Bruno Le Roux, leader of the Socialists in the lower house of parliament, will take over the interior portfolio.

The mini-reshuffle comes after Valls, who has been prime minister for the past two-and-a-half years, said yesterday he would step down to contest a leftwing primary in January.

The 54-year-old quit the government to devote himself to the presidential race, in which polls currently show him trailing in fifth place overall.

Announcing his candidacy yesterday, he vowed to take on the conservative Republicans and the far-right National Front led by Marine Le Pen.

His announcement came four days after Hollande said he would bow out after a single term, paving the way for his divisive premier to try to become the left's new standard bearer.

"My candidacy is one of reconciliation," Valls said in a speech from his political base in the gritty Paris suburb of Evry.

The far right, which was beaten in Austria's presidential election at the weekend, was "at the gates of power" in France with a nationalist programme that would "ruin" the poor, he warned.

Polls show Le Pen and conservative candidate Francois Fillon far out in front in the opening round of the election on April 23, with Fillon expected to beat Le Pen in May's second round.

Valls would crash out with 10 percent if he won the nomination - behind Fillon, Le Pen, centrist former economy minister Emmanuel Macron and the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, an Ifop-Fiducial poll showed today.

Yesterday, Valls attacked Fillon, a self-declared Thatcherite, accusing him of rehashing "the old recipes of the 1980s".

"We're told that Francois Fillon is the next president of the Republic. Nothing is set in stone," he said defiantly.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
J. L. BELL is a Massachusetts writer who specializes in (among other things) the start of the American Revolution in and around Boston. He is particularly interested in the experiences of children in 1765-75. He has published scholarly papers and popular articles for both children and adults. He was consultant for an episode of History Detectives, and contributed to a display at Minute Man National Historic Park.
Punjab Chief Electoral Officer V K Singh and Addtional Director General of Police V K Bhawra today reviewed preparations in this border district for the Assembly polls, slated to be held next year.

They held a meeting here with representatives of political parties and inaugurated the voter awareness signature campaign.

He said at least 20 per cent polling stations will have cameras so that the Election Commission of India (ECI) can watch the polling through internet.

Singh said the ECI was determined to conduct free and fair election in the state and stressed the need to register people who have completed 18 years as voters.

He said the Punjab government would also organise voter awareness seminars at educational institutions and border areas.

The representatives of some political parties urged them to deploy paramilitary forces in sensitive and highly sensitive polling stations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Life virtually came to a grinding halt here as the city woke up to deserted streets with shops, including eateries, remaining shut in the wake of the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J .

Public transport services, including autorickshaws, were off the roads while some private vehicles were seen plying in various parts of the city where police personnel kept a tight vigil at vantage points.

A near total shutdown like situation prevailed in the city and several other parts of the state since last evening itself.

The focus today turned to Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's body is lying in state to enable public pay their homage.

With even tea stalls, which usually do a brisk business in the early hours, remaining closed, mobile tea vendors could be seen dispensing the brew at some places. Hotels are also closed.

Suburban train services, however, were being operated in the city, albeit with lower passenger rush.

Long distance trains arriving at Chennai Central and Egmore stations were on time.

The state government has declared a holiday today for its offices and three-days for educational institutions as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Meanwhile, the Tamil film industry announced cancellation of shootings scheduled for today. Theaters also cancelled shows.

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A report from Madurai said the entire temple city mourned Jayalalithaa's death with all shops closed and transport facilities including buses and auto rickshaws off the roads.

"The entire city is calm...Silent..," a police official said.

Officials said those who reached Madurai by train and flight this morning took private transport to reach home.

The main bus stands wore a deserted look. Inter-state and long distance government buses bound here from various destinations, including from Kerala and Karnataka did not arrive as they had been stopped at the borders.

Fishermen colonies mourned the death of in Tuticorin, Rameswaram and Kanyakumari.

Police said there was no untoward incident in the region.
China's air quality is facing unprecedented pressure as it is discharging greater amounts of almost every kind of pollutant than any other country, a top Chinese environment official has said.

"The huge quantities of emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin- Hebei region have directly led to the rise in average PM 2.5 density, a key indicator of air quality," Wang Jinnan, vice president of the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning told annual environmental protection summit in Zhaoqing, South China's Guangdong Province.

As a result average visibility has decreased by approximately 50 kms across the nation in the last few decades, Wang was quoted as saying by sate-run Global Times today.

China along with US is the top polluter. Both countries have endorsed the Paris Climate deal.

According to a national action plan issued in September 2013, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region should cut its PM 2.5 density by 25 per cent by 2017 from 2012 levels, state-run Xinhua Agency reported.

To achieve that goal, the authorities will need to invest about 1.75 trillion yuan (USD 2.5 trillion), Wang estimated.

For a huge developing country like China, it is more meaningful to discuss the amount of air pollutants including nitrogen oxide and PM 2.5 in per capita terms, Wang Gengchen, a research fellow at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Times.

The country is relying heavily on coal, which generates most of the pollutants, as its primary source of energy for production, taking up about 70 per cent of the total energy consumption, Wang said.

Lei Wen, deputy chief of the environmental protection division under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the meeting the industrial pattern of China - high investment, high emissions and high pollution - has not yet fundamentally changed.

The CCID Institute, a Beijing-based think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out at the summit that China is not paying enough attention to controlling the sources of pollution and promoting cleaner production.

But Chen Jianmin, executive deputy director of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Fudan University, told the Global Times that it is very difficult to replace coal with new energy sources in a short period.

The action plan to replace energy sources requires more consistent and effective government supervision at all levels, Chen said.

Wang urged the government to make sure that the small and medium-sized enterprises use environmental protection equipment on a daily basis.

Major pollutants in China saw a significant decline in the first six months of 2015, statistics released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection disclosed.

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Hundreds of angry Colombians are taking to the streets to protest the kidnapping and rape of a 7-year- old girl found strangled in an upper-class Bogota apartment.

Police said yesterday that security cameras captured the moment the girl was snatched while playing outside her home in a poor neighbourhood by a man driving a truck.

As many as 40 children are raped every day in Colombia. But the killing has resonated because of the huge class divide separating the girl and the alleged perpetrator, an architect from one of Bogota's wealthiest neighbourhoods.

A group of 50 protesters shouting "rapist" and "murderer" spent the day outside the clinic where the suspect allegedly checked himself in for a cocaine overdose.

A much-larger candlelight vigil was held in a plaza.

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Fair trade regulator CCI has rejected a complaint of anti-competitive practices against pertaining to 1995-96 period saying competition regulations were not place at that time.

While dismissing the allegations, Competition Commission of India (CCI) also said the informants have approached it "only as an after thought" since their petitions were rejected by the Supreme Court.

The allegations were made against Universal with regard to its projects in Gurgaon, Haryana.

It was alleged that Universal, a subsidiary of DLF Ltd, abused its dominant market position and failed to deliver apartments booked by informants in two residential projects.

The complaint was filed by three individuals who had booked one residential flat in each of the two residential projects.

Among others, it was alleged that the company demanded unjustified amounts towards holding charges, imposed hidden costs and onerous conditions through the agreements.

The Commission noted that the cases pertain to the period 1995-1996 and any alleged abuse of dominance by DLF Universal were made at a time when the Section 4 of the Competition Act was yet to be enacted.

"... The Commission is of the view that, if the Commission were to make an assessment of dominance or alleged abusive conditions imposed by OP (DLF) in the present cases, such assessment would essentially relate to a time when either the (Competition) Act itself was not enacted or Section 4 of the Act was not in force," the watchdog said in an order dated December 5.

Section 4 relates to abuse of dominant position.

According to CCI, the informants had moved the State Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum in 2003, contested the appeal in National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission and also moved Special Leave Petitions in the Supreme Court previously for seeking redressal of the grievances.

"... It is thus, clear that the informants have approached the Commission only as an afterthought after their petitions were dismissed by the Supreme Court," it added.
The US and several other countries today condoled the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

Leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore also expressed grief over the AIADMK leader's demise.

"On behalf of the US, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu following her passing yesterday," American Ambassador Richard Verma said.

He said that she will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu during this time of sorrow," he said.

In his message, French Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler expressed his heartfelt condolences and said, "Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a prominent leader who was loved and admired by millions. My thoughts and sympathy go out to her near and dear ones and the grief-stricken people of Tamil Nadu and India."



Canadian High Commissioner to India Nadir Patel said he was deeply saddened by Jayalalithaa's death.

"I extend my sincere condolences to her family, and to the people of Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her valuable contributions to the people, development and progress of Tamil Nadu will not be forgotten," Patel said in his message.

Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said Jayalalithaa was dearly loved by her people.

"Chief Minister (Tamil Nadu) Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.

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Police today arrested the third accused wanted in the murder of Congolese national in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area in May this year, that had caused widespread outrage among the African nationals living here.

The accused, Mukesh Kumar Vishnoi, was nabbed from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. A reward of Rs 20,000 had been declared by Delhi Police commissioner for his arrest, said Romil Baaniya, DCP (Southeast).

Two of the accused, Mobin Azad and Saifiand Prakash were arrested earlier but accused Vishnoi was absconding, said the officer, adding that he had even stopped using his mobile phone and kept changing his addresses frequently to avoid detection by the investigation team.

Giving the details about the arrest, he said a specific secret information was received today by a sub-inspector posted at Okhla Industrial Area police station.

"He got to know that Mukesh Kumar Vishnoi will be coming to Mathura from Jaipur by bus to meet someone. He conveyed the information to senior officers who constituted a raiding team. The team laid a trap at New Bus Stand, Bhuteshwar, Mathura.

"At about 3.30 AM, a bus coming from Jaipur stopped there. When passengers were deboarding the bus, Vishnoi was apprehended," the officer added.

On May 20, Masonda Ketada Olivier (23), was allegedly beaten to death by three youths following a brawl over hiring an auto-rickshaw in Vasant Kunj area.

While Oliver's friend and other African nationals in the area who rushed to his rescue had alleged that the attack on Oliver took place on racial lines, senior police officials denied the allegations.

According to police, the incident took place around midnight of May 20 when Olivier was returning from the residence of a Congolese friend at Kishangarh locality in Vasant Kunj. While he waited for an auto-rickshaw, his friend who accompanied him went to a nearby shop to buy cigarettes.

When an auto-rickshaw arrived there, a group of three men, heading towards Mehrauli, stepped inside the vehicle before Olivier could. This led to a heated exchange of words which soon turned into a brawl.

The group pounced on Olivier, and as he tried to escape, they chased him for around 20-25 metres and attacked him again with stones. When locals rushed to his rescue, the trio allegedly roughed up the locals too and fled in the three-wheeler.

Following the incident External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had assured that India was committed towards the safety and security of African nationals.

Her junior minister V K Singh met the representatives of African heads of missions to assuage their concerns while strongly condemning the killing of the youth.

Vishnoi had been declared a proclaimed offender by a court on November 8. Several teams in South Eastern Range were constituted to arrest him.

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Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has issued a notice to Delhi Police for allegedly not following provisions of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013, in constitution of its internal complaints committees to redress grievances of its female personnel.

"The Commission has learnt that the Internal Complaints Committees in Delhi Police have not been constituted in accordance to the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013," said the notice issued by DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal.

The committees do not consist of a minimum of four members and an external member, which are mandatory requirements as per Section 4(2) of the Act, it said.

The law has mandated the presence of an external member in these committees to promote transparency and fairness in its functioning, she said.

The notice has "strongly recommended" that the committees at the level of police headquarter (PHQ), district as well as each unit be "immediately reconstituted" in accordance with the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013.

It has sought Delhi Police's action taken report in this regard within two weeks along with details of the members of the new committees.

The Commission holding proceedings on the complaint of 24 female staff of Provision and Logistics (P&L) Unit of Delhi Police against an inspector working there has also expressed its dissatisfaction over the action taken so far by the police.

"Commission has been informed by the complainant in a written representation that the accused has not been shifted out of the unit despite the same having been ordered by the Delhi Police. Also, the complainant has stated that she along with other female staff who had complained against the accused have instead been transferred out of the unit," Maliwal said in the notice.

The notice asks the respondent Delhi Police for "immediate" registration of FIR in the matter and revoke transfer orders of the complainants.

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Delhi's batting heavyweights would like to get their act together when they take on Saurashtra in their final group league encounter in the Ranji Trophy here tomorrow.

Jharkhand with 32 points and Karnataka with 30 in their kitty are safely through to the next round while Odisha (22 points), Delhi and Maharashtra on 21 each are fighting for that final slot.

Playing Saurashtra, who have had a poor season and have just about managed to save relegation with 12 points will be an advantage for the Delhi boys.

A lot will depend on how India discard Gambhir and current international Shikhar Dhawan perform in this match. Not to forget Ranji Trophy's current top-scorer Rishabh Pant (903), who can be a game-changer on a given day.

Delhi's batting has not come good this season -- a testimony would Milind Kumar's tally of 421 runs from seven games, which is the second best this season.

Among others, who have played all seven matches, Nitish Rana had tallied 386 runs largely due to his 146 during one of the earlier rounds.

The biggest disappointment for Delhi has been their vice-captain Unmukt Chand, whose modest returns of 345 runs at the top of the order from the seven matches have hurt the team very badly. Gambhir has scored a mediocre 185 from 4 games and Dhawan has not got a 50 plus score in the 3 innings since his comeback from thumb injury.

The other issue that has plagued Delhi is a lack of settled bowling attack. Only left-arm spinner Manan Sharma has played all matches among the specialist bowlers, getting 17 wickets.

The seamers have all had injuries or inconsistent performances with erratic Vikas Tokas playing 5 matches with only 11 wickets to show for his efforts. Left-arm spinner Varun Sood with 14 wickets from five games have also failed to make an impact.

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BJP today said that demonetisation was necessary to break the backbone of black money and other anti-national activities though it has caused "little inconvenience" to the general public.

"It is true that people in general have to face little inconvenience at few places but for the good of the country, the countrymen should be prepared to face some hardships," BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav said while addressing party functionaries here today.

He said that demonetisation was one of the bold and transformative decision which will serve multiple purposes.

"It will work by breaking the backbone of black money, diminish fake currency, hawala transactions, and give severe blow to drug mafia and the funding to terrorists and anti-national elements," Madhav said.

He stressed upon the party leaders to reach out the masses to educate them about the benefits of demonetisation and expose the opposition parties for their misinformation campaign unleashed to tarnish the image of the Modi government.

The BJP leader said that it was a major and courageous step that no previous government ever dared to take.

"The bold decisions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past two-and-a-half-years are aimed at making India one of the leading countries in the world," Madhav said.

He said that not merely reformative but the NDA government has taken transformative decisions to put India on the track of rapid development while meeting the aspirations of common masses, downtrodden and under privileged classes.

"The goal of the present NDA government is not to enjoy power but to ensure country's dignified place at the international level. Its decisions with regard to empowering the common masses, providing the essential facilities to the people and in the matter of defence, foreign affairs, and communication sector and in the economic fields are commendable," he said.

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Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today dismissed reports of her having differences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said this was a "perception" created by the media as both of them talk when it is required.

Raje also called it an "imaginary talk" when asked if she was angry that her MP son Dushyant Singh was not given a berth in the Narendra Modi-led government that took charge in 2014.

"You all have tried to create that perception (she and Modi not gelling together)...That I am a 'maharani'...This is how it is...How far will you create perceptions? I have had no problems till now (with the PM).

"Things are going good in the state...Whenever there is a positive development you would be reading the tweets (by the PM) too. I never feel so..If it is about perception then you help us change it," she said when asked if the opposition was correct in saying that things do not gel ('banti nahin') between her and the PM.

Participating in the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here, she said there is nothing like not talking to Modi directly.

"You will not talk everyday...No one talks to me everyday when it comes to state affairs. When requirement arises, we talk, we meet and conferences are held and issues are exchanged. When there is requirement we do. There could be a perception problem with you but nothing between us (Raje and Modi)," she said.

Raje added her son, Dushyant, Member of Parliament from Rajasthan, is "happy where he is" and all the talks about her being unhappy at Dushyant not being inducted into the Modi cabinet are "imaginary."



"Kitni kalpanik baatein...Kahan se suni...Kisney aapko bataya (this is a imaginary talk...Where did you hear this and who told you?)...Dushyant is very happy where he is. In my family, by God's grace, we got what we should have...," she said when asked a question on this.

In reply to an another question on the leadership of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Raje said she has "no opinion" on this issue.

"I have got no opinion on Rahul's leadership...It's not my habit to go into this. It is not necessary to comment on this...Else you go on doing negative politics and the work of development of the state is not attended to," she said.

The Rajasthan chief Minister said she does not see state Congress President Sachin Pilot as a "threat" to her.

"We will see in 2018 (when Assembly polls are slated in the state)," she said.

(REOPENS DEL 54)



Talking about the effects of demonetisation in Rajasthan, Raje said her state has been "geared" to become a cashless economy since 2006-2007.

"I am a digitised state for a long time...Direct benefit transfer, digital platforms...If all this is present in any state, then Rajasthan is on top of it. We will be getting 23,000 machines (Point of Sale counters and electronic gadgets for cashless transactions) soon while 45,000 such machines are already working in the state. We are an enabled state," the CM said.

Raje, while presenting a report card of the state's progress during the event, chronicled a number of welfare schemes being initiated by her including a crowd funding project where Rs 53 crore was collected for creating water tanks in parched villages of the state.

She said her government ended at least 79 laws which were old and required to be scrapped.

"We have introduced a happiness index for the people of our state...The once called BIMARU state Rajasthan is now first in many many things...My critics would say 'maharani kya samjhegi gareebon ka problem' but we have done many things for the welfare of the poor," she said.
Enforcement Directorate (ED) will soon take over the probe into the cash haul of Rs 1.43 crore here after demonetisation.

"We have already sent a copy of the FIR and seizure details to the Enforcement Directorate, New Delhi. They will register a case and begin probe," Sambalpur Superintendent of Police Akhilesvar Singh said.

ED will probe the money source and other financial angles involved in the seizure made here on Sunday, he said.

A police team has meanwhile left for Bhubaneswar to collect the information about the seized currencies from Reserve Bank of India.

According to the police of the total seized cash, Rs 85,62,000 was in new currencies of Rs 2000 and Rs 500 denominations, Rs 25,29,000 was in old currencies of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations and the remaining notes were in smaller denominations.

Police have so far arrested eight people, including the public relation officer of the main branch of State Bank of India in this connection. The other accused who have been arrested include his elder brother, liquor baron Zeyarat Ali, his three sons and two other businessmen.

Since withdrawal of such huge cash is not possible due to restriction imposed by RBI after demonetisation police suspect involvement of more bank employees in the case.

A team of police official had discussed the matter with the chief manager of the SBI main branch here yesterday. The district police have also handed over the detail of the seizure to the Income Tax Department.

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A bed-ridden Egyptian woman weighing 500kg was granted by Indian Embassy in Cairo following intervention by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

36-year-old Eman Ahmed, a resident of port city of Alexandria, was issued the medical hours after a Mumbai- based bariatric surgeon requested Swaraj to help the woman travel to India for her treatment.

"Thanks for bringing this to my notice. We will definitely help her," Swaraj tweeted in response to the request.

Hours later, Dr Muffi Lakdawala, who as per his twitter profile is also a philanthropist, tweeted that Indian Embassy in Cairo granted to Eman, a resident of Alexandria.

"Embassy in Cairo called Visa granted.Thank you so much for this prompt response, impressed Appreciate the help @SushmaSwaraj," Lakdawala said.

Earlier, seeking Swaraj's intervention, he had said Eman weighs 500 kg and has been refused the visa.

"Ma'am , Eman Ahmed (Egypt) 500kgs requested me 2 save her pls help me get her a medical visa as refused thru normal process @SushmaSwaraj," he had tweeted.

Eman's weight prevented her from pursuing her studies as she dropped out of school due to weight gain.
An estranged Pakistani man today strangled his five children to death before committing suicide in Punjab's Chiniot district, police said.

Hussain, a resident of Chiniot's Lalian Tehsil, strangled his five children, including a daughter and four sons, before committing suicide, said District Police Officer (DPO) Chiniot Mustansar Feroz.

Amongst the children killed were his 10-year-old daughter and sons aged eight, six, five and and three respectively, Dawn newspaper reported.

According to neigbours, Hussain, 35, had been estranged from his wife, Sajida Begum, who had left for her parents house a few months ago.

When Sajida refused to return despite his attempts to convince her, Hussain took the extreme step of killing his children and hanging himself, police said.

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A special CBI court in Mumbai has sentenced a former assistant general manager of Central Bank of India and four others to rigorous imprisonment for five years in a case of defrauding the bank for about Rs 10 crore.

Former AGM Dipendra Nanubhai Upadhyay was handed the sentence along with CA Mahesh Lalchand Jaiswal, garment businessman Bharat C Vedant and his employee Sandeep Ramesh Vedant and Sandesh Ramchandra Nage by the court, a CBI spokesperson said here.

A case was registered in this regard in 2004 in which it was alleged that in 2001 the said bank official had conspired with Vedant and released funds against various credit facilities and corresponding illegal gains to his three firms.

Fake documents were given to the bank as securities which resulted in a loss of approximately Rs 9.62 crore to the bank, the spokesperson said.

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Industry body Ficci today said Indian industry is deeply saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who will be remembered for making "relentless efforts" for the state's economic progress.

"Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary political leader who made relentless efforts for the economic progress of the Tamil Nadu and single-handedly conceptualised the vision document Vision 2023 Tamil Nadu, setting the plan for infrastructure development for the state," the chamber said in a statement.

Her connect with the people, concern for wellbeing of the poor, the women and marginalised will always be a source of inspiration and be cherished for years, it said.

"We share our deepest condolences with her family and the people of Tamil Nadu. Selvi Jayalalithaa was a visionary leader and will continue to inspire us in Indian industry. Her absence in the Indian Polity will create a void that would be very difficult to fill," said Ficci President Harshavardhan Neotia.

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Germany is keen on grabing large volume projects such as high-speed trains, smart cities and renewable energy in India and will support its companies to make them competitive against those from China and Japan, a German minister said today.

A German business delegation led by Minister Uwe Beckmeyer MdB in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, has been on a India visit to explore business opportunities.

"We talked with entrepreneurs and government officials for business opportunities in 'Make in India' campaign. We have a new strategy on fresh stimulus to major strategic international projects abroad. We want to promote new markets and also prove German companies' ability to compete with companies from China and Japan on international big projects," Beckmeyer MdB said in a select media briefing here.

Germany is particularly keen on high volume projects like high speed trains, ports, infrastructure, locomotives, renewable energy, and railways.

At present, India and Germany already have a cooperation agreement on energy.

He said India can gain advantage from Germany as it is an expert in the field of high speed trains.

Referring to questions being posed to Germany in the past on financing high volume projects in India, he said it is now in a position to extend financial support and want to be in a position to support Indian in these fields.

"In case of large volume projects, our support could match competitiveness and this is what we have to do. German exports and economy are on a good path, we have a strong economic situation. We have also developed new coordinations to strengthen our position in business competing for projects abroad," he added.

Germany is also working on establishing a single-touch point at political level in India and a coordinator will be appointed shortly to facilitate their businesses here.

The German government will also offer financial cooperation to individual projects and disburse export credit guarantee with 100 per cent cover for public and private sector for projects abroad that are of strategic importance to Germany.

On asked about recent demonetization of Rs 500/1000 notes, he said it is India's political decision, however, Germany is involved with India in printing bank notes that are hard to counterfeit.

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Government has extended the export entitlement quota for readymade garments & knitwear, yarn and fabrics & made-ups to the US, Canada and European Union for one year with effect from 1 January, 2017.

"The government hereby decides to extend the operation of the residuary provisions of yarn, fabrics & made-ups export entitlement (quota) policy for a further one year with effect from 1 January, 2017," said a notification issued by Textiles Ministry.

Similarly, it also extended the operation of the residuary provisions of garments and knitwears export entitlement (quota) policy for a further one year with effect from 1 January, 2017.

The garments and knitwears export entitlement policy is applicable in respect of countries where such exports are covered by restraints under the provisions of the agreement on textiles and clothing.

Export entitlements will be allotted only to exporters registered with the competent registering authorities as per the export-import policy prevailing from time to time.

Quantities that become available from time to time on account of surrenders, flexibilities or otherwise shall also be allocated under the First Come First Served (FCFS) system.

The government had earlier decided to enforce operation of the residuary provisions of garments and knitwears export entitlement (quota) policy and yarn, fabrics & made-ups export entitlement (quota) policy initially for one year with effect from 1st January, 2005, and extended from time to time.

These provisions had been extended up to 31 December 2016.

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A Greek court ruled today that three Turkish officers accused of playing a part in a failed July coup could be extradited to Turkey, in a case that has strained relations between the two neighbours.

The Athens appeals court said that the three -- out of eight officers seeking asylum in Greece -- should be sent back for "attempting to topple the regime" of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a judicial source said.

Earlier in the day, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the Greek authorities would abide with the court rulings on the case "irrespective of the political cost."



The ruling came a day after the same court rejected extradition for another three of the officers, deeming that Turkish authorities had not provided sufficient evidence, and that their personal safety was in jeopardy at home.

That decision outraged Ankara, which has arrested tens of thousands of people as part of a wide-ranging crackdown since the attempted putsch.

"Greece is in the NATO alliance with Turkey and is a NATO ally. Our expectation is that the Greek government make every effort to return" those individuals to Turkey, Defence Minister Fikri Isik said yesterday.

The court is expected to decide the fate of the remaining two officers on Thursday.

Today, it was revealed that the court prosecutor had lodged an appeal against Monday's ruling, arguing that the case should be heard by the Supreme Court.

Turkey may still appeal the case, and any final decision to extradite rests with the Greek minister of justice.

The two Turkish commanders, four captains and two sergeants requested asylum in Greece after landing a military helicopter in the northern city of Alexandroupoli shortly after the attempted government takeover in mid-July.

The officers are currently also appealing against a Greek refusal to grant them asylum in September.

Ankara has asked Athens to extradite them all to face trial in Turkey for their alleged role in the failed coup, including an alleged attempt on Erdogan's life.

In today's ruling to extradite, the court said it had not received conclusive evidence linking the three officers to an attack on Erdogan.

The eight officers say they would not receive a fair trial in Turkey, where the authorities have detained thousands of people over the coup, including top generals.

The case is awkward for Greece, which depends on Turkey to stem the flow of tens of thousands of migrants to its shores.

Several Turkish nationals, including civil servants and businessmen, have sought refuge in Greece following the coup attempt.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Van Williams, best known for his role on "The Green Hornet", died in Scottsdale of renal failure. He was 82.

Williams' wife Vicki confirmed the to Variety.

"He had a wonderful, caring, and kind heart. He was a wonderful husband, he was a fabulous father, and a devoted grandfather," Vicki said.

Williams was a diving instructor in Hawaii when producer Mike Todd found him in 1957 and cast him as private eye Kenny Madison in the 1959 detective series "Bourbon Street Beat".

He played Ken Madison, a character he later recycled for another detective show, "Surfside 6".

Both shows led to Williams landing the leading role in "The Green Hornet" (1966) as Britt Reid, a suave newspaper owner by day and masked vigilante by night.

He was supported by his martial arts master sidekick Kato, played by Bruce Lee, and by his weaponized car, Black Beauty. Williams played the role straight, signaling a departure from the lampoon comedy of Fox's earlier "Batman" series.

Williams also made cameos in "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies". His last credit was for the 1993 biopic "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story".

Williams is survived by his wife, his three children, Nina, Tia, and Britt and his five grandchildren.

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For a rough introduction to my philosophy of blogging, including the Code of Amiability Ito follow on this weblog, please read my fifth anniversary post . I consider blogging to be a very informal type of publishing - like putting up thoughts on your door with a note asking for comments. Nothing in this weblog is done rigorously: it's a forum to let my mind be unruly, a place for jottings and first impressions. Because I consider posts here to be 'literary seedings' rather than finished products, nothing here should be taken as if it were anything more than an attempt to rough out some basic thoughts on various issues. Learning to look at any topic philosophically requires, I think, jumping right in, even knowing that you might be making a fool of yourelf; so that's what I do. My primary interest in most topics is the flow and structure of reasoning they involve rather than their actual conclusions, so most of my posts are about that. If, however, you find me making a clear factual error, let me know; blogging is a great way to get rid of misconceptions.
A hijab-clad New York City Transit employee was pushed down the stairs at a subway station by a man who called her a "terrorist", the latest in a series of incidents in which headscarf-wearing women have been targeted in the US following Donald Trump's win.

Soha Salama, a 45-year-old Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) station agent who was wearing a hijab with her uniform, was injured when she was pushed down the stairs at Grand Central Terminal by a man.

She was on her way to work yesterday when the man confronted her, the New York Post reported.

"You're a terrorist and you shouldn't be working for the city," the hate-monger spewed at her while the two were on a subway train, as he jabbed at her MTA patch.

He followed her off the train and pushed her down the stairs. Her ankle and knee were injured and she was taken to NYU Langone Hospital by a good Samaritan passerby, police said. She was nursing a twisted knee and a swollen ankle.

Salama, a mother of four, told WABC-TV that it is "my first time I faced something like that."



"I wasn't able to say anything. I was afraid he was going to throw me down the tracks or do more bad to me than he already did. He was like pushing me down," she was quoted as saying by media reports.

"This is the great state of New York -- we welcome people of all cultures, customs and creeds with open arms," Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement about the incident that also outlined other attacks involving the MTA, including hate graffiti and literature on trains.

"We do not allow intolerance or fear to divide us because we know diversity is our strength and we are at our best when we stand united," he was quoted as saying.

His comments mirrored those made earlier by Mayor Bill de Blasio over a string of bias crimes, including one against a hijab-clad Muslim police officer who was the victim of a hate crime over the weekend.

The attack on the transit employee comes just days after a Muslim student was 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 incidents are among a series of such cases of intimidation and assault 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.

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Actress Anushka Sharma says she understands the emotional moments a soldier's family go through as her father fought for the country during the Kargil war.

Referring to the controversy surrounding her last release "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil", the 28-year-old actress said those fighting on the border are least concerned about release of a film featuring a Pakistani actor as it hardly makes any difference to the actual situation.

"I will share a personal experience, my father was posted in Jammu & Kashmir during the Kargil war. I remember my mom sitting in front of television throughout the day reading tickers which had name of the martyrs. I know what soldiers or their families go through.

"During the whole 'Ae Dil...' controversy I could understand the sentiment of the people, but I knew the person, who is fighting on the border, is least affected by the release of a film. The soldiers are dealing with an actual issue and release of a movie is negligible in front of that," she told a session at Agenda Aaj Tak here.

The "Sultan" star said people should raise these issues only if they are capable of making a significant difference to the 'situation'.

"Being a soldiers daughter I understand that what they are doing is the real deal. But me giving statement on the issue is of no significance.

"I find it really cheap when people talk about an issue just for the sake of talking and are not making any difference to the actual situation," she added.

Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena staged high-voltage protests against the release of Karan Johar's directorial venture featuring Fawad Khan.

The party vociferously demanded a ban on Pakistani actors and artistes in the Indian film industry after the Uri terror attack, which claimed the lives of 19 soldiers.

However, the protest was called off after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis mediated talks between the MNS chief and the filmmakers.

Also starring Ranbir Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the film crossed the Rs 100 mark within a week of its worldwide opening.

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An illegal telephone exchange was unearthed in a house at Panitanki near Indo-Nepal border and one person arrested in this connection, police said today.

The detective department of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate raided the house in New Market locality last night and arrested Ranvijay Singh, who was operating from there for around six months.

Police seized 190 Nepalese and Indian SIM cards, a large number of ATM cards, four laptops, three voter ID cards bearing the name of a single person, and five GSM Gateway Machines from his possession.

GSM Gateway Machines allow direct routing among various networks like analog, GSM, digital and Internet Protocol (IP).

Out of the 190 SIM cards found in his possession, 155 were Nepalese and the rest were Indian, the police said.

Singh, hailing from Siwan district of Bihar, had worked in Qatar in 2009 and then in Oman the next year. He started staying in Siliguri in 2015 and shifted to Panitanki this year, the police said.

Police were also investigating whether the man was involved in any other crimes.

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Condoling the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha, India Inc today said the country has lost a visionary, dynamic and inspiring leader.

CII President Naushad Forbes said that during her tenure, industry in Tamil Nadu had progressed remarkably well and the Vision 2023 launched by her was a landmark initiative towards ensuring inclusive and equitable growth in the state.

Ficci said the Indian industry is deeply saddened by the demise of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, who will be remembered for making "relentless efforts" for the state's economic progress.

"Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary political leader who made relentless efforts for the economic progress of the Tamil Nadu and single-handedly conceptualised the vision document Vision 2023 Tamil Nadu, setting the plan for infrastructure development for the state," the chamber said in a statement.

Her connect with the people, concern for wellbeing of the poor, the women and marginalised will always be a source of inspiration and be cherished for years, it said.

"We share our deepest condolences with her family and the people of Tamil Nadu. Selvi Jayalalithaa was a visionary leader and will continue to inspire us in Indian industry. Her absence in the Indian Polity will create a void that would be very difficult to fill," said Ficci President Harshavardhan Neotia.

"During her tenure as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, the state has transformed and retained its leadership position as the most favoured investment destination in India with the presence of diverse industries," said Ramesh Kymal, Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu State Council.

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India and Israel today decided to enhance their cooperation in the field of science and technology, including establishment of a research and development fund with an investment of USD 20 million.

A high-level Israeli delegation led by Israeli Minister for Science, Technology and Space Ofir Akunis, including three members of Israeli Parliament met Union Minister for Science, Technology and Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan.

Both sides agreed to give boost to the bilateral cooperation in science and technology under the aegis of the S&T Agreement concluded between India and Israel in 1993.

As a follow-up to the India-Israel Joint S&T Committee meeting which was held in Jerusalem earlier this year, the two ministers agreed to step up the collaboration in the next two years by providing USD 1 million from each side to support new R&D projects in the cutting edge areas of 'Big Data Analytics in Health Care' and 'Security in Cyber Space'.

Akunis' visit follows the visit of Israel President Reuven Rivlin to India last month.

The joint projects will be awarded to the partnering academic and R&D laboratories from the two countries during the next year.

As a part of these projects, student exchanges will be encouraged in order to connect the next generation and sustain the pipeline of future collaboration.

Vardhan emphasised that the two countries would like to identify new opportunities and mechanisms to expand and upscale cooperation.

India and Israel together have implemented a large number of cutting edge research projects in applied areas covering agricultural and medical biotechnology, human genomics, advanced materials and nanotechnology, imaging sensor and robotics, solar energy, communication & IT and lasers and electro-optics.

It was also agreed to consider special initiatives to support women in science and technology through new joint programmes in this area.

Further, in order to engage best and bright researchers from two countries, Vardhan suggested to hold 'Frontiers of Science and Engineering Symposium'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Oilmeal exports fell by 9.75 per cent to 1,08,342 tonnes in November this year on sluggish demand, industry body SEA said today.

The country had shipped 1,20,059 tonnes of oilmeal -- used as an animal feed -- in November last year.

During April-November of the 2016-17 fiscal, oilmeal exports fell 27 per cent to 6,62,489 tonnes from 9,03,624 tonnes in the year-ago period, according to the latest data released by the Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA).

The fall was mainly due to "lesser availability of oilseeds for crushing and continuous disparity in exporting soyabean meal in international market," it said.

In November 2016, rapeseed meal export fell to 12,304 tonnes from 12,845 tonnes in the year-ago period, while rice bran extraction declined to 2,371 from 12,528 tonnes in the said period.

Similarly, castor seed meal export almost halved to 41,451 tonnes from 82,777 tonnes in the said period, Mumbai-based SEA said in a statement.

However, the export of soyabean meal rose to 51,805 tonnes in November this year from 8,909 tonnes in the year-ago period. The country also exported about 411 tonnes of groundnut meal during the said period.

South Korea and Vietnam are the two top destinations for export of oilmeal from India.

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A 50-year-old Indian-origin man has been charged with murder for stabbing his wife to death on a street here after an argument.

Prem Rampersaud, who lives in Guyana, is temporarily residing with a friend in Queens.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said yesterday that he has been charged with murder in the multiple stabbing death of his wife Rajwantie Baldeo, 46, on the streets in Queens, just after midnight.

"This was an especially violent crime in which the defendant is accused of viciously taking the life of the woman he purportedly loved by repeatedly stabbing her following a heated verbal argument. If convicted, her brutal and senseless death merits serious punishment," Brown said in a statement.

Rampersaud is being held pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and fourth- degree criminal possession of a weapon.

If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

According to the charges, Rampersaud met his wife as she finished work at a restaurant at approximately twelve midnight on December 5.

It is alleged that they got into an argument and Rampersaud stabbed Baldeo multiple times in the body, fatally wounding her.

Baldeo was taken to a local Queens hospital where she was pronounced dead.

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Iran today denied Saudi charges of espionage as "baseless" after a court in the Sunni kingdom announced death sentences for 15 people it said had spied for Tehran.

"Saudi Arabia must not seek to bring baseless accusations against Iran with the intention of political gains and increasing tensions in the region," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said.

"Iran has had no activity against international law and diplomatic principles in Saudi Arabia," he said, quoted by state agency IRNA.

He said Riyadh had not passed on "any information to the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the alleged Iranian person" reportedly among the accused.

"Iran's principle policy toward Persian Gulf countries is mutual respect, good neighbourliness, and no interference in domestic affairs of other countries," said Ghasemi.

A Saudi court earlier today condemned 15 people to death for spying for the Sunni kingdom's regional rival Iran, local media and a source close to the case said.

The source told AFP that most of the 15 Saudis were members of the kingdom's Shiite minority.

Their trial opened in February, a month after Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran over the burning of the Saudi embassy and a consulate by Iranian demonstrators protesting the kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The 15 were among a group of 32 people tried over the espionage allegations, Alriyadh newspaper said.

Some of the defendants were accused of meeting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of predominantly Shiite Iran.

Two of the group were acquitted while the rest received jail sentences of between six months and 25 years.

Apart from one Iranian and an Afghan, all of the defendants were Saudis. The source said that one of the two acquitted was a foreigner.

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The Iraqi army today entered another neighborhood held by the Islamic State group in the southeastern part of Mosul, a statement said.

The commander of a joint operations center that oversees the Mosul campaign, Lt Gen Abdul-Amir Yarellah, said that soldiers from the 9th Division took over the hospital building in the al-Salam neighborhood.

Yarellah did not provide more details but said the troops have "continued clearing" the neighborhood of IS militants.

Iraqi forces, backed the US-led international coalition, launched a campaign in October to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city and IS's last major urban bastion in Iraq.

Most gains have been made by special forces operating in the section of Mosul east of the Tigris River, while other forces are advancing on the city from other directions.

In an audio recording published online, the newly-appointed spokesman of IS, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, urged the fighters in Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa to keep up the fight and not to retreat. In his nearly 30-minute speech, al-Muhajir called on Muslims and "Caliphate soldiers" to strike inside Turkey and against its diplomatic missions as well as launching attacks in other parts of the world.

It was not clear when the recording was produced; it was distributed by the militant group's al-Furqan media arm late yesterday night. Al-Muhajir replaced Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, who was killed in an airstrike in August.

IS captured Mosul in the summer of 2014 as part of a blitz that placed nearly a third of Iraq under their control, along large swaths of neighboring Syria. Iraqi troops, federal police and allied Shiite and Sunni militias have over the past year pushed IS militants from most of the vast Sunni province of Anbar, west of Baghdad, and areas to the north and east of the Iraqi capital.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won't apologise for Japan's attack when he visits the US naval base at Pearl Harbor later this month, the government spokesman said today.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that "the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology."



Abe announced late yesterday that he would have a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Hawaii and visit Pearl Harbor. He will be the first Japanese leader to go to the site of the Japanese attack that propelled the US into World War II.

The unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the US atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.

"We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the US".

The White House confirmed that Obama and Abe would visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on December 27.

It said "the two leaders' visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values."



Defence Secretary Ash Carter, on an official trip to Japan, said he would tell Abe at a meeting later today how pleased Obama and the US are.

The announcement of the summit comes as Japan worries about the direction of US foreign policy under Obama's successor, Donald Trump.

Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said that together with Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbor visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration.

"Historical disputes tend to be brought up when relations become thorny ... But once you put them behind and move on, it makes a difference if there is any negative sentiment in the future," he said.

But Koichi Nakano, a professor of international politics at Tokyo's Sophia University, said the Pearl Harbor visit and Abe's commitment to the Japan-US alliance are tantamount to "giving a blank check to Trump" despite the uncertainty over bilateral relations under his administration.

More than 2,300 US servicemen died in the aerial attack, which will be marked tomorrow at Pearl Harbor with a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55 AM, when the Japanese planes hit their first target.

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Lyricist-writer Javed Akhtar, Aishwarya Dhanush, Patrick French and Frank Trentmann are among the 250 speakers set to appear at the 10th edition of Jaipur Literary festival (JLF) next year.

The organisers released the eighth list of 10 speakers today. The new line-up has speakers from India and across the globe including noted screenwriter-poet-lyricist Akhtar, who has been a regular at the literary event.

French, a British biographer and historian living in Delhi and known for his books "The World Is What It Is" and his biography of Nobel Laureate V S Naipual, is also returning to the festival. He is currently working on the authorised biography of Doris Lessing.

Aishwarya Dhanush, who has written the memoir "Standing On An Apple Box" chronicling her experiences of being the daughter of superstar Rajnikanth and being married to an actor, will be a part of the event.

Other speakers include Manav Kaul, an author, playwright, actor and director, Mei Fong, the Pulitzer award-winning Malaysian writer, known for her book on China's one-child policy and Anuradha Beniwal, a former National chess champion, who debuted with her Hindi book "Aazadi Mera Brand".

Trentmann, a professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, will attend the festival to talk about his new book "Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century".

Raghu Karnad, a journalist and the author of "Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War", author Richard Sennett, best known for his writings on cities, labour and culture and French writer Franck Thilliezis round off the list of 10 speakers, whose names were released today.

The 2017 edition will take place between January 19 and 23 at the historic Diggi Palace Hotel in Jaipur.

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Amid heart-rending scenes, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was today laid to rest near the grave of her political mentor M G Ramachandran at the Marina beach here with full state honours.

Soon after the rituals got over around 6 PM, the sandalwood casket carrying Jayalalithaa's mortal remains was lowered down after the traditional gun salute amidst emotional chants of 'Amma Vazhga' (Long Live Amma) by the thousands of people who had converged there.

Jayalalithaa's long-time confidante Sasikala Natarajan and the AIADMK supremo's nephew Deepak performed the last rites at the M G Ramachandran Memorial Site.

This included showering of flower petals and sandalwood pieces after which the casket was lowered, symbolising the culmination of the customary rituals of the last rites.

Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, Union Ministers M Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishan, besides Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and former Ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik also paid floral tributes on the occasion.

Earlier, the casket, which was placed at Rajaji Hall, was shifted to a flower-decked gun carriage doubling up as the funeral cortege to be taken to the burial site.

Sasikala, Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Akhilesh Yadav joined the funeral procession.

Milk and holy water were sprinkled on Jayalalithaa's body



as part of the rituals.

Her body was covered with an AIADMK party flag red and white in colour with an image of Dravidian ideologue and former Chief Minister C N Annadurai.

Nails were then hammered in on the coffin that was engraved with the words 'Puratchi Thalaivi Selvi' (Revolutionary Leader) in Tamil, before being lowered.

Later, the pit where her mortal remains were buried was filled with sand and mud amid showering of flowers.

En route the funeral procession, those on board the cavalcade showered flower petals throughout even as followers and party men walked along chanting "Puratchi Thalaivi Amma Pugazh Onguga" (Let the reputation of Revolutionary Leader Amma grow).

Emotional men and women thronged terraces of high-rise buildings and on both sides of the road for a last glimpse of the departed leader, who was being taken in a long cavalcade of several vehicles besides the gun-carriage.

Amid tight security, which included the deployment of armed reserve and rapid action forces, the procession found its way to the famous Marina Beach peacefully.

Thousands of party workers and common people had gathered at the MGR memorial site at the Beach, waiting patiently for several hours to witness the burial ceremony near the grave of Jayalalithaa's political mentor M G Ramachandran.

Earlier in the day, President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew into Chennai to pay tributes to the late chief minister.

Those who paid homage to her at Rajaji Hall included Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Governor P Sathasivam and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.

Visiting Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan also paid his last respects, as did a host of film personalities, including superstar Rajinikanth, actors Sarath Kumar, Sivakarthikeyan, Dhanush, actress Gauthami, besides veteran artistes who had worked with Jayalalithaa decades ago.

68-year-old Jayalalithaa had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away last night at the Apollo Hospitals, where she had been hospitalised since September 22.

(REOPENS MDS41)



Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa Jayakumar also paid her homage to the late leader at Rajaji Hall.

However, expelled AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP Sasikala Pushpa was not permitted to go near the casket.

Though she managed to come up to the stairs, party functionaries and police personnel present there disallowed her to proceed further.

She was seen having an argument before leaving the place.

Pushpa was expelled from AIADMK by Jayalalithaa in August this year for bringing bad name to the party after she had a public spat with DMK MP Tiruchi Siva at Delhi airport.

The woman MP had later claimed she was slapped by a "leader" and faced threat to her life in Tamil Nadu. She had also lashed out at the AIADMK saying it is full of "slaves".
Consul General of Russian Federation in South India, Sergey L Kotov today condoled the death of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and termed it as a huge loss not only to Tamil Nadu but also to the "whole country".

In his letter to Chief Minister O Panneerselvam here, Kotov said, "On behalf of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Chennai, let me express our deepest and sincere condolences in connection with the sad demise of Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa on December five."



"Her death is a huge loss not only for Tamil Nadu, but for the whole country," he said.

"We share the feeling of grief and the pain of loss with the people of India. We will remember her as a prominent leader, who dedicated herself to developing the State of Tamil Nadu and improving the welfare of the people," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi today said Jayalalithaa was a rare political personality who charted a distinct path of governance through her strong and able leadership.

Expressing her condolence over the demise of Jayalalithaa, Bedi in her letter to Tamil Nadu Government described the late Chief Minister as a "multi faceted personality".

Bedi said "the departed leader had always carved a niche for herself in all walks of life, be it as a student excelling in academics, be it as an artist, as a versatile actor and culminating in politics as a leader of the masses and elite", a release said.

Jayalalithaa had been a symbol of women empowerment and always had her heart for the cause of women. People of Puducherry "shared the sorrow of the loss along with the people of Tamil Nadu", she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Leaders across the political spectrum today paid glowing tributes to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister JJayalalithaa, describing her as a "towering figure" in Indian politics.

Lauding the leadership qualities and administrative abilities of Jayalalithaa as "outstanding", Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that as leader of AIADMK and as a four-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa had a "unique and deep empathy with the needs and hope of people".

"Congress Party, my family and I personally share the grief and pain of the people of Tamil Nadu and her devoted supporters in AIADMK, who have lost their beloved Amma."



"She was a towering figure in our national and political life who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state and her dedication to the honour of India," she said.

In her condolence message, Sonia said Jayalalithaa lived her entire life with the same indomitable courage with which she battled her last illness.

"Whether it was her welfare schemes for the rural and urban poor or her swift measures in the aftermath of Tsunami or her vision for TN's industrial development, her leadership qualities and administrative abilities were truly outstanding," she said.

Condoling her demise, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said, "We lost a great leader. Women, farmers, fishermen and the marginalised dreamt through her eyes.We will miss Jayalalithaa ji, Amma to millions".

Mourning the demise of his Tamil Nadu counterpart, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced one-day state mourning in the state as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

In a condolence message, Kumar said Jayalalithaa's demise has caused an irreparable loss in the fields of politics, society and art and culture not only in the state of Tamil Nadu, but the entire country.

Paying rich tributes to Jayalalithaa, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad described her as a pro-poor, popular, bold and result-oriented leader of the country.

"Deeply saddened to hear demise of #Amma, a Pro-poor, Popular, Bold, Strong and result oriented Leader of country. Truly u wil be dearly missed," he said in a post on Twitter.

"My sincere prayers and thoughts are with people of Tamil Nadu, well wishers and family. #Amma did a lot for marginalized, farmers and poor. RIP," he said in another post.

"Sincerely and humbly request people of AIADMK and Tamil Nadu to bear this huge loss with courage. #Jayalalithaa has left a huge blank in politics," the RJD supremo said.

(Repeating with fresh inputs)



Expressing grief, Leader of Opposition in Tamil Nadu M K Stalin, said, "Deeply saddened by the demise of our CM Selvi Jayalalithaa. My deepest condolences to the party cadres and well wishers in this hour of grief".

"She was an iconic and courageous leader. This is an irreparable loss to the people of Tamil Nadu," he said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh also expressed sadness at the passing away of Jayalalithaa, saying, "She was a powerful voice for the weaker sections of the society."



"She always worked for the benefit of the poor and needy. She has left an indelible mark in Tamil Nadu politics with her enduring legacy. Selvi Jayalalithaa was one of the most iconic political figures of India who had an enormous impact on the people of Tamil Nadu," Singh said.

"I pay my heartfelt tributes to the departed soul. I also appeal to the people of Tamil Nadu to remain calm in this hour of grief," he said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also condoled the passing away of Jayalilthaa.

"A popular, bold, efficient, people-friendly charismatic leader Amma, always at the heart of people. Big loss, I am shocked, saddened," Banerjee said in a tweet.

"I humbly urge the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK to face this big loss with courage and greatness. May she rest in peace," the Trinamool Congress supremo said.

Expressing grief, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot said, "Deeply saddened to learn of the demise of Tamil Nadu CM, Selvi Jayalalithaa. Iron Lady in politics so far, has left a vacuum."



Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy also expressed grief at her death.

"Jayalalithaa has done a lot of good work for the development of Tamil Nadu and for the welfare of the people. I mourn her death personally and also on behalf of the people of the union territory," he said.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in a tweet, said, "Very sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam aadmi's leader. May her soul rest in peace."



Condoling her death, BJP President Amit Shah said, "Saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa ji. I extend my deepest condolences to her party and followers in this hour of grief."



Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu also expressed grief over her demise.

"India lost a powerful leader," he said in a condolence message. She stood as an inspiration for many in public life, he said.

"In deep anguish over the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, a long-time friend & a leader with indomitable spirit who is loved by all. My deepest condolences to her well-wishers & supporters. She will remain in our memories as leader who truly cared for people," Naidu said.

YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy condoled Jayalalithaa's death, saying, "She rode like a colossus on the Dravidian political canvass. She will be remembered for her resoluteness, fighting spirit and pro-poor policies."



In her death the country in general and Tamil Nadu in particular lost a great orator, able administrator and a mass leader, he added.

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Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan



described Jayalalithaa as a symbol of "women's empowerment".

"Jayalalithaa was not only the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, but also a respected leader of the entire nation. She was the symbol of women's empowerment," Chouhan said before leaving for Chennai to pay his respects to the departed leader.

In his condolence message, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das said with her charismatic leadership, she took Tamil Nadu on the path of development.

Her relation with the people was strong, Das said, adding the country lost a leader whose replacement was not possible.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said her death is a "great loss" to the Tamil society.

He said the way Jayalalithaa emerged as the political heir to late M G Ramachandran from being an actress was "inspirational".

"At a time when women entering politics was rare, Jayalalithaa created a political history in contemporary Tamil Nadu politics by becoming AIADMK's General Secretary and later as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," Rao said.

Rao directed Telangana ministers T Harish Rao and N Narasimha Reddy to attend the funeral of the departed leader.

Condoling the demise of Jayalalithaa, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, "I am saddened by the demise of Jayalalithaaji. It was a shock for all of us."



"She had been a great, popular leader. I pay homage on behalf of the state of Goa. May her soul rest in peace," the he said.

Describing Jayalalithaa's demise as a "national loss", Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who would be attending the AIADMK supremo's funeral, today said she was the leader of the masses and had made immense contribution to the development and welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu.

Moving the obituary motion on Jayalalithaa's death, in the Assembly, Patnaik described her as the 'Iron Lady' of Tamil Nadu. The House was adjourned for the day after paying tributes to the departed leader.

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Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu mourned the demise of Jayalalithaa.

In his condolence message, Khandu expressed his grief of losing "one of the most charismatic, influential and dedicated leaders ever produced by the country".

"Lovingly called Amma, who worked for the poor and the downtrodden she left behind a political legacy to cherish," Khandu said.

"I believe, leaving this mortal world will not diminish the love and affection showered on her by the people and her soul will remain immortal," the chief minister said.

Khandu also prayed to Lord Buddha to bestow O Pannerselvam, who was sworn in as the Chief Minister hours after Jayalalithaa's demise, with the strength to bear the irreparable loss.

Gujarat Governor O P Kohli and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani today paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa.

Expressing heartfelt condolences for the popular Chief Moinister of Tamil Nadu, Rupani in his message said she made a special place in the heart of every citizen of southern state.

Her death is a great loss to not just her party AIADMK, but also for all the people of Tamil Nadu, he said.

Expressing deep grief over the death of the 67-year-old Chief Minister, Kohli stated in his condolence message that she was a multi-talented human being and a popular leader of Tamil Nadu.

Citizens will always remember her pro-people work, he said.

Describing Jayalalithaa as "people-friendly charismatic leader", West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee her demise is a "big loss".

She urged the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK to face this big loss with courage and greatness.

"Popular, strong, bold, efficient, Amma. Always at the heart of people. I am shocked, saddened," Banerjee said in her message.

Two TMC MPs - Derek Obrien and Kalyan Benerjee will attend the funeral in Chennai.

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West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi said



Jayalalithaa worked for the welfare of women and the poor.

She was a cultural personality and was a versatile actress before joining politics, he said.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje tweeted: "Deeply saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa ji. I join the nation in mourning the loss of an icon -- a leader of the masses."



Senior Congress leader Ashok Gehot said she was a true leader of the poor and the marginalised. Her death has left a void, which cannot be filled.

"It is the end of an era in Indian politics and in Tamil Nadu's life and society," he said.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said Jayalalithaa was "the people's chief minister" and her death is "the biggest loss to the political process of the country".

"It is a sad day for the entire country. Jayalalithaa was a great personality. I believe she was one of the most learned leaders of our country. The void she left is hard to fill," she said.

The former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister was a leader of masses and will be long remembered for introducing many innovative schemes and programmes for public welfare. She was a godmother for the women of her state, she said.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said Jayalalithaa was one of the greatest women leaders. "Very few people get the kind of love, affection and support she got from people. She's one of those few," he said in his condolence message.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said India lost a powerful leader who stood as an inspiration for many in public life.

"In deep anguish over the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, a long-time friend & a leader with indomitable spirit who is loved by all. My deepest condolences to her well-wishers & supporters. She will remain in our memories as leader who truly cared for people," he tweeted.

YSR Congress president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy said Jayalalithaa rode like a "colossus on the Dravidian political canvass".

He said she will be remembered for her resoluteness, fighting spirit and pro-poor policies. In her death, the country in general and Tamil Nadu in particular lost a great orator, able administrator and a mass leader.

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TRS MP K Kavitha said Jayalalithaa was an inspiration to people including her and emerged stronger despite facing many challenges.

Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury described her as the most powerful chief minister in the country and said she will remain immortal.

MNS president Raj Thackeray termed he an embodiment of regional pride and "iron lady" of politics. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray said the country had lost a shining star on political horizon in the passing away of Jayalalithaa.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar in a tweet said, "Deeply saddened to know about the passing away of Jayalalithaa. She will always be remembered as Amma of the masses.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar also expressed profound grief and sorrow over the demise of Jayalalithaa.

Haryana government observed a one-day state mourning as a mark of respect to the departed leader. The National Flag was flying at half-mast.

The Jharkhand government also declared one day state mourning even as several leaders including former chief minister Arjun Munda, and Babulal Marandi expressed their condolonce.

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and working president Omar Abdullah expressed profound grief and sorrow over the demise of Jayalalithaa.

Nagaland Governor P B Acharya and Chief Minister T R Zeliang also condoled her death.

Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh expressed his grief over her death.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat visited Tamil Nadu House in Delhi to condole her death by garlanding her picture. Governor K K Paul said it was a great loss for politics as well as society.

Chhatisgarh Governor Balramji Das Tandon and Chief Minister Raman Singh also expressed deepcondolenceon demise of Jayalalithaa.
Condoling Jayalalithaa's demise, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today described her as a "charismatic" and "outstanding" leader who will be remembered forever by the people.

"I join millions of admirers of Jayalalitha ji in mourning her sad and untimely demise," Singh said in a statement here.

"She was a charismatic leader who will be remembered forever as the beloved Amma by the people of Tamil Nadu. She was an outstanding leader who was passionately devoted to the welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu," the senior Congress leader added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The process of procurement of paddy has begun at the specified procurement centres across the state, Jharkhand Food, Civil Supply and Consumer Affairs Minister Saryu Roy said.

The minimum support price (MSP) for the paddy, as specified by the Union Government will be Rs 1,470 per quintal, he said here.

Apart from the MSP, the state government would give a bonus of Rs 130 per quintal, which means a farmer would get an MSP of Rs 1,600 per quintal, the minister said.

He claimed Jharkhand will be the first state in the country to announce such a bonus to farmers.

However, the farmers will have to register their names to take part in the process, Roy said, adding that around 60,000 farmers from across the state have already got their names registered.

The last date for registration is March 31, 2017, he said while appealing to the farmer community to get their registration done to make the process transparent.

Roy said registered farmers would would get SMS alerts at least three days before informing them to be present on a particular day at the procurement centre.

Besides, the farmers will get their payment through NEFT or DBT within 48 hours of procurement -- a move that would help check forgery, the minister said yesterday.

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Separatist leaders, who have been spearheading the five-month-long unrest in Kashmir, in a surprise move today invited tourists and pilgrims to visit the Valley to enjoy the traditional hospitality of its people while promising them safety.

Leaders of the two factions of separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference issued a joint statement asking people from outside to visit the Valley reminding them of the "exemplary hospitality" extended by the Kashmiris.

"We have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests," the statement said.

"Tourists and pilgrims who intend to visit Kashmir are most welcome," the statement issued by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the moderate moderate Hurriyat faction Mirwaiz Muhammad Umer Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik said.

Extending wholehearted welcome to tourists and pilgrims, they said people of Kashmir have been taught "to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost".

"This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethos and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history," they said.

Referring to the unrest of 2008, the statement said when there was an economic blockade and even baby food was scarce, people in the valley replied to that "tyranny with our exemplary hospitality".

"We not only safeguarded them, provided them shelter but also served them and kept the doors of our homes and localities open for them," they said and added that the same practice was followed during 2014 devastating floods.

The Kashmir Valley is witnessing continued turmoil since the July 8 killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces which has thrown normal life into disarray, badly hitting the state's economy.

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Government offices and educational institutions in Kerala will remain shut on Tuesday as a mark of respect to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away after a prolonged illness.

In a press statement, the government declared a holiday on December 6 for all government offices, including state-owned Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and educational institutions.

Expressing his deep sorrow at the demise of Jayalalithaa who died last night, State Governor P Sathasivam said she was the greatest woman political leader in contemporary India.

"In her we saw the perfect blend of strong will of an able administrator and the compassion of a philanthropist".

"In her sad demise, we have lost a unique mother's touch that had brightened the lives of millions of people during the last three decades".

In his condolence message, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described Jayalalithaa as an extraordinary politician with a rare political acumen and administrative skills which made her a distinct leader in Indian politics.

She had a special liking for Kerala and always strived to uphold and maintain relations, Vijayan said.

"We do not have any other Chief Ministers in our country who have influenced people like this. Her passing away is not only a major loss to Tamil Nadu, but for the entire country'.

Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala was among those who condoled her death.

Meanwhile, to prevent any untoward incidents, Kerala police strengthened security in the districts bordering Tamil Nadu with additional forces being deployed in the border areas of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki and Palakkad districts.
US Secretary of State John Kerry today rejected Russian charges Washington was stalling talks on a rebel withdrawal from the Syrian city of Aleppo in order to buy them time.

"I'm not aware of any specific refusal," Kerry said when asked about Moscow's charges as he attended a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier today accused the United States of bad faith over Aleppo where President Bashar al-Assad's forces have gained significant ground in a Moscow-backed offensive.

"It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves," Lavrov said.

Moscow had the impression "a serious discussion with our American partners isn't working out," he added.

Lavrov yesterday said Russia and the US would meet in Switzerland on either Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss a proposal put forward by Kerry last week on a complete rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo.

The rebels dismissed any withdrawal, prompting Lavrov to warn that "they will be destroyed" if they stay.

Russia and China yesterday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in Aleppo.

Lavrov and Kerry have met repeatedly to try and find a solution to the Syrian conflict but to no avail.

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A three-year-old child was rescued and his kidnapper was arrested by the Kolkata Police.

A senior police officer of the Force said three-year-old Shiva Gujarati, a street child, was kidnapped by an unknown miscreant from Kenderdine Lane beside Jogajog Bhavan on C R Avenue this Saturday.

A team of the Bowbazar Police Station took up the investigation and with the assistance of Monitoring Cell CD, zeroed in on a specific mobile number and kept a tab on it, finally succeeding in nabbing the accused Sunil Das (27) from Jorasanko area.

"While in custody and after prolonged interrogation, a lead could be made out, following which a team went to Jhajha in Bihar and rescued the minor boy safely in less than 72 hours," the officer said.

The team is in transit and on its way back to Kolkata, he added.

The accused has been booked under IPC 370.

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Demanding slapping of sedition charges against former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and national conference president Farooq Abdullah, several Kashmiri Pandit organisations today held a protest in Jammu against his "anti- national statements".

Protestors led by chairman of All Parties Migrants Coordination Committee (APMCC) Vinod Pandit said he was "in a habit of making anti-national statements".

They demanded sedition charge be slapped against Abdullah for his recent statement in which he had "sided with the separatists".

"We demand Farooq Abdullah should be booked for sedition for his statement in favour of Kashmiri separatists," APMCC national spokesman King Bharti said.

Addressing his party workers at a function to mark the 111th birth anniversary of his father and party founder Sheikh Abdullah at Hazratbal, Farooq had asked Hurriyat leaders not to go separate ways saying "be united and we are also standing with you".

"Do not think of us as your enemies, we are not. But we are not ready to tread the wrong path. So, I am telling you from this sacred place that you (Hurriyat) move forward, we are with you till your steps are on the right track and till you take this nation forward in a right manner," he had said.

Meanwhile, state BJP accused National Conference of supporting those behind the unrest in he Valley that started after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani.

"The statement of Farooq Abdullah proves beyond any doubt that NC and its workers are behind the ongoing agitation launched by separatists and Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in the Valley," BJP state spokesman Virender Gupta said.

"He needs to come clean and tell whether he endorses stone pelting by youth, burning of schools, calls of bandh by Hurriyat which is being observed for the last more thanfive months," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today declared Kurukshetra and Sirsa (both rural and urban) as open defecation free districts.

The CM said that the state government had identified 50 targets during the Swarna Jayanti year which would provide the roadmap for overall development of the state.

He was speaking at the International Seminar on Gita on the theme "Bhagwad Gita Sampurn Jeevan Prabandhan aur Vishwa Bandhutatv avm Prayatan Prerna" organized during the International Gita Mahotsav-2016 here.

On behalf of the President Pranab Mukherjee, the Haryana Governor, Prof Kaptan Singh Solanki, addressed the seminar.

Earlier, the Mahotsav started on low key note in the view of the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa as otherwise grand celebrations and cultural events were scheduled for today.

During the Mahotsav, 18,000 students would recite the Ashtadash Shaloki Gita together at the theme park setting a world record.

Similarly, with a view to spreading the eternal message of Gita to the world community, global chanting of Shrimad Bhagvad Gita would be held from 6 pm to 6:15 pm on Gita Jayanti Day before the final deepdan ceremony at Brahamsarovar in Kurukshetra.

The Chief Minister said that while on one hand the state government was persistently working to ensure a bright future of the state, on the other hand, we take pride on our glorious history.

Since Saraswati river is a symbol of faith and belief, the state government has constituted Saraswati Heritage Development Board for rejuvenation, conservation and research on this mythical river.

He said that the roadmap for Krishna Circuit had been prepared to develop this holy land as a world class tourist destination.

Under this project, a sum of about Rs 100 crore would be spent on the development and beautification of Sanhit Sarover, Ameen Kund, Narkatari, Brahamsarover and Jyotisar.

Besides, a 3D multi-media show based on different topics of Mahabharata, a grand statue of Lord Krishna and a theme park complex depicting the 48 kos areas, would also be developed.

During the Swarna Jayanti year, various new schemes were being implemented for the welfare of farmers, labourers, youth, women and others.

Under the Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao programme, the average sex ratio at birth in the state is over 900. "Our target is to achieve the figure of 950," he added.

He said that with a view to ensuring corruption-free administration, the state government had implemented various e-services in the state. The CM Window set up for redressal of people's grievances has proved to be very effective.

The CM Web Portal is working as a bridge between the government and the people.

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Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain today directed various land owning agencies in the city to speed up vigil at sites under their jurisdiction to prosecute offenders who violate norms by burning leaves, garbage etc in the open during winter months.

Hussain, who held a meeting today with all concerned agencies including DDA, MCDs, and Revenue Department, expressed his concern that most of them have not taken adequate action to prosecute violators.

In a statement, government said that during the meeting, the municipal corporations were also not in a position to cite a single instance where the sanitary staff or horticulture staff has been held responsible for failing to take action against the burning of leaf/waste/plastic material in the open.

In the meeting, the minister also directed DDA and Delhi Metro to increase vigil at the sites under their jurisdiction and prosecute the offenders.

Hussain observed that all the land owning agencies need to speed up action against the violators in the winter season especially from December to February when due to foggy conditions, the tendency to develop smog in the atmosphere increases which adversely impacts the environment and human beings.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has already put complete prohibition on burning of garbage, dry leaves, waste, plastic, rubber etc and has also directed for complying with dust control measure norms at construction sites.

Land Owning Agencies in Delhi can impose a fine of Rs 5,000 on persons found burning leaf/waste/plastic material in the open and fine upto Rs 5 lakh on the owners/builders who are found not following the dust control measures while carrying out construction activity.

In the meeting, Hussain observed that people need to join fight against pollution and emphasized the need for active public participation for effectively combating pollution.

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Leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, including Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, on Tuesday condoled J Jayalalithaa's demise with the diaspora grieving the loss of their beloved leader.

"Chief Minister (Tamil Nadu) Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India's Tamil community".

Rajapaksa, during his presidency, had invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions.

Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka. While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to pressure New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils.

Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan is travelling to Chennai to pay tributes to Jayalalithaa.

Balakrishnan will be travelling with his Ministry officials, a government statement said.

According to official statistics, 74 per cent of Singapore's population is of Chinese ethnicity, while 13 per cent are of Malay heritage and 9 per cent of Indians, including Tamils.

In Singapore, Tamil is an official language along with English, Mandarin and Malay.

Foreign Affairs Minister Balakrishnan was also born to a Tamil father.

In Malaysia, the country's largest ethnic Indian party condoled Jayalalitha's demise, describing her as a "super woman".

"As we all know, the late was a charismatic leader and had done a lot for the Indian people, especially concerning for welfare of the poor, the women and the marginalised community," said Vel Paari, Treasurer General of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and son of Samy Vellu, who served as MIC president for almost three decades.

Malaysia's Senate President S A Vigneswaran also expressed condolences over Jayalalithaa's death.

"I am very sad. All (of us) knew Jayalalithaa. She was also a famous actress. Hope the people (of Tamil Nadu) will be calm," he said.

Malaysia's 28 million population comprises 8 per cent ethnic Indians a majority of whom are Hindu Tamils. Their ancestors came to Malaysia more than 100 years ago and many were brought by the British.

In South Africa, the South African Tamil Federation (SATF) has called on all its affiliates across the country to host special prayer services for the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, describing her as "a friend of the Tamil community worldwide".
Leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, including Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, today condoled J Jayalalithaa's demise with the diaspora grieving the loss of their beloved leader.

"Chief Minister (Tamil Nadu) Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India's Tamil community".

Rajapaksa, during his presidency, had invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions.

Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka. While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to pressure New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils.

Singapore's Foreign Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan travelled to Chennai and paid his respects to Jayalalithaa.

Balakrishnan also laid a wreath at the funeral.

Balakrishnan has also written a letter to Chief Minister O Panneerselvam to convey Singapore's deepest condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu on their loss.

"Jayalalithaa dedicated her life to the socio-economic development of Tamil Nadu and through her leadership, Tamil Nadu grew to become one of India's key economies and industrialised states," said Balakrishnan in the letter.

The late Chief Minister was also a strong proponent of building closer relations between Tamil Nadu and Singapore, Balakrishna said.

"Her passion, energy and grand vision were so inspiring. India has lost a great daughter and Singapore a staunch friend. It was therefore with deep sadness that I had attended her funeral to pay my last respects," he wrote.

In Malaysia, the country's largest ethnic Indian party condoled Jayalalitha's demise, describing her as a "super woman".

"As we all know, the late J Jayalalithaa was a charismatic leader and had done a lot for the Indian people, especially concerning for welfare of the poor, the women and the marginalised community," said Vel Paari, Treasurer General of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC).

Malaysia's Senate President S A Vigneswaran also expressed condolences over Jayalalithaa's death.

"I am very sad. All (of us) knew Jayalalithaa. She was also a famous actress. Hope the people (of Tamil Nadu) will be calm," he said.

Malaysia's 28 million population comprises 8 per cent ethnic Indians a majority of whom are Hindu Tamils.

In South Africa, the South African Tamil Federation (SATF) has called on all its affiliates across the country to host special prayer services for the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, describing her as "a friend of the Tamil community worldwide".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
LED lights installed in milk display cases may not only reduce energy bills, but also help milk taste better, a US study has claimed.

Researchers found that new LED lights that are being installed in display cases across the US leave milk with a more satisfactory taste that consumers prefer over milk that has been exposed to fluorescent lights.

Exposure to certain light changes the flavour profile of milk. Milk fresh from the dairy should taste sweet and rich, however, when people described milk that was exposed to conventional fluorescent lights, they used words like "cardboard," "stale," and "painty."



"We want to help figure out ways to return to the fresh taste of milk that our grandparents experienced when it came straight from the dairy," said Susan Duncan, professor at the Virginia Tech in the US.

"Milk is delicious and nutritious and we want to find ways to protect both of those characteristics to help the industry and provide an even better product to consumers," said Duncan.

Milk consumption has been decreasing for several decades and the lighting used in retail display cases that change the taste of milk may be one of the factors for this decline, Duncan said.

One of the nutrients in milk - riboflavin - oxidises when it is exposed to fluorescent lights. This reaction not only causes the taste to change, but can also reduce the nutritional content of milk.

Duncan's tests show that when milk is stored in the traditional translucent plastic jugs, these reactions can take place in a little as two hours.

Opaque milk packaging that protects riboflavin and other nutrients from lighting helps to deliver that fresh, sweet, rich taste.

Duncan conducted a series of tests at the Virginia Tech Sensory Evaluation Laboratory that showed the new LED lights leave milk with a more satisfactory taste that consumers prefer over milk that has been exposed to fluorescent lights.

More work still needs to be done on packaging to protect flavor profiles even further. Every milk drinking experience should deliver that positive experience, she said.

"The research that is being done around this new lighting gives us momentum to explore other ways that we can preserve the natural taste of milk," Duncan said.

The study was published in the Journal of Dairy Science.

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Left parties today paid glowing tributes to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away last night following a cardiac arrest, saying her work has left a "deep imprint" on the politics of the southern state.

"Under her stewardship several popular welfare schemes were launched to provide immediate relief to the common people, which left a deep imprint on the politics of Tamil Nadu," CPI(M) Politburo said in a statement.

Party general secretary Sitaram Yechury also condoled the the top AIADMK leader's demise.

"Deepest condolences on the passing away of a popular leader and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa," he tweeted.

The CPI described Jayalalithaa as a "hard working and determined" leader who fought her way to become the state's Chief Minister and defended its interest.

"She was frank and outspoken and never spared anybody who tried to belittle her with personalised attacks. She was a good friend of our party and party leaders ... She played an important role in national politics too," the Left party said in a statement.

Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night in Chennai.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
To mitigate the impact of demonetisation on the masses, the Maharashtra government is working on a 'Maha wallet' to encourage cashless transactions.

"I have told the Information Technology department to prepare a report (based on the proposal) in this regard and submit it to me in a fortnight," Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar told PTI.

"Maha wallet will be a secure e-service where the citizens' money would be secure. We are working on a system where needs of each of the 11.97 crore population of the state are being considered," the Minister said.

The IT department proposal will consider various facets like the needs of people who are well versed in net banking and those who are not, smartphone or feature phone users, and those without a mobile, besides the technologically challenged.

"We want to ensure that the system is modelled to help small vendors, farmers and all those who deal in cash transactions," he said.

Similarly, the proposal will also highlight the amount to be deposited in the Maha wallet by users. It will also work on finding out how many citizens have bank accounts and how many use debit and credit cards.

"Efforts are on to make a less cash society since being cashless is difficult. We want to create a system where citizens will be required to carry less cash with them," Mungantiwar said.

He said that after the proposal is received, the matter will be taken up with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for further action.

Fadnavis, who is member of the committee appointed by the Centre on promotion of cashless society, had pointed out during a recent meeting with the panel members that needs of farmers, labourers from unorganised sector and small vendors should be considered first.

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Maharashtra joined the nation today in mourning the death of Jayalalithaa with both Houses of the state legislature being adjourned as a mark of respect to the departed leader, after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and other leaders paid their tributes.

Fadnavis later flew to Chennai to pay tributes to AIADMK supremo, who passed away last night.

Besides Fadnavis, Congress leader Patangrao Kadam, Ajit Pawar of NCP, PWP's Ganpatrao Deshmukh and state PWD Minister Eknath Shinde paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa before the Assembly was adjourned after adopting a condolence motion.

Recalling Jayalalithaa's contributions in the fields of film and politics spread over four decades, Fadnavis said, "She was one of the most respected leaders in Tamil Nadu politics who earned the affectionate title of 'Amma' on account of her deep concern for the people."



NCP supremo sharad pawar in a tweet said, "Deeply saddened to know about the passing away of smt jaylalitha. She will be always remembered as peoples amma whom except death nothing could dissuade from serving the weaker and poor (Sic)."



Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said in passing away of Jaylalithaa the country had lost "a shining star on political horizon" who had tremendous impact on Southern India and national politics.

In a message, Thackeray said, "Like Shiv Sena, she was instrumental in bringing regional parties on national political scene. She never compromised on national interests for the cause of regional aspirations, Jaylalithaa was a true nationalist."



Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray said Jayalalitha was an "embodiment of regional pride".

"She made her presence felt in the national politics, while taking pride in her own language, culture and region. She was a torch-bearer of how to cultivate your language and press for it at various fronts. Along with it, she served people very well," the MNS chief said.

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by Staff Reporter

Two independent and four party sponsored candidates will battle it out in the vacant Bikita West constituency in January next year after successful nominations on Friday last week.The nominations were done at the Masvingo Magistrate courts. Beauty Chabaya of Zanu PF, Kudakwashe Gopo from the new kid on the block Zimbabwe People First, Mudorch Chivasa National Constitutional Assembly and Tanyaradzwa Mugumbo of Progressive Democracy of Zimbabwe are going to contest under their respective parties.Heya Shoko, former MP for the constituency between 2008 and 2013 under MDCT and Innocent Muzvimbiri, a salaries administrator with Bikita Minerals will stand as independent candidates. For the candidates to qualify they had to be nominated by seven registered voters from the constituency and pay a non-refundable fee of $50 according to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials who presided over the exercise.The Bikita West constituency fell vacant after the incarceration of former Central Bank governor special advisor Munyaradzi Kereke in June this year for raping his minor cousin.
Suspected jihadists stormed a prison in central Mali and freed at least 47 inmates including a jihadist fighter, injuring two guards during the assault, security sources said today.

"The suspected jihadists attacked a prison with heavy weapons last night in the town of Niono, in the centre of Mali, where they freed around 50 inmates and injured two guards," said an official in the town around 350 kilometres north east of the capital Bamako.

"(The attackers) seriously injured two members of the national guard before freeing at least 47 prisoners, one of whom was a jihadist fighter."



The details were also confirmed by two police sources in the region.

Reinforcements deployed "to secure the town" arrived today, a source said.

The attackers were seen close to the prison three weeks earlier, an elected local official said without giving further details.

The incident comes little more than a month after a similar operation at a prison in Banamba, central Mali, in which some 20 prisoners were freed and a bank and police station were attacked.

Mali regained control of its northern cities from jihadists after a French-led international military intervention in January 2013, but insurgents remain active across large parts of the region.

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A 26-year-old UK-based Belgian man was today found guilty of giving 3,000 pounds to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings.

Zakaria Boufassil from Birmingham was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism by providing 3,000 pounds to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in a Birmingham park.

A co-defendant, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, also from Birmingham, had already pleaded guilty to the charge last month.

Both men will be sentenced on December 12.

They were found guilty of handing over the cash to Abrini - who became known as the "man in the hat" after his face was caught on CCTV footage following the deadly attack on Brussels airport in March.

"We know that Abrini visited several locations during his visit to the UK, but that his sole purpose of being here was to collect the money and our case - whilst not focused on attack planning - acts as reminder of why our work to prepare for and prevent such incidents in the UK is important," said Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, Counter Terrorism Lead for West Midlands Police.

"We are working hard with partner agencies and community groups around the West Midlands to alert the public to the dangers of radicalisation and explain what help is available to those vulnerable to negative influences," he said.

The money had been withdrawn from the bank account of one Anouar Haddouchi, a Belgian national who had been claiming UK state-funded welfare benefits while living in the West Midlands with his wife.

Haddouchi is believed to have fled to Syria since.

The court heard that hours after collecting the money fromBoufassil and Ahmed,Abrini visited the Grosvenor Casino in Birmingham where he took a photograph of a gambling machine on his mobile phone.

In March this year Abrini was captured on CCTV alongside Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, who detonated bombs hidden in suitcases killing 12 people at Brussels airport.

Another 20 people died in an attack on Maalbeek metro station less than two hours later.

Jurors were also told he is also wanted by the French authorities in connection with the attacks in Paris last November.

Boufassilhad denied one charge of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and the trial continues.

Abrini remains in custody in Brussels.

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A man fatally shot by a police officer after his car flipped on the Ohio Turnpike was a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and a student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office has said.

The Summit County medical examiner's office identified the man as 26-year-old Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri, of Cleveland. Alameri was shot once in the head, the medical examiner's office said.

According to the city of Hudson, Alameri was speeding and driving erratically on the turnpike Sunday when he sideswiped another vehicle, causing his car to flip onto the roof. Hudson police and Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers searched for the driver, who had fled, and found him in a nearby wooded area.

A Hudson police officer fired shots at the man during a struggle, the city said. The officer was treated for minor injuries and has been placed on paid administrative leave. The officer hasn't been identified.

Hudson is about 30 miles north of Cleveland. Jill Del Greco, spokesman for the Ohio attorney general's office, said investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is examining the shooting, will be meeting with representatives of the United Arab Emirates.

A woman who answered the telephone yesterday at the media office of the UAE Embassy in Washington said officials were aware of Alameri's death and would be issuing a statement.

The Akron Beacon Journal has reported that Alameri was a law student at Case Western Reserve. A university spokesman confirmed that Alameri was a student but declined to provide additional information.

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A resident of Lucknow underwent a complex life-saving surgery at a city hospital with the help of funds raised through social media appeals for help.

The patient, Taqi Hassan, received Rs eight lakhs through donations by communities from the US and Australia which was used to remove a tumour via an anterior craniofacial resection surgery.

Hassan, who worked as an electrician abroad, had an accidental fall which caused serious injuries to his head, doctors said.

He was diagnosed with a tumour on the forehead above his right eye. He underwent his first surgery in Lucknow to get it removed, said Abrar Ali Dalal, Facility Director, Fortis Flt Lt Rajan Dhall Hospital.

"Soon after, the tumour recurred twice at the same spot for which he underwent repeated surgeries. Post his fourth surgery, Taqi was mentally, physically, financially and emotionally drained.

"He had no money and had lost all hope while the tumor appeared again and was spreading rapidly to the orbit, eyeball and face, almost touching his brain cells," Dalal said.

It was then that a relative residing in Australia suggested appealing for funds on social media and soon a sum of eight lakh was raised to assist in the surgery.

Taqi underwent anterior craniofacial resection surgery on October 13 at the hospital in a complex 16-hour long procedure.

"The previous surgeries had resulted in complications, resulting in the loss of the right eye. Our team spent days planning the surgery and when we came out of the OT after 16 hours, we knew that Taqi had helped us win the battle," said Dr Mandeep S Malhotra, Department head of Head, Neck and Breast Oncoplasty, Fortis Flt Lt Rajan Dhall Hospital.

"A part of his brain was also affected, hence the surgery became complicated as we had to remove the skin layer of the brain. His forehead was infected and we planned to remove it. Bone grafting was not possible in his case so we decided to construct the skull part with skin only," said Dr Rana Patir, Director and HOD, Neurosurgery at the hospital.

Taqi will be leading a normal life soon post check-ups and follow ups. In his words, "I had lost all hope and money. But the support of funds from generous well-wishes combined with the skills of Dr Mandeep and Dr Patir have saved my life," Taqi said.

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Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's daughter and heir-apparent Maryam Nawaz was the focus of today's hearing of the 'Panamagate' case in the Supreme Court which asked about her finances and legal status.

The case deals with alleged money laundering by Sharif to buy properties in London which came into focus after Panama papers revealed that flats in London were managed though offshore companies run by his children.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel will outline her battle strategy today to counter a wave of populism that has consumed key allies abroad, as she launches into campaign mode for next year's elections.

Merkel, who has led Germany for 11 years, last month confirmed she would run for a fourth term but acknowledged that the election would be "more difficult" than any other she has contested.

Party faithful from her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) gathering for a two-day annual congress in the western city of Essen are expected to overwhelmingly re-elect Merkel as party chief, rallying behind her bid to stay in power.

During the last party vote in 2014, Merkel garnered 96.7 per cent of support and this week's ballot will be closely scrutinised for any sign of dissent.

"I'm counting on an honest result," she told public broadcaster ARD, as national media suggested that any score below 90 per cent would be a slap in the face.

Crucially, she will also be grilled on how she plans to stop the populist anti-Islam AfD from further eroding the party's supporter base.

The CDU has suffered setbacks in five consecutive state polls as voters punish Merkel for her liberal refugee policy, with more than a million people seeking asylum in Germany last year.

There have been questions about whether the 62-year-old has fresh ideas to offer in a world upended by Brexit, the surprise election of Donald Trump and the departure of Italian Prime Minister following a crushing referendum defeat championed by populists.

There is concern within CDU rank and file, because Merkel has said she "will stand again, without saying how she will change her policies in the future", Hans Pistner from the Thuringia regional government told regional broadcaster MDR.

Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU secured a decisive win of 41.5 per cent at the last election in 2013 -- its best result since national reunification in 1990, on the back of strong approval for her tough stance on austerity for debt-stricken EU nations.

Three years on, there are rumblings of discontent -- even within her own party -- following her September 2015 decision to let in refugees fleeing war in mostly-Muslim nations, in a move that has deeply polarised Europe's biggest economy.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today it was a "disgrace" that the international community had been unable to alleviate the suffering in Syria's besieged city of Aleppo.

"Aleppo is a disgrace," she said in a speech to her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, slamming Russian and Iranian support for the bombardment by Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"It is a disgrace that we have been unable to establish humanitarian corridors, but we must continue to fight for it."



Merkel said she was shocked to see tens of thousands of Germans hitting the streets to demonstrate against free trade deals but virtually no protests against the bloodletting in Syria.

"There is something wrong there," she said.

Merkel added that the world needed a coordinated international fight against the "asymmetrical threat of Islamist terrorism".

"But instead, Syria is succumbing to a vicious civil war in which Russia and Iran are backing the Assad regime in its brutal course of action against its own people," she said.

Russia and the US are on opposite sides of the conflict in Syria with Moscow backing Assad with airpower and Washington pushing for the strongman to go.

Regime forces have so far seized two-thirds of Aleppo's rebel-held east since starting an operation to recapture the entire city in mid-November.

The assault has raised an international outcry, but Russia and China yesterday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in the city.

Moscow has proposed setting up four humanitarian corridors into the city's east but said regime approval remained essential.

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Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat today said two to three more such "fatwas" will see Congress back in power at the Centre in 2019 Lok Sabha polls under the "capable" leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

Raising questions over the Union government's commitment towards "co-operative federalism" at 'Agenda Aaj Tak' summit organised by the channel here, Rawat accused the Prime Minister of "not trying to understand the pain" of non-BJP states, which he claimed, are struggling to get Central funds.

"Barring a few exceptions, every person is feeling the pinch of demonetisation. The move has blighted the economy and lives of common people.

"...If the whole and sole of the country (the Prime Minister) takes two to three more such decisions, issues such fatwas (edicts), people will find Rahul Gandhi quite attractive and... Bring Congress in power in 2019," he said.

The Chief Minister said Rahul Gandhi is a "capable" leader who accepts challenges and the party had put on a good show in Bihar assembly elections under "hostile conditions" last year.

Congress, which fought the polls as part of the Grand Alliance, had won 27 of the 40 assembly segments it contested. The JD(U) and RJD are the other constituents of the winning alliance.

"In Uttar Pradesh too, he (Rahul Gandhi) has taken up the responsibility. His courage must be appreciated, that he accepted the challenges. He made major contribution when UPA came to power again in 2009.

"(Electoral) defeat at one or two places should not mean his leadership capabilities can be questioned," Rawat said.

Raising concern over the Centre's "co-operative federalism" talk, he alleged the slogan cannot be seen being implemented in "letter and spirit" by the NDA government as non-BJP states are struggling to receive central funds.

Referring to Modi's comment last year that "the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers make Team India", the Congress leader said, "I want to ask him, if not the captain of Team India, who will feel pain of states? At this moment, the pain of non-BJP states is not being understood. There is no sympathy for such states."



He also wondered what role NITI Aayog, which replaced the Planning Commission, is playing under the Modi dispensation.

Nearly two dozen Union Ministers are currently visiting poll-bound Uttarakhand but have no development agenda for the people of the state, Rawat claimed.

"...The central ministers come to Uttarakhand and 'praise' me. But they are not talking about what they will do for Uttarakhand," he claimed.

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Madhya Pradesh Government today told the Legislative Assembly that a white paper on malnutrition deaths in the state is being prepared.

"Yes, the work on bringing out a white paper on the malnutrition deaths is on. However, it's not possible to give the exact date of its release or the deadline at this juncture," State Women and Child Development Minister Archana Chitnis said in a written reply to a query forwarded by Congress MLA Ramnivas Rawat on floor of the House.

Chitnis stated the government has been spending Rs 9 per day behind every severely underweight child and Rs 6 per day behind every underweight child between the age of 6 months and 6 years.

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had issued a notice to the state government in September after taking a suo motu cognisance of media reports that 116 children died of malnutrition in Sheopur district in one month.

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A multi-sector approach is needed to address the challenges faced in the South Asian region in regards to migration of workers, say experts.

The European Union Delegation to Nepal along with DAI Europe and Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS) hosted a regional seminar on 'Making Labour Migration Easy and Safe in South Asia' in Kathmandu, where solutions for protecting migrants were discussed, a statement said.

"Migration needs to be addressed in a multi-sector approach and focus on the human, social and labour rights of migrants, their psychological and social well-being, and the development efforts migrants workers can contribute to," Rensje Teerink, EU Ambassador to Nepal and to SAARC said.

At policy level, inter-state cooperation is also needed to regulate the labour migrants' flow, to develop coherent policies and activate mechanisms to facilitate better organisation of legal migration, to ensure migrants' safety and rights, and to maximise the development impacts of migration and mobility, experts said.

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News / Local

by Staff Reporter

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has revealed that the introduction of bond is not meant to ease cash shortages which have hit the country for the better part of this year."The introduction of bond notes is meant to incentivise exporters so that there is more foreign currency in the country and not to ease cash shortages for the people."Instead we encourage people to use electronic money which has paper trail as cash causes corruption and money laundering, to that effect the RBZ has reduced charges on transfers and other measures are in the pipeline towards a cashless society," said Amon Chitsva, head of policy and research at the apex bank.He said this at the bond notes stakeholders consultative meeting organised by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe Masvingo region at the Civic Centre on Monday this week.The 5% incentive on exporters will help grow the economy as the manufacturers and gold producers will double their production in order to get the money.He added that for the past ten years the bank has been on an all-out campaign to encourage the public and businesses to use electronic money and the introduction of bond notes will not stop the bank to continue with the program.
Opposition National Conference today alleged that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had described protesters and other civilians injured during recent unrest in Kashmir as "criminals" and demanded an apology from her.

"The same woman (Mehbooba) who exploited every single funeral of a slain militant as an opportunity for politics (while in Opposition) has today transformed into a woman who doesn't hesitate to call slain civilians as criminals," said National Conference (NC) spokesman Junaid Mattu.

He was reacting to Mehbooba's remarks earlier in the day that "some criminal elements who pelted stones, burnt schools and attacked camps made it clear that they were backed by the Opposition party (NC) to create unrest in the Valley over the last few months."



Mehbooba stated so while commenting on NC president Farooq Abdullah's remarks, asking his party cadres to support separatist Hurriyat in their "struggle" for the rights of Kashmiri people.

Mattu said Mehbooba "should tender a public apology to hundreds of grieving families for rubbing salt on their wounds".

"Was young Insha of Shopian a criminal? Was the old lady shot dead while working in her fields in Langate a criminal? Was the young English professor beaten to death a criminal? Shame on Mehbooba Mufti for having the audacity to call these young children and innocent civilians criminals," Mattu said.

"If young Insha was a criminal in the CM's eyes, why did she promise to donate her eyes to the poor girl? Leave alone that promise made for the newspapers, Insha had to be adopted for her medical care and rehabilitation by a Hurriyat leader as the Chief Minister couldn't even have it in her heart to step up and take the responsibility of her proper treatment and rehabilitation," the NC spokesman said in a statement.

"If Mehbooba Mufti had an iota of shame in her, she would have acknowledged the positive role played by the National Conference during this violence," he said.

Mattu said unlike what Mehbooba did in 2010 when the Valley saw three-month-long violent protests during NC rule, "we didn't lock the gates of the Civil Secretariat nor did we go and beg in New Delhi for the dismissal of the state government, something she stooped low in doing countless times in 2010".

He went on to add: "It is evident beyond a modicum of doubt that our Chief Minister doesn't have the acumen or the political vision to understand this constructive and harmonious approach which is crucial for the state at this juncture."



Mattu asked Mehbooba to clarify why her party's Agenda of Alliance with the BJP mentioned Hurriyat and prioritised political engagement with them if she believes Hurriyat was the manifestation and reflection of criminality and anarchy in the state.

"Why did Late Mufti (Mohammad Sayeed) Sahab thank the Hurriyat for the peaceful conduct of elections in the state if you consider Hurriyat to be criminal?" he asked.

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Up against Tata Sons' move to remove him as director of Tata Steel, ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry on Tuesday defended his leadership of the company, especially the handling of European operations, saying that the huge capital employed in it was earning negative returns and posed a risk to the entire group.

He also lashed out at "insinuations that Tata Steel board only looked at the United Kingdom investments through a short-term financial lens" saying it was "furthest from the truth".

In a representation to the Board of Directors of Tata Steel ahead of an EGM, which is to consider a special resolution moved by Tata Sons to remove him as director on December 21, Mistry said the sole premise of the step was his "removal from the Chairmanship of Tata Sons, which was illegal to begin with".

"There have been insinuations that the Board of Tata Steel only looked at the UK investments through a short-term financial lens. This is furthest from the truth," he wrote.

Mistry cited "continued investments in these assets, as well as the significant amount of management bandwidth devoted to optimise operations" in order to refute the allegations.

While asking the board to circulate his representation to its shareholders so that they can take "an informed decision", he drew attention to the European operations saying that the total amount of capital employed there, which is "earning negative returns posed a risk to the overall group".

"Total capital employed in Tata Steel Europe grew from Rs 67,000 cr in FY12 to Rs 93,500 cr in FY15," he said.

Defending decisions to divest in the UK operations, Mistry said: "While pursuing a long-term solution to the current issue, it is important to balance the needs of nearly one million shareholders of the company, who have supported the company for decades and many of whom rely on Tata Steel to supplement their income."

He added: "Our aim has always been to have a robust and resilient global operations. To ensure this outcome, we believe it is important to tackle some of the structural challenges with the UK assets, namely the potential high pension deficits, high energy costs and high taxes."

On November 25, in a sharp escalation of boardroom tussle at India's largest conglomerate, Cyrus Mistry was ousted as Chairman of Tata Steel.

The 10-member board of Tata Steel by "majority consent" removed Mistry as Chairman and named O P Bhatt, an independent director and former SBI chief, as interim head.

Tata Steel was the third group firm to remove Mistry as chairman. First Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) removed him as chairman but that ouster was not through a vote but by virtue of Tata Sons holding a commanding 73.26 per cent stake in the India's largest software services firm.

Then on November 15, seven out of 10 board members of Tata Global Beverages voted him out.
A special court today rejected the National Investigation Agency's application seeking a lie- detector test on the guest relationship manager of Zakir Naik- led Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) who was arrested for allegedly indoctrinating youths into joining ISIS.

The NIA, which had taken Arshi Qureshi into custody on November 30 along with two others, moved the court yesterday seeking its permission.

However, Qureshi did not give his consent to the procedure.

"The court has rejected the NIA application's after Qureshi did not consent to it and as per the Supreme Court guidelines, no tests can be conducted without the permission of the accused," said his lawyer Ishrat Khan.

Qureshi was sent to NIA's custody last week till December 7.

He along with Rizwan Khan and Mohammed Haneef were booked based on a complaint made by Abdul Majid Abdul Kader - the father of Ashfaq, one of the 22 youths who had allegedly joined ISIS.

Mumbai-based IRF was banned by Union government last month for a period of five years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

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India's National Institute of Ayurveda and a Malaysia-based private university have signed an MoU to enhance cooperationin research and popularisation of Ayurvedic medicine in this country.

The MoU was signed by SanjeevSharma, Directorof the Jaipur-basedNIA and LingLiongSik, Council Chairman of Malaysia'sUniversitiTunkuAbdul Rahman (UTAR), said a statement from Indian High Commission.

The MoU would also enableNIA to assist UTAR in starting a faculty of Ayurveda for full-fledged Bachelors andMasters degree programmes for Ayurveda in Malaysia, it said.

India and Malaysia have a strong collaboration in the field of traditional and complimentary medicine.

At the governmental level, the two countries have set up a bilateral Technical Commission between Ministry of Health, Malaysia and Ministry of AYUSH, which meets annually.

The 4thbilateral meeting 'Technical Meeting'willbe held later this month in Kuala Lumpur.

India has deputed an Ayurveda doctor and two therapists to the Malaysia's Ministry of Health since 2014 and a Siddha doctor is expected to arrive here soon.

India has also gifted two 'Shirodhara' machines to Malaysia.

Every year the Indian government offers 20 scholarships to Malaysians to pursue Bachelors' degree in Ayurveda and other systems of traditional and complimentary medicine in India,which has gone up over the years.

The High Commission of India, Kuala Lumpur and University of Malaya brought out a bilingual book in English andBahasa Malaya in 2015 titled 'Ayurveda:Science and Practice.

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Government does not declare any of the security forces personnel who die in action as 'martyr', Lok Sabha was informed.

"The Ministry of Defence has informed that the word 'martyr' is not used in reference to any of the casualties in Indian Armed Forces," Minister of State for Home said in a written reply to a question.

"Similarly, no such term is used in reference to the Central Armed Police Forces and Assam Rifles personnel who get killed in action or on any operation," he said.

However, their families/next of kin are given full family pension under the liberalised pensionary award rules and lump sum ex-gratia compensation as per rules in addition to other benefits admissible, he said.

Rijiju was responding to a question "whether the government has codified the term 'martyrs' for placing the posthumous soldiers in the category of martyrs? If so, the details and if not, whether the government proposes to make such a codification?"
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that there was no plan to impose tax on farmers for their produce or on women for their jewellery.

Addressing a rally here as part of the BJP's ongoing parivartan yatra here yesterday, Prasad said the country was moving towards a cashless economy under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose demonetization move had made the rich bow to poor for the first time in the country.

"Income tax wouldn't be imposed on farmers, neither is there any plan to impose tax on jewellery. All sorts of rumours are being spread to mislead people. But they should pay no attention to the rumours," the Union Law and IT Minister said.

"We are moving towards a cashless economy under the leadership of Modi and demonetisation is a step in that direction," he said.

Addressing the crowds, Prasad appealed to the public to maintain their patience and trust the government and not be influenced by any rumours.

He said that no new taxes would be implemented on farmers and no new laws or taxes will be framed in relation to gold.

Prasad clarified that the step towards demonetization was taken to make the Indian currency stronger and to eliminate black money from the market.

He said that the general public was supporting the decision and it was only the opposition which had a problem with it.

Even leaders across the globe have praised the move, he said.

Prasad accused the opposition of diminishing the morale of the Army.

He said that while the families of the soldiers who died were happily willing to send their children in the Army, it was the opposition which was interfering with the Army.

Prasad said that in the past two-and-half-years of the party rule, no minister has been accused of any corrupt practices while this was a trend during the Congress regime.

Those who were present at the meeting included Bhagat Singh Koshyari, MP, Balraj Passi, coordinator Parivartan Rally and Ajay Bhatt, State BJP President.

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Pakistan today claimed it has established a comprehensive and effective national nuclear security regime which is at par with the latest international standards and guidelines.

A brochure outlining Pakistan's nuclear security regime was distributed to delegates attending the second Ministerial Nuclear Security Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna this week, Foreign Office said.

"Pakistan has established a comprehensive and effective national nuclear security regime which is at par with the latest international standards and guidelines," it said.

"The regime is based on an extensive legislative and regulatory framework governing the security of nuclear material, radioactive substances, associated facilities and activities. This is backed by strong institutions and organizations with the requisite authorities, resources and trained manpower for effective implementation."



FO said that Pakistan keeps its nuclear security systems and measures under constant review and continues to invest in relevant technologies and human resources.

Pakistan has also established an independent nuclear regulatory authority with wide-ranging regulatory and inspection mandate, it added.

According to FO, Pakistan's nuclear security arrangements have been recognised at the international level by several high ranking officials and experts.

(Reopens FGN 85)



Addressing the conference, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry emphasized Pakistan's efforts to actively contribute to the strengthening of global nuclear security objectives.

"Pakistan believes nuclear security is fundamentally a national responsibility and that states need to adopt strong measures at the national level," he said.

He emphasized that Pakistan had "experience of more than five decades of safe, secure and safeguarded civilian nuclear program".
President is reassuring Italian Premier Matteo Renzi that Italy will remain one of the closest US allies despite Renzi's defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms.

Obama spoke to Renzi by phone on Wednesday. The White House says Obama thanked Renzi for his "close friendship and partnership" and that the two discussed the referendum. The vote was a humiliating defeat for Renzi, who has said he'll keep the promise he made to quit if the vote failed.

The call comes amid uncertainty about future US relations with European allies under President-elect Donald Trump. The White House says Obama told Renzi that Italy will remain an "indispensable partner" due to their shared history and values.

The two leaders also discussed climate change, economics and the migrant crisis.
In a shocking example of nepotism, a provincial government in Pakistan has appointed about four dozen members of a same family in health department.

The issue came to light after a health employee filed a petition in the Supreme Court against Sindh government and its health department for appointing about 48 cousins in Ghotki district.

"More than four dozen members of Chadhar family have been appointed by the Sindh government authorities starting from 2008," said Farman Ali Pitafi.

Though most of them were given low grade jobs ranging from security guards to vaccinators but Pitafi alleged that they were being given quick promotions.

He said many of them were appointed in a single hospital of the area.

The Supreme Court accepted the petition and announced to start regular hearing from tomorrow.

Sindh Health Minister Sikandar Ali Mandhro expressed ignorance over the issue and promised to probe the issue.

Sindh has been under the rule of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of former slain leader Benazir Bhutto since 2008. The party is now controlled by her widower Asif Ali Zardari who in the past spent several years in jails on the charges of alleged corruption.

The party is often accused of misrule in the province but has been able to maintain hold through alliance with powerful landlords and other influential people of the province.

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Home appliances and consumer electronics company Panasonic India today said it has invested Rs 115 crore to set up a manufacturing plant at Jhajjar, Haryana, to locally produce refrigerators.

The factory spread across 1,50,000 sqft, with an annual production capacity of 5 lakh units will be operational in November 2017 and the company expects the sales from the facility to start from April 2018.

"This will fill the balance pie that was missing from Panasonic's locally manufactured product portfolio in India. Refrigerators to a large extent will be manufactured in India except the large capacity refrigerator. This factory will help us to penetrate across smaller towns because the requirement for fridge in those markets is rapidly increasing," Panasonic India and South Asia President and Chief Executive Officer Manish Sharma told reporters here.

Panasonic currently imports fridges from Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam and the company said it will continue to import the large-capacity refrigerators.

"We are looking at starting local production for 300 litres and 330 litres in 2018. Subsequently, more capacities are also being explored like below 300 litres for feasibility. Refrigerators beyond 330 litres will still be continued to be imported from our Asian facilities," he said.

The Japanese company, which is eyeing a revenue of Rs 330 crore from refrigerators this fiscal year, said it aims to double its market share and sales from the category in the next two years.

"We have around 1.5 per cent of the market share in and we are looking to have 5 per cent market share in 2018. We are looking at doubling our this year's revenue in 2018. We are looking at a revenue of Rs 600 crore coming from fridge in 2018," Sharma said.

The market for refrigerators is estimated to be 13 million units.

"Globally, India has been identified as one of the strategic regions for growth. The prospering economy, increasing buying power and a conducive environment for manufacturing has transformed India into a growth magnet for the world.

"Thus, we would like to extend our commitment further by introducing the new refrigerator line that offers safe, reliable and high quality electronics products," Panasonic Corporation President of Appliance Company and Senior Managing Director Tetsuro Homma said.

Panasonic India, which is eyeing an overall revenue of Rs 10,800 crore for this fiscal at a growth of 25 per cent, said it aims to contribute 4 per cent of the global turnover by 2019 from 2 per cent at present.

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News / Local

by Alice Dube

War veterans are plotting boycotting Zanu PF's next week's annual year end conference in Masvingo, the first in its history.Relations between war veterans and Zanu PF hit rock bottom this year as the militant group called on aging President Robert Mugabe to immediately step down.They vowed not to campaign for him in the 2018 elections.It's association spokesperson, Douglas Mahiya said no real war veteran would be at the conference."They won't be any war veteran there at the conference, and this is the first time that President Mugabe would address the Zanu PF conference without the war veterans" he said.Mahiya said the annual conference has no relevance as real liberation fighters are being hounded out of the party.However, according to reports, under-fire Zanu PF political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere insist that war veterans would be in attendance."War veterans will be there. We have our President who is a war veteran, Vice-President Mnangagwa is a war veteran, so is VP Phelekezela Mphoko. Only those war veterans, who were expelled from the party, will not be there".The conference runs from December 13-17 under the theme "Moving with Zim-Asset in Peace and Unity".Over 5 000 delegates are expected to attend the conference.
The population of the Parsi community in the country has come down by almost half, while the number of Jews remains one-sixth of what they were in 1951, Lok Sabha was informed today.

Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said as per Census 2011, the population of Parsi/Zorastrian and Jews/ Judaism in India are 57,264 and 4,229, respectively.

"As per Census 1951, the population of these two communities were 1,11,791 and 26,781, respectively," he said in a written reply.

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Industrial units operating in residential areas are one of the major contributors to air pollution in Delhi, the National Green Tribunal has said while directing Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to submit complete list of hazardous units located in Vishwas Nagar area here.

A bench headed by Justice U D Salvi, which had earlier sought BSES Yamuna's response over snapping of electricity supply to such units, ordered DPCC to categorise industries on the basis of pollution caused by them in the environment.

"We direct the Delhi Pollution Control Committee to place before us a list of polluting and hazardous industries in Vishwas Nagar and to apprise us, as to the classification of polluting and hazardous industries," the bench said.

During the proceedings, lawyer appearing for association of industries in Vishwas Nagar, apprised the bench about the Delhi High Court order directing appointment of a committee to carry out a survey and decide whether all such industries should be shifted out or not.

The matter is now listed for next hearing on December 21.

The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by local resident S N Rohatgi, who had approached green panel against industrial units operating in the area seeking their immediate closure on the ground that these industries were causing air and noise pollution.

The tribunal had earlier cracked the whip on industries located in the city's residential areas with a direction to close them for discharging untreated toxic waste in drains leading to Yamuna.

The Delhi High Court was earlier informed by the city government that more than 1500 industrial units at Vishwas Nagar area were engaged in hazardous activity.

According to a survey carried out by a joint inspection committee, out of a total 3604 units in the area, 1509 were commercial, 134 are permissible as per Master Plan Delhi - 2021, nine are impermissible, 1383 are engaged in polluting activity, 179 in hazardous activity and 390 were found to be closed.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today paid floral tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who passed away last night.

Flanked by Governor Vidyasagar Rao, Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Pon Radhakrishnan and others, Modi placed a wreath on the body which was lying in state at Rajaji Hall.

Clad in white, an emotional Modi, who enjoyed a good personal equation with the late AIADMK leader, consoled Chief Minister O Panneerselvam who broke down.

Modi also spoke to Jayalalithaa's close confidante Sasikala.

Earlier, the Prime Minister, who arrived here by a special flight, was received at the airport by Governor Vidyasagar Rao. He subsequently boarded a helicopter to INS Adayar en route to Rajaji Hall.

In a series of tweets last night, the Prime Minister had said he was "deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics."



Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who like her mentor and late former chief minister M G Ramachandran unveiled a slew of populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital here after battling for life for 75 days.

The 68-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

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Poland's Supreme Court today began examining a fresh bid to extradite Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States, where he faces sentencing over a decades-old case of statutory rape.

The 83-year-old French-Polish national, who currently lives in France, did not attend the hearing where his lawyers will testify in his place, local media reported.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro had appealed to the court in May to overturn a 2015 ruling against extraditing Polanski, saying no one should be above the law.

The move appears to be part of what the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) government, which took office a year ago, touts as a moral revolution in strongly Catholic Poland.

The Supreme Court could reject the appeal, definitively ending Poland's part in the 1977 case that continues in the United States, or could send it back to a lower court.

That court could then rule to extradite, but Polish police would only be able to fly Polanski back to the United States if he returned to Poland from France, which does not extradite its citizens.

"We hope for a decision Tuesday, but the court may always postpone it," Jerzy Stachowicz, one of Polanski's lawyers, told AFP on the eve of the hearing.

Polanski is still wanted in the United States for sentencing over the 1977 statutory rape of Samantha Gailey after a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

He was arrested after Gailey, now Geimer, accused him of forcing her to have sex after drugging her.

She was 13 at the time. Polanski was 43.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, avoiding a trial, but then fled the country fearing a hefty sentence.

The US filed an extradition request in January 2015.

In October 2015, a local court in the southern Polish city of Krakow ruled that Polanski should not be sent to the United States, a decision prosecutors agreed was "justified".

"Had Poland accepted the US extradition request, it would have violated the rights of Mr Polanski and at the same time the European Convention on Human Rights," judge Dariusz Mazur said at the time.

The Krakow court was fiercely critical of the original US investigation into the filmmaker's case, saying US judges and prosecutors had flouted "the rules of a fair trial".

But after the PiS came to power in November 2015 and Ziobro became justice minister, he announced a review of the decision, saying he wanted to "avoid double standards".

"He is accused of a terrible crime against a child, the rape of a child," Ziobro said.

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A cash reward of Rs 50,000 has been announced by Uttar Pradesh Police for information leading to the arrest of wanted gangster Brahm Singh.

"A cash reward will be given to anyone providing information about Brahm Singh who has been absconding since a murder in Kurthal village here," UP DGP Javeed Ahmad said yesterday.

Singh, leader of the Kurthal gang, is wanted in 26 cases of murder and kidnapping in Delhi, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, he said.

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Principals of Delhi government-run schools can appoint retired teachers in case of "shortage" of teaching staff in their institutes.

This was announced by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, during the annual function of a Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in Mayur Vihar Phase I here today.

"If there is shortage of a teacher in any school, then the principal need not ask the deputy director or send file to him. Now, the principals will be able to appoint retired teachers of government schools for such vacancies," Sisodia said.

Retired TGT and PGT teachers of government schools will have to register themselves on the education department's website if they want to apply for such posts. They will be able to select a school of their choice, a senior government official said.

The applicants will be interviewed at the school concerned by a selection committee comprising principal, a teacher and two to three members of the school management committee, he said.

The retired teachers who are not selected in any school, will be included in a panel to be prepared by the education department for future appointments as the need may arise, the official said.

Jain said it is often difficult to permit teachers to go on leave due to shortage of teaching staff. Appointment of retired teachers as per need will solve this problem.

Previously, the government had allowed school principals to appoint estate managers for maintenance of cleanliness and sanitation. Earlier, the principals or teachers were engaged in ensuring cleanliness at the schools but now the estate managers discharge this duty, the official said.

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The Saudi-led coalition made a mistake when it carried out a deadly bombing next to a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders in northern Yemen, an "independent" probe said today.

Many findings of the investigation contradict those of the charity, also known by its French initials MSF, which called the August 15 attack "unjustified and unprovoked".

In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes in Yemen against Iran-supported Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies after the rebels overran much of Yemen.

The coalition has faced repeated allegations of killing civilians in its campaign to support Yemen's internationally recognised government led by President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT), which the coalition says operates independently, numbered seven deaths in the strike on Abs hospital, although MSF said 19 people were killed.

Coalition forces which had attacked a Huthi leadership gathering that day noticed a vehicle leaving the area, JIAT spokesman Mansur al-Mansur told a press conference in Riyadh.

A pilot followed the vehicle and then bombed it next to a building that was not identifiable as a hospital, he said.

"There was no indication that it was a hospital prior to the bombing," Mansur said, adding that the vehicle was a "legitimate military target".

Because of the "unintentional mistake" of damage to the hospital, the coalition must apologise and provide assistance to the families of those affected, Mansur said.

The coalition must also investigate those responsible to find the extent of their violation of rules of engagement and "take proper action", he said.

MSF said the hospital was identifiable by logos, and its GPS coordinates had been provided.

It said the vehicle targeted was civilian, carrying patients believed to be victims of other strikes.

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Paying rich tributes to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today said she was not only a great leader of Tamil Nadu, but also of the country.

"I would like to offer my condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu. Jayalalithaa ji was a great leader. She was not only a great leader of Tamil Nadu, she was a leader of this country," he said, after placing a wreath on her body minutes before it was taken from Rajaji Hall to MGR Memorial hall, where it will be laid to rest.

"I, on behalf of the Congress and party president (Sonia Gandhi) and every single Congress worker in this country, pay our respects to a great lady, to a great leader of Tamil Nadu," he said.

Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mukul Wasnik and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President Su Thirunavukkarasar also paid their respects to Jayalalithaa.

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The Delhi consumer commission has directed popular magazine Reader's Digest to pay Rs 5 lakh to an 86-year-old lady and deposit Rs 50 lakh as punitive damage with the Consumer Welfare Fund of the state for running a "deceptive contest" and promoting its sale "dishonestly".

The Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission held that the magazine had indulged in "unfair trade practice" by deceptively trapping readers by alluring them with contest prizes of Rs 24 lakh and a luxury car.

The Commission praised complainant R Balamma, a Mysore resident who had filed the complaint, saying such people had a 'pro bono publico' spirit and served the public by bringing unscrupulous elements to courts of law.

The magazine has denied all allegations in the district forum and termed them as false and baseless and claimed that the complainant was not a consumer as she did not purchase any goods or avail any of its services.

While dismissing the appeal filed by the magazine against a district court order, the commission refused to strike down the directions asking it to stop "unfair trade practice" of sweepstakes lottery, a game of chance to become a subscriber.

A commission bench headed by member N P Kaushik asked the magazine to stop addressing personal letters "in the tone and manner of breaking news" and declaring potential winners, which unnecessarily "drew a person into a whirlpool of hopes of getting super rich overnight".

It also upheld the district forum's direction asking the magazine to publish results and methodology of the draw in question in its forthcoming issue.

"It shows the ill intentions of the appellant (magazine). They cleverly drafted the advertisement for making the evil design successful. Lakhs of people have been participating in the deceptive contest... Sales of the magazine have been promoted dishonestly," the commission said.

The complaint alleged that the magazine fuelled desires of becoming a millionaire in the mind of Balamma by writing to her a personalised letter. It reproduced the letter which said that no other entry had a better chance of winning the Grand prize worth Rs 22,00,000 and asked her to reply within 14 days to win the contest.

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Elon Musk-backed Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) Co-Founder Bibop G Gresta today said the company is ready to build Hyperloop between Mumbai and Pune, but the decision is left with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari to go ahead with the project.

"Gadkari has a proposal to build the Hyperloop on his table and he has to take a decision. If he wants to go ahead with it, we are ready, and it will be a feasibility study to begin with to lay line between Bombay (Mumbai) and Pune," he told PTI here on the sidelines of the Carnegie Global Technology Summit 2016 here.

Hyperloop runs faster than an aircraft at a speed of 1,120 kmph.

Asked about the regulatory challenges to build Hyperloop in India, Gresta said Gadkari, during the meeting, had expressed the Indian Government's willingness to help the company in this regard.

"I had asked Gadkari to help us with regulatory norms. He (Gadkari) said we are willing to do that," he added.

Asked whether the company was looking for partners in India, Gresta said two local companies are working with Hyperloop.

"We already have two local companies in my team and we have 25 people working from India. They have several skills like programming and mechanical engineering," he said.

Asked about the size of investment to build the Hyperloop, Gresta said right now, the company is not asking for money, but land to get the project going. "We are not asking money right now, but asking for a piece of land. The company has several options for raising money.One of them is to build the Hyperloop in Public-Private partnership. We also have private investors interested in implementing the project," he said.

"I think India is a perfect country to implement this project because the roads are not that good. Here the transportation is not capable to sustain a growth in a country like India," he said.

Among the prominent cities and countries where the Hyperloop will be built are California, Utah, Illinois, Florida, Indianapolis, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Spain, France, Slovakia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Botswana, South Africa, Russia, China, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Australia.

Gresta said the company has received an investment of over USD 100 to build Hyperloop in these countries and cities around the globe.

"We have received over 100 million dollars to build Hyperloop in as many as 20 countries," he said.

Replying to a query, Gresta said the first Hyperloop is expected to be launched in Abu Dhabi.

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News / National

by Staff reporter

Government says it will now focus on finding partners to upgrade the Harare-Nyamapanda and the Beitbridge-Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highways, after sealing a deal for the dualisation of the Harare-Beitbridge road last week.Government last Wednesday signed an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract with Austrian firm Geiger International for the construction of the Beitbridge-Harare segment of the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu highway.The road will be constructed over three years at a cost of $984 million under a 25-year Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) model.Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Jorum Gumbo said the projects will be implemented with the main aim of facilitating regional trade.
Four members of a family including two nine-month-old babies were killed after the roof of their home in Choukri village under Haidernagar block in Palamau district collapsed today.

The victims have been identified as Dulari Devi (50), her grand-daughter Savitri Kumari (6) and infant twins Palak and Krishna, the police said.

District Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar said the building was in a dilapidated condition and the roof of the house suddenly caved in causing the casualties.

Following the incident, he said local residents rushed them to the nearby government hospital, but all of them succumbed to their injuries.

A detail report has been sought in this regard from the Sub-Divisional Officer concerned, Kumar added.

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Russia's energy ministry said today that OPEC and non-OPEC members would meet in Vienna on Saturday following a decision to cut global oil output.

The ministry told AFP that Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak would be taking part in the meeting, which comes after Moscow said it was ready to reduce crude output by 300,000 barrels a day in the first half of 2017.

After months of disagreement, OPEC members last week hammered out a deal to cut oil output for the first time in eight years.

The agreement ended weeks of uncertainty and volatility on crude markets as the key players bickered over who would shoulder the biggest burden of the cuts.

Oil prices shot up on the announcement, which was more ambitious than many analysts had expected.

Prices reached a 16-month high over OPEC's announcement of the meeting late Monday but quickly dipped overnight as the lustre of OPEC's decision to cut production faded.

On Tuesday at 0830 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down 39 cents on the day at USD 51.40, while Brent North Sea crude had dropped 31 cents to USD 54.63.

With crude prices above USD 50 dollars, US shale oil producers are dusting off dormant oil rigs as they gear up to raise production which could lessen the impact of any OPEC cuts.

"The price action speaks to me of a market that lacks conviction and momentum," said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.

"As reality bites in a world awash with oil, producing countries will have to show some meaningful backbone on compliance, for probably the first time ever, to achieve the meaningful rally in oil prices that they so desire.

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Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank had agreed to provide USD 500 million loan to part-finance the USD 15 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline project.

"An agreement to provide for the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) extending a loan of USD 500 million to the TAPI project consortium was signed last month," an official said here.

Also, TAPI Pipeline Co is in talks to rope in Saudi Fund for Development and the Japanese government as partners in the 1,814-km project that will transport gas from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh fields to Fazilka in India.

IsDB has expressed interest in financing the project not just on Turkmenistan's territory, but in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said.

The long-delayed transnational pipeline was formally inaugurated on December 13. Turkmenistan's national oil company Turkmengaz is the leader of the consortium of national oil companies of the four nations. It has 85 per cent equity in TAPI Pipeline Co (TPCL).

The state-owned gas utility GAIL India, ISGS of Pakistan and Afghan Gas Enterprise (AGE) have 5 per cent stake each.

The TAPI pipeline will have a capacity to carry 90 million standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) gas for 30 years, with 38 mmscmd going to India and Pakistan each. The remaining gas is to feed Afghanistan.

The project, to which ADB was appointed the transaction advisor in November 2013, had been planned to become operational in 2018, but it is unlikely to see the light of day before 2022.

The TAPI project has been on the drawing board for years as the four countries had not been able to get an international firm to head a consortium which will lay and operate the pipeline.

French giant Total SA had initially shown interest in leading the consortium. However, it backed off after Turkmenistan refused to accept its condition of a stake in the gas field that will feed the pipeline.

The official said the estimated cost of the project is USD 15 billion, according to an ADB-commissioned report. The project is to be funded in 60:40 debt-equity ratio.

The four nations to the project in April this year had signed an investment agreement in Ashgabad.

He said TPCL will appoint a project monitoring consultant (PMC) to conduct pre-FID activities, including mine clearance in Afghanistan, detailed route survey, front-end engineering design (FEED) and environment and social impact assessment.

The technical study of the TAPI project, done by Penspen, has estimated that it will take over six years to complete from the start of the FEED process, he said.

The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) project was originally announced in May 2002. India joined the consortium in 2008. In 2014, the pipeline consortium, TPCL, was incorporated.

TAPI will carry gas from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh field, better known by its previous name South Yoiotan Osman that holds gas reserves of 16 trillion cubic feet. From the field, the pipeline will run to Herat and Kandahar province of Afghanistan, before entering Pakistan. In Pakistan, it will reach Multan via Quetta before ending at Fazilka (Punjab) in India.

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A Saudi court today sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom's rival Iran, local media and a source close to the case said, in a move likely to heighten regional tensions.

The source said that most of the 15 Saudis were members of the kingdom's Shiite minority.

Their trial opened in February, a month after Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran over the burning of the Saudi embassy and a consulate by Iranian demonstrators protesting the kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The most serious charge levelled against them was high treason.

Prosecutors also alleged the accused had divulged defence secrets, tried to commit sabotage, to recruit moles in government departments, to send coded information, and supported "riots" in the Shiite-dominated eastern district of Qatif, Saudi media reported.

The 15 were among a group of 32 people tried over the espionage allegations, Alriyadh newspaper said on its website.

Some of the defendants were accused of meeting Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The death sentences will be appealed, said the source close to the case, who cannot be identified due to its sensitivity.

Two of the group were acquitted while the rest received jail sentences of between six months and 25 years.

Apart from one Iranian and an Afghan, all of the defendants were Saudis. The source said that one of the two acquitted was a foreigner.

Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), told AFP that the trial was "flawed from the beginning."



It was tainted by allegations that the accused did not have access to lawyers during interrogation, Coogle said.

They were also charged with offences that do not resemble recognisable crimes, including "supporting demonstrations," attempting to "spread the Shia confession," and "harming the reputation of the kingdom," he said.

"Criminal trials should not be merely legal 'window-dressing' where the verdict has been decided beforehand," he said.

HRW earlier cited a lawyer who represented some of the accused until March as saying the timing of the case "may relate to ongoing hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia".

All but one of the accused had been detained since 2013.

The region's leading Shiite and Sunni powers are at odds over a range of issues including the wars in Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has also expressed concern over an international agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for guarantees it would not pursue a nuclear weapons capability.

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With Jammu and Kashmir witnessing continued unrest, which has badly hit its economy, separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference today reached out to tourists and pilgrims, asking them to visit the Valley and enjoy the hospitality, while promising them safety.

A joint statement issued by both the factions of the Hurriayat said for centuries Kashmiris have been providing "exemplary hospitality" and safety to tourists and pilgrims.

"We have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests," the statement said.

"Tourists and pilgrims who intend to visit Kashmir are most welcome," the statement issued by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the moderate moderate Hurriyat faction Mirwaiz Muhammad Umer Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik said.

Extending wholehearted welcome to tourists and pilgrims, they said people of Kashmir have been taught "to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost".

"This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethos and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history," they said.

Referring to the unrest of 2008, the statement said when there was an economic blockade and even baby food was scarce, people in the valley replied to that "tyranny with our exemplary hospitality".

"We not only safeguarded them, provided them shelter but also served them and kept the doors of our homes and localities open for them," they said and added that the same practice was followed during 2014 devastating floods.

The Kashmir Valley is in continued turmoil since the July 8 killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces.

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Sick Kenyans were turned away from hospitals, and patients left stranded in their wards as a crippling strike by doctors and nurses demanding pay rises entered a second day today.

Several patients are reported to have died as a result of lack of care in public hospitals, many of which are completely unstaffed. Kenyans have been directed to private clinics that are unaffordable to the majority of the population.

"We have had a lot of patients leaving our facility because we have no services offered due to the ongoing strike," said David Mukabi, the superintendent in charge of Busia hospital in western Kenya.

He said a 24-year-old patient had died on Monday night as a result of the stayaway.

Meanwhile two women died at the Port Victoria Hospital in western Budalangi.

"Two patients died last night ... Because of the strike because there was no one to attend to them," said an official at the hospital.

Local media reported tales of patients suffering burns or in labour left stranded in front of hospitals.

At one hospital in western Kenya a security guard had to help a woman give birth, while in another an orphaned child was left alone in an empty ward with no parents to organise her transfer, The Standard daily reported.

Yesterday more than 100 patients escaped from Kenya's only psychiatric hospital in the capital Nairobi as the strike started, police commander Japheth Koome told AFP.

Unions are demanding a 300-per cent pay rise for doctors and 25- to 40-percent pay rise for nurses that they say was agreed upon in a 2013 collective bargaining agreement, but has yet to be implemented.

Ouma Oluga, secretary general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPPDU), said striking workers had been called to a meeting at the health ministry but government officials never showed up.

"The government of Kenya will either have to pay doctors or will have none of them," Oluga said on Monday.

"We continue to appeal to the health workers to resume duty as we continue with the negotiations," said health cabinet secretary Cleopa Mailu.

Many Kenyans on social media support the strike, pointing to scandals in corruption-plagued Kenya in which millions of dollars have been embezzled or gone unaccounted for, while the doctors struggle for wage increases.

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Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan is travelling to Chennai to pay tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who passed away last night.

Balakrishnan willbe travellingwith hisMinistry officials, a government statement said.

Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital in Chennai after battling for life for the past 75 days.

The 67-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

According to official statistics, 74 per cent of Singapore's population is of Chinese ethnicity, while 13 per cent are of Malay heritage and 9 per cent of Indian, including Tamils.

In Singapore, Tamil is an official language along with English, Mandarin and Malay.

Foreign Affairs Minister Balakrishnan was also born to a Tamil father.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The decision by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to rename the Physics department of a leading university after the country's only Nobel laureate scientist Abdus Salam is a "bold" one in a country where Ahmaddiya community is dubbed as 'non-Muslims', Congress leader Saifuddin Soz said today.

"This move is seen by the civil society of Pakistan as a bold decision and for liberal society there, it is a heart- warming celebration," he said while reacting on the development.

Salam happened to be the only person in Pakistan to have received Nobel Prize for Physics, but Pakistan had never celebrated this prestigious award as many people held the extreme view that he was an Ahmadiyya, said the former Union Minister.

Sharif has give in-principle approval for the renaming of National Centre for Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University (Islamabad) as 'Professor Abdus Salam Center for Physics'.

"Needless to mention it here that declaration of Ahmadiyyas as non-Muslims by General Zia-ul-Haq, the then President of Pakistan on 26 April 1984 caused very bad publicity for Pakistan abroad where Prof. Abdus Salam was seen as good a Pakistani as any other person," Soz said.

He said while an overwhelming majority of civil society in Pakistan has appreciated Sharif's move, "the extreme religious elements have already raised a hue and cry against this gesture, which is unfortunate".

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A year after losing Sri Lanka's presidency in a stunning electoral upset, strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa is making unusual political moves to regain power in the South Asian island nation through a newly launched political party in which he has no actual stake.

Not yet, anyway.

Rajapaksa has yet to leave his old party, now led by the former ally who ousted him at the polls, but it's clear he is quietly in control of the new Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party, which translates as the Sri Lanka People's Front.

It's headed by Rajapaksa's former foreign minister, Gamini Peiris. Rajapaksa's brother and former economic affairs minister, Basil Rajapaksa, holds high rank.

Peiris "is not the real leader" but will carry out the former president's wishes "until Mahinda Rajapaksa decides to come forward," political analyst Jehan Perera said of the longtime Rajapaksa loyalist.

The Sri Lanka People's Front admits that is the goal, even if the former strongman remains coy about the new group. Last month, Rajapaksa dodged reporters' questions about whether he was involved, saying, "Let's see, it has not happened so far."



Basil Rajapaksa, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, was more direct.

"Our main objective is to bring back President Mahinda Rajapaksa," said Basil Rajapaksa, speaking at his new party office on the outskirts of Colombo. "He is our future leader and spiritual leader. ... It's just a matter of time. His vision is our policy."



Mahinda Rajapaksa ruled Sri Lanka for nine years beginning in 2005, and had widely been expected to win an unprecedented third term in 2015. He'd built up immense power and was popular among the country's majority ethnic Sinhalese after overseeing the military's brutal defeat of ethnic Tamil rebels, ending a 25-year civil war in 2009. Some supporters even hailed him as a king and a savior.

But he was increasingly criticised for failing to allow an investigation of alleged war crimes by the military, while also facing mounting allegations of corruption and nepotism. He lost the election after his health minister Maithripala Sirisena launched his own last-minute election campaign.

He was further humiliated when Sirisena's government ordered investigations into corruption, abuse of power and even murder that implicated several members of Rajapaksa's inner circle, all of whom have denied the allegations.

Many of the cases now being prosecuted are still pending in court. Basil Rajapaksa said corruption allegations that led to his arrest and release on bail were politically and personally motivated.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, his elder brother, Chamal, and his son, Namal, are still official members of the same Sri Lanka Freedom Party that Mahinda's father co-founded.

While the party is now headed by President Sirisena, a dissident faction has followed the Rajapaksas in an ad hoc opposition group since the election. Another brother, former defense secretary Gotabhaya Mahinda, also remains loyal though he is not an elected lawmaker.

That faction opposes Sirisena's first-time coalition with the Freedom Party's archrival, the United National Party. The two parties have dominated Sri Lankan politics since the country's 1948 independence from Britain.

Perera, the analyst, suggested Rajapaksa's longtime Freedom Party membership made him reluctant to cut ties and join the new People's Party officially.

Once "he realizes he can't be take the control of the SLFP, which is his preferred vehicle, to become the leader again of the country, he will then at that stage opt to take over" the new party, Perera said.

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Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena today expressed condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and said she was a leader "dearly loved" by her people.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India's Tamil community".

Rajapaksa, during his presidency, invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions.

Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka.

While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to bring pressure on New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils.

Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night in Chennai.

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News / Press Release

by Mthwakazi Solidarity UK Group

A meeting of stakeholders was held successfully in Birmingham on the third of December 2016. This followed several months of deliberations on social media in proMthwakazi multiparty forums. Participants have long lamented the lack of coordinated voices from Mthwakazi political parties, pressure groups and other civic organisations advocating for the total liberation of Mthwakazi. Mthwakazi has been under oppression since colonial days right through to the deliberate neglect and marginalisation post 1980 onwards.There is overwhelming consensus among the people of Mthwakazi that Mthwakazi has never been free since the white supremacist imperialists set foot on our land. It is also regrettable that Mthakazians liberated Zimbabwe from the stranglehold of Ian Douglas Smith racist government only to gift the country to corrupt and tribalist political opportunists led by the alien Harare government which has blatantly implemented its 1979 Grand Plan to the last letter.It is on this backdrop that the plan to organise a face to face meeting was mooted to seek ways of getting Mthwakazians to speak to each other and not at each other. This was recognised as a priority in order to address the burning question of freeing Mthwakazi from the cruel and uncaring government of Zimbabwe that does not consider Mthwakazi as part of its country or is it?. When Mthwakazians call for devolution of power, secession or restoration of Mthwakazi nation, they are echoing both the stated and unstated sentiments of the Mugabe regime which treats all Mthwakazians as second class citizens, bearing in mind that the Gukurahundi Genocide targeted all Mthwakazians.The 20 or so representatives of the proMthwakazi organisations attended the meeting either as delegates or observers. It was agreed from the onset that participants would desist from falling back on their default position of political party affiliation or bias. This was based on the fact that all Mthwakazian parties have similar concerns although it is widely recognised that they differ on the strategies on how to free Mthwakazi and its oppressed people. They also agreed to form an organisation that would not be linked to one political party but an independent entity that would be willing to listen to all voices from Mthwakazi. Mthwakazi Solidarity Group UK would look at each initiative on a case by case basis and support those programmes that merit support and have a realistic chance of improving the plight of Mthwakazians. Such programmes would range from political activism, community development projects to economic empowerment of our people.The broad aim of Mthwakazi Solidarity Group UK is to promote unity of all Mthwakazian groups in order to pursue the total liberation of the Mthwakazi nation state and to restore dignity to this once mighty, proud and peace-loving people.One of its key objectives is to conscientise the people to reclaim their rightful place in society and to be rid of the current psychological helplessness and physical inertia and malaise in the face of Zezuru hegemony. It is also hoped that Mthwakazian organisations will be encouraged to foster co-operation and sharing of strategies and expertise. This should lead to reducing actual or perceived hostilities between sister parties or organisations in Mthwakazi. Only this way can we reserve fire power which can be directed at Mthwakazi's main enemy; the Robert Mugabe led Zanu pf.An interim steering executive committee was given the mandate to lead the initial work to establish this organisation and to ensure that it serves its primary purpose of promoting oneness in Mthwakazi. The four man team is led by Mr Sikhululiwe Ndlovu as Chairman who will be assisted by three Secretaries for Admin, Info and Publicity) and for Finance respectively. A full substantive executive will be elected at a date to be announced, no later than 12 weeks from now.Mthwakazi Solidarity UK Group infodesk.Contactable at msukginfodesk@gmail.comWhatsApp +447473790250.
Syrian regime forces were on the verge today of seizing a major rebel district of Aleppo as Moscow and Washington traded barbs over stalled efforts to end fighting in the battle-worn city.

After retaking control of about two-thirds of east Aleppo in recent days, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were advancing today on the large residential district of Shaar.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said if the district is retaken rebel forces will be reduced to a "war of attrition" with the army.

"It is the most important neighbourhood in the heart of east Aleppo, and is on the brink of falling," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that regime forces were already in control of about a third of the district.

With the capture of Shaar, the army would hold 70 per cent of east Aleppo, four years after rebels first seized it and divided the city.

The regime's rapid gains have left opposition fighters scrambling to defend the shrinking enclave they still control in Aleppo's southeastern districts.

The international community has also struggled over how to respond, despite widespread concern over the fate of tens of thousands of civilians still in rebel-held areas.

Russia, a key Assad ally, had announced talks with the United States in Geneva for Tuesday or Wednesday on organising a full rebel withdrawal from Aleppo leading to a ceasefire.

But today Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington, which has backed rebel groups against Assad, of backtracking.

"It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves," Lavrov told journalists, adding that Moscow had the impression that "a serious discussion with our American partners isn't working out."



Washington for its part accused Moscow of stalling for time after Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution yesterday calling for a seven-day ceasefire.

Russia said the resolution should have been postponed until after the Geneva talks, saying an agreement on organising a withdrawal was close.

The deputy US envoy to the United Nations, Michele Sison, suggested there was no deal, accusing Moscow of using a "made-up alibi" to block the resolution.

"We will not let Russia string along the Security Council," she said.

"We will continue bilateral negotiations (with Russia) to relieve the suffering in Aleppo, but we have not reached a breakthrough because Russia wants to keep its military gains."



The rebels have so far rejected any talk of leaving the city, with Yasser al-Youssef of the leading Nureddin al-Zinki faction describing the proposal as "unacceptable".

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Sri Lanka's Tamil lawmakers today clashed in Parliament over prefabricated houses being constructed for those affected by the three-decade long civil war in the country's north and east.

The main Tamil party - Tamil National Alliance (TNA) - Parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran demanded the resignation of D M Swaminathan, the Minister of Prison Reforms, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs, for going ahead with the prefabricated houses despite several concerns raised.

"I will say it again we have no confidence in minister Swaminathan," Sumanthiran said.

Sumanthiran said that he had submitted proposals to construct permanent houses for the war displaced people at a lower cost but the minister had disregarded the proposal.

The firm Arcelor-Mittal was to build 65,000 prefabricated houses at a cost of Rs 2.1 million each but the TNA argues that more suitable houses can be built for around Rs 850,000.

TNA and opposition leader R Sampanthan said the people in the North need permanent houses and not prefabricated houses.

"Why are you trying to build houses at double the cost?," he asked.

Sumanthiran reiterated the TNA position that prefabricated houses were not suitable.

He said that a financier of the UNP of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was the local agent of the firm.

In a letter to President Maithripala Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, the TNA had pointed to the unsuitability of the proposed prefabricated houses.

Defending his decision, Swaminathan said the suitability of the prefabricated houses have been tested and proved fine.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe who intervened in the cross talk assured that the government would further discuss the issue with all parties concerned.

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Tata Sons tonight refuted charges of breakdown of governance levelled by Cyrus P Mistry, saying it was the ousted chairman who has been violating such guidelines.

"The same Corporate Governance Guidelines, Mr. Mistry's office is referring to, prescribes that a Tata employee must step down from the Boards of Tata companies, after he ceases to be a Tata employee.

"After being replaced as Chairman of Tata Sons, Mr Mistry ceases to be a Tata employee. It is he who is violating the Guidelines that he himself propounded, and not Tata," a Tata Sons spokesperson said.

The response was to Mistry's office issuing a statement saying the ousted chairman was fighting to protect the conglomerate from "capricious" decision-making by Interim Chairman Ratan Tata.

Refuting remarks that he was trying to take over control over all Tata Group activities, Mistry's office alleged that those individuals were seeking to procure unpublished price sensitive information from listed group companies, breaking down governance.

(REOPENS DCM092)



Reacting to the Tata Sons' statement, a source close to Mistry said: "First failure of governance is the failure of Mr Tata to follow the articles, formation of a committee to remove the chairman."



He hasn't ceased to be a Tata employee, the source added.
Drug major Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has appointed Dipankar Bhattacharjee as President and Chief Executive Officer of its Global Generic Medicines Group.

He succeeds Sigurdur Olafsson and will be based in the US, Teva said in a statement.

Bhattacharjee has served as President and CEO of Teva Generics Europe since April 2013, it added.

As President & CEO of Teva Generics Europe Bhattacharjee has a proven track record of improving revenues and profitability, significantly increasing operating profit margins in the European generics business, Teva said.

Teva President and CEO Erez Vigodman said: "Teva will benefit from Dipankar's extensive experience in generics and speciality medicines, his financial and operational expertise and his deep understanding and appreciation for Teva's culture of innovation and our outstanding people".

Dipankar and his team will focus on generating organic growth through new launches and replenishing the pipeline through our industry-leading R&D, and drive efficiencies across the generics organisation, he added.

Bhattacharjee joined Teva as General Manager, Teva UK Ltd in 2009. Prior to joining Teva, he served 15 years at Bausch + Lomb in various senior roles, including Vice President Commercial in both Europe and Asia-Pacific regions and Corporate Vice President and President, Asia Pacific Region.

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The number of terrorists killed in Jammu and Kashmir this year has seen a three-fold increase while casualty for security personnel has recorded a rise of over 80 per cent compared to last year, Lok Sabh was informed today.

Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir in response to a written question said the number of terrorists killed this year was 140, a figure which stood at 46 last year.

The number of arrests and surrenders this year was 76, which was seven-fold increase from last year when the figures stood at 10.

He said the number of army personnel killed this year stands at 71. This number had been showing a declining trend up till last year with 53 in 2013, 47 in 2014 and 39 in 2015.

He said the number of terror incidents has increased to 305 till November 27 this year as compared to 208 for entire last year.

Also the number of security forces injured has shown over 100 per cent increase and it stands at 208 this year compared to last year's 103.

Similarly, the number of civilians killed this year has seen a marginal decline so far and stands at 14 compared to 17 last year.

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Rich tributes were today paid to the architect of Constitution, B R Ambedkar on his 60th death anniversary, observed as 'Mahaparinirvan Din' by thousands of followers from all over the state who converged at his memorial 'Chaityabhoomi' near Shivaji Park in Dadar here.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Education Minister Vinod Tawde were among the leaders who paid homage to Ambedkar at the 'Chaityabhoomi'.

At Mantralaya, the state Secretariat, floral tributes were offered to the late leader. At Vidhan Bhawan, Legislature staff paid tributes to Ambedkar.

The city's public transport wing, BEST undertaking, ran special buses between Dadar and Shivaji Park, an official said, adding food stalls were also being put up to provide free snacks there.

The BMC has installed temporary sheds, mobile toilets and six medical stalls at Shivaji Park, Dadar Station, at Rajgriha (Ambedkar's residence) and Kurla Terminus.

Drinking water arrangements were also made at Shivaji Park, the official said.

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A triple murder suspect in China who managed to evade authorities for over two decades has been arrested in the country's south Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, police said today.

Police of Hunan province's capital Changsha city said the man landed in the police net nearly 23 years after the triple murders, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Liu had a run-in with several villagers on January 27, 1994 and fatally shot three of them before fleeing, it was alleged.

Police were tipped-off last month that Liu might be hiding in Liangqing District in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi.

The ensuing investigation uncovered that the man had assumed a fake identity, the report added.

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The ruling in Telangana has favoured state funding of elections and bringing political parties under RTI once the electoral system is cleaned up.

Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) floor leader in Lok Sabha, A P Jithender Reddy said Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao also supported the idea of state-funding of polls during his interactions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Definitely, it will come down," he told PTI when asked if the move would reduce campaign expenditure.

"Election Commission is also bringing in reforms. And they are saying so-and-so action will be taken against the people (candidates) spending more amount (beyond prescribed expenditure limits). But what I suggest is same action should also be taken against the people (referring to voters) who take the money (bribe)," Reddy said.

He also favoured a ban on cash donations to political parties, arguing that when India is on a path to become a "cash-less society", the system of accepting such money by way of cheques and electronic transfer should follow suit.

"Once all these things (state-funding and stopping of cash donations) get transparent (are implemented), then there is no problem of bringing political parties under RTI. After that (clean-up), political parties should be brought under RTI," he said.

The is also for simultaneous elections to State Assemblies and Lok Sabha, Reddy said.

He also called for setting up of special courts to try election-related offences in a time-bound manner.
Two IT Parks will shortly be developed in Himachal Pradesh with the help of Software Technology Park of India (STPI), a senior official said today.

"One of such park shall be developed in Gaggal near Dharamsala," IT Advisor to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Gokul Butail informed here.

As it is valley area and adjacent to airport, experts consider it as the best place, he said.

The second (IT) park shall be constructed in Shimla, he added.

Butail said that the formal announcement regarding this will be made after the next cabinet meeting.

He further said that such parks will give a boost to hundreds ofIT engineers of state working out side state.

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Two nursing homes of Malda district were sealed and one was show caused in view of allegations against them for violating norms, the chief medical officer of health (CMOH)of Malda, Dr Dilip Kumar Mondal said here today.

"We have sealed Mongalbari Nursing Home and Harishchandrapur Nursing Home, and served a show cause notice to Apollo Nursing Home last night," Mondal said.

"There were allegations that Mongalbari Nursing Home was running an illegal medicine shop, besides operating it with untrained staff. Both Harishchandrapur Nursing Home as well as Apollo Nursing Home allegedly had no licenses," Mondal said.

On verifation, it was found the allegations to be true, he said. The DM and SP of Malda were also present when the nursing homes were sealed, he said.

There are 34 nursing homes across the district and a team comprising health department officials and a deputy magistrate would visit all of them. "A high level committee will carry out surprise visits at these nursing homes," Mondal said.

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Opinion / Columnist

Just one girl? Mmmmm this is sad!

SekaQinisela wase Nkayi replies Masocha

Yes one is enough because most go there and become prostitutes or drunkards and chain smokers jumping from one man to the other instead of pursuing their education resulting in unplanned pregnancy or children who will grow up without knowing their father we have enough of them and we will not add more so one girl is fine there's too much freedom there and our girls start to behave inhumane worse than dogs



Gender insensitive selection of STEM students for USA enhancement program! Eight boys and one girl! My foot!

When we say our thinking and our ways of life has not changed to better ourselves and our communities this is one classical example. It is just sad and backward to say a girl-child does not deserve equal education as the boy-child. Nine form six pupils are sent to USA under STEM program to advance their careers in the USA. Curiously Masocha (a commenter of BYO24 on the article) notices the gender disparities in the number of pupils sent for the very privileged program and very useful for the development of Science and Technology in the country. Eight boys and one girl, this is just below the belt. ONE GIRL is sent together with 90% of the male folk under the Professor's STEM program a father of girls. Uyise ka Ntombizodwa!It is these very funds that the Professor stole from the government some of which to boost his STEM programs. The Professor stole money to improve education of our disadvantaged children. He as Professor, an academic himself, knows the importance of sound education ever to achieve one's goals and ignite potential. When we read about Jonathan Moyo's scandals regarding corruption, we had mixed feelings, how do we give our comments, without selling our inner satisfaction about his open efforts to improve education in younger people in our midst. Jonathan Moyo stole money from the Engel Gabriel-Robert to better the lives of Jack and Jill. The lives of Benny and Betty when they grow up, will improve many societies because of STEM programs, a big investment for the nation in hindsight. Ends justified the means!Curiously still its Professor Moyo's program STEM he pioneered very well. We are all in awe and wonder about this most challenging and exciting program. We welcomed this, we thought it encouraged both young genders to participate equally; equal opportunities for all boys and girls, its Seka Ntombizodwa's brain child STEM program. But how is he failing his brain-child STEM if he thinks sending eight boys and one girl for an enhanced and intensive study of science subjects is justified? It is whole Minister and Professor Moyo: Seka Ntombizodwa who has five daughters at home who is supposed to be gender sensitive himself first before Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi could make those wreck less comments about our girl-children. Here are the comments about the article taken from Bulawayo24.com 3rd December 2016.Masocha comments:To say that a girl-child does not deserve STEM program is a backward mindset that must be challenged with all the scorn it deserves. We are in the second Millennium, Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi. Our societies especially in our areas of Mathebeleland have been marginalized not only because of Zanu PF system of marginalization; giving us third class treatment, but because there is a big number of the moulds of Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi who are an impediment to civilisation, just impervious to education on girls. Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi thinks it is a waste of time to educate the girl child.Both Seka Ntombizodwa (Professor Moyo) and Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi have no knowledge of the sustainable development goals SDG that put a lot of emphasis on girl-children because sustainable developments can be achieved only when we invest our good education on girl-children. It is commonly known African saying that: to educate one boy is to educate one person but to educate one girl-child you will have educated the whole village, the entire nation. The whole Professor should know the aims of SDG of 2016 and MDG of 2000 and their emphasis on women and girl-children. With his academic titles he has managed to get in his life time and a father of girls, Professor Moyo should do more for the girl-children in Zimbabwe.To deprive a girl-child of good education is also a violation of the rights of women. Education is a right to both girls and boys. Good education is a right to both genders Professor Moyo. According to the Nobel Prize Winner Malal Yousafzi: there are several reasons why girl-children should get the same equal opportunities in education: she says:In educating a girl, guarantees that the future generations will also get education. A child of an educated woman is less likely to die before the first birthday. An educated woman with greater knowledge of care is less likely to have many children also less likely to die at child birth. It also leads to more female health care providers to assist with prenatal medical care and delivery complications and emergencies and follow-up care.Education in girl-children means that they will get married later and are better able to bear and care for their children. Child marriages happen to girl-children who are illiterate and obviously have no adequate tools to build healthy educated families. Literate women have an average of 2, 5 children whereas illiterate women have to about six to ten children according to UNESCO.Educated women do take part in politics and are part of any meaningful development processes that improve the lives of women generally. Sexual violence is rare in educated families and women are less likely to be victims of gender violence. If there was indeed domestic violence an educated woman will not tolerate violence in her marriage.An educated woman has a greater chance of escaping poverty altogether and she will lead a much healthier productive life, raising the standards of living of families, communities and the nation equally. This is just the summary of Ms. Malala's reasons why girl-children should be wholly supported to get good education. She says for every boy-child that is educated, equally a girl-child should get educated too because a boy and a girl should be equal at entry point; school education!There are numerous other reasons according to NICEF, why we should support good education for girls. Experience in many countries shows that:Quote from UNICEF "Parental and community involvement -- Families and communities must be important partners with schools in developing curriculum and managing children's education.""Low-cost and flexible timetables -- Basic education should be free or cost very little. Where possible, there should be stipends and scholarships to compensate families for the loss of girls' household labour. Also, school hours should be flexible so children can help at home and still attend classes.""Schools close to home, with women teachers -- Many parents worry about girls travelling long distances on their own. Many parents also prefer to have daughters taught by women.""Preparation for school -- Girls do best when they receive early childhood care, which enhances their self-esteem and prepares them for school.""Relevant curricula -- Learning materials should be relevant to the girl's background and be in the local language. They should also avoid reproducing gender stereotypes." - UNICEF findings.I am sure u Seka Ntombizodwa (Professor Moyo) knows these Sustainable Development Goals well. This article could assist in refreshing his memory about girls and their plight for gender-equality in all aspects our lives even those scholarships to USA must be sensitively distributed in terms of gender. STEM program is relevant to girl-children too Seka Ntombizozwa. In retrospect, this knowledge will assist Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi more that Seka Ntombizodwa because his comments makes me think he is living in the past.An educated woman does not become a prostitute when she gets those high fly academic qualifications. Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi must be insulting the girl-child. You are born of a woman Seka Qinisela wase Nkayi, and you are to respect her and treat her as your equal, your mother, wife your sister even your daughter. We missed development in our societies because you think a girl-child does not deserve to have it, in retrospect she is equal to all other men.
A British court today convicted a Belgian man living in Birmingham of giving money to Brussels and Paris terror attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini.

Zakaria Boufassil handed 3,000 pounds (USD 3,770, 3,550 euros) in cash to Abrini when the latter visited the city in central England in July 2015, with the knowledge that it would be used for terrorism, the court found.

Testifying at Kingston Crown Court in London last week, the 26-year-old admitted to meeting Abrini and to holding the money for his conspirator, Mohamed Ali Ahmed, but said he had "no idea" of its intended use.

Abrini, dubbed the "man in the hat" for his image caught on security cameras before the Brussels airport bombing, was questioned by Belgian investigators in April over his suspected involvement in the Brussels attacks in March and the Paris attacks in November 2015.

During his visit to Britain, travelling from Syria via Turkey, Abrini said he collected the money and visited casinos in Birmingham and in Manchester, northwest England.

"I am a player, a fan of casinos... It's my addiction, I play roulette, poker and the slot machines," he said, according to transcripts of his interrogation that were read out in the British court.

But he denied the money was used for terrorism, saying it was "too small a sum", adding: "To carry out attacks you need lots of money."



Ahmed, also from Birmingham, had pleaded guilty to handing over the money last month and Boufassil said Ahmed had taken "advantage of my naivety".

Speaking in French through a translator, Boufassil said last week he gave the money to Ahmed in a park in Birmingham, and stayed there smoking while he and Abrini went elsewhere.

"He never told me that the person who was coming to get the money was a bad person. Had I known it I would never have kept the money," Boufassil said.

As a follower of Sufism, a mystic Islamic order that is viewed as heretical by hardline militant groups, Boufassil condemned the Islamic State group.

"For me, those people are worse than animals," he said.

Boufassil, who also admitted to being a regular cannabis user, struggled to remember dates and times in cross-examination.

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The US today asked its nationals to exercise caution and avoid places of large gatherings or protests in Chennai in the wake of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's death even as its Consulate in the state functioned with reduced staff.

Noting that many businesses in Chennai are closed and public transportation is not operating after the announcement of Jayalalithaa's death, a US advisory also said it has temporarily suspended appointments for routine services to US citizens and visa applicants.

"Applicants whose appointments are cancelled will be notified by e-mail and provided a link to reschedule. The Consulate will provide updates when routine services are restored," it said.

While there is a large police presence, the possibility of sporadic violence remains, it said, and asked its citizens to review their personal security plans and remain aware of their surroundings, including local events.

It also asked them to monitor local stations for updates and maintain a high level of vigilance as also take appropriate steps to enhance their personal security.

"US citizens are reminded that 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 and protests," the advisory said.

US citizens requiring emergency services may contact the Consulate at +91-44-2857-4000, it said, asked them to contact US Embassy here at +91-11-2419-8000 in case of not being able to get through to the local phone number.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US commitment to NATO will remain "unwavering" despite the change of administration following the election of Donald Trump as president, outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry said today.

"The change of the administration will not change the unwavering commitment of the US to... Our NATO obligations," Kerry said after talks with his NATO counterparts in Brussels.

"The US commitment to NATO and Article Five transcends politics," added Kerry, referring to the military alliance's collective defence policy in which an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Trump stoked concerns that Washington's near 70-year European defence guarantee might no longer hold when he said on the campaign trail he would think twice about helping NATO allies who did not pay their defence dues.

His commitments particularly alarmed eastern European NATO countries that are on edge about a more assertive Moscow following Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

But Kerry insisted that both the Trump administration and the US Congress would continue to back NATO.

"I'm absolutely confident that the next administration and Congress will stand together," Kerry said in his swansong to Europe.

"I am confident Article Five is not going to be held hostage to the lack of one country or other (to meet its defence spending commitments) ... Article Five is much larger, it is about principle."



The top US diplomat also gave his backing to Trump's pick for defense secretary, retired general James "Mad Dog" Mattis.

"I am confident in some of the people I have seen so far, General Mattis ... I am certain they will remain committed to the core components of the transatlantic alliance," Kerry said.

But he insisted he had no idea of his likely successor as secretary of state.

"The list of people replacing me is growing," Kerry said, with names bandied about for weeks including former Trump critic Mitt Romney, one-time CIA director David Petraeus, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker or even former UN ambassador John Bolton.

Kerry meanwhile insisted that the historic nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump promised during his campaign to tear up, was worth keeping.

"The Iran nuclear agreement has made the world safer," he said.

Overall Kerry said that the world should wait to see what Trump actually does and "must not get all churned up over things that have not happened or appointments that have not been named."



"Common sense will prevail," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Verdict by Allahabad High Court on a petition challenging election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Lok Sabha from Varanasi was further deferred today.

Justice Vikram Nath, who yesterday began dictating order on the petition by losing Congress candidate Ajai Rai, said the dictation of the judgement shall continue tomorrow.

Rai has challenged Modi's election alleging among other things that there were discrepancies in his nomination papers, that the expenses on campaign had exceeded permissible limits and religious sentiments were exploited through slogans like "Har Har Modi".

The Congress candidate had finished third and forfeited his deposit in the electoral battle wherein Modi defeated his nearest rival Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party by a margin of 3.71 lakh votes.

Rai had moved the court in June, 2014, less than a month after the result was announced.

"We had argued that first of all there was no illegality in stating not known against columns meant for the assets and liabilities of one's spouse," Modi's counsel and Additional Solicitor General of India Satya Pal Jain said today.

"A candidate could be held guilty of concealing facts on this count only if he or she is well aware of the assets and liabilities of the spouse and still declines to divulge the details. The petitioner had failed to establish the same and the court appeared to be in agreement with our contention," added Jain, who is also a member of BJP national executive.

"Moreover, the court also took note of the fact that following our strong rebuttals, the petitioner had agreed not press a number of other allegations made in the original petition, which include bribing of voters through distribution of freebies, appealing to religious sentiments and creating animosity between members of different communities," Jain added.

He said the petitioner chose to stick to two points - alleged discrepancies in nomination papers, "which was struck down by the court today - and expenditure on the campaign of Modi exceeding the permissible limits. The latter point is likely to be decided tomorrow when the court resumes dictation of orders".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 25-year-old woman was killed and two others injured when a fire broke out in a building in suburban Andheri here this afternoon, police said.

Fire broke out at a flat on the ninth floor of the 17-storey Shivam Tower in Sakinaka area at around 4 PM. The woman, her 65-year-old handicapped father and a youth got trapped inside the flat, they said.

All of them were rescued by the fire brigade officials, however, the woman died in the hospital.

Her father and the youth are still receiving treatment, police said, adding the cause of fire is yet to be ascertained.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With an aim to limit online terrorist content, giants Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube said together they would build a shared database that will also help them to weed out content used to recruit people into terrorism.

According to a report on Tech Crunch, the companies said they will create a shared industry database that will be used to identify this content, including what they describe as the "most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos" that have been removed from their respective services.

The content will be hashed using unique digital fingerprints, which is how its identification and removal can be handled more easily and efficiently by the company's computer systems and algorithms.

"We commit to the creation of a shared industry database of hashes - unique digital 'fingerprints' - for violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos or images that we have removed from our services," read a joint statement.

Participating companies can add hashes of terrorist images or videos that are identified on one of our platforms to the database.

Other participating companies can then use those hashes to identify such content on their services, review against their respective policies and definitions and remove matching content as appropriate.

Furthermore, each company will have the freedom to independently determine what image and video hashes to contribute to the shared database.

No personally identifiable information will be shared and matching content will not be automatically removed.

"Each company will continue to apply its own policies and definitions of terrorist content when deciding whether to remove content when a match to a shared hash is found. And each company will continue to apply its practice of transparency and review for any government requests, as well as retain its own appeal process for removal decisions and grievances," the statement added.

The companies said they seek to engage with the wider community of interested stakeholders in a transparent, thoughtful and responsible way.

"We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online," the companies added.

-
Monday, December 5, 2016 at 6:04PM

Joyous Celebration, a popular South African ensemble, with Bishop T.D. Jakes at the Potters House in Dallas for a live recording, Saturday, December 3, 2016 (Photo Credit: Joyous Celebration Facebook)Article By Rebecca Johnson // EEW Magazine Gospel News

Joyous Celebration, a South African gospel supergroup, recorded their 21st album Saturday at Dallas-based mega church, The Potters House, home of Bishop T.D. Jakes.

Were closing the middle passage between South Africa and America, and were uniting together, and becoming what Jesus prayed: that we might be one, said Jakes during his opening remarks.

The prolific preacher and best-selling author first connected with members of Joyous Celebration, one of South Africas most successful acts, while hosting Mega Fest in South Africa.

He invited them to come to America.

Both Jakes and the groups leader, Lindelani Mkhize, were excited about the collaboration with the GRAMMY Award-winning Potters House choir.

We have been one historically. We were one in suffering. We were one in strife. We were one in pain. We have similar testimonies, continued Jakes in front of a captive audience.

The recording, dubbed Bishop T.D. Jakes Presents Heal Our Land with The Potter's House choir and Joyous Celebration, will introduce many unfamiliar Americans to the South African ensemble that is already a household name in African countries including Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya Cameroon, Namibia, and Nigeria.

Joyous Celebration, after 20 years of ministry and millions of records sold, continues to garner awards, inspire and pave the way for many new artists.

Referencing the late Dr. Maya Angelous famous novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Jakes, 59, told event attendees, Theres something about a song that is born through suffering, through trials and through tribulations that cannot be recorded on a music sheet.

He added, Its more than notes. Its the status of a soul singing out to God because sometimes, the only thing you can get out of the cage, is the voice of a song.

The songs sung were joyful Saturday and will certainly lift the hearts of those who hear them upon release to the public.

RELATED: T.D. Jakes launches new social media strategy
Indian Railways is all set to make aadhaar card mandatory to avail any kind of concession in the train fare. From April next year, it will be applicable for senior citizen concession and gradually all categories will be brought into the ambit.

The idea is to ensure that only bonafide citizens get the benefit while it will check cases of impersonation. Railway officials claimed the move will also be a step towards reducing expenses on subsidy and railway concessions.

The railways has already given senior citizens the option of foregoing concession on rail fares in order to reduce its huge subsidy burden. Railways spend a whopping Rs 1,600 crore on various categories of concessions out of which nearly Rs 1,200 crore is spent on senior citizen concession. A senior official said instructions have been issued to railway's IT wing CRIS for making necessary changes in the online ticket booking system. Those purchasing tickets at reservation counters will also have to provide their aadhaar card number at the time of booking.

As per the rules, male senior citizens above 60 years of age are given 40 per cent concession of rail fare while women above the age of 58 years can avail 50 per cent concession in all classes. Some categories like physically challenged, deaf and dumb, and heart patients can avail concession up to 75 per cent on rail fares.

As per the plan, the aadhaar number, provided at the time of booking, will be printed on the tickets.

The plan will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase, it will be mandatory to provide the aadhaar number to avail railway concessions under the quota like senior citizen, freedom fighter, differently-abled, students and even unemployed youths. Indian Railways provides concession in rail fares to 53 categories. A senior rail ministry official said the policy in this regard will be approved and implemented in 15 days.

In the second phase, that will take nearly two months, railways will link all ticketing services to aadhaar card. This means, a passenger will have to provide the aadhaar number at the time of booking any ticket - online or at the reservation windows. Initially, the aadhaar number will be required for booking reserved tickets but later it will be made mandatory for all unreserved tickets too.
Tamil Nadu's former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was no ordinary politician and one could get a glimpse of her charisma by just turning the clock back to the times she was dragged into the court.

At least 16 people committed suicide or died of cardiac arrest across Tamil Nadu after a special court in Bangalore convicted Jayalalithaa in a disproportionate assets case in 2014.

This is unusual and doesn't normally happen in an ordinary situation. So, why was this emotional outburst for just another politician? What has 'Amma' done for the people of Tamil Nadu?

We take a look at Amma's initiatives that could well be the reasons behind her charismatic appeal and connect with the masses:

AMMA CANTEEN

Back in 2013, J Jayalalithaa launched Amma Unnavagam or Mother's canteen with a vision to provide low-cost meals for the people at large. The food chains primarily serve South Indian food including idli, saambar rice, curd rice, pongal, lemon rice, curry leaf rice and also chappathi.

At Amma canteens, the dishes are offered at just Rs 1 for an idli, Rs 5 for a plate of sambar rice, Rs 5 for a plate of "Karuvapellai Satham" and Rs 3 for a plate of curd rice. Even the poorest of the poor can have a full meal within Rs 17-20 in Tamil Nadu.

AMMA PHARMACY

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa set up 'Amma Pharmacies' to sell essential life saving medicines at 'fair price'. The State-owned pharmacies provide medicines at special discounts from 20 to 35 percent.

Amma Pharmacy was set up to cater to the demand of poor who could not afford to buy medicines due to high prices at private outlets. Jayalalithaa initially inaugurated a total of 10 shops in seven districts.

AMMA WATER

Earlier in 2013, Jayalalithaa launched a water distribution scheme -'Amma Kudineer'- with the aim of making clean water available to people at reasonable price.

1 Ltr 'Amma Kudineer' was priced just Rs 10. And, it is lower than the selling price of 'Rail Neer' - sold by the Indian railways at all stations.

This water is manufactured by the transport department of state government at its plant is in Thiruvalluvar district.

Amma Health Schemes

Last year, Jayalalithaa launched four health schemes namely, Amma Master Health Check Up, Amma Woman Special Master Health Check-up, Amma Arogya Scheme and Amma Pregnancy Sanjeevi.

The schemes offer master health check-ups through government-run laboratories and assures treatment through government hospitals. The cost of the check-up is almost one-fifth of what private centres offer.

Under the Amma Arogya Scheme, people can approach 385 primary health centres for conducting tests for diabetes, blood pressure, echo cardiogram (ECG), cholesterol and eye-related ailments.

Amma Cement Scheme

The Tamil Nadu government announced 'Amma Cement Scheme' under which it procures cement from private manufacturers and sell them at Rs 190 per bag in the wake of possible increase in rates of the key construction component.

This was latest in the list of other similar efforts like the 'Amma Canteen' and 'Amma Mineral Water', all low-cost initiatives.

Jayalalithaa rolled out the Cement Scheme with aim to benefit the lower and middle class people.

Under the scheme, beneficiaries are eligible for a maximum of 750 bags for 1,500 sq.ft., and the cement could be bought by submitting the government approved building plan or road plan.
The Supreme Court is expected to pronounce its judgment within a week in the high-profile disproportionate assets case against former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who died last year.

The other accused in the case is current AIADMK chief VK Sasikala, who is now set to be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

The apex court will decide on pleas challenging the acquittal of the two leaders in the assets case.

Jayalalithaa was booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act in 1996 for allegedly amassing unaccounted wealth worth nearly Rs 67 crore.

In April 2015, the supremo of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa declared assets worth Rs 113.73 crore. This was Rs 3.40 crore less than what she had declared the previous year.

According to the affidavit filed by her to contest from Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly constituency, the total value of her assets was Rs 113.73 crore. She had movable assets worth Rs 41.63 crore and immovable properties valued at Rs 72.09 crore.

Cash

She declared that she had Rs 41,000 cash in hand, listed Rs 2.04 crore as liabilities and declared agriculture in the profession-occupation column.

Jewellery

On her gold jewellery, Jayalalithaa said the value of 21,280.300 grams could not be ascertained as it was with the Karnataka government treasury in connection with the disproportionate assets case. She also mentioned that the assets case was pending in the Supreme Court.

And declared possession of 1,250 kg of silver articles valued at Rs 3,12,50,000.

Investment

On investment in companies, Jayalalitha in her afidavit said, "various deposits and shares with companies have been seized by the police and with the custody of the court in case relating to Spl.C.C.No.208 of 2004 on the file of 36th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court, (Special Court) Bengaluru." The reference is with regard to the disproportionate assets case against her.

Jayalalithaa had made investments in five firms as a 'partner', which are together worth Rs 27.44 crore. These include Shri Jaya Publications, Sasi Enterprises, Kodanad Estate, Royal Valley Floritech Exports and Green T Estate.

She had no investments in NSS, Postal savings, Insurance policies. She has also not given personal loans or advances to any person or entity, the affidavit stated.

Property and commercial buildings

Jayalalithaa's residence in 'Veda Nilayam' spread over 24,000 square feet with a built up area of 21,662 square feet is valued at Rs 43.96 crore. She, along with her mother, bought the property for Rs 1.32 lakh in 1967.

She owned 14.50 acres of farm land in Jeedimetla village in Ranga Reddy district in Telangana and 3.43 acres in Cheyyur Village in Kancheepuram village in Tamil Nadu.

Jayalalithaa had also purchased the property in Telangana in 1968 and in Cheyyur in 1981, with her mother Sandhya.

She owned four commercial buildings, including one each in Chennai and in Hyderabad.

According to a report in The Telegraph, Jayalalithaa had drawn up a will two years ago, which states that the Poes Garden house goes to Sasikala. The 800-acre Kodanad estate in the Nilgiris, Jaya Publications, Sasi Enterprises and the other businesses in which the two friends were partners will also go to the surviving partner.



Vehicles

Jayalalithaa had two Toyota Prado SUVs, together valued at Rs 40 lakh. Also, she had a Tempo Traveller, a Tempo Trax, a Mahindra Jeep, an Ambassador car of 1980 make, a Mahindra Bolero, a Swaraj Mazada Maxi, and a Contessa (1990 model) worth Rs 42,25,000.
Cab aggregator, Ola has partnered with Punjab National Bank (PNB) to aid cash withdrawals for the citizens of Delhi NCR through cabs that are equipped with PNB ATM/POS machines.

"Through the extensive network of Ola cabs present across the state, we are able to bring these mobile ATMs closer to citizens, saving them from the hassles of cash withdrawals," said Deep Singh, Business Head - North, Ola.

The month-long service that started on December 1st has helped over 15,000 customers in high footfall areas.

These ATM equipped Ola cabs are stationed in Gurgaon, Laxminagar, AIIMS, Nehru Place, Mayur Vihar, Faridabad and Greater Kailash among other popular places.

"Through this activity, Ola has increased touch points to PNB's existing network by creating more avenues for withdrawing money through micro ATMs/POS machines," said Rajesh Yaduvanshi, Zonal Manager - Delhi & NCR, Punjab National Bank.

Ola volunteers and PNB executives are present in these areas to assist people in withdrawing cash without any difficulty.

Ola has rolled out similar services for the citizens of leading metro cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata in partnership with other banks.
The passing away of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa is a major development for industry operating in Tamil Nadu and those considering new investments into the state. Most in the industry saw in her a towering leader and a crucial decision-maker. In fact, the state has had very power leaders in practically just the three chief ministers in the last 45 years - M.G. Ramachandran, M. Karunanidhi and J. Jayalalithaa.

So, what happens now? For the moment, many point to the smooth departmental functioning that seems to have continued for the past 75 days or so when she was ailing and hospitalised. This is being seen as a sign of bureaucracy being empowered. This, in many ways, seems to be giving industry confidence that administrative disruptions, at least in the medium term, are unlikely. Expecting to see continuity and stability, Venu Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, TVS Motor Company and the former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), tells Business Today: "Of course, her presence will be missed, but I am sure proper succession will be there and decision-making will continue."

Many tend to agree with him. But then, some do want to wait and watch to see how the power dynamics may work out in Jayalalithaa's absence. Therefore, to some, there could be concerns over the long term and what that could mean politically and in terms of the implications for the administration. But then, it is still too early to comment for many. Most tend to also feel there are lessons to be learnt on centralised leaderships, especially where leaders are seen as embodying the government. Because, anytime there is change, there are concerns on the way the transition could happen with or without power struggle. It is not as if transitions have not happened after a towering leader. There are examples at both Centre and states - Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Annadurai or M.G. Ramachandran.

Most in the industry point to two major pro-industry measures that were taken under the Jayalalithaa regime. One, creation of industrial zones and the other, improvement in power availability for industry. Apart from, of course, reaching out to industry through efforts such as the global investors meeting last year. Chennai is a very important centre for many industries - from IT, where many leading companies have some of their biggest operations to the automobile sector, where Tamil Nadu is home to some of the biggest names in the industry but Indian and global.

But then, there could be dislocations over the next few days. Many expect to see short term disruptions in operations over the next few days as emotional reactions to the development are likely. Industry, some therefore suggest, would do well to be ready for this and devise ways to deal with them.
After being aggressive in the entry-level segment and gaining market share, Lenovo has managed to rise to be the No. 2 smartphone brand by value in India with 9.1 per cent market share. The company seems to be changing its strategy a bit by focusing on mid-segment space, too. The Lenovo Z2 Plus with the price tag of Rs 19,999 seems to be an effort in the same direction.

The Z2 Plus seems to be a compact device as it boasts a 5-inch full HD display. It has a straight line design with 8.49 mm thickness, which reminded me of the iPhone SE design. Only the edges are slightly curved. It has a fibreglass frame and weighs 149 gm. That said, it can be easily operated with a single hand but the device is really soft and slips out of the hand. The power key, volume key and SIM tray are placed on the right side, and Type C charging port, 3.5 mm jack along with speakers are at the bottom. The rear has a glossy black back with Lenovo branding at the bottom and the camera module with flash on the top right. The rear is so glossy that it can act as a mirror (yes, no need to turn on the selfie camera) and attracts fingerprints too. Lenovo has added a cover to the box that doesn't complement the looks of the device.

Usually, with most smartphones, it comes down to the specifications and performance. But here is something more to talk about. Lenovo has added a range of gesture controls and called it U-Touch 2.0. While the home button has a fingerprint scanner, using U-Touch 2.0 in the settings, I was able to assign it more tasks as well. For instance, I assigned Chome for double tapping the home button, calculator to swiping right, Amazon app to swiping left, etc. This enables U-touch to handle between five to 7 different commands around the home button - one for double pressing the home button, swiping left or right, long press, long touch. While I thought it was a fancy feature, it worked smoothly and I got addicted to it.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 is a top-of-the-line chipset used in most of the flagship smartphones including the OnePlus 3 and Xiaomi Mi5. The same chipset has been added to the Z2 Plus and has been paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage and runs on Android 6.0. There is also a 3GB variant with 32GB onboard storage priced at Rs 17,999. Most of the smartphones come loaded with a custom UI and things were not any different with the Z2 Plus. It comes loaded with ZUI, which looked similar to the stock Android UI with a few changes. It is the notifications and quick settings where things looked a bit different but it didn't hamper the performance in any way. It launched the apps quickly and was able to multitask without any lag. Streaming videos and playing games was also a pleasant experience. But there were heating issues after longer gaming sessions.

For imaging, the Z2 Plus packs in a 13MP rear camera and 8MP front facing camera. The rear camera is accompanied with single tone LED flash but offers various modes including panorama, time lapse, slow-motion, HDR, etc.. The Z2 Plus also supports slow motion shooting at 120fps, 480fps and 960fps Camera isn't the strongest point. The images shot during daylight looked good on the display but lacks sharpness. in some cases, the colours were being overprocessed. Low light imaging had visible noise.

The 3500mAh battery onboard has an intelligent charge cut-off feature and can easily last a day with above average use. During out testing, we configured two email accounts, WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, used browser and captured images.

Bag it or Junk it: The Z2 Plus is a great device under Rs 20,000 price but can face competition from the better looking Xiaomi Mi 5, which even has got a better camera too.

Rating: 4/5

Price: Rs 19,990

Plus: Compact size, gesture

Minus: Camera
Irish health insurance expert, Dermot Goode, has today warned that consumers could soon be facing massive price hikes.



With 400,000 health insurance consumers due to receive renewal notices from December for policies renewing in January 2017 and 45% of all policies in the market due for renewal in the first half of 2017, the advice from the expert is act now and review before you renew.



Totalhealthcover.ie says 2016 saw a raft of premium increases and that insurers may not be finished yet. VHI and Laya both had two main increases over the year with cumulative increase on some plans exceeding 10%.

In the past few weeks, further increases have been outlined with Laya announcing another hike in January 2017 (average 5%), GloHealth increasing many of their plans from December 2016 (average 5.9%), and Irish Life Health announcing an increase to their rates from 1st Jan 2017 (average 6.3%).

The experts warn that consumers need to be very wary of these average figures, as some plans may see increases far in excess of them.

Earlier this month, Totalhealthcover.ie drew attention to the fact that public hospitals were charging new higher rates to public patients who hold private health insurance cover. The health insurance experts contend that 2017 could see rates increase by a further 6% - 8% in 2017 if this issue is not addressed.



TotalHealthCover.ie say that over the course of December and right into the first quarter 2017, approximately 45% of all private health insurance members will receive renewal notices.



Founder of www.totalhealthcover.ie, Dermot Goode says, "2016 hasnt been kind on health insurance members, who, by year end, will have borne the brunt of premium increases of up to 13% and higher. Approximately 400,000 policies fall due for renewal in January alone, and so we are issuing this warning to consumers to get organised and start reviewing policies now."

He added, "If they take steps now to review their cover, they could save themselves hundreds and even thousands on their cover for next year depending on the plan held. Older members who switch from dated plans stand to make the biggest savings. A pretty good reason to plan ahead!"

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
It was announced today that Irelands largest hotel Group, Dalata, will now manage operations of the iconic Dublin landmark hotel on Burlington Road, Ballsbridge.



The hotel comprises 502 recently renovated guestrooms, state of the art meeting and events facilities including a ballroom with a capacity for 1,400 delegates, an executive lounge, 24-hour fitness suite and an exciting ground floor experience.



The hotel will operate under their Clayton Hotel Brand and will be known as Clayton Hotel Burlington Road. This landmark hotel which is still remembered by many as The Burlington has more recently been operated by Hilton under their DoubleTree brand.



Dalata Hotel Group plc is Irelands largest hotel operator, with a current portfolio of 40 three and four star hotels with over 7,500 rooms. Dalata successfully operate Irelands two largest hotel brands, the Clayton and the Maldron Hotels across Ireland and the UK, as well as managing a portfolio of partner hotels.



Speaking about the announcement, CEO of Dalata Hotel Group, Pat McCann said, "We are excited that Clayton Hotel Burlington Road becomes part of our portfolio from today and look forward to fully integrating this fine property to the Dalata family. This hotel will be integral to our efforts to grow and strengthen our Clayton brand."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
Budget carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle plans to order more aircraft from Boeing and Airbus after its Irish subsidiary received long-awaited flying rights from U.S. authorities, its Chief Executive told Reuters.

After a three-year application process, the U.S. Transportation Department granted those rights on Friday, setting the stage for a new battle among airlines for leisure travellers across the Atlantic.

"There is no doubt we'll need even more planes after this," Bjoern Kjos said in an interview on Monday, adding that he expected the airline to place orders from both Airbus and Boeing.

Norwegian Air is working on new transatlantic routes from Irish cities like Cork, Dublin and Shannon, and plans to double its staff in the United States, he said.

"We expect to start flying from Cork and Dublin already next summer with at least four weekly routes," said Kjos.

"But there, we expect to add more routes, both from Shannon and also from some cities in Scotland."

Shares in Norwegian Air surged 12.4 percent by 1146 GMT on Monday in reaction to the ruling. It gives the carrier's Irish-based international arm the right to fly to the United States, and benefit from the European Union's aviation agreement with the United States, which is much more comprehensive than Norway's.

Kjos said he now expected the Norwegian low-cost carrier to open several new bases in the United States, with staff using such locations as their home base, in the coming years.

"We will now start working on establishing bases in Los Angeles and San Francisco. LA will most likely be in place in 2018 and hopefully San Francisco as well," said Kjos.

The airline expects to double the number of employees in the United States to over 2,000 in 2018, he said.

Last week Ryanair said it was in talks with Norwegian Air about feeding passengers into Norwegian's long-haul flights from large cities in Britain. Kjos said the decision from U.S. authorities on Friday makes these talks even more relevant.

"We are in talks with Ryanair right now where we are looking at the technical solutions. We hope to have a deal in place sometime next year", said Kjos.

"After that we would like similar deals with EasyJet and other airlines who want a cooperation", said Kjos.

Kjos said Norwegian would use European and U.S. crew on these routes, depending on where the hubs are.

"We will create a lot of jobs in the U.S. and we will fly in a lot of tourists who will spend a lot of money over there." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
The Minister for Business and Employment, Pat Breen, has welcomed the publication of the Microfinance Ireland third quarter 2016 Report.

The latest report shows that almost 16m of loans have been approved under the Microenterprise Loan Fund to date and that the Fund has supported 2,322 jobs.



A Microenterprise Loan Fund was established by the Government in 2012 through the Microenterprise Loan Fund Act 2012 and Microfinance Ireland (MFI) was incorporated in August 2012 as a subsidiary of Social Finance Foundation in order to operate the Fund.

The reasoning behind the establishment of such a Fund and establishing MFI was that access to finance for microenterprises, in particular, was a major issue with the banks at that time continuing to decline loans in the microfinance space (i.e. loans of up to 25,000).



Commenting on the Report, Minister Breen stated, "I am pleased to see Microenterprise Irelands performance going from strength to strength. Not only is the level of loan approvals impressive but the jobs supported are important too. I am particularly pleased to see that 79% of loans from Microfinance Ireland are supporting microenterprises outside of Dublin."

He added, "This is in line with the Governments regional focus in terms of job creation and sustainment and helping us on our way to achieving our target of helping to create 135,000 new jobs in the Regions."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
The Accenture Digital Media Awards 2017 will be taking place on Friday February 17th at the Clayton Hotel, Burlington Road, Dublin 4.



Now in their 14th year, the Accenture Digital Media Awards offer a platform for the dynamic work taking place across the broad spectrum of digital media in Ireland and abroad. The DMA categories cover all aspects of the digital space including digital content creation, advertising and marketing, mobile media, app development, social networking, web design and innovative technology.

The awards are continually changing to reflect the evolving digital space. Four new categories have been introduced for 2017, including Best Native Content, Best Collaborative Campaign and Best in Utilities and eight have been updated including new criteria for Best Conversion Strategy and Best Newcomer, previously known as Best Digital-StartUp.



Ashville Media Group have announced Tom Dunne and Lord of Strut duo Cian and Cormac as the new hosts for the 2017 Accenture Digital Media Awards. The partnership was launched onThursday by Vicky Godolphin, Head of Digital at Accenture Ireland and Tracey Carney, Event Director of the Digital Media Awards.



Source: www.businessworld.ie

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It was announced today that Bausch + Lomb has signed a two-year electricity and gas deal with Bord Gais Energy, worth several million euros over this period.

Bord Gais Energy has also supported the development of a state of the art 3.3MW Combined Heat & Power unit (CHP) at the pharmaceutical manufacturers Waterford facility which is predicted to save the company up to 1m per year on energy costs.



Bausch + Lomb employs approximately 1,250 people in Ireland and is currently undergoing a significant expansion with plans to hire an additional 150 staff. To support this business growth and improve energy efficiency, the team at Bord Gais Energy assisted with the installation of a new CHP which allows Bausch + Lomb to generate up to 70% of its electricity and 90% of its thermal needs for the site.



The CHP unit has been running since May 2016 and Bord Gais Energy is now working with management on the measurement and verification of the CHP project. Bord Gais Energy is also developing carbon reduction objectives for Bausch + Lomb for the next two years and will provide funding, advice and evaluation for future projects.



Key Account Manager with Bord Gais Energy, John Smith,said, "Were committed to providing our business customers with the best value possible, whether thats through competitive energy supply rates or tailored energy efficiency support and funding."

He added, "Energy efficiency projects not only help businesses reduce their carbon footprint, but can also improve their bottom line. Its great to see that Bausch + Lomb is already realising significant savings through the CHP project and Ive no doubt will do for many years to come."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Dublin-based AWAS has been put up for sale by its private equity owner in an auction that could value the aircraft lessor at $7 billion, including debt, and draw bids from Chinese lessors and other Asian investors, sources said.

Terra Firma is working with Goldman Sachs to conduct the auction, and potential bidders have already been contacted, two sources familiar with the matter said. One of them said any transaction could be worth about $7 billion including debt but the process is still at an early stage and the valuation could change.

Potential buyers for AWAS include the aviation leasing company backed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, the aircraft leasing arm of China's Ping An Insurance Group and other Asian lessors, mostly Chinese, financial industry sources said. Pension funds may also show interest, they said.

AWAS, among the world's 10 biggest aircraft lessors, is the latest asset to come up for sale in the red-hot aviation leasing business where owners are cashing in on a surge in interest from cash-rich Chinese financial firms looking to boost returns amid a growing air travel market.

"AWAS offers a good platform for lessors looking for a diverse portfolio," said one leasing executive who was not authorised to speak to the media. "The Chinese have money to spend and are keen to make a big splash."

Terra Firma, Goldman Sachs and Ping An declined to comment, while AWAS did not offer an immediate comment on the sale process. Cheung Kong did not respond to a request for comment.

Asian lessors, led by Chinese banks, are spending billions of dollars to expand in the $228 billion global aircraft leasing sector that offers long-term revenue in dollars and accounts for some 40 percent of the world's airline fleet.

AWAS offers a portfolio of about 200 planes and a leasing platform through which it caters to about 90 customers such as Singapore Airlines and Qantas Airways.

Its sale plan follows the acquisition in October of CIT Group's aircraft leasing business by Avolon Holdings, part of China's acquisitive HNA Group, for $10 billion including debt.

Avolon and Asian lessors such as BOC Aviation Ltd have scaled up their operations as they take on Western firms such as AerCap Holdings and General Electric's GECAS which still dominate the sector.

Terra Firma, run by British financier Guy Hands, bought 75 percent of AWAS from Morgan Stanley in 2006 in a deal worth $2.5 billion. A year later it acquired rival Pegasus for $5.2 billion, merging the groups to create what was then the world's third-largest plane lessor.

Over the past two years, the private equity firm has been paring its leasing assets.

Last year, it sold 90 AWAS planes to Macquarie Group for $4 billion.

In March 2016, Reuters reported that Terra Firma had rejected two bids from HNA Group for AWAS.

The AWAS sale process comes at a time when AirAsia Bhd , Asia's biggest low-cost airline, is in the process of selling its fully owned leasing arm which it has valued at about $1 billion. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
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A Throggs Neck veterans group is collecting toys and donations for a toy drive it has held for more than three decades.

The Theodore Korony American Legion Post #253, based in Throggs Neck, is currently soliciting donations of toys for its annual Joseph Mazzariello Memorial Toy Drive.

The drive, named after the U.S. Marine veteran who first began it, typically purchases or collects about 800 toys every year to distribute to local borough organizations servicing families in need, said drive co-coordinator Judy Lanci.

We cover a wide range of different programs, but they are all (servicing) children in need in the Bronx, said Lanci, adding that unlike some larger drives, this one is a grassroots effort.

People wishing to aid in the groups drive can made a monetary donation or take up collections of toys costing between five and ten dollars at their businesses, she said.

Additionally, there is a collection box at the Throggs Neck Clipper at 3599 E. Tremont Avenue, said Lanci.

Among the expected recipients this year are Acacia Network homeless shelters, a program for children with developmental disabilities at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Claremont Neighborhood Centers, Concourse House Home for Women and Children and a family shelter on Morris Park Avenue in West Farms, she said.

I was not even aware of how many shelters there are in the Bronx; it was just unbelievable, said Lanci, adding that she has visited some and saw people just like herself, realizing how easy it can be for anyone to fall on tough times.

Most of the donations originate in Throggs Neck, a relatively fortunate community that has many working families, she said.

Lanci is working with three co-coordinators on the drive: Danielle Mazzariello-Fava, Anthony Ferrara, and Colleen McCarthy.

The memorial toy drive has solicited donations from all members of the Korony Post, and has also reached out to the leadership of other active American Legion posts in the county, said Lanci.

As has been the case in previous years, the drive will be receiving a monetary donation from Division 3 of the Bronx Ancient Order of Hibernians, confirmed division president Joe McManus.

McManus said that AOH first came across the drive because the president of the Bronx County AOH, Bob Nolan, is a relative of one of the Korony Post officers.

We have a personal connection, but as a Catholic religious organization, to provide presents at Christmastime for children is right there in our wheelhouse, said McManus.

For those wishing to collect toys at their workplace, those gifts can be dropped off on Tuesday, December 13 at 1 p.m. at 2873 Schurz Avenue, said Lanci.

Tax-deductible monetary donations can be made by check, payable to The Theodore Korony American Legion Christmas Toy Drive.

They are being accepted on an ongoing basis, and can be mailed to the post at P.O. Box 833, Bronx, NY 10465.

The toys will be distributed to the groups in need on the afternoon of December 13, said Lanci.
When Oslo was signed in 1993, the vision was that with the signing of Oslo, Area C  everybody knows theres Area A, B, C  Area A is Palestinian security and administrative control, Area B is a split between administrative and security control, and Area C, which is 60 percent of the West Bank, is just Israel security and administrative still. But the deal of Oslo in 1993 was over the next year and a half Area C would be transferred to the Palestinian control administratively. Well, it didnt happen for a number of different reasons. We wont go into that now.
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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..Honest Reporting..05 December '16..An article in theabout Donald Trump, Jews, and Israel is riddled with lies, which all make sense when you see who the writer is. Lara Marlowe has a history of anti-Israel articles, which HonestReporting has documented.Trump has made some ambitious statements about making a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, but according to Marlowe, the reason why this would be unlikely to happen is because of Trumps apparently ugly portrayal of Palestinian terrorists.This makes you wonder, what does Marlowe think is an appropriate way to portray terrorists? And what portrayal is she referring to anyway? Is it when Trump condemned the barbaric behavior of the terrorists who killed a father in front of his family in a drive-by shooting, or stabbed to death a 13 year old girl, Hallel Yafa Ariel, as she slept in her bed? Does Marlowe have a problem with these cold-blooded murderers being called barbaric? Of course she may not even consider them to be terrorists in the first place, as it seems she can only use the word if its put in scare quotes.
| BY Ricki Green |

The Australian advertising market will fall just short of $16 billion in total spend in 2017, according to Magna Australia, IPG Mediabrands media investment and intelligence division. The new forecast comes as the Australian market achieved stronger than expected growth of 7.4% in 2016 and Magna is predicting the market will expand by another 6.3% in 2017.

Growth in the Australian advertising market continues to be driven mostly by digital advertising which Magna calculates will be up 16.3% YOY in 2017, leaping to 52% of total advertising spend in 2017 and is expected to secure 65% of total advertising spend by 2021.

In 2017, mobile will command close to 50% of digital ad spend and will be an estimated 66% of all digital advertising spend by 2021, enjoying an impressive five-year CAGR of 22.2%.

Says Victor Corones (pictured), managing director, Magna Australia: This persistent strength in digital growth is especially surprising because Australia is considered one of the most developed digital economies globally. It means we are not seeing any slow-down in digital advertising investment.

Growth in social media investment is expected to slow somewhat in 2017, according to the Magna forecast, however social will still experience an impressive growth rate of 28.6% YOY.

Total screen advertising spend is expected to accelerate to +5.6% growth in 2017 off the back of a modest +3.3% in 2016. Television is expected to command 78% of total screen advertising dollars but faces a slight contraction in ad spend of -2.1% YOY due to the absence of special events like Federal Election and the Olympics, with those advertising dollars not being there in 2017. The remaining 22% of screen ad spend will be digital video which will enjoy 45% growth across 2017.

Radio is forecast to increase +2.0% YOY while advertising dollars for newspapers and magazines are expected to contract -12.3% and -10.7% respectively YOY.
| BY Lynchy |

Ad industry veteran Gawen Rudder agrees with The Works co-founder Damian Pincus that now is the time for creative companies to put game-changing ideas in front of clients.

I dont know who Louise Pierson is, but just love her quote.

Lets dedicate this to the client in the red chair. The one who sees promise in your campaign, the bold one who says, Why not, and the one who, like Andrew Howie of Meat & Livestock Australia, says, Lets work on this together and make it even better. Howie is cut from the same cloth as his much admired and revered predecessor, the late David Thomason. David was the client every agency wanted to work with, the client who balanced risk and responsibility in approving a decade of Australia Day lamb campaigns in the face of all manner of complaints from outraged vegans and claims of racism.

Back in the day, Warren Brown  the B of BMF  told me, David loves creativity. He loves exploring the limits. He often takes a punt on us delivering on what we promise, but because we know that, it puts the pressure back on us. We have a very healthy respect for each others opinions. Hes always looking for maximum bang for his buck; but I think advertising can be the fun end of a lot of serious stuff for David with stakeholders, farmers and the like. I like him because he challenges us. Hes one of the few clients Ive ever worked with wholl look at an ad and think its terrific, then hell drive back to the office and I can set my watch and wait for the call: do you think we could . . ., could we maybe have a look at . . .., or, what if . . .'

Despite the obvious risks, David Thomason always sat firmly in the red chair. He understood that by trying to offend nobody (including our friends at the Advertising Standards Board) MLA might have ended up saying nothing to anybody.

The fence-sitters and nay-sayers, those seated in the white chairs are all too familiar. The yes-butters and the not-knowers often dominate a meeting. Truth is the voice of caution too often makes it easier to reject than select.

The 50-year-old film Risk & Responsibility (still on YouTube) remains an object lesson in how to avoid death by a thousand cuts by picky clients or over-bearing ECDs. The scratchy black and white 16mm classic is hosted by David Bernstein, creative director of Garland-Compton (which morphed into Saatchi & Saatchi in the mid-seventies.) By trying to be too responsible, to eliminate all risks rather than trying to use risk constructively, we often do more harm than good. In other words, the film argues that creative risk-taking is essential to effective advertising.

About eight years ago, effectiveness champion Jon Steel (I believe hes won more gold Effies than anyone else on the planet) bemoaned the fact that agencies have allowed clients obsessed with short-term thinking to make decisions based on, What can be measured, rather than whats really important and have become more risk-averse and likely to avoid those,Big, Hairy Audacious Goals of yesteryear. In a 2008 article for WPPs The Wire, the modest but outspoken Steel wrote, Clients have to learn to trust us enough to invite us in to share their secrets.

Today behavioural data is more likely to be a part of the agencys strategic arsenal, with more and more agencies like Affinity, Atomic 212, CHE Proximity, Hallway and The Works, coupling with more finely-tuned creativity. For many creatives however the role of research remains a sticking point and part of the increasing conservatism client-side. David Ogilvys dictum comes to mind, I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment. They are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

Significantly, The Works, winner of the 2015 Grand Effie for their client Canadian Club (Beam Suntory) five-year long Over Beer campaign stated, We hate focus groups. So instead we spent time living with new recruits. We did this via extended one-on-one ethnographies, house parties with friendship circles, and video diaries. We learned the following things which, when mashed together, led to the three-pronged strategy. Co-founder of The Works, Damian Pincus added, Is it the why-notters  or is it the why-nutters  that move the world? My gut feeling is that CMOs and CEOs are changing as the world around them changes fast. Businesses like Uber, Facebook, Instagram, Tesla and Airbnb are forcing change in the way companies think. They realise that disruptive business models are disrupting their companies and so they need people and companies around them that challenge their thinking. Now is the time for creative companies to take back the mantle of driving business growth and put game-changing ideas in front of clients.

Back to where we began with MLA and David Thomason in the red chair. As Matthew Melhuish recalled, David was always prepared to back a creative idea, in this day and age of political correctness, safety first and covering your butt, he was a marketer prepared to back his judgement. He knew that to have the message heard, it first had to get noticed. He was prepared to take a creative idea others might not, and he had a strong commitment to the process of creativity. His agencies (that included BMF, The Palace and Host) and his team loved him for that.

Next time youre in a meeting. Any meeting. Try this: look around, listen and see if you can distinguish the yes-butters, the not-knowers and the why-notters.

Gawen Rudder [right] is principal of The Knowledge Consultancy, Sydney. This article first appeared in Campaign Brief magazine.
| BY Lynchy |

HSBC, via Grey Hong Kong, has unveiled replicas of Stephen and Stitt, the iconic HSBC lions, which have been turned into art pieces inspired by the colours of the Pride rainbow. The unveiling is the culmination of HSBCs campaign: Celebrate Pride, Celebrate Unity.

The campaign, the first work under new Aussie expat CCO Michael Knox, who arrived in November,encourages support for Hong Kongs Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community from within the LGBT community itself as well as from all those who support equality for everyone.

Diana Cesar, Group General Manager and Chief Executive, Hong Kong (pictured above left), and Kevin Martin, Group General Manager and Regional Head of Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Asia-Pacific (right), unveiled the lions.

Says Cesar: HSBC is proud to support diversity and inclusion. We have made material progress towards achieving a truly open and diverse working environment, and are deeply committed to supporting equality for everyone. Stephen and Stitt are powerful symbols of Hong Kong and I am sure that the bold new interpretations of these replicas will strike a chord with all who pass by.

Adds Martin: Understanding and embracing everyones unique perspectives, beliefs and experiences is core to HSBCs values. This campaign demonstrates our commitment to achieving a truly open and diverse working environment and I am confident it will continue driving the conversation beyond our own walls to our clients, peers and wider community.

Throughout the history of HSBC, Stephen and Stitt have stood for courage and prosperity. This year, they also stand for pride and unity. They will be proudly sitting at the HSBC Main Building Plaza for one month.
| BY Ricki Green |

Sydney creative agency Marcel will host an event tonight at its office in Sydney to raise funds for UNICEF.

The event will showcase more than 20 stunning photographs and portraits for UNICEF by Nylon Studios creative director Simon Lister.

The photos will be for sale with all proceeds going toward helping the global relief agency.

To support UNICEF and attend the event at Marcel Sydney just RSVP

Ms. Ally Salet

Marcel Worldwide

0400 808 307 (Mobile)

(02) 9258 9067 (Work)

All prints and images will be for sale with all proceeds donated to UNICEF. Drinks and food provided.




| BY Ricki Green |

303 MullenLowe, Perth has been working with P&N Bank to launch a transaction tool called Pay&Save, which makes it possible to pay and save money at the same time.

Pay&Save allows Australian consumers to round up their daily transaction purchases to the next dollar amount and save the difference  the digital equivalent of tossing your loose coins in a change jar.

Says Andrew Hadley, CEO, P&N Bank: Weve been working with 303 MullenLowe for the past 18 months to communicate our new brand strategy to consumers  and were excited to unveil the next stage  our campaign for Pay&Save. We think this innovative payment product represents great value, conveniently solving a problem for people who are struggling to get into the habit of saving.

With Pay&Save, whenever customers use a P&N & Transaction Account, they can round up purchases to the nearest dollar and save the difference into a P&N savings account. Customers can even direct their savings to another customers savings account to help their kids save money, for example.

Pay&Save is part of an ongoing strategy to deliver banking solutions that are in sync with customers everyday lives.

Says Richard Berney, ECD, 303 MullenLowe, Perth: At its heart, Pay&Save is a handy tool that proves saving can be easy (even a little fun) and we wanted our campaign to reflect this. In a really simple, striking way, it shows how the spare change left over from the little things we buy can flow towards bigger things we might be saving for, whether thats a weekend away, designer sunglasses or a new pair of shoes.

The Pay&Save campaign is rolling out across TV/catch-up, radio, outdoor and digital channels. It builds on the success of P&N Banks The power of & brand platform, which launched in October 2015 and won Marketing Campaign of the Year at the 2016 Australian Retail Banking Awards.

The power of & has since been embedded within all aspects of P&N Banks business including advertising and product offerings.

Says Derry Simpson, managing director strategy and innovation at 303 MullenLowe: As agency partner, we are extremely proud of the work we are creating together with P&N Bank, and its been especially rewarding to launch an innovative transaction tool thats already resonating in the market. The Pay&Save campaign is part of P&N Banks larger payments strategy, which well continue to build on together with successive campaigns next year.

P&N Bank is the largest locally owned and operated bank in Western Australia.

Client: P&N Bank

Senior Manager Digital & Marketing: James Wyper

Agency: 303 MullenLowe

ECD: Richard Berney

Copywriter: Joe Hawkins and Dave Wilson

Art Director: Richard Berney and Ross Dungey

Agency Producer: Rozanne Fretz

Business Director: Kelly-Anne Davis

Business Manager: Kelsey Fraser

Managing Director Strategy and Innovation: Derry Simpson

Strategic Planner: John Linton

Production Company: XYZ Studios

Director: Steve Watkins

Executive Producer: Garett Mayow

Producer: Douglas Pope

Sound: Brad Habib, Soundbyte
| BY Ricki Green |

Gavin McLeod, executive creative director at R/GA Sydney is leaving the agency after four years to pursue opportunities overseas. McLeod joined R/GA in January 2013 from TBWA Sydney where he held the role of ECD since March 2011.

Prior to TBWA Sydney, he had four years as creative director of M&C Saatchi/Mark, Sydney where it was consistently the most awarded direct agency in the country, boasting several agency of the year accolades as well as being the second most awarded in the world in 2006 and the third most awarded in the world in both 2007 and 2008, according to the WON report.

Apart from being awarded at every major award show, McLeod has chaired juries at AWARD, AdFest and ADMA as well as judging at D&AD, The Caples and Cannes.

Says Rebecca Bezzina, VP managing director, R/GA Sydney: Gav has decided to embark on a new challenge overseas in the New Year. He was a founding member of the R/GA Sydney team and has done an amazing job over the last 4 years in building the business. Gav goes with nothing but our warmest wishes, and leaves us in outstanding health with a fantastic client roster and a strong, vibrant creative department thats in excellent hands.




| BY Ricki Green |

The City of Sydney local government area has rolled out the third year of its evolving Christmas brand created by local design studio, HOLT. Set to run throughout December, the campaign will span the spectrum of outdoor, digital and print media.

The creative centres on the familiar lines of a triangular, tree shaped motif. The Christmas tree identity is designed of hundreds of smaller triangles in a myriad of jewel-like tones, creating a colourful, kaleidoscopic effect. As though in flux from a gust of wind, small leaves of colour are blown from the tree shape, into its surrounds. This year, these scattering leaves are featured further with the use of cut outs in some outdoor executions.

The design, focusing on the movement created by wind, is informed by the famous woodcut Travellers Caught in a Sudden breeze at Ejiri by 19th Century Japanese print-maker and artist Hokusai, and Jeff Walls contemporary photographic interpretation of this work, A Sudden Gust of Wind.

The use of a palette of more the 350 individual colours for the campaign is intended to create a positive and joyful emotional response to being within the urban landscape of inner-Sydney and the CBD at this time of year. HOLT has used Outsiders, a contemporary slab serif font designed by Henrik Kubel at A2 Type foundry in London, to realise the Happy Christmas messaging in identity.

Says Christopher Holt, creative director, Holt: Seeing the Christmas creative be given fresh life across new executions over a number of years has been very satisfying. The fun part for us is that the campaign truly takes over the City, and in a subtly different way each year.
| BY Ricki Green |

Virgin Australia cabin crew take on Supercars driver Jamie Whincup in a race around Australias famous Mt Panorama racetrack in the airlines new on board safety video, released today.

The video was produced by Collider and shot by director Jack Naylor.

As the naming rights partner of the Virgin Australia Supercars, the safety video is being introduced on board its fleet of wide body Airbus A330 and Boeing 777.

In the video, Virgin Australia cabin crew challenge Jamie Whincup to complete a lap of the track before they can finish delivering the safety briefing. Whincup is joined in his Red Bull Racing Australia Supercar by veteran Virgin Australia captain Bradley Clarke who is normally found in the cockpit of a Boeing 737. The video also features Supercars drivers Mark Winterbottom and Rick Kelly. The video was filmed at Mt Panorama following the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in October.

Says John Thomas, group executive, Virgin Australia Airlines: Virgin Australia and the Supercars are both high-performance, safety-led organisations which makes this the perfect partnership for delivering our on board safety message to guests.

We believe our guests will find the new safety video both entertaining and informative.

Supercars chief executive James Warburton said the sport was pleased to partner with Virgin Australia on its new on board safety video.

Says Warburton: Our drivers Jamie Whincup, Mark Winterbottom and Rick Kelly jumped at the opportunity to be part of this video which delivers an important safety message and also showcases Supercars at one of the worlds most famous racetracks.

We are delighted to partner with Virgin Australia and we look forward to launching the 2017 season with great travel packages for fans.

Virgin Australia

Executive Creative Director  Michael Dole

Producer  Mark Summerville

Creatives  John Kane and Matt Follows

Production House  Collider

Director  Jack Naylor

DOP  Tim Tregonning

Executive Producer  Rachael Ford-Davies

Producer  Lucy Pilkington

Audio Production  Sonar Music

Composer  Matteo Zingales

Sound Designer  Timothy Bridge

Producer  Sophie Haydon

Post House  The Editors

Executive Producer  Kate Stenhouse

Editor  Grace Eyre

Colourist  Christine Trodd
ABC announced on Tuesday it would work with SBS to make permanent its digital radio trial in the capital. Darwin and Hobart will also receive the services as the national broadcaster moves away from shortwave radio transmission.
"Commonwealth funding for schools has increased by 50 per cent since 2003 while our results are going backwards. I'm not suggesting that money is not important, of course it is vital, but  Australia ranks as spending the fifth highest amount on education in the OECD and once you get to that level there is little value in just increasing spending."
"We have been encouraged by the support from the local community since we went on sale in January and remain pleased with the number of customers choosing to travel on the new service, both to Singapore and beyond with direct connections to UK/Europe," he said.



"There has been a good mix of business and leisure travellers in both the business and economy class cabins."
But what was the commission supposed to have done? Was it expected never to investigate the detention of children for fear of upsetting the government of the day? Surely not. Some risk of appearing partisan is implicit in many inquiries conducted by independent government watchdogs, such as the auditor-general and the ombudsman as well as the human rights commission. Governments have a right to expect that inquiries are not obviously biased or gratuitously partisan in intent. In this respect, it's notable that the commission carefully chose a subject of unquestionable moral concern (the treatment of children) and an aspect where both sides of politics were equally culpable. Governments can't demand immunity from inquiries that might appear to single them out just because they are the incumbent government of the day.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

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.
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and Toulouse Business School (TBS) together are offering a certificate course in General Management Programme for Aerospace and Aviation Executives (GMAE).

The third edition of the partnership programme will be launched, on May 8, 2017 at the IIMB campus. A press release said that it is a unique programme that offers its graduates a GMAE certificate at the end of the first year and an MBA from the Toulouse Business School (TBS) at the end of the second.

The course allies IIMB's academic expertise in management and TBS's aerospace competences. This combination of managerial and technical expertise also represents a step forward in the understanding of European and Indian markets, the release said.

The programme attracts a large number of applications, from various sections of the aviation industry. A selection committee carries out the examination of each application.

Also Read: Exclusive! Captain Dharamraaj Shukla in Conversation with Careerindia - Aviation Industry Expert

Selection to the programme is based on the candidate's profile and its fit with the programme's mission and objectives. The committee keeps in mind the requirement to ensure an adequate batch diversity in terms of background as well as experience, the release added.

The average work experience of the delegates is 15 years. They are from well-known national or international companies or institutions, such as the Indian Air Force, Air India, Indigo Airlines, Prime Aerospace Middle East, Airbus Group, Tata, Honeywell Technology Solutions, SpiceJet, and UTC Aerospace Systems, among others.

The GMAE participants attend international seminars and conferences, as well as study academic courses in classroom-based sessions with peer-to-peer learning. As a part of the curriculum, during Year 1, the GMAE participants have study trips to Toulouse (France) and Seattle (USA).

During their study trip to Toulouse, they visit the final assembly line of the civil aviation aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the premises of ATR and meet the Aerospace Valley's executives, a competitiveness cluster in the field of aeronautics, space and embedded systems.

A total of 45 participants from the GMAE Batch 1 are pursuing Year 2, Toulouse Business School's Aerospace MBA, taught both at IIMB and at TBS, and will graduate in April 2017. The convocation ceremony will be held at the TBS France campus. A total of 48 participants from the GMAE Batch 2 are pursuing Year 1 of the programme and will graduate to Year 2 in May 2017.

For registrations to the third edition of the programme visit http://bit.ly/2gsBcOf

AIMA MAT 2016 Admit Card Released: Download Now!
The two iconic politicians of the last era were M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa. The late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was born in Melukote, Mandya district of Mysore on February 24. Her wisdom and knowledge had exponentially risen through her practise and experience right from her education.

Jayalalithaa's Educational Background:

In Bangalore, she attended Bishop Cotton Girls' School

She later shifted to Chennai and studied in Church Park Presentation Convent, then known as Sacred Heart Matriculation School.

She excelled in academics and was offered government scholarship to study further

She secured a gold medal in her 10th standard

She was offered a seat in Stella Maris College, but declined it.

Jayalalithaa's Career Graph

Acting Career

Jayalalithaa's interest in extra curricular activities was supported by her mother Sandhya, who was an actress.

She learnt classical music, western classical piano, and various forms of classical dance, including Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam, Manipuri and Kathak.

She played many stage plays and was appreciated my the then veteran artists like Shivaji Ganesan and Y G Parthasarathy.

During one of the film shootings of Jayalalithaa's mother Sandhya, Kannada film-maker B. R. Panthulu requested Sandhya to star Jayalalithaa against Kalyankumar in movie Chinnada Gombe. After much thought, she accepted the offer and made her daughter act.

In 1965, she was cast as the lead role in the movie 'Vennira Aadai'

She made her debut in Telugu film Manushulu Mamathalu

In 1968, she acted in a Hindi film called Izzat.

Between 1965 and 1973, she acted in various films with the then Superstar Actor M G Ramachandran

In 1971, she won Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress after a series of hit movies in Tamil

Political Career

M G R, who was the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu in 1977 was instrumental in enrolling Jayalalithaa in the party. She joined AIADMK in 1982.

In 1983, she became the Propaganda Secretary of AIADMK

From 1984 to 1989, she was a Rajya Sabha member

In 1987, MGR deceased due to stroke. AIADMK split into two factions, one under MGR's wife Janaki and another under Jayalalithaa. Janaki was crowned as the CM, however, she could not handle the duties and President rule took place.

The party later re-united under Jayalalithaa's leadership and she became the leader of opposition in 1989.

In 1991, for the first time she became Chief Minister of Tamilnadu.

She was five times elected as the CM.

On 4 December, she passed away due to a cardiac arrest.

Also Read: Schools and Colleges in Tamilnadu Declared Holidays Following Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's Death
Approximately 120 BMW models were damaged when a train transporting the vehicles derailed in South Carolina.



The models in question were heading from BMWs production facility near Spartanburg to the Port of Charleston where they were to be exported internationally. According to the brand, models damaged included the X3, X4, X5 and X6.

In a statement to Automotive News, BMW said that its personnel are traveling to the scene and will assess the damage to these 120 BMWs. We will continue to work with Norfolk Southern in this situation to assess the damages.

Norfolk Southern, the train operator, is still investigating the cause of the derailment but confirmed that the tracks were damaged and are being repaired.

Its not yet clear if the derailment will briefly delay the exportation of further BMW SUV models.

Screenshot taken from KXAN video

Video
Infiniti became the first car maker to register a US-spec vehicle in Cuba, after nearly six decades.



The companys executive design director Alfonso Albaisa took a Q60 coupe in Cuba to trace his roots back to his parents birthplace.

Albaisa , who oversees all four Infiniti design studios across the world from his base in Japan, grew up in Miami without having an opportunity to visit Cuba  until now. This was his first chance to come to Havana and witness the style of the mid-century modern architecture of his great uncle Max Borges-Recio, including the Tropicana, Club Nautico and his own home.

The curvy bodywork of the Infiniti Q60 certainly attracted a lot of attention on the Cuban roads which are normally occupied by 1950s American cars and various others from the Soviet era.

Infinitis two-door coupe is offered with either a 208hp 2.0-litre turbo or a 3.0-litre V6 twin turbo, available in 300hp and 400hp versions.

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEO
Photo: Insights West

Housing, poverty and homelessness are gaining traction as the most important issues in B.C., according to a new poll.

The Insights West BC Government Report Card found 29 per cent think these are the most pressing concerns, ahead of health care (18 per cent) and the economy/jobs (17 per cent).



Almost half (46 per cent) believe the provincial government has done a good job dealing with the economy and jobs, up seven points since last spring. Thirty-nine per cent are satisfied with how Victoria is handling crime and public safety.



One-third are content with work on the environment (33 per cent), and 31 per cent on energy, pipelines and LNG. The approval rating was 29 per cent on education and 26 per cent on health care.



The government was rated lowest on accountability (22 per cent) and housing, poverty and homelessness (19 per cent).

More than one-third (37 per cent) approve of the performance of Premier Christy Clark, up three points, while 58 per cent disapprove. The approval rating for BC NDP Leader John Horgan improved two points to 42 per cent.

Changes to liquor sales regulations (45 per cent), and foreign ownership of housing (41 per cent) were the government's most popular measures.



Less popular were handling of the Northern Gateway Pipeline (31 per cent), managing BC Hydro (30 per cent), the Trans Mountain Pipeline (29 per cent), Site C dam (29 per cent) and BC Ferries (25 per cent).



There is clear improvement for the provincial government on its handling of the economy and jobs, said Mario Canseco, VP at Insights West. The change on the issue of foreign ownership in housing is exceptional, with the provincial government improving its standing in May by 30 points.

Results are based on an online study conducted from Nov. 18 to 21.
Photo: Contributed

A heavy wrecker did a lot of wrecking on Sunday when it ran into Salmon Arm's main mall building, witnesses told Salmon Arm RCMP.

A heavy wrecker with a highway truck on the hook ran into The Centenoka Park Mall building not once, but twice according to witnesses, reported Staff Sgt. Scott West. Approximately $30,000 in damage was caused to the building and the tow truck, which was also heavily damaged.

There were luckily no injuries as a result of the collision which occurred at low speed.

West did not explain how the building was hit twice.

He said the driver of the tow truck was served a violation ticket under the Motor Vehicle Act.
Photo: Contributed Chief Aaron Sam

A Nicola Valley group plans to raise a stink in the upcoming provincial election.

Friends of the Nicola Valley says it will support candidates who will put an end to biosolids land disposal.

We are non-political and do not endorse any political party overall, but we have stood together with Chief Aaron Sam on this issue which has been threatening our valley, said Georgia Clement, founding director of the group. We know Aaron will stand up for us on this issue regardless of which party wins the election next year. Thats why we back him and any other candidate, regardless of party, who will take a similar stand.

Sam, chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band, recently declared his bid for nomination as NDP candidate in the Fraser-Nicola riding currently held by BC Liberal Jackie Tegart.

The group says Sam  who holds degrees in law and environmental studies  is "knows the area, he knows the people, he knows the issues, and knows there needs to be a balance between jobs/economy and the environment.

The NDP has supported a moratorium on land application of biosolids.

B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak recently changed regulations to allow higher concentrations of contaminants in biosolids.

Testing by the David Suzuki Foundation in 2015 in the Nicola Valley found contaminants in recently dumped biosolids that exceeded provincial contaminated site regulations. Now those regulations have been changed or eliminated, allowing much higher concentrations of known carcinogens and metals, said Melody Simon, Friends president. This is the clearest indication yet that the current government is only listening to special interests that profit from dumping biosolids.

The group says there are beneficial ways to get rid of biosolids, pointing to a plant in Zurich, Switzerland, that turns sewage sludge into biogas that generates electricity and heat.
Photo: Contributed

A 25-year-old woman has been sentenced to life in prison for the killing of Tyler Myers who was shot dead in a Salmon Arm schoolyard on Nov. 21, 2008.

The woman, who cannot be named because she was a minor at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty in Kamloops Supreme Court last month to second-degree murder.

She will not be eligible for parole for seven years and has been banned from ever owning a weapon, according to Gordon Comer of the Criminal Justice Branch.

Myers, who was 22 at the time of his death, was shot dead by a 16-year-old male who admitted to plotting with his 17-year-old girlfriend to carry out the killing.

A jury found the male guilty of first degree murder in a separate trial.

During that trial, the court heard a video recording of the male suspect claiming that the female had been dating both him and Myers and that she told him the victim had made threats.

During the murder, the male said he was told by his girlfriend to shoot Myers in the head.

Myers was struck with two bullets in his back and one in the back of his head, according to testimony.

The two were charged four years after the murder at the end of an RCMP undercover operation.

The male is expected to be sentenced next month.
Photo: Twitter: @ltmorton

UPDATE 8 p.m.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure issued a news release Monday evening concerning incidents on both the Alex Fraser and Port Mann bridges as a result of Monday's snowfall.

The release reads in part:

While it is rare for enough snow and ice to accumulate on the Alex Fraser Bridge because of the design of the bridge, we understand there have been reports of damaged vehicles while they were crossing that bridge today. We are also looking into reports of a small number of vehicles being damaged on the Port Mann Bridge.

We are looking into these reports and encourage any drivers who may have experienced damage to contact the ministry so that we can determine how it might have happened. We have been in touch with one driver who had windshield damage while crossing the Alex Fraser and we are working with the individual now.

We will continue to actively investigate these reports and we will use this information to identify any improvements that can be made for the future.

As weather in the mainland is expected to continue to be cold with winter-like conditions, we will continue to closely monitor both bridges to ensure the travelling public is safe.

If you have a damaged vehicle from falling snow or ice, we want to hear from you. Here is the number to call: 604 424-8240. Please leave your name and phone number and someone will return your call as soon as possible.

Several Lower Mainland drivers are shaken up after a scary incident on the Alex Fraser Bridge Monday.

Motorists told CTV Vancouver they were hit by what some reported as 'slush bombs' falling from the bridge.

The projectiles damaged windshields and scared some drivers.

"She's pretty shaken up," said Joyce Brown, whose 82-year-old mother had her vehicle damaged on the bridge.

"This thing hit her window and dented the whole thing."

Brown said the windshield cracked, leaving her mother, and the interior of the vehicle, covered in broken glass.,

"She didn't want to stop on the bridge and get hit, so she kept going and pulled over on Westminster Highway," she said.

When contacted by CTV, the Ministry of Transportation would only say it has crews assessing 'snow concerns' on the bridge.

Depending how many vehicles are involved, the incident could cost ICBC many thousands in claims.

Four years ago, about 350 people filed claims worth $400,000 after a similar incident on the new Port Mann Bridge.

--with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press

A former sailor says she is launching a proposed class-action lawsuit to change the culture of harassment and abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces after the military rejected her complaints of unwanted sexual advances by a superior.

Nicola Peffers said in a statement of claim that female and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the Canadian Forces are routinely subjected to sexual harassment and abuse.

Peffers, 34, said Monday in a conference call from Germany that she did not receive protection or justice after directing her complaints about fear tactics, sexual advances and abuse to senior officials in the Canadian Forces.

Her lawyers sat at a news conference in Victoria as the woman spoke on the phone and said she joined the navy nine years ago to serve and become part of the world's greater good.

However, she left in 2012 after complaints of harassment and sexual assault were not properly investigated or dealt with, she said.

Peffers was based at Canadian Forces Esquimalt near Victoria and served on frigates.

"When I arrived, I learned the culture was not one of camaraderie, at least for women or LGBTQ members," she said. "The culture was one of fear and intimidation. The culture was one of abuse, discrimination, bullying and harassment. The culture was of sexual assault."

Peffers said when she failed to comply with the sexual demands of one of her superiors she faced retaliation and professional repercussions.

"The culture of the Forces tried to strip me of my dignity and my humanity and spat me out when I would not let that happen," she said. "I reported complaints through all the proper channels. I did not receive justice."

Her lawyers told the news conference they expect hundreds and perhaps thousands of military members to join the class action, which seeks to compensate alleged victims and change the culture of the Canadian Forces.

"It is unfair to ask Forces members to protect us if they need every ounce of their courage to survive discrimination and abuse, harassment and assault inflicted by their peers and superiors," said lawyer Natalie Foley.

Foley said attempts by the military to help and protect victims of harassment and abuse have been woefully inadequate.

The Department of National Defence said it is aware of the legal action and since the Attorney General of Canada has only recently seen the lawsuit, it is being reviewed to determine next steps.
Photo: The Canadian Press

The Opposition Parti Quebecois retained two ridings in byelections Monday as Jean-Francois Lisee passed his first major test since becoming leader of the sovereigntist party two months ago.

The governing Liberals won their Montreal stronghold of Verdun but saw their share of the popular vote drop in all four byelections when compared with their performances in 2014.

One of the PQ victories came in Saint-Jerome, which had been vacant since former leader Pierre Karl Peladeau's resignation from politics last May.

Marc Bourcier had more than 45 per cent of the vote for the PQ, compared with the 36.8 per cent garnered by Peladeau in the 2014 election.

The PQ also kept Marie-Victorin, a Montreal-area riding last represented by the party's ex-house leader, Bernard Drainville. Catherine Fournier had more than 50 per cent of the vote, outdistancing Drainville's 38.2 per cent from two years ago.

"What a beautiful evening," Lisee said, pointing out that Fournier, at 24, is the youngest woman ever elected to the national assembly.

In another byelection Monday, Isabelle Melancon won Verdun for the Liberals with about 35 per cent of the popular vote, a significant drop from Jacques Daoust's 50.6 per cent two years ago.

Premier Philippe Couillard stood beside Melancon in Verdun and thanked volunteers and the candidates in the three other ridings.

"Of course we would have preferred different results but there will be other battles," he said. "We will continue our work. Our priorities remain the same: education; health, particularly the elderly; and of course jobs and the economy."

The fourth byelection of the night saw Eric Lefebvre of the Coalition for Quebec's Future easily win Arthabaska, which had been vacant since Sylvie Roy's death earlier this year.

Roy won the riding for the Coalition with a hefty majority in 2014 before she became an Independent a year later.

The results will have little impact on the standings in the 125-member legislature. The Liberals have 70 seats, the PQ 30 and the Coalition 21. There also three Quebec solidaire members and one Independent.

The next general election is set for the fall of 2018.
Photo: Contributed

A defence lawyer in a trial involving three people with ties to a British Columbia polygamous community is expected to deliver his closing arguments today.

John Gustafson is representing Brandon Blackmore, who is accused of taking a 13-year-old girl into the United States for a sexual purpose in 2004.

Preisthood records found locked away in a Texas ranch and admitted into evidence in the trial show that the girl married Warren Jeffs, the now-imprisoned prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The two other accused, Gail Blackmore and James Oler, face the same charge and have chosen not to hire legal counsel.

Gail Blackmore and Brandon Blackmore are separated as husband and wife and prosecutor Peter Wilson has described her as a willing participant in the alleged offence.

The charge against Oler centres on a 15-year-old girl who records say was married to James Leroy Johnson in 2004.
Photo: YouTube

A teenager was injured after falling out of a chairlift at Whistler Mountain over the weekend.

The fall was captured on video.

It shows the 14-year-old boy dangling from the Emerald Express Chair Saturday morning. A group of lift attendants run under him with a net to try to catch the boy.

He then drops.

The attendants seem to be partially successful, with the boy landing into the net but then hitting the snow hard after falling from about 10 metres.

The ski resort says the chairlift bar was not lowered.

The boy was taken to the Whistler Medical Centre with injuries.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Getty Images

B.C. students are world leaders in reading, science and math.

The 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results released Tuesday show B.C. Grade 10 students have earned top marks.

They earned the top-spot for reading, second in science and sixth in math  all an improvement over the last time testing was done in 2012.

Our students are the best readers in the world and their outcomes put them at the head of the class globally. These results come thanks to hard work by the students, the skills and efforts of our teachers, and from the strength of our education system, said Education Minister Mike Bernier.

Its doubly rewarding to see the strong results are also an improvement from the already strong results three years ago.

The PISA assesses students from 72 countries and all 10 provinces.
Photo: The Canadian Press Regional Chief Shane Gottfriedson (centre) looks on.

One of British Columbia's top-ranking First Nations leaders is apologizing after posting a sexualized photo to social media that he acknowledges "offended many people."

Shane Gottfriedson, B.C.'s regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, said Tuesday he was stepping down as the assembly's point person on the missing and murdered indigenous women portfolio.

He told a special meeting of chiefs that the post  a picture of his bare legs with a wide-eyed emoji wearing red lipstick near his groin  was not his finest moment.

"The photo was incredibly insensitive and I apologize," Gottfriedson said in a statement. "I am truly sorry."

The picture doesn't reflect his view of women, nor does it reduce his commitment to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, he added.

Gottfriedson said he spoke to National Chief Perry Bellegarde directly about the matter.

Bellegarde hugged Gottfriedson after he apologized to the meeting.

The organization has yet to indicate who will replace Gottfriedson in the portfolio.

Hearings are expected to begin early next year to examine the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women.
Photo: Getty Images

A B.C. doctor wants his patients to fund his retirement.

Dr. Myron MacDonald sent a letter to his patients announcing his retirement after practising medicine in West Vancouver for nearly 50 years.

After providing his patients with some insight into his retirement plans, life situation and health, he makes an unusual request.

"At the last, a plea for funding for my retirement years," he writes. "At the end of the day, I did not make much money, and I have limited savings."

He said he understands most of his patients don't have an extra $1,000 sitting around, so instead he suggests $20 or $30 a month payment on their credit card.

He also included a form to fill out for monthly payments.

"Ironically most of my patients followed my advice and got better, which further reduced my income. Doesn't that take the cake!" he wrote.

Information from the Medical Services Commission says MacDonald billed $163,978.42 for services over the past fiscal year.
Protests again Semen Indonesia plant

06 December 2016

Approximately 300 people from Rembang, Central Java, have marched 150km in protest of the construction of a cement plant in the area by state-owned Semen Indonesia. The march was undertaken in a bid to force Central Java Governor, Ganjar Pranowo, to revoke the environmental permit issued to Semen Indonesia for the project in 2012.

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Australia: Adelaide Brighton Cement agrees gas deal

06 December 2016

Adelaide Brighton Cement Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adelaide Brighton Ltd, has signed a gas purchase agreement with Beach Energy Ltd for the delivery of exMoomba of processed sales gas from Beach's 100 per cent owned Western Flank acreage.



Supply of gas over a 12-month term is expected to commence on 1 January 2017, with the agreement replacing Beach's existing ex PEL 106 raw gas sales contract. Any production beyond contract volumes will be available for sale via the spot market or new contracts.



Beach CEO, Matt Kay, said: "We are pleased to announce our agreement with Adelaide Brighton, a fellow South Australian company and Beach's first industrial gas customer. This agreement will see South Australian gas delivered to local operations."

Published under
(TNS)  WEST WARWICK  Rhode Island is well along in Governor Gina Raimondos program to establish computer science classes in all public schools.Her Computer Science for Rhode Island program, the governor said, drew U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. to the state Monday to celebrate Computer Science Education Week, which runs through Sunday.At West Warwick High School, for example, principal Phil Solomon said 20 percent of students are taking computer science, up from 1 percent last year.Because weather delayed his flight from Washington, D.C., King was late for an event at the high school. But he arrived in time to make a few remarks at a roundtable discussion in the library and to sit with students in a computer-coding class.In the roundtable, 11th-grade student Austin Laramee described how students are collaborating with Stanford University to gather genetic information for the war on cancer. In the class, ninth grader Gabriel Calcagni told a reporter that students were using Python software to write code for a game called "Hangman."Raimondo announced Computer Science for Rhode Island nine months ago. Now, there are computer science courses in 181 of 306 public schools in Rhode Island. Previously, the figure was not tracked.Using another measure, Raimondo spokeswoman Marie Aberger said there were nine advanced-placement computer science courses at Rhode Islands 60-plus high schools in 2015. Now, she said, there are 32.The stated goal is to have a computer science course in all public schools, kindergarten through grade 12, by December 2017.Raimondo said during the roundtable talk that by 2022, there will be a need to fill 4,000 computer science and mathematics jobs in Rhode Island and that students must qualify themselves for those jobs.She announced that the University of Rhode Island, Johnson & Wales University, Rhode Island College and Bryant University will offer minor concentrations in web development in 2017, enabling students to earn the credential they will need to get those jobs."Because a minor doesnt require additional tuition or time, it has the potential to increase significantly the number of students graduating with computer science training," state Secretary of Commerce Stefan Pryor said in a statement.Said Nick Kishfy, chief executive officer of MojoTech, "Candidates whove completed computer science minors along with majors in other STEM fields have had great success with us." STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.King and Raimondo were joined at West Warwick High School by U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, state Education Commissioner Ken Wagner and state Chief Innovation Officer Richard Culatta.King and the others then went to Providence Career and Technical Academy to observe a welding demonstration and meet with participants in a career and technical training program done in partnership with General Dynamics Electric Boat.When students graduate, Electric Boat would hire them to work on a replacement for the Ohio class of ballistic-missile submarines and continue their education at the Community College of Rhode Island and/or New England Institute of Technology.In West Warwick, Reed declared, "Theres no way youre going to escape computers," even for manual labor.
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First Tennessee Bank has been recognized by Greenwich Associates in the 2016 Greenwich Best Brand Awards for Small Business Banking. First Tennessee was honored in the Ease of Doing Business and Trust categories.



"First Tennessees business bankers took particular pride in the fact that the Ease of Doing Business and Trust awards are based on distinctive customer ratings," officials said.



First Tennessee is extremely honored that our customers find us easy to do business with and consider us trustworthy, said David Popwell, president of banking for First Tennessees parent company, First Horizon National Corp. We are grateful for all of our small business customers, and our talented bankers work hard every day to make sure we earn their business and trust.



Chattanooga market President Jeff Jackson said of the announcement, We are proud to be awarded honors that showcase our dedication to making banking easier for our customers. At First Tennessee, our focus is on continually improving banking relations. We are thankful for the support of our customers and communities.



"In evaluating more than 750 banks, Greenwich Associates identified a select group of banks that performed at differentiated levels compared to peer institutions. National winners were based on 12,000 interviews conducted with businesses across the country with sales of up to $10 million," officials said.
Steel production generates some hundred million tons of steel slag worldwide each year. This giant mountain of leftovers is largely dumped. Eindhoven University of Technology professor of building materials, Jos Brouwers, will be working with industrial partners to investigate whether he can make cement out of it. If he succeeds, more CO 2 emissions can be cut than is yearly produced by all the traffic in the Netherlands.

Steel slag is produced by the conversion of raw iron into steel - around 125 million tons of it per year. Much of that is dumped and only a small portion used, in embankments. That's a shame, professor Jos Brouwers says, because the mineralogical composition very closely resembles that of cement. It contains the same components, but in different ratios. And it is public knowledge that the cement industry emits a very high amount of CO 2 : five percent of the global total. A cement substitute with no extra CO 2 emissions would, therefore, be most welcome.

But before this can happen, Brouwers' team has to overcome a number of scientific and technical hurdles. First, the researchers will use the very latest methods to gain a good picture of the physical and chemical properties of the steel slag as well as take a detailed look at what different additives can bring in terms of cement-like qualities.

They will then use this knowledge and computational models to design new types of cement and concrete, and test them out. "It is important that it is possible to change the composition of the steel slag by adjusting the steel production processes," Brouwers explains. "You can keep the quality of the steel consistent and still ensure that the properties of the steel slag are more favorable."

Brouwers is hopeful that he will be able to succeed in making cement from steel slag that can replace 'normal cement'. While it may well require twice as much for the same result, this new cement will still be suitable for many common applications. It will make a difference of tens of millions of tons of CO 2 emissions each year. For comparison, all the traffic and transport in the Netherlands produces emissions of around thirty million tons a year. Moreover, the new cement is also a money maker. "Steel companies now have to pay for their slag to be removed; it has a negative value. If we succeed, or only in part, it could mean tens of millions of euros in the Netherlands alone," says Brouwers.

Brouwers' group is getting 750,000 euros from the STW technology foundation for this research, from the High Tech Materials funding program. With additional cash from the industrial partners, including Tata Steel, Heidelberg Cement and Inashco, the total research budget tops a million euros. In addition to Brouwers and university lecturers Qingliang Yu (co-applicant) and Miruna Florea, three PhDs and a postdoc will be working on the four-year project.
The brain trust at Boeing, among the city's largest companies and a global aerospace and defense powerhouse, must cringe every time President-elect Donald Trump riffs on foreign policy, especially when it comes to dealing with China.

Admittedly, that's my supposition because Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's CEO, has made only measured comments about the administration's emerging international views.

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But count on a mercurial Trump administration to test the Boeing CEO's statesmanship, especially when it comes to dealing with China  a multibillion-dollar Boeing commercial airline customer.

It looks like Trump is eager for a China confrontation. This week, he launched a Twitter barrage chiding that country's trade, monetary and political policies. His comments came after he participated in a controversial phone call with the leader of Taiwan that China  which considers the island a rebel province  viewed as an insult.

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The last thing Boeing, with $96 billion in annual revenues, wants is an international trade war that could raise tariffs or greatly disrupt long-standing, albeit imperfect, global agreements. Boeing risks retaliation and facing greater state-backed overseas competition.

However, in remarks before the Illinois Manufacturers' Association last week, Muilenburg conceded there's more populist concern about international pacts than before the 2016 election campaign.

"I'm not a political pundit or prognosticator  we have too many of those  but anyone who paid attention to the recent campaigns and the election results realizes that one of the overarching themes was apprehension about free and fair trade," he said.

Muilenburg argues that international trade is essential to the U.S. economy and its importance is reflected in the "large and growing percentage of our business" coming from international sales, including commercial jet orders from China.

"Last year, we delivered 495 737s from our factory in Renton, Wash., to customers around the world. One in every 3 of those 737s were bound for China. And about a quarter of all our airplane deliveries  were bound for Chinese customers. This phenomenon would have been unimaginable when I started at the company in 1985," said Muilenburg, who began his Boeing career as an aerospace engineer.

A steady influx of China commercial jet orders means more work for Boeing's thousands of U.S. workers while also providing lift for its network of domestic parts supplier and vendors.

Around 90 percent of Boeing's total workforce of 151,000 people and 80 percent of its thousands of suppliers are U.S.-based, according to Boeing.

Last year, Boeing racked up $66 billion in revenues from its commercial aircraft business.

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And while international sales grow, so does the competition. Boeing is up against European rival Airbus while Canada, Brazil, Russia  and yes, China  are trying to get pieces of the aerospace business.

Muilenburg suggests the Trump team, and Congress, back off from the 2016 anti-trade rhetoric and perceived threats to punish other countries with higher tariffs or fees.

Instead, he suggests they get down to the business of advocating a stronger U.S. agenda during ongoing or upcoming trade negotiations with other countries.

"If we do not lead when it comes to writing these rules, our competitors will write them for us," he said.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, right, speaks Dec. 2, 2016, at an Illinois Manufacturers' Association luncheon at the J.W. Marriott Chicago hotel downtown. Muilenburg argues that international trade is essential to the U.S. economy. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)

The big unknown is Trump, who hasn't seen a major trade deal he likes yet.

He has criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement, a U.S. pact with Mexico and Canada, and wants to withdraw from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.

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Trump has blasted these deals for enabling U.S. companies to export work to less-expensive countries, hurting American workers. He also says too many countries are dumping cheap, government-subsidized steel and other goods into the U.S., which depresses demand for U.S.-made products and hurts job creation.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 15 Air Force One arrives Oct. 7, 2016, at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. President Barack Obama came to town for Democratic fundraising. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

How nationalist will his new administration actually be and what form will that protectionism will take? Does that mean higher tariffs, sanctions, backing out of trade deals or more drastic measures?

Going into the next presidential administration, there's a lot of unanswered questions and concerns.

Right now, Boeing's CEO is waiting to see what comes next.

He's not alone.

roreed@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @reedtribbiz
It didn't take too long for President-elect Donald Trump to send a strong message to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

As reported in today's column, the Chicago-based aerospace and defense giant is waiting to see how the incoming Trump administration will affect its business. Such concern especially applies to Trump's foreign policy and its approach to international trade issues with China  a huge client of Boeing's commercial jet business and a frequent Trump target.

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This morning, Trump shook up Boeing another way by suggesting the U.S. government abandon a deal with Boeing for development of a new Air Force One.

"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!" Trump tweeted.

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Trump's singling out a major U.S. company in such an adversarial manner may be unprecedented. While other incoming and sitting presidents have criticized industries, unions and business groups, it's unusual for one to focus on a single company, especially when you consider Boeing is also a contractor tied to the nation's defense industry. But Trump's cost-containment message isn't aimed just at Boeing but at other major defense contractors too, suggests one industry analyst.

Trump did not provide specifics backing up his claim of cost overruns. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report said the project would run $3.2 billion between 2010 and 2020.

Boeing plans to replace the two aging 747-200 aircraft that serve as Air Force One with two new, modified 747-8 planes. In a statement issued after the tweet, Boeing said it looked forward to working with the Air Force on the project and delivering the "best planes for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer."

This may not be the last brouhaha between Trump and Boeing.

Boeing's Chicago headquarters. Donald Trump tweeted about the company and its Air Force One contract on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (Boeing Co.)

In a speech to Illinois manufacturers last week, Boeing's CEO advocated for a measured and drama-free approach to crafting and improving new and current trade agreements.

Without naming Trump, Muilenburg noted that concern about trade deals was a 2016 election campaign theme.

"Anyone who paid attention to the recent campaigns and the election results realizes that one of the overarching themes was apprehension about free and fair trade," he said.

Maybe Trump's Air Force One salvo is a down-and-dirty response to Muilenburg's suggestion that the new presidential team, and Congress, cool the anti-trade rhetoric.

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Or Trump simply could be fretting about spiraling defense department costs, including Air Force One, and decided to let fly Tuesday morning.

By calling out Boeing, Trump also may be sending a pointed message to other government vendors, such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Raytheon, that he's prepared to fight defense project cost overruns and excesses.

"It puts the defense contractors on notice, even if this (Air Force One) is a small program," said Chris Higgins, an equity industry analyst at Morningstar who follows the defense and aerospace industries.

Boeing has produced Air Force One for decades. But it is possible that European aircraft-maker Airbus, which was a contender for the most recent Air Force One contract, could build it too.

Even more inexplicable is that Trump appears to be a satisfied Boeing customer and investor. His personal jet is a Boeing 757 and he has held shares in the company, even excitingly tweeting about its rising share price.

Well, Trump still has the plane. But he's divested those Boeing shares, according to his transition team.

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The power of Trump's personality and social media combined to rattle Boeing's stock price, which dipped by $2 per share, or just over 1 percent, at the opening bell Tuesday, shortly after the president-elect's tweet zipped through cyberspace. Boeing stock regrouped to close at $152.24 per share, basically flat with Monday's close.

Whatever his intent, Trump is telling Boeing that he's watching, so it better watch out.

roreed@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @reedtribbiz
Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman delivers the keynote address June 26, 2013, to an Illinois Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Chicago. Oberhelman, who is slated to retire, said Dec. 6, 2016, that regulations are impeding U.S. businesses. (Scott Eisen / AP)

While concerned about some of President-elect Donald Trump 's "rhetoric" on trade policy, Caterpillar chief executive Doug Oberhelman said Tuesday that he thinks those in the new president's administration "will use every tool they can get" to promote growth.

Oberhelman, the chairman of the Business Roundtable, said he thinks the team of business leaders Trump is bringing into his administration shows a focus on business that he hasn't seen in a "long, long time" and likely lifted the forecast CEOs have for their businesses during the next six months. In a survey just completed, the CEOs said they are expecting a modest increase in sales and their plans to hire jumped notably, said Oberhelman.

Still, the economy isn't expected to break out of its lackluster performance. During the next year, the CEOs are expecting only 2 percent growth. The outlook is reflected in the quarterly CEO Economic Outlook Survey the Business Roundtable did of corporate chief executives during a period before and after the election  Oct. 26 through Nov. 16. The Roundtable's member companies have combined sales of $6 trillion, almost a quarter of the total U.S. stock market. The Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers working to promote public policy related to business interests.

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Despite a surge in hiring plans and a rise in optimism since the third quarter's survey, the index, at 74.2, remains below its historical average of 79.6. And plans by companies to spend on a key ingredient needed by the economy  capital expenditures  fell by 5.4 points relative to the last quarter.

Throughout the weak recovery since the 2008 recession, businesses have been holding back on major spending on things such as equipment and new plants and other facilities. Such spending is essential because of how it spreads growth through the economy. When one company buys a lot of equipment or constructs a new building, that creates business for other companies and they in turn can spend more and hire more.

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"With 2 percent growth (in the economy) it is hard for any of us to justify capital expenditures," said Oberhelman. "Hiring is a more short-term focus," so companies are willing to do it. Capital spending, he noted, won't increase until companies experience more growth.

He is optimistic, he said, that Trump policies on lowering corporate tax rates, cutting back regulation and spending on infrastructure will help. He also said the economy needs schools to better educate students for the needs of business. He said businesses are experiencing some limitations in finding the workers they need, but it depends on the type of work and company. It's not across the board, he said.

In the Business Roundtable survey, CEOs said regulation was their top cost pressure. Oberhelman said he is not against regulation but called for "smart regulation." Examples, he said, involve environmental rules on water and power plant emissions, rules on how companies compensate employees for overtime work, and constraints on federal contracts.

Oberhelman complained that business is slowed considerably by regulation. For example, he said, plans to modernize highways take two years for approval.

John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, added that originally the Pentagon was built in only about a year, while now it takes "two years to put an elevator into the Washington (Mounument). Something is seriously wrong."

While Oberhelman's encouraged that Trump's administration will tackle regulation, he is concerned about trade policy causing angry countries to retaliate against U.S. businesses. He said U.S. jobs are contingent upon being able to sell products to other countries.

"I have been a little concerned about some of the rhetoric," Oberhelman said. He noted that doing business with countries such as Brazil, India and China is crucial for large businesses such as Caterpillar, and he worried that we "are looking at being held out of a lot of the markets."

An earlier version of this story misattributed remarks by John Engler.

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gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital has been named one of the state's top hospitals by the Leapfrog Group. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

Ten Illinois hospitals drew top honors this year for patient safety as part of the Leapfrog Group's annual ratings.

Hospitals that completed surveys for The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit that evaluates hospital performance for consumers and employers, were judged on a number of patient safety measures.

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Hospitals with intensive care units, for example, had to make sure those units were managed by doctors trained in critical care medicine. Hospitals had to receive a patient safety grade of A from Leapfrog. And hospitals had to comply with Leapfrog's policy for responding to errors that should never occur  a protocol that includes apologizing to the patient and family, waiving costs, reporting the event to an external agency and analyzing why the event occurred.

Hospitals also had to meet a number of other requirements.

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Larry Boress, president and CEO of the Midwest Business Group on Health, which helps facilitate the Leapfrog survey in Illinois, said the ratings are a useful tool for consumers and employers trying to make decisions about which hospitals they'd like to see their employee plans include.

"When you have a choice of where to go for your delivery or surgery or knee replacement, we know that there is tremendous variation in quality and safety," Boress said. "By identifying the top hospitals  you can then determine whether you have a better chance of surviving a surgery, as well as readmissions and accidents."

Not all Illinois hospitals chose to participate in the survey. More than 65 percent of Chicago-area hospitals participated in the survey this year, and about 53 percent of hospitals statewide participated.

The Leapfrog Group is one of a number of organizations that releases hospital ratings each year. Ratings can often vary from group to group, as each organization uses a different methodology to evaluate hospitals. Leapfrog named 115 top hospitals across the nation this year, including these 10 in Illinois:

AMITA Health St. Alexius Medical Center, Hoffman Estates

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, Chicago

Elmhurst Hospital, Elmhurst

Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital, Geneva

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OSF St. Joseph Medical Center, Bloomington

Presence Saints Mary & Elizabeth Medical Center, Chicago

Richland Memorial Hospital, Olney

Rush Oak Park Hospital, Oak Park

Rush-Copley Medical Center, Aurora

University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago

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lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
Developer Sterling Bay unveiled plans for McDonald's Fulton Market headquarters June 22, 2016. The burger chain is slated to move to the site in spring 2018. The area where it is located is variously known as Fulton Market, West Loop and West Town. (Sterling Bay rendering)

McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook hinted that the world's largest burger chain may have a presence in the ground-floor retail space planned in its new headquarters in Chicago's West Loop.

"We want to take a prime position in the retail space because we think it's a great opportunity for us to express what we stand for now and also some of the things we look forward to sharing in the future," Easterbrook said. "We're still working on the precise details of it but we'll have some fun sharing the news when we're ready."

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It's not clear if that means McDonald's will build a restaurant there or if the chain will be partnering with other companies for something new to occupy that retail space, which faces busy Randolph Street.

He made the comments after McDonald's officially broke ground at the site of Oprah Winfrey's former Harpo Studios, marking the ceremonial start to a project that's expected to be completed in spring 2018. Mayor Rahm Emanuel; Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th, and representatives from developer Sterling Bay and builder McHugh Construction also were in attendance at the brief ceremony Tuesday afternoon.

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McDonald's announced its plan to move to the neighborhood, alternatively known as West Town and Fulton Market, in June.

The move will bring some 2,000 employees from Oak Brook to a trendy area of the city best known for fine restaurants like Girl & the Goat and Au Cheval. Community leaders and residents have expressed concern over the increase in traffic accidents and congestion that adding all those new people may bring.

Burnett thanked the neighbors for not opposing the McDonald's move. "This was one of those times where we had to make a decision not for the community but for the city of Chicago," he said at the ceremony, citing the benefits that a big employer like McDonald's can bring to the city, including jobs.

McDonald's currently operates an 86-acre campus in Oak Brook but wants to be downtown so it can better cater to the younger, digital-savvy residents it wants to hire and court as customers.

"At the moment we have a fantastic workforce that will be coming downtown with us," Easterbrook said. "Over time, as the business changes and things evolve, we have a fantastic hiring environment to tap into."

sbomkamp@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SamWillTravel
McDonald's, losing ground in its battle for the nation's coffee drinkers, is planning to shake up its McCafe brand  part of a bid to challenge Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts.

The company will reintroduce the McCafe concept next year, about eight years after it debuted nationwide. The push follows efforts to upgrade its java and get more of its beans from sustainable sources, mimicking a move by its Seattle-based rival.

"We're really excited about the McCafe brand and what it can do to complement our food offerings," Kristy Cunningham, U.S. senior vice president of strategy and insights, said in an interview. The new McCafe campaign will include special deals, more seasonal beverages and increased marketing of the chain's coffee rewards program, she said.

Coffee is still a booming business in the U.S., but fast-food companies haven't been able to capitalize on much of that growth. Sales at burger chains rose just 3.3 percent last year, compared with an almost 10 percent jump for coffee cafes, according to research firm Technomic. Though McCafe generates $4 billion annually in U.S. sales, it could better cater to customer needs, Cunningham said.

Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have attracted customers with high-margin espresso, lattes and mochas. Though McDonald's offers a wide range of coffees these days, it hasn't become as much of a go-to source for upscale drinks.

McCafe is "a very important piece," Cunningham said. "It gives us the chance to follow what the customer is really looking for."

Re-emphasizing coffee is critical at a time when food sales are under pressure. Supermarkets have lowered prices, making it more alluring to eat at home instead of at a restaurant. Gas stations and other channels also are increasingly selling prepared meals, adding to the competition.

McDonald's is looking to build on the success of its all-day breakfast, which rolled out last year across the U.S. It's also upgrading stores with table service and more touch-screen ordering kiosks. The all-day breakfast push helped fuel a return to growth, but the resurgence has been waning: Domestic comparable sales rose just 1.3 percent last quarter, and McDonald's is facing declining foot traffic.

McDonald's isn't alone in struggling to build a more sophisticated coffee menu. After Burger King introduced 10 new Seattle's Best drinks in 2013, including flavored lattes, the rollout fizzled. The company later merged with Tim Hortons, a Canadian coffee chain, though the two brands remain distinct.

McDonald's still plans to emphasize its price advantage over Starbucks as it retools the McCafe brand. The company is planning a $1 drip coffee and $2 small specialty-beverage deal for the first quarter of next year, Cunningham said.

The chain, with about 14,000 domestic restaurants, said in October that it would buy all of its coffee from sustainable sources by 2020. In another sign of Starbucks envy, McDonald's sold pumpkin-spice lattes across all of the U.S. this fall  the first time it's done so in three years.

The company opened its first stand-alone McCafe location in Toronto last year, a move that it said "showcases the company's passion for elevating the cafe experience." McDonald's now sells Americanos and shots of espresso across its Canadian restaurants. The McCafe locations even bake McCafe pastries in house.

In the U.S., McDonald's is upgrading its espresso machines with equipment that creates more consistent-tasting drinks, Cunningham said. The new gear, which has better milk-steaming technology and can make a wider variety of drinks, costs about $12,000 apiece.

But the typical McDonald's diner is a low- to middle-income consumer and not adventurous when it comes to coffee, said Will Slabaugh, an analyst at Stephens. Customers are looking for something that's affordable and familiar, he said.

"It's going to continue to be a slow build for them, especially in this type of environment where the customer expects a deal," Slabaugh said. "I don't expect that to be a huge needle mover for them."
The Secret Service agents told the Carrier workers to stay put, so Chuck Jones sat in the factory conference room for nearly three hours, waiting for president-elect Donald Trump. He'd grown used to this suspense.

Seven months earlier, at a campaign rally in Indianapolis, Trump had pledged to save the plant's jobs, most of which were slated to move to Mexico. Then the businessman won the election, and the 1,350 workers whose paychecks were on the line wondered if he'd keep his promise.

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Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents Carrier employees, felt optimistic when Trump announced last week that he'd reached a deal with the factory's parent company, United Technologies, to preserve 1,100 of the Indianapolis jobs - until the union leader heard from Carrier that only 730 of the production jobs would stay and 550 of his members would lose their livelihoods, after all.

At the Dec. 1 meeting, where Trump was supposed to lay out the details, Jones hoped he would explain himself.

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"But he got up there," Jones said Tuesday, "and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off."

In front of a crowd of about 150 supervisors, production workers and reporters, Trump praised Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies. "Now they're keeping - actually the number's over 1,100 people," he said, "which is so great."

Jones wondered why the president-elect appeared to be inflating the victory. Trump and Pence, he said, could take credit for rescuing 800 of the Carrier jobs, including non-union positions.

Of the nearly 1,400 workers at the Indianapolis plant, however, 350 in research and development were never scheduled to leave, Jones said. Another 80 jobs, which Trump seemed to include in his figure, were non-union clerical and supervisory positions. (A Carrier spokesperson confirmed the numbers.) And now the president-elect was applauding the company and giving it millions of dollars in tax breaks, even as hundreds of Indianapolis workers prepared to be laid off.

"Trump and Pence, they pulled a dog and pony show on the numbers," said Jones, who voted for Hillary Clinton but called her "the better of two evils." "I almost threw up in my mouth."

Spokespeople for Trump did not respond to the Post's request for comment.

In exchange for downsizing its move south of the border, United Technologies would receive $7 million in tax credits from Indiana, to be paid in $700,000 installments each year for a decade. Carrier, meanwhile, agreed to invest $16 million in its Indiana operation. United Technologies still plans to send 700 factory jobs from Huntington, Indiana, to Monterrey, Mexico.

T.J. Bray, 32, one of the workers who will keep his job, sat in the front row during the Dec. 1 meeting as Trump spoke. A corporate employee had guided him specifically to that seat, he said, so he suspected he might be part of Trump's remarks.

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On Carrier's makeshift stage, Trump paraphrased the words of an unnamed Carrier employee who talked to an NBC reporter after the election. Bray was the only Carrier employee who had appeared on television that day. Apparently, he realized, Trump was saying he inspired the deal.

"He said something to the effect, 'No, we're not leaving, because Donald Trump promised us that we're not leaving,' and I never thought I made that promise," Trump said. "Not with Carrier. I made it for everybody else. I didn't make it really for Carrier."

In fact, Trump did make that commitment, and it's on video. "They're going to call me and they are going to say 'Mr. President, Carrier has decided to stay in Indiana,' " Trump had said at the April rally. "One hundred percent -- that's what is going to happen."

Last week, though, the president-elect told the Carrier crowd he hadn't meant that literally.

"I was talking about Carrier like all other companies from here on in," Trump said. "Because they made the decision a year and a half ago. But he believed that was - and I could understand it. I actually said - I didn't make it - when they played that, I said, 'I did make it, but I didn't mean it quite that way.'"

Trump asked if the employee he'd been referencing was in the audience. A woman yelled that her son was, and Trump began to compliment that son, though he hadn't spoken in the television news segment. (Bray said that a United Technologies spokesperson later told him Trump meant to single him out.)

"I was confused when he was like, 'I wasn't talking about Carrier,' " Bray said. "You made this whole campaign about Carrier, and we're still losing a lot of jobs."

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Bray clapped that day, anyway, for the 800 that would remain on American soil.
Trump appeared in the lobby of the Trump Tower on Tuesday with Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of SoftBank, to announce the news, and later on Twitter claimed credit.

Trump wrote: "Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!

Son told reporters at Trump Tower that the funds would be invested into American start-ups. It was not immediately clear how much of the investment was new, and how much was previously committed.

Son told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the money will come from a $100 billion joint investment by SoftBank and the Saudi Arabian government.

SoftBank announced in October that it would create the "SoftBank Vision Fund" to invest in the global technology sector. SoftBank said it would provide at least $25 billion of the funds in the next five years, while Saudi Arabia's public investment fund pledged up to $45 billion in the same time period. During a trip to India last week, Son said he is close to securing investors to provide the additional funds.

"I think it's making hay out of something that was there already," said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. "In all likelihood, this comes out of the $100 billion fund. Considering the extremely large part that the U.S. has in the high-tech economy, [Son] would have probably invested something in the neighborhood anyway."

As he spoke to reporters in the Trump Tower, Son held up a piece of paper with the same figures that Trump had announced, but which also specified that the investment would be made in the next four years.

The paper also contained the logo of Foxconn, a major supplier for Apple's iPhones. Foxconn could not immediately be reached for comment, and it was not clear what role Foxconn would play in the deal, or if the company would be responsible for the additional $7 billion in investment and 50,000 new jobs mentioned on the paper.

Trump also tweeted the news Tuesday afternoon:

"Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs...."

Softbank owns roughly 80 percent of telecom company Sprint. Following the announcement, shares of Sprint Corp. surged nearly 4 percent as of mid-afternoon.

The announcement sparked speculation that Son might be seeking to curry favor for his U.S. business interests. Sprint and SoftBank abandoned an effort to purchase rival telecom carrier T-Mobile in 2014 after U.S. regulators signaled the deal might violate anti-trust laws. But in August, Bloomberg quoted people familiar with his thinking as saying that Son still held out hope for the merger.

A Trump administration may consider a potential merger between Sprint and T-Mobile differently, analysts said. Speaking from the lobby of the Trump tower, Son said that he wanted to celebrate Trump's election "because he would do a lot of deregulation."

Jeff Kagan, an Atlanta-based telecom industry analyst, said that was a possibility, but described Son as an ambitious entrepreneur who was likely looking for opportunities beyond the merger.

"Maybe he sees there's a different possibility for a Sprint and T-mobile partnership. But that's only one slice of the pie. I don't think Masayoshi Son is that small of a thinker," said Kagan. "He sees opportunities, based on what we've all seen happen in the last few weeks. And he wants to be a player."

A self-made billionaire, Son has earned a reputation as an entrepreneurial thinker and a maverick. Since founding SoftBank in 1981, he has built the company into a telecom, internet, and financial leviathan with purchases including an early investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and the acquisition of the Japanese unit of British mobile phone company Vodafone.
Verizon Communications Inc. agreed to sell its data-centers business to Equinix Inc. for $3.6 billion in cash as the company turns its focus to mobile video advertising.

The deal includes 24 facilities across 15 metropolitan markets, according to a statement Tuesday. Equinix, based in Redwood City, California, operates as a real estate investment trust, mostly holding interconnected data centers. With the deal, Equinix now has 175 data centers in 43 markets around the world.

For Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier, the deal marks a retreat from the data-centers business five years after it bought Terremark Worldwide Inc. for $1.3 billion. As prospects faded and Verizon invested in more areas like mobile video and advertising, the company decided to put the data-centers unit up for sale about two years ago.

As the telecommunications industry matures, Verizon is shedding assets and turning the business in a new direction. Using go90, its video-streaming business, AOL's web properties and the pending purchase of Yahoo Inc., Verizon is entering a mobile video and advertising arena to challenge Google and Facebook.

The sale to Equinix, which is expected to close in the middle of next year, would help replenish Verizon's cash after it acquires Yahoo for $4.83 billion and bids for coveted airwaves in a federal auction.

Shares of Verizon rose as much as 1.8 percent to $50.62 in New York Tuesday. Equinix climbed 3.2 percent to $342.81.

After the deal, which includes sites in the U.S., Brazil and Colombia, Verizon will still offer data-center services using Equinix as a partner.

The deal affects data centers in 15 cities: Atlanta, Bogota, Boston, Chicago (Westmont), Culpeper, Va., Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.

Verizon's advisers were Citigroup and Guggenheim Partners, with Jones Day providing legal counsel. Equinix was advised by Evercore Partners, JPMorgan Chase and law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Billionaire entrepreneur and Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky and his wife, Elizabeth, on Monday struck a contract to sell their longtime mansion in Glencoe, which most recently had been listed for $5.9 million.

Lefkofsky, 47, co-founded Chicago-based marketing execution firm InnerWorkings in 2001 and then started several other companies before co-founding Groupon under its previous name, ThePoint.com, in 2007. He was Groupon's CEO from 2013 until late 2015, when he stepped back to resume his previous role as chairman.

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In 2014, Lefkofsky and his wife set a Chicago-area home purchase price record when they paid $19.5 million in cash through a Delaware limited liability company for a vintage 15,800-square-foot mansion on 4 acres on Lake Michigan in Glencoe.

That purchase made the Lefkofskys' longtime estate in Glencoe expendable. They first marketed the six-bedroom, 11,029-square-foot mansion as a so-called pocket listing  not included in the real estate multiple listing service  in 2015 for $6.45 million. They then listed it publicly at that same asking price in February and reduced their asking price to $5.9 million in July.

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Over more than a decade, the Lefkofskys assembled their estate property in Glencoe, which is relatively large by Glencoe standards. They paid $1.525 million in 2003 for a 1.56-acre property on which now stands their mansion, which they built in 2008. Features in the mansion include nine full baths, two half baths, an open floor plan, a two-story paneled library, an indoor spa, a large screened porch, a sport court, an exercise room and a movie theater.

The couple subsequently expanded their property by paying $630,000 in 2010 to buy a 0.29-acre property at the rear of their estate. Other features on the property include a tree-lined driveway, a modern barn that was built in 2010, a two-car garage, an in-ground pool, a pool pavilion and a bluestone patio.

No information is yet available on the deal price or when the sale will close.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.







Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 16 (VHT Studios)

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 5 Billionaire Ken Griffin, Illinois richest man, paid $58.75 million in November for the top four floors in the Near North condominium building at 9 W. Walton St., known as No. 9 Walton. This photo shows a rendering of the lobby. (JDL Development / E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune (inset))
High school-age Chicago teenagers will get in free to the Art Institute beginning in the new year.

A new donation will allow the Michigan Avenue museum to admit 14-to-17-year-olds from the city without charge. Currently all kids are free up to age 13.

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"We're incredibly excited about this," said James Rondeau, the museum's president and director. "It goes to the core of who we are and what we do and who we aspire to be.  This allows us to reach a whole new audience and hopefully build that audience for the future."

The new admission policy comes courtesy of a gift from Topeka, Kan., philanthropists Glenn and Claire Swogger.

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Swogger won a scholarship to the University of Chicago as a 15-year-old, and he and his wife have been devoted fans of the Art Institute, Glenn Swogger said.

"It seemed to me to be a very good idea," said Swogger, 81. "I just thought, 'Well, young people, they usually don't have a lot of change in their pockets. It just seemed like this would be something that would open the gate to people who are young and interested and maybe would get excited about art."

Neither he nor the museum would specify the size of the gift, but both parties say it should cover the program for a quarter-century.

Last fiscal year, about 2,000 Chicago teens in that age range paid the current $14 admission, according to the Art Institute, about 10 percent of the total ticketed teen admissions. Many thousands more visit on school trips.

Letting those 2,000 in free would translate to $28,000 in lost revenue annually, although there is no direct correspondence between that amount and the gift size, a spokeswoman said.

Among peer institutions, New York's Museum of Modern Art is free to visitors age 16 and younger, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is free up to age 17 most of the time. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also free up to age 17. The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the few major art museums that is always free to all visitors.

The Art Institute hopes the number of teenage visitors will grow with the lure of an open entry gate.

"There's a lot of students who would definitely take advantage of this," said Rosario Barrera, 18, a member of the museum's advisory Teen Council and a senior at Chicago's Whitney Young Magnet High School. "The only times, really, we get to come to museums is when we're in school" on time-limited field trips. "If students have this new opportunity, they would be more willing to explore."

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The museum made an effective pitch to Glenn Swogger and his Redbud Foundation, said John Messervey, a North Shore resident and member of the Redbud board. The pitch included a collection of Instagram photo captures showing young people with Art Institute treasures.

Before that, "We had lots of ideas. They had lots of ideas," Messervey said.

He remembers thinking, "'No, we're not doing the armor,'" a reference to the museum's remake of its medieval art and armor display, which debuts early next year. "We finally got down to, 'Young people stand in front of those lions and have to pay $14 to get in. That's ridiculous. We've got to let them in.'

"People at the Art Institute were very effective in saying, 'We have the programs in place. We don't need any more programs. We need people in the door,'" Messervey said.

"That's exactly right," Rondeau said. "There's an infrastructure that is ready to receive these audiences."

He emphasized that the museum already lets in 25 percent of its 1.55 million annual visitors without charge, providing multiple free days and free admission to military families and families on public assistance. Thursday evenings are always free to Illinois residents, no matter their age.

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"We aim to keep going," Rondeau said. "This, we see as a point on a continuing arc of accessibility. ... Our priority is to make our exhibitions, our collections and our programming as broadly available as possible."

sajohnson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @StevenKJohnson

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Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
When it comes to chronicling dumb ways to die, William Shakespeare was ahead of the curve. Gander at his much-disputed authorial oeuvre and you'll find no fewer than 75 final exits, shufflings off of this mortal coil, breathings of one's last, cashings in of one's chips, departings with or without one's boots on, comings to ends sticky and otherwise, givings up of the ghost, snuffings it, passings away, purchases of farms, sleeping with the fishes, and, to paraphrase that great bard Rush Limbaugh, involuntary assumptions of room temperature.

That 75 does not include numerous other off-stage deaths in the plays, whether or not pursued by a bear. But it does include creatures from many walks of life, ranging from monarchs and teenage lovers to anonymous characters who seem to live only to die dramatically to, in the case of "Titus Andronicus," a play that could keep an entire street of funeral directors in business, a lowly fly. We all must die, dear reader, and "The Complete Deaths," which you can see at Chicago Shakespeare Theater as part of the ongoing Shakespeare 400 festival, is a piece of seasonal comedic nonsense dedicated to that persistently upsetting truth.

It's the work of Spymonkey, a neo-Pythonesque, R-rated, touring British troupe of actors with a penchant for low comedy (showers are required of the actors at intermission) and a bit of good old spurious nudity. Just 'cause.

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As a compilation romp, adapted by Tim Crouch, "The Complete Deaths" has something in common with "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)," although "The Complete Deaths," which feels way too long, sure could use some additional abridgment. Scholars of the Chicago fringe will also see elements of the famously meta-wonk aesthetic developed here by the Neo-Futurists, although this show also owes something to the BBC comedies of the 1970s wherein the performers would constantly mine the dynamics of their own company for fun and profit.

A bunch of actors, who admit to what they are doing and build no fourth wall, count the deaths in the plays. There's a helpful countdown clock (75, 74, 73 ...) and a little lighted sign at rear telling us whose death we currently are watching  be it Claudius or Cleopatra or a messenger, unnamed and remarked upon only at his last.

Self-evidently, this is comedy with a macabre twist and the best moments of the show come when this is overtly explored and acknowledged  in fact, the best moment of the whole night comes when the entire company of actors turns against their leader, the excellent Toby Park, telling him they want him gone. It is a cool way to emulate what happened to Julius Caesar, he who failed to heed the will of the fickle populace.

Nonetheless, most of the show doesn't worry about keeping the deaths in their original context, or finding much to say about what they might mean, but concentrates on depicting them theatrically in absurdly imaginative ways. It's silly stuff  and I didn't think the promise of the very clever opening monologue, which rings with cynical complexity, is allowed to sufficiently inform the rest of the show. The whole thing needs a sharper, darker gestalt. And more of the drive of inevitability.

Nonetheless, mocking death in the theater, even at this length, invariably functions as a life-affirmative act. And if you like this kind of whacked-out comedy, I expect you'll enjoy watching all the knives (and God knows what else) reminding us of the truth of Hamlet's cri de coeur: "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt."

Yup. One day. Comes to us all.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib

"The Complete Deaths" - 2.5 stars

When: Through Sunday

Where: Chicago Shakespeare Upstairs Theatre on Navy Pier

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Tickets: $42-$58 at 312-595-5600 or chicagoshakes.com

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This outre "Beauty and the Beast" at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art is the work of radical artists, intent on working at the margins. And, please be warned, it is as sexually explicit a live piece as you ever are likely to see, unless you, dear reader, traverse an unusual path through our hearty Midwestern city.

But there is something about 80 minutes spent in the company of Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser that is intensely comforting.

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For their remarkable work stands, at this divisive moment, not only as testimony to the incomparable force of completely honest communication, but as a reminder that we cannot hope to move forward from our myriad differences without the care and feeding of our sense of humor.

Let me review what they do here for your fun, education and emotional profit.

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At the top of the show, which is richly directed by Phelim McDermott, Fraser, who is British, discusses the reasons for his very small and limp arms. His mother, he tells us, was one of the women who were prescribed the drug thalidomide as a potential cure for morning sickness or insomnia.

That drug, which was withdrawn in Britain in 1961, caused limb deformities and other damage, in some cases fatal, to some babies born to those women. Much depended on at what point in their pregnancy the unknowing women took the drug. There remain several hundred survivors of the scandal. Fraser is one. He describes in some detail what his arms can and cannot do. In doing so, he recognizes that everyone in the theater is looking at, and thinking about, his arms.

Then Atlas Muz, who is American and ebullient, describes the genesis of her attraction to Fraser, who now is her husband, even though they both were with other people when they first met. She does this mostly with a great big smile on her face.

From there, the couple act out a version of the familiar "Beauty and the Beast" story, casting themselves as Beauty (Atlas Muz) and Beast (Fraser). This story is told with the help of two assistants, Jess Mabel Jones and Jonny Dixon, who manipulate a variety of puppets and who, on a deeper level, function as both younger versions and alter egos of the two main characters.

What you're then mostly watching is a beginning of a sexual relationship  an unusual sexual relationship in some ways, a very ordinary one in others. But what makes the show so intriguing is that the structure of the familiar tale helps take this relationship far beyond the individuals involved into a discussion of society's conceptions of sexual attraction, in all of its complexity. But never too far. Time and again, the archetypal story of oppositional attraction is interrupted by Atlas Muz and Fraser, who return to their own very specific story. This constant flip-flopping is most intriguing; it puts one in mind of how every relationship is to some extent a derivative of societal conceits of attraction, and yet, at the same time, every relationship is unique.

And so it goes. The show may sound voyeuristic, and I suppose there is an element thereof. Clearly, you are intended to be thinking about whether or not you would find Fraser attractive, were you in Atlas Muz's position. And vice versa. Not that Atlas Muz leaves you in any doubt about her point of view there. Nor, for that matter, does Fraser.

Of course, "Beauty and the Beast" has another dynamic, one related to the paradoxical way that persons who are not disabled view the sexuality of those who are different from themselves  perhaps as invisible, perhaps as threatening, probably as exotic.

In the glorious last few minutes of this show, Atlas Muz and Fraser shoot all of that down in the kind of marital bacchanal devoutly to be wished by those long coupled. It is, perhaps, the most fun kind of simulated sex you might ever see on a stage, a cannonball shot against barriers, prejudices, body nonsense, fear of the physical, terror of the aging corpus.

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They laugh with each other uproariously, arming themselves against everything.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Twitter@ChrisJonesTrib

Review: "Beauty and the Beast" (3.5 stars)

When: Through Dec. 11

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Where: Museum of Contemporary Art Stage, 220 E. Chicago Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Tickets: $30 at 312-397-4010 or www.mcachicago.org
There's a vague sense of dissonance from the beginning in Remy Bumppo's production of "Pygmalion." We know it's set in 1912. But why is there a midcentury radio on, playing pop hits of a later era? And what's with the guys in moving company togs shuffling around boxes and furniture?

When a middle-aged woman in a tasteful conservative suit enters and says, "I'd like to pay my respects," we understand the framing device conceived by director Shawn Douglass. This is George Bernard Shaw's tale of Eliza Doolittle as a memory play. And when the older Eliza (called "Elizabeth" in the program and played by Jane deLaubenfels) discovers her battered old flower-girl hat in one of the now-deceased Henry Higgins' old file cabinets, the link between her past and present comes to life.

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Douglass' in-the-round staging (simply but effectively designed by Jacqueline and Richard Penrod) at Remy Bumppo's upstairs home at the Greenhouse makes the sparring-arena nature of Shaw's story delightfully palpable. This is still a play with wordplay, very much about language and how it marks us and defines us. But there are also silent "mirror" interludes between Elizabeth and Eliza that suggest how much the past continues to mold us years on in our journey.

Nick Sandys seems born to play Higgins, the phonetics expert whose encyclopedic knowledge of how words are formed doesn't keep him from using them as blunt-force weapons. He's well matched by Kelsey Brennan's Eliza, the "guttersnipe" who learns to talk and act like a lady  and who also learns how to get "a little of my own back."

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Elizabeth pops up a few more times  most effectively in a moment where she listens to a wax cylinder of her old elocution lessons with Higgins. (As suggested by Shaw, those actual lessons take place offstage  sorry, fans of "My Fair Lady.") We don't know exactly what she's done in the years since leaving Higgins. Did she marry Freddy? Start her own vocal studio? Launch the British version of FTD?

What's clear is that she's never gone back to the gutter. And while there's little of the romance in Shaw's comedy, Douglass also adds a moment where the older Elizabeth digs a ring out of her handbag  a gift from Higgins that we've just seen Eliza throw at him and then pick up again after Higgins has stormed off. It's a wistful glimpse of "what might have been." Perhaps these two could have been happy together, if only they weren't so good at being who they are, and not who others think they should be.

Fear not: Douglass and his cast work against these hints of sentimentality by pushing Shaw's class commentary with wit and brio. David Darlow as Alfred Doolittle, who becomes a model of upper-middle-class respectability despite himself, is particularly fine. Like his daughter, he can't go back to his old life, no matter how much he romanticizes the "independence" of poverty. "It's easy to say chuck it," he says of his newfound fortune. "But I haven't the nerve. Which of us has? We're all intimidated." Darlow combines a dustman's earthy directness with a huckster's charm  his Doolittle really ought to run for Parliament.

Yet the women around Higgins and Peter A. Davis' courtly Col. Pickering see through the bluster and intimidation. Annabel Armour as forthright Mrs. Higgins takes the two "infinitely stupid male creatures" to task for dressing up Eliza as a doll without thinking through the consequences for her afterward. (Sandys' Higgins betrays comic physical awkwardness around his mother, showing that even he has a soft underbelly.)

If she's no longer a plaything, then what on earth can she be in a world dominated by sexism and class consciousness? It's a question that still resonates in our own time of glass ceilings that continue to crack but never fully shatter.

In this production, Kyle Curry's bumbling-but-adorable Freddy functions mostly as a foil to Sandys' overconfident Higgins. The production cuts a romantic interlude between Freddy and Eliza after she runs away from Higgins' house the night of her "coming out" society event. Freddy's main appeal is that he is not Higgins  and in that way, Eliza seems ready to use him quite as much as Higgins and Pickering have used her. He's a sop for her ego and wounded pride, not a serious love interest.

There is a hint of Nora in "A Doll's House" in young Eliza's final exit. But by suggesting that Higgins' lessons yielded more fruit than just a winning bet, Remy Bumppo's "Pygmalion" also functions as a sort of love letter to all the difficult and exasperating people in our lives  whether teacher or student, family or friend  who forced us to look in the mirror at who we are, and at what we might become.

Kerry Reid is a freelance critic.

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ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com

Review: "Pygmalion" by Remy Bumppo (3.5 stars)

When: Through Jan. 8

Where: Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Tickets: $42.50-$52.50 at 773-404-7336 or www.remybumppo.org
When the concept of paying doctors to help patients plan for end-of-life care first came up as part of health reform, opponents thumped it as a step toward "death panels" and "pulling the plug on grandma."

Advance care planning was scuttled then, but seven years later, it has been rather quietly incorporated into services reimbursable by Medicare. Patients now can seek guidance from their physicians and other health care professionals about what they want and don't want in terms of life-sustaining or life-prolonging care and have it included in their medical records.

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But codifying what many describe as a sea change in thinking may have come about too quietly. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, can't say how many physicians have billed for these conversations since the provision took effect Jan. 1, but a poll released in April showed only about 14 percent of doctors who regularly treat patients over 65 have submitted such bills to Medicare.

While that indicates physicians either don't know about ACP or are hesitant to engage in such conversations, said Angela Hult, executive director of Oregon-based Cambia Health Foundation, one of three poll sponsors, the public is very solidly in favor.

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The California Health Care Foundation, another sponsor, found in a 2012 survey that 80 percent of respondents said it would be important to talk to doctors about their final wishes if they were seriously ill, and 60 percent said it was "extremely important" that their families not be burdened by tough decisions, like stopping nutrition or breathing assistance.

ACP, also called end-of-life directives, is gaining steam among nonprofits, foundations and academic institutions focusing on patient-centered care that also can help health systems be more efficient and save money. Books such as best-seller "Being Mortal" by Massachusetts surgeon Atul Gawande, and "Hope for a Cool Pillow" by Illinois anesthesiologist Margaret Overton use personal experiences to advocate for change in health care of the elderly and raise the profile of what all families eventually face but few typically talk about before a crisis.

Planning ahead instead of guessing what a loved one would want, which can cause emotional rifts in a family even as time is of the essence, serves both patient and caregivers. A 40-year nurse, commenting in a blog post about the absence of ACP wrote: "It has been the cause of severe moral distress among my nurse colleagues in the ICU and the source of many personal nightmares over the years. It is so very frightening to think what we do to the elderly, in particular," by mustering medical technology to prolong life when that might not be desired.

Physicians even have a term for it  the luge ride, said Michael Preodor, a palliative care doctor at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

"It's more surgery, more disease intervention, without fixing the problem," Preodor said. "The key to helping is to align our care with what the patient desires, and that's dependent upon having these conversations."

He recently had a patient with a sudden spinal injury and infection that a number of specialists gave opinions on how to treat, overwhelming his wife. She wanted the advice of her trusted family physician and because of the ACP reimbursement, she was able to have several conversations about what to do, deciding on comfort care in hospice, Preodor said.

"I have no doubt he'd be in the ICU, having surgery or other interventions with more and more suffering regardless of the outcome," Preodor said. "Now there's time for closure, time with family free of pain, time to deal with dying, which we don't do very well in this country."

Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, Wis., has been working more than 20 years to change that. Bud Hammes, an ethicist who started the Respecting Choices program that is cited by many as a model for advance care planning, said more than 96 percent of the 120,000 people in La Crosse County have plans in place before death on how they want to be treated as their health declines. Talking about death is a part of community conversation and happens in clinics, hospices and nursing homes, guided by specially trained personnel, he said.

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"Patients have plans that go from very aggressive treatment to comfort care," Hammes said, eliminating what he called the "terrible dilemma" of families trying to do the right thing but not knowing their loved one's wishes. "They come to the self-realization of why they need to do this very challenging activity."

The focus on ACP also has saved Gundersen money. The number of days a patient spent in the hospital in the last two years of life was a national average of 20.3 in 2010, but only 9.7 at Gundersen, according to The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, and the total cost of care in those two years was a national average of $79,337, but just $48,771 at Gundersen.

Hammes sees Medicare's approval of ACP as a "positive step forward that indicates a policy shift from when no one talked about this." Physicians can bill for 30 minutes of conversation about advance directives with patients, family members or surrogates and be reimbursed $86, which drops to $75 for a second such conversation. CMS has yet to promulgate guidelines for the conversations but has stipulated that while physicians must "meaningfully contribute" to them, other professionals such as RNs and physicians' assistants can conduct them. And starting in 2017, ACP can be part of an annual Medicare wellness visit.

Ironically, while Hammes supports Medicare's move to reimbursement and is working with others on ACP training, physicians in the Gundersen system will not seek to be paid for these conversations because of internal billing issues and what they perceive as too little time allowed given the complexities of the issues, he said.

Other possible impediments to full participation by physicians across the country include lack of preparation and clarity on what constitutes an ACP conversation, said Dr. David Longnecker, who co-chairs a committee with the nonprofit National Quality Forum to improve advanced illness care. He suggests simulations, such as are used for training in other parts of medicine, to ease doctors' discomfort with the topic, community input to adjust for faith and culture concerns, and adoption of ACP by health systems instead of just individual doctors.

"The enemy of good is perfect," Longnecker said. "We have to start somewhere.

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"We don't want 'yes, doctor,' but partnerships (between patient and physician), which are essential to delivering a high quality of care," he said.

Cambia Health Foundation is building on its poll results with nationwide focus groups "as a deeper dive into what are the barriers to ACP, how do we educate and engage physicians, what tools do they need to have these conversations," Hult said.

"The conversations are so important for end of life, but also for chronic or life-limiting illnesses. How do we ensure that each person receives what they perceive as quality of life?" she said. "It makes all the difference in approach once you understand the patient is the center of care."

The Conversation Stopper poll showed 75 percent of 736 physicians surveyed in 50 states believe they are responsible for initiating ACP talks. But if they don't, a nonprofit, The Conversation Project, offers tips on how patients and family members can broach the subject, decide what they want to accomplish and ensure their plan is followed.

The Conversation Project, co-founded by author Ellen Goodman, implores people not to wait until there's a crisis.

"It always seems too early  until it's too late," say its guidelines, which also suggest: Tell your physician you want to talk about end-of-life wishes. Share any experiences that are shaping your thinking. Ask questions about medical problems, such as 'what is my life likely to look like six months from now, one year from now, five years from now?' Probe options for care and how they may affect your independence, and ask what you can expect if you do nothing. Request that your wishes be documented and included in your medical record.

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Overton, whose book "Hope for a Cool Pillow" is named after the simple but caring gesture of flipping a pillow for patients, grew up in a family where death and dying were discussed, she said, so she didn't realize it wasn't common until she became an anesthesiologist.

"I just want to get people talking, to take the fear out of it," said Overton, who works at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. "Having a conversation when you're not stressed  have a coffee, a lemonade, a glass of wine  those are ideal times.

"Typically, doctors don't know you as well as your family, your values, what you want. When family is part of the decision or knows what the individual wants, there is an element of empowerment. If people are clear about what they want, it's hard to override that, and physicians are more likely to get on board," she said.

Kay Manning is a freelancer.

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A view of the big hall of the Elbphilharmonie, where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will perform in January. (Christian Charisius / DPA)

Hamburg, Germany, will unveil its much-anticipated new concert hall in January, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be there to celebrate.

There's plenty of reason for jubilation. The task of building the Elbphilharmonie (www.elbphilharmonie.de/en)  nicknamed "Elphi"  was something close to herculean. The structure opens nearly a decade after construction started and six years after the initial scheduled completion date.

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The first concert is slated for Jan. 11.

While the construction time frame was longer than expected, so was the final bill. The Elbphilharmonie's cost came in at more than $900 million  well over the original budget.

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But a hefty price tag and delays can't detract from the splendor of the new classical music performance space. Designed by Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, the Elbphilharmonie sits on the banks of the Elbe River like an undulating crystal wave atop its base: a renovated brick warehouse. Its opalescent glass exterior towers 360 feet over the water, reflecting the 19th-century brick warehouses, docks and shipping cranes of the HafenCity district of Germany's second biggest city.

Inside the complex are 45 private apartments and a hotel. But the piece de resistance is the Elbphilharmonie's music auditoria: the Grand Hall, with seating for 2,100; the Recital Hall, accommodating 550; and the Kaistudio, seating 170.

An innovative "white skin" adds to the building's unique architecture, an advance widely touted as an acoustic game-changer. The crenelated membrane took two years to install and covers the interior walls and ceiling of the Grand Hall.

It is here in the Grand Hall that Music Director Riccardo Muti will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during sold-out performances Jan. 14 and 15, two of many concerts that make up a three-week-long grand opening musical festival.

The CSO visits Hamburg  one of Chicago's "sister cities"  as part of a two-week European tour that also includes stops in Paris and Milan, among other cities.

Amy S. Eckert is a freelance writer.

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With self-driving cars, hoverboards and cellphones in our pockets with more processing power than NASA needed to get to the moon, life in 2016 can sometimes feel like a science-fiction movie.

But just how far we have come has been laid bare by long-serving Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, who proudly revealed Monday that 18 years into her administration, everyone in her office has a computer. A whole computer, with a keyboard and everything.

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"Now everyone has a computer ... any place in the office, so you don't run to find a microfiche or open a filing cabinet," Pappas boasted at a City Club of Chicago lunch at Maggiano's. Perhaps stunned into silence by the march of technological progress, the audience had to be reminded to clap by Pappas, who added: "In two years there won't be any filing cabinets, so I want you to applaud that."

Pappas' speech also included a playful jab at her Greek ancestry ("How can you talk to someone who isn't listening?" she said of the Greek government), her claim that "I helped China set up their property tax system" and an intriguing blind item of sorts about an unidentified "finance minister of a very well-known country in Europe."

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Shown an online auction system by Pappas, the unnamed European finance minister told her, "We really don't need this  how do you steal with a system like that?" she said.

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Though she touted her use of technology to cut wait times and improve efficiency, she confessed to being confused about how to deliver her PowerPoint presentation because " they didn't tell me which button to push!"

A keen aficionado of aerial yoga  a form of yoga done hanging from a hammock  she eventually figured out how to show her audience an impressive photo of herself performing the "Giselle pose" while suspended from the ceiling.

"I'm 68 years old: Nothing frightens me," she said with a laugh.

It cannot have been fear, then, that sent her running from Chicago Inc. and CBS-Ch. 2 reporter Pam Zekman the moment she got off stage.

Gracefully bolting through the Maggiano's kitchen and out into a car waiting for her in the alley, Pappas showed herself to be just as limber in heels as in a leotard.

kjanssen@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kimjnews
Racial tensions in the Far Southwest Side's Mount Greenwood neighborhood were back in the news Tuesday, putting Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart in an awkward spot.

Dart  the 19th Ward's most prominent resident  was conspicuously quiet during the ugly clashes last month that followed the fatal shooting by police of 25-year-old Joshua Beal, who was black.

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At the time, Mayor Rahm Emanuel condemned what he called the "racially, culturally or ethnically tinged language" that saw Black Lives Matters protesters subjected to racial epithets and told they were "animals" who should "go home" by pro-police counterprotesters who drowned out their attempts to pray for peace in the overwhelmingly white neighborhood. But Dart at the time declined to comment about what was unfolding in the community he calls home.

The sheriff, who has mulled mayoral runs in the past and may yet harbor ambitions to replace Emanuel, has built support in the black community with his high-profile 2009 raid of the disgracefully mismanaged Burr Oak Cemetery and popular reforms of the Cook County Jail. But speaking out against the white protesters who squared off against Black Lives Matter would require him to criticize his neighbors.

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So Dart walked a tightrope Tuesday, after a lawsuit was filed by parents of two Marist High School seniors who say they were made "scapegoats" when they were expelled for being part of a racist text message group chat in the wake of Beal's killing. (One of the teens allegedly wrote "I F------ HATE N------" while the other allegedly agreed).

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Asked after an appearance at the City Club of Chicago alongside police Superintendent Eddie Johnson if his neighborhood, which is home to a large population of cops and firefighters, had a particular problem with racism, Dart said, "There's racism everywhere, there really is, and some of it is hidden more so than others, and it's horrible everywhere.

"You would think that at this point in our society that we'd be so far beyond that, but we're not. The only way to deal with that is through confronting it and educating people."

Dart pointed out that he started a hotline last week for hate crimes, although he said that was more in response to the fear of hate crimes against Muslims since the presidential election.

"It applies in my community, every community, you name it," he said. "It's horrible, everywhere, but I think we have to acknowledge that it is everywhere, from the most affluent communities, where I would suggest to you that it is very well hidden, to other communities where sometime it rises up more so.

"I don't know if there's been protests in other communities at different levels. I honestly don't know all of those dynamics. I do know what has come out there (in Mount Greenwood) is wrong. Racism everywhere is wrong. ... Is there some racism in my community, other communities? Yes there is, and it is all bad, and it's a horrible thing for children, particularly."

kjanssen@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kimjnews
Students arrive for school at the former Morgan Elementary School, 8407 S. Kerfoot Ave., on March 21, 2013, before its closing. A charter school group is interested in reopening the Gresham neighborhood school for at-risk students. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago Public Schools won't be advancing any plans for new privately operated schools this year after the sole remaining applicant for an additional charter campus abandoned an effort for a shuttered South Side building.

The application to open the Kemet Leadership Academy charter school at the site of the former Morgan Elementary School in the Gresham neighborhood was withdrawn on Friday, a district spokeswoman said.

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A group of the district's existing independent school operators are still set to have their contracts extended in a vote by the Chicago Board of Education on Wednesday.

That list includes nine charter operators that run 29 campuses, and a contract school operator, according to CPS. Those seeking five-year extensions through June 2022 are:

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The Chicago International Charter School; Catalyst Maria Charter School; KIPP Chicago Charter Schools; Legal Prep Charter Academy; The Montessori School of Englewood; Perspectives Charter Schools; and Polaris Charter Academy.

Those seeking three-year extensions through June 2020 are:

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Chicago Excel Academy; Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy Charter High School; and Providence Englewood Charter School.

In February, operators proposed opening 21 new privately run campuses in the city starting in the 2017-18 school year. Sixteen charter operators actually submitted letters of intent for the new campuses  including the Noble Network of Charter Schools, KIPP and Intrinsic Schools operators  but those letters didn't bind operators to open new schools.

By May, that number was already down: eight operators applied to open 13 campuses.

The bid for the Kemet charter school sought to transform a CPS building shuttered during the 2013 wave of school closings into an alternative campus for fifth- through eighth-grade boys who are at risk of dropping out.

With CPS schools competing for fewer students, charters are operating in a political environment altered by a new Chicago Teachers Union contract that puts a cap on charter growth. CPS officials have insisted charters can still grow within the framework of that deal.

jjperez@tribpub.com

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Chicago's top cop says he's personally upset by public perception that the city is overrun by murder and other violence, even as a deadly November pushed homicides overall here to the highest level in nearly two decades.

"The truth of the matter is Chicago is not out of control. There's certain parts of the city that we have to address the violence," Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Tuesday at a downtown City Club of Chicago breakfast. He and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told the room full of civic leaders and others gathered at Maggiano's restaurant that they continue to push for new legislation to toughen penalties for repeat gun offenders.

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Johnson's comments serve as pushback on President-elect Donald Trump's comments earlier this year, when he described violence in Chicago as "out of control" and said Chicago cops weren't being tough enough on crime.

While Johnson said, once again, that the state needs harsher penalties for repeat gun offenders, Dart said Cook County Jail detainees often tell him they're more concerned with being confronted unarmed on the street than being caught with a weapon by authorities.

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"Their greatest fear is being caught on the street without a gun," he said. "It's not that they'll get caught with a gun and then they gotta go to prison. It's that they'll be caught out there without a gun and they'll be the next dead person."

Johnson described his department as getting off to a "rocky start" this year because of the continued fallout from the Laquan McDonald shooting by Chicago police but said the department had "righted the ship" despite the skyrocketing number of homicides.

Chicago recently topped 700 homicides for the year, the first time in nearly two decades, with November homicides totaling 77, the worst for that month since 78 in 1994.

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"When you leave here today, I want you to burn into your memory 711," Johnson told the packed banquet room inside Maggiano's on West Grand Avenue. "Seven hundred and eleven people have been murdered in the city of Chicago to date. Seven hundred and eleven lives, 711 families that won't get to see their relatives for Christmas this year."

Both Johnson and Dart spoke of an upcoming partnership that will pair sheriff's officers with Chicago police officers, combining resources to combat certain crimes on the South and West sides. Johnson also said bringing in at least 350 new detectives over the next two years could help ease the strain within minorities communities, which he said were fed up with the shootings.

During a lighter moment, Johnson dismissed any suggestion that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had a heavy hand in the operations of the Police Department.

"It's funny to me because I didn't really know the mayor before I became superintendent  we didn't know each other like that. But I have to tell you all I've been pleasantly surprised because everywhere that I go, people that know him talk about the micromanager in him, and that may very well be true. But with me at CPD, he lets me run CPD, as he should," Johnson said.

"The mayor and I talk once or twice a week, maybe. So that right there should be an indication that he doesn't run CPD." Added Johnson: "If he wanted to run CPD, he could have been the superintendent," Johnson said to laughter from the breakfast audience. "But he charged me with that, and I'm doing the best that I can."

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wlee@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @MidNoirCowboy
Marie Dixon, widow of blues legend Willie Dixon, headed the Willie Dixon Blues Heaven Foundation and moved it into a new home in the historic Chess Records building on South Michigan Avenue.

Dixon also continued the work begun by her husband to secure the rights and royalties to his music for his family, and through the foundation worked to help other musicians get what they were due.

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"It's a different world now that she's not here," said blues musician and Chicago historian Paul Petraitis, who helped secure landmark status for the Chess building before it became the foundation's home. "She's been holding that Blues Heaven Foundation together, at least from my point of view."

Dixon, 79, died Nov. 20 in Franciscan Health Olympia Fields of complications of cancer, diabetes and other health problems, according to her granddaughter, Tomiko Dixon. She and her husband, who died in 1992, lived in California for many years. She returned to the Chicago area about eight years ago.

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Dixon was born Marie Booker in Oxford, Miss. She came to Chicago in the early 1950s, intending to study nursing.

She met Willie Dixon shortly after arriving in Chicago, and the two married not long after. Willie Dixon was one of a handful of blues musicians who shaped the Chicago blues sound. In addition to his playing and singing, he wrote a number of blues classics, including "Wang Dang Doodle," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Little Red Rooster" and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover."

In an interview she gave in 2013 as part of The HistoryMakers oral history collection, Dixon said her husband had a vision for a blues foundation. In the early 1980s, he established the organization as the Blues Heaven Foundation, a nonprofit designed to promote the blues and to provide scholarships, royalty recovery advice and emergency assistance to blues musicians in need.

In 1993, after her husband's death, Dixon purchased the Chess studios building at 2120 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago to house the Blues Heaven Foundation. She then went on to serve as the foundation's president. Through the efforts of Dixon, her late daughter Shirli and others, the Blues Heaven Foundation and museum finally moved into the restored Chess space in 1997.

A 1990 plaque marking the building's landmark status named Willie Dixon as among the iconic musicians who recorded there. Others included Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Chuck Berry. The Rolling Stones also recorded there in the 1960s, connecting with the Chicago blues sound that influenced their early music.

The Stones' just-released "Blue & Lonesome" album pays tribute to those blues roots. The final song on the album is Willie Dixon's "I Can't Quit You Baby."

In addition to his family with Marie, Dixon had another family with Elenor Franklin. Marie Dixon worked with the seven children of that family to recover rights and royalties to Willie Dixon's music.

"Things are pretty casual in the music business," Petraitis said. "Once a record gets cut, everybody forgets who the creators are and who did the work to make it happen."

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Beyond that, in the case of Dixon's music, a longtime manager positioned himself as the owner of much of the music, and Marie Dixon and her family had to go to court to recover their rights, according to Tomiko Dixon.

"She made a promise to my grandfather that she'd take care of all the family and keep the foundation alive," Tomiko Dixon said. "She held to her promise."

"Marie stood in the background and watched the whole music business through Willie's eyes," Petraitis said. "A variety of intellectual property cases were settled in Willie Dixon's favor."

In 2013, Marie Dixon was honored with the induction of the Willie Dixon Blues Heaven Foundation into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame. Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation provides an annual Muddy Waters Scholarship and an annual Willie Dixon Scholarship, each available to a full-time Chicago college student studying music, African-American studies, history, journalism or a related field.

Survivors include a daughter, Jacqueline; stepdaughters Elenoria Alao, Yvetta Dixon and Johnnie Dixon; stepsons Willie Franklin Dixon, Louis, Bobby and Freddy; and a large number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Services were held.

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Megan is a freelance reporter.
A police helicopter inspects an Illinois cornfield Oct. 13, 1975, near Marion Federal Penitentiary, where five inmates had escaped the day before. (Associated Press)

Forty years ago this month, five of the nastiest criminals in the country simply walked out of the maximum security federal prison in downstate Marion, Ill.

The five escapees were an awful bunch. Most notorious was Henry Gargano, serving a 199-year sentence for his part in a 1967 Northlake bank robbery where two police officers were killed and two others injured. Another escapee had killed an FBI agent. The other three thugs were in for bank robberies, assaults and kidnappings.

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Marion was the perfect place for such hard-core offenders. Its high-tech features  including a closed-circuit TV system manned from a state-of-the-art control center where every door could be opened and closed remotely  made it even "more escape proof than was Alcatraz," the Tribune reported. It was so foolproof there wasn't a guard tower outside the front door.

The convicts escaped the evening of Friday, Oct. 10, by making an electronic device in the prison's shop that tripped the locks. They waltzed out the front door and into the surrounding woods.

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The prison launched a massive manhunt, but the search was made difficult by the heavily forested area. "You could hide a herd of elephants in there," complained one officer.

Two days later the evil band terrorized an elderly couple in nearby Buncombe, Ill., stealing their guns and a car. With police in pursuit, they crashed the stolen vehicle, and one of them was captured. Two more were nabbed the next day after a lack of food and water made them careless, the Tribune reported. A day later, police caught Gargano 100 miles away in Bloomfield, Ind.

The fifth and final felon wasn't captured until Halloween day in Winnipeg, Canada. He had been suspected in the robbery of a cabbie on the South Side of Chicago on Oct. 20 and was caught after robbing a bookstore.

In 1981, the Tribune's Lynn Emmerman did a Magazine feature on the Marion prison and interviewed Gargano, who was then a "surprisingly pleasant-faced man with graying black hair, a narrow chin and green eyes that are quick to sparkle with laughter or thinly disguised contempt."

Gargano, whose life of crime started at age 14 in 1946 when he stole 136 pounds of butter from a grocery store, was unrepentant about the officers he killed. "When you get hit or you hit someone in a shootout, that's a fair confrontation, like in Vietnam. It can't be helped. ... I don't feel any remorse about those dead cops."

The two Northlake police officers he felt nothing for were husbands and fathers. Detective Sgt. John Nagle, 31, was married and had three sons, ages 9, 7 and 4. Patrolman Anthony Perri, 41, was married and had a 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.

Gargano boasted about his breakout attempt six years earlier, explaining that the prisoners planned the job for a year and waited until fall so an evening escape would be covered by darkness.

Gargano said "one of his cell block neighbors who worked in the prison's electrical shop put together a device that could simultaneously jam the guards' closed-circuit TV cameras and open the prison's three outermost grill doors. He and his four partners secretly managed to wire the device, which was activated by sound waves, into the prison's speaker system."

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Then they waited. Their opportunity came with a historical society lecture about labor conditions in Mexico in the visiting room near the lobby. They just walked out of the room. Nobody noticed.

"We activated the device by pushing the buzzer outside one of the grills for exactly 26 seconds," Gargano told Emmerman. "All three doors opened  it was beautiful. But something went wrong, and the guard's television didn't black out. He saw the doors open, freaked, and hit the emergency close. We were prepared for that. My electronics guy had wired the doors so the guard could stop them from opening farther, but he couldn't close them. The doors had opened only 14 inches before they froze.

"The guard saw us squeezing through them on his camera. He tried to signal the other guards, but then he got so excited, he was unintelligible. ... We walked right out the front door."

Shortly after the brazen escape, the warden said he would institute several safeguards, including:

replacing the electronically controlled locks on the front gates with mechanical locks,

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locking up the prison blueprints,

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forbidding prisoner meetings from being held in the visitors room,

installing a watchtower out the front door,

and no longer having prisoners make repairs to the lock system in the prison's mechanical services department.

Editor's note: Thanks to longtime Chicago TV journalist John Drummond for suggesting this Flashback. Drummond said Gargano was equally cold in talking about killing police officers when they communicated, and that that he bragged about the escape: "It was a Mission Impossible-type of caper, utilizing James Bond gadgetry, conceived by some of the most brilliant minds at Marion and executed by the most desperate."

sbenzkofer@tribpub.com

Twitter @sbenzkofer
This excerpt from video released to the public shows the most complete version of the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. It is edited for length by the Chicago Tribune. Warning: This video contains graphic images. (Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Tribune filed a lawsuit Monday against the Chicago Police Department, complaining that it had not received public records it requested nearly a year ago related to the police shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald.

The lawsuit said the Tribune filed a Freedom of Information Act request Dec. 17, 2015, seeking police employees' emails connected to the death of McDonald, who was shot 16 times in October 2014. Officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with murder in the case, which inspired widespread protests a year ago when video of the shooting was released.

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According to the lawsuit, the Police Department said the initial request by reporter Stacy St. Clair was "unduly burdensome." The Tribune scaled back its request twice and was told March 21 that it would receive 375 emails the next day, according to the suit. But they never arrived, the suit said.

An inquiry to the city's Law Department was referred to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, who released a short statement noting that the department "responds to thousands of public information requests each year," and the department added resources in the last year to respond to requests more quickly.

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The department "will work to produce these records as quickly as possible," Guglielmi said in the statement.

In June, the Tribune won a separate lawsuit against the Police Department in which the newspaper said police had failed to follow public records law. A Cook County judge ordered the department to produce emails from former police Superintendent Garry McCarthy's account.

The Tribune's new lawsuit seeks an order for immediate action to release the records and also asks for attorneys' fees.
Former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock talks to reporters Nov. 10, 2016, outside the Peoria Heights Village Hall. (Matt Dayhoff / AP)

WASHINGTON  Indicted ex-U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock has maintained his high-flying ways since quitting Congress in 2015, traveling to Jamaica, Peru, China, Hong Kong, Mexico and Canada, federal prosecutors said in a new court filing.

Prosecutors detailed Schock's travel in an effort to refute his argument that a Springfield trial would be inconvenient and costlier for him. Schock is asking that the case be moved to Peoria, where defense attorneys said he has lived for more than 25 years.

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In the late Monday filing, prosecutors noted Springfield is only about 73 miles from Peoria and that Schock "does not complain" about his extensive foreign and domestic travel. The motion also noted that Schock's criminal trial could last four to six weeks. Prosecutors said they are ready to call about 100 government witnesses: 56 from outside Illinois, 28 from Peoria and 16 from other places in the state.

Schock, 35, is scheduled to be in U.S. District Court in Springfield on Monday, his first appearance since a grand jury indicted him on 24 felony counts. The Nov. 10 indictment alleges the Peoria Republican used money from his campaign funds and $1 million-plus House budget to bankroll a lavish lifestyle.

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Schock's attorneys late last month said the case "has virtually no connection to Springfield" and called Peoria more convenient and appropriate, while also citing the number of witnesses from Peoria.

In their motion, prosecutors assailed Schock and his lawyers for statements made just before the indictment was made public. They singled out Schock's assertion during a news conference that "our federal criminal justice system is broken and too often driven by politics instead of facts."

They also pointed to Schock's defense lawyer saying the indictment amounted to "made-up allegations of criminal activity." Prosecutors said the remarks were "unfounded, inadmissible and highly inflammatory," and a "direct appeal to potential jurors."

The prosecutors also asked the judge to restrict the parties in the case from talking about the matter outside of the realm of the court proceeding.

In addition to his many overseas trips, prosecutors also said the former lawmaker has traveled "extensively" throughout the U.S., singling out trips to Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami and the nation's capital.

Schock has gone back to real estate development, working with a firm involved in "large hospitality projects," according to a spokesman for his top defense lawyer, George Terwilliger.

Separately, the judge handling the case on Tuesday ordered that a key witness, Jonathan Link, Schock's former photographer and videographer, be represented by J. Steven Beckett with the Beckett & Webber firm in Urbana.

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Link, while with Schock, was paid both with taxpayer money and campaign cash. He is not identified by name in the indictment. It is not unusual in major cases for material witnesses to be represented by counsel.

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The indictment, though, alleged that Schock fraudulently obtained House reimbursements for $29,000 in camera equipment used by the lawmaker and his political and Capitol Hill aides.

False invoices for submission to the House were dummied up, the photographer was reimbursed and he made "direct payments to Defendant Schock's personal credit card for the camera equipment purchase," the indictment said. Schock had used a personal credit card for the original purchase, the indictment said.

In an email to the Tribune, Beckett said he is being paid by the government to represent Link under a program that enlists private lawyers to represent indigent clients.

Schock faces nine counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud, one count of theft of government funds, two counts of making false statements, five counts of filing false reports with federal election officials and six counts of filing false tax returns.

kskiba@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @KatherineSkiba
Surveillance photos of a man who demanded money from a worker at a TCF Bank branch, 4107 S. Archer Ave. on Dec. 5, 2016, then refused to take the money when it was offered, according to the FBI. (FBI)

A man tried to rob a Garfield Ridge neighborhood bank in a grocery store late Monday morning but refused to take the money, according to the FBI.

The man went into the TCF Bank branch, 6107 S Archer Ave., around 11:45 a.m., and tried to rob it, threatening employees by saying he had a weapon, according to the FBI.

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But when a bank employee tried to give the man money, the robber refused to take it and "abruptly" walked out of the bank, according to FBI spokesman Special Agent Garrett Croon.

The robber was described as a black man in his mid-30s, about 5-foot-8 and about 180 pounds. He was wearing a red hooded sweatshirt with black sleeves and a stylized picture of a native american wearing a headdress, work gloves, safety glasses, a black knit hat, jeans and had a Motorola radio on his left shoulder, according to BanditTrackerChicago.com.

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Anyone with information is asked to call the Chicago office of the FBI at 312-421-6700.

Earlier versions of this story gave an incorrect address for the bank.
Chicago police Sgt. James Padar, left, Chicago police Officer William Pruente, center, and former Glenview patrol Officer James Horn face perjury and official misconduct charges. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Were they honest mistakes? Or were they lies?

The perjury trial of three Chicagoland police officers that began Monday hinges on that question in a case that reopens the community's wounds about judicial fairness and trust in law enforcement.

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And, as often is the case these days, there is video.

The June 2013 arrest of a suspected drug dealer in Glenview is, by itself, not noteworthy. But months later, when officers detailed the sequence of events at a court hearing, their own words betrayed them.

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The arrested man's lawyer, unbeknownst to the officers, had dashboard camera video from one of the Glenview police cars. The officers' testimony did not line up with the video. The man, James Sperling, is seemingly handcuffed swiftly, not after officers discovered a black canvas bag packed with cannabis inside the car.

So when the three men described the sequence of events, did they simply fumble the specifics of the encounter? Or did they streamline their account to ensure the defendant could not claim his constitutional rights were violated?

The officers, Chicago police Sgt. James Padar and Officer William Pruente and former Glenview patrol Officer James Horn, face perjury and official misconduct charges for their alleged conduct at the court hearing. Padar and Pruente also are charged with obstruction of justice.

The charges arise from the officers' testimony during a March 31, 2014, hearing at the Skokie courthouse to quash the arrest. Pruente testified he smelled marijuana in Sperling's car, justifying his decision to order him out of his car. Police found a bag containing about a pound of marijuana inside.

But Sperling's lawyer, Steven Goldman, produced a video from a Glenview squad car that showed Pruente immediately opened the driver's door and arrested Sperling. Circuit Judge Catherine Haberkorn suppressed the stop and arrest.

Lawyers for the men say the officers simply messed up, jumbling the order of what happened.

To the Cook County state's attorney's office, itself the subject of scrutiny for the way it has handled the case, the officers' conduct is clear-cut.

"It was a complete fabrication, from start to finish, in its entirety," prosecutor John Brassil said. The officers' behavior, Brassil said, "calls into question the fairness of the judicial process" and leads people to believe the system is broken.

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Cook County Circuit Court Judge Matthew Coghlan ultimately will decide in the bench trial, which resumes Wednesday.

The soundless video of the encounter was played for Coghlan on Monday evening as the three defendants, lawyers and their families watched in the pin-drop quiet courtroom.

Earlier, the judge heard testimony from one of the assistant state's attorneys who handled the pretrial hearing and the Glenview officer whose squad-car video became the center of the case.

Former sergeant Theresa Urbanowski brushed away tears as she called her former co-worker Horn "one of the most honest" officers she's known.

"He's an incredible officer, and I have no doubt he made exactly the same mistakes in court that day that I did," Urbanowski said. Urbanowski was able to correct her testimony after the video was shown while she was still on the stand. She said Monday she erred when recalling what happened during the Sperling arrest.

"Did you believe you were telling the truth?" Pruente's lawyer Colleen Daly asked.

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"Absolutely," Urbanowski said. She left the courtroom in tears.

Lawyers for the accused say prosecutors must prove the men intentionally lied about a fact relevant about the case.

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Another Chicago police officer involved in the case, Vince Morgan, pleaded guilty in September to a misdemeanor count of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to a year of probation.

This trial comes weeks after Cook County prosecutors dropped charges against the men in a previous trial because the indictment had been brought under an out-of-date state statute. Prosecutors refiled the charges using the appropriate law.

Horn's lawyer is Dan Herbert, who also is representing Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who is charged with murder in the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Herbert is a former Chicago police officer and assistant state's attorney. He attempted to shift the focus of the case onto prosecutors for failing to realize there was dashcam video in the case and not properly preparing the officers for testimony.

"This was a sad day for a proud office," Herbert said. "This was a simple case botched by the state's attorney's office."

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The officers are accused of a practice that some defense attorneys consider so widespread in Cook County that they have a word for it  "testilying," a reference to perjury by police, particularly in drug cases.

poconnell@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @pmocwriter
An instructor for the state Department of Motor Vehicles is accused of sexually abusing a woman while she was taking the driving portion of her license test.



Prosecutors say Joshua Atwater, 29, accosted the 32-year-old woman after the two drove from the DMV office at 9901 S. King Drive on Nov. 10.

After scrolling through pictures of the woman on her cellphone, Atwater instructed her to drive into an alley less than half a mile away near 10037 S. Vernon Ave., according to prosecutors.



Atwater told her to park, then he held her against the seat while abusing her, prosecutors said. The woman was able to push him off, and Atwater told her she "should want to make a friend and not an enemy," according to a statement from prosecutors.



They returned to the DMV office, and Atwater told her she had passed the test, prosecutors said. The woman then went to police.



Atwater was charged with criminal sexual abuse after DNA samples were taken from him. Prosecutors said the woman identified Atwater as the attacker, and DMV logs showed he was the woman's instructor that day.



Bail of $100,000 was set for Atwater, of the 400 block of West North Avenue. His attorney, Frank Himel, said his client is a 2010 graduate of Alabama A&M and currently has no job.
Roosevelt University announced Monday that it would receive a $25 million donation, the largest gift in its 71-year history.

The money comes from one of the university's first donors, a Chicago family that continued to give to the private university for decades. It will be used to fund $1.2 million in student scholarships a year.

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"It is a very significant impact for our students," Roosevelt University President Ali Malekzadeh said. "You always want to keep the tuition as low as possible and the university as affordable as possible. What this will do is allow us to not increase our tuition as much because there's scholarship money available. My guess is hundreds of students will benefit from the Cohn family's generosity."

Rosaline Cohn and her daughter, Marcia S. Cohn, bequeathed money to Roosevelt in their wills, Malekzadeh said. Rosaline died in 2010, passing along her estate to Marcia, who died in December 2015.

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University leaders have spent the past year confirming the terms of Marcia Cohn's will, Malekzadeh said. Roosevelt expects to receive about one-third of the money later this month, and the rest by March. Malekzadeh said the scholarships will begin next fall.

The university's previous largest gift was $5 million from alumna Florence Miner.

The Cohn family has a long history with Roosevelt.

Jacob Cohn, Rosaline's husband, was one of the university's first benefactors, giving $200 soon after the school opened in 1945. He then gave $100 a year until 1957, when he increased his gifts to $500 a year, university officials said. He died in 1968.

Rosaline continued to donate to Roosevelt, giving $500,000 to launch the Jacob and Rosaline Cohn Scholarship Fund in the 1980s, Malekzadeh said.

The latest gift builds on that fund, and will be renamed in honor of the entire Cohn family, Malekzadeh said.

In 1984, Rosaline Cohn explained her reasons for wanting to support the university.

"I am interested in people, rather than causes," Cohn said in a letter to the university. "I would like to contribute to the areas of education and science which will help to improve the quality of life for the younger and older generations  not in the abstract  but in a positive and practical way."

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Jacob Cohn, an immigrant from Lithuania, founded Continental Coffee Co. in Chicago in 1915, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. Cohn started the company when he was 19, selling coffee to local restaurants. The company expanded its reach nationally by the 1940s, with annual sales of about $1 million. During the next few decades, and under direction of his sons, it grew into a multimillion-dollar business and then a billion-dollar enterprise.

The family also has given gifts to several other organizations throughout the city.

The groundbreaking gift to Roosevelt comes as the university has battled shaky finances in recent years and has had concerns with financial aid.

A 2015 Tribune investigation found the school borrowed heavily to construct the university's $123 million bluish-green tower on South Wabash Avenue. University leaders predicted the campus would have a $40 million boost in annual tuition revenue to cover the cost of the 32-story facility. Tuition grew only about $5 million, and now the school is saddled with burgeoning debt payments.

Several students also told the Tribune they were given unreliable financial aid estimates when they were accepted  figures that changed once they enrolled. Others said they were told they owed money and were asked to leave the school. Malekzadeh acknowledged school officials had not done enough to help some students and issued a formal apology.

drhodes@chicagotribune.com

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Valerie Jean Percy, 21, was found beaten and stabbed to death in her bed on Sept. 18, 1966, at her family's mansion in Kenilworth. The killing remains unsolved 50 years later. (Kasondra Van Treeck / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

Thousands of pages of police records related to the 50-year-old slaying of Valerie Percy  along with crime scene and autopsy photos  will remain under wraps after a judge ruled Tuesday that the investigation of the 1966 crime remains active.

"This court is convinced beyond any doubt this is an ongoing, active investigation," Cook County Judge Anna Helen Demacopoulos said in announcing her ruling. The release of any of the documents related to the Kenilworth killing would "jeopardize the investigation" and "thwart the efforts" of authorities, she said.

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The killing of the 21-year-old woman in her lakefront home on Sept. 18, 1966  weeks before her wealthy businessman father Charles Percy was elected to the U.S. Senate  has endured as one of the Chicago area's most mysterious unsolved crimes.

Most of the tens of thousands of pages of records related to the case have remained under seal, but the judge's ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed by an out-of-state attorney who argued that, 50 years after the fact, it's time for those documents to see the light of day.

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Matthew Topic, the attorney for plaintiff John Q. Kelly, said he still believes "the law is in our favor" and that an appeal is likely.

Officials from the village of Kenilworth and several other law enforcement agencies have fought the request to release the records, arguing that it could compromise what they describe as a still-vital investigation.

Valerie's twin sister Sharon Percy Rockefeller, wife of former U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, also opposed the release of some of the medical examiner's records, arguing such a move would violate her family's privacy.

In ruling that the investigation remains active, Demacopoulos cited a court filing from the Cook County state's attorney's office indicating that, in 2014, officials created a Percy homicide task force whose members include a special agent from the FBI.

The judge's written ruling also referenced the recent work of a forensic scientist who was assigned to the case in 2000.

Demacopoulos also said that granting Kelly's request for documents would "open a floodgate of (Freedom of Information Act) requests for uncharged crimes."

"That's not the purpose of FOIA," she added.

Demacopoulos did order the release by the Cook County medical examiner's office of records from the Percy inquest, though that has been in the public realm since shortly after slaying took place.

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But the judge, a former Cook County prosecutor, withheld crime-scene and autopsy photos, and the toxicology report on Valerie Percy's remains, calling those materials "critical to Kenilworth's ongoing investigation."

Kenilworth also successfully argued that it has made use of "modern technology and forensic testing that was not available in 1966," the judge wrote.

Valerie Percy was beaten and stabbed to death in her bed. Her stepmother had said she woke in the middle of the night and briefly saw an intruder standing over Valerie's bed before the man fled.

Various theories have been advanced over the years as to who might have committed the crime, and several suspects are dead by now, but investigators never publicly named, arrested or charged anyone. Charles Percy, who served in the U.S. Senate for 18 years, died in 2011, never to see his daughter's slaying solved.

The investigation has ebbed and flowed over the years, according to a police summary in court records. From 1966 until about 1969, the probe was very active, with almost 1,200 leads checked. After that, the level of activity declined until it reached only a few new leads each year.

Because of Kenilworth's inexperience with such crimes  the tiny North Shore community had less than 3,000 residents at the time and virtually no violent crime  the Illinois State Police took over the investigation 11 days after the death. Eventually, state police handed the case, along with its entire investigative file, back to the village in 2002.

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When police have received new leads in the case, or when people have stepped forward claiming to be the perpetrator, "we have been able to verify or discount the value of these leads by comparing them to confidential information in our Investigation file," Kenilworth Police Chief David Miller wrote in a sworn statement to the court.

The chief added that "pieces of information and evidence may seem unconnected but later take on unanticipated significance." Much of the chief's summary of the investigation to the judge, including details of any recent leads, was blacked out from public view.

Kelly, the New York City attorney who sued for the records after his FOIA request was denied, has said he was always curious about the case, having grown up in nearby Glencoe. He has argued that transparency would provide public oversight into the failed investigation.

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Topic, Kelly's attorney, has argued that Miller's summary of the investigation, though released by the judge, was so heavily blacked out that it shed little light on the case.

To demonstrate that the investigation is ongoing, Christopher Murdoch, an attorney for Kenilworth, noted that the village had requested a lab test in the case earlier this year  though Topic questioned whether that was done in response to the request for records.

Village attorneys cited other cases in which records were kept secret even decades after a crime, such as in the 1975 disappearance of union leader Jimmy Hoffa. But in some other cases, authorities have released information to the public which helped crack the case, such as the nearly 18-year hunt for Unabomber Ted Kaczynski before his arrest in 1996.

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The judge in the Percy case also said Tuesday that the Cook County medical examiner's office took "inconsistent and baffling positions" in the case, noting it has alternately said it would go along with other agencies in fighting the release of the records but then indicating some would be released. The village of Kenilworth had filed an emergency motion to stop the medical examiner's office from releasing records the village had shared with it as part of its ongoing probe.

Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter; Robert McCoppin is a Tribune reporter.

rmccoppin@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RobertMcCoppin
After much fanfare from Chicago aldermen over the righteousness of tearing down President-elect Donald Trump's honorary street signs, city workers quietly removed the placards over the weekend.

A city sign shop crew pulled down the remaining two street signs on Wabash Avenue near Trump Tower at 8 a.m. Sunday, according to Chicago Department of Transportation spokesman Michael Claffey. A third Trump sign was stolen months ago.

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The City Council voted a week before the Nov. 8 presidential election to take down the signs, citing the "caricature" of Chicago that Trump presented during the campaign through his frequent mentions of the city as a place overrun with violent crime. Aldermen also knocked Trump's pledge to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally in voting to take away the street sign honor.

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, who sponsored the plan to remove the signs, said city officials had not informed him they were going to take them down, as they had promised to do. Reilly floated the idea before the election of possibly melting down the Trump signs to refashion them into signs "for somebody who deserves an honor."

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Since Trump won the election, some aldermen have wondered whether it would be smart to antagonize the president-elect by making a big deal out of ripping down the signs.

Claffey said he was looking into what had become of the signs, which hung on light poles at Wabash and Hubbard Street and at Wabash and Illinois Street.

Still up across the street at Wabash and Hubbard is an honorary street sign for Barbara T. Bowman, an early childhood education expert who is the mother of White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday made his latest announcement on the immigrant rights front: a task force that will create a website.

The "Chicago Is With You" group will be led by three Illinois Democrats who've been vocal about President-elect Donald Trump's threats to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally: the mayor, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Chicago and Sen. Dick Durbin of Springfield. The group will work to set up a website that will serve as a clearinghouse of sorts for information about immigration resources.

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The site also will try to connect so-called Dreamers  those who benefited from President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that offered legal protection to about 742,000 people who were brought to the U.S. as children and stayed here illegally  with volunteers who will try to get them information about their immigration status and other questions, according to a news release from the mayor's office.

Task forces often are ways for public officials to try to prove to constituents they are taking a problem seriously. This one will "collaborate on mental health, legal services, diversity training for employers, and education to ensure the city is delivering comprehensive services to immigrant, refugees and other disenfranchised communities," according to the news release.

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Emanuel has shown a singular focus on publicizing his efforts to stand against Trump on the immigration issue. Joining other mayors in "sanctuary cities" with large immigrant populations around the U.S., Emanuel has promised to protect immigrants from deportation.

On Monday, the mayor revealed that he had spoken to Trump a couple of weeks ago and said he was "upfront, honest" with the president-elect about what he thinks is important, including the fact that Chicago is a sanctuary city "and there's a reason it's a sanctuary city."

Two weeks ago, Emanuel hung around at the City Council meeting after more pressing business was finished to join aldermen in a one-sided discussion in favor of a nonbinding resolution reaffirming the city's status as a safe haven for people in the country illegally.

And the morning after Trump's victory, Emanuel took the rare step of giving a speech at the start of a council meeting to point to the multicultural slate of politicians who won election in Illinois in November as evidence of the strength of the immigrant ideals he said gives the area its vitality.

The mayor also appeared with Gutierrez following the election. Speaking directly to people "nervous and filled with anxiety" because of Trump's win, Emanuel said, "You are safe in Chicago, you are secure in Chicago and you are supported in Chicago."

For Emanuel, moves like creating the task force make political sense given his rocky relationship with Latinos on immigration issues. In the Obama White House, Emanuel advised against pursuing immigration reform in the first year, having once called it the "third rail of politics." In the Clinton White House, Emanuel suggested hard-line immigration policies to achieve "record deportations of criminal aliens."

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
ROME  Calls mounted rapidly Monday from populist and other opposition leaders for quick elections in Italy, seeking to capitalize on Premier Matteo Renzi's humiliating defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms.



The president, though, told Renzi to stay in office a bit longer until a critical budget law is passed. Some officials say Parliament could pass that law as soon as the end of the week.



"With the referendum vote, the Italians have expressed a clear political signal  the desire to go as soon as possible to elections," wrote Vito Crimi and Danilo Toninelli, two of the top leaders of the populist, anti-euro, 5-Star Movement in a piece accompanying the blog of Movement founder, comic Beppe Grillo.



Barely an hour after the referendum was resoundingly rejected Sunday by voters, Renzi announced he would keep his promise to quit if the measures fail to win popular muster.



With the defeat plunging Europe's fourth-largest economy into political and economic uncertainty, and financial markets seeking reassurances, President Sergio Mattarella asked Renzi to hold off on leaving until the budget legislation is passed.



Renzi called on Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace Monday evening and told the head of state it was not possible to continue in his post, after putting the fate of his nearly three-year-old center-left government on the line in the referendum vote and losing, a palace statement said.



But, in a decision widely expected, Mattarella told Renzi "to delay his resignation until that task (of the budget law) is completed."



Mattarella can ask someone else to try to form a government and work with the same Parliament, at least for a few months. Renzi's squabbling Democrats are the biggest party in the legislature, which could lead the president to tap someone from the Democratic Party fold.



But Renzi, as head of the party, could very well decide that early elections are the best course, to avoid the risk of angering the electorate by delaying, ventured Mario Calabresi, editor and commentator at La Repubblica daily.



Demands mounted from opposition parties, eager to capitalize on Renzi's political misfortunes, for elections to be called far ahead of the spring 2018 due date. Former three-time Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the center-right leader, was among them.



"We are certain that the president of the republic will know how to pinpoint the most correct solution to assure Italians ... the possibility to vote and finally choose, after three non-elected governments," Berlusconi said.



Berlusconi himself was forced to resign in 2011 amid growing international concern over Italy's sovereign debt crisis and was replaced by economist Mario Monti, without elections. After Monti's government unraveled, a Democrat, Enrico Letta, was appointed. Renzi, as the Democratic Party leader, used party maneuvering to push Letta out of office and take the premiership for himself in February 2014.



Angling to gain national power for the first time are the 5-Stars, who did well in mayoral races earlier this year, including winning City Hall in Rome, Italy's capital.



Grillo himself can't hold office because of a manslaughter conviction arising from an auto accident.



Also energized by Renzi's debacle is the anti-immigrant Northern League, whose leader has allied himself with far-right figures in Europe including France's Marine Le Pen, head of the National Front.



Northern League leader Matteo Salvini called for an immediate election this winter "because real change happens only through electoral victory."



While Italy's opposition parties were united in antipathy for Renzi's policies and reform course, they have little else in common and have already begun vying to position themselves for eventual campaigning for Parliament.



Since the Italian president tries to ensure Parliament can carry out its full five-year term, analysts expect that Mattarella will appoint a transition government to draft a new election law that could satisfy parties worried the way the rules now stand, their forces might be at a disadvantage.



Among the names touted to head it are Renzi's finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan; the president of the Senate, former anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso; and Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.



European partners sought to downplay the risk for the common euro currency and European unity.



"This is a crisis of government, not a crisis of state, and it's not the end of the West. But it's certainly not a positive contribution against the backdrop of the crisis in Europe," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Athens.



Investors had been anticipating Renzi's defeat for several days, and had sold off Italian stocks and bonds. Monday's sanguine market reaction can also be attributed to the fact that Italy's markets indirectly enjoy a big backstop from the European Central Bank.

Associated Press
Jared Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump, right, and son-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump, walks through the lobby of Trump Tower on Nov. 18, 2016 in New York City. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump's son-in-law co-directs a family foundation that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish settlement organizations in the West Bank, according to tax records.

Trump has said Jared Kushner, who serves as a close adviser, could help negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The donations by Kushner's parents' foundation could complicate his ability to be an impartial broker.

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The Israeli daily Haaretz on Monday first reported the donations by the family foundation, which Kushner and his siblings direct with their parents.

The U.S. and most of the international community consider settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem to be illegal or illegitimate and obstacles to peace. The Palestinians seek both territories, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for their hoped-for state.

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But Trump has signaled he may alter decades of U.S. policy. The Republican Party's platform rejected "the false notion" that Israel is an occupier, and an adviser to Trump on Israel affairs has said Trump does not perceive settlements, home to roughly 600,000 Israelis, to be an impediment to peace.

According to tax records, the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation donated at least $38,000 between 2011 and 2013 to the American Friends of Bet El Yeshiva, the fundraising arm of a Jewish seminary in Beit El, a West Bank settlement.

The Beit El Yeshiva Center is associated with Arutz Sheva, also known as Israel National News, a news organization affiliated with the Jewish settler movement.

On Tuesday, a manager at the seminary declined to comment about the Kushner family's donations and asked a visiting team of Associated Press journalists to leave.

In 2012 and 2013, the Kushner family foundation donated a total of $15,000 to the Etzion Foundation, which operates three Orthodox Jewish study institutions in West Bank settlements. In 2011, the family donated $5,000 to Ohr Torah Stone, an Orthodox Jewish educational institution in the West Bank settlement of Efrat.

The family also donated at least $298,600 to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, an organization that runs educational and cultural programs for Israeli soldiers, between 2010 and 2012, according to the tax records.

The organizations are registered as non-profits in the U.S. and charitable contributions to them are both legal and tax exempt.

Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for the Kushner companies, declined to comment on the donations to West Bank settlement groups. "Charles and Seryl Kushner are extremely generous and have given away over $100 million to charitable causes including hospitals, schools, non-profits and religious institutions," Heller said.

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The donations are a small part of the Kushner's philanthropic activities. The family has also donated to Israeli hospitals, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and cultural institutions like the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and a leading Israeli art school.

But to Palestinians, the donations have added to fears that the Trump administration will not be sympathetic to their cause.

"If anyone was foolish enough to believe that a Trump administration might succeed in negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, this is further evidence of their delusions," said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian political analyst and former adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Associated Press
Betty Goldstein shows off a collection of scarves at her store We'll Keep You in Stitches in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood on Sept. 23, 2003.. (Alex Garcia / Chicago Tribune)

Entering Betty Goldstein's needlepoint and knitting shop in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood was instant therapy for countless customers craving the camaraderie that comes with doing something you love in the company of like-minded people.

Goldstein's shop, We'll Keep You in Stitches, nestled on the fourth floor of a building at 67 E. Oak St., was a meeting place for all types of people, from all walks of life, who came to knit, needlepoint, sit in circles and chat.

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It's where customers could purchase from a slew of supplies and materials stuffed into cubbyholes lining the walls, and one-of-a-kind craft items created by Goldstein.

"She was so talented and one of the most gracious, gallant and gorgeous ladies I've ever known," said friend Susan Mednick. "She was fun and engaging. She loved her customers and they loved her."

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Goldstein, 86, died of natural causes on Nov. 21 at Evanston Hospital. She had closed her shop in June for health reasons after more than 50 years in business.

For many, Goldstein's shop was a weekly if not a daily destination, where skills were sharpened and friendships were forged.

"She was wonderful at bringing people together," Mednick said. "That's what made her shop so unique."

Born Betty Lavin in Chicago, Goldstein was the youngest of seven children and a graduate of Marshall Metropolitan High School on the West Side. When she was 20 she married Ernest Goldstein, who died in 2011.

While raising her family, Goldstein earned a bachelor's degree in education from Roosevelt University and taught children living in public housing on the West Side, prior to starting her business.

Goldstein's children were getting older and she began looking around for something to do. With the help of her sister and sister-in-law, she began making needlepoint and knit items and selling them from out of her basement.

"At first, it was mostly her friends stopping by," said her daughter Susan Feuer. "But then word spread, and a lot more people came. That's when she began looking for a bigger space."

Goldstein operated her business out of a small storefront in Rogers Park for a couple of years, before moving to Oak Street in the early 1970s. She started giving free needlepoint and knitting lessons to customers, while continuing to make her own creations, which could take months to complete.

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"I make a lot of coats here, a lot of jackets," Goldstein told WBBM-Ch. 2, during an interview in her shop in 2014. "I'm always knitting something, and it seems to be that whatever I knit, people want."

"Betty was a role model, whose generosity had no bounds," Mednick said. "It was never about her. It was always about everybody else."

Other survivors include another daughter, Carol Kahn; a son, Robert; five grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

Services were held.

Joan Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.
We need to talk about a haircut. Also about identity, and hatred, and maybe about the total end of American civilization  but first about a haircut.

You have seen it. It is short on the sides and long on the top. It is clean and tidy, with a military sheen. It's been popular among young people for several years. But now this haircut is making us ask ourselves, with seriousness that seems unthinkable in 2016: hipster or Nazi?

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Young city-dwelling men leaving their SoulCycle classes in leftover "I'm With Her" T-shirts.

Young white-nationalism enthusiasts leaving a recent conference in Washington, D.C., where several of them performed a Nazi salute.

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A newly released video shows some people in a group doing the Hitler salute and yelling "Hail Trump!" after listening to a speech about white nationalism given by Richar Spencer in Washington D.C. Spencer runs the National Policy Institute, a self-described "alt-right" think tank. Nov. 21, 2016. (CBS Miami)

The same haircut. The exact same haircut.

In the 1930s, Nazis distinguished themselves by wearing swastikas, an easily identifiable marker that made their odious politics clear. The only defining look of today's white nationalists  a movement that seeks to form a whites-only state  is the haircut, so popular that the leader of one nationalist group tweets under the handle "Fashy Haircut," short for "fascist." And there's nothing inherently wrong with the haircut  as noted, lots of other guys are wearing it these days too. But that's what makes it scary.

For the past half-decade, the haircut, when worn by hipsters, has been known jokingly as the "Hitler Youth," at least according to a 2011 New York Times fashion article, because of its resemblance to the style popular during Germany's Third Reich. That off-color nickname, one assumes, started in a different political climate, when it seemed we could be a bit cavalier and ironic with such terminology. Back before we started seeing the haircut on literal white nationalists.

Promoters of white nationalism  or the "alt-right," as some call it  are coming out of the woodwork now. They say they have been emboldened by Donald Trump's various calls to ban Muslim immigration in this country and deport millions of undocumented Latin Americans. They have a leader in a man named Richard Spencer, who wears the haircut along with his three-piece Brooks Brothers suits. It's Hitler Youth rebranded as Hitler Yuppie  an insidious way to blend in.

"I posted on Facebook yesterday that it's probably time to think about getting rid of my haircut," says Joseph Phelan, a community organizer and anti-racism activist who lives in Brooklyn and acquired the haircut several years ago at an old-fashioned barber shop. Phelan read a profile on Spencer and was dismayed to learn his haircut is fondly if ironically referred to by many wearers as a "fashy."

White-nationalism advocate Richard Spencer. (Linda Davidson, The Washington Post)

Phelan thinks it's useful for white nationalists to sport a costume of sorts, so that they might be recognized by the rest of the population. He knows that being upset about a haircut is really being upset about their insidious infiltration into society. "I really wish they would get off my haircut, and get off my people."

The style has its origins in Victorian England, when it was worn by young hooligans known as "scuttlers," but is most commonly affiliated with the Nazi youth movement of the 1930s and '40s. Adolf Hitler had a version of it  with a floppy, greasy forelock  and so did his close associate Heinrich Himmler, and so did any young man in a Hitler Youth recruitment poster. Apparently, soldiers requested it because it eased the wearing and removing of their helmets. Flash-forward 70-plus years and there were a whole bunch of those haircuts together at the recent conference of Spencer's National Policy Institute, worn by men who feel their whiteness has been infringed upon by the "cultural Marxism" of the Americas:

There's an ironic issue with these men wearing this haircut: Since its long-ago heyday, it has been claimed by others, who are not at all connected to a fascist worldview. Quite the opposite. Beginning around 2010 or 2011, it became the haircut of Macklemore, the Seattle rapper. It became the haircut of several cast members of "Glee," as well as David Beckham.

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The haircut that long ago appealed to the Nazis became, more recently, the choice of fashionable young liberal men, gay and straight. Celebrities sent their high-and-tights, as they called their haircuts, around the globe, spawning a generation of imitators and obligatory trend pieces, which noted in 2011 that it had become the preferred cut for the well-coiffed, well-clad, crunchy cosmopolitan.

Macklemore attends the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sept. 20, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nev. (David Becker, Getty Images for Clear Channel)

Former soccer player David Beckham watches a game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden in February 2014. (Rich Schultz, Getty Images)

This is not the first instance of a trademark coiffure that spans political divides. Angry racist skinheads and earnest, lefty straight-edge punks have looked similar for decades. Bushy beards can either signify an artisanal pickler or arsenal-holding survivalist. In this instance, what's ironic is that the men in white nationalism circles are sporting a hairstyle that's already been repurposed in the 21st century by young people whose ethos is radical safe-space inclusiveness, not ethnophobic separatism with eugenic undertones.

And it's probably no coincidence. When these groups look and dress like everyone else, it is easier for their extremism to look outwardly normal.

"We call them 'nipsters'  neo-Nazi hipsters," says Long Nguyen, the co-founder of style magazine Flaunt, using a term that became popular in a 2014 Rolling Stone article. "It's really important for them to make inroads into young people's culture, in order to expand their base. It's a lot easier to do that when they're stealing the look of a familiar hipster style."

Nguyen says he first noticed this trend in Germany about a decade ago, when young white nationalists were dressing as hipsters, but also as metal heads and hip-hop aficionados. "It's a little scary."

Until a few weeks ago, you saw a man with that haircut and assumed he might be a good person to hit on, or to buy small-batch beer from, or to ask the whereabouts of the nearest bicycle shop. Now you see him and wonder if he's trying to deport half the nation.

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As one hipster wearer of the haircut noted, exasperatedly, on Twitter:

When the Hitler Youth haircut is actually for literal Hitler Youths again so you start planning your mullet.  Scott  (@scott_riley) November 22, 2016

We say this is the wrong attitude. Let's just make the white nationalists get a different haircut  so the rest of us can identify them. We even have a few recommendations:

The Dorothy Hamill wedge cut. No one's really worn it since 1980, so it's all yours.

The double man bun. We really just want to create a taboo around this look.

The Rachel. Remember how every teenage girl in the '90s wanted to look like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends"? Nazis, you may now have it.

The Trump. The president-elect remains the only practitioner of this hairstyle, which has been described many different ways. Perhaps it's time your scalp throws its support behind the man you see as your hero.

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A mangy mishmash of bald spots and several long strands of hair-stuff that wrap multiple times around your head and smell like cheese and evil: Your hairstyle should reflect who you are.

Washington Post

Monica Hesse and Dan Zak are Washington Post staff writers.
WASHINGTON  The fake news stuff we've been talking about?

That all just got real.

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An entire Washington, D.C., neighborhood was in lockdown Sunday because some dope with a gun believed a fake news story that wildly and wrongly linked a neighborhood pizzeria to a child sex ring.

You could conclude that Edgar Maddison Welch, the 28-year-old man from North Carolina who allegedly walked into the Comet Ping Pong restaurant carrying an assault rifle, pointed it at an employee and then fired one or more shots, might be a singular nut job.

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He told police he had come to the restaurant to "self-investigate" a false election-related conspiracy theory that linked Hillary Clinton to the child sex ring.

But he wasn't the only dope who was roped into this.

Police surround Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant that was the subject of a fake news story claiming it was the center of a child sex ring orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John Podesta, after a man with an assault rifle entered the restaurant in Washington on Dec. 4, 2016. (Jim Lo Scalzo, EPA)

A week before the presidential election, the son of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn  the man Donald Trump has selected as his national security adviser  shared the fake Comet Ping Pong conspiracy story.

Thousands of others shared it too.

Days later, the retired general himself tweeted a hashtag referring to another fake news story that accused Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, of satanic rituals using body fluids.

That there, the Satanic ritual stuff, is straight out of the grocery checkout line.

Remember when Americans used to laugh at the crazy-bad supermarket tabloid stories on "Bat Boy!" or "Titanic Survivors Alive!" or "Alien Bible Found! They worship Oprah!"?

What was different back then?

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Why didn't a desperado come storming toward the White House gates with his gun after the story about George Bush meeting with aliens hit the stands?

Because most people knew the source of the news  the National Enquirer, News of the World, etc.  wasn't remotely serious, as lacking in nutrition as the candy bars the tabloids were displayed alongside.

But in today's social media universe, there's a flood of stories from fake news sites that look legit. And stories that sound as ludicrous as alien love triangles don't get a laugh, they get shared by our leaders, generating violent threats, dangerous reactions and, in the worst cases, bloodshed.

In an era when we have more access to more information than ever before, we've also become more willing to believe the crazy  and share it with others.

What happened at Comet Ping Pong isn't the first time we've seen real consequences to the doctored news phenomenon.

A year ago, a gotcha video  created by folks who lied, schemed and plotted to get a doctor to talk about the graphic details of her work while secretly being recorded  was pinging in the head of Robert Lewis Dear Jr. when he stormed a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

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Dear used the phrase "no more baby parts" after he allegedly killed three people  a police officer, an Iraq war veteran and a mother of two  and injured nine others in that shooting rampage.

Grandstanding congressmen fed him the "baby parts" line after they watched that heavily edited video of a Planned Parenthood executive talking about the donation of tissue from aborted fetuses. (They must've forgot that fetal tissue has been used in important medical research since the 1930s and helped produce vaccines for polio, measles and mumps.)

The video was created under false pretenses, heavily edited and would have never met the standards of a legitimate news organization.

That faux investigation ended in hours of congressional hearings, a budget crisis for Planned Parenthood in many states, and the deaths of those three people in Colorado.

Five years ago, it wasn't fake news but an equally careless use of words that helped incite an equally terrible burst of violence.

Sarah Palin's supporters put out a map with cross hairs targeting the districts of 20 House Democrats. On Twitter, Palin pointed her followers to the map with the message: "'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!'"

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Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was on that map and criticized it as soon as it was posted online and her office was vandalized.

"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is that the way she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district," Giffords told MSNBC at the time. "When people do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."

On Jan. 8, 2011, the consequences were chilling: Jared Loughner showed up with a gun outside a Tucson supermarket where Giffords was greeting constituents and killed six people and injured 20 more, including Giffords.

Still, as the funerals were being held and Giffords was in intensive care, Palin's supporters insisted cross hairs were never a reference to guns.

Words matter.

That kind of disregard for common sense and responsibility has kudzu-ed into what we have today, educated leaders willing to believe conspiracy theories about child sex rings and satanic rituals thanks to nothing more than a slick-looking online story.

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Get a grip, America.

The owner of Comet Ping Pong had endured weeks of death threats. Phone calls, messages, stalkers, the employees have been harassed.

They've all complained about the relentless attacks. Then they faced a real attack, which has left a business and a neighborhood deeply shaken.

"Let me state unequivocally: these stories are completely and entirely false, and there is no basis in fact to any of them," wrote owner James Alefantis, on his Comet Ping Pong Facebook page Sunday night.

There is no FBI investigation, no New York Police Department takedown. None of that.

"What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences," wrote Alefantis. "I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away."

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Those who run our social media companies and internet search engines need to find a way to help a gullible country differentiate between fake news and real news. Let's make America believe in facts again.

Washington Post

Petula Dvorak is a Washington Post columnist.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' recent decision to halt until further notice an easement to the four-state Dakota Access Pipeline project and to call for a full environmental-impact review is welcome news. The Dec. 4 decision handed a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters, but the protest and standoff at the Sioux Reservation should never have happened.

We all need to be students of history to understand why the Standing Rock Sioux, other Native American nations and supporters from around the country gathered along the Missouri River in North Dakota to protest the $3.8 billion oil pipeline that would skirt the Sioux Reservation that straddles the borders of North Dakota and South Dakota.

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The federal government strings together the words "government to government" and "trust responsibility" to describe its relations with Native American nations. But it is action, not words, that matter. When tribes enter into treaties and agreements with the federal government, a sacred deal is made. The federal government is duty-bound to honor that trust and to respect tribal governments. It means federal agencies must act in the best interest of tribes and share decision-making duties with them.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 62 Campers set structures on fire in preparation of the deadline to leave the Oceti Sakowin protest camp on Feb. 22, 2017 in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. (Stephen Yang / Getty Images)

Native American tribes are not merely consultants. They are legitimate, sovereign governments with capable natural resource managers. In light of the pipeline controversy, indigenous governments are flexing their tribal laws to protect and restore the "natural world" for the benefit of the larger society. In this respect, they have launched large restoration efforts to safeguard fish, wildlife, water and land from irreversible destruction.

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The Standing Rock Sioux began voicing concerns about the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota several years ago, citing concerns that the project would threaten a drinking water supply and harm sacred Indian cultural sites.

This standoff has triggered painful memories. The list of wrongs against Native American nations by the U.S. government is long and tragic.

Native people are asking for greater protection and respect for lands that have important historical, cultural or sacred meaning for Native nations.

Fully recognizing tribal sovereignty and expertise will help safeguard our land, water and sacred sites for all people  and prevent future conflicts.

Jaime Pinkham is a citizen of the Nez Perce tribe and on the governing council of The Wilderness Society. Jamie Williams is president of The Wilderness Society.
We've never had a president whose business created as many potential conflicts of interest as Donald Trump, and at the same time we've never had a president who cared less about conflicts of interest as Donald Trump. Indeed, he and his children are making it quite clear that they will use the presidency as a tool to make as much money as they can.

And Republicans, particularly members of Congress, have apparently decided that if Trump does it, it's OK.

There was a time when they worried that being too closely associated with him would taint them in the eyes of voters. Now they've been utterly corrupted by that association, before he even takes office. Darren Samuelsohn has a good look at what's happening:

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"Indeed, the GOP is so easily dismissing Democratic threats of investigations and ethicists' calls for divestment out of a belief that the political landscape has shifted. Voters rewarded Trump in part on the idea that success in business will equal success in government, and Republicans are therefore unwilling to encourage the president-elect to put distance between the Oval Office and Trump Tower, or between himself and the children who serve him as trusted advisers.

"'This is a great test case between the pre-Trump and post-Trump worlds,' said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a prominent early GOP backer of the president-elect. 'In a pre-Trump world dominated by left-wing ideas, anyone successful is inherently dangerous and should be punished for trying to serve the country.

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"'The American people," Gingrich added, "knowingly voted for a businessman whose name is inextricably tied to his fortune.  I'd say to the left wing, get over it.'"

This is a reminder that the institutions we rely on to keep the government honest are dependent upon the integrity of the people within them.

Trump obviously feels the same way. Last week he tweeted , "Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!"

Meanwhile he and his children are barely trying to hide their eagerness to cash in on the presidency. Wondering why Ivanka Trump sat in on the meeting her father had with the Japanese prime minister shortly after the election? "Ms. Trump is nearing a licensing deal with the Japanese apparel giant Sanei International," the New York Times reports. "The largest shareholder of Sanei's parent company is the Development Bank of Japan, which is wholly owned by the Japanese government." Ivanka, whose husband Jared Kushner has emerged as Trump's closest adviser, will be moving to Washington to better coordinate their activities.

This handout picture, released by Japan's Cabinet Secretariat on Nov. 18, 2016, shows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe being welcomed by President-elect Donald Trump beside Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner in New York. (HO / AFP/Getty Images)

Perhaps it seems silly to say, "Imagine what Republicans would be saying if this was Hillary Clinton," but the comparison highlights how malleable their principles are. They were (or at least pretended to be) horrified at the thought that as secretary of state, Clinton might have a meeting with a foreign dignitary whose government made a donation to the Clinton Foundation to support the distribution of AIDS medications in Africa. But foreign interests basically depositing money into Donald Trump's bank account? What's the big deal?

Just before the election, Jason Chaffetz, who heads the House government oversight committee, was forthright about the fact that if Clinton won he'd be issuing subpoenas every time she brushed her teeth. But now he has taken a very different attitude toward his committee's watchdog role. "It's sort of ridiculous to go after (Trump) when his financial disclosure is already online," Chaffetz now says.

We're going to see this again and again: not just a disinterest in Trump's copious conflicts of interest, but a willingness to parrot whatever ludicrous defense Trump makes of them. If some dictator somewhere wants to slap Trump's name on a hotel and pay the Trump Organization $20 million in exchange, isn't that just proof of what a great businessman Trump is? And why would anyone think that might affect U.S. foreign policy, when Trump's kids are running the business? It's not like they're advising him on government policy and personnel. Oh, wait, that's exactly what they're doing.

And while Republicans used to defend Trump's refusal to release his tax returns on the bogus grounds that he was being audited by the IRS, you can bet that when the question comes up in the future, they'll say that it's just silly to ask the president to release his returns at all.

You can say that this is just standard partisanship, and the president's party is always going to defend him. But what's different about this moment is how blatant and unapologetic the incoming president is being about continuing to pursue his business interests. This is a reminder that the institutions we rely on to keep the government honest are dependent upon the integrity of the people within them.

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One has to ask: What would it take for Republicans in Congress to take the conflict of interest issue seriously? Would you have to have Trump on video being handed a briefcase full of cash and saying, "In exchange for this bribe, I will alter American policy to help you, Mr. Dictator"? Anything short of that, they'll find a way to deny and dismiss.

During the campaign, there were times when Republicans would criticize something Trump had done or said, like his bigoted attacks on the judge in his fraud case or his bragging about committing sexual assault. They'd do it carefully, continuing to support him while criticizing the content of the statement he had made. But now that he's president they won't even go that far. There is almost nothing he could do that they wouldn't defend.

When you have divided government, the administration knows that both the Congress and the media are watching it, which restrains its behavior. But we're in the process of creating an environment where everyone knows that accountability is a joke. A lmost a year ago, Trump said , "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" Now he knows that he could stand in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and shoot somebody, and Republicans in Congress would say that it's ridiculous for anyone to think he had done anything wrong.

Washington Post

Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.
As a nation, we're slowly getting used to President-elect Donald Trump's shock-and-awe style of communication. He made clear during the campaign that he has no patience for political correctness  he thinks it's the language of wimps and do-nothings. Exaggeration-for-effect is more the Trumpian way.

That's effective in friendly venues like an Ohio town hall meeting, we suppose. But in the ramp-up to his presidency Trump has begun giving the rest of the world a peek at his tell-it-like-it-is leadership, and the result is a marvel mixed with hints of danger. He has until his Jan. 20 inauguration to find a global voice that is both authentic and responsible.

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On Friday, Trump accepted a telephone call from Taiwan's president, ostensibly to congratulate him on his election victory. But there was a lot more to it than nicety. Taking the call was viewed as a precedent and a provocation directed at China because Taiwan and China are estranged and the United States officially recognizes only the government in Beijing.

Treating Taiwan like just another nation threatens to upend decades of delicate diplomacy, a fact Trump seemed to acknowledge when he confirmed on Twitter that he received the call: "The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!"

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Nothing in that tweet would appear controversial to the American public. But the U.S. is extremely careful to distinguish between its official relationship with China and unofficial relationship with Taiwan. There appears to be no record of an American president or president-elect speaking to a Taiwanese president since the U.S. switched in 1979 from recognizing Taiwan to recognizing Beijing as the government of China. Referring in public to Taiwan's "president" was an extra poke in the eye to Beijing, which "lodged solemn representations" with Washington over the call  that's diplomatic-speak for venting mighty anger.

Trump showed similar cheek in a call with Pakistan's prime minister. He expressed giddy optimism about relations (Pakistan is a "fantastic" country full of "fantastic" people), though the U.S. has big problems with Pakistan's behavior, notably spotty cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

Goodness, what's next? Mr. President-elect, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is on line 2.

From Trump's perspective, there is shrewdness to the showmanship. Supporters love it when he talks like Frank Sinatra singing "My Way." He won their hearts promising a tough, common-sense approach. These phone calls send the message that he'll be as different as possible from President Barack Obama, whom detractors lambasted for appearing equivocal or appeasing in the face of adversaries.

Trump also has a pet peeve about America seeming too deliberate and predictable in its actions. Why announce negotiating positions, he wondered during the campaign? Why spell out military strategy in advance? Better to keep the world guessing about American intentions because that's the secret to negotiating good deals. He likely figures putting Beijing off balance adds to U.S. bargaining power over issues such as trade or freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

The risk with that approach comes with the stakes. If Pakistan's government thinks Trump is in its corner, that could affect how Pakistani leaders manage tense relations with India. Which, in turn, could cause the Indians to react in unforeseen ways that ratchet up tension. The same is true, writ larger, for China: Diplomatic gamesmanship over Taiwan could have real-world military consequences, because China has threatened to invade Taiwan if it ever officially declares independence.

Yes, government officials worldwide can focus too much on the pieties of diplomacy: "What savory canapes at the French ambassador's reception!"

But the larger point of diplomacy is to manage relationships in ways that promote cooperation and paper over differences to mitigate the chances of conflict. Diplomacy is a game best played with quiet nuance by deep thinkers. That's why the Washington experts dropped their monocles in the soup when they heard Trump had spoken with Taiwan's president. Messing with the carefully tended status quo can have repercussions. Cautious behavior may look timid, but it also can prevent surprises  and startling, even menacing, reactions.

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Trump is still not president. He hasn't named a secretary of state. Once in office, he may lead the country in new directions on global issues. That will be his prerogative.

Once inaugurated, Trump's in command. He either embraces the art of diplomacy, or the country buckles up for a bumpy ride.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
Two women attend to a voting machine as a voter casts her vote in the Northbrook Village Hall, during election night, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

How blue is Illinois, really?

Let's take a look at the certified results of the Nov. 8 election that were released Monday by the Illinois State Board of Elections and crunch some numbers.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won 55.8 percent of the overall vote, and 59 percent head to head against Republican Donald Trump if you don't figure in the third-party votes.

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Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth won 54.7 percent of the overall vote, and 58 percent head to head against Republican incumbent Mark Kirk.

Democratic state comptroller candidate Susana Mendoza won a 49.5 percent plurality of the overall vote, and 52.7 percent head to head against Republican incumbent Leslie Geissler Munger.

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Democrats, represented by the color blue on conventional political maps, won 10 of 18 races  55.6 percent  for the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats won 54 percent of the major-party votes cast for U.S. House candidates statewide. Four of those races weren't contested. In the 14 districts in which a Democrat and a Republican appeared on the ballot, Democrats won nine of the races (64 percent) along with 56 percent of the votes cast for a major party candidate.

Democrats won 67 of 118 races  56.8 percent  in the Illinois House, for a net loss of four seats. Democrats won 54 percent of all major party votes cast in Illinois House races.

Democrats won 26 of 40 races for the Illinois Senate  65 percent  where roughly two-thirds of the seats were up. Democrats won 59.5 percent of all major-party votes cast in Illinois Senate races, and despite a net loss of two seats maintain a 37-to-22 overall advantage  a veto-proof 62.7 percent of the seats  in that chamber.

In this light, Illinois is almost blindingly blue, despite the geographical split that had Trump winning 91 of 102 counties, mostly downstate.

But an overall purple tint begins to emerge when you break out results for the state legislative races in districts that were contested, meaning districts where voters actually had a choice between Democratic and Republican candidates.

In the 47 state House districts in which a Democrat and Republican appeared on the November ballot, Democrats won just 50.6 percent of the votes cast for a major-party candidate and won only 22 of those races (46.8 percent).

In the 13 state Senate districts in which a Democrat and Republican appeared on the ballot, Republicans won 51.5 percent of the vote but won only six of those races (46.2 percent).

The discordance isn't as significant as it was in the November 2014 election when Democrats won 60 percent of state House races with just 50.6 percent of the votes and 58 percent of state Senate races with only 45.6 percent of votes.

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But the results continue to suggest what critics of our partisan political maps have long maintained, that the state is far more closely divided than indicated by the Democratic legislative majorities (to review, Democrats will have 55.6 percent of the seats in the next U.S House delegation, 56.8 percent in the next Illinois House and 62.7 percent in the next Illinois Senate).

The results further indicate that voters like to have a choice. Out of 5.67 million total ballots cast, 5.54 million voted in the presidential race, 5.49 million in the U.S. Senate race and 5.41 million in the comptroller's race. Each was contested statewide.

But only 4.83 million voters made a pick for state House, where fewer than half of the races were contested.

We already know that presidential elections bring people to the polls. Voter turnout was 70.56 percent this year, compared with the 49.18 percent turnout for the general election in November 2014. ( Full results ) In raw numbers, that's nearly 2 million more Illinois voters in 2016 than 2014.

What we don't know from these final results is who those 2 million voters were. You can make a case that they leaned slightly Democratic, as the smaller turnout two years ago benefited the Republicans  GOP businessman Bruce Rauner beat incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn by 142,284 votes, 3.9 percentage points, and incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin won with 53.6 percent of the vote, a slightly smaller percentage than challenger Duckworth won.

But that off-year benefit doesn't yet look significant enough that it will change Illinois' overall hue for the 2018 election, at which Rauner will likely stand for re-election.

Is it too soon talk about 2018? Alas, no. Candidate filing deadlines for the 2018 primaries are less than a year away. The jockeying and posturing that makes it so hard for politicians to make the tough decisions that need to be made has already begun.

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That ought to make us all feel blue.

Twitter @EricZorn
Deron Hardge, 28, walks through the kitchen of his group home on the West Side of Chicago. When Hardge suffered a medical crisis at a group home in Harvey, where he was placed previously, testing later showed he barely had any of his anti-seizure medicine in his system when he arrived at the hospital. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

A Cook County judge Monday refused to halt a state shutdown of a troubled network of group homes for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

In its "Suffering in Secret" series, the Chicago Tribune last month exposed grave problems, including deaths and injuries linked to neglect, at group homes run by a business now known as Disability Services of Illinois.

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Michael Kelly, an attorney for the business, asked Judge Kathleen Pantle for a temporary restraining order, a move that could have restored taxpayer funding for the homes and barred state workers from moving the remaining residents to different providers until Disability Services appeals the state's decision to revoke its license. The state, Kelly argued, was causing "irreparable harm" to the business and its employees.

But Pantle rejected that argument and said that the individuals with disabilities living in those group homes "need to be protected."

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The judge said she was alarmed by the health and safety violations state workers found  including scalding water, mold and broken glass  when they inspected Disability Services homes last month.

"They're just not doing their job to keep people safe and secure, and I have real problems with that," Pantle said.

Kelly said that the deficiencies the state outlined were present only at a Disability Services home in Harvey that already had closed. He portrayed other problems as paperwork snafus that occurred when Disability Services CEO Reuben Goodwin Sr. closed his former business, Southwest Disabilities Services & Supports, and reopened this year under the new name.

Goodwin, who attended the hearing, declined to comment to the Tribune, as did Kelly.

State inspectors last month fanned out to all eight Disability Services group homes after the Tribune questioned Human Services Secretary James Dimas and Inspector General Michael McCotter about harm at Illinois group homes, including those overseen by Goodwin. The inspectors immediately shut down the Harvey home, then last week notified Goodwin they revoked Disability Services' license, citing an "imminent risk" to the 45 residents living in the remaining seven homes.

Though Disability Services can request an administrative hearing to appeal the license revocation before Dec. 23, a Human Services spokeswoman said last week the agency planned to move all remaining residents to new homes regardless.

At Monday's hearing Assistant Attorney General Amy McCarthy told Pantle that the Department of Human Services had problems trying to relocate individuals from Disability Services over the weekend. McCarthy asked the judge to consider adding language to her ruling that Disability Services "needs to be cooperative" with those planned moves.

Pantle declined to do that but in denying the temporary restraining order, she said, "Now that they have my ruling, hopefully things will go smoothly."

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Disability Services, however, signaled things might not go as smoothly as the state had planned. After the hearing Sean Howard, a spokesman for the company, said in a written statement, "We are grateful for the judge's refusal to remove our clients from the remaining seven facilities."

Howard said Disability Services interpreted the judge's remarks to mean that she was encouraging Human Services to allow Disability Services to work through the administrative process. "We have done a top to bottom review of our practices and procedures and are making improvements to continue to provide the excellent quality of care in which our clients are accustomed," Howard wrote.

But Human Services spokeswoman Meredith Krantz said her department was reviewing "all legal options to ensure the health and safety" of the 19 individuals who remain in Disability Services homes. She made it clear the state is continuing to pursue moving all those residents.

"We continue to urge Mr. Goodwin to release all individuals remaining in his unlicensed facilities to our staff and the independent service coordination agencies so that we can continue their transition to safe and licensed homes," she said in a written statement.

pcallahan@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @TribuneTrish
Officials with the recently opened Paragon Theaters in downtown Arlington Heights, pictured here, are reviving a once popular village tradition this month, inviting residents to a free, holiday-themed "Movie with the Mayor" event on Dec. 10. (Karen Ann Cullotta / Pioneer Press)

Officials with the recently opened Paragon Theaters in downtown Arlington Heights are reviving a village tradition this month, inviting residents to a free, holiday-themed "Movie with the Mayor" event on Dec. 10.

The Deerfield, Fla.-based movie theater chain is the third company to operate at the venue in the Arlington Heights Town Square, taking over operations from Texas-based Star Cinema Grill earlier this year, village officials said.

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The first "Movie with the Mayor" event dates back to shortly after the Arlington Theaters opened in 1999, as one of the first tenants in the new Arlington Town Square redevelopment, said Charles Witherington-Perkins, the director of planning and community development for Arlington Heights.

The project was part of a public/private partnership that saw several large scale downtown developments constructed with financial assistance from the village through the use of tax increment financing funds, Witherington-Perkins said.

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Hosting the upcoming "Movie with the Mayor" event at their new location in Arlington Heights reflects the company's commitment to giving back to local communities through special events and fundraisers, Paragon's CEO Michael Whalen said in an email.

"We are thrilled that local residents have welcomed Paragon Arlington Heights with open arms," Whalen said.

The Dec. 10 event will begin at 9 a.m. with holiday festivities at the theaters at 53 S. Evergreen Ave., followed by a screening of two holiday-themed movies starting at 10 a.m., including "The Polar Express" and "Elf."

All guests arriving with a non-perishable food item will receive free admission to the movies, with local Cub Scouts Pack 129 collecting the donations, which will be distributed by the Wheeling Township Food Pantry, officials said.

The theater will also be offering a free large popcorn to guests for each new, unwrapped toy donation to support the "Toys for Tots" program, officials said.

Arlington Heights Mayor Thomas Hayes said although the "Movie with the Mayor" tradition debuted during the tenure of his predecessor, former longtime Mayor Arlene Mulder, he is excited to be a part of the festivities this month.

"It's certainly a great community event, that reflects the spirit of giving at Christmastime," Hayes said.

In addition to taking over operations of the theaters, Hayes said Paragon recently completed renovations to the venue to accommodate the movie chain's electric recliner seating with footrests and swivel tables in all six of the auditoriums.

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While the venue will offer a dining menu and serve alcoholic beverages, it will not have wait staff bringing the orders to customers in the theaters, Hayes said.

"Some people thought the Star Cinema concept was distracting, because they were bringing in orders during the movies," Hayes said. "The Paragon concept is more traditional, but the reclining seats are in line with what's happening in the industry, which is trying to create a state-of-the-art experience."

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter: @kcullotta
Eight-year-old, Masataka Funaki, of Arlington Heights sprints at the start of the "Reindeer Run" during the Rotary Santa Run in Arlington Heights on Dec. 3. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press)

More than 1,600 Santa Clauses came to town early this month, as the Arlington Heights Rotary Club celebrated its 8th Annual Santa 5K Run for charity in the village's downtown on Dec. 3.

"It was a little on the cold side on Saturday morning, but everything worked out really well," Jim Bertucci, the president of the village's Rotary Club said. "We will have a healthy budget for our Rotary service projects because of the success of this event."

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As the major annual fundraiser for the village's Rotary Club, Bertucci said the Santa Run has raised more than $250,000 since it was launched in 2008.

While the 5K run is a chipped race, allowing competitive runners to gauge their time, Bertucci said the event also features a family-friendly Reindeer Run for kids 10 and younger, and a one-mile walk, the Santa Stroll, which attracted a contingent of moms and dads pushing their babies and toddlers bundled into strollers.

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"We've been blessed with good attendance each year, but our best year was 2012, when the weather was crisp and in the 40s, and we had 2,000 runners participate," Bertucci said.

The funds raised at the event from the $35 entry fee per runner and local business sponsorships will support the Rotary's four avenues of service, including local community organizations, international Rotary service projects, vocational programs and youth services, Bertucci said.

"We do get some hard-core, competitive runners in the 5K, and we place them at the front of the starting line," Bertucci said. "But at the same time, having all of the runners dress up in a Santa Claus suit makes the run much more fun for everybody."

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
The Copley Theater in North Island Center in downtown Aurora could be home for more plays and other programs in the future. (Steve Lord / The Beacon-News)

The proposed arts center and performing arts school in downtown Aurora could also mean a new dramatic series at the Copley Theater.

Part of what's included in the arts center, proposed for the former Waubonsee Community College building at Stolp Avenue and Galena Boulevard, next door to the Paramount Theatre, is rehearsal space for the Paramount, particularly for their self-produced Broadway musical series. With new rehearsal space, it would free up the Copley Theater in North Island Center, across Galena, where the Broadway series currently rehearses.

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The Copley Theater is a 173-seat theater which would be ideal for plays, new productions, comedy groups such as Second City, and other more intimate productions, Paramount officials said. Tim Rater, president and chief executive officer for the Paramount, said he envisions the possibility of a dramatic series in the theater with subscriptions that could be a sort of two-for-one for subscribers to the Broadway series.

The Broadway series has been successful in gaining thousands of subscriptions and high attendance, as well as critical acclaim through the Chicago theater community. Rater said the Paramount series has become the third-largest subscription-based musical series in the country, and "is on its way to being the biggest." It needs better rehearsal space, he said.

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"This is the next thing," he told city officials recently. "This is going to allow us to take the Paramount to the next level."

Rater said in freeing up the Copley Theater, the Aurora Civic Center Authority would look at renovating the space on the North Island Center second floor. ACCA oversees operations at the Paramount, Copley Theater and at RiverEdge Park, the outdoor concert and festival venue on North Broadway.

The Paramount and Rater also would oversee the school for performing arts proposed in the arts center. It is similar to Metropolis Performing Arts school in Arlington Heights, which Rater helped start from scratch and turned into a 2,200-student performing arts school and performance center.

Rater said the center would include space for instrument, dance and vocal lessons and rehearsal, and group spaces for something like group guitar lessons. He said the downstairs area would have a small performing space, which he likened to the space at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He said the school could run its own programs, and would want to work in conjunction with the Fox Valley Park District and the area school districts.

"We expect to collaborate, not compete," he said.

Another element of the arts center would be a first floor restaurant space of about 5,000 square feet, with an estimated seating for between 100 and 115 people. Officials have said they are still studying the market for what kind of restaurant would be a good fit for the space.

Rater said the Paramount surveys its patrons, and has found that about 30 percent of them eat locally before or after shows. That is about half the national average for theaters, he said. Some 28 percent to 29 percent drive somewhere else outside downtown  either in Aurora or outside it  to eat, he said.

"So, I think there is an opportunity here," he said.

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He said he sees the restaurant as being upscale, but casual, with a warm feeling, booths and plenty of space.

"It's a place that might be on a short list of where you would go for your anniversary," he said.

The City Council is in the midst of considering the arts center project, which is part of an overall $35 million redevelopment of the former Waubonsee building, and would also include a floor of artist-preference apartments above the arts center and school. It also includes renovation of a subsidized housing building at 32 S. Broadway downtown, which Joseph Corporation operates.

Aldermen will discuss two proposed operating agreements for the project  one between the city and private developers and one between the city, ACCA and private developers  at the Committee of the Whole meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Fifth Floor Conference Room at City Hall, 44 E. Downer Place.

slord@tribpub.com
And then there were three.

Well, actually there were only two.

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John Terrell of Batavia, who was aboard the USS Perry on Dec. 7, 1941, was not able to attend Monday's Pearl Harbor Day Memorial Luncheon in Aurora, honoring the 75th anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack that launched the country into World War II.

He and Joe Triolo of Zion and Everett "Jim" Schlegel of Elgin are the only remaining Pearl Harbor survivors in northern Illinois, according to John O'Gorden of Naval Station Great Lakes. Which, naturally, means it's only a matter of time before there will be none of these veterans around who witnessed up close the tragic events on the date that truly did go down in infamy.

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Pearl Harbor survivor Joe Triolo of Zion talks to reporters at the 47th annual Pearl Harbor Day Memorial Luncheon in Aurora. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)

It's also no surprise that the two survivors, Triolo and Schlegel, who made it to the event at Gaslight Manor on Church Street were treated like rock stars, as TV camera crews and reporters hovered around them whenever possible  yes, even interrupting their meals time and again  to hear their personal accounts of the attack and their feelings about what it meant to be such a significant part of our nation's history.

Lucky for all of us that despite their advanced ages  Triolo is 96 and Schlegel, 97  both men remain sharp, engaging  and patient, as they retold parts of their stories to a curious media eager to capture these moments of oral history before they are lost.

It's not like these old vets have failed to record those thoughts and experiences before. In past years the men have been the focus of several news stories, and there's a lengthy and fascinating interview with Schlegel from several years ago that can be found on YouTube.

But there's something to be said about living history, about being in the presence of those who were eyewitnesses to such a monumental event that altered the world so dramatically.

Dec. 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor newsreel footage: Seventy-five years ago this week, Japan surprised the world with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. (Department of Defense) (Handout)

Schlegel, retelling his tale from a wheelchair for me, probably for at least the fifth time that morning, was cleaning out the horse stables at the U.S. Army's Schofield Barracks, when the first wave of enemy planes came into view. They were flying so close to the ground, he recalled, he could even see a Japanese pilot waving to him as he passed overhead.

"I waved back," Schlegel recalled. "I didn't have any idea, none of us did, of what was going on."

His confusion quickly turned to horror as the Japanese planes zeroed in on Wheeler Field, which was only about 200 yards from the stable, blowing up dozens of fighter planes that had been sitting on the landing field, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.

"I guess you could say I saw the first bomb fall that started World War II," he said.

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That may have been 75 years ago, but it remains crystal clear for Schlegel, as does the harbor attack for Triolo, who was "in my bunk" aboard the USS Tangier that fatal Sunday morning when the sirens began to sound.

Because he too recalls seeing those Japanese planes so close he could make out the expressions on the faces of the pilots, it's no wonder the Zion man so passionately questions why the details of this day have faded from the rest of America's consciousness.

Everitt Schlegel of Elgin retells parts of his experiences at the U.S. Army's Schofield Barracks in Hawaii 75 years ago when it was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)

Triolo is especially concerned about the younger generation, wondering why schoolchildren are not taught more about the Pearl Harbor attack; and why old survivors like himself are rarely invited into classrooms anymore.

"Students have so many advantages and attractions, they forget everything else," he said. "They have to go back to history to be successful and informed."

His concerns seem legitimate: As survivors dwindle, so also are attempts to keep their stories up front and center, said Navy League Aurora Council member Len Wass. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association disbanded six years ago because of declining memberships, and even these memorial luncheons are becoming rarer.

This Aurora event has always been well-attended, noted Wass, with Monday's draw close to 275 people. And, in order to keep it relevant and cross-generational, the memorial luncheon has found a way to honor the future as well as the past.

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As has been the case for decades, the spotlight focused on 10 Fox Valley students who were honored with the Ted Brattin Award, named after the Marine Corps vet and Aurora businessman who helped found the Navy League's Aurora Council and Aurora-Naperville Rotary Club.

The 2016 winners included Yasmin Broy of Illinois Math and Science Academy; Archit Dhar and Vanessa Cai of Neuqua Valley High School; Brooke Jensen of Yorkville High School; Natalie McKee of Rosary; Benjamin Garcia of Marmion Academy; Noelle Kilpatrick of Oswego High School; Nabila Qadri of Naperville North; Austin Runde of Aurora Central Catholic High School; and Guadalupe Romualdo of Waubonsee Community College.

Just listening to the impressive list of activities these kids volunteer for  from youth mentoring to serving the homeless  can't help but instill hope, noted Rotary Club President Scot Thurman, not only "for what you have accomplished," he told the teens, but "for what you will do with your lives."

"When I come every year and see what these young kids have done," Wass said later, "I'm rejuvenated."

Yet he too shares Triolo's deep concerns about this youngest generation in general.

"We do not teach our children history anymore," he said. "And when we chose to ignore it, then we will surely repeat it."

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Dcrosby@tribpub.com
A message sent from Joliet a century ago recently made its way back to Will County thanks to the efforts of a California man. (Duffy Blackburn photo \ Handout)

This story started exactly 100 years and one day ago, on December 5, 1916, and resulted in with what a California man called a "re-distribution of happiness."

It began when a woman named Alex Durand mailed a postcard to her friend, Miss Grace Cronkkite in Detroit, Mich. It was postmarked 3 p.m., December 5, 1916.

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When she signed her name on the post card, she used a period after the X, possibly indicating Alex may have been short for Alexis, or Alexandria. But space on a postcard is at a premium.

"Frank was sent here on business three weeks ago for the firm and I came with him for a little trip," she wrote. "Do not know how long we will be here, but hope to be in Detroit for Xmas. Best regards from Frank and with much love I am as ever your friend."

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The front of the card was a photo of the old Will County Court House in Joliet.

The story of the journey the postcard made from Michigan and how it ended up in California is lost to time, but it eventually fell into the hands of 86-year-old Lowell Joerg, of Stockton, Calif.

"I was at an antique shop here and found this old circa 1916 picture card of your beautiful court house," Joerg wrote in a letter he addressed to "Will County Auditor." "It's an old classic for sure, so I thought to myself, "by golly, I'll send it back home where it can be appreciated."

And so a century after it was first sent, it landed in the hands of Duffy Blackburn, Will County's current auditor.

"Well, I gave $6 for it, so if you want if for $7 or $8, or so why that's sure OK," Joerg wrote. "Throw in a little postage if you want, too.

"My wife says if I hear from you I will have to take her to lunch," Joerg continued. "I am eighty-six years old and still going strong."

In his letter, Joerg called his correspondence "a 're-distribution of happiness.'"

"Our world sure needs it," he wrote.

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Blackburn responded with a letter of his own, telling Joerg the gift "surely brightened my day."

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"It brought smiles to my wife, my staff, and many more," Blackburn responded.

Duffy slipped in a $20 bill, and told Joerg to take his wife to lunch.

"As to the contents of this letter, I hope the enclosed wins your wife a lunch," the auditor wrote back. "I am happy to report that this will be one of my favorite moments of my career in elected office."

Joerg could not be reached for comment about his "redistribution of happiness," or where he took his wife to lunch.

About the Old Will County Courthouse

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The structure depicted in the postcard sent by California resident Lowell Joerg to Will County Auditor Duffy Blackburn was the third Will County Courthouse, built of Joliet limestone at Chicago and Jefferson streets between 1884 and 1887, according to the Will County Court Facts website posted by the 12th Judicial Circuit Court in Will County. It was demolished in 1969 and replaced by the current courthouse in Joliet. The obelisk Civil War monument pictured in front of the courthouse in the postcard remains today. It contains elements designed by sculptor Lorado Taft and was erected in 1889.

Erin Gallagher is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
UGC to promote Yoga courses in Universities

UNI, New Delhi | Published : 5th December, 2016

Minister of State (MoS) for Human Resource Development (MHRD) Mahendra Nath Pandey today said that the Ministry had asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to promote five-year Yoga courses in the universities and colleges.

Mr Pandey informed this to Lok Sabha while replying to a question.

He said that there would be under-graduate, postgraduate and doctorate courses in Yoga. The Ministry on June 28 this year has asked UGC to start such courses after which UGC has included Yoga as a subject in the National Eligibility Test Examination (NET) and its examination to be held next year.

While answering to the question whether the Government proposed to introduce PG Diploma course for the allopathic doctors for utilising their knowledge for yoga courses, the Minister said that medical graduates were eligible to enroll themselves for post graduate diploma in yoga therapy.

He said that post-graduate diploma in Yoga was aimed to orient medical and para-medical graduates to integrate yoga therapy in their respective medical practices for effective prevention and treatment of lifestyle diseases.

So far six universities (HN Bahuguna Garhwal University, Uttarakhand; Visva Bharti Shanti Niketan, West Bengal; Central Universities of Rajasthan and Kerala; Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Madhya Pradesh; and Manipur University) are expected to start the Yoga courses.

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United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. MARIA MARTINEZ, as Executor of the Estate of OSCAR MARTINEZ, ROSETTA KIRKLAND, JUANA GUTIERREZ, SOOSSAN SALMASSI, CHARLES B. THIGPEN, and DEBORAH ENGLISH, Plaintiffs-Appellants, OSCAR MARTINEZ, Plaintiff, v. NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY, SIDNEY GELLINEAU, SARAH LIBRERA, METROPOLITAN TRANSIT AUTHORITY, SALLY LIBRERA, and SOHAIB MALLICK,2 Defendants-Appellees. 15-3159-cv(L) Decided: December 02, 2016

Present: DENNIS JACOBS, ROSEMARY S. POOLER, Circuit Judges GEOFFREY W. CRAWFORD,1 District Judge. Appearing for Appellant: Charles B. Manuel, Jr., Manuel & Associates LLP, (Daniel Goldstein, on the brief), New York, NY. Appearing for Appellee: James B. Henley, General Counsel, New York City Transit Authority (Kathryn Martin and Robert K. Drinan, Executive Agency Counsel, on the brief), New York, NY.

Plaintiffs, six former employees of the New York City Transit Authority or the Metropolitan Transit Authority (together the Transit Authorities), appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Crotty, J.) granting summary judgment to defendants as to claims that plaintiffs were terminated because of age discrimination. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues presented for review. We affirm the district court's ruling as to Martinez, Kirkland, Gutierrez, Salmassi, and Thigpen, because these plaintiffs have failed to produce evidence suggesting that age was a but-for cause of their termination. We reverse the district court's ruling regarding English, because she has produced such evidence.

The McDonnell-Douglas burden-shifting procedure applies to claims made under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973); Gorzynski v. JetBlue Airways Corp., 596 F.3d 93, 106-07 (2d Cir. 2010). We recently summarized this procedure in Kovaco v. Rockbestos-Surprenant Cable Corp.:

We analyze employment-discrimination claims under  the ADEA using the now-familiar burden-shifting framework established by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas  Under that framework, a plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case of discrimination, which causes the burden of production to shift to the defendant to offer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory rationale for its actions. If the defendant satisfies its burden of production, then the presumption raised by the prima facie case is rebutted and drops from the case, such that at the final stage, the plaintiff then has the opportunity to demonstrate that the proffered reason was not the true reason for the employment decision.

No. 15-2037-CV, 2016 WL 4434396, at *5 (2d Cir. Aug. 22, 2016) (internal quotation marks, footnotes, and citations omitted); see also Delaney v. Bank of Am. Corp., 766 F.3d 163, 168 (2d Cir. 2014). Defendants concede for the purpose of this appeal that Plaintiffs have made their prima facie case of age discrimination.

The Transit Authorities have, in turn, advanced a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for terminating the plaintiffs: a reduction in force (RIF) necessitated by a budget shortfall of several hundred million dollars. Delaney, 766 F.3d at 168. When the Transit Authorities determined that an RIF would be necessary, supervisors were directed to assign employees numerical scores in weighted categories. An Office of Management and Budget within the Transit Authorities had predetermined how many employees in each department would be laid off, and the employees receiving the lowest scores in each department were terminated. At the time of evaluation, supervisors did not know how many employees in their departments would be terminated.

Plaintiffs argue that the RIF evaluation was generally defective, and that it should have used additional categories, grouped employees differently, or relied on past performance evaluations. [W]e do not sit as a super-personnel department that reexamines an entity's business decisions. Delaney, 766 F.3d at 169 (quotations marks and citation omitted). Plaintiffs' general objections to the RIF evaluation process, without more, do not establish discriminatory intent.

Because the RIF was a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the Plaintiffs' termination, the burden of proving age discrimination shifts back to the Plaintiffs. Delaney, 766 F.3d at 168-69. Consequently, plaintiffs must show a triable issue as to whether age was a but-for cause of their termination. Delaney, 766 F.3d at 168.

1. Martinez, Kirkland, Gutierrez, Salmassi, and Thigpen

We now consider the evidence with respect to Martinez, Kirkland, Gutierrez, Salmassi, and Thigpen.

The RIF's lack of disparate impact on older employees strongly suggests that age was not a factor in Plaintiffs' termination. See McGuinness v. Lincoln Hall, 263 F.3d 49, 55-56 (2d Cir. 2001) (granting summary judgment on the third step of McDonnell-Douglas in part because individuals outside the protected class were also terminated). Kirkland and Gutierrez worked in the same unit. Of the 12 employees terminated in that unit, seven were younger than Gutierrez and five were younger than Kirkland. Of the ten employees who remained, six were older than Kirkland and four were older than Gutierrez. Martinez and Thigpen worked together in a separate unit. There, 11 of the 36 individuals who kept their jobs were older than Martinez and five were Thigpen's age or older. Thigpen received the 5th lowest ranking in his group, and all the individuals who received lower scores were younger than he was. Martinez received the 9th lowest score, and (except for Thigpen) all the employees who received lower scores were younger than him. While Salmassi was the oldest employee in her group, seven of the 16 employees who kept their jobs in her group were over the age of 50.

Plaintiffs argue that there must have been age discrimination because they had been successful employees at the Transit Authorities. But even successful employees may be terminated in an RIF. Plaintiffs also argue for an inference of discrimination because they were replaced by younger employees after their termination. However, no one was hired to replace the Plaintiffs; their work was redistributed among existing employees. See, e.g., LeBlanc v. Great Am. Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 846 (1st Cir. 1993) (employee is not replaced when work is shifted to existing employees); Barnes v. GenCorp Inc., 896 F.2d 1457, 1465 (6th Cir. 1990) (same).

These plaintiffs' remaining evidence is simply a collection of stray remarks, none of them made by the supervisors who evaluated plaintiffs for the RIF. Tolbert v. Smith, 790 F.3d 427, 437-38 (2d Cir. 2015) (remarks are more probative when made by the decision-maker behind the adverse action). Stray remarks alone are insufficient to defeat summary judgment. See Danzer v. Norden Sys., Inc., 151 F.3d 50, 56 (2d Cir. 1998).

2. English

English, unlike the other employees, has produced sufficient evidence at this stage to create a triable issue as to whether age was a but-for cause of her termination. Delaney, 766 F.3d at 168. In a sworn declaration, English states that the following interaction took place between her and Sohaib Mallick, who was the Senior Director of her unit (English's supervisor's supervisor):

In early July 2010, in the midst of the RIF, I was summoned to Mallick's office, where he boldly asked me, Can you retire?  I composed myself from my initial shock, and replied to Mallick, stating, With a penalty. I am not of the age to retire, and I don't want to retire. To this, Mallick replied, People who are eligible to retire should retire and make room for the younger generation.

App'x at 253. English further stated that, [i]nstead of the current manager  grading [her] on the RIF, Mallick graded [her]. App'x at 311. Mallick, who signed English's final RIF detail sheet as its [p]reparer, App'x at 495, did not meaningfully dispute that he rated English in the RIF, adding only the caveat that he did so in conjunction with the managers that [supervise] my direct reports. App'x at 92.

Although stray remarks, without more, cannot defeat summary judgment, Danzer, 151 F.3d at 56, Mallick's alleged statement is less a stray remark than an open declaration of bias. It not only reflected a highly discriminatory attitude, but also came at the time of the RIF and referred directly to the particular employee's tenure with the Transit Authorities in negative terms. Compared to statements considered stray remarks in our past cases, these remarks are very strong indicators of discrimination. See Henry v. Wyeth Pharm., Inc., 616 F.3d 134, 149 (2d Cir. 2010) (suggesting that, when considering whether remarks are probative of discrimination, courts consider (1) who made the remark (i.e., a decision-maker, a supervisor, or a low-level co-worker); (2) when the remark was made in relation to the employment decision at issue; (3) the content of the remark (i.e., whether a reasonable juror could view the remark as discriminatory); and (4) the context in which the remark was made (i.e., whether it was related to the decision-making process).) (citations omitted).

Because Mallick, rather than English's regular supervisor, served as her primary reviewer for the RIF, a jury could infer that Mallick gave her a low rating for discriminatory reasons. Particularly in light of Mallick's statement, a reasonable jury might also be influenced by other indicia of discrimination in this case, such as an RIF format in English's department that assigned very low weight to categories related to experience or length of service with the company, and low weight to objective categories such as absenteeism, but extremely high ratings to intangible, subjective categories such as Initiative and Communication Skills. App'x at 505, 495. See Sweeney v. Research Found. of State Univ. of N.Y., 711 F.2d 1179, 1185 (2d Cir. 1983) (noting that [s]ubjective evaluations  may mask prohibited prejudice). Moreover, a jury could infer that Mallick intended to harm English based on evidence in the record that he reduced her job duties, and assigned her work unsuited to her skills, over a period of time before the RIF.

In light of Mallick's remarks, as well as other evidence suggestive of discrimination, the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants must be reversed with respect to English's claims.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgement of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED IN PART, and REVERSED IN PART, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

FOR THE COURT:

CATHERINE O'HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK

FOOTNOTES

. Plaintiffs contend that the budget shortfall was caused by the Transit Authorities' own mismanagement, but the reason for the budget shortfall is irrelevant. Plaintiffs do not claim that the budget shortfall did not exist. Plaintiffs also claim that the Transit Authorities used the RIF to cover up pre-planned layoffs of the Plaintiffs, but no reasonable jury could infer that such a cover-up existed.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. JAMES MORROW, PlaintiffAppellee, v. BARRY WASHINGTON, DefendantAppellant; WILLIAM PARSONS; JAVIER FLORES, PlaintiffsAppellees, v. BARRY WASHINGTON, DefendantAppellant; DALE AGOSTINI, PlaintiffAppellee, v. BARRY WASHINGTON, City of Tenaha Deputy City Marshal, in his Individual and Official Capacity, DefendantAppellant; JAMIE ROBERT JARRETT; IGNACIO MANUEL DELACRUZ, PlaintiffsAppellees, v. BARRY WASHINGTON, DefendantAppellant. No. 15-41233 Decided: December 02, 2016

Before KING, CLEMENT, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.

Barry Washington appeals the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity. Because the district court potentially relied exclusively on impermissible evidence in denying Washington qualified immunity on Plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims, we remand the case to the district court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

I

This suit arises from four separate traffic stops and ensuing detentions, searches, seizures, and arrests that occurred in Shelby County, Texas. Plaintiffs claim that Washington, Deputy City Marshall for the City of Tenaha, Texas, along with other local officials, conspired to develop a stop and seize practice, or interdiction program designed to target motorists on the basis of their race, and to seize funds from such motorists to enrich [defendants] and/or their offices. At this juncture, only Washington remains a defendant; all other defendants have settled their claims.

Plaintiffs present three claims for monetary relief against Washington: (1) a 42 U.S.C.  1983 claim for violating their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment, (2) a  1983 claim for violating their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection of the law, and (3) a  1985(3) claim alleging that the officials conspired, via the interdiction program, to racially profile motorists and to seize motorists' valuables to enrich themselves and/or their offices. To the extent Washington was not an active participant during a particular stop, Plaintiffs allege that he can be held liable via his role as a conspirator in the interdiction program.

Plaintiffs' actions were consolidated for pretrial purposes and referred to a magistrate. Washington then moved for summary judgment on grounds of qualified immunity as to all four consolidated actions, citing law pertinent only to Plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims.

At a hearing on the motions, the magistrate queried why Washington's motion was styled as a full summary judgment motion, yet neglected to address Plaintiffs' conspiracy and Fourteenth Amendment allegations. Washington's counsel responded that the conspiracy allegations were not material in determining whether Plaintiffs had alleged violations under the Fourth Amendment. He further opined that Plaintiffs could not show Fourth Amendment violations under the objective reasonableness standard, and that failure would preclude their equal protection claim.

After the parties submitted supplemental briefing, the magistrate denied Washington qualified immunity. Though the magistrate did not explicitly identify which claims it intended to address, the report and recommendation issued by the magistrate (the R&R) appears limited to Plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims and corresponding  1983 conspiracy allegations.

In a brief order, the district court adopted the magistrate's conclusions. This interlocutory appeal followed.

II

This court may immediately review the denial of a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity to the extent that it turns on an issue of law. Though we lack jurisdiction to review the district court's determination that genuine issues of fact exist, we may address the legal question of whether the genuinely disputed factual issues are material for the purposes of summary judgment. We review the district court's resolution of such legal issues de novo. In conducting our review, we are required to view the facts and draw reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the party opposing the summary judgment motion.

III

Given the ambiguity surrounding the scope of Washington's summary judgment motion and the magistrate's R&R, we begin our analysis by detailing the scope of this appeal. In his reply brief, Washington clarifies that his summary judgment motion was limited to Plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims and he appeal[s] the denial of qualified immunity only with respect to the Fourth Amendment claims and the conspiracy claims insofar as they relate to alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment.

Qualified immunity protects government officials to the extent their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. In resolving claims of qualified immunity this court asks (1) whether the facts that the plaintiff has alleged make out a violation of a constitutional right; and (2) whether the right at issue was clearly established at the time of the defendant's alleged misconduct.

Washington argues that the magistrate impermissibly relied on evidence illustrative of the subjective intentions of the officers, which, while perhaps relevant to the conspiracy allegations and equal protection claims, are not material in determining whether Plaintiffs put forth evidence of Fourth Amendment violations of clearly established law. If Washington is correct, the district court erred.

A conspiracy may be charged under section 1983 as the legal mechanism through which to impose liability on all of the defendants without regard to who committed the particular act, but a conspiracy claim is not actionable without an actual violation of section 1983.  In the qualified immunity context, courts must first  determine the objective reasonableness of the state action which is alleged to have caused harm to the plaintiff. Only if that action was not objectively reasonable should the court then look to whether the officer's actions were taken pursuant to a conspiracy. If all defendants alleged to have violated [a plaintiff's rights] are entitled to qualified immunity  [,] the conspiracy claim is not actionable.

The Fourth Amendment protects [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.  In conducting a Fourth Amendment inquiry, [w]e ask whether the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify [the challenged] action  [,] whatever the subjective intent motivating the relevant officials.

As indicated above, in a case alleging both Fourth Amendment violations and a  1983 conspiracy, the proper order of review is first whether Plaintiffs' have alleged a constitutional violation that is objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established Fourth Amendment law, and only if that is the case should the court then consider whether Plaintiffs have alleged a conspiracy. The conspiracy allegations, and any appendant evidence of subjective intent, do not inform factual analysis respecting alleged Fourth Amendment violations in these specific stops. The pertinent threshold question remains whether material fact disputes exist to support a violation of Fourth Amendment law under the objective reasonableness standard.

This analytical structure is not altered by the fact that Plaintiffs also allege equal protection claims, which provide a separate cause of action and corresponding analysis. The Supreme Court made the distinction between Fourth Amendment and Equal Protection claims clear in United States v. Whren

We think [precedent] foreclose[s] any argument that the constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops depends on the actual motivations of the individual officers involved. We of course agree with petitioners that the Constitution prohibits selective enforcement of the law based on considerations such as race. But the constitutional basis for objecting to intentionally discriminatory application of laws is the Equal Protection Clause, not the Fourth Amendment. Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.15

Upon a review of the magistrate's R&R, adopted by the district court, we are unable to ascertain whether the magistrate impermissibly considered the officers' alleged subjective intent to conclude that material fact disputes existed regarding violations of clearly established Fourth Amendment law.

In the R&R, the magistrate detailed each party's version of events for each stop. In several of the accounts, the magistrate cited statistical evidence offered by Plaintiffs bearing on the officers' alleged intent to racially profile motorists. This statistical evidence, as presented in Plaintiffs' responses to Washington's motions for summary judgment, demonstrates that minority motorists were stopped at a substantially greater rate as a result of the interdiction program. It is notable that Plaintiffs offered this evidence in conjunction with their Fourteenth Amendment claims.

The magistrate also cited evidence reflective of subjective intent in his legal analysis of the Fourth Amendment claims. The magistrate opined:

There is ample evidence in this record to lead a reasonable juror to find that Washington, and his alleged co-conspirator Whatley, made these stops without any factual basis, but rather to pull over cars they felt might have cash or contraband based on the appearance of the motorists. The fact that Washington did not have a working video camera in his patrol car, that he picked obscure violations as his reasons to stop the cars, that he acknowledged an intent to seize as much cash as possible, and that his charges were dismissed whenever they faced the possibility of actually going to court, all support such a conclusion. These concerns are buttressed by the statistical evidence and the expert report concerning the shortcomings of the K-9 evidence.

In addition to Plaintiff's evidence of a conspiracy, the Plaintiffs present evidence contradicting the version of the facts set forth by Washington and Whatley. There are clear fact disputes about the true basis for the stops, the later development of probable cause for the searches, and whether any evidence supported the arrests and seizures relating to each of the Plaintiffs.

It appears that the magistrate's summary of the conspiracy allegations encompasses evidence of the officers' purported subjective intent. Further, it appears intended to buttress the magistrate's determination that factual disputes pertaining to a Fourth Amendment violation exist, not merely that liability can be extended to Washington for violations committed by other officers only after determining that Fourth Amendment liability could be found.

The magistrate's statement that [t]here are clear fact disputes about the true basis for the stops, searches, arrests, and seizures could have been intended to acknowledge fact disputes untethered to the officers' subjective intentions. But while the magistrate specified factual disputes relevant to conspiracy, it was merely conclusory as to whether the Plaintiffs disputed the officers' arguments that their conduct was objectively grounded. We have held that when a district court does not identify the factual disputes it found relevant, this court may remand the case for clarification. We choose to do so here.

It may be the case, on remand, that any error in considering the officers' subjective motivations is harmless insofar as Plaintiffs have raised a factual dispute regarding the alleged Fourth Amendment violations even absent evidence of the officers' subjective intent. We leave this inquiry to the district court and express no view on the proper outcome.

Given that Washington does not seek qualified immunity on the equal protection or the  1985 conspiracy claims, the district court's review should be limited to whether Plaintiffs have alleged violations of clearly established Fourth Amendment law sufficient to defeat summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The only factual disputes material to that analysis are those reflecting a dispute as to the officers' proffered reasons for each stop, detention, search, seizure and arrest, without reference to whether the officers' justifications constitute mere pretext.

We further advise that the district court consider whether it is disputed that probable cause existed at each stage of the officers' dealings with the Plaintiffs. For example, Washington may be entitled to qualified immunity for a search or a subsequent seizure of funds, notwithstanding a determination that qualified immunity would not be appropriate for the initial stop. This principle derives from our prior rejection of the exclusionary rule in the civil context.

We note for clarity that the district court's resolution of qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment claims should have no bearing on the viability of Plaintiffs' Fourteenth Amendment claims.

* * *

This case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

FOOTNOTES

.

. Plaintiffs initially filed suit alongside numerous other motorists in Morrow v. Washington et al. (Morrow I), alleging that local officials conspired to develop an interdiction program that racially profiled motorists in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Morrow I, 277 F.R.D. 172, 178 (E.D. Tex. 2011). After the district court in Morrow I certified a class for injunctive relief but denied class treatment for claims for damages, see id. at 202-03, Plaintiffs filed individual actions seeking monetary relief; it is these actions that form the subject of this appeal.

. Lytle v. Bexar Cty., 560 F.3d 404, 408 (5th Cir. 2009) (quoting Flores v. City of Palacios, 381 F.3d 391, 393 (5th Cir. 2004)).

. Id.

. Id. at 409.

. Id. (quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007).

. Ramirez v. Martinez, 716 F.3d 369, 375 (5th Cir. 2013) (quoting Brown v. Strain, 663 F.3d 245, 249 (5th Cir. 2011)).

. Id. (quoting Brown, 663 F.3d at 249).

. Hale v. Townley, 45 F.3d 914, 920 (5th Cir. 1995) (quoting Pfannstiel v. City of Marion, 918 F.2d 1178, 1187 (5th Cir. 1990), abrogated on other grounds by Martin v. Thomas, 973 F.2d 449, 455 (5th Cir. 1992)).

. Pfannstiel, 918 F.2d at 1187; see also Hill v. City of Seven Points, 31 F. App'x 835, *8 (5th Cir. 2002).

. Pfannstiel, 918 F.2d at 1187; see also Hill, 31 F. App'x at *8.

. Hale, 45 F.3d at 921.

. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011).

. Id. (citations and internal quotations omitted); United States v. Lopez-Moreno, 420 F.3d 420, 432 (5th Cir. 2005) ([T]he Court  has made clear that an officer's subjective motivations are irrelevant in determining whether his or her conduct violated the Fourth Amendment.); Goodwin v. Johnson, 132 F.3d 162, 173 (5th Cir. 1998) (So long as a traffic law infraction that would have objectively justified the stop had taken place, the fact that the police officer may have made the stop for a reason other than the occurrence of the traffic infraction is irrelevant for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.).

. See Farm Labor Org. Comm. v. Ohio State Highway Patrol, 308 F.3d 523, 533 (6th Cir. 2002) (stating that the Supreme Court has confirmed that an officer's discriminatory motivations for pursuing a course of action can give rise to an Equal Protection claim, even where there are sufficient objective indicia of suspicion to justify the officer's actions under the Fourth Amendment); Bradley v. United States, 299 F.3d 197, 205 (3d Cir. 2002) (The fact that there was no Fourth Amendment violation does not mean that one was not discriminatorily selected for a search [in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantee].); United States v. Miller, 146 F.3d 274, 279 n.3 (5th Cir. 1998) ([A]s the Whren Court makes clear, the leeway allowed regarding subjective intent [in the Fourth Amendment context] does not protect any discriminatory application of laws that would violate the Fourteenth Amendment.).

. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996).

. See Thompson v. Upshur Cty., 245 F.3d 447, 456 (5th Cir. 2001).

. See Wren v. Towe, 130 F.3d 1154, 1158-60 (5th Cir. 1997) (holding that officers were entitled to qualified immunity for the seizure of a vehicle based on evidence found in the vehicle, even assuming the search of that vehicle was unlawful); see also Black v. Wigington, 811 F.3d 1259, 1268 (11th Cir. 2016) (We now join our sister circuits and hold that the exclusionary rule does not apply in a civil suit against police officers.).

. See supra n.14.

PER CURIAM:* FN* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
President Xi Jinping on Monday called for further efforts to improve the effectiveness of reforms and widen the scope of their benefits.

The country should introduce more reforms that can help invigorate the economy, promote social justice, give people a greater sense of gain and mobilize the participation of the masses, according to a statement released after a meeting of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform, chaired by Xi, head of the group.

A slew of guidelines and plans were passed at the meeting.

The leading group pledged to step up supervision over state-owned enterprises and assets through strict and independent auditing, and to strengthen scrutiny over the budget and use of state capital.

More focus should be given to managing the structure of state assets, regulating capital use, enhancing capital returns and protecting the safety of capital, the statement said.

Regarding the administration on natural resource assets, China will seek a unified national natural resource asset management mechanism to improve the effectiveness of asset protection.

An effective intellectual property rights management mechanism will be put in place to support innovation, the leading group promised.

The guidelines approved at Monday's meeting also include improving the service capabilities of township governments, taking better care of the country's elderly, enhancing farmland protection, and piloting national parks for pandas, Siberian tigers and leopards.

Policymakers stressed the role of soft power in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, calling for proper guidance of public opinion to support the scheme.

The group asked authorities to map out reform work for next year to ensure overhauls proceed steadily with fresh momentum as the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress approaches.

The meeting was also attended by Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan and Zhang Gaoli, members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy heads of the group.

Over the course of the 30 meetings convened by the leading group since December 2013, hundreds of measures have been designed and released to address issues such as urbanization, poverty alleviation, innovation and the market's role in resource allocation.

The most recent emphasis on reform came three years after the key Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013, which featured a comprehensive reform package covering 15 areas and 60 tasks.

China aims to achieve "decisive results" in major reform areas by 2020.
The Eurogroup on Monday endorsed short-term debt relieving measures for Greece proposed by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) which will have "a significant positive impact" on the sustainability of Greek debt.

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said they are also ready to use medium-term measures when necessary at the end of the program or the second half of 2018.

ESM chief Klaus Regling told the same conference that the short-term debt measures will begin to be implemented in the coming weeks.

IMF staff reconfirmed Monday its intention to recommend to the Fund's executive board a new financing arrangement for Greece as soon as possible once staff-level agreement is reached.

"It was clear that more work has to be done. The institutions are prepared and stand ready to return to Athens to work on it," said Dijsselbloem.

The Eurogroup noted that staff-level agreement should include measures to reach the agreed fiscal target for 2018 (a primary balance of 3.5 percent of GDP), as well as reforms to enhance growth, including further substantial reforms of the labor market.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has urged the country's individual business owners to take an active part in entrepreneurship and innovation and contribute to national economic and social development.

While meeting with representatives of China's individual business owners on Monday, Li urged them to seize business opportunities and gain support from government initiatives such as the Internet Plus strategy to create more jobs and push for further development by providing goods and services that meet public demand.

Individual business owners have a unique role in creating growth momentum and boosting industrial upgrades, Li said while encouraging them to improve their businesses and make them the backbones of the nation's economic development.

The non-public sectors of the economy, including individual businesses and private firms, are an important part of the socialist market economy, the premier said, adding that they create 40 percent of the country's jobs and play a significant part in stimulating growth and market vitality, creating wealth and meeting the diverse demand of Chinese consumers.

Li also urged local authorities to carry out government measures that encourage the development of the individual and private economy and create a fair and transparent business environment through further reforms, more effective supervision and improved services.

Local authorities should remove unreasonable restrictions on market access, reduce transaction costs generated by government procedures and help ease difficulties in financing for individual business owners and private firms, he said.
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Taiwan investigators said Monday that they had solved the island's biggest-ever drug-trafficking case and seized more than 200 kilograms of cocaine.

The market value of the seized cocaine is estimated to exceed 2 billion new Taiwan dollars (around 62.4 million U.S. dollars), investigators said, adding they had also seized more than 50 kilograms of methamphetamine.

Investigators received tip-offs that a Taipei company had, on multiple occasions, exported "large vehicle batteries" by sea or air to Australia at unreasonably high freight costs.

On Dec. 1, they found around 51 kilograms of methamphetamine transported along with the company's 11 exported vehicle batteries.

Later they seized about 218 kilograms of cocaine transported with 30 similar batteries that the company imported from Brazil.
The patrol teams at the Shanghai Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve need just three essential pieces of equipment for their daily work: a telescope; a pair of binoculars; and a smartphone fitted with an app developed by the reserve.

Black-necked cranes return to their winter habitat at wetland in Dashanbao Nature Reserve in Yunnan province.Hu Chao / Xinhua

Every morning, the patrol teams gather in the reserve's office on Chongming Island in the Yangtze River estuary to identify their planned routes and start work.

They use the equipment to record the numbers and species of birds, traces of animal life and any evidence of illicit human activity, such as cattle herding, that they observe along their route. The app transfers the field data to the reserve's computers as soon as it is entered into the phone.

The technology gives the managers in the office a clear picture of everything that's happening in the reserve. "All the data is analyzed regularly so we can discover problems, solve them and improve our management over time," said Tang Chendong, the reserve's director, at the 10th annual meeting of Yangtze Wetland Protected Area Network, held in Dali, Yunnan province, last month.

Tang outlined Dongtan's experiments in wetland conservation and reserve management to about 300 delegates from the State Forestry Administration, and wetland management authorities from 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. International organizations also attended including the World Wide Fund for Nature, and research institutes and universities.

Extensive scale

Tang was one of 12 keynote speakers at the meeting, which was organized by the SFA's Wetland Management Center, WWF China, the UN Development Programme China and the Yunnan Forestry Bureau.

During the meeting, which also acted as a training seminar for participants from the network's 252 members - mostly wetland reserves and parks within the Yangtze River basin - the delegates discussed how to put the Yangtze River wetland under "extensive protection".

Speaking at a forum earlier this year, President Xi Jinping said the restoration of the Yangtze River ecosystem should be made "an overwhelming priority" and urged experts to "focus on extensive protection" of the 6,300-km-long river.

"Extensive protection of the Yangtze wetland is key to realizing the country's goal that 'the area of wetland in China should not fall below 800 million mu (53.33 million hectares)'," said Chen Fengxue, the SFA's deputy director. Protection and restoration of the wetland along the Yangtze River is considered an important way of implementing the national strategy to build an economic belt along the river, he said.

The economic belt covers Shanghai and Chongqing, and nine provinces - Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou - across an area of more than 2 million square kilometers.

At present, 18 Ramsar sites (wetland designated as internationally important), 167 wetland reserves and 291 national wetland parks have been established to manage 11.54 million hectares within the belt.

"They form a comparatively complete wetland conservation system," Chen said.

Challenges

The question of how to provide better protection for the Yangtze wetland remains a big challenge, according to Chen.

Reclamation of lakes and other wetland, pollution, overgrazing on alpine wetland and overexploitation of fauna, flora and water resources are some of the factors threatening the Yangtze River wetland, he said.

Chen Jiakuan, a professor of ecology at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the conservation project faces many "very serious problems".

"Some are terrifying," he said. "The most pressing problem for me is dam construction on the Yangtze mainstream. A total of 25 dams have been completed, are under construction or are planned for the Jinsha River (the Chinese name for the upper stretches of the Yangtze River), including a few world-class megadams. They have changed the river's hydrological processes."

As a result, only about 150 million metric tons of silt have flowed downstream annually in recent years, compared with 450 million tons a year in the 1950s, he said.

"The basin is such a large area. We have often faced different problems involving different departments in different areas since we joined the Yangtze conservation program in the 1990s," said Liu Xiaohai, conservation director of WWF China. "Protecting a single species - the Yangtze River finless porpoise, for example - we encountered problems caused by sand dredging, pollution, overfishing and navigation."

In a reserve for giant pandas, conservationists may face environmental problems caused by a village with a population of a few hundred people, he said.

"But about 20,000 people live on Tian'ezhou Island," he said, explaining that the river island is part of two national nature reserves and is important for the survival of several key species, including the finless porpoise and milu, also known as Pere David's deer.

When discussing the problem of overfishing, one also has to consider the 150,000 fishermen who make a living from the river, Liu added.

Chen Jiakuan echoed Liu: "That's why we need extensive protection, which means protecting not just the river, but also the whole watershed - all the forests, rivers and lakes along the lower, middle and upper reaches of the main river. They are communities of lives. To put the Yangtze under extensive protection, we have to deal with all of the problems."

Conservation network

The "cross-regional and cross-sectoral" wetland network is one of the rare cases of successful extensive protection, according to Chen Jiakuan.

Liu Xiaohai said the network's 10-year development period has given many conservationists confidence in the prospects for Yangtze wetland conservation.

The conservation network had just 27 members when it was founded in 2007 by the Wetland Management Center, WWF China, wetland managing authorities in five provinces and Shanghai, along the middle and lower reaches of the river.

"Now we have expanded to the upper reaches and have 252 members in 12 provinces," Liu said. "The wetland area managed by our members has expanded from 370,000 hectares to 29 million hectares."

Jiang Yong, a manager with WWF China's Yangtze program, said: "The network is a platform for wetland conservationists to share experiences and ideas, identify issues and update our knowledge. Over the years, it has given technical or financial support to more than 100 conservation projects. Many of our successful projects have been promoted among our members, especially new participants."

Momentum

Liu said that more than half of China's wetland has joined the network to create a cooperative mechanism and "a momentum of communication".

The model has been copied on wetland along the Yellow River, the Heilongjiang River and the East Coast, which have established networks of their own.

"We invited representatives from members of the three networks to attend our meeting," Liu said.

At the meeting, Tang from Dongtan revealed that the reserve recently signed a contract of cooperation with the Dongcaohai National Wetland Park in Heqing county, Yunnan, to help improve the park's management.

"We will share our experiences in research, monitoring and education with our counterparts in Heqing," he said.
China should promote cultural self-consciousness in cyberspace so as to preserve and revitalize its unique culture, a local Chinese official said at a symposium held on Saturday in Beijing.

Chen Hua, vice director of Beijing Internet Information Office, speaks at the symposium "Social Media, Policy and Regulation: A Network Governance Perspective" co-hosted by Tsinghua University and Hong Kong Baptist University on Dec. 3, 2016.

"Every country has a unique culture, and one must fully understand its values to face cultural challenges from other countries," said Chen Hua, vice director of Beijing Internet Information Office, at the symposium "Social Media, Policy and Regulation: A Network Governance Perspective" co-hosted by Tsinghua University and Hong Kong Baptist University.

The internet has closely bound people together, and the entire world has been united as a global village, but when building a "community of common future in cyberspace," which was the theme of this year's World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, a country must maintain its cultural self-consciousness, Chen said.

Cultural self-consciousness was a theory first proposed by Fei Xiaotong, a pioneering Chinese researcher and professor of sociology and anthropology. It refers to people's understanding of their culture's source, evolution, characteristics and development trends.

A self-conscious entity can always adapt to changing circumstances, and does not have to resort to the West or to the past to seek easy solutions, according to Fei's theory.

This theory was similar to a speech made by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the Wuzhen Summit. In the video, Xi said, "China will work together with the international community to ensure the common well-being of humanity, uphold cyber sovereignty, promote fairer and more equitable global internet governance and bring about an open, inclusive and secure cyberspace that features equality, mutual respect, innovation and orderly development."
A while ago I interviewed two restless young men who were going to major in International Business at Tec de Monterrey. At that time, I was the program's director; they were Diego Ocampo and Eduardo Sojo. They arrived at the same time and were in the same class.

Each semester they were very curious and took on more and more sophisticated and difficult academic challenges.

I remember how they always asked me for advice, and my answer was always the same: "Go to Asia; that's where the future lies." They took it to heart. When I traveled to and lived in Asia at the turn of the century, I was sure of it. The 21st century belongs to Asia.

They took the opportunity and traveled to China too, planning to study two semesters at Fudan University, precisely where I'm now a visiting fellow, and to train with ProMexico.

Eventually, I lost track of them. I took on a new position. But life had a pleasant surprise in store for me. I met up with them again, and now they're prosperous Mexican entrepreneurs in Shanghai.

A few years ago they started a consulting business that represents Chinese companies. They help Mexican, Colombian, and US businesses penetrate the Chinese market, and they co-created a training program for Mexican businesspeople interested in Asia. I couldn't wait to ask them for an interview, and fortunately they accepted. I wanted to hear what they thought of China.

Diego and Eduardo told me that China gave them an opportunity even though they arrived late. They started in 2010, and China was already developed.

As they explained: "China has opened up a world of opportunities for us that I think Mexico and its businesses don't entirely tap into. Usually, only Chinese products are imported to Mexico but not vice versa, meaning that there is no push to find a market for Mexican products in China. China is completely different from Mexico. Everything is done differently, from the work culture to the business culture. Also, we have to think about the global context. You can work with people from all over, Chinese, Russians, Latin Americans, North Americans, Europeans, Asians, etc."

Pleased with the ease of the talk, I asked them about the factors that contributed to these rapid changes they mention. "One of them is its political structure," answered Eduardo. "It makes decision making more efficient, as well as the strategy for investing resources for development, which I think leads to faster economic growth. Another point I think has to do with how the Chinese behave, the weight of their culture. Their Confucian bases are important, as is their pride in their nation. This pride makes them overcome obstacles that China has faced throughout its history.

"Another point worth mentioning is when China entered into the World Trade Organization. From that moment on, it has experienced tremendous economic growth. I think the Chinese were already self-confident, and that made them more so. They abided by world-trade rules and won the trust of the international community."

Meanwhile, Diego noted: "The government simply does what it deems right to do. Everyone falls in line. At the same time, I think the way they organize things has really helped them. They stay within the norms, and that leads them to have what we see now: respect for traffic signals, respect for instructions and rules. It is a schematic system that I think helps."

Regarding the role of the Chinese state in the change, Diego stated: "At first the 5-year plans helped if a change is needed, they make the change. It's not just the need for a long-term plan but also adapting it to the current reality. It's changed and adapted to what's happening. That and industrial planning through clusters backed by government favor and stimuli were decisive. The clusters turned slowly into China's push toward development."

Competitive advantage

Eduardo added: "They've been very smart about their economic policy. Since they opened up to the world, they've known what the key industries are, the ones they were going to back or the ones to privatize with an eye on better development, taking competition into account. That's why the East coast is the most developed. It was a competitive-advantage strategy because it had port access. Each part has a function. Everything in China does: Shanghai, Beijing, and other strategic cities. Nothing is left to chance. They organized their economic structure. That, together with their organization base, led to the success we see today. Again, let's talk about authority. If the authority says something, people follow it."

With respect to successful public policies and the viability of exporting them to Mexico, Eduardo said: "It's a complex question. Some could work but the model, in and of itself, I don't think it can be exported. It's a different model, beginning with the culture, and it wouldn't work in another country. Maybe where it could work is in going after the common good like they do, but some policies are for China only."

Respect for law

Diego added: "It's not a 100 percent exportable model, but there are some aspects that could be followed  respect for the legal framework and control of and punishment for corruption. Here, punishment is nonnegotiable. Whoever has harmed the people's interests is punished. There's no flexibility, like in the West. And the government is signing extradition treaties with several countries to bring back the offenders."

Regarding opportunities in the MexicoChina relationship, Diego said: "Mexico and other countries have seen China as a competitor and have missed out on a lot of opportunities. We see it as being in contact with the market. We see a lot of advantages for Mexican businesses if they seek out a strategic alliance with China. There's a lot of opportunity for investment in Mexico. We have to seek out ChineseMexican business alliances. I think that's the difference in improving trade relations. There are a lot of sectors, footwear for example. Mexico has the geographic placement and the trade networks to re-export the products in a business alliance."

Unexplored territory

Eduardo concluded by saying: "The relation between the two countries has had a series of setbacks, but that creates a great opportunity. It's unexplored territory because of a lack of information on both sides. The Chinese don't know much about Mexico, and we don't know much about them. Other Latin American countries have beat us to it, such as Chile and Peru. It's sad, because if we look at the size of Mexico's economy and its importance in the region, we should have a greater presence in China. We're aware that being such close neighbors with the United States is a factor that affects Mexico's trade with China, but I think we should see China as an opportunity rather than a threat. We also should realize that things in China are changing very quickly. There are more and more well-educated people, with a lot of purchasing power. We should bring products and services to meet that need. We should look toward China and stop putting all of our eggs in one basket. We should come to China, get to know it and take advantage of the opportunities it offers, such as tourism. It's a good idea to promote Mexico and its destinations. We shouldn't just stick to selling them the same thing. Tequila is one example. We keep pushing it without taking into account that a lot of Chinese are allergic to alcohol. Or others don't know about it. There are no positioning strategies like the French had. They've spent 40 years holding French wine tastings. How many have we held? So there's opportunity to promote our products and services from an exportable supply and demand. Business is not buysell. It's a long process, especially in a young market like China. You have to be aware of the advantages and quality of the product for the Chinese consumer, and I'm sure that the Chinese will buy it."

The author is a visiting scholar at Fudan Development Institute. He received his PhD in political and social science from National University of Mexico. Currently he is a research professor at Tec de Monterrey.
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China on Monday urged the United States to stop making groundless accusations against Chinese companies and politicizing normal acquisition cases.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks in response to U.S. President Barack Obama's block of a Chinese company's purchase of the U.S. business of German chip equipment maker Aixtron.

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, the U.S. Department of Treasury said in a statement on Friday.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which reviews foreign purchases of U.S. companies, and Obama assess that "the transaction poses a risk to the national security of the United States that cannot be resolved through mitigation," the statement said.

"The Chinese company's acquisition is purely market behavior," Lu told a regular press briefing.

China is opposed to politicization of and political intervention in normal acquisitions, he said.

Lu urged the United States to offer a fair environment and convenience for investment by Chinese companies.

The Chinese government always encourages Chinese companies to carry out overseas investment and cooperation in accordance with market and international rules as well as local laws, he added.
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The White House said on Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe late December in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The meeting on Dec. 27 will be a chance for the two leaders to review their joint efforts over the past four years to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance, said the White House in a statement.

Obama and Abe will also visit the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, the statement added.

More than 2,000 U.S. servicemen were killed on Dec. 7, 1941 at the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

The attack came as a shock to the Americans and directly led to U.S. entry into World War II.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, southwestern Japan. Another U.S. nuclear strike was launched on another southwestern Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later.

Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.
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A Russian Sukhoi Su-33 fighter jet skidded off the country's sole aircraft carrier deployed in the Mediterranean after completing a combat mission in Syria, and the pilot successfully ejected, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.

"After a combat mission in Syria, the fighter jet rolled out of the deck while landing on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov," the ministry said in a statement, without specifying when the accident happened.

The pilot was immediately taken on board of the aircraft carrier, the statement said, adding that the accident was caused by a broken cable of the aircraft's arresting gear.

It was the second accident involving Admiral Kuznetsov in a month, since the aircraft carrier arrived in the Mediterranean to provide support to Russia's air campaign in Syria.

On Nov. 15, a MiG-29 fighter jet crashed during a training mission as it approached the aircraft carrier for a landing due to technical failure.
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China despatched the first 120 of a 700-member peacekeeping infantry battalion to Juba, capital of South Sudan on Dec. 4.

China dispatches third peacekeeping infantry battalion to South Sudan on Dec. 4, 2016. [Photo/CNTV]

The remainder of the infantry battalion, which has been assigned to a 12-month United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission, will leave in five separate groups.

The peacekeepers have all attended a three-month peacekeeping course and will be engaged with the protection of civilians, supporting UN and humanitarian relief programs, patrols and escorts.

The infantry battalion is the third Chinese team to be dispatched to South Sudan, since the country deployed its first peacekeeping infantry battalion in South Sudan in 2015.

In July this year, two Chinese peacekeepers were killed and five others were injured during a peacekeeping mission in Juba.

China currently has over 2,600 peacekeeping personnel involved in 10 UN peacekeeping operations, making China the most active permanent member of the UN Security Council in terms of supplying peacekeeping personnel.
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Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Sunday that the U.S. government must prevent the implementation of a recent Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) and remain committed to its obligations under the international nuclear agreement, Tehran Times daily reported Monday.

Salehi expressed concerns over the extension of the ISA for 10 years, saying Iran has the right to respond properly if the bill is implemented.

His remarks came in a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Sunday.

For his part, Moniz said that President Barack Obama will be informed of Iran's concerns, adding that the U.S. administration will be committed to the Iran nuclear deal.

The vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to extend the ISA was endorsed by the Senate on Thursday. It 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.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that the recent U.S. vote is a clear violation of an international deal on Iran's nuclear issue, the official IRNA news agency reported.

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

Iran and six world major countries, namely the United States, Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany, reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July 2015 which 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 and allows regular inspections of the facilities inside the Islamic republic.

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

Some members of the U.S. Congress, however, had expressed deep concerns over the deal, warning that Tehran may evade inspections and use the money from sanction relief to destabilize the region.
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has publicly announced his candidacy for the left primary in preparation for the 2017 presidential election on Monday in Evry, a commune in the suburb of Paris, proposing "a new path" for "an independent France uncompromising on its values."

"I am a candidate for the presidency of the Republic," Valls told hundreds of his supporters in Evry, four days after President Francois Holland decided not to join 2017 presidential race.

"I have this strength in me, this desire to serve my country ... I want to give everything to France, a country that has given me so much," he said.

The prime minister said he would leave office on Tuesday to focus on his presidential campaign.

Valls, a security hardliner and advocate of pro-business ideas, was named the chief of Hollande's executive team in 2014 in a bid to earn the Socialists' spurs after their heavy defeat in the mayoral run-off.

To join the race to the Elysee Palace, Valls has first to win the Left nomination in two round-primary in January 22 and 29. Opinion polls showed that he is the favorite to win the party's ticket for the presidential election.

With a deeply-divided Left and Socialist camp dogged by public discontent over poor economics, the 54-year-old candidate has to unite the ranks to increase chances to maintain power in 2017 and defy pollsters which predicted no candidate for left-wing parties would garner enough support to pass the first round.

There are seven declared contenders for the left primary,including former ministers Aranud Montebourg and Benoit Hamon.

Ex-economy minister Emmanuel Macron and six other candidates have launched their own campaign, a fact likely to divide votes and crush the left parties' hope to build enough momentum to challenge the conservative candidate Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party.

Candidates for the left primary have to submit their bid before Dec. 15.
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South Sudan's army on Monday denied losing the strategic border town of Yei to opposition forces loyal to sacked First Vice President Riek Machar during fighting over the weekend.

Army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang told Xinhua in the capital Juba that opposition forces on Saturday attacked their troops in Yei, some 150km southwest of Juba. The fighting went on until Sunday.

A spokesman for the opposition SPLM-IO party, Dickson Gatluak, on Sunday claimed their forces had killed 16 government soldiers, forced some government troops to flee to DR Congo and were in control of the "area".

"Despite the aerial bombardment by helicopter gunship and infantry reinforcement from different directions. Our mighty fighters resist it and remain in full control of area after several attempts by government," Gatluak said.

However, Koang dismissed the allegation.

"Over the weekend some criminals (opposition soldiers) made attempt on the SPLA forces (government troops) of the 6th Divison in Yei. They were unsuccessful in the attempt and were defeated," said Koang.

Meanwhile Koang said the South Sudanese army was concerned about NGO allegations that its soldiers violated human rights in Yei, which is the epicenter of reported violence along ethnic lines.

"We are not taking it lightly, we are appealing to the bodies filing these (human) reports to share them with us, so that we can investigate them," Koang added.

Koang also disclosed that several passengers, travelling in a private car on Juba-Yei road over the weekend, were attacked by unknown gunmen, who set ablaze the vehicle.

He said the passengers' whereabouts remained unknown.

"A private car that was carrying between four to five people was ambushed and set alight. We cannot confirm the whereabouts of the occupants because it was burnt to ashes and the occupants are feared dead or captured," Koang said.

South Sudan fell into civil war in December 2013 after a fall-out between President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy Machar.

A peace deal signed last year under UN pressure returned Machar to his old post as first vice president in a unity government led by Kiir in April, but renewed fighting broke out between the rival factions in July.

Machar left South Sudan and was sacked again following the July fighting.
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A two-day international seminar on the right to development concluded Monday, urging continued global commitment to offering equal opportunities for development and sharing its benefits.

At the seminar marking the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations' "Declaration on the Right to Development," participants agreed that peace and development remain the dominant themes in today's world.

The fundamental cause of poverty, the refugee crisis, conflicts, war, terrorism and extremism lies in underdevelopment, and solutions to all these problems must be sought through development, they said.

More than 150 representatives from over 40 countries, regions and international organizations attended the event.

They called on governments to continue to improve conditions to facilitate the development of all nations and individuals so that all people can pursue personal development with dignity, contribute to society and share opportunities to achieve their full potential and dreams.

The North-South gap in economic development is still very wide, attendees said, calling on the international community to make poverty and hunger elimination its primary task, tackle imbalances in development and promote sustainable development.

Development is the eternal theme of human society, and the right to development is a universal and inalienable human right, according to proposals made during the seminar, which was co-hosted by the State Council Information Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"All countries have the responsibility to implement their right to development on the state and international level. They should accomplish development based on equality and non-discrimination principles," said Zamir Akram, chair-rapporteur of the Working Group on the Right to Development at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Akram added that all countries should reduce poverty domestically and around the world through cooperation with the international community.

The participants also spoke highly of the achievements made by many developing countries, including China, in ensuring their people's rights to development.

"Over 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty in such a short period. This is a great accomplishment of China," Akram said.

Li Erping, a professor from Kunming University of Science and Technology in southwest China's Yunnan Province, said that achieving common prosperity through targeted poverty alleviation is a crucial part of the Chinese government's efforts and a tool to ensure the right to development.

Li noted that some regions, families or individuals, due to remote location, disability or other reasons, may not have shaken off poverty yet.

Targeted poverty alleviation requires precision in choosing whom to help, how to arrange programs and how to spend the money, Li added.

"Poverty reduction is the most telling evidence of China's progress in human rights," according to a white paper on China's progress in poverty reduction and human rights issued by China's State Council Information Office in October.

"Since the launch of reform and opening up, more than 700 million Chinese people have been raised out of poverty. The number of rural poor had fallen to 55.75 million by 2015, with the incidence of poverty dropping to 5.7 percent. Notable improvement has been made to infrastructure and basic public services, and poverty-reduction mechanisms have been innovated, contributing to the guarantee of the basic rights of the impoverished population," the white paper said.

According to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in China fell from 61 percent in 1990 to 4.2 percent in 2014, with the number of people China has raised from poverty accounting for 70 percent of the world's total.

China is the first developing country to have met the MDG and contributed actively to the global course of poverty alleviation.
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Criminal probe has been initiated against the warehouse fire in Oakland, California, as the death toll of the worst fire in the city's history climbed to 36 as of Monday morning.

Firefighters work inside the burned warehouse following the fatal fire in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California, U.S. December 4, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The search for survivors was suspended on Sunday night as the warehouse seemed to be unstable, and was resumed at 9:00 a.m. (1700 GMT) on Monday, Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson told a press briefing shortly before noon.

It was still unclear how many bodies would be found. Officials initially estimated that the fatalities could be up to 40, but Sergeant Ray Kelly of Alameda County Sheriff's Office declined to speculate, only saying that the number would continue to rise.

"We are no closer to finding the cause, and we absolutely believe that the number of fire fatalities will increase," Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton was also quoted as saying at the site.

However, the AP reported that Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern has said that sheriff's officials don't believe additional bodies will be found in the fire. Rescue crews have gone through roughly three-quarters of the building.

On Monday, authorities said they have identified a total of 11 victims. Names of seven victims that had been identified were also released overnight.

All of them were Californians in their 20s and 30s, including four local residents and two others from nearby cities in northern California. The name of an additional victim, a 17-year-old minor, was withheld.

Some victims were from other countries and regions like South Korea, Finland and South America, Kelly said, adding some of the victims had died from smoke inhalation.

Prosecutors said murder charges are possible. The site of the deadly blaze, which started Friday night and lasted into Saturday morning, was treated as a crime scene. ' Oakland Mayor Libby Schaafa said Sunday afternoon that a criminal investigation team was "activated" to search for evidence of a crime.

A growing number of local people sent flowers, candles and notes to pay tribute to the victims.

Police were reportedly planning to use camera footages, emergency calls and other information to help determine the cause of the fire and whether criminal charges should be filed.

The warehouse, known as "The Oakland Ghost Ship," was permitted by the city only for storage purposes. However, the two-story structure in an industrial neighborhood of East Oakland was converted into art studios, a party venue and probably a residence.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed said Saturday there was no sign of fire alarms and no evidence of a sprinkler system.
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A court in the Philippines has issued an order for the release of 12 Chinese fishermen who were arrested and sentenced to long-term jail time for fishing in Philippine territory, the Philippine daily newspaper the Chinese Commercial News reported.

On April, 2013, the Philippine police arrested 12 Chinese fishermen when their fishing vessel ran aground in Tubbataha Reef.

The coral reef is well within Philippine territory. The fishermen say they were taking refuge there during a storm.

Later in 2014, the Palawan court in the Philippines convicted the fishermen of poaching and violating the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park Act of 2009.

They were the first foreigners to be found guilty of violating the law, according to the South China Morning Post.

The vessel's captain, Liu Wenjie, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and 11 other fishermen got sentences ranging from 6 to 10 years.

A public attorney defending these men told Reuters that he believes the Chinese fishermen are innocent. "They did not intend to go into Philippine territory, but were forced there by bad weather," the lawyer said.

The exact release date for these fishermen is not clear at the moment.
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China and the United States will hold their third high-level dialogue on cyber crimes and related matters this week in the United States.

China's State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun will leave for the U.S. to co-chair the dialogue this Tuesday, and remain there until Friday, according to a press release from the foreign ministry.

The first China-U.S. high-level dialogue on cyber crimes, co-chaired by Guo with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, was held in Washington last December and the second was held in Beijing this June.
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A 101-year-old man in Britain, believed to be the oldest defendant in the country's legal history, has stood trial for a string of child sex abuse charges, local media reported on Monday.

Ralph Clarke, a Birmingham resident, denies all 31 offences he was accused of committing between 1974 and 1983 against three children, including two boys and a girl, and one of them was only seven, according to a BBC report.

Two of the alleged victims walked into a police station in August last year to make a complaint against Clarke, revealing "a history of a catalogue of serious sexual abuse," a prosecutor told jurors at the start of the trial.

The former lorry driver was granted unconditional bail after a brief hearing in May. Due to his age and health condition, the court will only hear evidence for four hours per day during his two-week trial.

But the prosecutor insisted that age was no barrier to a defendant being tried, "as long as the trial is fair and the evidence is clear."
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A local prosecutor vowed to thoroughly look into the Friday night warehouse fire in Oakland, California, which has killed 36 people as of Monday afternoon.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, appearing in public for the first time since the deadly fire which erupted during a dance party, told a press briefing that investigators would try to find criminal evidence and those liable.

Charges to be brought against those liable, O'Malley said, could be homicide or involuntary manslaughter.

Declining to go into details and reassuring her determination to seek justice for the victims and their families, she said experts would examine debris from the two-story warehouse and extra charges would be possible.

Investigators had already interviewed "several people" related to the fire, she added.

At the same briefing, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern said of the 36 bodies recovered from the scene, including three added to the total on Monday morning, 33 had been "tentatively identified."

Among them, three were foreign nationals from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala, and their families had been notified, Ahern said.

Noting that about 75 percent of the site had been cleaned up, Ahern said earlier "we can't locate any other deceased victims" and "we are not anticipating any more huge numbers."

However, three days after the disaster took place, nobody knows how many people were inside the building.

After the worst fire in Oakland's history, Mayor Libby Schaaf and other city officials faced criticism that the city had ignored complaints from residents about the specific building.

Schaaf said priorities for now are to recover the victims and help their families.

The warehouse, known as "The Oakland Ghost Ship," was only permitted to be used for storage. However, the structure in an industrial neighborhood of East Oakland was converted into art studios, a party venue and probably a residence.

Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed said on Saturday there was no sign of fire alarms and no evidence of a sprinkler system.

The fire started at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday (0730 GMT Saturday) and continued into Saturday morning, trapping people at an underground music event.

Overnight, authorities have released the names of seven victims that had been definitely identified. All of them were in their 20s and 30s and Californians, including four Oakland residents and two others from nearby cities. The name of an additional victim, a 17-year-old minor, was withheld.

An internal wall of the building was found unstable on Sunday night, forcing firefighters to stop searching for victims for several hours. The operation resumed in the morning, and a big crane was brought in to help with the work.
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French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appointed incumbent Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve the new prime minister to replace Manuel Valls, as the latter has decided to quit the job, according to the Elysee.

Hollande has picked Cazeneuve to succeed Valls as the prime minister until the end of the Socialist Party's five year term next May, the Elysee said in a statement.

The newly-named prime minister is charged with forming a cabinet which will be unveiled later on Tuesday, it added.

Hollande has also accepted the resignation of Valls who launched a bid to seek for the Left nomination to book a ticket for presidential race, it added.

In a cabinet reshuffle in 2014, Cazeneuve, then a deputy minister in charge of budget, was nominated interior minister to replace Valls who was named chief of the Socialist government.

"(Cazeneuve) has the experience of the State. He knows very well the issues of security and the fight against terrorism, which is one of the government's priorities," a source close to the presidential office was quoted as saying by the local broadcaster Europe 1.

Valls announced his candidacy for the left primary in preparation for the 2017 presidential election on Monday in Evry, a commune in the suburb of Paris, proposing a new path for "an independent France uncompromising on its values." He presented his resignation to Hollande earlier Tuesday.
China Aviation Daily | Dec. 06, 2016

Chinese airline conglomerate HNA Group Monday revealed plans for five new nonstop routes from China to the UK in 2017 as as part of a strategic partnership with British tourism authority VisitBritain.

The Chinese cities to be connected directly with Britain are Changsha, Chengdu, Qingdao, Shenzhen and Xi'an, all to be serviced by HNA Group's three subsidiary airlines including Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines and Capital Airlines, the Group announced at an event in Shanghai, as part of the fourth UK-China People to People Dialogue.

Following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2016, Hainan Airlines is the only Chinese airline with which VisitBritain has a long-term strategic partnership in China.

"Hainan Airlines will make full use of the opportunities created by the Air Service Agreement to further explore and develop the British market together with VisitBritain," said Jianfeng Sun, President of Hainan Airlines.

"Currently, we have applied for nonstop routes to London from Chengdu, Changsha and Shenzhen. The three routes planned by Hainan Airlines, combined with Tianjin Airlines' planned Tianjin-Xi'an-London route and Capital Airlines' planned Qingdao-London route, means HNA Group aims to open a total of five routes to Britain within the next year."

"This is undoubtedly an important milestone in strategic cooperation for both sides and is the beginning of a brand new phase in the Sino-British tourism industry and airway development,"

VisitBritain Director Patricia Yates said that China, the world's most valuable outbound market, was a huge tourism opportunity for Britain.

Last year was a record-breaking year for visits from China to the UK with 270,000 visits, up 46% year on year, with spend up 18% to 586 million pounds - moving China into Britain's top 10 most valuable inbound markets for the first time.

The new routes are intended to bring more visitors to the UK from China, a move welcomed by VisitBritain as they attempt to double spending by Chinese travellers to 1 billion pounds by 2020.

Related News:

Hainan Airlines Plans Chengdu-London and Shenzhen-London Services

Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines Seek London Traffic Rights
Premier Li Keqiang speaks with Zhang Huamei, who obtained China's first small private business permit in 1980, at a ceremony on Monday.[WU ZHIYI/China Daily]

Premier Li Keqiang called on small private business owners to build their brands and contribute to employment and the national economy at a ceremony on Monday.

At the event, marking the 30th anniversary of the China Privately Owned Business Association, the premier met with more than 200 representatives of the group. Among them was Zhang Huamei, a 56-year-old woman who in 1980 obtained China's first permit to open a small private business.

Such businesses now provide 40 percent of the country's jobs and have played a vital role in boosting economic growth, vitalizing the market and meeting the public's diversified demands, the premier said.

"Private businesses should operate with integrity and build their own brands to win market recognition, and, meanwhile, avoid counterfeit and fake products," Li said.

The government will further streamline administrative processes and strengthen public services to protect their rights and legal property, he said.

Analysts said Li's high-profile speech at the ceremony is an indication of the importance the central government attaches to this group of business owners, whose number has grown about thirtyfold over the years to more than 300 million.

China is aiming for medium to high speed economic growth, requiring the participation and support of millions of market entities, Li said. Private business owners, he added, should accurately survey market opportunities to create goods in order to meet new demands and create more jobs.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, 10.67 million new jobs were created in the first nine months of the year, three months in advance of the 10-million-job annual goal the premier set in his Government Work Report in March. Observers said that achievement could be largely attributed to small private businesses.

Li has repeatedly talked about the importance of steady employment opportunities as China's economy faces downward pressure amid sluggish world trade. Export and investment, which have been economic drivers for decades, are slowing or even shrinking, so private capital and businesses are getting more significant in the national economy.

The private sector, small businesses in particular, has helped increase employment opportunities and ensure China achieves its annual economic growth target, said Ma Baocheng, director of the Decision-Making and Consultation Department at the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Facing flagging global demand, China's exports declined and private investment growth has also slowed over the past few months. To further stimulate private business owners' enthusiasm, the central government has worked to simplify administration and expand the reform of government services, Ma said.
Liu Shiyu speaks at a press conference of the first session of 12th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China, March 13 2013. [Photo/IC]

Regulator suspends several insurers' sales to rein in risks of leveraged acquisitions

Shares of Chinese companies involved in leveraged acquisitions plunged on Monday, after the country's top securities regulator condemned the "barbaric" buyouts of listed companies by speculative capital.

Gree Electric Appliances, the country's biggest air conditioner producer, tumbled by the 10 percent daily trading limit, while China State Construction Engineering Corp, the country's biggest construction company, suffered a 9.15 percent loss. Both companies have been among the targets of the latest stake-buying spree by aggressive and cash-rich insurance funds in the equity market.

To rein in the risks associated with the surge of aggressive buyouts by insurance funds, China's insurance regulator suspended on Monday the sales of new universal life insurance policies by Foresea Life Insurance Co, the insurance arm of private conglomerate Baoneng Group, which is known for its aggressive purchase of China Vanke Co's shares in the public market, which resulted in a power struggle within the developer.

The regulator said in a statement on its website that it has suspended online sales of insurance products from six major insurers, adding that it will closely follow developments in the market and will take additional regulatory measures if necessary.

It was the latest move by the regulator to adopt tighter control of stock investment by insurance funds and to curb the risks in deals using capital raised from high-yielding and short-term insurance products.

Chinese media reports cited unnamed sources in the industry saying that the securities regulator has collected evidence of illegal insurance funds used in some buyout deals.

Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, lashed out at the leveraged buyouts of listed companies, during a financial industry meeting over the weekend. He called some institutions "barbarians at the gate" and "robbers of the industry" who have challenged the bottom line of the country's legal and financial system.

The securities chief questioned the source of their capital, saying that the use of "improperly obtained" capital for leveraged trading is "unacceptable".

The comment from the top regulator caught the stock market by surprise, prompting investors to sell their holdings on Monday.

"The comments are surprisingly harsh, but with good intention to protect smaller shareholders. It is aiming at the speculative use of capital that may have been sourced inappropriately," said Hong Hao, chief strategist at BOCOM International in Hong Kong.

Hong said that the potential tightening of control by the regulators on the open market purchase of listed companies will mean less support for the share prices, which could in turn pressure the overall A-share market.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell by 1.2 percent on Monday as market sentiment worsened after Italy rejected a constitutional referendum.

The latest wave of controversial purchases of listed companies' stakes by insurance funds "have helped fan the speculative mood in the market, which is harmful for the capital market's long-term and healthy development", said Zheng Mingang, an analyst at Dongxing Securities.
A worker assembles a stroller at a factory of Goodbaby Group in Kunshan, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily]

Time-honored household brand names from Europe and North America have become profitable after being acquired by Goodbaby Group, China's largest manufacturer and retailer of baby-care products.

Song Zhenghuan, chairman of Goodbaby Group, said that Evenflo, a leading US maker of car safety seats, high chairs and other products for young children, made a profit of about $14 million in 2016, after being incorporated into the group.

According to the company's 2015 annual report, Evenflo's revenue of Evenflo was around $231 million in 2015, a 16.5 percent increase over 2014.

Cybex GmbH, a German producer of premium car seats, has doubled its profits in 2016, reaching $200 million, after being acquired by the group, Song said.

Both the companies were acquired by Goodbaby in 2014, which gave the group wide exposure in overseas markets, in addition to the booming Chinese market.

Song attributed the success mostly to the group's innovation and marketing strategies.

"We now have researchers from 34 countries," said Song. "We have a tradition to play the national anthems before holding important meetings. It takes a while to play the national anthems for all our workers."

Now, the Suzhou-based company has seven research centers in Germany, France, Austria, the Czech Republic, the United States, Japan and in Kunshan of eastern China's Jiangsu province.

It also established a brand management and European business center in Bayreuth, Germany, a US business center in Boston and a financing and legal affairs center in China's Hong Kong.

"Goodbaby has registered 7,400 patents since it was founded in 1989," Song said. "It is bigger than the patents of our top 10 competitors combined. Every year, we register more than 500 patents."

In 2015, Goodbaby registered more than 620 patents worldwide and won more than 100 product design and safety awards.

"We are proud of our innovation capability and safety control technologies. Even in the US and European markets, where products are frequently recalled, we haven't made any products that should be recalled since we entered the overseas market in 1996."

According to the group, its laboratory has been recognized by international authorities, including SG, TUVNord and CPSC in the US. The products examined and recognized by the laboratory can be sold at the US and European markets directly.

Being the largest supplier of strollers in North America, Europe and China, Goodbaby has stamped its name on 80 percent of its products, while, before 2016, 80 percent of its manufactured products were branded by other world leading companies.

Now about 70 percent of Goodbaby's business is in overseas markets in Asia, North America and Europe.
Attempt to buy is consistent with strategy to snap up clean energy producers abroad

China Three Gorges Corp and SDIC Power Holdings Co are among companies bidding for Canadian renewable energy producer Northland Power Inc, according to people familiar with the matter.

First-round bids for the Toronto-based company, which has a market value of C$3.7 billion ($2.8 billion), were due on Dec 2, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. Some Canadian pension funds also had a look at the company but balked at its valuation ahead of the bid deadline, the people said.

Northland Power announced in July that the company had commenced a review of strategic alternatives, a spokesman for the company said in an emailed statement on Friday, declining to comment further. Representatives of Three Gorges and SDIC didn't immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and JPMorgan Chase & Co are working on Northland's review.

The company owns or has investments in power generation facilities in Canada, the US and Germany. Its facilities produce electricity from clean natural gas and other renewable sources, including solar, wind and biomass.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sought to cut pollution and spur investment in non-fossil fuels in the world's second-largest economy.

Three Gorges agreed to buy control of German wind farm operator WindMW GmbH from Blackstone Group LP in June, in a deal valuing the target at about 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion) including debt, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

SDIC Power acquired Repsol SA's offshore wind-energy business for 238 million euros in May, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg
Alipay launches this year's 12.12 shopping festival at Santa Claus village in Finland. [Photo by Cecily Liu/chinadaily.com.cn]

China's high spending tourists are reaching some of the most remote parts of Europe  evidenced by the fact that the Chinese payment platform Alipay gained acceptance at over 100 shops, restaurants and hotels in the northern Finnish city of Rovaniemi within a month.

Rovaniemi, capital of the northern Finnish province of Lapland and famous for its Santa Claus village, a tourist attraction, is also the location Alipay chose to launch its shopping festival 12.12, which gives discounts to Chinese shoppers between December 9-12 across 70,000 merchants across 16 countries globally.

The launch ceremony, held in Santa Claus village on Tuesday, was attended by Rovaniemi mayor Esko Lotvonen, some of Alipay's local merchants partners and some Chinese tourists.

Lotvonen said the Alipay's choice to launch the festival there was a sign of the friendship between China and Finland and he hopes to welcome more Chinese tourists.

Alipay is the payment arm of Chinese fintech firm Ant Financial, itself an affiliate firm of internet giant Alibaba. With 450 million users in China, Alipay is now fast expanding internationally, offering tourists with easy and secure payment support.

Now in its third year, 12.12 is a shopping festival that Alipay has created to encourage more shopping, similar to the 11.11 singles day shopping festival.

Whereas 11.11 focuses on online shopping, 12.12 offers are only available when making purchases offline, in stores, restaurants and hotels.

In Finland Alipay collaborates with mobile payment provider ePassi, which already works with about 10,000 merchants in Finland. When Chinese shoppers pay with Alipay, Finnish merchants will receive money into their ePassi wallets within seconds. "Traditionally Chinese travellers to Finland encounter two challenges: firstly tourist information is not extensively available in Chinese and secondly they often need to carry lots of cash on their travels, Alipay's entry into Finland solves both challenges," said Alexander Yin, chief financial officer of TCG, parent company of ePassi.

Alipay offers payment convenience, and its app also provides practical information about its partner merchants in Finland, helping these merchants to more effectively attract Chinese tourists.

Yin said ePassi's reputation in Finland helps it persuade merchants about Alipay's security, while the fact ePassi already owns a payment institution license from Finnish regulators means Alipay's entrance into Finland require no additional licence.

Alipay is being embraced by Finish merchants.

"We are so glad to add Alipay as a new payment method, after having this request from Chinese shoppers for so long," said Tanja Keisu-Makinen, Helsinki Airport store manager of Finnish watchmaker Lindroos.

"We've already had some Alipay transactions in store even though we've just launched it for a week," added Tina Jokinen, Helsinki Airport store manager of the local glassworks manufacturer Iittala. Alipay was used by 120 million users overseas last year. It also collaborates with Germany's Wirecard and France's Ingenico, in a similar way to its links with ePassi in Finland.

"Alipay gives me so much convenience and is very easy to use," said Cao Binjie, 27, a tourist from Guangzhou who used Alipay to buy a deer-skin mat, magnets and postcards from the Santa Claus village souvenir shop. Cao's views are echoed by Xu Lei, a 33-year-old tourist from Shanghai, who used Alipay to buy an Arctic Circle visit certificate from the Santa Claus village tourism office. "When I saw Alipay there, I was so surprised and impressed by Alipay's global expansion. Using Alipay overseas is great, although I would only use it in big reputable shops as I don't feel secure using mobile payment in small shops."

To contact the reporter: cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
BEIJING - President Xi Jinping on Monday called for further efforts to improve the effectiveness of reforms and widen the scope of their benefits.

The country should introduce more reforms that can help invigorate the economy, promote social justice, give people a greater sense of gain and mobilize the participation of the masses, according to a statement released after a meeting of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform, chaired by Xi, head of the group.

A slew of guidelines and plans were passed at the meeting.

The leading group pledged to step up supervision over state-owned enterprises and assets through strict and independent auditing, and to strengthen scrutiny over the budget and use of state capital.

More focus should be given to managing the structure of state assets, regulating capital use, enhancing capital returns and protecting the safety of capital, the statement said.

Regarding the administration on natural resource assets, China will seek a unified national natural resource asset management mechanism to improve the effectiveness of asset protection.

An effective intellectual property rights management mechanism will be put in place to support innovation, the leading group promised.

The guidelines approved at Monday's meeting also include improving the service capabilities of township governments, taking better care of the country's elderly, enhancing farmland protection, and piloting national parks for pandas, Siberian tigers and leopards.

Policymakers stressed the role of soft power in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, calling for proper guidance of public opinion to support the scheme.

The group asked authorities to map out reform work for next year to ensure overhauls proceed steadily with fresh momentum as the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress approaches.

The meeting was also attended by Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan and Zhang Gaoli, members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy heads of the group.

Over the course of the 30 meetings convened by the leading group since December 2013, hundreds of measures have been designed and released to address issues such as urbanization, poverty alleviation, innovation and the market's role in resource allocation.

The most recent emphasis on reform came three years after the key Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013, which featured a comprehensive reform package covering 15 areas and 60 tasks.

China aims to achieve "decisive results" in major reform areas by 2020.
PARIS - One hundred restaurants in China are qualified among the world's top 1000 restaurants, while 113 restaurants in France and 116 restaurants in Japan are also on the list, according to the second edition of the French gastronomic classification "The List", which was unveiled Monday in Paris.

The results for China include China's mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, said Philippe Faure, founder of The List and responsible for the Tourism Development Agency of France, in press release.

Italy is clearly in the "best value for money" section, while Switzerland has shown an excellent performance with 40 Swiss restaurants listed.

The List also offers a selection of more than ten thousand "Best Value" establishments, located in 135 countries and regions, featuring high-quality cuisine at reasonable prices.

In addition, the exact results of the List can be found by way of the application The List, freely downloadable on iPhone in six languages including French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese.

The first edition of The List was launched in December 2015, with the ambition to create a new world gastronomic reference.
KIEV - Ukrainian agricultural exporters are exploring new ways to bring their products into the Chinese market, Ukrainian Agriculture Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

"China belongs to the key strategic trade partners of Ukraine. We aim to deepen our cooperation on the access of Ukraine-made agricultural and food products to the market of China," Volodymyr Lapa, head of the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection of Ukraine, was quoted as saying in a statement.

Next year, Ukraine plans to launch a cargo train to China via the rail-sea Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, which would reduce the delivery time of cargos between the countries, allowing Ukraine to export more short-lived food to China.

In particular, Ukrainian exporters have voiced the plans to deliver fruits, berries and meat to the Chinese market.

According to the Ukrainian statistics, China became Ukraine's largest partner in agriculture and food products trade last year, with bilateral sales rising by 39.5 percent to $1.3 billion.

Currently, Ukraine's agricultural exports to China comprises primarily of corn, sunflower oil, soybean oil and wheat flour.
The solar-powered car. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Qoros, a joint venture between Chery and Israel Corp, is to join hands with Cambridge University to build a car for its student group Eco Racing to participate in a solar-powered car race next year, said the Chinese automaker on Monday.

However,the automaker did not specify what technological support it would offer to the group that is to participate in the 3,000 km World Solar Challenge in Australia in October 2017.

Established in 2007, the group, often known as the CUER, has since been attending the biennial event that is designed to promote research on solar-powered cars.

It attracts teams from around the world, most of which are fielded by universities or corporations although some are fielded by high schools.

Besides solar cars, Qoros has worked out a two-stage electric car and hybrids program.

One fruit of the first stage is an electric concept car, Qoros 3 QLECTRIQ EV. Having made its premiere in April, the car can travel 350 kilometers on one charge and its battery can get 80 percent charged within an hour.

The automaker said the production model will start running off the assembly line in 2017.

The second stage will feature an electric car platform that is still under development.

Qoros said more innovative technology will be applied to the platform and models based on it will be unveiled starting 2020.
Goodyear China has been recognized among the Top Employers China 2017 by the Top Employers Institute on Dec 6 in Shanghai. This is the seventh consecutive year and ninth time that Goodyear China has been given this award.

Goodyear is honored at the Top Employer Award Ceremony in Shanghai, on Dec 6, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

This world-renowned employer accolade recognizes outstanding human resources, talent management policies and the best practices of employers. Goodyear China's achievement reflects its remarkable efforts in talent strategy and corporate culture, plus employee development and care.

"We prepare detailed career plans for all employees of Goodyear China. The plan covers onboarding training through future learning, from leadership development to succession planning," said Iain McDaniels, managing director of China, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

"We believe that the competitiveness of a company comes from its talent, enthusiasm, diversity and the skills of its employees," McDaniels said.

Through training and guidance, Goodyear China provide employees with a clear path and a level playing field, according to the company

"If it wasn't for our adherence to our talent strategies, we would not have been a Top Employer for seven straight years," McDaniels added.

"We provide employees with a great workplace, competitive compensation and benefits, and a sense of belonging  all of which are conducive to their career goals and ambition," he said.

Goodyear China is honored as Top Employer 2017 by the Top Employers Institute in Shanghai, on Dec 6, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

As one of the most influential annual human resource-related assessments, the Top Employers certification involves an in-depth survey into employee conditions across nine areas of HR: talent strategy, workforce planning, onboarding, learning and development, performance management, leadership development, career and succession management, compensation and benefits, and culture.

Each survey is audited by an independent third party. Participating companies have to go through stringent processes to prove their high standards of excellence before they have a chance to become Top Employers.
China is willing to link its Belt and Road Initiative with the trade and investment blueprints of Japan and the Republic of Korea, said Cao Wenlian, director general of International Cooperation Center of China's National Development and Reform Commission. Cao spoke in Tokyo on Monday.

China is ready to work with the two Asian neighbors on a strategy that is in the interest of all three, Cao said. He was attending the first forum on industrial capacity cooperation between the three.

Officials and businesspeople from China, Japan and South Korea agreed that East Asia needs to cooperate beyond the region. With mutually complementary economies, the three contribute 70 percent of Asia's gross domestic product and 36 percent of the world's GDP.

Cao said the three countries' trade volumes totaled $625.7 billion in 2015. The accumulated investment from Japan, which is China's largest source of foreign investment capital, hit $103 billion by the end of 2015. South Korea is China's fourth-largest investor.

Geopolitical issues have been a stumbling block to substantial cooperation in East Asia, said Yang Xiaoping, vice-chairman of Charoen Pokphand Group, a Thailand-based conglomerate. "The century of Asia would dawn if China, Japan and the ROK had substantive cooperation," Yang said.

Jung Whan Woo, a research fellow with the ROK's Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, said East Asia should upgrade the quality and scale of their cooperation.

Jung said it is of great importance for the three countries to find ways to work together in other markets, adding that China's Belt and Road Initiative presents an opportunity for Japan and South Korea to pursue further development abroad.

"I'm confident in China's development, which is running in a more ideal direction," Jung said.

Iwao Okamoto, president of the Japan-China Economic Association, called for establishing a mechanism for China-Japan-South Korean cooperation in other markets as soon as possible. Negotiations on a free trade agreement among the three countries and the proposed pan-Asian Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership should be accelerated, Okamoto said.

China has proposed cooperation in other markets using the Belt and Road Initiative and South Korea's Eurasia Initiative.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi shakes hands with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif after a joint news conference in Beijing on Monday.Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily

Foreign ministers of China and Iran agree on ways to boost cooperation

It's the responsibility of all parties to the Iran nuclear deal to fully implement the agreement, and its implementation should not be affected by changes in the parties' domestic situations, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday.

Wang spoke during a news conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Beijing. Wang said all parties should keep promises they made as part of the deal, which was reached after "a decade of arduous negotiation".

The meeting between Wang and Zarif is the first of the annual meetings of their foreign ministers agreed upon by the countries' leaders.

In July 2015, six countries including China reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, which agreed to curb its nuclear programs in return for the lifting of sanctions. The UN Security Council later endorsed the deal.

Zarif, in China for a two-day visit that started Monday, said China played a "very important role" in reaching the deal.

He also said all the participants have a duty to implement the deal and that Iran would not allow any unilateral measures that violate it.

The visit came after both chambers of the United States Congress voted to renew the Iran Sanctions Act, which is set to expire on Dec 31. The passage is only effective if signed by the president. US president-elect Donald Trump, however, had lashed out against the deal during the election campaign. He takes office on Jan 20.

On Monday, Wang said he hopes the leaders of China and Iran continue their close communication, adding that China greatly values its cooperation with Iran, an important country along Belt and Road Initiative routes.

China hopes to cooperate more with Iran in fields including trade, energy and infrastructure construction, and hopes that the two countries will implement key production capacity cooperation projects as soon as possible, Wang said.

Zarif said on Monday that his country and China are "highly complementary partners" in implementing the initiative.

Zarif said that in his meeting with Wang, they held discussions on strengthening cooperation in such fields as energy, transportation, security and counterterrorism.

Niu Xinchun, an expert in Middle East studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said normal business ties between China and Iran will continue to develop despite US moves on sanctions.

Niu said Iran is a "significant" player in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Also, China and Iran have a lot in common in their national strategies, as Iran has been promoting domestic plans concerning fields such as energy development and infrastructure construction, Niu added.

Chu Yi contributed to this story.
China dispatched the first 120 members of its 700-strong peacekeeping infantry battalion to Juba, capital of South Sudan, on a 12-month United Nations mission on Sunday.

Two Chinese peacekeepers were killed there in July.

The battalion also includes a 13-member female unit to undertake humanitarian missions, and protect women and children's rights, the Defense Ministry said.

The remainder of the battalion will leave in five separate deployments for South Sudan and replace the second batch of Chinese peacekeepers stationed there. The new battalion will protect civilians, UN staff and humanitarian workers, do patrols and escorts, and conduct other missions.

The third battalion is comprised mainly of officers and soldiers from the 54th Group Army of the People's Liberation Army.

Of the 700 personnel, 138 have previous peacekeeping experience.

Founded on July 9, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan became the newest country in the world and was embroiled in regional conflict. In 2014, the Security Council passed a resolution reinforcing the peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

China also deployed a 700-member battalion to South Sudan in January last year.

China currently has 2,639 peacekeepers on duty - more than all other permanent members on the UN Security Council combined - according to UN peacekeeping data. China is also the second-largest financier of peacekeeping operations.

China's growing participation in UN peacekeeping demonstrates its responsibility as a Security Council member and the second-largest economy in the world, said He Wenping, a researcher at the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

To tackle difficult missions and minimize risks, the PLA has been training its soldiers in various peacekeeping protocols and optimizing the battalion by adding veterans and building diversity, said Zhu Chenghu, a professor at PLA National Defense University.

zhangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/06/2016 page4)
Every morning at 7 am, Li Shuangxi and his wife can be seen bending over, standing up and bending over again on the marshlands of the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province.

The couple are not doing their morning exercises. As their rubber-gloved hands and the plastic bags slung over their arms indicate, they are picking litter along China's longest river.

They are joined by a dozen other people. Bags of trash begin to pile up by the roadside, waiting to be collected and sent to collecting stations. Less than an hour later the group leaves, disappearing into the flow of morning commuters.

"We call ourselves 'ant-men'," said Li, a hairdresser. "All we do is pick up trash along the Yangtze for about half an hour every day."

In November last year, Li was inspired after reading a story about a young foreigner who volunteered to clean up the garbage in his local river every morning.

"I was born and raised along the Yangtze. I have no problem getting up a little bit earlier to do something for my mother river every day," Li said.

He bought garbage bags and gloves, and began his ritual the day after reading the story.

Yichang is located in the Three Gorges, one of the most splendid sections of the Yangtze.

Li and his wife collected about 50 kilograms of trash on their first day, 100 kg on the second and more than 200 kg on the third day.

"The marshlands were like a garbage dump," Li said.

As the amount of garbage they collected was becoming too much to handle, he asked a friend to transport the bags to a nearby garbage station on a tricycle. The station refused to accept the garbage at first, asking for disposal fees. Li tried hard to persuade workers there to accept them for free.

Later he posted photographs and a description about what he was doing on his WeChat account. Some of his friends said he should not bother as there was so much new trash every day. Some even questioned whether the whole endeavor was just a publicity stunt.

Thanks to the support of his wife and son, Li was not discouraged. After a month, about 100 people had joined him. He had "co-workers".

In October, Li established a volunteer group called "Three Gorges Ant-men", which now has more than 300 registered members.

The Three Gorges' Ant-men have also won recognition from the city government, which now sends garbage trucks to the collection site and even offered the group an office, where donated gloves and garbage bags can be stored.
In addition to regular controls on production and vehicle use, some cities have tightened restrictions to reduce emissions of airborne pollutants.

In 10 cities in Shanxi province, including the provincial capital Taiyuan, all plants in mining, sand excavation, processing of stones and asphalt mixing industries were required to suspend production from Dec 1 to 4.

In Langfang, Hebei province, all casting factories and cement-making plants (except those providing heating services for residential communities) are required to suspend production in December.

In Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei, all pharmaceutical plants have been required to halt their operations since Nov 18, a measure that will last until the end of this year. In addition, another seven industries, including steel and iron, cement and glass making, have also had production suspended until Dec 31.
Central authorities work to maintain ties with people

The Chinese central leadership's frugality campaign, which was launched in December 2012, features the "eight-point rules", which aim to curb extravagance and improve officials' work style.

Sunday marked the fourth anniversary of the release of the rules, which banned red-carpet receptions for officials and use of public vehicles for private affairs, reduced pro form a meetings, avoided traffic disturbances such as road closures, and ordered austerity in official meals, travel and housing.

Four years on, the campaign has showed no sign of fading, and is still going strong as the central authorities strive to maintain close ties with the people and eliminate both "tigers" (corrupt senior officials) and "flies" (corrupt lower-level officials).

According to the Communist Party of China's anti-graft agency, nearly 200,000 Party and government staff have been punished for violating the rules in the past four years, many who had held senior positions.

They were involved in more than 146,400 cases, about one-quarter of which involved the use of public vehicles and dining out on public funds, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.

Consumption curbed

Gu Jiuru, head chef at Quanjude, a famous roast duck restaurant chain, said he used to witness corruption during official or company receptions.

"The dishes were expensive, and some even contained 'forbidden ingredients', but they were more often thrown around rather than eaten," he said.

Such waste is a rarity now, according to Gu, who said he is happy about this change, despite the hit to his revenue.

In fact, China's catering industry was dealt a heavy blow by the austerity rules, and many high-end restaurants suffered for a time. The industry's revenue growth slowed down in 2013 and 2014.

But surprising changes followed. Many food and beverage brands synonymous with luxury consumption cut their prices, got rid of their gaudy packaging and increased more "low-end" products, tapping the mass markets of ordinary people.

For example, a famous liquor brand cut the price of its flagship wine from more than 1,800 yuan ($260) per bottle to about 900 yuan per bottle, increasing sales.

In the first 10 months of this year, the revenue of China's catering industry grew by 10.9 percent year-on-year, and annual revenue is expected to exceed 3.5 trillion yuan.

China has vacated and auctioned official cars and further regulated officials' use of public vehicles, saving about 1.4 billion yuan in car purchasing and maintenance.

Unremitting, upgraded

The latest rules on officials' benefits, released on Nov 30, stipulate that Party and State leaders should vacate their offices in a timely manner upon retiring.

The new rules, regarded as "an expansion and upgrade" to the Party's "eight-point rules", also said officials should "travel without pomp", minimize their impact on public life and not have vehicles exceeding the set standards. In August 2013, the CCDI established a monthly reporting system to monitor the implementation of frugality rules, naming and shaming violators on its website.

However, CCDI statistics indicate that there is still much left to be done.

The statistics showed that 33,532 violations were reported from January to October this year, almost the same number reported for the whole of last year.

"The implementation of the frugality campaign must continue and be tightened up every year," said Li Kang of the Jiangxi Academy of Social Sciences.
Twomilu, or Pere David's deer, feed on wetland in the Tian'ezhou Milu National Nature Reserve in Hubei province.Song Jianchun / For China Daily

Bird sanctuaries and businesses benefit from environmental protection project. Chen Liang and Li Yingqing report from Dali, Yunnan province.

The patrol teams at the Shanghai Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve need just three essential pieces of equipment for their daily work: a telescope; a pair of binoculars; and a smartphone fitted with an app developed by the reserve.

Every morning, the patrol teams gather in the reserve's office on Chongming Island in the Yangtze River estuary to identify their planned routes and start work.

They use the equipment to record the numbers and species of birds, traces of animal life and any evidence of illicit human activity, such as cattle herding, that they observe along their route. The app transfers the field data to the reserve's computers as soon as it is entered into the phone.

The technology gives the managers in the office a clear picture of everything that's happening in the reserve. "All the data is analyzed regularly so we can discover problems, solve them and improve our management over time," said Tang Chendong, the reserve's director, at the 10th annual meeting of Yangtze Wetland Protected Area Network, held in Dali, Yunnan province, last month.

Tang outlined Dongtan's experiments in wetland conservation and reserve management to about 300 delegates from the State Forestry Administration, and wetland management authorities from 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. International organizations also attended including the World Wide Fund for Nature, and research institutes and universities.

Extensive scale

Tang was one of 12 keynote speakers at the meeting, which was organized by the SFA's Wetland Management Center, WWF China, the UN Development Programme China and the Yunnan Forestry Bureau.

During the meeting, which also acted as a training seminar for participants from the network's 252 members - mostly wetland reserves and parks within the Yangtze River basin - the delegates discussed how to put the Yangtze River wetland under "extensive protection".

Speaking at a forum earlier this year, President Xi Jinping said the restoration of the Yangtze River ecosystem should be made "an overwhelming priority" and urged experts to "focus on extensive protection" of the 6,300-km-long river.

"Extensive protection of the Yangtze wetland is key to realizing the country's goal that 'the area of wetland in China should not fall below 800 million mu (53.33 million hectares)'," said Chen Fengxue, the SFA's deputy director. Protection and restoration of the wetland along the Yangtze River is considered an important way of implementing the national strategy to build an economic belt along the river, he said.

The economic belt covers Shanghai and Chongqing, and nine provinces - Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou - across an area of more than 2 million square kilometers.

At present, 18 Ramsar sites (wetland designated as internationally important), 167 wetland reserves and 291 national wetland parks have been established to manage 11.54 million hectares within the belt.

"They form a comparatively complete wetland conservation system," Chen said.
Despite progress, problems in management and internal control pose risks and need to be solved

The central government has reiterated its determination to improve competitiveness and profitability for State-owned enterprises, especially for those directly administered by the State Council.

This was one of the decisions made at a State Council executive meeting, presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Nov 29. The meeting also aimed to further adopt reforms within SOEs by strengthening internal management, such as establishing a stricter rewarding and punishment system, as well as more stringently monitoring overseas investments projected by these major companies.

At the meeting, the premier and other high-level officials listened to reports by the Supervisory Board of Key Large State-owned Enterprises, a watchdog under the State Council to monitor SOE management and profitability.

The board's figures showed that these SOEs reversed a 20-month decline in operating income in September and the increase continued in October, which a statement released after the meeting said has effectively supported the country's steady and healthy economic and social development. Statistics for November were not yet available.

"SOEs are the backbone of the national economy and must keep operating income and net profits increasing to contribute to the increase of fiscal revenues and social development," the premier said.

Meanwhile, the statement also said that the board found some of these SOEs are having problems in financial management, operations and internal control, which posed a risk of losing State-owned assets.

The premier urged SOEs to improve their competitiveness by perfecting internal management and raising efficiency in utilizing capital. "SOEs, especially those administered by the central government, should set an example for transforming from the traditional model of growth to a new and high-end one," Li told the meeting.

Last year, the central government released guidelines on SOE reforms, and the recent meeting was the latest move to achieve the goal that demands SOEs keep and add value to State-owned assets. Since 2013, the premier has presided over several meetings each year to oversee these entities.

The move also came a month after the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission released a list of more than 2,000 SOEs that have become economically unviable "zombie companies" in industries with severe overcapacity, kept alive only with aid from the government and banks.

Figures given by the State Council demonstrated that private enterprises realized a double-digit increase in profits from January to October, which was far higher than SOEs.

During the first 10 months, the gross income for SOEs increased by 1.5 percent compared with the same period last year, including 0.4 percent for SOEs administered by the central government, said Kuang Xianming, director of the economic institute at the China Institute of Reform and Development.

However, net profits for central SOEs still declined during this period, while the country's SOEs combined together saw an increase of 0.4 percent in net profits, Kuang said.

The economy still faces downward pressure on growth as exports and private investment, two drivers for the past few decades, are slowing down and even declining. Experts said SOEs are key players in providing steady employment opportunities and momentum for China's economic development.

Major economic indicators showed that SOEs are improving the status quo in terms of gross income and net profit this year, but still lag behind private enterprises in profitability and rate of return, said Liu Shengjun, vice-president of CEIBS Lujiazui Institute of International Finance in Shanghai.

But improving management quality and efficiency cannot be achieved in one or two years. It is a long-term goal as the country proceeds with SOE reforms, Liu said.

The meeting also decided that the board, on behalf of the State Council, will tighten supervision on overseas investments made by central SOEs.

Recent years have seen a surging number of cases of Chinese SOEs acquiring or merging with foreign companies in deals worth billion of US dollars. However, Chinese companies going global means a large amount of foreign exchange reserves will be spent, said Liu Zhenghong, a professor of foreign relations at Anhui Normal University. "However, SOEs should be cautious when the renminbi faces depreciation pressure, as US dollars are becoming stronger against other major currencies," he added.
Qian Jianmin [Photo/Sina Weibo]

A 94-year-old Chinese veteran who fought in the War of Resistance against the Japanese Aggression may soon realize his long-cherished wish to touch a modern armored vehicle, after a volunteer posted his wish online.

The dream of nonagenarian Qian Jianmin was posted to Sina Weibo on Nov 4 by a volunteer who helps veterans like Qian. The post explained that Qian was a member of Chinas first armored troops, and he served in the Chinese expeditionary forces that fought in India and Myanmar during World War II.

Now he has a wish to touch a modern armored vehicle, the post declared, pairing Qian's story with a photo of the soldier sporting battle wounds on his face and several badges for military merit.

The post quickly received a lot of attention, and has received more than 18,000 reposts as of press time. Meanwhile, several military-related Weibo users also reposted the wish and expressed their willingness to contact military units on Qians behalf, including Cjdby.net, one of Chinas leading online military forums.

Tian Chen, the Beijing-based forum administrator, told Peoples Daily Online that they must first verify the veterans identity, and would then contact an armored troop as well as Beijing-based Chinese Tank Museum, allowing Qian to touch unclassified armored vehicles that are on display to the public, such as Type 96 Main Battle Tank.

Tian added that the forum is also willing to contact military units near Wuxi  the city where Qian lives  in case the elderly veteran is not able to travel far.

Veterans' experiences constitute an essential education for our younger generations. They are our national heroes. Society is obligated to promote their spirits and meet their reasonable requests, Tian said.

Qian was born in 1922 in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. Along with another 21,000 veterans and family members of martyrs during the war, Qian was awarded a badge commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in September 2015.
President Xi Jinping urged at an important meeting on Monday further efforts to give the people a greater sense of gain through improving the effectiveness of reforms.

The country should introduce more reforms that can help invigorate the economy, promote social justice, give people a greater sense of gain and mobilize the participation of the masses, according to a statement released after a meeting of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform, chaired by Xi, head of the group.

The group pledged to step up supervision of State-owned enterprises and assets through strict and independent auditing, and to strengthen scrutiny over the budget and use of State capital.

China will seek a unified national natural resource asset management mechanism to improve the effectiveness of asset protection, according to the statement.

The group also urged to set up an effective intellectual property rights management mechanism to support innovation.

It asked authorities to map out reform work for next year to ensure overhauls proceed steadily with fresh momentum as the 19th Communist Party of China National Congress approaches.

Over the course of the 30 meetings convened by the leading group since December 2013, hundreds of measures have been designed and released to address issues such as urbanization, poverty alleviation, innovation and the market's role in resource allocation.
Research vessel and icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) docks 31km from China's Zhongshan station in Antarctic on Dec 5, 2016. Taking an expedition team of more than 200 members, it arrived there on Monday after a month-long journey that started on Nov 2 from Shanghai. [Photo from Sina Weibo account of CCTV news]
File photo of the girl. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Over the weekend, the news of a young girl trying to save her disabled dad from a fire went viral online and her brave effort won a lot of praise and donation from the public.

Guo Jiajia, 14, is a junior middle school student in Shapingba district, Chongqing, and the only child. At 3 am on Saturday, her mother Lai Rongqing heard a loud noise in the living room. When she opened the door, the room was engulfed in black smoke and many electrical appliances were on fire. She immediately woke up her husband, her mother-in-law and her daughter before going downstairs to shut down the power and gas supply of the whole building to prevent the spread of the fire.

Lai recalled that when she returned to her apartment, she saw her daughter standing outside the door. So she began knocking on the neighbors' doors to inform them of the fire. But a few seconds later, Jiajia disappeared.

At that time, Lai's husband Guo Hongyong and mother-in-law had already got to safety. With the help of the neighbors, the fire went down a little and the father saw the legs of her daughter through the smoke. The father then rushed into the fire and got his daughter out.

Photo of the girl after being severely burned. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The girl was severely burnt and lost consciousness. Lai poured some cold water on her daughter and Jiajia recovered.

"Why did you return to the room after you got out?" Lai asked her.

"I was looking for dad and I was afraid that he was still in there," Jiajia said.

Guo Hongyong used to be a truck driver before he got injured in a car accident in 2010. The accident made it difficult to walk so he lost the job and now stays at home.

The girl, who suffered burns covering nearly 80 percent of her body and respiratory tract injury and carbon monoxide poisoning, is in the ICU of Chongqing Southwest Hospital.

It is estimated that the treatment will cost the family at least 1 million yuan ($145,000), which is far beyond the family's power. The mother Lai works at a factory and earns 1,700 yuan a month.

After the local media reported the news, the public was moved by the girl's love for the dad and had donated about 1 million yuan until Monday evening, according to the hospital.
Murder suspect at large for 23 years caught

Xinhua | Updated: 2016-12-06 15:09

CHANGSHA -- Police of the central province of Hunan captured a man suspected of triple homicide 23 years ago.



Police of Changsha City, the capital of Hunan, said Tuesday that the man was apprehended in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Sunday.



It is alleged that the suspect, Liu, had a run-in with several villagers on Jan 27, 1994 and fatally shot three of them before fleeing.



Police were tipped off in November that Liu might be hiding in Liangqing District in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi. The ensuing investigation uncovered that the man had assumed a fake identity.



The investigation continues.
Panda twins Meihuan (left), and Meilun relax at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Dec 6, 2016. The twins today met the visitors for the first time since their return to Sichuan on Nov 5 from Zoo Atlanta in the United States. [Photo by She Yi/ For China Daily]

Mei Lun hid in the bamboo forest while her twin sister Mei Huan ignored onlookers and ate bamboo slowly in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan province on Tuesday morning when they met visitors for the first time after a month-long quarantine.

The pair of panda cubs, who arrived at the base from the United States a month ago, have adapted to their new home despite the elder sister's shyness in the face of humans, researchers said.

"Mei Lun and Mei Huan are healthy. They ate a kind of biscuit made in Atlanta zoo and now have buns specially made for pandas," said Wu Kongju, a senior keeper and researcher, at a news conference on Tuesday marking the end of the quarantine.

"Visitors can see them in their den in the Moon Nursery as their quarantine is over," she said. Each day, Mei Huan, who has gained 2 kilograms since her return, eats about 600 grams of buns made of corn, soybean and oatmeal and her droppings are 4.5 kilograms. Mei Lun, who only ate American biscuits, now enjoys Chinese buns and bamboo leaves and her droppings are about 9 kilograms a day.

"Their droppings are normal for sub-adult pandas," Wu said.
SHANGHAI - Two contracts and a memorandum of understanding were signed between China and British education institutes Monday.

The MoU, signed between Shanghai's Minhang District Government and Britain's Dulwich College during the China-UK Education Development Forum, was regarding a new international school set to be built in the district.

The two contracts will improve early-education cooperation between China's Yango Preschool Group and British education company Alpha Plus Group as well as Jiangsu Lv Guo Education Management and British Early Education.

"I'm delighted to launch this event in Shanghai as the UK and China share many joint priorities in the field of education," said Justine Greening, British Secretary of State for Education. "The collaboration will raise the educational standards in both countries."

According to figures by Britain's Department for International Trade, the number of Chinese students studying in the U.K. is growing, with more than 70,000 studying there by the end of 2014. More and more British students are also choosing to come to study in China, with the number increasing by 40 percent from 2012 to 2015.

A delegation of 15 British schools meet Chinese partners from Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu to explore education cooperation opportunities at the forum.
BEIJING -- The Supreme People's Procuratorate announced Tuesday that it has sent staff to investigate a coal mine explosion that killed 32 people Saturday in northern China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.



The explosion around midday Saturday at Baoma Mining Company in the city of Chifeng occurred when a total of 181 people were working underground. A total of 149 managed to get above ground to safety.



The Supreme People's Procuratorat said it is investigating the case in collaboration with local procuratorates.



Several officials have been suspended from their duties after the explosion, and those in charge of the coal mine have been detained by police.
8 injured in chemical spill in HK

Xinhua | Updated: 2016-12-06 17:08

HONG KONG - Eight people were injured in a chemical spill incident at Tai Po Industrial Estate of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Tuesday.



The incident took place at around 11:30 a.m., when a lab worker was dealing with chemical material, which was claimed as overdue hydrogen peroxide, a spokesperson for the Hong Kongs the Fire Services Department said, adding that about 120 people were evacuated.



The spokesperson said that among the eight injured people, one man got hurt in the face and one woman felt unwell in her eyes. The two were rushed to the hospitals and in stable conditions, while the rest, who complained of feeling unwell, recovered afterwards.



The cause of the incident is still under investigation.
The People's Liberation Army will soon have an unusually shaped drone, which is expected to strengthen the Chinese military's aerial reconnaissance capabilities.

An unknown number of Xianglong, or Soar Dragon, high-altitude, long-endurance drones have been produced by Guizhou Aviation Industry Group, which is part of the State-owned aircraft maker Aviation Industry Corp of China, according to aviation sources.

The aircraft is believed to be undergoing testing and is expected to be delivered to the PLA soon, sources said, adding that it is likely to become China's answer to the United States' Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, considered to be the most well-known unpiloted surveillance drone in the world.

With an innovative "joined tandem wing" design, the drone's configuration is different from all other Chinese manned and unmanned planes  it has a conventional swept wing joined with a forward swept wing, which makes it look like a traditional Chinese kite.

In accordance with Chinese regulations, Guizhou Aviation Industry Group has not, and will not, reveal characteristics of the drone. However, AirForces Monthly, a British military aviation magazine, said Xianglong will have a cruise speed of 750 kilometers per hour and a flight range of 7,000 km. It is capable of operating for 10 hours in the sky and can fly up to an altitude of 18,000 meters, the magazine said.

Xianglong was first unveiled in 2006 at an air show in China, but later disappeared from public view until 2011 when a prototype was seen at an airport run by the Aviation Industry Corp of China.

No other news on the drones development has been leaked since then, and whether it has conducted its first flight remains unknown.

However, since July, speculation about the mass-production of Xianglong started to circulate on Chinese defense technology websites after Guizhou Aviation Industry Group published a photo of one of its manufacturing facilities on the internet. The photo mainly displayed the assembly process of the company's JL-9 Mountain Eagle fighter-trainer jet, but two yellow Xianglong models also appeared in the corner of a picture, leading observers to discuss whether the inclusion was intentional.

In October, Chinese websites published a satellite-taken picture showing at least two Xianglong drones at an unidentified airport in Southwest China.

"The Xianglong's unique design makes it suitable for long operations at high altitude. Once the drone is commissioned to the military, it will boost the PLA's long-range reconnaissance capabilities," said Wang Ya'nan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine.

"Moreover, the jet is a good platform for electronic warfare operations such as signal intelligence collection and electronic jamming," he added.

The PLA has become a big user of unmanned aircraft thanks to the rapid development of the drone industry in China. The military showed three types of unpiloted, fixed-wing planes at the most recent parade in September last year. It is also said to have deployed several other models.

In addition to the PLA, advances in the nation's drone technology have also benefitted at least 10 foreign countries, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan, with foreign media reporting such countries have bought and deployed Chinese military drones.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left front) and Secretary of Guizhou Provincial CPC Committee Chen Min'er(right front) look at a model of the radio telescope set up in Guizhou in a promotion event in Beijing on Tuesday. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/chinadaily.com.cn]

Guizhou has become a new force in China's opening-up strategy due to its advantageous location in the Belt and Road Initiative, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

Wang made the remarks in an event where the ministry and the Guizhou provincial government showcased the Southwest China province to diplomats from more than 120 countries.

The landlocked province, which "has a special position in China's opening-up and history", became an important passage between China and the world more than 2,000 years ago, when China's silk and tea was carried through the Ancient Tea Horse Road and the Southern Silk Road to South Asia, Wang said.

Guizhou is known for its distinctive ethnic groups such as Miao and Dong people as well as its karst landscape. Early this year the province joined the New York Times list of 52 places to go in 2016.

In September, the "Eye of Heaven", a 500-meter-wide radio telescope able to receive and identify signals from deep space, was established in the province.

In March, Guizhou got the approval from the central government to establish China's first pilot zone to develop the big data industry. In August, it received the green light to create an inland open economy pilot zone.

According to Chen Min'er, secretary of Guizhou Provincial CPC Committee, the province's economy has grown by more than 12 percent annually in the past five years.

Chen said he hopes to see more tourists from various countries come to Guizhou, and the province welcomes international companies and talent to invest in its big data industry.

Guizhou has been holding an annual eco conference since 2009, which was upgraded into an international forum in 2013. Chen said Guizhou is ready to work with partners from different nations to help implement the Paris Agreement.

Jean-Jacques de Dardel, Swiss Ambassador to China, said his country and Guizhou have developed "close exchanges".

According to de Dardel, various high level leaders from the province have visited Switzerland, and the cooperation covers research, education and trade.

Also, the two sides are working together on a variety of projects on environment protection.

"Both Guizhou and Switzerland's environments are unique in their pristine beauty, and the protection of this natural beauty is of eminent importance," he said.
Left-leaning Alexander Van der Bellen triumphed over his right-wing rival on Sunday in the vote for Austria's presidency, a victory welcomed by moderate politicians across Europe as a blow against the populist forces looking to weaken the European Union.

While the Austrian presidency is a mostly symbolic post, it had attracted attention from across Europe as the next possible victory for populists after political outsider Donald Trump's presidential win in the United States and the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom.

"What happens here today has relevance for all of Europe," Van der Bellen said as he cast his ballot, later noting that his win showed most voters backed his message of "freedom, equality, solidarity".
The front of the jade seal that belonged to Liu He. [Photo/Xinhua]

As the excavation of the Emperor Liu He's tomb in the Haihunhou mausoleum is completed, archaeological work on his wife's tomb is scheduled to start during the first half of next year, according to Nanchang Daily.

Given that the wife's tomb, called the No 2 tomb, is damaged, the experts say that it needs urgent rescue excavation.

Liu He was the shortest reigning emperor during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 AD) and the historical record shows that he had 16 wives and concubines, but doesn't say whether he had an empress or who the empress was. While naming an empress was a major political decision in the imperial household, experts guess that Liu didn't have an empress. Who exactly the No 2 tomb belongs to is a mystery that could be revealed in the excavation next year.

Liu He's jade seal is a rare owl button type

An unearthed jade seal belonging to Liu He made the identity of the tomb owner clear. The jade seal, inscribed with the Chinese characters for "Liu He", is a square seal 2.1 cm long and 1.5 cm high commonly seen in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220).

According to recent archaeological findings, the seal button of Liu He's jade seal is believed to be an image of "chi xiao", or an owl. The vivid details show the exquisite craftsmanship of the Han Dynasty, and it is the first time that an owl buttoned jade seal has been found in a Han Dynasty archaeological site.

Actually, the image of an owl appeared quite early in China's ancient literature. In the classic The Book of Songs, an article portrays a scene in which a mother bird is in deep panic and sorrow seeing its child captured by an owl. According to a record from Shih Chi - Biography of Jia Yi, when noted political critic Jia Yi was demoted, he saw an owl flying into his house and regarded it a symbol of bad luck, so he wrote the poem, Ode to Owl to comfort himself.

Among the few documentary records about Liu He, the owl also appeared. According to a record from the book Hanshu, when Liu He was dethroned as emperor and detained in Changyi Palace, the reigning Emperor Hanxuan sent an official to see him. In a letter the official wrote to the emperor, the official said that he wanted to check Liu He's emotional condition, and said that "Changyi has lots of owls." Liu He then replied, "Yes, when I went westward to Chang'an before, there wasn't owl at all. While when I went eastward to Jiyang, I heard an owl yelling." People had different interpretations on Liu He's words; some say Liu He was casual and some say he was discreet. Undoubtedly, experts hold the view that using the commonly-recognized unlucky bird, the owl, as the seal button for his personal seal was quite unusual. Further study in the future may reveal why Liu He did this.
Poster of Hacksaw Ridge [Photo provided to China Daily]

One of this year's most acclaimed war epics, Hacksaw Ridge, will open in Chinese mainland theaters on Thursday.

Directed by Oscar-winner Mel Gibson, the film chronicles the heroic experience of World War II American army medic Desmond Doss, the first man in United States history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.

The 139-minute feature, which premiered in the US on Nov 4, recently earned seven nominations, including best picture and best director at the Critics' Choice Awards, widely seen as a pivotal predictor of the Oscars.

Chinese celebrities, including leading local filmmakers and several Olympic champions, went to a film preview screening in Beijing on Sunday.

Most of them agreed the film examines wartime humanities through a vivid recreation of the turbulent moments.

Feng Xiaogang, director of the 2007 war epic Assembly and a self-claimed a diehard fan of Hollywood war films, said that Hacksaw Ridge could be a good project for domestic filmmakers to learn narrative skills and visual effects.

The movie is imported by China Film Group, distributed by Huaxia Film Distribution Co. Ltd, and dubbed by Changchun Film Studio Group Co. Ltd.
Two Colombian young people in Chinese ethnic costumes at the exhibition in Colombia, Dec 1, 2016.[Photo/Chinaculture.org]

An exhibition featuring 115 costumes, masks and accessories of Chinese ethnic groups was held in the Republic of Colombia on Dec 1.

The event was part of the 2016 China-Latin America and Caribbean Culture Year, and aimed to enhance the cultural exchange between China and Colombia.

The showpieces included clothes and jewelry for special festivals and also items connected with ethnic ancestors, families, faith and history.

Visitors were allowed to try some of the pieces.

Zhao Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to Colombia, Tao Ying, deputy director-general of the Culture Palace of Nationalities of China, and Luis Armon Soto, director of the Culture Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia and other Chinese and Colombian officials attended the exhibition's opening ceremony.

"Despite the long distance between China and Colombia, people from the two countries now have a stronger will to know about each other. We hope the event will narrow the distance and let Colombian people see more Chinese culture," Zhao said.
Chinese actress Song Dandan. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Comedy actress Song Dandan again steps into a familiar zone after a two-year break from the small screen.

Her upcoming comedy series, Wo De Yuefu Hui Wushu (My Father-in-Law Practices Martial Arts), will air on Beijing Satellite TV from Dec 10.

Song shot to fame with the 1989 Spring Festival gala on CCTV and has since starred in a number of hit TV series.

Her performances have won her a series of awards, such as best supporting actress at the 6th Flying Goddess Awards, China's top honor for TV dramas, and best actress at the 5th Golden Lion Awards, the top prize for stage play performers.

The actress has not acted in any TV series in recent years as she felt bored doing similar roles in skits and sitcoms. But her mind was changed after reading the screenplay of the new TV series, which is penned by veteran writer Yu Zhong, who has also written several top-rated dramas.

"It's the best tale I've read in the past two years. I was excited after reading just the first two episodes," Song said at a recent news conference in Beijing.

The 40-episode series focuses on three families' conflicts generated by the younger generation's marriages.

Yu, the scriptwriter, said the tale aims to examine the changes in Chinese families and their values in a rapidly changing era.

The cast includes veteran actors Ni Dahong, Liang Tian, and pop musical duo "Chopstick Brothers".

Ni, known for Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower, plays the title character.

The series marks a reunion for Song and Liang, who had earlier starred in the smash hit sitcom Love My Family, which topped TV ratings over 1993-1994.
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at election night rally in Manhattan, New York, US, November 9, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Donald Trump is annoyed at the backlash against his phone conversation with Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of Taiwan, who is desperate for support from the United States in her cross-Straits standoff with the Chinese mainland.

The United States president-elect sought to defend himself on Friday on Twitter, saying: Tsai called him, not vice versa; and he saw nothing wrong with receiving a congratulatory call from Taiwan, which buys billions of dollars of US weapons.

In other words, it was a courtesy, and he values the island as a business partner.

These excuses were too lame to stop Beijing making diplomatic representations and failed to quell broader worries about his inexperience and policy orientations.

So Trump fired back again on Sunday, arguing China had not asked for US consent whenhe allegedit devalued the yuan, levied taxes on US exports, and built military facilities in the South China Sea. The unspoken rhetorical question being: "Why should I seek their consent for answering that call?"

Yet the island has been regarded as the "most important, most sensitive" topic in China-US relations, and the White House was also quick to restate its commitment to the one-China policy.

Beijing's response indicates a strong desire for healthy China-US relations in the coming Trump era.

Whether that call from Tsai was "a petty trick by Taiwan", or trial balloon of any kind, Trump broke a decades-old bilateral diplomatic consensus and touched an ultra-sensitive diplomatic nerve.

If Trump's Friday twitter post was more or less an instinctive reaction from a businessman, the Sunday posting exposed pitiful neglect, if not willful disregard, of both governments' persistent endeavors to anchor the delicate, and recently volatile, relationship.

Trump may dislike, distrust the diplomatic establishment in Washington D.C., and aspire to rework US foreign policies. But he should first come to terms with the real, not imagined, reality of international relations before wielding the scalpel, because a misstep as president will be far more damaging than one as president-elect.

As president-elect, Trump can expect some forgiveness even when he is shooting from the hip. But things will be different when he becomes president.

To stop acting like the diplomatic rookie he is, the next US president needs help in adapting to his forthcoming role change. Otherwise, he will make costly troubles for his country, and find himself trying to bluster his way through constant diplomatic conflagrations.
Luo Er is accepting reporters' interview during a press conference in response to his daughter's disease.[Photo/IC]

IN RESPONSE TO why he went online to raise money to cure his leukemia-suffering daughter instead of selling his three apartments, Luo Er, a magazine editor in Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province, said none of his properties was "available"one is for his son, one is registered under his wife's name, and one is for his retirement. Beijing News commented on Monday:

The Shenzhen writer's brazen explanation of why he didn't sell his properties to pay for his seriously ill daughter's medical treatment may come as a shock to many. More than a week ago, he posted a heartbreaking story about his daughter on WeChat, a popular social media platform, expressing his deep love for his 5-year-old daughter and asking for financial help.

The post went viral within a few days and prompted over 110,000 people to donate online, until reports revealed that he owns an apartment in Shenzhen as well as two additional properties in neighboring Dongguan. The more than 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) that he raised online has reportedly been returned to the donors following criticism about his withholding the details of the family's economic situation.

Few expected that Luo would brazenly express such a selfish opinion in an open interview after all the controversy he had triggered. He seems to firmly believe his desire to hold on to not just one but all three of his properties is fair and will seem reasonable to others. Thus he didn't think twice before making his comment in public.

His love for his daughter may be real, but it obviously comes with conditions and limitations. By highlighting the necessity of his "investment strategy", he puts his son's future well-being and his own retirement plans, which bear little urgency for the moment, before his daughter's health.

Luo's remarks show that there is still a long way to go to achieve gender equality in the country.
Luo Jie/China Daily

ZHANG AIFEN, a woman from Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province, wanted to have a grandson so she kept encouraging her daughter-in-law to give birth to a child. However, when her daughter-in-law had a female baby last November, she was so angry that four days after her granddaughter was born, she killed the baby by stamping on her head. The woman was recently found guilty of murder by the local court, and received a penalty of 10 years in prison, a light punishment in the eyes of many netizens. Beijing News comments:

According to the Criminal Law, the penalty for murder should be capital punishment, life imprisonment, or 10 or more years in prison. So a 10-year prison sentence is rather light.

The Nantong Intermediate People's Court said it gave her a light penalty because "she was forgiven by the relatives of the victim and the neighbors".

What have the neighbors got to do with it?

That they and the woman's relatives, including the daughter-in-law, said they forgive the woman shows how deeply rooted gender bias is in people's thinking.

In fact, Zhang should get a heavy penalty as the woman killed the 4-day-old baby in a cruel, premeditated wayby stamping on the defenseless baby's head. Justice has obviously not been seen to be done in this case and the light penalty will fail to deter others from committing similar gender bias crimes in the future.

It is the second decade of the 21st century, why do some people still hold the out-dated mindset of favoring a boy over a girl? This thinking belongs to the past and should have been consigned to history by now.

It might be a personal matter if some people just persist in their view, but the law must prevent people from turning such thoughts into deeds.
Sava and his students.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

After living in China for 14 years, I am often asked to describe it or, more precisely, give my impression of it. Of course, I am always delighted to oblige.

Most of the time, I describe China as a harmonious blend of glorious history, virtues and contradictions. Consequently, people request elaboration on my description, which prompted me to write this article in order to satisfy their curiosity and to pay homage to my beloved China and its distinguished people.

It is too obvious that China possesses an undeniably glorious history. It is one of the most admired ancient civilizations. It envelopes one of the seven wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China.

It is a well-known fact that China's historical sights that are spread all over the country, attract millions of tourists every year. People from all age groups worldwide flood to China to be captivated by its mesmerizing scenery and to be awed by the glory of its history.

In Beijing, one can get a glimpse of the miraculous Chinese past by paying a visit to the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.

The Chinese family values and wisdom are used as an exemplary model to follow by people worldwide. The Chinese people are famous for their generosity of spirit and hospitality. Their traditions of taking care of their elder parents are respected and admired by people everywhere.

The well known ancient virtues of China - benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and fidelity - are used to govern and evaluate the proper conduct of people worldwide.

The benevolence virtue gears Chinese to offer help whenever the opportunity permits. I am always amazed by the willingness of the Chinese people to help those in need.

The righteousness virtue prompts Chinese to acquire resilience to preserve their dignity in accomplishing their tasks and fulfilling their responsibilities.

The propriety virtue dictates that Chinese people be loyal to their families and patriotic toward their beloved China.

As for the wisdom virtue, it guides them to acquire the essential and innate knowledge to differentiate between right and wrong and behave according to the moral norm.

Regarding the fidelity virtue, it instills within Chinese the admirable trait of being honest and ensures that their actions must coincide with their words.

It is logical to assume that Chinese virtues summarize the teaching and philosophy of decency and morality of the human race.

When it comes to the contradictions that may be noticed by foreigners who have the chance to live among Chinese, one must be cautious to avoid offending their Chinese hosts. To clarify my point of view, contradictions exist in every country on our planet.

By the way, contradictions may create an environment in which boredom and lethargy could be avoided.

One of the most noticeable contradictions that I observed in my fellow Chinese is their tendency to be humble despite their miraculous rise to prominence in the last decade and contrary to their apparent intelligence.

One may notice that Americans display an adamant pride in being citizens of one of the most powerful nations on earth while the Chinese, despite being proud of their heritage, tend to minimize the significance of their achievements and accomplishments. Their humility puts those bragging individuals to shame.

Another contradiction is their fascination with American lifestyles that leads Chinese youngsters to blindly imitate their American counterparts without taking the time to differentiate between the proper and improper trends. The uniqueness of the Chinese lifestyle should be preserved for the future Chinese generations.

Of course, there are other contradictions but I shall cease from mentioning them here due to their insignificance.

Regardless, China had achieved success in creating a harmonious society that is rich with virtues, possesses a glorious history and came to terms with its contradictions.

The above views are mine and should not be taken as a criticism of my beloved China and its distinguished people.
Khurram Raza

Travel has been an integral part of enjoying life and refreshing the mind. Human nature is itinerant historically and keeps ferreting out somewhere new to explore. China, the land of odyssey, has been a center of attraction to the world's tourists, intellectuals, students and other erudite professionals due to its diversified cultural values, plethora of Chinese cuisines infused with flavor, amiable hospitality, devised infrastructure, foolproof security system, satisfactory education and more. These aforementioned stimuli kicked off my adventure to China.

Shanghai, a coastal metropolis, has been receptive to foreigners on an egalitarianism basis, welcoming all the foreigners despite their ethnicity and nationality. It was an honour that I landed in Shanghai and was picked up by one of my reliable Chinese friends. I have seen the beauties of historical places, modern masterpieces and natural sites in all the pleasant seasons of China. Shanghai is crowded but it has a charm, especially at night when it sparkles with splendidly-lit up buildings. The night view of the famous Oriental tower is completely staggering, situated on the banks of Bund River.

The food streets remain scented with delicious and mouthwatering food and many international cuisines can be easily found. All the international brands are easily available in gigantic shopping malls. Overall, Shanghai is a place where you can find tranquility, affection and amusement.

My second destination in China was Nanjing, a city famous for its historical background and natural places. My enthusiasm for the historical and natural sites was met by splendid tourist scenic points including Nanjing museum, Confucius temple, Nanjing library, Dr. Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, Xuanwu Lake, Chaotian Palace, Purple Mountain, Jinghai temple and xiamafang park. I feel lucky as I got an opportunity to do research in Nanjing University and since then I am cashing the precious moments of my life and encouraging my acquaintances to visit China especially Shanghai and Nanjing.

The Chinese people are friendly and polite. I have joined some social clubs including "Nanjing Guitar group" because I love to play guitar. I enjoy visiting dancing squares to share the happiness with the people, dining out with my friends, singing karaoke to have fun, stepping into the beautifully-designed shopping malls and joyful gaming zones. It feels like home when Chinese festivals occur. For instance, mid-autumn festival and Spring festival a reflect the Chinese culture and civilization.

In summing up my experience being in China, it's been an astonishing time so far to be acquainted with all the marvellous places, delicious food and generous people. These are certainly the golden memories of my life which I want to share. The tourism industry in China has been innovative and sets a benchmark for countries who want to promote their tourism and culture. I recommend people who want to travel around the world visit China, a land which is full of curiosities.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gestures during a press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 21, 2016. [Agencies]

The administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has unveiled plans to reinforce the nation's missile defense system and expand its defense budget for the next fiscal year.

This, observers maintain, is part of a continuation toward Abe realizing his ultimate "dream of militarism," which will, if unchecked, escalate tensions and undermine peace and stability in the region.

Japan's Defense Ministry has started deliberations on introducing a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system from the United States, with a commission led by State Minister of Defense Kenji Wakamiya to be set up to make preparations before next summer.

Meanwhile, the Abe administration has mulled expanding the defense budget for fiscal 2017 (April 1, 2017-March 31, 2018) to a record high of 5.1 trillion yen (about 44.94 billion U.S. dollars), marking the fifth consecutive year of increase and topping the 5 trillion yen mark for a second successive year.

However, in sharp contrast to the surge of spending on defense, the Japanese government does not hesitate to slash spending on desperately needed social welfare. According to local media, with an aging population in the country, medical and other social security spending needs to be increased by around 640 billion yen in fiscal 2017, yet, the Abe administration plans to cut essential expenditure to around 500 billion yen.

The actuality of the situation is in fact that Abe's administration has many pressing spending emergencies regarding the wellbeing of the people of Japan.

Since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima more than five years ago, areas surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are still suffering from radioactive contamination. As of July 5 this year, there were still 89,000 refugees in Fukushima Prefecture, who have not been able to return to their homeland.

Abe, under the banner of revitalizing the local economy, however has never really kept Fukushima refugees in his mind. Though "Abenomics" has failed on multiple occasions and the sliding tendency of local economies is hard to reverse, the Abe administration has never wavered in its push to expand its military armament.

In fact, Abe's government has even gone so far as to steamroll controversial security legislation through parliament and into law, to boost the operational and geographical scope of Japan's forces oversea, albeit again the public's will, and is leading Japan along an ultra-rightist road toward becoming a "normalized" and remilitarized country.

Since taking office in 2012, Abe has been fulfilling his "dream of militarism" step by step. He has toured a bunch of countries often with a thinly veiled attempt to garner or buy support to contain China's peaceful rise.

During Abe's visits to Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America as well as other regions and countries in recent years, China has been hyped up as an increasing threat by Abe.

In addition, Abe has been advancing his policy of what he calls "proactive contribution to peace," which Japanese military critics have said is actually a covert mantra meaning to solve disputes via the use of military power.

The railroading of the controversial new security bills through the parliament, which blatantly thwarted Japan, incited waves of criticism at home and abroad.

The shenanigan of Abe to play up the "China threat" and stir up tensions in the region is actually a covert plot to justify the new security bills, collaborate with the U.S.-led Pivot to Asia, and finally move closer to Abe's long-held goal of revising the country's pacifist constitution, including scrapping the war-renouncing Article 9 to allow Japan's Self-Defense Forces to act more like a conventional military.

Only by abolishing the key war-renouncing clause, which forbids Japan from using force to settle international disputes and restricts its land, air and naval forces to strictly defensive roles, could Abe realize his "dream of militarism."

The prospect of constitutional amendments has raised alarm in neighboring countries and among many Japanese who value their country's postwar pacifistic ideals.

To purchase the THAAD system, it may cost hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. Even officials in the Japanese Defense Ministry admitted that it won't be easy to obtain budget approval as it would need public support. It is predictable that the Abe administration would likely continue its beggar-thy-neighbor policy and trouble-making behaviors to trick the Japanese public into following its rightist agenda.

From lifting the ban on collective self-defense right and forced passage of the controversial new security bills to advocation of getting rid of the postwar system, from plans to augment the defense budget to attempts to deploy the THAAD system, the Abe administration's revisionist view of history, disregards public opinion, runs counter to the trend of peace and development and win-win regional cooperation, and is unlikely to win the trust from the Japanese people and the international community.

If Japan sincerely wants to contribute to world peace, instead of going farther along the road of militarism and continuing to potentially allow innocent lives to bear heavy cost, the nation should match its words with deeds, stop fueling tensions and inciting disputes, and do more to promote actionable political and security trust between countries and safeguard regional peace and stability.
Boys climb on a tank used by pro-government fighters during recent battles against Houthi fighters in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen November 26, 2016. [Agencies]

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 Houthi-GPC.

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.
Photo taken on Jan. 6 shows Chinese soldiers are on patrol on a breakwater on the Yongshu Jiao at the South China Sea.[Photo/Xinhua]

Perhaps in an attempt to impress his Japanese colleague, British ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch told a Washington think tank Thursday that British fighter planes visiting Japan will fly over the South China Sea.

Such remarks create the impression that London may soon deviate from a largely aloof attitude over the South China Sea issue and start playing a meddling role there like the United States and Japan.

Should a British warplane embark on a so-called "freedom of navigation" mission in the South China Sea, it would only serve to further complicate the issue and weigh on thriving China-Britain ties.

Thanks to tons of biased Western media reports and a string of irresponsible U.S. military maneuvers in the South China Sea in the past few years, freedom of navigation now seems like a ready excuse for outsider parties to impose themselves over the issue, but the reality is that there's never been any problem with the legitimate passage of ships and planes in the area.

With trillions of dollars worth of goods traversing the patch of water every year, the South China Sea is vital both to global trade and to China's development.

China itself needs unimpeded passage in the body of water more than any other country, and maintaining peace and stability has been the overriding consideration of its South China Sea policy.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that some Chinese islands in the South China Sea have been illegally occupied by other countries, Beijing has always insisted on settling the disputes through peaceful means.

British policymakers should be well aware that by copying provocative actions of Washington and Tokyo over the South China Sea, it stands to lose on at least two sides: its credibility as as responsible global player and its relations with China.

At a time when the memory is still fresh for many about the opening of the golden era for China-Britain ties, Darroch's South China Sea remarks indeed struck an alarming note.

The good atmosphere surrounding China-Britain relations is the result of years of joint efforts and it is most unwise to mar the prospects of the thriving ties by threatening hardly justified military maneuvers.
An exhibition of Shandong embroidery (luxiu) opened at the Bangkok China Cultural Center in Thailand's capital Bangkok on Nov 26, with the aim of helping traditional Chinese embroidery art thread its way into the hearts of the Thai people.

Jointly organized by the China Culture Center, Shandong Provicial Department of Culture and Shandong Museum, the exhibition will last until Dec 6. It features some 42 classical Shandong embroidery artworks produced by the Luxiu Research Center of Shandong Museum.

A luxiu training course is also being run alongside the exhibition. Taught by Song Aihua, a Shandong embroidery expert from the Luxiu Research Center, the course received a good response and was fully booked in advance.

Chen Jiang, the cultural counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, attended the opening ceremony with nine other distinguished guests from cultural and economic fields in both China and Thailand.

Chen gave a brief introduction to Shandong embroidery during his speech at the opening ceremony. He said that luxiu arises from the western part of Shandong and is one of the most famous styles of embroidery in North China.

Chen added that this exhibition gave the Thai people the chance to see Shandong embroidery, through which he hoped they will appreciate the beauty of traditional Chinese embroidery art.

Luxiu is particularly renowned worldwide for its thread and hair embroidery, of which Chinese ink paintings embroidered with human hair are the most elegant and life-like.

Organizers and distinguished guests pose for a photo during the opening ceremony of an exhibition of Shandong embroidery (luxiu) at the Bangkok China Cultural Center on Nov 26. [Photo/people.cn]

Visitors admire works of Shandong embroidery (luxiu) at the Bangkok China Cultural Center on Nov 26. [Photo/people.cn]
Sarah Sewall, the US under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights, said at a seminar on Friday how freedom of information and freedom of the press are bedrocks of US foreign policy.

Speaking at the House of Sweden in Georgetown along the Potomac River, Sewall lashed out at China and Russia, saying that a recent report found that the Chinese government and its legions of helpers write nearly a half billion fake posts a year, and that the Russian government spends at least $400 million a year for its propaganda machine of bots and trolls and factories of false content to undermine trust in independent media.

She then said that the US ramped up support in Europe for civil society and media most vulnerable to Russian pressure by more than 50 percent to over $85 million.

Sewall's allegations against the Chinese and Russian governments are yet to be substantiated. However, her admission that the US government spent $85 million in propaganda in Europe itself raises the question of US government meddling in news media.

Sewall left immediately after her six-minute speech at the seminar in honor of the 250th anniversary of Sweden's Freedom of the Press Act, hosted by the Swedish embassy and the Newseum in Washington.

It might have been helpful if she had stayed a bit longer and listened to the discussions at the seminar, which lasted for several hours and touched on much of the challenges of press freedom in the US today, especially under President Barack Obama's administration.

In the 2016 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, the US ranked 41st out of 180 countries. Its standing in 2015 was 49th. Such a declining US standing, behind Slovenia (40), Ghana (26) and Namibia (17), hardly looks like the one that Sewall touted on Friday.

The Reporters Without Borders report blasted the US government's "war on whistleblowers who leak information about its surveillance activities, spying and foreign operations, especially those linked to counterterrorism" and the US lack of a "shield law" to help journalists protect confidence sources.

Sam Sanders of National Public Radio reported early this year that Obama's Justice Department has cracked down on reporters in an effort to prevent leaks; it also set a new record for withholding access to government files under the Freedom of Information Act (despite Obama calling for a "new era of openness" on his first day in office).

In 2013, photojournalists from several major news organizations chastised the administration for denying their "right to photograph or videotape Obama while he is performing his official duties" instead of relying on official photos shot by White House photographers.

A study conducted by the Columbia Journalism Review last year showed that relations between the White House and the news media have never been so controlled in the past 50 years, saying that the "White House determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public."

Early last year, New York Times reporter James Risen called the Obama administration "the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation".

Risen said he was beseeched by the Obama government to identify his confidential sources for parts of a 2006 book in which he detailed a CIA plan to undermine Iran's nuclear program.

At the Friday seminar, veteran US journalist Marvin Kalb shared his personal experiences covering the Vietnam War and talked about how presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon did not like his reporting that was critical of US foreign policy.

He said some reporters ended up on the "enemies list", their phones tapped and income tax returns scrutinized every year.

"There are many ways the government even in a free country can put the pressure on a reporter and ask the reporter to allow him or herself to yield to that pressure " he said.

But he said many of his fellow reporters actually acted more aggressively under such pressure.

Jeffrey Herbst, president and CEO of Newseum, an interactive museum dedicated to the First Amendment, noted the high societal pressure on journalists in the US today. Feedback on reporters' stories often includes hateful or vitriolic comments.

He admitted that some US reporters tend to censor themselves under such a public backlash.

Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls reacts at the end of a news conference where he announced that he is a candidate for next year's French presidential election, at the town hall in Evry, near Paris, France, December 5, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

PARIS - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has publicly announced his candidacy for the left primary in preparation for the 2017 presidential election on Monday in Evry, a commune in the suburb of Paris, proposing "a new path" for "an independent France uncompromising on its values."

"I am a candidate for the presidency of the Republic," Valls told hundreds of his supporters in Evry, four days after President Francois Holland decided not to join 2017 presidential race.

"I have this strength in me, this desire to serve my country ... I want to give everything to France, a country that has given me so much," he said.

The prime minister said he would leave office on Tuesday to focus on his presidential campaign.

Valls, a security hardliner and advocate of pro-business ideas, was named the chief of Hollande's executive team in 2014 in a bid to earn the Socialists' spurs after their heavy defeat in the mayoral run-off.

To join the race to the Elysee Palace, Valls has first to win the Left nomination in two round-primary in January 22 and 29. Opinion polls showed that he is the favorite to win the party's ticket for the presidential election.

With a deeply-divided Left and Socialist camp dogged by public discontent over poor economics, the 54-year-old candidate has to unite the ranks to increase chances to maintain power in 2017 and defy pollsters which predicted no candidate for left-wing parties would garner enough support to pass the first round.

There are seven declared contenders for the left primary,including former ministers Aranud Montebourg and Benoit Hamon.

Ex-economy minister Emmanuel Macron and six other candidates have launched their own campaign, a fact likely to divide votes and crush the left parties' hope to build enough momentum to challenge the conservative candidate Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party.

Candidates for the left primary have to submit their bid before Dec 15.
Foreign ministers of China and Iran agree on ways to boost cooperation

It's the responsibility of all parties to the Iran nuclear deal to fully implement the agreement, and its implementation should not be affected by changes in the parties' domestic situations, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday.

Wang spoke during a news conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Beijing. Wang said all parties should keep promises they made as part of the deal, which was reached after "a decade of arduous negotiation".

The meeting between Wang and Zarif is the first of the annual meetings of their foreign ministers agreed upon by the countries' leaders.

In July 2015, six countries including China reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, which agreed to curb its nuclear programs in return for the lifting of sanctions. The UN Security Council later endorsed the deal.

Zarif, in China for a two-day visit that started Monday, said China played a "very important role" in reaching the deal.

He also said all the participants have a duty to implement the deal and that Iran would not allow any unilateral measures that violate it.

The visit came after both chambers of the United States Congress voted to renew the Iran Sanctions Act, which is set to expire on Dec 31. The passage is only effective if signed by the president. US president-elect Donald Trump, however, had lashed out against the deal during the election campaign. He takes office on Jan 20.

On Monday, Wang said he hopes the leaders of China and Iran continue their close communication, adding that China greatly values its cooperation with Iran, an important country along Belt and Road Initiative routes.

China hopes to cooperate more with Iran in fields including trade, energy and infrastructure construction, and hopes that the two countries will implement key production capacity cooperation projects as soon as possible, Wang said.

Zarif said on Monday that his country and China are "highly complementary partners" in implementing the initiative.

Zarif said that in his meeting with Wang, they held discussions on strengthening cooperation in such fields as energy, transportation, security and counterterrorism.

Niu Xinchun, an expert in Middle East studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said normal business ties between China and Iran will continue to develop despite US moves on sanctions.

Niu said Iran is a "significant" player in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Also, China and Iran have a lot in common in their national strategies, as Iran has been promoting domestic plans concerning fields such as energy development and infrastructure construction, Niu added.

Chu Yi contributed to this story.

wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn




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Recovery teams examine the charred remains of the two-story converted warehouse that caught fire killing dozens in Oakland, California, US, December 4, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

OAKLAND - The confirmed death toll from a blaze that engulfed a converted warehouse during a dance party in Oakland, California, rose to 36 on Monday, the greatest loss of life from a US fire in over a decade, as investigators sifted through charred ruins being treated as a crime scene.

Authorities said they were certain to find more bodies in the gutted building and were still trying to account for some 50 people reported missing by loved ones, although officials predicted the death tally would not climb drastically higher.

The cause of the fire, which erupted late on Friday in a sprawling two-story building leased to an artists' collective, has yet to be determined.

Officials have said arson was not immediately suspected. But Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley told an afternoon news conference that a potential criminal case could ultimately encompass charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder.

One thrust of the investigation was expected to focus on possible safety violations at the site, which city officials said was already under investigation for reports of illegal construction.

Investigators from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives identified an "area of interest" on the ground floor that was still out of reach, according to Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

He described the spot as located to the rear of the warehouse where makeshift studios and cubicles were clustered.

O'Malley said fire investigators and a task force from her office were working with recovery teams inside the wreckage to preserve any potential criminal evidence as they comb through rubble for signs of victims and clues to origins of the blaze.

Deputy Fire Chief Darren White said his crews were removing debris "bucket by bucket," but a large construction crane was also brought to the scene, requiring electricity lines in the vicinity to be shut down as a precaution for several hours.
Doyle Owens, who founded the Unclaimed Baggage Center, died on Saturday evening, Dec. 3, at the age of 85.

In 1970, Mr. Owens had the idea to get a $300 loan, borrow a pick-up truck, drive to Washington D.C., and buy a load of unclaimed luggage. He sold the contents from his purchase on card tables at a rent house in his hometown of Scottsboro, Alabama, and quickly realized his idea was a good one.

Over the next 46 years, Unclaimed Baggage Center became a staple locally in Scottsboro and a regionally and nationally-known tourist destination. Dubbed "The Lost Luggage Capital of the World," UBC is now the nation's largest purchaser of unclaimed baggage and cargo. A one-of-a-kind retail store, UBC provides a unique shopping experience full of an ever-changing array of items from useful to unusual from around the world all at an incredible value.

In 1978, UBC moved to its current location on Willow Street in Scottsboro, where it has 40,000 square feet of space and receives over one million visitors a year.

It became a true family business when both of Mr. Owen's sons joined the company. In 1995, his son Bryan and wife Sharon purchased the company. While no longer the head of the company, Mr. Owens continued to play a role as founder and ambassador for the company and was seen almost every day in the UBC cafe engaging with customers. His wife, co-founder of the company and supporter-in-chief Mollie Sue Wilborn Owens, passed away last year on July 4, 2015.

Bryan Owens made the following statement on his father: "I am humbled and yes awestruck that God gave Doyle Owens to be MY dad. Of all men, I am most blessed. I would not be the man I am today without the influence of my dad. My heart grieves but I am overwhelmingly grateful for the life we had together."

Over the years UBC has received attention from the national media including "Oprah," "The Late Show with David Letterman," NBC "Today," The Travel Channel, CNN, The Huffington Post and The New York Times, amongst many others.

In 2008, The Alabama State Tourism, along with Alabama's governor, honored UBC with the Director's Award, the highest tourism award in the state. It also received an official Commendation in recognition of UBC's dedication to employees, customers, community and the state. Mr. Owens also received Jackson County Citizen of the Year from the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and the Scottsboro Sentinel in 2013. The store received the Alabama Retailer of the Year in 2016.

The family will receive visitors on Friday evening, Dec. 9, from 6-8 p.m. at the Scottsboro Funeral Home at 1502 County Park Road in Scottsboro. Doyle's home-going celebration will be held on Saturday, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at Calvary Baptist Church at 305 County Park Road in Scottsboro, followed by the burial at Cedar Hill Cemetery near the corner of W. Willow Street and Lost Luggage Lane.
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council on Monday failed to adopt a resolution on humanitarian situation in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as Russia and China vetoed it.

Before the vote, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said that putting the draft resolution into vote violates the Security Council's working procedure since the document can only be put into vote on Tuesday morning under the council's rule.

Churkin said the council needs more time to take into account new circumstances in Syria and to reach consensus on a resolution that can contribute to improving humanitarian in Syria, particularly in Aleppo.
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A senior Chinese envoy on Monday urged the Security Council to remain united and play a constructive role in the early political settlement of the Syria issue.

Liu Jieyi, Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, made the remarks after the 15-nation council voted on a draft resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in Syria's Aleppo for humanitarian aid.

The Security Council did not adopt the draft resolution proposed by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain because Russia and China vetoed it. The text received 11 in favor, three against (China, Russia and Venezuela), with Angola abstaining.

Liu said the draft resolution contains concrete measures for alleviating suffering in Syria, and Security Council members have made great efforts to reach a consensus.

"These efforts could have been continued so the council can give one voice and avoid the politicization of the humanitarian issue," Liu said.

He said taking actions on a draft resolution while there exist major differences among related parties is not conducive to the diplomatic efforts by related countries or to the improvement of the situation in Syria.

The international community should adhere to the general direction of political solution to Syria issue, push it back to the track of seeking solution through dialogue and consultation and find the fundamental way to end the conflict as soon as possible, he said.

Security Council actions on Syria should be helpful to the four-track work of resumption of ceasefire, political peace talks, anti-terrorism cooperation and humanitarian relief, he added.
China, US to hold third high-level dialogue on fighting cyber crimes

Xinhua | Updated: 2016-12-06 13:14

BEIJING - China and the United States will hold their third high-level dialogue on cyber crimes and related matters this week in the United States.



China's State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun will leave for the US to co-chair the dialogue this Tuesday, and remain there until Friday, according to a press release from the foreign ministry.



The first China-U.S. high-level dialogue on cyber crimes, co-chaired by Guo with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, was held in Washington last December and the second was held in Beijing this June.
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye is seen as she attends an event to grant certificates of appointments to newly appointed officials at the presidential Blue House, in Seoul, South Korea, November 18, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

SEOUL - South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday that she will calmly accept the impeachment if it is passed in the scheduled parliamentary vote three days later.

Her comments were made during the one-hour meeting with the ruling Saenuri Partys chairman and floor leader that kicked off at about 2:30 pm local time.

Saenuri Party whip Chung Jin-suk told reporters after coming back to the National Assembly building that President Park has continued to consider accepting the partys call to let the president resign by next April to hold an early presidential election two months later.

Park said she will calmly accept the impeachment if it is passed through the unicameral assembly slated for this Friday, vowing to make every effort she can if the impeachment bill is approved.

Opposition and independent lawmakers handed in the bill to impeach the first South Korean female leader last Saturday. As there are 172 legislators from the opposition bloc, at least 28 Saenuri lawmakers must endorse the bill to overcome the two-thirds threshold of the 300-seat parliament.

President Park also accepted the proposal to allow the governing party lawmakers to freely vote on the impeachment motion. Tens of lawmakers of the partys faction, who are not loyal to Park, have agreed to vote for the impeachment, raising possibility for the passage of the bill, according to local media speculations.
Phone company China Unicom has launched a one-SIM-multiple-number service for the UK, riding a wave of innovations to target the huge number of Chinese businesspeople and students in Britain.

The new service, called CUniq, allows customers to use a single phone for local calls in both the UK and China by flipping between a UK local number and a China local number, thus avoiding roaming charges, or the need to physically replace mobile SIM cards when travelling.

"This service launch marks the milestone of China Unicom to go global and indicates acceleration of the company to extend its presence around the world," said Jiang Zhengxin, senior vice-president of China Unicom.

CUniq's launch follows China Telecom's launch of a one-SIM-multiple-number in 2012, which has already seen sales of about 20,000 in London and 20,000 in Paris.

Ben Little, co-founder of UK-based innovation consultancy Fearlessly Frank, said the multiple-number services show Chinese telecom firms are embracing customer-focused innovation.

"Traditionally, telecommunications firms are more concerned with network infrastructure and ensuring connectivity and have left customer-centric innovation to handset manufacturers, but this is now changing," Little said.

Handset manufacturers, including HTC and Samsung, introduced phones with two SIM slots as early as 2012 to cater to business travelers.

The CUniq service can carry local numbers for both the UK and China but will add other countries in future. It offers data allowance in 45 countries and regions and round-the-clock customer support in both English and Chinese.

The service is running on a trial basis but will officially launch in the UK on Feb 14.

The service runs on China Unicom's network in China, and on the O2 network in the UK.

Michael Charlton, managing director of the UK's Department of International Trade and Investment, said:"We are delighted China Unicom has chosen the UK to invest, We're delighted that this investment continues."

Zhu Qin, a minister at the Chinese Embassy in London, added that China Unicom's commitment to the UK market shows the fundamentals of China-UK relations have remained unchanged, despite Brexit uncertainties, and that China and the UK are working together to explore new possibilities.

CUniq's launch coincided with a celebration of the 10-year anniversary of China Unicom expanding into Europe by establishing an office in the UK. More recently, China Unicom opened an office in Germany in 2013, followed by offices in Russia and Switzerland this year.

China Unicom is headquartered in Hong Kong and has 28 branches globally.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve speaks in the Elysee Palace courtyard in this picutre taken August 11, 2016 in Paris, France. [Photo/Agencies]

PARIS - French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appointed incumbent Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve the new prime minister to replace Manuel Valls, as the latter has decided to quit the job, according to the Elysee.

Hollande has picked Cazeneuve to succeed Valls as the prime minister until May and charged him to form a new government, the Elysee said in a statement.

Hollande has also accepted the resignation of Valls who launched a bid to seek for the Left nomination to book a ticket for presidential race, it added.

Valls announced his candidacy for the left primary in preparation for the 2017 presidential election on Monday in Evry, a commune in the suburb of Paris, proposing a new path for "an independent France uncompromising on its values." He presented his resignation to Holland earlier Tuesday.
Autistic British teen Ben Carter won't drink from any cup other than his worn Tommee Tippee, which is no longer manufactured. [Photo/Marc Carter/Twitter]

A Chinese factory is pulling out all the stops, resurrecting an out of date product and partly suspending its normal business for several days to satisfy a 14-year-old autistic British boy.

Jackel China, located in Changping area of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, will suspend normal operation of three of its machines for two to three days. The machines will instead be allocated to manufacture between 500 and 1,000 blue-green Tommee Tippee cups, which Marc Carter said is the only cup his autistic son Ben will drink from.

Jackel China, located in Changping area of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, will suspend normal operation of three of its machines for two to three days to manufacture between 500 and 1,000 blue-green Tommee Tippee cups, which is the only cup a14-year-old autistic British boy will drink from. [Photo by Zhou Mo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Ben's cup, which was bought 12 years ago, is now worn out and his father appealed on social networking platforms in an effort to find a replacement.

Manufacture of the cup has been halted since 2003. It was originally produced by Jackel China under contract from UK-based Mayborn Group, which was acquired by Shanghai Jahwa (Group) Co. Ltd in April this year; it was previously owned by investment group 3i.

Manufacture of the cup has been halted since 2003. [Photo by Zhou Mo/chinadaily.com.cn]

The two-handled cups, widely popular amongst young parents in the UK, were sold by pharmacy chain Boots between 2001 and 2002.

Catherine Lee, who is in charge of Jackel China, said she heard of Ben's story on the internet and also from her colleagues in the UK and the company immediately decided to reactivate production for the boy.

Jackel China, located in Changping area of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, will suspend normal operation of three of its machines for two to three days to manufacture between 500 and 1,000 blue-green Tommee Tippee cups, which is the only cup a14-year-old autistic British boy will drink from. [Photo by Zhou Mo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Lee said samples have already been sent to Ben's father, who will check the color. Once confirmation is received, the factory will start manufacture. Production of the cups is expected to take a week and costs 20,000 yuan ($2,900).

"We hope to send those cups to Ben on Christmas day or on New Year's day as a gift for him," she said.

To contact the reporter: sally@chinadailyhk.com
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's announcement to visit Pearl Harbor is a "hypocritical gesture" to cater to the United States rather than a sincere reflection on the country's World War II-era war crimes, analysts said.

Yoshihide Suga, chief Cabinet secretary of Japan, said on Tuesday that Abe will not apologize for the surprise attack that killed more than 2,000 US citizens and triggered the entry of the US into World War II.

"This visit is for the sake of consoling the souls of those who died in the war, not for the sake of an apology," Suga told a news conference.

Abe said on Monday that he will visit Pearl Harbor in late December with US President Barack Obama, 75 years after Japan's attack on Hawaii in 1941. He will be the first Japanese leader to visit the site since the end of World War II.

Abe's refusal to apologize has triggered online protests among Chinese netizens. A micro-blogger named Chang Ray said Abe should visit Nanjing, where more than 300,000 people were killed by Japanese troops from December 1937 to January 1938. The netizen got more than 300 "likes" on his micro blog account for his comment on the issue.

A series of activities will be held in Nanjing to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre, which falls on Dec 13.

Abe's lack of an apology during his Pearl Harbor trip could disappoint some US war veterans, Reuters reported.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during a news conference on Monday that it was natural for World War II veterans to be "embittered" about Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor, but they should get over it for the sake of the United States.

Zhang Jingquan, a professor of Japanese studies at Jilin University, said that Abe aims to strengthen the Japan-US relationship by visiting Pearl Harbor to emphasize Japan's "common value" with the United States.

"There is no 'common value' at all between Japan and the US on many issues, such as the comfort women (sex slaves during World War II) issue," he said.

Abe's refusal to apologize showed that his visit is just "a hypocritical gesture" to cater to the US, Zhang said.

Zhou Yongsheng, a professor of international relations at China Foreign Affairs University, said Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor is merely a pragmatic act to show Japan's loyalty to the United States.

Contact the writers at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
Chattanooga States Continuing Education Department is offering two classes in December and one in January 2017.

Santas LEGO Workshop:

Calling all LEGO-building elves! Santa is looking for children ages 6-10 to have fun at Santas LEGO Workshop on Monday, December 19  Wednesday, December 21, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. He has lots of Christmas models and fun challenges planned this season and needs your help to get the job done! Santas elves will build and help set-up the toy shop, build holiday-themed motorized models using LEGO Technic bricks as well as other fun, festive LEGO creations, and help deliver presents on time. Help us get Santa ready for Christmas this holiday season! Parents should pack a lunch for their elf each day.

ACT Prep Class:

College-bound high school students can increase their chance of admission to the college of their choice by taking the ACT Prep class offered December 6 and 8, from 5-8 p.m. in the Center for Business, Industry & health building (CBIH). An experienced teacher leads a review of math, English, reading and science (standard high school content review  no new concepts introduced) and participants learn key test-taking strategies. This course involves lecture, practice test taking, individual and group discussions of test results and skill building exercises. Students need to bring a calculator. Learn proven test-taking strategies for standardized tests. Fee: $155.

Spanish for Healthcare Workers:

Vamonos! Are you struggling to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients? If so, here's the perfect solution: Spanish for Healthcare Workers will be offered for six weeks, Thursday evenings January 19  February 23, 6:30-8 p.m. Whether you are new to the Spanish language or just want a refresher, this fun and simple course will provide the basic tools needed to help bridge the communication gap. With increasing numbers of Spanish-speaking patients entering the healthcare system every year, it's more crucial than ever for health professionals to learn medical Spanish. What's more, adding Spanish skills to a resume can broaden career horizons. Skip the "touristy" topics and focus on the survival Spanish medical personnel really needs to know in a medical setting. The class includes phrases for the medical interview and important medical Spanish terminology, including descriptions of diagnostic studies and how to explain prescriptions. There are also helpful categories for receptionists, social workers, missionaries, and pharmacists. Fee: $199.00 Per Person

Call Continuing Education at 423-697-3100 for information or to register
The Moccasin Bend Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution will hold their December meeting at Signal Mountain Town Hall Complex on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

There will be a covered dish luncheon followed by a New to You auction. The proceeds from the auction will benefit Fisher House which provides free or low cost lodging to Veterans or military families receiving medical treatment at military medical centers.

The DAR is a service organization made up of members whose ancestors fought or provided service during the American Revolution.





Anyone interested in the DAR can go to the website dar.org for more information.
(Photo : Getty images) Firefighters project that the rescue operations could continue for another two days.

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A bizarre fire incident that occurred at an electric dance concert in Oakland, California, killed 36 people with rescue operations still ongoing. The incident reportedly took place at an old abandoned warehouse.



A statement issued out by the area officials said that more than half of the building had been cleared with 36 bodies so far being found. They added that an equally greater number was to be expected.



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BBC reported that Oakland Fire Department Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed said that not less than 50, or more than 100 people, were inside the building when the incident occurred. Mail online reported that a 17-year-old boy was among the victims of the incident.



"The building did not have a sprinkler system and firefighters did not hear any alarms when they arrived," she said.



She added that rescue operations were expected to continue for another two days ideally because the building was filled with furniture, which catalyzed the fire. "The warehouse was packed with furniture," she said. "It was almost like a maze."



Investigations are still ongoing on how the fire started. Deloach-Reed, however, explained that every necessary action was being taken to cautiously remove the dead bodies of the victims.



Identification of the victims of the fire has so far proven to be challenging. Of all the registered deaths, only three families have so far identified their loved ones.



With the low turnout for identification of the victims, CNN reported that an organization called Impact Your World has launched new initiatives that could assist the victims of the fire incident.



Among the initiatives is Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, which has established YouCaring to assist the victims' loved ones.



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TagsOakland, fire, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, rescue operations
(Photo : Getty images) Chinas Evergrande group, Baoneng and China Resources have been battling for superiority in the stock market.

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Companies have been advised by China's securities regulators against leveraging their acquisition of items that might have been acquired using dubious methods. During a Saturday meeting of the Asset Management Association of China, Liu Shiyu, Chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission, spoke out strongly against the act.



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Liu pointed out that the act was not only unethical but also against China's rules and regulations in the stock market trade, according to a report by Bloomberg.



"Such acquisitions show 'retrogress and decay' in humanity and commercial morals, and is by no means financial innovation," Liu said.



Liu added that "by using improperly obtained money to conduct leveraged acquisition, you've gone from strangers at the gate, to barbarians and eventually robbers of the industry." He said that such actions would not be tolerated.



Liu's harsh remarks were greatly factored by the ongoing scramble between China's Evergrande group, Baoneng, and China Resources who has the biggest share in China's biggest property developer Vanke.



Last year, the two horse race between Vanke and Baoneng got verbal when Vanke founder Wang Shi referred Baoneng as "barbarians."



Evargrande is recently in the fray after it acquired 13 percent shares of Vanke. China Resources owns 15.3 percent and Baoneng is the guru with 25.4 percent shares.



Finance professor at Renmin University Zheng Zhigang in a statement said that the scramble to acquire Vanke would trigger aggressive business venture in China's markets in the months to come, according to a post by the South China Morning Post.



The report quoted Zheng saying that there were great repercussions if certain rules on how top operate are not followed, and China's economy stands to be the overall loser.



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Tagschina, stock market, Vanke, Baoneng, China Resouces, Evergrande group
(Photo : Facebook) Abe said he agreed with Obama to visit Pearl Harbor together when he held brief talks with him on the sidelines of the APEC forum in Lima last month.



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Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announces on Monday that he will make a historical visit at the Pearl Harbor attack site on Dec. 26 and 27 during a trip for his final summit with the outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama.



This visit is showcasing the power of reconciliation and the importance of bilateral relationships despite what happened in the past.



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In a report by The Japan Times, Abe said that he was making the visit to the Pearl Harbor attack site "to pay tribute" to military personnel who died in the war.



"We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the US."



What makes it a Historical Visit?



Abe's declaration came just two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack that propelled the US into World War II, which occurred on Dec. 7, 1941.



This visit is not just symbolic, but it will also mark the history as he will be the first Japanese leader to visit the Pearl Harbor attack site after 75 years. This visit will also be reciprocating Obama's trip this year to Hiroshima as he was also the first US President to visit the site, where the US dropped a nuclear bond at the end of the war in 1945.



Abe said he agreed to visit the Pearl Harbor together with Obama when he held brief talks with him on the sidelines of the APEC forum in Lima last month. He said that his last summit meeting with Obama will be a chance to reflect on his presidency and to confirm the importance of the bilateral relationship.



This historical visit will take place in the peak of an American presidential transition that seems to threaten the US-Japan relationship. Abe was the first world leader to meet the president-elect Donald Trump when he visited New York after the Nov. 8 election.



Despite what happened in the past and even along the government transition in the US, the visit of the Japan Prime Minister with Obama to the Pearl Harbor attack site will demonstrate the power of reconciliation united by common interests and shared values.



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TagsUS-Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Barack Obama, donald trump, Pearl Harbor
(Photo : Getty Images) A group of tour guides from South Africa is heading to China to undergo a three-week training to learn Mandarin.

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The first batch of South African tourism staff to be trained in Mandarin are expected to arrive in China.



The 20 trainees were chosen from establishments that receive a huge number of Chinese tourists visiting South Africa. The candidates will go through training modules for reading, writing and speaking. They will also undergo situational role-playing training.



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The three-week training tour is expected to enable them to communicate in Mandarin, a language that is used by most people in China and other countries.



"The language training will enhance the experience of our Mandarin-speaking visitors and make their stay even more memorable," said South Africa tourism Minister Derek Hanekom while presenting certificates on Tuesday to the trainees before they left for China.



"The frontline people will help Mandarin speakers with making travel arrangements, accommodation bookings and deciding which sites to visit," the minister added.



He added that the tourist guides will be in a position to tell interesting stories behind South Africa's tourist sites better.



According to the minister, the ability to communicate in the language of the visitors reduces tourists' anxiety when they arrive. In turn, the tourist will reciprocate by spreading word about South Africa's tourist attractions.



"This initiative shows how the public and private sectors can work together to help the tourism industry grow," the minister opined.



South Africa has seen an impressive increase in Chinese tourists this year. There has been a 64 percent increase in Chinese tourists from January to August.



China is the world's biggest source of outbound tourism. Over 100 million Chinese people visited other countries last year.



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(Photo : Getty Images/Kim Kirby) A man holding an Amazon delivery package.

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Amazon recently launched a new cashier-less convenience store, a sort of self-service grocery shop. It would appear that Amazon has big plans for its new venture as reports surface claiming that the company is planning to launch more than 2,000 of these grocery and convenience stores across the United States.



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Amazon, the biggest online retailer in the US, is planning to launch its new service in different formats. The company's plan is to have full control of the physical flow of goods from its warehouse to the consumers. This could mean that Amazon is poised to build a bigger delivery network, as it takes on major retail companies like Walmart and Target.



Amazon launched the very first Amazon Go cashier-less store in the its hometown in Seattle. The convenience store uses sensors and artificial intelligence to track the items that consumers take off the shelves. This allows consumers to shop without having to go through a checkout line.



Aside from Amazon Go, the retail giant is also planning to launch more formats of its new store concept. One is a small drive-thru concept, and the other one is a huge, European-style discount chain, according to The Verge.



According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is planning to launch a prototype of the drive-thru format within the coming weeks. The report added that two stores are now under construction in the Seattle area.



Regarding its discount chain model, Amazon plans to construct a 30,000-square-foot store much like the IKEA model and then integrate it with instant purchasing features. Using this model, consumers could essentially place their order online or through in-store touchscreen devices and then pick up the package later.



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TagsAmazon, amazon go, convenience store, amazon convenience store, Amazon News, amazon store
(Photo : Getty Images) Uber AI Labs is dedicated to develop cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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Uber Technologies has announced its acquisition of artificial intelligence research startup Geometric Intelligence. Along with the acquisition, Uber unveils its own artificial intelligence (AI) lab division named Uber AI Labs.



The New York-based artificial intelligence startup will aid the new Uber division to teach computers to think like humans. Uber AI Labs is dedicated to develop cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and machine learning.



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Ubers new division wants to leverage AI for their research in self-driving cars. The American ride-hailing company is interested in developing powerful speech- and image-recognition software akin to Google and Microsoft.



The 15 staff of Geometric Intelligence will move to San Francisco, where Uber is based, to join the Uber AI Labs and help improving the service of the company as well. Among the improvement that the company would like to make are better match carpool riders and more accurate time estimating rider locations and travel. These particular improvements will be helpful on developing Uber software for self-driving autos.



Uber is in the business of using technology to move people and things in the real world. With all of its complexity and uncertainty, negotiating the real world is a high-order intelligence problem, the company wrote in a blog post announcement.



Three professors and a graduate student founded Geometric Intelligence in October 2014. Founders are Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist from NYU; Zoubin Ghahramani, a Cambridge professor of machine learning; Kenneth Stanley, professor of computer science at the University of Central Florida; and Douglas Bemis, a recent NYU graduate with a PhD in neurolinguistics.



Uber AI Labs will be headed and directed by Marcus, while Ghahramani will be the co-director.



Uber is not the first automotive company that is eyeing for artificial intelligence. Toyota also has an AI lab that has cute little robot that reads emotions, while Hondas own AI research lab will unveil AI tech at CES in January 2017.



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TagsUber, Uber AI Labs, Artificial Intelligence, AI lab, Self-Driving Car, autonomous car, AI
State Senator Jack Johnson announced Monday that he has introduced legislation requiring the State Board of Professional Counselors to promulgate their own code of ethics to be used for licensure requirements under Tennessee law. Senate Bill 1 would change the current state requirement that automatically accepts the code of ethics from the American Counseling Association, a private organization headquartered in Alexandria Va., which has branches in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America.Senator Johnson is sponsor of legislation passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in April which protects the rights of counselors to refer a client to another therapist when the goals, outcomes, or behaviors for which they are seeking counseling are a violation of his or her sincerely held beliefs.The new law does not apply if the individual seeking or undergoing counseling is in imminent danger of harming themselves or others.The ACA lobbied Tennessee about 25 years ago to adopt by rule their code of ethics as the requirements for licensure of counselors in the state, although other counseling associations exist, said Senator Johnson. As a result, any changes they make to their code of ethics, in effect, alter our states licensure law, regardless of our own professional boards views or those expressed by the people of Tennessee through their elected representatives. This is an inappropriate delegation of the legislatures authority to an unelected, unrepresentative, and private interest group that should have never been abdicated.SB 1 requires the State Board of Professional Counselors to promulgate their own code of ethics and not automatically adopt a code of ethics from any national association, including but not limited to the ACA. It also preserves the current state requirement that prohibits adoption of a rule requiring a counselor or therapist to counsel or serve a client as to goals, outcomes, or behaviors that conflict with the sincerely held beliefs of the counselor.Tennesseans are best suited to determine what our state licensure requirements for our professional counselors should be rather than subrogating that right to a private organization, said Senator Johnson. I believe our State Board of Professional Counselors is capable of this responsibility and that all Tennesseans seeking counseling will benefit as a result.The General Assembly is set to convene the 2017 legislative session on Jan. 10, 2017.
(Photo : Getty Images) An angry North Korea lambasted the UN sanctions saying it violated their right to self-defense.

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An infuriated North Korea has denounced the new United Nations sanctions imposed on the isolated state saying the punishment was an "abuse of power" and violated its "right to self-defense."



North Korea's vice foreign minister Han Song Ryol, who spoke to foreign diplomats in Pyongyang on Friday, lambasted the UN and the international community for coming up with the harsh sanctions and threatened to respond to the move without elaborating.



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"These new UN sanctions are an abuse of power and have violated our right to self defense," Han said.



Unanimous



Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea have been added to the growing list of nations that have started executing the United Nations (UN) sanctions against North Korea in response to its recent nuclear tests.



South Korean and Japanese high-ranking officials announced last Friday that they have started to strictly implement the sanctions following Pyongyang's threat that it would retaliate against the new UN resolution that was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council last Wednesday.



Part of the punishment Japan has begun to impose on the isolated state includes banning ships that have traveled to North Korea from docking in Japanese ports.



Financial Holdings



Tokyo has also announced that it would financially cripple the belligerent state by freezing the financial holdings of groups and individuals who have been identified as providing money to Pyongyang to fund its nuclear weapons program.



Seoul authorities, on the other hand, said the sanctions would include barring North Korea from financially dealing with top aides to North's leader Kim Jong-un.



The new UN sanctions have infuriated North Korea, threatening to respond to the punishments without elaborating.



Major Blow



The new sanctions have been adopted by the UN Security Council after a 15-0 vote on Wednesday in response to North Korea's latest nuclear test it launched last Sept. 9. After a three-month deliberation between China and the rest of the council members, the new sanctions have been passed on Wednesday.



The sanctions dealt a major blow to Pyongyang after it was unanimously agreed that China would cut coal imports from Pyongyang by 60 percent or roughly estimated at $700 million by 2017.



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TagsUnited Nations resolution, UN sanctions, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, Nuclear Tests, UN Security Council, china
(Photo : Xinhua) Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli (center) speaks at a meeting on building the socialist ecological civilization.

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President Xi Jinping urges local government officials to deepen reforms so as to establish a framework of institutions to establish a "socialist ecological civilization" in China.



He said more effort should be put into crafting a legal and operational ecological civilization framework featuring green, renewable and low-carbon growth, and an economical and environmentally-friendly way of life.



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China will increase environmental inspections and punish polluters accordingly to ensure the environment improves, Xi said.



Xi pointed out the goal of achieving an ecological civilization is a key part of China's overall development strategy. Local governments at all levels should remember that clear waters and green mountains are invaluable assets.



Ecological civilization should be an important task for governments and the Communist Party of China branches at all levels. They should implement policies earnestly and contribute more to a greener China and global ecological security, according to Xi.



Chiming on the same topic, Premier Li Keqiang spoke about ecological civilization's key role in achieving sustainable growth. He noted that local governments should bear this in mind when drafting supply-side structural reforms.



China will continue to optimize its industrial structure, cut excess capacity, reduce pollution and improve air, water and soil quality, said Li.



A national meeting on ecological progress was held last week in Zhejiang Province. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli urged local governments to use their previous achievements to kick-start faster and better ecological civilization development.



More should be done to promote green urbanization and sustainable industrial structure and improve the efficiency of resource utilization, Zhang added.



Last May, Xi talked about the importance of adhering to and innovating Marxism at a philosophy and social sciences symposium in Beijing.



He said the birth of Marxism was a great event in human intellectual history, and noted the wisdom of traditional Chinese culture. Observers noted Xi's understanding of Marxism is a light on the path toward a new global socialist ecological civilization.



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TagsXi Jinping, socialist ecological civilization, china, Premier Li Keqiang, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli
(Photo : YouTube Screenshot) China pleaded the US government to stop throwing suspicions and hampering deals.

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China urged the US to stop interfering foreign corporate merger and acquisitions, after outgoing US President Barack Obama blocked the sale of Germany's Aixtron SE to China's Grand Chip Investment GmbH because it reportedly poses national security risks.



"China opposes politicizing normal business behavior or political interference," Lu Kang, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said.



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China sought to close a takeover agreement with the German chipmaker; however, Obama blocked the $715 million deal by not allowing Aixtron's US arm to be included in the sale, the News.au reported.



Obama on Friday said Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund must fully and permanently abandon its proposed acquisition of Aixtron Inc., which is a subsidiary unit of Aixtron SE in the US, the Global Times noted citing the president's executive order.



Aixtron's US arm employs nearly one-fifth of its over 700 employees, thus allowing the president to veto the agreement.



The US allegedly voiced its concern that the sale would bolster China's nuclear program. The US Treasury Department said that they blocked the deal because of Aixtron's knowledge and experience in the field of military applications.



China, in response, asked the US government to stop throwing suspicions and hampering deals.



"We hope the US side can stop making groundless accusations against Chinese companies and provide a fair environment and good conditions to Chinese investments," Lu said.



He further added that the Chinese government has always encouraged Chinese companies to invest abroad as long as they abide on local laws, market rules, and principles.



Meanwhile, Aixtron noted that Obama's order was only applicable to its US arm and did not forbid the sale of its shares. This created hopes for some analysts that the agreement could be revived but under revised terms, according to the Shanghai Daily.



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TagsAixtron, Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund, Aixtron News, Aixtron Acquisition, Aixtron takeover, Barack Obama
Baker Donelson received a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2017 Corporate Equality Index, a national benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Baker Donelson joins the ranks of 517 major U.S. businesses that also earned top marks this year.



"Baker Donelson has continued to demonstrate a commitment to creating an inclusive atmosphere that cultivates ideas from the unique perspectives of each of our employees," said Mark A. Baugh, chair of Baker Donelson's Diversity Committee. "This is the second consecutive year we have achieved a 100 percent in the Corporate Equality Index and we are honored by this recognition, as it shows us that we are on the right path as we continue our efforts through firm initiatives."



The 2017 CEI rated 1,043 businesses in the report, which evaluates LGBT-related policies and practices, including non-discrimination workplace protections, domestic partner benefits, transgender-inclusive health care benefits, competency programs, and public engagement with the LGBT community. Baker Donelson's efforts in satisfying all of the CEI's criteria resulted in a 100 percent ranking for the second consecutive year and the designation as a "Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality."



This is the latest of several recent recognitions honoring Baker Donelson as a diverse workplace. Earlier this year, the Firm was named one of Fortune's "100 Best Workplaces for Women" and was also ranked among the top ten law firms in the country in Vault, Inc.'s "Best Law Firms for Diversity" list. Baker Donelson's launched the Diversity Initiative in 2002 to focus on recruiting, developing, and retaining employees from diverse backgrounds and creating an inclusive workplace environment. The also recently launched "Baker Affinitas," an affinity group for LGBT interests, including the establishment of an LGBT pro bono initiative.
ACLU wants Army Private Bradley 'Chelsea' Manning, transgender traitor involved in Wikileaks, released from prison 06 December, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner)  The American Civil Liberties Union is asking President Barack Obama to commute the sentence of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private convicted of providing classified military information to Wikileaks.

Manning was found guilty of multiple counts of espionage, computer theft, fraud and numerous violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 2013. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but soon after was back in the news because he wanted the Army to pay for his medical care  hormone therapy to transition from a man to a woman.

He also requested a presidential pardon immediately after his conviction. That pardon was denied.

Manning lives now under the pseudonym "Chelsea" Manning, a transgender inmate, at the U.S. Army's Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The ACLU is asking the Manning's sentence be commuted to time-served (almost seven years now).

Since she was first taken into custody in 2010, Ms. Manning, a transgender woman who is being forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison, has been subjected to long stretches of solitary confinement ... and denied necessary medical treatment related to her gender dysphoria.

In its letter to President Obama, the ACLU and 16 other pro-LGBT organizations, including Lambda Legal and the National Organization for Women, claim they are united in their desire to see Manning released so "she" will have "a first chance to live a real, meaningful life as the person she was born to be."

"Since she was first taken into custody in 2010, Ms. Manning, a transgender woman who is being forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison, has been subjected to long stretches of solitary confinement ... and denied necessary medical treatment related to her gender dysphoria," the letter states.

Gender dysphoria is a psychological disorder in which a person claims to feel he or she is of a different gender than the one assigned at birth. According to the ACLU letter, Manning has attempted suicide because Army officials opposed acknowledging Manning as "Chelsea" and "her."

"While the armed forces have finally opened the door to transgender men and women who wish to serve, the government has continually fought Ms. Manning's efforts to be treated with basic dignity," the letter said.

It also included a quote from a letter Manning had written to the president, expressing how he was "living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss, and depression. I cannot focus. I cannot sleep. I attempted to take my own life."

He then said he was hopeless in prison.

The ACLU does not regard Manning as a traitor, but as a "whistleblower."

In addition to the ACLU, NOW and Lambda Legal, other signatories to the letter include the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Black Justice Coalition, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Transgender Law Center.

It is unclear as of now if the White House is favorably disposed to honoring the request for commutation. The ACLU is striking while the iron is hot, however.

On Nov. 22, the White House announced President Obama had commuted as many as 1,023 prison sentences for men and woman "incarcerated under outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws, including 342 individuals who were serving life sentences."

To date, the announcement said, the president has granted more commutations than the past 11 presidents combined. He had also, by Nov. 22, granted 70 pardons. He plans to continuing doing so until his final day in office, the White House said.
Tens of thousands stand by 'Fixer Upper' Chip and Joanna Gaines after Buzzfeed attack Christian Post Contributor | 05 December, 2016 by Stoyan Zaimov

WACO, Texas (Christian Post)  "HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines of 'Fixer Upper' have been publicly targeted by media outlets merely for attending a church whose pastor, Jimmy Seibert, has preached on the biblical view of marriage and sexuality," the Family Research Council's petition says, referring to the Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas.

"When pastors bravely preach biblical truth that contradicts the "truths" of the politically correct culture, people listen," it added.

As of Monday morning, over 31,000 people have signed the statement, which reads: "I stand with Pastor Seibert in his conviction about the biblical view of marriage and commend him for his courage in speaking the truth, even when it's controversial."

Secular news outlets reported last week that the Gaines were members of the church where Seibert has preached against gay marriage, with Cosmopolitan magazine writing that the Gaines' choice of a church is a "startling revelation that has left many wondering where Chip and Jo stand."

Seibert told FRC President Tony Perkins on Thursday that the story has led to a spike in traffic for the church's website.

"That reminds me of another passage in scripture [Romans 8:28] that says 'All things work together for good, for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose,'" Perkins said during the interview.

"You know, the evil meant for good is actually giving a platform to the truth. A lot of people are seeing something they may not have seen before."

Seibert explained that he is grateful at least that people looking into his church are now reading about the Bible.

"Thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of people are now getting some Scripture, getting some clarity, some truth and some thought on this issue or marriage and life and sexual identity and all that," the pastor argued. "In a weird way, we are grateful that message is getting out."

Conservative Christian brothers David and Jason Benham, whose HGTV house-flipping television series was cancelled in 2014 because of their support for traditional marriage and pro-life issues, slammed the media for going after the Gaines for their beliefs.

David Benham told The Christian Post last week that the attack on the couple is "a typical example of the thought-mafia on another witch hunt searching to devour anyone who would disagree with their thoughts on human sexuality or on marriage."

"The Gaines are like millions of other Americans," he added. "They are not anti anything. They're pro-Jesus and they're pro-Bible because they know what God's best is for human flourishing."

This article published by The Christian Post.
Vietnams National Assembly finally ratified (on 18 Nov.) its Law on Belief and Religion amid extensive criticism from parliamentarians, human rights and religious groups, who deem it to be below international standards for human rights.

The Vietnamese government says that the law, the first of its kind in the socialist republic, will optimise the administration of religious affairs, reported UCA News. But rights groups and lawmakers fear this to be a move to restrict religious freedoms rather than protect them.

The law has been widely criticised throughout the lengthy drafting process, with some 50 civil society organisations, including Amnesty International and Christian Solidary Worldwide, joining their voices with ASEAN Parliamentarians to denounce the nine-chapter-long draft law earlier this year.

In an open letter to the Vietnamese government prior to the ratification of the law, the group of organisations and lawmakers rejected a clause stating that religious groups must be registered and approved by the government in order to practise. The letter condemned this as excessive state interference in religious organisations internal affairs."

The letter also criticised the law for vague wording which, if interpreted flexibly, could potentially be used to ensnare religious groups or individuals. A separate statement issued by Human Rights Watch highlighted particular examples of elusive phrasing, found in clauses prohibiting the use of religion to undermine national security, national unity and public order.

According to the national radio station, Voice of Vietnam, religious dignitaries told the National Assembly that the approval of the law was a turning point in Vietnams religious policy, which encourages religious followers to promote the values of religions and patriotism and combat hostile forces intention to sabotage socialism.

The law has been in the pipeline for over a year, and went through numerous amendments before being ratified in November. Opponents to the law acknowledge that some improvements have been made since the first draft was published on the National Assembly website last year. But a statement published by the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) the day after its ratification described it as still deeply flawed. The final details of the law, which will come into effect in January 2018, were not released to the public at the time of its ratification by 84.58 per cent of the Assemblys vote.

However, VCHRs Executive Secretary Vo Tran Nhat, who analysed the later drafts of the law, told World Watch Monitor in April that, in his view, the new law is designed to repress and control.

Thomas Muller, an analyst for Open Doors, which works with minority Christians under pressure around the world, says the imminent legislation could leave Christian groups vulnerable. Already ranked twentieth on Open Doors 2016 World Watch List of restrictive countries for Christians, Muller predicts that in Vietnam it will become increasingly difficult for Christians to register their churches and operate freely.

Whereas there are a few sections in which the new law can be considered to be an improvement for Christians, the regulations on registration in particular will definitely cause churches great difficulties, he said. The broad notion of the term foreign may well lead to arbitrary interpretations and actions by the state. It is particularly interesting to see that ASEAN lawmakers have also criticised the new law. Since it is highly unusual that ASEAN publically criticises another member country, this will certainly give the authorities in Vietnam something to think about.

A US State Department report on religious freedom, published in August, noted significant improvement in the state of religious freedom in Southeast Asia. Certainly in Vietnam repressive restrictions have slackened off since 1975, when war between North and South Vietnam ended. But in a climate where legislation, policing and surveillance of religious activities have, to a greater or lesser extent, been the norm in government practice for decades, the new law looks unlikely to make the practice of religion any easier.

Courtesy: World Watch Monitor

Publication date: December 6, 2016
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast could face criminal prosecution for allegedly selling the body parts of aborted fetuses.

The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, a 14-member panel led by Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, was formed in October 2015 after the Center for Medical Progress released a series of undercover videos that suggest that Planned Parenthood profits from selling body parts of aborted fetuses, which is a felony under federal law that could result in up to 10 years in prison. Planned Parenthood has denied all allegations.

The panel claims that there is evidence that Planned Parenthood sold the aborted body parts to the University of Texas and is referring the abortion clinic to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for criminal prosecution.

There is so much that we the American people didnt understand and still dont understand about this industry, Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) said on the House floor on Thursday. However, since then, the panels investigation has uncovered alarming revelations about the fetal tissue industry.

In November, the U.S. House Committee voted 234-181 to double the panels budget, allocating an additional $800,000 for its investigation into the Planned Parenthoods practices.
A court in Nepal has dropped a case against eight Christians, the first religious freedom dispute since the country's new constitution was implemented last year.

The seven men and one woman had been charged with proselytizing after giving out a pamphlet about Jesus in a Christian school while helping children through the trauma following the 2015 earthquake. Anything perceived as evangelism is outlawed under the new constitution.

Five are staff of the Christian teacher-training program Teach Nepal, while two others are school principals. They were arrested in June, and the pastor of Charikot Christian Church, Shakti Pakhrin, was detained a few days later. Nepali Christian leaders have welcomed their acquittal.

Barnabas Shrestha, chairman of Teach Nepal, says they were "invited by a pastor to do the counseling in the school. While it is a Christian school, not all pupils are Christians.

Shrestha denies the counselors were trying to convert children. The police making the arrests ...

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The American Medical Association has described physician-assisted suicide as a serious risk to society and fundamentally incompatible with a physicians role as healer.

Millions of Americans disagree.

Two-thirds say it is morally acceptable for terminally ill patients to ask their doctors for help in ending their lives, according to a new survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research. A similar number says doctors should be able to help terminally ill patients die.

Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, says Americans want more say over how they die. Thats especially true if facing a painful, terminal illness, he says.

If they are facing a slow, painful death, Americans want options, he says. Many believe that asking for help in dying is a moral option. They dont believe that suffering until they die of natural causes is the only way out.

Widespread support

Physician-assisted suicide first became legal in the US in ...

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HSLDA Sues New York City Over Homeschool Hang-ups

PURCELLVILLE, Va., Dec. 5, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has filed a lawsuit against the City of New York for what they call "systematic mistreatment" of homeschooling families in New York City. HSLDA says that New York City's homeschool infrastructure is archaic and creates unnecessary burdens for homeschooling families, school officials, and social workers. The lawsuit seeks to fix these issues by requiring the city's bureaucracy to follow the state's homeschool regulations.

"Family after family have found themselves in legal limbo because the central office simply cannot or will not follow the timelines in the regulation," said James Mason, HSLDA's Director of Litigation. "More than one homeschooling family told me they had been turned over to CPS (Child Protective Services) because of the office's delayed handling of the homeschooling paperwork."

The issue was brought to a head with the case of Tanya Acevedo, a homeschooling mother in New York City who had withdrawn her child from public school to homeschool him, following every step to the letter. Nonetheless, Tanya was visited by a social worker at 7:00pm, one month after beginning to homeschool, because the system was showing that her son was truant.

New York City's administrative functions relating to homeschooling for all school districts are located in one office that is understaffed and underfunded. The city often requires homeschooling parents to pick up and file paperwork in person (paperwork can be sent back by certified mail), which results in delays and, sometimes, lost paperwork.

"Even though Tanya notified both the central office and the school before she began homeschooling, the school could not flip the switch in the attendance database to turn off her son's 'absences,'" Mason said. "And the central office, always woefully behind, had not gotten around to it yet."

Tj Schmidt, HSLDA's contact attorney for New York, said he spends much of his time sorting out paperwork issues between homeschooling families and school districts. "In a city as diverse as New York City, it's hard to understand why the system in place has not been updated to aid parents who seek an educational alternative that best suits the needs of their children," Schmidt said.

HSLDA's lawsuit is seeking money damages and an order forcing New York City to follow the homeschool regulations outlined in state law. HSLDA is working with local counsel Sean Eccles. HSLDA will track the progress of the case at hslda.org/acevedo.
Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit against Department of Justice Seeking FBI Interviews with Obama, Jarret, and Emanuel Relating to Criminal Investigation of Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice seeking access to FBI reports of interviews  "302s"  of President Obama, Valerie Jarrett, and Rahm Emanuel. The interviews were taken as part of the FBI's criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-01888)).

In 2008, Blagojevich sought political favors in exchange for deciding who to appoint to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by then-President-Elect Obama. Among the persons Blagojevich approached were the President-elect and his intermediaries. Obama reportedly declined to make a deal. Blagojevich then turned to supporters of Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., offering the U.S. Senate seat in return for a $1.5 million "campaign contribution." Blagojevich broke off negotiations with Rep. Jackson's supporters when he learned that he was being wiretapped by federal investigators.

Over the course of two criminal trials in 2010 and 2011, Blagojevich was convicted of 18 separate offenses and, in December 2011, was sentenced to 168 months in jail. In 2015, an appellate court overturned five of Blagojevich's convictions and affirmed the remainder. On August 12, 2016, Blagojevich was resentenced to the same, 68-month jail term he had received previously.

Judicial Watch had asked the FBI to produce the 302s, pursuant to FOIA, in June 2011. The FBI confirmed the records' existence in 2012, but denied the request, asserting that the 302s were exempt from disclosure under FOIA Exemption 7(A) because Blagojevich's criminal case was still ongoing at the time. Judicial Watch filed suit to try to obtain the 302s in May 2016, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Blagojevich's convictions. It closed that initial lawsuit while Blagojevich was being resentenced. Judicial Watch refiled its lawsuit after Blagojevich was resentenced.

Judicial Watch's lawsuit asks the court to order the interview reports' release, noting:

[U]nder the circumstances it cannot be said that release of the requested records could reasonably be expected to interfere with whatever is left of Blagojevich's criminal prosecution. The public should not be forced to wait any longer to review the FBI 302s of President Obama, former White House Chief of Staff and now City of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, or Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett while Blagojevich pursues his second, plainly futile appeal.

"The FBI interviewed Barack Obama eight years ago about the selling of his Senate seat. The American people should finally get to see these FBI interview reports," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The public has a right to know precisely how Obama and his senior White House advisors Emanuel and Jarrett responded to Blagojevich's corrupt attempts sell Obama's Senate seat."
The Tennessee Department of Education announced new steps to ensure the states high school graduates are prepared to succeed in post-secondary education and the workforce. The report, which comes from the states Career Forward Task Force, concluded six months of research and discussions and features two dozen recommendations to ensure the development of seamless learning pathways that successfully transition students from high school to post-secondary education and beyond.



Recommendations from the task force fall into three areas: post-secondary and career readiness, student supports, and data and accountability. The nearly two dozen recommendations include increasing access to early post-secondary classes across the state, incentivizing employers to create more work-based learning opportunities, and ensuring all students have technological literacy skills. Additionally, the group identified several areas of interest for further analysis.

The group was charged with two major goals when it was first formed in March 2016: to examine and explore ways to better engage students in their academic journey and to craft actionable recommendations that reflect the strong integration of secondary, post-secondary and workforce readiness into K-12 education. Driving this charge was the groups crafting of a definition that profiled what academic, technical, and employability skills a successful K-12 student should possess at time of graduation.



We know that the jobs of the future will require more specialized skills and in-depth knowledge than ever before, but Tennessees post-secondary attainment is not currently increasing to match the projected needs of workforce, Commissioner Candice McQueen said. We have an opportunity in K-12 education to partner with post-secondary institutions and industry leaders to understand exactly what will make our students successful after graduation. Recommendations from this group of leaders will help us take actionable steps to build a better bridge from high school graduation to students futures.



The task force represented members from K-12, higher education, industry, nonprofit, state-level agencies, local and state elected officials, state-level advocacy groups, parents, and students. The task force met six times over late spring and summer 2016.



The work of the task force complements the department of educations strategic plan, Tennessee Succeeds, which has focused two of four keystone goals on the achievement of a post-secondary-career ready graduate: Tennessee will have an average public ACT composite of 21 by 2020, and the class of 2020 will be on track to achieve 55 percent post-secondary completion in six years. The work within the department has also been concurrent to statewide support of post-secondary and career readiness. In 2013, Governor Haslam launched the Drive to 55 initiative focused on having 55 percent of Tennesseans holding a postsecondary degree, certificate, or credential by 2025.



The task force included the following members:



Burns Phillips, Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development

Mike Krause, Executive Director, Tennessee Promise and Drive to 55 (at time of task force)

Sara Heyburn, Executive Director, Tennessee State Board of Education

Russ Deaton, Interim Executive Director, Tennessee Higher Education Commission (at time of task force)

Ted Townsend, Chief Operating Officer, Department of Economic and Community Development

James King, Vice Chancellor, Tennessee Board of Regents

Tristan Denley, Vice Chancellor, Tennessee Board of Regents

Eddie Pruett, Director of Schools, Gibson County Special Schools

Jerry Boyd, Director of Schools, Putnam County Schools

John Faulconer, District Administrator, Knox County Schools

Arlette Robinson, Career and Technical Education Director, Bradley County Schools

Susan Farris, Career and Technical Education Director, Lauderdale County Schools

Stacey Kizer, Information Technology teacher, Williamson County Schools (at time of task force)

Celeste Carruthers, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Tennessee

Mark Norris, Senate Majority Leader, Tennessee General Assembly

Dolores Gresham, Chairman, Senate Education Committee, Tennessee General Assembly

Harry Brooks, Chairman, House Education Committee, Tennessee General Assembly

John Forgety, Chairman, House Education Committee, Tennessee General Assembly

Jeff Frazier, Principal and Dean, Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing, Eastman Chemical

Cal Wray, Executive Director, Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council

Tony Cates, Human Resources Manager, Gestamp

Audrey Shores, COO and Director of Technology & Communication, Professional Educators of Tennessee

Debbie Landers, Tennessee Association of Non-Public Academic Schools, Executive Director

Kyle Southern, Director of Policy and Research, SCORE

Laura Moore, Education Liaison, Metro-Nashville Office of the Mayor

Kristina McClure, Parent, Hamilton County Schools

Catherine English, Student, Metro Nashville Public Schools and Vanderbilt University

Debbie Shedden, Tennessee School Board Association President, Hawkins County School Board

Kristin McGraner, Executive Director, STEM Prep Academy, Metro Nashville Public Schools

Missy Blissard, School Counselor, Rutherford County Schools

Jade Grieve, Senior Director, America Achieves

Becca Leech, Special Education teacher, Warren County Schools



You can review the complete task force report online, here. For questions about the task force, contact Adriana Harrington, program manager of student readiness strategies, at Adriana.Harrington@tn.gov.
3 Christian Converts Locked Up in Iran Jail for Their Faith 'Miraculously' Set Free

They knew it would take a miracle to get them out of Evin Prison, Iran's most notorious prison. And it did.

After just a little more than four months of confinement, three Christian missionaries from the neighbouring country of Azerbaijan walked out of one of the worst prisons in the world on Nov. 6, 2016 after they were charged with trying to convert Iranians to Christianity, a serious offence that usually carries a 10-year jail sentence.

In their first television interview hours after being released, the three menBahram Nasibov, Eldar Gurbanov and Yusif Farhadovtold CBN News they knew their mission into Iran was dangerous.

"We were expecting God to do something new for us on this trip, but we had no idea of the events that would transpire hours after we arrived," said Nasibov.

They left the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku, crossed the Iranian border and headed to Tehran where they were to meet secretly with a group of Iranian Christians on June 24, 2016.

They were in an apartment leading a Bible study when Iranian agents barged in, catching them by surprise.

They were subsequently charged and sent to Evin Prison where they spent two months mostly in solitary confinement in a tiny, cold room, with no windows, no bed and just a sink, they told CBN News.

Nasibov said despite the hardship they endured, he for one "never regretted going to Iran."

He said this was because of a conversation he had with God in 2003. "He [God] asked 'Whom shall I send to the nations?' And I said, 'Here am I, send me'," Nasibov answered. "Since then I've tried not to miss an opportunity to go and preach the Gospel in other countries."

For his part, Farhadov said he had already foreseen in a dream what would happen to them in Iran before they left their native Azerbaijan.

"But as I sat in my prison cell, God reminded me of that dream but also gave me a promise from Psalm 2 that He will make the nations our inheritance. That gave me hope and strength to endure," he said.

The three Christians said they never lost hope while in prison as they spent their days and nights praying and singing aloud Christian songs like "How Great Is Our God."

Alexander Neretin, a Russian pastor, started campaigning for the men's release right after their arrest. Churches across Azerbaijan and in neighbouring countries joined in the effort to help the three Christian men regain their freedom.

Surprisingly, in what Neretin said was nothing short of a miracle, Iranian authorities decided to release the three Christians upon payment of bail amounting to $85,000.

Neretin then flew to Iran carrying the bail money. Days later, Nasibov, Gurbanov and Farhadov, returned home to Azerbaijan as free men.
Archbishop Of York Urges Churches To Join Christmas Appeal

Churches are being urged to back the Archbishop of York's support for WaterAid's Christmas appeal.

Dr John Sentamu is backing the appeal for the charity's campaign, Made of the Same Stuff. He asked congregations to hold collections for WaterAid, which aims to provide clean water and toilets everywhere by 2030.

The campaign hopes to create a sense of unity around the shared need for water, which makes up 60 per cent of a human body.

Sentamu said: "663 million people in the world are still without access to safe, clean water. As we come together this Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus, please join me in supporting WaterAid to deliver clean and readily accessible water in countries such as Malawi, Tanzania and Bangladesh.

"Water is a basic essential that we take for granted  give a little to bring hope and health to many."

The charity claims 78 million people use fresh water for the first time each year. An increase of eight per cent per year would mean the goal of clean water for everyone by 2030 could be achieved, according to WaterAid.

A statement from the charity read: "Stories of political upheaval and terror attacks have left many of us feeling insecure and divided .

"With this is in mind, this Christmas, we have decided to celebrate what unites us, what we all have in common, what we are all made of. Water."
Burqa Ban In Germany 'Wherever Legally Possible', Says Merkel

Angela Merkel has called for a burqa ban in Germany as she stands for her fourth consecutive term as Chancellor.

The German leader told her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on Tuesday that she would support a nationwide prohibition on the Islamic full face covering.

"The full-face veil must be banned, wherever it is legally possible," she said to enthusiatic applause from party delegates in Essen. "German law takes precedence over sharia."

She also said the refugee crisis "must never be repeated" in a speech to mark her unopposed pitch to be the party's candidate.

It comes after her close ally and Germany's interior minister Thomas de Maiziere backed a partial ban in August. He suggested a law could apply in "places where it is necessary for our society's coexistence" such as government offices, schools, courtroom and demonstrations.

"We all reject the full veil  not only the burka but also other types of full veil that only leave the eyes visible. They have no place in our society," Maiziere said at the time.

"Showing your face is essential for our communication, co-existence and social cohesion and that's why we're asking everyone to show their faces," he added. "We want to introduce a law to make people show their faces and that means that those who break that law will have to face the consequences."

If Germany goes ahead with the proposal it will be the latest in a list of European countries following France's controversial ban in 2011. Since then Belgium, Bulgaria and parts of Switzerland have fined those wearing the veil in public.

Dutch MP s voted for a similar ban in the Netherlands last month as support for similar legislation increases in Europe.

Merkel is fighting a slump in her popularity after she opened Germany's borders in September 2015. She has refused to back down despite intense criticism that the influx overwhelmed public services and left refugees in under-equipped camps.

But Tuesday's speech marks a distinct change in tone after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won support with attacks on Merkel's immigration stance. The popularist party supports a total ban on burqas.

"A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated," Merkel said of the migrant crisis. "That was and is our, and my, declared political aim."
Mexico 'In Denial' Over Thousands Of Evangelicals Forced Out Of Homes

Mexico has been accused of a "policy of denial" over the thousands of evangelicals forced out of homes for their beliefs.

According to the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights, more than 287,000 cases of forced internal displacement took place in the last five years. But the UN-accredited National Human Rights Commission puts the figure at around 35,000.

However, Pedro Faro Navarro, director of the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Human Rights Center, disputes both numbers and accused the government of "making up the figures", according to World Watch Monitor. And he says the government is in denial about the number of people forced to move because they left the traditional Catholic Church for branches of evangelical Protestantism.

"There are some who speak of more than a million people," he said. "For the time being, what we know for definite is that the lowest number is always the official one." Many families have to leave their homes and nobody comes to count them, he added.

The problems between evangelical Christians and traditional communities are not uniform, said Faro. Some involve religious differences but others also involve political power struggles.

" Each case is different and has to be well analysed," he said, according to the persecution watchdog.

Faro said the government is ignoring the situation because to admit a problem would mean having to confront it. He said the Mexican government would not intervene because it was trying to encourage foreign investment in territories "where there are indigenous villages that are practically for sale".

At present there is no national law in relation to forced internal displacement and the problem is set to escalate as the perpetrators go unpunished. "The states in the north are most problematic, but no part of the country is free of this crisis," he said.

Faro has reported the situation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an institution that promotes human rights across the Americas.
MP Abused By Man On Trial For Alleged Anti-Semitic Abuse

A proponent of antisemitic propaganda branded an MP a "rodent" and an "evil money-grabber" on his blog, a court has heard.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, from Yeovil in Somerset, harrased Luciana Berger, the Labour Cooperative MP for Liverpool Wavertree, online for four months.

Bonehill-Paine, aged 23, welcomed being charged with racially aggravated harrasment because of the attendant publicity.

He has a previous conviction for describing people as paedophiles on Twitter.

Between Ocober 2014 and January 2-15, he posted five abusive articles attacking Berger, a court at Old Bailey in London heard.

On being charged, he said: "I am really pleased. This gives me an opportunity to be found not guilty, hopefully at a full Crown Court trial, with the media that will bring."

Bonehill-Paine blamed Berger for the jailing of Garron Helm, sentenced to four weeks after pleading guilty to sending a malicious communication by tweeting a picture of Berger with a Star of David on her forehead accompanied and the words "#Hitler was right".

Philip Stott, prosecuting, said: "The common ideology which so stirred Mr Bonehill-Paine is one of fierce antisemitism.

"Throughout the articles  Ms Berger is referred to by Mr Bonehill-Paine as, for example, a rodent, as evil, a money-grabber, a dominatrix and responsible for the death of Jesus.

"Repulsive as they may be to you and me, I understand that Mr Bonehill-Paine is not likely to dispute that he made these remarks."

The case continues. Bonehill-Paine is expected to argue his posts were reasonable in the circumstances and fell within bounds of free speech and freedom of political expression.
Muslim Groups Criticise 'Unfair' Focus On Islam In Casey Report

The government's report on social cohesion focuses too heavily on problems in Islamic communities, Muslim groups have warned.

Dame Louise Casey's review recommended an "integration oath" after it highlighted "worrying levels" of racial and social segregation. Commissioned by then Prime Minister David Cameron, the year-long study put the spotlight on Muslim-majority areas and warned some mosques teach patriarchal ideas about clothing and status to women and girls.

Casey warned a fear of being labelled racist had prevented public bodies calling out "deeply regressive religious and cultural practices, especially when it comes to women" in some ethnic minority communities in the UK.

But Muslims groups said it focused on Islamic communities and ignored other issues such as racism.

Bana Gora, chief executive of the Muslim Women's Council, said: "I am not denying that there is a problem in Muslim communities, but I would not put it down to self-segregation. We have to look at the broader picture, at education qualifications, at economics, at social mobility, at barriers in the jobs market.

"There are many inter-related factors and to put it all down such basic sensational terms by saying that the Muslim community is self-segregating does so much harm and is is totally unnecessary."

Harun Khan, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said he welcomed any move to promote integration but warned of a "culture of fear" that was "a big driver in preventing a more united and cohesive society".

In a statement on Monday Khan said Muslims had to endure "a media echo chamber which amplifies the misconception that Muslims and their faith are incompatible with life in Britain".

He criticised the report as a "missed opportunity" and said: "We must recognise that our public discourse and conversation has a part to play in furthering integration. Integration is fostered when the media reports on stories that speak of achievement of minorities, of people coming together and where national moments are shared by all."

Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim to sit in cabinet, also joined the criticism. She said the focus on Muslims and especially Muslim women was unfair.
National Affront: Why did France's extreme nationalist party come out on top?

"How can you govern a nation which has 246 types of cheese?" General de Gaulle once famously asked  presumably with an appropriately French shrug of the shoulders. With the far-right Front National coming first nationwide in the 2014 European elections, scooping up some 25% of the vote, the question is more pressing than ever.

Party leader Marine Le Pen's proud new claim to be heading up "France's leading party" is rather disingenuous, though. These elections were not for any level of national government, but to the European Parliament. Even there, far-right gains in several countries make no immediate difference; mainstream political formations will still be able to command a majority when new legislation is put to the vote. Domestically, the Front National has made significant progress recently in local council elections, but currently holds only a couple of seats in the National Assembly.

Some will have undoubtedly voted FN out of conviction, in the mistaken belief that there would be overnight change in France. But the vote also has a strong whiff of protest. France's elections usually have multiple rounds, and many voters probably assumed this one did, too. "In the first round you vote with your heart, in the second with your head", goes the saying  but in this case, it was the first (and only) vote that counted.

Poor communication has not helped. The FN's 25% share of the vote has been in headlines everywhere  the level of abstention in France (some 57%), rather less so. The actual outcome of the election in the European Parliament (a win for the mainstream conservative group) was the very last item mentioned, almost as an afterthought, in French radio news coverage the next day. Media focus on extremism may boost ratings and provide more frissons, but also it magnifies the phenomenon disproportionately. To make matters worse, the EU is chronically bad at selling itself. Apart from a caricature of petty regulations governing banana sizes, most people have little idea of what the European institutions do, or how. The Front National has thrived on this.

Domestic factors have also played their part. France's economy is sputtering; there has not been the political courage to implement the kind of far-reaching reforms that are needed for recovery. Mainstream politicians frequently lack the common touch and are perceived as belonging to an exclusive, self-serving club. A morass of moral and financial scandals have done little to dispel that impression; Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, has been masterful in exploiting her grass-roots image whilst simultaneously championing traditional values. She somehow manages to come across as a slightly rough-edged 'woman of the world' and at the same time preserve just enough respectability to keep the Front's more austere historic electorate on board. And unlike her father, who founded the party (but frequently got into trouble for provocative comments on issues like the Holocaust), she keeps very much on message. This message is a compelling blend of patriotism and exasperation with the status quo.

There's a clear anti-euro, anti-EU, anti-globalisation line and, clearest of all, a rejection not only of immigration (with a 20-fold cut in legal immigration envisaged) but also of immigrants. "National preference" for jobs, benefits and housing may be code for a particularly nasty form of nationalism, but it also points to a hankering after getting things back to how they used to be  a message that may even appeal to some believers.

So what might a Christian response to all this look like? The Bible queries the wisdom of asking "where are the good old days?" (Ecclesiastes 7:10, Message translation). As Christians, we're called to engage responsibly and intelligently with the issues of today, rather than trying to pull up the drawbridge or turn the clock back. I don't think the Front National or its ilk represent the right kind of engagement. I also believe we shouldn't fall into the trap of focusing on the extreme and the sensational  whether sensationally good or sensationally bad.

Like a good Christian life, good government is mostly about persevering in doing the right thing over the long term, not merely addressing a few hot-button topics. That's why my personal takeaway from this result is to encourage everyone around me to be more engaged in politics  not by looking for a Christian political party, but by being involved in the existing political process in ways that, broadly speaking, reflect the values of the Kingdom of God. Politics are never going to be perfect, and we may have differing opinions, but there must be more on offer than headline-hitting extremism or simply hand-wringing in response. It seems there are 246 types of cheese out there. Surely there's room for a little salt and light too?

Born in the UK, David Buick has lived in France since 1985 and has dual nationality. He is a prison chaplain, pastor, and freelance translator
'Notional Christian' Vote Was The Key To Donald Trump Election Victory

It was not so much evangelical Christians as "notional" Christians who won Donald Trump the race to the White House, a new study shows.

Key to Trump's victory was a swing by notional Christians from supporting the Democratic candidate to backing the Republican.

Notional Christians are defined as Christians who have not made "a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today" and don't believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

Research by Barna shows that notional Christians have supported the Democratic candidate in every election since 1996, giving them 58 per cent of their votes.

But this year as Hillary Clinton took just 47 per cent of their votes while Trump won 49 per cent.

"Given that notionals are by far the largest of the five faith segments, that transition was a game changer for the Republicans," says Barna.

In addition, there was a strong swing late in the day from notional Christians towards Trump.

Notionals still preferred Clinton by 12 points in September, but wound up siding with Trump by a two-point differential. "That represents a 14-point gain in the final two months among the numerically-largest pool of religious voters," says Barna.

Barna also notes: "Another shocking twist during the last two months was the shift of allegiance to Trump among atheists and agnostics. Trump gained 10 percentage points on Clinton among this group."

This was just one aspect of the significant role played by religion during the election, according to Barna. Many issues were faith-related and voter turnout by religious believers was high. Atheists and other people of no faith were the least likely to vote.

Evangelicals provided 10 million votes, non-evangelical born again voters produced 33 million and notional Christians delivered 58 million.

Barna reports that nearly four out of five evangelicals voted for Trump.

Among non-Christians  atheists and people of other faiths  most preferred Clinton. It was also the first election in 20 years in which the Catholic vote was not won by the Democratic candidate.

Researcher George Barna, founder, former owner and currently special analyst for the company's 2016 election polling, said: "Voters who considered themselves to be Christian were more likely to vote for Trump than Clinton. Those who were not associated with the Christian faith were overwhelmingly behind Clinton.

"Each of the three Christian segments  evangelicals, non-evangelical born agains, and notional Christians  went with Trump. Both of the non-Christian segments  those associated with other faiths as well as the sceptics  were in Clinton's camp. Just as the candidates displayed vastly different political orientations, the voters who lined up behind each of them reflected many of those same differences."

The role of faith in this election was inescapable, he said. "Like it or not, the importance of peoples' faith was front and centre in this election."
Rejected In London, 'Homeless Jesus' Finds A Home In Manchester

A "homeless Jesus" sculpture is to find a new resting place in the centre of Manchester after planners ruled it could be installed there.

Manchester City Council has approved plans for the sculpture, by Canada's Timothy Schmalz, to be sited outside the historic St Ann's Church at the heart of the city.

The church wants the sculpture outside the Grade I listed building to raise awareness of the plight of homeless people in the city, the Manchester diocese said.

The near life-size bronze sculpture, with pierced feet, is titled 'Jesus the Homeless'. Other copies are already sited in Madrid, Dublin, Washington DC and Vatican City, although not in London. There is also one outside the Office of Papal Charities in the Vatican.

Westminster City Council rejected an application for a homeless Jesus sculpture outside the Methodist Church's Westminster Central Hall on the grounds that it would "fail to maintain or improve" the character of the area.

This was because it would have been in what is described as a "monument saturation zone".

The Methodists tried for permission after the sculpture had itself been rejected by St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square.

In 2013, Pope Francis described the sculpture as a "beautiful and excellent representation" of Jesus.

Nigel Ashworth, Rector of St Ann's in Manchester, said: "I am delighted to learn that planning permission for St Ann's to have 'Jesus the Homeless' installed outside the church has been approved by the Council. In Manchester our Homelessness Charter is showing the way for a developing partnership between churches, the City Council, businesses and voluntary groups."

Churches in Manchester work together to run a winter night shelter. St Ann's is also working on an early morning pilot project for street homeless people called Morning Hours.

The Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, said: "Jesus is very explicit in the Bible. When we offer or refuse care to those in need, we will be judged as though he himself were the needy person before us.

"This sculpture casts Christ's words into metal. It links them directly to one of the most visible expressions of human need. Its identical twins can be found in other great cities around the world, a reminder that Manchester today is a truly global city."

More sculptures are planned for Belfast, Moscow, Singapore and Johannesburg.
The Chattanooga Hamilton County Branch of the NAACP will hold its election for new officers on Tuesday.

Guidelines for becoming an officer include:

1. The April 1st rule will apply for anyone wishes to run for office - they must be a member as of April 1, 2016 and affiliated with the branch.

2. Members are encouraged to bring a photo ID and verification of current membership (membership card, receipt, etc.).

3. The nomination process will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Candidates must provide signed consent forms/nominating petition signed by at least three members in good standing, membership effective Tuesday. Members signing the petition should also bring verification of membership and prepared to show ID.

4. No nomination will be accepted after the nomination process is completed, so everyone should be encourage to arrive on time.



5. Voting will take place immediately after the nomination process and conclude at 6:30 p.m.

The election will be held at 756 E. MLK, next door to Good Neighbors and Across from Live and Let Live Barber Shop.

Members needing a ride to vote should contact President Dr. Elenora Woods at 280-0083 or 316-5727.
Some Peers Want Bishops To Lose Their Seats In The Lords. Are They Right?

The House of Lords has unanimously passed a motion to reduce its own size.

There is no consensus on how numbers should be cut but the move was heralded as "unique" by the Lord Speaker after the debate on Monday night.

"This is a significant step forward and represents a substantial consensus. It shows that Members of the Lords want reform and see the present size of over 800 as an obstacle in the way of the effective running of the House," said Lord Fowler.

"Now that the House has agreed that its size needs to be reduced, we must now work towards proposals on how this can be achieved."

Everyone agrees that a cull needs to take place. But among those vulnerable  and perhaps they are the most vulnerable  are members of the Bench of Bishops. By a quirk of history, the Church of England's leaders have a privileged, and some would say anachronistic, place in our system of government. Are they about to lose it  and should they?

With more than 800 members the House of Lords is the second largest chamber in the world after China. Appointments are controlled by the Prime Minister and often court controversy as they can be seen as political favours to allies. This was particularly true under David Cameron, whose rate of appointments topped any other prime minister's since the Life Peerages Act in 1958.

There is no cap on the total number of peers so, particularly when the House is weighted against the current government as it is currently, the temptation will always be for prime ministers to flood the Lords with allies.

Plans for a reform by the Liberal Democrats in coalition were blocked by their Conservative partners but now criticism of the size, cost and operation of the House of Lords has reached a zenith.

Church of England bishops make up 26 of the total number of peers. In any reduction in size of the Lords, their presence will come under increasing scrutiny.

In Monday's debate the Labour peer Lord Foulkes said he favoured an "assessment of past performance, including attendance, voting record, and service on committees" as a way to cut numbers.

He added: "If one looks at the figures, one sees that some peers attend less than 10 per cent of the time, a lot of whom I could name. In fact, the worst attenders are the cross-benchers and the bishops. They are hardly ever here compared with others."

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Scriven joined others in questioning: "Why are the bishops given a privileged status in this House, given that we are a multicultural country?"

But the Bishop of Birmingham, David Urquhart, has consistently backed calls for a smaller House of Lords, even at the cost of a diminution of the number of Anglican bishops.

"We can and should, as we are doing today, grasp the opportunity to take responsibility ourselves for reducing the size of the House as best we can," he said on Monday on behalf of the other bishops.

The debate comes after a similar one in October where Urqhart, as convenor of the Lords Spiritual, said: "We acknowledge that if the overall size of the House is to be reduced, of course the Lords spiritual must play their full part in that arrangement.

"That means that we would indeed continue to look constructively at a decrease in our own numbers in proportion with an overall decrease in the size of your Lordships' House."

A statement from the C of E supported this position: "Bishops numbers have been capped for over a century and a half and they retire at age 70. They are the only grouping in the House to which those conditions apply.

"The bishops in the Lords have long argued that the size of the House needs to be addressed and have said that if there were to be a reduction in its numbers then the Lords Spiritual would need to look constructively at how they can help achieve that end."

Voting for your own demise is not common in politics. At least not deliberately. The bishops and peers generally deserve credit for backing a move that might lead to their own loss of status  the proverbial turkey has voted for Christmas.

As the debate over numbers in the House of Lords continues the bishops' position will be in the spotlight again and again. Alongside the Lib Dem Lord Scriven, questions will be asked as to why they have an automatic position when we are a secular society.

The answer to this question is not to remove them altogether in the search for a mythical "neutral" playing field. Rather representatives from other faiths, denominations and belief groups should also be represented in the second chamber.

The Church of England, to their credit, supports this stance. A spokeswoman said: "Bishops have called for more representatives of other denominations and faiths to be appointed to the House, and this is something that the Appointments Commission has sought to achieve.

"The question of who constitutes a formal representative or a leader of other faiths and denominations is not a simple one and the Lords Spiritual are on record as saying they would happily work with the Appointments Commission to help it look at this in more detail."

Under this approach, rather than excluding faith, all religions are welcomed and included into the public sphere  the hallmarks of a truly multicultural society.
Thousands Sign Petitions In Support Of Fixer Upper Stars Chip And Joanna Gaines

More than 33,000 people have signed a petition that defends the conservative view on same-sex marriage taken by the pastor of HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines of the Fixer Upper TV programme. More than 86,000 have signed another petition calling on HGTV to keep airing the show.

The couple have been the subject of wide comment because they attend a church whose pastor, Jimmy Seibert, supports ex-gay therapy and opposes gay marriage.

The petition states: "When pastors bravely preach biblical truth that contradicts the 'truths' of the politically correct culture, people listen. I stand with Pastor Seibert in his conviction about the biblical view of marriage and commend him for his courage in speaking the truth, even when it's controversial."

There was widespread debate, including in Christian Today, after a piece on Buzzfeed about the Texas church they attend, Antioch Community Church.

Seibert made clear his opposition to same-sex marriage in a sermon on the church website when he stated that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Conservative Christians were frustrated by what they regarded as "bizarre and not newsworthy" attacks that then followed.

Seibert told Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, that the story had caused a surge in hits to his church website and he was grateful that so many were being exposed to Bible teachings. "Thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of people are now getting some Scripture, getting some clarity, some truth and some thought on this issue or marriage and life and sexual identity and all that. In a weird way, we are grateful that message is getting out," he said, according to The Christian Post.

HGTV said in a statement it does not discriminate against the lesbian and gay community.

Chip Gaines has not commented but in a tweet he asked for respect to be shown to two journalists who wrote stories about the issue:
World Council Of Churches Activist Refused Entry To Israel And Deported

The World Council of Churches has said it "deeply regrets" a decision by Israel to refuse entry to a woman on the grounds that she was working against the interests of the state.

Dr Isabel Phiri, from Malawi, was turned back at Ben Gurion airport on Monday.

According to Breaking Israel News, this sets a precedent which could see thousands of activists denied entry in future.

The refusal to admit her came a few months after Israel's interior minister Aryeh Dery and public security minister Gilad Erdan announced plans to deny entry to Israel to advocates of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) movement and to deport anyone already there.

Phiri was travelling to Israel to take part in consultations in Jerusalem on the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), which is a programme of the World Council of Churches.

Israeli officials believe the EAPPI programme is anti-Israel.

Dery told Breaking Israel News: "Granting an entry permit to activists such as Phri would in effect reinforce the wrongful activities she and her peers are advancing and I have no intention of lending a hand to that.

"I will use any authority at my disposal to avert harm to Israel.

"The place of the boycotters is outside the country's borders and we shall continue to do everything possible to prevent them from entering our country."

The WCC, which has lodged an appeal, said it "deeply regrets the Israeli antagonism against the WCC's initiatives for peace with justice for both Palestinians and Israelis".

The WCC noted that Phiri was the only African member of the WCC staff delegation and the only one denied entry.

The reason given for her deportation was "prevention of illegal immigration considerations".

WCC general secretary Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said: "The accusations made against the WCC and the EAPPI programme in the interrogation of Dr Phiri and published in the media today are completely false.

"I am very surprised and dismayed that the Israeli Ministry of Interior is apparently basing its decisions on incorrect and unreliable sources."

The EAPPI programme was set up in response to an appeal from church leaders in Jerusalem in 2002.

They wrote in a letter: "We would respectfully request protection of all people in order to assist the re-establishment of mutual trust and security for Israelis and Palestinians. Further, we would call on all peace-loving people from around the world to come and join us in a manifestation for just peace".

More than 70 churches, ecumenical bodies and specialised ministries in 22 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America actively participate in the programme. Almost 1,800 "accompaniers" have taken part, travelling to the West Bank to monitor and help local communities.

Earlier this year, several WCC staff and other representatives were detained by security staff at Ben Gurion airport.

The Church of England officially has supported EAPPI. In 2012, General Synod passed a motion "encouraging parishioners to volunteer for the programme and asking churches and synods to make use of the experience of returning participants." A few months later, the new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby expressed regret at his support for the motion which on reflection he felt did not "adequately reflect the complexity" of life on the ground in Israel. He said he would have been happy to have supported the motion if it had stated that Israel had the right to "live in security and peace within internationally agreed borders, and the people of the region have the right to justice, peace, and security, whoever they are."

Christian Today has asked the Israeli Embassy in London for comment.
Your chance to live with a Hollywood icon

From Alfred Hitchcock (and Leo the Lion) to Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth and Audrey Hepburn, a dazzling array of icons from Hollywoods Golden Age features in our 6-15 December online sale, Photographs: The Classics

1

Grace Kelly

When photographer Clarence Sinclair Bull took this photograph in 1956, Grace Kellys status as one of Hollywoods most talented  and glamorous  actresses was firmly secured. In 1954, she had won a Golden Globe for her performance in the 1953 film Mogambo, which also saw her nominated for an Academy Award. Hit films followed, from Dial M for Murder (1954) to High Society (1956) with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The man behind this striking image, Clarence Sinclair Bull, became renowned as one of the great masters of the Hollywood portrait, transforming the publicity shot into an art form. Bull spent 30 years as head of the stills department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, then Hollywoods most successful film company. Under the management of Louis B. Mayer, MGM boasted that it had more stars than there are in Heaven.

2

Rita Hayworth

Nicknamed The Love Goddess by the press, Rita Hayworth was one of the most glamorous screen idols of the 1940s  and reportedly the most popular pin-up of GIs during World War II. She starred in hit films including Blood and Sand (1941), Tales of Manhattan (1942) and Youll Never Get Rich (1941), appearing opposite stars including Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It was Hayworths performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, however, that became her most famous. Centred on a dramatic love triangle and set in a casino, the film cast Hayworth as a classic femme fatale  perfectly captured in the image above by celebrated Hollywood photographer Robert Coburn. Responsible for some of her most iconic portraits, Coburn became Hayworths favourite lensman.

3

Audrey Hepburn

An icon of fashion as much as cinema, Audrey Hepburn first shot to stardom in her role as an absconding princess alongside reporter Gregory Peck in 1953s Roman Holiday, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for a single performance. She went on to star in classics including Breakfast at Tiffanys (1961) and My Fair Lady (1964). The photograph above was taken by Bud Fraker for the 1957 musical Funny Face, which saw Hepburn star as a shy bookshop clerk and amateur philosopher thrust into the world of high-fashion modelling. The director of still photography at Columbia Studios, Fraker photographed Hepburn on numerous occasions, and was responsible for her most famous portrait  dressed in black and holding a long cigarette holder for Breakfast at Tiffanys.

4

Gary Cooper

From 1925 to 1960 Gary Cooper filled the lead role in an astounding 84 feature films, spanning the silent film era to the golden age of Hollywood. Known for his understated demeanour, he began his career as a stunt actor before becoming a Western hero  later featuring in dramas including A Farewell to Arms (1932), released the year before this portrait was taken. Over the course of his long career Cooper won three Oscars. His charisma was such that he is credited with the rise in popularity of the name Gary, which barely existed as a first name before he assumed it in honour of his managers hometown, Gary in Indiana.

5

Alfred Hitchcock with MGM Lion

Often referred to as The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock is revered as one of the 20th centurys pioneering directors, renowned for his plot twists and psychologically complex characters. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he is responsible for classics including The Lady Vanishes (1938), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). In 1939 Hitchcock left his native Britain and moved to Hollywood, taking up official US citizenship in 1955. When Clarence Sinclair Bull took this photograph, in the late 1950s, Hitchcock was widely considered to be at his peak. Here, he fearlessly directs the MGM mascot Leo the Lion, immortalised in the studios production logo.

6

Dolores del Rio

When she was just 20 Dolores del Rio was discovered in Mexico by director Edwin Carewe, who persuaded her to move to Hollywood and begin a film career. She worked from 1925, starring in silent films including Bird of Paradise (1932) and Madame Du Barry (1934). As Mexican cinema entered into its own golden age, she returned home  becoming the first Latin American actress to forge a successful career in both her native country and in the US. Along with Clarence Sinclair Bull, Ernest Bachrach was one of Hollywoods most coveted portrait photographers, working with stars including Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn. For actress Gloria Swanson, who had been shot by countless others, there was no other photographer in the world.

7

Norma Shearer

Canadian-American actress Norma Shearer became renowned for her performances as rich, worldly and sexually liberated women, roles that were considered groundbreaking when they first aired. In 1932, when this photograph was taken, Shearer was at the height of her career, starring in box-office hits that placed her in direct competition with screen legends such as Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo. This portrait by George Hurrell was taken two years after Shearer won an Academy Award for her role in the 1930 film The Divorcee. Encouraged by photographer Edward Steichen, Hurrell had begun to produce striking black-and-white images in the 1920s, including portraits of every star contracted to MGM.

8

Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson rocketed to fame shortly after making her film debut at the beginning of the 1920s, and went on to become one of the decades most sought-after romantic leads. In 1929 she was nominated for Best Actress in the very first Academy Awards  an accolade which she finally received in 1950 for her role in the acclaimed Sunset Boulevard. At the height of her career Swanson was one of the most photographed women in the world, as renowned for her fantastic wardrobe as for her acting talent. Although she was barely 5ft tall she regularly wore the latest haute couture, accessorising extravagantly with jewels, beads, and ostrich and peacock feathers.

9

Mary Pickford
Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time

The curator of a new Christies-sponsored exhibition at LACMA explains how these two friends, rivals and giants of Modernism not only looked to the future, but also embraced the ancient art of their respective cultures

Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera were friends, rivals and two of the mightiest artists working in Paris in the early 20th century. Both were outsiders  Picasso hailing from Malaga in Spain, Rivera from Guanajuato in Mexico  and both were pioneers of Cubism. The duo are now the subject of an exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), sponsored by Christies, featuring more than 100 of their paintings and prints. Cubism was a profoundly progressive movement, but what Picasso and Rivera did subsequent to it was perform one of arts ultimate volte-faces  they looked back. In the 1920s and 1930s, by which time Rivera had returned to Mexico to support its recent Revolution, both men were embracing the ancient art of their respective cultures: Mediterranean and Pre-Columbian.

Open a larger version of this image Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait, Fall 1906. Oil on canvas. 25.6 x 21.1 in (65 x 54 cm). Musee Picasso, Paris.  2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo  RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, by Rene-Gabriel Ojeda Open a larger version of this image Diego Rivera, Self-Portrait, 1906. Oil on canvas. 21 x 21 in (55 x 54 cm). Museo de Arte de Sinaloa, Coleccion ISIC-MASIN  2016 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo courtesy Museo de Arte de Sinaloa, Coleccion ISIC-MASIN, by Agustin Estrada

For Diana Magaloni, curator of Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time, this was in many ways as radical a move as Cubism had been. Here she discusses the pairs highly charged relationship  and how, together and apart, they helped change the face of modern art. The exhibition reunites Rivera and Picasso, two compadres from the formers decade in Paris between 1911 and 1921. Their friendship wasnt straightforward, though, was it? Diana Magaloni: Not at all. They were highly charged, macho characters who also happened to be two of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Their paths first crossed at the start of World War One, as non-combatant artists in Paris, when their French peers were at the Front. Having come to Europe to immerse himself in the continents art, Rivera was now developing a name for himself about town, and an intrigued Picasso sent out a request via his friend, the artist Manuel Ortiz de Zarate, for Rivera to visit him immediately. The pair ended up conversing all night  in Spanish  about the future of art, and becoming firm friends.

Open a larger version of this image Pablo Picasso, Student with Newspaper (Letudiant au journal), 191314. Oil and sand on canvas. 28  23 in (73  59.5 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, promised gift from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection  2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo  The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open a larger version of this image Diego Rivera, Sailor at Lunch (Marinero almorzando), 1914. Oil on canvas. 44.88  27.55 in (114  70 cm). Museo Casa Diego Rivera, Guanajuato, Marte R. Gomez Collection, INBA  2016 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo courtesy Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, Guanajuato

But is it true that they also came to blows on one occasion, when Rivera accused Picasso of copying one of his paintings? He once said of Picasso, Everything he does is based on the work of somebody else. DM: These were proud, passionate men at the forefront of the Cubist movement, which was transforming art as anyone knew it. Rivera thought hed done his most audacious painting in that style yet  a masterpiece called Zapatista Landscape  only to visit Picassos studio one day and encounter a painting by the latter called Man Seated in Shrubbery. The two works had a lot in common, including a pyramidal structure. Rivera, a giant of a man, was absolutely furious. Picasso tried to assure him that his painting had been completed months earlier. But when the Mexican rubbed a hand over the canvas, he smeared away newly added paint. Lets just say Rivera wasnt impressed. Is one of the objects of the exhibition to highlight that their connection actually extended far beyond their years together in Paris? DM: Yes. We trace their shared beginnings, doing their studies in an academic tradition. Then came Cubism, before Rivera returned home to spearhead the Muralist movement in support of Mexicos Revolution. Even on separate continents and in very different circumstances, they follow similar paths in their embrace of the past. They both had great respect for the art of their ancient ancestors: Mesoamerican in Riveras case, Classical Greek in Picassos. This was the genesis of our exhibition.

Open a larger version of this image Diego Rivera, Flower Day (Dia de Flores), 1925. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Fund,  2016 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo  Museum Associates/LACMA Open a larger version of this image Water Deity (Chalchiuihtlcue), Mexico, Aztec, 12001521, Museo Diego Rivera-Anahuacalli. Photo  Museum Associates/LACMA, by Javier Hinojosa

They both looked back in order to move forward? DM: Yes. I remember seeing Riveras Flower Day (1925) in the LACMA collection a few years ago and thinking how much it was influenced by Aztec aesthetics. Just as his famous murals were? DM: Indeed, and you could say a similar thing about the (Greek) influence on Picasso in works such as Three Women at the Spring (1921), Guernica and his superb etchings series, The Vollard Suite. The pairs dialogue with the past changed the course of modern art. Why do you think Picassos relationship with Rivera tends to be less widely heralded than those he had with, say, Matisse or Braque? DM: In part, I suppose, because the relationship was shorter, at least in terms of the time they physically spent together. After Rivera returned to Mexico, there wasnt too much contact, apart from the occasional letter. But, as we try to show in the exhibition, artistically speaking the pair both travelled across centuries and millennia, acting as would-be ambassadors for ancient art, bringing its power and its glory into the 20th century.

Open a larger version of this image Pablo Picasso, Three Women at the Spring. Fontainebleau, summer 1921. Oil on canvas. 68 x 68 in (203.9 x 174 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, NY, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Allan D. Emil.  2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Digital Image  The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY Open a larger version of this image Unknown, The Lansdowne Artemis, 1st century B.C. or 1st century A.D. Roman. Marble, including base: 70 x 26 x 17 in (177.8 x 66.04 x 43.18 cm). Base: 1 in (4.45 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, William Randolph Hearst Collection (49.23.5a). Photo  Museum Associates/LACMA
Collecting guide: The Brueghel dynasty

As works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder come to auction in London, Old Masters pictures specialist Alexis Ashot explores art historys most tangled family tree across almost 200 years

For many people Old Master paintings conjure a scene of ribald peasant life by Brueghel, most probably without realising that there is a difference between son, sibling, century and even spelling. The reality is that the Brueghels formed a dynasty  a complex family of artists spanning almost 200 years from 1525 onwards, innovating but also revisiting the work of previous generations to create an enduring brand Brueghel. The familiar snowy scenes and Biblical or Classical images often convey multiple meanings, revealing the complexity of life in the Low Countries (present-day Belgium and Holland) in the 16th and 17th centuries, when rule by the Catholic Hapsburg Empire collided with the schisms of the Protestant Reformation.

The vision of this dynasty of artists is so vivid and recognisable that across the years they have influenced artists from Peter Doig to Jeff Koons, and inspired everyone from Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky and poets W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams to David Bowie. Who founded the Brueghel dynasty? It all starts with Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1525/30-1569), whose obscure origins are revealed in his surname, which literally means small village. An exceptional talent, he moved to Brussels as an adolescent to become the pupil of Peter Coecke, the official artist to the Hapsburg Court. Coecke would become Pieters father-in-law, thus ensuring his best student continued his business.

Bruegel later travelled to Italy and absorbed the influence of the Renaissance, but on his return he adapted his vision to the Dutch culture of the Low Countries. His pictures for wealthy patrons were highly individual, depicting peasant life in a sophisticated way  in works such as The Peasant Wedding Feast or Hunters in the Snow, both now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, he shows Flemish commoners with erudite and often subversive references to poetry, philosophy, politics and religion. Pieter Bruegel the Elder was also the first artist known to have captured snowfall in oil paint. The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow is a wonderful evocation of a snowstorm, while The Bird Trap shows, in the foreground of a frozen landscape, a trap set before an open window; the unseen figure within serves as a complex metaphor for the divine. How did his sons follow in their father's footsteps? This is one of the great mysteries of the Brueghel legend  Pieter Bruegel the Elder died aged 45, having produced exactly 45 paintings. His sons  Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564/5-1637/8) (sometimes called Pieter Brueghel II) and Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), so called because his own son, Jan the Younger, was later named after him  were both under five years old at the time of their fathers death, yet both became incredibly successful artists. There are various theories about who taught them. My favourite is that it was Mayken Verhulst, their grandmother, herself a highly skilled miniaturist.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger inherited the family business and painted repetitions of his fathers most famous pictures. For example there are more than 40 copies of The Bird Trap recorded by him. Pieter Brueghel the Younger lived into his seventies and produced almost 1,000 known paintings in total. As his career progressed, he increasingly produced his own original compositions, further developing peasant subjects and landscapes and often including subversive elements. In his work The Netherlandish Proverbs, based on his fathers 1559 composition of the same name, Pieter Brueghel the Younger has represented the performance of over 100 proverbs in a scene teeming with figures. Among the absurd and often foolish characters is someone banging their head against a brick wall, another person throwing feathers into the wind and the blind leading the blind. Some of the lesser-known proverbs, such as tiling one's roof with tarts have faded from use over the centuries.

One of his best original compositions, The Bad Shepherd (a masterpiece around which Christies built an exhibition in 2014), is an ambivalent version of the famous Bible story  you sympathise with the faithless shepherd for deserting his post, even though youre not supposed to. Did Jan Brueghel the Elder join the family business? If Pieter Brueghel the Younger is the responsible son, Jan Brueghel the Elder is the rebel. He went to Italy for almost seven years and befriended many leading artists, including his subsequent collaborator, Peter Paul Rubens.

Jan Brueghel the Elder returned to Antwerp in 1600 and was at the cutting edge of what was happening in art. He was one of the first painters of still lifes, particularly flowers, and inherited from his father  or perhaps his grandmother  the ability to create incredible detail on a small scale. Jan Brueghel the Elders Wooded Landscape, from 1610, highlights his skill for painting panoramic vistas. It is one of the largest works he ever executed on copper, which gives the paint a luminous quality, and was made while he was the court painter to the Governors of the Southern Netherlands. Farther down the family tree, does this artistic talent disperse? Eventually. Jan Breughel the Younger (1601-78) (sometimes called Jan Breughel II) imitated his father, and while some of the work is excellent, he had lots of assistants and their output has become confused. Subsequent generations  Jan Pieter Breughel (1628 to after 1682), Jan Baptist Breughel (1647-1710), Ambrosius Breughel (1617-75)  are almost completely unknown.

The exceptions are the son of Jan Breughel the Younger, the amazing still-life painter Abraham Breughel (1631?-1680), and the highly accomplished David Teniers the Younger (1610-90), who joined the dynasty by marrying one of Jan Brueghel the Elders daughters. What is the correct spelling for the name? It is important to remember there were no definitive spellings at the time. The first version is Bruegel, used by Pieter the Elder, but in about 1615 Pieter the Younger adds an h making it Brueghel, which is then used by subsequent generations and now denotes the whole dynasty. Later the u and the e are switched and this spelling is now used to denote lesser members of the family from Jan the Younger onwards. How does the market for these artists differ? Few, if any, works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder will ever appear on the market. There are occasionally discoveries, such as one made in Spain around ten years ago, which went straight to the Prado.
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In the HBO series "Westworld," artificial intelligence is a thing to be feared if you happen to be a tourist in the about-to-go-haywire theme park.

But in reality, artificial intelligence will probably help humanity, not hurt it. Just look at self-driving cars, your Smartphone and super computers capable of helping doctors find the most effective cancer treatments.

This week, some of the nation's top minds in robotics, industry and academia are gathering at Rice University to discuss the intersection of technology and jobs during the 10th annual De Lange Conference.

"What do we do in a world where machines make machines?" asked Rice University President David Leebron.

It's a good question.

Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice, began thinking about the future of manufacturing long before Donald Trump made it part of his campaign platform. You can read more about Vardi in a Planet Texas post here.

He points to data that shows manufacturing jobs disappearing while output continues to increase, a tangible consequence of machines doing work that people once did.

"We have to figure out what we are going to do," he told conference attendees Monday. "So one idea is to have this public policy discussion."

Vardi and other conference speakers said automation should command the same kind of discussion as climate change.

That discussion is probably a little overdue, given the tremendous advances in technology in recent years.

Manuela Veloso, a computer science professor from Carnegie Mellon University, showed videos of robots roaming her school's hallways, escorting visitors to various offices, fetching coffee and delivering messages.

These service robots, called "CoBots," have the ability to perceive, think and act, she said.

"We don't even know what it knows," she said of the CoBots' ability to learn from new situations and save that information for future use.

Maybe hitting a little closer to home are drones, now being used for everything from delivering packages to surveying orchards for bad apples.

It's estimated that "unmanned aerial vehicles" currently support a $15 billion industry, which is projected to grow by $10 billion in four years.

Vijay Kumar, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's school of engineering, is working to develop drones powered by Smartphones.

Called "Phlones," the devices have the potential to put drone technology in the hands of everyone who owns a Smartphone.

Despite the far-reaching implications of such technology, Kumar and others who spoke at the conference Monday don't believe that machines are capable of taking all of our jobs.

For starters, a computer's ability to crunch realms of data doesn't translate into real knowledge, Kumar said.

Also, machines and humans can't collaborate, a skill that's often needed to spin ideas forward.

"I think a lot of the fears are irrational in a certain context," he said.

Kumar and others emphasized that machines of the future will help humans, not make them non-essential.

To that point, Guruduth Banavar of IBM said supercomputers like Watson, the machine responsible for beating Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings in 2011, will be tools for the 21st century, helping doctors find more effective cancer treatments, helping business executives formulate new operating strategies and assisting with financial planning.

"Our ultimate vision is that every single professional in the world will have Watson as a cognitive assistant," he said.
We live in one of the nation's most charitable cities. Between community volunteers, foundation organizers and corporate leaders, we help others and get things done in Houston and surrounding communities.

Do you know someone who embodies the spirit of giving in the greater Houston area?
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The Houston Spaceport has signed a memorandum of understanding with a counterpoint in the U.K. to share relevant policies, processes and other information relating to commercial spaceport licensing and operations.

On Tuesday, the Glasgow Prestwick Airport welcomed a delegation from Houston Spaceport and Rice Space Institute to meet with representatives from the Scottish space industry and local politicians.
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The edges of Johnny Edwards' bass drum still shine silver, though most of the reflective covering that decorated the set of the drummer for the legendary Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys has since faded and turned green.

The thin design that snaked around the rim of his snare drum is tarnished but still visible, and the foot pedal on the hi-hat stand still works, though no cymbals remain to clash.

>> See the songs by famous artists that mention Beaumont, Texas, in the gallery above

Johnny Courville III, Edwards' grandson, runs his hand over the bass drum's shell, pointing out the burns from where Edwards sometimes rested a cigarette while he played.

Those drums, which Courville has kept in Beaumont since his grandfather died in 1989, will be under a spotlight again soon, after being shipped to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville last month. There, they will be put on display alongside other artifacts telling the stories of western swing, which Bills and band popularized.

"I think the world needs to see that," said Courville, a drummer himself in the Beaumont-based band Image 6.

He and his wife, Christina, sent three of the drum shells, Edwards' drumsticks and pictures of the band signed by members to Tennessee last Wednesday.

The next time he sees the drums he grew up watching his grandfather play, they will be in a glass-encased exhibit. That made donating them a hard decision, Courville said.

But after being stored in a shed at Edwards' home in Vinton, Louisiana, where he lived until his death, and then weathering two hurricanes in Beaumont, "they need to be taken care of," Courville said.

Edwards used the drums when he played with the band from 1938 to 1947, Courville said. "Those guys were rock stars," he said.

Their music "synthesized ragtime, traditional fiddling, New Orleans jazz, blues, Mexican songs and big band swing," and sold hundreds of thousands of recordings from the 1930s to the 1950s, according to the Hall of Fame and Museum.

Songs such as "Faded Love" and "San Antonio Rose" "are considered standards of country and pop music," according to the museum's website. Wills was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1968, seven years before his death.

Wills and His Texas Playboys "were hugely influential on country artists who came later," curator Mick Buck said. "People sort of worshipped at the altar of Bob Wills."

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, where they were praised for having "forced country music to open up in its acceptance of electric instruments" and ultimately influencing rock and roll with their "freewheeling spirit of stylistic recombination."

Edwards "was a hellion," Courville said, and not prone to talking about his past - his own grandson didn't know how famous he was until he was 13 and heard from friends at school.

Edwards told his family the occasional story about life on the tour bus or celebrating birthdays with the band in Wills' limousine, and while he didn't teach his grandson to play the drums, he offered suggestions and an example.

"I watched him play as a kid, so that's what I've done," he said.

In one of the pictures that Courville sent to Nashville, Wills sits on a horse with a cigar in his mouth. His signature marks the bottom left corner - "Johnnie, my friend, I hope you keep this picture a long time. Bob Wills."

Now, Courville is ensuring it will be kept even longer.

LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/LizTeitz
Rev. Jesse Pirschel, who was installed as senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in August 2015, announced to the congregation on Sunday that he is returning to his former congregation in California.

He will again be senior pastor at Providence Presbyterian Church in Temecula, Calif. He served there 11 years.



Rev. Pirschel had been chosen to lead Covenant Presbyterian on East Brainerd Road after a long search following the retirement of longtime pastor Dr. Render Caines, who is pastor emeritus.



Rev. Pirschel and his wife, Lenny, have four children; Maya, Solomon, Silas, and Israel. Maya attends Covenant College and the other three children are at Chattanooga Christian School.

Pastor Pirschel and his wife were born and raised in California.

After graduating from college, Rev. Pirschel served with Calvary Chapel in California. Then he and his wife served on the mission field in Slovakia. From there, he started seminary while working full-time in Pennsylvania. Juggling that with a growing family led to a transfer to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, where he earned his Masters of Divinity degree in 2003. The Pirschels then returned to California where he served as an intern at Harvest OPC and then senior pastor at Providence Presbyterian.


If you're not fan of electric sounding Christmas songs, you will be after you watch this epic performance.

On Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 3 and 4., River Point Church, located at 5000 Ransom Rd., Richmond, Texas put on a musically explosive Christmas production that nearly 5,000 people attended over four services.

Lead electric guitarist, and musical director for River Pointe Church, Nolan Burke, delivered charging solos that were amplified by fifteen other musicians playing, brass instruments, string instruments, percussion, drums, a rhythm and bass guitar and a piano and electric keys. The majority of the musicians regularly play on the church's team.

This is the second year the church's Super Band under the lead of Burke has performed the arrangement, Miraculum, as their Christmas music special.

Holiday Activities: Photos: Live Nativity on display at 'Road to Bethlehem'

"You've gotta see it live!" said Jason Pizzitola, River Pointe's Pastor of Creative Development.

Pizzitola described the lead electric guitarist as humble, and shy. "Nolan is a guy of character... His passion and enthusiasm when he plays is infectious, and people really love it."

Pizzitola said that the performance was so well received last year, that the right thing to do was to do it again.

Burke and the rest of River Pointe's Super Band will be performing four more times. Twice on on Sunday, Dec. 11, at their Missouri City Campus, and twice on Sunday, Dec. 18, at West End Church.

Check out www.riverpointe.org for more information about upcoming performances.
More Information

DECK THE TABLES



What: The ninth annual Deck the Tables event

Where: Houston Design Center, 7026 Old Katy Road

When: 6-9 p.m. Dec. 6 (with special events), plus 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 7-9

Participating designers: Sharon Staley at the ASID chapter office (showroom 285); Robert Leleux at Alkusari Stone (showroom 229); Angel Rios and Darla Bankston May at Dauphin Sales (showroom 273); Charlotte Nail at Charlotte Nail Antiques (showroom 165); Connie LeFebre and the Design House team at Design House (showroom 115); Ashton Morgan and Creative Branch at Dream Theaters (showroom 264); Elizabeth Frost and Jann Wisdom at Jann Wisdom Designs/Wisdom Frost Interiors (showroom 265); Cecilia Pacheco at LGI Oriental Rugs (showroom 155); Rainey Richardson, Off White Design team, and Madeleine Elmer, with Fleur de Vie, at Off White (showroom 153); and Michelle Nussbaumer at Thorntree Slate and Marble (showroom 167).

Donate: The Houston Design Center is collecting new, unwrapped toys to be donated to the Memorial Assistance Ministries charity. You can deliver the toys to decorated donation boxes in participating showrooms.

Book signing: Dallas-based Michelle Nussbaumer will sign her latest book, "Wanderlust: Interiors That Bring the World Home" in the Thorntree Slate and Marble showroom at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Holiday, Southern Style: Back Row Home, 8570 Interstate 10 W., Suite 111, will host a panel discussion and book signings with Robert Leleux, Julia Reed, Danielle Rollins and Ronda Rice Carman at 6 p.m. Wednesday. RSVP to events@backrowhome.com.

Information: thehoustondesigncenter.com
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An aggressive approach helped limit the damage in a Sunday house fire in the southeast Houston area.

The Southeast Volunteer Fire Department responded to the fire just before 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 4 in the 14000 block of Fruitwood near Scarsdale Boulevard.

On arrival, they encountered heavy smoke from the residence and began an aggressive interior attack that saved further damage to the structure.

Forest Bend Volunteer and Pearland firefighters were called to help. There were no reported injuries. The Harris County Fire Marshal's Office determined the fire was electrical.
Five Cleveland High School students were arrested Monday after they reportedly robbed another student.

"The five who were arrested are believed to have been involved in the aggravated robbery of another student in the bathroom," said Superintendent Dr. Darrell Myers.

The robbery took place around 2:45 p.m. Monday, Myers added. The arrests occurred shortly after.

Myers explained that the robbery charge was escalated to an aggravated robbery charge because the student was assaulted during the incident.

The student who was robbed was not seriously injured and Myers could not say what had been taken from him during the alleged robbery.

The arrested include two minor age children and three adults (17 or older). The names of the adult students have not been released at this time.

When asked if the students facing charges will eventually be allowed to return to campus, Myers said, "We have to investigate this case. Obviously they have a right to be educated but maybe not at this campus."
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Every inch of Dolly Parton sparkled onstage Monday night at NRG Arena, from her sequined jumpsuit and high-wattage blond hair to her rhinestoned dulcimer and auto harp.

But the country legend hardly needed the extra razzle-dazzle. She sparkled all on her own.

Parton is the rare breed of entertainer whose appeal has surpassed, surprised and endured. Her sold-out Houston show drew country folk and hipsters, senior citizens and gay couples. A crowd, so to speak, of many colors.

She brought them all to their feet with charging opener "Train, Train" but quickly insisted they sit and relax. She was backed by just a trio of players on a stage adorned with white translucent curtains.

"If I do something really good, you can jump up again," she quipped.

The crossover hits came, of course, at the end of the set. "Islands in the Stream" and "9 to 5" and "I Will Always Love You" indeed snapped folks back onto their feet. But Parton filled most of her two-plus hours with interesting covers, deeper cuts and long, winding stories.

She mixed classics ("Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That," "Jolene") with newer songs from 2016 album "Pure & Simple." Her voice was exactly as it sounded on record: sweet, chirpy and soulful.

There's a piercing truth in every lyric she utters. She was particularly effective on a stretch that paid homage to her upbringing that included "Precious Memories," "My Tennessee Mountain Home," "Coat of Many Colors" and "Smoky Mountain Memories." It was equal parts church revival, hushed confessional and campfire singalong.

Parton is frequently funny, too. She joked about an alternate tour name ("I'm Miffed Because I'm Not Taylor Swift"), marveled at the drum machine that accompanied her onstage and squeezed several laughs out of a tissue she used to blow her nose.

"Anybody wanna sell it on eBay?" she said.

She blew on a saxophone. She made a vague political point with a handful of protest songs, including "Blowin' in the Wind."

She took the crowd to church with rousing anthems "The Seeker" and "I'll Fly Away." She riffed on Alicia Keys' hit "Girl on Fire" and stunned the crowd into silence with an atmospheric, ominous "Little Sparrow."

It was campy and emotional, pure and simple. And very, very Dolly.
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Local restaurants are getting into the Christmas spirit.

Riva's Italian Restaurant, 1117 Missouri, which is known for its elaborate holiday decorations, required a full four days to prepare for this holiday season. That might be why the longtime Montrose restaurant keeps the decorations up into January.

>>Take a visual tour through the cheery restaurants in the gallery above.

Other spots maintain their traditional annual ornaments and trinkets. At Hugo's, 1600 Westheimer, that means the poinsettia tree is back. The tall, tree-shaped rows of poinsettias create a dramatic entrance at the front of the restaurant.

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Underbelly, 1100 Westheimer, took the "A Christmas Story" route with a leg lamp. Across the street, Stone's Throw, 1417 Westheimer, has a cheery staircase garland with shiny baubles. Over at Rainbow Lodge, the look is rustic, with wooden trees on the fireplace's mantle and sparkling lights wrap around the front yard's tall trees.

MORE LIGHTS: Holiday lights in Houston you need to see

Take a look for yourself in the gallery above, and then call to make reservations.

Have some images from a local bedecked restaurants? Send them to photos@chron.com.
Houston restaurateur and chef Hugo Ortega is having a good month.

Ortega is currently gracing the December cover of Texas Monthly magazine. On Tuesday he learned that his restaurant, Hugo's, earned a spot on Eater's "Best Restaurants in America" list. The roundup is compiled by Eater restaurant editor Bill Addison, who travels the country to determine the best places to dine.

Ortega, a James Beard Award-nominated chef, co-owns Hugo's, Caracol and Backstreet Cafe in Houston with his wife, Tracy Vaught.

"To me and Tracy and the entire Hugo's family, this recognition from Eater means so very much," Ortega said. "We have worked extremely hard for 15 years to provide the best possible food and service, and it is so satisfying to be selected as one of the best restaurants in the country even after all these years. When I heard the news it made me really think how much I truly love my profession and how fortunate I am to be able to do what I love."

Here's what Addison had to say about Hugo's:

"The enduring crown jewel among the four restaurants that chef Hugo Ortega owns with his wife, Tracy Vaught, Hugo's recounts Ortega's culinary travels, research, and memories through his native Mexico  gastronomic stories told via dishes that are complex, but always balanced. His mastery of chiles and meats and maize (truly, don't miss the lechon with habanero salsa and tortillas) stands out even in a city rife with excellent Mexican restaurants."

DEFINITIVE LIST: Houston's newest restaurant openings

Hugo's, 1600 Westheimer, is a regional Mexican restaurant that's been operating in Montrose for 14 years. Earlier this year it claimed the No. 2 spot on Houston Chronicle food critic Alison Cook's Top 100 restaurants of 2016.

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Ortega and Vaught will be debuting two new outposts soon: Hugo's Cocina at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Xochi at downtown's upcoming restaurant row Avenida, on the ground floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Among the restaurant's longtime team are Sean Beck, who runs the beverage program, and Ortega's brother, Ruben Ortega, who serves as the pastry chef for all of the company's concepts.

"I always strive to be a better chef and a better person and to dig into things passionately, and recognition such as this encourages me," Ortega said. "Running a restaurant is a great effort and it is accomplished by a team effort. The entire community of Hugo's, from the dishwashers to the cooks to the front of the house staff, and of course our wonderful diners make our success possible and Tracy and I think each and every one of you."
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This year, Houston TV news stations hired 20 reporters and anchors to replace leaving staff or expand their programming.

Breaking it down, numberswise, that's six for KRIV-TV, six for KHOU-TV, five for KPRC-TV and three for KTRK-TV.

MAJOR SHAKEUP: Channel 11 shuffles around anchors, one hints at leaving

Channel 2 hired three on-air types to head their new daily lifestyle program "Houston Life." Last check, the show is still being filmed from a retail space in the Galleria shopping mall. San Antonio viewers may remember Jennifer Broome from her days at WOAI-TV.

Elsewhere, Channel 26 has made, by far, the most interesting hires. Soon after the fall of Al Jazeera America in April 2016, the Fox station snatched up Jonathan Martin and Jalelah Ahmed for the evening news anchor position and general assignments position respectively. In addition, Fox 26 also snatched up Kaitlin Monte who just so happened to compete in the 2012 Miss America pageant.

NASTY DIVORCE: Former TV reporter says station fired her because of comments

And a fond welcome back to Deborah Wrigley and Keli Rabon. Wrigley returned to Channel 13 in September after she had ditched the station over some negotiations falling through. Rabon, who had mysteriously parted ways with ABC last year, has resurfaced again with Channel 11's investigative team.

So you don't get confused, we've compiled headshots, photographs and portraits of all the new on-air hires which you can view in the gallery above.
Senior Horticulturist Charlene Nash working in the Tennessee Aquariums Tropical Cove inside the Ocean Journey building Tennessee Aquarium Senior Horticulturist Charlene Nash helping farmers in Mozambique bag seeds A successful harvest on a farm in Mozambique Tennessee Aquarium Senior Horticulturist Charlene Nash with family farmers in Mozambique Senators Corker and Alexander with Volunteer of the Year 2016 Charlene Nash Previous Next

On International Volunteer Day, Monday, in Washington, D.C., Aquarium Senior Horticulturist Charlene Nash was honored with a national award for her volunteer work teaching African farmers how to improve their soil quality and agricultural practices.



Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based consortium of 26 non-government organizations, selected Ms. Nash as its Volunteer of the Year. She was nominated for this honor in light of her outstanding service by NCBA CLUSA, a VEGA member and international farmer-to-farmer implementer.



Ms.

Nash first traveled to Africa in 2008 as a volunteer to provide agricultural assistance in Kenya. Based on the personal fulfillment she felt after that experience, she began making trips more regularly, eventually establishing Soil Resources Initiative, a non-profit through which she uses donations to purchase seeds, tools, and other equipment for farmers.One to two times a year, on average, she returns to Africa to help villages in locations such as Mozambique, Senegal, and Zambia to learn how to breathe life back into soil that has been ravaged by the harsh climate and human abuse.Theyre small-holder farmers, and they do a lot of work, a lot of labor, to eke out a living from this poor soil, Ms. Nash said. These soils are weathered and worn out, and we need to regenerate them. The villagers have to work pretty hard, but it can be done."During her trips, Ms. Nash leverages decades of experience in agricultural and horticultural science to help farmers improve growing conditions in their fields. She teaches them the importance of composting, planting cover crops, and how to build up a nutrient-rich, water-retaining layer of humus. She also encourages farmers who benefit from her assistance to sign a pledge to plant a tree a week, a vow she helps them to uphold by purchasing seedlings for them to propagate and replant," officials said.Without the donated equipment and seeds she and other volunteers provide, Ms. Nash said, some of these farmers might not be able to recoup their lands long-lost growing potential.Their seeds are not sometimes that readily available in high quality, and sometimes, they cant afford seeds for cover crops, she said. You cant tell a poor person to plant a crop just to feed the soil when they struggle to feed themselves.Jackson Andrews, the Aquariums director of Operations and Husbandry, said Ms. Nashs efforts speak to the Aquariums core mission of conservation and are helping to improve lives in an ecologically embattled region.Were very proud of what she does, he said. Shes able to use her horticultural skills to really make a difference in peoples lives.For her part, Ms. Nash said the award is secondary to the feeling that shes using her knowledge to help others.Im glad to be recognized, but its not about me and the awards, she said. I do it because I love teaching.

Ms. Nash was invited to a special breakfast Tuesday morning after receiving the Volunteer of the Year Award from Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (Vega) on Monday.
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office arrested a man and charged him with bank robbery of a Montgomery-area bank Tuesday.

Marvin Eugene Bowden, 30, is facing a felony robbery charge for allegedly holding up the BBVA Compass bank in the 19300 block of Texas 105 West near Montgomery around 12:45 p.m. The bank is located in a shopping center just east of Freeport Drive on Texas 105 West.

MCSO detectives believe Bowden was the lone robber who entered the bank with a duffle bag, "simulating" that he had a gun, according to MCSO Lt. Brady Fitzgerald. Bowden took an undisclosed amount of cash from the bank before entering a vehicle and fleeing east on Texas 105 West to a home off McCaleb Road near the intersection of Texas 105, which is about five miles from the bank.

Several people were initially detained at the home, though Bowden is the only one charged at this time. Bowden suffered a small hand wound and was taken directly to a local hospital before being booked in the Montgomery County Jail on the robbery charges.
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Federal prosecutors recently failed to have high-profile Houston lawyer Kent Schaffer barred from representing the former head of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in an ongoing criminal case. They had contended he reviewed court papers for all Bandidos members accused of crimes in order to sniff out informants.

Schaffer is the lawyer for Jeffrey Pike, former head of the Bandidos, who is charged federally in San Antonio with engaging in racketeering, including such crimes as murder and assault, on behalf of the Bandidos.

In a transcript released Tuesday, federal prosecutors said in a hearing last Tuesday that they believed Schaffer was on retainer for the Bandidos, and that it was standard procedure for him to review plea agreements in all cases involving members of the club to ensure they were not secretly cooperating with authorities.

They argued that as a result, there is a conflict of interest against Pike and other members of the group. A judge denied prosecutors' request to stop Schaffer from representing Pike, saying they had not proved their contention, but he opened the door for the issue to be re-examined if they are later to present him with more evidence.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry J. Bemporad said that while the government succeeded in showing there was a potential conflict of interest in the case, the conflict was not so serious that Schaffer should be disqualified from the case.

Schaffer is not charged with any wrongdoing. Prosecutors said he could potentially be called as a witness in the case against Pike.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Fuchs told the judge that when Bandidos are charged with a crime, they are required to turn in their legal paperwork to a higher ranking member of the organization and that in several instances, that paperwork was handed up to Pike and then Schaffer.

"Cooperation is forbidden by the Bandidos organization with the government," Fuchs said.

Schaffer told the judge he never reviewed any court papers on any Bandidos other than his clients and that if he'd been asked to do so, he would have said no. "I don't know what one Bandido may have said to another about me, but I know I've had about three Bandidos cases, maybe four, in the last 12 years," he said.

"Nobody has brought papers to me in 35 years, Bandidos no non-Bandidos, saying, 'want you to look at these papers and see if this person is cooperating.'"

Schaffer has repeatedly been a challenge for prosecutors.

Pike was arrested by an FBI SWAT team using an armored vehicle and a loudspeaker to approach his Conroe area home before dawn.

Schaffer represented Pike at a hearing a few days later, and a federal magistrate judge ruled he should be released on a minimal bond.

Pike was the only one of four defendants who were able to secure such conditional freedom pending trial.

Pike later stepped down as leader of the Bandidos to face the charges -- and remains a respected member of the group. The Bandidos are considered by law-enforcement to be a criminal gang.

The Texas Department of Public Safety places the Bandidos in the same category as the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas in terms of strength and reach.

The Bandidos contend that they are not a criminal organization and that their reputation today is colored by the group's origins, which go back to the mid-1960s when it was founded in the Houston area.

The Bandidos drew national attention in May 2015 during a clash with the Cossacks Motorcycle Club at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco that left nine people dead, about two dozen wounded and nearly 200 bikers charged with engaging in organized crime.

A trial date has not yet been set in that case, in which McClennan County authorities contend the bikers were gangsters that had come to town to rumble and defense lawyers say all but a very few of the men were acting in self defense once gunfire erupted there.
HPD

Houston police are searching for a teenager who has been missing since last week.

Starbriell Childress, 16, was last seen Dec. 2 in the 600 block of Rushcreek near Northborough in north Houston, police said on Tuesday.
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Houston-area schools were not immune to a slew racist behavior towards students of color, which spiked in schools across the country in response to Donald Trump's recent election as president.

At Tomball High School, African American students are organizing a multicultural club to counter what they feel has been an increase in verbal abuse from students and even some teachers and administrators.

"There's total disregard for people's feelings or situation," Jodeci Williams, a senior at the school, said of the abuses which students of color or other religions experience.

In early November, a student wore a makeshift Ku Klux Klan robe and hood to school. Further still, were all the times students shouted "Build that wall" and various racial slurs at students of color - all of which went unpunished because they couldn't prove it was said to them, many students said.

"Our parents have gone up to the school multiple times but the principal demands facts," Toni Trail, another African American student at Tomball High School said.

"There's so many students at this school who say stuff," Trail continues, "you can't just pick someone out when they shout at you from behind."

Tomball ISD suggests it handles such racially-charged incidents adequately.

"As stated in Tomball ISD's Secondary Student Handbook, the district has established policies and procedures to prohibit and promptly respond to inappropriate and offensive behaviors that are based on a person's race, color, religion, gender, national origin, disability, or any other basis prohibited by law," said Tomball ISD spokeswoman Staci Stanfield.

"Any violations of the Secondary Student Handbook are dealt with appropriately and consequences are determined based on the offense," said Stanfield.

The Tomball ISD incident is one of a series of racial and political clashes that have erupted in classrooms in the Houston area and nationwide related to the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Among the recent events: a Stafford MSD student was allegedly attacked for supporting Trump in a mock election; Klein ISD students took an obscene photo to proclaim that "rednecks" are here to stay; and a Fort Bend County mother filmed her crying son as she nearly kicked him out of the house for supporting Trump in a mock election.

The city of Tomball has also been in the news for its share of race-related incidents.

A 2005 clash outside the Tomball Community Center led to the arrest of at least seven protesters after a lecture and exhibit sponsored by the White Camelia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan which drew activists from as far as Austin to protest the event.

In August, the city made headlines as the home of Miss Teen USA, Karlie Hay, after she was exposed for racist social media posts she authored in 2013 and 2014. At Tomball High School, even when students - and parents - take their grievances to the school, they feel they're often overlooked or not taken as seriously as white parents and students, Williams said, and pointed to a recent incident at the school.

In early November, students wearing all black to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement - which differs from the Black Lives Matter organization - were allegedly threatened with in-school suspension if they didn't remove a photo from social media.

That same day a friend took a picture of Williams posing with her fist raised as white students spelled out "T-R-U-M-P" on their collective shirts standing for a separate picture in the background behind her.

Williams said they took the photo to show the ideological divide that exists at the school, not to criticize the Trump-supporting students or the candidate himself.

Nevertheless, she said she and her friends were pressured to remove their photo after the mothers of the Trump-supporting students called the school. The school swiftly moved to take action against her and her friends, Williams said.

"Minority's feel like when we have an issue it's brushed under the rug," she said. "At what point do our issues matter. We have real concerns, real problems too."

The school's threat of punishment raises constitutional questions, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, who is an expert on social media and First Amendment law.

"Any expressed First Amendment activity is governed by the Supreme Court's Tinker standard, which means you get to express yourself on school grounds on school time as long as you don't materially disrupt the school," LoMonte said. "They're never going to be able to show one retweet out of 200 caused a substantial disruption."

Trail will be the inaugural president of PRIDE (People Recognizing Individual Differences Equally) while Williams will be her vice president.

The two are excited to open their group up to the school community to help open conversations to improve cultural understanding and provide leadership training.

The group is open to all students, particularly those who feel like they don't have a voice in the school community, Williams said. They also intend to host multicultural events to help expose students to a wider range of cultures and to organize a potential field trip.

"Racial tensions have been high at school (since the election)," Trail said, "(But) it's always been that way."

She's hoping the new club will be a vehicle through which students and administrators at Tomball ISD can learn to be more nuanced in their understanding of other people and cultures.
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Seventy-five years ago, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, killing and wounding thousands while plunging the nation into one of the bloodiest conflicts in world history.

Alfred "Fritz" Weinhofer, now of The Woodlands, was 18 years old at the time. Within a few months, the handsome young man with hazel eyes and a Cary Grant chin dimple enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served in the Fourth Marine Division, known as the "Fighting Fourth," and was stationed in the South Pacific, where he worked reconnaissance  a position akin to today's Navy SEALs. He was a rifle marksman, a tank crewman, a light machine gun crewman and a scout, and fought in battles on several islands during the turbulent months leading up to the end of World War II.
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As development continues in The Woodlands, residents have expressed frustration over construction practices used near their homes that they say hurt their quality of life. Two separate issues concerning development irking residents were brought before The Woodlands Township Board of Directors last week.

Edmund Chapman, a resident of East Shore, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in The Woodlands, spoke before the board asking for its help in resolving a number of complaints he has about the construction of Waterway Landing, a luxury townhome development being built along the Waterway.

Chapman complained of workers speeding through the neighborhood, construction work starting before 6 a.m. and continuing until after 7 p.m., dirt and dust spreading from the work site onto neighborhood streets and homes and the nuisance of heavy vibrations and noise from the construction.

"We all live here for a reason," Chapman said at the board meeting. "There are commercial planning and design standards."

Chapman, who gathered several dozen signatures on a petition, reached out to the members of The Woodlands board in early November to voice his concerns and was connected with Tim Welbes, of The Woodlands Development Company. Welbes directed project managers to scold the contractor.

"We admonished them about hours and speeding," Welbes said. "We'll correct it if we can, (but) we can't control every driver."

Welbes added that some of the construction is related to Entergy working to bury power lines in the vicinity  a project out of the Development Company's control.

Complaints like Chapman's are not uncommon in The Woodlands, Welbes said.

"Lot development has been a constant for 40 years (in The Woodlands)," Welbes said.

From the clear-cutting in Creekside that stirred up controversy last year to the more recent dispute over a church's parking lot expansion, residents often feel the impact of growth.

Welbes said the Development Company would try to restrict construction vehicles to using an alternate entrance that doesn't cut through the neighborhood and would lobby for the contractor to use a street vacuum to clean up dirt from the site.

Chapman, however, hopes for more. He wants the contractors to commit to a shorter work day and to pay to power-wash all of the existing homes affected once the construction is complete.

The 59 lots in the development are expected to be finished this month, after which construction of the townhomes will begin, according to Welbes.

***

As East Shore residents' complaints have arisen, the dispute between residents and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church over a thinned forest buffer to make way for expanded parking continues.

In August, several residents whose homes back up to an easement at the edge of the church's property were angered when the church's expansion of its parking lot dramatically thinned the forest that had previously buffered their properties from the church. The Woodlands Development Standards Committee pledged to closely monitor the progression of the construction project and to look into replanting.

The Woodlands board received an update from DSC president Deborah Sargeant at its board meeting that the Municipal Utility District that owns the easement between the residents' and church's properties has refused to allow trees to be planted on its property, saying that it would hinder drainage and access to the easement. She added that she intends to be sure trees are planted on the church's property once the construction is complete.

The residents still are frustrated with how the situation has been handled. Will Burkholder, one of the residents who led the original protests against the church's actions in August, said the required 15-foot forest buffer has not been left and he believes Sargeant and the DSC are not doing enough to hold the church accountable to respecting their neighbors.

Woodlands board chairman Gordy Bunch asked Sargeant to look into requiring the church to build a fence even higher than the planned 8 feet, which Bunch said would have little effect on preserving the residents' privacy. Sargeant agreed to bring the idea before the DSC.

In the meantime, representatives of the church will meet with residents to discuss reforestation next week. Burkholder said that unless he sees an immediate effort to restore the 15-foot forest buffer, he intends to organize another protest.
The Erlanger Heart and Lung Institute announces the addition of Michael Mikolaj, MD to its network of cardiologists.Dr. Mikolaj received his medical degree from the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus. After completing the internal medicine residency program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, he completed additional fellowship training in cardiovascular disease, echocardiography, and cardiovascular MRI and CT. "Dr. Mikolajs advanced cardiovascular imaging expertise offers patients a more definitive diagnosis and treatment plan," officials said.We are very excited to welcome Dr.Mikolaj to Erlanger, said Kevin M. Spiegel, FACHE, president and CEO of Erlanger Health System. The expertise in cardiovascular MRI that Dr. Mikolaj will bring to Erlanger is not offered elsewhere in the region. Dr. Mikolajs experience and training will enhance the world class treatment available at the Erlanger Heart and Lung Institute.To make an appointment at the Erlanger Heart and Lung Institute, call 423-778-5661.
Just in time for the holidays, Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation has received a brand-new 2017 Passat, which will help its patients better prepare for the real-life challenges they will face when they leave the hospital.

The car, given by Volkswagen Chattanooga, will be in one of the hospitals therapy gyms.

This generous gift will allow our patients to more effectively prepare for life outside of therapy, said Tod Cain, Siskin Hospital vice president for administration. Having a car that is built to current design standards is an important tool in preparing our patients for life after disability. We greatly appreciate Volkswagens partnership with our mission.
The Wayne-O-Rama concert series premiere event will be held Friday, Dec. 16, at 8 p.m.

This unique show presented by the Shaking Ray Levi Society features the sax/bass/drums jazz outfit Jeff Crompton Trio of Atlanta/Chattanooga and the toy piano virtuoso Robert Fleitz of NYC.

No mere novelty, the toy piano is an instrument that has been used in compositions by noted 20th century composers John Cage and George Crumb, and Fleitz will demonstrate its versatility, playing selections by Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe, Puerto Rican-born composer Angelica Negron, Molly Joyce, Monica Pearce, Olivia Kieffer and Andrew Krahn, and he will perform the world premiere of Jeff Crompton's "Sonatina for Toy Piano."

For more information visit the Facebook event page.

Tickets $12 for adults and $8 for students. Wayne-O-Rama is at 1800 Rossvile Ave., #108.






Strapping on eye patches and handing out "treasure," the residents at The Lantern at Morning Pointe Alzheimer's Center of Excellence, Collegedale, and mentors from Kids Hope USA threw a pirate-themed party for the children at Orchard Knob Elementary School.

Kids Hope USA, a national organization that develops partnerships between churches and schools, pairs at-risk kids through supportive and mentoring relationships. Mentors spend one hour a week reading, playing and listening to a child at school, helping the child to learn, grow and succeed by feeling loved and valued, said officials.

As part of Morning Pointe's Meaningful Day program, the memory care community values elementary education through intergenerational activities and partnerships with local schools, churches and nonprofits that benefit the needs of children and families.


Juan Sanchez Munoz has been named the sole finalist to become the next president of the University of Houston-Downtown, leading the institution with more than 14,000 students into an era of expansion.

The decision was announced by UH Chancellor Renu Khator Tuesday morning.

Munoz was chosen from a pool of five finalists by a search committee and is scheduled to take office in April. He has been serving as senior vice president and vice provost at Texas Tech University focusing on student affairs, undergraduate education and diversity.

He holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of California at Los Angeles and a master's degree in Mexican American studies from California State University.

Now that Munoz has been named the sole finalist for the president position, state law requires that 21 days must pass before the Board of Regents can formally appoint him.

UHD has changed greatly over the last five years, strengthening admissions standards and acquiring land, said Interim President Michael Olivas, the director of UH's Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance who began at UHD last February.

The university says almost 70 percent of freshmen are the first in their family to go to college, a factor that challenges college success, Olivas said. The student body is 43 percent Hispanic and 26 percent black.

In materials posted during the search, the university said it wanted candidates with passion for serving first-generation, economically disadvantaged minority students.

Olivas, 65, said he could not commit to leading UHD for six or seven years, which he said the institution needs.

But he has said that he has become "seduced" by UHD and "adores" its students.

"Everybody is so dedicated to the ethos of the school," he said in an interview last week.

UHD's footprint downtown near Interstate 10 expanded earlier this year with the $13.2 million purchase of a 17-acre property that will house a science and technology building. Legislators last session approved $60 million in bonds for the facility, which the university hopes to open by summer 2019.

And at last week's Board of Regents meeting, members voted to allow Khator to try and purchase roughly seven additional acres for future expansions using designated tuition funds and bond proceeds.
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A federal judge in Houston came down tough Tuesday during sentencing for a Maryland man who confessed to selling thousands of dollars of counterfeit tablets for erectile dysfunction.

Federal prosecutors had asked for a two-and-a-half year prison term, and the federal public defender requested two years. But U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner nearly tripled the proposed totals, going above sentencing guidelines and ordering Martez Alando Gurley to more than seven years for his counterfeit scheme.

Hittner noted that two previous federal convictions in 2000 and 2005 were not enough to deter Gurley, and he did not want to reward him for cooperating with federal investigators "just because he got caught."

Gurley, 41, had been free on bail. The judge rejected his lawyer's request that he turn himself in and ordered he be immediately taken into custody of the U.S. Marshal's Office.

Gurley previously pleaded guilty to selling the fake Viagra and Cialis across state lines and conspiracy to sell them. Prosecutors withdrew the remaining charges for his cooperation in helping them find the manufacturer in China and his co-defendant who bought and sold fake Viagra and Cialis pills in exchange with him.

Two hours later in the same courtroom, the same judge sentenced Gurley's co-defendant using the standard guideline range.

Victor Lamar Coates, 47, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to four years in prison. He was allowed to remain free on bail and surrender when called to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Coates pleaded guilty to the same two charges. He had a prior criminal record but no federal convictions that the judge noted.

"Everybody's different," Hittner told Coates in case he'd heard about the more harsh sentencing of the man who turned him into police.

Gurley owes $410,508 in restitution to Pfizer Inc., and Eli Lilly and Company which own the trademarks for Viagra and Cialis. Coates must pay the two companies $314,565 in restitution.
The JumpFund will host an open house on Thursday, Dec. 15, from 1-3 p.m. in the Volunteer Building (suite 210) to meet artist and entrepreneur, Hallie Heald.

Ms. Heald lives in NYC and recently published her first book, The Women Who Made New York.

Ms. Heald grew up in Chattanooga and her entire family lives here so she is back for the holidays.

For more information on Ms. Heald visit her website.

The JumpFunds goal is to encourage women to invest in women to help grow womens business leadership throughout the Southeast.

The JumpFunds mission is to invest womens capital in female-led companies with growth potential in order to generate a strong financial return and elevate the role of women in business.
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Mumps, the disease best known for causing puffy cheeks, is hardly on anyone's radar these days, thanks to vaccines.

But an unusual spike in reports of possible cases in the suburban Fort Worth area has health officials and schools scrambling to respond. Two Fort Worth-area school districts are hosting vaccination clinics this week.

Since the U.S. mumps vaccination program started in 1967, the number of mumps cases has decreased by more than 99 percent, the CDC states on its website. Although outbreaks can still occur, the prevalence of vaccination helps to limit the impact, the CDC said.

KID SNIFFLING? Don't count on getting an antibiotic

Last year, in all of Texas, there were 20 confirmed mumps cases.

By comparison, there were 28 possible mumps cases on Monday in Johnson County, according to information posted on Facebook by Johnson County Emergency Management. The 28 cases included 23 among children ages 5 to 18.

Some people who get mumps have no symptoms or very mild ones, including fever and headache, but it can also lead to complications such as inflammation of the brain or deafness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Not all of the cases reported in Johnson County, however, have been confirmed as incidents of mumps, Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for state health services in Austin, said Tuesday.

"I would caution against saying those are sure cases," he said.

The health department is also investigating how the apparent Johnson County outbreak began, he said.

ZIKA VIRUS: Texas' first transmitted case reported in Rio Grande valley

Typically, he said, cases of vaccine-preventable diseases are connected with travel, and a mumps outbreak has recently occurred in Arkansas. It's unknown at this point, however, if the Johnson County patients had exposure to the Arkansas cases, he said.

"I don't know that we are at a point in the investigation that we can make a definitive link, but contact tracing is certainly part of what we do as we look at where this came from," he said.

A vaccination clinic, conducted on behalf of the Texas Department of State Health Services, is scheduled for place 4-7 p.m. Tuesday at Keene Elementary School, in the Keene Independent School District. The clinic is free and open to adults and children of all ages.

A second vaccine clinic is planned for 4-7 p.m. Wednesday at Cleburne High School in the Cleburne school district.
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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.

NEW REALITY: Governing Texas in the era of Donald Trump

"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.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS: Texas lawmaker wants to ban 'wrongful birth' lawsuits

"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.
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A second Texas Republican has announced that he won't vote for President-elect Donald Trump when the Electoral College meets Dec. 19.

Christopher Suprun of Dallas announced his decision Monday in a New York Times opinion piece.

A firefighter who was part of the response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City, Suprun said the relationship between those attacks and this year's election "becomes clearer every day."

"I watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge between us," Suprun wrote in his editorial.

CALLING IT QUITS: GOP elector resigns rather than vote for Donald Trump

As set up by the founders, the Electoral College "should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy and are independent from foreign influence," Suprun wrote. "Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards."

Since the election is not yet completed, the Electoral College can still "do the right thing for the good of the country," Suprun wrote.

He called on electors to unify behind a Republican alternative, "an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov. John Kasich of Ohio."

The first Texas elector to defect from the Trump camp was Art Sisneros, who resigned Nov. 28 from the Electoral College. The industrial salesman from Dayton explained his decision in a blog post, saying voting for Trump "would bring dishonor to God."
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.
The East Ridge Police Department is partnering with the Tennessee Highway Safety Office to enhance drunk-driving enforcement from Dec. 15 to Jan. 1, surrounding the holiday season. The statewide Booze It and Lose It campaign is part of a national mobilization to prevent drunk driving.East Ridge police will increase officer presence on the streets during this period along with concentrated saturation patrols on select dates."Increased state and local messaging about the dangers of drunk driving, coupled with sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols, aim to drastically reduce alcohol-impaired driving," officials said.This time last year, there were 223 lives lost to impaired-driving crashes across Tennessee, said THSO Director Vic Donoho.Our partnership with local law enforcement is vital to combat drunk driving this holiday season.Officials said, "A single DUI conviction can cost an individual $5,000 or more, in addition to jail time. An offender could also be required to attend drug and alcohol treatment or to install an ignition interlock device inside his/her vehicle. Any penalty imposed by law pales in comparison to the injury or death of a loved one."The THSO provides grant funding to support East Ridge Police efforts during the Booze It and Lose It holiday enforcement campaign.
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The board of directors and leadership staff at the Humane Society have made the decision to begin their search to find donors to help fund for a new building. The shelters current building has been around for almost 90 years, and the staff expresses the mandatory need for a new building to properly care for their animals.

So far, directors of the shelter have set a three to five year plan to successfully open the building to give animals appropriate kennels, a bigger space, suitable air ventilation, and overall a new and appealing setting. Members of the board have started their process by reaching out to big time donors to service with funding for the project.

Theres a million reasons why we need a new building, but the biggest issue is this place is just so old, said volunteer and community outreach manager Jeanine Cloyd. We have not gone out screaming to the roof tops that we are looking for funding, but we have talked to a few interested donors to get started.

There will be a fundraiser on Saturday.

The annual event is a Christmas themed 5k and 1 mile Mutt Strut benefitting the Humane Educational Societys Special Needs Fund program. The walk, which is open for two and four legged participants of all ages and kind, will take place on Saturday, Dec. 10, at 9 a.m. at St. Elmo Pet Wellness Center, 3812 Tennessee Ave.

Participants will receive an event T-shirt and goody bag and pooches will receive special treats from Nooga Paw. Winners will receive a keepsake ornament and bottle of wine from Chateau Morrisette.

The organization, which serves lost, abused or abandoned animals in county areas outside of Chattanooga's city limits, has support from many donors. Already the organization receives close to $400,000 from the county yearly and received an additional $226,000 this year. The organization is looking to receive more contributions from donors as the project continues.

Since being incorporated in 1910 by founder Ethel Hardy, the shelter has grown to serve the county and take in thousands of homeless pets each year. The shelter is an open-door facility to provide shelter and care for homeless pets, adoption services, animal protection, cruelty investigation and pet licenses. The Humane Educational Society is committed to finding each and every treatable, adoptable and trainable animal in their facility a loving home, which starts with a happy shelter.

For more information about the Humane Educational Society visit its website at www.heschatt.org/ or visit their facility at 212 N. Highland Park Ave., Chattanooga, Tn. 37404.
So the DOW has been taking it on the chin, and the futures don't look good. Thankfully, I lost everything in the 2008 collapse, so I'...
When CBS Chairman Les Moonves said in February that the Donald Trump phenomenon may not be good for America, but its damn good for CBS, he likely didnt imagine his comment would apply to the entire news industry come December.

While many in the media have expressed concerns over the impact a Trump administration could have on press freedoms, the president-elects influence already is boosting news organizations bottom lines. The New York Times said it signed up 10,000 new subscribers per day several times since the election, and the past few weeks recorded a 10-fold increase in new subscriptions over the same period last year. Often after an election you expect a lull, Times president and CEO Mark Thompson said on Monday at the UBS Global Media & Communications conference in Manhattan. Were not seeing that, were seeing a surge.

Thompson attributed the rise in subscriptions to a dramatic increase in the willingness to pay for serious, independent journalism. He also said reaching the Times goal of 10 million paid subscribersup from 2.6 million today, about 1.5 million of which are digital-onlyis very possible for us. Most of the new subscribers are digital, though some opted for the Times in print. The company noted the increases are net of cancellations.

As print advertising continues to fall, Thompson cited the Times digital revenue growth as a bright spot in shoring up the papers financial foundation. He said consumers are more willing to pay for online content, driven by an acceptance of monthly fees for services like Netflix.

While the Times holds a unique place in the media landscape, other major players across the industry have reported similar audience and subscription bounces. The LA Times saw a 60 percent increase in new digital subscriptions in the weeks following the election, a spokeswoman told CJR. For the month of November, the paper added more than four times as many new subscribers as it did during the same period in 2015. And the LA Times was not the only outlet in the publicly traded Tronc Inc. newspaper chain to report subscription increases; CNBC reported the chain saw an average gain in digital subscribers of 29 percent across its newspapers, which also include the Chicago Tribune and the Hartford Courant.

While the Washington Post hasnt yet released specific numbers, a representative from the paper told CJR the Post has seen a steady increase in subscriptions over the course of this year. The Wall Street Journal in the days after the election reported a 300 percent spike in new subscriptions. (CJR has also felt the impact of Trumps election, with record web traffic and new memberships for the month of November more than doubling the previous month.)

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Investors have cheered the new-found willingness among consumers to pay for news, bidding up the shares of publicly traded chains since Election Day, along with a broader market rally. Tronc has advanced about 16 percent; Gannett added about 22 percent; McClatchy gained 6 percent; and The New York Times Co. soared by about 16 percent.

The Trump effect is not limited to print; cable news has also seen a bump in viewership. Fox News clocked its highest-rated month in network history in its primetime audience in November, with 3.3 million nightly viewers. November was CNNs highest rated month in eight years among adults in the coveted 25-54 demographic, with the news network reporting 1.5 million total viewers. CNN noted Election Night was the most-watched primetime night in its history.

While the Times Thompson said it was too early to draw precise conclusions about the exact causes of subscription increases, he ventured that public anxiety to actually have politicians held to account, and having [a] professional, consistent, properly funded newsroom holding politicians to account, is probably bigger than all the other factors put together.

Photo by Travis Ruse, via Wikimedia Commons

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Pete Vernon is a former CJR staff writer. Follow him on Twitter @ByPeteVernon.
Just as digital didnt eradicate print, it also failed to kill a lot of other things that were supposed to be obsolete. Here are a few other areas where the world of real things is showing renewed life.

The poster child of analogs recent revenge is also its most improbable. Since its peak as a format for recorded music in the late 1970s, the vinyl records dominance quickly declined, thanks to increasingly more convenient and economically viable technologies (tapes, CDs, MP3s) that replaced it. By 2006, less than a million records were sold in the United States, and record stores were closing daily. But in 2007, these cumbersome, costly, and entirely senseless discs of melted plastic staged a comeback. This year, more than 17 million records are likely to be sold in the US, and new record shops are appearing across the country. Some people say the rebirth of vinyl, which is driven by younger consumers, is about sound quality. Others say its merely a fashion fad. But with each new record pressed and sold, one thing is clear: The surprising return of the vinyl record isnt about the most logical format for recorded music. Its about the sexiest one.

Cassette tapes may be riding on the back of the vinyl revival, especially among indie groups, but the more significant return to tape is taking place in recording studios. Musicians ranging from DAngelo and Dave Grohl to Lady Gaga and Jack White are purposefully ditching digital recording software for the reel-to-reel machines that were a staple of the 20th-century music business. While tape imbues a certain audible warmth, the real reason for the switch to analog recording is the limitations it imposes on the process. It demands musicians put out their best effort every time its rolling. What you get is a recording session where the sound is pure, undiluted, and free of extraneous distractions. A performance. Music as it should be.

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Just a few years ago, it was almost curtains for movies shot and displayed on film. Fujifilm had already ceased production of its motion picture stock, and Kodak announced that the economics of the industry werent strong enough to sustain its own movie film products much longer. Then the A-list stepped in, with some of the biggest directors (Scorsese, Tarantino, Abrams, Nolan, Apatow) calling on the studios to purchase enough film stock to keep them shooting celluloid as long as their cameras rolled. Suddenly, every director in the movies and even television wanting to establish their cinematic bona fides had to shoot on film, boasting about its unbeatable aesthetic, or the rush of hearing it whirl through the camera.

Like most of its contemporaries in the film business, Polaroid stopped making film by 2008, after several successive bankruptcies. Then something unexpected happened: A small group of instant film enthusiasts bought the last Polaroid factory on earth and got it working again. Today, Impossible Project sells more than a million packs of instant film each year, which works in vintage Polaroid cameras, as well as its own camera, at retailers like Urban Outfitters. Meanwhile, Japans Fujifilm saw an incredible turnaround of its own Instax instant photo system, which it nearly scrapped a decade ago. Today, Instax is more profitable for Fujifilm than many of its digital cameras. Even in an age where everyone has a smart phone holding thousands of photos, there are few things more magical than seeing the chemical dance of a photograph developing in front of your eyes.

Played in homes, and increasingly at dedicated board game cafes, the new generation of tabletop games now range from inventively sophisticated bouts of strategy (Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride) to tastelessly side-splitting party games (Cards Against Humanity, Exploding Kittens). Not only is the rapid growth of tabletop games over the past decade a core feature of global geek cultures normalization, it also happens to be big business. Last year, the North American market for hobby games alone netted more than $1 billion in sales, and shows no sign of slowing down.

When the Moleskine notebook first hit bookstores in 1997, skeptics scratched their heads. Who was going to take notes by hand? Whats remarkable about the rise of the Moleskine, and the wider notebook boom it ushered in, is how its success almost seems to be derived from the digital economy. Despite advances in voice and handwriting recognition software, tablet keyboards, and all other means of capturing ideas on a computer, the rectangular paper notebook reigns supreme for its ease, versatility, and durability.

In 2013, when the online review company Yelp moved into its new headquarters in San Francisco, employees quickly noticed something was missing. In the interest of saving space, the bulk of Yelps whiteboards had been replaced by large monitors, and interactive smart boards. Apparently the engineering department was so displeased it threatened outright revolt, and today, Yelps HQ, like pretty much all innovative companies and institutions, is plastered with colorfully scribbled whiteboards on every conceivable surface. Thats because whiteboards, like notebooks, are the quickest way to take an idea into physical reality, and then shape it without constraints. More often than not, the simplest, most effective solution is the one we actually want, regardless of whether it plugs in.

Today, the hottest thing in online retailing is taking it offline. Just look at recent retail expansions from ecommerce companies ranging from Warby Parker and Bonabos, to Blue Nile, and, yes, even Amazon (which opened its first physical bookstore in the past year). Stores arent going anywhere. It turns out that shopping is more than simply a transaction of goods for money at the cheapest possible price. It is an activity at the core of the human experience, and at least some of the time, we want to experience it in the flesh.

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David Sax is a journalist whose work appears regularly in Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Yorkers Currency blog, and other publications. He is the author of the books Save the Deli and The Tastemakers. His latest book, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, was published in November by Public Affairs. He lives in Toronto
The most extreme tornado outbreaks are mysteriously spawning many more twisters than they did decades ago, a new study claimed.

The once-every-five-years-or-so outbreak that might have involved 12 tornadoes 50 years ago now has on average about 20, said Columbia University applied physics professor Michael Tippett, lead author of the study in Thursdays journal Science .

The study comes in the end of a year that has been on track to have the fewest tornadoes on record, but is also on the heels of the outbreak Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that killed five people and injured at least 46 in Alabama and Tennessee  precisely the kind of outbreak Tippett studied.

As of now, there were 36 tornado reports Tuesday in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, half of them were the stronger type Tippett studied, said meteorologist Patrick Marsh of the National Weather Services Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Tippett and colleagues looked at just the most extreme outbreaks and tornadoes that are above the minimal wind rating and found a steady uptick in the biggest outbreaks since the mid-1960s.

Somethings up, Tippett said. The tornadoes that do occur are occurring in clusters. Its not any increase in the (total) number of tornadoes.

Marsh said until Tuesdays outbreak, there had been 830 tornadoes all year , which was below the previous low for that date of 920. The normal number through late November is closer to 1,300. While 2011 was one of the busiest tornado years for the size of twisters that Tippett studied, 2012 was one of the quietest, he said.

Unlike other spikes of extreme weather in recent years, Tippett and colleagues could not find the fingerprints of man-made global warming in the change.

Its not what we expected, Tippett said. Either its not climate change because not everything is, or it is some aspect of climate change we dont understand yet.

Eight outside experts were split about whether the study made sense.

This is really important step forward in the detection in the change of frequency of occurrence of these events, Stanford University professor Noah Diffenbaugh said.

But some of the other scientists said improved reporting and urban sprawl increases the number of recent tornadoes and negates some of the trend Tippett found. They also disagree with the particular type of measurements that Tippett used and some of his definitions.

Its a useful exercise, said Oklahoma University meteorology professor Howard Bluestein, but I would be very, very careful in accepting it.
Liberty Mutual Holding Co., the fourth-largest property/casualty insurer in the U.S., agreed to buy Ironshore Inc. from Fosun International Ltd. for about $3 billion to expand in the specialty commercial market.

Ironshore will retain its management and brand after the completion of the deal, the buyer said in a statement Monday. Fosun acquired Bermuda-based Ironshore in 2015 and then sought an exit after a ratings firm cited concerns about the parent companys financial strength.

Policyholder-owned Liberty Mutual is known for providing home, auto and workers compensation coverage in the U.S. The Boston-based company is among insurers seeking growth in niches where there is more of an opportunity to stand out from competitors. Ironshore protects commercial policyholders against environmental risks, damage to satellites in launch or orbit, and losses tied to political turmoil in international markets. It also offers liability coverage to corporate executives and health-care providers.

The acquisition of Ironshore seems to have plenty of strategic merit, but it is notable that it will operate with an ongoing high degree of autonomy, David Havens, a debt analyst at Imperial Capital, said in a note. This will be a bit of an experiment in that regard for Liberty Mutual.

The final price is subject to adjustments and will be 1.45 times the target companys tangible book value at the end of this year. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2017, according to the statement.

Financial Flexibility

Fosun, led by billionaire Chairman Guo Guangchang, announced a deal in May 2015 to buy the 80 percent of Ironshore that it didnt already own for at least $1.8 billion. The Chinese company then opted to exit Ironshore, which filed for an initial public offering in July, after ratings firm A.M. Best assigned a negative outlook to the Bermuda-based business.

The seller is rated Ba3 by Moodys Investors Service, three levels below investment grade. The company said months ago that it was preparing to sell assets to help boost its credit score. Fosun had announced more than $15 billion in overseas acquisitions since 2010, and added assets including Club Med, Wall Streets 28 Liberty building and Cirque du Soleil.

As a global investment group, it is important for Fosun to have the capability and opportunity to accomplish exit of its investment and at the same time realize a reasonable return of investment, Guo said in a separate statement. With this transaction, the groups financial flexibility and capabilities will be further enhanced.

Greater Capacity

Ironshore was founded in December 2006 with more than $1 billion in private equity backing. Two years later, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Kelley and President Shaun Kelly joined the property-and-casualty insurer from American International Group Inc.

The combination of Ironshore and Liberty Mutual is a win-win proposition, Kelley said in the statement. Ironshore will become part of another A-rated company with a global reach, a strong balance sheet, wide client base and a much greater capacity to drive profitable growth.

Ironshore has about 800 employees in 15 nations, with operating hubs in the U.S., Bermuda and London. It had about $2.2 billion in policy sales in 2015, according to the statement. Liberty Mutual has a staff of more than 50,000.

Liberty Mutual is seeking to win market share as it competes with Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Allstate Corp. to be the second-largest P&C company in the U.S. Each had about $30 billion in policy sales in 2015, according to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, about half the figure at No. 1 State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.

Ideal Complement

Ironshore has a track record of profitably underwriting global and diverse specialty-risks insurance and is an ideal complement to Liberty Mutual, David H. Long, the CEO of the buyer, said in the statement.

Barclays Plc was the buyers banker on the deal. The insurer got legal advice from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Fosun was advised by Citigroup Inc. and Aon Plc.

Bermuda-based insurers have been drawing suitors from the U.S., Asia and Europe who are seeking to diversify their risks and gain scale. Japans Sompo Holdings Inc. announced a deal in October to buy Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd., and Exor SpA, led by Italys billionaire Agnelli family, acquired PartnerRe this year. Both deals were valued at about $6 billion.

Liberty Mutual also expanded through an acquisition in 2008 when it acquired Safeco for more than $6 billion to add auto customers in the U.S.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a Texas jury to pay more than $1 billion to patients who claimed the company hid flaws in its Pinnacle artificial hips that had to be surgically removed, in J&Js second loss linked to the implants.

Officials of J&Js DePuy unit, which makes the Pinnacle hips, knew the devices were defective, but failed to properly warn doctors and patients about the risk they would fail, the federal jury in Dallas concluded Thursday. The verdict includes more than $30 million in actual damages for the six plaintiffs and more than $1 billion in punitive damages, according to court filings.

J&J still faces almost 9,000 lawsuits accusing the company of mishandling the metal-on-metal hips. J&J stopped selling the devices in 2013 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration toughened artificial-hip regulations.

At $1.04 billion in damages, its the third-largest overall jury award of 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The largest, for $3 billion, came in June in a breach of contract case brought by Hewlett-Packard Co. against Oracle Corp. The punitive award against J&J was the largest against a company this year, according to Bloomberg data. Such punishment damages are intended to dissuade defendants from continuing sanctioned practices.

The jury is telling J&J that they better settle these cases soon, said Mark Lanier, who represented the group of six hip patients who sued J&J and DePuy. All they are doing by trying more of these cases is driving up their costs and driving the companys reputation into the mud.

J&Js DePuy unit acted appropriately in designing and testing the product, spokeswoman Mindy Tinsley said in a statement. The companies have strong grounds for appeal and remain committed to the long-term defense of the lawsuit allegations, according to the statement.

Lawyers for J&J said U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeades rulings barred J&J from providing a fair presentation to the jury.

Now the appellate court will need to review errors made by the judge, attorney John Beisner said in an e-mailed statement. The company will ask Kinkeade not to schedule any more trials until the appellate review is completed, he said.

Trial Losses

The verdict continues a losing stretch for J&J before U.S. juries. Six of the seven largest product-defect verdicts in the U.S. this year have been against J&J units, including three in lawsuits claiming its talc products cause ovarian cancer.

J&J won the first Pinnacle hip case to go to trial in October 2014 after a jury rejected a Montana womans claims that the devices were defective and gave her metal poisoning. In March, a Dallas jury ordered J&J to pay $502 million to a group of five patients who accused the company of hiding defects in the hips. A judge cut that verdict in July to about $150 million.

The Pinnacle devices werent covered by New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&Js $2.5 billion settlement covering its ASR line of artificial hips. In 2010 J&J recalled 93,000 of those implants worldwide, saying 12 percent failed within five years.

Since the six hip recipients who sued J&J were all California residents, that states law governs the handling of punitive damages awarded in the case. California has no cap on punishment awards, so it may be difficult for the company to argue that this part of the verdict should be reduced under state law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said such bad-conduct awards must be proportional to compensatory damage verdicts that underlie them and has limited punitive verdicts to 10 times a plaintiffs actual damages.

The company still faces 8,900 suits over Pinnacle hip failures, according to a May filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That figure is up from 8,300 suits the company listed in an October 2015 regulatory filing.

Cobalt Poisoning

The patients in the cases before Kinkeade alleged their DePuy hips leached cobalt and chromium material into their bloodstreams, leading to the device failures and surgical removal. They claimed J&J officials knew their metal-on-metal design would cause such injuries but pushed ahead with the product to rack up billions of dollars in sales.

The plaintiffs also contend DePuy officials rushed the Pinnacle hips to market with little testing and turned a blind eye to studies that showed metal-on-metal prosthetics posed a deterioration risk for human tissue and bone.

Kinkeade has scheduled another test trial involving claims by 10 hip recipients for September 2017, according to court filings.

Despite its pledge to appeal Thursdays verdict, J&J shouldnt wait for an outcome to approach hip patients with settlement offers, said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan law professor, who teaches classes about how drugs and medical devices are developed and regulated.

They may think they have good defenses to these claims, but they dont seem to be working with juries, Gordon said in an interview Thursday. Theres no easy way out of these cases now that they have a billion-dollar verdict against them. They better start thinking of how they can settle these claims before the price goes up any more.

The consolidated case is In Re DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability litigation, 11-md-2244, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas). The lead case in this trial was Andrews v. DePuy Orthopedics, 15-cv-03484-K, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Dallas).

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
In a decision filed November 18, 2016, Arkansas U. S. district judge Susan Webber Wright, the same jurist who in 1998 handed a defeat to Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against then President Bill Clinton, dealt this time with a more tame but still important question: Whether a CGL policy issued to a building general contractor covers its liability for defective workmanship causing property damage confined to the contractors own work product.

The new decision is titled Auto-Owners Insurance Company v. Hambuchen Construction, Inc., and is reported at 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160364. It answered the question posed in the negative and stands for the proposition that CGL policies insuring a contractors liability for property damage caused by an occurrence- defined in the policies as an accident  do not cover a contractors liability for property damage caused by defective workmanship alone, resulting in injury only to the work product itself. However, the court held, the insurer may still be obligated to indemnify the insured for collateral damage to other property.

Faced with a summary judgment motion challenging coverage by the insurer, Auto-Owners Insurance Company, which had issued a CGL policy to Hambuchen Construction, Inc., a contractor hired separately by the Pierce and Lessmann families to build a new residence for each of them, Hambuchen conceded that damage only to its own work product is not an occurrence and therefore not covered. Hambuchen argued, however, that the Pierces and the Lessmanns were making claims against Hambuchen for collateral damage to property other than Hambuchens work product itself.

The problem for Hambuchen was that the construction project for each of the two families was to build an entire home, so at least regarding the Pierce project, all of the improvements formed part of the work product of Hambuchen, a fact central to the courts decision. The Pierces construction project included construction by Hambuchen of multiple decks on the exterior of the home, the portions of the structure that failed. Thus, in a lawsuit brought by the Pierces against Hambuchen, the Pierces alleged that two years after they moved into their new home, water began pooling on the back deck, water leaks began appearing at various places inside the home, and the basement flooded. Accordingly, the Pierces sought damages for defective workmanship only to Hambuchen s work product, which did not qualify as property damage caused by an occurrence.

As for the Lessmanns, following completion of their new home by Hambuchen, they complained that the foundation was unstable and presented a list of other claimed damages resulting from the shifting foundation, including damage to sheet rock and sod. The court said that, although damage to sod might qualify as collateral damage to other property, damaged sheet rock resulting from a shifting foundation was more likely properly classified as damage to the [insureds] work product itself.

The court, in granting the summary judgment motion, conducted a three part analysis for evaluating coverage under the CGL policy issued to Hambuchen. First, it examined the facts of insureds third party claims to determine whether the policys insuring agreement makes an initial grant of insurance covering them. Next, the court examined the policys exclusions to see whether any of them precluded coverage of the two homeowners claims against Hambuchen. Finally, the court looked to see whether any exception to an applicable exclusion reinstated coverage for the claims against Hambuchen.

Turning first to the policys insuring agreement, the court applied Arkansas law to determine whether the alleged losses resulted from an occurrence, defined by the policy as an accident. The Arkansas Supreme Court has held in this context that the term accident means an event that takes place without ones foresight or expectation  an event that proceeds from an unknown cause, or an unusual effect of a known cause and therefore not expected.

Auto-Owners, the builders insurer, argued that its CGL policy provided no possible coverage for the homeowners lawsuits, because their claims were that the property damage at issue resulted from defective workmanship, not an unexpected event, and therefore not an occurrence. Instead of addressing the insurers argument directly, however, the court relied upon the decision Essex Ins. Co. v. Holder (2008) 370 Ark. 465, 540 in which the court held that when faulty workmanship results in damage to the insureds work product, there is no coverage for that property damage, but the insurer may still be obligated to reimburse the insured for collateral damage to other property, not part of the work product itself. The Holder decision, therefore, did not address the defined meaning of the term occurrence set forth in the CGL policy. Instead, it evaluated the type of property damaged as the basis for deciding whether the damage was caused by an accident. It held that defective workmanship standing alone  resulting in damages only to the work product itself  is not an occurrence. . . (Holder, 370 Ark., p. 540.)

In this respect the decision parted company with other cases analyses, keying into the coverage element of property damage itself, rather than the nature of the occurrence. Under such analyses, In general there is no coverage for the cost of removing and replacing defective work or material where the only property damage is the defective work itself and no damage has occurred to other property. Such costs are considered economic loss, not physical injury to the property. (California Practice Guide, Insurance Litigation, 7:1426.)

Ironically, as set forth in a footnote in the subject decision, the Auto-Owners policy issued in 2008 preceded the effective date of an Arkansas statute providing that CGL policies sold in Arkansas must define the policy term occurrence to include property damage resulting from faulty workmanship.

Absent an exclusion, however, collateral damage to other property nearby was covered by the policy.

The court then proceeded to discuss the coverage exclusions of the policy, since Auto-Owners asserted that, even assuming that coverage was possible under the insuring agreement qualifying as property damage caused by an occurrence, there still was no coverage. The first exclusion considered was entitled Damage to Your Work, which excepted from coverage loss due to property damage to the contractors work arising out of it or any part of it and included in the products-completed operations hazard.

In connection with this exclusion, Hambuchen made two arguments. First it contended that the insurer had failed to present evidence that all of the damages alleged in the owners lawsuits, especially the consequential or resultant damage beyond the alleged effective workmanship, fell under the policys definition of your work. The court examined the definition of your work as applied to the homeowners claims, and the court noted that the underlying lawsuits, with the possible exception of the cost of sod replacement claimed by the Lessmanns, the homeowner plaintiffs claims sought relief for damage to the completed homes, which certainly met the policys definition of your work, since they were building the homes from scratch. Furthermore, the court noted, the damage to your work exclusion unambiguously encompassed property damage arising out of Hambuchens work, or a part of it. Accordingly the court found that the insurer had carried its burden to show that the property damage claim in the underlying lawsuits fell under the Damages to your Work exclusion.

The second Hambuchen argument regarding the Damages to your Work exclusion was that the products-completed operations hazard operated as an exception to the your work exclusion. Hambuchen contended that a products-completed operations hazard provision in a CGL policy is invariably an exception to the business risk exclusions such as your work exclusions. But the court rejected this view finding that risk insured by a products hazard and completed operations provision work, once completed and relinquished, will cause damage to property other than to the product or completed work itself. Here, said the court,  the Pierces and Lessmanns seek relief for damage to the product or completed work [of Hambuchen] itself. Accordingly, the court held that the Damage to your Work exclusion precluded coverage for all property damage claimed in the homeowners lawsuits, including property damage that comes under the policys products- completed operations hazard definition.

Because the court found no possibility that the damages alleged in the underlying cases fell within the policys coverage, Auto-Owners had no duty to defend or indemnify Hambuchen against the Pierces and Lessmanns lawsuits.

Finally, as if there were any life left in the contentions of Hambuchen, the Pierces and the Lessmanns (who were themselves allied with Hambuchen as defendants in the coverage litigation) the court examined the defense of late notice to the CGL insurer by Hambuchen of the Lessmanns lawsuit, a condition of coverage strictly enforced in Arkansas. Here the Lessmanns filed suit against Hambuchen in May, 2009, and Auto-Owners learned about the lawsuit six years later, in August, 20015. Since timely notice was as condition proceeding to coverage, the Lessmann lawsuit was outside of coverage for that reason, too.

Based on all the reasons given by the court, but not limiting itself to the individual defenses noted above, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Auto-Owners Insurance Company and against Hambuchen, the Pierces and the Lessmanns.
Neo-Nazi Group Takes Credit For Putting Hitler Posters On UChicago Campus

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Dec 6, 2016 4:05AM

A militant Neo-Nazi group says it is responsible for putting up at least one poster of Adolf Hitler surrounded by swastikas on the University of Chicago campus.

The poster appeared to have been pasted to a glass wall that wouldn't normally have posters attached to it in Levi Hall, a campus building. The group, called Atomwaffen Division, took credit for the poster on Twitter Sunday night. It reads: "No Degeneracy, No Tolerance, Hail Victory":

A University of Chicago rep told the student newspaper, the Maroon, that the "disturbing material" had been removed from two places by Monday morning, and the Hyde Park school's police department is investigating. The group has reportedly papered other campuses around the country with similar posters, including Old Dominion University in Virginia, University of Central Florida, University of Colorado and Suffolk University and Boston University in Massachusetts.

On UChicago's campus, students are saying that the building that houses the Centers for Study of Race, Politics and Culture and the Center for Gender and Sexuality was also defaced with a pro-Hitler poster.

The posters are part of a troubling pattern of academic institutions being defaced with swastikas and hate speech, particularly in recent weeks following President-elect Donald Trump's election. Evanston Public Library books about Islam were defaced with swastikas last month, and a West Side Chicago Public School was vandalized with graffiti.
The death toll in the Oakland, Calif., warehouse fire has grown to 36 and authorities say they expect the number to rise when they resume work later Monday following a temporary work stoppage. A wall is leaning inward, posing a safety hazard to those who have been searching the building which erupted in fire Friday night.

Eleven of the victims have been positively identified, but all the names have yet to be publicly released.

Authorities also believe theyve located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.

The fire erupted during a dance party late Friday night.

Since then, survivors and friends of those who perished have placed flowers on several small memorials.

Bouquets of sunflowers, single white roses, lilies and carnations were stuck in chain-link fences, votive candles burned on sidewalks and post-it notes paid tribute to the missing and the dead in the most lethal building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade.

Kai Thomas and a group of red-eyed classmates from an arts high school in San Francisco pressed against police tape Sunday near the street corner where the Ghost Ship, a warehouse converted to artist studios and illegal living spaces, rapidly went up in flames, taking the life of a friend.

Three of the boys had been in the cramped and dark building, Thomas said, but one got separated from them 30 seconds before someone yelled, Fire.

It was just really smoky and hard to see, said Thomas, a high school junior who wasnt there, but recounted what he had been told by two others who didnt want to speak. They jumped off the second-floor balcony and ran out.

The boys waited for their 17-year-old friend for more than three hours, but he never emerged.

They wouldnt give his name, but the victims included a 17-year-old, as well as people from Europe and Asia and some over 30, said Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt. Ray Kelly said.

Lists of the missing circulated and many of those who had been unable to reach friends in the past two days had given up hope when authorities said people either escaped without injury or died inside.

Jesse James Alexander, a DJ, who wasnt at the party, showed up at the scene of the fire Sunday to remember three friends who were killed, though he didnt want to give their names.

Others were still holding out hope. Yuri Kundin said outside a sheriffs office where friends and family gathered for word of their loved ones that he was hoping for good news about his friends, Alex Ghassan and Hanna Henriikka Ruax, who was from Finland.

One of the many post-it notes left on a sidewalk around the corner from the remains of the warehouse said, Praying for you.  Hope youre still here.

Firefighters had searched less than half the building and expected more casualties as they worked around the clock to remove debris bucket by bucket.

The district attorneys sent a team to search for signs of a crime in the warehouse that was already under investigation by the city for possible code violations. The space was only permitted as a warehouse and neighbors had complained of trash piling up and people were illegally living there.

Authorities would not answer questions about the couple that operated the Satya Yuga collective, who were identified as Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison and were believed to have been out of the building at the time of the blaze.

The couple had a troubled relationship, said Michael Allison of Portland, Oregon, the father of Micah. He and other family members persuaded his daughter to go to a drug rehabilitation center in 2015, but Almena talked his way into the clinic and convinced Micah 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) to get away from him because I knew he was dangerous from day one, he said. All of that has now been proven.

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.

Almena did not immediately respond to emails or phone numbers associated with him. No one answered a call to a number for Micah Allison.

The building had been carved into artist studios and visitors and former denizens said it was a cluttered death trap, piled with scrap wood, a mess of snaking electric cords and only two exits.

Almena had leased the space from its owner and then rented five recreational vehicles and other nooks on the ground floor as living spaces, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of Almena and Allison. They held regular concerts and dance parties, like the one Friday, to make money, Boudreaux said.

Shelley Mack was drawn there by the promise of living among artists and paying a reasonable rent in an area where the tech boom has created a housing shortage and exorbitant leases. She left after a few months two years ago when the place failed to live up to its promises.

Some people were happy to have a roof over their head even though there was no heat or no place to eat or that it was filthy and infested, Mack said. You just get sucked in because it seems like its this nice place and this artistic community and they talk a good game. There are people there that wanted to be there and believed in it. And I think I did too for a little bit. And then I afterward, I was like, um no.

(Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer, 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.)

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The man shot and killed during a struggle with a Hudson police officer was an Emirati man studying at Case Western Reserve University, the Ohio Attorney General's Office said.

(Adam Ferrise, cleveland.com)

HUDSON, Ohio - The man shot and killed during a struggle with a Hudson police officer was a Case Western Reserve University student from the United Arab Emirates.

Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri, 26, died of a gunshot wound to the head Sunday near an access road off Hudson Aurora Road, the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office said.

Alameri had been living in Cleveland and was a student at Case Western, a university spokesman and a spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office said.

The university spokesman declined to release any more information.

The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington, D.C. has not received any information on the shooting, a spokeswoman said. She declined to comment.

The news of Alameri's death led to his name trending on Twitter in his home country.

Investigators have not said if Alamari was armed when the officer shot him just before 3 p.m. in the woods by the Ohio Turnpike near the Interstate 480 exit.

The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation, police said.

The State Highway Patrol received a report of an erratic driver shortly before a car crashed on the turnpike. The driver then ran into the woods, police said.

A Hudson officer found the driver near an access road off Hudson Aurora Road. Shots were fired during an ensuing struggle, police said.

Alamari died at the scene, police said. The officer received treatment for minor injuries at Summa Akron City Hospital.

A prosecutor will review the shooting once the investigation has been completed, police said.

This is the second high-profile incident involving an Emirati man this year in Northeast Ohio. In October, a Lorain County grand jury chose not to indict a hotel desk clerk accused of falsely reporting that an Emirati guest pledged allegiance to ISIS. Avon officers who were acting on the report detained the man at gunpoint June 29 at the Fairfield Inn and Suites on Colorado Avenue.

The UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said after the incident that its citizens should avoid wearing traditional garments when traveling abroad.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments section.
AKRON, Ohio - A University of Akron student is accused of stabbing his roommate in the chest during a fight over fast food, police said.

Kenneth Scheid, 22, is charged with felonious assault in the Saturday incident at an off-campus apartment on Grant Street, police said in a news release.

There are conflicting reports on the 23-year-old roommate's condition. Akron police said Monday that he remained in critical condition at Summa Akron City Hospital.

The University of Akron chapter of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity said in a Facebook message that the roommate died Sunday. But neither police nor the Summit County Medical Examiner received a report of his death by Monday afternoon.

A hospital spokesman could not confirm whether the roommate is a patient there. The hospital cannot provide updates on patients who request confidentiality, he said.

Scheid began arguing with the roommate shortly after the two went out to buy fast food. Scheid then stabbed the victim in the chest during a fight over the food, police said.

A third person living in the apartment called 911 moments after the stabbing, according to a recording of the call released Monday.

Scheid and the roommate were drunk at the time, the 911 caller told a police dispatcher.

Scheid remains in custody at the Summit County Jail, records show.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Monday's crime and courts comments section.
AKRON, Ohio -- A University of Akron student stabbed in an argument over fast food died Monday at Akron City Hospital, the Summit County Medical Examiner confirmed.

Duncan Unternaher, 23, of Newark, Ohio, was pronounced dead about 6 p.m. Monday, the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office said in a news release. The Akron police department is investigating his death as a homicide.

Unternaher was stabbed about 12:30 a.m. Saturday in an apartment on the 400 block of Grant Street. He was arguing with his roommate, 22-year-old Kendall Scheid, over fast food, police said.

Scheid is accused of grabbing a knife and stabbing Unternaher in the chest, police said. A third person in the apartment called 911 after the stabbing, saying Unternaher and Scheid were drunk at the time of the stabbing.

Scheid has been arrested and charged with felonious assault, and he remains in Summit County Jail. No additional charges had been formally filed Monday night following Unternaher's death, court records show.

Scheid is scheduled to appear in court 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, court records show.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
BEREA, Ohio -- The Cleveland Browns returned from their bye on Monday, hitting the practice field for a little over an hour. They play the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium.

Mary Kay Cabot and I addressed the news of the day and the news that came out of the bye week after. We talked about the reported meeting Jimmy Haslam held to talk about stability and sticking to the plan. We also talked about how it appears likely that Robert Griffin III will start on Sunday, and we even talked about the likely new right guard, Jonathan Cooper, claimed off waivers back in October.
Kent State Solar

Ohio's two-year freeze on requirements that power companies supply more green energy is headed toward another three-year delay. Green advocates say legislation approved by the House today and headed for a vote Thursday in the Ohio Senate means no additional wind farms or large solar arrays will be built in the state.

(Joshua Gunter/Plain Dealer file)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Voting largely along party lines, the Ohio House of Representatives today approved a bill that would further delay green energy mandates by allowing power companies to decide whether they want to obey them for the next three years.

The House voted twice on the issue because the first ballot occurred before some Democrats had had the opportunity to speak.

The legislation now moves to the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee for hearings Wednesday and Thursday and a vote of the full Senate.

Gov. John Kasich has repeatedly said he would veto any legislation that extends the current two-year freeze on the green mandates the lawmakers enacted in 2014.

House leadership has been planning an end-of-the-year special session to override a veto, if it occurs. But those plans are up in the air now because too many Republican members joined with Democrats to oppose the legislation.

The first vote today followed a 14-minute appeal Kasich made from the House dais at the start of the session. House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, a Republican from Clarksville, said he invited the governor.

Speaking without prepared remarks, Kasich urged House members to remember they are serving the public. "Political calculations ought to be left at the door," he said. "The strength of our country comes from the bottom up, not the top down."

Kasich also told them that the state is heading toward a recession. One of the major arguments for the mandates is that they were creating jobs and investments before the Republicans pulled the plug in 2014. Delaying the return of the mandates will cost jobs, say opponents.

The first House vote was 51 to 36. At least nine Republicans crossed party lines to vote against the bill with House Democrats. The second vote, following impassioned speeches from several Democrats, was 54 to 40.

Both vote spreads are bad news for House leadership since a veto override would require 60 votes. In other words, an override of Kasich's veto would fail.

If that were to play out, under the terms of the 2014 legislation freezing the mandates, the original rules, created in 2009 would spring back to life in January.

Those rules require power companies to annually increase the percentage of green power they sell until it reaches 12.5 percent in 2025. Also, utility sponsored efficiency programs for customers will have had to reduce power use by 22 percent by 2025, compared to 2009.

Rep. Mike Duffey, a Republican from Worthington, was one of those members to cross party lines and vote against the legislation. He said he would probably be hurt for doing it.

Duffey urged a rejection of the bill because, he said, it gives electric utilities the ability to make enormous profits from energy efficiency programs. Those profits would be funded by higher electric bills for consumers and small businesses.

"This bill is not elimination of mandates. It is a mandates-by-utility fiat. If you are a conservative you should not support this bill. If you are a liberal you should oppose it because it provides uncertainty in the market and does nothing for consumers.

"We can do energy efficiency and renewables without making them mandates..., without giving control to the utilities and without paying such large incentives that utilities have turned these programs into profit centers," he said.

Rep. Kent Smith, a Euclid Democrat, tried to amend the bill just before the vote by adding language to allow county governments to determine how far wind turbines must be from surrounding properties. Two years ago Republicans inserted restrictive language into an unrelated budget bill that has stopped all major wind development.

Smith argued that Ohio has only fraction of the wind development that has been built in surrounding states, where the winds are about the same. He spoke of the lost jobs and investments. And he spoke briefly about the perils of climate change driven by burning fossil fuels. His amendment was voted down.

Rep. Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican, spoke against the amendment, saying it such a change should have a "more comprehensive process."

Amstutz is credited as the author of the bill approved today, though he did not write it. House GOP leadership substituted the bill for his much simpler legislation, which would have simply eliminated all of the mandates and allowed markets to determine whether renewables and efficiency upgrades would compete.

When introducing the substitute bill today, Amstutz called it "only an incremental" warm-up exercise for a far greater policy discussion that will occur going forward."

Amstutz last week added an amendment to the legislation that has riled some lawmakers. The amendment allows utilities such as FirstEnergy and American Electric Power to reward themselves (with higher customer delivery charges) for efficiency savings made in previous years.

Ohio Consumers' Counsel Bruce Weston has testified against the bill in House and Senate committees. And this week he has taken aim at the amendment allowing the "banking" of energy savings.

"Ohio's residential and business consumers should be concerned with energy legislation passed by the Ohio House today," he said. "The proposed law would cost consumers many millions of dollars in charges for higher utility profits without a corresponding public benefit. I am recommending that the Ohio Senate protect consumers by preventing this part of the legislation from becoming law."

Samantha Williams, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, predicted that the bill, if it becomes law, will delay the adoption of energy efficiency technologies.

"While other states across the Midwest are gaining economic advantages by increasing energy efficiency measures, Ohio just tethered the state's energy future to the equivalent of the horse and buggy," she wrote in a statement following the vote.
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Fat Head's Brewery is remaining very busy: It has started a collaboration with a German brewery, it's involved with Jameson Whiskey in another partnership, and it is pulling back from distribution in Florida.

(Fat Head's Brewery)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Fat Head's Brewery is not sitting on its laurels from its victories at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver two months ago.

Monday, it was announced the brewery's Matt Cole is on his way to Germany to brew what Fat Head's bills as the very first American-Franconian Imperial IPA - its famous Hop JuJu.

Cole will brew in Brauerei Kundmuller, just west of Bamberg. The family-owned brewery has been around more than 140 years and has won medals at the European Beer Star. The 12-year-old competition gives consideration to styles of beer that have origins in Europe, though any brewery can enter.

A year ago, Cole sought out Ossi and Roland Kundmuller, the brothers who run the brewery in a tiny village outside of Bamberg, which is about 50 miles west of the Czech Republic. A rep for Fat Head's said in a release that Cole was to return Monday to make beer with them. The goal is to share expertise while learning from each other's brewing techniques.

Hop JuJu is a sought-after India Pale Ale that has become a magnet for honors in the craft-brewing world. This year, it became the lone non-California brewery to earn an award among imperial IPAs at the 16th annual festival at the Bistro in Heyward, California. It was named best overall at Art & Ale at the Akron Art Museum. And it won bronze at GABF.

Hop JuJu is 9 percent alcohol and 100 International Bittering Units.

Cole's trek to Germany isn't the only collaboration going on for Fat Head's.

Fat Head's is part of a continuing series of craft brewers who are part of Jameson Caskmates Drinking Buddies with Jameson Irish Whiskey.

Jameson gave barrels to breweries for some of its beers. Fat Head's crafted Strange Trip Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout, which was aged for six months. But the whiskey maker also flipped the process, aging its whiskey in stout-seasoned oak barrels.

Jameson describes Caskmates on its whiskey bottle, using a rare reference to saying the whiskey has a hop flavor:

"...When a local craft brewer borrowed our casks to age their fine Irish stout, it gave us an idea: Why not finish out own precious liquid in stout-seasoned oak barrels? The result is Jameson Caskmates, a special edition whiskey that accentuates the trademark smoothness of Jameson Original with additional rich flavors of coffee, cocoa, and a gentle hint of hops."

The other breweries in the Jameson Caskmates Drinking Buddies series made several different styles. The brewers are Angel City Brewery in Los Angeles, Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. in New York, Deep Ellum Brewing Co. in Dallas, Great Divide Brewing Co. in Denver, Stoup Brewing in Seattle and Cycle Brewing in Tampa.

The Caskmates whiskey is 40 percent alcohol.

In addition to its ongoing collaborations, last month it was announced the brewery aims to move its Middleburg Heights production facility and taproom to a larger facility within the city.

The continued concentration of its focus in Northeast Ohio also came through with the recent news that the brewery is withdrawing its business from Florida next year "to focus on its core markets of Ohio and Pennsylvania, where it sees significant short and long-term growth opportunity," the brewery said in a release. The brewery's distribution partner in Florida is Cavalier Distributing, which recently announced it was bringing M.I.A. Beer Co. from Doral, Florida, to Ohio.
Rahm & Trump Had A 'Cordial' Phone Call & Talked Sanctuary Cities, Report Says

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Dec 5, 2016 9:42PM



Photo credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

President-elect emblem of the dumpster fire that has been the year 2016 Donald Trump has been discussing his transition into the White House with national and foreign political leaders in recent weeks, and he recently had a call with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, according to a Monday morning report.

Politico reports that Trump picked Rahm's brain about his experience advising Bill Clinton and Barack Obama during their presidencies, "and what lessons were learned in their transitions."

The phone call was "cordial," the source told Politico, "and they pledged to keep the lines of communication open in the future.

Emanuel, who recently announced a new legal fund to help immigrant families, reportedly told Trump that Chicago would "always be a sanctuary city" because of its longstanding immigrant communities.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio talked with the "racist con man" (his words, not ours!) who once called de Blasio "the single worst mayor in the history of New York City" briefly last month. Trump also talked to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti about infrastructure policy and L.A.'s bid for the 2024 Olympics.
After Oakland Tragedy, Chicago DIY Artists Decry Local Policies That Drive Them Underground

By Stephen Gossett in News on Dec 6, 2016 7:44PM



A former DIY venue in North Lawndale

The death toll from Fridays horrific blaze at the Oakland, California DIY music/art space Ghost Ship has risen to a staggering 36 people. And all across the country, the tight-knit DIY arts community continues to mourn. At the same time, much mainstream coverage fails to grasp the full socioeconomic scope of the tragedy, and reactionary local governments moving to close underground spacesfor example Mondays report that Baltimores Bell Foundry was condemned by local housing and fire officials, and its dozens of artist residents were evicted.

In the wake of the tragedy, DIY art scene organizers around the country, including Chicago, are defending their right to affordable, safe venue spaces, and their decisions to reside in derelict spaces when they can't afford better.

As several local organizers explained to Chicagoist, a toxic soup of commercial real estate chicanery, lack of affordable property, backwards tax incentives and lack of arts funding often forces artist communities into only quasi-legal venues. Those structural barriers are particularly pronounced in Chicago, a city that already has an often-contentious relationship with DIY spaces.

Jes Skolnik, for example, has been working for three years now to open Pure Joy, which its board members envision as a legal, all-ages, ADA-compliant arts-and-music space. I remember first hearing about it in 2014 and filling with excitement. It seemed so obvious. Why had it not happened before? But their patently virtuous campaign has been stymied along the way by an extremely inhospitable city.

Aldermen are fiercely territorial and often have little help to offer us because they're more focused on staking out space to for-profit business ventures, Skolnik, who is also Managing Editor at Bandcamp, told Chicagoist via email. And owners of vacant commercial real estate are allowed to defer property tax payments, Skolnik points out, which incentivizes a for-profit-or-nothing approach to tenancy. And Pure Joys insistence on disability access has proven a complication in Chicago.

While [property owners] are required by federal law to comply, there's no local oversight unless a tenant complains, so they'd rather save money and rent to a tenant who isn't insisting on these features," Skolnik said. "I can imagine that it's often a similar issue for safety code violations and know from my experience that some tenants don't complain because they're worried about being kicked out. Which is eerily similar to what just bore out on Monday in Baltimore, where evicted residents paid the price for the Bell Foundry owners negligence.

Hannah Friedman helped run the erstwhile Lakeview event space the ribcage from 2012 to 2014, the year it shuttered. The space had had safety issues "due to the landlord's negligence," she told Chicagoist. "The place came pretty close to burning down while I was there, mainly because of shoddy wiring and plumbing repairs."

Responsible residents, on the other hand, frequently pick up the slack left by property owners. "Many collectives are maker spaces, with artists building and wiring their own large-scale pieces in-house," Friedman said. "These people are better at safety than anyone else I know."

Furthermore, while Pure Joy board members are still applying for tax-exempt nonprofit status, Skolnik says they don't expect any sort of windfall in arts funding if approved. The city tends to favor more glamorous arts programming with its money, they said.

Local music spaces aren't weighted as high culture, they said. Anyone who remembers this summers jaw-gapingly absurd is-this-newfangled-hip-hop-and-electronic-music-art? debate can certainly attest.

All these things conspire to keep DIY communities in Chicago and beyond in the unsafe shadows. From there, the city again often takes an adversarial stanceas the Reader, AdHoc, Store Brand Soda and other outlets have well explored in recent yearsfurther compounding the problem. Most infamously, the 2012 NATO crackdown left multiple beloved venues shuttered.

But the importance of such spaces, often described non-hyperbolically as life-saving by their patrons, is impossible to overstate, especially for those people who belong to historically marginalized groups.

Sandra Song wrote in Paper magazine:



"For many of us, these DIY places like Ghost Ship are the only places we really feel safeour carefully-curated world of friends who en masse have the ability to transport us far away from the nastiness of a world that openly declares its distaste for us."

Bay Area artist Russell Butler told the East Bay Express after the fire,We need spaces that are open to folks who are beaten down and oppressed by living daily under patriarchy and white supremacy."

Like those and countless other voices within the tight-knit community, Skolnik also echoed the same sentiment. Ive been in hundreds of spaces like [Ghost Ship] over my lifetime and played many of them as a musician, they said. They're spaces for musicians that fly under the radar of the organized music industry, spaces for experimentation, spaces where people can be themselves. For us queer and trans musicians and many musicians of color who are excluded in many ways (economic barriers first and foremost) from participation in the formal music industry, they are places for community, for recognition, for affirmation, for understanding.

Friedman voiced a similar opinion as well.

"DIY spaces are important because they provide a kind of freedom and support for people who society labels as deviants," she said. "I'm talking about artists, queer folks, people of color, social activists, poor folks, and so on. Not every one of these groups experiences systematic oppression, but a lot of us do. Most of us are here because we can't get the support we need from other spaces."

Of the events themselves,"Bear in mind how many... are fundraisers for nonprofits, or for each other to afford health care," Friedman said. The fact that these spaces are devalued by property owners looking to tear down and flip, and that folks are scared to push for things like extra safety measures lest they lose their homes entirelythat is the most painful thing of all, because these are spaces we often need to survive.

These are important points to bear in mind, not only as we monitor the brutal developments in California, but also as we reckon with the institutional roadblocks that perpetuate those dangers right here in Chicago.
Kim Foxx Pledges Faster Probes Of Police, Big Changes In State's Attorney's Office

By aaroncynic in News on Dec 6, 2016 5:05PM



Kim Foxx via Facebook

Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx outlined her plans for the office in several interviews with media on Monday, just days after being sworn into the office.

Foxx, who ousted Anita Alvarez for the post in the March primaries and sailed through the November election, said her plans for reshaping the office include targeting gun trafficking and redesigning the process of wrongful-conviction reviews, plus speeding up and making investigations into allegations of police misconduct more transparent.

In an interview with Fox32, she criticized the slow-moving nature of investigations into police shootings and said she plans to launch criminal investigations much quicker.

"Waiting for evidence after it's become stale or after memories have become foggy, months after the fact, to begin those types of investigations are not in line with best practices, she told Fox32. And that's why we're going to review it.

Foxx told the Tribune she plans to create a unit that will focus on gun trafficking.

We have a lot of guns on the street. Why? Said Foxx. How are we partnering to stop the flow of guns. How are we actively going after the suppliers?

According to NBC5, she also plans to bring on an ethics officer and a diversity officer to conduct internal audits, while also asking the Cook County Board to allow her to hire 150 new prosecutors. In addition, the newly sworn in States Attorney also plans to seek the appointment of special prosecutors in police shootings.

"We have a crisis of confidence in our criminal justice system," said Foxx. "I think what we've seen, again not just here but across the country, around the distrust as it relates as to how we hold people accountable, requires that we be transparent in the process."

While her outline might give optimism to those hoping for more transparency, more accountability and ultimately fewer police shootings, not everyone is happy with Foxxs plans. Dean Angelo, President of the Fraternal Order Police Lodge 7 told Fox32 that he believes speeding up those investigations is dangerous.

"Murders that are out there seem to be lost in the fog of 'police accountability.' They're looking at the wrong target, said Angelo. The police have got the target on 'em."
The billionaire hedge fund manager dubbed "China's Carl Icahn" went on trial on Monday, a year after his dramatic arrest on the Hangzhou Bay Bridge in the aftermath of a stock market rout.

The trial of legendary investor Xu Xiang, 38, in the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court in Shandong province was closed to all but selected state media. No immediate statement was issued after the hearing.

State-run Xinhua reported earlier that Xu was detained for "obtaining stock market inside information by illegal means, inside trading and manipulating stock prices".

No further details of the charges were given.

Xu allegedly reaped billions of yuan illegally during last year's stock market turmoil, mainland media reported.

Photographs of his arrest on the bridge were the only known publicly available pictures of the famously low-profile financier at the time.

But even if Xu were found guilty of the charges, the conviction would do little to purge the system of rampant insider trading and market manipulation in its stock market, an analyst said.

"Xu's case is just the tip of the iceberg  there is a sophisticated network of interests behind it," Qingdao University economics professor Yi Xianrong said.
WHEN: MONDAY, DECEMBER 5

WHERE: CNBC'S "SQUAWK ON THE STREET"

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with Trian Fund Management's Nelson Peltz from the No Labels conference in Washington, DC. The interview aired on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" today. Following is a link to video of the interview on CNBC.com: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000573487.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

FABER: WELCOME BACK TO "SQUAWK ON THE STREET." I'M DAVID FABER AT THE NO LABELS CONFERENCE -- YEAH, HERE WE ARE. IN WASHINGTON, D.C. AND JOINED NOW BY SPECIAL GUEST NELSON PELTZ, OF COURSE THE CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF TRIAN. AND A BIG PARTICIPANT IN NO LABELS AS WELL.

PELTZ: THAT'S CORRECT. AND WE'RE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. WE GOT A BIG TURNOUT, DAVID. AND LET ME TELL YOU WHAT NO LABELS IS. IT'S OUR WATCH WORD IS BIPARTISANSHIP. THIS ORGANIZATION STARTED ABOUT FIVE OR SIX YEARS AGO BECAUSE OF ALL OF THE DYSFUNCTION THAT WAS IN WASHINGTON. AND I THINK WHAT WE'RE  OUR GOAL IS TO BRING PEOPLE, REACH ACROSS THE AISLE, THERE HAS BEEN NO PENALTY IN THE BALLOT BOX FOR OBSTRUCTIONISTS, AND THERE'S BEEN NO REWARD FOR PROBLEM SOLVERS FOR PEOPLE CROSSING THE AISLE.

FABER: PARTICULARLY IN CONGRESSIONAL RACES.

PELTZ: THAT'S CORRECT.

FABER: WHERE A LOT OF THE DISTRICTS ARE GERRYMANDERED, I KNOW YOU GUYS 

PELTZ: WE HAVE A SOLUTION. AS YOU KNOW THERE'S CAPITAL ON THE LEFT, THERE'S CAPITAL ON THE RIGHT, WE ARE NOW CREATING CAPITAL IN THE MIDDLE. WE HAVE A SUPER PAC WE'RE RAISING TODAY $50 MILLION DISCREET FOR PRIMARIES ONLY. AMERICA'S BEEN GERRYMANDERED AROUND, SO WE'RE NOT GOING TO CHANGE PARTIES, BUT WE ARE GOING TO GET THOSE PEOPLE OUT OF THE SYSTEM -- WANT TO SOLVE ANYTHING.

FABER: YOU'RE GOING TO RAISE $50 MILLION FOR THE 2018 RACES.

PELTZ: EXACTLY.

FABER: YOU'RE GOING TO BASICALLY SUPPORT THOSE WHO ARE RUNNING EITHER AGAINST A FAR RIGHT CANDIDATE OR, I GUESS, FAR LEFT.

PELTZ: OR A FIREBRAND ON THE LEFT. EXACTLY RIGHT. WE TRIED THIS SUMMER WITH TWO RACES. HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL. BOTH GUYS WERE LOSERS, THEY WERE DOUBLE DIGITS DOWN. WE PUT OUR MONEY IN AND HAD OUR TECHNOLOGY, WE GOT 13,000 VOTES TO 30,000 VOTES. AND THE PEOPLE WHO VOTE IN THE PRIMARY ARE THE REAL ENTHUSIASTS, THE REAL HARD CORE. AND THEY'RE EFFECTING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. SO WHAT WE DID IS WE GOT A BIGGER TURNOUT, AND WE GOT OUR DOUBLE DIGIT DOWN GUYS TO KNOCK OUT AN EXTREME RIGHT GUY IN KANSAS. HE WAS AN INCUMBENT AND WE GOT RID OF TWO INCUMBENT-LIKE CANDIDATES IN FLORIDA WHO WERE EXTREME LEFT. AND BOTH THESE PEOPLE COULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN ELECTED, THEY'RE HERE, AND THEY'RE NOW PROBLEM SOLVERS AND THEY'RE NOT OBSTRUCTIONISTS.

FABER: WELL I WANT TO TALK MORE ABOUT POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT OF COURSE GIVEN THE INCOMING ADMINISTRATION, YOU'VE KNOWN DONALD TRUMP AND HAVE FOR YEARS, AND I KNOW YOU'VE SPOKEN TO HIM SINCE HE WAS ELECTED.

PELTZ: QUITE OFTEN.

FABER: HE TWEETED YESTERDAY QUITE A BIT ABOUT TRADE AND CHINA IN PARTICULAR. OF COURSE YOU HAVE THE CALL WITH THE PRESIDENT OF TAIWAN A FEW DAYS AGO THAT SEEMED TO RAISE SOME CONCERNS. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS, PARTICULARLY AS AN INVESTOR IN MULTINATIONALS LIKE A MONDELEZ, FOR WHAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS GOING TO MEAN

FOR COMPANIES THAT CONDUCT BUSINESS ALL OVER THE WORLD AND ALSO HERE IN THE STATES?

PELTZ: YOU KNOW, PEOPLE ARE CONFUSED. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GLOBAL COMPANY AND A COMPANY THAT'S OUTSOURCING. MONDELEZ IS AS YOU KNOW HAS BEEN CRITICIZED OCCASIONALLY.

FABER: YEAH, HE CAME AFTER THEM FOR THEIR OREO MANUFACTURING.

PETLZ: HE STOPPED HE LOVES OREOS AGAIN, I THINK. AND I EXPLAINED TO HIM THAT WE HAVE A DOZEN PLANTS ACROSS AMERICA TODAY MAKING OREOS. WE HAVE ONE PLANT THAT'S BEEN OPEN FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS IN MEXICO MAKING OREOS FOR MEXICO AND FOR THE UNITED STATES. IF YOU LOOK AT MONDELEZ, 75% OF OUR SALES ARE DONE OUTSIDE OF AMERICA. OKAY. THERE'S NO WAY THAT WE'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE PEOPLE EMPLOYED OUTSIDE AMERICA. HOWEVER, I THINK THAT HIS TAX PLAN IF HE GETS THE KIND OF TAX REDUCTIONS HE'S TALKING ABOUT, WE WILL WIND UP HAVING MORE EMPLOYMENT, MORE COMPANIES COMING BACK TO THE UNITED STATES WHETHER THEY HAVE GONE TO IRELAND OR THEY'RE STILL AMERICA AND THEY'VE GOT THEIR TAX SHELTERS IN SWITZERLAND OR HOLLAND OR SOMEWHERE ELSE.

FABER: BUT THIS IDEA OF PLACING A 35% TARIFF ON MANUFACTURING THAT MOVES ABROAD THAT THEN WANTS TO SEND -- DO YOU THINK, A, THAT'S WORKABLE? AND IS IT A CONCERN TO YOU?

PELTZ: WELL, THAT'S MORE OUTSOURCING. AND THAT'S CERTAINLY GOING TO STOP CEOs WHO ARE THINKING ABOUT DOING IT GIVE THEM PAUSE. AND I THINK THAT'S NOT A BAD IDEA.

FABER: YOU'RE A FREE MARKET GUY THOUGH, THAT'S NOT PARTICULARLY FREE MARKET, IS IT?

PELTZ: I AM A FREE MARKET GUY, BUT I THINK THE SCALES HAVE BEEN SHIFTED TOO MUCH. I REALLY DO. I AM A FREE MARKET GUY. I BELIEVE IN GLOBALIZATION. I DON'T BELIEVE IN TARIFFS FOR TARIFFS SAKE.

FABER: YOU ALSO BELIEVE IN COST CUTTING. I MEAN, ONE OF THE KEYS TO THE SUCCESS YOU'VE HAD AT TRIAN.

PELTZ: THAT'S CORRECT.

FABER: IN YOUR INVESTMENTS IS GOING INTO COMPANIES AND SAYING, WAIT A SECOND, YOU'RE WAY TOO FAT. THAT TYPICALLY DOES RESULT IN JOB LOSSES.

PELTZ: IT DOES. THOSE JOBS SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUT ON IN THE BEGINNING. THEY SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THERE. OKAY. THERE'S A SUFFOCATING BUREAUCRACY THAT HAS CREATED MANY LARGE COMPANIES, AND DON'T FORGET HERETOFORE THE BIG COMPANIES WERE UNASSAILABLE. PRIVATE EQUITY WASN'T GETTING INVOLVED WITH GE OR KRAFT OR MONDELEZ. THEY WERE NOT. SO THEY WERE LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICES, BANK OF NEW YORK, ET CETERA. THOSE COMPANIES ARE HEALING THEMSELVES TODAY AND MARGINS WE'RE THRILLED. I MEAN, MONDELEZ'S MARGINS WHEN I GOT ON THE BOARD WE WERE COMING OFF AN 11% YEAR IN '13. AND NOW THEY'RE 15 TO 16.

FABER: RIGHT.

PELTZ: AND IRENE ROSEN FELD HAS DONE AMAZING WORK.

FABER : SHE'S CUT A LOT OF COSTS. OF COURSE YOU'RE A BOARD MEMBER AT MONDELEZ. I WONDER IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE FREE MARKET AND YOU AS AN INVESTOR WANT TO SEE THE COMPANIES DO WHAT'S BEST FOR SHAREHOLDERS, WHICH TYPICALLY MEANS GETTING MARGINS UP. IF STAYING IN THE U.S. IS NOT THE RIGHT THING FOR SHAREHOLDERS OR YOUR COST OF GOODS IS GOING TO BE HIGHER AS A RESULT OF STAYING IN THE U.S., DON'T YOU WANT THEM TO MOVE?

PELTZ: YEAH, BUT DAVID, A LOT OF THOSE JOBS THAT WERE CUT WERE NOT IN AMERICA. THERE WERE LOTS OF JOBS CUT ALL THROUGH EUROPE, THROUGH ASIA. I MEAN, WE WERE FAT. AND THEY NEEDED TO BE CUT. AND THANKFULLY THEY'RE GONE. AND I THINK AS A RESULT WE WILL GROW FASTER AND WE WILL HIRE THE RIGHT KIND OF PEOPLE, PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE. THEY'RE GOING TO HELP THE COMPANY MOVE FORWARD. WHEN YOU CUT, YOU BETTER BE GROWING.

FABER: RIGHT.

PELTZ: IT'S NOT JUST CUTTING FOR CUTTING. IT'S CUTTING TO GET GROWTH AND HAVE THE ABILITY TO HIRE MORE PEOPLE.

FABER: NO, I UNDERSTAND THAT. AND THERE CAN BE A TIME WHEN THERE'S TOO MUCH CUTTING.

PELTZ: THAT'S CORRECT.

FABER: SOME PEOPLE SAY HEINZ, WHERE YOU ONCE OF COURSE WAGED A PROXY FIGHT AND HAD BOARD SEATS, HAS CUT TOO MUCH.

PELTZ: SOME COULD SAY THAT, YEAH.

FABER: DO YOU AGREE?

PELTZ: WELL, LOOK, WHEN I WAS AT HEINZ AND BILL JOHNSON WAS RUNNING HEINZ, WE HAD 32 STRAIGHT QUARTERS OF ORGANIC SALES INCREASES. THERE ISN'T A CONSUMER COMPANY ON THE PLANET WHO COULD MAKE THAT CLAIM FOR THAT EIGHT-YEAR PERIOD. THEY'RE NOT ENJOYING THAT NOW AT HEINZ. ON THE OTHER HAND, EBITDA IS GROWING DRAMATICALLY. AND LOOK, YOU'VE GOT TO CUT FAT. YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHEN YOU HIT MUSCLE AND YOU BETTER NOT BE HITTING BONE. THOSE ARE FINE LINES.

FABER: THEY'RE VERY FINE LINES. I WONDER, WE'RE MENTIONING OF COURSE HEINZ, KRAFT HEINZ, WHICH IS CONTROLLED BY 3G AND WARREN BUFFETT A BIG INVESTOR THERE, BUT DO FOREIGN COMPANIES, YOU THINK, FACE A TOUGHER TIME NOW UNDER A TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOR DOING DEALS AND FOR EXAMPLE BUYING U.S. COMPANIES AND CUTTING COSTS DRAMATIICILY?

PELTZ: WELL, I'LL TELL YOU, FOREIGN COMPANIES HAVE ISSUES ALL THAT ASIDE BECAUSE IF YOU'RE A COMPANY IN FRANCE AND YOU WANT TO LAY PEOPLE OFF, YOU GOT A REALLY HARD JOB IN DOING THAT. THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO MAKE LIFE SO DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO LET PEOPLE GO. THEY HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF DIFFICULTY. I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE  I DON'T KNOW WHEN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TALKS ABOUT FOREIGNERS BUYING U.S. COMPANIES AND THEN WE STILL HAVE CAPITALISM. I THINK THE TRUMP RALLY IS CELEBRATING THAT CAPITALISM IS BACK.

FABER: RIGHT. LESS REGULATION. OF COURSE YOU MENTIONED TAX REFORM IS CERTAIN.

PELTZ: TAX REFORM, INFRASTRUCTURE, DEREGULATION. I MEAN, WHEN I WAS A KID GROWING UP, YOU KNOW, MY FATHER TOLD ME WE HAD THE GROWINGEST MIDDLE CLASS IN THE WORLD. AND HE WAS RIGHT. AND THE MIDDLE CLASS WAS COMPOSED OF THE PLUMBING SUPPLY HOUSE AND THE PAINTING CONTRACTOR.

FAVER: YEAH, BUT WE DIDN'T HAVE A GLOBAL MARKET LIKE WE DO NOW. AND YOU HAVE BEEN A HUGE BENEFICIARY OF GLOBALIZATION.

PELTZ: I AGREE. BUT THOSE GUYS HAVE BEEN REGULATED OUT OF BUSINESS. AND THERE'S STILL A GUY IF YOU HAVE YOUR PLUMBING CONTRACTOR AND THE PAINT SUPPLY HOUSE, YOU NEED THOSE GUYS. AND THEY CAN'T BE SUFFOCATED WITH REGULATION, DAVID. THAT'S THE PROBLEM. THIS REGULATION IS SO EXPENSIVE FOR A SMALL COMPANY. AND IT'S SUFFOCATING THEM. SO WE'RE HIRING MORE LAWYERS, AND THESE SMALLER COMPANIES CAN'T HAVE THEIR IN-HOUSE LAWYERS.

FABER: RIGHT. WE MENTIONED MONDELEZ A COUPLE OF TIMES, OF COURSE THE IDEA OF THE MULTINATIONAL WITH 75% OF ITS SALES OVERSEAS, A LOT OF TALK THOUGH AS WELL THAT KRAFT HEINZ, WHICH WE ALSO MENTIONED, AND MONDELEZ, SHOULD GET TOGETHER. RECREATING WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL KRAFT, WHICH YOU KNEW WELL. DO YOU THINK THAT DEAL MAKES SENSE?

PELTZ: LOOK, I'M ON THE BOARD OF MONDELEZ. I HEAR THE RUMORS THAT YOU HEAR. I KNOW NOTHING MORE ABOUT IT THAN THAT. I THINK MONDELEZ IS DOING A GREAT JOB ON THEIR OWN. THEY'VE GOTTEN MARGINS FROM 11 TO NOW GOING TO 17, 18 BY '18. THAT'S A 50% INCREASE IN MARGIN. LOOK, THEY'RE DOING A GREAT JOB. IF SOMEONE WANTS TO COME IN AND MAKE AN OFFER FOR THE COMPANY, I CAN'T STOP THEM. THAT'S LIFE. IT BETTER BE FAIR. IT BETTER BE RIGHT. AND WE'LL TAKE THEM ON AS A BOARD.

FABER: RIGHT. WELL, OTHER COMPANIES OF COURSE THAT YOU ALSO HAVE HAD CONTINUED INVESTMENTS ON ARE DuPONT, WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OF THIS DEAL TO MERGE WITH DOW.

PELTZ: RIGHT.

FABER: A LOT OF DOUBTS TO A CERTAIN EXTENT ON THE REGULATORY FRONT. NOT JUST HERE BUT IN THE EU AS WELL. ARE YOU STILL CONFIDENT THAT DEAL'S GOING TO BE APPROVED?

PELTZ: LOOK, I'M POSITIVE ABOUT IT. I'M POSITIVE THAT IT'S GOING TO CLOSE. THE EU HAS THREE CHEMICAL DEALSIN FRONT OF THEM RIGHT NOW. THEY'VE GOT THE BAYER/MONSANTO, CHEM CHINA CYGENTA AND THEY'VE GOT OURS I THINK THEY ARE GOING TO BE IN A ROUGH PLACE TO SAY NO THIS ONE AND YES TO THIS ONE -- I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE YES OR NO TO ALL THREE AND FRANKLY WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A SIMILAR KIND OF ISSUE, OUR JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HERE IS GOINGTO HAVE THE SAME KIND OF PROBLEM TO SAY YES AND NO TO EITHER ONE OF THEM. BUT DuPONT ON ITS OWN WHETHER THE DEAL IS APPROVED AND I DO THINK IT WILL BE, IS DOING A PHENOMENAL JOB. ED BREEN HAS BEEN A BREATH OF FRESH AIR. THEY HAVE TAKEN ABOUT A BILLION OF COSTS OUT OF THE SYSTEM ALREADY. THIS IS NO MERGER, NO COMBINATION, JUST SINGING FROM THE SAME SONG BOOK WE SING.

FABER: RIGHT. YOUR WHITE PAPER OF COURSE WAS PART OF THAT. NELSON, I FELT LIKE WE TALKED ABOUT TRIAN BUT POSITIONS YOU'VE HAD FOR A LONG TIME, BY THE WAY YOU HOLD THEM FOR A LONG TIME. I KNOW THAT. BUT I HAVEN'T HEARD ANYTHING NEW IN A WHILE. BUT I HAVE HEARD SOMETHING'S COMING.

PELTZ: YOU KNOW WHAT'S NICE? WE'VE HAD A WONDERFUL YEAR THIS YEAR.

FABER: YOU GUYS HAVE HAD A GOOD YEAR PERFORMANCE WISE?

PELTZ: WELL, I'M NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT PERFORMANCE, BUT THE COMPANY'S HAD EARNINGS GO UP VERY NICELY. AND WE'VE DONE THAT. AND WE DON'T HAVE A NEW POSITION. BUT WE DO HAVE A NEW POSITION, DAVID. WE'VE STARTED BUYING ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO. WE OF COURSE CAN'T ANNOUNCE IT NOW, WE BOUGHT QUITE A BIT OF STOCK AND WE'VE GOT QUITE A BIT MORE TO BUY. AND I HOPE THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO TALK IN CONFIDENCE WITH MANAGEMENT AND THE BOARD BEFORE IT COMES TO YOU AND THE PRESS.

FABER: I'LL TRY NOT TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN, OF COURSE, AS YOU KNOW.

PELTZ: I KNOW YOU WILL.

FABER: SIMILAR TO THE KIND OF STAKE YOU TOOK IN GE, SORT OF WHERE YOU'VE FORGED THIS NEW AREA WHERE YOUR REPUTATION, YOU LIKE TO THINK, IS SOMETHING COMPANIES WANT TO EMBRACE. SO HAVING YOU AMONGST SHAREHOLDERS IS A BENEFIT. YOU GOING ALONG THOSE LINELINES?

PELTZ: WE HAVEN'T APPROACHED THE COMPANY YET, BUT WE APPROACHED THEM PEACEFULLY. WE APPROACHED THEM WITH A THOUGHTFUL PLAN. AND WE THINK THAT THEY CAN IMPROVE WHAT THEY'RE DOING TODAY BY ADAPTING OUR PLAN. HOPEFULLY THEY'LL BE LIKE MINDED. AND WE'LL SEE. WE LIKE TO BE THE FIRST ONE TO GO TO THEM AS OPPOSED TO YOU, BUT YOU'VE GOT TO DO YOUR JOB AND I'VE GOT TO DO MINE.

FABER: RIGHT. PERHAPS YOU AND I WILL SIT DOWN FOR ANOTHER INTERVIEW ABOUT THAT INVESTMENT AT SOME TIME.

PELTZ: I LOOK FORWARD TO IT.

FABER: AS DO I. NELSON, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR TODAY. APPRECIATE IT.

PELTZ: THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR HAVING ME.

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With a slew of President-elect Donald Trump tweets coming in over the weekend, Cramer is starting to wonder about the potential downsides to a Trump administration. "While the positives of Trump's agenda still outweigh the negatives, at least as far as the stock market is concerned, the winner's circle has definitely gotten smaller," the "Mad Money" host said. It has become clear to Cramer that Trump is serious about cracking down on manufacturers that ship jobs overseas. He was also concerned that Trump spoke with the Taiwanese president  something no American president has done since Nixon. Cramer also spoke with United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes, which is the parent company of Carrier, and weighed in on what Trump's efforts to pressure companies to keep jobs at home could mean for manufacturing in America. "Say what you will about offshoring, it is a very effective way for companies to cut costs, and it is bad for manufacturers if this suddenly becomes a politically fraught issue," Cramer said.

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Hayes told Cramer in an exclusive interview on Monday about his conversation with Donald Trump last week, and says there was no "quid pro quo" with the president-elect. "I think we came up with a relatively good solution for everybody  We still got to do the preponderance of the restructuring, which we were going to do anyways. So it's  I would say no 'deal,' but at the end of the day a good deal for UTC," Hayes said, Ultimately, United Technologies agreed to receive $7 million in tax credits from the State of Indiana, issued at $700,000 per year for 10 years. Carrier also agreed to invest approximately $16 million in its Indiana facilities, and will keep more than 1,000 people employed in Indianapolis.

"I was born at night, but it wasn't last night," Hayes said. "I also know that about 10 percent of our revenue comes from the U.S. government." Hayes said that a Trump administration could potentially bring a "better" regulatory environment and a lower tax rate, which could help United Technologies in the long run.

Research indicates there has been a drop in worker productivity and other consequences following the election of Donald Trump. Therapists refer to this as Trump Anxiety Disorder. Getty Images
With a slew of President-elect Donald Trump tweets coming in over the weekend, Jim Cramer is starting to wonder about the potential downsides to a Trump administration.

"While the positives of Trump's agenda still outweigh the negatives, at least as far as the stock market is concerned, the winner's circle has definitely gotten smaller," the "Mad Money" host said.

It has become clear to Cramer that Trump is serious about cracking down on manufacturers that ship jobs overseas. He was also concerned that Trump spoke with the Taiwanese president  something no American president has done since Nixon.

"A trade war with the Chinese suddenly seems more likely, although I could argue they have been waging war against us for years, but still you recognize tough talk could hurt everyone who does much business there," Cramer said.
Ultimately, United Technologies agreed to receive $7 million in tax credits from the State of Indiana, issued at $700,000 per year for 10 years. Carrier also agreed to invest approximately $16 million in its Indiana facilities, and will keep more than 1,000 people employed in Indianapolis.

United Technologies is the parent company of furnace and air conditioner maker Carrier, which was under fire by Trump on the campaign trail because of its plans to move some manufacturing operations to Mexico from Indiana. Trump used Carrier as an example to highlight the decline of manufacturing in America.

"I think we came up with a relatively good solution for everybody  We still got to do the preponderance of the restructuring, which we were going to do anyways. So it's  I would say no 'deal,' but at the end of the day a good deal for UTC," Hayes told the " Mad Money " host.

United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told Jim Cramer in an exclusive interview on Monday about his conversation with Donald Trump last week, and says there was no "quid pro quo" with the president-elect.

Hayes stated that he received a phone call from Trump a week before Thanksgiving, with a request from the president-elect to reexamine the decision to close the Indianapolis Carrier factory.

"He said, 'We are going to do a lot of things in this country that are going to make it a lot more conducive to manufacturing. We are going to take the tax rate down; we are going to reduce all of this burdensome regulation. When all that happens you are going to be printing money, but I need you to relook at your decision to close the factory in Indiana,'" Hayes said.

Hayes confirmed that there is approximately 1 million manufacturing square feet in Mexico already, thus he considered it to be a natural evolution to close facilities in Indiana and move them to Mexico.

"Nor was there any, I would say, deal," Hayes said about his conversation with Trump, "There was no quid pro quo for him to say 'look, I am not going to tax you, if you don't do this.' He simply said 'take a look at this.'"

And while Hayes did agree to keep employees in Indiana, he said he still considers free trade to be essential for the growth of the U.S.

"This country was founded on two principles, right  immigration and free trade. And that is what made America great over time because we had to develop and innovate in the U.S. and take those products and sell them around the world," Hayes said.

Carrier will still close its Huntington, Indiana facility and move 700 jobs to Mexico.


A supporter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaraman holds her photo at the AIADMK party office in Mumbai, India, December 5, 2016.

One of India's most popular politicians, Jayalalithaa Jayaraman, died on Monday following a massive cardiac arrest, setting off an outpouring of grief among thousands of supporters gathered outside.

Her political party and the hospital where she was being treated confirmed the popular former film actress and chief minister of southern India's Tamil Nadu state, widely known as "Amma" or "Mother", had died at the age of 68.

"Our beloved leader, The Iron Lady of India ... is no more," tweeted her AIADMK party, the third-largest party in India's lower house of parliament in New Delhi.

Her death deprived her regional ruling party of its only charismatic leader, whose portrait adorned placards and posters around her home state and who was tipped as a possible future Indian prime minister.

Jayalalithaa had gone into cardiac arrest on Sunday night, the Apollo Hospital in Chennai said, following her admission with fever and dehydration in September.

Despite being resuscitated and put on life support, "her underlying conditions rendered her unable to recover and she passed away at 11:30 p.m.", the hospital said in a statement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the tributes, tweeting that Jayalalithaa's death had left a huge void in Indian politics.

"Jayalalithaa ji's connect with the citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women and marginalised will always be a source of inspiration," Modi said.
Mt. Greenwood Students Expelled For Racist Text Message Are Now Suing For $1M

By Stephen Gossett in News on Dec 6, 2016 4:47PM

Two students who were expelled from Marist High School in November after taking part in a racist text message exchange claim they were used as scapegoats in a lawsuit filed anonymously by the girls fathers, according to NBC Chicago and the Sun-Times.

The conversation was between 32 girls and it originated from a September religious retreat. The lawsuit reportedly alleges that the girls were promised whatever they said would be confidential. A screenshot that was widely shared on social media showed one girl saying I F------G HATE N-----S, another saying HAHAHAHA and a third replying same. The two girls who were suspended from Marist are white, according to the reports.

News of the leaked conversation followed a series of tense protests between Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter protesters in Mt. Greenwood, where Marist is located. Some members of the Blue Lives Matter-sympathetic crowd were heard shouting racial slurs and wielding racist signs. The demonstrations came on the heels of the controversial, fatal police-involved shooting of Joshua Beal.

The following Friday, Marist classes were cancelled, along with a scheduled demonstration protest that was to include a demonstration near the school, with each side citing safety concerns.

The suit alleges the two students were expelled without any formal disciplinary process, the Sun-Times reports, and Principal Larry Tucker and disciplinary dean Beth ONeill are both cited as defendants.

Marist released a statement on Nov. 7 that promised corrective measures would be taken in the incident. It read in part:



"This evening Marist High School was made aware of a racially charged post on social media involving Marist students. We are devastated by this situation. Disciplinary action is being taken. Marist is a diverse community, made better and stronger by that diversity. As a school community, we continually work so that each student feels welcome, valued, and safe."

According to the Sun-Times, the lawsuit seeks more than $1 million for invasion of privacy. Additionally, their fathers want the girls reinstated at the school or else reimbursed $65,000 each for tuition and school costs."
It often happens on Mondays. "I get calls from people who say 'I spent all weekend online trying to work out a trip and this is exactly what I need,'" said travel consultant Sheri Doyle, the Seattle-based owner of Pacific Northwest Journeys. Doyle, who specializes in creating itineraries for travelers heading to Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and beyond, finds that many of her clients are travelers frustrated by the overload of information on Expedia, TripAdvisor and other online travel sites and who want to be sure they are making good decisions about how to spend vacation days  and making good use of their time. More from NBC News:

This Company Sends Travelers to Unknown Destinations

Traveling Noire: Finding My Cuba Connection

Bathroom Contest Finds America is Flush With Thoughtful Thrones



"It's time versus money. A lot of people just don't have the time or the expertise to plan a trip and do it well," said Doyle, and they find value in paying a fee for the knowledge of someone who has actually stayed at the hotels, visited the sites and can negotiate good rates and extra perks. Travelers who have found occasion to turn from the web to an agent include Alyne Ellis, a writer and radio producer from Washington D.C. who was planning a trip to Rome, Venice, and Croatia with her husband, who had never been to Europe.

"We were overwhelmed with the logistics as we only had a few days in Rome and Venice and wanted to be near everything," said Ellis. With the help of an agent, "We stayed in some of the nicest places ever and they all seemed very local in their feeling, at our request," she said. Karen Wickre, an internet industry veteran and founder of KVOX Media, relies on a travel adviser who can "see competitive pricing and scheduling," when planning complex trips outside the U.S. On a two-week, multi-city visit to Spain and Portugal, Wickre and a friend figured chose the hotels and length of stays in each city, but turned to the agent to book flights, trains, and airport transfers. "All the travel documents and details were in one itinerary," said Wickre, "They even have an app we could look at along the way. And it was easy to pay one bill to the agent."



These experiences fit with the trend noted in a June 2016 report by the American Society of Travel Agents, which surveyed 14,000 U.S. households and found that, despite the rise of online travel agents (OTAs), in the previous year 22 percent of consumers booked through a travel agent, the highest share reported in the past three years. In its most recent Portrait of American Travelers survey, travel industry research and marketing firm MMGY found the use of travel agents at a six-year high, with more than 9 million U.S. travelers planning to call on a travel professional to help book a trip this year. "The higher the ticket price of the travel being purchased, the more likely they were to turn to a professional travel advisor," noted the Travel Market Report in its review of the study. "If anything, a good travel counselor is more relevant today than ever before," said Grayce Walters, a travel agent with Maupin Travel that has a storefront in Raleigh, North Carolina.

"Ten years ago we were worried about the internet and all the sites that were popping up, but I'm seeing a lot more people  especially young people  who come to us when planning big trips," said Walters. "Sometimes people say, 'I can do it myself,' but then they get into it, it gets complicated and they call me and are happy to pay a fee. When I save them money on the overall trip, I get a customer for life." Jack Ezon, a luxury leisure travel consultant with Ovation Travel, calls that the boomerang effect. "There's so much information out there that it makes it more difficult to do your own research now. So we serve as matchmakers, listening to clients, and finding what's right for them," said Ezon.
Police investigators inspect the body of an unidentified victim on November 10, 2016 in Pasay city, Philippines. Jes Aznar | Getty Images

Norberto Maderal and George Avancena made a fatal choice on the afternoon of October 19, the Philippine police say. The two pedicab drivers drew their guns in a slum in northern Manila and "tried to open fire" at plainclothes officers posing as drug buyers, according to the police report into their killings. The officers defended themselves, resulting in what the report called "the instantaneous death of the suspects." Dante Novicio, the police chief of Navotas City, told Reuters his men shot the pair "almost simultaneously." Maderal, 42, and Avancena, 33, are casualties in President Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs." Police say that 2,004 people have been shot and killed by officers in self-defense during anti-drug operations since the president took office on July 1. When the police open fire in Duterte's war, the suspects almost always die. Reuters reviewed 42 drug-related shooting incidents involving the police in the Manila region covered by its journalists, as well as another 9 cases investigated in the same area by the government-funded Philippines' Commission on Human Rights. In these combined 51 cases, police officers killed a total of 100 suspects and wounded just three. Of the three people who were shot but survived in these cases, two played dead and the third was arrested as he tried to flee the scene. The kill ratio is much higher than in countries with comparable drug-related violence. The Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, where police have been accused of extrajudicial killings in a bloody crime crackdown, pales next to the Philippines under Duterte. For every five people the Rio police killed between 2013 and 2015, they injured one person, according to a Human Rights Watch report in July.

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In the Philippine cases examined by Reuters and CHR, the police killed 97 percent of those they shot - 33 dead for every person wounded. A Philippine police spokesman said that no national statistics are available for injured drug suspects. The figures pose a powerful challenge to the official narrative that the Philippines police are only killing drug suspects in self-defense. These statistics and other evidence amassed by Reuters point in the other direction: that police are pro-actively gunning down suspects. 'I prayed to God' Eyewitnesses interviewed for this article often contradicted the police version of events. Norberto Maderal's nephew told Reuters that his uncle was unarmed - and that he heard Maderal begging for his life before the police began shooting. Efren Morillo, one of the rare survivors of a police raid, said he too was unarmed when an officer, standing a few feet away, shot him through the chest. As Morillo lay bleeding, feigning death, officers began shooting his companions. "I prayed to God to let me live," he said. Asked why almost every police drug encounter ended with the suspect being killed, Derrick Carreon, spokesman for the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, chuckled: "I guess some cops are just good at shooting. They're probably good shots." Further stretching the plausibility of official statements, a review of police reports shows that officers often give remarkably similar accounts each time a suspect is shot dead. In their reports, officers describe the typical victim as an alleged user or small-time dealer in a poor neighborhood. The attempt by undercover police to catch the suspect dealing drugs - a so-called "buy-bust" operation - quickly goes wrong. The suspect panics, draws a weapon and starts shooting. The police return deadly fire. Found on the victim's corpse is a .38 caliber revolver, often without a serial number, and plastic sachets of what police reports call "a white crystalline substance suspected to be shabu." Shabu is the street name for crystal methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug that Duterte's government has blamed for most of the serious crime in the Philippines. Police crime-scene investigations and autopsies, meanwhile, are opaque and perfunctory. CHR investigators say that under Duterte they have had to subpoena police forensics units to get access to full autopsies and forensic reports. The secretiveness has fueled suspicion among bereaved families and human rights monitors that guns and drugs are planted on suspects at crime scenes.

To Jun Nalangan, a special investigator at CHR, the pattern of evidence points to murder. "The police report says there is a gun battle or a firefight," he said. "In our investigations, there is no such thing. Instead of drug bust operations, they are conducting extrajudicial killings." Less deadly for police In the poor neighborhoods targeted by Duterte, many people interpret the police force's apparent freedom to kill without consequence as proof of a nationwide shoot-to-kill policy. While more than 1,500 anti-drug operations have come under investigation by the police force's Internal Affairs Service (IAS) since the start of Duterte's drug war, no officers have been dismissed from the force for misconduct, an IAS official said. Senior police officials say that IAS investigates all killings by officers. Chief Superintendent Leo Angelo Leuterio, the policeman who ran IAS until recently, told Reuters he was reluctant to prosecute officers while his country needed "warm bodies in the field" to fight the drug war.

For the police, the shootouts are far less deadly. Police say 17 officers have died in anti-drug operations across the country since July 1. That means one officer has died for every 118 suspects killed. In Rio, for every officer who died in 2015, 24.8 people were killed by police, a rate more than double that of South Africa and triple that of the United States, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

A relative of a victim of extrajudicial killings mourns during a mass offered for all the victims of extra judicial killings, at a church in Manila on November 23, 2016. Ted Aljibe | AFP | Getty Images

President Duterte has denied that the police are conducting extrajudicial killings. At the same time, he has welcomed the mounting death toll. In September, he said he'd be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts.

Duterte also has signaled to the police that they can act with impunity. In the run-up to the May presidential election, he said he would pardon members of the security forces - and himself - if they committed human rights abuses while fighting crime. "Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for the crime of multiple murder, signed Rodrigo Duterte," he told a group of business people in Manila in April. In a statement to Reuters, the Presidential Communications Office said Duterte hasn't given the police license to kill drug dealers, but officers have a right to defend themselves when their lives are in danger. "The drug war is not child's play," the statement said. In one key area, the police do depart from Duterte's stated game plan. The president and his senior officials routinely warn that "drug lords" will be taken down. So far, almost all the victims have been poor, like Maderal and Avancena, the two pedicab drivers who were shot dead by police in Navotas City in October. Quivering with shock Maderal's nephew, Joemari Rodriguez, and other family members shared a house in North Bay Boulevard South, a district of teeming slums and trash-choked waterways in Navotas City. Reuters interviewed Rodriguez at the scene, less than two hours after the killings. Rodriguez said he believes police executed his uncle but is too scared to lodge a complaint. "They might come back for me," he told Reuters outside the house. Still quivering with shock, he said three plainclothes men barged into their home and dragged his uncle into the living room. "They didn't say who they were," said Rodriguez, 24, a medical technician. Rodriguez said a man pushed him into his room and the door was held shut from the outside. Rodriguez couldn't see what happened next but said he could clearly hear his uncle pleading for his life. "He was begging them, 'Sir, please!'" he said. Then came two shots.

Minutes later, Rodriguez emerged from his room to find the men gone and his uncle slumped in a puddle of blood. "There was a gun in his hand," said Rodriguez. "I don't know where he got this." He said his uncle was a drug user, but didn't own a gun and hadn't fought back. Within five minutes of the shooting, said Rodriguez, uniformed police arrived to seal off the scene. Then, five to 10 minutes later, Rodriguez heard two more shots. He said this was when George Avancena, a friend of Maderal who was hiding in a back room, was shot. Two neighbors - Ruby Miradora, 49, a street sweeper, and Norminda Barbo, 38, a housewife - echoed Rodriguez's account. They said they had heard two gunshots and then, 10 to 15 minutes later - after uniformed police had arrived - two more shots. A familiar pattern The killings of Maderal and Avancena followed a familiar pattern described by eyewitnesses. Gunmen in civilian clothes burst into a home without identifying themselves. Suspects are moved away from relatives and other potential witnesses to a secluded spot or a different room, then shot dead by police. Many families also say the victims couldn't have fought back because they didn't own guns. Dante Novicio, the Navotas City police chief, told Reuters he stood by his officers' claim that Maderal and Avancena were armed and were shot moments apart. Contradictory accounts were "allegations to confuse the result of the investigation" and discredit his men, he said. Maderal and Avancena are two of 18 people police say they have killed in anti-drug operations in North Bay Boulevard South. An additional 14 bodies have been found in the district, most of them near C-3 bridge, a local dumping ground for victims.

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The killings are part of a vast anti-drug campaign whose impact has been felt nationwide. Police say they have arrested more than 38,000 people. And over 800,000 drug users and pushers have registered with the authorities, a process known as "surrendering."

In addition to the 2,004 drug suspects killed by officers, police are investigating another 3,060 deaths, though it isn't clear how many of those are drug-related. Human rights monitors believe many of these people were killed by vigilantes operating with the backing of police - a charge the police and the government deny. The police version of the August 21 shooting of Efren Morillo and four others in another poor Manila neighborhood closely follows the pattern of other killings. The police report says that the suspects opened fire, and that four guns and shabu were found at the scene. But there was one difference: Morillo survived. The 28-year-old fruit vendor played dead until the police left.

Morillo said in an interview that he was standing only three paces from the police officer who shot him in the chest. He collapsed. A friend fell dead beside him, blood spewing from his mouth and head. Nearby, he said, police killed three other companions. That night, said Morillo, only the police had guns. The officers appeared relaxed when they arrived. Two were carrying fighting cocks in baskets. "This is the police!" one of the officers joked. "No one run! Our fighting cocks might get squished." Morillo said he has no criminal record or involvement with drugs. Even as he was being led around the back of his friend's shack by the police, Morillo thought the worst that could happen was that he would be photographed and arrested.

Then the police started shooting. Morillo was hit first and collapsed into a chair. Pretending to be dead, he said, he heard three of his companions outside crying before they were shot. 'Dagger looks' The police left. Holding his shirt to his wounds, Morillo slid down a nearby hill, waded across a creek and then struggled up the other bank, where he chanced upon a friend who drove him to a clinic. In an interview at CHR headquarters in Manila in early November, he lifted his shirt to reveal his scarred chest. The bullet that passed through him missed his heart and lungs. He said his family had sold their home to pay his medical bills and other expenses. When the police discovered he was still alive, they pressed charges against him for assaulting a police officer. He turned to the Commission on Human Rights, which is helping defend him. Fearing for his life, he rarely goes outside and has stopped working. A daily CHR stipend of 150 pesos, about three dollars, isn't enough to feed his two sons, aged 8 and 9, he said. Morillo must also face his alleged attackers in court; one of them, he said, had shot him "dagger looks" during his first court hearing.

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The most outspoken opponent of Duterte's crackdown, Senator Leila de Lima, says the drug busts are designed to be lethal. "These operations are not meant to just apprehend or arrest the drug suspects but really to liquidate them," she said in an interview.

At an August Senate inquiry, de Lima, a former justice secretary, quizzed national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa about the killings. At that time, police had killed 756 suspects. "All resisted arrest?" asked an incredulous de Lima. "Yes, they resisted," replied Dela Rosa. "Otherwise, they are alive today," he added. His response provoked disbelieving laughter. In November, the National Bureau of Investigation charged de Lima with involvement in the illegal drug trade at a national jail. De Lima called the charges "trumped up," part of a harassment campaign by Duterte and his allies. The mounting death toll is putting pressure on the police force's forensics unit, the Scene of Crime Operatives (SOCO). Officers routinely work 24-hour or even 48-hour shifts, its chief, Reynaldo Calaoa, told Reuters. From the moment a suspect is shot to the time the funeral parlor gives his or her body to the family for the wake, SOCO controls almost every process by which forensic evidence is gathered. Signs of 'tattooing' Forensic evidence can be vital in determining whether cops or witnesses are telling the truth. But in the Philippines, police forensic scientists are underfunded and overwhelmed, and the evidence they produce is hard for CHR investigators to access. The crime laboratory at the police headquarters at Camp Crame in Manila has only two dissection tables and no cold storage for bodies, SOCO said. It also lacks an X-ray machine to scan corpses for bullet fragments. Instead, SOCO performs most of its autopsies at police-accredited but privately owned funeral parlors, which act as both official morgues and crime labs. The funeral parlor then embalms the body before it is given to the family for the wake. SOCO autopsies are mandatory and usually take place at the funeral parlor within hours of the body's arrival. The full autopsy reports are not released to the families. CHR investigators told Reuters they had to subpoena SOCO to get full autopsies, even though CHR is a government agency. Those autopsies are potentially damning, as a killing in the first week of Duterte's campaign suggests. Police said they shot dead Conrado Berona, 36, who was wanted for robbery and drug dealing, in a gunfight on July 6, and that shabu was found on his body. But a CHR investigation into his death, reviewed by Reuters, noted that the bullet wound in Berona's chest showed "tattooing." This distinctive skin abrasion is caused by partially burned or unburned gunpowder and indicates the victim was shot at close range.

In its report, based in part on sworn witness testimony, CHR found that "the alleged shootout never happened," and that Berona was unarmed and surrendering when plainclothes and uniformed police shot him. CHR said it recommended filing criminal and administrative cases against the police who killed Berona.

SOCO medical-legal officer Jane Monzon told Reuters she had seen evidence of tattooing in four victims of police buy-bust operations in Manila. She declined to say more. SOCO's chief, Reynaldo Calaoa, said his agency is not tracking close-range shootings. Prison cell shooting SOCO came under scrutiny in November in the shooting of one of the few high-profile people targeted in the anti-drug crackdown. On November 5, Rolando Espinosa, a mayor from central Leyte Province, was shot and killed in his prison cell. A fellow prisoner, Raul Yap, was also killed in what police said was a shootout. Earlier, Duterte had put Espinosa's name on a list of top drug suspects. The mayor, who denied involvement in narcotics, was arrested on October 5 on drugs and firearms charges. Police said Espinosa and Yap fired at a police team that had come to search their cells for guns and drugs. Police returned fire and killed them. A Senate hearing on November 10 into the mayor's death found that the police team had summoned SOCO crime-scene investigators about 40 minutes before entering the prison, according to an affidavit from an officer at a police operations center. Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief who co-led the hearing, likened this to phoning a funeral parlor before a shoot-out. He said the call suggested Espinosa's killing was "premeditated."

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A police spokesman said a preliminary investigation showed operational procedures had not been followed, and a number of officers have been confined to police headquarters while the investigation continues.

The shooting followed the familiar pattern. Police said they recovered two guns from Yap's and Espinosa's cells. Drug paraphernalia and a small sachet of suspected shabu were also found inside Espinosa's cell, police said. Signs of torture Angela Lafuente has been trying to get hold of SOCO's autopsy report for her brother Angelo, who was murdered in August after witnesses said he was detained by police. She believes it could prove that police were involved in his gruesome death. During his election campaign, Duterte vowed to dump the corpses of criminals into Manila Bay and "fatten all the fish there." Angelo Lafuente didn't make it as far as the water. According to Navotas City police records, Lafuente's body was found on August 19 at about 3.20 a.m. next to a filthy river that feeds into the bay under C-3 bridge. His corpse was riddled with bullets and covered with what his family said were signs of torture - deep cuts and cigarette burns. The deaths of Lafuente and two companions cast doubt on police claims that they have nothing to do with these killings. Two eyewitnesses said Lafuente, 22, was last seen alive in police custody on August 18, about 12 hours before his body was found. Police, including a SWAT team, had swept through his squatter settlement, a dense jumble of shacks near Navotas fishmarket. The operation, according to police records, turned deadly when police shot and killed three other men who opened fire or tried to open fire on them. When police arrived that afternoon, Lafuente ran, said his sister Angela. Running with him was a cousin, Renato Forio, 26, and another local known only as Benjie, also in his early to mid-twenties. Angela and other residents say the three young men were caught by police near the main road that runs past the settlement. Standing in a crowd on the other side of the road, Angela said she saw men in plainclothes bundle her brother, Forio and Benjie into a marked police van. Elisa Martinez, 59, a local resident, was standing closer to the police van. She saw three young men emerge from the van, their hands tied behind their backs. She told Reuters they were put onto motorbikes ridden by masked men in civilian clothes, and driven away. 'Gunshot wounds, head and trunk' Angela went to the station to look for Lafuente, Forio and Benjie. She didn't find them. She returned home. Around 2 a.m., a neighbor told her that three bodies had been discovered. "We knew then that Angelo was dead," she said. His body was found with Benjie's by C-3 bridge. According to Angelo Lafuente's death certificate, the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to the "head, trunk (and) right lower extremity." Forio's body was found outside a nearby school, also around 3.20 a.m., according to police records. Cause of death: "Gunshot wounds, head and trunk."

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Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate which runs the Alipay payments service, announced partnerships with European banks on Tuesday as it continues to expand in the region.

The deals with BNP Paribas, Barclays , UniCredit , and SIX Payment Services will allow an additional 930,000 merchants to start accepting Alipay if they wish to do so, the company claimed.

Ant Financial runs China's biggest payments service, Alipay, which has a total of 450 million active users and processes 170 million transactions per day. The expansion into Europe is aimed at Chinese users traveling abroad. Alipay is deeply ingrained in the lives of Chinese consumers and is used to pay for items in-store and online, for goods and services ranging from taxis to restaurants and clothing.

The partnership with BNP Paribas will allow Alipay payments to be facilitated via the bank's merchant network in France and later in Europe. With Barclays, Alipay will be able to tap the U.K. market. SIX is a payment service provider that will help Alipay expand onto e-commerce platforms and in-store across Europe. And UniCredit will aid Alipay in launching the payment service in Italy next year.

Alipay first expanded into Europe in October 2015 in Germany and has since been working on getting merchants using its platform. The payments service is now available to use in locations such as famous London department store Harrods and Munich airport. Users can also process tax refunds via the app in 23 European countries.

Ant Financial said that at the end of the third quarter of 2016, excluding mainland China, it had a network of close to 100,000 retailers in 70 countries and regions.
The New York Post on Monday called Amazon 's register-less shopping experiment, Amazon Go, the "next major job killer" in the latest doomsday headline for retail workers.

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On Monday, the retail giant announced a new advanced supermarket where shoppers can grab items and go without waiting in checkout lines. Once customers leave the store, items are billed to their Amazon.com accounts.

Following the announcement, reports by Quartz and The Wall Street Journal declared the experimental store might signal the end of "millions of cashier jobs." The New York Post's front page story on Tuesday called the store "the end of jobs."

 CNBC's Anita Balakrishnan contributed to this report.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect when the NY Post story calling Amazon Go the "next major job killer" was published.
President-elect Donald Trump unexpectedly started negotiating with Boeing over the price of a new Air Force One on Tuesday morning.



First over Twitter , Trump threatened to cancel the order for a new Air Force One, which would be used for future presidents. He said the cost of the new 747 was more than $4 billion.

Then in the Trump Tower lobby, the president-elect amplified his message.

"Well the plane is totally out of control, it's going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program," he said. "I think it's ridiculous, I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."



In January, Boeing won a contract to start preliminary work on a new Air Force One program. The Air Force awarded Boeing an initial contract worth nearly $26 million to reduce risk and lower cost, Reuters reported. The Air Force has previously said that it planned $1.65 billion for two replacement jets, Reuters reported.



Noting that the current Air Force One is 25 years old, a source familiar with the Boeing Air Force One contract told CNBC that if the program does not move forward, it could be years before the president ever flies on a new one.



In a statement, Boeing said: "We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the President of the United States. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer."

According to the Department of Defense budget there's about $2.8 billion dollars allotted on the project until fiscal 2021. The document didn't put a total figure on the cost. The figure was marked as "continuing" under cost to complete. The Government Accountability Office said last year the cost could be about $3.2 billion, NBC News reported. It added by the time the aircraft is delivered it could be over $4 billion.

When asked by reporters about the money already spent by Boeing, Trump said, "They've got to work that out."

The White House said on Tuesday some of the statistics cited by Trump on Air Force One don't appear to reflect arrangements between Boeing and the Department of Defense, and Americans would expect future presidents would benefit from upgrades.

Before Trump's tweet, Boeing was trading at $152.16 a share. After the tweet, it fell, as much as 1 percent, but later recovered those losses and ended the session about flat.

In Trump's 2016 financial disclosure, filed in May, he listed owning $50,001 to $100,000 of Boeing shares and listed the income from those dividends at $1,001 to $2,500. Trump's spokesperson Jason Miller reportedly said the president-elect sold all of his Boeing stock back in June.



Last month, a report said that Trump can get paid for Secret Service agents that fly on his plane.

The stock is up more than 5 percent year to date.
Long known for its porcelain ware produced in the kilns of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Central China's Henan province is now set to hold a ceramics biennale.

Henan Museum will host the Central China International Ceramics Biennale starting from Friday. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Starting on Friday, the Central China International Ceramics Biennale, considered the first of its kind in the country, will unveil the beauty of these delicate objects. The show will be held at Henan Museum in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, and feature some 800 porcelain pieces, including modern items and antiques from China and Italy.

Many exhibits from other countries are also expected to be on display. An exhibition titled Cont (r) act Earth will showcase wares, sculptures, installations and videos by 42 artists from 20 countries.

The biennale, which runs through March 12, will also hold three other events.

Xu Rui, deputy director of the biennale preparation office and a researcher at the Henan Museum, says at a recent news conference in Beijing that half of the artworks have been specially made for the exhibition. Some foreign artists have spent months in Henan to create their pieces, which are inspired by local traditional architecture and ancient figurines that are part of the collections at Henan Museum.

The exhibition will show about 500 contemporary art pieces made of clay to reveal the relationship between humans and nature, as well as the individual and society.

"Ceramics is an old art form across the world. It is not easy to transform it into contemporary art," Wang Huangsheng, a member of the biennale's art committee, says at the Beijing event.

When it comes to ceramics in China, people either associate it with antique ware or Jingdezhen, in East China's Jiangxi province, which is often called the "porcelain capital", he says.

But Henan has had a long relationship with the material as well.
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This time, the "get tough on China" talk could be more than empty rhetoric  and leaders in Beijing may even recognize some of the tactics Donald Trump plans to use against them. The president-elect is showing a willingness to try to shape U.S. trade with China in ways that are politically more direct than previous administrations have been willing to discuss. On Sunday, he threatened  again  to use steep, blanket tariffs to stem imports into the United States. He has repeatedly declared that exports should be a priority for U.S.-based companies, and has promised a tax structure that will help make them happen. His willingness to wield political influence over business matters isn't limited to trade. Over the last week, Trump has shown he isn't afraid to lean directly on U.S. companies that aren't behaving as he wants. On Tuesday morning, he used Twitter to pressure Boeing to charge less for a new Air Force One. On Friday, he promised "retribution" against firms that fire employees or build factories overseas.

"I was in Beijing a week ago, and at one point I said to an audience of government officials, it's going to be very interesting for you to work with an American leader who admires a lot of what you guys do," said Ian Bremmer, a closely watched political scientist and founder of consulting firm Eurasia Group. When the officials showed surprise at Bremmer's remark, he explained what he meant: "When you say, 'Jump' to a company, they ask, 'How high?' Trump would love that." Representatives from the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to emails from CNBC requesting comment.



I think a lot of the long-standing assumptions have been undermined by what's happened in China. They're not becoming more liberal. Robert Manning senior fellow, Atlantic Council

Neither Bremmer nor anyone else expects the U.S. economy to start mimicking China, where 20 to 25 percent of GDP comes from state-controlled companies whose primary purpose isn't even to make profits but to advance Beijing's political goals such as maintaining employment. But "we're entering an era where I wouldn't be surprised to see the U.S. government being less shy about applying state power to achieve what it sees as the national interest," said John Minnich, senior Asia-Pacific analyst at consulting firm Stratfor. The dynamic between the two countries is changing. For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have said that the best way to encourage a more open China was for the U.S. to just keep trading with the country and drawing it into the global economy. The hope was that eventually, China's tremendous market would become as open to U.S. companies and investment as the U.S. is to Chinese imports and investment.

But that hasn't been happening, especially over the last few years. "I think a lot of the long-standing assumptions have been undermined by what's happened in China. They're not becoming more liberal," said Robert Manning, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. In fact, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who took power in 2012, has rolled back many of the trade and currency reforms that his predecessor began. Trump showed that American workers have lost their patience with China, if they ever had it. Trump appealed to voters in struggling manufacturing regions largely by saying he would impose restrictions on imports from China, especially in the form of tariffs. "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing," Trump told excited crowds at an Indiana rally in June, referring to the trade deficit with China. Such language was the norm for then-candidate Trump, who has said repeatedly that Beijing's heavy state influence on its economy is "killing" the United States.

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Trump certainly is not the only person suggesting creative ways to counter China's unfair trade practices. A June paper from the nonpartisan American Security Project, for instance, suggested using U.S. antitrust law to level the playing field against China's biggest industries, which are part of a "single country-wide State syndicate."

"There's definitely this idea that state capitalism in China gives them a negotiating advantage" on trade matters, Bremmer said. "When the United States tries to negotiate, they get undercut by companies that are inherently unpatriotic, because of their fiduciary responsibilities" to investors. "And Trump wants to change that."



The power of the American president is not absolute. There's a serious amount of pushback that he will get from important people, including from some people's he's appointed to posts. Ian Bremmer president, Eurasia Group
European bourses closed higher Tuesday as concerns over political instability eased and investors focused on the upcoming meeting of the

European markets



The pan-European Stoxx 600 was 0.9 percent higher by the close of trade with financial services stocks among the worst performing sectors after the U.K. financial watchdog announced stricter rules. The Financial Conduct Authority proposed on Tuesday new rules for firms selling CFD (contract for difference) products after 82 percent of clients lost money on such investments. The announcement caused shares of IG Group to plunge and the company ended 38 percent lower. Meanwhile in the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average opened was fractionally lower setting record highs in the previous session yet again in a remarkable run since President-elect Donald Trump's victory.

Elections as early as February

Meanwhile, the Italian index recovered on Tuesday to close 4.15 percent higher despite ongoing political and financial concerns.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has agreed to delay his resignation until the country's 2017 budget is approved, easing the risks of early snap elections following the government's defeat in a referendum. A general election could be triggered as early as February according to Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who reportedly told the Corriere della Serra newspaper that he forecast an election to be held as soon as the second month of 2017. Italy is preparing a state bailout for Monte dei Paschi di Siena as the lender's hopes of being saved by private funding faded following Renzi's decision to quit, according to Reuters sources. Shares of the bank were trading in negative territory for most of the day wiped out all losses to close 1.18 percent higher.

Elsewhere, Actelion shares closed 0.54 percent higher on reports that the French drugmaker Sanofi is preparing a bid for the Swiss company.
Michel Barnier during a news conference after a meeting of EU finance ministers at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

The top Brexit negotiator for the European Union has slapped an 18-month time limit on deal talks with the United Kingdom.

Speaking in Brussels, Michel Barnier said with all process of ratification needed to be complete by March 2019, terms of the deal would need to be resolved by October 2018.

These timescales make the assumption that The United Kingdom triggers the Article 50 process in March next year, as has previously been suggested by U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.

"It is clear that the period of actual negotiations will be shorter than two years," Barnier said Tuesday, in his first press conference since taking the role as the EU's broker.

Shortly after the press conference ended a spokesperson for the U.K. Prime Minister said the British government did not want to extend negotiations beyond the two-year limit.
A rendering of the Station F campus Station F

Facebook has joined a raft of major European venture capital firms and companies on the world's largest start-up campus which is based in Paris and backed by French billionaire Xavier Niel. The campus, to be called Station F, will be housed in a 34,000 square meter former freight station that dates back to the 1920s. It will house up to 1,000 start-ups. Other major start-up campuses in the world include RocketSpace's area in San Francisco which has housed around 750 start-ups since opening in 2011, as well as a hub in Hyderabad, India, which will aim to incubate 5,000 start-ups over five years when it opens in 2018. Roxanne Varza, the project's director, told CNBC on Monday that Station F will begin taking applications for start-ups and announced Facebook as a company that would be present on the campus. Varza was not able to provide more details about Facebook's role, but said the company will give further details in the coming weeks. Station F also announced that top venture capital funds Daphni, Ventech and Kima Ventures will have their offices on-site. Online retailer Vente-Privee is also running a start-up program on site.

Station F is still under construction. The building will open to the public in April 2017. Sophie Robichon | Station F

The campus will have over 3,000 desks, a number of private offices and meeting rooms, and a 360-person auditorium for events. It will also host a 1,000-seater restaurant and bar open 24 hours a day to the public. Start-ups pay 195 euros per desk per month and are not tied into a contract. A company wanting to be on the campus can apply, with application reviewed by a team at Station F. Varza told CNBC that the start-ups need a minimum of a proof of concept of their product, and Station F will assess various criteria such as whether the company has been funded. "I am hoping it will have a huge impact," Varza told CNBC in a phone interview on Monday. "The reason Xavier wanted to build this is he could see lots of small players in Europe and Paris doing well, but nothing huge. He is famous with doing huge projects. And I think this is also one of the benefits of the space is finding these different components under the same roof." Station F will also open a co-living space ten minutes away from the main campus that will be able to house 600 entrepreneurs. It is set to open in 2018. "Housing in Paris is complicated and Niel is noticing in terms of pricing and paperwork it is not adapted to the needs of students. He wanted to make it adaptable for those entrepreneurs. It is very ambitious project," Varza said.



International project
Political uncertainty across Europe, such as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's resounding referendum defeat over constitutional reform , could push the European Central Bank (ECB) to start buying Greek debt as part of its trillion-euro bond-buying program, according to an economist.

Finance ministers from across the Eurozone met in Brussels on Monday and reached an agreement to provide some debt relief for Greece although, perhaps most notably, it was unclear whether or not the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would commit to a bailout program.

"In our view, the deal is not sufficient to bring Greek public debt on a sustainable footing but political uncertainty might mean the ECB is inclined to include Greek debt (after) a successful second review," Florian Baier, economist with Fathom Consulting told CNBC in a phone interview on Tuesday.

"The bigger picture though is the IMF, it is crucial for Greece. I mean, maintaining political support from Germany and Netherlands is so important with elections coming up next year in both countries."

The IMF was hesitant to sign up to the Greek bailout deal in 2015, saying it could only do so if this proved to be the final payment and there was some form of debt relief for the stricken country. Athens has received three bailout packages from the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank in six years.
If your state exports goods and services to China or Mexico, you may want to pay closer attention to President-elect Donald Trump's latest pronouncements on global trade.



Anti-free-trade sentiment helped propel Trump to victory, and he's not waiting until he gets to the White House to demonstrate what his administration's trade policy might look like. He's already used his new bully pulpit to convince air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier to scale back announced job cuts as part of a shift in manufacturing to Mexico.

It's not clear how far Trump plans to go in singling out specific companies to try to influence their offshoring decisions, but he demonstrated again on Tuesday his penchant for bypassing government agencies and procedures by threatening to cancel a $4 billion government order with Boeing for a new Air Force One.

"Well, the plane is totally out of control, it's going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program," he said. "I think it's ridiculous, I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."



In a statement, Boeing said the project is in the planning stages and that the company "look(s) forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer."

Beyond pressing individual companies directly, Trump has promised broader policies that could restrict the flow of exports that U.S. companies heavily depend on.

One of Trump's signature campaign pledges, for example, included repealing or overhauling the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, the two top U.S. trade partners.

"We will either renegotiate it or we will break it," Trump said last fall, calling it "a disaster. Every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair."

Trump has also vowed to raise tariffs on Mexico and China. Those higher tariffs would almost certainly cut into U.S. exports, which represent about $2 trillion, or roughly one-eighth of the nation's gross domestic product.



But that impact varies widely from one U.S. state to another, with West Coast states more heavily reliant on Chinese markets and border states seeing the biggest demand from Mexico.

After decades of liberalized trade deals and lower tariffs helped boost import and export traffic around the world, the engine of global trade is slowing. That's one reason the overall pace of the global economic growth remains relatively weak.

That wave of globalization has also produced a backlash  from American voters who've lost their jobs to British voters who voted in June to reclaim their independence from the European Union.


A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day.

STOCKS/ECONOMY

-Stock futures are flat after another record high close for the Dow Monday. We get the trade deficit figures for November later this morning and that's a number that suddenly might become more important to the markets in the Donald Trump era.

OIL/ENERGY



-U.S.crude prices are down about 1 percent to the $51 a barrel level. Gasoline prices rose overnight to $2.18 a gallon, national average.

-The Trump team is vowing to quickly review the Obama administration's decision to block the Dakota Access pipeline.
Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II and Matt Smith as Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown a Netflix Original

Netflix has become the top grossing iPhone app in the U.S. for the first time, driven by a change that allowed users to subscribe to the streaming service on their mobiles, according to a report released Monday.

In September 2015, Netflix introduced a feature for Apple users allowing them to sign up to the service through the app rather than via the website.

This has helped it gradually get to the top of the rankings, a report by app data company SensorTower showed. Since in-app purchases were introduced, weekly net revenue has grown from less than $50,000 to nearly $2.9 million.

Monthly iOS revenue for Netflix in the U.S. has been increasing at an average of 19 percent per month since last November, SensorTower said. Over the same period, monthly iOS revenue for rival service Hulu in the U.S. increased an average of 3 percent per month.

Netflix has been focusing on growing its mobile product as it continues to push for new users. Last month, the company introduced a download feature to allow users to watch certain shows offline.

In its third-quarter earnings, Netflix said that it had gained 370,000 net memberships in the U.S. and 3.2 million internationally, a total of 3.57 million, beating the 2.3 million the company forecast. This helped quell investor concerns of a continued slowdown in subscriber growth for the company.

Netflix also occupies the number one grossing spot on iPhone in India, Mexico, and Colombia.
The online trader IG Group was the worst performing stock on the pan-European Stoxx 600 on Tuesday morning, losing more than 30 percent of its value, after regulators proposed tougher regulations on some financial products.

Shares of other online trading firms, such as Plus 500 and CMC Markets were also significantly lower after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it would introduce tougher regulation on firms selling CFD (contract for difference) products.

CFDs are complex financial instruments that enable speculation on rising and falling prices of currencies, commodities, indices, treasuries and shares. There are fears that retail clients don't know what they are getting themselves into, with 82 percent losing money on CFD contracts, according to the FCA.

"We have serious concerns that an increasing number of retail clients are trading in CFD products without an adequate understanding of the risks involved, and as a result can incur rapid, large and unexpected losses," Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA, said in a statement.

The financial watchdog "is not banning these products. There are certainly investors who know how to handle them and how to use them, and can take a chance and balance the risks," John Gieve, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, told CNBC on Tuesday, adding that the regulator does need to "watch out" for how these are carried out.

"It's very difficult for people in the financial sector to realize how little is understood about finance among the greater population," Gieve said.
The 2016 Chinese and Foreign Postdoctoral Institution Seminar will be held from Dec. 11 to 12 in Hengqin New Area of Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. More than 150 distinguished guests from Chinaand abroad are expected to discuss the development of the postdoctoral institution during the seminar.

The seminar attendees include delegates from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (CPSF), the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, Sun Yat-Sen University, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the US National Science Foundation, the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

They will discuss the following topics: characteristics and problems of postdoctoral development;service and interest protection of postdoctoralresearchers;enrollment,development and usage of postdoctoral systems;and comparison of Chinese and foreign postdoctoral systems.

The postdoctoral research and working station in Hengqin New Area is the first of its kind in China's Free Trade Zones. Since its opening last year, Hengqin has set up four branches of the station in ZDTDC, Zhuhai Titans Power Electronics Company and Guangdong-Macau Traditional Chinese Medicine Technology Industrial Park Development Company.

The Hengqin government also issued a series of policies to attract postdoctoralresearchersto set upnew businesses or start new projects in the new area. For example, the government made an administrative rule forpostdoctoralresearchers in Hengqin in September, according to which, the postdoctoral researchers can receive subsidies and awards for their research and work in Hengqin. The winner of the national-level prize can receive as muchas 5 million yuan's (US$746,000) award from the Hengqin government.

Ye Zhen, vice-Party chief of Hengqin, said the postdoctoral is expected to build a bridge between Hengqin and higher education and research institutes, so as to promote the integrating of research, studies and industries and improve the enterprises' innovation ability.

The seminar is hosted by the office of the leading team of the postdoctoral research and working station in Hengqin, sponsored by Zhuhai Da Hengqin Technology Development Company (ZDTDC), and supported by the National Postdoctoral Administrative Committee Office and CPSF.

Before the seminar, CPSF's training class and 2016 National Postdoctoral Academic Forum will be held in Hengqin from Dec. 9 to 10.
Sprint shares surged after majority owner SoftBank announced a deal to invest $50 billion in the U.S., aiming to create 50,000 jobs.

Donald Trump announced the deal after meeting with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, a Japanese billionaire and technology investor, at Trump Tower in New York.

The stock climbed as much as 6 percent, quickly trading more than twice its 30-day average volume as more than 52.7 million shares changed hands. Sprint shares later pared those gains, ending the session about 1.5 percent higher on the day.

Shares of T-Mobile gained 2 percent in sympathy, also passing its 30-day average volume as more than 7.5 million shares changed hands in afternoon trade. The stock ended the session slightly below those levels, but still gained about 1.8 percent.

In August, Bloomberg reported that Son was still eyeing T-Mobile and would still like to merge it with Sprint. In 2014, the Japanese billionaire considered buying T-Mobile, but dropped the effort once U.S. officials signaled they would be against the potential merger.

Both stocks have done well this year. With Tuesday's gains, T-Mobile shares have gained 43 percent so far, while Sprint shares have rocketed an eye-popping 125 percent.

 CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
Recent online photos showed that painting is underway on China's first domestically made aircraft carrier, supporting earlier rumors that the vessel would be launched "as soon as the middle of December." But military expert Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo expressed different opinions.

Recent online photos showed that painting is underway on China's first domestically made aircraft carrier, supporting earlier rumors that the vessel would be launched "as soon as the middle of December."

The photos showed that the red-color anti-rust coating is being painted on the hull, an important layer of the painting.

Commenting on the rumors, Yin said that the complex painting process would put the estimated time of launch at "the beginning of 2017 at the earliest." He said the paints are different for the parts above waterline and those beneath it.

"It's a fairly complex technical activity. We'll do it according to scientific rules, instead of rushing off; otherwise we risk rolling it again after the ship is launched," said Yin.

A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Defense (MOD), Senior Colonel Yang Yujun, said on November 30 at a routine press conference that there was no more information to give apart from that the aircraft carrier's construction was in orderly progress.

"I don't know the details about the painting. If possible, I personally would like to go to the construction site to have a look and come back with an answer," said Sr. Col. Yang.

Earlier in October, Col. Wu Qian, another MOD spokesperson, said that the main hull of China's first domestically made aircraft carrier had been completed, and the bridge as well as various equipment were being installed on the ship. This led to media speculation that the ship would be launched "as soon as mid-December."

Yin also speculated that China would start building its third aircraft carrier soon after the aforementioned carrier is launched. He added that the new vessel would not necessarily be made by Dalian Shipyard, which is manufacturing the current vessel, because the shipyard in Shanghai also has the required capacity. In fact, he said that China is capable of building two carriers at the same time.

China's first domestically made aircraft carrier will use the ski-takeoff system, judged from the flight deck shape, but the next carrier is expected to be equipped with catapult assisted takeoff devices. Military fans have high hopes that the new carrier may even take the next-generation electromagnetic catapult devices.

Yin confirmed that China possesses the technologies for both the currently popular steam catapult and the electromagnetic catapult. "As researchers, we also hope that we can directly develop the electromagnetic device, bypassing the steam catapult," he said.
Uncertainty around the future of the ACA, a pillar of the Obama administration, has investors concerned about health-care stocks. Trump has spoken of the need to dismantle and repeal the law. Experts have said it would be difficult to do away with Obamacare completely without causing havoc.



Managers at some health-care companies have expressed their own doubts while others have maintained that their firms are well-positioned to weather the storm.

Of the "Trump losers," Minnesota-based Patterson Companies has seen the biggest drop in share price since the election, around 16 percent. The dental and veterinary supply company was up over 3 percent since the end of 2015 but fell in November following a lackluster third-quarter earnings report.

Medtronic, too, has seen a growth year turn sour. The medical device company missed analysts' second-quarter 2017 revenue forecasts by $108 million in November. The company's revenue of $7.345 billion was the weakest growth in five years, according to a Guggenheim Partners research note.

Still, Chairman and CEO Omar Ishrak expressed optimism about the company's future on a Nov. 22 conference call: "A move towards value-based healthcare, a move towards a regime where the entire healthcare market gets rewarded for producing better outcomes will not only lower costs, but that it's the only way forward," he said.
President-elect Donald Trump's comments slamming Boeing's new Air Force One 747 airplane's $4 billion cost as being too high is being challenged by some analysts who also maintain the aircraft is absolutely necessary and worth it.

Still, pressure from Trump could lead to changes in the program such as farming out integration work on the communications gear and other advanced systems on board the new Air Force One jumbo jets to a company other than Boeing. That would presumably mean Boeing would deliver the plane without all the special defensive and other equipment required for the 747 to operate as a flying command post during emergencies and wartime.

"This is being targeted because it's high profile, not because it's high dollar," said Chris Higgins, a Morningstar defense analyst in Chicago.

On Tuesday morning, the President-elect tweeted: "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!"

Higgins called the roughly $4 billion cost of the two presidential replacement jumbo jets "kind of peanuts" compared with larger big-ticket programs in the Air Force portfolio, including the F-35 joint strike fighter program from Lockheed Martin , as well as Boeing's $80 billion aerial tanker program and Northrop Grumman's B-21 long-range strike bomber reported to cost tens of billions of dollars.

"It's not a matter of if it will be replaced, but when," said Higgins. "They can continue to operate the current ones and extend their life. But it becomes more and more costly to do so given how old they are."

Higgins noted that Trump as a candidate also made unfavorable comments about the F-35, which is a program that includes purchases from all major branches of the U.S. military as well as key allies. "[Trump] seems in some of the comments that he's making to favor more spending on troops and manpower and readiness than on high-end military hardware."

The Air Force has a little less than $3 billion budgeted for research and development (R&D) of the two new 747 Presidential jumbo jets through 2021 under the current budget request, or a figure above earlier budget estimates of $1.65 billion. Also, there's believed to be nearly $800 million planned for procurement of the presidential planes so that would put the latest cost at roughly $4 billion.

"There might be cost overruns one day but there haven't been so far," said Richard Aboulafia, a senior aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Virginia.

Boeing hasn't even started building the new Air Force One wide-body jet models known as 747-8, which would replace two 747-200s that date back to the early 1990s. Both of the current 747s used to fly the president are approaching the end of their 30-year life span.

Boeing issued a statement Tuesday that seemed to imply it may be flexible on terms of the Air Force One program.

"We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States," Boeing said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer."

A source told CNBC late on Tuesday that Boeing called the Trump transition team after the tweets, to say that the price of Air Force One could be cut if the specifications were lowered.

Trump's transition team didn't respond to requests for further comment earlier in the day. The Air Force also declined comment when contacted.



Aboulafia suggested that Trump's comments may reflect a "misunderstanding of what a president needs and what a president does. It [Air Force One] has the ability to direct and manage war in wartime and survive a war. It is an incredibly complex and expensive aircraft."

Trump personally owns a Boeing 757 luxury jet that is outfitted with opulent amenities but analysts said that aircraft would require extensive and expensive upgrades to compare with the current model of Air Force One planes featuring technology that can serve as a military command post and offer midair refueling capabilities.

Boeing's 747-8 aircraft  the largest model in the iconic 747 series  costs around $379 million each. With two 747s, that would get a total price tag of about $758 million just to procure two of the commercial jetliner versions of the planes. The actual cost in the current budget request is for $2.7 billion in R&D costs for the two replacement Air Force One 747 aircraft.

"I'm skeptical about how much development do they really need to do for this (Air Force One replacement program)," said Dan Grazier, a former Marine Corps captain and defense industry expert at the Project On Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group.

"It's not like they're designing a brand new plane from the ground up. They already have the design, they already build 747s, and they have them in service."

"There will be some upgrades and things like that but I would be skeptical too if I was looking at this program from President-elect Trump's view," Grazier added. "That does seem excessive that they need to spend that much money to further develop a plane already flying."

Meantime, others say the newer Air Force Ones will be more efficient from a fuel perspective and maintenance standpoint. Moreover, it will have newer equipment and the latest defensive technology that will provide added safety for future presidents. The current Air Force One plane was used by President Bush during 9/11 as a command post when the U.S. was under attack by terrorists.

Boeing, an aerospace giant known for its jumbo jets and tech prowess in building previous Air Force Ones, would seem to be the obvious choice to supply new presidential planes but the U.S. government could decide buy the two 747 jumbo jets from the Chicago-based manufacturer and then move the integration and installation work to another company.

The integration work would involve the missile defense systems capabilities on board the aircraft, special communications and electronic equipment, cutting-edge avionics and advanced technology that allows the plane to serve essentially as a flying Oval Office.
Donald Trump's Tuesday morning criticism of Boeing closely followed the publication of a story in which the aerospace giant's CEO expressed concerns about the trade agenda Trump has backed.

The Chicago Tribune published a column Tuesday morning which included Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg's recent comments arguing that free trade is a crucial part of the U.S. economy. Boeing has a lucrative jet business in China.

Muilenburg expressed concerns about resistance to trade, which is partly driven by Trump repeatedly slamming the Trans-Pacific Partnership and North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump appealed to many blue-collar voters by saying those deals cost Americans jobs and depressed their wages.

Only 22 minutes after the article published, Trump threatened on Twitter to "cancel" Boeing's contract for new Air Force One jets, arguing that an unconfirmed $4 billion cost was too high for the project.

There is no clear indication that the Tribune story, or another Washington Post article about Pentagon waste, specifically prompted Trump's attack. Still, he has used his favorite social media platform repeatedly in the past to respond to coverage he views as unfavorable.

For instance, Trump has used Twitter to criticize coverage from The New York Times and CNN, among other outlets.

Trump's tweet moved markets, as Boeing shares fell as much as 1 percent Tuesday before recovering.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A post-Brexit British government should focus on its new relationship with the European Union before cementing ties with the U.S., a former White House official told CNBC on Tuesday.

"There's definitely an interest," from the U.S. in cementing the relationship with the U.K., Tony Fratto, founding partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and former deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush, told CNBC in London.

"The UK has other business ahead of that right now which is figuring out its relationship with Europe before it figures out its relationship with the United States," Fratto said, adding that the EU-UK trade represents 40 percent of the U.K. economy.

"They need to focus on that first," he reiterated.

After the Brexit vote and with key elections coming up, the European Union is facing new challenges over its unity and political stability.

Fratto told CNBC he hoped that the EU would not fall apart.

"From the U.S. perspective, a unified Europe actually makes a lot of sense. We preferred to see the UK as part of that," he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has business of its own to deal with. President-elect Donald Trump continues choosing the names for the new cabinet.

"I think we will see a lot of issues moving more than we have seen in the past few years." Fratto told CNBC, mentioning tax reform as one of the most pressing issues.

"They're anxious to get to it," he said.
Genk star Wilfred Ndidi is now discussing personal terms with Premier League club Leicester City after his Belgian club agreed a fee for his transfer in January, according to report.

Leicester have reportedly agreed to splash out over 18 million pounds including add-ons for the Nigeria international midfielder.

The former Nath Boys of Lagos star is seen as a direct replacement for NGolo Kante, who quit the Premier League champions for Chelsea in the summer.

Ndidi told me that both Leicester and Genk have agreed a transfer fee and he is now discussing his personal terms, a source close to the player revealed.

The discussions have been going well and the contract with the English club will change Ndidis life forever.

Its a big jump for the former Nigeria U17 and U20 star, who has been staying with foster parents since he moved to Belgium two years ago.

The 19-year-old central defender-turned-defensive midfielder has made 17 appearances in the league this season for Genk.

Last season, he played 38 league games and scored four goals.
Uniface South Carolina 10-shilling note of 1778 portrays Revolutionary War battle of Fort Sullivan, later named Fort Moultrie, in tiny vignette of view from the shoreline, dominated by a palm tree. The Colonial note is unique in portraying an actual battle.

Guest Commentary from the Dec. 19, 2016 issue of Coin World:

Nov. 17 witnessed the release of the Fort Moultrie quarter dollar. Ceremonies were held at Fort Moultrie, located on Sullivans Island in South Carolina.

At the time of our Revolutionary War, the fort was known as Fort Sullivan. It was later named Fort Moultrie, after Gen. William Moultrie, who commanded the fort during the battle against the British Navy, in defense of Charleston. In July 1776, the patriots at Fort Sullivan fought off the British, taking small losses compared to what was inflicted on the enemy. The British Navy retreated, burning one of their grounded ships to prevent its capture. This victory prevented the British from occupying Charleston for about another four years.

The commemorative quarter dollar has the image of Sgt. William Jasper rescuing the forts flag, shot down by British naval bombardment, and raising it under fire. Jasper died fighting the British three years later at Savanna, Ga.

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The Fort Moultrie quarter dollar is not the first numismatic currency portraying the battle. While attending an American Numismatic Association Summer Seminar course in Colorado Springs, Colo., on the subject of Colonial paper money, instructor Erik Goldstein brought to our attention a Colonial bill with the battle scene in the background in a vignette containing a palm tree. The bill is a uniface South Carolina 10-shilling issue of 1778. He also informed us that this is the only Colonial bill that commemorates an actual Revolutionary War battle.

I was fascinated, and became determined to learn more and add one of these bills to my collection. I was successful in acquiring an economical example and I did a lot of reading about the history of this event.

My wife and I visited Fort Moultrie (and Fort Sumter while we were there) and enjoyed associating the history while standing in the surroundings where the events occurred. The museum staff were very helpful and very well informed about the local history.

I imagine that all the schools in South Carolina teach about the history of this fort. But living in New Jersey, I never even heard of Fort Sullivan, or Fort Moultrie. Because of numismatics, my search for history has left me now knowing as much about Fort Sullivan as I know about the Battle of Trenton (a few miles down the road). Learning the history behind what we collect can be as fun as actually owning it. And fun is what a hobby is all about.
There were a total of 19 of the Proof 2017-P Lions Clubs International Century of Service silver dollars struck at the Philadelphia Mint during the ceremonial striking event.

The Proof 2017-P Lions Clubs International Century of Service silver dollar ceremonial strikes can't be released to those who struck them until after the commemorative coin program official opens for sale in 2017.

Those dignitaries and invited guests who ceremonially struck Proof 2017-P Lions Clubs International Century of Service silver dollars Nov. 9 at the Philadelphia Mint will get the opportunity to purchase those coins only after Jan. 1. That's because the coins officially can only be released in the year struck on the coins.

U.S. Mint officials indicate the 19 ceremonial strikes will be made available for purchase to those individuals who struck the coins when the bureau opens sales for the commemorative coin program, likely in January. In the meantime, the strikes are being safely stored in a vault at the Philadephia Mint. U.S. Mint officials have not disclosed who struck each of the coins.

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The first of the 19 ceremonial strikes was placed in a brown coin envelope and is being held by the numismatics division at the Philadelphia Mint, with eventual transfer at a future date to Mint headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Each coin was struck three times, with each strike exerting 210 metric tons of pressure on the planchets, to bring up the design relief. The coins were struck on a Graebener coinage press with the dies oriented to strike vertically. The obverse die bearing the portrait of Lions Clubs Internatioinal founder Melvin Jones is the upper, or hammer die, and the lion family reverse is the lower or hammer die.

Public Law 112-181 authorizes the U.S. Mint to strike and issue up to 400,000 silver dollars combined in Proof and Uncirculated versions to mark the Lions Clubs International centennial anniversary being celebrated on June 7.

Full-scale production of the Proof coins began Nov. 14 at the Philadelphia Mint. Production of the Uncirculated coins was scheduled to begin Dec. 1 at Philadelphia.

The U.S. Mint was presented with an unusual situation in 2014, when the bureau was able to sell coins in a commemorative program to U.S. Marshals Service employees three months before their official release. The 2015 commemoratives mark the service's 225th anniversary. The early sales, however, were legislatively authorized.

In total, 35 complete sets of Proof $5 gold, silver dollar and copper-nickel clad half dollars were sold in conjunction with a Sept. 24, 2014, U.S. Marshals Service anniversary event. At least two of the Proof gold coins were graded and encapsulated by Numismatic Guaranty Corp., with the grading label detailing the pedigree to the 2014 event. The coins were sold to USMS employees packaged individually, not as three-piece sets.

The purchases by United States Marshals Service employees in September 2014 were permitted under Section 5(c) of the enabling legislation, Public Law 112-104, which states, The [Treasury] secretary may issue coins, to the public, minted under this Act beginning on or after January 1, 2015, except for a limited number to be issued prior to such date to the Director of the United States Marshals Service and employees of the Service for display and presentation during the 225th Anniversary celebration.
Dec. 6, 2016

 The spacecraft that returned Britain's first professional astronaut to Earth in June will land on display in London next year.



Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, which touched down from the International Space Station with Expedition 46/47 flight engineer Tim Peake with the European Space Agency (ESA), will go on exhibit at the Science Museum, London in early 2017.



"You do become very attached to your spacecraft because it definitely does save your life," said Peake in a statement released by the Science Museum Group on Monday (Dec. 5). "I'm absolutely delighted that my Soyuz spacecraft, the TMA-19M, is going to be returning here to the UK and may serve, hopefully, as [an] inspiration for our next generation of scientists and engineers."



The 1.7 ton (1.5 metric ton) capsule, which flew Peake and his two crewmates, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra, to and from the station, was acquired by the Science Museum Group (SMG), which is responsible for several UK cultural institutions.







Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft in Kazakhstan after its return from 185 days at the International Space Station. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

"Russian ingenuity led to the birth of the space age," said Ian Blatchford, SMG's director. "Today it still plays a critical role, notably in long duration missions to pave the way for the next great leap into the cosmos."



"It is a great honor to be here to officially acquire the first flown human spacecraft in the [SMG] collection, one which allowed Tim Peake to make his historic journey," he stated.



Blatchford's signing of the acquisition agreement for Soyuz TMA-19M coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first Soyuz launch in 1966.



The display of the Soyuz TMA-19M descent module builds on the Science Museum's recent exhibition, "Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age," which brought in 140,000 visitors, making it the museum's most popular exhibit in its history. "Cosmonauts" included the display of Soyuz TM-14, which flew the first mission to Russia's Mir space station after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.



The exhibition, which ran from September 2015 to March 2016, also included the construction and display of a two- thirds scale replica of a Soyuz orbital module built entirely from a quarter of a million LEGO bricks.



SMG acquired the Soyuz TM-19M from RSC Energia, the Russian contractor responsible for building the Soyuz and a partner in the "Cosmonauts" exhibition.







Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M seen docked to the International Space Station. Only the middle, descent module returns to Earth. (NASA)

"We're very honored that a descent vehicle produced by our corporation will take its rightful place in the collection of one of the most important science museum groups in the world," said Vladimir Soltnsev, general director of Energia. "I would like to hope that this special symbol of Russia will become one of the highlights of the Science Museum."



Soyuz TMA-19M is the latest Russian spacecraft to land on display in the home country of one of its crew.



In September, the Soyuz TMA-03M descent module, which landed with Dutch ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers from the International Space Station in 2012, debuted on display at Space Expo in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Similarly, the Soyuz capsules that returned U.S. space flight participants Charles Simonyi and Greg Olsen to Earth are exhibited in Seattle and New York City, respectively.



Other astronauts' Soyuz capsules are on display in Cuba, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Poland, Romania and Vietnam.



Soyuz TMA-19M will not be the only flown spacecraft on exhibit at the Science Museum, London when it premieres next year. The museum also has on display NASA's Apollo 10 command module, which flew to the moon in May 1969 on a full-up dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. The capsule, named "Charlie Brown," is on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
The implications of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's call to the Taiwanese leader are beyond measure. My first thought was of the utter stupidity of the call and the geopolitical ramifications it might result. However, a more nuanced analysis brings a lot of strands into play.

The first idea was that this was a deliberate shift in American foreign policy. U.S. Bipartisan foreign policy since 1971 has been of recognizing the principle of One China, and considering China's mainland as the ultimate power broker in the region. It served U.S. interests, as well as Chinese and Taiwanese interests.

Regardless of what one might think, China wouldn't accept a separate Taiwan, just as U.S. wouldn't accept Texas seceding. Therefore, to think that this was deliberate would imply that there was bipartisan backing for the phone call, and it was a deliberate and extremely provocative move changing more than 40 years of foreign policy consensus and leading into uncharted territory.

However, subsequent reactions from the Senate Foreign Policy Committee, and Democrat and Republican lawmakers, stress it wasn't a deliberate move.

The second thing that then comes to mind is whether it was what we call "positioning" in international relations. This is a version of the Madman Theory formulated by Richard Nixon, where one establishes a position with a few aggressive moves so that that anything coming later looks like a compromise for a deal.

So, in that way, Donald Trump is positioning himself, with a clever psy-op approach from a strong position, so that every discussion with the Chinese side will show that Trump is a clever deal maker and is climbing down. However, that also looks strained, as it implies a logical, coherent foreign policy understanding by Trump.

There is no evidence this exists. Trump's statements during the election campaign didn't touch on the China-Taiwan issue; in fact, in the list or set of priorities for foreign policy, Taiwan comes very low down. Naturally, it is likely this was a random impromptu call rather than a carefully crafted foreign policy maneuver.

This brings us to the third option. Was Trump tricked? And if so, by whom? Donald Trump is not very knowledgeable about foreign policy, by any measurable index. Now, there might be someone in his cabinet who doesn't like the current China policy and took advantage of it, and made Trump call Tsai in a move that was bound to jeopardize Chinese-American relations even before the President took office.

It could also be that Taiwan took advantage of this, and called Trump to score a diplomatic win by taking advantage of Trump's ignorance with regards to American policies.

Either way, it would point out to the fact that this was impromptu and arbitrary and doesn't fit in any known pattern. Trump in the last two days, called Pakistan and worried India, talked to the Taiwanese leader and enraged China, and called Philippines President Duterte and invited him to White House, contrary to American current policy with regards to Duterte's drug war and human rights. All of this was done from private phones. In a series of blunders this will be similar to Boris Yeltsin running naked in Washington DC.

It seems like the Chinese foreign policy establishment take a similar view. A China Daily editorial stated that this exposes "nothing but his and his transition team's inexperience in dealing with foreign affairs." Foreign Minister Wang Yi also said that this whole thing was a petty move by Taiwan, rather than blaming Trump himself. That's a smart move, because it is cautious.

As far as the available evidence is concerned, Trump's world view is very transactional. It is not universalist and not based on human rights. Therefore, it is unlikely Trump cares much about Taiwan or Tibet for example.

Going by his idea of how the world should be governed, Trump could come to a G2 deal with China, as long as it benefits U.S. in some ways and absolves U.S. of responsibilities and doesn't push America into a corner. That is an opportunity for other great powers.

If Taiwan can trick Trump, I find it hard to imagine others won't be able to manipulate him.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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
Google last week released Chrome 55, but contrary to reports the browser has not yet begun to block content rendered by Adobe's Flash Player.

In August, Google laid out steps it would take to retreat from Flash. As of Chrome 55, only Flash content on 10 sites, including Amazon, Facebook and YouTube, was supposed to display -- and then only after an acknowledgement by the user. For all other sites, Chrome 55 was to render HTML5 content, if it was available, but not that for Flash.

Although several technology news sites and blogs said Chrome 55 was blocking Flash content, Computerworld's tests on both Windows 10 and macOS showed that the browser did not restrict what's rendered by Flash.

Some users writing on online forums, including Slashdot, also reported no change in Flash content rendering with Chrome 55.

Like other browser makers -- including Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla -- Google has argued that the elimination of Adobe's once-dominant media player will result in longer laptop battery life, faster page rendering and improved security.

Apple's Safari beat Chrome to the no-Flash milestone when it shipped Safari 10 with macOS Sierra in September; Safari defaults to HTML5 and alerts users of a Flash-only website with a message that they need to download or activate the plug-in. Microsoft's Edge -- Windows 10's default browser -- blocked some Flash content in the version bundled with the summer's Anniversary Update. And Mozilla plans to require Firefox users to manually activate Flash Player at some point next year.

But Google's move on Flash was of more significance than the similar decisions by rivals: Chrome is the world's most popular browser, accounting for 56% of all browsers run in November by the reckoning of metrics vendor Net Applications.

Although Google did not flip the Flash switch with Chrome 55, the update did add options to the macOS browser's Preferences page that hint the company could bar Flash content in a future refresh.

Under the advanced setting of Preferences, clicking the "Content settings" button under "Privacy" revealed "Flash" as one of several options: Chrome 55 offered three, including the new "Block sites from running Flash." That was not the default; "Detect and run important Flash content (recommended)" was instead.

Google could begin blocking Flash by changing the default with a minor update.

The Mountain View, Calif. company did not reply to questions Monday about Chrome 55 and its Flash strategy.
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's nominee for president of the United States, during the campaign, was asked by a TV host what he would do if elected about Aleppo. Totally flabbergasted, he innocently asked back: "And what is Aleppo?" Obviously, the politician running for the top political job of the most powerful country on earth, which is also heavily involved in Syria, was unaware of the violence whacked city.

"And what is Aleppo" is ringing heavily in my ears as I see gory images of the city, its destroyed buildings and other infrastructure. Once being a bustling city, it is now a mere shadow of former glory.

The unfortunate Aleppo is increasingly becoming a graveyard of humanity. The killing of children and attacks on hospital have added a new grim dimension to the senseless violence that has become the fate of the ghost town and its tenants.

The battle for control of Aleppo is an issue of prestige for the government as well as the rebels. Reports show that the insurgents were very well entrenched and have been giving a tough time to the troops of Bashar al-Assad. Even Russian air power and relentless bombing have so far not been effective enough to weaken their hold.

The latest round of fighting started last month. It has produced some of the most gruesome images of human suffering. For example, a video showed rescuers cutting through rubble of concrete and iron to retrieve an injured girl less than five years of age. Several other photos and clips showed traumatized patients running for shelter after an air attack on a medical facility.

The plight of civilians caught in the war is worse than one can possibly imagine. There is a severe shortage of food and other items of daily use. Hospitals have been put out of operation due to bombings and lack of medicine. The situation in eastern part of the city, the central part of which is still under the control of the rebels, is worse than the western half held by the government forces.

The efforts for a ceasefire have been futile. The UN special representative Staffan de Mistura visited Damascus in November to convince the regime for peace. But his proposal to let the rebels run their part of the city was turned down. The Syrian government's foreign minister said that such an idea was violation of their "sovereignty."

We can just ponder over the meaning and status of the sovereignty of a country which has lost almost everything. Honestly, one needs a lot of courage to claim political jurisdiction over a piece of land which is not much different from a vast pool of blood. More than 300 people have been killed since November 15, when fighting started after a pause of several weeks, according to human rights bodies. And imagine the leadership of a country dreaming of sovereignty, sidestepping the dance of death.

Aleppo is at the center of struggle for more than five-and-a-half- years of old civil war. It has been divided between insurgents and government forces since mid-2012. Both sides have been trying to establish control over rival parts. It is more than a year since the Syrian army helped by Shiite militia embarked on a plan to retake the entire city. First, it besieged some parts in the eastern Aleppo before launching an offensive in September.

The situation has lately changed in favor of government. Officials claim that forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad would regain the entire eastern part within a week.

At stake in the east is the fate of more than 250,000 civilians who are trapped. The UN has been trying to reach them but so far without much luck. The civilians are clearly being used as human shields because they are not allowed to flee. As the fighting intensifies, it is feared more innocent lives will be lost.

Aleppo is important. And so is the battle for its control. Because it is the most important city along with Damascus. For any government to be recognized as representative enough, it should control both Damascus and Aleppo - the two jewels.

Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google's YouTube have agreed to share with one another identifying digital information of violent terror content that they find on their platforms.

When they remove "violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos or images" from their platforms, the companies will include in a shared industry database the hashes, or unique digital fingerprints, of the content.

Other participants can use the shared hashes to help identify matching content on their hosted consumer platforms, review against their respective policies and definitions, and remove the content when appropriate, according to a statement by the companies on Monday.

There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies, the companies said.

The move comes shortly after members of the European Parliament from the Civil Liberties Committee voted Monday to back stricter initiatives to counter terrorism, including measures to take down and block content that constitute public provocation to commit terrorism. On Thursday, the EU Internet Forum, a private-public partnership set up last year with internet companies, is also meeting to take stock of measures to reduce online terrorist content.

Terrorist organizations like the Islamic State group are believed to use social media for propaganda, communications and to attract new recruits.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter agreed with the European Union in May to remove from their websites illegal hate speech, visible in Europe, that could incite hatred or acts of terror. But in August, a panel of lawmakers in the U.K. said it was "alarming" that social networking companies have very small teams to monitor billions of accounts for extremist content.

On Sunday, the European Commission said internet companies, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, will have to act faster to counter online hate speech or face laws forcing them to do so, according to news reports.

In a study of the companies' processes to remove hate speech that broke the law or breached their community standards, only 40 percent of complaints received a response within 24 hours, and 43 percent within 48 hours, according to a Commission official.

Overall, 28.2 percent of the complaints resulted in removal of the content -- but there were large disparities in the removal rate, depending on the country where the complaint was made, the study found. In France and Germany, it topped 50 percent, but in Austria only 11 percent of complaints resulted in content removal, and in Italy just 4 percent. The Commission plans to publish the study Tuesday.

No personally identifiable information will be shared when hashes are passed among the companies, according to the statement. The four companies will begin sharing hashes of the "most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos" removed from their services, which they describe as content most likely to violate all their content policies.

A recent study by the Global Network Initiative, a group that represents academics, investors, civil society organizations and companies, has cautioned against the human rights risks of censoring online terror content.

Internet companies acting as intermediaries should not be required to monitor third-party terrorist content that they host or transmit, or face direct or indirect liability from governments for such content, according to the study. Such requirements and liabilities may lead companies to go overboard in the removal of controversial content, according to the report.

The companies don't expect to share hashes until early next year after the technical work is completed. They are also open to including other firms that are interested in joining the initiative in the future.

[With additional reporting by Peter Sayer in Paris]
The European Union's regulators on Tuesday approved Microsoft's acquisition of social network LinkedIn on the condition that the U.S. company abide by several minor concessions it made to secure the deal.

The conditions were reminiscent of those forced on Microsoft in past antitrust actions, including the settlement between the firm and the U.S. Justice Department early in the century, and a later judgment against Microsoft in the European Union (EU).

Microsoft promised it would not require PC makers to install a LinkedIn app or Windows 10 tile on machines sold in the European Economic Area (EEA), the region consisting of EU member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Users will be able to remove any LinkedIn app or tile in Windows, Microsoft said, and pledged that it would not use Windows to nag customers to install a LinkedIn app.

Microsoft committed to giving LinkedIn rivals access to the Office Add-in program and the APIs (application programming interfaces) of the Office applications so that competing professional social networks can craft connections between their services and the suite.

Other social networks will also be able to access Microsoft Graph, the one-stop API portal that stores and retrieves data in Microsoft's cloud services.

The EU antitrust regulators were most concerned that Microsoft would integrate LinkedIn with Office, and merge the companies' user databases. "This could have been reinforced by shutting out LinkedIn's competitors from access to Microsoft's application programming interfaces, which they need to interoperate with Microsoft's products and to access user data stored in the Microsoft cloud," the EU Commission wrote in a Tuesday statement.

"The Commission was concerned that the increase in LinkedIn's user base would make it harder for new players to start providing professional social network services in the European Economic Area (EEA), the agency continued. "Furthermore, it could have gradually and irreversibly tipped the market towards LinkedIn in Member States where a competitor of LinkedIn currently operates (such as Austria, Germany or Poland)."

Although the deal doesn't preclude Microsoft from integrating LinkedIn and Office -- which would effectively negate much of the former's rationale for the $26 billion acquisition -- EU regulators said that they were satisfied that Microsoft's promises would keep a level playing field.

The commitments must be honored for five years, the EU said. A trustee, not yet named, will monitor Microsoft's execution of the promises.

Salesforce, which also coveted LinkedIn, had been the most prominent critic of the acquisition. In September, Salesforce claimed that if the deal went through, Microsoft could "deny competitors access to [LinkedIn's] data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage."

The EU Commission rejected Saleforce's argument, saying that others' "access to the full LinkedIn database is not essential to compete on the market."

More information about the concessions Microsoft made were spelled out in post to a blog by Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer, and a statement issued by EU regulators.
Wildfires around Gatlinburg, Tenn. killed 14 people and destroyed or damaged more than 1,700 homes and businesses over the past two weeks. It's considered one of the deadliest wildfires ever in the U.S.

The tragedy prompted the creation of an interactive online map that allowed residents who had been evacuated to remotely pinpoint which structures were spared -- days before evacuations were lifted.

The map shows hundreds of red dots in Gatlinburg alone, an indication that a structure was destroyed. In the center of town, dozens of green dots - which indicate lesser damage - are nestled near red dots. Users can search for a property by an address or by clicking on a dot and then zooming in to see the original structure.

"We got feedback that people were very thankful, not only to have the mapping tool but the help with the processing of damage assessments," said Chris McIntosh, director of public safety industry solutions for Esri. His company has been offering GIS (Geographic Information System) tools and services for disasters globally since 2001. Last year, Esri and provided support in 200 disasters.

In this latest disaster, Esri worked with Sevier County, Tenn. and the Tennessee State Forestry Service in quickly setting up the interactive map. An Esri worker arrived in the fire zone a week ago, and then dozens of firefighters and other workers surveyed the damage using an app on their smartphones. That allowed them to create the interactive map within about a day. It became available online on Dec. 1 for evacuees and fire officials to consult.

"When you are displaced or have to leave a community, one of the worst things is the unknown," McIntosh said in an interview. "Being in the dark is the worst thing. We can help people know the good news or the bad."

Government public information officers were able to spread the word about property damage more quickly for anxious residents because of the map. "The Sevier County interactive map has been very helpful to many of those affected by this fire," said Jim Mackensen, public information officer for the National Wildfire Coordinating Group.

In the Gatlinburg fires, Esri was able to quickly train workers with the Collector app, available in major app stores, to use on their personal Android, iOS and Windows Mobile devices. GPS satellites helped each worker find a precise location, and then classify it as destroyed, damaged or affected. In some disasters, crews are able to append photos or videos of a structure.

The fire was so severe that it burned addresses on buildings beyond recognition. Crews had to connect the geo data for a particular spot to the county's online historical parcel data to be able to verify an exact address. Complicating things: Internet service in Sevier County was down intermittently over the past two weeks, partly because cell towers were destroyed. With the Collector app, the data collected on smartphones could be stored until an internet connection was available.

The Sevier County interactive map is hosted by Esri in the cloud, which made it easier to handle the many simultaneous web requests. Esri competes with Google and other companies for some of the GIS tools it provides to emergency response organizations, but McIntosh said Esri also provides a complete array of services that help communities relocate residents and businesses. Some of the basic ingredients for creating an interactive map with the Esri ArcGIS Online product start at just $2,000, he said.

Fire officials are still trying to determine the exact cause of the wildfires, but have said they can be attributed to human activity. The fires spread so quickly that some residents said they didn't have time to properly evacuate.
 Flash

The world is facing a humanitarian crisis that will require a record 22.2 billion U.S. dollars in funding for 2017 to support nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.

People wait to receive aid in the Khazir Camp for Internal Displaced Person, about 30 km east of Mosul in northern Iraq, on Nov. 21, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

"In order to deliver urgent relief, protection and support to nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people in 2017, we launched earlier today an appeal for 22.2 billion dollars in funding -- the highest consolidated humanitarian appeal ever launched," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here, quoting the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which launched a relief aid appeal on Monday.

The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O'Brien, said that the scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded in 1945.

"At the start of 2017, the plans presented collectively to the international donor community today will support vital humanitarian operations in 33 countries, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria," Dujarric said.

Eighty percent of the needs stem from man-made conflicts, many of which are not protracted and push up demand for relief every year, the spokesman said. "At the same time, the impact of El Nino-triggered droughts, floods and extreme weather is pushing vulnerable communities to the brink of survival."

So far in 2016, international donors have generously provided 11.4 billion U.S. dollars to the current global appeal which, over the year, has risen from 20.1 billion dollars to 22.1 billion dollars. However, this represents only 52 percent of the requirements, and humanitarian organizations approach the end of this year with a funding gap of a record 10.7 billion dollars, the largest gap ever.

"Not in living memory have so many people needed our support and solidarity to survive and live in safety and dignity," O'Brien, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator, said when he was launching the humanitarian appeal in Geneva.

"Funding in support of the plans will translate into life-saving food assistance to people on the brink of starvation in the Lake Chad Basin and South Sudan; it will provide protection for the most vulnerable people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen," O'Brien said.

"The lives of millions of women, girls, boys and men are in our hands," the UN relief chief said. "By responding generously and delivering fully on this appeal we will prove to them that we will not let them down."

The humanitarian appeal 2017 is based on Humanitarian Response Plans in Afghanistan, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. Other appeals cover Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal.

Burundi, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria are crises that affect entire regions and their neighbouring countries are included in regional response plans, bringing the number of countries included to 33.
Iain Duncan Smith is a former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, founded the Centre for Social Justice, and is MP for Chingford and Woodford Green.

Overnight, the Austrian election re-run and the Italian referendum solicited quite different responses from European leaders and the European commission. Yet again those European, pro-EU voices, so volubly relieved over the result in Austria then so conspicuously muted at the Italian result, made the mistake of seeing either result as opposites when in fact they were two sides of the same coin. In a sense, the issue is not simply the result of the votes, rather the driving pressure to call to account governing elites abusing their power.

In the UK we have tended to see the vote to leave the European Union as a singular occurrence, with those committed Remainers claiming that the UK was isolating itself from Europe and thus, the rest of the world. Yet events now seem to suggest that far from leaving the world as we know it, it is much more likely that we are in fact leading it. Across the continents it is becoming apparent that we are in the midst of a juddering of the democratic tectonic plates. Some, if not all, is a delayed response to the 2008 economic crash. A sense from many that it is they who have borne the brunt of the squeeze that took place after with those whose hands were on the financial tiller, finding comfortable life boats to escape on.

This juddering of the political plates is not unique and has happened periodically  as 1789, 1848 and in more modern times in 1968, all of which sprang from popular movements and resulted in significant change. Now the issue is the widespread desire for greater control and, in their frustration, the publics target is those who seem, to many, to rule without accountability.

The Centre for Social Justice with Legatum published a report recently which carried out detailed analysis of the reasons people voted to leave the EU. What was striking was the way that two issues predominated. The first was a desire to see migration controlled and the second equally powerful was the desire for a return of sovereignty. This was expressed as a desire to have those elected deliver on their promises without blaming others for their failure. This powerful desire to take back control was considered far more important than any of the concerns raised about the economy. Yet as we feel those plates move, it becomes clear that in different ways and for different localised reasons, this sense of grievance and frustration with elites is prevalent elsewhere.

Whilst it is wrong to try and assume that outcomes are the same in different countries, nonetheless, this theme of a need to regain control percolates through all the debates. In the USA it became clear that what we were witnessing, despite all the concerted efforts of the celebrities and the political elites, was anger with the way so many Americans thought they had been passed over. Their anger was aimed at Washington and the sense that those there no longer cared about the ordinary lives of Americans. Trump tapped into that sentiment. A political outsider, a maverick and an untested politician, someone who in normal times wouldnt get off the starting blocks, broke all the rules and even after spending a fraction of the money his opponent did, won the race.

That same sense of change is very much alive and well and spreading across the EU. Look at Italy, once considered the most pro-EU country in the Union. Italy could be relied upon to vote for greater EU powers whenever asked and polls showed that Italians, perhaps because they had such weak government at home, always backed the idea of the EU. Yet all that has now changed. On Sunday evening they threw out a referendum ostensibly on the constitution but in fact, it had become a referendum on the Government and the EU. Small wonder so many felt the way they did as they have been ravaged by their membership of the Euro. Italys economy is 12 per cent smaller now than when the financial crisis began in 2008 and the countrys debt-to-GDP ratio, at 133 per cent, is second only to Greeces. Worse, the banks remain very weak and many of them are teetering on the edge of insolvency.

They are not alone as, country by country, people are beginning to demand change. In Germany the AfD have now polled more votes than the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) in two of the latters strongest regions, as anger over the scale of immigration takes shape. With elections coming next year, Merkel no longer seems unassailable, with the CDUs partners, the CSU, agitating to break the alliance. In France it seems that the same sentiment prevails as in all likelihood they head for a run-off between the centre right and the far right. In Holland the PVV and Geert Wilders have tapped into the same anger and frustration and lead the polls in the run to their March election.

Instead of looking at just the outcomes, perhaps the most interesting is the scale of the public dissatisfaction and anger with those in power and the desire to see wide scale change. Even in Austria where the far right were rejected, the interesting question is how did they get that close?

I have always believed that the post-war Spinelli view, that the problems of Europe were caused by competing nation states, was wrong. His plan to create more central control became the blueprint for the EU we have today, with an ever more powerful supra-national body and the erosion of national power. Yet I believe he was wrong; competing nation states were not the problem. After all, they created the great artistic and scientific advances that so characterised Europe in modern times. Such states structured around democratic and accountable institutions, cooperating and trading, not the rigid, centralised EU in existence today, should have been the objective.

As a result, in the face of this pressure from below, the European political elite  whether in the Commission or in national governments  simply refuse to recognise there is a fundamental problem with the whole project. Sadly, whilst the Commission was making disparaging and threatening noises about first the UKs vote to leave the EU and then the USA, they failed to notice the ground was moving beneath their own feet.

On Sunday Italy wobbled as the signs of change sprang up all over Europe. Perhaps the UK can now lead and despite all the scare mongering show that despite the anger people feel, strong democracy means mainstream government can affect the change that people need, without recourse to extreme alternatives.
The Casey Review was announced in an anti-extremism speech made by David Cameron, and if one wants to understand its conclusions one has first to grasp the context. The review is into opportunity and integration, but one could be forgiven, given some of the commentary about it, for thinking that it is into Islam and terror. Furthermore, one might choose to believe that Islamist violence is at the end of a continuum which begins with immigrants from Pakistan who dont speak English, have reactionary views about women, mutilate their daughters genitals, force them into marriage, murder them if they marry the wrong man (as they themselves see it), abuse white girls, hate gay people, hate Jews and Christians even more, and end up detonating bombs and murdering innocents  having first done a bit of hate preaching in Urdu and video-making on the side.

If only the threat were so simple. Some of the most prominent Islamist terrorists have been white British converts: Samantha Lewthwaite, Nicky Reilly, Thomas Evans, Matthew Newton and, up to a point, Richard Reid. Others have been black and British: Brian Young, Germaine Lindsay, Michael Adebolajo, Michael Adebowale. Dhiren Barot, one of Al Qaedas main operatives in Britain before the Iraq War, is a convert from Hinduism. The defiance of expectation goes on. For example, the attitude towards women of some Islamist extremists are relatively relaxed. The marriage of Mohammed Sidique Khan to a woman from outside the inward-looking world of his Barelvi background helped to set him on the path that led to the 7/7 atrocity. Some speak English as well as you or I do: You taught me language, and my profit on t/ Is I know how to curse.

Furthermore, some Islamist terrorists are not social conservatives, but simply rapists and murderers. A man who rapes an under-age Yazidi girl is not a social conservative. And most Muslim social conservatives are not extremists, let alone terrorists  however reactionary their views about women may be. Yes, Islamist ideology is the indispensible element in Islamist terror: the Charlie Hebdo murders and attacks on Belgium have helped to disprove the claim that it is all about foreign policy. And, yes, many British Islamist terrorists are from a Kashmiri/Pakistani background. But they are not always lethally-trained operatives, regardless of their origins. Most have unhappy if not chaotic family backgrounds. Many have previous criminal convictions. Few have been raised thoroughly in the traditional, classical Islam. Some have more than a passing resemblance to the four bunglers in Four Lions.

If this detour into the story of Islamist terror in Britain is a bit on the long side, I can only say that the context in which Casey was commissioned takes one there. She appreciates the potential for confusion herself. Much of her review isnt about Muslims at all. But as she writes in its introduction: I know that putting some communities under the spotlight  particularly communities in which there are high concentrations of Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage  will add to the pressure that they already feel. This presages the focus of some of her recommendations. When she says that Government should step up safeguarding arrangements for children who are removed from mainstream education, she is clearly referring, at least in part, to madrassas. When she mulls an Oath of Integration, her mind is clearly turning to those whose terrorist crimes bust the social contract.

When she writes that some childrens education is marked by segregation, she cannot but have brooded over one of its most spectacular manifestations: the Trojan Horse affair (which took place not in faith schools, but in secular ones). Caseys language in the report itself, and especially in some of the interviews that preceded it, is blunt and direct, at least by the standard of Whitehall. She isnt afraid of saying that the Government which commissioned her report blundered on integration, or of criticising politicians, bishops and the police for political correctness. This explains why the Home Office didnt care for it. Theresa May is no longer at the department, but her influence is greater than ever. Downing Street will not have liked Caseys implicit criticism of her tenure, though delay didnt stop Caseys message from getting out: anti-extremism tsar fights bid to gag her, the Sunday Times reported in October.

Ministers are keeping their response low-key. Sajid Javid has said that he will study the review closely. Over in Londons City Hall, Sadiq Khan has tweeted: more discussion & debate on social integration is welcome. Now is the time to build bridges not walls. In other words, he has said nothing much at all. She cannot be dismissed as a priggish, over-privileged public schoolboy who is preaching at the rest of us, Andrew Gimson wrote in a profile of Casey on this site earlier this year. There is nothing in the slightest bit priggish about her: in her way, she is a bit of a roaring girl, foul-mouthed and irrepressible and generous. The politicians seem to be embarrassed by her focus on Muslims, and candid way of going about it. A more telling response would be: havent we heard most of all this before?

Promoting English, emancipating marginalised women, more mixing between pupils, more British values in schools  the list of recommendations in familiar. (What is a British value, by the way? Isnt what is distinct about Britain not our values, but our institutions?) This is not to say that theyre any the worse for that. But how can we have confidence that they will be implemented when, on the one hand, the review slams separatist education and, on the other, teachers who were barred from teaching after the Trojan horse affair are now free to teach again? The range of issues on which Casey touches need not so much new policies for implementation, but for our established institutions to work  politicians who will control our borders; police chiefs and commissioners who arent politically correct; human rights abuses curbed (which will be harder now that May has done a reverse ferret on the ECHR). But it may be that simply by banging on about integration, Casey has furthered its cause just a little bit.
Editorial

The force employers fear

The re-constituted Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) law targets the communitys support for workers and their union: a picket is made unlawful to those who are not employees directly involved in action. This aspect of the law is an indication of the anti-democratic, anti-people nature of the attack on organised labour: an attack on the right of workers to withdraw their labour which has wider implications, striking at the very basis of rights at work.

The law also provides for the imposition of increases in penalties i.e. fines for individual workers, union officials and the union itself for taking industrial action. The law is all-encompassing, covering not only construction workers, but under the cover of building work, transport and supply to building sites.

Also included are coercive powers to intimidate workers who are interrogated by the ABCC, with threats of jail time for refusal to answer questions. The crux of the $80 million taxpayer-funded Royal Commission exercise in union bashing can be found in a simple headline in the Australian newspaper: Bosses urge ABCC to cut wages.

Trade unions and the workers movement are based on the common collective or community interests of all workers. It was the realisation of these common interests that brought trade unions into existence in the first place. It was inevitable, as the new working class came into existence with the emergence of capitalism that workers would band together. This gave the working people much more strength in the struggle for their interests against their employers.

Employers have always regarded the act of workers coming together with fear and as a crime. There were bitter struggles in the 19th century as workers tried to form trade unions. But inevitably the demand for joint action in support of commonly held interests triumphed. We saw a magnificent example  involving support from the community  in the 1998 MUA dispute.

Workers now constitute about 90 percent of all who are engaged in the production of goods and services. It is a mighty potential force. The ruling capitalist class fears this force and is doing everything possible to disrupt the potential unity of workers. That is why industrial relations legislation has increasingly pushed more and more for workers to be placed on individual work contracts and without trade unions. So we get back to the master-servant relationship  a David and Goliath relationship, except David cannot win, as the employer holds all the power.

For a long time, the common interests of workers were secured by the Award system which covered every worker in a particular industry. Then came enterprise agreements as replacements for awards. Unfortunately many unions accepted this idea when they were first introduced but enterprise agreements were a step towards the breaking down of the unity of workers. Many did not see it at the time.

Some unions have attempted to overcome the disunity caused by enterprise agreements by pattern bargaining i.e. attempting to negotiate a series of enterprise agreements at the same time and with the same conditions applying across a sector or industry. Part of the ABCCs intent is to ban pattern bargaining. The reasons are simple. The objective is to eliminate the possibility of workers from a number of enterprises joining together in a common campaign and struggle.

Having implemented the enterprise agreements system, the next steps in breaking down the solidarity of workers were the breaking down of awards and the introduction of individual contracts.

Another way to cause disunity within the trade union movement is to pose the leadership against the membership as though there were an inevitable contradiction between leadership and membership.

There is ceaseless propaganda coming from the mass media and from conservative politicians promoting individualism as the way to go. We hear about the merits of self and individual enterprise. We hear about entrepreneurs who supposedly get things done.

It is impossible to get away from the reality that society is a community with each depending on others. Each worker depends on other workers. The capitalist class cannot do without the working people but the working people can do without the capitalist entrepreneur.

To achieve that latter, desirable situation the collectives of the working people must become much stronger than at present and this will be assisted by the defeat of the ABCC in the first place.
Government of bigotry and deception

The Turnbull government intends to launch an inquiry into freedom of speech, with specific reference to Article 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, under which penalties may be imposed for statements that attack people for their racial or ethnic origins.

Dignified, courageous and highly capable, Professor Triggs has been a thorn in the side of the coalition.

Various members of the government have expressed opposition to Article 18C. Attorney-General George Brandis once remarked that people do have the right to be bigots, you know. There is now widespread suspicion that the government wants to emasculate the current provisions of the Act to permit offensive statements, while simultaneously suppressing the right to freedom of speech by critics of government policy.

A prime example involves the treatment of asylum seekers. The government has now banned use of mobile phones by asylum seekers detained on Manus Island and Nauru. This is just the latest in a long series of attempts by the government to maintain secrecy and silence criticism over the asylum seeker issue.

Speaking at a public meeting in the Blue Mountains last week, Human Rights Commissioner Professor Gillian Triggs described the ban as a cruel violation of the rights of the detainees, many of whom rely on mobile phones to maintain contact with family members from whom they are separated, and with their supporters and legal representatives.

Professor Triggs pointed out that despite bitter denials by the government, the tragic conclusions of the Commissions Forgotten Children report on detained asylum seeker children were verified by the subsequent Moss Inquiry, and by other statements from teachers, medical personnel, social workers and others who had worked on Nauru or Manus Island.

Dignified, courageous and highly capable, Triggs has been a thorn in the side of the coalition. The Abbott government suggested it might offer her a tempting position overseas, but she made it clear she had no intention of resigning from the Commission.

People working in the detention centres have now been threatened with prosecution if they speak out about conditions there. The only exception is for doctors, who threatened to contest the ban in the High Court.

All freedoms are relative

According to the Australian Law Reform Commission 176 pieces of primary and secondary legislation already limit freedom of speech. They include the recently-introduced Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters Act), under which anyone who praises terrorism, or associates with someone who does, can be prosecuted.

The National Security legislation also enables the government to prosecute journalists or others who report on any matter which the government declares is a special intelligence operation.

The government can make such a declaration retrospectively, and prosecution will result even if there is a public interest in disclosure because the matter involves illegal or corrupt activity by the government.

ASIOs activities are, of course, conducted in secret, and the joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights has stated: ... without a direct confirmation from ASIO it would be difficult for a journalist to accurately determine whether conduct by ASIO is pursuant to a [special intelligence operation] or other intelligence gathering power.

The inevitable result will be that journalists and others will be increasingly reluctant to investigate government activities

Of all the legislation that limits freedom of speech, the proposed inquiry would only deal with the Racial Discrimination Act.

The Federal Circuit Court recently dismissed a case under the Act which involved a dispute by Queensland students over special rights to college premises for Aboriginal students. The Human Rights Commission had provided advice for the plaintiff, and the government is now claiming that Professor Triggs was at fault for supporting a case which was vexatious and which, according to the government, had no chance of success.

However, as Professor Triggs replied, under current law the Commission cannot accept or reject a case on its chances of success or failure, but must advise and assist the plaintiff if they insist on proceeding with the case.

The government is intent on suppressing criticism and operating in secrecy, while simultaneously promoting a climate of fear about certain groups in the community, in order to distract public attention from the negative aspects of government activity.

The most blatant example is the recent statement by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton that the Fraser government made a big mistake when it admitted some migrants into Australia from Lebanon in the 1970s.

Like much of the governments propaganda, Duttons statement falsely links the Muslim religion with terrorist acts committed in the name of that religion, in order to justify certain policies, particularly the governments servile commitment of Australian troops for US wars in the Middle East.

Duttons statement was highly dangerous and irresponsible. The infamous Cronulla riots in 2005 followed anti-Muslim broadcasts by some of Sydneys shock jock commercial radio commentators.

Lebanese community leaders say Duttons statement has belittled their community and set back years of dedicated work by people of Lebanese origin and other Australians to restore social cohesion and goodwill.

Despite public demands by Lebanese community leaders for a meeting with Dutton, a spokesperson for his office claimed he had not received an invitation to meet with them. A representative of the Lebanese Muslim Association commented, Mr Dutton is clearly not interested in having an open and honest discussion on the topic.

Extreme right-wing forces are gaining increasing power within parliament. The government is now doing deals with the One Nation Party. Within the coalitions own ranks Duttons career is on the rise, George Christensen is now chief whip for the National Party, and Tony Abbott is demanding a cabinet position.

The Turnbull government is sliding ever-further to the right. Its tendency to demonise sections of the community while concealing its repressive activities is alarmingly reminiscent of one of historys most ruthless regimes.

After the Nazis took control of the Reichstag is 1933 they operated in the utmost secrecy, and convinced citizens of Germany and other countries that the camps where their opponents and racial scapegoats were being imprisoned were just like holiday camps.

Were not, of course, in that situation in Australia. Nevertheless, the governments tendencies are so disturbing that removing it from power requires our most urgent attention.
CPA Statement

In defence of workers rights

The Communist Party of Australia condemns in the strongest possible terms the passing of the bill re-establishing the former Howard governments Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) by members of Turnbulls Coalition government and nine unprincipled Senators on the cross benches. The passing of [former prime minister] Tony Abbotts bill leaves workers more vulnerable to dodgy workplace practices including those involving health and safety, criminalises legitimate trade union activity and for the first time ever outlaws pickets, including community pickets.

Photo: Anna Pha.

The Turnbull government bought off One Nation Senators, the Nick Xenophon team, Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm and Victorian Senator Derryn Hinch in dirty backroom deals. Jacqui Lambie was the only cross-bencher to retain a principled position and oppose the bill. The Australian Greens and Labor Party remained solid in their opposition.

Already, one worker on average per week dies on Australian building sites. That figure will worsen as trade union organisation on the job becomes more difficult. The bill strips construction workers of rights taken for granted by other workers including the right to silence.

Companies seeking government contracts will be banned from including any provisions in their enterprise agreements that limit casualisation, promote the employment of apprentices, specify safe hours of work or limitations on excessive overtime. It removes the right for an equally qualified and experienced Australian worker to be retained in a redundancy situation over a temporary overseas worker. It also restricts the ability of a trade union to negotiate an agreement or to take action regarding job security on building sites.

The intention of the government is to destroy an effective trade union and then come after the others with further legislation early next year. The government wants yellow, compliant trade unions or no union representation at all. In this way they will do the bidding of the employers to boost profits out of the wages and conditions of workers.

The Communist Party of Australia is committed to defending trade unions and their right to take action in the defence of workers. It is opposed to opportunistic trade union leadership and the theft of basic democratic rights by treacherous politicians.
Culture and Identity

WA parliamentary report into Aboriginal youth suicide

In March 2016, following another Aboriginal youth suicide in the remote north of Western Australia, the Education and Health Standing Committee of the WA Parliament decided to conduct an enquiry and present its report on November 17.

The 300 page report contains written and oral submissions from many eminent people throughout Australia. There has been more than 40 reports in the past 15 years. Most of these had failed to address the issue or have had no impact; there had been little or no implementation of the recommendations from the previous reports and no regular report back or feedback to government.

This can be seen in many of the current reports 44 recommendations. A sense of how urgent the issue has become can be seen from Recommendation 35: That the Premier and Minister for Community Services report to the Parliament on the implementation of Recommendation 6 in the Commissioner for Children and Young Peoples 2015 report, Our Children Cant Wait: Review of the implementation of recommendations of the 2011 Report of the inquiry into the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in WA.

How did the situation of our young Aboriginal people become so bad and yet so little has been done to address and turn it around? The news of the Committees report met with scant coverage in the corporate media.

The report found Aboriginal children and young people represent 28 percent of all recorded suicide deaths of children and young people despite comprising only three percent of Australias population.

The report makes salient reading into the impact which a capitalist society has on people from a culture and background which is based on collective ownership as opposed to private property held and exploited for profit.

It is salient that in the reports Chapter 4 Culture and Identity, it recognises the importance of culture in stabilising and supporting young people in their quest for identity.

Dr Tracey Westerman, a consultant psychologist who was heavily involved in the research of the report said that in her experience:

The people who are caught in the middle  who just do not fit anywhere, they are marginalised, they could not fit in their communities, they do not fit in mainstream for whatever reason and they are the ones who have the highest rate of suicide.

It is for these marginalised young people that promoting culture and therefore their identity can play a key role in preventing suicide.

The importance of culture can be exemplified by the description of a female member of the Alive and Kicking Goals Womens Reference Group who described the relationship between her liyan (spirit) and activities that supported her cultural identity, such as returning to country: It is all about drawing back to the basic stuff, but for young people what makes your liyan feel good? My liyan feels good when I go back on country.

It is symptomatic of the problem that the report found that while witnesses and submissions highlighted the need for culturally-based programs, they were currently undervalued and underfunded including on a short term basis for up to two years.

The state Liberal governments decision to close down many Aboriginal communities claiming there was insufficient economic justification for keeping them open, also contributes to the disadvantage, destructive environments, dispossession and disorder felt by young Aboriginal people  and which are at the core of attempts to take their own lives.

The members of the Parliaments Health and Education Committee concluded that while the answers to reducing the incidence of youth suicide are complex many are already known. More inquiries and investigations are not needed only the political will to ensure that resources are allocated and action taken.

The Communist Party of Australia supports the call for action to implement the recommendations of the current report (and of the past 42 reports) into Aboriginal youth suicides to eliminate the causal factors of these tragic and avoidable deaths which will also include involving Aboriginal members  especially the elders of communities.
Taking Issue  Rob Gowland

Socialist Realism

The arts scene in post-revolutionary Russia was one of hectic activity and ferment. Initially there were those  mainly youngsters  who thought that anything that shocked their elders must be revolutionary, so obscenity must be super revolutionary! Weve all met revolutionaries of that stamp.

Lenin at the Third KomSoMol Convention by Aleksandr Lomykin.

That trend fell away in the course of the Civil War and the Intervention. During the New Economic Policy, when limited private enterprise was encouraged while the economy tried to recover from the ravages of war, some revolutionary artists enthusiastically embraced the theory known as Futurism. The Futurists believed that the Revolution required a complete rupture from the past and, therefore, so did Soviet art.

The collection of Futurist art in the Russian Museum in Leningrad (as St Petersburg was called when I saw it) is breathtakingly brilliant. However, its applicability to the complexities of laying the foundations for building a new society was problematic. The main contending theory, realism, was much more applicable and certainly more useful.

By the mid to late 1920s, Soviet art, literature and cinema had matured and Soviet cinema had actually begun to wow the world. Each individual artist, however, was still essentially feeling their way. Those who turned to film, for example, had to experiment with and then discard concepts such as eccentric acting and mechanistic acting, or that films should have no actors at all.

Then, at the beginning of the 30s, with the collectivisation of agriculture completed, the building of Socialism could begin in earnest and art  in all its forms  was perceived as an extraordinarily valuable means of educating the people of this new society, both for their own intrinsic benefit and as a way of furthering the development of socialism.

The writer Maxim Gorki, whose life experiences had made him a committed socialist, wrote an article in 1933 entitled Socialist Realism. Gorkis contention was that, in the conditions of trying to build a socialist society while combating imperialist subversion, sabotage and war, committed Communist writers could not afford to waste their artistic gift on producing inconsequential or frivolous works.

If they were serious about Socialism, then they had no option but to dedicate their art to the great cause of the liberation of humanity. Art, as the slogan of the time went, is a weapon! For the artist, that meant embracing Realism, the approach to art that involved peeling back the surface to peer underneath to ascertain what really made something tick, especially social phenomena.

But not just Realism, said Gorki, but Socialist Realism, realism with a political purpose, realism applied to furthering the Revolution. Gorki enlarged on the concept at the Soviet Writers Congress in 1934. Seldom has such a simple concept been misunderstood  and misrepresented  by so many.

Anti-Communists from the left and the right lampooned the idea, reducing it to a collection of irrational formulae: the central character of a socialist realist story (or film or painting) had to be a worker, preferably a heroic worker such as a tractor driver. Another central character had to be a Communist who could (and invariably did) elucidate the politics of the story for the benefit of the characters and the reader.

In this bastardised version of socialist realism, the workers are always united and they always win, whereas in real life they often arent and they often dont. Ironically, the story of a defeat can be far more illuminating than any number of routine formulaic success stories.

Instead of being an approach to art applicable across all genres, socialist realism was reduced to the status of being a genre itself. This was frequently the situation in Australia. One artist, who actually taught socialist realism for the CPA, happily admitted in her reminiscences that she did her socialist realist paintings in the morning and her abstract paintings in the afternoon!

The same artist/teacher was told that every work of art had to have a message. Whenever she couldnt readily determine what message one of her own paintings contained, she actually wrote an appropriate message across the painting! Crude? You think? And she taught the subject!

But enough of that! Just thinking about it makes me cranky. As does the claim that the famine in the Ukraine at the beginning of the 30s was all part of a Bolshevik plot to force poor peasants to join their farms together into large collectives! How could killing off poor people (and it wasnt the rich peasants who starved) possibly help win support for the Soviets?

The claim that Stalin was to blame for the famine was popular among anti-Communists in the 1930s: the Ukraine was satisfactorily a long way away so stories couldnt be easily checked; the Nazis and the US capitalist media both promoted the tale enthusiastically; and any contrary views could be (and were) dismissed as Soviet propaganda.

The person who gave the story the imprimatur of academic support was an extreme right-wing British scholar lecturing at the notorious Hoover Institute in California, Robert Conquest. His two books exposing Stalins (and Communisms crimes) were The Great Terror: Stalins Purge of the Thirties and The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror Famine.

Conquest had flirted briefly with membership in the Communist Party while a student at Oxford, but had found capitalism more attractive and certainly more rewarding. Becoming an extreme anti-Communist, he was ultimately given the honour of becoming an adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He was a pillar of the CIA-backed Congress for Cultural Freedom and a stalwart defender of the Cold War.

Like other confirmed cold Warriors, Conquest was unfazed when the opening of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unions archives in the early 90s failed to support the claims of millions of deaths. He remained stalwart in his contempt for the Soviet Union and every level of its leadership, telling an audience at San Franciscos Independent Institute in 1992 when receiving an award that the rank-and-file of the old Soviet ruling class really were ... mean, treacherous, shamelessly lying, cowardly, sycophantic and ignorant.

His faithful service to the ruling class was rewarded in 2005 when that pillar of democracy George W Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Was Conquest concerned at the number of deaths that could be laid at Bushs door? I doubt it.
US protection racket root of Korea conflict

The best way to understand the seemingly reckless, recurring threat of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula is this: the East Asian region is being run like a Mafia protection racket. And the criminal Mafia is the US.

US Army receives upgraded armored fighting vehicles back in 2015 as an ongoing effort to strengthen readiness across Korean Peninsula. (Photo: US Army/Bryan Willis)

The conflict emanates from Washington and is perpetuated by Washington. Why? To justify what would otherwise be seen as simply outrageous US militarism in the Asia Pacific hemisphere, and in particular a criminally aggressive agenda towards the main geopolitical targets of Washington  China and Russia.

Koreas conflict is not primarily about North and South enemy states. It is, as it has been for the past 68 years since the end of World War II, about Washington using military force to criminally assert its hegemony on the global stage.

But you wouldnt know this from a casual reading of the Western news media. No, we are told over and over again that the US is protecting South Korea and its other Asian allies. The military presence of the US is serving as a deterrent to aggression from a sinister North Korea. In this depiction, the US is the good guy, while North Korea is the menacing reprobate that is a scourge on everybodys well-being and security. Kim Jong-un is the embodiment of the Axis of Evil.

That so-called quality news media such as the BBC, New York Times and UK Guardian can get away with seriously presenting this situation in terms portraying the US as a benevolent force is an astounding feat of reality inversion and brainwashed mind control. The irony is that such media implicitly mock North Korea as a Stalinist Big Brother state, where critical thought and expression are forbidden. Yet, these media display the very same habit of mental conformity that they disparage North Korea for.

As noted above, the only way of properly interpreting the recent weeks of threat and counter-threat of all-out war in Korea is to recall scenes from the classic Mafia movie, The Godfather. You know the drill. The mobster goes around the neighbourhood demanding loyalty, respect and tributes for protection. If the residents dont conform to the racket, then the boss arranges self-fulfilling violence to rain down on those who dare to reject his magnanimous protection.

The exact same arrangement applies in Korea under the tutelage of the US. The Peninsula was unilaterally partitioned in 1945 by Washington into North and South statelets because the US could not abide the fact that the Korean population at that time was strongly anti-imperialist and yearning for socialist democracy. That egalitarian sentiment helped the Koreans resist the occupying Japanese imperialists prior to and during World War II.

Tellingly, in order to assert its hegemony over Korea and the Asia Pacific, the US worked the neighbourhood over assiduously in order to defeat the popular movement for independence and democracy that the Korean people exhibited so boldly. Washington achieved this by installing pro-Japanese collaborators as the rulers of newly formed South Korea. Think about that one. The US fought a war allegedly to defeat fascism and imperialism, only to immediately collude with the same political forces to defeat Korean democracy.

US state terrorism

The dropping of the atomic bombs by Washington on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was part and parcel of American efforts to demarcate a postwar hegemony in the Asia Pacific to the Soviet Union and China  and this is why Korea was also fractured into two alien states that were then precipitated into war between 1950-53.

That war  in which a third of the northern Korean population were exterminated by American indiscriminate carpet-bombing and napalm incineration  has never officially ended. The armistice signed in 1953 under Washingtons dictate is technically only a ceasefire. For decades, North Koreas demand for a full peace treaty has been repeatedly rejected by Washington and its South Korean client state. In other words, Washington has retained the implicit prerogative to resume its aerial bombardment of the North Korean population at any time it chooses. That constitutes a constant threat, or a policy of state terrorism by Washington.

The threat from the US towards the Korean population has and continues to include nuclear annihilation. During the Korean War, the US air force would regularly fly nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over the Peninsula. People on the ground would recognise the aircraft, but they did not know what the operational intent was.

Can you imagine the terrorism that this conveyed?  barely five years after the US vaporised the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at the same time that US military were compelling Koreans to live in caves as the only way of escaping mass destruction from conventional bombing.

This same thuggish behaviour by the US government is consistent with its authorisation during this past week for the flying of nuclear-capable B-2 and B-52 bombers over the Korean Peninsula. The dropping of inert bombs by these aerial monsters has to be seen as a heinous calculation in Washington aimed at heightening the terrorism.

Yet, absurdly, the Western propaganda organs, otherwise called news, portray this American state terrorism as protection.

The New York Times, for example, quoted one so-called expert as explaining North Koreas response to the latest American provocation by saying: The North Korean populace has to be regularly reminded that their country is surrounded by scheming enemies. Otherwise, they might start asking politically dangerous questions.

The laugh about this brain-washed expert thinking, and the New York Times promoting it, is that the people of Korea are indeed surrounded by a scheming enemy  the US  and if the wider international public and media were to start thinking about that fact then there would be politically dangerous questions such as: what gives the US the right to conduct annual military war games off and on the Korean Peninsula for the past six decades, including the deployment of nuclear annihilation?

The people of Korea, North and South, deserve and desire peace. Despite the antagonism and belligerence highlighted in the Western propaganda media, the majority of people of North and South Korea have in fact no wish for war. The consensus among ordinary Koreans is for peace and a democratic resolution to decades of conflict imposed on their homeland from outside. But they wont obtain that reasonable condition as long as Washington continues to run its protection racket.

And, unfortunately, the American government will not, cannot stop its criminal behaviour  because domination, aggression and terrorism are the hallmarks of Washingtons Mafia regime.

Information Clearing House
Philippines

Duterte seeks peace?

Filipino President Duterte oversaw a brutal anti-drug campaign but is now seeking peace with leftist revolutionaries and rejecting US pressure for more counterinsurgency warfare, writes Marjorie Cohn.

In April 2016, Rodrigo Duterte won the Philippine presidential election by a landslide, with more than 6 million votes. He openly declared that he was the nations first Left president, calling himself a socialist but not a communist. So far, his regime has been controversial, to put it mildly.

Filipino President Duterte.

The US press has focused on Dutertes vicious war on drugs that claimed upwards of 2,000 lives and led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of people. His decision to allow former Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcoss burial in the National Cemetery of the Heroes also has drawn the ire of those who recall Marcoss brutal two-decade regime that killed more than 3,000, tortured tens of thousands, and stole US$10 billion from the Philippines.

But, significantly, Duterte is engaging with revolutionary forces in the peace process that aims to end 47 years of armed struggle against the repressive Filipino government. And Duterte has taken actions that, for the first time, challenge the longstanding military and economic power of the United States in the Philippines.

Peace process with opposition

Since 1969, a civil war has been raging in the Philippines. The roots of the armed conflict can be traced to the colonial and neo-colonial domination of the Philippines by the Spanish, then US imperialism, feudal exploitation by big landlords and capitalist interests, as well as widespread bureaucratic corruption. After Dutertes election, he cited peace as a top priority of his administration, vowing to engage in peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

According to JustPeacePH, an international platform that supports the Philippine peace process and takes its name from its Internet site, justpeace.ph, The daily, systematic and systemic injustice experienced by the people drive them to desire and seek fundamental changes in society through various means. But because the forces against fundamental social change use all means including the instruments and violence of the state to defend the status quo, many Filipinos over many generations have embraced armed struggle to overthrow the ruling system.

The NDFP is the alliance of progressive forces seeking to bring about fundamental change in the existing social system in the Philippines through armed revolution, JustPeacePH states in its Primer on Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines. The NDFP alliance includes trade unions, peasants, youth, women, national minorities, teachers, health workers, religious clergy, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the New Peoples Army.

Dutertes peace initiative

Two rounds of peace negotiations have already occurred since Duterte took office, with a third scheduled for January 2017 in Oslo, Norway.

In May, Duterte declared he would release all political prisoners, which number more than 400, through a presidential declaration of amnesty, provided both houses of congress approve. Nineteen NDFP consultants, who have been involved in the revolutionary movement for years, have already been released.

Duterte offered four cabinet positions to the CPP, but they declined, stating there must first be a comprehensive peace agreement. The CPP, however, recommended a veteran peasant leader who was appointed Secretary of Agrarian Reform and a veteran academic activist leader who was named secretary of social welfare and development.

These are major appointments, Luis Jalandoni, NDFPs Senior Adviser on the Peace Negotiating Panel, told me at a recent conference of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in Lisbon, Portugal.

NDFP has a peoples army and organs of political power with mass organisations in 71 out of the 81 provinces in the country, Jalandoni said. He noted that landlessness and poverty afflict the 100 million people in the Philippines.

The NDFP insists on addressing the roots of the armed conflict in order to achieve a just and lasting peace, Jalandoni said. The demands in the peace talks are: Release of all political prisoners; Land reform for the peasantry (70% of the population); National industrialisation to develop the economy using available human and natural resources; Protect the environment and ancestral lands of the Indigenous peoples; and Philippine national sovereignty and abrogation of all unequal treaties with the United States.

Challenging US power

US domination and interference in the Philippines date back to 1898, when the United States annexed the Philippines. The US continued to exercise colonial rule over the country until 1946, when the Philippines gained its independence although the United States retained many military installations there and the Filipino economy maintained its dependence on the US.

With US assistance, Marcos ruled the Philippines with an iron fist from 1965 through 1986, under martial law from 1972 to 1981. In 2002, the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government developed Oplan Bayanihan, a counterinsurgency program modelled on US strategies. After 9/11, the Bush administration gave Arroyo US$100 million to fund that campaign in the Philippines.

Oplan Bayanihan led to large numbers of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture and cruel treatment. Many civilians, including children, have been killed. Philippine military and paramilitary death squads murdered hundreds of members of progressive organisations. Communities and leaders opposed to large-scale and invasive mining have been targeted. Even ordinary people with no political affiliation have not escaped the governments reign of terror.

From 2001 to 2010, the US government provided more than US$507 million in military assistance to the Philippine government, facilitating tremendous repression.

Between 2010 and 2015, the Philippine police, military and paramilitary forces perpetrated extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, illegal arrests and forced evacuation, many to enable extraction by mining companies.

The 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, which President Barack Obama negotiated with Dutertes predecessor, gave US troops the right to prolonged deployment in the Philippines. The agreement is widely seen in the Philippines as a threat to the countrys sovereignty.

In September 2016, Duterte declared, I am not a fan of the Americans  Filipinos should be first before everybody else. He added, In our relations to the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy. I repeat: The Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy.

The United States has not apologised for all the atrocities it committed against the Filipino people, Duterte said. Responding to US criticism of the Philippines for its human rights violations, he stated, Why are you Americans killing the black people there, shooting them down when they are already on the ground.

Duterte promised to end joint military manoeuvres with US forces and expel the hundreds of US troops currently stationed in the Philippines. He also expressed his intention to end bilateral agreements concluded by his predecessor with the United States and reverse permission for the United States use of five Philippine military bases.

I will break up with America, Duterte said. I would rather go to Russia and to China. He vowed to rescind joint patrols with US and Filipino forces against Chinese expansion in the disputed South China Sea. Indeed, Duterte recently travelled to China and secured valuable fishing rights for Filipinos in the South China Sea.

Hope for peace prospects

In an unprecedented development, both the government and the opposition declared unilateral ceasefires in August. But there are still problems with the governments ceasefire, says NDFPs Luis Jalandoni, as Duterte doesnt have full control of the military. The military and paramilitary forces, which are protected by the military, have engaged in several violations that imperil the ceasefire, he said.

There is high optimism that the peace talks will prosper under the presidency of Duterte, according to JustPeacePH. Unlike past presidents who harbour strong anti-communist bias, Duterte seems capable of rethinking the governments peace strategy since he claims to be a socialist.

Opposition forces are not uncritical of the excesses in Dutertes war on drugs. The CPP declared the campaign is becoming anti-people and anti-democratic. Due process must be respected, human rights must be upheld; the drug users and small drug dealers, who come from poverty, require rehabilitation and care, the CPP maintains.

Understandably, Dutertes war on drugs and other crimes is given more coverage by the global media, JustPeacePH wrote in its primer. But Dutertes aim to establish a lasting peace in the provinces deserves even more attention as this strikes at the root causes of the problem of illegal drugs and related crimes.

Jalandoni said, Duterte is not a saint but he stands for an independent foreign policy. His stand against the United States is respected and has received a lot of support.

The NDFP, Jalandoni noted, says that if there are threats against Duterte by US imperialism, the Left will be a reliable ally to him, adding, He is the first president to stand up to the United States.

globalresearch.ca
Culture & Life

The system is rigged

Donald Trump was right: the system is rigged! But it is rigged for the Republicans, not the Democrats, for conservatives, not progressives. And the result is the election of an extreme racist, misogynist authoritarian who may change the course of US and even world history.

Belatedly we learn that Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by more than two million votes, yet Trump still won the Electoral College. The public burst into an uproar in 2,000 when Gore beat Bush by 550,000 votes but lost the Electoral vote. This time the public, the Clinton campaign and the press are quiet. We are glad to see Jill Stein taking the lead in contesting the vote in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

In fact, the Electoral College system was created by slaveholders, and remains undemocratic and racist, and biased to the Republicans. Obama showed that the system can be overcome and even turned to our advantage, but the Clinton and Gore losses show it is an uphill climb.

Racist, undemocratic Electoral College

The 2016 election was only the fourth time in US history that a presidential candidate has lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, and thus the presidency. And Clintons winning margin of more than two million votes is by far the largest of any losing candidate.

Why is it that, in the 21st century, the Electoral College keeps trumping the popular vote on behalf of Republicans?

The pro-Republican bias of the Electoral College derives from two main dynamics: it overweights the impact of mostly conservative voters in small population states and it negates entirely the mostly progressive votes of nearly half of African American voters, more than half of Native American voters, and a major swath of Latino voters.

For decades now, with a couple of exceptions, Republicans have dominated rural areas, small towns, and small population states, and the Democrats control big cities and most of the big population states.

Well, the Electoral College rules give as much as three times as much weight to the mainly conservative and white Republicans in the rural states compared to states with large, racially diverse and majority Democratic populations.

This is because even the tiniest state has a minimum of three Electoral College votes, based on the rule that each state is allocated Electors based on the size of its congressional delegation (Senators plus Representatives). The Constitution provides that each state has a minimum of two Senators and one member of the House of Representatives, even if its total population is less than a single congressional district in a large state. (There are approximately 710,767 people in an average congressional district.)

For example, this year just over 245,000 people voted in Wyoming yet it has three Electoral College votes: one for every 82,000 or so voters. By comparison this year more than 12 million people voted in California which has 55 Electoral votes. So California has one Electoral vote for every 218,000 voters. Thus a voter in Wyoming carries almost three times the Electoral weight of a California voter. Indeed because every state has two senators, the general rule is that the higher the population of the state, the less impact each voter in that state carries in the Electoral College.

And, since the Republicans carry all the small population states except Rhode Island and Washington DC (which also gets 3 Electoral votes), this rule strongly favours them. This year the Electoral outcome was able to reverse Clintons large popular vote margin because, for the first time in decades, the Republicans carried the large population states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in addition to Texas.

Negating the Southern Black vote

The Electoral College system also ensures, even requires, that given the historic racial voting polarisation, about half of all voters of colour be marginalized or totally ignored.

Approximately 55 percent of all Blacks live in the southern states, and for decades they have voted about 90 percent Democratic in the presidential races. However, the pattern since 1960 is that white Republican voters defeat them in every southern and border state except Maryland and Virginia, and (in 2008) North Carolina. While whites voted 58 percent for Trump nationally in 2016, southern whites gave him over 70 percent of their votes. The white vote has been approximately the same since 1980.

Thus all Southern Electoral College votes except those of Maryland and Virginia went to Trump and the votes of almost half of African American voters basically do not count according to the College rules.

For example, Blacks constitute about 36 percent of the Mississippi electorate, the highest Black voter percentage in any state in the country. About 90 percent voted for Clinton. But whites are 64 percent of the states voters, and about 90 percent chose Trump. Trump therefore handily won 58 percent of the states total vote and all of its Electoral College votes.

In 2016, as for decades, the Electoral College result was the same as if Blacks in all the southern states except Virginia and Maryland had not voted at all.

Similarly negated were the votes of millions of Native American and Latino voters who live in overwhelmingly white Republican states like Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, the Dakotas, Montana, and Texas. Further, the peoples of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam  territories ruled by the US  get no Electoral College votes at all. The tyranny of the white, conservative majority prevails.

Thus, the Electoral College system violates the principle of one person, one vote, drastically undermines the impact of the Black vote and gives the Republicans a major advantage in presidential contests. Its abolition should be a key part of the progressive agenda.

Slaveholder origins of the Electoral College

The Founding Fathers, led by slaveholders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, invented the Electoral College out of thin air to serve their interests.

They codified the notorious idea that slaves were non-humans, and thus deserving of no constitutional or human rights. The one exception to this rule was the constitutional provision that slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person, solely for the purpose of determining how many congressional representatives each state would be allotted. Thus, even though slaves had no right to vote, the three-fifths rule vastly increased the slave states power in the House of Representatives and therefore the Congress.

The Electoral College, in which each state receives a number of Electors equal to their congressional delegation, was invented as the institutional means to transfer that same pro-slavery congressional allocation to determining the presidency. Slaveholders held the presidency for 50 of the 72 years before Abraham Lincoln, who was elected in 1860, became the first US president to oppose the expansion of slavery. The South, accustomed to wielding political power through the selective enumeration of slaves, promptly seceded.

Since the end of slavery, the Electoral College has remained a racist and conservative instrument. It has given the Republicans a running head start to win the presidency ever since reactionary Southerners switched en masse from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in protest of the 1960s civil rights legislation.

The Electoral College is one of the most powerful legacies of slavery in the US.

The system is rigged! And changing the system would take a constitutional amendment approved by three-fourths of the states. Consequently we are in an uphill battle that, if we master Electoral College strategy the way Obama did, we can win. Although the Electoral College is not on our side, history  including the rising progressive electorates  is.

Lets make Trump a one term president.

Peoples World
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We don't know whether to be awestruck or slightly nihilistic that one of the most popular forms of currency throughout history is a substance that completely removes you from the world and enhances any not-shit experience into an orgy of mental delirium. There was polio and executions and the rampant nastiness that inspired Game Of Thrones, sure, but were things really that bad?

Back in days of yore, alcohol -- in most cases, beer -- was all but the only game in town when it came to getting paid for a hard day's work. When the ruins of the ancient city of Uruk, Mesopotamia were uncovered, archaeologists discovered (alongside the ghosts) a proto-paycheck entitling some Sector-7B(C) worker drone to a set amount of beer, as well as a shitload of bread to soak it up afterwards. It was the same deal in ancient Egypt. In return for helping with the construction of the pyramids, each worker was given several liters of beer per day, and this was often handed out while they were working. We used to think that the people who built the pyramids were slaves. The reality, however, was less Django Unchained and more Animal House.

Ricardo Liberato

"No one asked them to do this. They just got wasted and started piling things."

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Australia, meanwhile, had an economy entirely built upon rum. From 1792, it became commonplace for officers with the New South Wales Corps to swoop in and buy every drop of rum coming into the country via trading ship, before turning around and selling it to the unwillingly sober colonists at inflated prices. It only took a short while for rum to depose money as the dominant currency. Workers would be paid in rum, farmers would be forced to sell their crops for rum, and the NSW Corps -- who soon renamed themselves "the Rum Corps" -- made a tidy profit off the alcoholic apocalypse that they'd caused. You don't need to be told that these guys were British, do you?
This past week presented 2016 with yet another terrorist attack: Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a student at Ohio State University, rammed a bunch of his fellow students with his car and then hopped out and started stabbing people. He wounded eleven before he was shot and killed by the police, which is generally what happens to people who go on stabbing rampages.

Whenever someone with a name like "Abdul" commits one of America's monthly spree attacks, a certain segment of the population is honor bound to start shouting 'ISIS!' In this case, they're right. In his note, the spree stabber demanded the U.S. cease all attacks on the Islamic State in order to stop more "lone wolf" attacks. ISIS has claimed him as their soldier, but they didn't spend any time or money equipping him.

You're going to hear the term "self-radicalized" a lot over the next couple of days. What does that mean, really? It means the Ohio State stabbings weren't just a random expression of anger: they were directly inspired, even cultivated, by a novel brand of ISIS propaganda: the terrorist organization's new magazine, Rumiyah:

Some of you might remember that last year, I read every issue of ISIS's first magazine, Dabiq. That magazine is named for a town in Syria, recently retaken from the Islamic State, that was prophesized to be the site of an apocalyptic battle. The title of their new magazine, 'Rumiyah,' is the Arabic word for 'Rome', and that shift tells you a lot about what you need to know here: ISIS has switched their focus from 'expanding the caliphate' to 'inspiring attacks on Western 'Crusader' nations'. They provide the ideology, the sense of identity and colorful guides, and you do the grunt work.

Yes, ISIS has become the Uber of terrorism. And their corporate manual, the manual Abdul Artan followed, is Rumiyah.
As the shock of Nico Rosberg's sudden departure from Formula 1 subsides, attention has turned towards whom could possibly replace him next season.

This is not just any F1 drive though... there is a race winning, possibly title-contending car on offer to those who either want it or - more importantly - can get out of their current contract.

As Mercedes sits down to consider their options, we do the same and rate their chances...

Be sure to let us know what you think to in the comments section below...

Pascal Wehrlein

The bookies favourite and certainly the most practical solution for Mercedes, the fact the team has neither emphasised his potential candidacy let alone already announced him arguably offers an insight into whether the team thinks he has the ability to fulfil some lofty objectives in 2017. That isn't to say Wehrlein isn't capable of showing well in a top team but it is hard to gauge his full ability after a season driving the uncompetitive Manor, while the fact Force India overlooked him for his younger counterpart Esteban Ocon was a visible confidence blow to the German.

Indeed, while the Mercedes of 2013 might have considered taking a punt on its own junior driver, the Mercedes of 2017 has more to lose. The importance of the constructors' title to a brand like Mercedes means developing a #2 driver in real-time and relying on Lewis Hamilton may not be enough, particularly given the looming threat of Red Bull and Ferrari ahead of a change in regulations. In his favour though Wehrlein is likely to be a very compliant team-mate to Hamilton, has more experience than any other driver trialling the 2017 specification tyres and would at least do wonders to validate Mercedes' junior driver programme.

In summary: If Mercedes can be at ease with risking a constructors' title in 2017 then Wehrlein deserves a shot at proving his investment as the team's long-term future. Remember when many doubted the readiness of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen?

UPDATE: Still in the running but is seemingly being billed as the fall-back option if Mercedes cannot secure its first choices

Valtteri Bottas

Though he doesn't have the star power of Fernando Alonso or Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas' odds have been improving over the course of the week. If Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren are unlikely to give up their top drivers without a fight that Mercedes may not want to get involved in, Bottas' place at Williams is probably easier to negotiate. It hasn't escaped notice that Toto Wolff has an interest in Bottas' career, while Williams' ties to Mercedes means there could be some compliance to getting around a table and discussing a few options. Though Bottas (and Williams generally) descended into anonymity in 2016 as the team struggled to get its car working consistently, the Finn has been exactly that, making few errors and generally maximising if not exceeding the car. Those in the know rate Bottas very highly, not just for his speed - which some think would be clearer in a faster car - but for his intelligence. In short, he is arguably the most Rosberg-like driver on the grid.

From Bottas' point of view, he would almost certainly trade loyalty for a Mercedes drive, but Williams - though accommodating - will be very reluctant to let a pillar of its team exit when it is counting on him to provide stability as it brings 18 year old rookie team-mate Lance Stroll up to standard. One option could be to trade Bottas with Wehrlein (as well as offer financial/power unit incentive) but it will won't be an easy sell...

His chances... Arguably striking the best compromise between availability and experience or quality, if Toto Wolff can get Claire Williams around the negotiating table then a Bottas-Mercedes relationship looks rather tasty.

UPDATE: As we suspected, Bottas' likeness to Rosberg is tempting Mercedes, so it is no surprise an approach has been made. But Williams are digging heels in and whilst they can probably be budged, it could take a big incentive to part ways with a star driver it believes it can win races with

Sebastian Vettel

Will Ferrari regret its decision to wait until 2017 to begin talks over a new contract with Sebastian Vettel? The German's stock has taken a bit of a battering this year on the back of an indifferent season with Ferrari, but there is no doubt Vettel would be a formidable contender in Mercedes machinery. Whether he wants to or not is a different story... it is clear Vettel really wants to be the man to return Ferrari to the top and he is likely to receive greater pleasure doing that than achieving the same with Mercedes. Then again, he wants to be champion more than anything and it remains unclear whether Ferrari can offer that.

On the flip side, Lewis Hamilton may not feel quite so comfortable about having Vettel on board. The four-time champion's hands-on approach even between races differs from Hamilton, while the likely wrestle over #1 status could leave Mercedes wishing for a return to the days of the Rosberg-Hamilton fracas. It's all conjecture of course, but while Mercedes no doubt wants the best line-up possible, it probably wants the most workable one too...

His chances... He says he has a Ferrari contract next year but Vettel might feel irked enough by Ferrari's notably fair-weather assessment of him in 2016 to do get somebody looking for clauses in his 2017 deal. Much could come down to how much faith he retains in Ferrari, seemingly his preferred option on equal-footing.

UPDATE: There has been little indication that Mercedes is considering Vettel as an option

Fernando Alonso

The driver most F1 fans would like to see head to Mercedes, if only for the curiosity that would come with reviving his fractious inter-team rivalry with Hamilton, Fernando Alonso represents a fascinating proposition. Much water has passed under the bridge over the last 10 years but since both drivers will no doubt take immense pleasure from beating one another in the same car, Mercedes might want to second guess the potential ramifications of their rivalry. Or at least have a chat with Ron Dennis.

Alonso seems relatively comfortable at McLaren and though results have been hard to come by in the last two years there appears to be a harmony in the working relationship and - like Vettel with Ferrari -, there is evident motivation to be the man credited with completing the turnaround. Then again, Alonso is as astute behind the scenes as he is on the track and it would be na?ve to think he has not already made enquiries at least... is McLaren's new management structure about to be dealt its first major test?

His chances... It is reasonable to assume Alonso will use this turn up as leverage to drive a hard bargain with McLaren's new management structure, but if he can be convinced that the Woking team is on the cusp of something great then tussling over #1 status at Mercedes not seem the wisest long-term shot

UPDATE: Toto Wolff signalled interest but Flavio Briatore says Alonso will respect his contract... probably after a little reminder from McLaren

Carlos Sainz

If Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen are to be considered 'out of bounds', could Carlos Sainz emerge as a viable option? The Spaniard has seen his reputation ascend on the back of some impressive performances in the compromising Toro Rosso, while his relative parity with Verstappen during their time in the Italian team has certainly done no harm.

That said, Verstappen is also limiting his options with no obvious way into the Red Bull 'A team' for the foreseeable future. Indeed, while Toro Rosso remains a credible mid-field team, Sainz appears capable of more... but it is hard to see how 'more' can come from Red Bull anytime soon. It's worth pointing out that Toto Wolff has mentioned Sainz in the same breath as Verstappen before and while Helmut Marko may baulk on the idea of releasing a driver to its main rivals, it at least has a strong alternative in Pierre Gasly to take his place immediately.

His chances... A stronger prospect than he is perhaps being given credit for, if Sainz has a way out of his Toro Rosso/Red Bull deal then he - and his father - have probably made more than one phone call to Mercedes already

UPDATE: Sainz's odds have shortened massively since last week and - other than Wehrlein - is probably the driver most 'available' to Mercedes. If Mercedes can't get Bottas and Wehrlein is still questionable, Sainz is surely the next target.

Esteban Ocon

If Mercedes is uncertain about Pascal Wehrlein for his relative experience, then surely Esteban Ocon falls into the same category... then again, he has already beaten his Manor team-mate to one drive this year. Strictly speaking, Ocon is perhaps a stronger contender for 2018 once Mercedes can assess his true form at the wheel of a more competitive car and should the new signing - whoever that may be - land himself a one-year deal it could speak volumes for Mercedes' thought-processes for the future.

His chances... Certainly a darling within Mercedes, Ocon may seem more suited to a 2018 move but he is rated as highly as Wehrlein by those in the know

Anyone else?

Jenson Button received an honorary mention following Rosberg's announcement and there is some romance to the idea of him returning to the team that effectively took him to the 2009 F1 world title under the Brawn moniker. However, one look at his demeanour in Abu Dhabi suggested he has put a full stop on his F1 chapter and is preparing to move, making it tricky to get back to the 'zone' that would have him squaring up to Lewis Hamilton again.

Following months of 'will he, won't he' at Force India, the idea of Sergio Perez renegotiating his contract again will probably cause a shudder amongst his people. Then again, the Mexican has continued his upward trend in 2016 and the Mercedes-powered Force India team has shown it is willing to deal with their rivals in the past for the right incentive...

Romain Grosjean might is another experienced driver held in high regard and perhaps negotiable on his current deal with Haas, but an indifferent season appears to have ruled him out.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Who deserves the chance to defend Mercedes' world title?
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Ingram MicroHNA Group Deal Officially Closes; Ingram CFO, EVP To Depart

Michael Novinson

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The world's largest IT distributor is now part of fast-growing $30 billion Chinese conglomerate HNA Group.

"Today marks a significant step forward in HNA Group's effort to create a global, one-stop provider of logistics and supply chain solutions and services," said Adam Tam, vice chairman and CEO of HNA Group, in a prepared statement. "We are excited to welcome Ingram Micro to the HNA Group family."

Now that the deal is completed, Ingram Micro Chief Financial Officer William Humes and Executive Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel Larry Boyd are slated to leave the company Dec. 16, - 10 days after the close of the $6 billion megadeal. They join Paul Read, Ingram Micro's former president and chief operating officer, as executives who have left the $43 billion, Irvine, Calif.-based distributor as the acquisition progressed.

In addition, the members of Ingram Micro's board of directors will be replaced by Humes; Boyd; HNA President Xiangdong Tan; Bharat Bhise, founder and CEO of Bravia Capital of Hong Kong; Ingram Micro CEO Alain Monie; Ingram Chairman Dale Laurance; and Jim McGovern, a former Under Secretary of the Air Force.

[RELATED: Ingram Micro CEO: Chinese Ownership Allows Company To Take More Risks And Boost Its Market Share In China]

Ingram Micro will cease trading on the New York Stock Exchange before the market opens today, making it the only one of North America's six largest IT distributors to be privately held. Ingram Micro had been trading on the New York Stock Exchange since November 1996, 17 years after the company's founding.

Tan said HNA Group is focused on building upon Ingram Micro's unparalleled global logistics and supply chain operations. HNA is a Hainan, China-based transportation and shipping powerhouse whose holdings include Hainan Airlines, China's fourth-largest airline.

"Working together, we believe there are significant opportunities to continue to expand Ingram Micro's delivery platform and portfolio of solutions offerings into high growth regions and provide customers across a wide range of industries with greater access to new market opportunities," Tan said in a statement.

Gina Mastantuono  Ingram Micro's executive vice president of finance since April 2013  will be promoted to the CFO role on Dec. 16, and Augusto Aragone Coppola  Ingram Micro's vice president and associate general counsel since January 2015  will be promoted to the EVP, secretary and general counsel role on Dec. 16.

Humes and Boyd will be eligible to receive a lump sum cash separation payment equal to twice their salary and target bonus, a pro-rated 2016 bonus, health insurance payments for 12 months, outplacement services and accelerated vesting of outstanding equity awards. Humes had been Ingram Micro's CFO since 2005, while Boyd joined Ingram Micro in 2000.

"The closing of this transaction represents a significant milestone on Ingram Micro's path to growing our business, Monie, Ingram Micro's CEO, said in a statement. "We are delighted to move forward with this partnership with HNA Group and excited by the opportunity to accelerate the development and delivery of an even stronger value proposition for Ingram Micro's vendors and customers globally."

The complex, far-reaching acquisition took 10 months to piece together, with the final element coming into place Friday morning with an announcement that Chinese antitrust authorities had approved the deal. Once that occurred, Ingram Micro's stock price jumped 3.5 percent from $37.56 per share to $38.87, just three cents below the agreed-upon payout $38.90 per share.

The two companies initiated China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) process on March 18 when they filed the initial paperwork.

Monie said last week that becoming part HNA will enable the distributor to gain market share in China and invest without being hamstrung by Wall Street. Although Ingram Micro has been operating independently in China for 18 years, Monie said it remains the third or fourth largest IT distributor in the 1.4-billion-person nation.

With the closing of the deal, Monie believes Ingram Micro has the chance to become the largest distributor in China. The acquisition is additionally expected to make it possible Ingram Micro to take more risks and invest more rapidly in its high-priority e-commerce, cloud and lifecycle services practices, Monie said.

The U.S. antitrust process was considered to be the deal's biggest potential stumbling block, and that had been successfully navigated by the beginning of November. Paul Bay, Ingram Micro's group president of the Americas, said last week that U.S. antitrust officials put Ingram Micro through "one of the most intense vetting processes" that he's ever experienced.

As part of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review, Bay said he had to travel to Washington D.C. and sit down with officials from nine U.S. government agencies - including the departments of State, Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury and Defense - and discuss the potential national security impact of the Tianjin Tianhai acquisition.

Even though the process was arduous, Bay came away from it confident that solution providers will continue to be able to transact with the U.S. government through Ingram Micro.

Although U.S. antitrust officials have grown increasingly wary of Chinese ownership of U.S. technology assets, Ingram Micro and Promark -- its public sector-focused subsidiary -- do not hold contracts or sell products through its General Services Administration schedule that require a security clearance. Ingram Micro has said that under HNA, it would operate as a standalone entity with little interference.

Ingram Micro's shareholders approved the deal in June, with more than 99.8 percent voting in favor of the acquisition, with 0.1 percent voting against and 0.06 percent abstaining.
A few days ago, Rev. Franklin Graham held a sharing session of gospel with the theme of love, joy and peace in Yangon, Burma. The session lasted three nights, attracting more than 170,000 people. 7600 people decided to believe in God after the session.

The main religion of Burma is Buddhism. Few people believe in Christianity so the session is relatively a success. The churches in China need to learn from the experience of the evangelicals in America. They should also think about whether to select foreign theologies or create their own theology.

As a Christian group with international influence, Franklin Graham has clear positioning of theology and his own views on events at home and abroad.

For example, Franklin Graham encouraged Christians in 50 states to vote in the presidential race of the USA. After Trump was elected, he showed congratulations to Trump and the new vice president Mike Pence.

In this age of information, the church should have a clear attitude towards social issues. It is obvious that the church needs to think about their own theology comprehensively and objectively.

Different kinds of theological thoughts have emerged in the history of Christianity, which has lasted more than 2000 years. The development of theology can be divided into five stages: The early Christian theology, medieval theology, religious reform theology, enlightenment theology, modern and contemporary theology.

In terms of the current trends of theology, there are social theology, liberal theology (which including the theory of evolution, the radical theology, women theology), new orthodox theology (including interpretations of theology, dialectical theological, existentialist theology and crisis theology), Fundamentalist Theology, evangelical theology, localization theology, post-liberal theology. Some new thoughts are also arising such as spiritual theology, ecological theology, cultural theology and public theology.

With the deepening of China's reform and opening-up, all kinds of theological thoughts have entered China. For example, the mission led by Franklin Graham has landed on Mainland China for many times since 1988.

The 88-year-old famous German theologian Jurgen Moltmann had a conversation with six domestic well-known philosophy experts in Renmin university of China on October 15, 2014. Under the theme of "China and political theology" and "Theology of Hope and China's future," they discussed the topic of life, religion, peace, ecological and hope.

Christian groups in Mainland China need to make their own judgment and choice faced with all kinds of new ideas.

There have been fundamentalist theology, religious reform theology, evangelical and Charismatics in the history of Christianity in China.

So we can't say that the church in China lacks its own theological thoughts. However, we need to answer the questions of believers and work out their puzzles.

Furthermore, the selection and innovation of theology are conducted in order to answer the questions in reality and find the solutions. In fact, during the transition period of the society, almost all the Chinese people are faced with many challenges and confusion.

Their pressure, anxiety and confusion come from the problem of children's education, their job, marriage, family affairs and living standards. All these need to be answered from the angle of faith and reality.

At the same time, the church still needs to make judgments and take actions when it comes to some traditional social problems such as disease, poverty, drug abuse and crime.

The church should also show its attitude towards some common phenomena such as abortion and homosexuality. The voice of the church also needs to be heard when major events at home and abroad such as housing price fluctuations and industrial upgrading take place.

These problems and phenomena are rarely involved in the traditional theology or foreign theology. The church in China must take the responsibility of this era through the selection and innovation of theology.

Looking at the evolution of modern and contemporary theology, different theological thoughts emerged to solve the outstanding problems of specific periods and regions. Women theology was to protect women's rights. Ecological theology was to protect the environment. The gospel of success was to solve the problems which emerged during economic growth.

We cannot judge these theology thoughts are right or wrong. What matters most is to give theological solutions to these new problems. We should think deeply about the innovation of theology and make theological response to the reality.

Translated By: Emma Ma
Croisieres M/S Jacques-Cartier is planning to start-up on the St. Lawrence in 2018, bringing a 100-plus-years family sea-faring tradition to the cruise industry.

The ship, which was most recently a sight-seeing vessel operating out of Trois-Rivieres, will be converted into a 66-passenger cruise ship, according to Vice President Maryse Camirand.

President Michel Harvey is a fourth-generation captain. The family has owned the ship for over 40 years. Also involved with the project is Yolaine Masse, known in cruise industry circles from her time as Director of Tourism for Trois-Rivieres.

According to Camirand, the family took a step back from the maritime world in 2012, and spent three years building a business case for starting a St. Lawrence-based cruise line.

That is now reality, with funding in place to convert the ship.

She said the ship would introduce yacht-like designs, as the company has retained a renowned yacht designer.

Deployment will be finalized in the first quarter of 2017, but those online can vote on itinerary choices on the St. Lawrence.

The main homeport will be Trois-Rivieres., but the ship is also expected to use Montreal and Quebec City, and possibly Toronto, depending on demand.

Camirand told Cruise Industry News that beyond the nine major cruise ports on the St. Lawrence, there were bays, islands and other features the big ships could not get to. Its these stops that they hope to use to help differentiate their product, which they are marketing as active, including kayaking, hiking and other activities.

We want people to be healthy, move and discover something on their vacations, said Camirand.
Cyber insurance seems to be a popular new buzzword for many businesses. Roughly 70% of companies are now trying to transfer the risk to a third party insurance company. Out of these, roughly 25% were spending $500,000 or more on premiums. When asked in the RIMS cyber security survey why they made this decision, 82% of companies said they were concerned about how having a breach can cause harm to their reputation. 76% were concerned about business interruption and 75% were concerned about data loss.

What Is Cyber Insurance?

The goal of cyber insurance is to transfer some of the risk of having a security breach to insurance. However, insurance cannot automatically recover a damaged reputation as a result of an attack.

The unfortunate truth is that some companies believe that if they spend money on cyber insurance they no longer have to ensure they have adequate security in their company. This may leave some c-level executives uninformed asking what is cyber insurance? with the belief that if they have it, then thats all they need. The reality is, while cyber insurance can be helpful, its no substitute for having proper security policies and training in place and making sure they are followed.

Insurance companies are not going to pay out if companies do not provide adequate care to protect their own data networks against cyber security threats. Its important to make a distinction between what is preventable and what is beyond the control of the business.

In the case of cyber insurance, however, the insurers do not check for adequate controls and only test controls when a claim is actually made. This is time consuming and expensive to do, not to mention too late, says Philip Lieberman with Identity Week.

How Do You Address The Risk?

While having cyber insurance can be a great idea, its also important to adequately address the risk by implementing proper training, testing, and education. This should include a cyber risk strategy that reviews the value of the data, type of data, and exposure to the data.

Some things you have to protect your business from include:

Data Breaches

The average cost of a data breach in the United States is $6 million. 60% of small companies cannot withstand the result of this type of attack, according to The US National Cybersecurity Alliance. A proper security policy and regular intrusion testing can help reduce the risk.

Social Engineering

Social engineering targets businesses of all sizes and types. Fortunately, one of the best ways to avoid social engineering is with employee training. This allows employees to make proper decisions and detect when social engineering occurs.

Ransomware

While ransomware used to be almost exclusive to Windows-based machines, it can now be found on Mac, Linux, mobile devices, and more. Ransomware and social engineering continue to be two of the fastest growing cyber threats. Using an endpoint protection software along with proper security policies can help reduce the risk.

Do You Really Need Cyber Insurance?

For most businesses the answer is yes, you really do need cyber insurance. However, its important that you take proactive measures to ensure proper security policies are in place and that the tools such as endpoint security software are up-to-date to help minimize risk. In the event that a cyber intrusion does occur and you need to file for insurance, you will need to prove that your company did everything possible to prevent the attack.
Is your security program compliant? Does compliant mean secure? Could you brief the board that youve followed all the right steps to protect important company information?

What about broader?

Could you testify in court that your efforts are reasonable?

Vanessa Henri from Above Security

Vanessa Henri (@_vanessa_henri, LinkedIn) LL.B., LL.M., Ph.D. candidate and cybersecurity legal expert at Above Security suggests that now is the time to embrace the concept of reasonable security.

Her doctoral work explores the militarization of cyberspace, cyber espionage, and notions of privacy and security. Vanessa is a published author and researcher on the Dark Web, funded by the Quebec Bar Association. She has organized conferences on legal challenges in cyberspace, was director of business development and internal research at a law firm and served as a volunteer for Project Innocence.

She recently presented a webinar on The Developing World of Cyber Litigation and Compliance (link) to introduce and explore these issues.

There is a growing need for executives, officers, and directors to grasp security and lead their organizations. That creates an opportunity for security leaders to provide relevant insights. Sometimes people talk about how compliant may not mean secure. Turns out that in some cases, compliant may not be reasonable, either.

What is reasonable security from a legal standpoint? Is this something that security leaders need to embrace?

The reasonable standard in security is essential for executives and directors to master. Its important because its a legal obligation. Laws dont evolve fast enough to have specific and technical descriptions of what type of intrusion system is required. Instead, they ask to have reasonable measures in place. In the same line of thought, if an organization is accused of being negligent, which was a stated legal theory in 75 percent of American data breach class action litigation in 2015, it can counter-argue that its practices are reasonable.

The key to determine whether a security leader is reasonable is to understand the context. Here are some factors and questions that companies and security professionals should take into consideration:

How sensitive is the information your entity holds on behalf of users?

How much information do you have to protect?

What would be the harm if that information were released?

Could it go as far as to impact your users physical safety (i.e., Ashley Madison data breach)?

How do you measure against others who are in a similar circumstances?

Reasonable security will often amount to the industrys standards. If an organization is not following the industrys standards, then its important for its leaders to be prepared to explain why they do this and why its reasonable. If a judge is the first person to conduct this analysis for an organization, its clear the organization is doing something wrong.

Compliance with security regulations may not be reasonable security from a legal perspective. Hows that work?

As some industries are highly regulated, such as the financial and healthcare sectors, organizations must be compliant to many standards. Compliant organizations will be a step closer to having reasonable cybersecurity. However, some industries are largely unregulated. Take the Ashley Madison case for example. There were no set of standards (i.e., PCI DSS or HIPAA) that applied. From a technical standpoint, the company was compliant, but the practices were not reasonable. And this was contrary to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Canadian privacy act, which specifically requires reasonable safeguards to protect users information.

This example showcases the difference between laws, standards and norms. Laws are enacted slowly, even assuming an agreement. So they use larger terms like reasonable to evolve with time. Standards are changed more often. NIST, for instance, will updates its standards within a few months. Norms, however, are constantly changing and improving as they are driven by the market and the threat landscape. A reasonable cybersecurity plan is mostly evaluated based on norms. Because of this, there might be a gap between a reasonable cybersecurity plan and an applicable standard, but context may also justify that an entity goes beyond what is required by a norm.

Are there any legal precedents to guide us through this process?

Executives can be held personally responsible for their cybersecurity decisions in a shareholder derivative action in which a shareholder, on behalf of the company, alleges a breach of a duty of care (or that management wasted corporate assets or abused its authority). Companies are expected to take reasonable actions based on the available information, and in the same line of thought, theyre expected to obtain this information by conducting appropriate technical testings (i.e., see Andrews webinar on penetration testing). The most common private threat comes from class action lawsuits that can be filed by employees, shareholders or even financial institutions.

In the public realm, regulatory organizations are also increasingly involved in regulating cybersecurity practices. A prominent example is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has filed more than 60 lawsuits by reference to its authority under s. 5 of the FTC Act to protects consumers against unfair and deceptive practices by companies. This authority was contested by the Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, however, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal has confirmed the FTCs competence to regulate cybersecurity. Consequently, companies can expect the FTC to be even more active and confident in its enforcement actions.

We see a number of cases get dismissed or settled. How does this impact the case law process and what should we look for?

Class actions lawsuits are meet with mitigated success because the requirements of causation and damages are ill-adapted to the reality of data breach litigation. Causation, for instance, requires more than a coincidence. Yet, individuals routinely give their personal information to many entities, and data breaches occur quite frequently, sometimes even undetected. As such, its challenge for a plaintiff to argue that the alleged damages result from a specific data breach. In addition to this, a plaintiff must prove cognizable damages, meaning that allegations of future injury, absent actual fraud or identity theft, are insufficient. For these reasons, class actions are often dismissed because they lack standing.

As a consequence, legal precedents are scarce. Even when the facts would justify a trial, the lawsuits are often settles to avoid the uncertainty of the law. Nonetheless, companies would be well-informed not to declare the battle over. There will be a case down the line that will meet these requirements and for which settlement will be unacceptable. There are already signs that the law is willing to evolve to meet the demands of data breach litigation. In Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal created a new intrusion upon seclusion tort, which does not require actual economic damages. In the United States, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeal also reinstated a data breach class action against Neiman Marcus, stating that there was objectively reasonable likelihood that identity theft or credit card fraud would occur. If youre interested in learning more about cyber litigation and legal precedents, watch my Above Security webinar here.

What is the best next step a leader should take today to start preparing for reasonable security?

Its essential to build communication funnels between departments and to leverage the expertise within an organization. If you have a legal department, consult and create a plan with its help. For example, a company that operates in the U.S. and becomes a victim of a data breach may have to obey more than 47 different data breach notifications laws, like who should be contacted, when they should be contacted and how. Planning for this the day after a data breach is setting up the company for failure. In addition to internal resources, companies should have a cyber lawyer on retainer for any questions or situations that may arise.

Its also vital to shift the mindset to prevention, as the concept of reasonable cybersecurity will evolve constantly. Do not aim for compliance, but instead try to anticipate what a reasonable course of action is. If there is a change in the threat landscape, it will be easier (and safer!) to proactively adapt. For instance, theres currently an increase in mobile attacks through harmful applications. Since many employees access corporate data from their cellphones, organizations should anticipate how the norms, standards and laws are going to evolve to address them. Not only does it make more sense from a security perspective, but organizations that tackle problems early have more time to adjust and fund their initiatives over longer periods of time. Additionally, companies should evaluate financial and human resources. If reasonable cybersecurity is not achievable within your own walls, consider collaborating with experts who can assist in mapping a strong security posture.
Martin Treptow and Travis Hakes were on a mission to find all the family members buried at Tilden Lutheran Cemetery but two graves were missing. After some investigating, and landscaping, they finally found the two missing family members under an overgrown bush. The cemetery has about 40 people in it. 75% of its residents are relatives of Treptow and Hakes who are 4th cousins.
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BRIDGEPORT  The Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, in a $1 million sale, will become the new owner of one of the most storied churches in the city on May 1.

The move goes beyond one of economic expediency for the United Congregational Church at the corner of State Street and Park Avenue, said the Rev. Sara Smith.

We are proud to make this move, Smith said. Where there is fear and uncertainty and outright bigotry in some places, this building will still be the beacon of hope for people of all faiths, all races, all backgrounds  a beacon to bring all people together for the common good.

The director of the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center, Ahmed Ebrahim, called the move historic  not only for Bridgeport, but for the world at large  and one he hopes will help heal the rifts between the faiths.

This is a historical moment for this country, and thats no exaggeration, Ebrahim said. Its really a historic day when peoples of all religions can come together and say, It doesnt really matter who owns the property  what really matters is that this building continues to be a center for interfaith dialogue  and also one that feeds the hungry and shelters the homeless.

The UCC is one of the oldest continuous religious institutions not only in Bridgeport, but in North America. It was first organized in 1693 as the First Church of Christ in Stratfield, situated about nine blocks north of its current location, about where Worth Street meets Park Avenue today. Before Bridgeport became a city in 1836, much of it was known as Stratfield because it was carved out of parts of both Stratford and Fairfield.

This will continue to be a place where children of the People of Abraham  Christians, Jews and Muslims  will come together for the benefit of those in need, Smith said. This corner will continue to be a beacon of respect, dignity and peace.

Beacon of cooperation

Officials said the new home of the BICC will still offer services for the have-nots in the city. These include a food pantry, a soup kitchen, coat giveaways and a winter shelter for the homeless. These efforts are provided by a multifaith group called the Norma Pfriem Urban Outreach Initiatives.

The sale comes at a time when Muslims are being singled out for attacks after the election of an incoming president who has called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States.

Theyre not coming to this country if Im president, Donald Trump said on the campaign trail to cheers from his followers. And if (President Barack) Obama has brought some to this country, they are leaving, theyre going, theyre gone.

In recent months, there have been assaults on hijab-wearing students, arson and vandalism at mosques, and shootings and death threats directed toward businesses owned by people from the Middle East.

But the people involved in this sale say it will shine as a beacon of cooperation and tolerance between not only Protestants and Muslims, but between other faiths as well. The announcement was made in a news conference in the church as light from the afternoon sun washed over the pews.

With all of the hateful, bigoted rhetoric we have heard during the presidential campaign, you know that this is a historic day  one in which Muslims are standing side-by-side with their non-Muslim friends in true partnership, Ebrahim said.

Smith pointed out that the huge church is by no means the congregations first sanctuary.

Weve had six other homes in our 321-year history, she said. Were not going away  we will find a new home in Bridgeport.

For the next six months or so, the congregation plans to worship in the Bessemer Center Social Hall at the corner of North and Laurel avenues.

We are not dying  we are simply moving, Smith said.

BICC is at 525 Clinton Ave. now. It was founded in 1997, and its 1,000 families have been looking for a new home for months.

Conversion to a mosque

One question about the sale is: Will the church look different after it becomes a mosque?

The answer, the principals in the deal say: not much.

Ebrahim and Smith said the United Congregational Church would take care of removing the crosses and other overt symbols of Christianity. This task will be made easier by the fact that the church does not have many icons to begin with. The altar is to be removed and a cross is to be pulled out, too.

The BICC and the UCC will share the cost of removing and/or modifying the stained glass windows behind the altar, two of which have prominent crosses. This, officials said, will likely be the most difficult and costly of the modifications.

The pews will be removed and some  perhaps most  will be sold. Mosques, Smith said, have little use for them, as prayer rugs are used instead.

In spite of its Calvinist roots, the old church has what might be described as a Moorish architectural influence. A series of concrete arches can be seen supporting the roof  ... arches that are not unlike those you might find in a Turkish mosque, said Ebrahim, who is also an economics professor at Fairfield University.

As for the UCCs storied organ  regarded as among the best-sounding pipe organs in Connecticut, Smith said that shes in discussions with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport about the instrument.

She said the United Congregational Churchs members are happy with the deal.

The important thing is that this building will be properly maintained  something that our congregation could no longer manage, Smith said. She said the UCCs 300 active members overwhelmingly supported the decision, owing to the cost of maintaining the building.

jburgeson@ctpost.com
HARTFORD  A Mississippi-based charity known for its anti-gay boycotts is targeting state Comptroller Kevin Lembo with a deluge of calls and emails from out-of-state locations.

The move follows a letter Lembo sent to the American Family Association noting that Connecticut law prohibits the state employees giving program from donating to groups that discriminate. Lembo said he was launching an investigation into the practices of the organization, which has called for boycotts of Target for its transgender restroom policy and Zales jewelers for advertising same-sex wedding bands.

The email and phone campaign began Monday and by Tuesday morning, after an American Family Association broadcast about the action on its radio affiliate, calls have swamped the comptrollers switchboard, and complaint have filled his email and Facebook page.

Yesterday, calls were coming in one after another after another, Lembo said, noting he was also getting two to three emails per second to his inbox, for a total of at least 1,000. I have three lines in my office, and so theyve been clogged up the emails as well. They are coming from all over the country and I havent seen one from Connecticut yet.

He said that the calls have been critical of his patriotism. In the letter he sent last week, Lembo noted that he is a gay father and asked the group to describe some of its policies. The association, based in Tupelo, Mississippi, is characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT extremist group, which has criticized gays and Muslims in the military, in addition to sponsoring retail boycotts.

A call to the American Family Association was referred to a public relations firm that did not respond to a request for comment.

Lembo is questioning whether the group should be disqualified from receiving donations from the Connecticut State Employee Campaign for Charitable Giving, under rules that require groups to abide by anti-discrimination requirements. While he hasnt received a formal answer, nor has he taken any action, he described the phone, email and social media efforts as an obvious reaction.

This charity was brought to the attention of my office by a state employee who wondered why they were in the book because of some of the public statements that they had made, Lembo said. Our questions are not about statements but rather about their discrimination or non-discrimination policies within the organization and do they comply in the delivery of services and employment.

Under the charitable-giving program, state employees can have payroll deductions given to any of about 700 eligible groups. Employees can also donate to federations, including the 13-member Neighbor to Nation charity that splits contributions equally among groups including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Leukemia Research Foundation, as well as the American Family Association.

In recent years there have only been three direct donations to the AFA, with the latest totaling $26 for the year. But in 2014, employees gave $4,258 to the Neighbor to Neighbor federation, according to Lembos office.

Lembo declined to characterize the AFAs efforts to overwhelm his phones and email.

Ill just say that these are folks who clearly care about an issue, but unfortunately the information they have been given by the American Family Association is inaccurate, Lembo said. I have not taken any steps to throw anyone out of anywhere or to step on their constitutional rights. Instead I have to make sure that they abide by laws of Connecticut because Im sworn to do that.

On the AFAs website, the anti-Lembo campaign is within a headline called State Official Demands AFA Discard Christian Beliefs. The action alert says that secular progressives in America remain intent on driving Christians out of the public square. It includes email and phone contact information, plus Facebook, Twitter and the Comptrollers website links.

kdixon@ctpost.com;
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City is Christianity's most hallowed shrine. It's believed that the rock-cut tomb at the heart of the church was where the body of Jesus Christ was once laid.

Over the past week, for the first time in centuries, a team of conservationists and researchers removed a marble slab that lay in a rotunda, known as the Edicule, at the center of the complex. It's the spot, as my colleague William Booth put it earlier this year, when the renovation project first began, "where millions of pilgrims have knelt and prayed, where the salt of tears and the wet of sweat have smoothed and worried the hardest stone."

After hours of careful examination, the team found what they believe was the limestone bed where Jesus could have been buried. National Geographic had exclusive access to the project and published pictures and footage of its efforts.

"I'm absolutely amazed. My knees are shaking a little bit because I wasn't expecting this," Fredrik Hiebert, National Geographic's archaeologist-in-residence, is quoted by the publication's website. "We can't say 100 percent, but it appears to be visible proof that the location of the tomb has not shifted through time, something that scientists and historians have wondered for decades." They have now resealed the tomb in its original marble cladding.

The debate will go on about whether this is the true site of religion's most famous burial and resurrection. Whatever the provenance of the story - which, after all, led to the church's original construction some 1,600 years ago - it is now layered in centuries of real history.

Here's Booth with a quick synopsis:

"Today, the site thrums with piety, but history knows it is soaked in blood. There have been at least four Christian chapels erected over the site. The first was by Emperor Constantine in the 4th century, who swept aside a pagan temple Hadrian built to the goddess Aphrodite - perhaps a move by Rome to deny early Christians a place of pilgrimage. The Holy Sepulchre was saved by the Muslim conqueror Omar in 638; destroyed by the Egyptian Caliph al-Hakim in 1009; rebuilt by the Crusaders who themselves slaughtered half the city; protected again by the Muslim conqueror Saladin and laid waste again by the fearsome Khwarezmian Turks, whose horsemen rode into the church and lopped off the heads of praying monks."

And when the world surrounding the religious complex was not convulsed in chaos, tensions among the faithful worshiping within could often boil over. The church has been shared for centuries by six old Christian congregations - Latin (Roman Catholic), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Egyptian Copts.

Disputes among these sects over the sharing of the church have sparked skirmishes and street riots over the centuries. Through the ages, clerics from the various orders have battled over the ritual sweeping of steps, the placing of carpets in front of altars, and even the right of walking in procession to the Edicule.

"The rival groups of worshipers fought not only with their fists, but with crucifixes, candle sticks, chalices, lamps and incense-burners, and even bits of wood which they tore from the sacred shrines," wrote historian Orlando Figes, when referring to a particularly pitched battle between Orthodox and Catholic clergymen in 1846. "The fighting continued with knives and pistols smuggled into the Holy Sepulchre by worshipers of either side."

The animosities linger to the present day and have inhibited much-needed repairs and structural improvements to the site. In 2009, a bloody brawl broke out between Armenian and Greek Orthodox priests and led to the church being flooded by Israeli riot police. Other recent incidents were summed up by a blogger at the time:

- In 2002, a Coptic monk whose job is to sit on the roof to express the Coptics' claims to the Ethiopian part of the roof (!) moved his chair into the shade. The Ethiopians objected to this, and a fight erupted that put 11 monks in the hospital.

- In 2004, an Orthodox monk allegedly left the door open to the Franciscan chapel after a procession. The Franciscans took this as a sign of disrespect, and several arrests were made after the ensuing fistfight.

- In April 2008, on Palm Sunday, another brawl broke out after an Orthodox monk was ejected from the building. When police arrived to stop the fighting, the monks went after them, too.

And this year, The Washington Post was on hand to watch scuffles break out between monks and onlookers observing the Miracle of the Holy Fire.

The intractable nature of these rivalries has led to a rather curious, unique arrangement that dates to the 12th century: Two Muslim families were entrusted by a presumably weary Arab potentate to be the gatekeepers of the church. The Joudeh family keeps the key, while the Nuseibeh family opens up the church door every morning and locks it in the evening.

In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Adeeb Joudeh, the current keeper of the key - an old, cast-iron object that's a foot long - described his family's hereditary task as a metaphor for religious tolerance.

"For me, the source of coexistence for Islamic and Christian religions is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," he said.

His counterpart, Wajeeh Nuseibeh, described the vital role of these two Muslim families in Jerusalem to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005.

"Like all brothers, they sometimes have problems," he said, referring to the feuding Christian sects. "We help them settle their disputes. We are the neutral people in the church. We are the United Nations. We help preserve peace in this holy place."
A few days short of his retirement, and Roderick Cameron is still learning things about being a judge in Chippewa County.

I have a better perception about whats going on. Its a continuous learning process ... And Ive been learning things even in the last few weeks, said Cameron, who retires Friday after being on the bench since April 1, 1983.

Part of the change has been procedural.

When we first started, we had case record cards. Now we have no paper files, he said.

The exception is in juvenile probation, where paper is still used instead of computers.

Part of the change hes seen are the people appearing in court, such as the attorneys.

They have all gotten younger, Cameron joked.

Then there are the people appearing in the courtroom. Cameron said 70 percent of those appearing before him have alcohol or drug problems.

This affects our civil courts, juvenile courts, our guardianship courts, he said.

Theres no simple answer why people are turning to alcohol, prescription drugs and illegal drugs, Cameron said. Some inadvertently become addicted while others move up to using harder drugs.

Cameron was one of the key people in forming the drug court in Chippewa County in 2007. He has shared drug court duties with Judge James Isaacson.

Cameron said the court, which encourages sobriety and provides more intensive help for defendants, has a good success rate.

Perhaps thats no accident.

I would refer to him as a compassionate, caring judge, county Assistant District Attorney Wade Newell said of Cameron. He also cares about the outcome. Its not about the case. Its about the people to him.

Tracking birds

One activity Cameron enjoys that has nothing to do with the law is bird watching.

He remembers one day in 1964 his brother held a bird contest between the two to find the most species, not including common birds. Cameron tried to identify all of the birds he spotted.

Forty years later, Cameron was in Mexico with his sister when he went out bird watching once more.

I got excited about it again, he said.

Today, he puts his sightings of birds and their locations on the website ebirds.org. He has birded in all but four of Wisconsins 72 counties.

I plan to do seven Christmas bird counts this year, he said. T

he counts are done in December and through Jan. 4. Bird watchers go to a designated area thats 15 miles in diameter and keep track of the time, where the bird was cited and the number of bird varieties seen.

Its generally pretty relaxing, he said of his hobby.

Looking ahead

Cameron said in retirement he will miss his coworkers the most.

As a judge you have to do all or nothing, he said.

While there is a need for reserve judges to fill-in when full-time judges are unavailable, theres not much work for them.

Cameron, who was 33 years old when he was selected to succeed Judge Robert Pfiffner, said hes enjoyed being a judge for the most part. There are a few cases he would do differently if he knew then what he knows now.

He gave some advice last week to Chippewa County District Attorney Steve Gibbs, who is the only person to apply for the judges vacancy.

You have to be patient and you have to listen to people and be polite to people in the courtroom, Cameron said.

You have to listen to both sides, he said. Id rather get it right than (have) someone file a motion and come back to reconsider.

Cameron said the judge is the most powerful person in a courtroom, but not the most important.

Thats the role of the litigants, the people who come to the courtroom even though they would rather be anyplace else.

Cameron said he has a tremendous amount of respect for the legal system, and thought being a judge was a privilege.

I did my best to get things right," he said.
A 50-year-old convicted heroin dealer will not only be on ice for the next six years, but his bank accounts totaling more than $300,000 have also been frozen.

Francisco Rodriguez, of New Haven, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden in Bridgeport, to 72 months of imprisonment, followed by four years of supervised release, for his role in a heroin distribution ring.
MILFORD  Police have arrested a New York man with a nightmarish criminal history.

Herbert Arnold, 72, was captured Friday by Milford police on a warrant for failure to appear after he was charged with failing to register as a sex offender in his city of residence, Vestel, N.Y.

Arnold lived in in the town for a little while according to Lt. Christopher Streno, who monitors the registered sex offenders as part of his duties at the Vestel Police Department.

He moved within our town, but he never notified us, Streno said. We arrested him. He was arraigned and released ... the reason he was wanted now is because he failed to show up for court.

Arnold was released after his arraignment despite his his past charges his history of fleeing custody, rape, and murder. He was convicted for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old victim in the early 1990s, according to Milford police.

New York records indicate he was also convicted in the fall of 1994 of the 1991 rape of a 23-year-old woman. Police officials in New York confirmed that Arnold was also the man found unfit to stand trial in the rape of a 13-year-old girl and the murder of her and her mother in 1965.

He later escaped from a psychiatric hospital in the summer of 1994, along with reputed Mafia enforcer and fellow murderer John Casablanca.

According to the New York Times, Arnold and Casablanca smuggled a gun into the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center in New Hampton, N.Y., and took a staff member hostage to facilitate their escape. They turned themselves in about a week later.

Milford police learned that Arnold was believed to be living in Connecticut, and found his vehicle during a routine police patrol, according to a statement.

Milford police did not respond to a request Tuesday for comment concerning the circumstances and location of Arnolds arrest.

According to Streno, Arnold could have avoided jail time in the registry case if he had showed up to court.

Then he left town again and ended up in Connecticut for some reason, he said. (Mr. Arnold) may have family down there or his wife may have family (there).

Arnold was taken to Milford Superior Court on Monday to begin an extradition hearing to be brought back to New York state.
BLOOMER -- Lionel A. Baier, 89, of Bloomer died Monday, Dec. 5, 2016, at Atrium Senior Living of Bloomer. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at noon Saturday at St. Pauls Catholic Church, with burial in St. Pauls North Catholic Cemetery, both in Bloomer. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at church. Schriver-Thompson Funeral Home & Chippewa Valley Cremation Services in Bloomer is serving the family.
DECEMBER 5, 2016





FOR the sixth week in a row, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Seoul.



The angry citizens chanted Step down! Step down! You must step down! while marching towards the presidential Blue House in massive numbers.



Theyre angry over a political scandal that threatens to end the rule of South Koreas president Park Geun-hye.



Ms Park is accused of abusing her power by colluding with close friend Choi Soon-sil who is facing fraud charges.



Her actions have lead to South Koreas opposition parties filing an impeachment motion against the president. The motion was backed by 171 members of the 300 seat legislature, will be put to a vote on Friday.



In addition to the moves inside parliament, organisers of the latest candlelight rally claim the protest attracted 1.6 million, although police put the number at 320,000.



As we speak, the 64-year-old stands on course to be the first democratically-elected South Korean president not to complete a full, five-year term.



And with rising fears about North Koreas nuclear capabilities and the commitment of South Koreas allies, the timing of all this instability couldnt be worse.



FOR the sixth week in a row, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Seoul.The angry citizens chanted Step down! Step down! You must step down! while marching towards the presidential Blue House in massive numbers.Theyre angry over a political scandal that threatens to end the rule of South Koreas president Park Geun-hye.Ms Park is accused of abusing her power by colluding with close friend Choi Soon-sil who is facing fraud charges.Her actions have lead to South Koreas opposition parties filing an impeachment motion against the president. The motion was backed by 171 members of the 300 seat legislature, will be put to a vote on Friday.In addition to the moves inside parliament, organisers of the latest candlelight rally claim the protest attracted 1.6 million, although police put the number at 320,000.As we speak, the 64-year-old stands on course to be the first democratically-elected South Korean president not to complete a full, five-year term.And with rising fears about North Koreas nuclear capabilities and the commitment of South Koreas allies, the timing of all this instability couldnt be worse.

INSIDE THE POLITICAL SCANDAL PLAGUING SOUTH KOREA



The scandal centres on the longstanding relationship between Ms Park and her close personal friend Choi Soon-sil.



In 1974, when Ms Park was 22 years old, her mother was killed in an assassination attempt on Parks father, the then-president of the country.



Shortly after his death, Chois father, a man named Choi Tae-min, reached out to Ms Park.



The elder Choi  40 years her senior  was a religious man who had established a cult-like Christian sect called the Church of Eternal Life. Hed been married six times, had multiple pseudonyms and claimed he could heal people.



He would reportedly send the grief-stricken young woman several letters claiming he could communicate with her dead mother through his dreams, in order to gain her trust.



Ms Park instantly fell prey to the bait, and from this point on, her relationship with the Choi family was cemented.



The elder Choi quickly took advantage of his new relationship with the young Ms Park, setting up various charity organisations through the help of her influence, which were essentially slush funds, and using her to secure bribes.



When Ms Parks father was killed five years later, in a second assassination attempt, she became more attached to the Choi family than ever.



Speculation over the extent of Ms Parks relationship with the elder Choi goes back almost a decade.



In a 2007 diplomatic cable made public through WikiLeaks, the American Embassy in Seoul reported on rumours concerning the pair.



According to the WikiLeaks report, there were rumours Choi had complete control over Parks body and soul during her formative years and that his children accumulated enormous wealth as a result.



The New York Times reports it was even rumoured that Park, who has never married, had Chois child. She has denied this.



When Choi Tae-min died, his daughter Soon-sil took over his role as Parks spiritual guide and caretaker. This 40-year relationship only strengthened as Park entered the Blue House in 2013.



She allegedly gave Choi a powerful behind-the-scenes role in presidential affairs, despite the fact that Choi had no political background or ranking.



Based on her control, Choi became known as the Rasputin of South Korea  the leaders trusted friend whose powerful influence saw her effectively control the countrys political goings-on.



Choi allegedly communicated regularly with the presidents staff, had a big say in her political appointments, and received presidential briefings.



She was even said to have power over the presidents wardrobe, dictating what colours she should wear on certain days.



In October this year, when the scandal was confirmed, Ms Park herself admitted she allowed Choi to edit some of her most important political speeches.





HOW DID THE SCANDAL BREAK?



When Korean media first reported on allegations that Choi had edited Ms Parks speeches, the Blue House dismissed them as nonsense.



But on October 27, the Korean cable TV network JTBC got the scoop of the century, and it was all thanks to one discarded tablet computer.



On the device were dozens of drafts of Ms Parks presidential speeches with edits marked in red by Choi, chat messages between Choi and presidential aides, and even the presidents vacation schedule.



When Choi returned to Seoul two days later, she was detained by police. On November 20, she was formally indicted on a number of charges, including extortion and abuse of power.



There have been street protests in Korea ever since the scandal broke.



According to the latest Gallup poll, Ms Parks approval rating sits at a shocking record low of four per cent.



The pair are publicly lampooned, with parodies, memes and even Halloween costumes marking the bizarre event.





THE AFTERMATH



The President has issued a number of emotive apologies since the scandal broke.



She denied allegations of involvement in a cult, and insisted she never performed shamanistic rituals in the Blue House.



Last month, Ms Park gave a televised address in which she said she was living a lonely life as president, and had turned to Choi for companionship and guidance.



I feel a huge responsibility, she said. It is all my fault and mistake.



Choi was the person who helped me personally taking care of my personal affairs when I faced the hardest and loneliest moments in my life, eventually causing me to overlook the shortcomings of people around me.



Choi has also begged the country for forgiveness. Addressing a massive crowd of media, protesters and security last month, she said: Please, forgive me. Im sorry. I committed a sin that deserves death.



Last week, Ms Park said for the first time she was willing to leave office without completing her full term if politicians could agree on a suitable transition.



But on Saturday, South Koreas three opposition parties introduced a joint impeachment motion against her, dismissing her proposal to resign early.



The motion accused her of abusing her power and violating the constitution by allowing a personal friend to exert influence in the governments decision making.



We hereby propose impeachment proceedings to protect the constitution and restore the impaired constitutional order by removing President Park Geun-hye from office, the motion said.



The motion will be put to a vote on Friday, but it remains unclear whether or not it will get enough votes to impeach the leader.



A two-thirds majority of 200 votes is required to pass the impeachment motion, which would require members of Ms Parks own party voting her out.





WHY THE TIMING COULDNT BE WORSE
One of the most important court decisions in Wisconsin political history was argued largely in secret. The arguments were made in briefs that were heavily redacted or entirely shielded from public view. The evidence was hidden. Most of the litigants were anonymous.

The level of secrecy is something I havent ever heard of happening in Wisconsin, says David Schultz, a retired University of Wisconsin law professor who has watched the state Supreme Court for 40 years.

Unless the high court decides to unseal its files, the public will remain ignorant of the full facts and arguments it considered when it shut down the John Doe II investigation centered on Gov. Scott Walkers campaign  known in court documents as Unnamed Movant No. 1.

Leaked and inadvertently unsealed records revealed that Walker raised large, undisclosed donations for ostensibly independent political groups, which in turn ran issue ads prior to the 2011 and 2012 Senate recall elections and the 2012 gubernatorial recall. These are unregulated, thinly veiled communications often intended to influence elections without expressly advocating for or against any candidate.

When two lawsuits aimed at killing the probe and a third filed by prosecutor Francis Schmitz attempting to save it made their way to the Supreme Court, the majority of justices agreed that most of the issues should be argued in secret to prevent testimony which may be mistaken or untrue from becoming public.

In July 2015, by a 4-2 vote, the court ended the probe, declaring that the conduct under investigation was not illegal and ordering that the evidence be returned to the subjects or destroyed. The court later amended its order to direct that the remaining evidence be turned over to the court. No one was ever charged.

But questions remain: What exactly did Walker do behind the scenes to fight the recalls? What evidence did prosecutors offer that two of the justices had conflicts of interest? Did prosecutors abuse their discretion in investigating activity that the subjects argued was protected political speech under the First Amendment?

And, importantly, did the court follow the law and precedent when it decided to shut down the investigation? Or did it, as Justice Shirley Abrahamson charged in her dissent, engage in a blatant attempt to reach its desired result by whatever means necessary?

In October, two nonprofit and nonpartisan groups  the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism  filed a public records request with Diane Fremgen, the clerk of the Supreme Court, asking that the case file be opened.

Fremgen denied the request, saying the court had directed her to maintain certain filings in the case under seal  even essential records such as motions and briefs filed with the court.

There are, we understand, concerns about releasing some exhibits attached to the court filings, on grounds that this evidence was illegally seized by prosecutors and should remain sealed. But Fremgen decided not to split those hairs, denying the entire request.

Abrahamson, for her part, has argued the case should be open, writing, The public has a constitutional, statutory and common law right of access to judicial proceedings and judicial records.

We agree.

Unless the high court decides to unseal its files, the public will remain ignorant of the full facts and arguments it considered when it shut down the John Doe II investigation centered on Gov. Scott Walkers campaign ...
Somerset County Treasurer will 'do what it takes' for best returns
For more than 15 years this newspaper has given voice to entirely legitimate public concerns about the huge impact of mass immigration on Britain  from the pressures on public services to the damage wreaked on social cohesion.

And what, in all that time, was the vitriolic response of the liberal establishment? Whenever the issue was mentioned, they cried racism and tried to shut down the debate.

Yesterday Dame Louise Casey  a senior Whitehall civil servant  published a damning report which, over 200 detailed and carefully considered pages, revealed how right we were to be concerned.

For more than 15 years this newspaper has given voice to entirely legitimate public concerns about the huge impact of mass immigration on Britain. Pictured: Blackburn

Communities unable to cope with the 'pace and scale' of migration Segregation on the rise Escalating tensions in society Muslim women facing 'coercion and abuse' Home schooled children taught 'divisive practices'...

But even more damning was her assessment of the shameful official response to these profound problems.

Clearly pointing to sex abuse scandals in Rotherham and elsewhere, she said public bodies were so keen to 'accommodate diversity' they condoned 'regressive, divisive and harmful cultural and religious practices, for fear of being branded racist or Islamophobic'. Attempts to improve integration amounted to little more than 'saris, samosas and steel drums'.

Which makes the hostile reception she received from some Muslim groups even more depressing. One accused her of being 'inflammatory, divisive and pandering to the far-Right'.

They are wrong. This serious and unsparing report deserves careful attention in Muslim communities and at the highest levels of government.

Ministers must now ensure it is not left to gather dust. They must address what Dame Louise rightly calls 'uncomfortable truths' about immigration, or risk further inflaming social tensions.

Even more damning was the assessment of the shameful official response to these profound problems

Charities' betrayal

Of all the abuses by major charities uncovered by the Mail, the RSPCA's were among the hardest to swallow.

With staggering cynicism, it hired investigators to run secret wealth checks on supporters, to assess how much they might be prepared to leave in their wills.

It was paying for these intrusive background checks with money that donors believed would be used to help animals. And it was sharing their personal details without their consent.

We therefore welcome the Information Commissioner's decision to fine both the RSPCA and the British Heart Foundation, which used similar disgraceful methods.

What a damning indictment of these once-revered household names.

EU elite in denial

Europe's leaders barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief when on Sunday the far-Right candidate Norbert Hofer lost the Austrian presidential election.

Hours later, Italy's prime minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation after losing a referendum ostensibly on political reform but which became a focus for wider discontent over the sclerotic economy, sky-high youth unemployment and disaffection with the EU.

Italy's prime minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation after losing a referendum

The vote was a win for former stand-up comic Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement and will give further impetus to its demands for a poll on ditching the euro.
John Lewis may have started the tradition for big budget Christmas adverts - but it is Sainsbury's that's taking home the prize of best festive campaign this year.

The supermarket's animated advert, featuring the singing talents of British comedian turned American darling James Corden, topped YouTube's leaderboard for the highest number of UK views.

But John Lewis' hilarious 7million Buster the Boxer campaign, which saw a CGI dog longing to jump on his family's new trampoline, won the international battle of the festive ads, racking up 21.1 million views online.

The supermarket's animated advert, featuring the singing talents of British comedian turned American darling James Corden, topped YouTube's UK festive advert leaderboard

John Lewis' hilarious 7million Buster the Boxer campaign, which saw a CGI dog longing to jump on his family's new trampoline, won the international battle of the festive ads

The department store came a close second in the UK race too, and was just pipped to the top spot by Sainsbury's tale of a father trying to get home in time for Christmas.

Supermarkets and department stores still dominate the YouTube charts this year, but luxury retailers like Burberry and digital companies such as Very.co.uk are beginning to muscle in.

Burberry's star-studded advert featured Sienna Miller, Dominic West and Lily James, and was estimated to have cost 10million.

It came third internationally, after Sainsbury's and John Lewis, and fifth in the UK after the Mrs Claus campaign from M&S, and Waitrose's tale of a Scandinavian robin making it home for Christmas.

Very's touching tale of a good Samaritan who spreads Christmas cheer on her way home from work, in the shape of glowing pink gifts, came in sixth place.

Heathrow Airport's first festive campaign - a heartwarming story of two ageing teddy bears making their way home for Christmas - has clearly gone down well across the world, as it ranks at number 10 internationally.

In fact, five of the top 10 international adverts are British - and a sixth is another starry campaign directed by filmmaker Wes Anderson for Swedish giant H&M.

TOP 10 UK CHRISTMAS ADVERTS 1. Sainsbury's OFFICIAL Christmas advert 2016 - The Greatest Gift 2. John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 - #BusterTheBoxer 3. M&S 2016 Christmas Ad: Christmas with love from Mrs Claus 4. Waitrose Christmas TV ad 2016 | #HomeForChristmas 5. The Tale of Thomas Burberry - Burberry Festive Film 2016 6. Very.co.uk Christmas Advert 2016 - Get More Out of Giving 7. Big Dilemma (Asda) 8. The Argos Christmas Yetis TV Advert 9. Aldi Christmas Advert 2016  Kevin The Carrot 10. #BootsChristmas TV advert 2016 - the gift of beauty Advertisement

TOP 10 GLOBAL CHRISTMAS ADVERTS 1. John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 - #BusterTheBoxer 2. Sainsbury's OFFICIAL Christmas advert 2016 - The Greatest Gift 3. The Tale of Thomas Burberry - Burberry Festive Film 2016 4. #Zeitschenken  EDEKA Weihnachtswerbung 5. Neste Natal, agradeca com Coca-Cola 6. Apple - Frankie's Holiday 7. M&S 2016 Christmas Ad: Christmas with love from Mrs Claus 8. Come Together  directed by Wes Anderson starring Adrien Brody  H&M 9. TEMPTATIONS - Keep them busy 10. Coming Home for Christmas - Heathrow Airport Advertisement

The rankings are based on a complex algorithm which takes into account the number of paid views, organic views and how much of a video people watched.

The UK list is based on the same statistics, but from viewers who are based in the country.

David Black, MD of Branding at Google UK, said: 'More brands than ever are making Christmas ads that users love.

'Now, the likes of H&M, Burberry, Coca-Cola and even Heathrow Airport are joining John Lewis and Sainsbury's and performing brilliantly this year.'

'Here in the UK, Sainsbury's quintessentially British commercial, playing on our love of stop-motion animation, has captured the public's imagination.
A marriage proposal is something that is steeped in tradition.

While some things have changed - proposals are getting bigger and flashier than they once were - there are two things that remain the same: you get down on one knee, and it's the man who pops the question.

But some couples are turning their backs on tradition, with an increasing number of women choosing to get down on one knee and propose to their man.

Put a ring on it! Sydney woman Stephanie Delaney (left) recently proposed to her partner Stephen Mahy (right)

Engaged: Ms Delaney said because they had both been married before it took the pressure off them having to do follow tradition (stock picture)

Sydney woman Stephanie Delaney is one woman who took the matter of proposing into her own hands.

The 38-year-old told Nine Honey that she decided to pop the question to her boyfriend because she believed that if you want something, you've got to ask for it.

Since both Ms Delaney and her partner Stephen Mahy have been married before, it also made sense for them to do things a little differently this time around.

'I think women should definitely take the initiative': The 38-year-old said that she would recommend other women popping the question (stock picture)

'Were at a time in our lives where we are both mid-30s and have both done the full traditional wedding before,' she said.

'We know that were going to be together and weve talked about having kids. I felt like the pressure was off.'

The couple went out to dinner last week for their anniversary, and after the meal Ms Delaney popped the question.

She wasn't worried about how her now-fiance would take it, as he had previously told her that he believed a woman proposing was the 'ultimate compliment for a man'.

Magical: New Zealand woman Charleen Ryan (right) recently proposed to her partner (left) with a four course dinner

Ms Delaney also said that she would definitely recommend other women propose to their partners.

'I think women should definitely take the initiative,' she said.

'Women take initiative in so many different areas of life why not take initiative in the area of proposing? Why not challenge that whole perception of waiting?'

And she's not the only one.

New Zealand woman Charleen Ryan recently proposed to her boyfriend with an elaborate four course meal and 'manly' bunch of flowers.

But of course the traditional notion of men always being the ones who need to propose is thrown out the window when it comes to same-sex couples.

Their own way: Juanita van Zyl (right) and her partner Amber (left) are a same sex couple so said the tradition for a man proposing was irrelevant

Juanita van Zyl and her fiance Amber got engaged earlier this year.

Because they are both women, there was no tradition to follow and they could do it their own way.

'We have been in a relationship for more than two years and had talked about getting married a lot,' Ms van Zyl told Daily Mail Australia.

'When I was in the US visiting her, Amber spontaneously asked the question one morning after we had breakfast. Amber felt the urge to ask me and she felt it was the right time to do it.

'Soon after we were ring shopping and Amber and I decided to tell everyone only after we had our rings.

'A few days later we both got our rings with our names on it.
She was coined the First Lady of Fashion during her time at Downing Street so it's hardly surprising that Samantha Cameron put in a stylish display at the Fashion Awards on Monday.

Samantha, who recently announced that she is turning her hand to fashion design with a debut line, was certainly in high spirits as she exited the glittering style gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

David Cameron's wife, 45, looked chic in a figure-hugging black dress, which was embellished with metal detailing.

Samantha Cameron, 45, looked chic in an embellished black gown as she mingled with the style set at the Fashion Awards in London on Monday night

The fashion aficionado offset her look with her staple suede heels and a black tote at the fashion bash.

The mother-of-three, whose sister works at Vogue, mingled with the style set at the sartorial event, which was attended by the likes of Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss and Nicole Scherzinger.

Since she exited Downing Street in July, speculation has been rife over what Samantha Cameron will turn her hand to next.

And last month, fans were finally given an answer after she unveiled her latest venture, a clothing line, in a stunning shoot in Vogue magazine.

Mrs Cameron's label, named Cefinn, has been kept closely under wraps until now and the debut collection, which will feature 40 pieces, is to be stocked at Net-a-Porter and Selfridges, as well as on its eponymous website.

Samantha was certainly in high spirits as she exited the glittering style gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London

The fashion aficionado offset her look with her staple suede heels and a black tote at the fashion bash

The mother-of-three looked ready to call it a night as she slipped into her cab following the fashionable party

Samantha mingled with the likes of Gigi Hadid, who took home the Model of the Year gong, and Donatella Versace

Other famous faces at the style event included pop star Nicole Scherzinger, left, and Zara Martin and Maria Hatzistefanis, the founder of Rodial and Nip + Fab, who hosted a table at the style soiree

Since she exited Downing Street in July, speculation has been rife over what David Cameron's wife would turn her hand to next

Modelled by Sam Cam herself, the fashion bible offers a sneak peak of the clothing label in its January issue which hits newsstands on Monday.

In a photograph released by the publication, the former Prime Minister's wife models a chic grey and white top and skirt with a tie waist and red trim.

In October it was revealed that Mrs Cameron - who is mother to Nancy, 12, Arthur, ten, Florence, six and Ivan, who died in 2009 - had registered her own company, a luxury brand called Samantha Cameron Studio Limited.

Yet this is the first glimpse we have seen of what the 45-year-old's debut range will look like.

Asked whether she designed the collection with herself in mind, Mrs Cameron said: 'Well obviously you're thinking about yourself, but at the same time it can't be all about yourself because that would be pointless.

'I've spent a lot of time trying stuff on my friends.'

The fine art graduate, who has had a long-held career in fashion, worked at Bond Street luxury brand Smythson as creative director for a number of years, a role which won her a British Glamour Magazine Award for Best Accessory Designer in 2009.

The fine art graduate, who has had a long-held career in fashion, worked at Bond Street luxury brand Smythson as creative director for a number of years

She then took a part-time consultancy role with the company when her family moved to Number 10 in 2010, stepping down to two days a week in order to support her husband.

Samantha is also an ambassador to the British Fashion Council, supporting British labels such as Alexander McQueen and Jonathan Saunders, and last year she topped Vanity Fair's Best Dressed Women list.

In a 2015 interview with the Mail On Sunday, she explained she gets her business acumen from her mother Annabel Astor, who set up her first business aged 17, later co-founded upmarket furniture company Oka, and said she would have died of boredom if she had been a stay-at-home mum, even though her children begged her to give up work.

I remember seeing her in curlers at breakfast before going out to work, said Sam, who spoke of having a very modern relationship with her mother: Shes friends with all my friends. She has so much energy and is such fun.

When quizzed on where her new label sits in the womenswear market, she explained: 'I felt that there were a lot of American and French brands out there that fit that bracket of designer contemporary with the right price point and the right styling.
Sylvia Kalibeera has experienced first-hand how tough life can be as a blind woman.

When her husband started mistreating her after she lost her sight, Sylvia, 31, felt she had no choice but to leave their home in Masindi, Uganda, and was torn apart from her two daughters.

Last December, MailOnline told how, after Sylvia turned blind overnight, her husband came to see her as an unwanted burden and after years of domestic abuse she was eventually forced to leave home.

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Sylvia Kalibeera woke up blind one morning at the age of 20. Her husband started mistreating her and when she left the family home she was banned from seeing her two daughters

Sylvia visits her children Nachimole Reste, five (left) and Naranga Esther, 12 (right) in Kampala. They now live with their father but the girls spend most holidays with their mother

'He thought I couldn't do anything' she said. 'He said so many bad things'.

This Christmas, Sylvia has a new home in the provincial town of Masindi, along with a regular teaching job and, most importantly, she has been reunited with her daughters Naranga Esther, 12, and Nachimole Reste, five, following a lengthy separation.

Sylvia was a part of a programme by Sightsavers, a charity that trains disabled youth in a variety of livelihoods and helps to find them internships after they graduate.

Before Sylvia joined the project, she was denied access to her two daughters by her ex-husband for two full years.

But after the charity helped her to find legal support, her ex-husband backed down 'almost immediately' and her daughters came to stay with her for a month according to Edith Kagoya, programme co-ordinator for the charity's Connecting the Dots scheme which is joint-funded by the European Union.

Sylvia with Naranga Esther (centre) and Nachimole Reste (right). After spending last December apart, this she is looking forward to cooking their Christmas dinner

Reunited: This Christmas, Sylvia has a new home in the provincial town of Masindi, along with a regular teaching job and, most importantly, she has been reunited with her daughters

Sylvias relationship with her ex-husband is too acrimonious for her to visit the children at home in the capital, Kampala,' Edith added.

'But now the girls spend most holidays with their mother. Sylvia hopes they will spend the Christmas holiday with her in Masindi so she can take them on a tour of the town.

'They want me to cook them rice, meat, spaghetti and Irish potatoes [for Christmas day]' said Sylvia, smiling.

Despite her visual impairment, she has perfected the art of cooking for herself, and loves to teach her oldest daughter, Naranga Esther, how to prepare some of her favourite dishes.

Sylvia at home in Masindi. She has perfected the art of cooking for herself, and loves to teach her oldest daughter, Naranga Esther, how to prepare some of her favourite dishes

Since learning to use a knitting machine Sylvia has started earning her own money making clothes and her new-found independence whas helped her to get her children back

Sylvias husband still makes it difficult for the children to visit her, but after they returned from their last trip to Masindi dressed in new clothes she had bought them, he has become more amenable.

Though the situation is still far from ideal, Sylvia says she is now financially more secure than her ex-husband and so is optimistic that because of this, the situation will continue to improve in the future.

Some time after Sylvia had completed her training, her father passed away and she is now supporting her mother, and makes decisions for the family  a world away from how things once were.

'My life has improved' she said. 'Im teaching and making my own sweaters and earning a little income. When I help my students I get happy.'

Sylvia says that learning to knit and earning her own income has made her feel like a real person again after she lost her sight virtually overnight - for seemingly no reason

'Most parents feel embarrassed by a disabled child, so they hide us from public view,' says Sylvia, whose parents didn't believe she could learning new skills after she went blind

Sylvia managed to win her children back after attending a school where she learned to use a knitting machine, as well as being taught skills such as using a cane and reading braille.

'Now I feel I'm like any other person, and now I'm hopeful,' she said.

Prior to losing her sight, Sylvia was enjoying a happy marriage.

'Before I went blind, my husband loved me,' she recalled. 'When I couldn't see anymore, he said I had become useless and that he had to nurse me like a child. He began mistreating me and I made a decision to leave him.'

Sylvia doesn't know what caused her to lose her sight, and it happened seemingly overnight.

A blind student called Harriet in the workshop at Nile Vocational institute , Uganda another Sightsavers project where disabled students learn to use knitting machines

Harriet proudly shows off a bright orange and white striped jumper she made using a knitting machine

'It's still a mystery,' she explained. 'I just woke up one morning and I just couldn't see. I went to Masindi Hospital, in fact I went to many hospitals. I was even operated on. But nothing they did helped.'

Attitudes towards the capabilities of people with disabilities in Uganda meant that nobody thought Sylvia would be able to look after her children, so initially they remained with her husband.

Sylvia was initially stopped from even visiting her children and was only allowed the occasional phone call.

'I asked him to bring them to see me,' she explained. 'But he refused.'

After leaving her husband, Sylvia moved back in with her parents and stayed in the house most of the time because she was too scared to try to move around.

Life is significantly more challenging for girls and women with disabilities in Uganda, as they are even less likely to be prioritised by their families and face multiple forms of discrimination.

The Connecting The Dots programme, run by the charity Sightsavers, helps disabled young people gain the skills they need to find work as well as teaching them to read and write braille

Student Isaac, left, is taught how to use a knitting machine at the Nile Vocational institute

There is also a high risk of sexual violence and abuse against women with physical disabilities.

Sylvia's friends soon dropped away because they didn't know how to help her and didn't want to be seen walking with her.

Then, one day, she was listening to the radio and heard that Sightsavers was promoting a programme to help young people with disabilities gain skills and find work.

Sylvia spent seven months at St Kizito vocational school in Kampala, learning to use a knitting machine.

Sylvia's teacher Lydia was initially worried about having blind students in her workshop, before she realised that they were just as capable as sighted people

She also learned essential life skills such as navigating with a white cane and reading and writing braille.

After her training, she started a work placement with Lydia who owns a knitting shop and has five machines crammed into the tiny room, with four apprentices learning from her.

After starting to knit and seeing what she could produce, Sylvia's confidence grew enormously and she started earning small amounts of money by selling her garments.

'I stopped looking at myself as a worthless person,' she said. 'Just because I can't walk, or see, or hear, doesn't make me any less of a human being.'
Princess Claire and Prince Felix of Luxembourg have shared the adorable first pictures of their son, Prince Liam Henri Hartmut.

The royal tot, who was born on 28 November 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland, is certainly the main attraction in the family snaps - and his big sister seems besotted with her new sibling.

Princess Amalia, who is two, couldn't take her hands off her newly born little brother and can be seen doting on him in every picture.

Princess Claire and Prince Felix of Luxembourg have shared the adorable first pictures of their son, Prince Liam Henri Hartmut, and his big sister, Princess Amalia, who is two, couldn't take her hands off him

In one image, the toddler, who wears a baby blue dress with a Peter Pan collar, smiles gleefully and holds her snoozing brother's hand. In another, she rests her head on his as he slumbers peacefully in her arms.

The new Prince, who was today named by the grand-ducal family in a press statement, is now fourth in line to the throne of Luxembourg behind his uncle, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, as well as his father, 32, and his older sister.

The little one will no doubt be baptised like Princess Amalia, who was baptised in 2014 in a French chapel surrounded by members of the grand duchy's royal family.

Her parents, Prince Felix and Princess Claire, smiled as they walked from the venue in the south east town of Saint-Ferreol-de Lorgues, cradling the newborn in their arms.

The baptism was performed by the Rev. Yves Menjot. The couple chose Felix's younger sister Princess Alexandra, 23, to be a godmother and Claire's older brother, also named Felix to be a godfather.

In one image, the toddler smiles gleefully and holds her snoozing brother's hand

In another snap, she rests her head on his as he slumbers peacefully in her arms wearing a cosy knitted blue jumper and leggings

The new Prince is now fourth in line to the throne of Luxembourg behind his uncle, father and sister, pictured holding him here

Princess Claire and Prince Felix of Luxembourg married in a civil ceremony in her hometown of Frankfurt, Germany in September 2013.

Three days later they had a more traditional wedding, which included Prince Felixs parents - the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.

The splendid wedding took place in front of 350 guests at the Basilique Sainte Marie-Madeleine in Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Baume.

Luxembourg's royal family turned out in force to celebrate with the couple who wed in south eastern France.

The royal tot, who was born on 28 November 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland, is certainly the main attraction in the family snaps

Grand dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses and a smattering of arch dukes lined up at the Basilique Sainte Marie-Madeleine in Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Baume to greet the couple.

Hello magazine reported that Alexandra took her style inspiration from fellow European kate Middleton.

She wore a sky blue version of the teal Jenny Packham dress that the Duchess of Cambridge sported at an Olympics gala ball in 2012.
They're a 21st century phenomenon that some of us are so obsessed with, we can't even visit the loo without taking a selfie - and here's the picture to prove it.

The millennial trend for snapping away on smart phones mean it's easier than ever to share life's funny, weird and, frankly, terrifically dull moments with your nearest and dearest - and the rest of the world.

Then there are the self-portraits that go a step too far, beyond-the-pale images that in another century would never have seen the light of day.

Oversharing: Twitter user @dreamlandawsten posts a snap of herself about to use the throne

Looking good Mister Bull: A reveler at the Pamplona Bull run captures a selfie - and risks his life - with a bull at the famous festival

A kiss on the cheek...but the intruder in the background can't be unseen

A pregnant woman in stockings proves that pregnant can be sexy in this scantily-clad shot

Thank heavens for the towel; this naked exhibitionist has a rose-tinted view of what he sees in the mirror

A British stag-do caused outrage by taking selfies with a blow-up sex doll at Ground Zero two days before the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks this year

There's the plucky reveller, pictured at the annual San Fermin festival fiesta in Pamplona, Spain this year, who posed next to a bull.

Others might temporarily put the snapper in danger but become a fascinating social document. Take for example the man who stepped in front of a blazing oil fire in northern Iraq, capturing himself just yards away from the inferno.

There's the employee worried that his boss might not believe his story about being in a car accident. @SkeelBen snapped a photo of himself wearing a neck brace in a hospital bed and covered in cuts and bruises.

Another shows a mother-to-be determined to prove that having a baby can be a very sexy thing. Wearing sultry black stockings with white silk bows and a cropped top and tiny skirt, the scantily-clad mum poses with her fingers provocatively at her lips.

Cringe: One insensitive tourist posted this picture of her offering a big thumbs up at Auschwitz near Krakow, not considering her actions might obviously cause offence

Danger shot: An Iraqi gets a little too close to a burning oil inferno near Mosul

Storm chasing: This chap almost feels the wrath of Mother Nature as a huge wave lashes the shore; the perfect moment to unleash the selfie stick, or at least that's what he thought

Told you I was ill: @SkeelBen, in a bid to prove to his boss that he'd been in a car accident, offers a blood-soaked selfie from his A&E bed

In 2014, when an Islamist terrorist took 18 people hostage at a cafe in Sydney - and two of them later died - locals prompted outrage when they posed for snaps outside the cafe

A tourist competes for the bad taste award with an offensive thumbs up snap - not strictly a selfie but still shared on social media - at Auschwitz.

Pictured at the former concentration camp, central to the holocaust, the young woman smiles and then adds insult to injury with a caption that reads: 'Thumbs up if you're chilly willy.'

And a grandson attending his grandmother's funeral offers equal amounts of distaste, posting a cheery image of himself in front of the late woman's coffin.

Momento of war: A man poses in front of a burnt out car and motorbike in an unidentified war-zone

Syrian troops take a selfie as they walk in the damaged streets of the residential neighbourhoods in the modern town adjacent to the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra

Hi officer, now smile: A couple ask a policeman to pose up...and he doesn't look even a tiny bit happy to oblige

Perhaps the winner of the most ridiculous selfie goes to Brit Ben Innes. He posed for a photo with the EgyptAir hijacker in what was hailed as 'the best selfie ever'.

Health and safety auditor Innes, 26, daringly snapped a picture with Seif Eldin Mustafa, the Egyptian who hijacked a plane and forced it to be redirected from Cairo.

He said: 'I'm not sure why I did it, I just threw caution to the wind while trying to stay cheerful in the face of adversity.

'I figured if his bomb was real I'd nothing to lose anyway, so took a chance to get a closer look at it.'

Hijacker selfie: Seif Eldin Mustafa, is seen wearing his 'suicide belt' - later found to be fake - as he poses for a selfie with 26-year-old Brit Ben Innes. Mr Innes sent the photo to friends and said: 'Your boy doesn't f*** about'

One for the family album: A young teenager takes a snap of his grandmother's coffin at a funeral home
A woman was so badly torn during childbirth, she has been left incontinent and must wear a colostomy bag for the rest of her life life.

Debbie Armstrong, 34, from Coventry, has been forced to undergo eight painful, but unsuccessful, operations to repair the damage caused by her botched labour in 2010.

However she was left so badly injured from her 'traumatic' ordeal that faeces was still escaping from her bowel three months after giving birth.

Debbie Armstrong, 34, from Coventry, shows her colostomy bag that she must now wear for life after suffering a fourth degree perineal tear during childbirth in September 2010

Debbie has spoken candidly about her ordeal in a bid to encourage other women, who have been injured during birth to come forward, without being ashamed.

And she has taken successful legal action against University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, over her nightmare labour at University Hospital, Coventry, in September 2010.

The trust admitted liability and has apologised 'unreservedly,' admitting Debbie's injures would have been avoided if the positioning of her son Kaiden's head  believed to be in an unusual position  had been diagnosed earlier.

'I've really lost out as a mum,' said Debbie, opening up her injuries for the first time. 'I can't lift him up to play or pick him up for a cuddle. And my self confidence has really been hit too.

Debbie with newborn Kaiden, October 2010. The pair were kept in hospital for nine days after his birth  as Kaiden was premature, and so Debbie could be monitored after her surgery

Kaiden's first day at school, September 2015. Kaiden is now six years old and Debbie, who has since split with his father, is still suffering the after-effects of her painful ordeal

'It's been devastating, and I can only hope that what has happened to me won't happen to anyone else in the future.'

Debbie had already experienced three miscarriages by the time Kaiden was conceived in 2009. As a result, she was desperate for her fourth pregnancy to be a positive experience.

'The whole time I was carrying Kaiden I was worried,' she recalled. 'I didn't buy anything for his nursery or any clothes until the day he was born, because I was so unsure if he would survive the pregnancy.'

On September 8, 2010, at 36 weeks pregnant, her waters broke where she works as a catering and events manager in Birmingham.

Kaiden as a newborn, late 2010. Debbie has spoken about her ordeal in a bid to encourage women, who have been injured during birth to come forward, without being ashamed

Kaiden as a newborn, late 2010. Debbie said: ' I didn't buy anything for his nursery or any clothes until the day he was born, because I was so unsure if he would survive the pregnancy'

Debbie was collected at work by her father, Suky Singh, 54, who took her to hospital, where they were joined by her then partner.

At 2am on September 9, at 5cm centimetres dilated, Debbie went into labour.

With her mother Audrey Armstrong, 53, and Debbie's then-partner by her side, her contractions lasted for 12 hours. But Debbie says her labour became uncontrollable.

'I lost all power over the pushing,' she said. 'It was so scary. I felt like I wasn't in control of my own body.'

Forceps were eventually used to deliver Kaiden, who was healthy and weighed 6lbs 13oz.

Debbie in hospital following surgery to repair the damage, in early 2015. She has since taken successful legal action against University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

Debbie at a family party, October 2016. 'I've really lost out as a mum,' said Debbie, opening up her injuries for the first time. 'I can't lift him up to play or pick him up for a cuddle'

'I wasn't concerned about anything that was happening to me. I just wanted to hear my little baby cry, to know he was okay,' Debbie said.

'When he did, we all started to sob. But I only got half an hour with him before they took him away, because he had low blood pressure.'

That's when doctors told Debbie she would need surgery straight away. She had a fourth degree  the most severe  perineal tear, meaning she had ripped the flesh between her vagina and anus.

In surgery for four hours, doctors attempted to repair Debbie's tear and also performed a colostomy, because of a rip in her bowel.

Kaiden at six months old, in early 2011. Debbie said of his birth: 'It was traumatising to have this happen to me, after all I'd been through. I thought everything would be fine after the reversal'

'I was devastated,' she said. 'As a new mum, I just wanted to see my little lad, to breastfeed him and act like the mum I was so desperate to be.'

After five hours Debbie could finally hold her son. The pair were kept in hospital for nine days  in Kaiden's case as he was premature, and so Debbie could be monitored after her surgery.

In January 2011, Debbie underwent a colostomy reversal and within two days she noticed faeces in her vagina.

'It was traumatising to have this happen to me, after all I'd been through. I thought everything would be fine after the reversal.'

Debbie with Kaiden, August 2011. Debbie says her self-confidence has been affected by her ordeal, successive surgeries, and having to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of her life

Debbie and Kaiden in May 2016. Debbie said of her son: 'Looking after Kaiden has been hard. He's a young, energetic boy, who wants to play and doesn't understand why Mummy can't'

Debbie phoned her surgeon straight away and she was taken back to the hospital for more surgery.

Overall, after giving birth, Debbie needed eight operations over six years, at University Hospital, Coventry, at the private BMI Priory Hospital, Birmingham, and at St Mark's Hospital's, Harrow, to fix the tear.

She has also had another colostomy after the reversal and has to wear a colostomy bag now to collect waste.

'Looking after Kaiden, who is now six, has been hard. He's a young, energetic boy, who wants to play and doesn't understand why Mummy can't.

Kaiden and Debbie in Christmas 2015. Debbie has recently had a second colostomy after the initial reversal, and has to wear a colostomy bag now to collect waste

'I've really lost out as a mum, and my self-confidence has really been hit too. I'm on antidepressants and I've had to move back in with my parents so they can help me look after Kaiden.'

Debbie's lawyers, Irwin Mitchell, alleged that staff at the hospital failed correctly to diagnose the position of the baby's head and/or negligently misapplied the forceps during Kaiden's delivery.

This, they claimed, resulted in the foetal head being delivered in an unfavourable position, causing terrible injuries for Debbie.

Debbie, who has not yet agreed a settlement with the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, after they admitted liability, now finds sex painful with her new partner.

Kaiden presenting his mum with flowers on Mother's Day 2016. She is now urging other women who have suffered difficult or traumatic births to speak out without being ashamed

She said: 'I believe that by taking legal action and speaking out about my experiences in the last six years the Trust, and others around the country, will take every possible step to protect mothers from the problems I have suffered.'

Professor Meghana Pandit, chief medical officer and deputy chief executive officer at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, said: 'We are a specialist maternity centre, and are saddened that while Ms Armstrong's baby son was delivered safely, she suffered a serious perineal tear during his birth.
Queen Mathilde of Belgium met young musicians at a prestigious arts school today - and her chosen outfit hit all the right notes.

The queen, 43, wore a striking yellow pussybow blouse, which she teamed with a printed knee-length skirt and black patent heels.

The bouquet she was presented with at Antwerp's Royal Conservatoire proved just the finishing touch, as the blooms perfectly matched her mustard yellow blouse.

Queen Mathilde was striking in a mustard yellow shirt at the Royal Conservatoire in Belgium

Queen Mathilde of Belgium wore a knee-length printed skirt to visit the Antwerp music school

Queen Mathilde met with staff and students at the music school in Antwerp, Belgium today.

The queen, who wore her hair loose in soft waves and added a pair of gold drop earrings, was seen chatting to young music students at the school - a breeding ground for professional musicians and performing artists.

Mathilde carried a small bouquet of blooms that co-ordinated perfectly with her blouse

The Belgian royal chatted to students at the school, a breeding ground for performing artists

The royal also posed for a photograph with a line-up of budding musicians at the Royal Conservatoire.

The Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp says it 'aims to educate enthusiastic and talented people to become creative, professional musicians and performing artists with great autonomy and personality'.

The queen met young musicians at the Royal Conservatoire in Antwerp, Belgium

Queen Mathilde poses for a photograph with budding musicians at the Antwerp school
Air Force vet's wife and daughter killed; she had a 'huge heart full of God's love' Editorial Staff | 05 December, 2016 by Joni B. Hannigan

LAKE BUTLER, Fla. (Christian Examiner)  A churchgoing family who faced unimaginable tragedy just before Thanksgiving when mom Donna Lynn Murphy Crews, 41, and her daughter, Kaelyn Scelesta Crews, 10, were killed in a car accident, are the focus of a fundraising effort.

Joshua Crews, a former Air Force Master Sargeant who is now a jewelry store owner, and his young daughter Ashlyn Elizabeth Crews, were left behind when Donna and Kaelyn Crews perished Nov. 22.

The accident took place nearby their home in Keystone Heights, Florida where the Crews were hit head on by a pick up truck while traveling on State Road 100 near Lake Butler, according to various news reports; and then struck from the rear by another car.

Donna Crews' obituary describes the 17-year career nurse as "a true servant with a huge heart full of God's love for others." A member of First Baptist Church in Starke, she served as a pianist, choir and praise team member, and a drama team and children's church volunteer.

Kaelyn Crews was a fourth grader at Hope Christian Academy in Starke, Florida where she was a cheerleader and an active member of the church where she sang in the children's choir and was a member of the drama team. "[M]ost of all she loved her baby sister and best friend Ashlyn."

The effort to raise funds for the family is being led by Sarah Lee Weaver who is the sister of Angelica Crews, the wife of Daniel Crews, a well-known young worship leader in North Florida and South Georgia who is Joshua Crew's brother.

A GoFundMe account goal was set at $35K and by Dec. 5 had reached nearly $23K.

James Peoples, the immediate past president of the Florida Baptist Convention, and pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Keystone Heights, commented on Facebook about the Nov. 25 service.

"Beautiful service honoring the lives of Donna Murphy & Kaelyn Crews," Peoples wrote. "Encouraging word from Pastor Scott Crook pointing to Jesus Christ, our hope & comforter."

According to a police report, 19-year-old Christopher Driggers, of Lake Butler, was driving the truck and taken to a hospital afterwards with serious injuries, as was the driver of the other vehicle, 42-year-old Viola Butts.

After 15 years in the Air Force, Joshua Crews set up shop as a jeweler in Keystone Heights in 2013 where he has focused on custom-made jewelry, according to an article in the Lake Region Monitor.
A student artist used her talent to create a stunning illustration of Ashley Graham sporting the trademark wings worn by Victoria's Secret Angels in celebration of the brand's fashion show.

Although Victoria's Secret has yet to cast a plus-size model in one of its annual shows, Annie Breen, an 18-year-old student at the London College of Fashion, clearly believes that Ashley would be a welcome addition to the star-studded runway event  and it seems like the size 14 star agrees with her.

Ashley took to Instagram on Monday night to share the Long Island-native's illustration with her 2.7 million followers, tagging both the Annie and Victoria's Secret.

Fan club: Annie Breen, 18, drew a beautiful illustration of Ashley Graham wearing lingerie and Victoria's Secret Angel wings ahead of the brand's fashion show, which aired on Monday night

Runway star: Victoria's Secret has yet to have a plus-size model grace the runway at it's annual show. Ashley is pictured walking the catwalk for Addition Elle in 2015

Annie's drawing sees Ashley strutting down an imagined runway wearing elaborate wings, an embroidered cropped jacket, a garter belt, and thigh-highs, with 'Victoria's Secret Plus!' written above her head.

The teen explained in the caption that the pre-recorded fashion show, which was filmed last week, inspired her to play around with a few sketches until she came up with the idea of a Victoria's Secret Plus collection to be a part of the show.

'Starting off with one of my favorite body positive, role models Ashley Graham, this a design I came up with,' she explained. 'I feel that healthy and sexy comes in every shape and size. Plus or not, women are women and they're beautiful.'

Empowering women: Annie stressed that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes when she shared her illustration

Strike a pose: Models Jasmine Tookes and Kendall Jenner are pictured walking the runway during the 2016 show

Making her own way: Ashley has starred in plenty of lingerie campaigns, although she has yet to pose for Victoria's Secret

Ashley's regram of her illustration has been liked more than 128,000 times, and Annie told Daily Mail Online that she was 'so happy' the model commented on the drawing, and she was 'in disbelief' when she went on to repost it.

'It was really overwhelming and also a bit nerve-racking at one point,' she admitted. '[But] then when I had girls I went to high school [with] telling me how sexy and confident it made them feel, I felt really happy and proud; seeing comments on Ashleys repost had the same effect!'

Annie said she finds the brand's lingerie to be gorgeous, and she had no intention of 'bashing' Victoria's Secret. Nor did she want to insinuate that Victoria's Secret models are 'unhealthy'.

'I believe that healthy and sexy, go hand-in-hand and multiple shapes and sizes can be both,' she explained. 'Women shouldnt let their insecurities push them from wearing a certain outfit and definitely not from feeling sexy.'

Young talent: Annie, who is from Long Island, is a student at London College of Fashion

Incredible work: Annie has done other celebrity-inspired drawings, including this illustration of Lupita Nyong'o

However, she does believe a plus-size Victoria's Secret collection would benefit both customers and the brand.

'Why not represent healthy curvy or plus-size models?' she asked. 'Ashley is a strong and empowering women. Who wouldnt want her to represent a piece of their brand?'

Ashley, who most recently scored the January cover of British Vogue, has found success with her own eponymous plus-size lingerie line, and Annie believes her confidence is empowering.

'As a young women who just graduated high school this year, I experienced and understand the pressure young women and women in general [face] to feel accepted,' she said.

'I cant remember when exactly I started to see her as a role model but I know watching Ashley use her success to empower women and girls made me feel confident and motivated to radiate the same attitude.'

The image has also prompted many of Ashley's fans to demand that Victoria's Secret considers casting her in its famed show next year.
The voice on the phone is shaking with emotion as the woman tells me that her 64-year-old mother has been missing for over a week near Toulouse.

Nathalie Gavriloae, who lives in London with her husband and two children, has called because I run a campaigning website to promote awareness about dangerous side-effects of antidepressants and antipsychotics.

Nathalie suspects her mothers disappearance is linked to the antidepressants she has been taking for two years.

She had been talking of suicide and Nathalie suspects the worst.

Suicidal thoughts are listed as a potential side-effect of all the so-called SSRI antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which include Prozac)

I know from personal experience about the chemically induced despair these drugs can cause in people who cant tolerate them  Ive written in Good Health previously about how I was left wanting to kill myself.

The fact that this problem goes largely undiagnosed or is mistaken for depression led me to write a book, The Pill That Steals Lives, and five months ago to start a campaigning website where people can share their stories of adverse side-effects.

The week that Nathalie calls me, I receive an email from the partner of a 44-year-old primary school head teacher who took his life last year, just a month after he was prescribed an antidepressant for the first time.

I know the drugs caused him to end his life because his behaviour was so opposite to his normal gentle, kind demeanour, she told me.

The previous week Id met the widow of a successful lawyer and doting father of two small children.

Within weeks of being given a cocktail of antidepressants and antipsychotics for stress, he threw himself under a train.

Suicidal thoughts are listed as a potential side-effect of all the so-called SSRI antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which include Prozac).

Many people can take them without this adverse reaction.

But according to David Healy, a professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University, around one in 100 of the population becomes acutely suicidal and even homicidal on them  a significant number given that five million people in this country are taking these pills

Professor Healy estimates around 250 lives are lost every year in the UK because of antidepressant-induced suicides.

Katinka Blackford Newman (pictured) says that she had an excruciating inner anxiety which she learnt later is a hallmark of drug toxicity from antidepressants and antipsychotics

My own experience is that these drugs took me to a place so dark, that death seemed the only option.

Like the vast majority of people who take antidepressants (70 per cent according to a recent survey), I was distressed rather than clinically depressed when prescribed them. I was suffering from insomnia and stress while going through a divorce.

An initial acute adverse reaction to the SSRI escitalopram was misdiagnosed as psychotic depression, and I was given more antidepressants and antipsychotics.

Within a month I was unable to leave the house, needed a 24-hour carer, and was unable to read a book or hold a conversation.

I had an excruciating inner anxiety which I learnt later is a hallmark of drug toxicity from certain medications, particularly antidepressants and antipsychotics: its called akathisia and sufferers are unable to sit still, which has been known to drive them to end their lives within days.

Wendy Dolin, from Chicago, knows all about akathisia. She set up a foundation (missd.co) in 2011 to increase awareness in memory of her husband, Stewart.

Within a month of taking the medication, Katinka was unable to leave the house

He had the perfect life, was happily married and was a senior partner in a law firm.

Then, in the summer of 2010, he became stressed as a result of work and was prescribed a generic version of an SSRI (the branded version is known in the U.S. as Paxil, in the UK as Seroxat). Within days, he was restless, had trouble sleeping and kept saying: I feel so anxious.

Six days after starting the medication, Stewart left his office and walked to a nearby railway station.

A nurse later reported seeing him looking very agitated. When a train approached, Stewart took his life.

Wendy now seeks to educate the public about akathisia and what to look out for  anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity or physical/inner restlessness.

Looking back, I had all these symptoms, yet not a single nurse, doctor or psychiatrist recognised them.

By the end of the year on antidepressants and antipsychotics, my mind and body were in utter torment and there seemed no way out.

The fact is I, too, was prepared to jump under a train, leaving my two children, Lily and Oscar, aged 12 and 11 at the time, without a mother.

It was luck this didnt happen and that I ended up in another hospital that took me off all the drugs.

Within four weeks I was better and a few weeks after that, back at work as a documentary film-maker.

That was three years ago and I havent taken a single antidepressant or antipsychotic since and never will.

Katinka, pictured with her children Oscar, 12 (left), and Lily, 14 (right). Katinka says she has not taken a single antidepressant or antipsychotic for the past three years

I had an instinct the drugs were making me ill and told doctors this on many occasions.

They told me I didnt understand my condition, which they insisted was depression.

The refusal to listen to patients concerns about what the drugs are doing to them happens too frequently.

On June 28, 2013, 15-year-old George Werb calmly and deliberately walked in front of a train near Honiton, Devon, a day after being discharged from Priory Hospital, Southampton.

Press reports focused attention on the consultant who allowed George to go home and on the fact that the hospital and Solent NHS Trust have now admitted liability.

But talking to Georges mum, Joanne, convinces me the real culprit was medication. Joanne agrees.

They told me I didnt understand my condition, which they insisted was depression. Katinka Blackford Newman

She told me that while George did suffer from depression, it wasnt until he was prescribed antipsychotics (risperidone and olanzapine) six weeks before his death that he started talking of suicide.

His medical notes show that every day he told doctors that the medication was making him worse.

He negotiated a reduction in his antipsychotics if he agreed to take Prozac. Two days later he killed himself.

It seems George knew the anti-psychotic and antidepressant medications were having a bad effect on him.

He wrote about this in a three-page letter left under his bed before he took himself away that morning.

In the letter which his mother read to me, George said: I feel completely brain-fried, 20mg was too much for me and someone should have protected me from myself.

On June 28, 2013, 15-year-old George Werb (pictured calmly and deliberately walked in front of a train near Honiton, Devon

By the way this is the only time in my life I ever strongly felt that suicide was the only option.

He went on to write: Thank you Mum and Dad for an awesome 15 years.

Joanne says when she picked George up from the hospital the day before he died, his eyes were wide, staring without expression, and he couldnt sit still.

This pacing up and down is the side-effect that occurs in almost every single case I know of people who have killed themselves or others: akathisia.

When I talk to Nathalie about her mother, she tells me she was prescribed the antidepressant venlafaxine in December 2014 after losing her job in a patisserie.

She phoned her daughter soon after and used the same words as George Werb to describe her mental turmoil.

George's mum said that while George did suffer from depression, it wasnt until he was prescribed antipsychotics that he started talking of suicide

She said her brain was fried and that she wanted to jump off a balcony.

Nathalie was alarmed at this change in her mother: My mum was always doing lots of activities, she was very sociable, sporty, positive. She just wasnt a depressed person.

But now, she was like a zombie  constantly agitated, she couldnt sit still, and she had acute insomnia.

Nathalie was so convinced her mothers illness was caused by antidepressants that she contacted her doctors in France.

Coming off these drugs can be dangerous and requires medical supervision; people are at most risk of becoming suicidal when they go on these medications, come off them or change dose.

But the doctors didnt agree with Nathalies request, so her mother continued taking them.

Drug manufacturers, psychiatrists and health authorities say that antidepressants only increase the risk of suicide among children and adolescents (under official guidelines Prozac is the only SSRI that children can be prescribed, although doctors do give them others).

They also argue that when people kill themselves after taking antidepressants, its because they were depressed anyway.

But a report recently published by the internationally renowned Nordic Cochrane Centre shows otherwise.

Published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, it was the first review of trials of antidepressants taken by healthy adults with no sign of a mental disorder.

Danish researchers looked at trials involving the drugs citalopram, escitalopram, Prozac, paroxetine, sertraline and venlafaxine  all SSRIs.

They examined the pills effects on 612 healthy volunteers and concluded that the drugs doubled the occurrence of events that can lead to suicide and violence.

When people kill themselves after taking antidepressants, others find it hard to believe a pill to fight depression could cause people to kill themselves. And its very rare for coroners to blame the drug.

But the Nordic Cochrane centres report shows that one in 16 healthy volunteers has an adverse drug reaction.

So the drugs have an effect on people with no history of mental illness: the drugs could cause healthy people to kill themselves.

The report provoked a row because it listed the following as events leading to suicide: agitation, nightmares, feeling jittery, nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, tremor, depression, abnormal dreams, abnormal thinking  all symptoms identified by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration as precursors to suicide.

In a report by the Nordic Cochrane centre, one in 16 healthy volunteers has an adverse reaction to a selection of SSRI drugs

Yet critics dismissed this. Guy Goodwin, professor of psychiatry, University of Oxford, said: If nervousness, anxiety, tremor, bad dreams and agitating events are risk factors for suicide or violence, then probably the majority of people in the UK would be at risk, which isnt so.

In the same week as the Nordic Cochrane report came out, a jury in Pennsylvania awarded $11.9 million in a suicide case involving the antidepressant Paxil.

The jury heard how patient Mumun Barbaros suffered agitation leading to akathisia  symptoms dismissed as insignificant by critics of the Cochrane report.

If doctors and psychiatrists dont spot that these symptoms in people who are taking antidepressants are potentially life-threatening, then more lives will be lost.

On October 2, 2016, Nathalie rings me to tell me her mothers body had been found in the woods.

Claudine Boudet had killed herself, and left this note that Nathalie has agreed to share:

Im going through a terrible ordeal. Im fighting against anxiety and I cant cope any more (for a long time now). Im exhausted and I have trouble speaking.

'(As youve seen). The medication!!!!

The Pill That Steals Lives: One Womans Terrifying Journey To Discover The Truth About Antidepressants, by Katinka Blackford Newman (John Blake, 8.99); thepillthatsteals.com
Women prefer a larger penis for a one-night-stand than for a long-term relationship, a new study has found.

But even the 'smaller' option is bigger than the national averages in America and Britain.

Dr Nicole Prause, a neuroscientist at UCLA who specializes in sex drive, created 100 possible dimensions for an erect penis.

Along with a team, she whittled that down to 33 options, which were then 3D-printed in blue rubber and placed in a basket.

Finally, 75 women were asked to select two ideal penises from the basket of 3D-printed penises - one for a one-night-only liaison, and one for a long-term partner.

Women prefer a larger penis for a one-night-stand than for a long-term relationship

WINNING ERECT PENIS SIZES, ACCORDING TO THE STUDY LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP Ideal length: 6.3 inches Ideal girth: 4.8 inches ONE-NIGHT-STAND Ideal length: 6.4 inches Ideal girth: 5 inches Average in the UK: 5.7in x 4.9in Average in the US: 5.6in x 4.8in Source: Andromedical Advertisement

The biggest one in the basket was just shy of 9 inches, and the smallest just over 4 inches.

The study found that the ultimate size for a long-term boyfriend's erect penis was 6.3 inches in length, and 4.8 inches in girth.

For one night only, the average ideal was 6.4 inches in length, 5 inches in girth.

Both are bigger than the average penis length and girth in both the UK and the US.

In the UK, the average erect penis is between 5.7 inches long, and between 4.9 inches in girth.

In America, the average erect penis is just under 5.6 inches in length and 4.8 inches in circumference.

Speaking to Broadly about the study, Dr Prause said it all started with an investigation into the amount of pain women experience during sex.

Collaborating with fellow neuroimaging researcher Geoffrey Miller, they decided to assess whether a partner's penis size played a role.

Contrary to received wisdom, the study showed overwhelmingly that - although women prefer slightly bigger than average penises - they are more concerned with girth.

It is something Dr Prause has come to observe in her work, and she told Broadly the obsession with length is somewhat baffling given the studies and research.

Dr Nicole Prause, a neuroscientist at UCLA who specialises in sex drive, created 100 possible dimensions for an erect penis. She whittled that down to 33 options, which were then 3D-printed in blue rubber. The biggest was just shy of 9 inches, the smallest just over 4 inches

'Science has consistently shown girth is a stronger predictor of female preferences and satisfaction,' she said.

'It may be that surgeries for increasing length tend to have better outcomes, so men focus on length as something they can more likely affect.
A primary school pupil who became poorly at home over the weekend has died of suspected meningitis.

Edward Dee, 10, was rushed to hospital on Sunday after he had become poorly, it has been reported.

However, the youngster, from Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, tragically passed away later that evening at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital after his condition worsened.

Parents at Clifton Primary School were sent letters telling them about the death while advice on spotting the symptoms of meningitis was also provided.

Edward Dee, 10, a pupil at Clifton Primary School in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, was rushed to hospital on Sunday before passing away from suspected meningitis later that evening

His mother, 46-year-old Elizabeth, posted a heartbreaking tribute to her son on her Facebook page.

Her post read: 'Thank you everyone for your such kind words, we are lost without him, he was such a big part of our lives.

'We are truly devastated. He knew so many people, he'd done so many things, he lived life to the full.

'Edward probably packed more into his 10 years than many pack into a lifetime. We will love you forever Edward, thank you for giving us those precious years of your life.'

The post social media was accompanied with a link to a Justgiving page raising money for meningitis awareness.

While her husband, Justin, posted: 'Thanks to everyone for their kind words.

His mother, 46-year-old Elizabeth, posted a heartbreaking tribute to her son on her Facebook page. Her post read: 'Thank you everyone for your such kind words, we are lost without him, he was such a big part of our lives' (pictured Blackpool Victoria Hospital)

'Edward lived life to the full and packed more into his short 10 years than a lot of people do in a life time.

'There is a void in our lives that will never be filled. We are going to donate any monies to meningitis awareness charities.'

Rachel Legge, headteacher at the primary school, said: 'We are incredibly saddened by the death of one our pupils.

'Our thoughts are with the family and we have written to parents to let them know how we are supporting the children through this very difficult time.'

Former teacher at the school Wendy Mulela posted on Facebook: 'Received some very tragic news today that one of my previous nursery pupils passed away last night.

'Thoughts with his family at this devastating time.'

Edward tragically passed away at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital (pictured)

Public Health England (PHE) say the family has been offered antibiotics as a precautionary measure.

Mark McGivern consultant from PHE's Cumbria and Lancashires Health Protection team said: 'This is a tragedy and our thoughts are with the family.

'Meningococcal infection is comparatively rare, but everyone should be aware of the symptoms to look out for and if anyone becomes ill with symptoms of meningitis you should get urgent medical help right away.

'Only people who have had prolonged, close contact with an ill person are at a slightly increased risk of becoming unwell, which is why only the immediate family of the child have been offered antibiotics as a precautionary measure.

'There is no cause for alarm and it is safe for children and staff to continue to attend the school as normal.'
It's widely known that smoking during pregnancy can have detrimental effects on the health of an unborn child.

While one cigarette a day may not seem like much, it can cause birth defects, premature delivery and increase the chances of miscarriage.

But now new research has found the notoriously bad habit makes it more likely for babies to use cannabis as a teenager.

Scientists also discovered they would be more prone to substance abuse in general - one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.

Tobacco causes epigenetic changes in the brain of a developing foetus which makes them more prone to trying new things, experts believe.

New research has found mothers who smoke while pregnant increase the risk of their child using cannabis as a teenager

Researchers from King's College London and the University of Bristol assessed the risk of smoking on the developing foetus.

They assessed 244 adolescents from pregnancy in the 1990s to early adulthood.

Prenatal smoking was linked with simple DNA methylation changes - variants in how genes are switched on and off - at birth, they discovered.

PACSIN1, which is involved in how neurons branch out and communicate with one another, was found to be affected.

This in turn was associated with higher substance use in adolescence, including tobacco, alcohol and cannabis.

Lead researcher Dr Charlotte Cecil, from King's College London, said: 'Together, our findings add to existing knowledge about the adverse effects of prenatal smoking on child health.

Tobacco causes epigenetic changes in the brain of a developing foetus which makes them more prone to trying new things, experts believe

'The study also lends new insights into the biological mechanisms through which tobacco smoking during pregnancy may increase risk for future substance use.'

However, the scientists warned their findings could just be a stepping stone for harder substances.

Previous research has found teenage cannabis smokers are more likely to go on to use heroin.

While an older report by scientists from New Zealand found those who had tried the drug were 60 times more likely to try other substances.

But the researchers added that their findings do not prove causation and need to be replicated in larger studies.

The NHS advise women to stop smoking before they become pregnant, or as early as possible.

The new study was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.
Fortunately, they have both since recovered and are now thriving back at home

This had caused both of the twins to show

These heartbreaking pictures show two twins battling for life after they contracted meningitis while in the womb.

Nancy and Rita Holgate, now three months, were rushed back to hospital just four days after they were born.

Doctors discovered their mother, Rachel, 33, had inadvertently passed on her enterovirus while she was pregnant.

It had caused Nancy to develop a form of viral meningitis and she was transferred to intensive care when her breathing faltered.

Rita also began to show symptoms, but medics were able to keep their condition under control thanks to the correct diagnosis.

Fortunately, the twins have now recovered and are back at home, but their parents have been warned they may face disabilities in the future as a result of the illness.

Nancy and Rita Holgate, now three months, were rushed back to hospital just four days after they were born. They had both developed a rare form of viral meningitis after their mother, Rachel, 33, had passed on enterovirus while they were in the womb

Their father, James, 30, from Middlesborough, said: 'Our twins are absolute miracles.

'We could never have planned for this to happen. If it wasn't for the midwife who came by to check on them, they could have gone undiagnosed for longer.

'For some genetical reasons, the twins contracted meningitis in the womb.

'Most babies would get it and be fine, but the twins had a terrible reaction and are lucky to be alive.'

Mrs Holgate had begun to feel unwell the week before the twins were actually born.

Doctors revealed she had enterovirus - a severe infection that can lead to forms of viral meningitis.

It had caused Nancy to develop a form of viral meningitis and she was transferred to intensive care when her breathing faltered. Rita also began to show symptoms, but medics were able to keep their condition under control thanks to the correct diagnosis

Nancy, born first, weighed 6.2lbs and Rita, who come in at 6.4lbs, were sent home and assumed to be healthy.

But just four days later when a midwife came to visit, they noticed Nancy had an unusually high temperature.

As a precaution, she was taken to hospital. But within just an hour she went limp and the colour drained from her in her arms.

The parents were told that Nancy had bacterial meningitis and she was treated with antibiotics.

However, the treatment did not work as her condition was viral and antibiotics are aimed at tackling bacterial infections.

Fortunately, the twins have now recovered and are back at home, but their parents have been warned they may face disabilities in the future as a result of the illness

Their father, James, 30, from Middlesborough, said: ' Our twins are absolute miracles' (pictured with their mother, Rachel, 33)

Nancy suffered jaundice as her liver began to struggle with the infection and she also needed to have blood transfusions.

At just six days old, she encountered breathing difficulties and she was transferred to a specialist hospital where she was diagnosed with meningitis and septicemia.

Meanwhile, to the family's devastation, twin sister Rita was diagnosed with the same illness.

After three weeks, doctors realised they were suffering from a rare viral strain of the disease which could not be treated with antibiotics.

Once the diagnosis was correct, they improved quickly.

Mrs Holgate has since started a blog about her experiences to raise awareness of viral meningitis.

BE WISE TO THE SYMPTOMS OF DEADLY MENINGITIS Meningitis Research Foundation estimates that there are around 3,400 cases of bacterial meningitis and septicaemia every year in the UK and Ireland. This means that every day nine people become ill with the diseases. With one in ten people dying, a death will occur almost every day. A further two people will be left with life-altering after effects as severe as brain damage, deafness and multiple amputations. Meningitis vaccines offer excellent protection, but they are not yet available for all forms. So it's vital to know meningitis symptoms and what to do if you suspect someone has meningitis or septicemia. Symptoms of meningitis and septicaemia: Fever and/or vomiting

Severe headache

Limb, joint or muscle pain

Cold hands and feet and or shivering

Pale or mottled skin

Breathing fast or feeling breathless

A rash anywhere on the body

A stiff neck - less common in young children

A dislike of bright lights - less common in young children

Very sleepy, vacant, or difficult to wake

Confused or delirious

Seizures or fits may be seen Other signs in babies: Tense or bulging soft spot on their head

Refusing to feed Irritable when picked up, with a high pitched or moaning cry

A stiff body with jerky movements, or else floppy and lifeless

Fever is often absent in babies less than three months of age Septicaemia can occur with or without meningitis. Not everyone gets all the symptoms and they can appear in any order. Source: Meningitis Research Foundation Advertisement




The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested two managers from Axis Bank for their alleged involvement in converting Rs 40 crore of old Rs 500 and 1,000 notes into new currency notes through online transactions.

The accused, identified as Shashnk Sinha and Vinit Gupta, were posted in the Kashmere Gate branch of the bank where they allegedly assisted in money laundering with the help of associates, including a chartered accountant, besides shell companies.

They exploited the loopholes to convert old currency notes by buying gold in the name of shell companies and again sold the metal to other cash hoarders at prices higher than the prevailing rate.

The accused, identified as Shashnk Sinha and Vinit Gupta, were posted in the Kashmere Gate branch of the bank where they allegedly assisted in money laundering with the help of associates, including a chartered accountant, besides shell companies (pictured - Axis of Mahatma Gandhi Road in Gangtok)

According to an ED official, both Sinha and Gupta deposited nearly Rs 40 crores of demonetised currency notes to cash holder's accounts and transferred the funds online.

Officials tracked 11 accounts in which questionable transactions were made. The accounts have now been frozen.

'The accused have confessed that they were charging two per cent commission in the form of gold bars. We have recovered two gold bars weighing two kg from a house that belongs to one Shobhit Sinha,' an official said.

The managers repeatedly used Aadhaar cards and other documents of several bank customers who had deposited old currency notes to commit the crime.

The cash deposits were made in multiple installments of Rs 90 to Rs 99 lakh to evade detection by the government agencies.

On several occasions, more than one such cash deposit in a day was made to these accounts. The scam was detected after the Delhi Police seized Rs 3.7 crore in old notes from three persons outside the Kashmere Gate branch on November 22.

Axis Bank said it suspended the accused officials

Subsequently, the income tax department conducted searches. Later, the Enforcement Directorate got involved. Based on the FIR, the ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and busted the network.

ED is also probing the role of three chartered accountants who were associated with the jewellers.

'Several shell companies such as Sunrise Trading, Himalaya International and RD Traders have their bank accounts with the Kashmere Gate branch. They deposited huge tranche of demonetised cash between November 10 and 22 in connivance with the bank mangers,' the ED official said.

Meanwhile, Axis Bank said it suspended the accused officials.




With the rise of shocking videos of sexual assault on women and children going viral on the internet, the Supreme Court has asked WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo what steps they propose to block such clips and report them to probe agencies.

'The social media which is used to circulate the explicit clips should also be called in to ascertain their view as to how this can be curbed. We are issuing notice', a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur told additional solicitor general Maninder Singh.

The court's order came after pressure from from social activist Sunitha Krishnan of the #ShameTheRapistCampaign.

The Supreme Court is India's apex legal platform

Krishnan has received nearly 200 rape videos sent by victims and has demanded an agency with a pan-Indian jurisdiction investigate each and every case after directing the court to the sheer volume of videos.

The CBI has already been entrusted with the probe.

The order comes a month after the apex court said it will also examine if the increasing instances of rape videos and online sex rackets could be curbed if social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are held responsible for the distribution of the violent videos, along with the perpetrators of sexual violence.

To begin with, the social justice bench of the court had then asked the Centre to probe and file a report regarding an online child sex racket using Facebook in which nearly 3,000 paedophiles posted their comments on photos of several minor girls, exchanged their views and posed 'suggestive' queries to each other.

Closer to the Capital, in shops across Uttar Pradesh which has witnessed the rise in gang rape incidents, gang rape videos are being sold in shops every day.

The clips, which include the sexual abuse of children, can be readily bought in shops with traders sending their clients the videos directly to their phones. There is no suggestion the men pictured are involved in the illegal trade in any way

Depending on the exclusivity of the clips, which are 30 seconds to even five-minute long, they are priced anywhere from Rs 50 to 150.

Meanwhile, the Home ministry said in an affidavit that it has initiated steps to set up 150 specialised units to investigate crimes against women.

'In order to tackle cyber crimes comprehensively, MHA has already set up an expert committee to recommend a road-map for tackling the menace,' it said.

Crusader: Sunitha Krishnan launched the #ShameTheRapistCampaign to fight against incidents of sexual violence

As per the expert committee recommendation, a proposal has been initiated to set up Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, it said.

The MHA has also said that a sex offenders registry is being formed to keep a tab on repeat offenders.

'The draft guidelines on the proposal to set up sex offenders' registry in India is under preparation in consultation with relevant ministries, organisations before they are put out for wider consultation with the state governments and the public.
Indian Railways is all set to make the Aadhaar card mandatory to avail any kind of concession in the train fare.

From April next year, it will be applicable for senior citizen concession and gradually all categories will be brought into the ambit.

The idea is to ensure that only bonafide citizens get the benefit while it will check cases of impersonation.

Indian Railways is all set to make the Aadhaar card mandatory to avail any kind of concession in the train fare and from April next year, it will be applicable for senior citizen concession

Railway officials claimed the move will also be a step towards reducing expenses on subsidy and railway concessions.

The Railways has already given senior citizens the option of foregoing concession on rail fares in order to reduce its huge subsidy burden.

Railways spend a whopping Rs 1,600 crore on various categories of concessions out of which nearly Rs 1,200 crore is spent on senior citizen concession.

The Railways has already given senior citizens the option of foregoing concession on rail fares in order to reduce its huge subsidy burden

A senior official said instructions have been issued to railways IT wing CRIS for making necessary changes in the online ticket booking system.

Those purchasing tickets at reservation counters will also have to provide their Aadhaar card number at the time of booking.

As per the rules, male senior citizens above 60 years of age are given 40 per cent concession of rail fare while women above the age of 58 years can avail 50 per cent concession in all classes.

Some categories like physically challenged, deaf and dumb, and heart patients can avail concession up to 75 per cent on rail fares.

As per the plan, the Aadhaar number, provided at the time of booking, will be printed on the tickets. The plan will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase, it will be mandatory to provide the Aadhaar number to avail railway concessions under the quota like senior citizen, freedom fighter, differently-abled, students and even unemployed youths.

Indian Sikh pilgrims wave after boarding a train to Pakistan at the Attari International Railway Station, between India and Pakistan

Indian Railways provides concession in rail fares to 53 categories. A senior Rail Ministry official said the policy in this regard will be approved and implemented in 15 days.

In the second phase, that will take nearly two months, railways will link all ticketing services to aadhaar card.

This means, a passenger will have to provide the Aadhaar number at the time of booking any ticket  online or at the reservation windows.
It is not unusual for politicians and leaders in India to get a sobriquet.

From Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru to Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and Jayalalithaa- they all go by a name different given (gifted) by the people, very different to their official names on paper.

In present times, Mayawati is called Behenji while Mamata is Didi for her supporters - both meaning sister. It is only Jayalalithaa, who is called Amma - the mother.

Jayalalithaas journey to Amma began when she first bacame the chief minister in 1991.

Being a bright student, Jayalalithaa wanted to be a lawyer but got 'forced' into acting before turning to politics

In her biography, Amma: Jayalalithaa's Journey from Movie Star to Political Queen, noted journalist and writer Vaasanthi says that she was nicknamed Ammu as a child.

Jayalalithaa was only two, when her father died. To sustain the family, her mother started working in films forcing Jayalalithaa to spend her childhood in Bangalore with grandparents.

As she continued her studies in Bangalore while her mother stayed in Chennai for her work, Jayalalithaa craved to be with her own amma.

Being a bright student, who received several medals, Jayalalithaa wanted to be a lawyer.

It's thought that Jayalalithaa Jayaram was nicknamed Ammu as a child

But, while still in her teens, she was forced to take up career in films, first Kannada and then Tamil.

From films, she came to politics, for which she was groomed by MG Ramachandran.

It was in 1989, when during a ruckus in Tamil Nadu assembly a scuffle took place between DMK and AIADMK supporters.

Karunanidhi was the chief minister while Jayalalithaa was in the opposition. An AIADMK leader snatched budget papers from Karunanidhi's hands, tore them and pushed the then CM, who fell on the ground.

To avenge humiliation of Karunanidhi, a DMK supporter pulled Jayalalithaa's saree while she was leaving the state assembly.

She fell on the ground and vowed that she would not return to the assembly until it is safe for women.

This time around she was called 'Puratchi Thalaivi', meaning the rebel leader for her aggressive brand of politics.

Among the initiatives that earned her the title Amma was the The Cradle Baby Scheme' in 1992 to tackle female foeticide and infanticide

In 1991, Jayalalithaa was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. It is around this time that her journey from 'Puratchi Thalaivi' to 'Amma' really began.

At this point of time, Tamil Nadu was facing the major problem of female foeticide and infanticide. To root out the problem, Jayalalithaa launched 'Thottil Kuzhandhai' or 'The Cradle Baby Scheme' in 1992.

This proved to be a highly successful initiative, which was appreciated worldwide.

A 1970 film still of Jayalalithaa, right, in the Tamil film 'I Came Looking for the Groom'

Thousands of girls were saved across Tamil Nadu.

The Cradle Baby Scheme established an emotional connect between Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu.

She was now Amma for her supporters and the people of state.

After 2011, Jayalalithaa started to build Brand Amma. She launched a series of pro-poor schemes giving a message that she was there in the Chief Minister's office for the welfare of people like a mother.

Brands like Amma Canteens, Amma Salt, Amma Pharmacy, Amma Cement, Amma drinking water were launched.

Latest in the series was announced in September - Amma Marriage Halls, which would be air-conditioned marriage halls for people from economically weaker sections. Opposition, though, played all down calling them political gimmicks.
Suspect Circumstances Lead to Activist's Death, Family Demands Autopsy

Contact: ChinaAid Media Team, 432-553-1080 cell, 888-889-7757, 432-689-6985, media@chinaaid.org



MIDLAND, Texas, Dec. 6, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Family members are demanding an independently-conducted autopsy following the mysterious death of an imprisoned Christian and veteran human rights activist on Tuesday.



Peng Ming, a pro-democracy dissident known for establishing the China Development Union (also known as the China Development Federation) and publishing a work offering suggestions to China's development model, known as The Fourth Monument, allegedly fainted on Nov. 29 while watching television. He was rushed to the hospital.



Officials phoned his brother, who had visited Peng just three days before, and relayed the news to him. By the time he reached the hospital, Peng had already been declared dead and transferred to a funeral home.



His sister, who lives in California, said she received a phone call from her living brother, but she only heard heavy breathing. After a few seconds, officials took the phone from his hands and relayed their version of the details to her.



However, authorities did not issue a death certificate, leaving his cause of death unclear. As a result, his family members have demanded an autopsy by an "international, independent medical authority acceptable to the family" and stated that a similar procedure conducted by the Chinese government will not be considered conclusive.



Officials have warned his overseas family members not to attend the funeral.



In response to these events, the family has released an official statement, which has been included below.



Following the government's ban the China Development Union, Peng received a sentence of 18 months of re-education-through-labor on a charge unrelated to his political activities. In August 2000, he was released and fled to Thailand with his family, where they were granted refugee status until they resettled in the United States a year later. There, Peng was baptized in a San Francisco church in July 2002.



When Peng returned to Thailand in 2004 to visit his aging parents, Chinese special agents devised a plan to lure him into Burma and abduct him back to China. Once he arrived in his homeland, he was charged with organizing and leading a terrorist organization, kidnapping and possessing counterfeit money. He was given a life sentence.



Peng's case attracted international advocates such as the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the organizations involved in the China 18 campaign.



The Peng family has asked that sympathizers honor his memory by making donations to China Aid and requested that their privacy be respected.



China Aid reports abuses, such as those experienced by the late Peng Ming and his family, in order to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and promote human rights and religious freedom in China.

Statement by Peng Ming's Family



December 3, 2016



We have recently received news of Mr. Peng Ming's sudden passing on the twenty ninth of November in Xianning Prison in Hubei Provence. He had been illegally arrested in May 2004 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison for his advocacy of human rights, democracy, environmentalism, and freedom.



The cause and details of his death are not shared with us. No death certificate is issued.



We have three requests:

Viewing rights of his body for all family members.

Autopsy by an international, independent medical authority acceptable to the family. Otherwise, no autopsy is requested. An autopsy by the government of China is not acceptable to the family.

Return to his family all of Peng Ming's personal possessions.

Our family is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our loving father, son, brother, and uncle, and someone who has served as a source of hope for many others throughout his life.



At this moment, we request privacy for our family. We are deeply grateful for the support we have received, and we thank you for your thoughts and prayers.



In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to China Aid in memory of Mr. Peng Ming.



-Family of Peng Ming
In 2014 the Gupta family lost their 17-year-old son after two police officials pushed him to suicide after implicating him in a false cycle theft case.

Since then it has been a long battle for Rakesh Gupta and Mamta Gupta who have continued the fight to seek justice for their son Anupam Gupta.

The two-year struggle of the family has finally yielded result after a Delhi court directed the police to register a case against its own official Ankit Yadav, a constable in North east district.

In 2014 the Gupta family lost their 17-year-old son after two police officials pushed him to suicide after implicating him in a false cycle theft case

The court observed that the family approached the court after exhausting all legal remedies as no action was taken on their complaint with the police.

The FIR was registered against Ankit Yadav and two others for abetment of suicide on November 25. Rakesh told Mail Today: 'Had I been an influential person, I would not have faced such a day.

'My son was beaten and threatened because we refused to succumb to their demand for a bribe.

'We went to Delhi commission for child rights' protection, human rights commission and senior police officials but no action was taken on our complaint.

'Rakesh moved the court through lawyer Shikha Pandey and Apurv Chandola seeking action against the police officials and others who implicated their son in a false case.

The boy's mother said: 'My son was beaten and threatened because we refused to succumb to their demand for a bribe'

'Even during the hearing, the policemen would ask us to settle the matter out of court and even promised compensation,' said Rakesh. Anupam's trouble began on November 14 when he met his friend Gaurav who had bought a new cycle.

Anupam asked him if he could ride his cycle. His parents claimed that when he returned to the shop, Gaurav had already left by then.

So, he left the cycle with the shopkeeper named Deepu, asking him to return it to Gaurav.

How the cycle ended up with one Yogesh, who lives in the area, is a mystery.

Anupam's parents allege that the shopkeeper sold the cycle to Yogesh but their son was picked up by the cops when the locals accused him of theft.

Anupam's mother told Mail Today that the police apprehended four boys, including her son, but all of them were allowed to go after they bribed them with whatever money they had in the pocket.

'My son refused to bribe him. He came home very late. It was already 2 am. He was quiet. He did not utter a word and slept. Next morning he woke up and decided to go to our shop for a while.

'He returned home at 11.45 am and I followed. The main door was locked from inside.'

When Mamta knocked, Anupam said, 'I'm going'. Thereafter, he didn't respond to repeated knocks. Finally, a neighbour had to jump from his terrace and open the door. The room was opened and Anupam was dead'.
As news of Jayalalithaa Jayaram's death creates panic across Tamil Nadu, the all-important question is 'who will be her successor?'

Will it be O Panneerselvam, the man she trusts the most in her government and whom some AIADMK MLAs are supposedly backing?

Or will it be Sasikala Natarajan, the woman who has been her constant companion for long a time now?

Will it be trusted adviser O Panneerselvam (pictured), companion Sasikala Natarajan or an outlier like Ajith Kumar to succeed the iconic leader in her post as the Chief Minister of the state?

Her close companion Sasikala Natarajan, left, with Jayaram Jayalalitha in 2001, is also thought to be a contender

Or will it be someone from the outside who has her sanction and can bring the party together? Someone like Thala Ajith, the Tamil film star?

When Jaya was first admitted to the Apollo Hospital on September 22 this year, Ajith Kumar was the first one to pay a visit to the hospital.

As Jaya's health continued to worsen, rumours were rife that Ajith Kumar was likely to be Jaya's heir for the post of Chief Minister.

The potential scenario was first reported by a Kannada daily and was then picked up by other media outlets.

Or will it be an outlier like Ajith Kumar to take over the Chief Minister's position?

Over the last few days, another report that has gone viral on the internet suggests that the decision was indicated in Jaya's final will - and then handed over to her loyalists.

It is also said Panneerselvam - who served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 2001 to 2002 and again from 2014 to 2015 - will guide Ajith Kumar when he takes charge as the Chief Minister.

But other sources told Mail Today that, before Amma's death, all of the MLAs of the ruling AIADMK had been called inside Chennai's Apollo Hospital one by one to sign a statement that said Jayalalithaa's trusted lieutenant O Panneerselvam would succeed her.

Several scenarios on who will succeed the late Chief Minister have been doing the rounds

Question marks hang over the future of Tamil Nadu's leadership as the state is thrown into turmoil following Jayalalithaa Jayaram's death

'We have been asked to wait till further information,' an AIADMK legislator who did not want to be identified by name told news agency IANS from the hospital.

AIADMK has a total of 136 MLAs in the the 234-member House, which included Jayalalithaa.

Panneerselvam, who was once a tea stall owner, held two key portfolios of Finance and Public Works in the Jayalalithaa ministry.

He is the first man from the Thevar community to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

Representing Bodinayakanur Assembly constituency in Theni District in the current assembly, Pannerselvam has risen from humble origins.
One of Donald Trump's advisers has allegedly implied that there is a very different version of the conversation he had with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif than initially reported.

Pakistan had earlier claimed that the US president-elect had praised Sharif as a 'terrific guy' in the first phone call between the two leaders.

But while the Trump transition team confirmed that a 'productive conversation' took place on Wednesday, one adviser reportedly said it lacked the dialog included in the Pakistan version of the chat - according to the Dawn website.

US President-elect Donald Trump was said to have praised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as a 'terrific guy' in the first call between the two leader - but that has since been disputed

An unidentified adviser to the Trump team said the Pakistani read-out of the talk had 'committed the president-elect to more than what he meant', it was claimed.

Historical allies in the region, Islamabad and Washington have seen relations sour in recent years over US accusations that Pakistan shelters Islamist militants, a charge denied by the South Asian nation.

Sharif's office said late on Wednesday last week that the Pakistani premier called Trump to congratulate him on his victory and issued a read out of the call. Trump's team confirmed the two men talked and issued a brief statement.

The team of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (centre) issued a transcript of the phonecall but an advisor has since said that version 'committed Trump to more than he meant'

'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,' said the statement issued by Sharif's office.

'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 honour and I will personally do it.'

However, the prime minister's office did not elaborate on the kind of problems Trump offered to solve, and thoughts now turn to recent conflict on the LoC in Kashmir between Pakistan and India. The statement also did not clarify why exactly Trump was impressed with Sharif.

The 'Hindus For Trump' event held at the Edison in New Jersey roused the support of 5,000 US-Indians

Twitter reacts

Social media users took to the news of Trump's supposed call to Pakistan with a mixture of surprise and bemusement.
One suspects that despite the wishful thinking among some Brexiteers, the Italian referendum defeat and the resignation of prime minister Matteo Renzi will not end up with the country exiting the European Union.

But it will place enormous strains on the eurozone.

The current situation is a bit like 1992, when first the UK and then Italy and others were bounced out of the European Monetary System (EMS) by speculators who recognised fundamental disparities among the nations seeking a common currency.

Down and out: Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi gambled and lost on a referendum

Brussels and Frankfurt need to recognise that unless the underpinnings of the eurozone are fundamentally changed, all members of the single currency area will simply become weaker and weaker.

The best remedies for sorting out the mess are to be found in the book by former Bank of England governor Lord King, The End Of Alchemy, and Joseph Stiglitzs tome on the euro. Both argue for better mechanisms for fiscal transfers, comprehensive recapitalisation for much of the European banking system, euro-bonds which share the risk across the single currency area and much more.

It is extraordinary that more than six years after the euro crisis flared up in Greece, and eight years after the financial crisis, the eurozone is still in such disrepair. In going for his failed referendum, Renzi was essentially seeking the political backing to go it alone with rescue plans for Italys banks.

The country now has the worst of both worlds. It has a banking system in which confidence and the hopes of rescue are draining away before our eyes, and it has ceded to Berlin, the hardliners at the European Central Bank and even perhaps the German Constitutional Court a veto on freedom of action.

Much of the current anxiety is around Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is symbolic of Italy as a pioneer of joint stock banking.

The Siena bank is loaded down with 38.7bn of rotten loans and seeking to put together a 4.2bn private rescue plan.

If that fails then Rome would have to step in and rigid eurozone rules require what is known as a bail-in, under which holders of the banks loan stock would be forced to pay for the rescue. If these holders were professional investors that might be regarded as acceptable. Unfortunately, the Italian banks sold subordinated loan stock to retail clients, so it is ordinary citizens who potentially could see life savings wiped out.

It is far from clear how the 11bn rescue rights issue for Italys largest bank Unicredit can proceed in the present uncertain circumstances. It is hoping to augment its capital with the sale of its fund management arm Pioneer Investments to Frances Amundi. There will still be a black hole if it cannot sell shares to existing investors as planned.

The sale of bank shares since the Italian referendum led the British chief executive of Deutsche Bank to warn that Italys problems could easily spill over into the broader European economy. If the banks cannot lend because of damaged balance sheets then business grinds to a halt. This is especially true in the eurozone, where markets are less sophisticated and there is less access to wholesale capital than in Anglo-Saxon economies.

The degradation of the eurozone as an economic force is right back at the centre of the global agenda.

Investor rights

Britain cannot be wholly pleased with the state of its banking system after last weeks excoriating report on Royal Bank of Scotlands ability to withstand crisis.

The RBS board is seeking to bring to an end one embarrassment by offering shareholder groups 800m of compensation for the dud prospectus that was published ahead of the 2008 rights issues.

But that leaves about 30,000 investors (including this writer) swinging in the wind. At the very least the regulators should ensure that all those who stumped up money  whether part of an action group or not  are treated equally in the share out.

There can be no room for divide and rule.

Bye-bye Bob

Bloomberg writers Liam Vaughan and Gavin Finch add new detail to accounts of Bob Diamonds sacking in their new book The Fix.

They tell how five hours after Lord King wielded the knife, Barclays chairman Marcus Agius and senior independent director Mike Rake drove to Belgravia and rang Diamonds door bell. The normally super-confident banker was alone in his apartment as the coup de grace was delivered and visibly shaken. Diamond shook hands with his former colleagues and simply declared: I must speak with my family.

Greenspan legacy

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan will be remembered for many things, especially his sloth in recognising the scale of the sub-prime mortgage scandal until it brought the house of cards crashing down in 2008.

Yet precisely 20-years ago Greenspan was right on the money when he warned of irrational exuberance as stock markets around the world boomed away.
Tens of thousands of Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders will miss out on an 800m compensation pot because they failed to sign up to a lawsuit against the bank.

RBS has offered to pay the sum to shareholders who, in 2008, took part in a fundraising drive at the bank. It is being sued by five shareholder groups who claim they were misled over a 12bn-rights issue before the bank was bailed out by the taxpayer.

The investors claim they were never told the true scale of the problems facing RBS at the time of the fundraising.

Under pressure: Royal Bank of Scotland's current chief executive is Ross McEwan (pictured)

The out-of-court settlement is an attempt to keep disgraced ex-boss Fred Goodwin out of the witness stand over fears any evidence he gives could be damaging to the banks reputation.

Yesterday RBS said a settlement had been reached with three of the five groups.

The RBoS Shareholder Action Group, which wants to take individual bank bosses to court as well as the institution, has said no. It represents about 27,000 small investors, close to half the total number who took part in the doomed rights issue.

But about 60,000 small shareholders are believed to have taken part in the rights issue, meaning the approximately 30,000 who have not got involved with any of the five lawsuits are set to miss out and will not get any money at all.

Financial commentator David Buik said: The presentation of the rights issue in June 2008 was such that it seemed an opportunity not to be missed. Its desperately sad so many small investors lost out, and in the circumstances its such a pity some of them havent joined this action.

They could end up even further out of pocket because if the action group refuses the offer and takes the case to the High Court and wins, the final payment could be even higher. The case would then head for a trial in March, which is likely to lay bare RBSs failings in the run-up to the financial crisis.

Goodwin, who was stripped of his knighthood after the disastrous consequences of his reign came to light, would have to take the stand.

His legal fees are being paid by the bank, which is still 73 per cent owned by the state. The groups which have settled the court case are represented by Stewarts Law, Quinn Emanuel and Mishcon de Reya.

Law firms Leon Kaye and Signature Litigation, which represents the action group, have yet to make a decision. A spokesman for the action group said: We had no option but to reject this inadequate offer and remain committed to seeking justice for our members through the courts.

The 800m will be split between all five groups if the remaining two settle. If they do not, then the three groups which did reach a deal will share around 618m, based on the proportion of the shareholders they represent.

RBS has made the settlement offer without any admission of liability and said it would defend itself in court if necessary.
Purplebricks shares soared after it delivered its maiden UK profit.

The online estate agent, which was set up in 2014 by brothers Michael and Kenny Bruce and is backed by fund manager Neil Woodford, posted underlying profits of 300,000 in the UK for the six months to the end of October.

Total revenues, including its fledgling Australian business, jumped 159 per cent to 18.7m. The shares, which listed on AIM in December last year at 100p and peaked at 175p in May, yesterday jumped 18.8 per cent, or 19.75p, to 125p.

Purplebricks charges customers who sell their homes through its website a fixed fee of 849, or 1,199 in London. There are additional charges if the customer wants its agents to undertake viewings, and other extras such as energy performance certificates can also be added on.

But the company claims the average customer saves 6,267 in London and 3,035 elsewhere in the country if they choose Purplebricks ahead of High Street estate agents.

The UK profit compares with a loss of 6m in the same period of last year.
Tata Steel and unions are close to agreeing a rescue plan for the Port Talbot plant.

An announcement is expected this week on a plan that could save up to 4,500 jobs at the South Wales site.

Unions have been fighting owners Tata Steel to keep one or both of the firms blast furnaces, one of which is due to stop production in 2018.

Rescue hopes: An announcement is expected this week on a plan that could save up to 4,500 jobs at the Port Talbot plant

They also want to protect 127,000 workers in the British Steel Pension Fund and secure existing jobs.

It is understood a deal may give the unions the protections they want, but in return they may have to consider new working patterns on weekends.

Unions would not reveal the precise details of the deal, but they are putting the proposals to workers tomorrow following lengthy discussions with the Indian-owned company.

Alex Flynn, from the Unite union, said: We felt that what had been put forward we could take that to our reps for them to take a view on.

The future of the steelworks has been in doubt since Tata announced in March that it was putting all of its work in the UK up for review.

It is in talks with German group Thyssenkrupp about a possible merger, but Thyssenkrupp says it must solve its 485m inherited pensions deficit before doing so.

Port Talbot councillor Mark Jones said: I spoke to people working there and they feel their futures are assured and they are looking forward to continued employment there.

Tata said it had made substantial future assurances with trade unions to find a positive future for the business.

Tatas pension scheme has been a major barrier to finding a buyer for its struggling UK arm. It inherited the fund through its takeover of steelmaker Corus in 2007. The scheme has around 130,000 members, but it is estimated that only about one in 13 are still making contributions.
More than 700m was wiped off Italys largest banks yesterday as finance chiefs scrambled to secure a rescue of the worlds oldest lender.

As markets swung wildly following Sundays referendum vote, senior bankers held emergency talks to save Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is crippled with 25.5bn of bad debt.

It needs a 4.2bn rescue plan but its share value is now worth just 464m. It is feared that other big banks in Italy could be dragged into a new financial crisis, and Unicredit, the countrys biggest lender, is expected to seek 11bn from shareholders.

Crippled: Senior bankers held emergency talks to save Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which has 25.5bn of bad debt

Eurozone finance ministers have insisted the vote would not create a wider crisis across the Continent.

Although fresh elections are unlikely in the wake of prime minister Matteo Renzis resignation, there are growing fears the nations troubled lenders  which are struggling with 300bn of bad debt  could come crashing down. Yesterday, Monte dei Paschi shares tumbled another 4.2 per cent  continuing a drop of more than 86 per cent in the past 12 months. The worlds oldest bank is seeking to raise an extra 4.2bn from private investors in a bid to stay afloat.

There were worries it would struggle to raise the cash even before the vote, and despairing investors are now widely expected to walk away.

The No result has undoubtedly made it harder to attract private sector capital to fill Monte dei Paschis gaping capital hole, said Kathleen Brooks of City Index.

The risk is that investors lose faith, which triggers a run on the bank and a full-blown financial crisis that starts in the currency bloc but could emanate around the world. Many of the firms expected to support the capital-raising exercise are thought to have made their backing conditional on a Yes vote.

Last night the banks bosses were locked in talks with its advisers JP Morgan and Mediobanca as they struggled to find a solution.

In a move eerily reminiscent of Barclays fundraising drive at the height of the financial crisis, Italian finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan is said to have asked Qatari investors for 850m to plug the gap.

If this is successful, bankers believe between ten and 20 more institutions could be persuaded to put in 85m each. But if it fails, the Italian state will be left with a string of unpleasant options.

They could let Monte dei Paschi collapse, although this would be unthinkable and could see millions of depositors savings wiped out. Alternatively, the authorities could follow tough European Union laws which require bondholders to lose money before taxpayers step in to rescue a lender.

In most countries  including the UK  bank bonds are held by large institutions which can take a hit when times are hard.

But many Italian bonds are owned by pensioners  and last time there was a so-called bail in, when these investors lost money, an elderly saver committed suicide afterwards.

The third choice would be to simply flout EU demands and launch a bailout without hurting bondholders, but this would deal a shattering blow to confidence in the blocs laws.

Whatever happens, other banks will rapidly come under pressure if the Qatari rescue fails. Another seven are thought to be in serious danger, including medium-sized lenders Popolare di Vicenza, Veneto Banca and Carige.

Banca Etruria, CariChieti, Banca delle Marche, and CariFerrara, four smaller institutions rescued last year, are the others in the firing line.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was heckled and called a 'common criminal' during a news conference outside Trump Tower on Monday as she continues the recount effort in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Stein is seeking an emergency federal court order for a recount in Pennsylvania after dropping a state court case due to the required $1million bond.

In Michigan, a hand recount began on the orders of a federal judge, while recount results in Wisconsin, which started on Thursday, showed little change from those reported on election night.

Stein, who received about 1 per cent of the vote in all three states, says her intent is to verify the accuracy of the vote. She has suggested, with no evidence, that votes cast were susceptible to computer hacking.

Jill Stein was heckled and called a 'common criminal' during a press conference outside Trump Tower on Monday

Stein, who received about 1 per cent of the vote in all three states, says her intent is to verify the accuracy of the vote

'Let every vote count. That's what makes America great,' Stein said Monday outside Trump Tower in New York, where she was repeatedly interrupted by shouts of protest.

In Pennsylvania, the Green Party filed a federal lawsuit on Monday seeking a statewide recount  a move that came after the party on Saturday dropped a case set to be argued Monday in state courts.

An updated count Friday by state election officials showed Trump's lead shrinking to 49,000 from 71,000 over Clinton, out of 6 million votes cast, as more counties finish counting overseas ballots and settled provisional ballot challenges.

That is still shy of Pennsylvania's 0.5 per cent trigger for an automatic statewide recount.

Final counts are outstanding in some counties, but there are not enough uncounted votes to change the outcome, officials say.

Ilann Maazel, lead counsel for the Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein campaign, called Pennsylvania's election system 'a national disgrace'

In Michigan, a federal judge in Detroit ordered a statewide hand recount of roughly 4.8 million ballots on late Sunday night.

Republicans appealed that ruling Monday. Trump won the state by about 10,700 votes, or two-tenths of a percentage point, over Clinton.

Stein argued that a law requiring a break of at least two business days after the Board of Canvassers' final action on a recount request is unconstitutional.

Judge Mark Goldsmith found that Stein had 'shown the likelihood of irreparable harm' if the count was delayed even by two days and rejected the state's arguments about the cost to taxpayers.

Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette, the Trump campaign and super PACs have filed separate lawsuits asking state courts to prevent the recount, arguing that Stein, as the fourth-place finisher, is not 'aggrieved' because she has no chance of winning in a recount. A hearing is scheduled Tuesday on those actions.

Stein is seeking an emergency federal court order for a recount in Pennsylvania after dropping a state court case due to a $1million bond (pictured, a rally supporting the recount in PA)

In Michigan, a federal judge in Detroit ordered a statewide hand recount of roughly 4.8 million ballots on late Sunday night

The recount began in Wisconsin on Thursday, continuing over the weekend, with little change so far in the unofficial results as reported on election night.

Six counties completed their work as of Monday morning, with the margin between Trump and Clinton unchanged. Both candidates lost 20 votes.

A federal lawsuit was filed late last week by a Trump voter and two super PACs seeking to stop the recount, but a judge rejected the request while the lawsuit is pending and scheduled a hearing for Friday.

State and local election officials have all said they don't expect Clinton to surpass Trump in Wisconsin, where he won by about 22,000 votes.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission said no significant issues have been reported after four full days of recounting and any changes between canvass results and recount totals have been due to human error.

A partial recount is also underway in Nevada at the request of Independent Roque De La Fuente, who paid $14,000 to provide a 'counterbalance' to Stein's efforts

A partial recount is also underway in Nevada at the request of Independent Roque De La Fuente, who finished last with a fraction of 1 per cent of the vote.

He paid about $14,000 for the recount to provide what he called a counterbalance to the recounts sought by Stein.

Most of the 92 precincts being re-counted are in the Las Vegas area, with eight of the precincts in four other counties.

If the sample shows a discrepancy of at least 1 per cent for De La Fuente or Clinton, a full recount will be launched in all 17 Nevada counties.

Clinton defeated Trump in Nevada by 27,202 votes, out of 1.1 million votes cast.

Nevada Secretary of State spokeswoman Gail Anderson said the recount will be finished by the end of this week.

A ballot with a vote for Donald J. Trump is shown during a statewide presidential election recount in Waterford Township, Michigan
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A couple dressed head-to-toe in black leather and dark feathers sits by the water on Southend promenade, in Essex, sharing a plate of chips.

Meanwhile, a group of silvery Wolf Snappers feed on plankton, their mouths agape, in the German Channel of the Republic of Palau - and then there's Dan, the Romanian shepherd.

As dissimilar as these unique images may seem, they have one thing in common: they were all submitted for recognition in the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards.

The world's biggest photography competition attracts hundreds of thousands of photographers from all backgrounds and skill levels.

Two Goths share a portion of chips on Southend promenade, in Essex. Peter Dench submitted this photo for the Portraits category of the Open competition

An authentic shepherd named Dan lives in Romania's Carpathian Mountains in the remote region of Bran. Photographer Gutescu Eduard said the man was a 'real joy' to listen to as he talked about his life and work

Photographer Noel Guevara said the water had 'miso soup visibility' in this shot - taken of Wolf Snappers in the German Channel, Ngemelis Island, Republic of Palau

A snap of a Golden Aspen grove and picturesque mountains in the Eastern Sierras. This photo is the work of photographer Brandon Yoshizawa

Placido Faranda took this photo of a solidified lava river and neighbouring forest with a drone in Sicily

Jian Seng Soh said about this photo, taken in Kyoto, Japan: 'Before I get off the bus at the next station, I gave my seat to this young elementary student with heavy bags and she immediately fell asleep'

An eerie shot of a city in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates, taken by photographer Andrzej Bochenski

The Open competition winner will receive $5,000 (about 4,000), Sony digital imaging equipment and flights and accommodation to the awards ceremony at Somerset House in London next spring.

'The risk is none and the opportunities are endless. There's not a single reason not to try,' Jaime Massieu Marcos, the winner of the Open competition in 2015, said.

All submissions must be in by January 5 at 11.59pm GMT.

Hundreds of students hoist flags during the 59th Malaysia Independence Day celebration at Merdeka Square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

After hearing that this beach in Qingdao, China was one of the most crowded places in the world, Mankichi Shinshi had to visit. 'I could sense that this place had at one point been full of exuberant people, and in the subsequent emptiness, I felt a sense of loss,' Shinshi said

Photographer Eugenie Sophie Berger titled this photo - taken at Tel Aviv Beach - 'Colourful Senior Moment'

Stefanos Chronis noticed a 'very harmonious symmetry' inside the Victorian building of the Scottish National Museum

Adit Merkine is the photographer behind this intimidating photo of angry birds

A deer rests in the autumn scrub while ravens joust and play around him in a shot taken by Liam Thomson from the UK

Jari Siltala, from Finland, took this photo of a colourful carnival in Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife Island

The Open competition has a fascinating Still Life category - and Peter Csakvari's 'Who killed the flies?' piece is one of its many submissions
Contact: Kristi Hamrick, Americans United for Life, 202-289-1478, press@aul.org



WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Abortion advocates have recently released a flood of outlandish and deceptive claims intended to defeat and discredit efforts to ensure that deceased infants (no matter how they died) receive dignified and respectful treatment, noted Americans United for Life (AUL) staff attorney Anna Paprocki. In response and in advance of the 2017 state legislative sessions where such laws will be introduced and debated, AUL, the legal arm of the pro-life movement, has released a Myths and Facts analysis to confront the abortion industry's hysterical crusade to castigate these infant dignity laws as clandestine abortion regulations designed to deny women choices and shutter clinics. "Even in death, unborn infants receive no respect from an abortion industry anxious to portray such human beings as trash," observed Paprocki, who also wrote about these efforts to discredit the legislation for The Federalist.



Paprocki wrote: "In reality, these laws do not address, much less regulate, a woman's access to abortion. Infant dignity laws give families more choices when grieving the loss of their tiniest members."



States began considering "infant dignity" laws in response to diverse and tragic occurrencessome of which followed abortions, and many that did not. Hospitals refused to release miscarried infants' remains to their mothers for burial, families were unable to obtain certificates of stillbirth because their infants were miscarried too early, and, not surprisingly, deceased infants' body parts were discovered in dumpsters behind abortion clinics.



One fallacy that the abortion industry asserts is that such laws place a burden on women, when in fact it requires facilities  whether abortion clinic or hospital  to respectfully care for the bodies of infants who did not survive to birth. The institution is then required to ensure that an infant's remains are cremated or buriednot incinerated, tossed in dumpsters, or flushed through a sewer system with medical waste. A mother who suffers miscarriage or stillbirth has the additional option of donating her infant's remains in compliance with her state's Anatomical Gifts Act.



Americans United for Life's Unborn Infants Dignity Act, frequently consulted by state legislators, addresses these tragedies by regulating the actions of healthcare "institutions," not patients. The model law requires abortion clinics, hospitals, and other medical facilities to offer women the opportunity to bury or cremate their deceased unborn children when they have reached a stage of development where they have recognizable body parts. If a woman does not choose to make these arrangements, the institution must simply obtain her consent before disposing of her infant's remains.



Abortion advocates' contentions that they cannot comply with infant dignity laws because they are vague or too costly are also patently ridiculous.

Paprocki noted: "The Eighth Circuit rejected a claim that an infant dignity law in Minnesota was vague because, at times, it might be difficult to determine the need for compliance (i.e., in some first-trimester abortions). Like the AUL model, the Minnesota law requires burial or cremation once an infant has 'cartilaginous structures' and 'fetal or skeletal parts.' The court held that, while these cases may present challenges, 'marginal cases cannot defeat the statute.'"

To learn more about AUL's model Unborn Infants Dignity Act, click here.



Americans United for Life (AUL) is the legal architect of the pro-life movement. We are accumulating victories, building momentum, and advancing a culture of life in America. Our vision is a nation in which everyone is welcomed in life and protected in law. The first national pro-life organization in America, AUL has been committed to defending human life since 1971.
The horrific reality of Polish mink farms has been laid bare by a whistleblower who filmed the disgusting treatment of animals at his workplace.

Harrowing footage shows maggot-infested minks being left paralysed with terrible injuries before they are killed and skinned to be turned into coats, hats and gloves for sale on the High Streets of Britain and elsewhere.

For two months the worker recorded at a fur farm in Masanow, Poland which breeds 80,000 American minks each year.

Death: Thousands of minks never make it to the autumn slaughter but are skinned anyway

Beaten: Whistleblower filmed for two months at a fur farm in Masanow, Poland

Squalor: Workers trampled and stamped on minks if they tried to escape the squalid farm

Scared: A mink is lifted by the worker who notices scars and open wounds on its back

His agonising videos show:

Workers beating minks by throwing them against walls

Workers trampling and stamping on minks if they try to escape

Employees grabbing minks by the tail and tossing them into cages

Minks being left with deep, painful and severe wounds

Minks suffering with protruding bones and larvae hatching on their bodies

Dozens of dead minks being removed from their cages every day

Animals that don't make it to the autumn slaughter being skinned anyway

'The hardest parts were witnessing the murder of animals and the senseless violence,' said the farm employee who wanted to remain anonymous.

'The minks, held in tiny cages, scream and squeal. For some it is fun to beat them.'

Brutal: Shocking footage shows one worker hitting a mink with metal

Savage: The worker grabbed a mink by the tail and threw it into a cage (left) before vigorously shaking the cage up and down (right)

Rotting: Minks at the Polish farm were being left with deep, painful and severe wounds

Abandoned: When the minks at the farm fall sick they are left without any care

When the minks fall sick they are left without any care. At most they may be moved to a separate cage or sprayed with a disinfectant.

'There is a special spray, which can be used on sick minks, but in practice no one uses it because the system has no room for treatment,' the worker said.

'It's all about the fur, not the animal.'

In 2015 3.7million worth of fur was imported into the UK from Poland. Top of the range mink fur coats can sell for upwards of 10,000.

It used to be thought that fur breeders take proper care of the minks because otherwise their fur would be of no use.

Branded: Mink that is thought to be diseased is held by the tail and sprayed in the face

Shocking: If a mink falls ill, it is only sprayed with blue disinfectant and sometimes separated from others

Paralyzed: One mink could not move its rear legs as it crawled along its cage

Pain: The minks are left with rotting flesh which can become infested

But, as Pawe Rawicki from animal welfare group Open Cages notes, 'these recordings debunk one of the biggest myths of the fur industry.'

The farm is operated by Farm Equipment International, part of the Dutch fur empire owned by the Leeijen brothers, who are said to be the biggest provider of mink furs in the world and worth $90million.

The company, one of many Dutch businesses investing in the Polish fur industry, owns 14 farms all around Poland.

It's all about the fur not the animal

Due to a complete ban on fur farming in the Netherlands, leading fur makers are currently moving their operations to Poland and Lithuania.

This is not the first revealed case of cruel animal mistreatment taking place on this company's farms.

On 6 November 2016, two employees of a Farm Equipment International facility in Gizyn received a six months' prison sentence suspended for two years.

Escape: One Mink tried to make a run for his life, but was soon caught

Bleeding: Minks were left with open wounds which became infested with maggots

Time for slaughter: The minks are wheeled off when the autumn comes

Recordings by animal rights activists showed the employees brutally throwing minks into gas chambers, hitting them against cages and beating them severely.

MailOnline has contacted Farm Equipment International for comment.

In November 2016, Open Cages petitioned the Polish members of Parliament for the ban of fur farming, which also affects foxes and raccoon dogs.

The petition has been signed by 120,000 people.

Claire Bass, UK Director of Humane Society International said: 'This undercover footage is a damning indictment on the cruel fur industry, and although it will shock British consumers to see the level of daily suffering and casual violence endured by these poor animals, it is a much-needed reminder that fur is a bloody business that has no place in our shops or on our high-streets.

'The UK imports large quantities of fur from Poland where this undercover footage was taken, so we're importing cruelty just like this.

'Britain is a nation free of fur-farms, but sadly not a nation free of fur cruelly produced in farms overseas like this one.

'Our recent poll shows that the Great British public overwhelmingly reject all animal fur - only 12% believe it acceptable for mink fur to be bought and sold in the UK, for example.

'This footage from Poland strongly supports our call for government to close our borders to this brutal, bloody and completely unnecessary trade.'

WHICH FURS ARE LEGAL TO TRADE IN THE UK? Model Gigi Hadid wears rabbit Britain banned fur farming in 2000 and all fur farms were closed by January 1, 2003. But that didn't make Britain free of fur. Imports from some species are banned across the EU but others like mink are not. YouGov asked Britons which animal furs they find 'acceptable' to trade. The results showed that acceptability bears only little relation to legality. Seal (illegal to sell) 8% found it acceptable to trade

Domestic dog (illegal to sell) 7%

Domestic cat (illegal to sell) 9%

Chinchilla (legal to sell) 9%

Coyote (legal to sell) 8%

Fox (legal to sell) 12%

Mink (legal to sell) 12%

Rabbit (legal to sell) 20%

Raccoon dog legal to sell) 8% Advertisement
Britain is to help six Middle East countries to boost their airport security in a bid to prevent terrorist attacks.

Theresa May will today meet six leaders of Gulf states in Bahrain to sign a new package of joint measures to improve screening at the regions airports.

The UK will work with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other nations to help them improve traveller screening systems and to share expertise to make it more difficult for terrorists to avoid detection.

It is hoped the plan will help build on successes such as the foiling of the ink cartridge bomb plot of 2010, when plastic explosives hidden in a printer were found aboard a US-bound flight at East Midlands airport following a tip-off from Saudi Arabia.

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Theresa May will today meet six leaders of Gulf states in Bahrain to sign a new package of joint measures to improve screening at the regions airports

In addition there are fears that Islamic State fighters displaced from Syria and Iraq are hoping to gain entry to the UK from the Middle East.

Mrs May has also agreed to new schemes to tackle radicalisation in the Gulf states.

The Prime Minister arrived last night in Bahrain for the annual meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), a conference of six states in the region. She will be the first British leader to attend.

Mrs May said: Now more than ever, Gulf security is our security. Thats why we are investing in hard power there, with over 3billion of defence over the next decade - spending more in the Gulf than in any other region of the world.

The Prime Minister arrived last night in Bahrain for the annual meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), a conference of six states in the region

Through the construction of HMS Juffair, we are creating a permanent naval base in the region, the first such facility east of Suez since 1971. And we are also establishing a permanent British army presence in the region through our regional land training hub in Oman.

Indeed, there are more British warships, aircraft and personnel deployed on operations in the Gulf than in any other part of the world.

And its not just about military power, we also need to work together to respond to new and diversifying threats. So, on my visit here, we are agreeing new co-operation to do more to prevent radicalisation and to tackle terrorism.

But last night campaigners demanded the Prime Minister use the trip to call for human rights reform.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade said the value of arms deals reached with the six Gulf states - all dictatorships - since May last year has reached 4billion.

Spokesman Andrew Smith said: Theresa May has called for a new trading relationship with the Gulf states following Brexit, but this cannot come at the cost of silence on human rights and democracy.

While in Bahrain, the Prime Minister will also announce the establishment of a new joint UK-Gulf working group on counter-terrorism and border security to build on efforts to counter terrorist financing and to protect critical national infrastructure.

While in Bahrain, May will also announce the establishment of a new joint UK-Gulf working group on counter-terrorism and border security

British experts will conduct training with officials from Gulf states, and three specialist cyber experts will be sent to the Middle East.

The UK will also intensify co-operation to counter violent extremism, including through new GCC support for national action plans to prevent and counter violent extremism.

In addition Mrs May will build on the Governments 3billion investment in defence in the region over the next decade by announcing a new partnership to improve Gulf states defence capabilities.

The Prime Minister will also announce further UK deployments to the region, with a new permanent British defence staff in Dubai to coordinate regional activities and a dedicated military officer embedded with Bahrains Ministry of Interior bomb disposal unit to provide bomb scene management support and training.
The Victoria government will introduce new laws banning police killers from ever getting out of prison on parole.

It will be pushed through parliament so that one killer in particular, Craig Minogue, never gets out of jail. He was given life for the 1986 bombing of the Russell Street Police Headquarters in Melbourne, which killed Constable Angela Taylor.

Minogue was due for parole in January, but this new legislation will make it impossible for any cop killer to ever apply for parole.

Craig Minogue (pictured) was given life for the 1986 bombing of the Russell Street Police Headquarters in Melbourne

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews has promised the new laws will mean he won't get out of jail.

'Anybody who takes the life of a member of our Victoria Police force will not be eligible for any parole whatsoever,' Mr Andrews told reporters on November 23.

Minogue killed Constable Taylor and injured 22 people in the 1986 bombing, before going on to kill another man in jail.

However if the new laws don't get introduced into parliament and passed this week, they won't be gazetted in time to stop Minogue's parole application.

Minogue (left pictured in 1986) killed Constable Angela Taylor in the bombing

As well as the death of Constable Taylor, 22 people were also killed in the explosion

Minogue is due for parole in January but new laws may now prevent this

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the laws were the most pressing issue for the final week of parliament for the year.

'If the government doesn't bring this through then Craig Minogue, the Russell Street bomber, could apply for parole in January, before the parliament reconvenes. It should be a priority,' Mr Guy told reporters on Monday.

Other police killers like Peter Reid who shot dead a motorcycle officer in 1982 on the Hume Highway and Jason Roberts who murdered police officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller in 1998 in Melbourne will also be denied parole thanks to the new legislation.

It's a clear message from Premier Andrews that anyone who murders a police officer and gets life will die behind bars.

Jason Roberts (pictured) murdered police officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller in 1998 in Melbourne
The United Nations is demanding Australian leaders toughen race hate laws and condemn racist politicians, sparking outrage.

An official from Kenya, who has been in Australia on a week-long visit, said politicians needed to speak out against members of parliament who use racist rhetoric, even though his own African homeland has serious problems with human rights.

The UN's special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia, Mutuma Ruteere, declined to name any single Australian politician but he said their language needed to be condemned - sparking outrage from a conservative think tank.

The U.N.'s special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia Mutuma Ruteere wants Australian political leaders to condemn racism and toughen race hate laws

U.N. special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia Mutuma Ruteere addressing journalists in Canberra on Monday

The United Nation official's comments come two week after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton (pictured) said he had evidence linking Lebanese-Muslims with terrorism

'Particularly when made by members of their own political parties,' Mr Ruteere told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

'If political leaders don't speak up - they're silent - they legitimise this racist element.

'It's much more difficult to clean up once the entire political mainstream has been taken over by the racists.'

His call comes only two weeks after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said he had 'indisputable evidence' the children and grandchildren of 1970s Lebanese Muslim migrants were more likely to be connected with terrorism.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has also called for a ban on Muslim migration.

The member of the U.N.'s Human Rights Council warned Australia against amending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which makes it an offence to 'insult of offend' members of an ethnic group.

Sections of the Liberal Party , and even former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr, want that clause replaced to allow greater freedom of speech, provided minorities aren't vilified or threatened with violence.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has called for a ban on Muslim migration to Australia

Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam said U.N. officials criticised Australia without having much knowledge of the country

Delivering his preliminary findings in Canberra, Mr Ruteere said Australia in fact needed stronger race hate laws.

But John Roskam, the executive director of the conservative Institute of Public Affairs think tank said U.N. officials had very little knowledge about Australia.

'I'm upset when we have experts from the United Nations come to preach to us about how we should live when they know very little about our great country,' he told Sydney radio station 2GB.

'He's come to Australia and said that we can't have freedom of speech because that will upset some people.

Sydney radio 2GB presenter Luke Grant (pictured) asked the Institute of Public Affairs think tank about the United Nations official's call to condemn racist politicians

'He said there are xenophobic, racist views in Australia which I don't accept for one moment and he said he can't debate these important issues.

'We absolutely have to debate multiculturalism, integration. Are we having a problem with some ethnic groups integrating into Australia?'

Mr Ruteere also called on Australia to emulate Canada, which has a constitutional bill of human rights and freedoms.

Mr Ruteere said Australia's political leaders needed to confront and censure racism from fringe, xenophobic groups otherwise they risked such elements gaining respectability.

He also cautioned against attacks on controversial Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs, saying the body had done exemplary work under her guidance.

The U.N. official defended the work of controversial Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs

The official hails from Kenya, whose security forces are accused of killing and torturing citizens.

Mr Roskam pointed out the U.N.'s Human Rights Council had members from China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia which show little respect to their citizens' civil liberties.

'Let's put this into perspective before we begin talking about Australia, he said.

Mr Ruteere's final report on Australia, based on visits to Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Alice Springs is being presented to the U.N.s Human Rights Council in June.
On Monday New Zealand Prime Minister John Key made the shock announcement that he was stepping down from politics to focus on his family.

Many of the popular politician's supporters - including Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull - have since expressed their disappointment at his decision to step down.

Key, 55, cited spending more time with his family, including children Max and Stephie, as one of the determining factors in his call not to run for a fourth term.

From Max, who flaunts his lavish lifestyle on Instagram, to Stephie, a pole dancing artist, we take a look at the lives of the outgoing leader's controversial children.

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Outgoing New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said he wanted to spend more time with his family, including son Max, 21 (pictured)

Prime Minister Key's daughter Stephie, 23, (pictured) is an artist living in Paris

The New Zealand leader made the shock announcement on Monday

Max, who is currently carving out a career as a DJ, often shares photographs of luxury holidays, fast cars and even helicopters on his social media pages.

The 21-year-old is no stranger to the spotlight, and he frequently poses shirtless in lavish locations around the world.

His good looks and social media stardom have even earned him the nickname 'the Fresh Prince of Parnell'.

A commerce student, Max regularly shares updates from sun-drenched pool parties, surfing getaways and luxury resorts, despite telling Remix magazine he's 'just like other young guys'.

'The media painted me as this rich snob', he told the publication earlier this year.

'I can't say our family doesn't have wealth, because that would be wrong to say. But both my parents were raised in a state house, and I worked at McDonald's for four years to earn pocket money,' Max revealed.

Max, 21, is currently carving out a career as a DJ while studying commerce

'The media painted me as this rich snob' he said in an interview earlier this year

He frequently poses shirtless in lavish locations around the world.

His good looks and social media stardom have earned him the name 'the Fresh Prince of Parnell'

The 21-year-old also caused controversy late last year with a four and a half minute video showcasing his family's luxury vacation through New Zealand and Hawaii.

Titled 'Max Key & Amelia Finlayson in Summer Paradise', the clip documented Max's family holiday with his model girlfriend Amelia.

However the NZ PM faced fierce backlash over agreeing to appear in the footage as it was released at a time when the government was being criticised for a lack of affordable housing.

Some called into question whether the prime minister was out of touch, due to the lavish and affluent lifestyle he lived while others were struggling to pay rent.

The outgoing NZ PM's daughter, Stephie, 23, is also a colourful character

The 23-year-old is an artist living in Paris and often poses wearing little to no clothes

She is pictured here with U.S. pop star Katy Perry

Stephie goes by the name Cherry Lazar online, and is a keen pole dancer

The outgoing NZ PM's daughter is also a colourful character, and an artist, just like her mother.

Stephie - who posts to Instagram under the name Cherry Lazar, is often pictured semi-nude, including in a Paris art exhibition last April.

The 23-year-old is involved in risque photographic art, often posting scantily-clad photographs of herself or others.

With striking pink hair and doll-like features, the stunning young woman frequently poses in brightly coloured wigs and clothing for her social media pages.

In May this year the young woman graduated from the Paris College of Art, after moving to France when she was 17.

With striking pink hair and doll-like features, the stunning young woman frequently poses in brightly coloured wigs and clothing
Chinese-Australians teenagers say they face alarming rates of racism in Australia, a new study reveals.

Almost one third of 22,000 Chinese-Australians aged 15 to 19 surveyed by Mission Australia said they had experienced unfair treatment or discrimination based on race.

Chinese-speaking youths reported the highest rates of racial discrimination, at 90 per cent, among the 4,000 teenagers who said they spoke a language other than English at home.

Young Chinese-Australian's are facing shocking rates of discrimination based on their race, a report by Mission Australia reveals

'I've definitely felt discrimination,' Mandarin-speaking and Australian-born Mavis Tian told the ABC.

'Sydney has a lot of Asian tourists and people often think just because you look Asian that you don't speak English and that makes it OK to treat you worse.

The 19-year-old added: 'A lot of the time you go into shops and people say, 'Oh, watch out for the Asian person by the door, keep an eye on her', things like that.'

One in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of race or cultural background.

'This is almost double compared to their non-Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peers at 28.3 per cent.

Mission Australia CEO Catherine Yeomans told Daily Mail Australia that young Arabic speakers are also facing a worryingly high amount of discrimination.

One in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of race or cultural background (stock image)

Mission Australia CEO Catherine Yeomans told Daily Mail Australia that young Arabic speakers are also facing a worryingly high amount of discrimination

She believes this is also rooted with unfair treatment towards their cultural and religious background.

'We are facing unacceptably high levels of discrimination in Australia,' Ms Yeomans said.

'Speaking with staff working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people they identify extreme levels based on race and cultural background.

'They see this play out in applying for jobs and opportunities beyond school.'

Ms Yeomans said that findings from the survey that she found most eye-opening were young people identifying mental health as one of the top three issues facing Australia.

'We have to consider the negative impacts on mental health, which as you can see is a growing concern for young people.'

The percentage of young people indicating mental health as a top national concern has double in the last six years.
A New Jersey police officer caught on camera slapping a man who was wearing a bunny costume and was blowing an air horn inside a police station has been charged with assault.

Hopatcong police Officer Nicholas Maresca Jr. was charged on Friday with slapping Kevin Hemmerich on November 17. He faces one count of simple assault.

The encounter between Maresca and Hemmerich was captured on a video shot by Hemmerich's brother, who has also now been charged.

Prankster: Kevin Hemmerich was turning himself in for an outstanding warrant on November 17, however he went to Hopatcong Police Station dressed as a bunny and with an air horn

Hemmerich's brother accompanied him to the station and was filming while Hemmeriwch sounded the air horn inside the police station, all the while laughing

The video shows Hemmerich entering the Hopatcong police station and blowing the air horn repeatedly despite being told to stop.

Kevin Hemmerich's brother, Jason Hemmerich, said his sibling went to the police station to turn himself in on a warrant related to a motor vehicle accident.

Kevin Hemmerich faced an arrest warrant for not completing a work program that was in lieu of jail time for failing to have car insurance.

Jason Hemmerich said two officers began cursing at them and one hit Kevin Hemmerich in the face.

Not happy: Hopatcong police Officer Nicholas Maresca Jr. confronted Hemmerich about the air horn and then slapped him across the face

This is the moment officer Nicholas Maresca, Jr. hits Hemmerich. However Maresca's lawyer says he is confident the charges against the cop will be dropped

Maresca's attorney, Anthony Iacullo, told NJ.com that Maresca 'acted appropriately and in accordance with his training and experience as a police officer.'

He said Maresca would be vindicated.

'We are confident that when this matter proceeds to trial Officer Maresca will be vindicated of the one charge against him,' Iacullo said.

Maresca has been placed on administrative duty, prosecutors said.

Jason  who was charged a day later with obstruction, harassment and disorderly conduct  says the police officers acted inappropriately.

'He wasn't being violent or belligerent. He wasn't drunk or on drugs. It was a prank,' he said.
It's over: Gable Tostee, 30, and Lizzi Evans, 28, have ended their relationship in a break-up that's spilled out into public view

Tinder identity Gable Tostee has rejected his ex-girlfriend's claims she dumped him - saying he was the one who ended their relationship.

'I love her and couldn't be what she ultimately wanted... I was extremely upset and reluctant to end it,' Mr Tostee told Daily Mail Australia.

New Zealand woman Lizzi Evans this week criticized the Gold Coast 30-year-old as 'obsessed' with his past life of drinking, girls and partying.

Since the break-up Ms Evans, 28, has returned to her native New Zealand - telling the Daily Mail her former partner left her 'emotionally starved' and 'hurt me in ways he said he wouldn't.

In a separate interview with Woman's Day, Ms Evans said she was concerned over how the pair would track each others' whereabouts with a Google app and claimed he wanted her to get breast implants.

And Mr Tostee has now told his side of the story, saying he was the one who made the painful decision to shut the doors on their year-long relationship.

'I will say I was the one who decided to end our relationship, she didn't "dump me",' he said.

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Ms Evans claimed 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 interview

Mr Tostee said he was 'extremely upset and reluctant to end it and so was she'

'I love her and couldn't be what she ultimately wanted so I decided it would be better in the long run for both of us to end it now.

'I was extremely upset and reluctant to end it and so was she but I feel it's the right thing to do for the long run.'

His remarks come after Ms Evans told Woman's Day how Mr Tostee and her would use a Google tracking app to pinpoint each others' locations at all times.

She told the publication she thought it was a 'sweet' gesture at first.

'I wonder now it if was just an obsession (of knowing where I was all the time),' she was quoted saying.

In response, Mr Tostee said: 'We were both able to see each others' locations on Google Plus, it was a completely mutual idea'.

Ms Evans told the magazine Mr Tostee wanted her to get breast implants.

'He told me to get a boob job, and that this girl we knew with big boobs should be my idol,' she claimed.

Mr Tostee replied by claiming 'Liz told me first she wanted implants and I never objected'.

When asked if he wanted a different lifestyle to Ms Evans, Mr Tostee agreed.

'We had hoped to begin a new chapter of life but he became resistant,' Ms Evans said of Mr Tostee (pictured right)

Mr Tostee (seen fixing Ms Evans' shoe) said he was 'extremely upset and reluctant to end' the relationship

On Sunday, Ms Evans told Daily Mail Australia she broke off their relationship after telling him 'we had no future' and being frustrated by his behaviour.

She said he was '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, which she described as 'an intense time with a lot of emotions obviously'.

'We had hoped to begin a new chapter of life but he became resistant,' she said.

'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

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

'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 said she told him 'we had no future' - and described his parents as 'incredible' people.

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.

Exonerated: A relieved Mr Tostee is seen leaving Brisbane's Supreme Court in October after being found not guilty of Ms Wright's murder and manslaughter

His Tinder date Ms Wright (right) plunged from Mr Tostee's fourteenth floor Surfers Paradise apartment to her death on August 8, 2014

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

Mr Tostee - who regularly picked up women on the app and has boasted of bedding more than 200 women in his lifetime - was found not to have culpability for Ms Wright's death by a jury .

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 quipped to 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 and was weeks ago was said to be hoping to leave the Gold Coast in the future.

It was reported that a move to New Zealand with Ms Evans was on the cards - a prospect which now seems unlikely.
tanks and tractors and shipwrecks off the coast of islands

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Stunning aerial images have revealed remnants from the Pacific conflict in the Second World War which are strewn across forests, shorelines and beaches of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The remnants were photographed on the Northern Mariana Islands, Solomon Islands and the Rock Islands in Palau.

They include tanks, tractors, artillery, shipwrecks, including naval transport vessels, debris from Japanese Imperial Navy destroyers and even personal items from soldiers such as helmets.

A United States M4 Sherman tank remains in shallow water off Chalan Kanoa beach in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands

Debris of a United States Naval transport vessel remains abondoned after being stranded in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands

The Pacific conflict, often referred to as the Pacific Theatre, was part of the Second World War where Japanese forces fought primarily against the US Navy, US Marine Corps and US Army.

The UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and other Allied nations also contributed forces until a turning point in the war - the defeat of the Japanese at Guadalcanal in February 1943.

There were more than 41,000 US Army ground troop causalities, while the Marine Corps and Navy corpsmen suffered total casualties of 23,160.

In one image, the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki is seen partially sumberged at Tokyo Bay in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands, with small mangrove trees growing from it.

Another shows a US tank in shallow water off Chalan Kanoa beach in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, while the wing of an Imperial Japan fighter named 'Zero' is seen sticking up in the air in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, in the Solomon Islands.

Mangrove trees grow from debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki at Tokyo Bay in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands

Pictured is debris of the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, in the Solomon Islands

More debris of the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' in a jungle on Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

Local people are pictured playing near debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy transport vessel Kinugawa Maru at Tassafaronga beach in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

Debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy fighter A6M 'Zero' in a field on Pagan Island, Northern Mariana Islands

An aerial image showing a general view of a lone island in the Rock Islands in Palau

Another image of debris of the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

The wing of the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' remains in thick jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

A Type 96 15 cm howitzer used by the Imperial Japan Army is seen in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

A close-up of debris from the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

An aerial view shows more debris from the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' remains in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

An aerial image showing various piers used by the Imperial Japanese Navy in Gavutu Island, Solomon Islands

A former prison used by Imperial Japan is seen at Garapan area in Saipan, on the Northern Mariana Islands

More debris of the Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

An aerial image of Seventy Island in Palau, taken 75 years after the war with Imperial Japan started

An aerial image showing debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy fighter A6M 'Zero' in a field in Pagan Island, which is in the Northern Mariana Islands

Debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki lies partially submerged at Tokyo Bay in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands

A girl walks in a bunker at the Last command post in Saipan, which is in the Northern Mariana Islands

Debris of the United States Marine Corps amphibious tractor in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

In this aerial image showing debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy transport vessel Kinugawa Maru lies at Tassafaronga beach in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

An aerial image of debris of the Imperial Japan Navy Type Zero Reconnaissance Seaplane in shallow water in Solomon Islands

An aerial image showing the remains of the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki, lying in Tokyo Bay in the Solomon Islands

Debris of the United States Marine Corps amphibious tractors in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

An aerial view of debris from the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki lies at Tokyo Bay in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands

Debris of Imperial Japan fighter 'Zero' remains in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

The Japanese Imperial Navy transport vessel Kinugawa Maru lies at Tassafaronga beach in Guadalcanal Island, in the Solomon Islands, to this day

Debris of the United States Marine Corps amphibious tractors in a jungle in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

A young mangrove tree grows amid the debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki at Tokyo Bay in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands

Pictured is a helmet sitting on a rock that was used by Imperial Japan soldier in a jungle in Barana, Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

A Type 96 15 cm howitzer used by Imperial Japan Army in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

An aerial image showing the Japanese Imperial Navy transport vessel Kinugawa Maru at Tassafaronga beach in Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands

Debris of the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyer Kikuzuki at Tokyo Bay in Nggela Islands, Solomon Islands
A truck carrying forty-two tonnes of rubbish has flipped, causing traffic chaos in Melbourne.

Authorities closed the Monash Freeway for the day after the contents of the truck scattered across the on-ramp at Glen Waverely at 5.30am on Tuesday, The Age reported.

The truck also spilt petrol onto the road, but firefighters were able to clean it up.

A truck carrying forty-two tonnes of rubbish has flipped, causing traffic chaos in Melbourne. Authorities closed the Monash Freeway for the day after the contents of the flipped truck scattered across the on-ramp at Glen Waverely at 5.30am on Tuesday

He was taken to the Monash Medical Centre in a stable condition.

An earlier accident involving two trucks near Huntingdale Road at Mount Waverely contributed to the traffic jam, with one of the vehicles slamming into a central wire barrier.

The crash left one driver, aged in his 20s, trapped by the legs for 45 minutes. He was taken to The Alfred hospital in a stable condition.

Two later car crashes added to the chaos.

At about 8am, an accident involving three cars partially blocked High Street at Glen Iris.

Half an hour later, one lane was closed due to a breakdown near Burke Road at Glen Iris.

It took almost 40 minutes to drive about 14 kilometres from Eastlink to Warrigal Road on the Monash Freeway.
Agile Cigar Reviews replace what we termed Assessment Updates. The concept is the same, but the name is different. Agile Cigar Reviews use a lightweight, shorter format. These will never take the place of our comprehensive reviews. They are only used on blends we have previously assessed. This might be a blend we are re-scoring or providing a score for a first time. It might be a blend we are looking at in a different size. Today we look at the Davidoff Yamasa in the Robusto size. This is a cigar we have previously assessed in the Piramides size back in September, 2016.

Wrapper: Yamasa (Dominican Republic)

Binder: San Vincente from Yamasa (Dominican Republic)

Filler: Nicaragua (Condega, Esteli), Dominican (Piloto, Mejorado)

Country of Origin: Dominican Republic

Robusto: 5 x 50

Prior to this years IPCPR Trade Show, the Davidoff Yamasa was unveiled as the third installment of Davidoffs Discovery Pillar (or known as the Black Label line for its band color). The Davidoff Yamasa is blend that incorporates tobacco from the Yamasa region of the Dominican Republic. Its a region in the Dominican Republic where Davidoff has been growing and cultivating proprietary tobacco. Its also a region not known to produce a lot of cigar tobacco until Davidoff decided to invest resources in it. While this tobacco has been used on several other Davidoff releases, the Davidoff Yamasa represents a blend built around tobaccos from this region. While weve already look at this in the Piramides size, today we look at the Davidoff Yamasa in the Robusto size.

The Discovery Pillar has represented some of the products resulting from Davidoffs innovation strategy. In 2013, the Davidoff Nicaragua brand was launched  Davidoffs first Nicaraguan puro. In 2015, Davidoff Escurio was launched, a Brazilian tobacco-centric cigar. For Davidoff Yamasa, Davidoff heads back to its roots with a Dominican-centric blend, but as we will see, this is a cigar not short on innovation.

Thee Yamasa region of the Dominican Republic has been described by Davidoff has a harsh and unforgiving swampland where others have failed to grow tobacco. Davidoffs success of being able to grow tobacco where others failed are attributed what is efforts of Master Blender Henke Kelner over a two decade effort. Part of this effort included raising the pH levels of the soil and utilizing crop rotation and transplanting.

The Davidoff Yamasa Robusto is a classic 5 x 50 size. The blend utilizes a wrapper and binder from the Yamasa region as well as tobaccos from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. Davidoff Yamasa is available 12 count boxes and 4 count packs.

I found the Davidoff Yamasa Robusto to maintain an oaky note throughout the smoking experience. In addition, there were some signature notes of chocolate and lemon that were more prominent early on, but diminished in the second half. On the other hand, there were subtle notes of straw and cedar early on. While the chocolate and lemon diminished, the cedar increased. Late in the second third, as the cedar moved toward the forefront, there was a caramelized sweetness that emerged that helped this flavor profile reach its apex. Throughout the smoking experience, the flavors remained medium-bodied and were countered by medium strength.

The burn was excellent. The draw was open, but a little looser than I prefer.

Overall the Robusto provided another great option in the Davidoff Yamasa to go alongside the Piramides. Its different than your typical Dominican-centric blend. At nearly $20.00, this is a pricey cigar, but certainly worth the investment. This is a cigar I would recommend to a experienced or a novice cigar enthusiast. As for myself, this is worthy of a box purchase.

References

Key Flavors: Oak, Chocolate, Lemon, Cedar

Burn: Excellent

Draw: Very Good

Complexity: Medium

Strength: Medium

Body: Medium

Finish: Very Good

Rating

Assessment: 4.0-Box Worthy

Score: 92

References

Original Assessment: Davidoff Yamasa Piramides

News: Davidoff Yamasa Announced

Price: $19.70

Source: Cigars Provided by Manufacturer (Prior to August 8, 2016)

Stogie Geeks Podcast: Episode 200

Stogie Feed: Davidoff Yamasa Robusto

Brand Reference: Davidoff

Photo Credits: Cigar Coop, except where noted.
A man who was found decapitated underneath a New York train had been subway surfing at the time.

The man, who has not been identified, died on Saturday after he fell from the outside of a southbound F train at about 3pm in Greenwich Village.

Police said the man had been 'surfing' or riding on the outside of the train.

A man died on Saturday when he was decapitated after he fell from the outside of a southbound F train about 20 yards from the West 4th Street station at Greenwich Village

A 911 call made at about 3.11pm alerted police that a man was under a train in the subway tunnel.

Police said they found the man decapitated and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Brooklyn-bound train came to a screeching halt just 20 yards from the West 4th Street station.

Firefighters quickly shut off power to the train line. Passengers were held on the crowded train for about two hours before they were evacuated.

Passengers were held on the crowded train for about two hours before they were evacuated and escorted along the track by firefighters (pictured)

A 911 call made at about 3.11pm alerted police that a man was under a train in the subway tunnel. He was pronounced dead at the scene

Those on board were initially told the train had stopped because of congestion and potential problems with the track.

They were eventually informed it was due to a 'passenger injury'.

Passengers were escorted through the subway tunnel by firefighters.

Police are investigating the incident.

Firefighters quickly shut off power to the train line. Passengers were held on the crowded train for about two hours before they were evacuated (pictured)
An Ohio college student is accused of fatally stabbing his 23-year-old roommate and fraternity brother during a drunk fight over Arby's takeout.

Kendall Scheid, 22, stabbed University Of Akron student Duncan Unternaher Saturday night at their off-campus apartment, according to authorities. A third roommate can be heard in a 911 call saying his roommate stabbed his other roommate in the chest, and telling the dispatcher that both were drunk.

Unternaher, who belonged to Akron's Phi Delta Theta chapter, died Monday evening of his injuries. Scheid pleaded not guilty to murder charges at a court appearance Tuesday morning, Fox8 reported.

Police say the two students began arguing shortly after they went out to buy fast food and Scheid stabbed his roommate during a fight over the meal. Scheid, who according to the third roommate tried to apply pressure to Unternaher's wound after the stabbing, could be seen in an orange jumpsuit, burying his face in his hands during his arraignment as a judge told him Unternaher had died.

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Kendall Scheid (left), 22, stabbed University Of Akron student Duncan Unternaher (right), 23, Saturday night at their off-campus apartment, according to authorities

The two had just purchased Arby's food before heading back to their off-campus apartment, which was not owned or operated by the University of Akron, Lieutenant Rick Edwards told the DailyMail.com.

Unternaher was a senior business student at the University Of Akron, according to WMFD. Scheid, who was friends with Unternaher on Facebook, is listed as a University Of Akron student and had a Phi Delta Teta photo as his cover picture.

Scheid had originally been charged with felonious assault and held on a $1 million bond. Video link footage published by Fox8 shows Scheid during his arraignment. His bond was set at $600,000 on Tuesday.

A 911 call released by WKYC features Unternaher and Scheid's third roommate telling a dispatcher: 'My roommate stabbed my other roommate.' The stabbing, according to authorities, occurred around 12:30 am on Saturday.

'They're in the bathroom, he's keeping pressure on the wound, trying to keep him elevated,' the third roommate continued.

He then told the dispatcher that Unternaher had been stabbed in the chest and that both were 'highly intoxicated'.

'Both are drunk?' the dispatcher asked. 'Yes,' the third roommate replied.

Scheid (pictured during his arraignment) pleaded not guilty to murder charges on Tuesday morning. A third roommate said in a 911 call he and Unternaher were both drunk

Video link footage showed Scheid in an orange jumpsuit, burying his face in his hands during his arraignment as a judge told him Unternaher had died (pictured)

The dispatcher asked whether Unternaher was unconscious, which the third roommate confirmed. Unternaher, according to the roommate, was breathing at that time.

The dispatcher told the third roommate that help was on the way. Unternaher was listed in critical condition until authorities said he had died Monday just before 6:00 pm at Akron City Hospital.

Akron Phi Delta Teta however announced Unternaher's death on Sunday, before the medical examiner's confirmation.

'Brother Duncan Unternaher was gravely injured during an incident at his apartment in Akron around 12:30 am, early Saturday morning,' the fraternity wrote.

'He became unconscious, and CPR was performed until he entered surgery at Akron City Hospital. He was placed on lung and heart assistance machines where he courageously battled for his life.

A Go Fund Me page says Unternaher (pictured left) was 'a spontaneous guy who was always making others laugh' and 'could honestly talk to anybody about anything'

The stabbing, according to authorities, occurred around 12:30 am on Saturday at Unternaher and Scheid's off-campus apartment building (pictured)

'The past 36 hours have been filled with family, friends, and prayers. Brother Duncan passed earlier this afternoon. We are blessed to have shared so many wonderful memories with Duncan. A man to never know a stranger, Duncan was both inviting and outgoing. He quickly made friends everywhere he went, and was loved by the entire Akron community.

'We appreciate your condolences and prayers during this time. Continue to love others, as Duncan would every day. In coelo quies est, Brother Duncan.'

The fraternity held a memorial for Unternaher on Monday.

A Go Fund Me page set up for Unternaher's memorial fund says he was 'a spontaneous guy who was always making others laugh.

'Duncan had amazing confidence and could honestly talk to anybody about anything. He will forever be remembered for everyone he has impacted. We should all try to be more like Duncan,' the page states.

The University Of Akron said in a statement: 'The University of Akron Community is deeply saddened by this tragedy. University officials, including UA President Matthew Wilson, have been with his family and friends since the incident became known.
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TV host David Campbell believes the zookeeper who punched a kangaroo in the face to save his pet dog from the giant animal's chokehold should lose his job.

Elephant keeper Greig Tonkins divided animal lovers internationally after a video of himself squaring up with a two-metre tall marsupial who had grabbed a hold of his beloved dog Max made headlines across the globe.

A friend of Mr Tonkin's - who witnessed the incident in June - said the 34-year-old had been defending his dog and did not injure the kangaroo, but merely startled it.

However, the Today Extra anchor slammed the zookeeper's behaviour on Tuesday and claimed Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo should fire him for filming the incident instead of focusing his efforts on helping his pooch.

But the zoo is standing by Mr Tonkins, saying while they don't condone the striking of animals, there is 'no intention he will lose his job over this matter'.

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Singer David Campbell (left) believes the zookeeper who punched a kangaroo in the face (right) so it would release his pet dog from a choke hold should lose his job after a video of the confrontation went viral

On television, Mr Campbell said: 'He knows the camera is on him and his first reaction is not to run away but to front up and hit him.

'People are going online saying he is a zookeeper and knows what he is going but never in my wildest dreams have I ever gone to a zoo and seen a zookeeper punching an animal or treating an animal this way and if that's the case I hope he loses his job,' he added.

When asked what he would do if he was confronted with a large, 'aggressive' kangaroo, Mr Campbell said he would remain passive and try to get out of the situation without any harm being done to either animal.

'I would probably run away - it is an animal,' Mr Campbell said.

Mr Tonkins, who was revealed to be an elephant keeper by Daily Mail Australia on Monday, was out hunting wild pigs with a group of friends when the incident - which is being investigated by the RSPCA - occurred.

Greig Tonkins (circled, middle) has been revealed as the man who punched a kangaroo while on a hunting trip in rural New South Wales in an effort to save his pet dog from its attack

Mr Tonkins (pictured far right) is a committee member of the Australian Pig Doggers and Hunters Association, and in October his dog 'Max' won a high jumping competition at the organisations AGM

The father-of-two has gone to ground since the video went viral, overwhelmed by the attention his action has received.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, the zoo said: 'Whilst Taronga does not condone the striking of animals under any circumstances, we would like to thank everyone for their support of Mr Tonkins and confirm that there is no intention that he will lose his job over this matter.

'Mr Tonkins is a passionate Zoo Keeper and has been a valued member of Taronga's team for over six years and we continue to counsel him as this event and the subsequent media attention unfolds.'

A zoo spokesperson said in an earlier statement: 'Good animal welfare and the protection of Australian wildlife are of the utmost importance to Taronga.

'We are working with Mr Tonkins to understand the exact circumstances of the event and will consider any appropriate action.'

Mr Tonkins ran from the truck to save his dog 'Max', which was being held in the firm clinches of the large kangaroo

After the dog managed to escape the roo's clinches, the man and marsupial stood toe to toe. Mr Tonkins stands over 200cm tall, showing the enormous size of the roo

Mr Tonkins was part of a large group of men who went on the hunting trip, in an effort to help their sick friend Kailem Barwick catch a 'tonner' - a wild bore that weighs more than 100 kilograms.

A videographer joined the group to record their special trip and ended up recording the moment that has now gone viral.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, one of the men on the trip backed Mr Tonkins' actions, saying the punch was only thrown to protect the dog and prevent the roo attacking anyone else.

'The dog wanted no part of it, all it was trying to do was escape from the roo and that's why he stepped in,' the man said.

'There's people on social media saying, 'I know men like that, I bet they killed it afterwards', but that's just ridiculous.

'He only threw the punch to redirect the animal and afterwards there were a few nervous and relieved laughs, and then we just went on with getting Kailem a tonner.'

After landing the punch on its face the stunned kangaroo threw its arms into the air and stood shocked for a few seconds

The trip ultimately proved successful, with the group ensuring the young man managed to kill his 'tonner'.

Sadly Kailem passed away last week after a long battle, with his funeral to be be held this Thursday.

The fellow hunter said he was dumbfounded by the reaction in Australia and left wondering why some were happy for the dog to be injured but not the kangaroo.

'The video went viral in America and there was not one bad comment, and then it goes crazy in Australia and there's a whole bunch of outrage,' he said.

'It made me sick to be part of this country when people were wishing this family man and dog died, when the kangaroo wasn't even hurt.'

Daily Mail Australia can also reveal Mr Tonkins is a committee member of the Australian Pig Doggers and Hunters Association.

In October, 'Max' - the same specially trained dog that was attacked by the roo - won a high jumping competition at the organisation's AGM, with the performance captured on video.

Millions of people across the world have viewed the video since it was posted to Facebook.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Tonkins for comment.
A Republican elector from Texas will not cast his vote for Donald Trump, saying: 'I am here to elect a president, not a king.'

Christopher Suprun, a conservative who worked as a firefighter in the wake of the September 11 attacks, slammed the president-elect for being unqualified, unfit and 'dismissive' of his own conflicts of interest in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Monday.

In the US, presidents are elected by the Electoral College - not by the popular vote, where Hillary Clinton's lead has surpassed 2.5million ballots.

In most states, electors are 'bound' and required by law to cast a vote for the winner of their state's popular vote.

But other states like Texas don't have a rule against electors going rogue, and at least six Democratic electors have already expressed their intentions to try to block Donald Trump from securing 270 Electoral College votes on December 19.

Christopher Suprun (pictured), a Republican elector from Texas will not cast his vote for Donald Trump, saying: 'I am here to elect a president, not a king'

In the US, presidents are elected by the Electoral College - not by the popular vote, where Hillary Clinton's lead has surpassed 2.5million votes

In the Electoral College, however, Trump carries a lead of 306 to Clinton's 232. It would be unlikely 37 Republican electors would be convinced to change their votes

Suprun is just one of 38 electors in the Lone Star state, where Trump won by more than 9 points.

The faithless elector detailed his criticism in the Times on Monday, writing:

'Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation. That attack and this years election may seem unrelated, but for me the relationship becomes clearer every day.

'George W. Bush is an imperfect man, but he led us through the tragic days following the attacks. His leadership showed that America was a great nation. That was also the last time I remember the nation united. I watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge between us.

'Mr. Trump goes out of his way to attack the cast of Saturday Night Live for bias. He tweets day and night, but waited two days to offer sympathy to the Ohio State community after an attack there. He does not encourage civil discourse, but chooses to stoke fear and create outrage.

'This is unacceptable. For me, America is that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan envisioned. It has problems. It has challenges. These can be met and overcome just as our nation overcame Sept. 11.'

The paramedic from Dallas also cited the Federalist papers written by Alexander Hamilton as guidance, arguing that Trump did not meet the presidential standards.

Suprun was looking to vote for John Kasich, the Republican Governor of Ohio, instead

Hamilton argued for the Electoral College, writing that the group would ensure 'the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications'.

Suprun also attacked everything from Trump's demeanor to his White House picks, adding he 'could be impeached in his first year given his dismissive responses to financial conflicts of interest'.

'Mr. Trump lacks the foreign policy experience and demeanor needed to be commander in chief,' he writes.

'Mr. Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign. He speaks of retribution against his critics. He has surrounded himself with advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon, who claims to be a Leninist and lauds villains and their thirst for power, including Darth Vader. Rogue One, the latest Star Wars installment, arrives later this month. I am not taking my children to see it to celebrate evil, but to show them that light can overcome it.'

Suprun rallied his fellow electors behind a Republican alternative like John Kasich, Governor of Ohio, instead.

He said: 'I'm expecting backlash, but that has been par for the course this campaign. People are unhappy. They're angry. But I'm angry, too.'

It would be unlikely to convince 37 Republican electors to change their votes- the number needed to erase Trump's lead among the 538 total electors.

Even then, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would be likely vote Trump into the White House anyway.

But some are hoping to undermine the institution itself, with one elector saying: 'If it gets into the House, the controversy and the uncertainty that would immediately blow up into a political firestorm in the U.S. would cause enough people  my hope is  to look at the whole concept of the Electoral College.'

Suprun, on the other hand, said the Electoral College system 'is fine as it currently exists.' His problem lies solely with Trump.

'I was told if we elected Donald Trump he would transform his personality into being presidential. He isn't,' Suprun said.

'I wanted him to be presidential, but since the election he hasn't grown into our institution, he's attacked them. I am here to elect a president, not a king.'

Suprun may have an ally in Michael Baca (pictured), an elector from Colorado, who signed an agreement with at least six others to try to block Trump from the presidency

He added: 'I am not sure of who I will vote for, but would have to strongly consider someone like Kasich who has both executive and legislative experience bringing people together.'

'I'm looking for someone we can all unify behind...Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. On Dec. 19, I will do it again.'

Suprun may have an ally in Michael Baca, an elector from Colorado, who signed an agreement with at least six others to try to block Trump from the presidency.

Baca, a registered Democrat and Bernie Sanders supporter, previously said he would consider voting for a moderate Republican like Kasich if it meant garnering more support.

Another Texas Republican elector, Art Sisneros, resigned last week rather than vote for Trump. He will be replaced when electors convene on December 19.

Sisneros wrote on his blog: 'If Trump is not qualified and my role, both morally and historically, as an elected official is to vote my conscience, then I can not and will not vote for Donald Trump for President. I believe voting for Trump would bring dishonor to God.'

Republican elector Baoky Vu of Georgia also expressed his resignations about voting for Trump and eventually resigned from the job.
Three teenagers were arrested in a city centre sparking an angry crowd accusing police of being 'bully boys'.

A video emerged of an angry crowd of people confronting officers in Queens Square, Liverpool.

Merseyside Police were accused of giving the three children, including a girl, rough treatment.

Melissa Inman, who made the video public, told the Liverpool Echo : 'I witnessed police officers attack young kids, ragging them on the floor into the van.

'One kid's face was that red we thought he was going to pass out by how tight he was cuffed and how hard he was handled. It was disgusting!

'I am shocked at how the police handled this situation.'

The two boys and girl were arrested on suspicion of assault, drug possession and disorderly and threatening behaviour.

One person protesting against the police's actions shouted 'bully boys' at them.

A spokesman said: 'Merseyside Police can confirm that three people have been arrested after reports of anti-social behaviour in Queens Square, Liverpool city centre.

'Officers attended the location at about 3.10pm.

Merseyside Police were accused of giving the three children, including a girl, rough treatment

A video emerged of an angry crowd of people confronting officers in Queens Square, Liverpool

'A 13 year-old male was arrested for threatening behaviour and assault, a 15 year-old female was arrested for assaulting a police officer and possession of a controlled drug and a 17 year-old male was also arrested for disorderly behaviour.

'They have been taken to a police station where they will be questioned by officers.'
Vice President Joe Biden has left the door open for a possible run for president in 2020.

Biden told reporters in Washington on Monday that he is not ruling out a run for the White House, even though he would be 78 years old if he took the oath of office in a little over four years from now.

The vice president reportedly made the statements with a smile, prompting some reporters to wonder if he was being serious.

'Yeah, I am. I am going to run in 2020,' Biden said when asked if he would run for office again.

When the lame duck vice president was asked which office he wanted, he said: 'For president. And also, you know so, what the hell man, anyway.'

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An emotional Vice President Joe Biden presided over the Senate chamber on Monday, which passed a bipartisan bill boosting biomedical research

Asked if he was joking, he said: 'I'm not committing not to run. I'm not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening.'

Biden, who turned 74 last month, will turn 78 shortly after the 2020 election.

Ronald Reagan was just a few days short of turning 78 when he left office in January 1989, making him the oldest person to serve as president.

The vice president decided to not seek the White House in 2015 and instead backed this year's eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

He ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination in 2008, when now-President Barack Obama selected him as his running mate, and in 1988.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (left), a personal friend of Biden's, proposed that the legislation be named in honor of the vice president's son, the late Beau Biden (right)

After McConnell's gesture was accepted, the Senate stood up in unison and applauded Biden

Biden last year announced he would not run for president after wrestling with doubts about whether he and his family were ready for a grueling campaign while still mourning the death of his son, Beau Biden, who died in May 2015 from brain cancer.

The vice president grew teary-eyed on Monday when a Senate session which he presided over paid tribute to Beau Biden by renaming a bipartisan bill designed to expedite government drug approvals and boost biomedical research.

The gesture was extended by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, and it drew applause from all of the lawmakers in attendance who gave Biden a standing ovation.

Biden (right), seen here with his son Beau in 2008, announced last year that he would not run for president in 2016 because his family was still grieving Beau's passing

Biden grew so emotional that an aide had to hand him a tissue.

The bill envisions providing $6.3 billion over the next decade, including $1.8 billion for cancer research.
Seven days is a long time in politics. The last seven months have been cataclysmic.

When this photo was taken on April 25, the five world leaders posing for the cameras as they met to discuss international affairs looked confident and assured of their place in the world.

But since then a dramatic populist revolt has devastated the old order that gathered in Hanover, Germany for talks marking the opening of a trade fair.

Angela Merkel, centre, is the last leader standing in this photo after David Cameron, far left, and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, far right, resigned, French President Francois Hollande, second right, decided not to seek reelection and Barack Obama, second left, has come to the end of his second term

Mr Renzi, pictured, became the latest leader to quit over Europe yesterday after he was defeated in a referendum on constitutional reforms

David Cameron was the first to fall, quitting as Prime Minister in June, the day after he was routed by the electorate in the Brexit vote.

Barack Obama will leave the White House as planned next month, but instead of his hoped for successor Hillary Clinton replacing him, it will be the man he described as woefully unprepared for the US Presidency, right wing populist Donald Trump.

And Francois Hollande last week became the first French president in recent history to declare that he will not seek a second term of office.

The 62-year-old Socialist, by far the most unpopular French head of state since the Second World War, made his surprise announcement after a poll predicted he would win only seven per cent of votes if he stood in the first round of Mays presidential election.

David Cameron similarly resigned (pictured) after failing to lead the Remain campaign to victory in the EU referendum in Britain

Democrat Barack Obama, right, will end his second term as US President in a few weeks and will be replaced by Republican Donald Trump, left

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi quit yesterday following a crushing defeat in his back-me-or-sack-me referendum on constitutional reform.

It was fuelled by anti-establishment movement surrounding his handling of the migrant crisis and the countrys economic meltdown.

There is a last woman standing, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but she faces a tough challenge to hold her position in elections next September and October.
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They may be some of the hippest suburbs in Melbourne today, but more than 80 years ago the likes of Collingwood, Fitzroy and West Melbourne were decrepit slums.

Stunning archive photographs show exactly how bad conditions were for residents of the inner-city areas, where poverty, crime and disease were rife.

In 1935, Methodist Frederick Oswald Barnett and a group of his followers photographed the living conditions in the then-slum areas of Carlton, Collingwood, Fitzroy, Richmond, South Melbourne, Port Melbourne and West Melbourne, the Herald Sun reports.

A family sits in the kitchen of their ramshackle house in Carlton, Melbourne

What they captured were shocking images of poverty and obvious social problems. At the time the photographs were used to generate support for Barnett's campaign to shut the slums.

The images were used to illustrate the Victorian governments Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board report in 1937, but historians have since said they used to give an even more negative view of the slums.

'Hidden behind wide, spacious streets there are slum pockets which are hotbeds of depravity and disease,' the report said.

The back street to these North Melbourne slum dwellings shows off a 'beware of dog' sign written on a makeshift gate

Children of all ages - some in bare feet - smile for the camera at Erskine Place, North Melbourne

Many of the slum homes, like this one in South Melbourne, were built with corrugated iron, wooden planks and what appears to be scrap metal

A man dressed as Santa Claus stands outside a weatherboard house in Melbourne handing out tiny gifts to a group of children

Three children hold their filithy dolls and huddle together in a single bedroom in a slum house in Erskine Place, North Melbourne

A young mother washes clothes in a large tin bucket in Collingwood as her young children look on

A house in North Melbourne is clad with what the photographer has noted as beaten petrol tins, and has a baby's pram pushed strangely to one side

Vandals have smashed the windows of this slum house in York Street in South Melbourne

But the photographs taken capture life in the slums as daily life goes on despite the horrendous conditions in some places.

Many of the homes photographed by Barnetts team were overcrowded, had no indoor bathing facilities, had rising damp and lacked sewerage systems.

Some of the most striking images show a poor man dressed as Santa handing out tiny Christmas presents to street urchins; three toddlers sharing a bed while holding on to filthy dolls; and a woman out side he shack washing her clothes in a drum as a young child watches on.

Other photographs show dirty children standing in the street or dilapidated buildings in various states of disrepair and falling down.

In North Melbourne today you can live in a plush and luxurious apartment like this one on Queen Street

A man washes up in his North Melbourne backyard (left) as two boys dressed in rags pose to be photographed (right)

In 1935 fervant Methodist Frederick Oswald Barnett and a group of his followers photographed the living conditions in the Melbourne's slum areas

Some buildings were also made out of just wood and tin likes these houses in North Melbourne

Children stop playing outside their corrugated iron home in South Melbourne long enough to have their picture taken

Blankets are left hanging out to dry after being washed in the nearby tin basin at Hood Street in Collingwood

This penthouse apartment on Spring Street is very different to the ones built more than 80 years ago

Happy children laugh and smile for the camera as they accompany a man dressed as Santa Claus down the street

Many of the homes photographed had no indoor bathing facilities, had rising damp and lacked sewerage systems

Newly washed clothes and blankets are left out to dry outside a house at Victoria Place, Collingwood

But in spite of their surroundings some people looked to be happy and were obviously content to live in these areas.

Children especially looked cheerful as they played in the streets with each other or looked on as their parents did household chores.

Many were even content to be living there and didn't want to be moved anywhere else.

In the 1950s and 1960s, slum tenants were rehoused in new estates on cheap land in outer suburbs or in new flats.

But residents in some slums protested about the destruction of their community.

In Queen Street, North Melbourne, today you now have the opportunity to live in a penthouse like this one
A record 71.4bn was raised by taxing bankers and City institutions last year, highlighting the sectors vital importance to the UK.

This was 11.5 per cent of total tax payments received by the UK, a study by the City of London Corporation suggests.

The figures were released as City firm bosses fight for their right to sell into Europe ahead of the Brexit negotiations.

A record 71.4bn was raised by taxing bankers and City institutions last year, highlighting the sectors vital importance to the UK

The new report, which covers the 12 months to March 31, took into account a wide range of payments including corporation tax, stamp duty, VAT and income tax.

Produced jointly with accountancy giant PwC, it found the payments were 7.4pc higher than a year earlier and the highest since monitoring began nine years ago.

The City of London Corporations policy chairman Mark Boleat said: As one of the UKs biggest service exporters, its understandable the sector also contributes a considerable amount of tax.

Despite this, the sector arguably stands most to lose as negotiations loom. It makes clear the argument that the Government should be engaging with firms as it approaches talks.

Finance lobbyists have publicly warned their businesses would suffer from the loss of so-called passporting rights which allow firms to sell services on the Continent without having offices there.

There have even been claims from anti-Brexit campaigners that thousands of jobs could move abroad, although many chief executives are more relaxed about the issue in private.

Chancellor Philip Hammond and Brexit Secretary David Davis met industry leaders yesterday to discuss their approach.

This was 11.5 per cent of total tax payments received by the UK, a study by the City of London Corporation suggests

Those taking part included Barclays chairman John McFarlane; Baroness Shriti Vadera, a former Labour minister who now chairs Santander; and Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles of HSBC.

American firms such as Blackrock and Goldman Sachs were also represented.

In a joint statement afterwards, Mr Hammond and Mr Davis said: We want the best deal for trade in UK goods and services, including our world-leading financial services industry.

Our financial services sector makes a crucial contribution to our economy and we will work together to ensure it continues as the hub for both Europe and the rest of the world.

The PwC report found firms paid 8.4billion in corporation tax in the period, up from 7.6billion a year earlier.
The woman who accused Nobel laureate Sir Tim Hunt of sexism in a row which cost him his job has left her university post after claiming she was being 'bundled out'.

Connie St Louis triggered a furore after Sir Tim made jokey remarks about women scientists when giving a toast at a scientific conference last year.

Mrs St Louis tweeted that the event was 'utterly ruined by sexist speaker Tim Hunt' who was 'in favour of single sex labs'.

Connie St Louis triggered a furore after Sir Tim made jokey remarks about women scientists when giving a toast at a scientific conference last year

It sparked an outcry in which Sir Tim, 73, came under fire from some women scientists, but was also supported by high-profile names. He eventually resigned from his honorary professorship at University College London, feeling he was 'hung out to dry' by the college.

It has now emerged that journalism lecturer Mrs St Louis has left a different university where she had worked since 2003.

City, University of London, claimed it was by mutual agreement. But Mrs St Louis complained shortly before her departure last month that the university was trying to 'get rid' of her.

In a written submission to a Commons committee looking into science communication released last Wednesday she wrote: 'In May 2016 the new head of the journalism department decided to suspend the science journalism MA. The university's excuse was that I had not recruited enough students.

'However, on further investigation it was later discovered that students who tried to apply were told by the university that the course was not taking any application and had closed. It's difficult to recruit the required number of students under these circumstances.

Sir Tim, 73, came under fire from some women scientists, but was also supported by high-profile names. He eventually resigned from his honorary professorship at University College London

'I am certain that this so-called 'suspension' will eventually lead to the course's complete closure. It was the only masters degree in science journalism in Europe. They will also use the 'supposed' low student numbers as a way to 'get rid' and bundle me out of the door. Nothing is too difficult for the new corporatised university.' The sexism row began when biologist Sir Tim called for separate labs for men and women scientists in his humorous speech 18 months ago at the conference in South Korea.

He said his 'trouble with girls' was that they cry when you criticise them and fall in love with male scientists.

Mrs St Louis tweeted: 'Does this Nobel laureate think we live in Victorian times?' In an online blog she said his 'awful' comments had left the audience aghast and were met with a 'deathly silence'.

Sir Tim, who resigned from positions at the Royal Society and the European Research Council as well as from UCL, was branded a 'lab rat', while in a playful protest women scientists posted pictures of themselves at work in labs with the hashtag #distractinglysexy.

Powerful supporters from the scientific community, including Brian Cox and Richard Dawkins, called for him to be reinstated. And broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby resigned from his honorary fellowship at UCL in protest at its treatment of Sir Tim.

The protests were in vain, but doubt was cast on Mrs St Louis's version of events after a tape emerged of audience laughter at Sir Tim's remarks rather than silence. Sir Tim also explained he was being sarcastic. A Mail investigation found Mrs St Louis had made false claims she had written for newspapers including the Mail, Sunday Times and Independent.

City University initially stood by Mrs St Louis although her online CV was 'updated'. But in September the Mail reported that her course had been dropped because of lack of demand.

A spokesman for the university said Mrs St Louis had left on November 30, 2016 by mutual agreement, and wished her well.
"No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth."



Plato





"This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the world combined, and I'm tired of people feeling like they've got to apologize for America."

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN)







In a time of universal deceit  telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell, the author of 1984







"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.""Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.""A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example."Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.
A woman has been killed by her ex-boyfriend who rammed her car and sprayed it with bullets just one day after he was served with a protective order. He then died during a shoot-out.

Police identified the victim of what initially was reported to be a 'road rage' incident as SueAnn Newell Sands, 39, of American Fork, Utah.

She had called police in a panic after her ex-boyfriend, James Dean Smith, 33, of Orem, began firing shots at at her car in a sprawling shopping district called The Meadows on November 22, according to Deseret News.

The chase ended with Smith ramming Sands' Volkswagen Bug with his Chevy Tahoe in the Wal-Mart parking lot at 949 W. Grasslands Drive and firing more shots at the car.

SueAnn Newell Sands was killed by her ex-boyfriend, James Dean Smith, on November 22, say police

James Dean Smith, 33, chased Sands in his car into a mall parking lot and shot at her car, rammed it, and then killed her, say police

When police arrived, they found Sands, who also went by the name SueAnn Newell, dead of a gunshot wound to the head and her green car riddled with bullets.

Cops then spotted the suspect in his SUV and gave chase in the parking lot of Gordman's at 219 Meadow Lane. The vehicle then stopped in front of the Cinemark's main doors.

Police said they confronted the suspect and ordered him to drop his weapon, but he didn't. Three officers fired at the suspect, according to American Fork Police.

Sands gave birth in January to a baby girl, above, it is unclear if Smith was the father

It was unclear if Smith died from police fire or a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police would not say if he was still in his car at the time he was fired upon.

Sergeant Cannon told Fox13: 'The suspect stopped his vehicle, an American Fork officer and a deputy with the Sheriff's Office both fired rounds at the suspect.

'We don't know if those rounds hit the suspect or not. It's possible also that he may have suffered a self-inflicted wound.'

Bystanders performed CPR on the man for around 20 minutes but when paramedics arrived, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sands had reportedly moved out of Smith's home four months ago and police had delivered him an order of protection the day before he killed her

No one else was hurt in the violence in American Fork, about 25 miles south of Salt Lake City.

Police said Sands and Smith had lived together for a year but she had moved out of his home about four months ago, reports KSL. She filed for a protective order on November 9 and it was served to him November 21, the day before her murder.

Her Facebook page, under SueAnn Newell, shows she had given birth to a baby girl, Avery, in January.

'So heartbreaking. She did not deserve this, she was a sweet kind caring person,' wrote a woman who identified herself as Sands' sister-in-law. It is unclear if Sands and Smith were married, or if she was married to someone else.

Also on November 21, police arrested Smith for DUI. The day of Sands' death, a relative of Sands reported that her car window had been smashed in, an act cops believe was Smith's doing.
Coming so soon after the Brexit referendum result and the victory of Donald Trump, the aftermath of the Italian referendum had an oddly familiar feel.

When I awoke to Radio 4 yesterday morning, there were the same voices of doom, the same tones of shock and grief, the same reports of tremors rippling through Europes financial markets.

Once again Europes governing elites are struggling to come to terms with a political and financial earthquake.

The irony is that earlier on Sunday evening, the European elite had been breathing a sigh of relief.

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Nobody predicted the scale of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's defeat in the constitutional reforms referendum, prompting the euro to plunge and riots on the streets, pictured

In the Austrian presidential election, the pro-European candidate had beaten his far-Right rival.

One senior figure in the winning Austrian Green Party even proclaimed a global turning of the tide against the hysterical forces of anti-EU populism.

But a few hours later came the news from Italy. And then nobody cared what the Austrian Greens thought.

In recent days, some polls had predicted Italys technocratic Prime Minister, the smoothly handsome Matteo Renzi, would lose his great gamble of calling a referendum on constitutional reform.

But nobody had anticipated the scale of his defeat, sending the euro plunging to its lowest level in nearly two years and raising serious doubts about the survival of the Italian financial system.

The Austrian election was not a turning of the tide at all. At the end of a year of stunning political shocks, it was merely historys little joke, a trick to lull Brussels into a false sense of security before the roof fell in.

Mr Renzis referendum, a complicated constitutional reform package to amend the powers of the Senate, might seem bafflingly arcane.

But to British eyes, the details of the Italian crisis seem reminiscent of what happened here on June 23.

In Italy, as in Britain, a centrist Prime Minister called a controversial referendum and ran a complacent campaign, only to become the victim of a grass-roots rebellion.

Mr Renzi, centre, resigned after the humiliating defeat which comes as a blow to Europe's political and financial classes

And as in Britain, the political establishment seemed incapable of understanding millions of people whose patience with the status quo had simply run out.

For in the febrile atmosphere of European politics after Brexit, the Italian referendum was in effect, a colossal political showdown.

In one corner were the centre-Left political elite, personified by Mr Renzi, in the other corner were the forces of anti-Establishment populism, incarnated by the anti-immigration Northern League and comedian Beppe Grillos rabble-rousing Five Star Movement.

Mr Renzis humiliation was a devastating blow to the Continents political and financial classes.

Not only did his Yes campaign lose by almost 20 per cent, but outside rich Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, he was simply humiliated.

In Italys southern regions, the margin was as much as two to one. And in Sicily and Sardinia Mr Renzi won barely a quarter of the vote.

The central issue, as so often these days, was Europe. Mr Renzi is a keen European, yet in Italy, as in Britain, resentment of the EU has been growing for years.

Unemployment in Italy is almost 12 per cent, but youth unemployment stands at a staggering 38 per cent.

The Italian economy is far from perfect, but many young Italians blame Brussels and Berlin for imposing austerity policies that have made growth effectively impossible.

Exit polls suggest that voters under 35 rejected Mr Renzis reforms  and by implication, the German-dominated Eurozone project  by a stunning 81 per cent-19 per cent margin.

Alexander Van der Bellen's (pictured) victory in the Austrian Presidential elections over a far-right opponent had led to suggestions the 'tide had turned' before the Italian result

But there was more to this than austerity. Many Italians are furious at their governments failure to control immigration from the Middle East and, in particular, North Africa.

In the past ten years, Italys immigrant population has doubled from less than 2.5 million to more than 5 million, in a country where almost 3 million people are out of work.

Hence the appeal of parties like the Northern League, which began as a regionalist party campaigning against Rome, but has eagerly embraced an anti-Brussels and anti-immigration agenda.

Even in the short term, the Italian crisis is a genuine threat to the survival of the Eurozone. Italys banks are in a terribly fragile condition.

Some experts think an Italian exit from the Eurozone, which would allow them to devalue their currency and reintroduce the lira, may only be a matter of time. Yet, almost incredibly, there is an even bigger issue.

There was a clue in the Northern League leader Matteo Salvinis triumphant tweet on Sunday night: Long live Trump, long live Putin, long live le Pen and long live the League!

Mr Salvini sees himself as part of a global populist backlash against the liberal elite personified by career politicians like David Cameron (resigned), Renzi (resigned), Francois Hollande (resigning) and Hillary Clinton (defeated).

And potentially the most significant anti-liberal face is Marine le Pen.

Next April she will contest the French presidential election on behalf of the far-Right Front National.

As a fierce critic of the EU, she tweeted her delight at the Italian result: The Italians have disavowed the EU and Renzi..

If Marine le Pen wins the French Presidential election for the far-right Front National Party the EU could fall before the end of 2017, writes Dominic Sandbrook

I think there is every chance that where Italy has led, France will follow. And if Mme le Pen does win, then I suspect the EU itself, at least in its current form, might not see the end of 2017.

The great mystery of all this to me is that the EU elite have had warning after warning.

They have known for years the euro was a calamitous mistake, that austerity was destroying the prospects of an entire generation from Athens to Alicante, that mass immigration was enormously unpopular.

And they have known voters were outraged by their bungling of the Middle Eastern refugee crisis.

Even now, it is not too late to change tack  but on they go, charging towards disaster.

And when, at last, they find themselves contemplating the blackened ruins of their European project, they should not blame the voters.
In a bizarre quirk of fate legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin - the second man to walk on the Moon - is being treated by a doctor, whose rock star namesake wrote Starman and Space Oddity.

Aldrin's manager, Christina Korp, tweeted today: 'Thank heaven @TheRealBuzz's doctor is David Bowie. You can't make this stuff up.'

She said Aldrin's daughter Jan had arrived 'just in time for the wonderful Dr David Bowie to say maybe 1-2 days til we can go home'.

Buzz Aldrin (left) chats with his doctor, David Bowie, whose namesake penned the classic songs Starman and Space Oddity

Namesake: The late David Bowie, who once starred as an alien in the film The Man Who Fell To Earth, and famously wrote and performed Starman

Aldrin (pictured, second left) with Dr Bowie (second right) and his manager Christina Korp (far right) in the hospital in Christchurch, where he is on the mend

The 86-year-old is recovering in a New Zealand hospital after he was evacuated from the South Pole last week when he became short of breath during an expedition to Antarctica.

While resting in a hospital in Christchurch, he is making sure to catch up on the important news, like what is going on with Kim Kardashian.

'Catching up on the world while I'm stuck in quarantine,' Aldrin tweeted. 'Apparently @KimKardashian is out in public again.'

Aldrin (seen left and on the right with his manager, Christina Korp) has used his Twitter feed to provide updates on his condition

Buzz Aldrin (right) is using his time recovering from his South Pole evacuation to catch up on news about Kim Kardashian (left), the famed astronaut said on Twitter

'Catching up on the world while I'm stuck in quarantine,' the second man to walk on the moon tweeted. 'Apparently Kim Kardashian is out in public again'

Underneath the caption is an image of Aldrin flipping through newspapers.

The former Apollo astronaut has used his Twitter feed to frequently update his 975,000 followers on his convalescence.

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 released details on Sunday of his dramatic medical evacuation from Antarctica.

Because of the thick ice that blankets Antarctica, the South Pole sits at an elevation of 2,835 meters (9,300 feet).

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.
Armed New Zealand Black Power gang members are infiltrating the Gold Coast and brazenly posing for pics in full gang colours.

Less than two weeks after Queensland's Labor Government softened its bikie laws, two members were pictured on Facebook in gang attire and holding a handgun.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported that the man holding the weapon was Ukranian-born Oleksandr Akatskyy, while the other was Gold Coast man Jordan Poi.

According to the publication, Poi has a history of assault and stealing and is known to police, although they were unaware of the picture.

Members of notorious New Zealand-based gang 'Black Power' are reportedly infiltrating the Gold Coast. Pictured are two members brazenly posing for a photo on Facebook

The notorious Kiwi gang branched out to Queensland in early 2015 and landed in Brisbane's south - but is now said to be spreading down towards Surfers Paradise

There are reports that the notorious Kiwi gang - which moved to Queensland in 2015 and set up camp in Logan, south of Brisbane - now has its eyes on the Gold Coast.

The gang, built up of mainly Maori and Polynesian members, is reportedly spreading south through suburbs like Coomera, Pacific Pines and Southport towards Surfers Paradise.

Black Power holds a fierce rivalry with the Mongrel Mob gang - both groups that were formed in the 60s and share a horrific history of violence and drug trafficking.

But now the two New Zealand-based crews are reportedly battling for control of the Gold Coast - with fears the clash between the bitter rivals could turn ugly.

Nerang MP Sid Cramp criticised the recent amendments to the bikie laws, adding that he had seen an influx in gang members recruiting teenagers in his electorate.

'We have been seeing them move back into the suburbs and the clubhouses will return, but the main problem is they are targeting our youth,' Mr Cramp told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

'We have a community that is trying to support these kids but it's tough to compete with these gangs when police can't do their jobs properly.'

Black Power and its rival gang Mongrel Mob are reportedly battling for control of the Gold Coast

Black Power, built up of mainly Maori and Polynesian members, is reportedly spreading south through suburbs like Coomera, Pacific Pines and Southport

On Friday, a teenager with alleged links to the Black Power gang and the Nomads bikie group allegedly shot dead a man on the Gold Coast.

Taylor Ruatara, 18, handed himself in at Southport Police Station at about 5pm on Friday after allegedly killing Jason Boyd at about 8.45 that morning.

The teenager's lawyer Michael Gatenby said the teen claimed to have found the gun while partying at the house and didn't realise it was a real firearm.

Taylor Ruatara, who allegedly shot to death a man on the Gold Coast on Friday, allegedly has links to the Black Power Gang
They may not have a job in the traditional sense - but it seems beggars are still not completely immune from the pressures of the work environment.

Homeless people in Melbourne's CBD have been spotted leaving out signs in order to save their spots while they take a break.

Listeners have sent dozens of photos to radio show 3AW Breakfast's Rumor File showing the small cardboard notices on display in the city centre.

Workers in Melbourne's CBD have revealed beggars are now leaving out 'back in 15 minutes' signs to save their spots on the pavement while they are away

It seems the rough sleepers are nervous about somebody else taking a spot they have made their own due to a spike in homeless numbers in recent years.

A rough count by Melbourne City Council back in June found 247 people living on the streets, a 74 per cent increase over two years.

EMAIL US YOUR PICTURES Have you seen these signs in your city? Email: chris.pleasance@mailonline.com Advertisement

At least 30 homeless camps have sprung up across the city, according to The Age.

Meanwhile there have been more than 200 calls and emails to the council to complain about rough sleepers over the 15 months to June.

Homeless charities are blaming the increase on the removal of inner-city caravan parks and rooming houses that have been bought by developers.
a 'hypocrite' and posted her selfies on their page

An advertisement featuring a bikini-clad, gun-wielding model has led to a vicious online feud about whether or not the image is degrading to women.

Townsville hunting store NQ Hunting and Fishing Supplies (NQHFS) received an anonymous complaint over the controversial ad, saying the image was exploitative to women.

'After four years, we finally got an anonymous complaint from the Advertising Standards Bureau about the ''girl with the gun'' on our Hilux,' the hunting business posted on Facebook

But while the Queensland business has stood by their choice of advertising, an online dispute erupted, with one user saying the image was 'sexualising women'.

NQ Hunting and Fishing Supplies (NQHFS) received an anonymous complaint over this advertisement featuring a bikini-clad, gun-wielding model

Cassie Irving said she was not offended by the scantily- dressed model but pointed out many other women would have found the image offensive

In response to the post, Cassie Irving said she was not offended by the scantily- dressed model but pointed out many other women would have found the image offensive.

A spokesperson from NQHFS hit back, calling Ms Irving a 'hypocrite'.

'Cassie Irving, are the selfies on your Facebook pouting with your cleavage hanging out sexualising women or just you looking for attention?

'Many women would find that more offensive than someone tastefully wearing a bikini.'

The business then posted an image of Ms Irving from her Facebook in an effort to back their point.

The South Australian woman blasted their 'unprofessional' actions.

'So you stalk my profile, steal photos of me and post them because they show that I am a woman and have breasts,' she wrote.

'I am sure the ACCC will be interested in this.'

Ms Irving was also lambasted by other users, as many saw no issue with the imagery.

'You did well to go four years with the way the bleeding heart, super sensitive brigade carry on these days,' one posted.

While the Queensland business has stood by their choice of advertising, a vicious online feud erupted, with one user saying the image was 'sexualising women'

A spokesperson from NQHFS called Ms Irving a 'hypocrite' because of her Facebook selfies

The South Australian woman blasted the business' 'unprofessional' actions after they posted an image of Ms Irving from her Facebook

Ms Irving said she wasn't sure if she would take legal action in case it resulted in further harassment

Speaking to The Courier Mail, Ms Irving said she was not sure if she would take legal action in case it resulted in further harassment.

'I don't think them mentioning my cleavage was very good at all and I'm deeply offended,' she said.

'So many other women who have seen this have contacted me asking me if I was okay.'

But NQHFS owner Anthony Pagan called the situation 'trivial'.

'Unfortunately Cassie Irving and a small group of like-minded feminist activists from Adelaide seized the opportunity to leave derogatory reviews, comments and general petty insults,' he told The Courier Mail.

'While we are not against people having an opinion, we do challenge those that do not have any supporting fact or are based purely on emotion.'
Introducing Newsnights new business editor... Strictly star Naga Munchetty will soon be leaving her position on BBC Breakfast and heading for Newsnight, where she will be filling in for the BBC2 programmes business editor Helen Thomas, who is currently on maternity leave.

Munchetty presented the show once before, in August, so perhaps she is being groomed for greater things.

Naga, 41, was the fourth contestant to leave the current series of Strictly but during her brief time on the show she made quite an impression, appearing as a mermaid, being suspended from the ceiling in a harness and flashing the flesh in numerous skimpy outfits.

After all that, perhaps the Newsnight role is her attempt to be taken seriously again.

However, with Newsnights low viewing figures, will anyone notice?

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Strictly star Naga Munchetty, pictured on the show with partner Pasha Kovalev, will act as maternity cover for Newsnight business editor Helen thomas

The 41-year-old, pictured on Strictly in October, previously presented the show in August

Munchetty, pictured with Kovalev on Strictly, was the fourth contestant to leave this year

Samantha Cameron has so far shown off just two dresses by her new label, Cefinn, but her ambition seems to know no bounds.

The wife of the former PM has applied to the Intellectual Property Office to register Cefinn as a trademark for a vast array of goods ranging from scented candles, sunglasses and tablet computers to jewellery, handbags and tiaras.

Well, she is a baronets girl.

The Duchess of Cambridges colourful uncle Gary Goldsmith has certainly had a racy life.

When a friend posted this picture of himself on social media in an open-topped Lamborghini Huracan Spyder, Goldsmith responded: Its impossible to take coke in one of those so thats a plus eh brother??!!

The Duchess of Cambridges colourful uncle Gary Goldsmith, pictured, was once famously caught up in a tabloid cocaine and vice sting

Goldsmith tweeted his friend James Gorfin after seeing this picture of him in a Lamborghini Huracan Spyder, writing: 'Its impossible to take coke in one of those'

To which his friend replied drily: You tell me youre the expert.

Garys original tweet has since been deleted.

Goldsmith was once famously caught up in a tabloid cocaine and vice sting.

12 Years A Slave actor Michael Fassbender admits that stepping into the role of a criminal for his new film, Trespass Against Us, was not too much of a stretch thanks to his own felonious past.

Have I ever committed a crime? I stole multi-vitamins once, he tells me. I was 20 and I was at drama school.

A Tory MPs son has encountered a very touchy problem during a charity trek across the Antarctic, where temperatures can plummet to -50c.

Alex Brazier, 26, whose father Julian is a Conservative backbencher, has taken desperate measures after his genitals caused problems on the three-month expedition.

I was getting particularly chilly in the nether regions, says Alex, a doctor.

Theres a phenomenon called polar penis, which sounds hilarious but is incredibly unpleasant and painful.
How do they find so many inventive ways of handing out your money? State bureaucracy has always been the enemy of prudence. But that reality has been borne out with ever more depressing inevitability by this paper's investigation into the irresponsible activities of England's Local Enterprise Partnerships, the municipal and business quangos that are meant promote economic growth.

They are supposed to be engines of enterprise. Instead, these partnerships have too often created extravagant rewards systems for their own members. Conflicts of interest abound. Value for money is seemingly ignored.

As the Mail revealed, in 2014 call centre boss Asif Hamid was handed no less than 1million for the creation of new premises by the very LEP in the north-west on which he sat.

In 2014 call centre boss Asif Hamid (pictured with David Cameron) was handed no less than 1million for the creation of new premises by the very LEP in the north-west on which he sat

Altogether, 7.3billion of taxpayers' money has been paid to the LEPs, of which barely half has been properly accounted for. The disdain for the public purse is obvious.

The irony is that these LEPs were meant to be different.

They were set up by the Coalition Government in 2010 to replace the bloated Regional Development Agencies established by Labour's John Prescott. RDAs became a byword for bureaucratic extravagance.

Now we learn the new vehicles for splashing your cash  which were supposed to provide a lighter official touch  are going down the same path.

The tale is typical of the Government machine, where squeals about 'cuts' mask an instinct for prodigality.

The 12billion annual foreign aid budget, that gigantic monument to political vanity, is now rightly seen as a racket that provides funding for dubious regimes and lucrative salaries to contractors who exploit the politically correct credulity of the Department for International Development.

Only at the weekend it was revealed that the Government has dished out 568.4million to Somalia, despite a UN report warning of 'high level and systematic abuses' of aid there.

It has been the same story at home with another high-profile policy, the Troubled Families scheme, which the Coalition launched in 2011 to turn round the lives of the problem households through targeted intervention by keyworkers.

At first, the 450million programme seemed to be an enormous success, with the Government claiming that in its first years of operation it had turned round more than 80 per cent of the chosen families.

Later independent studies showed that these figures were a sham. An investigation by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research struggled to find 'consistent evidence that the Troubled Families programme had any significant or systematic impact'. Nearly half a billion pounds of public money had been spent for no gain.

Earlier this year, financial watchdog the National Audit Office warned that a third of major Government projects due to be delivered over the next five years are on track to fail.

Part of the difficulty is that politicians like headline-grabbing gestures as a means to give the illusion of change.

So in January 2013 David Cameron's Government introduced the so-called Green Deal which was meant to provide subsidies for energy efficiency measures in British homes. But the take-up was miserable, with the result that each loan cost the taxpayer over 17,000.

LEPs were set up by the Coalition Government in 2010 to replace the bloated Regional Development Agencies established by Labour's John Prescott (pictured)

According to a report by the Public Accounts Committee in April this year, the Green Deal and other environmental programmes have cost '3billion to date', yet the Government had 'achieved little energy savings compared to previous schemes'.

Just as wasteful was the establishment by George Osborne of the Money Advice Service, an initiative designed to meet public concern about household debt. It was a hopeless flop, wasting 400million before it was scrapped in March.

The epic scale of mismanagement makes a mockery of all the moans from state officials about 'lack of resources'.

A central reason that the State fails so badly is because organisations receive their funding no matter how poor their performance.

Nor are there any real consequences for officials, who move from one failing department to another. A classic example of that trend was Lin Homer, once chief executive of Birmingham City Council  where she was criticised for presiding over serious voter fraud  then a senior official at the Department of Transport, followed by highly controversial spells at the Immigration Directorate and HM Revenue and Customs. Yet she was still able to retire in January with a pension pot of 2.2million.
Luis Carlos Montalvan, a decorated Iraq war veteran who became a strong critic of the conflict and wrote a best-selling book about it, has died in Texas. He was 43.

Montalvan was found in a hotel room in downtown El Paso late Friday, El Paso police Sgt Enrique Carrillo said Monday.

'Central Regional Command officers responded to the Indigo Hotel on a welfare check,' Carrillo said.

'There were no signs of foul play and cause of death is pending investigation by the Medical Examiner's office,' he added.

There was nothing readily apparent at the scene to indicate the death was a suicide, Carrillo later told Military.com.

Luis Carlos Montalvan, a decorated Iraq war veteran who became a strong critic of the war and wrote a best-selling book about it, has died in Texas. He was 43. He's pictured with his service dog, Tuesday, who was subject of his book

Montalvan (right) was found in a room at the Indigo Hotel (left) in downtown El Paso late Friday, El Paso police Sgt Enrique Carrillo said Monday. Police said there were 'no signs of foul play'. The cause of his death is still pending investigation by the Medical Examiner's office

There was nothing readily apparent at the scene to indicate the death was a suicide, police said. Montalvan served 17 years in the Army, doing two tours in Iraq. He received two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart. He's pictured here with his service dog Tuesday

The medical examiner's office has not completed a preliminary autopsy report.

Montalvan served 17 years in the Army, doing two tours in Iraq. He received two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart.

'He was an extremely dedicated activist nationwide for multiple causes, including rights and benefits of veterans and the disabled, as well as the promotion of service dogs,' a statement from his family reads.

Tuesday, was the subject of his book, Until Tuesday (pictured), which became a New York Times best seller

'His spirit lives on through his family and friends, Tuesday, his writings, and all the people he touched during his years of service to his country and his humanitarian work.'

His service dog, Tuesday, was the subject of his book, which became a New York Times best seller.

But some Army colleagues said Montalvan, who retired from the Army as a captain in 2007, embellished his account of the incident that led to his Purple Heart.

Montalvan's book, Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him, was even praised by Sen Al Franken of Minnesota.

The book made him a leading advocate for wounded veterans and even led to an interview on David Letterman's show.

But several men who served with him said in 2011 that he had exaggerated or fabricated key events from his service abroad.

The Associated Press also obtained documents that contradicted Montalvan's statements about the extent and severity of his injuries.

The book made him a leading advocate for wounded veterans and even led to an interview on David Letterman's show. But several men who served with him said in 2011 that he had exaggerated or fabricated key events from his service abroad

Hachette Book Group, which published his first book and will publish his second, Tuesday's Promise: One Veteran, One Dog, and Their Bold Quest to Change Lives, said in a statement that it was 'deeply saddened' at Montalvan's death

Tuesday (pictured with Montalvan) is now being cared for by a loving family in the Northeast, according to a statement from Montalvan's family

Montalvan, who earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Maryland  College Park and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, declined to speak with the AP at the time.

He later issued a statement through his lawyer that his book 'is a reflection of my experiences in the US Army (and after) during one of the most controversial military actions since the Vietnam War.

'Some of the events described in Until Tuesday resulted in wounds to myself  both visible and invisible.'

Hachette Book Group, which published his first book and will publish his second, Tuesday's Promise: One Veteran, One Dog, and Their Bold Quest to Change Lives, said in a statement that it was 'deeply saddened' at Montalvan's death.

'With his beloved service dog Tuesday at his side, Luis spent the past decade educating the public about trauma and advocating for veterans and people with disabilities,' the statement reads.

'He will be missed greatly and our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.'

Tuesday is now being cared for by a loving family in the Northeast, according to the statement from Montalvan's family.
A man who called himself 'The Wolf' on a fetish website has denied raping and assaulting a woman he met online.

British-born Liam Gordon Murphy, 41, of Sydney's Little Bay, is charged with two counts of having sexual intercourse without the woman's consent in circumstances of aggravation.

Police allege Murphy met the woman in person at a Kings Cross hotel in August 2015 after first making contact on a specialist adult social networking website where he had amassed a huge following.

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Liam Gordon Murphy, 41, who called himself 'The Wolf' online, leaves Sydney's Downing Centre Courts

Murphy has this week denied raping and physically assaulting a woman he met online

Murphy is also charged with attempted aggravated sexual assault on the same occasion.

He appeared in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday, where his high-profile lawyer Charles Waterstreet entered not guilty pleas on his behalf.

'The Wolf' had published a book about what he claimed to be his sexual exploits, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

He met his alleged victim on FetLife, a social media website which describes itself as: 'Like Facebook, but run by kinksters like you and me'.

People who associated with Mr Murphy in real life said he protected his identity.

The case was adjourned to January 31 with Murphy, whose bail was continued, excused from attending if legally represented.

Murphy arrives at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday with an unknown woman

Murphy, seen arriving with his lawyer Charles Waterstreet (right) had amassed a huge online following and published a book
It is the video all of your friends have an opinion on - and now animal experts are weighing in on footage of a man punching a kangaroo in the face too.

Dr Mark Eldridge, from the Australian Museum, described the roo's behaviour as 'really interesting', saying the animals would typically flee from dogs but this one chose to defend itself instead.

And while the kangaroo was filmed holding dog Max in a headlock, Dr Eldridge said it was owner Greig Tonkins who was luckier to walk away uninjured.

Dr Mark Eldridge, from the Australian Museum, has described this kangaroo's behaviour as 'really interesting', saying the marsupials typically run away from dogs

Dr Eldridge said the dog likely crept up on the roo which put it in a headlock as a reflex, but then didn't know what to do next until Greig Tonkins showed up (right)

He told the Courier Mail that kangaroos would typically view dogs and dingoes as predators and run away, but for some reason this hadn't happened here.

Dr Eldridge suggested that the dog may have crept up on the roo before startling it, causing it to grab the animal in a headlock rather than run away.

Kangaroos are known to put other bucks in headlocks when they fight, but will typically scratch, kick and bite each other first.

He said: 'The kangaroo didnt seem to be biting the dog, I think he was pretty confused.

'Maybe the kangaroo was just having a hold of the dog and didnt know what to do next.'

Dr Eldridge added that the buck took up a much more combative pose when Mr Tonkins came running over, and was likely sizing him up for a fight.

Dr Eldridge said Mr Tonkins seems to have caught the kangaroo by surprise with his punch, and was lucky not to be hurt after the animal decided to flee rather than fight

But he said Mr Tonkins seemed to take the buck by surprise when bashing him on the nose, causing him to think twice about any further confrontation.

That could have been Mr Tonkins' lucky break, he added, since kangaroos can do serious damage to a human.

He said: 'Male kangaroos have very big forearms and are very strong.

'I think the kangaroo was still in the sizing-up stage when he was hit with the punch, and so the man was lucky the roo decided to call it quits instead of using his leg which cause a lot of damage.'

Mr Tonkins went viral over the weekend after footage from a boar hunting trip back in June emerged online.

In the film the kangaroo can be seen holding Mr Tonkins' hunting dog in a headlock before the zookeeper jumps out of a vehicle and runs over.

Mr Tonkins (centre) was on a boar hunting trip at the time of the incident, and it has since emerged he is a zookeeper

As Mr Tonkins approaches the animal it releases the dog which runs away, before the pair square up to one another.

While the roo gets itself in a position to fight, Mr Tonkins throws a quick right hook, bashing the marsupial on the end of the snout.

The blow seems to take the animal by surprise, and after standing still for a few moments it turns around and hops away.

It has since emerged that Mr Tonkins is a zookeeper at Taronga Western Plains Zoo, in Dubbo, who insists he 'loves animals'.
Camp cheered on Sunday when U.S. Army said it would halt project's final stage

Hundreds of tribe members, activists and military veterans have marched in a show of solidarity against the Dakota Access Pipeline after President-elect Donald Trump announced his support for the project and said he will revisit the decision to halt construction when he takes office.

A heavy blizzard bore down on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota on Monday afternoon but did little to dissuade protesters from their mile-long walk to Backwater Bridge, which acts as a dividing line between the protest camp and pipeline construction site.

Protesters respected law enforcement's request that they stay south of the bridge - and indigenous elders met the group to enforce this instruction and asked the marchers to join them in prayer.

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Military veterans huddle together to hold a United States flag against strong winds during a march at Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota on Monday afternoon

Hundreds of protesters braved the heavy blizzard at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation

The march on Monday came after President-elect Donald Trump announced his support for the pipeline project and said he will revisit the decision to halt construction when he takes office

On 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.

'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.'

On Monday, Morton County Sheriff's Department said they had arrested and charged a single person with criminal trespass after he failed to heed commands to go back south of the bridge.

Protesters held flags of tribes and veteran groups aloft in driving snow on Monday as they edged their way along the bridge in icy conditions. Native American activists accompanied on horseback.

Hundreds of tribe members, activists and military veterans marched to Backwater Bridge, which acts as a dividing line between the protest camp and pipeline construction site

Protesters braved the heavy blizzards at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota

Protesters respected law enforcement's request that they stay south of the bridge - and indigenous elders met the group to enforce this instruction

Protesters held flags of tribes and veteran groups aloft in driving snow on Monday as they edged their way along the bridge in icy conditions

The peaceful protest came after the camp erupted into cheers after the announcement that the U.S. Army would not grant an easement, halting the final stage of pipeline construction

The procession included a group of indigenous people who danced towards the blocked access road

A group of Aztec dancers joined the march. One of the group, Sergio, told DailyMail.com: 'We are here in solidarity against DAPL. We are here in celebration and prayer, showing support our brothers and sisters here in North Dakota.'

Another marcher, Brown Buffalo Calf Woman, told DailyMail.com that she believed the time had come for people to stand up and protect the water.

She said: 'Without water there is no life. We are standing here in prayer in a good way. We respect the other side and we hope that they understand to.'

On Sunday afternoon, the Oceti Sakowin camp erupted into cheers and dancing after the announcement that the U.S. Army would not grant an easement, halting the final stage of pipeline construction close to Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Cries of 'Mni Wichoni' - 'water is life' in Lakota Sioux - rose from the crowds, many of whom broke down as the news reached them.

The tribe, and their 'water protector' supporters, believe the $3.8billion pipeline poses a grave risk to the water supplies and has destroyed sacred burial sites.

Hundreds of protesters held flags as they edged their way along the bridge in icy conditions

While some protesters celebrated well into Sunday night, others sounded a note of caution

Chief Joseph River Wind, a former military police officer (right), participated in the march

Some protesters wore goggles to protect themselves from the fierce blizzard

The tribe believe the $3.8billion Dakota pipeline poses a grave risk to the water supplies and has destroyed sacred burial sites near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation

This female protester, Brown Buffalo Calf Woman, said she believed the time had come for people to stand up and protect the water

Celebrations continued late into the night at the camp on Sunday but some sounded a note of caution.

Brandon Iron Hawk, from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, told DailyMail.com that the decision on the pipeline 'feels good' but that he didn't believe the fight was won.

'It's not the end. We are not going to leave until they leave. There's always lies and we have been lied to before. But tonight we will be celebrating,' he said.

Assistant Army 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.'

The protesters marched up Highway 1806 towards the barricaded Dakota access pipeline

Native American activists accompanied on horseback as the protesters marched on Monday

Morton County Sheriff's Department said they had arrested and charged a single person with criminal trespass after he failed to heed commands to go back south of the bridge

People celebrated the news the U.S. Army would not grant an easement, before Trump announced his support for the pipeline project

A group of indigenous people joined the procession and danced towards the bridge

The U.S. Army said on Sunday the decision to not grant an easement was based on the need to 'explore alternate routes' for the pipeline's crossing

The company constructing the pipeline claimed the decision was politically motivated because it allowed Obama to delay the matter until he leaves office

The company constructing the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, released a statement on Sunday night slamming the decision as politically motivated and alleging that President Obama's administration was determined to delay the matter until he leaves office.

A spokesman for Donald Trump said Monday that the president-elect is in favor of building the Dakota Access pipeline, and will revisit the Obama administration's decision to halt construction.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the crude oil conduit is 'something that we support construction of, and we'll review the full situation once we're in the White House and make an appropriate determination at that time.'

On Monday, the government's deadline for the several hundred people at the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, encampment to leave the federal land came into effect.
Millionaire entrepreneur Dick Smith says Australia will be destroyed unless it adopts Pauline Hanson's population policies.

The businessman, best known for starting an electronics store chain and creating Australian spread OzEmite, says One Nation's zero net migration policies made sense.

'I just have the plan to tell people that her population policy is right, otherwise we will destroy Australia,' he told Network Ten's Studio Ten program on Tuesday.

Millionaire Dick Smith, once worth $50 million, supports Pauline Hanson's One Nation (stock image)

Entrepreneur Dick Smith insists Pauline Hanson is not a racist and speaking with her

'What I'm saying is, why don't one of the major parties take on her population policy because that would be sensible.'

But he refuted a suggestion Senator Hanson was a racist, despite a call in her September maiden speech for a ban on Muslim migration to Australia.

'I've spoken to Pauline a number of times and I don't think she's racist,' he said.

Mr Smith, a former Liberal Party voter who last year threatened to run against former speaker Bronwyn Bishop in her old Sydney northern beaches electorate, said he would offer guidance to One Nation in upcoming state and federal elections.

Dick Smith, who made his name in electronics, said the type of voters who supported Donald Trump in the United States would back One Nation in Australia

The pair had an initial conversation last week when Senator Hanson said Mr Smith 'realised we agree on many things'.

He predicted the type of disaffected voters who supported US president-elect Donald Trump would back One Nation in Australia.

Mr Smith, who has previously paid a $240,000 legal bill for former Greens leader Bob Brown, is now offering to help One Nation campaign in western Sydney, which is home to several marginal seats.

The businessman and helicopter adventurer from Sydney's north shore is planning to meet with Senator Hanson, who hails from Ipswich in Queensland, before Christmas, The Daily Telegraph said.

The former electronics mogul has offered to provide Hanson (pictured) with policy advice

But the former electronics mogul, once worth $50 million, has ruled out donating to One Nation.

Mr Smith was reportedly attracted to One Nation when friends of his began to back Senator Hanson's party.

'I support her policy on Julian Assange. I support her immigration policy. She says she's going to have a policy to help general aviation. I'll certainly support that,' he told News Corp Australia.

But despite that, he disagreed with her stance against Muslim immigration.

Dick Smith, pictured with former New South Wales premier Barry O'Farrell, said he disagreed with Pauline Hanson's stance against Muslim immigration

'People tend to say that she's racist. So I asked her, does she think that she's superior to other races? She said no,' he said.

He liked the fact One Nation was the only party not focused on population growth, saying it would stop young people from being able to afford homes.

Although there were other policies of Senator Hanson's he didn't like, Mr Smith said he was beginning to understand where her support came from.

People tend to say that she's racist. So I asked her, does she think that she's superior to other races? She said no. Dick Smith

Senator Hanson is planning to stand candidates in areas of Sydney where she believes voters are disenchanted with major parties.

'People are just really fed up with the major parties and screaming out for change,' she said.

Smith even said he might stand for federal parliament as an independent.

Former federal Labor MP Kelvin Thomson, who shares Mr Smith's views on reducing net migration, said the major parties had ignored the need to slow down Australia's population growth.

'The increase in the migration program may be one of the contributors in increased support for One Nation,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

He said Mr Smith was right to be frustrated with major parties on these issues.

'He feels like they're not being debated in a serious way,' Mr Thomson said.
A school bus driver is out of a job after body cam footage from a police officer caught him driving double the speed limit while his bus was packed with children.

The driver was stopped by an officer who caught him driving 50 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone in Twinsburg, Ohio on Thursday.

The incident comes less than two weeks after a school bus driver was charged in the deaths of five children killed in a fiery school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Dashboard camera footage first shows the officer giving chase on Post Road just after 2pm, according to Fox 8.

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Police dash cam shows the squad car giving chase to the speeding yellow school bus

The officer approaches the bus, which was clocked doing 50 mph in a 25 mph zone

The cop's body cam shows him asking the driver why he was speeding with a busload full of children

When the bus stops, the officer enters the vehicle, asking the driver, 'Why are you doing 50 miles an hour in a 25 zone with a busload of children?'

The driver only responds: 'I'm sorry.'

There were 48 children on board being driven home from R.B. Chamberlin Middle School.

Twinsburg City Schools Superintendent Kathi Powers said the unidentified driver was immediately pulled from his route and parents of the affected children were notified.

The children were being shuttled home from R.B. Chamberlin Middle School

She said he had been a driver since February 2013 without issue.

The day after the incident, the driver offered his resignation and apologized.

'The bus driver is remorseful. I think it was just a lack of judgment, an error in his thinking,' she told the outlet. 'We don't condone this type of behavior, can't condone it, we're talking about the safety of students.'

On November 21, Johnthony Walker, 24, was charged with multiple vehicular homicide after five school children died and twenty-three were injured after a horrific school bus crash in Chattanooga.

Police say the driver, Johnthony Walker, was speeding. Parents and the school principal had repeatedly complained about Walker's fast and reckless driving.
One of the last people to escape the deadly fire that killed at least 36 people in an Oakland warehouse says that gentrification is to blame.

The artist, Bob Mule, tearfully told NBC Bay Area on Monday that the high cost of rent in the city is leaving the hipster community with fewer outlets of creative expression.

'I think this has a lot to do with the gentrification issue in the city,' he said.

'Us artists are forced to live in these spaces. We do it because we have nowhere else affordable to create.

'We need more help. We need more of a voice in the city as artists because we are a very important part of this culture thats being pushed out of the city.'

Bob Mule, who was one of the last to escape the inferno at the artist enclave told NBC Bay Area on Monday that gentrification was to blame for the tragedy

The charred remains of the Ghost Ship artist enclave in Oakland are seen on the left after the devastating fire that left at least 36 people dead

One of the last people to escape #oaklandwarehousefire says gentrification forced him to live in that unsafe space. @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/FydXOM6AwQ  Bob Redell (@BobNBC) December 6, 2016

Affordable housing advocates say that gentrification, capitalism, and the high cost of renting an apartment are decimating the city, leading to tragedies like the one at the Ghost Ship warehouse.

The claim is pushback for the criticism in the press against the operators of the Ghost Ship live-space artist enclave, which was found to have had numerous building code violations that critics say made it a 'death trap' and 'tinderbox'.

The couple that rented the warehouse  Derick Ion Almena, 46, and his wife, Micah Allison, 40  are being blamed for failing to ensure that the area, which was legally not permitted to serve as a place of residence, had proper safeguards against emergencies.

City officials and prosecutors say an investigation is ongoing, and criminal charges could be forthcoming.

While much of the national fury is aimed at the couple and the artists who lived in and frequented the Ghost Ship, their supporters are fighting back online by saying that public anger is misplaced.

Firemen are seen during the recovery operations inside the warehouse on Monday. A former resident says the high cost of living in Oakland is what draws artists to these kinds of enclaves

They point to the Oakland housing crisis, fueled by the rising property costs and the tech boom that has exploded across the bay in San Francisco, as the main culprit behind the fire.

The most recent Zumper National Rent Report rates the cities where it is most expensive to rent an apartment.

The most expensive city to rent is San Francisco, followed by New York, Boston, and Oakland.

San Jose, another town within driving distance of Silicon Valley, ranked fifth.

Artists say that the prohibitive cost of rent in the city has forced them to look for cheaper  and thus more dangerous  alternatives.

The fire has shifted the spotlight to the lack of affordable housing in Oakland, a town that has historically been a major counterculture hub but is now undergoing a transformation similar to many large cities in America.

'There are a lot of things people are doing to respond to the high housing cost, from overcrowding in single family dwellings or even lots of unrelated individuals in a one-bedroom apartment,' Leslye Corsiglia, the executive director of affordable housing advocacy group SV@Home, told NBC News.

'I've even been in apartments where people slept in shifts.'

An employee bags groceries for customers at a Whole Foods Market in Oakland. The city has become the fourth most expensive place in the country to rent an apartment

'At some point, when you need somewhere to sleep at night, it doesn't matter whether you have a piece of paper telling you if that's OK or not,' Carmen Brito, who once lived in the Ghost Ship, told NBC News.

'I think the thing you have to understand about the Bay Area is that it's incredibly difficult to find housing,' she said.

'If [you] go three blocks west of here, you can find plenty of people who couldn't find housing.'

Paula Beal, who lived in Oakland for 45 years, told The Guardian newspaper earlier this year that she was forced out of her home after her landlord suddenly increased her monthly rent by 27 per cent.

'I have seven children, 27 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren,' she says. 'They have all, over the past few years, been displaced from Oakland. All of them.'

Researchers at Berkeley and UCLA have collaborated on the Urban Displacement Project, an initiative that illustrates just how acute the problem has become.

Their maps show the extent to which Oakland has become a much more expensive place to live.

Experts say that the problem can be boiled down to a simple case of supply and demand.

Because there is a lack of housing, middle class families in Oakland have been priced out by wealthier transplants from San Francisco who are driving up property costs.

That has pushed lower-earning Oaklanders to move out into the suburbs, pushing them further away from their jobs and putting a strain on the commute.

Researchers in California collaborated on The Urban Displacement Project, whose maps show just how prevalent gentrification has become in Oakland

'We haven't built enough housing in the region to keep up with population growth,' said Stephen Levy, the head of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

'We're very short on supply, and what that has meant is the people with money have begun to bid up prices and rents on homes that used to be lived in by middle-class families,' he told NBC News.

'This leads to displacement for folks who see their rents increase.'

The lack of affordable housing appears to be the surcharge that Oakland is paying for its recent renaissance that has seen it transform into a desirable place to live for youngsters, earning it the moniker 'Brooklyn by the Bay.'
A teenager who plead guilty to dealing 'super' ecstasy that was linked to a 17-year-old's nightclub death has reportedly breached his bail conditions.

Schoolboy Daniel Nalbandian died in hospital after collapsing at a nightclub in August.

The St John's Regional College Year 12 student bought a fake ID and two super-strength ecstasy pills before going out.

Tony Phan, 18, who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, will front Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday for additional charges related to his bail, the Herald Sun reported.

Daniel Nalbandian, 17, died in hospital after collapsing at a nightclub in August

Daniel allegedly bought the super-strength pills from dealer Tony Phan, 18

WHAT IS SUPER-STRENGTH ECSTASY? Super-strength ecstasy tablets, or 'party pills', are about five times stronger than normal pills. They increase the risk of irreparable brain damage, according to scientists. Tests have found the yellow UPS pills, which are believed to originate in Switzerland, contain up to 275mg of MDMA  a dangerously high level. The usual amount of MDMA - the psychoactive ingredient in Ecstasy - is 74 milligrams in a 300 milligram tablet. Advertisement

Mr Phan's latest charges include breaching bail conditions such as adhering to a curfew and reporting to police.

His lawyer refuted an assessment that Mr Phan would use drug money to repay his debts and he was granted bail on September 23.

His lawyer told the court Mr Phan was trying to process the grief surrounding Daniel's death.

Magistrate Andrew Capell told Mr Phan in court: 'One inkling of you breaching this bail [and] I'm going to be the one that deals with you. And, I can assure you that I'm not looking at community corrections orders at the moment.'

'I don't want anyone to think they've just got away with what they've done to Daniel,' his mother, Anni Nalbandian, told the Herald Sun.

Mr Phan is in custody.

The St John's Regional College year 12 student bought a fake ID and two super-strength ecstasy pills before going out

Super-strength ecstasy tables are about five times stronger than normal pills

Mr Phan's lawyer told the court that Mr Phan was trying to process the grief surrounding Daniel's (pictured) death

Tony Phan (not pictured) who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, will front Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Wednesday for additional charges related to his bail
A woman who was visiting Hawaii with her sister died after being swept downstream during a flash flood while kayaking with a tour group on the island of Kauai.

Nine people including seven visitors and a guide were suddenly swept away with no warning during a flash flood on Wailua River on Saturday night, according to Hawaii News Now.

Everyone was rescued except Aimee Abrahim, 32, of El Cajon, California, whose body was found. Her younger sister, Crystal, survived.

Sisters: Aimee, left, and Crystal, right, were both crossing Uluwehi Falls with the Kayak Wailua tour group company on Saturday when flash flooding swept them away

Aimee's body was found Sunday morning. She was a sales representative at Janssen Pharmaceuticals in La Jolla, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The group was with Kayak Wailua tour group company. According to the owner, Peter Fisher, the victim and her sister were swept away as they crossed Uluwehi Falls with a rope around 5pm, according to the outlet.

'This is a situation where it was really freakish because we didn't have any rain. There was no rain on the kayak. There was no rain during the hike,' he said.

Crystal (left) survived but Aimee's body was found the next day after she disappeared

'An extremely rare flash flood occurred in the blink of an eye from slow moving shallow water to deep raging water. All kayak companies were operating earlier in the day. The flash flood warning was issued long after the tour commenced,' the company wrote on Facebook.

'It went from a very sunny happy day to a nightmare and you don't really know you try and think the best but sometimes the worst happens,' Fisher told KITV.
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Dying victims trapped in the deadly warehouse inferno had desperately texted their love ones messages saying 'I'm going to die' as fire ripped through the Oakland 'death trap'.

Devastating aerial photos show the tragic aftermath of the blaze that claimed 36 lives during the warehouse party on Friday night, as prosecutors launch an investigation that could lead to murder charges.

Alameda County sheriff's spokesman Sgt Ray Kelly says rescue crews have found bodies of people 'protecting each other, holding each other'.

Survivors have previously told how they had to fight for a way out of the burning warehouse down a narrow staircase and how many people were trapped upstairs by the flames and smoke.

Sheriff's officials told how some of the victims died after sending goodbye messages to their loved ones that said, 'I'm going to die' and 'I love you'.

Enclave organizer Derick Ion Almena, 46, has come under fire for the dangerous living conditions inside and lack of permits.

Now, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, says charges ranging from murder to involuntary manslaughter could be brought those responsible for the deaths.

However, Almena and his wife, Micah Allison, 40, said they have done everything that they could afford to do to make the warehouse safe.

Investigators have said that they have told the fire and sheriff's departments to treat the area as 'a potential crime scene'.

O'Malley said Monday her office has just started its probe and has not yet determined whether a crime even occurred.

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Carnage: The aftermath of the fire in which the official death toll has reached 36, with warnings it may well increase further

Devastating aerial photos show the aftermath of the deadly inferno that took place at an Oakland warehouse during a party Friday night, as prosecutors launch an investigation that could lead to murder charges. A crane (pictured) was being used to lift wreckage as part of continued search efforts on Monday

Investigators said they have told the fire and sheriff's departments to treat the area as 'a potential crime scene'. Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said Monday her office has just started its probe and has not yet determined whether a crime even occurred. This photo shows inside the warehouse just days after the deadly fire

Authorities said charges could range from murder to involuntary manslaughter. The investigations team will work to determine whether there could be any criminal liability for the blaze and if so, against whom

Investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are also helping with the probe of the blaze. Authorities said they believe they have located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown. Workers are raised by a craned at the site of the warehouse

'It's too early to speculate on anything,' O'Malley said at a press conference.

'We owe it to the community, to those who perished, to those who survived to be methodical, to be thorough, and to take the amount of time it takes to look at every piece of potential evidence.'

O'Malley said the investigations team would work to determine whether there could be any criminal liability for the blaze and if so, against whom.

Investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are also helping with the probe of the blaze.

Authorities said they believe they have located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.

Allison, who along with her husband, Almena, managed the artist collective housed inside a warehouse known as Ghost Ship, says ATF investigators interviewed her husband 'extensively'.

On the Today show, an emotional Almena apologized for the tragedy but became increasingly agitated until he refused to answer any further questions.

'I don't want to talk about me. I don't want to talk about "profits"', he told Matt Lauer, when confronted with allegations from former tenants that Almena had not heeded concerns about safety.

'I am only here to say one thing; I am here to say I'm sorry.

'I am not going to answer these questions.'

Almena and his wife also spoke about the aftermath of the warehouse fire in an interview with NBC Nightly News.

But the couple are not the owners of the building. Chor Ng, is the property owner of the Oakland Ghost Ship and Almena and Allison ran the place.

Almena, who spoke through tears, posed a rhetorical question: 'Do I take blame or responsibility for this?' as he dropped his head and didn't answer.

He said that he and his wife are fully cooperating with investigators and neither of them have been charged.

Allison told NBC: 'We've done everything that we possibly could afford to do.'

As she wiped away tears, Allison said that 'a lot of people have turned their backs on us, most expressly the landlord'.

Micah Allison, 40, who along with her husband, Derick Ion Almena, 46, managed the artist collective housed inside a warehouse known as Ghost Ship, says ATF investigators interviewed her husband 'extensively'

Derick Ion Almena (pictured) said that he 'can't explain who I am anymore'. He posed a rhetorical question: 'Do I take blame or responsibility for this?' as he dropped his head and didn't answer

As she wiped away tears, Allison (pictured) said that 'a lot of people have turned their backs on us, most expressly the landlord'. Allison was referring to Chor Ng, the property owner of Oakland's Ghost Ship. Allison said that she and her husband did as much as they could afford to do

Almena told NBC that his family wasn't there when the fire took place. He said that he has spoken to investigators but has not been charged. Almena (right) said that he made repairs to the warehouse's electrical system without permits after, he says, the landlord refused

Allison was referring to Ng, the property owner.

Ng's family said that they are 'also trying to figure out what's going on like everybody else'.

They wrote in a statement to NBC Bay Area: 'We're so sorry to hear about the tragedy.

'Our condolences go out to the families and friends of those injured and those who lost their lives.

Hundreds of people holding candles honored those who died in the fire at a vigil Monday night in Oakland's Lake Merritt.

Those in the crowd embracing each other or holding up candles or flowers and saying aloud the names of people they lost in the blaze.

Several people in the crowd held signs offering 'hugs'.

An official says several of the people who died in the fire texted goodbye messages to their families. People gathered at the Lake Merritt Pergola during a vigil for the victims of the fatal warehouse fire

Alameda County sheriff's spokesman Sgt Ray Kelly told reporters Monday that some of the victims texted relatives, 'I'm going to die,' and 'I love you'. Hundreds are seen gathered at the Lake Merritt Pergola to honor the 36 victims

Kelly says rescue crews have found bodies of people 'protecting each other, holding each other'. Several people in the crowd held signs offering 'hugs'

Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern says sheriff's officials don't believe additional bodies will be found in the Oakland warehouse fire. People were photographed holding candles as they listened to speakers at the vigil Monday night

But the vigil briefly turned into a political confrontation as participants shouted down Mayor Libby Schaaf with boos and calls to resign, NBC News reported.

Some shouted: 'Stop victim blaming!' and 'Step down!' as Schaaf prepared to speak.

'This city is going to go through a lot of emotions, and one of those is anger, and that is my job to hear that,' Shaaf said during her speech.

'As we move forward right now, our focus has to be on those who we know are lost and those we are going to learn have been lost,' she said, according to NBC.

Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern says sheriff's officials don't believe additional bodies will be found in the Oakland warehouse fire.

Ahern said he couldn't be absolutely positive until the entire recovery effort was complete.

But Ahern said he couldn't be absolutely positive until the entire recovery effort was complete. A crowd holds candles during the vigil

A woman was captured clapping as tears rolled down her cheeks during the vigil

Those in the crowd embracing each other or holding up candles or flowers and saying aloud the names of people they lost in the blaze. A firefighter embraces a child during a vigil for the victims

Almena has said that he and his family wasn't there when the fire broke out and that he had booked a hotel room for the night because he was 'exhausted' and his children 'had school'.

He told NBC that he and his wife are absolutely devastated and nothing is more important than the lives that have been lost.

'We're sorry to the families and all the friends who have lost loved ones.

'I gladly would give my entire life of fortune, of wealth, of experience again, again and againI would surrender everything,' Almena said.

He said he didn't 'know anything about this event, other than okay I'm mopping for it; I'm dusting; I'm cleaning; I'm getting it beautiful'.

The pair said their art collective, a group of tenants, covered the $5,000 per month rent.

Almena said the group was made up of young artists called Satya Yuga, and that he was like the group's grandfather.

Almena said that he has spoken to investigators but has not been charged. Prosecutors say they are investigating the warehouse fire and murder charges are possible. He's pictured with his wife Allison as they leave a Marriott Hotel in Oakland on Sunday

He and his wife Allison (pictured with their children) believe they are being unfairly blamed for the fire that erupted during a dance party late Friday night

City officials said the space was not permitted as a residential building, but Almena said about 20 people lived there, the station reported.

'The center we all lived there, and was one of creativity, and beauty, and optimism,' Almena said.

He told NBC that he made repairs to the warehouse's electrical system without permits after, he says, the landlord refused.

Almena and his wife Allison believe they are being unfairly blamed for the fire that erupted during the dance party.

A Reddit user who identified himself as a survivor of the fire that destroyed the warehouse detailed how he made a 'coin flip' decision to brave down a stairwell to the second floor as it was engulfed in flames before crawling his way out the only exit of the building.

In the harrowing first-person account posted to Reddit, the user described how he blindly crawled through 'horrid conditions' as the fire broke out, choking on thick smoke, while trying to make his way to safety.

After he miraculously managed to get outside, he said it looked like a 'f***ing war zone', with people covered in soot crying and screaming while others desperately called out their friends names in an effort to find them.

He credits a fellow party-goer who had made his way outside and stood by the door yelling 'exit' to others as they frantically searched for the exit for saving his life.

The party took place on the second floor of the building, which appeared to have only two exits, officials said.

A probe into the 'illegal' structure was started just three weeks before the blaze.

Officials said the warehouse was the subject of a city code enforcement investigation at the time of the fire due to complaints about health and safety issues.

Authorities in Oakland received a complaint on November 13 that there were tons of garbage left on the sidewalk near the warehouse, and an inspector verified the complaint but failed to gain access inside.

But there were other complaints over the course of the last year, citing cramped conditions, electrical wiring issues, and residents living inside.

The search for more people killed in the Oakland warehouse fire resumed on Monday after the work was halted just after midnight. But authorities announced shortly after 4pm that they didn't expect to find any more victims in the rubble.

A wall was leaning inward, posing a safety hazard for those who have been searching the structure, prompting the search to be halted.

Authorities say about 70 per cent of the building has been searched.

The identified victims are (L-R, from top left) Donna Kellogg, 32, Nick Gomez-Hall, 25, Travis Hough, 35, Denalda Nicole Renae, 23, Chelsea Faith Dolan, Barrett Clark, Feral Pines, Micah Denamayer, David Cline, 24, Nex Iuguolo, 32, Pete Wadsworth, Jonathan Bernbaum, Ara Jo, Cash Askew, 22, Sara Hoda, 30 and Draven McGill, 17

The search for more people killed in the fire (pictured) resumed earlier today after work was halted just after midnight Monday. A wall was leaning inward, posing a safety hazard for those who have been searching the structure

Almena spoke briefly to KGO-TV, saying those who died were his friends and family.

He told the station: 'They're my children. They're my friends, they're my family, they're my loves, they're my future. What else do I have to say?'

Former residents described the building as a 'death trap'.

A long-time friend of Almena's told DailyMail.com that he laughed off warning that his artist's commune was a potential death trap and allegedly ignored repeated safety warnings.

It was also reported that Almena and his wife would leave their three children with a teenage babysitter for up to five days at a time - and return boasting about 'transcendent experiences'.

Almena's father-in-law, Michael Allison, said that both his daughter and his son-in-law were 'heavy drug users' and spoke of his sadness at the situation - saying the father-of-three should be in prison

Michael Allison said he and other family members had staged an intervention 18 months ago in the hope of helping Allison (pictured) deal with drug use which had left 'her hands like claws'

Mariah Benavides told how she was put in charge of the children while Almena and Allison would tell her they were going 'to have fun'.

And Almena's father-in-law said that both his daughter and his son-in-law were 'heavy drug users' and spoke of his sadness at the situation - saying the father-of-three should be in prison.

Michael Allison said he and other family members had staged an intervention 18 months ago in the hope of helping Allison deal with drug use which had left 'her hands like claws'.

He said that he thinks child protective services 'dropped the ball' by letting his daughter and Almena have their children back.

Allison, an English teacher, told DailyMail.com: 'Someone obviously dropped the ball between LA Child Protective Services and the Oakland one. They were clearly not communicating, there was no follow up apparently.'

Relatives and friends of the ravers who are still missing after the fire continue to anxiously wait for news of their loved ones.

Lists of the missing circulated and many of those who had been unable to reach friends in the past two days had given up hope when authorities said people either escaped without injury or died inside.

Sol Rodriguez and Aaron Torres visit a shrine for the victims of the Oakland warehouse fire

Many people have been leaving flowers, candles and even post-it notes at a makeshift shrine close to the scene

People place flowers and notes at a makeshift memorial yesterday as they came to pay their respects

Photographer Chris Nechodom, who was at the dance party, said people first thought the smoke was coming from a fog machine.

'And then it got a little thicker,' he said. 'It all happened within seconds. We started seeing people running around, frantic and screaming 'fire'.'

One of the many post-it notes left on a sidewalk around the corner from the remains of the warehouse said: 'Praying for you... Hope you're still here.'

Meanwhile, in a macabre indication of what the fire may have done to the bodies, authorities are asking relatives to preserve hairbrushes and toothbrushes to assist in matching DNA samples.

'We will ask for them as we need them,' said Captain Melanie Ditzenberger of the sheriff's department coroner's bureau.

There was no evidence of smoke detectors or sprinklers, they added.

Property records list the owner as 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.'

Authorities said it was too early to determine what caused the fire, but an official said the blaze appeared to be an electrical fire.
While most Sydneysiders were excited to bump into Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on a city-bound train, one woman simply wanted to get her phone back from him after a rather long selfie.

Mr Turnbull took his favourite form of transport to the city on Tuesday morning after touring a primary school in Croydon, posing for pictures with inner west commuters along the way.

However Mr Turnbull seemed to pose too long for one passenger's liking, who reached several times for her phone as the nation's leader held it out of reach.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took a rather long selfie with an uninterested woman on a Sydney train on Tuesday morning

The woman reached out to grab her phone back several times but Mr Turnbull insisted on taking a selfie

'Now, do you have a daughter-in-law?,' Mr Turnbull asked the lady as she reached out to take back her Samsung mobile.

'I have three sons,' she replied, stretching out to take back her phone.

But Mr Turnbull appeared determined to take another selfie - this time with quantum computing pioneer Professor Michelle Simmons, who was accompanying him.

'Oh alright,' he responded, seemingly undeterred by the woman's repeated attempts to regather her phone.

'Lets get Michelle in the background ... Michelle Simmons.'

Mr Turnbull asked the lady about her family and then continued to pose for another selfie
Warning: Speaking at Liverpool John Moores University yesterday, Mark Carney claimed living standards are also suffering the biggest squeeze since Dickensian times

Britain is in the midst of its 'first lost decade' since the 1860s, the Governor of the Bank of England warned last night.

Speaking at Liverpool John Moores University yesterday, Mark Carney claimed living standards are suffering the biggest squeeze since Dickensian times.

Calling for the Government to tackle staggering wealth inequalities through redistribution, he said: Real wages are below where they were a decade ago  something that no one alive today has experienced before.

The 51-year-old, who earns 874,000 a year, said globalisation has seen the superstar and the lucky thrive while others have struggled. He said: Now may be the time of the famous or fortunate, but what of the frustrated and frightened?

From the rising spectre of global terrorism to intensifying geopolitical tensions and financial crises, for too long, for far too many people, the world seems to be getting riskier. They are right.

One of the things that I think contributes very understandably to the level of anxiety that households feel in this economy, in other economies, is the fact that it has for them been almost a lost decade of growth.

Real incomes have not grown for the last ten years. That is incredible and that shines a light on inequality, inequalities that exist in this economy, exist in other economies and make people question what is being done to address those and what are the fundamental causes of those.

Globally, the share of wealth held by the richest 1 per cent rose from a third in 2000 to half by 2010.

In the UK, the income share of the top 1 per cent tripled from 5 per cent in the early 1980s to 15 per cent in 2009.

Statement: The 51-year-old, pictured last night, who earns 874,000 a year, said globalisation has seen the superstar and the lucky thrive while others have struggled

Canadian Mr Carney said a typical millennial  someone who became an adult early this century  earned 8,000 less in their 20s than their predecessors had. By contrast, since 2007, over-60s have seen their incomes rise at five times the rate of the population as a whole, he added.

Experience shows that when the economy enters recession, the poorest are hit the hardest, Mr Carney said. During recessions the lower-skilled, lower-paid people tend to lose their jobs first. And recessions disproportionately affect the young.

He added: For free trade to benefit all requires some redistribution. We need to move towards more inclusive growth where everyone has a stake in globalisation.

In more bad news he also declared that robots could put 15million Britons out of work.

Rather than a new golden era, globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities. The benefits from trade are unequally spread across individuals and time Mark Carney on why public are turning their backs on globalisation

In an alarming vision for workers, Mark Carney warned middle-class jobs would be hollowed out as huge technological advances meant roles could be automated instead.

The Bank has said the march of the machines in the workplace puts administrative, clerical and production staff most under threat.

And it has even predicted that entire professions, such as accountancy, could be pushed to the brink of extinction as developments in computers make their roles redundant.

Mr Carney claimed that up to 15million of the current jobs in Britain  almost half of the 31.8million workforce  could be replaced by robots over the coming years as livelihoods were mercilessly destroyed by the technological revolution.

Deeply worrying forecasts from the Bank say that a new machine age would be particularly devastating for those on lower incomes.

Mr Carney said: Rather than a new golden era, globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities.

He added: While trade makes countries better off, it does not raise all boats. The benefits from trade are unequally spread across individuals and time.

The Governor warned that a return of protectionism amid a backlash against globalisation would be a disaster for the global economy  a concern which has grown since Donald Trumps victory in the United States.

In his first big speech since the election of the new American President, Mr Carney said: Public support for open markets is under threat.
Tamim Khaja has been ordered to stand trial on charges of plotting a terrorist act and foreign incursions

A Sydney teenager has been ordered to stand trial on charges of plotting a terror shooting spree.

Tamim Khaja, 18, is accused of planning the attack in May and preparing to travel to Syria for ' hostile activities' between January 29 and February 27.

The Macquarie Park resident was allegedly in the process of trying to buy a firearm and suicide vest, and had been sizing up public buildings when he was arrested in May.

Khaja's lawyer waived his right to a committal hearing and did not request bail in Parramatta Local Court on Tuesday, reports Daily Telegraph.

However Magistrate Garry Still ordered the matter to the District Court on December 16, where the 19-year-old is expected to appear via AVL.

Khaja also allegedly tried to travel to Syria but was stopped at Sydney Airport because his passport had been cancelled.

Police believe he was acting alone in planning a terror attack in Sydney.

Tamim Khaja, 18, was arrested in May, while he was trying to purchase a gun off an undercover police officer.

He has pleaded not guilty to preparing a terrorism act this week and preparing for foreign incursions.

Tamim Khaja, 18, was arrested in Macquarie Park in Sydney's north, while he was trying to purchase a gun in May

Khaja allegedly prepared to travel to Syria for ' hostile activities' between January 29 and February 27
Google advertised for a 'conservative outreach' manager for its policy team just 10 days after Donald Trump won the election.

The company is looking for a Washington D.C. based manager to work on its public policy team to help shape 'agendas with policy makers inside and outside government'.

Google posted the job on its career website calling for someone to act as the company's liaison to conservative groups.

Google advertised for a 'conservative outreach' manager to work in Washington D.C. on its public policy team just 10 days after Republican Donald Trump won the election

'You are part organizer, part advocate and part policy wonk as you understand the world of third-party non-governmental advocacy organizations,' the listing reads.

'You can work a room, tell Google's story in an elevator or from a podium and work with partner organizations on shared projects to advance Google's public policy goals.'

The ad suggests Google is working to push its agenda on Trump's administration when they take office, but a spokesman declined to comment, Bloomberg reports.

It comes after Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told the BBC last month that the U.S. was 'deeply divided' following Trump's presidential win.

Google is looking for a Washington D.C. based manager to work on its public policy team to help shape 'agendas with policy makers inside and outside government', according to the ad (pictured)

'As you can see the country is deeply divided so I tend to look forward,' he said.

'I think we need to figure out how to constructively engage with the new administration and hear the voices of people, as at Google we care about certain values.'

The job advert with Google calls on someone who has direct experience working with conservative groups, advocacy organizations, think tanks and foundations on issue campaigns or public policy.

The 'conservative' job at Google isn't new and the internet giant has hired in-the-know Republicans before, according to Bloomberg. The last policy manager had previously worked on Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012.
Donald Trump has been blasted as a 'diplomatic rookie' who must learn not to cross Beijing by Chinese state media, which warned the U.S. could pay dearly for his naivety.

The president-elect was attacked by Chinese newspapers this week, just days after he created potential diplomatic controversy by calling Taiwan and criticizing China's government.

Trump's protocol-shattering call with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen and a subsequent Twitter tirade against Beijing's policies could upend the delicate balance between the world's two largest economies, the country's media outlets said.

'Provoking friction and messing up China-US relations won't help "make America great again",' a front-page opinion piece in China's People's Daily said. The newspaper is a mouthpiece for the country's Communist Party.

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Donald Trump has been blasted as a 'diplomatic rookie' who must learn not to cross Beijing by Chinese state media, warning the U.S. could pay dearly for his naivety

The newspaper is a mouthpiece for the country's Communist Party.

The nationalist Global Times newspaper's Chinese edition also ran a page-one story on Trump's 'inability to keep his mouth shut', damning his 'provocation and falsehoods'.

Trump fired off two tweets on Sunday blasting China for devaluing its currency, taxing American imports, and building military installations in the South China Sea.

The comments followed criticism of Trump in the U.S. and Chinese media for taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that flew in the face of nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and raised questions about whether the president-elect intends to pursue a hard line against Beijing.

Official reaction from Beijing has been muted, but China often uses state media to telegraph its policy positions, sometimes employing rhetoric beyond the diplomatic pale.

The Global Times' English-language edition filled its opinion pages with editorials slamming Trump.

A newsstand vendor stands behind newspapers, including one with a story (foreground) about Donald Trump that reads: 'Trump's inability to keep his mouth shut is stunning'

Trump has been attacked in recent days in in China's People's Daily and the Global Times newspaper's Chinese edition. Pictured are Chinese papers on November 10 in Beijing.

A man buys a Chinese newspaper in Beijing on November 10 with a picture of Donald Trump on the cover

The often brittle, provocative publication is not considered 'official' media, but has close ties to the ruling party.

Noting that Sino-U.S. relations had reached a delicate equilibrium thanks to years of careful management, an editorial in the paper warned Trump: 'can make a lot of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game.'

It went on to add he 'doesn't have sufficient resources' to be provocative with China.

'Trump's China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it,' it said.

Trump angered Chinese officials by firing off these two tweets on Sunday, criticizing the government

'He is trying to pillage other countries for U.S. prosperity,' it warned, but instead he will unwittingly 'smash the current world economic order' of which the U.S. is the 'biggest beneficiary.'

A companion commentary warned Trump 'will in time learn not to cross China', threatening 'a fierce competition' with Beijing if the U.S. increases arm sales to Taiwan.

It was illustrated by an editorial cartoon showing an eagle throwing pebbles at a large, scowling panda.

Meanwhile the English-language China Daily newspaper warned Trump, a 'diplomatic rookie', needs to moderate his behavior or he will create 'costly troubles for his country'.

'As president-elect, Trump can expect some forgiveness even when he is shooting from the hip. But things will be different when he becomes president.'

Donald Trump took a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that angered China and upended nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol

EXPLAINING DONALD TRUMP'S CHINA CONTROVERSY Why is it such a big deal? China detests unpredictability. Its leaders have spent decades carefully constructing a relationship with the U.S. where neither side is too critical of the other, despite their very obvious differences. Trump threw a curve-ball by speaking to the president of Taiwan and by referring to her by her title. Beijing insists the island is a renegade province, not a country. His Twitter barrage against China also suggests he won't tone down the anti-China rhetoric he used during the election, which is a concern to the massive country. Can China hit back? Of course. It could make military or trade moves intended to cow Taiwan, but at the moment caution prevails. The state-run China Daily newspaper advocated a 'wait-and-see approach', while Chinese analysts have emphasized that the government's options are limited because Trump has not yet taken office. What is Trump up to? Much of the initial American reaction to Trump's conversation with Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen assumed it was improvised or accidental. Reports now suggest the call was long-planned by both sides. But whether Trump wants a wholesale change in U.S. policy on Taiwan is still unclear. What comes next? All eyes in China - or at least in the Communist Party leadership - are on Trump's picks for Secretary of State and ambassador to China. On Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to meet Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who has personal ties to China's president Xi Jinping and is reportedly a candidate to become the top U.S. diplomat in Beijing. Such a choice would lighten the mood in the People's Republic. For Secretary of State, options range from John Bolton - perceived to be a hardliner on China, to President Obama's former ambassador to Beijing Jon Huntsman, who speaks Mandarin and has an adopted Chinese daughter. Advertisement

During the presidential campaign, Trump frequently targeted China for fiscal and trade policies that he claimed cost the U.S. millions of jobs.

While China seems to have hoped the rhetoric was more bark than bite, initial signs suggests he will continue to take an aggressive line on the world's second largest economy.

Trump's decision to speak with Taiwan's president seems to have particularly rattled Beijing, which regards the democratically-ruled island of 23 million a renegade province, though it has its own legal and military systems and has not been under Beijing's control for more than 60 years.

'This call was no accident,' Trey McArver, analyst for China Politics Weekly, said.
It is a pub that has long been a favourite of prime ministers looking for a quiet pint.

But The Plough at Cadsden, in Buckinghamshire, has become a must-see for Chinese tourists after President Xi Jinping enjoyed a real ale and fish and chip supper at the pub with David Cameron during a state visit last year.

Now the pub has been bought by a Chinese investment firm looking to cash in on the popularity. The state-backed SinoFortone is said to have paid 2million for The Plough and will use it to inspire a chain of pubs across China, The Times reported.

Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoyed a real ale and fish and chip supper at The Plough at Cadsden, in Buckinghamshire, with David Cameron during a state visit last year, pictured

The pub has become a must-see for Chinese tourists in the months after the visit (pictured, the Wang family from Beijing last October). It has now been bought by a Chinese investment firm

Chinese firm SinoFortone is said to have paid 2million for The Plough, pictured, and will use it to inspire a chain of pubs across China. The 16th century pub was a favourite of the Camerons

The move could potentially introduce millions of new Chinese customers to one of Britain's most beloved cultural institutions.

Peter Zhang, managing director of SinoFortone, told The Times: 'We are so excited about this new adventure.

'The English pub concept is growing very fast in China, and it's the best way culturally to link people from different countries and build friendships.

'We see bigger opportunities and we believe we could also export the UK brand internationally.'

Mr Cameron brought President Xi to the pub, which is just minutes from Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence, in October last year.

Mr Xi sampled his long-awaited British fish and chips supper, and Mr Cameron - who paid for two pints of Greene King IPA with a 10 note - said the meal was very good.

Mr Cameron brought President Xi to the pub, which is just minutes from Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence, in October last year. Pictured, together at The Plough

Mr Xi sampled his long-awaited British fish and chips supper, and Mr Cameron - who paid for two pints of Greene King IPA with a 10 note - said the meal was very good

The then prime minister also joked with locals about the famous incident when he and his wife Samantha accidentally left daughter Nancy, then eight, behind at the pub after an afternoon out.

Just days after President Xi's visit to The Plough, Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, said the pub had become a 'household name in China'.
The head of the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota has asked thousands of protesters who joined the Native American tribe in their successful fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline to go home.

Dave Archambault, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, implored his allies in the fight against the $3.8billion pipeline  a coalition of civil libertarians, environmentalists, Hollywood stars, and US military veterans  to leave.

The Obama administration on Sunday denied the company constructing the pipeline permission to build the structure on its planned route. It encroaches on land and water resources that the tribe says is vital to its survival.

Archambault told Reuters that while he is appreciative of the Obama administration's decision, he realizes that it could be reversed once Donald Trump takes office on January 20.

Dave Archambault (above) is the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota

'The current administration did the right thing and we need to educate the incoming administration and help them understand the right decision was made,' he said.

Trump's transition team said on Monday it would review the decision to delay completion once he takes office January 20.

'That's something that we support construction of and we'll review the full situation when we're in the White House and make the appropriate determination at that time,' Trump spokesman Jason Miller said at a transition team news briefing.

Archambault said nothing would happen over the winter before Trump takes power, so protesters should leave.

Archambault is urging non-Sioux protesters (like those seen above) who set up camp to support the tribe's struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline to go home for the winter

Many had dug in for the harsh winter of the North Dakota plains, where a blizzard hit on Monday and 40 miles-per-hour winds rattled tipis and tents.

'We're thankful for everyone who joined this cause and stood with us,' he said.

'The people who are supporting us... they can return home and enjoy this winter with their families. Same with law enforcement. I am asking them to go.'

It was unclear if protesters would heed Archambault's call to leave the Oceti Sakowin camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

Hundreds of tribe members, activists and military veterans have marched in a show of solidarity against the Dakota Access Pipeline after Trump announced his support for the project and said he will revisit the decision to halt construction when he takes office.

A coalition of civil libertarians, military veterans, Hollywood activists, and indigenous peoples joined the Sioux to protest the planned route of the Dakota Access Pipeline

A heavy blizzard bore down on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota on Monday afternoon but did little to dissuade protesters from their mile-long walk to Backwater Bridge, which acts as a dividing line between the protest camp and pipeline construction site.

Protesters respected law enforcement's request that they stay south of the bridge - and indigenous elders met the group to enforce this instruction and asked the marchers to join them in prayer.

The company constructing the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, released a statement on Sunday night slamming the decision as politically motivated and alleging that President Obama's administration was determined to delay the matter until he leaves office.

On Monday, the government's deadline for the several hundred people at the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, encampment to leave the federal land came into effect.
A father who admitted to killing his baby daughter refused to get her medical help when she fell from a change table, a court has heard.

Seven-month-old Lily fell at the family's home in Ellenbrook, Perth, home after Paul James Cosgrove, 24, left her unattended while he disposed of a nappy in September last year.

She later died in hospital from her head injuries.

Paul James Cosgrove, 24, has pleaded guilty over the dead of his seven-month-old daughter, Lily, who fell off a change table unattended and died to her injuries

Earlier in the day, Cosgrove had fallen asleep with Lily on the couch before she fell to the floor and began vomiting, prosecutor Amanda Burrows told the West Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Lily was clearly unsettled and upset after that, but Cosgrove left her with a neighbour, claiming he had a job interview, but instead went to get a massage and bought some alcohol, Ms Burrows told the court.

He later picked Lily up from the neighbour and left her alone on the change table, returning to find her on the ground with her eyes flickering.

Cosgrove then again fell asleep with the baby, and tried to unsuccessfully to shake and slap her awake when he woke up.

Seven-month-old baby Lily died in September last year with head injuries

Cosgrove has a major depressive disorder and had stopped taking his medication a few weeks before the offence, and had just started taking it again a couple of days before Lily was injured, his counsel said

He drove Lily towards her grandparents' house for a birthday gathering, and in a phone call with his wife Emma, refused her pleas to take the baby to a doctor, instead deciding to return home.

Ms Burrows said there was no guarantee more urgent medical assistance could have saved Lily, but it could have given her a chance.

Defence counsel Jeremy Morris described it as a sad and sensitive case.

'Emotions are very raw,' he said.

Mr Morris said it was not a case of Cosgrove inflicting an injury on Lily, rather it was his neglect and failure to get her medical treatment in a timely manner.

He submitted that Cosgrove was remorseful and had never previously mistreated Lily.

Cosgrove has pleaded guilty to unlawfully killing the child through criminal negligence and failing in his duty of care

Cosgrove has a major depressive disorder and had stopped taking his medication a few weeks before the offence, and had just started taking it again a couple of days before Lily was injured, Mr Morris said.

'That gap may have impacted on his mental stability at the time,' he said.

'He was ill-equipped and immature to properly care for Lily.'

Justice Lindy Jenkins will sentence Cosgrove on December 20.

Family members were in court wearing shirts with a photo of Lily on them and also held signs that read 'your life mattered'.

They comforted each other with hugs as they left court.

Cosgrove has pleaded guilty to unlawfully killing the child through criminal negligence and failing in his duty of care.
A 15-year-old boy who is accused of murdering his classmate allegedly told a witness he had 'done something bad' and that he had 'stabbed a kid and cut his head off'.

Mathew Borges pleaded not guilty in Lawrence District Court in Massachusetts on Monday after being charged over the death of 16-year-old Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino.

The teenager is accused of stabbing Viloria-Paulino on November 18 before decapitating and mutilating his body, according to a police report filed in court.

Mathew Borges, 15, pictured, pleaded not guilty in Lawrence District Court in Massachusetts on Monday after being charged over the death of 16-year-old Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino

Viloria-Paulino's body was found near the Merrimack River in Lawrence on Thursday by a woman walking her dog.

Police recovered his head nearby. His forearms had also been cut off, but it was unclear if they were recovered.

Borges told police that he and Viloria-Paulino had gone to the river on November to smoke marijuana and they later parted ways. He said he last saw the victim alive.

But the police report also said Borges told a witness he had 'done something bad' and that he had 'stabbed a kid and cut his head off killing him' before he was arrested on Saturday.

Police said the motive for the killing is unclear and remains under investigation.

Evidence was recovered at Borges' home, according to police.

Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino (pictured), 16, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, was identified after a woman walking her dog discovered a decapitated body on Thursday afternoon

Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said at a news conference on Saturday that Viloria-Paulino's body was mutilated so badly it took 11 hours to carry out an autopsy.

'This was a horrific, horrific murder,' Blodgett said.

Both boys were sophomores at Lawrence High School.

Borges is being prosecuted as an adult and was denied bail during his first court appearance on Monday.

There was an 'extremely heavy police presence' throughout the brief appearance.

His lawyer, Edward Hayden, said Borges was a student in good standing with a part-time job.

But he said he didn't know enough about the case to comment other than to say Borges is 'holding up well as can be expected of someone facing this kind of charge'.

Borges is being held at a youth detention facility and is due back in court January 10.

Borges was held without bail after pleading not guilty at the brief arraignment Monday on a first-degree murder charge

Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said Mathew Borges (pictured on his Facebook page) was arrested over the alleged murder on Saturday morning

Police found a severed head nearby along the Merrimack River in Lawrence, Massachusetts

Viloria-Paulino's family has been critical of police, saying they at first said he was just a runaway and took too long to launch an investigation. Police have not yet commented in relation to that.

The 16-year-old was reported missing two weeks ago on November 18. His family frantically posted flyers and appealed for his return on social media before his body was found.

His family held a press conference at their home on Friday, the Boston Herald reported.

The teenager's aunt Christine Michaud told the newspaper: ' I want people to know that he wasn't just another (expletive) kid from Lawrence.'

Viloria-Paulino was last seen on November 18, and his family frantically posted flyers (pictured, his father along the river before Viloria-Paulino was identified on Friday)

Gustavo Paulino (center) and Ivelisse Cornielle (right), the grandparents of Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino, are pictured at a press conference

A woman who was walking her dog along the banks of the Merrimack River called the police after she made the grisly discovery (the scene is pictured above)

Lawrence Police Chief James Fitzpatrick said Viloria-Paulino's death was an isolated incident (pictured, authorities collecting evidence)

She said he was a good student who loved poetry, adding: 'He was a good boy, he loved his family, he helped others whenever they needed it... He is loved by so many.'

Michaud said that she and Viloria-Paulino ate dinner together, sharing a laugh and a hug before they parted ways the day he was last seen.

Fellow classmate Dalfry Lopez, 15, told the Boston Globe: 'I feel bad, because he was really friendly. Who would do something like that to him?'

Aerial footage showed two teams of detectives working in separate spots along the Merrimack River on Thursday and Viloria-Paulino's relatives were on the scene.

Family members mourned their loss after the high school sophomore was identified on Friday.
Authorities have launched the hunt for a 'contract killer' suspected of shooting an off-duty correction officer in New York, police sources told the New York Daily News.

Alastasia Bryan, 25, was shot Sunday night while sitting in a car outside a home in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The driver's side window was riddled with at least five bullet holes, and Bryan was found with gunshot wounds to her head and torso before she was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Authorities have launched the hunt for a contract killer suspected of shooting an off-duty correction officer Alastasia Bryan, 25

She was shot Sunday night while sitting in a car outside a home in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn and pronounced dead at the scene

Police found security video that showed the suspect sitting in a vehicle and waiting for about an hour before Bryan got into her car, sources told the Daily News (pictured, Bryan's car)

Bryan was shot in the chest, stomach, arm and hand while she was making a phone call inside her car parked near Avenue L and E 73rd Street around 9.15pm on Sunday, sources told the Daily News.

Police found security video that showed the suspect sitting in a vehicle and waiting for about an hour before Bryan got into her car, sources told the Daily News.

The gunman shot through the driver side window five times and left Bryan dead at the scene before he fled.

Police are searching for a gray or beige Honda Civic, sources told the newspaper.

Sources said the suspect is believed to be an inmate at Rikers Island, where Bryan had just started working at the medium-security facility, Anna M Kross Center, a month ago.

Bryan had recently graduated from the City Correction Academy and worked largely as an administrator, with sources saying it was unlikely she had the opportunity to make enemies with any inmates, the Daily News reported.

Investigators suspect a Rikers Island inmate put a hit out on her, according to the outlet.

Her ex-boyfriend had been arrested 31 times and was involved with two domestic incidents with Bryan back in 2015, the Daily News reported.

Sources said the suspect is believed to be an inmate a Rikers Island, where Bryan had just started working at the medium-security facility, Anna M Kross Center, a month ago

Her ex-boyfriend had been arrested 31 times and was involved with two domestic incidents with Bryan back in 2015, the Daily News reported. Pictured, a candlelight vigil held for Bryan

He threatened to run her off the road on one occasion and accelerated after she got off work in May 2015, according to the Daily News.

Two days later, he said he would shoot up her house and threatened to kill her, sources told the Daily News.

Police are looking into questioning him, according to the newspaper.

The Correction Officers' Benevolent Association issued a statement saying the correction family is 'shocked and grieving the horrific murder' of Bryan.
An American tourist died while camping with his girlfriend during the trip of a lifetime in Australia, after lighning hit a tree near their tent.

Sam Beattie, 24, of New York, was traveling with his partner Michele Segalla, 23, during a gap year. The pair were camping at the top of Mount Warning, near Byron Bay in New South Wales when lightning struck early on Tuesday morning.

Police believe the lightning first hit their tent, then touched Beattie's feet, killing him instantly. Segalla, who suffered head and neck injuries, spent three hours next to Beattie's body, crying as she waited for help.

Two teenage hikers on the mountain heard Segalla crying shortly after lightning struck around 3: 50 am, the Herald Sun reported. One hiker went for help while another performed CPR, to no avail.

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American tourist Sam Beattie (pictured), 24, was killed when he was hit by lightning while camping on Mount Warning, New South Wales on Tuesday morning

Beattie (left) and his partner, Michelle Segalla (right), 23, had been travelling around Australia for a gap year. They had flown to Sydney eight weeks ago with five bags

The couple, who were travelling around Australia in a van, had already visited Stradbroke Island, Point Lookout and Rainbow Beach and had recently arrived in Byron Bay

Beattie and Segalla (pictured together left and right) had both studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain, in 2013. They had both been hired at music deals website Popmarket in October

Segalla (pictured with Beattie in New York) graduated from Fordham University with a 3.503 GPA in 2015 and interned at UBS before working at Davidson Kempner Capital Management

Segalla was taken to Murwillumbah Hospital with head and neck injuries and in a state of shock, while Beattie's body has been retrieved from the mountain, according to the Tweed Daily News.

The couple were eight weeks into a gap year trip that took them around Australia in a van. Beattie, a University Of Denver grad, and Segalla, a Fordham University alum, had both been hired at music deals website Popmarket in October, respetively as a customer service representative and analyst.

Beattie's father arrived in the country on Tuesday afternoon during a pre-booked trip and was informed of his son's death.

Emergency services were called to the Wollumbin National Park near Murwillumbah on the New South Wales north coast around 4:50 am.

Tweed Byron LAC detective Superintendent Wayne Starling said lighting struck a tree adjoining the couple's tent and Beattie 'was killed pretty much instantly'.

'It appears the lightning may have touched the male's feet in the tent and sadly it killed him,' he said.

He described the incident as 'extraordinary circumstances' and said Segalla was very lucky to be alive.

Beattie shared this photo of himself with Segalla eight weeks ago, writing in the caption that they had packed their lives into five bags and were leaving for Sydney

Officials believe the lightning struck Beattie and Segalla's tent before touching Beattie's feet, killing him instantly. Pictured is Mount Warning taken in during a storm in 2013

Segalla was taken to Murwillumbah Hospital with head and neck injuries and in a state of shock, while Beattie's body was retrieved. Pictured is the rescue crew

More than 35 people were involved in the rescue operation on Mount Warning (file picture). Beattie's father arrived in the country on Tuesday afternoon during a pre-booked trip

Emergency services (pictured) were called to the Wollumbin National Park near Murwillumbah on the New South Wales north coast around 4:50 am

Beattie's LinkedIn profile states he was employed remotely at Popmarket. He had previously worked at UBS as a market risk analyst, and had interned IPS. Beattie, a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity since 2010, had previous marketing experience, having received a Bachelor's degree in finance and economics.

In 2013, Beattie had traveled to Sevilla, Spain, to study international finance. He had listed international travel and adventure as part of his interests on LinkedIn, as well as alpine skiing, waterboarding, hiking and 1970s classic rock.

An Instagram video of Beattie attests of his adventurous character and shows him with his foot in a splint, sliding down a waterfall at Currumbin Waters in Queensland. 'Yeah doc, staying off it as much as I can...' he wrote in the caption.

Beattie had posted a photo of himself having a glass of wine with Segalla just a week ago, on the Goald Coast.

Segalla graduated from Fordham University with a 3.503 GPA in 2015, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had spent a semester abroad in Sevilla, Spain in 2013 - the same year as Beattie.

There, she studied international business and culture. Segalla had previously interned at UBS and later worked at Davidson Kempner Capital Management in New York City, then at finance advisor Duff & Phelps. Segalla joined Popmarket in October, the same month as Beattie.

The pair had embarked on a trip to Australia for a gap year. Beattie had posted a picture on Instagram of their bags, as well as a selfie of them on the plane with their neck pillows.

'Fit our lives into 5 bags (minus 2 neck pillows). Next stop, Sydney!' Beattie wrote in the caption.

The pair landed Queensland's Gold Coast early last month. They had visited Stradbroke Island, Point Lookout and Rainbow Beach and had recently arrived in Byron Bay.

Segalla was placed in the care of a 'support network', an emergency services chaplain told the Gold Coast Bulletin. She had minor injuries and her hair was burnt by the heat of the lightning.

A spokesperson from the NSW State Emergency Service confirmed there were volunteers from the Tweed Heads, Tweed Coast and Murwillumbah units on the scene

The Bureau of Meteorology said the immediate threat of severe thunderstorms had passed NSW but would continue to be monitored

Two teenage hikers from Queensland tried to assist with resuscitating Beattie for more than an hour Tuesday, Starling said.

'It was traumatic circumstances but they did their best,' he said.

Starling said 35 emergency services workers from National Parks and Wildlife Services, Rural Fire Service, NSW Ambulance, SES and police were involved in the rescue operation.

A spokesperson from the NSW State Emergency Service confirmed to Daily Mail Australia there were volunteers from the Tweed Heads, Tweed Coast and Murwillumbah units on the scene.

At about 9:20 am emergency services officers were ascending the summit of Mt Warning by foot with conditions not suitable for an air rescue, the Tweed Daily News reported.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the immediate threat of severe thunderstorms had passed NSW but would continue to be monitored.
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced during a visit to Japan today that the US will hand over 10,000 acres of land on a Japanese island to the country's government before President Obama leaves office.

Currently, the US controls the land - known as the Northern Training Area - on the island of Okinawa. It is used by the Marine Corps for jungle warfare training.

That training area will now be returned to the Japanese, Carter declared Monday - just one day before the 75th anniversary of the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor.

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US Defense Secretary Ash Carter shakes hands with Japanese minister Kenji Wakamiya. Carter confirmed today that the US would hand over 10,000 acres of land in Okinawa to Japan

Carter's announcement came just before the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred on Dec 7, 1941

The US took over Okinawa after WWII, but returned much of it in 1972. It will now return the Northern Training Area to the Japanese, but retain its other bases

Many were upset by the announcement that the US would return the land to Japan. This user said 'Why? 2 words Pearl Harbor..never forget'

Carter made the announcement during a meeting with Japanese minister Kenji Wakamiya on the deck of the helicopter carrier Izumo, harbored in Yokosuka Naval Base in the city of Yokosuka.

The handover will be largest area of land to be given up by the US military in Japan since they handed back control of Okinawa in 1972.

Okinawa, located more than 960 miles southwest of Tokyo, is now mostly under Japanese control, but has three US bases as well as the Northern Training Area.

The Japanese government has said it will build six helicopter landing zones and access roads, so that US forces can continue to train and operate in the area after the handover.

And US forces are expected to continue administrating the area, in the conclusion to a handover that has been in discussion since the 1990s.

A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity said: 'It will be a positive development for the alliance, demonstrating the commitment of both governments to the realignment of US forces.'

But while the alliance between countries may be strengthened, many online were displeased by the announcement.

'Why?' asked @talange92, '2 words Pearl Harbor..never forget'.

And @ShlomoAbaddon said 'F**k no! Too many Americans died fighting for that land. The US should lease that land to Japan.'

'Oh, look,' @Garyius fumed, 'Obama wants to harm our defense in the Far East before he leaves office. Will he bow to Japan and China again?

This user argued that the loss of American life in the taking of the island meant the US had a right to keep it and lease it out rather than giving it back

Another Twitter user complained that the move would weaken US defense in East Asia - although the US is retaining its bases and will continue to oversee the land

The US entered the Second World War after Japan launched an unprovoked strike on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack.

During the resulting conflict, the US captured Okinawa island and, afterward, the nearby Ryukyu islands.

Japan then remained under US control during the military occupation until 1952.

After that, the American military retained possession of Okinawa until June 17, 1972 with numerous Army, Marine Corps and US Air Force bases there.

Carter's meeting occurred on this carrier, in Yokosuka Naval Base. The land was taken from Japan after WWII. This will be the biggest handover since Okinawa was returned in 1972

Osprey aircraft at US Marine Camp Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa. The death of a Japanese woman at the hands of a US base civilian worker also sparked anti-US sentiment this year

The official relationship between the US and Japan has improved enormously since the Second World War.

However, resentment remains between some in both countries: among Americans for the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, and among Japanese for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the continued presence of US military.

Yesterday the White House announced that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama later this month, causing consternation among some.

And White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday also shocked many when he talked about 'personally embittered' WWII veterans.

'So yes, there may be some who feel personally embittered, but I'm confident that many will set aside their own personal bitterness, not because they're personally satisfied by the words of the prime minister but because they recognize how important this moment is for the United States,' he said.

He added: 'And that's certainly why they qualify to be described as the Greatest Generation.'

On the Japanese side, anger over the US military presence surged earlier this year after an American civilian working at a US base, Kenneth Franklin, was arrested over the murder of a 20-year-old Japanese woman, Rina Shimabukuro.

Japanese aircraft attacked the US Pacific fleet on December 7, 1941 killing 2,400 people

On his visit to Pearl Harbor, Abe will be joined by President Obama, who seven months ago traveled to Hiroshima to pay tribute to the 140,000 people killed there by a US atomic bomb in 1945.

Speaking through an interpreter, Abe said his visit is meant to serve as a message that, 'We must never again repeat the devastation of war.'

The importance of the visits may be mostly symbolic for two countries that, in a remarkable transformation, have grown into close allies in the decades since they faced off in brutal conflict.

At the same time, it's significant that it took more than 70 years for US-Japanese relations to get to this point.

The two gestures of reconciliation are in some ways an attempt to sweep out the final ghosts of the war.

Narushige Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo said: 'Despite the amicable relationship that the two countries have enjoyed since the end of the Pacific War, deep-rooted negative sentiment has remained in both countries.

'The Obama-Abe joint visit to Pearl Harbor will change this.'
groomed the women by offering them support

A psychiatric nurse allegedly raped two women at a hospital with one of them heavily sedated when he hopped in her bed.

The nurse, 48, has been charged with seven counts of rape and six of indecent assault for offences against two patients last year.

It is alleged the psychiatric nurse, working at Northpark Private Hospital in Bundoora, Victoria, raped one of the women for the first time in May 2015 after giving her a heavy sedative.

It is alleged the psychiatric nurse, working at Northpark Private Hospital (pictured) in Bundoora, Victoria, raped one of the women for the first time in May 2015 after giving her a heavy sedative

A psychiatric nurse allegedly raped two women at a hospital with one of them heavily sedated when he hopped in her bed (stock image)

The nurse, a married father-of-two, was reported to Northpark nurse unit manager Noreen McConville on August 14, 2015.

He was later stood down.

Evidence was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

At the County Court on Monday, Josh Taaffe, the nurse's lawyer, indicated he would argue the sex was consensual.

The nurse groomed the women by offering them help beyond his required duties, it is alleged.

Both were allegedly raped at the hospital. One woman was also raped at a public toilet, and another at his house, it is alleged.

The alleged offences occurred between March and August 2015. The patients did not know each other.

The nurse is set to appear in court again on July 28, 2017, before a trial in September.
The family of an EU official's teenage daughter who was allegedly raped and murdered by an Afghan migrant in Germany has asked for well-wishers to donate money to a refugee charity.

Medical student Maria Ladenburger, who had also taken time out to help asylum seekers as a volunteer, was found dead in a river in the south-western German university city of Freiburg in October.

The first picture has since emerged of Hussein K., the 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker who was arrested on suspicion of the rape and murder after a hair matching the alleged perpetrator was found at the crime scene.

As the 19-year-old student's family tries to come to terms with their loss, they have asked for donations to be made to an organisation that aids refugees.

Maria, 19, worked in her spare time in the ancient university city of Freiburg helping out the migrants in various shelters and homes. But in October, as she cycled home after a party, she was ambushed, raped and then drowned in a river.

Hussein K. (right), 17, has been linked by his DNA to the murder of Maria Ladenburger (left), 19, a medical student whose father is a legal adviser to the European Commission in Brussels

In October, as she cycled home after a party, she was ambushed, raped and then drowned in Dreisam river (pictured)

In an obituary published in a German daily newspaper, Maria's family wrote: 'For 19 years Maria was a ray of sunshine for our family and it will stay that way. We are grateful for this gift of her life with us, and we are certain that she is safe now with God.'

The family writes that with 'a heavy heart, but at the same time with firm hope we say farewell to our dearest beloved daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece and cousin.'

But as well as the message of farewell, the Ladenburger family asked for donations to a few charities.

As well as a project of the Catholic Church in Bangladesh they point at a student initiative in Freiburg. The organisation, called 'weitblick' ('wide view'), writes on their website that they support refugees and asylum seekers with family sponsorships.

They make regular excursions and activities with asylum seekers and also look after a small multilingual library on site. The organisation also gives courses to pupils to educate them about the issues of refugees and migration.

The killing has sparked frenzied new waves of hatred and fear of refugees.

Even the boss of the country's police union said her death would have been prevented had the open door asylum-seeker policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel been less lax than it is.

The killing of 19-year-old Maria Ladenburger (pictured) has enraged people in Freiburg

Maria worked in her spare time in the ancient university city of Freiburg helping out the migrants in various shelters and homes

There has been little or no vetting of refugees pouring into the country.

The killing is the biggest jolt to Mrs Merkel's plans for integration since the frenzied sexual assaults of New Year's Eve in Cologne when mobs of immigrant men sexually molested and robbed hundreds of defenceless women.

The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been quick to piggyback on Hussein K.'s arrest to highlight what it says are the dangers of unregulated immigration. It calls Maria a 'victim of Merkel's welcome culture.'

Hussein K. was born in Ghazni in Afghanistan and came to Germany as an illegal unaccompanied minor in November 2015.

In numerous posts on the Internet he liked to present himself in the guise of a gangsta rapper: hair slicked back with gel, jogging pants and training shoes.

On Facebook, before the killing of Maria on October 16, he wore his hair long but it was cut back after the crime.

A single strand of it was found at the crime scene but he left other traces of his DNA behind too.

Another disturbing photo he posted on his Facebook page in June shows a wolfman clutching a young maiden in his arms

Another disturbing photo he posted on his Facebook page in June shows a wolfman clutching a young maiden in his arms.

Detectives on the 60 strong murder squad are still probing the possibility that he knew Maria through her work with refugees.

Her family, in an obituary notice after her cruel death, asked for people to donate money to charities, including those which work with migrants.

At the time of her murder Hussein K. was still 16. Her body was found in the Dreisam River less than one mile from the student accommodation where she lived.

Intensive scrutiny of CCTV cameras in the town coupled with the DNA evidence at the scene led to his arrest on Friday last week.

He is on remand in a juvenile jail where he will be held until his trial expected early next year.
Google has removed 'are Jews evil?' from its autocomplete suggestions after a media report alerted the company to the anti-Semitic search entry.

Googles autocomplete feature attempts to guess what a user is going to search after typing one or more words into the site's search bar or address bar if the default browser is Chrome.

When the phrase 'are Jews' was typed into Google, the search engine suggested, among a number of choices, 'are Jews evil?'

Results brought up anti-Semitic websites, blogs and articles such as 'Top 10 major reasons why people hate Jews'.

Users were shocked when typing 'are Jews' into a Google search bar returned the result 'are Jews evil?'

For 'are women' results again suggested 'evil' and for 'are Muslims' it suggested 'bad', reported an Observer article.

As of Tuesday, the searches for Jews and women no longer returned with those results, but the 'are Muslims bad' autocomplete did come up.

A Google spokesman said: 'We took action within hours of being notified on Friday of the autocomplete results.'

A further statement read: 'Autocomplete predictions are algorithmically generated based on users search activity and interests.

'Users search for such a wide range of material on the web  15 per cent of searches we see every day are new.

'Because of this, terms that appear in autocomplete may be unexpected or unpleasant.

'We do our best to prevent offensive terms, like porn and hate speech, from appearing, but we acknowledge that autocomplete isnt an exact science and were always working to improve our algorithms.'

This is not the first time that Google has had questionable search suggestions come up from its autocomplete algorithm.

In April this year, Google apologized after a search of 'unprofessional hairstyles at work' resulted in pictures of mostly black women while 'professional hairstyles' featured white women.

This is not the first time Google has had autocorrect search problems. In May 2015, Google Maps searches for the n-word brought up the White House

Within Google Photos, an auto-suggested photo tag labelled two black teenagers as 'Gorillas' in July 2015. Google apologized and said it was working on 'longer term fixes' around recognizing dark-skinned faces and the linguistics of photo labels.

In May 2015, Google issued an apology after searches of the 'n-word' were shown to find the White House in Google Maps, the Huffington Post showed.

When searches for 'n***** house' and 'n***** king' were typed into Google Maps, the residence of President Barack Obama appeared as the primary search result or one of the top three.

Google said in a statement: 'Our search results are a reflection of the content across the web. This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of sensitive subject matter online can affect what search results appear for a given query'

Google did not explain why the results occurred but a spokesperson said: 'Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offence this may have caused.'
A university was evacuated after it received 'threatening email' mentioning violence.

At least five buildings at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology city campus were evacuated and closed about 2.20pm on Tuesday.

It comes after bomb hoaxes throughout Australia and New Zealand last Friday which resulted in evacuations and police inspections, The Age reported.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (pictured to the right) was evacuated on Tuesday

Students who were to sit exams in the affected buildings had their tests rescheduled.

RMIT re-opened buildings 11, 13, 55, 56 and 57 to staff and students via swipe card access on Tuesday night.

In a statement, the university said: 'From tomorrow (December 7), the buildings will be operational. Victoria Police is investigating the matter.

'RMIT regrets any inconvenience that the closures may have caused but we take health and safety very seriously.'
Pentagon chiefs have been accused of 'burying' a report which showed they wasted $125billion, because they feared it would prompt Congress to slash the defense budget.

In January 2015, the Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work commissioned a study to look at various options to cut costs and improve efficiency.

The Department of Defense's total budget is $580billion and amounts to 16 per cent of all federal spending.

But when the findings highlighted widespread bureaucratic waste and overspending on staff, the report was shelved, sources told the Washington Post.

The report highlighted some shocking figures - the Pentagon employs 1,014,000 people to do back-office work. That is almost as many as the 1,300,000 service personnel on active duty, the lowest figure since 1940.

The evidence will help back up calls by Donald Trump to cut 'government waste and budget gimmicks' when he gets into office.

Pentagon chiefs have been accused of 'burying' a report which showed they wasted $125billion, because they feared it would prompt Congress to slash the defense budget

But he did say he would be increasing the defense spending budget.

The report, by the Defense Business Board, said $75billion could be saved over five years simply by renegotiating contracts and hiring cheaper workers.

It also said that twice as much could be saved if more aggressive productivity targets were adopted.

In the end the full board of the Pentagon voted to recommend a third option, which would have saved $125billion.

This sum would be the equivalent of the operating expenses of 50 army brigades.

The plan would have reduced the staff payroll through early retirements and post closures and cut costs by better use of information technology and reducing reliance of expensive contractors.

But it was mysteriously shelved by Mr Work, a former Under Secretary of the Navy.

Mr Work told the Washington Post: 'There is this meme that we're some bloated, giant organization. Although there is a little bit of truth in that... it vastly overstates what's really going on.'

He said the Defense Business Board misunderstood how difficult it was to eliminate federal civil service jobs or renegotiate defense contracts.

The report said the drive to save money lost impetus after Ash Carter (pictured at a naval base near Tokyo on Tuesday with Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force officers) took over as Defense Secretary

Mr Work said the Pentagon did finally accept some of the report's recommendations and estimated it would shave $30billion off its budget by 2020.

The Post said efficiency and saving money had been a key strategy under Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel but in February 2015 he was replaced by Ash Carter, who had other priorities such as strengthening the Pentagon's relationships with high-tech firms.

Of the over a million office workers, 448,000 are civilian employees and 268,000 are contractors.

Bobby L. Stein, who served as chairman of the Defense Business Board, told the Post: 'They're all complaining that they don't have any money. We proposed a way to save a ton of money.

'We're going to be in peril because we're spending dollars like it doesn't matter.'
A university student drowned while holidaying with his cousins in Turkey after going for a swim in the sea during a boat trip and getting into difficulties, an inquest heard.

Subhan Khan, 19, from Solihull, was a 'strong swimmer' but was pulled lifeless from the water in the Aegean coastal resort of Altinkum and later died in hospital.

An inquest into his death was held at Birmingham Coroner's Court yesterday.

Tragic: Subhan Khan, 19, from Solihull, drowned while holidaying with his cousins in Turkey

It heard that the business and commerce university student was on holiday with three cousins when tragedy struck on May 18 this year.

His father, Nazakit Khan, said his son had phoned him the day before he died.

'He just sounded so happy and told me he was really enjoying himself,' he said. 'He said he had planned to go on a boat trip the following day. He was just his usual happy self.

'Subhan was a strong swimmer in swimming pools but it was the first time he had been in the sea on that holiday.'

Uzayr Arif, one of the cousins, told the inquest how the four men had enjoyed breakfast before heading out on the boat trip at around 10am.

An inquest into his death was held at Birmingham Coroner's Court (pictured) yesterday

The boat had been travelling for half an hour when it anchored up, and those on board were offered the opportunity to swim.

'We had gone into the sea together,' said Mr Arif. 'It was very calm conditions and there were no currents.

'Subhan was swimming fine, he was a good swimmer.

A coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure

'After about five minutes I told Subhan I was going back on the boat, which I did.

'Shortly after, I heard people shouting and panicking then I saw Subhan being pulled onto a speedboat, which then headed for shore.'

Mr Khan, from Wineford Croft, was taken to hospital in Altinkum but it is believed he was declared dead on arrival.

Mr Arif said the sea was not cold and was still, with no currents. A post-mortem examination found Mr Khan died from drowning.

Pathologist Dr Adrian Young carried out tests on the student's body and discovered a small bruise above his right eyebrow, but did not believe it was significant in his death.

Emma Brown, coroner for Birmingham and Solihull, recorded a verdict of misadventure.

'It is a tragic loss,' she said. 'This was a young man who had gone on a trip with friends and had been enjoying himself.
A doctor in central China discovered a cockroach in a female patient's ear after she came in complaining of pain and discomfort.

The crusty insect was still alive and appeared to be moving its legs during the inspection.

The woman, from Huaihua city, had to be anaesthetised in order for the doctor to remove the offending creature.

Brutal: A doctor in central China discovered a cockroach in a female patient's ear after she came in complaining of pain and discomfort

Inside her: The doctor, after checking her ear with an endoscope, pulled the roach through her ear canal and back into the outside world

The shocking footage of the treatment showed the moment the doctor pulled the live organism from her ear.

Not for the faint of heart, the footage shows the doctor plucking the cockroach out with a pair of tweezers and pulling it through the woman's long, hairy ear canal.

The woman, surnamed Liao, told Hunan TV: 'Something flew into my ear. It kept buzzing. I tried to touch it with my hands.

'I could sense something inside, but I could't touch it. Its wings were flipping and it hit my ear.

'It's very painful.'

The doctor speculated that food left by the woman's bed may have contributed to the cockroach being attracted towards the woman's ear.

Her eardrum remained red and swollen after the operation.
The mayor of Oakland was booed and jeered at a vigil last night for those who died in the warehouse fire after being accused of 'victim blaming'.

Hundreds of people gathered for the candle-light vigil in Oakland's Lake Merrit to honour the 36 people who died in the blaze at an artists' enclave.

Those in the crowd were seen embracing as well as laying floral tributes and chanting aloud the names of people they lost in the inferno.

The mayor of Oakland was booed and jeered at a vigil for those who died in the warehouse fire after being accused of 'victim blaming'

Hundreds of people gathered for the candle-light vigil last night in Oakland's Lake Merrit to honour the 36 people who died in the blaze

One man even held up a sign offering 'free hugs'.

But the memorial turned into a political confrontation when Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf began to address the crowd.

Schaaf had already come under fire as previous speakers at the vigil had urged the city of Oakland to protect 'warehouse' residences where some people have apparently been forced to live due to skyrocketing housing prices.

The memorial briefly turned into a political confrontation when Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf began to address the crowd as was booed. She is pictured at the warehouse on Sunday

She had also been criticized for emphasizing the warehouse's code violations in the immediate aftermath of the fire instead of addressing the need for affordable housing.

And as she began addressing the vigil, NBC reported that some started shouting 'stop victim blaming' and 'step down' as she took the microphone.

This lead to one of the vigil organizers having to step in to ask people to be respectful.

But Schaaf said: 'It's OK. It's OK. This city is going to go through a lot of emotions, and one of those is anger, and that is my job to hear that.

'As we move forward right now, our focus has to be on those who we know are lost and those we are going to learn have been lost,' she said, according to NBC.

But after she resumed her speech, which was captured on camera, the crowd shouted her down once again, hurling a barrage of abuse at her.

Schaaf, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Oakland in November 2014 after being endorsed by Governor of California Jerry Brown.

Tex Allen offers hugs for mourners during a vigil in memory of victims of the Oakland warehouse fire that killed 36 people

Hundreds of people turned up at the vigil and held candles and signs in honour of the fire victims

She had previously served on Oakland City Council for four years and has also worked as an attorney.

Since she took office the city has become one of the most expensive housing markets in the country after tech firms such as Uber moved to the area.

Just last month, she gave an interview with the San Francisco Business Journal about how she planned to tackle the housing crisis.

She said: '(We are working to) create some significant new funding sources for affordable housing development as well as one of our big strategies for preventing displacement, which is to acquire existing housing where low-income families are already living and make those permanently affordable.'

Meanwhile today, it appears the search for those killed in the fire appeared to be coming to an end as authorities confirmed they didn't believe any additional bodies would be found.

A woman cries and prays during a vigil honoring those who died. Police are still investigating what caused the fire

It appears the search for those killed in the fire appeared to be coming to an end as authorities confirmed they didn't believe any additional bodies would be found

Officials said they would turn next to investigating the fire, which erupted late Friday during a dance party. It's unclear how it started.

The district attorney Nancy O'Malley warned of possible murder charges as she determines whether there were any crimes linked to the blaze.

She said: 'We owe it to the community and those who perished in this fire, and those who survived the fire to be methodical, to be thorough, and to take the amount of time it takes to be able to look at every piece of potential evidence.'

It comes as Alameda County sheriff's spokesman Sergeant Ray Kelly said that some of the victims texted relatives, 'I'm going to die,' and 'I love you.'
Four men have been arrested following the murder of a pregnant woman at a wedding in India - where it is alleged she was shot after refusing to dance with a drunken guest.

A picture has emerged of one of the accused with a shotgun over his shoulder and holding a handgun.

Kulwinder Kaur, 22, was killed while performing in a dance troupe at the wedding in Bathinda, in the south of Punjab, on Saturday.

Suspect: Sanjay Goyal, posing with two weapons allegedly used in the killing, is one of four men arrested in connection with the murder

The prime suspect, India Today reports, has been identified by authorities as Lucky Goyal, while Sanjay Goyal is alleged to be the owner of the weapons used.

A picture of the latter shows him carrying two guns.

Also arrested were the groom's father, Narinder Kumar, and venue owner Jagsir Singh.

A revolver and a rifle were seized by police, and it is alleged that Lucky Goyal shot the dancer after he was not allowed to dance with her.

Kulvinder, who was two months pregnant, was shot in the head, and horrific video has emerged of her killing.

The long barrel of the gun suddenly emerges in the foreground as Kulvinder (right, in the white dress) dances with other members of her troupe

The gunman appears to take aim at Kulvinder seconds before the blast

Kulvinder Kaur (pictured) worked as a dancer and choreographer, mainly at weddings

Her husband, Rajinder Singh, said she worked as a dancer and choreographer, performing mainly at weddings.

Mr Singh claimed the killer, who was a friend of the groom, had got drunk at the party and got angry when he and his friends were told they were not allowed on stage to dance with Kulvinder and her troupe.

He told NDTV: 'They had been asking her to get off the stage and join them... but she refused... so they shot her.'

A video of the incident, which was taken on a mobile phone, shows Kulvinder - in a white dress - and three other women dancing on stage.

Panic ensues as Kulvinder collapses to the floor after being shot at almost point blank range

Suddenly the silhouette of a long gun emerges in the foreground and appears to be pointed straight at Kulvinder. Seconds later she collapses to the ground, having been hit at virtually point blank range.

But the Times of India suggested the killing in the suburb of Maur Mandi may have been an accident, due to celebratory firing.

The case has fuelled the debate on India's gun problem as firing in the air during weddings and other celebrations is customary in parts of north India, claiming many lives every year.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Swapan Sharma, said: 'A case has been registered against four people which includes the owner of the venue, a family member, the person who carried the gun and the shooter.

'The gun is owned by Sanjay Goyal, son of Vijay Goyal, who is a local politician. Sanjay was also present at the crime scene,' he said.

Superintendent Sharma said: 'Raids are being conducted to find the shooter and the close family members are being interrogated.'

Kulvinder's family said the groom was the son of an important local politician and they claimed the police only reluctantly began an investigation after they protested in the streets.

Nobody present in the hall is willing to talk on the issue but nobody can get away with murder Lalitha Kumaramangalam

National Commission for Women chief Lalitha Kumaramangalam told Times Now: 'Nobody present in the hall is willing to talk on the issue but nobody can get away with murder.'

It is not clear who took the footage, which was captured on a mobile phone camera and later emerged online.

In 1999 a model, Jessica Lal, was shot dead at point blank when she refused to serve a drink to a man at a party in Haryana state.
Sydney residents have been urged to be wary of measles after a person was struck down with the highly contagious disease.

The Public Health Unit of the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD) issued the warning to alert the public about the symptoms.

The person had recently arrived from overseas and was staying in the Sydney CBD between November 26 and December 4.

Sydneysiders have been warned to be aware of the symptoms of Measles after an adult was diagnosed with the highly contagious disease. Pictured is a symptom of the disease

The person Sydney Hospital emergency department, several GP clinics in Sydney and Darlinghurst and a coffee shop in Ultimo while carrying the infection.

Symptoms of the airbone virus include fever, sore eyes and a cough followed by a red, blotchy rash three to four days later.

Parents of infants or others who are not fully vaccinated against measles have been urged to be on the lookout for symptoms.

Dr Catherine Bateman-Steel from the SESLHD said anyone who has visited the same locations as the infected person should be aware of the symptoms.

'The measles virus is highly contagious and is spread through the air by someone who is unwell with the disease,' Dr Bateman-Steel said.

'Please call ahead to your doctor or emergency department so that arrangements can be made to keep you away from others to minimise the risk of infection,' she said.
An 'unscrupulous' former police officer who conned a string of victims out of 1m before splurging the money on flash cars, exotic holidays and a luxury wedding is facing jail.

Ben Staff, 35, used his reputation as an experienced PC to fleece victims out of tens of thousands of pounds through bogus building and property development deals.

The father-of-two then splashed the money on his luxury lifestyle, including a BMW, an Audi A6 and exotic holidays. He also used the money to bankroll his wedding to his policewoman wife, before renovating his house.

Ben Staff (left in 2008 and right this week with his wife Catriona), 35, used his reputation as an experienced police officer to fleece victims out of tens of thousands of pounds through bogus building and property development firms

As his convictions at two separate trials was revealed, a top detective said the 'arrogant' conman, who served with Norfolk Police between 2001 and 2008, had believed he was 'untouchable'.

Detective Inspector Liz Fernandes said: 'Staff was unscrupulous and has no morals. He was nothing but a conman who manipulated his victims for financial gain.'

During the first trial, King's Lynn Crown Court was told how, after leaving Norfolk Police, Staff set up a number of building ventures before siphoning clients' money through his personal accounts.

At the same time, he used his business account to write more than 50 cheques worth nearly 350,000 to building suppliers, despite knowing he did not have the funds available.

Police launched an investigation in 2012 after a complaint was made that he owed money to a construction firm.

After the complaint was passed onto the Eastern Region Serious and Organised Crime Unit (ERSOU), more victims came forward with similar allegations.

But the case was not taken further because evidence did not show he had breached trading standard laws. He was finally arrested in February 2014 and, as he was investigated for fraud, Staff continued to set up new businesses.

Ahead of his first trial, the conman set up two companies, Blac Construction and UK Living Solutions.

In total, the brazen officer put 653,000 worth of his business money through his personal accounts and also defrauded creditors of one of his companies, Mr Trades Ltd, of 198,000.

Prosecutor David Wilson said that, between November 2011 and July 2014, Staff also swindled the taxman out of 130,000 by claiming VAT refunds on invoices when the payments had not been made.

The father-of-two (pictured with his wife) then splashed the money on a BMW, an Audi A6, renovating his home, and exotic holidays

He was found guilty of a string of offences, but the convictions could not be reported until a second trial was concluded.

During that trial, Norwich Crown Court heard how one of Staff's victims Alan Sexton gave the officer 140,000 to invest in a company called Morpheus Homes.

Mr Sexton said Staff gained his trust when he built homes on his land. But the court heard how Mr Sexton never saw a return on his investment.

During the trial, Staff claimed that he had money problems because he used incompetent accountants and solicitors.

But Mr Wilson told him: 'Mr Staff, time and time again you feel sorry for yourself and are blaming everyone else - but you put yourself into this situation.'

The prosecutor also compared the fraudster to Wilkins Micawber from Charles Dickens's masterpiece David Copperfield.

In the book eternal optimist Micawber always insisted that 'something would turn up'.

HOW THE PC'S FRAUD CAMPAIGN UNFOLDED 2008: Ben Staff quits Norfolk Police and sets up his first firm, Staff Electrical Services. 2010: Norfolk Trading Standards receives a complaint about Staff. The case is not taken further because evidence did not show he had breached trading standard laws. 2012: Norfolk Police receive complaint about Staff. May 2013: The EDP publishes an investigation into Staff's business practices. February 2014: Staff and his wife Catriona arrested. November 2014: Staff charged with multiple counts of fraud. Mrs Staff charged with money laundering. March 2016: Staff found guilty of six charges including fraud. Mrs Staff cleared. December 2016: Staff found guilty of fraud in a second trial. Mrs Staff cleared. Advertisement

During the first trial, Staff was convicted of two counts of fraud, two counts of false accounting, one count of converting criminal property and one count of fraudulent trading through his businesses.

He was cleared of three charges with the jury undecided on the remaining two.

At a second trial yesterday, Staff was convicted of another 140,000 fraud and of converting criminal property.

His wife Catriona Staff, 33, a serving Norfolk Police officer, stood trial on both occasions alongside her husband.

She was acquitted of one count of converting criminal property and the jury could not reach a verdict on a second count of converting criminal property.

Mrs Staff was suspended from the force after she was arrested and now faces a police disciplinary process.

Staff, a former Thomas Cook travel agent, had served with the Metropolitan Police but returned to Norwich in 2001.

But, by 2008, Staff's career was in tatters after he was arrested for harassment over an argument with his two ex-girlfriends and his now wife.

Staff admitted assault, harassment and obstructing a police officer after throwing a bottle of cola over one of his lovers before trying to stop officers arresting him.

After being fined 2,215 at Norwich magistrates' court in July 2008, Staff quit the force.

Staff resigned as a director from Blac Construction at the start of November before his second trial began.

He is still a director of UK Living Solutions, according to Companies House, and after his conviction he has continued to attract complaints.

Last night Norfolk Police Deputy Chief Constable Nick Dean said: 'These are very serious offences that Ben Staff has been convicted of.

'The fact that, as a former officer, he traded on the reputation of the police is absolutely unforgivable.'

He stressed: 'I want to take this opportunity to underline to the public that the Constabulary will pursue criminality wherever it exists and will robustly investigate allegations of criminal conduct against an individual whatever their background.

'This includes investigating thoroughly those who have previously worked for the constabulary, where the evidence demands it, as this case clearly demonstrates.'

Det Insp Fernandes, of Norfolk Police, added: 'Using his policing background to build up that trust in the first place which, from a police officer's point of view, is quite outrageous.'

Staff, who pleaded not guilty throughout both trials, will now be sentenced next month for the frauds and faces being locked up.
Another five revelers are still unaccounted after the blaze as their families

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Musicians, artists and a 17-year-old student are among the 27 reported victims of the Oakland warehouse blaze, as family and friends of the nine 'missing' revelers endure an agonizing wait.

Any hope for survivors looked slim after authorities announced they had found 36 bodies in the charred debris of the artists' enclave after the deadly fire on Friday night. The fire department has now examined three-quarters of the building and don't believe that any more bodies will be recovered.

Alameda County Sheriff's Office has formally released the names of 26 victims while family and friends on social media have named another five as having perished in the fire.

At estimated five revelers remain unaccounted for after the blaze, as their families wait for the authorities to check dental records and carry out DNA testing to identify the remaining bodies.

Family and friends of those missing few appear to have given up hope of seeing them alive as many plan to hold memorials in honor of their loved ones.

The 36 people reported as either dead of missing in the wake of the Oakland warehouse fire on Friday

THE 36 PEOPLE REPORTED AS DEAD OR MISSING AFTER AUTHORITIES FIND 36 BODIES INSIDE THE OAKLAND WAREHOUSE REPORTED BY AUTHORITIES OR ON SOCIAL MEDIA TO HAVE DIED IN THE FIRE 1. Alex Ghassan 2. Ara Jo 3. Barratt Clark 4. Ben Runnels 5. Cash Askew 6. Chelsea Faith Dolan 7. David Cline 8. Donna Kellogg 9. Draven McGill 10. Edmond Lapine 11. Em Bohlka 12. Hannah Ruax 13. Jennifer Kiyomi Tanouye 14. Jenny Morris 15. Johnny Igaz 16. Jonathan Bernbaum 17. Feral Pines 18. Micah Danemayer 19. Michela Gergory 20. Chase Wittenauer aka Nex Iguolo 21. Nick Gomez-Hall 22. Nicole Siegrist aka Denalda Renae 23. Pete Wadsworth 24. Sara Hoda 25. Travis Hough 26. Nicholas Walrath 27. Billy Dixon 28. Alex Vega 29. Amanda Allen (Kershaw) 30. Vanessa Plotkin 31. Griffin Madden STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR 1. Alana Kana aka Jenniffer Armby Mendiola 2. Michelle Sylvan 3. Jason McCarty aka Jalien Adrian 4. Joey Matlock aka Joey Casio 5 . Wolfgang Renner Advertisement

UC Berkeley Professor Luba Golburt wasn't optimistic about her former student Griffin Madden, who graduated last year and attended the party, but told SF Gate she was 'checking the news incessantly.'

'I can't say that it's because I'm hoping for the best. That's probably not the case,' she said.

On Wednesday, authorities confirmed that Griffin was deceased, alongside 22-year-old Alex Vega, whose brother Daniel had desperately been holding out hope.

'It's hard,' said Vega yesterday. 'I'm trying to be the strong one.'

Alex Vega had attended the Ghost Ship event at the Oakland warehouse with his Michela Gregory - who has been confirmed as dead by the sheriff's office.

Michelle Worthington, the sister of Joey Matock - aka Joey Casio - said her parents, Kathe and John Matock, had been asked to provide DNA samples to try and identify him.

'As of right now Joey remains on the missing list' she wrote yesterday. 'Mom & Dad gave DNA samples today, which can be helpful in identifying as a last resort. The police escorted us today to the scene. We were only able to get a block away. It was very hard to stand there and imagine what it was like on Friday night with Joey inside.'

She said that the family gathered with Joey's friends yesterday at the candlelight vigil for victims.

'We have heard such precious stories about Joey and their relationships with him. He was loved and admired by so many people.'

Em Bohlka, left, and Micah Danemayer, right, who have been officially named as victims of the Oakland warehouse fire

Chelsea Dolan, pictured, whose friends had said was a victim on social media, was also confirmed dead by the authorities

Childhood friend Troy Eaves, who grew up with McCarty in Fort Madison, Iowa, was not hopeful for news of his friend.

'I don't know what the news would be, besides a confirmation,' he told the Daily Beast.

The 35-year-old said he and McCarty had been 'inseparable' and described him as 'the most impactful friend I've ever had.

'He was such a true artist and a true honest, real person, and he was inspiring and he didn't even know it. He was himself, at all times. It's those things you wish you told him before.'

Em Bohlka, 33, from Oakland, who was one of three transgender people to die in the blaze.

At a vigil for the victims yesterday, her partner Natalie Jahanbani said: 'Her name was Em, and I loved her so much and I will never stop telling her story... that she was trans and proud.'

Also confirmed dead was 28-year-old Micah Danemayer, a curator and producer at music venue Obscura Machina, who was with his girlfriend Alana Kane at Oakland Ghost Ship on Friday when the fire broke out.

Feral Pines, 29, a musician and artist from Connecticut, who recently moved to San Francisco to be with friends was also killed

Alex Ghassan with his fiancee Hanna Henrikka Ruax. Ghassan has been confirmed as dead by the authorities while family and friends of Ruax reported that she had died on Facebook

Paying tribute on social media, Angelika Natasha Harkins, who described herself as a 'good friend' of Danemayer was shocked at the loss of such a 'gentleman.'

Chelsea Dolan, whose friends had said was a victim on social media, was also confirmed dead by the authorities.

The 33-year-old from San Francisco, had been a multi-instrumentalist since childhood.

Her friend Henry Kielarowski said: 'I've known Chelsea since she was a teenager coming to Moksha Parties. Her loss, and the loss of so many friends and kindred souls in that demon fire, diminishes me and the rest of the communal dance community.'

Michela Gregory, 20, a student at San Francisco State has also been formally identified as dead

Also dead was Feral Pines, 29, a musician and artist from Connecticut, who recently moved to San Francisco to be with friends, according to her brother, Ben.

He said: 'She was a kind and beautiful person who had the strength to be her true self even when she knew that was not an easy path.'

Alex Ghassan, 35, was another victim who was confirmed to have died in the blaze and he had been at the party with fiancee, Hanna Henrikka Ruax.

Ghassan is a director and producer who worked with Spike Lee and Talib Kweli. He also is the father of twin toddlers.

Before the fire, he posted an eerie video of the warehouse party on Instagram. 'Oakland reminds me of #JerseyCity so much at times,' he wrote.

His fiancee Ruax was not officially been listed as deceased by the sheriff's office. But friends and family reported on social media that she too had perished in the fire.

Yrjo Timonen, believed to be a relative, wrote: 'Dear my angel and my princess. Eternal longing and memory. Rest in peace my dear hanne.'

Le Dizzy Akpi described her as 'always full of joy and a 'lover of humanity and music.'

'May god grant strength to your family and friends that you loved and loved you back and who are now mourning you.'

Ben Runnels, 32, an Oakland musician who went by the name Charlie Prowler, has been confirmed as dead. Fellow singer Nicole Renae Siegrist, pictured, has also been reported to have died

Jennifer Kiyomi Taouye, 31, a music manager at Shazam was another victim of the fire

'She gone so soon # Hanna Henriikka Ruax # May Her Soul Rest In Peace . I'm shocked # Tears :(' Kojo Owusu added.

Michela Gregory, 20, a student at San Francisco State has also been formally identified.

She had been studying child development and working at Urban Outfitters to finance her studies.

Also identified was Ben Runnels, 32, an Oakland musician who went by the name Charlie Prowler.

He moved to the area five years ago after being lured by the vibrant music scene.

Meanwhile Jennifer Kiyomi Taouye, 31, was also formally identified as a victim.

Kiyomi, of Oakland, was a music manager at Shazam according to her social media and a former manager at ISSUES magazine.

Magazine co-owner Noella Teele paid tribute to Kiyomi - who they referred to as Jennie.

The Oakland warehouse fire death toll rose to 36 overnight as firefighters discovered more bodies in the building

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., second from left, tours the site of a warehouse fire on Monday in Oakland

A makeshift memorial has been erected for the many victims of the warehouse fire, with more bodies still feared buried in the blackened ruins

Teele said she loved her 'like family', adding that she was 'sending love and light' to the family.

Authorities also confirmed the deaths of two other victims named as Edmund Lapine, 34, and Jennifer Morris, 21.

Family of Nicholas Walrath, a Judicial Law Clerk at United States District Court for the Northern District of California, originally from Pittsburgh, wrote that he too had passed away in the fire.

Michael Roud said: 'My dear friend and sister's partner, Nicholas Walrath, may you rest in peace. You are loved by so many and thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such an angel for my sister, Lexi A-b. You have shown her what unconditional love is.

'You are an angel of light and love Nick and I am so blessed to have so many wonderful memories with you. I love you with all of my heart and my memories of you will live on in me.'

Billy Dixon's former brother-in-law, Robert St Price, also wrote that he had lost him in the blaze.

'I lost a good friend over the weekend to the tragic Oakland fire,' Price wrote. 'Billy Dixon was not just a brother-in-law to me, he was a great friend and an artistic guide. He was there during my High School years and helped me pick out my college.

Police spokeswoman Johanna Watson and Police Chief Battalion Melinda Drayton announce on Monday that the search effort had to be temporarily called off over safety concerns

'R.I.P Billy. I am still here. A little bit of me knows you were the type that would have stayed behind, at your own risk, to help those who needed it most. I know this.'

He added that Dixon was well known as a beat boxer on the street and a respected DJ.

Jacqueline Vu Patino added that Dixon, 'was one of the persons missing from the Oakland fire and I just learned of his passing. He was so smart, knew so much about music and was a talented computer engineer. Always had a bright energy that was uplifting and contagious and was kind to everybody that he met. Rest peacefully, musical and genuine soul.'

Wolfgang Renner and Michelle (Colette) Sylvan were among the names listed as believed to be deceased on the event's Facebook page, while a friend paid tribute to the pair.

Their friend Robert Janca wrote: 'Two friends of mine perished in the fire. Wolfgang Renner and Michelle Sylvan.

'Wolfgang was about as free of an individual as anyone is likely to ever meet. When we were close, it was a joy to go and visit him as he was a capable host who made all of his friend's feel welcome and celebrated.

'His lovely, wildly creative partner Michelle was a potent visionary and was always up for life's adventure. The world is a decidedly less colorful one without them.

Denalda Nicole Renae (pictured on the night of the fire) has also been reported as deceased on social media

The 23-year-old, was described by friends as a 'feisty female rapper' who also went by the name SeaCrust

The synth player for Introflirt and 'lyric wrangler' for Vanfanthon, of Oakland, was at the warehouse when it burst into flames on Friday

'So long dear souls. Thank you for the treasures you shared. We will see you in Valhalla and in the interim, we will celebrate your rich lives as you would undoubtedly have wanted us to.'

While neither of their families, nor the authorities have confirmed their deaths, it is likely that they are among the 36 victims found in the warehouse.

WHY WAS THE OAKLAND FIRE SO DEADLY? Last weekend's deadly warehouse blaze was one of the worst fires in the state's history. Fire-related tragedies have become increasingly rare over the years, thanks to fire safety codes. They were introduced around 100 years ago - when a single fire at a busy theater or factory, such as the infamous Triangle fire in New York, in 1911, could results in dozens of casualties. Since then sprinkler systems, and fire escape routes have become common place - saving countless lives - thanks to fire regulations. But the danger comes big groups of people gathering to illegally live or party, in a warehouse such as the Ghost Ship. As the buildings are not permitted or set up to cater for big groups, they can have just a handful of exits, too little lighting to find them, and restrictive access to their stairs - all of which can spell tragedy. 'The adoption and implementation of fire codes, having an effective enforcement system that's been put in place at the city, county or state level  those have been the key elements that have made the difference we have seen,' said James Pauley, president of the National Fire Protection Association told the New York Times. 'When a deadly fire happens it is usually because something isn't followed or something goes wrong or we learn something new.' Advertisement

President Obama offered his condolences to the family and friends of the victims 'in the aftermath of this weekend's deadly warehouse fire  one of the worst fires in the state's history.'

'While we still don't know the full toll of this disaster, we do know that an American community has been devastated, and many people  including young men and women with their whole futures ahead of them  have tragically lost their lives,' he said in a statement.

It comes after other victims had earlier been named over the weekend.

Denalda Nicole Renae (Siegrist), 23, was described by friends as a 'feisty feminist rapper' who also went by the name 'Sea Crust'.

While she has not been officially confirmed as being among the dead by the sheriff's office, friends and family have begun paying tribute to her on social media.

Casey Felicity wrote: 'RIP Denalda Nicole Renae. You are a beautiful soul and you will be greatly missed.

'You may no longer be with us physically, but, as Scarlett O'Hara says, 'Tomorrow is another day.' I'll see ya in the next life.'

Denalda, of Oakland, described herself on Facebook as the synth player for Introflirt and 'lyric wrangler' for Vanfanthon band. She was also a sushi instructor at IWish Lessons between 2010 and 2012 according to friends.

Kate Rice described her as 'an incredibly free spirit and just wanted to make music and art.'

'She bounced around for a while, but found her Tribe in the Bay Area. Such a vibrant light has been senselessly snuffed out. Poor poor Nicole. I am in shock and so sad.'

Ismael Alejandro Villanueva posted a picture of the musician, adding that he was 'mourning her loss and the loss of so many others this weekend. RIP.'

Johnny Igaz, also known as Nakt, was a record buyer for Green Apple Books and Music and resident DJ at Outpost.

KC Management confirmed today that Igaz was among the dozens killed on Friday.

'We are heartbroken beyond words,' they said in a statement. 'Johnny Igaz was amazing to work with on Gerald's tour. I know Gerald is heartbroken too. So many wonderful people lost in this tragedy.'

Beaux Geste Mingus added that 'sweet and generous' Igaz 'lost his life that night doing the things he loved.' 'Although I didn't know him well, he will be missed.'

'Your positivity was contagious and you will be missed,' added Ralphy Manzana of the Oakland musician.

Cash Askew was a transgender musician from San Francisco who is one-half of the 'goth-inflected duo' called Them Are Us Too. They had just released their debut album last year.

The band's label and management said Askew was a 'loved and treasured member of the Drais family', according to a statement released to Pitchfork.

Eerie video, shot by Alex Ghassan, who was listed as missing after the fire, shows the warehouse part in full swing less than an hour before the blaze

While the video is dark, it appears to show revelers at the warehouse which is packed with clutter

Tinder box: Alameda County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said they fear up to 40 people could have possibly died in the blaze that destroyed the Oakland Ghost Ship

'We were in awe of her talent, her gentle kindness, and her creative momentum,' it read.

'Her passing is an excruciating loss that we may never fully process or recover from.'

Anya Taylor, Askew's girlfriend, confirmed news of her death on Saturday night.

'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.

'DEATH TRAP' WAREHOUSE HAD SUFFERED A PREVIOUS FIRE Shelly Mack, who lived with the art collective two years ago, said she was there when a generator exploded, and residents were forced to rush and douse the flames. Thankfully, on that occasion, the residents were able to extinguish the blaze before it spread. But Mack, who says she paid $700 a month to live at the ramshackle warehouse, plus a $700 deposit and $700 for 'improvements, claimed that no repairs or renovations were ever carried out during the several months she stayed there 'It's a good example of people taking advantage of people because they had no other options,' Mack, a tech sales worker and jewelry maker, told the AP. 'People make businesses off scamming people online when they're looking for a place.' Mack said that power supplies were simply stolen from neighboring properties while the place was often unheated and freezing cold. Another former tenant Ralphy Manzana said Ghost Ship residents' pleas for owner Derek Ion to fix 'the electric, or not to run the generator inside next to the butane stove' were met with laughter. 'I was supposed to be there on Friday but ended up feeling sleepy and staying in, I'm so thankful for my life,' Manzana added. Advertisement

'I would give anything to have her back. I love you Cash'

When she heard about the fire she raced to the building and stood and watched as it burned with her girlfriend inside.

She added: 'I watched the building burn, and I lost the love of my life.

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.

'Thank you for standing up for me. Thank you for being genuine. Thank you for your art,' wrote another friend name Edward Marie.

'Thank you for being a beautiful vibrant human. I love you and am going to miss you terribly.'

Brandon 'Chase' Wittenauer, who went by his stage name Nex Iuguolo, was an electronic music artist who performed in the band Symbiotix.Fungi.

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.

Iuguolo was known in the Bay Area's arts community for his support, always spotted cheering on his friends at their sets and exhibits.

'Every time we (saw each other) it was because he was out showing up at art shows and music events to support his friends, even hometown friends he hadn't seen in years,' Jamaica Rose Chavez-Xochitil told the San Francisco Chronicle.

'He relentlessly worked on music all these years and dedicated his life to it in a big way.'

Fellow musician Travis Hough was part of the Oakland electronic bands Ghost of Lightning and EASYSTREET, the latter of which he was performing with on Friday.

His manager, Brendan Dreaper, said Hough was also an artist and glassblower who had recently launched a podcast discussing how musicians found creativity.

'He will be remembered for his positivity and his ability to always make a situation fun,' Dreaper said.

'Every time he walked in a room, he brightened it up and was always there for a good laugh. He was always optimistic.'

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.'

KC Management confirmed today that musician Johnny Igaz had died in the blaze on Friday

Cash Askew, 22, was one of the youngest victims to perish in the horrific fire that tore through the Oakland Ghost Ship and took 33 lives on Friday night

Askew was a transgender musician from San Francisco who is one-half of the 'goth-inflected duo' called Them Are Us Too

Brandon 'Chase' Wittenauer, who went by his stage name Nex Iuguolo, was an electronic music artist who performed in the band Symbiotix.Fungi

Iuguolo was known in the Bay Area's arts community for his support, always spotted cheering on his friends at their sets and exhibits

'My dear cousin Travis Hough, you have impacted me in so many ways and helped me through so much,' wrote Jocelyn Paige.

'A beautiful man, musician and soul the world is missing today. I love you forever. I hope it's happy up there.'

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.

Brent Bucci called Bernbaum, a USC School of Cinematic Arts alum, an 'incredible person' who 'pushed our art form further'.

'He dared to create not for praise or fame or any of the conventional bulls**t. He created angry beauty designed to captivate and horrify.'

Fellow musician Travis Hough was part of the Oakland electronic bands Ghost of Lightning and EASYSTREET, the latter of which he was performing with on Friday

His manager, Brendan Dreaper, said Hough was also an artist and glassblower who had recently launched a podcast discussing how musicians found creativity

Brian Hough shared a touching photo of himself and Travis,who also went by the stage name Travis Blitzen, on Facebook as he confirmed his son had died in the blaze

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

Brent Bucci called Bernbaum, a USC School of Cinematic Arts alum, an 'incredible person' who 'pushed our art form further'

'His visuals and performance was inspiring to countless artists in our industry. I like many others owe my career to his late night programming lessons, countless phone calls and endless debates.'

'You inspired so many of us, we will carry on your teachings and continue your legacy,' added Thomy Hoefer.

'Thank you so much for every word of encouragement, tip and all the laughs.'

TENANT'S DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO DRAG HIS FRIEND TO SAFETY 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. There 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, another reveler had a lucky escape when they popped out to buy some liquor. When Cal student Seung Lee 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.' Advertisement

Meanwhile, a YouCaring donation page, set up for the family of victims, has raised more than $236,000.

Barrett 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.'

Jason Kick called Clark one of his 'live sound heroes'.

'He had a great ear, great sense of humor and always mixed nice and loud. He may have been the best sound engineer we had.'

Barrett 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

Jason Kick called Clark one of his 'live sound heroes' who 'had a great ear, great sense of humor and always mixed nice and loud. He may have been the best sound engineer we had'

Pete Wadsworth was a consultant, designer and Harvard University graduate who had been living in the warehouse

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.'

Pete Wadsworth was a consultant, designer and Harvard University graduate who lived in the warehouse.

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. There 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.

Draven McGill, the youngest of the identified victims, was a junior at the competitive Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco

Ara worked for the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest and was also the co-director of Sgraffito, an art gallery in Emeryville

'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.'

Draven McGill, the youngest of the identified victims, was a junior at the competitive Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco.

McGill was a member of the school's vocal department and the Pacific Boychoir Academy.

'He was always smiling and therefore making everyone around him, especially his friends happy,' wrote Lilah Segal-Angel in a Facebook tribute to McGill.

'He was a smart and talented boy in the vocal department. He was a great guy.'

Classmate Emma Shen added that McGill was always 'laughing and smiling with his friends', writing 'I never saw him any way else'.

Friends spoke of Ara Jo's death in an outpouring of Facebook posts, although the Sheriff's list hasn't officially confirmed it.

Ian Dewane, the brother of her partner Zack, said: '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.'

Her 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

Friend Barb Streis reminisced about the work Ara had put as a co-organizer of 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.'

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.

Jason Kick said that Jo was 'indispensable' to Oakland's creative community.

Nick Gomez-Hall was an administrative assistant at the Counterpoint Press in Berkeley

The San Diego native was a 'talented artist' who had just begun to do book design

'She spent tireless, thankless hours making this community and world a better place on all levels,' he wrote.

Nick Gomez-Hall was an administrative assistant at the Counterpoint Press in Berkeley.

The San Diego native was a 'talented artist' who had just begun to do book design, the Berkeley publishing house told the Berkeleyside.

'Everyone on staff here in Berkeley, and in Portland and New York, is simply heartbroken,' they said in a statement.

Gomez-Hall's friend Erin Tanner paid tribute to his photography.

'We only had a few chapters together but they were golden, and he documented them with his photography so well,' Tanner wrote on Facebook.

'Nick I'm missing you and I thank you for touching my life and sharing your spirit, your music and your friends.'

Erin Elizabeth Birgy called Gomez-Hall the 'coolest musical loving genius' while Nile Cappello said he made her and 'many others feel a little less alone through some of the most challenging years of our lives'.

David Cline, a Santa Monica native, was a recently UC Berkeley graduate who received bachelor's degrees in cognitive science and computer science

Friend Blake Bijari remembered Cline as one of the most 'unique, fun and loving personalities I've ever come across'

'I hope his family and friends feel a little less alone knowing how much he impacted each and every one of us,' she added.

David Cline, a Santa Monica native, was a recently UC Berkeley graduate who received bachelor's degrees in cognitive science and computer science.

Friend Blake Bijari remembered him as one of the most 'unique, fun and loving personalities I've ever come across'.

'He made every single person around him laugh to no end regardless of the mood they were in,' Bijari wrote.

'I remember trying to avoid him at practice because I didn't want to get in trouble for goofing off because any encounter with him guaranteed it.'

'David T Cline thank you for being inherently you,' wrote Kaya Day.

'For the smile that spread from ear to ear, for your bone crushing bear hugs, for the unparalleled energy you provided, for the beautiful person you are, for being bp partner #1, for the positive light you brought to so many people's lives.'

Sara Hoda was a teacher at a Montessori school who loved children and was a 'good, hardworking person', her former housemate Carol Crewdson wrote on Facebook.

'She didn't deserve to go like this. After reading an account of what it was like to get out of there, all I can hope is that it happened quickly.'

Sara Hoda was a teacher at a Montessori school who loved children and was a 'good, hardworking person', her former housemate Carol Crewdson wrote on Facebook.

Alison Marie said her former housemate loved 'yoga handstands, art, community, bikes, yummy cooking and always thoughtful insight'.

Donna Kellogg was a barista at Highwire Coffee Roasters in Berkeley who recently graduated from San Francisco State University and was working toward andegree in the culinary arts

Kellogg's father, Hugh Slocum, said she had a passion for playing the drums, cooking vegetables and soup, and 'avant-garde music'

Alison Marie said her former housemate loved 'yoga handstands, art, community, bikes, yummy cooking and always thoughtful insight'.

'A woman full of love and life and creativity,' she wrote.

'You were one of the kindest and most selfless people I've ever met and I wish you could have stayed with us longer,' added Angie Greene.

'You were always one to give and support and you will be dearly missed.'

Donna Kellogg was a barista at Highwire Coffee Roasters in Berkeley who recently graduated from San Francisco State University and was working toward an additional degree in the culinary arts.

Still missing: Wolfgang Renner and Michelle Sylvan are reportedly still missing after the devastating fire last week

Alana Kane (left) is still missing after the fire but Vanessa Plotkin (right) has been confirmed as deceased

Still missing: Jason McCarty (left) and Joey Matock (right) are among the five revelers still unaccounted for after the fire

Alex Vega (left) and student Griffin Madden (right) were added to the list of confirmed victims by Oakland police on Wednesday

Amanda Allen (Kershaw) has been confirmed as dead by authorities following the tragic fire

Kellogg's father, Hugh Slocum, said she had a passion for playing the drums, cooking vegetables and soup, and 'avant-garde music'.

Mollie Cohen Rosenthal D'Agostino said Kellogg was 'a beautiful giggly, wise, person who will be very missed.'

Kellogg's former fiance, John Howes, came to the scene of the tragedy.

He said he needed closure, adding: 'I still love her.'

Many are still missing after the fire as families wait anxiously to hear whether their loved ones perished in the blaze.
John Jairo Velasquez, better known as 'Popeye', was the chief assassin for Pablo Escobar

The chief assassin of Pablo Escobar has been robbed at gunpoint by two men on motorbikes in the Colombian city he once brought terror to.

The thieves forced notorious former hitman John Jairo Velasquez to pull over as he drove near a shopping centre in an upmarket area of Medellin before stealing his designer sunglasses, mobile phone, cash and jewellery.

The 54-year-old, who admits to having killed around 300 people and helping murder at least 3,000 more and served 22 years in jail, confessed to becoming a crime statistic himself on Tuesday as he called for people to be given the right to carry weapons.

'I've learnt my lesson. I'll leave my valuables at home next time I go out.

Pablo Escobar pictured with Velasquez - the two tormented the city of Medellin where 'Popeye' was recently robbed at gunpoint and had a 'fortune' of valuables stolen

He added: 'The jewellery cost me a fortune.

'The blokes who did it didn't say anything to me. Each one of them stuck a gun to my window. There was nothing I could do.'

Police are still hunting the ballsy pair responsible for the daring hold-up, which happened in the upmarket area of El Poblado which is home to some of the richest people in Colombia.

'Popeye' visited the tomb of Escobar at the Montesacro cemetery in Medellin to pay his respects to the drug lord - after spending 22 years in prison for doing his bidding

The assassin was robbed in the upscale area of El Poblado - home to some of the richest people in Colombia - and has vowed to 'leave his valuables at home next time'

It is not known if they recognised their victim.

One local said on social media: 'The situation has got to be pretty bad for someone to dare to rob this man. Can this really have happened?'

Velazquez, better-known by his nickname Popeye, was the mastermind behind some 200 car bombs during Escobar's Medellin cartel's war against its rivals and the Colombian state.

Velasquez, seated on Escobar's grave, said: ''Whenever I took a life, I didn't feel anything. Not shame, not sadness, not happiness'

Popeye posed with a fan at Escobar's tomb - he and Escobar have been featured as characters in the popular Netflix series Narcos which dramatises Escobar's life and infamous legacy

He was also responsible for high-profile kidnappings including those of Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos in January 1988 and even organised the bombing of a commercial airliner in which 107 people died.

He claimed in an interview in September coinciding with the release of the second series of the hit Netflix series Narcos dramatising Escobar's life:

'Whenever I took a life, I didn't feel anything. Not shame, not sadness, not happiness. It was simply a day at the office carrying out Don Pablo's orders.

Popeye dedicates a book to Escobar which reads 'Popeye - Escobar's trusted assassin'

Popeye has only been released this year after serving three-fifths of his sentence for the murder of 300 people - he was also the mastermind behind more than 200 car bombs

'Killing was too easy. I was in a war and they were killing my family, my friends and my colleagues.

'We had to fight fire with fire.'

Popeye, who met Escobar after dropping out of a Colombian police school aged 17, now lives in hiding after nearly two decades in prison for the murder of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan in 1989.

The former hitman, who says he is now a reformed character and has recast himself as a YouTube star with thousands of followers, describes himself as an 'ex-bandit in search of a new opportunity in society' on his Twitter page.

Revealing why he hadn't reacted to the hold-up, he said: 'About three months ago two men on motorbikes also tried to rob me.
A former public schoolboy has spoken of his plans to row across the Atlantic to raise money for a suicide crisis centre a decade after his brother took his own life.

Harry Wentworth-Stanley, 26, and three close friends will next week board a boat in the Canary Islands and set off for Antigua - some 3,000 miles away.

They will undertake the journey in memory of Harry's elder brother James, who was just 21 when he killed himself during a family gathering in December 2006.

Harry - who has had an on-off relationship with Cressida Bonas - said his brother's suicide 'ripped through his family' and was 'completely heartbreaking'.

Passionate: Harry Wentworth-Stanley, 26, pictured, and three close friends will next week board a boat in the Canary Islands and set off for Antigua - some 3,000 miles away

Missed: Harry - who has had an on-off relationship with Cressida Bonas (left) - said his brother's suicide 'ripped through his family'. Pictured right, James with mother Clare in 2004

He now hopes to raise 500,000 for the James Wentworth-Stanley Memorial Fund and pay for the first in a series of non-clinical crisis centres called James' Place.

Had such a resource existed in 2006, the family believe James life could have been saved. It could also help thousands of others fighting similar battles.

Of the more than 6,000 people who take their own lives in the UK each year, 22 per cent are men aged between 16 and 24.

Harry said: 'Our first sunrise on the water will be 10 years since the day my brother took his life. I'm sure it will be the most emotional of anniversaries I've ever experienced. To be there with three of my best mates with be amazing.

'I will obviously be thinking of my mum and dad back home. The emotion of that day will be all the more difficult because I will be setting off on the challenge of a lifetime. But I'm sure he will be right behind us and a great source of motivation.'

The brothers and their younger sister Louisa split their time between their parents, venture capitalist Nick and former Tatler journalist Clare, after their divorce in 1996.

Clare went on to marry George Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven, a cousin of the Queen, and Nick married Dutch-born solicitor Millie Brenninkmeyer.

Expedition: (from left-right) Toby Fenwicke-Clennell, Sam Greenly, Rory Buchanan and Harry Wentworth-Stanley will row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic in memory of Harry's elder brother, James Wentoworth-Stanley, who took his own life in December 2006

On 15 December 2006, Harry, James and Louisa had been at the Milford Haven family home near Petersfield. That afternoon they travelled to their father's house in Worcestershire for the weekend. That night, James was found dead with a shotgun by his side. A coroner later recorded a verdict of suicide.

Speaking today, Harry said: 'It ripped through our family and was completely heart wrenching. It was, hands down, the darkest moment of my life.

'It was a night I'll never forget, for the wrong reasons. But I remember James for the great relationship we had.'

Devastated: Father Nick Wentworth-Stanley

It later emerged James had attended an NHS walk-in centre days before his death and told the consultant that he was feeling suicidal but he was referred to A&E as a low-priority case.

In a previous interview with the Mail on Sunday's You magazine, Harry said this 'the hospitals approach was the equivalent of [dealing with] a child with a toothache'.

James' Place aims to provide more support for young men struggling with mental illness and suicidal thoughts.

The initiative is run by mother Clare, who, with Nick, heads The James Wentworth-Stanley Memorial Fund, allocating donations to mental health projects.

The charitys first stand-alone venture will be a pilot centre in Liverpool.

The target of 500,000 will be enough to set up and run one centre for a year and provide continued support for the charity. Harrys employer Savills is a major sponsor, as is the swimwear brand Orlebar Brown.

Harry selected rowing as a fundraising activity in a nod to his brother's sense of adventure and his own love of the sport.

The Old Harrovian set up Team Row For James with school friends Sam Greenly, from Andover, Hampshire, and Toby Fenwicke-Clennell, from Essex, and Rory Buchannan, from London, whom he met at the University of Leeds.

Sleep deprivation, exhaustion and monotony will make it as much a test of mental strength as physical: each team member will row two hours on, two hours off nonstop for around six weeks.

Harry said: 'From a personal perspective, I think when times are tough out there they can't be that tough compared with what people like my brother have gone through, for him to do what he did.

He added: I take inspiration from him. He never would have whined, never felt any self-pity and that, for me, is where I will try and find my strength.'
A 26-year-old Scottish woman murdered in Lapland has been named as tour guide Rebecca Johnson.

Her boyfriend has been arrested after she was stabbed to death in the Finnish village of Kuttanen on Saturday.

Police launched a huge manhunt to track down the 36-year-old suspect, believed to be from the Czech Republic.

Rebecca Johnson was stabbed to death on Saturday in Finland, where she worked as a tour guide

A large-scale search was launched after the 26-year-old Scots body was found in a remote village as her lover fled into the wilderness on a dog-pulled sled

Her great-aunt Val Laing told The Courier: ' Rebecca was a beautiful girl.

'I had come home from Edinburgh when her grandad was on the phone to tell me what had happened. I couldnt take it in at first.

'For her parents and grandparents to lose her just before Christmas is devastating.'

Ms Laing revealed Rebecca had spent time in Sweden before moving to Finland, but admitted she knew little about her boyfriend.

A large-scale search was launched after Ms Johnsons body was found in a remote village as her lover fled into the wilderness on a dog-pulled sled.

Faced with sub-zero conditions, police in Finland launched a huge manhunt involving a helicopter, snowmobiles and huskies to scour the area which is located inside the Arctic Circle.

The fugitive, a 36-year-old understood to be from the Czech Republic, was found cowering outside in temperatures of minus 30C (minus 22F) several hours later.

Police at the scene of the arrest following Ms Johnson's death on Saturday

After being taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia, he was eventually arrested and questioned on suspicion of killing his lover.

Ms Johnson, from Fife, was found dead at a property in the village of Kuttanen, which straddles the border with Sweden, just weeks after moving to the region to work for a local tour company.

Both the victim and her boyfriend are thought to have been living with colleagues at the accommodation.

The remote destination in Finland attracts dozens of young British workers every year carrying out seasonal work over the winter months as families flock there for Christmas-themed tours.

Ms Johnson was found dead at a property in the village of Kuttanen, which straddles the border with Sweden, just weeks after moving to the region to work for a local tour company

Tributes have been paid to the tour guide in her hometown.

Sil Scarlett, a family friend and owner of Mean Green Sandwich Machine cafe in Burntisland, said: 'I know the family well, we're close.

'They are nice people and both girls are lovely. They love their dogs.

'They're both princesses, that's how I would describe them.'

Ms Johnson's great-aunt, Val Laing, said after the killing: 'Rebecca was a beautiful girl'

The victim was employed by the company Santa Safari, which describes itself as the regions leading tour provider.

The travel firm yesterday said it was co-operating with the police investigation, adding that its staff had been left shocked by the incident.

It is an affiliate of the Oxford-based company Transun Travel.

In a statement, the company said: We are deeply saddened to confirm that a member of staff working for our overseas supplier Santa Safari was discovered dead.

The thoughts of everyone at Transun go out to the family, friends and the Santa Safari team. We will do everything we can to support at this difficult time.

The 26-year-old seasonal worker was stabbed to death in Kuttanen, Finland on Saturday, where she worked for a tour company

Furious families who had spent thousands of pounds travelling to the region were initially left seething after being told that tours had been cancelled because of the police investigation.

Police forces from both Sweden and Finland took part in the search party that saw several cross-border roads shut down in an attempt to stop the fugitive from fleeing.

Many tourists were left shocked when they were eventually told about the nature of the crime that had prompted the significant police response at the family resort.

Katie Amy, of Derby, said: 'Nobody knew what was going on. The communication was awful.

'We should have been out on a four-hour trip with a 40 minute husky ride, snowmobile ride and reindeer sleigh to see Santa.

'However we got just two minutes going round in a circle on the reindeers  like a donkey on Blackpool beach.'

The mother-of-two, who spent 5,000 on the trip, added: 'It turns out Transun were putting our safety first, which we are glad of, but they didnt deal with the situation very well.'

Locals in the area  which relies heavily on income from tourism  yesterday took to social media to declare that the area was safe and emphasised that the crime was allegedly committed by a foreign worker.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: We are supporting the family of a British national who died in Finland on December 3.
A Muslim woman on her way to work was thrown down stairs at Grand Central Station and verbally abused because of her religion.

Soha Salama, 45, is one of multiple Muslims who have been the victim of hate crimes in New York City this year.

She is one of two women who have been attacked for being a Muslim in the past three days alone.

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Soha Salama was wearing her Metropolitan Transportation Authority uniform and a hijab when she was viciously attacked at Grand Central Station

Officer Aml Elsokary was a victim of anti-Muslim hatred two days before Ms Salama was attacked at the train station

Just two days earlier, Officer Aml Elsokary was off-duty when a man accused her of being part of ISIS. He also attempted to sic his pit bull on her and her son.

Similar hateful rhetoric was used on Ms Salama with the attacker calling her a 'terrorist' according to WABC-TV.

Ms Salama told CBS New York: 'I was afraid he was going to throw me down the tracks or do more bad to me than he already did. He was like pushing me down.'

Ms Salama, originally from Egypt, is a Metropolitan Transportation Authority agent.

The man who pushed her followed Ms Salama off the seven train. She was wearing her uniform and a hijab when she was assaulted.

The mother of four went to the hospital and suffers from a twisted knee and a swollen ankle.

There is an investigation into the incident and there have not been any arrests. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said those responsible for hate crimes will be prosecuted 'to the fullest extent of the law.'

Ms Salama has lived in New York for 20 years and had never previously experienced something like this.

Over the past year, hate crimes have apparently increased 35 per cent and have increased by 115 per cent since the presidential election.

In the 10 days following the election on November 8, Southern Poverty Law Center counted 867 cases of hateful harassment or intimidation in the United States.

There was also a wave of Muslim-targeted hate crimes leading up to November.

For example: in September, CNN reported two Muslim women in Brooklyn were pushing their children's strollers when a woman ran up to them and tried to rip off their hijabs.

In July, two Muslim teenagers were beaten outside a New York City mosque by an attacker who shouted slurs at them.

Governor Cuomo said in a statement: 'This is the great state of New York  we welcome people of all cultures, customs and creeds with open arms.
A Holocaust survivor who adopted the grandson of an SS commander blamed for the murder of one million people including her parents has condemned the German court for jailing a Nazi concentration camp guard this week.

Oscar Groening, 95, known as 'the bookkeeper of Auschwitz', was convicted to four years in prison for being an accessory to murder by cataloguing valuables of the concentration camp's victims.

But Eva Mozes Kor, 82, who was subjected to twisted experiments in Auschwitz, has said she is sorry the court did not comply with her request to set him free.

Survivor: Eva Kor spoke of how Josef Mengele stood over her bed and laughed when she was injected with a 'deadly germ'

Regret: Groening (pictured) described in chilling detail how cattle cars full of Jews were brought to the Auschwitz death camp, the people stripped of their belongings and then led directly into gas chambers

Embrace: Seventy years after Auschwitz was liberated, Eva Kor embraced former Nazi guard Oskar Groening

Groening was jailed in July last year, but an appeal was launched to free him, which was supported by Mrs Kor who said: 'I am sorry that the court did not comply with my request to free him and instead offer him the chance to do charitable work.

'He should have been allowed to speak as a Nazi with the young people about the horrors of Nazism.

'My forgiveness does not mean that I forgive the devilish deeds of the Nazis.

'But anybody who cannot forgive will remain a prisoner all their life.'

She was just 10 years old when she and her sister were selected as part of a twisted twins programme run by Josef Mengele - known as the Angel of Death.

When he would meet them he would introduce himself as 'Uncle Mengele' and would offer them sweets.

His experimentations included deliberately injecting one of the twins with diseases and transferring the blood of one twin into the other.

But Eva, who for years afterwards suffered nightmares about the sick tests, said only in forgiveness was she also able to free herself.

She said: 'I forgave all the Nazis who were involved in the assassination of my family. For my forgiveness has set me free.'

Her forgiveness even extended to embracing Groening and asking the appeal court not to jail him, saying that there were far better ways to deal with the past.

Despite her ordeal, Mrs Kor found the compassion to forgive her Nazi tormentors - and even unofficially adopted the grandson of SS commander Rudolf Hoess, who oversaw the murder of more than 1 million people at Auschwitz.

Justice: Oskar Groening was jailed for four years last July for his participation in the murders

Liberation: Auschwitz survivors during the first hours of the concentration camp's liberation in January 1945

Chilling: A sign over the Auschwitz camp reads 'Arbeit Macht Frei' meaning 'Work makes you free'

She testified at his trial, thanking him for his willingness, at age 93, to testify as to what happened more than 70 years ago.

As a qualified bookkeeper, it was his job to sort and store the Jews' money that the Nazis kept.

After giving evidence, she approached and embraced Groening, but added: 'My forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrator from taking responsibility for his actions.

'Neither does it diminish my need to know what happened there.'

She claims Groening was so overwhelmed by her unexpected gesture that he fainted.

Asked why she had hugged him, she said it had not been planned and added: 'I wanted to thank him for having some human decency in accepting responsibility for what he has done.

'I was always interested in meeting him face to face because I believe that there is a human interaction that I cannot predict and no one else can predict.'

She added: 'I don't forget what they have done to me. But I am not a poor person  I am a victorious woman who has been able to rise above the pain and forgive the Nazis.'

Mrs Kor later tweeted: 'I met Oskar Groening, introduced myself reached to shake his hand-he grabbed my arm & fainted-I screamed 4 help. It was a strange reaction!!'

Mengele used 1,500 sets of twins in his experiments, and only an estimated 180 to 250 individuals survived.

Eva described how she was injected with a 'deadly germ' and said she did not agree with statements from the time that described him as a kind man who hid what he was doing from his victims.

She said: 'Mengele stood by my bed and was laughing sarcastically after reading my fever charts, saying I would die in two weeks.'

When the sisters were liberated by Soviet troops she said she suffered from nightmares and tried to unsuccessfully repress the horrors.

She said: 'I was tied to the past and also to the perpetrators.'

These feelings only changed when after 48 years in 1993 she met with a Nazi doctor who was an accomplice of Mengele.

Eva said: 'I wanted to find out what had been injected into me and my sister in the concentration camps.

'He openly admitted to being involved in the murders.'

Both Mrs Kor's parents and two older sisters were killed at the camp and she still has the scars showing how she was branded

Dear tweeter land friends-ask 4 !your help-I have a v bad leg infection & might lose my leg-ask 4 your prayers & retweets 2 help my doctors pic.twitter.com/P2YWW2MOCB  Eva Mozes Kor (@EvaMozesKor) December 6, 2016

She explained she was grateful that he had confirmed that it had been a system of systematic murder.

She said: 'Prior to that I was trapped in the victim's role, I had no control over my life.

'But suddenly I knew when I forgave this Nazi doctor, then I would also be free.

'So I did it.'

Both Mrs Kor's parents and two older sisters were killed at the camp.

In 1984 she founded the organization CANDLES (an acronym for 'Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors'), through which she located 122 other living Mengele twins, as the experiment survivors came to be known.
Science teacher Lisa Lock, 48, submitted her pupils' results to an exam board saying they had all passed

A cheating teacher tried to fiddle her GCSE pupils' results - and it meant a whole year of schoolchildren failed their exam.

While teaching at the Abertillery Comprehensive School in Gwent, South Wales science teacher Lisa Lock, 48, submitted her pupils' results to an exam board saying they had all passed.

But she was caught out because more than 100 of her pupils had not even finished the coursework for the exams.

She also let teenagers into her classroom to complete coursework after a strict deadline had passed - despite being warned by her headteacher not to.

Exam board officials found out about Mrs Lock's testing shortcut and then automatically failed the whole year group of students for their Baccalaureate.

Mrs Lock told a teachers disciplinary hearing she took the testing shortcuts because she was stressed out and had 'too much on her plate'.

She was in charge of children studying the Welsh Baccalaureate which is equivalent to a GCSE.

Presenting officer Carys Williams said: 'Mrs Lock submitted to the examination board that pupils had passed the Welsh Baccalaureate when there was no evidence to support this.

'She also called pupils to her classroom to undertake work after the submission deadline, despite being told not to do so.'

Mrs Lock was suspended in June 2015 in response to the allegations. She accepted that her actions were 'unprofessional' but denied acting dishonestly, saying that she had the best interests of the students at heart.

She told the hearing, 'It was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life and I have to say I was really struggling with it, so I went to the previous head and said that I wanted to drop it.

However Mrs Lock was told that if she did that, then she would be talking herself out of the job.

Mrs Lock told a teachers disciplinary hearing she took the testing shortcuts because she was stressed out and had 'too much on her plate'

'It was becoming overarching and it was the qualification that everyone looked at,' she added.

'I spent most nights after school doing science and revision club, and also science club for the younger children.

'Ultimately I had too much on my plate and I couldn't cope with it all.'

As a result of the incorrect submissions, none of the pupils who studied the two-year module passed it.

It also could have meant that the students did not get a place in college, but luckily this problem did not arise.

Mrs Lock was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct and handed a 'conditional registration order' but allowed to continue teaching.
An outlaw motorcycle gang member is on the run after ramming a patrol car during a police pursuit in Adelaide on Tuesday.

Comancheros gang member Raymond Jones, 30, was already a fugitive on the run from police when he dangerously rammed the patrol car and escaped on Tuesday.

The heavily tattooed gang member was found guilty of serious assault in October this year after he stabbed one man and assaulted another in Adelaides northern suburbs in February 2015.

Raymond Jones (pictured) is on the run after ramming a police vehicle in Adelaide on Tuesday

Jones, from Smithfield in South Australia, was arrested at his northern Adelaide home last year after the attack, which left two men in hospital suffering from non life-threatening injuries.

Police said the two men Jones attacked were both known to the Comancheros gang member.

When Jones was on bail when he failed to appear on the last day of his trial in the District Court of South Australia on October 20.

A jury found him guilty in his absence and he has been on the run from police since.

Raymond Jones (left) has been on the run since October 19 when he failed to show up to the last day of trial - he was found guilty of serious assault in his absence

Jones was spotted driving a lime green Ford Falcon on Yorktown Road, Craigmore in Adelaide about 1.20pm on Tuesday when he refused to stop for police.

Police went in pursuit of the Ford Falcon but discontinued the chase when Jones dangerously rammed the police vehicle.

A search was undertaken in the South Australian suburb of Craigmore, with the help of a police helicopter and police dogs to find Jones, but he was not found.

Raymond Jones (pictured) is heavily tattooed with a distinctive neck tattoo reading LOGAN etched across his neck

Raymond Jones is described as Caucasian, 171cm tall, 100kg, with blonde hair and blue eyes.

He is heavily tattooed across his face and body, including a distinctive tattoo reading LOGAN which is etched across his neck, and words inscribed above and beneath each eye.
Theresa May insisted she will get a 'red, white and blue' Brexit today as she pushed for a huge 30billion trade deal on a visit to the Gulf.

The Prime Minister invoked the colours of the union flag as she rejected criticism of her EU strategy - making clear that she will demand the 'right deal for Britain'.

The patriotic line came as the Brussels club's chief negotiator warned that an agreement must be reached by October 2018, and spelled out his determination that it will be worse than our current arrangements.

The government is also embroiled in a bitter struggle at the Supreme Court over whether Mrs May needs approval from parliament to trigger Article 50 - the formal mechanism for leaving the EU.

Labour mocked Mrs May for the phrase, claiming it was intended to cover up the fact her Brexit plan was 'blank'.

The Prime Minister (pictured addressing service personnel on HMS Ocean in Bahrain today) invoked the colours of the union flag as she rejected criticism of her EU strategy

Theresa May was flanked by two Jackal armoured vehicles from 42 Commando as she made her speech in searing sunshine in Bahrain

Speaking in Barhain today, Mrs May made clear her intention to begin the Brexit process by March still stood.

And she dismissed the idea that ministers were trying to decide whether to go for a 'hard' or 'soft' departure from the bloc.

'It is about a red, white and blue Brexit,' she said. 'That is the right Brexit, the right deal for Britain.'

The intervention comes after Downing Street accused Labour and Lib Dem critics yesterday of not being on 'team UK'.

Shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman said: 'The Government can call it whatever colours they like - the fact is their plan for Brexit is completely blank.

'Every indication so far is that the Prime Minister will seek a hard and damaging Brexit, with Britain outside the single market and the customs union.

'What we need to see is a plan and a strategy and the Government seeking to build consensus around it.'

Earlier, the premier stressed the importance of the UK's military reach as she addressed personnel on board HMS Ocean.

In the speech - thought to be her first to forces on deployment since she took over in Downing Street - Mrs May said: 'Today, as we face multiple global challenges and an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world, you are vital to protecting our nation's interests and provide a clear demonstration of the UK's enduring security commitment to the Gulf.

'And as Britain steps up to forge a new, positive, confident role for our country on the global stage, the Royal Navy will be an important part of our vision, pursuing our objectives of security on land and at sea and helping to ensure the free flow of international trade.'

Michel Barnier has been appointed by EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to spearhead the Brexit talks. He warned today that a deal must be done by October 2018

The Prime Minister delivered a message about the importance of the country's military reach as she addressed personnel on board HMS Ocean today

Flanked by two Jackal armoured vehicles from 42 Commando in searing sunshine, the Prime Minister said: 'Britain takes enormous pride in our Royal Navy, known the world over for its professionalism and expertise and for the dedication and courage of its sailors, Royal Marines and its officers.'

She added that 'more than ever, Gulf security is our security', highlighting the strategic importance of the oil and gas supplies from the Middle East.

The premier is in Bahrain to pursue a 30billion trade deal agenda as she visits the Gulf for a landmark trade meeting.

Attending the Gulf Co-operation Council summit in Bahrain, the Prime Minister is moving to free up business transactions between the UK and Middle East.

Mrs May is only the third Western leader, and first woman, to be invited to the gathering.

The premier is in Bahrain to pursue a 30billion trade deal agenda as she visits the Gulf for a landmark trade meeting

Mrs May chatted happily to personnel on HMS Ocean as she continued her visit to the Gulf

Speaking ahead of the visit, the Prime Minister said: 'The Gulf is already our largest investor and our second biggest non-European export market and I think there is huge potential to expand this relationship in the years ahead.

'That's why it is such an honour to be invited to attend the Gulf Co-operation Council where I will have the opportunity to talk to all six leaders about how we can develop our trade relationship, as well as co-operation on security and defence.

'Across these six countries there are exciting opportunities for British business, from energy to education, infrastructure to healthcare and here in the UK, investment from the Gulf is helping to regenerate cities from Aberdeen to Teesside, Manchester to London.

'As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf.

'This could transform the way we do business and lock in a new level of prosperity for our people for generations to come.'

Theresa May, pictured with Bahrain Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, has temporarily escaped from the raging Brexit debate on a trip to the Gulf

Mrs May, pictured left with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is the third Western leader and first woman to be invited to the meeting

Mrs May was given a grand welcome as she arrived in Bahrain, with a number of dignitaries waiting to greet her

Downing Street was using the two-day trip starting on Monday to announce a new five-year multiple entry visa for British businesses visiting Saudi Arabia, British participation in Expo 2020 in Dubai, and a joint working group to thrash out post-Brexit trade deals.

The Government says it has identified 30billion of top level opportunities for British businesses across 15 sectors over the next five years.

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.

Before leaving for the visit, Mrs May said the controversial human rights record of Gulf states should not be a bar to increased post-Brexit trade with them.

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.

Mrs May said it was 'such an honour' to be invited to the summit and added there was 'huge potential' to expand trade links with the Gulf region
The EU's top negotiator upped the pressure on Theresa May today by warning that a Brexit deal must be done by October 2018.

Michel Barnier also insisted the UK will not be allowed to 'cherry pick' the best parts of membership - saying the new terms will be 'worse' and there will be no compromise on free movement rules within the single market.

The tough message came as the Frenchman, appointed by EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to spearhead the looming talks - gave his first press conference on the issue.

But the Prime Minister delivered a defiant riposte, saying she would secure a 'red white and blue' Brexit.

Michel Barnier has been appointed by EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to spearhead the looming Brexit talks

There has been a dramatic ramping up of the rhetoric as the two sides draw battle lines.

The Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloemlaunch a furious attack on the UK government's 'attitude' this morning - warning that negotiations are shaping up to be bitter and damaging.

But arriving in Brussels today Chancellor Philip tried to ease tensions, stressing it was in 'everyone's interests' to have a 'smooth' separation with the EU.

Mr Barnier gave the clearest picture yet of his timetable for the process of leaving by saying a deal needed to be done by October 2018.

Mrs May's plan to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty in March next year would potentially see us quit the bloc by March 2019.

But Mr Barnier said the time in between would be needed to pass an agreement through the European parliament and countries' legislatures.

He also stressed that there will be no substantive negotiations until after Article 50 is invoked.

'Being a member of the European Union comes with rights and benefits. Third countries can never have the same rights and benefits since they are not subject to the same obligations,' Mr Barnier said.

The Prime Minister (pictured addressing service personnel on HMS Ocean in Bahrain today) invoked the colours of the union flag as she rejected criticism of her EU strategy

Theresa May, pictured with Bahrain Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, has temporarily escaped from the raging Brexit debate on a trip to the Gulf

'The single market and its four freedoms are indivisible. Cherry-picking is not an option.'

Despite earlier suggestions that he would insist on French being the language of the Article 50 talks, Mr Barnier spoke in both English and French at the Brussels press conference.

He said he was aiming for an 'orderly' Brexit, but said it was 'too soon' to discuss the details of how it would happen.

'We are entering uncharted waters,' said the French former foreign minister.

'The work will be legally complex, politically sensitive and will have important consequences for our economies and for our people, on both sides of the Channel.'

Mr Barnier refused to rule out the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK after Brexit.

He said he was determined that the Brexit negotiations would 'find a way' to preserve the success of the Good Friday peace agreement.

But asked if he would commit to retaining the common travel area and rule out a hard border between Ireland - a member state - and the UK once it is outside the bloc, he said Brexit would have implications for the EU's frontiers.

Mr Barnier, who played a leading role in the EU's support of the Good Friday process, said: 'The UK's decision to leave the European Union will have consequences. In particular, perhaps, for what are the EU's external borders today.

'All I can say at this moment in time is that I am personally extremely aware of the importance of this particular topic.'

Speaking in Barhain today, Mrs May made clear that her intention to begin the Brexit process by March still stood.

And she dismissed the idea that ministers were trying to decide whether to go for a 'hard' or 'soft' departure from the bloc.

The struggle is continuing in the Supreme Court today over whether Mrs May needs parliamentary approval to trigger Article 50

'It is about a red, white and blue Brexit,' she said. 'That is the right Brexit, the right deal for Britain.'

The intervention follows Downing Street's jibe at Labour and Lib Dem critics yesterday of not being on 'team UK'.

Earlier, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters that the process was already on the wrong track.

'It can be smooth and it can be orderly but I think it requires a different attitude on the part of the British government because the things that I've been hearing so far are incompatible with smooth, incompatible with orderly,' Mr Dijsselbloem, who is also finance minister of the Netherlands, said.

'If the UK wants to have full access to the internal market then it will have to accept the rules and regulations that go with that internal market.'

Asked whether Britain was seeking to 'have its cake and eat it', Mr Dijsselbloem responded: 'I was going to stay away from that cliche, but you are absolutely right.'

Mr Hammond said: 'I think that's in everyone's interests, on both sides of the English channel, to have as smooth a process as possible, that minimises the threat to European financial stability and minimises the disruption to the very many complex relationships that exist between European manufacturing businesses and their financing banks and so on in London.'

Mrs May chatted happily to personnel on HMS Ocean as she continued her visit to the Gulf

A Downing Street spokesman said: 'We have set out our position repeatedly. We will trigger Article 50 no later than the end of March next year.

'There is a two year time frame on that process. We have been clear we are not seeking to extend that process.

'In terms of how long the actual negotiations take place, clearly that is a matter that will resolve itself as a result of the negotiations.

'It would be wrong of me to put a timetable on it.'

He added: 'The European negotiation team and their approach to the negotiations between the UK and the other 27 member states is clearly a matter for them.

'We have been clear on our timetable and we would not move away from it.'

The spokesman said it was more important to get the 'best deal' than do the deal in 18 or 24 months.

He would not be drawn on whether Mr Barnier's comments ended the prospect of a transitional deal.

Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, said: 'Mr Barnier's latest contribution is of just the type calculated to raise the political temperature at a time when he should be lowering it. He should have the economic wellbeing of Europe and its citizens as his overriding objective, not grandstanding to Brussels.

'Both sides in the negotiations can gain together or lose together. So his first priority should be thinking about how to re-establish a close economic relationship between the EU and the UK, after Brexit.'

The clashes come amid the ongoing struggle in the Supreme Court over whether Mrs May needs parliamentary approval to trigger Article 50.

If the judges uphold the High Court ruling against the government, it could potentially lead to a significant delay in beginning the Brexit sequence.
Police officers have taken to Facebook to mock a fugitive voyeur after he was caught flying a drone outside people's bathrooms and spying in.

Shared over 1500 times on the social media site, the post indicates the owner's identity is known but to 'make this easier on everyone' he should turn himself in.

On Saturday morning, a drone was found hovering outside a private bathroom window in Utah.

According to Orem Police Lieutenant Craig Martinez, a local man was getting ready for work and heard what sounded like a drone outside.

Orem Police Department put out a Facebook message saying they know who owns the drone in the hopes he will turn himself in

'He had gotten out of the shower, and heard the humming of the drone,' the man's wife told FOX 13.

She added: 'He went running outside and, as soon as they saw him, he instantly lifted off the air and flew away.'

She said her husband flies drones himself and recognized the noise.

The man followed the drone and found it in the parking lot of a local Mormon church, and turned it over to police.

Lt. Martinez explained that when batteries are low on a drone, it will fly back to where it took off from. This likely means the drone's owner was not far away from the parking lot.

The officer said: 'We know who he is. We came across some pretty disturbing videos and images.

'It appears that whoever is flying the drone, was using it at times to view into people's bedrooms or bathrooms.'

POLICE'S TAUNTING FACEBOOK POST TO DRONE OWNER If you answer yes to ALL of the following questions please call, 801-229-7070: 1  Are you missing a quadcopter? 2  Did you lose it this morning, in Orem? 3  Are you looking over your shoulder to see if the police are following you? 4  Have you been convicted of voyeurism in the past? 5  Does the SD card in your quadcopter camera have videos of people in their private bedrooms and/or bathrooms? 6  On the same SD card is there a picture of you flying your quadcopter? 7  Would you like to turn yourself in before we have to come knocking at your door, maybe on Christmas morning, with a warrant? We know who you are, but lets make this easier on everyone! #wheresmydrone, #weknow Orem Police Department Advertisement

Orem police identified the drones owner from images found on the camera card of of him flying the object.

Police say they will not release the identity of the pilot until they locate and arrest him.
This is the emotional moment a woman was reunited with her cats following a devastating fire that tore through a residential street.

The woman, who has not been identified, burst into tears after a firefighter handed her one of her beloved cats following the blaze in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A video then shows her looking completely overjoyed when her other cat was also rescued and returned.

A woman burst into tears after being reunited with her cat following a devastating fire that tore through a residential street in Cambridge, Massachusetts

A video shows her looking overjoyed when her other cat was also rescued and returned

At the start of the footage, a friend or relative of the woman can be seen gesturing over to a firefighter, appearing to ask about the whereabouts of the cats.

Lt. Brian Casey from Engine 9 can then be seen returning both of the cats, wrapped up in a blanket and coat, to their rightful owner.

Firefighters worked into the night to put out the huge blaze on Saturday, which damaged at least 16 buildings and took six hours to get under control.

An assistant fire chief said it was 'nothing short of a miracle' that no one was killed in the fire, which is believed to have displaced around 125 people.

Footage shows the devastating damage left by fires, with three buildings needing to be torn down and at least one other that will be partially razed.

Lt. Brian Casey from Engine 9 can then be seen returning both the cats to their rightful owner

The video shows him carrying out the woman's black cat, wrapped up in a coat

The Cambridge Fire Department said Monday that they have located the area where the fire began and there is no evidence it was intentionally set.

Residents told Boston's WBZ-TV t he flames were carried by the wind and spread quickly.

Dana Fuller said: '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.

'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.'

A Mayor's Fire Relief Fund has been set up online to raise money for the families impacted by the devastating fire.

Heavy flames engulfed at least seven residential buildings on Saturday, including a former church that had been converted to condos
The brother of a three-year-old girl abducted in a Madeline McCann-style case in Australia has revealed the heartache of his mother dying never knowing the truth.

Cheryl Grimmer was just three when she vanished from outside a beach shower block in Wollongong, New South Wales, 46 years ago.

Despite a massive search at the time, police were unable to recover the toddler, who is believed to have been murdered.

Her brother, Stephen Grimmer, 52, has revealed how their parents Carol and John died without ever knowing the truth.

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Cheryl Grimmer was just three when she vanished from outside a beach shower block in Wollongong, New South Wales, 46 years ago

Carole Grimmer with her three sons, Stephen, Ricki and Paul, the day after her three-year-old daughter, Cheryl Grimmer, disappeared from Fairy Meadow Beach, New South Wales

Cheryl's brother, Stephen Grimmer, 52, has revealed how their parents Carol and John died without ever knowing the truth

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

Stephen, who has two other brothers Ricki and Paul, told how the three of them had never stopped looking for their little sister, according to The Times.

Carol died three years ago, and on her deathbed made the brothers promise to find out what happened on the fateful day on January 12, 1970.

Three-year-old Cheryl was abducted from the changing rooms at Fairy Meadow beach during a family trip.

A summer storm had washed over the holiday spot 50 miles south of Sydney, and the three brothers were told to take her to the shower.

It is believed she was taken while she was alone in the female changing room.

Three days after the abduction, a ransom note was sent to Cheryl's parents demanding $10,000, but with police lying in wait, no one turned up to claim the cash.

Australian police now believe the youngster was kidnapped by a teenage boy - who would now be in his early 60s.

He was seen running towards bushland from the area where Cheryl vanished.

Cheryl and her family emigrated from the UK in the late 1960s.

The family were living in a hostel near the beach at the time of the abduction.

Her three brothers Ricki, Stephen and Paul have called on the killer to hand himself in.

Ricki told a press conference during a re-enactment of the disappearance at Fairy Meadow Beach, where Cheryl was last seen: ' Heartache decisions I made on the day were wrong. I shouldn't have left. What do you say? What do you do? It's affected me all my life.

Ricki Grimmer, centre, pictured with his brothers, Stephen, second left, and paul, right, along with Detective Inspector Brad Ainsworth, left, said he still blames himself despite being only eight at the time of his sister's disappearance in January 1970

'Everyone says it wasn't my fault but come and stand where I'm standing, see what it feels like.

'Just let us know where she is, give us something so we can mourn. It's cost me and my family everything.'

The suspect was missed on the day and though they would not reveal many details, investigators are 'confident [they] are on the right track'.

'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.

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

Madeleine McCann was last seen at an apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal in 2007

Police and volunteers search for three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer who disappeared from Fairy Meadow Beach, New South Wales the day before

Two days after the disappearance the military joined police in the search for Cheryl Grimmer

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.

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 group of drone users had their day in the park ended prematurely by a furious woman who look a low view of their flying machine.

The men were in Pype Hayes Park, Birmingham, having travelled from different parts of the country such as Leicestershire and East Sussex.

In a video uploaded to LiveLeak, they claim they were showing a father and her daughter the view through their first-person view (fpv) goggles, which are linked to the drone to provide an on-board angle.

The woman - who they labelled 'The Troll Of Pype Hayes Park' - explicitly tells them to go back to where they have come from and threatens to call the police

The woman - who they labelled 'The Troll Of Pype Hayes Park' - explicitly tells them to go back to where they have come from and threatens to call the police despite the fact they produce documentation proving they are allowed to be there, which she throws on the floor.

At one point, the woman even bizarrely accuses them of being on drugs.

However, with their fun sufficiently spoiled, the group decide to call it a day anyway and pack up their things.

This is despite the fact they produce documentation proving they are allowed to be there, which she throws on the floor

The men were in Pype Hayes Park, Birmingham, having travelled from different parts of the country such as Leicestershire and East Sussex

The video uploader commented: 'Don't be tempted to fly fpv in Pype Hayes Park Birmingham unless you're prepared to deal with this.

'This delightful specimen started shouting at us from 200 metres away swearing and screaming at the top of her voice for us to "F**k off!
A New Jersey state trooper was killed when a car travelling along the opposite lane lost control, crossed the central median and smashed into his car.

Trooper Frankie Williams, 31, was responding to a call in Millville in southern New Jersey about 7pm when the accident happened.

A man heading northbound lost control of his Toyota Corolla and smashed head-first into Trooper Williams' squad car.

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Trooper Frankie Williams' patrol car, pictured center, was mangled when a car travelling the opposite direction crossed the grass median and smashed into him head on

Police believe the Toyota Corolla, right, crossed the central median and crashed into Trooper Williams' patrol car that was responding to an emergency call last night

Trooper Frankie Williams, 31, pictured, only graduated from his training class in January

Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police confirmed Trooper Williams died in the crash.

The unidentified man was pronounced dead at the scene. Trooper Williams, 31, was flown to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where he was pronounced dead, state police said.

News helicopter video showed the mangled cars and debris littering the roadway. The crash remained under investigation early Tuesday.

State police said Williams, of Atlantic County, was a member of the 156th State Police Class, which graduated January 29, 2016. He was assigned to Port Norris Station.
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Vladimir Putin's game of 'cat and mouse' with Britain has continued as his nuclear fleet went into UK territorial waters again.

The Russian president's Vice Admiral Kulakov was met at the edge of the English Channel by HMS Sutherland, a Type 23 frigate.

Royal Navy sailors on the ship based at Devonport in Plymouth watched the Udaloy class destroyer through binoculars.

Watchful eye: The Vice Admiral Kulakov (top) was met at the edge of the English Channel by HMS Sutherland (bottom)

Close by: Royal Navy sailors on the HMS Sutherland (bottom) watched the Udaloy class destroyer (top) through binoculars

They had been deployed early on Saturday and used radar to track the Russian ships course and speed.

The Kulakov was recently in the Eastern Mediterranean, and is now on her return journey, escorted by other Nato warships.

HMS Sutherland commanding officer Commander Trish Kohn said the transit was being 'continually monitored'.

She added that this was taking place 'through a co-ordinated response between the Royal Navy and our Nato partners'.

Commander Kohn continued: The transit of Russian ships from the Mediterranean to their northern ports is not unusual.

'But the Royal Navy is ready at all times to protect UK territorial waters.

HMS Sutherland: The Royal Navy ship has been tasked, with her Nato colleagues, with patrolling the seas around the UK

Vice Admiral Kulakov: The Russian ship had been operating in the Eastern Mediterranean, and is now on her return journey

The Navy said HMS Sutherland was deployed to 'the western edge of the English Channel in good time to meet the Kulakov.

HMS Sutherland has been tasked, along with her Nato colleagues, with patrolling the seas around the UK since the summer.

She holds the Fleet Ready Escort duties after the work of Type 23 HMS Richmond and Type 45 HMS Duncan earlier this year.

The frigate will also track the Kulakovs position and movements for the Nato Maritime Commanders Headquarters in London.

The Royal Navy said HMS Sutherland had been remaining at a respectful distance, but with the Russian warship clearly visible.

HMS Sutherland is also a submarine hunter, fitted with the latest towed array sonar and the Merlin Mk2 helicopter.

Russian President: Vladimir Putin is pictured today, addressing a congress of judges at The House of Trade Unions in Moscow

The Royal Navy said this is helping to support the Trident submarines which provide the UK's nuclear deterrent.

Russian state news agency Tass reported that today the Russian Navys presence in the Mediterranean is permanent.

A report told how the Vice Admiral Kulakov passed the Strait of Dover to sail to the northeast Atlantic.

A Russian Navy spokesman said: The large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov has entered the English Channel.

While passing the Iberian Atlantic, the Vice-Admiral Kulakov crew performed a number of combat training drills.

The Russian Navy added that the Kulakov held an exercise to ensure the ships air and anti-submarine warfare defence.

Powerful: HMS Sutherland is also a submarine hunter, fitted with the latest towed array sonar and the Merlin Mk2 helicopter

Royal visit: Prince Charles (right) talks to Royal Marine Caleb Brown (left) during a tour of HMS Sutherland in Bahrain in 2007

It also carried out exercises to practice rescue operations using deck-based aviation - Kamov Ka-27 helicopters.

The Tass report added that the ships crew helped a Ukrainian fishing vessel in distress in the Mediterranean last month.

It said the crew will continue performing missions in the northeast Atlantic in the imminent future.

In October Britain deployed a flotilla of Royal Navy destroyers to 'man-mark' a fleet of Russian warships off the Scottish coast.

It was mocked as an 'overreaction' by Mr Putin's supporters and Russian military experts branded the Royal Navy as 'weak'.
A mother has avoided jail after being arrested earlier this year for drink driving with her three children  all under the age of six  in the backseat of her car.

Jacqueline Mumbler was handed a 13-month suspended jail sentence on Tuesday following her arrest in May in west Sydney, during which her blood-alcohol limit was read at three times over the legal limit, according to Seven News.

The 37-year-old said at the time of her arrest she was 'disgusted with herself' and reiterated the same sentiment this week.

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Jacqueline Mumbler (right), 37, has avoided jail time after being arrested in May in west Sydney for drink driving while her three kids were in the backseat

She (pictured) was handed a a 13-month suspended jail sentence on Tuesday after the judge heard she completed a four-month stint in rehab

'I have been beating myself up for the past four or five months.'

'I made a mistake,' she said, adding that she is relieved by the outcome and believed she was going to have to go to prison.

Ms Mumbler's car was found to be unregistered and uninsured when she was stopped by police and her eight-month-old child was seen unrestrained in the backseat, according to Seven News.

Ms Mumbler's (pictured) blood-alcohol limit during her arrest was three times over the legal limit

Her other children, aged six and three, were also found in the backseat.

Despite a conviction for mid-range drink driving last year, the Magistrate suspended Ms Mumbler's sentence after hearing she completed four months in rehabilitation.

Ms Mumbler said the ruling was a 'turning point.'
600-mile range unmanned sub is to be used for 'mapping and

This is the first look at Vladimir Putin's 50ft underwater 'robot' that can imitate any submarine in the world and carry out 600-mile spying missions 1,800ft below the surface.

Russian military designers say their 'submarine imitator', called Surrogat, will be capable of travelling at speeds of up to 24 knots for hours on end.

Powered by lithium-ion battery, it will be able to imitate both conventional and nuclear-powered submarines thanks to its 'modular design' which allows it to 'change its functionality'.

On the drawing board: Vladimir Putin's 50ft underwater 'robot' will be able to imitate any submarine in the world and carry out 600-mile spying missions 1,800ft below the surface, experts claim

The design was unveiled as Russia continues to build up its forces on Europe's borders amid heightened tensions between president Vladimir Putin (pictured in a submarine last year) and the West

It comes as Russia continues to build up its forces on Europe's borders amid heightened tensions between president Vladimir Putin and the West.

It would be used to help Russian navy training but could also be used for 'mapping and reconnaissance' trips, according to Russia's Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering.

State media agency TASS reported the bureau as saying the sub's 'ability to carry towed sonar arrays for various applications will help realistically reproduce an enemy submarine's physical fields - acoustic and electromagnetic.

'Today, combat submarines have to be involved for exercises or tests and this practice distracts them from carrying out their basic missions.

'The use of an unmanned imitator will help avoid this and cut the cost of drills. Besides, a submarine without a crew reduces risks while keeping simulated scenarios realistic,' Rubin CEO Igor Vilnit told TASS.

Powered by lithium-ion battery, it will be able to imitate both conventional and nuclear-powered submarines thanks to its 'modular design' which allows it to 'change its functionality'. The Royal Navy's submarine Vanguard, which carries trident missiles, is pictured

'This apparatus will be distinguished by its simplicity in operation and the low cost of its maintenance and upgrade.

'Now we're holding consultations with Navy representatives to make the imitator fully meet the Navy's requirements,' he said.

In training, the provides for up to 15-16 hours of naval exercises and is capable of 'reproducing an enemy submarine's manoeuvring, including at high speed, over this time', TASS reports.

The unmanned sub will have a displacement of about 40 tons, a cruising range of about 600 miles at a speed of 5 knots and a maximum speed of moire than 24 knots.

It is also being designed to withstand a maximum immersion depth of 600 meters.

While negotiations are taking place with the Russian Navy, the design bureau has not ruled out selling the submarines to foreign customers in the future.

The Kremlin under Vladimir Putin (pictured) is set to equip its tanks with advanced new reconnaissance drones, which will be able to circle up to 100 metres and stay in the air indefinitely

It comes days after it emerged that the Kremlin is set to equip its tanks with advanced new reconnaissance drones, which will be able to circle up to 100 metres and stay in the air indefinitely.

The devices, named 'Pterodactyls', increase Russian ground forces' capabilities at a time when it is building up troops on Europe's borders.

Russian Armata tanks will be equipped with the drones, which will be powered by a cable, and will increase the distance at which they can identify targets.

It comes at a time of heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine, after the latter began two days of missile tests near Crimea.
The CEO of the company which owns Carrier, which agreed to keep hundreds of manufacturing jobs in Indiana after a direct plea from President-elect Donald Trump, has admitted the deal was influenced by the fear of losing federal government work.

Last month the company, which makes heaters and air conditioners, announced it was backtracking on its plans to move production from Indianapolis to Mexico after Mr Trump intervened.

Greg Hayes, CEO of United Technologies, told CNBC yesterday: 'I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. I also know that about 10 per cent of our revenue comes from the US government.'

President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, are introduced to Carrier worker Mauro Rosales (right) by the company's CEO Greg Hayes (left)

Trump's presidential transition team saw the Carrier U-turn as an early PR coup for the incoming administration, although the terms of the agreement remain murky.

By enabling Carrier's Indianapolis plant to stay open, the deal spares about 800 workers whose jobs were going to be outsourced to Mexico, according to federal officials.

This suggests that hundreds will still lose their jobs at the factory, where roughly 1,400 workers were slated to be laid off.

Greg Hayes (pictured, left, and right, with Mike Pence) denied Mr Trump had offered him a quid pro quo if he reversed the decision to move all the jobs to Mexico

Mr Hayes said he was partly influenced by the belief that the Trump administration would bring in lower taxes and a better regulatory environment.

Speaking of his conversations with Mr Trump, he told CNBC there was no deal as such, and added: 'There was no quid pro quo for him to say, "Look, I am not going to tax you, if you don't do this." He simply said, "Take a look at this."'

United Technologies owns Pratt & Whitney, a big supplier of fighter jet engines, and it gets about $5.6billion a year in federal money.

Don't get that tie caught in the machinery: Mr Trump went on a walkabout at the factory last week. Its closure would have been a major embarrassment for Mike Pence, who is the Governor of Indiana

After the announcement that Carrier were staying in Indianapolis, Senator Joe Donnelly, a Democrat, said he still had questions about what the announcement would mean for the workers.

He said: 'Who is going to be retained? What is the structure there will be for the retention? What is going to be put in place?

'Are these the same jobs at the same wage? I would sure like to know as soon as I can.'

If the Indianapolis plant had closed it would have been a major embarrassment for Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is the outgoing Governor of Indiana.

On the campaign trail, Trump threatened to impose sharp tariffs on any company that shifted its factories to Mexico. And his advisers have since promoted lower corporate tax rates as a means of keeping jobs in the US.

In February, United Technologies said it would close its Carrier air conditioning and heating plant in Indianapolis and move its manufacturing to Mexico. The plant's workers would have been laid off over three years starting in 2017.

Whatever deal Trump struck with Carrier does not appear to have salvaged jobs at a separate branch of United Technologies in Huntington, Indiana, that makes microprocessor-based controls for the heating, air conditioning and refrigeration industries.

That branch will move manufacturing operations to a new plant in Mexico, costing the city 700 jobs by 2018.
Jean Paul Gaultier said he has nothing bad to say about the future First Lady and is willing to dress her unlike many of his colleagues

Jean Paul Gaultier has said he would be happy to dress future First Lady Melania Trump, after fellow designers including Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs said they refused to do so.

Sophie Theallet, one of current First Lady Michelle Obama's favorite designers, was the first to say in an open letter on Twitter that she would not be dressing Mrs Trump.

Ford and Jacobs are now part of a long list of designers who have said they do not want Mrs Trump in their clothes, which also includes Phillip Lim, Derek Lam and Joseph Altuzarra.

But Gaultier, a former creative director of Hermes known for his irreverent style and playful couture, told the Press Association: 'If you have to be truly political, there are probably a few people you can dress.

'She dresses very well by herself, I have nothing bad to say against her, it's not a question of politics.

'She was better dressed than Hillary (Clinton), when she went to vote she was in her camel coat and white dress and was beautiful.

'I don't know who advises her or maybe it's herself, but if she asked me to dress her, why not? Definitely. It's not my objective but why not?'

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Jean Paul Gaultier praised Mrs Trump's camel coat and white dress she wore to the polls

Melania Trump has spoken out on Twitter about her favorite designers before her husband announced his candidacy for President

Melania Trump has tweeted about her favorite high fashion designers including Louis Vuitton

Jacobs previously told WWD: 'I have no interest whatsoever in dressing Melania Trump.

'Personally I would rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters.'

Ford told The View he had been asked to dress her a few years ago and declined, saying he thinks his clothes are too expensive.

Jean Paul Gaultier is known for his playful couture. He is the former former creative director of Hermes

Jean Paul Gaultier said future first lady Melania Trump was better dressed than Hillary Clinton when she went to vote

Dressed in crystal-embellished tails on the red carpet of the Fashion Awards at London's Royal Albert Hall, Gaultier also spoke about fashion in the UK.

He said: 'British fashion has always been very important.

'The streets of London have always influenced me, it is very flattering to be liked in England. You are truly great in style but also funny, not as serious as Paris which is quite pretentious.'

DESIGNERS WHO WILL NOT DRESS MELANIA TRUMP Dressing the First Lady of the United States is usually considered an honour. Clothes worn by First Lady Michelle Obama would often sell out in minutes. Here are a few designers who have said they will not dress Melania Trump: Marc Jacobs

Tom Ford

Derek Lam

Sophie Theallet

Joseph Altuzarra

Timo Weiland

Phillip Lim

Humberto Leon Advertisement

He criticised designers who choose models solely because of their following on social media, saying: 'I'm not influenced by that, people who choose models only because of Instagram, they don't see beauty, they only see how many followers.

'I don't appreciate that too much, but that is their problem. If I like a girl, Instagram or not, I will take her.'

Kate Moss arrived at the event with photographer Mario Testino, and said they are both workaholics.

She said: 'We have to live together, work together, we want to have fun at the same time. We are workaholics so if you work all the time we want to have fun.'

Testino added: 'We are working class.'
A carer was filmed stealing money from her war veteran patient while she looked after him in his own home.

Susan Pell, 65, of Pinchbeck in Lincolnshire, stole a total of 50 from Peter Carpenter, 89, of Spalding, Lincolnshire, on two separate occasions as she went to help him with a life-threatening condition.

But as seen in the heartbreaking footage below, she waited for him to turn his back before raiding his wallet for cash.

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This is the moment that Susan Pell was caught stealing money from Peter, her patient

After finding out what she'd done, Mr Carpenter said he was 'devastated' and found the CCTV images 'sickening'.

Heartbreakingly, he told how he would have given Pell the money if she had just asked him.

At Boston Magistrates Court, prosecutor Marie Stace described Mr Carpenter as a vulnerable person who had health problems.

She said Pell had been working as a carer for him, going into his home twice a week to help him with his personal hygiene.

But when Mr Carpenter realised that money was being taken from him, he marked the notes in his wallet so that he could check if any were missing after people who went to his home had gone.

Miss Stace said his family set up CCTV cameras in the house and Pell was seen taking the money between October 31 and November 5 while he was in the bathroom washing.

In a personal statement to the court, Mr Carpenter said he had health issues with an aneurysm and arthritis and had paid for carers to come to the house since June 2015.

Peter, a war hero, was the victim of theft by Susan, his carer

He said he had been shocked to see Pell stealing from him on the CCTV images that had been recorded and had been left depressed and feeling vulnerable.

'If she was short of money I would have given her 20,' he said.

Pell pleaded guilty at Boston Magistrates' Court to stealing a total of 50 from the war veteran, 20 and 30 on two respective occasions, November 1 and 4.

Defending her, Sonya Bhalla said Pell had no previous convictions and had never been inside a courtroom before.

She said Pell had found herself in debt but could not offer any reason why she had stolen the money as she had no need to as she could have asked her husband for it.

Ms Bhalla said Pell was 'extremely remorseful' and had written a letter of apology to Mr Carpenter and had now stopped working as a carer.

But magistrates told Pell she had 'betrayed the trust placed in you' and said they had heard of the 'distress and shock to the victim'.

They also said she had 'placed suspicion on other people who went to the house'.

Pell was sentenced to a year-long community order and ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid community work.
Angela Merkel has called for a burka ban after saying the 'full veil is not appropriate' in Germany.

In an astonishing U-turn, the German chancellor told her conservative CDU party conference that wearing the burka should be outlawed 'wherever that is legally possible'.

It comes after the 62-year-old stressed her determination to ensure there is no repeat of last year's huge migrant influx as she seeks a fourth term as chancellor.

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Angela Merkel has called forr a burka ban after saying the 'full veil is not appropriate' in Germany

In an astonishing U-turn, the German chancellor told her conservative CDU party conference that wearing the burka should be outlawed 'wherever that is legally possible' (file picture)

Merkel said she would back a nationwide ban just months after revealing that she believed the burka was a barrier to Muslim women becoming integrated into German society.

She told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland in August: 'From my point of view, a completely covered woman has almost no chance of integrating herself in Germany.'

Previously, Merkel has stopped short of calling for a ban on Islamic clothing, saying: 'This is a question of finding the right political and legal balance.'

Her new, tougher stance comes a week after Dutch MPs voted overwhelmingly to ban the Islamic full-face veil from some public places such as schools and hospitals, the latest such move in a European country.

The legislation must now go before the Senate for approval before becoming law. It follows similar bans imposed in France and Belgium, and comes amid rising tensions in Europe with Islamic communities.

Merkel came out fighting on the first day of her conservative party congress pledging to ban the burka and bring the refugee crisis under control.

A 77 minute speech interrupted by minutes of standing ovations proved the most powerful woman on the continent still has what it takes to rally the faithful.

She pledged to strengthen the forces of law and order while speeding up the sclerotic deportation process of failed asylum seekers.

The 62-year-old (pictured today) stressed her determination to ensure there is no repeat of last year's huge migrant influx as she seeks a new term in charge of her conservative party

'Not all the 890,000 refugees who came last year can or will stay,' she said at the start of her speech designed to claw back ground lost in recent months to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

But the pastor's daughter who was raised in communist East Germany pledged that every asylum application would be judged on its merits and that people would not be lumped into an 'anonymous mass.'

She said that a refugee situation of the kind Germany had endured in the summer of last year 'can and should not be repeated.'

And she pledged that the law of the land stood above 'any honour codes or Sharia.'

Mrs Merkel's critical speech came as tensions continue to rise following the brutal rape and murder of a 19-year-old medical student by an Afghan refugee.

She criticised the groundswell of Internet hate against migrants. She said that she often had the opinion that those who wrote them needed an 'integration course' more than the newcomers.

She said the tasteless online attacks shocked and sickened her. 'So say I, so say we; this must not be.'

She said she recognized that the general election of next year was like 'none other' and that it would not be 'like swallowing a sugar drop.'

She pledged a stronger Europe, a stronger economic base for Germany and a stronger commitment to achieving peace in Syria. At the end of it she was rewarded with a standing ovation of over 11 minutes.

HOW THE BURKA HAS DIVIDED OPINION ACROSS EUROPE Angela Merkel's remarks today come a week after Dutch MPs voted to ban the full-face Islamic burka in some public places, such as schools and hospitals and on public transport. Here is the status of the garment in European countries: Britain There is no law restricting the wearing of garments for religious reasons. However in March 2007 the education ministry published directives allowing directors of public establishments and denominational schools to ban the niqab veil. Judges have on occasion refused to hear veiled women because they could not verify their identity. Netherlands The legislation, which has passed the lower house and now has to be approved by the Senate, bans the wearing of burkas, helmets and face masks on public transport as well as education, healthcare and government buildings. The bill was proposed by Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk last year, as he believed clothing that covered the face hindered communication in public services and could pose a security threat. Violations could result in a fine of up to 410 euros. Germany Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has proposed a partial burka ban. De Maiziere, one of Merkel's closest allies, said the ban would cover 'places where it is necessary for our society's coexistence' including government offices, schools and universities, courtrooms as well as demonstrations. Earlier this year, several French towns sought to ban burkinis, the full-body Islamic swimsuit. The move was successfully challenged in all but one case on the island of Corsica (file picture) France The first European country to ban the full-veil in public spaces with a law 'banning the hiding of the face in public spaces', with a law that took effect in April 2011. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the burka ban in 2014, rejecting arguments that outlawing full-face veils breached religious freedom. The law has resulted in around 1,500 arrests in the past five years, and violations can result in fines of up to 150 euros. Earlier this year, several French towns sought to ban burkinis, the full-body Islamic swimsuit. The move was successfully challenged in all but one case on the island of Corsica. Belgium The wearing of the full veil is governed by a June 1, 2011 law. It prohibits 'appearing in places accessible to the public with a face masked or hidden, in whole or in part, in such a way as to be unidentifiable'. Exceptions exist, in particular where the workplace requires the face to be hidden, or for the carnival season. Violations can result in fines and/or up to seven days in jail. Bulgaria In September, Bulgarian lawmakers approved a law that bans wearing in public clothing that partially or completely covers the face, with exceptions for health or professional reasons. Initial violations result in a fine of roughly 100 euros, while subsequent violations are fined the equivalent of 750 euros. Italy There is currently a debate over a 1975 law aimed at protecting public order that makes it illegal to cover one's face in public places and the provision applies to the veil, as well as motorcycle helmets and other masks. The anti-immigrant Northern League presented in October a draft law in the Lombardy region around Milan that would ban the burka, niqab and burkini. Switzerland Switzerland's lower house narrowly approved in September a draft bill on a nationwide burka ban, but the measure remains far from becoming law. In the southern Tessin region however, the burka has been forbidden since July 1 and violators face a minimum fine of 100 Swiss francs. Norway Education Minister Torbjorn Roe Isaksen said in October that the government was seeking regulations prohibiting the full-face veil in schools and universities. Scandinavian neighbours such as Denmark and Sweden have allowed schools, administrations and companies to decide the issue for themselves, while there is no ban in Finland. Others Three other countries that have not banned the burka are among those closest to the Middle East or North Africa; Greece, Portugal and Spain. Advertisement

Germany saw about 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year, many after Ms Merkel decided in September 2015 to let in migrants who were stuck in Hungary.

Numbers have since declined sharply, but Ms Merkel's approach to the migrant crisis has provoked discord within her Christian Democratic Union party, which has seen a string of poor state election results this year.

'A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated,' Ms Merkel told party delegates at a congress in the western city of Essen.

'That was and is our, and my, declared political aim,' she said.

While Ms Merkel has continued to insist that Germany will take in people in genuine need of protection, her government has moved to toughen asylum rules and declare several countries 'safe' - meaning people from there cannot expect to get refuge in Germany.

Ms Merkel was a driving force behind an agreement between the European Union and Turkey earlier this year to stem the flow of migrants.

Ms Merkel announced last month that she will seek a fourth four-year term as chancellor in an election expected next September. Her springboard to that run is re-election as the chairwoman of the CDU.

The vote in Essen, where she was first elected chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union in 2000, offers a test of Ms Merkel's standing with members.

Aside from unhappiness about her migrant policy, some members are grumbling about what is perceived as a wider drift to the left during her 11 years as chancellor.

Merkel pledged a stronger Europe, a stronger economic base for Germany and a stronger commitment to achieving peace in Syria. At the end of it she was rewarded with a standing ovation of over 11 minutes

Polls show a solid lead for the conservatives, though their support is well short of the 41.5% they won in Germany's 2013 election.

They face new competition from the upstart nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has thrived by attacking Ms Merkel's migrant policies.

She is running unopposed for another term at the CDU's helm. Two years ago, she won the support of 96.7% of delegates, one of her best results.

Beyond domestic issues, Merkel also devoted a large part of her address today to crises abroad as she noted that in 2016, 'the world has not become stronger and more stable, but weaker and more unstable'.

She deplored the failure of the international community to alleviate the suffering in Syria's besieged city of Aleppo, calling it a 'disgrace'.

Merkel said she was shocked to see tens of thousands of Germans hitting the streets to demonstrate against free trade deals but virtually no protests against the bloodletting in Syria.

'There is something wrong there,' she said.

She also underlined the importance of holding the European Union together, saying Germany will do well 'only when Europe does well too.'
A furious Scot filmed a row with a McDonald's manager in London who refused to accept his Scottish 5 note.

Ian Hardie, 27, from Aberdeen, tried to pay for his meal with a new Scottish plastic 5 note at a McDonald's restaurant in Marble Arch on Sunday.

However, the woman behind the till - who appears to be a manager - can be seen shaking her head and trying to hand the note back to him.

Ian Hardie, 27, from Aberdeen, filmed a row with a McDonald's manager in London who refused to accept his Scottish 5 note

During the 15-second clip, Mr Hardie can be heard saying 'It's a f****** 5 note!' when the manager says it is their 'discretion' whether they take the money or not.

He also argues in the footage: 'No seriously, it's pound sterling.'

Mr Hardie said that, despite being infuriated at the time, he found the whole incident quite comical.

He said: 'Before my money was given back to me, I'd been stood for about five minutes whilst management discussed it then they said they wouldn't accept it.

'I found the whole thing hilarious if I'm honest. A lot of people have taken it quite seriously.'

He added that after the debacle, he ended up leaving the McDonald's restaurant, saying: 'If my fiver wasn't good enough, I wasn't using my card.'

Social media users joked about the incident, with one person posting an image of a scene from Braveheart with the caption: 'They can take our lands but they'll never take our fivers'

The clip has received almost 250,000 views after being posted on Facebook on Sunday.

Social media users expressed their anger at the incident, with one person writing: 'S***** McDonald's don't go there.'

Alex Cairnie added: 'Should be sacked for illiterate ignorance.'

Meanwhile, Glenn Ives posted an image of a scene from Braveheart with the caption: 'They can take our lands but they'll never take our fivers.'

In reference to revelations that the new Bank of England 5 notes contain traces of animal fat, Graham Scott joked: 'Those fivers have more animal in them than any McDonald's burger.'

During the 15-second clip, Mr Hardie can be heard saying 'It's a f****** 5 note!'

In September, McDonald's were branded 'ridiculous' after it was revealed that many of their stores in Lincolnshire had a policy not to accept Scottish banknotes.

According to the Bank of England, Scottish banknotes are not legal tender. Bank of England notes are only legal tender in England and Wales.

They say: 'The acceptability of a Scottish or Northern Ireland banknote as a means of payment is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved.

'If both parties are in agreement, Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes can be used in England and Wales.

A spokesman for McDonald's said: 'The note in question was passed through one of our machines responsible for checking genuine bank notes and failed on two occasions.

'This was the reason it was not accepted and has nothing to do with it being Scottish tender. The vast majority of McDonald's UK restaurants accept Scottish banknotes.'
Dramatic footage shows the moment a man was chased down a street by officers and tasered following a reported 'high-speed' police chase.

The footage shows the suspect running down the road in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, followed by officers in hi-vis jackets.

The man jumps over the front wall of a property, before falling to the ground after appearing to be tasered by an officer.

Dramatic footage shows the moment a man was chased down a street by officers and tasered in Cheadle, Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester Police confirmed that a taser was deployed during the incident on Saturday night.

A spokesman said officers responded to reports of a dangerous driver, and took pursuit after the vehicle failed to stop.

A 38-year-old man was arrested for dangerous driving, taking of a motor vehicle and criminal damage.

One resident, who recorded the chase from her window, said: 'I heard a loud bang and looked out my window and saw some guy jumping on a police car.

The footage shows the suspect running down the road followed by officers in hi-vis jackets

The suspect captured running down the street. Greater Manchester Police confirmed that a taser was deployed during the incident

'I got my phone out to film it, but by the time I had he was running down the street being chased by police.

'I think he threw his jacket at them, and they got him and tasered him and arrested him.'

Another witness claimed the police chase reached speeds of around 90mph.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: 'Shortly before 11pm on Saturday, police were called to Kingsway, Cheadle, to reports of a dangerous driver.

'Officers attended and signalled for the driver to stop however the man fled and a short pursuit ensued.
A Playboy cover model who is involved in Estonian politics has appeared in court accused of a racially aggravated attack on the manager of a London restaurant.

Anna-Maria Galojan, 34, allegedly assaulted Quentin Morales while drunk at the Gastro Restaurant in Venn Street, Clapham, south west London, in July.

Galojan, of Kensington, west London, denied a racially aggravated common assault and being drunk and disorderly when she appeared at Camberwell Magistrates Court.

A Playboy cover model who is involved in Estonian politics has appeared in court accused of a racially aggravated attack on the manager of a London restaurant

The former Estonian Reform Party candidate, who featured on the cover of Estonian Playboy in 2009, wore a black coat, black skirt and high heels to the hearing.

Her trial was due to go ahead today but has been adjourned until February.

Galojan (pictured), denied a racially aggravated common assault and being drunk and disorderly when she appeared at Camberwell Magistrates Court

Her defence team are still waiting for prosecutors to serve CCTV of the alleged incident.

Deputy District Judge Adrian Turner granted her conditional bail and said: Im sorry that you have not had your trial today which is what everyone wanted including you.

Galojan now lives in London working as a political analyst for The Baltic Times and The Middle East Magazine and volunteered for Vote Leave during the EU referendum.

She was convicted in May 2011 of stealing 60,000Euros from NGO European Movement Estonia to fund lavish shopping sprees while director in 2007.

She was sentenced to five months in jail for abuse of office and embezzlement, but fled to London claiming political asylum.

She was finally extradited in February 2015. The socialite said her only crime was to fall out with my party...and attack corruption within in.

As a result of this I was charged with fraud and theft, which took more than five years to come to trial, and in a tried and tested Soviet style court case I was convicted,' she said of the case/
The Footy Show host and former NRL star Beau Ryan has fulfilled a dying cancer victim's wish by rushing to her hospital bed.

Kia Lettice, 22, who suffers from ovarian cancer, was in Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital on Tuesday evening when her friend sent a Facebook plea saying Kia had only hours to live.

At about 8pm, Mahalia Murphy posted: 'URGENT REQUEST!!! Any assistance to boost my friend up? She is currently in Prince of Wales hospital and has roughly four hours to live as she's fighting cancer.

'She wants Greg Inglis or Beau Ryan To come see her. If everyone can share this or get in contact for me this would be much appreciated.'

The Footy Show host Beau Ryan has terminally-ill woman Kia Lettice's dying wish by rushing to her hospital bed

Terminally-ill 22-year-old Kia Lettice was diagnosed with ovarian cancer which then spread

Beau Ryan at Kia's bedside with her friend Mahalia Murphy after rushing to be there from Shellharbour, two hours away

Ms Murphy's post on Facebook after Beau Ryan rushed to be by her friend's side

The post was quickly seen by thousands and soon after the public plea, Beau Ryan, a host of The Footy Show responded - and said he was on his way.

'Leaving Shellharbour now! See you in two hours. Tell her to stay strong,' Ryan replied to Ms Murphy's post.

By 10pm, Ms Murphy had posted to Facebook: ' Thanks to everyone for making this special moment happen. Beau Ryan you are a true legend man. Can't thank you enough for this moment'.

It was accompanied by a photograph of Ryan, a former back for the Wests Tigers and the Sharks, at Ms Lettice's bedside.

Beau Ryan at Ms Lettice's bed after responding to her friend's request just shortly beforehand

Ms Lettice's partner, Steve Page (right) was also by her bedside when Ryan came to visit

Although Ms Lettice was told she had just a few hours to live, her spirits lifted and she fought the cancer after being told Ryan, 'her future husband,' was on the way to the hospital.

'She always would say while watching the footy show, thats my future husband there, even though she has a boyfriend' Ms Lettice's first cousin, Shaniqua, told Daily Mail Australia.

Jarrod, another relative, said 'You were able to see it [her spirits lifting], her eyes opened up more, she was sitting up actually taking photos and smiling.'

Ms Lettice's relatives told Daily Mail Australia they rushed to her bedside making the five hour journey from Condoblin, in central NSW to Sydney, after being told she had just hours to live.

Ms Lettice's family are now hoping she will continue to fight knowing she might be able to see Ryan again as well as meet Greg Inglis.

'She talked to Greg Inglis...hes in Queensland but he said he will come and see her when he's back and Ryan said he'll make some time to come back and visit her again,' Jarrod said.

Ms Lettice's family rushed to the Syndey hospitla after they were told she had just a few more hours to live

Mahalia Murphy posted to Facebook with a plea for her friend Kia Lettice (pictured)

The image was 'liked' almost 10,000 times within hours of it being posted.

Hundreds of comments flowed in from people praising the special moment.

Model Emily Skye wrote on a photo of Ryan and Mr Lettice: 'This is so beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. What an angel. You are so amazing to do this'.

One of Ms Lettice's family members, Isaac Lettice, wrote: 'Just want to say a massive thank you man! Means so much to our family and especially Kia. You are a very kind man with a heart of gold! Means so much in our time of need'.

Others have called Ryan a 'true gentleman' and an amazing person.

The Rugby League Bible hailed Ryan as a 'beautiful soul' for his effort to see the 22-year-old

Kia Lettice's wish came true when Beau Ryan, 'her future husbad' rushed to her bedside
A man has been caught on camera feeding a pig from a beer bottle.

The footage shows a man pouring what appears to be beer onto a flip flop and encouraging the pig to lap the drink up.

The shocking video, posted online by Australian man Aidan Keith McGregor Boxsell, shows a child watching as the pig drinks the fizzy liquid.

In the video, the pig, called Reeko, snorts as it licks at the shoe and guzzles the drink, which looks similar to lager.

While music plays in the background, a child is heard asking why the pig is drinking from the flip flop, rather than from the puddle that has spilled onto the floor.

After feeding the pig for nearly 10 seconds, the man pulls the shoe away, leaving the farm animal to drink from the pool of liquid on the ground.

The pig does not appear to have been harmed.

Mr Boxsell told Daily Mail Australia that he would never harm his beloved pet and that the bottle only contained ginger ale.

'We know feeding beer to animals is of course a form of animal abuse,' he said.

'We filled an empty beer bottle with ginger ale. I only said it was beer to gain likes and attention and I see we have caused the wrong attention.

'He's a much loved pet. We wouldn't harm him in any way.'

Cruelty? A man has been caught on camera feeding a pig from a beer bottle

In 2013, a feral pig reportedly went on the rampage after downing 18 cans of beer.

The swine is said to have attacked a cow in Port Hedland, Western Australia, before passing out drunk.

In 2006, animal rights activists accused the owners of a pub in Tasmania of cruelty after allowing tourists to feed two pigs beer.
An Australian mother-of-two who was convicted on drug smuggling charges has had her appeal knocked back in Cambodian court on Tuesday.

Queensland woman Yoshe Ann Taylor, then 41, was found attempting to smuggle 2.2kg of heroin out of Cambodia and into Australia in September 2013.

She was convicted on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 23 years in a Cambodian jail.

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Queensland woman Ann Yoshe Taylor, then 41, (centre) was convicted on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 23 years in a Cambodian jail

Judge Pol Sam Ouen rejected the appeal, shattering Taylor's hopes of an early release from the notorious Phnom Penh prison where she had been holed up for more than three years.

Since Taylor, a school teacher in Queensland, was caught with the 2.2kg worth of heroin her lawyers have argued she was the victim of an intricate love scam.

It is reported she became romantically involved with Nigerian man Precious Chneme Nwoko, then 23, who was posing as a successful South African businessman.

Nwoko befriended Taylor online and paid for her airfare over to Cambodia, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Since Taylor, a school teacher in Queensland, (far right) was caught with the 2.2kg worth of heroin her lawyers have argued she was the victim of an intricate love scam

Yoshe Ann Taylor (left) argues she was the victim of an intricate love scam masterminded by Precious Chineme Nwoko

When Taylor was due to fly back to Australia, Nwoko asked her to carry a bag of arts and crafts supplies back with her.

Taylor was caught with the bag, containing the heroin, at the airport before even checking-in for the flight.

Video footage has shown her collapsing at the airport when discovering the drugs were planted in her bag.

She was arrested, and Nwoko, who reportedly masterminded the smuggling, was arrested soon after.

Nigerian man Precious Chineme Nwoko (left) was sentenced to 27 years in Cambodian jail for his part in trying to smuggle heroin into Australia

French woman Charlene Savarino (centre) with Australian woman Yoshe Ann Taylor (right) as they are escorted by Cambodian prison guards in Phnom Penh

He was sentenced to 27 years in jail but he is allegedly still operating love scams from behind bars, targeting Australian woman.

Nwoko's 27-year sentence was also upheld in Cambodian court on Tuesday.

Frenchwoman Charlene Savarino, then 19, was also convicted of drug trafficking when she was caught alongside Taylor attempting to traffic the A-Class drug from Cambodia into Australia.

A Nigerian man Precious Chneme Nwoko (center) suspected of smuggling heroin, is escorted by guards to a appeals court, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016

Precious Chneme Nwoko (pictured) is accused of masterminding the attempted smuggling of 2.2kg from Cambodia to Australia

Precious Chneme Nwoko (pictured) reportedly lured Taylor over to Cambodia after making her believe they were in a romantic relationship

Savarino, who was sentenced to 25-years behind bars, also had her appeal rejected in court on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old Frenchwoman was believed to be Nwoko's girlfriend.

Cambodia is not a major producer of illegal drugs but has increasingly become a smuggling transit route.

Khieu Vann, the lawyer for Taylor, told reporters that the appeals court's decision was an injustice and that he would consult with his client to see if she wished to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Khieu Vann, the lawyer for Taylor (left), told reporters that the appeals court's decision was an injustice and that he would consult with his client to see if she wished to appeal to the Supreme Court

French national Charlene Savarino, center, accused of smuggling heroin, is escorted by guards to the appeals court, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016
Australian high school students are two years behind their top international counterparts, a report shows.

Students aged 15 in Australia have not just slipped compared to their international peers, but have actually gotten worse at maths, science and reading, the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) revealed.

When compared to teenagers in Singapore, local students were found to be about one-and-a-half years behind in science, one year behind in reading, and two-and-a-third years behind in maths.

Australian high school students are two years behind their international counterparts, a schools report shows

Education Minister Simon Birmingham (pictured) acknowledged Australia's performance was slipping in the three-yearly report, released on Tuesday night

Education Minister Simon Birmingham acknowledged Australia's performance was slipping in the three-yearly report, released on Tuesday night.

'Given the wealth of our nation and scale of our investment, we should expect to be a clear education leader, not risk becoming a laggard,' Senator Birmingham said.

'We must leave the politicking at the door and have a genuine conversation that is based on evidence about what we do from here.'

Australia is above the OECD average, but sits equal 10th in science, equal 12th in reading and equal 20th in maths out of 72 countries, according to analysis by the Australian Council for Educational Research, which reports on the study.

Australia is above the OECD average, but sits equal 10th in science, equal 12th in reading and equal 20th in maths out of 72 countries

'The PISA results are showing that we are getting worse at preparing our students for the everyday challenges of adult life in the 21st century,' the council's Sue Thomson told AAP.

Dr Thomson says there is an issue with the teaching of maths and science in Australia.

'TIMSS has shown that and now PISA has shown it again,' she said.

'Other countries are getting better than we are and we're not even just standing still in this one, we're falling behind as well.'

More than half-a-million 15-year-olds complete the test worldwide, aimed at measuring how well they use their knowledge to meet real-life challenges, with more than 14,000 Australian students taking part.

More than half-a-million 15-year-olds complete the test worldwide, aimed at measuring how well they use their knowledge to meet real-life challenges, with more than 14,000 Australian students taking part

When compared to teenagers in Singapore, local students were found to be about one-and-a-half years behind in science, one year behind in reading, and two-and-a-third years behind in maths

The 2015 test, which focused on science, asked students about issues such as migratory bird patterns, running in hot weather and sustainable fish farming.

The PISA results come on the back of last week's Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) showing Australian students still middle of the pack after 20 years of testing.

After sitting behind the likes of Kazakhstan and Slovenia in the TIMSS, Australia was outperformed by Finland in all three PISA areas, Vietnam in Science and Slovenia, again, in maths.

Singapore was the highest performer across the board.

'I don't think there is any good news stories out of it because all of the gaps that we measure have continued to have just stayed,' Dr Thomson said.
Christopher Wordsworth, a decendant of William Wordsworth, is fighting plans to erect pylons along a 3.5km stretch in Whicham Valley just 10 metres from the Lake District

A 2.8 billion plan to 'fence in' the scenic Lake District with giant electrical pylons is being fought - by the descendant of famous poet William Wordsworth.

The National Grid wants to link the proposed new nuclear plant at Moorside near Sellafield, Cumbria, to the UK power network at the Heysham power station in Morecambe.

After agreeing not to place 47-metre high pylons all the way through the Lake District National Park, the utility giant proposed a 460 million plan to run cable underground.

However, that will still see pylons placed along a 3.5km stretch in Whicham Valley just 10 metres from the Lake District Park's legal boundary.

The line of pylons will also run right across the top of the Duddon Estuary interrupting stunning views into and out of the high fells of the Lake District.

Now campaigners have been joined in their battle by William Wordsworth's great-great-great-great-grandson.

Christopher Wordsworth said: 'William Wordsworth was enthralled by the unique beauty of the Duddon. It inspired his famous series of sonnets.

'As much as the works of my ancestor are an important part of our literary heritage, his 'long-loved Duddon' is an important part of our natural heritage.

'We owe it to his memory to preserve its beauty for future generations to enjoy.'

Earlier this year a storm of protest helped scrap the 'North West Coast Connections' project scheme to slap 47-metre high pylons through the Lake District National Park.

Now lovers of the Lake District are trying to stop the utility giant's back-up plan.

Landscape charity 'Friends of the Lake District' and campaign group 'Power Without Pylons' have teamed up to fight the pylon plan.

The National Grid is looking to link the proposed new nuclear plant at Moorside near Sellafield, Cumbria, to the UK power network at the Heysham power station in Morecambe. But campaigners such as Mr Wordsworth (pictured) say the pylons will destroy views

They want National Grid to adopt an alternative solution which would remove the need to take the power cables up the valley and around the estuary.

Friends of the Lake District (FLD) are urging local people to take part in a consultation which ends of the 6th of January

An FLD Spokesperson said: 'For 3.5km in the Whicham Valley, pylons will be within just tens of metres of the National Park boundary.

'The line of pylons will also run right across the top of the Duddon Estuary interrupting stunning views into and out of the high fells of the Lake District, scarring a cherished landscape steeped in history.'

What Pylons would look like on the edge of the Lake District. Campaigners stress the pylons would irreversibly scar the cherished national park's iconic landscape, steeped in history

The line of pylons will run right across the top of the Duddon Estuary interrupting stunning views into and out of the high fells of the Lake District. Photo shows shoreline of Wastwater in the Lake District

Maps showing where the National Grid plan to put underground cables and pylons are available on their website

Campaigners stress this would irreversibly scar the cherished national park's iconic landscape, steeped in history.

Dr Kate Willshaw, policy officer at Friends of the Lake District, said: 'We need as many people as possible to tell National Grid that putting pylons just metres outside of the National Park~s south-western boundary will cause unacceptable damage.

'It will destroy the special qualities of the National Park and interrupting people's enjoyment of our beautiful landscape renowned throughout the world.'

Graham Barron, secretary of Power Without Pylons, said: 'Protecting this important area is not just a local issue but a national issue.

'Over 40 million people visit Cumbria each year to enjoy these special landscapes: they don't want them scarred by lumps of metal and unsightly overhead wires.

'There are feasible alternatives to pylons which we have campaigned for from the outset.

'If enough people state their objections to giant pylons in writing we believe the wall of opposition will force National Grid to reconsider.'
Rupert Murdoch's son James (pictured) was complicit in authorising the deletion of emails when the News of the World hacking scandal emerged, the High Court heard this week

Rupert Murdoch's son James was complicit in authorising the deletion of emails when the News of the World hacking scandal emerged, a senior lawyer for alleged victims has claimed in the High Court.

Celebrity barrister David Sherborne made the claims while acting for 17 people who say they had their voicemails hacked by journalists working for the defunct tabloid.

Mr Sherbourne claimed on Monday there is paperwork, emails and other documents that show that executives including James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks encouraged emails to be deleted.

Mr Murdoch did so on six occasions between January and April 2010, according to written arguments submitted to the court and seen by the Guardian.

Mr Sherborne aimed said this was 'to eliminate emails that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which an NI company is a defendant.'

The allegations about email deletion were made during a case management hearing at the High Court, which is set to reach trial next year.

Rebekah Brooks was cleared of trying to cover up hacking and her trial heard she ordered the deletion of emails. News International - now known as News UK - said there was nothing 'abnormal, untoward or inconsistent' about the request.

Rebekah Brooks (pictured with Mr Murdoch Sr) was cleared of trying to cover up hacking and her trial heard she ordered the deletion of emails - but the company said there was nothing 'untoward' about it

Mr Murdoch has always denied he knew anything about the possibility of widespread hacking at the News of the World.

In 2012 he told MPs that he had not read a damning internal email which demolished the company's claim that hacking was the work of one 'rogue reporter', even though he had responded to it at the time.

Celebrity barrister David Sherborne (pictured) made the new claims while acting for 17 people who say they had their voicemails hacked by journalists working for the defunct tabloid

He also said he had not asked for more details, including a legal opinion, over a 700,000 pay-off to hacking victim Gordon Taylor in 2008.

The committee said it 'could not adjudicate with confidence either way' on whether Mr Murdoch had read the email.

But the MPs said they were 'astonished' at his claim that he had not asked questions about the huge payments to Mr Taylor.

Their report later said: 'If he did, indeed, not ask to see either document, particularly the counsel's opinion, this clearly raises questions of competence on the part of News International's then chairman and chief executive.'

But the cross-party committee was said to be divided over whether Mr Murdoch had misled Parliament.

James Murdoch also faced fierce criticism over his management style, and for presiding over poor corporate governance at the media empire.

In October Sky found itself at the centre of a shareholder revolt over the reappointment of James Murdoch as its chairman.

In 2012 James Murdoch (pictured at the Leveson Inquiry) told MPs that he had not read a damning internal email which demolished the company's claim that hacking was the work of one 'rogue reporter', even though he had responded to it at the time.

More than 28pc of shareholders voted against Murdoch, who is the son of media mogul Rupert, over concerns about his independence.

Twenty First Century Fox - owned by 85-year-old Rupert, who is one of the world's most powerful media magnates - holds a 39pc stake in Sky.

There has been speculation Fox will make a bid for the remaining shares, sparking fears Murdoch will fail to negotiate the best deal for minority shareholders.

Royal London, which owns 51.5m of Sky shares, said Murdoch's reappointment as chairman was 'inappropriate'.

He had resigned in 2012 in the wake of criticism from industry regulator Ofcom over his handling of the phone hacking scandal.

He had previously built Sky into a powerhouse over four years as chief executive and five as chairman, and was on the verge of selling it to Fox before a bid was abandoned.

However, months before his return as chairman of Sky, 43-year-old Murdoch was made chief executive of Fox - receiving a 15m pay check.
Zakaria Boufassil has been found guilty of funding terrorism after handing 3,000 to the terror suspect known as 'The Man in the Hat'

A Belgian living in Birmingham faces jail after he was found guilty of supplying 3,000 in overpaid housing benefit to the so-called 'Man in the Hat' terror suspect in the Brussels Airport bombing.

Mohammed Abrini, a courier for the Paris and Brussels terrorist cell, visited Britain in July last year to collect the cash.

Zakaria Boufassil, 26, handed over the money in Small Heath Park in Birmingham after taking elaborate measures to evade detection.

A second man, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 27, also took part in the hand-over and pleaded guilty four weeks ago.

Boufassil was today found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by supplying the money to Abrini between July 9 and July 16 last year.

On April 8 this year, Abrini, 31, was arrested in Belgium and accused of 'participating in terrorist acts' linked to the Brussels Zaventem Airport suicide bombing on March 22.

The Belgian Moroccan is also wanted by French authorities for the November 13, 2015, attacks in Paris in which 130 people died.

Ahmed and Boufassil handed over the money near Small Heath Park in Birmingham after taking elaborate measures to evade detection.

Mohammed Abrini was caught on camera fleeing Brussels airport after the bombing in March and he is accused of playing a role in the Paris and Brussels attacks

The money had been withdrawn from a British bank account in the name Anouar Haddouchi, another Belgian who had been living in Birmingham but had already joined ISIS.

The account contained overpaid housing benefits totalling 5,413 which had been paid between December 21, 2014, and November 1, 2015.

Haddouchi and his wife, Julie Maes, a convert also from Belgium, along with another Belgian called Abelatif Gaini, had all departed from Britain to join ISIS.

Abrini has told Belgian police that the money was given to the brother of Abelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind behind the Paris attacks, who spent it all on 'going out, cars and clothes.'

Abrini became known as the 'Man In The Hat' after his suspected involvement in March's Brussels terror attack

In fact, detectives believe that it went towards funding the cell that launched the attacks that killed 162 people.

Investigators believe Abrini's trip to Manchester United stadium, the Bull Ring Shopping Centre in Birmingham and a number of casinos during the trip to Britain was most likely to be part of his cover as a tourist, rather than a scouting mission.

In court, Boufassil claimed that he was a cannabis-smoking dupe, who had been used by Ahmed to deliver the money.

But call data revealed he had been in constant touch with Ahmed around the time of the exchange and had spoken to Abrini by phone afterwards.

Max Hill QC, prosecuting, said 'there can be no doubt that the money was handed over with the intention of assisting acts of terrorism.

'The destination of the money would include Syria, and specifically Daesh, either to Haddouchi himself or to other fighters.'

He told the jury: 'This case, you may think, gives you a glimpse of how terrorists work, how they prepare.

'They need money. No doubt it comes in all amounts and from many sources. This case just shows one occasion, one source, one piece of the jigsaw of so-called Islamic State.'

The handover of the money took place in Small Heath Park in Birmingham in July last year

The trial heard that Abrini denied any plan to attack Britain, saying: 'Neither in London, nor in Birmingham, nor in Manchester, have I been on any reconnaissance trips in relation to preparatory terrorist attacks.'

He added: 'There's no plan to target England as a potential site for a terrorist act. From what I know, it's France who is the declared enemy of Islamic State.

'I think England has a more developed secret service, better observation techniques etc... and it's therefore more difficult to attack. I've not heard either of contacts with any English nationals in Syria.'

Mohammed Ali Ahmed admitted handing over the money. Both he and Boufassil now face jail sentences

Speaking after today's verdicts, Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale of West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit, said police believe there was 'nothing sinister' in the rest of Abrini's visit to Britain after the meeting at Small Heath.

But he warned that the threat had 'never been broader or deeper,' despite Abrini's denial that ISIS would target Britain.

'All of this illustrates the threat we face from Daesh and it will only get more difficult as the military squeeze increases and fighters are pushed back to Europe, but we have never been better prepared.

'We are grateful that this group looked in the other direction but others don't hold that respect and there is still a genuine and real threat to the UK.'

During the trial Boufassil admitted meeting Abrini in the park, but denied it had anything to do terrorism and its funding.

He insisted that Ahmed had 'never communicated' his plans, 'took advantage of his naivety' and had not told him that Abrini, who he claimed to never have met, was a 'bad person'.

Boufassil and Ahmed will be sentenced on December 12 at London's Kingston Crown Court.
Egypt's health ministry has uncovered an illicit human organ trade in which migrants are selling body parts to reach Europe (file photo)

Egypt's health ministry has uncovered an illicit human organ trade in which migrants are selling body parts to reach Europe.

Forty-five doctors, nurses, middlemen and organ-buyers have been arrested for their alleged parts in the human harvest.

Unconfirmed reports suggest organ traders are targeting African migrants desperate for money to pay their for the way into Europe on rickety boats.

As well as the arrests, officials also recovered millions of dollars in a dawn raid on Tuesday, the health ministry said, in what they are calling the largest organ-trafficking network exposed in Egypt to date.

'The accused who were arrested exploited the economic situation of some Egyptians and the suffering of some patients and their need for treatment to take large financial sums from them, thus breaking the law,' the ministry said in a statement.

It said the investigation focused on a group of private hospitals and health centres, both licensed and unlicensed, where transplants and organ harvesting took place.

The Health Ministry and Administrative Control Authority, a powerful anti-corruption body, said those premises had been shut by authorities while doctors involved were suspended from practice pending investigation by public prosecutors.

Some of the doctors arrested worked at well-known institutions including the medical faculties of Cairo and Ain Shams universities - Egypt's two largest state universities.

The statement did not give any exact details about the amount of money recovered or the magnitude of the trade.

It was not immediately possible to identify or reach the doctors and others arrested in the government crackdown.
The home of an interracial couple has been ruined after vandals defaced the walls with swastikas and racial slurs.

Joe and Pat Jude left their rental home in Price Hill, Cincinnati to go and spend Thanksgiving with their daughter Jessica in Chicago.

But when they returned last Monday, they noticed that an upstairs window had been left open, even though they had secured the property before their trip.

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The graffiti which was scrawled on the walls in the home of interracial couple Pat and Joe Jude in Cincinnati , Ohio

The intruders also destroyed pipes, leaving the upstairs flooded and stole appliances such as the refrigerator from the kitchen, pictured

Video courtesy of WCPO:

When they entered their home, they found intruders had broken in and scrawled swastikas across the walls.

They had also strewn paint everywhere and left other 'white power' slurs including one saying 'Die N*****.'

The intruders also destroyed pipes, leaving the upstairs flooded and stole appliances such as the refrigerator from the kitchen.

Mr and Mrs Jude, pictured, have now started an online appeal and in it they wrote how they had brought up their children without prejudice

And now the couple have launched an online appeal to raise money to try and repair their destroyed house.

Mrs Jude told WCPO: 'When I walked in... it just shook me. It just floored me that somebody could spread so much hate.

'They hit every cabinet with paint. They hit every wall with paint. They hit every appliance, they poured paint into the appliances. They poured cement down the drains. I mean there is nothing that is salvageable.'

The graffiti was particular hurtful to the couple because their son, Jay, committed suicide aged 16 in 2010 after he endured racial bullying in high school.

And Mrs Jude wrote on her GoFundMe appeal page how she and her husband had brought up their children without prejudice.

She explained: 'He was called the N-word, and other unacceptable terms by his fellow students and residents of the town.

'One of his teachers even called him stupid in front of the entire class. Unfortunately, with all of this negativity, we lost a wonderful young man.

The graffiti was particular hurtful to the couple as their son, Jay (pictured), committed suicide aged 16 after he endured racial bullying in high school

'He was intelligent and caring and accepted all people regardless the color of their skin. Were one America, and were all the same.'

Police are investigating the vandalism and anyone with information is urged to contact them.
President-elect Donald Trump gave a direct order to dismiss the son of Retired General Michael Flynn from the transition team, after the young man came under fire for spreading the discredited 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theory on Twitter.

Sources told CNN's Jake Tapper that it was Trump who did the deed, after aides in the transition had reportedly requested a security clearance for Michael Flynn Jr.

This afternoon, Vice President-elect Mike Pence revised remarks he had made earlier in the day, admitting that Flynn's son was involved in transition effort and vaguely confirming that a security clearance could have gone Flynn's way.

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Retired Gen. Mike Flynn in the incoming White House national security advisor, has a son (left) who tweeted about the 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theory

Vice President-elect Mike Pence had to revise his remarks and admit Mike Flynn Jr. was involved in transition efforts

Michael Flynn Jr. reportedly has a presidential transition email address

'I said this morning that his son had no involvement in the transition,' Pence told Tapper. 'I talked to Gen. Flynn and his son was helping him a bit with scheduling and administrative items, but that's no longer the case.'

The elder Flynn is slated to become President-elect Donald Trump's national security advisor in the White House.

The younger Flynn, Mike Flynn Jr., did not endorse the conspiracy theory, but predicted that it won't go away.

'Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many "coincidences" tied to it,' he tweeted on Sunday.

He mentions the presidential transition's website on his Twitter biography. CNN reported that his current email address is linked with the transition.

Tapper repeatedly asked Pence about the request for a security clearance, pointing out that, as the head of the transition, he would be privy to such knowledge.

Finally, his last effort paid off with Pence answering: 'Well, what I can tell you in talking to Gen. Flynn today, he made me aware that his son was assisting him in scheduling meetings.'

'And whatever the appropriate paperwork was to assist in that regards Jake, I'm sure it was taking place,' Pence answered.

'But that's no longer the case and your viewers and the American people can be confident that we're going to drive forward,' the vice president-elect answered.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on 'Morning Joe' that Mike Flynn Jr. has no transition role

Earlier today on Morning Joe, the vice president-elect insisted that Flynn Jr. had 'no involvement' in the presidential transition  even though he has a '.gov' email address associated with the transition effort.

'General Flynn's son has no involvement in the transition whatsoever,' Pence said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' program, adding: 'No, no he's not [involved].'

Trump spokesman Jason Miller had told reporters during a Tuesday morning conference call that 'the younger Michael Flynn was helping his father with some administration and scheduling duties early on in the process process, and he is no longer involved with transition efforts.'

These are the same duties that Pence told Tapper about later in the day.

Miller ignored a question about whether Flynn Jr. had been fired, and didn't say when the separation occured.

Pizzagate is a far-fetched scenario promoted by far-right partisans.

It suggests that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, her presidential campaign chairman, presided over a child-sex ring run out of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor.

Police say a 28-year-old North Carolina man opened fire with a rifle inside the restaurant on Sunday because he thought child sex-slaves were being held against their will in the basement.

No one was harmed but the man was arrested.

Hillary Clinton was the target of 'Pizzagate,' a far-fetched Internet conspiracy theory that accused her and her campaign chairman of running a child-sex ring in a pizza parlor basement

A gunman opened fire inside the Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant on Sunday, injuring no one but bringing the 'Pizzagate' theory into mainstream news

On Morning Joe, Pence also defended Housing and Urban Development secretary-designate Dr. Ben Carson against charges that he's unqualified and unprepared for the job.

'He is the most humble brain surgeon I've ever met in his life. He's a brilliant man who has incredible personal faith, an incredible story and character,' Pence said.

He insisted that Carson is 'absolutely qualified  and more than that. He's going to bring to life the president-elect's vision of really bringing real renewal to urban America.'

And Pence suggested that former Vice President Al Gore's meeting with Donald and Ivanka Trump on Monday doesn't indicate a softening of the president-elect's past criticism of global warming theories.
Surgery: Dr Helena Antoniadou (seen outside court in London) was ruled responsible for Mrs Worralls disappointment - but two appeal judges have now exonerated her

A mother-of-four who sued a top plastic surgeon over her droopy breasts faces a 50,000 legal bill after losing her compensation claim.

Claire Worrall, of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, whose bust had shrunk from a DD to a C-cup after breastfeeding her children, wanted to look good for her wedding.

Aged 28, she contacted Dr Helena Antoniadou through the Make Yourself Amazing website and then went under the knife in 2010.

But Mrs Worrall, now 35, was horrified by the results and sued Dr Antoniadou, claiming she was given negligent advice before the operation.

She was concerned at what she perceived to be the droopiness of her breasts, the Court of Appeal in London heard.

A judge ruled Dr Atoniadou responsible for Mrs Worralls bitter disappointment last year and ordered her to pay 14,378 in damages.

But now two appeal judges have reversed that decision and exonerated the surgeon.

Dr Antoniadou could not be blamed if Mrs Worrall left the pre-operative consultation with the wrong end of the stick, they ruled.

Mrs Worrall was ordered to repay the compensation, with interest, and hit with a 35,000 legal costs bill as the price of defeat.

The court heard earlier that Miss Worrall had a 34DD bra size before nursing her children reduced her to a C-cup.

Enlargement: Claire Worrall from Huddersfield, whose bust had shrunk from a DD to a C-cup after breastfeeding her children, wanted to look good for her wedding (stock picture)

Jeremy Roussak QC, for Dr Antoniadou, said: She was getting married in three months and wanted to look good for her wedding.

The court heard she was extremely keen that something should be done so that her appearance could be improved for her impending wedding.

Mrs Worrall discussed the surgical options with Dr Antoniadou and decided to opt for a relatively minor double breast implant.

The mother was clear that she did not want the more radical mastopexy breast uplift procedure, which involved some scarring.

The implants were fitted in August 2010 - two months before her nuptials - and Mrs Worrall was at first delighted with the results.

But Lord Justice Tomlinson said her breasts began to droop again not long afterwards.

A horrified Mrs Worrall was advised that she now needed a mastopexy, which the clinic agreed to carry out free of charge.

But the judge said that proved impossible after she suffered a minor heart attack and the discovery of cardiac problems ruled out surgery.

In June last year, Judge Neil Davey QC ruled that Dr Antoniadou had been negligent.

He said Mrs Worrall had left the consultation with the impression that she would not need an uplift for five to ten years.

Although that was not the advice the surgeon gave, English was not her mother tongue, she spoke very quickly and there had been a misunderstanding.

Overturning the decision, and stripping Mrs Worrall of her payout, Lord Justice Tomlinson ruled that Dr Antoniadou had done nothing wrong.

The advice she gave her patient was correct and she was not responsible for Mrs Worrall getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.

It had never been suggested to Dr Antoniadou that she either realised that Mrs Worrall had misunderstood her, or ought to have done.

A medical professional ought not to be held liable in such circumstances, concluded the judge, who was sitting with Lord Justice David Richards.

Mrs Worrall was ordered to repay the 14,378 compensation and must now also pay the legal costs of Dr Antoniadous defence.

She was ordered to pay 35,000 in costs on account, pending final assessment of her bill, which could ultimately be double that sum.

Mr Roussak earlier told the court that Mrs Worrall had been absolutely determined to have the breast implants.
A judge has baffled lawyers by declaring that a woman who was violently raped and subjected to death threats by her probation officer does not have a civil claim.

Kim Adams had hoped to claim financial relief from Kern County Probation Department in California for 'mental or physical disability' after probation officer Reyes Soberon Jr 'repeatedly, brutally, methodically, and serially molested and sexually assaulted' her from 2012 to June 2015, according to a civil suit.

The attacks left Adams, who went to jail in 2012 for burglary and was released shortly after on probation, fearing for her life, traumatized and suffering severe PTSD.

Her legal claim names the officer, county and Probation Department in the suit.

Kim Adams hoped to claim financial relief from Kern County Probation Department in California, but a judge told her she didn't have a civil claim

Adams filed for a claim after she was raped and subjected death threats by her probation officer, Reyes Soberon Jr (pictured), between 2012 and 2015. The attacks left Adams fearing for her life, traumatized and suffering from PTSD

Adams also claims other officials within the Kern County Probation Department 'silenced' her, telling her not to retain an attorney nor report her claims to the FBI, according to the suit filed on her behalf by leading law firm Geragos & Geragos of Los Angeles.

But last week Kern County Judge Linda S Etienne slapped an order on the suit halting its progress, stating: 'In order to establish mental or physical incapacity the petitioner must show not only that she lacked both the physical and mental capacity to bring the claim, but also that the disability was of such an all-encompassing nature as to prevent her from even authorizing another to file the claim.'

The confusing order goes on to state the declaration of Dr Susan Ashley, the psychiatrist who examined Adams and compiled a psychiatric report, makes no mention of any such disability.

Yet the report diagnoses Adams with PTSD and finds, as a result of repeated sexual assault, that Adams could not perform basic life functions, yet alone find an attorney and file a claim under California's 'six month rule' - a rule which requires anyone suing the government to give notice six months after the last act.

What has baffled lawyers further is that under this judicial order an unrepresented victim of a sex assault suffering from PTSD can never have access to the judicial system if they are unaware of the six month rule.

Additionally the court seems to believe PTSD caused by a convicted sex offender does not constitute a disability.

Soberon sent Adams several text messages over the three-year period. In the messages Adams is called 'sexy mamacita' and 'baby doll'

Ben Meiselas, of Geragos & Geragos told DailyMail.com: 'This misguided judicial ruling is shockingly dismissive of the realities of sexual assault.

'To Kim Adams it's yet another assault administered by the "justice system".

'We will appeal the court's order and seek changes in the law to recognize how sexual assault impacts victims.

'We hope that one day no judge will ever again rule that sexual assault is not debilitating.'

In an interview with TV station 17 News, Adams, who said she was victimized while on probation for burglary, said of the attacks: 'He would put his heavy body against me and hold my arm and shove his tongue in my mouth.

'I believe he used his power and his authority to do this to me constantly.

'When I was put on probation, I was punished triple. One hundred times over.'

DailyMail.com has seen text messages that were sent to Adams by Soberon, in which she is called 'sexy mamacita' and 'baby doll'.

According to the civil suit, Soberon would mislead Adams into coming into the probation office in Bakersfield and take her to a corner where he would 'digitally penetrate her vagina and anus while sticking his tongue down her throat, moaning: "I want you to make me cum in my pants."'

In one horrific incident, Soberon sexually assaulted Adams in her home in front of her disabled son, who suffers from cerebral palsy, as he lay helpless, crawling on the ground.

Soberon told Adams that he would 'put her in jail for the rest of her life' if she refused his sexual advances and at one point threatened to kill her

Soberon threatened Adams that he would 'put her in jail for the rest of her life' if she refused his sexual advances. Adams, a 44-year-old mother of three boys, was terrified for her life and for her safety, the suit states.

After Adams found the courage to inform a female probation officer of the attacks Soberon called her and threatened to kill her.

Soberon was placed on paid vacation from the Probation Department in June 2015 while they investigated the allegations.

After Adams' allegations emerged two other women came forward with similar allegations of sexual misconduct against the probation officer.

He was formally arrested and charged in December 2015 with a felony of sexual battery and two misdemeanors of touching a person intimately against their will for sexual arousal.

Soberon pleaded no contest over Adams' claims and was sentenced to just 180 days for sexually assaulting three woman, including Adams. He has to register as a sex offender.

Meiselas slammed Kern County Probation Department for initially covering up the sex attacks.

'Probation had never mentioned to the public, had never discussed to the public that they had a sexual predator in their ranks, who was being criminally prosecuted.'

He added that the lack of transparency in the system needs to be exposed, and the department not notifying anyone of Soberon's arrest is a breach in the public's trust.
The wife of Missouri's governor-elect was robbed at gunpoint by thieves who snatched her phone and laptop after ambushing her in the parking lot of a restaurant.

Eric Greitens' wife Sheena was sitting in her car outside Cafe Ventana in St Louis, Missouri, on Monday night looking at her cellphone after having dinner inside.

The thieves opened the car door and pointed a gun at the 34-year-old mother-of-two, demanding she hand over her phone and laptop.

She complied, turning over the devices before watching the robbers flee on foot.

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Sheena Greitens, the wife of Missouri's new governor-elect Eric (above with their sons Joshua and Jacob) was robbed at gunpoint in St Louis on Monday night

St Louis Police Department later arrested three teenage boys aged 14, 15 and 19 on suspicion of armed robbery.

The governor-elect took to Facebook on Monday night after the incident to say his wife had been left 'shaken' by the ordeal.

'Tonight, my wife Sheenathe mother of my two boys, and the future First Lady of Missouriwas robbed at gunpoint not far from our home.

'She is safebut shaken. We are grateful for the men and women of law enforcement.

Mrs Greitens, 34, was sitting in her car in the parking lot of Cafe Ventana (above) looking at her phone when the thieves opened the driver's door and pointed a gun at her

The governor-elect took to Facebook afterwards to say his wife had been left 'shaken' by the ordeal

'Their response was swift and skilled, and we thank God for their presence tonight,' he said.

Another car was robbed in the Cafe Ventana parking lot on Monday night.

Its owner tracked his phone to where police arrested the three youngsters who were driving in a stolen car, STL Today reported.

Navy veteran Greitens was named Missouri's next governor last week with 51 percent of the state's vote.

The Republican father-of-two will succeed Democratic governor Jay Nixon in January.
Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski plead guilty to statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977

Poland's Supreme Court rejected a bid to extradite Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States on Tuesday, where he faces sentencing over a decades-old case of statutory rape.

The 83-year-old French-Polish national did not attend the hearing but got the news via text message from his lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz, who told reporters: 'We're very happy.'

'We hope one day it will be over in the United States,' Stachowicz added.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro had appealed to the court in May to overturn a 2015 ruling against extraditing Polanski, saying no one should be above the law.

The Supreme Court 'is dismissing the appeal,' said Judge Michal Laskowski, definitively ending Poland's part in the 1977 case.

Laskowski stressed that the Warsaw court's role was not to rule on the merits of the case but rather to make sure due process had been followed by the lower court.

'We did not find a flagrant violation of the law,' he said alongside his two fellow judges.

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His lawyers Jan Olszewski, left, and Jerzy Stachowicz, right, defended Polanski's right to remain in Poland after he fled the United States before he could be sentenced in 1978

He added however there were circumstances with no legal bearing that were hard to ignore completely: 'More than 38 years have passed since the incident. The victim in this case publicly forgave Roman Polanski. He paid her the monetary damages she requested.'

The government appeal had appeared to be part of what the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government, which took office a year ago, touts as a moral revolution in strongly Catholic Poland.

Polanski is still wanted in the United States for sentencing over the 1977 statutory rape of Samantha Gailey after a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

The United States filed a motion to have Polanski extradited in January 2015 - he is seen here leaving court after a nine-hour hearing in Krakow following the motion

He was arrested after Gailey, now Geimer, accused him of forcing her to have sex after drugging her.

She was 13 at the time. Polanski was 43.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, as part of a plea bargain under which he served 42 days in detention while undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

But in 1978, convinced that a judge was going to scrap the deal and hand him a hefty prison sentence, Polanski fled for France.

The 83-year-old now lives in France with his third wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner

In 2009 he was arrested in Switzerland on a US extradition request and spent 10 months under house arrest before Bern rejected the US order.

The US then asked Poland to extradite Polanski in January 2015, but the local court in the city of Krakow rejected the demand the following October.

Geimer claims she was made to drink champagne and given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson

'Had Poland accepted the US extradition request, it would have violated the rights of Mr Polanski and at the same time the European Convention on Human Rights,' judge Dariusz Mazur said at the time.

The Krakow court was critical of the original US investigation into the filmmaker's case, saying US judges and prosecutors had flouted 'the rules of a fair trial'.

But after the PiS came to power in November 2015 and Ziobro became justice minister, he announced a review of the decision, saying he wanted to 'avoid double standards'.

Ziobro said he respected the Supreme Court decision but added: 'Sexual offences against minors should be pursued all the way, regardless of who committed them and when.'

Geimer published a book in 2013, saying she was made to drink champagne and given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson.

The mother-of-three said in her book she has forgiven him.

'My family never asked that Polanski be punished. We just wanted the legal machine to stop.'

Polanki's French lawyer Herve Temime told AFP he was 'delighted by this decision which puts an end to a grotesque case.'

Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish Jewish parents, Polanski moved to Poland with his family before World War II.

Polanski received the award for Best Director at the 39th Cesar Awards in Paris for his film 'La Venus de la Fourrure' in March 2014

When he was eight, the Nazis arrested his parents and sent them to concentration camps. His mother never returned.

He went on to win acclaim for his 1962 feature debut in Poland, 'Knife in the Water', before arriving in Hollywood in 1968 to shoot his first big international hit, 'Rosemary's Baby'.

The following year his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four friends were murdered by cult leader Charles Manson and his followers.

Polanski now lives in France with his third wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, but he often visits Poland.
Honz Ladd could face terrorism charges after making a fake bomb threat to get a friend out of school early

A Missouri teen went to extreme lengths to help a friend play hooky and now he could face terrorism charges.

Honz Ladd, 17, told police he made a fake bomb threat to get a friend out of school early.

His former school, Republic High School, had to evacuate 1,400 students for hours on November 11 as police investigated the threat.

Parents were told to pick up their children away from the building at the softball parking lot if they didn't ride the bus.

With current Missouri laws, Ladd could face seven years in prison.

Ladd made the threat by going to Google and searching how to submit an anonymous tip.

He said he wrote in a 'paragraph thing' and submitted it through a random website.

KSPR reports Syracuse Police received the threat on their website and soon contacted the Republic Police Department.

Police traced the computer to one in Republic and seized it, cellphones and a bag filled with white powder according to the Springfield News-Leader.

Ladd used the address of Republic High School as his own on the police report. He said he is homeless and was high on methamphetamine when he reported the fake threat.

All 1,400 students evacuated from Republic High School because of the bomb threat

Ladd was caught after police found out he texted a female student asking if she wanted to get out of school early.

However, in a police statement Ladd said he overheard two people talk about knowing someone who was planning to bomb the school at a McDonald's.

Ladd was charged on November 29 with making a terrorist threat and his bond was set at $10,000. He had previously arrested for property damage and assault.
for under $600,000 in Great Mackerel Beach on edge of Sydney's

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Homes are being snapped up for under $600,000 in a once secret Sydney beachside suburb, as families look to escape the city's housing affordability crisis.

Great Mackerel Beach on the edge of the northern beaches is at attracting more residents. The only catch is they'll need a boat.

Mackerel is opposite popular Palm Beach and surrounded by Ku-ring-gai National Park. It currently has a population of about 40 people and there are no roads or cars, Domain reported.

Great Mackerel Beach (pictured) on the edge of the northern beaches is at attracting more residents. The only catch is they'll need a boat

Mackerel is opposite popular Palm Beach and surrounded by Ku-ring-gai National Park. It currently has a population of about 40 people and there are no roads or cars

Homes are being snapped up for under $600,000 in a once secret Sydney beachside suburb, as families look to escape the city's housing affordability crisis

13 Diggers Crescent (pictured) at Great Mackerel Beach is currently on the market for $590,000

Four houses have sold in the area in 2017 with prices ranging from $395,000 right up to $2.6million (13 Diggers Crescent Great Mackerel Beach pictured)

There are no roads, shops or public facilities on Mackerel, and houses rely on rainwater. The mail is delivered by ferry (13 Diggers Crescent, Great Mackerel Beach pictured)

Mackerel is opposite popular Palm Beach and surrounded by Ku-ring-gai National Park (13 Diggers Crescent, Great Mackerel Beach pictured)

'It's got such a magical feel to it,' said resident Sharon Green who lives there with her husband and five-year-old son.

Four houses have sold in the area in 2017 with prices ranging from $395,000 right up to $2.6 million.

There are eight properties currently on the market in Mackerel, with five under Sydney's median house price of $1 million, the publication reported.

'More people are looking up here: there's been a change of attitude, particularly because Sydney is getting so expensive,' said real estate agent Kathryn Hall.

Resident Sharon Green does admit they have had to trade off some conveniences for the affordability and close proximity to the beach.

There are no roads, shops or public facilities on Mackerel, and houses rely on rainwater. The mail is delivered by ferry.

'You've really got to have your own boat or flexible work hours,' said Green.

There are eight properties currently on the market in Mackerel, with five under Sydney's median house price of $1million (13 Diggers Crescent, Great Mackerel Beach)

46 Monash Avenue, Great Mackerel Beach (pictured) is currently on the market for $599,000

Great Mackerel Beach- the 'secret' Sydney beachside suburb where you can buy a home for $600,000(46 Monash Avenue, Great Mackerel Beach pictured)

Resident Sharon Green does admit they have had to trade off some conveniences for the affordability and close proximity to the beach (46 Monash Avenue, Great Mackerel Beach pictured)
A family has been fined for parking a car on their own driveway, and are refusing to pay the council.

Perth woman Sandra Regterschot said her son had gone away for five weeks and left his car on the driveway at their Tapping home, 7 News reported.

And now the family has been handed a $100 fine after the council enforced 'no parking' laws on verges to ease traffic congestion for a primary school across the road.

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A Perth family has been fined for parking a car on their own driveway, and are refusing to pay the council

The family received the $100 fine after the council enforced 'no parking' laws on verges to ease traffic congestion for a primary school across the road

Mrs Regterschot conceded some of the driveway was owned by council, but insisted the fine was 'unjust'.

Sandra Regterschot is pictured

'The council are correct in saying it's their land but how are we breaking the law when we are not obstructing traffic and the intent of the signs was to reduce street parking and congestion,' she wrote on Facebook.

The car was back from the road and was not across any footpaths, Mrs Regterschot said.

'They want to be able to call it their land and put up signs but then we have to look after it and we can't park there,' she told 7 News.

Mrs Regterschot said her and her husband's son had gone away for five weeks and left his car on the driveway at their Tapping home

Mrs Regterschot told 7 News the council said they could park in the car park at the school.

'That's just ridiculous, where are the parents supposed to park if we start taking up all the bays?'

City of Wanneroo director of community and place Noelene Jennings said the council had not fined anyone for parking on their own property.

'There is no restriction on residents parking on their own property, and the city has not fined anyone for doing so. However, vehicles parked on the crossover or nature strip, between the property boundary and the road, are not permitted to park on this section if parking prohibition signs restrict the ability to do so.

'Unfortunately, many residents believe their property includes the full length of the driveway but this is not the case.'
The surgery is widely debated due to the child's age and the fact it's

A five-year-old child who was born a boy will undergo intersex surgery after the Family Court agreed to a request by the parents to remove the child's gonads.

The child known as Carla, was thought to be female when she was born, because she had ambiguous genitalia, The Australian reports.

But when her mother noticed swelling around the vulva, she underwent tests and it was revealed she had male and not female reproductive organs.

The child known as Carla, was thought to be female when she was born, because she had ambiguous genitalia - and was subsequently raised as a girl

Her male gonads were simply tucked inside her body, making her genital area appear similar to that of a typical female's.

Once referred to as hermaphrodites, babies born similar to Carla were often assigned a gender at birth.

With the help of sugery, babies had their sex decided for them.

This practice has now been widely condemned by the intersex community who argue the surgery is 'medically unnecessary'.

Without the young child's input, it is argued the wrong gender could be assigned entirely.

Intersex activist Morgan Carpenter told The Australian on Wednesday it was appropriate to assign a gender to an intersex child at birth, but not enforce it with irreversible surgery.

Carla's male gonads were simply tucked up inside her body, making her genital area appear similar to that of a typical female's - she was raised female, enjoying stereotypical female toys

Intersex activist Morgan Carpenter (pictured) said it was important not to enforce an intersex child's sex with irreversible surgery

'The child will need to decide their identity for themselves, when they are older, and that's difficult when surgery has been enforced on them as children,' he said.

Five-year-old Carla's intersex surgery was approved in January by Family Court judge Colin Forrest who ruled the parents were making the right decision by Carla.

Carla's parents enhanced the appearance of their daughter's outwardly appearing female genitalia when she was a baby, but this did not impact her ability to make a more permanent decision later in life.

The court heard the little girl exhibited stereotypical female behaviours since she was born.

'(She) enjoys toys and colours that are stereotypically female, for example, having pink curtains, a Barbie bedspread and campervan, necklaces, lip gloss and 'fairy stations' the court heard

'(She) enjoys toys and colours that are stereotypically female, for example, having pink curtains, a Barbie bedspread and campervan, necklaces, lip gloss and 'fairy stations'.

'She never tries to stand while urinating, never wants to be called by or referred to in the male pronoun.'

Carla also has long blonde hair which she enjoys wearing in braids, the court heard.

While Carla is due to undergo the surgery now, she may need further surgery when she is older so she has the capacity to have sexual intercourse.

The plight of Carla and intersex children alike have been at the centre of a 2013 Senate enquiry.

Parents of intersex children and their rights have also been at the centre of debate.

Councillor Tony Briffa had his gonads removed when he was seven-years-old, but cautions intersex children and their parents away from surgery at a young age

A local councillor in Hobsons Bay, Melbourne, used his experience as an intersex person as warning for others not to make any rash decisions.

Councillor Tony Briffa was born intersex, but raised as female.

His gonads were removed when he was seven-years-old, after his mother's request for his castration was approved in a similar case to Carla's.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy has urged a small town to abandon its public vote over a proposed Islamic cemetery.

Residents in Dudley, Massachusetts have expressed outrage over plans to turn 55 acres of abandoned farmland into a cemetery for some 16,000 people.

Local politicians held a closed meeting on Friday to discuss the situation, which had brought the condemnation of civil rights organizations.

A Massachusetts Islamic Center wants to turn this abandoned farm house in Dudley and the attached 55 acres of land into a cemetery which will have a capacity for 16,000 people

Local residents have been outraged over the plan citing concerns over future water quality

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy, right, has urged officials in Dudley against allowing the public to vote on the graveyard plan as blocking the development could be breaking several state and federal laws concerning religious discrimination

An online petition has been established calling for the proposed cemetery to be blocked.

But the Massachusetts attorney general's office is cautioning town officials against holding a town-wide vote on the proposal.

Genevieve Nadeau, the civil rights chief for Attorney General Maura Healey, says that under state law, a community can't 'prohibit, regulate, or restrict the use of land or structures for religious purposes'.

The warning comes months after Jay Talerman, a lawyer for the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester, said the Dudley Board of Selectmen turned down the group's proposal to use 55 acres of farmland for the cemetery.

The Islamic center in Worcester wants to purchase the land in Dudley as it is far more convenient than travelling to the existing cemetery in Enfield, Connecticut

Talerman tells The Boston Globe an agreement hasn't been reached but the 'selectmen are moving in the right direction.'
The first witness in the trial of a 101-year-old man accused of historical child sex offences has described him as a 'monster' who left her feeling ashamed and suicidal.

On the first day of evidence against former lorry driver Ralph Clarke, the alleged victim rejected claims she had invented allegations of abuse against the pensioner.

Clarke, who was born in March 1915, is alleged to have committed a string of offences against three children, including one as young as seven, between 1974 and 1983.

Ralph Clarke, 101, who is thought to be the oldest defendant in British legal history, is on trial. He has been accused of 31 offences, which he denies

The retired haulier was allowed to sit in the well of the court, rather than in the dock, as one of his alleged victims told jurors she went to police because she was unable to cope with the 'guilt' of not making a complaint.

During her evidence, the witness, now in her 50s, said she had decided to complain to police in August last year after suffering nightmares and flashbacks.

The woman, who became upset during several sections of her evidence, told Birmingham Crown Court she had hidden abuse she suffered as a young child from school friends.

Responding to questions from Clarke's barrister Darron Whitehead, the alleged victim said: 'I hid it from everybody because you feel dirty and ashamed - I felt as if I had done something wrong.'

Dabbing away tears with a tissue, the woman went on: 'I don't know how I hid it (from other people) but you do, even now as an adult.

'I have sat in rooms or on a bus and people talk about paedophiles and make judgments - a lot of people think if you are abused you go on to abuse, and inside I am crying, saying that's not true.

He is alleged to have committed the offences against three children, including one as young as seven, between 1974 and 1983

'You don't want people to know because people can change their opinions of you and you are frightened of people's reactions. That's why I had to try and keep it to myself.'

Under further questioning by Mr Whitehead, who said Clarke denied abusing her, the woman added: 'I am not going to my grave knowing that I let him get away with it, I am not taking that guilt to my grave.

'He's a monster. I couldn't cope with it anymore.'

Clarke, of Holly Lane, Erdington, Birmingham, denies 17 charges of indecent assault, 12 offences of indecency with a child and two attempted serious sexual offences.
A soldier who fought in the same platoon as Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan has said he should not get a presidential pardon for desertion after walking off his combat outpost in Afghanistan before being captured by the Taliban.

Sgt Bergdahl, 30, has asked President Obama to grant him a pardon as one of his last acts before he leaves office next month.

But Sergeant Matt Vierkant told Fox News: 'It's nobody's fault but his that he was put in that position so he has nobody to blame but himself and it's unfortunate that he was a prisoner for five years, but it's his own fault.'

The charges of desertion and endangering troops against Bergdahl stem from his decision to leave his outpost in Afghanistan in 2009. He has now asked to be pardoned by Obama

Matt Vierkant (pictured, left, in 2014) remains adamant Bergdahl should face justice. Vierkant (right, with former Army Ranger Kris Paronto) said there was evidence soldiers were injured as a direct result of Bergdahl's actions

Sgt Vierkant said Bergdahl should be held 'accountable for his actions'.

The Army's primary investigating officer last year recommended against Bergdahl facing jail time, saying there was no evidence any service members were killed or wounded searching for him in Afghanistan.

But Sgt Vierkant disputed the official version of events, which said no service personnel were killed during the search for him in Afghanistan in 2009.

He said: 'Everyone in the military and everyone I know knows that people are seriously hurt and killed because of Bergdahl's actions and as the trial gets under way it will all come to the attention of everyone.'

The Army Times reported last month that prosecutors want to introduce the evidence of two officers at Bergdahl's trial.

US Air Force Major John Marx and US Army National Guard Sergeant First Class Mark Allen were involved in a firefight in January 2009 and the latter was shot in the head, leading to his permanent paralysis.

Bergdahl has asked President Obama for a pardon before he leaves office in the hope of avoiding a trial, which could land him in jail for the rest of his life.

His release from the Taliban was secured by President Obama who exchanged five Guantanamo Bay detainees for his safe return. Above, pictured while being held by the Taliban

A Justice Department official has confirmed it has received a pardon petition from Bergdahl.

If President Obama chooses not to pardon him, Bergdahl's lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said he planned to file a motion seeking dismissal of the charges on the grounds that President-elect Trump had violated Bergdahl's constitutional due process rights because of inflammatory remarks he made during the campaign.

At one campaign stop in Indiana back in July, Trump mentioned the case and lamented the soft punishment he believed would be meted out to Bergdahl.

He said: 'Remember the old days? A deserter, what happened?' and then mimed a gunshot and added: 'Bang.'

Bergdahl, who comes from Idaho, claimed he deliberately deserted his post in a bid to draw attention to problems in his unit.

Bergdahl was quickly captured after walking off his combat post in Afghanistan in 2009, and held as a prisoner by the Taliban and its allies until President Barack Obama exchanged five Guantanamo Bay detainees for his safe return, saying the US 'does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind.'

Obama's decision was harshly criticized. Some members of Congress said it jeopardized national security.

President Obama said in 2014 the U.S. military does not leave its men and women behind, echoing sentiments uttered during and after the Vietnam war

During the military's intensive man-hunt for Bergdahl over a five-year period it was reported that up to six American soldiers died and others were wounded in the search, but these claims have been disputed.

Shortly after he was returned to US custody, President Obama's national security advisor Susan Rice said Bergdahl served his country with 'honor and distinction.'

Trump has targeted Bergdahl for scorn dozens of times on the campaign trail, saying among other things that he should have been thrown from a plane.

Bergdahl's trial at Fort Bragg in North Caroline is scheduled for May.

Bergdahl, now 30, faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The latter charge is relatively rare and carries the potential of life in prison

The Taliban captured Bergdahl (pictured left looking thin) after he left his post in Afghanistan in 2009. He was freed years later, but will face trial in April 2017
A teenager was jailed for 13 years today for stabbing a schoolboy to death a month after he was sent on a knife awareness course.

Walker Sesay, 19, was sentenced for stabbing Che Labastide-Wellington, 17, through the heart outside of a 16-year-old girl's birthday party on November 7, 2015, in Harrow, northwest London.

Sesay was in a group of men called in to deal with gatecrashers after the party was advertised on Instagram.

The teenager, who had a previous conviction for carrying a blade and undertook a knife awareness course, was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.

One of Che's 16-year-old friends, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was also stabbed multiple times.

Walker Sesay (left) was found guilty of manslaughter after Che Labastide-Wellington (right) died last November

The pair were said to have been attacked by a group of 17 youths, several armed with knives, in a feud between neighbouring estates in north-west London, a court heard.

Sentencing him, Judge Stephen Kramer QC said Sesay came from a 'good family' and was an 'intelligent young man who had aspirations to go to university'.

But what he did had deprived a family of a 'much loved' son, grandson and brother.

Judge Kramer said: You yourself led the charge, running at Che and thrust the knife into his chest.

The wound passed through, skin, cartilage, the breast bone and into the heart - penetrating to a depth of 8cm.

The pathologist said that a severe level of force would have been needed to inflict that injury.

He added: I accept, being faithful to the jurys verdict, the intention was to cause some harm, but not really serious harm and the actual knifing was swift, and to some extent, spontaneous.'

Sesay and six co-defendants were acquitted of murder by a jury after 42 hours and 24 minutes deliberations.

But Sesay alone was found guilty of manslaughter.

Calvin Tudor, 22, Marlon Tudor, 23 and Rimmel Williams, 18, were convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm against the 16-year-old, while Omar Afrah, 22, and Ola Onafowokan, 23, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit violent disorder.

Ibrahim Mansaray, 18, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, walked free after they were acquitted of all of the charges they faced.

The birthday girls mother banned alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes from the party in Kenton and insisted everyone on the guest list was searched before they came in.

Sesay and six co-defendants were acquitted of murder at the Old Bailey by a jury after 42 hours and 24 minutes deliberations

But prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC had told jurors that a flyer for the event was posted on Instagram, which meant that 'inevitably a number of people who had not been invited got to hear about it'.

He told the jury that a 'small army' of youths descended on the gathering to 'sort out' the victim, who was outside in the street.

Che, who was apparently carrying a blade himself, was knifed once in the chest as he tried to escape and collapsed in a nearby alleyway.

Paramedics performed open-heart surgery on the youngster at the side of the road, but he was pronounced dead at the scene less than an hour later.

The second victim was chased down and stabbed six times in the back, side, arm and leg. He was taken to hospital and given six units of blood, which saved his life.

In a cruel twist of fate, Che's mother, Carlene Wellington, gave birth to another son less than 24 hours before he was killed.

'She sent Che a photograph of his new brother on Saturday. It was arranged that Che would visit his mother and the baby the following day, Sunday,' Mr Aylett said.
The family of a woman whose remains have been found almost 12 years since she was murdered by her cousin have spoken about receiving the call from police.

Malcolm Naden was convicted of murdering Lateesha Nolan, 24, after seven years on the run following the mother-of-four's disappearance in January 2005.

A femur bone found on the banks of Macquarie River south of Dubbo last month has been confirmed to be a DNA match to Ms Nolan.

Her mother Joan Nolan and aunt Margaret Walker said they felt 'happy and sad' to receive the confirmation on Monday, Daily Telegraph reported.

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Police are searching for the remains of Lateesha Nolan (pictured) after a femur bone was confirmed to be a DNA match - almost 12 years after her death

Malcolm Naden was picked up by hidden CCTV cameras in the bush while on the run for seven years

'It's a long time coming but I can now lay my daughter to rest where she deserves to be and the grandkids can go see their mother and have a place for her,' Lateesha's mother said.

Her father, Mick Peet, said he 'couldn't sleep' after hearing the news, and the only 'closure' would be for Lateesha to still be alive.

'I knew they would find her remains some day, it was going to happen one day, but it still came as a really big shock. You are never prepared for it,' he told Daily Telegraph.

Malcolm Naden (pictured) was jailed for life over her murder in 2012 after spending seven years on the run

The search for her remains of the riverbank near Butlers Falls could take days, police said.

Naden, now 43, had provided information about where he dumped her dismembered body, but subsequent searches of the site were unsuccessful.

A member of the public stumbled across the bone on November 25.

Homicide Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent Mick Willing, said detectives were determined to find Ms Nolan's remains so they could give her family some closure after a drawn-out investigation into her death.

'We now know we are looking at the right spot, which is near the 2012 excavation, but changes to the terrain have meant this area was unexposed at that time,' he said in a statement.

Police searched the area in 2012 (pictured) after Naden provided information about where he dumped her dismembered body

Ms Nolan (pictured) was strangled in her car, dismembered and buried beside the Macquarie River

'The loss of a loved one is never easy to deal with, but the grief can be even harder to overcome when you can't lay them to rest.

'For more than a decade investigators have been following every line of inquiry in hope of ending the family's search for answers.

'We hope we will soon be able allow them to properly - and respectfully - say goodbye,' Det Supt Willing said.

In 2013 Naden, a former shearer and abattoir worker, was sentenced to life in prison after facing court on two murder charges.

Police said the search area was unexposed when Naden led them to it in 2012 (pictured)

In 2013 Naden, a former shearer and abattoir worker, was sentenced to life in prison after facing court on two murder charges

He had pleaded guilty to the murder of Lateesha after strangling her in her car.

Naden was also sentenced for the murder of Kristy Scholes, 24, who he strangled in June 2005 at his grandparent's house.

Naden then went on the run before being captured in 2012 after one of the state's biggest manhunts.

He committed a spate of break and enters in rural bushland and shot a police officer during his seven years as a fugitive.

Naden was also sentenced for the murder of 24-year-old Kristy Scholes (pictured)

Kristy Scholes was staying with him at his grandparent's house in Dubbo when he strangled her in June 2005

Naden went on the run and committed a spate of break and enters before shooting a police officer during his arrest

He was captured in 2012 following one of the biggest manhunts New South Wales has ever seen
An eight-months pregnant Instagram star has spoken of her relief after her boyfriend was found tonight in a hospital A&E.

I-D magazine digital editor Steve Salter left for work from the home he shares with fashionista Susie Lau in Seven Sisters, North London, at 10am on Monday.

But he did not turn up at the office and nobody had heard from him since, with his phone turned off.

Miss Lau, who has a huge social media profile, said she was 'very worried' about her boyfriend disappearing and described it as being 'completely uncharacteristic'.

However he was found 'after much searching' tonight in A&E.

He had been spotted in the King's Cross area at 11.50am on Monday and someone fitting his description was then seen crossing Waterloo Bridge around noon.

His girlfriend said tonight: 'I want to thank everyone for sending their love, support, advice to myself, my friends and my family. I can't thank you and love you all enough.'

Miss Lau wrote this message tonight saying her boyfriend had been found at hospital A&E

Missing: I-D magazine digital editor Steve Salter (left) left for work from the home he shares with fashion writer Susie Lau (right) in Seven Sisters, North London, at 10am yesterday

Fashion writer Miss Lau is known as @SusieBubble to her 314,000 Instagram followers and 278,000 Twitter followers.

Miss Lau, who was born in Britain into a family from Hong Kong, studied history at University College London and met Mr Salter while working in digital marketing.

She started to blog as a creative outlet, but was then headhunted for the fashion magazine Dazed and Confused to become their online commissioning editor.

Her website Style Bubble has become one of the world's best-known fashion blogs, and she lives in a two-bedroom house on the site of a former teddy bear factory.

The couple had been set to attend the British Fashion Awards together on Monday night.

Miss Lau said Mr Salter (pictured together) was in a 'normal state of mind' when they last spoke on Monday morning and they were due to attend the Fashion Awards together
Liz Truss has told baffled MPs barking dogs are being used to deter drones from flying drugs into prisons illegally.

The Justice Secretary said she learned of the unorthodox approach to stopping the small radio controlled aircraft at HMP Pentonville.

Ms Truss insisted 'dogs who are barking' were one of a series of methods in use to crack down on drone flights carrying contraband to prisoners.

One Labour MP could be heard joking: 'It's the minister who is barking.'

Liz Truss, pictured in the Commons today, told baffled MPs barking dogs at HMP Petonville are being used to deter drones from flying drugs into prisons illegally

Ms Truss insisted barking dogs were one of several methods being used to crack down on drones being used to fly in illegal goods to prisoners

Asked how she would stop drones getting into prisons, Ms Truss said her junior minister Sam Gyimah was working with manufacturers on technology to block them.

She then told MPs: 'But what we are doing is solutions such as installing extra netting.

'I was at HMP Pentonville last week. They've now got patrol dogs who are barking, which helps deter drones.

'So we're using all kinds of solutions to deal with contraband coming into our prisons.'

Last year, almost one drone a month was seized trying to fly over prison walls with drugs on board - compared to none just three years ago.

Overall there were 33 incidents of drones being found or sighted around prisons in 2015.

Drones are deterred by barking dogs from flying drugs and other contraband into prisons, Ms Truss told MPs (file picture). There were 33 recorded drone incidents at prisons last year

Despite the mockery she faced, Ms Truss stood by her claim when Tory MP Victoria Prentis (Banbury) later asked Ms Truss about prison recruitment.

The Justice Secretary quipped: 'It sounds like you're asking for some of these patrol dogs at your local prison, HMP Bullingdon.'

Ms Truss is famous for awkwardly delivered sound bites in her speeches.

In 2014, at Conservative Party Conference she delivered a section about how Britain was selling cheese to France and and tea to China.

But she said: 'At the moment we import two third of all of our apples. We import nine tenths of all of our pairs. We import two thirds of our cheese.'
President-elect Donald Trump's continued use of Twitter is not impressing voters with 49 percent considering it a 'bad thing,' according to a brand new Morning Consult/Politico poll.

On the flip side of the equation, just 23 percent of registered voters believed Trump's tweeting to be a 'good thing' the survey found.

The president-elect received much higher marks for intervening in air conditioning company Carrier's plans to send jobs to Mexico, with 60 percent of voters saying the move made them view the Republican in a more positive light.

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Donald Trump is getting not great marks on his Twitter usage, but Americans loved his Carrier deal, a new survey shows

A new poll suggests that a majority of Americans are not enthusiastic about President-elect Donald Trump's use of Twitter

The new national survey was taken December 1-2 among 1,401 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percent.

Beyond being asked if Trump's use of Twitter was a good or bad thing, respondents were probed about how much The Donald uses the medium.

Fifty-six percent complained that Trump uses Twitter 'too much.'

While 16 percent said he uses it 'about the right amount' and 5 percent said he doesn't use it enough.

Trump voters, however, gave the president-elect more wiggle room on the subject, with 37 percent saying he tweets 'too much,' 29 percent saying 'about the right amount' and 6 percent saying 'not enough.'

While Hillary Clinton voters had no tolerance for it.

Only 39 percent of registered voters said the president-elect should use Twitter 'because it is an important means for communicating with constituents and friends'

Seventy-nine percent said Trump was tweeting 'too much,' while 4 percent said he was both tweeting 'the right amount' and ' not enough.'

Among all respondents, 42 percent said the president should be able to have a personal Twitter account, while 39 percent argued that he shouldn't have one.

That's a smaller percentage than the number of people who believed the president should be able to have a personal email account  52 percent  and that comes after months of the Clinton personal email scandal.

Thirty-one percent of the poll's respondents said presidents shouldn't be able to use personal email.

As for why the president-elect should be able to use Twitter, 39 percent agreed it was 'because it is an important means for communicating with constituents and friends.'

Another 40 percent agreed that the president shouldn't have a Twitter account because it could be hacked.

Donald Trump's deal with Carrie to keep jobs in the United States improved his standing among all demographic groups - including Hillary Clinton voters

Breaking down those Carrier numbers, of the 60 percent who said they saw Trump in a more positive light, 32 percent said it was a 'much more favorable' light, while another 28 percent said they saw Trump somewhat more favorably.

'The Carrier announcement was big for Trump,' said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult's co-founder and chief research office, according to the release. 'Rarely do we see numbers that high when looking at how specific messages and events shape public opinion.'

Trump's reputation rose across party lines too.

Forty percent of Democrats  split 16 percent 'much more' favorably and 24 percent 'somewhat more' favorably  felt better about Trump.

Fifty-four percent of independents said they liked Trump better.

Clinton voters gave the president-elect a slight upgrade too, with 32 percent saying the Carrier deal improved their view of the Republican president-to-be.
A bungling robber who tried to raid a shop did not realise one of the customers was a policeman - who later took out his gun and aimed it at him.

CCTV footage shows the police officer entering the shop in Brazil as a regular customer, before being followed in seconds later by the robber.

The robber, who is wearing a motorbike helmet, can be seen threatening shoppers with a gun and telling them to get down.

CCTV footage shows the police officer (bottom right) entering the shop in Brazil as a regular customer, before being followed in seconds later by the robber holding a gun (centre)

The police officer quickly pulls out his gun when the robber's back is turned

The police officer appears to play along, but quickly pulls out his gun when the robber's back is turned.

He appears to fire multiple shots before bending down to pick up the robber's gun. It is not clear whether the robber was injured in the incident.

The video was shared online, with social media users praising the officer for his actions.

The policeman's identity has not been revealed. It is not clear exactly where in Brazil the incident took place.
One could be forgiven for thinking this footage was out of Medieval Europe.

But this Chinese baker is not hurting himself in the name of religion, rather, he is crawling on snow-covered pavement in the name of profit.

Bizarrely, his dedicated employees actually volunteered to join him in the punishment.

Repent: A baker and his employees crawled on the pavement from one branch to another after the store did not meet his 16,000 goal

The shocking footage from Sina showed a bakery boss and his staff crawling in public in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, China.

The slow-moving procession is seen inching along a cold and snow-covered stone pavement.

The footage shows men and women on all fours while onlookers appear to offer a mixture of encouragement, confusion and disdain.

The boss decided to crawl from his branch to another branch of the bakery as a self-inflicted punishment for not reaching his 16,000 business goal according to reports.

Shame, shame, shame: A baker and his employees formed a bizarre crawling procession to show remorse for not meeting his 16,000 goal

Will next month be better? The employees crawled along the frosty, cold pavement of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in North China

Seeing this display of penance, staff members joined their boss in the street, which led to the bizarre procession.

It's not the first time that employees in China have crawled in public for missing their sales targets.

In April this year, MailOnline reported that 10 men in Jilin were forced into the humiliating act for missing their sales targets.

A similar incident also happened in Zhenzhou last October with some members of staff reduced to tears.




Some customers at a Lowe's store in Texas are getting assistance from a military veteran and his service dog after both were hired to work at the store.

The Abilene Reporter-News reports that disabled U.S. Air Force veteran Clay Luthy and his golden retriever, Charlotte, both wear red and blue Lowe's vests to work at the home improvement retailer.

Clay, a former C-130 loadmaster in the U.S. Air Force, has had five surgeries on his knees and can't bend his left leg. Charlotte is trained to help Clay up if he can't get off the floor.

Charlotte has become a customer favorite in her two months on the job. Clay says everyone loves the pooch, adding: 'This definitely was not part of the job description.'

A heartwarming photo of the pair that was posted on Facebook has been shared 170,000 times in just two days.

A photo of Clay Luthy and Charlotte in their red Lowes vests has gone viral on Facebook, garnering about 170,000 likes since being posted by an Abiliene Lowes customer on Tuesday

Charlotte follows Clay as he returns items to shelves at a Lowe's store in Abiline, Texas

Clay told KTXS how he grew up in small town in central California and joined the Air Force after the 9/11 attacks, but his career was short-lived after injuring both of his knees.

By 2006, his career was over and he had to leave active service.

Since 2010, Clay has been working as a handyman but in June he had an operation to rebuild his left knee.

It meant he has been left unable to kneel and has had to look for a new job.

His wife suggested he apply for a job at Lowe's.

'She told me "you're there every day. You might as well get paid for it".'

Clay took his service dog, Charlotte, to the interview and both of them got the job.

U.S. Air Force veteran Clay Luthy and his service dog golden retriever, Charlotte, both wear red and blue Lowe's vests to work at the home improvement retailer

Charlotte takes a break in an aisle at the Lowe's store. Customers do not mind pushing their carts around her

Charlotte is trained for 'medical alert and mobility' purposes - after knee surgery, Clay attached a handle to her service vest and used Charlotte to walk instead of a cane.

But, the duo clearly have had an effect on shoppers. A lady who saw them working the aisles took a photo and posted it to her Facebook, and the picture went viral.

Jay Fellers, human resources manager at the Lowe's, in Abilene, said the two were the best pair for the job.

'We went through the interview process, and Clay and his own merit won the job,' Fellers told KIDY. 'And we knew he was gonna make a great employee we just got the benefit of getting Charlotte right along with him.'

Tinley Farmer, 4, pets Charlotte, as her mother, Jessica, right, talks to Lowe's employee Clay Luthy. The pair are warming hearts across the nation

Clay has been working at Lowe's for two months and couldn't be happier. Charlotte goes to work with him every day

Clay tells KTXS that his furry friend gets lots of attention while they're on shift.

'Little munchkins are her favorite thing ever. Most service dogs are not like Charlotte. They have a job to do and being a pet is not it. Charlotte is extra special,' Clay said.

'She knows the difference between her service vest and her Lowe's vest.'
An Uber driver in the Pittsburgh suburbs has been charged with indecent assault and harassment and is accused of making unwanted sexual advances to a female passenger.

Jehad Abdula Makhoul, 46, has been charged by summons by Ross Township police in Pennsylvania. The woman reported the incident on November 22, after she used Uber for a ride to a restaurant that evening.

During the trip, the woman says Makhoul put his arm around her neck, grabbed her, kissed her face and put his hand on her inner thigh.

Uber driver Jehad Abdula Makhoul, 46, has been charged by summons by Ross Township police and is accused of making unwanted sexual advances to a female passenger (file picture)

The woman says she pushed him away and called 911 after he dropped her at the restaurant.

Police had to get a search warrant to obtain driver and trip information from Uber.

The driver has been suspended while the investigation is pending, an Uber spokesperson told the DailyMail.com. Uber is assisting police with the case.
A Texas police department has called upon some serious star power for a commercial hoping to appeal to and recruit new officers.

Star Wars power, that is.

The Fort Worth Police Department released the video at the weekend, featuring one of their veterans officers attempting to train a Stormtrooper.

In training: The recruitment ad for the Fort Worth Police Department shows a veteran officer attempting to train up a Stormtrooper as a cop

Missing the mark: In the clip, the soldier cannot hit the parking garage shooting target with his laser gun

Fail: Even up close, the Stormtrooper cannot hit the mark on the target, because it is shooting with a laser

The clip appears to be riding the coattails of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the latest installment of the sci-fi series that will be released next month.

In the video, a Stormtrooper is seen taking target practice in a parker garage as the experience officer looks on.

'Stop jerking the trigger,' the officer says.

The frustrated Stormtrooper eventually looks over at the officer and tells him, 'Hey, it's not as easy as it looks.'

The officer, standing right next to the Stormtrooper, then pulls out his gun and hits the bullseye several times.

Oh bother: Darth Vader appears right at the end of the ad, looking disappointed at the Stormtrooper's terrible performance

'Well, you're closer to the target than I am,' the Stormtrooper said.

The frustrated officer then wonders out loud how this soldier came to their recruitment process.

The shot then spans to a corner of the garage, where a disappointed-looking Darth Vader stands. He then shrugs and walks off.

The department's next civil service exam dates are January 10-11, 2017, according to its Facebook page, where the video was posted.
A mother has blasted her son's school after she said she was sent a letter branding his haircut 'extreme'.

Hayley Andrew, 38, of California, Derby, said she was told by Bishop Lonsdale Primary School, in Derby, that her 11-year-old son, Sonny Lake, had breached uniform rules with his haircut.

The stunned mum, who works as a waitress, rang the headmaster after receiving the letter.

Hayley Andrew has said she received a letter saying the hairstyle of her son, Sonny Lake (above), was 'extreme' and a breach of uniform rules

However, she said he told her there was too much of a 'contrast between long and short' and the style needed to be altered.

Today, she vowed to keep her son's 'perfectly normal' hairstyle.

Hayley said: 'The letter arrived in the post and we thought it was a merit award or something so I let him open it.

'But then he said it was about his hair so I looked and it was a basic letter explaining he had been breaking uniform rules.

'It had the words extreme haircut circled which is what tipped me over the edge so I rang the headmaster who wouldn't budge.

'He said there was too much of a contrast between the long and short which is ridiculous.

'It's a short back and sides and a bit longer on top and it is fine. I see grown men working in business with the exact same hairstyle.

'If it was red and blue and spiked then I would fully understand. But it is perfectly acceptable.

'I've told the school his haircut is not changing because there is nothing wrong with it.'

Hayley said the 'pathetic' letter has left Sonny, who has had the same hairstyle for years, feeling anxious about going back to school.

She added: 'He has had his hair like that for as long as I can remember.

Ms Andrew said she contacted Malc Hetherington, the headteacher, who said there was 'too much of a contrast between the long and short'

'He goes to the same barbers and tells them exactly what he wants. He has lovely thick hair and he is always well groomed and looks smart.

'It's such a shame because he's doing well but he's worried by it now.

'He is above expectations in everything and is a bright boy so it doesn't affect his schoolwork at all.

'They would be better spending their time improving performance for pupils. It's laughable and a total joke.

'I was angry but now I feel it's just ridiculous.'
Jailed Royal Marine Sergeant Alexander Blackman has won the right to a fresh appeal

The Royal Marine serving life for killing a Taliban fighter was granted a fresh appeal yesterday.

An official review cast doubt on Alexander Blackmans murder conviction, saying there was a real possibility it would be quashed.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission accepted new psychiatric evidence that the 42-year-old sergeant was suffering combat stress when he snapped and shot the insurgent in 2011.

It has formally referred the case back to the Courts Martial Appeal Court.

Sgt Blackman might now be able to spend Christmas with his family because his lawyers plan to seek bail.

It is a major victory for Daily Mail readers who gave 800,000 to the Marines legal fund.

This is the most fantastic news, said his wife Claire, who thanked her husbands backers. I am feeling a little dazed. It is very hard to express how much gratitude we both feel.

After speaking to her husband by telephone last night she said: He is absolutely ecstatic. He had not dared to hope, but now he is starting to allow himself to think about the future.

Sgt Blackman was convicted three years ago of shooting the Taliban fighter who had already been fatally wounded in an attack on a British base in Afghanistan.

He admitted making a split-second mistake on a tour from hell that saw comrades tortured and their body parts hung from trees.

Known as Marine A at his court martial, he became the only British serviceman known to have been convicted of murder on a foreign battlefield.

The veteran commando, who served his country on six tours of duty, was given a life sentence of ten years, later cut to eight.

Wedding day: Sgt Alexander Blackman with his wife Claire on their wedding day

Protest: Sergeant Blackman's wife Claire poses for a photo in London with the Royal Marine's mother Frances and her parents along with the many servicemen who turned up in October

His supporters maintained however that he was locked up as a political scapegoat for failings by top brass, that he was suffering from combat stress at the time of the shooting and that supportive colleagues had been prevented from testifying on his behalf.

The Courts Martial Appeal Court has the power to quash his murder conviction, commute it to manslaughter, or order a retrial.

Sgt Blackman, who was a highly experienced Marine destined for promotion, has been behind bars for more than three years.

But the psychiatric evidence could support a defence of diminished responsibility, seeing his murder conviction commuted to manslaughter  which carries a much lower tariff.

Three eminent psychiatrists found that combat stress disorder  a recognised mental illness  made him momentarily and temporarily lose control.

The independent CCRC said a key reason for its decision was the fact the alternative verdict of manslaughter was not considered by his court martial.

David James Smith, lead commissioner on the case, said: We have scrutinised this murder conviction in minute detail and after a thorough investigation we have concluded that there are new issues  principally relating to Mr Blackmans state of mind at the time of the shooting  which in our view raise a real possibility that an appeal against conviction would now succeed.

On that basis we are sending the case back to the Courts Martial Appeal Court so that a fresh appeal can be heard.

Former Royal Marine Commandos show their support for a judicial review into the conviction of Sergeant Blackman by walking from Parliament Square to Downing Street in October 2015

Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal author who has spearheaded the campaign for justice, said: This is a proud day, the moment the masses stood up to the Establishment.

The gutless top brass threw a fighting sergeant to the wolves, to cover up a disastrous military operation in which their brave men were abandoned to a living hell, under-equipped and fighting to stay alive.

It is very hard to express how much gratitude we both feel towards the Mail readers who have contributed so generously towards the legal fund Claire Blackman

Fifteen months ago Sgt Blackmans supporters had little hope of his release after an appeal by his old legal team failed.

But then a painstaking Mail investigation revealed that evidence which might have resulted in a lesser charge of manslaughter was deliberately withheld.

We found that Colonel Oliver Lee, a high-flying Marines officer, courageously quit in disgust after being blocked from telling the truth to the court martial.

He alleged key operational failings by commanders meant that Sgt Blackmans troop had been scandalously isolated, under-manned, under-resourced and under daily Taliban assault  all directly affecting his state of mind at the time of the shooting.

Backing: His supporters say he was locked up as a 'political scapegoat' for failings by top brass

This led to him not receiving a fair trial, it was claimed. Our campaign for justice prompted tens of thousands of Mail readers to donate money to fund a fresh appeal by a new legal team led by eminent QC Jonathan Goldberg.

Last night Mr Goldberg said: I now have real grounds for optimism that Sgt Blackman will have his murder conviction quashed. We will now mount a bail application.

Mrs Blackman, a 44-year-old communications worker from Taunton, added: For us to be together at Christmas would be the best present ever.

We are incredibly grateful to the CCRC for giving us the chance to get Als case back to the appeal courts. This is a really important first step. It is very hard to express how much gratitude we both feel towards the Mail readers who have contributed so generously towards the legal fund, plus the hundreds of thousands of others who have expressed their strong support. I would never have dreamed we would have this great hope of justice.

Colonel Lee, speaking for the first time since resigning, said: I have not sought to exonerate Sergeant Blackman from his responsibilities, but I have always felt it imperative that he be dealt with justly. I welcome the decision of the CCRC.

Sgt Blackman is at HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire.

KEY EVIDENCE BEHIND THE BREAKTHROUGH The key to yesterdays stunning breakthrough rested on the critical intervention of three top psychiatrists who all agreed Sergeant Alexander Blackman had a recognised mental illness that was undiagnosed when he shot the Taliban fighter. By the time he pulled the trigger  at the end of a six-month tour of hell in Afghanistan  Sgt Blackman was struggling with combat stress and had an adjustment disorder. It caused a momentary and temporary loss of control, they unanimously concluded. The key finding was made by Professor Neil Greenberg, the foremost military psychiatrist in the country. He is the Royal College of Psychiatrists lead expert on military mental health matters, and himself a former commando. His finding was backed up by a second psychiatrist, Dr Michael Orr, who had examined Sgt Blackman in 2013. The Criminal Cases Review Commission then appointed a third psychiatrist of their own, Dr Philip Joseph, to verify their conclusions. Dr Joseph travelled to Erlestoke Prison in October, and spent four hours with Sgt Blackman. His report took some weeks to write, but when it came his conclusion  agreeing with his colleagues  provided a breakthrough in the case. Advertisement

The Mail's long battle to win justice

Royal Marine Alexander Blackman was the first known British serviceman to be jailed for murder on a foreign battlefield.

SAM GREENHILL charts the case and the path to justice.

December 7, 2013

CASUALTY OF WAR

DECEMBER 7, 2013

The Daily Mail reports how Sergeant Alexander Blackman, previously named only as Marine A, was jailed for life after shooting a fatally injured Taliban fighter.

A SHAMEFUL INJUSTICE

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

The Mail uncovers vital evidence that was deliberately withheld. One officer quit his commission in disgust at being blocked from testifying in support of Sgt Blackman.

FALL GUY FOR A FIASCO

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Sgt Blackman tells the Mail about the tour from hell in Afghanistan. He says one mistake under extreme stress made him the fall guy.

September 11, 2015

COVER-UP PLOT EXPOSED

SEPTEMBER 12, 2015

The Ministry of Defence is accused of cover-ups, including trying to censor an internal report casting doubt on the Marines conviction.

BOMBSHELL REPORT LEAKED

SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

The internal report is leaked to the Mail. It reveals Sgt Blackman was failed by senior officers and put under unimaginable pressure.

FAMILIES JOIN CAMPAIGN

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Families of Marines killed by the Taliban on Sgt Blackmans tour from hell poignantly join the campaign to review his conviction.

FIGHTING FUND TOPS 750K

OCTOBER 5, 2015

In less than a month, generous Mail readers raise an incredible 750,000  enough to fund a team of lawyers to pursue a new appeal.

September 17, 2015

DEFIANCE OF THE MARINES

OCTOBER 28, 2015

Royal Marines past and present rally in Parliament Square in support of their jailed comrade.

SHAMEFUL PLOT

DECEMBER 12, 2015

We expose a plot to keep Sgt Blackman behind bars. A leaked document reveals the determination of senior officers to block efforts to overturn his conviction.

APPEAL IS LAUNCHED

DECEMBER 16, 2015

Accompanied by 500 green beret-wearing supporters, Sgt Blackmans wife Claire delivers a seven-file dossier to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

WILL HE EVER GET JUSTICE?

October 5, 2015

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

A year after our campaign is launched, the Mail reveals bureaucratic delays to Sgt Blackmans fight for justice.

At the same time, British troops are being hounded by ambulance-chasing lawyers over other incidents in the line of duty.

SHOW OF SUPPORT

OCTOBER 28, 2016

More than 2,000 ex-Marines and members of the public flood Parliament Square to demand justice. They hear speeches and messages from the former director of Special Forces Major General John Holmes and Marines Falklands commander Major General Julian Thompson.

NEW HOPE

DECEMBER 6, 2016
Multi-millionaire UKIP donor Arron Banks challenged Cambridge classicist Mary Beard to a debate on history when he blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on immigrants and told her she 'doesn't have a monopoly' on the subject.

Mr Banks, who funded the Leave.EU campaign with Nigel Farage, announced on Twitter yesterday that the Roman Empire was 'effectively destroyed by immigration'.

But Professor Beard, who works at the University of Cambridge and has written several books on Roman history, decided to intervene, suggesting to the insurance tycoon he needed to do 'more reading' on the topic.

Millionaire UKIP donor Arron Banks (left) challenged Cambridge classicist Mary Beard (right) to a debate on history when he blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on immigrants and told her she 'doesn't have a monopoly' on the subject

Mr Banks announced on Twitter yesterday that the Roman Empire was 'effectively destroyed by immigration'

She wrote: 'I think you all need to do a bit more reading in Roman history before telling us what caused the fall of Rome. Facts guys!'

Mr Banks then boasted that he had studied 'Roman history extensively' at school and 'loved watching Gladiator' so would not be lectured by her.

The businessman added: 'You don't have a monopoly on history!'

Professor Beard - a professor of classics and a fellow of Newnham College since 1984 - has produced multiple series on Rome for the BBC and is one of Britains best-known scholars.

Her latest series was Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit.

Despite her credentials, Mr Banks continued to spar with Professor Beard. He replied sarcastically: 'Yes sacking Rome nothing to do with the down fall (eyes to sky).'

Professor Beard then replied: 'Sorry but you may have strong views but you guys don't know Roman history.'

Mr Banks again replied, suggesting that he was in a position to comment because of what he had learnt at school - and because he enjoys Russell Crowe's peformance in Gladiator.

'I studied roman history extensively - you don't have a monopoly on history!' he wrote.

Arron Banks, who funded the Leave.EU campaign with Nigel Farage (pictured together), mocked Beard when she replied to him, saying: 'I didn't realise you had a single perfect version of roman history'

Professor Beard then joked about Michael Gove's recent claim that British people have 'had enough of experts'.

She wrote: 'Sorry Mr Banks but this might be a subject on which to listen to experts!'

He then mocking wrote: 'Sorry, I didn't realise you had a single perfect version of roman history.'

Undeterred, he added: 'Well the "experts" I read at school believed the sacking of Rome and the break-up was caused by failure to control hordes on the border.'

Professor Beard then questioned who these 'experts' were.

Mr Banks then explained to the professor why he had so much knowledge, writing: 'I regularly visit Rome. I love it.'

In response, Ms Beard told Mr Banks that he needed to get his 'historical facts straight'

The insurance tycoon later said he had knowledge on the subject because he had 'studied it extensively'. He then said to Professor Beard: 'You don't have a monopoly on history!'

Professor Beard (pictured front a BBC show on the Romans) - a professor of classics and a fellow of Newnham College since 1984 - has produced multiple series on Rome for the BBC and is one of Britains best-known scholars

He then added: 'I love Gladiator, always watch it with my son.'

He also wrote: 'I did enjoy I Claudius on tv but the book was better.'

Following the spat, Twitter users mocked Mr Banks for his argument.

Jason Brown wrote: 'Next week he'll teach Tim Berners-Lee about the internet and define rock and roll to Paul McCartney.'

Mark Graham added: 'As an English exceptionalist, he probably thinks he's a direct descendant.'

Following the spat, Twitter users mocked Mr Banks for his argument, with one saying: 'This is such a metaphor for 2016 I can't even take it'

Mark Tracey quipped: 'Maybe he read Asterix as well.'

He later conceded that maybe Professor Beard did have a point, writing: 'That seems to have been lost in all the excitement - i'm sure you know much more about the Roman Empire! & you seem a good sport.'

It is the second time that a member of UKIP has argued with an expert about the subject they study.

In September, Douglas Carswell MP sent Sussex Professor Paul Nightingale a tweet, saying: 'Surprised head of Science research at a university refutes idea sun's gravity causes tides.'
Five Afghan teenagers have been arrested after a boy was gang-raped at knifepoint in a forest in Sweden, it has emerged.

The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden.

He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knifepoint before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.

The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala (file picture), south east Sweden

One of the attackers filmed parts of the assault, overnight on October 24 and 25, and posted the footage on social media, it is claimed.

The child, also from Afghanistan, went to police before five suspects were detained on child rape charges, it has been reported in Sweden.

All five have reportedly denied the accusations with one saying he was not present.

Two others say they do not remember what they were doing while the final pair made 'some concessions'.

Court papers say the teenagers, aged 16 and 17, 'inflicted beatings' to the child's head and body before 'grabbing the defendant, covering his mouth and dragging or carrying him into a woodland area'.

At this point, the court papers say, each of the accused carried out serious sexual assaults on the child who was also bitten on the back and spat on.

The boy was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knifepoint before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say

All arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors seeking asylum and could be deported if convicted.

According to local media, the alleged perpetrators and the victim knew each other but the motive for the attack is not yet known.

Stefan Wallin, a defense lawyer representing one youth, said his client neither admits nor denies the charges.

"He has no recollection of the events because of alcohol intoxication," Wallin told the AP.

Defense lawyers for the others didn't immediately return requests for comment.
Maribel Martinez's son Andy was 214 miles away from her in Boston when she went to pick him up at JFK

JetBlue is attempting to fight off a lawsuit from the mother who went to pick up her five-year-old boy at John F. Kennedy Airport only to discover the airline had swapped him with someone else's child.

Maribel Martinez, 38, filed suit against the airline in September saying she suffered 'great emotional distress, extreme fear, horror, mental shock, mental anguish and psychological trauma.'

She told New York Daily News she is in psychiatric therapy and had to be prescribed medications for insomnia and headaches after the ordeal.

Lawyers will meet in Brooklyn Federal Court this afternoon regarding a motion to dismiss the lawsuit

It is likely the allegations of distress will not be enough to warrant punitive damages.

Mrs Martinez believed her son, Andy, was kidnapped in the stressful three hours it took the airline to locate him at Boston's Logan Airport on August 17.

The child who met Mrs Martinez has not been publicly identified. Both he and Andy flew out of Cibao International Airport in the Dominican Republic.

Maribel Martinez filed a lawsuit alleging the airline caused her emotional distress when she thought her son was kidnapped

Attorney Sanford Rubenstein (left), Maribel Martinez (centre), and her husband Raphael Martinez (right) at a press conference on September 30

The boys were switched even though Mrs Martinez had paid an extra $100 fee for a JetBlue representative to escort Andy onto the plane.

When Andy was led off the plane in Boston, he was directed to a woman he had never seen in his life.

JetBlue refunded the $475 flight and gave the family a $2,100 credit. However, Mrs Martinez said she would not fly on the airline again.
She admitted being over legal limit and must pay a 140 ($178) fine plus costs

Stacy Rosehill, an American Airlines stewardess, was arrested while giving a safety demonstration on a flight from Manchester airport after she was found to be eight-times the legal alcohol limit

An American Airlines stewardess was arrested while giving a safety demonstration on a flight from Manchester airport after she was found to be eight-times the legal alcohol limit.

Stacy Rosehill, 57, from Chicago, was carrying out the pre-flight demonstration ahead of the American Airlines flight to her hometown when officers were alerted to a tip-off by security staff, who could smell alcohol on her breath.

The senior flight attendant was then escorted off the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and taken into custody as around 300 passengers were waiting to take off.

Tests later showed she had 71 microgrammes of alcohol per 100ml of her breath. The legal limit under aviation rules is 9mg, much stricter than the rules for driving.

Today Manchester Magistrates Court heard that Rosehill had become drunk the night before the flight after going to a 'bring your own booze' restaurant during a stopover in Manchester.

It is thought she had been drinking wine before knocking back whisky from her hotel mini-bar at 2am.

When she reported for duty seven hours later, she was still under the influence.

At the hearing today, Rosehill admitted performing an aviation function while over the prescribed limit under the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003.

She was fined 140 ($178) and must also pay 85 ($108) legal costs and a 30 ($38) victim surcharge.

Rosehill is also currently suspended and faces a disciplinary hearing when she returns to the US.

The court heard the incident occurred on October 28 after Rosehill had been out with friends for dinner to a venue where diners provide their own drinks and miscalculated the amount she was drinking.

She then had a miniature whisky from her hotel at 2am to help her sleep, before arriving at Manchester Airport.

Today Manchester Magistrates Court heard that Rosehill, pictured, had become drunk the night before the flight after gong to a 'bring your own booze' restaurant during a stopover in Manchester

Security inside the airport smelt alcohol on her breath and informed managers and police.

Prosecuting, Nicola Yeadon, said: 'Miss Rosehill was part of American Airlines cabin crew and was travelling on a Manchester to Chicago bound flight when security smelt alcohol.

'As a result of that the security staff advised their manager and police officers attended on the aircraft. She had already boarded and indeed its referenced that she had started in flight checks.

The senior flight attendant was then escorted off the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and taken into custody as around 300 passengers were waiting to take off

'Police spoke with her and smelt alcohol on her so she was subjected to a breath test at the scene. There was a positive reading and she was arrested by officers. At the police station there was a reading of 71mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath.

'To be fair to her in interview she gave a candid account and said she drunk more than usual the night before and felt fine for work but if she had known she was over the limit she would not have gone into work. She had her last drink at 2am.

'She apologised saying she was sorry and embarrassed at the arrest. She would not have flown if she knew she was over the limit. The legal limit is nine for this offence. She has no prior convictions and is a lady of previous good character.'

Defending Rosehill, Paul Reddy explained how his client was embarrassed by her actions.

He said: 'She had gone through security but had not flown. Shes a US citizen and is from Chicago. She is absolutely humiliated by this matter.

'She has a 29-year career with the same airline and is a senior member of cabin crew who has been decorated in the past.

'She was staying over as part of her job and went to dinner with friends and they took their own wine and it boils down to a miscalculation.

'It was a pour your own drink sort of venue and at 2am she had a small miniature whisky in the room to help her sleep.

'Thats left her well over the limit and she admitted that straight away and apologised profusely.

'Shes suspended without pay but does have some modest savings. Shes a single lady that lives on her own and has no dependents.

At the hearing today, Rosehill admitted performing an aviation function while over the prescribed limit under the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003

'Shes not intending to remain in the country and is due to leave tomorrow at noon and has informed me she will make any payment today.'

Chairman of the bench Richard Blackman told Rosehill: 'This is a British system we have the magistrates court here and the matter has been kept in the magistrates because its within our jurisdiction. The word humiliated has been used and Im sure you are.

'We hear so much about the safety of passengers on airplanes. You had to deal with your guilt for some considerable time. Theres a total of 255 ($322) payable today.

'Its been pointed out that we may not allow you to leave until its paid but it will be paid.

You have got to go back to the States now and face this and the consequences with your employer.'
Performing an astonishing U-turn, Niall Ferguson, pictured, said the 'EU deserved Brexit' because of its failure on the euro and the economy, its aggressive foreign policy, open border migration and its failure to combat radical Islam

One of the country's most influential historians yesterday admitted he had been wrong to endorse the Remain campaign  and should have backed Brexit.

Before the referendum, Professor Niall Ferguson had been one of the most vociferous supporters of Britain staying in the European Union.

He had warned that leaving the EU would be 'the ultimate divorce', dubbing its supporters 'happy morons' and 'Anglo-loonies' who ignored the serious damage that would be done to the economy.

But yesterday, in an astonishing reversal, he said he had been wrong and admitted he  and the rest of the elite  had failed to listen to voters concerned about immigration. Brexit, he said, was the 'revolt' of provincial England.

The 52-year-old, who is a professor at Harvard in the US, also issued a scathing critique of the EU, which he said 'deserved Brexit' after failing on 'monetary union, foreign policy, migration policy, radical Islam policy'.

Speaking at the Milken Institute conference on the future of Europe in London, he said: 'I'm going to do something very unusual on these occasions, I'm going to admit that I was wrong.

'I characterise my 2016 in terms of post-Brexit traumatic stress disorder. I was arguing right up to the referendum for Remain but it's one of the few times in my life I've argued something without wholly believing in it.'

He said he had done so because he 'didn't want the Cameron-Osborne government to fall'.

With hindsight, he said, David Cameron should have rejected the 'absolutely risible' offer from the EU on migration and backed Brexit as well.

Professor Ferguson then listed the EU's failures over the past decade including the euro, which he said had been a 'disaster for all the reasons we said it would be in the 1990s'.

'It has been a disaster for southern Europe and has only worked for Germany and northern Europe,' he said.

'European security policy, especially with respect to North Africa and the Middle East, has been a disaster.

Before the referendum, Professor Niall Ferguson had been one of the most vociferous supporters of Britain staying in the European Union

'On the migration issue the European leadership got it disastrously wrong. On the question of radical Islam the European leadership has fundamentally got it wrong. One has to recognise that the European elite's performance over the last decade entirely justified the revolt of provincial England that was what we saw in Brexit.

'If those of us who were part of the elite spent more time in pubs in provincial England and provincial Wales we would have heard what I just said.

'This is not about GDP, it is principally about the complete loss of control of the EU's external border and what that implies for our country's future.

'I have had a kind of awakening. Brexit woke me up and reminded me I needed to pay much more attention to what the non-elite majority of voters were thinking.'

On Twitter he wrote: 'Cameron should have rejected [the EU's deal] and backed Brexit. Me too.'

Last night Brexit supporters welcomed his change of heart.

In a conference titled 'The Future of Europe,' he said he was wrong to defend David Cameron and George Osborne's arguments about the threat Brexit posed to economic growth. Pictured, the former Prime Minister and Chancellor on the referendum campaign trail together

In a series of tweets today, historian Niall Ferguson explained why he had changed his mind on Brexit and admitted he was wrong to back the Remain campaign

Matthew Elliott, who was chief executive of Vote Leave, said: 'It's great that people who supported Remain have woken up to the fact Britain is right to leave the EU. That is not just eminent historians like Niall Ferguson  large parts of the population who have found that Project Fear didn't come true now support Brexit.'

Less than a month before the June vote, Professor Ferguson signed a letter suggesting with Brexit we would 'cast ourselves adrift, condemning ourselves to irrelevance and Europe to division and weakness'.

He also wrote an article for the Sunday Times with the headline 'Brexit's happy morons don't give a damn about the costs of leaving'. In it he quoted warnings about the impact on the economy from the International Monetary Fund, as well as banks Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Deutsche.

'The risk of Brexit is already acting like a flashing red light to foreign investors,' he wrote. 'Project Fear? No. This is the consensus of the financial world, from the IMF down. Only a happy moron would ignore these dangers.'

Then, just two days before the vote, he described Brexit as 'the ultimate divorce' in an article for the Spectator.

A MAN OF COSMIC CERTAINTIES Professor Niall Ferguson relishes his reputation as one of the world's best-known, globe-trotting historians. He is, it must be said, not a modest man. On his own website he boasts he's 'an accomplished biographer' and that one of his books was 'published to international critical acclaim'. I suspect he was flattered when newspapers suggested that he earned $5 million a year  because he reacted by saying publicly that the figure was 'ridiculous'. Whether it was too low, he didn't say. Throughout the Brexit campaign, he posed as the intellectual heavyweight of Project Fear. With a tone of cosmic certainty and sophisticated historical authority  this is not a man who wears his cleverness lightly on his sleeve  he denounced the idea of EU withdrawal as 'horrendous' and a 'nightmare'. In the weeks before the June 23 vote, Ferguson, without a scintilla of doubt, predicted that the 'result would be a landslide for Remain'. A professor at Harvard and the author of 14 major books, the 52-year-old is renowned for his phenomenal literary output, assured media performances and gift for powerful language  using a knowledge of history as a tool to illuminate the present. In his best-selling books he has addressed history's sweeping themes  war, money and empire. Last year, he published a 1,000-page authorised biography of former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger  the first of two volumes. In 2004, Time magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, while he was also an adviser to the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008. There can be little doubt that this conversion by a man with such impressive credentials is a major blow to the Remain camp. He is, as I say, not a man to whom modesty comes easily. Academic life in Britain is 'so shallow', he moaned when explaining his decision to base himself in the USA. Though thin-skinned over coverage of his own personal life, he has never been shy about dishing it out to those he derides. For example, he called Brexiteers 'Anglo-loonies' and made personal jibes about the great British economist John Maynard Keynes, saying he had no interest in Britain's long-term future because he was gay and childless. Ferguson later apologised, admitting his comments were 'as stupid as they were insensitive'. Considering his Brexit U-turn, how ironic it is that it was Keynes who, in defence of intellectual inconsistency, said: 'When the facts change, I change my mind . . .' Advertisement
Donna Smith has avoided jail despite stealing from her company after a court heard she witnessed the terror attacks in Tunisia

A company secretary who was later traumatised by witnessing the 2015 Tunisian terror shootings siphoned off 90,000 from her employer to pay crippling debts.

Donna Smith, of Ashton, Lancashire, stole the money over an 18-month period, making more than 400 payments to herself from the estates management company where she had worked for 15 years.

The 40-year-old was said in court to be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the Sousse beach attack in which 38 tourists were killed.

She avoided jail this week and was given a 16-month sentence, suspended for two years.

The court heard Smith's boss Helen Standing had even allowed her to live rent-free in one of her properties to help her recovery.

But Smith became caught up in a spiral of gambling debts and pay-day loans.

When the thefts came to light, she sent her boss a confession by text, saying: 'I'm sorry, I will pay them back.

'I was desperate and so ashamed Helen, I had debts backing up and stole the money. I know you have been nothing but good to me. I'm a disgrace and I have to live with this for the rest of my life.'

The court heard Smith had been present when terrorists opened fire on tourists in Tunisia

A probe found the money was paid into two bank accounts which Smith had access to.

Prosecutor Joe Allman said: 'Miss Smith was the management accountant and also the secretary and one of her daily roles was to pay bills and to manage the cash flow from one of the company accounts.

She betrayed her employer, who had even let her live rent-free in one of her properties

'She had known Miss Standing for many years as she first came to work for her on a youth training scheme.

'On February 7, 2011, she moved into a property which Miss Standing owned with her husband Neil.

'In 2013 Miss Standing attended her wedding and she was aware Miss Smith had financial difficulties. To help her out of those she allowed her to live in the property the majority of the time without paying any rent. '

Mitigating Bob Golinski said: 'It's clearly a significant breach of trust.

'The worst aspect of this is that she broke the trust of her friend, someone with whom she had a very long-standing working relationship and who had placed a significant degree of trust in her.

'The background to her debt is a curious one. She does have a history of mental health difficulties since her teenage years and most recently she has been diagnosed with PTSD following her presence at the dreadful shootings in Tunisia.

'She lost her first husband. She fell into gambling which led to pay day loans which led to difficulties in repaying those, and the solution she found was through her employment.'

Helen Standing Ltd, based Bamber Bridge, did not wish to comment.
Police suspect that up to 20 people were involved in a smash-and-grab robbery at the Apple store in Palo Alto, California, early Monday morning.

It was the sixth robbery at the store in the last six months.

Witnesses said up to 20 people were seen running from the premises after an SUV was used as a ramrod to smash through the glass entrance around 4.30am.

The SUV was later found dumped by police and has been impounded.

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Smash-and-grab: This SUV was used as a ramrod to smash through the entrance of the Palo Alto Apple store early Monday morning, with up to 20 people said to have stormed the shop

The store was boarded up on Monday as police assessed the damage and how much merchandise had been stolen

In custody: Shaquin Ferbuson, 19, and Erica White, 18, both of Oakland, were arrested, along with two juveniles

A photo tweeted by a witness Sunday shows the mini SUV used to break through the storefront.

'The force of the collision punched a small hole that was big enough for people to crawl through,' Palo Alto police Lt. Zach Perron told KPIX.

'Witnesses reported seeing up to 20 people running from the scene. They went inside the store, ran around for about 45 seconds and grabbed phones and laptops. Whatever they could find and then came out and scattered in all directions.'

Police said the SUV was a rental, and it was transported Monday to police headquarters, where investigators were processing it for evidence.

About one hour after the robbery, police made four arrests in the case.

Shaquin Ferbuson, 19, and Erica White, 18, of Oakland, along with two juveniles, are now in custody.

Impounded: Police said the SUV was a rental, and it was transported Monday to police headquarters

Palo Alto police Lt. Zach Perron said that up to 20 people may have been involved

The store was boarded up for some time before it reopened again on Monday

The two teens, 16 and 17, have been taken to Santa Clara County juvenile hall.

Police they recovered some of the stolen merchandise from the four, but there is still more missing. They continue to search for anyone else involved in the robbery.

This week security guards were seen stationed outside the store on University Ave.

Apple are known for not locking down their electronics so that customers can lift and use them properly.

One Apple user doubts the company will change the way they do business.

'I think they are going to keep it open, they like that look of being very open, very pretty because it goes with the brand,' Apple customer Jonathan Koren told KPIX.
Priscilla Morse flew halfway across the world last year to adopt a seven-year-old special needs boy after seeing a heartbreaking photo of the skeletal orphan on Facebook.

When Mrs Morse arrived at the Bulgarian orphanage to finalize her son Ryan's adoption, he weighed just seven pounds and was on the brink of death.

But after more than a year with his new family in Tennessee, Ryan is gaining weight and starting to speak.

In photos taken of him this month, Ryan looks almost nothing like the malnourished child that had to be rushed to the hospital as soon as he arrived in the U.S. In the photos, Ryan's bones are no longer visible through his skin and he smiles like any happy and healthy young boy.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

Ryan Morse weighed just seven pounds in November 2015 (left), when his adoptive family brought him back to the U.S. from a Bulgarian orphanage. Today, the eight-year-old boy weighs 23 pounds and is starting to babble (pictured right in November 2016)

Ryan looks painfully think in this December 2015 photograph but his life have since been transformed

Priscilla Morse (center) was inspired to adopt Ryan after seeing his picture on a Facebook adoption page in June 2014. She is pictured above holding Ryan with her husband David (right) and their three other children. Sons Dylan, 13, and Jack, seven, are biological (left). Daughter McKenzie, seven (right), was adopted from Russia in 2012

Mrs Morse tells DailyMail.com that she first learned about Ryan when she was scrolling through her Facebook in June 2014 and saw his picture on an adoption page.

She and her husband David quickly decided that they wanted to adopt the boy. The couple have two biological sons of their own, 13-year-old Dylan and seven-year-old Jack, and a seven-year-old daughter McKenzie, who they adopted from Russia in 2012. Like her brother Ryan, McKenzie also has special needs. She has Down syndrome and congenital heart defect.

At the end of October 2015, Mrs Morse flew out to Bulgaria to finalize Ryan's adoption. At that point he was seven years old and weighed just eight pounds. He was covered in hair too, a sign that his body was in a last-ditch effort to save his life by keeping him warm. She says she feared that he would die before she could finish all of the paperwork.

This is the photo that Mrs Morse saw on Facebook in June 2014, which inspired her to adopt Ryan from a Bulgarian orphanage

Mrs Morse is pictured above in October 2015, visiting Ryan in the Bulgarian orphanage

'The first meeting was pretty scary,' Mrs Morse told Inside Edition.'He was bones and skin, he literally looked like a skeleton. The first thing that went through my head was, "he's going to die."'

So as soon as she landed with Ryan back in the U.S. in November, she rushed him to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital where doctors immediately put the boy on a feeding tube.

'I had never in my life seen doctors look at a child and burst into tears,' she said. 'They did call social services. They said, "I'm sorry, he's probably going to die."'

Ryan spent the first two weeks in America at the hospital before being discharged. He was then readmitted shortly afterwards and stayed for an additional month.

But since then, he has been going from strength to strength. Photos of him over the past year show Ryan gradually gaining weight, losing the malnutrition hair and gaining color back to his skin and lips.

The below photos chart Ryan's progress over the last year. He's pictured from left to right in November 2015, December 201 and January 2016

Ryan was admitted to the hospital immediately when he returned to the U.S. so he could be put on a feeding tube. Altogether he spent about a month and a half at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. He's pictured left to right in February, March and April 2016

Since leaving the hospital, Ryan has steadily been gaining weight on his own. He is pictured from left to right in May, June and July 2016

Doctors say that Ryan has cerebral palsy, microcephaly, scoliosis, clubbed feet, and dwarfism - which accounts for his small size. He's pictured above in August, September and October 2016

'His progress has been nothing short of a miracle in my opinion,' Mrs Morse told DailyMail.com Ryan is pictured on the left in November 2016 and on the right on December 6 , 2016

As of today, he weighs 23 pounds, is beginning to babble like a baby and move on his own. The Morses have also been able to enroll him in public school where his progress will continue with a special needs teacher.

'His progress has been nothing short of a miracle in my opinion. The first time I saw him I couldn't even formulate a sentence. I was convinced he would die before I got him home and now he is a happy, giggly, active boy,' Mrs Morse told DailyMail.com.

Since bringing him home, the Morses have learned that Ryan has cerebral palsy, microcephaly, scoliosis, clubbed feet, and dwarfism - which accounts for his small size.

Doctors say it may take years for him to full recover from the special needs he may have developed in the orphanage, and they still don't know how much he will grow or how well he will be able to speak.

But the Morses are patient and positive that Ryan will continue to improve.

Mrs Morse was adopted herself and had a special needs older brother who died at nine years old.

She says she has been inspired to adopt special needs children herself because of how much her parents loved her brother.
A military prison psychologist has refused to recommend that transgender soldier Chelsea Manning's gender be changed to female in her Army service record, a court document shows.

The rebuttal complicates Manning's quest to wear a feminine hairstyle at the men's prison where she is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified information and where she has twice tried to commit suicide, according to her attorneys.

Manning requested to update her gender in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System on November 4, saying her inquiry was 'based on her having achieved stability in her female gender', court documents state.

Her lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union disclosed the psychologist's refusal in a filing Monday in US District Court for the District of Columbia, saying the chief of the Mental Health Division at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, prison had declined Manning's request.

The document doesn't say why psychologist Ellen Galloway refused. Army spokesman Wayne Hall declined to comment Tuesday, citing medical privacy laws.

A military prison psychologist has refused to recommend that Chelsea Manning (pictured) have her gender changed to female in her Army service record, a court document shows

Manning has tried to commit suicide behind bars at least twice, in July and October, according to her lawyers.

She asked President Barack Obama last month to commute her sentence to time served and wrote, citing her treatment at Leavenworth: 'I am living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss and depression.'

The White House confirmed Tuesday that it had received an ACLU letter supporting the commutation request but declined to comment further.

Manning has sought permission to wear her hair longer than two inches, the maximum length prison standards allow for men. The court document filed Monday is a status report from both sides on Manning's lawsuit seeking a court order giving her that permission.

Manning (pictured in August) has sought permission to wear her hair longer than two inches, the maximum length prison standards allow for men

In the report, Manning's lawyers say a new Army policy enabling soldiers to officially change genders does not provide a way for Manning to do so unless she is released, so that she can obtain the required documents, or receives transgender surgery.

Manning's lawyers said in September that the Army has agreed to provide the surgery. US Justice Department lawyers say in the status report that the government is assembling a team to assess Manning's current treatment plan and make any necessary adjustments.

The Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning was convicted in a 2013 court-martial of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Manning said she leaked the documents to raise awareness about the war's impact on innocent civilians.

The judge's rebuttal complicates Manning's quest to wear a feminine hairstyle at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas prison (pictured) where she is serving a 35-year sentence
McLean's attorney asked for leniency, noting that her client has long been struggling with

A Bronx man convicted of killing and dismembering his mother and dumping her body parts in the trash has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Bahsid McLean, 26, learned his fate on Monday after being found guilty last month of second-degree murder and unlawful dissection of a body in the slaying of his mother, 45-year-old Tanya Byrd.

Authorities say McLean, who was described by the defense as schizophrenic, stabbed his mother in her Morrisania apartment in February 2013.

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Punished: Bahsid McLean (left), 26, has been sentenced to 25 years to life for murdering his mother, Tanya Byrd (right), carving her up and posing for a selfie with her head (left)

He then snapped a 'selfie' with her severed head before discarding Byrd's remains in garbage bags stuffed inside suitcases.

At his arraignment, McLean's lawyer said his client was innocent and that he had been off his medication.

During McLean's sentencing on Monday, the court heard emotional victim impact statements from Tanya Byrd's grieving relatives.

Bahsid McLean's 75-year-old grandfather, James McLean, told his grandson he would forgive him for killing his mother but would never forget it, reported DNAInfo.com.

'I love you,' Mr McLean told Bahsid. 'I was the one to teach you how to walk. You broke my heart.'

Bahsid's sister, Porsche Lovett, told her brother he has destroyed her faith in humanity by taking away the one person in her life who believed in her.

Tanya Byrd was killed on February 26, 2013 inside the Morrisania apartment that she shared with her son, scene pictured

Her chopped up remains were found stuffed into bin bags in four suitcases scattered around the neighborhood where she lived, pictured

Why did you take away my mommy? she asked, according to a New York Daily News report. Why did you take away Nasyrs mommy?

Relatives claimed that the 26-year-old man, who had been placed in foster care as a child by his mother, was intensely jealous of his 10-year-old brother, Nasyr, who has Down syndrome.

'I pray one day I will have the strength to forgive you,' Lovett told her sibling, seated at the defense table.

When given a chance to speak, Bahsid McLean apologized for his actions, which he said have been haunting his thoughts and keeping him up at night. He also admitted that what he did to his mother was 'uncalled for.'

Contrite: Bahsid McLea, pictured, apologized for his actions, which he said have been haunting his thoughts and keeping him up at night

Whatever sentence yall give me doesnt matter, he said. It was something that happened. I did it. I apologize.

McLean's defense attorney Lynn Calvacca argued that her client is a mentally ill man suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and that incarceration would do nothing to help him.

Calvacca also accused his family of failing to support him as an adolescent struggling with mental illness.

With all due respect, Id like to know, where were you? she demanded of his family members gathered at Bronx Supreme Court.

During Bahsid McLean's trial last month, jurors heard how the 26-year-old man killed his mother inside their Morrisania apartment on February 26, 2013.

McLean stabbed the home health aide in the neck after she told him he was a bad father.

Police say he then called them to report his dead mom missing.

'If you can kill somebody, you should be able to cut them up too,' McLean told authorities, in a video played in court.

'If you can't do that, if don't have the stomach to cut them up, then you're a coward.'

'The defendant fatally stabbed his mother and then chillingly took photos with her mutilated corpse,' Bronx DA Darcel Clark said, the New York Daily News reports.

His defense team previously claimed that jurors should acquit McLean by reason of mental defect or disease, claiming he is 'broken' and has had voices in his head since he was a child.

His lawyer Lynn Calvacca held up a picture to the court, showing McLean smiling as he held up his mother's severed head.

'Does this look like someone who knows what he is doing is wrong?' she said in her opening statement at the trial in Bronx Supreme Court in October.

After McLean killed his mother he then went to a hardware store and bought a Black and Decker power saw to carve up her body, police said.

Prosecutors said the killing of Tanya Byrd, pictured, was 'cold-blooded'

He paused to take a smirking selfie with her dismembered head before stuffing her remains into trash bags.

Her dismembered corpse was found in the bags inside four different suitcases that had been dumped around the neighborhood, and police later discovered the smiling selfie on McLean's phone.

Prosecutors said the killing was 'cold-blooded' and said McLean knew what he was doing at the time of the alleged murder.

Cassandra McLean, 53, Byrd's sister, previously told the New York Daily News that her nephew was a danger to society and should be jailed for life.

'If he could do that to his own mother, imagine what he could do to a stranger. I don't hate him I pity him,' she told the paper.

On Monday, McLean-Smith, who now is caring for the victim's special-needs younger son, Nasyr, said in court she never wants to see her murderous nephew again.

'Today, my siblings, Nasyr and I say goodbye knowing this will be the last time we will ever see you and the last time you will see the family who loved you unconditionally,' she told Bahsir.
The secretary of state position is 'still wide open' and president-elect Donald Trump continues to add names to his list.

Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an early favorite for the diplomatic post, is 'fading,' and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus is 'no longer a serious threat'.

'Sources familiar with Trump's thinking tell Morning Joe that former Gov. Jon Huntsman is not in serious contention to lead the State Department and never was,' she said.

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Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an early favorite for the diplomatic post, is 'fading'

'Sources familiar with Trump's thinking tell Morning Joe that former Gov. Jon Huntsman is not in serious contention to lead the State Department and never was,' she said

Giuliani was once the favorite for the position - but he hasn't been seen at Trump Tower in nearly two weeks. Ex-CIA Director David Petraeus is 'no longer a serious threat,' Morning Joe said today

Trump has shifted his attention to ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson. He's meeting with him in New York today.

Brzezinski said Trump' is "intrigued" with Tillerson's vast knowledge of the world.'

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is 'back at the top of the list,' the MSNBC host's sources said, after an onslaught of attacks from Trump's allies in the press.

'It's still wide open,' MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said. 'Don't Know that Mitt Romney is at the top of the list, but he certainly seems to be at the top tier.'

Scarborough noted how 'frantic' reports spread that former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton was the pick, and so was Giuliani and then came Romney.

Trump is 'taking his time' with the decision, his vice president, Mike Pence, said this morning on the program.

The secretary of state is 'the person that's going to be representing the administration and representing the president overseas and with countries around the world,' Pence said Tuesday morning, and it's 'a unique role.'

'And he's taking his time,' Pence said. 'We have more names who may well be added to the list. '

He added, 'There's distinguished Americans on the list today but I know at just the right time he's going to pick.'

A Trump spokesman said later in the morning, 'The president-elect is continuing to go through the process to make sure that he's getting this important pick right.

Trump waves to the press as he exits the elevators at Trump Tower this afternoon

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is 'back at the top of the list,' the MSNBC host's sources said, after an onslaught of attacks from Trump's allies in the press

The president-elect 'is meeting with a number of different people,' he said. 'Some of whom are actual candidates for the position, others who have advice and suggestions on what type of people should be picked for this role.

'And the president-elect will let us know when he's ready with a final decision.'

California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher was Monday's rumored secretary of state after transition officials told the Washington Examiner he was being considered alongside Bolton as a 'consensus package' that would put the lawmaker in charge and Bolton in as chief deputy.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, said Sunday that Huntsman was in the running.

'It is true that he's broadened the search,' she told reporters camped out in the Trump Tower lobby. 'He's very fortunate, to have interest among serious men and women.'

Conway declined to say who Trump was seriously considering for the cabinet post at this point.

'I think you've all seen the list before that already existed. I think there'll be additional interviews with other candidates for secretary of state and other cabinet positions and deputy cabinet positions, as well,' she stated.

Trump has shifted his attention to ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson. He's meeting with him at Trump Tower today

She indicated that Trump had expanded his search because individuals they thought would not want to 'leave their very lucrative private industry positions to go and serve the government' expressed interest.

A Morning Consult poll in Politico today says Romney is the preferred choice for secretary of state when he's up against Giuliani. Romney was the favorite of 35 percent of respondents. Giuliani drew the support of 31 percent.

Romney came to New York last week for a second meeting with Trump and dinner.

Giuliani has not been seen at Trump Tower since before Thanksgiving. He's been unusually silent since then about the role he might play in a Trump administration, as well.

Morning Joe's Brzezinski said Tuesday morning of her source's claim that Giuliani is 'fading' in the race, 'He's gonna contest that today, loudly, on stage somewhere with a microphone.'

Scarborough told Politico for a profile that ran this week that he and Brzezinski have a direct line to the president-elect and talk to him frequently, suggesting that Trump himself could be the source for some of their transition scoops.

Trump is 'taking his time' with the decision, his vice president, Mike Pence, said this morning on the program

The pair had a falling out with Trump earlier this year. Scarborough said his son's car accident brought them back together.

'We talk to Trump a few times a week and say the same thing to him on the phone that we say publicly on the show,' he said in a profile that ran Monday. 'We're just as blunt in person as we are on TV, whether we happened to be critical on the show that particular day or not.'

It's a stark change from August, when Brzezinski floated having a psychiatrist on the show to evaluate Trump.

She was spotted at Trump Tower last week taking an elevator up to the real estate mogul's New York headquarters.

A Trump spokesperson told CNN's Dylan Byers she was at the Trump office to discuss an 'interview opportunity.'

Scarborough said on the next morning's show that Ivanka Trump invited his co-host to Trump Tower for a chat.

'We just were talking,' Brzezinski chimed in. 'They're friends,' Scarborough said.

Brzezinski said she intended to go in the back way and accidentally entered through a door near the press scrum.

CNN's Chris Cuomo blasted the duo on Twitter after Brzezinski's Trump Tower trip.

'They have always been boosters. Things turned south when trump froze them out but coverage always stilted. They are transition spokesmen now,' he said.

However, Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, told Politico he did not cast a ballot for Trump this year.




Gerard Zalewski, 33, fled the US on paedophile charges only to claim another victim in the UK

A paedophile on America's 'most wanted' list has been jailed after he fled to Britain and groomed a teenage girl for sex.

Gerard Zalewski, 33, manipulated his 13-year-old victim into sending him indecent images of herself, and then arranged to meet her in a park in Bamber Bridge, Preston in Lancashire.

Preston Crown Court heard how he taped the young girl's mouth with masking tape, put a dog collar around her neck and scrawled the words rape me on her leg.

He then proceeded to take pictures of the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on his mobile phone.

Zalewski, who was living in Dartford, Kent, at the time, pleaded guilty to two counts of penetrative sexual activity with a child, meeting a child following sexual grooming, taking indecent photographs of a child and false imprisonment.

Following the incident, Zalewski fled but was arrested in Kent on June 21 after a man-hunt.

Zalewski manipulated his victim, 13, into sending him indecent images of herself, and met her in a park in Bamber Bridge, Preston, Lancs. He taped the young girl's mouth with masking tape, put a dog collar around her neck and scrawled the words rape me on her leg. Zalewski is wanted by the FBI for failing to appear at a sentencing hearing in March 2006

He was jailed for a total of 12 years and given an 'extended indeterminate licence period'.

Zalewski is wanted by the FBI for failing to appear at a sentencing hearing in March 2006, for committing 'involuntary deviate sexual intercourse' with a 13-year-old girl in June 2004, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Later that year, he pleaded guilty to these offences and was convicted in his absence to serve five to 20 years in a state correctional institution.

But when Zalewski did not 'surrender to custody' by March 31, 2006, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The officer who led the investigation into the Lancashire offences, Detective Chief Inspector Vicki Evans, of Lancashire Constabulary's Public Protection Unit, said: 'Gerard Zalewski is a dangerous and predatory sexual deviant who posed a significant risk to children across the country.'

'He groomed this vulnerable young teenager before arranging to meet her knowing that she was under 16. He then filmed her for his own gratification.'

'We welcome today's sentence which will mean the public, particularly children who are vulnerable, are protected from him for the foreseeable future.'

'This case highlights the risks and dangers faced by children with online grooming.
A mass exodus of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters is underway as life-threatening blizzard conditions and single-digit temperatures engulf the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.

Standing Rock Sioux chairman Dave Archambault II told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that he wanted protesters at the Oceti Sakowin camp to make plans to go home  although he emphasized that no one should risk traveling in the current hazardous snowstorm.

Today is not a good day to travel so I wouldnt recommend people get on the roads, he said. But they need to start thinking about an exit plan, breaking their tents down and going home for the winter.

A mass exodus of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters is underway at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota

Winds whip across Oceti Sakowin Camp as blizzard conditions grip the area around the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on Tuesday

It comes as life-threatening blizzard conditions and single-digit temperatures take over the area. Hundreds of people left on foot to find their abandoned vehicles

It was gridlock at the edges of the camp for several hours on Monday afternoon after the steep roads to the camp became impassable with snowdrifts and ice

Several protesters still carried their signs as they left the camp on Monday following the pipeline announcement

Chairman Archambault said he was using all media available to get the message out to protesters that this was the wish of the Standing Rock Sioux people.

Staying is only going to hurt the cause. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe got everything that we asked for, he said.

On Sunday afternoon, tribe leaders received the news that the federal government rejected an application from the pipeline company to tunnel under Lake Oahe close to the reservation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would analyze possible alternate routes, although any other route is likely to cross the Missouri River.

The chairman addressed the skepticism among some protesters that the pipeline decision in the tribes favor was a ploy by authorities to clear the camp.

Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, asked protesters to go home

For people to say that this [decision] is just a smokescreen is foolish, Archambault said. They have to realize the facts and they have to start going home because their purpose is served.

We are thankful and so grateful for all the help that has been given and all the people who came but today its time to think about how to get home to enjoy this winter with your family. For people to say they want to stay, thats foolish. Its time for them to leave.

The chairman also addressed the announcement on Monday from President-elect Trumps spokesman that their administration would review the decision to delay completion of the pipeline once he takes office on January 20.

It doesnt matter what the next administration is going to do  they cannot reverse the decision of the court overnight. We have time to convince our President-elect, our governor, our senators, our congressmen that the right decision has been made.

Archambault said that so far no one from Trumps transition team had reached out to the tribe directly.

The tribe still wants to speak with Trump about the Dakota Access Pipeline to prevent him from approving the final phase of construction.

'The current administration did the right thing and we need to educate the incoming administration and help them understand the right decision was made,' Archambault said.

Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, asked activists to go home after the federal government ruled against the pipeline

Protesters have spent weeks at the camp in an attempt to halt the final stages of the pipeline

It was unclear if all protesters would leave on Monday, but lines of cars, trucks and even tour buses inched their way from the Oceti Sakowin

It was gridlock at the edges of the camp for several hours in the afternoon after the steep roads to the camp became impassable with snowdrifts and ice

Many left the camp on foot, trudging through the treacherous conditions to nearby camps and abandoned cars

Trump's transition team said on Monday it would review the decision to delay completion once he takes office on January 20.

Archambault said nothing would happen over the winter before Trump takes power, so protesters should leave.

It was unclear if all protesters would heed the chairman's call but on Monday, long lines of cars, trucks and even tour buses inched their way from the Oceti Sakowin - Seven Council Fires - camp, located on the Cannonball River.

It was gridlock at the edges of the camp for several hours in the afternoon after the steep roads to the camp became impassable with snowdrifts and ice.

Many left the camp on foot, trudging through the treacherous conditions to nearby camps and abandoned cars.

The only hotel for around 50 miles, the Prairie Knights Casino Resort, was sold out through this week.

A camper holding a heater walks through high winds during a blizzard inside the camp

A camper braces against high winds and a blizzard while walking inside of the camp

A camper covers her ears to protect herself from the cold. Standing Rock Sioux chairman Dave Archambault II emphasized that no one should risk traveling in the current hazardous snowstorm

Frozen water fills a campfire site at the camp. Temperatures were expected to continue to drop this week to 1F

Each day, the waiting list for rooms has grown longer but the staff are often unable to accommodate.

Many have resorted to sleeping in chairs in the hotel lobby to keep warm.

Those staying at the camp offered warm shelter and food to those whose vehicles were unable to make it up the icy slopes on Monday.

Over the weekend, volunteers with the 'winterization team' had raced against the clock to make tents and teepees warm and waterproof against the approaching blizzards and ferocious prairie winds.

Temperatures were expected to continue to drop this week to 1F.

On Monday, a long line of traffic crept slowly toward Bismarck, North Dakota, at speeds of around 20mph.

At times, traffic came to a standstill as the 40mph winds and blowing snow led to zero visibility on a road with steep inclines and descents and many treacherous turns.

Highway 6 was littered with abandoned cars and one white pick-up truck that had flipped over.

The closest hotel to the reservation is 50 miles away, and it is sold out for the entire week

Those staying at the camp offered warm shelter and food to those whose vehicles were unable to make it up the icy slopes on Monday

Cars line up at an exit ramp covered in snow at the Oceti Sakowin camp. Several cars have had trouble leaving the area due to weather conditions

An overnight storm brought several inches of snow, winds gusting to 50 mph and temperatures that felt as cold as 10 degrees below zero

Emergency trucks rescued drivers who had slid off the road and become stranded as night fell and temperatures plummeted.

Some protesters expressed skepticism at the government's decision and suspected it was planned to make them leave the camp.

Brandon Iron Hawk, from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, told DailyMail.com that the decision on the pipeline 'feels good' but that he didn't believe the fight was won.

Ray Franks, of New York, carries a case of water from a storage supply at the Oceti Sakowin camp

Over the weekend, volunteers with the 'winterization team' had raced against the clock to make tents and teepees warm and waterproof against the approaching blizzards and ferocious prairie winds

Blowing snow led to zero visibility on a road with steep inclines and descents and many treacherous turns

'It's not the end. We are not going to leave until they leave. There's always lies and we have been lied to before,' he said on Sunday night amid celebrations.

Thousands of protesters, who call themselves 'water protectors', military veterans and Hollywood A-listers have supported the tribe's fight to stop the $3.8billion pipeline which was planned to cut within half a mile of their reservation.

Protesters believe the pipeline poses great risk to the water supply and has destroyed sacred burial grounds.

On Sunday, the Obama administration denied permission to the pipeline owner, Energy Transfer Partners,to complete the final stages of construction through Sioux land.

Campers walk through high winds during a blizzard inside of the Oceti Sakowin camp on Tuesday

A man shovels to maintain his shelter as temperatures drop and winds increase at Oceti Sakowin camp

Campers walk through rows of cars attempting to leave Oceti Sakowin camp, adjacent to the Standing Rock reservation on Tuesday

The peaceful protest came after the camp erupted into cheers after the announcement that the U.S. Army would not grant an easement, halting the final stage of pipeline construction
Peter Morgan, 54, is accused of murder

A millionaire property developer accused of murdering a young escort had a history of using prostitutes and going to strip clubs, a court heard today.

Peter Morgan, 54, who is said to have Asperger's, had sordid romps with call girls at his family home before meeting Georgina Symonds, 25.

He paid her 10,000 a month to work as his exclusive escort but after she allegedly threatened to send sex videos to his daughters and wife, he strangled her with a twine ligature, the murder trial heard.

He allegedly killed her at her home in his castle grounds in Llanmartin, Wales before wrapping the body in plastic and duct tape and hiding it in farm buildings behind his family home.

A jury was told the 20million businessman - dubbed 'Rich Pete' by prostitute Georgina - would seek sexual thrills around the world with cash made from his property empire.

He would travel to Spain and Holland to visit strip clubs despite being married to wife Helen, 51.

Dr Ajat Sanikop, a mental disorder expert who interviewed Morgan after he admitted strangling Georgina and hiding her body, said the millionaire began paying for sex back in 2011.

He said: 'Morgan began using such services after he was showed how to use his iPhone for various things.

'He met Georgina a year later but he continued to use escort services. She had no major objections to him seeing other escorts.

'The arrangement was she could stay with her boyfriend and Morgan could have sex with her.

'Then in April 2015 his marriage broke down when his wife, Helen, came to be aware about him bringing escorts to the marital home.'

Dr Sanikop told Newport Crown Court that Morgan would also visit lap dancing clubs in Amsterdam and Spain.

The doctor also said Morgan told him Georgina was only in a relationship with him for money, but was in love with her regardless.

Peter Morgan, 54, had sordid romps with call girls at his family home before meeting Georgina Symonds (left and right), 25

Dr Sanikop said: 'I think he was quite clear that Georgina was with him because of the money and the lifestyle he gave her.

'But he said he loved her. He was quite aware that as long as he paid her she would stay with him, and if he stopped she wouldn't.

'He said that he cared for her and he felt responsible for providing support when she was having financial difficulties.

'He described it as a relationship, but it's difficult to classify it as one.'

Morgan of Llanellen, near Abergavenny, denies murder saying he was suffering from diminished responsibility.

The court heard he suffered from a 'black-and-white' mindset caused by Asperger syndrome.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, a clinical psychologist who specialises in autism research, said he was 'in no doubt' the businessman suffered from Asperger syndrome.

Millionaire Peter Morgan (pictured) has Asperger's syndrome which clouded his judgement, a court heard

The cousin of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen said: 'I am in no doubt he has Asperger syndrome.

'His accounts of his social relationships are not that of a typical person. He said he doesn't like to bother with people much.

'He has very narrow personal interests, like fixing machinery. And he has a very black-and-white mindset.'

The court heard Georgina threatened to release explicit videos and pictures she had of Morgan, unless he continued to pay her thousands of pounds every month and gave her a bungalow.

She allegedly threatened to send the images, which apparently showed Morgan having sex with several escorts, to his two daughters and wife.

He paid Miss Symonds (pictured) 10,000 a month to work as his exclusive escort

Professor Baron-Cohen suggested Morgan's mindset helped him come to the conclusion if he couldn't persuade Georgina to stop blackmailing him out of money then he had no choice but to attack her.

He added: 'He felt he had to stop her and frighten her. He felt quite trapped, and wanted to protect his children at all costs.'

He criticised evidence given earlier by consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Ajat Sanikop, who said Morgan showed no signs of any degree of autism.

Dr Sanikop said Morgan's ability to become a successful businessman, his clear speech and good eye contact meant it was unlikely he suffered from the condition.

Professor Baron-Cohen said: 'Dr Sanikop made a number of comments about signs of Asperger's which were actually common myths.

'Maybe he doesn't have a lot of clinical experience of diagnosing people with Asperger's.'

The trial at Newport Crown Court continues.

The court previously heard Morgan was letting Ms Symonds stay in a bungalow on his Pencoed Castle at Llanmartin, Gwent (pictured)
The boss of an anti-stalking charity who followed his ex-wife for nine months, repeatedly drove past her house and even tried to jump in her car while she was at the wheel has been spared jail.

Peter Noreiko, 67, pleaded guilty to stalking Elaine Ferrie, 54, at her home and workplace between October 25 and July 25 this year.

The former head of the Action Against Stalking campaign group avoided a prison sentence and was handed a community payback order.

Peter Noreiko, 67, pleaded guilty to stalking Elaine Ferrie, 54, at her home and workplace between October 25 and July 25 this year, but avoided a prison sentence

During his tenure at the charity, Noreiko was involved in making stalking a criminal offence under Section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 - the same law he was charged under.

He is understood to have left the charity earlier this year before being charged with numerous stalking offences against his former wife.

The court heard how he admitted to repeatedly driving past his ex-wife's home in Troon, South Ayrshire, and placing his foot in the door of her home to stop her closing it.

He also followed his ex-wife at various locations in Troon, phoned her workplace and tried to continually contact her by text message and email.

Once he even tried to enter her car while she was driving.

Noreiko also admitted to contacting Ms Ferrie's family, friends and work colleagues to try and obtain information about her.

He visited South Beach Hotel in Troon to hand in letters for her, the court heard.

Noreiko, the former head of the Action Against Stalking campaign group, avoided a prison sentence and was handed a community payback order

He appeared at Ayr Sheriff Court today before Sheriff Mhari Mactaggart for sentencing.

Speaking on his behalf, his defence lawyer said: 'Mr Noreiko does not present any risk or harm to himself or others. He accepts that the relationship is at an end.

'There are no issues. All the property has been returned to Ms Ferrie and Mr Noreiko's property has been returned to him.

'He is self-employed but has been unable to work for the last year. He has been suffering from depression.

'It is his intention to become employed again and he seems very positive about that.

'He knows this is a serious matter. He accepts he needs to make sure he does not approach or contact his ex-wife.'

Sheriff Mactaggart said: 'You have pleaded guilty to a stalking offence and I will tell you that this can attract a maximum custodial sentence.

'You have pleaded guilty to a substantially amended charge. At least you spared this lady from going through the courts and giving evidence.

'It was clear the contact was not welcome and was causing distress. You should have deceased contact.

'Your behaviour caused distress for nine months.'

At a previous hearing, Ms Ferrie urged other victims of stalking to find the strength to come forward and speak out.

She said: 'My advice to anyone who is being stalked is  don't keep it to yourself. You have not done anything wrong  being stalked is not your fault.

'Until I had been the victim of stalking myself, I didn't fully appreciate just what this crime really meant, nor did I understand what it's really like to be a victim of persistent and unwanted attention.

'It impacted on every aspect of my life.'

Noreiko will be forced to complete a 16-month community payback order under supervision as well as 135 hours of unpaid work within a year.
WikiLeaks has released a tranche of more than 57,000 personal emails from the account of Turkey's Minister of Oil Berat Albayrak.

Albayrak is the son-in-law of the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The emails span a six-year period from 2000 to 2016 and allegedly reveal his level of influence in the country's political scene.

The emails appear to have been obtained by Turkish hacktivist group Redhack, and which threatened to make his communications public back in September.

More than 57,000 personal emails from the account of Turkey's Minister of Oil Berat Albayrak have been made public by WikiLeaks

The emails, which allegedly contain details of exchanges between Albayrak and the Turkish 'ruling elite' were briefly published earlier this year, before being taken down following a crackdown by the Turkish government.

WikiLeaks alleges that the emails reveal 'Albayrak's involvement in organisations such as Powertrans, the company implicated in Isis oil imports'.

The company has been implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.

Turkey banned oil transportation by road or railway in or out of the country in more than five years ago, but with provision for limited exceptions such as meeting the needs of the military.

WikiLeaks claims that the Turkish government later gave Powertrans the monopoly on the transit of oil.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, said the emails had been released after the Turkish government attempted to silence voices of dissent

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, said the emails had been published in response to the Turkish government's silencing of detractors.

He said: 'The people of Turkey need a free media and a free internet.

'The government's counter-coup efforts have gone well beyond their stated purpose of protecting the state from a second Gulenist coup attempt and are now primarily used to steal assets and eliminate critics.

'The Turkish government continues to use force to jail journalists, shut down media and restrict internet access to its citizens, depriving them of their ability to access information about their situation including by banning WikiLeaks.
It comes amid fears about the threat posed by terrorists in Northern Ireland

and out onto a lit street by a house

This disturbing footage shows three dissident republicans armed with a rocket launcher practicing military manoeuvres on a residential street in Belfast.

One of the masked men crouches down before beckoning the other two forward down an alleyway in what is being seen as a show of strength by the New IRA.

The paramilitaries then move into a lit street, just outside a house, where one of them lifts up his rifle and aims it straight ahead.

This disturbing footage shows three dissident republicans armed with a rocket launcher (pictured) practicing military manoeuvres on a residential street in Belfast

The mobile phone footage, uploaded to social media on Monday, was filmed in Ardoyne in the north of the city, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

Superintendent Darrin Jones said: 'Police are aware of a video having been posted on a social media site. Enquiries are ongoing.'

The film comes amid heightened fears about the threat posed by terrorists in Northern Ireland, including from dissident republicans.

In May, MI5 increased the level of threat posed by terrorism in the province from moderate to substantial - the third most serious category out of five.

Theresa May, the then Home Secretary, said the move 'reflects the continuing threat from dissident republican activity'.

The New IRA, as well as well as another dissident paramilitary group, Oglaigh na hEireann, have been behind most of the deadly attacks in recent years.

The mobile phone footage, footage on social media on Monday, was filmed in Ardoyne in the north of the city. Pictured: one of the men carrying a rifle

In March, prison officer Adrian Ismay died when an undercar booby trap bomb detonated as he drove to work.

In 2011, Catholic police recruit Ronan Kerr was also killed when a device exploded under his vehicle.

And several months earlier, in November 2012, prison warder David Black was gunned down as he drove along the M1 motorway.

In March 2009, the Continuity IRA shot dead police officer Stephen Carroll in Co Armagh just days after the Real IRA gunned down two soldiers outside a Co Antrim military camp.

The paramilitaries then move into a lit street, just outside a house, where one of them lifts up his rifle and aims it straight ahead

The dissidents, who derive most of their funds through criminality, command little support but retain a tight grip in certain areas through fear and punishment attacks.

They are heavily infiltrated with informants and have recently been hit by a number of high profile arms finds and arrests.
Conservative House members are acting to force a vote on impeaching IRS commissioner John Koskinen by the end of the year, after previously holding off at the urging of party leaders.

Republicans have accused Koskinen of impeding the investigation of alleged targeting of conservative groups by the agency before his tenure. At various junctures they have held off at the urging of party leaders.

Now, Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana has said he will go ahead with his 'privileged' resolution, which sends a vote directly to the floor of the House.

He earlier filed a resolution along with fellow conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas.

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Conservative House members say they will force a vote on a resolution to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen

A Tuesday filing would give the House two legislative days to hold a vote. Party leaders fear such a vote could get in the way of priorities for the incoming Trump administration.

An impeachment would require a trial in the Senate, putting aside other priorities.

'That would be a problem for repealing Obamacare,' said House majority leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Bloomberg News reported.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus delayed a similar effort in September, in the heat of the presidential election.

Koskinen's term runs through 2017.

'We have tried everything else,' Fleming said after a meeting with watchdog Judicial Watch.

Rep. John Fleming said he would push for the impeachment vote

Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas joined Fleming on an earlier resolution

Koskinen assumed office when the agency was already under fire for targeting conservative groups with tax exempt status. Investigative committees had subpoenad emails by Lois Lerner, who ran a division dealing with tax exempt organizations.

He testified in 2014 that every email has been preserved, although it later emerged that thousands had been deleted when magnetic tapes were destroyed. The administration says the destruction was an accident.

Under impeachment procedures, a simple majority is required in the House, but a two-thirds supermajority is required in the Senate. No official below the rank of cabinet level has previously been impeached.
An aspiring German actress has claimed a massive shark swam just feet away from her without her having any idea it was there.

Simone Gutsche, 34, says shocked sunbathers on the beach near Orlando, Florida frantically waved to her - but she thought they were just being friendly.

She didn't get out until they began to shout and sprinted towards the sea yelling, she claims.

It's behind you: An aspiring German actress has claimed a massive shark swam just feet away from her without her having any idea it was there

Ms Gutsche, a secretary and part-time model and actress, didn't believe a shark was swimming 15 feet behind her until somebody later showed her a photo.

It appears to show the shark's fin sticking out of the water as she splashed in the waves in her green bikini.

She told the German newspaper Bild: 'It was lovely on Cocoa Beach. Nobody in the water and only a few couples on the beach. The loneliness was really beautiful.'

'Then a couple started to wave at me. I wanted to be friendly as well so I waved back at them.'

Having a shark of a time: Ms Gutsche, a secretary and part-time model and actress, didn't believe a shark was swimming 15 feet behind her until somebody later showed her a photo

After seeing the photo, she said: 'I was so scared that I didn't put a foot in the water for the rest of the day.'

Dangerous tiger sharks are frequent visitors to the beach near Cape Canaveral.

They rank with white sharks as the most dangerous species for humans and can grow to a length of 21 feet.
Authorities in North Carolina are searching for a pair of suspects accused of using a Taser on a 65-year-old Walmart greeter while carrying a $500 big-screen television out of the store without paying.

According to the Union County Sheriffs Office, the robbery and assault took place just before 4pm on Sunday at the Walmart located on Younts Road in Indian Trail.

The suspects, identified as John Davis Jr, 42, and Natasha Hall, 38, were heading for the exit with a 55-inch Vizio television priced at $498 when the store greeter asked to see the receipt for the item.

Wanted: Deputies in North Carolina are searching for John Davis Jr, 42 (left), and Natasha Hall, 38 (right), who are accused of stealing a TV after the male suspect Tasered a store worker

Crime scene: The robbery occurred at this Walmart in Indian Trail, North Carolina, Sunday

Deputies say Davis pulled out a stun gun and assaulted the Walmart worker before fleeing the scene with his suspected accomplice in a green Nissan Pathfinder.

The Tasered victim collapsed to the floor but was not seriously injured and was able to return to work a short time later, according to The Smoking Gun.

Speaking to NBC Charlotte in the wake of the attack, the unnamed greeter said she knew something was amiss about Davis and Hall when she saw the Vizio TV still had its security seal attached.

Davis and Hall are now wanted on arrest warrants charging them both with robbery. The male suspect faces an additional count of assault with a deadly weapon.

The 42-year-old man has been in trouble with the law before and is family to the Union County Sheriffs Office.

Officials say Davis was carrying a 55-inch Vizio TV priced at $498 (similar to the one pictured) when he was confronted by a 65-year-old Walmart greeter

According to investigators, Davis carried out a similar robbery at a Lowes store in Indian Trail last year. On that occasion, he tried to walk out of the store with a Dewalk cordless drill.
A prize greyhound worth up to 1million has been snatched from its kennels in an audacious overnight theft, with a group of dissident Irish republican terrorists thought to be behind the crime.

Police in Ireland are investigating after star greyhound Clares Rocket was snatched from the kennels of trainer Graham Holland in County Tipperary in the early hours of Monday.

The two-and-a-half-year-old dog has won more than 50,000 in prize money, and is thought to be worth upwards of 1 million in stud fees.

According to the Irish Times, a Garda source said investigating officers were following 'several lines of inquiry', including a theory that dissident republican criminals may be behind the dognapping.

A prize greyhound worth up to 1million has been snatched from its kennels

'It can't be ruled out. This is a shakedown; it's what they do,' the source said.

The crime has echoes of the theft of racehorse Shergar, who won the 1981 Derby at Epsom two years before it was stolen from a stud in Ireland.

He was taken by masked gunmen from a stable in County Kildare, and never seen again, after the thieves' demands for a ransom were not met.

Although the culprits have never been officially identified, it was widely speculated that the IRA was behind the kidnapping. The group has never officially claimed responsibility for stealing the horse.

Police in Ireland are investigating after star greyhound Clares Rocket was snatched from the kennels of trainer Graham Holland in County Tipperary

'This is really the Shergar story of the greyhound industry,' a high profile greyhound trainer told the Limerick Leader newspaper.

The theft was discovered after his kennel was found empty by a kennelhand on Monday morning.

Mr Holland and wife Nicky had reportedly gone away for the weekend, and were on their way home when the dog was discovered missing.

Prize racehorse Shergar was stolen from a stud in Ireland in 1983

There have as yet been no leads as to the greyhound's whereabouts.

According to the Racing Post, the Holland family are believed to be 'very distressed' by the theft, and Mr Holland spoke briefly only to say: 'We have no news as yet.'

Clares Rocket is widely regarded as one of the fastest and best greyhounds to have raced in years, and was a favourite the 2017 English Derby.

The Garda press office in Dublin confirmed the theft was under investigation.

'Gardai are investigating the theft of a dog in Golden, Tipperary,' a spokesman said.

'The theft is believed to have happened at some time between 6pm on December 4 and 10am on December 5. Gardai are appealing for witnesses.'

The Irish Greyhound Board declined to comment on the matter, with Chairman Phil Meaney saying only: 'It is now being dealt with by the Garda authorities and it is out of our hands for the moment.'
It was upgraded after Solicitor General thought her sentence was too lenient

Carter, of Crawley Down, West Sussex, was given a one-year

Hayley Carter, 23, was jailed for a year after lying to police - and causing an innocent man to spend five months behind bars

A woman has been jailed after her lies to police resulted in an innocent man spending five months in prison.

The false statement Hayley Carter, 23, of West Sussex, gave to police led to one case being wrongly discontinued in relation to serious firearms charges, and a man charged for a crime he didn't commit.

But her lies were uncovered when a video on a mobile phone captured Carter admitting the man was innocent at a New Year's Eve party.

The telephonist from Crawley Down was originally handed an 18-month community order for perverting the course of justice.

But this has now been upgraded to a 12-month prison sentence by the Court of Appeal following intervention by the Solicitor General, Robert Buckland QC MP, who felt the original sentence was too lenient.

The Solicitor General said: 'False witness statements can destroy lives and undermine faith in the entire criminal justice system.'

Carter's lies to Sussex Police were related to the arrest of two men in 2014. In August that year officers had executed a drugs warrant at an address in Crawley.

Following the raid officers arrested and charged one man with possessing a stolen shotgun and with handling stolen property.

Later in the investigation a second man, Lee Goodsell, was arrested on suspicion of the same offences and was placed on police bail.

But having become aware of the second arrest, Carter decided to make a statement to the police which further incriminated Goodsell, who was subsequently charged on the authority of the Crown Prosecution Service.

In addition, as a direct result of Carter's statement the CPS also dropped the case against the first man.

But at Mr Goodsell's trial in February 2015, Carter failed to appear as a witness.

The defence also produced video evidence shot by a friend on a mobile phone in the toilets of a Crawley club on the preceding New Year's Eve in which Carter clearly admits that the man is innocent.

The trial was stopped, and no further action has been taken against either man.

Carter originally appeared at Hove Crown Court in October where she was given an 18 month community order. It was later upgraded to a year prison sentence after the Solicitor General, Robert Buckland QC MP, felt the original sentence was too lenient

Carter originally appeared at Hove Crown Court on Friday, October 7 where she was given an 18 month community order, consisting of; nine months of electronically monitored curfew between 9pm and 7am, 240 hours unpaid community work, and 30 hours at an attendance centre with Probation supervision.

She was also ordered to pay 1,500 costs and a victim surcharge.

But the Crown Prosecution appealed against that sentence as being unduly lenient, leading to the Court of Appeal hearing which replaced it with the prison sentence.

Detective Sergeant Jon Robeson, from Sussex Police, said: 'Carter's action caused a man to be in prison for five months awaiting trial, and also had the effect of causing the original case against the first man to be called into question so that it had to be withdrawn.

'The sentence sends the message that attempts to pervert the course of justice are taken very seriously and that people who make false statements to the police, and to the courts, must expect to face justice themselves.'
Claims that Ben Carson, Donald Trump's pick for Housing and Urban Development Secretary, grew up in public or subsidized housing can be comprehensively debunked by DailyMail.com.

The assertions that Carson's family received some form of assistance for their housing was made to the New York Times and to NPR by Armstrong Williams, his long-time spokesman, when asked how the retired neurosurgeon was qualified for the HUD role.

But documents obtained by DailyMail.com in the course of a wide-ranging investigation into the truth about Carson's biography show that his parents bought their Detroit home before he was born.

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Private housing: This is the home Ben Carson's parents bought in 1950, before he was born, and where he was brought up. It was newly-built and not public or subsidized

Pick: Ben Carson is Donald Trump's nominee for Housing and Urban Development Secretary

Private: The newly-built house purchased by Ben Carson's parents in 1950, before he was born. It was where he grew up making the claim by his spokesman that he had experience 'growing up in subsidized housing' - or in 'public housing'

Possession: Documents show how in 1965 Robert Carson Jr handed the property to his former wife, Carson's mother. Although Carson calls her Sonya she is legally known as John or Johnnie

Private: The full details of the quit claim make clear the Carson childhood home was not public or subsidized housing

Williams made the key claim in an interview on Monday's NPR Morning Edition.

He was asked by host Rachel Martin: 'Well then let me ask you to flesh out some of Dr. Carson's resume. We, of course, know about his medical career, very successful surgeon. But what in his background prepares him for this particular post?'

Williams replied: 'His life growing up in subsidized housing, growing up in poor communities, understanding what happens, that you can go into the communities and build houses all you want.'

He made a separate claim to the New York Times which reported that 'he did spend part of his childhood in public housing said a close friend, Armstrong Williams.'

It later issued a correction to that statement, saying: 'The friend, Armstrong Williams, said Monday that Mr. Carson had never lived in government housing.'

In fact DailyMail.com had disclosed the existence of the house purchase last year - meaning the New York Times could have fact-checked its story in advance.

The document shows that Robert Carson Jr, the HUD secretary-designate's father, bought the house in August 1950.

It was newly built, by the Cora Development Company, and the warranty deed shows that it was an entirely private sector sale - no subsidies were involved.

The Carsons were the first family to live in the home built on Lot 558 on Deacon Street, now located at the street address #1860.

In 'Gifted Hands,' Dr. Carson described the modest home as 'about the size of many garages today ... one of those early pre-fab post-World War II square boxes.'

He estimated that the whole building 'wasn't 1000 square feet,' but said it was 'in a nice area where the people kept their lawns clipped and showed pride in where they lived.'

The document was uncovered as DailyMail.com pieced together the true story of Carson's childhood, much of which contrasted to claims he had previously made in his biography, in a documentary program he took part in, and in other public statements.

Carson had made his mother's extraordinary life story a central part of his failed campaign for the Republican White Hosue candidacy.

In his books, speeches and interviews, he has told how 'Sonya' was one of a family of 24, married when she was just 13 and divorced his father after discovering he was a bigamist who had a second family.

Family at home: Ben Carson shared a picture of himself on a PBS documentary with his brother (left) and friends in the street where he grew up. The documentary - Finding Your Roots - appeared not to check his claims about his parents and their families despite being hosted by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr

Mother: Johnnie - 'Sonya' - Carson bought the childhood home Ben was brought up in with her then husband, Robert

But little of that story was exactly as he relayed it  although the truth appears to be just as inspirational.

Our investigation also raised questions over the methods of a Harvard professor who investigated Carson's ancestry for a PBS miniseries in 2006 and made no documentary checks on the stories the now-HUD secretary-designate told about his parents.

Dr Henry Louis Gates Jr became notorious for concealing Ben Affleck's slave-owning ancestors in an episode of Finding Your Roots and was then revealed to have wrongly called Affleck's mother a 'freedom rider'.

His series was suspended as a result of DailyMail.com's investigation. The disclosure about flaws in his work on Carson was never looked into by PBS, which broadcasts it.

Carson had claimed of his childhood and parents, at his address to the Fellowship Foundation National Prayer Breakfast in 2013 in front of President Obama: 'My mother and father got divorced early on.

'My mother got married when she was 13. She was one of 24 children. Had a horrible life. Discovered that her husband was a bigamist, had another family.'

The full speech is reproduced in his latest book, 'One Nation'.

However DailyMail.com uncovered four separate documents suggesting Sonyas true name is actually Johnnie. There are no publicly accessible records that name her as Sonya.

According to U.S. Census information, Carson's mother is between two to four years older than she has claimed. And, far from being married at 13, the records show she was still single and attending school at 14, living at home with many of the 15 children her parents are recorded as having.

Carson had previously claimed she had only a third-grade education. Records show that she was still in school in the fifth grade.

It is possible that Carson's description of his mother's third-grade education refers to her level of attainment, not her years in the classroom.

Dr Carson's father was Robert Solomon Carson, a Baptist minister who died in 1992 in Detroit at age 77, leaving behind a wife named Mary.

He was also survived by a stepdaughter, Fairell Tubbs, who said she was at his wedding around five years before his death, but did not know the details of his previous marriages, if any.

Public records inspected by Daily Mail Online show no evidence of Robert Solomon Carson ever marrying or divorcing 'Sonya' Copeland.

In chapter two of the 1990 memoir, the Republican politician describes his parents' story: 'Both my parents came from big families: my mother had 23 siblings, and my father grew up with 13 brothers and sisters.'

'They married when my father was 28 and my mother was 13. Many years later she confided that she was looking for a way to get out of a desperate home situation.'

A letter attributed to Sonya Carson, reprinted in 'Gifted Hands,' states: 'As the mother of Ben and his brother, Curtis, I had a lot of challenges.'

'Being one of twenty-four children, getting married at age thirteen, and later having to get a divorce after finding out my husband was a bigamist were just a few of them.'

Census records also shed some light on the Copeland family that produced Dr. Carson's mother. It appears to have been made up of 15 children. The latest census records which are public are from 1940.

Aid: Armstrong Williams, who made the claim, has helped Ben Carson as spokesman, is a long-time friend, and a broadcaster who has had the retired surgeon on his show

Clean up: How Armstrong Williams reframed his description of Ben Carson's childhood

Cleaned-up: How The New York Times corrected its initial report on Ben Carson's appointment

Mislead: Mike Huckabee had to take back this Tweet - and he blamed the 'fake' New York Time

The 1930 and 1940 census records indicate inconsistent ages for some members of the family. But taking either account, Carsons mother is two to four years older than Sonya's apparent age, whom current public records show was born in 1927 and is 87 years old.

The next official document shows that in 1950, Robert Solomon Carson bought the house at 1860 Deacon Street where Ben Carson was born and brought up.

The doctor's dad is recorded as buying it with 'Johnnie,' 'his wf'  wife. The deed that recorded the Carsons' home ownership does not include any proof of their marriage.

After an examination of city, state and national records, DailyMail.com was unable to find any marriage record for Robert Solomon Carson and Sonya Copeland.

The Hamilton County Clerk of Courts, which covers Chattanooga, Tennessee  where the Copelands had been living when they were supposedly wed  found no details of a union in any year between a male Carson and a female Copeland.

In 1959, according to Carson's memoir, his happy childhood ended when 'Daddy left home for good'.

He has frequently said the departure came as a consequence of his mother's discovery that his dad was a 'bigamist.'

And in a 1988 profile of Ben in the Detroit Free Press's Sunday magazine 'Detroit,' Sonya described her struggles after she learned of Robert Carsons 'betrayals with women and with drugs.'

'The mans sins were so many and so extensive,' the Free Press reporter wrote, 'that when his young wife finally figured out most of the truth, the shock overcame her.'

'She wound up in a mental hospital for a time, saving up her sleeping pills and thinking about suicide.'

Back home: Ben Carson took Donald Trump to his childhood home in September

The bigamy story is curious: DailyMail.com found no evidence of any divorce records, or any documents suggesting Robert Solomon Carson was married  until much later in life.

He and Ben's mother were registered as joint owners of their Deacon Street home until 1965, a detail that differs from Dr. Carson's account of the property's status.

In his book's telling, he, his brother and mother moved to Boston to stay with his mothers older sister Jean Avery, and her husband William, who agreed to take them in.

In 'Gifted Hands,' the doctor recalled: 'With no financial resources to fall back on, Mother knew she couldn't keep up the expenses of living in our house, modest as it was.'

'The house was hers, as part of the divorce settlement. So after several months of trying to make it on her own Mother rented out our house, packed us up and we moved away.'

'We moved to Boston in 1959 and stayed until 1961,' he added in the 1990 memoir, 'when Mother moved us back to Detroit.'

It is not clear when Carson, his brother and mother moved back into the Deacon Street home: Upon returning to Detroit, Carsons mother initially moved the family 'into a multi-family dwelling just across the tracks from a section called Delray,' he wrote.

But Carson added that his mother said: 'Boys just wait. Were going to make it back to our house on Deacon Street. We may not be able to afford it now, but well make it.'

What is clear is that in 1965, a 'Quit Claim Deed' shows a transfer of ownership to Johnnie Carson, 'grantor's former wife,' from Robert Carson Jr., 'an unmarried man.'

Carson's mother owned the home until February 14, 1973 when a warranty deed shows that 'Johnnie Carson, a woman' transferred ownership to John Saddle, 'a single man.'

The following month, records show, John Saddle transferred ownership of the house to Willie Copeland Jr., who is believed to be Dr Carsons first cousin.

Johnnie Copeland, in 1930 and 1940, is recorded as having an elder brother Willie; the 1940 census showed him living with his wife and Willie Jr., then ten months old.

In 1975 the Deacon Street home appears to have left the familys ownership after it was transferred to the governments Department of Housing and Urban Development - meaning that it became public housing long after Dr Carson had left it.
Lea Ledesma, 48, is on trial for manslaughter

An experienced nurse killed a pensioner by injecting him with blood meant for a patient with a similar name, a court heard today.

Lea Ledesma, 48, gave 76-year-old Ali Huseyin blood meant for fellow patient Irfan Hussain, 37.

He died within hours of the catastrophic blunder at the London Heart Hospital in May.

Ledesma is now on trial for manslaughter after a series of 'exceptionally bad' mistakes which should have been 'impossible' to make.

Doctor Guangiuseppe Cappabianca ordered the transfusion when Mr Huseyin started to lose blood from his chest drain at 9.30am following a successful heart bypass the day before.

But Ledesma allegedly jotted Mr Hussain's eight-digit patient number on her hand before fetching the blood without taking any other documentation with her.

This meant she fetched blood that matched Mr Hussain, instead of Mr Huseyin, and injected it into the latter's body.

She even failed to notice the error when the machine printed out a receipt confirming which patient it had just dispensed for, it is claimed.

Prosecutor Timothy Cray QC said: 'What seems to have gone wrong is first of all this defendant appears to have got into a fluster about time and felt under pressure to get the transfusion.

'There was another patient on the ward in bed eight who had the same, or a similar-sounding surname, Mr Irfan Hussain.'

'It was hospital policy, and we would suggest basic common sense, that she was required to undertake further checks at the bedside to make sure that she was giving the right blood to the right patient.

'Before you put the blood into the body you make darn sure that you have got the right blood.'

Dr Cappabianca said he didn't make a written prescription to say the patient needed O-type blood because there was already one in place.

Ledsema allegedly killed a pensioner by injecting him with the wrong blood

He said it is 'very common to have a prescription that is repeatable', adding: 'Given that the nurse was only looking after that patient there was no possibility to mismatch with somebody else.

'She was given only one patient and the procedure to collect the right unit of blood was independent from the prescription.'

He continued: 'Since there was already blood transfusion ongoing at 8am when I arrived I said to give another unit of blood.

'The moment the nurse is saying there's no prescription she should have requested a prescription.'

Mr Huseyin had two successful blood transfusions - one from Ledesma and one from a night nurse - following his operation.

Ledesma claims Dr Cappabianca had taken Mr Huseyin's notes from his bed as he went round the ward after ordering another transfusion.

The experienced nurse says she told him the pensioner's blood pressure had dropped 10 minutes before it fell to a critical level - but he says he is sure she didn't.

'The first time I have heard about this problem was from the anaesthetic registrar,' said Dr Cappabianca.

'I wasn't in the ICU [intensive care unit] at the time.'

A team of doctors and nurses rushed to help Mr Huseyin but only discovered he had been given the wrong blood after Ledesma gave another nurse Mr Hussain's patient number again.

Ledesma is now on trial at the Old Bailey for manslaughter after a series of 'exceptionally bad' mistakes which should have been 'impossible' to make

'It's only when she brings it to the doctor and he looks at it he says this is the wrong blood,' said Mr Cray.

'We will invite you to find that that series of mistakes was so bad, so exceptionally bad, that she is criminally liable for the death of her patient, that it was an unlawful killing, and therefore the serious crime of manslaughter on which she is charged.'
Brokers are advertising the perks of having the Secret Service in Trump Tower to appeal to potential buyers.

Douglas Elliman estate agents sent out an email to prospective buyers less than a week after Donald Trump won the election, with the subject line: 'Fifth Avenue Buyers Interested in Secret Service Protection?,' Politico reported.

The email related to a $2.1 million, one-bedroom apartment on the 31st floor of the gilded Manhattan tower.

It advertised the building as offering a 'new amenity' in the form of the United States Secret Service. 'The Best Value in the Most Secure Building in Manhattan,' the November 13 email read.

Brokers are advertising the perks of having the Secret Service in the building to lure potential buyers to Trump Tower

The Secret Service is in negotiations to take over two floors of New York's Trump Tower which could cost more than $3 million

Sale prices of apartments in Trump Tower have fallen in during Trump's campaign year. Six of the 16 active sale listings were reduced in price, compared to just one listing that increased. The rest remained stable. Prices of six rental listings also fell in the last year.

Debra Stotts, a realtor for Town Residential brokerage, said that the appeal of Trump tower was a 50-50 split.

'Honestly, it's 50-50 just like the polls, there are those who flee, there are those who are going to the building and want to be associated with Trump as a winner,' Stotts said.

The Secret Service is in negotiations to take over two floors of Trump Tower which could cost more than $3 million a year, according to a report.

The agency and the NYPD allegedly plan to run a command post out of the gaudy gold tower where Donald Trump's wife Melania and their son Barron will continue to live during the first year of his presidency.

Around 250 Secret Service agents and cops will be based on two continuous floors - at least 40 floors below Trump's $90 million penthouse apartment, the New York Post claims.

The agency and the NYPD plan to run a command post out of the gaudy gold tower where Donald Trump's wife Melania and their son Barron will continue to live during the first year of his presidency

Two officers, left, with the New York Police Department's counterterrorism unit and a Secret Service K-9 team, stand watch outside Trump Tower, Friday

The paper reports that the 17th floor of Trump Tower is currently vacant and being marketed for up to $105 per square foot. That would add up to $1.5 million a year, per floor.

It also appears that the 15th floor of the Tower is available - which had been used by the Trump Campaign in the run up to the election.

If the agency were to go ahead, they would be paying more than $3 million a year based on current rents in the building. That means taxpayers will be paying the president-elect's own corporation for the high price of his protection.

While the president-elect will relocate to the White House in January, the new First Lady and Barron will stay in their midtown Manhattan apartment untilDonald Trump's youngest son finished this year of school.

But Trump has made it clear he plans to be in New York City regularly and will make even more frequent visits while Melania and Barron are there.

While the president-elect will be protected by Secret Service, the local police are always called on to help assist them.

Trump's entire family lives in New York City are entitled to the security detail following Trump's election.

'The number one imperative here is safety and security. We owe that to the president elect, his family and his team,' John Miller, NYPD's deputy commissioner of intelligence & counterterrorism, told WCBS Monday.

Trump has made it clear he plans to be in New York City regularly and will make even more frequent visits while Melania and Barron are there (pictured at the tower on Tuesday)

'This is a very substantial undertaking. It will take substantial resources.

'We will begin the conversation with the federal government shortly on reimbursement for the NYPD for some of the costs that we are incurring,' New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference on Friday.

Police have been assigned to Trump's adult children and grandchildren in addition to Secret Service.

Blasio said the city will need help with the cost of overtime officers will be working to keep the first family safe.

NYPD's primary responsibility will be controlling the movement of the general public, according to CNN Money.

Presidents are required to have local police protecting them when they return to their homes.

It cost taxpayers $2 million a year to station U.S. Coast Guard boats off the coast of George H. W. Bush's Maine estate during his presidency. While the Secret Service paid Vice President Joe Biden $2,200-a-month to rent the neighboring cottage to his Wilmington, Delaware home.

The president-elect's wife Melania and ten-year-old son Barron will be staying in the city at least until Barron finishes the school year

But because Trump lives in the most densely populated neighborhood in the biggest city in the U.S., this is a massive task.

'We have never had a situation where a POTUS would be here on such a regular basis.

'The details of his future plans are unknown, but we certainly know over these next 65 days [until the inauguration] he will be here regularly.

'The NYPD is up to the challenge and the city of New York is up to the challenge, I have no doubt about that,' de Blasio said.

De Blasio has asked for reimbursements for protecting leaders in the past. When the United Nations heads of state visit the city, they are often times reimbursed for protection from the federal government.

One UN visit saw the city reimbursed for $26 million in reimbursements or about $500,000 per week in 12 months.

'This makes (previous protection efforts) look quite small obviously. We'll have to establish a new set of ground rules,' de Blasio said.
The true extent of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal war on drugs has been exposed after it was revealed that his hit squads have a massive ninety seven per cent kill rate.

In the Philippine cases examined by Reuters and CHR, the police killed 97 per cent of suspects they shot  33 dead for every person wounded.

Police say that 2,004 people have been shot and killed by officers in self-defence during anti-drug operations since the president took office on July 1.

A Philippine police spokesman said that no national statistics are available for injured drug suspects.

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Police in the Philippines killed 97 per cent of drug suspects they shot  33 dead for every person wounded

A boy arrives at the spot where his father was killed in what police said was a drug buy-bust operation in Manila

However, when the police open fire in Duterte's war, the suspects almost always die.

The figures pose a powerful challenge to the official narrative that the Philippines police are only killing drug suspects in self-defence.

The stark statistics and other evidence amassed by Reuters points to the fact that police are pro-actively gunning down suspects, the news agency claims.

Reuters reviewed 42 drug-related shooting incidents involving the police in the Manila region covered by its journalists, as well as another nine cases investigated in the same area by the government-funded Philippines' Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

In these combined 51 cases, police officers killed a total of 100 suspects and wounded just three. Of the three people who were shot but survived in these cases, two played dead and the third was arrested as he tried to flee the scene.

Efren Morillo, one of the rare survivors of a police raid, said he was unarmed when an officer, standing a few feet away, shot him through the chest.

Blood remains on the floor of a room where suspect Noberto Maderal was killed during a drug-related police operation in Manila

An investigator takes notes next to the body of a man killed in a shoot-out with police in Philippine capital Manila

As Morillo lay bleeding, feigning death, officers began shooting his companions. 'I prayed to God to let me live,' he said.

Asked why almost every police drug encounter ended with the suspect being killed, Derrick Carreon, spokesman for the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, said: 'I guess some cops are just good at shooting. They're probably good shots.'

The kill ratio in the Philippines is much higher than in countries with comparable drug-related violence.

The Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, where police have been accused of extrajudicial killings in a bloody crime crackdown, pales next to the Philippines under Duterte. For every five people the Rio police killed between 2013 and 2015, they injured one person, according to a Human Rights Watch report in July.

The bodies of two men killed during a drug-related police operation, are taken away by funeral parlour workers in Manila

Local residents pass the time under C-3 bridge in North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), a Navotas City district of slums and waterways with a high number of drug war deaths in Manila

Police in the country say that 17 officers have died in anti-drug operations since July 1. That means one officer has died for every 118 suspects killed.

In Rio, for every officer who died in 2015, 24.8 people were killed by police, a rate more than double that of South Africa and triple that of the United States, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

According to the report by Reuters, i n the poor neighborhoods targeted by Duterte, many people interpret the police force's apparent freedom to kill without consequence as proof of a nationwide shoot-to-kill policy.

During his election campaign, Duterte, known as 'The Punisher' vowed to dump the corpses of criminals into Manila Bay and 'fatten all the fish there.'

The body of Angelo Lafuente didn't make it as far as the water. He was murdered in August after witnesses said he was detained by police.

Two eyewitnesses said Lafuente, 22, was last seen alive in police custody on August 18, about 12 hours before his body was found.

While more than 1,500 anti-drug operations have come under investigation by the police force's Internal Affairs Service (IAS) since the start of Duterte's drug war, no officers have been dismissed from the force for misconduct, an IAS official said.

President Duterte has denied that the police are conducting extrajudicial killings. At the same time, he has welcomed the mounting death toll.

The mother of Angelo Lafuente, whose body, riddled with bullets, was found by a filthy river that feeds into the Manila bay, cries as she visits his grave on the All Saints Day in Manila

Angela Lafuente holds a picture pf her son as she visits his grave on the All Saints Day in Manila

In September, he said he'd be 'happy to slaughter' three million drug addicts.

In the run-up to the May presidential election, he said he would pardon members of the security forces  and himself  if they committed human rights abuses while fighting crime. 'Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for the crime of multiple murder, signed Rodrigo Duterte,' he told a group of business people in Manila in April.

In a statement to Reuters, the Presidential Communications Office said Duterte hasn't given the police license to kill drug dealers, but officers have a right to defend themselves when their lives are in danger. 'The drug war is not child's play,' the statement said.

When asked when the bloody war on drugs will end, the president vowed it would continue until the bitter end.
the day before Thanksgiving in front of 800 friends and family members

A third man has been charged in the death of a 26-year-old Hofstra graduate who was stabbed 15 times and then dumped in a shallow grave last month.

Max Gemma, 29, was booked on charges of hindering prosecution and tampering with physical evidence in the death of Joseph Comunale in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, with his bail set at $200,000 bond or $100,000 cash. He entered a plea of not guilty.

Gemma is from Oceanport, New Jersey, just like one of the other men arrested in Comunale's death, Lawrence Dilione.

Comunale was allegedly stabbed to death by party boy and con man James Rackover, 25, after heading back to his New York City apartment for a late-night afterparty on November 13.

Rackover is also charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence, along with charges related to the concealment of a human corpse.

It is unclear however what charges Dilione, 28, is facing as after appearing in court on Monday to be formally notified of his indictment prosecutors did not disclose the charges.

Rackover is due in court next Tuesday while Dilione remains free after posting $300,000 bail. None of the men have been charged with murder at this time.

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Trio: Max Gemma (above in court on Tuesday), 29, of Oceanport, New Jersey has been charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with physical evidence in Joseph Comunale's death

One and two: Comunale, 26, was at the apartment of James Rackover with Lawrence Dilione (above), when he was stabbed

Court date: Dilione (above) appeared in court on Monday to be formally notified of indictment, but prosecutors did not disclose the charges

Victim: None of the three men have been charged with the murder of Comunale (above) at this time

Video courtesy of Crime Watch Daily

Comunale was laid to rest the day before Thanksgiving, also the same day Dilione was released on bail.

Over 800 heartbroken friends and family members turned up in Stamford, Connecticut, at St Leo's Church to pay their final respects.

His father Pat broke down in tears as he spoke to those in attendance, saying: 'Well, Joeyd be mad at me for crying, because he never cried.

'He loved his friends. That's a testament to what kind of kid he was. And he shared everything with his friends, I can assure you.'

Family members and friends outside the church said that all they want now is for justice to be served, and for Dilione and Rackover to go to prison for killing the caring young man with a 'big heart.'

The body of Comunale, who goes by the name Joey, was discovered in a wooded stretch on the Jersey shore on November 16.

The area is just minutes from Dilione's workplace, Shore Point Roofing.

Comunale's partially-burned remains were found inside a suitcase that had been buried behind Foggia's Florist in the town of Oceanport. There were multiple stab wounds on the victim's body while he also suffered a broken pelvis.

Rackhouse (above) was indicted by a grand jury last month and has called claims that he murdered Comunale 'bulls***'

Dilione (above) has been out on bail since just before Thanksgiving

Comunale was reported missing at 8am on Tuesday, November 15 by his father after he never returned home from his weekend trip to New York City.

He reportedly met Rackover and Dilione at Gilded Lily, a club on West 14th Street, and that at the end of the evening they headed back to Rackover's apartment on 59th Street with three women.

The three women then left early that morning, and Comunale was seen reentering the building around 7:30am.

Some time after he returned the men reportedly got into a fight and Comunale was stabbed multiple times.

Then at some point a person inside called the front desk to request a luggage cart.

Not long after that, a man was recorded on surveillance video using the cart to transport two pieces of luggage out of the building.

A building employee was also reportedly asked by an individual in the building how long video surveillance was kept before it gets erased.

Rackhouse changed his name in March of last year after moving in with Jeffrey Rackhouse (pair above in May 2014)

Rackover was born James Arthur Beaudoin Jr. in Florida, and was arrested multiple times for burglary, armed robbery, and drug possession.

Then, in January of 2009 he was charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, again in Broward County.

For that arrest he was also charged with violating his probation.

He left Broward County and his criminal past behind however to travel north to New York, where he found a new home in Jeffrey Rackover's multimillion dollar apartment.

James was later given his own apartment in the same building, which is where police believe the grizzly murder of Comunale occurred this weekend.

Jeffrey treated James as the son he never had and allowed him to formally use his name.
President-elect Donald Trump declared a second employment victory in as many weeks on Tuesday, saying after a meeting with Softbank Group Corporation CEO Masayoshi Son that the Japanese investment bank had agreed to invest $50 billion in U.S. startups, creating what he said would be 50,000 American jobs.

Son showed journalists a page from his presentation to Team Trump, which was co-branded with Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese manufacturer that makes electronics components for a wide range of companies.

'Commit to invest $50bn + $7bn in US, generate 50k + 50k new jobs in US in next 4 years,' the sheet read.

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about why the proposal suggested a $57 billion investment and 100,000 jobs created by Foxconn.

A Foxconn representative also did not respond to a request for comment.

But Son volunteered before news cameras that Foxconn, not Softbank, got the ball rolling.

President-elect Donald Trump and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son spoke with reporters to announce a deal that will bring 50,000 jobs to the U.S. as part of a $50 billion investment

The Softbank chief showed reporters a page from his business plan  which clearly includes co-branding with iPhone manufacturer Foxconn  a company from Taiwan

'We don't make a proposal. My friend make[s] a proposal,' he said  later clarifying that 'Foxconn is my friend.'

In Japanese business circles, it's common courtesy to refer to business partners as 'friends.'

Foxconn's Taiwanese base of operations could raise new questions about Trump's latest dealmaking.

He was criticized just days ago for breaking with U.S. diplomatic tradition by speaking personally with the Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, an independent island nation that China claims as its own.

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether he and his Taiwanese counterpart discussed the Foxconn deal during that call.

Foxconn has a black eye of its own  a series of 14 suicides and four attempted suicides at one of its iPhone and iPad factories in Shenzhen, China, brought on in part by harsh working conditions.

The deaths drew international attention, leading Apple and Hewlett-Packard to investigate employment practices there.

Trump drew scorn over the weekend for speaking on the phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen  a break from America's recognition of the 'One China' policy

An international scandal enveloped Foxconn's Chinese factories in recent years after 14 workers committed suicide by leaping off of buildings; the company ended up installing 'suicide nets' to discourage the practice among employees who assemble iPhones, iPads and MacBooks

Foxconn is also known in China as a industry leader in assembly-line automation, deploying at least 1 million factory robots to replace workers in a bid to lower labor costs.

It's unclear what kind of jobs Softbank's investments will bring to the U.S.

But Trump blasted Apple during a March campaign stop,' promising to press the company 'to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China.'

'How does it help us when they make it in China?' he asked.

Trump and Son each spoke with reporters after the two men huddled for nearly an hour on Tuesday, with the president-elect calling him one of 'the great men of industry.'

'I just came to celebrate his new job,' Son said. 'And we were talking about it. ... He will do a lot of deregulation. I said, "This is great. The United States, the U.S., will become great again".'

An exultant president-elect tweeted the details of Softbank's commitment just after he met with Son in Trump Tower

Minutes before bringing 'Masa' to the Trump Tower lobby, the president-elect tweeted that the Japanese money man 'agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs' and 'said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!'

Son said after the president-elect departed for his building's elevator that 'we are going to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and commit to create 50,000 new jobs.'

'We [will] invest into new startup companies in the United States,' he added.

Softbank, Son said, is already heavily invested in technology companies. He did not mention previous financial dealings with Foxconn.

'We own Sprint. We own ARM. We invest in so many Internet companies,' he said.

ARM refers to the British semiconductor maker ARM Holdings PLC.

'We own 100% of ARM. We paid $32 bilion in cash just July of this year,' Son said.
Euthanasia could become legal in Australia next year.

The Victorian Government will hear a bill calling for assisted dying to be legalised in 2017.

Premier Daniel Andrews has said the State Government would provide 'a way forward', meaning Victoria would be the first state to legalise the practice.

But palliative care doctors have warned the state government not to legalise euthanasia, saying it would shift priorities away from those receiving palliative care.

Euthanasia could become legalised for the first time in Australia, with a bill expected before the Victorian Government in 2017

In June, a cross-party committee of MPs recommended legalising assisted dying in limited circumstances.

The committee examined voluntary euthanasia laws in other countries and found they had robust regulations to protect people against abuse.

An expert panel was established to advise the Andrews government on an appropriate model, the Herald Sun reported.

The Victorian Government's deadline to respond to this report is Thursday.

The finalised legislation would be put to parliament, where all MPs would hold a conscience vote on the issue next year.

The Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association urged the government to ensure palliative care continued to be properly funded and adequate safeguards were in place.

'Palliative care must be freely available to all who have a terminal condition or who require management of the symptoms of chronic and incurable medical conditions,' AMA Victoria president Lorraine Baker said in a statement.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is seen parliament in Melbourne. He said the state government would provide 'a way forward'

It's also called for the medical profession to be involved in discussions about any legislation.

Right to Life Australia President Margaret Tighe said Mr Andrews could be unwittingly signing the death warrant of his own government by ignoring problems associated with legalised patient killing in other countries.

Euthanasia was previously legal in the Northern Territory after the state passed the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in 1995.

While the law was in effect, four people died via euthanasia.

The controversial act was overturned in 1997.
This hapless 'robber' tried to make a quick escape in a getaway car - but went the wrong way and mowed down a motorcyclist instead.

He then had to get out and flee on foot in the bizarre escape attempt in the town of Bandar Baru Bangi, Malaysia.

The man can be seen sprinting down the pavement at the side of the busy road, wearing a yellow reflective vest.

This hapless 'robber' tried to make a quick escape in a stolen car - but went the wrong way down the road

The footage has not been verified, and the events leading up to the crash are not known.

The identity of the car driver is also unclear, and it is not known for certain whether he is accused of any crime.

The video was posted on YouTube with the caption: 'Armed robbery and car crash in section 15 Bandar Baru Bangi.'

On Sunday, a motorist filmed a terrifying video of a woman driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway near Ipswich.

The lady, who was said to be elderly, nearly crashed into a car driven by the man's girlfriend.

Police later caught up with her and she voluntarily handed over her license.

He smashed into a motorcyclist, breaking the car and forcing him to get out and flee on foot
Sarah Jenkins quickly realised she was in for something of a rough ride at her new school. For a start, there was the ungodly hour at which she was lining up to enrol for lessons: 7.30am  a time when 16-year-old Sarah would normally still be asleep.

Then she had to run the gamut of teachers and prefects, gathered to inspect pupils general demeanour and uniform.

Jewellery, piercings, make-up and nail varnish are forbidden, while skirts have to sit on the knee. Any mistake, even a minor one, could result in Sarah being forced to scrub the toilets as punishment.

Its a draconian regime that seems miles away from the liberal ethos pervading most of Britains modern educational establishments. And it is miles away: 6,000 in fact.

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Tommy Reynolds, left, Sarah Jenkins and Ewan Miles, from St Davids School, Pembrokeshire, went to South Korea to compare schools and how they are taught

For Sarah and fellow A-level students Tommy Reynolds, 16, and 17-year-old Ewan Miles, have travelled to South Korea to see what they can learn first hand from the academically superior Far Eastern education system, as part of a fascinating BBC TV experiment.

For years, South Korea has been outstripping the UK in school performance and the latest figures this week from the Programme for International Student Assessment rankings (PISA)  show that British teenagers are still straggling behind the Asian tiger teenagers.

Every three years, 15-year-olds in all participating countries sit the same exams in maths, science and reading, and while the latest results show that British youngsters have made some improvements, they have been outperformed by children from nations such as China, Singapore, South Korea and Estonia.

For years, South Korea has been outstripping the UK in school performance figures

Four years ago, South Korea was ranked fifth in a maths test taken by 15-year-olds in 68 countries. The UK  once known across the world as a standard bearer for educational excellence  did not even make the top 20, languishing in 26th place.

South Korea has now slipped to seventh place; but the UK has also slipped further down the international academic league table of 72 countries, dropping to 27th.

What, then, would Sarah, Ewan and Tommy  three bright, middle-class youngsters from a mixed comprehensive in Pembrokeshire with a clutch of A* GCSEs between them  make of the ferociously competitive, highly-disciplined system in South Korea? As Ewan puts it: I had no idea what was coming.

Their 400-pupil mixed comprehensive, St Davids, is graded good by official ratings, although only 63 per cent of pupils achieve five A-C GCSEs including English and Maths.

School days can go on till late into the night in South Korea, and pupils often fall asleep during their classes

Its relaxed about uniform: pupils of both sexes wear a polo shirt and maroon sweater with black trousers and shoes, while girls are permitted nail varnish, jewellery and make-up. They are also allowed mobile phones, although not in lessons.

Its a different picture in South Korea, where the trio lived in the bustling capital, Seoul, staying with host families in the affluent neighbourhood of Gangnam.

While Gangnam is perhaps best known in the UK for the 2012 pop song Gangnam style by South Korean artist Psy, it is a highly-sought after area where parents spend a fortune to buy a property within the schools catchment area.

This means living in cramped high-rise flats which populate the area. From wearing the strict uniform  I feel like an air hostess, Sarah cries, after donning her knee-length grey skirt and double-breasted blazer  to experiencing the reality of 14-hour study days, the British youngsters quickly find that South Korean students have little time for the leisure activities they favour at home (I probably like my PlayStation more than lessons, Tommy confesses).

Sarah attended in South Korea Suh Moon Girls School in the South Korean capital Seoul

Sarah, a fresh-faced, chatty blonde whose hair made her something of a celebrity in South Korea, attended the high-performing 1,500-pupil Suhmoon Girls School, where students are expected to bow to any teacher if they pass them in the corridor, and no backchat is tolerated.

Instead, pupils excitedly make a dash for the blackboard to fill in answers to questions  much to Sarahs wide-eyed surprise.

The same ethos pervades life at the all-boys Dankook High School, where Ewan and Tommy discovered the rigours of seven hour-long lessons, with a ten-minute break between each lesson and 50 minutes for lunch.

Classes with up to 40 pupils are delivered lecture-style, with students frantically scribbling notes. And while Ewan and Tommy had an interpreter, both admit it was the pace of the lessons, not the language barrier, that confounded them.

Jewellery, piercings, make-up and nail varnish are forbidden at Korean schools, while skirts have to sit on the knee

It was so fast, says Tommy, whose parents are both teachers. If you miss anything, youre pretty much stuffed, as they dont go back.

Back in Wales, their school day starts at 9am and ends at 3.30pm  a six-and-a-half hour day compared with their Korean friends nine or ten-hour days, which are followed by hours of private tutoring.

The kids in Korea couldnt believe it when we told them our timetable, admits Tommy, who overslept on his first day in Korea, making it to lessons just in the nick of time. Had he been just five minutes late for class, his punishment would have been to come into school an hour early the follow morning to mop the corridors.

Sarah  whose mother Sue is a designer, and stepfather Jon is a carpenter  was also taken aback by the Korean teaching methods.

The three British students were exhausted by the end of their first day of lessons in their South Korean classrooms

Its very different to the inclusive style of lessons at home, says Sarah. At our school we have more open discussions, but in Korea the teacher talks, you take it down and you dont question it.

The experience took its toll: Sarah admits she was so exhausted at the end of the first day that she readily accepted her host Sie-yons suggestion to take a nap on one of the beds in the school nurses station.

Even the PE lessons were a shock. I was so happy that, after these lessons cooped up in the same room, we would be out in the fresh air, but in fact it was like a boot camp, says Sarah. We all stood in lines doing a series of stretches. I was speechless.

One maths lesson, meanwhile, left all the Brits open-mouthed: the Welsh pupils had taken along their previous years GCSE maths exam, interested to see what their Korean counterparts would make of it.

In South Korean schools the classrooms are sparse and the teachers use blackboards

The answer was astonishingly light work: several of their classmates had finished the hour-long paper in 15 to 20 minutes, and when the teacher asked who had found it difficult only Tommy puts up his hand, to his obvious embarrassment.

One of them was writing more quickly with a cast on his arm than I was  and I had seen the paper last year, says Tommy.

Worse was to come: one of their Korean maths teachers revealed that the sort of questions they faced in the exam would routinely be asked of Korean pupils aged 12 or 13.

When you consider that 40 per cent of the 16-year-olds who sat maths GCSE in England last year failed to get a Grade C, it is easy to see why British schoolchildren are being so roundly beaten.

If even Ewan  son of an investment banker and who has 12 A* GCSEs  admits he found the South Korean lessons challenging, how can most British children even hope to compete with these Asian tiger teenagers? In one maths lesson I was really struggling to keep up, says Ewan. It was further maths, but it felt like further further maths.

The two boys swapped their Welsh classrooms for lessons at Dankook Boys School, in Seoul

AND its not hard to see why the South Koreans are streaking ahead. Ewans host, Young Chan, routinely studies for 14 to 16 hours a day, and the programme shows rows and rows of Korean teenagers knuckling down for their after-school study.

Its exquisitely silent, a clearly stunned Ewan mouths to camera.

Young Chan  who showed he was a force to be reckoned with within minutes of meeting Ewan, after demonstrating his ability to play the piano while facing away from the keys, with his hands behind his back  is just as baffled by Ewans surprise.

I found that if you review the school work youve learned on that day, it really helps you a lot, he says. The library where I study near my house is only open til 10, so if I want to finish my work I just come back to school and stay here until midnight.

Education is everything in South Korea, and parents there spend more on private education than those of any other country in the world

Discipline, too, is very different in South Korea: its hard not to be amused by Tommy and Ewans startled faces when, in one lesson, their female teacher navigates the classroom, wielding a drumstick with which to rap awake sleeping pupils. She was hitting their desks, the walls, and knocking a few on the knuckles, says Ewan.

Its the kind of behaviour that would result in a British teacher being hauled up before a disciplinary board.

If someone did that here, the parents would be up in arms, agrees Tommy. But over there you get the impression the parents would ask them to do it more!

Education is everything in South Korea, and parents there spend more on private education than those of any other country in the world.

Chatty blonde Sarah's hair hair made her something of a celebrity in South Korea

Working punishing hours to fund houses in the right school catchment areas is standard, as well as paying for the extensive after-school clubs known as hagwons, which help children cram for exams.

The government has now placed a ten oclock curfew on hagwons to try to control their influence.

Theyre a phenomenon, Tommy acknowledges. The kids dont get evenings off, they dont get weekends off. The boy I was staying with did hagwons five nights a week and spent most of Sunday at one.

They are all just so driven. I found them pretty tiring after an intense day at school.

Yet while the South Korean ethos may have proved exhausting for British youngsters, the difference in the childrens attainment is palpable.

The British children who visited South Korea were impressed by the level of respect teachers commanded and the strict discipline in schools

In an English grammar test at one hagwon he attended, Tommy answered four questions wrongly  even though he was the only native speaker. That wasnt a great moment, he admits, humiliated.Not that Tommy can be blamed for his shaky grasp of English grammar  British schools largely stopped teaching it in the 1960s.

Last year, however, it was revealed that teachers are having to go back to the classroom for remedial lessons, because many of them lack the skills to teach primary school pupils taking rigorous new tests this summer.

No one can accuse the South Korean system of lacking rigour. Sarah, who is studying maths, chemistry and biology at A-level and hopes to become a doctor, was astounded by Han Sie-yons work ethic.

Han Sie-yon had up to four hours intensive private tutoring at home most evenings, often studying until 11pm at night. Which meant that, for the duration of her stay, so did Sarah. Normally, I would be hanging out with my friends, but to Han Sie-yon her study ethic was normal, she says.

Sarah with Sie-yon, her host host in Korea

This normality, of course, comes at a price: with such punishing hours, pupils do fall asleep in class, and suicide rates are high. Suicide is the number one cause of death among those aged between ten and 30 in South Korea.

Its so results-driven that if youre not good enough, you are effectively written off, says Tommy.

Sarah, meanwhile, says that her classmates entire mood was governed by her academic results.

At one point, she got the results for some exam and I could tell by her face she wasnt happy, she recalls. I asked how shed done and she said not good. They are all under so much pressure.

The question, of course, is whether students in the UK would benefit from a bit more pressure.

If youve got a country getting results like that, then clearly you have to sit up and take note, acknowledges St Davids head teacher David Haynes, who accompanied the students to South Korea.

Their work ethic was first class, the children are dedicated and the school stays open until midnight most days, which is remarkable.

In essence, the children work harder then? I dont think thats the right word. Our children work as hard, they just dont work as long, which is different, he says.

And yes, they may not achieve at quite the same academic level, but they are more well-rounded.

while this may be true  Tommy plays rugby and is soon to star as Danny in the school production of Grease, while Sarah is a keen swimmer  British teenagers will soon be competing with their ferociously driven Korean counterparts for jobs in an increasingly globalised world; a world in which well-rounded may not cut it.

None of the British pupils could cope with the volume of work in South Korean schools  and the pressure on them to achieve

Interestingly, while defending his schools more relaxed ethos, Mr Haynes also admitted he would like to bring top maths teachers over to Britain to fill the shortage.

In the health service, we bring across doctors from other parts of the world and they contribute greatly to our society and the provision we receive, he said.

Highly trained professionals from other parts of the world like South Korea could contribute greatly to our education system.

The British children who visited South Korea were impressed by the level of respect teachers commanded and the strict discipline in schools. But none could cope with the volume of work  and the pressure on them to achieve.

Previously, when I had homework I would feel a bit sorry for myself, Tommy admits. But now I realise how lucky I am because I get time to myself, too  those guys never do. They are always working.

It seems its not just British youngsters who are deterred by the ferocious work ethic of the South Koreans: their middle-class parents are equally fearful that such a punishing system could be too much.

Sarahs mother, Sue Jenkins, says that her daughter has never needed any encouragement to work hard, but would crash and burn in the hothouse of a Korean school.

The extra pressure would not help her at all  she worries enough as it is, says Sue. She already has the focus, and I like the fact that her school nurtures rather than piles on more pressure.

Be that as it may, for how long can Britains nurturing schools keep up with their exacting Asian counterparts?
The $5,000-a-night Russian prostitute who accused Eliot Spitzer of choking her in a hotel room appeared back in court for a bail hearing as she waits to face $400,000 exhortation charges.

Model and escort Svetlana Zakharova Travis, 25, covered her face with her hair as she appeared back in Manhattan Criminal Court.

The hearing was held on Tuesday where the defense argued for the court to reduce the $1million bail for Travis.

Model and escort Svetlana Zakharova Travis, 25, covered her face as she appeared back in Manhattan Criminal Court

The hearing was held on Tuesday where the defense argued for the court to reduce the bail for Travis

However, the prosecutors disagreed and the judge reserved their decision on bail until the next hearing on January 10

However, the prosecutors disagreed and the judge reserved their decision on bail until the next hearing on January 10.

Travis' bail was previously set at $1 million after Judge Ushir Pandit ruled she was a severe flight risk, and that her native Russia has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Prosecutors in court in October said she 'consistently threatened to expose intimate details of prior relationships with [Spitzer's] family as well as the media'.

Travis told detectives that ex-New York governor Spitzer, 57, had assaulted her during a heated row in a $1,000 suite at The Plaza Hotel in February after she revealed plans to return to Moscow.

The escort and model then went back to her native Russia, hindering the police investigation into the alleged attack. She was arrested Monday after returning to New York.

She also was charged with forgery in an unrelated case in which police said she used information from a 67-year-old New Jersey man to sign a lease agreement, which ended up costing him $18,000.

Svetlana Z. Travis covered her faced during an earlier hearing where she was arraigned on charges of grand larceny by extortion in Manhattan Criminal Court. The 25-year-old accused Eliot Spitzer of choking her, then tried to shake him down for $400,000

Travis was arrested in New York on a grand felony charge after allegedly extorting $400,000 out of Spitzer over two years

Spitzer said in a civil suit that Travis made him pay so she wouldn't tell about their trysts, and that she accused him of choking her in February as revenge for him cutting ties with her

FROM RUSSIA TO MANHATTAN: JOURNEY OF A $5K-A-NIGHT CALL GIRL WHO SAYS 'SEX IS SEX BUT MONEY IS MONEY' I grew up in central Russia. When I was little, I wanted to be a tour guide and see the world. Then a tour bus came through our town and it was small and stinky with no air conditioning. The tour guide had frizzy hair and sweat stains under her arms. I thought tour guides in the United States probably had it better. I had the phone number of a Russian woman who had said she would host me. When I arrived at JFK, she told me to take the train to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I knew about it because in Russian movies its a place where you can buy smoked salmon and caviar and nice clothes, and where only people who really achieve can go. I felt lucky. When I came out of the train station I saw all these ugly people, people in wheelchairs, old people, and the streets were smelly and the people were wearing clothes worse than what people wore in the Soviet Union and the train station was loud and I thought: Fuck, this is not the America that I heard of. I spent four days there before I met a girl who said I could live with her in Manhattan. When I got there and looked around, I understood the fuss. I understood why all people want to come here. Advertisement

Prosecutors said she allegedly extorted $400,000 out of Spitzer over two years, the Post reported.

Spitzer, who resigned as governor in 2008 after he was accused of wiring more than $10,000 to an elite escort service, had admitted to a 'relationship' with Travis in a lawsuit filed in July.

That suit said Spitzer had paid money to stop Travis from making their 'trysts' public, and that her claims of assault were made against him in revenge for him cutting ties with her.

Spitzer's representatives told in September that he had withdrawn the claims, 'without prejudice and without costs to either party as against the other.'

But the closure of that civil suit apparently meant little to the NYPD, which picked up Travis and hit her with the charges.

Spitzer's suit claimed that Travis had 'demanded' a meeting with him on February 13, during a stopover while travelling from her home in California to Russia.

It said that she 'became enraged when [he] told her that he did not wish to maintain any relationship with her, that he did not intend to give her more property, and that he intended to end all contact.'

Travis called police and told them she had cut herself and was having a breakdown, Spitzer's attorney, Adam Kaufmann, said in February.

Dropped: He dropped the lawsuit last month, but the NYPD arrested her when she landed in New York on Monday after flying in from Russia. She had fled there after making the choking claim in February

'Fraud': Travis was also arrested on a separate forgery charge after allegedly signing a lease that resulted in a New Jersey man being billed for $18,000

Businesswoman: Travis claims that she came to New York with just $300, but managed to make $200,000 by working as a prostitute

Spitzer was present while police arrived, Kaufmann said, and 'sought to keep her calm.'

When police arrived they noticed a cut on her arm and a broken glass, and took her to hospital. There she told staff that Spitzer had choked her and shoved her after she told him of her plan to return to Russia.

But she refused to co-operate with police and flew to Russia later that night.

Spitzer is no stranger to controversy. The multi-millionaire son of real-estate tycoon Bernard Spitzer, he made a name for himself as a lawyer focusing on corrupt financiers.

The one-time 'Sheriff of Wall Street' was even considered presidential material, and became 57th governor of New York in 2007.

But he was forced to quit the following year after it was reported that he had at least seven meetings with high-end prostitutes over a six-month period and may have spent up to $80,000 on call girls over many years.

Infamous as Client 9 of the Emperors Club VIP call-girl ring, he resigned at a public press conference along with his wife Silda, who chose to stand by him.

Spitzer, formerly a celebrated lawyer, spent just a year as governor of New York before quitting in 2008 after it emerged that he may have spent up to $80,000 on call girls

He then tried to rehabilitate his public image with a stint as a CNN presenter before returning to work for his father, who died last year, leaving him $16million.

An affair with spin doctor Lis Smith in December 2013 is believed to have been the cause of his marriage's collapse in 2014.

Silda walked away with $7.5million, $240,000-a-year for life, and the couple's luxury Fifth Avenue apartment.

Travis wrote an article about her experience as a prostitute for Medium in October 2014 titled 'Sex is Sex. But Money is Money' in which she describes herself as a 'businesswoman'.

'I did what politicians in this country are always encouraging immigrants to do: work hard, seize opportunity, maximize your talents,' she said in the article, which is attributed to 'Svetlana Z.'

In the piece, she boasts that she arrived in New York with just $300, but became successful after building a stable of clients.
This is the shocking moment a Scottish backpacker filmed a lightning strike landing just behind him as he walked home from a night out.

Kris Owens, who has been traveling around Australia for several months, captured the crazy event on film in Byron Bay on December 5.

Mr Owens' near-miss came just hours before an American tourist, 24-year-old Sam Beattie from New York, was killed after lightning hit a tree near his tent.

Kris Owens, from Scotland, filmed himself walking home from a hotel bar in Byron Bay in the early hours of Tuesday morning when lightning struck just behind him

Beattie was camping out on top of Mount Warning, around an hour north of Byron Bay, with girlfriend Michele Segalla, 23, when he was killed.

Police believe lighting struck a tree near his tent and then touched his feet, killing him instantly and leaving Ms Beattie with head and neck injuries.

Mr Owens said: 'I was making my way home from a reggae night at the Byron Beach Hotel around 2am when I was caught in the middle of an intense lightning storm.

Mr Owens said he was filming the storm 'to record my possible death for my mum', but it was not until the following day that he realised somebody was killed

'Thinking it would be a good idea to record my possible death for my mum, I got my phone and started to record, and captured the following footage.

'I have since found out that someone was struck by lightning and lost their life last night and it was a pretty brutal storm.'

Mr Beattie died around two hours later, at 3.50am, during the same storm.

Sam Beattie, 24, from New York, was killed while camping on Mount Warning, around an hour north of Byron Bay, while girlfriend Michelle Segalla, 23, was injured (pictured together)

Police believe lighting struck a tree near Mr Beattie's tent and somehow touched his foot, killing him instantly and leaving Ms Segalla with head and neck injuries

Two hikers heard Ms Segella crying in her tent next to Mr Beattie's body, and while one stayed with her, the other one went for help.

It took hours for emergency services to rescue Ms Segella and retrieve Mr Beattie's body as the weather was too bad for them to use a helicopter.
One particularly destructive orangutan has caused the St Louis Zoo to splash out $200,000 on a new set of windows.

The Missouri zoo was forced to spend a whopping $198,000 to replace for windows at its orangutan enclosure after a 12-year-old female named Rubih wrecked the last ones.

The new windows are seven-foot high and made of a specially-designed triple-layer of glass that comes complete with a three-inch thick acrylic made to hold the pieces together.

Rubih, who has been nicknamed 'Rockin Rubih' by keepers, had trashed the previous windows by repeatedly hitting them with a rock.

St Louis Zoo has been forced to spend almost $200,000 on new windows for its orangutan enclosure after one adult ape (pictured) started breaking them with rocks

One of the ape's keepers explained how the problem may have been the result of a training exercise gone awry.

'One day, very early in the spring of 2016, keepers were alerted to Rubih banging on the glass with a rock,' Dawn Boyer wrote on the zoo's blog, in a post titled, 'The Saga of Rockin' Rubih'.

'When the keepers arrived, Rubih immediately moved toward them, unfortunately leaving the rock behind.

'Keepers were able to point at the rock, encouraging Rubih to pick it up. Once Rubih had the rock, the keepers called her over. Rubih handed them the rock and received a high value reward for trading the rock (a treat she loved to eat).

The Missouri zoo was forced to spend a whopping $198,000 to replace for windows at its orangutan enclosure after a 12-year-old female named Rubih (pictured) wrecked the last ones

Rubih, pictured with the zoo's young orangutan, Ginger, was banging the rocks against the window to get a reward from zookeepers

'It only took this one time for Rubih to realize that if she brought the rock to the keepers, she would be given a reward, and Rubih began bringing every rock she found and trading each of them for a treat.'

Boyer then explained how a tube was then installed so that Rubih could drop or throw the rocks into it, and then receive her reward.

Zookeeper Dawn Boyer explained how the orangutan was trying to get the attention of other keepers by banging on the windows with a rock

The zookeeper explained how the 12-year-old 'caught on quickly', before the entirely experiment started to shatter.

'However, what we soon discovered was that if the keepers were not around, Rubih would hit the rock on the glass to get someones attention. Keepers would then be called into action - immediately calling to Rubih and getting the rock from her,' Boyer wrote.

'The hope is to eventually have Rubih trained to drop the rocks into the tube regardless of whether the keepers are present.

'Hopefully this will eliminate her desire/need to hit the glass to get attention.'

According to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, insurance covered about 65 per cent of the replacement cost, meaning the zoo only had to chip in $71,000 for the new windows.

Zoo spokeswoman Susan Gallagher told the newspaper the habitat, which has been closed while repairs were carried out, will reopen for the animals this month.
The passenger of a stolen car who took off as police tried to commandeer the vehicle - dragging one cop alongside - managed to get away from authorities and remains at large.

The incident occurred on Saturday night in Waukegan, Illinois, after an officer spotted a stolen car stopped at a gas station.

Video taken by a witness across the street shows police smashing the driver's window and arrest the man behind the wheel, however the passenger quickly took his place.

Stop: This is the moment police pulled the driver from the stolen vehicle and moved to make an arrest, not knowing the passenger was about to take off in the car

An officer is seen grabbing hold of the vehicle as the suspect takes off (left) but holds on for a short distance before being thrown to the ground

The officer was thrown down but sustained only minor injuries. The driver managed to get away, while the other suspect was captured (pictured center)

As police arrested the driver on the ground, the passenger quickly took off at a high-speed, WGN-TV reported.

One of the attending officers ran to the car, trying to pull the man out from the driver's seat, but was then dragged alongside the car.

The video shows the cop hanging on to the car as it speeds through the gas station. The officer eventually let go, and the vehicle got away.

Police pursued the car briefly, but broke off when the chase became unsafe.

Scene: The incident occurred on Saturday night in Waukegan, Illinois, after an officer spotted a stolen car stopped at this gas station

The officer that was dragged alongside the car was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. He is expected to be fine.

The driver was arrested at the scene, however the passenger that took control of the car is still at large.

Police said the car is a gray 4-door 2005 Volkswagen with Illinois license plate Z84-2693.

Officials said that anyone who spots the car should not approach the vehicle but call 911.
Donations have poured in for the family, who earn less than 194 a month

She was not aware that her dad had escaped the fire that

A 14-year-old girl is fighting for her life after she ran into a burning building to save her disabled father.

The devastating incident happened on December 3 in Chongqing, China, after a fire broke out at the family home, the People's Daily reported.

As a result of her heroic deed, the girl, Guo Jiajia, suffered burns to 80 percent of her body and could see both of her hands amputated.

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A 14-year-old girl is fighting for her life after she ran into a burning building to save her disabled father

Guo Jiajia (above) went into to her burning home to save her disabled father on December 3

The family were asleep inside their home on December 3 when they woke up to find a fire had broken out in the living room.

Sparks were seen from the electrical appliances and lights.

Jiajia's mother told the neighbours to leave the building, while the teen also managed to flee the home.

But once she got out, the girl discovered that she could not see her father.

She hurried back inside to get her father, Guo Jiayong, who has been unable to walk properly since a traffic accident in 2010.

In fact, Guo Jiayong had already been evacuated from the building.

When the couple discovered that their daughter had disappeared, they dashed back into the home to search for her.

Guo Jiajia's badly burned hands were bent and unable to move, even her fingers were charred

Their home was filled with black fumes.

The teen had passed out and was lying on the floor.

Her badly burnt hands were bent and unable to move and even her fingers were charred. The pyjamas she was wearing had stuck to her skin and her legs and arms were bleeding.

The girl was sent to the local South West Hospital for treatment.

She suffered respiratory tract burns and carbon monoxide poisoning. Both of her hands are likely to be amputated according to doctors.

Guo Jiayong told MailOnline on Tuesday: 'Her condition is still unstable,' .

The girl is not able to talk but she is conscious and can nod to her family.

Guo Jiayong (above), the girl's father, has been unable to walk properly since a traffic accident in 2010.

The family was devastated to see the 1million Yuan (114,000) bill for the first of many operations.

Guo Jiajia's mother, the sole breadwinner of the family, only had a monthly wage of 1,700 Yuan (194) as a factory worker.

The family's heart-breaking situation has prompted the public to raise 1.01 million Yuan (115,100) to help fund the girl's surgery, a separate report by the People's Daily said.

Jiayong said: 'Now we have enough money for the first few surgeries, but the cost of future medical treatment is still not known.'

Jiajia is expected to go into her first skin graft surgery on December 7.

The family woke up to find a fire breaking out in the living room of their home, which was completely burnt out by the fire

The teenager had passed out and was lying on the floor of the home after she went back inside to find her father
A new dormitory building in southern China has been covered in duct tape after large cracks started appearing just six months after the structure's completion.

Photos of the dormitory at Yunnan Forestry Vocational Technical College in Kunming were posted to Chinese social media sites on December 5, triggering heated debate online.

However, an employee of the college told People's Daily that the cracks, which emerged in November, were common for a steel-framed structure built to resist earthquakes.

Is it art? Duct tape appeared on a Chinese dormitory as cracks began forming - despite the building's completion just six months prior

The college insisted that there were no structural problems with the building despite the cracks (pictured)

Photographs showed a building that appeared to be covered in huge cracks.

These were apparently the 'bandages' used to help repairs on the building stick.

But while the repairs appeared alarming, an employee insisted to People's Daily that there were no safety risks.

The staff member added that inspectors concluded that the cracks would not harm the building's quality and that the building complied with national standards.

Commentators on China's equivalent of Twitter, Weibo, voiced their disapproval.

One said: 'The building looks so disgusting. The pictures should be muzzed.'

It almost looks intentional: A night view of the duct tape-covered building, which first appeared on social media

Another added: 'I thought somebody drew these cracks on the building.'

Someone else asked: 'Is it contemporary artwork?'

An official statement issued by the college's official account on Weibo has since confirmed that the photographs showed their number 6 dormitory.

The statement said that the building complied with various building, construction and safety requirements, in accordance with China's legislation.
House prices in some Home Counties commuter towns are rising faster than in London, new research has revealed.

Values of all London property types rose by 11 per cent in the 12 months to September, but this has been beaten by increases in some commuter towns.

The study of Land Registry data by Garrington Property Finders identified 10 Home Counties hotspots, with Brentwood in Essex at the top of the rankings.

House prices in Brentwood have risen 16% in a year, compared to 11% in London

COMMUTER TOWNS WHERE HOUSE PRICE RISES OUTSTRIP LONDON Rank Town / city Property type Average price Price rise Value gained What the gain buys 1 Brentwood Semi 457,314 16% 64,289 19 years of train fares 2 Canterbury Terraced 258,789 16% 35,899 4 terms at The King's School 3 Hertford Detached 648,732 15% 83,553 Range Rover Vogue SE 4 Fleet Flat 230,692 15% 30,811 6.5 years of train fares 5 Maidenhead Detached 748,507 14% 91,131 2.5 years at Eton 6 High Wycombe Flat 216,065 14% 26,971 1 year at Wycombe Abbey school 7 Reading Terraced 309,651 13% 35,916 BMW 420i Convertible 8 St Albans Semi 613,935 12% 65,344 17 years of train fares 9 Oxford Flat 265,422 12% 29,346 1 year at St Edward's school 10 Farnborough Flat 237,105 12% 25,878 Audi Q3 1.4 SE Source: Garrington Property Finders

The average price of a flat in Oxford increased by 29,346 to 265,422 during the past year

The popular commuter town of Brentwood is a 35 minute train journey into London and has seen house prices increase 16 per cent a year.

Those living in one of the area's typical semi-detached homes have seen their home increase by 64,289 on average in the 12 months to September.

It is enough to buy a massive 19 year's worth of rail season tickets at today's prices, according to the findings.

Canterbury in Kent also saw values increase by 16 per cent, with an average terrace house rising in value by 35,899 - enough to pay for four terms' worth of fees at The King's School in the city.

At the same time, detached houses in Hertford rose by 15 per cent, with an average gain of 83,553, enough to buy a brand new Range Rover Vogue SE.

The greatest gain was in Maidenhead, with detached homes in the Berkshire town adding 91,131 during the past year, enough for two and a half years of fees at Eton College.

The average price of a flat in Canterbury increased by an impressive 16% in the past year

The average price of a detached home in Maidenhead increased by 91,131 in the past year

Jonathan Hopper, managing director of Garrington Property Finders, said: 'Every year tens of thousands of Londoners move out of the capital to the surrounding commuter belt, driven by a desire for better value, more space and a wider choice of schools.

'But in addition to the usual shopping list for would-be commuters  good transport links, good schools and so on  many buyers will also have one eye on the potential for price growth when choosing a location.

'Our research shows just how 'hot' some of the Home Counties hotspots have become, with price rises outstripping those in London.
New material has a higher energy density than any previous super-capacitor

Tech could lead to electric cars which fully recharge in seconds

Researchers have developed a new material that could revolutionise the capabilities of batteries.

Their finding may lead to high energy density super-capacitors, making it possible to recharge mobile phones, laptops, and tablets in a matter of seconds.

Super-capacitors are believed to be 1,000-10,000 times more powerful than the existing battery alternatives.

A new finding could lead to high energy density super-capacitors, making it possible to recharge mobile phones, laptops, and tablets in a few seconds. Image: superconductors' relative charge means that they strongly repel magnets

WHAT IS A SUPER-CAPACITOR? Super-capacitors have long been hailed as a powerful alternative power source to batteries. They can charge and discharge at rapid speeds, and store significantly more power than regular batteries. Super-capacitors store energy using electrodes and electrolytes. They deliver energy quickly unlike conventional batteries, which do so in a much slower and more sustained way. Advertisement

The new material produces super-capacitors which are a safer, faster charging, more efficient, and greener alternative to both battery power and other super-capacitors.

The material is made from a special form of polymer - large organic molecular chains composed of many repeated sub-units.

These sub-units then bond together to form a 3D network.

Super-capacitors store energy using electrodes and electrolytes, and both charge and deliver energy quickly.

Conventional batteries charge and deliver energy in a much slower, more sustained way.

The technology could have a seismic impact across a number of industries, including transport, aerospace, and the energy industry.

The finding could also revolutionise electric cars, allowing them to recharge in seconds instead of the current six to eight hour charge time.

Electric cars are currently limited to distances of around 54 miles (87km) before they need recharging, around the distance from London to Brighton.

But with the new technology, this range could be extended eight times to 414 miles (666km), around the distance from London to Edinburgh.

The material is made from a special form of polymer - large organic molecular chains composed of many repeated sub-units. It could help recharge a phone in seconds

Supercapacitor buses are already used in China, but they have a very limited range.

The new technology could expand that range from needing to recharge every two to three journeys, to every 20 to 30 journeys.

Each recharge would now only take a few seconds.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla has previously suggested that superconductors are the best route to electric air travel.

And the new finding, a joint effort from researchers at University of Surrey and University of Bristol, may provide an answer.

The researchers found a new polymer that has opened the door to capacitors which can carry an unprecedented amount of energy per kilogram.

Super-capacitors have traditionally carried very little energy for their size, meaning super-capacitors have to be up to 20 times larger than batteries to carry the same amount of power.

This has made super-capacitors too large for everyday items such as mobile phones or laptops.

Super-capacitors have long been hailed as a powerful alternative power source to batteries.

They can charge and discharge at rapid speeds, and store significantly more power than regular batteries.

The finding could revolutionise electric cars, allowing them to recharge in seconds instead of the current six to eight our charge time, and extending their range eight times

Dr Brendan Howlin of the University of Surrey, co-lead on the project, explained: 'There is a global search for new energy storage technology and this new ultra capacity super-capacitor has the potential to open the door to unimaginably exciting developments.'

And the researchers aren't simply stopping at power sources.

'While this research has potentially opened the route to very high density super-capacitors, these polymers have many other possible uses in which tough, flexible conducting materials are desirable, including bioelectronics, sensors, wearable electronics, and advanced optics,' research co-leader Dr Ian Hamerton, of the University of Bristol, said.
You may have read about the dangers of robots taking over human jobs.

But the introduction of one set of robots is opening up new employment opportunities for humans.

Estonia-based Starship Technologies wants to hire 'robot handlers' to accompany robots as they start to make deliveries around Washington DC.

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Starship Technologies has developed six-wheeled bots that travel at four miles per hour and capable of carrying 20 to 25 pounds of cargo. Now the company wants to hire 'robot handlers' to accompany robots as they make deliveries around Washington DC

HOW THE GROUND-DRONE WORKS Unlike robots designed to resemble humans, the Starship's bot is purely functional with a large compartment to hold deliveries, the equivalent size of two grocery bags. Each six-wheeled 'ground drone' is almost completely self-driving. It is constantly connected to the internet, using 3G technology to find its way to the customer's address. Walking on the pavement at about 4mph (3km/h), robots can complete local deliveries within five to 30 minutes from a local hub or retail outlet. The scheme also costs between 10 to 15 times less than the cost of current last-mile delivery alternatives, Starship claims. Integrated navigation and 'obstacle avoidance software' enable the robots to steer clear of pedestrians or to jump over curbs and cobbles, for example. Customers can choose when they want to receive their delivery and the robot will head to their location with the package securely locked inside, which can be retrieved using the app to unlock the lid. Advertisement

The company already has robots working in London, Hamburg, Dusseldorff and the Swiss city of Bern.

The Starship drones are also being tested in Texas, Austin.

But the company is hoping to expand to other parts of the US, and to do so it will need people to lead the operations of the robots.

'Handlers' will look after the robots, speak to the public about how they operate and provide a helping hand if anything goes wrong.

'We have entered commercial pilots with nearly 100 robots trundling along the sidewalks across the United States and five countries in Europe,' the job advert says.

'Starship is now looking for a Operations Team Lead in Washington, D.C as we begin to increase our footprint in the US and start working with commercial partners.'

A company spokesman Henry Harris-Burland told the Washington Post that people applying should have a 'passion for robotics, a willingness to embrace new technology, an openness to engage with the public.'

Unlike robots designed to resemble humans, the Starship's bot is purely functional with a large compartment to hold deliveries, the equivalent size of two grocery bags.

Each six-wheeled 'ground drone' is almost completely self-driving.

It is constantly connected to the internet, using 3G technology to find its way to the customer's address.

Walking on the pavement at about 4mph (3km/h), robots can complete local deliveries within five to 30 minutes from a local hub or retail outlet.

The scheme also costs between 10 to 15 times less than the cost of current last-mile delivery alternatives, Starship claims.

Integrated navigation and 'obstacle avoidance software' enable the robots to steer clear of pedestrians or to jump over curbs and cobbles, for example.

Online takeaway ordering service Just Eat claims to have made the world's first delivery of an online food order - a Turkish meal to a woman in Greenwich, South London (stock image)

Customers can choose when they want to receive their delivery and the robot will head to their location with the package securely locked inside, which can be retrieved using the app to unlock the lid.

Last week, one of the robot drones trundled through the streets of Greenwich, in London, to deliver a food order to a customer.

According to Just Eat, the delivery marks culmination of months of testing on the pilot project which has seen it partner with the robo-courier firm.

The online food ordering site said the woman is 'the first person in the world to receive a takeaway food delivery using the technology'.

London is expected to see more trials of the delivery robots in the coming months.

'We are delighted to add robot home delivery to the Just Eat service,' said the firm's UK managing director, Graham Corfield.

He added: 'We have been working closely with Starship Technologies for many months to ensure that we can seamlessly integrate this exciting technology with our restaurants partners, customers and online booking service.

The pint-sized robot rolled along London streets to deliver the online take away order to a home in South London
Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has successfully made its first of a series of dangerous close-up dives past Saturn's rings.

Marking the start of the probe's final phase before it plunges to its death next year, Cassini's final 'ring-grazing' orbits are planned to discover more about the planet's mysterious icy halos.

Nasa scientists celebrated at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California as Cassini crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings yesterday at 13:09 GMT (8:09 EST).

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Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has successfully made its first of a series of dangerous close-up dives past Saturn's rings. Cassini's final 'ring-grazing' orbits are planned to discover more about the planet's mysterious icy halos

THE FIRST RING-GRAZING ORBIT Cassini crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings yesterday at 13:09 GMT (05:09 PST/ 08:09 EST) at a distance of approximately 57,000 miles (91,000 km) above Saturn's cloud tops. An hour prior to the ring-plane crossing, the spacecraft performed a short burn of its main engine that lasted about six seconds. About 30 minutes later, as it approached the ring plane, Cassini closed its canopy-like engine cover as a protective measure. A few hours after the ring-plane crossing, Cassini began a complete scan across the rings. Its radio science experiment studied their structure in great detail. Cassini also flew just 6,800 miles (11,000 kilometres) from the centre of Saturn's F ring, which it is due to examine more closely next year. The focus of this first close pass was to make sure the engine manoeuvre was successful, while observing with Cassini's other science instruments, so photographs were not retrieved this time. Advertisement

While it passes through Saturn's famous rings, Cassini will continue to collect samples of particles and gases and get the best view yet of the tiny, hard-to-spot moons found near the rings.

Cassini crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings yesterday at 13:09 GMT (5:09 PST/ 8:09 EST) at a distance of approximately 57,000 miles (91,000 km) above Saturn's cloud tops.

This is the location of a faint, dusty ring produced by the planet's small moons Janus and Epimetheus.

This faint ring was produced when a meteor struck two of Saturn's small moons.

An hour prior to the ring-plane crossing, the spacecraft performed a short burn of its main engine that lasted about six seconds.

About 30 minutes later, as it approached the ring plane, Cassini closed its canopy-like engine cover as a protective measure.

'With this small adjustment to the spacecraft's trajectory, we're in excellent shape to make the most of this new phase of the mission,' said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.

A few hours after the ring-plane crossing, Cassini began a complete scan across the rings with its radio science experiment to study their structure in great detail.

'It's taken years of planning, but now that we're finally here, the whole Cassini team is excited to begin studying the data that come from these ring-grazing orbits,' said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL.

'This is a remarkable time in what's already been a thrilling journey.'

These images are among the latest pictures captured by Cassini as it approached Saturn's rings. The left image was taken on 3 December at 23:14 GMT (18:14 ET) and the right at 23:33 GMT (18:33 ET), while Cassini's camera was pointed at Saturn's surface

The focus of this first close pass was to make sure the engine manoeuvre was successful, while observations were made, so photos were not retrieved this time. This image was taken on 3 December at 23:24 GMT (18:24 ET), before the spacecraft approached the ring

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has successfully made its first of a series of dangerous close-up dives past Saturn's rings. Nasa scientists celebrated at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California as Cassini crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings yesterday at 13:09 GMT (8:09 EST)

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has successfully made its first of a series of dangerous close-up dives past Saturn's rings. The 20 of these ring-grazing orbits are illustrated in grey and the 22 final orbits are shown in blue

Cassini also flew just 6,800 miles (11,000km) from the centre of Saturn's F ring, which it is due to examine more closely next year.

The most recent images published from Cassini show close-up views of Saturn's surface as the spacecraft approached the rings.

These were taken on Saturday - two days before this close encounter.

The focus of this first close pass was the engine manoeuvre and observations by Cassini's other science instruments, so photographs were not retrieved this time.

Cassini crossed through the plane of Saturn's rings yesterday at 13:09 GMT (05:09 PST/ 08:09 EST) at a distance of approximately 57,000 miles (91,000 km) above Saturn's cloud tops. All the orbits the spacecraft has made up until this point are shown in blue

Future dives past the rings will feature some of the mission's best views of the outer regions of the rings and small, nearby moons.

THE CASSINI MISSION Since it left earth in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004, Cassini has been touring the system with an up-close study of the planet, its rings and moons. During its journey, Cassini has made dramatic discoveries, including a global ocean within Enceladus and liquid methane seas on Titan. After nearly 20 years in space, the mission is drawing near its end because the spacecraft is running low on fuel. Cassini is scheduled to plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on 15 September 2017, beaming back its final cache of data as it goes. Advertisement

On Tuesday last week, Cassini got a gravitational assist from Saturn's big moon Titan.

This put the spacecraft on course to graze Saturn's main outer rings over the next five months.

Plunging just past the outer edge of the main rings, these orbits mark the last phase of Cassini's mission.

Instruments on board the spacecraft will take direct samples of particles in the rings and molecules of gases found close by.

Each of Cassini's orbits for the remainder of the mission will last one week, and the next is planned for 11 December.

The spacecraft will make 20 dives in total, until the end of this 'ring-grazing orbit' in April.

In March and April next year, the spacecraft will pass through the dusty reaches of the F ring.

Grazing the edges of the rings will provide some of the closest-ever studies of the outer portions of Saturn's main rings - the A, B and F rings.

On September 15 next year, the mission will conclude with a final plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.
Last year, scientists started up a new type of massive nuclear fusion reactor for the first time, known as a stellarator.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Greifswald, Germany, injected a tiny amount of hydrogen and heated it until it became plasma, effectively mimicking conditions inside the sun.

But since then scientists have been asking whether the ambitious device - named Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) - works as it is supposed to, producing the right magnetic fields.

Now a research paper has shown tests over the past few months have proven the complex design is working as expected.

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Last year, scientists started up a new type of massive nuclear fusion reactor for the first time. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute injected a tiny amount of hydrogen and heated it until it became plasma, effectively mimicking conditions inside the sun

HOW DOES FUSION POWER WORK? Fusion involves placing hydrogen atoms under high heat and pressure until they fuse into helium atoms. When deuterium and tritium nuclei - which can be found in hydrogen - fuse, they form a helium nucleus, a neutron and a lot of energy. This is down by heating the fuel to temperatures in excess of 150 millionC, forming a hot plasma. Strong magnetic fields are used to keep the plasma away from the walls so that it doesn't cool down and lost it energy potential. These are produced by superconducting coils surrounding the vessel, and by an electrical current driven through the plasma. For energy production. plasma has to be confined for a sufficiently long period for fusion to occur. Advertisement

The experiment is part of a worldwide effort to harness nuclear fusion, a process in which atoms join at extremely high temperatures and release large amounts of energy.

Advocates acknowledge the technology is likely many decades away, but argue that, once achieved, it could replace fossil fuels and conventional nuclear fission reactors.

Two of the main contenders for nuclear reactors of the future are called tokamaks and stellarators.

Instead of trying to control plasma with just a 2D magnetic field, which is the approach used by the more common tokamak reactors, the stellerator works by generating twisted, 3D magnetic fields.

The new results could be a key step in verifying the feasibility of stellarators for use in future fusion reactors.

Since the machine has been switched on, researchers have been trying to answer the important question of whether or not it is producing the right magnetic fields.

This is crucial because the magnetic field in the machine is the only thing that will trap hot balls of plasma long enough for nuclear fusion to occur.

Physicist Sam Lazerson of the US Department of Energy teamed with the German scientists to test the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) fusion energy device.

Now the report, published in Nature Communications, has proven it does work as planned.

'We've confirmed that the magnetic cage that we've built works as designed,' said one of the lead researchers, Sam Lazerson from the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

The hydrogen was heated in the doughnut-shaped Wendelstein 7-X machine (illustrated). Called a stellarator, the device uses a complicated system of magnetic coils to trap plasma long enough for fusion to take place

Over the coming years W7-X, which is not designed to produce any energy itself, will continue to test the extreme conditions nuclear fusion devices will be subjected to.

The device was first fired up in December last year using helium, which is easier to heat than hydrogen.

'Here we show the first physics results, obtained before plasma operation: that the carefully tailored topology of nested magnetic surfaces needed for good confinement is realized, and that the measured deviations are smaller than one part in 100,000,' the authors said.

'To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented accuracy, both in terms of the as-built engineering of a fusion device, as well as in the measurement of magnetic topology,' the authors said.

'This is a significant step forward in stellarator research, since it shows that the complicated and delicate magnetic topology can be created and verified with the required accuracy.'

The nuclear fusion research centre at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics is pictured. The device was first fired up in December using helium last year, which is easier to heat

Fusion involves placing hydrogen atoms under high heat and pressure until they fuse into helium atoms. In stellarators, plasma is contained by external magnetic coils which create twisted field lines around the inside of the vacuum chamber (illustrated)

Stellarators are one type of nuclear reactor, and are less widely used than tokamak fusion reactors.

Stellarators confine the hot, charged gas, otherwise known as plasma, that fuels fusion reactions in twisty magnetic fields.

Tokamaks use a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped device long enough for fusion to take place.

The tokamak was conceived by Soviet physicists in the 1950s and is considered fairly easy to build, but extremely difficult to operate.

The twisty configuration of stellarators enables them to control the plasma with no need for the current that tokamaks must induce in the gas.

The first plasma created in Wendelstein 7-X is pictured. It consisted of helium and reached a temperature of about 1 millionC. Over the coming years W7-X, which isn't designed to produce any energy itself, will test the extreme conditions such devices will be subjected to

The Wendelstein 7-X machine in Germany, which cost 1 billion to build, creates conditions similar to those inside stars (illustrated). It's part of a worldwide effort to harness nuclear fusion, a process in which atoms join at extremely high temperatures and release energy

Stellarator plasmas run little risk of disrupting, as can happen in tokamaks, causing the internal current to abruptly halt and fusion reactions to shut down.

Fusion energy could provide near limitless energy, ending dependence on fossil fuels for generating electricity.

'Fusion has the potential to cover the energy needs of the world's population into the distant future,' the authors said.

Fusion involves placing hydrogen atoms under high heat and pressure until they fuse into helium atoms.

FUSION MACHINES: STELLARATOR VS TOKAMAK Stellarators are one type of nuclear reactor, and are less widely used than tokamak fusion reactors. Instead of trying to control plasma with just a 2D magnetic field, which is the approach used by the more common tokamak reactors, the stellerator works by generating twisted, 3D magnetic fields. Stellarators confine the hot, charged gas, otherwise known as plasma, that fuels fusion reactions in twisty magnetic fields. In contrast, tokamaks use a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped device long enough for fusion to take place. The tokamak was conceived by Soviet physicists in the 1950s and is considered fairly easy to build, but extremely difficult to operate. The twisty configuration of stellarators enables them to control the plasma with no need for the current that tokamaks must induce in the gas. Stellarator plasmas run little risk of disrupting, as can happen in tokamaks, causing the internal current to abruptly halt and fusion reactions to shut down. Advertisement

When deuterium and tritium nuclei - which can be found in hydrogen - fuse, they form a helium nucleus, a neutron and a lot of energy.

This is down by heating the fuel to temperatures in excess of 150 millionC, forming a hot plasma.

Strong magnetic fields are used to keep the plasma away from the walls so that it doesn't cool down and lost it energy potential.

These are produced by superconducting coils surrounding the vessel, and by an electrical current driven through the plasma.
For medics in the field, getting replacement blood into patients as soon as possible can make the difference between life or death.

But scientists working to develop artificial blood cells could bring life-saving transfusions to more trauma patients within the next 10 years.

The hope is that the artificial blood could be freeze dried and stored in powder form, ready for use by paramedics and combat medics on the battlefield.

Scientists are developing artificial blood which could bring life-saving transfusions to more trauma patients. It wont replace human blood, but it could buy patients vital time they need to get to hospital and receive donor blood

At the heart of the breakthrough are tiny synthetic cells which mimic red blood cells, holding onto oxygen and slowly releasing it as they circulate around the body.

Developed by a team at Washington University in St Louis, the artificial cells carry oxygen to tissues and have already been shown to be effective in animals.

At around 2 per cent the size of a human red blood cell, the synthetic blood cells can be stored at room temperature and mixed with water, ready for use.

Dr Allan Doctor, who is leading the research, told CBS News: Its a dried powder that looks like paprika, basically.

At around 2 per cent the size of a human red blood cell, the synthetic blood cells can be stored at room temperature and mixed with water, ready for use

ARTIFICIAL BLOOD COULD BE A LIFE-SAVER Researchers are developing artificial blood which could save lives. While it wont replace human blood, it could buy patients vital time they need to get to hospital and receive a blood transfusion. The synthetic cells are just one-fiftieth the size of a human red blood cell. They can be freeze dried and stored at room temperature. When the blood is required, this powder would be mixed with water, ready for transfusion. Unlike human red blood cells, which live for around 120 days, the synthetic doughnut-shaped cells only last a few days. Tests in rodents have shown the artificial blood can circulate oxygen to tissues in the body and can resuscitate animals in shock - which have lost large volumes of blood. Advertisement

It can be stored in an IV plastic bag that a medic would carry, either in their ambulance or in a backpack, for a year or more.

When they need to use it, they spike the bag with sterile water, mix it, and its ready to inject right then and there.

Called ErythroMer, the artificial blood has already jumped through the first clinical hoop, proving effective in animal trials.

In studies with mice, researchers replaced a large volume of blood with the artificial substitute, showing the manmade cells were able to capture oxygen and release it in tissues around the body just as well as the animals own cells.

Further trials in rats demonstrated the artificial blood could be used to resuscitate animals in shock who had lost 40 per cent of their blood.

For trauma patients involved in accidents, they may make it out alive but die en route to the hospital from circulatory shock.

The massive blood loss caused by the trauma, either through bleeding out or internal bleeding, means the bodys tissues are not receiving enough oxygen and start to fail  even if they survived the initial trauma intact.

While it wont replace human blood, it could buy patients vital time they need to get to hospital and receive a blood transfusion.

Highlighting the potential uses, Dr Doctor said the blood could be used to resuscitate trauma victims involved in accidents in hard to reach areas or for soldiers injured in battle, unable to be evacuated.

When the blood is required, this powder would be mixed with water, ready for transfusion. Unlike human red blood cells, which live for around 120 days, the synthetic doughnut-shaped cells only last a few days

ErythroMer would be a blood substitute that a medic can carry in his or her pack and literally take it out, add water, and inject it, he said.

There are currently no simple, practical means to bring transfusion to most trauma victims outside of hospitals.

Delays in resuscitation significantly impact outcomes; it is our goal to push timely, effective care to field settings.

Previous synthetic blood products ran into issues with releasing the oxygen effectively and adjusting to pH changes in the body, but the group claims ErythroMer has overcome these issues.

In addition, they say the proof of concept studies show it also avoids the constriction of blood vessels which could lead to heart attacks and stroke.

The team believes that if the next phases of clinical testing go to plan, the artificial blood could be made available within the next 10 years.
Scientists have developed a robotic interface which could help to restore fine hand movements in paraplegics.

By combining an electrode cap with an exoskeleton worn over the fingers, the device translates brain signals to hand movements.

The approach could provide paraplegic patients with the fine motor control needed to carry out everyday tasks such as eating, drinking and signing documents.

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Researchers in Germany have developed a robotic exoskeleton (pictured) which restores fine motor control to paraplegic patients, enabling them to carry out everyday tasks such as eating, drinking and signing documents, independently

HOW DOES IT WORK? Researchers in Germany have developed a robotic exoskeleton which restores fine motor control to paraplegic patients. To use the interface, the user wears a mesh cap covered in electrodes, which picks up on brain activity and eye movements. This information is then sent to a tablet computer to be processed and relayed to the robotic exoskeleton covering the user's thumb and forefinger. The end result is restored the precision grip  such as when the hand holds a pencil. In trials, patients noticed a marked improvement in tasks after only a brief training period. The system runs on rechargeable batteries which can operate for between four and five hours. The group is working on more discreet version, and believes a commercially available model could be available within 24 months. Advertisement

Exoskeleton technology, worn outside a persons body, has huge potential to help to restore independence in patients who have impaired movement in their limbs - such as those with spinal cord injury or who have suffered a stroke.

In order to translate the brains intentions into movements, the robotic elements need to pick up on the electrical signals from the neurons  which would require an interface to be implanted in the brain.

But a team from the University of Tubingen in Germany has developed an external interface, which does away with the need for invasive electrodes.

Instead, the user wears a swimming cap-style interface, covered in electrodes, which picks up on brain activity and eye movements.

At the other end, attached to the wearers hand, is a robotic exoskeleton covering the thumb and forefinger, restoring the precision grip  such as when the hand holds a pencil.

The team trialled the technology with six paraplegic patients who had reduced motor function in their arms, none of which had used the type of technology before.

After a brief training period of around 10 minutes, they began using the interface to pick up and use a range of objects, from drinks cans to pencils and credit cards.

The results showed that the interface boosted their fine motor control and grip, enabling the volunteers to carry out tasks better.

Dr Surjo Soekadar, who led the research, told MailOnline: 'Patients ask for devices that do not attract any attention, particularly when they go, for example, to a restaurant to have dinner.

When trialled on six patients with impaired motor function, the interface significantly boosted their fine motor control and grip, enabling them to carry out tasks more effectively

'Consequently, the next generation of these devices should be unobtrusive and almost invisible.

'Also, users should be able to attach and operate the systems by themselves.

While the external system may not provide the fine level of control as a brain implant, but avoids the risk of post-operative complications, such as bleeding and infection.

The devices still need to undergo large-scale testing and technical certification before it can be made available commercially.

But a commercially available version of the device could be available within the next two years.

To use the interface, the user wears a mesh cap covered in electrodes, which picks up on brain activity and eye movements, while the robotic exoskeleton covers the user's thumb and forefinger. restoring the precision grip  such as when the hand holds a pencil

The team trialled the technology with six paraplegic patients who had reduced motor function in their arms, none of which had used the type of technology before

According to Dr Soekadar, the price of the system would depend on what it would do, but could be available for between 4,000 to 8,500 ($5,000 to $11,000).

Beyond those with paraplegia, the interface could potentially be used to rehabilitate stroke patients who have lost movement in their arms.

Commenting on whether the interface could be used in paralysed patients, Dr Soekadar told MailOnline: 'It is conceivable that this is indeed possible when incorporating more biosignals from the face and neck, and choosing a semi-autonomous approach.

'Integrating more and more autonomous elements raises, however, also some critical points.'

The findings are published in the journal Science Robotics.

After a brief training period of around 10 minutes, they began using the interface to pick up and use a range of objects, from drinks cans to pencils and credit cards
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with Samsung in its big-money smartphone patent fight with Apple, throwing out an appeals court ruling that said the South Korean company had to pay a $399 million penalty to its American rival for copying key iPhone designs.

The justices in their 8-0 ruling sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

The decision gives Samsung another chance to try to get back a big chunk of the money it paid Apple in December following a 2012 jury verdict that it infringed Apple's iPhone patents and mimicked its distinctive appearance in making the Galaxy and other competing devices.

The Supreme Court sided with Samsung in its big-money smartphone patent fight with Apple, throwing out an appeals court ruling that said the South Korean company had to pay a $399m penalty.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? The two hi-tech behemoths went to court over the designs that have now become commonplace on most popular smartphones, with a court ruling in 2012 in favor of Apple. At issue were design features by now familiar to consumers: a black, rectangular, round-cornered phone front, a surrounding rim, known as the 'bezel' and a grid of 16 colorful icon. Those design elements were protected, prompting the jury to award Apple all the profits from sales of smartphones containing those features, Samsung lawyers said in their filing. Advertisement

The court held that a patent violator does not always have to fork over its entire profits from the sales of products using stolen designs, if the designs covered only certain components and not the whole thing.

The ruling followed a ferocious legal battle between the world's top two smartphone manufacturers that began in 2011 when Apple sued Samsung, asserting that its rival stole its technology and the iPhone's trademarked appearance.

It was one of the most closely watched patent cases to come before the top U.S. court in recent years.

Samsung had been seeking to pare back $399 million of $548 million it paid Apple in December following a 2012 jury verdict finding that it infringed Cupertino, California-based Apple's iPhone patents and copied its distinctive appearance.

After a trial in 2012, Apple was awarded nearly $930 million in damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington in May 2015 upheld the patent infringement verdict, but said the iPhone's appearance could not be protected through trademarks.

That cut Samsung's damages back by $382 million.

The legal dispute centered on whether the term 'article of manufacture' in U.S. patent law should be interpreted as a finished product in its entirety, or merely a component in a complex product.

In court papers, Samsung, Apple and the U.S. government all agreed that the term could mean a component.

But Apple urged the Supreme Court to affirm the appeals court's ruling because Samsung presented no evidence that the article of manufacture in this case was anything less than its entire smartphone as sold. Samsung, meanwhile, said that it did not have to present such evidence.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the unanimous court, said that the patent law is clear.

The term 'article of manufacture is broad enough to encompass both a product sold to a consumer as well as a component of that product,' she wrote.

Samsung in December 2015 paid Apple $548 million.

But it took the matter to the Supreme Court, saying it should not have had to make $399 million of that payout for copying the patented designs of the iPhone's rounded-corner front face, bezel and colorful grid of icons that represent programs and applications.

Samsung appeales to the US Supreme Court in hopes of overturning a ruling that it pay $548 million to rival

Apple said its iPhone's success was tied to innovative designs, which other manufacturers quickly adopted in their own products. Samsung, in particular, made a deliberate decision to copy the iPhone's look and many user interface features, Apple said.

Samsung argued that it should not have had to turn over all its profits on phones that infringed iPhone design patents, saying those elements contributed only marginally to a complex product with thousands of patented features.

With the products that used iPhone designs, Samsung went on to become the world's top smartphone maker.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on Oct. 11.

Design patent fights very rarely reach the Supreme Court. It had not heard such a case in more than 120 years.
It is set to be the drone that can land anywhere, and turn any US Navy ship into an aircraft carrier.

Northrop Grumman has revealed its flying-wing tailsitter drone will take to the air in 2018 - and does not need a runway.

Instead, it simply lands on its tail - a design first tested in the 1950s.

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Darpa plans to build a full-scale demonstrator system of a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air system (UAS) designed to use forward-deployed small ships as mobile launch and recovery sites. Click on image below for high-resolution.

LASER WEAPONS 'COMING SON' Air Force bosses have boasted combat lasers will be fitted to fighters planes 'very soon' and have revealed a full scale prototype is being built. 'I believe we'll have a directed energy pod we can put on a fighter plane very soon,' Air Force General Hawk Carlisle has claimed at the Air Force Association Air & Space conference in a presentation on what he called Fifth-Generation Warfare, according to Ars Technica. 'That day is a lot closer than I think a lot of people think it is.' Advertisement

The design is part of Northrop's proposal for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Tern programme.

'Small-deck ships such as destroyers and frigates could greatly increase their effectiveness if they had their own unmanned air systems (UASs) to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other capabilities at long range around the clock,' Darpa and the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research said when it announced the project.

Now, Northrop Grumman Corporation has successfully passed two key milestones for the Tern program.

The company is developing this potentially revolutionary system  designed for multiple medium altitude, long endurance missions  in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research.

In mid-October, the Tern team completed a critical design review (CDR) of the air vehicle's General Electric engine, followed by a successful CDR of Tern's vehicle management system.

The review produced an approval of the hardware and software architecture that will allow the air vehicle to launch and recover vertically from small-deck ships and transition to horizontal flight.

'Tern's unique combination of speed, long endurance, range, and altitude would give the Navy and Marine Corps a cost-effective, transformational capability to conduct ISR, light strike, and other missions from the sea at ranges exceeding 600 nautical miles,' said Bob August, program manager, Tern, Northrop Grumman.

'These successful milestones add confidence to our plan to demonstrate this new vehicle capability in 2018.'

Tern would also support emerging U.S. Marine expeditionary mission requirements for large ship-based, long-range, long-endurance unmanned air systems.

DARPA awarded Northrop Grumman the Tern Phase 3 contract in December 2015.

Phase 3 goals include completion of detailed aircraft design, development of two full-scale demonstrator aircraft, land-based testing and at-sea demonstrations of air vehicle launch and recovery.

Initial ground-based testing, if successful, would lead to an at-sea demonstration of takeoff, transition to and from horizontal flight, and landingall from a test platform with a deck size similar to that of a destroyer or other small surface-combat vessel.

'The design we have in mind for the Tern demonstrator could greatly increase the effectiveness of any host ship by augmenting awareness, reach and connectivity,' said Dan Patt, Darpa program manager.

'We continue to make progress toward our goal to develop breakthrough technologies that would enable persistent ISR and strike capabilities almost anywhere in the world at a fraction of current deployment costs, time and effort.'

Initial ground-based testing, if successful, would lead to an at-sea demonstration of takeoff, transition to and from horizontal flight, and landingall from a test platform with a deck size similar to that of a destroyer or other small surface-combat vessel.

'ONR's and Darpa's partnership on Tern continues to make rapid progress toward creating a new class of unmanned air system combining shipboard takeoff and landing capabilities, enhanced speed and endurance, and sophisticated supervised autonomy,' said Gil Graff, deputy program manager for Tern at ONR.

'If successful, Tern could open up exciting future capabilities for Navy small-deck surface combatants and U.S. Marine Corps air expeditionary operations.'

THE 'POGO STICK': THE 1950S TAILSITTING LOCKHEED XFV Northrop's unmanned Tern design harkens back to the manned Lockheed XFV-1 concept of the early 1950s, which also featured a tailsitter configuration with nose-mounted counter-rotating propellers to provide vertical thrust for take-off and landing and forward thrust in horizontal flight. The American Lockheed XFV (sometimes referred to as the Salmon) was an experimental tailsitter prototype aircraft built by Lockheed in the early 1950s to demonstrate the operation of a vertical takeoff and landing fighter for protecting convoys at sea. The American Lockheed XFV (sometimes referred to as the Salmon) was an experimental tailsitter prototype. The XFV had an ungainly appearance on the ground with a makeshift, landing gear attached, causing employees to refer to it as the 'pogo stick'. It was powered by a 5,332 hp (3,976 kW) Allison YT40-A-14 turboprop engine driving three-bladed contra-rotating propellers. It had an ungainly appearance on the ground with a makeshift, landing gear attached, causing employees to refer to it as the 'pogo stick'. After making 32 flights, none involving actual vertical takeoffs or landings, the project was cancelled in June 1955. But Northrop adds to the tailsitter approach by combining the engine with a pure flying wing design, a hallmark of several of the company's bomber and surveillance aircraft since the mid-1930s. Advertisement

The Tern Phase 3 design envisions a tailsitting, flying-wing aircraft with twin counter-rotating, nose-mounted propellers.

The propellers would lift the aircraft from a ship deck, orient it for horizontal flight and provide propulsion to complete a mission.

They would then reorient the craft upon its return and lower it to the ship deck.

The system would fit securely inside the ship when not in use.

Tern's potentially groundbreaking capabilities have been on the Navy's wish list in one form or another since World War II.

The production of the first practical helicopters in 1942 helped the U.S. military realize the potential value of embedded vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to protect fleets and reduce the reliance on aircraft carriers and land bases.

The Tern demonstrator will bear some resemblance to the Convair XFY-1 Pogo, an experimental ship-based VTOL fighter designed by the Navy in the 1950s to provide air support for fleets.

An early concept for the craft. Northrop's tailsitter design includes a set of large counter-rotating propellers covering almost two-thirds of a roughly 9.14m (30ft)-diameter.

Despite numerous successful demonstrations, the XFY-1 never advanced beyond the prototype stage, in part because the Navy at the time was focusing on faster jet aircraft and determined that pilots would have needed too much training to land on moving ships in rough seas.

'Moving to an unmanned platform, refocusing the mission and incorporating modern precision relative navigation and other technologies removes many of the challenges the XFY-1 and other prior efforts faced in developing aircraft based from small ships,' Patt said.

'Tern is a great example of how new technologies and innovative thinking can bring long-sought capabilities within reach.'

'Helicopters are relatively limited in their distance and flight time. Fixed-wing manned and unmanned aircraft can fly farther and longer but require either aircraft carriers or large, fixed land bases with runways often longer than a mile.

'Tern envisions using smaller ships as mobile launch and recovery sites for medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft (UAVs).

'Named after the family of seabirds known for flight endurance  many species migrate thousands of miles each year  Tern aims to make it much easier, quicker and less expensive for DoD to deploy persistent ISR and strike capabilities almost anywhere in the world.'

MQ-1 Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle built by General Atomics and used primarily by the United States Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency: The new Tailsitter is expected to have similar range and payload capabilities.

Northrop's unmanned Tern design harkens back to the manned Lockheed XFV-1 concept of the early 1950s, which also featured a tailsitter configuration with nose-mounted counter-rotating propellers to provide vertical thrust for take-off and landing and forward thrust in horizontal flight.

But Northrop adds to the tailsitter approach by combining the engine with a pure flying wing design, a hallmark of several of the company's bomber and surveillance aircraft since the mid-1930s.

DARPA wants an unmanned vehicle that can operate from DDG-class ships or smaller, with the ability to carry a 272kg (600lb) payload up to 900nm (1,670km).
Microsoft is developing software to turn the millions of Windows PCs, laptops and tablets already in homes into a 'home hub' that can do everything from control lights to answer questions.

The software would allow Microsoft to take on Amazon's Echo and Google's Home smart speaker.

It will also make it far easier to share Windows machines, according to Windows Central.

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The app will turn the millions of Windows PCs, laptops and tablets already in homes into a 'home hub' that can do everything from control lights to answer questions.

HOW IT WILL WORK Software will be able to do everything the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices can. will use Microsoft's Cortana as a smart AI assistant. Will also be a shared 'family account' for calendars and reminders. The new software will also be able to control smart home devices, including lights, doors, locks and more. Advertisement

'Home Hub isn't a dedicated device that's designed to take on the likes of the Amazon Echo and Google Home, as in the end, Home Hub is just the software,' it said.

However, the software will be able to do everything the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices can - and more.

'Home Hub is designed to run on Windows 10 PCs, mainly All-In-Ones and 2-in-1's with touch screens, but can work on any Windows 10 machine.,' it is claimed.

As well as giving access to Microsoft's Cortana AI assistant, it will allow families to more easily create share accounts.

'There will also be a 'family account' that is always logged in,' Windows Central says.

That account can see everything the 'family' is supposed to see, such as specific apps, calendar appointments, to-do's, and more.

The new software will also be able to control smart home devices, including lights, doors, locks and more.

It will use Microsoft's Cortana to allow voice control - much like Apple's siri HomeKit integration.

The firm is also expected to work with theird parties to create dedicated home hub devices, with talks already underway with HP and Lenovo.

Recently one YouTuber user gave a stark reminder of just how easy it is to fool current systems.

A YouTube video has revealed an 'endless loop' between Google's Home speaker and Amazon's Alexa.

It shows the two devices constantly reading out an upcoming diary entry designed to trigger the bizarre conversation.

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ALWAYS LISTENING Both Home and Echo are continually listening for commands, though Google and Amazon say nothing gets passed back to them until the speakers hear a keyword  'OK, Google' for Home and 'Alexa' for Echo. Advertisement

The video was created by Adam Jakowenko, who revealed how he was able to use the calendar features of the voice-activated devices to make the Echo, which answers to the name 'Alexa,' and the Home, which answers to 'Hey Google,' have a conversation.

He was able to set up calender entries on each device including the keyword needed to trigger the other.

'Alexa, what's on my calendar tonight?' Jakowenko asks.

The Amazon Echo Dot responds: 'Tonight, there is one event: At 6 p.m. There's hey Google what's on my calendar tonight?'

This triggers Google's Home speaker, which replies

'You have a calendar entry today at 6 p.m.

'The title is, 'Alexa, what's on my calendar tonight?'

The speakers then repeat themselves to each other in a loop.

'Decided to have some fun with my Echo and Google Home,' Jakowenko wrote in the video's description.

The race to create a smart home assistant has already seen a plethora of virtual assistants, from Apple's Siri to Amazon's Alexa and Facebook's chatbots.

Now, Google has joined the fray with Home, a $130 smart speaker that can do everything from play music to control your lights - and has the vast knowledge of Google's search engine as its 'brain'.

We pitted it against Amazon's Echo Dot and Apple's Siri in a series of tests to reveal the personality (or lack of) in each of them.

We pitted Google, Home,Amazon's Echo Dot and Apple's Siri against each other in a series of tests, from singing to telling jokes.

Google's Home is the firm's latest AI move, after introducing its smart assistant in the new Pixel handsets last month.

After a week with Home, while it's been an incredibly impressive glimpse into how useful an AI assistant could one day be, it seems Google still has some work to do - although this is a device that oozes with potential for the future.

That said, it's already extremely capable in many areas.

Ask about your day, and the Home speaker will give you the time, weather, estimated commute, the news and upcoming calendar appointments.

The speaker is a really lovely piece of design, and it's tough to fault the hardware. If you're not keen on the colour, you can simply swap the bottom part for another colour or material.

Sound quality was surprisingly good, and listening to music really wasn't the horrible experience I was expecting (particularly as, like Amazon's Echo, it can integrate with Spotify, and access all of your playlists and Spotify's superb recommendations).

The top of the speaker doubles as a touch sensitive control surface, although I found it was mainly used to control the volume.

Useful LEDs swirl as it is working, so you know when it is thinking.

The voice recognition is also astonishingly good - I can barely recall it not hearing something over my week with it, whether it was my British accent or my wife's American one asking the questions.

However, that does bring up one problem - it will answer anyone, and can only be linked to one Google account at the moment - so a couple can't both have their diaries available, for instance.

AMAZON ECHO VS GOOGLE HOME Google's $1230 Home speaker is triggered by the phrase 'Hey Google' while Amazon's Echo uses A'Alexa. Amazon's smart speaker is available in two versions - the full sized $180 Echo shown here, and a smaller, $50 version called the Echo Dot. Google Home AI speaker (left) shows the incredible potential of a smart home assistant - but still has a little bit of learning to do before it become indispensable. Amazon's Echo (right) is far better at using other services at the moment, known as skills. Advertisement

The obvious competitor at the moment is Amazon's Echo, with its Alexa assistant.

It has a major head start on Google, and can do a lot more at the moment.

However, even with its early incarnation of a Google digital companion called Assistant, Home actually seems the smarter of the two - and most of that is down to how much Google already knows about you.

For instance, it knows about upcoming trips, based on reservations in Gmail, and also really nicely integrates commute times, complete with delays, based on data in Maps.

Echo, on the other hand, can direct you to work - and that seems about it.

However, the Echo does have the upper hand when it comes to partnerships, and can integrate with a Fitbit, order pizza and even call an Uber.

Amazon has more than a thousand of these partnerships, known as skills.

Google's integrations are initially limited to calling for Ubers, changing news or music providers and controlling smart lights from Phillips, SmartThings and the temperature of your home - if you're using Google's Nest.

The speaker will come in six different colors, and be available from November 4th

It's also possible to control your TV with home, up to a point.

Home supports Google's Chromecast but so far the support seems a little patchy, and I found it doesn't always work.

However, with a 4K version hitting the market soon, expect this to be another thing about Home that gets better very quickly.

Both devices work as alarm clocks or timers  and are great in the kitchen.

GOOGLE'S AI AMBITIONS: SMART ASSISTANTS EVERYWHERE The firm also revealed its Google Home smart speaker will go on sale in November. At the unveiling of Home in May, Google boss Sundar Pichai said: 'We think of the assistant as an ambient experience that goes across devices - this is more than just phones, it will be on devices they wear, in their car and in their living rooms.' The leading tech companies are all competing to assist consumers in their online activities such as shopping, since that gives the companies a better chance of selling advertising or other services. Home-based systems like the Echo are taking on more importance with the advent of improved voice technology, according to Julie Ask, an analyst at Forrester Research. Advertisement

Home really excels here though - you can ask it recipes, and it'll read out cooking instructions to you.

It's also a lot more fun if you have kids - for instance, it can play sound games if you ask it what sounds animals makes (although my dog was unimpressed by its cow impression).

However, using a smart speaker, be in the Echo Dot or Home, does require a big change in the behaviour of owners.

It really does take a while before you automatically remember you can ask Google for things - and I must confess, a week in with Home, I often still whip out my phone to do things I could simply have asked for.

But given time, it seems having the might of Google's search engine behind is will give Home a much smarter brain than anyone else - and could see Google making a smart home assistant a reality.




Budapest has always languished in the shadows of its more famous neighbours, Prague and Vienna. Yet its glorious architecture rivals the competition, reflecting an embattled history which ranges from the grandeur of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the constraints imposed by Nazi Germany and later, Soviet Communism.

You need at least three days to appreciate the twin delights of old Buda and newer Pest, which are divided by the Danube, and were separate cities until 1873.

Waterside wonder: The Hungarian Parliament illuminates the Pest side of the Danube

TESTING THE WATERS

With 118 thermal springs providing more than 70million litres of thermal water a day, no wonder Budapest earned the title of Spa City in 1934. The most famous are the Gellert Baths (gellertbath.com), an imposing art nouveau complex dating back to 1918. Or head to the locals' favourite Szechenyi, the largest medicinal bath in Europe.

HISTORY LESSON

The Republic of Hungary was founded in 1918, after World War I - following the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was occupied by Germany in World War II and became a one-party Communist state in 1948 under the Soviets. A revolution in 1956 was crushed and it was not until 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall that it found freedom.

WHERE TO STAY

Brody House, once the home of a Hungarian prime minister, blends the romance of earlier eras with the quirkiness of modern Budapest. The hotel was divided into apartments during the Communist rule.

Now elegantly restored, it has the air of a club, its walls adorned by the on-sale artwork of local painters, antique and retro furniture and an honesty bar in the evenings. Guests have free entry to Brody Studios events, which include musical evenings and lectures. From 58 per night (brodyhouse.com).

Links to the past: The Chain Bridge is Budapest's key - and most photogenic - Danube crossing

WHAT TO SEE

Cross the Chain Bridge, designed by British engineer William Tierney Clark in 1839, and visit Buda's historic Castle Hill and Fisherman's Bastion. Head back past the iconic Parliament Building in Pest and stroll along the elegant Andrassy Avenue with its upmarket shops (Budapest has been called the Paris of the East). Take a Danube cruise for views of the city's finest buildings.

Discover Hungary's darker past at the House of Terror, which tells how the population suffered at the hands of Nazis and Communists.

The Life Under Communism exhibition at Miniversum takes a more lighthearted approach, with an animated 1:100 scale miniature model of Budapest, encompassing Communist-era residential tower blocks, Soviet army barracks and the Iron Curtain. Spend a couple of hours in the National Museum for a comprehensive look at Hungary's former empire and turbulent political life in the early 20th century.

Take a dip: The Gellert baths complex is a Budapest institution where you can soothe the soul

ROOFTOP RENDEZVOUS

Budapest's dramatic skyline is best admired from one of its rooftop bars; check out the panoramic views from the recently opened glitzy Aria hotel.

Or visit one of the many famous "ruin pubs"  bohemian bars set in old buildings dotted across the city. Most famous is the Szimpla Kert, a multi-layered, two-storey set-up, which is a quirky compilation of junk and vintage.

For a real party hotspot, head to Durer Kert, which hosts renowned international and local bands.

WHAT'S ON THE MENU?

Built in 1897, the Great Market Hall is the place to go for meats, cheeses, truffles and Tokaj wine.

Join locals for a canteen-style lunch at Fakanal, or make for one of the many stalls selling langos, a deep-fried flatbread topped with sour cream and cheese.

Tukory Etterem is an authentic Hungarian eatery in the banking district  a favourite hangout for artistic locals.

FINDING YOUR FEET

With biting winters, Budapest is best visited in spring or autumn. Sign up for an arts and culture walking tour, or take an escorted walk through the Jewish Quarter (visitbudapest.travel). Exploring on foot is easy, but there's a good metro and bus service.

HOW TO GET THERE
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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
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If youre a discerning foodie head to Japan as it's the worlds number one haute cuisine destination. Want to rub shoulders with billionaires? Then the UK should be on your bucket list. Keen to meet fellow whiskey drinkers? France is the stop for you.

A fascinating new global map has pinpointed what different countries in the world are the best at, according to statistics gathered from across the internet  ranging from sources such as the World Bank and Guinness World Records.

The findings range from the macabre to the mind-boggling. For instance, according to the map, Pakistan consumes more gay pornography than anywhere else, South Africa has no competitors when it comes to death and the USA, it turns out, rules the world - of spam emailing.

The fascinating new global map has pinpointed what different countries in the world are the best at, according to statistics gathered from across the internet  ranging from sources such as the World Bank and Guinness World Records

Eyebrows will no doubt continue to be raised as the map, put together by David McCandless at InformationisBeautiful.net, is scoured further.

For instance, you may think that Silicone Valley and the tech hubs of Asia would have the fastest Wi-Fi - but it's actually found in Lithuania, according to data from Rotten Wifi. In Canada, Wi-Fi is mostly used for Facebook, because people there log in more often than anyone else.

Russia has no equal for dashcam use, according to the research. And Turkey tops the Twitter censorship list. Change your password often in Australia - because there are more data breaches there than anywhere else.

Despite its prestigious wine legacy it's whiskey that France is best at, the map claims. The Netherlands tops the list for coffee drinkers and Norway has an abundance of pizza eaters.

With the most active users according to Facebook, Canada is a nation of Facebook addicts

Japan has more three-Michelin-star restaurants than anywhere else in the world making it the number one destination for food.

Singaporeans go easy on the slap-up meals, though. It is reported to have the healthiest people in the world while Egypt is renowned for its many heavy women.
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Otherworldly landmarks that soar into the sky like elephants' trunks are set to be built as pit-stop cabins along the Trans-Siberian railway, after the design won a competition.

The triangular pods are the brainchild of London-based design studio Kamvari Architects, which came up with the unique concept for the world's longest railway line.

The wooden gabled cabins rise 65 feet high and will be dotted along the 5,772-mile route providing sheltered kiosks to train passengers.

The gabled cabins rise 65 feet high and will be dotted along the 5,772-mile route, providing sheltered kiosks to train passengers

The design studio behind the proposal said: 'The building forms seek to express the speed of the train versus the stillness of the stations. Creating a timeless and calm interior which reflects local traditions and values'

Taking inspiration from traditional woodwork designs and combining it with a simple, homely aesthetic inside, the studio explained the proposal.

It said: 'The building form seeks to express the speed of the train versus the stillness of the stations, creating a timeless and calm interior which reflects local traditions and values.'

The team added: 'The strong silhouette takes inspiration from local building forms, ensuring that the design delivers a new vision but still maintains a link to the locality.'

The triangular pods are the brainchild of London-based design studio Kamvari Architects, which came up with the unique concept for the world's longest railway line

The team added: 'The strong silhouette takes inspiration from local building forms, ensuring that the design delivers a new vision but still maintains a link to the locality'

The base of the cabin will rest on a 20 by 26ft-square base to insulate the structure.

The funnel condenses air 'minimising the need for heating and cooling', according to the design.

The contest was run by architecture competition organisers, Bee Breeders.

The judges explained their choice: 'The winning project stood out for its unique combination of traditional forms of architecture and the dynamic nature of the railway.'

Five of the cabins are set to be built in early 2018.

The Trans-Siberian railway, which turned 100-years-old this year, connects Moscow with Vladivostock

The new wooden cabins have been praised for respecting the design legacy of the historic railway line

The Trans-Siberian railway, which turned 100 this year, connects Moscow with Vladivostock. There are also branches that link to Mongolia and China.

Last month, MailOnline reported that a new Japanese plan envisages extending the Trans-Siberian railway, potentially allowing passengers to travel all the way from London to Tokyo by train - a distance of 6,000 miles.

The new link would bypass Vladivostok, currently the final stop on the world famous route, with a four-mile bridge or tunnel linking the city of Khabarovsk to the Russian Pacific island of Sakhalin.
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For anyone looking to stray from the typical American holiday, look no further.

The adventure experts at Lonely Planet have announced their annual list of the top 10 most exciting places to visit in the United States in the year ahead.

Top of the list is the charming enclave of Asheville, North Carolina - also known as 'Beer City'.

Top of the list is Asheville, North Carolina, a small but vibrant city known for its welcoming, creative spirit and eclectic architecture

Asheville is home to the Biltmore Estate, one of the most famous homes in the United States, and is surrounded by spectacular natural beauty

The vibrant small city is known for its welcoming, creative spirit and eclectic architecture. Its thriving artistic community and booming food and drink scene - all surrounded by spectacular natural beauty - is planting it firmly on the map, Lonely Planet said.

Following in second place is Western Washington, where stunning landscapes made their way into popular consciousness in Twin Peaks, the television drama making a comeback in 2017.

In third place is heartland hub Lincoln, Nebraska, hosting festivals throughout the year to celebrate its 150th anniversary.

Other notable places that made the list include the southern desert area of California (No4), Texas' relatively unknown wine country (No8) and a picture-perfect strip of Florida coast (No10).

David Lynch fans, take note - Western Washington, which was used for Twin Peaks, topped the list of exciting places to visit in 2017, with new farm-to-table dining and microbrewing emerging in Seattle

Western Washington offers more than just the popular city of Seattle. The beautiful landscapes there made their way into popular consciousness in Twin Peaks, the television drama making a comeback in 2017

The guide book's travel experts scoured the states this year to choose Best in the US 2017, 10 destinations poised to shine next year, whether they're up-and-coming, overlooked or offer new, inviting reasons to visit in 2017.

Lonely Planet managing editor, Rebecca Warren, said: 'Lonely Planet's Best in the US 2017 are the places we recommend travelers visit next year.

'This year's list is incredibly diverse, spanning from coast to coast, giving a panoramic tour of America.

'Whether travelers want to escape to the mountains, get transported back in time or relax by the beach, these are the destinations to be excited about. Some of them are on the public's radar, while others are recently emerging, and they all offer compelling reasons to visit in 2017.'

The hip and happening heartland of Lincoln, Nebraska, was third on Lonely Planet's list, with a college vibe, bike trails, breweries, music, art walks and farmers' markets

The LA getaway of California's low desert meets a new generation, said Lonely Planet, with views of Coachella Valley via the world's largest aerial tramway

Big sky, big mountains, big bears: Montana's Flathead Valley is the gateway to Glacier National Park and the Canadian border

Atlanta's renowned art scene, new state-of-the-art stadiums and first Major League Soccer team make it an obvious addition to Lonely Planet's 2017 list

Atlanta, Georgia, made the list, and lonely Planet managing editor, Rebecca Warren, said: 'This year's list is incredibly diverse, spanning from coast to coast, giving a panoramic tour of America'

Texas Hill Country wine region is the best wine country you've never heard of, with a wide variety of tasting rooms along Wine Road 290

Denver, the 'Mile High City', was listed as more than just a gateway to the Rocky Mountains and according to Lonely Planet, has never been more fun

There's now a ski train that takes skiers and snowboarders from Denver (pictured) straight to the slopes in the Rockies

The 'Redneck Riviera' no more: Florida's Emerald Coast was listed in the top 10 destinations for its sugar-fine sand and affordable beach front towns
She's renowned for her glamorous outfits, often flashing the flesh.

And Charlotte Dawson didn't disappoint when she stepped out in central Manchester on Monday evening.

The Ex On The Beach star, 23, turned heads as she attended a preview screening of ITV3's Les Forever - about her father, Les Dawson - with mum Tracy.

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Buxom: Charlotte Dawson was out in force as she attended a preview screening of ITV3's Les Forever - about her father, Les Dawson - in Manchester

And, naturally, she had dressed to impress for the occasion, which meant there was plenty to be seen.

The look was centred around a semi-sheer jumper which ensured her bosoms were defiantly on display, despite the chilly weather.

Co-ordinated from head-to-toe, she mixed it up with a snakeskin-effect mini-skirt, over-the-knee, lace-up boots, a matching coat and furry hat.

Sheer delight! The Ex on the Beach star was more than happy to show off her curves

Sharing the same stylist? Interestingly, Charlotte and mum Tracy seemed to be synced

Pouting up a storm as she struck a variety of poses, she was also dolled-up with plenty of make-up and perfectly-coiffed hair.

Interestingly, her sense of style seems to run in the family as her mother sported a remarkably similar look.

She too wore a camel-coloured coat and accessorised with faux-fur detail.

Hats off to her! Pouting up a storm as she struck a variety of poses, she was also dolled-up with plenty of make-up and perfectly-coiffed hair

Weather girl: Co-ordinated from head-to-toe, she mixed it up with a snakeskin-effect mini-skirt, over-the-knee, lace-up boots, a matching coat and furry hat

Charlotte shot to fame this year as she appeared on the MTV hit show EOTB, which pits sexy singletons against the exes in a villa.

She was seen growing closer to Celebrity Big Brother winner Stephen Bear before he unceremoniously dumped her in favour of Lillie Lexie Gregg.

Since departing the villa she has become a regular on the reality star party circuit, often seen out with fellow TV stars.

Mum's the word: The pair cosied-up together as they partied in central Manchester

Closer than ever: The mother/daughter duo looked to be enjoying some quality time together

Reality bites: Charlotte shot to fame this year as she appeared on the MTV hit show EOTB, which pits sexy singletons against the exes in a villa

Mum's the word: She was seen growing closer to Celebrity Big Brother winner Stephen Bear before he unceremoniously dumped her in favour of Lillie Lexie Gregg
He only just bid farewell to his teenage years last week.

But Jordan Barrett, 20, has already sparked speculation that he may have been trying to turn back the clock with the help of cosmetic surgery.

The Australian model revealed a markedly puffy, taut visage this Monday as he stepped onto the red carpet at the British Fashion Awards 2016 in London.

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Jordan Barrett, 20, sparked cosmetic surgery rumours after revealing a a markedly puffy, taut visage as he stepped onto the red carpet at the British Fashion Awards 2016 in London on Monday

Pulling a brooding expression and sporting a shiny complexion, the Vogue 'It' boy for 2016 looked worlds away from his days as a fresh-faced student from Byron Bay.

Jordan was dressed to the nines for the exclusive event, clad in a smart black suit by Tom Ford, black bow tie and white shirt with black buttons.

His oft-windswept mane was combed back into a sleek coif and tucked behind his ears.

Jordan was dressed to the nines for the exclusive event, clad in a smart black suit by Tom Ford, black bow tie and white shirt with black buttons.

His oft-windswept mane was combed back into a sleek coif and tucked behind his ears.

Later that evening, Jordan was spotted back-stage with designer Molly Goddard, winner of the British Emerging Talent award, and socialite Alexa Chung.

Discovered at age 14, Jordan has forged a name for himself as an international model over the past few years, having fronted campaigns for Marcs, Tom Ford, Balmain, Calvin Klein and Versace.

He has also appeared on the covers of Vogue, The Times, Wonderland, 10 Magazine, Numero Homme and Hercules Magazine.

My how you've changed! Pulling a brooding expression and sporting a shiny complexion, the Vogue 'It' boy for 2016 looked worlds away from his days as a fresh-faced student from Byron Bay

Fashion's brat pack: Later that evening, Jordan was spotted back-stage with designer Molly Goddard, winner of the British Emerging Talent award, and socialite Alexa Chung

The bad-boy model also proved to be a hit with some of the world's sexiest women during his teenage years, leading him to be romantically linked to a bevvy of beauties.

Last year, Jordan shot down rumours he was dating 35-year-old Paris after the pair were spotted getting cosy at the Cavalli Club in Milan, Italy.

He has since been spotted getting cosy with Scott Disick's rumoured flame Megan Blake Irwin, Hailey Baldwin and Lara Stone
Leah Bracknell, 52, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer but has been given fresh hope thanks to her Chinese ancestry

Three months after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, former Emmerdale star Leah Bracknell has been given fresh hope thanks to a pioneering treatment based on her Chinese ancestry.

The 52-year-old actress has been given a lifeline after research indicated her Chinese mother's genes made her compatible with an experimental new drug which targets the cancerous cells directly.

In an emotional post on her fundraising website, Miss Bracknell thanked fans for helping her raise over 62,000 - 12,000 over her original target - which has allowed her to research and find alternative therapies.

Whilst the original plan was to seek treatment at the Hallwang clinic in Germany - after initially being told she was unsuitable for trials - further research led her towards targeted therapy as an alternative to palliative chemotherapy.

Writing on her blog, Miss Bracknell, who played Zoe Tate on the ITV soap for 16 years, explained: 'I thought by now, I would be writing from Germany but, as a direct result of the campaign and subsequent information people were giving us, I went for a second and third opinion, for treatment pathways and options.

'I am SO glad we did, and it has led to some really positive and unexpected news. It changed the treatment protocol options available to me drastically and has bought that most precious and priceless of gifts  'Time'.

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Miss Bracknell, who played Zoe Tate on the ITV soap Emmerdale for 16 years, explained that her Chinese mother's genes made her compatible with a new drug trial

'In short, I had originally been told, that the only option available to me was 6 rounds of palliative chemotherapy.

'We asked about targeted therapy and were told compatibility rates are low, less than 10 per cent and usually it is female, non-smokers who are Asian. But thanks to my extremely Chinese mother, I hoped that perhaps this could give me a break, a chance, a lifeline, a glimmer of hope.

'And, I recently received the news that we had all been praying for: the biopsy revealed a match for the EGFR mutation, and I was able to start on targeted biological therapy, here in the UK on the NHS a couple of weeks ago.

'You take it daily as a tablet, it works by targeting the cancer cells directly, so the rest of the body and immune system is less compromised, and side effects are considerably eased in the majority of cases.

Three months ago Bracknell, and her partner Jez Hughes, set up a Go Fund Me page to raise funds for immunotherapy abroad after doctors told her the cancer was stage four and little could be done

On her fundraising website, Miss Bracknell thanked fans for helping her raise over 62,000 which has allowed her to research and find alternative therapies (Bracknell pictured in 2004)

'The drug isn't a cure, as in most people it eventually stops working as the cancer finds a way around the targeted treatment. No one knows when this might happen.

'The diagnosis remains the same, but hopefully, this may affect the prognosis, and more importantly give us time to prepare for the next stage of the treatment abroad, which is part of a much longer term plan, to get the cancer into long term remission, which certain types of immunotherapy have shown to do.'

In October the actress, and her partner Jez Hughes, set up a Go Fund Me page to help raise the funds needed to seek cutting edge immunotherapy abroad - not available on the NHS - after doctors here initially told her the cancer was stage four, and little could be done.

Within 24 hours, the couple had raised 40,000 thanks to an outpouring of public sympathy for the one-time household name.

The fit and healthy actress, who taught as a yoga teacher after retiring from acting, only discovered she was ill after climbing a flight of stairs left her breathless.

After being taken to hospital, she was subsequently rushed into A&E for an emergency procedure to remove a large amount of fluid from around my heart. From here, the actress - a non-smoker - was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Van Williams, best known for playing masked crime-fighter The Green Hornet during the 1960s, has died at age 82.

The actor passed away on November 29 of kidney failure at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He had had just one kidney since he was 25.

Vicki Williams, Van's wife of 57 years, shared the news with The Hollywood Reporter, which published it on Monday.

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Masked crime fighters: Van Williams, best known for playing the Green Hornet in the 1960s TV series alongside Bruce Lee as his trusty manservant, has died at age 82

In The Green Hornet, based on the 1930s comic and radio series, Van starred as playboy editor-publisher Britt Reid, who inherited The Daily Sentinel newspaper from his father.

The elder Reid died in jail after being framed for a crime he did not commit, sparking his son's decision to battle baddies as the Hornet, disguised in a green mask, fedora and trenchcoat.

Then unknown martial-arts expert Bruce Lee played Kato, Reid's manservant and chauffeur who drove his boss around town in the gadget-packed Black Beauty car.

'When I was a kid I had actually been a fan of The Green Hornet when it was on the radio and in those serials at the theater, but I didnt know if I wanted to star in a TV series like that,' Van told journalist Michael Barnum at the time.

Out and about: Van looked hale and hearty when he attended an event in the Los Angeles district of Burbank on February 11, 2012

Cunning disguise: Van starred as playboy editor-publisher Britt Reid, who became completely unrecognisable when he donned his green mask

'It was very similar to Adam Wests show (Batman) and seemed like something that would probably be the kiss of death to my career.

'You do that type of show and become so identified with it, like Supermans George Reeves was, and you can never get away from it. But, my agency, William Morris, really wanted me to do The Green Hornet, so that is what I did.'

The Green Hornet debuted on ABC in September 1966 but lasted just 26 episodes, wrapping in March 1967.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Van, a handsome, blue-eyed hunk who stood 6ft tall, grew up on a ranch.

On the trail: Van co-starred with kung-fu hero Bruce, who was completely unknown in Hollywood at the time

Longtime fan: The hunky 6ft star said he was a fan of the Green Hornet when he was growing up and read the comics and tuned in for the radio show

He moved to Hawaii and took a job as a skin-diving instructor where he met Elizabeth Taylor and her then husband, Oscar-winning producer Michael Todd, who convinced him to try acting.

Van moved to Hollywood and was quickly signed by Warner Bros. He made his onscreen debut in a 1958 installment of General Electric Theater that also featured Ronald Reagan.

After appearing on episodes of Lawman and Colt .45, he starred as bachelor private eye Kenny Madison on two Warner Bros. Television detective series, Bourbon Street Beat and Surfside 6.

Hunky hero: Van, left, co-starred with Troy Donahue in private detective series Surfside 6, giving his fans an eyeful of his muscular physique

The Green Hornet quickly followed. After it wrapped he worked on episodes of TV series including The Streets Of San Francisco, Barnaby Jones, The Rockford Files and Mrs. Columbo until 1979 when he pretty much retired from acting.

He spent years as a reserve deputy with the Malibu station of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, working for its search and rescue team.

He last appeared in 1993's Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story as the director of the Green Hornet.

Van's survived by his twin daughters, Lisa and Lynne, with ex-wife Drucilla Jane Greenhaw, whom he divorced in the late 1950s. He is also survived by wife Vicki, whom he married in 1959, and their three daughters, Nina, Tia and Britt.
He's been fairly vocal about tension between himself and Iggy Azalea on this year's X Factor Australia.

And after describing their chemistry as 'weird' earlier this week, Guy Sebastian has completely shut down any possibility of a collaboration with the rapper.

Asked whether he would consider making music with the US-based star, the 35-year-old told Nova radio: 'I don't think so. I just think we make very different music.'

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'I don't think so': Guy Sebastian has shut down the idea of a musical collaboration with his X Factor Australia rival Iggy Azalea

Laughing at the idea, the former Australian Idol star insisted the feeling is most likely mutual, adding: 'I don't think she'd collaborate with me, you know?'

But Guy didn't have all bad things to say about his co-star, telling hosts Greg Burns and Zoe Sheridan: 'She's actually quite pleasant. She just does life and artistry very different to me.'

On Monday, the father-of-two described his chemistry with Iggy, 26, as 'weird,' as he revealed the blonde was perfectly friendly towards him when the cameras weren't rolling.

'Weird' chemistry: The 35-year-old told Channel Nine's Today earlier this week that Iggy was 'pretty sweet' off-air despite butting heads with him when the cameras were rolling

Tension: The singer has been vocal about tension between himself and the Fancy rapper on the show, which she joined as a new judge this year

'Off air she was pretty sweet, then on-air she would always be at me for some reason,' he told Today.

'I even had my mum and everyone texting [me], going "What's with Iggy Azalea being at you all the time?" he continued.

He also revealed the Fancy hitmaker didn't bother to attend the wrap party once the show finished.

Out of there: According to Guy, the 26-year-old rapper didn't say goodbye to him after the last episode of the series, instead fleeing back home to the US

Richard Wilkins asked if he'd spoken to her since the show's last episode.

'No, she didn't say bye at the end,' he replied. 'Just went off. Just out of here.

Fellow judge Adam Lambert also didn't mince words when he was asked about the Aussie hip-hop sensation last month.

'She is quite a diva', the former American Idol runner-up told Sunrise hosts Samantha Armytage and Mike Amor.

Diva? Judge Adam Lambert also didn't mince words when speaking about Iggy last month, telling Sunrise: 'She is quite a diva'

'She shows up late, you never know what you're going to get with her. It is never boring, I will tell you that.'

It's been reported Iggy left Channel 7 executives highly disappointed in her first attempt at joining the judging panel.

Iggy, who was raised in Mullumbimby in coastal New South Wales, has now returned to America and released a new collaboration with French Montana, Sexy.

The rap duo have been rumoured to be dating since her break up with ex-fiance,Los Angeles Lakers star Nick Young in June this year.
Kate Fischer has hinted she's had her genitals pierced.

The ex-fiancee of James Packer - who now goes by T'ziporah Atarah Malkah - made the confession on the Kyle & Jackie O show last week.

During her appearance, Kyle Sandilands was discussing her piercings and how many more she had that couldn't be seen.

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Naughty: Kate Fischer hints she has had her genitals pierced on the Kyle And Jackie O show

'So I see you've had your tongue stud done,' he said, 'what else have you had pierced?

'Until I need to lose weight from those parts of my anatomy that's none of your business Kyle Sandilands!' T'ziporah, 43, responded.

She used this interaction to caption a picture of herself with the radio hosts, uploaded to Facebook over the weekend.

T'ziporah also told Kyle and Jackie O that only recently she put on 30kgs, saying it happened after a 'close friend' and potential love interest, went away for work.

Pierced: T'ziporah has both a nose and tongue stud

Back on the scene! James Packer's ex-fiancee Kate Fischer - who now goes by the name of T'ziporah Malkah - has signed with celebrity agent Max Markson

The former model said she fell into depression after they went away and would gorge on pizza and drink vodka.

'Only a few months ago I was weighing in around 85-90kg. I made friends with somebody, who was 'just a friend'. We both enjoyed cooking, so we'd cook a lot together,' T'ziporah said.

'Then my friend had to go away for work, had to leave. I had been in self-imposed exile for several years, and I really hadn't had a close friend for a while... so I just got so sort of depressed.'

Back then: Kate Fischer (pictured in 2006) says she only gained weight in the last few months

'There was a loss. I'm a bit of an emotional eater,' she said.

T'ziporah previously said she was content away from the spotlight and working in aged care, but has been doing more and more public appearances and interviews since stepping back into the limelight.

She has even signed with celebrity agent Max Markson as the former model is planning to shed some of her 118.5kg weight.

Struggles: T'ziporah told Kyle and Jackie O this week that only recently she put on 30kgs, saying it happened after a 'close friend' and potential love interest, went away for work

'I'm excited to be representing T'ziporah,' Max told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.

'My main goal is to help her with her health and help her to lose weight,' he said.

'Her doctor has told her that unless she loses weight she will get diabetes and also be unable to continue her work as a carer for dementia patients because of the potential damage to her back.'
They admitted to falling in love in Bali just weeks after competing for Richie Strahan's heart on The Bachelor.

And Tiffany Scanlon and girlfriend Megan Marx have revealed more about their Indonesian rendezvous by unveiling matching tattoos they received during the romantic holiday.

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, Tiffany uploaded a selfie of herself and Megan each flaunting a tiny inked spot on one finger.

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Going dotty for love! Tiffany Scanlon and girlfriend Megan Marx have unveilled matching tattoos they received during their romantic holiday to Bali in June

'When @megan.leto.marx met up with me in Bali back in June we went out to Deus on a Tuesday,' Tiffany recounted in the caption.

'For anyone familiar with Canggu, Tuesday at Dues means tacos and free tattoos.'

'Megan was a clean skin until I took her virginity. We got matching tattoos, can you 'spot' them?' she added.

Smitten: Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia at Maxim's Hot 100 last month, Tiffany revealed they confessed their love for each other on holiday in Bali, confessing: 'While we were in the show, it was just a friendship'

She included the hashtags: #tacoandtattootuesday #miff #bali #matchingtattoos #boundforlife #girlsgonewild #goodtimes #loveher #spot #dotworktattoo #gotinked

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia at Maxim's Hot 100 last month, Tiffany revealed they confessed their love for each other on holiday in Bali, confessing: 'While we were in the show, it was just a friendship.'

'It probably wasn't until we were in Bali together that it was like 'Oh, this is more,' explained Tiffany.

Modern day love story: The reality TV couple met in bizarre circumstances, with both of them competing to win Richie Strahan's heart on this year's seasons of The Bachelor

Instant connection: Megan admitted that while she was on the show to get to know Richie, she knew there was a spark between her and Tiffany

Her partner Megan also confessed she wasn't expecting to fall for another woman while filming the TV dating series, starring Richie Strahan.

'We had very different experiences when we were on the show. Obviously I found Tiffany very attractive but I was there to get to know Richie,' she said.

'But instantly we knew there was a very strong connection. I was so excited to meet her in Bali,' Megan added.

The couple revealed 'no one seemed to notice' they had become more than friends during that fateful holiday - and it took 'months' for anyone to find out.

'It started in June and it wasn't until October that people noticed! So it was quite a long time,' Tiffany revealed.

'It started in June': Tiffany told Daily Mail Australia their romance began during a trip to Bali in June, but 'it wasn't until October that people noticed'
She's the fresh-faced star of Neighbours known for playing English teacher Elly Conway on the hit soap.

But on Monday Jodi Anasta showed off her wild side, sizzling in a new Instagram selfie, posted from behind the scenes of a photo shoot for a new Puma campaign.

In the snap, the 31-year-old actress stared directly into the camera with a slight pout, revealing a healthy summer glow.

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'Dream job': Jodi Anasta showed off a sexier side, in a seductive selfie from behind the scenes of a new Puma photo shoot posted to Instagram on Monday

Jodi's signature brunette locks were curled into glossy waves, framing her oval face.

Made up for the shoot, the star's plump lips were frosted pink and slightly agape.

'Shooting the #Puma#DoYou Campaign today with my gal @nikkikphillips. What a dream job,' Jodi captioned the pic, which she shared with her 199,000 Instagram followers.

Jodi drew praise from her legion of fans following her posting of the saucy snap, with many admirers remarking on the model's beauty.

A busy year: Anasta is juggling her roles as Puma ambassador and star of Neighbours, alongside parenting two year-old daughter Aleeia.

The photo shoot is part of the star's role as ambassador for international sportswear brand Puma.

In June, mother-of-one Jodi signed a twelve-month deal with the company, representing the brand with close friend and fellow model, Nikki Phillips.

The gig caps off a busy year for the star who recently began her role on long-running soap Neighbours.

Pretty in Pink! Jodi has signed a twelve month contract as an ambassador with sports brand Puma.

Jodi has been splitting her time between Sydney and Melbourne, where she shoots the popular show during the week.

In addition to her work obligations, Jodi is also a doting mother to two-year old daughter Aleeia, who she shares with ex-NRL star Braith Anasta.

The high-profile couple split at the end of last year, but remain committed parents to their beloved daughter, with Jodi juggling her work commitments with her parental duties.
Lee and Whitney Carter's strained marriage makes up one of the most moving plotlines on EastEnders.

And Shona McGarty revealed the relationship with onscreen husband Lee, played by Danny-Boy Hatchard, is set to reach a dramatic climax over Christmas.

The 25-year-old actress admitted she 'feels very sorry' for Lee, who buckles under the pressure of spiralling debts and depression, while her character Whitney remains blind to her husband's emotional torment.

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Tense: Shona McGarty revealed the relationship with onscreen husband Lee, played by Danny-Boy Hatchard, is set to reach a dramatic climax over Christmas

'Over Christmas, it will come to a head,' revealed McGarty, who has been a staple of life in Albert Square since 2008.

'I feel very sorry for Lee. He's trapped by this belief that men shouldn't show their emotions too much, so Whitney is oblivious.

'She doesn't know what's going on in his mind. Whitney has never had her own place before.'

She added: 'She wants to make the perfect home, so she's focused on that and is often oblivious to the secrets Lee is keeping from her.'

Dramatic: 'Over Christmas, it will come to a head,' revealed McGarty, who has been a staple of life in Albert Square since 2008'

Sympathy: 'I feel very sorry for Lee. He's trapped by this belief that men shouldn't show their emotions too much, so Whitney is oblivious'

'But Lee is burdened by the fact that he has a mum and dad who have a perfect relationship. How can he live up to that?'

'His depression is going to escalate,' said co-star Danny-Boy Hatchard, 'and it's a hard-hitting thing for people to watch.'

'I've had people writing to me saying that the storyline has been unbearable because it's like watching themselves. But that means we're doing our jobs properly.'

Tension: 'His depression is going to escalate,' said co-star Danny-Boy Hatchard, 'and it's a hard-hitting thing for people to watch'

And what advice would the 25-year-old actor (who is set to leave EastEnders at the climax of this current drama) give to someone who recognises Lee's symptoms in themselves?

'What I'd say is that there's always someone that cares. I care. I

'f I was to see someone in that position, I would give them a massive hug and try to help them in the best way I can.

'So if I exist, then there are millions of other people out there who want to listen as well.

'Talk about it. It takes a lot of weight off your shoulders. And that's the first step towards recovery.

'I don't feel anyone can fully recover from mental illness, but it's important to sustain a balance and I think people can live a happy life.'

Oh dear... Writhing around in bed, the couple appeared uncomfortable as they filmed scenes in which Lee was failing to perform, leading to fans dubbing the moment 'the cringest sex scene ever'

Awkward! EastEnders characters Lee and Whitney, played by Danny-Boy Hatchard and Shona McGarty, fell short of passion in Tuesday night's episode of the BBC soap - in bedroom scenes which left viewers in shock due to its pre-watershed airtime

Meanwhile Lee and Whitney fell short of passion in a recent episode of the BBC soap - in bedroom scenes which left viewers in shock due to its pre-watershed airtime.

Writhing around in bed, the couple appeared uncomfortable as they filmed scenes in which Lee was failing to perform, leading to fans dubbing the moment 'the cringest sex scene ever'.

The couple were seen getting hot and heavy in their candlelit bedroom with soulful music playing over the top.

After her beau sadly moves to the other side of the bed, Whitney says: 'Lee! It happens to a lot of men! It's ok. We'll just cuddle if you want?'

Read the full interview in the Christmas issue of Radio Times, on sale now

Following the steamy scene, fans immediately took to Twitter to share their horror at both the content of the scene and the time in which it was aired.

As EastEnders starts its half-and-hour run time from 8 o'clock - an hour before the 9pm watershed - fans were left shocked - including a mother who was watching with her eight-year-old son.

She said: 'Cringe moment my 8 yr son wants to watch Whitney and Lee getting it on .. " teeth and wee time Charlie !" #eastenders .. it's not 9pm yet !/... This is the cringest sex scene ever #eastenders' (sic).

Other fans were aghast at the acting and content of the scene, writing: 'eastenders lol Lee's face at Whitney naked... LOL that Whitney and Lee scene just reminded me of will and Charlotte in the Inbetweeners #eastenders...

'Poor Whitney is having to seduce her husband Lee to get a bit of 'regular'. He's doesn't want to accidentally make a baby #EastEnders...

'I can't with this Lee and Whitney scene #EastEnders... Oh God, Whitney and Lee are cringing the life out of me tonight! #eastenders' (sic).'
She may have split from her male model boyfriend Kris Smith in October.

But Maddy King, 25, certainly won't have any trouble seeking male attention with her latest Instagram snap.

In the black-and-white image, the swimwear model is seen standing topless in the ocean, with nothing but a photo-shopped star shape hiding her exposed nipple.

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Bit nippy? Maddy King, 25, posed topless with her nipples covered by stars in an eye-popping image shared to her Instagram account on Tuesday

Posing with head thrown back, the brunette beauty completed her racy look with a cardigan, a pair of sorts and some designer sunglasses by Poppy Lissiman.

Maddy has been sharing a slew of racy photos since splitting from Kris.

Earlier this week, the Chadwick-backed model put on a busty display as she posed for a makeup free selfie beneath a series of rainbow lights.

Busting out! Earlier this week, the Chadwick-backed model put on a busty display as she posed for a makeup free selfie beneath a series of rainbow lights

Racy! A week earlier, she took to Instagram with another topless photo, this time posing on the set of a photo shoot with a fellow topless model

A week earlier, she took to Instagram with another topless photo, this time posing on the set of a photo shoot with a fellow topless model.

In October, Myer ambassador Kris confirmed his shock split with Maddy to Daily Mail Australia on Monday, saying: 'Maddy and I are no longer together, we haven't been for some time. '

'It's sad, but she is an amazing girl and we had a great time. 'Our lives are just heading in different directions,' Kris concluded.

Over: Kris Smith confirmed his split with Maddy after four years in October

Maddy also confirmed the news to Daily Mail Australia, saying: 'There are no hard feelings and are still friends. My dad has beers with him every Sunday.'

Kris went on to slam reports by New Idea he had been on three dates with different women within six days.

He told Daily Mail Australia the three ladies were 'friends and friends only'.

Sadden: The Myer ambassador explained: 'Maddy and I are no longer together, we haven't been so some time'

Well wishes: He added: 'It's sad, but she is an amazing girl and we had a great time. Our lives are just heading in different directions'

'They are friends who have been very supportive to me through the break-up,' the model insisted.

Kris and Maddy's shock split comes two months after they were seen flirting up a storm at the Myer Spring Summer fashion event in Sydney.

At the event, Kris spoke to DMA about the couple's plans for marriage and children while admitting he had found himself a 'keeper'.

'I've got a keeper,' he laughed, adding: 'It's not a no, it's not a yes...We're in no absolute rush yet.

Truth: Kris slammed reports that he had been on three dates with different women within six days, telling Daily Mail Australia the three ladies were 'friends and friends only'

Shock: Kris and Maddy's split comes two months after he opened up about plans for marriage and children while admitting he has found himself a 'keeper'

'Maddy's still studying and we're working out what we're going to do living-wise... My son's in Melbourne and we're here (in Sydney).'

Kris shares six-year-old Ethan, born in July 2010, with his former partner Dannii Minogue.

In January Kris also told DMA an engagement wasn't off the table for the couple.

Speaking at the Magic Millions races on the Gold Coast, he said: 'She's a good chick, a great girl. I'm never going to say no.'
She's been posting up a storm after returning to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show runway after a one-year hiatus.

And Kelly Gale took to Instagram again on Monday with a throwback picture from rehearsals to remind American fans to tune in for the entire broadcast show.

The model, 21, was sporting her wings as she put on a leggy display in thigh-skimming denim shorts from the Paris runway.

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Thighs the limit! Victoria's Secret angel Kelly Gale puts on a leggy display in wings in rehearsal throwback on Instagram on Monday to remind American fans to tune in for the entire show

The short animated picture collage displayed the excited model in a green camouflage T-shirt, gladiator-strapped high heels and frayed shorts that displayed her toned pins and stomach.

She captioned her post, in part: 'Watch The Victorias Secret fashion show tonight only on @cbstv !! Thanks for yet another amazing show and experience, you guys are true Champions.'

The extravagent, wing-filled fashion event saw her walking the runway in numerous lingerie looks with jewels, feathers and glitter.

Angelic style! Kelly stutted her faultless figure in gold gladiator style stilettos as she displayed ample cleavage in the lacy push-up bra, which was complemented by semi-sheer briefs

In one trip down the catwalk, she wore the same gold stilettos as her throwback picture and similar white wings.

Kelly stutted her faultless figure in the angelic-style ensemble.

She also put her ample cleavage on display in the lacy push-up bra, which was complemented by semi-sheer briefs.

Adorable! Kelly posted a loved up snap with beau Johannes Jarl standing in the city of love in front of the Rue de Paris

The Swedish-Australian model has shared her excitement before and after taking to the runway to her 508,000 followers.

One of her 22 related posts included a loved up snap with beau Johannes Jarl standing in the city of love in front of the Rue de Paris.

During the show she was also joined by Gigi and Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Alessandra Ambrosio.

The show will air in Australia on Thursday at 8.30pm on Channel Nine.
He's the larrikin Australian actor turned beloved screen icon.

And on Tuesday, Paul Hogan was announced as the recipient of Australia's top film award during a ceremony in Sydney.

Temperatures hit a scorching 37 degrees Celsius in the city's west the day before, and the 77-year-old strolled into his big announcement still visibly impacted by the heatwave.

Drenched: Despite the city cooling down from the scorching hot temperatues the day before, Paul Hogan strolled into the AACTA Awards announcement visibly impacted by the heatwave

Not bothered: Paul continued to smile and pose on the red carpet with actor Shane Jacobson

With perspiration from under his arms drenching his denim shirt, the smiling Hollywood veteran prepared for his honour at this week's sixth AACTA Awards.

He humbly celebrated being the 2016 recipient of the Longford Lyell Award, one of the Australian film industry's most prestigious accolades.

'I'm a huge one-hit wonder,' he joked with reporters at the announcement.

Strike a pose: Despite Sydney's scorching temperatures on Tuesday, the 77-year-old Aussie screen legend was excited to celebrate winning Australia's top film honour

Feeling the heat? It was hard not to miss Paul's soaked denim shirt

Moist: With perspiration from under his arms drenching his denim shirt, the smiling Hollywood veteran prepared for his honour at this week's sixth AACTA Awards

'Crocodile Dundee started out as a sketch - it was going to be Hoges in New York and it just sort of grew from there, a fluke,' he explained of his iconic role.

The Lightning Ridge-born actor rose to international fame with the 1986 film, garnering an Academy Award nomination and winning a Golden Globe.

'It was the first independent movie to ever go number one right around the world,' he said of the movie's success. 'I was Mr Australia there for a while.'

Happy as Larry: Paul appeared to have a ball as he posed up a storm with Shane

Covering up? Paul later crossed his arms as he addressed the crowd

The former Australian Of The Year is well-known for working as a rigger on the Sydney Harbour Bridge before setting his sights on the big screen.

Gaining popularity in the early 80s for his Australian tourism ads featuring the famous 'put another shrimp on the barbie' line, his breakout role was as bushman Mick Dundee thirty years ago.

The 2016 AACTA Awards Ceremony will be held on Wednesday and televised on Channel 7 at 8:30pm.
Emily Ratajkowski has admitted that if it wasn't for her looks she wouldn't have had the success she has today.

The American actress-model discussed her career and public image in a new interview with Australian magazine, Oyster.

In the editorial, Emily, 25, slams the suggestion that by getting naked in selfies she's playing by the sexist rules rather than breaking them.

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Defence: Emily Ratajkowski says she posts naked photos for her own enjoyment not anyone elses

'I don't think I'm being complicit,' she explains. 'Women in the last five to ten years are able to say, "I want to feel this way - it's not for someone else". I don't know if in [Gloria Steinem's] revolution in the 60s that was really true.

'I don't know if there were a lot of women being sexy for their own enjoyment; that's much more common now.'

In the interview, Emily also admits to the perks of being aesthetically pleasing and that she wouldn't be where she is without it.

Getting ahead: The actress-model admits that she wouldn't have a career without her looks

No judgement: Emily says it took her a while to stop caring what people think about her or the photos she takes (and takes part in)

'I don't think my career would have happened if it wasn't for the way I look,' Emily tells the magazine, after revealing that she's 'worked super hard' to not be affected by people's judgement of her.

She explains that she doesn't blame people for judging her by the way she looks, but blames the culture that has perpetuated a specific idea about women who look or act a certain way.

She recently had to defend herself after people questioned her reaction to the publication of a book that featured naked photos of her.

Blame game: She blames the culture not people for their critical reaction to her sexy selfies

Standing up for herself: Emily slammed photographer Jonathan Leder on Twitter for publishing a book filled with her named image without her consent

Emily slammed photographer Jonathan Leder on Twitter for publishing the tome without her consent.

'My body, my choice,' she tweeted. 'This book and the images within them are a violation.'

The explicit photo shoot was done in May 2012 and some of the pictures have been widely reproduced by media outlets and magazines.

News of the photos broke last week and Emily explained: 'Ive been resisting speaking publicly on the recently released photos by Jonathan Leder to avoid giving him publicity. But Ive had enough.'

Outrage: The model insists that it's up to her when and how she chooses to show off her figure

She explained that the Polaroids were taken for an artful magazine spread and she never intended for the unused ones to be published.

'These photos being used w/out my permission is an example of exactly the opposite of what I stand for: women choosing when and how they want to share their sexuality and bodies,' she tweeted.
Shes an international model known for strutting down runways across the world.

But on Tuesday, Australian-born Nicole Trunfio looked happy to be home, posting a natural selfie while on a photoshoot in Sydney.

Its believed the 30-year-old stunner - who was born in Western Australia - is in town to work on her new jewellery line.

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'Feels good to be home': Nicole Trunfio looked relaxed and carefree as posted a make-up free selfie to Instagram whilst on set for a photoshoot in Sydney on Tuesday

Nicole's flawless skin, which she just treated to a facial on Monday, was on display as she glowed in the photo she shared with her 208,000 followers on Instagram.

Staring directly into the camera, the wide-eyed beauty looked at ease as she tilted her head slightly to one side.

Nicoles hair was dishevelled and swept over in a messy cowlick, which added to her relaxed look. The selfie also highlighted the fresh-faced stunners prominent cheekbones.

The relaxed photo was a contrast with many of the more made-up looks the mother-of-one flaunts on glamorous runways and red carpets across the world.

Red carpet glam: Nicole's relaxed selfie marked a contrast from the more glamorous looks she rocks on runways and red carpets.

Clearly happy to be back Down Under, Nicole captioned her pic: On set Hi Australia. Feels good to be home.'

It doesnt appear Nicole will be staying in town for too long though, ending her caption with the hash-tag: 'just for one day'.

The star was spotted jetting into Sydney Airport on Monday from her base in the United States.

Earlier she took to Twitter to announce her visit back home: 'Im coming for you Australia,' she wrote, adding: 'See you soon.'

Big year: Earlier this year Nicole married her long-time boyfriend, American musician Gary Clark Jr. (pictured)

Nicoles trip caps off a big year for the brunette beauty, who married American musician Gary Clark Jr. in Palm Springs in April.

The couple, who started dating in 2012, share one-year-old son Zion.

Despite her international fame, it appears Australia still holds a special place in Nicoles heart, having last visited home in October.

Devoted: Nicole is a doting mum to one-year-old son Zion.




Getting your hair washed at a salon is probably one of the greatest feelings in the world, so it's not surprise to see Kate Ritchie with a smile on her face while getting her hair done.

The Nova FM presenter was spotted in the middle of getting her hair cleansed by salon staff in Randwick, Sydney.

Checking out her phone, Kate, 38, looked to be in good spirits during the pamper session.

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Pamper time: Kate Ritchie looks like she's enjoying her trip to the hair salon

Kate left the hair salon with a voluminous blow out, though her outfit didn't match its extravagance.

The former Home And Away star wore a baggy white T-shirt and jeans with trainers as she jumped in her car.

It seems Kate may well have got her hair done ahead of her office Christmas party.

Keeping busy: The former Homer And Away star checks her phone while her hair is washed

Relaxed: Kate looked pretty chilled at the salon in Randwick, Sydney

Barefaced: Kate didn't look to be wearing makeup for the occasion

She went out with her Nova FM co-hosts Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold as well as their production team.

Tim was recently criticised by Katie's followers for putting his hand on her bum while posing on the red carpet.

Kate may be after another makeover soon if she gets back on TV.

Enjoyable: Kate closes her eyes as she gets her hair dried off

Blow dry: The stylist gets to work drying her hair

Fancy: Kate rocks the voluminous blow dry as she jumps in her car

She told TV Week that she is ready to get back on the small screen after enjoying a post-soap career in radio.

'My goal is to work in drama sooner rather than later,' Kate explained, before sharing her love for the idea of joining prison drama Wentworth.

'It would mix it up a bit,' the 38-year-old said of getting fake tattoos and a shaved head for an inmate role.

'No-one would recognise me!'
2017 is going to be huge for Jimmy Kimmel.

The 49-year-old star was not only named the 2017 host of The Oscars but is also expecting another child with wife Molly McNearney.

He made the announcement on Monday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! when opening up about his exciting new hosting gig as he said: 'Also, my wife, is hosting a baby inside her body. So thats whats coming.

Happy news: Jimmy Kimmel announced his wife Molly McNearney is pregnant on Monday's episode of his late night chat show

'We got the ultrasound  which is weird because its like youre already spying on the baby  but we asked the technician not to tell us whether were having a boy or a girl. Our plan is to let the child decide for itself.'

The funnyman added that he and his 38-year-old screenwriter wife want to be surprised but he has been thinking of names for the child.

Jimmy explained: 'So far, Ive come up with two: No. 1 Dyson after the vacuum or Gelatin with a J. No? Thats exactly what my wife said.

Bump: Molly showed off a neat bump as the couple headed to Hawaii for a family holiday last week

Happy family: The 49-year-old star and his 38-year-old screenwriter wife share an adorable two-year-old girl named Jane as they are pictured together in LA back in September

'So  theres a lot of exciting stuff going on. Congratulations to me. Im hosting the Oscars and I had sex. Two things as a teenage boy I never thought would be possible.'

The couple already share an adorable two-year-old girl named Jane. Kimmel has older children from his first marriage: son Kevin and daughter Katie.

This came just hours after The Hollywood Reporter revealed after much industry speculation that he would follow last year's host, Chris Rock.

It will be the first The Late Night With Jimmy Kimmel star has fronted the awards, although he has plenty of experience at hosting.

What a gig: It as also revealed on Monday that he will host The Oscars for the first time in February 2017

Kimmel has twice hosted the Emmys, the American Music Awards on five occasions, and even the ESPYS back in 2007.

He has also regularly fronted a Jimmy Kimmel Live: After the Oscars special, which aired immediately following the awards ceremony.

The producers of the 89th Academy Awards show were named last month as Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd.

The Oscars will take place February 26 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, and air live on ABC in the U.S.
She may not have won the heart of Richie Strahan on the fourth season of The Bachelor.

But on Tuesday, Kirralee 'KiKi' Morris certainly won the attention of her Instagram fans after posting a busty selfie wearing nothing but a bondage-style bikini.

It appeared the 28-year-old was working hard on her tan ahead of an upcoming trip to Bali with new boyfriend, Jeremy Banks.

Busting out: Kirralee 'KiKi' Morris certainly won the attention of her Instagram fans on Tuesday after posting a busty selfie wearing nothing but a bondage-style bikini

In the racy photo, Kiki shields her eyes as she pouts for the camera and sizzles in the sun.

The reality TV stars sensational figure was on full display, with her mint green two-piece struggling to contain her ample assets - both top and bottom.

The shot also showed off Kikis tattoo down the side of her ribcage, as she reclined on a sun lounger.

She's not shy! The Bachelor star is no stranger to showing off her figure on social media

The final countdown. BALI, Kiki captioned the photo, ahead of hitting up the Indonesian island for a romantic getaway.

Kiki is no stranger in showing off her sensational physique, frequently sharing racy photos with her 79,000 Instagram followers.

Whilst she may have not found love on The Bachelor, it seems Kiki has well and truly moved on from Richie Strahan.

Moving on: Kiki was a contestant in the fourth season of The Bachelor, and whilst she didn't find love with Richie Strahan, things are looking serious with her new flame, Jeremy Banks.

The star has been dating Sydney-sider Jeremy Banks since October and their trip to Bali signals that the relationship is getting serious.

Kiki certainly isnt shy about broadcasting her new love, frequently posting couple shots to her social media sites.

Last month Kiki posted excitedly about the trip to Bali. She tagged her boyfriend in the caption, who replied, 'Counting down the days'.
She's the glamorous Hollywood actress, known for her dazzling red carpet outfits.

But Elsa Pataky, 40, opted for a casual chic look during a low-key family outing in Malibu on Monday afternoon.

The stunning wife of actor Chris Hemsworth, 33, appeared to be very much in mummy mode while tending to two of her children at Point Dume Plaza Shopping Center.

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Family outing: Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, 40, and Thor star Chris Hemsworth, 33, cut casual figures while tending to two of their children in Malibu on Monday afternoon

Sporting black and white animal print leggings and a striped sweater, the Fast and Furious actress looked happy and relaxed as she doted over her two-year-old twin sons.

Just a few steps ahead was burly Thor star Chris, who kept it simple in blue Jeans and a black T-shirt while carrying a second child.

The couple share three children, four-year-old daughter India and twin boys Tristan and Sasha, two.

Mummy mode: Sporting black and white animal print leggings and a striped sweater, the Fast and Furious actress looked happy and relaxed as she doted over her two-year-old son

Low-key: The famous family appeared to briefly enjoy the California sun as they made their way to a parked vehicle before driving home

The famous family appeared to briefly enjoy the California sun as they made their way to a parked vehicle.

While Spanish actress Elsa is often seen sporting fashion-forward outfits on the red carpet, she is also not afraid to step out in casual ensembles and the mother-of-three recently revealed how moving to Byron Bay inspired her to embrace her inner 'hippy.'

Speaking to Vogue Australia at the recent launch of cult brand Spell's new swimwear line last month, the blonde beauty proclaimed: 'I love a mix of hippy, but [my style] touches on rock 'n' roll, with colours and prints.'

'I love a mix of hippy, but [my style] touches on rock 'n' roll, with colours and prints': Elsa recently revealed how moving to the laid-back coastal town of Byron Bay inspired her to embrace her inner 'hippy'

'I always had it there, but coming here to Byron, it did come out a bit more to work with this lifestyle.'

The busy mother-of-three also revealed a shift in her priorities when it comes to self grooming, telling the glossy magazine: 'I don't have time to fuss in the mirror for hours,' she went on.

Despite her impeccable red carpet style, Elsa recently revealed that her husband prefers her natural.

'I don't have time to fuss in the mirror for hours': The mother-of-three also revealed a shift in her priorities when it comes to self grooming

'Like most men, he likes me with no makeup': Despite her impeccable red carpet style, Elsa recently revealed that her husband prefers her natural

'Like most men, he likes me with no makeup,' she told WHO magazine.

Elsa has been often pictured running errands around Byron Bay wearing bohemian-inspired attire, sometimes even going barefoot for the occasion.

In September 2014, she and her Thor actor husband Chris decided to abandon their California digs and splash out on a $7.2 million property in Byron Bay.

Free spirit: Elsa has been often pictured running errands around Byron Bay wearing bohemian-inspired attire, sometimes even going barefoot for the occasion

Starting anew: In September 2014, She and her Thor actor husband Chris decided to abandon their California digs and splash out on a $7.2 million property in Byron Bay

Of his relocation from California to Australia, Chris told Modern Luxury: 'I love what I do as an actor, but when you are surrounded by it constantly, it becomes a bit suffocating.'

'Its nice to have conversations with people and be a part of a community that doesnt live and breathe that world.

He continued: 'We were living shoulder to shoulder in the suburbs and thought thats not how we want our kids to grow up.'

The pair share four-year-old daughter India Rose, and two-year-old twin sons Tristan and Sasha.

Finally able to breathe: Of his relocation from California to Australia, Chris told Modern Luxury: 'I love what I do as an actor, but when you are surrounded by it constantly, it becomes a bit suffocating'
She recently expressed how difficult it will be for her and her four daughters to spend their first Christmas without husband and father Joe Giudice.

But on Monday Teresa Giudice discussed her memoir, Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again, at a book signing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The 44-year-old reality star went braless and flaunted her ample decolletage in a plunging black satin top.

Reality star stunner: Teresa Giudice attended a book signing for her memoir Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Monday

The Real Housewives of New Jersey star turned heads as she attended a live Q + A held at The Grateful Palate.

Her skintight garb included a lace hemline and showcased the Celebrity Apprentice alum's svelte physique.

She teamed the extremely low-cut number with wide-legged royal blue trousers and black strappy stilettos.

Bra-vo! The 44-year-old reality star went braless and flaunted her ample bosom in a plunging black satin top

Fit figure! The Real Housewives of New Jersey star's skintight garb included a lace hemline and showcased her svelte physique

Her long, honey tresses cascaded in loose waves past her shoulders and parted down the centre.

Teresa went with a chocolate brown smokey matte eye and black liner for a dramatic effect and pink glossy lip.

The mother-of-four released her New York Times Bestseller earlier this year which is a tell-all about her 11-month stint inside Danbury Correctional Facility in Connecticut.

Taking the plunge! The cookbook author teamed the extremely low-cut number with wide-legged royal blue trousers

Luscious locks! Teresa's long, honey tresses cascaded in loose waves past her shoulders and parted down the centre

Teresa was released from prison last December after serving an 11-month sentence on fraud charges.

She and her husband Joe Giudice, 44, were originally sentenced in October 2014 for bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

As parents to Gia, 15, Gabriella, 12, Milania, 10, and Audriana, seven, they were permitted to serve their time separately so the girls would not be left alone.

Keeping the holiday alive: Teresa shared a photo of her New Jersey mansion's Christmas decor on Instagram last week

Joe began his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution Fort Dix, New Jersey on March 23 and Teresa revealed to Life & Style magazine how she and her young daughters will be celebrating the holiday this year.

'We are going to spend Christmas Eve with Melissa [Gorga], my brother [Joe Gorga], and my parents,' the cookbook author divulged.

'I want him here. The girls really want him home, too.'

The reality starlet went on to say she tries not to dwell on the fact that she won't have her husband home until 2019 or on his possible deportation back to Italy.

'You can't be miserable and hide in a corner. You've just got to life life to the fullest,' the Italian beauty stated bravely.
"...king of the hate left..."--

"As my friend Capper -- the best Wisconsin blogger ever -- says, there will be more. There's always more." - karoli

"...the psychiatrically attuned Capper..."--

"This is really great of you! I'm so proud to know someone like you"--

"Capper, a reasonable (and maybe even likeable) Lefty..."--

"capper, the Sidney Freedman of the hate left..."--

"I love capper because, well, what's not to love. But I also hate capper for alerting me to nonsense like this."---

"Capper, you really have a knack for this kind of writing. Really."--

"Crap. I agree with capper. Can Armageddon be far behind?"--

"capper is right. OMG, did I actually say that?"--
He's the Australian celebrity chef, enjoying married life in Los Angeles.

And Curtis Stone was certainly not shy in voicing affection for his actress wife Lindsay Price, 40, in a sweet snap captured to Instagram on Tuesday.

'Happy birthday my beautiful baby,' the 41-year-old wrote alongside a pic of the couple embracing one another in bold outfits, while at Lindsay's roller disco party.

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'Happy birthday my beautiful baby': Curtis Stone, 41, took to Instagram on Tuesday, to share a sweet snap with wife Lindsay Price, 40, while at her roller disco party

'Of course you wanted a roller disco for your birthday,' the caption continued, alongside the hash-tags: 'hot mama' and 'roller disco'.

Curtis, clad in a psychedelic button-up shirt and flared red pants, embraced his actress wife, who affectionately placed her hand on her husband's chest.

Lindsay, known for her role on Beverly Hills 90210, flaunted her trim pins in hot pants, teamed with a short sleeved top, leg warmers and roller skates.

'Out past midnight': The mother-of-two and birthday girl also took to Instagram to share a playful snap at the roller disco-themed bash

The mother-of-two and birthday girl also took to Instagram to share a playful snap at the roller disco-themed bash.

'Roller skate. Disco dance. And eat candy. 3 things I haven't done in a long time,' the slender beauty began the caption.

'Everyone please do all 3 often. Trust me,' Lindsay continued, alongside the hash-tags: 'disco ball', 'out past midnight' and 'best party ever'.

The photo saw the television personality showing off her toned legs in revealing attire, while sucking on a piece of candy.

Loved-up: The pair began dating in 2009 after meeting on a blind date, later tying the knot in 2013

Family ties: The couple, who are based in Los Angeles, share two sons, five-year-old Hudson and two-year-old Emerson

Curtis shares two sons with Lindsay, five-year-old Hudson and two-year-old Emerson.

The pair began dating in 2009 after meeting on a blind date, later tying the knot in 2013.

In March, the acclaimed chef revealed his hopes of raising his family in his native of Australia.

Still calls Australia home: The acclaimed chef admitted earlier this year: 'I want my kids to be little Aussie kids as much as they're little American kids, it's important for them to spend time at home'

'I want my kids to be little Aussie kids as much as they're little American kids, it's important for them to spend time at home,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

'I have no imminent plans, but one day I'd love to [move back to Australia]. The kids are getting a little older, they're approaching school age so you have to make decisions at some point.'

Meanwhile, Curtis' career in the US has shown no signs of slowing down.

It was recently announced he will host an upcoming series of My Kitchen Rules in the US, and the show will feature a celebrity line-up.

The series premieres in the US on January 12, while Aussies will have to wait a little longer to catch the show with no local air date confirmed.
She was pictured trying on engagement rings last month.

And on Thursday, Bachelor winner Alex Nation did little to dispel rumours of a secret wedding to beau Richie Strahan by visiting a bridal shop in Sydney.

The 25-year-old single mum appeared relaxed but focused during the solo outing, as she made her way into Moira Hughes couture bridal shop in Paddington.

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Wedding bells? Bachelor winner Alex Nation did little to dispel rumours of a secret wedding to beau Richie Strahan by visiting a bridal shop in Sydney last week

The slender blonde cut a chic figure in a black and white striped bodycon dress and black leather jacket paired with white sneakers.

She wore minimal makeup consisting of mascara and lip balm and her luscious locks were worn loosely and neatly parted at the centre.

It is unclear whether the reality TV star tried on any wedding dresses during her outing although she struggled to hide her excitement later in the day, while attending former Bachelor contestant Noni Janur's 26th birthday party.

Focused: The 25-year-old single mum appeared relaxed but focused during the solo outing, as she made her way into Moira Hughes couture bridal shop in Paddington

Big decisions: The bridal shop outing comes just weeks after the once-married beauty was pictured trying on engagement rings with Perth-native Richie, 32, in Melbourne

Calls to Moira Hughes were not immediately returned to Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

The bridal shop outing comes just weeks after the once-married beauty was pictured trying on engagement rings with Perth-native Richie, 32, in Melbourne.

The couple, who have been together for less than a year, looked deep in thought as they pondered over ring styles.

Meeting the rest of the family! Last month, Richie recalled meeting Alex's five-year-old son Elijah from a previous marriage, for the very first time to OK! magazine

At one point, rope technician Richie embraced his lady love as she closely studied one particular diamond sparkler.

The pair took their time looking around the jewellry store and looked very much in love as they exchanged ideas.

Last month, Richie recalled meeting Alex's five-year-old son Elijah from a previous marriage, for the very first time to OK! magazine.

'I flew in quite late [one night] and woke up to the little guy with this big grin on his face,' he said

'I flew in quite late [one night] and woke up to the little guy with this big grin on his face,' he said.

'He jumped in [bed], gave me a hug and then we just chilled there for a bit.'

Alex gushed about their meeting, saying the moment 'felt so right.'

Proud mum: Alex gushed about their meeting, saying the moment 'felt so right'

'As a mother, you can't put into words seeing everything feel so right when the man that's come into your life meets the most important person in the world,' she said.

Richie is currently in the process of relocating to Melbourne to be closer to his new family.

Making moves: Richie is currently in the process of relocating to Melbourne to be closer to his new family




She's never been afraid to show off her sensational figure.

But Demi Rose Mawby- who is rumoured to have dated rapper Tyga during his break from Kylie Jenner - stripped off for one of her raunchiest shoots to date.

Daring to bare all, the 21-year-old model left nothing to the imagination as she posed fully nude to grace the cover of SIXTY6 magazine.

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All eyes on her: Daring to bare all, Demi Rose, 21, left nothing to the imagination as she posed fully nude to grace the cover of SIXTY6 magazine with just emojis protecting her modesty

With just the magazine's title and some conveniently placed emojis protecting her modesty, the British beauty showed off her ample bust and toned stomach as she covered her plump pout in mock shock.

For another saucy offering, Demi was slightly more covered up, forgoing her briefs but donning a nude bra that struggled to contain her ample bust.

Posing seductively on a bed spread, the brunette beauty oozed glamour in the sizzling shot.

Chest a glimpse! For another saucy offering, Demi was slightly more covered up, forgoing her briefs but donning a nude bra that struggled to contain her ample bust

Seeming incapable of wearing both elements of her lingerie, the stunning siren then donned a skimpy black thong but no bra as she flashed her ample assets beneath an open floral bomber jacket.

Then able to get hold of a matching underwear set, the sultry star posed in exotic caged bottoms and a lacy bra, whilst her incredible physique was dripping with diamonds.

Proving to be princess of sexy shoots, she donned a glittering diamond on her glossy chestnut tresses.

She's not camera shy! Seeming incapable of wearing both elements of her lingerie, the stunning siren then donned a skimpy black thong but no bra as she flashed her ample assets

Queen of sass! Proving to be princess of sexy shoots, she donned a glittering diamond on her glossy chestnut tresses whilst she posed in exotic caged bottoms and a lacy bra

The head turning starlet shot to fame this summer after being pictured with Tyga on several occasions, including during a trip to the Cannes Film Festival.

Coming from humble roots as the daughter bank manager, the British beauty kickstarted her career by jetting out to the USA to become part of Taz's Angels.

The Angels are a group of glamorous young women who live together in a rented mansion in Miami, apparently mentored by a man known simply as 'Taz' on how to achieve fame and fortune.

Taz, aka Michael Williams, is described as being the 'black Hugh Hefner', although he has previously been accused of being a pimp and running the girls as escorts - reportedly sparking an FBI investigation into prostitution.

Demi will undoubtedly peak interest in SIXTY6 magazine, a brand new quarterly uni-sex magazine released on December 6.

Former flame: The head turning starlet shot to fame this summer after being pictured with rapper Tyga on several occasions, including during a trip to the Cannes Film Festival
She never fails to wow on the red carpet with her inspiring and unique sense of style.

So it was no surprise to see Alexa Chung rocking a show-stealing, off-the-wall look at the British Fashion Awards, in London, on Monday evening.

The 33-year-old fashionista went for a glamorous retro, Oriental-inspired coord, as she arrived on the red carpet at The Royal Albert Hall.

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Retro and ravishing: Alexa Chung rocked a show-stealing, off-the-wall look at the British Fashion Awards, in London, on Monday evening

Alexa, who was hosting the event alongside Jardan Kale Barrett, made sure she pulled out all the stops for her evening in the limelight at the fashion ceremony.

Opting for a demure but sassy look, the billboard beauty chose a pale yellow silk jacket, which featured a high-neck collar, fur-fringed cuffs and floral detail.

She wore a matching pair of fitted high-waist trousers that clung to her slender frame, and also featured fur fringing.

Far-flung inspiration: The 33-year-old fashionista went for a glamorous retro, Oriental-inspired coord, as she arrived on the red carpet at The Royal Albert Hall

Sartorials sass: Opting for a demure but sassy look, the billboard beauty chose a pale yellow silk jacket, which featured a high-neck collar, fur-fringed cuffs and floral detail

Adding a red carpet staple to her look, the model donned a pair of black stilettos to her look.

She wore a simple black belt at the mid-riff to cinch in her waist, and further define her figure whilst creating a block in the flow of her outfit.

Keeping to the age-old adage that 'less is more', and only chose accessories with a black Prada bag and a smattering of jewellery.

It's all about the details: She wore a matching pair of fitted high-waist trousers that clung to her slender frame, and also featured fur fringing

Best foot forward: Adding a red carpet staple to her look, the model donned a pair of black stilettos to her look, whilst she accessorised with rings and a black Prada bag

Silver screen inspiration: Wearing her dark lock style into a vintage do straight out of the '30s, Alexa looked every inch the silver screen beauty as she sashayed into the event

Wearing her dark lock style into a vintage do straight out of the '30s, Alexa looked every inch the silver screen beauty as she sashayed into the event.

Wearing a simple palette of make-up, the Vogue contributing editor added a bold slick of red lipstick to provide some contrast.

Alexa was part of the hosting team at the event and presented the British Emerging Talent gong to Molly Goddard alongside male model Jordan, 20.

She's a winner: Alexa was part of the hosting team at the event and presented the British Emerging Talent gong to Molly Goddard alongside male model Jordan, 20

Posing pals: Posing for an Instagram shot backstage, Alexa and Jordan hammed up some discord in their selfie - though she was sure to be nice in the accompanying caption

Posing for an Instagram shot backstage, Alexa and Jordan hammed up some discord in their selfie.

Though she was sure to thank him in the caption, which read: 'Thank you @britishfashioncouncil and @prada and @iblamejordan and @theofficialselfridges for a lovely night! X #fashionawards #kirimichan.'

Winners at the event included Jaden and Willos Smith, who won New Fashion Icons, International Model was bagged by Gigi Hadid, and Molly Goddard was presented with the British Emerging Talent award.
She is anticipated to release a studio album sometime within the next year.

But on Monday, Mollie King walked the red carpet in a revealing black semi-sheer dress at the 2016 British Fashion Awards in London.

The Saturday band-member had her ample assets put on display in a floral and insect embroidered off the shoulder gown at the event's Royal Albert Hall location.

Taking the plunge: On Monday, Mollie King walked the red carpet in a revealing black semi-sheer dress at the 2016 British Fashion Awards in London

See-through: The Saturday bandmember had her ample assets put on display in a floral and insect embroidered off the shoulder gown at the event's Royal Albert Hall location

Featuring scarlet dragonflies with violet flowers finished with gold, magenta and blue foliage, the 29-year-old hit maker's generous cut frock unveiled her toned pins underneath.

Mollie wore coal pointed pumps which elongated her slender figure and completed her top notch styled outfit.

The blonde bombshell complemented her stunning face with a fierce eyelash and salmon-coloured lip.

Legs for days: Mollie wore coal pointed pumps which elongated her slender figure and completed her top notch styled outfit

Model expression: The blonde bombshell complemented her stunning face with a fierce eyelash and salmon-coloured lip

BRITISH FASHION AWARDS 2016 - THE WINNERS International Business Leader: Marco Bizzari (President and CEO, GUCCI) Presented by Francois Henri Pinault & Karlie Kloss International Urban Luxury Brand: Vetements Presented by Marilyn Manson New Fashion Icons: Jaden & Willow Smith Presented by Edward Enninful OBE & Skepta International Model: Gigi Hadid Presented by Donatella Versace Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator: Bruce Weber (Photographer) Presented by David Bailey CBE & James Jagger British Emerging Talent: Molly Goddard Presented by Alexa Chung & Jordan Kale Barrett International Accessories Designer: Alessandro Michele for Gucci Presented by Jared Leto British Womenswear Designer: Simone Rocha for Simone Rocha Presented by Kate Beckinsale International Ready-to-Wear Designer: Demna Gvasalia for Balenciaga Presented by Carine Roitfeld & Stella Tennant British Brand: Alexander McQueen Presented by Naomi Campbell Outstanding Achievement in Fashion: Ralph Lauren Presented by David Beckham OBE

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The British Fashion Awards, held annually in partnership with Swarovski, celebrates an eclectic mix of British and international talent from the world of style.

This year, the event will raise funds for the British Fashion Councils Education Foundation charity for education scholarships in a bid to guide some of Britain's more promising young designers into fashion college.

Gigi Hadid, 21, won International Model Of The Year, while the likes of David Beckham, Kate Beckinsale, Naomi Campbell, Alexa Chung and Donatella Versace were among the star presenters.

Natural beauty: Featuring scarlet dragonflies with violet flowers finished with gold, magenta and blue foliage, the 29-year-old singer's generous cut frock unveiled her toned pins underneath

Simple elegance: Mollie, who signed to Next Model Management in 2013, posed effortlessly for the cameras

On Thursday night, Mollie and fellow girl-group crooner Vanessa White hung out the launch party of Folli Follie's Regent Street Concept store in London.

No doubt thrilled to see one another at the star-studded event, the lovely ladies pulled out all the stops in their sexy fashion outfits.

The girls were seen chatting and hugging one another once inside the shop where a host of other famous faces could be seen.
They're due to star in an EastEnders spin-off show about Kat and Alfie Moon, called Redwater.

And while promoting the BBC1 show, on Lorraine on Tuesday, the host asked actors Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie if there had ever been any real-life romance between them.

The pair looked horrified, with Jessie exclaiming: 'I wouldn't touch him with yours,' with married Shane also protesting rather loudly, saying: 'Shut up!'

'I wouldn't touch him with yours': EastEnders icon Jessie Wallace shot down Lorraine Kelly when she asked whether she's ever romanced co-star Shane Richie on Tuesday

She's a cheeky one: The pair looked horrified following Lorraine's hilarious question, with Shane also protesting rather loudly, saying: 'Shut up!'

Talking about Redwater, which is filmed in Ireland and sees Kat trying to track down her long-lost son, the pair said: 'It's never been done before.'

Shane said: 'There are no references to EastEnders. I think we mention the Queen Vic once.'

Talking about their 16-year friendship, the pair said they are both also set to star in panto together, starring in Robin Hood at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton.

Head in his hands: The stars, best known for playing Kat and Alfie Moon on EastEnders looked so shocked following Lorraine's question

Not on your life: The pair were very giggly after dismissing Lorraine's question

Jessie said: 'It's a whole different genre of acting.'

Shane also said:' My youngest children are in it, playing Babes In The Wood or the villagers in the show. It saves on babysitting costs.'

Shane and Jessie are also set to star in the Lip Sync Battle festive edition as they continue to work together.

But they giggled at how bad their performances were.

Jessie said: 'I was so bad, the words just went out of my head. We both got so nervous.

Lots of things in the pipeline: The pair are currently starring in EastEnders spin-off show Redwater which is filmed in Ireland and sees Kat trying to track down her long-lost son

Hey you! Jessie pointed the finger at Lorraine after her cheeky question

Proud: Shane said of the BBC1 show, 'It's never been done before'

Much-loved: The pair are best known for playing Kat and Alfie Moon in EastEnders

'You can't go wrong miming to someone else's music but having to do a dance routine as well, well, I can't dance.'

Lorraine continued: 'It's just as well you get on well as you spend so much time together.'

Shane said: 'If we're not together, we are on the phone. I'm like "What have you done now, Jessie?" She's just lost her phone.'

Long-term friends: The pair looked super close as they cosied up for snaps backstage
She found fame on Love Island - with her bikini body wowing TV fans.

And Kady McDermott found herself in swimwear once again on Tuesday, during her Australian getaway, where she has gone Down Under to support her boyfriend Scott Thomas' twin brother Adam on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here.

The 20-year-old make-up artist, who met her beau on the ITV2 dating show, looked sensational in a barely-there bikini as she larked around on the beach in a tiny bikini before posing for a stunning poolside photoshoot.

Kady posted her playful video on Tuesday, where she was seen playing around on the beach while rocking her stunning pink bikini.

Drawing attention to all her best assets, the brunette beauty wowed with the dazzling adornments at her hips and on the halterneck ties.

With her lengthy brunette tresses billowing in the wind and a pair of oversized sunglasses on, the Kent-born beauty looked every inch the beach babe.

She later took to the photosharing site to post a stunning shot where she was looking over her shoulder while surrounded by flashing bulbs for a photoshoot.

In the pink! Kady McDermott found herself in swimwear once more during her Australian getaway, where she has gone Down Under to support her boyfriend Scott Thomas' twin brother Adam on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here

Peachy! The 20-year-old make-up artist looked sensational in a barely-there bikini as she larked around on the beach in a tiny bikini before posing for a stunning poolside photoshoot

Using her time in the sunshine wisely, Kady was advertising a line of bikinis as she posed in the pool while surrounded by fellow sunworshippers.

Just a day before her onslaught of Instagram posts, Kady reportedly made fix claims against I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here bosses.

The reality beauty headed Down Under with Scott to throw their support behind Adam, although after he came third in the show on Sunday night's final she is said to have slammed producers.

Hours before the programme aired, in which Scarlett Moffatt was crowned queen of the jungle, Kady littered her social media accounts with yet more sizzling snaps of her beach body - clearly basking in the blissful weather in Oz.

Playing around: Kady posted her playful video on Tuesday, where she was seen playing around on the beach while rocking her stunning pink bikini

Brunette beauty: With her lengthy brunette tresses billowing in the wind and a pair of oversized sunglasses on, the Kent-born beauty looked every inch the beach babe

Hitting out: Just a day before her onslaught of Instagram posts, Kady reportedly made fix claims against I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here bosses

Kady met her beau after Love Island kicked off in May, leading to a tumultuous start to their romance before they cemented their relationship and moved in together earlier this year.

While Emmerdale actor Adam slaved away in the jungle, the Kent-born beauty joined the Thomas family, including Coronation Street star Ryan and their parents, in cheering him on from the outside.

During Sunday night's final, the remaining three came down to comedian Joel Dommett and Scarlett, who finished in second and first place respectively, ahead of Adam.

While the Emmerdale actor took his place gracefully, by thanking his supporters and congratulating Scarlett - Kady and Scott were reportedly more disgruntled.

She wore an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini: Hours before the programme aired, in which Scarlett Moffatt was crowned queen of the jungle, Kady littered her social media accounts with sizzling snaps of her beach body

Fuming: The reality beauty headed Down Under with Scott to throw their support behind Adam (pictured), although after he came third in the show on Sunday night's final she is said to have slammed producers

In now-deleted Tweets, the Mirror report that Kady penned: ' Fix. Good night' before adding: 'They knew their winner before the show even started... Anyway he's the winner in our eyes he did AMAZING!!!! #KingAdam'.

Scott's note was more subtle in approach, as the Tweet reportedly read: 'Wow don't get that at all I'm sorry!'

Aside from her angry outbursts, the brunette beauty was still keen to show off her incredible figure as she took to Instagram throughout the trip.

Happiness is: Kady met Scott (pictured) after Love Island kicked off in May, leading to a tumultuous start to their romance before they cemented their relationship before moving in together earlier this year

Stunner: She then shared an incredible snap showing off her total natural beauty, as with the glowing snap she added the caption: 'Sea salt hair, fresh faced, freckles out loving life in the sun! Happy Sunday'

One particularly sexy snap saw the stunner show off her perky posterior, as her bottom was adorned with a sand handprint.

She then shared an incredible snap showing off her total natural beauty, as with the glowing snap she added the caption: 'Sea salt hair, fresh faced, freckles out loving life in the sun! Happy Sunday'.

After Adam's devastating loss, the news appeared to get to Kady as she headed out to dinner Down Under, where the feisty stunner looked disgruntled as she spoke to her beau.

Not happy! After Adam's devastating loss, the news appeared to get to Kady as she headed out to dinner Down Under, although the feisty stunner looked disgruntled as she spoke to her beau

Fuming: Kady seemed convinced that Scarlett's victory was a fix

Looking sensational in a key-hole crop top, she flashed her incredibly toned midriff atop enhancing her glowing tan. She added in white Pallazo pants with racy slashes extending the length of the leg.

As she stood next to her strapping beau, she was once again dwarfed by him yet boosted her height with a pair of staggering heels.

Scott meanwhile remained relatively low-key as he wore a stone-coloured crew neck T-shirt with slashed jeans and box fresh trainers.
It was claimed on Tuesday morning that Angelina Jolie wanted to move to London for a dream UN job.

But hours later her rep insisted the 41-year-old actress was not leaving Los Angeles, where she has a commitment to undergo therapy sessions with not just her six children but also her estranged husband Brad Pitt.

The Maleficent star's rep added that the beauty is even looking for a new home in the LA area. She is believed to be temporarily residing in Malibu.

No one-way ticket for her: It was claimed on Tuesday morning that Angelina Jolie wanted to move to London for a dream UN job. But hours later her rep insisted the actress was not leaving Los Angeles. Here she is seen in 2014 with Brad Pitt

'It's absolutely false,' the rep said. 'She has no intention of moving to London.

'In fact, she is looking for a new home in the Los Angeles area so that she can continue the family therapy sessions.'

On hold? A source from ET said Angelina has also delayed finishing her film First They Killed My Father

It was added by a source from Entertainment Tonight that Angelina has also delayed finishing her film First They Killed My Father so that she could spend more time with the kids, 15-year-old Maddox, 12-year-old Pax, 11-year-old Zahara, 10-year-old Shiloh, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

TMZ was the outlet that reported Angelina wanted to make a permanent move to the UK and that is why she is fighting for sole custody during her divorce battle with Pitt.

The report claimed that Angelina, already a Special Envoy to the United Nations, believes a move to London will help further her prospects at the U.N.

Sources have alleged that Brad and Angelina's problems started over a year ago, way before her divorce filing in September, and Angelina has been 'looking for an opportunity to end the marriage' and pursue her career in London with the couple's children.

Any move would of course depend on the custody decision.

Custody: TMZ reported that Angelina wants to make a permanent move to the UK with her six children, which is why she is fighting for sole custody during her divorce battle with Brad

Angelina has reportedly been relying on the advice of two close friends in London - William Hague's former colleagues Arminka Helic, 48, and Chloe Dalton, 37, who have even told her she could become Secretary General of the U.N.

TMZ alleged that Helic and Dalton even advised Angelina to involve L.A. County Dept of Child and Family Services officials regarding Brad's alleged altercation with son Maddox on a private jet, a case which has since been closed by the DCFS and FBI.

Representatives for Pitt and Jolie have been contacted by MailOnline for comment.

Political ambitions: Angelina rose via a campaign with former Foreign Secretary William Hague to become a Baroness, with a seat in the House of Lords and is already a Special Envoy at the U.N., but is thought to be eyeing a top position at the United Nations

Advisors: Angelina has reportedly been relying on the advice of two close friends in London - William Hague's former colleagues Arminka Helic, 48, and Chloe Dalton, 37, (pictured) who have even told her she could become Secretary General of the U.N.

Previous reports have claimed that Brad was keen to make their marriage work but branded his estranged wife Angelina's friends Helic and Dalton a 'coven' after he felt she had been 'brainwashed by her inner circle.'

The Sun has reported that Brad, 52, did not like former Bosnian refugee Arminka's meetings with his wife.

A source told the paper: 'Brad sees the women as a coven. He was furious at some of Arminkas decisions, [who were brought in to handle her public image - he is also said to have disagreed with some of the advice she gave regarding their staff.]

Special Envoy: Angelina, Hague and Arminka Helic pay their respects to victims at the Potocari Memorial Centre in the eastern city Srebrenica , Bosnia

'He felt she and Chloe, who seemed to travel everywhere with the family, were brainwashing Angelina from the start. The rows they had at the London house were legendary. It was utter carnage.

'They have always made decisions together  suddenly it was Angelina making them with her two advisers. He felt he was married to a politician all of a sudden.'

A source told Daily Mail's Alison Boshoff that Lady Helic is smart, strong, and impeccably loyal, adding that she is Angelinas assistant, adviser and best friend.

Growing close: Lady Helic (right) is now said to be best friends with Angelina, and was even reportedly with the actress when news of her divorce broke in September

Split: Previous reports have claimed that Brad was keen to make their marriage work but branded his estranged wife Angelina's friends Helic and Dalton a 'coven' after he felt she had been 'brainwashed by her inner circle'

This denial comes after Jolie filed new court documents that detail when the Allied actor will see the kids after the shock September split of the two stars.

According to TMZ, it will be up to one therapist to decide whether Pitt can see the kids or not. It was also mentioned in the papers that the actor will still have to undergo random drug and alcohol testing four times a month. And it was added both Angelina and Brad will have to do group therapy with their kids.

A judge signed off the papers on Friday.

Ian Russ has been named as the psychologist who will decide when Pitt can see the children.

Trouble: The actress filed for divorce from her Mr And Mrs Smith co-star in September after a fight during a flight from France into the US that involved Maddox, pictured 2013

Russ, who is based in Encino, California, specializes in child custody issues.

In the documents it was revealed the 'frequency and conditions of the therapeutic visitation shall be determined by Russ.' Pitt's rep had no comment.

It was already claimed in October that Brad must have therapy sessions with the children, but in this new document it was clearly outlined that only one man will be making that decision. This is the first time the psychologist has been named.

It is also new that the actors, who wed in 2014, are still being asked to do group therapy sessions with the children. It is not known yet if they have done even one.

TMZ added the terms of this deal must stay in place until there's a court order, or both parents agree to change it.

As far as Brad's drug and alcohol tests, he must submit to them at least four times a month, according to the documents. He already did a drug and alcohol test after the split and the results were negative, according to TMZ.

The doc makes the call: Ian Russ has been named as the psychologist who will decide when Pitt can see 15-year-old Maddox, 12-year-old Pax, 11-year-old Zahara, 10-year-old Shiloh, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne. Pictured 2014

The Salt actress filed for divorce from her Mr And Mrs Smith and By The Sea co-star on September 19 after a fight during a flight from France into the US.

It was reported by TMZ he either slightly struck or tried to strike their eldest son Maddox, who she adopted before she met Pitt.

The FBI and the DCFS became involved and launched an investigation. Both investigations have since ended.

Jolie's rep said the actress was 'relieved' that the investigation had concluded.

'Angelina said from the beginning that she felt she had to take action for the health of the family and is relieved that after their eight-week involvement, the DCFS is now satisfied the safeguards are put in place that will allow the children to heal,' the statement read.

Angelina still has primary custody of the children.
She's starring opposite Hollywood heavyweight Tom Cruise in The Mummy reboot.

And Annabelle Wallis looked every inch the leading lady when she took to the red carpet at the British Fashion Awards 2016 at London's Royal Albert Hall on Monday night.

The 32-year-old star pulled out all the stops for her glamorous appearance, rocking a quirky floral embellished dress.

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Looking good: Annabelle Wallis looked every inch the leading lady when she took to the red carpet at the British Fashion Awards 2016 at London's Royal Albert Hall on Monday night

Annabelle displayed her slender legs in the leather look number, boasting a quirky ruffled skirt with pretty embroidery.

She accessorised the look with studded, peep-toe heels and a daring bell embellished choker necklace.

The star styled her blonde locks in loose waves and carried an edgy black clutch bag.

Glamorous: Annabelle displayed her slender legs in the leather look number, boasting a quirky ruffled skirt with pretty embroidery

Stylish: The star styled her blonde locks in loose waves and carried an edgy black clutch bag

Looking good: She accessorised the look with studded, peep-toe heels and a daring bell embellished choker necklace

Her appearance at the star-studded event came as long-awaited The Mummy trailer hit the internet, causing a social media storm.

Some fans were excited by the first installment in the Universal Monsters shared universe, a reboot of the original franchise which spanned five films from 1932 to 1955, which was initially revived with the Brendan Fraser fronted films in 1999.

One Twitter user enthused: 'Not kidding - even as a total avowed Tom Cruise mark could I have imagined I'd enjoy that THE MUMMY trailer so damned much. Bring on Summer.'

Party pals: Annabelle posed up a storm with Jared Leto inside the bash

Fashionable crwod: Dame Natalie Massenet, Annabelle and Jared partied up a storm

'Oooooh #TheMummy trailer looks amazing! @TomCruise can't wait to see it now!', another posted.

'Finally watched The Mummy trailer. Yeah, I'd go for that even though it looks a bit generic and not as fun as the Sommers one', another commented.

However, there was quite a mixed reception, with several users slating the reboot.

One user joked: 'Wow! @UniversalPics :o the mummy trailer! Wow. It did the impossible. It made me miss Brendan Fraser'.

Viral: Her appearance at the star-studded event came as long-awaited The Mummy trailer hit the internet, causing a social media storm

Reboot: Some fans were excited by the first installment in the Universal Monsters shared universe, a reboot of the original franchise which spanned five films from 1932 to 1955

Harsh: However, others slated the franchise, which was initially revived with the Brendan Fraser fronted films in 1999

Mixed response: Numerous fans of the original films didn't appear to be impressed

'Already bored, lost and confused': One social media user certainly wasn't lost for words

'@TheMummy trailer is terrible and the Tom Cruise scream is even worse.. hope the movie is better but isn't looking promising.. #TheMummy', another posted.

The trailer, shared on Tom Cruise's Twitter and Facebook on Sunday, is a non-stop adrenaline-pumping two and a half minutes long and looks pretty terrifying.

'I'm excited for you to see this new world of gods and monsters' Tom's team wrote along with the clip.

Intense stuff: The official trailer for Universal's The Mummy is finally here and promises plenty of terrifying action

Frightening: In the new reboot, an ancient princess, played by Sofia Boutella, is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert and wreaks havoc on modern-day civilization

In the new reboot, an ancient princess, played by Sofia Boutella, is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert and wreaks havoc on modern-day civilization.

From Fast and the Furious producer Chris Morgan the trailer begins with an intense plane sequence where a massive bird strike smashes through the cockpit.

The aircraft plummets to the ground, tossing Nick (played by Cruise) and Jenny (Annabelle Wallis) around in zero gravity before the plane breaks apart.

Tense: The trailer opens with Cruise being transported inside a military plane

Action-packed: Nick and Jenny fight to survive as the aircraft plummets to the ground

At one point the duo float in zero gravity inside the plane

Nick then finds himself in a room that looks like a morgue and wrapped in a clear body bag as he suddenly awakens naked and completely terrified.

There on begins a montage of death-defying action sequences as Nick and Jenny find themselves in London and coming face-to-face with the ancient princess.

'She is real', a frightened Nick tells Jenny in one scene.

Nick finds himself somewhere that looks like a morgue, wrapped in a clear body bag

Hostage: He suddenly awakens naked and completely terrified

It is the next part where Russell Crowe makes his appearance, suited up, as he announces to Nick 'Please meet Princess Ahmanet'.

He is also heard saying ominously 'She will claim what she has been denied' as London crumbles around Nick and Jenny and they run for their lives.

The action-adventure has been directed by Alex Kurtzman, who also produces the film alongside Morgan.

There's a montage of death-defying action sequences where Cruise gets to show off his impressive stunts

Russell Crowe makes his appearance, suited up, as he says to Nick 'Please meet Princess Ahmanet'

'Welcome to a new world of gods and monsters' the voice over (Crowe) says

'She will claim what she has been denied' the terrifying Ahmanet wreaks havoc in London

The Mummy also stars Jake Johnson as Sgt. Vail, and Courtney B. Vance as Colonel Gideon Forster.

Crowe recently revealed that the newest version of the movie is intended to horrify audiences.

'This one is kind of more designed to seriously scare the sh*t out of you,' he told Collider recently, after he was asked what made the newer version different from the previous version starring Brendan Fraser.

The Mummy is released June 9 2017.

The action-adventure has been directed by Alex Kurtzman, who also produces the film alongside Chris Morgan (Fast and the Furious)

On the run: Nick and Jenny (Annabelle) sprint as a building tumbles down around them




Since touching down in Sydney, Australia on Sunday, Hailey Baldwin has been putting her best fashion foot forward.

And on Tuesday, it was no different for the model as she attended her own birthday party at the Mrs Sippy in trendy suburb of Double Bay.

At the exclusive event, the 20-year-old put on a very leggy display as she slipped into a strapless navy mini-dress, which featured silver swirls down the front.

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Birthday time! Hailey Baldwin put on a very leggy display on Tuesday as she slipped into a strapless navy mini-dress for her birthday party in Sydney

She accessorised her ensemble with a white and silver glitter choker and royal blue lace-up heels.

While showcasing her sun-kissed tanned skin in the dress, Hailey wore her blonde hair out with the ends styled with a loose wave.

The ex-girlfriend to Justin Bieber kept her makeup natural with a brown eye-shadow, a brush of black mascara and nude-coloured lipstick.

The finer details: The stunning garment featured silver swirls down the front

Adding some height: She accessorised her ensemble with a white and silver glitter choker and royal blue lace-up heels

Hanging loose: While showcasing her sun-kissed tanned skin in the dress, Hailey wore her blonde hair out with the ends styled with a loose wave

Bold: The ex-girlfriend to Justin Bieber kept her makeup natural with a brown eye-shadow, a brush of black mascara and nude-coloured lipstick

Fixing herself: During the night she was seen adjusting herself in front of the cameras

According to the Daily Telegraph, Hailey was over an hour late to her own party, and some guests had already left before she arrived.

It seems jetlag may have been to blame as the blonde beauty shared an image of herself asleep on a sofa, along with the caption: 'When the time difference is 19 hours I just can't hang.'

Victoria's Secret model Georgia Fowler also attended, just days after she walked the runway for the lingerie brand in Paris.

Flaunt it: The designer dress hugged tightly around the model's slender frame

'When the time difference is 19 hours I just can't hang': It seems jet-lag was to blame for Hailey's late arrival to her own party

The New Zealand beauty stunned as she wore a black one-shoulder dress.

The garment fell loosely over her figure but highlighted her waistline by a belt, which tied around the hips.

Georgia wore her brunette locks out with a tight curl as she opted for a nude-base makeup look.

Straight off the catwalk: Victoria's Secret model Georgia Fowler also attended, just days after she walked the runway for the lingerie brand in Paris

Fashionable: The New Zealand beauty stunned as she wore a black one-shoulder dress

Ringlets: Georgia wore her brunette locks out with a tight curl as she opted for a nude-base makeup look

E! Australia host Ksenija Lukich was also in attendance on the night.

The television star also showed off her long legs at the event as she slipped her slender frame into a white off-the-shoulder dress, which cut-off inches above the knees.

While wearing her chocolate locks out with a curl, she added some height to her look with metallic silver heels.

A-lister: E! Australia host Ksenija Lukich was also in attendance on the night

Party-ready: The television star also showed off her long legs at the event as she slipped her slender frame into a white off-the-shoulder dress

Eye-catching: While wearing her chocolate locks out with a curl, she added some height to her look with metallic silver heels

Beauty: Ksenija also opted to keep her makeup simple with a nude-base scheme

Ksenija also opted to keep her makeup simple with a nude-base scheme.

The newlywed showed off her new bling as well, as she posed with her hand on her hip for photographers - flashing her ultimate accessory.

Upon arrival, Bachelor 2016 reject Keira Maguire flashed her black lace bra to onlookers as she dressed in a plunging neckline blouse and high-waist flared jeans.

On show: Upon arrival, Bachelor 2016 reject Keira Maguire flashed her black lace bra to onlookers as she dressed in a plunging neckline blouse and high-waisted flared jeans

Bits and pieces: The TV starlet accessorised with a black and silver stud bag and a gold choker

Stylish: While allowing her fringe to fall beside her face, she pulled her blonde hair back and tied into a bun

Smart: Keira's Bachelor co-contestant Olena Khamula stunned at the event in a black lace pant-suit

The reality TV starlet accessorised with a black and silver stud bag and a gold choker.

While allowing her fringe to fall beside her face, she pulled her blonde hair back and tied into a bun.

Her Bachelor co-contestant Olena Khamula stunned at the event in a black lace Self Portrait jumpsuit.

Party ready: The garment featured a white collar and a floral pattern printed down the front

Out of her face: While keeping her makeup simple, she pulled her hair away from her face, tying them in a high messy bun

Spilling out: Ex-Big Brother contestant Lisa Clarke also wasn't afraid to show off her cleavage as she dressed in a white plunging ensemble

Effortless: As she wore her shoulder-length hair out and straight, she added a touch of colour to her attire with a plum lipstick

The garment featured a white high-collar and a floral pattern printed down the front.

She pulled her hair away from her face, tying them in a high messy bun.

Olena kept her makeup simple with a deep tan lipstick and black mascara and eyeliner.

Ex-Big Brother contestant Lisa Clarke also wasn't afraid to show off her cleavage as she dressed in a white plunging ensemble.

The long-sleeves dress hugged tightly around her slender frame and finished below the knees.

Missing something? Model Tahnee Atkinson also showed off her ample cleavage in a lace bra as she wore a black tailored blazer as a dress

A touch of colour: While the garment buttoned-up at the front, the brunette added a pair of bright pink heels to the unusual choice of attire

Keeping it simple: She slicked her hair back to show off her blemish-free complexion

Forget the memo? Reality TV star Lisa Hyde was also in attendance, but decided to dress casually for the event

As she wore her shoulder-length hair out and straight, she added a touch of colour to her attire with a plum lipstick.

Model Tahnee Atkinson also showed off her ample cleavage in a lace bra as she wore a black tailored blazer as a dress.

While the garment buttoned-up at the front, the brunette added a pair of bright pink heels to the unusual choice of attire.

All black: Fashion blogger Kate Waterhouse also opted for a black outfit with matching heels on the night
Surprise medical bills spell big trouble for consumers, especially those who find themselves in an emergency room. Such surprises have surfaced as a major patient problem, but because of entrenched healthcare interests, a solution is not likely any time soon.

Heres what happens. Patients arrive at the emergency room of a hospital that is in their insurers provider network. However, the physician who treats them is out of network.

Because ER docs are usually assured a steady stream of patients, many believe they dont need to accept potentially lower fees from insurers in exchange for any new patients they might attract by belonging to a network. Thats not the case for other specialists who may rely on insurer networks for more business.

Whatever the reason, emergency room patients may be stuck with huge bills their insurance company may not cover, or it will pay less than if patients had used in-network doctors.

If you think this is unfair, it is.

A study by Yale researchers of more than 2 million emergency room visits across the country was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It found that out-of-network doctors treated 22 percent of the patients who visited emergency departments; the departments themselves were part of their insurers networks.

he average bill patients incurred was $623. The highest bill was more than $19,000. To put that number in perspective, this year the Federal Reserve reported that 46 percent of Americans were unable to pay a $400 expense without running up credit card debt or selling assets.

Not surprisingly, researchers found out-of-network ER doctors ended up getting paid a lot more than those who were part of a network. The fact this type of price gouging has become routine operating procedure in so many emergency departments is shameful and appalling, says Chuck Bell, programs director for Consumers Union.

A recent study in Texas by the Center for Public Policy Priorities shows how prevalent out-of-network ER doctors are. Using a 2013 report from the Texas Department of Insurance, the Center found that 45 percent of in-network hospitals in the state used by United Healthcare had no in-network ER doctors. Fifty-six percent of Humanas hospitals had none. Consumers would be astonished to see how poor the odds are of getting an in-network doctor in the emergency room. Bell added.

The odds of getting redress are also low. Too many consumers dont contest their bills. Only about 25 percent of those getting surprise bills do, Bell told me. Of those who do protest to their insurer, only half get their bill forgiven or reduced.

Surprise bills are a variation of whats called balance billing, the gap between what insurance, including Medicare, pays and what a doctor charges. Its been around for decades, but in the late 1980s, the outcry from Medicare beneficiaries became so loud that Congress did something about it.

For doctors who accept Medicares payment in full, there is no balance billing - called excess charges in Medicare speak. Doctors, including ER physicians who dont accept that payment, can sock beneficiaries with excess charges. But Medicare limits what they can charge.

Beneficiaries can protect themselves from these excess charges should they use a doctor who doesnt accept Medicares fee schedule by buying Medigap policies Plan F and Plan G. For those with Medicare Advantage plans, theres no protection until the beneficiary reaches the plans out-of-pocket spending limit. After that, the doctor cant balance bill separately.

Theres no similar help for those not on Medicare.

Many consumers are unaware that an out-of-network doctor is treating them.

The standard advice - to ask if your doctor is in the network - is silly when it comes to care in the ER. What patient having a heart attack is going to look up and say, Hey doc, are you with Aetna?

A few states - New York, California, Illinois, Connecticut, and Florida - hold patients harmless if they find themselves with a surprise bill or require outside arbitration to decide a case. But Bell says it will take an act of Congress to solve this problem. Public outrage will have to get much louder if thats to happen.

Because chances are high youll find yourself with such a bill, think twice before you choose to go to the ER for a problem that can wait until you see your regular doctor.

Although Obamacare was supposed to cut down on emergency room use, that hasnt happened. People are still going to ERs for less serious conditions, many being enticed by hospitals themselves that advertise their ER wait times on billboards.

Our healthcare system is all about making money. And balance billing, its causes and consequences, is another sorry example.

What is your experience with surprise billing? Write to Trudy at trudy.lieberman@gmail.com.
She's famously had three hen's parties all across the globe this year, with a 'final' one held in New South Wales last month.

And ahead of the big day, Fely Irvine appeared to be channelling her inner bride, by donning a white ensemble for Hailey Baldwin's birthday bash in Sydney on Tuesday.

She attended the exclusive event at Mrs Sippy in Double Bay on the arm of her former Home And Away star fiance, Tai Hara.

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Channelling her inner bride? Fely Irvine (left) appeared to be channelling her inner bride, donning a white ensemble for Hailey Baldwin's birthday bash in Sydney on Tuesday, ahead of her upcoming wedding to Tai Hara (right)

Fely's dress featured lace sleeves and cut-outs, giving off a bridal vibe.

The cute couple, who posed arm-in-arm outside the party thrown by Model Co, appeared to have colour co-ordinated for the event.

Tai, 26, donned a white open shirt underneath a light grey casual jacket by DS Damat and added beige chinos by the same brand, with the hems rolled up to expose casual shoes worn without socks.

Meanwhile, his 27-year-old fiancee flaunted more of her golden glow by wearing a thigh-skimming mini dress and boosted her height with black strap cork wedges.

Colour co-ordinated: The cute couple, who posed arm-in-arm outside the party thrown by Model Co, appeared to have colour co-ordinated for the event

Leggy lady! The 27-year-old beauty flaunted her golden glow as she joined her fiance, wearing a thigh-skimming mini dress and boosted her height with black strap cork wedges

The brunette beauty put her long locks in a messy bun and opted for a bronzed base with subtle eye make-up, as she smouldered for the cameras.

It's not the first event this week the bride-to-be has donned white for, also wearing the summer colour when the couple attended the Royal Croquet Club event in Bondi on Saturday.

The former Voice contestant and Hi-5 starlet no doubt has weddings on the brain with the countdown on to her own nuptials, after a number of hens and stag do's around the world.

The couple had a shared function in Vegas, while Fely also celebrated in London and on the Gold Coast.

Wedding on the brain? The bride-to-be also wore a white outfit to the Royal Croquet Club event in Bondi on Saturday

Shenanigans: Fely enjoyed her 'final' hen's celebrations with a close group of girlfriends on the Central Coast in New South Wales last month, indicating the wedding is getting very close

Unconventional: And while some brides-to-be might not let their partners in on the shenanigans, Fely opted to bring fiance Tai Hara (far left), 26, along for her first of THREE hen's parties

Bikini babes: In Las Vegas, Fely hit the pool in a bikini as she spent time with two female friends, letting others know who' who in the bridal party

Posing up a storm: Snaps on the starlet's Instagram page show Fely enjoying her London bridal shower

However, the date of the couple's wedding is not publicly known.

Fely and Tai announced their engagement in January last year, after getting engaged in Scotland over the Christmas break.

Meanwhile, birthday girl and visiting American model, Hailey Baldwin, opted for an embellished strapless navy dress to wear to her 20th birthday celebrations.
They wowed on the catwalk at the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion show in Paris last week.

And the Angels were united once more as they descended on New York's Highline Stages venue on Monday evening to watch the show as a group - with some models looking more raunchy than others.

Leading the angelic pack was Elsa Hosk, who was determined to stand out as she went braless beneath a sexy plunging gown while hot on her staggering heels was Taylor Hill and Romee Strijd.

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Excuse you! Leading the angelic pack at the Victoria's Secret viewing party in New York was Elsa Hosk, who was determined to stand out as she went braless beneath a sexy plunging gown while hot on her staggering heels was Taylor Hill and Romee Strijd

As the group gathered to watch their moment in the spotlight, they were naturally keen to look their very best for the viewing party - with scantily-clad Elsa rocking the slinkiest look.

The blonde beauty opted to go braless beneath her black gown, which could easily have passed for lingerie, as she accidentally flashed the entirety of her chest.

Not content with flashing her bust, Elsa's mini boasted a thigh-skimming hemline which showed off her endless legs - making her model credentials plain to see.

Upping the sex appeal to full, she packed in thigh-high suede boots with a staggering heel while factoring in a saucy funky leopard print bag.

Oops! As the group gathered to watch their moment in the spotlight, they were naturally keen to look their very best for the viewing party - with scantily-clad Elsa rocking the slinkiest look

Sexy! The blonde beauty, pictured with Martha Hunt (left), opted to go braless beneath her black gown, which could easily have passed for lingerie, as she accidentally flashed the entirety of her chest

Booties: Upping the sex appeal to full, she packed in thigh-high suede boots with a staggering heel while factoring in a saucy funky leopard print bag

Sexy stuff: They wowed on the catwalk at the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion show in Paris last week

Her hair was tousled into a volumunious sex kitten look, with the blonde mane falling from a centre parting, while her puckered pout was highlighted with pink gloss.

While Elsa was determined to show off her front-facing assets, other stars focused on their gym-honed limbs - with Romee working her legs to full effect.

Clad in a sensational teal getup, the 21-year-old Dutch model flashed her endless pins in a simple-yet-chic mini dress paired with an edgy fur coat in the same colour.

Keeping her accessories simple, she wore strappy gold sandals with a staggering heel, which tied in with the gold adornments on her Chanel handbag.

Legs eleven: While Elsa was determined to show off her front-facing assets, other stars focused on their gym-honed limbs - with Romee working her legs to full effect

Green with envy: Clad in a sensational teal getup, the 21-year-old Dutch model flashed her endless pins in a simple-yet-chic mini dress paired with an edgy fur coat in the same colour

She too styled her hair into similar sexy waves with honeyed highlights worked through to add volume to her tresses.

Taylor, 20, looked striking in a pink look which accentuated her lithe physique, while also setting her apart from her colleagues due to the covered-up nature of the look.

Danish stunner Josephine Skriver looked phenomenal in a slinky monochrome gown which boasted an asymmetric neck and a perilously high hemline.

Pink lady: Taylor, 20, looked striking in a pink look which accentuated her lithe physique, while also setting her apart from her colleagues due to the covered-up nature of the look. She accesorized with a bag from Pop and Suki

Stunners: Danish stunner Josephine Skriver (centre) looked phenomenal in a slinky monochrome gown which boasted an asymmetric neck and a perilously high hemline

Good time gals: Taylor strutted in with Mackinley Hill

Black and white beauty: She looked stunning as she walked into the bash

Alanna Arrington showed off her taut abs in a sexy crop top with caramel coloured harem pants while wearing her stylish crop in tight curls.

One of the more daring looks came from Leomie Anderson went totally risque as she slipped into a fur coat while she seemed to have very little underneath as her endless legs were the focus of the look.

The show saw some of the world's most stunning models, including Bella Hadid, Alessandra Ambrosio and Irina Shayk, strip down to lingerie for the spectacular.

Curly queen: Alanna Arrington showed off her taut abs in a sexy crop top with caramel coloured harem pants while wearing her stylish crop in tight curls

Forgetting something? One of the more daring looks came from Leomie Anderson went totally risque as she slipped into a fur coat while she seemed to have very little underneath as her endless legs were the focus of the look

Missed the memo? Herieth Paul appeared to miss the super sexy memo as she arrived in jeans and a T-shirt

Suited and booted: Devon Wilson opted for a sexy take on tuxedo chic

The Parisian parade marks the Victoria's Secret catwalk's 21st year, having first launched in New York in 1995, with the show growing in size every year and scoring higher profile names with it.

Each year a model is charged with wearing the 'Fantasy Bra' - a brassiere styled by a world renowned jeweller, who will craft the item which is deemed the 'ultimate holiday gift'.

This year Californian model Jasmine Tookes showcased a $2.4million emerald and diamond bra, weighing more than 450 carats.

Leading the pack was novice Angel, Bella, who made her debut at the show, in which she strutted the catwalk to the tune of her rumoured ex-boyfriend The Weeknd's music.

Fantasy: This year Californian model Jasmine Tookes (pictured) showcased a $2.4million emerald and diamond bra, weighing more than 450 carats

Plunging: British beauty Megan Williams looked fabulous in a plunging number

Saucy: Lais Ribeiro, a Brazilian stunner, looked slinky in a black mini
This Morning has attracted a host of A-list guests over the years.

But Holly Willoughby's fans couldn't quite believe it when the presenter posted a picture of herself posing with what appeared to be Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday.

The 35-year-old star caused a social media storm thanks to the candid snap, with her followers querying whether it was the actual monarch.

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Royal encounter? Holly Willoughby's fans couldn't quite believe it when the presenter posted a picture of herself posing with what appeared to be Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday

Holly captioned the Instagram picture: 'Favourite selfie!!! #savethechildren #christmasjumperday xxx'

'Is this the actual queen ?', one fan posted, while another enthused, 'The Queen!'

However, most of the star's followers had a more rational response, clarifying that it was in fact a waxwork.

'Like the queen would actually tune up at the itv studios! Come on people, it's either a look a like or it's her wax figure (sic)', one of Holly's followers chastised.

Special guests: The This Morning Twitter account also teased the news, joking: 'We've got some very special royal visitors in studio today!'

'Is this the actual queen ?', one fan posted, while another enthused, 'The Queen!'

Charity appeal: The stunt was in support of Save the Childrens Christmas Jumper Day on December 16

The mystery was solved when it was revealed the Queen model was part of Save the Childrens Christmas charity appeal.

One user commented: 'It's a waxwork from tussauds they are putting them in Christmas jumpers for save the children.'

Madame Tussauds London royally kicked off Save the Childrens Christmas Jumper Day by dressing waxworks in a variety of royal wooly pullies.

Visit christmasjumperday.org to get ready for Christmas Jumper Day on December 16th.

Festive fun: Holly captioned the Instagram picture: 'Favourite selfie!!! #savethechildren #christmasjumperday xxx'

Festive fun: Madame Tussauds London royally kicked off Save the Childrens Christmas Jumper Day by dressing waxworks in a variety of royal wooly pullies

Charity appeal: Visit christmasjumperday.org to get ready for Christmas Jumper Day on December 16th

Meanwhile, Holly has been getting into the Christmas spirit, putting up her tree and decorations early.

On the 23rd November Holly's proud declaration that she had started the festivities was met with a wave of surprise from reality stars.

Holly seemed to divide ITV viewers, and her co-presenter Phillip Schofield was awe-struck when she admitted the tree went up 11 days before the start of December.

If youre going for it, you might as well go for it, a defiant Holly said as she showed a picture of her tree, covered in faux snow.
She walked the Victoria's Secret runway in Paris last week.

And on Tuesday, Georgia Fowler attended Hailey Baldwin's birthday celebrations in Sydney.

The 24-year-old flaunted her long model legs as she slipped into a little black dress for the event, held at Mrs Sippy.

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Ready to party: Victoria's Secret model Georgia Fowler flaunted her long legs as she slipped into a LBD on Tuesday as she attended Hailey Baldwin's birthday celebrations in Sydney

The one-shoulder piece fell loosely over her slender frame but featured a material belt around the hips to emphasise her petite waistline.

The New Zealand beauty added some height to her party attire with a pair of simple black peep-toed heels.

She also accessorised with a silver hooped necklace.

Stylish: The one-shoulder piece fell loosely over the 24-year-old's slender frame but featured a material belt around the hips to display her waistline

Adding some height: The New Zealand beauty added some height to her party attire with a pair of simple black peep-toed heels

Georgia wore her chocolate brown locks out with a curl while rocking her signature front-fringe.

She kept her makeup natural with a nude lipstick and a black mascara.

Days after walking the catwalk for Victoria's Secret, Georgia appeared to still be pinching herself as she took to social media to express her gratitude.

The brunette beauty shared an image of herself in her costume from the night with her extensive social media following, and attached a lengthy emotional caption

Stunner: Georgia wore her chocolate brown locks out with a curl while rocking her signature front-fringe

On the runway: Georgia walked the catwalk for Victoria's Secret in Paris days beforehand

'So blessed and grateful to be given the chance to walk the #VSFashionShow among the most beautiful and hard working women in the industry,' Georgia wrote.

'I'm so appreciative for all the people that have backed me since day one.

'Five years of sweat and tears was all worth it to have this moment. Wish we could do it all over again!'

Beauty: For the walk, she wore not one, but two looks - including a silver lace lingerie ensemble

For the walk, Georgia wore a deep green lace bra, which was covered with a gold sheer material that had endless gold, silver and green diamonds sown down the side and front.

Georgia also rocked matching lace panties that were covered with the glamorous jewels.

To add to her head-turning look, the brunette stunner was decked out with oversized black drop earrings and bracelets, as well as multiple rings.
She's arrived in Sydney to promote her jewellery line Erth.

And while fulfilling press obligations, Nicole Trunfio revealed she has a fan in none other than Kendall Jenner, 21.

The 30-year-old mother-of-one, revealed to the Daily Telegraph that the Victoria's Secret model borrowed pieces from her new range, and 'hasn't taken it off for five days.'

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Model friends! Nicole Trunfio, 30, revealed Kendall Jenner is a fan of her new jewellery line Erth and 'hasn't taken off the pieces for five days'

'Kendall Jenner asked to borrow some stuff the day before we launched which was kind of surprising,' Nicole revealed to the publication.

'And she hasn't taken it off [the jewellery] for five days,' the statuesque beauty continued.

The comments come as Nicole is in Sydney for two days for a top-secret photo shoot, before returning back to the States to be with husband Gary Clark Jr. and their one-year-old son Zion.

Friends in high places: 'Kendall Jenner asked to borrow some stuff [jewellery pieces] the day before we launched which was kind of surprising,' Nicole revealed to the publication

'Feels good to be home': Nicole looked relaxed and carefree as posted a make-up free selfie to Instagram on Tuesday, while on set for a top-secret photo shoot in Sydney

Since returning to Australia, Nicole has been quick to gush about her love for the country on Instagram.

The in demand personality - who was born in Western Australia - shared a makeup-free selfie while on a photo shoot on Tuesday.

Nicole's flawless skin, which she just treated to a facial on Monday, was on display as she glowed in the photo she shared with her 208,000 followers.

Staring directly into the camera, the wide-eyed beauty looked at ease as she tilted her head slightly to one side.

Red carpet glam: Nicole's relaxed selfie marked a contrast from the more glamorous looks she rocks on runways and red carpets

Nicoles hair was dishevelled and swept over in a messy cowlick, which added to her relaxed look. The selfie also highlighted the fresh-faced stunners prominent cheekbones.

Clearly happy to be back Down Under, Nicole captioned her pic: On set Hi Australia. Feels good to be home.'

The relaxed photo was a contrast to many of the more made-up looks the television personality flaunts on glamorous runways and red carpets across the world.

The star was spotted jetting into Sydney Airport on Monday from her base in the United States.

Big year: Earlier this year Nicole married her long-time boyfriend, American musician Gary Clark Jr. (pictured)

Earlier she took to Twitter to announce her visit back home: 'Im coming for you Australia,' she wrote, adding: 'See you soon.'

Nicoles trip caps off a big year for the brunette beauty, who married American musician Gary Clark Jr. in Palm Springs in April.

The couple, who started dating in 2012, share one-year-old son Zion.

Despite her international fame, it appears Australia still holds a special place in Nicoles heart, having last visited home in October.
She's the glamorous Sydney socialite who can't seem to master the art of fake tanning.

And that was made apparent again on Tuesday, when Keira Maguire suffered yet another embarrassing moment on the red carpet in Sydney.

At first glance, the 29-year-old Bachelor reject's overall look appeared to hit the mark as she showed off her chic style and bronzed glow at Hailey Baldwin's 20th birthday.

Uh oh! Keira Maguire, 29, suffered yet another embarrassing moment on the red carpet in Sydney on Tuesday when she stepped out with fake tan streaks smeared on the palm of her hands

But as the focus soon shifted to her pale hands, horrified onlookers were left cringing as it became apparent she had failed to evenly apply the self-tanner.

To make matters worse, as the beaming reality TV star waved to fans, many couldn't help but notice smeared stains on the palm of her hands - making for a very unpleasant sight.

'Some chicks Birthday can't remember her name ... @mrssippydb,' Keira joked on Instagram referring to birthday girl Hailey.

Multicoloured complexion: At first glance, the Bachelor reject's overall look appeared to hit the mark as she showed off her chic style and bronzed glow at Hailey Baldwin's 20th birthday

Cringe! But as the focus soon shifted to her pale hands, horrified onlookers were left cringing as it became apparent she had failed to evenly apply the self-tanner

Eeek! To make matters worse, as the beaming reality star waved to fans, many couldn't help but notice smeared stains on the palm of her hands - making for a very unpleasant sight

But unfortunately for the blonde Instagram sensation, it was her embarrassing faux pas that was bringing the laughs although she seemed blissfully unaware of the red carpet mishap.

In September, Keira was pictured sporting a golden tan and much lighter hands at Stylerunners store opening in Sydney.

That same month, she was again seen flaunting a multicoloured complexion while posing for snaps at Bondi beach.

Different shades: In September, Keira was pictured sporting a golden tan and much lighter hands at an event in Sydney

You forgot your hands! Keira appeared to be blissfully unaware that she forgot to tan her hands during a recent outing

Yikes! Former Bachelor beauty Lisa Hyde, 28, also fell victim to the streaky tan look while revealing a bronzed decolletage and white arms as she posed for snaps

Oops! Sporting ripped boyfriend jeans and a strapless black top, Lisa cut a casual figure while showing off plenty of skin but her poorly applied fake-tan distracted from the otherwise chic look

Keira was not the only guest to experience a fake tan blunder at American model Hailey's bash sponsored by beauty brand ModelCo.

Former Bachelor beauty Lisa Hyde, 28, also fell victim to the streaky tan look while revealing a bronzed decolletage and white arms as she posed for snaps.

Sporting ripped boyfriend jeans and a strapless black top, Lisa cut a casual figure while showing off plenty of skin but her poorly applied fake-tan distracted from the otherwise chic look.

Other guests at the event included fellow Bachelor alum Olena Khamula, Victoria's Secret model Georgia Fowler and Ex-Big Brother contestant Lisa Clarke.

Wow! American model Hailey dazzled in a strapless blue number paired with matching stilettos
This Real Housewives Of Atlanta star is having a big I told you so moment.

Court documents have backed up claims by Paedra Parks that she divorced her incarcerated ex Apollo Nida back in November.

This week the 38-year-old felon filed divorce papers against his famous wife but, according to TMZ, he is far too late.

Signed, sealed, delivered: Court documents have backed up claims by Paedra Parks that she divorced her incarcerated ex Apollo Nida back in November (the couple are pictured 2011)

Initially TMZ doubted Phaedra's claims she had already divorced Apollo but now TMZ has changed its tune having seen newly unsealed court documents.

The 43-year-old was indeed granted a divorce in November when a judge signed off on it despite Apollo never signing documents.

The judge signed in lieu of the former fitness trainer, as Apollo had asked for more time to deal with the divorce when he was served with papers in March, TMZ reports.

When Apollo failed to do anything for months, the divorce moved forward without him as did a custody agreement for the couple's two children.

Nice try: This week the 38-year-old felon (pictured 2013) filed divorce papers against his famous wife but he is far too late

Too slow: The judge signed in lieu of the former fitness trainer, as Apollo had asked for more time to deal with the divorce when he was served with papers in March but he never responded (seen here 2014)

Phaedra will have full custody of Ayden, 6, Dylan, 3, and when Apollo gets out of prison, he will have visitation.

She said that her divorce was finalized in November.

On Friday Apollo filled his own divorce papers clearly unaware he was already divorced.

Single mom: Phaedra (pictured August) will have full custody of Ayden, 6, Dylan, 3, and when Apollo gets out of prison, he will have visitation.

The 38-year-old, who is serving eight years for financial fraud, wanted joint legal custody of their sons.

He is also asked for an equitable split of the assets he shares with the Real Housewives Of Atlanta star.

Phaedra first filed for divorce in October 2013 but the process was delayed due to Apollo's trial and imprisonment.

Happy day: The 43-year-old lawyer and the 38-year-old fitness entrepreneur walk down the aisle on RHOA in 2009

While he may not have got what he wants, there is a silver lining for Apollo - he can now marry his new fiancee.

The inmate allegedly had been dating the woman while separated from Phaedra but before going to jail.

His union was announced three weeks ago but at the time the woman's name was mystery.

Incentive for divorce: While he may not have got what he wants, there is a silver lining for Apollo - he can now marry his new fiancee, His union was announced three weeks ago

Identity revealed: At the time the woman's name was mystery but his love is Sherien Almufti, a Pennsylvania realtor

However, it can now be revealed that his lady love is Sherien Almufti, a Pennsylvania realtor.

On Sunday, Sherien finally got a ring from her jailed love - one made of prison toilet paper.

Proudly posting a picture of her ring on Instagram, she wrote: 'Awe my baby @apollonida03 finally gave me a ring, it's made out of the finest prison paper towels in chocolate brown. #CantGetMyHandsWet #LoveHimStill #LOL.'

Sherien will reportedly appear on an upcoming episode of the Real Housewives Of Atlanta.
She's been extremely busy since winning an Emmy for her portrayal of Marcia Clark in American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson.

But Sarah Paulson still manages to make time for her friends.

The 41-year-old is currently filming Ocean's 8 and Feud, but took a night off on Monday to hang out with best pal Amanda Peet.

Sealed with a kiss: Sarah Paulson got a kiss on the cheek from Amanda Peet on Monday as the best friends enjoyed a night at the theatre

The actresses posed together at the opening of Lincoln Center Theatre's The Babylon Line at the Mitzi E Newhouse Theater in New York City.

Sarah and Amanda were seen giggling as they wrapped their arms around each other and shared a kiss on the cheek.

The pair were both bundled up in warm clothing, with Sarah clad in a soft grey coat with metallic patches.

The American Horror Story star also wore a grey jumper over a long navy dress which featured a floral print.

A bit of drama: The actresses posed together at the opening of Lincoln Center Theatre's The Babylon Line at the Mitzi E Newhouse Theater in New York City

What's so funny?: The best pals couldn't stop giggling as they wrapped their arms around each other

Sarah finished off her look with black boots and berry lipstick.

Meanwhile 44-year-old Amanda was clad in a black coat with matching boots, a white top and grey skirt.

The play, which runs through next month, is written by Richard Greenberg and stars Josh Radnor and Elizabeth Reaser.

Keeping cosy: Sarah and Amanda both kept warm with coats for the chilly evening, and sported matching black boots

Stylish stars: Sarah also wore a grey jumper over a printed floral dress, while Amanda wore a white top and grey skirt

Last year, the wife of Game Of Thrones show runner David Benioff interviewed Sarah for Elle magazine, and they revealed they live just a few minutes apart and speak to each other eight times a day.

Sarah and Amanda co-starred together in the sitcom Jack & Jill, which aired from 1999 to 2001.

They also joined forces on Aaron Sorkin's show Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip in 2006.

She always has time for her friends: Sarah has been busy filming Feud and Ocean's 8
She is delightedly celebrating her I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here triumph.

And Scarlett Moffatt is taking her jubilation from Down Under to her native Newcastle as she prepared to jet home alongside her fellow contestants on Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Gogglebox star was crowned winner of the show on Sunday evening and has not stopped smiling since - as illustrated when she headed out of the Palazzo Versace with her younger sister Ava.

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Floral fancy! Scarlett Moffatt is taking her jubilation from Down Under to her native Newcastle as she prepared to jet home alongside her fellow contestants on Tuesday

Scarlett looked sensational in a flirty floral mini, which showed off her astonishing two stone weight loss - having slimmed down ahead of going into the jungle.

The flirty dress showed off her petite frame while also flashing her eye-popping bust, which she revealed she wants to get enhanced following her stint on the show.

A knot at the chest drew attention to her cleavage, yet the thigh-skimming hem meant she still managed to show off her muscular legs.

She paired the boho style look with a contrasting luxurious Louis Vuitton handbag tucked under her arms while she clutched onto her little sister.

Off we go: The 26-year-old Gogglebox star was crowned winner of the show on Sunday evening and has not stopped smiling since - as illustrated when she headed out of the Palazzo Versace with her little sister Ava

Happier than ever: Scarlett beat out competition from comedian Joel Dommett and Emmerdale star Adam Thomas, who came second and third respectively, to be crowned Queen Of The Jungle

Choosing not to boost her diminutive height, she simply wore a gold pair of flat sandals with a T-bar front.

Her raven tresses were scraped into a high bun while pushing back any loose tendrils with a pair of over-sized no-doubt designer sunglasses.

She looked fresh-faced as she continued to shun heavy cosmetics - no doubt having enjoyed a break from make-up during her time in the house.

Fellow glamourpuss Carol Vorderman kept things low-key in a grey one-piece although she dressed up the casual look with a pair of staggering heels.

All smiles: Fellow glamourpuss Carol Vorderman kept things low-key in a grey one-piece although she dressed up the casual look with a pair of staggering heels

Big grins: Carol flashed an alarming grin as she headed out of the hotel

Red lady: Yet more of the jungle alumni came in the form of Lisa Snowdon who gave a cheeky wave to the cameras while wearing a quirky red kimono

Yet more of the jungle alumni came in the form of Lisa Snowdon who gave a cheeky wave to the cameras while wearing a quirky red kimono.

Ola Jordan was joined by her husband James, who jetted to Australia to join her before her eviction, as the pair gleefully waved at cameras ahead of their departure.

Scarlett beat out competition from comedian Joel Dommett and Emmerdale star Adam Thomas, who came second and third respectively, to be crowned Queen Of The Jungle.

Happy couple: Ola Jordan was joined by her husband James, who jetted to Australia to join her before her eviction, as the pair gleefully waved at cameras ahead of their departure

All waving: Field hockey Olympian Sam Quek looked low-key yet pretty

While she has languishing in the jungle for three weeks, deprived of the luxuries accompanied with her celebrity status, she was no doubt overjoyed to be headed home to the sofa that made her famous.

Speaking to hosts Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, the star admitted the experience had exceeded her expectations.

Its better than I ever could have imagined,' she said. 'I wish I could do it all again. It was just amazing. Just unreal. I never felt so happy, which is weird because I hate camping... sat with people like Carol Vorderman at the Big Bush Bake Off.'
She's spent the best part of a month in Australia, with two of those weeks trapped in the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! camp.

But it looks like Carol Vorderman is determined to enjoy her home comforts following her stint in the jungle, as she donned a comfy grey tracksuit for her travels.

Heading to the airport from the Palazzo Versace hotel, the 55-year-old Countdown star opted for a relaxed approach to a travel chic wardrobe.

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Travelling in comfort: It looks like Carol Vorderman is determined to enjoy her home comforts following her stint in the jungle, as she donned a comfy grey tracksuit for her travels

Stepping outside of her hotel in a grey tracksuit, the TV favourite looked to be putting comfort at the top of her priorities list.

Carol opted for a grey, button-up track top, under which she wore a black tee, and some matching high-waisted jogging bottoms.

The columnist and presenter did make an exception to her laid-back wardrobe though, with Carol donning a pair of black, block-heeled sandals.

Relaxed and ready for home: Heading to the airport from the Palazzo Versace hotel, the 55-year-old Countdown star opted for a relaxed approach to a travel chic wardrobe

She kept to her practical and care-free them with her accessories, and only chose to carry a white and tan handbag.

Wearing her long blonde hair loose and down past her shoulders, the How 2 star allowed her locks to frame her face.

Wearing a complementary and minimal palette of make-up, Carol let her pretty features shine through.

Saying goodbye: As she left the opulent hotel on Queensland's Main Beach, she bid goodbye to her camp BFF Ola Jordan and her husband James

'Ive genuinely loved every moment of it': She was the fifth evictee from the show, but despite the hardships in the camp she gushed about her wonderful experience during her exit speech

Having a grand time: Speaking about her time in the camp, she said: 'It was a lot nicer than I expected. We were a team'

As she left the opulent hotel on Queensland's Main Beach, she bid goodbye to her camp BFF Ola Jordan and her husband James.

Carol ended up in eight place in this year's competition, which Scarlett Moffatt eventually won.

She was the fifth evictee from the famed jungle camp, but despite the hardships in the camp she gushed about her wonderful experience during her exit interview.

'Ive genuinely loved every moment of it,' gushed Carol as she sipped on bubbly whilst watching her best bits on the show last week.

Speaking about her time in the camp, she said: 'It was a lot nicer than I expected. We were a team. Ive watched it for years and there's always one niggler who starts arguments, but it's been a lovely camp this year!'
COLUMBUS  A South Dakota man was sentenced to two years of probation on drug possession charges stemming from an April traffic stop when he and another South Dakotan were hauling nearly 2 pounds of marijuana and three loaded handguns through Columbus.

Dean Pitchford, 25, of Freeman, South Dakota, was convicted of two counts of possession of a controlled substance in connection with the April 9 traffic stop at the intersection of 33rd Avenue and 23rd Street.

Platte County District Court Judge Robert Steinke granted co-defendant Tylor Ihnen, 28, a delay in sentencing on similar charges until Dec. 16. Ihnen, also of Freeman, is scheduled to undergo surgery on his hand late last week.

In exchange for the defendants pleas, the Platte County Attorneys Office reduced one of the drug charges against each defendant from possession with intent to deliver while carrying a firearm, a Class II felony that carries a penalty of up to 50 years behind bars.

The possession charges are Class IV felonies, each punishable by a maximum of two years imprisonment.

Court documents describe a Columbus Police investigation that was initiated about 10:15 a.m. April 9 when Officer Troy Urkoski observed a maroon Ford Freestyle with South Dakota license plates run the stoplight at 33rd Avenue and 23rd Street.

As the officer approached the car, Urkoski wrote in his probable cause arrest statement, he saw the driver (Ihnen) drop a small baggie into his lap and quickly conceal it between his legs. The officer then called for backup.

While speaking with Ihnen, I could smell the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle, Urkoski wrote in his statement. Police said the South Dakotans were returning from a trip to Colorado, where recreational use of marijuana is legal.

During a subsequent search of the vehicle, police seized 1.93 pounds of marijuana, a pot plant, growing apparatus and drug paraphernalia. Police also found THC-laced candies and three handguns, one under the front seat, one in a side door and one concealed under blankets on the rear seat.
A week ago, she set fire to the 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show catwalk in Paris.

And on Monday, Stella Maxwell was seen making the streets of New York her runway as she strutted her way to the annual viewing party at the Highline Stages event venue.

The 26-year-old Belgian beauty showcased her impossibly long legs in a VERY high cut dress as she joined the other Angels to watch the highly anticipated show.

Strut: Stella Maxwell, 26, looks like a Grecian goddess on her way to a 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show viewing party

The model wore an alluring white lace dress that featured a bodysuit cut and swept behind her to reveal her shapely, lengthy thighs and legs.

The little number was mostly covered by a black coat that hid her lithe body from the NYC chill.

Her legs were further accentuated by a sexy pair of strappy, dazzling silver five-inch heels.

Looking chic: Maxwell - who formerly dated Miley Cyrus - opted for a sleek, slicked-back straight hairstyle with two plaits on either side of her hair

Maxwell - who formerly dated Miley Cyrus - opted for a sleek, slicked-back straight hairstyle with two plaits on either side of her hair.

Her makeup was dewy and golden and displayed a pop of white eye shadow that emphasized the blonde bombshell's striking blue eyes.

All she held on to was her iPhone as she strutted her way towards the viewing party looking airy and fresh.

Angelic: Stella, who's been voted Hottest Woman of 2016 by Maxim Magazine, rocked the runway in pale yellow lingerie

Stella, who's been voted Hottest Woman of 2016 by Maxim Magazine, rocked the runway in pale yellow lingerie.

A barely-there skirt and suspenders set made of brown suede and embroidered flowers was wrapped around her slim waist.

Her wings were made up of long brown decorative feathers, and she looked as leggy as ever as she donned lace-up pointed toe brown booties.

The Max Factor spokeswoman joined her fellow runway trotters such as Martha Hunt, Taylor Hill, Jasmine Tookes, Elsa Hosk and Devon Windsor at the venue in New York to watch themselves slaying the iconic runway.

Blonde bombshells: Models Martha Hunt and Elsa Hosk attend the fashion show viewing party along with Maxwell

Angel in pink: Taylor Hill looked sweet and stylish as she made her way to the viewing party in a pink and silver lace and mesh getup

Stella recently made headlines when she appeared in LOVE Magazine's Video Advent 2016, in which she re-enacted Margot Robbie's seductive 'Morning Ritual' scene from The Wolf of Wall Street.

The short clip, directed by Phil Poynter, sees the bronzed beauty put on quite the show, her dress slipping down to reveal a lace bra.

Victoria's Secret model Stella made her LOVE Advent debut last year and is back by popular demand.
She's got a familial connection to French fashion house Chanel.

And Lily-Rose Depp, 17, followed in her model mother Vanessa Paradis' footsteps as she modelled the chic brand's fashion at the Chanel Collection des Metiers d'Art 2016/17: Paris Cosmopolite on Tuesday.

The teen dazzled in a glitzy gold co-ord set as she made her way between the guests inside the Ritz Paris.

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All that glitters: Lily-Rose Depp, 17, followed in her model mother Vanessa Paradis' footsteps as she modelled the couture brand's fashion at the Chanel Collection des Metiers d'Art 2016/17: Paris Cosmopolite on Tuesday

The eye-catching set boasted a broad-shouldered plunging crop top and a below the knee skirt.

She walked confidently in a pair of small white leather heels, and a red manicure added a pop of colour to proceedings.

The model tied back her brunette tresses with an elaborate navy headpiece and decorated her eyes with a blue two-tone effect.

Gold star: The teen dazzled in a glitzy gold co-ord set as she made her way between the guests inside the Ritz Paris

Lily-Rose covered her lips with a peach shade and alternated between a subtle smile and an expressionless look.

The daughter of Hollywood heavyweight Johnny Depp also modelled a black gothic ensemble.

She teamed a lace veil with a slimline dress which consisted of sheer shoulder straps and a frilly skirt.

Back in black: The daughter of Hollywood heavyweight Johnny Depp also modelled a gothic black ensemble

Vamping up: She teamed a lace veil with a slimline dress which consisted of sheer shoulder straps and a frilly skirt

Lily-Rose's mum Vanessa, 43, was no doubt proud as she watched her daughter walk at the show.

The actress and model swished her lavish black and gold gown, revealing a glimpse of her slender legs, during a photocall at the event.

She showed off the distinctive gap in her teeth as she smiled, and smouldered as she gazed into the lens.

Meanwhile, Lily-Rose's two glamorous looks were far removed from her dressed down appearance when she arrived at the city's Charles de Gaulle airport last week.

Following in her footsteps: Lily-Rose's mum Vanessa, 43, was no doubt proud as she watched her walk at the show

Luxurious: Vanessa swished her lavish black and gold gown, revealing a glimpse of her slender legs

Looking good: Vanessa smouldered as she gazed at the cameras

She kept a low profile in a black hoodie and leather jacket with matching trousers and Adidas kicks.

The young star kept her head down and clutched a pair of headphones as she sauntered through the airport.

Lily has been busy in the last few months promoting new film, Planetarium, which was first unveiled at the Venice Film Festival in September.

Happy! Vanessa showed off the distinctive gap in her teeth as she smiled

Eye-catching: The satin gown had fluffy cuffs and was decorated with gold embroidery

Great from head to toe: Vanessa's heels were just as stunning as her dress, which they complemented perfectly

Starring alongside Oscar winner Natalie Portman, the film follows two sisters who tour 1930s France as mediums.

They cross paths with a visionary French producer while performing in Paris, who is keen to capture them on film - but trouble ensues.

The film was released on November 16 in France.

Walk this way: The young star kept her head down and clutched a pair of headphones as she sauntered through the airport
Katie Maloney and Tom Schwartz insist they were 'blindsided' by Scheana Shay and Mike Shay's split.

The Vanderpump Rules stars appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Monday.

Vanderpump rules: Katie Maloney and Tom Schwartz appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Monday

'It was honestlyit came out of nowhere. We were blindsided,' Tom said.

Apparently they thought that Scheana and Mike were one of the strong ones.

'We all thought they'd be together forever,' Katie said.

No longer: Tom said that they were blindsided by Scheana and Mike's split

They said they were surprised about the break-up because the couple didn't seem like they were having trouble.

'You never know what's going on behind closed doors,' Tom said.

'They seemed happy from outward appearances. It's so fresh.'

Awkward: The pair appeared on the show to play a few games with the host and also dish on their castmates', Scheana Shay and Mike Shay's, split

Blindsided: The reality stars revealed they were shocked about the split

Katie then stepped in and it seemed like she might know a little more than her husband about what's going on as she said: 'It's the best choice.'

Cohen then joked: 'Can't get any more awkward than watching the two of you try and answer that question. I'll tell you that much.'

One of the strong ones: They said they were surprised about the break-up because the couple didn't seem like they were having trouble

The duo also engaged in a game called The Nudley Wed Game whilst they appeared on the Bravo show.

They had to show how well they know their partners by answering a series of questions.

Cheeky: The duo also engaged in a game called The Nudley Wed Game whilst they appeared on the Bravo show

Hallpass! At one point the host asked who Katie's celebrity hallpass was, which her husband got right as he answered Justin Bieber

They had to take an item of clothing off every time they got something wrong.

Jax Taylor, their co-star who works at Sur restaurant, was on hand to help take the items of clothing off.

At one point the host asked who Katie's celebrity hallpass was, which her husband got right as he answered Justin Bieber.

Naughty: They had to take an item of clothing off every time they got something wrong

Tom and Katie have been married for four months and tied the knot at TwentyMileHouse on August 18 in Northern California in front of 120 family and friends members.
His fall from grace was one of the biggest celebrity scandals of 2016.

And now, Olympian Ryan Lochte revealed how he got through the aftermath of his highly publicized false robbery report in Rio.

The 32-year-old had his Playboy model girlfriend and now-fiancee Kayla Rae Reid by his side throughout the ordeal.

Support system: Ryan Lochte, 32, revealed how his fiancee Kayla Rae Reid supported him during the aftermath of the Rio scandal

In an interview with Cosmopolitan, the Olympic swimmer got candid and divulged the sadness he felt after arriving back in the U.S. from Rio.

'I was like, "What am I doing here? I should just die and end this." I was getting death threats,' he recalled, 'It was just the darkest point in my life. I was like, "Im just never going to come out, never."'

Lochte recounted the criticism and hate his then-girlfriend would receive on Instagram.

Sweethearts: The two live in Charlotte, North Carolina with their two dogs

'But she was like, f**k this, I don't care. I'm with you no matter what,' Lochte said admiringly of his 25-year-old fiancee.

Reid is sympathetic to her soon-to-be-husband.

'You train for four freaking years - four years! I don't even know what I'm doing in a week,' she lamented, 'and then you go out and celebrate one night, and one thing happens, and all the walls just come shattering down. You want to get on your knees and just cry and wonder why.'

Hollywood romance: The couple initially met on Tinder, officially meeting in person at Los Angeles night club Bootsy Bellows in January. Here they are pictured leaving Nightingale nightclub in Hollywood

His girlfriend's constant support helped the young athlete decide to propose.

The couple initially met on Tinder, officially meeting in person at Los Angeles night club Bootsy Bellows in January.

For their first date, Lochte took the blonde bombshell to see Justin Bieber perform.

They now live together in Charlotte, North Carolina with their two dogs.

First impression: For their first date, Lochte took the blonde bombshell to see Justin Bieber perform

Reid was the centerfold for Playboy's June 2015 issue, though Ryan admitted he's never even seen it.

'I don't want to see her as just that,' he clarified, 'There's more depth [to her].'

The beauty no longer wants to pursue modeling, saying she's considering writing a cookbook.

A photo posted by KAYLA RAE REID (@kaylaraereid) on Nov 16, 2016 at 10:15am PST

Lochte, who had a short stint on Dancing With the Stars, is planning to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

Though the duo is not sure what's coming up next for them for now, they plan to move to LA to pursue television and film.
She scooped the much-coveted Model Of The Year gong at The Fashion Awards 2016 in London on Monday night.

And Gigi Hadid certainly proved her supermodel worth as she turned heads while returning to her New York apartment after flying back home on Tuesday.

The 21-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel showcased her impossibly lithe frame in a chic multi-coloured biker jacket and tapered trousers.

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Turning heads: Gigi Hadid, 21, rocked a chic multi-coloured biker jacket and tapered trousers, as she returned to her New York apartment on Tuesday

Nailing jetsetter chic, the blonde beauty layered a simple cropped black poloneck underneath her stylish outerwear.

The supermodel added a sports-luxe edge with some black tapered trousers with a blue trim and slung a black doctor's bag from her shoulder.

Keeping it lowkey for the long-haul flight, the girlfriend of Zayn Malik appeared to go make-up free, hiding her pretty features behind some oversized aviator shades.

She was joined by her 52-year-old lookalike mother, The Real Housewives star Yolanda, who looked chic in some pink loafers and a grey tweed jacket.

Taking centre-stage: The blonde beauty ensured all eyes were on her as she headed home

Going incognito: Appearing to go make-up free, the model still looked sensational

Natural look: She scraped her honey-hued tresses into an elegant yet unfussy topknot

Proving their tight bond, Gigi was also getting some support from her mother Yolanda as they posed up a storm at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Monday night.

The beauty stunned in an elaborate silver jumpsuit with a halterneck cut as she cuddled up to her glamorous mother.

Gigi looked incredible in her metallic number, which featured a ballgown style overlay to complement her tailored trousers.

Yolanda was equally dressed to impress in a flattering blue ensemble with a double strap halterneck cut.

Jetsetter chic: She was joined by her mum Yolanda Foster as she jetted out from Heathrow airport earlier that day

Simply stylish: The supermodel added a sports-luxe edge with some black tapered trousers with a blue trim and slung a black doctor's bag from her shoulder

Natural look: Keeping it lowkey for the long-haul flight, the girlfriend of Zayn Malik appeared to go make-up free, hiding her pretty features behind some oversized aviator shades

It was a big night for Gigi since the catwalk stunner beat her younger sister Bella, 19, to the coveted Model Of The Year prize.

The girls have seen their careers go from strength-to-strength in the past year, both walking in the Victoria's Secret Show in Paris.

Gigi took to social media on Tuesday to share an emotional thank you post to the British Fashion Council.

Like mother, like daughter! Gigi was also getting some support from her mother Yolanda as they posed up a storm at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Monday night

Congratulations! The beauty stunned in an elaborate silver jumpsuit with a halterneck cut as she clutched her Model Of The Year award

Alongside a snap of herself with Donatella Versace, she commented: 'To be voted for this award by the @britishfashioncouncil, to stand in front of an audience full of my greatest inspirations, idols, and friends, and to be presented International Model of the Year by my angel @donatella_versace was one of the most humbling and emotional experiences of my life.

'To walk into that room and feel so at home is a great blessing and I have & will cherish every friend, memory, lesson and adventure this industry has given me, forever.

'I can't wait to continue to grow and create with all of you, and to see what the future holds !!

'Make a conscious effort every day to be someone people enjoy working with, and your possibilities will surprise you.'
There may be less than 20 days to go before Christmas but Joanna Lumley is clearly already getting excited for the big day.

The Absolutely Fabulous star was very much in the festive spirit as she switched on the Berwick Street seasonal lights in Soho, London on Tuesday.

The actress, who at 70-years-old looks a great deal younger than her years, enthusiastically pressed a giant button to animate the display.

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Lighting up London: Joanna Lumley looked delighted as she turned on the Berwick Street Christmas lights on Tuesday.

Sporting a furry coat over an black and white shirt with starry design teamed with a dazzling choker, the actress excitedly gestured to the lights after speaking to the assembled crowd.

She also chatted to U.S. actor Harry Shearer, who's best known for his work on The Simpsons.

Earlier this year, the star returned to her role as the hard drinking, hard partying Patsy Stone in the film version of Absolutely Fabulous and will also appear alongside Imelda Staunton and Timothy Spall in dramedy Finding Your Feet.

Press that button: Joanna looked like she was having a great time as she illuminated the London road

Press for success: Joanna prepared for the lights to flash

Ready to mingle: Joanna chatted to Harry Shearer best known for his voice work on The Simpsons

It's magic! Joanna gestured to the light display before making the switch

Still busy as both an actress and campaigner, Joanna says she's proud of her 'national treasure' status.

'I adore it, its the kindest thing in the world,,' she told The Mirror last month. 'It just means people are used to you, and you have been around a long time.'

Meanwhile, in another area of London, presenter Lorraine Kelly looked no less excited to be switching on the University College Hospital lights.

National treasure: Joanna recently said she 'adored' the label

Oh Christmas tree: The Berwick street lights switch on featured a huge festive fir

The big switch: Lorraine Kelly was in charge of turning on the University College Hospital lights

Pick up a penguin: The morning TV host looked festive in her Christmas jumper

Looking casual but festive in a grey sweater adorned with penguins, Lorraine vamped up her outfit a little with the addition of some leather trousers.

Teamed with black boots, Lorraine looked in good spirits as the festive display lit up.

The 57-year-old presenter has also had a busy week, promoting her new fitness DVD Brand New You.
She's no longer part of Made In Chelsea, but Nicola Hughes is still making waves at high-profile events in the capital.

The beauty put on a stylish display as she attended the Faberge Visionnaire DTZ launch event at the Southbank Tower in London on Tuesday.

Nicola tucked a white shirt with vintage ruffled neck and cuffs into a leopard print miniskirt.

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Blonde beauty: She's no longer part of Made In Chelsea, but Nicola Hughes is still making waves at high-profile events in the capital

The former reality star teased a glimpse of her slender pins and finished her outfit with a pair of black over-the-knee boots.

Her golden locks fell down her front from a middle parting, while she applied a glamorous face of makeup with pale pink lips and smokey shadow.

Joining Nicola at the exclusive watch launch were Vogue Williams, Lily Donaldson and Linzi Stoppard to name but a few.

Happy! Her golden locks fell down her front from a middle parting while she applied a glamorous face of makeup with pale pink lips and smokey shadow

Stylish: Nicola tucked a white shirt with vintage ruffled neck and cuffs into a leopard print miniskirt

Model material: Joining Nicola at the exclusive watch launch was Vogue Williams

Glamour girl: Vogue showcased her statuesque frame in a plunging blue minidress with a see-through midsection and over-the-knee black boots

Looking good: Vogue posed with her hand on her hip and a smile on her face

Vogue showcased her statuesque frame in a plunging blue minidress with a see-through midsection and over-the-knee black boots.

Lily wowed in a sophisticated LBD, while she draped a classy black blazer over her shoulders.

Her legs looked endless as she modelled in a pair of teetering strappy heels upon arrival.

Stunning: Lily Donaldson wowed in a sophisticated LBD while she draped a classy black blazer over her shoulders

Picture perfect: The blonde's piercing peepers and plump lips certainly caught the eye

Linzi opted for a gothic-inspired black dress, tights and black heels. The sheer section on her chest was decorated with three pretty pink bows which brightened up her look.

Meanwhile, Nicola's ex Alex Mytton, 25, is preparing to jet off to Barbados on Wednesday with his new girlfriend Lottie Moss, 18.

The Made In Chelsea star and Kate Moss's half-sister have been snapped on a number of dates since they were caught getting intimate at London's Tape nightclub in October.

Dressed to impress: Linzi Stoppard opted for a gothic-inspired black dress, tights and black heels, while Arielle Free's red tresses worked nicely with her all-black ensemble

Work it! Tess Ward went for a similar shirt to Nicola which she teamed with a glossy black miniskirt

Mix of styles: Olivia Inge was another guest who put their faith in an LBD, while Laura Pradelska favoured a navy outfit with a billowing cloak

A source told The Sun: 'They cant wait to get away and spend some quality time away from London.

'It will be their first holiday together so it will be a real test for their relationship.'

The publication reported that the pair will be joined by Alex's castmates Jessica Woodley and Akin Solanke-Caulker.

It's unlikely Irish beauty Nicola will be bothered by their getaway, however, as she told OK! magazine she was on good terms with Alex.

She said: 'Myself and Alex are actually quite good.

'Obviously, originally the break up was quite messy but it's now four months later and we've come to terms with things together.'
She recently wowed on the catwalk at the annual Victoria's Secret spectacle in Paris.

And Lily Donaldson, 29, stunned once again as she attended the Faberge Visionnaire DTZ launch event at the Southbank Tower in London on Tuesday.

The English model caught the eye in a sophisticated LBD which cinched at the middle thanks to a thick leather belt design.

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Legs for days: Lily Donaldson, 29, stunned as she attended the Faberge Visionnaire DTZ launch event at the Southbank Tower in London on Tuesday

She draped a classy black blazer over her shoulders and accessorised with an eye-catching diamond pendant.

Lily's legs looked endless as she modelled in a pair of teetering strappy heels upon arrival.

The blonde beauty smouldered as she delivered her best model pout in front of the cameras.

Picture perfect: The blonde's piercing peepers and plump lips certainly caught the eye

Classy: Lily draped a classy black blazer over her shoulders, perfectly complementing her dress

Photogenic: The blonde beauty smouldered as she delivered her best model pout in front of the cameras

Joining Lily at the exclusive watch launch were Nicola Hughes, Vogue Williams, Lily Donaldson and Linzi Stoppard to name but a few.

Nicola tucked a white shirt with vintage ruffled neck and cuffs into a leopard print miniskirt.

The former reality star teased a glimpse of her slender pins and finished her outfit with a pair of black over-the-knee boots.

Blonde beauty: She's no longer part of Made In Chelsea, but Nicola Hughes is still making waves at high-profile events in the capital

Happy! Her golden locks fell down her front from a middle parting while she applied a glamorous face of makeup with pale pink lips and smokey shadow

Stylish: Nicola tucked a white shirt with vintage ruffled neck and cuffs into a leopard print miniskirt

Model material: Joining Nicola at the exclusive watch launch was Vogue Williams

Glamour girl: Vogue showcased her statuesque frame in a plunging blue minidress with a see-through midsection and over-the-knee black boots

Looking good: Vogue posed with her hand on her hip and a smile on her face

Her golden locks fell down her front from a middle parting, while she applied a glamorous face of makeup with pale pink lips and smokey shadow.

Vogue showcased her statuesque frame in a plunging blue minidress with a see-through midsection and over-the-knee black boots.

Linzi opted for a gothic-inspired black dress, tights and black heels. The sheer section on her chest was decorated with three pretty pink bows which brightened up her look.

Meanwhile, Nicola's ex Alex Mytton, 25, is preparing to jet off to Barbados on Wednesday with his new girlfriend Lottie Moss, 18.

The Made In Chelsea star and Kate Moss's half-sister have been snapped on a number of dates since they were caught getting intimate at London's Tape nightclub in October.

Dressed to impress: Linzi Stoppard opted for a gothic-inspired black dress, tights and black heels, while Arielle Free's red tresses worked nicely with her all-black ensemble

Work it! Tess Ward went for a similar shirt to Nicola which she teamed with a glossy black miniskirt

Mix of styles: Olivia Inge was another guest who put their faith in an LBD, while Laura Pradelska favoured a navy outfit with a billowing cloak

A source told The Sun: 'They cant wait to get away and spend some quality time away from London.

'It will be their first holiday together so it will be a real test for their relationship.'

The publication reported that the pair will be joined by Alex's castmates Jessica Woodley and Akin Solanke-Caulker.

It's unlikely Irish beauty Nicola will be bothered by their getaway, however, as she told OK! magazine she was on good terms with Alex.

She said: 'Myself and Alex are actually quite good.

'Obviously, originally the break up was quite messy but it's now four months later and we've come to terms with things together.'
Amy Schumer wants to make one thing very clear - she couldn't care less about internet trolls.

The 35-year-old fired back against body shamers who called her 'fat' after it was announced she has landed the lead role in an upcoming movie about Barbie.

Amy shared a lengthy post to Instagram along with a photo which showed her clad in a black swimsuit, and also acknowledged her Grammy nods.

'I am strong and proud of how I live my life': Amy Schumer shared this swimsuit photo (which was taken in May) to Instagram on Tuesday as she slammed her haters

'Very very honored to be nominated for 2 Grammys and to be considered to play an important and evolving icon,' she said, before launching into a powerful message.

'Is it fat shaming if you know you're not fat and have zero shame in your game? I don't think so,' Amy went on. 'I am strong and proud of how I live my life and say what I mean and fight for what I believe in and I have a blast doing it with the people I love.

'Where's the shame? It's not there. It's an illusion. When I look in the mirror I know who I am. I'm a great friend, sister, daughter and girlfriend. I'm a badass comic headlining arenas all over the world and making tv and movies and writing books where I lay it all out there and I'm fearless like you can be.'

The Inside Amy Schumer star then thanked her fans for sticking by her and pointed out that if she is receiving this much negativity over a Barbie movie role, then there's something wrong with society.

'Where's the shame? It's not there': The 35-year-old fired back against body shamers who called her 'fat' after it was announced she will star in an upcoming movie about Barbie

'Thanks to everyone for the kind words and support and again my deepest sympathy goes out to the trolls who are in more pain than we will ever understand,' Amy said.

'I want to thank them for making it so evident that I am a great choice. It's that kind of response that let's you know something's wrong with our culture and we all need to work together to change it.

'Anyone who has ever been bullied or felt bad about yourself I am out there fighting for you, for us. And I want you to fight for yourself too! We need to laugh at the haters and sympathize with them.'

Powerful message: Amy, pictured in September, thanked her fans for sticking by her and said if she is receiving this much negativity over a Barbie role, there's something wrong with society

Amy concluded: 'They can scream as loud as they want. We can't hear them because we are getting s**t done. I am proud to lead by example. "I say if I'm beautiful, I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story. I will."'

It was revealed on Friday that the comedian will star in the Barbie film, and it didn't take long for Internet trolls to call her 'fat' and 'obese' and claim she 'better lose a lot of weight for that role'.

Sony's live action film based on the beloved Mattel toy is due out in 2018 and will be set in Barbieland, a world inhabited by the many different versions of the doll.

What a doll: Sony's live action film based on the beloved Mattel toy is due out in 2018, and will see the comedian play a Barbie who is an outcast and not 'perfect enough'

However according to Deadline, Amy's Barbie - who isn't 'perfect enough, is a bit eccentric and doesnt quite fit the mould' - is an outcast.

She then goes on an adventure in the real world, before returning to save her hometown, armed with the knowledge that real beauty is on the inside, and the key to happiness is freeing oneself from an unattainable standard of perfection.

The site claimed the film had gone through many writers and incarnations, before a funny female empowerment plot caught Amy's eye and she signed on.

The Trainwreck star has meanwhile been nominated for two Grammys: Best Spoken Word Album for The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo and Best Comedy Album for Live At The Apollo.
Kim Kardashian's best friend Brittny Gastineau is launching a new career as an art dealer, after being deluged with requests from friends to 'curate' their collections.

The 32-year-old socialite was speaking during a party held to celebrate the opening of artist Harif Guzman's latest exhibition at art gallery EAST in Miami.

Gastineau, who was in Florida for last weekend's Art BASEL show, also said she was looking forward to spending time with close friend Paris Hilton in New York this week but said she couldn't talk about Kanye West  who was hospitalized after suffering a 'psychotic break'.

Brittny Gastineau who was in Florida for last weekend's Art BASEL show, is launching a new career as an art dealer after curating friends' collections

The 32-year-old spoke to DailyMail.com during a party held to celebrate the opening of artist Harif Guzman's (right) exhibition at art gallery EAST in Miami

'Kanye is an artist who I truly respect and love,' she told DailyMail.com. 'I will always respect his privacy so I can't really say anything else.'

On Hilton, she was more forthcoming, telling DailyMail.com that her old friend is 'super busy' with new projects.

'I love Paris but she is super busy right now,' she said. 'I ran into her at the Grammys last year and we reminisced about the good old days in LA.

'She's a really smart entrepreneur - not many people could build what she's built. She's been working her ass off since day one and I'd love to see her while I'm here.'

Gastineau's mother Lisa was also in Miami for the weekend, while guests at the Miami party - which was hosted by the socialite - included Lady Victoria Hervey and society realtor, Lisa Simonsen.

Gastineau, pictured with Leon 'Starino' Anderson, spent four days touring exhibits in search of new pieces

Guests at the Miami party - which was hosted by the Gastineau - included Lady Victoria Hervey and society realtor, Lisa Simonsen (left)

Simonsen, who hit the headlines last year due to a messy divorce from banker husband Ian Phillips, 64, was accompanied by Charles Atkins, a member of New York's Met Gallery's board.

According to Gastineau, Simonsen is also helping her find a home in New York, where her new business is set to be based.

She said: 'I've been looking for a condo and she raved about a new development that she thinks will be a good fit for me.

'We also talked about collaborating on curating art for her listings. She's one of the top real estate brokers in New York and I would love to work with her.'

Gastineau added: 'I have been an art dealer for my friends for years, so this isn't new to me but this is the first time I've talked about it.

Gastineau, pictured with an unidentified friend, said she was heading to New York

Gastineau (pictured with Guzman, right, and two unidentified men) said she couldn't talk about Kanye West  who was hospitalized after suffering a 'psychotic break' in November

'I was a bit under the radar and used to laugh when people speculated about what I do. There is this perception that I'm just a socialite sipping champagne on the beach in Miami all day.

'But behind the scenes, this is what I've been doing - and I'm loving every minute of it.'

Brittny and Kim together in August

The 32-year-old, who spent four days touring the Art BASEL exhibits in search of new pieces, was without one source of support during her trip - her best friend Kim, 36.

Kim is currently in Los Angeles where she spent last Thursday night throwing a low-key party to mark son Saint's first birthday and husband Kanye's return from hospital.

Kanye, 39, suffered a psychotic breakdown early last week and was taken to hospital handcuffed to a gurney after becoming aggressive with staff at the West Hollywood home of his personal trainer Harley Pasternak.

West's problems are thought to stem from the death of his mother Donda, who passed away in November 2007 following botched cosmetic surgery, and the attack on Kim in Paris in October.

Sources close to the star said he feels 'cursed' and, although recovered enough to leave hospital, is living 'in his head'.

'This [the breakdown] has nothing to with Beyonce,' the insider explained. 'Kanye's in his head right now because he thinks he's cursed.
COLUMBUS  Columbus Police officers were kept busy for more than six hours Monday responding to criminal mischief complaints stretching from Columbus Middle School to businesses along 33rd Avenue and 23rd Street.

Police reports list damages estimated at nearly $2,200 in seven criminal mischief incidents.

The series of incidents began at 6:06 a.m. with a report of a door and windows shot out with a BB gun at Columbus Middle School, 2410 16th St. Damage to the school property was estimated at $1,150.

Other reports followed at Wilke Landscape Center, located at the corner of 18th Street and 33rd Avenue, with a complaint that tires had been slashed. There was no damage estimate in that report.

A third complaint came at 10:26 a.m. with a criminal mischief incident at 2104 16th St. A window was shot with a BB gun, resulting in an estimated loss of $500.

At 10:59 a.m., police received a report of another window shot out with a BB gun at 2409 18th St. The damage was estimated at $500.

Tires were reported slashed at 2805 20th St. and 2800 20th St. Damage was pegged at $200 in one incident and there was no loss amount given for the other.

The rash of criminal mischief reports ended just after 2 p.m. when police were told a window was broken out on a vehicle at the VFW Club, 2720 23rd St. The damage was estimated at $400.

The incidents remain under investigation.
California fire victims identified, criminal probe launched

The death toll from a massive weekend fire at a warehouse near San Francisco shot up to 36 as authorities launched a criminal probe and continued recovery efforts.

Of the 36 victims found so far in the wrecked two-story building that had been converted into an artists collective, 33 have been identified, authorities said.

Three of the deceased are foreign nationals from Finland, Guatemala and South Korea, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern said.

Officials say they expect to recover more human remains from a warehouse in Oakland that went up in flames late Friday, trapping dozens of partygoers attending a rave Nick Otto (AFP)

Most of the casualties at the so-called Ghost Ship building were in their 20s and 30s, and one was a 17-year-old boy.

Among the victims identified was a music therapist, a musician and a teacher, local media reported.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley told reporters that her office had launched an investigation into the blaze to determine whether there is criminal liability and against whom.

"The range of charges could be murder all the way to involuntary manslaughter," she said, adding that the probe could take weeks.

Officials said they expected to recover more remains from the warehouse in Oakland that went up in flames late Friday, trapping dozens of partygoers attending a rave.

But they said they did not expect the death toll to rise significantly.

Firefighters were forced to suspend their search late Sunday for safety reasons, but were able to resume their work early Monday.

"We're no closer to finding a cause and we absolutely believe that the number of fire fatalities will increase," Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said earlier.

Officials warned the recovery work would drag on as firefighters were removing debris "bucket by bucket," moving it to an off-site location to sift through it.

By Monday afternoon, 75 percent of the debris had been removed, officials said.

President Barack Obama expressed sadness over the tragedy, the deadliest in California's modern history.

"While we still don't know the full toll of this disaster, we do know that an American community has been devastated, and many people -- including young men and women with their whole futures ahead of them -- have tragically lost their lives," he said in a statement.

The fire erupted in the back of the warehouse occupied by an arts collective as it hosted a dance party attended by between 50 and 100 people.

It spread quickly through the structure, trapping partygoers whose bodies were found scattered throughout the building's mazelike interior.

Power was cut off in the area for up to 12 hours from midday on Monday to allow crews to bring in a crane to help with cleanup efforts, police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said.

- Fast-moving blaze -

Survivors have spoken of the speed with which the fire spread through the warehouse with people banging on windows when they couldn't escape.

Photographer Chris Nechodom, who was at the dance party, said people first thought the smoke was coming from a fog machine.

"And then it got a little thicker," he said. "It all happened within seconds. We started seeing people running around, frantic and screaming 'Fire!'"

In a macabre indication of what the fire may have done to the bodies, the authorities are asking relatives to preserve hairbrushes and toothbrushes to assist in matching DNA samples.

City officials acknowledged over the weekend that they had received a number of complaints about the warehouse and that inspectors had been there last month but left when no one answered.

Images published online show artwork, pianos and wooden objects throughout the building, which helps explain why the blaze raced through the structure despite firefighters' arrival within minutes.

There were also questions about whether the building was properly equipped with sprinklers or smoke detectors.

Officials said the roof collapsed onto the second floor, which was connected to the ground floor only by a makeshift stairway made of wooden pallets and plywood.

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 100 people.

California warehouse fire Sophie RAMIS (AFP)
Roman Polanski: Polish Supreme Court rejects extradition to US

Poland's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a bid to extradite Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski to the United States, where he faces sentencing over a decades-old case of statutory rape.

The 83-year-old French-Polish national did not attend the hearing but got the news via text message from his lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz, who told reporters: "We're very happy."

"We hope one day it will be over in the United States," Stachowicz added.

Roman Polanski is still wanted in the United States for sentencing over the 1977 statutory rape of Samantha Gailey after a photo shoot in Los Angeles GUILLAUME SOUVANT (AFP/File)

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro had appealed to the court in May to overturn a 2015 ruling against extraditing Polanski, saying no one should be above the law.

The Supreme Court "is dismissing the appeal," said Judge Michal Laskowski, definitively ending Poland's part in the 1977 case.

Laskowski stressed that the Warsaw court's role was not to rule on the merits of the case but rather to make sure due process had been followed by the lower court.

"We did not find a flagrant violation of the law," he said alongside his two fellow judges.

He added however there were circumstances with no legal bearing that were hard to ignore completely: "More than 38 years have passed since the incident. The victim in this case publicly forgave Roman Polanski. He paid her the monetary damages she requested."

The government appeal had appeared to be part of what the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) government, which took office a year ago, touts as a moral revolution in strongly Catholic Poland.

- 'Avoiding double standards' -

Polanski is still wanted in the United States for sentencing over the 1977 statutory rape of Samantha Gailey after a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

He was arrested after Gailey, now Geimer, accused him of forcing her to have sex after drugging her.

She was 13 at the time. Polanski was 43.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, as part of a plea bargain under which he served 42 days in detention while undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

But in 1978, convinced that a judge was going to scrap the deal and hand him a hefty prison sentence, Polanski fled for France.

In 2009 he was arrested in Switzerland on a US extradition request and spent 10 months under house arrest before Bern rejected the US order.

The US then asked Poland to extradite Polanski in January 2015, but the local court in the city of Krakow rejected the demand the following October.

"Had Poland accepted the US extradition request, it would have violated the rights of Mr Polanski and at the same time the European Convention on Human Rights," judge Dariusz Mazur said at the time.

The Krakow court was critical of the original US investigation into the filmmaker's case, saying US judges and prosecutors had flouted "the rules of a fair trial".

But after the PiS came to power in November 2015 and Ziobro became justice minister, he announced a review of the decision, saying he wanted to "avoid double standards".

Ziobro said he respected the Supreme Court decision but added: "Sexual offences against minors should be pursued all the way, regardless of who committed them and when."

- 'Grotesque case' -

Geimer published a book in 2013, saying she was made to drink champagne and given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson.

The mother-of-three said in her book she has forgiven him.

"My family never asked that Polanski be punished. We just wanted the legal machine to stop."

Polanki's French lawyer Herve Temime told AFP he was "delighted by this decision which puts an end to a grotesque case."

Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish Jewish parents, Polanski moved to Poland with his family before World War II.

When he was eight, the Nazis arrested his parents and sent them to concentration camps. His mother never returned.

He went on to win acclaim for his 1962 feature debut in Poland, "Knife in the Water", before arriving in Hollywood in 1968 to shoot his first big international hit, "Rosemary's Baby".

The following year his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, and four friends were murdered by cult leader Charles Manson and his followers.

Polanski now lives in France with his third wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, but he often visits Poland.

He has yet to return to the United States, however, not even in 2003 to pick up an Oscar for best director for his harrowing Holocaust drama, "The Pianist" -- one of his eight Academy Awards.
Torture rampant in China's 'shuanggui' system: HRW

China's parallel justice system for Communist Party members relies heavily on torture and is "abusive and illegal", Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday, calling for it to be abolished.

The 88 million members of the country's ruling party are subject to an internal justice system known as "shuanggui", which operates without oversight from judicial authorities and has been increasingly criticised by China's legal community.

More than 15 officials have reportedly died from abuses in "shuanggui" since 2007.

Since coming to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping has presided over a much-publicised drive against corruption that has punished more than one million officials in what some say resembles a political purge - (AFP/File)

Since coming to power, President Xi Jinping has presided over a much-publicised drive against corruption that has punished more than one million officials in what some compare to a political purge.

"President Xi has built his anti-corruption campaign on an abusive and illegal detention system," said Sophie Richardson, HRW's China director.

She called for its abolition as a "first urgent step" towards restoring confidence in China's legal system. "Political parties in a one-party state should not run their own detention systems."

A report released Tuesday, based on analysis of court verdicts, media reports and interviews with former detainees and their family members, details the abuses of the system.

Typically, "shuanggui" subjects disappear without warning and are held in unofficial detention facilities until they "confess" to corruption. Then they are brought into the criminal justice system and convicted.

Tactics used to extract confessions include prolonged sleep deprivation, food and water deprivation, severe beatings, being forced into stress positions for extended periods of time and threats to family members, among others.

One former detainee detailed how he was forced to invent stories of his crimes. "They made me make it up. I had to make it up - if I didnt, theyd beat me."

Another was made to stand and sit in alternating endless 12 hour shifts, saying "my legs became swollen, and my buttocks were raw and started oozing pus."

One Beijing-based lawyer described the case of a client who was given only an hour a sleep a day and was forced to spend the rest of his time balancing a book on his head.

After eight days, he "confessed to everything and to whatever they said", the lawyer explained.

"At that point his feet were swollen like an elephants and he could no longer urinate."

Chinese courts have a conviction rate of 99.92 percent.

"The courts function as rubber stamps, lending credibility to an utterly illegal Communist Party process," said Richardson.

In October a key meeting of the Communist Party called for stricter control over its members, promising to strengthen internal curbs on their behaviour.

Newly issued rules after the conclave further tighten ideological controls that have already increased dramatically under Xi.
Russia says OPEC, non-OPEC countries to discuss oil cuts

Russia's energy ministry said Tuesday that OPEC and non-OPEC members would meet in Vienna Saturday following a decision to cut global oil output.

The ministry told AFP that Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak would be taking part in the meeting, which comes after Moscow said it was ready to reduce crude output by 300,000 barrels a day in the first half of 2017.

After months of disagreement, OPEC members last week hammered out a deal to cut oil output for the first time in eight years.

OPEC members last week hammered out a deal to cut oil output for the first time in eight years JOE KLAMAR (AFP/File)

The agreement ended weeks of uncertainty and volatility on crude markets as the key players bickered over who would shoulder the biggest burden of the cuts.

Oil prices shot up on the announcement, which was more ambitious than many analysts had expected.

Prices reached a 16-month high over OPEC's announcement of the meeting late Monday but quickly dipped overnight as the lustre of OPEC's decision to cut production faded.

On Tuesday at 0830 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down 39 cents on the day at $51.40, while Brent North Sea crude had dropped 31 cents to $54.63.

With crude prices above $50 dollars, US shale oil producers are dusting off dormant oil rigs as they gear up to raise production which could lessen the impact of any OPEC cuts.

"The price action speaks to me of a market that lacks conviction and momentum," said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.

"As reality bites in a world awash with oil, producing countries will have to show some meaningful backbone on compliance, for probably the first time ever, to achieve the meaningful rally in oil prices that they so desire."

Some analysts say that last week's deal will likely be finalised at Saturday's meeting but doubts over its implementation remain.

"Reports that the group once again increased output in November will raise fresh scepticism," analysts from Accendo Markets said.

Novak has called on Russia's oil companies to slash output to comply with the decision.

By cutting 300,000 barrels a day, Russian will produce some 10.9 million barrels a day -- a figure higher than when Russia had attempted to agree on a production freeze with OPEC members in the spring.
Assad confident as rebels lose more ground in Aleppo

President Bashar al-Assad said a victory for his army in Aleppo would be a "huge step" towards ending the country's five-year civil war, as rebels in Syria's second city lost more ground.

In an interview with Syrian daily Al-Watan, published Thursday, Assad said defeating the beleaguered rebels in Aleppo would not put an end to Syria's conflict.

"It's true that Aleppo will be a win for us, but let's be realistic -- it won't mean the end of the war in Syria," Assad said.

Syrian pro-government soldiers patrol the Uwaija neighborhood as they advance in Aleppo's rebel-held areas George Ourfalian (AFP)

"But it will be a huge step towards this end."

In a blistering three-week offensive, Syrian government forces have seized about 80 percent of east Aleppo, a stronghold for rebel groups since 2012.

Increasingly cornered in a pocket of territory in the city's southeast, opposition factions on Wednesday called for an "immediate five-day humanitarian ceasefire".

When asked about the possibility of a truce in Aleppo, Assad said, "it's practically non-existent, of course".

"The Americans in particular are insisting on demanding a truce, because their terrorist agents are now in a difficult situation," Assad told Al-Watan.

US Secretary of State John Kerry held fresh talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Germany Wednesday but no breakthrough emerged on efforts to halt the fighting in the devastated city.

"We intend to meet again (Thursday) morning," Kerry said after the meeting.

Asked at the start of the session about Russia's agreement for an eventual ceasefire, Lavrov said: "I am in agreement, and I confirm support for the American proposal of December 2," referring to a meeting with Kerry in Rome at which they agreed on a plan to evacuate civilians and rebels from east Aleppo and on on new cease fire.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights 19 civilians were killed in the regime bombardment of east Aleppo on Wednesday.

- 'Complete elimination of terrorism' -

Save the Children Syria Director Sonia Khush said tens of thousands of children in Aleppo have become "sitting targets".

"It defies belief that after nearly six years of suffering through this war, the international community is still willing to stand by as civilians are bombed with seeming impunity," she added.

Assad said a rebel loss in Aleppo "will mean the transformation of the course of the war across Syria" and would leave opposition factions and their backers with "no cards left to play".

Aleppo was once known as the beating heart of culture and commerce in Syria, but the outbreak of violence there four years ago left it divided between rebels in the east and government forces in the west.

In his wide-ranging interview, Assad pledged to fight rebels even beyond Aleppo, because "the war in Syria will not end until after the complete elimination of terrorism".

"Terrorists are present elsewhere -- even if we finish with Aleppo, we will continue our war against them," he said.

- 'Only available solution' -

Assad touted local agreements between his government and rebel groups as the best way to resolve Syria's complex conflict.

Such deals have seen opposition fighters quit a string of towns around Damascus in recent months, often in exchange for an end to regime bombardment.

"It is the only available solution, in parallel with striking the terrorists. Its success has been proven over the past two to three years, and is now speeding up," Assad told Al-Watan.

He said these agreements had protected Syrian civilians and infrastructure and allowed former rebels to "return to the bosom of the state. What more could we want?"

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with widespread demonstrations but has since turned into a brutal multi-front war drawing in world powers.

Many Western countries cut ties with Damascus in 2011 and have imposed crippling economic sanctions, but Assad said he remained open to better relations with them.

"We really do want ties with every country in the world, including the West, despite our previous knowledge of their hypocrisy."

Rebels in Aleppo have called for a truce Sophie Ramis, Simon Malfatto, Valentina Breschi, Frederic Bourgeais (AFP)

The Syrian regime launched its offensive to retake all of east Aleppo on November 15 George Ourfalian (AFP/File)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the United States of backtracking over a rebel pullout from Syria's Aleppo to "buy time" for those battling leader Bashar al-Assad Natalia Kolesnikova (AFP)
Obama: Terror fight needs coalitions, no 'false promises'

President Barack Obama on Tuesday used his final address on global terror to defend his approach to the fight, calling for coalition-building to continue battlefield successes while rejecting the use of torture.

Highlighting the lines drawn during his eight years as commander in chief, Obama did not mention Donald Trump by name, but he clearly addressed his successor, who has yet to spell out his own counterterrorism strategy.

"Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat," Obama said.

US President Barack Obama ordered the successful raid against Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 Luka Conzalez (AFP)

"And we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained."

Obama claimed a clear break from the strategy under former president George W. Bush, highlighting the withdrawal of most US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, from 180,000 to about 15,000 today. That number also includes advisors in Syria.

"Instead of pushing all of the burden onto American ground troops, instead of trying to mount invasions wherever terrorists appear, we've built a network of partners," he said.

Obama also defended his approach to fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, much of it centered around an intense air strike campaign directed from MacDill Air Force Base.

The installation, where the president gave his speech, houses the headquarters of US Special Operations Command and CENTCOM, the US military's command for operations stretching from the Gulf to Central Asia.

The jihadist group that wants to establish a "caliphate" straddling the two countries has lost "more than half" its territory, Obama said.

"ISIL has lost control of major population centers. Its morale is plummeting. Its recruitment is drying up. Its commanders and external plotters are being taken out, and local populations are turning against it."

Obama, who authorized the strike to take out Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said that the group was now "a shadow of its former self."

- 'Greatest strength' -

Obama stressed that the fight against terror should not come at the expense of civil rights and American democratic traditions.

"We need the wisdom to see that upholding our values and adhering to the rule of law is not a weakness. In the long term, it is our greatest strength," he said to sustained applause.

Trump, who has pledged to upend his predecessor's entire agenda including foreign and security policy, takes over in the White House in just over six weeks.

He has not yet announced a nominee to head the State Department and has been vague at best about how he plans to defeat IS, but on the campaign trail he insisted that America must be "unpredictable" in order to win.

Obama touched on issues like torture that had provoked controversy during Trump's White House run. The 44th president had banned extreme CIA interrogation techniques used on terror detainees as soon as he took office.

"We prohibited torture everywhere at all times and that includes tactics like waterboarding," he said.

"And at no time has anybody who has worked with me told me that doing so has cost us good intelligence."

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to restore waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning widely regarded as torture -- and permit "far, far worse."

But since his election, he seems to be softening his views -- a change that may reflect the influence of his nominee to head the Pentagon, retired marine general James Mattis.

- Long-term threat -

Still, the threat of global terror will remain an issue "for years to come," Obama said.

He cautioned that extremists do not represent American Muslims, and that the US should never impose a religious test on its people, a reference to another controversial Trump campaign proposal.

"We're a nation that believes freedom can never be taken for granted. And that each of us has a responsibility to sustain it, the universal right to speak your minds and to protest against authority, to live in a society that's open and free, that can criticize our president without retribution."
South Africa GDP growth slows further to 0.2 percent

South Africa's economic growth slowed in the third quarter to 0.2 percent, figures showed Tuesday, highlighting the risk of a damaging credit rating downgrade next year.

The country was granted a reprieve in recent weeks when rating agencies did not drop it into "junk" investment category, but they warned of the impact of poor growth.

"The agriculture industry posted its seventh consecutive quarter of economic decline, on the back of one of the worst droughts in recent history," Statistics South Africa said in a statement.

Standard & Poor's rating agency maintained South Africa's foreign currency debt status one notch above junk status, and kept its negative outlook Stefan Heunis (AFP/File)

It added that manufacturing and trade had also contracted, contributing to the reduced 0.2 percent annualised growth rate, which was slightly below expectations.

Standard & Poor's rating agency on Friday maintained South Africa's foreign currency debt status one notch above junk status, and kept its negative outlook.

Rumbling political frictions erupted again last week when President Jacob Zuma beat back an attempt by at least four ministers to oust him from power.

The rebellion was the most serious threat to the president since he took office in 2009.

Zuma has been engulfed by graft scandals, while South Africa's economic growth has fallen and unemployment hit a 13-year high.

Efforts to avoid junk status have been at the centre of wrangling for months, with Zuma at loggerheads with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a reformist widely respected among international investors.
Sick abandoned in crippling Kenyan doctors' strike

Sick Kenyans were turned away from hospitals and patients left stranded in their wards as a crippling strike by doctors and nurses demanding pay rises entered a second day Tuesday.

Several patients have died as a result of lack of care in public hospitals, many of which are completely unstaffed. Kenyans have been directed to private clinics that are unaffordable to the majority of the population.

"We have had a lot of patients leaving our facility because we have no services offered due to the ongoing strike," said David Mukabi, the superintendent in charge of Busia hospital in western Kenya.

Unions in Kenya are demanding a 300-percent pay rise for doctors and 25- to 40-percent pay rise for nurses that they say was agreed upon in a 2013 collective bargaining agreement Boniface Mwangi (AFP/File)

He said a 24-year-old patient had died on Monday night as a result of the walk-out.

Meanwhile the deaths of two women at the Port Victoria Hospital in western Budalangi on Monday and three patients in Mombasa on Tuesday, were attributed to the strike.

"The strike is to blame because the patient who is my sister was in a good condition and was improving," said Steven Mwaura, whose sister died of meningitis.

Local media reported instances of patients who had suffered burns or were in labour being left stranded in front of hospitals.

At one hospital in western Kenya a security guard had to help a woman give birth, while in another an orphaned child was left alone in an empty ward with no parents to organise her transfer, The Standard daily reported.

On Monday more than 100 patients escaped from Kenya's only psychiatric hospital in the capital Nairobi as the strike started, police commander Japheth Koome told AFP.

- 'Billions are shamelessly stolen' -

Unions are demanding a 300-percent pay rise for doctors and 25- to 40-percent pay rise for nurses that they say was agreed in a 2013 collective bargaining agreement, but has yet to be implemented.

A statement on Tuesday said the government "deeply regrets" the strike and "deeply values" Kenya's medical workers.

However, Ouma Oluga, secretary general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists' Union (KMPPDU), said government officials did not show up to a meeting with striking workers at the health ministry on Tuesday afternoon.

"The government of Kenya will either have to pay doctors or will have none of them," Oluga said.

Poor salaries and working conditions have led to an exodus of Kenyan doctors to other African countries and further afield, prompting the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) to warn of "catastrophe" in the health sector in 2014.

According to COTU, Kenya has roughly 3,300 doctors in public health centres for a population of some 40 million.

"With a starting salary of about 40,000 shillings ($400, 365 euros) doctors are among the poorest paid public workers, yet they offer a critical service," said an editorial in the Daily Nation.

"It is appalling that Kenya cannot pay its doctors a decent salary, while billions are shamelessly stolen from the public coffers."

Many Kenyans took to social media to express their support for the strike, pointing to scandals in the corruption-plagued country in which millions of dollars have been embezzled or disappeared, while doctors battle to secure wage increases.
Israeli far right hails bill to legalise settler homes

Israeli far-right politicians on Tuesday welcomed initial approval of a bill to legalise some 4,000 settler homes in the West Bank, calling it a step towards annexation of most of the Palestinian territory.

The bill was given preliminary approval by parliament late on Monday despite a chorus of international criticism that it was an illegal land grab with dangerous implications for Middle East peace.

The bill must pass three more votes in parliament before it becomes law, with the first likely to be held on Wednesday.

The international community considers all settlements in the West Bank, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, to be illegal, whether they are authorised by the government or not Thomas Coex (AFP/File)

Preliminary approval had been expected following an agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a right-wing rival, though Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has said he will not be able to defend it before the courts.

The bill has severely tested Netanyahu's coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history.

Strong supporters of the bill, including those who outright oppose a Palestinian state, rejoiced in the initial vote and said they hoped it could lead to eventual Israeli annexation of most of the occupied West Bank.

The bill's main backer, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, said Israel should tell its international allies that it was in the West Bank to stay.

An agreement between Netanyahu and Bennett has allowed the bill to move forward.

"It's time to say: 'Friends, we plan on staying in Maale Adumim, the Jordan Valley and Ofra and Ariel forever, because this is our land,'" he told army radio, naming settlement areas, some of them deep inside the West Bank.

Bennett has advocated annexing most of the territory, like other Israeli religious nationalists who point to the Jewish connection to the land from biblical times.

"With this law, the state of Israel has moved from the path leading to the creation of a Palestinian state to the path leading to (Israeli) sovereignty" over most of the West Bank, Bennett said on Monday.

Others from his party voiced similar sentiments, with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked saying the bill was "deepening our hold on our beloved land."

Netanyahu says he still supports a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

- 'Most dangerous law' -

The international community considers all settlements in the West Bank, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, to be illegal, whether they are authorised by the government or not.

The Israeli government distinguishes between those it has approved and those it has not.

The UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, warned of the bill's implications.

He said it "has the objective of protecting illegal settlements and outposts built on private Palestinian property in the West Bank".

"If adopted, it will have far-reaching legal consequences for Israel, across the occupied West Bank and will greatly diminish the prospect of Arab-Israeli peace," Mladenov said.

Walid Assaf, the Palestinian minister responsible for monitoring Israeli settlements, called the bill "the most dangerous law issued by Israel since 1967."

Israeli occupied the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967 and subsequently annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.

Speaking on Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal.

He said "more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current government have publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state and that there will be no Palestinian state."

The agreement that has led to the bill moving forward saw a wildcat Jewish outpost in the West Bank, known as Amona, removed from its provisions.

Amona, where around 40 families live, is under a court order to be evacuated by December 25 since it was built on Palestinian land.

Some members of Netanyahu's coalition said they could not support the bill if Amona remained part of it because of the court ruling against it.

The agreement will instead see Amona residents temporarily moved to nearby land that Israeli officials describe as abandoned.

Human rights groups, however, say that land too is owned by Palestinians and that the move would violate international law.

According to settlement watchdog Peace Now, the bill, excluding Amona, would legalise some 3,881 housing units.

Most of the homes are in Israeli-approved settlements but were built on Palestinian land. Around 750 are located in outposts which Israel has not yet approved, Peace Now says.

Kerry said there are currently around 100 wildcat outposts in the West Bank and the bill would give retrospective Israeli approval to 54 of them.

Some 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, excluding east Jerusalem. The territory is home to around 2.6 million Palestinians.

A bill to legalise some 4,000 settler homes in the West Bank has severely tested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, seen as the most right-wing in Israeli history Ronen Zvulun (Pool/AFP/File)
COLUMBUS  The idea of consolidating the Columbus Police Department and Platte County Sheriff's Office 911 dispatch services has been bouncing around for years without a lot of concrete action.

A lot of fingers have been pointed at different parties for slowing what is already a complicated process.

But that will have to change, as both departments need to update their equipment by the end of 2017. If they consolidate, they need to combine two different systems for logging calls and agree on new equipment and software, a location for the dispatch center and training.

A final decision on whether to consolidate will need to be made sooner rather than later.

Platte County Supervisor Jim Scow credited former Columbus City Administrator Joe Mangiamelli with initially suggesting the consolidation idea.

Mangiamelli was involved with the consolidation of the city of Omaha and Douglas County dispatch services while working in the Omaha mayors office. Scow, Mangiamelli and Columbus City Councilman Charlie Bahr have been members of the E911 Technical Committee pushing for consolidation.

In 2012, the city and county hired the consulting firm GeoComm Inc. to assess the feasibility of consolidating. The study was paid for with Department of Homeland Security funds. The report recommended an independent, consolidated dispatch service, not controlled by either the police department or sheriffs office, but by a carefully crafted governance structure (that) will ensure that both agencies, along with other public safety agencies in the county, have an active role in the governance.

The report said a consolidated facility may not save money, but it would improve the quality of service, particularly when a call comes into the police department and needs to be relayed to the sheriff's office.

The top reason for doing this is service, said Scow. Hopefully down the road there will be savings, but we can't sell it on savings.

Some city officials voiced skepticism during a discussion in February 2013. Police Chief William Gumm said at that time the current system works well and he didnt see an advantage in changing it.

A few funding models were suggested, including a tax levy split 70 percent to city residents  since 70 percent of 911 calls are from within the city  and 30 percent to county residents.

The council passed a resolution for the E911 Committee to further investigate the costs and other possible issues. The committee traveled to counties that have already consolidated with cities, such as Hall, Sarpy, Saunders, Buffalo and Douglas, to see different models for how the consolidation could work.

We can see that it works, no matter where it is, said Bahr.

Bahr said Prochaska & Associates, the Omaha firm hired to complete a feasibility study for a proposed joint fire/police station, will analyze the possibility of including a combined dispatch center in that facility.

But the issue hasnt been discussed by the city council in more than a year.

It could have advanced sooner, but it didnt happen, said Mangiamelli, who left his position in Columbus last week after getting hired as the Bellevue city administrator. If (the committee) thinks its the right time, its the time for this to happen.

Scow and Bahr also attributed the delay to the sheriffs office and police department being reluctant to change the current system or cede control over their dispatch service.

Columbus Police Capt. Todd Thalken said they've received mixed or unclear messages about the project, and the committee hasn't addressed all of the concerns.

There has to be some consensus by the decision-makers, said Thalken.

On the county side, the supervisors approved a resolution in May 2015 supporting a combined 911 dispatch center inside the Nebraska Public Power District headquarters, a space already designed to withstand severe weather.

It would be expensive to recreate, said Scow, adding that he believes it's smarter to rent space from NPPD rather than build a new facility.

The city council never took formal action on the county resolution, deciding in September 2015 that more research was needed before a vote.

In October, county board members voiced their frustration with the lack of progress on the proposal from the city after Platte County Sheriff Ed Wemhoff reported Merrick County is interested in a possible dispatch merger.

Mayor Jim Bulkley voted against pursuing the dispatch consolidation as a city council member in February 2013, but said Friday he wants an updated proposal brought to the city council.

I think we will need to because of the urgency, Bulkley said. 2017 is right around the corner.

Hed also like to know if the initial report's finding that a joint facility won't save money is still true today.

Maybe things have changed, Bulkley said.

Mangiamelli is drafting a road map for consolidation he will deliver to Bahr and Scow in the coming weeks. Once theyve had a chance to review the plan with the E911 Committee, the elected officials will take the next step.

Scow sees a partnership between the county and city as the first step in a larger collaboration with other counties. In addition to Merrick, Scow said Platte County has been approached by Colfax and Polk counties about providing dispatch services for them.

But first, Scow said, Platte County and the city need to figure their system out.

If we put this together the right way and if it works for us the way it could and should, my feeling is we'll have other counties come to us and want to be part of our organization," Scow said.
Philippine police murdered mayor: investigators

Philippine police murdered a town mayor while he was helpless in a jail cell, justice department investigators said Tuesday, contradicting claims by the accused and President Rodrigo Duterte that he was killed in a gunbattle.

The accusations by the National Bureau of Investigation deepened concerns that police were carrying out summary executions as part of Duterte's controversial war on crime, which has claimed more than 5,100 lives in just over five months.

The NBI, equivalent to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, said police shot dead mayor Rolando Espinosa and cellmate Raul Yap last month as they were defenceless in a provincial jail cell.

President Rodrigo Duterte won May elections in a landslide on a promise to kill tens of thousands of criminals to prevent the Philippines from becoming a narco-state Manman Dejeto (AFP/File)

"After conducting an exhaustive investigation of the incidents surrounding the killing of Mayor Espinosa and Yap, the NBI concluded that the testimonies of several witnesses had disputed the claim of an alleged shootout between the (police) operatives and inmates Mayor Espinosa and Raul Yap but (was) a 'rub out'," the NBI said in a statement.

"Rub out" is a local expression, referring to the police killing a suspect and then saying he died in a gunbattle.

"The pieces of evidence, both testimonial and the forensic evidence all agree. We believe we have a very strong case," NBI deputy director Ferdinand Lavin told reporters.

Lavin said the NBI had recommended murder and perjury charges against 24 officers for their alleged role in the killings and subsequent lies.

The justice department will then decide whether to file the murder charges.

- Police under fire -

The accused police had claimed they fired in self-defence at the pair when they went into the jail cell before dawn to carry out a search warrant.

The police alleged Espinosa, who was in jail after being arrested in October on drug and gun possession charges, had a firearm and methamphetamine in the cell.

Lawmakers, media groups and human rights advocates had ridiculed that version of events, asking why police had to carry out a search in a jail cell at night and why CCTV footage of the event had disappeared.

They also asked how a man in jail could have a gun and drugs, and why he would shoot at police knowing he was outnumbered.

However Duterte, who has pledged never to let a policeman go to jail for waging his war on crime, repeatedly defended the officers involved.

Duterte had accused Espinosa, mayor of the town of Albuera in the eastern province of Leyte, of being a drug lord.

He had initially given police "shoot-to-kill" orders if Espinosa did not surrender, prompting the mayor to turn himself in.

In a speech late Monday, Duterte defended the police who killed Espinosa and said he believed their version of events.

"Do not force me to believe the theories and assumptions, even with the witnesses, that the mayor was killed (illegally) in the prison," he said.

Duterte had previously signalled he was happy Espinosa had been shot dead.

"You have here a guy, a government employee, using his office and money of government, cooking (illegal drugs) and destroying the lives of so many millions of Filipinos. So what is there for me to say about it?" he said last month.

Duterte's police chief initially stood down the police officer in charge of the raid pending an investigation, but the president immediately reinstated him.

Duterte, 71, won May elections in a landslide on a promise to kill tens of thousands of criminals to prevent the Philippines from becoming a narco-state.

His subsequent war on crime, in which an average of more than 30 people a day are being killed, has led to fears police are carrying out mass extrajudicial killings.
Warner hits century as Australia win New Zealand ODI series

David Warner slammed his sixth one-day century of the year to lead Australia to a crushing 116-run victory against New Zealand on Tuesday as the home side reclaimed the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series.

Warner smashed 119 off 115 balls to propel the Australians to an imposing 378 for five after being sent into bat. They then bowled out the Black Caps for 262 off 47.2 overs at the batting-friendly Manuka Oval.

New Zealand had to win in Canberra to keep alive their hopes of retaining the trophy after losing by 68 runs in the opening game in Sydney on Sunday.

Australia's David Warner celebrates reaching his century against New Zealand in the second one-day international in Canberra on December 6, 2016 SAEED KHAN (AFP)

Warner led the way in Australia's third-highest ODI total and was supported by skipper Steve Smith's 72 off 76 balls and Travis Head's 57 from 32 balls, while Mitchell Marsh bludgeoned seven sixes in a unbeaten 76 off just 40 balls.

The Black Caps made a spirited attempt to chase Australia's hefty total and were 177 for three when Jimmy Neesham fell in the 31st over for 74, ending a 125-run stand with skipper Kane Williamson.

Williamson was dismissed nine overs later for 81 off 80 balls with five fours and two sixes, and with him went New Zealand's faint hopes of reeling in the Australian target.

Williamson's gamble on sending the Australians into bat backfired spectacularly when the home side feasted on a perfect batting wicket.

The pugnacious Warner set the tone with his 10th ODI century -- the third century in his last five ODI innings and his first against New Zealand.

Only three other Australian batsmen have scored more hundreds in ODIs -- Ricky Ponting (30), Mark Waugh (18) and Adam Gilchrist (16).

"It was a fantastic wicket and once you keep wickets in hand you can make 100 runs in the last 10 overs," Warner said.

"It was great batting with the skipper (Smith) and running between the wickets. This year is going great."

Warner was out to a low catch from Williamson at cover off medium-pacer Colin de Grandhomme in the 37th over, ending a 145-run partnership with Smith.

- Steve Smith hit -

Smith followed up his career-best ODI score of 164 in Sydney with 72.

The Australian skipper, who was struck a painful blow in the groin by a de Grandhomme delivery on 56, sliced to Mitchell Santner at deep point.

Head hit his second half-century of the series before he was caught off Tim Southee.

Marsh provided late fireworks with some prodigious hitting, including three consecutive sixes off Matt Henry in a lusty cameo.

Smith said: "A score of 330, 340 runs was probably par, 380 was a big total. You need a lot of things to go right to chase it down."

The Black Caps lost both openers by the ninth over, with Tom Latham caught and bowled by Josh Hazlewood for four and Martin Guptill caught behind off Pat Cummins for 45.

Neesham looked in good touch with 74 off 83 balls before he was caught in the deep by Mitchell Starc off Josh Hazlewood in the 31st over.

James Faulkner got Colin Munro to hole out on 11 to long-on, where Marsh took a safe catch, and Starc had de Grandhomme caught behind for 12.

Williamson was deceived by a Pat Cummins slower ball and found Warner in the covers to leave the Black Caps on 232 for six.

Wickets tumbled among the lower order, with Cummins finishing with four for 41 as Australia cruised to victory ahead of Friday's third and final ODI in Melbourne.

"Australia is one of the best sides in the world and at home they are the best side in the world," Williamson said.

"The 'death' overs really hurt us, and Australia have been showing us how to build partnerships."

Australia's Steve Smith bats against New Zealand in the second one-day international in Canberra on December 6, 2016 SAEED KHAN (AFP)
US exports to China rise; total trade deficit widens in October

The US trade deficit widened in October but remained smaller than a year earlier, and included a big jump in exports to China, especially cars, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

The overall trade gap for the month grew nearly 18 percent to $42.6 billion, an increase of $6.4 billion over the surprisingly low September deficit. The level was about in line with analyst expectations, which forecast $41.8 billion, as the deficit returned to trend.

The gap was 2.1 percent lower than October 2015, and for the year-to-date the trade deficit is tracking about $10 billion lower than the first 10 months of 2015.

For the year-to-date the US trade gap is tracking about $10 billion lower than the first 10 months of 2015 DAVID MCNEW (AFP/File)

However, economists warn that if exports remain soft in the final two months of the year it could create a drag on fourth quarter growth, while the strong dollar will only help boost imports.

Amid a steady stream of tweets from President-elect Donald Trump on China and trade, including threats to slap punitive tariffs on imports, trade with China stood out in the report as US exports to the country reached their highest level since December 2013 at $13 billion.

The deficit with China shrank 4.2 percent to 31.1 billion in the month, in part due to a 27 percent rise in US passenger car exports to $939 million, even while imports from China were at their highest in the past year at $44.3 billion.

For the first 10 months of this year, the deficit with China is $20 billion lower than at the same point of 2015, the data show.

Total US exports fell $3.4 billion to $186.4 billion as sales of soybeans fell 30 percent or $1 billion from the sharp surge in September. Corn exports fell 36 percent. Civilian aircraft engine sales were up nearly 5.0 percent to $3.2 billion but exports of aircraft fell 9.5 percent to $5.3 billion.

Economists say the decline in exports if continued in the fourth quarter will subtract more than half a point from growth, and potentially higher.

"If sustained in November/December, the October levels would result in net exports subtracting about a point from the real GDP growth rate in Q4, after they directly accounted for 0.9 points of the 3.2% growth rate in Q3," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief US economist for High Frequency Economics.

While noting "exaggerated strength in farm exports in Q3," O'Sullivan nevertheless said in a research note that the drag is unlikely to be that big. "Our 2.3% forecast for the Q4 GDP growth rate assumes a 0.6-point drag from net exports."

Mickey Levy of Berenberg Capital Markets also looks for a 0.6-point drag on economic growth in the final quarter of the year, but said economic outlook is improving.

Even so, "foreign trade is a wild card because of the stronger US dollar and uncertainties about the policies of the incoming Trump administration and how they may affect trade," Levy said in a research note.

"For now, the expectation is that the boost in economic activity from likely tax reform, infrastructure spending and an easing of burdensome regulations will stimulate stronger economic growth while increasing the demand for foreign goods and widening the US foreign trade deficit," he said.

The report showed the surplus in services was about steady, with exports of $63.3 billion and imports of $42.4 billion. But the goods deficit remains substantial: exports fell in the month to $123.1 billion while imports rose slightly $186.5 billion.
Syrian army seizes five rebel districts in Aleppo: monitor

Syrian government troops seized five new districts of eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, including the strategic Shaar neighbourhood, a monitoring group said.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fresh advance puts the government in control of more than 70 percent of the former rebel stronghold in Aleppo's east

"Regime forces took full control of Shaar, Dahret Awad, Juret Awad, Karam al-Beik, and Karam al-Jabal," the Britain-based monitor said on Tuesday.

Syrians walk amid debris as a soldier secures the Masaken Hanano neighbourhood in Aleppo, on December 6, 2016 George Ourfalian (AFP)

"The regime is cornering the rebels even further," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Backed by allied militia, Syrian troops have waged a fierce three-week assault on eastern Aleppo, a rebel bastion since 2012.

Their rapid advance has left rebels reeling in their shrinking enclave in southeast Aleppo.

Abdel Rahman told AFP the government could now wage a "war of attrition" on encircled rebel groups.

Syrian state news agency SANA confirmed that Syrian troops overran Shaar and several other districts on Tuesday.

The fall of eastern Aleppo would deal the biggest blow yet to rebel forces since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011.
The Trump and Clinton voters living miles -- and worlds -- apart

The city that calls itself "SPAM Town USA" is a two hours' drive from Minneapolis, one of the largest cities in Minnesota.

Laying claim to the title is Austin, located along the state's southern rolling plains. The food giant Hormel, the maker of SPAM canned meat, employs one in four people here.

This is Trump country.

Paul Meyer, 64, with his cousins Debra Soderberg, 62, and Susan Hays, 50, all Donald Trump supporters, pose in Austin, Minnesota on November 29, 2016 STEPHEN MATUREN (AFP)

But drive just 40 miles (65 kilometers) northeast, to Rochester, and you find a bustling, growing metro area and surrounding rural county -- that voted for Hillary Clinton.

How the two regions, a short distance apart, have diverged politically, is a microcosm of the broader American rift between those thriving in the current economy and those not.

Clinton won Minnesota, a Midwestern state that has voted Democratic in all but two presidential elections since 1932, by a slim margin.

While densely-populated urban pockets such as Rochester voted for Clinton, geographically much of the state voted for Republican Donald Trump, including Austin.

Kyle Keenan, owner of the Coffee House on Main in downtown Austin, thinks he knows why.

"The perception is that he is this person who's going to understand the working class and fix our economy for the manufacturing sector," he said.

- Steeples and wind farms -

Austin is a city of 25,000 people. Arriving by car brings a trio of church steeples into view in the distance. The SPAM Museum is located here.

Outside the city, there are wind farms with tall turbines gently spinning in the constant winds of the plains.

Aside from food processing, people here work to raise livestock, and grow corn and soybeans.

Keenan, whose coffee shop sits on three-block stretch of low-slung buildings with businesses such as Piggy Blue's Bar-B-Que restaurant and Belles and Beaus wedding store, is a Trump skeptic.

But he says he understands the billionaire businessman's appeal for many in his town.

"There's something nostalgic about him, especially for white men, that he's going to bring us back to some safer place where there's some kind of stability, in a world that's changing so fast, with technology taking over," he said.

Paul Meyer, a retired blue-collar worker who lives in Austin, said he voted for Trump because Clinton offered "more of the same." Trump, he said, represented "change and hope."

"He was saying all the right things that I wanted to hear," Meyer said of Trump. "There were a lot of people who were thinking and saying the same things as I was thinking, and that's why this happened."

- 'Left behind' -

While Austin's economy has newly shown sign of improving, with optimistic forecasts for the next decade, the city's recent past has been lackluster.

Job growth has stagnated over the past 10 years, and the average annual wage here is just under $44,000 a year, below the national average.

"The simple conclusion -- and this is consistent with Trump's appeal -- is that the people who largely feel that they've been left behind voted for Trump," said David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University in St. Paul.

By comparison, Rochester feels a world apart.

The city is home to the world-renowned Mayo Clinic hospital and one of technology titan IBM's largest facilities. Rochester and its surrounding county voted for Clinton, albeit by a tiny margin of just 598 out of 77,916 votes cast.

At Cafe Steam, near the Mayo Clinic, business people mixed with surgeons in scrubs and college students poring over books. On the brick walls of the 1800's building hung stained glass, paintings and paper mache.

The economic and cultural divide this presidential election exposed nationwide is on clear display here.

- 'Disgraceful' -

Chelsey Mingone, a 26-year-old with a graphic art degree, voted for Clinton and had trouble understanding that so many others voted for Trump, whose divisive campaign singled out immigrants and Muslims for attack.

"It's embarrassing and disgraceful that our nation would even vote for hatred," she said. "They're trying to upset the system. They see this as a solution to all their problems, but voting for a man who stands for so much hatred and injustice isn't the solution."

In Minnesota -- as was the case nationwide -- urban regions with diversified economies tended to vote for Clinton, and college-educated workers in these areas, who see themselves as part of the global economy, may struggle to understand why rural voters wanted a change in direction, political experts said.

"We really have two political regions in one state now," said Stephen Schier, professor of political science at Carleton College in Minnesota.

"In Rochester, you have growing employment in sectors that are really linked into the international economy, like IBM. People are flying from all over the world to get to Mayo. They aren't flying into Austin, though," he said.

That translates into a sizeable income gap: the additional pay workers receive in Rochester could pay for about a half a year's wage of a mid-level food processing worker in Austin.

Melvin Yunker, a 71-year-old farmer who raises 8,000 hogs with his wife Sharon on their family property outside Austin, said Trump "wants to bring a lot of our jobs back that have gone overseas."

And while many in Austin said that immigration, gun control, abortion and a host of other issues were determining factors in their vote, for most -- like Yunker -- the bottom line is about jobs.

Kyle Keenan, 45, a Hillary Clinton supporter, works behind the counter at The Coffee House in Austin, Minnesota on November 29, 2016 STEPHEN MATUREN (AFP)

A sign reading "Everyone is Welcome" at People's Food Co-op in Rochester, Minnesota on November 29, 2016 STEPHEN MATUREN (AFP)

Chelsey Mingone, 26, a Hillary Clinton supporter and resident of Olmsted County works on her laptop at the Steam Cafe in Rochester, Minnesota on November 29, 2016 STEPHEN MATUREN (AFP)
South African court rules against right-to-die

South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday overturned a ruling that granted a man the right to medically-assisted death and could have opened the way to legalise euthanasia.

Last year, the High Court in Pretoria had ruled that a doctor could help retired advocate Robin Stransham-Ford, 65, who suffered from prostate cancer, to end his life.

Stransham-Ford however died just hours before the court granted the order.

Medically-assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia is illegal in South Africa, but in recent years there have been growing calls for it to be legalised Robyn Beck (AFP/File)

The government appealed against the judgement, saying it could lead to assisted-suicide legislation that would be open to abuse.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) sided with the government as the grounds for granting the order did not exist when it was handed down since Stransham-Ford had already died.

The High Court was not informed of Stransham-Ford's death before its judgement.

The Supreme Court said there had been "no full and proper examination of the present state of our law in this difficulty area" and that the order was made on an "incorrect and restricted factual basis."

"A court addressing these issues needs to be aware of differing cultural values and attitudes within our diverse population," the Supreme Court said in its ruling.

- 'Suffering unbearably' -

Justice Minister Michael Masutha welcomed the appeal victory.

"We are relieved that the SCA correctly stated the law as this decision could have far reaching implications on the constitutionally entrenched right to life and our common law crimes of murder and culpable homicide," he said.

Medically-assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia is illegal in South Africa, but in recent years there have been growing calls for it to be legalised.

Dignity SA, which lobbies for assisted suicide legislation, expressed disappointment at the court's decision.

"The (High) court was ruling on the right of a terminally ill man, who was suffering unbearably at the end of his life," Dignity SA founder Sean Davison told AFP.

"I do not comprehend how anybody could oppose a person like that. This is a human rights issue."

He said the group was considering taking the case to the Constitutional Court.

South African retired Anglican archbishop and anti-apartheid icon Desmond Tutu celebrated his 85th birthday this year saying he would like to be allowed the option of dignified assisted death.

"I have prepared for my death and have made it clear that I do not wish to be kept alive at all costs," Tutu wrote in an article.
Samsung prevails over Apple in $399 mn patent appeal

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a $399 million patent infringement penalty imposed on Samsung for copying Apple's iPhone design, in a case watched for its implications for technology innovation.

The shorthanded justices ruled 8-0 that Samsung should not be required to forfeit the entire profits from its smartphones for infringement on design components, sending the case back to a lower court.

While the ruling was short on specifics, analysts said it was likely to curb litigation from patent holders expecting to reap big profits from infringement on a component.

Samsung is the world's largest producer of smartphones DON EMMERT (AFP/File)

The 11-page ruling found that the $399 million penalty -- one element of a major patent infringement case -- was inappropriate because it represented "Samsung's entire profit from the sale of its infringing smartphones" for copying the iPhone's "rectangular front face with rounded edges and a grid of colorful icons on a black screen."

But the court stopped short of delving into details of how the lower court should determine the penalty.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion that "doing so would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article of manufacture... and to parse the record to apply that test in this case."

The court sent the case back to the appellate court in Washington to resolve the details.

The case is one element of the $548 million penalty -- knocked down from an original $1 billion jury award -- Samsung was ordered to pay for copying iPhone patents.

- No clarity -

Observers had been watching to see how the court -- which had not taken up a design patent case in more than a century -- would tip the balance between technological innovation and protecting intellectual property.

Dennis Crouch, a University of Missouri law professor and co-director of the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship, said the ruling may leave both sides disappointed.

"Although the case offers hope for Samsung and others adjudged of infringing design patents, it offers no clarity as to the rule of law," Crouch said in a blog post.

Crouch said the court allowed for damages at the component level but also indicated that the product as a whole is "an article of manufacture," leaving the matter open to interpretation.

"Thus, it will be up to courts to figure out which level (of damages) applies in particular cases," he wrote.

Samsung won the backing of major Silicon Valley and other IT sector giants, including Google, Facebook, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, claiming a strict ruling on design infringement could lead to a surge in litigation.

Apple was supported by big names in fashion and manufacturing. Design professionals, researchers and academics, citing precedents like Coca-Cola's iconic soda bottle.

Reacting to the verdict, an Apple spokesman said in an email, "Our case has always been about Samsung's blatant copying of our ideas, and that was never in dispute... We remain optimistic that the lower courts will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn't right."

Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

- 'Sigh of relief' -

Florian Mueller, an intellectual property analyst who writes a closely followed patent blog, wrote that "large parts of the (US and global) tech industry will breathe a sigh of relief now," even if the case is not settled.

Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents major tech firms, welcomed the ruling.

"This was a pivotal court case for the technology industry and it is encouraging to see the law interpreted and applied in a way that makes sense in a modern era and protects both inventors and innovation," Black said.

The lower court's interpretation of design patents, Black said, "would have had a chilling effect on investment and the development of products -- especially in the tech sector."

Brian Love, a law professor who follows technology at the University of Santa Clara, said it was noteworthy that the top court declined to provide detailed guidance on how to resolve the damage award.

"The district court may well end up allowing the entire amount to stand, but it seems more likely that the award will be substantially reduced," Love said.

Still, Love said it may dissuade companies from launching new lawsuits on design patents.

"Interest in design patents spiked following Apple's first jury verdict in 2012," he said.
Iraq journalist murdered in Kirkuk

Gunmen killed the head of a local radio station in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, the latest in a string of such murders in the troubled country.

"Unidentified gunmen driving a white car assassinated Mohammed Thabet al-Obeidi," a Kirkuk police colonel told AFP, adding that the journalist was on his way to work in the city centre when he was shot.

The 38-year-old was in charge of a radio station called Baba Gurgur that broadcasts in Arabic, Kurdish and Turkmen, and also worked for the state-run Iraqi Media Network.

Iraq's Kirkuk is an ethnic tinderbox in an oil-rich region on the country's new political fault line Marwan Ibrahim (AFP/File)

Obeidi's colleague from the state-run Iraqiya channel, Roji Anwar, confirmed the killing.

Ziad Ajili, from the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, said Obeidi's killing may be politically motivated, but did not elaborate.

Kirkuk is an ethnic tinderbox in an oil-rich region on the country's new political fault line. It is theoretically under the authority of the Baghdad government but is controlled by Kurdish forces.
Survivors of an LRA massacre watch their tormentor's trial

Alanyo Juzima wipes the tears from her eyes and points at the flickering image of a smartly-dressed man in a suit projected onto the classroom wall. "He's the one," she says.

Juzima scrutinises the picture in front of her, of Dominic Ongwen in the dock at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. "I recognise him from the night he attacked the village -- his nose, everything -- I saw him," she says.

The 67-year-old still lives in Lukodi, the village in northern Uganda where rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), allegedly under Ongwen's command, killed more than 60 people and abducted others in a May 2004 attack.

A woman arrives to watch the screening of the start of the International Criminal Court trial of former child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen in Lukodi, Uganda on December 6, 2016 ISAAC KASAMANI (AFP)

"The LRA soldiers hit me on the back with a rifle butt. They entered our huts, killed people inside and burned them down. They burnt my grandmother in her own hut and shot the son of my co-wife," Juzima said on Tuesday. She was speaking at the opening of Ongwen's war crimes trial which was broadcast to an audience of around 500 intrigued locals at Lukodi Primary School.

Squeezed onto dilapidated wooden school benches -- the elderly and the young, men and women, survivors and those who have heard the stories, some smartly-dressed and others in rags -- all watched with stony, expressionless faces as the court proceedings slowly unfolded.

Struggling to keep her anger in check, Juzima says: "I feel like I could go to The Hague and kill Ongwen myself."

She fears he may be cleared of the charges against him -- 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity -- and will return to kill again in northern Uganda.

- 'The dead are still dead' -

Juzima peers closer at the broadcast image, at Ongwen in a suit and tie, clean-shaven, neat, well-fed. Compared to those crammed into the rural classroom he looks prosperous. "He's very fat," she says. "He doesn't look like he has any problems."

Geoffery Oola leans heavily on a crutch as he rises from his seat near the front of the classroom. His hips were shattered in 2007 when LRA fighters ambushed the vehicle he was travelling in, but the 35-year-old was lucky: others were killed in the attack.

The ambush was not Oola's first encounter with the LRA. As a 12-year-old boy he, like Ongwen, was abducted and forced to join the rebel group.

"I knew Ongwen very well when we were together in the bush," he says. "I used to see Ongwen while he was the second-in-command of the Sinia Brigade. He wasn't wild like the other commanders, he was courageous and always came back victorious."

While Ongwen thrived, rising quickly through the rebel ranks, Oola says he was a porter and a cook not a fighter, eventually managing to escape after two years.

On his return Oola was granted amnesty as part of a Ugandan government programme and now makes a living by selling petrol in jerry cans by the roadside. He has some sympathy for Ongwen who he sees as both victim and perpetrator.

"If you're abducted as a child then you're not responsible for what happened," he says. "According to the law Ongwen is guilty, but according to me he isn't."

Nor does Oola see the point of the ICC's style of retributive justice which, he says, changes nothing for the LRA's victims.

"Even if he's jailed the people who had arms amputated won't have them back, the injuries are still there and the dead are still dead."

People of Lukodi, Uganda all watched with stony, expressionless faces as the court proceedings slowly unfolded ISAAC KASAMANI (AFP)

A man punches a banner bearing a picture of former child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen in Lukodi, Uganda on December 6, 2016 ISAAC KASAMANI (AFP)
US business lobby warns Trump tariffs could backfire

A top US business lobby Tuesday praised President-elect Donald Trump's emphasis on boosting US manufacturing jobs, but warned it could backfire if he provokes a trade war.

"I am at this point optimistic, although I am little bit worried about some of the rhetoric," said Doug Oberhelman, chief executive of Caterpillar and chairman of the Business Roundtable.

Oberhelman echoed other business groups that have broadly praised some of the early signals from the incoming Trump administration, including its emphasis on lower taxes and regulatory reform, as well as several cabinet picks who come from the private sector.

US President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence (L) visit the Carrier air conditioning company December 1, 2016 as part of Trump's focus on manufacturing, which some business experts praise but worry could spark a trade war TIMOTHY A. CLARY (AFP/File)

But groups like the Chamber of Commerce and many business leaders have expressed concern over Trump's threats of protectionism, against trading partners like China and Mexico, as well as companies that offshore jobs.

Oberhelman said in a conference call with reporters that threats by Trump to enact 35 percent punitive tariffs on imports could harm companies like Caterpillar, which employs thousands of workers at midwestern plants who produce heavy equipment that are sold in Brazil, China, India or other overseas markets.

Some of Caterpillar's plants export as much as 80 percent of the goods made here, said Oberhelman, who will step down from the iconic American manufacturer in March.

"There's a lot of hourly jobs and production jobs for our company and our country that are contingent on that" trade, Oberhelman said. "So I do worry about retaliation for a 35 percent tariff or some kind of unilateral action against a trade partner."

However, he was more positive about Trump's expressed goal of improving free trade agreements to get a better deal for America.

"I think the better way is if there's a positive engagement between the administration and business and those foreign countries to figure out how we can all win and I think that's exactly the debate that President-elect Trump spurred," he said. "Because if he thinks he can negotiate better, we ought to."

The comments came as the Business Roundtable released its quarterly survey of 142 chief executives that showed 67 percent expected an increase in sales over the next six months, compared with 59 percent with that view in the prior quarter.

The survey also showed 35 percent of chief executives expected higher employment compared with 27 percent in the third quarter.

However, just 35 percent expect higher capital spending, down from 38 percent in the third quarter.
COLUMBUS  Columbus City Council members offered residents living near Glur Park a potential compromise last month.

They cant stop Verizon Wireless from erecting an 80-foot cellphone tower in the small neighborhood park. That agreement was approved by a 6-0 city council vote in August.

However, city officials agreed to ask the wireless communications company to move the structure to the center of the park, farther away from houses, busy streets and a nearby day care and school.

It appears thats not going to happen either.

Interim City Administrator Merlin Lindahl contacted Verizon about the possibility of relocating the evergreen-shaped tower and shared the companys straightforward response Monday night.

Verizon is committed to following all local, state and federal regulations when building a new cell site, a company representative responded by email. Verizon will continue to move forward with the location that was approved by the city council.

That location is in the parks northeast corner, near the intersection of 26th Avenue and 30th Street and directly across the street from Immanuel Lutheran School and day care.

Its also right across the street from Jolene Wagners home, and shes not happy with the citys approach to moving what she considers an eyesore and potential health threat.

Wagner believes the city should offer Verizon a financial incentive to move the tower to a safer location in the center of the park, perhaps a reduced rate on the lease payments the company will pay to use the land.

Money talks, she said while accusing city officials of not trying hard enough to renegotiate the cell tower contract.

Youre not going to fight for the people? Wagner asked.

Wagner and other residents in the north-central Columbus neighborhood have previously voiced their frustrations with city officials for not giving them more notice about the cell tower plan.

Although the project was discussed at public park board and city council meetings, residents werent informed individually and nothing was posted in Glur Park.

I feel like weve been rolled over, Wagner said.

Jim Bulkley, who was sworn in as mayor earlier that night, said the process isnt that simple.

With a contract already in place, Bulkley said Verizon would likely have to restart the permitting process if the cell towers location changes.

At this point Verizon has indicated theyre not interested in that, he said.

And the city cant renege on that agreement without opening itself to a potential lawsuit.

Bulkley told Wagner city officials will look at changing the approval process for cell towers built on city property to make it more transparent in the future. This includes the possibility of adding a public hearing.

The property owners also got more support Monday night from a city council member who apologized last month for voting in support of the cell tower.

Beth Augustine-Schulte encouraged Wagner and other residents to contact Verizon and express their concerns.

I think you have the potential to have a powerful impact, she said.

In addition to erecting the cell tower, Verizon will pay for construction of an accompanying building that houses public restrooms and service equipment for the cell site.

Verizon will cover the buildings construction costs, estimated at $240,000, then receive a $40,000 one-time payment from the city and $6,000 annual credit on its lease payment over 15 years.

The companys yearly lease payment starts at $13,200 before the city credit, with that amount increasing by 2 percent annually for up to 25 years.

A sanitary sewer lift station will also be moved to the park.

City Engineer Rick Bogus reported that the contractor is already installing an underground fiber optic system needed to serve the lift station and cell site.

But that work is off to a bumpy start.

The contractor struck a gas line on Friday, causing the area to be closed to motorists for a short time, and a water line was hit on Sunday.
2 million Israelis exposed to rocket fire, says report

More than two million Israelis lack adequate shelter in case of rockets fired from Gaza to the south or from Lebanon or Syria to the north, an official report said Tuesday.

State comptroller Yossef Shapira, who is in charge of assessing state policies and the use of public funds, said in the report that Israel had not learned its lesson from the July-August 2014 Gaza war, when Palestinian groups fired thousands of rockets at the Jewish state.

The Israeli military believes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, and its allies, still have some of their arsenal and are also working to rearm.

The report says that 27 percent of Israelis -- more than two million people -- had no protection in the event of war, according to a 2012 estimate Said Khatib (AFP/File)

In Lebanon, Israel estimates the powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah has more than 100,000 rockets and missiles capable of reaching most of Israeli territory.

"Although the military has envisaged a scenario in which Israel would be the target of thousands, or even tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, it is doubtful whether it has adequate capacity to defend the country properly," media reports quoted Shapira's report as saying.

The report says it was estimated in 2012 that 27 percent of Israelis -- more than two million people -- had no protection in the event of war.

But according to the comptroller, the figure was likely higher because some public shelters were unusable.

His report criticises the government for not having organised meetings on the protection and evacuation of civilians since the 2014 war. It also regrets that Bedouin communities in the desert within reach of rockets from Gaza have practically no protection.

In another chapter, it criticises the army for still not having provided a more effective early warning system for areas near Gaza, where residents during the 2014 war had just 15 seconds to find shelter.

That conflict killed 2,251 people on the Palestinian side, including 551 children, and 73 people including 67 soldiers on the Israeli side, according to the UN.
Thousands of Tunisian lawyers protest 2017 draft budget

More than 2,000 lawyers protested in Tunisia's capital on Tuesday against a draft budget for 2017 stipulating a new tax for their profession, AFP reporters said.

"With our souls and our blood, we will defend the lawyer's profession!" chanted protesters in black court robes after a silent march in central Tunis.

Protesters held up banners reading: "Lawyers are angry!" and "We won't fund your corruption!"

Tunisian lawyers shout anti-government slogans during a demonstration against a draft 2017 budget that would impose a public sector pay freeze on December 6, 2016 outside Tunis law court FETHI BELAID (AFP)

According to the draft budget being reviewed by parliament, lawyers will have to pay tax on each of their cases, which can later be deducted from their income tax.

The measure "affects... the freedom and independence" of lawyers, said Lotfi Arbi, head of the Tunis branch of the national bar association, who had called the demonstration.

According to online newspaper Inkyfada, an analysis of official data showed that 60 percent of registered lawyers did not submit a tax return in 2015.

It said lawyers who do declare their income pay on average 228 dinars (92 euros) in tax each month.

But not all lawyers are against the new tax provision in the budget.

"We defend widows and children, but today we're giving the impression we just defend our own interests," lawyer and lawmaker Bochra Belhaj Hmida said.

Tunisia has been riven by a string of jihadist attacks, including on its vital tourism sector, and the economy has struggled since the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

A new cabinet, in office since August after the previous government failed to redress the country's ailing economy, has faced criticism over its draft budget for 2017.

The text also provides for a one-year public sector salary freeze.
Probe finds coalition 'mistake' in Yemen MSF strike

The Saudi-led coalition made a mistake when it carried out a deadly bombing next to a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders in northern Yemen, an "independent" probe said Tuesday.

Many findings of the investigation contradict those of the charity, also known by its French initials MSF, which called the August 15 attack "unjustified and unprovoked".

In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes in Yemen against Iran-supported Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies after the rebels overran much of Yemen.

Yemeni workers clear debris at a hospital operated by the Doctors Without Borders on August 16, 2016 in Abs, a day after the hospital was hit by an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition

The coalition has faced repeated allegations of killing civilians in its campaign to support Yemen's internationally recognised government led by President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT), which the coalition says operates independently, numbered seven deaths in the strike on Abs hospital, although MSF said 19 people were killed.

Coalition forces which had attacked a Huthi leadership gathering that day noticed a vehicle leaving the area, JIAT spokesman Mansur al-Mansur told a press conference in Riyadh.

A pilot followed the vehicle and then bombed it next to a building that was not identifiable as a hospital, he said.

"There was no indication that it was a hospital prior to the bombing," Mansur said, adding that the vehicle was a "legitimate military target".

Because of the "unintentional mistake" of damage to the hospital, the coalition must apologise and provide assistance to the families of those affected, Mansur said.

The coalition must also investigate those responsible to find the extent of their violation of rules of engagement and "take proper action", he said.

MSF said the hospital was identifiable by logos, and its GPS coordinates had been provided.

It said the vehicle targeted was civilian, carrying patients believed to be victims of other strikes.

-- A team of 'experts' --

The attack prompted MSF to pull out from six hospitals in northern Yemen, including Abs.

Mansur issued the JIAT's findings on four other cases in which the coalition was blamed for bombing civilian facilities.

MSF had accused the coalition of killing 10 children in a strike on a school in Haydan two days before the Abs incident.

But Mansur said the closest targets hit by the coalition were 10 kilometres (six miles) away from the school.

There was also no evidence coalition forces struck the Al-Aqel food factory in the rebel-held capital Sanaa on August 9, he said.

The factory director said 16 workers were killed.

Mansur said investigators also concluded the coalition did not attack a livestock market where 40 people allegedly died on July 6.

The coalition followed correct procedures when it bombed a school in Hodeida on August 25, he added at the briefing attended by Western military attaches.

Classes were suspended and the school was being used to store rebel weapons, meaning "it lost the legal protection afforded civil objects."

In October, the JIAT ruled that a coalition warplane acting on incorrect information had "wrongly targeted" a funeral in Sanaa, killing more than 140 people in one of the deadliest strikes of the war.

Asked about the members of the JIAT, drawn from coalition member states, Mansur said it is made up of military and legal experts.

"Of course the team is independent," he said. "Some of them are retired and some of them are on active duty."

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Washington, London and Paris to stop their deliveries of bombs and other weapons to Riyadh because of concerns over civilian casualties.
Trump: SoftBank to invest $50 bln in US

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday Japan's SoftBank has agreed to invest $50 billion in business and job-creation in the United States.

Trump made the announcement on Twitter as he met with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son in New York, later striding into the lobby of Trump Tower to brief reporters in person.

"This is Masa of SoftBank from Japan and he's just agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States and 50,000 jobs," he told reporters, with his arm around Son.

President-elect Donald Trump talks to the media with SoftBank Group Corp. founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son in the lobby of Trump Tower on December 6, 2016 after meetings in New York Eduardo Munoz Alvarez (AFP)

The Republican provided no details on the precise nature of the investments or how they would create jobs.

Standing in the lobby of Trump Tower, Son brandished a document featuring the names of SoftBank and of Foxconn, the Taiwanese technology giant, that read: "Commit to invest $50bn + $7bn in US, generate 50k + 50k new jobs in US in next four years."

"I just came to celebrate his new job," Son said of the president-elect.

"Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!" the president-elect tweeted.

While Trump took credit, Son told the Wall Street Journal in an interview the money will come from a $100 billion investment fund he is setting up with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other partners, a move announced in mid-October.

The 59-year-old Japanese billionaire, who has said he wants to become the Warren Buffet of the tech industry, plans to use the SoftBank Vision Fund to invest heavily in the "Internet of Things," artificial intelligence and robotics, the Journal reported.
Israel knew of Iran link in sub deal: minister

Israel knew its arch-enemy Iran held a stake in ThyssenKrupp when it planned to purchase submarines from the German firm, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday.

"We have known Iran was a shareholder in the German company since 2004," the minister said in comments broadcast by public television, referring to the year of a previous order.

Lieberman said Israel "had no other alternatives" apart from the German company to buy new submarines.

Before reports of Iran's link to ThyssenKrupp, Israel's attorney general had already ordered police to examine allegations of improper conduct in the planned purchase of the submarines Patrik Stollarz (AFP/File)

The Jewish state has been embroiled in controversy over the past few days after media reported Iranian holding company IFIC continues to own a 4.5 percent stake in the German firm.

Israel sees Iran as its main enemy, and suggestions that the Islamic republic would benefit from its defence purchases made headlines.

Israel was reportedly negotiating to buy three submarines at a combined price of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), to replace the oldest vessels in its existing Dolphin fleet, which began entering service in 1999.

Foreign military sources say the Dolphins can be equipped with missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

Israel is the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, refusing to confirm or deny that it has such weapons.

According to defence ministry officials quoted by the media, Israel obtained guarantees from the German firm that Iran did not have access to confidential information on the submarines it would receive.

ThyssenKrupp has said IFIC's shareholding dropped from 7 percent to 5 percent in 2003, but has not said what stake the Iranian holding company now owns.
The Latest: Police ID woman shot by ex at shopping center

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  The Latest on gunfire that left a man and a woman dead in Utah (all times local):

4:25 p.m.

Utah police are identifying a woman killed at a busy shopping center shortly after getting a restraining order, as well as the ex-boyfriend suspected in her death.

In this Dec. 4, 2016 photo, the body of a male suspect lies in a parking lot of the in American Fork, Utah, where he was shot and killed by police following a brief pursuit. Sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon said the man refused orders to drop his gun and officers wound up firing shots. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)

American Fork police said Monday that 39-year-old Sue Ann Sands left work to meet with 33-year-old James Dean Smith on Sunday night before shots were fired at her car south of Salt Lake City.

Lt. Gregg Ludlow says she made a frantic 911 call and drove away, but he chased her, rammed her car and fired the fatal shots.

Police say Smith also died after officers confronted him outside a nearby movie theater and fired their weapons, though it's not clear if he killed himself or was killed by police.

No lawyer was listed for Smith in court records Monday.

___

9:30 a.m.

Police say a Utah man shot and killed an ex-girlfriend who had a restraining order against him shortly before he died after a confrontation with police.

American Fork police told reporters the man had previously been in a relationship with the woman who died after making a frantic 911 call to police Sunday evening saying someone was shooting at her car.

She was found dead in a Volkswagen Beetle near where police believe the shooting began in Lehi, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City.

Police say officers found the man a few miles away and fired their weapons when he ignored an order to drop his gun. It is not clear if an officer fired the fatal shot or it was self-inflicted.

Their names were not immediately released.

___

7 a.m.

Authorities say two people are dead after gunfire erupted Sunday evening near Salt Lake City.

The Utah County Sheriff's Office says the violence flared as a woman called police to say a man was shooting at her vehicle.

In a series of events still being untangled, KSL-TV reports that officers rushed to the scene near a Wal-Mart store in American Fork and found the woman dead.

Sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon says officers chased the suspect's vehicle to a movie theater on Main Street.

He says the man refused orders to drop his gun and officers wound up firing shots.

The man was found dead, but it still isn't clear if he was hit by police or shot himself.

No one else was hurt in the violence in American Fork, about 25 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Al Gore calls his meeting with Trump 'extremely interesting'

WASHINGTON (AP)  Former Vice President Al Gore said Monday he had a "productive" meeting with Donald Trump, calling it "an extremely interesting conversation."

Gore, a leading voice on the dangers of climate change, met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York City and spoke briefly to reporters afterward. He categorized the meeting as a "sincere search for common ground."

When asked what was discussed, Gore said only, "To be continued."

Former Vice President Al Gore arrives at Trump Tower, Monday, Dec. 5, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Gore said he also met with Ivanka Trump, the president-elect's daughter. Transition officials said earlier Monday that the two would discuss climate change. During the campaign, Donald Trump called man-made climate change a hoax, and he has pledged to undo a number of regulations to protect the environment.

Since the election, however, Trump has sent mixed signals on the topic.

"I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much," he said of the link between human activity and climate change in a post-election interview with The New York Times.

"I'm looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it," he said on the topic of whether he will withdraw from climate change accords.

Gore is well-known for the film "An Inconvenient Truth," about his efforts to spread the word about global warming. Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Suit: Stop NYC from erasing ID card data amid Trump concern

NEW YORK (AP)  Two state politicians sued on Monday to try to stop New York City from destroying personal records related to its immigrant-friendly municipal ID cards, a move the city is considering to prevent the data from becoming a deportation tool for a new Republican federal administration.

The lawsuit comes ahead of a Dec. 31 date for the city to decide whether to delete copies of the passports, birth certificates, educational records and other documents submitted by more than 900,000 IDNYC cardholders. The date was built into the program from its 2014 start, partly out of concern about the possible election of a Republican president such as President-elect Donald Trump, whose campaign promises included deporting millions of people in the U.S. illegally.

Republican state Assembly members Ron Castorina and Nicole Malliotakis, citing state public-records laws, say in their lawsuit that destroying government records "due to the results of a federal election is against the ideals of the United States and has no basis in law."

FILE - This undated file mage provided by New York City Hall shows a sample ID card issued by the city. Two state politicians sued on Monday to try to stop New York City from destroying personal records related to its immigrant-friendly municipal ID cards, a move the city is considering to prevent the data from becoming a deportation tool for a new Republican federal administration. (New York City Hall via AP, File)

The lawmakers, both from Staten Island, argue that the information could help to trace cardholders if they commit crimes or obtain municipal IDs under fraudulent identities, perhaps for nefarious purposes.

"As elected officials, we have a duty to protect our constituents from unlawful government action that compromises their safety," Malliotakis said in a statement.

Castorina said he was appalled that the program's authors would "play politics" with the data.

Asked about the lawsuit on Monday, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio said city officials wouldn't "allow ourselves to be in a situation where those records would be turned over to the federal government."

"The reason people were willing to trust us is: We made very clear that there would never be a situation where it would lead to their deportation, and we're going to keep that pledge," he said.

Officials said no decision had been made on retaining the records, however.

Municipal ID programs began in 2007 in New Haven, Connecticut, and have expanded to about 10 cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. New York's program is the most ambitious.

Officials encouraged all New Yorkers to sign up, but the program was aimed at those without other forms of ID, including homeless people and, especially, the estimated 500,000 immigrants living illegally in the city. The ID would help them do such everyday things as cash checks or attend parent-teacher conferences at public schools, supporters said.

But with civil liberties advocates worried about authorities requesting the data, city law provided for destroying applicants' identity and residency information at the end of this year if administrators don't move to keep it.

"Protecting it from a possible Republican president" was among reasons for the provision, according to City Councilman Carlos Menchaca, a Democrat.

City officials say applicants' documents are carefully verified to guard against ID fraud, and the city notes IDNYC cards can't be used to get driver's licenses, board planes or cross borders.

"Claims that IDNYC is being used by those intending serious harm is reckless fearmongering," mayoral spokeswoman Rosemary Boeglin said.

Some immigrants have said they remain hopeful the city IDs won't backfire.
China sends another 120 army peacekeepers to South Sudan

BEIJING (AP)  China has sent 120 troops to South Sudan as part of a 700-member U.N. peacekeeping force, deepening its commitment to the troubled East African nation where two Chinese peacekeepers were killed in fighting over the summer.

Once the entire battalion is deployed, they will replace Chinese peacekeepers currently in place, the second battalion to be deployed to South Sudan to protect civilians, U.N. staff and humanitarian workers, conduct patrols and provide security escorts.

South Sudan has seen continuous fighting since its civil war broke out in December 2013. The more than 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers already in the country have been criticized for failing to protect civilians. China was an early investor in the new state's energy sector, but fighting and corruption have largely prevented it from reaping any benefits.

In July, two Chinese peacekeepers died and five others were wounded after their vehicle was struck with a rocket propelled grenade as fighting swept the capital, Juba.

As part of its push to raise its international profile, China has become the biggest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with 2,639 currently deployed.
11 trapped in China's latest coal mine accident

BEIJING (AP)  A gas explosion has trapped 11 Chinese coal miners underground, in the latest in a string of deadly accidents striking the industry after 53 miners were killed in two similar blasts last week.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the Monday night explosion occurred at a mine in central China's Hubei province. It did not provide details on what caused the blast, but such incidents usually happen when unventilated coal gas is ignited by a spark or open flame.

A person answering the phone at the local production safety office declined to answer questions, and then hung up.

It's the third major mining accident in one week for China, the world's top producer and consumer of coal, where such deadly events occur frequently despite a stated public commitment to improving worker safety. A drive to boost training and technology has significantly reduced the carnage of the last decade, but demand for the fuel continues to provide incentives to cut corners in order to rush production.

State media announced the firings of safety officials after a Dec. 3 blast in Inner Mongolia that killed 32, and the arrests of mine operators after 21 miners were found dead in Heilongjiang province. That echoes China's typical response to major deadly accidents by arresting a few individuals without addressing systemic problems.

China is trying to balance the vast energy demands of the world's most populous country  and an industry that is the lifeblood of several regions  with its commitment to reduce carbon emission as part of the Paris climate agreement and to cut down on air pollution that often smothers Beijing and other major cities.

Government economic planners facing rising energy prices ahead of winter responded in October by lifting a cap on the number of coal production days for "efficient" producers.

Officials also said this year they would shut down more than 1,000 underperforming mines, though hundreds of new coal plants are also under construction.




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.
Thousands mourn beloved leader Jayalalithaa in south India

CHENNAI, India (AP)  Hundreds of thousands of people thronged the southern Indian city of Chennai on Tuesday to honor their late beloved leader, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, a former film actress and popular politician.

Jayalalithaa, chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, died overnight following a heart attack a day earlier.

A sea of weeping mourners surged toward the steps of a public hall where Jayalalithaa's body, draped in the Indian flag, was kept on a raised platform.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, center, greets supporters of India's Tamil Nadu state's former Chief Minister, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, after paying his last respects to her, outside an auditorium in Chennai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Thousands of police officers formed chains to stop the heaving crowd from surging up the steps. Men and women wept, some breaking into loud wails. Several mourners fainted from the heat and dehydration. Police said some had been keeping vigil outside the Apollo Hospital since Sunday and then walked to Rajaji Hall at daybreak.

In the evening, hundreds of thousands of people followed a slow-moving military truck carrying her body in a glass coffin to a beachside burial ground.

In New Delhi, lawmakers observed a minute's silence Tuesday before both houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day in respect for the woman whom many referred to as "Amma," or mother.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Jayalalithaa's death left a "huge void in Indian politics." He flew to Chennai, where he placed a wreath on the body.

Roads leading to Chennai were clogged as people from remote villages poured into Tamil Nadu's capital to catch a last glimpse of their leader.

The Tamil Nadu government declared seven days of mourning for Jayalalithaa, who was a five-time chief minister of the state. Schools and offices were closed after authorities declared public holidays in the state for three days.

Within hours of Jayalalithaa's death, her trusted lieutenant, O. Panneerselvam, was sworn in as chief minister.

Hundreds of political leaders and film celebrities traveled to Chennai to attend Jayalalithaa's funeral.

Jayalalithaa, 68, had been hospitalized since September, suffering from a fever, dehydration and a respiratory infection.

At the time, thousands of people prayed and fasted outside the hospital for her recovery. Doctors barred visitors, sparking rumors that they were withholding bad news out of fear it could trigger the same outpouring of grief, riots and suicides that followed the death of Jayalalithaa's political and acting mentor, M.G. Ramachandran.

Jayalalithaa was 13 when she began her film career and quickly became known as a romantic lead in many of the nearly 150 Tamil-language movies she worked on.

She entered politics in the early 1980s, under the guidance of Ramachandran, and after his death in 1987 declared herself his political heir and took control of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam party.

She served as Tamil Nadu's chief minister, the highest elected position in the state of 71 million people, for nearly 14 years beginning in 1991. She regained her office last year after a corruption case against her was overturned by a court.

Jayalalithaa endeared herself to the poor and powerless with her policy of giving out handouts  laptop computers and bicycles to students, spice grinders, free rice and subsidized food to the poor, cows and goats to farm women  enabling them to rise out of rural poverty. She pushed government officials and workers to promote health and education by presenting gold coins and awards to those who exceeded their goals.

Although she was criticized by many who equated her handouts with bribery, she said it was her scheme to wipe out rural poverty. In return, she was loved by the poor who saw her as their charismatic benefactor.

"She was their redeemer. Their savior," Vasanthi, a well-known Tamil writer and Jayalalithaa's biographer, wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.

___

Nirmala George reported from New Delhi.

A supporter of India's Tamil Nadu state's former Chief Minister, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, mourns as she pays her tributes after her death outside their party office in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Sasikala Natarajan, left standing, a close friend of India's Tamil Nadu state former Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa, wipes her tears next to Jayalalithaa's body wrapped in the national flag and kept for public viewing outside an auditorium in Chennai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Body of India's Tamil Nadu state former Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa is wrapped in the national flag and kept for public viewing outside an auditorium in Chennai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Supporters of India's Tamil Nadu state's former Chief Minister, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, seen wrapped in the Indian national flag, gather to pay their last respects outside an auditorium in Chennai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Supporters of India's Tamil Nadu state's former Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa pay tributes near her photograph outside their party office in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68.(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Supporters of India's Tamil Nadu state's former Chief Minister, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, react on seeing her body wrapped in the Indian national flag and kept for public viewing outside an auditorium in Chennai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Iran says UN atomic agency chief to visit Tehran again

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Iran's top nuclear official says the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog will visit Iran later this month.

Ali Akbar Salehi told state TV on Tuesday that Yukiya Amano of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has expressed interest in visiting Iran before the end of current year and that "we welcomed it."

This will be Amano's second visit to Tehran in 2016. He visited Iran in January, when Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers went into effect.

Salehi says that Iran and the IAEA have had "very positive" cooperation that will be further "boosted." The agency is tasked with verifying that Iran is abiding by the terms of the nuclear agreement.
After concession, next N Carolina governor gets to celebrate

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)  Democrat Roy Cooper finally Tuesday got to bask in his victory in the close race for North Carolina governor, telling supporters his narrow triumph over Republican incumbent Pat McCrory is a victory for the middle class and for the state's diverse population.

"Hello friends and hello North Carolina  finally," Cooper said just after taking the dais in front of several hundred people cheering for him in Raleigh. "It is also humbling and it has been a long journey for all of us, but we are finally here."

Holding an evening victory rally four weeks after Election Day wasn't something Cooper, the outgoing attorney general, had anticipated. But McCrory didn't concede until Monday after most formal election protests were set aside and a partial county recount showed Cooper still ahead by a little more than 10,000 votes from 4.7 million cast.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016, file photo, North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory speaks during a debate at Research Triangle Park, N.C. McCrory conceded the governor's race Monday, Dec. 5, 2016, clearing the way for Democrat Roy Cooper to be declared the winner nearly four weeks after Election Day. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, Pool, File)

Cooper's campaign essentially was a referendum on North Carolina's recent conservative political shift thanks to McCrory and the GOP-controlled legislature. The prime example Cooper had for the rightward slant came when McCrory signed a bill last March that limited LGBT rights and directed transgender people to use the restrooms in schools and government buildings corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate.

Cooper said during the campaign the law known as House Bill 2 is discriminatory and vowed to repeal it, although that will remain difficult even when he takes office next month given the General Assembly is still controlled by Republicans.

Still with the gubernatorial results, "we have decided that North Carolina is welcoming," Cooper told the crowd, and "we have decided that North Carolina is a place where people of all kinds can come together to work, to study and to worship, and to live without fear or understanding."

Cooper told the crowd as governor he would press for higher salaries for teachers and state employees, work to make law enforcement "strong and fair" and fight to ensure that "women and their rights are respected." He got even louder applause when he said he would work to make voting easier. Democrats so far have successfully fought in the courts to throw out a 2013 law signed by McCrory that required photo identification to vote and reduce the number of early voting days.

Referring to the audience outside of the rally  more people than not voted for someone other than Cooper when the Libertarian candidate is included  Cooper also tried to speak a bipartisan tone.

"Regardless of whether you voted for me, I will be a governor who works for everyone," he said.

Cooper had proclaimed himself the winner on election night, but the celebration was muted because he spoke to supporters after midnight and Cooper's lead over McCrory was only 5,000 votes. The margin doubled in recent days as provisional ballots were scrutinized and counted by county election boards, but many supporters had been anxious during the wait.

"I had no idea whether it was going to happen," said Rob Gelblum, an environmental attorney from Raleigh and Cooper supporter attending the event. "We've all been holding our breath, with our fingers crossed, and it's time to celebrate the victory."

The belated rally was a broader party for North Carolina Democrats, who have been completely out of power in state government for the past four years. A victory in a state Supreme Court race on Election Day also means registered Democrats will comprise a majority of the justices for the first time since 1998. Speaking before Cooper on Tuesday was Democrat Josh Stein, who was elected to succeed him as attorney general.

North Carolina Gov.-elect Roy Cooper speaks to a crowd of supporters a day after his opponent, incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory, conceded the election in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown)

North Carolina Gov.-elect Roy Cooper walks on stage to speak to a crowd of supporters a day after his opponent, incumbent Governor Pat McCrory, conceded the election in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown)
South Korea's Park would leave economy mired in challenges

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  The heir to the Samsung empire and other tycoons took a public drubbing by lawmakers Tuesday over deep-rooted ties between politics and business that helped drive South Korea's economic ascent but are central to its political crisis.

The questioning on national TV of Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, 48-year-old only son of the company's ailing chairman, and eight other business leaders was in response to prosecution claims that President Park Geun-hye allowed a corrupt confidante to pull government strings and extort big sums from companies.

Lee apologized repeatedly, without saying what he was apologizing for, and sought to distance himself from Park's friend and shadowy adviser Choi Soon-sil.

Lee Jae-yong, a vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. arrives for hearing at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. South Korea's most powerful business leaders from Samsung, Hyundai Motor and six other companies face grilling as lawmakers probe their links to a corruption scandal involving South Korea's president and her confidante. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

"There are many things that I myself feel embarrassed about and I regret that as we have disappointed the public with many disgraceful things," Lee said.

The bright expectations for Park when she took office nearly four years ago promising a "happy era" of entrepreneurship and greater equality have dimmed to deep disappointment as the country's biggest political scandal has unfolded.

With Park facing the threat of impeachment over the scandal, her successor stands to inherit an economy, Asia's fourth largest, that is struggling with no easy solutions on the horizon.

Household debts have surged to a record high while the youth unemployment rate peaked at a record-high 12.5 percent in February and stood at 8.5 percent in October. The gap between wages for full-time, career jobs and contract work has widened, while quarterly growth has been below 1 percent for a full year.

South Korea's two-biggest biggest brands, Samsung and Hyundai Motor, are seeing their profit sag.

Younger South Koreans have taken to calling their country "Hell Joseon," referring to an ancient feudal kingdom.

"What good is it for people in their 20s to have hopes for the future?" Baek In-pum, 19, a student at a top university, said during a recent rally near the presidential office. "People are struggling but that doesn't bring a better future. The future will also be full of pain."

Baek said he doubts he could ever afford to buy his own home.

Older supporters of Park had hoped she would replicate the success of her father, Park Chung-hee, who is revered for guiding South Korea's rapid industrialization while he ruled as a military dictator from 1961-1979.

"I thought Park Geun-hye would be smart like her father. I feel terrible about how stupid she turned out to be," said Chae Woo-yeon, 85, who was holding a candle while selling blankets to fellow protesters at a rally that drew hundreds of thousands of people, the sixth straight weekend of demonstrations calling for Park's ouster.

"I never thought things would collapse like this," she said.

Of course, Park Geun-hye inherited a more mature economy, lacking the dynamism of her father's era, at a more challenging time for global growth.

South Korea is now the fastest aging society among developed countries, with an ultra-low birth rate. Many of the big businesses that drove an export boom subsidized by cheap government loans are struggling to adapt to the changing global landscape.

Public morale has deteriorated as Park's administration lurched from crisis to crisis. In 2014, 304 people, mostly teenagers on a school trip, died in a ferry accident. That disaster took a toll on consumption, leisure and tourism. A year later, an outbreak of Middle Eastern Respiratory syndrome sapped consumer spending and business activities.

Park's troubles have sharpened doubts over close ties between politicians and big, family-controlled businesses, known as chaebol.

Local media say prosecutors are looking into whether 53 businesses that donated funds to nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi received favors in return. Prosecutors also have raided Samsung and the nation's pension fund, reportedly scrutinizing its decision to back a 2015 merger of two Samsung companies.

"She gave the chaebol what they wanted," Kim Jae-kyun, a 51-year-old factory employee disgruntled over labor and wage reforms that he says have helped big industry at the expense of ordinary workers.

"My wages haven't gone up and I'm worried my children won't be able to find jobs when they graduate," Kim said during a recent demonstration.

Once the current political crisis passes, what will remain is the hard work of charting a future course for the economy.

The country's largest shipping line recently went bankrupt, while its biggest shipbuilder is undergoing a restructuring. The recent slowdown in China, the country's biggest export market, has been a further drag on growth.

Park has managed to boost growth in the short-term by increased government spending and stimulating construction and property development.

But the 2.5 percent growth rate last year came at the cost of an unsustainable rise in household debt. And efforts to counter inequality by promoting inclusive growth and restructuring the labor market and the public sector provoked huge backlashes.

Other policy initiatives like the "creativity economy" policy of promoting entrepreneurship likewise have made little headway, said Kim Sang-jo, executive director of a non-governmental business watchdog, Solidarity for Economic Reform.

Meanwhile, "The competitiveness of key industries appears to have collapsed," Kim said. "South Korea's economy is in a crisis like a frog in slow boiling water."

Protesters supporting South Korean President Park Geun-hye shout slogans during a rally opposing the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye in front of the ruling Saenuri Party headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. South Korea is entering potentially one of the most momentous weeks in its recent political history, with impeachment looming for Park as ruling party dissenters align with the opposition in a strengthening effort to force her out. The letters read "Oppose the impeachment. " (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A protester supporting South Korean President Park Geun-hye weeps as she listens to the national anthem during a rally opposing the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye in front of the ruling Saenuri Party headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. South Korea is entering potentially one of the most momentous weeks in its recent political history, with impeachment looming for Park as ruling party dissenters align with the opposition in a strengthening effort to force her out. The letters read "Oppose the impeachment. " (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Protesters supporting South Korean President Park Geun-hye shout slogans during a rally opposing the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye in front of the ruling Saenuri Party headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. South Korea is entering potentially one of the most momentous weeks in its recent political history, with impeachment looming for Park as ruling party dissenters align with the opposition in a strengthening effort to force her out. The letters read "Oppose the impeachment. " (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

In this Dec. 3, 2016 photo, apartment buildings are seen in Goyang, South Korea. The heir to the Samsung empire and other tycoons have taken a public drubbing by lawmakers over deep-rooted ties between politics and business that helped drive South Korea's economic ascent but are central to its political crisis. The bright expectations for President Park Geun-hye when she took office nearly four years ago have dimmed to deep disappointment.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

FILE - In the Nov. 4, 2016 file photo, people watch TV screens show the live broadcast of South Korean President Park Geun-hye's address to the nation at the Yongsan Electronic store in Seoul, South Korea. The heir to the Samsung empire and other tycoons have taken a public drubbing by lawmakers over deep-rooted ties between politics and business that helped drive South Korea's economic ascent but are central to its political crisis. The bright expectations for President Park when she took office nearly four years ago have dimmed to deep disappointment. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
Saudi court sentences 15 to death in Iran spy cell trial

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP)  A court in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death and several others to prison terms in a case involving an alleged Iranian spy cell, a sign of the continuing tension between the two Mideast powers.

A Riyadh criminal court handed down its ruling to the 32 people who were charged, including 30 Saudis, one Iranian and one Afghan national. The defendants' names were not made public and Amnesty International criticized the proceedings as "a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights."

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi denied any link between his country and the defendants, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Saudi state media reported in February that those charged were accused of establishing a spy ring in collaboration with Iranian intelligence and providing Iran with highly sensitive information on the Saudi military.

The reports said they also were charged with seeking to commit acts of sabotage against Saudi economic interests, inciting sectarian strife, recruiting others for espionage and participating in anti-government protests.

Amnesty International said two of the 32 were acquitted. It said those charged were arrested between 2013 and 2014 without warrants, "were repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer" and were forced into signing confessions.

"Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice," Samah Hadid, an Amnesty official, said in a statement.

Tensions have been high between Shiite power Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia since January, when the kingdom executed a prominent Shiite cleric along with 46 others.
Danish officer shot outside police station near Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP)  A gunman shot a Danish policeman in the head Tuesday outside a police station in suburban Copenhagen, briefly prompting security outside police stations to be stepped up across the country, authorities said.

The 26-year-old man, who is believed to have acted alone, was arrested after the 8:20 a.m. shooting outside the Albertslund police station, west of Copenhagen, said Kim Christiansen, head of the suburban police district.

The suspect, who was not identified in line with Danish practice, ran away on foot and was arrested several kilometers (miles) away, said Mogens Lauridtsen, another senior officer.

The policeman was shot in the head and was in a serious but not in life-threatening condition, Lauridtsen said. The motive for the shooting was not known, he added.

The alleged shooter faces a pre-trial court hearing Wednesday for attempted murder of the policeman on the canine squad.

"It's a dark day for all of us when those who are supposed to protect us are attacked," Justice Minister Soeren Pape Poulsen said.

TV video showed officers in bulletproof vests with handguns and automatic weapons outside the Albertslund and Copenhagen police stations.

Denmark's National Police said security at all police stations had been increased, then later withdrew the exceptional measures.
Romania accused of discriminating against Hungarian festival

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  The Romanian culture ministry has discriminated against Hungarians in the country by failing to win international recognition for a religious festival, an ethnic Hungarian politician said Tuesday.

Csilla Hegedus, deputy head of the Union of Democratic Hungarians in Romania, said 100 Hungarian experts had worked six years to secure UNESCO protection for a Catholic pilgrimage in northwest Romania where most of Romania's 1.4 million Hungarians live.

Hegedus claimed a Romanian culture ministry official failed to provide UNESCO with documentation it requested about the festival. The ministry declined to immediately comment, but Culture Minister Corina Suteu said last week that Romanian authorities had withheld the file since it was incomplete.

The annual pilgrimage at Sumuleu Ciuc to celebrate Pentecost attracts more than 100,000 Catholics every year. Some even walk from outside Romania to the festival, the largest Catholic festival of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe.

Tensions have been rising between the two countries. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungarian diplomats not to attend Romania's national day celebration, saying Hungarians had "nothing to celebrate."

Some ethnic Hungarians feel they have lost influence in Romania in the past two years, the last time an ethnic Hungarian politician held a ministerial post. Commentators say that the recent tensions are political maneuvers ahead of Romania's Dec. 11 parliamentary election to increase voter turnout in areas where ethnic Hungarians predominate.

In her statement, Hegedus urged Hungarians to vote in the election. She is among those politicians running for a seat.
Israel artist displays golden statue of Netanyahu in protest

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP)  Tel Aviv residents woke up Tuesday to an unusual site  a golden statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displayed prominently in front of City Hall in an act of protest.

Itay Zalait, the artist behind the protest, said he worked on the life-size statue for two months before placing it in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square overnight. He said his goal was to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at what he calls some Israelis' idolatry of Netanyahu.

For half the day, curious onlookers stopped by the statue to snap selfies with some mockingly saluting it. Everyone more or less knew the gleaming Netanyahu depiction on a stand would soon be gone.

People watch a statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a central square in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Israeli artist Itay Zalait said he placed the 4.5 meter (15 foot) statue early Tuesday. Zalait says his goal is to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at some Israelis idolatry of longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu. City Hall said it was placed without a permit and has ordered it removed. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Netanyahu was elected last year to a fourth term in office and has served consecutively since 2009 and for more than 10 years overall as premier.

"Many people in Israel refer to Benjamin Netanyahu as 'The King Bibi' so it was only natural to put the king on the Square of the Kings, the previous name of Rabin Square," the artist told The Associated Press. "I just want to ask the question like to see if it's going to make some change in the people's mind."

Alex Ansky, an actor and radio host who stopped by the spot, noted that Jewish tradition frowns upon the display of statues. "You don't have statues like this in all of Israel," he said. "The provocation is touching a very, very, very open wound in this country."

Zalait's stunt also sparked political reactions, with opposition figures calling it a witty form of protest against Netanyahu's lengthy rule.

Culture Minister Miri Regev, a staunch Netanyahu backer, responded on Facebook that all it represented was an elite class "whose only golden calf is the hatred of Netanyahu."

Tel Aviv City Hall said it respected its residents' freedom of expression but ordered that the statue be removed by 1 p.m. because it was placed without a permit.

Just before the deadline, a bystander knocked the statue to ground. Some had been calling for Netanyahu to be "toppled."

The statue was then taken away from Rabin Square by Zalait.

The artist's protest was over.

People watch a statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a central square in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Israeli artist Itay Zalait said he placed the 4.5 meter (15 foot) statue early Tuesday. Zalait says his goal is to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at some Israelis idolatry of longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu. City Hall said it was placed without a permit and has ordered it removed. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

People watch a statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a central square in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Israeli artist Itay Zalait said he placed the 4.5 meter (15 foot) statue early Tuesday. Zalait says his goal is to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at some Israelis idolatry of longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu. City Hall said it was placed without a permit and has ordered it removed. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

People watch a statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a central square in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Israeli artist Itay Zalait said he placed the 4.5 meter (15 foot) statue early Tuesday. Zalait says his goal is to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at some Israelis idolatry of longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu. City Hall said it was placed without a permit and has ordered it removed. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

People watch a statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a central square in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Israeli artist Itay Zalait said he placed the 4.5 meter (15 foot) statue early Tuesday. Zalait says his goal is to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at some Israelis idolatry of longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu. City Hall said it was placed without a permit and has ordered it removed. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Distressed Italian bank seeks investor with $1.1 billion

MILAN (AP)  Italy's political crisis spelled new trouble for the country's banks, with the third-largest lender, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, scrambling to secure a new investor and help it remain solvent.

Shares in the group, which is known as the world's oldest bank and performed worst in last summer's EU-wide stress test of banks, fell by as much as 4.2 percent Tuesday.

Investors are spooked by the political uncertainty after Premier Matteo Renzi said he will resign following a stunning rebuke by voters to his constitutional reforms.

A newspaper headline reads in Italian "Renzi goes home" following the result of Sunday's constitutional referendum, at a newsstand in Milan, Italy, Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. Italian voters dealt Premier Renzi a resounding rebuke early Monday by rejecting his proposed constitutional reforms, plunging Europe's fourth-largest economy into political and economic uncertainty. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

The timing of the political turmoil couldn't be worse for Monte dei Paschi, which is hoping to raise 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) from investors as part of its turnaround plan. Success now hinges on finding an institutional investor to contribute 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) of that total.

But with little clarity on what the next government might bring, investors will be wary.

Monte dei Paschi's turnaround plan has grown "much more problematic now," given the government crisis, said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst of CMC Markets.

And Monte dei Paschi is just the biggest  not the only  worry facing Italy's banking system, which is lumbering under 360 billion euros ($386 billion) in loans that won't be repaid in full.

Under EU rules, rescuing banks would mean imposing losses on their investors. In Italy, that includes a lot of pensioners and small savers, said Hewson. The alternative is defying the EU rules and using taxpayer money to help the banks.

Either way, it's an unenviable task for the next government, said Hewson.

Speculation that Italy's respected finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, could either take Renzi's place at the head of an interim government or remain in his current role has eased some market fears.

More than 200,000 small investors in two former cooperative banks, Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, have gotten cash injections and taken over by a government-organized fund after small investors lost between 11 billion euros and 12.4 billion euros last year.

The two banks are heading for a merger, with the board expected to name a new CEO of the Banca Popolare di Vicenza on Tuesday to run the combined banks.

And another 12,500 investors lost around 430 million euros when four more small central Italian banks were rescued last year.

A failure of Monte dei Paschi could potentially add to the number of Italian investors who see their savings evaporate, spreading more woe throughout the economy.

On Tuesday, the bank said that bondholders agreed to swap 1.02 billion euros ($1.09 billion) of subordinated notes for shares, boosting its cash position.
OSCE helps Albania dispose of toxic chemicals

TIRANA, Albania (AP)  A European security organization says it has helped Albania's army dispose of 140 metric tons of hazardous military chemicals.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe office in Albania says Tuesday that 140 tons of two napalm components  aluminum oxide and xylenol  were packed and ready to be taken by ship to France for destruction.

OSCE Ambassador Bernd Borchardt urged other Western Balkan countries to follow Albania's model of demilitarization and "make best use of (its) existing infrastructure and experienced workforce."

The OSCE, with assistance from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway and Turkey, has helped Albania dispose of some 300 metric tons of toxic chemicals and excess ammunition.
Florida officers fatally shoot man they say pointed gun

ORANGE CITY, Fla. (AP)  Authorities in central Florida say officers fatally shot a man after he pointed a gun at them.

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office says 47-year-old Westley Daum was pointing a gun early Tuesday at motorists in Orange City, Florida.

After police officers arrived, Daum got into his truck and drove off. The sheriff's office says in a news release that a deputy spotted the truck as it drove through a neighborhood.

Daum stopped and got out of his truck with a gun in his hand and failed to comply with an order to drop his gun. Other officers arrived and tried to talk to him. Deputies also tried to use less lethal bean bag rounds.
A boy who was found chained to a front porch with a dead chicken around his neck is suing his former foster parents for years of sickening abuse.

The child was 11 when he was rescued from the squalid home of Wanda Sue Larson, 60, and her boyfriend Dorian Harper, also 60, in North Carolina in November, 2013.

He told investigators how the pair burned his face with electrical wires, broke his fingers with pliers and made him sleep in dirty blankets on the floor of the house that was infested with animal feces.

Now 15, he is suing the couple and Union County officials for placing him in their care.

It's not clear yet how much the boy, whose identity is being protected, seeks to gain from the lawsuit.

Larson, who blamed the abuse largely on her boyfriend, was released from jail in 2015 for time served while Harper remains behind bars.

A 15-year-old boy who was found with a dead chicken tied around his neck at his abusive foster parents' home in 2013 is now suing the couple. The child, whose identity is being protected is seen above in an interview after his rescue from their squalid home

Wanda Sue Larson, 60, (left) was released from jail in 2015 for time served since her 2013 arrest. Dorian Harper (right), also 60, remains behind bars

Union County Clerk's Office confirmed documents were submitted on his behalf by a court-appointed guardian on November 14.

The boy was placed into Larson and Harper's care in 2005. He had been living with an aunt after being separated from his mother as she moved from another state.

Soon after being taken in by the pair, they began abusing him.

They took the boy and other children living at the house out of school under the false promise of teaching them at home.

While all of them were abused, the boy received the worst treatment.

He was handcuffed to a steel anvil in the room where he slept on the floor, removing his shackles only to force him to scrub the floors and walls of the filthy house.

Harper maimed him with needles and burned his face with electrical wires to 'teach him a lesson,' the child said at the time.

Days before his rescue, he was blamed by the couple for the death of one of their chickens.

As punishment, Harper made him wear the dead bird slung around his neck on a string.

Harper forced the boy to wear the dead chicken around his neck after blaming him for its death

The child's mother said she tried to win custody of him back after learning he had been taken away from her family and placed into care in 2005.

Larson however told authorities he had developed a bond with her and argued that he should continue living with her.

The boy said she told him his biological mother was ill in hospital and was not fit enough to look after him. She blamed her condition on the child, he said.

'She'd say, "Your mom is in the hospital. She's there because of your behavior. You're killing her,'" he said in 2015.

Larson, worked for the Department of Social Services. Her boyfriend was an emergency room nurse.

The boy was found on the porch of this squalid home in North Carolina where he and four other children lived with the couple

Authorities rescued all of the children, who were all aged seven-14, from the feces infested home in 2013.

Despite the boy's testimony to police that he feared for his life while in their care, Larson spent just two years behind bars before being released to live in the same county where the boy was being looked after by his biological mother.

Larson (above after her 2013 arrest) was released in 2015 for time served days after being sentenced to 17 months imprisonment

She was sentenced to 17 months imprisonment in 2015 after admitting four counts of child abuse but was released for time serviced after her 2013 arrest.

Harper was jailed for 10 and a half years for maiming, intentional child abuse inflicting serious injury and assault with a deadly weapon.

In a rare interview with WBTV after the pair's jailing last year, the boy said he still had nightmares he would be forced to live with the pair again.

He condemned Larson's release, telling the network: 'She abused me too and she knew Dorian was abusing me.'
Chinese firm buys British pub that state leader visited

LONDON (AP)  A Chinese firm is buying the landmark British pub where former Prime Minister David Cameron shared a pint with China's leader last year.

The Christie & Co. real estate firm said Tuesday that it had brokered the sale of The Plough pub in Cadsden 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of London to the Chinese SinoFortone investment firm.

Director Neil Morgan said the commercial real estate company was pleased to complete the sale of the pub, which is located near Chequers, the country home made available to British prime ministers.

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015 file photo, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, right, drinks a pint of beer with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at The Plough pub in Casden, England. A major Chinese firm is buying the landmark British pub where former Prime Minister David Cameron shared a pint with Chinas leader last year. The Christie & Co. real estate firm said Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016 that it had brokered the sale of The Plough pub in Cadsden 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of London to the Chinese SinoFortone investment firm. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool, File)

He said the pub had become a tourist attraction for Chinese travelers since the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in October, 2015.
Annan urges respect for civilians in west Myanmar violence

YANGON, Myanmar (AP)  Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, seeking reconciliation among ethnic groups in fractious western Myanmar, urged the army on Tuesday to respect civilians' rights as concerns rise about treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

Annan spoke after meeting with top officials and making a three-day trip to Rakhine state, where the army has been conducting aggressive sweeps since October, when unidentified armed men killed nine policemen manning posts along the border with Bangladesh.

Human rights groups accuse the army of abuses including rape, the killing of hundreds of civilians and the burning of villages. The army denies the allegations. But Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak led a rally Sunday against what he called "genocide" of Rohingya and urged Asian neighbors and the world to step up pressure to stop the violence.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, chairman of the advisory commission on Rakhine State, talks to journalists during a press briefing at a hotel Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Annan heads a commission appointed in August by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to recommend measures to ease tensions between the Muslim Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists in the Buddhist-majority nation. Inter-communal violence in 2012 killed hundreds and caused about 140,000 people  predominantly Rohingya  to take shelter in camps for the internally displaced. There are still 100,000 living in squalid conditions in the camps.

Annan, who was in Rakhine from Friday through Sunday, said in a statement that his group was "deeply concerned by the reports of alleged human rights abuses."

He met Monday with President Htin Kyaw and Tuesday with State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's de facto leader. He also met Tuesday with army commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

"I made clear to him that it is important for the military to do what they are doing but the civilians also have their rights and they should be able to live a normal life," Annan said at a news conference. "In my mind it's very clear that the military has two important roles. Yes, it has the role to protect the state and the interest of the state, but also has a responsibility which is extremely important  security forces have to be careful in protecting civilian rights and rights of the civilian population."

Referring to reports that aid groups were being barred from delivering assistance to the Rohingya population, Annan said his commission "also stressed that security operations must not impede humanitarian access to the population." Annan said they were assured that access would be allowed for humanitarian assistance.

He also said he hoped that the media, barred from the area of the conflict in northern Myanmar, would soon be allowed access to help dispel rumors about the situation.

Annan declined to speak publicly about the credibility of reports of army abuses.

"We went to the region but we didn't walk into a live conflict," he said. "We did see houses which have been burned. You asked if we saw rape, that is not possible. We didn't go there to investigate. That has to be investigated by those with expertise and knowledge. That wasn't our role and so we cannot talk about that."

"For the issue of genocide, this is a very serious charge," he said. "It is a charge that requires legal review and judicial determination. It is not a charge that should be thrown around loosely."

Many Rohingya, a minority of about 1 million among Myanmar's 52 million people, have lived in Myanmar for generations, but most people in the country view them as foreign intruders from neighboring Bangladesh.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, center, chairman of the advisory commission on Rakhine State, talks to journalists during a press briefing along with commission members Mya Thidar, left, and Saw Khin Tint, right, at a hotel Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Google is crossing a milestone in its quest to reduce pollution caused by its digital services that devour massive amounts of electricity.

The company says it believes that beginning next year, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world.

That's significant, given Google's ravenous appetite for electricity to power its offices and the huge data centers that process requests on its dominant search engine, store Gmail, YouTube video clips and photos for more than a billion people.

Windmills at a wind farm in Minco, Okla., that provides Google with some of its renewable energy are pictured. Google says it believes that beginning in 2017, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world

APPLE CLOSE BEHIND IN RENEWABLE ENERGY RACE Google says it believes that beginning next year, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world. And, Apple is getting close to matching its rival. The iPhone maker says it has secured enough renewable energy to power about 93 percent of its worldwide operations. Apple is also trying to convert more of the overseas suppliers that manufacture the iPhone and other devices to renewable energy sources, but that goal is expected take years to reach. Advertisement

Google says its 13 data centers and offices consume about 5.7 terawatt hours of electricity annually  nearly the same amount as San Francisco, where more than 800,000 people live and tens of thousands of others come to work and visit.

The accomplishment announced Tuesday doesn't mean Google will be able to power its operations solely on wind and solar power.

That's not possible because of the complicated way that power grids and regulations are set up around the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Google instead believes it is now in a position to offset every megawatt hour of electricity supplied by a power plant running on fossil fuels with renewable energy that the Mountain View, California, company has purchased through a variety of contracts.

About 95 percent of Google's renewable energy deals come from wind power farms, with the remainder from solar power.

Nearly 20 other technology companies also have pledged to secure enough renewable energy to power their worldwide operations, said Gary Cook, senior energy campaigner for the environmental group Greenpeace.

Google made its commitment four years ago and appears to be the first big company to have fulfilled the promise.

Apple is getting close to matching its rival. The iPhone maker says it has secured enough renewable energy to power about 93 percent of its worldwide operations.

Apple is also trying to convert more of the overseas suppliers that manufacture the iPhone and other devices to renewable energy sources, but that goal is expected take years to reach.

Google believes it is now in a position to offset every megawatt hour of electricity supplied by a power plant running on fossil fuels with renewable energy that the Mountain View, California, company has purchased through a variety of contracts

Cook said the symbolic message sent by Google's achievement is important to environmental experts who believe electricity generated with coal and natural gas is causing damage that is contributing to extreme swings in the climate.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump dismissed the need for climate control during his campaign for office, and he has pledged to undo a number of regulations to protect the environment.

'It's significant that Google has done this,' Cook said. 'Hopefully, this will inspire more companies to act, too.'

Google still hopes to work with power utilities and regulators around the world to make it possible for all of its renewable energy to be directly piped into its offices and data centers around the clock.

For now, Google sells its supply of renewable energy to other electricity grids whenever it isn't possible for its own operations to use the power.
Syrian suspected of terror for arson attack in Sweden

STOCKHOLM (AP)  Swedish prosecutors have arrested a Syrian man on suspicion of terrorism for an arson attack against a Muslim group two months ago.

Prosecutors on Tuesday said they had filed a request to keep the man in pre-trial detention while they continue the investigation.

The 29-year-old man is suspected of committing an act of terrorism through an arson attack against what Swedish media described as a Shiite prayer room in the city of Malmo. No one was injured in the Oct. 11 fire.

The suspect has not been publicly named. His defense lawyer, Lars Edman, says his client denies the allegations.

Immigration officials say the man arrived in Sweden last year and received a three-year residence permit three days after the arson attack.
Authorities: 2 children among 3 dead in Indiana house fire

BRAZIL, Ind. (AP)  An 18-year-old woman, her 4-year-old brother and her 4-month-old daughter have died in a raging house fire produced flames and heat so intense that it drove back firefighters attempting to rescue them, a fire chief said.

A 6-year-old boy was being treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening respiratory injuries following the fire Monday night, Brazil Fire Chief Jake Bennett said. The boy's condition was not available Tuesday afternoon.

"When the first fire engine arrived the crew found flames blowing through windows on the 1st and 2nd floors and heavy fire from floor to ceiling on both stories through a large percentage of the structure, along with heavy black smoke," Bennett said in a news release. "The size of the fire and the extent of its spread prior to arrival created significant challenges for firefighters."

In this Dec. 5, 2016 photo, firefighters battle a fatal house fire in Brazil, Ind. (Ivy Jacobs/The Brazil Times via AP)

The fire killed Raven Elizabeth Rose Tedder; 4-month-old Zoiey Alaweigh Jane Tedder; and 4-year-old Shyloi Leeland Dale Stewart, the brother of the woman, acting Clay County Coroner Tyler Tutterow said. All pronounced dead at St. Vincent Clay Hospital in Brazil, located about 55 miles southwest of Indianapolis.

The name of the 6-year-old was not immediate released.

Eleven people were living in the partially brick home, and most had escaped the blaze by the time firefighters arrived, Bennett said.

"First-arriving firefighters rapidly performed a search in the area where occupants were thought to be," he said. The missing could not be located and after two attempts, firefighters were forced back out because of fire and intense heat.

The Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office and the Brazil fire and police departments are investigating.

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This story has been corrected to show the age of the boy being treated at a hospital is 6, not 4..

Police tape lays in a heap Tuesday Dec. 6 2016, at the scene of a fatal fire in Brazil Ind. Authorities say three people including two young children are dead following the house fire in Indiana. (Jim Avelis/The Tribune-Star via AP)
Murder-for-hire trial to be heard by 4 women, 2 men

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)  A Florida woman accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband will be tried before a jury of four women and two men, chosen over a four-day process that went twice as long as planned because of extensive TV coverage of the case.

Dalia Dippolito was arrested in 2009 in a case featured on the television show "Cops" and that garnered wide national and local media attention.

Prosecutors allege the 34-year-old defendant offered an undercover officer $7,000 to kill her then-husband. An appellate court threw out her 2011 conviction and 20-year-sentence because of a mistake during jury selection.

Dalia Dippolito listens to attorney Brian Claypool speak at the Palm Beach County Courthouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. A judge is leaving open the possibility that the trial of a Florida woman accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband might require an out-of-town jury. (Allen Eyestone/Palm Beach Post via AP)

Opening statements are scheduled Wednesday in her retrial.

On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley rejected several defense requests to move Dippolito's retrial out of Palm Beach County or bring in an out-of-county jury. Defense attorney Greg Rosenfeld had argued that "the risk is too great" that jurors exposed to media coverage won't be fair.

Kelley said he believes that the extensive questioning the jurors underwent about their knowledge of the case, their television viewing habits and numerous other topics weeded out those who could not be impartial.

The judge also pointed to several high-profile Florida trials that were held with local juries and deemed fair by appellate courts. Kelley and the attorneys screened 200 prospects to find the six jurors and two alternates.

Unlike most states that use 12-person juries, Florida uses six in all criminal cases except first-degree murder trials.

Dippolito is facing trial on charges that she tried to hire a hit man in 2009 to kill her then-husband Michael Dippolito. Prosecutors allege she wanted his $250,000 in savings and their $225,000 town house.

If convicted of solicitation to commit first-degree murder, she could be sentenced up to 20 years.

Dippolito has said previously that she was just acting and that she didn't really want her husband dead. She also has said police entrapped her because they wanted to impress "Cops" producers, who were in town by chance, and give them an unforgettable case that would gain national attention.

The trial is expected to last about a week.

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Iraqi man convicted in Sweden of war crimes

STOCKHOLM (AP)  A Swedish court has convicted a 24-year-old Iraqi man of war crimes for posting macabre pictures on Facebook after fighting extremists in Iraq  in the first such case in Sweden.

The Blekinge District Court sentenced Raed Abdulkareem to six months in jail on Tuesday.

The court said Abdulkareem posted photos on Facebook of himself in military fatigues next to a decapitated head on a plate and bodies with severed heads, and appeared in a video taken in early 2015, moments before the still photos were taken.

Abdulkareem, who sought asylum in Sweden in late 2015, has confessed being in the pictures but denied committing war crimes.
German police arrest suspect in attack on Chinese students

BERLIN (AP)  Police in the western city of Bochum say they have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of sexually assaulting two Chinese students.

Prosecutors said Tuesday the suspect is an Iraqi asylum-seeker who came to Germany with his wife and children a year ago.

The German news agency dpa reported that man, who wasn't named, is suspected of attacking and attempting to rape a 21-year-old Chinese woman in August, and of raping a 27-year-old Chinese woman in November.

Bochum prosecutor Andreas Bachmann said DNA evidence linked the man to both crimes. He was arrested Monday.
Gulf Arab leaders, British PM gather for talks in Bahrain

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Top officials from six Gulf Arab nations gathered Tuesday in the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain for talks expected to focus on regional security and cooperation.

Joining the two-day summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council is British Prime Minister Theresa May, the first female leader to participate in the talks.

May addressed British sailors aboard the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean earlier in the day, highlighting her country's commitment to the Persian Gulf region. The UK is building a new naval base in Bahrain.

That decision has drawn criticism from human rights advocates, who point to the jailing of several activists and opposition figures in recent years. Amnesty International has urged May to raise concerns about human rights violations throughout the Gulf during her meeting.

During the summit, Britain is laying out plans to bolster aviation security with Gulf states and improve counterterrorism cooperation, among other initiatives, according to the prime minister's office.

The GCC bloc of Western-allied countries includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

French President Francois Hollande was the first leader from outside the region to attend a GCC summit, in May 2015. U.S. President Barack Obama met with the bloc in Saudi Arabia in April of this year.

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Zimbabwe's Mugabe, 92, appeals for calm amid economic crisis

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)  Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has appealed for calm as his government battles to contain a debilitating economic crisis.

The 92-year-old president appeared frail but jovial, struggling with his lines a bit as he delivered a 30-minute State of the Nation address on Tuesday.

He praised the country's security forces for maintaining order, although critics accuse them of using violence to stifle dissent.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is seen upon arrival for his annual State of the Nation address at Parliament in Harare, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has appealed for calm, as his government battles to contain a debilitating economic crisis. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

This once prosperous but now economically struggling southern African country is battling cash shortages, high unemployment and company closures.

A new local currency, introduced last week, has failed to end cash shortages, with many people still sleeping outside banks to access their money. The cash crunch has meant that Mugabe's government has failed to pay its workers on time since June.

Mugabe did not mention these issues in his speech, resulting in murmurs of protest from opposition members of parliament.

He chuckled when one opposition representative asked him to make sure he was reading the correct speech. This followed last year's embarrassing incident when for his State of the Nation speech Mugabe read the same speech he had delivered just a few weeks before.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, centre, arrives for his annual State of the Nation address at Parliament in Harare, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has appealed for calm, as his government battles to contain a debilitating economic crisis. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
President of Arizona-Mexico Commission resigns

PHOENIX (AP)  The president of the Arizona-Mexico commission has resigned from the unpaid position. The commission is a public-private organization that promotes trade, networking and information-sharing across the border.

The Arizona Republic reports (http://bit.ly/2gzbkAe ) that commission President David Farca announced his resignation during a reception in Hermosillo, Mexico. Approximately 150 people attended the event, Sonoran officials, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and state and businesses leaders.

Farca said Monday that his departure was a "personal decision" because the position was taking time away from his business.

Daniel Scarpinato, a spokesman for Ducey, said Monday that Farca's resignation was voluntary. Ducey said in a statement that Farca's leadership has improved the state's partnership with Mexico.

Farca's resignation is the latest in a string of recent departures from Ducey's administration.

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Delta flight returns to Dayton airport after engine issue

DAYTON, Ohio (AP)  Delta Air Lines says a flight bound for Atlanta made a quick return to a southwest Ohio airport because of a possible engine issue.

The Atlanta-based airline says Flight 2392 took off from Dayton International Airport on Tuesday morning and returned shortly afterward because of an indication that one of the MD-90's two engines was getting too warm. A statement says the flight returned "out of an abundance of caution."

Airport spokeswoman Linda Hughes says emergency response crews were called out shortly after 6 a.m. Eastern time. The plane landed and taxied to a gate without incident.
Czech president gets personal White House invite from Trump

PRAGUE (AP)  U.S. President-elect Donald Trump thanked Czech President Milos Zeman for his support Tuesday, and the two exchanged invitations to visit.

Zeman's office said Trump appreciated that Zeman "was the only European president" to endorse him during the campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Some European prime ministers did endorse Trump.

During a telephone call, Trump invited Zeman to visit him in the White House. Zeman's office said the two agreed "an ideal opportunity" for the meeting will be Zeman's trip to the U.S. planned for April when he is scheduled to receive an award from Jewish groups. It said the Czech president returned the invitation by suggesting the president-elect visit Prague  and that was accepted.

Their views of the fight against Islamic terrorism and political and economic cooperation between the U.S. and the Czech Republic were also discussed.

Zeman, who is known for his strong anti-migrant rhetoric, previously said he shared Trump's views of migration and the fight against Islamic extremism. He also opposes the European Union's sanctions against Russia; Trump has called for a tempered approach to U.S.-Russia relations.

Zeman has been to the United States three times since he was elected in 2013, but was not invited to the White House by President Barack Obama.
Kentucky police: Woman points gun at officers, is shot

GEORGETOWN, Ky. (AP)  Police in Kentucky say officers shot a suicidal woman after she pointed a gun at them.

The Georgetown Police Department said in a news release that officers drove to a subdivision Monday morning upon receiving a report about an armed woman inside a vehicle who was threatening suicide.

Georgetown Police Chief Mike Bosse says the unidentified woman pointed the gun at officers who were trying to negotiate with her, prompting an officer to fire multiple shots. Bosse didn't know how many shots were fired.

The woman was hospitalized and her condition was not immediately clear.

Officers had been called to the woman's house numerous times and had taken her to a medical facility the previous night for an evaluation.
Granger Smith back in Texas after stage fall in New Jersey

SAYREVILLE, N.J. (AP)  Country music artist Granger Smith is back in Texas after he was hospitalized for injuries sustained when he fell off a stage in New Jersey.

Smith posted Tuesday on Twitter that he's starting to regain movement.

Smith was treated for two broken ribs and a punctured and partially collapsed lung at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

He was singing while standing on an audio monitor when it gave way and he fell into a metal barricade at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville on Friday night. He got back up and continued performing.
Mexico: 20 gunmen killed in shootouts in Veracruz

XALAPA, Mexico (AP)  Twenty suspected criminals were killed in a series of shootouts with police and troops in recent days in Mexico's troubled Gulf coast state of Veracruz, authorities said Tuesday.

The state's joint security agency had previously announced that 14 presumed gang gunmen died in a shootout Monday in Veracruz, which is a smuggling corridor and a hotspot for drug cartel violence.

On Tuesday, the agency updated the death toll, saying six other suspected criminals had been killed in shootouts with military units in the same area over the weekend and Monday, putting the three-day death toll at 20.

In the most serious incident, authorities said a police patrol came under fire Monday on a road in the town of Jesus Carranza, near the border with Oaxaca state. The patrol called for backup, and marines arrived to join in a firefight that killed 14 suspects, officials said.

A separate shootout in Jesus Carranza resulted in the deaths of three attackers Saturday, officials said. The agency also reported three more gunmen killed in similar circumstances in the same area, but gave no details on when or where.

Police and military reinforcements dispatched to the area found a total of 28 weapons, including 13 assault rifles and a weapon capable of piercing armored vehicles, officials said. They also found about 147 pounds (67 kilograms) of cocaine.
Her newborn son was accidentally given to another

A mother-of-two is suing a Minnesota hospital after her newborn was accidentally breastfeed by another woman.

Tammy Van Dyke's son Cody had to go through a year of HIV tests following the baby mix-up in 2012.

Now Van Dyke, of Apple Valley, has filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

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Tammy Van Dyke (pictrued with her son Cody in 2012) is suing a Minnesota hospital after her newborn was accidentally breastfeed by another woman

'In good faith you drop your child off at the hospital nursery with the nurses,' Van Dyke said in a previous interview with KSTP-TV.

'Never in a million years would you think this could happen or would happen.'

Van Dyke said the mother who had breastfed Cody, believing him to be her own child, was extremely upset upon learning the truth.

The women, who declined to be named but had given birth to twins at the hospital, had to wait more than 20 minutes before she could be reunited with her son son Liam, the lawsuit alleges.

'It gave me peace of mind to talk to her,' Van Dyke said shortly after the incident. 'She was just as distraught as me that this happened to her, and in the meantime, also didn't know where her baby was.'

Tammy Van Dyke's son Cody had to go through a year of HIV tests following the baby mix-up in 2012 (pictured in 2012)

The hospital's operator, Allina Health, said at the time that hospital procedures required staff to match codes on the infant's and mother's identification bands, and it appeared those procedures were not followed

Now Van Dyke, of Apple Valley, has filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Abbott Northwestern Hospital (pictured)

Cody immediately had to undergo blood tests for HIV and hepatitis after the mix-up, which came back as negative, which had to be repeated every three months for a year.

'It was horrible,' Van Dyke said. 'Two nurses had to go in through veins in his tiny little arms.'

The hospital's operator, Allina Health, said at the time that hospital procedures required staff to match codes on the infant's and mother's identification bands, and it appeared those procedures were not followed.

Van Dyke's (pictured) suit seeks $50,000 in damages over the December 5, 2012, mistake

Allina Health officials said Monday that they have since instituted a new electronic procedure.

'When the Mother Baby Center opened in February 2013, we began using electronic identification bands for the mother and infant that must be matched when returning the infant to the mother,' said Michelle Smith, clinical program director of Mother Baby Service Line.

'This helps us to assure that the identity of the infant and mother are matched each time.'

An apology letter to Van Dyke from Abbott Northwestern Hospital in 2012 acknowledged the boy was put in the wrong bassinet.

Van Dyke's suit seeks $50,000 in damages over the December 5, 2012, mistake which she said led to 'unnecessary medical treatment, tests and expenses, and severe mental injury and emotional pain and suffering.'
Nicaragua to compensate Costa Rica over damage from invasion

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP)  Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says his country will compensate Costa Rica for environmental damage caused when Nicaraguan military forces occupied disputed territory in the neighboring nation.

The payment is the result of a ruling last year by the International Court at The Hague, Netherlands, favoring Costa Rica's sovereignty over the river island of Portillos and finding that Nicaragua had violated its territory along the Caribbean coast.

Costa Rica sued in 2010 over the invasion. The damage done reportedly includes the dredging of canals and the felling of trees.
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Cyprus police rescue 27 Syrian migrants off northern coast

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)  A Cyprus official says police have rescued 27 Syrian migrants from a speedboat found drifting off the east Mediterranean island's northwestern coast.

Police spokesman Michalis Ioannou told The Associated Press that a patrol boat towed the speedboat to harbor on Tuesday after its captain allegedly abandoned the craft on a jet ski.

Ioannou says the 16 men, six women and five children on board had departed from Turkey on Monday morning.

He says two women were taken to a hospital as a precaution. The migrants will be put up at a hotel and taken to a reception center just outside the Cyprus capital, Nicosia, on Wednesday.
Lawmaker barred from leaving Guatemala over civil war deaths

GUATEMALA CITY (AP)  A governing party lawmaker has been barred from traveling abroad while he is investigated in a case involving the killings of hundreds of people during Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, a decision that drew praise Tuesday from relatives of victims.

Chief human rights prosecutor Hilda Pineda confirmed late Monday that a judge issued the precautionary order against Edgar Ovalle, who she said is suspected of murder, forced disappearance and crimes against humanity.

Phone calls to Ovalle went unanswered, and it was not clear if he has legal representation in the case. Ovalle has opposed the investigation through legal actions.

Ovalle has been linked to the kidnapping of multiple people in 1983 and 1984, when he was second in command of a military zone in Coban, north of Guatemala City. The victims were later killed and buried in clandestine graves on a military base.

Other former military officers are also suspected in the killings. Prosecutors say more than 80 common graves have been found containing the remains of at least 565 people allegedly slain by soldiers under their command.

As a member of Guatemala's congress, Ovalle enjoys immunity from prosecution. Judge Claudette Dominguez, who issued the travel ban, is considering whether to withdraw that legal protection.

Aura Elena Farfan, a complainant in the case against Ovalle, said Tuesday that the decision gives hope to relatives of victims.

"In a way, the family members with their denunciations and demand for the application of justice are making cracks in the wall of impunity that for years has kept us waiting for that longed-for justice," Farfan said.
Police chief defends investigation in decapitated-teen case

LAWRENCE, Mass. (AP)  A police chief is defending his department's investigation into the disappearance of a 16-year-old boy whose headless body was found near a river.

The family of Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino reported him missing Nov. 18 but said police at first thought he was a runaway and didn't take the case seriously enough.

His body was found Dec. 1 by a woman walking her dog along the Merrimack River in Lawrence. A 15-year-old classmate at Lawrence High School has pleaded not guilty to murder and is being held without bail.

Mathew Borges, 15, attends his arraignment in Lawrence District Court in Lawrence, Mass, Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. Borges was held without bail after pleading not guilty at the brief arraignment Monday on a first-degree murder charge. (Paul Bilodeau/The Eagle-Tribune via AP, Pool)

"We are poor. We are Hispanic," the teen's grandmother Ivelisse Cornielle said after the suspect's arrest on Saturday. "They considered this a normal runaway case. I told them from Day 1 that it wasn't."

The victim's mother, Katiuska Paulino, said she insisted that he was not the type to run away.

"To every police officer, detective in our police department, if it was their kid ... would they have waited two weeks to look for him?" she said after Monday's arraignment.

On Tuesday evening, hundreds of people gathered for a memorial set up near the Lawrence Police Department to remember Viloria-Paulino, the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune reported.

Family members, friends and other supporters lit candles as the teen's pastor led the crowd in prayer and other people performed songs.

Police, based on a reported sighting of Viloria-Paulino that turned out to be false, at first treated his disappearance as a runaway case, police Chief James Fitzpatrick said. But he said his department made the case a priority from the start.

The department posted a picture of Viloria-Paulino on its Facebook page two days after he was reported missing along with the phone number of the detective investigating the disappearance.

"We were relentless on this case," Fitzpatrick said, adding that he understands that the victim's family is grieving.

Mayor Daniel Rivera has stood by police but has suggested he may seek an independent review of the case.

Mathew Borges, 15, right, is brought into the prisoner dock before being arraigned in Lawrence District Court in Lawrence, Mass, Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. Borges was held without bail after pleading not guilty at the brief arraignment Monday on a first-degree murder charge. (Paul Bilodeau/The Eagle-Tribune via AP, Pool)

Mathew Borges, 15, attends his arraignment in Lawrence District Court in Lawrence, Mass, Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. Borges was held without bail after pleading not guilty at the brief arraignment Monday on a first-degree murder charge. (Paul Bilodeau/The Eagle-Tribune via AP, Pool)
Naomi Judd reveals 'severe depression' diagnosis

NEW YORK (AP)  Naomi Judd has opened up about her battle with depression.

She tells ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Tuesday that she has been diagnosed with severe depression and has spent time in psychiatric hospitals. She says she is confronting lingering issues from her childhood as part of her therapy, including being molested by a relative when she was 3.

She also says she is close with her youngest daughter, actress Ashley Judd. But Judd says she's "a little estranged" from Wynonna, her daughter and partner in the country music duo The Judds. She says she and Wynonna are currently taking a break from one another.

FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2012, file photo, Naomi Judd poses at the Hero Dog Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Judd told "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, that she has been diagnosed with severe depression and spent time in psychiatric hospitals. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
3rd man arrested in death after party at ritzy NYC apartment

NEW YORK (AP)  A third person has been arrested in connection with the stabbing death of a Connecticut man who vanished last month after a party at a luxury New York City apartment.

The New York Police Department said Tuesday that 29-year-old Max Gemma, of Oceanport, New Jersey, has been arrested on charges of hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence.

At his arraignment Tuesday, Gemma pleaded not guilty. His lawyer says there is no evidence or witness testimony to support the charges.

Investigators have been working to determine who killed 26-year-old Joseph Comunale (kahm-yoo-NAHL'-ee), of Stamford, Connecticut. His body was found in a shallow grave in New Jersey a few days after he disappeared.
Feds seek 17 to 21 years for ex-congressman Chaka Fattah

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  Federal prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 17 to 21 years for a former Pennsylvania congressman convicted of a racketeering scheme that included a string of illicit financial moves to cover up an illegal $1 million campaign loan.

Eleven-term Philadelphia Democrat Chaka Fattah is scheduled to be sentenced Monday, the denouement of a 30-year political career that took him on Air Force One and to a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Fattah, 60, got into financial trouble when his decision to run for Philadelphia mayor in 2007 brushed up against the city's strict new campaign finance limits. As he struggled to raise money, he routed a $1 million loan from Sallie Mae chairman Albert Lord through a consultant, then reversed the secretive moves through a charity and others when Lord called in the debt.

FILE- In this June 21, 2016, file photo, Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., walks after leaving the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. Federal prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 17 to 21 years for the former Pennsylvania congressman convicted of a racketeering scheme that included a string of illicit financial moves to cover up an illegal $1 million campaign loan. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

"For over 20 years, Fattah held himself out ... as a champion of education and clean government," Justice Department lawyer Eric L. Gibson wrote in a filing late Monday that sought a sentence within the guideline range. Instead, "Fattah sought to strengthen himself politically, enrich himself and his co-conspirators, steal from non-profits and the federal taxpayers, and defraud his campaigns, their creditors and a credit union."

Defense lawyers have not yet filed their sentencing brief and did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday.

Four others convicted with Fattah this year, including a former deputy Philadelphia mayor, also await sentencing next week. Chaka Fattah Jr. is meanwhile serving a five-year prison term in an overlapping bank fraud case that centered on the son's outsized lifestyle and spiraling debts.

The elder Fattah resigned in June after a jury convicted him of racketeering, bribery, fraud and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors also are seeking more than $600,000 in restitution from him and other co-defendants.

According to trial testimony, Fattah used $23,000 in campaign funds to pay down his son's college debt and took $18,000 from a friend seeking an ambassadorship when he needed a down payment for a Poconos vacation home. Fattah then pressed President Barack Obama  unsuccessfully  on the friend's behalf.

"The enterprise existed primarily to support Fattah's ambitions or desires, whether they were political ... or financial," Gibson wrote in the sentencing memo.

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Citing complaints, NY prosecutor wants voting rules changed

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)  Unprecedented complaints about New York's presidential primary show the need for big changes to state voting rules, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday before announcing proposals to authorize automatic voter registration and join most other states in allowing early voting.

Schneiderman's office received 1,500 complaints about the April primary, about 10 times more than any previous election. Many of the calls concerned mistakes in registration rolls or a deadline that required voters seeking to change their party affiliation to do so more than six months before the primary.

The state's outdated and overly burdensome rules prevented thousands of New Yorkers from casting a ballot, Schneiderman said, including two of Republican President-elect Donald Trump's children who missed the party affiliation deadline, preventing them from voting for their father.

"New York has one of the most ridiculous change-of-registration rules in the United States of America," he said, adding that the rules contribute to the state having some of the lowest voter participation rates in the nation. "This is totally unacceptable, and it's something we can and something we will change."

The Democratic attorney general launched a review of state voting laws following the rash of complaints. His office has an ongoing investigation into a purge that took more than 120,000 voters off the rolls in Brooklyn, a move that angered many supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost the Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton.

Schneiderman's proposal for the Legislature includes allowing residents to vote up to two weeks before an election at their local board of elections. He also wants to authorize online registration and allow citizens to be automatically registered when they submit information to a state agency.

To reduce voter confusion and fatigue, Schneiderman is also calling for the consolidation of primaries instead of the separate primaries now held for congressional, legislative and presidential races.

Many of the proposals announced Tuesday have been debated for years to no avail in the Legislature. Schneiderman said some of the current restrictions have the effect of dampening turnout, which could benefit incumbents.
Poll: Racial vulnerability linked to youth vote choice

WASHINGTON (AP)  Among the youngest white adult Americans, feelings of racial and economic vulnerability appear to be closely connected to their support for Donald Trump in last month's election.

That's according to an analysis of a new GenForward poll of Americans between the ages of 18 and 30. Other surveys of white adults of all ages have found a similar pattern.

Among young people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, feelings toward President Barack Obama and about the way the government is working were related to support for Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2016 file photo, supporters of President-elect Donald Trump cheer during as they watch election returns during an election night rally in New York. Among the youngest white adult Americans, feelings of racial and economic vulnerability appear to be closely connected to their support for Donald Trump in last months election. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

The pre-election survey data comes from a GenForward poll conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The survey is designed to highlight how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of a new generation.

Things to know about young voters in the 2016 election:

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DEMOGRAPHICS

The GenForward polls showed that even the youngest voters were deeply divided along racial and ethnic lines in this year's election. Large majorities of young black, Hispanic and Asian-American likely voters in the surveys said they planned to vote for Clinton, compared with less than half of young white likely voters who said the same.

Among young white adults, more than half of those with a college degree supported Clinton, compared with less than 4 in 10 without such a degree.

The surveys suggest that support for Trump among young white likely voters increased in the weeks immediately before the election. Exit polls conducted for the AP and television networks by Edison Research show that young whites were ultimately slightly more likely to support Trump than Clinton.

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WHITE VULNERABILITY

Among young whites, the survey suggests that feelings of racial and economic vulnerability and racial resentment appear to have played a role in support for Trump.

In particular, among young whites who scored highest on a scale measuring "white vulnerability," or feelings that whites are losing out socially and economically in today's society, more than half said they planned to support Trump, compared to only about 6 percent of those scoring lowest on the scale.

The analysis shows Trump performed well among young whites who felt that gender discrimination is not a problem in society. Likewise, both young whites and young Latinos who felt that blacks need to work their way up in society without special favors and haven't been significantly held back by racial discrimination were more likely to vote for Trump.

Both of those attitudes were closely linked with feelings of racial vulnerability among young whites, and those feelings of vulnerability had the strongest relationship with choosing to vote for Trump when all three attitudes were analyzed together.

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POLITICAL ALIENATION AND EQUALITY

The surveys show that feelings about the political system were linked to vote choices among young people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Young Asian Americans and Latinos were less likely to support Clinton if they had feelings of political alienation, such as that leaders in government are looking out primarily for themselves and don't care about people like the them.

Young whites and African Americans who felt that American society and government were moving toward greater political equality were more likely to support Clinton.

Whites, blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans were all more likely to support Clinton if they had warmer feelings toward President Barack Obama.

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The analysis is based on two polls of young adults age 18-30 conducted Oct. 1-14 and Oct.20-Nov. 3. Both used samples of about 1,800 people drawn from the probability-based GenForward panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. young adult population. The margins of sampling error for all respondents are plus or minus 3.8 percentage points and plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, respectively.

The survey was paid for by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago, using grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.

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Online:

GenForward polls: http://www.genforwardsurvey.com/

Black Youth Project: http://blackyouthproject.com/
Taylor Kinney helps 'Chicago Fire' celebrate a milestone

NEW YORK (AP)  NBC's "Chicago Fire," about firefighters and EMTs at the Chicago Fire Department, took a beat to find its footing, but is now the tent pole of a growing Dick Wolf franchise that includes "Chicago P.D.," ''Chicago Med" and the upcoming "Chicago Justice."

Taylor Kinney, who plays Lieutenant Kelly Severide, is helping the series mark its 100th episode, airing Tuesday.

"It took a while to get a sustainable (ratings) number where we were like, 'OK, we're in the clear. We're good,'" he said.

FILE - In this March 19, 2016, file photo, Taylor Kinney attends the 33rd Annual Paleyfest: "An Evening With Dick Wolf" held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. NBCs Chicago Fire, about firefighters and EMTs at the Chicago Fire Department, took a beat to find its footing, but is now the tent pole of a growing Dick Wolf franchise that includes Chicago P.D., Chicago Med and the upcoming Chicago Justice. Kinney, who plays Lieutenant Kelly Severide, is helping the series mark its 100th episode, airing Tuesday, Dec. 6. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Kinney, 35, is especially proud of how "Chicago Fire" has led the way for more TV and film production in the windy city.

"Now there's 'Empire' (on Fox), the four 'Chicago' shows, 'Exorcist' (also on Fox). It's just done so much for the city and I think maybe for a long time it was underrated as a backdrop or a place to tell stories, but there's no lack of cinematography of where you can shoot and how to use the city. ... I couldn't count how many people locally it employs," he said.

Shooting on location also helped members of the cast, which includes Jesse Spencer, Monica Raymund and Eamonn Walker, bond together.

"It created this familial atmosphere. We were forced to hang out and do things the first season whereas if you do something in LA or New York, it's more of a work environment," he said. "... We didn't know anyone. I didn't know anyone, maybe one or two people, but you spend time with these people. Someone's like, 'I'm gonna have dinner' or 'I'm gonna have a poker night,' and then it happened where we all just kind of enjoy each other's company."

Kinney said he's also become friends with real-life police officers and firefighters.

"I can't count how many. My appreciation has grown," he said.

Being in Chicago also provides some anonymity. Kinney, who was engaged to Lady Gaga until their split earlier this year, said he doesn't really get followed by paparazzi there.

"People are pretty gentle in Chicago."

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Follow Alicia Rancilio at http://www.twitter.com/

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Online:
NY governor to sue over Long Island Sound dredge disposal

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP)  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he intends to sue the federal government over its plan to allow dredged sediments to be placed in eastern Long Island Sound.

The Environmental Protection Agency approved a plan in November that allows dumping in the Connecticut portion of the waterway that separates the two states.

While Cuomo and New York environmentalists oppose the disposal project, it has been praised by many in Connecticut. Officials there say small marinas and the Naval Submarine Base in Groton (GRAH'-tuhn) rely on having a long-term placement site for dredged materials.

The New York Democrat argues the dumping poses environmental dangers.

The EPA has previously said it disagrees that dredged sediment could threaten New York habitats.
Man gets at least 6 years for older brother's stabbing death

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP)  A young Pennsylvania man convicted of stabbing his older brother to death following an argument over cigarettes has been sentenced to six to 15 years in prison.

The Pocono Record reports (http://bit.ly/2ggAA0B ) 20-year-old Matthew Crothers was sentenced Monday. Jurors had convicted him of voluntary manslaughter in the slaying of 19-year-old David Crothers two years ago, when he was 18.

Matthew had confronted David and his girlfriend in their Chestnuthill Township home about smoking his cigarettes without his permission. The home is about 70 miles north of Philadelphia.

Prosecutors say Matthew later approached David from behind and stabbed him in the leg. David died four days later.

The Crothers family says Matthew was trying to defend himself and the family from David's drug-fueled attacks.

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In age of Trump, GOP learns to embrace government activism

WASHINGTON (AP)  After eight years of denouncing President Barack Obama as a big-government activist, congressional Republicans suddenly appear eager to welcome a big-government activist to the White House.

This time, of course, he's one of their own.

Many Republicans applauded when President-elect Donald Trump intervened to help keep appliance manufacturer Carrier's jobs in Indiana, a deal that cost state taxpayers about $7 million in tax breaks and grants. When the Obama administration got involved on behalf of the auto industry and individual companies, Republicans were quick to brand it "crony capitalism" and the government "picking winners and losers."

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of La., speaks to reporters during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Republicans are sounding receptive to Trump's plan for a massive $1 trillion infrastructure bill, after years criticizing Obama's smaller $787 billion stimulus package that the administration pushed through Congress with little GOP support in 2009 to try to pull the country out of a financial catastrophe.

Even Trump's recent threat to levy 35 percent tariffs to discourage companies from relocating overseas has met with mostly muted opposition on Capitol Hill, though the idea flies in the face of the GOP's traditional support for free trade.

"It's consistent with our goal to make American businesses and American products more competitive in the global economy," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., insisted Tuesday about the tariff idea, even while suggesting Congress was unlikely to act on it. "We believe the best way to achieve that goal is through comprehensive tax reform."

Ever since Trump's surprise win last month on a platform full of populist ideas that run counter to Republican orthodoxy, the question for Republican leaders in Congress has been whether they will follow his lead on such proposals, or whether more traditional GOP policies will prevail.

Some Republicans insist that's a false choice, arguing that Trump and congressional Republicans agree more than they disagree, such as on their plans to repeal and replace Obama's health care law. In other cases, like with the tariffs, they share the same general goals and can compromise on how to get there, some Republicans said.

"His positions on trade are somewhat different than members up here have, but we'll figure out a way to sort it all out," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. "It'll probably be a negotiation."

Yet after a highly contentious campaign season during which many Republicans, including Ryan, supported Trump reluctantly if at all, it's been striking how quickly congressional Republicans have rallied to the president-elect's side. Even when it comes to core GOP goals like entitlement reform and free trade, Republicans' enthusiasm over having one of their own in the White House appears to be making it easy for them to overlook fundamental policy disagreements.

"I do believe he has somewhat of a mandate. He's shown a way that a Republican can win in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and that's essential," said Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a conservative who's never been shy about challenging GOP leaders in the House. "I'm not prepared to criticize the president yet, at least until he takes office and we see what we get."

Ryan has seemed particularly reluctant to take on Trump of late. During the campaign the speaker initially withheld his endorsement from Trump and later, after the release of audio of Trump boasting of groping women, declared he would not campaign for him or defend him. Trump, in turn, lashed out at Ryan over Twitter as a "very weak an ineffective leader."

After the election, Ryan was effusive in praising Trump's win and has complimented him at every turn, insisting that they talk all the time and will be working "hand in glove."

Ryan's spokesman, Brendan Buck, disputed a question about divisions between Trump and the congressional GOP.

"Reporters are trying very hard to divide us, but when we can still achieve the same goal through other means, we're not going help feed into that bogus narrative," Buck said.

The quick acquiescence by many GOP leaders to Trump's ascent has frustrated the few Republican lawmakers who are still willing to speak out against the president-elect.

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan has been outspoken in criticizing Trump's moves since the election, including his intervention with Carrier, his proposal to punish people who burn the American flag, and his tariff plan. Amash said GOP leaders should be more forthright when Trump proposes things that run counter to GOP beliefs.

"I think they should be, and we'll see what happens when Mr. Trump is actually president and things will have to pass through Congress," Amash said. "I think sometimes he says things knowing that Congress will not pass his proposal."

And even as Republicans seek to paper over their disagreements with Trump, Democrats hope to exploit them to divide the GOP, and make common cause with Trump themselves where possible.

"We're beginning to see the fault line emerge, the divisions that will dominate Washington," Senate Democrats' incoming leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said Tuesday. "Only this time, instead of the fault lines falling between Democrats and Republicans, they're falling between the president and his own party."

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. leaves a news conference with the GOP leadership, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., second from left, joined by, from left, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., speaks to reporters during a news conference, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
US officials return 23 Taino artifacts to Dominican gov't

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP)  U.S. officials have returned 23 smuggled pre-Colombian artifacts seized by authorities to the Dominican Republic.

The smuggled items include a hatchet, a chisel and a mortar and pestle created by the Taino people who lived in the Caribbean before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

U.S. Ambassador James Brewster and a Puerto Rico-based agent with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations on Tuesday returned to the artifacts to the Dominican culture minister.

Brewster said the artifacts represented the "rich heritage of this nation and its indigenous roots."

It wasn't immediately clear where all the smuggled items were recovered.
AP reporter deported from South Sudan

JOHANNESBURG (AP)  Government agents ordered a journalist working for The Associated Press out of South Sudan on Tuesday, taking him to the airport in Juba and putting him aboard a flight to Uganda.

Justin Lynch, an American freelance journalist who had reported on human rights violations in the violence-plagued nation for the past six months, said he was arrested by members of South Sudan's National Security Service who temporarily seized his mobile phones and allowed him to pack a bag.

The agents told him only that he was being deported for his journalistic work, Lynch said after arriving in Kampala, Uganda's capital.

Lynch, 25, from Saratoga, New York, has been working for AP in South Sudan since July. He recently reported on evidence of ethnic violence in the country and on the warning by a U.N. official that South Sudan is at risk of genocide.

Speaking from New York, AP executives defended Lynch's reporting and said they were seeking an explanation from the government.

"Any move to suppress legitimate journalism and truthful reporting shedding light on humanitarian crimes is wrong and should be condemned. We hope that the government of South Sudan will reconsider its actions," said Ian Phillips, AP's vice president for international news.
Man fatally shot by police after Ohio crash was UAE citizen

CLEVELAND (AP)  A man fatally shot by a police officer after his car flipped on the Ohio Turnpike was a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and a student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office said Tuesday.

The Summit County medical examiner's office identified the man as 26-year-old Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri, of Cleveland. Alameri was shot once in the head, the medical examiner's office said.

According to the city of Hudson, Alameri was speeding and driving erratically on the turnpike Sunday when he sideswiped another vehicle, causing his car to flip onto the roof. Hudson police and Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers searched for the driver, who had fled, and found him in a nearby wooded area.

A Hudson police officer fired shots at the man during a struggle, the city said. The officer was treated for minor injuries and has been placed on paid administrative leave. The officer hasn't been identified.

Hudson is about 30 miles north of Cleveland.

Jill Del Greco, spokesman for the Ohio attorney general's office, said investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is examining the shooting, will be meeting with representatives of the United Arab Emirates.

A woman who answered the telephone Tuesday at the media office of the UAE Embassy in Washington said officials were aware of Alameri's death and would be issuing a statement.
India accused of 'indiscriminate' force in Kashmir unrest

WASHINGTON (AP)  Indian security forces suppressing protests in Kashmir used 12-gauge shotguns unsuited to crowd control, causing permanent injuries to hundreds of people, including blindness, a U.S.-based rights group said Tuesday.

The group Physicians for Human Rights said that security forces have routinely blocked access to medical care in violation of international law.

The unrest was sparked by the killing in July of a popular rebel commander against Indian rule in the divided Himalayan region which is also claimed by Pakistan. At least 90 civilians have been killed.

At least two police and hundreds of government forces have been injured in the months-long clashes.

The allegations of right abuses by Indian security forces have been a blot on India's profile as it expands ties with the U.S. and other nations, and as it grapples with militant attacks it says emanate from Pakistan.

Physicians for Human Rights said it interviewed doctors and injured protesters and reviewed hospital records. It found shotguns have caused at least a dozen deaths and 5,200 injuries, including hundreds resulting in permanent disability. It said shotguns fire cartridges containing more than 600 pellets  ammunition it described as "inherently indiscriminate and inaccurate" that should never be used against protesters.

"At close range, such weapons have the force of live ammunition. And at a distance, the pellets disperse and can take an unpredictable trajectory, meaning they can indiscriminately inflict severe injury on nonviolent protesters or bystanders, particularly when those pellets strike the head, neck, face, or eyes," said the group's medical adviser, Dr. Rohini Haar.

The group's report, published Monday, also accuses Indian authorities of routinely blocked access to urgent medical care for injured protesters by firing on ambulances, holding up emergency vehicles at roadblocks, and interfering with medical care inside hospitals. It described that as a "violation of India's obligations under international law to protect the rights to life and health."
Trump: Japanese mogul pledges $50 billion US investment

WASHINGTON (AP)  After meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday, Japanese tech billionaire Masayoshi Son said he will invest $50 billion in new startups in the United States, committing to creating 50,000 new jobs over an unspecified time period.

Son is the founder and chief executive of SoftBank, one of Japan's largest technology outfits, which owns the U.S. mobile carrier Sprint. Sprint shares initially spiked after the announcement. Son left Trump Tower after being escorted down the elevator by the president-elect, who touted the pledge before waiting investors.

"We are going to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and commit to create 50,000 new jobs," Son told reporters. "We (will) invest into the new startup companies in the United States."

President-elect Donald Trump, accompanied by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, speaks to members of the media at Trump Tower in New York, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The announcement is the latest instance in which Trump appears to be conducting economic policy via ad-hoc deal-making  sometimes taking credit whether he deserves it or not. Last week, the president-elect spoke at the Carrier furnace plant in Indianapolis after the company announced plans to keep 800 jobs at the plant instead of outsourcing them to Mexico. Trump quickly claimed he had saved those positions, even though the company is still shifting more than 1,000 jobs from that factory and another Indiana plant to Mexico.

Similarly, the week after the election Trump tweeted that he had dissuaded Ford Motor Co. from moving a Kentucky factory to Mexico. The claim was a stretch; Ford had no plans to move the plant and had already agreed to keep producing one specific model there, although it did back away from a plan to shift production of the Lincoln MKC, a small SUV, from Louisville to Cuautitlan, Mexico.

Trump quickly took credit for Son's commitment on Tuesday, writing on Twitter: "Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!"

"I just came to celebrate his new job," Son said. "Because he said he would do a lot of deregulation, I said, 'This is great, the U.S. will become great again'."

Trump plans to meet with leading tech executives next week, a group that will include venture capitalist Peter Thiel  one of Trump's few supporters in Silicon Valley  and Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins. The job commitments that Trump claims to have produced are symbolically resonant. Still, the economy has generated 2.25 million new jobs in the past 12 months and many economists say that accelerating this pace may be difficult in the long run because of the aging U.S. population.

Financial details about Son's commitment and its timeframe remain unclear. T-Mobile did not answer emailed questions. Sprint spokesman Dave Tovar referred questions to Softbank. Foxconn, a tech manufacturer that makes iPhones for Apple in China, also did not answer questions. Its logo was next to Softbank's on a piece of paper Son carried.

Sprint has struggled since its 2013 acquisition by Softbank. The carrier's attempt to join with rival T-Mobile failed in 2014 after regulators objected to combining two of the four largest mobile telecom companies in the United States. T-Mobile has surpassed Sprint to become the No. 3 carrier, while Sprint has struggled with cost cuts and layoffs. (AT&T and Verizon are the largest wireless carriers.)

Analysts have predicted, however, that a Trump-led Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission would be more likely to allow telecom mergers , including a deal between Sprint and T-Mobile. T-Mobile has 50,000 employees and a stock-market value of $46 billion  but the similarities between those numbers and Son's commitment could just be a coincidence.

In October, SoftBank announced that it would establish a $25 billion fund for technology investments that could grow to $100 billion. SoftBank said it signed an agreement with a fund run by the government of Saudi Arabia and other investors. Softbank spokesman Matthew Nicholson declined to comment on whether this fund would provide the money for the U.S. investments.

In addition to Sprint, SoftBank owns Britain's ARM Holdings. ARM is known as an innovator in the "internet of things," and in technology used in smartphones. It also sells the Pepper human-shaped companion robot for homes and businesses, and runs a solar energy business in Japan. The company, founded in 1981, also has within its investment empire financial technology and ride-booking services.

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Arbel reported from New York. AP technology writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this report from San Francisco.

President-elect Donald Trump, accompanied by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, speaks to members of the media at Trump Tower in New York, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Elliott, three, could have first Christmas at home - thanks to heart donor

The parents of a toddler who received a life-saving heart transplant are preparing for a Christmas they "never thought" they would have with their son.

Elliott Livingstone survived using a mechanical heart for more than a year before receiving the transplant. The three-year-old had spent most of his life in hospital before the operation in April.

Now his family are embracing the festive season, with their little boy meeting Santa Claus for the first time.

Elliott Livingstone, three, who received a life-saving heart transplant (Family Handout/PA)

On Elliott's Facebook page - which is run by his family - a post reads: "Thanks to an organ donor, I got to meet Santa today.

"One thing our transplant journey has taught me, it's to embrace an opportunity whenever it arrives.

"We never thought we would get this chance.

"Organ donation has allowed us an extra Christmas, potentially Elliott's first Christmas at home.

"For this we will always be grateful.

"When asked what he wanted, he simply replied 'bus'. It's easy to overlook the simple pleasures of life sometimes."

Elliott used a "Berlin Heart" device longer than any other child patient in the UK while he was waiting for a new heart.

His parents, Candace and Adrian, from Hampshire, have backed NHS Blood and Transplant's (NHSBT) Christmas campaign to get more people to sign up to the organ donor register.

Figures from NHSBT show that across the UK, there are more than 6,500 people, including 150 children, waiting for a replacement organ.

In the past 12 months, 463 people have died waiting for a transplant. I n the past five years, 2,714 people have died on the waiting list, NHSBT said.

A poll of the British public revealed that four-fifths (81%) are in favour of organ donation.

But only a third of people in the UK have joined the NHS Organ Donor Register.

The survey found that of those who said they were willing to donate but had not joined the organ donor register, 35% said they "had not got around to it yet".

Sally Johnson, NHSBT's director of organ donation and transplantation, said: "It's a terrible shame that so many people who want to save lives through organ donation have not taken the next, simple step to register that decision.

"We all have busy lives, yet most of us would admit that we still find ourselves whiling time away and delaying doing important things.

"Signing up to the NHS Organ Donor Register is one thing we know people often just haven't got around to doing.

"This Christmas, we are asking everyone who supports organ donation to take just a few minutes of their time online to show that support by joining the NHS Organ Donor Register."

Mr Livingstone said: "Thanks to an organ donor, this year we are looking forward to a Christmas we never thought we would have the chance to have. For this, we will always be grateful."
Drinking culture taking enormous toll on emergency services, report reveals

The "enormous" toll of excessive drinking on Britain's emergency services is laid bare in a new parliamentary report.

Police, ambulance and A&E personnel face a risk of violence and verbal abuse as they attend drink-fuelled incidents, the inquiry found.

It heard evidence of female police officers being subjected to sexual assault - while in one case a consultant told how he was kicked in the face.

Excessive alcohol consumption is putting an intolerable strain on the emergency services and casualty departments, a report has said

The report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol Harm painted a stark picture of the scale of resources devoted to dealing with alcohol misuse.

It called for a number of steps including lowering the drink drive alcohol limit and introducing a minimum unit price for alcohol.

Conservative MP Fiona Bruce, chair of the group, said: "Alcohol-fuelled behaviour resulting in criminality, fires or accidents is adding intolerable - yet often unnecessary - pressure on vital resources, and to the work of our emergency services personnel.

" It should be wholly unacceptable to hear of an A&E consultant being kicked in the face, medical staff having TVs thrown at them, or female police officers being sexually assaulted.

"And it's not just emergency staff who suffer; as this report describes, many other people are impacted too, from taxpayers who foot the bill, to patients who can't be seen promptly, or worse, those innocent people killed in avoidable drunk driving accidents."

MPs and peers took evidence from police officers, fire crew and paramedics.

In one area, 86% of police officers surveyed had been assaulted by people who had been drinking.

Evidence submitted also highlighted the issue of sexual assault. One statement said: "I can take my team through a licensed premise, and by the time I take them out the other end, they will have been felt up several times."

In some A&E departments televisions had to be secured to prevent them being thrown by drunks, while one doctor warned that "i nevitably if clinical staff are dealing with patients with alcohol-related problems, they do not have the time to deal with other patients".

The report recommended lowering the drink drive limit in England and Wales from 80mg alcohol/100ml blood to 50mg/100ml.

It also called for a minimum unit price to reduce the affordability of cheap and high-strength alcohol.

Joanna Simons, Chief Executive of Alcohol Concern, said: "The costs of alcohol harm to the UK are huge, not only in terms of lives lost but also through the significant impact on society and our emergency services.

"Alcohol costs us all, even when we're not buying alcohol ourselves. What this report highlights is the enormous pressure our emergency service staff face every day."

Steve Irving, Executive Officer of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, said: "The ambulance service attends too many patients suffering from alcohol-related injuries or illnesses, many of which would not occur without the consumption of excess alcohol.

"This takes valuable resources away from patients who may be seriously ill so it is clear that more widespread safe drinking, in moderation, would significantly relieve the pressure on ambulance services and the wider health economy, especially emergency departments of local hospitals."

Drink-fuelled crime is estimated to cost the economy 11 billion a year.

Figures released earlier this year showed the number of hotspots which are "saturated" with drinking venues has reached a new high.

There were 215 "cumulative impact areas" in England and Wales as of the end of March - the highest level since current records started in 2007/8.

Also known as "saturation zones" or "stress areas", they are places where officials have identified that the number, type or density of licensed premises are giving rise to problems.

They allow town halls to control the number of bars, clubs and pubs in a bid to cut crime or anti-social behaviour.

Henry Ashworth, c hief executive of the Portman Group, the social responsibility body for alcohol producers in the UK, said: "Official government statistics show significant declines in binge-drinking, underage drinking and alcohol-related crime in the last decade, but there is no doubt that all sectors must continue to support our frontline public services in tackling alcohol misuse."

A Government spokesman said: "Assaulting any member of the emergency services or NHS staff as they go about their work protecting and caring for the public is totally unacceptable - those found guilty can expect to face the full force of the law.

"The Government is working with industry, police, local authorities and other partners to make our streets safer.
Children threatened with Tasers more than 500 times last year, charity reports

Police used Tasers when dealing with children at least 538 times last year and fired them on 43 of those occasions, according to a new report.

The total number includes occasions when officers drew their Taser, aimed it at a child, or fired it.

More than a quarter of the incidents (147) were against children aged 15 or younger and the youngest child fired on was 12, figures released to the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) by 44 English and Welsh police forces under freedom of information laws showed.

A child as young as 12 was fired on by a Taser, new figures have show

The charity defines children as under-18s - the measure used by the United Nations, which has called for the use of Tasers against children to be banned.

The campaigners warned that even if Tasers are not fired, brandishing them or using them as a threat can cause children "immense fear and distress".

Separate data also showed that so-called "spit hoods" were used on children, with the youngest 15 years-old, on at least 24 occasions by police in England in the first nine months of 2016, which can be "extremely distressing".

The charity also accused the Government of ignoring other recommendations from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which in June urged Britain to follow its own law and stop children being placed in adult mental health wards.

Instead, 202 children experiencing a mental health crisis were admitted to adult mental health wards in 2015/16, a 43% increase on 2011/12, data released to the charity by by 33 English NHS Trusts or Foundations showed.

Of these, 10 of the children were under 15 years old - up from two in 2011/12 - and the figures prompted the campaign group to warn that being placed in adult wards can be "extremely frightening " for children with mental health problems.

The charity also highlighted already published figures showing more families with children are being illegally housed in bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) for longer than the six-week limit by local authorities.

Arguing that children are being "let down" by the Government, it also highlighted Department for Education statistics which showed that two boys a week aged five years and under were permanently excluded from school in 2014/15.

Louise King, director of CRAE said: "Our report reveals that Government has ignored the UN Committee's urgent calls to protect the basic needs and rights of some of our most vulnerable children including those suffering from poor mental health, living in B&Bs and treated badly by the police.

"The Government must take immediate steps to tackle the increasing failure to protect the human rights of children in England.

"CRAE is calling on the Government to introduce a child rights duty on public authorities so that when decisions are made which affect children, their rights are properly taken into consideration. This would ensure that the welfare of vulnerable children can no longer be ignored."

Barnado's chief executive Javed Khan said : "This new report makes alarming reading about the state of children's rights in England. It highlights how vulnerable children are not being kept safe from abuse while being denied basic things, like a permanent roof over their heads.

"The Government must keep its commitment to mental health, particularly for children and young people in care, a great many of whom don't have the support of a family to fall back on. It should use the Children and Social Work Bill to enshrine in law a child's entitlement to a proper mental health assessment when they enter and leave care.

"Sex education and healthy relationship lessons for all children should be made compulsory by Government as a matter of urgency. These lessons, which must be high quality and age appropriate, are key to equipping young people with the knowledge and skills to help them keep safe."

The Children's Rights Alliance is a coalition of 150 organisations and is supported by the Children's Society, NSPCC, Save the Children and Unicef.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said it was "appalling" that children with mental health problems are being "let down badly".

"Children and young people's mental health is still very much a Cinderella service in health and care and is terribly underfunded," he said.

"In Government I fought for an extra 250 million a year for children and young people's mental health, and yet frontline services report they actually get very little of that money because it is being used to plug gaps elsewhere.
NHS facing difficult winter as system 'can't cope' with patient numbers

The ability of the NHS to cope with winter has become worse over the past three years, according to a new poll of doctors.

A survey of 457 medics for the British Medical Association (BMA) found that 78% believe the pressure on the health service means it is struggling more now than ever.

Winter is usually a tough time for the NHS, with demand for services increasing, particularly around outbreaks of flu and very cold spells.

The NHS could be under increased pressure this winter in part due to low staffing numbers

The festive break also places hospitals under more pressure as community services to support the disabled and elderly may be run with fewer staff.

On top of that, delayed transfers of care - when patients are medically fit to leave hospital but are stuck in beds while their social care package in the community is arranged - are at their highest levels.

Last month, MPs on the Commons Health Committee said p oor performance in A&E has "become the norm" for some NHS trusts.

They warned the NHS could face a "substantially more difficult" winter this year than last, with increasing demand for services, trusts suffering due to too few staff and delayed discharges.

Evidence submitted to MPs showed that A&E departments are now routinely missing the national target to deal with 95% of patients within four hours.

Major type 1 A&E departments - those that are located in hospitals - perform the worst, with just 87.9% of patients admitted, discharged or transferred within that time frame in 2015/16.

MPs said that w hile in the past, NHS trusts would experience their most intense problems in the winter and would enjoy a respite in the summer, now "pressures are high year-round and just reach a more intense peak during the winter".

They said: "The winter of 2015/16 was mild and the flu vaccine worked. We heard of a fear amongst leaders of acute NHS trusts that 2016/17 could be substantially more difficult.

"It is both significant and concerning that, compared to previous years, hospitals are working from a much lower base in terms of their performance as we enter the winter period.

"The decline in performance of emergency departments, which is usually associated with winter pressures, has become the norm for some NHS trusts."

In the new BMA poll, m edics said previous winters had already seen them with unmanageable workloads, including in GP surgeries.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA's council, said: "These figures are cause for serious concern as, while there is an ever-increasing demand for health services across the NHS, this is hugely exacerbated during the winter months. Demand is now so great that hospitals are experiencing a year-round crisis, with a lack of available beds preventing the system from coping with a seasonal spike in demand.

"Frontline staff are working flat-out but the system can't cope with the number of patients needing to move through acute care, as the entire system is congested.

"It is vital that there is sufficient capacity across the entire health and social care system, including in accident and emergency departments, general practice and social and community care. Doctors are particularly concerned that a lack of investment and resource in social care is increasingly impacting on the provision of healthcare, especially in winter."

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth blamed a lack of funding for the "crisis" facing A&E departments.

The Labour frontbencher said: "Today's news that the NHS is struggling to cope with the number of patients in our hospitals is another warning to the Government as winter approaches.

"A&E departments are in crisis, around 3.9 million people are on the waiting list and there is a real concern that this situation could deteriorate over the winter months."

He added: "The Tories need to take urgent action to ensure patients get the care they need and to avoid a crisis in our health system this winter."

An NHS England spokesman said: "Winter bugs and illnesses always bring more pressure but this year hospitals began planning earlier, flu vaccination rates are generally encouraging and we are working far better with senior local council officials in health and social care right across the country.
Catholics less likely to breastfeed, research suggests

Mothers who come from developed nations with a strong Catholic heritage are less likely to breastfeed, a study suggests.

Experts looked at data from 135 countries on breastfeeding rates and the proportions of Catholics and Protestants.

They also examined regional areas of the UK, France, Ireland, Canada and the USA.

Women with a Catholic heritage in developed countries are less likely to breastfeed, a study has found

After taking account of factors including population density and gross domestic product, the researchers found a link between religious affiliation and breastfeeding rates in Western countries.

The finding held true even when the researchers looked at breastfeeding initiation rates across different parts of the same country - the higher the proportion of Catholics in regions of France, Ireland, the UK and Canada, the lower breastfeeding rates in those regions.

The authors of the study, which has been published in the journal BMJ Global Health, called for further research to examine their findings, adding: "S tudies are also necessary to identify the sociocultural values and beliefs that mediate the relationships between a historically Catholic family or societal background and breast feeding."

If confirmed, their finding could help health officials target their breastfeeding promotional materials according to " socio-cultural background", they added.
Theresa May: UK must engage with Gulf states on human rights

Britain needs to engage with Gulf states on human rights rather than "snipe" from the sidelines, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister moved to fend off criticism she was putting profits before principles during her two day visit to Bahrain for the Gulf Co-operation Council summit.

Bahrain has been the subject of strong international condemnation for the way it suppressed demonstrations during the Arab Spring, but Mrs May insisted dialogue was the best way forward.

Prime Minister Theresa May addresses sailors on board HMS Ocean in the Port of Manama in Bahrain

The PM told Sky News: "If we look at this issue, it's important that we see there isn't an either or. While we talk about trade, we also talk about human rights issues.

"What is important, if you are going to raise these issues of human rights, if we are going to work to see that it is being addressed, is that we are engaging with these states, that we are here and we are talking to them, not that we are just sniping from the sidelines."

Mrs May also used the visit to stress the Royal Navy will play a key role in supporting the UK's presence on the world stage after Brexit as she addressed personnel from the deck of the fleet's flagship.

The Prime Minister used an address onboard HMS Ocean to praise the work done by the navy and Royal Marines in the fight against Islamic State terrorists.

In a reference to the UK's changing international role, Mrs May told the assembled personnel: "Today, as we face multiple global challenges and an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world, you are vital to protecting our nation's interests and provide a clear demonstration of the UK's enduring security commitment to the Gulf.

"And as Britain steps up to forge a new, positive, confident role for our country on the global stage, the Royal Navy will be an important part of our vision, pursuing our objectives of security on land and at sea and helping to ensure the free flow of international trade."

Flanked by two Jackal armoured vehicles from 42 Commando, the Prime Minister said: "Britain takes enormous pride in our Royal Navy, known the world over for its professionalism and expertise and for the dedication and courage of its sailors, Royal Marines and its officers."
Government facing High Court challenge over Prevent counter-terrorism strategy

The Government faces a legal challenge over important aspects of its counter-terrorism strategy in the High Court later.

Salman Butt, a campaigner on Muslim issues, is seeking to have parts of the Home Office's Prevent strategy, including how extremism is defined, rewritten as it infringes on freedom of speech rights.

In September last year, Mr Butt was named by the Government as being a "non-violent extremist" among a group of public speakers who expressed "views contrary to British values".

Human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal QC told the BBC the challenge is a test case

His name appeared in a No 10 press release on tackling extremism in universities and colleges that linked radicalisation in educational institutions to a number of high-profile terror plots.

Mr Butt told the website Islam21C: "Many people will be eager to see the hidden and murky processes by which individuals are tarnished with the label of 'extremist', so that these issues are forced into the open and to the scrutiny of the courts."

Human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal QC told the BBC Mr Butt's challenge was a test case.

"The Prevent duty guidance issued to higher education institutions is flawed because it conflicts with the right to free speech which is enshrined in the Education Act for higher education institutions.

"The challenge, if successful, could have major implications for the controversial policy as it applies to universities and higher education."
UK teenagers trail leading countries in science, maths and reading tests

The UK's teenagers are continuing to lag behind their peers in countries such as Singapore, Japan and tiny European nations when it comes to science, maths and reading, a major international report has found.

It reveals that the UK has made little progress in these core areas in three years.

The study, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), assesses how students could use their knowledge and skills in real life, rather than just being able to repeat facts and figures parrot-fashion.

The OECD report into science, maths and reading attainment comes out every three years

Although the UK performs above the OECD average in science and reading, it is more mediocre when it comes to maths.

It trails the likes of Estonia, Finland and Norway, according to the latest triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which covers 72 countries and economies.

Overall, the UK came 15th for science, up from 21st, while it fell to 27th for maths, a drop of one place, and 22nd in reading, up from 23rd.

England was the best performing UK nation, while Wales had the lowest results.

The report, across nearly 1,000 pages and two volumes, reveals that east Asian nations continue to dominate. Singapore was top in all subjects, overtaking Shanghai which was the highest placed in the 2012 results.

This year, Shanghai forms part of a wider entry covering four Chinese provinces.

The study involved just over half a million 15-year-olds across the globe, with the two-hour tests including some multiple-choice answers.

In science, the UK's teenagers scored 509 points - down from 514, but above the OECD average of 493. It put the country on a par with the likes of Germany and the Netherlands, slightly above Switzerland, Ireland and Belgium, but below New Zealand, Slovenia and Australia.

It means the country continues to trail leading nations including Singapore, Japan, Estonia, Chinese Taipei and Finland.

In reading, the UK's teenagers scored 498 points - down from 499, but above the OECD average of 493. The results put the country level with Portugal, slightly above Chinese Taipei and the US, but below France and Belgium.

It means the country continues to trail leading nations including Singapore (with 535), as well as Hong Kong and Canada. Finland, in fourth, scored 526, one place above Ireland (521).

In maths, the UK's teenagers scored 492 points - down from 494, and around the OECD average of 490. It put the country on a par with the likes of the Czech Republic and Portugal.

Singapore has a score of 564, ahead of Hong Kong and Macao.

OECD analysis found the average science, maths and reading performance of 15-year-olds in the UK had remained stable since 2006.

Three years ago, when Pisa 2012 results were published, ministers in England argued that the nation was "stagnating" and introduced a series of reforms designed to overhaul the education system. The impact of these has yet to be seen in terms of international standings.

The latest results may also have implications for the current Government's plans to allow grammar school expansion in England,

OECD education and skills director Andreas Schleicher said increasing selection of any sort will have an impact on social selection.

"We see very clearly across Pisa - the more academically selective you want to be or are, the more socially selective you inevitably become," he said. "Academic inclusion and social inclusion are linked very closely. The pattern on that is very clear.

"Currently, England is one of the least selective systems. There is more streaming going on in England today without the grammar schools than in any other country.

"The big story is hidden behind the difference in the performance of individual students, between the individual teachers and the individual classes - that's where the performance gap really lies.

"Increasing stratification of any sort will more likely drive the impact of social selection. But don't forget beyond the surface of what happens in classes."

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: "Today's findings provide a useful insight as we consider how to harness the expertise of selective schools in this country in the future.

"We know that grammar schools provide a good education for their disadvantaged pupils, which is why we want more pupils from lower income backgrounds to benefit from that."

The Pisa tests are not without their criticisms - with some claiming the figures are less reliable for comparison as they do not take data from all schools, with most countries offering about 5% of their eligible 15-year-olds for testing.

Announcing a 12.1 million investment until 2019 to support the teaching of science in schools, Mr Gibb said: "We are determined to give all young people the world-class education they need to fulfil their potential. It is encouraging to see so many young people setting their ambitions high, as we know science is valued by employers and is linked to higher earnings."

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: "After six years of turmoil in our schools, we have not made the progress we were promised by the Tories.

"We were told that the constant chopping and changing would all be worth it to see our international standing in education shoot up the tables.

"But what the Tories have delivered instead is a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, chaos in the exam system, class sizes rising and schools facing the biggest budget cuts in decades."

Professor Stephen Gorard, of Durham University, said: " The results for OECD countries with explicit early selection of students, such as Germany and Austria, are not among the very highest performers. They do not have better results than England with its mostly non-selective system and they tend to have worse gaps between highest and lowest attainers.

"Note also that the results for Northern Ireland, which remains a largely selective system, are lower than for England. And the highest attainers in Northern Ireland have lower average scores than those in England.
Liverpool defender Joel Matip set to be fit for Sunday's clash with West Ham

Defender Joel Matip is set to give Liverpool a boost by being fit for Sunday's Premier League clash with West Ham at Anfield.

The 25-year-old has been the stand-out performer in the Reds' shaky back-line since joining the club from Schalke this summer.

Liverpool have only once conceded more than a single goal with the Cameroon international in the side and have not lost a game.

Joel Matip, right, missed Liverpool's defeat by Bournemouth with an ankle injury

Matip sat out Sunday's trip to Bournemouth with an ankle injury and was badly missed as Liverpool threw away a 3-1 lead to lose 4-3 and suffer a blow to their title hopes.

But, having returned to training at the end of last week, he was with the squad again on Tuesday at their camp in Barcelona and should be available to Jurgen Klopp this weekend.
Theresa May aims for 'red, white and blue Brexit'

Theresa May has tried to quell tensions in Government over whether the UK negotiates a hard or soft Brexit, by insisting she wants a "red, white and blue Brexit".

Speaking during a two day visit to Bahrain, the Prime Minister said that getting a good deal which left Britain operating within a single European market was the key thing, rather than being hung up on labels.

"These terms that have been identified: hard Brexit, soft Brexit, black Brexit, white Brexit, grey Brexit. Actually, I think what we should be looking for is a red, white and blue Brexit. That is the right deal for the United Kingdom.

Prime Minister Theresa May has been quizzed about her approach to Brexit

"What is going to be the relationship for the UK with the European Union once we have left the European Union? That's what we are about and that's what we will be working on.

"When people voted on June 23 they voted for us to take control of our borders, they voted for us take control of our laws, and take control of our money, and how we spend our money. We want to get the best possible deal in trade," she told reporters.

In a round of TV interviews aboard the Royal Navy's flagship HMS Ocean, Mrs May told Sky News: "We also want to get the best possible trade deal for trading with, and operating within, a single European market. But I'm ambitious as to what we can achieve in that trade deal. I'm ambitious for that trade deal because I think it's important for Europe as well as being important for the UK."

Mrs May has in the past drawn ridicule from political opponents over her "Brexit means Brexit" slogan which critics have branded meaningless.

With the Supreme Court deciding on whether Parliament will have the whip-hand on triggering Article 50 which formally launches divorce proceedings from the EU, Mrs May pointedly referred to the will of the British people being expressed in the referendum.

The PM told the BBC: "We wait to hear what the Supreme Court judgment is going to be. But I'm clear that what the Government will be delivering, and what Parliament will be delivering, is on the will of the British people.

"Parliament gave the vote to people in the referendum on the 23rd of June, overwhelmingly Parliament voted for the British people to make their choice. They have done that. They have said we want to leave the European Union, the Government will deliver on the vote of the British people."

Asked if she was prepared to give Parliament more details of the Government's negotiating stance as Labour launches a Commons push on the issue, Mrs May said: "I have always said to Parliament, that Parliament would have many opportunities to have their say on these issues. But that also, when it is possible for me to set out more detail then I will do so. That's why I have already said we will be triggering Article 50 by the end of March.

"I'm going to keep some cards close to my chest, I'm sure everybody would realise that in a negotiation you don't give everything away. It's important that we are able to achieve the right deal for the UK."

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: "The Prime Minister has surpassed herself with this statement. It's jingoistic claptrap.

"It doesn't matter what colour she tries to paint this, her plans to leave the single market will wreck the economy.

"If this Conservative Government cared about Britain and what makes our country great, they would not be running headlong towards a hard Brexit that will blow a 220 billion black hole in the budget.

"The Union Jack represents an open, tolerant, multicultural Britain, not the narrow-minded vision of Ukip and Farage."

Liberal Democrats also pointed out that red, white and blue were the colours on the flags of seven other EU nations - France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.

And wags on Twitter noted that they were also the colours of Norway, whose close relationship with the EU is taken as the best existing example of "soft Brexit", and of Schleswig-Holstein, whose disputed status provoked a notoriously protracted and complex European diplomatic wrangle in the 19th century.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, who is leading Labour's push for Mrs May to give more clarity, said: " There needs to be a degree of certainty. The uncertainty at the moment is affecting businesses, it's affecting politics and so we need the basic direction of travel."

Responding to Mrs May's comments on giving Parliament more detail "when it is possible", Sir Keir told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "If she is true to that, that means that she won't resist the motion tomorrow because a decision has to be made about direction of travel before Article 50 is invoked.

"They can't invoke Article 50 without having a basic plan."
Rail reform plans risk a return to 'bad old days of Railtrack', says Labour

Labour has accused the Government of putting the nation's railways on the "slippery slope back to the bad old days of Railtrack" with plans to shake up who is in charge of rail infrastructure.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has set out proposals to strip Network Rail of its complete control of the nation's railway tracks with the publicly owned body due to share responsibility with private train operating companies.

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said the plans risk compromising safety as he repeated Labour's call for the railways to be returned to public ownership.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling set out proposals to strip Network Rail of its complete control of the railways

But Mr Grayling hit back and accused Labour of wanting to "turn the clock back".

The Government has announced that new franchises due to be awarded on the South Eastern and East Midlands routes in 2018 will have integrated operating teams overseeing both train services and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, similar arrangements will be looked at for contract renewals in the coming years.

Ministers believe a more co-ordinated approach to trains and track will help lead to more reliable services.

But Mr McDonald attacked the plans as he pointed out that Network Rail took over responsibility for infrastructure from Railtrack in 2002 after a series of fatal accidents, such as at Hatfield and Potters Bar.

Asking an urgent question in the Commons on the issue, he said: "Private companies will only engage with the Secretary of State's plans if they believe they will be able to extract yet further value from Britain's railways at the expense of taxpayers and commuters.

"Not only does this mean poor value for the public but it also risks compromising on safety.

"The last time the Tories privatised the rail tracks it resulted in a series of fatal accidents that led to the creation of Network Rail in the first place.

"Now the Secretary of State wants to start us on the slippery slope back to the bad old days of Railtrack where profit-chasing companies are entrusted with the safety-critical role of being responsible for our infrastructure.

"Has the Secretary of State not learned the lessons of Railtrack or is he simply choosing to ignore them and why does he expect it to be different this time?"

Mr McDonald said a Labour government would reverse the proposals.

"It is time for our railways to be run under public ownership, in the public interest as an integrated national asset in public hands with affordable fares for all and long-term investment in the railway network," he said.

"Sadly today's announcement will take us further away from that than ever but an incoming Labour government will redress as a matter of urgency."

Mr Grayling ridiculed Mr McDonald and said Labour wanted to return to the days of union bosses enjoying hospitality in Downing Street as he defended the plans.

The Transport Secretary said: "Well fortunately there isn't an imminent Labour government anyway and the trouble is with the party opposite they always just want to turn the clock back.

"They want to turn the clock back the days of British Rail and unions having beer and sandwiches in Number 10.

"We want to modernise the railways, we want to make them work better and the point about this is this isn't about privatisation.

"I'm not privatising Network Rail. I'm creating teams on the ground with the same incentives to work together in the interests of the passenger."

Mr Grayling insisted the shake-up will help railways "maximise their potential".

He said: "It's not rocket science. If you are running the trains over here and the tracks over there you have got two separate teams that when things go wrong wave contracts at each other rather than working together.

"Of course our railways do not maximise their potential.

"This is about forging teamwork on the ground to respond to challenges, to plan better, to deliver a better service to passengers."

The Government has also committed to looking at reopening a rail link between Oxford and Cambridge as part of its proposals.

A new organisation, separate to Network Rail and named East West Rail, will be created to secure private sector investment to design, build and operate the route.

Transport select committee chairwoman Louise Ellman said: "The joined up approach could bring benefits and has been called for on many occasions by the transport select committee, amongst others.

"But in the specific model that he's now advocating, how would safety be protected and could this be the beginning of a potentially highly expensive fragmentation of the system?"

In reply, Mr Grayling said the system was about joining up different parts of the system, rather than fragmentation.

But he also faced criticism from Labour veteran Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), who said: "Isn't this the minister that's got a bit of form?

"In a previous job he wrecked the prisons system, and now he's got the job at transport and he's about to cause havoc there as well."

In his response, Mr Grayling said he had decided not to privatise the prisons service during his time as justice secretary, adding: "I'm not an inveterate privatiser - I'm an inveterate improver of services."

Mr Grayling also said the Government was going to "look quite carefully" at how the new system would work in areas where more than one operator runs trains.

However, Mr Grayling faced criticism from across the House over his decision to block a Transport for London (TfL) bid to run suburban rail services out to Kent.

Former shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander said the Government had backed the move when Zac Goldsmith was running for London mayor, suggesting the decision was political motivated.

Tory Bob Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) said: "My constituents will regard his failure to remove the London metro services from the wholly discredited Southeastern franchise as being a complete cop-out and failure."

In reply, Mr Grayling said: "We will have the opportunity between London, my department and Kent to design an improved franchise for the future.

"What I had to decide is were the benefits set out in the mayor's business plan, which did not involve increases in capacity on his routes into London? Were the incremental improvements TfL claimed they might be able to deliver really worth putting his railway line through what would have been the biggest restructuring since the 1920s?

"My judgment is that we can achieve the benefits that TfL are arguing for through partnership, rather than massive reorganisation."
Theresa May vows to publish Brexit plan before triggering Article 50

Theresa May has committed to publishing a Brexit plan before beginning the process of leaving the EU as part of a compromise in which MPs will explicitly back her timetable for pulling out.

Faced with a revolt, the Prime Minister allowed up to 40 rebellious Tory backbenchers to back Labour demands for her to set out Britain's negotiating strategy before triggering Brexit.

In return, most are expected to vote for a compromise Government amendment in the Commons on Wednesday, which states that Mrs May should invoke Article 50 by April to start the process of leaving the EU.

Theresa May will allow up to 40 rebellious Tory backbenchers to back Labour demands for her to set out her Brexit negotiating strategy before triggering Article 50

Downing Street stressed it would not affect the Government's Supreme Court battle to overturn a ruling that it should obtain Parliament's approval before triggering Article 50 because it is on a symbolic motion rather than legislation.

Labour hailed the move as a "significant 11th-hour concession", committed to backing Mrs May's amendment, and called on her to reveal her negotiating hand before the end of January to allow at least two months of scrutiny by MPs.

But despite her concession, Mrs May could continue to play her cards close to her chest on crucial issues like single market access, as Labour's motion acknowledges "there should be no disclosure of material that could be reasonably judged to damage the UK in any negotiations".

A Number 10 spokesman said: "The Prime Minister has been clear that we will set out our plans in due course. That remains the position.

"We won't be showing our negotiating hand until we have to, but we have not suggested we will not set out the position. That's what the amendment goes to."

Both sides have enough to leave the parliamentary battle with some satisfaction, but pressure is now likely to ramp up on the PM - who has declared she wants a "red, white and blue Brexit" - to set out a detailed plan.

Tory former minister Anna Soubry, a leading figure of the rebellion, demanded a White Paper from the Government setting out the different options for Brexit which MPs could then debate.

"It's a great opportunity for the Government to make sure that Parliament scrutinises its plan, because we represent all our constituents and everybody needs to have a say in how we get the very best deal for Britain," she said on behalf of the Open Britain campaign.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, who will lead Wednesday's debate, said: "Labour's focus has always been on getting an assurance from the Government that a basic plan for Brexit will be published before Article 50 is invoked.

"The victory today is that the Government have now finally accepted Labour's call and committed to publish a plan."

The Liberal Democrats have tabled their own amendment demanding a second referendum on the final deal.

The development came as the EU's lead Brexit official warned the UK will have to reach a deal within 18 months of negotiations, so the European Parliament and national leaders sitting in the European Council have time to ratify it.

European Commissioner Michel Barnier urged the UK to "keep calm and negotiate" as he suggested October 2018 will be the deadline for agreement if Mrs May keeps to her timetable.

But he suggested there may not be time to finalise all details of Britain's future relationship with the EU - potentially including the vital issue of trade - telling a Brussels press conference: "You can't do everything in 15 to 18 months of negotiations."

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the schedule set out by Mr Barnier should give "absolutely ample" time for a deal.

But Downing Street signalled the UK is not committed to the timetable, insisting it would be "wrong" to put a deadline on the conclusion of negotiations.

Meanwhile, Mrs May attempted to stamp out speculation about whether the Government is aiming for a "hard" or "soft" Brexit by declaring she wants a "red, white and blue Brexit".

The phrase was denounced as "jingoistic claptrap" by Lib Dem leader Tim Farron.

But Mrs May - speaking during a visit to Bahrain - said it meant "the right deal for the United Kingdom... That's what we are about and that's what we will be working on".

In a sign the EU is unwilling to budge from the requirement for freedom of movement in return for full access to the single market, Mr Barnier said the UK will not be allowed to "cherry-pick" which EU rights and obligations it wishes to keep.

As a "third country", Britain would never be able to enjoy the rights and benefits of an EU member after Brexit, he said.
Sajid Javid: Too many politicians avoid integration issues amid 'racism' fears

Sajid Javid has claimed too many UK politicians have refused to tackle integration problems as they feared being "called a racist".

The Communities Secretary said many of the findings of a Government-commissioned review "ring true to me personally".

He said these include the contributions made by immigrants to British life and those who live "parallel lives" and fail to "embrace the shared values that make Britain great".

Sajid Javid said too many politicians have refused to tackle integration problems

Mr Javid said Dame Louise Casey's report also shows more needs to be done by Muslim communities and some Muslim men about "how they treat Muslim women".

Replying to an urgent question on Dame Louise's review, Mr Javid said: "Many of her findings ring true to me personally.

"I've seen for myself the enormous contribution that immigrants and their families make to British life, all without giving up their unique cultural identities.

"But I've also seen with my own eyes the other side of the equation.

"For too long, too many people in this country have been living parallel lives - refusing to integrate and failing to embrace the shared values that make Britain great.

"And for too long, too many politicians in this country have refused to deal with the problem.

"They've ducked the issue for fear of being called a racist, failing the very people they're supposed to be helping and I will not allow this to continue.

"We in public life have a moral responsibility to deal with this situation and Dame Louise's report is a crucial step in that process."

Mr Javid said he will study the report's findings, with plans to be outlined in the spring.

Conservative former minister Maria Miller, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, said Dame Louise set out that women in some communities face a "double barrier" of gender and religion preventing them from accessing basic rights as British residents.

She asked Mr Javid: "How are you and the Government ensuring that every person in this country is afforded the protection of the Equality Act and also their rights under the law of this country?"

Mr Javid, in his reply, said: "You talk about the issue of - the way you put it - of 'double barriers' faced by some women.

"The report in particular talks about the challenges of Muslim women and I think there is more that needs to be done there, not just directly by Government but it's a challenge also to Muslim communities - in particular to Muslim men, some Muslim men - about how they treat Muslim women and I think these findings are very important.

"We should take them seriously and see what more we can do."

Dame Louise in her report warned that "misogyny and patriarchy" in some communities is widening inequality, with the country becoming more divided as it becomes more diverse.

The review recommended that ministers should consider whether immigrants intending to settle in Britain should swear an "integration oath" on arrival.

It further suggested schoolchildren should be taught "British values" of tolerance, democracy and respect to help bind communities together amid growing "ethnic segregation".

Dame Louise also warned of abuse and unequal treatment against women in some communities " in the name of cultural or religious values".

T he Ramadhan Foundation condemned the "inflammatory" report.

Mr Javid earlier said respect for all communities is needed, suggesting this "sometimes is lacking" for the UK's Christian culture.

Turning to "British values" and the importance of tolerance and respect, Mr Javid told Labour MP Clive Betts: "I'm sure you'll agree with me, when it comes to those - and certainly to respect - it works both ways.

"It's respect for all communities of each other including of immigrant communities, for example, of the dominant Christian culture in this country which sometimes is lacking.

"So we've got to make sure we're promoting British values in every sensible way that we can."

T he urgent question was initially tabled by Mr Betts, chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee, in which he called for Mr Javid to give his views on Dame Louise's recommendations.

In his questions, Mr Betts asked Mr Javid: " Do you agree with Louise Casey that speaking English is key to integration?

"And will you agree to reverse the cuts which have been made to the funds available for courses teaching English as a second language?"

Mr Betts also said: "Given that many of the recommendations are challenging, some maybe controversial, will you have a programme to consult with elected councils and the different communities in those areas most impacted by the recommendations?"

Tory frontbencher Mr Javid noted the report is independent and "not a statement of Government policy", with time being taken to look at the findings and recommendations.

He also said: "I remember when I was about eight or nine years old going with my mother when she had to visit the GP and acting as the interpreter for her.

"Many years later I'm pleased to say she learnt English and now she speaks it very well and it has transformed her life - I think not just for her, but it's great news for British society when more and more people speak English so I know from personal experience the difference it could make."

He said the Government already spends "more than, I think, 100 million" a year in helping people learn English when it is a foreign language.

Mr Javid went on: "We've always got to see what more we can do."

Shadow communities secretary Teresa Pearce urged the Government to reinstate a programme of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classes.

She said: "We are constantly urging people who suffer sexual abuse, violence to speak out. You cannot speak out if you cannot speak English.

"If you cannot speak English you cannot even ring 999.

"Yet the Casey Report finds that DCLG spent more money promoting the Cornish language between 2011 and 2013 than it did English."

Mr Javid rejected the spending accusation relating to the Cornish language.

He said: "You talked about spending on languages by my department. I can tell you the facts. In the last six years the department has spent 780,000 on the Cornish language.

"But it has spent in fewer years, in five years, 11 million on community-based English language programmes. On top of that the rest of Her Majesty's Government has spent hundreds of millions of pounds in supporting English."

Alison Thewliss, the SNP MP for Glasgow Central, urged Mr Javid to look to Scotland to learn lessons on integration.

She said: "Will you reverse the damaging cuts to ESOL as other members have mentioned and will you refuse to accept the offensive suggestion that we require an integration oath?"

But Mr Javid replied: "It's a shame that you have to be so party political about this and once you can act in a more mature fashion, when you and the SNP have something useful to say, I will respond."

Labour former Home Office minister Fiona MacTaggart (Slough) welcomed the report's findings on the need to tackle misogyny but then accused the Government of discriminating against women.

She said: "Louise Casey is right to call out misogyny as one of the ways in which women are socially excluded from minority ethnic communities - not an issue that some of us have ever ignored.

"But actually would the Secretary of State talk to his neighbour the Home Secretary about the misogynist practices of the Home Office who first of all exclude wives who come from overseas from access to free ESOL for the first two years that they are here and secondly for those women in Britain who have been exploited by husbands cheating their way into Britain on a marriage ticket, they refuse to tell the wives who are British citizens what has happened to their husbands and they refuse to collaborate with those women in reporting their husbands and removing them when they should be."
Paedophile wanted in US jailed for sexually assaulting girl in Lancashire

A "dangerous sexual deviant" wanted by the FBI has been jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage girl in a Lancashire park.

Polish national Gerard Zalewski, 33, failed to appear at a sentencing hearing in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in March 2006 after he had previously admitted "involuntary deviate sexual intercourse" with a 13-year-old girl in June 2004.

In his absence, he was ordered to serve five to 20 years in a state correctional institution as a local arrest warrant was issued.

Gerard Zalewski, 33, has been jailed for 12 years for child sex offences (Lancashire Police/PA Wire)

The federal authorities in Philadelphia later issued another arrest warrant and a wanted poster for Zalewski.

More than 10 years later, he surfaced in Bamber Bridge, near Preston, in June after he groomed his latest victim, also aged 13, over the internet and persuaded her to send indecent images of herself before arranging to meet her in a park.

Zalewski went on to subject the girl to several hours of sexual abuse as he taped her mouth with masking tape and put a dog collar around her neck, Lancashire Police said.

The defendant, who was living in Dartford, Kent, at the time, later fled and was arrested in Kent on June 21 after a manhunt.

He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of penetrative sexual activity with a child; meeting a child following sexual grooming; making indecent photographs of a child and false imprisonment.

He was jailed for 12 years at Preston Crown Court on Tuesday and given an extended indeterminate licence period, police said.

Detective Chief Inspector Vicki Evans, of Lancashire Constabulary's Public Protection Unit, said: "Gerard Zalewski is a dangerous and predatory sexual deviant who posed a significant risk to children across the country.

"He groomed this vulnerable young teenager before arranging to meet her knowing that she was under 16. He then filmed her for his own gratification.

"We welcome the sentence which will mean the public, especially children, particularly those who are vulnerable, are protected from him for the foreseeable future.
Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri not worried for job but admits owner 'not happy'

Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri has dismissed any fears over his future, but admits the club's owner is not happy with their form.

The Foxes chief has left Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez at home for Wednesday's Champions League game in Porto as he looks to revive their Premier League season.

Leicester, who lost just three league games en route to a shock title success last term, have suffered seven defeats this season and are just two points above the relegation zone, but Ranieri is unconcerned about losing his job despite the dissatisfaction of chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.

Claudio Ranieri's Leicester are just two points above the Premier League relegation zone

"Never, because it's not my decision," the Italian said.

"The owner is always behind us, he always tells us how he can help us and is always positive. Of course he's not happy - no-one at the club is.

"When we win, we win together. When we lose, we lose together. My experience says it's important to stay calm and be positive, believe in your players and do the best for your team."

Mahrez and Vardy will not play at the Estadio do Dragao while Robert Huth, Andy King, Islam Slimani and Kasper Schmeichel have also not travelled as Ranieri looks to keep them fresh for Saturday's visit of Manchester City.

The Foxes have already qualified from Group G and are five points clear of second-placed Porto, who need to win to ensure they reach the last 16 ahead of FC Copenhagen.

Ranieri conceded if they needed victory in Portugal he would have taken a stronger squad, but is happy to hand his fringe men a chance with Demarai Gray, Leonardo Ulloa and Marcin Wasilewski expected to play and 18-year-old midfielder Harvey Barnes in the group.

He said: "If we had to win, maybe all my players would be here, but I can choose. Always I have said we have a very good team. There are some players who didn't play so far - they deserve their chance to show their potential.

"The players who can play have a chance to play on Saturday. We have three matches every three days now and I need all my players.

"When you don't do well or you lose, the critics must be negative, but inside we must be very balanced. Saturday will be another fantastic match, against another big team and in this match (against Porto) I could choose some players and rest the others.

"I love people who in difficult situations react and I have fantastic players. I am sure we will react very well."

Danny Simpson is one of the players who could keep his place and the right-back believes the Foxes' shadow squad can prove themselves on Wednesday.
Brazil's indicted Senate head removed by Supreme Court

By Anthony Boadle and Alonso Soto

BRASILIA, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Brazil's Supreme Court on Monday removed Senator Renan Calheiros as president of the Senate after the top court indicted him last week on charges of embezzlement, a court spokesman said, a move that could put the government's belt-tightening agenda in peril.

His replacement on Tuesday by Senator Jorge Vianna of the leftist Workers Party, who opposes spending cuts, could block steps to control a widening budget deficit and recoup confidence in Latin America's largest economy mired in a deep recession.

Justice Marco Aurelio de Mello removed Calheiros based on a majority ruling by the high court last month that any person indicted for a crime could not be in the presidential line of succession. The head of the Senate is the second in line after the speaker of the lower house, as Brazil does not have a vice president at the moment.

The judge's ruling must be put to the full court, which is expected to uphold the injunction on Wednesday since six of its 11 justices favored the new presidential succession rule.

The removal of Calheiros was a new blow for President Michel Temer whose six-month-old government has been weakened by corruption scandals as it strives to push through unpopular austerity measures, including a cap on federal spending that is scheduled to be put to a final vote in the Senate on Dec. 13.

"The injunction is terrible news for Temer because it puts the spending ceiling at risk given that the deputy leader of the Senate is from the Workers Party," said Leonardo Barreto, head of Brasilia-based political consultancy Factual. "This can delay the final vote and send the wrong signal to markets," he said.

Calheiros declined to comment on the decision but his office said he would step down on Tuesday morning when he is officially notified, at which point Vianna, the vice president of the upper chamber, becomes leader until Senate elections in February.

The Workers Party quickly said the fiscal measures should be delayed until the new session next year.

"How can we vote for this explosive agenda in the climate of instability in which no one knows who is in command of the Senate," Workers Party Senator Paulo Paim said.

Calheiros was indicted Dec. 1 on charges of misusing public funds in a nine-year-old case involving child support for a daughter he had in an extramarital affair, including billing the Senate for car rentals with false contracts.

The change of leadership in the Senate comes at a crucial moment for Temer's efforts to pass austerity measures through Congress to restore fiscal discipline to Brazil's overdrawn government accounts.

The government's leader in Congress, Senator Romero Juca, said the removal of Calheiros would not alter plans for the Dec. 13 vote on the 20-year spending cap, the key measure in Temer's plan to rein in a widening budget deficit.

But the uncertainty is expected to rattle investors who are looking for signs that Brazil is putting its books in order before they decide to invest in the country again.

Brazil lost its investment-grade credit rating last year due to the fiscal deficit run up by the Workers Party government of impeached President Dilma Rousseff, who was replaced by Temer in May.

The fall of Calheiros was a question of time because he faces 11 corruption investigations, most of them related to the massive bribery and kickback scandal centered on state-run oil company Petrobras.

The ousting of Calheiros was welcomed by some of his peers who were critical of his attempts to curtail the work of prosecutors in the Petrobras scandal.

"It was deeply unsettling for all of us to have an indicted person as leader," said Senator Ricardo Ferraco of centrist PSDB party. "This is timely and will clean things up."
Guatemala says Taiwan's Tsai to visit, no word on any U.S. stop

GUATEMALA CITY, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen will visit diplomatic ally Guatemala next month, the foreign minister said on Monday, but it was unclear if she would also go to the United States after a phone call with President-elect Donald Trump raised sensitivities in Sino-U.S. relations.

Tsai is due to visit Guatemala on Jan. 11-12, Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales told Reuters. He gave no details on what President Jimmy Morales and Tsai would discuss.

Taiwan's Liberty Times, considered close to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, reported on Monday that Tsai was planning to transit in New York early next month on her way to visit three diplomatic allies in Central America - Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

El Salvador's government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January, but gave no specific dates.

The government of Nicaragua had no immediate comment. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is set to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10, however, and so Tsai's trip to Guatemala would dovetail with the ceremony timing-wise.

The trip would take place before Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20 and Tsai's delegation would seek to meet with Trump's team, including Reince Priebus, Trump's White House chief of staff, the Liberty Times report said.

Taiwan's Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were "excessive speculation". It said it would announce any presidential trips at the appropriate time.

The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after Trump's phone call with Tsai last week, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing.

The call with Taipei was the first by a U.S. president-elect or president with a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China." China regards Taiwan as a renegade province.
Japan PM's Pearl Harbor visit won't be for apology - spokesman

By Kaori Kaneko and Linda Sieg

TOKYO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor this month, the first by a Japanese leader, will not be to apologise for the Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War Two, Abe's top aide said on Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the purpose of Abe's Dec. 26-27 visit was to console the souls of those who died in the war.

While the lack of an apology could disappoint some U.S. war veterans, Abe hopes the visit will showcase the tight alliance between the former foes. Experts say it is a message Abe wants to send both to regional rival China and to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has criticised Tokyo as a free-rider on defence.

"This visit is for the sake of consoling the souls of those who died in the war, not for the sake of an apology," Suga told a news conference the day after Abe announced the visit.

"I think that the prime minister's visit will be an opportunity to send the message that the calamity of war must not be repeated and ... express the value of reconciliation between Japan and the United States," he said.

The visit to Hawaii with U.S. President Barack Obama could also boost Abe's popularity rating - already robust at around 60 percent - and raise the likelihood that he will call a snap election for parliament's lower house.

It will come seven months after Obama became the first serving U.S. president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in the closing days of the war in 1945.

"The planning for a Pearl Harbor visit has been in the works ever since Obama visited Hiroshima. It's mostly a reciprocal gesture and symbolic of the U.S. and Japan burying the hatchet," said Columbia University emeritus professor Gerry Curtis.

"It sends a message to China about the strength of the U.S.-Japan relationship (and is) probably also intended to send the same message to Trump," he said.
Romania - Factors to watch on Dec. 6

Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Tuesday.

PRELIMINARY GDP

Romania's National Statistics Board to release preliminary gross domestic product for the third quarter at 0700 GMT.

PPI DATA

Romanian industrial producer prices fell 0.5 percent on the year but rose 0.8 percent on the month in October, data from the National Statistics Board showed on Monday.

DEBT TENDER

Romania sold a planned 300 million lei ($71.37 million) worth of Dec. 2022 treasury bonds on Monday, with the average accepted yield at 3.15 percent, central bank data showed.

INEFFICIENT PARLIAMENT

Romania's outgoing parliament has been one of the most inefficient since the fall of communism, plagued by corruption investigations and weak activity, a Romanian think-tank said on Monday.

Rated one of the European Union's most corrupt states, Romania holds a parliamentary election on Dec. 11 but 89 of the 588 lawmakers elected in 2012, or 15 percent, have not completed their terms, the Institute for Public Policy (IPP) said.

CEE MARKETS

Poland's surprise credit rating outlook upgrade from Standard & Poor's helped most Central European assets shrug off the impact of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's fall on Monday.

DOCTORS

Roughly 43,000 doctors have requested immigration papers from the Romanian health ministry since 2007, Minister Vlad Voiculescu said. Not all of them may have immigrated, but many did, he said at a briefing to present a longterm strategy for human resources in healthcare. Ziarul Financiar

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Top Vietnam brewer Sabeco's shares jump 20 pct on debut

By Ho Binh Minh

HANOI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Shares of state-controlled Sabeco , Vietnam's biggest brewer, jumped the maximum allowed 20 percent upon listing on Tuesday as investors craved exposure to the dominant player in one of Asia's most sought-after beer markets.

The market value of Saigon Beer, Alcohol, Beverage Corporation (Sabeco) rose to $3.72 billion, the fifth biggest listed firm in the Southeast Asian nation, as its shares hit 132,000 dong ($5.8) compared to their opening price of 110,000 dong, data from the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange showed.

Sabeco, with a share of nearly 41 percent of the domestic beer market, is one of the last profitable assets owned by the Vietnamese government, which has said it would sell its entire 89 percent in the company by 2017.

Kirin Holdings, Asahi Group Holdings, Thai Beverage Pcl, Heineken and Anheuser Busch Inbev SA are among around 20 investors that have expressed interest in buying stakes of Sabeco and smaller rival Habeco, a government official said in October.

Vietnam has been seeking to accelerate the initial public offerings (IPOs) of state-owned companies and list shares to boost investment and increase transparency.

The stock market debut of Sabeco, known for its Bia Saigon and 333 brews, had been moved forward from an initial plan of Dec. 12, when the country's state investment firm plans to sell a 9 percent stake in Vinamilk, the top dairy product maker.

"Sabeco is the sector's leader, having an advantage of owning a chain of plants lying along the country," BIDV Securities said in a note to clients on Monday. The brokerage has a target price of 168,653 dong on the stock.

RISKS TO GROWTH

Vietnam's annual beer output is projected at 4.1 billion litres for 2020, up 21.7 percent from 2015, according to an Industry and Trade Ministry's masterplan approved in September, suggesting an annual average growth of around 4 percent.

But the sector's growth could be hindered by policy risks, including higher special consumption tax and plans to limit alcohol use at night time, Saigon Securities said in a Monday report on Sabeco's listing.

Net profit at Sabeco, which conducted its IPO in 2008, rose 28 percent in 2015 to 3.6 trillion dong, and third-quarter profit this year rose 20 percent to 4.5 billion dong.

On Tuesday, volume on Sabeco was thin, with just 3,000 shares traded, the data showed. The Ho Chi Minh City's bourse allowed the stock price to move a maximum of 20 percent either side of the starting price on its debut day.

The benchmark stock index, which hit an eight-and-a-half-year high on Sept. 28, eased 0.8 percent by 0430 GMT after opening slightly up following Sabeco's listing.
Slovak Republic - Factors To Watch on Dec 6

BRATISLAVA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Slovak financial markets on Tuesday. ALL TIMES GMT (Slovak Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA======================== Real-time economic data releases.................. Summary of economic data and forecasts......... Recently released economic data................ Previous stories on Slovak data.......... **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/1C/events-overview =========================NEWS================================== GDP: The Slovak economy expanded by 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter, slower than in the previous three-month period, statistics office data showed on Tuesday, confirming a preliminary estimate. Story: Related stories: WAGES: The real average wage in Slovakia rose by 4.0 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, after a 3.4 percent rise in the previous three months, the statistics office said on Tuesday. Story: Related stories: STATE DEBT: Slovakia will not offer any bonds in auctions in December, planning instead to open a new line of short-term treasury bills, the state debt agency Ardal said on Monday. Story: Related stories: =====================PRESS DIGEST=============================== STEEL: United States Steel Corp has refused an offer from Czech steel works Trinecke Zelezarny, owned by Moravia Steel, for its Slovak factory, U.S. Steel Kosice, the daily wrote citing an unnamed source. A Chinese firm Hesteel< 000709.SZ> has submitted a higher bid, the daily said. The company declined to comment. U.S. Steel Kosice is one of the biggest employers in the country of 5.4 million people. The U.S. company had considered a sale three years ago before the Slovak state offered annual incentives worth up to 15 million euros for 15 years. Hospodarske Noviny, page 1 (Reuters has not verified the stories nor does it vouch for their accuracy.) For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX Main currency report TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets News editor of the day: Jason Hovet on +420 224 190 476 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
Japan PM to meet U.S. Trump on around Jan. 27 - report

TOKYO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is arranging to meet Donald Trump about a week after he takes over as U.S. president on Jan. 20, Jiji news service reported on Tuesday.

Abe met Trump in New York last month shortly after his U.S. presidential election victory and Jiji said Abe would meet him on around Jan. 27. Trump's inauguration is due on Jan. 20.
German utilities set for compensation after court win on nuclear

By Christoph Steitz and Vera Eckert

KARLSRUHE/FRANKFURT Dec 6 (Reuters) - Germany's highest court ruled on Tuesday that hastening the shutdown of nuclear plants after Japan's Fukushima disaster violated some of the property rights of utility companies, allowing them to seek limited damages.

Utilities E.ON, RWE and Vattenfall sued the German government, arguing the decision to close all nuclear plants by 2022 amounted to expropriation.

Berlin said nuclear risks had changed as a result of the Fukushima meltdown in 2011, caused by a tsunami following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Its move to end nuclear power has been welcomed by a majority of German voters.

The ruling suggests that utilities will only be able to recoup a fraction of the 19 billion euro maximum ($20.4 billion) of damages they are seeking, while actual payments could take years due to lengthy court cases that are expected to follow.

"It is certainly true that this is not about the billions of euros in compensation that have been mentioned by the media," a spokeswoman for RWE, Germany's largest electricity producer, said, echoing comments from Germany's environment minister.

Shares in E.ON and RWE jumped on the news and were up 4.7 and 2.9 percent at 1251 GMT, despite the likely delay in receiving any compensation.

The constitutional court in Karlsruhe said the government's actions in 2011 were partly incompatible with ownership laws and also robbed Vattenfall and RWE of production allowances that were allocated in 2002.

Furthermore, the law does not include compensation for lost investments utilities made between December 2010 and March 2011, after an extension to the life spans of nuclear power plants agreed in late 2010.

The government must provide new legislation to address these issues by June 30, 2018, the court said.

"Setting rules for compensation can take several years and it is unclear how much money the companies will be awarded," said Roland Vetter, of PraXis Partners, a London-based utilities investment specialist.

The utilities need money as they must start contributing next year to a 23.6 billion euro fund in exchange for shifting liability for nuclear waste storage to the government.

This was agreed with the government in October, removing uncertainty about a major drag on utility stocks.
Japan PM to meet U.S. Trump around Jan. 27 - report

By Stanley White

TOKYO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is arranging to meet Donald Trump about a week after he takes over as U.S. president on Jan. 20, Jiji news service reported on Tuesday.

Abe met Trump in New York last month, soon after his election victory, and Jiji said Abe would meet him around Jan. 27. Trump's inauguration is due on Jan. 20.

A spokesman for the Japanese prime minister's office said he was not aware of the meeting and declined further comment. The foreign ministry later issued a statement denying such arrangements were being made.

Abe was the first foreign leader Trump met after his election win and he could potentially be the first foreign leader Trump meets after officially becoming president, suggesting strong ties with Japan are important to Trump.

The U.S.-Japan military alliance is the cornerstone of Japan's defence and foreign policy, but Trump's comments during his campaign caused many people to doubt his commitment to it.

Some also worry that Japan's export-dependent economy could be hurt if Trump adopts protectionist policies that curb global trade.

Trump has vowed to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would be a blow to Japan, as it is looking to the free-trade deal to expand exports and encourage structural reforms to make its agriculture sector more competitive.

It is rare for a new president to meet a foreign leader at the White House so soon after taking over, so some could view the meeting as an attempt to address Japan's concerns.
Spanish and Moroccan police seize 2,600 kg of cocaine on fishing boat

MADRID, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Spanish police seized 2,575 kg of cocaine on a fishing boat in the Mediterranean and along with their Moroccan counterparts arrested 24 people suspected of belonging to a drug smuggling ring, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

The group operated in Europe, Africa and South America and worked with a large fleet of boats, allowing it to break up cocaine shipments and making them hard to detect, the ministry said.

Their shipment came from South America and had been bound for Spain, it added. The group was made up of Spaniards, Colombians and Moroccans. Police arrested 18 people in Morocco and six in Spain.
Golden "King Bibi" statue causes guerrilla-art stir in Israel

TEL AVIV, Dec 6 (Reuters) - A gilded statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, erected in a Tel Aviv square and dubbed "King Bibi" by its guerrilla-artist creator, stirred bemusement from passersby and condemnation from Israel's culture minister on Tuesday.

Sculptor Itay Zalait told reporters he had placed the four metre (13 foot) tall effigy of Netanyahu on a white pedestal in Rabin Square, adjacent to city hall, to test the limits of freedom of expression in Israel.

The Israeli government and artists have been locked in a so-called "culture war" over steps by Culture Minister Miri Regev to withhold state funds from institutions that do not express loyalty to the state.

Posting on Facebook after the sculpture was erected, Regev called it an "expression of hatred towards Netanyahu". Tel Aviv municipal officials ordered Zalait to remove the statue and said they would haul it away and fine him if he refused.

Morning commuters quickly gathered to snap photos and debate whether the statue should be seen as mockery of Netanyahu or homage to the right-wing prime minister, now in his fourth term and known by his childhood nickname "Bibi".

One woman bowed down in jest in front of the statue, which Zalait said took him three months to sculpt.

"In the social media, there have been tens of thousands of comments about 'King Bibi'," Zalait said on Army Radio when asked what had inspired him to create the statue.

"I simply made it a reality and put it in its deserved place, the Kings of Israel Square," he said, referring to the plaza's name before it was changed to honour Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister assassinated by an ultranationalist Jew during a peace rally there in 1995.

One passerby, Nina Lobel, said the portrayal of Netanyahu was "horrendous" in that the artist had wanted "to show him as a dictator".

Netanyahu and his wife Sara have drawn legal scrutiny and frequent headlines over whether state funds have been used to support what critics decry as their lavish lifestyle.
Women solar entrepreneurs drive East African business surge

By Kizito Makoye

BUNAMBIYU, Tanzania, Dec 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As the darkness falls on the plains around Bunambiyu, a remote village in Tanzania's northern Shinyanga region, Elizabeth Julius switches on her solar lantern to finish sewing clothes for her customers.

Not long ago, nightfall would have forced her to close her tailoring shop, or use a smoky kerosene lamp. But with the solar-powered lamp, Julius can now sew for as long as she wants.

"Solar energy has entirely changed my life. I use it at work and at home, yet it doesn't cost me anything," said the 29-year-old entrepreneur and mother of two.

"I often wake up at night to work because I need the money to support my family," she said.

Julius and her husband Zablon used to earn barely enough to meet the needs of their growing family, she said.

But three years ago, Julius secured a $500 bank loan to buy solar lanterns, which she sold to customers.

With the additional income earned, she then sought another larger loan to expand her tailoring business to include a barber shop, mobile phone charging facility and a consumer goods shop, all powered with solar energy.

Now "we are more productive than ever before. On average we can get 50,000 shillings ($25) a day, even more," she said.

TRAINING FOR WOMEN

Julius' success is due in part to training from Energy 4 Impact, a London-based non-profit group that works in East and West Africa to improve access to energy. One focus of the group's work is lifting rural women from poverty through clean-energy entrepreneurship.

The group's new WIRE (Women Integration into Renewable Energy) value chain project aims to assist 400 women solar entrepreneurs by 2020 with training and finance, and help some of them provide 360,000 people in Kenya and Tanzania with access to clean cooking and solar lighting products.

The programme is part of the Partnership on Women's Entrepreneurship in Renewables (wPOWER) launched by the U.S. State Department in 2013.

Besides helping women grow their businesses, the effort aims to reduce climate changing emissions and deforestation for firewood, said Jerry Abuga, an Energy 4 Impact spokesman.

Godfrey Sanga, a programme manager for Energy 4 Impact, said helping women create clean energy businesses makes sense, as women are good at creating networks in rural areas and can spread the use of clean power.

Since 2013, 1,200 micro-businesses and 200 small and medium ones in East Africa have received help, and seen their sales rise an average of 32 percent a year, project officials said.

Julius said business management and technology training through the project was key to helping her scale up her business and her income.

"I have nothing to complain about. Virtually everybody in the village is happy with what we are doing and our services are exclusively solar," she said.

In Tanzania where only 21 percent of the population has access to grid electricity, according to Tanzania Ministry of Energy and Minerals, helping women become energy entrepreneurs is a useful way to improve lives of millions of people in rural areas, said Sanga, of Energy 4 Impact.

Almost 69 percent of the population in Kenya and 95 percent in Tanzania depend on firewood, charcoal and dung for cooking, the company said.

Smoky fires and kerosene lamps are a major source of household air pollution causing 14,300 deaths annually in Kenya and 18,900 in Tanzania, the company said.

RELIABLE EQUIPMENT?

While the use of solar energy has been rapidly growing in Tanzania, getting quality equipment from reliable suppliers can still be a problem, Sanga said.

Growing interest in solar energy has attracted unscrupulous sellers, whose poor-quality equipment can then hurt confidence in switching to solar, he said.

"Poor quality and substandard or fake products is one of the main factors that is discouraging people from using the clean energy technologies, due to frequent failures and general poor performance," Sanga said.

The Energy 4 Impact effort helps make sure high-quality, reliable equipment - and the knowledge to maintain it - is available, he said.

The effort also aims to bring solar power to rural areas of Tanzania where many people still remain unaware of the technology. To boost interest, the project hopes to assist solar entrepreneurs in putting on roadshows, forums with women and youth groups, and media campaigns, he said.

"By showcasing successful businesses and demonstrating the benefits using the clean technologies in increasing productivity, incomes and saving costs, it is expected that many people will be interested in adapting and using them in their lives for themselves and their families," Sanga said.
Ukraine strengthening GMO export control to defend producers

By Pavel Polityuk

KIEV, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Ukraine, the world's third-largest grain exporter, plans to strengthen checks for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), a senior agriculture official said on Tuesday, citing soybeans as a particular concern.

In Ukraine it is not illegal to grow GM plants, but no GMOs have the official registration needed for legal cultivation, the head of the State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service, Volodymyr Lapa, told Reuters.

"Under the law, there are no GM crops that can be grown in Ukraine. This means that if by chance it turns out that a manufactured product comes from a plant of GM origin, this product must be disposed of," he said.

"The main risk is soybeans," he added.

Lapa said GM soybean seeds are being illegally imported into the country and can be bought online easily.

This is a concern for the watchdog, because in recent years Ukraine has ramped up soybean output, producing more than 4 million tonnes in 2016 compared with around 1 million tonnes in 2009, thanks to a favourable climate.

Grain export capacity at Ukraine's sea ports could jump to around 157 million tonnes by 2020 from the current 58.5 million tonnes, a senior transport official said last month, with 36 port facilities likely to be constructed in the next four years.

Much of the crop is exported - last year nearly 60 percent of the 3.9-million-tonne harvest was shipped abroad, mainly to Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Greece.

Ukraine also exported fodder with soybean to Russia, but this summer Moscow banned such imports, saying they contained GMO soy.

Lapa said if an export shipment is found to contain GMO products, the watchdog will seize and dispose of it, before investigating its source of origin to find every producer guilty of breaking the rules.

"Our mission is very simple - to achieve compliance with the law," he said.

He said the current chain of logistics did not prevent the mixing of GMO and GMO-free soybeans and this could create possible risks for conscientious producers.
Careful steps for Catholic Church tasked with pulling Congo back from crisis

By David Lewis and Aaron Ross

KINSHASA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The task of preventing Democratic Republic of Congo's political crisis from spiralling into fresh conflict falls to the country's Catholic Church, one of the few institutions to emerge from decades of turmoil with its credibility intact.

The role as mediator of last resort illustrates the clout of the Church in Congo - home to some 30 million faithful - where Catholic leaders have long gone beyond their pastoral duties to fill the void left by an absent state, providing healthcare and schooling, and promoting human rights and democracy.

In October, Congo's President Joseph Kabila appeared to have secured the backing of regional leaders for an African Union-mediated deal with some opposition leaders to remain in power until April 2018, a year and a half after his second and last term in office ends.

However, heavyweight rivals such as veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and millionaire businessman Moise Katumbi boycotted the process, insisting Kabila step aside this month.

Diplomatic and political sources said neighbouring leaders delivered a clear message to Kabila in private at a summit in Angola - seek help from CENCO, the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Congo, to get more rivals on board, or risk major unrest.

"No one is better positioned today to be the honest broker. Not the discredited AU, nor the West," said Pascal Kambale, a Congolese human rights lawyer working for the Open Society Foundations.

Since then, Congo's bishops have spent a month shuttling between rival camps in a bid to bridge the gap between those who signed the Oct. 18 AU-backed deal and those holding out.

CENCO is in a race to secure a deal ahead of Dec. 19, the official deadline for Kabila to leave power.

Citing a ruling in May by Congo's highest court, Kabila's camp says the president can remain in office until a new president is elected. Opposition leaders, and many on the streets of Kinshasa, the fiercely anti-Kabila capital, say he must give way to an interim administration.

Tension is ramping up, with hard-line opposition supporters threatening protests, and Kabila's camp, in return, accusing them of preparing insurrection. United Nations peacekeepers have shifted some troops to the city in anticipation of trouble and many expatriates are temporarily moving families abroad.

Tom Perriello, the United States special envoy to the region and one of the strongest international voices calling for Kabila to respect the constitution, told Congress last week CENCO's mediation was the best chance of avoiding wide-scale violence but warned it was working on "borrowed time".

CENCO issued a statement on Dec. 2 cautioning that the gap between the sides remained wide despite weeks of talks, with issues ranging from the basic interpretation of respecting the constitution to the timing and financing of elections.

"The situation is critical," it said. "CENCO ... calls on all sides to show responsibility and good will to prevent our country from slipping into an uncontrollable situation. May the Virgin Mary intervene for our people and our country."

LEOPOLD TO MOBUTU

When King Leopold II ran Congo as a private fiefdom, he depended heavily on the Catholic Church to help administer the vast territory. In return, the Church was free to evangelise.

Under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, efforts to replace legacies of colonial rule with local culture saw the Church's authority challenged, but economic crisis and mismanagement meant Catholics still substituted for the state in many places, providing education and healthcare to millions.

In the 1990s, the Church took a more active role politics, challenging Mobutu as well as playing a leading role in a national dialogue with similarities to the present political process. In 1992, security forces opened fire on a Catholic-led pro-democracy protest, killing at least 20 people.

Keen to maintain a healthy relationship with the Church, Congo signed a bilateral treaty with the Vatican this year that will return property confiscated under Mobutu, give the Church customs exemptions and shield the Church from government.

In Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Congo has one of the most senior African bishops advising the Pope on reforms of the Catholic Church. Like the Pope, the Vatican's ambassador to Kinshasa is an Argentine and the pair are close, diplomats say.

"Kabila doesn't want to be seen to be on the wrong side of the Church," a Kinshasa-based diplomat told Reuters.

For all its clout, however, the Catholic Church has long trod carefully in the minefield of Congolese politics.

On the one side, it has been prepared to take a firm line tackling corruption and standing up for democracy and human rights. But it has also found itself reined in and seeking compromise. This is in part due to internal divisions but also down to fears of being blamed for violence or hijacked by opposition leaders riding on its broad following.

Never has this been clearer than during the 2011 elections, when CENCO's network of 30,000 observers gave it the best-informed view of the vote. After Kabila was declared winner, the Church called for the results to be corrected.

Kambale said CENCO was deeply divided, with many bishops keen to publish results that would have challenged the official tally but leaders from the east against the idea.

"In the end, they decided that the unity of the church was more important than the truth. I think they are now agonising over this," he said.

POPE DIRECT WITH KABILA

By 2014, a number of pro-Kabila politicians were floating the idea of tinkering with the constitution to allow the president to stay in power.

While visiting the Vatican, Congo's Catholic bishops issued an open letter against any such initiative. As Mobutu did before him, Kabila's government accused the bishops of straying beyond their ecclesiastical role and pandering to foreign influences.

When it became clear this year's elections would be delayed, Catholic leaders planned a major march for February 2016 to remember those killed in 1992. In the end, CENCO called it off, officially due to concerns the event would be hijacked by politicians.

Pressure from Rome also played a role, according to the diplomat. "They were reined in as they were seen to be too close to the opposition."

CENCO supported the AU-mediated talks but pulled out after security forces killed dozens of protesters in September. CENCO then also called for the deal to be renegotiated to make it more inclusive and clarify that Kabila cannot stand for re-election.

Soon after the deaths, Kabila, an Anglican, flew to Rome.

The Pope was "direct and chilly", a senior Vatican source told Reuters, adding: "The Pope told him to follow your constitution and do things that are in the best interests of your people".

Diplomats say CENCO has secured some concessions in talks, including opposition recognition that Kabila could remain in power until the delayed vote, but blockages remain over when it would be held and the lack of a clear statement from Kabila not to engineer a possible re-election.

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement on Monday supporting CENCO's efforts and opposition leaders have said they are open to further talks to break the deadlock.

However, there have been mixed messages from Kabila's side.

Kabila met CENCO for the first time on Monday and his office said he was fully supportive of CENCO's efforts. Over the weekend, though, Kabila's political coalition had said it believed CENCO's initiative had failed and no more time should be wasted.
China urges U.S. to block transit by Taiwan president

By Ben Blanchard and Bill Barreto

BEIJING/GUATEMALA CITY, Dec 6 (Reuters) - China called on U.S. officials on Tuesday not to let Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen pass through the United States en route to Guatemala next month, days after President-elect Donald Trump irked Beijing by speaking to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent.

The U.S. State Department appeared to reject the call, saying that such transits were based on "long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of (U.S.) relations with Taiwan."

China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.

Her call with Trump on Friday was the first between a U.S. president-elect or president and a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979.

Tsai is due to visit Guatemala, one of Taiwan's small band of diplomatic allies, on Jan. 11-12, its foreign minister, Carlos Raul Morales, told Reuters.

Taiwan's Liberty Times, considered close to Tsai's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, reported on Monday that she was planning to go through New York early next month on her way to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Taiwan has not formally confirmed Tsai's trip but visits to its allies in the region are normally combined with transit stops in the United States and meetings with Taiwan-friendly officials.

The trip would take place before Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20 to replace Democrat Barack Obama and Tsai's delegation would seek to meet Trump's team, including his White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the Liberty Times said.

MEETING "UNLIKELY"

An adviser to Trump's transition team said he considered it "very unlikely" there would be a meeting between Tsai and Trump if she were to go through New York.

China's Foreign Ministry said the one-China principle, which states Taiwan is part of China, was commonly recognised by the international community and that Tsai's real aim was "self-evident."

China hopes the United States "does not allow her transit, and does not send any wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' forces," the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday he had no information whether Tsai would meet U.S. officials if she stopped in transit but said Taiwanese presidents did stop over periodically.

He said the transits were "based on long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan." A spokeswoman repeated the position on Tuesday when asked to comment on the Chinese call.

In a meeting with American reporters on Tuesday, Tsai played down the significance of her conversation with Trump, saying it was to congratulate the president-elect.

"I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region," she told the reporters.

U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday that Trump did not regret taking the call.

"(The) president-elect was fully aware of the one-China policy," Pence said. "He's also very aware that the United States has sold billions of dollars in arms to Taiwan.

"We have a unique relationship with that country that's been defined over the decades since we've reopened relations with the People's Republic of China but I think he think he felt it would be rude not to take the call."

Taiwan has been self governing since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after defeat by Mao Zedong's communists in China's civil war.

Taiwan's Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were "excessive speculation."

El Salvador's government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January but gave no specific dates.

The Nicaraguan government had no immediate comment. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10, however, so Tsai's trip to Guatemala would dovetail with that ceremony.
Syrian troops enter Aleppo's Old City, poised for war's biggest victory

By John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Syria's army and allies pushed into rebel-held parts of Aleppo's Old City on Tuesday, a monitoring group said, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year-old civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.

A rebel official said they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats were preparing to discuss the surrender and evacuation of insurgents from territory they have held for years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal would begin in Geneva as soon as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But sources familiar with the plans later told Reuters no talks would take place this week in the Swiss city.

The rebels, who controlled large parts of eastern Aleppo for nearly five years, have lost around two thirds of their territory in the city over the past two weeks.

Government forces entered rebel-held parts of the Old City late on Tuesday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported. A rebel official denied they had entered but said the army and its allies were trying to enter and battles continued.

A military source said troops were "advancing in that direction".

The government now appears closer to victory in the city than at any point since 2012, the year after rebels took up arms to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world's worst refugee crisis.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a week-long ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in rebel-held districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometres (miles) across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to government-controlled areas of the city, on Tuesday described "a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo".

"There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians), there's no electricity and little internet access," said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters.

Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation.

But despite Lavrov's announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a U.S. official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations.

"We're not going to negotiate this publicly," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Rebels have told U.S. officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week.

"The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay ... we said this is our city, and we will defend it," Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Cold War-era superpowers have backed opposing sides in the war, but Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'ite groups to back Assad.

Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a U.S.-backed military aid programme to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad's government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favour over the past year.

The army said it had taken over areas to the east of the Old City including al-Shaar, Marja and Karm al-Qaterji, bringing them closer to cutting off another pocket of rebel control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Shaar and some other areas had been taken, but did not immediately confirm the takeover of all the areas announced by the army. A Turkey-based rebel official denied al-Shaar had been taken but said fighting continued in the neighbourhood.

Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. The Observatory said a heavy Syrian and Russian aerial bombardment in the last three days in the mostly rebel-held Idlib province to the southwest had killed more than 100 people.

WINTER IS COMING

The rebels' loss of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the war, would be the biggest victory of the conflict so far for Assad, securing his grip on all Syria's main cities.

It would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow's ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi'ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad.

U.N. official Jens Laerke said: "Winter is approaching, it's already getting very, very cold so that has come up as a priority need ... Food is running out, the little food that is available is being sold at extremely inflated prices."

While rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government assaults.

Insurgents, meanwhile, have fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place on Monday within a kilometre (half a mile) of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City.

With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets, the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting.

Apart from their support for rebels fighting against Assad, Western countries are also taking part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group which broke away from other anti-Assad groups to proclaim a caliphate in territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Moscow says helping Assad is the best way to defeat Islamic State. Western countries say the group gains strength from the fury unleashed by Assad's military crackdown on his enemies.

France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, will convene foreign ministers of like-minded countries in Paris on Saturday to try to come up with some form of strategy in the wake of the Aleppo onslaught, although few diplomats expect anything concrete to be achieved.

Western countries say that even if government forces take Aleppo, they will still not be able to end the conflict, as long as millions of Syrians see the government as a brutal enemy.

"Aleppo falls, but the war goes on," said one U.S. official.
Libyan forces clear last Islamic State holdout in Sirte

By Hani Amara

SIRTE, Libya, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Libyan forces backed by U.S. air strikes finished clearing the last Islamic State holdout in Sirte on Tuesday after a near seven-month battle for the militant group's former North African stronghold.

The forces gained full control over a final patch of ground in Sirte's Ghiza Bahriya district after hours of clashes. Several dozen women and children who had been holed up with the militants were able to leave the ruined buildings where they had made their last stand.

As celebrations erupted among the Libyan forces, which are dominated by brigades from the city of Misrata, a spokesman said the military campaign would continue until the wider area was secured.

Fighters fired in the air chanting "Free Libya" and "The blood of the martyrs was not for nothing."

The loss of Sirte is a major blow for Islamic State, leaving the group without any territory in Libya, though it retains an active presence in parts of the vast country.

The jihadist group took over Sirte in early 2015, turning it into their most important base outside the Middle East and attracting large numbers of foreign fighters into the city. It imposed its ultra-hardline rule on residents, and extended its control along about 250 km (155 miles) of Libya's Mediterranean coastline.

Spokesman Rida Issa said although forces had "secured all the buildings and the streets" in Ghiza Bahriya, this did not mean the end of the Misrata-led operation. "We still need to secure the area around Sirte," he said.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: "This is very good news. The defeat of Daesh (Islamic State) is a very strong act, but it can only be seen as a step ... the militias that have freed Sirte deserve to be congratulated."

Libyan and Western officials say some Islamic State fighters escaped from Sirte before the battle or in its early stages. They fear an insurgent campaign from outside the city and there have been attacks in outlying areas.

BOMBERS, SNIPERS, MINES

The Misrata-led forces counterattacked in May after jihadists moved along the coast toward their city. The brigades, nominally aligned with a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, advanced rapidly toward the centre of Sirte before suicide bombers, snipers and mines largely halted their progress.

More than 700 of their fighters have been killed and more than 3,200 wounded in the gruelling campaign.

On Tuesday, a further three men were killed and about 50 wounded, said Mohamed Lajnef, an official at Sirte's field hospital. He also said 21 women and 31 children had been released in Ghiza Bahriya.

Dozens of other women and children - some of them migrants from sub-Saharan Africa held captive by Islamic State - had escaped or had been released from militant-held ground in recent days.

Mohamed al-Ghasri, another spokesman for the military operation, said there had been two attempted suicide bombings on Tuesday, including one by a woman, and that more than 30 militants' bodies had been counted in the rubble.

Since Aug. 1, the United States has carried out at least 495 air strikes against Islamic State in Sirte.

Libya remains in turmoil over five years after the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. The U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) that arrived in Tripoli in March and supported the campaign in Sirte has made little progress in ending the chaos.

Sirte lies in a strategic position about halfway along Libya's coastline, near some of the country's major oil fields and terminals. Close to Gaddafi's birthplace, it is also the city where he was shot and killed after ruling Libya for 42 years.

Almost all of Sirte's estimated population of 80,000 fled the city since Islamic State took over. Ghasri appeared on television asking local families not to return until mines had been cleared.
Brazil Senate refuses Supreme Court move to dismiss its president

BRASILIA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The leaders of Brazil's Senate refused on Tuesday to accept a Supreme Court injunction removing its indicted president, Senator Renan Calheiros, and said it would wait for a ruling by the court's plenary on Wednesday.

The injunction issued by a judge on the court on Monday ordered the removal of Calheiros because he was indicted last week for embezzlement. The conflict between the judiciary and the legislature threatens to delay key measures in the government drive to restore fiscal discipline to Brazil.
Gambia high court frees 12 more prisoners jailed for protest

By Emma Farge

BANJUL, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Gambia's high court released a further 12 political prisoners on Tuesday, their lawyer said, adding to hopes of an end to years of repression after long-ruling President Yahya Jammeh lost elections last week.

Their release comes a day after another court granted bail to a prominent lawyer Ousainou Darboe, whose arrest helped galvanise opposition to Jammeh, breaking a climate of fear in the tiny West African country.

Darboe was freed on bail along with 18 other political prisoners pending an appeal of their sentence for "unlawful assembly", the same charge on which the dozen released on Tuesday were jailed.

The election result, and Jammeh's decision to accept it on a continent where veteran leaders rarely lose, took Gambians and international observers by surprise and sparked days of wild celebrations across the seaside capital Banjul.

President-Elect Adama Barrow is due to be sworn in in January, although political sources said a meeting scheduled for Tuesday between him and Jammeh was cancelled.

Tuesday's group, detained after a demonstration in May, originally numbered 15. Two women, included one with a tiny baby, were previously released while a third prisoner died in detention following an operation his family said they never authorised.

"The writing is on the wall for all these cases," said defence lawyer Antouman Gaye. "Either the government concedes they are highly politically motivated cases with no legal basis or the incoming government drops them."
The Attorney General today withdrew the indictment filed in Colombo High Court against former Minister Basil Rajapaksa and former Director General of Divi Neguma Department Kithsiri Ranawake over the Rs. 29 million alleged misappropriation taken place in the printing and distribution of New Year almanacs using Divi Neguma funds.

Senior State Counsel Sudharshana de Silva appearing on behalf of the Attorney General informed court that due to a technical legal reason the indictments filed against the accused needed to be withdrawn.

According to the prosecution, when the indictment was served on the accused earlier, the Attorney General had not tendered the consent letter with the indictments in court.

Senior State Counsel also said that the Attorney General would serve the indictments on the matter again in due course after correcting the technical legal fault.

Subsequently, Colombo High Court Judge Pathmini N. Ranawaka discharged former Minister Basil Rajapaksa and former Director General of Divi Neguma Department Kithsiri Ranawake over the case in which they were indicted on charges of misappropriation.

And consequently, all the orders given by the Court against accused pertaining to this particular case, including travel bans, now would be nullified. (Shehan Chamika Silva)
The current UNP has none of these factors going for it and is a throwback to the three one-term wonders: 1952-1956, 1965-1970 and 2001-2004. Such UNP administrations usually have a profile which triggers two types of backlashnationalist and populistwhich then converge with devastating political results for the incumbent.



By sticking to its neo-liberal guns, it is going against the global ideological tide of nationalist populism, just as it did in 1955-56. With the 2015 Geneva accountability/transitional justice resolution and the TNAs push for a new quasi-federal Constitution, todays UNP has an added drawback.



A look back at the islands political history shows that the excessive political push from Tamil nationalism and the latters over-identification with the comprador capitalist UNP as well as imperialist interventionism and hegemony brings in its wake a Sinhala backlash. It has always been the nature of that power bloc-- the profile of the comprador bourgeois UNP plus the minoritiesthat has led to a Sinhala backlash.

In 1951-52, and during the Hartal of 1953, the newly-formed SLFP defined itself as social democratic, and had no ethnic or majoritarian tendency. However, the combination of the Kotelawala UNP and the stridency of the Chelvanayakam FP shunted the anti-UNP struggle onto the majoritarian rails. The same goes for 2001-2004. Minoritarianism breeds majoritarianism.



How to break the cycle? What the North has never had is a two-party system, as in the South, with a centre-right formation allied to the UNP and a centre-left to the SLFP/JO/SLPP. The Tamil polity has produced the TNA which is allied to the UNP and dissidents within and outside the TNA allied to the Diaspora, the UN Human Rights High Commissioners office, and Tamil Nadu!

The Tamil Left was almost wiped out by the Tamil Right, the LTTE. The Tamil Left never united despite all my entreaties dating from 1984. The ones who werent wiped out, converted to Tamil ultra-nationalism. Not only was the gravitational pull of Tamil nationalism too great for the Tamil Left to resist, the very character of that Tamil nationalism was quite different from say, Irish Catholic nationalism. It was maximalist, fanatical and politically fundamentalist. It was akin to fascism or more charitably, the right-wing of Zionism.



Prof. Urmila Phadnis, the doyenne of Delhis Lankanologists put her finger on the politically perverse peculiarity and differentiated the DNA of Tamil nationalism from other sub-nationalisms in South Asia. Having published an article called Tamil Bangla in Ceylon way back in 1972 (March 6th to be precise), by the time she wrote her last book in 1990 she had identified the phenomenon as an autonomist-secessionist continuum. A feature of Tamil political culture was exposed when people more or less supported the LTTE through all its depredations and incredibly, even during the LTTEs war against the Indo-Lanka accord and IPKF, and the subsequent killing of Rajiv Gandhi.



Even today, there is no Tamil progressive or moderate tendency in or outside Sri Lanka that is willing to denounce the LTTE, Prabhakaran and Tamil Eelam openly. Tamil politics has remained self-referential and pan-Tamil in character. Tamil nationalism is psychologically separatist even when it isnt politically separatist.

It is as if there is no acceptance that we have to build a home on one small island and to do so, the majority has to consent to the changes proposed.

From 1988 onwards Tamil politicians Right, Left or Centre are not really interested in forging a sustainable bloc of Southern and northern progressives for a reformed Sri Lankan state and society (perhaps with the exception of Douglas Devananda).



What makes the problem intractable is that the Tamil nationalists are incapable of accepting they represent a minority on the island and are entitled to all the rights guaranteed by the UN to national minoritiesbut are not a nation with a right to self-determination. Since the problem remains intractable, it cannot be resolved, only managed.

In 1988, the Southern Left of which I was an active member had lost its finest personalities to JVP murder squads because of their fidelity to anti-racism, devolution and peace. But the Tamil parties including those on the Left never moderated their demands so as to persuade the Sinhala masses or allow us to do so. By contrast the Sinn Fein/IRA dropped most of its historic demands and accepted devolution within a formally unitary British state, precisely because it did not wish to rock the boat for its partner Tony Blair and the Labour Party. Thus the Good Friday accords were endorsed in a set of referenda.

Speaking on the vote of the Ministry of External Affairs, TNA parliamentarian M.A.Sumanthiran made a pitch for a new Constitution, indicating that this was the raison detre of the January 8, 2015 electoral regime change and that promises had been made. A TNA delegation followed this up by meeting President Sirisena and calling for a brand new Constitution instead of piecemeal reform of the existing one. Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, speaking in parliament called honourably for a referendum.



All this convinces me that once again, Tamil nationalism is going to sink its Southern political partners.

It was Israels smartest and most liberal Foreign Minister Abba Eban who said that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Ditto this islands Tamil politicians. The Tamil nationalists are missing the opportunity to protect and preserve the broadest alliance sympathetic to ethnic reform, by burdening it with the kind of reform that require a referendum which the Government is almost certain to lose. This is not January or August 2015.

I continue to regard the 13th Amendment as the unsurpassable basis for a realistic settlement. What can be negotiated is the Concurrent List. This does not mean abolishing it by transferring all powers to the Provincial Councils. It means a swap, with some powers remaining shared ones and therefore on a slimmed down Concurrent list. Pan-Tamilism is also why the Sinhalese must understand that the abolition of the 13th Amendment and the striving for zero-devolution, is a non-option.



We must return to the view laid out in considerable detail by the democratic Left of Sri Lanka in July 1986, at the Political Parties Conference. Vijaya, Colvin, Pieter, Vasu, et al drew up a progressive reformist blueprint which was officially accepted by President Jayewardene (and printed as a book by the Government publishing house). It did not call for the abolition of the executive presidency. It was for provincial devolution albeit without merger.

It must be recalled that neither JR nor Vijaya Kumaratunga, who were willing to fight for devolution, stood for a North and East merger. Marx, Engels and Lenin were implacably against federalism, but Engels made a single exception after Marxs death, on the question of Germany, while adding an important proviso. Reluctantly agreeing to federalism as an option for German unification, he insisted that Prussia be divided in two, because a Prussia that remained unified would be too large and therefore dominant within a unified Germany. The same logic holds for Sri Lankas North and East.



Federalism/quasi-federalism is untenable and the unitary framework is a strategic imperative.Feasible and sustainable devolution is one that recognizes realistic limits. The Tamil Question remains essentially as Lord Soulbury perceived it, not only in the 1940s but also in his reply to C. Sunderalingam in 1964. So far, there hasnt been any suggestion of building a Sri Lankan nation on the basis of integration through equality and centripetal devolution. Sri Lanka could draw up a New Social Contract in which national minorities are integrated on the basis of equal citizenship and non-discrimination while assured of a reasonable sufficiency of autonomy through the devolution of power within a Unitary State.
By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

Sri Lanka should not be excessively taxing and dictating terms to the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs to cover up fiscal deficits, experts on the digital economy advised yesterday.

In many countries, finance ministers are finding the mobile sector to be a very easy target for increased taxation in different forms. They have their own reasons, World Bank Senior Regulatory Specialist Rajendra Singh said in response to a question Mirror Business raised on Sri Lankas situation.



Speaking at an event titled Realizing digital dividends for Sri Lankas youth through inclusive livelihood policies organized jointly by the World Bank and ICT policy think tank LIRNEasia, Singh added that finance ministers sometimes cover up their reasons by saying the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund recommended and imposed such taxation.

So were coming up with this report, that shows how exactly in the short term you may meet your fiscal requirements and satisfy your budget deficit and all those thingsyou understand what are the reasons why theyre putting itin the long run, it will become very counterproductive, he said.

LIRNEasia and World Bank research had found that affordable digital services alleviated poverty through education and created entrepreneurs by helping small and medium sized businesses expand and become more efficient.

However, despite bragging about creating a knowledge-based economy, the government recently removed telecommunication services from the 15 percent Value Added Tax exempt list, while the 2017 budget removed tax holidays given to data, leading to a 50 percent effective taxation on mobile services.

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake had claimed that higher taxation was requested by telcos and it would not dampen demand, since the funds would be used to create new infrastructure to allow more Sri Lankans to use the internet, which LIRNEasia Chairman Professor Rohan Samarajiva appeared to be skeptical of.

What does the research say? When you give people affordable network connectivity that they can use, either voice or internet, youre likely to see very good resultscontributions to the economy, contributions to their livelihood. Good things will happen, Prof. Samarajiva said.

He noted that evidence was murky to support Karunanayakes standing.

When the government takes that money, reduces that (network connectivity), discourages that by taxing the hell out of it, and the government will, using its wisdom, provide services. Im not saying it wont do any good. Im saying the evidence is not clear, Prof. Samarajiva said.

Singh also noted that the government needed to create a wide digital policy which is not limited to ICT or creating infrastructure.

Just putting high speed internet in Sri Lanka is not going to help the country leapfrog. There needs to be the right policies and regulation, he said.

The budget had also sought to bring e-commerce platforms, especially those based abroad, under taxation slapped on traditional businesses by creating at least 2 common platforms for e-commerce businesses engaged in retail and tourism operations.



The government had made the move after extensive lobbying by traditional businesses, which make up nearly 95 percent of the economy, who were attempting to stave off the Schumpeterian cycle of creative destruction that occurs during disruptive innovation.

This is an economy of the size of Greater Mumbai. This is not a country according to their (e-commerce) perspective. This is too small. So, they dont take us seriously. So if we try to put all kinds of rules, theyll say We dont want to deal with you. Its the same story with Paypal, even though the government has been asking Paypal to come here, Prof. Samarajiva said.

Platforms such as Airbnb have committed to collect taxes from their users in other countries after discussions with the respective governments, which the Sri Lankan government is also attempting to do, which Prof. Samarajiva said is a more realistic approach than creating common platforms based on industries.



Zone24x7 Vice President Sankalpa Gamwarige noted that the Sri Lankan government is putting the cart before the horse when creating digital policies.

The way we try to implement policies, the way we try to bring policies, I think is not suitable for us, he said.
One of the most important and urgent issues facing the international community is how to create a harmonious habitat for the billions of humans, animals and species on Planet Earth. With the focus on this, the Global Energy Parliament (GEP) will this year hold its Habitat Harmony Conference in Sri Lanka on December 11 amid growing appeals that this festive season be transformed from a big business to a green or eco-friendly season.



This international event will address issues such as urban and rural development, housing, culture, health, education, interfaith harmony, the environment and business. This movements pioneers say they hope this event, actively supported by all major religions, will help young Sri Lankans especially to seek solutions, through dialogue, to the main challenges facing the world community and almost every country today.



The organizers say they hope that by having a dialogue on these issues, we would be able to recognise that global challenges including ongoing calamities such as those in Iraq and Syria need global solutions for the common good of the international community. Amid a disturbing trend towards global populism with orthodox or right-wing extremists promoting isolationism such as what we saw at the Brexit vote at the referendum in Britain and the Donald Trump victory or the Trumpo calypse in the United States, the GEP says its vision is to ensure a self-sustaining, peaceful life for human beings and the world.



The GEP was initially launched by the Isa Viswa Prajnara Trust, a recognized charitable trust founded in India by Swami Isa. This Sundays conference, to be held at the banquet hall of Temple Trees, is being hosted by the Interfaith Coalition for Peace in Sri Lanka (ICPSL), the Sri Lanka Maha Bodhi Society and the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka.

Since 2010, the GEP has been holding non-party political international sessions of parliament each year in different countries, including India, Germany, Britain, France and Switzerland. The organizers say the outcome of these sessions includes resolutions on collaborative policies, technologies and activities to bring about long term sustainability and well-being. The GEP says it has been bringing out leading ideas for the past seven years from scientists, academics, professionals and other activists around the world. Every Year, the GEP says it provides a summary of the best ideas and concepts to the governments of all countries and other bodies of international importance including the

United Nations.



According to the GEP, its aims are to create space for people and especially the young, to explore the creation of solutions on policies that bring about sustainable solutions for some of the worlds problems, while in the meantime, creating awareness about the interconnection among humans and the world. The GEP further says its mission is fulfilled by developing human thought a deep understanding of the relationship between internal and external energy, promoting and developing scientific research on energy, creating and promoting legislation and problem-solving strategies based on the science of energy and creating public awareness about energy balance and programmes to allow individuals to realize its benefits.



Developed on the basis of Westminster parliamentary debates, the GEP says it encourages young people to get a taste of parliamentary proceedings by participating in a full-day event convened as a simplified parliament session including a question hour, introduction of Bills, submission of call-attention motions and voting on resolution.



According to GEP, the spirit of this parliament is scientific evidence to find global solutions, and collaborations from across all sectors to formulate policy suggestions on achieving harmony. The IPCSL says its vision is to facilitate a cohesive Sri Lankan Nation sustained and nourished by our spiritual values and resources where all our religious and ethnic communities live in peace and harmony. It will be unity in diversity where all our Sri Lankan people live with dignity and security.
The Sri Lankan government is aiming at facilitating the private sector to reach US $ 30 billion in exports by 2020, the Central Bank governor said last week.



The Export Development Board is working towards achieving US $ 30 billion in exports by 2025, Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy said at the National Business Excellence Awards organised by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka. He noted that the Anti-Dumping Bill as well as the trade adjustment package that are being given to local businesses to prepare for the numerous trade pacts tipped to be signed by the country would prevent any undue influence on local industries.

Taxes continue to be friendly for exports, he further added.

Sri Lankas exports fell 5.66 percent year-on-year (YoY) to US $ 10.50 billion in 2015 and the first eight months of this year has seen exports falling 4.1 percent YoY to US $ 6.87 billion due to a slow global economy.
It is 10 years since the passing away of Justice Ramanathan. I remember the first day I met him, thirty eight years ago, as if it was yesterday. It was at the residence of my dear friend, Tony Fernando. I was just a law student. Tonys father was a District Judge and Mr. Ramanathan was High Court Judge - Matara. I was introduced to Justice Ramanathan by Tonys late father, as a law student. That great gentleman immediately put me at ease and spoke to me as if he had known me for many years. My admiration for him grew ever since. I found in him a great source of inspiration, as did many others who had the good fortune of associating with him closely. I am reminded of the words of Professor G L Pieris, when he spoke at the six months remembrance of the Late Justice Ramanathan - when he said, he was one of those people who felt genuinely at home and comfortable with people of all walks of life.



Justice G P S de Silva, former Chief Justice, an equally admirable gentleman, was a close friend of Justice Ramanathan. He was Additional Solicitor General, head of the Criminal Division of the Attorney Generals Department, when he summoned me one day and said, I am sending you for the next session, to prosecute before Rama. Make the maximum out of this opportunity and learn. What I learnt before Justice Ramanathan, was not just the law. The manner in which he conducted himself on the bench, endeared him to counsel as well as litigants. No one left a court presided over by him with the sour feeling that he did not get a fair hearing. Justice Ramanathan was courteous. Never did he use a harsh word on anyone who came before a court presided over by him. He patiently listened to a submission made by the most junior counsel, as he did when a senior Queens Counsel made submissions before him. I often felt, judging by our mortal standards, he was a person of limitless compassion

and patience.



He was stern and firm as expected of a judicial officer. None could read his mind when making submissions. All that one was assured of, was a just Order. Yes, he did it his way.

Deshamanya P Ramanathan was a descendent of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan. He was educated at St Josephs College - Colombo, was a Barrister-at-law, and a Bencher of Grays Inn. During his distinguished and multifaceted career, he served as a State Counsel, a High Court Judge, a Judge and also the President of the Court of Appeal, a Judge of the Supreme Court, member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, Governor of the Western Province, Chancellor of the Uva Wellassa University, and Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.

Outside his official activities, the late Justice Ramanathan, was an active member of the Medico Legal Society of Sri Lanka, and once served as its President. He was a past president of the British Scholars Association and of the Rotary Club. He was well known for his participation in the activities of the Kennel Club where his Dachshunds won awards at many competitions.

He was a man blessed with many virtues. He carried them with unimaginable grace and humility. He was a genuine friend on whom one could rely. Many junior members of the legal profession looked up to him for guidance. They saw in him a reliable friend.



One of the most notable features I observed in the late Justice Ramanathans character is his sensitivity to problems of others. He was sensitive to problems of those who worked under him, in a way any person could rarely be. On numerous occasions I had seen, members of the staff and even helpless juniors come to him with their problems and difficulties, and thereafter, Justice Ramanathan responded as if it was his own problem. He was indeed a great man.

A beautiful verse, the author of which I am unaware, but quite often quoted by my good friend Kumar Arulanandam, reads as follows:

The world is full of froth and bubble - but two things stand as stone; Kindness in others troubles - and courage in your own



In the late Justice Ramanathan, I saw this quality in abundance.

Though, I had associated with Justice Ramanathan quite closely, I did not have the opportunity of meeting Mrs Mano Ramanathan until a few years ago. However, her late Father Mr Subbiah Saravanamuttu, was an advocate of high repute, with an extensive practice who used to appear before the High Court of Batticaloa, when I was prosecuting there. I still remember when I was introduced to Mrs Ramanathan her spontaneous response was, Oh! So you are this Palitha Fernando, of whom Rama used to speak quite often. I could think of no better honour or compliment!

The Late Justice Ramanathan has been described as a good judge, a fine prosecutor, a jurist of very high calibre, and those are but a few of the accolades achieved by him during his career spanning over 40 years. But to me, without fear of contradiction or accusation of adulation, I can safely say, that above all, he was one of the finest human beings I have ever met.

May he attain the Supreme Bliss of Moksha!
Mrs. A. G. P. Kumari of AIA Insurance walked away with the top prize in both the highest number of policies sold and premium collected during the campaign period categories.

The best of the life insurance industry gathered in the Eagle Ballroom at Waters Edge, to celebrate the successful completion of the Life Insurance Awareness Month campaign (held in September 2016), and to recognize and reward the top performers of the program.

Presiding over the award ceremony as chief guest was Mrs. IndraniSugathadasa, Chairperson of the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka (IBSL), with the Director General of the IBSL, Mrs. Damayanthi Fernando as guest of honor. Also present at the event were Mr. Dirk Pereira, President of the Insurance Association of Sri Lanka (IASL), Mr. Fazal Gafoor, Treasurer of the IASL, Mrs. Surekha Alles, Secretary of the IASL, Mr. Thusitha Nandasiri, President of the Sri Lanka Insurance Institute, Mr. Manjula De Silva, Chairman of the National Insurance Trust Fund and Mr. Samitha Hemachandra, Chairman of the Marketing & Sales Forum (MSF) of the IASL.

In his welcome address, Mr. Dirk Pereira stated that he was pleased to note that the insurance industry in Sri Lanka continues to grow. Mr. Pereira also stated that he was delighted with the results of the Life Insurance Awareness Month campaign. However, he cautioned the gathering that the insurance industry of Sri Lanka still had a long way to go in order to be prepared to face the challenges of the future.

Chief guest, Mrs. Indrani Sugathadasa, graciously acknowledged the hard work of the top 100 performers and commented that the award ceremony will serve as motivation to the other members of the industry. The sales force is the thread binding insurers and the insured, she stated, emphasizing the need for further development in the life insurance sales sector.

Mrs. Damayanthi Fernando, guest of honor,congratulated the life insurance sales advisors for their performance throughout the campaign. The Director General also went on to thank the MSF for their hard work and dedication towards ensuring the success of the campaign and the award ceremony.

Mr. Samitha Hemachandra, Chairman of Marketing and Sales Forum of IASL proudly announced that nearly 60,000 life insurance policies had been secured during the month of September. Mr. Hemachandra went on to state that it was vital that an insurance sales advisor maintains a strong relationship with their respective customers.

At the final prize distribution session, Mrs. A.G.P. Kumari of AIA Insurance walked away with the top prize in both the highest number of policies sold and premium collected during the campaign period categories.The leading companies who produced the highest number of winners in both categories wereCeylinco Life with 41 awards, Union Assurance PLC with 36and AIA Insurance Lanka with a total of 19 prizes.
Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, H.E. Kenichi Suganuma visits the Hirdaramani Knit Eheliyagoda

Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, H.E. Kenichi Suganuma visited the Hirdaramani Knit Eheliyagoda factory recently in recognition of the factory winning the coveted Japan Sri Lanka Technical and Cultural Association (JASTECA) 5S Gold Award earlier this year. . In addition to the prestigious Gold award awarded to the Eheliyagoda factory, 4 of Hirdaramanis factories walked away with Merit awards at the JASTECA ceremony. Hirdaramani led the way with number of nominations with 5 out of 12 of factories shortlisted. Hirdaramani continues to lead the way in sustainable and lean manufacturing, providing a blueprint for the rest of the industry. Its fully-integrated infrastructure delivers an end-to-end supply chain solution to the industry through its award-winning, state-of-the-art factories.

The Japanese Ambassadors visit to the Eheliyagoda factory consisted of a factory walkthrough to showcase the procedures and policies in place for implementing 5S as well as a presentation on the same. The Japanese Embassy delegation included Mr. Koji Yagi, Counsellor - Deputy Head of Mission; Mr. Kiichiro Iwase - 1st Secretary; Mr. Takushi Otokita - 2nd Secretary; and Mr. Tasuku Watanabe - 2nd Secretary.

Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, H.E. Kenichi Suganuma visits the Hirdaramani Knit Eheliyagoda

JASTECA officials were also present on the occasion, led by its President, Mr. Nihal Seneviratne; Immediate Past President Mr. Athulla Edirisinghe; Vice Patron Mr. Lal de Alwis and Vice President Mr. Chandana Amaratunga. The Hirdramanai senior management was also in attendance to welcome the Japanese Embassy and JASTECA delegations. Mr. Vinod Hirdaramani  Director; Mr. Siddarth Hirdaramani  Director; and Mr. Indrajith Kumarasiri  CEO of Knit Cluster represented Hirdaramani

Welcoming the high profile delegation to the factory, the CEO of the Hirdaramani Knit Cluster, Indrajith Kumarasiri said, We are very proud of the achievements of the Eheliyagoda factory as well as the efforts of all factories across the cluster in their commitment to 5S. Visits by prominent officials such as these offer a great boost to and recognition of the hard work our teams put in. Hirdaramani remains committed to continued evolution and innovation that drives efficiency and lower waste manufacturing practices.

The JASTECA awards are bestowed following a meticulous evaluation and audit process that extends across multiple rounds by a panel of experts. Apart from the Gold award won by Hirdaramani Knit Eheliyagoda, the other 4 Merit awards were bagged by Hirdaramani Knit Agalawatta, Seethawaka, Texwood and Weliweriya. Hirdaramani also received the apparel sector award.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa captured the hearts of India's Tamil community. My condolences to the family and people of Tamil Nadu he tweeted.

Rajapaksa, during his presidency, invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions.

Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka.

While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to bring pressure on New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils.

Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night in Chennai
What does Patali know about politics that Harini doesnt know?

Sri Lanka is going through great pains to get its economy in order after the
The fertilizer subsidy has not been given to farmers, who have already begun the paddy cultivation in the maha season, Chief Opposition Whip Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament today.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture Wasantha Aluvihara, who responded that the subsidy would be credited to the accounts of farmers within two weeks, when they prove that they have begun the cultivation.

Though there has been a delay in cultivation in some areas some 95,000 acres in Ampara, 1000 acres in Kurunegala and 20,000 acres in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa had been cultivated, Dissanayake said.

However, he said fertilizer subsidy had not been given to the farmers despite this situation. (Yohan Perera)
President Maithripala Sirisena today expressed condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and said she was a leader "dearly loved" by her people.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," President Sirisena said..(PTI)
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today apologised for the burning of Jaffna Library in 1981 and urged the Joint Opposition to apologize for what happened during that time as well.

The public library in Jaffna was burnt during a United National Party (UNP) Government in 1981. We know it was wrong and tender an apology for it, he said.

You too should tender an apology for the wrong things which your Government did," he told the Joint Opposition MPs, who was heckling at him at that time.

This House turned noisy when Mr. Wickremesinghe rose to answer a question posed by TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran, who opposed the move by the Ministry of Resettlement and Rehabilitation to construct per-fabricated houses in the war affected regions.

"We want to see that 80 percent of the houses in the North are reconstructed and are willing to discuss matters with the Northern representatives," the Prime Minister added. (Yohan Perera)
Q How do you analyze the current political situation of the country amidst talks of government instability?



The government is acting against the mandate it received from the general public on January 8, 2015. Had the people anticipated the current nature of affairs, they would have never voted for this government. In the installation of the current rule, people defeated a charismatic candidate who ended the 30-year war and brought about radical economic development. People would have never expected the current predicament by defeating such a figure.

This government received a different kind of mandate called the Yaha Palana Government. It is required to be wholly democratic as such. It should be the embodiment of goodness.



When the previous rule made giant strides in development, these elements, at that time, crowed over commissions perceived to be made by those who executed the projects. When the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant was commissioned, we could purchase electricity at Rs. 6 per unit rather than paying Rs.22 per unit for thermal power. These elements did not talk about this financial advantage. Instead, they voiced over perceived corruption. Negativities were highlighted repeatedly till they established in the minds of people over the years.



Q Was it the sole reason for the defeat?



An international conspiracy was hatched to defeat former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. First, they tarnished his image. Secondly, the party was split. They did both successfully. In this manner, they secured power at the January 8th election. Yet, after eight months, people realized that they made a mistake, as shown in the April 17 parliamentary election. Despite being in power for seven months, the United National Party (UNP) under the leadership of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe could not win even a simple majority. It means people had, by the time, realized that they made a mistake by unseating Mr. Rajapaksa.



If not for the statements by President Maithripala Sirisena that Mr. Rajapaksa would not be picked for premiership, the results would have been different. Otherwise, people would have elected Mr. Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister. No party received a clear majority finally. President Sirisena, perhaps with good intentions, formed a national government. Yet, 54 of us decided to sit in the opposition. We realized that the government could not proceed as the policies of the UNP and SLFP were starkly different. Left wing and right wing policies cannot be reconciled. The SLFP base lies with the middle and lower strata of society. Without protecting them, we do not have a way forward. The President has an SLFP upbringing. The Prime Minister is an authentic UNPer. An alliance between the two is not practical. What has happened today? The economy is in tatters. The country is politically unstable. Public wealth is being plundered. It amounts to daylight robbery. Today, there is a serious conflict between the President and the Prime Minister.



Q The government has earmarked plans to establish investment zones in the country. Already, it has been announced to allocate 15,000 acres in Hambantota for it. The government has promised to deliver this by 2020. How do you respond?



I wonder how the government talks about Hambantota development without any qualm. At that time, the UNP dubbed the Hambantota Port Project as something unviable. Today, it has been listed for selling at a much higher price than the amount spent for its construction. If it were not economically viable, how did it happen? Actually, the Prime Minister should have expressed his gratitude to Mr. Rajapaksa for developing it. The projects feasibility is proven. Then, we have to ask why the government cannot run the project rather than selling it off.



Why do they take five years to put up investment zones? It should not take that long. This is falsehood. It antagonized China, a country that can extend us the biggest volume of financial support. The government thought the countries such as the United States would rescue it economically. They criticized and sidelined China with this in mind. What happened? They did not get money from Germany, France or the US.

The government will not do anything during its term. It will only act to fulfill conditions stipulated by those who played a role in the installation of the government. One is to devolve power to a unit comprising the North and the East. The other is to legally victimize Mr. Rajapaksa. To run the government, all the State resources will be sold off in the meantime. That is it.



Q Initially, you said, the image of Mr. Rajapaksa was tarnished. Why did you fail to counter their propaganda then?



Actually, we had overrated ourselves after the war victory and the economic development we achieved. Overwhelmed by it, we ignored such propaganda against us. I was accused of various frauds after this government was formed. Yet, I stand firmly against the government and continue to attack it in all fronts. I have come out with the Top Ten persons responsible for frauds in the government.



Q How does the JO manage the current political situation?



If not for the JO, the government would have enacted the new Constitution compromising the unitary status, and signed the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). There would have been more and more tax burdens. Today, there would have been no opposition otherwise. The official main opposition is cooperative of the government. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) voted for the budget. The JVP criticizes the bond issue, but soft-pedals on the Prime Minister. We want to protect the country first. We have appointed five committees under the supervision of Mr. Rajapaksa. We are mobilizing people against the government in all fronts. Unless the government is ready to listen to people, we will opt for toppling it in Parliament.



Q How confident are you in securing the required number for such a change in Parliament?



First, there is a crisis between the UNP and the SLFP. It means all members elected on the UPFA ticket are there. We have 95 members despite having some minor differences. We need to rope in only 17 MPs more.



Q For it to happen, the President and former President Rajapaksa should join hands. How realistic is it?



If the JVP and the TNA can get onto one stage for political interests, why wont it be possible for the President and Mr. Rajapaksa to do it?



Q How certain are you about it?



Clearly, it is there. When looking at the manner in which the UNP is leading this country down the path of disaster, these two will get together for sure.



Q You talk about such a possibility. Yet, a new political party called the Sri Lanka Podujana Party has been formed with the backing of Mr. Rajapaksa. Then, how do you see it?



The new party and the JO are two different entities. A new political formation has been built at the behest of people. We, in the joint opposition, have nothing to do with it. The new party is planning to hold talks with us later. At the moment, we are members of the SLFP. A new party has been established as demanded by people. We will decide whether to move ahead with the new party or to form a new SLFP-led government in the future. All in all, the new party will proceed with its activities. It is the fulfillment of

public demands.



Q There are reports that some SLFP MPs of the JO are opposed to the new party. What are your thoughts?



Nobody is opposed to the formation of a new political force. Yet, it has to be done after correcting the mistakes we made in the past. We should not go before people with some old faces rejected by them. If we reach out to people with such rejects, our struggle will be blunted. We insist that our mistakes should be rectified. In this respect, there is a conflict of opinion amongst us. There are factors that contributed to our defeat on January 8, 2015. If we do not address them, there will be no use of a new political force.



Q Who are these political rejects you talk about?



We should not talk about them now. It is an internal issue. Most members of the JO hold that view. We have to get it on the correct track. It is not a big deal. We can sort it out. If a new party is to be formed, then there should be a proper discourse. We should undertake the new political journey on the correct path. Otherwise, we do not want to scuttle the process.



Q In your view, what are the mistakes that caused the defeat of the previous government?



First, there was deception of people with lies established over the years. Secondly, we did not act on the manner in which the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) functioned. We should have at least recorded a statement from BBS prelates. President Rajapaksa ended the war, did a lot of development in the North and restored democracy. Yet, we could not win over the confidence of the people there. There was a demand for the appointment of a civilian as the Northern Governor, instead of a retired military officer. We did not do it. What a sensitive issue was it! Those small matters cost us dearly at the end.



Q In the North, people vote depending on political solutions offered. How can you win over people without that?



It is untrue. I am a politician conversant in the Tamil language. Ordinary people in the North do not demand separatism. Only the TNA and a few other extremists demand it. Northern people seek freedom to carry out their daily activities. We understand the sufferings of Tamil people more than anyone else does. We know their pulse. In the post war era, they want to live in peace with economic development. If we go for a referendum asking whether Tamils want a political solution or genuine peace, they will seek the latter.



Q Though you say it, Northern people have voted overwhelmingly for the Tamil parties that, at its core, campaign on a political solution. They have always rejected the UNP and the SLFP. What do you say about it?



None of these two parties have done politics in the proper sense in the North. Though Mr. Rajapaksa ruled the country for ten years, we could not produce a breed of SLFPers. The UNP leadership also failed in it. We always counted on extremists forces. It is a mistake. After the conclusion of an election in the North, I proposed Mr. Rajapaksa to remove MPs Kamala Ranatunga, Malini Fonseka and J.R.P. Suriyapperuma from the National List, and instead nominate three youths representing three different districts in the North. I, along with MP Namal Rajapaksa, asked him to appoint three such youths as ministers to work for the North. We were not heeded. We abandoned the North in politics. We had overrated ourselves.



Q The previous government suffered a serious defeat in the Kandy District which you represent. Why was it?



In our district, there are as many as 240,000 minority votes. It accounts for 30 per cent of total votes. At the last Parliamentary election, Minister Rauff Hakeem polled 105,000 votes as a Muslim candidate in the UNP list. Tamil MP Velu Kumar received 70,000 votes. Yet, one of our Muslim candidates received only 3,000 votes and the other 4,000.



I do not say we were defeated merely due to minority votes. We made mistakes. People got carried away by propaganda against us. Today, even the Muslims are disappointed with the government. Their businesses have suffered.



Q You also face serious allegations. There are cases filed against you. How do you proceed?



All these are cooked-up stories. These are charges cooked-up with political interests. I will stand up to these charges. Another case has been filed against me over the use of a land belonging to the railway authorities in Nawalapitiya. I have lawfully made lease payments for this land where one of my offices is located. Yet, I am charged. There are others who have not paid. But, they are exempted.

I fearlessly face all these charges because I am innocent.
In an era where education for girls were frowned upon, in 1866, missionary Ms. Catherine Scott began educating a few girls in three rooms. That was the humble beginning of the Kollupitiya Girls' High School, which today is known as Methodist College, the oldest girls' school in Colombo.

This year Methodist College proudly celebrated the milestone of 150 years with many different functions in Sri Lanka and abroad (Australia, UK, UAE to mention a few). The family of Alice Charlotte Mendis and her ensuing 5 generations wish to pay this tribute to their Alma Mater and express their heartfelt gratitude for moulding them into the women they are.

5 generations say THANK YOU to our beloved Methodist College

A long, long time ago in the 1800s a young girl named Alice Charlotte Eleanor Mendes had the privilege of attending Methodist College. It was then known as Kollupitiya Girls High School. She began the legacy of 5 generations that have been educated by one of the best schools in the world.

Alice got married to J.D Rodrigo and was blessed with six daughters. Irene, Isla, Esme, Pansy, Dulcy and Dorrit. All six daughters had the privilege of attending Methodist College.

Anabelle Isla Doreen Rodrigo not only studied at Methodist College (1907-1919 in the time of Ms. N.M. Park, Ms. E.M. Shire, and Ms. A.S. Choate as principals) but also decided to give back to her beloved school her time and services. She joined the office staff soon after she left school and served the school until 1929 when she left to get married to Walter H Peiris.

Isla was blessed with a son Winton Peiris and a daughter Iona Alicia Peiris. Naturally, she wanted the best for her daughter, even though she was living with her husband on a tea estate, she made sure that Iona was boarded at the Methodist hostel under the watchful eye of Matron Mrs Kelaart, in order to get the best education. Mrs Loos was the principal when Iona was in school and Iona held the posts of Choate House Captain and School Prefect and left in 1952 to join the University of Ceylon, Colombo. Iona too followed her mother's footsteps and served the school as a Mathematics and Science teacher. Sadly she was compelled to leave in 1963 due to a complicated pregnancy.

Iona married Claude Fonseka and they were blessed with three daughters and a son. The three daughters Suvendirni Ianthi Fonseka (Shire House), Savitri Enoka Fonseka (Rigby House Captain 1976 and School Prefect 1977) and Shyara Premini Fonseka (Scott House) are proud to say that they are past pupils of Methodist College.

Winton too sent his children Priyanthi Peiris (Rigby House) and Priyanath Peiris (who studied until grade 3 when he left to join a boy's school) to Methodist College. Priyanaths daughter Ramona Peiris (Park house) also completed her studies at Methodist College.

Suvendrini, Savitri and Shyara left the shores of Sri Lanka and were unable to send their daughters to Methodist College. However, Ionas son Nalin Senaka Fonseka continued the legacy by sending his two daughters Shyamari Nushara Fonseka (Choate House) and Sanara Dilhari Fonseka (Choate House) to Methodist College. Sanara, the last of the five generations is a present student and a chorister of the famous Methodist College choir.

Irenes granddaughters Roshini Gomes (Shire House) and Chulani Gomes (Resterick House), Esmes granddaughter Kumari Fernando (Shire House) and great granddaughter Dilanthini Fernando (Shire House), Pancys daughter Princy Fernando and great grandchildren Shamindrie Fernando and Shashiera Fernando (Resterick House) and Dulcys granddaughters Ruwanthie Wimalarate (Rigby House) and Dilani Wimalaratne (Rigby House) also studied at Methodist College.

A unique feat indeed that five generations of one family should send their children to Methodist College and this is a true testimony to the virtuous and Christian values inculcated in all those who trod through the hallowed portals of Methodist College.

I would like to conclude with a quote from my mothers letter dated 1st November 2000 to the Secretary of Methodist College Old Girls Association: We give all Praise and Glory to God and are very thankful to our Alma Mater for making us to be what we are

I have a granddaughter who is living abroad and would like her to attend Methodist College at least for a day or I hope my nieces children would join Methodist College to continue the legacy to the 6th generation and more!
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Ltd., Beijing Zhidao Future Consulting Co. Ltd, Benext, Berico Technologies LLC, Bionic, Bionic Solution LLC, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Bow & Arrow, Bow & Arrow Limited, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, Byte Prophecy Private Limited, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CS Technology (Australia) Pty Ltd, CS Technology (UK) Limited, CS Technology Group LLC, CS Technology LLC, CadenceQuest Inc., Callisto Integration Europe B.V., Callisto Integration Europe Limited, Callisto Integration LLC, Callisto Integration Ltd, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc, Certus Solutions Consulting Services Limited, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cirrus Connect Australia Pty Ltd, Cirrus Connect Limited, Cirruseo, Clarity Insights, ClearEdge Partners, Clearhead, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas Japan G.K., Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Limited, Cloudeasier SAS, Cloudpoint Limited, Cloudsherpas Inc, Cloudworks, Cloudworks Consulting Services Inc, Cloudworks Technology LLC, Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda, Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda, Context Information Security, Context Information Security LLC, Context Information Security Limited, CoreCompete LLC, CoreCompete Limited, CoreCompete Private Limited, Corliant Inc., Creative Drive LLC, Creative Drive US LLC, CreativeDrive, CreativeDrive Digital Content Services (Shenzhen) Co Ltd., CreativeDrive EMEA Limited, CreativeDrive Singapore Pte Ltd, CreativeDrive UK Group Limited, Cutting Edge Solutions Limited, Cygni AB, Cygni Norrsken AB, Cygni Stockholm AB, Cygni Syd AB, Cygni Vast AB, Cygni Ost AB, Cygni Ostersund AB, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Limited, DI Futures Corporation, Data Essential SARL, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings LLC, Decora Marketplace LLC, Decorado Marketplace Ltda-EPP, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digital Results Group LLC, Double Digit Limitada, Double Digit Pty SA, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Limited, Duck Creek Technologies, ESR Labs, ESR Labs AG, EdenOne Solutions Limited, Edenhouse ERP Holdings Limited, Edenhouse Solutions Limited, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting LP, End to End Analytics LLC, End-to-End Analytics, Endorphin Medici (M) Sdn Bhd, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Limited, EnergyQuote JHA, Enimbos, Enimbos Global Services S.L., Enkitec, Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions LLC, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V., Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enthusian Pty Ltd, Entropia, Entropia (M) Sdn Bhd, Entropia Holdings Pte Ltd, Entropia Intercraft Sdn Bhd, Epylon, Ergo, Espedia S.r.l., Ethica Consulting Group, Ethica Consulting S.p.A., Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Experity, Exton Consulting, Exton Consulting Spain Strategy&Management S.L., Exton Germany GmbH, Exton International SAS, Exton Italia S.r.l., Exton SAS, FGM LLC, Fairway Technologies Inc, Farah BidCo Limited, Farah MidCo Limited, Farah Topco Limited, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Formicary, Founders Intelligence, Fruendo S.r.l., FusionX, Future State Consulting LLC, FutureMove (Beijing) Automotive Technology Co. Ltd., FutureMove Automotive, FutureMove Automotive Co. Ltd., GRA Supply Chain Pty Ltd, Gagel Group S de R.L. de C.V., Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gevity, Gren utvikling AS, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hahntel Ltda, Halo Partners LLC, Hamilton Holding Company S.A, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Happen GP Limited, Happen Limited, Headspring, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl A/S, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn Bhd, IBB Consulting, ICM.S S.r.l., IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INSITUM, IQSP Consulting LLC, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Icon Integration (NZ) Limited, Icon Integration Pty Ltd, Imagine Broadband (USA) Limited, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Imaginea Technologies LLC, Industrie IT (Hong Kong) Ltd, Industrie IT (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Industrie IT Group Pty Ltd, Industrie IT Pty Ltd, Industrie&Co, Infinity Works Consulting Limited, Infinity Works Holdings Limited, Infinity Works Management Limited, Infinity Works Midco Limited, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Innotec International EAD, Innotec International S.p. z.o.o., Innotec Marketing GmbH, Innotec Marketing International Ireland Limited, Innotec- Marketing Spain S.L, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., International Biometric Group LLC, International Biometric Group UK Limited, Intrepid, Intrepid Futureworks Sdn Bhd, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Technology Ltd, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, ItSafer Continuity Services S.L., JKD Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, K Comms Group Limited, KSC Studio LLC, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, King James Group, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Limited, Kogentix Singapore Pte Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LINKBYNET Indian Ocean (L.I.O) Ltd, LabAnswer, Lexta GmbH, Lexta UK Limited, Lien par le reseau Inc, Lien par le reseau infrastructures Inc, Lin Bo (Shanghai) Network Technology Co. Ltd., Link By Net SAS, Link By Net SRL, Link By Net Vietnam Company Limited, Linkbynet East Asia Ltd, Linkbynet Singapore Pte Ltd., Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, Lumenup S.A., MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision LLC, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte Ltd, Mackevision UK Limited, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd, Maihiro, Matter, Maud Corp Pty Ltd, Maxamine International, Measuretek LLC, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing LLC, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mistral Wind Operations  Servicos Empresariais Unipessoal Lda., MobGen, Mortgage Cadence LLC, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, Mudano Limited, Myrtle Consulting Group LLC, N3, N3 (Dalian) Business Consulting Co. Ltd., N3 Brazil Consultoria em Marketing Ltda, N3 Germany GmbH, N3 LLC, N3 North America LLC, N3 Results Australia Pty Ltd, N3 Results Ireland Limited, N3 Results Japan G.K., N3 Results Limited, N3 Results Malaysia Sdn Bhd, N3 Results Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., N3 Results S.A.S., N3 Results Singapore Pte Ltd, N3 Results Unipessoal Lda, NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Nell'Armonia Israel Ltd, Nell'Armonia SAS, Nell'Participation SAS, NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda, New Energy Group, News Imaging LLC, NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage Pte Ltd, Northstream, Novetta Holdings LLC, Novetta LLC, Novetta Solutions LLC, Novetta Topco LLC, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Olikka Pty Ltd, Olympus Systems Corporation, Openmind, Openmind S.r..l., Openminded, Openminded SAS, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium AG, Orbium Consulting Limited, Orbium Inc., Orbium Ltd, Orbium Pte Ltd, Orbium Pty Ltd, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PLM Systems S.r.l, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, PacificLink Group, Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production A/S, Pegasus Production K/S, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pollux Automation Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pollux Canada Inc, Pollux S.A.S., Pollux USA LLC, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Limited, Pramati Technologies Europe Limited, Pramati Technologies Private Limited, Presence of IT Workforce Management North America LLC, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Limited, Procurian Inc., Prof. Homburg GmbH, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co. Ltd., RBCP Fund 1-A Vapor Blocker LLC, RBCP Platform Vapor Blocker I LLC, REPL Consulting LLC, REPL Consulting Limited, REPL Digital Limited, REPL Group K.K., REPL Group Pty Ltd, REPL Group Worldwide Limited, REPL Pte Ltd, REPL Software Limited, REPL Technology Limited, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Root LLC, Rothco, Rothco Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SALT Solutions GmbH, SEC Servizi, SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Salt Solutions, Sandbox Studio LLC, Sapling Bidco Limited, Sapling Midco Limited, Sapling Topco Limited, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Search Technologies BPO Inc, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Securiview SAS, Sentelis, Sentor Managed Secuirty Services AB, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Seven Seas Business Ventures LLC, Shackleton, Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton S.L.U., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., SigInt Technologies LLC, Silveo, Silveo Consulting India Private Limited, Simian Pty Ltd, SinnerSchrader, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., Sirvart S.A., Sistemes Consulting S.L., Skylink SAS, Soltians Limited, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Somers Ventures Ireland Limited, Somers Ventures LLC, Spacelink SAS, Storm Digital, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Synership LLC, Systor AG, T.A. Cook, TXF LLC, Tambourine, TargetST8, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Ltd, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Tquila, Trivadis, Trivadis AG, Trivadis Austria GmbH, Trivadis Denmark AS, Trivadis Germany GmbH, Trivadis Holding AG, Trivadis Partner AG, Trivadis Services AG, Trivadis Services SRL, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Vector Acquisition Company LLC, Vector Topco LLC, Verax Solutions, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd, Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, WaveStrike LLC, White Cliffs Consulting LLC, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wise Partners SAS, Wolox, Wolox Colombia S.A.S, Wolox LLC, Wolox Mexico S.R.L de C.V., Wolox S.A., Wolox SpA, Workforce Insight, Workforce Insight LLC, Yesler, Yesler LLC, Yesler Limited, Yesler Singapore Pte Ltd, Zag, Zag Australia Pty Ltd, Zag Limited, Zag USA LLC, Zebra Worldwide Australia Pty Ltd, Zebra Worldwide Group Limited, Zebra Worldwide Media Pty Ltd, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines Inc, Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc, Zestgroup, Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, solid-serVision.com GmbH, and umlaut.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Johnson & Johnson: 3Dintegrated ApS, ALZA Corporation, AMO (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd Beijing Branch, AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd Guangzhou Branch, AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd., AMO ASIA LIMITED, AMO Asia Limited (Korea Branch), AMO Asia Limited Taiwan Branch (Hong Kong), AMO Australia Pty Limited, AMO Australia Pty Limited (New Zealand Branch), AMO Canada Company, AMO Denmark ApS, AMO Development LLC, AMO France, AMO Germany GmbH, AMO Groningen B.V., AMO International Holdings Unlimited Company, AMO Ireland, AMO Ireland Ireland Branch, AMO Italy SRL, AMO Japan K.K., AMO Manufacturing USA LLC, AMO Netherlands BV, AMO Nominee Holdings LLC, AMO Norway AS, AMO Puerto Rico Manufacturing Inc., AMO Sales and Service Inc., AMO Singapore Pte. Ltd., AMO Spain Holdings LLC, AMO Switzerland GmbH, AMO U.K. Holdings LLC, AMO United Kingdom Ltd., AMO Uppsala AB, AUB Holdings LLC, Abott Medical Optics, Acclarent Inc., Actelion Ltd, Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Actelion Pharmaceuticals US Inc., Actelion Treasury Unlimited Company, Akros Medical Inc., Albany Street LLC, Alios BioPharma, Alza Land Management Inc., Anakuria Therapeutics Inc., Animas Diabetes Care LLC, Animas LLC, Animas Technologies LLC, AorTx Inc., Apsis, Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Aragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, Atrionix Inc., Auris Health, Auris Health Inc., Backsvalan 2 Aktiebolag, Backsvalan 6 Handelsbolag, Beijing Dabao Cosmetics Co. Ltd., BeneVir BioPharm Inc., Berna Rhein B.V., BioMedical Enterprises Inc., Biosense Webster (Israel) Ltd., Biosense Webster Inc., Branch of Johnson & Johnson LLC (RU) in Kazakhstan, C Consumer Products Denmark ApS, CSATS Inc., Calibra Medical LLC, Campus-Foyer Apotheke GmbH, Carlo Erba OTC S.r.l., Centocor Biologics LLC, Centocor Research & Development Inc., Cerenovus Inc., ChromaGenics B.V., Ci:Labo Customer Marketing Co. Ltd., Ci:Labo USA Inc., Ci:z Holdings, Ci:z. Labo Co. Ltd., Cilag AG, Cilag GmbH International, Cilag Holding AG, Cilag Holding Treasury Unlimited Company, Cilag-Biotech S.L., CoTherix Inc., Coherex Medical Inc., ColBar LifeScience Ltd., Company Store.com Inc., Conor MedSystems, Cordis International Corporation, Cordis de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Corimmun GmbH, DePuy Hellas SA, DePuy International Limited, DePuy Ireland Unlimited Company, DePuy Mexico S.A. de C.V., DePuy Mitek LLC, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., DePuy Products Inc., DePuy Spine LLC, DePuy Synthes Gorgan Limited, DePuy Synthes Inc., DePuy Synthes Institute LLC, DePuy Synthes Leto SARL, DePuy Synthes Products Inc., DePuy Synthes Sales Inc., Debs-Vogue Corporation (Proprietary) Limited, Dutch Holding LLC, ECL7 LLC, EES Holdings de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EES S.A. de C.V., EIT Emerging Implant Technologies GmbH, Ethicon Endo-Surgery (Europe) GmbH, Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., Ethicon Endo-Surgery LLC, Ethicon Inc., Ethicon LLC, Ethicon PR Holdings Unlimited Company, Ethicon Sarl, Ethicon US LLC, Ethicon Women's Health & Urology Sarl, Ethnor (Proprietary) Limited, Ethnor Farmaceutica S.A., Ethnor del Istmo S.A., FMS Future Medical System SA, Finsbury (Development) Limited, Finsbury (Instruments) Limited, Finsbury Medical Limited, Finsbury Orthopaedics International Limited, Finsbury Orthopaedics Limited, GH Biotech Holdings Limited, GMED Healthcare BV, GMED Healthcare BV (Branch), Global Investment Participation B.V., Guangzhou Bioseal Biotech Co. Ltd., Hansen Medical Deutschland GmbH, Hansen Medical Inc., Hansen Medical International Inc., Hansen Medical UK Limited, Healthcare Services (Shanghai) Ltd., Hickory Merger Sub Inc., I.D. Acquisition Corp., Innomedic Gesellschaft fur innovative Medizintechnik und Informatik mbH, Innovative Surgical Solutions LLC, J & J Company West Africa Limited, J&J Pension Trustees Limited, J-C Health Care Ltd., J.C. General Services BV, JJ Surgical Vision Spain S.L., JJC Acquisition Company B.V., JJHC LLC, JJSV Belgium BV, JJSV Manufacturing Malaysia SDN. BHD., JJSV Norden AB, JJSV Produtos Oticos Ltda., JNJ Global Business Services s.r.o., JNJ Holding EMEA B.V., JNJ International Investment LLC, JOM Pharmaceutical Services Inc., Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy (Holding) Limited, Janssen BioPharma LLC, Janssen Biologics (Ireland) Limited, Janssen Biologics B.V., Janssen Biotech Inc., Janssen Cilag C.A., Janssen Cilag Farmaceutica S.A., Janssen Cilag S.p.A., Janssen Cilag SPA, Janssen Development Finance Unlimited Company, Janssen Diagnostics LLC, Janssen Egypt LLC, Janssen Farmaceutica Portugal Lda, Janssen Global Services LLC, Janssen Holding GmbH, Janssen Inc., Janssen Irish Finance Unlimited Company, Janssen Korea Ltd., Janssen Oncology Inc., Janssen Ortho LLC, Janssen Pharmaceutica (Proprietary) Limited, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Janssen Pharmaceutica S.A., Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K., Janssen Pharmaceutical Sciences Unlimited Company, Janssen Pharmaceutical Unlimited Company, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. Japan Branch, Janssen Products LP, Janssen R&D Ireland Unlimited Company, Janssen Research & Development LLC, Janssen Sciences Ireland Unlimited Company, Janssen Scientific Affairs LLC, Janssen Supply Group LLC, Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V., Janssen Vaccines Branch of Cilag GmbH International, Janssen Vaccines Corp., Janssen-Cilag, Janssen-Cilag (New Zealand) Limited, Janssen-Cilag A/S, Janssen-Cilag AG, Janssen-Cilag AS, Janssen-Cilag Aktiebolag, Janssen-Cilag B.V., Janssen-Cilag Farmaceutica Lda., Janssen-Cilag Farmaceutica Ltda., Janssen-Cilag GmbH, Janssen-Cilag International NV, Janssen-Cilag Kft., Janssen-Cilag Kft. Branch Office, Janssen-Cilag Limited, Janssen-Cilag Manufacturing LLC, Janssen-Cilag NV, Janssen-Cilag OY, Janssen-Cilag Pharma GmbH, Janssen-Cilag Pharmaceutical S.A.C.I., Janssen-Cilag Polska Sp. z o.o., Janssen-Cilag Pty Ltd, Janssen-Cilag Pty Ltd (Branch), Janssen-Cilag S.A., Janssen-Cilag S.A., Janssen-Cilag S.A. de C.V., Janssen-Cilag de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Janssen-Cilag s.r.o., Janssen-Pharma S.L., Jevco Holding Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson (Angola) Limitada, Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd. Beijing Branch, Johnson & Johnson (Egypt) S.A.E., Johnson & Johnson (Hong Kong) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Ireland) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Jamaica) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Kenya) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. (DHCC Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. (JAFZA Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. Service Center (DAFZA Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Mozambique) Limitada, Johnson & Johnson (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (New Zealand) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Philippines) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (Private) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Thailand) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (Trinidad) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Vietnam) Co. Ltd, Johnson & Johnson - Societa' Per Azioni, Johnson & Johnson AB, Johnson & Johnson AB Eesti filiaal (Branch), Johnson & Johnson AG, Johnson & Johnson AG (Zuchwil Branch), Johnson & Johnson Belgium Finance Company BV, Johnson & Johnson Bulgaria EOOD, Johnson & Johnson China Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Consumer (Hong Kong) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer (Thailand) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer B.V., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health Care Switzerland Branch of Janssen-Cilag AG, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Holdings France, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. (Dominican Republic Branch), Johnson & Johnson Consumer NV, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Saudi Arabia Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Services EAME Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Del Paraguay S.A., Johnson & Johnson Dominicana S.A.S., Johnson & Johnson Enterprise Innovation Inc., Johnson & Johnson European Treasury Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson Finance Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Finance Limited, Johnson & Johnson Financial Services GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Financial Services GmbH (Branch Office), Johnson & Johnson Gateway LLC, Johnson & Johnson Gesellschaft m.b.H., Johnson & Johnson GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Guatemala S.A., Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc., Johnson & Johnson Health and Wellness Solutions Inc., Johnson & Johnson Hellas Commercial and Industrial S.A., Johnson & Johnson Hellas Consumer Products Commercial Societe Anonyme, Johnson & Johnson Hemisferica S.A., Johnson & Johnson Holding GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Inc., Johnson & Johnson Industrial Ltda., Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC Inc., Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Limited, Johnson & Johnson International, Johnson & Johnson International (Belgian Branch) (European Logistics Center), Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (Branch), Johnson & Johnson International Financial Services Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson K.K., Johnson & Johnson Kft., Johnson & Johnson Korea Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Korea Selling & Distribution LLC, Johnson & Johnson LLC, Johnson & Johnson Lda, Johnson & Johnson Limited, Johnson & Johnson Limited (Sri Lanka Branch), Johnson & Johnson Luxembourg Finance Company Sarl, Johnson & Johnson Management Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical (China) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical (Proprietary) Ltd, Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) Ltd. Beijing Branch, Johnson & Johnson Medical (Suzhou) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical B.V., Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices & Diagnostics Group - Latin America L.L.C., Johnson & Johnson Medical GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Medical Korea Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical Mexico S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson Medical NV, Johnson & Johnson Medical Products GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Medical Pty Ltd, Johnson & Johnson Medical S.A., Johnson & Johnson Medical S.C.S., Johnson & Johnson Medical S.p.A., Johnson & Johnson Medical SAS, Johnson & Johnson Medical Saudi Arabia Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical Taiwan Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Ankara Branch), Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Izmir Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East - Scientific Office, Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ - LLC (Lebanese Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC, Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC (Ghana Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC (Kenya Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC Branch (TSO) (Saudi Arabia Branch), Johnson & Johnson Morocco Societe Anonyme, Johnson & Johnson NCB (Belgian Branch), Johnson & Johnson Nordic AB, Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty Limited, Johnson & Johnson Pakistan (Private) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Panama S.A., Johnson & Johnson Personal Care (Chile) S.A., Johnson & Johnson Poland Sp. z o.o., Johnson & Johnson Poland sp. z o.o. oddzial w Warszawie "Consumer", Johnson & Johnson Private Limited, Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd. Korea Branch, Johnson & Johnson Pty. Limited, Johnson & Johnson Romania S.R.L., Johnson & Johnson S.A., Johnson & Johnson S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson S.E. Inc., Johnson & Johnson S.E. d.o.o., Johnson & Johnson SDN. BHD., Johnson & Johnson Sante Beaute France, Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision Inc., Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision India Private Limited, Johnson & Johnson Taiwan Ltd., Johnson & Johnson UK Treasury Company Limited, Johnson & Johnson Ukraine LLC, Johnson & Johnson Urban Renewal Associates, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care (Shanghai) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc., Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Ireland Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson d.o.o., Johnson & Johnson de Argentina S.A.C. e. I., Johnson & Johnson de Chile Limitada, Johnson & Johnson de Chile S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Colombia S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson de Uruguay S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Venezuela S.A., Johnson & Johnson del Ecuador S.A., Johnson & Johnson del Peru S.A., Johnson & Johnson do Brasil Industria E Comercio de Produtos Para Saude Ltda., Johnson & Johnson for Export and Import LLC, Johnson & Johnson s.r.o., Johnson Y Johnson de Costa Rica S.A., Johnson and Johnson (Proprietary) Limited, Johnson and Johnson Sihhi Malzeme Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, LTL Management LLC, La Concha Land Investment Corporation, Latam International Investment Company Unlimited Company, Legal Entity Name, MDS Co. Ltd., McNEIL MMP LLC, McNeil AB, McNeil Consumer Pharmaceuticals Co., McNeil Denmark ApS, McNeil Healthcare (Ireland) Limited, McNeil Healthcare (UK) Limited, McNeil Healthcare LLC, McNeil Iberica S.L.U., McNeil LA LLC, McNeil Nutritionals LLC, McNeil Panama LLC, McNeil Products Limited, McNeil Sweden AB, Medical Device Business Services Inc., Medical Devices & Diagnostics Global Services LLC, Medical Devices International LLC, Medos International Sarl, Medos International Sarl succursale de Neuchatel (Branch), Medos Sarl, MegaDyne Medical Products Inc., Menlo Care De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Mentor B.V., Mentor Deutschland GmbH, Mentor Medical Systems B.V., Mentor Partnership Holding Company I LLC, Mentor Texas GP LLC, Mentor Texas L.P., Mentor Worldwide LLC, Micrus Endovascular LLC, Middlesex Assurance Company Limited, Momenta Ireland Limited, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., NeoStrata Company Inc., NeoStrata UG (haftungsbeschrankt), Netherlands Holding Company, NeuWave Medical Inc., Neuravi Limited, Novira Therapeutics, Novira Therapeutics LLC, NuVera Medical Inc., OBTECH Medical Sarl, OGX Beauty Limited, OMJ Holding GmbH, OMJ Ireland Unlimited Company, OMJ Pharmaceuticals Inc., Obtech Medical Mexico S.A. de C.V., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Inc., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Ltd., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals NV, Ortho Biologics LLC, Ortho Biotech Holding LLC, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical LLC, Orthospin Ltd., Orthotaxy, PT Integrated Healthcare Indonesia, PT. Johnson & Johnson Indonesia, Patriot Pharmaceuticals LLC, Peninsula Pharmaceuticals LLC, Pharmadirect Ltd., Pharmedica Laboratories (Proprietary) Limited, Princeton Laboratories Inc., Productos de Cuidado Personal y de La Salud de Bolivia S.R.L., Proleader S.A., Pulsar Vascular Inc., Regency Urban Renewal Associates, RespiVert Ltd., RoC International, Royalty A&M LLC, Rutan Realty LLC, SYNTHES Medical Immobilien GmbH, Scios LLC, Sedona Singapore International Pte. Ltd., Sedona Thai International Co. Ltd., Serhum S.A. de C.V., Shanghai Elsker For Mother & Baby Co. Ltd, Shanghai Elsker Mother & Baby Co. Ltd Minghang Branch, Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Ltd., Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Sightbox LLC, Sodiac ESV, Spectrum Vision Limited Liability Company, Spectrum Vision Limited Liability Partnership, SterilMed, SterilMed Inc., Surgical Process Institute Deutschland GmbH, Synthes Costa Rica S.C.R. Limitada, Synthes GmbH, Synthes Holding AG, Synthes Holding Limited, Synthes Inc., Synthes Medical Surgical Equipment & Instruments Trading LLC, Synthes Produktions GmbH, Synthes Proprietary Limited, Synthes S.M.P. S. de R.L. de C.V., Synthes Tuttlingen GmbH, Synthes USA LLC, Synthes USA Products LLC, TARIS Biomedical, TARIS Biomedical LLC, TearScience Inc., The Anspach Effort LLC, The Vision Care Institute LLC, Tibotec LLC, Torax Medical Inc., UAB "Johnson & Johnson", UAB Johnson & Johnson Eesti Filiaal (Estonian Branch), Vania Expansion, Verb Surgical, Verb Surgical Inc., Vision Care Finance Unlimited Company, Vogue International, Vogue International LLC, Vogue International Trading Inc., WH4110 Development Company L.L.C., XO1, XO1 Limited, Xian Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd., Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. Beijing Branch Office, Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. Shanghai Branch Office, Zarbee's Inc., and Zarbee's Naturals.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. The company offers general purpose servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers; HPE ProLiant rack and tower servers; HPE BladeSystem and HPE Synergy; and solutions for secondary workloads and traditional tape, storage networking, and disk products, such as HPE Modular Storage Arrays and HPE XP. It also offers HPE Apollo and Cray products; and HPE Superdome Flex, HPE Nonstop, HPE Integrity, and HPE Edgeline products. In addition, the company provides HPE Aruba product portfolio that includes wired and wireless local area network hardware products, such as Wi-Fi access points, switches, routers, and sensors; HPE Aruba software and services comprising cloud-based management, network management, network access control, analytics and assurance, and location; and professional and support services, as well as as-a-service and consumption models for the intelligent edge portfolio of products. Further, it offers various leasing, financing, IT consumption, and utility programs and asset management services for customers to facilitate technology deployment models and the acquisition of complete IT solutions, including hardware, software, and services from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others. Additionally, the company invests in communications and media solutions. It has a partnership with Striim, Inc. to offer high performance and mission-critical solutions with real-time analytics. It serves commercial and large enterprise groups, such as business and public sector enterprises; and through various partners comprising resellers, distribution partners, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, systems integrators, and advisory firms. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
S&P Global Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics, and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity, and automotive markets. It operates in six divisions: S&P Global Ratings, S&P Dow Jones Indices, S&P Global Commodity Insights, S&P Global Market Intelligence, S&P Global Mobility, and S&P Global Engineering Solutions. The S&P Global Ratings division operates as an independent provider of credit ratings, research, and analytics, offering investors and other market participants information, ratings, and benchmarks. The S&P Dow Jones Indices division is an index provider that maintains various valuation and index benchmarks for investment advisors, wealth managers, and institutional investors. The S&P Global Commodity Insights division offers data and insights for global energy and commodity markets and enable its customers to make decisions. The S&P Global Market Intelligence division delivers data and technology solutions for customers to provide insights for making decisions. It offers data and services that bring end-to-end workflow solutions, including capital formation, data and distribution, ESG and sustainability, leveraged loans, private markets, sector coverage, supply chain, and issuer solutions, as well as credit, risk, and regulatory solutions. The S&P Global Mobility division provides insights derived from unmatched automotive data, enabling its customers to anticipate change and make decisions. The S&P Global Engineering Solutions division offers engineering expertise and solutions in industries, such as aerospace and defense, energy, architecture, construction, and transportation. Its solutions empower business and technical leaders to transform workflows and make decisions. S&P Global Inc. was founded in 1860 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Its marketed products include Calquence, Enhertu, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Lynparza, Orpathys, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology; Brilinta/Brilique, Bydureon/Byetta, BCise, Byetta, Crestor, Evrenzo, Farxiga/Forxiga, Komboglyze/Kombiglyze XR, Lokelma, Onglyza, Qtern, and Xigduo/Xigduo XR for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; Bevespi Aerosphere, Breztri Aerosphere, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir Genuair, Fasenra, Pulmicort, Saphnelo, Symbicort, and Tudorza/Eklira/Bretaris for respiratory and immunology; and Andexxa/Ondexxya, Kanuma, Soliris, Strensiq, and Ultomiris for rare diseases. The company's marketed products also comprise Synagis for respiratory syncytial virus; Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent for Influenza; Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR for schizophrenia bipolar disease; Nexium, and Losec/Prilosec for gastroenterology; and Vaxzevria and Evusheld for covid-19. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. It has a collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to research, develop, and commercialize small molecule medicines for obesity; Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop eplontersen, a liver-targeted antisense therapy in Phase III development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; Proteros Biostructures GmbH to jointly discover novel small molecules for the treatment of hematological cancers; Sierra Oncology, Inc. to develop and commercialize AZD5153. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
Koppers Holdings Inc. provides treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals, and carbon compounds in the United States, Australasia, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Railroad and Utility Products and Services (RUPS), Performance Chemicals (PC), and Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC). The RUPS segment procures and treats crossties, switch ties, and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. It also provides rail joint bars to join rails together for railroads; transmission and distribution poles for electric and telephone utilities; and pilings. This segment also provides railroad services, such as engineering, design, repair, and inspection services for railroad bridges. The PC segment develops, manufactures, and markets copper-based wood preservatives, including micronized copper azole, micronized pigments, alkaline copper quaternary, amine copper azole, and chromated copper arsenate for decking, fencing, utility poles, construction lumber and timbers, and various agricultural uses; and supplies fire-retardant chemicals for pressure treatment of wood primarily in commercial construction. The CMC segment manufactures creosote for the treatment of wood or as a feedstock in the production of carbon black; carbon pitch, a raw material used in the production of aluminum and steel; naphthalene for use as a feedstock in the production of phthalic anhydride and as a surfactant in the production of concrete; phthalic anhydride for the production of plasticizers, polyester resins, and alkyd paints; and carbon black feedstock for use in the production of carbon black. The company serves the railroad, specialty chemical, utility, residential lumber, agriculture, aluminum, steel, rubber, and construction industries. Koppers Holdings Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. provides reinsurance and insurance products around the world. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Bermuda with offices in Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore, and the US.

The company operates through two segments that include multiple underlying businesses and investment vehicles. The two main segments are Property and Casualty & Specialty. The company operates through intermediaries that include DaVinci Resinsurance Inc, Top Layer Reinsurance LTD, and RennaisanceRe Syndicate 1458 among others.

Top Layer Re is the first major venture and was started in 1999. It is a joint venture with State Farm targeting high layers of the US reinsurance business. DaVinci Re was formed in the wake of 9/11 to assist with capacity and it was given added capacity in the wake of hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Medici was formed in 2009 and is an open-ended fund intended to spur investment in the catastrophe bond market.

The Property segment writes catastrophic insurance policies to insure insurance and reinsurance companies against natural and man-made catastrophes. These include but are not limited to hurricanes, floods, freezes, and terrorism.

The Casualty & Specialty segment provides a wide range of consumer products including business insurance, malpractice insurance, liability insurance, workers' compensation, mortgage insurance, and health insurance among others.

Among RenaissanceRes Specialty businesses is capital management. The firm offers 6 investment vehicles and has more than $11 billion under management making it the #1 ILS or insurance-linked asset manager in the US. In regards to its credit ratings, the firm and all of its vehicles carry an A or better rating from every credit rating agency.
Smart & Final Stores, Inc. operates as a food retailer in the United States. It operates in two segments, Smart & Final and Smart Foodservice. The company's stores offer fresh perishables and everyday grocery items, such as produce, meat and deli, dairy and cheese, grocery, and beverage products, as well as paper and packaging, and restaurant equipment and janitorial supplies. It also provides various private label products under the First Street, Sun Harvest, Simply Value, La Romanella, Montecito, Iris, and Ambiance brands. The company sells its products to household and business customers; restaurants; caterers; and various other foodservice businesses, such as food trucks and coffee houses through vendors and suppliers. As of December 30, 2018, it operated 326 grocery and foodservice stores, including 59 Smart & Final stores, 201 Smart & Final Extra! stores, and 66 Smart Foodservice Warehouse stores located in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Utah, as well as 15 stores in Northwestern Mexico operated through a joint venture. Smart & Final Stores, Inc. was founded in 1871 and is headquartered in Commerce, California.
National Bank of Canada provides various financial products and services to retail, commercial, corporate, and institutional clients in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, and savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services comprise credit, and deposit and investment solutions, as well as international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services. The Wealth Management segment comprises investment solutions, trust services, banking services, lending services, and other wealth management solutions. The Financial Markets segment offers corporate banking, advisory, and capital markets services; and project financing, debt, and equity underwriting; advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, and financing. The U.S. Specialty Finance and International segment provides specialty finance products; financial products and services to individuals and businesses in Cambodia; and investment solutions, guaranteed investment certificates, mutual funds, notes, structured products, and monetization. It provides its services through a network of 384 branches and 927 banking machines. National Bank of Canada was founded in 1859 and is based in Montreal, Canada.
The following companies are subsidiares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.: 2235158 Alberta Limited, A.J. Amer Agency, AHC Digital LLC, AIX Limited, AJG Coal LLC, AJG Financial Services LLC, AJG Meadows LLC, AJG North America ULC, AJG RCF LLC, AJGRMS of Louisiana LLC, ARM RE Ltda., AVIATION INSURANCE SERVICES, AVRECO, Ace IRM Insurance Broking Group, Acumus Holdings Limited, Acumus Interco Limited, Acumus Ltd, Adams & Associates International, Adaptive Marketing LLC, Adco General Corporation, Advanced Benefit Advisors, Aequus Trade Credit, Affinity Marketing Group, Ahrold Fay Rosenberg, Aires Consulting Group, Alesco Risk Management Services Limited, Alize Limited, Allied Claims Administration Inc., Alternative Market Specialists, Altman & Cronin Benefit Consultants, American Freedom Carriers Inc., American Security Services Corp., American Wholesalers Underwriting Ltd, Andrew-Anthony Insurance Agency, Anthony Hodges Consulting Limited, Antrobus Investments Limited, AquaSurance, Argentis, Argentis Financial Group Limited, Argentis Financial Management Limited, Argus Benefits, Armstrong/Robitaille/Riegle, Artex (SAC) Limited, Artex Cedar Hill, Artex Corporate Services (Malta) Limited, Artex Corporate Services Limited, Artex Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Artex Holdings (Malta) Limited, Artex Insurance (Guernsey) PCC Limited, Artex Insurance (Tennessee) PCCIC Inc., Artex Insurance Brokers (Malta) PCC Limited, Artex Insurance ICC Limited, Artex Intermediaries Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (Bermuda) Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (Cayman) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (Gibraltar) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (Guernsey) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (International) Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (Malta) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (UK) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions Inc., Arthur J Gallagher (Norway) Holdings AS, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AUS) Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Bermuda) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Illinois), Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Insurance Brokers of California Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher (Aus) Pty Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher (Bermuda) Holding Partnership, Arthur J. Gallagher (Life Solutions) Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher (U.S.) LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher (UK) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Asesoria S.A.C., Arthur J. Gallagher Australasia Holdings Pty Ltd., Arthur J. Gallagher Brokerage & Risk Management Services LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Broking (NZ) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Financial Services Professionals Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Group Quebec ULC, Arthur J. Gallagher Holdings (UK) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Brokers Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Latin America LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Management (Bermuda) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Real Estate Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services (Hawaii) Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services of Utah Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher School Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Service Company LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Services (UK) Ltd, Ashmore & Associates Insurance Agency, Atlantic Risk Management Corp., Atrex Insurance (Cayman) SPC Limited, Avantek Pty Ltd, Axe Insurance PCC Limited, BIS Insurance Services, Baker - Tillys employment benefits solutions, Ballard Benefit Works, Bankers Financial Benefits, Barmore Insurance Agency, Behnke & Co. Inc., Bellisle Pty Ltd, Belmont Associates Consultants, Belmont Insurance Holdings Limited, Belmont International, Belmont International Limited, Benefit Development Group, Benefit Management Group, BenefitLink Resource Group, Benefits Planning & Insurance Agency, Benefits Unlimited, Bennett & Shade Co., Bergvall Marine, Bergvall Marine A.S., Besselman & Little Agency, Big Savings Insurance Agency Inc., Blenheim Park Ltd, Blenheim Park Services Limited, Blue Holdings Pty Ltd, Blue Horizon Insurance Services, Blue Water Benefits, BluePeak Advisors, Blueleaf Consulting Pty Ltd., Bluewater Incorporated Cell Insurance Company, Bollinger Inc., Bollinger Insurance Services Inc., Bowen Miclette Britt & Merry of Arkansas Inc., Brendis & Brendis, Brim AB, Broker Benefit Services, Brokerage Professionals, Brown Hobbs & McMurray Insurance, Bultman/Bell Associates Inc., Burkwald & Associates, Burns-Fazzi Brock & Associates, Bushong Insurance Associates, C&B Consulting Group, CGM Gallagher Insruance Brokers (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited, CJM Solutions Inc., CMA Solutions LLC, Cairnstone Financial, California Insurance Center, Capital Bauer Insurance Agency, Capitol Benefits Group, Capsicum CRLA LLP, Capsicum Re Brasil Participacoes Ltda, Capsicum Re Latin America Corretora De Resseguros Ltda, Capsicum Reinsurance Brokers Bermuda Limited, Capsicum Reinsurance Brokers Miami Inc., Carefree Marketing Inc., Carpenter Cammack & Associates, Cashan & Co., Castle Insurance Associates, Centennial Insurance Agency, Charity First Insurance Services Inc., Charles Allen Agency, Charter Lakes Insurance Agency, Chris Schroeder Insurance, Christie-Phoenix, Cintran Claims Canada Limited, Classic Insurance Services, Cleaveland Insurance Group, Cohen & Lord Insurance Brokers, Cohn Financial Group, Coleman Group Holdings Limited, Coleman Holdings Limited, College and University Scholastic Excess Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Commercial Insurance Brokers, Complete Benefit Alliance, Complete Financial Balance, Complete Financial Balance Pty Ltd, Consolidated Casualty Specialties LLC, Construction Risk Solutions, Contego Underwriting Limited, Contego Underwriting Ltd, Continental Excess & Surplus, Convergence Risk Services Ltd, Copper Mountain Assurance Inc., Cornwall & Stevens Co., Corporate Benefit Advisors, Corporate Life Consultants, Countrywide Accident Assistance Limited, Coverdell & Company Inc., Coverdell Canada Corporation, Cowles and Connell, Craig M. Ferguson & Co., Crist Elliott Machette Insurance Services, Crombie Lockwood (NZ) Limited, Davis-Poston & Associates, Denman Consulting Services, Detlefs Johnson & Partners, DiBrina Group, Dickinson & Associates, Discount Development Services L.L.C., Discovery Benefit Solutions, Dodson-Bateman & Co., Donald P. Pipino Co. Ltd., E. S. Susanin Inc., EHE Holdings LLC, EHS Holdings Limited, Elantis Premium Funding (NZ) Limited, Elantis Premium Funding Limited, Elite Benefits Insurance Marketing Services, Employee Benefits Analysis Corp., Employee Benefits of The Carolinas, Encore Insurance & Bonding, Everett James, Evolution Risk Services Limited, Evolution Technology Services Limited, Evolution Underwriting Group, Evolution Underwriting Group Limited, Evolution Underwriting Limited, Excel Insurance Services, FYI Direct Canada Corporation, FYI Direct LLC, Farallone Pacific Insurance Services, Fenchurch Faris Limited, Fidelity Benefits & Insurance Services, Financial Profiles Inc., Finergy Solutions Pty Ltd, First Agency, First Iowa Insurance Agency, First Premium Inc., First Premium Insurance Group, Fish & Schulkamp, Fishermans Insurance Services, Foley Healthcare Limited, Fortress Financial Solutions Pty Ltd, Fortress Insurance LLC, Foundation Strategies, Fox Lawson & Associates, Franklin-Case Agency LLC, Fraser MacAndrew Ryan Limited, Friary Intermediate Limited, Fuller & O'Brien, G.S. Chapman & Associates Insurance Brokers, G.S. Levine Insurance Services, GBS (Australia) Holdings Pty Ltd, GBS Administrators Inc., GBS Insurance and Financial Services Inc., GBS Retirement Services Inc., GBS Specialty Markets LLC, GGB Finance 1 Limited, GGB Finance 2 Limited, GGB Finance 3 Limited, GGB Finance 4 Limited, GPL Assurance, GPL Assurance Inc., Gabor Insurance Services, Gale Smith & Co. Inc., Gallagher (Bermuda) Insurance Solutions Ltd., Gallagher - Grace/Mayer Insurance Agency, Gallagher Bassett Aires Inc., Gallagher Bassett Canada Inc., Gallagher Bassett Insurance Services Ltd., Gallagher Bassett International Ltd., Gallagher Bassett NZ Pty Ltd., Gallagher Bassett Services Inc. , Gallagher Bassett Services Pty Ltd., Gallagher Bassett Services Workers Compensation Victoria Pty Ltd., Gallagher Benefit Services (Canada) Group Inc., Gallagher Benefit Services (Holdings) Limited, Gallagher Benefit Services Inc., Gallagher Benefit Services Management Company Limited, Gallagher Benefit Services Pty Ltd, Gallagher Benefits Consulting Limited, Gallagher Bomford Couch Wilson, Gallagher Burgess, Gallagher Canada Acquisition Corporation, Gallagher Caribbean Group Limited, Gallagher Clean Energy LLC, Gallagher Communications Limited, Gallagher Community Clinic RPG LLC, Gallagher Consulting Ltda, Gallagher Corporate Services LLC, Gallagher Coyle, Gallagher CyberRisk, Gallagher Energy Risk Services Inc., Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors LLC, Gallagher Holdings (UK) Limited, Gallagher Holdings Bermuda Company Limited, Gallagher Holdings Four (UK) Limited, Gallagher Holdings Three (UK) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (Barbados) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (St. Kitts & Nevis) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (St. Lucia) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (St. Vincent) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers Jamaica Limited, Gallagher International Cash Management s.r.l., Gallagher International Holdings (US) Inc., Gallagher Investment Advisors LLC, Gallagher Inwest Group, Gallagher Koster, Gallagher Lambert Group, Gallagher Madison Risk & Insurance Services, Gallagher Mauritius Holdings, Gallagher Mississippi Brokerage LLC, Gallagher RE Colombia Ltda Corredores de Reaseguros SA, Gallagher Risk & Reward Limited, Gallagher Risk Group LLC, Gallagher Risk Placements Pty Ltd, Gallagher SKS, Gallagher Service Center LLP, Gallagher-Tarantino, Galtney Group, Game Day Insurance Inc., Gardner & White Corp., Gardner Marine Agency, Garza Long Group, Gatehouse Consulting Limited, Gault Armstrong Kemble Pty Ltd, Gault Armstrong SARL, Giles Group, Giles Holdings Limited, Giles Insurance Brokers, Gillis Ellis & Baker Inc., Goodman Insurance Agency, Grandy Pratt Co., Greenseed Alternative Mangaers Platform Ltd, Grossman & Associates, Group Benefits of Arkansas, Group Insurance Associates, Gruppo Marcucci, HLG Holdings Limited, HMG-PCMS Limited, HPF Investments LLC, HR Owen Insurance Services Limited, Hagan Newkirk Financial Services, Hagedorn & Company, Hardman & Howell Benefits, Harlequin Insurance PCC Limited, Hartstein Associates Inc., Healthcare Professionals Purchasing Group LLC, Healthcare Risk Solutions, Heath Lambert Group Ltd., Heath Lambert Limited, Heath Lambert Overseas Limited, Heiser Insurance Agency, Henderson Phillips Fine Arts Insurance, Herbruck Alder & Co., Heritage Insurance Brokers (CI) Limited, Hesse & Partner AG, Hesse Consulting, Hexagon ICC Limited, Hexagon Insurance PCC Limited, Hill Chesson & Woody, Hogan Insurance Services, Home & Travel Limited, Honour Point Limited, Horseshoe Corporate Services Ltd, Horseshoe Fund Services (Cayman) Ltd, Horseshoe Fund Services Ltd, Horseshoe Fund Services USA Inc., Horseshoe ILS Services UK Ltd, Horseshoe Insurance Advisors US LLC, Horseshoe Insurance Advisory Ltd., Horseshoe Insurance Services Holdings Ltd, Horseshoe Insurance Services Holdings US Inc., Horseshoe Management (Gibraltar) Limited, Horseshoe Management (Ireland) Ltd, Horseshoe Management Ltd., Horseshoe PCC Limited, Horseshoe Re Limited, Horseshoe Services (Cayman) Ltd, Horseshoe Services (Pty) Ltd, Horton Insurance Agency, Housing Authorities Services Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Human Resource Management Systems, I-Protect Underwriting Pty Ltd, IBIS Advisors, IBS Reinsurance Singapore Pte Ltd, ILS Fund Services Ltd., ISG International, ITI Solutions, Igloo Insurance PCC Limited, Independent Benefit Services, Independent Fiduciary Services, Ink Underwriting Agencies Limited, InsSync Group Pty Ltd, Inspire Underwriting Limited, Instrat Insurance Brokers, Instrat Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Instrat Integration Holdco Pty Ltd, Insurance Acquisitions Holdings Limited, Insurance Associates Inc., Insurance Dialogue Limited, Insurance Dialogue Ltd., Insurance Plans Agency, Insurance Plus Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Insurance Point, Insurance Risk Managers of Missouri Inc., Insure My Villa Limited, Insure Pty Ltd, Integrated Healthcare Strategies, InterNational Insurance Group, InterPacific Underwriting Agencies, Intermountain Financial Benefits, Interstate Insurance Underwriters, JPGAC LLC, James F. Reda & Associates, James R. Weir Insurance Agency, Jenkins and Associates, Joe E. Martin Inc., John P. Woods Co. Inc., Jones Brown, Jones Brown Group Inc., Jones Brown Insurance Solutions Inc., Joseph Distel, Joseph James & Associates Insurance Agency, Just Landlords Insurance Services Ltd, KDC Associates, KRW Insurance Agency, Kahl Insurance Services, Kaler Carney Liffler & Co. Inc., Kane Group - Insurance Management Operations, Kelly Financial, Kent Kent & Tingle and RBS, Keyser Benefits Corp., Kingspark Enterprises Pty Ltd, L&R Benefits, LSG Insurance Partners, Learn About Money Limited, Lewis & Associates Insurance Brokers, Leystone Insurance & Financial, Life Plans Unlimited, Lincoln Financial Management, Longfellow Financial, Lucas Fettes Limited, Lucas Fettes and Partners Limited, Lutgert Insurance, MA Underwriting Pty Ltd, MDM Insurance Associates, MG Advanced Coal Technologies-1 LLC, MGA Insurance Services, MRS Holdings Ltd., Madison Scott & Associates, Managed Healthcare Solutions, Mannequin Insurance PCC Limited, Marchetti Robertson & Brickell Insurance, Marine Insurance Service, Martin Gordon & Jones Inc., McDowall Associates Human Resource Consultants, McIntyre Risk Management, McLean Insurance Agency, McNeary, McPherson Benefits Group, McRory & Co., Mecacem Insurance SPC Ltd, MedInsights Inc., Melton Insurance Associates, Memberworks Canada LLC, Merit Insurance, Metcom Excess, Metzler Bros. Insurance, Meyers-Reynolds & Associates, Mid America Group, Midwest Surety Services, Mike Henry Insurance Brokers, Mike Henry Insurance Brokers Limited, Mike Henry Insurance Funding Limited, Miller Buettner & Parrott, Miller-Harrison Insurance Services, Milne Alexander Pty Ltd, Minvielle & Chastanet Insurance Brokers, Monument Insurance (NZ) Limited, Monument Llc, Monument Premium Funding Limited, Mortgage Insurance Agency, Murphy Consultants, Mutual Insurance Services, NationAir Aviation Insurance, National Administration Co., National Ethics Association, National Transportation Adjusters, Nelson/Monarch Insurance Services, Nicoud Insurance Services, NiiS/Apex Group Holdings, Nonprofit Insurance Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Noraxis Capital Corp, Nordic Forsakring & Riskhantering AB, North Alabama Insurance, Nourse Insurance Brokers, O'Gorman & Young, OAMPS (UK) Limited, OAMPS Gault Armstrong Pty Ltd, OAMPS Limited, OAMPS Special Risks Ltd, Offshore Market Placements Limited, Optimum Talent, Orb Financial Services, Orb Financial Services Limited, Osprey Insurance Brokers Limited, Oval Group, Oval Healthcare Limited, Oval Insurance Broking Limited, Oval Limited, Oval Management Services Limited, Oxygen Insurance Managers, P2 Group, PEN Insurance Management Advisors Ltd, PT IBS Insurance Broking Service, Pacific Insurance Agency, Palmer Atlantic Insurance, Palmer Atlantic Insurance Ltd, Palmer Atlantic Risk Services Ltd., Park Row Associates, Parkstar Enterprises Pty Ltd, Parmia Pty Ltd, PartnerSource, Pastel Holding (NZ) Company, Pastel Holdings Pty Limited, Pastel Purchaser (NZ) Limited, Pastel Purchaser Pty Limited, Pavey Group Holdings (UK) Limited, Pavey Group Holdings Limited, Pavey Group Limited, Pearson Dunn Insurance Inc., Pen Underwriting Canada Limited, Pen Underwriting Group Pty. Ltd., Pen Underwriting Limited, Pen Underwriting Pty Ltd, Persing Dyckman & Toynbee Inc., Personal Advice Services Pty Ltd, Petty Burton Associates, Pointer Insurance Agency, Portmore Insurance Brokers (Wilshire) Limited, Portmore Insurance Brokers Limited, Potter-Holden & Co., Powell Insurance Agency, Premier Insurance Services Inc., Premier Risk Services, Premium Finance Corporation, Preston-Patterson, ProSource Financial, Professional Agents Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Professional Claims Managers, Proinova AB, Proinova Agency AB, Pronto California Agency LLC, Pronto California General Agency LLC, Pronto Florida Claims LLC, Pronto Florida General Agency LLC, Pronto Franchise LLC, Pronto General Agency Ltd, Pronto General Agency Management LLC, Pronto Holdco Inc., Pronto Holding California LLC, Pronto Holding Florida LLC, Pronto Insurance Agency of Laredo Inc., Pronto Premium Finance LLC, Property & Commercial Ltd., Property Insurance Initatives Limited, Property and Commercial Limited, Protected Insurance Company, Protection Plan Association Inc., Protek Group Limited, Providium Consulting Group, Ptarmigan Underwriting Agency Limited, Ptarmigan Underwriting UK Limited, Purple Bridge Claims Management Limited, Purple Bridge Finance Limited, Purple Bridge Group Limited, Purple Bridge Investments Limited, Purple Bridge Online Services Limited, Purple Bridge Publishing Limited, Quantum Underwriting Solutions Limited, Quillco 226 Limited, Quillco 227 Limited, R. L. Youngdahl & Associates, R.G. Speno Inc., R.W. Scobie, RA Rossborough (Guernsey) Ltd., RA Rossborough (Insurance Brokers) Ltd, REGENCY Group inc., RGA Referencing Limited, RGA Underwriting Limited, RIL Administrators (Guernsey) Ltd., RJ Dutton Inc., RSM Insurance Services Limited, Reassurance Holdings Inc., Rebholz Insurance Agency, Reid Manson Ltd., Reimbursement Services, Rentguard Limited, Reward Management Limited, Reynolds & Rodar Insurance Group, Riley & Associates, Rio 587 Limited, Rio 588 Limited, Risk & Reward Group, Risk Management Partners Limited, Risk Placement Services Inc., Risk Planners, Risk Services (NW) Limited, Risk Services (NW) Ltd., Risk Solutions Group Limited, Robert A. Schneider Agency, Robert Keith & Associates, Roberts & Roberts Insurance Service, Robinson-Adams Insurance, Rossborough Healthcare International Ltd, Rossborough Insurance (IOM) Ltd., Rossborough Insurance Services Ltd. (Jersey), S. A. Freerks & Associates, SEG Insurance Ltd, SGB-NIA Insurance Brokers, SHILLING Ltd, SKANCO International, SMERI AB, SRS Underwriting Pty Ltd, Secure Enterprises Pty Ltd, Securitas Re, Sellers Group, Sentinel Indemnity LLC, Septagon Insurance PCC Limited, Shuford Insurance Agency, Sigma II Insurance Agency, Sinclair Billard and Weld Limited, Sobieski & Bradley, Solid Benefit Guidance, Spanjers Insurance Agency, Spataro Insurance Agency, Specialised Broking Associates, Specialty Risk, Stackhouse Poland, Stackhouse Poland Bidco Limited, Stackhouse Poland Group Limited, Stackhouse Poland Holdings Limited, Stackhouse Poland Midco Limited, Stackouse Poland Limited, Stanton Group, Stark Johnson & Stinson Inc., Steel Agency, Strata Solicitors Ltd, Strategic Health Plans Corp., Strathearn Insurance Brokers, Strathearn Insurance Brokers (Qld) Trading Trust, Strathern Insurance Group Pty Ltd, Strathern Integration Holdco Pty Ltd, Strathern Unit Trust, Strong Financial Resources, Summit Insurance Group, Sunday and Associates, Sunderland Insurance Services, Super Advice Corporate Services Pty Ltd, Taylor Benefits, Texas Insurance Agency, Texas Insurance Managers, The BeneTex Group, The Buchholz Planning, The Chapman Group, The Commonwealth Consulting Group, The Daniels Group Inc., The EHE Group LLC, The EHE Insurance Agency LLC, The Eagle Insurance Agency LLC, The Eriksen Group, The Forker Company, The Gleason Agency, The Great Lakes Agency, The HR Group, The Hawk Agency, The Human Capital Group, The Lance Group, The Levitt/Kristan Co., The MW Bagnall Company, The Old Greenwich Consulting Group, The Parks Johnson Agency, The Plus Companies Inc., The Presidio Group, The Producers Choice, The Rains Group, The Splinter Group, The Titan Group, The Treiber Group, The Woodsmall Companies Inc., Title & Covenant Brokers Ltd., Title Investments Limited, Tom Sherwin Insurance Agency, Total Reward Group, Total Rewards Group (Holdings) Limited, Towle Agency, Transwestern, Tri-State General Insurance Agency, Triad Insurance Agency, Triad USA, Tribeca Strategic Advisors, Trinder & Norwood, Trip Mate, Trissel Graham & Toole, Tropp & Co., Tudor Risk Services, Tyloma Holdings Limited, Uni-Care Inc., Unison Inc., Universico Group, Unoccupied Direct Limited, V2V Holdings LLC, VEBA Service Group, Vasek Insurance Services Limited, Velo ACU LLC, Velo Holdings Inc., Verbag AG., Vertrue LLC, Victory Insurance Agency, Vincent L. Braband Insurance, Vital Benefits, Voluntary Benefits Solutions, W. E. Kingsley Co. Inc., WM. W. George & Associates, Walker Taylor Agency, Welling Associates, Wesfarmers Insurance - Insurance Brokerage Operations, Western Benefit Solutions, White & Company Insurance, Whitehaven Insurance Group, William Gallagher Associates Insurance Brokers, William H. Connolly & Co., Williams Insurance Agency Inc., Williams-Manny Insurance Group, Winn & Company Insurance Brokers, Wischmeyer Benefit Partners, Woodbrook Underwriting Agencies, Woods & Grooms, WorkCare Northwest, Worksite Communications, Y. S. Liedman & Associates, YOA Capsicum Reinsurance Broker Limited, Zenor Limited, Zuber Insurance Agency, and e3 Financial.

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Consolidated Edison, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the regulated electric, gas, and steam delivery businesses in the United States. It offers electric services to approximately 3.5 million customers in New York City and Westchester County; gas to approximately 1.1 million customers in Manhattan, the Bronx, parts of Queens, and Westchester County; and steam to approximately 1,555 customers in parts of Manhattan. The company also supplies electricity to approximately 0.3 million customers in southeastern New York and northern New Jersey; and gas to approximately 0.1 million customers in southeastern New York. In addition, it operates 533 circuit miles of transmission lines; 15 transmission substations; 64 distribution substations; 87,564 in-service line transformers; 3,924 pole miles of overhead distribution lines; and 2,291 miles of underground distribution lines, as well as 4,350 miles of mains and 377,971 service lines for natural gas distribution. Further, the company owns, operates, and develops renewable and energy infrastructure projects; and provides energy-related products and services to wholesale and retail customers, as well as invests in electric and gas transmission projects. It primarily sells electricity to industrial, commercial, residential, and government customers. The company was founded in 1823 and is based in New York, New York.
Emotions were high inside Charlottesville City Council Chambers on Monday evening as an overwhelming number of residents came to support a City Councilor who is facing intense scrutiny for a number of racist, sexist and homophobic comments attributed to him on Twitter were revealed last month by a local blogger.

Eleven days after blogger Jason Kessler called for Wes Bellamy to be removed from the public positions he holds over the tweets he wrote in a period from 2009 to 2014, Bellamy entered the chambers to mostly applause and cheers in his support.

Since the shocking revelation, Bellamy has stepped down from his governor-appointed position on the Virginia Board of Education and has been placed on paid administrative leave from his position as a computer science teacher at Albemarle High School.

I want to be very clear: I owe this city and this area everything  including an apology, Bellamy said in a statement shortly after Mondays meeting started.

Im sorry for my tweets that I sent in my early to mid 20s  Im not looking to defend or justify my words. They are indefensible, he said. They dont reflect the man I am or the things I believe today.

Kessler, whose petition online had garnered more than 900 signatures as of Monday evening, continued to maintain that Bellamy has disqualified himself from serving because of his homophobic, anti-woman, anti-white and pro-rape statements which he assigned to the official Twitter account of the vice-mayor.

Alleging that Councilor Kristin Szakos initially tried to issue statements that questioned the veracity of his blog post, which were then deleted, Kessler said the council had betrayed their every liberal-progressive value.

Even one of Bellamys tweets would have forced his resignation a week ago if he were a white man, Kessler said.

In the public comment period at the start of the meeting, two other speakers supported the call for Bellamys removal.

Although not all of the speakers addressed the ongoing controversy, the majority of people in the crowd Monday clapped or applauded whenever someone stated their support for Bellamy. Many others held signs in support of him.

Ahead of the meeting, Cville Pride, an LGBTQ advocacy group, issued a statement in support of Bellamy.

We repudiate Wes public statements in his past, but we believe that Wes has also been repudiating his words through his actions of the present, the statement read.

We also believe that the comments Wes made were more than just a mistake of an individual; they are evidence of a larger, pervasive cultural bias that cuts deep into the core of who we are as Americans; he is a product of a society that divides and devalues its people, the statement said.

They are not just his words, but words that reflect much about the patriarchal, racially divided, misogynist, homophobic world that still shapes who we are.

In a statement before the start of the comment period, Mayor Mike Signer said the council legally cannot seek Bellamys removal over the controversy.

I must clarify for the entire community that we have no such legal authority. City Code expressly limits the application of such actions to councilors found to conduct malfeasance or misfeasance in office.

Regardless of the display of support and the statement from Signer, Bellamys position as a school teacher remains uncertain.

Last week, Phil Giaramita, Albemarle school system spokesman, said Bellamy will remain on paid administrative leave until the county School Board finishes its investigation into the matter of Bellamy's tweets.

The controlling factor here is the investigation, he said Friday. On Monday, Giaramita said the investigation is still in progress.

In an interview after the public comment period, Kessler said he is planning to pursue a legal petition in the court system to have Bellamy removed.

According to Virginia Code, a circuit court may consider removal of an elected official if a petition that includes a number of signatures equal to 10 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last election for the office that the person holds is submitted to the court.

After that is completed, the judge may decide a recall is acceptable if the official has been convicted of certain crimes or proven to have neglected their duty, misused their office or been incompetent in their performance.
RICHMOND  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a permit it issued more than five years ago related to Dominions potential construction of a new reactor at its North Anna Power Station.

Last month, the corps notified Dominion that the permit, which authorized impacts to wetlands, Lake Anna and the Mattaponi River and its shoreline, would be suspended pending the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissions consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The commission, which is expected to issue a decision on the operating license for the new reactor next year, is consulting the other federal agencies pursuant to Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, which is the mechanism by which federal agencies ensure the actions they take, including those they fund or authorize, do not jeopardize the existence of any listed species, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The suspension of the permit came about a month after the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club threatened to sue the corps, alleging it had not followed those interagency cooperation procedures and was in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Dominions plan for the new reactor, which it has not yet decided to build, would involve shipping large components by water to a facility near Walkerton that the utility would construct to offload the pieces for truck transport to North Anna.

Part of that involves building a temporary dam as part of the roll-off facility that will move the equipment off the barges.

Regardless of whether you support nuclear power, the dam Dominion wants to build threatens an important, sensitive ecosystem, including the federally endangered Atlantic sturgeon as well as a threatened wetlands plant, Thomas Rubino, a King and Queen resident active with the Alliance to Save the Mattaponi group, said in a statement.

Rubino said the corps failed to consider that large barges could cause large amounts of wake that can cause serious erosion problems and disturb the fragile wetland habitat bordering the river.

Richard Zuercher, a Dominion spokesman, said the suspension of the permit isnt expected to affect the project. Zuercher said the corps previously determined the planned activities would have no effect on threatened species and fully complied with laws.

Zuercher said the utility might not make up its mind on the reactor expansion until after the license is issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The new reactor has been estimated at $19 billion, which the company would recoup from ratepayers. That estimate comes from testimony by a witness to the State Corporation Commission, which also would ultimately have to approve the project, but Zuercher acknowledged that the figure isnt unreasonable.

It is an expensive option and we are still looking at the business case and other factors, he said.

No work has started yet on the transfer facility near Walkerton, he added.
LYNCHBURG  The state plans to transfer three Central Virginia Training Center residents to Petersburg regardless of whether their guardians approve, according to a recent statement from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

The three individuals cannot be served at the Madison Heights facility housing people with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities once beds classified for skilled nursing are decertified Dec. 31, DBHDS Executive Advisor Meghan McGuire said in an emailed statement Thursday.

Their families did not solidify alternate plans after the transition announcement came in August, so the department moved forward with organizing transfers to a state facility with skilled nursing care in Petersburg, she said.

The families still may be able to negotiate, though.

Atul Gupta, whose 16-year-old daughter Alisha lives at CVTC, received a notice Wednesday that Alisha would be transferred to Hiram W. Davis Medical Center in Petersburg on Dec. 22. He called DBHDS after receiving the notice and was able to meet with a department representative in Richmond on Thursday.

I am optimistic that they will be able to find an ideal solution for my daughter, Gupta said Thursday afternoon. I saw some positivity after a long time. ... Its always been very negative  fight, fight, fight.

Gupta was among the guardians for six CVTC residents who were told in August that Building 31 no longer would provide certified skilled nursing care after Dec. 31, meaning they would have to move much sooner than the 2020 closure date. Reclassifying the beds is a step toward closing that building by the end of 2017.

A group of CVTC families continues to contest the facilitys closure, scheduled as part of a plan to meet a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice stemming from an investigation at the Madison Heights facility. The plan calls for closing four of five state facilities called training centers.

When DBHDS made the August decertification announcement, Building 31 housed 46 people, McGuire said. Now, 27 remain in the building; overall, there currently are 174 residents at CVTC, she said.

Alisha Gupta cannot move by herself. She only can communicate with her eyes and by smiling, her father said. He has researched the Lynchburg area without finding a suitable location for her care and said he is worried about her transfer to Petersburg. Every day, he or his wife visit their daughter, he said.

If you move her to Petersburg, shell be far away from family, which she enjoys most every day, Monday through Sunday, January through December, Gupta said.

State code allows the DBHDS commissioner to transfer people from one training center to another. In its statement Thursday and in the letter to Gupta, DBHDS says Hiram Davis meets those qualifications under state code. Gupta said that assertion shocked me.

Several documents discussing the plan to close training centers, including an update in September, make no mention of Hiram Davis.

The DBHDS website listed Hiram Davis as a medical center Thursday. A separate section for training centers did not list Hiram Davis but does list Central, Southeastern and Southwestern training centers, the three still open, along with CVTC.

Only Southeastern in Chesapeake is slated to remain open after 2020.

According to state code, training center means a facility operated by the Department that provides training, habilitation, or other individually focused supports to persons with intellectual disability.

Sen. Steve Newman, R-Bedford County, said Hiram Davis has not generally been in the conversation about closing four of five training centers.

If we get to the point that we are contorting the meaning of words, that clearly is not within the intent of the legislation, Newman said Thursday.

Since 2010, 25 former training center residents statewide have moved to Hiram Davis because of severe medical conditions requiring skilled nursing care, McGuires email said.

HDMC has long served as an option for residents of the other DBHDS facilities, has certified skilled nursing facility beds, and qualifies as a training center under Virginia Code section 37.2-100, McGuires email said.

Planning for the transfer ahead of the decertification date gives time for a safe discharge plan with proper supports in place, McGuire said.

The real risk in the present situation that DBHDS and CVTC are trying to guard against is the harm that could come to residents by remaining in a unit that is not adequately staffed and therefore cannot meet their needs. The actions that DBHDS and CVTC are taking now will prevent such a scenario by allowing for safe, well-planned transfers of residents to alternate settings before continued staffing level declines force haphazard and immediate transfers, McGuires email said.

Martha Bryant received an email Thursday proposing her twin sons Taylor and Tyler be moved to Hiram Davis on Dec. 13, Dec. 19 or Jan. 3. A certified letter was waiting for her at the post office, but she hadnt been able to pick it up with her son Taylor in the hospital.

Bryant has fought for her 22-year-old sons  who cannot move on their own or speak  to remain at CVTC. When she researches for a worthy replacement home, Bryant said she cant find facilities that meet their needs.

Of 84 beds at Hiram Davis, 50 are for certified skilled nursing, McGuire said. Those beds are 80 percent occupied, she said. The facility has a doctor on duty at all times and does not need to hire additional staff to cover new CVTC patients, she said.

The Medicare.gov website for comparing nursing homes ranks Hiram Davis three of five stars for quality. CVTC has five stars.

They use the word propose, but its very much a power move of force into a bad decision, Bryant said. ... Ill try to get them the best medical care I can find them. ... I just dont have the solution yet.
U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, recently renewed his call in the halls of Congress for legislative approval of the ongoing U.S. war against the Islamic State.

In doing so, the onetime vice presidential candidate who is a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee mentioned the death on Thanksgiving Day in Syria of Naval Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton, a Virginian.

Dayton, 42, of Woodbridge, was a bomb specialist who died in an improvised explosive device blast, becoming Americas first combat casualty in the fight against ISIS in the Middle Eastern country.

Kaine, the father of a U.S. Marine, noted the local sailors 23-year distinguished career in calling, once again, for official authorization from Congress for the continued military action. He said that since the war against ISIS started in 2014 more than 5,000 Americans have served in Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria in addition to more than 12,600 American military air strikes.

Because of the work of American troops we have made major gains against ISIS in Northern Iraq and in Northern Syria, Kaine said, crediting the bravery of service members like Dayton before adding, But the threat continues.

The war has cost $10 billion over 800 days of operations for an average of $12.6 million a day, he said.

More than 300 Special Forces now in Syria are fighting on a very complex battlefield where Turkish, Syrian, Russian, Iranian, Lebanese Hezbollah and Kurdish forces are operating in close proximity, Kaine said. I continue to believe that the troops we have deployed overseas deserve to know that Congress is behind this mission.

The president is relying on the 2001 authorization to go after the perpetrators of 9/11 in conducting the war on ISIS, the senator said. He said when federal legislators assume their congressional seats in January that 80 percent of them will not have been in office when the 2001 authorization was passed.

So the 80 percent of us who were not here have never had a meaningful debate on this war, Kaine said, adding that the Constitution obligates Congress to initiate war. Weve not had the debate. Weve not had the vote.

He said the 2001 authorization has been cited by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in at least 37 incidences to justify sending U.S. military to 14 nations including Libya, Turkey, Georgia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia.

It is time for us to recognize that this is a continuing threat that is not going away anytime soon. Of all the powers Congress has, I cant think of any that are more important than the power to declare war, Kaine said. It should always be a hard vote, but it should be a necessary vote. The unwillingness of Congress to grapple with this sends a message thats unfortunate: it sends a message of lack of resolve to allies and our adversary.

The senator ended his remarks by saying he was most concerned about the impact to people like Dayton, and the estimated 2 million American service members fighting the war against ISIS.

People who are serving in the theater of war,who are risking their lives and giving their lives and doing it without the knowledge that Congress supports the mission that they are on, said Kaine.
If Fidel Castro had gotten his way, much of the world would have been in radioactive ruins today.

Its not, due largely to John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev having cooler heads than the people who were advising them during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

When U.S. intelligence discovered the Soviets were building missile bases just 90 miles off our shores, the joint chiefs of staff urged a full-scale invasion of Cuba. They were gambling that the Soviet Union would not respond. That seemed to Kennedy to be a risky game of nuclear poker.

Given six options, he went with the sixth one: Blockade the island  except he called it a quarantine because a blockade is an act of war. Same thing, just a different, less inflammatory word.

For his part, Khrushchev ignored Castro. At the height of the crisis, Castro wrote the Soviet leader a letter in which he urged the Soviets to launch a nuclear strike on the United States. Castro warned that an American invasion was imminent  perhaps within the next 24 hours.

If such an invasion came, Castro advised, he hoped the Soviets would launch a nuclear attack. The Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it, Castro wrote. If the United States dared attack Cuba, he said, that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense.

Khrushchev was volatile in many ways but he wasnt suicidal. Fortunately, he and Kennedy found a way to back the two superpowers away from the brink of nuclear war.

Now, more than five decades later, can a President Trump be as savvy and nuanced as Kennedy and his rival when it comes to trade? President Obama has moved to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and loosen certain restrictions on trade, but technically, the American embargo on Cuba remains in force. Should it?

The argument for: Cuba remains a dictatorship, just under a different Castro. We shouldnt reward that.

The argument against: We have nearly 60 years of evidence that the embargo hasnt achieved its goal, so perhaps we should try something different. Why not invade Cuba with our most powerful weapon  the American economy? Perhaps that would prop up the regime, as some say. Or perhaps it would undermine Cuban communism. We really dont know.

We just know two things: One, a hard-line embargo didnt work. And a softened embargo hasnt. And two, even under current restrictions, Virginia sells $42 million worth of agricultural products to Cuba each year, and given Cubas proximity, theres clearly opportunity to sell more.

President-elect Trump has made noises about rolling back the current trade with Cuba. If Trump can instead use trade to muscle Cuba closer to democracy, then he will have employed a savvy negotiating tactic that Kennedy would have admired  and achieved a goal that every American president since has sought and failed. However, if all he succeeds in doing is shutting off a growing market for American products  one that benefits Virginia farmers who likely voted strong for Trump  then he will have blundered badly.

Thats not exactly on the same scale as nuclear brinksmanship, of course. But because Kennedy ignored his generals and Khrushchev ignored Castro, we have the luxury of worrying about soybean farmers.
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The luxury car market in India has become increasingly competitive over the years. Car manufacturers waste no time and introduce their cars in the country soon after their global debuts. The market is mainly dominated by the German trio of Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW. However, Swedish automaker Volvo is also focusing on the Indian market and is planning a few launches, including that of its performance-oriented brand, Polestar. In 2017, the first Japanese luxury brand  Lexus  will also be introduced here. Here's the list of luxury cars we are expecting next year.

Audi

Audi A3 Facelift

Audi Indias entry-level model  the A3  is due for its midlife update. The Ingolstadt-based automaker revealed the facelifted A3 earlier this year in April and is expected to launch the car in early 2017. The updated A3 now features the new A4-esque front profile along with optional Matrix LED headlights. Mechanically, it is likely to get the 1.4-litre TFSI petrol, similar to the new A4, while the 2.0-litre diesel will remain unaltered.

Audi S5 Sportback

Audi revealed the second-gen S5 Sportback in September 2016 globally. In India, it will replace the first-gen car next year. Like the facelifted A3, the all-new S5 also borrows inspiration from the new A4, especially on the inside. Mechanically, the outgoing cars 3.0-litre supercharged motor will be replaced by a more powerful and efficient 3.0-litre turbocharged mill.

Audi TT RS

Audi is coming up with a hotter and go-fast version of the third-gen TT, the TT RS, next year in India. Besides the wicked aesthetic additions, the TT RS packs a 2.5-litre turbocharged motor that chucks out close to 400PS of power and 480Nm of max twist. Audi's legendary Quattro AWD (all-wheel drive) tech helps it clock 0-100kmph in just 3.7 seconds, while top speed is electronically limited to 250kmph.

Audi Q2

The Q2 sits below the highly-popular Q3 in Audis global SUV lineup as the most affordable Q range vehicle, and India will be no different. The Q2 has its own identity and doesn't resemble the rest of the Q range of SUVs. Considering the penchant of Indians toward SUVs and the popularity of the Q3, the Q2 has the potential to become the bestselling model for the brand in the country. And like the Q3, Audi may offer a manual transmission option for the Q2 to keep its prices cut-throat.

Audi Q5

The second-gen Audi Q5, which was revealed at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show, looks like a scaled down version of the automakers flagship SUV, the Q7. And it also shares the same platform  MLB EVO. Mechanically, the new Q5 is expected to come with a choice of 2.0-litre diesel and petrol motors in the country. It will go on sale next year and will primarily go up against the Mercedes-Benz GLC and the BMW X3.

Audi SQ7

Sources suggest that Audi is mulling over the launch of the most brutal Q7  the SO7  in the country. The SQ7 packs a 4.0-litre V8 oil burner that produces a max power of 435PS and a tarmac shattering 900Nm of peak torque. The motor propels this full-sized beast from nought to 100kmph in merely 4.8 seconds, while the top speed is electronically limited to 250kmph.

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz E Class

Like the current C Class, the 2017 E Class has also borrowed its styling cues from the flagship saloon  the S Class. The E Class even has a similar cabin with the two adjoining, seamless 12.3-inch displays. Mechanically, the E Class will borrow its petrol powertrain from the C Class, while it will additionally get a brand new 2.0-litre diesel. It will be launched next year and will compete with the upcoming brand-new BMW 5 Series and the facelifted Audi A6.

Mercedes-AMG CLA45

The performance-oriented AMG version of the recently launched facelifted CLA will also be launched next year. The Mercedes-AMG CLA45 gets updated sportier styling, both on the inside and on the outside. Also, the all-LED headlights are now standard in the CLA45 AMG. Mechanically, it will get a slightly uprated 2.0-litre turbo petrol.

Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe

Like its bigger sibling, the GLE Coupe, Mercedes is likely to launch the coupe version of the GLC SUV next year. Mechanically, in the GLC Coupe, we expect Mercedes-Benz to plonk in either the 220d or the 250d diesel engine, that generates 170PS and 204PS of power, respectively. The German automaker may also launch the AMG version of the coupe SUV in the country. It is expected to be priced slightly higher than the regular avatar.

BMW

BMW 5 Series

BMW has revealed the brand-new 5 Series, which is expected to launch in the second half of next year. The new 5 Series has borrowed design cues of the 7 series, especially for the front profile. It also shares its platform with the 7 Series, however, it doesnt use the expensive Carbon Core of the later. That said, extensive use of aluminium for the structure, body panels and suspension has resulted in weight savings of up to 100kg compared to the outgoing model. Mechanically, all the engines in the 2017 5 Series Sedan lineup are from the new modular BMW EfficientDynamics family of powerplants.

BMW M2

Okay, we might be hoping for too much, but BMW could, and should, introduce the M2 in India. The reason is simple, Mercedes-Benz has the CLA45 AMG in place to cater to performance-minded enthusiasts and is also the cheapest AMG on sale in India. On the other hand, all the M cars present in the country are priced north of Rs 1 crore and the M2 can be offered at a much cheaper rate, at least around the price tag of the CLA45 AMG. The M2 has garnered a lot of appreciation globally, because of its raw appeal coupled to a great chassis and an equally capable 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder motor. The turbocharged unit produces 365PS of power and sends it to the rear wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch unit. The cars 50:50 weight distribution gives it exceptional driving dynamics and a rear wheel drive only setup adds up to the fun factor.

Volvo

Volvo XC90 R-Design

Over time, Volvo India has introduced most of the iterations of the XC90 in the country, including the range-topping T8 Twin Engine plug-in hybrid avatar. And the Swedish automaker is not shying away from launching the R-Design version of the SUV as well, which will be launched next year. In India, Volvo might introduce this sportier looking version with the D5 diesel engine option. The R-Design avatar gets additional features inside and outside along with sportier aesthetics, and will be priced higher than the stock version.

Facelifted Volvo V40 and V40 Cross Country

In February, Volvo introduced the facelifted versions of the V40 and the V40 Cross Country, which are expected to be launched in the first half of next year. The significant change in the duo is the adoption of Volvos latest design language with the incorporation of Thor's Hammer LED daytime running LEDs. The cars continue to be powered by the same 2.0-litre turbo diesel and 1.6-litre turbo petrol engines, which produce 150PS and 180PS of power output, respectively.

Volvo S60 Polestar

With the S60 Polestar, Volvo will officially launch the Polestar, its performance-oriented brand in the country. For the uninitiated, Polestar has a racing history with Volvo cars and it later started offering performance upgrades for the Swedish brands cars. Ultimately in 2015, Volvo acquired Polestar and the latter is currently Volvos performance division. The S60 Polestar is powered by a 2.0-litre Drive-E four-cylinder petrol engine that makes 367PS of power and 467Nm of torque. It sprints from 0-100kmph in merely 4.7 seconds!

Volvo V90 Cross Country

Volvo is playing bold with the launch of the V90 Cross Country, which will happen around mid-2017. The V90 Cross Country (cross-estate) is also based on Volvos Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) as the S90 and the XC90. The Cross Country gets 65mm of added ground clearance as compared to the stock V90 and body cladding to butch things up. Mechanically, it will most likely be offered with the same 'D4' diesel engine as the S90, that makes 190PS/400Nm, paired with an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

Land Rover

Land Rover Discovery

Tata-owned, British off-road automaker, Land Rover, has unveiled the brand-new Discovery at the recently held 2016 Paris Motor Show. The overall design is similar to the 2014 Discovery Vision Concept. Unlike its predecessor, which was on sale in the country, the new Discovery is based on a monocoque chassis with an aluminium intensive construction that makes it nearly 500kg lighter than the former. Mechanically, expected engine options in India are a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder Ingenium diesel engine that makes 240PS and 500Nm along with the 3.0-litre, six-cylinder TD6 diesel engine that makes 258PS and 600Nm. Both the engines will come paired with an eight-speed automatic gearbox. It will be launched somewhere in next year and will be a direct import, which is why prices may fall into the range of Rs 1.20-1.40 crore.

Range Rover Evoque Convertible

The coupe-like Evoque is one of the most selling Land Rover products in the country. It became so popular that the automaker started local assembly of the SUV after its launch. Now, the company wants to add oomph to the Evoque's line-up with the launch of the Evoque Convertible. Unveiled at the 2015 Los Angeles Motor Show, it went on sale earlier this year in some of the global markets. The Evoque Convertible adds the practicality of an SUV, while giving you wind-in-the-hair experience. Land Rover claims that it is capable of raising and lowering its roof in around 20 seconds at speeds of up to 48kmph. Unlike the regular Evoque, the convertible will be a direct import and will be relatively expensive.

Lexus

Lexus LX450d

The LX450d, which is the flagship SUV of Lexus, is based on the mighty Toyota Land Cruise. This body-on-frame SUV is likely to get a price tag in the vicinity of Rs 2 crore. It will be powered by a 4.5-litre V8 engine that puts out 273PS of max power and a massive 650Nm of peak torque and is coupled to a six-speed automatic gearbox. It is also available in a petrol guise, but initially, it is believed that Lexus will only launch this diesel avatar of the SUV.

Lexus Rx450h

The Lexus Rx450h is in its fourth-generation and made its world debut at the 2015 New York Motor Show. Toyota will launch the Lexus brand early next year and Rx450h will be one of the very first models. The RX 450h (in which h stands for hybrid) SUV will take on the likes of the Mercedes-Benz GLC, the new Audi Q5 and the BMW X3, but it will be priced higher, courtesy CBU import. It comes with a 3.5-litre Atkinson-cycle V6 petrol motor, which puts out 259PS @ 6,000rpm of max power and 335Nm @ 4,800rpm of peak torque. Speaking of the electric motors, at the front, the RX 450h comes with two electric motors. One of the motors is used as a generator, engine starter, and to carry out the function of transmission ratio control. And the second motor drives the front wheels (along with the engine) and puts out a healthy 165PS of max power. The third motor is placed on the rear axle and drives the rear wheels. The max power rating of this motor is 67PS.

Source: CarDekho.com
HPCL had asked the state government to extend fiscal benefits like the ones extended by Gujarat and Odisha to new refinery projects to make the Barmer unit viable. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation's 9-million tonne (mt) a year Barmer refinery in Rajasthan, which has been in the works for over four years now, will cost Rs 41,000-42,000 crore, up from the previous estimate of Rs 37,320 crore.

HPCL, in March 2013, had signed an MoU with the Rajasthan government for setting up the refinery-cum-petrochemical complex in the Thar desert near the oil discoveries made by Cairn India. But the refinery never took off as a change of guard in the state led to Rajasthan government putting on hold the fiscal incentives for the project.

"We are talking to the state government explaining to them the reconfiguration of the unit," HPCL Director (Refineries) Vinod S Shenoy told PTI here.

While the size of the refinery remains the same, the unit will cost more because it now has to be built to produce Euro-VI grade petrol and diesel, he said.

"The project will cost more than the earlier estimate of Rs 37,000 crore," he said, adding that Engineers India Ltd (EIL) has been asked to do a feasibility study.

While stating that the cost numbers have not yet been worked out, he said the project may need Rs 4,000-5,000 crore more. Shenoy said the discussions with the Rajasthan government have not reached the stage of negotiating the exact fiscal concessions that the company would need to set up the project.

The HPCL board, in March 2013, had approved setting up of the complex at a cost of Rs 37,320 crore. Half of the crude oil requirement at the proposed refinery at Barmer was to come from the neighbouring oil fields of Cairn India. The rest was to be imported crude.

At that point, HPCL had asked the state government to extend fiscal benefits like the ones extended by Gujarat and Odisha to new refinery projects to make the Barmer unit viable.

The concessions included 50 per cent exemption in excise duty and the state government picking a small stake in the project.

Originally, the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which owns 30 per cent interest in the Barmer oil fields of Cairn India, in 2005 had committed to building the refinery, but later started soft-pedaling the project. In 2012, HPCL entered the fray and proposed to take 51 per cent stake in the same.

ONGC, which originally had the authorisation from the government for processing the Barmer crude at the proposed refinery, willingly made way for HPCL.

Cairn India, which holds 70 per cent interest in the fields, currently produces about 1,65,000 barrels per day oil (8 million tonnes a year) from the Rajasthan fields.

There may be possibility of Vedanta, which in 2011 acquired Cairn India for USD 8.67 billion, taking a small equity of 2-3 per cent in the project. Sources said the Rajasthan government in 2013 had started the process of land acquisition of about 926 hectares, but it was put on hold.

For HPCL, which has only two refineries in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam, the project would have helped meet fuel demand in the north.
New Delhi: Ahead of its EGM on December 26to seek removal of Cyrus Mistry from the board, Tata Power today said its independent directors were appreciative of his performance in two meetings held in March 2015 and March 2016.

"...Independent director meetings were conducted in March 2015 and March 2016. At both those meetings, the independent directors were appreciative of the performance of Mr Mistry and had nothing of significance to recommend to him in that regard," Tata Power said in a note to its shareholders.

The company further said: "The feedback of the meeting was conveyed to Mr Mistry by one of the directors present, chosen for that purpose by his colleagues."

Tata Power has called extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on December 26 following a special resolution moved by Tata Sons, which holds 31.05 per cent stake in the firm, to seek shareholders' approval to remove Mistry as a director.

It said: "The board confirms that all decisions taken by the board with regard to the business and operations of the company were unanimous."

Apart from Mistry, other directors on the Tata Power board are: Homiar S Vachha, Nawshir H Mirza, Deepak M Satwalekar, Ashok K Basu, Pravin H Kutumbe, Sandhya S Kudtarkar, Anjali Bansal, Vibha Padalkar, Sanjay Bhandarkar, Anil Sardana (managing director and CEO) and Ashok S Sethi.

Of these, Vachha, Mirza, Bansal, Satwalekar, Padalkar and Bhandarkar are independent directors. In October, Mistry was unceremoniously removed as the chairman of Tata Sons and replaced by his predecessor Ratan Tata in the interim, triggering a confrontation between the single-largest shareholder and the Tatas.

Returning to Tata Sons after the abrupt removal of Mistry, Ratan Tata has moved quickly to consolidate his grip over the USD 103 billion salt-to-software group by seeking to remove the ousted chairman from boards of group firms.
Mumbai: Up against Tata Sons' move to remove him as director of Tata Steel, ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry on December 6 defended his leadership of the company, especially the handling of European operations, saying that the huge capital employed in it was earning negative returns and posed a risk to the entire group.

He also lashed out at "insinuations that Tata Steel board only looked at UK investments through a short term financial lens" saying it was "furthest from the truth".

In a representation to the Board of Directors of Tata Steel ahead of an EGM, which is to consider a special resolution moved by Tata Sons to remove him as director on December 21, Mistry said the sole premise of the step was his "removal from the Chairmanship of Tata Sons, which was illegal to begin with".

"There have been insinuations that the Board of Tata Steel only looked at the UK investments through a short term financial lens. This is furthest from the truth...," he wrote.

Mistry cited "continued investments in these assets, as well as the significant amount of management bandwidth devoted to optimise operations" in order to refute the allegations.

While asking the board to circulate his representation to its shareholders so that they can take "an informed decision", he drew attention to the European operations saying the total amount of capital employed there, which is "earning negative returns posed a risk to the overall group".

"Total capital employed in Tata Steel Europe grew from Rs 67,000 cr in FY12 to Rs 93,500 cr in FY15," he said.

Defending decisions to divest in the UK operations, Mistry said: "While pursuing a long term solution to the current issue, it is important to balance the needs of nearly one million shareholders of the company, who have supported the company for decades and many of whom rely on Tata Steel to supplement their income."

He added: "Our aim has always been to have a robust and resilient global operations. To ensure this outcome, we believe it is important to tackle some of the structural challenges with the UK assets, namely the potential high pension deficits, high energy costs and high taxes."

On November 25, in sharp escalation of boardroom tussle at India's largest conglomerate, Cyrus Mistry was ousted as Chairman of Tata Steel. The 10-member board of Tata Steel by "majority consent" removed Mistry as Chairman and named O P Bhatt, an independent director and former SBI chief, as interim head.

Tata Steel was the third group firm to remove Mistry as chairman. First Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) removed him as chairman but that ouster was not through a vote but by virtue of Tata Sons holding a commanding 73.26 per cent stake in the India's largest software services firm. Then on November 15, seven out of 10 board members of Tata Global Beverages voted him out.
New Delhi: A delegation-led by National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) has sought the government to allow district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) to accept demonetised notes towards exchange and deposits.

A memorandum in this regard was submitted by the National Federation of State Cooperative Banks Ltd (NAFSCOB) to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday. NAFSCOB was also part of the delegation.

"Union Finance Minister yesterday assured the delegation to talk to NABARD Chairman and RBI Governor on the issues concerning DCCBs which are affected by demonetisation," NCUI said in a statement.

The delegation, which was led by NCUI President and Rajya Sabha MP Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, apprised the Minister that the demonetisation will cripple the growth of DCCBs, which are on the verge of closure.

Yadav informed Jaitely that while all other cooperative banks including urban cooperative banks have been permitted to exchange and deposit of specified bank notes (SBNs), the DCCBs have been denied this, which is highly discriminatory.

"DCCBs are complying all regulatory and statutory requirements and these are supervised and regulated by NABARD. As DCCBs have been denied to exchange and deposit SBNs, this is harming the interest of small and marginal farmers and other stakeholders who are major customers of DCCBs," the statement said quoting Yadav.

Farmers, who have taken loans from the banks, are not able to repay it. They are unable to take fresh loan which is required for purchasing the agri-inputs, he said.
The Revenue Secretary, Dr Hasmukh Adhia(C),Russia Federal Tax Service Deputy Commissioner Alexey L Overchuck, Commissioner of the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) of China, Jun Wang (R) during the meeting of Heads of Revenue of BRICS countries. (Photo: PTI)

Mumbai: The Brics nations are in the process of getting bank account details of companies, that were named in the infamous Panama papers, from other countries, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said today.

The issue was discussed in the two-day meeting of the Brics heads of revenue here, he said. "The problem each country is facing in the Panama papers is that while registrations of these entities are in Panama, most of these entities are not having their bank accounts or their business enterprises in that country.

"All these Panama-based entities have their bank accounts in some other country and so all of us are trying to get information from those countries where these accounts are based," Adhia told reporters here today.

Stating that all the Brics countries are facing the similar experience, "so information exchange agreement has been invoked by all countries to get information from those countries," Adhia said. The secretary said a few advanced countries have responded well to the demand but in some cases there are some time lags.
Insecure Land rights leave the urban poor particularly vulnerable as they are often unaware of the rights they do have, cannot afford lawyers and always live in fear of being evicted from their homes.

London: About a quarter of homeowners in India, and nearly one in five rural landowners, fear losing their property, in most cases because they do not have documents to prove ownership, according to a new poll.

The survey, launched by U.S. polling firm Gallup in London on Tuesday, set out to test how secure people feel about their homes and land. Conducted over the past six months, the Indian survey is the first of a worldwide, two-year research project looking at perceptions of property ownership and security between different societies.

The poll found six in 10 said they owned their home, while a third said they lived in a home owned by a family member. Despite the high incidence of ownership, the Indian survey showed that insecurity of property rights is widespread, with about one in four owners and nearly half of all renters expressing worry about losing their home.

Matters related to land and property make up about two-thirds of all civil cases in India, where tussles over ownership can delay property deals and lead to lengthy court battles.

Insecure land rights leave the urban poor particularly vulnerable as they are often unaware of the rights they do have, cannot afford lawyers and live in fear of being evicted.

The study revealed that those who were worried about ownership also reported a higher incidence of health problems, including saying they sometimes did not have enough food.

Respondents said the main reason for their insecurity was the lack of documentation, including land titles, followed by disagreements with family members over property ownership.

India is in the throes of dramatic demographic and cultural change with the urban population expected to grow from 377 million in 2016 to nearly 600 million by 2030.

Insecure property rights, say analysts, can threaten to undermine the benefits of Indias rapid urbanisation. A lack of formal documentation proving ownership can block access to basic services such as sanitation, water and electricity and limit access to financial services such as raising credit against a home or farm for investment, the report said.

In the developing world, it can also limit access to state help such as food or fertiliser subsidies and services provided by municipal governments such as sanitation and water.

In India, more than 14,000 men and women, both owners and tenants in cities and villages, were interviewed face-to-face. The project covered 14 Indian states, including Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal.

Nine other countries will be polled over the next year to build up a definitive picture of how different societies relate to  and feel about  land and property ownership.

The report also showed a clear gender gap with women less likely than men to own their land or home. But men and women were equally likely to be worried about losing their home or land.

Tenants were twice as likely as owners to worry about losing their homes, with landlords  often afraid of permanently losing possession of their homes  preferring short term contracts.
The governments compliance window had ended on September 30 with Rs 67,382 crore declared, yielding about Rs 30,000 crore to the government in taxes, half of it in the current fiscal itself.

New Delhi: The Income-Tax department has found undisclosed income worth Rs 2,000 crore during nationwide raids and searches that also yielded Rs 130 crore in cash and jewellery after the Centres demonetisation decision a month ago.

The department has conducted swift investigations into more than 400 cases after the November 8 decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has found serious irregularities beyond the purview of the I-T Act, and decided to refer such cases to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI to examine criminal conduct and ensure immediate and necessary action.

Over 30 such references have already been made to the ED, and cases are also being sent to the CBI. The Centre got information of several places where the old currency notes were being exchanged at a discount and are even being used to purchase gold.

ED gets 18 cases from Bengaluru

The action also follows the Centres four-month window for suspected tax dodgers in India to declare their hidden wealth. The governments compliance window had ended on September 30 with Rs 67,382 crore declared, yielding about Rs 30,000 crore to the government in taxes, half of it in the current fiscal itself.

Bengalurus investigation unit of the I-T department has sent maximum references (18) to the ED. These are cases in which undisclosed cash in new high-denomination notes was seized.

Mumbai's unit has referred a case in which Rs80 lakh in new high-denomination currency notes was seized. Ludhianas unit has referred two cases in which seizures of Rs14,000 and Rs72 lakh in cash were made.

Hyderabad shared a case involving a seizure of Rs95 lakh in cash from five persons travelling in a Tata Indica. Punes reference stems from a seizure of Rs 20 lakh in cash from an unallotted locker of an urban cooperative bank, the key of which was in the possession of the banks CEO. Two cases referred by the Bhopal unit are of jewellers against whom evidence of large-scale pre-dating of bills and flouting of PAN reporting norms during the searches conducted.
A supporter of India's Tamil Nadu state Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa displays her photograph at their party office in Mumbai, India, Monday. (Photo: AP)

Chennai: Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth on Tuesday condoled the death of AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, describing her as a "brave daughter" whom the country had lost.

"Not just Tamil Nadu but India has lost a brave daughter. I pray to God to rest her soul in peace," he tweeted.

Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan also expressed grief over the death of the late Chief Minister.

"Sad to hear of the passing away of Jayalalithaaji...May her soul rest in peace," Shah Rukh Khan said in a tweet.

Calling Jayalalithaa, people's leader, veteran actor Anupam Kher tweeted, "Deeply saddened by the passing away of the charismatic leader of the masses Jayalalitha ji. May God rest her soul in peace."

Veteran writer Javed Akhtar said, "A charismatic leader, who had an unbelievable connect with her people has passed away. My deepest condolences to all her followers."

Veteran actor Dharmendra, who worked with Jayalalithaa in 'Izzat', her debut in Hindi cinema, said he was shocked to hear the news of her passing away.

"I am shocked. Jayalalithaa was my co-star in film 'Izzat'. When I heard she is not well, prayed for her well being," he told ANI.

"Jayalalithaa was an iron lady. An amazing woman & a great leader. Connect she had with ppl was unprecedented.Huge loss," Shatrughan Sinha told ANI.

"Huge loss for country. She was an amazing woman, seldom do we find such great leaders," Paresh Rawal was also reported as saying.

Scores of Tamil cinema actors including Parthiban, Jeyam Ravi, Trisha Krishnan, Shruti Haasan and director Gautam Vasudev Menon condoled death of Jayalalithaa, who had her roots in the film industry as a famous yesteryear actor.

Hema Malini and other stars also conveyed their condolences to Jayalalithaa on Twitter.
Aditya Chopra believes working with Shah Rukh is like a "bad habit" as you never look beyond.

Mumbai: All three of his directorial outings had Shah Rukh Khan as the leading man and Aditya Chopra believes working with the actor is like a "bad habit" as you never look beyond.

He, however, decided to cast Ranveer Singh in his latest film 'Befikre', a modern take on romance as he felt the actor fit the spirit of the story.

Chopra said Shah Rukh helped him hide his flaws be it 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge', 'Muhabbatein' or 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi' and directing Ranveer was a similar experience.

"I have directed only one leading man all my life. Mr Shah Rukh Khan. And any director who has worked with Shah Rukh knows that he is a very bad habit that you just cannot get over. He just makes your job so easy that you actually can't think of making a film with anyone else ever.

"But before doing our next film together, I had to do this one film without him and I was really scared. I was scared because I truly believe that in all the films that we have done together Shah Rukh is the reason I came out looking good, so am I going to be exposed now?" Chopra said in a note.

The director said he cast Ranveer because he embodies Befikre's Dharam, who is a carefree, happy-go-lucky guy. This is why even before he realised that the story will turn into a film, he based the character on Ranveer.

"Ranveer is Dharam, Dharam is Ranveer. Even before I knew that I'm going to direct this film. I was writing it for Ranveer. He was actually the leading man of 'Befikre' even before I was director of the film."

The director said he knew it was unfair to put that kind of pressure on Ranveer but he was pleasantly surprised by the way he fit into the story.

"From the very first day that I directed Ranveer, he was Shah Rukh for me. The same energy, the same brilliance, the same intellect. I knew I was safe hands.

"It's not that Ranveer acts like Shah Rukh or his process is like him, it's just that the way Shah Rukh used to better my work and cover my flaws, Ranveer did the same for me," Chopra said, adding that he would not have made the film without Ranveer.
Mumbai: J Jayalalithaa, the charismatic six-time Chief Minister who ruled the political arena and Tamil cinema world alike for decades on end, died at the Apollo Hospitals on late Monday night, plunging Tamil Nadu and her party, the AIADMK, into a political crisis.

Jayalalithaa, 68, breathed her last at the ICU of the hospital at 11.30 pm where she was admitted on September 22, despite efforts to sustain her revival, the Apollo Hospitals said.

Ammas sudden demise has left the film industry shocked. From Shah Rukh Khan to Shatrugan Sinha, the industry is mourning the death of Indias Iron Lady.

On Tuesday morning, superstar Rajinikanth, who had taken to Twitter to express his sorry over her untimely death, paid his respect to the deceased Chief Minister along with his family.

Rajinikanth condoled the death of AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, describing her as a brave daughter whom the country had lost.

"Not just Tamil Nadu but India has lost a brave daughter. I pray to God to rest her soul in peace," he tweeted.
Mumbai: J Jayalalithaa, the charismatic six-time Chief Minister who ruled the political arena and Tamil cinema world alike for decades on end, died at the Apollo Hospitals on late Monday night, plunging Tamil Nadu and her party, the AIADMK, into a political crisis.

Jayalalithaa, 68, breathed her last at the ICU of the hospital at 11.30 pm where she was admitted on September 22, despite efforts to sustain her revival, the Apollo Hospitals said.

Ammas sudden demise has left the film industry shocked. From Shah Rukh Khan to Shatrugan Sinha, the industry is mourning the death of Indias Iron Lady.

While several celebrities expressed their grief on Twitter on Tuesday, Kamal Haasans sharp message left Twitter fuming.

Something seemed out of place in Kamal Haasans tweet which didnt go down well with people who slammed the actor for being curt.

Kamal Haasans tweet read, "Deep sympathy for those who depend on Jayalalithaa."

   .  Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) December 6, 2016

Soon enough, Kamal Haasan received people's wrath for his tweet.

@sashank2k he never respect people sadist fellow Komali @ikamalhaasan  Prasanna (@Robo1235) December 6, 2016

@ikamalhaasan what's the point in being well learned if there is no decency. Shame I used to be a fan of yours.  Sashi (@sashank2k) December 6, 2016
Mumbai: Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif says women should not silently face atrocities and must speak up about issues like martial rape and other crimes committed against them.

The actress says sometimes even educated women succumb to the pressure of societal norms and remain silent on issues which should be raised.

"I know of educated women, who remain silent in the face of violence, because they are afraid to confront societal norms and have fingers pointed in their direction. Specially when the majority of our society fails to recognise martial rape as a crime," Katrina said.

"I would urge more women to speak up. It is not okay to feel inferior or weak, because we are not the weaker sex by any stretch of imagination," she added.

The 33-year-old actress was speaking at the 'WeUnite' conference, which marks UN Women's partnership with the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"The world has largely been led by patriarchal societies and women have, through the years, largely remained quiet in the face of atrocities rather than speak out against them," the actress said.

Katrina said it is sad to know that there is gender inequality in a country which had a women as the head of the state.

"India had a woman as the head of state, way before the United kingdom, a feat United states of America has not managed to achieve as of yet. Which is why it is surprising to hear about gender inequality in India. And sadly we do," she said.

"On a daily basis there are shocking stories about the violent crimes made against women. Yet, I can only imagine how many other crimes against women in India go unreported," the actress added.

Katrina, however, says this is not an India specific problem and quoted a UN report saying this is happening everywhere.

"In India according to the data provided by the national crime records bureau, in 2001 the reported crimes against women were 1,43,795. In 2005, it were 3,27,394. More than a 100 percent in numbers.

"However I would like to believe that this increase in numbers is not an increase in crime against women. It is in increase in number of women who are ready to come forward and reporting them."
Mumbai: After garnering an overwhelming response for her recently released thriller film Kahaani 2, Vidya balan will be next seen in Tumhari Sulu and the filmmakers recently disclosed the release date.

T-series president Priya Gupta announced on Twitter that the movie will release on December 1 next year. #TumhariSulu starring @vidya_balan, directed by @sureshtriveni to release Dec 1, 2017. Producers @tseries & @EllipsisEntt, wrote Priya.

Helmed by Suresh Triveni, the story revolves around a woman named Sulu, played by the Parineeta actress, who lands herself an unexpected job of a beautiful, fun and feisty RJ. Sulu anchors a late-night show, known for its voyeuristic quality and semi-adult shenanigans.

On the professional front, Vidya will also be seen in Srijit Mukherjis historical drama film Begum Jaan.
The researchers found e-book to be an effective tool for teaching children about new biological concepts. (Photo: Pixabay)

Washington D.C.: Do you encourage your children in reading and writing? A study reveals that four-year-old kids with average and low vocabulary skills learn more effectively with an adult reading an e-book to them than relying solely on the e-book's voiceover.

The study has been published in the journal Early Education and Development. Researchers from University of Toronto divided the four-year-old kids into two groups -- one group with children of higher than average vocabulary level and one group with average and lower English vocabulary.

For the study, either four-year-old children interacted with a digital book on their own using the book's voiceover or an adult read them the same book. The book was teaching children about biological camouflage and overall, pre-schoolers learned about camouflage from both books.

They found that children with average and lower English vocabularies showed poorer comprehension when they read the book themselves. "The results highlight that young children are best supported in their learning when they are in interaction with others, especially parents or other caregivers," said Dr Patricia Ganea, Associate Professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

"These findings are important since they show that children at risk for low comprehension, benefit from having an adult read with them, rather than being left to learn from the digital device on their own," Ganea added.

The study was conducted by giving the children a pre-test about biological camouflage using pictures of animals. They then read an e-book about camouflage by the e-book voiceover and by an adult.

The children were later asked questions about camouflage using replica lizard and turtles in tanks. Overall, the researchers found e-book to be an effective tool for teaching children the new biological concept.
Research has already shown us that making art is a good stress reliever, even if your skill level is more kindergartner than Picasso. Now, a new study from the University of Otago in New Zealand suggests that these mood-boosting effects can be gained from even the most straightforward crafts. As the Independent reports, knitting, baking, crocheting, and jam-making were all found to produce an upward spiral effect that carried over to the following day.

For the study, published last month in The Journal of Positive Psychology, researchers from the universitys department of psychology asked 658 students to record their daily experiences and emotional states in a diary for 13 days. Following the days when subjects took part in something creative, they reported feelings of positive personal growth that psychology defines as flourishing. In addition to crafts and cooking, researchers also cited painting, sketching, writing, musical performance, and digital design as some common creative activities students completed.

These results shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone whos experienced the zen-like effects of knitting a scarf or crocheting a blanket. According to the Craft Yarn Council, stress relief and creative fulfillment are the top two reasons knitters and crocheters give for partaking in the hobbies. Baking has also been touted as a form of therapy, with some mental health clinics using time in the kitchen as a treatment for depression. Another benefit of improving your mood through creativity is that the results of your labours can be shared with others-so if youre still in need of gifts for the holidays, we suggest heading to the craft store and reaping some of the benefits yourself.

 Source: www.mentalfloss.com
Its a good way to connect with yourself: Jamila Kapasi, Interior designer

The Annapurna circuit and base camp trek in Nepal was the 28-year-olds first solo trek. It was a 23-day trek to reach the altitude of 17500 feet. Solo travel is a self indulging experience  the freedom of making every decision for yourself without having to worry about the team. Its also a good way to connect with yourself and meet new people.

My journey started with a trek to the Indian Himalayas called the Pin Parvati pass trek. I spent 10 days in Himachal Pradesh. I then flew to Singapore and next to Thailand. I returned home for a month and left for Nepal.

I read about the trek online. Since flights to Kathmandu were expensive, we took a train from Hyderabad to the India-Nepal border and then a bus to Pokhara. Packing for an adventure expedition can be challenging as you have to save space.

What next?

A summit in Leh, called Kang Yatse (6400m). I also want to backpack and trek in Europe.

One needs to be mentally strong: Padmaja Pullabhatla, Marketing professional

The 37 -year-old has done more solo travels than solo treks. I dont have a count of how many! The Chadar trek was one of the toughest because we had to deal with many challenges.

Talking about the best part of being a solo adventurer: One has to plan everything and theres no room for negligence at high altitudes. You must be mentally strong. Solo treks are actual tests. One gets to understand their strengths and things they need to work on.

There will always be obstacles in the way. During my trek to Europes highest peak  Mt. Elbrus, my drinking water froze, and I had no water left at one point. Every trek is different. After doing a few treks and with some rights and wrongs, we start understanding whats needed and whats not.

What next?

A lot, but finance is a challenge. There are websites through which we can get public funding.

Its about building memories: Pallavi Kolluru, Project Manager

The 34-year-old has been on many solo adventures. My best adventure trek was Mount Washington in the US. The best part about being a solo adventurer is that you can set your own pace and socialise with fellow trekkers. We meet new people and build memories.

I get motivated looking at the places and people around me. Some days are yours and some are not. You need to respect your body and listen to it. Many challenging treks, I have done with ease by keeping myself fit. It is important to pack light but also smart.

What next?

Trekking in Bhutan, climbing the Himalayas, Scuba Diving in Andamans and touring Orissa next year.
A Bangladeshi worker in Saudi Arabia has been flooded with presents including the latest smartphones and gold jewellery after photos of him looking at a jewellery shop display went viral. The cleaner, who has been identified as Nuzroul Abdulkareem, earns a monthly income of around $187 (700 Saudi Riyals.

(Photo: Instagram)

It all started when a social media user shared Abdulkareems picture online and wrote this man deserves to only look at rubbish. Saudis on Twitter instantly sprung in action to find Abdulkareem. Abdullah Al-Qahtani, a Saudi national, finally managed to track him down in Riyadh and gave him many gifts.

So far, Abdulkareem has received two-way tickets to his home country, bags of rice and honey and even two phones  an iPhone 7 and one Samsung Galaxy handset, reports Al Arabiya. Another online user tweeted photos of him holding gifts of gold.
Iman Ahmad Abdulati, lives in Alexandria, Egypt and is likely to be the heaviest woman in the world. (Photo: Twitter/@DrMuffi)

A 36-year-old Egyptian woman, who is weighs around half a ton, will now be given a medical visa for treatment in India after her doctor brought her case to the notice of External Affairs Minster Sushma Swaraj via Twitter.

Dr. Muffi Lakdawala, a Mumbai-based bariatric surgeon, tweeted to the minster asking for help in issuing his patient a medical visa as she was refused one via the regular procedure.

Ma'am , Eman Ahmed (Egypt) 500kgs requested me 2 save her pls help me get her a medical visa as refused thru normal process @SushmaSwaraj pic.twitter.com/93Fwz6m8iL  Dr Muffi Lakdawala (@DrMuffi) December 5, 2016

Swaraj who has been recuperating herself in Delhi hospital AIIMS for several days post kidney failure replied to the doctor on the same day.

Thanks for bringing this to my notice. We will definitely help her. pic.twitter.com/l6RfC5bWE4 https://t.co/fWBYilbPIY  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 6, 2016

Lakdawalas patient, Iman Ahmad Abdulati, lives in Alexandria, Egypt and is likely to be the heaviest woman in the world. She has not left her house ever since she crossed 500 kg, around 25 years ago, when she just 11 years old, reports Al Arabiya.net. The reason for her excessive weight gain is that she suffers from a disruption of the glands. This causes her body to store large amounts of water while a parasite called elephantiasis brings about excessive swelling.
Mumbai: Body of a 24-year-old lady doctor, suspected to be raped and murdered, was found at her residence in suburban Vile Parle, a senior police official said on Tuesday.



The naked body of a woman, a physiotherapist by profession, was found at her residence on Monday night, the official said, adding there were also burn marks on the body.



As per initial investigation, it is suspected that the woman was raped and murdered, the official said.



The victim had gone out for a party last night and had returned home with some of her friends, the officer said, adding she was found dead at around 3 am.



Her body was sent for post-mortem and investigation into the matter is underway, police said.
The government will observe B R Ambedkar's birth anniversary as Water Day in view of his contribution toward management of the country's resources. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: The government will observe B R Ambedkar's birth anniversary as "Water Day" in view of his contribution toward management of the country's resources, Union minister Uma Bharti said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a national seminar, organised by the Central Water Commission (CWC) here to mark Babasaheb's 61st death anniversary, she also made a pitch for bringing about reforms for managing water resources and suggested punishment to deter people from misusing water.

"In view of his contribution toward the country's water resources management, Ambedkar's birth anniversary (April 14) will be observed as Water Day," the Union Water Resources Minister said.

Ms Bharti said water is a key issue on the government's agenda and stressed on using recycled water for non-potable purposes.

"Those who are misusing water should be punished. We have to bring about reforms, but it should be acceptable to all," she said, referring to the Mihir Shah panel's report on restructuring of the CWC.

She said 99 projects under the Ministry's accelerated irrigation benefits programme (AIBP), will help irrigate 80 lakh hectares of additional land.

Dr Ambedkar, during his tenure as Member (Labour) of the Viceroy's Executive Council (1942-1946), had steered formation of an all-India policy for the development of water resources in the country. For this purpose, he had laid the foundation of the Central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission (CWINC) which was the forerunner of the present-day CWC.

Dr Ambedkar advocated the concept of River Valley Authority or corporation for integrated development of rivers. He introduced the concept of multi-purpose development of river basins and his efforts in this direction culminated with multipurpose development of Damodar, Mahanadi and other rivers immediately after independence.

He was instrumental in inclusion of Entry 56 of List 1 and introduction of Article 262 concerning the adjudication of disputes related to waters of inter-sate rivers or river valleys.
Chennai: Life virtually came to a grinding halt here as the city woke up to deserted streets with shops, including eateries, remaining shut in the wake of the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

Public transport services, including autorickshaws, were off the roads while some private vehicles were seen plying in various parts of the city where police personnel kept a tight vigil at vantage points.

A near total shutdown like situation prevailed in the city and several other parts of the state since last evening itself.

The focus today turned to Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's body is lying in state to enable public pay their homage. With even tea stalls, which usually do a brisk business in the early hours, remaining closed, mobile tea vendors could be seen dispensing the brew at some places. Hotels are also closed.

Suburban train services, however, were being operated in the city, albeit with lower passenger rush. Long distance trains arriving at Chennai Central and Egmore stations were on time.

The state government has declared a holiday today for its offices and three-days for educational institutions as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Meanwhile, the Tamil film industry announced cancellation of shootings scheduled for today. Theatres also cancelled shows.

A report from Madurai said the entire temple city mourned Jayalalithaa's death with all shops closed and transport facilities including buses and auto rickshaws off the roads. "The entire city is calm...silent..," a police official said.

Officials said those who reached Madurai by train and flight this morning took private transport to reach home. The main bus stands wore a deserted look. Inter-state and long distance government buses bound here from various destinations, including from Kerala and Karnataka did not arrive as they had been stopped at the borders.

Fishermen colonies mourned the death of Jayalalithaa in Tuticorin, Rameswaram and Kanyakumari. Police said there was no untoward incident in the region.

Meanwhile, a report from Coimbatore said all shops, commercial establishments, tourist spots remained closed in this and neighbouring Tirupur and Nilgiris districts as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Transport facilities like buses and auto rickshaws stayed off the roads in these districts, where a bandh like situation prevailed, police said.

In Nilgiris district, a few tourists were badly hit due to closure of shops and hotels, they added.

Buses from neighbouring Kerala and Karnataka stopped plying to Tamil Nadu, fearing violence.

AIADMK workers were seen paying homage to the portraits of their "AMMA" by erecting pandals at road sides across these districts, even as adequate police forces were deployed to meet any eventuality.

Much to the relief of police, various Muslim and Hindu outfits have cancelled their demonstrations to protest and celebrate the demolition of Babri Masjid today.

A report from Puducherry said, a bandh-like situation prevailed in the union territory with all shops and commercial establishments remaining closed as a mark of respect to the departed soul.

All inter-state and intra state government buses and autos were off the roads with the fleet operators deciding to suspend transport services. Cinema houses also cancelled their morning shows.

The tricolour flew at half mast atop government buildings including the Assembly and Rajnivas in keeping with the order of the Puducherry Administration to observe a three-day mourning from today.

Banks were also closed following an order issued by the Chief Secretary of Puducherry Manoj Parida declaring public holiday today, under Negotiable Instruments Act.

Meanwhile, former Chief Minister of Puducherry N Rangasamy (AINRC) who condoled the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's death, said, as an "iron lady" she persisted in procuring justice to the downtrodden and the have-nots. He conveyed his condolences to the rank and file of the AIADMK.

CPI Puducherry unit Secretary R Viswanathan expressed grief over the death of Jayalalithaa and recalled the various progressive measures she had implemented during her tenure with relentless courage, perseverance and uncompromising zeal.
Alternative sources can give us more than we need, so why doesnt the BWSSB look into this?

Summer is several months away but people living on the citys outskirts are already facing a water crisis. When will the BWSSB understand that an over-reliance on the Cauvery is not the solution? Cauvery supply is reduced in those areas that receive it during times of scarcity, creating water problems where there are none! Alternative sources can give us more than we need, so why doesnt the BWSSB look into this?

Its not summer yet and already people living on the outskirts of the city are short of water. With the storage levels of major reservoirs of the Cauvery river, including the Krishna Raja Sagar touching a 15 year low, the city could be in for a drier than usual summer, leaving people at the mercy of unscrupulous tanker operators.

One often suggested solution is to reduce the citys dependence on the far away Cauvery reservoirs and revive the closer to home Hessarghatta and Thippagondanahalli reservoirs, popularise rain water harvesting and use treated sewage water for its non-potable needs.

Guest column: Rather than water security, what we need is water sovereignty

Says water expert and coordinator of energy and wetland research Dr T.V.Ramachandra, "Bengaluru needs around 18 to 20 TMC of water every year. If it harvested rain water and revived its lakes it could get 15 TMC rightaway. And if it treated the 16 TMC of sewage it generates, it could get another 14 TMC of water. So it could in fact, have surplus water if it implements these measures." Also, while currently, the city draws 19 TMC of water every year from the river Cauvery for its needs, some BWSSB officials suggest the now defunct Thippagondanahalli and Hesaraghatta reservoirs could provide it at least 2.5 TMC, if revived.

Pointing out that the two reservoirs supplied water to Bengaluru in the past, they recall that the Hessarghatta dam ran dry a couple of decades ago and has not been tapped since.

Bengaluru Development Minister, K.J. George seemed keen on the idea himself during a visit to the Hesaraghatta reservoir last month. Speaking of reviving the reservoir , he said water from the Yettinahole river in the Western Ghats would be diverted to it to make this possible. While not many experts would quarrel with the idea of reviving the reservoir, Dr Ramachandra believes its foolish to use the Yettinahole river water to achieve this.

Meanwhile , the BWSSB is currently preparing a detailed project report to de-silt the Hessarghatta reservoir and fence it. It also plans to install a plant to treat the sewage polluting Thippagondanahalli. But an official admits it will take a while to revive the two reservoirs and make them fit enough to supply water to the city again.

Water board asked to step up maintenance of borewells

With the city having received little rain in October and November and no sign of December being any wetter, summer 2017 could be harsh on it, leaving it parched for water. Sensing the looming crisis, the water board is preparing to avert it by already beginning to reduce the frequency of water supplied to a few areas.

Contending the board has little choice in the matter, a senior BWSSB official says water is being supplied once in every three days now to areas accustomed to getting supply every alternate day. It is also making sure that borewells are in good shape so they can be relied on in summer to partially meet the city's needs.

Our officials have been instructed to take steps to maintain the 7,932 borewells under the boards control. They have been asked to attend to complaints of defunct borewells and pumps and keep them ready for summer, the official added. The water board, which owns 68 tankers, plans to use them as well to help supply water to areas that run dry in summer. "Based on the situation, we will supply water using our own tankers. But if things worsen, we will hire private tankers to supplement our supply and make sure that people are not affected," he assured.

BWSSB action plan for summer 2017
Chennai: Decimating the DMK in the 1991 Assembly elections, J Jayalalithaa fondly referred to by her followers as Puratchi Thalaivi changed the face of the Dravidian politics which was centred around anti-Brahminism, rationalism and Tamil nationalism. But, like any other successful political leader, she stuck the to the law of dialectics which states nothing except change is permanent, shifting her stand on key issues, finally leaning towards Tamil sentiments on some of the key issues.

She became the first leader of the Dravidian movement to visit temples, openly and her partymen followed suit taking part in all kinds of rituals, poojas and yagnas, considered alien to the ideology of the movements founder E.V.R. Periyar.

When her mentor MGR visited the Kollur Mookambiga temple, he kept it a private affair, besides explaining that he visited the temple, since his mother Sathya was a devotee of the Goddess. But, Jayalalithaa who faced scathing attacks from her detractors and staunch loyalists of rationalist ideology remained uncompromising on her beliefs, which she never attempted to conceal from public eye.

When DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin followed Jayalalithaas path and visited temples before the 2016 Assembly elections, following with an explanation that 90 per cent of people in DMK are Hindus, there was no criticism from anywhere.. Such a declaration would have been impossible in Dravidian politics, before the advent of Jayalalithaa, but Stalins visit did not attract any resentment and accepted as a routine affair.

As far as Tamil nationalist rhetoric is concerned, there were two phases in Jayalalithaas political career. The Eelam rhetoric was put in the backburner in her first two terms in power. Her fierce anti-LTTE stand after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi pushed the DMK to total silence on the Lankan Tamils issue, which was pushed to smaller players.

When Jayalalithaa brought a resolution seeking extradition of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2002, the DMK did not vote against it and stayed neutral, marking a big shift in Dravidian politics known for its Tamil nationalist fervour..

However, after the end of the Lankan military offensive in May 2009, she shifted her stand following widespread sympathy for the civilian casualties. She used the Mullivaikkal massacre as a whip to flay the DMK leader M. Karunanidhi and take away the aura of champion of Tamils from her arch rival. After coming to power in 2011, she appropriated some of the demands made by Tiger supporters and passed a series of resolutions against the island government, including referendum on separate Tamil Eelam and international probe into the war

crimes.

The political culture too underwent a drastic transformation with loyalty to leadership turning into the most preferred criteria than ideological commitment. The party leaders vied with one another to show their loyalty through their body language, sycophancy and derogatory attacks on opponents.

The DMK partially took a leaf from the rivals book, taking Dravidian politics to the rock bottom of personality politics. The reservation politics of Dravidian parties never underwent a change after Jayalalithaas dominance, as she herself followed the advice of DK leader K. Veeramani to protect the 50 per cent reservation for backward communities, earning the title of Samooga Needhi Katha Veeranganai.

She was described as the evolution of Dravidian movement by the DK, the pioneer of the anti-Brahmin movement. In the Dravidian movement, which had its roots in the anti-Brahminical moorings of the Justice Party, she went on to emerge and remain the unchallenged head of one of its key mass movements, impacting and transforming the Dravidian politics of her time.
A case is registered under the NDPS Act in Pulikeshinagar police station in this regard. (Representational image)

BENGALURU: A 37-year-old Nigerian was arrested by the CCB police on charges of selling cocaine.

The accused, Kalu Okeh Ude, 37, from Ohafia in Nigeria, is a resident of K. Channasandra. The police said that he was arrested while selling cocaine near St. Francis Xavier Girlss High School in Pulikeshinagar.

The police seized 9 gm of cocaine, four mobile phones and a two-wheeler from him. Investigations revealed that he had purchased cocaine paying `5,000 per gram from a man in Mumbai.

He had come to India on a business visa that was valid only for two months in 2012. Though, the visa had expired, he was overstaying here, the police said.

A case is registered under the NDPS Act in Pulikeshinagar police station in this regard.
New Delhi: An Indian Air Force plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai for the funeral of J Jayalalithaa today returned mid-way due to a technical snag.

Within 30 minutes of take-off from the Palam Technical Area, the aircraft developed a technical problem and returned to base, sources said. The aircraft had reached Agra when the snag was detected.

President, later, boarded another plane and resumed the journey to Chennai to pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa.

Earlier, remembering Jayalalithaa from the early days of his political career, Mukherjee on Tuesday expressed his condolences and said that she was a fighter having a wonderful mastery over facts and theories.

Speaking to ANI in Delhi, the President recalled Jayalalithaa entering into the Rajya Sabha when he was the Leader of the House around early 1980's.

"On many occasions I had interactions with her on all subjects concerning development and administration. She had a wonderful mastery over facts and theories," he said ahead of his departure to Chennai, where he will pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa. Asserting that she was a fighter who fought till her last breath, President Mukherjee further said that she fought against the cruelty of disease and suffering.

"All other battles she won, but perhaps everybody has to lose one battle and she has lost that," he said.

Jayalalithaa passed away at 11:30 pm on Monday night after suffering a cardiac arrest at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai the previous day. Her funeral will be held at Marina beach in the city at 4:30 pm on Tuesday.
A supporter of India's Tamil Nadu state Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa displays her photograph at their party office in Mumbai, India, Monday. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: Tributes poured in for Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Pranab Mukherjee, DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar among leaders condoling her death.

Jayalalithaa passed away at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai at 11.30 last night after waging a grim battle for life since her hospitalisation on September 22.

Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Jayalalithaa's death as having left a 'huge void in Indian politics'. Modi, who shared excellent rapport with Jayalalithaa, tweeted, "Jayalalithaa jis connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief."

May the Almighty grant them the strength to bear this irreparable loss with courage and fortitude. I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace, Modi said.

Pranab Mukherjee

In her passing away, the nation has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions. Her contribution to the progress and development of Tamil Nadu will be long remembered, President Pranab Mukherjee said.

Sonia Gandhi

Describing Jayalalithaa as a towering figure in the national and political life, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the Congress Party, her family and she personally share the grief and pain of the people of the state and her devoted supporters in the AIADMK, who have lost their beloved 'Amma'.

"She was a towering figure in our national and political life, who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state, and her dedication to the honour of India. I am deeply grieved to learn of the passing away of Selvi J Jayalalithaa," said Gandhi in a statement issued in Delhi.

She further said, "Selvi Jayalalithaa lived her entire life with the same indomitable courage with which she battled her last illness. As the leader of the AIADMK and as five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, she had a unique and deep empathy with the needs and hopes of the people, and put in place policies that immeasurably improved their lives."

"Whether it was her welfare schemes for the rural and urban poor, her swift relief measures in the aftermath of the Tsunami or her vision for Tamil Nadu's industrial development, her leadership qualities and administrative abilities were truly outstanding," she added.

Rahul Gandhi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's official Twitter handle 'OfficeOfRG' tweeted, "We lost a great leader today. Women,farmers,fishermen &the marginalised dreamt through her eyes. We will miss Jayalalithaa ji, Amma to millions."

Karunanidhi

I offer deep condolences on the passing away of Jayalalithaa , wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal, DMK supremo M Karunanidhi said.

There may have been many differences of opinion between DMK and AIADMK but there can be no doubts she "bravely" worked for her partymen's welfare, he said in a statement.

"Although she might have died at a young age (68), there is no doubt that her fame will remain forever," he said.

Recalling Jayalalithaa's film career, Karunanidhi said she had paired with matinee idol MG Ramachandran who later groomed her in politics after founding AIADMK.

K Chandrasekhar Rao

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Tuesday expressed his shock over the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and said that it was indeed a great loss to the people of Tamil Nadu and a void in political scenario of the state.

"In her passing, the state of Tamil Nadu has a great void which is difficult to fill in. It is a great loss to Tamil society," Rao said.

He further said that the AIADMK supremo was regarded as Purachi Thalavi and a revolutionary leader in Tamil Nadu politics.

Lauding her political journey, Rao said, "It was both challenging and inspirational at a time when women entering politics was rare. Jayalalitha created a political history in contemporary Tamil Nadu politics by becoming the AIADMK's general secretary and later on as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu."

Rao described Jayalalithaa as a unique person in Tamil Nadu politics for winning the assembly elections consecutively for two terms and forming the government, setting a record of sorts.

Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Jayalalithaa was a Popular, strong, bold, efficient, people- friendly and charismatic leader.

Amma. Always at the heart of people. Big loss. I am shocked and saddened. I humbly urge the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK to face this big loss with courage and greatness. May she Rest in Peace, she tweeted in English and Tamil.

Venkaiah Naidu

Felt very sad about the demise of Madam Selvi Jayalalitha, had hopes till last movement,doctors made every possible attempt, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said.

Rajnath Singh

I pay my heartfelt tributes to the departed soul. I also appeal to the people of Tamil Nadu to remain calm in this hour of grief, said Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Chandrababu Naidu

"In deep anguish over the demise of Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa, a long-time friend & a leader with indomitable spirit who is loved by all," Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu said.

Arvind Kejriwal

"V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admi's leader. May her soul rest in peace," Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.

MK Stalin

"Deeply saddened by the demise of our CM Selvi Jayalalithaa. My deepest condolences to the party cadres & well wishers in this hour of grief," MK Stalin said.

Nitish Kumar

Expressing his grief over the demise of late AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday described it is as a huge loss not only for Tamil Nadu politics, but also for the nation.

"It is an unfortunate loss, not only for Tamil Nadu politics but also for rest of the country" said the JD(U) supremo, adding that one-day mourning has been declared in the state.

Mehbooba Mufti

Offering condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu over the demise of chief minister Jayalalithaa, her Jammu and Kashmir counterpart Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said Amma was a godmother for the women of her state.

Mehbooba said, "In our political regime, her death is a loss for the nation because was not only a compassionate person but very brave, a daredevil and also a very cosmopolitan. People of a particular religion were not connected but all the religions; especially she was a god mother for the women of her state."

She further said Jayalalithaa is an eminent personality and the most learned leader of the nation.

"The whole country is mourning. People lovingly called her ' Amma'. She was the people's chief minister. I offer my condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu because they have suffered losses and I pray she goes to heaven." Mufti added.

Lalu Prasad Yadav

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav also expressed his condolence over Jayalalithaa's demise saying "At a time when the country is inclining towards dictatorship, such leader was needed," adding it was a huge loss for the country.

Ghulam Nabi Azad

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "India has lost one of its shining stars and it is most unfortunate. It was an untimely death. She made her mark both as an artist and a politician. She was a most soft spoken politician in the country and yet she was a great administrator and famous for her poverty elevation programs."

Azad further said that Jayalalithaa will always be always remembered for her good works she had done for the people of Tamil Nadu.

P Chidambaram

Congress veteran and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday expressed grief over the death of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa, saying she "brought a hard, uncompromising style" to politics and governance that won praise and criticism.

In a series of tweets, Chidambaram also said that the late Chief Minister acquired loyal following that equalled that of her mentor MG Ramachandran.

"She brought a hard uncompromising style to politics and governance that won praise and criticism.. Jayalalithaa acquired large loyal following that equalled that of her mentor MGR," he said.

Jayalalithaa was the "most dominant political personality of Tamil Nadu in the last 25 years," he said, adding, "AIADMK must carry on and provide a government for remaining over four years."

Smriti Irani

"My deepest condolences to J. Jayalalithaa jis loved ones and supporters in Tamilnadu & across India in this hour of grief. Aum Shanti!, said Smriti Irani.

Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said, "I express my grief and deep sorrow on the demise of Tamilnadu CM J Jayalalithaa."

Manohar Parrikar

Expressing grief over Jayalalithaa's death, Parikkar said in a Twitter post: "I express my condolences on the passing away of TN CM J Jayalalithaa. I pray for strength to the people of Tamil Nadu at this sad hour."

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

RSS on Tuesday condoled the death ofthe late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her national spirit and ability to face challenges.

"Though she ruled state politics, she had unflinching faith in national integrity. She also was a believer," RSS State President ML Raja said in a statement.

She "sparkled" as a star both in the fields of cinema and politics, he said.

Jayalalithaa had faced many challenges in personal and professional lives "all by herself and overcame them," he said, adding, her death was a great loss to the country.

Richard R Verma

US Ambassador to India, Richard R Verma also condoled the death of the AIADMK supremo.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu during this time of sorrow," he said in a statement.

Announcing her demise at 12.13 am, Apollo Hospitals in a statement said, "The Chief Minister suffered a massive cardiac arrest on the evening of the December 4, even while our intensivist was in her room. She was immediately administered resuscitation (CPR), and provided ECMO support within the hour, which is the most advanced treatment currently available internationally. Every possible clinical attempt was made to sustain her revival. However, despite our best efforts the Chief Ministerm'st underlying conditions rendered her unable to recover and she passed away at 11.30 p.m. today."

Her body has been kept at Rajaji Hall for people to pay last respects.

Meanwhile, a seven-day state mourning has been declared from Tuesday morning to mourn the death of the late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. A three-day holiday has also been announced for educational institutions in the state.
A supporter of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa breaks down on seeing body of the leader wrapped in the national flag and kept for public viewing outside Rajaji Hall in Chennai. (Photo: AP)

Chennai/Thiruvananthapuram/Bengaluru: Tamil Nadu government has announced on Tuesday as a holiday for its offices under the Negotiable Instruments Act, as a mark of respect to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

A Government Order (GO) said the notified public holiday will apply to all state government offices, undertakings, corporations and boards.

"Under the Explanation to Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 read with Notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs No.20-25-26, Public-1, dated 8th June 1957 the Government of Tamil Nadu hereby declares that Tuesday, the 6th of December, 2016 as a public holiday as a mark of respect to the late Selvi J Jayalalithaa, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," it said.

The day will be also treated as a paid holiday for all industrial employees on regular work charge and industrial establishments and the labour hired on daily wages, it said.

The government also issued another order declaring three days holidays for "all educational institutions" starting today.

The holidays were being declared "as a mark of respect" to the late leader, the GO said.

Kerala

Kerala government offices and educational institutions in Kerala will also remain shut today as a mark of respect to Jayalalithaa.

In a press statement, the government declared a holiday today for all government offices, including state owned Public Sector Undertakings and educational institutions.

Expressing his deep sorrow at the demise of Jayalalithaa who died last night, State Governor P Sathasivam said she was the greatest woman political leader in contemporary India.

"In her we saw the perfect blending of the strong will of an able administrator and the compassion of a philanthropist".

"In her sad demise, we have lost a unique mother's touch that had brightened the lives of millions of people during the last three decades".

In his condolence message, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described Jayalalithaa as an extraordinary politician with a rare political acumen and administrative skills which made her a distinct leader in Indian politics.

She had a special liking for Kerala and always strived to uphold and maintain relations, Vijayan said. "We do not have any other Chief Ministers in our country who have influenced people like this. Her passing away is not only a major loss to Tamil Nadu, but for the entire country.

Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala was among those who condoled her death.

Meanwhile, to prevent any untoward incidents, Kerala police strengthened security in the districts bordering Tamil Nadu with additional forces being deployed in the border areas of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki and Palakkad districts.

Karnataka

Karnataka government declared a day of state mourning as a mark of respect to AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah describing her as one of the "tallest personalities" in Tamil Nadu politics whose demise had caused an "irreparable loss."

Recollecting her joining AIADMK, where she served as propaganda secretary and Rajya Sabha member before becoming the Chief Minister, he said Jayalalithaa became one of the tallest personalities not merely in the Tamil Cinema, but also in Tamil Nadu Politics. "Now, its all a history."

"By acting in more than 140 films including Sri Shaila Mahathme, Chinnada Gombe, Amara Shilpi Jakanachari, Badukuva Daari, Mavana Magalu, Mane Aliya and Nanna Kartavya in Kannada and in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi movies, Jayalalithaa carved a niche for herself in the hearts and minds of people," Siddaramaiah said in his condolence message.

Noting that Jayalalithaa became the youngest chief minister of her state, he said, "During that time, the 'cradle baby scheme', which she implemented to counter female infanticide and save the girl child, was appreciated from all quarters."

He said the novel concepts of all women police station, women libraries and all women bank was effectively implemented by Jayalalithaa during her regime.

Pointing out Jayalalithaa's "toughness" in administration, "strict discipline" in party affairs, and pro-people popular schemes like Amma Canteen and Amma Water created "an ocean of admirers" for her, he said "all these have now created an environment in Tamil Nadu, which is not ready to accept that she is no more."

"Though Jayalalithaa has left this world and entered into the pages of history, she will be remembered forever in Tamil Nadu. May her soul rest in peace. Let the almighty give strength to her huge family of millions of admirers, who are inside and outside Tamil Nadu, to bear the irreparable loss, at this hour of grief," he added.

Siddaramaiah will be visiting Chennai by a special flight to pay his last respects to the departed leader.

Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, who is in New Delhi, has condoled the death and will be visiting Chennai to pay his last respects, party sources said.

Former Chief Minister and BJP state President B S Yeddyurappa said there are hardly any parallels to Jayalalithaa's life in India's political history.
Vijayawada: Overseas travellers have been demanding operation of short distance international flights, particularly to the Middle East and Southeast Asian nations, including Dubai and Singapore. The flight to Dubai is a preferred option for passengers who want to travel to the West, say the US, Europe or Africa.

Similarly, if a passenger's destination is to the East, Singapore-bound flight is the best choice. At present, the Vijayawada airport is serving only domestic passengers and providing connectivity to limited destinations within the country. The passengers urged the union ministry of civil aviation to look into the issue on priority basis.

Speaking on the same, the AP Chambers of Commerce and Industry Federation (APCCIF) general secretary Potluri Bhaskar Rao said that the as of now, the Vijayawada airport is operating only one Air India flight, at 8 pm, to New Delhi.

The airport authorities have extended the facility of international baggage check-in here itself which facilitates the overseas passengers a smooth

check-in for their international flights at New Delhi, Mr Bhaskar Rao explained.

Now, there are only 4-5 international services from Visakhapatnam and Tirupati, he said and added that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has expressed its willingness for customs clearances at Vijayawada airport from January.

However, depending on the interest shown by the airline operators, the AAI will further extend the facilities, according to Mr Bhaskar Rao.

In fact, it is learnt that Indigo has expressed interest to operate early morning flight services to New Delhi which facilitates the overseas passengers to choose Vijayawada as their origin point of journey to foreign countries.

The profit and loss ratio is the main concern for any airline operator, as they simply cant afford to operate international services without market survey and cost benefit analysis.

According to the statistics available with the AAI, there are at least 350 international passengers from Vijayawada daily. The immediate need is that airline operators should start at least bi-weekly operations to Singapore and Dubai, Mr Bhaskar Rao added. More flights would mean rise in revenue and number of international services to the city.
Chennai: Peter Brook, the celebrated English theatre personality-, whose epic creation The Mahabaratha in 1985 had won universal acclaim -, has among his many reflective gems, this memorable quote: Time, which is so often an enemy in life, can also become our ally if we see how a pale moment can lead to a glowing moment; and then turn to a moment of perfect transparency, before dropping again to a moment of everyday simplicity.

These words ring in with awesome aptness now, somewhat with an amazing precision as it were, in looking back at the administrative abilities of Ms. Jayalalithaa Jayaram. The bright and eloquent undisputed leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) for over 25 years in Tamil Nadu may not have been the darling of the entire bureaucracy, but everyone will agree she was an undaunted administrator.

Viewing four Chief Ministerial tenures since she ascended the Gaddi of the State first in June 1991,  (Amma was actually sworn in six times in that post till 2016 due to the interim breaks and re-elections to the State Assembly, apart from her earlier stint as an AIADMK member of the Rajya Sabha where the number of the seat allotted to her was the same as that of the late Dravidian movement ideologue and mass leader C.N. Annadurai),  as a Correspondent covering Tamil Nadu, one could see that Jayalalithaa was always unflinching with her bold decisions, unmindful of consequences even if they were bitter.

There were many pale moments in the roller-coaster political career of Jayalalithaa, ushered into politics by her one-time screen hero, M G Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, who had emerged as a powerful mass leader and a fulcrum of anti-DMK forces in the State since the mid-1970s. But whenever, given an opportunity in public office, those pale moments, at times even sad moments in her private life, turned glowing moments of effective articulation and execution of policies for the people.

But cut back a little into the formative factors, just to help place in context what defined her 68 years of a tumultuous public life: From her punishing, alienated childhood days, her mother Sandhyas influence and what the value of motherhood meant to her, being unwittingly pushed into the dog-eat-dog world of cinema after a brilliant school record, reluctantly landing in the much bigger world of politics after being mentored by the legendary actor-turned-politician MGR without any political family to back her, and later ascending to a new phase that promised to give Amma a pan-Indian profile to the point of being considered a possible Prime Ministerial candidate of non-Congress/non-BJP alternate front in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Jayalalithaa had seen it all.

And now to the elements of real politik, which she handled and shaped in the State. In her first stint as Chief Minister, the firmness with which she put down forces of terror, then identified with the militant Sri Lankan Tamil outfit LTTE, in the aftermath of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 by a woman suicide bomber at Sriperumbudur, had a huge peace dividend to it. Tamil Nadu returned to its placid track, even as the then SIT Chief and former CBI director, D.R. Karthikeyan once observed that the investigation into the Rajiv Gandhi case could not have been successfully accomplished without the excellent support of the then State government. It left nobody in doubt as a subtle compliment to Ms Jayalalithaas firm anti-terror stance. And she never compromised on that till the very end.

If the launching of the All Women Police Station in that phase of her tenure won her accolades even from Pakistans Benazir Bhutto, the way the Jayalalithaa administration worked had to bring the first big ticket industrial investments to Tamil Nadu in the wake of the economic liberalization  Ford Motors and Hyundai-, propelled the State into a fast-track of economic growth. We learnt under Madame (Chief Minister) what we would not have learnt in Harvard Business School, was how the then state Industries secretary, C Ramachandran, lauded her inspirational leadership at the foundation stone laying ceremony for Ford manufacturing plant at Maraimalinagar, in her presence.

During her second stint as Chief Minister (2001-2006), when the chips were down, in the wake of the unprecedented en masse sacking of state government employees  a senior official then told this Correspondent she was misled into that decision by one of her senior Ministers in the Cabinet  Ms Jayalalithaa turned the tide with two astonishing administrative feats. The capture of the elusive forest brigand Veerappan in October 2014, was followed by the splendid way she responded to the catastrophic December 2004 Asian Tsunami that devastated large parts of coastal Tamil Nadu.

One then had an opportunity to literally see her as a virtual War time CM; and thanks to a dedicated team of senior IAS officers like N. Narayanan, Vivek Harinarayan, Gagandeep Singh Bedi, then Cuddalore collector, Dr J Radhakrishnan, then Nagapattinam district collector, the administrations response to the immediate relief and rehabilitation of the Tsunami victims, had won the praise of no less a person than former US President Bill Clinton during his visit to Nagapattinam in May 2005. Tamil Nadus first expertise in handling something like the Tsunami, was sought after even by neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, it may be pertinent to point out.

Ms. Jayalalithaa showed remarkable diligence and courage in taking on the land mafia after she made a huge comeback as Chief Minister in May 2011. The way she vanquished the much-feared DMK strongman in Madurai, M K Alagiri, during the election campaign that year spoke volumes for her political sagacity as a campaigner from the front for the AIADMK. She was to repeat it in the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls when she even taunted her electorate with the words, this lady is better than Modi.

The mosaic of welfare schemes starting from the Temple Annadhanam scheme, later extended to select Mosques and Churches as well, to myriad forms of assistance to the economically backward sections, poor and marginal sections right up to the Amma canteens, brought out her concern for the people as a Mother would care for her children. In these days of right-wing economics, she proved a different sort of administrator, just to mention a few examples.

Notwithstanding her imperious ways in handling several other issues including the media, there was something very human and touching about Ms. Jayalalithaa. At the end of a long-interview she gave to this Correspondent along with Mr. E. Raghavan (then political bureau chief and Editor South of the Economic Times in Bengaluru), before the 25th anniversary celebrations of the AIADMK in 1997, one line that she uttered last still rings in my mind: If after all that has happened to me so far, I am still around, then God must have a purpose for me, for each and everyone of us. That is what Peter Brook would have termed, a moment of perfect transparency, before dropping again to a moment of everyday simplicity. That is one important facet of Ms. Jayalalithaa Jayaram, we cannot forget.
New Delhi: Taking serious note of the recent terror attack on the Nagrota Army camp, the Centre has directed security agencies to prepare a detailed blueprint of hitting back at Pakistani security forces specifically along the Line of Control where at most locations India enjoys a strategic advantage.

While the Nagrota terror attack was executed by suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed militants there is evidence to suggest that they had support from Pakistan security forces, particularly the ISI, as well as Over Ground Workers (OGWs) on the Indian side.

Intelligence agencies have already informed the Centre that the Nagrota Army camp was identified as the potential target by the ISI officer and they facilitated the attack with help of OGWs.

Following the Nagrota incident, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir along with home minister Rajnath Singh, defence minister Manohar Parrikar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

Sources said the decision to retaliate hard along the LoC has been taken at the highest level in the government and some action could be expected over the next few days. Incidentally, following a similar attack on the Uri Army camp in September, Indian security forces had conducted surgical strikes hitting some terror camps across the LoC. Though top security sources ruled out the possibility of crossing the LoC again they confirmed strong retaliation by security forces in the days ahead.

Nagrota probe finds lapses

The Centre has directed security agencies to prepare a detailed blueprint of hitting back at Pakistani security forces specifically along the Line of Control.

Sources also confirmed that additional reinforcements had already been rushed to the LoC.

Meanwhile, an internal probe into the Nagrota incident has pointed to some lapses, particularly in security the outer parameter of the campus. The terrorists managed to enter the Army camp by scaling the rear boundary wall and they then cut the barbed wire.

On entering the campus they managed to move to a strategic location where normally a Light Machine Gun (LMG) is positioned firing indiscriminately from there. Following the surgical strike, there has been increased terror activity from Pakistan with some terrorists even infiltrating in the Samba sector by digging a tunnel with help of Pakistani Rangers.

This year, Pakistan has already violated the ceasefire 437 times killing 37 people while 179 have been injured. Due to increased heavy firing by Pakistan, which is also done to provide cover to infiltrating militants, 27,449 people living in borders areas in J&K. Of the total ceasefire violations, 216 incidents were reported along LoC while 221 incidents along the international border.

Similarly, there has been a three-fold increase this year in the number of terrorists killed in the Valley. As many as 140 terrorists have been killed this year against 46 last year, said sources.
CHENNAI: The entire political leadership of the country seemed to have air-dashed to Chennai to pay their last respects to Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, several Union Ministers and more than half a dozen Chief Ministers flew to Chennai on Tuesday to pay their homage to Ms Jayalalithaa.

And the impression that the departed Chief Minister made in the hearts of minds of the political leadership of the country was at full display when the President refused to cancel his visit even after a snag was reported in the aircraft in which he was flying developed a technical snag and landed back in Delhi. He flew in to the city in the same flight after the minor snag was rectified.

Mr Modi paid rich tributes to Ms Jayalalithaa, with whom he shared an excellent rapport since his days as Gujarat Chief Minister, calling her an able administrator and saying that she left a void in the political arena in the country.

He walked into the Rajaji Hall a little after 1.30 PMafter he was held up at the Chennai Airport for nearly 50 minutes and placed a wreath on the body and consoled Sasikala and AIADMK leaders and ministers.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who had earlier visited Ms Jayalalithaa at the Apollo Hospitals in October, also joined millions of mourners by leading a high-powered delegation and attended the funeral on the Marina Beach late Tuesday evening.

That Ms Jayalalithaa made friends beyond political spectrum was evident from the fact that Chief Ministers from the BJP, Congress, Left, AAP and TDP paid their respects in person.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Kerala Chief Minister Pinnarayi Vijayan, Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra), Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), Siddaramaiah (Karnataka), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Narayanasamy (Puducherry) placed a wreath on Ms Jayalalithaas body at the Rajaji Hall.

Former Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah and a few other national leaders also attended the funeral and paid their last respects.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi consoles O Panneerselvam while pays his last respects to Tamil Nadu's former Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall in Chennai. (Photo: PTI)

Chennai: Chief Minister O Pannerselvam broke down as Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid homage to AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa at the Rajaji Hall here on Tuesday.

Heart-rendering scenes were witnessed as grim-faced OPS, as he is known among party colleagues and cadre, almost hugged the Prime Minister and cried holding his hands. Immediately after placing a wreath on Ms Jayalalithaas body, Mr Modi walked towards Sasikala to console her.

As Mr Modi touched Sasikala on her head and consoled her, the confidante of the departed Chief Minister had tears in her eyes. As he turned the other side, he saw Mr Pannerselvam and held his hands. As emotions ran high, the Chief Minister almost hugged the Prime Minister and broke down. The Prime Minister, after consoling Mr Pannerselvam, also extended his condolences to Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai and AIADMK floor leader in Rajya Sabha, A Navaneethakrishnan.

After offering condolences to party ministers and leaders, the Prime Minister left the Rajaji Hall and took his flight back to New Delhi. And Sasikala was the cynosure of all eyes as she stood near Jayalalithaas body the whole day and every visiting dignitary held her hands and extended their deepest condolences.

President Pranab Mukherjee also spoke to Ms Sasikala and consoled her. While he was leaving, Acting Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao introduced Mr Pannerselvam to the President, who offered his condolences to him as well.

A majority of the Chief Ministers of other states, who visited the Rajaji Hall, made it a point to meet Mr Pannerselvam too.
Chennai: Tributes poured in from Tamil Diaspora, especially from Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, on Tuesday to Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena calling her a leader dearly loved by her people.

Rich tributes poured in from countries where Tamils are a sizeable population with even former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is demonized in Tamil Nadu for his alleged role in 2009 Eelam War, condoled her death and said she captured the hearts of Indias Tamil community.

Mr Sirisena said the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu, he said.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraveera said her service to the people of Tamil Nadu would be remembered with gratitude. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu at this time. I wish them strength and fortitude to face this loss, he said in a condolence message.

Ms Jayalalithaa has been a hard fighter against Colombo alleging that the government and military were involved in large-scale human rights violations during the last phase of the civil war. She also moved a unanimous resolution on the floor of the Tamil Nadu Assembly declaring that a separate Eelam was the only option to reclaim the rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan air-dashed to Chennai to pay respects to Ms Jayalalithaa. In Malaysia, the countrys largest ethnic Indian party, the Malaysian Indian Congress, condoled Ms Jayalalithaas demise, describing her as a super woman.

As we all know, the late J Jayalalithaa was a charismatic leader and had done a lot for the Indian people, especially concerning for welfare of the poor, the women and the marginalised community, said Vel Paari, Treasurer General of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and son of Samy Vellu, who served as MIC president for almost three decades.

In South Africa, the South African Tamil Federation has called on all its affiliates to host special prayer services for the late Tamil Nadu CM.
Kochi: The UDF MPs and MLAs will stage a sathyagraha before Parliament on December 14 in protest against the cash crunch following demonetisation, the centres move to destroy the cooperative sector in the state and the reduction in the ration quota for Kerala. Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala told the media after a UDF meeting here on Monday that based on the decision taken at the national level the UDF had withdrawn from a joint struggle with the LDF against the centres actions.



Criticising the state government, Mr. Chennithala said it had not taken any step to ease the difficulties caused to the people due to the currency ban and the reduction in ration quota. The government could not tackle the aftermath of the implementation of the Food Security Act. It also failed to settle the complaints of more than 15 lakh ration card holders in the state, Mr Chennithala alleged. During the previous UDF meeting, the Indian Union Muslim League, the second largest constituent of the alliance, had insisted on a joint struggle with the LDF despite the strong reservations of PCC president V.M. Sudheeran.

It is impossible to create a cashless economy in a country where more than 90 per cent of the people depend on currency transaction. Only 47 per cent of the people have bank accounts while more than 300 million dont even have identity cards. Hence, it is an Utopian idea to introduce plastic money all of a sudden, he observed. According to him, the countrys economy will face serious issues in the coming days with huge losses in the agriculture production.
J. Jayalalithaa, a charismatic politician who was immensely popular among the masses, breathed her last after grave illness of 75 days. Under her, between 1991 and December 2016, when she was sworn in six times as chief minister, Tamil Nadu was the nearest a modern democratic state within India could have been to a monarchy. Her hold on the AIADMK party was absolute, her ministers, party officials and cadres beholden to her supreme ability to attract voters and periodically springing her party into the seat of power at Fort St. George in Chennai. Her word was her command. The totality of her contribution to the states stability far outweighed what she did while suffering from vicissitudes brought on by the rough and tumble of politics in a reluctant politician.

She may have won elections handsomely while losing some terribly, but regardless of results, she always kept the peoples love and affection. She wasnt deterred by her almost accidental advent into politics after a film career, and held her own as CM to emerge a national titan thanks to her stupendous ability to overcome hurdles. Jayalalithaa went to the best schools in Bengaluru and Chennai, and after a curious debut in an English film (Epistle), dominated the silver screen as a heroine in Tamil, Kannada and Telugu cinema, playing the leading lady to every conceivable star like MGR, Nageswara Rao, N.T. Rama Rao, Sivaji and several others. Remarkably, her intellectual abilities far outstripped her formal school qualifications. As an administrator, she could arrive at a considered decision after poring over the issue and then stick to it, come hell or high water. Her fierce stand often brought her into conflict with ruling parties at the Centre, although it was in alliance with the Congress that she shot to power in the sympathy wave following Rajiv Gandhis tragic death in 1991.

With an imperial mien and a decisive outlook that brooked little argument, Jaya could even be despotic in her administrative style. As CM, she was disdainful of New Delhi. Where she scored immensely was in judging the pulse of the people  like her political mentor M.G. Ramachandran she had her party re-elected (last summer), defying the alternating swing of the Dravidian pendulum in Tamil Nadu. Her shrewd schemes struck at the heart of every household. Her thoughtful freebies, including the heavily-subsidised Amma canteens and other services aimed at the common man/woman, made her an iconic demigod for the masses. In a land of atheistic tendencies, she was a fervent believer, so much so that prayers for her recovery became a social phenomenon. Sadly, an end must come to all living beings. She may, however, have found an esteemed place in Elysian Fields as a woman who outshone all in a world dominated by men.
The election of Donald Trump has created a delicate solidarity between Jewish and Muslim communities in the United States, arising from Jewish memories of registration and its aftermath in Nazi Germany and the current vulnerability of Muslims in the US. This solidarity may go nowhere but, perhaps, just perhaps, it may open a new window of opportunity for Muslim and Jewish groups that, in general, tend not to know each other personally and to be suspicious of each other, despite efforts on both sides to build ties. On November 17, 2016, Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, a major Jewish organisation in the United States, said: If one day Muslim-Americans will be forced to register their identities, then that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim. Mr Greenblatts statement was reported by various US papers and online entities, the Guardian, BBC, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and others, but also spread by Twitter with the hashtag #NeverIsNow which was the name of the conference on anti-Semitism at which he said those words.

This commentator first saw news of Mr Greenblatts statement on Facebook, posted by a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) pro-Palestinian movement along with a positive acknowledgement of Mr Greenblatts public commitment. In a context where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a core generator of the mutual discomfort and suspicion that exists between Muslim and Jewish communities, the way Mr Greenblatts statement was heard and welcomed by a passionately pro-Palestinian voice is politically and culturally significant. Mr Greenblatts statement has been preceded, echoed, cheered, amplified and added to by other Jewish Americans, many, but not all of them on the left of the political spectrum.

For example, Rabbi Zemel of Temple Micah, a reform synagogue in the Washington DC area, said in his November 11 sermon: If theyre asking Muslims to register, of course well get every Jew in America to register. In the Forward, a left-leaning Jewish newspaper, Benjamin Gladstone wrote on November 15, 2016: All Jews should register as Muslims because we know the horrors of religious registration all too well. To the centre of the Jewish political spectrum, the very influential American Jewish Committee condemned the idea of a Muslim registry in November 2015 and again this November. On November 21, 2016, David Harris, AJC CEO, said: Targeting all Muslims is a horror movie that we Jews are all too familiar with. It can easily lead to heightened discrimination, persecution and scapegoating. In the United States, there is no place  no place, whatsoever  for this kind of divisive, hateful rhetoric.

The message resonates for Jewish Americans who have direct and indirect memories of the persecution and subsequent genocide of Jews in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some American Jews are directly descendants of Holocaust survivors. Thus, David Nir of the left-leaning Daily Kos wrote in response to Mr Greenblatts statement: As a proud Jew myself  and the son of a Holocaust survivor who taught me all too well about the consequences of hatred  I can only stand in awe of what Greenblatt has just done and co-sign. Others may not have a direct genealogical experience of the Holocaust but most families know of extended family that were lost, and many whose forbears came to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries will speak about the loss of family histories and family members as pogroms decimated European Jewish communities.

But while the spirit of Mr Greenblatts statement comes from the Never Again resolution of Jews after the Holocaust of the mid-20th century, the urgency of his and similar messages comes from growing worry about statements made by President-elect Donald Trump during his campaign; statements made by some of his major supporters and surrogates; his appointment of Breitbarts Steve Bannon, who is viewed by many as sympathetic to an anti-Semitic and white nationalist alt-right, as his White House strategist; and, perhaps most crucially, the election-time and post-election increase in virulent anti-Semitic online trolling and bricks-and-mortar graffiti, including Nazi swastikas, in the midst of other anti-immigrant, anti-non-white person and anti-Muslim actions. Various American news outlets, including USA Today, CNN, Slate.com, CBS News, the New Yorker and others have reported an uptick in hate crimes against Muslims, people of colour, immigrants, Jews, and LGBTQ+ Americans since the election.

Not all Jewish Americans are uncomfortable with the legacy of Mr Trumps campaign and the President-elects appointment of Steve Bannon. About a quarter of Jewish voters chose Mr Trump as President. Religious, social and economic conservatism as well as worry that Hillary Clinton could be bad for Israel drove Jewish votes for Mr Trump. The question of registry came into prominence in November 2015 when Mr Trump said: I would implement (that policy) absolutely. Since then, the alarm was raised again when prominent Trump supporter Carl Higbie pointed to the internment of Japanese-Americans as a precedent for a policy of Muslim registration. At this point, Jason Miller, the communications director for Mr Trumps transition team, has stated that President-elect Trump has never advocated for any registry or system that tracks individuals based on their religion and to imply otherwise is completely false. But concerns about the safety of Muslims continue in this country where the presidential campaign of Mr Trump attracted and gave exposure to increasingly harsh voices against immigrants, Muslims and others, and many of those voices now have the ear of the President-elect. After the rise of the Nazis was followed by the Holocaust, not just the Jews but the world learnt the cost of complacency when a danger is viewed as unimaginable, when an acquiescence to the scapegoating of a minority group can lead to a Holocaust. Jews, around two per cent of the US population, by rallying around Muslims, about one per cent of the population, aim to show that the lessons of the Holocaust  Never Again!  have not been forgotten.
Can we put a cost to human life? The incident in Bathinda the other day where a 20-something pregnant dancer was shot in a nanosecond after she refused and repulsed the advances of an inebriated man in the audience... The video shows him grabbing a rifle and shooting the woman in the stomach, the guest and his cronies are still believed to be absconding. Worse still, not only was the womans life snuffed out, but the two-month-old foetus too died with her. Cut to the fidayeen attack on the 16 Corps headquarters in Nagrota where several of our jawans and two majors were killed in the first flush of the dawn attack which carried on for hours till the entire place was sanitised. Indias war on terror in Kashmir is costing the nation. The bodybags are mounting as the frequency of suicide attacks is also being ramped up. Soldiers from distant parts of India who believe in the idea, ideal and idiom of this great nation are succumbing to fidayeen attacks with increasing regularity.

Are we following standard operating procedures (SOPs)? Does the textbook need to evolve to deal with the asymmetrical war unleashed on India? Of course it does, boilerplates have to shift, it is an evolutionary process, guerrilla wars need a different kind of approach and tactics. And sharper vigil, for its clear that the handlers of the fidayeen have rewritten the code of warfare. There is a quantum surge in the threat analysis and for the pawns in this moral chess game, how does one deal with a man who is unafraid to die? Since the beginning of this year, Pakistan has been targeting military installations where terrorists have surreptitiously and unobtrusively managed to breach our defences at Grade-A bases repeatedly, pointing to a malaise and slackness on our part. The security apparatus has seen innumerable violations, which is a telling reminder on wilful neglect. This point to a serious problem, one that requires a tactical response from our Army commanders. Let us also consider fatigue as a factor, in a 24x7 heightened vigil environment, it cannot be ignored. In fact, since the much-hyped surgical strike, more than that 25 jawans and officers of the security forces have died.

As a continuum, let us look at the price of liberty. What is the price of liberty in India? For a rich man, it could be as much as Rs 200 crores as prognosticated by the Supreme Court in Subrata Roys case. For a poor man wrongly accused, languishing in jail for years with no one to fight his case, the price of liberty is zero. And out of mind is out of sight in India. In the curious case of Saharas Roy, he has to cough up Rs 200 crores for every month that he stays out of Tihar, this is after spending two years incarcerated. In late November, reading the riot act to Sahara boss Subrata Roy, the Supreme Court asked him to deposit Rs 600 crores more by February 6 next year in the Sebi-Sahara refund account to remain out of jail, and if he fails to do, he would have to return to prison. A bench comprising Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and A.K. Sikri also said it may consider appointing a receiver of properties if the group finds itself unable to sell them to pay back dues to investors. So, I guess, Rs 200 crores per month is the price of liberty for Roy. This case is unique in the annals of the Indian legal system for this is not judicial or police custody, he was in the SCs exclusive custody. Till date Roy has deposited Rs 1,200 crores to stay out.

Even in the 2G spectrum case, the accused were chargesheeted and not even under trial when they were taken in. The law works on the principle of precedence. It is only after the current attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi, while arguing for Madhu Koda, got his client off that the floodgates opened for other accused in the 2G spectrum case. My mind switched on rewind to mid-November 2011, when in an extremely significant move, the Supreme Court agreed to examine whether bail can be denied on grounds of gravity of offence. The counsels complained that courts in recent times have been routinely rejecting bail in violation of the fundamental right of life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court decided to examine whether trial courts or high courts could deny bail in high-profile cases simply on the ground of gravity of offence, contrary to the earlier maxim bail is the rule, jail is an exception. At the core of this debate remains the same underlying credo  bail is the norm and jail an exception. But as we saw in the 2G spectrum case, all the accused were sent to jail. It shook the foundations of civil society in the country for these accused were in jail pending trial.

In Roys case, it is the courts majesty which was trifled with. Given a specific date to appear before it, Roy chose to ignore the call, citing his mothers illness. Now let me contrast this with what can only be described as a denouement on our legal system. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued notices to the ministry of home affairs and the Delhi police, directing them to submit, within a month, detailed reports regarding a man who was wrongly incarcerated for 14 years. This celebrated case dating back to March 2014 earned the ire of one and all. The case relates to Mohammad Amir, who was arrested on charges of terrorism in 1998 and released in January 2012. He was acquitted in 18 of the 20 terror cases for lack of evidence as the prosecution failed to produce a single witness in any of the cases connecting him to the blasts. The NHRC said Justice D. Murugesan had issued notices to both the Union home ministry and the Delhi police commissioner, while seeking the entire record of the 12 separate cases that had been filed against him, along with the report. For 14 years, he was imprisoned. While Amir remained confined to a solitary high-security cell in Delhis Tihar Jail, he did not know that his father had passed away in penury and his mother got paralysis, suffered a brain haemorrhage and lost speech amid a social boycott, an NHRC official said. A tragedy of monumental proportions. Which brings us back to the cost of a human life  a bullet for a dancer and those preventing infiltration at the border, Rs 200 crores for Roy and 14 years for a terror suspect. What a travesty.
SC on December 5 sought response from internet majors Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook on a plea seeking curbs on sharing of sexual offence videos on social networking sites. (Photo: PTI)

The Supreme Court on December 5 sought response from internet majors Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook on a plea seeking curbs on sharing of sexual offence videos on social networking sites and steps to check cybercrimes.

A bench of justices M B Lokur and U U Lalit issued notice to these companies and sought their reply on the plea by January 9.

Advocate Aparna Bhatt, appearing for petitioner NGO Prajwala, said that rape videos are shot and posted on the social networking sites and the internet companies should take steps to curb such cybercrime.

Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh, representing the Centre, detailed the steps taken by Union home ministry and CBI which is the nodal agency for cybercrimes.

He said that the debate over making public the names of sexual offenders is on in India and abroad and whatever decision is taken in this regard will be implemented.

To this, the bench said that if the names of sexual offenders are to be made public then it should be done only after the conviction in the offence, not just after the case is lodged.

"It will tarnish the image of a person, if he is acquitted in the sexual offence case," it said.

The bench also directed that if the state police find nothing against a person after probing a sexual offence case, then CBI will not interrogate that person with regard to the cybercrime aspect related to the offence.

"If the police give clean chit to Mr. X in a sexual offence case, then CBI should not say to Mr. X that we want to interrogate or examine you with regard to cybercrime aspect related with same sexual offence. This is because the police have found nothing against him with regard to the offence," it said.

It also directed the Centre to include steps to curb sexual violence against children in the list of measures to be taken for curbing crime against women.

"As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data there is sharp rise in cases of sexual violence against children," it said.

The court was hearing a letter sent to then Chief Justice of India H L Dattu by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala along with two rape videos in a pen drive. It had taken suo motu note of the letter on the posting of these videos on 'WhatsApp' and had asked CBI to launch a probe forthwith to nab the culprits.

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HEG, whose customer base is similar to GoDaddy's, is one of Europe's largest independent web hosting firms, and operates brands such as 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet and Host Europe.

U.S.-based website domain name provider GoDaddy Inc said on Tuesday it would buy peer Host Europe Group (HEG) for 1.69 billion euros ($1.82 billion), including debt, as it looks to expand beyond the initial set-up of websites.

GoDaddy has branched into the more profitable business of hosting websites for small businesses and consumers and the HEG deal will help it accelerate this shift as well as broaden its customer base in Europe.

HEG, whose customer base is similar to GoDaddy's, is one of Europe's largest independent web hosting firms, and operates brands such as 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet and Host Europe.

HEG is currently owned by European private equity firm Cinven Ltd, which acquired the business in August 2013 for 438 million pounds.

GoDaddy also said it would explore options for HEG's PlusServer managed hosting business, including a possible sale.

GoDaddy, well-known in the United States for its sometimes outrageous TV marketing campaigns, trumped bids from German Internet service provider United Internet AG and Deutsche Telekom AG for HEG.

Reuters had reported last month that GoDaddy was in exclusive talks to buy the company.

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The dual-SIM inFocus Bingo 20 (M425) smartphone is a 4G-VoLTE enabled smartphone and runs on the Android 5.1 Lollipop.

US-based smartphone manufacturer InFocus is planning to soon launch a new smartphone in India which will support Aadhaar authentication using the iris scanner installed in the device.

The smartphone will be priced under Rs 12,000 and will be available early next year. inFocus also says it has been awarded STQC (Standardization Testing and Quality Certification) by the Indian government. The company also has plans to launch more devices supporting Aadhaar-based biometric authentication in the future.

STQC certification authenticates the use of Iris-recognition devices, used for biometric authentication linked under the Aadhaar project.

InFocus smartphone features IriTechs superior iris image quality assessment and onboard 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.

As of now, Samsung is the only phone maker to have already embedded Delta IDs ActiveIRIS technology in its Galaxy Tab Iris.

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 micro ATM for merchant payments. This will accelerate JAM (Jan-Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) implementation, said Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the UIDAI.

The dual-SIM inFocus Bingo 20 (M425) smartphone is a 4G-VoLTE enabled smartphone and runs on the Android 5.1 Lollipop, and has a 1.5GHz quad-core processor. The display is a 4.5-inch capacitive with 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage which is expandable via microSD (up to 64GB) and is powered by a 2300mAh battery.

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Inception provides innovative GPU startups with key support to help grow their businesses and bring products to market faster.

NVIDIA, the AI computing company, has launched the NVIDIA Inception program in India, in recognition of the countrys potential for artificial intelligence innovation. Inception is a virtual incubator program to support startups with revolutionary ideas in AI. The members will receive a custom set of benefits, from hardware grants and marketing support to training with deep learning experts.

The Inception Program was launched in India at the NVIDIA Emerging Companies Summit India, part of the GPU Technology Conference (GTCx), aimed at bringing ideas in GPU computing.

The NVIDIA Emerging Companies Summit India, which was used as the platform for launching the NVIDIA Inception Program, is the only event in India aimed at startups specializing in artificial intelligence. The event brought together 12 visionary startups in AI, virtual reality, autonomous vehicles and robotics with leading tech investors, including Rajan Anandan, Vice President for South East Asia and India at Google.

Healthcare startup Qure.ai won the Social Innovation Award at the Emerging Companies Summit. The Best of Show award was presented to intelligent HR solutions startup Edge Networks.

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director of South Asia, NVIDIA said, Artificial Intelligence has gone from science fiction to reality thanks to a new computing model  graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated deep learning.

Inception provides innovative GPU startups with key support to help grow their businesses and bring products to market faster. Custom benefits include access to the latest NVIDIA deep learning technologies  early access to the latest GPU hardware, as well as the NVIDIA Deep Learning SDK, the NVIDIA DIGITS deep learning GPU training System, the NVIDIA GPU Inference Engine and more.

It also provides deep learning expertise  access to NVIDIA's deep learning experts and world-class engineering teams, which include computational mathematicians who specialize in designing algorithms for GPU-accelerated computing platforms.

Further more, it has access to NVIDIA's global network  customers, partners and suppliers, and NVIDIA marketing reach, technical training  online and in-person courses via the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute, and funding  qualified companies may be eligible for funding through NVIDIA's GPU Ventures Program.

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Uninformed or careless staff, whose inappropriate use of IT resources can put an organizations cyberprotection in jeopardy, can harm businesses of any size.

Small companies (up to 50 employees) are significantly less concerned about employee activities leading to cybersecurity breaches than larger corporations. Only 36 per cent of small businesses worry about their staffs carelessness while more than half of medium-sized and large enterprises consider it a major concern, says IT Security Risks Report 2016 by Kaspersky Lab.

Uninformed or careless staff, whose inappropriate use of IT resources can put an organizations cyberprotection in jeopardy, can harm businesses of any size. According to the survey, employee actions are among top three security challenges that make companies worldwide feel vulnerable. More than half (61 per cent) of the businesses experiencing cybersecurity incidents in 2016 admitted that careless and uninformed employee behavior has been a contributor.

Like large corporations, small and medium-sized businesses face the challenge of managing a constantly evolving IT infrastructure, as well as accommodating BYOD trends: 74 per cent of companies reported that the amount of smartphones used for work had increased over the last three years and 71 per cent confirmed that the same is applicable for tablets. This new business reality is forcing management to pay more attention to IT security and the centralized control of potentially dangerous employee activities, even in the smallest businesses.

In small businesses without dedicated IT personnel, it is often the case that staff have to implement cybersecurity themselves - for example, by installing free antimalware solutions with limited functionality. This poses major risks for a company because one employees carelessness can easily affect all data within the organization - leading to instant losses in time, clients data and money. Businesses should implement solutions specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses, with protection that any IT administrator, even with low IT skills, can easily maintain from everywhere. said Vladimir Zapolyansky, Head of SMB Marketing, Kaspersky Lab.

Companies can protect themselves with a range of solutions dedicated to meet the specific requirements of very small, small and medium-sized business as their needs vary. The Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business product portfolio and Kaspersky Small Office Security provides multi-layered protection from well-known and emerging threats, while Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud, with its simple cloud-based console, provides business owners and senior non-IT management with a cost-efficient and intuitive tool to ensure cybersecurity without needing additional hardware or IT-personnel.

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CRISPR works as a type of molecular scissors that can trim away unwanted parts of the genome, and replace them with new stretches of DNA.

The US patent agency on December 5 will hear arguments in a heated dispute over who was first to invent a revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR.

Hundreds of millions of dollars may be at stake, as the technology promises commercial applications in treating genetic diseases, engineering crops, and other areas.

CRISPR works as a type of molecular scissors that can trim away unwanted parts of the genome, and replace them with new stretches of DNA. It has quickly become the preferred method of gene editing in research labs because of its ease of use compared with older techniques.

The hearing is before the US Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board in Alexandria, Virginia. It will pit one group of researchers associated with the Broad Institute, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, against another group linked to the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Vienna in Austria.

The latter team, led by Berkeley's Jennifer Doudna and Vienna's Emmanuelle Charpentier, applied for a CRISPR patent in 2013.

The Broad team, led by MIT's Feng Zhang, filed a patent application months later, and became the first to obtain a CRISPR patent in 2014. It has since obtained additional patents. The Berkeley team has obtained CRISPR patents as well, though the 2013 application has not been granted.

In April 2015, the Berkeley team petitioned the patent agency to launch a so-called interference proceeding, claiming Broad's patents covered the same invention as the Berkeley team's 2013 application.

Tuesday's hearing will focus on preliminary motions, which the panel is expected to decide within the next few weeks.

One of those motions, filed by Broad, could end the case. Broad has argued that its patents, which describe the use of CRISPR specifically in animal cells, represent a breakthrough beyond the Berkeley team's application, which described it more generally. CRISPR occurs naturally in bacteria.

The two teams, Broad has said, are not really claiming the same invention at all. If the panel agrees, the interference proceeding will end, and Broad's patents will remain intact. Rulings from the panel can be appealed in federal court.

Otherwise, the proceeding will likely go on for another year or more, as the panel weighs evidence to determine which team was first to invent the technology.

Broad spokesman Lee McGuire said in a statement that the institute was confident of its case. Berkeley representatives could not be reached for comment.

The CRISPR dispute is among the last-ever interference proceedings, which were phased out by a 2011 patent reform law. The America Invents Act changed the US patent system from a "first to invent" to "first inventor to file" for patent applications after March 16, 2013.

If the Berkeley team's challenge succeeds, Broad could lose its patent rights.

Broad has already licensed its CRISPR patents for human therapeutics research to Editas Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech firm whose founders included both Zhang and Doudna, who has since left.

It has also licensed its technology to large businesses, including agriculture company Monsanto Co and General Electric Co's medical technology subsidiary GE Healthcare.

Doudna co-founded Berkeley biotech firm Caribou Biosciences, which licenses Berkeley's intellectual property and is working on CRISPR with other companies, including Novartis AG and Dupont.

The case is The Broad Institute Inc v. Regents of the University of California, Patent Interference No. 106,048.

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Justin Ross Harris, 36, was given the maximum sentence after lead prosecutor Chuck Boring said 22-month-old Cooper Harris perished in "the most torturous, horrific, unimaginable way possible." (Photo: Facebook/ AP)

Miami: A man from the southern US state of Georgia got life in prison without possibility of parole Monday for leaving his toddler son to die in a hot car while he sent sexually explicit messages from his office.

Justin Ross Harris, 36, was given the maximum sentence after lead prosecutor Chuck Boring said 22-month-old Cooper Harris perished in "the most torturous, horrific, unimaginable way possible."

Harris has said that he forgot to drop his son off at daycare on June 18, 2014 and didn't realize he had left the boy strapped into his car seat until after he had driven for a few minutes after leaving work.

Prosecutors had argued that Harris wanted to be free of family responsibilities.

An investigation revealed that Harris had made Internet searches about life without children and how to survive prison, and watched videos of animals dying in cars in the sun.

In an unexpected twist to the case, a police detective said Harris had texted sexually explicit messages to six women, one of them as young as 17, while his son was baking to his death.

A jury three weeks ago found him guilty of charges including malice murder, cruelty to children and sexual exploitation of children -- in reference to the teenage woman he texted.

In addition to the life term for the murder charge, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark tacked on 32 years for the other crimes.

"The evidence that was presented at trial and the jury's verdict basically says it all," Boring said. "The evidence showed that this defendant was driven by selfishness and committed an unspeakable act against his own flesh and blood."

Harris, who was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with his hands and ankles shackled, declined to speak at the sentencing. He frowned throughout the proceeding but did not show any emotion as the sentence was read out.

His attorney, Maddox Kilgore, said he planned to file a motion for a new trial.

Kilgore told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month that there had been "breakdowns" throughout the judicial process.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, saying there weren't enough "aggravating factors," such as additional victims, in the unusual case.

Staley Clark said she recalled Harris had told police and his ex-wife that he hoped to be "an advocate so that people would never do this again to their children."

"I would say that, perhaps not in the way that you intended, you have in fact accomplished that goal," she said.
The target of the threatened attack was metro's Universal City station located near the Universal Studios theme park. (Photo: AFP)

Los Angeles: Authorities ratcheted up security on the Los Angeles metro following a tip from overseas about an impending bomb attack Tuesday against a station in the sprawling rail network.

The threat was relayed by an anonymous man who called a public safety line run by an unidentified foreign government, which then passed on the information to a Federal Bureau of Investigation terrorism task force, said Deirdre Fike, assistant director in charge of the FBI's office in Los Angeles.

The target of the threatened attack was metro's Universal City station located near the Universal Studios theme park where the caller who spoke English said an explosive device would go off on Tuesday, Fike told reporters at a hastily organized press conference with local authorities.

Officials said they were working to determine the credibility of the threat described as "very specific."

"The threat is imminent and it's related to tomorrow" and concerned an off-ramp at the station, Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck said.

He added that authorities had little time to assess the seriousness of the threat and because of its imminent nature had decided to move quickly and alert the public.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said the call could be real or a hoax and urged commuters to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity.

He said undercover deputies had been deployed throughout the network, along with uniformed officers, members of the bomb squad and K9 explosive detection units.

Metro officials meanwhile tweeted a simple and succinct reminder to passengers, warning them to remain alert Tuesday.

"If you see something, say something," read the Twitter message sent from the railway network's @metrolosangeles handle.

Mayor Eric Garcetti said commuters should expect to be searched, but should go about their lives as normal. He said he planned to ride the metro on Tuesday from Universal City to reassure commuters.

"My advice is right now, everybody should go about their normal day tomorrow," Garcetti said.

He added that commuters should not be frightened by the heightened security.

"Those are there for your protection, and we meet threats with every possible precaution that we can," he said.

Authorities said there was added vigilance as the threat came about during the busy holiday season when many people were out shopping or would be visiting theme parks and attractions in and around Los Angeles, including Universal Studios and Disneyland.

The Los Angeles metro system consists of six lines, including two rapid transit subway lines and four light rail lines that serve 93 stations.

The Universal City station on the metro system's Red Line has been listed as among the busiest in the network.

Some 145,000 people use that line daily, Garcetti said. The Red Line connects North Hollywood with the central and downtown Los Angeles. Last year, an emailed threat forced the closure of Los Angeles schools for a day before it was determined to be a hoax.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said yesterday that he has been charged with murder in the multiple stabbing death of his wife Rajwantie Baldeo, 46, on the streets in Queens, just after midnight. (Representational image)

New York: A 50-year-old Indian-origin man has been charged with murder for stabbing his wife to death on a street here after an argument.

Prem Rampersaud, who lives in Guyana, is temporarily residing with a friend in Queens.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said yesterday that he has been charged with murder in the multiple stabbing death of his wife Rajwantie Baldeo, 46, on the streets in Queens, just after midnight.

"This was an especially violent crime in which the defendant is accused of viciously taking the life of the woman he purportedly loved by repeatedly stabbing her following a heated verbal argument. If convicted, her brutal and senseless death merits serious punishment," Brown said in a statement.

Rampersaud is being held pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

According to the charges, Rampersaud met his wife as she finished work at a restaurant at approximately twelve midnight on December 5.

It is alleged that they got into an argument and Rampersaud stabbed Baldeo multiple times in the body, fatally wounding her.

Baldeo was taken to a local Queens hospital where she was pronounced dead.
File photo of President-elect Donald Trump, left, arrives to speak at an election night rally with his son Barron and wife Melania, in New York. (Photo: AP)

New York, United States: New York City asked the US government for up to $35 million to cover security costs for protecting President-elect Donald Trump in his home atop a Manhattan skyscraper, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.

Trump, a Republican, has spent most of his time since Election Day in his apartment at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, forcing police to work with the US Secret Service to provide intensified security measures in one of the city's busiest neighbourhoods.

The situation is "truly unusual," de Blasio said at a news conference.

Trump has used the tower for years as his primary residence and the headquarters of his global business empire. His presence there while receiving high-profile guests to interview for his administration has caused traffic jams and frustrated commuters and tourists.

De Blasio sent letters to President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders on Monday asking for federal funds to pay for security costs from the Nov. 8 election through January 20, when Trump is to take the oath of office in Washington and become the 45th US president.

The 75-day period puts the daily price tag for the New York Police Department at about $467,000. The figure is about half the $1 million daily tab previously estimated by New York media and cited in a petition by City Council members to Trump last week.

The 58-story building in the businessman's home city is close to several high-end shopping destinations, including Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany's and Louis Vuitton, and tourist attractions such as Central Park and the Museum of Modern Art.

"This is a highly-trafficked, dense urban environment, and one that presents an unprecedented and unique target for potential terrorist activity," de Blasio wrote to Congressional leaders. "No other president in modern history has had his primary residence located in such a densely-populated neighbourhood."

De Blasio said that Congress has reimbursed New York in previous years for costs related to the protection of world leaders, including foreign dignitaries, and major events such as the 2004 Republican National Convention.

The city would continue to seek appropriate reimbursement from the Trump administration after his inauguration, de Blasio said. He said he had already spoken with Trump's nominee for treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, about the matter.

Trump's wife Melania and young son plan to remain in New York for the rest of the school year, and Trump is expected to return frequently even after moving to the White House.
The vote marked the sixth time Russia has blocked a council resolution on Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, and the fifth for China. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP)

United Nations: Russia and China on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo.

Venezuela also voted against the text, while Angola abstained. The 11 other council members voted in favour.

The vote marked the sixth time Russia has blocked a council resolution on Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, and the fifth for China.

A close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow had expressed strong reservations about the text, the subject of weeks of negotiations.

In an eleventh-hour effort, Russia tried to postpone the vote until at least Tuesday, when the Americans and Russians are set to meet in Geneva.

But the text's main backers - Paris, London and Washington - decided to go ahead anyway.

Russia says the Geneva talks will concern a plan for all rebel fighters to withdraw from eastern Aleppo, under siege by the regime. But the rebels have rejected the plan.

The two sides "are close to an agreement on the basic elements," Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.

But deputy US envoy Michele Sison suggested there was no deal, accusing Churkin of using a "made-up alibi."

"We will not let Russia string along the Security Council," she added.

"We will continue bilateral negotiations (with Russia) to relieve the suffering in Aleppo, but we have not reached a breakthrough because Russia wants to keep its military gains."

Had the resolution been adopted, it would have been a "fragile glimpse of hope" and allowed to "save lives," French ambassador Francois Delattre said.

He accused Russia of having "decided to take Aleppo regardless of the human cost."

But Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi said the council "should have continued negotiations," criticising "politicisation of humanitarian issues."

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault denounced "Russian obstruction."

The veto prevents the Security Council from "assuming its responsibilities to Syria's civilian population, which faces the destructive madness of the Bashar al-Assad regime, as well as terrorist groups, starting with Daesh," he said, using a term for the Islamic State jihadist group.

"The military escalation is... a stalemate that only aggravates the population's suffering and nourishes terrorism," Ayrault added.

Human Rights Watch also condemned the veto.

"Russia seems to not want any interference with its & Iran's joint military ops with Syria military in Aleppo, despite cost to civilians," the group's UN director Louis Charbonneau tweeted.

The draft text demanded that "all parties to the Syrian conflict shall cease... any and all attacks in the city of Aleppo."

It also called for the sides to "allow urgent humanitarian needs to be addressed," meaning permitting emergency services to enter and serve tens of thousands of residents in the besieged areas.

The resolution's drafters wanted the temporary ceasefire to pave the way for a cessation of hostilities across Syria, although that would not have applied to military operations targeting "terrorist groups" such as the Islamic State group or ex-Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, previously known as Al-Nusra.
Carson had been coy about joining the new administration, saying shortly after Trump's election victory that he wasn't certain he'd fit into a Cabinet-style role. (Photo: AFP)

New York: President-elect Donald Trump, moving closer to filling his Cabinet, chose former campaign rival Ben Carson on Monday to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Trump's decision, announced by his transition office, comes as the real estate mogul continues a series of conferences with aides and others - including unlikely figures such as former Vice President Al Gore - aimed at forming his administration and its policies. He announced several Cabinet selections last week.

In a statement, Trump said he was "thrilled to nominate" Carson, describing the retired neurosurgeon as having "a brilliant mind" and being "passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities."

Carson had been coy about joining the new administration, saying shortly after Trump's election victory that he wasn't certain he'd fit into a Cabinet-style role. The discussion at that time centered on speculation that he might be selected to head the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services.

"Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country," Trump said, "and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans."

Carson would oversee a budget of nearly $50 billion that provides rental assistance for more than 5 million households. Demand for that assistance is high due to housing costs rising faster than incomes. HUD also promotes home ownership with the Federal Housing Administration underwriting about 1 in 6 mortgages issued in the U.S. The agency is also charged with enforcing federal fair housing laws.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Carson has no credentials for the job and was a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice." She said the country deserves someone with "relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters."

Carson was among the 16 Republican candidates who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination. He was a favorite of religious conservatives and a strong fundraiser, but his team burned through money quickly and he failed to win any of the early primary contests.

Trump treated Carson harshly during the primary, saying he had a "pathological temper." Still, Carson quickly endorsed Trump after he dropped out of the contest.

As a Trump supporter, Carson was both loyal and critical. He conceded that Trump had "major defects" and said at one point that he would have preferred a scenario other than Trump winning the Republican primary.

On Monday, Trump continued to receive visitors to the New York skyscraper that bears his name. His most surprising guest was Gore, the former vice president who endorsed Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the campaign's stretch run. Transition officials said early Monday that Gore would meet with Trump's daughter, Ivanka, about climate change, which is the former vice president's signature issue.

But Gore said he also met with Trump directly and the two had a "very productive conversation."

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," said Gore, who did not detail what the men discussed. The president-elect has called manmade climate change a hoax and has pledged to undo a number of regulations designed to protect the environment.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who declined to support Trump during the campaign, also visited the tower, telling reporters in the lobby he was there to discuss policy with senior aides and not meet with Trump.

Outside the building, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein vowed to forge forward with her push for a recount in three states - Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - that helped Trump win.

"Let every vote count," Stein said. "That's what makes America great."

But her news conference was repeatedly interrupted by shouts of protest. Several Trump supporters heckled the proceedings, and a disagreement broke out between attendees who were ostensibly on the same side. When one Green Party speaker who preceded Stein took repeated swipes at Clinton, several Democrats in the crowd tried to shout him down before they themselves were heckled by other Stein supporters.

Additionally, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he's asking the federal government for $35 million to cover costs related to securing Trump, who has indicated he will largely work out of Trump Tower as he builds his government ahead of his inauguration.

Trump has now expanded his pool of candidates for secretary of state, raising a question about whether former CIA Director David Petraeus' guilty plea for leaking classified information disqualifies him.

Trump's aides had confirmed that the president-elect had settled on four finalists for the post. But over the weekend, two people close to the transition told The Associated Press that Trump is moving away from two of the four: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

That would leave Petraeus as a top contender, along with Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both people close to the transition said Trump's prolonged decision-making process has left the door open to other options. Among other possibilities, one official says, is Jon Huntsman, a former Republican Utah governor who also served as the ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.

The people close to the transition spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process publicly.
The incidents are among a series of such cases of intimidation and assault that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women following Trump's win. (Photo: Representational Image)

New York: A hijab-clad New York City Transit employee was pushed down the stairs at a subway station by a man who called her a "terrorist", the latest in a series of incidents in which headscarf-wearing women have been targeted in the US following Donald Trump's win.

Soha Salama, a 45-year-old Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) station agent who was wearing a hijab with her uniform, was injured when she was pushed down the stairs at Grand Central Terminal by a man.

She was on her way to work on Monday when the man confronted her, the New York Post reported.

"You're a terrorist and you shouldn't be working for the city," the hate-monger spewed at her while the two were on a subway train, as he jabbed at her MTA patch.

He followed her off the train and pushed her down the stairs. Her ankle and knee were injured and she was taken to NYU Langone Hospital by a good Samaritan passerby, police said. She was nursing a twisted knee and a swollen ankle.

Salama, a mother of four, told WABC-TV that it is "my first time I faced something like that."

"I wasn't able to say anything. I was afraid he was going to throw me down the tracks or do more bad to me than he already did. He was like pushing me down," she was quoted as saying by media reports.

"This is the great state of New York, we welcome people of all cultures, customs and creeds with open arms," Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement about the incident that also outlined other attacks involving the MTA, including hate graffiti and literature on trains.

"We do not allow intolerance or fear to divide us because we know diversity is our strength and we are at our best when we stand united," he was quoted as saying.

His comments mirrored those made earlier by Mayor Bill de Blasio over a string of bias crimes, including one against a hijab-clad Muslim police officer who was the victim of a hate crime over the weekend.

The attack on the transit employee comes just days after a Muslim student was 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 incidents are among a series of such cases of intimidation and assault 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.
London: Making her pitch for a fourth term, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a 'burqa' ban in the country, saying the refugee crisis "must never be repeated".

"The full-face veil is not acceptable in our country. It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible," she said while addressing her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, reports the Independent.

Dutch MPs voted for a similar prohibition in the Netherlands last month, covering public transport, education, healthcare and government buildings and punishing any infractions with fines.

Support for bans on full-face veils has been growing across Europe since France became the first country to implement such a law in 2011, followed by countries including Belgium, Bulgaria and parts of Switzerland.

Merkel is running unopposed for a new term leading the CDU to launch her bid for a fourth term as German Chancellor.

Two years ago, she won the support of 96.7 per cent of party delegates, one of her best results. But, her popularity has been dented by growing anti-migrant sentiment in the country following the arrival of around one million asylum seekers in the continuing refugee crisis.

Merkel has also been widely criticised for her decision to open the borders in September 2015, with opponents blaming the policy for mass sexual assaults on New Year's Eve in Cologne and two terror attacks by Islamic State supporters.
Last September, Butt was named in a Downing Street press release about an aspect of the strategy, known as the Prevent duty, being used to stop extremists radicalising students on university campuses. (Photo: Representational image/risingkashmir.com)

London: A British-Muslim activist on Tuesday launched legal action against the UK government's anti- extremism strategy after he was labelled a "non-violent extremist".

Salman Butt took his case to the High Court accusing the government's Prevent strategy of breaching free speech rights.

Last September, Butt was named in a Downing Street press release about an aspect of the strategy, known as the Prevent duty, being used to stop extremists radicalising students on university campuses.

He was listed as one of the six speakers who gave talks on campuses and was said to have views that violated British values, such as democracy, free speech, equality and the rule of law. The 31-year-old denies holding views contrary to British values.

"I'm a father of three, I'm a British-Muslim, a writer, an activist. I am not an extremist, either violent or non-violent. Being labelled as some kind of extremist does have a stigmatising effect. I have not spoken at any universities since I was named in the (Downing Street) press release," he told BBC.

"My aim isn't just to clear my name, it is to bring transparency to the hidden processes by which individuals are tarnished with the label of an extremist, to ensure it is brought into the scrutiny of the courts," he said.

Earlier this year, a High Court judge ruled Butt had an arguable case against the UK Home Office, and permission was granted to take the judicial review case to a full hearing, which starts this week.

Butt's lawyers are challenging part of the Prevent strategy that aims to stop people becoming or supporting terrorists.

"The Prevent duty guidance issued to higher education institutions is flawed because it conflicts with the right to free speech which is enshrined in the Education Act for higher education institutions," said Saimo Chahal from Bindmans LLP.

"The challenge, if successful, could have major implications for the controversial policy as it applies to universities and higher education," she said.

The hearing this week is scheduled for three days.

"It would be inappropriate to comment on ongoing legal proceedings," a UK Home Office spokesperson said.
During his visit to Britain, travelling from Syria via Turkey, Abrini said he collected the money and visited casinos in Birmingham and in Manchester, northwest England. (Photo: Representational Image/AP)

London: A British court on Tuesday convicted a Belgian man living in Birmingham of giving money to Brussels and Paris terror attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini.

Zakaria Boufassil handed 3,000 ($3,770, 3,550 euros) in cash to Abrini when the latter visited the city in central England in July 2015, with the knowledge that it would be used for terrorism, the court found.

Testifying at Kingston Crown Court in London last week, the 26-year-old admitted to meeting Abrini and to holding the money for his conspirator, Mohamed Ali Ahmed, but said he had "no idea" of its intended use.

Abrini, dubbed the "man in the hat" for his image caught on security cameras before the Brussels airport bombing, was questioned by Belgian investigators in April over his suspected involvement in the Brussels attacks in March and the Paris attacks in November 2015.

During his visit to Britain, travelling from Syria via Turkey, Abrini said he collected the money and visited casinos in Birmingham and in Manchester, northwest England.

"I am a player, a fan of casinos. It's my addiction, I play roulette, poker and the slot machines," he said, according to transcripts of his interrogation that were read out in the British court.

But he denied the money was used for terrorism, saying it was "too small a sum", adding, "To carry out attacks you need lots of money."

Ahmed, also from Birmingham, had pleaded guilty to handing over the money last month and Boufassil said Ahmed had taken "advantage of my naivety".

Speaking in French through a translator, Boufassil said last week he gave the money to Ahmed in a park in Birmingham, and stayed there smoking while he and Abrini went elsewhere.

"He never told me that the person who was coming to get the money was a bad person. Had I known it I would never have kept the money," Boufassil said.

As a follower of Sufism, a mystic Islamic order that is viewed as heretical by hardline militant groups, Boufassil condemned the Islamic State group.

"For me, those people are worse than animals," he said.

Boufassil, who also admitted to being a regular cannabis user, struggled to remember dates and times in cross-examination.
With her mother's help, Bana al-Abed had been posting heart-rending tweets in English on life in the besieged eastern districts of Syria's Aleppo. (Photo: Twitter)

Aleppo: A seven-year-old Syrian girl whose Twitter account from Aleppo gained international attention has fled her home amid heavy fighting, but she and her family are safe for now, her father told AFP Tuesday.

With her mother's help, Bana al-Abed had been posting heart-rending tweets in English on life in the besieged eastern districts of Syria's Aleppo.

But as Syrian government forces edged closer to their home in recent days, the Abed family fled and the Twitter updates slowed.

"Our house was damaged in bombardment," her father Ghassan said by phone from east Aleppo, two-thirds of which has been seized by advancing government forces.

"The army got really close to our neighbourhood. We fled to another part of east Aleppo and the family is doing well," he said, adding that "the internet connection is very weak here."

Since late September, Bana and her mother Fatemah have garnered more than 211,000 followers by tweeting regular updates on battered Aleppo.

Pictures of massive white columns of smoke, captioned "Aleppo right now. We (are) so scared," are interspersed with shots of Bana reading or scrawling in a notebook.

The account captured the attention of novelist JK Rowling, who responded to a picture of Bana poring over an electronic copy of the "Harry Potter" series.

On November 29, Bana's account tweeted a photograph of a heavily damaged building, with the caption: "This is our house, My beloved dolls died in the bombing of our house. I am very sad but happy to be alive."

Several days later, Bana wrote that she was sick: "I have no medicine, no home, no clean water. This will make me die even before a bomb kill me."

Many of the tweets have included cries for help, but the messages grew increasingly desperate at the weekend.

On Sunday night, Fatemah posted: "We are sure the army is capturing us now. We will see each other another day dear world. Bye."

The account fell silent for 24 hours, prompting concerned followers to launch a #WhereisBana hashtag.

An update followed on Monday night, reading: "Under attack. Nowhere to go, every minute feels like death. Pray for us. Goodbye - Fatemah."

Online supporters of President Bashar al-Assad have bashed the account and sent Bana and her mother death threats.

And in an October interview with Danish broadcaster TV2, Assad alleged that footage posted by Bana was "promoted by the terrorists or their supporters."

"It's a game now, a game of propaganda, it's a game of media. You can see anything, and you can be sympathetic with every picture and every video you see. But our mission as a government is to deal with the reality," he said.
Rohingya from Myanmar make their way in an alley at an unregistered refugee camp in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. (Photo: AP)

Dhaka: Around 21,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks to escape violence in neighbouring Myanmar, an official of the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday.

Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border trying to stem the tide of refugees who have been fleeing a bloody crackdown by Myanmar's army in the western state of Rakhine since early October.

But Sanjukta Sahany, head of the IOM office in Bangladesh's southeastern district of Cox's Bazar which borders Rakhine, said around 21,000 members of the stateless ethnic minority had crossed over in the past two months.

The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements, official refugee camps and villages, said Sahany.

"An estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Cox's Bazar district between October 9 and December 2," she told AFP by phone.

"It is based on the figures collected by UN agencies and international NGOs" (non-governmental organisations).

Those interviewed by AFP inside Bangladesh had horrifying stories of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's security forces.

Analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse but also has banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from accessing the area.
Chinese General Zhao Zongqi congratulated General Qamar Javed Bajwa on his assuming command of Pakistan army. (Photo: ANI)

Rawalpindi: The commander of China's People's Liberation Army, Western Theatre, General Zhao Zongqi Commaon met chief of army Staff of Pakistan General Qamar Javed Bajwa at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Chinese General Zhao Zongqi congratulated General Qamar Javed Bajwa on his assuming command of Pakistan army.

During the meeting, both discussed matters of regional security and professional interest.

The Chinese general lauded the Pakistan army's achievements in the fight against terrorism and continued efforts for regional peace and stability.

General Bajwa reaffirmed the Pakistan army's unwavering support for CPEC security.

Earlier on arrival at the general headquarters, a smartly turned out contingent of Pakistan army presented guard of honour to the visiting dignitary.

The Chinese General laid a floral wreath at Yadgar-e-Shuhada in homage to the martyrs of Pakistan army.
According to FO, Pakistans nuclear security arrangements have been recognised at the international level by several high ranking officials and experts. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday claimed it has established a comprehensive and effective national nuclear security regime which is at par with the latest international standards and guidelines.

A brochure outlining Pakistan's nuclear security regime was distributed to delegates attending the second Ministerial Nuclear Security Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna this week, Foreign Office said.

"Pakistan has established a comprehensive and effective national nuclear security regime which is at par with the latest international standards and guidelines," it said.

"The regime is based on an extensive legislative and regulatory framework governing the security of nuclear material, radioactive substances, associated facilities and activities. This is backed by strong institutions and organizations with the requisite authorities, resources and trained manpower for effective implementation," it said.

FO said that Pakistan keeps its nuclear security systems and measures under constant review and continues to invest in relevant technologies and human resources.

Pakistan has also established an independent nuclear regulatory authority with wide-ranging regulatory and inspection mandate, it added.

According to FO, Pakistans nuclear security arrangements have been recognised at the international level by several high ranking officials and experts.
Beijing: Donald Trump is a "diplomatic rookie" who must learn not to cross Beijing on issues like trade and Taiwan, Chinese state media said on Tuesday, warning America could pay dearly for his naivety.

Trump's protocol-shattering call with Taiwan's president and a subsequent Twitter tirade against Beijing's policies could risk upending the delicate balance between the world's two largest economies, major media outlets said.

"Provoking friction and messing up China-US relations won't help 'make America great again'", said a front-page opinion piece in the overseas edition of Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily.

The nationalist Global Times newspaper's Chinese edition also ran a page-one story on Trump's "inability to keep his mouth shut", damning his "provocation and falsehoods".

Trump fired off two tweets on Sunday blasting China for devaluing its currency, taxing US imports, and building military installations in the South China Sea.

The comments followed criticism of Trump in US and Chinese media for taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that flew in the face of nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and raised questions about whether the president-elect intends to pursue a hard line against Beijing.

Official reaction from Beijing has been muted, but China often uses state media to telegraph its policy positions, sometimes employing rhetoric beyond the diplomatic pale.

The Global Times' English-language edition filled its opinion pages with editorials slamming the president-elect.

The often brittle, provocative publication is not considered "official" media, but has close ties to the ruling party.

Noting that Sino-US relations had reached a delicate equilibrium thanks to years of careful management, an editorial in the paper warned that Trump "can make a lot of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game," adding that he "doesn't have sufficient resources" to be provocative with China.

"Trump's China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it," it said.

"He is trying to pillage other countries for US prosperity," it warned, but instead he will unwittingly "smash the current world economic order" of which the US is the "biggest beneficiary."

A companion commentary warned that Trump "will in time learn not to cross China", threatening "a fierce competition" with Beijing if the US increases arm sales to Taiwan.

It was illustrated by an editorial cartoon showing an eagle throwing pebbles at a large, scowling panda. Meanwhile the English-language China Daily newspaper warned that "diplomatic rookie" Trump needs to moderate his behaviour or he will create "costly troubles for his country".

"As president-elect, Trump can expect some forgiveness even when he is shooting from the hip. But things will be different when he becomes president.
The Indo-US relations will become an important part of President-elect Donald Trump's diplomacy to "suppress" China, but it will have limited impact on Beijing as New Delhi may not accept a "quasi-alliance" with Washington to retain its independent foreign policy, the Chinese state media commented today.





"US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trump's diplomacy. With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India," an article in the state-run Global Times said today.



"However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease," it said.



"As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes," the article said, assessing policies options for Trump after he takes over the Presidency next month said.



"Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and India's concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China," the article titled 'Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi' said.



"In other words, the US attempts of establishing a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China may not be accepted by India as the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition," it said.



When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said.



"his will reduce India's trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to," it said. "To sum up, US-Indian relations during Trump's term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trump's adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China," it said.



"Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on China's influence on regional trade," it said. Chinese official media began attacking Trump after his tweets yesterday questioning for the first time after his election, Chinas currency devaluation and the Beijings claims on South China Sea.



"Trump's reckless remarks against a major power (China) show his lack of experience in diplomacy. He may have overestimated the power of the US. He may have already been obsessed with the power he is about to have a grip on, and wishes the whole world should follow his lead," an editorial in the same newspaper said.



"He may also believe that if China, the biggest power after the US, is awed by Washington, it will solve all other problems. No matter what Trump thinks, China must be determined to upset his unreasonable requests at his early time in office, and fight back if his moves harm China's interests, regardless of the consequences to the dynamics of the Sino-US relationship," it said.



"If China behaves soft-heartedly for the greater good of the bilateral ties, it will only embolden Trump to be more aggressive," it said. "Trump's China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it. Trump wants to revive US economy, but he knows that his country is not as competitive as it used to be. He is trying to pillage other countries for the prosperity of the US," it said.



"China should brace itself for the possible fluctuations of the Sino-US relationship after Trump is sworn in. We must confront Trump's provocations head-on, and make sure he won't take advantage of China at the beginning of his tenure. This initial period will set the foundation for the Sino-US elationship in the next four years," it said.
Leaders across the political spectrum today paid glowing tributes to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, describing her as a "towering figure" in Indian politics.



Lauding the leadership qualities and administrative abilities of Jayalalithaa as "outstanding", Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that as leader of AIADMK and as a four-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa had a "unique and deep empathy with the needs and hope of people".



"Congress Party, my family and I personally share the grief and pain of the people of Tamil Nadu and her devoted supporters in AIADMK, who have lost their beloved Amma."



"She was a towering figure in our national and political life who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state and her dedication to the honour of India," she said.



In her condolence message, Sonia said Jayalalithaa lived her entire life with the same indomitable courage with which she battled her last illness.



"Whether it was her welfare schemes for the rural and urban poor or her swift measures in the aftermath of Tsunami or her vision for TN's industrial development, her leadership qualities and administrative abilities were truly outstanding," she said.



Condoling her demise, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said, "We lost a great leader. Women, farmers, fishermen and the marginalised dreamt through her eyes.We will miss Jayalalithaa ji, Amma to millions".



Mourning the demise of his Tamil Nadu counterpart, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced one-day state mourning in the state as a mark of respect to the departed leader.



In a condolence message, Kumar said Jayalalithaa's demise has caused an irreparable loss in the fields of politics, society and art and culture not only in the state of Tamil Nadu, but the entire country.



Paying rich tributes to Jayalalithaa, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad described her as a pro-poor, popular, bold and result-oriented leader of the country.



"Deeply saddened to hear demise of #Amma, a Pro-poor, Popular, Bold, Strong and result oriented Leader of country. Truly u wil be dearly missed," he said in a post on Twitter.



"My sincere prayers and thoughts are with people of Tamil Nadu, well wishers and family. #Amma did a lot for marginalized, farmers and poor. RIP," he said in another post.



"Sincerely and humbly request people of AIADMK and Tamil Nadu to bear this huge loss with courage. #Jayalalithaa has left a huge blank in politics," the RJD supremo said.



In her condolence message, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti described Jayalalithaa as a "mass leader who fought for her people".



She said the late leader was one of the learned politicians of the country. Expressing grief, BJP veteran L K Advani said Jayalalithaa was a dominant political personality from Tamil Nadu and a very popular and dynamic leader of the poor and downtrodden.



"She had tremendous will power and carved a special niche for herself in the politics," he said, recalling that the former film actor was referred as "the queen of Tamil cinema".



Delhi's Lt Governor Najeeb Jung said in his condolence message that Jayalalithaa was an extraordinary politician with exceptional administrative skills.



"She was one of the greatest political leaders of contemporary India and was a source of inspiration to many. In her sad demise, India has lost a unique leader, who touched the lives of millions of people. She was an extraordinary politician with exceptional administrative skills and immense following, which made her a distinct leader in Indian politics."



Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan described Jayalalithaa as a symbol of "women's empowerment".



"Jayalalithaa was not only the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, but also a respected leader of the entire nation. She was the symbol of women's empowerment," Chouhan said before leaving for Chennai to pay his respects to the departed leader.



In his condolence message, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das said with her charismatic leadership, she took Tamil Nadu on the path of development.



Her relation with the people was strong, Das said, adding the country lost a leader whose replacement was not possible.



Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said her death is a "great loss" to the Tamil society.



He said the way Jayalalithaa emerged as the political heir to late M G Ramachandran from being an actress was "inspirational".



"At a time when women entering politics was rare, Jayalalithaa created a political history in contemporary Tamil Nadu politics by becoming AIADMK's General Secretary and later as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," Rao said.



Rao directed Telangana ministers T Harish Rao and N Narasimha Reddy to attend the funeral of the departed leader.



Condoling the demise of Jayalalithaa, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, "I am saddened by the demise of Jayalalithaaji. It was a shock for all of us."



"She had been a great, popular leader. I pay homage on behalf of the state of Goa. May her soul rest in peace," the he said.



Describing Jayalalithaa's demise as a "national loss", Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who would be attending the AIADMK supremo's funeral, today said she was the leader of the masses and had made immense contribution to the development and welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu.



Moving the obituary motion on Jayalalithaa's death, in the Assembly, Patnaik described her as the 'Iron Lady' of Tamil Nadu. The House was adjourned for the day after paying tributes to the departed leader.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu mourned the demise of Jayalalithaa. In his condolence message, Khandu expressed his grief of losing "one of the most charismatic, influential and dedicated leaders ever produced by the country".



"Lovingly called Amma, who worked for the poor and the downtrodden she left behind a political legacy to cherish," Khandu said.



"I believe, leaving this mortal world will not diminish the love and affection showered on her by the people and her soul will remain immortal," the chief minister said.



Khandu also prayed to Lord Buddha to bestow O Pannerselvam, who was sworn in as the Chief Minister hours after Jayalalithaa's demise, with the strength to bear the irreparable loss.



Gujarat Governor O P Kohli and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani today paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa.



Expressing heartfelt condolences for the popular Chief Moinister of Tamil Nadu, Rupani in his message said she made a special place in the heart of every citizen of southern state.

Her death is a great loss to not just her party AIADMK, but also for all the people of Tamil Nadu, he said.



Expressing deep grief over the death of the 67-year-old Chief Minister, Kohli stated in his condolence message that she was a multi-talented human being and a popular leader of Tamil Nadu.



Citizens will always remember her pro-people work, he said. Describing Jayalalithaa as "people-friendly charismatic leader", West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee her demise is a "big loss". She urged the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK to face this big loss with courage and greatness.



"Popular, strong, bold, efficient, Amma. Always at the heart of people. I am shocked, saddened," Banerjee said in her message. Two TMC MPs - Derek Obrien and Kalyan Benerjee will attend the funeral in Chennai.
Russia has strongly protested with India on cash shortage affecting the working of its Mission after demonetisation, and wants a quick resolution of the issue, failing which it may explore other options including summoning Indian diplomat in Moscow.





In a letter, Russian Ambassador Alaxander Kadakin has raised the issue of diplomats not being able to withdraw enough money hampering the normal functioning of the mission and sought intervention of the External Affairs Ministry so that the withdrawal restrictions for diplomatic staff are lifted.



"We are awaiting a reply from the MEA and hope that this is resolved quickly. Otherwise, we will be forced to explore other options which may include raising the issue in Moscow with your Embassy by summoning Indian Minister Counsellor," a senior Russian embassy official said here.



Other options may also include restriction on the cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats posted in Russia, the official indicated.



There are approximately 200 staffers in Russian mission here.

There was no immediate reaction from the Indian side on the complaint.

Earlier, the Dean of Diplomatic Corps had also raised the issue, complaining about the problems faced by the missions. It is also understood that some other countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also protested to the ministry.



After the demonetization last month, MEA had said it has approached Department of Economic Affairs over three or four types of requests including those related to maintaining sufficient flow of funds to diplomatic missions following the demonetization and was awaiting a decision from it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inspired veteran cartoonist Uday Shankar to express his own Mann ki Baat - not through spoken words but through the premiers caricature on demonetisation.



Kolkata-born Uday Shankar has drawn a special caricature of Modi who is shown wearing a traditional jacket designed with a collage of the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes  a satirical reminder of the Prime Ministers controversial gold-yarn pinstriped suit he wore to receive former US President Barack Obama.



Some time ago, Uday Shankars chance meeting with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inspired him to draw and gift him his caricature.



An impressed Chief Minister later roped him in for training government school teachers and students in two-dimension animation using smart phones and self-drawn sketches.



The veteran cartoonist recalls how Kejriwal reacted when he gifted him his caricature to him. He the caricature looked just like him, said Uday Shankar, who has held 126 animation workshops for school teachers and students from across the country, including Delhi government schools.



The cartoonist with over two decades of experience in working in newspapers and magazines has even made caricatures of Presidents of India but is yearning to share his Mann ki baat with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



I have sent an email request to his office and hope that Modiji spares some time for personally receive his caricature, said Uday Shankar.



Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, who was also gifted a caricature by Shankar, has now proposed to involve him for conducting training programmes for arts students in all schools.



Ever since animation has been included in the curriculum of Class 12 students by the NCERT, there is an increased interest in the art, said Uday Shankar.



I also made promotion material for the odd-even road rationing drive of the government earlier, he said.




Several chief ministers today arrived here to pay their last respects to J Jayalalithaa and hailed their late Tamil Nadu counterpart for being a leader of the masses whose demise has left a "vacuum in public life" that cannot be filled.





Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Jayalalithaa's efforts for the betterment of her state's women made her 'Amma' (mother) in the truest sense.



"What she did for women, the mothers and daughters, made her Amma (mother). Her demise has left a vacuum in public life which cannot be filled," he said.



Paying tributes, Chouhan hailed Jayalalithaa's welfare schemes for the people of Tamil Nadu. He said many states were intending to replicate the various welfare schemes introduced by Jayalalithaa.



Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called Jayalalithaa a leader of the poor.

"She was a sensitive leader, brave leader, her heart beat for the common people. In Indian political system, it is difficult to fill the vacuum. People of Delhi are also grieved over her death and I bring my condolences," he said here.



Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in his condolence message said Jayalalithaa made immense contribution to the development and welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu.



"I am deeply shocked by the sad demise of J Jayalalithaa. She was the leader of the masses and made immense contribution to the development and welfare for the people of Tamil Nadu," he said.



Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also paid tributes to the 67-year-old leader, who passed away last night after battling for life for 75 days.



Senior BJP leader and Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said Jayalalithaa's death was an "irreparable loss" to Tamil Nadu.



"She has lived in the hearts of people, and living in the hearts of people. People of Tamil Nadu consider her as a mother and fondly called her Amma and Amma means so much affection," he said.



The entire country was mourning her demise, Naidu added.

"Entire nation believes that we lost a dynamic, courageous bold administrator and an excellent public leader who had won hearts of the people," he said.



Naidu said he and his cabinet colleague Pon Radhakrishnan had been deputed by the Centre to participate in the final rites of the AIADMK leader and the funeral in Chennai.
Leaders from countries that have a significant Tamil population like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, including Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, today condoled J Jayalalithaa's demise with the diaspora grieving the loss of their beloved leader.



"Chief Minister (Tamil Nadu) Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India's Tamil community".



Rajapaksa, during his presidency, had invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions. Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka. While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.



The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to pressure New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils. Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan is travelling to Chennai to pay tributes to Jayalalithaa.



Balakrishnan will be travelling with his Ministry officials, a government statement said.

According to official statistics, 74 per cent of Singapore's population is of Chinese ethnicity, while 13 per cent are of Malay heritage and 9 per cent of Indian, including Tamils.



In Singapore, Tamil is an official language along with English, Mandarin and Malay.Foreign Affairs Minister Balakrishnan was also born to a Tamil father. In Malaysia, the country's largest ethnic Indian party condoled Jayalalitha's demise, describing her as a "super woman".



"As we all know, the late J Jayalalithaa was a charismatic leader and had done a lot for the Indian people, especially concerning for welfare of the poor, the women and the marginalised community," said Vel Paari, Treasurer General of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and son of Samy Vellu, who served as MIC president for almost three decades.



Malaysia's Senate President S A Vigneswaran also expressed condolences over Jayalalithaa's death.



"I am very sad. All (of us) knew Jayalalithaa. She was also a famous actress. Hope the people (of Tamil Nadu) will be calm," he said.



Malaysia's 28 million population comprises 8 per cent ethnic Indians a majority of whom are Hindu Tamils. Their ancestors came to Malaysia more than 100 years ago and many were brought by the British.



In South Africa, the South African Tamil Federation (SATF) has called on all its affiliates across the country to host special prayer services for the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, describing her as "a friend of the Tamil community worldwide".
Taking on the Tatas once again, ousted Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry said that the huge capital employed in Tata Steels European operations posed a risk to the group.





The total capital employed in Tata Steel Europe grew from Rs 67,000 crore in FY12 to over Rs 93,500 crore in FY15. The amount of capital earning negative returns posed a risk to the overall group, Mistry said in a representation to the board of directors of Tata Steel ahead of the companys EGM on December 21.



There have been insinuations that the board of Tata Steel only looked at our UK investments through a short-term financial lens. This is furthest from the truth, as can be gauged from our continued investments in these assets, as well as the significant amount of management bandwidth devoted to optimise operations, Mistry said.


Member of Legislative Council Motamma rued that Dalits continue to remain backward owing to divide and rule policy adopted by the political parties. Speaking after inaugurating Mahila Parivarthan convention here on Tuesday, Motamma said that Dalit bodies and leaders were not waging a unified struggle to secure rights for Dalits. In a way, we are all responsible for the deprivation Dalits are suffering. It has still not been possible to bring them to the mainstream. It will not be possible for Dalits to identify themselves in society, like other castes, if they do not joint the mainstream, she said.



Motamma said that Dalits should support such political parties which effectively implement policies meant for women and Dalit uplift. Development is a mirage unless people acquire knowledge and exercise discretion. The MLC said that women should ensure their children get education without fail. Only education can ensure bright future for children. It alters the course of Dalits life. The ideals and principles enunciated by Ambedkar should be followed in letter and spirit.



Indira Gandhi, during her tenure as prime minister brought 20-point programme for the welfare of common masses. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should be lauded for his programme to extend loans to women at zero interest. Motamma said that Jayalalithaa had created history by launching a slew of measures which immensely benefitted the poor. She is an example for people-friendly administration.



The MLC said that recently, the state government has passed an order making SSLC mandatory for the posts of cooking assistants and helpers in government hostels. But, this was vehemently opposed in the Council and pressure was brought on the government to withdraw the rule.



Bahujana Sangha state president Nagaraj said that women had the strength to build society and they should provided education on a par with men. Dalit leaders T Vijay Kumar, Republican Party of India state youth cell president Ambareesh and others were present.




India is not doing enough to protect its youngest citizens. According to Vital Statistics of India based on Civil Registration System 2014 report, around 1.89 lakh infants died in 2014 and around 80,190 of them were girls. Though there was a reduction in the number of infant deaths - 1.87 lakh infants died the previous year, including 80,609 girls  the drop was very marginal. Several of Indias most prosperous districts, including Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Bengaluru registered the highest number of infant deaths in 2014. Mumbai and Ahmedabad lead the country in the number of infant girl deaths too, with Bengaluru not far behind. The actual number of infant deaths in 2014 is likely to be far higher than reported. For one, the report does not include figures from Jharkhand. Additionally, the report deals with registered deaths only. Although the number of people registering infant deaths has grown over the years, around 25% of infant deaths continue to go unreported, the 2014 report points out. Non-registration of infant deaths is particularly serious in rural India; registered rural infant deaths were just 31.4% of total infant deaths in the country in 2014. Besides, stillbirths are not counted as neo-natal deaths in India.



India has been successful in halving the infant mortality rate (IMR) over the last 25 years. Between 1990 and 2015, the countrys IMR dipped from 80 infant deaths per 1,000 live birth to 39 in 2015. While the drop is impressive, an IMR of 40 per 1,000 is still too high

especially since many of these deaths are preventable. India contributes more than any other country to global under-5 and newborn deaths.



Some 80% of all newborn deaths in India result from three treatable conditions  complications during childbirth (including birth asphyxia), newborn infections, and complications associated with premature deaths. Besides neo-natal health conditions, other factors that contribute to poor health and thus the death of newborns, are illiteracy, poverty, poor maternal health and nutrition. Another main reason for the large number of neo-natal deaths in India is that a large number of deliveries (67%) take place without skilled personnel in attendance. Studies indicate that the presence of trained healthcare providers at the time of birth can substantially increase a newborns chances of survival. Just teaching a new mother thermal care practices  that is, how to wrap newborns to prevent exposure to cold, for instance - can save the lives of

many infants. India has around 9 lakh Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), who are playing a crucial role in improving neo-natal health. Their numbers need to be increased. Importantly, the India Newborn Action Plan and the Janani Suraksha Yojana deserve more attention.
Bishop Cotton Girls School in Bengaluru, on Tuesday, mourned the death of one of its most illustrious alumnae, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.





Cut-outs of Amma were put up in front and at the back gate of the school. A prayer session for the ex-Cottonian was conducted at the school auditorium in the morning. From teachers, maintenance staff to security guards, everybody associated with the school took part in the prayer and offered their condolences.



Sarayu Perumal, an ex-Cottonian and currently, the president of the Old Girls Association, said, She studied here from class II to class IV. She was a shy student and it is amazing how she turned into a powerful politician and independent woman. She is an inspiration to the youth. The Association keeps track of all eminent alumni of the school.



Shobha V and Manjula S B, who work in the maintenance department at the school, said that they felt proud to be associated with the school. She is like our mother and not just Amma for Tamil Nadu, they said.Jayalalithaa studied in the school from 1955-1958, according to the Association. Sarayu said that the school had ordered for a framed picture of the former chief minister, following her death. It will be placed in an eminent place on the school premises, I am sure, she said.



A memorial meeting will be held at the school assembly grounds 2 pm onwards on Wednesday. Sources said ex-Cottonians who studied with the former chief minister will share their thoughts about her.



Used to send bday goodies

The administration staff and former students fondly recall how Jayalalithaa used to celebrate her birthday on February 24 every year by despatching sweet boxes to the school.

From the early 2000s, Jayalalithaa used to send sweetmeat every year, without fail. There are over 4,300 girls and 262 staff here and everyone used to get the sweets, sent by her through party workers, said a school staffer.




The day after the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa passed off peacefully in Bengaluru, giving relief to the city police who were on their toes.





As soon as reports came in of Jayalalithaas deteriorating health on Sunday night, the Bengaluru police were put on alert and patrolling was intensified. All the DCPs were asked to ensure proper vigil in localities with significant Tamil-speaking population, a senior police officer said.



The vigil was further intensified when Jayalalithaas death was announced around Monday midnight, and the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) was deployed across the city. A KSRP platoon was deployed at the Bangalore Tamil Sangam and the Thiruvalluvar statue near Halasuru lake.



Luckily for police, Tuesday proved to be uneventful, though the situation was tense at Attibele located on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border. Most commercial establishments there were closed. A local police officer said it was undeclared curfew.



All roads leading to Tamil Nadu saw low traffic. Along with the regular police force, around 17 KSRP platoons were deployed. There are 16 roads that lead to Tamil Nadu from Bengaluru, Kolar and KGF. Tight security was in place on all these roads, said Seemant Kumar Singh, IGP, Central. Traffic on these roads was less in the morning, but the situation returned to normal in the evening. Shops and offices opened only in the afternoon, he added.



Another senior police officer said that fewer vehicles bearing Karnataka registration numbers were headed for Tamil Nadu. Many motorists decided not to take chances fearing attacks. Buses plied till Attibele, forcing travellers to use private vehicles or just walk over to Tamil Nadu. Police Commissioner N S Megharikh said the vigil would remain in place for another day and the checks would continue.


Condoling the death of his Tamil Nadu counterpart J Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in his message hailed her as one of the tallest personalities, not only in Tamil cinema, but also in Tamil Nadu politics.





Siddaramaiah, who flew to Chennai on a special flight and paid tributes to Jayalalithaas mortal remains, recalled how the latter carved a niche for herself in the hearts and minds of people initially, through her performances in more than 140 films.



He recalled that she had also acted in Kannada films namely, Sri Shaila Mahathme, Chinnada Gombe, Amarashilpi Jakanachari, Badukuva Daari, Mavana Magalu, Mane Aliya and Nanna Kartavya.



Later, her entry into politics saw her serving as a propaganda secretary of the AIADMK, and Rajya Sabha member. As the youngest chief minister of Tamil Nadu, she gained appreciation for her cradle baby scheme, which was launched to counter female foeticide and infanticide.



Toughness in administration, strict discipline in party affairs, pro-people and popular schemes like Amma Canteen, Amma Water and Amma Scooty created an ocean of admirers for her. All these have now created an environment in Tamil Nadu, which is not ready to accept that she is no more. This reflects her impact on the people, he said.
Mourning the loss of their leader J Jayalalithaa, people gathered in groups in areas like Srirampuram, Okalipuram, Gandhinagar, Kalasipalyam, Binny Mills and Halasuru.





Party workers of the city chapter of AIADMK gathered near the Sunrise Arunachalam Circle in Srirampuram and prayed to immortalise her memory.



She was compassionate to the needy and an able administrator. Her loss has been a great shock to us. We will always remember her, said Velu, an AIADMK party worker.



Puja was performed to a large cutout of Jayalalithaa near the Amma canteen in Kalasipalyam. She did a lot for the development of women and children and for education. Nobody can replace her, said Sharavanan, a resident of Srirampuram.



Some Tamil-speaking people also donated their days earnings to the needy, following the path of their idol Jayalalithaa. People sang songs composed in her memory, to show their sorrow and affection. The Bangalore Tamil Sangham in Halasuru held a condolence meeting in the evening. Around 120 people, representing Congress, BJP, All India Tamil Federation and other associations gathered.



She was like God to the poor in Tamil Nadu. She was an iron lady and encouraged social workers. Her demise is a great loss to us, said



G Damodaran, president of Bangalore Tamil Sangham. He recollected his personal interaction with her eight years ago when they had gone to hand over a cheque for Rs 1 lakh for tsunami relief work.






Jayalalithaa never left the issue to be handled by her ministers or aides. Instead, she herself used to pursue the case aggressively, realising a minor slip would be exploited by her political opponents to instigate people against her regime. To achieve that, she kept every movement of officials negotiating in Delhi under the shadow of her state intelligence spies, said an official who worked in her regime. When she was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in September due to ill health, she did not allow her failing health to upstage sensitivities on water sharing concerns, said a senior state officer.





She even held a meeting with officials at the hospital and gave precise directions on how the state should argue its case on the Cauvery issue. This was to prepare her team to put its best foot forward during a meeting Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti convened with the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on sharing of water on September 29.





She was quick in taking decisions. She knew what the state wanted and advised the officials accordingly to pursue it, said another officer who was working in the Tamil Nadu government.





She never stuck to a particular advocate for long to argue on Cauvery, rather she would always change them, said the official. Among the directions to them was to remain away from the media since Jayalalithaa was of the view that no news was good news as far as reporting water disputes were concerned.

Jayalalithaas iron lady image reflected in the way she protected the states interest in water disputes, be it Cauvery or Mullaperiyar. Knowing well, the peoples emotional connect with water related issues and its political impact on Tamil Nadu, she kept the states legal team as well as bureaucrats on their toes whenever the dispute came up in tribunal, court or before the Central government, fondly recalled state officials negotiating water issues.
The high court has granted anticipatory bail to Prof K S Rangappa, Vice Chancellor of the University of Mysore. He is booked in a case of financial irregularities in the Karnataka State Open University, when he was the vice chancellor. Rangappa contended that Rs 95 lakh was released for the purchase of computers in accordance with rules.





He stated that the amount was released after he demitted the office and that there were no allegations against him in the report submitted to the governor.



Jayalakshmipuram police in Mysuru had registered an FIR against Rangappa and others. HC has directed Rangappa to co-operate with the police in the investigation.




BMRCL has called for two separate tenders at a total estimated cost of Rs 1,336.82 crore. The expected time of completion is 27 months from the date of awarding work order. The BMRCL has named the line from Baiyappanahalli station to Visvesvaraya Industrial Area station as Reach - 1 (A) while the stretch from Kundalahalli to Whitefield is termed Reach - 1 (B).





On December 1, BMRCL had floated a separate tender for the construction of elevated structures (viaduct) and stations from Visvesvaraya Industrial Area Station (excluding) to Whitefield Station (including). The 7.21-km stretch consists of seven elevated stations - Kundanahalli, Vydehi Hospital, Sri Satya Sai Hospital, ITPL, Kadugodi, Ujwala Vidyalaya and Whitefield at an estimated to cost Rs 666.12 crore.





This time, BMRCL has not waited for the completion of the tedious land acquisition process to call for tenders. The tender process, which involves selection of contractor to undertake construction work takes a minimum of four to five months. In the meantime, we will take the required land into our possession. We hope to start work by mid-2017, a BMRCL official told DH.





Another challenge ahead for the BMRCL is to mobilise funds for the Whitefield project in the next two to three years. Other than the contribution from state and Central governments, the BMRCL has received Rs 1,504 crore as long-term loan from Agence Francaise de Developpement (French Development Agency) for Namma Metro Phase-II project. Under its second phase, the corporation has already taken up civil work on Mysuru Road-Kengeri and Yelachenahalli-Kanakapura Road.





BMRCL has also approached several financial institutions, including Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau, a German government-owned development bank. Negotiations are also on with Japan International Cooperation Agency, Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank, the tender document stated.

To speed up work on construction of the Whitefield Metro corridor, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) has decided take up civil work in two packages. On Tuesday, BMRCL floated a tender for the construction of elevated structures from Baiyappanahalli station (excluding) to Visvesvaraya Industrial Area Station (including). The 8.03-km corridor will consist of six elevated stations - Jyothipuram, KR Puram, Mahadevapura, Garudacharpalya, Doddanekkundi Industrial Area and Visvesvaraya Industrial Area. The package is estimated to cost Rs 670.72 crore.




The KSPCB will ask the common biomedical waste treatment facilities (CBWTF) and hospitals to instal GPS in their vehicles. A CBWTF is a set-up where biomedical waste, generated from healthcare units, is given necessary treatment to reduce its possible adverse effects. The board will have a monitoring system to remotely track the vehicles location.





Speaking to DH, Lakshman, chairman, KSPCB, stressed the need for a strict monitoring mechanism for vehicles that transport biomedical waste. There are vehicles that collect biomedical waste from hospitals and dump it near the NICE Road junction. We served notice on the hospital after the matter was brought to our attention. Such unscientific disposal could be hazardous, he said. In the past, vehicles have been caught dumping waste on open sites and in waterbodies.





Lakshman said there were several challenges in the disposal of biomedical waste and rued that non-compliance of the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016, had become the norm.





25 hospitals inspectedRecently, we inspected 25 hospitals in the city and found that most of them were not complying with the rules. We had to serve them show-cause notices, he added. Some hospitals are so reckless that they dont even segregate biomedical waste at source and mix it with municipal waste, he said.





The board has uploaded on its website the draft of new zones under which hospitals would be categorised for biomedical waste management. Bengaluru alone generates close to 6,400 kg of biomedical waste every day. Lakshman said that following the visit of the KSPCB team to hospitals, the amount of waste generated had gone up from 30 tonnes to 52 tonnes a day.





A Ramesh, Senior Environment Officer, said that several measures had been put in place to ensure biomedical waste was managed efficiently. Every year, we submit a report on the status of the facilities and the waste generated. If there are violations, we issue them show-cause notices, he said.

To fully prevent unscientific dumping of biomedical waste, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) wants the Global Positioning System (GPS) installed in all vehicles that carry biomedical waste. This way, the board hopes to track them remotely.
Three men attacked a security guard at an ATM centre in Viveknagar, central Bengaluru, at 11.30 pm on Monday.





The assailants arrived by two motorbikes and tried to rob the guard, K Pradhan, a native of Jharkhand. When he resisted, they attacked him with a dagger and snatched his mobile phone, and took to their heels. Police are hunting for the suspects based on the CCTV footage.






Murugappa N Kumbar, 50, a resident of Sadalaga village in Chikodi taluk, Belagavi district, was a civil constable for around 16 years. He was dismissed from service for misusing the bus warrant facility given to policemen. Bus warrants are issued by the station house officer and the prison head to escort undertrials from one place to another.





Kumbar lost the job but worked an ingenious plan to make money. Posing as the Lokayukta SP, he extorted money from several officials and landed in jail. There are at least 30 cases against him at various police stations in Karnataka. While being lodged in the Dharwad central prison, he met two inmates  Abubakar, 36, a resident of Hosur village in Agumbe hobli in Shivamogga, and Amar Singh, 42, a native of Bihar. Abubakar was jailed for sandalwood smuggling, murder and circulation of counterfeit notes, while Singh was imprisoned for murdering a friend.





Abubakar and Singh were released after sometime but not before they, along with Kumbar, plotted the extortion plan. They got mobile phones for Kumbar who was still in jail. The dismissed constable used the phones to call tahsildars, engineers, sub-registrars, chief executive officers, officials in Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha and senior officers in transport and education departments. Introducing himself as ACB DySP, he would tell the officials that he received complaints of corruption against them.





He would threaten to book them and send them to jail. Most officials fell into the trap and struck deals with him. Kumar would ask them to deposit the money into some bank accounts in Karnataka and Bihar. Once the money arrived, there will be no phone calls. The racket remained undetected for long. On October 25, 2016, Kumbar contacted Prasanna Kumar, an assistant executive engineer with the BWSSB at Hoskote, and introduced himself as Purushottam, a DySP with the ACB. He said the ACB had received complaints of corruption against Kumar and threatened to send him to jail. Kumar struck a deal with Kumbar and transferred Rs 90,000 into Singhs bank account in Bihar.





The BWSSB engineer later realised he had been duped, and approached the police. Tracing the mobile phone, police picked up Abubakar in Hubballi on November 21. Based on his information, they caught up with Kumbar in the Karwar prison on November 25. Singh was arrested at Yeshwantpur in Bengaluru on December 4. Police said Abubakar had bought 10 SIM cards in Hubballi using the documents of a mentally challenged woman, Rukmini.

A dismissed constable, jailed for extorting money from government officials by impersonating the Lokayukta SP, now faces another charge. He is accused of running another extortion racket from the district prison in Karwar. This time, he posed as DySP of the Anti-Corruption Bureau and made extortion calls to officials from the mobile phones of his two accomplices.
There is always an art exhibition to be attended in the city. Local, international artists, contemporary, modern art exhibitions - you would have seen them all. But for the first time, Bengaluru will witness artworks created by inmates from prisons across the state.





Behind bars, away from the public eye, prisoners have been using art as a medium to express themselves. Identifying their talent, prison officials have decided to give them an opportunity to display their works. Paintings by those in the Mysuru jail have been displayed before.



We want to have an exhibition at the state-level so that it gets more visibility. We have not yet decided when and where. But it will be in Bengaluru, mostly in early 2017, DGP (Prisons) HNS Rao said. The best paintings from prisons in Belagavi, Vijayapura and Mysuru will be displayed.






The NAAC may be asked to de-link the accreditation of the main campus from that of their off-campuses and carry out the accreditation process of the main campuses, the commission resolved.





The higher education regulators decision may come as fresh trouble to the BITS Pilani and some other deemed universities whose off campuses were declared unapproved by the UGC last year. The commission asked as many as nine deemed-to-be universities including BITS Pilani to shut down their off campuses, maintaining that they were opened without its approval.





The BITS Pilani has challenged the commissions directive for shutting down their campuses in Supreme Court. Even as the apex court, earlier this year, held that the UGC should not take coercive action against the varsity, the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry told the Rajasthan government in September that it cannot validate the degrees granted by the BITs Pilani to the students of its off campuses located in Goa and Hyderabad as they were declared as unapproved by the UGC. The ministrys clarification on the issue came in response to a query as to whether the state government could validate the degrees of BITS Pilanis students who completed their programmes from the varsitys off campuses in Goa and Hyderabad.





Students going abroad for higher education or studies are required to get their degrees validated from the respective state governments where the main campuses of their institutes are located.





The ministrys clarification to the Rajasthan government will be valid in case of other deemed-to-be universities which have been running their off campuses without any approval from the commission. When a university is running its off campus without approval of the UGC, how could it be considered for granting accreditation? Rules have to be followed, an HRD ministry official said.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided not to allow granting of accreditation to unapproved off campuses of deemed-to-be-universities. At its meeting recently, the higher education regulator resolved that the National Assessment and Accreditation Council should only conduct quality assessment of the main campuses of such universities.




More than one lakh police personnel were deployed throughout the state on Tuesday. Some vandals smashed the windshields of government buses in Madurai. Stone-pelting incidents were reported in Salem district, the police said. However, Chennai was violence-free.





Normal life remained largely unaffected as essential supplies, including milk, were made available. Government and private hospitals functioned in several places. Only a few private vehicles, including autorickshaws and taxis plied, as the state transport services were suspended. All shops, educational institutions, private establishments and banks were closed.





As hotels downed their shutters, most of the construction workers from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal had to depend heavily on Amma canteens which were open in all the districts. Special arrangements were made by airport authorities for domestic and foreign passengers to reach their respective destinations. Passengers who arrived at the Central and Egmore railway stations used suburban train services.

Barring a few incidents of stone-throwing, Tuesday was by and large peaceful across Tamil Nadu on the day of former chief minister Jayalalithaas funeral. There was a total shutdown of shops and other businesses as a mark of respect for the AIADMK leader who died on Monday night.




A state cabinet meeting issued a resolution lauding the late AIADMK supremo for her leadership. In a rare show of respect to a departed chief minister of another state, government functions till Thursday will be held without any fanfare.





In the border towns of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki and Palakkad districts, the mood remained sombre. Kerala Governor P Sathasivam, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and former chief minister Oommen Chandy were in Chennai.





Sathasivam said: In her, we saw the perfect blending of the strong will of an able administrator and the compassion of a philanthropist.

The Kerala government on Tuesday declared a three-day mourning to pay respects to Jayalalithaa. A holiday was declared in all government offices and educational institutions on Tuesday.




The Ministry of Finance is yet to act on the recommendation of an inter-ministerial task force to ask Reserve Bank of India to provide further exemptions to the foreign diplomatic missions from the weekly cash withdrawal limit, which was imposed after the government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. This has put the Ministry of External Affairs in a tight spot, as it is now finding it difficult to placate the foreign diplomatic missions.





Moscow already subtly threatened to impose cash withdrawal limits on Indian diplomats. Please just imagine if we in Moscow mirror this order of the State Bank of India, when Roubles 50,000 will not be enough to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant, not to mention the functioning of such big embassy as ours in New Delhi or Indias in Moscow, Russias Ambassador to India, Alexander M Kadakin, already wrote to the Chief of Protocol at the Ministry of External Affairs, Sanjay Verma.





Not only Russia, the diplomatic missions of some other countries, too, sent out such veiled threats during their discussions with the MEA officials, sources told the DH.





We are hoping that the MEA will be able to make the Ministry of Finance understand the issues involving the access of funds of foreign missions and the difficulties we are experiencing while conducting our day-to-day operations, said Dominican Republics envoy to India, Hans Dannenberg Castellanos, who, as Dean of Diplomatic Corps, represents 157 foreign missions in New Delhi. Kadakin wrote to Verma last week after State Bank of India conveyed to the Russian embassy in New Delhi that it could withdraw Rs 50,000 from its account every week.





SBI told the Russian embassy that it had adequate cash, but it could not allow the mission to withdraw without permission from RBI. Such cash amount is totally inadequate as regards to the embassys salary, operations expenditure requirements. The Consulates General of Russian Federation in Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai are already facing similar problems due to withdrawal limits in the respective banks, wrote Moscows envoy to New Delhi.





Demonetisation and the consequent cash crunch and withdrawal limits have created problems for many foreign missions. The Embassy of Kazakhstan is having problems arranging celebrations of its Independence Day on December 16. Sources said the Embassy of Indonesia was finding it difficult to make preparations for the forthcoming visit of that countrys President Joko Widodo to New Delhi.





The embassies of Iran, Cuba and Sudan are also upset over the inconveniences experienced by their nationals who do not have access to credit cards due to international sanctions on their respective countries.





The US embassy in New Delhi introduced a lottery system to fix a specific timeslots for its officials to go to the ATM within the embassy premises just to make sure that all of them do not take break from their work for cash withdrawal.

With restrictions on cash withdrawals yet to ease, Russia and some other countries have warned India of a possibility of similar curbs being imposed on its own diplomats abroad.
NGC 7000 - the North America Nebula is an emission nebula in Cygnus. Also designated Caldwell 20, the nebula has low surface brightness and is located approximately 1600 light years away near one of the summer triangle stars, Deneb. The bright Cygnus Wall, the "west coast of Mexico and Central America" in the lower center of the image, is an area of star formation. The nearby Pelican Nebula - IC5070 is a part of the same nebulous region, but a band of dust between the nebula and earth contributes to the interesting shapes we see. Some theorize that Deneb is the source of the ionization of the nebula which was discovered by William Herschel on October 24, 1786.



NCG 6997 is an open cluster located in the top right of the image. Discovered by Herschel on the same night, it is probably not a part of the North America Nebula but there is some debate about whether it is in front of or behind the more famous nebula.



Acquisition:

Imaged on 11/20/16 from Lake St Louis, MO

Integration: 4 hours (LRGB)

Luminance: 12x600s @ 1x1 (120')

R/G/B: 8/8/8 x 300s @ 2x2 (40'/40'/40')



Equipment:

Scope: William Optics GTF 81 5 element refractor (535mm focal length)

Upgraded with Moonlite CF focuser with motor

Imager: QHY9Ms with Olivon OAG and QHYCFW2-s filter wheel

Guidecam: ASI120MM

Filters: Baader LRGB

Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G

Processing and Software

Guiding with PHD2

Acquisition with Sequence Generator Pro

Integration and processing with PixInsight 1.8
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Telia Carrier today announced that it has established an additional point of connectivity in Budapest, Hungary.

The POC will allow Telia Carrier to meet an increasing demand for wholesale IP transit and Ethernet services amongst carriers, content and cloud providers alike.

As a critical centre for financial activity and technological innovation in Europe, Budapests fast-moving business environment has given rise to a dramatic increase in on-demand connectivity. Telia Carriers ability to adapt and turn up high speed internet services rapidly supports the regions growth and bolsters its economic vitality.

Home to eighteen universities and the headquarters of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), Budapest is a hub for technological innovation and a start-up scene that rivals Stockholm and Silicon Valley. This expansion of its top-two ranked IP backbone, AS1299, compounds Telia Carriers presence and allows it to serve more customers in the second fastest developing urban economy in Europe.

Telia Carrier has watched the growth and innovation that has helped Budapest become a major destination for business interests in Europe, said Simon Barlow, global product manager, Internet Services, Telia Carrier. By deepening our presence in Budapest, and in addition to existing PoPs throughout the region, Telia Carriers AS1299 services carriers, operators and cloud providers in more facilities in one of the fastest growing cities and regions in Central and Eastern Europe.
The unnamed party interested in acquiring Golan Telecom has been named as Israeli group Elco Holdings following the revelation that the deal looks set to go ahead.

If the acquisition closes, Golan should be able to settle its ongoing dispute with market leader Cellcom, which recently filed a liquidation request against the smaller operator.

Elco is believed to be on the verge of sealing the deal for IL350 million ($92 million), with Golan shareholder Patrick Pariente arriving in Israel to finalise details. It is understood that Elco is the sole party with which Golan is conducting negotiations, despite the fact that the group ended initial discussions a month ago due to a dispute over Golans terms and conditions.

Cellcom has begun legal action against Golan, demanding IL600 million from the smaller operator for national roaming services, along with other fees. However, the Elco deal reportedly includes a condition that would see the unification of Golan and Cellcoms networks, as well as compensating Cellcom for its outstanding debt.

Both operators have accepted mediation in their ongoing dispute as they seek a resolution. While Cellcom is preparing for Golans liquidation, it has expressed that it would prefer a buyout by another party.
It seems as if Charismatic has been gone for ages, but leave it to Michael Blowen of Old Friends to arrange for his return to the United States. It is only appropriate that a horse named Charismatic go home to one of the most charismatic dynamos the racing world has ever known.

What better time to look back once again at one of the most enthralling and bizarre Triple Crowns in history. When it was over it had left a trail of conflicting emotions.



The 1999 Triple Crown was made up of an odd cast of characters, proving that racing, like politics, makes strange bedfellows. There was Hall of Fame legend D. Wayne Lukas attempting to get a former claimer who had an aversion to winning to the Kentucky Derby. Somehow, a series of incidents brought troubled jockey Chris Antley into the picture. Antley had fallen victim to drugs and eventually a weight problem that forced him out of the sport for several years. This wasnt Lukas type of horse or jockey. But despite the odd mixture of jubilation, reflection, tension, and indignation that accompanied this unholy alliance, here they were attempting to sweep the Triple Crown, something that hadnt been accomplished in 21 years. Were the racing gods actually going to allow this mismatched trio into the pantheon of immortals, especially a horse who twice had run for a $62,500 claiming tag; his only two victories in 13 career starts and one of those by disqualification?



On the surface, Antley appeared to be an amiable youngster who had proven his riding talents in the early 90s, winning the Kentucky Derby aboard Strike the Gold. But his eyes and facial expression appeared more of a facade, concealing some hidden demons. He always seemed to look through you and never at you and his words rolled off the tongue as if programmed by a computer.



With success came his descent into drugs. At one point he ballooned to 120 pounds and began taking water pills to lose weight. As he put it, his body became a sponge and slowly began to take the life away from me.



But he was determined to change his life around and began exercising his way back to riding weight in an attempt to make a comeback.



Lukas was, well, Lukas; the most successful Thoroughbred trainer in history, with three Kentucky Derby victories already under his belt. Certainly, no one was confusing Charismatic, with only two claiming victories to his credit, to Winning Colors, Thunder Gulch, and Grindstone. But Lukas, who had the more talented Cat Thief heading for Louisville, was on a mission to unleash his hidden superstar.



The path that led Charismatic and Antley to the 1999 Kentucky Derby was strange to say the least. As mentioned earlier, Charismatics only two victories came in claiming races, and Lukas and owners Bob and Beverly Lewis were fortunate not to lose him.



The first time he ran for a tag at 2, he was winless in five starts and was coming off a 25-length drubbing in a maiden race on the grass. When Lukas dropped Charismatic in for a claiming price for the second time on Feb. 11, 1999, Mike Mitchell, Californias corporate raider of claiming races was all prepared to pounce on him. Several days before, however, Lewis had given Mitchell four free tickets to a National Hot Rod Association drag race. One of the NHRA participants was sponsored by Budweiser, of which Lewis was a major distributor. Because of that favor, Mitchell said there was no way he could claim one of Lewis horses.



Also with his eye on Charismatic was Thoroughbred owner William Wolford, who had been following the colt from his handicapping base of operations in Las Vegas. When he saw the colt entered for a price, he called his Kentucky-based trainer Paul McGee to tell him he was interested in claiming him. As it turned out, though, Wolfords owners license in California had not yet been processed because the person responsible was on vacation at the time, so he was not eligible to claim the horse.



So, twice good fortune smiled on the Lewises. But at the time they most likely couldnt care if they lost him or not and probably would have preferred to get rid of him, judging by Lukas putting him claiming races twice, the only level at which he had been able to win.

Charismatic, however, continued to improve, finishing second by a head in the El Camino Real Derby and fourth in the Santa Anita Derby before springing a 12-1 upset in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland two weeks before the Derby. The handsome chestnut son of Summer Squall had all the physical attributes, but Lukas knew he needed time to get rid of his layers of baby fat and put on more muscle. That seemed to be happening at just the right time.



Lukas was hoping to get Laffit Pincay, who had ridden Charismatic in the Santa Anita Derby, to commit to him at Churchill Downs. Athough Pincay decided to pass on the Lexington Stakes to ride in California, Lukas told him he could still have the mount in the Derby.



Dont worry about the Lexington, Ive got Jerry Bailey to ride him, and hes committed to Wordly Manner for the Derby, Lukas told Pincay. Well just put Jerry on him and go from there.



The day before the Lexington, however, Lukas read in the paper that Pincay had accepted the mount on 4-year-old Event of the Year in the Mervyn Leroy Handicap on Derby Day. Lukas immediately contacted Chris Antley and told him, Watch this horse tomorrow, youll like what you see. I dont want you to come just to ride a horse; I think hes got a legitimate shot to win the Derby.



Lukas already had a solid 3-year-old for Overbrook Farm in Cat Thief, winner of the Breeders Futurity at Keeneland and third-place finisher of the Breeders Cup Juvenile at 2 and placed in the Florida Derby, Blue Grass Stakes, Fountain of Youth Stakes, and Hutcheson Stakes at 3. But each afternoon at 3 oclock on the Churchill backstretch, Lukas personally would take Charismatic to a small grassy area outside his barn, near the gap to the track, and graze the colt. And each day he could see him blossom and get stronger. One afternoon in particular, Charismatic grazed contentedly, searching out dandelions and ripping them out by the root, as the sun illuminated his chestnut coat, emphasizing his powerful muscle lines.



Would you believe this horse just ran and almost broke the track record? Lukas asked, as he rubbed his hand against the colts neck down to his shoulder. Look at him; there are no stress lines at all. He carries his weight like Secretariat. I guarantee you if he were to win this thing, and I know hes probably nobodys pick, watch out in the next two, because hes one of those horses who will come back in the Preakness with a vengeance.



With Lukas confidence running high, he wasnt about to back down from his nemesis Ronnie Ebanks, agent for Vicars jockey, Shane Sellers. Ebanks knew how to push Lukas buttons and knew the trainer would never turn his back on a wager if you challenged him. Vicar had won the Florida Derby and was one of the most consistent 3-year-olds in the country. By the time Ebanks was through getting Lukas goat by knocking Charismatic, he had coaxed Lukas into a $2,000 bet, Vicar vs. Charismatic, horse for horse.



The following morning, Ebanks stopped by Lukas barn to remind him of the sucker bet he had made.



Im sure you came to your senses this morning and realize youre in a financially bad situation, Ebanks said to Lukas.



No, no, Lukas replied. I dont catch a soft touch like you every day.



Ebanks was not about to let up. I led you right into my trap, he said. I got you fired up, and I know if you get fired up, thats the best time to get you in a bad bet. Lets get it straight. Weve got a $2,000 bet, horse for horse, whoever finishes in front of the other. Vicar againsthow do you say your horses name?



Dont worry, Lukas shot back. Itll be a household name by Saturday night.



The Wednesday before the Derby, Lukas training chores had just ended when Louisville veterinarian Kurt Oliver and his 12-year-old daughter, Libby, paid him a visit.



Libby thinks Wayne hung the moon and swung the stars, Oliver said.



Libby had a knack for finding four-leaf clovers and immediately went searching for one behind Lukass barn. A few minutes later she came running back clutching one and handed it to Lukas. All she said was, Good luck.



Lukas, amazed at the find, tucked it away in his wallet. Just before bringing Charismatic and Cat Thief over for the Derby, Lukas received a visit from Overbrook Farm yearling manager Bruce Jenson, his wife Nancy, and their 9-year-old daughter Kenzie. In 1995, Kenzie, suffering from leukemia, had undergone a bone marrow transplant, spending two months in the hospital.



Before going to watch the race, Kenzie asked Lukas if there was something she could take with her and hold during the race to bring him good luck. He reached into his wallet and took out the four-leaf clover. He wrapped it in paper and stapled the ends, then gave it to Kenzie, who held it all during the race.



Charismatic, with Antley giving him a flawless ride, charged to victory over Menifee and Cat Thief at odds of 31-1.



Following the race, Kenzie returned to the barn, still clutching the four-leaf clover. Kurt Oliver went over to her, kneeled down, and said, You hang on to that and kiss it every night. Libby is 12, but shes the luckiest person Ive ever seen.



Lukas, who had been elected to the Hall of Fame several days earlier, then autographed the paper containing the four-leaf clover and presented Kenzie with a rose from the victory blanket.



Nancy Jenson said, Im just so glad Kenzie is here to see this. Imagine, one little girl picks up a four-leaf clover and passes it on, and another little girl carries it on over. For Wayne to go out and win the Derby and also finish third is very special.



Charismatic, despite wearing rundown bandages, came out of the race with a burned heel on his right hind leg. Its only a little one, we can handle that, Lukas said.



As the crowd began to file out of Churchill Downs, in a quiet corner of the backstretch, Ronnie Ebanks was getting into his car. Now $2,000 poorer, he shrugged his shoulders and said, All I can do is pay him and say, Hail to the king. He got me again.



One thing Lukas wasnt happy about was Antley, high in the saddle, turning toward the grandstand and holding up his index fingerbefore the wire. At Pimlico, he said if Antley did that again he would cut off his finger and put it in a jar of formaldehyde. When Antley showed up at the Pimlico stakes barn, he told Lukas, I hope you got two jars of formaldehyde, so I can hold two fingers up this time.



Charismatic, meanwhile, continued to flourish, and just as Lukas had predicted, he actually was stronger for the Preakness and this time dominated his field, opening up a three-length lead at the eighth pole. He kept a safe margin to the wire, defeating Menifee by 1  lengths. Just like that, this former claimer had won two legs of the Triple Crown and racing had a new hero.



As for Antley, he was nowhere to be found at the post-race interview. He had promised his old mentor, Maryland trainer Hamilton Smith, he would ride a horse for him the race following the Preakness and he kept his word. It was after he and Smith had parted company years earlier that Antley became involved with drugs.



If it wasnt for the drug abuse hed be in the Hall of Fame, Smith said. He never smoked or drank when we were together, but after I left to go back home he got in with the wrong crowd.



After getting beat a half-length on Smiths horse following the Preakness, Antley, noticeably disappointed he had let his friend down, dismounted and said goodbye to Smith, then headed up the stairs to the jockeys room. Smith grabbed his leg and said, Good luck up in New York. Give em hell, son.



Antley finally made his way to the post-race interview, accompanied by his father, Les, and stepmother Annie. Les still seemed in a daze as he tried to soak in all that was happening in his sons life. Here was Chris, after years of torturing his body, on the verge of sweeping the Triple Crown.



Im just so proud of him, Les said. Its the greatest feeling in the world to see him come back from where hes been. We saw what he went through and were just glad we could be there for him. He was depressed and disappointed in himself. After his weight problem, all he wanted to do was get back riding, but no one ever dreamed something like this would ever happen.



When Antley arrived back at the stakes barn, he whispered in Bob Lewis ear, hoping no one would hear: Its scary, but when I pulled him up after the wire he wasnt even blowing. That brought a huge smile to the face of Lewis, who two years earlier had seen his Triple Crown hopes go up in smoke when Silver Charm was nailed in the shadow of the wire by Touch Gold.



Once again, however, Charismatic had burned his heel in the race, but it was superficial and easily treated. Lukas was amazed how well the colt looked after so many hard races in a short period of time. His baby fat was gone and he was now all muscle, having developed into a sensational-looking athlete.



Lewis kept thinking of what Antley had whispered in his ear and his confidence soared. Its ridiculous, I suppose, to say this, but I really believe this is a horse who is going to make history, he said. Hes going to make some real history.



As the Belmont approached, Lukas became more and more attached to Charismatic. Ive come to revere this colt, he said. Hes taken me to places Ive never been and hes become very special to me.



Although Lukas had won every major stakes in America, captured dozens of Breeders Cup races, and won an amazing six consecutive Triple Crown races, he had never felt the excitement of being one race away from sweeping the Triple Crown.



The night of the media party, Antley had failed to hook up that afternoon and evening with Ed Fountaine of the New York Post, who had been working with the jockey on a daily diary. No one seemed to know where he was. Finally, it was learned he was back in his hotel suffering from a cold. Because of his past history, the often-used cold excuse set off a warning flare.



The morning of the Belmont, however, Antley showed up at Lukas barn at 5:15, just as the sun was beginning to peak through the trees. He was all smiles and beaming with confidence.



What a beautiful day, he said. I bet you see the largest crowd ever.



He took a long, hard look at Charismatic, who was out grazing, and said, I look around and I want to take a deep sigh. I remember not too long ago getting up on a morning just like this in South Carolina, taking off running, wondering if Ill ever make it back. It was like it was just yesterday. Whew, you talk about extremes. One thing about heaven and hell, Ive been to both of them. If I was attempting to get the ultimate feeling inside, this would be it. This would be heaven.



But that afternoon would be the beginning of Antleys return to hell.



As Charismatic drove to the wire through the wall of noise created by the 85,818 fans in attendance, he took a bad step. Shortly after crossing the finish line in third, Antley pulled him up and jumped off. He fell backwards on the seat of his pants, then scrambled to his knees and ran his hand up and down the colts left foreleg. Because horses have a very high pain tolerance and normally go into shock after a catastrophic injury, Antley gently lifted the injured leg off the ground to prevent him from putting weight on it and held it until help arrived.



Charismatic had suffered a condylar fracture of the cannon bone and a vertical fracture of the lateral sesamoid. As the scene was being played out, it was as if the life had been sucked out of the once jubilant crowd. Charismatic was led into the ambulance where he was treated with the anti-inflammatory drugs Butazolidan and Banamine and a mild sedative. He was returned to his stall and walked in calmly, then immediately went to his feed tub and nibbled on a few leftover oats. Lukas wife, Laura, fed him hay from his hay rack. Equipped with a ski boot brace, he peered over his webbing, nodding his head continuously.



Assistant trainer Joanne McNamara and fellow exercise rider Teri Berwanger stood at the far end of the barn, unable to comprehend how this could happen.



He was the soundest horse we had in the barn, McNamara said. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined something like this happening to this horse. You cant believe how good he felt jogging this morning.



The Lewises and their family arrived at the barn and were assured by Lukas the colt was doing as well as could be expected. When Antley showed up, Bob Lewis patted him on the shoulder and said, Chris, good job of stopping him.



Lewis began to well up with tears and told Antley, After watching the film and seeing how you went down and tried to assist the horse and hold him up was just magnificent on your part, and I cant begin to tell you how proud we are to have you in our association.



Lewis couldnt contain his tears any longer. He said to the normally emotional Antley, Youre supposed to be the one with the tears, not me. But Antley appeared to be more in shock than anything. His tears had flowed freely while being interviewed earlier on ABC.



At eight oclock that night, long after everyone had left, over at the barn of the Belmont winner Lemon Drop Kid, Jose Santos Jr., son of winning jockey Jose Santos, had just finished giving Lemon Drop Kid a goodnight kiss on the forehead. The 4-year-old looked up at his mother and said all that needed to be said: Mommy, guess what? Charismatic is hurt. Poor Charismatic.



The following morning, Charismatic was resting comfortably as he prepared to undergo surgery later that morning. Lukas addressed a small gathering of reporters, then said, Well, got to go to work and see if we can find another one.



Unfortunately, the relationship between Lukas and Antley, which had begun to sour throughout the Triple Crown, hit rock bottom. Lukas said the rider never once called to see how Charismatic was doing and claimed his actions after the race, assisting the horse, were overblown. Whether it was Antleys demons that Lukas could see beginning to resurface or other issues he had with him, he never spoke to him again. When Antley died, Lukas would not say anything good to reporters about him, feeling it would be hypocritical. When the producers of the TV documentary Charismatic contacted Lukas to be interviewed, he refused to participate.



The mystery behind Antleys drug-related death in 2000, whether murder or accidental, was never resolved and became an ongoing story in the national tabloids. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled it an accidental overdose after the Pasadena police initially called it a homicide. Antley's wife, Natalie Jowett, was notified of the coroner's conclusion while she was in the hospital giving birth to the couple's child.



Lukas never did find another Charismatic. He did win two Breeders Cup races later that year, including the Classic with Cat Thief, and won the Preakness with Oxbow and the Belmont Stakes with longshot Commendable.



Charismatic recovered from his injury and was sent to Japan in 2002, where he stood at stud at JBBA Shizunai farm for a stud fee $2,500. He covered only 16 mares in 2010.

Blowen has built Old Friends into a treasured landmark in the state of Kentucky, expanding every year and bringing in more and more big-name horses from all over the world and not-so-big-name horses. Charismatic is one horse hes had his eye on for 10 years, making constant inquiries about his possible return. And there is nothing or no one more determined than a determined Michael Blowen.



The 1999 Triple Crown campaign will be remembered for its drama and for the birth of a new equine hero from the claiming ranks, and for its three participants who, despite their odd alliance, joined together for a brief moment in time and came within one second and a near-fatal injury of achieving Triple Crown immortality.

What is most important now is that Charismatic finally has returned home, visited immediately at Old Friends by his old friend, Wayne Lukas. Thanks to Blowen, Charismatic is back in Kentucky, the scene of his greatest triumph.



Lukas said on Bloodhorse.com, Its very gratifying to know that through a 20-year span somebody really looked after that horse. That was the gratifying thing that no matter what happened or where he went, it was really gratifying that somebody really looked after him. He has a July hair coat; he just looks perfect.



In his last sentence, Lukas could very easily have been talking about the magnificent-looking 3-year-old grazing outside his barn every afternoon during Derby week. Apparently, not a lot has changed in almost 18 years.



Welcome home, Charismatic.
Amazon Launchpad will help companies with brand development, customer reach, world-class fulfilment and global expansion

Amazon Launchpad, the much anticipated global program has been introduced in India. The program will help Indian startups to launch, market and distribute their products to millions of Amazon customers across India and world.

Amazon Launchpad will offer a streamlined on-boarding experience along with access to custom product pages with unique content. In order to kickstart the program, Amazon India has tied up with Startup India, NASSCOM 10K and Indian Angel Network (IAN) to help identify and enrol startups. The program will help startups scale up their businesses and successfully launch innovative products.

Over 25 Indian startups have joined Amazon Launchpad even before its launch. Amazon says the new Amazon Launchpad store features over 400 innovative products from wearable technology, smart homes, health monitoring, etc.

"Amazon has always encouraged and supported innovation. By bringing Amazon Launchpad to India, we are excited to support the Governments Start-up India initiative and encourage innovation from the Indian start-up community. India has great minds which invent amazing products and we will support their growth by helping customers discover their new products not just in India but other countries around the world," said Amit Agarwal, VP and Country Head, Amazon India.

Commenting on the launch, Jason Feldman, Director Global Innovations, Amazon said, "Amazon Launchpad is an exceptional opportunity for Indian Startups to get access to big consumer markets nationally and internationally. Through this program small entrepreneurs and innovators can go leverage the Amazon platform to increase the scale of their businesses and even get easy access to global markets. With Launchpad, we hope to augment the innovation culture in the Indian youth and help build the India story."

Amazon Launchpad works with more than 100 VC firms, crowd-funding services and accelerators/incubators globally. Amazon India has roped in Niti Aayog, Government of Maharashtra, Government of Telangana and TiE as strategic partners.

Amazon Launchpad will help companies with brand development, customer reach, world-class fulfilment and global expansion.
AIM-listed Manx Telecom has won a contract from China Unicom to provide roaming connectivity for Chinese visitors to the UK.

Through its relationship with Telefonica, Manx will provide connectivity to China Unicom's CUniq UK mobile and roaming product.

CUniq, a mobile virtual operator, was launched in the country on 2 December to provide the over 1m travellers from China, Chinese diaspora communities in the UK and Chinese companies to have roaming across 45 countries.

In 2015, Chinese residents visiting the UK rose by 45% to 269,631 from the previous year and 12.5m visited Europe.

China Unicom has 350m mobile subscribers and has plans to grow further in China and Hong Kong.

Manx Telcoms chief executive Gary Lamb said: "This is a major coup for our global solutions division, and another indication of our growing reputation in the strongest signal sims sector where we are already the UK market leader."

Zhou Lisong, executive vice-president of China Unicom Global, added: "The launch of CUniq is a key component of our international expansion strategy and the result of excellent co-operation between CUG and Manx Telecom."

Shares in were up 0.07% to 204.65p at 1151 GMT.
Britain will have only 18 months to extricate itself from the EU and will not be able to cherry pick the rights it wants, the blocs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Tuesday.

Barnier, in his first speech since being appointed head of the EUs Article 50 taskforce, said that he was aiming for a deal by October 2018, giving six months for approval by the remaining 27 member states, the European Parliament and the UK.

"At the beginning, the two years included the time for the council to set guidelines and to authorise negotiations. At the end, the agreement must of course be approved by the Council and European Parliament. Finally the UK will have to approve the agreement - all within the two year period.

"All in all there will be less than 18 months to negotiate. That is short. Should the UK notify by the end of March as Prime Minister Theresa May said she would, it is safe to say negotiations could start a few weeks later and an Article 50 reached by October 2018."

He said that the goal for the 27 members was to preserve unity within the block while he maintained that non-EU countries could not have the same rights and benefits as those in the EU.

Britain could not cherry pick its benefits regarding access to the single market while the EUs four freedoms of goods, services, capital and labour were not indivisible.

He said there was a "common interest in not prolonging this state of uncertainty and that a short transitional agreement could be reached but Britain has not indicated what type of relationship it wants with the EU.

We need to hear what the UKs intentions are and then the 27 will react to that.

Norway model, he said, could possibly be adopted - access to the single market with contributions to the EU budget.

The Frenchman added: Frankly, I do not know what a hard or a soft Brexit is. I can say what Brexit is.
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A new promise to broadband providers was made by Ofcom on Tuesday, saying they will be able to build ultrafast, full fibre networks more cheaply and easily than they can now, still using infrastructure owned by BT .

The regulator outlined a strategy in July to promote the large-scale rollout of ultrafast broadband using fibre and coaxial cables directly to customer properties.

Most fibre broadband on the market today only uses fibre technology to the nearest roadside cabinet, with the aging copper telephone network carrying the signal the rest of the way, limiting the speed and reliability of connections.

Ofcom said it plans to make it quicker and easier for rival providers to build their own fibre networks direct to homes and offices using BTs existing telegraph poles and ducts  the small, underground tunnels that carry telecoms cables.

It said this would give BTs competitors flexibility to innovate as technology evolves, and respond to changes in their customers needs.

Fibre is the future for broadband, and Ofcom is helping to deliver that through competition between networks, said Ofcom competition policy director Yih-Choung Teh.

Today were explaining how access to BTs tunnels and poles could be improved, allowing other providers to connect ultrafast, fibre broadband directly to UK homes and offices.

Our plans will give providers increased confidence to invest in their own full-fibre networks at reduced cost.

Other countries have seen duct and pole access used to extend fibre to peoples doorsteps.

In Spain and Portugal, the resulting competition has helped deliver full-fibre broadband coverage of 79% and 70% respectively, compared to around 2% currently in the UK.

The regulator said it was now consulting on how to best deliver these plans.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve was appointed Prime Minister of France on Tuesday, after his predecessor Manuel Valls resigned to bid for the presidency next year.

Cazeneuve was appointed interior minister in 2014 and oversaw the countrys security during a period of several terrorist attacks.

He will name his cabinet later but is not expected to make any changes, and will stay in the position until legislative elections in June 2017.

Valls announced on Monday that he will run for president after incumbent Francois Hollande said his will not stand for a second term after plummeting approval ratings to just 4%.

Barcelona-born Valls will hope to secure the Socialist partys nomination but could face competition from Arnaud Montebourg, the former economy minister and Benoit Hamon, the former education minister in January primaries for the presidential election in May.
In late November, in a move done in large part to protect horseplayers at advance-deposit wagering companies, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission approved a rule that would require ADWs that operate in the state acquire a bond of up to $500,000 as a condition of licensing.

The new requirement should provide added protection for Kentucky ADW customersas well as the stateshould an ADW declare bankruptcy.

Under the plan, ADW companies will be required to secure a bond that would cover the average daily account holdings of its Kentucky players as well as an average month's worth of state taxes. The thinking is that if a bankruptcy should occur, that bond money would ensure there's cash to pay players and state taxes.

Such a requirement could prove useful should an ADW declare bankruptcy as, for reasons I'll never understand, courts have ruled that wagering money owed to players is not separate from other operational funds owed to other vendors during a bankruptcy. Of course the most prominent racing industry bankruptcies where this has occurred have involved racetracks.

Bonding should provide some protection for players but state regulators continue to take no action on a seemingly simple rule that would greatly enhance protection of players and wagering outlets: require that all wagering wins and losses be resolved on a daily basis.

Currently such settlements can take days or weeks to complete. That is to say if an outlet finishes in the black on a given day, that money may not be paid by the host site for days or weeks.

The problems with this setup were exposed in the 2009 MEC bankruptcy when four ADW owners said their players were owed more than $7 million in player winnings from tracks owned by MEC. The ADWs were unable to keep most of that money out of the unsecured funds listing of the bankruptcy.

As it's not a good practice for an ADW to not pay money won by its customers, the ADWs were left on the hook to square the difference with their players.

If wins and losses were resolved each day between host tracks and outlets, such scenarios would not occur or would at least be minimized. With the industry slow to take action, state regulators should find ways to put this requirement in place.

The current setup is especially vulnerable because the tracks or outlets most likely to fall behind on payments would be the tracks or outlets most likely to file bankruptcy.

Today's blog item initially ran as a Dollars and Sense column Dec. 3 in BloodHorse Daily.
Stocks in London nudged lower in early trade as investors continued to mull over the implications of the Italian referendum and Prime Minister Renzis resignation amid a lack of fresh catalysts.

At 0820 GMT, Londons FTSE 100 was down 0.2% to 6,731.94. Meanwhile, oil prices were a little weaker, with West Texas Intermediate down 0.7% to $51.45 a barrel and Brent crude 0.4% lower at $54.70.

Spreadexs Connor Campbell said: The index is currently trapped below the 6750 mark, immediately dropping half a percent after the bell. The FTSE is lacking any macro-momentum bar the continued, and exhausting, Brexit-brouhaha that have been a constant presence since June, meaning it is struggling to significantly break through the levels it has been stuck around for the last few months.

There are no major UK data releases due, but in the US, trade balance and non-farm productivity are at 1330 GMT, while factory orders and durable goods orders are at 1500 GMT.

In corporate news, plumbing and heating products distributor Wolseley fell as it reported a rise in first-quarter revenue, including increased revenue from the US, but said markets in the UK and the Nordic region were challenging.

Low-cost carrier EasyJet flew lower as it posted its passenger statistics for November, with total passengers for the month improving 2.9% to 4,947,060 year-on-year, although the load factor dropped 0.6 percentage points to 89.7%.

Ultra Electronics declined after it said trading remained in line with its expectations for 2016.

Industrial equipment rental company Ashtead was on the front foot as it said rental revenue in the six months to 31 October grew 13% on last year to 1.45bn, pre-tax profit was up 9% to 425.9m and the interim dividend was hoisted 19% to 4.75p per share.

Power generation firm Drax rallied after announcing a conditional agreement to buy Opus Energy for 340m and an agreement to acquire four open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) development projects for electricity generation, as it said full-year earnings were still likely to be at the bottom end of market forecasts.

FTSE 250 supplier of high performance polymer solutions Victrex was sharply higher. Although the company reported a drop in profit and revenue for the year to the end of September, analysts said revenue was bang in line and noted the fact the group remains comfortable with current market expectations.

Thomas Cook advanced after the travel company said it will take full ownership of its UK retail store network late next year.

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Barratt Developments (BDEV) 465.10p -1.82%

Carnival (CCL) 3,981.00p -1.44%

Persimmon (PSN) 1,682.00p -1.29%

Wolseley (WOS) 4,631.00p -1.17%

Legal & General Group (LGEN) 238.90p -1.16%

Anglo American (AAL) 1,230.00p -1.05%

BP (BP.) 460.35p -0.99%

Experian (EXPN) 1,480.00p -0.94%

Kingfisher (KGF) 346.30p -0.92%

Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 150.30p -0.86%

FTSE 250 - Risers

PayPoint (PAY) 1,014.00p 3.36%

Pets at Home Group (PETS) 223.10p 2.57%

Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 272.90p 2.56%

Zoopla Property Group (ZPLA) 324.10p 2.37%

Hastings Group Holdings (HSTG) 222.80p 2.06%

Computacenter (CCC) 768.00p 1.99%

Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) 460.60p 1.93%

PZ Cussons (PZC) 302.50p 1.82%

Hansteen Holdings (HSTN) 107.50p 1.80%

John Laing Group (JLG) 279.50p 1.78%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Playtech (PTEC) 788.00p -4.72%

Ultra Electronics Holdings (ULE) 1,922.00p -4.24%

Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 1,110.00p -2.63%

Tullow Oil (TLW) 324.10p -2.50%

DFS Furniture (DFS) 218.30p -2.20%

ICAP (IAP) 473.60p -2.17%

Genus (GNS) 1,776.00p -1.93%

Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 222.00p -1.55%

Hunting (HTG) 593.50p -1.33%

Keller Group (KLR) 786.50p -1.32%
Thomas Cook is to take full ownership of its retail joint venture and buy out its partners in order to consolidate the travel company.

The FTSE 250 company will buy The Co-operative's 30% stake in the joint venture for 50m and the Central England Co-operative's 3.5% stake for 5.8m in cash to take full control of the retail business.

As part of the deal, which is expected to be completed in November 2017, the company will be able to use the Co-operative Travel brand until November 2018.

The joint venture, which was initially created in October 2011 following the merger of the travel retail business of Thomas Cook, The Co-operative and Central England Co-operative, currently has 764 stores across the Thomas Cook and The Co-operative brands.

Rod Bulmer, chief executive of consumer services at the Co-operative, said that having a minority stake in a travel business "does not fit with the strategy of the Co-operative and that the financial arrangements for exit that were put in place as part of the original joint venture agreement represent the best value for its members, while the funds received will be used to invest in its core business areas.

Thomas Cooks chief executive Peter Fankhauser added: "This purchase gives us full control over our retail store network, enabling us to better integrate our stores with our online offering, while also helping us to focus on growing sales of added extras such as holiday-related financial services. Over the next two years, we will bring all of our UK stores under the Thomas Cook banner so we can make full use of the best brand in travel."

Shares in Thomas Cook were up 1.57% to 87.30p at 0828 GMT.
Inflation, abortion on voters' minds ahead of upcoming election

What are the most important issues for Ohio voters? We canvassed the state as the midterm election nears. Here's what we learned.
By the end of today, most of the Hotel Carlisle and Embers Steakhouse facility will likely have been sold.

This includes not just the contents of the buildings, but actual bits of the structures themselves.

We sold the paneling off the walls, the copper fittings, the fireplaces, pretty much everything that could be pulled out, said auctioneer Howard Hirsch.

Hirsch began liquidating the property, located at 1700 Carlisle Pike, yesterday morning.

It went great, he said. Weve had close to 400 bidders.

Hirsch and his staff will be back on the property today to entertain offers on any remainders, and will essentially auction on-demand if more than one person asks about the same item.

The highest-demand items were hotel furnishings, Hirsch said, with all 300 rooms being sold as complete lots. Air conditioning units were also a big draw, as was the commercial kitchen equipment.

The Hotel Carlisle-Embers site has been shut down for nearly a year, since January. After a period of financial stress, the site had changed hands in 2009 to be bought by Farouk Hegazi, a New York-based investor.

Hegazi had worked with local development agencies on several options for the site, with a Sheetz having been proposed for the front of the property. None of these deals came to fruition, and Hegazi was locked in conflict with another investor to whom he had sold most of the real estate LLC which held the Hotel Carlisle deed.

The property owed $3.1 million on its mortgage as of 2015, according to court documents.

Earlier this year, the Sentinel also interviewed numerous employees who had not received back pay since the hotel and restaurant closed. Those workers have still not been compensated, according to a former employee.
LANCASTER  Michael Ploutz looked skyward at the vandalism that now marks part of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Manheim Township.

Were disappointed that someone would choose to deface a church property, said Ploutz, an administrator at the church on Oregon Pike.

Three upside-down crosses with the number 666 stain the tower portion of the churchs steeple, which is at least 40 feet off the ground.

Its symbolic of whats called the symbol of the beast, Ploutz said.

Ploutz said church members spotted the graffiti on Sunday morning. He said the church has had problems with people on the roof before.

The church does have security cameras, but Ploutz said the cameras did not catch anything suspicious.

The timing of the crime is also raising questions since the act happened just weeks before Christmas.

I personally believe that there were probably times when someone was up on the roof in the past and they knew how to get up there, and this time they just chose to do some vandalism, Ploutz said.

Plotuz estimated it would cost the church around $1,000 to clean the graffiti since it would have to rent equipment for workers to paint. He said the church would be quick to forgive the person responsible for the vandalism.

If they were to identify themselves and be willing to make restitution for the cost to get cleaned up, we would be happy to reach out with a hand of forgiveness, he said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Manheim Township police at 717-569-6401.
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By ERICA WERNER

AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON  President-elect Donald Trump's plan to use steep tariffs to punish companies that move overseas is running into an obstacle: Congressional Republicans.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy warned Monday that such an approach could cause a trade war. A better way to achieve the goal of keeping companies in the U.S. and growing jobs would be to rewrite the tax code and lower corporate rates, McCarthy said.





. . .
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EUGENE, Ore. (AP)  The University of Oregon will be paid $6.9 million to fix concrete floor slabs in a student dormitory that are tilted, uneven and cracked.

The Register-Guard reports that the settlement, approved Friday by the UO Board of Trustees, ends a four-year legal battle over issues with the $55 million Global Scholars Hall.





. . .
PinnacleHealths West Shore Hospital in Hampden Township was selected among this years Top General Hospitals from the Leapfrog Group, which released the list Tuesday.

West Shore Hospital was one of 115 hospitals from across the country to receive a Top Hospital award, and only one of three in Pennsylvania to be included. It is the only one in the Midstate on the list.

All three Pennsylvania hospitals made it to the Top General Hospitals list, though Leapfrog Group also honors Top Childrens Hospitals, Top Rural Hospitals and Top Teaching Hospitals.

Leapfrog Group said its Top Hospitals are the highest performing hospitals on its Hospital Survey. They often have better systems in place to prevent medication errors, have higher quality maternity care and lower admission rates, according to Leapfrog Group.

After just celebrating the two-year anniversary of this state-of-the-art hospital in May, this recognition really speaks to not only the care that our teams provide every day, but also to the thoughtful planning that went into creating a patient-centered facility, said Dr. Christian Caicedo, vice president of operations at West Shore Hospital and interim chief medical officer. The hardworking men and women at West Shore Hospital are truly honored to be recognized for the excellent care they provide.

This years selection is based on the results of the 2016 Leapfrog Hospital Survey. Hospitals eligible for the Top Hospitals list must have received an A grade in the groups Hospital Safety Grade.

Being acknowledged as a Top Hospital is an incredible feat achieved by less than 3 percent of hospitals nationwide, said Leah Binder, president and CEO of the Leapfrog Group. With this honor, PinnacleHealth West Shore Hospital has established its commitment to safer and higher quality care. Providing this level of care to patients in central Pennsylvania requires motivation and drive from every team member. I congratulate the board, staff and clinicians whose efforts made this honor possible.

This Top Hospital designation reflects PinnacleHealths and West Shore Hospitals commitment to excellence in patient care, said Michael A. Young, president and CEO of PinnacleHealth.

For a full list of the 2016 Top Hospitals, visit www.leapfroggroup.org/tophospitals.
Air Commando assumes command of 920th Rescue Wing

Col. Kurt Matthews assumed command of the 920th Rescue Wing here Dec. 3 in a change of command ceremony officiated by Maj. Gen. Richard Scobee, 10th Air Force, Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, Texas.



Matthews replaced Col. Jeffrey L. Macrander who served as the 920th RQW commander from August 2011 to December 2016. Macrander will be taking an overseas assignment as the Air Reserve Component Liaison to the U.S. Air Forces Central Command, the Air Force Service Component of U.S. Central Command, a joint Department of Defense combatant command responsible for U.S. security interests in 27 nations that stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Persian Gulf region, into Central Asia. His follow-on assignment is to be determined.



Approximately 400 military and civilians were in attendance.



During his farewell speech, Macrander said the wings accomplishments during his tenure as commander were not his own, but rather a reflection of the hard work and dedication of the wings members.



Thank you for making my job easy, Macrander said. Keep calm and rescue on.



Matthews previously served as the 920th RQW Operations Group commander in charge of flying operations for the wing since May. He previously served as the commander of the wings 308th Rescue Squadron from June 2010 to November 2012.



Im humbled by this opportunity-thank you, Matthews said to the Airmen at the ceremony. I serve you and we all serve the mission and thats the focus. The mission is always combat search and rescue.



Matthews is a 1990 graduate of the University of Miami, Florida, where he earned his commission through the Air Force ROTC program. His assignments include flying duties as an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter instructor/evaluator pilot performing combat rescue, and duties as a space operations officer conducting counter weapons of mass destruction support. He is a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School and recently completed Air Force Special Operations Command Air Commando training.



Matthews served on active duty for 3 years, the Air National Guard for 2 years, and has been in the Air Force Reserve for 18 years. He has flown in Operations Provide Comfort II, Southern Watch, Northern Watch, Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, as well as rescue operations in the aftermath of hurricanes Floyd, Katrina and Rita.



As the former commander of the 919th Special Operations Group, Duke Field, Fla., from 2014-2016, Matthews was responsible for five squadrons and one detachment flying six different mission design series aircraft with more than 500 authorized personnel covering four mission areas. In addition, his unit conducted MQ-9 Reaper kinetic strike operations in various theaters around the world and supported the Aviation Foreign Internal Defense and Combat Aviation Advisor programs for the Air Force Special Operations Command.



During a notable mission in June 2005, Matthews served as the aircraft commander of a personnel recovery mission for the fallen service members of Operation Red Wings in northeastern Afghanistan. Operation Red Wings and events surrounding the operation were documented in the New York Times bestseller Lone Survivor by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, the only U.S. survivor of the ambush that took the lives of 19 U.S. soldiers, sailors and Airmen. Matthews and his crew recovered the final Red Wings team member from the battlefield.



As the 920th RQW commander, Matthews will provide leadership, management and supervision and will be responsible for the organization, training and equipping of the wing.



The 920th RQW is the only combat-search-and-rescue wing in the Air Force Reserve Command and makes up approximately 18 percent of the Air Force's total rescue force. The wing is equipped with five HC-130P/N tanker aircraft and 15 HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters to support worldwide combat rescue operations as well as providing support to the 45th Space Wing, NASA and civilian space agencies providing safety and security of the Eastern Range during all Space Coast launches.



The wing comprises 2,000 dedicated Citizen Airmen assigned to four groups, 17 squadrons, four flights, a headquarters section and three geographically separated units in Arizona, Oregon and Virginia.



The 920 RQW is the most called upon unit in the Air Force Reserve. More than 80 reservists from the unit are currently deployed globally performing rescue operations.



For more information and photos on the 920th RQW, log onto their web site www.920rqw.afrc.af.mil and follow them on social media: @920th Rescue Wing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and You Tube.


Qatar's RasGas prefers short-term LNG contracts in India

Qatar's RasGas now prefers short-term LNG contracts from customers in India after its earlier long-term contract with India's Petronet LNG flopped and the contract had to be reworked.

India, the world's fourth-largest buyer of LNG, needs more LNG terminals to unlock demand, its chief executive Hamad Mubarak Al Muhannadi said on Tuesday at the Petrotech energy conference in New Delhi.

Muhannadi also said that India, Asia's third-largest economy, will also become the world's second-largest spot and long-term LNG buyer this year.

India, meanwhile said it wants liquefied natural gas importers like Japan and Korea to join hands to bring more "equitable" trade deals.

India and Japan, in September 2013, had set up a multilateral group of buyers for LNG to push for lower prices for the fuel and New Delhi is now seeking other importers to join them.

"A number of large Asian LNG buyers, including India, could benefit by joining hands and thereby bringing in more equitable trade deals," petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at 5th IEF-IGU Ministerial Forum held on sidelines of the Petrotech conference in New Delhi.

While the global gas prices have cooled in line with oil rates in last two years, Asian countries - the biggest buyers of seaborne LNG - sometimes paid five or six times more for the deep-chilled gas than piped gas consumed in North America, where prices have plunged because of growing availability amid a boom in production from shale deposits.

Also, weakening currencies have inflated import bills. After joining ranks with Japan, India is keen to rope in South Korea and possibly also China in the buyers club. Pradhan said LNG prices have been soft over the past 18-24 months much in tandem with crude prices and emerging LNG demand-supply interplay.

"We have also seen that LNG contracting mechanism is changing with short term contracts growing and replacing long term contracts," he said adding analysts believe it will be a buyer's market for a while.

India wants to turn an oversupply of LNG to its favour as it seeks to increase use of natural gas in its energy mix to 15 per cent from current 6 per cent now in an attempt to reduce the dependence on crude oil imports.
Icehotel 365 is now open, a year-round ice experience with 20 suites, an ice bar, and an ice gallery  all created out of snow and ice by select artists from around the globe. Around 30,000 liters of water from Torne River has transformed into snow and several tons of ice have been harvested from the river to create both parts of Icehotel.

Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016. Photo Asaf Kliger

Over forty artists, designers and architects from nine different countries have created the art in the part of the hotel that will be open year-round and also opened first. Some of them are Icehotel veterans; for example the Norwegian-Italian architect Luca Roncoroni who this year has created an elegant apartment inspired by the Victorian era and for those who worry about freezing during the night, a (hot?) element is placed by the bed. Tjasa Gusfors and Patrick Dallard are also they back this year and invite you to dance in the suite Dancers in the dark.

Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016

Walls, floors and ceilings are covered with ice and snow and the temperature is minus five degrees Celsius, year-round, in the new building. The refrigerating plant that makes sure Icehotel 365 is cold during the summer is powered by energy from solar panels and since Jukkasjarvi is situated 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, the sun is shining a 100 consecutive days during the summer months.

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Don't Get Lost Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016



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The Victorian Apartment Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016



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Dancers in the dark, Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016



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Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016. Photo Martin Smeds



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Love Capsule Icehotel 365, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, 2016. Photo Asaf Kliger



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Senior government officials from both sides of the border will participate in a new and innovative strategic partnership focusing on the north west region with a view to bringing about real and positive benefits for the area.

The North West Strategic Growth Partnership, led by Donegal County Council and Derry City and Strabane District Council and comprising senior representatives from government departments from the Republic and Northern Ireland, is the first grouping of its kind on the island of Ireland.

The inaugural meeting of the North West Strategic Growth Partnership will take place on Wednesday in Derry. It is anticipated it will meet once every six months. As well as chief executives from both councils, the cathaoirleach and mayor of each council and the chair and vice chair of the North West Regional Development Group will meet along with senior representatives from key government departments, north and south, and key regional stakeholders.

The newly-established partnership aims to provide joined-up planning and collaborative resourcing of growth for the North West region and work collectively to build on the work being carried out by the North West Regional Development Group.

This partnership with government, which is being supported by the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD), has been endorsed by the two governments through the North South Ministerial Council and is the culmination of

over two years intensive planning and development.

Seamus Neely, Chief Executive of Donegal County Council, said the partnership will provide opportunities to deliver a coordinated and durable partnership between the north west region and central government in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

We hope that through the partnership we can facilitate greater day to day joint working across the administrations and local government through shared approaches and co-ordinated planning and delivery, focusing on three key pillars of economic growth and investment, physical and environmental development and social and community cohesion and well-being, he said.



Welcoming the partnership, An Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council, Cllr Terence Slowey, said the partnership will also afford the region new chances to tap into opportunities to showcase and promote the regions rich tourism, culture and

heritage offerings, and give both Councils a proactive and leading role in marketing the region as an exceptional place to live and work.
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Politicians, public representatives, the people of Dundalk, supporters of Dundalk FC and friends from all over the world, gathered at St Joseph's Redemptorist Church Dundalk on Wednesday last for the funeral Mass of Sean Bellew, barrister, former politician, and a champion of people's rights.

Fr Eamon Kavanagh, CSsR, who celebrated the Mass, assisted by Fr Griffin, PP Faughart, described Sean as a good man, a kind man, who as a barrister had been helping refugees through his work with the Refugee Council until his untimely death. Sean's grand-uncle Fr Drum was a Redemptorist and had been shot while working as a missionary in the Philippines during the Second World War.

In a warm tribute, Seans father Jimmy, spoke of the compassion and love that Sean had for people, and the great influence of his grandparents Maureen and Johnny.

Sean was educated at the CBS primary school in Dundalk where he made many friends. Indeed his many friends came from all parts of the world to attend his funeral.

After the primary school he went to Colaiste Ris where he won Best Student Award and then went on to UCD to study law taking a master's degree.

He was called to the Bar in 1999. It was during this period that he worked part-time assisting The Dundalk Democrat in its transition from hot metal to electronic composition.

He was appointed to the Refugees Tribunal in 2009 and was dedicated to this work.

His other great passion was travel: North America, South America, Europe, Russia, and many other places.

He had planned to travel to Israel for Dundalks Europa League, seven days travelling in the Holy Land and then two days with his Dundalk FC companions in what he described as the most unholy land.

Seans other great passion was politics and in this, Jimmy said, he was following in the footsteps of his uncle Tom.

His political insight was unique. All his propositions for a new Ireland were adopted except for his views on prisoners.

In 2009 he was asked to stand for Fianna Fail in the local elections and won a seat on Dundalk Town Council where he served for five years.

He did his work quietly, never seeking personal publicity, however in 2014 he was stabbed in the back and was denied a re-nomination as a Fianna Fail candidate.

This affected his self-esteem and it was two years before he regained it. He renewed his work with the Refugee Council, a work to which he was totally dedicated. He was looking forward to this new challenge but unfortunately it was not to be.

Jimmy thanked friends, neighbours, the gardai at Pearse Street Dublin.

He finished by saying that Seans favourite film - which they had to watch every Christmas - was A Wonderful Life.

Sean Bellew really did have a wonderful life.
Any Dundalk person born in 1947, whether they realise it or not, are part of a unique generation who represent a transition of old Dundalk into the new town that we know today.

They were part of a 'baby boom' that followed the end of World War 11 and, more importantly, the end of 'The Emergency' of that period which had those of us, who are still alive today, hoping that we were embarking on a much safer and more prosperous Europe. It did not turn out quite that way but did give a lot of fresh hope for the future!

The thing that gave us most hope, however, was the building of many new houses around the town in the post-War period and the first major housing scheme undertaken by the Dundalk Urban District Council in the post-War years was Cluan Enda, 'St. Enda's Meadow'.

I do not know how the name came to be chosen but I suspect that it had a lot to do with the influence of Peadar O Dubhda who was elected Chairman of the Council just at the end of the War in June of 1945. Enda was a legendary chief of the old kingdom of Oriel, a sub-kingdom of the province of Ulaidh, in the fifth century who was reputed to have been a pagan who was converted to Christianity by his sister Fanchea. He went on to found a Monastery in the Aran Islands and his Feast Day is on March 21. It was probably not because of the sanctity of his later life that the name of the originally fierce local warrior was chosen but because it was also the name chosen by Padraig Pearse for his revolutionary Gaelic school in Dublin in 1908, with which O Dubhda would have been very familiar!

Cluan Enda was not the only Council housing scheme completed in 1947, Mulholland Avenue, with 27 houses, was completed in the same year but it was the largest since prior to the War. It was also unique in its design as it was the first local authority estate here to have a large green open space. Its 79 houses were built on a site opposite the 48 St. Alphonsus Villas houses which had been completed ten years earlier and which, together with half-a-dozen private houses built on the Long Avenue Road side of the Redemptorist Hill in the 1930s, created a new community on the south side of the Greenore Railway line. This community of nearly 150 new houses also created a new environment where people who had previously lived in other parts town were brought together for the first time and old loyalties to certain neighbourhoods of old Dundalk began to be broken down.

I can speak with some authority about the growth of Cluan Enda because I grew up along with the families living in it. I can recall the time when there were small allotments provided by the Urban Council to grow food during the hungry period of the Emergency. For this reason it was easy for the Council to acquire the land on which to built these 79 new houses not far from the centre of town. It was surrounded on two sides by Patrick J. Murphy's farm and the only other field between the allotments and the Backwater Stream was owned by Joe O'Mara who had a sporting goods shop in Earl Street. Pat Murphy, whose family came from Stonetown and went back to the eighteenth century also had a business in Earl Street, beside the old Dundalk Democrat offices.

Incidentally, I have been told recently that his niece Teresa Murphy who was a commercial teacher at St. Vincent's Secondary School who also taught shorthand and typing privately at 2, Earl Street is still alive and should be the grand old age of 101 next March! There is another potential centenarian, Annie McArdle, still living in Cluan Enda who will be 100 if she makes it to next July.

There must be something in the air of The Marshes which breathes longevity into the people who live there as there was another couple who were not far off the 100 mark before they passed away over the past couple of years. Pat and Maura Mulgrew were, in a way, typical of the neighbourly people who lived there for now nearly three parts of a century. Maura who was a Flynn from the Quay Street area of town, was a daughter of the famous Packie Flynn who was one of the fabled '100' who marched out of Dundalk on Easter Sunday 1916 to take part in the Rising; most of them did not make it to Dublin but that does take away from their patriotism and bravery. Maura was, herself, a wonderful person and a good neighbour. Pat who passed away in July of last year, was a soldier from Cavan who came to the Military Barracks as part of the Cyclists Squadron who did duty here during the Emergency. He told me, at the time of his wife's death, that he and Maura had been the last of the young married couples who had been allocate houses in Cluan Enda in 1947.

Cluan Enda has changed a lot in my lifetime, from being a boisterous young estate, with children swarming everywhere, to a quiet suburb of the town where many of the occupants of the houses are now retired.

Dundalk , in this time of housing shortages, could do with another estate like Cluan Enda, where the people have learned to live in harmony and friendship!
For a man who lost so much  his freedom, his homeland and nearly his life  to Fidel Castro, my friend Juan Roque is extraordinarily unmoved by the tyrants death.

But thats Roques hallmark: steady vision, calm spirit. Its a standpoint that more people would be wise to adopt, especially now, as interested parties wait out this uncertain time between Fidel Castros death and the possible reversal of the U.S. rapprochement with Cuba under the incoming Trump administration.

Of all the voices chiming in on Castros death, Roques was the one I sought. We met years ago, when he was an advertising executive at The Kansas City Star. Hes mostly retired now, a grandfather of five living in a suburb of Kansas City.

At 16, Roque was a freedom fighter. He was a youngster brassy enough to alter the birthdate on his passport, convincing the CIA that he was old enough to fight in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He wasnt, but our intelligence agents didnt figure it out until it was too late.

Roque was dropped off, along with 1,400 other Cuban exiles, by boat near Cuba. They made it ashore and fought for three days, vastly outnumbered by Castros troops. More than 100 of the freedom fighters died before they ran out of ammunition.

Roque, thinking like an indestructible teenager, believed that he could swim 50 miles through shark-infested waters and reach safety. He tried but was captured. He spent the next 20 months in a Cuban jail, subsisting on noodles, bread and water.

His mother, part of the underground resistance to Castro, was held in a Cuban jail at the same time. Shed been captured about eight months after sending her son and a daughter to the U.S., not knowing that her son would figure out a way to return. Shed spend 13 years in a Cuban prison.

His stepfather, who had been an adviser to the dictator Castro overthrew, Fulgencio Batista, was also jailed, for eight years. Both parents eventually made it to the United States and are now deceased.

Hatred of Castro can make people lose perspective. Its one reason why so many, including some who have the ear of president-elect Donald Trump, continue to press for maintaining the embargo. Never mind that the economic blockade accomplished nothing to budge Castro from power  and did much to harm the Cuban people.

Its a failed policy, although some still mistakenly cast it as a principled stand.

Roque has long favored lifting the embargo, trying to engage carefully, while remaining fully aware of the on-going humanitarian sins of both Castro brothers. Raul Castro has been in power for nearly a decade now, so the death of Fidel is not the watershed some are celebrating.

What can possibly happen? Roque asked. The Communist Party is still in control.

Raul is 85 and set to retire from the presidency in Feb. 24, 2018. Which is a reason why Roque is a patient man.

At a mere stroke of a pen, President Trump could reverse the executive orders Barack Obama has used to weave connections between the U.S. and Cuba. Those include the permission for businesses to import some Cuban goods, the relaxed regulations on what U.S. travelers can bring back from the island, an opening for U.S. interests to operate hotels in Cuba and for U.S. businesses and individuals to have bank accounts there.

The capitalism genie is out of the bottle. U.S. business interests will not willingly retreat from pursuing opportunities in Cuba.

In fact, the pace of rapprochement did not pause after Castros death, not even for his funeral. Two days after his last breath, as Castros ashes were ceremoniously making their way across Cuba, Havana was added as yet another Cuban destination reachable by scheduled commercial flights from a number of major U.S. cities.

Eventually, Roque might make a trip back to Cuba himself. Hed like for his beloved wife to see the island. But otherwise, he says, Cuba elicits sadness for him.

Before the revolution, Cuba was prosperous, with a growing middle class, Roque sadly reflects. Castro destroyed that, but Roque refuses to waste the energy mourning it, adding philosophically, You cannot go through life like that.

Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may email her at msanchez@kcstar.com.
India to train Vietnams Sukhoi-30 fighter pilots

Published: December 6, 2016

India has agreed to train Vietnams Sukhoi-30 fighter pilots, boosting growing defence ties between both countries.

In this regard agreement was signed during bilateral discussions between Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his Vietnamese counterpart, General Ngo Xuan Lich in New Delhi.

Key Facts

Air Forces of both countries have signed a programme for cooperation.

It covers a cross-section of activities, including training of pilots and exchange of experts.

Under it, Vietnamese pilots will be trained in India. The two Air Forces are working out the numbers, scope and the cost of training.

Both India and Vietnam operate Russian Su-30 fighter jets. However the models of fighter jets operated by both countries differ slightly in their configuration.

India already is training Vietnamese sailors in operating Kilo class submarines. Vietnam has been inducting Russian made Kilo class submarines since January 2014.

Besides, both countries also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on peacekeeping as well as exchange of delegations.

Background

India and Vietnam have steadily stepping up their cooperation, especially in defence sector, against the backdrop of the growing assertiveness of China in the Southeast and South Asai region. Recently, bilateral ties between both countries received a further fillip after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Vietnam in September 2016, on his way to the G-20 Summit in Guangzhou, China. During this visit, the bilateral relationship between both countries was upgraded from a strategic partnership to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2016

Topics: Defence  India-Vietnam  International Relations  Sukhoi-30

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This year will go down as an important turning point in CRM. For the last decade and a half, weve been simultaneously building and destroying CRM  first by linking all of the disparate databases to get that 360-degree view, and then by adding important accessories like social and analytics, to name just two. At the same time, weve been busy tearing down conventional client-server architectures and spinning up the cloud.

This year marked the point when most vendors were most of the way to the cloud. Some still might be selling and supporting conventional on-premises systems, but theyre at least leading with the cloud and its many benefits. As a result, many of the old disagreements among vendors have dried up, to be replaced by discussions of whose cloud is better.

For example, Salesforce and Microsoft have learned to cooperate competitively in areas where it suits their interests, and Oracle has posted significant gains in cloud sales. Equally important, enterprise resource planning has become a cloud app, with companies like Financial Force doing significant business.

Also, you cant forget NetSuite, which is hovering at about a billion dollars in revenue after Oracle bought it for more than US$9 billion.

The cloud has forced ERP forward and into the front office, as back-office data has become essential to front-office operations that happen in the moment. Other traditional back-office systems also are much closer to the front office today, with companies like Xactly leveraging HR data to motivate sales people and other employees.

The Demands of Innovation

Innovation continues to move ahead briskly, but I see two kinds of innovators out there. The first batch is trying to re-invent CRM by doing something the majors dont do  or more realistically, theyre trying to do it better, faster and cheaper. The second group is innovating exotic solutions for business processes that only a few people so far have identified as important.

The second group often does not reach the market, though. Instead, members of that group are being bought for huge sums and being folded into larger CRM vendors expanding solution sets. In the last few weeks, Ive been briefed under nondisclosure agreements about several amazing such solutions, and Ill be writing about them in the new year.

As for the first group, theres a lesson for entrepreneurs in this, and its the same as its always been: Make sure you have a real need to fill before you invest your time and money. Doing something a few percentage points faster than a leading company can do it is not a sustainable situation  but doing something never before contemplated might be. Its scary to be on the bleeding edge, but thats where the big bucks are.

The March of Automation

Theres been a great deal of talk, most of it pessimistic, about automation taking over blue and white collar jobs, leaving many of us jobless and potentially homeless  a downer of Dickensian proportions.

As I have written many times this year, this pessimism seems to run in 50- to 60-year economic cycles, called K-waves after the Russian economist Nicolai Kondratiev, whose job was to explain capitalism to communists early in the revolution. It turned out that the communists didnt really want to know, and Kondratiev ultimately was shot for his troubles.

My point is that trends dont run in straight lines. If you see a straight-line trend, you need to back away from your object and gain perspective. One soul whos done this is my pal Vinnie Mirchandani, author of Silicon Collar: an optimistic perspective on humans, machines and jobs.

Mirchandani went to the trouble of surveying more than 50 companies to get an understanding of where the new jobs will come from, and he hit pay dirt.

Certainly automation is eliminating some jobs  but as Mirchandani says, theyre best described by the 3Ds. That is, theyre dull, dirty and dangerous. Whats coming are jobs that tap more of our creative and intuitive skills, which can be scary for someone accustomed to something else. It creates uncertainty  and in uncertain times, humans look for cover both metaphorical and physical.

The Next New CRM

Maybe thats why I still see new CRM thats promised to be a Salesforce killer and the like. The fact is that you cant go back, and while the path forward is uncertain, it also is where opportunity is  mixed with myriad possibilities.

I cant wait until next year in CRM. I am not going to hazard a guess in this piece about whats in store  thatll be next time  but I am sure it will be interesting. Some new ideas will fall flat, but others will make perfect sense and will drive the next cycle of this adventure were on together.
Google on Thursday fired back at the European Commissions charges that it violated antitrust law by imposing coercive rules on mobile operators and developers who use or write applications for its Android operating system.

The EC this spring charged that Googles requirements to use its search engine and its Chrome browser on mobile devices running Android were coercive tactics.

The EC also charged that Google prevented manufacturers from offering smart devices using rival operating systems based on the Android open source code.

Google has not harmed competition through the way it offers the Android operating system, argued Kent Walker, general counsel for the company.

On the contrary, Google has expanded competition, he said.

Folly of Fragmentation

First, the commissions case is based on the idea that Android doesnt compete with Apples iOS, Walker noted. We dont see it that way.

Eighty-nine percent of respondents to the ECs own market survey considered Android and Apple as competitors, he pointed out.

The ECs charges ignore the dangers of fragmentation in a mobile ecosystem, Walker said, noting further that the 1.3 million developers active as of 2015 needed a stable and consistent framework to operate in.

Although developers can download and modify Android as they please, the fragmentation that creates has led to problems for operating systems like Unix and Symbian, he observed.

When anybody can modify your code, how do you ensure theres a common, consistent version of the operating system, so that developers dont have to go through the hassle and expense of building multiple versions of their apps? Walker asked.

Apple and Microsoft offer less choice of apps on their phones, he maintained.

Android usually accounts for only one-third of preloaded apps, he said. Consumers can download apps they want to use, and the average user downloads an additional 50 apps over the lifetime of a device. Consumers downloaded 65 billion apps from Google Play in 2015, an average of 175 million a day.

However, there are deep divisions within the tech industry and the open source community about the impact Android has left on competition.

Critics Abound

Android actually is a closed system, and any claim to the contrary is disingenuous, said Thomas Vinje, counsel to digital rights group Fair Search.

Google imposes severe sanctions on those who defy its insistence on conformity, he pointed out.

Phone makers that offer even a few phones that fail to comply with Googles straightjacket are cut off from all Google-branded products, according to Vinje.

The EU seems be taking a fairly aggressive stance toward Google on other issues as well, noted Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Google has the facts on its side, he acknowledged, but its questionable how much that will matter in the end.

Its hard to envision a scenario in which the company emerges completely unscathed, Castro told the E-Commerce Times.

One of the reasons apps have been concentrated on Google devices is that consumers want what they need in one place, argued Karol Severin, an analyst at Midia Research.

No matter how many searches or OSes are out there, the best ones are bound to rise to the top and start acting like chip leaders if they can, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The Google argument that Android competes with Apples iOS is almost the same argument that Microsoft gave when it argued that it competed against the Mac OS in a separate case involving Windows, recalled Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Ironically, then Google was one of the firms pushing for the adverse Microsoft judgment, while Apple actually defended Microsoft, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The EC was in receipt of Googles response, spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso confirmed to the E-Commerce Times, and in keeping with its standard practice, it would give careful consideration to the companys arguments before deciding how to move forward.
Fitbit, the leader in the wearables category, is close to an agreement to buy struggling smartwatch maker Pebble for up to US$40 million, in a move to gain the firms intellectual property and software.

The negotiations follow several months of financial turmoil at Pebble, which reportedly slashed its workforce by 25 percent in March and has rebuffed several prior offers to be acquired, The Information reported last week.

Its rumored that Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky last year turned down Citizens $740 million acquisition offer, as well as a $70 million bid from Intel prior to the launch of Pebble 2.

Fitbit does not comment on rumors or speculation, company rep Michelle McCourt told the E-Commerce Times.

The expectation that Pebble would going to have to make a tough decision on the way forward has intensified.

Pebble was overmatched in a market awash with smartwatches, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Thats in spite of the fact that they have one of the best products in the segment  particularly with regard to battery life and price, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Fitbit has a far wider reach, but it ha struggled to develop a product that isnt tightly focused on exercise, Enderle observed.

Fitbit feels it can provide Pebble with the resources to address a broader market, while Pebble provides watches that support a broader market, he suggested.

Fitbit Forecast

Fitbit has seen its own share of turmoil in recent weeks after less-than-expected third-quarter revenue, along with a profit warning, led to several analysts downgrades last month.

The company this summer unveiled new software features for Fitbit Blaze and design options for Blaze and Fitbit Alta, which soon were followed by Fitbit Charge 2 wristbands featuring new PurePulse heart rate tracking.

Fitbit shares on Monday closed $8.03  just pennies above its $7.98 low since last years IPO.

Although the company continued to be profitable, its growth would not match the pace previously expected, CEO James Park warned in the quarterly earnings announcement.

Fitbit expected fourth-quarter revenue of between $725 million and $750 million, representing growth of 2 percent to 5 percent, and earnings per share of between 14 and 18 cents, he said.

Category Crumble

The reports of the Pebble talks come amid overall weakness in the category.

Smartwatch sales fell by 32 percent in the second-quarter of 2016 from 5.1 million units to 3.5 million, year-over-year, the first such decline the firm recorded, IDC reported this summer.

Consumers were holding off on smartwatch purchases in anticipation of upgrades in hardware, the report indicated. The expectation of a new operating system from Apple effectively stalled sales of the Apple Watch.

Shipments of basic wearables rose sharply in the second quarter to 22.5 million, representing growth of almost 49 percent to compared with the year-ago period, IDC reported weeks later. However, smart wearables, which involve the use of third-party software, declined 27.2 percent year-over-year.

Basic wearables, which include most fitness trackers, accounted for nearly 83 percent of all wearables shipped during the quarter, the firm said.

Fitbit was the leading firm in the overall wearables category, with 5.7 million shipments, holding 25.4 percent market share, according to IDC. The category was rounded out by Xiaomi, Apple, Garmin and Lifesense.

Despite Apples continually cheery talk about sales of its watch, the broad wearables market seems to be faltering rather than gaining traction, Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told the E-Commerce Times.

The category is struggling mainly because theres still a dearth of apps or use cases, said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for worldwide mobile device trackers at IDC.

The smartwatch category is still heavily reliant on the smartphone and doesnt offer a differentiated enough experience to justify the added cost, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Apart from that, many users still arent satisfied with the design or battery life, Ubrani pointed out. However, Fitbit and to some extent Pebble do have great design and battery life compared to other smartwatches out there, so itll be interesting to see how this plays out.
A LinkedIn block in Russia could be imminent, in light of last weeks court ruling that the company broke a law requiring personal data on Russian citizens to be stored on servers within the country.

Roskomnadzor, Russias telecommunications and media authority, is waiting until it has the full text of the ruling before acting on it.

We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request, said LinkedIn spokesperson May Chow.

The Russian courts decision has the potential to deny access to LinkedIn for the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their business, she told the E-Commerce Times.

Russia had 5 million registered LinkedIn members in Q1. The United States had 128 million, and India had 35 million. Indonesia and the Netherlands were ahead of Russia with 6 million each.

Behind the Scenes

On Sept. 21 last year, Amendments to Russias 2014 law requiring the localization of personal data in the countrys territory went into effect last fall.

Moscows Tagansky Court this summer approved a request from Roskomnadzor to add LinkedIn to a list of Internet sites that had violated the new provisions.

LinkedIns appeal against the ruling was rejected last week.

Why LinkedIn?

Foreign social media firms including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp gather, process and share Russian users data, but it appears thatnone of them comply with the Russian law.

LinkedIn might serve as a showcase to support Roskomnadzors desire to gain greater control over social networks, which played a major role in street protests in Moscow in 2011 and 2012. Up to now, it hasnt been able to clamp down on them.

LinkedIn is perhaps small enough to tackle, and its relationships with Roskomnadzor apparently are not as strong as those of Facebook and Twitter.

Its possible that a ban on LinkedIn would aim to push larger players to negotiate, and bans on smaller social networking sites might be implemented to ratchet up the pressure.

Russian rights activist Pavel Chikov reportedly has visualized a worst-case scenario in which the ban is the first step in Russias easing out of the global Internet.

The Impact on US Companies

Russias data law is part of a worldwide data localization trend that emerged in the wake of news about the U.S. National Security Agencys PRISM surveillance program, which first came to light several years ago.

The PRISM revelations caused laws to come up all over the world requiring localized storage of citizen data, observed Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

These laws have already significantly adversely impacted international sales of technology and services across a broad spectrum of firms, and will likely continue hurting domestic revenues, jobs and taxes, he told the E-Commerce Times.

A Ray of Hope

Other countries need us more than we need them, maintained Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

If they protect themselves from our technology, they cant use it either, he told the E-Commerce Times. Foreign customers will be denied access to the best technology, which will hurt their economies more than ours.

Microsofts impending acquisition may give LinkedIn a way out, Enderle suggested.

Azure has many localized storage facilities, he said, and I expect LinkedIn will use those resources to better comply with these laws.
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Joint maritime exercise Konkan 16 between India and UK begins

Published: December 6, 2016

The annual bilateral maritime exercise Konkan 16 between the Indian Navy and the Royal Navy (British Navy) started in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

The 2016 edition of the exercise (from 05 to 16 December 2016) will play an important chapter in the maritime interactions. It will familiarise navies of both countries with each others planning processes and further enhance synergy and inter-operability.

Key Facts

Konkan 16 will be conducted in two phases in Mumbai and Goa. The first phase (05 to 09 December 2016) will be held in Mumbai.

In it there will be a command planning exercise involving the two navies, where planners from both sides will undertake planning for combined maritime operations.

The second phase is a LIVE EXERCISE (LIVEX) will be held from 12 to 16 December 2016 at Goa. It involves interaction between the Indian Marine Commandos (MARCOs) and the Royal Marines.

Both phases will involve sharing of best practices and lessons learnt from recent operations, especially in the field of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) and Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO).

Background

The exercise KONKAN has been named after the Western coastal region of India. It was institutionalised in 2004. Since then, the exercise hosted in rotation by both the Navies. It has grown in complexity, scale and intensity.

Comment

Successive editions of KONKAN exercises have built on past experiences and have enhanced operational inter-operability between the two navies. This cooperation between the two navies is a positive and tangible symbol of commitment in ensuring a positive climate for maritime security and economic development. It will further strengthen the existing bonds of friendship between India and UK and enhance Indias capability to work together to contribute towards maritime security in the global commons.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2016

Topics: Defence  India-United Kingdom  Kokan 2016  Kokan Exercises  Maritime Exercises  maritime security  National

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DHAKA  There are more mixed messages coming out of Bangladesh with regards to the ready-made garment (RMG) industry's progress in addressing structural and safety issues. The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety has announced that three factories which had previously been suspended by the North American apparel group for failing to address safety issues have now been reinstated "in recognition of their remediation progress." Meanwhile, the Alliance has announced that four additional Alliance-affiliated factories have completed all material components outlined in their Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), bringing the total number of graduated factories to 46  a figure which could be viewed by some as a drop in the ocean given that the Alliance has now inspected more than 800 factories.
GENEVA - Clothing take-back business I:Collect has been named along the finalists for The Circulars, an initiative of the World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders. I:CO has been recognised by the Young Global Leaders Award for Circular Economy SME category. The Circulars, an initiative of the World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders, is a circular economy award program, offering recognition to individuals and organisations that have made contributions to the circular economy in the private sector, public sector and society. Nike and Patagonia are also among the finalists in this year's awards.
Theres something the farm lobby doesnt want you to know: how much their use of antibiotics in livestock poses a risk to you and your children.

Drug resistant infections are on the rise, according to the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, with numbers suggesting that up to 50,000 lives are lost each year to antibiotic-resistant infections in Europe and the U.S. alone. Globally, at least 700,000 die each year of drug resistance in illnesses such as bacterial infections, malaria, HIV/Aids or tuberculosis.

In the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 2 million people are sickened by antibiotic-resistant infections every year and at least 23,000 die.

Livestock use of antibiotics is contributing to a public health crisis of antibiotic resistance, said Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) senior health officer and physician David Wallinga, MD. Its you, me and the people we love who will suffer the consequences when the medications we rely on to treat common illnesses no longer work.

Sales of antibiotics for use in food animal production account for 70 percent of total medically important antibiotic sales. Thats an increase of 23 percent just since 2009. In 2012, more than 32.2 million pounds of antibiotics were given to farm animals. And while a doctors prescription is needed for you to get an antibiotic, farmers give virtually all antibiotics to live turkeys, chicken, cattle and hogs without a veterinarians supervision.

Ohio State University researchers conducted a meta-analysis of medical and scientific studies on antibiotic use in food animals and concluded that in existing studies, neither the risks to human health nor the benefits to animal production have been well studied.

But, Scientific American said, the farm industry itself is stifling needed research in this area.

Researchers are rarely given access to study livestock in farming operations. Farmers are required by contracts that they have to sign with their customersbig food producers such as Tyson Foods or Perdue Farmsto limit non-essential people on their farms. And if the farmer violates the contract, they can be punished monetarily or even lose their contract.

Antibiotics have been used in food production since the 1950s. Some are for therapeutic applications, when an animal is truly sick. Often, they are used to prevent or limit transmission of disease among animals which are confined in close quarters. Many are used simply to make animals grow faster.

But these drugs dont stay confined to the animal receiving them.

A recent study found that 70 percent of pigs on Iowa farms tested positive for MRSAan antibiotic-resistant staph infection. And the same study found 64 percent of the workers on one farm harbored the superbug. When researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine drove behind poultry trucks, antibiotic-resistant enterococci was sucked into their car through open windows.

If regulators wait for this problem to get any worse, controlling it may no longer be possible, said Jonathan Kaplan, director of the Food and Agriculture Program at NRDC. Future generations are going to wonder why FDA didnt take real action as these life-saving drugs slipped away from us.

Previous U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations have proven worthless. Thats why, in September a coalition of organizations, including the NRDC, petitioned the FDA to withdraw seven medically-important antibiotics from agricultural use.

NRDC Senior Attorney Avinash Kar told EcoWatch, Experts, the Animal Health Institute and FDA all agree that the FDAs voluntary guidance is likely to have little impact in reducing livestock use of antibioticsbecause it addresses only a small portion of use. Thats why NRDC is calling on FDA to put an end to the routine use of medically important antibiotics on animals that are not sick, whether it is used for speeding up animal growth or for disease prevention.

But, industry lobbying can hog-tie the FDAs ability to deal with this issue.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Major agribusiness and pharmaceutical interests have spent serious money on lobbying. The American Farm Bureau Federation doled out $5,697,492 for lobbying efforts from 2015 to 2016, and five of their 18 lobbyists previously held government jobs.

The lobbying is working. The FDA requested $7.1 million for fiscal year 2016 to study drug resistance in animals, and got nothing from Congress. Not a dime.

Its time for the FDA to also act in order to keep antibiotics working, and the time is now, said Steve Blackledge, public health program director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which joined the petition to the FDA.Looking ahead, things could get much worse for your health. The 2016 Republican Party platform states:

We oppose the policies pushed by special interest groups seeking to stop or make more expensive our current system of safe, efficient, and humane production of meat.

The party is now led by Donald Trump, who campaigned against the FDA food police and opposes GMO food labeling.

But the problem isnt going away.

Watch here as Dr. Lance Price, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center, talks about factory farms, antibiotics and superbugs at TEDxManhattan:

Use of antibiotics on the farm most definitely poses a risk to human health, Consumers Union said. The World Health Organization agrees. It noted that 480,000 people develop multi-drug resistant tuberculosis each year and drug resistance is already complicating treatment for HIV and malaria.

Peter Lehner of Earthjustice, stated, It seems crazy to risk losing the effectiveness of one of our most important inventionsantibioticssimply because we dont want to make animal factories clean up.
Undercover police raided an environmental activists home. Cabinet ministers hacked and then released to the media emails and sensitive financial information from an environmental group. When the Supreme Court ruled that the cabinet ministers had violated the environmentalists right to privacy, the ministers tried to jail the environmental groups lawyer and the judge who decided the case.

Are these assaults on civil and human rights and the rule of law taking place in some far-away, fragile, failed state, teetering on the brink of dictatorship? Unfortunately, this is happening less than 100 miles from Florida in the Bahamas, a long-standing democracy, American ally and member of the British Commonwealth.

Bahamian officials alliance with a billionaire polluter, has created a constitutional crisis in their island nationand cause for concern for their countrys freedom-loving allies on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/508370394320232448 business when really its already contracting.

If such privacy infringements are allowed to stand, it would set a legal precedent that could undermine banking privacy not just in the Bahamas, but in other Commonwealth banking centers such as the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

Abandoning the rule of law, stomping on privacy rights, and publicly savaging and jailing sitting judges, lawyers and environmental and human rights NGOs clashes with the Bahamas hard-won image as a financial and tourist haven. Its time for level-headed leaders in the Bahamas to step in and fix this fiasco before more lasting damage is done.
Canadian womenswear mogul Peter Nygard never seems to be more than an arms length away from controversy.

According to a 2010 Forbes article, Nygard has been accused of abusive labor practices, tax evasion, sexual harassment and rape. (He has also been called the Hugh Hefner of Canada). Punching back hard, he has sued his accusers and intimidated his critics with a small army of lawyers. No one has ever disobeyed my orders and gotten away with it! he once raged, according to the testimony of a former business partner.

The unpermitted growth of Nygards property over the years. Photo credit: Save The Bays

Environmentalists say those who obey his orders include government officials in the Bahamas, where Nygard has been building a massive estate since the mid 80s. Forbes described his resort as a 150,000-square-foot Mayan-style resort featuring 12 themed cabanas, volcanic smoking temples, a helipad, disco, casino and a human aquarium (with sharks on one side of the glass) where he has hosted the likes of Robert De Niro, Oprah, Michael Jackson, Prince Andrew and George H.W. Bush, as well as his one-time girlfriend Anna Nicole Smith.

Environmentalists, unimpressed by the fact that its been featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, describe it as a threat to the delicate and world-renowned ecology of the islands as well as to the publics ability to enjoy the beaches that attract visitors.

Nygards appropriation of oceanfront to expand his resort and his disregard of legal process and environmental protections to do so has been challenged by the rapidly growing Bahamas-based grassroots environmental group, Save The Bays, founded last year. That group has been embroiled in a series of legal measures to prevent the uncontrolled expansion on the peninsula he renamed Nygard Cay. That includes dredging and construction of artificial structures in the oceana threat to the marine habitat including delicate coral reef ecosystems.

Over the last 20 years Peter Nygard has illegally expanded his property at Simms Point to nearly twice its original size, charges Save the Bays. Finally the government has required him to apply for permits for the work hes done to claim $35 million worth of crown land, the same work that has already caused environmental destruction to Clifton Bay and Jaws Beach. Hes also applied to keep going, expanding his land further into the seabed, which belongs to the Bahamian people.

To Canadian designer Peter Nygard, coral reefs take a backseat to his expansion plans. Photo credit: The Nature Conservancy

Following a recent visit by environmentalists to the island, Sharon Khan, international director of Waterkeeper Alliance, noted the impact the unauthorized work at Nygard Cay was having on a nearby beach.

Jaws Beach is one of the last beaches that remains open to the public on this island and we remain concerned that poorly planned and unpermitted developments are decreasing the ability of Bahamian people and their guests to enjoy this famous beach and its clear blue water, she said.

Last week, the Bahamas Supreme Court ruled in favor of Save The Bays, issuing an injunction to halt a public consultation process. Save The Bays had been issued an injunction in July to halt the process, saying that critical information had not been made available, causing the process to be fatally flawed. Save The Bays argued that the Bahamas government had breached the injunction by circulating new consultation notices anyway.

The group was also granted judicial review of the governments failure to develop a land use plan required by the countrys 2011 Planning and Subdivision Act.

Its merely the latest skirmish in a long war, which also includes charges and countercharges between Nygard and his neighborhood, billionaire hedge fund manager conservationist Louis Bacon. Naturally, theyre suing each other.

Bacon, who supports the conservation efforts of Save The Bays and has won awards from groups like Riverkeeper, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and National Audubon Society, is claiming in a New York court that Nygard has engaged in a smear campaign against him. The New York application relates to evidence from a whistle-blower which is said to support Bacons defamation suits and Save The Bays action against Nygard concerning environmental destruction.
A six-inch crude oil pipeline operated by Belle Fourche Pipeline Company in western North Dakota was shut down following discovery of a leak on Monday. The amount of the spill was not immediately known, but oil has leaked into the Ash Coulee Creek in Billings County.

The site of the spill is about 200 miles from the camp where members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters have been protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It is a significant spill, Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager for the North Dakota Department of health, said.

A series of booms have been placed across the creek to prevent downstream migration and a siphon dam has been constructed four miles downstream of the release point.

The Belle Fourche Pipeline Co. is part of the family-owned True companies, which also operates Bridger Pipeline LLC. Both pipelines are operated from the same control room in Casper, Wyoming. From 2006 to 2014, Belle Fourche reported 21 incidents, leaking a total of 272,832 gallons of oil. Bridger Pipeline recorded nine pipeline incidents in the same period, spilling nearly 11,000 gallons of crude.

In general, Bridger has a poor compliance history, wrote a federal regulator charged with overseeing pipeline safety in a 2012 order regarding a 2006 oil spill.

A Belle Fourche pipeline that spilled 12,200 gallons in May, 2014 occurred on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land near Buffalo, Wyoming. It was later discovered that Belle Fourche did not have a permit to operate the land. Its sister company, Bridger, was fined $27,029 for trespassing by the BLM.

Bridger was also responsbile for dumping up to 50,000 gallons of crude into the scenic Yellowstone River in 2015.

While operators claim that oil pipelines are safer than trains or trucks, an aging infrastructure and inadequate oversight leads to numerous leaks, most of which never make headlines. A Nov. 30 analysis by Citylab revealed that more than 9,000 significant accidents over the past 20 years have resulted in 548 deaths, 2,576 injuries and more than $8.5 billion in financial damages. An Oct. 25 analysis by EcoWatch found 220 significant pipeline spills to date in 2016 and showed that the number of significant pipeline incidents has grown 26.8 percent from 2006 to 2015.

There have already been 220 'significant' pipeline spills already this year. https://t.co/Z4LOtZUzui via @EcoWatch  NRDC ?? (@NRDC) November 6, 2016

The Belle Fourche and Bridger pipelines transport crude oil in the Williston Basin of western North Dakota and eastern Montana and the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
Democracy Now! celebrated its 20th anniversary Monday night at the historic Riverside Church in New York City. Among those who addressed more than 2,000 attendants was world-renowned linguistic Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky spoke about the two most dangerous threats the human species faces today: the possibility of nuclear war and the accelerating destruction of human-fueled climate change. Chomsky also addressed the dangers of Donald Trumps climate change denialismand what it means for the future of the human species.

Watch the video clips below:

Reposted with permission from our media associate Democracy Now!.
Food poisoning cases linked to eating oysters and other shellfish from New England waters have jumped from five cases in 2000 to 147 in 2013. A study from the University of New Hampshire links this increase to warming ocean waters.

The culprit is a bacteria called Vibrio. It infects seafood and causes 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is most common when waters are warmer, typically from May to October. Now, as climate change is warming even the typically cool New England coastal seas, the bacteria is spreading.

In the last 10 or 20 years, its become very apparent that there is something going on, said one of the researchers, Stephen Jones, of the Northeast Center for Vibrio Disease and Ecology at the University of New Hampshire.

Vibriosis can cause vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, fever and chills. A bout typically lasts three days, but those with weakened immune systems or certain medical conditions can experience more serious symptoms.

A separate study published in August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at 50 years of data from water samples in the North Atlantic. They found a direct correlation between rising water temperatures and increased Vibrio infections in both the U.S. and Europe.

Rita Colwell, one of the studys authors, told National Geographic, We were able to show a doubling, triplingin some cases quadruplingof the Vibrio over that 50-year period.

Flickr/Jeremy Keith

Similar reports have come from Alaska as well.

Vibrio first made its appearance there in 2004, when 62 cruise ship passengers were sickened after eating raw oysters from Prince William Sound. A year later, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that linked the outbreak to increased water temperatures.

The threshold level of danger comes when water reaches 59 degrees Fahrenheit. The study showed that the water temperature at the oyster farm where the infected mollusks were harvested had increased from 1997 to 2004. The temperature exceeded the critical level for the first time in July and August of 2004.

Then, Vibrio began to spread. From Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Alaska and Cook Inlet, over the next nine years 22 marine animals known to eat shellfishsea otters, a beluga whale and a porpoisewere found to be carrying the bacteria.

The cold waters off Maine and New Hampshire have made Vibrio rare in the region. But, the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99.9 percent of the worlds oceans. That has already decimated the lobster industry in Southern New England.

In the North Atlantic, we are seeing a northern march of whole ecosystems toward the poles as the planet warms: predators, prey, and in the case of Vibrio, the parasites as well, moving with their hosts up the globe, said Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Vibriosis isnt the only concern coming from warming waters. In recent months, Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island have been forced to close many areas to shellfishing due to numerous toxic algae outbreaks. They have since been reopened.

As winter approaches, colder sea temperatures reduce the risk of Vibrio bacteria. Current sea temperatures along the coast of New England are in the upper 40s to about 50 degrees, according to NOAA data, well below the danger level. Alaskan waters range from 33 degrees in Cook Inlet along the Kenai Peninsula to 45 in Prince William Sound and 46 in the Gulf of Alaska.

The CDC recommends cooking shellfish, washing your hands after contact with raw shellfish and avoiding contaminating cooked foods with raw shellfish or its juices. For those who love raw oysters, though, it may be wise to ask where they came from and check the NOAA coastal water temperatures or another app for that location. Or you can follow this common lore, which states that we should only be eating shellfish, especially oysters, in months with the letter R.
On Monday, former VP Al Gore made a surprise visit to Trump Tower to discuss climate change with Ivanka Trump, who is reportedly interested in the issue.

Gore told reporters afterwards that he also met with Donald Trump and had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued.

Gore wasnt Ivankas only high-profile climate advocate visitor: Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly gave her a copy of his climate change documentary Before the Flood at a recent meeting.

After the Gore meeting, Trump checked in with his energy adviser Rep. Kevin Cramer, a climate change denier and possible pick for energy secretary, and will meet with Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil and rumored candidate for Secretary of State, on Tuesday.

Covering up climate science and deceiving investors qualifies you for federal investigation, not federal office, 350.org Executive Director May Boeve said in regards to Trumps meeting with Tillerson. An oil baron as Secretary of State would do enormous damage. Tillerson could deeply disrupt international efforts towards climate action, take retribution against countries that defy the oil industry, and help write more international trade deals that put profit ahead of people and planet. Rex Tillerson made millions off of Exxons strategy of denial and doubt, and would have every incentive to continue the deception while Secretary of State.

For a deeper dive:

Gore: AP, Reuters, Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, The Hill, Politico, Bloomberg, Mashable, CNN, VICE, E&E, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine

Tillerson: Politico, Bloomberg

Commentary: Vox, Brad Plumer column; Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley analysis; Observer, Andrew Eil op-ed; The Hill, Brent Budowsky column; ThinkProgress, Natasha Geiling column

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(Photo:  UNHCR)Syrian women and children recently displaced from East Aleppo take shelter at the nearby Al-Mahalij industrial zone in late 2016.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit is urging an immediate cessation of airstrikes and bombardments on Aleppo due to the "alarming" situation for thousands of civilians trapped in the part of the city under aerial onslaught.

The conflict in Aleppo, Syria, has intensified in recent months, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the city.

"It is unacceptable that children should become victims in this way," said Tveit in a statement released Dec. 5 by the WCC.

"The alarming situation of the thousands of civilians trapped in Aleppo amidst the escalating violence is of deep concern to us. As Churches we call for full respect for the dignity of all human beings created in the image of God."

His call came Dec. 5, the same day that UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, said it remains extremely concerned for the civilian population. With thousands fleeing the eastern part of the city, our focus has turned to the rapidly growing shelter needs.

Many of those who have fled eastern districts are now in unfinished or partly-destroyed buildings said the UNHCR. Unsanitary conditions and overcrowding are already challenges in a congested city with few open spaces.

"We have been providing tents, shelter kits and sealing-off kits to meet the most urgent needs and improve living conditions. We are also working with partners to quickly rehabilitate structures as temperatures drop," said the refugee agency.

"Food, water, medical care and other items are being distributed by UNHCR and partners alongside winter clothing and other relief items. We have emergency supplies of non-food items, among them blankets and tents, for 45,000 people in western Aleppo. These can be replenished at short notice."

'END HOSTILITIES'

"We are still unable to reach the many thousands without food, water and shelter in eastern Aleppo as temperatures drop and fighting rages. With its U.N. partners, UNHCR continues to call for an end to the hostilities to allow safe passage out, and humanitarian assistance to be delivered," said the U.N. agency.

In his stamen Tveit said, "Hunger, the threat to life, the destruction of homes, the lack of security and medical care, and the inability for people to access help is forcing communities to endure ever greater suffering.

"We call on the UN Security Council to put aside whatever political agenda it may have, and actually focus on the safety and security of civilians in Syria."

"No other interest should have a higher priority than to protect the lives of the thousands of people at stake," said Tveit.

"The UN Security Council should prioritize the humanitarian imperative and implement relevant UN resolutions that oblige all parties to the conflict to respect and protect all civilians and civilian infrastructure; allow for safe, immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access; and put an end to brutal sieges of so many areas in Syria."

The WCC call also coincided with an announcement by U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that it was launching an aid appeal noting that the world is facing a humanitarian crisis that will require a record $22.2 billion in funding for 2017 to support nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people.

"The scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded," said U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien, launching the Global Humanitarian Overview 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland, according to a press release from OCHA.






Europe joins in celebrating 100 years of Cobb



The Eurotier Show at Hannover in Germany provided an ideal opportunity for Cobb Europe distributors, customers and friends to share in celebrating the 100 years of Cobb-Vantress, Inc. as the anniversary year comes to a close, the company said.

The show took place within days of the November 20 date when in 1916, Robert C. Cobb bought Old Pickard Farm at Concord, Massachusetts, US, which became the home of the company for more than 70 years until its move to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, in the 1980s. The Cobb breed came to Europe more than 50 years ago and the Cobb500 broiler breeder was launched in the UK in the 1970s before its introduction to the US ten years later.

The centenary celebrations, which began last autumn with the Cobb worldwide distributor conference in Boston, Massachusetts, have been taking place around the world during 2016 and, at Eurotier, Cobb retiring president Jerry Moye was making his final attendance at a European exhibition after ten years as president. He was accompanied by the new president of Cobb, Joel Sappenfield.

"I am really appreciative of all the support for Cobb and for the transition to the new leadership of the company," he said. "I'm sure we can look forward to many great opportunities for Cobb in this region of the world as we enter the next 100 years."

As well as a special reception on the exhibit, there was also a restaurant dinner where warm appreciation for the support given by Moye to Cobb Germany - and the European distribution network in general - was expressed by its general manager Leo Graf von Drechsel.

He recalled that they had first met 18 years ago at a Cobb worldwide distributor conference in San Antonio, Texas, and spoke of the very successful and enjoyable time they had developing international business together. He expressed his appreciation to Moye on behalf of all Cobb customers, distributors, friends and partners in Europe.

"We congratulate you for doing a great job, for growing the business of Cobb, for working with us and giving us business, and we do try to give it back some times," Drechsel remarked. As a token of appreciation, he said Moye merited "one of the highest German rewards - to be guest of honour at the German Oktoberfest for life".

Moye added: "I appreciate all the friendship here and the support for Cobb. We have a great business over here, and you will have a great new leader in Joel Sappenfield. You'll really enjoy working with him."

- Cobb
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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
Committee calls for Vision Nine evidence

A Government committee is asking for feedback on its collapsed deal with Vision Nine over the promotion of the TT.

The Economic Policy and Review Committee has been asked to investigate the saga, which has left the London-based events company threatening legal action against the Department of Economic Development.

The DED announced last week that it is no longer pursuing an agreeing with Vision Nine, despite the company winning a tender process to take over as promoter of the TT.

MHKs Tim Baker and Jason Moorhouse sit on the committee, alongside MLC Michael Coleman.

Written evidence can be sent to Legislative Building or emailed to enquiries@tynwald.org by January 6th.
Looking forward to the 1,000 year peace By Michael Moriarty

Oh, I know my title sounds overly optimistic but Im fairly certain we are already in the early stages of the infamous Armegeddon. The one we will most likely call World War III. Or, if kept in check, The American Civil War with Radical Islam. That means the full prophecy in The Book of Revelation, the ever-prayed-for-and-ever-hoped-for Peace, lasting ten centuries?! It will be upon us. If President Trump can actually make American Great Again? We are Biblical History! Radical Islam and the Islamic State will have taken the longest vacation from major violence in its entire 1,400 year memory. The American Armed Forces, thanks to Mad Dog Mattis, will have never been stronger. Our militarys wounded might very well be looking forward to spirit-lifting visits from the exceptionally attractive VA Secretary, Sarah Palin. Mexico will have to earn a regular seat at the American Prosperity Table. The American worker will become President Trumps most important domestic priority. Therell be term-limits on Federal employees. For every new Federal regulation? Two old regulations will be eliminated! The end of lobbyists, insofar as that is possible. NAFTA will be renegotiated. America will no longer be a part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Communist China, when involving currency, is on probation. The end of job-killing restrictions on the $50 Trillion, American energy sector. For the Keystone Pipeline? Yes!! The Keystone Pipeline will happen. End of all American contributions to The Climate Change scam. A cancellation of all the unconstitutional executive actions made by President Obama. Find a strict Constitutionalist for Judge Scalias former place on the Supreme Court. Cancel all funding to Sanctuary Cities. Remove criminal immigrants from the United States. Suspend immigration from infamously terror-prone nations. Fight for the passing of the following legislation: A Middle-Class Tax Cut. A bill to resume off-shore drilling. A School Choice and Opportunity Act. Spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years with the American Energy and Infrastructure Act. Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Restoring Community Safety Act. Restoring National Security Act. Clean Up Corruption-In-Washington Act. - End Illegal Immigration Act. All of it wont possibly be accomplished in Trumps first term, let alone his first 100 days. However, America will be returning herself to sanity. I left my homeland when the Clinton Administration and Attorney General Janet Reno were promising to censor violence on television. It wasnt because of governments tyrannically prone cupidity and stupidity. It was because of Americas willingness to look the other way. Within less than 15 years, America and Americans ended up with the Obama Nation, a severely national broken back and a criminal Presidency. Things, however, are looking up again and the pride I held in the country of my birth is being renewed. Who knows? I might even want to pay a visit. That, however, depends upon the depth of President Trumps success. My fondest prayers and wishes to you, sir, for a legendarily history-making success! Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home
Sandton Central, without doubt, has become the most important business and financial node in South Africa, and plausibly sub-Saharan Africa.

It is home to many of South Africas largest corporates, the worlds top multinational companies, the JSE and the iconic Sandton City mega-mall

Not only is Sandton South Africas commercial capital, it is also a world-class leading city.

In economic circles, the attractiveness and economic health of an area is measured by a simple guideline  the number of cranes which can be seen on the skyline. Right now, the Sandton Central skyline shows an impressive cluster of cranes, says Elaine Jack, City Improvement District Manager for Sandton Central Management District.

So, it may be difficult to imagine that less than 50 years ago Sandton didnt exist in name - where it stands today was largely a farming and smallholding community.

Sandton was promulgated in July 1969 and at that time there were about 30,000 whites in the town and 15,000 horses, according to former town planner Barry Bristow.

And, while scarcely populated in the years before that, it has a rich, albeit largely uneventful, early history.

Greater Sandtons first residents were middle stone-age hunters who arrived around 30,000 years ago, establishing communities on the granite outcrops of Witkoppen, Lonehill and Norscot Koppies.

About 10,000 years ago ancestors of the San people settled. Then, around four centuries ago, Bantu-speaking communities of the iron-age inhabited the rocky ridges of the area becoming Sandtons first industrialists, with an economy based principally on agriculture and metalwork.

The first settlers moved to Sandton after Britain annexed Natal in 1843. Every original Voortrekker male settler who came to the South African Republic (later Transvaal, now Gauteng), was entitled to a farm of his own. Sandfontein was the farm area around Sandton. The Esterhuysens were a well-known Voortrekker family who lived on the farm Sandfontein, close to where Sandown High School is today, on the corner of Grayston and Rivonia drives.

A wave of urbanisation in the 1930s was driven by widespread poverty in South Africa as the world suffered one of its worst economic depressions. Many people abandoned rural lifestyles for opportunities in the industrial Witwatersrand.

The Southern Suburbs of Sandton were laid out quite early in the century and by the thirties they were well established as gentleman estate areas with most of the properties being one morgen or larger. At this stage they formed the northern suburbs of Johannesburg and in some cases extended beyond the boundaries of the city. The rural horsey lifestyle of Sandton led to the area being dubbed the Mink and Manure Belt and it was considered a desirable address.

During the 1940s and 50s Sandton became increasingly residential and wanted independence from the governments Peri-Urban areas Health Board, which had control over services such as water. The local population regarded themselves as an entity separate from Johannesburg.The first moves by Sandton to achieve independence from Johannesburg go back to the early sixties. When it was eventually promulgated as a municipality in 1969, its name formed from a combination of the names Sandtfontein, Bryanston and Sandown.

The first few years of Sandtons existence were dominated by the question of whether Sandton should remain a quite semi-rural dormitory town or be a more balanced entity with significant business and higher density residential components. Bristow reports that it split the town council apart.

In 1956 the Peri-Urban board had bought some large tract of land for municipal purposes  one of these being the 11 ha site in Sandown where the Civic Centre now stands. Of this, 3.4 ha was sold to the Transvaal Provincial Administration for the building of Sandown Primary School and in 1965 the land directly south of the Civic Centre area was allocated extensive retail and flat rights  the land then belonged to Mr Bob Edmunds, the chairman of Standard Bank, and was sold to property developers Rapp and Maister  now Liberty Properties  in 1968.

The first step in transforming Sandton from a farming community to a bustling business district came with Sandton City, which was developed and constructed by Rapp and Maister on this site during the early 1970s, opening for trade in 1974.

The rush of commercial space began in the mid to late 1980s when land in Sandton was cheaper than that in the Johannesburg CBD and could also offer a lifestyle with rolling lawns, fountains and low-density, affordable-to-own office space that could not be accommodated in the CBD.

The council agreed to approximately 200,000 square meters of office space  today the figure for central Sandton alone stands at more than 1.5-million square meters and is still growing.

Sandton is the second largest office node in South Africa, hot on the heels of the Johannesburg CBD. It has exceptionally high proportion of prime quality office space. Sandton Central is also said to be the epicenter of green building in Africa with what is possibly the highest number of certified green buildings of any business district. Unarguably, it is home to some of the continents finest contemporary business buildings.

Yet, even with its rapid development and new office and apartment towers on the rise, there are still charming traces of Sandtons relatively brief modern history to be found, like the little church under the

pines in Stella Street, Sandown, right behind Growthpoint Properties 138 West Street diagonally across the road from the Sandton Gautrain Station.

It was the first church in the district, inspired by Anna Notten (nee Wierda) who arrived with her parents and three sisters from Holland in 1887. Her father Sytze Wierda, was a distinguished architect who designed Amsterdams central railway station and was recruited to organise the public works department. The interdenominational churchs cornerstone was laid on 11 July 1925. Today, it stands among Sandton Centrals bustling high-rise buildings.
Mozambique has added a new chapter to the sorry tale of its involvement in the international capital markets after telling creditors that its debt levels are not sustainable.

The country is working to regain the support of the IMF.

It met creditors in London on October 25, not long after Alexei Yakovitsky, chief executive of VTB Capital, a bank that has worked closely with Mozambique on its debt issuance, struck a positive note on the countrys debt prospects.

Yakovitsky told Euromoney on October 12, that there was no reason to believe that state-owned Mozambique Asset Management, which had missed a $178 million payment on a $535 million loan provided by VTB, would not work things out.

The story is not over yet, he said, upbeat.

The story has indeed developed, and sooner than most analysts expected, but the development is hardly a positive one.

Though the countrys debt has a dismal rating, as one financier active in Mozambique puts it, investors were surprised by the October announcement.

The sovereigns bond quickly lost value in secondary trading, and analysts wondered if this latest event would harm the countrys prospects of regaining IMF funding.



Stuart Culverhouse,

Exotix

Stuart Culverhouse, global head of research at Exotix, says Mozambiques announcement and the timing of it may have something to do with the discussions the country has been having with the IMF, as well as an upcoming coupon payment.

Why wait?

In the context of the recent discussions, he says, and with the coupon coming in January, maybe its accelerated their view about where they are and therefore why wait any longer, if theyre up against it now?

The IMF pulled its budget support for Mozambique earlier this year, when it emerged that it had misinformed the fund about the size of its debts, hiding $1.4 billion of loans for its interior ministry and two state-controlled firms  among them, the $535 million VTB loan.

These revelations follow a scandal over the misuse of $850 million of notes issued by a state-owned company, Ematum. Investors thought they were lending the money for the purchase of a tuna-fishing fleet, when in fact the proceeds were being used for military purposes.

The IMFs withdrawal seriously hurt the governments accounts, Mozambique told investors, adding that its primary objective is to resume relations with the IMF to stabilize the economy and restore the confidence of the international community.

Gross public debt has reached 130% of GDP, from just 38% five years ago, according to IMF data.

Help at hand

But the situation is not all bad for Mozambique. Help from the IMF may yet materialize. An IMF delegation visited the country in June and September, ahead of possible formal negotiations toward renewing involvement with it.

Two conditions would have to be met for the IMF to agree a new loan: first, Mozambiques debt must no longer be unsustainable, or it would at least have to be on a path to sustainability; second, an audit into the tuna bond would have to be launched.

From the apparent woes of Mozambiques debt pile  the country itself says it is in debt distress  as well as from the countrys aura of secrecy  the undisclosed loan and misappropriated tuna bond are prime examples  one might be excused for thinking neither condition will be met.

Prospects could be better than they appear, however. Mozambique is looking to restructure its debt, which would make it more sustainable. And the country has already appointed Kroll to audit Ematum. The audit could begin within weeks.

Macroeconomic conditions are starting to look up, too. In recent weeks, the exchange rate has been quite stable in nominal terms. The rise in the price of coal, to $300 a tonne, is also a positive for the country, as it has much of that natural resource.

Arduous

For Mozambique, negotiations are likely to be arduous on all fronts in the coming months  with bondholders, the IMF and VTB.

Since the bond investors may not agree to a restructuring until the IMF releases funds, the IMF and bondholder discussions may have to happen in parallel, so that neither side feels that it has agreed to a settlement without the support of the other. If that all goes ahead, Mozambique may yet put its finances in order.

Still, the situation is tense, and emotions are running high.

VTB sent a combative statement out after the October 25 meeting, saying: We have properly executed these deals and are absolutely sure of our legal position. It remains unclear to us why Mozambique, as it turned out, didnt disclose the correct amount of debt to the IMF.

And it added: Essentially, the government misled us.
BRUSSELS, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Businesses operating in Europe will be joining forces to become leading contributors to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 'Sustainable Business Exchange', launched today in Brussels at a conference hosted by CSR Europe in cooperation with Huawei, will help companies turn circular and inclusive approaches into sustainable economic growth.

Initiated by CSR Europe, the leading European Business Network for Corporate Social Responsibility, the campaign empowers companies to take action and adopt sustainable growth models. It fosters business engagement with communities, cities and regions, as well as with each other, with a view to contributing to the global sustainability agenda and making sustainability a driver for growth in Europe.

"Through CSR Europe's new programme, we aim to leverage the impact of over 10 000 companies in our network in order to address common challenges, promote the adoption of transformative business models and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals," said CSR Europe's Executive Director Stefan Crets. "This cannot be done purely by the private sector, and so we will also engage stakeholders from civil society, governments and academia to increase this impact by working together. It is time for Europe to take action to address societal and sustainability issues, and we believe that the SDGs offer a common language in order to achieve this."

The UN's sustainability goals, announced last year together with the Paris Agreement, were at the heart of debates at the 2016 edition of the Sustainability & Innovation Conference Series where the 'Sustainable Business Exchange' was announced. Conference participants looked at how to effectively put these goals into practice. Global ICT leader Huawei, co-organiser of the conference, welcomed the initiative and stressed the importance of creating shared value to achieve the global goals. Technologies have significantly increased resource utilisation efficiency and will keep playing a meaningful role in driving forward the sustainable development agenda. Goals around education, health, sustainable cities and communities as well as climate change particularly resonate and the company is determined to play its part in achieving its ambitious objectives.

"To live up to our responsibility as a leading provider of ICT solutions, we have designed a sustainability management system that mainstreams CSR concerns into everything we do," underscored Alan Aicken, Vice-President of the Procurement Department and Chief Sustainability Officer of Global Supplier Sustainability at Huawei. "Geared towards achieving the global sustainability objectives spelled out by the UN, and relying on constant improvement, sharing expertise and working together with public and private partners, it dovetails with the approach of the new 'Sustainable Business Exchange'. We look forward to further stepping up our cooperation with European partners through this new framework."

In practice, companies can join the 'Sustainable Business Exchange' in two ways:



- A learning network will help them embrace the circular economy, rethinking the

value chain and fostering innovative partnerships and business models, as well as

sustainable consumption and production.

- An SDG Incubator will facilitate pilot projects between companies, civil society and

governments, to drive business contribution to the SDGs and tackle common challenges.

At a European level, efforts to address the e-skills challenge are a top priority. Huawei has been acting to help close this gap together with European partner universities through its international training programme, Seeds for the Future. The company selects top students for a study trip to China to get exposure to the latest technologies and be immersed in a global work environment. In Europe, 27 countries are involved so far, and more than 700 young people have participated since the programme's European launch in 2011. By 2020, over 2500 European students will benefit from the programme.

Sustainable Business Exchange: find out more [enlace ]

About CSR Europe

CSR Europe is the leading European business network for Corporate Social Responsibility. Through its network of around 50 [enlace ] corporate members [enlace ] and 45 National CSR organisations [enlace ], it gathers over 10 000 companies, and acts as a platform for those businesses looking to enhance sustainable growth and positively contribute to society. In its mission to bring the CSR agenda forward, CSR Europe goes beyond European borders and cooperates with CSR organisations in other regions across the world.

Further information is available at http://www.csreurope.org

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to build a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Huawei's 170 000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population.

Huawei currently has over 10 000 staff based in Europe, of whom 1 570 are working in R&D. We run 18 R&D organisations located in eight European countries (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the UK) and operate numerous joint innovation centres in partnership with telecom and ICT partners.

Further information is available at http://www.huawei.eu

CONTACT: Claudia Ju, Media Relations Director, juxinhang@huawei.com,+32-479-80-14-30
The Euro to Pound rate soared on Wednesday afternoon, extending its daily highs despite ongoing concerns about instability in Italy after PM Renzis resignation.

Foreign exchange investors poured into the Euro ahead of Thursdays European Central Bank (ECB) meeting. The bank is widely expected to extend its stimulus package, so expect an EUR profit-taking selloff.

However, the shared currencys losses may be limited if the Pound continues to perform as poorly as it has on Wednesday.

A fresh boost for the Euro to Pound rate came from a particularly disappointing raft of UK production data, which undermined confidence in the robustness of the domestic economy.

Although the Italian Treasury denied reports that it was looking to request a loan from the European Stability Mechanism, in order to recapitalise its banks, the mood towards the Euro remained bullish.

With worries over the potential collapse of Monte dei Paschi allayed, at least for the time being, the Euro was able to extend its gains over the Pound further.

Currency exchange markets saw the Euro to Pound rate edge back towards its highs as Britains Supreme Court appeal continued to cause jitters in GBP trade.

However, the Euro was weakened later in the day by comments from Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano. Alfano indicated that there may be an Italian election in early 2017, which concerned traders.

On Wednesday EUR/GBP is likely to firm as investors begin to anticipate Thursdays European Central Bank (ECB) meeting. The bank is still expected to extend its easing measures.

The Euro Pound exchange rate edged back towards its highs on Tuesday afternoon as Britains Supreme Court appeal continued to cause jitters in GBP trade.

However, the Euro was weakened later in the day by comments from Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano. Alfano indicated that there may be an Italian election in early 2017, which concerned traders.

On Wednesday EUR/GBP is likely to firm as investors begin to anticipate Thursdays European Central Bank (ECB) meeting. The bank is still expected to extend its easing measures.

The fallout from Italys weekend referendum has seen the Euro to Pound Sterling exchange rate weakening, although the continued UK Supreme Court hearing is limiting GBP gains.

Both the Eurozone and the UK are in the grip of uncertainty, keeping the Euro to Pound Sterling exchange rate marginally below opening levels.

The resignation of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, following the defeat of the constitutional change referendum on Sunday, continues to keep investors wary of the Euro.

The markets are surprisingly calm considering the potential fallout from the referendum, although the polls had consistently indicated that the Yes camp would be defeated, meaning the result was not a shock, as happened with Brexit, and was therefore strongly priced into the Euro already.

The results of the Italian referendum held at the weekend continue to weigh on the Euro, as investors remain wary of the struggling banking sector.

Banking sector worries continue to keep the Euro to Pound Sterling exchange rate below opening levels.

The referendum has hobbled plans to raise enough capital from private investors to bail out Italys oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi, which could see the government having to step in; this would either damage pension funds or contravene EU laws regarding taxpayer-funded bailouts.

As the Financial Times explains;

Senior bankers fear that a failure to shore up the bank, which was the worst loser of this summers European bank healthcheck, could damage already jittery investor confidence about Italys overall banking sector, which is hobbled by 360bn of bad loans and weak profitability.

A legal challenge regarding the triggering of the UKs exit from the European Union is limiting, but not preventing, Pound Sterling from making gains against the Euro.

The Supreme Court hearing on the governments appeal against a ruling preventing it from triggering Article 50 without Parliamentary approval continues, although investors seem confident the High Court ruling will be upheld.

James Eadie QC, who is representing the government, has already faced strong challenges from the judges regarding the governments plans for Brexit, or perceived lack of; some investors are hopeful that the case will see the government have to reveal its strategies.

Todays slower-than-anticipated BRC sales growth of 0.6%, compared to projections of 1.7%, has taken the shine off yesterdays above-expectation services PMI, although the Pound Sterling to Euro exchange rate continues to advance.

Political uncertainty is likely to remain the key driver of Euro to Pound Sterling exchange rates tomorrow, although there is also a slew of data to come.

The Supreme Court Article 50 hearing is scheduled to last another two days, before the Justices retire to make their ruling, which isnt expected until January.

The most pressing matter weighing on the Eurozone - the fate of the Italian banks - may be resolved much sooner, should it become apparent where the rescue funds for the sector are going to come from.

Potentially providing some support against these dragging factors for the UK is the latest manufacturing and industrial production data for October, as well as Novembers NIESR GDP estimate.

Eurozone data is sparser, consisting only of German industrial production for October and French trade data.

This means the Euro is likely set for more short-term volatility than the Pound, which could weaken over the coming weeks as the markets try to pre-empt the Supreme Court ruling.
About Me Victor Reppert I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. View my complete profile

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Politicians are calling for Scotland to have more power over immigration so that it can attract more skilled workers, as its population is growing at a slower rate than the rest of the UK.Currently immigration policy for the whole of the UK, which is set to get tougher since the nation voted to leave the European Union, is set by the Government at Westminster. But Scotlands devolved Parliament, which has a number of powers just for Scotland, would benefit from more control.  Westminsters Scottish Affairs Committee is calling for the UK Government to hand over control of certain migration powers to deal with demographic challenges being faced in Scotland, including an aging population.In particular it has called for the introduction of a post study work programme that would allow overseas students studying at Scottish universities to stay and work after graduation.If we fail to keep pace with the rest of the UK, there will be an economic cost to Scotland and an impact on our ability to support our social and economic ambitions, said Committee chairman Pete Wishart.He explained that the Committee was consistently told that consideration should be given to a sub-national immigration policy to help Scotland grow its population. More must be done to retain migrants to Scotland, attract migrants from within the UK and encourage more young Scots to remain in Scotland, he said.Only through the UK and Scottish governments working together, towards the same goals and using the powers that each parliament possesses, can they make an significant impact on demographic trends, he added.Scotland's Europe Minister Alasdair Allan pointed out that Scotlands demographic and workforce needs are different to those of the rest of the UK. With the recent rhetoric of the UK Government as it appears to be moving toward a hard Brexit, I am increasingly concerned its polices will seriously damage Scotlands population growth, he said.The Committee report points out that parts of the Highlands in particular are suffering from a population decline, but it also admitted that more needs to be done to create jobs for people in rural areas.The report concludes that as formal Brexit negotiations get underway next year when Article 50 is triggered it is important that Scotlands immigration needs are taken into account. Government should ensure that, as part of preparations for the UK to leave the EU, they take the opportunity to work with the Scottish Government to ensure that any new immigration policies meet the needs of Scotland as well as the UK as a whole, it said.
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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

This Close To Home cartoon illustrates a little-considered option for funding a funeral: sponsorship. Check out the sponsors on this persons casket: Genesis Gym, Upstate Cardiology Associates, Health Star Vitamins, Delta Skin Care and Ever-N-Ever Embalming Fluid. The advertising paid for all of the burial costs, says one woman to another.

It just goes to show, you can eat right, work out and pamper your skin, and youre still going to die.

The idea of advertising to pay for a funeral was explored in the 2001 Chinese comedy film, Big Shots Funeral. Donald Sutherland plays a film director who has a stroke while in China, but he doesnt die  yet. An enterprising young man auctions off the rights to advertising exposure at the directors eventual funeral, anticipating all the attention the event will get.

Heres the Amazon description:

World famous film director Don Tyler is surrounded by hundreds of costumed extras in Chinas fantastic Forbidden City when a creative drought hits and he has no idea where to turn the camera. Tossed off the picture by his studio boss, Tylers depression is only relieved by his unlikely friendship with down-on-his-luck cameraman YoYo.

Knowing hes not well, Tyler asks his friend to plan a comedy funeral for him where people leave feeling happy, as they do at Chinese funerals of the elderly. When Tyler eventually falls into a coma, YoYo begins the task of granting Tylers last wish.

However, when the costs of his spectacular funeral spin wildly out of control, can YoYo hold it all together by selling prime ad space at this unique event to be televised around the world? And more importantly for YoYo, can he convince Tylers lovely assistant Lucy that he isnt just selling Tyler out to the highest bidder?

Thats the world of BIG SHOTS FUNERAL: a zany, satiric comedy capturing the dizzy excitement and whirlwind change of modern-day China.
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Oil climbed to a 16-month high as OPEC invited nonmembers, including Mexico, to Vienna in an effort to secure additional output cuts following last weeks surprise deal to curtail supply.

Brent crude closed at the biggest premium against U.S. futures in more than two months as the OPEC cuts were seen limiting supply in Europe.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet with producers from outside the group Saturday in Vienna to discuss output curbs, according to OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo. The group invited 14 nonmembers, which together pump about a fifth of the worlds oil, to the talks, he said.

Oil has risen more than 15 percent since OPEC agreed last week to trim output by 1.2 million barrels a day for six months starting in January, while nonmember Russia pledged a cut of as much as 300,000 barrels a day. Attention is shifting to OPECs compliance with the pact and efforts to coax other producers to help. The deal can balance the market, but we tend to cheat, former Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Friday at an event in Washington, D.C.

OPEC is being taken at its word, said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. OPEC is still trying to get cooperation with non-OPEC countries, and some people believe that they will be able to wrangle up a few more barrels of cuts.

Brent for February settlement advanced 48 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $54.94 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It was the highest close since July 2015. The global benchmark ended at a $2.11 premium to West Texas Intermediate oil for the same month, the widest since September.

WTI for January delivery rose 11 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $51.79 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices settled at the highest close since July 2015 after rising 12 percent last week.

The OPEC accord should support waterborne crudes such as Brent, more than landlocked ones such as WTI, said Thomas Finlon, director of Energy Analytics Group LLC in Wellington, Florida.

OPEC has invited Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Oman, Bahrain, Colombia, Congo, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Bolivia and Brunei to the Vienna talks, Barkindo said.

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Of the largest non-OPEC countries invited to the Austrian capital, Mexico and Kazakhstan have previously signaled an unwillingness to cut output, while Oman has pledged to match the groups production cut.

Brazil has not yet decided on taking part in the proposed cuts by non-OPEC countries, Minister of Mines & Energy Fernando Coelho Filho said at a conference in New Delhi. Last week, the ministry said the government doesnt interfere in the pace of production by oil companies operating in the country.

The groups new 32.5 million barrel-a-day production target is only slightly below OPECs estimate for demand for its crude next year, meaning wider cooperation is needed to make a significant dent in the record stockpile surplus that has built up during three years of oversupply.

Its still going to take a long time for the cuts to have a noticeable impact on surplus inventories, said Bill OGrady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis.

OPEC crude production rose to a record 34.16 million barrels a day in November with gains led by Angola, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data. Thats up from a revised 33.96 million barrels a day in October.
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Another former official of a bankrupt San Antonio oil field supplier connected to state Sen. Carlos Uresti has pleaded guilty to a felony charge for his role in an alleged scheme to defraud investors.

Shannon Smith, a FourWinds Logistics co-owner and its former chief operating officer, on Monday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in San Antonio to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He faces up to five years in prison, as much as a $250,000 fine and up to three years supervised release when he is sentenced Feb. 13.

Last month, Eric Nelson, FourWinds former e-commerce and marketing director, pleaded guilty to a similar charge for using photo software to alter a bank statement to make it appear that the company had more money than it actually did. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 6.

Former FourWinds Comptroller Laura Jacobs is scheduled to plead guilty Thursday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the court docket.

Alex Scharff, Smiths attorney, declined to comment after the plea hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad because the case is still ongoing.

FourWinds traded sand used in hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from shale rock. The company set up joint ventures with investors. But investors have accused FourWinds CEO Stan Bates of misspending their money on personal expenses, expensive gifts, exotic car rentals and lavish vacations. Bates, who has not been charged, has disputed the allegations.

The company filed for bankruptcy in August 2015, with creditors claims exceeding

$14 million. Bates was forced into personal bankruptcy proceedings by some of his creditors in October 2015. The San Antonio Express-News chronicled FourWinds demise in an August article.

Uresti, a San Antonio attorney and Democrat who was re-elected to the state Senate last month, provided legal services for FourWinds and served as its outside general counsel for four or five months in 2014. On a state financial disclosure form, Uresti reported owning FourWinds shares but initially failed to mention a $40,000 loan he received from the company. He amended his state disclosure about a week after the article was published.

Uresti also was paid a $27,000 commission on Harlingen resident Denis Cantus investment in a joint venture with FourWinds. Cantu, a former Uresti legal client, ended up losing about $800,000.

Uresti has said he has been contacted by the FBI as a witness in an investigation of FourWinds and Bates. But according to people familiar with the probe, Uresti is the target of a grand jury investigation weighing possible public corruption charges related to his multiple and conflicting roles at FourWinds.

Uresti declined to comment about FourWinds at a Friday event organized by the Texas Tribune at the University of Texas at San Antonio Downtown Campus.

Federal prosecutors accuse an unnamed co-conspirator of transferring or wiring $74,000 to Smith in 2014 and 2015 from FourWinds bank accounts, according to a document outlining the charge against Smith. An additional $10,000 allegedly was transferred to a bank account controlled by Smiths wife.

Smith joined FourWinds in May 2014. He and Bates had previously worked in the car business.

During a January court proceeding in Bates bankruptcy case, Smith said he had expressed concerns about how Bates was running FourWinds. He recalled confronting Bates during a September 2014 breakfast meeting.

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We talked about drugs, we talked about spending on things that we shouldnt be spending money on, Smith testified. He added that he made a comment about putting Bates on basic salary, a suggestion Bates didnt take well.

He said, Nobodys going to tell me how much money I make, Smith said.

In a November 2015 affidavit, Smith said Bates admitted that he was not going to put more than $3 million in receivables into investor accounts as required by the investor agreements.

We told Stan that his actions were stealing and that it was going to end him up in major trouble, Smith said in the affidavit.

Smith was released Monday after agreeing to sign a $50,000 unsecured bond and to surrender his passport.

Assistant U.S. attorneys Joseph Blackwell and Mark Roomberg are prosecuting the FourWinds cases.

pdanner@express-news.net

Twitter: @AlamoPD

Staff Writer Guillermo Contreras contributed to this report.
The 110-megawatt Alamo 6 project built by San Antonio-based OCI Solar Power is being sold for $385 million to an undisclosed buyer, according to the the company.

The project out in West Texas Pecos County broke ground in June 2015 and is the last plant that will completed as part of CPS Energys commitment to 400-megawatts of solar power under a 2012 agreement between CPS and OCI.
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San Antonio-based OCI Solar Power is selling its final solar project under the 400-megawatt deal with CPS Energy for $385 million to an undisclosed buyer.

The deal for the 110-megawatt Alamo 6 in West Texas Pecos County will close this month, OCI spokeswoman Laura Waldrum said. The solar farm is expected to be completed in the same time period.

Right now were kind of limited to what was included in the regulatory filing, Waldrum said when asked for details on the sale. Waldrum said the sale of the solar farm is a normal practice for our company.

Alamo 6 is the last solar plant to be built as part of CPS deal with OCI made in 2012 to purchase 400 megawatts of solar power from projects built by the company. CPS will continue to buy the power from the solar farm.

Waldrum said OCI also has a separate agreement with CPS to provide an additional 50 megawatts of solar power from a farm called the Pearl Project. It is being built on property adjacent to Alamo 6 and will bump CPS solar production to 450 megawatts.

The Alamo 6 sale is part of a strategy by OCI Solar Power to build and then sell off some of its utility-scale solar plants. The 106-megawatt Alamo 7 solar plant, located southeast of Haskell and completed in September, was sold to Valhalla, New York-based renewable energy development company Consolidated Edison Development, also known as ConEdison, in January for $227 million.

In addition to buying Alamo 7, ConEdison has bought OCI Solars 6-megawatt Alamo 3 in San Antonios Northeast Side and the 95-megawatt Alamo 5 near Uvalde. It also holds a 60 percent stake in the 40-megawatt Alamo 4 solar farm near Brackettville; OCI holds the other 40 percent stake.

ConEdison did not return calls for comment on whether they were involved in the Alamo 6 sale.

OCI fully owns the 41-megawatt Alamo 1 and 4-megawatt Alamo 2 solar farms, both which are located in San Antonio.

Waldrum said the company also owns two small solar projects in Georgia and one in New Jersey.

OCI Solar Power is a subsidiary of South Korean-based OCI Co., a chemical and renewable energy company. Another San Antonio-based subsidiary of OCI Co., Mission Solar Energy, produces utility- and residential-grade solar panels.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

rdruzin@express-news.net

@druz_journo
WASHINGTON  Rep. David McKinley has sold his West Virginia engineering and architecture firm, but it still bears his name  and that earned the Republican congressman a rebuke from the House Ethics Committee.

President-elect Donald Trump has built an international property management, real estate and branding business around his name. There appears to be no consequence for that.

When it comes to ethics, not all government employees are regulated equally. Whats a serious matter for a second-term congressman with a small business has no equivalent for a president with a multibillion-dollar empire.

The governments legislative and judicial branches are governed by well-established rules, but theres far less clarity about what a president can and cannot do. Conflict of interest provisions are generally looser, though Democrat Jimmy Carter, Republican George W. Bush and many other recent presidents took care to separate themselves from their businesses.

Trump tweeted recently that he will soon announce his plans to step back from his company while he is president. He wrote that legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations.

Many serious questions remain: Will he retain an ownership stake? Will, as top aide Kellyanne Conway suggested, his adult children own and operate the business? If they do take over the Trump Organization, will they continue to be involved in Trumps administration, as they have been?

Spokesmen for Trumps transition and the Trump Organization have not provided details.

While Trump develops his plan, ethics lawyers and good-government groups are reviewing laws, past cases and best practices  as well as issues of who would even have the standing to call out a president for possible conflict of interest violations.

As Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, put it, Were researching things that hadnt even been considered before.

We have never had a president with these enormous business conflicts domestically and globally, said Norman Eisen, who served as President Barack Obamas first White House ethics czar. Whats more, weve never had a president who seems to insist on breaking the precedent set by every previous president for at least four decades of doing a true blind trust or its equivalent.

Eisen and Richard Painter, who held an equivalent position under Bush, wrote in a joint statement Wednesday that its not enough for Trump to simply step away from company operations.

Without an ethics firewall that is set up at once and continues into the administration, scandal is sure to follow, they wrote.

Self-policing has been common in recent presidencies, as well as in the legislative and judicial branches.

Congress ethics rules  and the bodies that police them  all stem from its ability to regulate itself. That was the case with McKinley, who violated a provision that a fiduciary business such as an architecture firm is barred from using the name of a government employee such as a congressman.

Lawmakers are attuned to views of the voters and perception of undue conflicts, said Andrew Herman, a Washington attorney who specializes in congressional ethics. Thats why theyve tended to have stringent ethics rules and committees to enforce them.

Trump has broadly asserted that he is not hemmed in by conflict of interest laws. The law is totally on my side, meaning the president cant have a conflict of interest, Trump told the New York Times recently.

Herman and other attorneys say that while the president and vice president are exempt from the federal conflict of interest statute, the countrys founders drew a bright line at accepting foreign gifts.

That ban is captured in an antique-sounding part of the Constitution called the emoluments clause.

It could pose a problem for Trump because he does business all over the world. Even his domestic operations, such as his new hotel at the Old Post Office building in Washington, could trip him.

Arthur Hellman, an ethicist at the University of Pittsburgh, said he does not believe any U.S. court, much less the Supreme Court, has ever interpreted the emoluments clause. There is nothing that sheds much light on questions raised by foreign officials giving something or engaging in activities that could be construed as emoluments to Trump or his businesses.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

However, a violation might be difficult to challenge in court, Hellman said. Its hard to imagine anyone would have standing, he said. Other legal experts have said that perhaps a business competitor would have the right to litigate.

At Democrats request, the Congressional Research Service recently put out three pages of guidance on what rules might technically apply to the president.

Among them are the emoluments clause, a prohibition on employing relatives and bribery provisions.

Another sticky issue: Trumps potential conflicts havent been fully illuminated.

As a candidate, he filed financial disclosures as required by federal law, including assets of more than $1.4 billion and debt of at least $265 million. He has separately boasted that his net worth is $10 billion

But unlike all recent major party presidential candidates, he did not make public his tax returns, shielding from view the full scope of his business entanglements.

Its also uncertain whether Trump will file a new disclosure of his wealth within the first year after he takes office in January, as previous presidents have done, or wait until required by law, which is May 2018.

Such quandaries thrust the Republican-led Congress into an important watchdog role.

Few Republicans have raised red flags. Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican and frequent Trump critic, tweeted recently that its certainly a big deal if Trump has contracts with foreign governments, but few others have offered that view.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he wants to give Trump a chance to work things out. He hasnt even been sworn in yet, Chaffetz said on Fox News.
The Iraq War was a mistake - a strategic mistake, according to audio recorded of Gen. James Mattis, former head of American Central Command and nominee for Secretary of Defense.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mattis said, we will probably look back on the invasion of Iraq as a mistake  as a strategic mistake.

The audio was obtained by The Intercept and is a recording taken in 2015 at a conference for global security professionals held in Anaheim, California.

Mattis led the 1st Marine Division during the invasion and later oversaw the bloody retaking of Fallujah from insurgents in 2004.

I think people were pretty much aware that the U.S. military didnt think it was a very wise idea, Mattis said. But we give a cheery Aye aye, sir. Because when you elect someone commander in chief  we give our advice. We generally give it in private.

Audio of the entire speech can be found at the Intercept.

Other portions of the speech include Mattiss thoughts on Iran.

The Intercept: Mattis said that he read the 156-page Iran nuclear agreement twice. Its probably as good a document as we could have come out with, he said, even though its not one that I would have wanted to sign.

The Obama administration, Mattis said, lost its leverage with Iran after failing to follow through on a threat to use force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for crossing an explicit red line prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. During the Iran negotiations, Mattis argued, the military option was not a believable one.
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Lillie Davis broke into tears when she thought of Doralinda Nishihara, her neighbor of 10 years who died when a sinkhole opened on a Southwest Side road and swallowed her vehicle Sunday evening.

Nishihara, 68, a part-time Bexar County sheriffs deputy, was the neighborhood mom, Davis said, the sweetest person you ever wanted to meet.

The freakish death  and the frantic rescue of a driver from another car  happened in a crater 12 feet deep, with a diameter that encompassed the entire width of Quintana Road. It formed at the ruptured junction of an old sewer pipe and a newer, wider pipe that was installed slightly more than a year ago, officials said Monday.

The new pipe, 96 inches in diameter, carries sewage from all over West Bexar County, according to SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente. The older pipe is 54 inches, SAWS spokeswoman Anne Hayden said. Stormwater from heavy rains over the weekend and Monday infiltrated the pipe, she said.

The combination of swirling water and the vibration from trains passing on a nearby track was widening the cavity, Puente said: As we talk, the sinkhole gets a bit bigger, he said at the scene Monday afternoon after a crane had to be deployed to yank Nishiharas sedan from the water. She was was found dead inside, sheriffs spokesman James Keith said.

A woman who helped a man trapped in his vehicle get out of the hole was in the process of being rescued herself by arriving firefighters when they spotted Nishiharas car almost submerged in flowing water, officials said. Keith declined to name the survivor and rescuer.

The road is likely to be closed for weeks. Its not going to be a fast repair, Hayden said.

Keith issued a statement saying the Sheriffs Department was heartbroken at Nishiharas death, adding, Our thoughts and prayers are with her friends and family.

He said Nishihara was a reserve deputy from August 2009 until October, when she became a part-time deputy at the Bexar County Courthouse.

Mayor Ivy Taylor said she learned late Monday that Nishihara lived five blocks from her own East Side home. She called the incident a terrible tragedy at a Monday morning news conference.

She had also befriended my husband, Rodney, Taylor said, and they would often talk outside of Nishiharas home. My entire family extends their condolences to Nishiharas family, friends and colleagues. We are also very grateful for her service to our community and our neighborhood.

Davis, 58, said her family moved in across the street from Nishihara 10 years ago and that the deputy was the first person to walk over and say hello.

A lover of animals, Nishihara could be seen walking with her dog Daisy and later Miss Molly, a dog she recently began taking care of, Davis said.

She would stop and talk to every last one of us with a, Hey, how yall doin? Davis recalled.

It was too dangerous to attempt to extract or explore a submerged vehicle at night amid unstable surroundings and flowing water, San Antonio Fire Department Chief Charles Hood said.

Recovery teams could see chunks of dirt and asphalt crumbling and collapsing inward from the edge of the pit as the water levels continued rising Sunday, SAFD spokesman Woody Woodward said.

SAWS officials are working to create a bypass and pump system to remove water from the sinkhole so crews can get closer to the pipe and determine the exact cause of the failure, Hayden said.

The contractor who worked on the project was S.J. Louis Construction of Texas, Hayden said. She did not know who did the engineering for the project. A man who answered the phone at the companys San Antonio office said the business had not been contacted by SAWS. He would not give his name.

A different contract to replace another segment northeast of the junction where the sinkhole formed is underway.

District 4 Councilman Rey Saldana said the sewer line rupture presents larger questions about the citys ability to keep pace with growth in San Antonio.

What is the anatomy of our problem? Weve got a sinkhole, weve got the intersection of a new and an old pipe. At the end of the day, weve had a failure of infrastructure that has cost us this one life, Saldana said.

SAWS reported Sunday that there had been four sewer line overflows across the city because of heavy rains.

Staff writers Tyler White, Vianna Davila and Chris Quinn contributed to this report.
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott named Rolando Pablos as Texas next secretary of state Monday, saying his appointee is leaving his post as Texas Racing Commission chairman to oversee elections and promote international partnerships in his new position.

Pablos, who has been well known in San Antonio business and political circles, will succeed Carlos Cascos, a former Cameron County judge who is resigning effective Jan. 4.

The secretary of state is trusted with the solemn duties of protecting the integrity of our election system and promoting Texas unparalleled business environment at home and abroad, Pablos said. I am humbled and honored that Gov. Abbott has placed confidence in me to faithfully execute those duties.

Abbott praised both men in making the announcement.

Pablos, who lived in San Antonio for more than 25 years, has long promoted trade and economic development and has been named to prominent state regulatory boards by two governors.

In San Antonio, his experience included being chairman of the San Antonio Free Trade Alliance and Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Pablos went to El Paso several years ago to serve as CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, a regional economic development organization. He had grown up in the border city after spending his early years in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Now an Austin resident, Pablos is co-founder and CEO of Uriel Americas.

Pablos service at the state level has included stints on the Racing Commission and Public Utility Commission under former Gov. Rick Perry.

Abbott last year named him to a second round of service on the Racing Commission as the panel considered, then quashed, a new form of wagering that had stirred legislative anger.

Pablos has a bachelors degree from St. Marys University in San Antonio, an MBA from the University of Texas at San Antonio business college, a master in hospitality management from the University of Houstons Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, and a law degree from St. Marys University law school.

Rolandos extensive record in public service and breadth of knowledge inspires confidence that he will be committed to the constitutional duties of the office and ensure the dispassionate application of election law, Abbott said. Rolandos impressive background and diverse experience make him uniquely qualified to serve our increasingly dynamic state and further fortify our international partnerships.

Abbott also expressed appreciation to Cascos for his service and dedication to the people of Texas, and for strengthening our partnerships across the globe.

Cascos brief resignation letter didnt give a reason for his departure, but a two-year stint isnt unusually short for a secretary of state. His appointment was announced by Abbott after he won the governors office in 2014.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac

Express-News columnist Gilbert Garcia contributed to this report.
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On Sunday, Pastor John Garland took down the Christmas manger scene at the San Antonio Mennonite Churchs altar and, as he said, replaced it with a very real nativity scene.

He and volunteers were making space for hundreds of Central American women and children who were unexpectedly released from two South Texas immigrant family detention centers.

Many had plans to meet relatives in cities across the U.S., but they had been released without making travel plans and had nowhere to stay. The church laid out about 50 inflatable mattresses, and soon volunteers delivered dozens more.

We were making jokes about there being rooms open at the inn, Garland said.

On Monday afternoon, he estimated that there were still about 200 women and children from the family detention centers in Karnes City and Dilley. Mattresses filled almost every available floor space. Mothers lined up to use cellphones provided by volunteers so they could call family members and arrange for transportation to their final destinations in the U.S.

Meanwhile, religious groups and other volunteers dropped off food, warm clothes and prepaid phone cards. Garland and others worked overnight Saturday and Sunday. One bus arrived at 3 a.m. Monday. An additional 120 had been released by Monday afternoon.

A major bottleneck developed Monday as the recently released women, who didnt have cellphones or money, tried to contact family members across the U.S. and arrange for travel.

The Dilley and Karnes City centers opened in 2014 to detain large numbers of women and children crossing the border in South Texas and surrendering to Border Patrol agents to request asylum. Immigrant advocates have said the families being held there are fleeing violence in Central America and are entitled to pursue their asylum cases while living in the U.S.

The numbers of families entering the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley this fall rivaled records set in 2014. Last month, the Border Patrol opened 500-bed temporary holding centers for families and unaccompanied children in Tornillo, which is near El Paso, and in Donna.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said the centers are necessary for them to screen families and determine who should be released.

Justin Tullius, associate director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, speculated that the releases were prompted by a court ruling Friday that said that the state could not license the detention centers as child care facilities.

But ICE said the releases were scheduled as a part of normal operations and not in response to the court ruling.

ICE is currently reviewing the courts ruling on the matter of the operating license for the South Texas Family Residential Center, spokesman Carl Rusnok said, referring to the Dilley center. Operational activities continue without interruption at this time.

In San Antonio, Carla Carranza, a 26-year-old from El Salvador, said Monday that she fled the country with her 10-year-old son after gang members threatened students at his school as part of a recruitment effort. After crossing the Rio Grande into Texas, she spent two days in a Border Patrol facility that immigrants call the hielera, or ice box, because of its cold temperatures. There was little privacy using the bathroom and a lack of toilet paper, she said.

Carranza said she was transferred to the detention center in Dilley, a sprawling campus of modular buildings she referred to as the perrera, or doghouse, for 14 days. There, Carranza and her son had more access to medical care, food and privacy, but she said it was psychologically trying to put their lives on hold and have their daily schedules set by strangers.

She was released Sunday with an ankle monitor. But without the help of volunteers at the church, she wouldnt have been able to contact her family in Chicago, who bought her a plane ticket to join them. Carranza said she was grateful for the help.

Thanks to them, you can communicate with your family, tell them where you are, who youre with, and you can work to buy your bus or plane tickets, she said.

The Interfaith Welcome Coalition, an organization of churches and other groups that provides support services to those released from the 2,400-bed center in Dilley and the nearly 1,000-bed facility in Karnes City, operates two houses south of downtown where families can spend the night. On most days, they see 30 to 40 women and children released, and most already have an airplane or bus ticket.

Over the weekend, nearly 500 were dropped off, and most of those had made no travel arrangements.

Garland praised the volunteers at the church, including doctors who stayed late Sunday to treat recently released children. However, the church was struggling to accommodate those who arrived Monday.

Were overwhelmed, he said. Space wise, every room in the church is being used.

Garland said volunteers are needed to bring in warm clothes and to help with transportation from the church to the airport and bus station. On its Facebook page, the church put out a call for prepaid phones with minutes, womens and childrens underwear, socks and volunteers to help clean and cook.

Claudia Marmol, a 39-year-old Salvadoran who fled to the U.S. with her 12-year-old son, said she was told by officials when she was released from the Dilley facility Sunday that the center needed to make room for more families being held at the border.

Marmol said she was taken to the hospital after crossing the border, then to a Border Patrol facility where, like Carranza, she said she was treated like an animal. She was separated from her son at the hospital and in the Border Patrol facility and was handcuffed to the bed while she was receiving medical care, Marmol said.

She and her son lived comfortably in El Salvador on remittances from family members in the U.S., she said, but had to flee after gang members learned she was receiving money and made extortion demands.

After leaving the Border Patrol facility, Marmol said she spent two weeks in the Dilley center.

We are imprisoned, she said. They disguise them as help centers, but its a jail. You cant do more than they allow. Yes, theres Zumba, but you go when they let you. Theres crochet, but only when they let you.

jbuch@express-news.net

Twitte: @jlbuch
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The hint of something not being quite right came when Army Pvt. Virgil Lee Ward showed up early at a Post Exchange to pick up Sunday newspapers for his morning route.

The papers werent there. He earned more money delivering the Honolulu Advertiser than his Army pay  around $21 a month, so he called and was told the presses were down. He didnt believe it. He still doesnt.

Then, in the distance, Ward saw planes buzzing Pearl Harbor, and his heart went to his throat.

They were strafing and bombing, he said. And I was close enough to see all the planes up there. So I made a quick dive for my duty station, which was in Diamond Head.

The United States was abruptly plunged into war. Waves of planes struck Hawaii in the surprise attack that began at 7:55 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, claiming the lives of 2,335 American sailors, soldiers and Marines. In five months, Japan crushed Allied forces in Singapore and the Philippines, forcing thousands of American, British and Filipino troops into a captivity so barbaric it led to war crime trials.

Ward lives in Northwest San Antonio with his wife, Merry, 65. Hes 95, not in good health, and was battling a lung infection last week. But where his memory of Pearl Harbor is concerned, 75 years ago might as well have been yesterday.

More Information Day of Infamy - A look at Pearl Harbor Ships hit: 21 Battleships sunk or damaged: 8 Complete losses: USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma and USS Utah U.S. aircraft lost: 169 Japanese aircraft lost: 29 U.S. servicemen killed: 2,335 U.S. wounded: 1,143 SOURCE: U.S. Navy, National Museum of the Pacific War See More Collapse

He was a communications specialist assigned to the 16th Coast Artillery and had just been trained on what then were called self-dialing telephones. The new rotary devices had not been installed in his office, so he took a steady stream of calls the old way, from soldiers  including some commanders  speaking into a mouthpiece and asking an operator to connect them, trying to make sense of the chaos.

I couldnt tell them much more than they were being attacked, Ward said.

It was the same at Schofield Barracks, where soldiers entered brief summaries of calls that came in, filing them minute by minute. Seconds after Wheeler Field was bombed at 8 a.m., the phone began ringing off the wall, according to a journal released by the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Two colonels and a major called for information. At 8:03 a.m. Maj. Gen. Rapp Brush, commander of the 21st Infantry Regiment, part of the Hawaiian Division at Schofield Barracks, called wanting to know about the Wheeler Field bombing.

The third entry states: 8:15 a.m. - All outfits ordered to keep men in barracks until further orders; 8:25 a.m. - All outfits ordered to have small arms outside for the purpose of firing on aircraft.

There had been rumblings of war in the Pacific prior to the attack. The Sunday before, the headline above the Advertisers front-page mast screamed, Japanese May Strike Over Weekend!

The U.S. government had grown increasingly concerned as well. The chief of naval operations in Washington, Adm. Harold Stark, told commanders in a terse Nov. 27 message that negotiations with Japan over stabilizing the Pacific had ended, the Smithsonian magazine noted this month.

This dispatch is to be considered a war warning, wrote Stark.

Ward was 15 when he joined the Army out of a small town in Tennessee, but he didnt sneak in  he really thought he was 17 because thats what his dad had told him. His mother had lost an infant daughter in 1917, the year Ward was born, and there could have been confusion about it later. Or it might have been that the elder Ward wanted his son out of school sooner so he could work the farm.

It was a rough, rough, rough life, Ward said. I had to get up before daylight and run the cattle in, milk the cattle, feed the chickens, feed all the horses and the cattle. It was getting to be a real strain and the worst part of it was I was kept out of school to do some of this work instead of going to school.

But it freed up Wards dad to run a side business  making and delivering 100-proof moonshine. James Eldridge Ward, known to neighbors as Montie, would hitch a couple of mules to a wagon with a secret compartment covered by watermelons, ride to a local blacksmiths shop and sell his product.

Wards son, in turn, would ride a mule into town with a basket of eggs that he tried not to break, trading them at a grocery store for things his mom couldnt grow on the farm. Shed give him a little change, perhaps a couple of dimes or a quarter.

Something that rattled, he said.

The younger Ward got into the Army in 1935 after a friend suggested they join up. His buddy flunked the entrance exam and was sent home, while Ward was sent to New York and made a muleskinner because of his experience. Ward wasnt happy about it.

I told them I wanted to go overseas and you know where they sent me? he said, chuckling. Hawaii.

After training at Fort DeRussy, a 19th century coastal defense battery in the heart of Waikiki, Ward stayed on the island for the next 13 years  never leaving Hawaii over the course of the war.

Ward retired as a major after a 30-year Army career. Even after close calls in the Korean War, where he got a battlefield promotion and saw a nearby soldier killed by a mortar shell close enough to spray him with shrapnel; even after Vietnam, where the Saigon hotel he stayed in was blown up while he was out  even after all that, the Japanese attack was a gut punch that haunts him still.

Ward said those in his unit quietly did their jobs in that first, long day of battle. His coastal artillery never fired a shot.

There wasnt a lot of words. There were a lot of bullets, though, he said.

I can tell you he still has some nightmares about that, Merry Ward said. Hell rise up in bed, Get down! Get down!, because hes afraid of somebody shooting something, and so I know when hes running from bullets at night.

sigc@express-news.net
Late Monday night, the Parks, Recreation & Open Space community bond committee batted down attempts from various districts to raid Hemisfair funding  some $21 million recommended by city staff  to fund other park projects..

The group, composed of some 32 members from across San Antonio, made a final recommendation to the City Council to fully fund ongoing work at Hemisfair Park as part of the largerst municipal bond program in San Antonio history.

The council will vote on their recommendations in early 2017.

Representatives from District 6 had hoped to take $3 million from the downtown park to spend on a skate park, while District 5 representatives asked to redirect $2 million in Hemisfair funding to parks in their West Side neighborhoods.

Mike Frisbie, director of the citys Transportation and Capital Improvements Department, told the committee that city staff had already stripped away millions of dollars in requests from Hemisfair to get to the staff-recommended $21 million. Cutting into that amount, he said, would have a major impact on the scope of the proposal.

Myrl Britten, a District 6 representative, argued that a skate park would benefit at-risk youth in the Northwest Side district, and District 5 members argued generally that their area was being short-changed.

Ultimately, the committee adopted a proposal that kept intact the $21 million in funding for Hemisfair. It also did not reprogram any additional funds from the proposed Hardberger Park land bridge, which would span the dividing line between districts 8 and 9. Last month, the committee stripped $2 million from the bridge to give to District 10s McAllister Park.

The committee approved the remaining $5.5 million earmarked for the bridge. That would be combined with $7.5 million from the streets proposition and private funding from the Hardberger Park Conservancy.

jbaugh@express-news.net

Twitter: @jbaugh
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KERRVILLE  The noxious sewage fumes have subsided in the Castlecomb subdivision thanks to repairs made to its failing central septic system by the state, but locals are worried about how to fix their utility problems for the long haul.

The simplest remedy identified at meetings of regulators and elected officials calls for residents to ask Kerrville to annex their eight-acre subdivision, which operates both sewer and water systems.

But even if Castlecombs 30 homeowners agreed that they should become city taxpayers  which they dont  that plan would require them to come up with more than $1 million to fund the extension of municipal services to their homes.

So, for now, homeowners in this quiet development off Texas 27 are just thankful to enjoy unadulterated breezes  most of the time.

In the past, you couldnt even sit out on your back porch. You got that wonderful rich aroma, said Rick Phipps, 70, whose residence overlooks the troubled septic system in the neighborhood just east of Kerrville.

More Information Spokeswqoman See More Collapse

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality stepped in to make repairs and truck off sewage after determining early this year that effluent from the system overseen by Corey Abel was pooling in the drain field and contaminating a nearby tributary of the Guadalupe River.

These repairs have mitigated the emergency condition and have brought the on-site sewage facility back into compliance with its permit, said TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow, estimating the agency spent in excess of $175,000 at Castlecomb.

At the urging of TCEQ and others, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a civil suit in September against Abel, a Colorado resident. It accuses him of violating the Texas Water Code and threatening public health and safety by failing to properly maintain the system.

Beside seeking an injunction against future violations, the suit, filed in Travis County, asks the court to assess a civil penalty of up to $25,000 for each day in violation, and to recover from Abel money the state spent to remedy the situation.

Abels lawyer in the civil case, Joe Davis, denied the allegations. Abel assumed responsibility for the neighborhoods utilities as trustee of the Castlecomb Trust after the 2007 death of his father, L. Dejuan Abel, who developed the subdivision, Davis said.

The Castlecomb Trust is cooperating fully with the local, community and state agencies to resolve this important issue, said Davis, adding that Abel receives no compensation from the $135 monthly fee charged to homeowners for sewer and water services.

Corey Abel also faces criminal prosecution in Kerr County over the septic system problems. Castlecomb residents say they have complained about them for years.

More than 200 misdemeanor charges filed against Abel in 2015 over the systems problems were dismissed in February when prosecutors secured a felony indictment against him on a charge of unauthorized discharge of waste.

His defense attorney, Clay Steadman, has argued that the indictment is flawed and should be dismissed. If the case proceeds, he wants the court to move it from Kerr County, where a trial is slated for January.

Kerrville Mayor Bonnie White said Abel inquired a year ago about hooking the neighborhood into city utilities, which she estimated could cost $1.2 million.

Although its system is obsolete, the TCEQ had always said if they were able to repair it, they were more or less grandfathered and could continue using it, White said. What theyve done would allow them to continue using the system under their permit.

Castlecomb currently has no homeowners association but court records show residents formed such a group to sue L. Dejuan Abel in 2004 after he set up two manufactured homes in the neighborhood in violation of restrictive covenants.

Everybody out here is extremely grateful to the TCEQ for coming in and fixing the problem and getting it working properly, said Chris Lee, the residents de facto representative these days.

Lee moved to Castlecomb last year and, like some of his neighbors, says hed like to move but cant because the sewage issues have hurt property values and scared off potential buyers. He and others also say theyve stopped paying all or part of their monthly maintenance fees to Abel, who they contend didnt maintain the system and turned a blind eye to the pooling sewage and resulting stench.

Responding to a Jan. 19 email from Lee on the need for repairs, Abel contended the system was being maintained, noting he had hired a firm recommended by the county.

Some of the problems are due to third parties possibly having driven over some parts of the (drain)) fields, which does not have anything to do with maintenance, Abel wrote, adding, I really do understand and sympathize with your concerns, and we are doing our best to keep things running.

Kerr County Commissioner Tom Moser said the search is on to find grant funding to defray the cost to residents to hook into the citys utility system, which he called the long-term solution.

Even if a grant were secured to extend city services, residents like Brandon Miller are on the fence about annexation, which would offer reliable utilities but hike their property tax bills.

Its a peaceful place, said Miller, who moved here in 2001. The only headache weve ever had is dealing with this guy (Abel) and his dad.

State Rep. Andy Murr, R-Junction, who last June urged Paxton to sue Abel, said the TCEQ intervention has given Castlecomb residents some breathing room.

I am optimistic that they will not ignore this problem because, with time, it will otherwise return to negatively affect their daily lives and their property once again, Murr said.

Despite the repairs, locals get occasional aromatic reminders that the problem is still out there.

They say its fixed, but its not resolved, said Amber Lee, Chris Lees spouse, while walking their son Hunter in a stroller. You can still smell it in certain spots when the wind blows.

zeke@express-news.net
Two office buildings on the Northeast Side face foreclosure after investment company Chase Merritt defaulted on an $89.5 million loan it used to buy 900,000 square feet of local office space about a decade ago.

The buildings, which are in the Crosswinds Business & Technology Park along Interstate 35, will be offered at public auction on Jan. 3, according to foreclosure listing service RexReport.com and a notice posted on the countys website. They span a total of 18.5 acres and include 215,000 square feet of office space, property records show. The Bexar Appraisal District assessed them at $15 million this year.

In 2007, Chase Merritt bought the two buildings and 10 others from local real estate company Darren Casey Interests Inc. with $89.5 million in financing from Wrightwood Capital, property records show. The current loan holder is WCRT Seller LLC, which shares an address and executives with New York-based Ares Commercial Real Estate. The loan had an outstanding principal of $34.3 million as of July, records show.

Chase Merritt sold the other 10 buildings over the years to affiliates of the San Antonio Fire & Police Pension Fund, Houston-based Weingarten Realty and California-based Dornin Investment Group, among others.

One of the two buildings facing foreclosure is occupied by Alorica Inc., a customer service and sales center company that announced plans last fall to add 1,400 people to its existing 2,500-employee local workforce. City building permits indicate that Bank of America occupies the other building.

Max Moss, a principal with Chase Merritt, didnt respond to requests for comment on Monday. News reports say the company is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., but its website has an address in Boulder, Colo.

At least a few of Chase Merritts other properties have faced foreclosure, according to news reports. In 2010, an office building that Chase owned in north Austin was repossessed after the company defaulted on a $20 million loan, according to an article in the Austin Business Journal.

Another office building the company owned in downtown Sacramento, Calif. was repossessed by its bondholders in 2013 after losing its major tenant, according to the Sacramento Business Journal.

Chase Merritt has completed more than $2.5 billion in real estate transactions over the last decade throughout the U.S., according to its website. The company claims to control around 2.4 million square feet of office space in Texas and California. Until 2013, it was co-owner of the Galleria Plaza mixed-use complex in Houston.

The company has also bought more than 500 residential properties at foreclosure auction before renovating and selling them, according to the website.

rwebner@express-news.net

@rwebner
'Change doesn't mean we abandon who we are, but adapt to the world around us.'

(Scroll down to see photos from this years Ohio Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting.)

COLUMBUS  The Ohio Farm Bureau entered a new era Dec. 1 during its annual Harvest Banquet, attended by more than 800 delegates and industry leaders. It happened when OFBF Executive Vice President Adam Sharp whipped out his smartphone and took a selfie with Jack Fisher, his predecessor.

This is not your grandfathers Ohio Farm Bureau, Sharps selfie said. But it is still rooted in agriculture, as Sharps Case IH phone case attests.

Sharp, who took the helm in July following Fishers retirement, reminded the 300-plus delegates that he grew up in Farm Bureau, tagging along to his parents farm council Saturday night dinner meetings when he was very young.

I am proud to say I have good friends across this country who are members or staff of Farm Bureau, Sharp said during his address to annual meeting delegates earlier in the day Dec. 1. We are family. I believe in us.

It will be Sharps job to steer the farm organization into that new era, and he shared some of his vision during the annual meeting.

New income sources

One challenge will be to develop a diverse revenue stream as the Ohio Farm Bureau figures out what its new business relationship will be with Nationwide. The farm organization is losing a chunk of its revenue  $4.61 million, or nearly 33 percent  that came from Nationwide insurance agents who sold associate memberships, a practice that is no longer being done. The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation founded the mutual insurance company that became Nationwide.

Nationwide CEO Steve Rasmussen assured the Farm Bureau members the partnership may look different in the future, but its still a partnership.

Its about growing our organizations, Rasmussen said. If were all going to remain relevant, were all going to have to grow.

Sharp said the board and staff are still sifting through ideas, but are trying to identify services that generate revenue.

Modern appeal

Sharp said another challenge the farm group faces is being relevant across generations  keeping its roots in strong values with a modern appeal. To do so, he added, the Farm Bureau needs to work on inclusiveness, so that  regardless of farm size, commodity, age, location, political affiliation or other silos  theres room at the table.

And it will also require reaching out to nonfarm consumers and rural residents, in order to grow and protect the food system, Sharp said. We must engage with others, who increasingly dont understand what we do on the farm.

As the Ohio Farm Bureau nears its century mark in 2019, Sharp asked the delegates this question: Who do we want to be as an organization when we turn 100? Who will be our members, what will be our priorities, what will be our goals?

One thing we do know that is that we will continue to change, Sharp said. But change doesnt mean we abandon who we are, but adapt to the world around us.

Member reaction

Ohio Farm Bureau members responded positively to Sharps high-energy speech.

Adam put it succinctly that all forms of agriculture are equal partners in Farm Bureau, said Summit County delegate and former state board member Gale Betterly. It doesnt matter if you have a high hoop tunnel greenhouse on two acres, or farm 2,000 acres. We have to accept all.

But, she added, learning to walk that walk may be the most difficult thing we do.

Stark County delegate Andy Wentling said he liked what he heard, but was more excited about the energy behind it.

I love the energy, he added. I love the future outlook.

Membership efforts

With the transition away from the Nationwide membership partnership, Ohio Farm Bureau is putting more dollars into its own ranks to staff membership, and is adding more field staff, Sharp said.

The immediate drive is for staffing and support for active membership in our counties, and then the service that goes along with it, he added.

The organization is also implementing new technology and database for the membership system, and will increase training for staff and volunteers.

Policy focus

The bulk of the OFBF annual meeting was spent in policy development. Delegates discussed current and proposed policies that direct the groups advocacy efforts on the state and national levels.

Water quality continues to be a hot topic, and this year, delegates discussed whether Ohio might create some type of farm stewardship certification program for farmers. If so, delegates said, a certification program should build upon existing water quality programs, protect the farmers confidentiality and provide legal and regulatory certainty for farmers who choose to participate.

Leadership

Stark County dairyman Frank Burkett III of Massillon was re-elected president, and will begin his first full term as president. He originally became president during a special election this past April.

He spent two years as the groups first vice president and previously served as treasurer, and has been on the state board since 2007, representing members from Columbiana, Mahoning, Portage and Stark counties.

I love dairy farming. I love agriculture. And I love what each and every one of you do for your industry collectively that we cant do individually, Burkett said in his speech to the delegates.

James W. (Bill) Patterson of Chesterland was re-elected first vice president, after taking office in a special election this past April. Patterson previously served as the organizations treasurer. He joined OFBFs board of trustees in 2011, representing Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake and Trumbull counties.

Cy Prettyman of New Bloomington was re-elected treasurer of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.

Trustee election

Seven trustees were re-elected to the state board, including: Craig Adams of Leesburg, representing Adams, Brown, Clermont and Highland counties; Mike Bensman of Sidney, representing Auglaize, Logan, Mercer and Shelby counties; Paul Harrison of Fostoria, representing Hancock, Hardin, Seneca and Wyandot counties; Jerry Lahmers of Newcomerstown, representing Carroll, Harrison, Jefferson and Tuscarawas counties; John Mossbarger of Washington Court House, representing Clinton, Fayette, Greene and Warren counties; Michael (Mike) Poling of Delphos, representing Allen, Paulding, Putnam and Van Wert counties; Chris Weaver of Lyons, representing Defiance, Fulton, Henry and Williams counties;

Michael Videkovich of Ashville has been elected to his first full three-year term, representing Fairfield, Hocking, Pickaway and Ross counties. In May, he was elected during a special election by delegates from that four-county area to fill the unexpired term of Steve Hirsch of Chillicothe. Hirsch had stepped down as Ohio Farm Bureau president and trustee and was elected to Nationwides board of directors.

Trustees newly elected to the board include Kyle Smith of South Vienna, who was elected Southwest regional trustee representing 20 southwest Ohio counties. Smith farms with his parents in Clark and Champaign counties. Smith also co-owns KC Fencing Company and is the owner of Kyle Smith Crop Insurance.

County awards

During the annual meeting, Carroll, Hancock, Harrison and Tuscarawas counties received Ohio Farm Bureau Federations Presidents Award, the top honor for outstanding local programming. The Presidents Award recognizes outstanding accomplishments in member strength, member advocacy and member engagement programs.

To be eligible for the Presidents Award, in addition to exceptional programming, the county Farm Bureau had to have gain in both active and overall membership. Counties could submit a second program or event in one of the three categories, and some counties won two awards in the same category.

Member Advocacy Excellence Gold Award winners were Carroll, Hancock, Harrison and Licking counties. Silver winners were Fulton, Hancock, Paulding and Tuscarawas counties.

Member Engagement Achievement Gold Award winners were Carroll, Hancock, Paulding and Tuscarawas counties. Silver winners were Carroll, Knox, Licking and Van Wert counties.

Member Strength Achievement Gold Award winners were Carroll, Hancock, Harrison and Tuscarawas counties. Silver winners were Harrison, Knox, Sandusky and Tuscarawas counties.

Three multiple county awards also were presented. The Collaborative Awards were presented to groups of counties that worked together on special projects or programs.

Recipients were Carroll, Harrison, Jefferson, Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga counties for their Farmtastic Agventures Google Hangout; Darke and Mercer counties for their Emerging Agricultural Leaders Conference and Carroll, Harrison and Tuscarawas Counties for the Keep Calm and Stay Safe program.

Ohio Farm Bureau Tim Corcoran Current chairman of the Nationwide board of directors and former Ohio Farm Bureau first vice president Tim Corcoran (at podium) was one of many voicing thanks and congratulations to Jack Fisher. < > < > 1 View Ohio Farm Bureau Tim Corcoran Current chairman of the Nationwide board of directors and former Ohio Farm Bureau first vice president Tim Corcoran (at podium) was one of many voicing thanks and congratulations to Jack Fisher. 2 View Ohio Farm Bureau Medina County Medina County Farm Bureau delegate Sarah Poling makes a point during policy development at the Ohio Farm Bureau annual meeting. 3 View Ohio Farm Bureau delegates More than 315 delegates took part in Ohio Farm Bureau policy development sessions Dec. 1-2 in Columbus. 4 View ofbf.delegates summit 5 View Ohio Farm Bureau Wayne County More than 315 delegates took part in Ohio Farm Bureau policy development sessions Dec. 1-2 in Columbus, including these delegates from Wayne County 6 View Ohio Farm Bureau Frank Burkett Ohio Farm Bureau President Frank Burkett, a Stark County dairyman, speaking to delegates: "This is your Farm Bureau and you make me proud." 7 View Nationwide Steve Rasmussen Steve Rasmussen, Nationwide CEO, pledged $1 million to the The Fisher Fund for Lifelong Learning, celebrating the contributions of retired OFBF executive Jack Fisher. 8 View Ohio Farm Bureau Adam Sharp and Frank Burkett Ohio Farm Bureau Adam Sharp and Frank Burkett 9 View Ohio Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Adam Sharp Ohio Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Adam Sharp 10 View Ohio Farm Bureau Jack Fisher Ohio Farm Bureau Executive Secretary Adam Sharp (left) presents his predecessor Jack Fisher with the farm group's Distinguished Service Award. 11 View Ohio Farm Bureau Frank Burkett Ohio Farm Bureau President Frank Burkett. 12 View Ohio Farm Bureau Frank Burkett 2016 Ohio Farm Bureau President Frank Burkett. 13 View Ohio Farm Bureau Fisher award Retired Ohio Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Jack Fisher (center) is joined by family onstage during the OFBF annual meeting Dec. 1 to receive the farm groups Distinguished Service to Agriculture award. Pictured at left is his successor Adam Sharp and the current OFBF president, Frank Burkett. Also pictured are Fishers daughter Jill Hadden; wife Judy; son Justin Fisher (behind); sister in-law Lois Fisher and brother Nick Fisher. (Susan Crowell photo) 14 View OFBF Excellence in Ag Aaron and Sarah Heilers of Anna are the Ohio Farm Bureau Federations 2016 Excellence in Agriculture Award winners. 15 View OFBF delegates 2016 More than 315 delegates took part in Ohio Farm Bureau policy development sessions Dec. 1-2 in Columbus. 16 View OFBF delegates More than 315 delegates took part in Ohio Farm Bureau policy development sessions Dec. 1-2 in Columbus. 17 View OFBF Michele Specht Ohio Farm Bureau Organization Director Michele Specht joins Carroll County member Dave Evans during the OFBF annual meeting. Three of the counties Specht coordinates received the Ohio Farm Bureau Federations Presidents Award, the top honor for outstanding local programming: Carroll, Harrison and Tuscarawas. 18 View OFBF Adam Sharp OFBF Executive Vice President Adam Sharp
The Prairie Doc: Men, you can thank women for your good health

columnists
Rural business leaders and farmers will tell the Government today (6 December) that the 25-year Plan for Food and Farming must unlock the investment potential of countryside or risk 'severely harming' the prospects of many who depend on the rural economy.

The industry-led 25-year plan has ambitions to improve the UK's food and farming, setting out how farmers can grow more, buy more and sell more British food. The Government has in the past discussed ways to promote a British brand and grow exports, so that the industry can potentially innovate and create jobs.

Defra Secretary of State Andrea Leadsom will be warned at the CLAs Rural Business Conference in Westminster that if she and other Ministers fail to include the countryside in future political thinking then the economic uncertainties fuelled by Brexit and volatile agricultural prices will severely harm the prospects of vital investments being made across the rural economy.

Defra Secretary of State Andrea Leadsom will be warned at CLAs Rural Business Conference

This call for action comes in the context of concerns that business growth policies announced in the Autumn Statement focused on towns and cities but ignored rural businesses.

The CLA, which represents 32,000 landowners, farmers and rural businesses in England and Wales, is urging the Government to set out a new tax roadmap for family businesses, to finish the job of reforming the planning system, and undertake regulatory changes that allow more rural businesses to enter into new markets such as supplying broadband and energy to local customers.

Undermining rural prospects

CLA President and Monmouthshire rural business owner Ross Murray said Government policy has 'allowed a focus' on business support and infrastructure spending in urban areas to 'undermine' the focus needed on promoting growth and investment in the countryside.

Mr Murray said: "Never has it been more important to address this imbalance than today as the rural economy prepares for the potentially seismic changes of Brexit. The new Industrial Strategy and the 25 year plan for food and farming are the opportunity to address this imbalance and they must be taken."

More than 400 rural business owners attending the Conference will be given sight of new research commissioned by the CLA which reveal that landowning businesses in rural England and Wales  96% of which are family businesses  are currently investing more than 13 billion a year, and there is potential for this figure to increase. It paints an optimistic picture about the future with more than 80% of landowning rural businesses planning to make investments for business resilience and growth.

The report, titled Rural Business 2030 is the result of a yearlong programme gathering evidence and insight about the future of rural business. It included new large scale research of investment intentions by rural business owners and a series of seminars gathering experts together from across the rural business and other sectors, academics and policymaker.

Mr Murray added: Businesses based on rural land are vibrant, full of entrepreneurial energy and looking to the future. Our new report shows there are great opportunities for these small family businesses to boost the rural economy in the years ahead, particularly through new business ventures such as becoming suppliers of better high speed broadband and renewable electricity or heating systems.

He concluded: They are up for the challenge, but they face an uphill struggle if Government doesnt start doing more to champion this type of rural investment.
Cumbrian commoners have revived plans for a 'commons council' to ensure commoning 'remains viable' in a post-Brexit world.

Commons councils are statutory organisations - this means theyre recognised by law, and can make legally binding rules for how people use common land. These legally binding rules can help if commoners, landowners and others with an interest in the common cant agree about how to manage the land. Theyre run by council members who are elected by commoners, with seats on the council for landowners and others who have a legal interest in the common.

"Brexit is a game changer for agriculture," a spokesperson for the Federation of Cumbria Commoners said, "the government of the United Kingdom will have to develop its own policy towards farming and rural land use to replace the Common Agricultural Policy."

"If commoning is to remain viable in this post-Brexit world, then commoners need to have a voice in the design of new agricultural policy and systems of payment. We believe a commons council for Cumbria is now more necessary than ever. It will give us better chance of getting heard and help us maintain the commons and promote good standards of livestock husbandry."

Kick-starting the commons council process again

In 2011 the Federation of Cumbria Commoners developed a proposal to establish a Commons Council for Cumbria, consulted widely and organised a vote. There were enough Commoners Associations who voted in favour to warrant applying to Defra to establish a commons council.

The Federation describes the timing as 'not right', as most commoners had priorities favouring the negotiation and securement of the Upland Entry and Higher Level Stewardship rather than get involved in starting a commons council.

The Federation states: "The Brexit result has changed everything and we now want to take up where we left off."

The Federation has written to the Chairmen of 75 Commoners' Assocations to offer the opportunity to take part in establishing a commons council.
RSK Group has today announced that it has acquired the UKs largest independent farm consultancy business, Adas.

The acquisition will see the Adas, including about 300 employees located at more than 15 sites across the UK, transferring to RSK, an engineering and technical support business.

The Adas brand will be retained and the business will operate as a new company called 'RSK Adas Ltd', a wholly owned subsidiary of RSK.

This acquisition makes RSK one of the biggest environmental consultancies in the country. It also provides an opportunity to add new services to RSKs portfolio, including expertise in land management, crop and food production, specialist chemical risk assessment and town planning.

RSK has acquired 12 environmental and analysis firms across Europe and the Middle East in the past decade and has seen impressive growth during that time that has helped to create a 100-million turnover business.

Dr Alan Ryder, Chief Executive Officer, RSK Group plc said: I am delighted to join forces with Adas. The company has extremely experienced and skilled people who share our common values. RSK and Adas see food production, energy and the environment as the most important issues facing humanity, so we will work together to deliver the best solutions for our customers.

Andrew Walker, Executive Director, Adas said: The announcement of RSKs acquisition of ADAS is very positive news for our business. It brings together two organisations that will, between them, offer an unrivalled breadth of expertise in the natural and built environment and that will be capable of delivering powerful solutions to our clients problems across the complete spectrum, from agriculture and the food chain to sustainable development, transport, energy and civil engineering.
A farmer who was repeatedly warned to control his cows has been spared jail after a retired university professor was trampled to death in his field.

Mike Porter, 66, from Edinburgh, was killed in the cattle attack on a public footpath through Elbow Field in Turleigh, Wiltshire, in May 2013. Around 30 beef cows began repeatedly trampling him while he curled up in a ball to protect himself.

After previous incidents in which people were injured by cattle on his farm, health officials had told Godwin to put in segregating fencing or signs saying 'cows with calves' to let people know the protective animals were dangerous, a court heard.

The judge at Swindon Crown Court suspended the farmer's sentence for two years because of his age. Godwin was also ordered to pay 30,000 costs.

Tim Mousley QC, sitting at Swindon crown court, said: "You could have prevented his untimely death. I'm satisfied that you quite blatantly failed to ensure the safety of people who came on your land."

'Obvious risk'

The judge told Godwin: "Im quite satisfied that the way you managed your livestock created an obvious risk to people on public footpaths and a risk of serious injury. That was a risk that you failed to take reasonable steps to rectify and led to the terrible death of one man and serious injuries to another.

"There was an incident in 2004, two incidents in 2008 after which the health and safety executive required you to make some changes. Two further incidents in 2011 after which the health and safety executive required you to make further changes.

"It must have been clear at that stage, the warning signs were obvious. By May 2013, you were aware of all the previous incidents. You had made some improvements to farming practice. But what you did obviously was not enough. Im satisfied you could have done more and you say you now realise that you could.

"Simply the expedient of installing a fence that would not have provided 100% safety but certainly would have reduced the risk. Mike Porter, by everyones account, was a devoted family man. He knew the importance of his family and their loss is immeasurable."
Farmer, 20, who took over family farm after tragedy scoops award
Brazil is getting ready for a blockbuster 2017 harvest and booming exports, amid favorable weather forecasts, according to recent estimates. With a plentiful harvest expected, Brazils National Grain Association predicts grain exports will rebound, with soybean exports of 60 MT in 2017, compared with some 51 MT for 2016. Corn exports will increase to 30 MT, compared with some 18.5 MT in 2016, the association reported.

INTL FCStone says Brazils crops are in very good condition across the countrys vast 4 million-square-kilometer cropland region. Dryness in southern Brazils Mato Grosso do Sul state and the western Bahia are setbacks, that do not present irreversible loss of productivity, according to reports by Globo Rural magazine. The consultancy estimates that 77.6% of soybeans have been planted so far.

Meanwhile, the consultancy Agrural puts plantings at 83% complete, while Agroconsult estimates plantings at 85% complete, with a 1.4% increase in soybean acreage.

Agroconsult estimates Brazil soybean production at 102.6 MT for 2016/2017, which would be in line with the 103.5 MMT soybean production estimate by Brazils government grain agency, CONAB, and USDAs November estimate of 102 MMT.

Agroconsults Managing Partner Andre Pessoa says the pace of production would likely be well below the 5.5% average of the previous five years, due to rotation to corn in the summer season in southern Brazil, as well as farmers still struggling to get credit after losses from the previous harvest, according to Globo Rural.

Pessoa said Brazilian production of 102.6 million tons, if confirmed, would support a CBOT price for soybeans of about US$10 per bushel.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, soybean plantings are 33.7% complete, and corn plantings are 41.1% complete, according to the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange. Plantings have been delayed by cold temperatures, it says.
In 2001, Tokyo NODAI organised the first ISS on food, agriculture and environment in the new century to provide students from its global partner universities with an opportunity to gather and exchange views and ideas on global food, agricultural and environmental issues and discuss their roles in sustainable development.
While Mr Nicholson has only seen one dog on his farm he believed wild dogs had marked some of his sheep but had not killed any, suggesting it was only a matter of time.
"We are expecting there to be some next year and that tends to be the trigger for GM crops in the east, whereas herbicide resistant ryegrass in WA means growers will keep GM canola in the rotation."
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Two 14-year-old boys have been charged in connection with having a gun at Unity Reed High School in Manassas this week. The gun was not brandished toward other students and was not part of an
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.
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa paid special attention for the growth of textile industry in the state during her entire tenure as chief minister, the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) has said. Jayalalithaa served five terms as TN CM, for over 14 years between 1991 and 2016. She breathed her last Monday night in Chennai.

Jayalalithaa Jayaraman, fondly called 'Amma', was very proactive in all the textile policy matters and even in the recent meeting with prime minister she personally took up the long pending issue of Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme and the industry could get the entire subsidy arrears cleared up-to-date within a short span of time, SIMA chairman M Senthil Kumar said in a press release.

She also helped to resolve the textile effluent pollution issue and successfully implemented the zero liquid discharge treatment system and made Tamil Nadu as the model for the entire globe in terms of sustainability, Kumar added.

Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa paid special attention for the growth of textile industry in the state during her entire tenure as chief minister, the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) has said. Jayalalithaa served five terms as TN CM, for over 14 years between 1991 and 2016. She breathed her last Monday night in Chennai.#

She also came out with numerous welfare schemes to eradicate child labour employment in a proactive manner.

SIMA chairman highly praised the bold and proactive steps initiated by the former CM on a war footing to mitigate the acute power shortage problem that prevailed in Tamil Nadu during 2008-2011. It is due to her steps that Tamil Nadu has now become the highest power surplus state in the whole of country, thus making the entire industry in Tamil Nadu highly competitive in the global market.

He added that she was the first chief minister to demand for an exclusive green corridor for transmitting the green energy across the country and also motivated the industrialists in the state to make large scale investments in wind power and solar power generation, which helped Tamil Nadu become a leader in green energy generation and protecting the world from global warming.

Cotton Cultivation Mission, a proposal mooted by SIMA, was another policy measure announced by Jayalalithaa for increasing the area under cotton, quality, productivity and the income for cotton farmers in Tamil Nadu, said Kumar.

SIMA chairman also recalled the support extended by Jayalalithaa for the development of Palladam Hi-tech Weaving Park. He added that the entire textile community in the state and the nation would remember the contributions made by the great leader. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The textile industry representatives are hopeful of revival of business once the cash flow begins in the market. Textile sales had gone down by around 50-60 per cent after the scrapping of high-denomination Indian currency notes on November 8. This announcement by the Central government had applied brakes on textile sales in the initial period.

Surat generally gets bulk orders from various parts of the country. Demonetisation has badly affected our business dealings. Consumers are spending as low as possible. Textile sales have gone down by 50-60 per cent. Placing of order has also reduced by around 75 per cent. The situation is such that weaving has decreased by 60 per cent and processing by 30 per cent. Cash inflow is also very slow. However, it is a positive sign for us that few consumers are still purchasing garments via credit/debit and online system, Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry president BS Agrawal told Fibre2Fashion.

Despite slow business in the textiles, representatives of the sector welcomed the move hoping that it will ensure systematic functioning of the entire value chain related to the industry.

The textile industry representatives are hopeful of revival of business once the cash flow begins in the market. Textile sales had gone down by around 50-60 per cent after the scrapping of high-denomination Indian currency notes on November 8. This announcement by the Central government had applied brakes on textile sales in the initial period.#

Initially, the sales had gone down to around 15 per cent. With time, the sales have improved a bit and we hope that it increases with the recovery of cash crunch in the market. However, demonetisation will definitely benefit the textile business in the long run. It is expected that this initiative by the government will restrain all unbilled sales, said Naishadh Parikh, chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry.

The situation is not very good. It will take time for the market to move towards cashless economy. Large retailers have not been much affected as consumers are doing purchases with plastic money and via online. However, with the ongoing wedding season, domestic retail shop owners are bearing the brunt of demonetisation, said Ajay Sahai, director general and CEO of Federation of Indian Export Organisations. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Indian government has extended the export entitlement quota for readymade garments & knitwear, yarn, and fabrics & made-ups to the US, Canada and European Union for one year with effect from January 1, 2017. This policy was initially introduced by the government for one year with effect from January 1, 2005, and has been extended since then.

The previous extension of the residuary provisions of garments and knitwears export entitlement (quota) policy and yarn, fabrics & made-ups export entitlement (quota) policy was scheduled to expire on December 31, 2016.

The government hereby decides to extend the operation of the residuary provisions of yarn, fabrics & made-ups export entitlement (quota) policy for a further one year with effect from January 1, 2017, reads a notification issued by the textiles ministry.

Indian government has extended the export entitlement quota for readymade garments & knitwear, yarn, and fabrics & made-ups to the US, Canada and European Union for one year with effect from January 1, 2017. This policy was initially introduced by the government for one year with effect from January 1, 2005, and has been extended since then.#

The government has also extended the operation of the residuary provisions of garments and knitwears export entitlement (quota) policy for a further one year with effect from January 1, 2017. This policy is applicable in respect of countries where such exports are covered by restraints under the provisions of the agreement on textiles and clothing.

Under the policy, export entitlements will be allotted only to exporters registered with the competent registering authorities as per the export-import policy prevailing from time to time. Quantities that become available from time to time on account of surrenders, flexibilities or otherwise shall also be allocated under the First Come First Served (FCFS) system. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Fashion designer and a member of the council of fashion designers of America (CFDA) Nellie Partow has been named as the new brand ambassador of Premiere Vision (PV) New York that will take place on January 17-18, 2017. With its third US ambassador, PV will continue to promote local creation in countries where the brand is present with a show.

Nellie Partow has worked alongside senior designers at Donna Karan, at Calvin Klein as women's knits and wovens designer and with John Varvatos. She launched her namesake luxury collection in Fall 2011 and has since built a reputation for impeccable finishing, innovative fabrics, and a distinctive design aesthetic.

PV collaborated with CFDA, whose mission is to strengthen the impact of American fashion in the global economy. Collaborating on the choice of the brand ambassador is one element in the global partnership, which features several initiatives such as providing assistance to young brands and designers, curated tour of PV for CFDA members and support for the Fashion Manufacturing Initiative (FMI).

Fashion designer and a member of the council of fashion designers of America (CFDA) Nellie Partow has been named as the new brand ambassador of Premiere Vision (PV) New York that will take place on January 17-18, 2017. With its third US ambassador, PV will continue to promote local creation in countries where the brand is present with a show.#

The CFDA is committed to strengthening young designers' businesses through like-minded partnerships. Working with PV allows us to connect our innovative designers with expertly curated vendors. said Adam Roth, vice president of strategic partnerships, CFDA.

We were pleased by this cooperation, which led us to choose Nellie Partow, a particularly committed designer with a strong fabric sensibility oriented towards innovation and high quality. Values that are part of the PV DNA, said Guglielmo Olearo, international exhibitions director, PV.

For its 34th edition in January 2017, the show will present to designers and brands a carefully selected offer of fabrics, designs, accessories, leather and quality manufacturing solutions. Nellie Partow will be present both days of the show for its presentation of the Spring Summer 18 season. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Ajay Devgn played the main lead in Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge! which also starred Konkona Sensharma and Paresh Rawal. Six years later, the actor is all set to return in his sequel titled Atithi In London, but this time in a cameo!

We hear that the actor will start shooting for his guest role next year. A Mumbai Mirror report quoted a source close to the film saying, "He is expected to be part of the film's climax that will be shot sometime in February, over three days. The makers have planned to shoot the portion in New York on ground zero."

However, the daily further quoted filmmaker Abhishek Pathak saying, "We will have to wait for Ajay's dates to see if he shoots our film. He is working on other films like Baadshaho currently so we are not sure how we are going about it."

Currently Ajay is busy shooting for Milan Luthria's Baadshaho co-starring Emraan Hashmi, Vidyut Jammwal, Esha Gupta and Ileana D'Cruz. He will also be seen sharing screen space for the first time with Parineeti Chopra in Golmaal 4.

Atithi In London is touted to be a unique modern love story with new characters and setting. Kartik's character and his girlfriend are living together in London when Paresh Rawal's character and his wife barges into their home, which offers the audience plenty of laughs.
The superstar of India Amitabh Bachchan, who has a daughter Shweta Bachchan Nanda, says daughters are the "best gift" and they should be given respect and dignity.

"Daughters are the best gift, My daughter the most beautiful in the whole world. Every daughter is Love her, give her respect, dignity," Amitabh posted on microblogging site Twitter recently.



The 74-year-old, who won the Best Actor honour at the 23rd Star Screen Awards 2016 on Sunday (4 December) for his role in critically acclaimed film Pink, even dedicated his award to his daughter Shweta Bachchan Nanda.

Also Read: It Kills Me! I Get Distraught, Extremely Disturbed, Very Sad & Very Lonely: Shahrukh Khan



"I dedicate this award to Shweta, the most beautiful daughter in the world," Amitabh wrote on his blog.

Pink, a courtroom drama, has been directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury.

The film deals with crime against women and also stars Taapsee Pannu, Andrea Tariang and Kirti Kulhari in the lead roles.
Actress Sunny Leone, who has tagged herself as the "biggest dork" relived one of her childhood memories of jumping on a couch and madly dancing to a song. Sunny, who has films like Raees, Baadshaho and Tera Intezaar in her kitty, took to Twitter on Tuesday to share a video in which she can be seen madly dancing and jumping on her couch while on a holiday.

Jayalalithaa With Dharmendra In The Film Izzat, The Only Bollywood Film She Acted In!

She captioned the clip, "Used to jump on my couch when I was little singing this song! Why not do it once more! Yes I am the biggest dork! What I do on my day off."

Used to jump on my couch when I was little singing this song!! Why not do it once more! Yes i am the biggest dork!!what I do on my day off! pic.twitter.com/XNFln4owrF  Sunny Leone (@SunnyLeone) December 6, 2016

Sunny Leone was recently declared the most searched personality in India by Yahoo India, leaving behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Salman Khan for the fifth consecutive time. It looks like people in India just can't have enough of Sunny Leone.

Ram Gopal Varma Remembers Jayalalithaa! Says He Attended An Award Show Only Because Of Her Presence!

The actress was recently in Maldives for the shoot of her upcoming film Tera Intezaar along with her co-star Arbaaz Khan. Sunny's husband Daniel Weber was present at the shoot too and the entire crew had a lovely time shooting at the pristine beaches of Maldives.

Veteran Actor Dharmendra Shocked Over Jayalalithaa's Demise!
While the trailer of Shahrukh Khan's much awaited film Raees is all set to be out tomorrow, filmmaker Rahul Dholakia is happy that his upcoming film is finally set to hit the big screens after waiting for about one and a half years. The SRK starrer has already created a huge buzz among the audience with its intriguing posters and the power-packed teasers.

During an interaction with Mumbai Mirror when Rahul was asked about the development of the film, he said, "I don't use the word 'great' to describe my work, so I'll simply say I'm quite happy with the way the film has shaped up. For me, the journey has always been more important than the end result and this one which has spanned almost five years for me has been fascinating."

He further added that he was impatient and anxious after the first schedule of the film as SRK went on to complete his two films Dilwale and Fan. He was quoted saying, "I might have been but when he resumed work after seven months, he was completely in sync from day one, not a word, move or mood out of character. Shah Rukh assures me picture achchi bani hai and from the makers to the actors and technicians retained their initial enthusiasm and conviction."

When quizzed about why he wanted King Khan in particular as the leading role, he reasoned, "I told him there's a line in the film which describes the protagonist Raees and is apt for him too. Instantly he quipped, 'Baniye ka dimag aur miya bhai ki daring' and I was amazed at how quickly he'd grasped the gist of the film and his role."

Raees is an important film for SRK as he is looking for an image break in the industry and Rahul further opened up, "There's nothing of SRK in Raees, not even his trademark gesture. In my film when he lifts his hand, it is to slap someone."

Well, after hearing all these words, we just can't wait to see the trailer which promises to be an exciting ride which also stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mahira Khan!
Vaani Kapoor, who made her debut in Maneesh Sharma's Shuddh Desi Romance, is all set to woo her fans with her next film Befikre with Ranveer Singh.

When the first trailer of Befikre released Vaani Kapoor was trolled badly because many believed she went for a lip job and chin surgery. In a recent interview to Midday, Vaani talked about it and said, "Does it look like I've done something? I don't know what to say. I have lost weight; my face is bound to look different. We shot in Paris when it was freezing; the cameras keep zooming in and out. The face looks different from different angles."



She further added, "I can't afford surgery, I am only one-film old." She quickly clarifies, though, that she doesn't judge those who opt for it.

Also Read: It Kills Me! I Get Distraught, Extremely Disturbed, Very Sad & Very Lonely: Shahrukh Khan

Talking about her second outing Vaani Kapoor said, "I kept auditioning with Shanoo Sharma (YRF's casting director) for the last three years to hone my skills. I also did a Tamil film called Aaha Kalyanam (2014), a remake of Band Baaja Baraat (2010).''

''I requested Adi [Aditya Chopra] to make me an AD on a film so that I could learn filmmaking tricks," Vaani Kapoor revealed.
Hollywood actor Tom Hardy states that he had vouched for a bet with the Revenant actor and his co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, ahead of the 2016 Academy Awards.

Tom Hardy said he had predicted that he would not be considered for a nomination for his role in the movie The Revenant when DiCaprio said otherwise. But Hardy lost the bet when he was nominated for the Oscar in a supporting role, but ultimately failed to win the Oscar.

During the bet, the two actors had agreed on the pointer that whoever lose the bet would have to get inked with a tattoo of the winner's choice.

"He wrote, in this really s****y handwriting: 'Leo knows everything. Ha! I was like, 'OK, I'll get it done, but you have to write it properly.'" Hardy said in a statement.

However, 11 months have passed and Hardy is yet to get the tattoo done. He said, he is not into the tattoo thing that much and said that getting hot needle to pierce his skin is not what he would like to do at all.

DiCaprio on the other hand, is not expediting the tattoo on Hardy as well, as he has a more serious business to look after this year. He has been working on producing documentaries on flood with National Geographic Channel.

"This is the most monumental issue facing our generation and the next, and we need to solve it incredibly quickly," said Leonardo DiCaprio.
Mammootty

Mammootty, who shared a rare picture with CM Jayalalithaa through his official Facebook page, stated that she set an example for all by conquering the love of the people.

Mohanlal

Mohanlal expressed his grief over the demise of the honourable Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, by posting her picture on his official Facebook page.

Jayaram

Jayaram bid goodbye to the iron lady of Tamil Nadu, by posting a picture and a small note on his official Facebook page.

Manju Warrier

Manju Warrier posted a picture of Jayalalithaa along with a special note, on her official Facebook page. She stated that the 'Puratchi Thalaivi' has set an example for all single women out there.

Dulquer Salmaan

Dulquer Salmaan, who grew up in Chennai, feels that the city will never be the same. He expressed his deep grief through a Facebook post.

Kunchacko Boban

Kunchacko Boban shared an old picture of Tamil Nadu's dear Amma with a special note, through his official Facebook page.

Nivin Pauly

Nivin Pauly paid respect to the iron lady, by posting her picture on his official Facebook page, with a small note. Nivin stated that Jayalalithaa is the definition of women empowerment.

Anoop Menon

Actor-writer Anoop Menon paid respect to the Puratchi Thalaivi, by posting a very special note, along with her old photograph, on his official Facebook page.

Aju Varghese

Aju expressed his deep grief over the demise of Tamil Nadu's Amma, through a touching Facebook post. The actor also shared his experiences of living in Chennai when she ruled, through his post.

Jayasurya

Jayasurya expressed his grief over the demise of the honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, by posting her picture on his official Facebook page.
Jayasurya, the versatile actor is joining hands with the senior director Siddique for the first time, for his upcoming movie Fukri. The team recently released the first official teaser of the movie.

The 33 seconds long official teaser, which introduces the title character Lucky, played by Jayasurya in the movie looks highly promising. Jayasurya is sporting two different get-ups in the movie.

Fukri, which is said to be a unique comical thriller, stars Jayasurya in the central character Luckman Ali Fukri aka Lucky, who suffers from kleptomania. The movie is scripted by director Siddique, himself.

Popular actor Siddique and actor-director Lal essay the pivotal roles in the movie. Interestingly, it is the first collaboration of Lal with his best buddy, director Siddique, as an actor.

Reportedly, Fukri was originally offered to Fahadh Faasil, but the young actor turned down the offer due to undisclosed reasons. The team later roped in Jayasurya to play the central character Lucky.

Anu Sithara and Prayaga Martin essay the female leads in the movie. KPAC Lalitha, Mukundan, John, Sajan Palluruthi, Ansar, Krishnaprabha, Sreelatha, Reena, Tesni Khan, etc., essay the supporting roles.
Mammootty is one such Malayalam actor who has always made it a point to encourage debut directors. He has never shied away from allotting dates for projects of debut film-makers.

Now, according to the latest reports, the actor would soon join hands with a debut director. Reportedly, the actor would play the lead role in renowned scripwriter Sethu's debut directorial venture.

If reports are to be believed, the film would go on floors in the next year. The upcoming film is said to be in the lines of a family entertainer with a humorous background.

Interestingly, Sethu has some interesting projects as a writer in his kitty. The upcoming multi-starrer Achayans, directed by Kannan Thamarakkulam and featuring Jayaram, Prakash Raj, Unni Mukundan etc., in the lead roles has its script written by Sethu.

Meanwhile, the shoot of Mammootty's next release The Great Father has been completed. This film too has been directed by a debutante film-maker, Haneef Adeni. The Great Father would hit the theatres in January.

Mammootty has joined the sets of his upcoming movie with ranjith, which has been titled as Puthanpanam. After Puthanpanam, he is expected to join Shyamdhar's next directorial venture.
Star Plus' popular show Yeh Hai Mohabbatein completed three glorious years recently (December 3). Also, the show will soon make 1000-episode mark on Friday (December 9).

The show, which is produced by Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms was aired on December 3, 2013. Apparently, it is based on Manju Kapur's novel, Custody. The show portrays the love story of Dr. Ishita Iyer (Tamilian), played by Divyanka Tripathi and Raman Kumar Bhalla (Punjabi), played by Karan Patel.

The actors took to social media to express their happiness. Mihika Verma, who played the role of Mihika on the show, also visited the YHM sets. It has to be recalled that Mihika had quit the show and she was replaced by Avantika Hundal. Mihika too, wished the actors for completing three glorious years. Read on to know what the actors have to say about the show's completion of three years and Mihika's visit ...

Mihika Mihika took to social media, "Reminiscing the good old days!!greatful and thankful for forming such lovely bonds! So proud of yeh hai mohabbatein completing 1000 episodes!" Mihika Thanks All... She further wrote, "Thank u to each of every soul on this show#ishita #raman #mihir #romi #ashok #mrsbhalla #mrbhalla #mriyer #mrsiyer #simmi #rinki #shagun #vandita #bala #ruhi #adi #suraj... Missed seeing @resha.k @sangram_singh @vineetkumar03 @officialvivekdahiya @dollydhawan @_the_gautam_ahuja @bhavesh_jaiswal_ @mainpankajbhatiahoon." Ankita Ankita wrote, "Woah! 3yrs,1000Episodes aur dher saare Rishte! Big Hug 2 eachone of U! Miles achieved n Miles 2 Go! Special hug 2 @EkmainaurEktu7 U kno why." Divyanka Divyanka shared a picture snapped with Mihika and the other YHM actors. She wrote, "Dekho.... Woh pardesi aa gai! Mihiku, it was great meeting you after ages! Love you and miss you loads!" Neena Neena shared a collage of YHM actors and wrote, "3 years of YHM!! Congratulations! To many more years of happiness which is YHM ." Neena & Mihika Neena also shared a picture (collage) snapped with Mihika and wrote, "My Mihi s here#yhmfamily #lovemycast#friendslikefamily." Raj Singh Arora Raj Singh Arora wrote, "3 Years & 1000 Thousand Episodes of #yehhaimohabbatein Congratulations Team #YHM @ekmainaurektu7 @sandiipsikcand @divyankatripathidahiya @karan9198 @starplus & everyone on the show Actors, Directors,Creative, Production, Technicians and all the fans..... :))" Raj He further added, "Believe me i don't think any of us knew at that time that this show would become what it has became today....so here is to the next 3 years & 1000 Thousand Episodes :)." Raj-Mihika Raj also shared a picture snapped with Mihika and wrote, "Look who is in town.....My Oldest & Best Friend ...... Mikeeeeeeeee @mihikavarma1 & @shrutitheactor ." Anita-Mihika Anita shared a picture snapped with Mihika and wrote, "@mihikavarma1 you! #yhm#family #missedKP #Pihu #Adi #Mihir #Sangy #Shruti #Pankaj #Shravan." Aly, Mihika & Avantika Aly shared a picture snapped with both Mihika's and wrote, "See who is here  MERI DO DO MIHIKA  #CoActorsLikeFamily #YhmConnection #YhmFamily #Alybaba." Ruhanika Dhawan Ruhanika Dhawan wrote, "And it all started from here. 3yrs of yhm. Thank you ma'am for giving me this opportunity thank you Sandip sir thankyou starplus. A big thankyou to all the viewers across the globe for all the love... @ekmainaurektu7 @starplus @sandiipsikcand."

Currently, on the show, Pihu has returned to the Bhalla house with Raman and Ishita. The family members are happy with this. Vidyut too, reach the Bhalla house. All the men of the Bhalla house decide to party together.

The men dance with girls, while their wives get to know about the same and decide to teach them a lesson. Ishita, Mihika and Aliya dress like men and go to the place where the men are partying. They fool them.

Meanwhile, Vidyut gets into trouble as his crazy fan Nisha commits suicide. As we revealed earlier, the upcoming episode, will show Ishita being blamed for Nisha's suicide and she will be arrested. Sahil comes to Ishita's rescue!
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/05/16 -- Antioquia Gold Inc. ("Antioquia" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: AGD) wishes to report on progress at its Cisneros Project in Colombia. The receipt of Antioquia's final environmental permit has triggered a flurry of activities at Cisneros, all directed towards bringing a mine into production in the shortest time frame possible. The following is a summary of additional milestones that have been achieved at the Cisneros Project:

Guaico

-- Underground Work Activities - Progress to end of November: -- The main access ramp has advanced to a total length of 922m and reached an elevation of 1165 a.s.l., some 110 m below the mine portal. The contractor is now consistently meeting the planned target of 300m of advance per month; -- The underground explosives magazine has been completed and will be commissioned this month, replacing the one on surface thereby enhancing overall security; -- The access tunnel to the Manuela structure continued its advance and intersected the main Manuela vein on November 17; -- Neither the Manuela nor Nus vein structures were previously included in the mine plan for the Guaico area.

Figure 1 showing the mine tunnelling projected advance is attached as an Appendix and can also be found on the Company's web site (www.antioquiagoldinc.com).

-- Other Activities -- The permanent bridge over the Nus River is complete; -- The raise bored ventilation shaft is complete and functioning; -- An underground diamond drilling program is planned to further delineate resources at Guaico, Manuela and Nus and will be initiated in January.

Guayabito

-- Guayabito South Drilling - The Company has initiated a 450m diamond drill program which is intended to link the most recent drill results on this property to the resources on the original Guayabito structure and bring them from an inferred category into indicated. Once these results have been obtained, along with results from the Guaico area underground drilling, the Company plans to review and update its original NI 43-101 resource report. This should be complete by the end of the 1st Qtr of 2017' -- Guayabito Mine - The mine plan has been revised to take advantage of the most recent knowledge of Guayabito South with the portal now located approximately 50m lower than previously providing more efficient access. A mining contract has been awarded to the same contractor that is developing the Guaico deposit. Work has commenced on the access road to the portal and actual tunnelling should begin before the end of this month; -- Process Plant - Detailed engineering is now complete and the following equipment is to be delivered as follows: -- 500 tpd jaw crusher - December 2016 -- Vibrating feeder - December 2016 -- Cone crusher - December 2016 -- Vibrating screen - December 2016 -- Ball mill, 10' X 8 - January/February 2017 -- Civil Works - Final quotes are being evaluated for all civil works associated with the construction of the sites for the process plant, shop, warehouse and other related infrastructure. The contracts associated with these works are expected to be awarded within the next 2 weeks; -- Land Acquisition - All key surface rights necessary for the operation have been acquired with some minor rights-of-way still to be finalized;

In summary, the project is advancing well and production is anticipated by management in the second half or 2017 based on internal estimates.

Further information and photographs can be found on the Company's website www.antioquiagoldinc.com.

Mr. Jim Decker, P. Eng., Vice President Investor Relations and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed the contents of this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Reader Advisory

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", are made as of the date of this press release and the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect current expectations or beliefs regarding future events and include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to: capital expenditures, operating costs, and the anticipated project schedule. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "projects", "estimates", "assumes", "intends", "strategy", "goals", "objectives", "schedule" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are made based upon certain assumptions by the Company and other important factors that, if untrue, could cause the actual results, performances or achievements of Antioquia Gold to be materially different from future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business prospects and strategies and the environment in which Antioquia Gold will operate in the future, including the price of gold, anticipated costs and Antioquia Gold's ability to achieve its goals, anticipated financial performance, regulatory developments, development plans, exploration, development and mining activities and commitments. Although management considers its assumptions on such matters to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. Additional risks are described in Antioquia Gold's most recently filed annual and interim MD&A and other disclosure documents available under the Company's profile at: www.sedar.com.

By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and risks exist that estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved or that assumptions do not reflect future experience. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as a number of important risk factors could cause the actual outcomes to differ materially from the beliefs, plans, objectives, expectations, anticipations, estimates, assumptions and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements.

Readers should also be cautioned that the Company's decision to move forward with the construction and production of the Cisnero Mine is not based on the results of any preliminary economic assessment ("PEA"), pre-feasibility study or feasibility study of mineral resources demonstrating economic or technical viability. In 2013, the Company filed a technical report completed in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") titled "Cisneros Gold Project, Antioquia Department, Colombia" dated October 14, 2013 (the "Cisneros Report"), a copy of which is available on SEDAR under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Readers are referred to section 14.13 of the Cisneros Report for details on independently verified mineral resources on the Cisneros Project. Since 2013, the Company has undertaken additional exploration and development activities; and after taking into consideration various factors, including but not limited to: the exploration and development results to date, technical information developed internally that has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Jim Decker, P. Eng., a former director of Antioquia who serves as a qualified person under the definition of National Instrument 43-101, the availability of funding, the low starting costs as estimated internally by the Company's management, the Company is of the view that the commissioning of a PEA, the establishment of mineral reserves, the commissioning of a pre-feasibility study or feasibility study at this stage is not necessary, and that the most responsible utilization of the Company's resources is to proceed with the development and construction of the mine. Readers are cautioned that due to the lack of a PEA, pre-feasibility study or feasibility study, there is increased uncertainty and higher risk of economic and technical failure associated with the Company's decision. In particular, there is additional risk that mineral grades will be lower than expected, the risk that construction or ongoing mining operations will be more difficult or more expensive than management expected. Production and economic variables may vary considerably, due to the absence of a detailed economic and technical analysis in accordance with NI 43-101. Project failure may materially adversely impact the Company's future profitability, its ability to repay existing loans, and its overall ability to continue as a going concern.

To view Figure 1 - Guaico Projected Underground Tunnelling Advance - please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1079009_Antioquia_Figure1.pdf

Contacts:

Antioquia Gold Inc.

1.800.348.9657

www.antioquiagoldinc.com




NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- (Marketwired) -- 12/05/16 -- Brookfield Investment Management Inc. will host a conference call for the Brookfield Real Assets Income Fund Inc. (NYSE: RA) (the "Fund") on Monday, December 12, 2016 at 4:30pm ET. Brookfield will provide an update on the Fund and an update on general market conditions.

If you have questions about the Fund that you would like answered on the conference call, please send an e-mail to funds@brookfield.com by 2:00pm ET on Friday, December 9, 2016.

The conference call will be available on 800-319-4610. A replay of the conference call will be available soon after completion of the call at www.brookfield.com or by calling 855-669-9658 (passcode: 1020) through Tuesday, December 27, 2016.

Brookfield Investment Management Inc. (the "Firm") is an SEC-registered investment adviser and represents the Public Securities platform of Brookfield Asset Management. The Firm provides global listed real assets strategies including real estate equities, infrastructure equities, real asset debt and diversified real assets. With approximately $15 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2016, the Firm manages separate accounts, registered funds and opportunistic strategies for institutional and individual clients, including financial institutions, public and private pension plans, insurance companies, endowments and foundations, sovereign wealth funds and high net worth investors. The Firm is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $250 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2016. For more information, go to www.brookfield.com.

The Fund is managed by Brookfield Investment Management Inc. The Fund uses its website as a channel of distribution of material company information. Financial and other material information regarding the Fund is routinely posted on and accessible at www.brookfield.com.

Contacts:

Brookfield Real Assets Income Fund Inc.

Brookfield Place

250 Vesey Street, 15th Floor

New York, NY 10281-1023

(855) 777-8001

funds@brookfield.com




OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Suncor Energy Inc. (SU.TO, SU) said that the Tax Court of Canada has issued a favourable Order resolving the previously disclosed dispute with the Canada Revenue Agency or CRA. The dispute was in regards to the income tax treatment of realized losses in 2007 on the settlement of certain derivative contracts. The Tax Court Order confirms the successful resolution of this matter between Suncor and the CRA, resulting in no additional taxes, interest or penalties. Suncor's original filing position on this issue is therefore maintained and all taxation matters related to this issue are now closed. Suncor had provided security to the CRA and the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario for approximately C$657 million in respect of this issue. The company is taking steps for the return of this security. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Australian dollar weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Tuesday. The Australian dollar fell to more than a 2-week low of 1.4449 against the euro, from yesterday's closing value of 1.4404. The aussie dropped to 84.61 against the yen, from yesterday's closing value of 85.03. Against the U.S., the Canadian and the New Zealand dollars, the aussie dropped to 0.7449, 0.9883 and 1.0416 from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.7471, 0.9914 and 1.0462, respectively. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.50 against the euro, 82.00 against the yen, 0.72 against the greenback, 0.96 against the loonie and 1.02 against the kiwi. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
HONG KONG, CHINA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/05/16 -- China Telecom Global (CTG), the international operating subsidiary of China Telecom Corporation (China Telecom), a leading integrated information service provider in China, has selected the Djibouti Data Center (DDC), to help facilitate network expansion, co-location and submarine fiber cable access services in East Africa.

The Djibouti Data Center has been built to Tier III data center standards and serves as a major meeting point for submarine fiber cable systems including the new Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE 5) submarine cable designed to connect Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Western Europe. China Telecom Global is a founding member of the consortium for SEA-ME-WE 5, which is expected to be ready for service in late 2016.

Mr. Liu Changhai, Managing Director of China Telecom (Africa and Middle East) Limited, a subsidiary of CTG, said, "The cooperation with DDC is a significant component of our overall commitment to contributing to the digital evolution and economic development of Africa. The addition of SEA-ME-WE 5 to CTG's existing fiber cable assets in the region is a significant milestone that marks a new page for the company's regional strategic planning in accordance to the Belt and Road Initiative. With our abundant and further expanded network resources, we can better serve our MNC clients and Carrier partners in Djibouti, Ethiopia and other countries in East Africa."

The SEA-ME-WE 5 will span approximately 20,000kms and employ 100Gbps technology, with initial system capacity of 24 terabits to provide customers with low-latency and direct connectivity. It will further enhance the diversity and agility in the growing demand for Asia, Africa, Middle East and Western Europe routes around the world.

The system is designed as a multiregional super highway, and will connect Djibouti with China, via 18 landing points located in Singapore, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Egypt, Italy, France and etc.

Mr. Anthony Voscarides, Chief Executive Officer of Djibouti Data Center, said: "The addition of the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system further establishes DDC as the leading carrier-neutral data center hub in East Africa serving global and regional telecommunication companies, MNOs, ISPs and CDN providers."

Mr. Voscarides added: "We are very pleased that CTG will be joining the DDC ecosystem, as it further enables the development and introduction of new services that will help drive economic and social well-being in the region."

The DDC is uniquely positioned in East Africa and will enable China Telecom Global to establish cross-connect and co-location facilities directly adjacent to Djibouti Telecom's cable landing stations.

In addition to supporting SEA-ME-WE 5 in the near future, the DDC provides access to fiber-cable systems such as AAE 1, EIG, EASSy, Aden-Djibouti and Ethiopia-Djibouti.

About China Telecom Global Limited

China Telecom Global Limited (CTG) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Telecommunications Corporation Limited for managing its international businesses. Established in 2012 and headquartered in Hong Kong and Beijing, CTG leverages the abundant resources in mainland China, connecting the Asia Pacific region to the world. CTG has subsidiaries and affiliates in 31 countries and regions, 68 overseas PoPs, 45 OTN nodes, and delivers more than 20T in international connectivity bandwidth and intercontinental capacity. CTG also has resources on 38 submarine cables, while participating in the construction of more than 10. With the direct connections with more than 10 neighbouring countries and regions via terrestrial cables, CTG has mapped out a global service and capacity network. Targeting international carriers, multinational corporations and overseas Chinese consumers, CTG provides customised and cost-effective integrated communications solutions and diversified telecom services to cater to their global business needs. Its services include direct access, internet transit, data services, broadband, unified communications, internet data center, cloud computing, ICT services, fixed and mobile voice and value-added services, professional services and industry solutions, telecom operation consultancy, and service outsourcing.

For more information on CTG, please visit www.chinatelecomglobal.com

About the Djibouti Data Center (DDC)

The Djibouti Data Center (DDC) is the first and only Tier 3 carrier-neutral data center ecosystem in East Africa with direct access to all major international and regional fiber optic systems connecting Europe, the Middle East, and Asia markets with Africa - including upcoming Sea-Me-We5 and AAE1. The DDC also operates the Djibouti Internet Exchange (DjIX), a neutral and independent IXP in Africa. The DjIX offers high speed, reliable, and resilient service. Both the DDC and DjIX are catalysts in east Africa that enable new applications and services that help to drive economic development and social well-being in the region.

Learn more about the DDC products and services at www.djiboutidatacenter.com

For more information please contact:



Djibouti Data Center (DDC)

John Melick

Tel: + 1.703.627.1332

Email: Email Contact



China Telecom Global

Public Relations

Tel: +852 2582 9233

Email: Email Contact




CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The New Zealand dollar weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Tuesday. The NZ dollar fell to nearly a 3-week low of 1.5162 against the euro, from yesterday's closing value of 1.5070. Against the U.S. dollar, the kiwi dropped to 0.7094 from an early 6-day high of 0.7159. Against the yen and the Australian dollar, the kiwi edged down to 80.59 and 1.0491 from yesterday's closing value of 81.26 and 1.0462, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.56 against the euro, 0.70 against the greenback, 79.00 against the yen and 1.06 against the aussie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
BASEL, Switzerland, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Debut Range of Essentials Timepieces Signals a Return to Elegant Simplicity

The hallmark of our DAVIDOFF ESSENTIALS collection of cufflinks and small leather goods has always been a dedication to the pure minimalist design so admired and exemplified by our founder Zino Davidoff. A new addition to this collection of must-haves is Essentials No.1, a tastefully crafted, stylish timepiece reduced to its simple basic function, to display the time. The DAVIDOFF Essentials No.1 timepiece is a welcome invitation to enjoy life and all its beautiful, unique moments.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445761 )



DAVIDOFF Essentials No.1

We adopted a pared-down approach to crafting Essentials No.1 because it required an elegant purity of design able to bring the watch back to its original function of displaying time. The Essentials No.1 does not indulge in any distractions. There is no sweeping second hand, and there are no extraneous, attention seeking sounds. This watch calmly invites you to access time in the purest sense. Not to rush, but to take pleasure in the enduring sophistication of your accessory as it marks life's passing moments.

We focused on an appreciation of traditional craftsmanship to create an organic, practical device that is functional, yet appealing to the senses. As a result, each of our Swiss Made watches represents the high quality expected of timepieces honored with that international seal of quality. The domed sapphire crystal is resistant to scratches, and the entire watch is water resistant up to 5ATM/50m. Each watch features hour markers meticulously applied by hand and a strap made of superior Italian leather. There is also a discrete date indicator at the six o'clock position.

The Davidoff Essentials No.1 comes in a diverse range of color and material combinations to ensure that there is a version well suited to each man's personal style. The Davidoff aesthetic of elegant simplicity is present in every detail of this refined watch, which joins the Essentials Cufflinks and Small Leather Goods to form a collection of pure, minimalist but always elegant companions for contemporary men of taste.

Press Contact:

+41-61-201-10-80

press@zinodavidoff.com

http://www.zinodavidoff.com/media-and-press

http://www.zinodavidoff.com


TRIPOLI, Libya, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

LPTIC announced onTuesday (December 6) that the company's chairman had held positive talks with HE President Yoweri Museveni over the future of UTL.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445697LOGO )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445698 )

The talks took place in the Ugandan capital Kampala on November 22.

Chairman of Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Holding Company (LPTIC) Dr. Faisel Gergab said that discussions with the President focused on the transformation plan to turnaround the Ugandan based telecoms operator UTL that would significantly boost the company's existing Data Services.

According to LPTIC Chairman Dr. Faisel Gergab, HE President Museveni reaffirmed the government's willingness to work with LPTIC to transform UTL into a leading universal telecoms service provider

HE President Museveni also provided suggestions for ways to implement the new plan that would 'help turn the company around'.

"Our talks with HE President Museveni were very fruitful and positive," LPTIC Chairman Dr. Faisel Gergab said. "We see an exciting future for UTL as it begins the transformation from legacy old-style PTT to a modern ICT company that will offer high quality and competitive services."

"As part of a bold transformation plan, UTL will be upgrading its technology in the next year, adding 4G capabilities to provide a wide range of high-quality, high-speed data services to both mobile and fixed customers," Dr. Gergab added.

Despite recent challenges, UTL continues to provide vital services across the spectrum for consumers, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporate enterprises.

UTL is one of the longest-running telecom operators in Uganda, established since 1998. LPTIC via its subsidiary LAP-Green holds 69% majority shareholding in UTL whilst the Ugandan Government holds a minority 31% shareholding in the company

According to the company, LPTIC and Ugandan stakeholders, including the Ministry of Finance and Privatization, developed a plan which was approved by UTL's Board and shareholders at meetings held in mid-2016.

However, the execution of the plan, has been delayed due to several obstacles. Following the meeting with HE President Museveni, all Parties are now confident that there will be real progress to quickly remove the obstacles that have blocked the implementation of the agreed plan, and clear the way forward to commend the execution of UTI transformation plan.
PETAH TIKVA (dpa-AFX) - Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) said that it has received a positive outcome through the variation procedure to remove the pregnancy contraindication from the European label for COPAXONE (glatiramer acetate injection) 20 mg/mL. The product was originally authorized through a decentralized procedure in Europe. The removal of the pregnancy contraindication follows a Positive Variation Assessment Report issued by the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA; Reference Member State), and agreed by all Concerned Member States (CMS) in Europe, that were involved in the procedure. Granting of national approvals by all involved EU Member States will happen in the near future. COPAXONE is indicated for the treatment of patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis or RMS. The removal of the contraindication is based on a comprehensive examination of available prospective pregnancy cases with known outcome and confirmed exposure to COPAXONE. A supporting analysis was also provided comparing data from Teva's Glatiramer Acetate (GA) Pharmacovigilance Database which captured more than 8,000 pregnancies over a period of more than 20 years. COPAXONE (glatiramer acetate injection) is indicated for the treatment of patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis. The most common side effects of COPAXONE are redness, pain, swelling, itching, or a lump at the site of injection, flushing, rash, shortness of breath, and chest pain. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Three simultaneous raids in China are the latest in efforts to combat the sale of counterfeit bearings

SKF (STO:SKFB) (STO:SKFA) (Pink Sheets:SKFRY) (LSE:SKFB) has participated in three simultaneous raids against retailers of counterfeit bearings in China. The raids, which were led by Chinese police, resulted in the seizure of counterfeit bearings which may otherwise have been sold to industrial customers and end-users.

Tina Astrom, Director, Group Brand Protection, says: "Counterfeit products are often associated with luxury and consumer brands, but they are also a problem for industrial customers in almost all regions. Although the sale of counterfeit bearings is a problem in China, Chinese law enforcement is very proactive and supported by a legal framework that enables taking action against counterfeiters."

"Amongst the seized goods, there was a counterfeit large-size cylindrical roller bearing. The bearing had severe visible damage, suggesting that it had not been able to meet the performance needs of the machine in which it was installed. The damage was so severe, the failure of the counterfeit bearing would most likely have created substantial damage to its surrounding machinery, resulting in unplanned production downtime and financial implications for the end-user."

Every year, SKF's brand protection team participates in more than 100 raids against retailers, distributors and manufacturers of counterfeit products, half of which take place in China.

Aktiebolaget SKF (publ)

SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2015 were SEK 75 997 million and the number of employees was 46 635. www.skf.com

SKF is a registered trademark of the SKF Group.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005603/en/

Contacts:

SKF

PRESS:

Theo Kjellberg

Director, Press Relations

tel: +46 31 337 6576

mobile: +46 725-776576

e-mail: theo.kjellberg@skf.com

or

INVESTOR RELATIONS:

Patrik Stenberg

Head of Investor Relations

+46 31-337 2104

+46 705-472 104

patrik.stenberg@skf.com
PARIS, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Sage, a market leader in integrated accounting, commercial and sales management solutions, and Finexkap Group, the foremost non-bank financing platform for cash flow management for small and medium sized businesses, announce their partnership for the launch of 'Sage Clic&Cash'. The aim of this partnership is to give businesses a real alternative short-term financing solution.

In France, a business dies every 33 minutes due to cash flow problems. Two thirds of them are victims of delayed payments. Despite efforts by successive French governments to counteract this problem, delays to payment remain too high and continue to penalise business competitiveness. By joining forces, Sage and Finexkap Group have demonstrated their shared ambition to reduce the 600 billion euros of credit owed between businesses-without having to involve banks in the process.

Sage Clic&Cash was born out of this complementary partnership. As a brand new solution for financing cash flow issues flexibly and easily, it aims to help small and medium sized businesses which face liquidity constraints.

Sage Clic&Cash: cash flow in a click

600,000 business users of Sage can now create a Sage Clic&Cash account in order to benefit from the service, using the accounting software interface 'Sage' or 'Ciel'. In just one click, they can then request a cash flow advance from Finexkap in return for invoices that are awaiting payment from clients. After a careful analysis of risk history and the commercial relationships involved, using algorithms developed using a fintech platform, they can receive a financing offer in less than 48 hours.

Another major innovation of Sage Clic&Cash is that it brings an incomparable fee structure into the arena of alternative finance. The attractive cost of the service can be adapted and evolve according to specific business needs. Including all commissions, an annual charge can be as low as 3.7%. By offering new technology to a wide variety of companies, the fintech has entered a new phase of maturity.

About Sage Clic&Cash:

C ash flow advance at a competitive price that lasts for 90 days

C ommitments are not based on duration or volume

No personal guarantee required

Non-bank financing , allowing diversification of sources of liquidity

No subscription, renewal or cancellation charges

A fair and transparent fee, without hidden costs

Sage Clic&Cash represents a break-up in the current structure of short-term financing, by making this process smoother and adapting it to meet either the one-off or recurring cash flow needs that result from business size.

"Having credit trapped between businesses is a systemic problem which significantly changes the health of French businesses and the economy in general. We think that digital technologies will succeed in that area, where regulation has reached its limits: real-time analysis of data allows for a calculation of risk which is fairer and gives a boon to the availability of short-term financing at a competitive cost. The simplicity of using Sage Clic&Cash and its fast process of transferring funds has democratised access to this type of financing and resolves the problem of late payments. The partnership between Sage and Finexkap is an alliance of expertise and data management, which uses an innovative approach to create alternative financing. Put simply, it is a 100% digital alliance," says Claude Cordier, Director of Product Marketing at Sage.

"We have created Finexkap with the aim of facilitating access to cash flow for businesses. Thanks to the role of technology, in as little as 18 months we have already contributed to the financing of 50 million euros' worth of invoices. Our partnership with Sage is built out of the heart of our strategy of 'network lending', the purpose of which is to connect our service to software that combines information relating to credit held between companies, notably commercial management and accounting software. Thanks to the strength of Sage, the market leader in business management software, several hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized businesses will now benefit from financing at a click in order to meet their cash flow problems," say Arthur de Catheu and Cedric Teissier, founding partners at Finexkap Group.

About Finexkap and Sage

http://cash.finexkap.com/sageclicandcash-en/
Mr. Chen Dexin, Executive Director and CEO of Jinchuan International (left) Mr. Yang Ying, Vice President of Junhe Group (right)



HONG KONG, Dec 6, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - Jinchuan Group International Resources Co. Ltd (the "Company", together with its subsidiaries, collectively referred to "Jinchuan International", Stock Code: 2362.HK) entered into a Strategic Framework Agreement with Junhe Holdings Limited ("Junhe Holdings"), in which Junhe Holdings will make equity investment in the Company by either subscribing for new shares of the Company or by acquiring existing shares of the Company, and establish several Joint Ventures in Shanghai with Junhe Holdings for different businesses, including a trading joint venture for trading commodities including non-ferrous metals, precious metals and chemical raw materials, a factoring joint venture and a financial leasing joint venture.Junhe Holdings is a 84.14% subsidiary held by Shanghai Junhe Group Co., Ltd ("Junhe Group"), which is an integrated conglomerate established in Shanghai and a one of the well-known private enterprises in the mainland of China which engages in various segments of business as supported by Shanghai's robust investment environment and capital flow, including (i) the global trading of non-ferrous metals, precious metals, energy products (such as petrochemicals, wood pulp, coal, mineral resources and other international and domestic trades); (ii) industry investment (such as manufacturing and sales of aviation equipment and heavy machinery); (iii) financial services (such as financial leasing, factoring, fund management, internet finance and supply chain finance). Junhe Group ranked 39th amongst the top 500 private enterprises in the PRC and 23rd amongst top 100 enterprises in Shanghai this year. It also received the title of "Enterprise of Contractual Performance and Creditworthiness" from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of the PRC on numerous occasions and ranked 2nd amongst the top 100 private enterprises in Shanghai.Mr. Chen Dexin, Executive Director and CEO of Jinchuan International said, "The cooperation with Junhe Holdings will leverage competitive advantages of both parties, realizing organic integration of brands, channels, resources, capital and talents and achieving strategic and synergetic effect as a whole. The move today signifies two companies cooperating to build for future. It also actualizes the Jinchuan culture of "honesty" and "win-win", alliance of two strong forces and mutual beneficial rationales. It even lays a strong foundation for healthy growth with stability and sustainability."About Jinchuan Group International Resources Co. LtdJinchuan International is a Hong Kong listed company established by the Jinchuan Group Co., Ltd for the purposes of accelerating the establishment of the mining group's multinational operational strategy and elevating Jinchuan Group's global investing, financing and operating capabilities. By virtue of Hong Kong's advantages as an international financial and trade center, and through the Company's focus on an internationalized operating strategy, the Company has established itself as the flagship platform for the Jinchuan Group to develop its overseas non-ferrous metal mining business. The Company is primarily engaged in the development of overseas mining resources projects, capital operation and assets management of overseas mining resources projects, as well as trading of raw materials and products of nickel, copper, cobalt and precious metals.About Jinchuan Group Co., Ltd ("Jinchuan Group")Jinchuan Group Co., Ltd, founded in 1958, is a state-owned enterprise with its majority interest held by the People's Government of Gansu Province. Jinchuan Group specializes in mining, concentrating, metallurgy, chemical engineering and further downstream processing. Jinchuan Group is widely recognized as a renowned mining corporation and is the fourth largest nickel producer and second largest cobalt producer in the world and the third largest copper producer in the PRC.Media Contacts:Angel YeungJovian CommunicationsTel: +852 2581 0168Fax: +852 2854 2012Email: jinchuan@joviancomm.comSource: Jinchuan Group International Resources Co., Ltd.Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
DUBAI, UAE, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Gama Aviation Plc, the global aviation services group, today has released the architectural concept for its proposed business aviation facility in Sharjah.

The facility, the first purpose built location of its type in Sharjah, will replace its existing facility and is a cornerstone to the company's continued expansion in the region. Once completed, mid-2018, the facility will comprise of:

World class passenger and crew facilities

One 100 metre hangar with an option to add a second in due course

Hangars able to accommodate all business aircraft including Airbus ACJ & Boeing BBJ aircraft

Approx. 20,000 sqm's of external aircraft parking

Approx. 150 sqm of commercial office space for tenants

Sharjah International has seen business aviation traffic rise due to its proximity to the financial districts of Dubai. Capacity restrictions at Dubai International and the driving distance to Dubai South have also helped Sharjah International develop as a business aviation destination with traffic rising by 12 %

Martin Ringrose, General Manager, Gama Aviation commented: "We have made excellent progress this year; our Air business growing the fleet by 33% and the Ground business benefiting from increased traffic and an adjusted pricing model. So to close the year at MEBAA with our concept for Sharjah is exciting. As the model and renders show (MEBAA pavilion P8), we'll have an outstanding facility that mirrors the high standard of our existing lounge. With ground works starting shortly, that reality will not be so very far away."

Marwan Khalek, Group Chief Executive, Gama Aviation Plc commented: "To see our Middle East business maturing in this way is very satisfying. Martin and his team have had a good year in what remains a tricky market. Consolidating our position allows us greater latitude to continue develop our scale, breadth and depth in other regional markets that we have yet to fully penetrate as we look to double the scale of the Group's business over the next two years."

Notes to Editors:

Gama Aviation operates an existing FBO at Sharjah Airport as part of their Middle East ground business. This facility will continue to operate until the new hangar(s), office buildings and FBO have been delivered. For further information please contact Duncan Daines on the numbers below.

Gama Aviation - Notes to editors

Gama Aviation Plc (GMAA) is a multi-disciplinary global aviation services company that specialises in providing support for individuals, corporations and government agencies. Following the reverse takeover by Hanger 8 in January 2015, Gama Aviation is now one of the top three global players in a highly fragmented market, with a fleet of 153 aircraft. Gama Aviation operates across Europe, the US, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.



Gama Aviation's services can be split into two broad areas: Air and Ground. The Air operations include aircraft management, charter, special mission operations and training, with Ground Services covering a broad range of maintenance services, Fixed Base Operator (FBO) operations, design engineering and

aircraft modifications.


Partnership would make opportunities for new business possible in several countries for the companies

SAO PAULO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SafetyPay, a platform for cash payments, and VTEX, a leading technology company in electronic commerce and a pioneer in the marketing of software as a service (SaaS), signed a global partnership agreement to provide solutions for e-commerce companies. SafetyPay also just received certification for an international partnership from VTEX.

The agreement, which has already been signed, will benefit more than 2,000 clients on e-commerce platforms throughout Latin America, the USA and Europe. In Europe, the companies are already active in Spain, one of the strategic countries for the companies' growth in the region. Through SafetyPay services, online stores increase their channels for receiving payment, offering consumers more options to conclude their purchases, whether via online transfer or cash payment, through lottery outlets or banks.

"VTEX is a strategic partner. Since we signed the first agreement in 2014, we have implemented projects with the most renowned online retail operators in Brazil. The internationalization of our partnership will open up new opportunities in the various markets where we are already present, or where we will be present in the future," said Luiz Antonio Sacco, Chief Executive Office of SafetyPay for Latin America.

With activities in 21 countries, SafetyPay is a Fintech that combines innovation and safe payment options, including consumers in the world of e-commerce. The company develops solutions that allow clients who do not have a credit card to make purchases using Internet banking. It also allows people without a bank account to be able to make payments in physical establishments, such as lottery outlets in Brazil, or in convenience stores in other countries where the company is present. In Brazil, the solution is an excellent option to the traditional bank voucher, which will undergo significant operating changes and changes in tariffs that may be applied by banks in Brazil starting in 2017, when these documents must be registered.

In electronic commerce, credit cards are already generally well distributed, but according to the World Bank, there are still nearly two billion people all over the planet who do not have a bank account, representing more than 40% of the economically active population. "Bringing this audience new methods of payment so that they can enjoy the experience of acquiring products and services is one of the objectives of SafetyPay," Luiz said.

"Having SafetyPay as part of the launch of our global program is very strategic," affirmed Livia Soares, who is responsible for the strategic partnerships of VTEX. "Our goal is to make our clients more competitive by offering them more alternatives, so that they can increase their sales volume and create positive operating impacts with lower costs, lower inventory, and more agility in confirming purchases," the executive said.

About SafetyPay:www.safetypay.com

SafetyPay is a company that combines finance and technology (Fintech), and uses its experience and knowledge in the area to carry out online financial and cash operations in 21 countries. With more than 100 banks qualified worldwide, the technology was launched in 2007 and is available in Latin America, the United States, Europe and Canada. It is a secure online payment method that allows cash sales from multiple service channels, such as e-commerce or via call centers for clients who wish to pay using Internet banking from their banks, or for clients who do not have bank accounts, through lottery outlets.

Contact:

pr@safetypay.com

Juliana Oliveira

(+55 11) 98398-5307

Vanessa Costa

(+55 51) 98274-4949









To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/safetypay-and-vtex-sign-a-global-agreement-for-electronic-commerce-300372874.html
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 5.00 am ET Wednesday, Eurostat is slated to publish euro area flash inflation data for December. Inflation is expected to rise to 1 percent from 0.6 percent in November. Ahead of the data, the euro traded mixed against the other major counterparts. While the euro held steady against the yen, it climbed against the rest of major counterparts. The euro was worth 1.0441 against the greenback, 122.83 against the yen, 0.8501 against the pound and 1.0707 against the Swiss franc as of 4:55 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, February 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ICICI Securities Ltd, a subsidiary of ICICI Bank and India's leading integrated financial services firm and Saxo Bank, the online multi-asset trading and investment specialist, today announce a strategic partnership to offer Saxo's trading and investment capabilities via a digital platform to Indian Investors.

The partnership will enable ICICI Securities' 4 million clients on ICICIdirect.com, India's leading investment portal, to diversify their investments outside of the Indian domestic market and access multi-asset investment opportunities, through an intuitive trading experience on the award-winning trading platform SaxoTraderGO.

With ever increasing globalization, diversification has become an important objective for all investors to spread risks and opportunity across geographic regions and asset classes as countries experience and behave differently at various points of the economic cycle. Investing in developed countries such as US, APAC and Europe, not only provide exposure to well-known international companies with stable income and growth, it also provides investors with the opportunity to capture short-term opportunities efficiently.

Commenting on the partnership, Kim Fournais, Co-Founder & CEO, Saxo Bank A/S said, "India is an incredibly important growth market with a growing number of investment professionals and a very tech-savvy population. ICICI Securities has established itself as one of the leading investment firms in India and will now be able to offer their clients access seamless to global capital markets. This partnership once again highlights our ongoing commitment to be a trading facilitator for banks and brokers around the world."

Ms Shilpa Kumar, MD & CEO, ICICI Securities Ltd said, "For almost two decades, ICICIdirect has been offering Indian investors the opportunity to invest and build their financial goals in a convenient and knowledgeable way. Through our partnership with Saxo Bank, we have now brought investment opportunities in Equity Markets, ETFs and Bond Markets across 24 countries to our customers at their fingertips. This we believe will help them to diversify their portfolio outside of India. I believe the partnership with Saxo Bank will help our clients leverage our combined strong knowledge and superior platforms and ensure they have access to the broadest set of global capital markets investment options."

SaxoTraderGO is the Saxo Bank's next generation platform built with Saxo's OpenAPI technology offering functionality across the entire trade cycle - from pre-trade to execution to post-trade services for Stocks, CFDs, Futures, Options, FX and Bonds. The platform further allows Saxo's global partners to integrate the trading and investment capabilities directly into their own applications and systems.

ICICIdirect.com, the financial investment portal from ICICI Securities is a market leader in online and offline financial product distribution. More than 4 million Indian investors take advantage of the award winning research and technology to invest in Indian equities.

About ICICI Securities Ltd: ICICI Securities Ltd, a subsidiary of ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank, is an integrated securities firm offering a wide range of services including investment banking, institutional broking, retail broking, private wealth management, and financial product distribution. ICICIdirect.com, the financial investment portal from ICICI Securities is a market leader in online and offline financial product distribution with over 4 million customers.

About Saxo Bank

Saxo Bank Group (Saxo) is a leading multi-asset trading and investment specialist, offering a complete set of investment and trading technologies, tools and strategies.

For almost 25 years, Saxo's mission has been to enable individuals and institutions by facilitating their access to professional investing and trading through technology and expertise.

As a fully licensed and regulated bank, Saxo enables its private clients to trade multiple asset classes across global financial markets from one single margin account and across multiple devices. Additionally, Saxo provides institutional clients such as banks and brokers with multi-asset execution, prime brokerage services and trading technology.

Saxo's award winning trading platforms are available in more than 20 languages and form the technology backbone of more than 100 financial institutions worldwide.

Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Copenhagen, Saxo employs more than 1500 people in financial centres around the world including London, Singapore, Paris, Zurich, Dubai and Tokyo.
Lauf a.d. Pegnitz (ots) -- Querverweis: Bildmaterial ist abrufbar unter http://www.presseportal.de/bilder -Afrikanische Muster, warme Erdtone und ikonische Designs - bei der Vorstellung der THOMAS SABO Fruhjahr/Sommer-Kollektionen 2017 im Rahmen der Berlin Fashion Week spiegelten die kulturell inspirierten Kreationen die universelle Botschaft TOGETHER wider.Rund 280 nationale Pressegaste sowie zahlreiche Promis, darunter die Schauspielerinnen Nova Meierhenrich, Lara-Isabelle Rentinck, Annika Ernst, Stephanie Stumph sowie die GZSZ-Stars Valentina Pahde und Nadine Menz, die Moderatorinnen Tanja Bulter, Alexandra Polzin und Annica Hansen, die Models Marie Amiere, Fiona Erdmann, Mandy Bork waren der exklusiven Einladung in den renommierten China Club Berlin gefolgt. Gemeinsam mit Creative Director Susanne Kolbli und den THOMAS SABO Brand Ambassadors, der Band Frida Gold sowie Model Shermine Shahrivar, feierten auch zahlreiche Mode- und Lifestyle-Blogger wie Pamela Reif und Sami Slimani die kunstvoll inszenierten Neuheiten der Saison. Wahrend Farina Opoku, Sophia Phiaka, Luana Silva, Caroline Einhoff, Juli Mery, Milena Karl und Leslie Huhn das kontrastreiche Farben- und Formenspiel der neuen, von Afrika inspirierten Designs der Damenlinie Glam & Soul bewunderten, zeigten sich Mateo Jaschik von Culcha Candela sowie die Blogger Sandro Rasa, Andre Hellmundt und Henry Duval vor allem von den neuen Herrenmodellen der Karma Watches mit verzierten Skull-Kronen sowie den ausdrucksstarken Power Bracelets begeistert.Die neuen Designs der Fruhjahr/Sommer-Kollektion 2017 sind seit Januar in allen THOMAS SABO Stores, im Online-Shop unter www.thomassabo.com sowie bei exklusiven Partnern erhaltlich.@THOMASSABO InspiredByEmotionsDOWNLOAD HIGH-RES-BILDMATERIAL: http://ots.de/JTwGQUber THOMAS SABOTHOMAS SABO ist international eines der fuhrenden Unternehmen im Bereich Schmuck und Uhren, das Lifestyle-Produkte fur Frauen und Manner designt und vertreibt. Das 1984 von Thomas Sabo in Lauf an der Pegnitz, Suddeutschland, gegrundete Unternehmen ist mit rund 300 eigenen Shops auf funf Kontinenten vertreten und zahlt rund 1.860 Angestellte. Am Heimatstandort beschaftigt THOMAS SABO annahernd 490 Mitarbeiter. THOMAS SABO kooperiert zudem weltweit mit rund 2.800 Handelspartnern sowie den fuhrenden Fluggesellschaften und Kreuzfahrtanbietern.OTS: THOMAS SABO GmbH & Co.KG newsroom: http://www.presseportal.de/nr/78321 newsroom via RSS: http://www.presseportal.de/rss/pm_78321.rss2Pressekontakt: THOMAS SABO GmbH & Co. KG Felizia Kindermann Head of International & Corporate PR Tel: +49 - (0)9123 - 9715 0 Mail: press@thomassabo.com Verena Lienhardt PR Manager Deutschland Tel: +49 - (0)9123 - 9715 221 Mail: v.lienhardt@thomassabo.com
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2017) - An exclusive group of investment industry experts, investment advisors, institutional investors, and discerning individual investors will meet at the prestigious Albany Club on Wednesday, March 8th to hear the views of three particularly interesting winners of 2016 Canadian Hedge Fund Awards (CHFAs). Benjamin Tal, Deputy Chief Economist of CIBC Capital Markets will deliver the keynote address, "Alternative Facts".

Canada's rapidly growing hedge fund industry is now estimated to have $30 billion in assets under management. In this low interest rate environment, with current equity market conditions, investors are increasingly seeking out alternative investment strategies.

Barry Allan, Founding Partner of Marret Asset Management (winner of a 2016 CHFA for best 5-year Sharpe ratio, credit focused category); Raj Tandon, Founding Partner & COO of Algonquin Capital (2016 CHFA winner in the credit focused category for best 1-year return); and Jason Landau, Portfolio Manager, Waratah Capital Advisors (winner of a 2016 CHFA in the market neutral category for best 1-year return) will each make 15 - 20 minute presentations on their winning investment strategies.

These award-winning hedge fund managers, together with Brian D'Costa, Founding Partner & President of Algonquin Capital, will then re-group in a panel discussion moderated by Brooke Biscoe, Senior Vice President of Fundata, to discuss the role and importance of including hedge funds in investment portfolios and to provide their perspectives on the market opportunities - and challenges - facing investors today.

As Ron Lloyd, Executive Vice President, Waratah Capital Advisors, points out, "The CHFA Winners Showcase is a great opportunity for investors and asset managers to get together to discuss the role of alternative investment strategies in today's volatile environment."

Dennis MacPherson, Senior Vice President of SGGG Fund Services, will be the MC for this special event which is made possible this year by the generous support of its sponsors: CIBC Prime Services Group (voted Top Canadian Prime Broker in the 2016 CHFAs), Fundata (celebrating its 30th anniversary as Canada's most comprehensive and robust investment fund database), and SGGG Fund Services (the 2016 CHFA recipient for Top Canadian Hedge Fund Administrator), and its media partner Newsfile.

"Clearly, there is considerable talent in Canada's hedge fund industry, and each year our guests express their gratitude for the opportunity to meet and hear the views of award-winning hedge fund managers." said Julie Makepeace, Managing Director, Alternative IQ.

The annual CHFA Winners Showcase is an exclusive event with attendance by invitation only:

http://alternativeiq.com/winners-showcase-conferences/2017-winners-showcase-conference/

Julie Makepeace

Managing Director, Alternative IQ

jmakepeace@alliancesalesandmarketing.com

416-906-3782

About Alternative IQ: Alternative IQ is the producer of the annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards, held in Toronto each October (performance as at June 30th), the Winners Showcase events which present Managers of the award-winning hedge funds to investors, and various other programs and publications serving the hedge fund industry in Canada. Alternative IQ is a division of Alliance Sales and Marketing, Inc.

About the Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards: The Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards were first held in 2008 and have a two-fold objective: First, to celebrate the talent and accomplishments of Canada's hedge fund industry, and second, to draw attention to Canada's hedge funds by raising the awareness of that expertise in the media and among the wider investment community. 2017 is the 10th anniversary of the CHFAs.

- 30 -
CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - December 06, 2016) - Oklahoma has beaten out Texas as the most attractive jurisdiction around the world for oil and gas investment, according to an annual global survey of petroleum sector executives released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan, Canadian public policy think tank.

"Most U.S. states are bucking the global trend of decreasing confidence for investment, and Oklahoma's top spot in this year's ranking demonstrates how coherent environmental policy and sound regulation can improve investor perception," said Kenneth Green, the Fraser Institute's senior director of natural resource studies and co-author of the Global Petroleum Survey.

The survey ranks 96 jurisdictions worldwide based on their barriers to investment (e.g. taxation, costly regulatory obligations and uncertainty over environmental regulations) and on the volume of oil and gas reserves.

This year, Oklahoma finished first in the Policy Perception Index, a comprehensive measure of the extent to which policy deters upstream oil and gas investment, like exploration and production.

In fact, U.S. states comprised eight of the top 10 jurisdictions around the world: Oklahoma, Texas (which fell from first to second this year), Kansas, Wyoming, North Dakota, Mississippi, Utah and Montana.

Texas, however, remains number one among the 12 jurisdictions with the largest petroleum reserves, followed by United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Alberta and China.

In terms of regions, Australia finished second to the United States. Canada fell from second to third, followed by Asia. Globally, every region except the Middle East and Europe experienced declines in investment attractiveness, according to the survey.

"With oil and gas sector confidence declining around the world, it's especially important for policymakers to pursue competitive tax and regulatory regimes, and to have stable environmental protections that attract, not deter, petroleum investments," said Taylor Jackson, senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and the study's co-author.

The Global Petroleum Survey is administered each year to petroleum industry executives to help measure and rank the barriers to investment of oil- and gas-producing regions. A total of 381 individuals completed the survey questionnaire this year, providing sufficient data to evaluate 96 jurisdictions.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Dr. Kenneth P. Green, Senior Director, Natural Resource Studies

Fraser Institute

For interviews with Dr. Green, please contact:

Bryn Weese, Media Relations Specialist, Fraser Institute

Tel: (604) 688-0221 Ext. 589

E-mail: bryn.weese@fraserinstitute.org

Follow the Fraser Institute on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook

The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal and ties to a global network of think-tanks in 87 countries. Its mission is to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families and future generations by studying, measuring and broadly communicating the effects of government policies, entrepreneurship and choice on their well-being. To protect the Institute's independence, it does not accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit www.fraserinstitute.org

For further information, contact:



Bryn Weese

Media Relations Specialist, Fraser Institute

Tel: (604) 688-0221 Ext. 589

E-mail: bryn.weese@fraserinstitute.org
LONDON, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Important Ruling in Multi-million Dollar Case Brought by Kemerovo Industrialist Alexander Shchukin Against Former Business Partner Ruslan Rostovtsev

The District Court of Nicosia, Cyprus, has granted an application brought on behalf of Russian businessman Alexander Shchukin. The judge granted an interim Worldwide Mareva Injunction freezing all assets belonging to Ruslan Rostovtsev up to the amount of US$113.000.000. The District Court of Nicosia also granted a disclosure order, ordering Mr. Rostovtsev to disclose all documents relating to the nature, location and value his assets. The disclosure order also applies to Abacus Limited, one of the largest professional services companies in Cyprus, in respect of their work for Mr. Rostovtsev.

Alexander Shchukin is claiming damages in the amount of US$113.000.000 against Ruslan Rostovtsev, Abacus Limited and a number of Abacus subsidiaries, as well as other related remedies in respect of the misappropriation of his share in a mining business.

Mr. Shchukin has a proven record of accomplishment in the Russian mining sector, not only in ensuring optimal efficiency in production, but in also demonstrating commitment to safety. Companies under Mr. Shchukin's leadership have invested hundreds of millions of roubles into the upkeep of several mines in Kemerovo Region, while maintaining the highest industrial safety standards in the country.

Responding to the ruling, Constantinos Adamides, Partner in Scordis Papapetrou & Co LLC, lawyers to Mr. Shchukin, said, "We welcome the court's decision in this case. The interim Worldwide Mareva Injunction is a necessary measure to prevent the first Defendant from moving the assets even further out of reach of our client and the courts. This decision validates our case, and we are hopeful that this freezing order, combined with the disclosure order, will allow us to recover the damage caused to our client."

The case continues (Claim no: 6310/2015 before the District Court of Nicosia, Cyprus).
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Justice Department, in the antitrust trial against the proposed Aetna- Humana Merger, argued that the merger would harm senior citizens who buy private Medicare plans. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that the merger would also harm consumers who buy plans on Affordable Care Act marketplaces, reports said. However, healthcare insurer Aetna And Humana defended their proposed merger in the antitrust trial on Monday. The U.S. antitrust trial is seeking to block Aetna's $37 billion acquisition of Humana, for loss of competition. Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath told a federal judge that the competition between Aetna and Humana has been critically important, mainly for private Medicare Advantage plans, a subsidized government insurance program for seniors. The government argued that the merger would eliminate competition in 364 counties in 21 states where both companies currently compete to sell Medicare Advantage plans, likely forcing seniors to pay higher premiums. Regarding Aetna's proposal to sell more than $100 million in assets to a smaller company to fulfill the merger, the Justice Department told the judge that the remedy poses risks for seniors who depend on Medicare. The lawyer stated that the asset buying insurer - Molina Healthcare Inc. is largely focused on Medicaid and is unlikely to replace the loss of competition. Meanwhile, Aetna lawyer John Majoras noted that Molina would use the divested assets to emerge as a considerable competitor. Trial proceedings are set to run through December 30, with decisions expected next month. The U.S. Department of Justice had filed a civil antitrust lawsuit on July 21 seeking a permanent injunction that would prevent the closing of the transaction. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
POWAY, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Solar Integrated Roofing Corp. (OTC PINK: SIRC) CEO David Massey has focused on refacing the company with new retail locations, added sales representatives and an aggressive marketing program that should greatly increase sales for 2017. The company will have new television ads ready to air over local California stations, radio ads and a custom direct mail program focused on solar with a new roof for residential and commercial properties.

The showroom, located at 12411 Poway Road, in Poway, covers about 1,500 square feet and is designed to allow potential customers to view their solar roofing options much as they would tile and carpeting for their floors. Until now, Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation has done all of its sales by way of in-home visits. This new site will be staffed by existing SIRC professionals and so entails no growth in headcount.

SIRC's CEO David Massey said, "The showroom represents another way for us to engage with the consumer. A great many people prefer to come to a showroom at their convenience rather than set an appointment for an in-home visit. We are highly sensitive to the needs and desires of our customers, and the opening of our showroom, located centrally in San Diego County, is proof of that. We will continue to offer in-home consultations, and the showroom is an additional service. We are modernizing the way people shop for solar roofing products."

The showroom is located in a high-traffic area, and the Company expects walk-in traffic to begin forming a significant part of its sales. Management believes that by showing people the actual product, rather than relying on brochures, homeowners will have a better appreciation for how the finished system will look and work in their particular case.

At the same time, Company sales staff can walk customers through the financing process to that they can make an informed decision with just one visit. SIRC can finance the purchase of a solar system with a 12-year, low-interest loan, and the payments are usually less than for a lease. By owning a solar system rather than leasing it, a homeowner gets the federal tax credit plus any state incentives, as well as depreciation. SIRC systems also come with a 25-year warranty, which makes them almost risk-free.

For more information, please visit: www.solarintegratedroofingcorp.com

About Solar Integrated Roofing Corp.

Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation (SIRC) is an integrated solar and roofing installation company specializing in commercial and residential properties with a focus on acquisitions of like companies to build a footprint nationally.

Forward-Looking Statement Any statements made in this press release which are not historical facts contain certain forward-looking statements; as such term is defined in the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995, concerning potential developments affecting the business, prospects, financial condition and other aspects of the company to which this release pertains. The actual results of the specific items described in this release, and the company's operations generally, may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. Although such statements are based upon the best judgments of management of the company as of the date of this release, significant deviations in magnitude, timing and other factors may result from business risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, the company's dependence on third parties, general market and economic conditions, technical factors, the availability of outside capital, receipt of revenues and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the company. The company disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement. This press release shall not be deemed a general solicitation.

Contact Information:

Solar Integrated Roofing Corp.

(760) 916-7444



Investor Relations

Michael J. Porter

Porter, LeVay & Rose, Inc.

(212) 564-4700

mike@plrinvest.com




RENO, NEVADA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- NuLegacy Gold Corporation (TSX VENTURE: NUG)(OTCQX: NULGF) is pleased to report the appointment of Mr. Alan R. Hill to its board of directors.

"Mr. Hill's impressive experience in building mines will assist NuLegacy in determining the economic viability of its gold deposits in the Cortez trend of Nevada," says Albert Matter, NuLegacy's Chairman.

Mr. Hill is Chairman of Teranga Gold Corporation, a multijurisdictional West African gold company profitably producing approximately 200,000 ounces of gold per year in Senegal. Mr. Hill holds an undergraduate degree in mining engineering and a graduate degree in rock mechanics from Leeds University in the U.K.

During his remarkable 30 years in the mining industry Mr. Hill led the acquisition of numerous deposits and the building of seven mines on four continents. More specifically, as Executive Vice President of Barrick Gold Corporation he oversaw project evaluations and development of four of Barrick's major mines; the Goldstrike mine in the Carlin trend of Nevada, the Pierna mine in Peru, the Veladero mine in Peru and the Bulyanhulu mine in Tanzania.

Mr. Hill has been a director of Gold Fields Limited since 2009 and served as Non-Executive Chairman of Alamos Gold Inc. from 2004 to 2007 during the construction of its Mulatos gold mine in Mexico.

"Alan is an adventurous soul who works hard, plays hard, and maintains a sense of humour at all times," says Alex Davidson, a NuLegacy Gold director. "He is a great teambuilder as well as a great mine builder who has pioneered numerous social and community developments projects at these highly successful mines sites."

We also report that Mr. Richard Wells (CFO of Waterton Global Resource Management, Inc.), who has served NuLegacy well as Waterton's representative director on NuLegacy's board of directors, is stepping down. This will allow Waterton to focus on its wholly owned precious metals projects.

NuLegacy Chairman Albert Matter expressed his gratitude. "We were delighted to have had Richard's guidance and Waterton's investment (as reported August 2014) at a critical juncture in NuLegacy's development and that it was a profitable experience for Waterton."

About NuLegacy: NuLegacy Gold Corporation is an advanced stage Nevada exploration company focused on expanding its Carlin-style near-surface Iceberg oxide gold deposit with an established exploration target of 90-110 million tonnes of 0.9 to 1.1 grams of gold per tonne(i), and exploring for additional gold deposits on the 38-sq. mile (98-sq. km) Red Hill property located in the Cortez gold trend of Nevada.

The Iceberg gold deposit has similar geology to that of Barrick Gold's multi-million-ounce Pipeline deposit, the discovery of which is credited to NuLegacy's Chief Geoscience Officer, Dr. Roger Steininger. The Iceberg is located on trend and adjacent(ii) to three of Barrick Gold's multi-million ounce Carlin-type gold deposits (the Pipeline, Cortez Hills and Goldrush deposits) that are amongst Barrick's lowest cost and politically safest gold assets(iii).

(i) These figures are conceptual in nature and derived from a compilation of 149 historic and 34 NuLegacy drill holes in and around the Iceberg deposit. To date, there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource. (ii) The similarity and proximity of these deposits in the Cortez Trend is not necessarily indicative of the gold mineralization in the Iceberg deposit. (iii) As extracted from Barrick's Q4-2013 and Q1-2014 reports.

On Behalf Of NuLegacy Gold Corporation

James E Anderson, Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Roger Steininger, NuLegacy's Chief Geoscience Officer, is a Certified Professional Geologist (CPG 7417) and the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects responsible for preparing and reviewing the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. There are no known resources or reserves in the Iceberg deposit and the proposed exploration programs are exploratory searches for commercial bodies of ore. In addition, the presence of gold deposits on properties adjacent or near the Iceberg Deposit is not necessarily indicative of the gold mineralization on the Iceberg Deposit. All the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com including our annual management's discussion and analysis dated July 28, 2016 for the year ended March 31, 2016. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation.

Contacts:

NuLegacy Gold Corporation

James Anderson

CEO

604-639-3640

james@nuggold.com



NuLegacy Gold Corporation

Albert Matter

Chairman

604-639-3640

albert@nuggold.com



NuLegacy Gold Corporation

Roger Steininger

CGO

604-639-3640

roger@nuggold.com



NuLegacy Gold Corporation

Frank Lagiglia

ICM

604-639-3640

frank@nuggold.com

www.nulegacygold.com




LIMASSOL, Cyprus, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Global, EU-regulated Forex and CFD broker, Vipro Markets has announced the launch of $500 Cash Rebate promotion which rewards traders for their continued trading loyalty with a withdrawable Cash Rebate of $500 when they trade a minimum of 500 lots in 30 calendar days. The promotion is available to both new and existing Clients who make a deposit of at least $500 on a new Classic or ECN Pro Account.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445970 )



The '$500 Cash Rebate' is the broker's second promotion launch for the year 2016, and it comes with enhanced benefits for both new and existing Clients.

Vipro Markets CEO, Valerijus Ovsianikas, commented: "We are thrilled to launch yet another exciting promotion to reward our clients for trading with us. This is a great opportunity for traders to prove their trading skills while enjoying competitive spreads and ultra-fast execution of orders".

Mr. Ovsianikas added that "As we grow and develop, we increase the promotions and offers available to our diverse Client base. Whether they are new to Forex or experienced traders, just starting with us or long-standing Clients, they can rest assured that there is a forex promotion that suits their trading needs."

More information about the promotion and the applicable Terms and Conditions can be found here.

Notes to Media:

About Vipro Markets

Vipro Markets is a global forex broker offering retail and institutional Clients trading services with prime focus on Forex, Stock Indices, commodities, CFDs and precious metals. The broker is authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), with license number 278/15, and is also a Member of the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF). The Company has distinguished itself among ECN Forex brokers by providing top-notch trading services with low average spreads and commissions and ultra-fast execution though its state-of-the-art trading servers located at the Equinix LD4 data center in London.

Trading in derivative financial instruments may not be suitable for everyone and we therefore advise Clients to make themselves familiar with all the risks involved. Please review the Vipro Markets Client Agreement and other legal documentation available on Vipro Markets website before entering into any transaction with us.
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Greenhouse Solutions, Inc. (OTC PINK: GRSU) ("GH Solutions"), a company focused on creating and offering nutritional products with hemp supplements, is pleased to provide additional corporate updates as well as announce new distribution outlets that have been added for the KOIOS Raspberry Wonder with Hemp beverage.

GH Solutions is pleased to announce that KOIOS Raspberry Wonder has been picked up for distribution throughout Southern California. The product is now available at ten Nutrition Zone stores and five NutriShop stores in the Orange County area. It has also been picked up by 619 Muscle, NutriMart and two Vitamin Xchange stores in the San Diego area.

In addition to the California expansion, KOIOS Raspberry Wonder will also be carried at thirteen Better Health locations throughout Michigan (store locations can be found at http://www.thebetterhealthstore.com/stores/).

Colorado distribution has expanded as well, including: Grizzly Gas in Boulder; Genesee Country Store in Golden; Argonaut Wine and Liquor in the Denver Metro area; Nick's Food & Gas and Murphy Creek Food & Gas in Aurora; Southside Pizzeria in Littleton; and Mountain Tool & Feed in Idaho Springs. Lastly, four Ready Fit Go locations currently carry the product.

"We're thrilled with the acceptance and further distribution of KOIOS Raspberry Wonder," stated John George Michak III, COO of GH Solutions "This is just the first commercial product from GH Solutions and the distribution model is a great test for our future launches," he continued. "We will be tracking sales and collecting testimonials from consumers over the next few months to aid in marketing and further distribution," Mr. Michak concluded.

KOIOS management is currently attending BevNET Live Winter 2016 alongside some of the biggest beverage brands in the country. See http://www.bevnet.com/events/bevnetlivewinter16/ for more information on BevNET.

GH Solutions is also pleased to announce that GH Solutions and KOIOS together have entered into the research and development phase for a new enhanced carbonated beverage line. This new product line will incorporate probiotics as well as hemp extracts into different flavor profiles.

"I'm thrilled to be moving our R&D further along in formulating innovative products in the hemp space," commented Rik J Deitsch, CEO of GH Solutions. "We know the power of KOIOS, the research behind hemp extracts as well as the great benefits of probiotics. The future products that incorporate these seemingly disparate components could really make an impact on general health as well as provide great revenue streams for GH Solutions," he continued. "People love carbonated beverages for a variety of reasons, including their digestive benefits. We truly believe that a healthy functional beverage could be a game-changer," Mr. Deitsch concluded.

The Company anticipates providing additional updates to shareholders over the coming weeks.

About GH Solutions (Greenhouse Solutions, Inc.)

GH Solutions is a science-based company focused on offering products to consumers within the burgeoning hemp health products industry. The Company has formulations that offer the benefits of botanicals like hemp seed oil in nutritional products for consumers, and has plans for future products incorporating a licensed probiotic application, when developed. The KOIOS Raspberry Wonder with Hemp beverage is offered through a joint venture with Koios LLC, which combined their formulas for nutritional products with hemp oil from GH Solutions. GH Solutions encourages all current and prospective shareholders to visit our website at: www.ghsolutionsinc.com or our Facebook page at https://m.facebook.com/Greenhousesolutionsinc.

About KOIOS

The KOIOS product creators began developing their own nootropic formulas to combat ADHD and to eliminate harmful stimulants from their lives. After several years of study, they formulated the initial KOIOS drink formulation. KOIOS encourages people to visit their website to learn more: http://www.mentaltitan.com

SEC Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words or phrases "would be," "will allow," "intends to," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," or similar expressions are intended to identify "forward-looking statements." Actual results could differ materially from those projected in Greenhouse Solutions' ("the Company's") business plan. The Company updates should not be construed as an indication in any way whatsoever of the future value of the Company's common stock or its present or future financial condition. The Company's filings may be accessed at the SEC's Edgar system at www.sec.gov. Statements made herein are as of the date of this press release and should not be relied upon as of any subsequent date. The Company cautions readers not to place reliance on such statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, we do not undertake, and we specifically disclaim any obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect occurrences, developments, unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statement.

Contact:

GreenHouse Solutions, Inc.

info@ghsolutionsinc.com

Ghsolutionsinc.com

1-877-895-5647




SAN ANTONIO, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Globalgig announces today that it has acquired leading VoIP provider Velis4. The acquisition adds hosted VoIP phone, SIP trunking, hosted call center and hosted Skype for Business services to the Globalgig suite of products and services, and further enhances the Globalgig strategy of providing multinational enterprises with a comprehensive suite of managed communications solutions. This announcement follows iGEM's recent acquisition of Globalgig, and effective immediately, Velis4's services will now be provided under the registered brand, Globalgig.

"We are extremely pleased to acquire Velis4, a company whose suite of services perfectly aligns with the Globalgig strategy of orchestrating hyperconnectivity for the enterprise business continuum," comments Globalgig Chief Executive Officer, Ernest Cunningham. "The enterprise mobility and managed communications market is currently fragmented, with no one provider offering the agility and ubiquity that today's global businesses require to operate at their maximum performance level. Globalgig's acquisition of Velis4 will further enhance our mission to solve this critical need."

Anthony Jett, Chief Executive Officer of Velis4, will be joining Globalgig as the Chief Operations Officer of the combined entity. Mr. Jett brings over 20 years of experience in telecommunications to Globalgig and will manage the day-to-day operations of the high-growth business.

"The mobility element of the VoIP market so far has been distinctly underserved," states Mr. Jett. "LTE finally provides a reliable VoIP connection to the mobile device, so bringing Velis4's technology leadership and Globalgig's mobile footprint together creates a synergy with tremendous enterprise market potential. I am very pleased to be joining Ernest and the Globalgig team, Ernest has a proven track record of accomplishment in telecommunications and I look forward to partnering with him to make Globalgig a success."

Today's enterprise must have on-demand access to voice and data services across geographic borders, diverse communications technologies, and disparate devices in real-time. To achieve maximum productivity, agility and efficiency across any device, national and international office or remote location, enterprises need a single source to orchestrate the hyperconnectivity of these disparate elements seamlessly, securely and without interruption to the business continuum. The acquisition of Velis4 and its accompanying suite of services will further enhance Globalgig's ability to orchestrate hyperconnectivity for the enterprise business continuum both domestically and internationally.

About Globalgig

Globalgig orchestrates hyperconnectivity for the enterprise business continuum using managed communications solutions. Globalgig provides wireless connectivity across a 100-plus country footprint and offers a full suite of communications services and products including Hosted VoIP, Mobile Device Management, Wi-Fi Hotspots, Remote Office and Backup, Technology Expense Management and IoT/M2M connectivity solutions. Globalgig is a registered brand of iGEM Communications Holdings LLC, which does business as Globalgig. Globalgig is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with offices across the U.S., and in London and Sydney. For more information, visit www.Globalgig.com.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Atlantic Gold Corporation (TSX VENTURE: AGB) ("Atlantic" or the "Company") is pleased to report the first assay results received from the resource definition diamond drilling program being undertaken at its Cochrane Hill Gold Project in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Cochrane Hill is a key gold deposit located near the Company's Moose River Consolidated (MRC) project with gold resources of 251,000 ounces of gold in 4.5 million tonnes @ 1.8 g/t in the Indicated category and 298,000 ounces of gold in 5.6 million tonnes @ 1.6 g/t in the Inferred category, but not yet included in the MRC life of mine plan.

A 2014 Preliminary Economic Assessment entitled "NI 43-101 Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment Nova Scotia, Canada" dated October 14, 2014 indicated that both total life of mine gold production and annual production could be significantly increased at MRC. The technical report can be viewed here.

Drilling Results:

These results support and continue to define a fairly discrete, tabular, 70 degrees south-dipping zone of disseminated mineralization having a true width of approximately 25m in this part of the deposit.

Two drilling rigs are presently in operation with 9500m in 67 holes having now been drilled. This first phase of drilling will be completed by year-end with the final, second phase to be completed in early 2017.

The accompanying cross section and drill progress plan can be viewed here: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/agb_map.pdf

Atlantic Gold Chairman and CEO Steven Dean commented, "We continue to demonstrate success in our new look at the style of mineralization in the Meguma in Nova Scotia. This program is confirming consistent wide zones of mineralization at open pit grades with the combination of the traditional quartz veins and the disseminated shale host mineralization amenable to open pit mining at relatively low strip ratios."

Initial Results of the 2016 infill drilling are tabulated below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hole No. Northing Easting Dip Az. Depth (m) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-048 3225 3100 -45 171 71(i) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-049 3225 3190 -60 171 242 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-050 3225 3120 -60 171 161 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-051 3225 3140 -60 171 191 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-053 3275 3105 -60 171 140 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-054 3275 3150 -70 171 221 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (incl. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-057 3200 3078 -60 171 107 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (incl. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-058 3275 3080 -60 171 107 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-063 3300 3070 -45 171 89 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Significant Assays - (greater than or equal to 0.5g/t gold Hole No. and up to 3m internal dilution) ------------------------------------------------------------ From (m) To (m) Width(m) Grade (g/t Au) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-048 51 71 20 2.19 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-049 163 169 6 1.84 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 178 206 28 1.35 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-050 82 112 30 2.06 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-051 113 144 31 1.10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-053 58 96 38 0.71 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-054 139 144 5 1.01 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 150 160 10 1.77 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 166 173 7 0.75 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 196 203 7 3.78(ii) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (incl. 202 203 1 22.3)(ii) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-057 33 34 1 9.86 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 40 71 31 2.29 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (incl. 42 43 1 23.1) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 86 87 1 5.68 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-058 31 64 33 1.08 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- and 86 90 4 1.79 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH-16-063 27 40 13 0.71 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (i)Hole abandoned in underground workings (ii)50g fire assay on pulverised whole-sample (to be screen fire assayed). Except where noted all assays are screen fire assays of whole-sample pulverised half-sawn NQ core Hole numbering resumes from CH-09-047 (i.e. CH-16-048 is the first hole drilled in this program)

The objective of this diamond drilling program is to bring the resources at the Company's Cochrane Hill deposit to measured and indicated status and thereby adding to the existing mine life at MRC.

The current resource estimate for Cochrane Hill is tabulated below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Category Tonnes (millions) Grade (g/t) Au Contained Au (oz.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COCHRANE HILL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indicated Resource 4.5 1.8 251,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inferred Resource 5.6 1.6 298,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Resources that are not reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Mineral Resource estimate for Cochrane Hill is quoted at a cut-off grade of 0.5g/t. It has an effective date of August 1, 2014 and was prepared as part of a technical report in accordance with NI 43-101 by Mr. Neil Schofield, a principal of FSSI (Australia) Pty Ltd, released on August 14, 2014 on SEDAR.

Elsewhere, at the Company's Fifteen Mile Stream Gold Project, drilling is about to commence and the first hole has now been completed on a regional exploration target, the Plenty prospect, located just to the south of Fifteen Mile Stream.

Results and updates from these drilling programs will be reported progressively.

Technical Disclosure

All assays are on 1m samples of sawn, half NQ core and assayed by total sample screen fire assay with 2x fines fire assays, and insertion of standards and blind blanks. Sample preparation and assaying is conducted at the Sudbury and Vancouver laboratories of ALS Canada Ltd, an entity having no other relationship with the Company. Core recovery is estimated for each metre and averages greater than 98%. Standards and blanks assay results are acceptable.

True width of the mineralization is approximately 80% of the down-hole width.

The individual drill hole assay results underlying the mineralized intersections listed in the table above have been verified by detailed checking against the original assays sheets. The lengths and average grades of each intersection have also been checked against the drill hole assay logs.

Wally Bucknell, Director of Exploration to the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.

Further updates will be provided in due course.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Steven Dean, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This release contains certain "forward looking statements" and certain "forward-looking information" as defined under applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology. Forward-looking statements and information are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this press release, and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding discussions of future plans, guidance, projections, objectives, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations with respect to, among other things, the activities contemplated in this news release and the timing and receipt of requisite regulatory, and shareholder approvals in respect thereof. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, without limitation, statements related to proposed exploration and development programs, grade and tonnage of material and resource estimates. These forward looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results may vary. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary include without limitation, the timing and receipt of certain approvals, changes in commodity and power prices, changes in interest and currency exchange rates, risks inherent in exploration estimates and results, timing and success, inaccurate geological and metallurgical assumptions (including with respect to the size, grade and recoverability of mineral reserves and resources), changes in development or mining plans due to changes in logistical, technical or other factors, unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications, cost escalation, unavailability of materials, equipment and third party contractors, delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters), political risk, social unrest, and changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets. In making the forward-looking statements in this press release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, the assumptions that: (1) market fundamentals will result in sustained gold demand and prices; (2) the receipt of any necessary approvals and consents in connection with the development of any properties; (3) the availability of financing on suitable terms for the development, construction and continued operation of any mineral properties; and (4) sustained commodity prices such that any properties put into operation remain economically viable. Information concerning mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates also may be considered forward-looking statements, as such information constitutes a prediction of what mineralization might be found to be present if and when a project is actually developed. Certain of the risks and assumptions are described in more detail in the Company's audited financial statements and MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2015 and for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. The actual results or performance by the Company could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, any forward-looking statements relating to those matters. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or financial condition of the Company. Except as required by law, the Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to update, alter or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

Contacts:

Maryse Belanger

COO

+1 604 689-5564




LONDON, Jan., 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The net foreign exchange impact of the Kindred Group's main trading currencies against its reporting currency of GBP is shown in the tables below. While this has no material impact on the underlying development in Kindred Group's business, it does affect the reported results when translated into GBP.

The weighted average impact of GBP against Kindred Group's main currencies was a positive impact on Gross winnings revenue of approximately 15-16 per cent between the fourth quarter of 2015 and the fourth quarter of 2016.

Balance sheet rates:





















Rate to GBP











31-Dec-15





31-Dec-16





YoY Delta





SEK











12.521

11.157

10.9% NOK











13.084

10.613

18.9% EUR











1.362

1.168

14.2% DKK











10.168

8.683

14.6% AUD











2.030

1.705

16.0%



















Income statement averages for the quarter:



















Rate to GBP











Avg Q4 15





Avg Q4 16





YoY Delta





SEK











12.882

11.236

12.8% NOK











12.936

10.409

19.5% EUR











1.385

1.152

16.8% DKK











10.334

8.568

17.1% AUD











2.105

1.657

21.3%

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/kindred-group/r/exchange-rates-for-the-fourth-quarter-of-2016,c2160008

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/824/2160008/610441.pdf

CONTACT:

For more information:

Inga Lundberg, Investor Relations, +44 788 799 6116

SOURCE Kindred Group
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - December 6, 2016) - Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. (TSX: XTG) (OTCQB: XTGRF) ("Xtra- Gold" or the "Company"); is pleased to announce today that the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") has accepted a noticed filed by the Company of its intention to renew its prior normal course issuer bid for a further one year period. The Company intends to proceed with a normal course issuer bid to purchase up to 4,000,000 common shares of the Company (the "2016 Bid").

The Company is commencing the 2016 Bid because it believes that the current market price of its common shares may not fully reflect the underlying value of the Company's business and its future business prospects. The Company believes that the purchase of common shares for cancellation is in the best interests of the Company's shareholders by increasing the respective proportionate shareholdings and therefore increasing the respective equity interest in the Company for all remaining shareholders.

As of November 30, 2016 the Company has 48,464,917 common shares issued and outstanding. The 4,000,000 common shares that may be purchased by the Company under the 2016 Bid represent approximately 10% of the public float (46,011,062 as of November 30, 2016) of the Company. The 2016 Bid will commence on December 8, 2016 and will terminate on December 7, 2017 or at such earlier date in the event that the number of shares sought in the 2016 Bid has been repurchased. The Company reserves the right to terminate the 2016 Bid earlier if it feels that it is appropriate to do so.

All shares will be purchased on the open market through the facilities of the TSX, and payment for the common shares will be in accordance with TSX policies. The price paid for the common shares will be the market price at the time of purchase. Purchasing may be suspended at any time, and no purchases will be made other than by means of open market transactions during the term of the 2016 Bid.

The maximum number of common shares that may be purchased on a daily basis is 5,327 common shares representing 25% of the average daily trading volume for the last six calendar months, except where purchases are made in accordance with "block purchases" exemptions under applicable TSX policies. The common shares purchased by the Company will be cancelled.

The Company has engaged Haywood Securities Inc. to act as broker through which the 2016 Bid will be conducted.

Previous purchases were made by the Company under a prior normal course issuer bid (the "2015 Bid"), the results of which are noted hereunder.

Results of 2015 Bid

Xtra-Gold acquired 372,500 common shares at an average price of $0.23 per share under the 2015 Bid, which commenced on November 3, 2015 and expired on November 2, 2016

About Xtra-Gold Resources Corp.

Xtra-Gold is a gold exploration company with a substantial land position in the Kibi Gold Belt, in Ghana West Africa.

Contact Information

For further information please contact:

James Longshore, Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: 416 366-4227

E-mail: info@xtragold.com

Website: www.xtragold.com
HOUSTON, TX and HASSELT, BELGIUM -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- TrendMiner, which delivers big data search and advanced predictive analytics tools to the process industry, today announced the appointments of John Miller to Vice President of Strategic Accounts and Edwin van Dijk to the role of Vice President of Marketing. Miller will be based in Houston, the company's U.S. headquarters, and Van Dijk will support global marketing efforts from TrendMiner's European headquarters in Belgium.

"The appointment of these two highly experienced industry executives supports TrendMiner's acceleration strategy and consolidates our dominant market position," said TrendMiner CEO and Co-Founder Bert Baeck. "The rapid market adoption of TrendMiner's predictive analytics software requires increased focus on market strategy, positioning and global expansion. Both Miller and Van Dijk will add a combined energy to support this mission and will contribute to the company's continuing growth and recognition."

Miller's primary focus is to support current accounts and manage the company's growth strategy by working closely with prospects, new accounts and by supporting the expansion of successful pilot programs launched by TrendMiner's largest customers. Miller has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, joining TrendMiner from PAS where he was the Senior Director of Strategic Accounts. Additionally, he served in several key roles for AspenTech, including North American Sales Director for Chemical Accounts, Global Sales Director for BP and SABIC, two of AspenTech's largest global accounts, and Strategic Alliance Director for Lyondell.

A graduate of Texas A&M University with a BS degree in Chemical Engineering, Miller will continue to serve on the Advisory Council of the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M, where he has served since 2013.

Van Dijk, who will join TrendMiner on January 1, 2017, will be responsible for TrendMiner's global marketing strategy, which includes a focus on educating the market on the benefits of data analytics in the process industry and the opportunities available with TrendMiner's solutions. His team will also focus on corporate positioning, driving customer acquisition, loyalty and retention programs, and helping to increase global brand recognition.

Prior to joining TrendMiner, Van Dijk gained more than 20 years of market expertise in various roles related to asset information management and related business processes for owner operators. Starting at BlueCielo ECM Solutions as business development manager for the integration between IBM Maximo and BlueCielo Meridian, Van Dijk had various positions that led to the role of Director of Global Marketing. In this position, he developed extensive brand recognition programs, product positioning, go-to-market launch plans and lead generation through integrated global campaigns and measurability of marketing effectiveness.

About TrendMiner

TrendMiner, with U.S. headquarters in Houston, TX, delivers Discovery, Diagnostic and Predictive analytics with real time monitoring tools for the process industry. Its flagship software is based on a high-performance analytics engine for process data. Through an intuitive web-based trend client, process engineers and operators can easily search for trends using TrendMiner's patent pending pattern recognition and machine learning big data technologies, without the support of a data scientist. The TrendMiner plug and play solution adds value immediately after deployment eliminating expensive investments in big data infrastructure or long implementation projects. TrendMiner, founded in 2008, is a software company, with global headquarters in Belgium and offices in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and the U.S. Visit us at: www.trendminer.com

Media Contact



Dawn Fontaine

Ripple Effect Communications

Email Contact

508-353-3777




SANTA MONICA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- MomentFeed, the leader in mobile customer experience management for multi-location brands, today announced that the latest version of its platform, MomentFeed 3.3, is available immediately. The platform includes a series of powerful new dashboards that make it easier than ever for multi-location brands to track their customers' online-to-offline journeys and calculate the ROI of their mobile marketing efforts.

The MomentFeed platform helps multi-location brands such as Jamba Juice, Avis, and Starbucks target consumers at the most influential moments in their online path to purchase. This includes managing all pages for every store across all major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, Yelp!, Twitter. Through MomentFeed's innovative approach to local, regional and national marketing organic and paid campaigns, the company is able to provide unique sets of data, including data from Facebook Local Insights, that haven't been available to multi-location brands directly.

"We're always looking for data to inform our marketing and operations. MomentFeed's new People Nearby vs. Paid Impressions dashboard is our new go-to for conversion tracking as we haven't seen this overlay of paid impressions to store traffic anywhere else," said Deidre Hazelbaker at Tire Discounters, the nation's eighth-largest independent tire retailer. "Another ROI capability we've been wishing for and now can see through MomentFeed is the relationship between campaign spend and regional sales. We can segment our stores by regions and groups to see what's working, and expand major markets or campaigns based on direct offline attribution. These new capabilities are key to our 2017 strategy."

"Consumers spend tremendous amounts of time on their phones. They are using their phones to augment their real-world experiences by engaging with brands through the most popular mobile apps, and that is driving multi-location brands to invest heavily in digital and mobile marketing initiatives like social engagement and reputation management for every store," said Robert Blatt, CEO of MomentFeed. "The underlying challenge with funding these types of activities has been a lack of understanding as to what's really working to drive foot traffic and boost sales. Now with the latest version of MomentFeed, we're helping these multi-location brands tackle this by providing insights into which digital efforts are successful, and how much they're actually helping in-store sales. Our clients are able to align the growth strategy of a single store and map that all the way up to the regional or national level."

The latest version of the MomentFeed platform includes several new features that help multi-location brands engage consumers in new, relevant ways that drive them toward offline conversions. In particular, MomentFeed makes it possible to track a customer's online-to-offline journey using a combination of enhanced search, discovery, social media and reputation management tools.

MomentFeed's Search & Discovery Dashboards include enhanced features such as:

Local Search Ranking - Helps brands optimize their business data to increase the search ranking of each and every one of their physical locations. Rankings can now be tracked by keyword on Google and Bing through the Local Search Ranking dashboard.

Local Page Leads - Allows businesses to track a consumer's journey toward conversion by analyzing how many customers found the Google My Business (GMB) or Facebook page of the closest location and actually went on to view it, clicked to call, clicked for directions or even visited the website directly.

Facebook Local Insights - Uses Facebook Local Insights data to identify the busiest times of day for a business' location, the demographics of those nearby consumers, and provides foot traffic trends within 50 meters of each business location -- while also showing the percentage of those users who saw an ad in the past 28 days. MomentFeed is now making it even easier for multi-location brands to access these offline Local Insights.





The Social Media & Reputation Management Dashboards include enhanced features such as:

Customer Experience - Provides an overview of ratings and review activity across a brand's locations (using custom Groups as filters), making it easy to understand and compare what customers are saying.

Facebook Page Insights - The Facebook Page Insights dashboard gives brands the first ever comprehensive overview of both brand and local page engagement from one dashboard. Track reach, engagement and fan growth across both brand and local pages, and get a full view into social engagement on Facebook.





Combined with the new dashboards, MomentFeed's latest software release offers ability to search for locations by business ID, allowing brands to grant single location managers permission to comment on or like Instagram, Facebook or Google posts from a brand's account, as well as updated tools to help brands to identify and merge duplicate Facebook pages en masse. While previous processes caught the vast majority of duplicate pages through MomentFeed's Facebook API integration, updates in the latest platform provide brands with even more comprehensive dupe monitoring and elimination.

Marketers and brands interested in learning more about measuring Online to Offline attribution and ROI can attend a webinar on Tuesday, December 6th at 10:00 a.m. PST. For additional information and to register, please visit: https://momentfeed.com/resource-library/events-and-webinars/

About MomentFeed

MomentFeed is a mobile customer experience management platform that enables multi-location brands to make their nearest location the best choice for every mobile customer. It turns physical stores into a brand's most valuable online assets, helping guide customers along their entire digital path to purchase. Using the information that uniquely defines each location, the platform enables central or distributed management of a brand's store locator, as well as search engine optimization, social media engagement, and paid advertising & media, and online reputation and review management. The platform increases same store sales for multi-location retailers, restaurant chains, banks, auto dealers, insurance companies and other franchised and corporate-owned services. MomentFeed was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. For more information visit: https://www.momentfeed.com

Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

Contact:

Chad Torbin

Speakeasy Strategies on behalf of MomentFeed

415.548.6536

Email Contact




TORONTO, ON -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Helix BioPharma Corp. (TSX: HBP) (FRANKFURT: HBP), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing innovative drug candidates for the prevention and treatment of cancer, announce that it presented topline data from its phase I/II dose escalation study of immunoconjugate L-DOS47 as a monotherapy in non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer patients at the 17th IASCLC World Conference on Lung Cancer ("WCLC") held in Vienna, Austria.

This is a Phase I/II, open-label, non-randomised study designed to evaluate the safety and tolerability of ascending doses of study drug ("L-DOS47") in male and female patients aged >= 18 years old with Stage IIIb or IV non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer ("NSCLC"). The staging of NSCLC was conducted according to Tumour Node Metastases ("TNM"), 7th Edition. Patients were recruited into cohorts, with a minimum of three and a maximum of six patients per cohort. Primary study objectives included to determine the maximum tolerated doses of multiple rising doses of L-DOS47 and to make a preliminary assessment of the efficacy of L-DOS47.

A total of ninety (90) patients were consented and screened for participation in the study. Fifty-five (55) patients were administered at least one dose of L-DOS47 at dose levels ranging from 0.12 to 13.55g/kg. Twenty-one (21) patients completed four treatment cycles and sixteen (16) patients were administered additional L-DOS47 cycles. Forty-eight (48) or 85% of patients were Stage IV as assessed according to TNM, 7th edition and based on computed tomography (CT) scan. None of the patients had prior history of other malignancies or had a known history of central nervous system metastatic disease. Of the 390 doses administered to patients in the Phase I study, 96% were administered without a dose delay or dose interruption. Comparatively, patients in cohorts 13 to 16 (5.76 to 13.55g/kg) were exposed to more L-DOS47 for a longer duration without a significant change to the safety profile of L-DOS47 compared to the other dosing cohorts.

Forty-four (44), or 80% of the patients in the safety population had at least one treatment emergent adverse events. The only dose limiting toxicity reported was a grade 4 bone pain resulting in the permanent discontinuation of L-DOS47. L-DOS47 did not elicit a dose-dependent release of cytokines at doses up to 13.55g/kg. The MTD of L-DOS47 was not reached in the Phase I component of study LDOS002 at doses administered up to 13.55g/kg. L-DOS47 was well tolerated at all dose levels up to 13.55g/kg.

Forty-seven (47) of the 55 patient dosed in the Phase I component of the study contributed to the response evaluable population. A dose response trend was observed when comparing the percentage of patients who were progression free at 16 weeks across dose ranges. A similar trend was observed when comparing the percentage of patient who had an overall tumour response of Stable Disease (as defined in RECIST v1.1) and had a reduction in the sum of target lesions.

Eleven (11) of 14 or 79% of patients in the highest dosing cohorts (5.76 to 13.55g/kg) had an overall tumour response of Stable Disease following the administration of two cycles of L-DOS47. Seven (7) of 14 or 50% of patients in the same dosing cohorts had an overall tumour response of Stable Disease and a reduction in the sum of target lesions and 57% of patients were progression free for greater than 16 weeks.

"We are very encouraged by both the safety and efficacy data from the study", said Dr. Sven Rohmann, Helix's Chief Executive Officer. "This is a major milestone for the company and for our immuno-oncology program".

Following the review of clinical data collected to-date, L-DOS47 has achieved many of the goals of early phase study; namely to determine the initial safety profile of the product and to acquire enough data to defend a proposed dose with which to subsequently test in various cancer indications. These data also suggest that L-DOS47 may be effective in treatment of CEACAM6 expressing tumors and may be more efficacious in combination with other therapies that may benefit from the pH-modulating effects of L-DOS47.

About L-DOS47

L-DOS47 is Helix's first immunoconjugate-based drug candidate in development is based on Helix's novel DOS47 technology platform which the Company believes alters the tumor microenvironment from acidic to alkaline and is positioning its core technology in the field of immuno-oncology as a unique Tumour Defence Breaker. The Company believes L-DOS47 represents an innovative approach in modifying the microenvironmental conditions of cancer cells which the Company also believes serves as a general defense against cancer drugs and immunotherapies. Breaking the tumor defense by changing the tumor micro environment from acidic to alkaline represents one of the forgotten hallmarks of cancer. L-DOS47 is intended to offer an innovative approach to the first-line treatment of inoperable, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. L-DOS47 is currently being evaluated in two clinical studies, one in the United States ("LDOS001") and the other in Poland ("LDOS002").

About LDOS001

LDOS001 is a Phase I, open label, dose escalation study being conducted in the United States at three centers; The University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center; and University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary objective of the study is to determine the safety and tolerability of L-DOS47 in combination treatment with pemetrexed/carboplatin. The study will also evaluate the potential clinical benefit of L-DOS47 with this combination. Other exploratory objectives include the evaluation of the L-DOS47 pharmacokinetics and immunogenicity.

About LDOS002

LDOS002 is an open-label Phase I/II clinical study being conducted in Poland to evaluate the safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of ascending doses of L-DOS47, initially as a monotherapy, in patients with inoperable, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic, non-squamous, stage IIIb/IV NSCLC. The study is being conducted at five Polish centers under the direction of Dr. Dariusz Kowalski at The Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Centre & Institute of Oncology as the overall coordinating investigator, together with four other principal investigators: Prof. Cezary Szczylik, MD, PhD at the Military Medical Institute, Prof. Elzbieta Wiatr, MD, PhD at the National Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases Research Institute, Dr. Aleksandra Szczensa, MD, PhD at the Mazovian Center of Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis in Otwock and Prof. Rodryg Ramlau, MD, PhD at the Department of Oncology, Poznan University of Medical Science.

About Helix BioPharma Corp.

Helix BioPharma Corp. is an immuno-oncology company specializing in the field of cancer therapy. The company is actively developing innovative products for the prevention and treatment of cancer based on its proprietary technologies. Helix's product development initiatives include its novel L-DOS47 new drug candidate. Helix is currently listed on the TSX and FSE under the symbol "HBP".

Forward-Looking Statements and Risks and Uncertainties

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements and information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, without limitation, those relating to unique Tumour Defense Breaker, which may be identified by words including, without limitation, "unique", "believes" "will", "may", "modifying", "anticipated", "intended", "build". "effective", "continuing progress" and other similar expressions, are intended to provide information about management's current plans and expectations.

Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements concerning (i) the Company's ability to operate on a going concern being dependent mainly on obtaining additional financing; (ii) the Company's priority continuing to be L-DOS47; (iii) the Company's development programs for DOS47 and L-DOS47; (iv) future expenditures, the insufficiency of the Company's current cash resources and the need for financing; and (v) future financing requirements and the seeking of additional funding. Forward-looking statements can further be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "ongoing", "estimates", "expects", or the negative thereof or any other variations thereon or comparable terminology referring to future events or results, or that events or conditions "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved, or comparable terminology referring to future events or results.

Forward-looking statements are statements about the future and are inherently uncertain, and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that are also uncertain. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Forward-looking statements, including financial outlooks, are intended to provide information about management's current plans and expectations regarding future operations, including without limitation, future financing requirements, and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Certain material factors, estimates or assumptions have been applied in making forward-looking statements in this news release, including, but not limited to, the safety and efficacy of L-DOS47; that sufficient financing will be obtained in a timely manner to allow the Company to continue operations and implement its clinical trials in the manner and on the timelines anticipated; the timely provision of services and supplies or other performance of contracts by third parties; future costs; the absence of any material changes in business strategy or plans; and the timely receipt of required regulatory approvals and strategic partner support.

The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release as a result of numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the risk that the Company's assumptions may prove to be incorrect; the risk that additional financing may not be obtainable in a timely manner, or at all, and that clinical trials may not commence or complete within anticipated timelines or the anticipated budget or may fail; third party suppliers of necessary services or of drug product and other materials may fail to perform or be unwilling or unable to supply the Company, which could cause delay or cancellation of the Company's research and development activities; necessary regulatory approvals may not be granted or may be withdrawn; the Company may not be able to secure necessary strategic partner support; general economic conditions, intellectual property and insurance risks; changes in business strategy or plans; and other risks and uncertainties referred to elsewhere in this news release, any of which could cause actual results to vary materially from current results or the Company's anticipated future results. Certain of these risks and uncertainties, and others affecting the Company, are more fully described in Helix's Annual Information Form, in particular under the headings "Forward-looking Statements" and "Risk Factors", and other reports filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com from time to time. Forward-looking statements and information are based on the beliefs, assumptions, opinions and expectations of Helix's management on the date of this new release, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement or information should those beliefs, assumptions, opinions or expectations, or other circumstances change, except as required by law.

Investor Relations

Helix BioPharma Corp.

21 St. Clair Avenue East, Suite 1100

Toronto, Ontario, M4T 1L9

Tel: 416 925-3232

Email: ir@helixbiopharma.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Millennial Lithium Corp. (TSX VENTURE: ML)(OTCQB: MLNLF) ("Millennial" or the "Company") reports continued progress with its Phase I lithium brine drilling program at Pastos Grandes in Salta, Argentina. Currently, one HQ coring drill and one large diameter rotary drill are operating.

The first drill hole, PGMW-16-01 (MW - monitoring well) was completed to a depth of 192 metres and encountered three brine aquifers over a total 94.5 metres (m); from surface to 13m, 19.5m to 66m, and 157m to the bottom of the hole. The brine aquifers were sampled using a drive-point sampler at key formational changes. The densities of the samples range from 1.19 g/cm3 to 1.22 g/cm3, indicating the presence of brine throughout the section. Analytical results for this first set of samples are anticipated within two weeks.

A second hole, PGMW-16-01b, drilled near the location of PGMW-16-01, was successfully completed to the target depth of 352 metres and encountered brine aquifers throughout the hole. Depth-specific sampling was completed using a double packer system. Eight one metre interval samples were collected at the following depths: 92m, 116m, 146m, 167m, 197m, 224m, 248m, and 275m. The deepest sample was collected using a single packer and includes brine extracted from 275 metres and below. All but one of the sample intervals yielded very positive brine flow at greater than 0.5 litre/second.

As a result of positive flow rates obtained in the first well, the installation of a production scale pumping test well is proceeding as planned. To accomplish this, a second larger drill was mobilized to the site to begin drilling a test production well (PGPW-16-02) to a minimum of 350 metres. This hole is being drilled with a diameter of 15 inches for the first 120m and then reduced to a diameter of 12 inches. Upon completion, 10 inch-diameter perforated casing will be installed to 120m, with six inch slotted casing below that depth. The assembled well will then be fitted with pipe and pump to begin a 24 hour pumping test.

Iain Scarr, VP of Development and Exploration, states, "These results exceed our expectations in terms of brine availability and flow. Densities are only an indirect measure of brine lithium content, but based on past work in the area, we are very encouraged. We are excited to be able to advance this program to pumping trials and to reporting results as they are received."

Initial field testing of brine recovered from the aquifers justifies further work. Brine from the packer testing and pumping tests will be used for field trials to validate the calculations for precipitation sequencing and lithium recovery, which will be used for pond sizing and conceptual design.

Sampling is being conducted in accordance with CIM guidelines and an appropriate QA/QC program for ensuring accuracy and repeatability of the analytical results.

Proyecto Pastos Grandes, S.A., Millennial's Argentina subsidiary has engaged Alex Stewart Laboratories of Mendoza, Argentina as the primary analytical provider. The laboratory has extensive experience with lithium brine analyses and is certified under ISO 17025, and in Alex Stewart's case, specifically for determination of lithium and potassium in liquid brines by use of ICP-OES.

This news release has been reviewed by Iain Scarr, VP of Development and Exploration of the Company and a Qualified Person as that term is defined in National Instrument 43-101.

MILLENNIAL LITHIUM CORP.

Graham Harris, Chairman, Director

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to future prices of commodities, accuracy of mineral or resource exploration activity, reserves or resources, regulatory or government requirements or approvals, the reliability of third party information, continued access to mineral properties or infrastructure, currency risks including the exchange rate of USD$ for Cdn$, fluctuations in the market for lithium, changes in exploration costs and government royalties or taxes in Argentina and other factors or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affections such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Contacts:

Millennial Lithium Corp.

Investor Relations

(604) 662-8184

info@millenniallithium.com

www.millenniallithium.com




"Crowds including children were then ordered to stone the body."

The terror group has reportedly executed hundreds of men for having same-sex sexual relations.





Images of a Syrian man being thrown to his death after being accused of homosexuality have been released by Islamic State today (December 5).





The unidentified victim was reportedly dragged to the top of a building in Maslamah City in war-torn Aleppo, Syria, before being thrown to his death.





According to reports, crowds including children as young as six were then ordered to stone him.





Capital punishment for men accused of homosexuality has been used by ISIS to assert its supposed ideological purity since the terrorist group began exerting power, with the group describing gay men as the worst of creatures.





In September this year, an ISIS defector revealed the extent of the cruelty with which gay and bi men are treated in ISIS-controlled areas, including punitive rape.





I saw the worst things one can imagine on the face of the Earth, Kamandar Bakhtiar revealed to the United Arab Emirate Alaan TV.





He added: All these things run counter to Islam. I was very upset by these deeds, but there was nothing I could do.





Images of men being thrown to their deaths as punishment for suspected homosexuality has become one of the defining features of ISIS occupation in the Middle East. However, according to one former ISIS member, rape is also used as a punishment by the extremist group.





Kamandar Bakhtiar, a former member of the so-called Islamic States Afghanistan branch, spoke about some of the punishments he witnessed during his time with the terror group in a video interview published by The Daily Caller





During the three months I spent in the ranks of ISIS, I saw the worst things one can imagine on the face of the Earth, He revealed to the United Arab Emirate Alaan TV on September 7.





They kill and behead innocent people, plunder the property of regular people, and they do the worst possible things, such as raping homosexuals.





He added: All these things run counter to Islam. I was very upset by these deeds, but there was nothing I could do.





Severe punishments for men accused of homosexuality are commonplace in ISIS-controlled territories. According to reports boys as young as 15 have been executed for alleged homosexuality.





In June this year, ISIS praised the deadly attack on gay nightclub, Pulse, which killed 49 people and injured 53 more.

 | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: Attitude , Josh Lee, Dec. 5, Sep. 16, 2016
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. ("Tetra Bio" or "the Company") (CSE: TBP)(CSE: TBP.CN) and (OTC PINK: GRPOF) is conducting a non-brokered private placement with Aphria Inc. (TSX VENTURE: APH)(OTCQB: APHQF) of 5,000,000 units at a price of $0.20 per unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $1,000,000. Each unit will consist of one common share and one non-transferable warrant, with a whole warrant entitling the holder to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of $0.26 per share for a period of 3 years following the closing date. The warrants are subject to an accelerated expiry if the Company's shares trade above $0.45 for thirty (30) consecutive trading days then the warrants will expire in 30 days if not exercised.

The private placement closed on December 5, 2016.

Completion of the private placement is subject to the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including the approval of the Exchange.

The securities issued pursuant to the private placement will be subject to a four-month hold period from the closing date.

The proceeds of the private placement will be used to initiate clinical trials in PhytoPain Pharma Inc.

"Obtaining an investment from one of Canada's leading cannabis producers re-enforces the value of the research and development being conducted by the science team at Tetra Bio-Pharma lead by Chief Science Officer, Dr. Guy Chamberland," commented Ryan Brown, Co-Founder/VP Business Development.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed this news release and does not accept responsibility for its adequacy or accuracy.

Contacts:

Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Andre Rancourt

Chief Executive Officer



Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Ryan Brown

VP Business Development and Communications



Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Andre Audet

Executive Chairman



Investors@tetrabiopharma.com

(613) 421-8402




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Caza Gold Corp. (the "Company" or "Caza") (TSX VENTURE: CZY)(FRANKFURT: CZ6) -

Caza Gold Corp. announces today that its board of directors and the board of directors of Royal Road Minerals Limited (TSX VENTURE: RYR) ("Royal Road Minerals") have approved a proposed business combination by way of a friendly offer that Royal Road Minerals intends to make to acquire 100% of the outstanding common shares of Caza, and that Caza and Royal Road Minerals have signed a support agreement pursuant to which Caza's board of directors has unanimously agreed to support the Royal Road Minerals' offer.

Readers should note that Royal Road Minerals has not yet commenced the offer and should carefully review the cautionary statement set out below in this news release respecting the status of the offer and the factors that may cause Royal Road Minerals not to make the offer.

Highlights of the Transaction

For each Caza common share, Royal Road Minerals intends to offer 0.16 of a Royal Road Minerals ordinary share. Royal Road Minerals expects to issue approximately 22,608,321 ordinary shares pursuant to the transaction, representing approximately 34% of Royal Road Minerals' current outstanding ordinary shares.

The board of directors of Caza has unanimously determined that the Royal Road Minerals proposed offer is in the best interest of Caza's shareholders, and unanimously recommends that Caza shareholders tender their common shares to the offer, if and when made by Royal Road Minerals in accordance with the support agreement.

The proposed offer is also supported by Caza's largest shareholder, Polygon Mining Opportunity Master Fund ("Polygon") and by Caza's directors and officers who hold Caza common shares, whereby Polygon and these directors and officers have each entered into a lock up agreement with Royal Road Minerals and have agreed to tender all of their Caza common shares to the offer, if and when made by Royal Road Minerals in accordance with the support agreement. Collectively, these supporting shareholders beneficially hold an aggregate of 116,345,568 Caza common shares representing approximately 82.3% of the outstanding Caza common shares on both a non-diluted and fully-diluted "in the money" basis.

Compelling Combination

Commenting on the proposed transaction, Brian Arkell, President and Chief Executive Officer of Caza Gold Corp. said, "The proposed transaction presents a compelling opportunity to combine two successful exploration companies, with prospective exploration portfolios in Latin America. The combined entity would have a large and diverse portfolio of gold-silver projects, along with porphyry and iron-oxide copper-gold targets, under a strong technical and management team. The combination will create a much stronger company going forward and fits well with our strategy to enhance growth and increase exploration success through accretive business combinations."

The support agreement between Caza and Royal Road Minerals provides that Caza's board of directors may, under certain circumstances, terminate the agreement in favor of an unsolicited superior proposal, subject to a right by Royal Road Minerals to match the superior proposal in question.

Prior to the commencement of the offer, Caza intends to issue a "deposit period news release" as contemplated under applicable Canadian securities laws setting an initial deposit period for the proposed take-over bid of 35 days from the date that Royal Road Minerals commences the take-over bid by making the offer and delivering the required take-over bid circular to Caza's shareholders, or such other initial deposit period as Royal Road Minerals and Caza may otherwise agree of not more than 105 days and not less than 35 days from such date.

It is anticipated that the Offer from Royal Road Minerals will be subject to a number of customary conditions, including: (i) there being deposited under the Offer, and not withdrawn, at least 90% of the outstanding Caza shares (calculated on a fully diluted basis), excluding Caza shares held by Royal Road Minerals; (ii) receipt of all governmental, regulatory and third party approvals that Royal Road Minerals considers necessary or desirable in connection with the Offer; and (iii) no material adverse change having occurred in the business, affairs, prospects or assets of Caza.

For further details, see the news release of Royal Road Minerals, also dated as of today's date.

Full details of the Royal Road Minerals intended offer, including any conditions thereof, will be included in the takeover bid circular that is expected to be mailed to Caza shareholders.

About Caza Gold Corp.

Caza Gold Corp. is a gold and copper exploration company focused on discovering new deposits in Nicaragua. The Company controls a large land position in the highly prospective but largely undeveloped gold belts of Nicaragua. Caza has developed a large portfolio of projects in Nicaragua, including the Los Andes gold-silver project and the Piedra Iman copper-gold project.

Caza controls over 425 square kilometers of prospective ground within the central Nicaragua Gold Belt. In addition to the Los Andes Gold Project, Caza is exploring the Piedra Iman porphyry in northern Nicaragua along with five high-sulfidation volcanic hosted Au-Ag targets located in west-central Nicaragua near the Pan-American Highway.

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release."

CAUTIONARY DISCLAIMER - FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release includes certain statements and information that may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws or forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, assumptions or expectations of future performance, the likelihood of commercial mining and financing requirements and the ability to fund future exploration and development are forward-looking statements and contain forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbour.

Contacts:

Caza Gold Corp.

Brian Arkell

1-720-883-7338

Toll Free: 1-877-684-9700

brian.arkell@cazagold.com

www.cazagold.com




IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Parcel Pending, the nation's leading package management company with 100% Always-On Customer Service, announced today the addition of two executives to its leadership team: Chief Operating Officer Brad Farmer and Vice President of Sales Matt Haynes. They bring a combined 40 years experience, driving revenue growth and managing infrastructures for emerging companies.

"I am thrilled to have Brad and Matt join our Parcel Pending team as we continue to grow the leading package management solution for the multifamily industry," said Lori Torres, CEO of Parcel Pending. "Their long-term relationships with strategic business partners, combined with their experience in customer service and day-to-day operational management, will allow Parcel Pending to offer new technology and services, to further serve our customers and expand into new channels."

Prior to joining Parcel Pending, Farmer served as CEO of St. Vincent De Paul of San Mateo County where, in just one year, he led them to double digit growth. Farmer is the former CEO of retail apparel company Draper's and Damon's, a role he held for 16 years. During his tenure, he achieved $100 million in revenue. Farmer has a bachelor's degree from Oregon State University.

Haynes is a seasoned sales executive in the multifamily industry with more than 15 years experience with three successful real estate start-ups. Before joining Parcel Pending, Haynes was VP of Sales for Rentlytics, an innovative business intelligence solution, and for Level One, a call center provider for the multifamily industry, where he was instrumental in growing sales to $26 million in four years. Haynes entered the multifamily space in 2001 when he joined SafeRent, the industry's first online applicant screening provider. Haynes has a bachelor's degree from Hobart College and an MBA from Babson College.

About Parcel Pending

Parcel Pending Inc. leads the global package management industry with 100% Always-On Customer Service and completely customizable smart lockers for any setting. The privately held company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Irvine, CA. Parcel Pending frees property managers from their package problems so they can get back to managing properties, not packages. Parcel Pending smart lockers are installed throughout North America. For more information, please visit www.parcelpending.com.
Digital River, Inc., a leading global provider of Commerce-as-a-Service solutions, is partnering with InternetRetailing, a leading publication for professionals in multichannel retail and ecommerce across the UK and Europe, to present a free webinar for companies interested in accelerating the growth of their ecommerce businesses across the globe. The educational webinar led by Howard West, senior director of global strategies at Digital River, and titled, "Ecommerce: Strategies to Expand your International Presence," is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 8 at 2:00 p.m. GMT. Registration for the free webinar is now open at http://driv.ws/f1.

Ecommerce practitioners and strategists attending the webinar will learn about international ecommerce trends as well as strategies for building and growing an online business on the global stage. Following a phased "crawl, walk, run" approach for "how to" enter new geographies, the webinar will focus on five key areas of an online operation, including language, payments, customer service, fulfillment and the online shopper experience. Attendees also will learn best practices for navigating complex import and export regulations.

"For branded manufacturing and digital products companies, the opportunities to reach audiences in parts of the globe previously thought unreachable are opening up fast, with rapid advances in ecommerce technologies and digital channels," said Jason Nyhus, vice president of global marketing and communications at Digital River. "It takes a sound strategy and a wealth of ecommerce experience to excel in international markets while safely and legally navigating the nuances of each geography. Our webinar is intended to help companies minimize their risks and maximize their results in going global."

About Digital River, Inc.

Backed by 20 years of ecommerce experience, Digital River is recognized as a leading global provider of Commerce-as-a-Service solutions. Companies of all sizes rely on Digital River's cloud-based commerce, payments and marketing services to manage and grow their online businesses. Through these services, Digital River connects B2B and B2C digital products companies and branded manufacturers with buyers across multiple devices and channels, and nearly every country in the world.

Digital River is headquartered in Minneapolis with offices across the U.S., Asia, Europe and South America. For more details about Digital River, visit the corporate website, read the Digital River Blog, follow the company on Twitter or call +1 952-253-1234.

Digital River is a registered trademark of Digital River, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks, registrations or copyrights of their respective owners.

Twitter Tags: ecommerce, @DigitalRiverInc, @etail

Click to Tweet: Webinar: @DigitalRiverInc partners with @etail to discuss how to take an ecommerce business global. Register: http://driv.ws/f1

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005221/en/

Contacts:

Digital River, Inc.

Natalie Wires, +1 952-225-3985

Corporate Communications Manager

publicrelations@digitalriver.com
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Icelandic flight meta-search website Dohop was awarded "The World's Leading Flight Comparison Website" at the 2016 World Travel Awards. The prestigious award ceremony was held in the Maldives on the 2nd of December.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322197LOGO )



This is the second time Dohop wins the award and the fourth time the company is nominated.

Eight companies were nominated in the category, all well-known brands in the flight meta-search industry.

The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry.

"We are thrilled to have been voted World's Leading Flight Comparison Website at the 2016 World Travel Awards. The award is a great recognition of the constant hard work we put into improving the technology that powers Dohop." - David Gunnarsson, Dohop CEO.

The World Travel Awards are voted on by travel industry professionals and high-end tourism consumers.

About The World Travel Awards

The World Travel Awards' were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all key sectors of the travel tourism & hospitality industry. Today, the World Travel Awards' brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

About Dohop

Dohop is a global flight search engine, where users can find the cheapest flights from a range of airlines and online travel agencies, using its unique Self-Connect technology. Today, the range of services also includes hotels and car rentals, as well as a travel affiliate program for airlines, airports and travel websites. Dohop is available worldwide in 29 languages and has its headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland.
HONG KONG, HONG KONG--(Marketwired - December 06, 2016) - Weyland Tech Inc. (OTCQB: WEYL) ("Weyland Tech" or the "Company"), a provider of mobile business applications, announces that it has entered into a Strategic Partnership with DPEX Worldwide, a leading provider of express and E-Commerce solutions in Asia.

DPEX Worldwide in collaboration with WEYL will together offer a Mobile Commerce ("m-commerce") solution coupled to a logistics solution. This will provide users subscribing to the application with a one-stop end-to-end solution incorporating m-commerce setup and operation, payment gateways for m-commerce transactions, logistics services such as warehousing, fulfillment, cross border and domestic distribution.

About Weyland Tech Inc.

Weyland Tech's "CreateApp" platform is focused on the Asia markets. Our CreateApp platform is offered in 12 languages and enables small-medium-sized businesses ("SMB's") to create a mobile application ("APP") without the need of technical knowledge and background. SMB's can increase sales, reach more customers and promote their products and services via a simple easy to build mobile APPs in an affordable and cost-effective manner, www.weyland-tech.com.

About DPEX Worldwide

DPEX Worldwide is an established Express and E-Commerce solutions provider in Asia providing a wide array of solutions and services catering to the growing need for seamless end to end logistics requirements by customers today.

With a history and experience dating 30 years and a comprehensive network spanning 17 countries in the region, DPEX Worldwide has extensive local knowledge to serve into and throughout Asia.

DPEX Worldwide is widely acknowledged as "Knowing Asia, Delivering Asia." From Asia to the world, DPEX Worldwide is positioned and poised to be a leading total solutions provider in the region, able to cater to the requirements for both cross border and domestic logistics solutions.

For further information about Weyland Tech, Inc., contact Rich Kaiser, Investor Relations, YES INTERNATIONAL 757-306-6090 (001-757-306-6090), yes@yesinternational.com, info@weyland-tech.com and http://www.weyland-tech.com/.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements" including statements regarding: the continued growth of the e-commerce segment and the ability of the Company to continue its expansion into that segment; the ability of the Company to attract customers and partners and generate revenues; the ability of the Company to successfully execute its business plan; the business strategy, plans, and objectives of the Company; and any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume any duty to update these forward-looking statements.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/12/6/11G124319/Images/weyldpex-6620a5096779842ab88564efe47c3c60.jpg

Contact:

Rich Kaiser

Investor Relations

info@weyland-tech.com

yes@yesinternational.com

757-306-6090
PHILADELPHIA, PA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Yoh, a leading international talent and outsourcing company and part of Day & Zimmermann, announced today the acquisition of DreamJobs, an Ohio-based recruitment solutions firm. The acquisition expands Yoh's recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) capabilities and addresses the demand from businesses of all sizes for flexible, on-demand and sustained recruiting for skilled professionals. The transaction closed on Dec. 3, 2016; terms were not disclosed.

"Companies large and small continue to struggle to find highly skilled professionals to meet their critical talent needs in today's fast-moving business landscape. This acquisition is a reinforcement of our commitment to providing a wide range of recruiting solutions to our clients," said Anthony Bosco, President of Yoh. "DreamJobs is a strong addition to our RPO practice and will allow us to deliver even higher levels of value and confidence to our customers."

DreamJobs' expertise and resources will immediately increase Yoh's on-demand and sustained recruitment solutions capabilities by adding an experienced team and leaders. Managing Director and Founder, Kim Davis has previously started and managed several other successful recruiting companies and is known as a pioneer in the industry. Together with Yoh's vast workforce solutions and resources, the acquisition confirms Yoh's position as a long-term leader and innovator in the RPO and workforce solutions space.

"We are extremely excited about joining the Yoh family. This is a marriage of two strong organizations with a like market focus and a passion to deliver recruitment excellence. As an early pioneer in the recruitment process outsourcing industry, I have always admired Yoh's RPO practice for their integrity and ability to deliver great service. Our two businesses will complement one another and are a great cultural fit," said Kim Davis, Managing Director of DreamJobs. "We are looking forward to an exciting future together."

DreamJobs was established in 2012 and focuses on the underserved middle market of small- to mid-sized organizations looking for recruiting support. DreamJobs offers full life cycle RPO, as well as targeted, project and on-demand recruiting solutions. Market verticals include manufacturing, health care, hospitality/retail, government, consulting and financial services.

Established in 1940, Yoh is the 26th largest staffing firm in the United States according to Staffing Industry Analysts. Yoh has a reputation of maintaining long-term clients that are among some of the world's largest and leading technology and media conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies. Yoh is a subsidiary of Day & Zimmermann, a $2.7 billion century-old, third generation family-owned services company. Day & Zimmermann is currently ranked as one of the largest private companies in the U.S. by Forbes.

ABOUT YOH

For over 75 years, Yoh has provided the talent needed for the jobs and projects critical to our clients' success by providing comprehensive workforce solutions that focus on Aerospace and Defense, Engineering, Federal Services, Health Care, Life Sciences, Information Technology and Telecommunications. Yoh fulfills immediate resource needs and delivers enterprise workforce solutions, including Managed Services, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Vendor Management Systems, Independent Contractor Compliance, and Payroll Services. For more information, visit yoh.com.

ABOUT DREAMJOBS

DreamJobs is a full-service talent solutions partner, helping clients drive down the overall cost of recruitment. We design and implement sourcing strategies, recruiting systems, processes and methodologies to help our customers recruit and hire best-fit talent, from entry-level staff to the board room. Simply said, our expertise allows our customers to achieve business results through the strategic investment in its most valuable asset, their people. For more information, visit dreamjobsna.com.

Joe McIntyre

Braithwaite Communications

215.564.3200 x112

joe@gobraithwaite.com




SOUTH WINDSOR, CT -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- O'Brien Communications Group (OCG) was contracted by Beyontec Solutions, a provider of core administration software to the global insurance industry, to manage the consolidation of its branding globally. Beyontec Solutions, which does business in India, the Middle East, and Africa -- and B2-USA, which does business in the United States -- will now operate under the Beyontec brand. OCG created Beyontec's new website and collateral materials and will continue to support Beyontec's marketing communications in various channels and media.

"Since 2008, we've been developing a comprehensive, efficient platform for processing property/casualty business," said Vivek Sethia, co-founder and CEO at Beyontec USA. "After bringing the Beyontec Suite to the US market through B2-USA, we've consolidated our global brands and unified our operations. We're encouraged by our success to date, and we look forward to helping more P&C insurers achieve competitive operational edges."

The Beyontec Suite comprises policy, claims, billing, reinsurance, and financial accounting, as well as portals and configuration tools. Beyontec also offers proven processes, domain expertise, and effective project management to meet its customers' requirements and challenges. Its ability to deliver -- and the easy configurability and adaptability of its software -- further strengthen its long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships with its customers.

"We'd been watching B2 for a while," said Mark O'Brien, founder and Principal of OCG. "That -- and the success they've achieved -- make us especially proud to have been chosen for this engagement."

About O'Brien Communications Group

O'Brien Communications Group, LLC, is a business-to-business brand-management and marketing communication firm. OCG offers strategic consultation and planning services. OCG creates, packages, distributes, and measures the effectiveness of brands, messages, and marketing communication programs. OCG stands behind its work. For more information, please visit www.obriencg.com, e-mail info@obriencg.com, or call 860-944-9022.

About Beyontec

Beyontec, with US headquarters in Irving, Texas, is a privately held company that provides its workflow-driven, fully configurable software, the Beyontec Suite, to the property/casualty insurance industry. The fully configurable Beyontec Suite gives insurers the independence and self-sufficiency they want, letting them configure products, processes, and workflows to suit their needs and preferences. For more information, please visit www.beyontec.com, email sales@beyontec.com, or call 940-294-8080.

Media contact:

JoAnna Bennett

Partner, Account Management

O'Brien Communications Group

860-333-5009

Email Contact




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Portola Resources Inc. (the "Company" or "Portola") (TSX VENTURE: PZ) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a letter of intent ("LOI") to acquire all of the outstanding share capital of Lithium Energi Argentina, S.A. ("LEA"), Antofalla North, S.A. ("AN"), and Antofalla South, S.A. ("AS"), which combined hold a portfolio of projects comprising 128,367 hectares of lithium brine assets in the northern Argentina Province of Catamarca in the heart of the lithium triangle.

LEA is a privately-held, mineral exploration company, which holds mining rights to eight (8) concessions, representing 17,759 hectares in Catamarca, known as the "Laguna Caro Project". AN is a privately-held, mineral exploration company, which holds mining rights to thirteen (13) concessions, representing 41,496 hectares in Catamarca, known as the "Antofalla North Project". AS is a privately-held, mineral exploration company, which holds mining rights to eighteen (18) concessions, representing 69,112 hectares in Catamarca, known as the "Antofalla South Project". In consideration for all of the outstanding share capital of LEA, AN, and AS, the Company will issue 1,000,000, 8,450,000, and 11,550,000 common shares of the Company, respectively. In addition, the Company will assume the respective obligations of LEA, AN, and AS in respect of the Laguna Caro, Antofallo North, and Antofallo South Projects. In order to complete the acquisitions of the Laguna Caro, Antofallo North, and Antofalla South Projects, the Company will be required to complete cash payments of US$710,000, US$829,920, and US$1,382,240, respectively payable over a twelve (12) month period.

Closing of the acquisitions remains subject to a number of conditions, including due diligence, approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, and such other conditions as are customary in transactions of this nature.

With less than 10 kilometers between them, the Laguna Caro Project and Antofalla North and Antofalla South Projects together represent approximately 130,000 hectares located in the lithium-prolific, northern portion of the Province of Catamarca. FMC Corp.'s properties at Salar de Hombre Muerto, one of the world's largest, lithium extraction operations, are located less than 10 kilometers northeast of the Laguna Caro Project.

The Antofalla North and Antofallo South Projects are located in the northern and southern portions of the Salar de Antofalla, covering approximately 110,000 hectares. On September 12, 2016, Albermarle Corporation, a leader in the global, specialty chemicals industry, announced that it had entered into an agreement with Bolland Minera, S.A. for the exclusive exploration and acquisition rights to a lithium resource in the central portion of the Antofalla salar. In its news release, Albemarle Corporation stated its belief that this lithium resource will be certified as the largest lithium resource in Argentina.

About Portola Resources Inc.

Portola is a well-funded, junior exploration company having recently completed a $1.8 million financing (see November 1, 2016 news release). Portola announced on October 21, 2016 that it had terminated its previously announced change of business and was continuing as a Mining issuer. The Company is pursuing business opportunities in the resource sector.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The forward looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake and is not obligated to publicly update such forward looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless so required by applicable securities laws.

Contacts:

Chris Hobbs

CFO

Portola Resources Inc.

416-276-6689




SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- CFN Media Group ("CannabisFN"), the leading creative agency and digital media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces publication of an exclusive interview and story covering Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.'s (CSE: TBP) (OTC PINK: GRPOF) unique approach in using the natural cannabis plant, rather than synthetics, to develop pharmaceuticals based on the active ingredients in marijuana. The interview is with Ryan Brown, Tetra's Co-Founder and Vice President of Business Development.

Medical cannabis may be legal throughout Canada and nearly 30 U.S. states, but patients cannot always easily access the drug. The lack of clinical trials has left many physicians unwilling to prescribe the medicine, while insurance companies provide little to no coverage. Patients must pay hundreds of dollars per month out-of-pocket for access to the drug, which can be a prohibitive amount for many families - including those with the greatest need. This article takes a closer look at how Tetra Bio-Pharma could change these dynamics and make medical cannabis more affordable to everyone.

Taking a Unique Approach

Tetra Bio-Pharma is conducting clinical trials in Canada to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of cannabis in treating a range of conditions. The company is following all appropriate FDA guidelines to allow for approval in the United States. Unlike many of its competitors, the company is developing biopharmaceuticals incorporating the actual cannabis plant rather than making pharmaceuticals with synthetic compounds. This approach results in both a lower cost and a more sure-fire path to regulatory approval given the large body of existing data within the medical cannabis industry.

The company's PPP001 is an inhaled product that consists of medical marijuana and a titanium pipe that are linked by the labeling of each component. Once approved, the company hopes to sell the product in pharmacies as a blister pack where each blister contains marijuana with a standardized amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). The pipe would provide combustion and the inhaled smoke would be the delivery mechanism.

In November, the company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completed a review of its inhalation-based medical marijuana program. The agency confirmed that the product is a combination product and assigned it to the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) as the lead agency center for premarket review and regulation based on its determination of marijuana's primary mode of action.

Attractive Business Model

Tetra Bio-Pharma aims to seek reimbursement from insurance companies to make medical cannabis more affordable for patients. In addition, an approved product would be more widely accepted among physicians looking for solid clinical data to support their decisions. The combination of these factors could translate to a significantly larger market than what currently exists across both the United States and Canada.

The company's Canada-based operations provide another advantage over many other companies operating in the space. While the cost of FDA/DEA approved medical marijuana can be upwards of $100,000 per kilogram in the U.S., the company's agreement with a leading Canadian licensed producer means that it can acquire product at less than $3,000 per kilogram and readily access ancillary services like processing and packaging.

Tetra Bio-Pharma trades with a market capitalization of just C$22 million, which is a fraction of many other companies operating in the space. Investors looking for a unique approach to the market may want to check out the company as it proceeds with preclinical filings with the FDA and builds a path toward regulatory approval.

Follow the link to read the full article and see the interview: http://www.cannabisfn.com/tetra-bio-pharma-looks-to-make-cannabis-affordable/

Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/become-featured-company/

Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8

Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com

About CFN Media

CFN Media (CannabisFN), the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis, helps marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed.

CFN launched in June of 2013 to initially serve the growing universe of publicly traded marijuana companies across North America. Today, CFN Media is also the digital media choice for the emerging brands in the space.

About Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Tetra Bio-Pharma is a Canadian Bio Pharmaceutical company at the forefront of Cannabis based pharmaceutical development. The company recently received a research grant from the federal government and will be working with McGill University to develop both prescription and over the counter products. The first product, PPP001, will begin clinical trials in Q4 2016.

Disclaimer:

Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CFN Media and CannabisFN.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/.

CFN Media

Frank Lane

206-369-7050

flane@cannabisfn.com




Tortured into confession, convicted in a secretive trial: Ali Mohamad al-Nimr

Theresa May must urge Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to end child death sentences





The Prime Minister has been urged to use meetings today with Saudi and Kuwaiti leaders to call on both countries to end the use of the death penalty against children.





Ms May is guest of honour at the GCC Summit in Manama, Bahrain, and is due to meet today with the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emir of Kuwait.





International human rights organisation Reprieve has written to the Prime Minister, asking her to use the Summit to raise the cases of three prisoners sentenced to death as children in Saudi Arabia; and to call on Kuwait to reverse its recently-announced plans to lower the age at which people become eligible for a death sentence to 16.





Saudi Arabia has sentenced to death Abdullah al Zaher, Dawoud al Marhoon and Ali al Nimr for alleged involvement in protests in the kingdom, despite their being 15, 17 and 17 respectively at the time of their arrest. All three were tortured into confessions and convicted in secretive trials. They remain imprisoned under sentence of death and could be executed at any time, without even their families being informed beforehand. On 2nd January this year, several juveniles were among 47 people executed en masse in the Kingdom.





According to Gulf News , the Kuwaiti Government recently announced that, from 2017, the age of eligibility for the death penalty would be lowered to 16. The announcement was made by Bader Al Ghadhoori, the head of juvenile protection at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior, during a talk warning students about the use of social media and the internet.





Both Gulf States  as well as others such as Bahrain, which has a record of using the death penalty against political opponents  enjoy a close relationship with the British Government. Many have received support and training from the UK for their prison and police services, despite their use of the death penalty and torture to extract false confessions.





During 2016, Freedom of Information requests by Reprieve have revealed that:





British Police have trained their Saudi counterparts in investigation techniques that could lead to the arrest, torture and sentencing to death of protesters;

These projects have been undertaken without the safeguards that are supposed to be put in place under the Governments flagship guidance on the death penalty and torture overseas  known as the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) guidance;

An FCO project delivered by a Northern Irish government body has trained hundreds of Bahraini prison guards in the Kingdoms death row jail.





Despite existing concerns over the risk of British complicity in abuses, the Prime Minister announced this morning that the UK would enter into a new phase of security cooperation, saying that more than ever, Gulf security is our security.





Reprieves letter, sent on 17 November, asks that the Prime Minister use her attendance at this weeks summit to:





Urge the Saudi authorities to commute the death sentences of Ali al Nimr, Dawood al Marhoon, and Abdullah al Zaher, and those of any other juveniles facing the death penalty in the country;

Request that Kuwaits Government urgently call off its plans to lower to 16 the age at which individuals can receive the death penalty;

Call on the Bahraini Government to commute the death sentences handed to two tortured protestors, Mohammed Ramadan and Hussain Moosa, and to release them.





Commenting, Harriet McCulloch, deputy director of Reprieve's death penalty team, said:





Across the Gulf, repressive Governments are seeking to execute children and protestors on politically-motivated charges, often following torture and forced confessions. The UK says its supporting reform, but appalling abuses continue in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - and now Kuwait is threatening to sentence children to death. The Prime Minister must today make clear that new security ties will depend on an immediate halt to the use of the death penalty against children and protesters - and she must ensure any cooperation is subjected to rigorous and transparent human rights assessments. Otherwise, the UK risks becoming complicit in the use of the death penalty against children and protestors to crush dissent.





 The full text of the letter to the Prime Minister is available on Reprieves website





Source: Reprieve, December 6, 2016. Reprieve is an international human rights organization.





 | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com




SANTA CLARA, Calif., December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

CRO, Hassan Rashid, Named Among the Elite Leaders who Have Made Outstanding Contribution to the Housing Industry

Tavant Technologies, America's leading innovative mortgage technology provider, today announced that the company's Chief Revenue Officer, Hassan Rashid has been honored with the HousingWire Vanguard Award for 2016. The award is meant to acknowledge leaders who move markets forward.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150306/732869 )



Hassan Rashid is responsible for guiding and supporting Tavant Technologies' revenue strategy and growth. He has a successful track record of scaling winning businesses by focusing on customer success and aligning offerings based on changing market needs.

Tavant Technologies' rise and position as a thought leader in the mortgage landscape under the leadership of Rashid is notable. He steered the 2x2 (double the revenue in two years) strategy declared in FY2015 and led the exponential growth of the mortgage business for the company.

"The HW Vanguards continued to impress going into its second year; the winners are second-to-none and this list represents the finest cross section of mortgage talent available," said Jacob Gaffney, HousingWire editor-in-chief.

Rashid's inexplicable passion for innovation led to quite a few impactful solutions to the mortgage industry such as FinConnect and VELOX that disrupt the way mortgage industry functions. He encourages and incubates ideas within the company with initiatives such as Tavant Innovation Lab and Tavant Mortgage University.

"We have the experts and expertise - path-breaking solutions will be a natural outcome. However, as generations and technologies evolve, expectations increase. It is all about results and relationships," said Hassan Rashid, CRO, Tavant Technologies.

About HousingWire

HousingWire is the nation's most influential news source covering the U.S. housing economy, spanning residential mortgage lending, servicing, investments and real estate operations. The company's news, commentary, magazine content, industry directories, and events give more than one million industry professionals each year the insight they need to make better, more informed business decisions. Learn more at http://www.housingwire.com.

About Tavant Technologies

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Tavant Technologies is a specialized software solutions & services provider that provides impactful results to its customers across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Founded in 2000, the company employs over 2000 people and is a recognized top employer.

As a key solutions provider to the Mortgage industry, Tavant has demonstrated expertise in helping mortgage firms convert more leads, cut costs and retain borrowers. Find Tavant Technologies on LinkedIn and Twitter.

For further information please contact:

Vibhor Mishra

Tavant Technologies

+1-408-519-5400

vibhor.mishra@tavant.com


VIENNA, AUSTRIA--(Marketwired - December 06, 2016) - Today's press briefing at the IASLC 17 th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) focused on active prevention, with researchers sharing results of clinical drug trials that have shown reduction in risk of disease progression among lung cancer patients. Abstracts and full versions of news releases for each topic covered are available, including the complete article on the AURA3 Trial that is published in today's New England Journal of Medicine. Contact IASLC media representative Chris Martin at cmartin@davidjamesgroup.com for more information.

Please visit http://wclc2016.iaslc.org/live-stream/ to view a recording of the press briefing.

Results from the AURA3 trial show osimertinib reduces risk of disease progression by 70 percent in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Patients enrolled in the AURA3 trial who received osimertinib experienced a 70 percent reduction in progression-free disease compared to patients enrolled in a control group who only received chemotherapy. The results of the study were presented at the IASLC 17 th WCLC by Dr. Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulou, of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. To read the full news release, click here.

Chinese researchers demonstrate that icotinib creates better progression-free survival with fewer side effects than whole brain radiation in non-small cell lung cancer patients with brain metastases.

Patients whose lung cancer spreads to their brain typically have less than six months left to live, but research presented today suggests that using icotinib increases longevity in these patients compared to whole brain radiation and chemotherapy combined. The research was presented by Yi-long Wu, Guangdong Lung Cancer Institute, Guangdong General Hospital & Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, China. For the complete news release, click here.

Results from ASCEND-4 trial show patients receiving first-line ceritinib experienced a 45 percent risk reduction of disease progression compared to chemotherapy.

Patients who received first-line ceritinib experienced a 45 percent risk reduction for advanced (ALK+) and non-small cell lung cancer compared to a control group that received chemotherapy, according to research presented by Dr. Gilberto De Castro Jr. of the Instituto do Cancer do Estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil. For the full news release, click here.

New lung cancer tumor staging manual to shape lung cancer clinical treatment.

A revised tumor classification, based on more than 70,000 non-small cell lung cancer patients and 6,100 small cell lung cancer patients, is now available to lung cancer specialists around the world in the form of the 8 th Edition of the Tumor, Node, and Metastasis (TNM) Classification. The new edition is published by the Union for International Cancer Control, the American Joint Committee on Cancer, and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) in their respective staging manuals. According to Dr. Ramon Rami-Porta from Hospital Universitari Mutua Terrrassa, Terrassa, Spain, the new edition seeks to improve the classification of the anatomical extent of lung cancer. To read more about the new Staging Manual, click here.

In 1998, the IASLC established its Lung Cancer Staging Project, an effort to collect a significant, international database of lung cancer cases and their anatomical classifications. The IASLC collected and published a large amount of data regarding the size of tumors, lymph node involvement, and metastatic status which is then presented to the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) for evaluation. Before the IASLC Staging Project, data collected for staging of lung cancer came from a smaller group of patients, almost exclusively based in the U.S.

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/2016/12/6/11G124324/Images/Vassi_pic-c6f0f2af20e7b94386646baac7c884d9.JPG

Embedded Video Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wge7yA3n_1g

Contact:

Jenny Jaacks

Email contact


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Jill Stein's recount challenge in the deep-blue Pennsylvania city did not change the number of votes netted by the candidates, except Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who improved her tally by five votes, A Philadelphia blog reports. City Commissioner's Office recounted votes in 75 of Philadelphia's more than 1600 voting divisions in response to the recount appeal by more than 250 Philadelphia residents answering the call of Stein. Green Party's presidential candidate has demanded a recount in three battleground states where Donald Trump won - Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania - alleging hacking or fraud. The recount turned up no instances of fraud or hacking here, Billy Penn quoted City Commissioner Al Schmidt as saying Monday. Its difficult to hack voting machines that aren't connected to the internet, according to Schmidt. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Telsiai, Lithuania, 2016-12-06 16:00 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --By the decision of the Board of AB "ZEMAITIJOS PIENAS" (registered office Sedos str. 35, Telsiai, company code 180240752, hereinafter, the "Company"), dated 6 December 2016, the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the Company is being called on 29 December 2016.Meeting place - Public company "Telsiai district business incubator", meeting hall, address Sedos str. 34A, Telsiai.Meeting starts at 11:00 AM (registration of shareholders starts at 10:00 AM, registration place - Public company "Telsiai district business incubator", meeting hall, address Sedos str. 34A, Telsiai).Accounting day of the meeting - 21 December 2016 (only those persons have the right to participate and vote at the general meeting of shareholders, who will be the shareholders of the Company at the close of the accounting date of the general meeting of shareholders, or their authorized persons, or persons, with whom an agreement on transfer of voting right is concluded).Agenda of the meeting:1. On cancelation of execution of the decisions of the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company dated 26 August 2016. 2. On the purposes of acquisition of the shares owned by the Company (own shares) and change in the procedure for their sale 3. Cancellation of the members of the Supervisory Council. 4. Election of the members of the Supervisory Council. 5. Determination of the procedure for the allocation and payment of the Company's remuneration for activities of members of collegial bodies and approval of the main terms and conditions of the agreement with members of the collegial bodies and estimation of the remuneration budget.The Company does not provide a possibility to participate and vote at the meeting by electronic means of communication.Draft decisions regarding the meeting agenda issues (attached as Annex No. 1), documents, that are going to be presented to general meeting of shareholders and information, related to execution of shareholders rights are announced in accordance to the legislation.The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all the votes may propose additions to the agenda of the general meeting of shareholders by submitting with every proposed additional item of the agenda a draft resolution of the general meeting of shareholders or, when no resolution is required, an explanation. Proposals on addition to the agenda shall be submitted in writing or sent by e-mail. Written proposals shall be submitted to the Company on business days or sent by registered mail at the address of the registered office of the Company indicated in the notice. Proposals submitted by e-mail shall be sent to the e-mail info@zpienas.lt. The agenda shall be supplemented if the proposal is received no later than 14 days before the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders. If the agenda of the general meeting of shareholders is supplemented, the Company shall notify on the additions no later than 10 days before the meeting in the same ways as in the case of convocation of the meeting.The shareholders, who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all the votes, at any time before the general meeting of shareholders or during the meeting, may propose new draft resolutions on items which are or will be included in the agenda of the meeting. The proposals may be submitted in writing or sent by e-mail. Written proposals shall be submitted to the Company on business days or sent by registered mail at the address of the registered office of the Company indicated in the notice. Proposals submitted by e-mail shall be sent to the e-mail info@zpienas.lt.The shareholders shall have the right to submit to the Company in advance questions relating to the items on the agenda of the meeting. The shareholders may submit their written questions to the Company on business days or sent by registered mail at the address of the registered office of the Company indicated in the notice no later than 3 business days before the meeting. The Company will reply to the questions by e-mail or in writing before the meeting, except the questions which are related to the Company's commercial (industrial) secret, confidential information or which have been submitted later than 3 business days before the meeting.During the registration to attend the meeting, shareholders or their authorized persons shall provide an identity document. Persons authorized by shareholders shall provide a power of attorney, issued following the requirements of laws. Power of attorney granted by natural person must be approved by the notary public. Power of attorney issued in a foreign country must be translated into Lithuanian and legalized according to requirements of the laws. Authorized person can be authorized by more than one shareholder and vote differently according to each shareholders' orders.The Company does not establish a special form of power of attorney. A shareholder holding shares of the Company, acquired on its own name but on behalf of other persons, before voting at the general meeting of shareholders shall disclose to the Company final client's identity, the number of shares, which are used to vote and the content of voting instructions provided to him or any other explanation regarding participation and voting at the general meeting of shareholders agreed with the client. A shareholder may vote with the votes granted by the corresponding part of shares differently from the votes granted by other corresponding shares.Shareholder or his authorized person can vote in advance in writing by filling in the general voting bulletin (attached as Annex No. 2). Under the request of shareholder, the Company shall send the general voting bulletin by registered mail or deliver it personally upon signature no later than 10 days before the meeting. Filled general voting bulletin shall be signed by the shareholder or his authorized person and provide the documents supporting the power of attorney. If the general voting bulletin is signed by the shareholder's authorized person, the document confirming the right to vote shall be submitted along with it. Filled general voting bulletin along with supplement documents (if necessary) shall be submitted to the Company by sending registered mail to the address of the registered office of the Company, indicated hereby no later than until the meeting. Draft decisions of the general meeting of shareholders and other information were announced in accordance to the legislation.The shareholders of the Company may familiarise with the draft resolutions of the meeting and the form of the general ballot bulletin under the procedure prescribed by laws in the registered office of the Company at Sedos str. 35, Telsiai, or on the Company's website at http://www.zpienas.lt/. The following information and documents shall be provided on the abovementioned internet website of the Company:- the notification on convocation of the meeting;- total number of the Company's shares and the number of shares with voting rights on the convening day of the meeting.J.JarmontovicLawyer+370 444 22308Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=607376
Release no. 31/2016The Board of Directors for Columbus A/S has approved the following plan for publication of financial and management statements in 2017, as well as the date for the annual general meeting.Annual Report 2016 16 March 2017Interim Management Statement Q1 25 April 2017Annual General Meeting 25 April 2017Interim Report 24 August 2017Interim Management Statement Q3 2 November 2017After publication of financial statements the Company will conduct an investor presentation via a conference call. For details regarding the conference calls, please see the Company's website: http://ir.columbusglobal.com/events.cfmAnnual General MeetingColumbus A/S's annual general meeting will take place on Tuesday 25 April 2017 at Lautrupvang 6, 2750 Ballerup. The meeting will start at 10.00am.Any shareholder is entitled to have an item included on the annual general meeting agenda, provided that the request reaches the company no later than 15 March 2017.If the general meeting approves the Board of Directors' proposal for the payment of dividends, the dividends are expected to be available in the shareholders' cash accounts on Monday, 1 May 2017.Ib Kune Thomas Honore Chairman CEO & President Columbus A/S Columbus A/S For further information, please contact: CEO & PresidentThomas Honore, T: +45 70 20 50 00.Translation: In the event of any inconsistency between this document and the Danish language version, the Danish language version shall be the governing version.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=607388
BRUSSELS, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Businesses operating in Europe will be joining forces to become leading contributors to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 'Sustainable Business Exchange', launched today in Brussels at a conference hosted by CSR Europe in cooperation with Huawei, will help companies turn circular and inclusive approaches into sustainable economic growth.

Initiated by CSR Europe, the leading European Business Network for Corporate Social Responsibility, the campaign empowers companies to take action and adopt sustainable growth models. It fosters business engagement with communities, cities and regions, as well as with each other, with a view to contributing to the global sustainability agenda and making sustainability a driver for growth in Europe.

"Through CSR Europe's new programme, we aim to leverage the impact of over 10000 companies in our network in order to address common challenges, promote the adoption of transformative business models and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals," said CSR Europe's Executive Director Stefan Crets. "This cannot be done purely by the private sector, and so we will also engage stakeholders from civil society, governments and academia to increase this impact by working together. It is time for Europe to take action to address societal and sustainability issues, and we believe that the SDGs offer a common language in order to achieve this."

The UN's sustainability goals, announced last year together with the Paris Agreement, were at the heart of debates at the 2016 edition of the Sustainability & Innovation Conference Series where the 'Sustainable Business Exchange' was announced. Conference participants looked at how to effectively put these goals into practice. Global ICT leader Huawei, co-organiser of the conference, welcomed the initiative and stressed the importance of creating shared value to achieve the global goals. Technologies have significantly increased resource utilisation efficiency and will keep playing a meaningful role in driving forward the sustainable development agenda. Goals around education, health, sustainable cities and communities as well as climate change particularly resonate and the company is determined to play its part in achieving its ambitious objectives.

"To live up to our responsibility as a leading provider of ICT solutions, we have designed a sustainability management system that mainstreams CSR concerns into everything we do," underscored Alan Aicken, Vice-President of the Procurement Department and Chief Sustainability Officer of Global Supplier Sustainability at Huawei. "Geared towards achieving the global sustainability objectives spelled out by the UN, and relying on constant improvement, sharing expertise and working together with public and private partners, it dovetails with the approach of the new 'Sustainable Business Exchange'. We look forward to further stepping up our cooperation with European partners through this new framework."

In practice, companies can join the 'Sustainable Business Exchange' in two ways:

A learning network will help them embrace the circular economy, rethinking the value chain and fostering innovative partnerships and business models, as well as sustainable consumption and production.

will help them embrace the circular economy, rethinking the value chain and fostering innovative partnerships and business models, as well as sustainable consumption and production. An SDG Incubator will facilitate pilot projects between companies, civil society and governments, to drive business contribution to the SDGs and tackle common challenges.

At a European level, efforts to address the e-skills challenge are a top priority. Huawei has been acting to help close this gap together with European partner universities through its international training programme, Seeds for the Future. The company selects top students for a study trip to China to get exposure to the latest technologies and be immersed in a global work environment. In Europe, 27 countries are involved so far, and more than 700 young people have participated since the programme's European launch in 2011. By 2020, over 2500 European students will benefit from the programme.

Sustainable Business Exchange: find out more

About CSR Europe

CSR Europe is the leading European business network for Corporate Social Responsibility. Through its network of around50corporate membersand45National CSR organisations, it gathers over 10000 companies, and acts as a platform for those businesses looking to enhance sustainable growth and positively contribute to society. In its mission to bring the CSR agenda forward, CSR Europe goes beyond European borders and cooperates with CSR organisations in other regions across the world.

Further information is available at http://www.csreurope.org

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to build a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Huawei's 170000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population.

Huawei currently has over 10 000 staff based in Europe, of whom 1570 are working in R&D. We run 18 R&D organisations located in eight European countries (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the UK) and operate numerous joint innovation centres in partnership with telecom and ICT partners.

Further information is available at http://www.huawei.eu
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The EQT Infrastructure investment strategy ("EQT Infrastructure") has signed definitive transaction documentation to acquire Delta Comfort B.V. ("Delta Comfort" or "the Company") from Delta N.V., the municipality and province owned integrated utility company of the Dutch province of Zeeland. The purchase price amounts to EUR 488 million.

Delta Comfort is the leading telecom infrastructure owner and operator, provider of multimedia services (broadband, TV, telephony) and supplier of energy, serving over 140,000 households and businesses mainly in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Delta Comfort's hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network of over 6,000km passes 192,000 homes, which corresponds to ~90% of the total number of homes in Zeeland. Delta Comfort employs approximately 370 people and generated sales of EUR 214 million in 2015.

Going forward, the strategy is to further develop the Company's unique multi-utility approach, invest in its network to provide the most advanced solutions to residential and business clients and therefore strengthen its position as the preferred telecommunication infrastructure access provider in Zeeland. The growth of the Company will be supported by an industrial board of directors who will have significant telecom and energy expertise.

Harko Buringh, CEO of Delta Comfort, said: "We are excited to join EQT Infrastructure, one of the world's most respected infrastructure funds, with a strong heritage in the telecom sector. They have a growth focused strategy, a responsible and hands-on ownership approach and will provide us with access to an extensive network of industry specialists."

Matthias Fackler, Partner at EQT Partners and Investment Advisor to EQT Infrastructure, said: "We are impressed with Delta Comfort's superior network infrastructure, unique multi-utility product offering and leading position in Zeeland. We are very enthusiastic about the future of Delta Comfort and the opportunities the EQT industrial investment approach will bring to the Company's next development phase."

The transaction is subject to customary conditions, such as completion of a works council consultation procedure, approval of the shareholders of Delta N.V. and the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM). It is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017.

ING acted as sole financial advisor and Clifford Chance as legal advisor to EQT Infrastructure.

Contacts:

Matthias Fackler, Partner at EQT Partners, Investment Advisor to EQT Infrastructure, +49 89 2554 99520

Kerstin Danasten, EQT Press Officer, +46 8 506 55 334

About EQT

EQT is a leading alternative investments firm with approximately EUR 31 billion in raised capital across 21 funds. EQT Funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia and the US with total sales of more than EUR 15 billion and approximately 100,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership. EQT Funds current investments in the Netherlands include TransIP, Bureau van Dijk and 3D Hubs

More info: www.eqtpartners.com

About Delta Comfort

Delta Comfort offers multimedia and energy solutions to residential and business clients in the province of Zeeland. Delta Comfort owns and operates a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network of 3,400km of fiber and 3,000km of coaxial cables, which passes 192,000 households in the region. Delta Comfort employs approximately 370 people and generated sales of EUR 214 million in 2015. It is headquartered in Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, Netherlands.

More info: www.delta.nl/en/about-delta

CONTACT:

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/eqt-ab/r/eqt-infrastructure-to-acquire-delta-comfort,c2138658

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/15/17 -- Riverside Resources Inc. ("Riverside" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: RRI)(OTC PINK: RVSDF)(FRANKFURT: R99), is pleased to report on the progress of the partner-funded exploration program being conducted with Centerra Gold Inc. ("Centerra") at the Glor Gold Project (the "Project"), located approximately 8 km west of Alamos Gold's El Chanate Mine in Sonora, Mexico. Between August 2016 and the end of last year, a number of programs of geophysical and geochemical surveying were completed along with geological mapping. Expenditures on these exploration programs amounted to approximately US$400,000 and were entirely funded by Centerra as part of its earn-in requirements (see Riverside press release dated July 28, 2016). The results of the 2016 soil and rock sampling programs are very encouraging, having defined multiple gold targets in the north-eastern, central and western parts of the Glor property.

The 2016 exploration programs included geological mapping at a 1:5,000 scale, a 37.7 line- kilometre induced polarization survey and a 136 line-kilometre ground magnetics survey. In addition, 926 soil samples, 341 rock chip samples and 1,468 saw-cut channel samples were collected and analysed. Shallow trenches with a combined length of more than 1,200 metres were excavated with a small backhoe machine as part of the rock sampling program (34 of 430 channel-cut samples (8%) collected from shallow trenches returned gold assays greater than 0.150 g/t Au, with the highest value being 2.241 g/t Au). The geochemical anomalies for gold, arsenic and to lesser extent silver, lead and zinc that were outlined in the north-eastern sector of the property are particularly significant because they are broadly coincident with zones of anomalous geophysical responses detected by the induced polarization survey and with bedrock exposures of hydrothermally altered and sheared Mesozoic sedimentary rocks (see Riverside press release dated November 14, 2016). Geochemical results for gold are shown on the map figure at the bottom of this press release.

Highlighted Exploration Results:

-- 2200 metre by 900 metre Au-As soil anomaly defined in northeastern sector of the property where mapping has identified extensive area of strongly altered and foliated metasedimentary rocks -- Induced polarization chargeability anomalies that are broadly coincident with Au-As soil anomalies identified in northeastern and central sectors of the property. -- 52 of 341 rock chip samples (16%) show anomalous concentrations of gold, ranging from 0.152 up to 21.0 g/t Au; mineralized rocks typically display quartz-sericite-Fe oxide alteration -- Semi-continuous series of channel-cut samples gave unweighted average gold content of 0.606 g/t Au across 42 metres (individual 3 metre long samples returned assays ranging from a low of 0.09 g/t to a high of 2.442 g/t Au) -- Trench sampling results included of 9 metres @ 0.421 g/t Au; 27 metres @ 0.368 g/t Au; 12 metres @ 0.506 g/t Au

Riverside's President and CEO, John-Mark Staude, stated: "We continue to be encouraged by the results of the geochemical and geophysical surveys completed to date at the Glor Project, which show positive indications of an orogenic gold system. The quartz-sericite alteration, veining and deformation styles are similar to such features commonly seen at Sonoran orogenic gold deposits, including the nearby Chanate Gold Mine. We now look forward to further results from the current trenching and structural mapping program, with plans in place to drill in 2017."

To view the map associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/215rri_map.jpg

Figure Above: IP Chargeability Anomalies, Soils & Gold Geochemistry

Additional Exploration Work Now Underway:

Exploration has resumed at Glor and is focusing on the gold targets that were defined by the above-described work programs. Centerra will also be funding this year's field programs which will involve additional mechanical trenching, channel rock sampling and detailed geological mapping of rock alteration, structural features and lithologies deemed to be the preferred hosts of the gold mineralization found on the property. A heavy-duty excavator (Hyundai 220) is currently digging trenches to further test the Pitaya Target. A number of other zones of gold mineralization that were identified in 2016 will also be trenched and sampled this quarter. Trenches will generally be 50 to 100 metres in length and will be dug up to 3 metres into bedrock. Presently, the planned exploration program and budget for 2017 calls for two months of trenching and channel sampling. The goal of this work will be to clearly define high-potential gold targets for drilling which is expected to take place in the second half of the year. A drilling program will be planned after the results of the ongoing trenching have been received and evaluated.

Additional information about the Glor Project can be found at the Glor Project Page on Riverside's website.

Qualified Person and QA/QC:

The scientific and technical data contained in this news release pertaining to the Glor Project was reviewed and prepared under the supervision of Locke Goldsmith, P. Eng., P. Geo., a non-independent qualified person to Riverside Resources who is responsible for ensuring that the geologic information provided in this news release is accurate and acts as a "qualified person" under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Soil and rock samples are being taken to the Bureau Veritas Laboratories in Hermosillo, Mexico for fire assaying for gold and ICP analysis for 45 common and trace elements. A QA/QC program has been implemented as part of the rock sampling program at Glor, with 199 blank and standard samples being analysed along with the 1,809 rock samples that were collected from the field.

About Riverside Resources Inc.:

Riverside is a well-funded prospect generation team of focused, proactive gold discoverers. The Company currently has approximately $3,300,000 in the treasury and approximately 37,550,000 shares outstanding. The Company's model of growth through partnerships and exploration uses the prospect generation business approach to own resources, while partners share in de-risking projects on route to discovery. Riverside has additional properties available for option with more information available on the Company's website at www.rivres.com.

ON BEHALF OF RIVERSIDE RESOURCES INC.

Dr. John-Mark Staude, President & CEO

Certain statements in this press release may be considered forward-looking information. These statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology (e.g., "expect"," estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "plans"). Such information involves known and unknown risks -- including the availability of funds, the results of financing and exploration activities, the interpretation of exploration results and other geological data, or unanticipated costs and expenses and other risks identified by Riverside in its public securities filings that may cause actual events to differ materially from current expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

John-Mark Staude

President & CEO

Riverside Resources Inc.

(778) 327-6671

(778) 327-6675 (FAX)

info@rivres.com

www.rivres.com



Joness Lang

VP, Corporate Development

Riverside Resources Inc.

(778) 327-6671 or TF: (877) RIV-RES1

(778) 327-6675 (FAX)

jlang@rivres.com

www.rivres.com




RENO, NEVADA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- NuLegacy (TSX VENTURE: NUG)(OTCQX: NULGF) reports there are now three drill rigs operating on the Red Hill property.

The reverse circulation (RC) truck rig that arrived on April 25th has completed three deep holes into the recently discovered Avocado deposit (samples from these holes have been sent for preparation and assaying) and is now drilling two holes to test the new Deep Iceberg anomaly - http://nulegacygold.com/i/pdf/ppt/2017-04-21/0016.jpg - that lies beneath and between the North and Central zones of the Iceberg gold deposit. The truck rig will then circle back to drill further holes in each deposit as guided be the assay results from the first set of holes.

A second RC rig and a core rig have just arrived and will, over the next six to eight weeks as access conditions improve after the 'wet' winter, drill the first dozen of the 24 holes currently planned for the expansion of the Iceberg gold deposit's established exploration target(i).

Leach tests: NuLegacy reports that bottle roll leaching tests conducted by McClelland Laboratories, Inc., of Sparks, NV confirm the Iceberg gold deposit's oxide material has favorable leaching characteristics.

"We are extremely pleased with the high extraction percentages from these tests," comments Dr. Roger Steininger, NuLegacy's CGO, "The results are in line with expectations for typical oxidized Carlin-type gold deposits in Nevada."

In summary, oxidized gold bearing drill hole intervals were selected from throughout the Iceberg deposit, and submitted for bottle roll tests. The average extraction for all the oxidized samples was 79.3% with most of the gold extracted from each composite during the first six hours of the tests. Extractions ranging from 73.5% to 87.8% were reported for the oxidized material.

Fifteen drill hole composite samples were each subjected to 96-hour agitation (bottle roll tests) leaching in a dilute solution of sodium cyanide, after which the pregnant solution was analyzed for gold content and the percentage of gold extracted from each composite was calculated. McClelland Labs concluded that the material in the composite samples was "amenable to agitated cyanidation treatment". The details of these studies can be found at this link: http://nulegacygold.com/i/pdf/2017-05-10-iceberg-metallurgical-summary.pdf

About NuLegacy Gold Corporation: NuLegacy is a Nevada exploration company focused on discovering additional Carlin-style gold deposits on its premier district scale 98-sq. km (35 sq. mile) Red Hill Project in the prolific Cortez gold trend of Nevada.

To date NuLegacy has discovered the Iceberg(i) and the Avocado Carlin-style gold deposits and has identified four more highly prospective exploration targets to be drilled this year.

NuLegacy's Red Hill Project is located on trend and adjacent(ii) to three multi-million ounce Carlin-type gold deposits (the Pipeline, Cortez Hills and Goldrush deposits) that are amongst Barrick Gold's largest, lowest cost and politically safest gold mines(iii).

(i) An established exploration target of 90-110 million tonnes of 0.9 to 1.1 grams of gold per tonne. These figures are conceptual in nature and derived from a compilation of 149 historic and 34 NuLegacy drill holes. To date, there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource.(ii) The similarity and proximity of these deposits in the Cortez Trend is not necessarily indicative of the gold mineralization in NuLegacy's Red Hill Project.(iii) As extracted from Barrick's Q4-2013 and Q1-2014 reports.

On Behalf Of NuLegacy Gold Corporation

James E Anderson, Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Roger Steininger, NuLegacy's Chief Geoscience Officer is a Certified Professional Geologist (CPG 7417) and the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects responsible for preparing and reviewing the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to, actual results of exploration activities, environmental risks, future prices of gold, operating risks, accidents, labor issues, delays in obtaining governmental approvals and permits, availability of financing and other risks in the mining industry. There are no known resources or reserves in the Red Hill Project and the proposed exploration programs are exploratory searches for commercial bodies of ore. In addition, the presence of gold deposits on properties adjacent or near the Red Hill Project is not necessarily indicative of the gold mineralization on the Red Hill Project. All the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com including our annual management's discussion and analysis dated July 28, 2016 for the year ended March 31, 2016. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation.

Contacts:

NuLegacy Gold Corporation

James Anderson

CEO

604-639-3640

james@nuggold.com



NuLegacy Gold Corporation

Albert Matter

Chairman

604-639-3640

albert@nuggold.com



NuLegacy Gold Corporation

Roger Steininger

CGO

604-639-3640

roger@nuggold.com



NuLegacy Gold Corporation

Frank Lagiglia

ICM

604-639-3640

frank@nuggold.com

www.nulegacygold.com




Syarhey Vostrykau is the last known prisoner on death row in Belarus after the authorities executed the other remaining three prisoners on death row on 5 November.









Background:

The European Union says it has confirmed that Belarus carried out a total of 3 executions during the month of November -- raising the total number of executions in the former Soviet republic during 2016 to 4.



European foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on December 1 that the EU had confirmed reports by the rights group Amnesty International that death-row inmate Hyanadz Yakavitski had been executed by authorities in Belarus.



Mogherini did not specify when Yakavitski's execution took place. But Amnesty International said on November 30 that Yakavitski was put to death sometime after November 5.



The EU on November 30 said it had confirmed the execution in November of 2 other death row inmates who had been convicted on murder charges -- 28-year-old Ivan Kulesh and 31-year-old Syarhey Khymyaleuski.



A 4th prisoner, Syarhey Ivanou, was executed in Belarus on April 18.



The EU condemned all of the executions, saying the death penalty runs counter to Belarus's stated willingness to engage with the international community.



Amnesty International's campaigner on Belarus, Aisha Jung, says the "sudden and shameful purge" of death-row prisoners in Belarus is "additionally shameful" because executions there "are typically shrouded in secrecy and carried out at a moment's notice."



Amnesty International says the 3 executions in November were carried out with gunshots to the back of the head.



The nongovernmental human rights organization says it also is concerned about the fate of another man on death row in Belarus -- Syarhey Vostrykau. ( Syarhey Vostrykau is at imminent risk of execution.The European Union says it has confirmed that Belarus carried out a total of 3 executions during the month of November -- raising the total number of executions in the former Soviet republic during 2016 to 4.European foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on December 1 that the EU had confirmed reports by the rights group Amnesty International that death-row inmate Hyanadz Yakavitski had been executed by authorities in Belarus.Mogherini did not specify when Yakavitski's execution took place. But Amnesty International said on November 30 that Yakavitski was put to death sometime after November 5.The EU on November 30 said it had confirmed the execution in November of 2 other death row inmates who had been convicted on murder charges -- 28-year-old Ivan Kulesh and 31-year-old Syarhey Khymyaleuski.A 4th prisoner, Syarhey Ivanou, was executed in Belarus on April 18.The EU condemned all of the executions, saying the death penalty runs counter to Belarus's stated willingness to engage with the international community.Amnesty International's campaigner on Belarus, Aisha Jung, says the "sudden and shameful purge" of death-row prisoners in Belarus is "additionally shameful" because executions there "are typically shrouded in secrecy and carried out at a moment's notice."Amnesty International says the 3 executions in November were carried out with gunshots to the back of the head.The nongovernmental human rights organization says it also is concerned about the fate of another man on death row in Belarus -- Syarhey Vostrykau. ( Read more





Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:





* Urging President Lukashenka to halt the execution of Syarhey Vostrykau and immediately commute his death sentence;





* Calling on President Lukashenka to establish an immediate moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty;





* Stress that whilst we are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of the crime, research shows that the death penalty does not deter crime more than other forms of imprisonment and is the ultimate denial of human rights.



Contact these 2 officials by 16 January, 2017:





President

Alyaksandr Lukashenka

Vul. Karla Marksa 38

220016 Minsk, Belarus

Fax: +375 17 226 06 10

+375 17 222 38 72

Salutation: Dear President Lukashenka





Charge d'Affaires Mr. Pavel Shidlovsky

Embassy of Belarus

1619 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington DC 20009

Fax: 1 202 986 1805 // Phone: 1 202 986 9420

Salutation: Dear Ambassador





Source: Amnesty International USA, December 5, 2012

 | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL -- (Marketwired) -- 03/23/17 -- Not only is Fulcrum Partners LLC celebrating a decade of service as a leading U.S. executive benefits advisory, this year the company's California office is expanding to a second location in a move the firm has branded as a "Back to the Beach" initiative.

With nationwide offices, from Washington, D.C. to Honolulu, HI., Fulcrum Partners has experienced extensive growth since its founding in 2004. Now recognized as one of the nation's leading and largest providers of executive benefits consulting services, the company's aggressive growth continues as Fulcrum Partners Los Angeles expands with new offices in Newport Beach, California.

Managing Directors Phil Currie, Jr., and Paul Murray and Financial Consultant Adam Monson view the change as a unique conduit for both professional and personal growth.

Fulcrum Partners Managing Director Phil Currie, Jr., originally opened the company's Los Angeles office, but never lost his desire to return to life at Newport Beach. Phil said, "At Fulcrum Partners, we are continually assessing how we can deliver better service to our clients. For our deferred compensation consultants in the Los Angeles office, launching Fulcrum Partners Newport Beach has changed the way we operate, energized our creativity and positioned us to take a fresh look at opportunities in integrated executive compensation and institutional benefits financing."

Managing Director Paul Murray observed, "A change in venue often brings a change in perspective. California is a rich and diverse economic climate, from agriculture to energy to technology. We couldn't be more excited about our move "Back to the Beach," and our expanded accessibility for our west coast clients. Our clients and vendor partners are clearly enthusiastic about it too."

Headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach (Jacksonville), Florida, the company now has thirteen offices coast-to-coast. As part of a year-long anniversary celebration, Fulcrum Partners is marking the milestone with a commemorative 10-year logo and is honoring each of its nationwide offices.

To learn more about the executive benefits services provided by Fulcrum Partners Los Angeles and Newport Beach, contact 213.438.6382. Find out more about the Fulcrum Partners executive benefits advisory team at http://www.fulcrumpartnersllc.com/team/.

About Fulcrum Partners LLC:

Securities offered through Registered Representatives of ValMark Securities, Inc. Member FINRA, SIPC, 130 Springside Drive, Suite 300, Akron, OH 44333-2431, 1-800-765-5201. Investment Advisory Services offered through ValMark Advisers, Inc., which is a SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Fulcrum Partners LLC is a separate entity from ValMark Securities, Inc. and ValMark Advisers, Inc.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3122199



CONTACT:

Bruce Brownell

904.296.2563

press@fulcrumpartnersllc.com




WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - December 06, 2016) - During a historic visit to Nigeria that began late last week, Morocco's King Mohammed VI presided over the signing ceremony of an ambitious agreement to construct a transcontinental gas pipeline. At completion, the pipeline will bring Nigeria's energy resources through West Africa to Morocco; and eventually to European markets with Morocco serving as a gateway.

Speaking at the ceremony, Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama said that one objective of the pipeline is the acceleration of "electrification projects across the region, thereby serving as a backbone for the creation of a competitive regional electricity market with the potential to be connected to the European energy market."

Ithmar Capital, Morocco's sovereign wealth fund and co-partner in the venture with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, said in a release, "The new collaboration between Morocco and Nigeria is intended to set a model for South-South cooperation and act as a catalyst for African economic opportunities. It aligns with His Majesty, King Mohammed VI's regional strategy, in which he has declared that Africa is the top priority in Morocco's foreign policy and that the Kingdom will contribute to economic, social services and human development projects that directly improve the lives of people in the region. This includes on projects related to the energy sector, and notably sustainable and green projects."

The pipeline is one element of the Strategic Partnership Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries, agreements that "will see [Morocco and Nigeria] cooperate on bilateral investment for the first time in recent history," according to Ithmar Capital. The agreements also encourage joint investments in food security, renewable energy, natural resource management, and agribusiness and fertilizer production.

The agreements and visit symbolize a new chapter in Nigerian-Moroccan relations, and follow recent visits to Rwanda, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Ethiopia in a continued signal of King Mohammed VI's commitment to strengthening Morocco's African diplomacy.

The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) is a non-profit organization whose principal mission is to inform opinion makers, government officials, and interested publics in the United States about political and social developments in Morocco and the role being played by the Kingdom of Morocco in broader strategic developments in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

This material is distributed by the Moroccan American Center for Policy on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/12/6/11G124336/Images/Nigeria_8-70e95f80da6a90348830c3d4c4a0ba15.jpg

CONTACT:

Jordana Merran

202.470.2049

jmerran@moroccanamericancenter.com




MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by remotely locking him inside the stolen BMW 550i with the help of the automaker.



The Seattle Police Department said in its blog that the incident took place in Seattle in November. The 38-year-old car thief became trapped inside the car after the door locks were remotely activated by BMW employees, who was contacted by the police.



According to the police, the thief was prowling around cars with some friends when he spotted an unlocked BMW 550i in a parking garage. He discovered that a set of keys were mistakenly left in the vehicle, hopped in the driver's seat and sped off.



The BMW's owner had got married a day earlier and loaned the car to a friend, who mistakenly left a key fob inside. After the car's owner discovered her car was missing in the early hours of the morning, she called the police who then contacted BMW's head office.



BMW then tracked the vehicle and after police located the car parked in an alley, they found the thief fast asleep inside the car, with the engine still running. BMW employees were able to remotely lock the car's doors, trapping the suspect inside.



Officers roused the suspect, who tried to drive away, but was unsuccessful. Police arrested the man and found that he was carrying a small amount of methamphetamine. He was booked into the King County Jail for auto theft and drug possession.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSX VENTURE: WHN) is pleased to report drill results from its 10,871 hectare Prospect Valley gold property, located on the Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB) approximately 25 kilometres to the west of Merritt, B.C. The drill program consisted of 1,508 metres over 8 holes, highlighted by:

-- PV16-04 intersected 0.70 g/t Au (Gold) and 5.71 g/t Ag (Silver) over 95.8 metres starting at bedrock surface including, -- 1.36 g/t Au and 10.43 g/t Ag over 38 metres and -- 2.23 g/t Au and 15.18 g/t Ag over 15 metres.

"Westhaven had a very productive field season in its first year working on Prospect Valley. The recently completed drill program intersected significant near surface gold mineralization and the prospecting and mapping programs found multiple high grade gold grab samples, expanding the area of immediate focus in all directions. These recent findings have reinforced management's belief in the Property's potential to host significant gold mineralization. Planning is already underway for what should be a very busy 2017." stated Gren Thomas, President and CEO.

The limited drill program focused on two areas. In the Discovery South Zone drilling targeted the western down dip extension of previously drilled near surface gold mineralization. In the Southeast Extension drilling targeted coincident gold-in-soil geochemical and shallow IP chargeability anomalies as well as a deep, stronger IP chargeability anomaly that extends north-south over a strike length of 900 metres.

Discovery South Zone

Holes PV16-01 to PV16-03 tested the western extension of gold mineralization in the Discovery South zone. PV16-02 intersected 0.57 g/t Au and 7.81 g/t Ag over 4 metres. PV16-01 intersected 1.07 g/t Au and 4.2 g/t Ag over 2 metres. PV16-03 intersected 0.37 g/t Au over 6 metres. Hole PV16-04, drilled to test the continuity of higher grade mineralization, intersected 0.70 g/t Au and 5.71 g/t Ag over 95.8 metres starting at bedrock, including 1.36 g/t Au and 10.43 g/t Ag over 38 metres and 2.23 g/t Au and 15.18 g/t Ag over 15 metres.

Southeast Extension

The Southeast Extension is the southward continuation of the mineralized Discovery Trend, laterally offset to the east by a series of cross-faults. Drilling, surface mapping and prospecting encountered altered (silica, sericite, pyrite, secondary potassium feldspar) volcanics, locally veined by quartz/chalcedony. The intense nature of bleaching and alteration at shallower depths, coupled with prominent mercury and antimony anomalies indicates the upper portions of a well-developed and potentially gold-bearing hydrothermal system. Quartz float discovered along the western flank of Southeast Extension, assaying 9.49 g/t Au, indicates a proximal source to gold mineralization here. Additional mapping and prospecting will be performed here to help outline additional mineralization.

Holes PV16-05 to PV16-08 were collared in the Southeast Extension. Although no significant gold assays were returned, gold pathfinder elements including As (arsenic), Sb (antimony), Hg (mercury) and Mo (molybdenum) were highly anomalous in numerous intersections, including 7.84 g/t Ag, 983 ppm As, 99 ppm Sb and 144 ppm Hg. These pathfinder elements are important vectors to gold mineralization at Prospect Valley. The deep chargeability anomaly was found to be due to an intense silica, potassium, and sericite alteration zone bounding large (up to 1 metre wide) cherty veins containing up to 50% sulphides composed mainly of pyrite and containing highly anomalous pathfinder elements. Please see below for a map of drill hole locations and mineralized zones or visit: http://westhavenventures.com/projects/prospect-valley-gold/details/

Upcoming Plans

Planning has already begun for what will be an active 2017 at Prospect Valley. There are numerous gold-in-soil anomalies that have never been drill tested. Several other target areas delineated by anomalous results from prospecting, magnetic and/or stream sediment surveys remain to be evaluated.

Work is planned farther north along the Discovery Trend, where significant gold values were returned this season from surface sampling (up to 21 g/t Au from Discovery North, up to 7 g/t Au from Ridge). A second parallel structure (Northeast Zone) has been recognized, en-echelon to the Discovery Trend, which continues northeast for 2 kilometres. The Northeast Zone is known to host gold mineralization based on surface sampling of quartz veining (to 4.5 g/t Au), but has seen very little exploration over its 2-kilometre strike length. Gold-in-soil geochemical anomalies (to 450 ppb Au) coincide with the surface trace of this structure, adding to its potential.

The Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB)

Westhaven owns a 100% interest in over 29,000 hectares within the prospective SBGB, which is situated within a geological and structural setting similar to other significant epithermal gold-silver systems. It is close to existing transportation and infrastructure allowing for cost-effective exploration. The SBGB is a 110-kilometre northwest-trending belt of intermediate to felsic volcanic rocks dominated by the Cretaceous Spences Bridge group. Westhaven has been working on the SBGB since 2011 and believes these relatively underexplored volcanic rocks are highly prospective for epithermal style gold mineralization.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

WESTHAVEN VENTURES INC.

Gareth Thomas, Director

About Westhaven Ventures Inc.

Westhaven Ventures Inc. is a Canadian based exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of prospective resource properties. Westhaven is focused on advancing its Shovelnose and Prospect Valley gold projects in British Columbia. Westhaven trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol WHN. For further information, please call 604-681-5558 or visit Westhaven's website at www.westhavenventures.com

Qualified Person Statement

L. John Peters, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person within the context of National Instrument 43-101 has read and takes responsibility for this release.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the drill hole location map, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1079087e.pdf

Contacts:

Westhaven Ventures Inc.

604-681-5558

www.westhavenventures.com




CUPERTINO (dpa-AFX) - Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook is actually pleased with 'off the charts' sales growth of Apple Watch. Cook told Reuters that sales of the Apple Watch to consumers set a record during the first week of holiday shopping, while the current quarter sales is on track to be the best ever for the device. Cook comments were on response to Reuters query about the device's sell-through - a measure of how many units are sold to consumers. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant statement follows a Monday's report from research firm IDC that reported Apple sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71 percent from the year-ago quarter. 'Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year,' Cook wrote. 'Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the product's history. And as we expected, we're on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch,' he said. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the global hearing aids marketis expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 5% during the forecast period.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005081/en/

Technavio publishes a new market research report on the global hearing aids market from 2016-2020. (Graphic: Business Wire)

This research report titled 'Global Hearing Aids Market 2016-2020' provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all geographical regions.

Hearing loss refers to the inability to hear any frequency greater than 25 dB in adults and a frequency greater than 15 dB in children. Hearing impairment is the one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. About one-third of the people over the age of 65 years suffers from hearing related problems. Hearing and hearing related problems can be treated with the use of hearing aids or hearing implants.

The main factors resulting in hearing problems are genetics, noise, trauma, aging, and viral or bacterial infections. These factors have resulted in rising incidences of hearing loss. Health surveys have reported that more than 10% of the European population suffers from hearing impairment. Developing nations, such as India and China, have recorded higher incidence cases for hearing loss. There is an increasing number of the young adult population with hearing problems due to high exposure to loud noises. All these factors create a huge potential for the hearing aids market.

Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=54788

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Based on end-user, the report categorizes the global hearing aids market into the following segments:

Hospitals

Clinics

Individuals

Hospitals

"Hospitals have teams of specialized audiologists who examine the individuals with hearing disabilities before prescribing them with hearing aids. Many hospitals around the globe have strategic partnerships with hearing aid clinics and institutions to better diagnose and prescribe aids and implants," says Srinivas Shashi, one of the lead market analysts at Technavio for medical devicesresearch.

Hospitals providing hearing aid services are the key end-users that mainly drive the market for hearing aid devices. Both public and private sector hospitals are involved in providing devices like cochlear implants to the patients. Hospitals with ear, nose, and throat (ENT) departments have been engaged in providing these services. The patient pool is dependent on the hospitals for most of the hearing aid services as some of these hospitals funded by government organizations. The funding can be utilized by these hospitals to provide subsidies on procedure cost or device procurement cost, which will encourage more people to come forward.

Clinics

Many patients prefer the comfortable ambience of clinics to the sterilized, impersonal hospital ambience. Clinics provide independent services to patients in a more personal setting. In many countries, clinics have working collaborations with insurance companies much like hospitals to provide medical coverage for hearing aids and implant costs. The high procedure cost and inadequate reimbursement policies have been creating a bottleneck for this particular end-user segment. Despite this, there have been an increasing number of investments from both domestic and foreign players to improve facilities in private clinics. Hearing clinics include specialized hearing aid centers in the Americas. In APAC, there are language, speech, and therapy centers.

Individuals

"Hearing aid devices can directly be sold to individuals through health insurance providers and clinics in cases where there is no requirement of surgery for the implantation of device. The number of patient visits to physicians' offices against hospitals is steadily increasing. This has led prominent and established hospitals to implement business models that involve collaboration with physicians' offices," says Srinivas.

These business models usually involve converting the physician's clinic into a hospital-based provider. Hospitals receive less reimbursement compared with physicians' offices. The conversion of physicians' offices into out-patient departments for hospitals as a part of their out-patient ambulatory, with a similar payment classification structure has increased the bill amount for technical fees.

The top vendors highlighted by Technavio's research analysts in this report are:

William Demant

Sonova

Cochlear

MED-EL

Browse Related Reports:

Global Bone Anchored Hearing Aids Market 2016-2020

Global Intelligent Hearing Protection Devices Market 2016-2020

Global Gastrointestinal Stents Market 2016-2020

Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005081/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com
DUBLIN, Dec 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Industrial Wax Market - Global Forecast to 2026" report to their offering.

The industrial wax market is projected to reach USD 10.07 billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 4.5% from 2016 to 2021 and USD 12.84 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 4.7% from 2016 to 2026. With the better stabilization of global oil prices by 2020-2021, advances in synthetic wax manufacturing and the increased use of wax in corrugated packaging, it is estimated that industrial wax would depict slightly higher growth rates in the long term forecast.



Industrial wax performs better in candles, packaging and coatings & polishing applications than its substitutes, as it has good viscosity, moisture control, and lubrication properties. This has increased the demand for industrial wax for the candle, packaging and coating & polishing applications. The shrinking supply of paraffin wax, increasing prices of synthetic and bio-based wax, are the major restraints in the global industrial wax market.



The Asia-pacific region is estimated to be the largest and the fastest-growing market for industrial wax. The high growth rate in the region is due to the high demand from countries such as China, Japan and India. China is estimated to be the largest market for industrial wax in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Japan and India. India is estimated to be the fastest-growing market in the Asia-Pacific region. Growth in the candle making, packaging and coating & polishing industries has increased the demand for industrial wax in the region.



Companies Mentioned:



Sinopec Limited

Royal Dutch Shell Plc

Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras)

Exxon Mobil Corp.

Sasol Limited

OJSC Lukoil

Numaligarh Refinery Limited

HCl WAX

The Blayson Group Ltd

International Group Inc.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Introduction



2 Research Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Premium Insights



5 Market Overview



6 Industry Trends



7 Industrial Wax Market, By Type



8 Industrial Wax Market, By Application



9 Industrial Wax Market, By Region



10 Competitive Landscape



11 Company Profiles



12 Appendix



For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3k9sql/industrial_wax

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
SCOTTSDALE, AZ -- (Marketwired) -- 12/07/16 -- Recognizing that lotteries across the United States are confronting a variety of serious challenges, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) will host a national panel of leading lottery experts at its Winter Meeting, which takes place January 6-8, 2017, at Hotel Valley Ho here.

"Many states depend on lotteries to fund essential programs, and legislators need to understand the issues, concerns and opportunities that lottery experts are grappling with," said Ohio Senator William Coley, who chairs the Lottery Committee for NCLGS. "Fortunately, we have an extraordinary panel of experts who can provide that guidance."

Panel members who will address the committee on January 6 are:

Dennis Berg, Executive Director, Ohio Lottery

Andrew Crowe, Vice President of Emerging Markets, Vantiv

M. Scott Bowen, Commissioner, Michigan Lottery

Kurt Freedlund, former Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel for Georgia Lottery

Tom Nieman, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, JCM Global

Paul Sternburg, Senior Lottery Associate, Spectrum Gaming Group, former Executive Director of Massachusetts Lottery

NCLGS Winter Meeting registration is open to all legislators and the general public. Click here to register. Registered attendees receive a discounted conference rate at the host hotel.

The conference includes presentations from industry experts in responsible gaming, pari-mutuels, lotteries, casinos, and state-federal relations, which covers both Internet and tribal gaming issues. The International Masters of Gaming Law is also leading sessions that address the emergence of eSports, tribal legal issues, and the role of regulators.

The NCLGS Foundation, the educational and research arm of NCLGS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, strives to educate lawmakers through scholarships to NCLGS meetings and is a source of nonpartisan data on issues of gaming legislation and regulation.

Spectrum Gaming Group serves as Executive Director for NCLGS. For more information, email info@nclgs.org or visit NCLGS.org
COFCO International ("COFCO") announced today that COFCO has completed the acquisition of the remaining shares in Nidera on 28 February. Dierk Overheu, Nidera CEO, announced his retirement effective upon the closing. The company thanks Dierk for his commitment and effort since joining Nidera in May 2016.

COFCO is happy to announce that Johnny Chi has been appointed as the new CEO of Nidera effective immediately. As CEO of COFCO International (CIL), Cofco Agri (CAL) and Nidera, Mr. Chi will lead the teams towards the accelerated integration of Nidera and CAL into CIL.

ABOUT COFCO INTERNATIONAL LTD.

Meeting Tomorrow's Demand

A multi-flag, global agri-business with a six-continent supply chain, COFCO International is positioned for sustainable growth. Our upstream origination and trading operations are linked to the downstream processing and distribution capabilities of COFCO and its affiliates in China-creating a fully integrated value chain.

With logistics and processing assets located at key global trade flows, and more than 13,000 employees in 35 countries, COFCO International delivered more than 100 million tons of products globally in 2016 with revenues in excess of $35 billion.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170228005653/en/

Contacts:

COFCO Agri Ltd.

Marcus Seelbach, +41 21 331 0890

press@COFCOinternational.com
Innovative technology enables accurate performance reporting for influencer marketing programs by surfacing engagement data across an influencer's entire content footprint and benchmarking brand initiatives.



SAN FRANCISCO, May 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Traackr, the enterprise influencer relationship management software provider, today unveils I3, its powerful integrated influencer intelligence technology that enables brands to quantify the value of influencer relationships on their business, and benchmark their influencer programs in the marketplace.



Photos accompanying this announcement are available at



http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4f8c06cd-8fb7-4fb8-9b73-3a021 9c18b7e



http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a9c96884-60ee-4acc-ae98-fffbb f04350a



http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dd5cb465-28d3-46be-a5fa-e66b5 89b4c78



http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a9b0b572-3da8-4b5b-8f7d-d7a25 bdb1326



Traditionally marketers have been severely limited in their ability to correlate influencer activity with strategic objectives. Traackr's I3 works by aggregating vast amounts of influencer content across all major platforms and layering rich engagement data over influencer activity showing how an influencer's audience interacts with their content.



"Our mission is to enable deeper relationships between brands and influencers," says Pierre-Loic Assayag, CEO, Traackr. "With the introduction of I3, our customers can now quantify the value of such relationships and make intelligent, data-driven decisions on where to allocate more resources."



In the past, marketers have relied on metrics like influencer audience size to determine the value of relationships, which often leads to false positives. This means brands may partner with influencers who have broad reach, but fail to inspire their audience to take action. Traackr's new analytics module, powered by I3, reveals the actual results an influencer generates with all of their content, no matter if it is sponsored by the brand or organically produced.



"We rely on the voice of our influencers to bring Travelocity's mission to life and relate to our customers," says Laura Cleary, Senior Social Media Manager, Travelocity. "Traackr's influencer intelligence is game changing because we can now show the business value of an influencer by understanding how an influencer's audience responds to their travel-related content."



Traackr's new analytics allow marketers to benchmark their brand in the marketplace and define a baseline to measure progress. It's easy to see which strategies, platforms, content and influencers yield better results when talking about different brands, or topics.



With these insights so easily accessible, influencer marketers are empowered to:



-- Decide which types of content and platforms are worth their time and investment by analyzing influencer engagement across all channels -- Understand who competitors are working with and how their influencer activations are performing -- Compare the impact of paid versus organic influencer mentions and derive contextual insights for future influencer activations



The new analytics, powered by I3, are live for all Traackr customers today and are available to enterprises as part of Traackr's Professional Package. To learn more, visit www.traackr.com.



About Traackr Traackr builds IRM technology that enables brands to effectively manage, measure and scale influencer strategies, while maintaining authenticity. This gives CMOs and their teams the ability to align influencers along the customer journey, impacting buying decisions at each moment-of-truth with trustworthy touch points. Traackr's SaaS platform powers leading influencer programs for B2B and B2C global enterprises such as L'Oreal, The Coca Cola Company, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel, SAP, Orange, USAA, Merck, Roche and Capital One. Traackr is an international company with offices in San Francisco, Boston, New York, Paris and London, conducting business in 11 languages and customers in 38 countries.



Press Contact Julie Skinner Rare Consultancy julie@rareconsultancy.com julie@traackr.com +44 7950 899130

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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.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Department of Justice Canada

The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, has issued the following statement:

"On this day 27 years ago, 14 young female engineering students were murdered at l'Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. Many of us can remember exactly where we were when we heard the horrible news that these young students had been killed and that they were targeted because they were women. As a way of commemorating these women, in 1991, December 6 was established as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women in Canada. It has become a day to not only commemorate the tragic loss of these 14 lives, but to bring necessary national attention to the need to end violence against all women and girls.

"Today, we remember the lives that were tragically lost that day, those whom we have lost since, and those who continue to endure violence in their day to day lives. In 2016, Indigenous women and girls face the highest levels of violence of any women in this country. This is unacceptable. Almost a year ago, our Government began the process of designing an Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; today is our opportunity as Canadians to reflect on the importance of this national inquiry and how gender-based violence affects all of us.

"While much has changed since that day in 1989, there is still much to be done. It is our collective responsibility as Canadians to continue pushing ahead, and I encourage everyone to join the conversation online using the hashtag ActionsMatter to talk about how we can eliminate gender-based violence in all of our communities."

Contacts:

Valerie Gervais

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Justice

613-992-4621



Media Relations

Department of Justice Canada

613-957-4207

media@justice.gc.ca




Ongoing second phase IIa treatment interruption study (ABX464-004) now expected to deliver top-line results in April 2017

New clinical trial, ABX464-005, studying the effect of ABX464 on the HIV reservoir submitted for regulatory authorization

New pre-clinical data suggest strong anti-inflammatory activity of ABX464: Proof-of-concept clinical study in Inflammatory Bowel Disease planned for 2017

Regulatory News:

ABIVAX (Paris:ABVX) (Euronext Paris: FR0012333284 ABVX), an innovative biotechnology company targeting the immune system to eliminate viral disease, today provides a clinical update on the clinical development program for ABX464, ABIVAX's first-in-class drug candidate for achieving a functional cure in patients with HIV/AIDS.

Given the current pace of recruitment, which is slower than expected, ABIVAX anticipates to communicate the top-line results of the ongoing Phase IIa study (ABX464-004) in April 2017, which translates into a delay of four months compared with the initial estimate. This phase IIa clinical trial is currently enrolling patients in Spain, Belgium and France. One of the co-primary endpoints of the study is the long-lasting effect of ABX464 in maintaining a low viral load in the blood of infected patients, which were treated with an established antiretroviral therapy and ABX464 or placebo.

On top of the ongoing ABX464-004 Phase IIa study, ABIVAX recently requested regulatory and ethics committee approval for a new study, which is a compartmental pharmacokinetics (PK) clinical study (ABX464-005). In this study, HIV infected patients will receive ABX464 for 28 days in addition to their antiretroviral treatment. Rectal biopsies will be collected at different intervals, allowing the effect of ABX464 on the reservoir of HIV (which primarily resides in the gut) to be examined. This study, which will be conducted at the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital Badalona (Barcelona, Spain) will quantify the viral load and level of inflammation in the reservoir over time and, therefore, will provide a better understanding of the long-term efficacy observed in pre-clinical models with ABX464. Following receipt of the appropriate regulatory approvals, ABIVAX expects to initiate this study in the first half of 2017.

"This new clinical study is important for our understanding of the effect of ABX464 on the HIV reservoir, which is the source of viral rebound following the conclusion of anti-retroviral treatment," said Dr. Jean-Marc Steens, Chief Medical Officer of ABIVAX. "The successful development of a functional cure for HIV will benefit from demonstrating the prevention of viral replication originating from the HIV reservoir.

Finally, new preclinical data generated with ABX464 demonstrate a strong anti-inflammatory effect of the compound. In macrophages, this effect was shown to be mediated by a 50-fold increase of the expression of IL-22, a cytokine known as a potent suppressor of inflammatory processes. Inflammation is a cornerstone of the pathologies observed, not only in HIV, but also in a number of other diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease). When evaluated in a mouse model of IBD, ABX464 demonstrated a long-lasting effect in preventing the typical symptoms of inflammatory colitis, including histological changes. Based on these encouraging results, the company intends to launch a proof of concept clinical study in patients with IBD in 2017.

"These new data on the long-lasting anti-inflammatory effect of ABX464 are very promising, as they indicate the potential of our lead development compound to modulate important disease parameters in both HIV and IBD. We look forward to endeavoring to replicate these results in clinical trials," said Prof. Dr. Hartmut Ehrlich, CEO of ABIVAX.

About ABIVAX (www.abivax.com)

ABIVAX is an innovative biotechnology company focused on targeting the immune system to eliminate viral disease. ABIVAX leverages three technology platforms for drug discovery: an anti-viral, an immune enhancement, and a polyclonal antibody platform. ABX464, its most advanced compound, is currently in Phase II clinical trials and is a first-in-class oral small anti-viral molecule which blocks HIV replication through a unique mechanism of action. In addition, ABIVAX is advancing multiple preclinical candidates against additional viral targets (i.e. Chikungunya, Ebola, Dengue) as well as an immune enhancer, and several of these compounds are planned to enter clinical development within the next 18 months. Abivax is listed on Euronext compartment B (ISIN: FR0012333284 Mnemo: ABVX)

More information available at www.abivax.com.

Follow us on Twitter @ABIVAX_

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006059/en/

Contacts:

ABIVAX

Finance

Alain Chevallier, +33 1 53 83 08 41

Alain.chevallier@abivax.com

or

LifeSci Advisors

Chris Maggos, +41 79 367 6254

chris@lifesciadvisors.com

or

Communication Agency

ALIZE RP

Caroline Carmagnol/Margaux Pronost

abivax@alizerp.com

+33 6 64 18 99 59 +33 1 44 54 36 65


VIENNA (dpa-AFX) - The European markets traded in the green for the majority of Friday's session and a choppy day of trading with modest gains. Banks were among the best performing stocks at the end of the week. Reports that U.S. President Trump will take action to reduce regulations on the banking industry drove the sector higher. Investor sentiment also received a boost from today's stronger than expected U.S. jobs report.



Employment in the U.S. increased by more than anticipated in the month of January, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Friday. The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment jumped by 227,000 jobs in January after climbing by a revised 157,000 jobs in December.



Economists had expected an increase of about 175,000 jobs compared to the addition of 156,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.



Despite the stronger than expected job growth, the unemployment rate inched up to 4.8 percent in January from 4.7 percent in December. The rate had been expected to remain unchanged.



The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index advanced 0.71 percent. The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks increased 0.60 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, added 0.98 percent.



The DAX of Germany climbed 0.20 percent and the CAC 40 of France rose 0.65 percent. The FTSE 100 of the U.K. gained 0.67 percent and the SMI of Switzerland finished higher by 0.90 percent.



In Frankfurt, retail giant Metro fell 3.09 percent after its fiscal first-quarter profit fell 64 percent to 200 million euros, hurt by currency fluctuations.



Deutsche Bank climbed 3.63 percent and Commerzbank added 0.60 percent.



In Paris, BNP Paribas gained 1.46 percent and Credit Agricole advanced 1.03 percent. Societe Generale also finished higher by 0.42 percent.



In London, ITV increased 1.99 percent on a brokerage upgrade.



Homeserve dipped 0.33 percent. The residential repair and improvements firm has acquired stakes in two tradesman checking sites for a total of 37 million pounds.



Beazley soared 6.44 percent as the risk insurance and reinsurance provider lifted dividend after reporting a 3 percent increase in full-year pretax profit.



Budget airline Ryanair Holdings gained 0.68 percent after reporting increases in traffic and load factor in January.



Barclays increased 3.39 percent and Royal Bank of Scotland rose 2.70 percent.



Syngenta finished lower by 0.47 percent in Zurich on a report that EU regulators are likely to clear its $43 deal with ChemChina.



Skanska jumped 5.49 percent in Stockholm after reporting a rise in Q4 profit, helped by stronger-than-expected performance at all its property development businesses.



Banco Popular sank 7.43 percent in Madrid after reporting a massive annual loss, hit by extraordinary provisions and additional charges to clean up its balance sheet.



Intesa Sanpaolo rose 2.66 percent in Milan after the retail bank denied it was mulling an all-share offer for insurer Generali.



Eurozone retail sales dropped unexpectedly in December on food and auto fuel sales, figures from Eurostat revealed Friday. Retail sales fell 0.3 percent month-on-month in December, confounding expectations for an increase of 0.3 percent. Nonetheless, the pace of decline slowed from a revised -0.6 percent in November.



The Eurozone economy made a strong start to 2017 with output growth maintained at December's five-and-a-half year high, final data from IHS Markit showed Friday. The composite output index held steady at 54.4 in January and slightly above the earlier flash estimate of 54.3. The indicator signaled expansion in each of the past 43 months.



UK service sector growth eased more-than-expected at the start of the year amid the slower output growth and higher costs, despite strong business expectations, survey data from IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply showed Friday.



The CIPS Purchasing Managers' Index for the services sector dropped to 54.5 from 56.2 in December. Economists had forecast a score of 55.8.



While the Institute for Supply Management released a report on Friday showing that activity in the U.S. service sector saw continued growth in the month of January, the pace of growth in the sector slowed slightly compared to the previous month.



The ISM said its non-manufacturing index edged down to 56.5 in January from a revised 56.6 in December, although a reading above 50 still indicates growth in the service sector. Economists had expected the service sector index to dip to 57.0 from the 57.2 originally reported for the previous month.



Reflecting a sharp increase in orders for non-durable goods, the Commerce Department released a report on Friday showing a bigger than expected rebound in new orders for U.S. manufactured goods in the month of December.



The Commerce Department said factory orders surged up by 1.3 percent in December after tumbling by a revised 2.3 percent in November. Economists had expected factory orders to increase by 0.9 percent compared to the 2.4 percent slump originally reported for the previous month.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the global spinning machinery market is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 6% during the forecast period.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170303005034/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the global spinning machinery market from 2017-2021. (Photo: Business Wire)

This research report titled 'Global Spinning Machinery Market 2017-2021' provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This report also includes an up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all geographical regions.

According to Anju Ajaykumar, a lead analyst at Technavio for unit operations research, "The global spinning machinery market is expected to grow during the forecast period due to government initiatives and technological advances. For instance, the Indian government is providing financial assistance, tax incentives, and quality infrastructure to support the growth of its textile machinery industry.

Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=56709

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

The market research analysis categorizes the global spinning machinery market into three major product segments. They are:

Short-staple spindles

Long-staple spindles

Open-end rotors

Global spinning machinery market by short-staple spindles

The global spinning machinery market is dominated by the short-staple spindle segment, which accounted for close to 95% of the market share in 2016. Short-staple spindles are used for spinning yarns from cotton, polyester, viscose, and other blends. With increased production of these fibers, the demand for short-staple spindle has increased. The leading countries in APAC such as China, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan have the maximum installed capacities of short-staple spindles.

"China is one of the largest producers of textile machinery worldwide with the manufacturers offering a diversified and high volume of products. It was the second largest textile machinery exporter in 2014," says Anju.

Global spinning machinery market by long-staple spindles

The global spinning machinery market by the long-staple spindle segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 4%. Long-staple spindles are mainly used for spinning wool and acrylic fibers. With increased demand for woolen and acrylic products from various countries, the need for long-staple spindles machinery is expected to increase. These spindles are shipped to APAC, Europe, and African countries. Turkey, Iran, and China are the major countries that utilize long-staple spindles.

Global spinning machinery market by open-end rotors

The global spinning machinery market by the open-end rotors segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 4%. The open-end rotor is an equipment used for spinning yarn without a spindle. It is used to spin all types of yarns, including cotton, acrylic, polyester, and linen. Different types of fibers require different rotors. The yarn spun from open-end rotors has low tensile and tearing strength. With increased demand for textiles, the demand for open-end rotors is also expected to increase.

The North American market is the largest market for technical textileswith Mexico and Canada being the largest markets in the region. APAC is also emerging as a lucrative market and is expected to witness growth during the forecast period owing to increasing urbanization, improving economic conditions, and rising GDP.

The top vendors highlighted by Technavio's heavy industry market research analysts in this report are:

Rieter

Saurer

Murata Machinery

LAKSHMI MACHINE WORKS

Trutzschler

Browse Related Reports:

Global Textile Machinery Market 2016-2020

Global Technical Textiles Market 2016-2020

Global Smart Textiles Market 2016-2020

Become a Technavio Insights member and access all three of these reports for a fraction of their original cost. As a Technavio Insights member, you will have immediate access to new reports as they're published in addition to all 6,000+ existing reports covering segments like engineering toolstest and measurement, and tools and components. This subscription nets you thousands in savings, while staying connected to Technavio's constant transforming research library, helping you make informed business decisions more efficiently.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170303005034/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com
WEST KELOWNA, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- COLORADO RESOURCES LTD. (TSX VENTURE: CXO) ("Colorado" or the "Company") announces it has entered into a definitive option agreement with Ely Gold and Minerals Inc. ("ELY") (TSX VENTURE: ELY) (the "Option") through their respective wholly owned U.S subsidiaries to acquire a 100% interest (subject to underlying royalties not to exceed 3%) in the Green Springs Property, located in eastern Nevada.

Adam Travis, Colorado President and CEO states; "The Green Springs acquisition provides us with a year round exploration opportunity in the top gold mining jurisdiction in the world, adding to our portfolio of significant holdings in the Golden Triangle of northwestern B.C. We have the opportunity during the winter and early spring prior to our 2017 B.C. field season to drill test along strike and beneath a past producing mine(i), that has seen little modern day exploration since mining occurred in the late 1980's. Potentially higher grade feeder structures in the underlying Pilot shale, which have been recognized as important hosts elsewhere in Nevada also provide a compelling target. Numerous jasperiod bodies to the east of the historical mining location have returned greater than 1 g/t gold(i) from surface samples and have never been drill tested. Field due diligence work is ongoing and we can quickly transition from surface work into initial drill testing as soon as permitting allows."

The Green Springs Property consist of 193 unpatented claims (1,416.2 hectares) held or under option by ELY (the "Green Springs Property") and is located in the eastern Great Basin approximately 50 miles south of Kinross 's Bald Mountain/Alligator Ridge Mine(ii) and 35 miles west of Ely Nevada. It is a classic Carlin-style gold system that represents part of a growing number of Carlin-type systems and new discoveries located outside the main Carlin and Cortez camps in largely underexplored parts of Nevada.

From 1988- 1990 U.S Minerals Exploration Company ("USMX") mined 1.1 million tons at an average grade of 2.1 g/t gold at a 0.7 g/t Au cut-off from three shallow pits at Green Springs with heap leach recoveries estimated at 80 %(iii). Mining occurred at shallow depths (typically less than 30 m) from the Lower Chainman shale formation. At least three other zones were left un-mined when in 1988 USMX elected to move their mining operations.

Green Springs sat idle from 1990 with only minor surface programs completed between 2004 and 2008, until it was acquired by Ely Gold in 2013. Ely later consolidated holdings in the district by acquiring surrounding ground held by Bronco Creek Exploration Inc. (a subsidiary of Eurasian Minerals Inc.) and completed and Environmental Assessment ("EA") over 324.2 hectares of the Property. This EA will allow exploration and drillhole permitting to be expedited in the main areas of interest. In 2015 Ely Gold completed 14 reverse circulation ("RC") holes totaling 2,065 metres with 8 out of 14 drillholes returning greater than 1 g/t gold intercepts. Drillhole GS15-06 drilled in the un-mined "E Zone" returned 41.1 m of 4.57 g/t Au and bottomed in 1.52 metres of 1.66 g/t Au (at depth of 105.2 metres)(i). This hole has never been followed up.

See Ely Gold website at https://elygoldinc.com/properties/green-springs-project.

The Option

Pursuant to the terms of the Option subject to TSX Venture Exchange ("Exchange") approval, ELY has granted the exclusive option to Colorado to acquire ELY's 100% interest in and to the Green Springs Property by making the following payments and share issuances over 4 years:

-- Initial - US$50,000 cash and the issuance of 300,000 common shares upon Exchange approval; -- Year 1 - US$100,000 cash and the issuance of 500,000 common shares; -- Year 2 - US$200,000 cash and the issuance of 600,000 common shares; -- Year 3 - US$400,000 cash and the issuance of 850,000 common shares; and -- Year 4 - US$2,250,000 cash (the "Final Option Payment"). Colorado may at its election make the Final Option Payment 50% cash and 50% common shares based on a 30 day VWAP.

There are no work commitments or additional expenditures required other than Colorado's obligation to maintain the underlying agreements and claim maintenance fees per year of approximately US$50k.

Upon Exchange approval and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions the transaction is anticipated to close within 5 days of Exchange approval.

Qualified Person

Dr. Jim Oliver, Ph.D, P. Geo is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 who supervised the work program and/or preparation of the technical data in this news release.

About Colorado

Colorado Resources Ltd. is currently engaged in the business of mineral exploration for the purpose of acquiring and advancing mineral properties located in British Columbia and is also seeking opportunities in Southwest USA and Latin America.

Colorado's current exploration focus is to continue to advance: the KSP property currently under option with Seabridge Gold Inc., located 15 km's along strike to the southeast of the past producing Snip Mine(i); its 100% owned Kingpin property; its 100% owned North ROK property, located 15 km's northwest of the Red Chris(ii) mine development, both located in northern central British Columbia.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF COLORADO RESOURCES LTD.

Adam Travis, President and Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Note

(i)Historical information contained in this release cannot be relied upon as the Company's QP, as defined under NI-43-101 has not prepared nor verified the historical information and are treated as historical exploration information

(ii)This news release contains information about adjacent properties on which Colorado has no right to explore or mine. Readers are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on the Company's properties.

(iii)Sourced from: Wilson, et al, 1991. Geology and Geochemistry of the Green Springs Gold Mine, White Pine County, Nevada in Raines, GL, Lisle, RE, Schafer, RW and Wilkinson, WH, eds. Geology and ore deposits of the Great Basin - Symposium proceedings: Reno, Geological Society of Nevada, p. 687-700.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release, constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is based on plans, expectations and estimates of management at the date the information is provided and is subject to certain factors and assumptions, including: that the Company's financial condition and development plans do not change as a result of unforeseen events, that the Company obtains required regulatory approvals, that the Company continues to maintain a good relationship with the local project communities. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause the forward-looking information in this news release to change or to be inaccurate include, but are not limited to, the risk that any of the assumptions referred to prove not to be valid or reliable, which could result in delays, or cessation in planned work, that the Company's financial condition and development plans change, delays in regulatory approval, risks associated with the interpretation of data, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits, the possibility that results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, as well as the other risks and uncertainties applicable to mineral exploration and development activities and to the Company as set forth in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis reports filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information or statements, other than as required by applicable law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Colorado Resources Ltd.

Adam Travis

President and Chief Executive Officer



Colorado Resources Ltd.

Alex Blanchard

Vice President Corporate Development

(250) 768-1511

(250) 768-0849 (FAX)

TF (855) 768-1511

www.coloradoresources.com




DUBAI, UAE, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Leaders, scientists and experts from around the world gathered today at one of the biggest international conferences dedicated to quinoa since 2013 was declared the International Year of Quinoa by the United Nations.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446141LOGO )



More than 150 leaders, policymakers, scientists, experts and professionals from over 46 countries came together to discuss and share the latest developments in quinoa research, production and trade around the world, and develop a set of recommendations for quinoa cultivation in marginal environments which are affected by water scarcity and salinity.

The global population is forecast to increase to 9.7 billion in 2050 and there are concerns about the capacity of agriculture to produce enough food for the growing population. By some estimates, food production will need to go up by about 60 percent either through an increase in crop yields per unit area or an expansion in the arable land by 2050 to meet the demand. Furthermore, several regions already suffering from malnutrition, water scarcity and soil degradation are forecast to have a large population growth, which raises concerns about whether traditional agricultural methods and crop species will have the capacity to sustain global food production targets.

People living in marginal environments are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change on agriculture. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify solutions to sustaining and possibly increasing agricultural productivity in areas where growing traditional crops has become difficult and sometimes uneconomical. Quinoa is widely considered a promising crop that can contribute to addressing these challenges.

Addressing participants at the opening ceremony, His Excellency Dr. Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment of the UAE, said: "Climate change poses one of the greatest threats to humanity. Countries that already suffer from droughts, water shortages, and salinity are at an even greater risk. We urgently need to find solutions and adapt and where possible mitigate effects of climate change on different fronts, including agriculture. Ensuring future food security in marginal environments requires a shift in agricultural practices and innovative approaches to crop production systems. Quinoa can play a major role as a staple crop in marginal environments due to its adaptability to harsh environments including poor saline soils with annual rainfall as little as 200 mm."

In his statement, Professor Reyadh AlMehaideb, Vice President of Zayed University, said: "We are pleased to host this international conference at Zayed University. It is a timely event as the world faces the implications of grand environmental challenges, and many countries experience food and nutrition insecurity as well as impacts from climate change. We believe that the conference will be an excellent platform for scientists and experts to look at these challenges and come up with a shared vision on how crops like quinoa that grows in marginal land can help address them."

An Oxfam study in 2009 showed that 45.9% of the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa and 25.3% in Asia live in marginal environments. According to FAO's 'The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015', 793 million people are undernourished globally.

Despite the growing global recognition of quinoa's potential, and positive research outcomes in pilot studies in recent years, there are still many constraints and issues to be addressed before quinoa becomes a crop of choice in marginal areas where major crops have long been dominant but are progressively failing to withstand increasing salinity and lack of water.

Speaking at the conference, Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, Director General of the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), said: "There has been considerable research on quinoa in recent years. Scientists at ICBA have also evaluated and tested the performance of several quinoa cultivars for their productivity when grown in marginal conditions. However, there are still many areas to be researched and improved as we introduce quinoa into agriculture in marginal environments, in order to make sure its introduction and production systems are beneficial to the communities and their ecosystems now and in the future."

These challenges include, among others, limited availability of genetic material for cultivation outside the Andes, limited knowledge of best management practices - especially nutrient and water requirements, pest and disease control, harvesting and processing under marginal growing conditions, and lack of suitable marketing channels where smallholder farmers could sell their produce.

Mr. Abdessalam Saleh Ould Ahmed, FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, said: "The United Nations declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa and this gave a renewed impetus to efforts to study nutritional, economic, environmental and cultural value of this food. We hope that this conference will be a turning point in raising awareness on the potential of quinoa for food and nutrition security in marginal environments."

Held under the title of 'Quinoa for Future Food and Nutrition Security in Marginal Environments' and running through December 8, the conference seeks to find ways to implement research and development programs and initiatives to introduce and scale up quinoa in marginal environments.

The conference is also aimed at building partnerships between public and private institutions, research and development organizations, and serving as a platform for the transfer of the latest innovation and knowledge on quinoa.

Held under the patronage of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance of the UAE and President of Zayed University, the conference is organized by the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed University, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), and with the technical contribution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

About ICBA

The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) is an international, non-profit research-for-development organization that aims to strengthen agricultural productivity in marginal and saline environments through identifying, testing and facilitating access to sustainable solutions for food, nutrition and income security.

http://www.biosaline.org

About Zayed University

Zayed University is a national and regional leader in educational innovation and change. It has created and implemented a skills-rich, outcome-based general education program that systemically develops student skills, knowledge, and values associated with liberal learning and provides a solid foundation for pursuit of disciplinary majors and future careers. Zayed University welcomes national and international students, and provides them with a high quality education, offered by seasoned teaching scholars to prepare them to shape the future of the United Arab Emirates.

http://www.zu.ac.ae

About FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Headquartered in Rome, Italy and operating in over 130 countries, it provides development assistance aimed at strengthening agriculture, forestry and fisheries, improving nutrition, and reducing poverty. FAO focuses special attention on developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the world's poor and hungry.

http://www.fao.org

About the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment

The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment was established in February 2006 as the Ministry of Environment and Water. The ministry acquired its new name following the UAE Cabinet reshuffle in February 2016 and the subsequent integration of the climate change function.

Under its redefined scope, the ministry has taken on a dual mandate. On the national level, the ministry aims to strengthen the UAE's efforts in preserving the environment and promoting food diversity in accordance with the nation's aspiration to emerge as a key benchmark for sustainable development. On the global level, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment will join international stakeholders in combating climate change and profile the UAE's path-breaking achievements in the sector at thought leadership platforms worldwide.

http://www.moccae.gov.ae



Press enquiries:

Mr. Abdumutalib Begmuratov (ICBA): a.begmuratov@biosaline.org.ae, or +971-56-505-2483

Ms. Mariam Hamed (FAO): mariam.hassanien@fao.org, or +971-56-5258125 / +2-0100-6335492
MANCHESTER, England, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The route development consultancy Airport Strategy and Marketing (ASM) has worked with the Colombian city of Cartagena to secure its only direct route to Europe.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150423/740598 )



Today (6 December) KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has announced that it will introduce flights from Amsterdam to Cartagena's Rafael Nunez International Airport in March 2017. It will be the first time that Cartagena has had a non-stop link to Europe in ten years.

ASM has been working closely with airport operator Sociedad Aeroportuaria de la Costa (SACSA) and Cartagena Tourism for a number of years to gain a European route. The strategic advice, traffic forecasting and business case development support from ASM culminated in KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' decision to launch a thrice weekly Amsterdam service which will be operated by a Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

ASM consultant Omar Hashmi said: "ASM forecasts and market analytics have been pivotal in the decision to launch the Amsterdam to Cartagena route. We expect the increase in the number of European arrivals to Cartagena to stimulate tourism and this will have a significant impact on the local economy. We look forward to working with KLM to make the route a success."

Maria Claudia Gedeon, corporate affairs manager at SACSA, said: "We are very excited about this new commercial route to Amsterdam which will be our only direct connection with Europe. The expertise of ASM on the market, route forecasting and what airlines require has been greatly appreciated in delivering this new route to Cartagena."

ASM has also played an important role in delivering another three international air services to Cartagenain the past few years - JetBlue Airways from Fort Lauderdale, Delta Air Lines from Atlanta and most recently LATAM Airlines to Lima, Peru, which launches in January 2017.

More information is available about ASM at: http://www.asm-global.com/



-Ends-

Notes to editors:

UK"based ASM was founded in 1993 as the world's first route development consultancy. It is part of the EMEA division of UBM.

ASM guides and supports clients through every step of the route development process; identifying potential new air services, preparingbusiness cases and presentations, negotiating with airlines and ensuring new routes are sustainable.

For further information please contact:

Vicky Aitken

Marketing Manager

Vicky.Aitken@ubm.com

0161 234 2761


LONDON, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The Ruth Rendell Award was today presented to bestselling author and former soldier Andy McNab by Ruth's son, Simon Rendell, at the All Party Parliamentary Writers Group Winter Reception. The Award was launched in memory of the novelist Ruth Rendell by the National Literacy Trust and the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society, to celebrate the author or writer who has done the most to raise literacy levels in the UK.

Andy McNab fought off stiff competition to win the award, thanks to his tireless championing of literacy over the course of many years. Andy has travelled the length and breadth of the UK, visiting factories, colleges, schools, prisons and libraries to encourage reluctant readers to take up the challenge of reading. He has inspired others with the story of how he struggled with literacy, but turned his life around by finally learning to read and write. His message is very simple; 'if I can do it, anyone can'.

Andy has also contributed four Quick Read novels, 250,000 copies of which have been printed, raising awareness of literacy issues and giving new readers the encouragement to change their lives. In 2015, Andy went one step further in his championing of literacy by undertaking an epic trek to the South Pole, to raise funds for The Reading Agency.

Andy McNab said:

"I'm delighted and very proud to be receiving this award. The literacy work I do is deeply personal. Had it not been for the education I received from the army as a 17-year-old, when I had the literacy of a 9-year-old, I wouldn't be where I am today. Receiving this award gives me even more incentive to get out there and make sure that as many people as possible are helped to achieve, and change their lives for the better."

Baroness Gail Rebuck, DBE who nominated Andy for the Ruth Rendell Award said:

"Andy's honesty and down to earth approach has given so many people of all ages and from all backgrounds the confidence and inspiration to give reading a chance. My nomination is supported by a host of organisations and individuals, from schools, libraries and charities to bookshops and prisons, all of whom have experienced the life-changing benefits of his campaigning work."

Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust said:

'We're very proud to be giving the first Ruth Rendell Award to Andy McNab, who is an incredibly worthy winner. He has campaigned tirelessly for the importance of literacy, and has inspired, enthused and encouraged thousands of children and adults to get reading. He has given many the tools to turn their lives around."

Barbara Hayes, Deputy Chief Executive of ALCS said:

"Ruth was for many years an officer of the All Party Parliamentary Writers Group, and a great advocate for writers and literacy, and we're absolutely thrilled to be involved in this fitting tribute to her."

For more information, visit: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/ruthrendellaward

Notes to Editors

Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell, who died in 2015 aged 85, was a bestselling author known for writing thrillers and psychological murder mysteries including the Inspector Wexford series. She also wrote under the pen name Barbara Vine and won a number of awards for her books in a career which spanned six decades. Ruth Rendell was a long-time supporter of the National Literacy Trust.

About the National Literacy Trust

We are a national charity dedicated to raising literacy levels in the UK. Our research and analysis make us the leading authority on literacy. We run projects in the poorest communities, campaign to make literacy a priority for politicians and parents, and support schools.

Visit http://www.literacytrust.org.uk to find out more, donate or sign up for a free email newsletter. You can also find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The National Literacy Trust is a registered charity no. 1116260 and a company limited by guarantee no. 5836486 registered in England and Wales and a registered charity in Scotland no. SC042944. Registered address: 68 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1RL.

About the Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS)

Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is a not-for-profit organisation for the benefit of all types of writers. Owned by its members, the ALCS collects money due for secondary uses of writers' work. It is designed to support authors and their creativity, ensure they receive fair payment, and see their rights are respected. It promotes and teaches the principles of copyright and campaigns for a fair deal. Today we represent around 90,000 members, and since 1977 have paid over 400 million to writers. alcs.co.uk
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Nach den Drohungen Donald Trumps, den Auftrag fur das neue Prasidentenflugzeug zu stornieren, verspricht Hersteller Boeing dem designierten US-Prasidenten einen guten Preis. Trump hatte kurzlich getwittert: "Boeing baut eine brandneue 747 Air Force One fur kunftige Prasidenten, aber die Kosten sind auer Kontrolle, mehr als vier Milliarden Dollar. Streicht die Order!" Boeing-Chef Dennis Muilenburg sagte am Mittwoch nach einem Treffen mit Trump in Florida: "Wir werden es fur weniger schaffen." Er habe Trump sein Wort gegeben.

Das Pentagon hatte Boeing im Januar mit dem Bau der neuen Air Force One beauftragt. Die neuen Jumbojets vom Typ 747-8 sollen die alternden 747-Jets ablosen, die seit den fruhen 1990er Jahren den Prasidenten um die Welt fliegen.

Der Airbus -Rivale Boeing hatte zunachst nur einen Anfangsvertrag erhalten. Damit sollte ein Plan ausgearbeitet werden, der zeigt, wie die zwei Maschinen im vorgesehenen Kostenrahmen allen Anforderungen entsprechen konnen. Die US-Regierung hatte den Finanzrahmen des Programms zur Entwicklung und zum Bau der neuen Maschinen mit bis zu drei Milliarden Dollar angegeben. Den bislang mit der Regierung vereinbarten Vertragswert fur die Planung der neuen Air Force One gibt Boeing mit 170 Millionen Dollar (159 Mio Euro) an./ki/DP/he

ISIN NL0000235190 US0970231058

AXC0233 2016-12-21/22:56
EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/06/16 -- Finning Canada, a subsidiary of Finning International Inc. (TSX: FTT), announced that the company and its employees contributed $125,000 in support of the Wood Buffalo Food Bank. This donation is part of the company's commitment to aiding in rebuilding the Fort McMurray community, following the wild fires that ravaged the area in the spring.

"Finning has been a part of the Fort McMurray community for over 50 years and we are pleased to be able to support the community in this time of need," said Juan Carlos Villegas, president of Finning Canada and COO of Finning International Inc.

"The outpouring of support from across the entire Finning organization for the communities devastated by the fires was incredible. Our people contributed $50,000 in support of those impacted," said Mr. Villegas.

In addition to the generous gift from employees, Finning dedicated $75,000 to support the recovery and rebuild efforts for a total contribution of $125,000.

Finning's donation will help the Wood Buffalo Food Bank ensure that every family in the community has food on their table. A portion of the funds will be used to support the mobile pantry program in Fort McMurray First Nations and Anzac and re-entry kits for families returning to their homes and the community.

"The need is greater than ever in the region," said Arianna Johnson, executive director of the Wood Buffalo Food Bank. "It has been six months since the fires and many people are still not in their homes and are reliant on the services we provide. This donation will go a long way to help ensure families don't have to worry about basic necessities like putting food on the table at a time when they're concerned about keeping a roof over their heads."

About Finning

Finning Canada is a division of Finning International Inc., the world's largest Caterpillar equipment dealer. Headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta Finning Canada sells, rents and provides customer support services for Caterpillar equipment and engines in British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and a portion of Nunavut. They serve a diverse range of industrial markets, including mining, forestry, construction, pipeline/oil field construction, agriculture, government sector, marine, transportation, fisheries, and the commercial transport industry.

Contacts:

Media inquiries:

Kelly Vail

Finning Canada

kelly.vail@finning.com

780-443-7183 or Cell: 587-987-8693




Technavio analysts forecast the global piezoelectric marketto grow at a CAGR of more than 6% during the forecast period, according to their latest report.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005096/en/

Technavio publishes a new market research report on the global piezoelectric market from 2016-2020. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global piezoelectric market for 2016-2020. To determine the market size, the study considers revenue generated from industrial manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, and others.

Certain solid materials like crystals or ceramics can collect electric charge when a mechanical force is applied on them; this charge is termed as piezoelectricity. Piezoelectric materials are most commonly used in construction, to protect buildings from various adverse conditions. They are capable of sensing change in stimuli such as stress, temperature, moisture, pH, or magnetic field. The large number of construction products being undertaken will drive market growth during the forecast period.

Piezoelectric ceramic-polymer composites provide superior properties such as design versatility and performance advantages when compared with single-phase ceramic and polymer piezoelectric materials. Piezoelectric ceramics are gaining traction in the market due to their high piezoelectric activities and permittivity. In addition, the ease of fabricating materials into different sizes and shapes, including sheets of different sizes, cylinders, bars, and plates, is driving the demand for piezoelectric ceramics.

Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=54746

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Technavio analysts highlight the following four factors that are contributing to the growth of the global piezoelectric market:

Rising opportunities for piezoelectric devices in automotive industry

Increase in demand from military and aerospace sector

Growing demand from construction industry

Rise in R&D efforts

Rising opportunities for piezoelectric devices in automotive industry

"Piezoelectric devices hold significance in a broad range of vehicle components as they are cost-effective can function efficiently billions of times without any deterioration. These piezoelectric auto actuators are used to adjust lenses and mirrors. Simplicity and reliability are the two major criteria fulfilled by the used of piezoelectric devices in automobiles" says Sunil Kumar Singh, one of the lead analysts at Technavio for semiconductor equipment research.

Additionally, piezoelectric fuel injectors aid in improving fuel economy and reduce emissions. They also provide a better driving experience and improve automotive controlling. In 2015, most cars had sensors such as piezoelectric tire pressure sensors, engine knock sensors, backup sensors, and dynamic pressure sensors which were used to enhance safety. APC International and Morgan Advanced Materials are two of the major manufacturers of piezoelectric devices for automotive applications.

Increase in demand from military and aerospace sector

Materials with enhanced functional properties such as shape memory, electrochromism, and piezoelectricity are gaining demand in the aerospace industries. These materials help in controlling the airflow across the wings of an aircraft, keeping it stable during takeoff, flying, and landing with more efficiently and precision.

Piezoelectric devices are used to solve common problems within an aircraft such as engine vibration, high cabin noise levels, ice formation on wings, flow separation due to turbulence, and control surfaces in cold climatic conditions. Piezoelectric materials are also used for piezo accelerometers, flow meters, gyroscopes level sensors, and pressure sensors in this industry. In the military, piezoelectric devices are used in smart sensors, smart nanorobotics, smart combat suits, smart skins, and other applications.

Growing demand from construction industry

"Structural health monitoring, vibration control, and environmental control are the three main appplications of piezoelectric technology in the construction industry. Structural health monitoring is where piezoelectric smart materials find their most widespread applications. Structural health monitoring involves the monitoring of loads and detection of damage in the structures," says Sunil.

Advances in smart piezoelectric materials is driving the demand for its use in structural monitoring and vibration control. The global piezoelectric market for the construction and infrastructure segment will rise because of the growing demands for these smart materials. The global construction market will reach USD 12 trillion by 2020, leading to a rise in the use of piezoelectric smart materials in the segment. The majority of the growth is expected to come from the nonresidential sector.

Rise in R&D efforts

Transportation, healthcare, and smart packaging are few of the many sectors that have been receiving significnt attention with respect to R&D. The transportation sector, the military and aerospace sector, followed by the automotive and marine sectors account for the major R&D. In the US, organizations such as the Naval Research Laboratory, Army Research Laboratories, and Air Force Research Laboratories has offered funding to universities. This has led to the rise of many startup organizations in the field of piezoelectric technology. In Europe, defense programs funded by Central European Chapter, Western European Union, and a few of the large aerospace companies are being undertaken by many institutions.

Browse Related Reports:

Global Piezoelectric Smart Materials Market 2016-2020

Global MEMS Pressure Sensors Market 2016-2020

Foundry Market in India 2017-2021

Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you.

About Technavio

Technaviois a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005096/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com
CHIANTI, TUSCANY -- (Marketwired) -- 04/20/17 -- Note to Editors: There are photos associated with this press release.

Perched on a hill top overlooking the picturesque landscape of the Chianti Region, Villa Le Calvane is a noble Tuscan estate dating back to the 15th century that has been reborn as a uniquely luxurious boutique Hotel catering to the most discerning of travellers. Following extensive renovation, Villa Le Calvane has reopened its doors under the patronage of passionate and charismatic partners known for their devotion to quality and exclusive estates throughout the world.

The Estate sits nestled amidst its vineyards and olive groves with breath taking views of the rolling Tuscan hills, rich in culture and tradition and home to some of the finest wine and olive oil in the world. Ideally located, Villa Le Calvane neighbours the Castle of Montegufoni in the quaint village of Montespertoli, offering the best of the region. With Florence only 20 km away and Siena and the villages of San Gimignano, Greve in Chianti, Monteriggioni and Volttera nearby, our guests can also plan day trips throughout their stay. These are must visit destinations for a journey of discovery or relaxation, easily accessible by car or private tour curated to your desire by our exceptional concierge service.

The Hotel features 12 of the most luxurious and spacious suites in Chianti ranging in size from 35m2 (390ft2) to 75m2 (800 ft2) as well as a 262m2 (2,820 ft2) private 3 bedroom villa complete with deluxe kitchen, lounge and extra large dining room ideal for families or groups of friends. Seamlessly flowing from the warm reception area is the onsite restaurant headed by our executive chef renowned for his traditional Italian cuisine. Seasonal menus are revised daily to incorporate the finest local ingredients and our chef's inspirations. Innovative in simplicity yet genuine by tradition, each dish exquisitely captures the essence of Tuscan cuisine, taking guests on an enticing culinary journey. Meals can be enjoyed in the Villa's grand dining area where the decor elegantly captures the Estate's noble heritage or on the large terrace to further indulge the senses with stunning views of the vibrant countryside.

Restored to its original beauty, the Villa captures the splendour of the Renaissance era in which it was built, and now finished with the finest amenities. Guests will be immersed in understated luxury and sublime charm created through a perfect balance between tradition and modernity. With original artwork and furniture adorned throughout the Villa, an outdoor infinity pool overlooking the Chianti region and the onsite restaurant offering a curated journey through Tuscan cuisine, Villa Le Calvane is truly an embodiment of the best that Italy has to offer. To further enhance the experience the property now also features a jacuzzi and children's pool, chic lobby bar, exercise facility, and deluxe in-room amenities. For larger groups and events, the panoramic function room and impeccably manicured gardens are ideal for weddings, dinners, wine tasting and other celebrations, with the option to reserve the entire Estate to host your exclusive event.

Our mission at Villa Le Calvane is to offer experiences of outstanding quality and bespoke services that will exceed the expectations of our distinguished guests. It would be a sincere pleasure to host you and your loved ones.

Please view attached for photos of Villa Le Calvane and for more information or to book a reservation, visit our website www.villalecalvane.com.

To view the photos associated with this press release, please visit the following links:

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Calvane%201.jpg

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Calvane%202.jpg

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Calvane%203.jpg

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Calvane%204.jpg

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Calvane%205.jpg

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Calvane%206.jpg

Contacts:

Massimiliano Draghi

+39 347 350 8536

manager@villalecalvane.com



Fabrizio Ajo

+39 338 10 48 185

fabrizio@fabrizioajo.com



Facebook - www.facebook.com/VillaLeCalvane

Instagram - www.instagram.com/lecalvane




Argan, Inc. (NYSE: AGX) (the "Company") today announced financial results for its third quarter ended October 31, 2016. Please read the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, which the Company intends to file today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), and which can be retrieved from the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or from the Company's website at www.arganinc.com

Summary Information: (dollars in thousands, except per share data (unaudited)):

October 31, 2016 2015 Change % Change For the Quarter Ended: Revenues 175,444 113,967 61,477 54% Gross profit 36,578 26,262 10,316 39 Gross margins 20.8% 23.0% (2.2%) (10) Net income attributable to the stockholders of the Company 18,073 10,807 7,266 67 Diluted per share 1.16 0.72 0.44 61 EBITDA attributable to the stockholders of the Company 27,024 18,242 8,782 48 Diluted per share 1.73 1.21 0.52 43 For the Nine Months Ended: Revenues 468,287 296,888 171,399 58% Gross profit 108,892 75,922 32,970 43 Gross margins 23.3% 25.6% (2.3%) (9) Net income attributable to the stockholders of the Company 49,977 29,617 20,360 69 Diluted per share 3.23 1.97 1.26 64 EBITDA attributable to the stockholders of the Company 79,295 50,129 29,166 58 Diluted per share 5.12 3.34 1.78 53 As of: October 31,

2016 January 31,

2016 Change % Change Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments 446,320 275,007 171,313 62% Billings in excess of costs and estimated earnings 160,985 105,863 55,122 52 Backlog 1,179,000 1,148,000 31,000 3

Highlights for the Quarter:

Revenues increased 54% to a record $175 million for the quarter ended October 31, 2016 as compared to $114 million in the prior year quarter.

Net income attributable to the stockholders of Argan increased 67% from the prior year quarter to $18.1 million, or $1.16 per diluted share, for the quarter ended October 31, 2016.

We declared and paid $1.00 per share in cash dividends during the quarter ended October 31, 2016.

Our liquidity (current assets less current liabilities) as of October 31, 2016, increased 29% to $209.4 million from $162.9 million as of January 31, 2016, with no debt outstanding.

Gemma Power Systems (GPS) ramped up work on four large, gas-fired power plants and celebrated the commissioning and final completion of the two Panda power plants.

Third Quarter Results:

Consolidated revenues increased 54% to a record $175 million over the prior year quarter primarily due to GPS ramping up work on four large, gas-fired power plants and with the final completion of the two Panda power plants. Gross profit increased 39% to $36.6 million and gross margins decreased to 20.8% as compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to aforementioned increased revenues partially offset by lower margins at the non-Panda power plant projects and our two new subsidiaries, Atlantic Projects Company (APC) and The Roberts Company (TRC). The overall power industry services business continues to drive our financial results, reflecting 86% of consolidated revenues for the three months ended October 31, 2016. EBITDA attributable to our stockholders for the third quarter increased 48% to $27.0 million, or $1.73 per diluted share, from $18.2 million, or $1.21 per diluted share, for the prior year quarter. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen as of October 31, 2016, which has cash and short-term investments of $446.3 million, net liquidity of $209.4 million, and no debt.

Nine Months Ended Results:

For the nine months ended October 31, 2016, consolidated revenues increased 58% to a record $468 million over the prior year period primarily due to GPS ramping up work on four large, gas-fired power plants, the final completion of the two Panda power plants and the revenues from APC and TRC, which were acquired in May and December 2015, respectively. Gross profit increased 43% to $108.9 million as compared to the prior year period, primarily due to increased revenues, the Panda power plants achieving final completion and reaching a settlement of potential scheduled liquidated damages in the current period. EBITDA attributable to our stockholders for the nine months ended October 31, 2016 increased 58% to $79.3 million, or $5.12 per diluted share, from $50.1 million, or $3.34 per diluted share, for the prior year period.

Commenting on Argan's third quarter results, Rainer Bosselmann, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We were pleased to follow up our record second quarter with our next best quarter in Company history. These sustained results could not have been achieved without the operational excellence of our employees. Their dedication to finish out projects while simultaneously ramping up on four large, gas-fired plants allowed us to post strong current quarter results and to pay our largest dividend to date $1.00 per share. Even though we did not add any major projects to our backlog over the last several quarters, it remains over $1.1 billion and we expect continued growth in our revenues the rest of this year and into the next."

About Argan, Inc.

Argan's primary business is providing a full range of services to the power industry including the engineering, procurement and construction of gas-fired and biomass-fired power plants, along with related commissioning, operations management, maintenance, project development and consulting services, through its Gemma Power Systems and Atlantic Projects Company operations. Argan also owns Southern Maryland Cable, which provides telecommunications infrastructure services, and The Roberts Company, which is a fully integrated fabrication, construction and plant services company.

Certain matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws and are subject to risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to: (1) the continued strong performance of our power industry services business; (2) the Company's ability to successfully and profitably integrate acquisitions; and (3) the Company's ability to achieve its business strategy while effectively managing costs and expenses. Actual results and the timing of certain events could differ materially from those projected in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors detailed from time to time in Argan's filings with the SEC. In addition, reference is hereby made to cautionary statements with respect to risk factors set forth in the Company's most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q, and other SEC filings.

ARGAN, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended October 31, Nine Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 2016 2015 REVENUES Power industry services 151,094 111,592 402,615 287,947 Industrial fabrication and field services 21,550 59,287 Telecommunications infrastructure services 2,800 2,375 6,385 8,941 Revenues 175,444 113,967 468,287 296,888 COST OF REVENUES Power industry services 118,407 86,103 302,140 214,618 Industrial fabrication and field services 18,386 52,491 Telecommunications infrastructure services 2,073 1,602 4,764 6,348 Cost of revenues 138,866 87,705 359,395 220,966 GROSS PROFIT 36,578 26,262 108,892 75,922 Impairment loss 1,979 Selling, general and administrative expenses 9,848 5,590 24,429 15,977 INCOME FROM OPERATIONS 26,730 20,672 82,484 59,945 Other income, net 690 732 1,283 944 INCOME BEFORE INCOME TAXES 27,420 21,404 83,767 60,889 Income tax expense 8,194 7,045 27,122 19,845 NET INCOME 19,226 14,359 56,645 41,044 Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests 1,153 3,552 6,668 11,427 NET INCOME ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE STOCKHOLDERS OF ARGAN, INC. 18,073 10,807 49,977 29,617 EARNINGS PER SHARE ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE STOCKHOLDERS OF ARGAN, INC. Basic 1.19 0.73 3.34 2.01 Diluted 1.16 0.72 3.23 1.97 WEIGHTED AVERAGE NUMBER OF SHARES OUTSTANDING Basic 15,137 14,810 14,974 14,732 Diluted 15,601 15,066 15,490 15,004 CASH DIVIDENDS PER SHARE 1.00 0.70 1.00 0.70

ARGAN, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES Reconciliations to EBITDA Consolidated Operations (Unaudited)(In thousands) Three Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 Net income 19,226 14,359 Less EBITDA attributable to noncontrolling interests (1,153 (3,552 Interest expense 85 Income tax expense 8,194 7,045 Depreciation 525 186 Amortization of purchased intangible assets 232 119 EBITDA attributable to the stockholders of Argan, Inc. 27,024 18,242 Nine Months Ended October 31, 2016 2015 Net income 56,645 41,044 Less EBITDA attributable to noncontrolling interests (6,668 (11,690 Interest expense 203 Income tax expense 27,122 19,845 Depreciation 1,444 444 Amortization of purchased intangible assets 752 283 EBITDA attributable to the stockholders of Argan, Inc. 79,295 50,129

Management uses EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, for planning purposes, including the preparation of operating budgets and the determination of appropriate levels of operating and capital investments. Management believes that EBITDA provides additional insight for analysts and investors in evaluating the Company's financial and operational performance and in assisting investors in comparing the Company's financial performance to those of other companies in the Company's industry. However, EBITDA is not intended to be an alternative to financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP and should not be considered in isolation from the Company's GAAP results of operations. Pursuant to the requirements of SEC Regulation G, reconciliations between the Company's GAAP and non-GAAP financial results are included in the presentations above and investors are advised to carefully review and consider this information as well as the GAAP financial results that are presented in the Company's SEC filings.

ARGAN, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (In thousands, except per share data) October 31, 2016 January 31, 2016 ASSETS (Unaudited) CURRENT ASSETS Cash and cash equivalents 170,775 160,909 Short-term investments 275,545 114,098 Accounts receivable, net 42,886 64,185 Costs and estimated earnings in excess of billings 4,642 4,078 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 6,122 7,342 TOTAL CURRENT ASSETS 499,970 350,612 Property, plant and equipment, net 13,435 12,308 Goodwill 34,913 37,405 Intangible assets, net 8,506 9,344 Deferred income taxes 1,980 Other assets 39 122 TOTAL ASSETS 558,843 409,791 LIABILITIES AND EQUITY CURRENT LIABILITIES Accounts payable 91,487 46,395 Accrued expenses 38,061 35,454 Billings in excess of costs and estimated earnings 160,985 105,863 TOTAL CURRENT LIABILITIES 290,533 187,712 Deferred income taxes 224 TOTAL LIABILITIES 290,533 187,936 STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Preferred stock, par value $0.10 per share 500 shares authorized; no shares issued and outstanding Common stock, par value $0.15 per share 30,000 shares authorized; 15,283 and 14,840 shares issued at October 31 and January 31, 2016, respectively; 15,280 and 14,836 shares outstanding at October 31 and January 31, 2016, respectively 2,292 2,226 Additional paid-in capital 129,970 117,274 Retained earnings 134,298 99,581 Accumulated other comprehensive losses (757 (565 TOTAL STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY 265,803 218,516 Noncontrolling interests 2,507 3,339 TOTAL EQUITY 268,310 221,855 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY 558,843 409,791

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006385/en/

Contacts:

Argan, Inc.

Company Contact:

Rainer Bosselmann, 301-315-0027

or

Investor Relations Contact:

David Watson, 301-315-0027
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/05/17 -- Uranium Participation Corporation ("UPC") (TSX: U) reports its estimated net asset value at December 31, 2016 was CAD$427.0 million or CAD$3.53 per share. As at December 31, 2016, UPC's investment portfolio consisted of the following:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (in thousands of Canadian dollars, except quantity amounts) Quantity Fair Value ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Investments in Uranium: Uranium oxide in concentrates ("U3O8") 10,030,024 lbs $ 272,713 Uranium hexafluoride ("UF6") 1,903,471 KgU $ 148,234 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- $ 420,947 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- U3O8 fair value per pound: - In Canadian dollars (1) $ 27.19 - In United States dollars $ 20.25 UF6 fair value(1) per KgU: - In Canadian dollars (1) $ 77.88 - In United States dollars $ 58.00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Fair values are month-end spot prices published by Ux Consulting Company, LLC, translated at the month-end noon exchange rate of $1.3427.

On December 31, 2016, the common shares of UPC closed on the TSX at a value of CAD$3.80, which represents a 7.65% premium to the net asset value per share of CAD$3.53.

About Uranium Participation Corporation

Uranium Participation Corporation is a company that invests substantially all of its assets in uranium oxide in concentrates ("U3O8") and uranium hexafluoride ("UF6") (collectively "uranium"), with the primary investment objective of achieving appreciation in the value of its uranium holdings through increases in the uranium price. UPC provides investors with a unique opportunity to gain exposure to the price of uranium without the resource or project risk associated with investing in a traditional mining company. Additional information about Uranium Participation Corporation is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on Uranium Participation Corporation's website at www.uraniumparticipation.com.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information that are based on the Company's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intent", "estimate", "anticipate", "plan", "should", "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology and include statements with respect to the use of proceeds for the Offering and the anticipated completion of uranium purchases.

By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous factors, assumptions and estimates. A variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, may cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statement. These factors include, but are not limited to, changes in commodity prices and foreign exchange. For a description of the principal risks of the Company, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form dated May 11, 2016, a copy of which is available at www.sedar.com.

These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Although management reviews the reasonableness of its assumptions and estimates, unusual and unanticipated events may occur which render them inaccurate. Under such circumstances, future performance may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Except where required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information statement.

Contacts:

David Cates

President & Chief Executive Officer

(416) 979-1991 Ext. 362



Mac McDonald

Chief Financial Officer

(416) 979-1991 Ext. 242




Vocus Communicationshas signed a deal with Alcatel Submarine Networks to build the Australia Singapore Cable  a 4,600km underwater cable linking Australia to Indonesia and Singapore.Vocus says the Australia Singapore Cable was a key strategic consideration in its decision to purchase Nextgen Networks.The company says the Cable will be designed to provide a minimum of 40 terabytes per second of capacity from Western Australian to Southeast Asia.In addition, its estimated that the Cable will take 19 months to build (at a cost of US$170 million), and completion is targeted for August 2018.Vocus posted a net profit of $64.3 million at 30 June 2016.
Cimic Group Ltdsmining services contractor, Thiess, has secured a new two-year contract with Debswana Diamond Companys Jwaneng mine in Botswana.According to Cimic, Jwaneng is the richest diamond mine in the world by value.The Debswana Diamond Company is a partnership between the Bostwana government and the De Beers Group of Companies, one of the leaders in diamond exploration, mining and retail.Cimic says that the new contract will generate $370 million in revenue, and mining operations at Jwaneng will continue until the end of 2018.Cimic posted a net profit of $244.6 million at 30 June 2016.
Entrepreneur and investor Xavier Niel has launched STATION F, a Paris, France-based maxi startup campus.

The 34,000 m2 train station (Halle Freyssine)-turned-startup hub will house thousands of members.

On site, startups can find:

 a startup zone, with over 3000+ desks and 10+ international startup programs, including the STATION F Founders Program for early-stage startups.

 A coffee shop and 1000-person restaurant with 4 kitchens and a bar, open 24-7 to the public-

 An on-site fab lab for prototyping, powered by TechShop

 A variety of events spaces, including a 360-person auditorium

 Meeting rooms and private offices for mature startups, VCs, public services and more

 A co-living space that will house 600 entrepreneurs, opening in 2018.

Niel, who has built the telecom operator Free, the tuition-free coding school 42 in France and California, and the early-stage vc firm Kima Ventures, wanted to build STATION F in order to add more coherence and unity to the French fragmented startup ecosystem. STATION F now represents an ambitious answer to the need. Roxanne Varza, Co-founder of StartHer and Tech.eu, previously at TechCrunch France and Microsoft Ventures, will be the director of the initiative.

The team also includes:

 Rachel Vanier, Communications

 Marwan Elfitesse, Startup Relations

 Cedric Gaudard, Partnerships

 Mouna Guennouni, Finance & Operations

 Marie Millet, Events

 Valentine Lin-Saingre, HR &Cultural Projects

 Brice Bourgeois, Logistics & Design, and

 Faouzi Bennour, Workplace Services.

The campus partners are e commerce company HEC Paris, Ventee-Privee, Ventech, daphni, Techshop, Kima Ventures, and Facebook.

FinSMEs

06/12/2016
The mind goes where it wills. And last week, as I watched writer-director Gauri Shindes Dear Zindagi, my mind  much to my amusement  wandered off in the direction of Asaram Bapu. The followers of the jailed religious guru have been trying for a while now to popularise Matru-Pitru Pujan Divas (Parents Worship Day) as an alternative to Valentines Day. They flashed through my head as I watched a particularly memorable scene from the film in which Alia Bhatts character Kaira slams her mother, father and their irritatingly opinionated guests with these words:

(Spoiler alert for those who have not yet seen Dear Zindagi)

Parents hone ka kaam?! Khatam kar do! Bachche paalna itna tough kaam hai toh end it na! Kisne kaha parents bane rehne ko? Ek toh theek se kaam shuru hi nahi kiya toh kyon continue kiye ja rahe hai? Put an end to it Bachche paida karne ka idea kiska thha? Aapka. Correct? Aur phir jo chaaha unke saathh kiya, whatever you wanted. Aur blame bhi hum pe hi daalte ho. And then you say tough hai. Kya tough hai? My foot! (Note: a translation of this monologue is provided at the end of the article)

(Spoiler alert ends)

Actually, never mind Asaram Bapu. Kairas verbal explosion must surely rank as a moment of monumental subversiveness in Bollywood history and across Indian society as a whole. From a film industry that has for decades now made maata-pitaa adulation a virtual obligation, in a society that pedestalises parenthood and requires children to compulsorily venerate their mothers and fathers, here is a fictional young woman belling the cat on this parents-are-gods nonsense. Parents, the film in its entirety reminds us, are people  mere humans, sometimes good, sometimes bad, horrible at worst, imperfect at best.

Yash Chopra will perhaps be turning in his grave or in his urn of ashes or wherever he is resting in the cosmos, at this speech from the heroine of the latest big-ticket Bollywood release. After all, Dear Zindagi has been made in a cinematic universe far removed from Chopras 1975 film Deewaar in which the crooked Vijay Verma famously taunted his honest brother Ravi with, Aaj mere paas buildingey hai, property hai, bank balance hai, bangla hai, gaadi hai. Kya hai tumhare paas? (Today I own buildings, property, I have a bank balance, a house, a car. What do you have?) to which dear treacly sweet Ravi replied: Mere paas Maa hai (I have Mother). No wealth could have been greater than a Nirupa Roy-like saintly Mommy in a heros life back then.

Hindi cinema may have travelled the distance from parent worship to Kaira in the four decades since Deewaar was released, but in the real India the notion of parents as noble beings if not near-divinity persists  and those who disagree are damned. Bollywood, for a change, is a step ahead of society rather than trailing behind. For the sad truth is that Kaira speaks a truth most Indians are still afraid to utter.

The practice of idolising parents in India goes back to ancient Hindu mythology. One of the most popular accounts of Lord Ganesh has him competing with his brother Karthikey for a prize that varies with the version of the tale. The winner would be the sibling who manages to circumambulate the world first. Karthikey takes off on his peacock to circle the Earth. While he is away, Ganesh folds his hands, quietly walks around Shiv and Parvathi, and on Karthikeys return, claims victory. But you did not leave this place, Shiv points out. I did not need to, replies the son, to me my parents are my world.

Too many Indians miss a crucial point in this anecdote  that Ganesh may have revered his parents, but Shiv and Parvathi (as is widely acknowledged) were flawed. What distinguishes Hinduism from other present-day major world religions and gives it an element of relatability is that its deities are not portrayed as blemishless beings, but as gods with human failings.

Viewed in this context, it is ironic that Indian society  despite the prevalence of Hinduism  insists on seeing parents as universally selfless individuals who unconditionally love their children, views parenthood as a higher calling and a social duty, and decrees that children must forever be obliged to their parents, while condemning both singledom and childlessness within and outside marriage.

Singletons are considered footloose and fancy-free individuals fulfilling no social duties. The stereotype of the heavy-drinking, hard-partying (ergo noisy), immoral, sexually promiscuous bachelor and spinster (read: a likely bad influence on other youngsters) is so prevalent in urban India that housing complexes unapologetically announce a dogs and unmarried people are not allowed rule for tenancy and purchases. Married people who decide not to have children are openly labelled selfish.

Is becoming a parent an act of selflessness? Excuse my rudeness, but Baah!

And seriously, selflessness is a choice, while the reality is that a majority of Indian women at least have no such agency. Providing an heir to the husband and his family line continues to be seen as one of a wifes primary duties. Most women in India have limited access to birth control and safe abortions anyway, a situation that reproductive rights activists and scholars have chronicled and decried for decades. There is a stigma associated with being a baanjh aurat (sterile/barren woman). And if you are either uneducated or financially dependent or both, not bearing a child when your husband and in-laws want one is obviously not an option.

Among women who do have a choice, it goes without saying there are plenty who become mothers because they love babies, children and/or the traditional family set-up, genuinely want to experience another life growing within them and feel maternal love. There are just as many, if not more, though who have children because it is customary, or they had not thought beyond the norm when they first got pregnant, or because societal and familial pressure was too hard to withstand, or for some other reason unrelated to the joys of motherhood. The result is scores of women out there who became mothers despite being disinterested in the role or not ready for it.

Men do not escape social pressure either. Try being a couple even in supposedly liberal circles who have not had a child for over two years after marriage. The intrusive questions about when you will give good news to the world at large are interspersed with inquiries about your fertility, jokes about the man firing blanks, pity at what is vaguely assumed to be a sad, lonely, purposeless, empty existence and accusations of being self-centred, which imply that having a child is almost a sacrifice married folk make for the greater good.

This myth is debunked by the very people who propagate it when they coax singles to marry and married couples to have children. Why dont you want to get married? Dont you love children? they ask, as if potential spouses are nothing more than walking, talking sperm banks and fertile fields of ova. And that other question: If you dont marry and have children, who will take care of you in your old age?

Selfless, did they say? That too in an over-populated world?

Like Kaira in Dear Zindagi, Delhi-based stand-up artiste Sanjay Rajoura is one of the few public figures in India who openly disses parents and parenthood. Bachche paida kiye thhe aapne, aur zindagi bhar karz chukaana hai unko? Indian ma-baap bachche nahin, mutual fund paida karte hai, he raged on stage during a show in mid-2014. (So you produced children but they have to repay the debt all their lives? Indian parents give birth to mutual funds, not children.) Rajoura has repeated the theme in subsequent performances while his associate in the comedy trio Aisi Taisi Democracy, film writer Varun Grover, dwells at length on the manner in which child-free couples are badgered to have kids.

Feminist publishing pioneer Urvashi Butalia is another rare voice on the subject. In a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay titled Childless, Naturally (excerpted in Mint in March 2013 and published in the book Of Mothers And Others: Stories, Essays, Poems edited by Jaishree Misra) Butalia advocates choice. She writes: So what do we have in the end? The naturalness of motherhood? The curse of childlessness? The dread of barrenness? A life filled with lack, with loss of what might have been? Or just another way of living? A choice, happenstance, circumstance, call it what you like, but for me, its a happy, contented, fulfilled life, despite  or perhaps because of  being what is called childless. For those of you whove doubted yourself about this, let me assure you, its a good place to be.

Frankly this is a no-brainer: the goal of course should be choice  educated and informed choice. If you wish to be a parent, be one, but do not judge those who have not conformed to the social norm. Do not try to convince others that you are worthy of an elevated stature, that you picked the most challenging option of all the ones available to humans or that you are a better person because of it. And for heavens sake, do not expect your children to be grateful that you brought them into this world  they did not ask you to do so, you know.

Parent worship promoters may not appreciate such party-pooping discussions, but they need to be reminded of the harm caused by bad parents of whom there are too many out there. These include paedophiles who sexually abuse their own children, those who demand dowry for their sons and advise their daughters to bear domestic violence as a womans lot, deny nutrition or an education to their daughters, deem it a right to be violent in various ways towards a child or at the very least to impose their decisions and choices on their progeny, and then there is the careless and unintelligent variety.

If the notoriously snail-like, risk-averse Hindi film industry can evolve to a point where it has stuck its neck out in our parent-adoring society to produce a Dear Zindagi, it is time to initiate a widespread public conversation about troubling questions relating to parenthood. Producer-director Karan Johars schmaltzy 2001 film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was accompanied by the mushy tagline, Its all about loving your parents and featured a mother who, among other things, experienced an instinctive emotional quiver when her offspring set foot on the threshold of their house. If the same Johar 15 years later can co-produce Dear Zindagi, a film with normal Earthlings as parents, it is time to remind the human race that parenthood should be a choice, not a social compulsion; that deserving parents command respect, they do not demand it; and that devta is not a synonym for maata or pitaa.

Tujhe sab hai pata, meri Maa (You know everything, O Mother) was the title of a song from Taare Zameen Par directed by Aamir Khan in 2007. The denouement of Dear Zindagi appears to say: Main samajhne lagi hoon ki tujhe sab nahi pata hai aur voh bhi theek hai, meri Maa (I have begun to understand that you do not know everything and that too is okay, O Mother).

It is time to inject that line of thinking into the real world, if for no other reason then for the sake of well-intentioned, sincere, hard-working Mums and Dads out there struggling with the burden of unrealistic expectations drilled into their childrens heads by society and the media at large.

(Spoiler alert again) Meanwhile, for readers who do not know Hindi, here is an English translation of Kairas outburst quoted at the start of this write-up: The job of being parents? End it! If bringing up children is so tough, then end it, na! Who asked you to persist with being parents? When you did not even start the job well, why are you continuing with it? Put an end to it Whose idea was it to have children? Yours. Correct? Then you did whatever you wanted with them. Then you blame us if we dont turn out well. Then you say its tough being a parent. Its tough, my foot! (Spoiler alert ends)

Ouch!

Hold on Revise that. Not ouch. Bravo, Kaira and Gauri Shinde.

Also read: For Anna MM Vetticad's review of Dear Zindagi, click here
Fake news leads eventually to real tragedy. It almost got there Sunday when an idiot reportedly brought a loaded assault rifle into a Washington pizzeria, firing at least one shot, in an attempt to self-investigate a preposterous made-up conspiracy theory.No one was hurt  this time. But the same kind of thing will happen again, thanks to the poison being dispensed by alt-right and white-supremacist propagandists. They concocted news stories out of whole cloth during the campaign in an attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton and those closest to her. Is anyone surprised that some people take these paranoid fantasies as gospel truth? Im not.President-elect Donald Trump makes matters worse by trumpeting facts that are non-factual. To the extent that he shapes the post-truth media landscape, he shares responsibility for the consequences.The made-up story that inspired Sundays incident grew out of the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podestas emails. There were a number of exchanges between Podesta and the owner of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza parlor. Suspicious? Not in the least. Comet is located in the affluent neighborhood that is home to much of the political establishment. And anyone involved in politics knows that campaigns basically run on pizza.In any event, cynics writing on sites such as Facebook, Reddit, Infowars and the Inquisitr spun these innocent facts into a dark, hydra-headed conspiracy involving the alleged trafficking and sexual exploitation of young children. Hidden rooms and secret tunnels were supposedly involved, and no, I am not making this up. Other people made it up, and some gullible readers swallowed it.Among the believers, apparently, was Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., who allegedly walked into Comet Ping Pong waving around a loaded AR-15-style assault rifle. Fortunately, employees and customers were able to flee. Welch allegedly fired at least one shot before surrendering to police, who said he had a second firearm with him in the restaurant and a third in his car. He is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.Content from Ryder System, Inc.Supply chain's revolutionary roadConstant innovation is helping businesses of all sizes get goods to market sooner and more efficiently.Police said Welch told them he came to the nations capital to look into the ridiculous child-trafficking story. He reportedly barged into the pizzerias kitchen to search for the entrance to the nonexistent secret tunnels.Yes, this is all as crazy as it sounds. But the lives of those who happened to drop by Comet Ping Pong or any of the neighboring businesses on a chilly Sunday afternoon were put in real danger by the purveyors of fake news. Morally, those propagandists should be in the dock along with Welch.Legally, of course, those who make up such stories are protected by the First Amendment. The only way we can shield ourselves from toxic conspiracy theories is to denounce them and disown those individuals and media outlets who spread them. In other words, we can use shame as a disinfectant. Yet next month we will inaugurate as president a man who  in this regard, at least  is without shame.Trump is the Old Faithful of fake news. He started his late-blooming career in politics by claiming, falsely, that President Obama was not born in the United States. He said that thousands and thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks, which was not true. He charged, absurdly, that Obama and Clinton were co-founders of the Islamic State. He touted a ridiculous National Enquirer story alleging that Sen. Ted Cruzs father had something to do with the JFK assassination. He repeatedly said, falsely and without evidence, that there was something seriously wrong with Clintons health. Apparently stung at having lost the popular vote to Clinton, he claimed that he would have won it if not for widespread voter fraud  which simply did not take place, according to officials in the states he cited.Trump has not, to my knowledge, spoken or tweeted about the pizza scandal, although his chosen national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, did send a tweet about purported Sex Crimes w Children. But the president-elect seems not to realize that it is now in his self-interest to renounce fake news and its creators. Soon, after all, he will be the source of the official story about basically everything.In a post-truth world, how will we know hes not cooking the economic books? Or that every foreign policy move isnt designed to further his business interests? Or that his Cabinet doesnt practice witchcraft?
LAHORE: The brother and cousin of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch were among three persons charged by a court in Punjab province for her murder in July, an 'honour killing' incident that shocked the Muslim-majority country.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Saeed Ahmad Raza of the district court in Multan city yesterday indicted the three accused  Qandeel's brother Waseem, her cousin Haq Nawaz and taxi driver Abdul Basit.

However, the suspects denied committing the crime. The fourth co-accused, Zafar Hussain Khosa, has been declared an absconder by the court.

Police claimed that Waseem had made a confession of killing her sister in the presence of an area magistrate. But the counsel for the accused denied any such confession.

The court fixed 8 December as the next date of hearing while issuing directions to the witnesses to appear before it. On the other hand, Lahore High Court, Multan bench, granted bail to driver Abdul Basit.

25-year-old Qandeel was found strangled in her house in Multan, some 350 km from Lahore, on 16 July. Her father had alleged that she was killed by her younger brother, Waseem, in the name of honour.



Waseem had confessed to having killed his sister 'in the name of honour'.

In his confession video, Waseem expressed no regret in killing his sister. "I am proud of what I did. I drugged her first then I killed her. She was bringing dishonour to our family," Waseem said.

Qandeel rose to fame due to her bold videos and pictures many considered as 'obscene' she posted on her Facebook account.

Honour killings are common in Pakistan and every year hundreds of women are killed by male relatives for allegedly dishonouring the family.

In October, the Pakistan Parliament passed a bill seeking to curb murders in the name of honour.
By Jonathan Landay and Arshad Mohammed

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S.-backed moderate rebels' loss of the eastern half of Syria's largest city Aleppo to Russian-backed government forces would be a defeat for President Barack Obama's efforts to promote democracy and defeat terrorism in the Middle East, U.S. officials conceded on Monday.Their grim assessment reflected the expectation that the last rebel-held districts of Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped, will soon fall to the Syrian Army supported by Russia, Iran, and Shiite Muslim militias from Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere."The fall of eastern Aleppo will confront the United States with the reality that supporting a moderate opposition with any hope of becoming the future government of Syria is no longer a hope," said Paul Pillar, a former senior U.S. intelligence analyst. The defeat would leave President-elect Donald Trump with less influence over the course of the more than five-year-long civil war that is likely to grind on, fuelling greater instability, violent extremism, refugee flows and regional rivalries, the officials said.The loss by the moderate rebels would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, securing his grip on all of Syria's main cities and most of the south, central spine and western flank bordering the Mediterranean.It also would vindicate Russian President Vladimir Putin's bet that he could save Moscow's longtime ally Assad by intervening in September 2015 with airpower, long-range artillery, military advisers and other support.Russia on Monday said it would start talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, a step the U.S. official said Washington would likely embrace to save lives. "Who won? Putin, the Iranians and Assad. Who lost? We did, and Jordan (where the CIA trained and armed moderate rebels), especially. The Saudis and Gulf states," said one U.S. official, who like others who spoke to Reuters, requested anonymity. As Obama prepares to leave office on Jan. 20, his policies in the Islamic world have suffered a series of setbacks.His hopes to bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians have been dashed. He pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but they are back in limited numbers helping the government combat Islamic State fighters. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is retaking territory where U.S. and allied forces had defeated them. Libya, where the Obama administration led "from behind" to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, is in chaos.

'ALEPPO FALLS, BUT THE WAR GOES ON'

Syria, though, is the clearest American defeat. Some U.S. officials spoke bitterly of Obama's decision not to intervene more forcefully in a war that has claimed more than 500,000 lives, forced millions from their homes and unleashed waves of refugees into neighbouring states and Europe. While Obama provided some support to moderate rebel factions, it was never enough to achieve the U.S. goal of forcing Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers to negotiate his replacement by a government of national unity, they said.The moderate opposition's defeat also confirms the return of Moscow as a major regional powerbroker, a status it has not enjoyed since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union."In the end, the Russians didn't have an interest in ending the war," said one U.S. official of Washington's effort to craft a diplomatic solution with Moscow. "They wanted to win it."Pillar said he doubted that a negotiated outcome was ever attainable.

"There was never enough of a political culture or base for the so-called moderate opposition to become strong enough . . . before Russian intervention or after," said Pillar.But with Assad hampered by manpower shortages, the civil war that began after he crushed peaceful protests in 2011 will go on, compelling the continued involvement of Russia and the Syrian leader's other allies."Aleppo falls, but the war goes on," said the first U.S. official.WILL AL QAEDA REBOUND?

He and other current and former U.S. officials argued that rebels who escape Aleppo would keep fighting, with some likely joining groups such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front, which Washington regards as al Qaeda's Syrian branch."The guys who are going to get out are going to fight guerrilla-style. They are going to join Nusra ... the Arabs are going to continue to fund the opposition," said the U.S. official. "They are not going to forget about it just because we have."Other U.S. officials warned that the conflict could escalate as flagging U.S. support for Assad's opponents could prompt Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to intensify their military aid to rebel groups.A second official, reflecting concerns shared by numerous others, said Saudi Arabia could funnel more lethal weapons to opposition factions, which raises the possibility that they eventually could be turned against Western targets."We've been pretty good at keeping stuff out of there so terrorists can't get their hands on it, but there's no reason for the Saudis to heed our warnings anymore," he said.Meanwhile, the fall of eastern Aleppo will provide a major boost to Shi'ite Iran, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia's main regional rival, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered significant casualties fighting for Assad.By helping secure Assad, Iran will preserve the pipeline through which it ships missiles and other weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia movement that also has fought for Damascus, to use against Israel."The Assad family is the longest standing strategic partner of Iran in the entire Middle East," said a third U.S. official. "Syria is the forward operating base against Israel, the conduit to Hezbollah, and an Iranian-friendly island in the Arab lands." (Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Arshad Mohammed; Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by John Walcott and Grant McCool)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
In March this year, a Firstpost article had noted that the World Sufi Forum, an initiative by an apex body representing Sufi Muslims in India, was an effort showcasing the community's resilience against extremism and as "an effective antidote" to terrorism masked as "religious ideology".

Explaining this "religious ideology", Syed Muhammad Ashraf Kichhouchhwi, key organiser of the World Sufi Forum and founder-president of All India Ulama and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB), had told Firstpost: A specific ideology which is not part of Islamic tradition is motivating radicals who are wrongly interpreting the Quran and its narrative from their own ego pursuits and politics.

He went on to say, Any extremist organisation waving Islamic flags and misusing the holy Quran such as Daesh (Islamic State) have actually no endorsement in the ambit of Islam... and, this is an extremist ideology which spreads hatred if someone does not subscribe to it. Enormous resources are invested in perpetrating violence. Therefore, it is important to realise and unearth the propaganda of such people and organisations that are funded by foreign entities to spread hatred and intolerance to disrupt peace and harmony in a country such as India.

The World Sufi Forum, held in March 2016, was slated as the first-ever mega Sufi event of counter-extremism with more than 200 international dignitaries from 20 countries. Though seen as the first and last event as such, it, however, seems to have begun an unending onslaught on the particular ideology which the Sufi forum believes is a grave threat to the countrys pluralistic ethos.

According to a front-page news report in the leading Urdu newspaper Inquilab, World Sufi Forum held a similar conclave entitled, Sufism and Humanity in Lucknow on 4 December. Sufi Sunni ulema and intellectuals with various backgrounds spelled-out their opinions on the current ongoings. Several Indian Sufi clerics, who run some of the largest Sunni Islamic seminaries in India, seemed worried about the growing phenomenon of pseudo-Sufism or neo-Sufism dressed in diametrically different political forms.

A systematic research on the mystical strain of Islam reveals that the origin of Sufism has its roots in a spiritually-inclined notion of "close personal relationship with the Divine". Therefore, meditation has been exhorted by Sufi saints as an inner spiritual channel to attain this exalted relationship. But today, this spiritual path to eternal salvation is being turned into a phenomenon of political dominion.

Recently, the largest Sufi shrine in the country, Ajmer Dargah  perhaps for the first time in the Indian history  was dragged into a well-worked-out political campaign by Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind (JUH), an avowed supporter of the Congress party. The key members of the JUH whose ideologues have clearly and categorically declared Sufism as "anti-Islamic", chose to hold their 33rd annual conference in the prime Sufi Dargah in India, Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan. It was an out-and-out political attempt to woo the mainstream Indian Muslims anchored in age-old Sufi traditions.

Going by the media reports, more than one lakh Muslims of a certain religious faction from across the country assembled at the shrine of the Sufi saint Hazrat Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Moinuddin Chishti. The JUH invited Deobandi leaders and a few Barelvi clerics who theologically endorse its political motives, with a view to debating the burning political issues of the Muslim community, ranging from the Uniform Civil Code to Triple Talaq to the upcoming UP Elections.

Given the fact that Maulana Mahmood Madani, the JUH general secretary has been a Rajya Sabha member with support from Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal and has dabbled in electoral politics, the 33rd annual conference of the JUH held in Ajmer cannot be seen apolitical. With the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election around the corner, the JUH leaders and other religio-politicians are trying to forge a new narrative to woo the gullible Indian Muslims.

But, by any stretch of the imagination, the JUH Ajmer conference will not be able to garner the support of the Sufi-oriented Indian Muslims to achieve its ulterior motives. Tellingly, while the JUH has celebrated Sufism as an effective channel for "unity of the ummah" or "Islamic unity" (note that only Muslims are included in it), it maintained deafening silence over the pernicious "religious ideology" which the World Sufi Forum accuses to be playing havoc across the Muslim world, particularly striking the non-Muslims, Shia and Sufi Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. It was distressing to note that the JUH did not even castigate the radical Islamist ideology of bigotry in its so-called "Sufi conference" in Ajmer.

Isnt it ironical that the same leaders of the JUH who organised the Ajmer conference lambasted the World Sufi Forum as a political ploy of the Indian government to divide the Muslim community over "Sufism vs Wahhabism"? The JUH chief Maulana Madani went to the extent of loudly claiming that Sufism is nothing while branding the World Sufi Forum as an NDA bid to "divide the Muslims". In the wake of the three-day World Sufi Forum which came crashing down hardcore philosophies in Islam, Maulana Arshad Madani blatantly stated: Sufism is no sect of Islam and is not found in the Quran. He also accused the Modi government of trying to create animosity among the Muslims.

While the World Sufi Forums key participants  mostly global leaders of Sufism  exhibited great zeal in strengthening the foundations of Sufism to combat all the forms of violent extremism, the JUH and the ilk disparaged these Sufi practitioners as pseudo-Sufis. So, how would the JUH like to brand itself now when it has held its 33rd largest annual conference in Ajmer using the prime Sufi shrine in India for its own political ends?

Remarkably, while the World Sufi Forum stressed on composite nationalism (muttahida qaumiyat), inclusive democracy (jumhuriat) and pluralism (qaumi yakjehati) in its final-day declaration, the Sufi conclave of the JUH in Ajmer promoted the religionist and sectarian narratives.

The JUH Ajmer conference mainly discussed three points: first, the unity of ummah (ittehad-e-ummat), a JUH unification proposal for Muslims in India which actually calls for a truce between the Deobandis and Barelvis  the two largest Islamic sects in India opposing each other in the foundational religious principles. Second, it called for social condemnation of the practice of Triple Talaq while at the same time strongly theorising its Islamic legality and thus opposing any proposals for a uniform civil code; and third, it called for Dalit-Muslim unity.

But one can find the JUH's duplicity on the above two points distressing in many ways. Just as theorising the narrowed concept of the unity of ummah, which includes only Muslims in the common perception, is akin to promoting an exclusivist ideology among Indian Muslims. Similarly, publicising dubious views on a daily-life issue of paramount importance  Tripple Talaq  is celery misleading.

As for the truce between the Deobandis and Barelvis, it cannot be simply overlooked that the Ajmer conclave was led by Maulana Mahmood Madni, the third generation of Deobandi cleric Maulana Hussein Ahmed Madni who could not reconcile with the Barelvi ulema on religious grounds. So, the JUH could very well bring together a few known faces of the Barelvi and Deobandi ulema on its stages without which it would be merely a mirage to form the unity on the ground level.

A noted scholar on the Barelvi and Deobandi sects in India, Dr Arshad Alam has pointed it out: The demand for sectarian unity is nothing new among Indian Muslims. We know that the community is divided internally among Shias and Sunnis. Among the Sunnis, there are divisions like the Deobandis, the Barelvis and the Ahl-e-Hadith. These are not just superficial divisions but their ideological roots run deep and have a history of nearly 150 years on the Indian subcontinent. Curiously enough, the initiators of schism within the community were the Deobandis themselves who through their various publications and sermons decided in their wisdom that the Barelvis were something of a lesser Muslims.

In the latest event of the World Sufi Forum held in Lucknow on 4 December, it was buttressed that the sole purpose of organising Sufi conclaves is the promotion of an ideology which calls for unity in multiplicity, tolerance and acceptance and respect for all humanity. Sufi clerics like Shaikh Anwar Ahmad, a senior scholar at Baghdad University in Iraq who now runs a female-oriented Islamic seminary in UP, proclaimed: the aim is to help the people build a peaceful, progressive and pluralistic nation through the Sufi teachings.

Despite the vehement opposition from the leading Islamic organisations like the JUH, these Sufis claim that they do not believe in opposing others, but rather engaging actively in peace activism. A Firstpost article has also noted that Sufis are now trying to come out of their conclaves to tackle the ideological extremism stemming from the hardcore philosophies in Islam.

It was also stressed in the Lucknow conclave that Sufism belies all the notions which Salafism stands for. Traversing from Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent, Sufism incorporates harmonious local practices like music and qawwali which are rejected by the radicals in Islam.

The author is a scholar of comparative religion, classical Arabic and Islamic sciences, cultural analyst and researcher in media and communication Studies. Views are personal. He tweets at @GRDehlvi.
The sixth day of December will be forever etched in the post-Independence era of Indian history as the day that saw the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. However, for the Dalit and the socially backward citizens of our country  many crores of them  this day marks the loss of their Father, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar. From 1956 to 2016, a long period of 60 years has passed since we lost him, however, the greatest Indian, as he could be called, can never be forgotten by the Dalit community of this country. In fact, quite surprisingly, the number of people that assemble at Chaityabhoomi, a memorial to Ambedkar in Dadar, Mumbai that had witnessed the funeral of Ambedkar, only keeps increasing with every passing year  a mysterious phenomenon that is yet to be understood.

The predominance of saffrons in Dadar is intermixed with thousands of indigos, albeit for two days. Shivaji Park in Dadar, otherwise considered the citadel of the Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, has already become a hosting ground for no less than 1.5 to two lakh people. Some of these people will probably just have reached Dadar railway station while others may have already been queuing at Chaityabhoomi for several hours to offer their salutation to the memories of Ambedkar. Some of them will have free snacks or lunch arranged by an NGO, whereas others will likely be seeking a good read at a book stall.

On 13 October, 1956, a few days before his death, Ambedkar accepted Buddhism in Nagpur along with his five lakh followers. He had renounced Hinduism and criticised it for its disparity. He delivered speeches and published several articles in relation to this subject in his dailies: Mukhnayak, Bahishkrut Bharat and Prabuddhaa Bharat. Most of his writings, speeches and books have been now published by the Maharashtra state government. This rich literature has been the foundation for several Dalit publishers who have made an effort by printing and publishing Ambedkars books to disperse valuable information to Dalit communities in the remotest villages of our country.

Any social-political-cultural event inspired by Ambedkars ideology is never missed by these Dalit book sellers and his presence is always felt through these books. These books are not available in other book shops housed in shopping malls or even online, however, this seldom affects the ability of these book sellers in reaching out to those who desire to understand the ideology of Ambedkar.

Except for a few English readers in India, most are not even aware that Chaityabhoomi is flooded with more than 200 stalls housing book sellers and publishing houses on 6 December. Not only this, some book sellers who do not get a stall to conduct their sales do not feel disappointed and try to create makeshift stalls by using carpets or paper on the ground or roads. Most of the books sold either pertain to Ambedkar or were written by the man himself: Buddha and his Dhamma, Who were the Shudras?, Buddha or Karl Marx, Annihilation of Caste, Castes in India, Riddles in Hinduism, What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables are in high demand.

Besides these, several Dalit autobiographies and books related to the Dalit political revolution published by various Marathi, Hindi and English publishers are also sold in great volumes. The 199th edition of one such book by economist Dr Narendra Jadhav, who belongs to the same caste as Ambedkar, entitled Aamcha Baap Aan Aamhi, will also be sold at Chaityabhoomi this year. It is indeed unbelievable that the number 199 reflects only the editions in Marathi language as those in Hindi, English and other languages are yet to be accounted for!

Most Marathi book sellers  publishers are Buddhists, Hindi and English book sellers belong to many other Scheduled Castes. In this respect, the contribution of the Dalits, especially from North India, belonging to the Chamar caste, in promotion of Dalit literature or Ambedkar ideology deserves a special mention. Vendors such as Gautam Book Centre from Delhi always make it to Mumbai on the 6 December to promote the sale of their Hindi and English books. A publisher like S Anand, born in a Brahmin family, is also working to achieve Ambedkars dream of a casteless society through his publishing house, Navyaan. His reader group mainly involves the highly educated Dalits who have a better understanding and thus a preference for intellectual books in English.

In an attempt to averse the atrocity act after the rape incidence at Kopardi, the Maratha community had organised silent rallies in different districts of Maharashtra. Although, these rallies did not directly criticise the Dalits, one of the major agendas of these rallies was to demand reservation for the Maratha community. Several other castes such as the Patidars and Jats in other states of the country have been demanding reservation for the past many years. It is ironic that up until now the writers and thinkers of Maratha community have always sought the support of Ambedkar ideology to generate awareness in the society. In the current scenario, although there exist tensions between the Maratha community and the Buddhists of Maharashtra, there are several such books for sale at Chaityabhoomi which have been written by the authors of the Maratha community to criticise the Brahmins.

It is a common misconception in the minds of people that only the Buddhist community acknowledges the memories of Ambedkar at Chaityabhoomi.

Its not like that. With the increase in sociopolitical awareness in the past few years, Chaityabhoomi has been witnessing an increasing number of people from the Chamar community of Uttar Pradesh; the Paswans, Mahadalits and the Jatavs from Bihar as also the Valmikis of Gujarat. People from North and South India, and also the Adivasis from the North East regions visit Chaityabhoomi in large numbers to pay their salutations to Ambedkar as they feel that they are obliged to him for their existence. The barriers of language, caste and religion lose their importance at Chaityabhoomi and bow to the name of the Father of the Indian Constitution, who truly symbolises the icon that inspires the oppressed and encourages a sociopolitical approach towards the betterment of the society.

It is estimated that 10 lakh followers of Ambedkar will visit Dadar in the next two days. More than 200 officers and 6,000 employees of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation are working around the clock to ensure that the best facilities are given to these followers. Approximately, 1,500 officers from the Mumbai Police are working meticulously to safeguard the followers from any unprecedented happenings at Chaityabhoomi. In this respect, it is commendable that despite the fact that Chaityabhoomi hosts lakhs of followers every year, it has never witnessed any riot, crimes or even the slightest chaos.

Unlike the silent rallies which required the people from the Maratha community to seek support of the organisers to showcase their strength but the Dalits do not need any organisers to showcase their strength at Chaityabhoomi. The name Ambedkar is sufficient to unite them and bring them together. And, for motivating them to be strong, through their leader Ambedkar, the password that they all use is Jai Bhim.
New Delhi: Demonetisation is taking a toll on Indian diplomacy, with Russia lodging a strong protest over cash shortage affecting the functioning of its embassy in Delhi and threatening retaliatory action.

Pressing the External Affairs Ministry to intervene to get restrictions on cash withdrawals by Russian diplomats lifted, its Ambassador Alexander Kadakin has written to it saying embassy's normal functioning was getting impacted with the "inadequate" amount limit of Rs 50,000 per week.

State Bank of India has informed the Embassy that the cash withdrawal limit available to the Embassy is now Rs 50,000 per week under the government of India directives with no exceptions unless otherwise advised by the RBI, his letter said.

"Such an amount is totally inadequate as regards the embassy's salary and operational expenditure requirements," the letter added.

"We are awaiting a reply from the MEA and hope that this is resolved quickly. Otherwise, we will be forced to explore other options which may include raising the issue in Moscow with your Embassy by summoning Indian Minister Counsellor," a senior Russian embassy official said in Delhi.

Other retaliatory options may include restriction on the cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats posted in Russia, the official indicated.

Sources said MEA has "taken note" of the concerns raised by several diplomatic missions including Russia.

"The matter has once again been conveyed to Department of Economic Affairs and we are awaiting a direction from it," a source said.

There are approximately 200 staffers in Russian diplomatic mission in the national capital.

Russia is not the first one to complain about the demonetisation-induced restrictions. Earlier, the Dean of Diplomatic Corps had also raised the issue with the External Affairs Ministry.

It is also understood that some other countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also raised the issue with the ministry.

After the demonetisation last month, MEA had said it has approached Department of Economic Affairs over issues including those related to maintaining sufficient flow of funds to diplomatic missions following demonetisation and was awaiting a decision by the finance ministry regarding it.
An "enigmatic woman", a "shy actor", the "astute politician", the "iron lady", a "beloved leader": The late AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa has earned many such monikers through her work as six-time Tamil Nadu chief minister. She was a fighter, so much so that she managed to hold together a disillusioned and broken party in the post-MG Ramachandran era, single-handedly around her cult. However, it was her efforts following the tsunami that shook Tamil Nadu on 26 December, 2004, that best highlighted her administrative skills.

The tsunami left over 9000 people dead and many more homeless in India, Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. On the day of the tsunami, the death toll was 131 in Chennai; Nagapattinam was worst-hit with 788 deaths, and in Kanyakumari, around 392 people died, according to a report by The Hindu. The earthquake off the coast of Sumatra that caused the tsunami was recorded at a magnitude of 8.9 by the United States Geological Survey. It caused buildings in lands as far away as Thailand, Bangladesh and Singapore to sway.

Another report by the Hindustan Times claims that the tsunami took the lives of 12,405 in all, many of whom were children.

Jayalalithaa announced a Rs 153.37 crore relief package, divided into a general package and a separate one for fishermen. Families would get Rs 1 lakh as compensation for every member lost, along with one dhoti, one sari, two bedsheets, 60 kg of rice, three litres of kerosene, and Rs 1,000 in cash for groceries. Furthermore, Rs 1,000 was to be given for purchase of utensils, Rs 2,000 so they could put up accommodation. Per family, and there were about one lakh families in all, the package would cost about Rs 5,000. The fishermen also recieved an extra Rs 65 crore meant to cover gill nets and boats, according to another report by The Hindu.

Once the state tsunami relief fund of Rs 1,000 crore was exhausted, she wrote to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for a donation of Rs 1,120 from the National Contingency Fund, according to The Telegraph.

It was only a matter of hours before Nagapattinam had its power supply back. With the state working on disaster management for over seven years, response time had been reduced significantly; mobile cranes and ambulances were on patrol. The government entrusted district administration with rehabilitation of affected families, and when they were found to be incompetent, she reshuffled or sacked officers immediately, according to a report on Rediff.

A report by NDTV says that Jayalalithaa drew up the Emergency Tsunami Rehabilitation Scheme in 2005, according to which 14,364 houses would be built for 444 villages along coastal Tamil Nadu, the ones most severely affected by the tsunami.

She called on Manmohan Singh again, urging the prime minister to house the tsunami warning centre in Chennai in the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), as it would be psychologically reassuring to the coastal population. She cited the 50 seismic disturbances that had taken place in TN, including seven severe and very severe cyclonic storms in 50 years leading up to 2005, according to The Hindu.

Jayalalithaa even extended help to the Sri Lankan government by instating officers to guide the island nation in the process of rehabilitation, according to Deccan Chronicle quoting state revenue minister RB Udhayakumar. After China and Pakistan denied help to Sri Lanka, Colombo looked to Jayalalithaa for assistance. And she responded.

Her administrative style was uncompromising, whether it was banning the sale of gutkha, or mandatory installation of rainwater harvesting systems, but, she got things done on time without any ifs or buts, as was seen with the tsunami relief, ensuring people remembered not the ruthlessness of her tenure, but the help it gave them.
In the case of the Munich party, I have the same question I often have about these European incidents.



Where the hell were the guys, and why the hell didn't they get in the faces of the "migrants?"
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will visit Chennai Tuesday to pay floral tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away Monday night.

"The Delhi Chief Minister will reach Chennai around 12.30 pm and pay tributes to Jayalalithaa at Rajajji Hall," said a senior Delhi government official.

"V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admi's leader. May her soul rest in peace," Kejriwal tweeted.

Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital in Chennai after battling for life for the past 75 days.

The 67-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.
The relationship between J Jayalalithaa and her companion Sasikala Natarajan has been quite well-documented in the history of Tamil Nadu politics  it has been both tumultuous and rewarding for both of them alike. In fact, Jayalalithaa's relationships with MGR and Karunanidhi, which will merit two separate pieces altogether, have only been more frenzied, perhaps at times even less.

As the story goes, the credit of introducing Sasikala to Jayalalithaa belongs to IAS officer-turned-politician VS Chandralekha, who hired Sasikala's husband, R Natarajan as her PRO. In the 1980s, when Jayalalithaa entered politics, the two grew reportedly close, with Sasikala even wanting to film a video of the "glamourous propaganda secretary" to sell at a huge profit, writes The Sunday Guardian. Soon, the Mannargudi-based Sasikala started taking charge around Jayalalithaa's house  this was during the time when MGR was hospitalised, writes Vaasanthi in Amma: Jayalalithaas Journey from Movie Star to Political Queen  and had become the latter's confidante.

Vaasanthi, in fact, dedicates a chapter to the duo (see The Woman Who Knew Too Much) where she writes that a section of Jayalalithaa's faithful supporters resented their very relationship  Jayalalithaa even declared Sasikala her "udanpiravaa sagodhari (sister not related through blood)" Sasikala and her relatives soon began to rein royal at the household, the press dubbed them the 'Mannargudi mafia'. Rumours started flying around about Sasikala's corrupt practices of acquiring land in and around Chennai and Thanjavur, movable and immovable properties.

Jayalalithaa, who had adopted Sasikala's nephew Sudhakaran, announced his wedding (September 1995) to Sathyalakshmi, the granddaughter of actor Sivaji Ganesan  this naturally raised eyebrows. But more importantly, it gave rise to the infamous picture of Jayalalithaa and Sasikala dressed as twins, clad in garish golden-orange saris and decked in diamond splendour. The extravagant wedding consisted of 10 dining halls that could hold a capacity of 25,000 people; state machinery was royally misused with the TNEB being used to supply power to the hall, Metrowater tankers used to supply seven lakh litres of water and government vehicles employed for transport. Sudhakaran later distanced himself from his 'aunt', following which he accused "that side" of making threatening calls to him.

A year later, AIADMK lost in the 1996 Assembly elections and Sasikala was arrested by the DMK government for violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA); Natarajan then pushed aside journalists in a dramatic moment, following which he was arrested. Jayalalithaa then distanced herself from her friend but soon came around a few months later.

But one of the biggest scandals that affected the duo is the Tansi land deal: The CBCID charged that the 3.78 acre-land in Chennai's Guindy industrial estate, which belonged to Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation Limited or Tansi, was bought by Jaya Publications and Sasi Enterprises  where Jayalalithaa and Sasikala were shareholders  at a price lower than the market price, in 1991-92. This incurred a loss to the government. Judge S Thangaraj of Madras High Court announced that Jayalalithaa was acquitted. Ultimately, the Supreme Court in 2003 also acquitted Jayalalithaa in the case, reported Rediff.com.

On 19 December, 2011, Jayalalithaa expelled Sasikala, Natarajan and 12 of their relatives from the AIADMK's primary membership, reports Frontline. This expulsion lasted a mere 100 days or so before Sasikala officially joined the AIADMK in 2000 and became a member of its general council.

Today, a weathered Sasikala, clad in a simple black sari, stands by her friend's remains, perhaps wondering what the future sans Jayalalithaa might hold for her.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao on Monday paid rich tributes to departed Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her as an embodiment of women empowerment.

Jayalalithaa "stood as a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for sharp intellect," he said at the swearing-in of O Panneerselvam as Chief Minister of the state following the AIADMK supremo's death.

"Affectionately called as Amma, she was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled with indefatigable spirit. She was known for her noble qualities and sacrificed her life for the cause of the poor and downtrodden," he said.

He said Jayalalithaa 'struggled' for more than two months in the hospital and fought death valiantly with her indomitable will power.

"It is sad that the clutches of death have snatched away the life of the leader of the masses," Rao said.

He also recalled that she had affectionately received him when he came here to assume additional charge as the Tamil Nadu Governor.

Jayalalithaa's passing away has caused an irreparable loss to the nation in general and Tamil Nadu in particular, Rao said.

"I express my sincere condolences from the bottom of my heart to the people of Tamil Nadu and pray to God to rest her soul in peace," he added.
Chief Justice of India TS Thakur on Tuesday recommended to the government that Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar be appointed his successor when he demits office on 3 January, said informed sources.

Justice Khehar happens to the senior-most judge after the CJI and should succeed to the post on the principle of seniority. As Chief Justice, he will have a tenure of over seven months as he would be retiring on 28 August, 2017.

Considered to be a strong judge, Justice Khehar presided over the constitution bench that junked the National Judicial Appointment Commission as unconstitutional holding that it intruded upon the independence of judiciary.

The government had sought to replace the existing collegiums system for the appointment of judges to higher judiciary by the NJAC mechanism through the enactment of Constitution's 99th amendment that had put in place NJAC and the NJAC Act, 2014.

Justice Khehar also presided over the five judges' constitution bench that had quashed the then Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa's decision to prepone the assembly session from January 2016 to December as it directed restoration of ousted Chief Minister Nabam Tuki's government.

But subsequent political developments in Arunachal Pradesh took a different course.

Having done LL.B and LL.M from Punjab University, Chandigarh, Justice Khehar was awarded Gold Medal for securing first position in the university in LL.M examination.

Before being elevated as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh on February 8, 1999, Justice Khehgar had practised before it as well as the Himachal Pradesh High Court and the Supreme Court. He was twiuce appointed as the acting Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2 August, 2008, and again from 17 November, 2009.

He was elevated as Chief Justice of Uttrakhand High Court on 29 November, 2009. Later he was transferred as Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court.

Justice Khehar was elevated as judge of the Supreme Court on 13 September, 2011.
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Mumbai: The Indian Navy chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba, on Tuesday visited the naval dockyard in Mumbai where INS Betwa tipped over while undocking. The navy said the Brahmaputra-class guided missile frigate will be made operational again.

The Navy chief also met the injured personnel at the naval hospital, INHS Asvini.

Specialists are likely to reach Mumbai on Wednesday for conducting an initial assessment of the damage in the next two days, navy's spokesperson Captain DK Sharma said.

"The Navy will upright the ship and make her operational in the shortest possible time," he said.

INS Betwa, undergoing a refit at the dry dock here, slipped and toppled over on her side, killing two sailors and injuring 14 naval personnel.

A Board of Inquiry headed by Flag Officer of Offshore Defence Advisory Group Rear Admiral Deepak Bali will look into the incident.

Admiral Lanba was briefed about the accident on Monday and the situation at the dockyard, Captain Sharma said.

A dry dock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships and boats etc.

Undocking a ship involves its refloating.

The frigate had slipped from her dock blocks and keeled over. Officials initially said it appeared that the dock mechanism had failed.

INS Betwa  inducted in the navy in July 2004  was part of Task Force 54, tasked to evacuate nationals of India as well as those from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Lebanon married to Indian nationals from the conflict zone during the 2006 Lebanon war, as part of Operation Sukoon.
While the effects of demonetisation on urban India are immediately apparent to those with access to mainstream English media, its impact on rural lives is as yet unclear. We attempted to understand why during the second leg of our trip into the country's villages. This time we travelled north with Firstpost senior assistant editor Bindisha Sarang to Gujarat's Himmatnagar.

She had an iPhone, a couple of mics, a GoPro and no institutional monetary support  she had borrowed money from friends and withdrawn all the cash permitted under prevalent restrictions.

She went live on Facebook when she was able to locate a reliable cell phone signal, and sent in text updates on WhatsApp. Sarang had a very loose editorial guideline with which to work  she hitched rides when necessary, interviewed as many people as were willing to talk, altered her route as circumstances dictate, and filed updates when she deemed it necessary.

Firstpost broadcast Sarangs road trip on our Facebook page, and, now that she has returned, It is now releasing the videos in the form of a series of documentary shorts.

Her journey started in Mumbai, and her first stop was Kosamba, a tiny village few kilometers away from the famous Thitha beach, in Valsad district. With nearly 90-95 percent of this tiny village earn their income fishing and allied fishing activities. We spoke to the fishermen, fisherwomen, a former sarpanch, as well as the current sarpanch to know the impact of demonisation on the lives of the villagers. Watch the video.
Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayaraman Jayalalithaa broke every major rule of the very Dravida movement that shaped her political career, even as she honourably led a powerful party born from the movement. The reasons lie in her extraordinary ability to connect with poor voters and administrative bureaucrats alike and tapping deeper elements of a social psyche, while keeping everyone else guessing on her next move  especially leaders of her own All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the media and above all, her bitter rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its leader, Muthuvel Karunanidhi.

In Sanskrit, the name Jayalalithaa can be translated as "the playfully victorious one." True to her character, she kept everyone guessing from her bed at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai until the last moment. True to her character, she fought with every breath before passing away. By the conventional rules of Tamil Nadu and indeed, Indian politics, Jayalalithaa was up against three major forces: Male dominance, anti-Brahmin sentiment and rationalist thought. She pooh-poohed them all in her political moves.

The DMK is busy marking 100 years of the Justice Party founded by the late EV Ramaswamy Naicker as its own century. Naicker was an atheist who fought Brahmin dominance. His party later became the Dravida Kazhagam, representing what it called the non-Aryan southern communities against northern and Brahmin dominance, giving birth to the Dravida movement.

The DMK was carved out of the DK by the late CN Annadurai (Anna). MG Ramachandran, Jayalalithaa's co-star in many Tamil movies and later her political mentor, broke away from the DMK after Anna's death from the Karunanidhi-led DMK to form the AIADMK. MGR was a Keralite by birth and Jayalalithaa traced her origins to Mysuru in Karnataka where she was born in the nearby temple town of Melukote into an Iyengar Brahmin family.

Both led the AIADMK with aplomb, never mind the fact that the DMK rode to power in an anti-Hindi movement that spoke for Tamil pride and also railed against Sanskrit, its parent, and Brahmins, linked to that language.

By DMK's streetsmart yardsticks, Jayalalithaa was every inch non-Dravidian  born outside Tamil Nadu, of Brahmin parentage, and a soft-spoken English-educated woman in a tribe of patriarchal, often misogynist, men. Jayalalithaa succeeded with some formulae picked up from her mentor, and some style of her own. Women, farmers and the Thevar community have formed the backbone of AIADMK's politics, which has retained strong support for core Dravida priorities such as job reservations for backward castes while harnessing support elsewhere.

The religious Thevars eagerly backed Jayalalithaa, a devout Hindu happy to perform yagnas and pose in temples while leading a big part of the once proudly atheist Dravida movement. The reasons for her success can be seen in every street corner of Tamil Nadu, where temples abound to many gods. Women are among the most devout. Jayalalithaa's closest friend has been Sasikala Natarajan, herself from the Thevar community, though she was kept outside party politics of late. O Panneerselvam, the leader's chief political aide and government head in her absence, is also a Thevar.

Jayalalithaa also aggressively pursued welfare programmes for the poor with a focus on women. MGR launched the mid-day meal scheme in schools lauded by the World Bank, while Jayalalithaa launched her cut-rate "Amma Canteens" to feed the poor. Her most recent poll plank in her comeback victory this year included a scooter subsidy for women and special maternity aid for the pregnant. Jayalalithaa also defied Karnataka's rulers time and again as she fasted and fought in courts and tribunals to get more waters from the Cauvery river for Tamil Nadu's farmers, who were key to her grassroot support base.

While doing all this, the leader knew how to handle the bureaucracy. Although she joined the world of cinema to help her family and did not pursue her college degree, her stellar academic record at Chennai's elite Church Park Convent stood her in good stead as she handled bureaucrats and files with aplomb, equally fluent in English and Tamil. But in all this, she knew how to keep her glamour quotient high. Whether it was living in a palatial home, moving in a convoy of cars that made her look like a head of state, or in defying critics to stage a lavish royal-style wedding for an adopted son, the visual pomp gave for the masses a figure they held in awe. A series of corruption cases  including one in which she was temporarily convicted  did nothing to dampen her style or dent her image among the masses.

Her comeback in the last state election only showed that her extraordinary connection with Tamil Nadu's people was beyond the conventional thinking of those weaned on simple equations of caste, language and egalitarian socialism. Mystique and mystery were central to her politics.

The author is a senior editor and journalist who has worked for Reuters, Economic Times, Hindustan Times and Business Standard. He tweets @madversity
For the automobile industry, AIADMK leader and six-time Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's (Jayalalitha) death is indeed a big loss. She has been in the forefront of attracting auto giants into the state and developing Chennai as the 'Detroit of Asia' over the last more than 20 years.

The state's impressive industrial journey got a major impetus with US car major Ford's investment in Chennai in 1995. That was one of the key investments the country received after the economic liberalisation started in 1991.

When the then government under Jayalalithaa clinched the deal in 1995, it was considered a coup of sorts. The company set up its manufacturing facility as a 50:50 joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra.

Jayalalithaa had gone all out in wooing the company to invest in her state, facing stiff competition from other states.

According to media reports, the government had given away Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority's land for setting up the facility. Since then, Ford has made cumulative investments of $2 billion in India and exports many of its key models such as EcoSport made at the Chennai unit.

"Chennai is Ford Motor company's home away from home (after the United States)," Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford had said last month announcing a Rs 1,300 crore investment in Chennai.

"Saddened by Jayalalithaaji's demise. Got to know her when she inaugurated Mahindra Ford's Chennai plant&then Mahindra World City," Anannd Mahindra, executive chairman of the Mahindra group, said in a tweet reacting to the news on Monday.

Saddened by Jayalalithaaji's demise. Got to know her when she inaugurated Mahindra Ford's Chennai plant & then Mahindra World City (1/2)  anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 5, 2016

Memories of interactions with Jayalalithaaji rushing back. Iron Lady, certainly, but with a wry sense of humour & the gift of eloquence (2/2)  anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 5, 2016

Ford's investment served as a launching pad for other auto companies that flocked to the state cashing in on the industry-friendly policies of the government. According to reports, as many as seven of the top 20 global majors have made investments in Tamil Nadu. The companies which have facilities in Chennai include Hyundai, BMW, and Mitsubishi.

The impetus given to automobile manufacturing also boosted the ancillary sector investments too.

In February 2014, the AIADMK government unveiled an automobile policy in a bid to make Chennai one of the top five global auto clusters.

"Recognising the importance of automobile and auto-components sector to State, my government has brought out a separate Tamil Nadu Automobile and Autocomponent Policy 2014," Jayalalithaa said at the function to mark the formal launch of the policy, along with Tamil Nadu Vision 2023 document second phase.

As Jayalalithaa returned to power in May 2016, proving anti-incumbency could not dent her popularity, the auto sector cheered as it meant policy consistency.

"Consistency in policy making and furtherance of the already set mission is the biggest benefit.... Our experience with Tamil Nadu has been very positive and encouraging," Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice-president (sales and marketing), Hyundai Motor India, was quoted as saying in a report in The Economic Times.

Jayalalithaa's death leaves a big void in Tamil Nadu's political scene and there could be political uncertainty as she has not built up a strong second-rung leadership. If this plays out as anticipated, it may not augur well for the sector.
The passing away of J Jayalalithaa (her name is sometimes spelled Jayalalitha) will force a coercive realignment of the pieces on the chessboard of Tamil Nadu and even national politics. Much has already been written about the cult status that Puratchi Thalaivi (revolutionary leader) enjoyed among the masses. But Jayalalithaa's influence wasn't restricted to the south of Vindhyas.

The days leading from her resolute battle with illness to eventual demise have shaken not just Chennai, but also the power centre in New Delhi. Ever since the AIADMK supremo was admitted to the hospital on 22 September with complaints of fever and dehydration, Tamil Nadu, which reelected her for the fourth time as chief minister on 23 May this year, had held its breath.

The administration was on autopilot and so was the opposition. Even as Jayalalithaa lay in the hospital with doctors reporting slow but steady progress, DMK was battling own demons with nonagenarian patriarch M Karunanidhi also getting treated in another hospital. Caught between the two illnesses, the state was frozen in animated suspension. The stasis exploded into a frenzy of anxiety when on Sunday, Jayalalithaa suffered a "massive cardiac arrest" just hours after AIADMK had claimed that their Iron Lady had "completely recovered" and would soon return home. The events that unfolded indicated the true nature of Amma's power.

Even as the state shut itself down amid insecurities of uncontrolled emotion triggering large-scale violence, the Centre took control. In the intervening hours between Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest and demise, governor C Vidyasagar Rao sprung into action, cutting short his other engagements and rushing to the Apollo Hospital. The Centre dispatched a team of Aiims specialists, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu flew down to Chennai and reportedly gave the prime minister minute-to-minute updates.

The flurry of activity  that intensified as it became clear that Jayalalithaa might be the state's third chief minister to die while in office (after MG Ramachandran and CN Annadurai)  gave an idea about the Centre's eagerness to remain a stakeholder in Tamil Nadu's altered power structure amid extreme volatility that would inevitably be triggered.

And not just the Centre. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Chennai to pay his last respects, so did several political leaders and chief ministers including Naveen Patnaik, Chandrababu Naidu, Shivraj Chouhan, Arvind Kejriwal, Pinarayi Vijayan, Narayanaswamy (Puducherry), Rahul Gandhi and President Pranab Mukherjee. Mamata Banerjee sent two emissaries to Chennai. The list of attendees at the funeral signals  beyond the obvious formalities  the alignment and realignment of political axis that would now take shape.

For the Modi government, Amma's death comes at a time when the federal-state relationship is under huge strain. The implementation of one big bang reform in demonetisation has unleashed disruptive forces in the economy that may still intensify with the onset of GST. In this crucial juncture, Jayalalithaa's departure will force the Centre, which is still locked in a battle with states over executing the single-biggest tax reform, to rethink strategies and redraw its plans.

With the ruling AIADMK commanding a major chunk of the Lok Sabha with 37 seats along with 14 members in the Upper House, the chief minister's death brings both threats and opportunities for the NDA government. As politics in Tamil Nadu turns unpredictable and fluid, the Centre may try to angle for a greater leverage by pulling the strings of players who have emerged the strongest.

But it won't be easy.

Jayalalithaa's considerable political capital may provide interim chief minister O Panneerselvam the necessary breathing space  precluding any possibility of split in the near term  and the Modi government may even get singed if it is seen trying too hard to instigate an Uttarakhand or Arunachal Pradesh-type machination.

There is also a personal dimension in the power calculation. For Modi, Amma's death is a loss.

The two mass leaders shared a rare affinity and the prime minister, who arrived at Rajaji Hall in Chennai to pay his last respects, wasn't just being gracious when he mourned his "key ally and long-term friend".

In a moment of poignancy as also utter political significance, Modi spent a few fleeting minutes consoling Amma's closest aide Sasikala Natarajan just after laying a wreath on the leader's mortal remains, offering the black-clad, weeping Sasikala a sympathetic pat of assurance. The prime minister was also seen engaging with her in a brief discussion just before departure. With Sasikala emerging as the kingmaker, amid the sharing of personal grief, the moments also gave us an indication of how the future may shape up in post-Amma era.

As CL Manoj writes in The Economic Times on the aftershocks of Jayalalitha's death,

"Given the rift within AIADMK and the fact DMK too is looking for an fishing in the muddied waters, Centre's supporting role, many think, will be a strategic requirement for Sasikala faction to ensure a smooth transition. Political circles attribute AIADMK's recent softening of its stand  in the GST council and the 'Uday' electricity reforms scheme  to Sasikala camp's way of humouring the Centre. AIADMK's ongoing opposition to demonetisation is seen as a bargaining chip. Given Sasikala herself figures in the disproportional assets case, some argue, she would be prone to pushes from Centre to ensure a 'convenient' transition."

The BJP, unlike the Congress during MGR's death, has no seat in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. In the recently concluded bypolls, however, the party has done reasonably well, even showing a 2.5 percent vote share and relegating DMDK to the fourth spot. Although it may not have any grand plans for the southern state with elections in Uttar Pradesh on the anvil, Amma's death and DMK's succession woes present BJP with the chance to gain a foothold. The AIADMK, rudderless and it would seem, leaderless (with Jayalalithaa's cult-based politics leaving no space for a second or even third-rung leader to gain prominence), may increasingly veer towards the Centre for survival.

If the BJP plays its cards right in the post-Jayalalithaa era and backs the right horses, Tamil Nadu politics might be altered for good.
Best remembered as her political rival, DMK leader M Karunanidhi  himself hospitalised  condoled the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away at Chennai's Apollo Hospitals on Monday night.

"I offer deep condolences on the passing away of Jayalalithaa. Wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal," Karunanidhi said.

The DMK patriarch's tribute sounds gregarious, but for those in the know when it comes to Tamil Nadu politics, the two were fierce adversaries; opposing titans in Dravidian politics, post the MGR era. To revisit their rivalry, one would first have to visit their entry into politics, which takes root in the Dravidian movement, something that still holds good with any political party in Tamil Nadu. (Case in point, the DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, DMDK)

It all started with the emergence of a series of non-Brahmin conferences in the then Madras Presidency in the 1900s, which gave rise to the Justice Party, established in 1916 by Dr TM Nair, P Theagaraya Chettiar and Dr C Natesa Mudaliar  who also to their credit have roads named after them in Chennai. The seeds sown by the Justice Party along with the Self Respect Movement started by EV Periyar took formidable shape in the late 19th century  in 1938, The Indian Express reports, the Justice Party and the Self Respect Movement came together to form the Dravida Kazhagam, which aimed to serve as an anti-Brahmin, anti-Congress and an anti-North Indian outfit. This was mainly to counter the Rajagopalachari-led Congress' move to impose Hindi in the state; DK then launched the anti-Hindi agitations of 1937-40. (Hindi is still a thorn in Tamil Nadu's flesh)

Annadurai, who became the party's first general secretary, left the DK after he differed with Periyar on India's independence and formed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949. The DMK further split in 1972 when actor-turned-politician MG Ramachandran (MGR) was expelled from the party, writes Frontline, following differences between him and M Karunanidhi, primarily a screenwriter and an orator, who served as party president. MGR went on to launch the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK), which later took on the prefix of 'All India' during the Emergency. The AIADMK did split into two factions following MGR's death, one led by the wife Janaki Ramachandran and the other by Jayalalithaa and in 1989 the two factions merged.

History aside, Karunanidhi is known to have built his political career on his oratorical flourishes  his fiery speeches sometimes leave nothing to the imagination or a whole lot, they provoke with the pulse of a fiery rhetoric. This piece in Fountain Ink describes the public craze surrounding Karunanidhi's poetry.

There were times when scores of people would pour out of their homes to hear Karunanidhis poetry, see MGR and Jayalalithaa.

In fact, he earned his sobriquet Kalaignar because he spoke "Tamil with a poetic fervour and his skills in oratory and writing were widely appreciated", writes Vaasanthi in Cut-outs, Caste and Cines Stars. It is also known that Karunanidhi, born into a poor Isai Vellalar family (members who nurtured arts and music), took pride in being called Kalaignar. The Caravan, in a splendid profile of him and his family, writes that his father "introduced him to the epics, oral stories and music". But it was really his work for the Sivaji Ganesan-starrer Parasakthi that catapulted him into fame. Adapted from the eponymous play, Karunanidhi was signed to write the script.

Randor Guy writes for The Hindu that, "the powerful writing of Karunanidhi, the atheistic stance, the performance of the unknown newcomer all this and more took the world by storm". Parasakthi not only made Sivaji famous but also Karunanidhi; the latter used films as a medium to spread the party's ideology, which still pays the dividends for DMK. His speeches drew crowds and how!

Sample this poem by Karunanidhi where he describes his body as a sacrifice to Tamil people, "if you dash me against the rocks, I will break into the flakes of a coconut; you can pick these up and eat them, and rejoice". Further, out of his great devotion to Tirukkural, Karunanidhi even built a monument for Tiruvalluvar, Valluvar Kottom, in Chennai.

Contrast this with the late Jayalalithaa, who started out as an actress  a glamorous entry that shot her to fame  only to make herself less attractive and grow into a matriarchal role, of that as 'Amma'. Vaasanthi reinforces this view in her biography of Jayalalithaa, writing that the latter consciously set out to "de-glamourise her appearance, perhaps in an attempt to wipe out the stigma attached to her as an actress". It was exactly this "stigma" that drew in crowds for the AIADMK: A party conference at Cuddalore was organised, and it was no surprise that the whole town gathered to hear the star speaker deliver her maiden political speech. "They mainly came to see a pretty face, and were instead treated to an impressive, fiery oration," Vaasanthi writes.

Perhaps enjoying the rush, Jayalalithaa joined the AIADMK in June 1982; the DMK described the event as "Cuddalore cabaret" in its mouthpiece.

However, after she became AIADMK's party secretary she stuck to a simple white sari sans jewellery, and instead stepping up her oratorical game. Her emotionally-charged speeches always contained the trademark questions  "neengal seiveerhala (Will you fulfill it)?" asking the crowd whether they would vote for AIADMK and defeat the opposition. The other thing that usually worked in favour of Jayalalithaa is the elevation to a near-goddess status and her projection of an emotional attachment to the late MGR  as someone who carried forward his legacy.

Jayalalithas photograph has also frequently been superimposed onto various images of the goddess in AIADMK propaganda material, especially that of her being depicted as the Virgin Mary in posters commissioned for her 47th birthday.

The incident that stemmed their enmity finds its base in the shameful attempt to disrobe Jayalalithaa in 1989 in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly where Jayalalithaa accused the DMK of harassing her and tapping her phones. Karunanidhi retorted with a reportedly unfavourable remark that made Jayalalithaa furious and caused a ruckus in the Assembly. As the speaker adjourned the House and Jayalalithaa was making her exit, Duraimurugan clutched her sari and tried to pull it. She then vowed to never step foot inside the Assembly until she won the next election and until conditions were made favourable for women. In 1991, AIADMK triumphed DMK and took 224 seats, while the latter was reduced to a single digit, seven.
The late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa breathed her last at 11.30 pm on Monday after suffering a cardiac arrest. She had been admitted to Chennai's Apollo Hospital since 22 September after complaining of fever and dehydration. The actress-turned-politician, who joined the AIADMK under her mentor MG Ramachandran's tutelage, remained a spinster all her life. But while she remained at the centre of Tamil Nadu politics, her family has seldom been in the limelight. Here are a few of the prominent family members of the departed leader.

N Ragachar:

Jayalalithaa's paternal grandfather. According to the book Jayalalithaa: A Portrait, written by veteran journalist Vaasanthi, he was a doctor who served the Mysore royal family during the reign of the Wadiyars.

Rangaswamy Iyengar:

Jayalalithaa's maternal grandfather, hailed originally from Tamil Nadu's Srirangam, but moved to Bangalore. According to Vaasanthi's 2016 book, Amma: Jayalalithaas Journey from Movie Star to Political Queenbook, he got a job at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in the Karnataka state capital. After her mother chose to enter the film industry in Chennai, Jayalalitha and brother Jaya Kumar remained in Bangalore with their grandfather, where Jayalalithaa went to the Bishop Cotton School.

Jayaram:

Jayalalithaa's father Jayaram was a lawyer but died when she was just two years old. According to Jayalalithaa: A Portrait, Jayalalithaa wrote in the 1970s that her father died under mysterious circumstances after squandering the family wealth.

Vedavalli:

Jayalalithaa's mother. After her husband's death, Vedavalli went back to her grandfather's house in Bangalore. In order to support her children, she took the job of a typist. However, unsatisfied with the meagre earnings it offered, she chose to try her luck in films. She adopted a screen name, Sandhya, and played character roles. She was instrumental in bringing Jayalalithaa into the film industry after the family suffered a financial crisis. She died in 1971. In an interview to Rediff, the late CM said that her mother had been a major influence on her.

Jaya Kumar:

Jayalalithaa's brother, with whom she lived in Bangalore in her formative years. Relations between the siblings strained in the 90s following the death of Jayalalitha's mentor MG Ramachandran. Jaya Kumar died in an accident in 1995, as per this report in The Indian Express.

Deepa:

Jaya Kumar's daughter and Jayalalithaa's niece. According to a report in The Times of India, she made numerous attempts top meet her aunt over the years, but was not allowed to do so. Back in 2014, following Jayalalithaa's release from prison, Deepa and her husband tried to meet the AIADMK chief, but weren't let in. Even when Jayalalithaa was ailing in hospital, she was all alone as Deepa was turned away by the police at the hospital.

VN Sudhakaran:

The nephew of Jayalalithaa's aide Sasikala. Jayalalithaa once considered Sudhakran her foster son, but later disowned him. In September 1995, he was married off to Satyavati, the granddaughter of legendary Tamil actor Sivaji Ganesan. He was convicted in the disproportionate assets case, in which Jayalalithaa and Sasikala were also implicated, and sentenced to four years in prison.

Vasudevan:

Jayalalithaa's elder step-brother, who according to this report in Deccan Chronicle, was the son of Jayaram, who married Vasudevan's mother Jayamma before marrying Jayalalithaa's mother. Estranged from Jayalalithaa, Vasudevan currently lives in obscurity in a village in Mysuru district.
Chennai: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu condoled AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa's death, saying she lived for Tamil Nadu and will continue to live in the hearts of the state's people forever.

"Felt very sad about the demise of Madam Selvi Jayalalithaa CM of Tamil Nadu  had hopes till last movement that she will survive  doctors had made every possible attempt," Naidu said after her demise.

"Knowing her serious condition rushed to Chennai from Parliament. Even at 7 pm after discussing with Dr Reddy had some hope," the Urban Development Minister said.

She was a really revolutionary leader 'Puratchi Thalaivi'  unparalleled, he said.

"I always admired her courage, conviction, dynamism, wisdom  bold administration," Naidu said.

"She used to be very affectionate towards me. She shared her last public function inauguration of Chennai metro line with me," he said.

"I am so sad and felt that I lost my own sister. Pray to almighty to rest her soul in peace, my condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK cadre. She lived for Tamil Nadu. She will continue to live in the hearts of Tamil Nadu people forever," he added.
It was the summer of 2001. Tamil Nadus Queen Bee J Jayalalithaa (her name is sometimes spelled Jayalalitha) and King Kong M Karunanidhi were crisscrossing the state to campaign for their respective parties, the AIADMK and DMK. And on one hot afternoon, the paths of the two arch enemies crossed  well, almost  at a tiny village not far from Coimbatore.

Having seen their campaign itineraries before and known that they would be in the same village with an interval of just a couple of hours between their visits, I had arrived there well in time. I was glad I did. It offered me a rare chance to hear them speak to the same audience one after another and contrast their campaign tropes. Karunanidhi got down from a car and climbed onto a makeshift dais and took the mike. He spoke about what his government had done in the five years of his rule. Interspersed in his serious rhetoric on government policy was his inimitable wit that sent the crowd into raptures. Some laughed so much they had tears in their eyes.

The same listeners were tearful even when Jayalalithaa spoke. But those were tears of empathy or sympathy. She was not endowed with the great oratory skills of Karunanidhi. But, as she always did, she struck an emotional chord with the crowd, as she spoke with folded hands from her campaign vehicle, promising what she would do, if voted back to power. She won that election.

With the image of a lonely woman wronged by both friends and foes, with a series of welfare measures, a flood of freebies, which she had delivered in the past and promised in future, Jayalalithaa has developed a level of emotional connect with people that few Indian leaders have. Neither a Mulayam Singh Yadav, nor Mayawati, nor Mamata Banerjee, nor Nitish Kumar, nor Naveen Patnaik and not even Chandrababu Naidu can boast such a psychological bond with supporters.

But then Tamil Nadu is also a state where emotions overtake everything, even allegations of large-scale corruption that marked her reign.

It was this direct emotional bond with people that had, in the first place, helped her take charge of the party some time after the death of her leader and mentor MG Ramachandran (MGR) in 1987 and become the chief minister for the first time in 1991.

Draupadi versus Duryodhana

Ever since some DMK members made the terrible mistake of assaulting her and pulling at her sari in the state Assembly in 1989, she has never failed to present herself as a damsel in distress. In the minds of many of her supporters, especially women, the image of Jayalalithaa in a crumpled sari, with hair dishevelled and eyes filled with tears, stays in some form or the other.

She completed the effect by calling Karunanidhi a Duryodhana who had encouraged Dushasanas to pull at her pallu.

Clearly, that Mahabharat-like episode was one of the triggers that transformed her into a determined and tough  even if vengeful  politician, intent on destroying her enemies and befriending voters at the same time. She sought the support of the people, and she got it in ample measure. Of the six elections to the state Assembly since 1991, she has won four (with two more wins coming in by-elections).

A lonely woman

Jayalalithaa considered herself  and was deemed by her supporters  to be a loner, a perception that only added to her emotional appeal. She had lost her father at age two, when the family lived in Karnatakas Mysore district. She was even disappointed with her mother who, as she later wrote in a magazine, had forced her to give up studies and move to Chennai to act in films.

Having severed her links with most of her family members, childhood friends and later even with her one-time political allies, she trusted nobody. At some point, she was critical of even her mentor MGR.

The only person to whom Jayalalithaa remained loyal and who was loyal to her all through was Sasikala Natarajan, the wife of a former government public relations officer. An IAS officer introduced Sasikala to Jayalalithaa in 1983, when she was AIADMKs propaganda secretary and MGR was still the chief minister.

Sasikala moved into Jayalalithaas official residence when she became the chief minister in 1991 and has remained her close friend, except for two brief intervals of separation. Allegations that Sasikala misused her proximity to Jayalalithaa made no impact on their friendship.

Jayalalithaa distanced herself from Sasikala once in 1996 after the partys election defeat but made up with her three months later. And in 2011, the chief minister expelled her friend from the party and her house but took her back, again, three months later. Besides Sasikala, she had no other significant allies.

All this only made Jayalalithaa look to her supporters as a woman who was deserted by friends, though often it was the other way round. And she looked like one who needed love and support.

Even in running her administration, she was also a loner. She usually took most of her decisions in consultation with a handful of trusted bureaucrats but not with her own party leaders.

Add to all this the welfare schemes and the freebies she offered to people. Topping that list are the low-cost Amma canteens. Her election promises include supply of free mobile phones to ration-card holders, free laptops to Class X and XII students, waiver of farm loans, 100 free electricity units every two months, assistance to fishermen and goats and cows for rural families.

Besides, the stand she took on the Cauvery dispute with Karnataka during her six terms as chief minister was much more belligerent than that of Karunanidhi, and whether the farmers got the water or not she got their goodwill.

The scams during her time as the chief minister? Come again?

The author tweets @sprasadindia
By Robin Emmott and Sabine Siebold

| BRUSSELS

BRUSSELS NATO and the European Union overcame years of rivalry on Tuesday to agree a seven-point plan to counter tactics such as cyber attacks, information warfare and irregular militia from Russia and other potential aggressors.The pact, which is not legally-binding, allows the six EU states outside NATO to benefit from some of the U.S. military support that President-elect Donald Trump has suggested could be conditional on greater European defence spending.The proposals should also reassure Europe that the United States, the leading power in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is committed to the region despite Trump's campaign comments that have unsettled allies, NATO officials said."We are strengthening the transatlantic bond and the vital link between North America and Europe," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini."The U.S. commitment to NATO transcends politics ... I am confident that the majority of both major parties (in the U.S.) are committed to NATO," outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told journalists.During the U.S. election campaign, Trump challenged longtime U.S. foreign policy in Europe by saying Washington might not defend NATO allies that do not pay more for their own security.

The EU-NATO agreement follows agreement on a separate EU defence fund to pay for helicopters, planes and other equipment, in part to send a signal to Trump.The EU-NATO plan aims to ensure any assets in the 22 allies in both NATO and the EU are available for both NATO and EU operations. "With a changing security environment, it's a good thing for NATO and the European Union to combine efforts," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

Russian cyber attacks, a migration crisis and failing states near Europe require both NATO's military response and a softer security approach that the EU can provide to combat propaganda and provide training to stabilise governments, officials say. Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea showed the West's inability to deal with unconventional tactics such as computer hackers, disinformation campaigns and militia without insignia.Under the agreement, experts from the EU and NATO will cooperate to detect and deflect hackers on computer networks and prepare for potential attacks.

NATO and the EU should also cooperate more closely in the Mediterranean, where both have operations, and to avoid any return to the competing operations of the past.However, both institutions face limits because of tensions between Turkey and Greece that limit information sharing.Turkey, a member of NATO but not of the EU, blocks the sharing of alliance intelligence with the EU, while EU- and NATO-member Greece does not want Brussels sharing any sensitive information with the alliance because of Turkey. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday he would name retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.The following is a list of Republican Trump's selections for top jobs in his administration. All the posts but that of national security adviser require Senate confirmation: DEFENCE SECRETARY: JAMES MATTIS

Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname "Mad Dog." He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: "It's fun to shoot some people." (Full Story)TREASURY SECRETARY: STEVEN MNUCHIN

Mnuchin, 53, is a relatively little-known but successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs GS.N before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California's largest bank. The bank came under fire for its foreclosure practices as housing advocacy groups accused it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. (Full Story)COMMERCE SECRETARY: WILBUR ROSS

Ross, 78, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross has helped shape the Trump campaign's views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which entered into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization for causing massive U.S. factory job losses. (Full Story)TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: ELAINE CHAO

Chao, 63, was labour secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. Chao is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky.HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TOM PRICE

Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House of Representatives' Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion.U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY

Haley, a 44-year-old Republican, has been governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman. (Full Story)EDUCATION SECRETARY: BETSY DEVOS

DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatization of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools.

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS

Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump's presidential bid and has been a close ally since. The son of a country-store owner, the senator from Alabama and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.(Full Story)HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY: BEN CARSON

Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump. (Full Story)NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: RETIRED LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL FLYNN

Flynn, 57, was an early supporter of Trump and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his U.S. Army career in 1981 and served deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama, but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama's foreign policy. (Full Story)CIA DIRECTOR: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE POMPEO

Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government's sweeping collection of Americans' communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. (Full Story) (Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Rome: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi formally resigned Monday after a crushing referendum defeat that has sent shockwaves around Europe  though his departure will be delayed by a final task, passing a budget.

Renzi handed his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella after Italians resoundingly rejected his constitutional reform proposals in Sunday's referendum, to the delight of the country's populist leaders, fresh after Brexit and Donald Trump's US victory.

The departure of the centre-left premier  who had staked his future on the outcome of the vote  plunges Italy into political uncertainty and casts a shadow over the future of the eurozone's third-largest economy.

In an apparent bid to ease investor fears, the presidency said in a statement that Mattarella had "asked the prime minister to postpone his resignation" until the 2017 budget has been passed, a move expected by the end of the week, according to Italian media.

The government has already won a vote of confidence on the budget in the lower house of parliament.

Renzi, who in 2014 became Italy's youngest-ever premier, was left with no option but to quit after his proposals to streamline parliament were rejected by voters by a decisive 59-41 percent margin.

The 41-year-old former mayor of Florence, who came to power promising radical reform, defended his record.

"1,000 difficult but wonderful days. Thanks to everyone. Viva l'Italia," he wrote on Facebook.

Italian media said he told his cabinet he had agreed to see the budget passed before his departure "out of a sense of responsibility".

Landmark moment?

Initial market reaction to Renzi's departure has been subdued.

The euro briefly sank to a 20-month low as investors fretted that political instability could scupper efforts to resolve debt-ridden Italy's long-running banking crisis, and over the possibility of an election that could see anti-EU parties challenge for power.

Italy's FTSE MIB stock index fell 2.0 percent at the opening but recovered to end the day only fractionally down. Italian bond yields rose slightly, having already edged up prior to Sunday's vote.

Traders were reassured in part by the result of Europe's other crucial vote this weekend, which saw Austria reject a far-right candidate for president.

But some analysts said the referendum could yet come to be seen as a landmark moment.

Holger Schmieding, at the Berenberg private bank, said the risk that Italy could choose to leave the euro, while still remote, had increased.

Capital Economics said: "Italy has taken the first step along a path that could lead it out of the eurozone."

An anti-establishment vote

The vote inevitably became something of a referendum on Renzi's personality and record after his pledge to stand down should he lose, and an opportunity for some to express wider frustrations.

Populists across Europe rejoiced at his downfall, with the founder of Italy's own anti-establishment Five Star movement Beppe Grillo calling for an election "within a week".

Giovanni Orsina, Professor of Politics at Rome's Luiss university, said four out of five voters had cast their vote politically rather than on the merits of the reform.

"The vote has broad similarities with the Brexit and Trump phenomena," he said. "The electorate voted against the establishment, against Brussels. They didn't get into the subtleties."

Poll data showed the No vote was strongest in areas with high unemployment, in the relatively poor south and amongst young voters, pointing to a correlation with levels of discontent.

Britain's eurosceptic Nigel Farage, who spearheaded the "Brexit" campaign, said the vote appeared to have been "more about the euro than constitutional change".

But former Bank of Italy economist Lorenzo Codgno insisted: "The outcome of the referendum is much more complex and nuanced than 'just another wave of protest across the globe'."

Padoan favourite for new PM

Most analysts see immediate elections as unlikely.

The most probable scenario is a caretaker administration dominated by Renzi's Democratic Party taking over before an election that has to take place by March 2018.

Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan was installed as the bookmakers favourite to succeed Renzi as prime minister, with Senate speaker Pietro Grasso, a veteran anti-mafia prosecutor, running in second place.

Renzi meanwhile may try to stay on as head of his party, which would leave him well-placed for a potential comeback to frontline politics at the next election. But he faces resistance to that scenario from the many enemies he has made while in office.
Riyadh: A court in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death and several others to prison terms in a case involving an alleged Iranian spy cell, a sign of the continuing tension between the two Mideast powers.

A Riyadh criminal court handed down its ruling to the 32 people who were charged, including 30 Saudis, one Iranian and one Afghan national. The defendants' names were not made public and Amnesty International criticized the proceedings as "a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights."

There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.

Saudi state media reported in February that those charged were accused of establishing a spy ring in collaboration with Iranian intelligence and providing Iran with highly sensitive information on the Saudi military.

The reports said they also were charged with seeking to commit acts of sabotage against Saudi economic interests, inciting sectarian strife, recruiting others for espionage and participating in anti-government protests.

Amnesty International said two of the 32 were acquitted. It said those charged were arrested between 2013 and 2014 without warrants, "were repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer" and were forced into signing confessions.

"Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice," Samah Hadid, an Amnesty official, said in a statement.

Tensions have been high between Shiite power Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia since January, when the kingdom executed a prominent Shiite cleric along with 46 others.

Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations to Iran after protesters stormed and ransacked two Saudi diplomatic posts in the Islamic Republic.
By Angus McDowall , John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

| BEIRUT/GENEVA

BEIRUT/GENEVA Syria's army and allies closed in on areas near Aleppo's Old City on Tuesday, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.Rebels said on Tuesday they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats were preparing to discuss the surrender and evacuation of insurgents from territory they have held for years.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal would begin in Geneva as soon as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But sources familiar with the plans later told Reuters no talks would take place this week in the Swiss city.The rebels, who controlled large parts of eastern Aleppo for nearly five years, have lost around two thirds of their territory in the city over the past two weeks.The government now appears closer to victory in the city than at any point since 2012, the year after rebels took up arms to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world's worst refugee crisis.The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a weeklong ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce.Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in rebel-held districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometres across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to government-controlled areas of the city, on Tuesday described "a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo"."There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians), there's no electricity and little internet access," said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters.Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation.But despite Lavrov's announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a U.S. official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations.Were not going to negotiate this publicly, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Rebels have told U.S. officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week."The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay ... we said this is our city, and we will defend it," Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters on Tuesday.The Cold War-era superpowers have backed opposing sides in the war, but Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'ite groups to back Assad.Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a U.S.-backed military aid programme to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad's government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favour over the past year.The army said it had taken over areas to the east of the Old City including al-Shaar, Marja and Karm al-Qaterji, bringing them closer to cutting off another pocket of rebel control.The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Shaar and some other areas had been taken, but did not immediately confirm the takeover of all the areas announced by the army. A Turkey-based rebel official denied al-Shaar had been taken but said fighting continued in the neighbourhood.

Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. The Observatory said a heavy Syrian and Russian aerial bombardment in the last three days in the mostly rebel-held Idlib province to the southwest had killed more than 100 people. WINTER IS COMING

The rebels' loss of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the war, would be the biggest victory of the conflict so far for Assad, securing his grip on all Syria's main cities.It would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow's ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi'ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad.

U.N. official Jens Laerke said: "Winter is approaching, it's already getting very, very cold so that has come up as a priority need ... Food is running out, the little food that is available is being sold at extremely inflated prices."While rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government assaults.Insurgents, meanwhile, have fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place on Monday within a kilometre of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City.With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets, the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting.Apart from their support for rebels fighting against Assad, Western countries are also taking part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group which broke away from other anti-Assad groups to proclaim a caliphate in territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.Moscow says helping Assad is the best way to defeat Islamic State. Western countries say the group gains strength from the fury unleashed by Assad's military crackdown on his enemies.France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, will convene foreign ministers of like-minded countries in Paris on Saturday to try to come up with some form of strategy in the wake of the Aleppo onslaught, although few diplomats expect anything concrete to be achieved.Western countries say that even if government forces take Aleppo, they will still not be able to end the conflict, as long as millions of Syrians see the government as a brutal enemy."Aleppo falls, but the war goes on," said one U.S. official. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, John Irish in Paris, John Davison and in Beirut and Jonathan Landay, Yeganeh Torbati and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; writing by Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff)

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WASHINGTON Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said she does not anticipate any major policy shifts affecting the region despite her unprecedented call with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that deeply rankled China, according to media reports on Tuesday.In a meeting with a small group of American reporters, Tsai played down the significance of the exchange last Friday with Trump. The telephone call was the first with a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. The call prompted a diplomatic protest from Beijing on Saturday and, on Monday, reassurance from the Obama administration that Washington is committed to the "One China" policy. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province. [L4N1E02ZB]"I have to stress that one phone call does not mean a policy shift," Tsai told reporters from U.S. outlets that included USA Today, National Public Radio and the Washington Post."I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region," she added, according to the reports. Tsai added: "The phone call was a way for us to express our respect for the U.S. election as well as congratulate President-elect Trump on his win." Republican Trump, a real estate developer who has never previously held public office, takes office on Jan. 20 after winning the Nov. 8 election.

In a statement on the meeting with journalists, Tsai's office made no mention of her remarks regarding the call with Trump. Instead, it said Tsai told journalists that Taiwan and the United States shared many common values and that Taiwan was a major market for U.S. exports.

(Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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By Amy Tennery and Timothy Gardner

| NEW YORK/WASHINGTON

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Former Vice President Al Gore, a leading voice in the fight against climate change, and Donald Trump, who at one point called it a hoax, met on Monday in what Gore called a "productive" session.Gore, a Democrat, spent about 90 minutes in meetings at the president-elect's Trump Tower apartment and office building in Manhattan. In addition to seeing Trump, he also met briefly with the Republican's daughter, Ivanka, who attended a series of high-level meetings since her father won the Nov. 8 election.Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential campaign to Republican George W. Bush, has for years been devoted to lowering carbon emissions blamed for climate change.As he campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton earlier this year, Gore warned that Trump would steer the world toward "climate catastrophe" if elected president.That warning came amid Trump campaign speeches calling on the United States to drop out of last year's global climate accord signed in Paris to lower carbon emissions blamed for a warming planet.

Trump also referred to human-induced climate change as a hoax, and had tweeted that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."Since then, however, in an interview with The New York Times, Trump has indicated that he might have an open mind to joining the effort to battle climate change.Gore had a somewhat more upbeat take on Trump after huddling with the wealthy New York real estate developer and television reality star.

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," Gore told reporters, adding, "I found it an extremely interesting conversation and, to be continued."Aides to Trump were not immediately available to comment on Monday's meeting.Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work in urging action against the risks of global warming, was also kicking off on Monday a 24-hour talk-a-thon to urge more action in the battle against climate change, which threatens to raise sea levels, spread diseases and increase droughts in more regions in the world.

In a possibly related matter, Trump is scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) who possibly is being considered for the job of secretary of state in the Trump administration. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.Exxon Mobil has embraced the 2015 Paris Agreement that would lower global greenhouse gas emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.An aide to Gore said the Trump transition reached out to him after the former vice president had said he intended to do everything he could to work with the president-elect to ensure that the United States remains a leader in the effort to address climate change. (Reporting By Amy Tennery in New York and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Additional reporting by Melissa Fares in New York; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Amy Tennery

| NEW YORK

NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the government to cancel an order with Boeing Co to develop a revamped Air Force One - one of the most prominent symbols of the U.S. presidency - saying costs were out of control.Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, pledged during his unconventional campaign for the White House that he would put his skills as a businessman to work for taxpayers, and had griped about the cost of President Barack Obama's use of the presidential aircraft.It was not immediately clear what prompted his complaint about Boeing on Tuesday, but a spokesman said that Trump was sending a message that he intends to save taxpayers' money."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!" Trump said on Twitter before making a surprise appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, where he amplified his comments."The plane is totally out of control. I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money," he told reporters.It was not clear what Trump's source of information was for the cost. The budgeted costs for the Air Force One replacement program are $2.87 billion for the fiscal years 2015 through 2021, according to budget documents.A March 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, estimated the total cost of the two 747's, which have to be extensively modified so they can function as an airborne White House, was estimated at $3.2 billion.Boeing has not yet been awarded the money to build the two proposed Air Force One replacements. It is currently working on engineering and designing the aircraft. "We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States," the company said in a statement.

"We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer."Boeing shares dipped after Trump's tweet and were down around 0.5 percent at midday. Shares of several other major defense contractors were also lower.NOT A 'VANILLA' JUMBO JET

A wealthy real estate developer, Trump used his own Boeing 757 to campaign around the country, pledging to shake up Washington.A Trump spokesman said that his comments about the plane reflected the president-elect's desire to keep down costs across the board, and so save taxpayers' money.The U.S. Air Force, which operates the presidential planes, first announced in January 2015 that Boeing's 747-8 would be used to replace the two current planes that transport the U.S. president.The Air Force has two planes in case one breaks down or needs to be taken out of service for maintenance. The two replacements for the current Air Force One planes are scheduled to be in service by the 2024 fiscal year. Boeing officials were caught off guard by Trumps comments since the company is simply meeting requirements mapped out by the Air Force in consultation with the White House, said defense consultant Loren Thompson, who has close ties to Boeing and other companies.

The cost of the planes is high because of the unique security requirements and communications equipment, Thompson said."Air Force One has unique mission requirements, including possibly having to operate in a nuclear war, Thompson said. Of course its not like buying a vanilla Boeing jumbo jet.U.S. presidents have used Boeing planes since 1943, according to the company's website. The 747-8 planes, 240 feet long (73 meters) long with a wing span of 224 feet (68 meters), can fly direct from Washington to Hong Kong, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) farther than the current Air Force One.In a September 2015 Rolling Stone profile of Trump, early on in his presidential campaign, he was quoted as gushing about the capabilities of his own Boeing plane."I bought this from Paul Allen and gutted it top to bottom. It's bigger than Air Force One, which is a step down from this in every way. Rolls-Royce engines; seats 43. Did you know it was featured on the Discovery Channel as the world's most luxurious jetliner?" he said. (Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Mike Stone, Susan Heavey, Andrea Shalal and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Steve Holland, Alana Wise, Jeffrey Dastin, and Lewis Krauskopf in New York, and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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VIENNA Iran has shipped 11 tonnes of heavy water abroad to bring its stock back under a limit set by its landmark nuclear deal with major powers, according to a diplomat citing a confidential U.N. nuclear watchdog report.The shipment is a step towards resolving a dispute with Western powers including the United States that are keen to prevent Iran from testing the deal's terms. The report substantiated an Iranian statement last month about a transfer to Oman but does not identify the destination, the diplomat said on Tuesday.The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is policing the restrictions placed on Iran's atomic activities under the July 2015 deal, said in a report last month that Iran's stock of heavy water had for the second time exceeded a soft limit of 130 tonnes, and the IAEA expressed its concerns to Tehran. "On 6 December the agency verified the quantity of 11 metric tonnes of the nuclear-grade heavy water at its destination outside Iran," the diplomat quoted the five-paragraph report by the IAEA to member states as saying.

"This transfer of heavy water out of Iran brings Iran's stock of heavy water to below 130 tonnes," it said, adding that Iran had told the agency that the shipment left the country on Nov. 19.Though the United States and its allies will see the shipment as a move in the right direction, it is not enough to satisfy them. Washington has underlined that the deal says excess heavy water must be delivered to a foreign buyer, and Iran has made clear Oman is not the final destination.

Heavy water is used as a moderator in nuclear power stations like Iran's unfinished one at Arak that has had its core removed under the deal, which also lifted international sanctions against the Islamic Republic. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump originally vowed to scrap the nuclear accord, describing it as "the worst deal ever negotiated" but later backed down, saying he would "police that contract so tough they (the Iranians) don't have a chance".

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday he would not let Trump rip up the deal, warning of unspecified repercussions if Washington reneged on it. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Brussels: Top US and Nato officials stressed the importance of preserving transatlantic security ties on Tuesday amid doubts raised by Donald Trump's election as president.

Trump stoked concerns that Washington's near 70-year European defence guarantee might no longer hold, when he said on the campaign trail that he would think twice about helping Nato allies who didn't pay their defence dues.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, attending his final meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels, said that keeping unity was essential.

Ministers would discuss "how we need to come together to make sure that there's a stronger Europe, a stronger Nato, and the interests that we all share we are continuing to work on together. And I think the unity is very very important", Kerry said.

Nato head Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, said strengthening EU-Nato cooperation was the best way to respond to doubts over the future of US' commitment to the military alliance.

"Questions have been asked related to the strength of the transatlantic bond," Stoltenberg said, as ministers gathered for the two-day talks at alliance headquarters in Brussels. "I think the best way to respond to those questions is to deliver a stronger Nato-EU cooperation," he said, without referring directly to Trump.

After a call with Trump last month, Stoltenberg had said he was "absolutely confident" the US president-elect was committed to Nato and European security.

Washington, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of annual defence expenditure by Nato member states, has long pressed the allies to do much more.

Stung into action by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, Nato leaders agreed in 2014 to reverse years of defence cuts and devote the equivalent of two percent of economic output to defence.

The European Union  which has 22 of the 28 Nato member states  has also moved to take on a greater defence role, stressing cooperation with the alliance.

Stoltenberg and EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini are due later Tuesday to announce a series of joint efforts, among them combatting cyber attacks and responding to new, hybrid threats which Russia used so effectively in the Ukraine crisis.

A Nato official said much of Nato's and EU's efforts would go into coordinating the response to hybrid warfare, coupled with increased information sharing and the bloc's involvement in exercises.

Stoltenberg stressed that such cooperation will be pragmatic and complementary to Nato, not duplicating its activities.
Evelyn Garrett, 90, of Albany died Saturday at Regency Albany. Private family services will be held. Fisher Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Orville L Hopkins, 74, of Albany died Saturday at home. McHenry Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Claud George Leinbach, 67, of Sweet Home died Friday. Sweet Home Funeral Chapel is handling arrangements.

Edward James Moyer, 62, of Albany died Wednesday at the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis. Fisher Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Jack Weldon Thomas, 82, of Lebanon died Friday at the Lebanon Veterans Home. Private family services will be held. Huston-Jost Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Richard J. Ullmer, 86, died at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center on Friday, Dec. 2. McHenry Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
The Redmond giant Microsoft had introduced chatbot powered by AI called Tay, earlier this year. However, the result didnt favor the software company and ended up as disastrous as their smartphone department.

Again, the Microsoft is trying its luck with a bot on Kik called as Zo, an English version of Microsofts Chinese bot  Xiaoice. This was reported by a Twitter user Tom Hounsell and users can give it a try right now as well.

At present, ZO is available exclusively on Kik and it is expected to be gradually rolled out to other platform including Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat.

Anyhow, the company is yet to launch it officially and well likely to have more information about it once launched officially.

Meanwhile, you can try Zo here.

Via
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
Solid orders for its defense and space business helped Boeing (BA 2.81%) make it through the Great Recession in one piece, despite a drop in commercial airplane demand. However, in recent years, Boeing's defense business has been under pressure because of caps on U.S. military spending and a few key contract losses.

Indeed, just a year or two ago, the future looked pretty grim for Boeing's defense business, as the company was on track to run out of fighter orders by the end of the decade.

However, Boeing recently finalized a slew of fighter orders, with more under consideration. Meanwhile, deliveries of its new military tanker are finally scheduled to begin in late 2017. This could make the defense business a growth driver for Boeing once again -- at least for the next few years.

Boeing's defense business stagnates

Boeing bulked up its defense segment two decades ago by merging with McDonnell Douglas. The McDonnell Douglas-developed F-15 and F/A-18 fighters have been the centerpieces of Boeing's military aircraft lineup ever since.

However, in 2001, Boeing rival Lockheed Martin (LMT -0.73%) won a $200 billion contract for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. As a result, Boeing recognized that its fighter business wouldn't last forever.

More recently, Boeing teamed up with Lockheed Martin in a bid to build a next-generation bomber for the U.S. However, Boeing and Lockheed lost the competition to Northrop Grumman last year. An appeal was turned aside in early 2016. This was a disappointing loss, as there are only a few big military aircraft programs coming up for bid in the foreseeable future.

In addition, the C-17 Globemaster military cargo plane -- which also came to Boeing as part of the McDonnell Douglas acquisition -- finally ran out of orders last year, leading to the closure of the Long Beach factory where it was built.

As a result, revenue for Boeing's defense, space, and security segment (known as BDS) peaked in 2013 at $33.2 billion. By 2015, BDS revenue had declined to $30.4 billion. Through the first nine months of 2016, the segment's revenue is flat year over year.

Boeing's fighters soldier on

Fortunately, Boeing has been able to stave off the end of fighter production by winning a series of foreign orders. Most recently, it sold 36 F-15s to Qatar and 28 F/A-18 Super Hornets to Kuwait. Together, those aircraft deals are worth $7 billion. Including weapons, support, and options to acquire additional planes, the value of these contracts could exceed $30 billion.

Additionally, Lockheed Martin's F-35 has been a disaster from the start. It still isn't fully ready for service, while the total program cost has nearly doubled from the initial estimate. The U.S. was supposed to have received more than 1,000 F-35s by now, but Lockheed Martin had only delivered 179 as of earlier this year.

As a result of these delays and cost overruns, Canada canceled its plan to acquire F-35s a few years ago. Last month, it announced that it wants to purchase 18 F/A-18 Super Hornets to replace some of its aging Hornet fighters. The U.S. Navy is also interested in acquiring dozens more F/A-18 Super Hornets from Boeing because of the delayed availability of Lockheed Martin's F-35.

If all of these orders go through, Boeing may be able to keep both of its fighter jet production lines running well into the 2020s. Furthermore, these additional aircraft sales will generate billions of dollars in long-term support and services revenue.

Tanker production set to ramp up

While BDS' fighter jet business is declining more slowly than previously expected, its military tanker business is about to ramp up. Although Boeing has faced cost overruns and modest schedule delays for its KC-46 Pegasus, the first delivery is now on track for the second half of 2017.

The U.S. Air Force plans to acquire 179 KC-146 tankers over the next dozen or so years, for an estimated cost of $40 billion. Including potential follow-on orders from the Air Force and international orders, Boeing believes the total opportunity is twice as large. And of course, the KC-46 is likely to generate huge sums of support and services revenue for decades to come.

The combination of rising tanker sales and ongoing fighter production could drive modest growth for Boeing's defense business over the next several years. The commercial jet business will still deliver the lion's share of Boeing's revenue and profit, but it won't be working alone. With demand for some key aircraft types slowing down recently, that's welcome news for Boeing shareholders.
President-elect Donald Trump was elected on his promise to make America great again. The businessman already has his hands full more than a month before he will even officially be sworn into office.

Last week, amid much fanfare, Trump struck a deal with air-conditioning manufacturer Carrier to keep its factory in the United States, saving 1,100 jobs at the companys Indiana plant.

But, just down the road, chain belt producer Rexnord announced plans to ship 300 of its Indiana-based jobs to Mexico, provoking the ire of the President-elect.

Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers. This is happening all over our country. No more!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2016

Meanwhile, Ford (NYSE:F) will stick by its decision to move some of its small-car production to Mexico, the automakers CEO Mark Fields said late Friday. Trump famously criticized this move, which Fields has defended by claiming there will be no net loss of jobs since Ford will be substituting production of other cars into the plant.

Trump promised throughout his campaign to create an environment more favorable to U.S. companies. While the United States is one of the most vibrant global economies, what exactly makes America so bad for business?

The corporate tax rate

The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. The headline corporate tax rate is currently 35%, meaning companies have to pay a 35% tax on their income or capital.

In seeking out locations, companies look at a variety of factors, one of the main ones being government tax, Simon Lester, trade policy analyst with the Cato Institutes Herbert A. Stifel Center for Trade Policy Studies, told FOXBusiness.com. Governments with better policies are most likely to attract investment, of both domestic and foreign-owned companies.

One of Trumps proposed economic policies is to slash the corporate tax rate to a more globally competitive 15%, part of his initiative to foster a more inviting environment for business investment.

The cost of labor

Its all about labor costs/costs of production, Jason Rotman, managing partner at Lido Isle Advisors tells FOXBusiness.com.

Certainly, companies often cite cheap labor as a reason to move production offshore. When they can pay employees less, they can afford to lower the price points on their products. Countries like China, Taiwan and Vietnam offer employment at a fraction of the cost of U.S. labor. America has the eleventh highest minimum wage, according to the World Economic Forums most recent analysis of data from 2013. Unsurprisingly, Mexico has one of the lowest.

While Trumps stance on the minimum wage has been unclear, advocates across the country have been fighting to raise the minimum rate to $15 per hour.

Regulations

Trump has been lauded by Wall Street for his pledged commitment to deregulating the economy; including rolling back rules such as Dodd-Frank and those that increase overtime pay for low-wage workers. Some labor regulations introduced by President Obama, such as minimum wage stipulations and paid sick leave for workers hired by federal contractors, were enacted through executive order, and thus, can be undone with the stroke of a pen by the Trump administration.

The idea behind eliminating such regulations is that it will be simpler, and cheaper, to operate within the country.

Trumps policies so far

Trump the businessman reared his head, doing his own rendition of the good cop, bad cop routine with two Indiana-based companies. While Carrier got a deal filled with incentives to stay in the United States, Rexnord caused Trump to develop a new punishment for companies that relocate manufacturing bases outside of the country: a 35% tariff on goods traded back to the United States.

Trump warned companies against making a very expensive mistake through a series of tweets on Sunday, but some wonder whether it is the President-elect who would be making a mistake by implementing a retribution tax on these companies.

Taxing corporations for importing back to the United States will increase costs and disincentivize investment. Multinational corporations need the ability to produce and sell goods in a free flowing manner, said Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager at Washington Cross Advisors.

The economic damage inflicted by such a tariff would go even deeper, said Catos Lester.

Such a tariff would be harmful to consumers and would create a great deal of uncertainty for future investment, he said.

When it comes to policies aimed at keeping companies operations in America, Lester believes Trump may need to rework his approach.

Some of Trumps general tax and regulatory proposals may help to attract investment. However, his efforts to prevent specific companies from opening factories abroad is likely to harm the U.S. economy more than help, he warned.
President-elect Donald Trump has been a harsh critic of Dodd-Frank and its impact on the financial sector. But Rafferty Capital Markets Banking Analyst Dick Bove suggested Trump could work with the Federal Reserve to improve the relationship between the government and the banks, and boost the long-term growth of the sector without repealing Dodd-Frank.

I know all the focus is on what Mr. Trump is going to do on the Supreme Court, but think about the Federal Reserve, Bove told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney.

Bove explained that Trump will have an opportunity to put four new people onto the Federal Reserve board, and if he can move Mr. Tarullo out, who I think is a socialist and anti-American, if he moves him out, then basically [Trump] got five of the seven people on the Fed.

Once those five people are in place at the Fed, Bove viewed a dismantling of Dodd-Frank as unnecessary.

Once you put five of the seven people on the Fed, you dont have to worry about getting rid of Dodd-Frank, you shouldnt waste your time doing that. You have to change all these little rules and every rule that you change does exactly what you want. It gives you a relationship between government and the industry which is positive, pro-growth, capitalist, which is what we havent seen for eight years, he said.
U.S.-based website domain name provider GoDaddy said on Tuesday it would buy peer Host Europe Group for 1.69 billion euros ($1.82 billion), including debt, as it looks to expand beyond the initial set-up of websites.

GoDaddy has branched into the more profitable business of hosting websites for small businesses and consumers and the HEG deal will help it accelerate this shift as well as broaden its customer base in Europe.

HEG, whose customer base is similar to GoDaddy's, is one of Europe's largest independent web hosting firms, and operates brands such as 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet and Host Europe.

HEG is currently owned by European private equity firm Cinven, which acquired the business in August 2013 for 438 million pounds.

GoDaddy also said it would explore options for HEG's PlusServer managed hosting business, including a possible sale.

GoDaddy, well-known in the United States for its sometimes outrageous TV marketing campaigns, trumped bids from German Internet service provider United Internet and Deutsche Telekom for HEG.

Reuters had reported last month that GoDaddy was in exclusive talks to buy the company.

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Savio D'Souza)
GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) has had a rough go of it over the past couple of years. With respiratory drug Advair losing market share and supposed savior Breo and Anoro Ellipta not generating impressive uptake, it looked like the British drugmaker might be permanently in the doldrums. Add to that the massive bribery scandal that engulfed the company, and things looked even rougher.

Yet hope springs eternal -- and there's good reason to be hopeful about Glaxo's future. Let's check under the hood.

Image source: Getty Images.

Getting past Advair

With Advair's patent expiry, GlaxoSmithKline has been fighting a rearguard action to retain market share by cutting prices. (This without an actual Advair generic on the market -- although one is expected in the first half of 2016.) And it shows: In the third quarter of 2014, Advair brought in $1.6 billion -- that's down to $1.1 billion two years later. In fact, CEO Andrew Witty predicts that GlaxoSmithKline has "absorbed 50% of the ... economic effect of genericization already" (this and other quotes courtesy of S&P Market Intelligence).

But here's what's really interesting: The Elliptas, led by main products Breo and Anoro, are finally (finally!) starting to get some traction in the market. All told, they're generating 42% of the script volume that Advair is, and Breo Ellipta is annualizing at over $800 million based on the most recent quarter's sales. They still aren't big enough to plug the Advair-sized hole, but fortunately, GlaxoSmithKline has other irons in the fire.

Chief among them: HIV drugs Triumeq and Tivicay, which are combined annualizing to well over $3 billion based on last quarter's results and grew by a combined 72% in U.S. dollars year over year. Influenza vaccines FluLaval and Fluarix achieved 54% revenue growth and brought in almost $500 million last quarter, and meningitis vaccine Bexsero nearly tripled year over year to $180 million in revenue last quarter. Witty was particularly bullish on Bexsero, noting, "you're probably in the 10% territory, maybe not even that of the overall opportunity of this particular vaccine. So there's an awful lot of opportunity to go on a global basis."

Strategy comes into focus

When GlaxoSmithKline announced its big transaction with Novartis -- which gave GlaxoSmithKline Novartis' vaccines business, Novartis GlaxoSmithKline's oncology portfolio, and both companies a portion of a new joint consumer healthcare business -- I was skeptical. To be honest, I felt Novartis was clearly getting the better end of the deal, and that GlaxoSmithKline had sacrificed its growth opportunities in exchange for a little more stability, all but guaranteeing its relegation to "also-ran" status in the pharma space as it struggled along with subscale businesses.

So far, it looks like I was wrong.

GlaxoSmithKline's revenue and core operating profit this past quarter were excellent, and the trend lines are all in the right directions. What's more, all three of its divisions (pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and consumer healthcare) are growing and rapidly bringing a number of new products to market. And they've achieved that without slowing the pipeline -- GlaxoSmithKline is expecting a slew of data on 20-30 potential drugs over the next two years, which highlights both the company's optionality and diverse growth opportunities.

That's not to say it's all coming up roses. While GlaxoSmithKline has gradually reduced its debt, it's still sitting on over $20 billion in debt-- and its net debt position has actually worsened given that it has been drawing down its cash faster over the past six quarters. Management expects to reverse that over the next year or two, and I'm hopeful to see precisely that.

Here's what it all comes down to

Companies can look good on paper, and GlaxoSmithKline is actually edging back into that camp. But a great deal depends on what management's plans for the future are. With CEO Andrew Witty stepping down to be replaced by Emma Walmsley, I'm less certain about GlaxoSmithKline's planned way forward. And rightfully so -- she has not yet announced her planned capital allocation and growth strategies. Until those are in place, and we've seen her begin executing, it's unclear whether GlaxoSmithKline's recovery will be sustained over the longer term.

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Solid orders for its defense and space business helped Boeing (NYSE: BA) make it through the Great Recession in one piece, despite a drop in commercial airplane demand. However, in recent years, Boeing's defense business has been under pressure because of caps on U.S. military spending and a few key contract losses.

Indeed, just a year or two ago, the future looked pretty grim for Boeing's defense business, as the company was on track to run out of fighter orders by the end of the decade.

However, Boeing recently finalized a slew of fighter orders, with more under consideration. Meanwhile, deliveries of its new military tanker are finally scheduled to begin in late 2017. This could make the defense business a growth driver for Boeing once again -- at least for the next few years.

Boeing will deliver the first KC-46 Pegasus military tanker to the Air Force in 2017. Image source: Boeing.

Boeing's defense business stagnates

Boeing bulked up its defense segment two decades ago by merging with McDonnell Douglas. The McDonnell Douglas-developed F-15 and F/A-18 fighters have been the centerpieces of Boeing's military aircraft lineup ever since.

However, in 2001, Boeing rival Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) won a $200 billion contract for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. As a result, Boeing recognized that its fighter business wouldn't last forever.

More recently, Boeing teamed up with Lockheed Martin in a bid to build a next-generation bomber for the U.S. However, Boeing and Lockheed lost the competition to Northrop Grumman last year. An appeal was turned aside in early 2016. This was a disappointing loss, as there are only a few big military aircraft programs coming up for bid in the foreseeable future.

In addition, the C-17 Globemaster military cargo plane -- which also came to Boeing as part of the McDonnell Douglas acquisition -- finally ran out of orders last year, leading to the closure of the Long Beach factory where it was built.

As a result, revenue for Boeing's defense, space, and security segment (known as BDS) peaked in 2013 at $33.2 billion. By 2015, BDS revenue had declined to $30.4 billion. Through the first nine months of 2016, the segment's revenue is flat year over year.

Boeing's fighters soldier on

Fortunately, Boeing has been able to stave off the end of fighter production by winning a series of foreign orders. Most recently, it sold 36 F-15s to Qatar and 28 F/A-18 Super Hornets to Kuwait. Together, those aircraft deals are worth $7 billion. Including weapons, support, and options to acquire additional planes, the value of these contracts could exceed $30 billion.

Boeing is still seeing plenty of demand for its aging fighter models. Image source: Boeing.

Additionally, Lockheed Martin's F-35 has been a disaster from the start. It still isn't fully ready for service, while the total program cost has nearly doubled from the initial estimate. The U.S. was supposed to have received more than 1,000 F-35s by now, but Lockheed Martin had only delivered 179 as of earlier this year.

As a result of these delays and cost overruns, Canada canceled its plan to acquire F-35s a few years ago. Last month, it announced that it wants to purchase 18 F/A-18 Super Hornets to replace some of its aging Hornet fighters. The U.S. Navy is also interested in acquiring dozens more F/A-18 Super Hornets from Boeing because of the delayed availability of Lockheed Martin's F-35.

If all of these orders go through, Boeing may be able to keep both of its fighter jet production lines running well into the 2020s. Furthermore, these additional aircraft sales will generate billions of dollars in long-term support and services revenue.

Tanker production set to ramp up

While BDS' fighter jet business is declining more slowly than previously expected, its military tanker business is about to ramp up. Although Boeing has faced cost overruns and modest schedule delays for its KC-46 Pegasus, the first delivery is now on track for the second half of 2017.

The U.S. Air Force plans to acquire 179 KC-146 tankers over the next dozen or so years, for an estimated cost of $40 billion. Including potential follow-on orders from the Air Force and international orders, Boeing believes the total opportunity is twice as large. And of course, the KC-46 is likely to generate huge sums of support and services revenue for decades to come.

The combination of rising tanker sales and ongoing fighter production could drive modest growth for Boeing's defense business over the next several years. The commercial jet business will still deliver the lion's share of Boeing's revenue and profit, but it won't be working alone. With demand for some key aircraft types slowing down recently, that's welcome news for Boeing shareholders.

10 stocks we like better than Boeing When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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A spokesman for President-elect Donald Trump isn't offering many clues about how the incoming administration will act regarding the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Spokesman Jason Miller told The Associated Press on Monday that Trump supports construction of the pipeline. But Miller wouldn't say whether Trump would reverse the Army's decision on Sunday to decline to issue a permit for the $3.8 billion pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Miller said the Trump administration will review the situation "and make the appropriate determination."

Protesters, who describe themselves as "water protectors," say they have no plans to leave despite the Army's decision and recent wintry storms.

The pipeline is largely complete except for the section under Lake Oahe.
President-elect Donald Trump has a message for Air Force One builder Boeing (NYSE:BA): Get off my plane.

Trump criticized Boeing on Tuesday for what he called out of control costs associated with a project to build two new Air Force One jets. He called for the federal government to cancel the companys contract.

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! Trump wrote in a message on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR).

Trump later spoke to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, saying the project is ridiculous.

I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number, Trump said. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money.

Boeing issued a statement saying the Chicago-based company is currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States.

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

We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer, Boeing said.

Shares of Boeing slipped as much as 1.4%, as investors reacted to Trumps remarks. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), the main defense contractor working on the $4.7 billion program to build new presidential helicopters, also fell in early-morning trading.

The U.S. Air Force announced in 2015 that it selected Boeings 747-8 jumbo jet as the next generation of Air Force One aircraft, which are expected to enter service around 2024. The Pentagon awarded an initial $25.8 million contract to Boeing in January to begin the research and design phase of the project. Boeing has since received additional funding as the project moves forward.

According to Fox News, a defense official confirmed that the total cost of the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program will likely be $4 billion. The Air Force has not officially disclosed the final value of the contract, but it has allocated $1.65 billion to fund the project between 2015 and 2019. The Government Accountability Office estimated a total cost of $3.2 billion through fiscal-year 2020 to pay for two jets.

The contract initially called for up to three Air Force One jets, though the Air Force is now looking for a fleet of two planes.

This isnt the first time that Trump has targeted companies for their business practices. Ford (NYSE:F) was a frequent target during the campaign for its plan to build a new factory in Mexico. Trump also had harsh words for Carrier, an air conditioning company owned by United Technologies (NYSE:UTC), criticizing the companys plans to move jobs south of the border.

Both companies relented to varying degrees. Carrier came to a deal with Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the state of Indiana to keep most of the jobs at its Indianapolis plant. Bill Ford, the chairman of his familys car company, called Trump to inform him that Ford scrapped a plan to move production of the Lincoln MKC crossover from Louisville, Ky., to Mexico.

In 2013, Trump took to Twitter to say he bought shares in Boeing amid a stock decline fueled by negative headlines about the 787 Dreamliner. A spokesperson for the President-elects transition team on Tuesday told reporters that Trump sold all of his stock holdings in June. Trumps financial disclosure forms, submitted earlier this year, listed Boeing stock among his assets.

Trumps personal jet is a customized Boeing 757-200 that was previously owned by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen.
Image source: iStock/Thinkstock.

Most of what the incoming Trump administration has proposed in terms of economic and regulatory policies would be a boon for big banks, but there is one policy that cuts both ways: Trump's desire to lower the corporate tax rate. According to one of the nation's leading bank analysts, Keefe, Bruyette & Wood's Brian Kleinhanzl, the move could reduce Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) tangible book value by $4.4 billion.

Bank of America's deferred tax assets

You'd be excused for wondering how this could be the case. Aren't lower taxes by definition good for companies? And particularly when you're taking about the magnitude of the drop expected under Trump -- a decline in the top corporate tax rate from 35% down to 25%.

Under ordinary circumstances, this is obviously a good thing. The less companies have to pay to the government, the more left over for shareholders. And over the long run, it'll be good for Bank of America as well. However, thanks to a combination of the financial crisis and a specific provision in the tax laws, there's a short-term downside to lower corporate taxes from the North Carolina-based bank's perspective.

The downside can be traced to $33.3 billion worth of deferred tax assets that currently sit on Bank of America's balance sheet (see page 225 of its 2015 10-K here). These relate to losses incurred in the financial crisis that were too large to be absorbed by its income at the time. Under tax law, these can be carried forward in the form of deferred tax assets and used to offset its tax liability in future years.

Deferred tax assets have an expiration date

The catch is that the deferred tax assets must be used within a certain amount of time. The statute of limitations for domestic deferred tax assets is 20 years. It's half that for those that offset foreign income, according to regulatory filings by Bank of America's close competitor Citigroup.

By lowering the tax rate, in turn, these assets become less valuable, as future tax liabilities will accordingly shrink. Even more importantly, it calls into question whether Bank of America will have time to use the entirety of its deferred tax assets before they expire.

The answer to this remains to be seen. After all, we still don't know whether the corporate tax rate will in fact fall, much less when exactly it might do so.But if it were to happen, KBW's Kleinhanzl predicts that it would cause the value of Bank of America's deferred tax assets to drop by $6.6 billion. When you net that against the positive impact of a lower tax rate on certain of Bank of America's liabilities, it means that the bank's tangible book value would decline by $4.4 billion, according to KBW's analysis.

Data source: Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. Chart by author.

Just to reiterate: This is still all theoretical. However, if the tax cut does in fact materialize, and there's reason to think that it will, given that the incoming administration will face a receptive Republican-controlled congress, then it's important for Bank of America's investors to understand the potential one-time shock to the value of their shares.

Fortunately, there's a silver lining to all of this. Namely, after the one-time shock to Bank of America's tangible book value, its earnings per share will actually benefit from lower taxes. KBW estimates that a 10-percentage-point decline in the top corporate tax rate will translate into a 10% boost to the bank's earnings per share in the year following the change.

Despite the potential short-term shock to Bank of America's tangible book value, in other words, this bodes well for the bank's long-term profitability.

10 stocks we like better than Bank of America When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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John Maxfield owns shares of Bank of America. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Verizon Communications, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, is selling 29 data centers to Equinix Inc for $3.6 billion, as the telecom giant focuses on its core business.

The data centers being sold are located in 15 metro areas in the United States and Latin America, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Bogota and Sao Paulo.

The sale represents Verizon's efforts to streamline its business and follows the divestment last year of a chunk of its landline business and a portfolio of wireless towers.

The enterprise telecommunications industry has had to adapt in recent years to corporate customers seeking more sophisticated and cheaper offerings to manage their data.

Verizon has been facing stiff competition from companies such as T-Mobile US and Sprint, which have been offering deep discounts on cellphone and data plans.

Reuters reported earlier this year that Verizon had launched an auction to sell the data center assets.

The company said about 250 Verizon employees, mainly in the operations functions of the acquired data centers, will become Equinix employees.

For Equinix, the world's biggest provider of data centers, the acquisition further bolsters its presence in the Americas.

The acquired portfolio includes about 900 customers, bringing Equinix's total number of data centers to 175 in 43 markets.

Equinix was advised by Evercore, J.P. Morgan Securities and Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Citi and Guggenheim Partners were financial advisers to Verizon, while Jones Day provided legal counsel to Verizon.

Shares of Verizon and Equinix were up marginally in premarket trading.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal and Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has been running their oil production engines hot n' heavy. Last week, they decided it was time for an oil change. There's doubt, however, if waiting so long will actually have the desired impact of keeping their most valuable physical commodity at higher prices.

OPEC made a monumental gamble when they decided to increase production several years ago. The bets were that with their robust oil reserves they could play a little heavy-handed hardball. If they increased production, prices would fall and emerging energy exploration and extraction in places including but not limited to the northern U.S. and southern Canada would be stymied or even die out. The low prices part of their wager worked well, although perhaps lower prices than even they anticipated.

Oil prices plummeted earlier this year, reaching a low on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) of only $26 per barrel. By way of comparison, before OPEC unleashed their massive production, assisting in about a million barrels of surplus each day worldwide (roughly 94 million barrels produced and 93 million used), prices had increased to $115 per barrel in 2014. However, the other part of their gamble  the stifling new and existing exploration and production part  in places where the cost of production was higher than the price of the actual commodity (whether it was crude, natural gas or other energy variants), didn't work out. At least, not so much.

Certainly many energy companies had a much rougher road than they anticipated when prices were high. Some didn't make it, however, many did persevere. Some smaller companies were bought by larger energy-related firms. Some such energy conglomerates actually benefit from inexpensive petroleum products because they produce things that are petroleum-dependent (like plastic products). Those types of companies were able to weather the low prices and even grow by buying up a smaller, capital-strapped company here and there.

The result is that rather than OPEC putting the competition out of business, many energy companies are on a straight and stronger path forward. They have become more efficient and effective and are ready to compete globally. They addressed price adversity and are leaner and meaner because of the experience. For example, U.S. oil production doubled since 2010.

What all that means is this:

OPEC has raised the white flag and changed tactics. They no longer want lower prices to persist. The oil change deal from last week, to reduce production by 1.2 million barrels per day (beginning in January), can have the desired impact of raising oil prices. Heck, OPEC alone can more than reduce the daily oil production surplus. In fact, in the short-term, just the OPEC announcement has made a price impact. Prices shot up nearly 13% in the two trading days following OPEC's oil change announcement. Trading volume at NYMEX reached an unprecedented high (4.5 million contracts traded on November 30). Both NYMEX West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude (traded in London at the InterContinental Exchange) climbed over the $50 mark.

The longer-term impact on pushing prices up, however, remains decidedly dicey. Here's why: OPEC, which produced north of 60% of global oil 20 years ago, now produces only 40%. While still significant, they just can't make major moves that will impact prices over the longer-term without other non-OPEC nations joining in their efforts. Russia and the U.S., which each produce around 10% of global oil, may not agree with such cutbacks to raise prices. Russia has been willing to go along with OPEC since earlier this year when the two (OPEC and Russia) tried to form a coalition prior to an OPEC Doha meeting. However, that didn't pan out, and neither did the subsequent OPEC Algiers meeting. Bottom line: OPEC needs others to join (perhaps Canada, maybe Mexico?) for longer-term price impacts.

Since the U.S. energy companies are rough and ready with a primed production pump (given the austerity measures many domestic energy firms have endured), the U.S. could ramp up production, thus continuing the oil stocks surplus. Such would be good for consumers who are, for a second year in a row, on track to save $1 billion ($540 per U.S. driver in 2015). It would also be good for transportation-related companies (like the airlines) whose profits are generally inversely proportional to oil prices.

While the longer-term impact of OPEC's oil change is currently in doubt, we'll know more soon. On December 9, OPEC will meet with some non-OPEC countries to see if they are willing to undertake an oil change of their own. At this point, however, the ultimate answer to OPEC's hot n' heavy production followed by this recent oil change remains very vague, at best.

Former US Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton is a policy and political commentator and the author of Ponzimonium: How Scam Artists Are Ripping Off America. He can be reached at bartchilton@bartchilton.com.
China isnt the only foreign country keeping a watchful eye on President-elect Donald Trump. Tensions are mounting between Tehran and the United States as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani becomes increasingly worried about Trumps intentions to can the Obama administrations nuclear deal.

In an address at the University of Tehran, President Rouhani said "Do you think the United States can rip up the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal)? Do you think we and our nation will let him do that?"

The Iranians received a windfall of money when the agreement was enacted in January 2016. The deal lifted sanctions on the oil-producing regime, and unfroze $150 billion in Iranian assets. Not to mention the $1.7 billion in cash the Obama administration sent to Iran early this year, $400 million of which coincided with the release of four American prisoners.

Last week the Senate voted 99-0 to pass a bill extending the Iran Sanctions Act by another ten years. The measure allows the U.S. to maintain its ability to financially punish Iran should it violate terms of the controversial nuclear deal, a verdict that was quite unpopular among the Iranians.

Upon hearing of the Senates decision, Tehran reportedly resorted to a vote of its own on Sunday, to ban "the purchase of U.S. consumer goods including animal and agricultural products."

This kind of back and forth is unusual, Jim Phillips, senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Heritage Foundation told FOXBusiness.com. "Rouhani may be motivated by political considerations, he is running for reelection in May and wants to reassert his anti-American credentials. He also may be trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the other members of the P5 & 1 group that negotiated the deal with Iran, by blaming the U.S. for killing the nuclear deal.

Skepticism among Irans leaders and its public may be well-founded; throughout his campaign Trump made it clear he is no fan of the nuclear pact. In fact, he referred to the nuclear deal as the worst deal ever negotiated and pledged to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.

While no one outside of Trumps burgeoning Cabinet truly knows how he plans to balance the tangled web of challenging international dealings, all signs point to change when it comes to U.S. policy toward Iran. And Iran is not ready to lose all of the benefits it has reaped from the deal over the years, said Christian Whiton, former State Department Advisor from 2003-2009.

The deal has provided billions of dollars in cash and reduced sanctions to the benefit of the Iranian government, which has historically been the chief exporter of terrorism and the Islamist political ideology, Whiton, who is also the principal at D.C. International Advisory Firm, said. The deal failed to end Irans nuclear program, and even sanctifies it after a number of years pass. So Tehran got payola and the key parts of a nuclear weapons program in exchange for almost nothing.

The benefits for Iran go even further, according to Phillips.

[The nuclear deal] ended Irans international isolation; revived the Iranian economy; cleared the way for Iran to import Russian arms; and it did all this without forcing Iran to dismantle key parts of its nuclear infrastructure.

Trump has made little mention of the Iran deal while outlining his plan of action for his first 100 days in office. Though, one of Trumps foreign policy advisors, Walid Phares, confirmed he will demand changes to the deal, seemingly softening Trumps stance on a full renegotiation.

Still, Iran has reason to fear a change in policy, Whiton said.

Successive U.S. administrations have been soft on Iran. Bush never made them pay for the large number of U.S. troops they killed in Iraq. Obama has fantasized that they are a potential partner. Trump seems more inclined to push back on the theocratic government in Tehran when it harms us.

And as Trump seeks to pad his Cabinet with hardline Generals known for their resilient reputations, Whiton is hopeful that the United States years of weak behavior toward the pugnacious nation is about to change.

Tehran is afraid they will no longer get away with all of their trademark belligerent activities.General Mattis and General Flynn, who are designated for Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor respectively, have long expressed concern about Iran and ineffective U.S. policy, Whiton said.
Veteran British actor Peter Vaughan died Tuesday. He was 93.

The actor played Maester Aemon in the HBO hit series "Game of Thrones" from 2011-2015.

"This is to confirm that very sadly Peter Vaughan passed away at approximately 10:30 this morning," the actor's longtime agent, Sally Long-Innes, told the BBC. "He died peacefully with his family around him."

Vaughan's career spanned over 75 years. His notable works include the 1967 Frank Sinatra film "The Naked Runner." He is also known for his work in the British sitcoms "Porridge," "Citizen Smith," "Chancer" and "Our Friends in the North."

Born Peter Ohm in the central England county of Shropshire, Vaughan was married first to the late actress Billie Whitelaw, and then to Lillias Walker, who survives him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Actress Leah Remini quit the Church of Scientology in 2013, and has since been a vocal critic of the controversial religion.

Remini told FOX News' Megyn Kelly that she wouldn't have been able to do her new docuseries, "Leah Remini: Aftermath," without the support of her friends in Hollywood.

"It's not really scary for me [to speak out]," Remini told Kelly Monday night. "I'm lucky enough to be in this business and have the support of all of you in the media that I can speak about it."

Remini: Tom Cruise used me to try to get CBS Scientology special spiked

She continued, "What is scary is that...this is an organization, a place supposedly of worship calling itself a church, that systemically goes after people that speak out about it and that's why I wanted to do this."

The Church released a statement criticizing the actress, saying she "needs to move on with her life and career and stop blaming the Church and others for all of her personal and professional setbacks... 'Leah Remini: Aftermath' is really 'Lear Remini: After Money.'"

The former "King of Queens" star also spoke about being reprimanded at Tom Cruise's wedding for questioning the whereabouts of the wife of Church leader David Miscavige. She called it an eye-opening experience.

"I was told I didn't have the effing rank to ask where a human being was. That really did start the ball rolling," she said. "Because as a parishioner, as someone who was promoting and defending this church, I have a right to ask where a human being is regardless of my rank in the church."
Poland's Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that the country would refuse to detain and extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski to the U.S.

The ruling upholds the decision of a lower court that was challenged by the justice minister, and closes the matter in Poland.

"Game over," said Jan Olszewski, one of Polanski's lawyers. "The case is definitively closed. We won in a fair struggle. We feel satisfaction."

Polanski, 83, is wanted in the U.S. in a case involving sex with a minor that has haunted him for almost 40 years. He is subject to an Interpol warrant in 188 countries.

He has avoided extradition by traveling only between three countries. He lives in France, where he was born, and also has a home in Switzerland, which in 2011 rejected a U.S. request to extradite him. He has often visited Poland, where he survived the Holocaust, grew up and studied at a film academy.

Poland's three-judge panel rejected a request by Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro to overturn the extradition refusal, and upheld the decision made by a lower court in Krakow in 2015.

Ziobro said Tuesday that he accepted and respected the court's ruling but also insisted that "proceedings concerning the sexual abuse of minors should be enforced consistently regardless of who committed the crime or when."

Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles. In exchange, the judge agreed to drop other charges and sentenced him to prison for a psychiatric evaluation. Polanski was released after 42 days by an evaluator who deemed him mentally sound and unlikely to offend again.

The judge then said he was going to send Polanski back to prison for the remainder of the 90 days and that afterward he would ask Polanski to agree to a "voluntary deportation." Polanski fled from the United States before he was sentenced.

The U.S., which has been seeking to bring Polanski back before a court, asked Poland last year to extradite him.

Olszewski said Polanski has paid dearly for what he has done, with all the films that he was not able to make in Hollywood and the 40 years of stigma.

Polanski was preparing to make a film in Poland, but transferred it to France after Ziobro's move. His lawyers said this was also the reason why Polanski did not travel to Poland to attend the funeral of another leading film director, Andrzej Wajda, in October.

Polanski will not comment on the decision, his lawyer in France, Herve Termime, told The Associated Press.

The justice minister revived the case in May, months after the conservative government took office. Ziobro argued that Polanski should be punished and that his celebrity status was the only thing shielding the Oscar-winning director from being extradited.

The lower court had argued that Polanski had served over 350 days of prison terms and house arrest in the U.S and Switzerland, which was more than the original U.S. verdict. It also said he would probably not get a fair trial in the U.S. if he were extradited.

Polanski won an Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film "The Pianist," which he filmed in Warsaw, but he did not travel to the U.S. for the ceremony. He was nominated for his 1970s' movies "Chinatown" and "Tess."
LUBBOCK, Texas  Across from a sprawling cotton field, among mobile homes in varying states of decay, one stood out: a double-wide with a new, expansive metal garage and the only paved driveway on the dead-end street.

It was here that an unemployed former computer repairman with a bad back ran what a drug informant called the biggest fentanyl ring in Lubbock. All Sidney Lanier needed was a computer and an elementary knowledge of chemistry to order shipments of the potent synthetic opioid from China and turn it into a highly profitable  and dangerous  street drug.

Its the Amazon of drug trafficking, said Will Kimbell, the US Drug Enforcement Administrations resident agent in charge of the Lubbock office. Its almost as easy as that. This stuff is scary.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised that his border wall will stop the illegal drugs flooding into the United States from Mexico. But increasingly the most powerful opioids destroying lives and devastating communities from Maine to Texas are arriving through a different route: from China. Via the US Postal Service.

Independent operations like Laniers are growing and spreading fentanyl to new areas, greatly complicating enforcement efforts. Last month, federal agents raided two Utah homes where they discovered a pill press, bulk powder believed to be fentanyl, and thousands of fentanyl pills. Investigators said the drug was shipped from China to multiple addresses in the state. Similar operations have been discovered this year in California and New York.

In Lubbock, STAT interviewed police and DEA agents and reviewed hundreds of pages of court records to construct a frightening case study of how quickly fentanyl can arrive on the scene, the destruction it causes, and the shockingly simple steps involved in becoming a fentanyl dealer.

Buying, mixing, and selling fentanyl takes none of the brains and ingenuity of the fictional Walter White, the chemistry whiz turned methamphetamine dealer in the television show Breaking Bad. Lanier and his crew were brazen, sloppy, and battling their own addictions. Yet they appear to have raked in tens of thousands of dollars during the two-plus years they operated, according to court records.

Two local women, including the niece of Lubbocks former mayor, allegedly served as Laniers distributors. They cooked the fentanyl on a kitchen stove, mixing it with two simple ingredients found at auto supply shops and pharmacies.

Use of fentanyl has exploded in many states, driven largely by how easy it is to get and make. It is also far more potent than other opioids, such as heroin and pain pills, and far more profitable for dealers. In many places, it is now the leading cause of fatal overdoses. The victims often think theyre taking less dangerous drugs, but dealers mix fentanyl with heroin to give that drug extra potency. Mexican cartels, believed to still be responsible for most of the fentanyl trade in the United States, produce the drug in pill form, making it look like hydrocodone, Xanax, and other prescription drugs.

Read more: Dope Sick: A harrowing story of best friends, addiction  and a stealth killer

Lubbock Police first started hearing about fentanyl on their streets in 2015, although as far as they knew, no one was dying from taking the drug. Then in April of this year, a 55-year-old woman died. Less than a week later, a 32-year-old man was found dead. In June, there was another death. In September, a 20-year-old man was dead, and two days later, a 51-year-old man. In each case, the medical examiner determined the death was related to fentanyl.

Lanier and his distributors were arrested in October, but already there is evidence of other independently operating fentanyl dealers in Lubbock, including one who called police recently to report another dealer stole 250 grams of fentanyl from him that he had ordered online from a company in Russia.

Fentanyl shipments are particularly difficult to detect because of the small quantities involved. You send an email, pay for it, and a couple weeks later you have 300 grams of fentanyl, Kimbell said. And you have a potential profit of a half-million dollars.

Small vials bring big profits

All it took for Lanier to get started was a simple internet search.

Laboratories in China offer to sell various forms of fentanyl on the web, no questions asked. And the 36-year-old Lanier told police he found instructions online for preparing fentanyl for sale.

Although he dropped out of school in the 10th grade when his girlfriend became pregnant, Lanier was adept at using computers. He obtained his GED, did a brief stint in the Army, and took classes at a local college. For a number of years, he ran a computer repair business in Lubbock.

He allegedly purchased the drug through the so-called DarkNet, which uses special browsers so people can anonymously visit sites that are not otherwise viewable.

The Chinese labs shipped samples, if requested, and guaranteed delivery. That meant if customs agents intercepted a package or it failed to arrive for any reason, the lab would send the same order again at no charge. In some cases, officials believe the Chinese labs have routed fentanyl packages destined for the United States through Canada to avoid seizure.

Fentanyl comes in many forms. Labs can tweak its chemical structure slightly to make analogs of the drug, which was developed as a prescription pain reliever nearly 60 years ago by Janssen Pharmaceutica. The analogs have names like carfentanil, acetyl fentanyl, and furanyl fentanyl. In Lubbock, investigators have identified at least five different forms of fentanyl on the street  including some that are not on the list of controlled substances banned in the United States. As the DEA discovers and bans new analogs, chemists in China are already at work on even newer synthetic products.

Read more: Truly terrifying: Chinese suppliers flood US and Canada with deadly fentanyl

The fact is the Chinese labs have solved the most challenging chemistry problem: producing the fentanyl, which is a complex procedure that is extremely difficult to replicate outside a commercial laboratory and without advanced training.

Lanier, who was known as Caleb on the streets of Lubbock, allegedly received the fentanyl in crystalized form. For one order from a Chinese lab, he allegedly paid $3,500 for 300 grams of pure fentanyl. He typically mixed the fentanyl with methanol  a chemical that is the primary ingredient in antifreeze  to suspend the drug in liquid.

He would sell a vial containing 8 grams of fentanyl for $15,000 to $20,000, often to two women who served as his main distributors, according to court records. Laniers profit on that one 300-gram order, if he sold all of his vials, would have been over a half-million dollars.

To get the fentanyl ready for sale, there was one more step required.

In the kitchen of their apartment in a drab complex of two-story brick buildings, the women took the vial prepared by Lanier and poured it into a pan on their stove, according to a police affidavit. They mixed in a sugar alcohol used in several medications available in pharmacies. They would heat the mixture for 45 to 60 minutes, drying it into a powder.

A good batch produced from one vial could fetch $45,000 to $60,000 on the street in Lubbock.

Tattoos and dogs

They were recovering addicts who shared a love for tattoos and dogs. Laniers alleged distributors, Jessica Holl and Jamie Robertson, were in and out of treatment and trouble, but their fortunes allegedly changed when they found Lanier and fentanyl.

The women met in 2003, through mutual friends, lost touch, and then reconnected in 2008 when they bumped into each other in jail. Both were being held on theft-related charges.

The pair promised to reconnect when they were released. But Robertson checked into an addiction treatment center that limited contact with outsiders, and they didnt find each other until May 2014, when Holl contacted Robertson through Facebook. They quickly became a couple, and this past October, they married.

A photo on their wedding website highlights their close bond: Robertsons face is tattooed on Holls left hand, and on Robertsons right hand is an image of Holls face. The images are distorted, giving the faces a zombie-like appearance.

The wedding reception was held at the Hillcrest Country Club, owned by Robertsons uncle, Glen, who until recently was the two-term mayor of Lubbock. Robertsons father is a local businessman. Family members declined to comment when asked about Jamie.

Holls childhood in New Brunswick, N.J., was grittier. Her father, Ralph, worked for Dell computers and traveled much of the year. In a telephone interview, he said opioid abuse runs in the family. He said he was on a heavy dose of painkillers for many years for a back problem, and Jessicas mother was abusing opioids.

Ralph Holl said Jessica had little supervision and joined a gang at 14. She was then beaten and held against her will, he said. When Ralph Holl found his daughter, he said a gang member pulled a gun on him but he managed to call 911 and police rescued his daughter.

Jessica moved to Lubbock with her mother shortly afterward, in part to help care for her ailing grandmother. It was not an easy transition. Holl lived with her mother in a hotel along the highway that caters to truckers, and she worked at a strip club, according to court records. In 2009, her mother died.

Holl met Lanier after she was released from jail, although precisely how is unclear. What is clear is that Lanier trusted Holl, and subsequently Robertson, and did much of his alleged drug-dealing through them.

The money was coming in so fast that Holl rented a storage unit to stockpile cash, according to a police affidavit. The women also stashed money and fentanyl in cans with false bottoms throughout their apartment and in a fake heating vent where they hid a safe, according to a police informant.

Lanier found other ways to hide his illicit earnings, according to court records. This fall, he opened a business called Elite Spy Supply in a strip mall and filled it with thousands of dollars of inventory: survival gear, stun guns, knives, spy cameras, and bulletproof vests. He put his brother-in-law in charge, who later told police he made a $20,000 cash deposit in the store account at the direction of Lanier after it had been open only three weeks. Store receipts for the period were only about $2,000.

In October, Holl and Robertson honeymooned at an exclusive resort on a private island in Fiji. On Facebook, the pair posted photographs of romantic dinners, spa treatments, and fishing excursions. On the way home, they spent a night in Los Angeles and put more photos on Facebook. One shows them dining at a restaurant owned by a star of the reality television show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

When Holls father commented on Facebook that the trip must have been expensive, his daughter replied, we saved up for this trip, wasnt easy but we did it.

As deaths mount, police close in

Lanier was waiting to pick up Holl and Robertson at the airport when they returned home. What the three didnt know was that undercover police officers were also at the airport, having followed Lanier from his home.

The fentanyl business was booming, but Lanier and his crew were making mistakes, which allowed police to pick up their trail last spring. Holl was unknowingly selling fentanyl to informants in transactions recorded by investigators. The dealers who allegedly bought fentanyl from Holl and Robertson were targeting felons in recovery programs and even started selling to people coming and going from a methadone clinic. That attracted unwanted attention.

The DEA linked Lanier and the women via phone company logs and Facebook pages that none of the principals thought to make private.

Holl and Robertson were protective of Lanier, not wanting competitors to learn the source of their fentanyl. But in May, a confidential informant told police that the women were working for the biggest fentanyl dealer in Lubbock who was ruining peoples lives and finances. In July, the informant had a first name of the dealer: Caleb. And then an address.

As deaths tied to fentanyl mounted, Holl was warned by another dealer she should stop identifying her product as fentanyl, according to a police affidavit.

The drug of choice in the high plains of west Texas has long been methamphetamine. Meth causes all sorts of problems, but people generally dont drop dead after taking it. Fentanyl is different. The opioid can kill a first-time user or hardened addict with equal and brutal efficiency. No one in Lubbock had seen anything like it. Police knew they had to move fast.

On Oct. 17, they arrested Landon Brown, who allegedly sold fentanyl for Holl and Robertson. He had an outstanding warrant and officers allegedly found fentanyl on him. He started talking.

Brown, who went by the nickname Leaf, was allegedly selling 10 grams of fentanyl a day for the women to a group of about 25 customers, according to a police affidavit. He told police that he would deliver the women $3,000 a day in profits. He initially started by buying heroin from the women about three years ago, he said, but they switched to selling fentanyl.

Before dawn on Oct. 27, two separate teams of federal agents and local police, along with SWAT units, gathered to execute search warrants. Police broke down the door of the home Lanier shared with his wife and three children, ages 16, 13, and 5. Across town, the second team barged into the apartment of Holl and Robertson, who were sleeping.

Special hazardous material teams moved in to begin the tedious work of cleansing the properties of suspected fentanyl, which is so strong it can cause an overdose if touched before it is mixed with cutting agents.

Lanier, Holl, and Robertson have been charged in a federal criminal complaint with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. All remain jailed as they await arraignment on the charge. Lawyers for Holl and Robertson declined to comment, and Laniers lawyer did not return phone calls.

Investigators have now shifted their focus to determining whether the fentanyl allegedly sold by the Lanier group is linked to any of the five fatal overdoses confirmed in the city this year. So far, no one has been charged in the deaths.

He didnt ask for this life

Lanier is remorseful, his mother, Marla, said in a telephone interview. Sidney Lanier had a happy childhood in Clovis, N.M., according to a 2004 psychological evaluation he underwent as part of a divorce proceeding. His father was a commodities trader for Archer Daniels Midland, and his mother stayed home to look after Lanier and his three older sisters.

His mother and others trace Laniers alleged use and sale of opioids to a back injury suffered about 15 years ago, when he was run over by a truck. He endured excruciating pain and had to give up the computer repair business because he could no longer lift the equipment he was fixing, his mother said. He went on government disability.

It changed his life forever, she said of the injury.

Marla Lanier said her son underwent numerous surgeries and visited doctors throughout Texas seeking relief from his pain. His Facebook page shows an image from a procedure he underwent in 2010. Screws inserted into his spine are visible.

Lanier allegedly began to abuse opioids. He took the fentanyl he ordered from China, often using himself as a guinea pig to check the quality of a shipment and to get relief from his pain. His wife told police she witnessed her husband injecting himself with pain medication.

He didnt ask for this life, his mother said.

In the end, fentanyl allegedly offered Lanier both relief from pain and a new source of income. It may also cost him his freedom.

Since his arrest, Lubbock drug detectives have not been called to a single suspected fentanyl overdose, said Sgt. Robert Hook, a supervisor in the narcotics division.
For women who have heard that drinking plenty of water can help prevent or treat a urinary tract infection , you may want to put down that extra glass: A woman in England ended up in the hospital after loading up on liquids to keep a UTI at bay, according to a new report of her case.

The 59-year-old woman went to the emergency room in October 2015 to get antibiotics for a UTI , according to the report. After she received her antibiotics, she intended to go home and rest, but because she felt increasingly lightheaded and sick, her partner persuaded her to stay at the hospital.

The woman developed trouble speaking and finding words, and became distracted, doctors wrote in the report of her case, published today (Dec. 1) in the journal BMJ Case Reports . Her partner told the doctors that she had drunk several liters of water that day, according to the report.

The patient herself commented in the report that she was no stranger to UTIs. "I have, since my 20s, had periods where cystitis [inflammation of the bladder ] and related UTIs have flared up," she wrote.

So when she woke up one Sunday morning and felt a "dull 'thumbprint' pressure" in her lower abdomen, she followed her usual protocol, which meant "(a) drink lots of water and (b) get to the doctor or [emergency room] quickly to get antibiotics," she wrote.

The woman wrote that she recalled receiving advice to drink half a pint of water every half hour. But she drank even more, she wrote. "I am sure I exceeded the 'half-a-pint-every-half-hour' advice," she added.

The woman wrote that after her partner persuaded her to stay at the hospital after receiving her antibiotics, it was "the end of any accurate memory [she had] of the day."

Sodium: A balancing act

When a person drinks too much water, he or she can develop a dangerous condition called hyponatremia, the doctors who treated the woman wrote in the report. Hyponatremia means that the levels of sodium , an important electrolyte, in a person's blood are too low.

Normally, the salts in a person's blood "are in a very delicate balance with each other to keep the water in your body in the right areas," said Dr. Maryann Noronha, an emergency-medicine physician at the Royal London Hospital in England and the senior author of the report. Noronha and her colleague, Dr. Laura Lee, treated the patient.

"If the amount of sodium in your blood falls, this makes [the blood] more dilute than other areas, meaning that water will be pulled out of your blood vessels into areas that are more concentrated as the body tries to balance things out again," Noronha told Live Science.

"One of the areas most vulnerable to this is your brain, which can become swollen as water enters it in an effort to even out the sodium levels," Noronha added. This swelling can lead to symptoms such as confusion and speech problems, according to the report. The condition can be deadly if it develops quickly and is not treated, Noronha said.

Noronha noted that she has seen many cases of hyponatremia in her 10 years of medical practice, so the condition was on her list of possible diagnoses for the woman. However, she also wanted to rule other dangerous conditions, such as a stroke , Noronha said.

"Hyponatremia can be very non-specific in its symptoms and can mimic many other conditions. It can also accompany many other illnesses, so it can sometimes be difficult to spot," she added.

But if you know to test for low sodium levels, however, a simple blood test can spot the condition.

Treating low sodium levels depends on what caused the condition in the first place, Noronha said. In the woman's case, for example, the cause was straightforward: the sodium levels had been diluted down by excess water, she said. If this is the cause, the main treatment is "often simply water restriction," she said. If the condition occurs "because there truly is not enough sodium in the body, then the treatment can get more complicated," Noronha added.

The doctors treated the woman by restricting her water intake to 1 liter for 24 hours. Thirteen hours into the treatment, her sodium levels had increased to a normal level, and the woman was discharged later that day, according to the report.

Indeed, the woman wrote that "something like 24 hours [after being admitted] I was bored, a sure sign I was on the mend!" She added that "it took about a week to feel 'normal' again" and was tired for at least another week after that.

The doctors last spoke with the woman several months ago and "were pleased to find that she was fully recovered," Noronha said.

Since treating the woman, Noronha said that she now tries to be a bit more specific when advising patients about how much water they should drink. "It is important to stay well-hydrated during any acute illness to balance the effects of a [fever] and the infection in the body," but this can be achieved by maintaining "normal fluid intake and [thinking] about drinking maybe half again on top of that," she said.

Originally published on Live Science .
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The Friday before Thanksgiving, Chris Kain and his family watched the sun set on a beach in Oahu, Hawaii, and 12 hours later, they dazzled at the icy top of the tallest mountain in North America, Denali, as it rose in Alaska. What preceded that moment were numerous miles flown and driven across the United States to fulfill a promise Chris made when his daughter Kellisa exceeded doctors expectations to survive an extremely premature birth sustaining fluid on the brain and developing cerebral palsy about 17 and a half years ago.

The symbolism of that sunrise wasnt lost on Chris, who at that moment was beginning the last chapter of a years-long journey to show Kellisa all 50 U.S. states before she turns 18.

It was a huge relief because Id been putting a lot of pressure on myself to make sure it happened, Chris, a technical manager for a company that supports the flooring industry, told FoxNews.com.

Instead of keeping Kellisa indoors, Chris has prioritized father-daughter trips outdoors so Kellisa can live as normal a life as possible. The teen, who is reliant on a wheelchair and communicates primarily through facial expressions and basic phrases such as yes, has always preferred bumpy terrain to smooth pavement anyway, Chris said.

In December 2015, when FoxNews.com first spoke with Chris, he and Kellisa had hiked trails together in 47 states, and had only Iowa, Hawaii and Alaska left. But when Chris realized earlier this year that Kellisas adopted sister, Laurel, 7, had visited 41 states, he decided to backtrack a bit to make it so his daughters could complete the feat together.

Kellisa wants [Laurel] by her side, Chris said, and Laurel has taken a very active role in wanting to help and watch out for Kellisa. She likes to help push Kellisa on these trails, and shes real good at looking out for Kellisas safety.

To catch Laurel up, Chris packed the girls bags plus Kellisas jog stroller with rugged wheels to fly to Albany, New York, from the familys new hometown of Roseville, California, where they relocated from Florida earlier this year, when Chris received a job transfer. In three days, they traversed the Northeast by car hitting New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire and flew to Illinois before finally driving to Iowa. Cramming six states into that time span was unusual, but doing a lot in a little wasnt atypical for the girls.

Theyre both road warriors, Chris said.

The following week, Chris and his wife, Lisa, flew their daughters to Oahu, where they hiked muddy trails as it drizzled, and spent five days feasting their eyes on aerial views of Honolulu and Waikiki, as well as playing on sandy beaches. From Hawaii, the Kains took an overnight flight to Anchorage, where an abundant snowfall made up for the limited trail options in the wintertime.

Negative 14 degrees was the actual temperature both kids loved it, Chris said. Laurel got out of the car and was [making] a snowball, Kellisas giggling  I was very impressed that they did not let the cold slow them down or stop them one bit. I had to kind of drag them back into the car because they wanted to keep playing.

The Kains spent four days in Alaska, and now that their nationwide tour is over, Chris is already setting his sights on hiking trails outside of the U.S.

Theyve both been to Canada, but they havent been to all the providences, so Im thinking we can do that and do some trails in each of them, Chris said.

However, in her new home state, Kellisa has all the advantages of the outdoors that many of her nationwide excursions have afforded. Lately, the Cains have been spending their time exploring local trails, sledding the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and splashing around in swimming holes and creeks in which Kellisa uses a square flotation device that allows her to independently move her hands and lightly kick her feet.

My kids thrive in this stuff, he said. It doesnt matter if its hot or cold or in between, or wet or dry just that theyre doing something.

Chris re-emphasized his goal of inspiring other parents whose children are disabled to believe in their kids and push to give them more than only what is expected.

I see [my kids] thriving and all the kids who are sitting there at home, he said. Thats the bigger goal: to inspire people not necessarily to do what we do, but to do something.
I did not start out in college planning to be a teacher, having first majored in Spanish and German and then music. I aspired to do something impressive like interpret at the United Nations or become a concert pianist. When the piano practice room became too isolated and lonely, I entered a new program at the University of Texas called bilingual education.

Forty years later I am still working in the field of bilingual/ESL education.

My love affair with the Spanish language began when I was 10 years old and at the suggestion of my father, went to school in Fort Worth early each morning to take Spanish classes. My dad worked in the banking industry and was very impressed with international bankers who visited from European countries and were fluent in several languages.

Learn a new language, care about others, be interested beyond your own small world. His advice today would be the same. In light of the most recent world events from the Paris terror attacks to calls to ban Syrian refugees in the U.S., his simple words sound like good advice for difficult times.  Melinda Cowart

A veteran of WWII, my father volunteered to serve in the Army Air Corps. Unable to fight overseas due to a debilitating eye injury in early childhood, he became a flight trainer for the duration of the war. When I ponder my choice of profession, professor of bilingual/ESL teacher education, I must acknowledge my dads influence.

He spoke a bit of Spanish and encouraged all four of his children to learn another language. I felt his encouragement to me for learning Spanish as though I was the only one. Occasionally, he would speak basic Spanish with me Buenos dias. Como estas? and continued to do so even during my contentious teen years.

It is significant that his final note to me before he died was in Spanish. I had already completed my undergraduate degree in bilingual education and had begun my first year of teaching in a bilingual classroom at a school in West Dallas. Having gone home for an early fall weekend in Fort Worth, he commented that he couldnt remember a year when the wildflowers had been prettier.

When we went to visit my grandmother in the country south of Burleson, my dad stopped the car to pick thistles and flowers for me to take to my students in order to teach them about plant life in Texas.

The weekend ended too soon and when it was time for me to return to Dallas, I found his note on the breakfast table. It simply said, Te amo, Padre. And with that he left us, the victim of a sudden massive heart attack two days later during a time that preceded modern advances in cardiac care.

Yet, his influence in my life, on my values and beliefs about critical issues of integrity, respect, fairness, acceptance, and actions that go beyond tolerance, endured and continues to guide many of my responses to life.

I write this to honor my dads legacy: Learn a new language, care about others, be interested beyond your own small world. His advice today would be the same. In light of the most recent world events from the Paris terror attacks to calls to ban Syrian refugees in the U.S., his simple words sound like good advice for difficult times.

The world in which we live is rife with stress. When we think we couldnt possibly be further stunned, astonished by the evil in the world, we get the attacks in Paris and threats of additional worldwide terror. Certainly the question on the minds of people everywhere must be, Could that happen here? Such fear, while understandable, can lead to xenophobia and that, to regrettable decisions for the nation.

Every age has its challenges. For today, our leaders and citizens must decide how best to address the needs and aggregate issues related to the very large numbers of refugees from Burma, Iraq, Bhutan, Syria and numerous other nations fleeing persecution owing to their political or religious beliefs. Those fleeing for their lives often escape without knowing in which country they may be resettled. Typically, the United States resettles greater numbers of refugees than other countries.

When teaching in the Dallas ISD, I taught children from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Afghanistan, not to mention students from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. They taught me so much. I count the years teaching those students as some of the best in my entire career.

I am reminded that humanity survived Hitler and found a new way. The Greatest Generation soldiered on to, as Stephen Ambrose once stated, Save democracy for the world. Surely, better ideas and times await this generation and those that follow.

Each person has the opportunity to make a lasting impact. My father didnt know his life would end at age 51, but his effect of seeing the goodness in people, his insistence that his family treat people respectfully, and his counsel to explore past the familiar continue to guide my decisions regarding the effective, equitable teaching of all students, including immigrants and refugees who may be linguistically, ethnically, or culturally diverse.
Donald Trump may be the next president of the United States but the war on religious liberty rages on.

The other day I received word that Connecticuts openly gay comptroller is targeting American Family Association, one of the nations most prominent and respected Christian ministries.

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If Comptroller Kevin Lembo has his way, AFA could be kicked out of the Connecticut State Employees Campaign for Charitable Giving (CSEC)  even though they are qualified as a charity under the rules.

Lembo sent AFA a letter accusing them possibly being in violation of the regulations governing the Connecticut State Employee Campaign for Charitable Giving that broadly prohibit discrimination.

He specifically mentioned AFAs petition to boycott Target over its transgender bathroom policies, and ministry statements regarding traditional marriage.

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These actions and statements are extremely troubling to me -- not only as an openly gay father and spouse -- but as administrator of CSEC, he wrote. The AFAs statements and mission not only appear to discriminate against the LGBTQ communities, as well as Muslims who choose to serve and protect our country by enlisting in the military, but it remains unclear what actual charitable services the AFA provides that qualifies it to participate in the CSEC. I am, therefore, initiating an investigation to determine whether AFA is in compliance with the requirements of the CSEC. (Click here to read the comptrollers full letter.)

If Lembo follows through on his threats, it would mean state employees would not be able to contribute to AFA through the program, AFA president Tim Wildmon says.

This is a state government official coming directly after your AFA, and the letter is nothing more than an attack on AFA for standing strong for biblical principles, Wildmon said. Moreover, it is an unconstitutional attack on the First Amendment rights of all religious organizations. The government is not allowed to dictate to religious charities what they can believe in order to participate in the public square.

AFA general counsel Abraham Hamilton III, minced no words in his interpretation of the state comptrollers investigation.

"What's being foisted upon the American Family Association is the latest iteration of 'If you don't adhere to the nouveaux orthodoxy of the day  which is the sexual deviancy agenda  then you must be castigated and expelled from public life,'" he tells OneNewsNow.

First Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser accused Lembo of abusing the power of his office.

It is surprising that a government would still be so bold as to engage in clearly unconstitutional religious viewpoint discrimination, Sasser told me. He is abusing his office by inappropriately using it to advance his own personal agenda and it is really disturbing.

And to be perfectly blunt, these types of attacks by far-left bureaucrats are why Donald Trump won the presidency.

"This issue ... really brings into focus why a lot of people supported Donald Trump as opposed to Hillary Clinton," Hamilton told OneNewsNow. People feared the federal government  more specifically the IRS or the Department of Justice  being used as means of cultural and societal intimidation."
Following President-elect Trump's surprise phone call on Friday with the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the response has been predictable if not disheartening. Academics in D.C. this morning are claiming that, Trumpdoesnt have clue. An expert at the University of California added that the call was impulsive.

Regrettably, my Democratic Party pushed back too. By its measure, Trump demonstrated his incompetence and threatened our national security. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) went so far as to say that Trumps actions might push the nation into war with China.

What academics and my party dont understand is that hes not interested in starting a war. He simply recognizes that were already in one. And hes giving voice to its long-suffering victims: millions of voters in places like North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan.

To understand the battlefield, readers should travel to North Carolina and talk to the former workers at Alpha Aluminum. For decades, these swing-state voters produced foil for eventual use in cigarette packages. This past summer, however, over 100 American workers lost their jobs. The reason? Cheap Chinese aluminum imports.

The result? Carolinians are scrambling to feed their families while workers in faraway Zhenjiang collect what used to be an American paycheck.

The story of Alpha is the story of U.S. manufacturing for the past three decades. Economists in liberal enclaves pushed for globalization, arguing that cheap goods made abroad would fatten the pocketbooks of all us back here in the United States. Despite pleas from unions, our elected leaders happily agreed. Both Republicans and Democrats signed up for NAFTA and, later, Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization.

But all did not go well. From steel plants in Ohio to furniture factories in North Carolina, American companies suddenly found themselves competing against Chinese labor that paid a few pennies to each of Joe Six Packs dollars. You dont need a PhD in Keynesian economics to predict the result: U.S. companies shut down, or moved operations abroad.

To be sure, Americans have gotten a lot of cheap goods in return for this deal. But theres a catch: millions of voters no longer have the jobs  or a livable income  to afford them. Initially, economists believed that this would be a temporary condition. Surely, they argued, these unemployed workers would find new jobs that paid just as good as the old.

Last summer, however, academics released a study that took 38 pages to acknowledge the obvious: they were wrong. It turns out that our political class had sold off the American dream to the Chinese and given blue-collar workers  and their communities  an economic nightmare in its place.

But it gets worse. Thats because China hasnt been content to just take American jobs through unfair competition. Theyre stealing them via cyber-warfare too.

Consider the case of U.S. Steel. In 2011, the Chinese government hacked its way into U.S. Steels computer systems and stole trade secrets. They passed the information to an assortment of Chinese steel companies, allowing these competitors to produce advanced steel products. As a consequence, we lost market share, and jobs.

Or consider the case of American Superconductor, which produces advanced software for wind turbines. In 2011, the company discovered that the Chinese Government had stolen its source code, giving it to their own corporation Sinovel. The result? Over 600 American workers lost their jobs and the company took a $1 billion hit in shareholder value. Adding insult to injury, Chinas Sinovel later sold its wind turbines to the State of Massachusetts, paid for with taxpayer dollars.

The Chinese goal in all of this is clear: grow their economy through theft, and at the expense of American innovation.

Smart Democrats know this. And, indeed, President Obama made a series of threats to the Chinese demanding that they stop. But, according to my former colleagues in the intelligence community, the hacking continues.

Enter President-elect Trump and his undiplomatic phone call.

Only Mr. Trump knows why he accepted the call from Chinas nemesis, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. But Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway has made it clear that the President-elect was fully aware of the calls implications. And reporting from Trump insiders suggests that the phone call was part of a long-planned chess move to warn Beijing that our relationship was about to change.

Politically, Trump has now beaten Democrats twice in one week. His efforts in Indiana to save jobs at Carrier made him look tough and focused on the American worker. And now hes pushing back against the greatest job killer of all: Communist China.

So rather than bash Trump reflexively, I beg my party to be smarter. Stop broadcasting knee-jerk press releases over phone calls, especially when theyre designed to punish a thief. Instead, lets double down on Trumps move.

How? Debt forgiveness.

China owns $1.3 trillion of U.S. debt, which is a massive burden that could otherwise go to the rebuilding of our inner cities and crumbling infrastructure. A savvy Democratic Party could suggest that Trump renegotiate that debt, deducting the total cost of what theyve stolen from American industry  and American workers. Costs of cyber warfare on the U.S. economy are calculated at some $250 billion a year. Trump should work with the CIA, NSA, and Departments of State and Treasury to tally Chinas responsibility from that amount and make them pay through bare-knuckle negotiations.

Make no mistake, Democrats cannot simply be an echo chamber for the President-elect as he tackles tough issues abroad. The country needs a faithful opposition to hold him accountable, especially when it comes to conflicts of interest related to his many foreign resorts and buildings. To the point, there are troubling reports that hes considering a hotel deal in Taiwans capital Taipei.

Still, we have to be smarter than simply being the Party of No, especially when it comes to taking on China. Not only is it a political loser, well be viewed as cowardly. Beijing has gotten away with economic murder for far too long. Its time we fought back.
Twenty-seven days after Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States, Vice President Joe Biden told reporters he would make his third bid for the highest office in the land four years from now.

"I'm going to run in 2020," Biden, 74, told a group of reporters at the Capitol Monday evening. "So, uh, what the hell, man."

When asked if he was serious or joking, the vice president paused for about four seconds and sighed. He was then asked if he would run for president.

"Yeah, I am," Biden said. "Yeah, I am. We're going to run again."

When pressed further, Biden backed away somewhat from his statement, saying, "I'm not committing not to run. I learned a long time ago fate has a funny way of intervening."

Biden was on Capitol Hill to preside over the Senate as it cleared away procedural hurdles to a biomedical research bill he's supporting. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., got the Senate to rename a portion of the bill after the vice president's son Beau, who died of brain cancer last year.

Biden's possible entry into the 2016 presidential race was a subject of intense will-he-or-won't-he speculation. He ultimately decided last October not to challenge eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The vice president previously sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008. He suspended his first campaign in September 1987 after becoming embroiled in a series of plagiarism controversies. In 2008, Biden ended his bid for the Democratic nomination after the Iowa caucuses and later endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Biden will turn 78 shortly after the 2020 election. Ronald Reagan was just a few days short of turning 78 when he left office in January 1989, making him the oldest person to serve as president.

Fox News' Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Obamas former national security adviser said Monday that President-elect Donald Trumps phone call with the president of Taiwan should not be seen as a big deal.

Offering his perspective in an interview with Fox News, retired Marine Corps General Jim Jones said, That didn't bother me, I think the purists are flapping their wings and saying all kinds of things. Why they can't have a five minute conversation or whatever it was to say congratulations doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I think the Trump administration will have to find whatever the right course is, and the right things during their administration, but I wouldn't prejudge what that would be right now, Jones said. He's not the president of the United States right now, he's the president- elect. He's talking to a lot of people around the world and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Trump is the first president or president-elect to speak with a Taiwanese leader since the United States broke-off relations with Taiwan in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, when his administration established formal relations with Beijing, marking the start of the one-China policy.

I think the policy is fine, Jones said. I think we should lighten up a little bit about the importance of phone calls and signals that may or may not have been sent. I think policy is pretty stable and the Chinese relationship is very important.

For the first time, China sent a pair of bombers capable of launching nuclear weapons to circle Taiwan, two US officials tell Fox News. The incident occurred November 26, less than a week before Trump's controversial call Friday with the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, angering Chinese leaders who lodged a diplomatic protest the next day.

Japan scrambled eight F-15 fighter jets to intercept the two Chinese H-6K bombers and their two escort planes at one point northeast of Taiwan, according to officials.

Trump's response to critics of his phone call came in a tweet Friday.

"Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have totaled more than $46 billion since 1990. In December 2015, the United States, under President Obama, announced a $1.83 billion arms sales agreement with Taiwan, the first arms sale in four years.

Critics were outraged that Trump had broken decades-long policy by speaking with Taiwans president. When asked on CBSs Face the Nation Sunday if he thought Trump was speaking to the leader of a sovereign nation, Trumps future chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said, He knew exactly what was happening. But look, we have a lot of problems to solve in this country, and were not going to solve them by just making believe that people dont exist. This is not a massive deviation of our policy.

Since the Chinese civil war in the 1940s, China and Taiwan have been ruled separately. China claims sovereignty over the island.

The White House was on the defensive Monday. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said officials had already made at least two calls to the Chinese.

I can confirm that U.S. officials, including senior officials on the national security council, been in touch with their Chinese counterparts to reiterate our countrys continued commitment to one-China policy, he said.

Trade tariffs are another point of friction. China imposes a 25 percent tariff on imported cars, for instance, while the United States has either eliminated tariffs or charges two and a half percent or less for overseas products - a huge advantage for China.

The flight around Taiwan consisted of two Chinese Xian H-6K bombers, along with two escort planes, a Tupolev Tu-154 and Shaanxi Y-8, flying around the island of Taiwan from mainland China, taking off and landing from two separate Chinese military bases.

The escort jets were used to collect radar information and conduct other surveillance on American allies such as Japan, Fox News was told. The Chinese bombers stayed in international airspace, according to officials.

At different points of the flight, Chinese J-10 and Su-30 fighter jets performed escort duties for the Chinese strategic bombers.

"China has steadily built up a massive military capability in the area around Taiwan. This isn't simply a matter of flying bombers. Understand that technically, we can't object to flying bombers near Taiwan if we are flying combat aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft near China. This is simply legal under international law," said Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Taiwan faces a much more serious Chinese challenge than it has ever faced before."
Senior defense officials suppressed a study documenting $125 billion worth of administrative waste at the Pentagon out of fears that Congress would use its findings to cut the defense budget, the Washington Post reported late Monday.

The report, which was issued in January 2015 by the advisory Defense Business Board (DBB), called for a series of reforms that would have saved the department $125 billion over the next five years.

Among its other findings, the report showed that the Defense Department was paying just over 1 million contractors, civilian employees and uniformed personnel to fill back-office jobs. That number nearly matches the amount of active duty troops  1.3 million, the lowest since 1940.

The Post reported that some Pentagon leaders feared the study's findings would undermine their claims that years of budget sequestration had left the military short of money. In response, they imposed security restrictions on information used in the study and even pulled a summary report from a Pentagon website.

"Theyre all complaining that they dont have any money," former DBB chairman Robert Stein told the Post. "We proposed a way to save a ton of money."

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, who originally ordered the study, told the paper that the plan laid out in the report was "unrealistic."

"There is this meme that were some bloated, giant organization, Work said. Although there is a little bit of truth in that ... I think it vastly overstates whats really going on."

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook echoed Work's claim in a statement to Fox News, which said that the DBB report "had limited value" because it "lacked specific, actionable recommendations appropriate to the department."

Work claimed that some of the report's recommendations were being implemented on a smaller scale and would save an estimated $30 billion by 2020. However, the Post reported that most of the programs had been long-planned or unreleated to the Defense Business Board report.

Click for more from The Washington Post.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
Amid a rowdy recount push in battleground states, anti-Donald Trump forces are escalating efforts to invalidate his election on another front: the Electoral College.

The people who technically choose the next president will gather on Dec. 19 to, presumably, make the results of the Nov. 8 presidential election official. Trump won 306 electoral votes in the election, well above the 270 needed to defeat Hillary Clinton and claim the White House.

But even as Clinton herself has conceded and joined President Obama in urging a smooth transition of power, a group of electors from Colorado and Washington known as the Hamilton Electors is trying to persuade other electors to unite behind a Republican alternative to Trump.

On Monday, they peeled off one Republican. Chris Suprun, from Texas, said he won't cast one of his state's 38 electoral votes for Trump because "I am here to elect a president, not a king."

Suprun previously indicated he would support Trump. But he now says the president-elect's postelection attacks on the First Amendment, as well as the billionaire businessman's continued promotion of his brand and business interests overseas, changed his mind.

The anti-Trump electors, however, face a very steep climb. In total, they would need to persuade 37 electors to either abstain from voting or switch their vote from Trump to someone else. This would throw the vote for president to the House of Representatives.

Texas law doesn't mandate that electors vote according to the results of the state's presidential election, which Trump won by nine percentage points over Clinton.

But a majority of states bind their electors to the states popular-vote winner, complicating efforts to switch those votes.

Its clearly a binding position, Cherilyn Eagar, a Utah elector, told The Salt Lake Tribune of the law in her state, dismissing efforts to get fellow electors to defect from Trump.

The same newspaper notes that some attorney groups have offered to defend electors who try to defy the will of their states.

Politico reported Monday that advocates of the latest stop-Trump plan have been in touch with Clinton allies, though Clinton and her campaign have not commented on the plan. Clinton likewise has not gotten behind Green Party candidate Jill Steins efforts to pursue a recount in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The plan for Electoral College chaos doesnt necessarily hold promise for Clinton anyway.

Anti-Trump electors are pushing for members of the Electoral College to support a Republican alternative in order to bring Trumps number down  not elevate Clintons.

According to Politico, Democratic electors backing the push are leaning toward Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who ran unsuccessfully for president, as the likely alternative.

Suprun said he would have to strongly consider someone like Kasich who has both executive and legislative experience bringing people together.

Suprun said he was waiting to see if other electors revolt and rally behind a Trump alternative like Kasich.

"I'm looking for someone we can all unify behind," he said.

The Kasich camp is pushing back on efforts to put forward his name on Dec. 19.

Kasich himself tweeted Tuesday that he's not a candidate and urged electors not to vote for him:

Gov. John Kasich statement on the recent news about the upcoming Electoral College meeting: pic.twitter.com/dm9yOfBqwF  John Kasich (@JohnKasich) December 6, 2016

Adviser John Weaver told Politico: Theres no question Trump won enough votes in the states to receive over 270 votes when the members of the Electoral College meet. He voiced confidence the Electoral College will affirm this when it gathers later this month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The battle in Congress over Donald Trumps Cabinet selections already has begun  with the president-elects inauguration still weeks away.

The first skirmish broke out Tuesday over a Republican bid to help smooth the way for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to be confirmed as Trumps Defense secretary. Trump says he intends to nominate Mattis for the top Pentagon job, but this would require a waiver from Congress, since the Defense secretary by law is supposed to be a civilian far removed from military service.

Some Republicans are now trying to include language in a critical stopgap spending bill that would help facilitate that waiver. The broader spending bill would keep federal agencies functioning into next spring, with current funding set to expire at midnight Friday.

Some Democrats, however, see the Mattis provision as a poison pill and are fighting it.

The American people are entitled to regular order and thoughtful scrutiny of nominees and any potential waivers, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday. Brushing aside the law that enshrines civilian control of the military  without discussion, in a massive must-pass funding bill  would set a terrible precedent. It is troubling that Republicans are working so hard to shield President-elect Trumps choice for Secretary of Defense from the scrutiny and debate of Congress and the American people.

The Republican measure being discussed would limit debate to 10 hours, but would still require 60 votes to approve the waiver for Mattis.

The Senate would still have to hold a separate vote to confirm Mattis as Defense secretary.

The reason Republicans and the incoming Trump administration would need a waiver traces back to the National Security Act of 1947. The law states 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.

In 2008, Congress dropped that period from 10 to seven years. Mattis, who most recently served as head of U.S. Central Command, retired from the Marine Corps in 2013.

Trump announced last Thursday that he plans to nominate Mattis; the two were expected to appear together at a rally Tuesday night in North Carolina.

Though the waiver requirement threatens to cause delays, Mattis could still enjoy bipartisan support in the Senate. The pick won praise late last week. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trumps biggest GOP critics during the campaign, said Mattis would be an outstanding choice.

Meanwhile, the stopgap spending measure is considered the only must-do bill before Congress adjourns. As such, it's likely to carry several add-ons, including flood relief, money for overseas military operations and help for Flint, Michigan, to fix its lead-tainted water system as well as potential language on Mattis.

One major dispute centered on protecting health care and pension benefits for about 120,000 retired coal miners.

The measure had divided coal-state Republicans. Several supported the bill, but GOP leaders -- including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky -- were wary of bailing out unionized workers.

McConnell said Tuesday that the temporary health care help for miners would be part of the spending bill, though Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., suggested the issue remained unresolved and continued to push for a permanent fix.

Manchin vowed to block any Senate effort to move quickly on unrelated legislation until the miners' fight was settled.

Fox News Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison remains the frontrunner to take over the beleaguered Democratic National Committee but is facing growing questions not only about his controversial past but whether he can effectively lead the group without relinquishing his House seat.

The call for a full-time DNC leader -- and for Ellison to step down from the House if he gets the job -- is being led by former committee Chairman Howard Dean, who last week ended his bid to return to the post.

Dean made the announcement before a gathering in Denver of Democratic state party leaders, after which Ellison purportedly said with mixed emotions that he is considering leaving Congress to devote his full attention to the DNC.

Dean made clear he considers Ellison's exit from Congress a requirement. He afterward told MSNBC, I do not support Keith as long as he has his congressional seat. I do not believe you can do this job and another job in Congress. I don't support Keith. Maybe I will later.

The other remaining DNC candidates are Ray Buckley and Jamie Harrison, the chairmen, respectively, of the New Hampshire and South Carolina state Democratic parties.

Beyond concerns about splitting duties, Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, is facing criticism about his past remarks on Israel and association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Keith Ellison is, by all accounts, a decent guy, Alan Dershowitz, a renowned Jewish lawyer and legal scholar who supports Democratic candidates, said in a FoxNews.com op-ed. But it is hard to imagine a worse candidate  Ellison represents the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, just when the party -- if it is to win again -- must move to the center in order to bring back the voters it lost to (Donald) Trump.

Ellison, in his sixth term, would take over the committee after a bruising 2016 election cycle in which Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was upset by Trump, the Republican nominee, after essentially leading the entire race.

In addition, Washington Democrats missed their best opportunity in years to retake control of the Senate, gaining just two seats while winning only a handful of House seats and again losing more gubernatorial and state legislative seats across the country. (Democrats could pick up a third Senate seat in Saturdays runoff election in Louisiana.)

Clintons White House bid was set back on the eve of this summers Democratic National Convention when leaked emails revealed DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and some of her staff appeared to favor Clinton over primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders -- who appealed to the electorates far-left wing and who backs Ellisons bid.

Schultz resigned, but the DNCs problems continued when more leaked emails, in the closing weeks of the White House race, revealed that interim-DNC leader and former CNN contributor Donna Brazile had given the Clinton campaign questions in advance of a network-sponsored debate and town hall forum.

Ellison reportedly argued at the meeting last week that he could handle both jobs, especially in a GOP-controlled Congress, just as Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman, did. The argument was not well received.

Ill leave that up to you guys to make that determination, Harrison reportedly said to chortles.

The DNC charter also appears to automatically prohibit Ellison or anyone else from holding both posts, as it stipulates the chairman shall serve full time.

However, an allowance seemed to have been made when President Obama personally appointed Wasserman Schultz.

Dershowitz further suggested that beyond Ellisons questionable ideology the DNC needs a leader who can reconnect the party with disaffected centrist voters.

The centrist voters they lost to Trump will only be further alienated by the appointment of a left-wing ideologue who seems to care more about global issues than jobs in Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan  . Ellisons sordid past associations with Louis Farrakhan  will hurt him in middle America.

The 68-year-old Dean, a Clinton supporter, also said last week that he dropped his DNC bid because he thought the party needed a younger face and that he didnt want to get involved in an ideological fight between the partys establishment and progressive wings.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich defended President-elect Donald Trump's phone conversation with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, saying the break with decades-long diplomatic tradition was a "deliberate ... specific signal."

In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity Monday night, Gingrich favorably compared Trump's Taiwan call to President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba earlier this year.

FORMER OBAMA NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER SAYS TRUMP CALL WITH TAIWAN 'DIDN'T BOTHER ME'



"[Trump] accepted a phone call from the freely elected head of a democracy of 23 million people and frankly, if its OK for President Obama to go down and hang out with the Castro dictatorship, it ought to be OK for Donald Trump to talk to a democracy," Gingrich said.

"But hes also sending a very tough signal to Beijing," the former Speaker continued. "This aint the old order, were not gonna let you push us around. You dont dictate to us."

Gingrich also defended Trump's agreement with Carrier that enabled the air conditioning manufacturer to keep hundreds of jobs in Indiana, calling the president-elect a pragmatist "in the classic American sense."

"Trump is the first American president to realize that we are in a worldwide economic competition, just like the 50 states are in competition," Gingrich said. "I mean, these guys who yell 'free trade!', have they ever tried doing business in Mexico? Have they tried doing business in China? What are they talking about?

"I think these guys who are sitting around these academic centers spouting off ideology are as much out of touch with reality as left-wingers who are sitting around similar centers spouting off their version of ideology."
Iran vows not to let President-elect Donald Trump to rip up its nuclear agreement that was signed with world powers, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday.

"(Trump) wants to do many things, but none of his actions would affect us ... Do you think the United States can rip up the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal)? Do you think we and our nation will let him do that? Rouhani said in a speech at the University of Tehran.

Rouhani added, "Some man is elected in the U.S. whatever plans he has, it will be revealed later. Yes, he may desire many things. He may desire to weaken the nuclear deal. He may desire to rip up the deal. Do you suppose we will allow this?"

The Iranian leaders remarks were the latest attempt by the country to calm concerns over the future of the deal in the wake of Trumps election.

Trump has vowed to renegotiate the deal, possibly imperiling an agreement that has put off the immediate threat of Tehran developing atomic weapons.

On the campaign trail, Trump called the deal catastrophic and vowed to renegotiate it. However, Trumps video in which he laid out his first 100 days in office mentioned nothing about the deal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Beijing on Monday that each of the seven world powers involved in the agreement have the obligation to fully implement it.

The July 2015 deal came after two years of negotiations between Iran, the United States, China, Britain, France, Germany and Russia. The agreement imposed strict limits on Iran's nuclear activity in exchange for the end of wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions.

Meanwhile, Iran is warning President Obama not to sign an extension of sanctions, saying the bill is a violation of the landmark agreement.

The Senate on Thursday noted to extend the Iran Sanctions Act by 10 years. Rouhani told Iranian Parliament Sunday that Obama is obliged to let the sanctions expire.

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.

Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi also warned the U.S. of a firm and strong reaction if it persists in actions he claims are endangering the nuclear deal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
As liberal pundits struggle to come to terms with the Trump victory they never expected, some are finally pulling themselves out of denial.

They are still appalled by Donald Trump, but they are edging toward more honesty about why Hillary Clinton lost and how they need to calibrate their opposition to the next president.

I dont think the media have gotten over the shock either. Trump continues to use disruptive tactics, and many journalists are still smacking their foreheads in the belief that this is not how its supposed to be done. Its the same mistake they made during the campaign. Governing is much harder, of course, and some tactics can backfire, but every president brings his own styleand takes advantage of new technology.

In a kind of meta-tweet, Trump wrote yesterday: 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!

Almost everything Trump has done since the election has kept him in the news, and has riled up the left. He gets little credit for conciliatory gestures. I mean, the guy met with Al Gore yesterday and talked about finding common ground on climate change. That certainly seems like reaching out.

In the New Republic, Eric Sasson, while ripping Trump, suggests that the liberal side might want to dial it down:

It is painfully clear that all our outrage didnt work. And now theres a danger of getting sucked into a vortex of what Id like to refer to as outrage porn.

In other words, everything shouldnt be cranked up to 11.

Trumps horrific statements arent going to stop. Hes going to keep tweeting about every sleight and alleged offense, from Hamilton controversies to unflattering Saturday Night Live sketches to the untold thousands of protests and articles and taunts forthcoming. And he will use these incidents to cement his reputation as a political outsider with his voters. He will weaponize these reactions, holding them up as proof of just how much know-it-all elites loathe his deplorable white base.

The piece argues that Trumps more entertaining tweets distract from his business conflicts and controversies, and that left-wingers have every right to be outraged about, say, his Cabinet picks:

But shouting into an echo chamber will not amplify our voices. To the extent that our outrage forces us to stay vigilant and harness our anger to formulate a plan of resistance, it can be useful. But we must remind ourselves that the television media, especially the cable news networks, will continue to highlight the glamorous if petty squabbles like the one between Trump and Alec Baldwin, while paying almost no attention to issues of grave importance like climate change.



I would argue that the medias coverage of Trump, tweets and all, is getting more substantive. The journalistic uproar over his call with Taiwans president wound up sparking a debate about the U.S. relationship with Taiwan (which is strong, despite the polite fiction that it doesnt really exist) and the risk of antagonizing China (whose cooperation we will need on North Korea and other geopolitical matters).

At the same time, the initial media reports fed the narrative of Trump as a foreign policy neophyte unconcerned with decades of protocol. But the Washington Post reported yesterday that pro-Taiwan Trump advisers had been working on the call for weeks.

The same goes for Trump doing a deal to save 1,000 Carrier jobs in Indiana. The press loved the symbolism, but has explored whether the tax breaks involved amount to crony capitalism and provide leverage for other companies considering moving production to foreign countries.

There also may be an evolution on the left on the reasons for Clintons loss. (Yes, she won over 2.5 million more popular votes, but everyone builds their campaigns to win the Electoral College.)

In the Huffington Post, which when Arianna ran it included an editors note eviscerating Trump as a racist in every story, Zach Carter sympathizes with the Clinton campaign, but says its defense of its own righteousness helps explain why the election was close to begin with.

While Trump ran a deeply bigoted campaign, he insists, his dominant performance among white working-class voters wasnt due to his campaign message alone. Much of Clintons poor performance resulted from her campaigns strategic decision to not even contest the demographic. A good chunk of the Democratic Party intelligentsia applauded Clinton for taking the moral high ground, declaring the entire white working class to be a deplorable racist swamp. The notion that economic issues played literally no role  zero  in Trumps appeal became a common Democratic talking point. Democrats were Good People, and anyone even considering voting for Trump was a Bad Person.

While saying some working-class Trump fans may be bigots, the author says, the job of a presidential candidate is to appeal to our better angels and win votes anywayWriting off the white working class is a pretty bad way to startAll of this was obvious to the Democratic Party, which plowed ahead anyway, insisting that anyone who wasnt on board with the first woman president was a vile sexist.



During the campaign I argued that Hillary didnt seem to have much of a core message other than not being the scary Donald Trump. Now her folks could point you to 25 policy planks on the economy, but to me she didnt seem to speak to people who worked in factory or service jobs and are anxious about their future. And, of course, she blew off Michigan and Wisconsin till the very end of the campaign, assuming the states would as usual vote for the Obama party.

Media liberals who want to rebuild the Democratic Party or effectively challenge Trump need to grapple more honestly with the earthquake of 2016. Some are finally digging their way out of the rubble.
President Obama, in what was billed as his last major national security speech in office, defended his counterterrorism record and strategy Tuesday while warning the threat will endure well into the future  and taking a glancing shot at his successors approach.

Even as a new congressional report declared the U.S. is facing its highest threat from Islamist terrorists since 9/11, Obama claimed progress in the fight against terror in his address at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, home to U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command.

While calling Al Qaeda a shadow of its former self, the outgoing president said the U.S. and its allies also are breaking the back of ISIL.

The results are clear. ISIL has lost more than half its territory, ISIL has lost control of major population centers, its morale is plummeting, its recruitment is drying up, Obama said.

He also declared that during his two terms, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned or executed an attack on the homeland.

At the same time, Obama acknowledged America has faced numerous attacks from homegrown and largely isolated individuals who were radicalized online.

To say that weve made progress is not to say that the job is done, Obama said, adding violent extremism will be with us for years to come.

He also seemed to critique President-elect Donald Trumps campaign rhetoric on the subject, without mentioning him by name: Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs, or deploying more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat.

Despite Obamas claims of progress, a new report published earlier Tuesday afternoon by the House Homeland Security Committee showed a growing threat to the United States and Europe.

Make no mistake: we face a deadlier threat than ever before not only because our enemies have gotten savvier, but because we took the pressure off them, House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement on the report. For eight years, the Obama Administration reluctantly played global whack-a-mole with terrorists rather than leaning into the fight with decisive leadership.

The report said that throughout 2016, ISIS conducted 62 attacks worldwide, injuring 732 people and killing 215 in several countries, including the United States, France, and Belgium.

According to the report, ISIS shift in messaging from joining the jihad in Syria and Iraq to carrying out attacks in fighters home countries is likely to accelerate the trend of at-home radicalization.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also slammed Obama's speech Tuesday as a "feeble attempt to evade the harsh judgment of history."

He said in a statement that "his legacy on counterterrorism is unmistakably clear: a disastrous withdrawal from Iraq, the terrorist rampage of ISIL, an indecisive approach to the war in Afghanistan that has empowered the Taliban, and an indifferent approach to the carnage in Syria on which our terrorist enemies have thrived."

Before taking the stage Tuesday, Obama met with top military leaders at the base, including Gen. Raymond Thomas, who heads U.S. Special Operations Command. He also told about 250 U.S. service members gathered in a gym that it had been the privilege of his lifetime to serve as their commander in chief.

For Obama, who came into office telling a war-weary nation he would wind down two wars and prevent new ones, the inclination toward smaller-scale, limited military involvement was a natural extension of his foreign policy philosophy. But his approach has most notably come up short in Syria, where Obama long ago predicted that U.S.-backed forces would eventually prevail over Syrian President Bashar Assad. Assad's grip on power appears stronger than it has in years while the brutal civil war continues to rage.

Trump has said little about how he intends to shift course in Syria and whether he would continue Obama's strategy in other regions destabilized by extremist group. He's argued that ambiguity and unpredictability are assets that deny the enemy a chance to plan ahead.

Still, all signs suggest he'll pursue a more muscular, military-driven approach to extremist groups like the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Trump has argued that Obama's decision to withdraw the bulk of troops from Iraq, rather than negotiating harder with Baghdad to leave some there, created a power vacuum that allowed ISIS to form and seize territory.

During the presidential campaign, he said he would listen to top military officers about the need for ground troops to fight ISIS, at one point floating a figure of 20,000 to 30,000. Meanwhile, he's suggested that ousting Assad isn't a top priority and that closer alignment between the U.S. and Russia, which backs Assad, would be positive.

Obama was promoting Tuesday the benefits of his more limited approach. Under Obama, the number of U.S. troops Iraq and Afghanistan has dropped from roughly 180,000 to 15,000 today, according to deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been able to take out key Al Qaeda leaders, most notably Usama bin Laden, and has started edging the Islamic State group out of strongholds like Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Yet while U.S. troop casualties declined significantly under Obama's approach, as he finishes his term the U.S. is fighting in far more corners of the globe  as ISIS has nearly tripled the number of countries where it operates.

Military action under former President George W. Bush was mostly limited to Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Under Obama, the U.S. is also launching strikes in Syria, Somalia, Libya and Yemen, according to a report to Congress the White House released this week. Additional U.S. troops and assets are also in Jordan, Djibouti, Turkey, Egypt and Cameroon to support counterterrorism missions, while other overseas operations remain classified.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Thomas Jefferson long ago offered a salient if sour lament about members of the Supreme Court: "They never retire, and they rarely die."

So a vacancy in Washington's most exclusive club is a time for political opportunity and obstacle. It is also something President-elect Donald Trump must confront in his first 100 days in office as he works to replace the late conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia.

Sources close to the process say the president-elect is getting close to naming a nominee. He said on Fox News' "Hannity" last week that he was "down to probably three or four" candidates and an announcement would come "pretty soon."

"They are terrific people," he added." "Highly respected, brilliant people."

A formal nomination would come after the inauguration. But how successfully Trump and his GOP allies can navigate the confirmation process in the first hectic days of his presidency will depend on how much political air it sucks up, amid other pressing personnel and legislative priorities.

Democrats in the Senate-- where confirmation will take place-- have vowed to strongly oppose anyone who does not meet their definition of a "mainstream" judge.

"We'll give it just a very, very thorough vetting, but we won't ipso facto say no," Charles Schumer, D-NY, the incoming Senate minority leader, told "Fox News Sunday." "If it's out of the mainstream, yes, we're going to fight that nominee tooth and nail."

And conservative voters and activists will be watching.

"All the evangelicals that voted him because of the issue of judges and the Supreme Court are going to be looking with laser focus on this appointment to the Supreme Court," said Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty Institute, a law firm focused on defending religious liberty.

The new justice - the countrys 113th - will need to immerse himself or herself in the day-to-day grind of deciding cases big and small, where people of often ordinary means and motives come to argue their case.

People like Gavin Grimm, an extraordinarily bright and poised 17-year-old from Gloucester, Virginia.

The Supreme Court will take up transgender rights for the first time in the case of a school board that wants to keep Grimm from using the boys' bathroom at his high school.

The case is the hottest of the many hot-button issues that will come before the court this term.

The justices-- with either eight or nine members-- will hear this appeal next spring, but the senior, who was born female but identifies as a male, is not able to use the boys' restroom in the meantime.

Grimm is backed by the Obama administration in his argument that the policy violates Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in schools.

"A personal feeling about someone not liking them for whatever reason is not a basis to kick someone out of the public school life or any aspect of it," Grimm told Fox News Chief Legal Correspondent Shannon Bream. "My high school experience has been frankly ruined by this situation."

It is an issue percolating in school districts around the country.

An Illinois group called Students and Parents for Privacy filed a federal lawsuit over the same concerns in Virginia.

Vicki Wilson, a co-founder of the grassroots group, said some students have resorted to wearing their gym clothes underneath their school clothes, so they do not have to disrobe in the locker rooms.

The Obama administration has sued North Carolina over a state law aimed at restricting transgender students to bathrooms that correspond to their biological genders.

A federal judge in Texas has sided with Texas and 12 other states in issuing a nationwide hold on the Obama administration's directive to public schools, issued in May. The directive tells schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom and locker room consistent with their gender identity.

One concern for the LGBT community: A President Trump could quickly rescind his predecessor's executive order, perhaps making the Grimm appeal moot-- for now.

The transgender petition is just one of several closely-watched cases that could soon reach the newly-configured court. Issues quickly moving up the judicial food chain include campaign finance reform, gun restrictions, voter ID laws, health care reform, abortion access, and more religious freedom disputes.

Activists on both sides of the political aisle know the person in the White House can have a dramatic effect on shaping the entire federal judiciary and the 866 life-tenured judges and justices. Progressives disappointed at Hillary Clinton's loss are comforted by Obamas success helping restore ideological balance to the federal courts that had been dominated for decades by Republican appointees.

Trump can now shift the benches again, particularly the shaky 4-4 conservative/liberal split on the high court. He told Fox News in late October-- before his victory-- he could possibly get five Supreme Court vacancies to fill.

But the number can be elusive. President Eisenhower was able to appoint five justices; Nixon and Reagan four apiece; Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama each had two. Jimmy Carter got none.

"We're waiting along with the rest of country to see who is nominated," said James Esseks, director of the ACLU's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and AIDS Project. The group is representing Grimm in his Supreme Court appeal. "Look, I have immense confidence in our judicial system-- and in the ability of justices of whatever background to look at the facts of the case and understand the principles that animate our civil rights laws and to come to a good decision."

Conservatives agree, to some extent, but a "good decision" in their view would one favoring school boards.
Newspaper op-ed sections across the country have in recent weeks carried impassioned columns opposing a controversial law allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government.

The articles, however, are strikingly similar. Several use near-identical passages to make their case against the law -- raising questions about whether the Saudi government or its allies are helping circulate a cookie-cutter column.

The Daily Caller first reported that a number of opinion pieces by at least five authors, and published in five newspapers in October and November, strongly resemble one another and appear to originate from the same source.

All speak out against The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which was enacted in September after Congress overrode a veto by President Obama. It allows American citizens to file claims against foreign governments related to terrorist attacks if those governments helped finance the attacks -- and is intended to allow 9/11 families to sue the government of Saudi Arabia over claims the Kingdom helped finance the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which it denies.

Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow and activist, told FoxNews.com she was surprised to see the similarities in the anti-JASTA columns.

To learn about what may have been an underhanded effort to use the military against 9/11 families, it shocks the conscience, she said.

For instance, in a Nov. 4 piece in The Tennessean, retired Air Force Major Gen. William Russell Cotney warned that the law will undermine sovereign immunity and hurt U.S. soldiers and diplomats abroad:

The principle known as sovereign immunity has governed relations between states for centuries. It holds that governments cannot be sued for civil wrongs without their consent. In international relations, it preserves the right and responsibility of governments to settle disputes with other governments on behalf of their citizens.

The piece echoes a similar piece by Angela Sinkovits  a U.S. veteran writing for The Denver Post  on Oct. 5, where she uses almost exactly the same language.

The principle of sovereign immunity has governed relations between states for centuries. It holds that governments cannot be sued for civil wrongs without their consent. In international relations, it preserves the right and responsibility of governments to settle disputes with other governments on behalf of their citizens, she writes.

Similar language also appears in a guest column by Don Pugsley  a former special forces Green Beret officer -- in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Nov, 28.

The Daily Caller also located a letter to the editor in the Concord Monitor on Nov. 20 by a Ken Georgevits, who uses a similar chunk of text.

Among other similarities, both Pugsley and Cotney use this paragraph in their pieces:

No nation wants this. In fact, several countries have raised their deep concerns about JASTA with the United States government, including the Gulf Cooperation Council, the European Union, the Netherlands, Turkey and Pakistan  countries where many thousands of U.S. servicemen and women are or have been present.

While the similarities point to a level of coordination, it isn't clear who is behind it. The Caller noted the Saudis have employed a number of lobbyist firms since the law was passed as a way to push back. The Hill reported in November that the Saudis have employed 14 lobbying firms in order to seek an overhaul to the law on Capitol Hill.

Its not pleasant for 9/11 families to have our biggest sources of opposition to come from our White House and our State Department but, adding to that, a lot of the lobbying firms the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has hired are run by well-entrenched former elected officials, or by those from the Armed Services or other leadership positions, and frankly its bipartisan and a big problem, Breitweiser said.

FoxNews.com has reached out to the Saudi Embassy in the U.S. for comment.

The fight over JASTA is far from finished. Last week, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced a bill to narrow the scope of the law, so that governments could only be held liable "if they knowingly engage with a terrorist organization directly or indirectly, including financing."

The senators both say the fix is designed to make it less likely the law would affect the United States, while opponents say it is designed to weaken the law.

FoxNews.com's Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Click for more from The Daily Caller
TeamIndus, an Indian team competing in the Google Lunar X Prize, announced Dec. 1 it has a launch contract for its lunar lander mission with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The contract, which has been verified by the X Prize Foundation , is for the dedicated launch of TeamIndus' lander and rover on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) planned for December 2017.

As currently planned, the PSLV will place the TeamIndus spacecraft into an elliptical transfer orbit around the Earth of 880 by 70,000 kilometers. The spacecraft will then slowly spiral out to the moon on a 21-day transit before landing in the Mare Imbrium region of the moon, the same general region where China's first lunar lander, Chang'e-3, landed in 2013.

TeamIndus is the fourth team to have its launch contract verified by the X Prize Foundation, a requirement for teams that wish to continue in the competition after this year. SpaceIL and Moon Express announced verified launch contracts in 2015, and Synergy Moon has its contract verified in August. A fifth team, Berlin-based PT Scientists, announced a launch contract Nov. 29, but said at the time they were still working with the X Prize Foundation to have it verified.

The Google Lunar X Prize offers a $20 million grand prize to the first private team to land a spacecraft on the moon, travel at least 500 meters, and return high definition video and other data. The prize's deadline has been delayed several times since its introduction in 2007, with the latest deadline being the end of 2017.

TeamIndus will be cutting it very close, with a launch scheduled for late December of 2017. In a Dec. 1 interview, Sheelika Ravishankar, an executive with TeamIndus, said she expected that the X Prize Foundation might extend the prize deadline by a few weeks if there was a team that launched by the end of 2017 but had not yet landed, but did not expect a longer and more general extension. "There is no reason to extend the contest any more," she said, citing the contracts several other teams have announced for 2017 launches .

TeamIndus also has an accelerated schedule for assembly of its lander and rover. The company expects to complete work on a qualification model of the spacecraft in a couple months, with work on flight hardware to start shortly thereafter. The spacecraft is scheduled to be completed in September for final testing and integration with its launch vehicle.

The use of a dedicated launch vehicle, rather than flying as a secondary payload on another customer's launch, gives TeamIndus the capability to accommodate other team's rovers, Ravishankar said. "We're in the final stages of inking a deal with one of the teams," she said.

Such a partnership among competing teams is not unprecedented: another team, Astrobotic, plans to carry rovers for at least two other teams, although Astrobotic has not yet announced a launch contract for its mission.

Ravishankar said the total cost of the mission, including launch, is about $65 million, which TeamIndus is raising through the sale of company equity, sponsorships, and a planned crowdfunding campaign set to begin in January.

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
On Wednesday, the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, NOAA will livestream dives to two Japanese mini submarines, the first of which was sunk by the USS Ward prior to the attack.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will use an underwater robot operated from its ship Okeanos Explorer to send back images from the wreck sites, which are near Pearl Harbor.

"Until now, only a handful of explorers and scientists have seen these relics of the war in the deep sea," said James Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, in a press release. "But thanks to technology, anyone and everyone can now dive with us in the first live exploration of the 'midget' submarines that represent the beginning of the war in the Pacific."

INCREDIBLE IMAGES REVEAL US NAVY SEAPLANE LOST IN PEARL HARBOR ATTACK

NOAA explains that, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, U.S. naval vessels and aircraft on patrol outside Pearl Harbor saw a partially submerged submarine attempting to enter the harbor, but alerts were not immediately sent out. Some 90 minutes before Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japanese aircraft the USS Ward fired on the mini sub and sank it, marking the first U.S. shots fired in World War II.

The second submarine disappeared on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, but was discovered in shallow waters in 1951 and raised by the U.S. Navy. The sub was then taken out to sea and dumped in deeper water, before its rediscovery by the University of Hawaiis Undersea Research Laboratory in 1992. The last time the wreck was visited by the universitys submersibles was in 2013.

NOAA told FoxNews.com that the first livestreamed dive, which will visit the submarine sank by the USS Ward, will start at 11:30 a.m. ET and is expected to end at 1:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. The dive to the second submarine, which is lying in three pieces, will start at 4:30 p.m. ET and end at 7:00 p.m. ET Wednesday.

INCREDIBLE IMAGES OFFER FIRST GLIMPSE OF SUNKEN WWII-ERA AIRCRAFT CARRIER

The livestream will be available here.

Last year NOAA and the University of Hawaii released incredible images of a U.S. Navy seaplane sunk during the opening minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Earlier this year scientists also released stunning images of the light aircraft carrier USS Independence, which was intentionally sunk off California in 1951.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
The blackened, cloth-wrapped hand arrived in a parcel at Los Angeles International Airport in January 2013. It was listed as a sci-fi movie prop, valued at $66. But as officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection learned, the hand was from a real Egyptian mummy, nearly 3,000 years old.

The hand was apparently voluntarily forfeited by the importer, and U.S. authorities have repatriated it and four other illegally smuggled artifacts to Egypt as part of an ongoing investigation known as "Operation Mummy's Curse."

"It's sort of amazing the things people will try and ship across international borders," archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, a National Geographic fellow, said in a video statement. [See Photos of the Mummy Hand and Other Artifacts Returned to Egypt]

In addition to the eighth-century-B.C. mummy hand, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, also returned intricately painted ancient sarcophagi in a ceremony at the Egyptian embassy in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 1.

"While we recognize that cultural property, art and antiquities are assigned a dollar value in the marketplace, the cultural and symbolic worth of these Egyptian treasures far surpasses any monetary value to the people of Egypt," ICE Director Sarah Saldana said during her remarks.

ICE launched "Operation Mummy's Curse" in 2009 to bust a network of antiquities smugglers bringing illicit artifacts from other countries into the United States. Saldana said her agency has made four arrests and two convictions in this investigation.

The operation has also recovered about 7,000 artifacts, not just from Egypt, but also from Greece, India and Iraq. ICE has already returned many of those cultural objects in past repatriation ceremonies. In March 2015, for example, ICE returned artifacts to Iraqi officials , including an ancient Sumerian ax that was being sold on Craigslist in 2012 as well as a gold-plated soap dish from Saddam Hussein's palace that turned up in Connecticut. In April 2015, ICE handed over dozens of other artifacts to Egypt, including a nesting sarcophagus the agency recovered from a garage in Brooklyn, New York.

Though international treaties and Egyptian laws protect Egyptian artifacts, a black market for antiquities thrives. Using satellite data, researchers have documented an uptick in illegal excavations across archaeological sites in Egypt over the last decade.

Smugglers using forged papers can bring looted material into the U.S. under the guise of a robust legal antiquities market. Census Bureau documents show that about $26 million worth of artifacts were exported from Egypt to the United States just during the first five months of 2016. But that could change. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry signed an agreement with Egypt on Nov. 29 that imposes tougher import restrictions on Egyptian archaeological material that dates from 5200 B.C. to A.D. 1517.

Original article on Live Science.
Tornados are behaving strangely: The number of tornado outbreaks per year is fairly constant, but the number of tornados per outbreak has skyrocketed. And scientists aren't entirely sure why.

In an effort to learn more, researchers looked at meteorological factors related to tornado outbreaks , and then dug into the data to see whether these factors had changed over time, said study lead researcher Michael Tippett, an associate professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia University.

The analyses did yield a result, but an unexpected one, Tippett said. [The Top 5 Deadliest Tornado Years in US History]

"The meteorological factors that are related with tornado outbreaks have also become more extreme," Tippett told Live Science in an email. "The surprising finding was that the change in meteorological factors did not have the expected signature of climate change."

That's not to say that climate change isn't involved, he said, but it does leave two possibilities: "Either the recent increases are not due to a warming climate, or a warming climate has implications for tornado activity that we don't understand," Tippett said in a statement.

Windy research

Tippett said he became interested in tornadoes in the spring of 2011, when multiple deadly twister outbreaks struck the U.S. That includes the multivortex tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri , killing 158 people and injuring more than 1,000.

"The public was asking what caused these record-breaking outbreaks, and scientists didn't have an answer," Tippett said.

In the following years, Tippett and other scientists published studies on tornado clusters , a sequence of six or more tornadoes that happen within several days of one another. In the new study, Tippett and his colleagues found that the number oftwisters in the most extreme outbreaks has increased over the years, making these clusters more dangerous than in the past, he said.

For instance, between 1965 and 2015, over five-year periods, the estimated number of tornadoes in the most extreme outbreaks (clusters with 12 or more tornados) roughly doubled, from 40 in 1965 to almost 80 in 2015, he said.

Climate connection?

To see whether this mysterious increase was connected to climate change , Tippett and his colleagues looked at two data sets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), one that included tornado reports and another with observation-based estimates of meteorological factors associated with tornado outbreaks, he said.

They were particularly interested in a factor called "convective available potential energy" (CAPE), the amount of energy available for convection in which hot, less dense material rises, and cold, dense material sinks. CAPE is related to the vertical wind speed, meaning that higher CAPE values indicate that severe weather will be more extreme, according to WeatherOnline.

As the climate warms, CAPE is expected to increase, past studies have suggested, the researchers wrote in the study.

However, CAPE has stayed fairly steady. Instead, "we see trends in the winds," Tippett said. The wind metric he looked at, called storm relative helicity (SRH), is a measure of corkscrew-like upward winds, something that was not expected to increase with climate change, he said. [Tornado Chasers: See Spinning Storms Up-Close (Photos)]

The finding is unexpected but important, said Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory, who was not involved with the study.

"The fact that they can explain the tornado changes by storm relative helicity changes is, in one aspect, not surprising (it's a much better predictor of whether a storm will make a tornado than CAPE is)," Brooks wrote in an email to Live Science. "But, in another aspect, [the results are] difficult to explain. We don't really have a good conceptual model for why high SRH values should increase as the planet warms."

Another viewpoint

The study is "intriguing," but it has several limitations, said Victor Gensini an associate professor of meteorology at the College of DuPage in Illinois.

For starters, the study includes tornados only from 1979 to the present, which is a "fairly short historical record," Gensini said in an email to Live Science. It's also possible that tornado reporting has gotten better over time, and that earlier records left out some tornadoes, he said.

In addition, past studies have shown an increase in the variability of the U.S. tornado season, and climate models suggest that future severe weather will become more variable, Gensini said. But, in general, "there are better environmental metrics to examine tornado environments that the authors failed to use here," he said. "This is just one study, and people shouldn't hang their hat on one study."

The study was published online Dec. 1 in the journal Science .

Original article on Live Science .
In a ruling that has human rights groups upset, a French man was sentenced to 2 years in prison for repeatedly visiting pro-ISIS websites -- even though there no indication that he was planning to stage any type of terrorist attack. The unidentified 32-year-old was convicted in a court in Ardche Nov. 29 under a controversial new law. According to The Verge, police discovered the man's browsing history after raiding his house. They found pro-ISIS imagery and execution videos on his phone, PC, and a USB device. His PC sported an ISIS flag as its wallpaper, and the computer password was "13novembrehaha," a rather pointed reference to the date terrorists killed 130 people in Paris. Police said he had been visiting jihadist websites for 2 years.

Officials came across this man while checking out someone else in the same region, and they're allowed to conduct warrentless searches and surveillance under French state of emergency laws.

The man defended his surfing habits in court, saying he visited the sites out of curiosity. On FranceBleu, he said "I wanted to tell the difference between real Islam and the false Islam, now I understand." The Verge also adds that the man's behavior had recently changed, as he became irritated when discussing religion, and had taken to wearing harem pants and a long beard. In prison since Nov. 25, he will also have to pay a 30,000 fine. (A bit over $31,000 USD.) Prior to this, he wasn't on the radar of any security agency, and only had some petty crimes in his background.

Patrick Baudouin is the honorary president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). He termed the sentence as "excessive," and said judicial standards in France have been relaxed as a result of the emphasis on security. "The consultation of a site does not define a person as a terrorist," he stated.

The conviction is part of a new law that makes the "habitual" viewing of terrorist-themed websites a crime. You get a pass if you're visiting those websites "in good faith," for "research, to inform the public, or for judicial purposes."

France has been locking down certain sections of its internet in order to stem the tide of online radicalization. The country passed a law after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks that lets the government block sites that promote terrorism, and it doesn't need a court order to do so. Intelligence services were also given broad surveillance powers under a law that some call a "French Patriot Act."

The Constitutional Council is the highest court in the land, and it will consider whether the new website law is constitutional within the next 3 months, according to Reuters. Le Parisien says 13 cases have been brought under the law since mid-October. France has also taken an online offensive, known as #toujourslechoix ("always the choice"). Its purpose is to deter young people -- the most impressionable -- from joining terrorist causes.
Google will no longer offer a search suggestion for "are Jews evil" which directs users to anti-Semitic websites. The search engine says it has removed offensive autocomplete results initially spotted by Carole Cadwalladr at the Observer, reports the Guardian.

Cadwalladr explained how Google suggested a search for "are Jews evil" when "are Jews" was typed into its search box. Typing "are women" and "are Muslims" returned "are women evil" and "are Muslims bad," Cadwalladr said.

Clicking those suggestions took her to page results that would lead one to conclude that "Jews are evil. Women are evil. Islam must be destroyed. Hitler was one of the good guys," Cadwalladr added.

An answer box highlighted by Google even explained that "every woman has some degree of prostitute in her." A data scientist urged Google to take action, noting it had "clearly become a conduit for right-wing hate sites" and a victim of "the troll army," per the Guardian.

"It is clearly very frightening what is going on here." Most of the offensive autocomplete results spotted by Cadwalladr have since been erased"are women equal to men" was among them, per CBS Newsthough "are Muslims bad" is still a suggestion.

Google says it tries "to prevent offensive terms, like porn and hate speech, from appearing," but "autocomplete predictions are algorithmically generated based on users' search activity and interests" and "may be unexpected or unpleasant." That said, "we acknowledge that autocomplete isn't an exact science and we're always working to improve our algorithms." (Google previously suggested Wisconsin was "stupid.")

This article originally appeared on Newser: Google Won't Suggest 'Are Jews Evil' to Your Search Anymore
If you love someone who loves to travel and want to surprise them this holiday season, here are some ideas for practical gifts that theyll really use. Plus, none of these will break the bank.

Please note: Im not endorsing any specific product or brand, just showcasing some of my favorites from around the web.

Under $100

TSA PreCheck: At $85, this is one of the more expensive items on the list but PreCheck is good for five years and pays for itself in convenience almost immediately thanks to the quick, dedicated airport security lanes which allow travelers to keep shoes and jackets on, toiletries in bags and laptops in cases. Heres a step-by-step guide on signing up and going through the interview/fingerprinting process (which literally takes just a few minutes).

Add to the gift by offering to drive the recipient to the interview site.

Under $75

Carry-on bag: You could spend about $1,400 on a handsome Tumi spinner but if thats not what you want, dont worry-- major department stores and online vendors have lots of bags in the $40 to $75 range, including Macys. Or do what one of my employees did, buy an un-wheeled duffel-type bag at a discount place like Ross: I only paid $30, and it was perfect during my ten day trip to Europe. On domestic flights, carry-on bags pay for themselves almost immediately since checked-bag fees typically cost $50 round-trip.

But what if your airline also charges for carry-ons? Smaller bags have other benefits: Airlines cant lose a bag that travels by your side, plus you get in and out of the airport much faster.

Under $50

Airline gift card: If you know your loved one has a favorite airline (or just has access to a very few at their smallish, hometown airport), give them an airline gift card. Southwest offers cards ranging from $10 to $1,000 while Deltas start at $50 to $1,000. American Airlines offers gift cards ranging from $50 to $1,500 and you can choose to send a plastic card in the mail or a virtual card via email.

Not all airlines offer gift cards, but its easy to figure out which do by searching the site for "gift card."

Under $25

Hand-held luggage scale: A nifty gift for the over-packer in your life thanks to overweight baggage fees, which can run as high as $200 each-way (and thats on top of the regular checked-bag fee). Know your airlines weight limit-- it varies but you're usually allowed up to 50 lbs. A simple hand-held luggage scale only costs about $10 to $20 but can save ten times that much.

Find them on Amazon, Google, Target, your local luggage or hardware store.

Refillable water bottle: Dont pay airport prices for a bottle of water and dont bring one that will just be dumped by security agents. Bring an empty bottle and fill it up at a drinking fountain or one of the many designated water refill stations at airports (find them in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, San Francisco and many more).

Water bottles are available pretty much everywhere. Bed, Bath and Beyond has hardy ones for around $15 or go super-deluxe with a stainless steel model that can be found at any camping goods type store. Those can run up to $40.
Its called the emoluments clause, and it basically says no officer of the United States can be on the receiving end of any kind of benefit, economic benefit, payment, gift, profit, whatever, from a foreign government or its corporations or agents  In this case Donald Jr. or Ivanka or Eric  then there would be a close relationship that could never be disentangled by the American public.



Hes a constant emolument magnet. He thinks of himself as a babe magnet, but hes an emoluments magnet. And all around the world everybody wants to go to his hotels and not the competitors, and wants to give him a variance or a special land use permit and theres simply no way short of absolutely liquidating all of his cash and assets into a blind trust and not handed over to his kids. No way short of that prevents him from being a walking, talking violation of the Constitution from the moment he takes the oath.

[He] took all the appropriate steps to become a pillar of Northeastern society  get a Harvard degree, own a small but beloved media outlet, donate to local Democratic Party elected officials, marry a society wife  but ended up being a laughingstock, with his intelligence publicly mocked and his dad in jail and humiliated for a particularly sleazy crime.

Every foreign gift, every foreign speech  Senator or Secretary of State, everyone, no, its not a big charge, its the U.S. Constitution. Theres a section in the Constitution called the Emoluments Clause, it says, No one, nor their spouse can take money from foreigners  I think the real corruption is the lack of the media being willing to be honest about how much lawlessness the Clintons stand for and how much they have ripped off the American people.

This is a great test case between the pre-Trump and post-Trump worlds. In a pre-Trump world dominated by left-wing ideas, anyone successful is inherently dangerous and should be punished for trying to serve the country. The American people knowingly voted for a businessman whose name is inextricably tied to his fortune.  Id say to the left wing, get over it.





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If anyone was expecting that all the belated attention to Donald Trumps overwhelming conflicts of interest would result in some soul-searching about his assurances that he  couldnt care less about his business and that his kids will run its day-to-day affairs in a blind trust, their hopes have been dashed so far. Trump says he will announce some kind of arrangement on Dec. 15, which most people expect to be the official handing over of the reins of his company to his three oldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. This will not be sufficient, not even close.Law professor Laurence Tribe appeared on MSNBC over the weekend and gave a clear explanation of why Trump is in violation of the Constitution:Actually, its a little late for that. Imagine Trump trying to sell his business while hes acting as president. It would make the current freak show look like a church service. He should have done it before he ever ran for office.Trump does not seem inclined to liquidate. (Indeed, if he were to say he was going to sell it it would probably signal that hes been replaced by a cyborg.) But even that wouldnt solve his problem. His most valuable lieutenant, his 35-year-old son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would have to agree to do the same thing. Like 90 percent of Trumps inner circle, Kushner is a multimillionaire too.So far it seems that Trump believes he can avoid the normal nepotism and conflict-of-interest rules by not naming Kushner to any official post even as he serves as a high-level adviser. That wont work either. Kushner owns hundreds of buildings and owes hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to banks all over the world. His businesses will be impacted in dozens of ways by government regulations over which he would have an outsized influence.As this scathing Vox profile by Kushners Harvard classmate Matthew Yglesias shows, Ivankas husband is a lot like his father-in-law and similarly has something to prove:These people do not think the normal rules apply to them and so far theres no reason to believe that any of the Trump family or the Kushner family plan to sacrifice anything in order to serve the public. In fact, all the evidence shows they plan to take full advantage of their connections. Just this past weekend, it was revealed that when Ivanka met with the Japanese prime minister her company was in intense negotiations with a major Japanese retailer  which is partially owned by the Japanese government. Theyre just going for it.If anyone thought that Ivanka might be less available to meet with foreign dignitaries to press her business interests in the White House once her dad turns over the business to the three siblings, thats probably not going to work out either. She and Kushner are reportedly planning to move to Washington , which would suggest the businesses must be moving with them.When the Wall Street Journal asked whether Kushner planned to divest himself of his holdings, the company gave this comment: If Jared were to serve in some capacity in the new administration, Kushner Companies would put a rigorous process in place to ensure that no conflicts exist. Evidently, the American people are supposed to feel reassured that his privately held companies will not take advantage of any special knowledge or influence they might have. (And if they do benefit from that situation, Kushner can always explain it the way Trump did when asked why he didnt pay any income taxes for more than 15 years: Because Im smart.)Heres one thing we know for sure: The Republicans have had a dramatic change of heart about conflicts of interest virtually overnight. The Sunday before the election Newt Gingrich appeared on Meet the Press and proclaimed: He repeated that charge numerous times throughout the course of the campaign and his claims were rated mostly false by Politifact. Heres Gingrich now, quoted at length in a Politico article headlined, GOP wagers Americans dont care about Trumps conflicts The central problem we are facing in this new reality isnt how we deal with an administrations monumental conflicts of interest. Its how we deal with a political partys mind-boggling shamelessness.
Gladiator fans who have been saving up for a trip to see Rome's ancient sites may be a little disappointed by the city's recent decision to ban playactors dressed as ancient, sword-wielding warriors from many popular attraction.

The ban, issued by mayor Virginia Raggi who says she received several complaints, targets anyone portraying a historical subject (centurions are specifically mentioned) in pictures or videos in exchange for cash, The Local reported.

CARDINALS FIGHT PLAN TO OPEN MCDONALD'S IN VATICAN CITY

And its not just the gladiators that have been forced to take their cos-play elsewhere. Another regulation is geared toward rickshaws, banning any vehicle used for transporting people and using an electric motor. Vehicles that are pedal-powered are now also forbidden in the Eternal City.

Anyone disobeying the new law will be fined up to 400 euros (about $430).

Raggi says her office received complaints of actors overcharging or even robbing unsuspecting visitors. According to the The Local, some of the more successful costumed actors can make up to $13,000 a month posing with tourists.

The move is necessary, local authorities said, in order to protect public order and to maintain the city's cultural, artistic and monumental heritage.

ITALIAN BEACHES CRACK DOWN ON SPOT-SAVING TOURISTS

Rome tried to crack down on the unauthorized gladiators in November last year, when the city commissioner introduced an initial ban. But that ban expired on Nov. 30, prompting a quick return of the gladiators to the city.

The new regulation, which is valid until the end of July 2017, applies to the entire city, but particularly "the historic center and major tourist attractions.
You think its never going to happen to you, until it does.

You get seriously ill on a cruise or at a resort, or you get injured on a ski trip or a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, and you need to be evacuated to get proper medical care  at the cost of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It happened last week to 86-year-old former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. He suffered altitude sickness at the South Pole, 9,000 feet above sea level, and he needed to be evacuated to Christchurch, New Zealand.

ASTRONAUT LEGEND BUZZ ALDRIN EVACUATED FROM SOUTH POLE TOURIST EXPEDITION

Aldrin had been cleared by his doctors for the expedition, according to a statement from the outfitter White Desert Antarctica.

People dont realize when they travel overseas that medical care wont always be comparable to the United States, whether in Mexico, parts of Europe, Africa or Asia, said Dr. William Brady, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia and medical director at Allianz, an international travel insurance provider.

Age is not necessarily a factor in travel-related illnesses like altitude sickness, and people dont get ill or injured only in remote locations, added Dr. Jan Stepanek, chairman of the Mayo Clinics Division of Preventive Occupational & Aerospace Medicine and the High Altitude and Harsh Environments Medical Clinic in Arizona.

He noted that people are often evacuated from the Grand Canyon due to excessive heat or dehydration.

Think you're prepared? Travelers should always:

--Know what insurance will cover in an emergency. Is the coverage sufficient for the location? Are pre-existing conditions covered? Travelers should always factor in that a medical emergency may occur away from home.

--Educate themselves to symptoms they may experience wherever they are going. You wont know you are in danger if you dont recognize the symptoms, says Dr. Jan Stepanek, chairman of the Mayo Clinics Division of Preventive Occupational & Aerospace Medicine and the High Altitude and Harsh Environments Medical Clinic in Arizona.

Dr. William Brady, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia and medical director at Allianz, agrees. If you feel it is an emergency or dont know if it is, seek medical care immediately. Absolutely dont tough it out because you are on vacation.

--Carry a recent medical record and list of medications on a flash drive or in a PDF on your phone, in case doctors need the information.

--Bring extra medication in case you have to stay longer than planned.

--Take a medical kit for less extreme cases. It should include bandages, antiseptic ointment or cream and over-the-counter medications for pain (acetaminophen, ibuprofen or naproxen), stomach upset (like Pepto-Bismol) and an antihistamine (like Benadryl.) Based on your health and where you are going, ask your physician or travel clinic what else you need.

Travelers of all ages have had to be evacuated from vacation spots because of pneumonia, motor vehicle and scooter accidents, snake bites and even a barracuda attack, Brady said.

Bob Mattson, a retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer who lives in Florida, had a heart attack in St. Maarten during a Caribbean cruise and had to be evacuated to Miami. At the urging of their travel agent, he and his wife, Diana, purchased travel insurance. It cost them $142 and it turned out to be the best deal on the planet, Diana Mattson said.

Medical evacuation can cost $20,000 from a Caribbean cruise, and it can easily go into six figures from locations farther from the United States, said Daniel Durazo, a spokesman for Allianz, which insures 21 million customers and handles roughly 400 medical evacuations a year.

Insurance covers the evacuation, coordination of care, transfers and other unforeseen expenses, such as when foreign hospitals ask patients to pay up front. Travel insurers guarantee payment, so travelers dont have to pay out of pocket.

If we had not had the insurance, I do not know what we would have done, said Diana Mattson. Who would we have called while we were sitting on that island? I would not have known which hospital to call to get a room and a doctor. I cant imagine the crushing cost if we had not had insurance.

Travel insurance generally costs 5-10 percent of the cost of a non-refundable trip. (Travelers can compare plans at insuremytrip.com) Durazo said Allianzs most popular plan is the Classic, which provides $500,000 in emergency medical transportation coverage, enough to get you back from anywhere in the world.

I wouldn't have wanted to cover the five-figure cost of the medical evacuation from Panama, said travAlliancemedia executive editor Brian Major, who suffered a collapsed lung just as he arrived there last year. He was rushed to the emergency room straight from the airport and ultimately was evacuated, accompanied by medical personnel, on a Lear Jet to Miami, where he underwent surgery. Though he has traveled widely for his job for 30 years, including 10 times overseas each year, Major had purchased a travel insurance policy for the first time just before that trip.

I tell anyone who is traveling out of the country on any sort of leisure (or business) trip to purchase travel insurance, Major said.

I was really convinced by the EMS folks who transported me from Panama to Florida. After talking with them and realizing how often they evacuated folks out of unexpected situations, I realized it was pretty foolish to travel all these years without travel insurance.

Travelers who are elderly or have chronic conditions should factor in the medical care that will be available when they choose a vacation, Brady said.

But people who are heading to Antarctica  more than 43,000 are expected to visit this year, more than a third of them from the U.S., according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators  should note that Aldrins situation was highly unusual.

5 TIMES TRAVEL INSURANCE WON'T HELP A VACATION GONE WRONG

The South Pole is 9,000 feet above sea level and feels even higher, because the atmosphere is thinner at the Earths poles, Stepanek said.

Most people visit Antarctica by ship, so they remain at sea level. Abercrombie & Kent, which is known for its polar expeditions, has had only one situation in the last 15 years when the ships onboard doctor required assistance, said company spokeswoman Pamela Lassers. That was for acute appendicitis.

Aldrin, meanwhile, is recuperating and says he doesnt plan to let this slow him down. Im looking forward to getting home soon to spend Christmas with my family, he said in a statement from his hospital bed. You aint seen nothing yet!
U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahls former platoon member said Monday the one-time prisoner of war -- who asked for a presidential pardon after being accused of endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan  has to be accountable for his actions.

BERGDAHL REQUESTS PARDON FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA, US OFFICIALS

Sgt. Matt Vierkant told FOX & Friends, Its nobodys fault but his that he was put in that position so he has nobody to blame but himself and its unfortunate that he was a prisoner for five years, but its his own fault.

Vierkant went on to dispute the allegations that no troops were killed in the search for Sgt. Bergdahl.

I think everyone in the military and everyone I know knows that people are seriously hurt and killed because of Bergdahls actions and as the trial gets under way it will all come to the attention of everyone.

JUDGE HEARS TESTIMONY ABOUT INJURIES DURING SEARCH FOR BOWE BERGDAHL



White House and Justice Dept. officials said Saturday that Bergdahl had submitted copies of the clemency request seeking leniency. If granted by President Obama, it would allow Bergdahl to avoid 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 would 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.

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held captive by the Taliban and the groups allies for five years.

The Obama administration's decision in May 2014 to exchange him for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, led some Republicans to accuse the president of jeopardizing the nation's safety. Some lawmakers said they were outraged the administration didn't give Congress a 30-day notice about transferring the detainees, as required by law.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump was one of Bergdahl's most vocal critics, saying repeatedly the soldier was 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, 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.

But Bergdahl's lead defense lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said he planned 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.

Sgt. Vierkant, Bergdahls former platoon member, views the situation differently, thinking Bergdahl would receive a fair trial under the incoming Trump administration.

He was never in his chain of command. He has no say or ruling over the trial. I believe we should let the military be professionals in the end, his opinion isn't going to affect it any more than my opinion or anyone else.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Terry Ewing was among the anxious family and friends who received confirmation Monday of what he already knew in his heart: His girlfriend was among the three dozen killed in the Oakland warehouse fire.



Authorities confirmed the death of Ara Jo as the death toll rose to 36. Prosecutors also said Monday that murder charges could result from their investigation into the fire that broke out during an underground dance party at a building known as the "Ghost Ship."



Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern told The Associated Press he didn't believe there would be additional bodies found in what is the most lethal building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade.

But he cautioned that it was "impossible to be absolutely positive" until the entire recovery effort is complete. Authorities had gone through about three-quarters of the building by Tuesday afternoon.



The laborious job of digging with shovels and buckets through the debris was suspended overnight because of a dangerously unstable wall. It resumed in the morning, though a rainstorm Tuesday could complicate the effort. The cluttered warehouse had been converted to artists' studios and illegal living spaces, and former denizens said it was a death trap of piled wood, furniture, snaking electrical cords and only two exits.



Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said Monday her office has sent a team to search for evidence of a crime in the warehouse, but has not yet determined whether a crime even occurred. She said potential charges could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder. She declined to say who her team has interviewed.



"It's too early to speculate on anything," O'Malley said. "We just started our investigation, and we owe it to the community and those who perished in this fire, and those who survived the fire to be methodical, to be thorough, and to take the amount of time it takes to be able to look at every piece of potential evidence."



Oakland city councilman Noel Gallo, who lives a block from the warehouse, said he confronted the property's manager -- Derick Ion Almena -- several times about neighbors' concerns about trash in the street and in front of the warehouse. Gallo said Almena essentially told authorities to "mind their own business" and appeared resistant to addressing complaints and complying with city codes.



Almena and his partner, Micah Allison, ran the building's arts colony, called the Satya Yuga collective. They were believed to have been away at the time of the blaze.



Relatives, friends and former colleagues said Almena loved to surround himself with followers, but seemed to care little for their well-being.



Asked late Sunday by San Francisco television station KGO about his thoughts on those killed in the fire, Almena said, "They're my children. They're my friends, they're my family, they're my loves, they're my future. What else do I have to say?"



Almena did not respond to emails or calls to phone numbers associated with him by The Associated Press. No one answered a call to a number for Allison.



The warehouse is owned by Chor N. Ng, her daughter Eva Ng told the Los Angeles Times. She said the warehouse was leased as studio space for an art collective and was not being used as a dwelling.



"We are also trying to figure out what's going on like everybody else," the family wrote in a statement to NBC Bay Area. "Our condolences go out to the families and friends of those injured and those who lost their lives."



Eva Ng did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.



Gallo said Chor N. Ng put Almena in charge of cleaning up the Ghost Ship, and nothing was done.



"I hold the owner of the property responsible," Gallo said. "I hold the manager responsible."



But questions persisted about whether city officials could have done more to prevent the fire. Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints about the warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises couldn't get inside, said Darin Ranelletti, of the Oakland Planning Department.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said city officials are putting together a record of what they knew about the property.



Gallo said the neighborhood was once an industrial zone and that many warehouses and vacant commercial buildings unfit for habitation remain. He said he's concerned that many of them are being used as illegal dwellings given the dearth of affordable housing in the area. He said he will push for the city to hire more fire marshals and building inspectors to investigate.



Authorities have identified 33 of the bodies but withheld most of the names. Those whose identities were not released included a 17-year-old, authorities said.



Investigators said they believe they have located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.


Rolling Stone magazine has asked a judge to overturn a jury's verdict in the defamation case over its 2014 story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia.

Jurors found in November that the magazine, its publisher and a reporter defamed University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo's with its botched story "A Rape on Campus." Eramo was awarded $3 million.

Attorneys for the magazine said in a motion filed Monday that the judge should overrule the jury's verdict. The magazine said there is no evidence that writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely acted with actual malice.

Rolling Stone is also challenging the jury's finding that it "republished" the article in December 2014 when it added an editor's note to the online version acknowledging there were problems with the article.
A third person has been arrested in connection with the stabbing death of a Connecticut man who vanished last month after a party at a luxury New York City apartment.

The New York Police Department said Tuesday that 29-year-old Max Gemma, of Oceanport, New Jersey, has been arrested on charges of hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence.

There was no immediate information on an attorney who could comment on his behalf.

Investigators have been working to determine who killed 26-year-old Joseph Comunale (kahm-yoo-NAHL'-ee), of Stamford, Connecticut. His body was found in a shallow grave in New Jersey a few days after he disappeared.

Two other men were previously charged with concealment of a human body, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence.
A decision forcing a Christian-owned bed and breakfast to pay a same-sex couple $30,000 for refusing to host their wedding ceremony will stand.

Illinois Commission Panel Says Christian-Owned Bed & Breakfast Must Host Gay Weddings https://t.co/zbUnyROW14 pic.twitter.com/4yLP6M59FK  New Life Ministries (@NewLfMinistry) December 5, 2016

AMERICAN ATHEISTS: 'MAKE CHRISTMAS GREAT AGAIN' BY SKIPPING CHURCH

A 3-member panel of the Illinois Human Rights Commission refused to hear an appeal in a decision compelling TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast to pay a fine for declining to host a gay wedding on their property, although they have hosted opposite-sex weddings in the past.

TimberCreek owner Jim Walder told The Christian Post that they took issue with the panel decision and were planning to appeal to the full state Human Rights Commission.

SCHOOL DISTRICT BANS SANTA CLAUS, RELIGIOUS IMAGERY BEFORE CHRISTMAS

"Citizens should only decide not to obey a law after much thought and only in extreme circumstances," said Walder.

"In our opinion, forcing a small business with one employee to host gay marriage which violates the owners sincerely-held Biblical belief that marriage is between one man and one woman is an extreme circumstance, especially when marriage has been understood for thousands of years to be a union between one man and one woman."

In 2011, TimberCreek refused to host a same-sex wedding ceremony, with Walder stating at the time that he opposed on religious grounds to holding such ceremonies even if they became legal.

"We will never host same-sex civil unions. We will never host same-sex weddings even if they become legal in Illinois," said Walder in 2011.

Click Here to Read the Full Story at ChristianPost.com
A north Florida woman ended up in jail after police said she refused to stop twerking on her car.

Gainesville woman arrested for twerking, ignoring officer's commands https://t.co/tJXBgvDYiZ pic.twitter.com/Mg8V3BR935  WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) December 5, 2016

Gainesville Police responded to a noise complaint just after 3 a.m. Saturday, and found 35-year-old Danielle Jefferson dancing to loud music.

LANDLORD ACCUSED OF USING TENANTS HOME AS SEX PAD

Jefferson refused the officers request to turn down her music, and began twerking on her car, according to a report by the Independent Florida Alligator.

Police gave Jefferson 15 minutes to comply with a noise warning notice. Jefferson soon started dancing again, and allegedly told police they could arrest her if they wanted.

The officers issued her a citation and handed the paper to her to sign. She crumpled it and threw it at the chest of one of the officers. Jeffreson was then arrested for resisting an officer without violence.

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Hundreds of protesters fighting the Dakota Access pipeline were facing a blast of brutal weather on Tuesday, digging in their heels despite temperatures sinking well below freezing with winds gusting to 50 mph.

A blizzard warning in Cannon Ball, N.D., remained in effect through Tuesday evening. The wind chill was set to drop to minus-30, which forecasters warn could leave people with frostbite in just 15 minutes.

FEDS BLOCK CONTROVERSIAL DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE ROUTE

The government had ordered protesters to leave federal land by Monday, though officials made no noticeable effort to enforce that mandate as the deadline passed. Many demonstrators insisted they would stay for as long as it takes to permanently divert the $3.8 billion pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe believed threatens sacred sites and a river providing drinking water for millions of people.

Many law enforcement officers signaled they would not budge until protesters pulled back, setting the stage for a standoff that could drag on for months. Police officers told Fox News they were "drained, tired and spent."

HUNDREDS OF VETERANS ARRIVE TO SUPPORT PIPELINE PROTESTERS

"I'm scared. I'm a California girl, you know?" activist Loretta Reddog of Placerville, Calif., said. She told reporters she arrived several months ago with her two dogs and had serious trouble adjusting to the harsher climate.

The pipeline is largely complete, except for a short segment planned to pass beneath a Missouri River reservoir, and opponents scored a victory during the weekend when the Army said it would not approve a permit for the crossing while further assessing potential changes. 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. There's even a crude corral for horses.

The number of inhabitants has ranged from several hundred to several thousand. It has been called the largest gathering of Native American tribes in a century.

Activists have built more permanent wooden structures, 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.

Camp dwellers were stockpiling donated food and water, as well as firewood, much of which has come from outside of North Dakota, the least-forested state in the nation. Army surplus tents with heating stoves serve as kitchen, dining hall, medical clinic and a camp-run school. Many of the smaller tents have become tattered by the wind.

Nate Bison, a member of South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux, came to the camp after quitting his job in Las Vegas. He said last week that he intended to stay indefinitely, a prospect that may cause him to lose his house in Nevada.

"But since I've lived in these conditions before, to me it's not all that bad," he said.

Camp morale is high, he added, despite the onset of winter.

"Everybody I've talked to, you hear laughter and people just having a good time, enjoying the camaraderie and the support from each other," Bison said. "And the love. People are taking the shirts off their own backs for other people. No one is left out that I've seen."

Fox News' William La Jeunesse and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At a time when reports of anti-Muslim sentiment are rising, an Islamic Center in Missouri has received a different message.

Kamel Ghozzi, imam at the Islamic Center of Warrensburg, says "Welcome" and "Thank you for choosing our community" were written in chalk on the center's sidewalk during the weekend.

The Warrensburg Daily-Star Journal (http://bit.ly/2gMTY5X ) reports vandals broke windows at the center in recent years.

Ghozzi says the "beautiful" messages prove Warrensburg is a good community.

Resident Karen Williamson says she and three others wrote the graffiti to demonstrate respect and acceptance for the Muslim community, saying they want Muslims to not be afraid to worship in Warrensburg, 60 miles southeast of Kansas City, Missouri.

Last month, a Dallas man held a sign reading "You Belong" near the Islamic Center of Irving, saying he was prompted by hatred directed at Muslims during the presidential election.

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Information from: Daily Star-Journal, http://www.dailystarjournal.com,
The United States faces its highest threat from Islamist terrorists since 9/11 and much of that stems from those radicalized at home, according to the House Homeland Security Committees December Terror Threat Snapshot released Tuesday.

Whats more, the report said, the threat to the United States and Europe will persist in 2017.

Throughout 2016, ISIS conducted 62 attacks worldwide, injuring 732 people and killing 215 in several countries, including the United States, France, and Belgium.

Make no mistake: we face a deadlier threat than ever before not only because our enemies have gotten savvier, but because we took the pressure off them, House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement on the report. For eight years, the Obama Administration reluctantly played global whack-a-mole with terrorists rather than leaning into the fight with decisive leadership.

According to the report, ISIS shift in messaging from joining the jihad in Syria and Iraq to carrying out attacks in fighters home countries is likely to accelerate the trend of at-home radicalization. At the same time, terrorists are also relying on refugee programs, porous borders, and well-known migration routes to gain access to various countries throughout the West.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), individuals with ties to terrorist groups in Syria are attempting to gain entry to the United States through the U.S. refugee program, which has resettled nearly 13,000 Syrian refugees across the nation this year.

The report also said American law enforcement and intelligence officials have repeatedly indicated that the United States lacks reliable and credible intelligence to properly vet and screen potential Syrian refugees, as well as the diligent vetting of all refugee populations.

As an example, the report cited a car and knife attack last week at Ohio State University by an 18-year-old Somali refugee, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, that left him dead and 11 injured.

The attack last week at Ohio State University is further proof that our homeland remains in the crosshairs of Islamist terrorists, McCaul said. Groups like ISIS are radicalizing new operatives from within our borders, and just this week, their new spokesman called for more inspired attacks by supporters all over the world.

Artan was not the only legal U.S. resident to pledge allegiance to ISIS in November 2016. On November 19, Mohamed Rafik Naji, a 37-year-old legal permanent resident from New York, was arrested for attempting to join ISIS, expressing his support for an ISIS attack similar to the one in Nice last summer. And on November 7, Aaron Travis Daniels, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen from Ohio, was arrested after attempting to travel to Libya to join ISIS. Daniels had expressed support for ISIS through social media and sent money to ISIS operatives overseas.

Authorities have arrested 115 individuals in the United States and charged 4 others in absentia in ISIS-linked cases since 2014, according to the Committees report.

Also in 2016, the Obama administration transferred 48 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in 2016, and according to the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, at least 30 percent of all former Guantanamo Bay prisoners are known, or suspected, to have returned to terrorism and jihadist activity following their release. As of early December 2016, 59 prisoners remain in detention.

The Trump Administration will inherit a generational struggle that has only gotten longer, McCaul said. But rest assured, we will work closely with them to turn the table on these fanatics.
By now, none of us are strangers to the inevitable conflicts that seem to surround the Christmas season. Our digital environment and 24-7 news outlets make it hard to miss the fights and feuds that follow us from year to year, all involving what is called the "most wonderful time of the year."

HOW TO BE A 'BIG PICTURE' MOM

Each December, we see the debates on our social media feeds over whether it's appropriate to say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas " -- or whether it's constitutional for a nativity scene to be funded and displayed by a government agency.

This year, we've watched as the Parks and Recreation Department of Phoenix, Arizona, implored a group of individuals to stop placing their 15-foot Christmas tree on the top of Camelback Mountain, a tradition the city has enjoyed for 15 years. Citing safety concerns and a desire to preserve the mountain's natural beauty and majesty, the department chose to cut down the tree and carry it back down -- a tree that took a Scottsdale Adventure Club four hours and about 16 people to carry up Camelback Mountain.

WHY KIDNAPPED MOM, FAMILY MAY NEED TIME AND SPACE TO RECOVER

After pleading their case to city officials and starting a petition on Change.org, which has received over 1,200 signatures of support, the city of Phoenix retracted its previous dismissal of this ongoing tradition and allowed these residents to replace their tree atop the mountain once again.

Then there is the ongoing Starbucks cup controversy. Each year, the coffee corporation teeters between red cups and green cups, Christmas imagery or a more minimalist design, typically following current design trends as opposed to declaring a war on Christmas. And each year, coffee lovers vow to support this chain regardless of their holiday leanings or, conversely, vow to boycott in the name of Christmas spirit.

Over the years, I've lost track of which cup is being used, typically opting to support small local coffee shops over the corporate giant. Terry Prince, a North Carolina churchgoer, takes this approach to the Starbucks controversy:

"I, as a Christian, personally don't take offense to someone saying to me 'Happy Holidays.' They are happy for most! I always lead or reply back with 'Merry Christmas.' That's my choice. The reply back almost always is 'Merry Christmas.' I don't think I have ever had anyone snarl or get ugly back with me. And as far as the Starbucks red or green cups, who cares? I try my best to boycott those cups, not because they're red or green or don't say 'Merry Christmas,' but because the coffee's not that good. I say -- relax, share Christ when we can, and for goodness sake, buy some decent coffee."

When will we as Christians stop buying into the war on Christmas and stop allowing these controversies to ruin a season that was intended to unify? In 2 Timothy, we are reminded time and again of the importance of avoiding arguing and controversy because it leads to -- you guessed it -- more arguing and controversy.

"Keep reminding God's people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly ... Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful." (2 Timothy 2: 14-16, 22-24)

When we look at the Christmas season, we must begin to see what it is truly about: Christ's birth. The reason Christmas as we know it now exists is to celebrate that birth and what it means for us -- a chance to truly live, a chance to overcome our hardships, a chance to freely approach God.

So why are we wasting it on such foolish things? As Romans 12:2 tells us, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will."

When we look at the traumatic entry of Christ into our world -- unwed parents, a political leader inciting genocide, a climate of civil unrest -- and his subsequent 33 years on earth of healing the sick, feeding the hungry, teaching his followers, it seems awfully petty that we, God's people, could allow something as trivial as a Parks and Rec Department or a coffee corporation to impede on this most joyous season.

Christ is the gift of God, given to a lost and dying world. When we take away from this by focusing on the negativity around us, we forget about the abundant life available in Christ. We forget the true meaning of Christmas.
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The Latest on a deadly shooting in southeast Albuquerque (all times local):

Noon

Albuquerque police say three children were killed and their mother is in critical condition after a gunman shot them when they arrived home Monday night.

Police Chief Gordon Eden said during a news conference Tuesday that investigators believe the 45-year-old man forced his way into the home and waited for the mother and the children.

While he did not release any names, Eden said the victims included a 5-year-old boy, a 6-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy.

Eden said the gunman was taken to the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and later died. Authorities believe the man had a short relationship with the mother.

Mayor Richard Berry described the incident as unimaginable and heartbreaking.

The mayor called for the city to come together as investigators try to determine what happened.

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3:37 a.m.

Authorities say a woman and three children were rushed to a hospital following a shooting in southeast Albuquerque.

Police spokesman Fred Duran says the violence erupted Monday evening in the Four Hills neighborhood.

The Albuquerque Journal reports (http://bit.ly/2hdsVSm ) that details of the incident remain sketchy and police have not provided information about the four people, including about any injuries they might have suffered.

The paper says that while police also wouldn't discuss anything about any possible suspect, they did say that no suspects were at large.

Duran says two homes in the neighborhood were involved in the incident.

The paper reports that multiple ambulances could be seen leaving the scene around 7 p.m.
A New York man has been charged with killing his 21-year-old stepdaughter and dumping her body in a suitcase that was found floating in a river last year.

Forty-year-old Johnny Oquendo pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges during his arraignment Tuesday in Rensselaer (rehn-suh-LEER') County Court.

He's charged with killing Noel Alkaramla, of Troy, in November 2015 and placing her body in a suitcase that later was found in the Hudson River near Albany.

State police and the FBI initially searched Troy neighborhoods for evidence of Alkaramla. They say they turned their attention to the river after speaking with Oquendo.

Oquendo is being held in the county jail. He had been in custody since last year on an unrelated parole violation.
A South Carolina man charged with killing a total of seven people is facing two new civil lawsuits.

The estate of Charlie Carver filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against Todd Kohlhepp and his mother, according to local news reports.

GUILTY: FATHER MURDERED INFANT SON WHILE DRIVING ON HIGHWAY

Last week, the woman authorities say was locked in a storage container for two months by Kohlhepp sued him for intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, assault and battery.

Authorities have said Kohlhepp kidnapped the woman on Aug. 31 after talking to Carver and her about hiring them to clean up his property. Authorities say Kohlhepp killed Carver, then locked the woman in the container. Carver, who was the woman's boyfriend, was buried in a shallow grave nearby.

The Anderson Independent-Mail reports that attempts to reach Kohlhepp's mother were unsuccessful.

The estate of Johnny Coxie is also suing Kohlhepp for wrongful death and personal injury.

Kohlhepp led investigators to the graves of Johnny Coxie and his wife Meagan. The coroner says they had been buried for at least 11 months. Authorities have said Johnny Coxie was shot in the stomach, while his wife was shot in the head.
An off-duty sheriffs deputy died and two other people were injured when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio on Sunday, authorities said.

The Bexar County Sheriffs Office said Monday that the victim was 69-year-old Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara, who was a courthouse bailiff. Fox San Antonio reported that Nishihara worked as a reserve deputy from August 2009 to October 2016.

"My heart and prayers go out to the family involved in this tragedy," Mayor Ivy Taylor said in a statement. "The fire department, TCI and SAWS have been working to secure the scene of the sinkhole and will remain there until all repairs have been made."

A crane was used to retrieve her personal car from water about 12-feet deep. Nishiharas body was found inside the submerged vehicle.

Sheriffs spokesman James Keith said Nishihara was not working Sunday when her vehicle fell into the sink hole. Utility officials said the sinkhole appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain earlier Sunday.

Authorities said two passers-by rescued a driver after another vehicle that went into the sinkhole. That driver and one his rescuers were treated for minor injuries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Police said Tuesday that a Las Vegas smoke shop worker was arrested on a murder charge for fatally shooting an unarmed 13-year-old who ran into the shop to steal items last week.

Clerk Raad Sunna, 24, was arrested Monday night after police reviewed surveillance video from inside the smoke shop recorded during the Friday shooting and determined the man's life was not in danger, according to Lt. Dan McGrath.

McGrath, speaking at a Tuesday news conference, said 13-year-old Fabriccio Patti and two other teens, ages 14 and 15, were unarmed but wearing masks when they ran inside the Lucky Cigars and Smokes shop in West Las Vegas.

The three teens came nowhere near Sunna, who was by a cash register, police said.

McGrath said he didn't know exactly how far away the teens were but they were "not even close" to the armed clerk as they tried to grab several items.

McGrath said Sunna fired eight or nine times, hitting the youngest boy multiple times. The boy later died at a hospital.

The two other teens, ages 14 and 15, were arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery but McGrath said that will likely be downgraded to theft charges or other property crime charges.

Their identities were not released.

It wasn't clear Tuesday if Sunna had an attorney yet. A message left at number listed for Sunna seeking comment from a family member was not returned.

Sunna was the one who called 911 and was upset and crying when police arrived after the shooting, McGrath said.

That night, police only had surveillance video from outside the business that showed the three teens putting on masks. McGrath said officers didn't get a chance to watch video from inside the shop until Monday.

He said that footage, depicting multiple angles, showed the Sunna was not in danger.

"He's a kid," McGrath said of the boy's death. "It's really, really shocking to us."

Police did not release details Tuesday about how many times the boy was hit or where, what kind of masks the teens wore or whether the gun belonged to Sunna or the shop.

A message left with police by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
A convicted sex offender charged in the 1975 slayings of two sisters who vanished from a suburban Maryland mall now faces new charges in an unrelated case in northern Virginia.

Multiple news outlets report court records show a Manassas grand jury on Monday indicted Lloyd Lee Welch Jr. on charges of rape, sexual battery and indecent liberties in the sexual assault of a girl in Prince William County in 1996.

Welch is awaiting trial in Bedford County, Virginia, on charges of first-degree murder in the disappearance of 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and 10-year-old Katherine Lyon. The sisters were last seen walking from their house to the Wheaton Plaza Mall. They never returned, and no bodies were found.

Welch is currently serving a decades-long sentence for molesting a 10-year-old girl in Delaware.
A man in Texas used a zip tie and a hacksaw to kill a Texas Womans University student, leaving her dismembered and burned body in a plastic kiddie pool, prosecutors revealed as the suspect was indicted Monday.

SOUTH CAROLINA COLD CASE KILLINGS SUSPECT FACES 2 NEW LAWSUITS

Charles Dean Bryant, 30, faced a capital murder charge for allegedly killing Jacqueline Vandagriff, the Star Telegram reported.

According to a search warrant affidavit, a zip tie with hair fibers and a hacksaw with potential hair on the blade were among the dozens of items found in Bryants home near Haslet. Multiple knives and guns, including a shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle, were seized from his home.

Vandagriff, 24, of Frisco, was found burned and dismembered in a plastic kiddie pool in Acorn Wood Park on Lake Grapevine on Sept. 14.

LOUISIANA MAN WHO SHOT EX-NFL PLAYER JOE MCKNIGHT CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER

According to police, Bryan met Vandagriff at a local bar the night before she turned up dead. Security footage showed the two meeting at a bar in Denton, where she attended Texas Womans University. They were later seen at a different bar before leaving together around 9:45 p.m.

Her body was found the next morning when firefighters responded to a fire at the park. A witness saw a man standing over the fire before leaving, the arrest warrant said.

Video surveillance also showed Bryant buying a shovel at 4:41 a.m. at a local Walmart, and there is evidence at his home that someone had tried to dig a hole in the ground.

A day after her body was found, a mysterious tweet appeared on Vandagriffs Twitter account that read, Never knew I could feel like this.

Authorities at the time said they were investigating the tweet as part of the investigation against Bryant.

The Tarrant County medical examiners office listed her cause of death as homicidal violence.

Bryant remains in the Tarrant County Jail with bail set at $1 million. The Star Telegram reported he has a court date scheduled for Dec. 14.
Two people were wounded in a shooting during a Christmas parade in North Carolina on Monday night, police said.

Sanford police Capt. Harold Layton told the Sanford Herald that one person was in serious condition after the shooting and the other victims injury was not life threatening.

The paper reported that the parade was halted after several shots rang out at around 8 p.m. Witnesses told WTVD-TV that they heard between four and seven shots as people fled the scene.

Police said one suspect was in custody and the investigation was ongoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Tennessee man who police say took his 9-year-old niece out of school and disappeared with her for more than a week has been indicted on sexual-assault charges.

News media report a Hawkins County grand jury indicted the uncle on Monday. The Associated Press is not naming the uncle to protect the victim's identity; the AP doesn't generally identify victims of sexual assault.

Police say the man signed his niece out of school early under false pretenses in May. Two men searching the back country of Hawkins County found the pair more than a week later and held the uncle at gunpoint until authorities arrived.

Initially charged with aggravated kidnapping, the man is now charged with rape, aggravated sexual battery and aggravated kidnapping. He's scheduled to be arraigned Friday.
Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged a University of Southern California student with murder in the stabbing death of a professor.

The district attorney's office says 28-year-old David Jonathan Brown will be arraigned Tuesday.

The case includes a special allegation that Brown personally used a deadly weapon to kill 50-year-old Siaufung "Bosco" Tjan in the professor's office.

If convicted, Brown could face a maximum sentence of 26 years to life in prison.

Tjan joined USC in 2001, taught in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and served as co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center.
A Pennsylvania woman who pleaded guilty to killing her husband by slipping rat poison into his food and drinks will be released from prison next week.

Fifty-three-year-old Joann Curley will be free on Monday after serving a 20-year sentence for the 1991 death of her husband, Robert Curley.

Prosecutors say Curley poisoned her husband with the chemical thallium for about a year so she could collect $300,000 in insurance policies and keep him from spending $1.7 million she won in a lawsuit.

The victim's sister, Susan Curley Grady, tells The Citizens Voice she feels Joann Curley should be serving a life sentence.

Joann Curley reached a plea deal in 1997 with prosecutors who intended to seek the death penalty.

Tests showed Robert Curley had 900 times the lethal dose of thallium in his system.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced his candidacy Monday for next year's presidential election, saying he will step down immediately from his current job to focus on his bid.

Valls hopes to unite the Socialists under his banner and give the left a chance to stay at the Elysee Palace -- the most ambitious challenge of his political life after his boss, the highly unpopular President Francois Hollande, decided not to run for a second term last week.

FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: A LEADER PERHAPS TOO 'NORMAL' FOR FRANCE?

Valls will face other contenders in the Socialist primary next month ahead of France's two-part presidential election in April and May.

"I want to give everything for France," the 54-year-old said in a speech in the Paris suburb of Evry, adding he would quit his job Tuesday.

FRENCH PRESIDENT HOLLANDE WON'T SEEK REELECTION

Valls portrayed himself as a "lucid" politician, experienced enough to face authoritarian leaders in China, Russia, Turkey and "the America of Donald Trump."

"I want an independent France," he insisted.

Valls said he wants to defeat the far-right, led by National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and the conservative candidate Francois Fillon -- both of whom have already been chosen to represent their parties.

A center-leaning Socialist who backs a tough line on security and immigration, Valls is somewhat more popular than his boss, but their party is in deep disarray over the government's handling of the economy.

As Hollande's prime minister since 2014, Valls has promoted pro-business policies and implemented plans to cut over 40 million euros in government spending and to cut taxes. This strategy has prompted rebellion from some Socialists who think he is not left-leaning enough.

Former Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg and former Education Minister Benoit Hamon, among those Socialist rebels, have both announced their candidacies for the primary, alongside other lower-profile candidates.

Valls backed pro-European policies and pushed for reforms loosening France's labor rules -- the latter move prompting violent protests for months. He was forced to use a special power to pass the laws without a vote at parliament, an act that reinforced criticism from the left.

At critical times, Valls has overcome divisions, embodying France's national unity in a speech at parliament following deadly attacks in January 2015 by Islamic extremists at the satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

"France is at war with terrorism, jihadism and radical Islamism. France is not at war with a religion. France is not at war with Islam and Muslims," he said, prompting unanimous applause.

Still, his nervous, authoritarian style has drawn comparisons with former conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Like Sarkozy, Valls is known for his frank, sometimes shocking words -- and he cherishes an image of "top cop" inherited from his time as Interior Minister from 2012 to 2014.

Valls at the time promoted policies to "assimilate" immigrants with the French population and favor their naturalization under strict rules. He expelled Roma residents from the country, saying their lifestyle is "in confrontation" with that of the French and they should return to Romania or Bulgaria.

As a prime minister, he denounced a "territorial, social, ethnic apartheid" that affects France's troubled housing projects -- admittedly a powerful term aimed at shaking up public opinion in favor of more inclusion.

Last summer, Valls supported local bans on burkinis on French beaches. He wrote on his Facebook page that denouncing the swimsuit, worn by a small minority of Muslim women, "in no way puts into question individual freedom" and is really about denouncing "fatal, retrograde Islamism."

Valls was born in Barcelona in 1962 and became naturalized as French 20 years later. He has four children from a first marriage that ended in divorce, and since 2010 has been married to his second wife, the violinist Anne Gravoin.

His first bid for the presidency failed in 2011, when he got less than six percent of the votes at the Socialist primary. He then joined Hollande's successful presidential campaign in 2012.
The Israeli parliament has given initial approval to a revised bill that would legalize scores of Israeli settlement outposts built without permission on private Palestinian land in the West Bank, but would allow for the court-ordered demolition of one such outpost this month.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has called the bill "really concerning."

Lawmakers advanced the bill Monday in a 60-49 vote. The bill must receive more approvals before becoming law.

The bill is a revised version of legislation initially devised to avoid demolishing the Amona outpost, which was built without permission on Palestinian land. The government now hopes to move Amona settlers to nearby land considered absentee property.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his coalition was advancing the initiative because "settlements are dear to us."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday denounced the rape and killing of a university student as a "tragic event," responding for the first time to a case that has inflamed passions since police arrested a 17-year-old Afghan migrant last week.



A nationalist party has seized on the death to argue that Merkel's government bears a share of the blame.



"If it turns out that (the perpetrator) was an Afghan refugee then that needs to be condemned, absolutely, just like with any other murderer," Merkel said in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.



"But that shouldn't be combined with a rejection of an entire group, just like we don't draw conclusions about an entire group from (the actions of) one person in other instances," she added.



The victim, a 19-year-old medical student, vanished in mid-October on her way home from a party in the southwestern city of Freiburg. Her body was found in a river.



Police say the suspect, who was arrested on Friday, was linked to the crime through DNA evidence and video footage from near the scene. The teenager, who entered Germany last year as an unaccompanied minor, hasn't made a statement. His arrest, however, has played into ongoing tensions about the arrival in Germany last year of hundreds of thousands of migrants.



Joerg Meuthen, a co-leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, argued Sunday that Merkel and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel bear "a decisive share of the responsibility for this cruel act and many other `isolated cases' that have happened daily in Germany since the unhindered entry of illegal immigrants."



The nationalist party rose in polls following last year's migrant influx and hopes to enter the national Parliament in an election next year in which Merkel is seeking a fourth term. In the U.S., businessman Donald Trump focused on crimes linked to immigrants in the country illegally as part of his successful presidential campaign.



Merkel's deputy said the student's death must not be used for "rabble-rousing and conspiracy propaganda."



"It is clear to everyone that refugees can commit equally terrible crimes as people born in Germany," Gabriel told Monday's edition of the Bild daily.



Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, condemned the "appalling crime," telling reporters in Berlin that "the perpetrator must be punished with the full force of our laws."



While many Germans have welcomed refugees, there has been strong opposition from a vocal minority. A string of sexual assaults and robberies on New Year's Eve in Cologne blamed primarily on foreigners also fed fears, as well as accusations that the media were slow to report on such incidents.



ARD, the public television station, drew criticism for not featuring the Freiburg arrest in its evening news bulletin Saturday, the day it was announced. The broadcaster said in a blog that it hadn't considered the case to rise above other killings to be "nationally and internationally relevant."



In her interview Monday with ARD, Merkel said it was right that "one should talk openly" about such incidents


Government agents ordered a journalist working for The Associated Press out of South Sudan on Tuesday, taking him to the airport in Juba and putting him aboard a flight to Uganda.

Justin Lynch, an American freelance journalist who had reported on human rights violations in the violence-plagued nation for the past six months, said he was arrested by members of South Sudan's National Security Service who temporarily seized his mobile phones and allowed him to pack a bag.

The agents told him only that he was being deported for his journalistic work, Lynch said after leaving the country.

Lynch, 25, from Saratoga, New York, has been working for AP in South Sudan since July. He recently reported on evidence of ethnic violence in the country and on the warning by a U.N. official that South Sudan is at risk of genocide.

Speaking from New York, AP executives defended Lynch's reporting and said they were seeking an explanation from the government.

"Any move to suppress legitimate journalism and truthful reporting shedding light on humanitarian crimes is wrong and should be condemned. We hope that the government of South Sudan will reconsider its actions," said Ian Phillips, AP's vice president for international news.

South Sudan Minister of Information Michael Makuei said he had no knowledge of the deportation and would look into the matter. Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek also said he would investigate and issue a statement when he had the facts.
Britain will have less than 18 months to negotiate its exit from the European Union once talks begin and won't be allowed to pick and choose what it likes, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator said Tuesday as he outlined his stance for the first time.

Michel Barnier said formal procedures like parliamentary approvals across Europe will cut into the two-year period that Britain was expecting to have to negotiate the terms of its exit.

"Time will be short," Barnier said in Brussels. "We are ready; keep calm and negotiate."

British Prime Minister Theresa May has voiced her intention to invoke by the end of March Article 50 of the EU Treaty, the step that will officially kick off two years of exit talks.

But Barnier warned that that the effective negotiating time will be less. An agreement, he says, may have to be secured by October 2018 to get an agreement in place by March 2019  two years on from the triggering of Article 50.

May could even struggle to stick to her timetable of invoking Article 50 after a court last month decided that Parliament had to give its backing to such a move. The government is contesting that ruling in the Supreme Court. Should it confirm that Parliament has to be involved, it could delay May's plans to begin the exit discussions.

Barnier, who spoke in English and French, said that Britain can't "cherry-pick" what it likes about the EU, noting says that the single market and its four freedoms, such as the freedom of movement, are "indivisible."

The Frenchman did not want to be drawn on the possibility of a transitional deal, in which Britain retains partial access for a period of time to ease its exit.

"It is for the British to say what kind of relationship they want and for the 27 EU states to define the future they want to build with them," he said. "You can't do everything in 15 to 18 months of negotiations"

The British government has been reluctant to reveal much about what it wants from the discussions and what sort of post-Brexit relationship it is looking for out of fear that it would weaken its hands in negotiations.

Earlier, Britain's finance chief said all options remained on the table, including the possibility that the country may continue paying into EU coffers for access to the single market after leaving the bloc.

In a rare appearance for the regular meeting of the EU's 28 finance ministers, Philip Hammond stressed that he wants to minimize the economic disruption from Britain's exit. Leaving the EU single market would be a blow to many British businesses that would face new tariffs on trade.

"I think that it's in everybody's interest on both sides of the English Channel to have a smooth a process as possible that minimizes the threat to European financial stability and minimizes the disruption to the very many complex relationships that exist between European manufacturing businesses and their financing banks and so on in London," he said.

That, he conceded, may include ongoing contributions to the EU budget after so-called Brexit.

In terms of any future contributions to particular organizations, Hammond said "we would look at what was on offer, we would look at the cost, and as you do with anything we would decide if that was a good deal or not."

Though there's been a degree of understanding across European capitals about the constitutional arrangements that have to play out in Britain, there's also been discontent over the approach the British government has taken so far. One idea that's vexed politicians in Europe is that Britain can "have its cake and eat it,"  that it can still have access to the single market while applying stricter immigration controls. The EU stresses that the freedoms of trade, money and people are inseparable and a country cannot pick and choose.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who also chairs meetings of the 19 EU countries that use the euro, said that the proposals he's seen so far "are incompatible with smooth and incompatible with orderly."

"It can be smooth and it can be orderly but it requires a different attitude on the part of the British government," he said. "If the U.K. wants to have full access to the internal market they will have to accept the rules and regulations that go with that internal market."
Swedish authorities on Tuesday charged five teenagers from Afghanistan with aggravated rape for allegedly dragging another Afghan boy into a forest, threatening him with a knife and raping him.

MERKEL'S CALL FOR BURQA BAN IN GERMANY DRAWS BACKLASH

The alleged assault took place in October in a forested area in the city of Uppsala, north of Stockholm.

Prosecutor Johan Stromback told The Associated Press that the five suspects are 16 and 17 years old, while the boy they allegedly assaulted is under 15. Stromback said all arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors seeking asylum.

REFUGEE'S ARREST IN RAPE, MURDER OF GERMAN TEEN STOKES CRITICISM OF MERKEL

The accused were charged with aggravated rape of a minor, a crime in Sweden that is punishable by at least four years in prison for adults and juvenile detention for minors, he said. The indictment calls for all five to be expelled from Sweden and barred from returning after serving any sentences.

According to the indictment, the accused punched the alleged victim in the head, raped him and spat on him. It said the assault "was planned and lasted for at least an hour" and left the boy with bruises, scrapes and bite marks on his back.

The accused allegedly filmed parts of the assault and threatened to post clips on social media if the victim went to police.

The indictment says two suspects have acknowledged some allegations, but none has confessed to a criminal act.

Stefan Wallin, a defense lawyer representing one youth, said his client neither admits nor denies the charges.

"He has no recollection of the events because of alcohol intoxication," Wallin told the AP.

Defense lawyers for the others didn't immediately return requests for comment.
Transcription

1 connect mind MADEIRA MANAGEMENT Madeira

2 Madeira

3 connect mind MADEIRA MANAGEMENT CONTENTS CONNECT MIND MADEIRA MANAGEMENT 4 THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PROJECT 4 THE PARTNERS 6 MISSION 8 PRINCIPLES 8 SERVICES 9 MADEIRA 10 IBCM INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CENTRE OF MADEIRA / MADEIRA'S FREE TRADE ZONE 13 CONTEXT 13 BUSINESS SECTORS 14 SUBSTANCE REQUIREMENTS 19 THE ADVANTAGES 20 OVERVIEW TABLE MAINLAND PORTUGAL MADEIRA IBCM 21

4 CONNECT MIND MADEIRA MANAGEMENT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PROJECT The combination of the following factors strengthens Madeira s position and in particular the International Business Centre of Madeira (IBCM, Madeira`s Free Trade Zone), as one of the most attractive jurisdictions for companies and investors in the European Union: - The foreign direct investment 1 is a priority for both Portuguese`s and the autonomous region of Madeira`s governments, and the conditions for its undertaking are increasingly prone 2 ; - Portugal s attractiveness and in particular autonomous region of Madeira s as excellent destination for tourism and to establish residency, together with especially favourable conditions from the tax point of view for non-regular residents 3 and foreign investors (Portuguese Golden Visa Residence Permit 4 ); - The changes to the taxation of companies that occurred in 2014, which strengthen Portugal s competitiveness as a holding jurisdiction and for companies that manage patents and other industrial property rights; - The publication, in 2015, of the the IV special regime of State aids, under the form of tax benefits, approved and supported by Portugal and by the European Union, applicable to the licensed entities to operate in the scope of the IBCM, that will be in force until December 31 st, 2027; - IBCM s features, with its CIT 5 rate of 5%, make Madeira an excellent platform from which Portuguese and foreign entities, can set up their international operation. 4 1 There are no restrictions on foreign investment in Portugal. 2 Portugal occupies the 23rd position in World Bank`s Ease of Doing Business Rank of C08-BE44-26CAB723884A/0/IRS_RNH_EN.pdf 4 Possibility of a non-eu resident to obtain the right of residence for investment in Portugal and thus free circulation within the Schengen area. It opens the door to obtaining citizenship and Portuguese passport Corporate Income Tax, the Portuguese IRC tax. Link 3 Link 4

5 Some partners from Madeira felt the need to engage in synergy and constitute a corporation that would enable to provide the costumer with an excellence service, entirely geared to help taking advantage of the points listed above, especially in assisting investors and businesses that wish to establish operations from the IBCM. Intending to act as a one-stop shop it was created Connect Mind - Madeira Management, Lda, a consulting and corporate service provider, headquartered in IBCM. MADEIRA Funchal Portugal Port of Funchal Madeira International Airport Canical Commercial Port Industrial Free Trade Zone Area 741 Km Currency Euro ( ) Population inhabitants 5 5

6 CONNECT MIND MADEIRA MANAGEMENT THE PARTNERS Connect Mind - Madeira Management, Lda was born from this vision, shared among the following partners: Zacarias da Silva, Gabinete de Contabilidade Lda ( a company whose origin dates back to 1964, when it was funded by Antonio Zacarias Gomes da Silva, as the first accountancy and tax firm in Madeira. With a qualified team of 18 people to provide services in the sectors of accountancy, finance, management, economical-financial consultancy, human resources management, audit and investments consultancy; it has a wide client portfolio from all several economic sectors, some of which since Maria Filomena de Sousa Gomes da Silva, the founding partner`s daughter acts as the company`s manager since With a degree in Business Management, a Chartered Accountant, with a postgraduate course in Tax, she joined the project in Since 2003, the deceased founding partner s grandson, Joao Antonio Gomes da Silva Mateus, with a degree in Environmental Engineering, joined the corporation as external consultant. He remained connected to the university and to research as a PhD student of Environmental Engineering. Subsequently and as other companies employee, he performed in logistics, internal control and procurement for industries and construction industry areas. In October 2014, aiming Zacarias da Silva s business diversification, he became Chief Operating Officer for the international market. Manuel Antonio Correia, lawyer with a postgraduate course in Management, started early its political activity, began his professional career as a legal adviser in the public administration of the autonomous region of Madeira (RAM). He was then Director of the Legal Office of the Housing Bureau of the RAM, from which he was Member of the Board of Directors of 1994 to 1997, and President of the Board of Directors from 1997 to From 2000 to 2015, he was Regional Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, for RAM, responsible for the areas of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries. 6

7 Sandra Jardim Fernandes, graduated in law from Portuguese Catholic University, lawyer with postgraduate courses in Management and European Studies, is a founding partner of the law firm DCS Sociedade de Advogados RL ( Over the last 24 years, has combined her legal expertise in corporate law, tourism law, real estate law and immigration law, assisting many national and international clients, both private and corporate, in outbound and inbound investments, including in the context of Madeira`s International Business Centre; with being a member of the board of both national and international companies, namely in the tourism/hotels sector. Sandra Jardim Fernandes is a member of IR Global ( an international professional service firm network, providing legal, accountancy and financial advice across 150 jurisdictions. Sandra`s fluency in languages (English, French and Spanish) and large network of personal and professional relationships has proved to be inestimable when presenting global entrepreneurial solutions. Dulce Duque, graduated in law from Portuguese Catholic University, lawyer with a postgraduate course in Communication Law, founding partner of the law firm DCS Sociedade de Advogados RL ( specialized in the following practice areas: litigation; labour law; public law; banking and insurance law; and intellectual property law. 7

8 CONNECT MIND MADEIRA MANAGEMENT MISSION We base our action on a true partnership with the client, providing information to support decision making, the definition of strategies, as well as the escalation of priorities about investments, cost control and strengthening of income, in particular by taking advantage of an advantageous tax jurisdiction in the European Union, the one of the International Business Centre of Madeira (IBCM, Madeira`s Free Trade Zone). PRINCIPLES Connect Mind Madeira Management, Lda adopts an ethical, transparent and reliable positioning in its relationship with both customers and partners, based on integrity, rigour and confidentiality. We aim a constant improvement, which includes the focus on training and the establishment of the most appropriate partnerships. 8

9 CONNECT MIND MADEIRA MANAGEMENT SERVICES For the Companies: - Creation, registry and redomiciliation of companies and branches (in particular in IBCM Madeira`s Free Trade Zone); - Consulting and provision of services related to tax, financial, economic, legal, administrative, procurement and investment areas; - Recruitment of employees and legal representation; - Elaboration of business projects, including the application procedures for public investment/financial incentive programmes. For the investors, their families and employees: - All tax, legal and logistic support needed for an easy integration in Portugal; - Acquisition of Legal Residence and Portuguese Golden Visa Residence Permit. 9

10 MADEIRA Madeira 6 (RAM) as one of Portugal`s autonomous regions has political, administrative, financial, economic and fiscal autonomy, with self-government bodies, without affecting the sovereignty of the Portuguese State. That is why it is part of the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen area, the OECD and benefits from international treaties signed by Portugal (p. ex. agreements meant to avoid double taxation and for the reciprocal protection and promotion of investments). With a privileged strategic location, for its Euro-Atlantic centrality and proximity to Africa and because of the history of Portugal, it has a cultural, institutional and affective privileged relationship with the countries with which it shares the official language, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP), which gives it a special access to this market with over 255 million citizens, without considering the regional integration of each one of these countries. Madeira is therefore in a prominent position for investments in or from countries such as Brazil, Angola and Mozambique Madeira was discovered by Portugal in 1419 (the other inhabited island of Madeira, Porto Santo was discovered in 1418) and was settled from The autonomy dates from 1976.

11 In addition to the Portuguese language, most of the population is fluent in at least one more language, predominantly English, which combined with its time zone 7 makes Madeira particularly conducive to business between the European (with the advantage of being part of the European Union), American and Asian continents. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States, currently under negotiation, which aims to eliminate trade barriers applied to a wide range of sectors of the economy, should be another factor enhancing the competitiveness of Madeira. Madeira, with a history connected to tourism with about 200 years, has become a prime tourist destination, taking advantage of its natural beauty, mild climate and biodiversity. Apart from tourism, the largest sector of its economy, Madeira is particularly fitted to the provision of high quality services, in particular international ones, since as an ultra-peripheral region the promotion of economic activities of intangible nature has been a top priority. 7 The same as London, GMT + 0:00 and GMT + 1:00 in DTS months. 11

12 Madeira has excellent road and telecommunication infrastructures, with excellent air and sea access, low operating costs, as well as a young and highly skilled workforce. It has excellent hotels, a quality housing stock, a modern network of educational and health facilities. Regarding the qualification, research and development, Madeira has the University of Madeira (UMa), with recognized quality, connected not only to other Portuguese universities but also with international partnerships with universities such as Carnegie Mellon. Cooperation between UMa and wholly or partially state-owned companies/agencies, as those based on Madeira Tecnopolo - Scientific and Technological Pole of Madeira, contribute to the generation of knowledge and subsequent birth of innovative business ideas. Besides the great political and social stability, it has high security at all levels - legislation protecting investments and a very low crime rate. 12

13 IBCM - INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CENTRE OF MADEIRA IBCM - CONTEXT In 1980 it was approved the creation of Madeira`s Free Trade Zone, in order to mitigate the constraints of a small archipelago, providing it with an economic development tool, enhancing the foreign and domestic investment in order to diversify the regional economy and increase its export capacity. With Portugal's accession to the then European Economic Community in 1986, the rules of the International Business Centre of Madeira (IBCM) also became negotiated with the European authorities, who have approved and supported this regime of state aid, with its tax benefits. IBCM constitutes a form of positive discrimination to increase the competitiveness of Madeira as an ultra-peripheral region of the European Union. Internationally, IBCM is seen as the fiscally favourable type of jurisdiction that the OECD has been trying to promote. Its regime, fully integrated in Portuguese`s and EU`s legal systems, is based on the paradigms of credibility and transparency, combined with a supervision able to reconcile flexibility and security. A company registered in the IBCM, as any other Portuguese company has unrestricted access to the European common market. In 2015 it was approved the IV regime of state aid applicable to entities incorporated and licensed to operate in IBCM until These will benefit from a special tax regime, including the reduced 5% rate of CIT 8 until December 31 st, Entities covered by the previous regime, valid until 2020, may be carried forward to the new regime. In addition to the main areas of activity of the previous regime, the new one adds the setting up of an aircraft register and allows the air transport activity. To operate in the IBCM, the existing or to be established companies must request a licence to the Government of Madeira. 8 Corporate Income Tax, the Portuguese IRC tax. 13

14 IBCM BUSINESS SECTORS The IBCM includes three main business sectors available for investors and corporations, from Portugal and abroad: The Industrial Free Trade Zone of Madeira (IFTZ), covered by the CIT rate of 5%: Industrial park with 130 ha, currently housing about 50 companies; Located next to the main commercial port of the island, about 8 km from the international airport of Madeira and around 25 km from the main town centre, the city of Funchal; Aimed to activities of: Processing, manufacturing and assembly to supply the Portuguese (including IBCM) and / or international markets; Storage destined to the international market or to other companies of the IBCM; 14

15 Low installation (1 000 EUR) and operating fees (according to the occupied area) and low operating costs; Possibility of a reduction in the CIT rate to 2.5%, for entities that meet at least two of the following conditions: Contribute to the modernisation of the regional economy, notably through technological innovation of products and manufacturing processes or business models; Contribute to the diversification of the regional economy, including through the exercise of new activities with high added value; Promote the hiring of highly qualified human resources; Contribute to the improvement of environmental conditions; Create at least 15 jobs, which should be kept for a minimum period of five years. Customs regime: Final products obtained in the IFTZ shall be regarded as Portuguese or Community (European) in origin when produced in accordance with EU rules of origin of goods; Goods or raw materials entering the IFTZ can be communitarian or introduced in free circulation 9, or even extra-communitarian that may remain there with that status indefinitely; Customs duties are payable only when exiting the IFTZ and in accordance to the percentage of non-community raw materials and components incorporated into the final product. 9 Temporarily free from costumes duties regardless of their origin. Such duties shall only be considered when exiting the IFTZ, and in accordance to their destination. 15

16 International Services 10, covered by the CIT rate of 5%: Include trading, e-commerce, shareholding, consultancy, various services, maritime and air transport (not between Portuguese ports), intellectual property ownership and management, telecommunications, etc; Commercial activities with other companies of the IBCM or entities nonresident in Portugal; The holding companies benefit from the very competitive Portuguese participation exemption regime and in many cases dividends will be exempt from taxation; Low installation (1 000 EUR) and operating fees 11 (1 800 EUR), which are reduced when payment is made by a management corporation on behalf of a client. This is a service that Connect Mind - Madeira Management, Lda provides, reducing the rates to respectively 750 EUR and EUR; With the Patent Box regime introduced in Portugal in 2014, income from patents and other industrial property rights (royalties) may be subject to a CIT of 2.5%. 10 The activities of financial intermediation and insurance are excluded, as are the companies with 'intra-group services' as its main activity. 11 For pure holding companies (Portuguese SGPS) the annual operating fee is EUR for the 1st year and EUR plus 0.5% of the previous year`s profits, the first one million euros being exempt, for the subsequent years. The maximum annual fee will in all cases be restricted to a ceiling of EUR. 16

17 Madeira s International Shipping Register MAR Created in 1989, as the second national register, it has never been seen as flag of convenience; By registration in MAR, the vessels fly the Portuguese flag; Subject to the Portuguese law and all international conventions to which the Portuguese State is undersigned, particularly with regard to the technical supervision and security of ships, being seen as of great quality, trust and credibility; Allows the registration of commercial vessels, oil platforms, commercial and private yachts; fishing vessels are excluded from the possibility of registration in MAR; There are no nationality requirements for shipowners; Vessels may be registered temporarily in MAR (bareboat charter in); vessels with permanent registration in MAR may be temporarily registered in other countries (bareboat charter out) without during this period flying the Portuguese flag; The purchase and sale of ships is not subject to any prior authorization; 17 17

18 Commercial vessels: Full access to continental and island cabotage within the European Union; MAR is in the Paris MoU White List; Allows the registration of shipbuilding contracts; Competitive mortgage regime, which can be governed in accordance with jurisdictions from other countries; Flexibility in the composition of the crew: only 30% of the security crew must be Portuguese, from a European country, or from a Portuguese Language Speaking Country (CPLP). There is a possibility of this rule not being mandatory, in special cases and with due authorization; Private and commercial yachts: Right to sail without restrictions in EU waters; There are no nationality limitations for the crews of the yachts registered in MAR; VAT exemption on the acquisition or importation of commercial ships and yachts 12, also applicable to the acquisition of fuel, repairs and maintenance and operations inherent to its activity; Very competitive and flexible social security scheme applicable to crew members; The crew`s salaries are exempt from any taxation (Portuguese IRS 13 ); Competitive registration and maintenance fees, with quantity discounts being provided; A company that registers a vessel need not be registered in the IBCM 14, but if that is the case it will benefit from the advantages inherent to this jurisdiction; The 5% CIT rate is however not applicable to income from the transport of people or cargo between domestic ports. It should be noticed that the shipping and chartering companies, based on the IBCM are not required to have their vessels registered in MAR. 12 If destined to sailing the high seas. 13 Personal Income Tax. 14 It is only necessary to have a legal representative in Madeira. 18

19 IBCM SUBSTANCE REQUIREMENTS To benefit from the reduced CIT rate of 5% (with the possibility of a 50% reduction on the scope of the IFTZ and the Patent Box), the companies licensed in the IBCM will have to comply with one of the following requirements: - Creation of one (which may be a director) to five jobs in the first six months of activity and achieving a minimum investment of EUR on the acquisition of fixed assets, tangible or intangible, in the first two years of activity; - Creation of six or more jobs in the first six months of activity. The 5% CIT rate is limited to the following ceilings (increased by 36.7% in IV regime in comparison with the previous one), according to the number of jobs held in each fiscal year: Taxable income (millions of euros) Number of jobs a a a a a The taxable income that exceeds the limits itemized above is subject to normal taxation in force on the Madeira, currently a 21% CIT rate. Additionally, the tax benefits are capped at one of the following amounts: % of the annual gross value-added % of the incurred annual cost of labour % of annual turnover The Director(s) of a company do not (does not) need to be resident in Portugal. In case there is no resident director it must be appointed a legal representative. 19

20 IBCM THE ADVANTAGES In addition to a reduced CIT rate of 5%, or 2.5% for companies in the Industrial Free Trade Zone (if the conditions above mentioned apply), foreign shareholders of companies licensed in the IBCM, whether individuals or companies, are exempted from withholding tax on dividends and interest. Portuguese resident shareholders, of companies in the IFTZ or sea and air transport companies also benefit from the exemptions described above, for dividends and interest. The payment of services and royalties, by an IBCM company, to companies or individuals not resident in Portugal, is exempt from withholding tax. This exemption also applies to interest payments to foreign companies. Even the profits that have exceeded the ceilings that limit the application of the reduced CIT rate of 5% benefit from the exemptions from withholding tax, when distributed. The IBCM licensed companies benefit from a reduction of 80% in the following taxes: - stamp duty - municipal property tax - municipal property transfer tax - municipal and regional surtax - local taxes In the following table are highlighted the specific advantages and features of the IBCM when compared with the fiscal framework in force in mainland Portugal and in the autonomous region of Madeira. 20

21 Madeira 21

22 connect mind MADEIRA MANAGEMENT Rua Direita, n35, 3rd Floor, A and B Funchal Madeira - Portugal Phone: Fax:
Police in the western city of Bochum say they have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of sexually assaulting two Chinese students.

Prosecutors said Tuesday the suspect is an Iraqi asylum-seeker who came to Germany with his wife and children a year ago.

The German news agency dpa reported that man, who wasn't named, is suspected of attacking and attempting to rape a 21-year-old Chinese woman in August, and of raping a 27-year-old Chinese woman in November.

Bochum prosecutor Andreas Bachmann said DNA evidence linked the man to both crimes. He was arrested Monday.

The case comes as a German couple in their early 20s stand trial in the eastern city of Dessau over the abduction, rape and killing of a 25-year-old Chinese student in May.
A Greek court has agreed to the extradition of three of Turkish servicemen from a group of eight who fled to Greece after a failed July 15 military coup, a day after rejecting Turkey's extradition request for three others.

All eight helicopter crewmen deny participating in the coup and a plot to assassinate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They fled to Greece by helicopter and maintain they will not have a fair trial in Turkey.

The Athens council of appeals judges approved Turkey's extradition request for three of the group Tuesday on charges of being involved in the coup, attempting to impede a parliamentary session and the seizure of a helicopter. It rejected the charge of involvement in an assassination attempt against Erdogan.

The three are expected to appeal.
Top officials from six Gulf Arab nations are gathering for talks expected to focus on regional security in the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain.

Joining the two-day summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council beginning Wednesday is British Prime Minister Theresa May, the first female leader to participate in the annual talks.

May addressed British sailors aboard the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean earlier in the day, highlighting her country's commitment to the Persian Gulf region. The UK is building a new naval base in Bahrain.

That decision has drawn criticism from human rights advocates, who point to the jailing of several activists and opposition figures in recent years.

Amnesty International has urged May to raise concerns about human rights violations throughout the Gulf during her meeting.
Authorities say a police officer has hit by shots fired near a police station in suburban Copenhagen. The condition of the officer was unknown.

Police in Albertslund, west of Copenhagen, sent out two brief tweets Tuesday confirming the episode. Police later tweeted that an officer had been hit and a "possible" shooter had been arrested.

Danish media showed footage of police officers in bulletproof vests with handguns and automatic weapons outside the police station.

It was the second such incident in recent months. In September, a man shot two police officers  seriously wounding one  and a bystander in a Copenhagen neighborhood known for its thriving hashish trade. The shooter eventually died.
A Swedish court has convicted a man who fought against the Islamic State group in Iraq of war crimes for posting macabre pictures and videos on Facebook.

The Orebro District Court on Tuesday sentenced 38-year-old Kurda Bahaalddin H Saeed H Saeed to 15 months in jail.

The court says the Iraqi national had posted photos and films taken in February-March 2015 in northern Iraq of himself "with bodies which in some cases have been truncated."

It said Tuesday they "were intended to seriously violate personal integrity.

The asylum-seeker, who arrived in Sweden in late 2015 with his wife and two children, has confessed to being in the pictures but denied committing war crimes.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won't apologize for Japan's attack when he visits the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor later this month, the government spokesman said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that "the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology."

Abe announced late Monday that he would have a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Hawaii and visit Pearl Harbor. He will be the first Japanese leader to go to the site of the Japanese attack that propelled the United States into World War II.

The unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.|

"We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the U.S."

The White House confirmed that Obama and Abe would visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 27. It said "the two leaders' visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values."

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, on an official trip to Japan, said he would tell Abe at a meeting later Tuesday how pleased Obama and the U.S. are.

The announcement of the summit comes as Japan worries about the direction of U.S. foreign policy under Obama's successor, Donald Trump.

Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said that together with Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbor visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration.

"Historical disputes tend to be brought up when relations become thorny ... but once you put them behind and move on, it makes a difference if there is any negative sentiment in the future," he said.

But Koichi Nakano, a professor of international politics at Tokyo's Sophia University, said the Pearl Harbor visit and Abe's commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance are tantamount to "giving a blank check to Trump" despite the uncertainty over bilateral relations under his administration.

More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen died in the aerial attack, which will be marked Wednesday at Pearl Harbor with a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes hit their first target.

Three and a half years later, the war came to an end after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled support Tuesday for a nationwide ban on full-face veils worn mainly by Muslim women  a move that had an American Islamic advocacy group crying foul, claiming it impedes freedom and increases Islamophobia.

As she looks to beat back challenges from her right and win a fourth four-year term as chancellor, Merkel, who had previously opposed a burqa ban, told the Christian Democratic Union conference on Tuesday that prohibiting the veil was essential to stopping the development of parallel societies. She said such veils were not appropriate.

DUTCH LOWER HOUSE APPROVES BURQA BAN

In communication between people, which is of course essential to our living together, we have to show our faces, said Merkel, who faces opposition from the far right after leading the charge to accept nearly a million mostly Muslim asylum-seekers in 2015. So the full veil should be forbidden wherever legally possible.

But Merkels about-face on the full-face veil swiftly drew pushback from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

We believe everyone should be free to wear the clothing of their choice and that laws targeting the tiny minority of Muslim women who wear face coverings are an expression of increasing Islamophobia in Europe, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told FoxNews.com. Freedom is about making personal choices, not having a decision imposed on individuals by the state. Growing anti-Muslim bigotry should be repudiated, not pandered to.

Merkel has previously walked a political tightrope, expressing her desire to have women not wear burqas in an effort to allow integration, but also hesitating to support a legislative rule forbidding the garment.

Germany is only the latest country to consider a burqa ban and comes on the heels of the Dutch Parliament voting on Nov. 30 to ban face veils in its country, though the Senate must approve the measure for the Netherlands ban to take effect. France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Italy also have forms of the ban already in place.
Mexican police and marines have killed 14 presumed criminal gang members in a shootout in the troubled Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

The state joint security agency says in a statement that a patrol came under fire Monday afternoon on a road in the town of Jesus Carranza, near the border of Oaxaca state.

The patrol called for backup, and 14 suspects died in the firefight. Agents seized 13 assault rifles and a weapon capable of piercing armored vehicles.

Veracruz is a strategic smuggling corridor and has been a hotspot of Mexico's drug cartel violence in recent years.

Another shootout in Jesus Carranza left three attackers dead last Saturday.
A trumpet-playing pedophile was beaten to death  in part with his own instrument  when he was attacked during a concert by parents from a preschool where he was alleged to have molested kids, AFP reported.

Marcelo Fabian Pecollo, 42, was attacked on Oct. 30 in a cathedral near Buenos Aires, Argentina, when a group of parents tracked down the Moron City Orchestra trumpeter and music teacher. The attack left Pecollo in a coma and he died Friday as a result of his injuries.

SEX ABUSE IN ENGLISH SOCCER EXPOSED

He had been sentenced in 2010 to 30 years in prison for molesting five preschoolers; however, Pecollo served only four years before he was released.

There is a pedophile and a rapist in the church and he is playing in this orchestra, the parents allegedly yelled as they charged forward.

MISSING ALASKA TEEN'S REMAINS FOUND; ANOTHER TEEN FACES MURDER CHARGE



Pecollo tried to escape, but the parents caught up with him and one man used Pecollos own trumpet as a weapon, AFP reported.

When I arrived, those people were leaving, priest Jorge Oesterheld told local media. He was in a very, very bad way, until the police and ambulance arrived."

The priest added: They say they took justice into their own hands, but it was revenge. It was murder.

Pecollo was arrested in 2007 and accused of abusing a 4-year-old child. Six other allegations later emerged and five of the seven cases were recognized by the court for trial.
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Riots raged for hours in central Athens Tuesday as dozens of anarchists threw petrol bombs, fireworks and stones at police after a peaceful march to commemorate the police killing of an unarmed teenager eight years ago.

Riot police used tear gas to contain young people who set up barricades around a university complex in the Exarcheia residential district, a traditional venue for protests that often turn violent.

Other rioters pelted police with the stones and petrol bombs from the roofs of surrounding apartment buildings. Police said one officer was hospitalized with light injuries, and at least 23 people were detained.

Young demonstrators also used petrol bombs and rocks to attack police during a separate clash in northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.

About 1,000 people had protested in the city center earlier Tuesday to mark the 2008 fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

In Athens, about 1,500 anarchists and other demonstrators marched peacefully through the city to protest Grigoropoulos' killing by a police officer in the Exarcheia district, which sparked days of rioting in Greece's main cities.

Anarchists initiated violent clashes with police in Exarcheia last month, both during a visit by President Barack Obama and on the anniversary of a 1973 student uprising.
Transcription

1 DREI AUSTRIA WHOLESALE ROAMING RESALE ACCESS REFERENCE OFFER Offer published: 1 July 2013 Introduction This document constitutes Hutchison Drei Austria GmbH (Drei Austria) Reference Offer to persons making reasonable requests for wholesale roaming resale access to Drei Austria (the Access Seeker ) for the provision of regulated roaming services to roaming customers in accordance with Regulation (EU) 531/2012 (the Regulation ). Upon receipt of the access request Drei Austria will provide the Access Seeker with a wholesale roaming resale access agreement which includes the services and terms outlined in this Reference Offer, subject to reasonable terms and conditions (the Agreement ). This Reference Offer remains subject to the Access Seeker and Drei Austria entering into the Agreement. For the avoidance of doubt this Reference Offer shall not have any effect according to the provisions regarding Vorvertrag ( preliminary contract ) according to 936 ABGB (Austrian Civil Code). The terms and conditions (including charges) for international roaming services contained in this Reference Offer are applicable from 1 July 2012, being the date of entry into force of the Regulation. 1. Wholesale Resale Roaming Services and Charges Drei Austria shall offer wholesale roaming resale access to the Drei network for the regulated roaming services set out in the tables below (the Roaming Services ). The Roaming Services shall include provision of the following functionality: access to the wholesale roaming services provided by visited network operators with which Drei Austria has a wholesale roaming access agreement; access to transit services used by Drei Austria for its own roaming business; access to all information on end-user usage; access to all wholesale functions and facilities provided by Drei Austria and used to supply its own retail roaming business, in particular contract negotiation and implementation, signaling, authentication, data clearing, billing interconnect, fraud handling, provisioning, Global Roaming Exchange, IP Exchange; and CAMEL Phase I, if available. The maximum charges for the Roaming Services are as follows: (a) Drei Austria shall charge the Access Seeker the following maximum rates for each Transaction Type during the period 1 July 2012 to and including 30 June 2013: Transaction Type Rate in EUR Charging Interval Mobile originated circuit switched voice 0,14 per minute 30s/1s originating and terminating within the EU/EEA excluding calls to premium rate numbers and special numbers Mobile originated SMS 0,03 per SMS Per SMS 1

2 Transaction Type Rate in EUR Charging Interval Packet switched data 0,25 per MB 1kb/1kb (b) Drei Austria shall charge the Access Seeker the following maximum rates for each Transaction Type during the period 1 July 2013 to and including 30 June 2014: Transaction Type Rate in EUR Charging Interval Mobile originated circuit switched voice 0,10 per minute 30s/1s originating and terminating within the EU/EEA excluding calls to premium rate numbers and special numbers Mobile originated SMS 0,02 per SMS Per SMS Packet switched data 0,15 per MB 1kb/1kb (c) Drei Austria shall charge the Access Seeker the following maximum rates for each Transaction Type during the period 1 July 2014 to and including 30 June 2015 and each subsequent one year term: Transaction Type Rate in EUR Charging Interval Mobile originated circuit switched voice calls 0,05 per minute 30s/1s originating and terminating within the EU/EEA excluding calls to premium rate numbers and special numbers Mobile originated SMS 0,02 per SMS Per SMS Packet switched data 0,05 per MB 1kb/1kb The rates set out in (a) to (c) above are exclusive of VAT. Drei Austria shall issue invoices to the Access Seeker with respect to the charges on a monthly basis, payable within 30 days of the date of the invoice. Drei Austria may pass on to the Access Seeker any reasonable charges incurred during the initial technical integration of the Access Seeker and, thereafter, any operational and upgrade charges necessary to maintain and enhance the technical interface provided to the Access Seeker for the delivery of the Roamig Services. Drei Austria may recharge the Access Seeker for any additional fees or charges that have been levied on Drei Austria under applicable law and/or at the direction of a competent authority (or which Drei Austria is required to charge to the Access Seeker) to the extent that they relate to the network access services being provided to the Access Seeker. 2. Additional services The following additional services (together with the Roaming Services, the Services ) will be provided by Drei Austria upon reasonable request: a) Mobile terminated circuit switched voice calls. b) Mobile originated circuit switched voice calls originating and/or terminating outside the EU/EEA. 2

3 c) Mobile originated and terminated circuit switched video calls if available. d) Termination of outgoing SMS. e) Billing of post-pay services. f) Credit control for pre-pay services. g) Control of data bill shock. h) Services to implement retail transparency obligations. i) CAMEL Phase II, if available. The terms and conditions (including charges) for the above additional services shall be subject to negotiation and agreement between Drei Austria and the Access Seeker. 3. Service Level Agreements Drei Austria commits to treat resale access requests in a non-discriminatory way and to supply roaming services to the Access Seeker on equivalent terms and conditions of supply (save for price) and normal standards of service to those which it provides to its own retail customers and/or to other Drei Austria roaming resale access seekers. 4. Interoperability & testing Testing methodology, testing documents and the full list of these technical standards and protocols for the period in operation are available free of charge upon request by the Access Seeker. The functioning of the roaming services provided by Drei Austria to the Access Seeker is based on the current Roaming outbound functioning rules and flows of Drei Austria (IR.21, IMSI ranges, TADIG code, TAP flow, etc.). 5. Security and data privacy Drei Austria and the Access Seeker undertake to comply with all data protection and privacy laws and regulations under the applicable law of their respective jurisdictions. 6. Duration of the Agreement The Agreement comes into force on the date agreed by the parties and specified in the Agreement and shall remain in force unless terminated by one of the parties in writing subject to a reasonable notice period to be agreed by the parties. 7. Governing Law This Reference Offer and the Agreement shall be governed by the laws of Austria. The competent court in Vienna, Austria, shall have sole and exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes between the parties arising in connection with the execution of this Reference Offer and of the Agreement. Any disputes shall be resolved in accordance with the escalation and arbitration procedures set out in the Agreement. 8. Requirements on the Access Seeker Drei Austria will meet all the reasonable requests for resale wholesale roaming access. For a request to be considered reasonable, the Access Seeker will need to fulfill all the criteria outlined in 3

4 paragraph 8.1 of the reference offer. The Access Seeker should either send these documents with the access request or be ready to provide these at the request of Drei Austria. Drei Austria may refuse resale access to Access Seekers who do not provided this information in a timely manner. Drei Austria also reserves the right to deny access to requests that entail the deployment of undue levels of resources to implement or where it is reasonable to foresee that the implementation costs will be not recovered within a reasonable period of time. The refusal to grant access will be sent to the Access Seeker in writing giving the Access Seeker the opportunity to eliminate deficiencies within a reasonable delay. If the Access Seeker has not fulfilled these requirements within the agreed timeframe the request will be deemed revoked. 8.1 Drei Austria may require the following information from the Access Seeker: A bank guarantee and/or upfront payment prior to commencement of the start of Services and during operations. Drei Austria may enforce the guarantee in accordance with its terms at any time during or after termination of the Agreement to satisfy any amounts due and payable to Drei Austria (including any charges for the Services) by the Access Seeker that remain unpaid by the relevant due date; The signature of a hosting agreement, where the Access Seeker is hosted on Drei Austria s Public Mobile Network; A 12 month forecast of traffic volumes per service (voice, SMS and data volumes) and subsequent updates; Overview of the standard services requested from the operator; Certificate of registration or corresponding documentation of the Access Seeker; Contact data of the Access Seeker; Information about billing interfaces; Any other technical information necessary to launch or assess compatibility of the Services; and Written documentation of the EU numbering resources assigned to its mobile service; 8.2 The Access Seeker is responsible for: Ensuring that it is duly authorized to provide the Services in the relevant jurisdiction; Ensuring that the documentation is duly signed by authorized persons of the Access Seeker; Managing the use of the Services by its customers; and Providing its services to its customers using Drei Austria s IMSI range; Ensuring that it is duly authorized to store and process personal data; Any fraudulent use of the Services by its customers. As such the Access Seeker must implement and comply with relevant anti-fraud prevention procedures including notifying Drei Austria immediately if the Access Seeker suspects any kind of fraud or abuse which involves the Services offered to the Access Seeker under this Reference Offer and co-operating in good faith with Drei Austria and using all appropriate means to identify, technically manage, eliminate and prevent the fraud or abuse as soon as practicable. Additional information about these procedures is available upon request; and Meeting its obligations as a public communications network operator under, and complying with, all applicable laws, regulations and rules applicable to its obligations under the Agreement. In the event of a request for specific services or facilities, Drei Austria reserves the right to require payments from the Access Seeker to recover the costs of the investments undertaken specifically to provide such services or facilities to the Access Seeker. 4

5 9. Use of Services The Access Seeker undertakes the following: not to resell Roaming Services to businesses or other entities which are not end users of Roaming Services; to ensure that the Services are not used for commercial SMS termination via Drei Austria SMS-C and that no SPAM or commercial SMS are sent across the Drei Austria SMS-C by using this facility. If commercial SMS termination is required, a separate agreement will be concluded for this service; to only connect approved USIM cards; to only procure approved devices; to take all reasonable steps to maintain the quality of the Drei systems, interfaces and the Drei roaming partners networks; not to use the Services or allow any customer or other third party to use such Services for any immoral, obscene, harmful, offensive or unlawful purpose; not to make any disparaging remarks about the Services or the Drei network/systems or mislead or make any false statements or representations in respect of the Services or the Drei network/systems; not to provide the Roaming Services under the Drei Austria marks; to comply with all directions issued by Drei Austria which are reasonably necessary to assist it in complying with any regulatory requirement; and not to seek to sell Services to any customer whose residence or place of business is outside the EU/EEA. 10. Suspension and termination of service Notwithstanding anything in the Agreement to the contrary, Drei Austria may without liability suspend or terminate all or any of its Services to the Access Seeker s Roaming Customer(s) in circumstances where it may suspend or terminate those Services to its own customers, including but not limited to: Roaming Customers using equipment which is defective or illegal; or Roaming Customers causing any technical or other problems on Drei Austria s Public Mobile Network systems, interfaces or on Drei Austria s roaming partner s network; or suspected fraudulent or unauthorised use; or authentication of the legal relationship not being possible; or maintenance or enhancement of its Public Mobile Network systems, interfaces; or non-establishment and/or denial to update/renew the bank guarantee within the specified term in case it is requested after the commercial start of the agreement; or Suspension for nonpayment in excess of 3 months. 11. Termination of the agreement The Agreement may be terminated as follows: by mutual agreement of the Parties; or 5

6 by one of the Parties, with immediate effect, when the other Party is in material breach of the Agreement and does not or is not capable of remedying such breach within sixty (60) days of receipt of a written notice to such effect; by one of the Parties, with immediate effect, if the other Party becomes bankrupt or insolvent or if that other Party enters into any composition or arrangement with its creditors and that other Party is not able to ensure performance of its obligations under the Agreement by a guarantee from a first class bank, payable on first written demand; by written notice of either Party to the other in the event that international roaming becomes technically or commercially impracticable on Drei Austria s roaming partners networks and the suspension of service provisions in the Agreement are insufficient to solve the problem or if an unacceptable level of unauthorized use occurs and the other Party is not capable of remedying such unauthorized use within sixty (60) days of receipt of a written notice to such effect; or in the event a final order by the relevant governmental authority revoking or denying renewal of the license(s) or permission to operate a Public Mobile Network(s) granted to either Party, or any other license necessary to operate the Service(s), takes effect. 12. Modifications to the Reference Offer This Reference Offer (including regulated charges) will be amended from time to time and at a minimum on an annual basis. Drei Austria has the right to amend this Reference Offer and publish a revised Reference Offer at any time. From the date of publication of a revised version of this Reference Offer, all access requests will be governed by such revised version. For further information on this reference offer please contact: 6
A senior ethnic Hungarian politician says the Romanian culture ministry discriminated against the Hungarian community in failing to win international recognition for a religious festival.

Csilla Hegedus, deputy head of the Union of Democratic Hungarians in Romania, said 100 Hungarian experts had worked six years to secure UNESCO protection for a Catholic pilgrimage in northwest Romania where 1.4 million Hungarians live.

Hegedus claimed Tuesday a Romanian culture ministry official failed to provide UNESCO with documentation it requested about the festival. The ministry declined to immediately comment.

The statement comes amid rising tensions between the two countries. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungarian diplomats not to attend Romania's national day celebration.

Transylvania became part of Romania in 1918. Before that it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Swedish prosecutors have arrested a Syrian man on suspicion of terrorism for an arson attack against a Muslim group two months ago.

Prosecutors on Tuesday said they had filed a request to keep the man in pre-trial detention while they continue the investigation.

The 29-year-old man is suspected of committing an act of terrorism through an arson attack against what Swedish media described as a Shiite prayer room in the city of Malmo. No one was injured in the Oct. 11 fire.

The suspect has not been publicly named. His defense lawyer, Lars Edman, says his client denies the allegations.

Immigration officials say the man arrived in Sweden last year and received a three-year residence permit three days after the arson attack.

He was arrested on Saturday.
An alleged senior commander in the brutal militia of fugitive warlord Joseph Kony pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 70 charges including murder, rape, sexual enslavement and using child soldiers during the group's insurgency in northern Uganda.

Dominic Ongwen, whom prosecutors say is a commander in the Lord's Resistance Army, listened intently and wrote notes as an official at the International Criminal Court in The Hague read out the 70 charges.

"In the name of God, I deny all these charges," he replied.

The chief prosecutor said Ongwen was a former child soldier who rose swiftly through the ranks because of his reputation as a ruthless killer.

"The evidence shows that Dominic Ongwen was a murderer and a rapist," Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told judges.

On the eve of the trial, Ongwen and his lawyers claimed he did not properly understand the charges and called for psychological tests to establish if he was mentally fit to plead. Judges ordered him to enter a plea anyway.

Rights groups welcomed the case as a long-overdue chance to deliver justice to some victims of the Lord's Resistance Army after its nearly three-decade insurgency in northern Uganda.

"The LRA leadership is reviled worldwide for its brutality against Africans, but never before has an LRA commander faced trial," said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch.

The trial comes as some African nations are expressing distrust of the court, which they accuse of unfairly targeting the continent. South Africa, Burundi and Gambia recently announced they would quit the court.

Bensouda said Ongwen's own traumatic past as a 14-year-old boy abducted from his family and conscripted into Kony's army could be a mitigating factor for judges considering a sentence if he is convicted, but, she added, it "cannot begin to amount to a defense or a reason not to hold him to account for the choice that he made: The choice to embrace the murderous violence used by the LRA and make it a hallmark of the attacks carried out by his soldiers."

Ongwen is charged specifically with commanding assaults on four camps for internally displaced people in northern Uganda.

Highlighting the brutality of LRA fighters, Bensouda said they murdered residents, torched their homes and enslaved survivors to carry looted animals.

"Nursing mothers whose babies slowed up their progress or who simply cried too loudly watched as their babies were callously killed or thrown into the bush and left behind," she said.

Bensouda showed judges a video of the aftermath of one attack, in which smoldering huts and bodies  including a charred baby and a disemboweled child  could be seen.

Bensouda said she will call former child soldiers and forced brides to testify about the brutality they suffered at the hands of Ongwen and his forces.

One former child soldier will testify about a particularly horrific attack, Bensouda said.

"Mr. Ongwen ordered this boy and others to kill an old man by biting him and then stoning him to death," she said.

Ongwen, first indicted in 2005 and sent to the court early last year after surrendering to U.S. forces in Central African Republic, is the only member of Kony's army in the court's custody. Kony remains free despite years of efforts in northern Uganda and neighboring countries to capture him.

The LRA rebellion, which originated in Uganda in the 1980s as a tribal uprising against the government, is one of Africa's longest and most brutal insurgencies. At the peak of its powers, the group razed villages, raped women and amputated limbs. It is especially notorious for recruiting boys to fight and for taking girls as sex slaves.

After opening statements this week, the trial will pause until next year when the first witnesses will testify, including possibly a girl who told investigators about Ongwen's repeated rapes of sex slaves.

"Dominic was the worst when it came to young girls," Bensouda said, citing the witness. "He has sex with them at a very young age."
A British man was convicted Tuesday of providing cash to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings.

Zakaria Boufassil was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court of engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism by providing $3,700 to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in Birmingham, England.

FRENCH MAN SENT TO PRISON FOR VISITING PRO-ISIS WEBSITES

Abrini is the "man in the hat" seen on video footage moments before the deadly March 22 bombings at Brussels airport that killed 16 people. He is also wanted in the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks on Paris.

Prosecutors said that Abrini visited England in July 2015 and received the cash from Boufassil, 26, and Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 27, who earlier pleaded guilty, at a rendezvous in a park.

OHIO MAN SENTENCED IN CAPITOL ATTACK PLOT YELLS: 'ALLAH IS IN CONTROL!'

Boufassil told the court during the trial that he was a marijuana user who practiced a "moderate and tolerant" form of Islam. He condemned Islamic State extremists as "worse than animals."

He admitted meeting Abrini in the park, but said it had nothing to do with extremism.

Still, the jury endorsed prosecutors' claim that he knowingly provided the money for use in militant attacks. Prosecutor Max Hill said there is "no doubt" the money was given to Abrini to assist acts of terrorism.

Marcus Beale, assistant chief of the West Midlands Police, said the conviction was important because the money transfer "identified a dangerous link" to Abrini. He said the two men may face long prison sentences.

The two men will be sentenced on Dec. 12. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has appealed for calm as his government battles to contain a debilitating economic crisis.

The 92-year-old president appeared frail but jovial, struggling with his lines a bit as he delivered a 30-minute State of the Nation address on Tuesday.

He praised the country's security forces for maintaining order, although critics accuse them of using violence to stifle dissent.

This once prosperous but now economically struggling southern African country is battling cash shortages, high unemployment and company closures.

A new local currency, introduced last week, has failed to end cash shortages, with many people still sleeping outside banks to access their money. The cash crunch has meant that Mugabe's government has failed to pay its workers on time since June.
Garbanzo Bolsters Operations, Franchising Team

Patti Rother, Ron Cool bring experience, fresh ideas to leading Mediterranean brand.

December 06, 2016 // Franchising.com // DENVER, CO  James Park, CEO of Denver-based Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh, today announced that two seasoned industry professionals have joined the growing companys executive team.

Patti Rother brings more than 15 years of industry experience to her new role as Senior Director of Franchise Development at Garbanzo. Pattis successful track record spans the fields of operations, training, design and construction, real estate and franchise sales. Most recently serving as Director of Franchise Sales and Operations for Noodles & Company, Patti oversaw a dozen franchisees with more than 70 restaurants open and 143 to be developed, while also directing franchise sales management and lead generation. Prior to that, Patti served in various operational roles at Panera Bread, where she assisted in new store openings and helped open the brands first drive-thru in Colorado.

Patti has a reputation for being fearless, having the tenacity to work through any challenge, demonstrating a fierce curiosity for the unknown and a battle-hardened confidence of early experience, said Park. And thats exactly what I was looking for to help breathe new vigor into our franchising program.

Ron Cool joins Garbanzo as its Director of Company & Franchise Operations after successful stints with Starbucks  as a District Manager in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana  and previously as Chief Operating Officer for the Metro Denver franchise group of Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Throughout his 25-year career, Ron has demonstrated visionary leadership and honed his expertise in operations management, training, organizational development and company turnarounds. During his tenure at Starbucks, Ron was responsible for developing and implementing a drive-thru efficiency standard that was subsequently rolled out to several other markets. At Five Guys, Ron led franchise business development and managed a diverse project portfolio in Metro Denver, including market analysis studies, compensation, executive recruitment, site selection, training implementation and customer satisfaction measurement.

Ron is a customer focus-driven leader able to successfully orchestrate complex relationships and work environments, said Park. His reputation for having a strong work ethic, high energy level, approachability and a progressive record of achieving results precedes him. Ron is a welcome addition to the executive team at Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh.

Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh is headquartered in Colorado with 23 locations nationwide. Visit eatgarbanzo.com for hours, directions, food and catering menu and more information.

Garbanzo: Simple tastes better.

About Garbanzo

Garbanzo is making fresh Mediterranean cuisine a mainstream favorite across the United States. Its authentic, nutrient-rich dishes originated centuries ago are served with a new twist, but without compromise. Every order is customized to the guests liking, from juicy, high-quality meats and salads made from scratch to gyros, wraps and pita baked from scratch all day. Garbanzo is dedicated to satisfying every palate  including vegetarian and gluten-free diners  and believes that simple tastes better.

SOURCE Garbanzo

Contact:

Ladd Biro

Champion Management

Founder & Principal

O: 972.930.9933

C: 817.675.3499

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Theatre School Franchise Secures Contract With Eurocamp

December 06, 2016 // Franchising.com // Razzamataz Theatre Schools are delighted to announce that from summer 2017, their popular performing arts classes will be available to holiday makers at two of the Eurocamp holiday parcs in France.

Eurocamp offers a huge choice of camping holidays across more than 180 sites in ten European countries and is a hugely popular choice for families with young children, due to the amount of exciting activities that are on offer.

Currently, Eurocamp offers a variety of activities for children but this will be the first time that performing arts is available at two of their largest parcs in the Cote D'Azure and Paris regions, an exciting addition to the holidays.

We are delighted to be bringing our brand of performing arts to Eurocamp and are looking forward to introducing more children and young people to the joys of singing, dancing and acting, says Denise Hutton-Gosney, MD and Founder of Razzamataz. There are so many benefits that come from participating in performing arts; from increased confidence through to teamwork and life skills but what we want mostly is to provide holidaymakers with a fantastic and fun experience and a chance to make new friends.

Razzamataz was selected as the performing arts provider thanks to its reputation both in the UK and overseas. Having been established for more than 16 years, ten of those includes providing performing arts classes for First Choice Holiday Villages throughout Europe, Razzamataz can draw on a wealth of experience to make the Eurocamp experience wonderful for children and their families.

Razzamataz and Eurocamp are offering three different clubs for different age ranges of holidaymakers: Mini Learn to Dance, Star Academy and Street Dance.

Children holidaying in the two Eurocamp parcs will be taking part in three two-hour sessions of dance, drama and singing ending in a short presentation for their family on the main stage. There will be classes for all children and teens from the age of one upwards.

Mini Learn to Dance is the perfect environment for the youngest holidaymakers to have fun singing and dancing and making new friends. Children aged 1-3 and their grown-ups will join a fun-packed 1-hour session of dancing, singing and imaginative play based around jungle, circus and farm themes.

Older pre-schoolers aged 3-5 can go it alone for a magical experience with lots of encouragement to try a variety of performing skills using modern pop and musical theatre styles.

These active classes will encourage physical development, explore imaginations and allow your little ones to become confident, capable and self-assured individuals whilst having a great time, says Denise. Every child is unique therefore our classes are consistently high quality allowing every child to progress at their own rate.

The Star Academy will be split into two groups: age 4 to 9 and 9-17 and they will explore both musical theatre and the commercial genres of the performing arts. Once again they will be encouraged to learn new skills whilst having fun and making new friends.

There is also a Street Dance group for children age 4 upwards, which is a popular part of the curriculum in the UK.

Offering a wide range of performing arts styles means that children get the chance to find out what they love and hopefully it can inspire them to try something different, adds Denise. Its lovely when we get customer feedback saying how much they enjoyed the Razzamataz classes overseas and many go on to sign up for one of our UK schools.

After they complete the course, they all get a certificate as a memento of their time, and for many of them, this will be the first opportunity they have had to try out performing arts.

The feedback from the overseas schools has been incredibly positive and when children have returned to the UK many have said how in just a few lessons their confidence was boosted.

I really enjoyed Razzamataz and will take the experience of it all back with me, says holiday maker Beth, age 11. I loved doing every show. You have really inspired me to have confidence.

Over the next few months, Razzamataz will be looking to recruit the best teachers to work with the children in the Eurocamp resorts.

There are almost 50 Razzamataz schools throughout the UK with new schools opening every year. The Dragons Den backed theatre school franchise offers exceptional part-time training in dance, drama and singing together with exciting opportunities to perform. Classes are for children from age two to 18 and allow students to experience a range of performance styles from classic West End musical theatre to street dance and pop singing.

Razzamataz is actively looking to open further schools across the UK and in particular Aberdeen and Cardiff. The team will be holding regular Discovery Den days, which give people the opportunity to meet the Head Office team and find out more about this franchise opportunity.

If you want to find out more about becoming a franchisee of your own part-time Razzamataz Theatre School, make an appointment to come along to one of the regular but informal Discovery Den days in London, Glasgow or Sheffield to find out more about this exciting and flexible business opportunity. To book a place contact Head of Franchisee Recruitment Suzie McCafferty on suzie@razzamataz.co.uk or call Suzie on 07793 054 233. For more details visit: www.razzamataztheatreschools.co.uk.

About Eurocamp

Eurocamp are the leading provider of outdoor holidays and help more than 500,000 holidaymakers plan fantastic trips to Europe each year. They offer more than 180 prime locations that are ideal for any kind of holiday; from beach and city breaks, to stays amongst mountains and lakes. Most importantly, they are more flexible than other operators, offering a range of travel options, and total flexibility when it comes to arrival and departure dates. Eurocamp consistently achieves high customer satisfaction scores, with over 90% of families saying they intend to come back.

Find out more at www.eurocamp.co.uk

SOURCE Razzamataz

Media Contact:

Karen Keeman

karen.keeman@btopenworld.com

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Context counts for everything.

When you hear a participants words where history happenedLee at Appomattox or Lincoln at Gettysburgevents can take on whole new dimensions.

Listeners reflect. A few might grow perturbed. People resolve to read more about what theyve just learned. Some have been known to cry. Conversation flows.

Organizers hope to create those kinds of connections with participants Saturday when St. Georges Episcopal Church hosts Voices from the Storm: Fredericksburg to mark the Battle of Fredericksburgs 154th anniversary.

Begun in 2005, the National Park Services Voices programs here have proven popular, drawing hundreds of attendees and prompting local congregations and groups to share their experiences.

The Voices programs are not talks, but neither are they quite theater, says John J. Hennessy, chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. They fall someplace in between, using the words of those who were therewielded by dramatic readers, along with images, narration and even musicto see these events through the eyes not of history, but of people. This is a supremely human story.

Saturdays venturea culminating event in the battle anniversarys two-day Remembrance Weekend held by the parkwill tell of hardship, fear and fortitude informed by eyewitnesses letters, diaries and memoirs, Hennessy said.

The winter of 1862 brought the most difficult days in Fredericksburgs history, as civilians struggled in the presence of armies, and soldiers confronted one another in and around the town, he said.

Built in 1849, the church building will figure prominently in helping make manifest the Dec. 13, 1862, battle and its consequences.

The Rev. Joe Hensley, the 27th rector of the parish, said he is delighted that St. Georges will host the Voices event. In August, it welcomed historian Steward Henderson and costume-clad re-enactors for War Comes to the Church, a presentation about the role the church played in the battle and its aftermath.

The clock tower of the church was a target of cannon fire and was a lookout post, although it suffered no damage, Hensley said. The Union used the church as a hospital and our basement fellowship hall as an operating room. A few months later, Confederate soldiers gathered in the church for a revival led by the 13th rector of the parish, the Rev. Alfred Randolph.

A NEW UNDERSTANDING

The young wartime minister will figure in the program, said Hennessy, who found a Union soldiers journal entry describing how he and his comrades fashioned a Sunday dinner for themselves from the pantry and chicken coop of Randolphs home on nearby Hanover Street.

I plan on using almost all new material that speaks to the experience of the town, the conduct of the Union army, the harsh realities of the battlefield, and the aftermath, Hennessy said.

That will include soldiers description of their partying inside the parsonage of St. Georges, at what is today 303 Hanover St., he said.

Fresh and provocative, the program will offer a new understanding of the looting of the town once it was occupied by the Union army, Hennessy said.

This Voices features a great deal of quotes and descriptions we have never used before, he said. I am always excited to throw new things out there.

For instance, 2nd Delaware Regiment surgeon David H. Houston wrote home of the citys most melancholy aspect after roving soldiers emptied its dwellings, shops and public buildings.

The streets and side-walks in many places are now filled and encumbered with their contents, Houston wrote. This is shameful and I feel it to be a reproach to our character and our cause ...

Other research discoveries turned up vivid, firsthand descriptions by Union troops of crossing the Rappahannock River in pontoon boats despite withering fusillades from Confederate sharpshooters near Hawke Street, the first amphibious landing under fire in American military history.

Another soldier wrote of the crossing: We cared or thought but little of the whistling balls, each man was eager to go over. On reaching the shore, our regiment was ordered to drive the enemy from the houses and take possession.

FIGHTING IN THE STREETS

During the fierce fighting in the streetsurban warfaretroops went from dwelling to dwelling to roust the Southern riflemen. One of those residences was almost certainly the Wellford familys house, which survives today.

We came to a splendid house, the owner of which had locked himself in; we broke through the back door, and were then ordered to cross the street, breaking through the front door, a soldier wrote, and as we were about to pass out, there came a shower of ballsit was now a live coward or a dead herowe hesitated, when G.F.N., standing by my side, received a ball in his neck, and died without a groan.

The piano from the Wellford house, which has its own battle story, is on exhibit at Chatham Manor, the parks headquarters in Stafford.

A RESONANT PLACE

Even the seats in St. Georges have something to say, Hensley said, noting how they were turned into cots for men hurt and maimed in the bloody contest near the Sunken Road at the foot of Maryes Heights.

We still sit on the actual pews from that time period, pews which have held both the faithful in worship and soldiers wounded in battle, he said.

The church is the only Fredericksburg house of worship where the original pews survived the war and remain in use, Hennessy said.

The rector will read from some of his predecessors letters for their insight into wartime existence in Fredericksburg.

The sanctuary of St. Georges ... is a particularly resonant place, Hennessy said. There, silence and words speak with equal power.

Saturdays program will be the seventh in the occasional series, a collaboration between the National Park Service and local organizations to dramatically describe how the Fredericksburg region struggled before, during and after the Civil War and and was transformed by it.

Earlier programs explored the trials and triumphs of local civilians; the experiences of an enslaved man, John Washington; Fredericksburgs ordeal as a City of Hospitals; and the travail suffered by Spotsylvania civilians during the conflict.

The free program begins at 7 p.m. St. Georges is located at 905 Princess Anne St., across from Foode restaurant and two doors down from the Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center.

The battlefield parks Remembrance Weekend offers a variety of special events and walking tours on Saturday and Sunday. Details are on the parks website. Or call 540/693-3200, ext. 4010.

ON THE WEB
Exactly a year ago Monday, Katelin Akens was dropped off at her stepfathers house in Spotsylvania County to catch a ride to the airport.

As far as police know, she hasnt been seen since.

Its as if she just vanished, Spotsylvania Sheriffs Capt. Elizabeth Scott said Monday. We have followed every lead, including tips from psychics who have called in, and so far nothing.

In hopes of spurring some new information, the Sheriffs Office is again soliciting tips about the mysterious disappearance of Akens, who would be 20 now.

According to police, Akens mother, Lisa Sullivan, took Akens to the 200 block of Oak Crest Drive in the Partlow area of Spotsylvania on Dec. 5, 2015. Sullivans ex-husband was going to take his stepdaughter to the Washington area to catch a flight to Arizona, where Akens had enrolled in a cosmetology school.

The stepfather told police that he dropped off Akens at the Springfield Mall and she was supposed to take the Metro to Reagan National Airport.

Akens, a former Caroline County resident, never made her flight. Her luggage, which contained her plane ticket, credit card and other items that police say she would have never willingly left behind, was found two days later in a drainage ditch off River Road in Spotsylvania, not far from Motts Run Reservoir.

Scott said police no longer believe that Akens left the Fredericksburg area that day.

Scott said police have monitored Akens bank and social media accounts and have detected no activity. She has apparently had no contact with close friends and family, including her sister Gabrielle, who she used to communicate with daily.

Scott said the case remains an open investigation and police hope someone has information that would lead to Akens whereabouts or information about what happened to her. Scott said tips have been few and far between in recent months.

Its been an odd case from the start, Scott said. But her absence has been felt by friends and family members and we would very much like to know where she is.

There have been no charges filed in connection with the disappearance.

Meanwhile, a group of about 25 to 30 of Akens relatives and family friends gathered in the parking lot outside Hobby Lobby in Central Park Monday night to release balloons in observance of the one-year anniversary.

Lisa Sullivan, Akens mother, said it was a way for people who care about her daughter to get everyone together.

I still think about her every day and I still have hope, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said Akens came home last year to meet her nephew Landon, who was a few weeks old at the time. She said Akens had lived in Arizona for about a year and seemed excited about going back to start school.

Sullivan said she knows of no reason why her daughter would have voluntarily disappeared or not contacted her loved ones.

I had no idea when I dropped her off that morning that I wouldnt see her or talk to her for a year, Sullivan said.

Anyone with information is asked to call 800/928-5822 or Spotsylvania Crime Solvers at 540/582-5822. People can also leave tips on the Sheriff Offices Facebook page.

Scott said police are encouraging people to come forward even if they feel their information is insignificant.
A second weapon was used in the brutal slaying of a convenience store clerk in Spotsylvania County early Saturday, court records show, but police Tuesday would not say what that weapon was.

David Junior Washington, 50, is charged with first-degree murder, robbery and grand larceny in connection with the slaying of Saleh Yousef Abukhait at the Sunoco station in the 5300 block of Jefferson Davis Highway.

Abukhait was working in the Massaponax area store about 1:35 a.m. Saturday when he was beaten and killed. After arresting Washington later that day, police announced that a two-by-two piece of wood was used in the attack.

But an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Spotsylvania Circuit Court by Detective Earle Swift states that Abukhait was struck several times with two separate weapons.

Sheriffs Maj. Troy Skebo said Tuesday that police were not yet ready to disclose the second weapon. But other sources said it was not a gun or a knife.

According to police and court records, Abukhaits killer entered the store that morning and had several minutes of apparently pleasant conversation with Abukhait before picking up a piece of wood hed brought into the store and attacking the clerk.

Surveillance camera footage showed the man taking money from the cash register before leaving Abukhait bleeding on the floor behind the counter.

Another customer showed up a short time later. Swift wrote that the customer walked only a short distance into the store before noticing blood on the floor. He did not see the clerk.

The customer called the Sheriffs Office and deputies found Abukhait dead behind the counter.

The Sheriffs Office distributed a flier of the image of the man captured on the store surveillance camera, Swift wrote, and a Crime Solvers tip came in identifying the man as Washington. Police compared a previous arrest photograph of Washington to the surveillance picture and began looking for him.

Washington was found in the Dunning Mills Inn in Fredericksburg in a room rented by family members, according to the affidavit. Family members told Swift that Washington had purchased alcohol from the ABC store and Aldi grocery store in the Four Mile Fork Shopping Center before making his way to the room.

Detective Twyla DeMoranville went to the ABC store Sunday and recovered money with blood on it. That money will likely be sent to the state lab for DNA testing.

The search warrant gave police the authority to search a 2016 Kia belonging to Washingtons mother, Eva Fox. The investigation showed that Fox picked up her son at some point after the homicide and drove him to her residence off Sunset Road in Spotsylvania.

Among the items seized from the car were receipts dated Saturday, Dec. 3, clothing that appears similar to what the man wore on the surveillance tape, two shirts with stains on them and a Family Dollar bag with clothes, underwear and Advil tablets in it.

Some of those items will likely also be examined by the state lab.

Washington is being held without bond in the Rappahannock Regional Jail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 15 in Spotsylvania General District Court. He is being represented by the Public Defenders Office.
UPDATE, 1:35 p.m.: Due to this mornings delays, the Fredericksburg line will operate on an "S" schedule this afternoon. Only trains designated with an S run on this schedule. Those trains include Train 305, departing Union Station at 3:25 p.m.; Train 309, departing Union Station at 4:40 p.m.; and Train 313, departing Union Station at 6:00 p.m.

VRE is continuing to investigate the incident, and plans to hold a debrief meeting to discuss ways to improve response and recovery efforts, according to a VRE statement on the delays.

UPDATE, 8:20 a.m.: The incident this morning involved a VRE train and a vehicle at the Arkendale crossing north of the Brooke station, according to the commuter train service.

There is some good news on the injury front.

"At this time there appear to be no reported injuries," said VRE spokesman Paul Dean.

Details about the incident are still being fleshed out, he added.

"We're not sure what happened or why," Dean said. "That's still under investigation."

With the rail line completely shut down, he said VRE is using buses to get passengers back to their stations of origin. The Metro option is available, as well.

Dean said they hope to have the rail line re-opened sometime this morning.

UPDATE, 8:08 a.m.: VRE says trains have been given permission to head north. The train involved in the accident will go to the Quantico station, where passengers will depart and catch the next train.

Virginia Rail Express officials report that a train has hit a car in Stafford County this morning, creating a major problem for the morning commute.

At 6:12 a.m., VRE reported that a train had struck a vehicle at the Arkendale crossing north of the Brooke station and recommended that commuters take alternate transportation. Officials advised riders to expect at least a two-hour delay and possible cancellations.

There was no immediate information about possible injuries.

VRE says it is currently working to get buses to Brooke and back other trains up to their original stations.

Passengers on the train behind the one involved in the crash spent several hours speculating about what had happened and when the trains would resume. Some waited to see if the trains would start running again, and others called friends and family to pick them up.

Miriam Patrick, Stafford, said she arrived at the station around 6 a.m. and boarded her train, but it never got moving. The passengers were then informed the train ahead of them had hit a vehicle and there would be at least a two hour delay.

Patrick left the station for breakfast, and when she returned around 7:45 a.m. there were still no signs of the trains resuming. She wandered the parking lot in the pouring rain asking passersby for more information.

I have to travel to Crystal City, Patrick said. At this point, I dont know whether to wait for a train or ask my husband to drive me.

Howard Townsend, Spotsylvania, was on his way to the L'Enfant VRE Station when he heard about the train hitting the car. Townsend said his wife was on her way to pick him up from Brooke, and he planned to work from home for the day.

Yesterday, my boss gave me his number in case I ever need to let him know I need to work from home because of bad weather or other circumstances, Townsend said. It was good timing, I guess.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Louis F. Cooper. His online writing includes Reflections on U.S. Foreign Policy at the U.S. Intellectual History Blog (July 16, 2014). His Ph.D. is from the School of International Service, American University.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1792-1815, which one historian has labeled the first total war, engulfed basically the whole of Europe. A century later, a war broke out in Europe that extended beyond the continent to become global in scope. One can think of the two enormously destructive world wars of the twentieth century as a thirty years war (1914-1945), interrupted by what can be viewed in retrospect as an uneasy lull marked by the Depression and the rise of fascism.

Those who see history as essentially cyclical might have expected another global war to occur in or around 2014. The idea of long cycles of war and peace, explored by several scholars, could have suggested this. And if one believes, as Robert Gilpin wrote some years ago, that even though some states occasionally come to appreciate the mutual benefits of international cooperation, unfortunately all states have yet to learn the lesson simultaneously,[i] then the occurrence of another world war would not have been out of the question. Obviously, however, it didnt happen on the centenary of World War I. Why not?

Several reasons present themselves. First, nuclear weapons have given the prospect of a global war, or any great-power war, a possibility of civilization-ending finality that it did not have in the past. Second, the security architecture created under U.S. leadership after World War II has arguably worked to reduce the likelihood of major armed conflict among the great powers. Third, the existence of a network of international institutions, both inside and outside the UN system, has pushed in the same direction. Fourth, it is very possible that, as John Mueller and Christopher Fettweis have argued, decision-makers have to come see great-power war as subrationally unthinkable, or not even part of the option set for the great powers.[ii] The extreme destructiveness of the twentieth centurys world wars, fueled partly by developments in technology, might well have produced long-term effects on how leaders and publics think about global or great-power war, in a way, for instance, that the Napoleonic Wars, for all their horror and bloodiness, did not.

Phil Arenas recent contribution to this series argues that if the U.S. under a Trump administration signals an unwillingness to defend its allies, then Putin might be tempted to gamble on an invasion of the Baltics or Kim Jong-Un similarly might gamble on an invasion of South Korea (and that would drag in China). Putting aside Kim Jong-Un for the moment as a special case, lets consider Putin. As long as NATO exists  and Trump, despite his statements about the unfairness of the distribution of cost burdens, has not suggested, as far as Im aware, that he wants to dissolve the alliance  then Putin would have to assume that an attack on the Baltics would trigger a NATO response. Even if Putin does not see great-power war as unthinkable or outside his option set, one would assume that for reasons of pure self-interest he would not want to risk a nuclear war. Nor, one might think, would he want to jeopardize the prospect of better (from his standpoint) relations with a U.S. administration less concerned with, among other things, his commission of war crimes in Syria or his annexation of Crimea than the Obama administration has been.

For these reasons, Im not too worried that the advent of the Trump administration will lead to a war with Russia over the Baltics. The Korean peninsula is, perhaps, a more worrisome situation. Chances are, however, that Trump, after taking office, will be prevailed upon to make reassuring noises about the U.S. commitment to South Korea, and that should suffice to deter Kim Jong-Un from doing anything too rash. The cautionary point here, admittedly, is that its not clear whether Kim can be counted on to behave in a minimally rational fashion. Putin, whatever one might think of him, is rational. Its not entirely clear whether Kim is. However, if Kim is irrational then all bets are off regardless of what U.S. policy pronouncements are forthcoming.

World politics is not invariably cyclical and states can learn from experience (as even Gilpin acknowledged). If one admits this and pays due attention to history, then it is plausible to think that the force of populist nationalism, as expressed in more erratic and/or less internationalist official policy, will not, whatever its other effects may be, increase the low likelihood of a global war.

Of course, that does not remove all grounds for concern, especially in light of the obvious fact that even limited wars can produce a huge amount of misery and devastation. One can look for examples not only at the war in Syria but also at the war in Yemen, where a U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, is using U.S.-supplied weapons to kill combatants and civilians indiscriminately and contribute to the conditions for mass starvation. In general it would be good if U.S. allies took more responsibility for their own defense, stopped acting irresponsibly if, like the Saudis, they are currently doing so, and embraced more fully the principle that maintenance of global peace and security is a joint task for all the major powers, not simply one of them. However, if the U.S. tries to implement a redistribution of burdens with its allies too abruptly and without adequate consultation with them, it might, in some cases, encourage regional arms races, intensify security dilemmas, and increase the risks of conflict in areas that are now fairly quiet.

To succeed with this aspect of its foreign-policy agenda, the Trump administration will thus have to move carefully and avoid undermining international and regional institutions. Diplomatic skill, rather than blustery speeches, will be required. In Politics Among Nations, Hans Morgenthau wrote that the quality of diplomacy, in the broad sense of the formation and execution of foreign policy on all levels, is the most important element of a countrys power.[iii] We will see whether the incoming administration realizes this, or whether the ultimate verdict on Trumps policy toward U.S. allies will be that a reasonably sound conception was badly executed.

[i] R. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge U.P., 1981), p.228.

[ii] C. Fettweis, Dangerous Times? The International Politics of Great Power Peace (Georgetown U.P., 2010), p.48.

[iii] H.J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., revised by K. Thompson (McGraw-Hill, 1985), p.158.

The Duck of Minervas WPTPN group is still seeking guest contributions. If you are interested in writing a post and have research expertise in international relations, international political economy, foreign policy, comparative politics, or cognate fields please see this post for more information.
Explosions, machine gun fire and shouts of "air raid" roused Pvt. William H. Hoagland Jr. from his bunk at Hickam Field, Hawaii, shortly before 8 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.

After some frantic misstarts, Hoagland, then 19, dashed from his barracks - where dozens were killed at breakfast - into the violent pandemonium outside that would change his life, his country and the world.

The now-94-year-old Ashland resident was decorated for his performance under fire that day, when the U.S. Army Air Corps base and adjacent Pearl Harbor naval base came under surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

"The shrapnel went right through the wall lockers and cut our uniforms right in half. Half of them were hanging, and the other half was on the floor," he recalled.

"Little planes, flying all over the damn place. You could hear them and so you would kind of dive, if you were outside somewhere, to try and get out of the line of fire if you could. It was more like an earthquake - you didn't know what to do," Hoagland said of his first taste of a war that would continue for the next four years.

***

Hours later, about 4,400 miles to the east, Bruce Heilman was toting a pail of milk on a dairy farm when he got the news.

"Well, my first thought was, 'I sure am glad they didn't attack the United States.' I'm just a Kentucky boy. I had not the slightest idea where Pearl Harbor was. I was about 15 years old at the time," he said.

"From that day forward I wanted to get to be 17 years old so I could join the Marine Corps and get in the mix. The war was still going on by the time I turned 17, and I left like hundreds of thousands of other young farm boys and city boys and all kinds of youngsters who wanted to become heroes.

"And we did," said Heilman, 90.

Now a retired president and chancellor of the University of Richmond, Heilman recently reflected on the significance of that day 75 years ago that brought the U.S. into World War II, and a date that has a special place in the heart of the nation.

For one thing, he said, "It was the last war that we clearly won. It's down in black and white: We defeated the dictators from all over the world, and the war ended. So it was distinctive in that regard.

"It also was, for different people, very different in a variety of ways.

"My mother had three sons in World War II, and we all came home after the war. None of us were killed. None of us were seriously injured, even though my older brother was in the Marine Corps when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor."

Before the conflict was over, about 16 million men and women served in the U.S. armed forces. The war changed them, and with so many young people taken out of a population of just 130 million, the war also changed those who stayed behind.

Among other things, the mothers, sisters, wives and daughters of servicemen took over jobs traditionally occupied by men on the home front. "That's when women were liberated," Heilman said.

And thanks to the GI Bill, after the war millions of servicemen and women who otherwise might not have gone to college were able to do so.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, by 1956, about 7.8 million World War II veterans had participated in an education or training program. That more highly educated population also helped to transform the country.

None of that was on the minds of Hoagland and Heilman three quarters of a century ago.

***

Hickam Field was under attack from the air by Japanese Zero fighters and dive bombers intent on discouraging any U.S. aerial interference with the attack on the American fleet moored at Pearl Harbor and to prevent U.S. aircraft from attacking the Japanese aircraft carriers from which the attacking forces were launched.

Hoagland's barracks, which accommodated about 3,200 men, was almost brand new. After jumping out of his bunk, he saw from a window a bomb hit a hangar. U.S. aircraft parked on the flight line were being shot up and bombed.

"I ran downstairs - I was on the third floor - I ran downstairs and realized I didn't have any clothes. So I ran up (in his shorts) and crawled along the wall. By then, some of the shrapnel was going on through the windows, but it wasn't hurting anything except going straight on through and maybe setting a mattress on fire," he said.

"I got my clothes and ran downstairs and put 'em on and saw I had two left shoes."

He went back upstairs for his shoes, got them and raced back down. He said he felt ill and thought the enemy might be dropping poison gas.

So he made another trip upstairs for his gas mask but was driven back by the smoke. "I went on downstairs. I ran in to two other fellows in my outfit, senior sergeants." He said they came up with a plan.

Hoagland said, "They were strafing from the parade ground, which was the Honolulu side, and the other side was pretty well protected. We had our telephone trucks back there. We said, 'Let's sneak out there, get in our trucks and go on up to the telephone exchange. That's where we'll be needed.'"

He was assigned to guard an entrance to the facility.

"The telephone exchange had been reinforced with concrete. My commander, who was a captain, came out of the door of the office of the exchange and we could hear a train of three bombs coming, and after the second one I dove on the floor and he dove on top of me, and a bomb went off right outside and raised us up off the floor."

That bomb, he said, cut telephone cables to the other communication centers. "And it knocked off all the little dial systems" in the center, he said. "So our communications was completely gone."

He and his comrades began stringing tactical telephone line to restore communications as bombs fell and the field was being strafed - a job that at one point had to be redone because bulldozers rushing to repair runways ran over and cut the wires.

Hoagland said that once the air attacks ended, there was a new concern: "We were afraid that they were going to land troops and that was what had us afraid more than anything. We had no guns on the air base, so that did worry us.

"We were so unprepared. we were using equipment from World War I. All the packs, the leggings, everything, was all the same as World War I, all that stuff. It's a shame that we never were able to update things, but you know we went through the depression and all that, and that was the reason."

***

Today, Hickam is Headquarters of Pacific Air Forces and a national historic landmark.

According to the National Park Service, on Dec. 7, 1941, Hoagland's barracks was strafed and bombed repeatedly, and 35 men were killed when a bomb hit the mess hall that morning.

Hickam's casualties totaled 121 men killed, 274 wounded and 37 missing.

There was no invasion and after the attack, Hoagland and others in his unit were given a citation by the base commanding officer that read in part:

"During the aerial bombing and machine gun attack on Hickam Field by the Japanese, you performed your assigned duties in a highly commendable manner, and much credit is due you for your work in repairing damage done to the automatic telephone equipment and setting up field wire circuits to replace those destroyed in the initial attack. You performed these tasks in the face of enemy bombardment and with complete disregard of personal safety."

Hoagland later became a navigator/bombardier on B-25 bombers. When the war ended, he was flying missions out of the Philippine Islands against the Japanese in what then was called Formosa, now Taiwan.

At one point, when his unit was traveling by ship from one island to another, his boat was escorted by a destroyer on which his younger brother, Harold, was serving.

One of his final air missions might have been his last, when much of the rear of his B-25 was cut off by a propeller of another bomber during an abrupt maneuver over the target. But he made it back to the base safely.

After the war, Hoagland remained in what became the U.S. Air Force for 30 years. He retired in 1970 as a chief master sergeant.

In the 1960s, he was stationed at Hickam Field again. He had a family and brought them along to Hawaii.

"The same building I was bombed in was the headquarters. I couldn't believe it," he said.

***

Heilman said, "Our father was a tenant farmer. He was running a dairy of about 40 cows, and I and my younger brother were working just like farmhands along with him."

"We were milking those cows about, seems to me ... on Dec. 7. I walked out of the barn with a bucket of milk to put it in the cooler to be shipped, and the owner of the farm, a 500-acre farm, walked into the milk house and said, 'The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.'"

Heilman joined the U.S. Marine Corps in early 1944. "It was an adventure for us," he said. "We didn't think we were going off to get killed. But a lot got killed."

Among other action, Heilman fought at Okinawa in the Pacific.

"We were 18 and 19 years old. Most of those battles were won by 18- and 19-year-old kids. We don't think of that today, but it was true and they were the ones who had the idea of adventure and they were going to be heroes."

He attained the rank of sergeant when he was 20. "I was more proud of myself as a sergeant in the Marine Corps then I ever have been as a university president," he said.

"The military is the best education I think anybody can have. It really broadens you, and you learn about things you'd never learn anywhere else."

The Dec. 7 attack 75 years ago pushed the U.S. into World War II and was the key event in the lives of many Americans.

"It had a lot to do with who we became. It had more to do with what I have become than any other one thing," he said.
As they stressed the beauty and vitality of the Northern Necks streams and waterways, eight of 12 people at a public hearing on Monday asked the Westmoreland County Planning Commission to recommend an outright ban on drilling for natural gas.

This idyllic area offers the clean air and clean water that is not often found along the [Interstate] 95 corridor, said Paula Chow, a Fredericksburg resident and member of the Sierra Club, Rappahannock Group. Overwhelming research should lead you to conclude there should be an outright ban on fracking here.

Commissioners didnt agree. They took the same tactic as the King George Board of Supervisors did in August on the topic of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Thats the process of injecting water and chemicals deep underground to loosen trapped gas or oil.

The Westmoreland Planning Commission opted to recommend strict regulatory measures rather than prohibition of drilling for natural gas and oil altogether. The recommendation will be forwarded to the Westmoreland Board of Supervisors, which will have its own public hearing on proposed changes to zoning amendments and the Comprehensive Plan, probably in January or February.

John Felt, chairman of the Westmoreland Planning Commission, said after the meeting he believes a ban puts a specific target on your back and could subject the county to legal action from the gas and oil industry. Thats why he and other commissioners favored putting restrictions in place so as to render it more challenging to do fracking here, he said.

The planned amendments, which must be approved by supervisors, are even stricter than whats been put in place in neighboring King George. Gas wells in Westmoreland would have to be at least 1,000 feet from structures or any type of waterwaycompared to 750 feet in King George.

And, before companies could drill in Westmoreland, theyd have to go through two processes requiring public hearings and special approval. In the first, land sought for drilling would have to be made part of a new zoning district, and in the second, companies would have to get a special exception permit.

Westmoreland and King George are part of whats known as the Taylorsville basin, an area south and east of Fredericksburg where a Texas-based oil company has leased 84,000 acres for possible drilling.

The two speakers representing the oil and gas industry stressed there were no imminent plans in place to drill in Westmoreland or anywhere else in the region.

Miles Morin, executive director of the Virginia Petroleum Council, said the Texas company, Shore Exploration Corp., is not part of its group. But if any of the 650 companies in its membership was interested in drilling in the regionor if the basin had the potential to yield much natural gastheir members already would have visited local governments.

They would have sought permits and drilled during the boom, when prices were double, he said.

He and David Clarke, a lawyer with the Virginia Oil and Gas Association, stressed that local regulation of gas and oil drilling is unnecessary because there are enough state rules in place.

The industrys concern is not with production in any one area as much as a patchwork of regulatory actions across the state, Clarke said.

Both emphasized the benefits to depressed counties in Southwestern Virginia, where more than 8,000 wells have been drilled. In 2014 alone, the industry paid $18 million in severance and property taxes in Virginia and donated more than $20 million to local charities.

The financial benefits didnt move many in the audience. Bill Johnson, vice chair of the local Sierra Club, said the risks to public health and water, roads and the rural lifestyle werent worth the money the industry might pay in taxes.

Plus, its been estimated that all the natural gas trapped underground in the Taylorsville basin would equal what existing sources across the country supply every 25 days. Johnson said that output wasnt worth ruining a water source relied upon by so many.

Twelve million people in Virginia depend on the aquifer right below your feet in order to live, and they need protection, he said.

Robert Townsend, a Colonial Beach resident who said hed never spoken at a government hearing, couldnt believe anyone would even consider drilling in an area inundated with creeks and wetlands that lead to a major estuary such as the Chesapeake Bay. Its like one big filtration system.

Townsend said risking water sources for such a limited supply of gas was like burning your furniture to heat your house for a year. That sounds crazy to me.

Many in the audience applauded after John Lawler eloquently delivered remarks that covered everything from the prevalence of earthquakes in areas where fracking takes place to water contamination. He also pointed out that small drilling companies that have accidents or chemical spills often declare bankruptcy in the wake of such disasters. Whos there to clean up the mess?

Robert Fogg of Fredericksburg, who has leased his land for drilling, was the only speaker apart from industry representatives to support fracking. He urged the commissioners to study it and put guidelines in place but not to be too strong to ban it completely.

He said hes lived in Warsaw and Bowling Green, where students there learned a different set of three Rs: reading, writing and the road to Richmond. He believes gas and oil drilling would bring much-needed jobs to the area and eliminate the need for young people to relocate.
EVERY YEAR, when he was commandant of the Marine Corps between 1995 and 1999, Gen. Charles Krulak and his wife would spend the week before Christmas baking hundreds of cookies, which they wrapped in small packages.

At 4 a.m. on Christmas Day, Gen. Krulak would begin driving himself to every Marine guard post in the nearby WashingtonMarylandVirginia area and deliver a package of cookies to each Marine whose turn it was to be pulling guard on Christmas Day.

At Quantico, one of his stops, Krulak went to the command center and gave cookies to the young lance corporal on duty. The general asked the enlisted Marine who the officer of the day was. The lance corporal answered, Sir, its Brig. Gen. Mattis, to which (as the commandant told Dr. Albert Pierce of the United States Naval Academy), Krulak replied, No, no, no. I know who Gen. Mattis is. I mean, whos the officer of the day today, Christmas Day?

The young Marine was undoubtedly relieved when Gen. James Mattis, in a duty uniform and with his sword, appeared. When questioned by Krulak, he simply explained that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas Day had a wife and family and so he, Gen. Mattis, took his place, convinced that it was better for a young father and husband to spend Christmas with his family.

Quick quiz: Can any of us name a prominent CEO, university president or U.S. senator about whom a similar storyof decency and thoughtfulness toward those beneath him in rankcan be told? One of the reasons that a lot of people, including many former Marines, are both relieved and pleased with President-elect Donald J. Trumps selection of this general to be secretary of defense is that James Mattis personifies the Marine Corps rule Officers eat last.

The Marine officer does not eat until everyone subordinate to himall the lance corporals and privateshas first been fed. Marines honor the principle that loyalty goes both down and up the chain of command. Is there anyone who does not agree that ours would be a more humane and more just country and national community if the princes of Wall Street and the royalty of Washington accepted that officers eat last?

I have met Gen. Mattis, though I do not pretend to know him. But those whom I know who have served with him overwhelmingly salute his character, his intellect and his independence. He does not fawn on or flatter the powerful. He has never been an apple-polisher or anybodys sycophant.

After candidate Trump, during the campaign, advocated banning all Muslims from even entering the United States, Gen. Mattis was characteristically blunt: This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and its sending shock waves through this international system.

With the enormously respected Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford continuing as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and with Gen. Mattis as secretary of defense, the Marines, the smallest of our military forces, with just 182,000 on active duty, stand to haveto the resentment of the Army, the Navy and the Air Forcegreater influence in the making and enforcing of our American foreign and defense policies than at any other time. And given the high quality of Gens. Mattis and Dunford, that should be welcome news for America and for the world.

Mark Shields is a columnist in Washington with Creators Syndicate. To find out more about him and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at creators.com.
I really think we can do better

In the experimental T-cell therapy tested in this trial, certain T cells from each patients transplant donor were genetically engineered to produce receptors that allowed the T cells to recognize, very specifically, a target molecule called WT1.

WT1 appears in cells during early development in the womb. Then, it mostly disappears  unless a cancer develops. The molecule, named for its initial discovery in a type of kidney cancer called Wilms tumor, has since been linked to many different kinds of cancer, including leukemia. WT1 is 10 to 1,000 times more common in leukemia cells than their noncancerous cousins, making it a natural target for therapies designed to destroy cancer cells while leaving most healthy cells alone.

This is the teams first trial of this strategy, which was initially developed in the lab of Dr. Phil Greenberg, one of the studys leaders and the head of Fred Hutchs Program in Immunology. Because it was the first study of this particular approach, the researchers focused on a high-risk group  AML patients undergoing bone marrow transplant who had certain genetic or disease characteristics that decrease the chance of long-term transplant success  a hard population of patients, Chapuis said, many of whom were horribly sick.

If youve got high-risk disease, youve got a really bad prognosis, even if you do transplant, Chapuis said.

Each patients therapy was created just for them in a specialized Fred Hutch facility. Certain T cells from each patients matched donor were given the genetic instructions to make a receptor that specifically reacts to WT1. Then came a blood stem cell transplant: Patients leukemic bone marrow and blood cells were destroyed and replaced with healthy cells from their donors. A month later, when the team examined these 12 patients marrow, they found no trace of the cancers. Rapidly thereafter, once the transplanted cells fully engrafted, each patient then received up to 10 billion of the genetically engineered donor cells, infused into their arm through an IV.

Its been 27 months, on average, since these patients transplants. Not only have none of them relapsed, most still have the cancer-targeting T cells circulating in their bodies, Chapuis said. She and her colleagues hope that these immune cells will continue to survive and wipe out any new cancer cells that develop in the future.

They basically have drones that could potentially get rid of whatever disease pops up in the future. Thats the hope, Chapuis said.

Chapuiss role in this trial is on the laboratory side of the research, ensuring the quality of the genetically engineered cell products and monitoring the activity of the cells after infusion. She co-leads this research with Greenberg and Dr. Dan Egan of Fred Hutch, the trials principal investigator and the care provider for trial participants. The study was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health and Fred Hutch spinoff Juno Therapeutics, of which Greenberg is a scientific co-founder.

Outside of this trial, Chapuis treats cancer patients at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Fred Hutchs clinical care partner. Watching her patients undergo bone marrow transplant  itself the first clear and reproducible example of cancer immunotherapy, developed at Fred Hutch  has made her want to work toward something better. For her, that something is T-cell therapy.

Thats my source of inspiration. Im always horrified by the intense treatment that we inflict on bone marrow transplant patients and the hardship that we make them go through. And I really think we can do better, Chapuis said. Thats why Im doing this.
OnDemand Storage Launched Bringing New Storage Alternative to Area Residents

Incorporating technology into the self-storage industry helps meet a growing demand, publishes ondemandstorage.com

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America's need for extra space continues to surge with the nation's 54,000 self-storage facilities currently lingering at or near full capacity. While owners of traditional storage locations are scrambling to meet the growing need, a new alternative is making its way up through the industry's ranks. As the awareness of on-demand storage spreads, this option is proving to be a formidable competitor for conventional self-storage solutions. With this in mind, CEO Barrett O'Neill has brought this alternative to Braintree and the surrounding areas with the launch of OnDemand Storage (http://ondemandstorage.com/).

Said O'Neill, "Virtually everyone could use a little extra storage space even if it's only a temporary need; of course, there's a lot of work involved in the traditional option. We offer a number of benefits over the standard norm, like eliminating the need to make repeated trips to a storage unit to retrieve items and bringing an entirely new element to the rental process. By incorporating technology into our basic operations, we've created a more streamlined branch of the industry and enabled customers to save time, effort and money."

Industry reports indicate the popularity of on-demand storage has risen 21 percent since hitting the market. According to information available via the OnDemand Storage website, the rental process begins online; in this case, unit reservations and pick-up requests can be made at http://ondemandstorage.com/. Personnel from the nearest on-demand storage facility then pick up customers' belongings and transport them to one of the company's warehouse locations. Items to be stored may be tracked through customers' personal MyUnit dashboards.

Though only company employees are allowed on site at on-demand storage facilities for security reasons, customers may request belongings to be returned to them at any time through their aforementioned accounts. Facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art weatherproofing, climate control and security systems. Pricing plans are available to accommodate residential customers with an array of unit sizes being offered. Special packages and pricing are likewise available for college students in need of short-term storage solutions. More in-depth details are available at http://ondemandstorage.com/.

Concluded O'Neill, "We offer a completely new alternative to traditional self-storage, and we pride ourselves in making every effort to ensure our customers' belongings are safe and secure while they're in our care. On-demand storage has revolutionized the industry, and we'll continue to expand our offerings to area customers as word of this option spreads and demand grows."

About OnDemand Storage:

OnDemand Storage gives customers more time, space and convenience than traditional storage options. With utmost attention to service and security, the company ensures prompt pick-up and delivery as well as around-the-clock facility monitoring.

For more information, please visit http://ondemandstorage.com/index.php

Contact Info:

Name: Barrett O'Neill

Organization: OnDemand Storage

Phone: (781)-499-5330

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/ondemand-storage-launched-bringing-new-storage-alternative-to-area-residents/151982

Release ID: 151982

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Advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex [LGBTI] persons is a key part of the U.S. governments broader advocacy in support of human rights and fundamental freedoms worldwide.

U.S. President Barack Obama has committed to this effort during his administration, appointing the first ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI persons, Randy Berry, in 2015. Special Envoy Berry notes that the promotion of these rights internationally is based on the principles enshrined in the United States constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All of our work in this field and in so many others in the human rights field at the State Department is really based on an understanding of what is the promise of equal protection under the law and what equality really means under our constitution  At the heart of what were always talking about is not an issue of special rights for this community or any other but really, just an issue of equal rights absent any discrimination based on markers of identity.

Special Envoy Berrys work has focused on helping communities to help themselves by strengthening key global partnerships that promote the human rights of LGBTI persons around the world.

One such partnership, the Equal Rights Coalition, was founded by Uruguay and the Netherlands and is now made up 33 states, including the U.S. The coalition provides a standing platform for governments to consolidate efforts in achieving human rights and enables like-minded governments to more effectively cooperate, share best practices, and discuss common challenges.

The U.S. also supports the Global Equality Fund which joins more than 25 countries and private-sector entities:

The Global Equality Fund, acting as a public-private partnership, has delivered in excess of $30 million in grants to civil society organizations in more than 50 countries around the world to really just get at the intersection of government and civil society and to just resource some very, very modest work of engagement, of visibility, of creative approaches to protecting the rights of this particular society.

The fund supports civil society actors such as the Sarajevo Open Center -- an organization that is helping the Bosnian government and Bosnian civil society to work together to implement a national action plan on LGBTI inclusion.

Special Envoy Randy Berry, Were seeing what is truly an organic change at a global level.
Charlotte Lake Wylie Residential Landscaping Designer Houzz Service Award Winner

Charlotte and Lake Wylie landscaping and outdoor living designer Benton Outdoor Living receives their first Houzz Service Award and third such recognition in less that a year.

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http://www.bentonoutdoorliving.com

Benton Outdoor Living delivers custom landscape designs and outdoor living spaces for Charlotte and Lake Wylie.

Charlotte and Lake Wylie landscaping and outdoor living designer Benton Outdoor Living has received their first Houzz Service Award. Houzz connects homeowners to home improvement professionals via a portal of over 40 million to include, landscape designers, design enthusiasts and home improvement professionals worldwide. The Best of Houzz 2016 - Client Satisfaction is awarded to the professional who was rated at the highest level for client satisfaction by the Houzz community. In August of 2016, Benton Outdoor Living received the Houzz 500 Ideabook Saves, indicating their photos have been added more than 500 times to ideabooks on Houzz. In August 2015, the Charlotte and Lake Wylie landscaping designer received their first Houzz Badge as a recommended professional.

The company has been considered a leader in landscape design for decades before the awards. Since 1989, Benton Outdoor Living has been providing landscaping in Charlotte NC and Lake Wylie, South Carolina for its most prestigious households. Known for unparalleled service and craftsmanship that includes hardscapes, design and build, outdoor landscapes and drainage solutions, they are considered by many as one of the leading landscape companies in the Charlotte and Lake Wylie areas.

"We are extremely pleased to have received this award from the Houzz community," says John Benton the founder of Benton Outdoor Living. "The bulk of our business is referrals. I do not consider a job complete until a client is thoroughly satisfied and that they want to tell their friends about us."

Benton Outdoor Living provides the North and South Carolina communites with a number of outdoor living service to include hardscapes, patios, landscape design and outdoor kitchens. Their designs allow clients to take advantage of the Carolina climate by designing unique outdoor spaces that seamlessly extend indoor living spaces.

For more information, please visit http://www.bentonoutdoorliving.com

Contact Info:

Name: John Benton

Email: john@bentonoutdoorliving.com

Organization: Benton Outdoor Living

Address: 168 Hwy 274 #153, Lake Wylie , 29710 United States

Phone: +17046042813

Release ID: 151859

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St John Boat Rental Company Adds New Luxury Catamaran Virgin Islands Day Trips

St John boat rental company, Beach Bum Boat Rentals, announces the addition of a 37' Luxury catamaran to its Virgin Islands rental fleet. The 37' Catamaran features two staterooms, two full bathrooms, air conditioned salon, and is available for private daily or weekly rentals.

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St John Boat Rental company, Beach Bum Boat Rentals, has welcomed an exceptional new boat to their U.S & British Virgin Islands rental fleet - a 37' luxury power catamaran party boat.

Renting a private charter boat in St Thomas or St John in the U.S. Virgin Islands is the most popular day excursion for both cruise ship passengers and vacationers staying at hotels, time share properties or private villas. Most charter companies offer center consoles boats, but Beach Bum Boat Rentals offers a wide variety of boat types. The addition of this 37' Luxury catamaran allows customers a high end luxury option at an affordable daily rate.

The 37' Luxury Catamaran features indoor and outdoor dining areas, a fully equipped galley and a spacious air conditioned salon with giant windows for exceptional viewing of the gorgeous Virgin Islands for up to 12 passengers. Two roomy cabins and two comfortable restrooms provide passengers with privacy, lots of storage, and a place to change out of that wet swim suit.

Outdoors, passengers can relax on the front deck in the sun on comfortable bean bag chairs, or go up to the flybridge for incredible views. This luxury catamaran is available by the day, or for rent by the week.

"This boat is super comfortable because of the air conditioned salon area. Its roomy layout and giant windows allow guests to gather and relax inside without giving up the incredible view of the islands," says Brian Woeller, owner of Beach Bum Boat Rentals. "For bigger groups who want to spend time together, like wedding parties or family reunions, the layout on this 37' Luxury Catamaran is ideal." says Woeller.

St Thomas and St John are very popular wedding and cruise ship destinations, and frequently have groups of 20-30 people looking for rental boats to accommodate them.

"Our family meets in the Virgin Islands for vacation every year, and we rented the catamaran from Beach Bum Boat Rentals for a day," said patron Stewart Luckman. "It was fantastic. There were 10 of us and we were able to spend time together in the salon, but it never felt crowded. The kids loved the floating bean bag chairs on the front of the boat. Our whole family agreed it was the best day of any of our vacations, and the most luxurious boat we've ever rented."

Pricing on the 37' Luxury Catamaran is just $1,450 per day and includes the crew and fuel. The rental for the day is private and the itinerary is up to the customer, so the group can decide where they'd like to spend their time without having to be on someone else's schedule.

You can reserve the 37' power catamaran in St Thomas or St John, at Beach Bum Boat Rentals.

For more information, please visit http://BeachBumBoatRentals.com

Contact Info:

Name: Brian Woeller

Email: beachbumboatrental@gmail.com

Organization: Beach Bum Boat Rentals

Address: 6501 Red Hook Plaza, #201 St Thomas, VI, Temecula, 00802 United States

Phone: +18555508728

Release ID: 152125

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Smithco Mechanical Encourages Consumers to Consider Solar Power

Tax credit available as heating and cooling company launches solar panel installation service

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Nixa-based Smithco Mechanical Heating & Cooling encourages homeowners to consider installing solar power panels as the federal government extends its solar tax credit.

All Missouri residences are eligible for a Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit of up to 30 percent. While the tax credit was due to expire at the end of 2016, Congress extended it for property owners who install a photovoltaic or PV solar system.

Taxpayers may claim a tax credit for up to 30 percent of the cost of a new solar system for systems installed before Dec. 31, 2019. Under current legislation, the tax credit will decrease to 26 percent in 2020 and 22 percent in 2021 before expiring on Jan. 1, 2022. Other state and local incentives may also be available.

A PV solar system turns sunlight into electrical current. Such technology, once used just to power watches and street lights, can now be used to help power homes. Installing solar power panels help save the environment by reducing reliance on non-renewable energy sources like burning fossil fuels. According to the Missouri Department of Economic Development's Division of Energy, another potential benefit is lowered energy costs.

Property owners considering installing a solar power system must factor in whether enough access to solar power is available. Missouri residents typically enjoy more than 200 sunny days per year. That is more solar resources thanGermany, the top nation in the world when it comes to solar energy production.

"The technological advancements brought about by photovoltaics solar systems will help a lot in minimizing our effects to the environment, will decrease our dependency on oil, and will pave the way for a cleaner, greener environment for future generations," said Matthew Smith, owner of Smithco Mechanical. "Having solar power in one's home or business should be a priority of everyone who wants to help save the environment."

Smithco Mechanical now sells, installs and services solar panels. Smithco's technicians can help property owners establish a solar-powered home or business.

Smithco Mechanical Heating and Cooling is a full heating, ventilation and air conditioning company that offers residential and commercial sales, service and installation. Smithco strives to provide each customer with complete comfort control. Twenty-four hour emergency service is available to customers.

A free estimate or more information on Smithco and its solar power installation service is available by visiting www.smithcomechanical.com or calling 417-799-4822.

###

For more information, please visit http://www.smithcomechanical.com

Contact Info:

Name: Matthew Smith

Email: mattsmith@smithcomechanical.com

Organization: Smithco Mechanical Heating and Cooling

Address: 149 E. State Hwy CC Nixa, MO 65714

Phone: 417.799.4822

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/smithco-mechanical-encourages-consumers-to-consider-solar-power/152049

Release ID: 152049

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Dr. Sana Chrystal Joins Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness in Los Gatos, CA

Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness appoints DR. Sana Chrystal as head of Natural Medical Aesthetic Division. Clinic Now Offering Services Including Cool Sculpting , PRP Hair Restoration, PRP Facial Rejuvenation and Anti-Aging Nutritional IV Therapy.

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Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness in Los Gatos, California is proud to announce the recruitment of Dr. Sana Chrystal as its head of the Natural Medical Aesthetics Division at YNCW. Dr. Sana will be offering Cool Sculpting, PRP Hair Restoration, PRP Facial Rejuvenation, as well as a Nutritional IV Therapy.

Dr. Sana Chrystal is licensed as both a Naturopathic Doctor and a Doctor of Chiropractic medicine. As a dual licensed practitioner, Dr. Chrystal contributes a great body of knowledge to help her patients on the path to wellness. Her deep interest in helping the body to heal naturally has driven her to continue her education to better the needs of those people she's cared for.

She received her degree from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences and a Doctorate in Chiropractic from Southern California University of Health Sciences, in addition to a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Concordia University.

"Dr. Chrystal brings along a lot of experience as an expert in Naturopathic Medicine. She is joining YNCW from Cyprus Medical, Palo Alto. We are glad to have her at our center as she is very passionate about patient's health, helping them in achieving optimum health" Says Dr. Renee Young, ND, founder of Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness.

For More Information on Dr. Chrystal or to Book a Complimentary Consultation, please visit: www.youngwellnesscenter.com

About Dr. Renee Young ND & Young Naturopathic Center For Wellness:

Dr. Renee Young, ND, is a world renowned Naturopathic Doctor specializing in endocrinology and autoimmune diseases. She has been in active practice as a naturopathic primary care doctor since 2002. She founded Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness in 2004 in Los Gatos, Calfornia which provides a variety of services including: preventative natural health care, hormone balancing, weight loss management, natural medical aesthetic services and nutritional IV therapy. Dr. Young provides services to patients both locally and around the world. Dr. Young is the author of "The 9 Hidden Reasons You Are Sick, Fat and Tired" ebook which is available as a Free Download on her site

For more information about Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness, visit: www.youngwellnesscenter.com

Media Contact: Innovate Brand Agency Contact person: Kelly O'Neil Email: pr@youngwellnesscenter.com Phone Number: 866.615.8150 X 820

For more information, please visit http://youngwellnesscenter.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Kelly O'Neil

Email: pr@youngwellnesscenter.com

Organization: Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness

Address: 751 Blossom Hill Road, Suite B, Los Gatos, CA , 95032 United States

Phone: (866) 615-8150

Release ID: 152021

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By Stef Gijssels We love solo bass albums, and it seems that they keep coming in great numbers. The overview below is indeed nothing more t...
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While military success against violent extremists is essential to security, it isn't enough to ensure that the terrorist threat will not just regroup, reconstitute, and resurface in the future.

"At the heart of [Countering Violent Extremism]," said U.S. Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Sarah Sewall, "is the recognition that military defeat of todays terrorists is not sufficient to kill the ideology or address the broader factors needed to prevent new terrorists from emerging. In essence, CVE seeks to prevent the next generation of threats by helping the most vulnerable people and places resist terrorist recruitment and expansion."

One aspect of this approach is to promote good governance and halt state policies that fan radicalization to violence.When governments fail to protect their citizens and respect human rights, they breed anger and resentments that violent extremists exploit. Examples abound: Boko Haram gained traction after Nigerian security forces suppressed peaceful protests and executed the groups founder, Mohammed Yusuf, without trial. Al-Shabaab exploits heavy-handed tactics by Kenyan security forces to win over new recruits. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban rails against government corruption to replenish fighters each year. How governments treat their citizens has a profound impact on the scope of terrorist threats.

A second critical component of CVE is to build the resilience of vulnerable communities in which local leaders, parents, and peers know how to spot and address signs of terrorist radicalization; in which mentors or institutions can offer powerful counter-arguments or provide alternative paths for those at risk; where communities build such resilience, terrorists groups will struggle to find new followers and safe havens.

The U.S. supports networks of women and girls around the world, including in South Asia to act when they see signs of terrorist radicalization in their neighborhoods. The United States helped establish the Strong Cities Network to connect mayors and local leaders across the globe to exchange what works  and what doesnt  in stifling terrorist recruitment.

Even as Daesh is losing ground and fighters on the battlefield, it is critical to remember that preventing the next generation of terrorists is every bit as important as defeating the current threat.
When appropriate and in accordance with U.S. law, the United States identifies certain individuals as crucial to the operation of terrorist organizations. Most often these are top leaders, or they help finance terrorist organizations.

When such an individual is identified, the U.S. Government places that person's name on the Specially Designated Nationals List. His assets within U.S. reach are immediately frozen, and he is locked out of the global financial network. No U.S. citizen or company may conduct business with a designated individual.

Such is the case of Victor Quispe Palomino, Jorge Quispe Palomino, and Tarcela Loya Vilchez, three top leaders of Peruvian-based Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist group, Shining Path.

Shining Path, which has been engaged in terrorism since 1980, is a violent off-shoot of the Communist Party of Peru. Its stated intent is to violently overthrow the countrys long-standing democracy and replace it with a Maoist-style dictatorship. It employs intimidation, assassination, and particularly brutal and murderous attacks on civilians to achieve its aims. These terrorists have massacred entire villages. This includes, among others, Lucanamarca, where 69 people were massacred in 1983, and the subsequent Hauyllo massacre that killed 47.

Shining Path finances itself through the cocaine trade. It taxes the cultivation, processing, and transit of cocaine. It also provides transport and armed security to narcotics trafficking organizations moving large cocaine loads through and out of south central Peru.

Brothers Victor and Jorge Quispe Palomino currently lead the Shining Path group. Victor Quispe Palomino has admitted to participating in the Lucanamarca massacre, while his brother Jorge has also participated in and directed Shining Path attacks that resulted in numerous deaths.

Tarcela Loya Vilchez is in charge of the military training and ideological indoctrination of children. She is known to have trained new Shining Path members  often child soldiers -- to serve as reinforcements in the groups terrorist operations.

For these and other reasons, all three have been designated by the U.S. Department of State as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224.

Since 1980, Peruvians have strongly rejected the Shining Path, and what is left of the organization has evolved into little more than a violent criminal narco-terrorist gang. By now designating its remaining leadership, the United States hopes to disrupt the groups ability to continue its nefarious activities.
Farm technology guru Tim Gibson had to rely on his command of dairy gadgets when he increased his 200-cow herd to over 300 head in just three weeks.

Hunters Hill Farm, Bedale, underwent a raft of changes upon welcoming the Brymor herds 85 Guernsey cows and youngstock in March 2015.

This saw the flying herd of mostly Holstein-Friesian cows remodelled in under a month, meaning buildings were reconfigured and a Lely robot acquired at short notice to allow a smooth transition on the robotically milked operation.

See also: A look at an 825k sheep shed

Building configuration

In order to carry on the great Brymor ice cream brand and product provenance, Mr Gibson negotiated a share farming agreement in a week.

The agreement means the Brymor cows are now milked on a bed and breakfast agreement and the same high constituent milk is transported back to the Brymor parlour as before. This means one of North Yorkshires finest dairy products remains intact.

There were a lot changes to make in 27 days, admits Mr Gibson, who houses cows inside and grazes dry cows on pasture through the summer.

We needed to review the slurry channel and storage to suit the new group of cows and we had to turn the dry cow shed into a cubicle shed as well as put a feed system in.

What has been your latest purchase?

Most recently we have started trialling barn location and rumination ear tags on the Guernsey herd, with excellent results so far.

SmartBow tags cost 129 apiece, but theyll have paid for themselves in a year just by saving time looking for cows.

Theres a GPS tracker for every cow, letting us know where the cow is inside and outside powered by a simple watch battery that lasts three to four years.

Cow location then pops up on the herdsmans iPhone. The system communicates from the cows ear to 10 Wallpoints  square boxes with two antennae on the top, which weigh 620g, and typically work with an indoor range of 30m.

Weve done trials on other systems like heat time, and various cow activity monitors to compare SmartBow. Now we are happy its working, we are tagging all the cows and we have all the tags in a box ready to go.

Whats been your best bargain?

Theres been a few over the years, but the biggest money saver has probably been stainless steel conveyors I bought from eBay for 4,000.

They were second-hand from a packer supplying supermarkets and were a bargain because I had the job priced at 45,000.

They have allowed me to adapt the feeding system to accommodate the extra cows.

Another great buy that was key to the dairy expansion was a second-hand robot I bought for 45,000 and it came with a bulk tank. I couldnt have bought a new robot [for that] and fitted it within a fortnight.

Whats been the biggest management change at Hunters Hill recently?

Without doubt that would have been the decision to incorporate the Brymor herd. We currently have the unit and overheads to run 300 cows, but we are down to around 250.

Farm facts Flying herd of 200 Holstein-Friesian cows, including dry cows

Contract farming 85 Guernseys for Brymor ice cream

Arable operation historically providing wheat, barley and maize as feed

Beans added this year for Greening measures

Supplying milk to Paynes Dairies

Two herds grouped separately

Robotic milking: three Lely A2s and one Lely A3

Two full-time staff and an assistance student

I took the decision to stop buying cows for the flying herd with the way milk prices went. Ive bought a few recently but we will see where things head.

The Guernseys arrived in March 2015 and we started milking on 1 April, meaning we were after milk quota termination.

Whats next on your wish list?

A three cubic metre distribution bucket to feed specialist rations incorporating more straw for smaller groups of cows.

This will be fed on a Kramer 680T telehandler and is from Dutch manufacturer Sieplo.

It is not practical to feed a separate mix in the 24cu m static mixer for 20 or so dry cows or small groups like the maternity group or close-up cows  its like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

We feed a quarter rate of TMR and then add straw through the auger. This has the benefits of being simple for us and simple for the cows as they can get their rumens tuned into the TMR.

What kit couldnt you live with?

A computer system called Uniform-Agri that links the Lely robots and the Trioliet automated feeding system. It controls everything from BCMS to the medicine book, passport applications and movements.

If a cow calves it applies for the calfs passport and adds that cow into the milking group and puts it on a fresh cow diet.

It tells the Lely robot all of this and cows are milked with four days of colostrum discarded automatically.

What would you do differently?

We would have budgeted on the cows not doing as well in the first year. We underestimated the effect of moving them in terms of how much milk they dropped and should have looked closer at the herd, in particular the number of days in lactation and the number in calf, as there were not that many calving in the first six months.

Whats your best invention?

Probably the automated feeder system I have adapted for our 1960s/70s farm buildings. This uses conveyor belts and floorscrapers to transfer TMR from the Trioliet static feeder on to a sushi bar-style feed bunk.

Id looked around for something similar in the Netherlands but nothing was available in the UK. The belts go every two to three hours and feed the milk herd in the cubicle shed through the day.

We just added a new Trioliet mixer six months ago, which runs off 100 litres of diesel/week on a three-phase generator.

We couldnt get in the shed with a mixer wagon and as we expanded cow numbers room got even tighter. This forced me into using a series of feed conveyor belts to take TMR around the building.
The latest chart of overdose deaths in Massachusetts shows a climbing blue line labeled fentanyl. Pick a spot on that line in mid-August and picture a big, affable 40-year-old man named Joe Salemi. He died at his moms home in working-class Everett, Mass., after almost 25 years of heroin use.

Salemi had overdosed before. His brother Anthony Salemi said he was pretty sure, at the time, that something besides heroin killed Joe. The medical examiner later confirmed it.

I knew, deep in my mind, it was going to be the stuff that everyones talking about now  fentanyl, Anthony said. Because I never thought straight heroin would kill him.

Anthony Salemi was familiar with fentanyl. Hed been prescribed the powerful painkiller after surgery in 2006. Anthony had warned his younger brother about reports that dealers were adding an illicit version of the drug to heroin, sometimes promising a more intense high. Fentanyl is more than 50 times more potent than heroin, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But people like Joe rarely know for sure if there is fentanyl in the tiny plastic bags of illegal powder they buy  or how much. Just a few grains of pure fentanyl, doctors say, is enough to kill most users. In Massachusetts, 75 percent of the people who overdosed this year tested positive for the drug.

It just seems like the dealers and the drugs are ravaging the whole country, said Anthony Salemi. The supply just keeps coming in, no matter how many cops you put at the border, it just keeps coming in. This is scary.

The Obama administration agreed that the increasing supply of fentanyl on the street is a major challenge and said agencies are doing a lot. But reducing the supply is complicated.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, constructed with lab chemicals  unlike heroin or morphine, which start with the opium sap of a poppy plant. Drug enforcement agents said clandestine labs across China are the main source of the illegally sold fentanyl.

Producers then ship the drug to Mexico, where drug cartels mix it into heroin or press it into blue, pink or white tablets that look like prescription pills for anxiety or pain. The powder or pills are delivered to dealers, or directly to users, via the internet or darknet, an online area used for illegal purchases.

Synthetic drugs are a real winner because they are easy to make, and theyre cheap to produce, said Kara McDonald, director of policy, planning and coordination at the international narcotics and law enforcement bureau of the U.S. Department of State.

Theyre not dependent on a season or the weather like a plant-based drug, McDonald said. And with the distribution system  through mail order  they can be delivered directly to the door in some cases. Like a pizza.

The profit margin is huge, said Drug Enforcement Administration spokesperson Russ Baer. He said it costs from $3,000 to $4,000 to produce a kilo  2.2 pounds  of fentanyl. The fentanyl is then cut with cheap fillers to make pills, or mixed into bags and fraudulently sold as pure heroin.

Drug traffickers involved in the wholesale distribution of those products can yield close to $1.5 million off that one kilogram, said Baer.

The DEA has six agents who operate out of Beijing and work closely with Chinas Ministry of Public Security, Baer said. Chinese officials established controls on 116 new chemicals last year, including 19 that have much the same molecular structure as fentanyl. Baer said that helped reduce the supply of some of these designer analogs of the drug. (Though each analog drug has a slightly different chemical structure from fentanyl, they work much the same way in the body.)

And in September, the DEA moved to declare another fentanyl analog called U-47700 illegal. But the producers always seem to be one step ahead of enforcement agencies, Baer said.

Once we control a substance, whether here in the U.S. or in China, for example, he said, the drug manufacturers simply change a molecule, tweak a molecule, in an attempt to circumvent the law.

Keeping up with the inventive chemists sounds nearly impossible.

Were identifying one to two new synthetic substances every week, Baer said.

The international control system is only able to detect, process and outlaw about 10 new psychoactive substances a year, McDonald said. It doesnt take a mathematician to identify that we have a real challenge here.

If a drug compound is similar to fentanyl, or if it produces the same physiological effect, the DEA can file trafficking charges here in the U.S. But these variations are not illegal in many countries. McDonald said the State Department is working, through the United Nations and with individual nations, to make sure police everywhere can identify new drugs and prosecute dealers.

To get in front of production, the State Department and a group of U.S. senators asked the United Nations in October to add to the list of tightly controlled substances two key ingredients used to make fentanyl. A decision is expected next year.

McDonald and Baer at the DEA said slowing demand for illicit uses of fentanyl and other opioids has become an urgent priority. The office of the U.S. Surgeon General last week also issued a report on the growing problem of substance abuse and the need for more widespread implementation of well-recognized, evidence-based treatment programs to address the problem.

In an interview with NPRs Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called addiction a chronic disease of the brain.

We need to treat it with the same urgency and compassion that we do any other illness, Murthy told Inskeep.

But some lawmakers, physicians and families whove lost loved ones say the Obama administration has done too little too late to tackle the epidemic.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said its time to make the illegal production and trafficking of fentanyl the top policy issue in relations with China and Mexico.

Many more people are going to die from this than [from] any threat from nuclear weapons or any devastation thats caused by an imbalance in trade, Markey said.

Baer said trying to stop the supply of opioids is part of the solution, but so is tackling demand by addressing addiction as a disease.

The community needs to embrace these folks, create treatment opportunity, Baer said. We need to educate the public. Its the No. 1 priority and it represents a public health crisis that all of us must work together to try to resolve.

The CDC offers a sobering perspective. While about 78 Americans will die today after an overdose, another 580 will try heroin  or what they think is heroin  for the first time.
Farming-related businesses are among 200 signatories to a letter urging Theresa May to press ahead with Brexit as soon as possible.

The letter to Downing Street calls on the prime minister to stick to her stated timeframe and trigger Article 50 no later than 31 March 2017  if not sooner.

It has been signed by 200 leaders of small, medium and large businesses.

See also: Brexit deal vital for food and farming, prime minister warned

Prominent signatories include Melrose Plc boss David Roper, London-based impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh, JD Wetherspoon founder Tim Martin and entrepreneur Luke Johnson.

Farming signatories include Jeremy Bagge, owner of the Stradsett Estate in Norfolk; James McCulloch, of nutrient firm Agrimin; and Jeff Colegrave, of flower seed breeder Floranova.

The letter says: It is now vital that Article 50 is triggered within the governments timeframe  no later than 31 March 2017, but preferably sooner.

This would mean that the country can get on with leaving the EU  and businesses and investors can plan accordingly, says the letter.

Create certainty and confidence, trade and jobs will follow, it adds.

The letter has been welcomed by Leave Means Leave co-chairman John Longworth. British businesses want to get on with leaving the EU and making a success of Brexit, he said.

Change Britain patron Dr Peter Cruddas said: Business needs certainty. Those trying to delay Article 50 are increasing uncertainty and putting British firms, jobs and investment at risk.

It comes less than a week after the NFU organised a letter signed by 75 food and farming businesses and organisations calling on the UK to remain within the EU single market.

Supermarkets, agri-food companies and farmer-owned businesses with a combined annual turnover of 92bn joined forces to sign the NFU co-ordinated letter.

Tariff-free access to the EU single market and access to overseas labour were vital for UK food and farming to flourish post-Brexit, it said.
Free-range poultry keepers have been ordered to move their birds indoors, or at least keep them separated from wild birds, as a precaution against avian influenza.

The move follows the rapid spread of the highly contagious disease across Europe, with the most recent cases being found on a 5,000-bird duck farm in France, and a 15,000-bird duck farm in the Netherlands.

Wild birds struck down with the disease have also been reported in 14 European countries since early November.

See also: Bird flu now only 30 miles from Britain

In response, government chief vet Nigel Gibbens has declared that the whole of England should be treated as a Prevention Zone for the next 30 days, introducing enhanced biosecurity for poultry and captive birds.

While no cases of H5N8 avian flu have been found in the UK, we are closely monitoring the situation across Europe and have scaled up surveillance in response to the heightened risk, he said.

Mr Gibbens added that, even when birds are housed, a risk of infection remains, so he advised enhanced biosecurity, including:

cleansing and disinfecting clothing, footwear, equipment and vehicles before and after contact with poultry

reducing the movement of people, vehicles or equipment to and from areas where poultry are kept to minimise contamination from manure, slurry and other products

thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting housing at the end of a production cycle

keeping fresh disinfectant at the right concentration at all points where people should use it, such as farm entrances and before entering poultry housing

minimising direct and indirect contact between poultry and wild birds, including making sure all feed and water is not accessible to wild birds

industry reaction

Mark Williams, chair of the Poultry Health and Welfare Group, which represents the poultry industry, welcomed the decision.

The poultry industry has been liaising closely with Defra and contingency plans are in place and under constant review, he said.

Most birds can be taken inside their houses within a matter of hours. Where birds like geese and game cant be housed, measures will be put in place to ensure separation from wild birds.

Now that the government order has been issued, free-range producers will not lose their status as a result of housing their birds.
Story Highlights Gallup Economic Confidence Index averaged +8 for week ending Dec. 4

Democrats, Republicans now equally confident in economy

Democrats more positive about current economy, Republicans about future

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Americans' confidence in the economy continues its post-election improvement, with Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index averaging +8 for the week ending Dec. 4. That is the highest weekly average in Gallup's tracking trend, which dates back to January 2008.

Last week's confidence average included a score of +12 for Dec. 2-4 interviewing, the highest three-day average in Gallup's tracking trend.

Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index is based on Americans' evaluations of current conditions and their perceptions of whether the economy is getting better or worse. It has a theoretical range of -100 (if all Americans rated the economy as "poor" and said it was getting worse) to +100 (if all Americans rated the economy as "excellent" or "good" and said it was getting better).

Since 2008, the index has mostly been in negative territory. The major exception came during an eight-week period from late December 2014 through mid-February 2015 when U.S. consumers reacted to a sustained drop in gasoline prices and the weekly average for Gallup's index reached as high as +5.

Confidence has now been above the neutral mark for three consecutive weeks. In November, confidence averaged +1, up from -11 in October. This was the third time in Gallup's trend that the monthly average has been positive, along with January 2015 (+3) and February 2015 (+1).

Republicans See Economy in More Positive Light After Election

The recent increase in economic confidence appears mostly to be a reaction to the presidential election -- chiefly among Republicans, who are much more likely to view the economy positively after Donald Trump's victory. Republicans have shifted dramatically from a decidedly negative evaluation of the economy before the election to a positive one after it.

For the week before the election, the index among Republicans was -42. Now, it is +10. Democrats, who were quite positive about the economy before the election (+30), remain so, but to a far lesser degree (+11). The net result of these changes is that Republicans and Democrats are now about equally confident in the economy.

Independents are slightly less optimistic, with a +4 index score, but that is also a significantly improvement from their -20 score the week before the election.

Before the election, Democrats were much more optimistic than Republicans were about both current economic conditions and the outlook for the economy. Democrats still rate current economic conditions better than Republicans do, while Republicans are more positive than Democrats are about the economy's direction. These shifting perceptions likely result from the political reality: A Democratic president is in office and currently presiding over the nation, but a Republican president is set to take over early next year.

In the most recent weekly average, 58% of Republicans said the economy was "getting better," and 37% said it was "getting worse," for an economic outlook score of +21. That is sharply higher than the -66 average among Republicans (15% "getting better" and 81% "getting worse") just before the election.

Meanwhile, 49% of Democrats said the economy was "getting better," and 46% said "getting worse," for an economic outlook score of +3. That is down from +30 among Democrats before the election.

For the week ending Dec. 4, 37% of Democrats rated current economic conditions as "excellent" or "good," while 18% said they were "poor." That yielded a +19 current conditions score among Democrats, down 11 points from before the election. Republicans' score on that component was -2 for last week, up 17 points from the week before Trump was elected. Last week, 25% of Republicans rated current conditions as "excellent" or "good," and 27% said they were "poor."

Implications

Americans' evaluations of the economy have changed considerably since Election Day. Republicans are much more likely to say the economy is "getting better" and even see current economic conditions in a more positive light. Democrats' confidence has declined, but they still rate the economy more positively than negatively -- a situation that may persist as long as President Barack Obama is in office.

Republicans' increase in economic confidence since the election has been greater than Democrats' decrease. Independents have also gained confidence and now are more positive than negative about the economy. These factors have led to a net increase in Gallup's Economic Confidence Index among all Americans, from -11 the week before the election to last week's +8.

Confidence may stay higher as long as both Democrats and Republicans have reasons to be positive about the economy, given the current and future political situations. Outside the political sphere, the economy has also seen record-high stock prices in recent weeks, reports of greater economic growth in the third quarter than in past years and a positive unemployment report released late last week.

Given the strong influence of partisanship on how Americans view the state of the nation, including the economy, Democrats' confidence may sharply decline once Trump is in office. The degree to which Republicans' views improve beyond what their current levels may determine whether confidence nationally remains high or retreats.

These data are available in Gallup Analytics.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Nov. 28-Dec. 4, 2016, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 3,029 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For results based on the total samples of 929 Democrats, 974 Republicans and 1,030 independents, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

Learn more about how the Gallup U.S. Daily works.
ELKO  A Starr Valley man, originally charged with lewdness and sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl, pleaded guilty to statutory sexual seduction Monday in Elko District Court.

Javier Santiago, 22, entered the plea before District Judge Al Kacin after a plea bargain with the Elko County District Attorneys office, in which other charges were dropped.

Santiago had intercourse and oral sex with a girl younger than 16 years old in October or November 2015 in Elko. According to police reports, he had been dating the girl.

The plea agreement also indicates that in order for Mr. Santiago to be eligible for probation, hell have to undergo a psycho sexual evaluation to be deemed a low risk to re-offend, said Santiagos defense attorney Sherburne Macfarlan.

Santiagos preliminary hearing was Nov. 15. Elko Justice of the Peace Mason Simons released Santiago on his own recognizance because of health problems, Macfarlan told Kacin. One of the conditions for his release was to call Macfarlans office by 5 p.m. each Thursday. Macfarlan asked if Kacin wanted the same condition to continue.

Assistant District Attorney Mark Mills did not have any objection to Santiago being released from that condition.

Santiago was originally charged with sexual assault upon a person under the age of 16, lewdness with a child under 16 years of age, and statutory sexual seduction.

Statutory sexual seduction is a category B felony. The maximum sentence Santiago faces is 10 years in prison with parole eligibility after four years. The minimum sentence is 30 months in prison with parole eligibility after a year.

Santiagos sentencing was set for 10:30 a.m. March 6 in District Court.
The Philippines Department of Justice has issued a Be on the Lookout bulletin for Macau casino tycoon Yin Lok Lam, better known as Jack Lam. The Government has revoked his investors visa.

Lam has been ordered arrested by President Rodrigo Duterte for his involvement in alleged to be involved in corruption of public officers and economic sabotage.

Lam, who runs one of Asias biggest gambling junket companies, the Jimei Group, is accused of attempting to bribe Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation Chairperson Andrea Domingo.

More 1300 Chinese individuals were detained by Philippines authorities last week for their suspected role in illegal online gambling . All were working illegally at Fontana Leisure Parks and Casino in Pampanga.

Lams Filipino lawyer Raymond Fortun said that his client has no reason to bribe anyone because he has the necessary permits and license to operate the Fontana Leisure Park and Casino. The gambling magnate is also believed to be in fear of Duterte.

In 2009 Global Gaming Business Magazine named Lam among Gamblings Top 10 Most Influential People.

They referred to him as the Godfather of Gambling.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
Pippa Middleton Wedding: James Matthews Fiancee Fears Kate Middleton Would Steal Attention From Her On Her Big Day? Multi-Millionaire Fiance Rescued Middletons?

Pippa Middleton naturally wants to be the star of her own wedding with James Matthew. But with Kate Middleton attending the ceremony, that would be tough luck.

Kate Middleton Not Attending Pippa Middleton's Wedding?

Everyone seems to be obsessed with Kate Middleton - fans, media and celebrities alike. The fans are already speculating what the Duchess of Cambridge would be wearing on her sister's big day. It seems whether Pippa Middleton's sister wears an old frock, the press would still make a buzz about it. If the princess will wear a signature gown, everyone in town would surely be looking for something quite similar.

So, what the big sister ought to do? Rumours had it that to avoid this kind of scenario, Kate Middleton has decided not to attend Pippa Middleton's wedding. Staying out of the limelight during that time might do well to the younger Middleton.

However, some reports also say that while Kate Middleton has good intentions of not attending Pippa Middleton's wedding, it is really the Queen who forbade the Duchess of Cambridge not to attend. Rumours are rife that the Royal Palace do not want the royal couple to associate with the commoners especially with Pippa Middleton's future brother-in-law, Spencer Matthews who is a reality television star. James Matthew's brother has a bad boy image and has been linked with strings of women.

James Matthew Rescued Pippa Middleton's Family Before The Wedding?

Daily Mail reported that before James Matthew proposed to Pippa Middleton, the multi-millionaire bail out James Middleton with here declining marshmallow business. Boomf, the company that Kate Middleton's brother set up with Andy Well has lost almost $1,260,000 (1,000,000). James was reported to have helped Pippa Middleton's brother before the wedding proposal.

Do you think Kate Middleton will attend Pippa Middleton's wedding? Stay tuned to GamenGuide for the latest news and update.
Tokyo Ghoul Season 3 Air Date, News & Update: Premiere Episode Set For March 2017; Demi-God Villain Fated To Rule?

Recent news and updates pertaining to "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 is filled with rumors and speculations. One of the central ones is the rumor that Ken's legacy will premiere this coming March 2017.

There are also speculations that a demi-god is fated to appear in the upcoming episodes of "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3. There are inclinations that this rumored demi-god will bring demise for Ken in the latter episodes since that new character is presumed to take power and control.

Despite the rising rumors for "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3, there has been no word from the showrunners regarding the claims of the anime series returning next year 2017. Neither the creators and producers of the epic anime segment did not provide any details concerning the segment.

It stands to reason that this is not the first time that "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 was tagged in a rumor and speculation.GamenGuide already shared some rumors regarding the anime segment.

Tokyo Ghoul fan art is amazing pic.twitter.com/NoaXEUra2J  kaneki (@GhouIishHuman) November 29, 2016

According to the report, there are also claims abounding that "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 would reveal the hurdles that Ken would have to endure in the latter episodes of the anime segment and given the prolonged hiatus, many are still hopeful that the return of "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 would be set on a much faster pace.

Despite the rumors, there has been no word from the creators of "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3 and even the manga arc did not reveal any details about the authenticity of the rumors as well, as further noted by the same post.

oh my god! #VHOPE TOKYO GHOUL VERSION  caramoccii pic.twitter.com/zuqXL9OQpV  VHOPE lovers (@vhopeshippers) November 28, 2016

For the fans and followers of "Tokyo Ghoul" Season 3, all of the rumors regarding the segment should be taken with a grain of salt in mind.
'Luke Cage' Season 2 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Confirmed New Season Kicks Off With Crossover; Love Triangle Arises; [PLOT, SPOILERS]

The first season of Netflix's Luke Cage turned out to be a marvelous hit. Now that Season 2 has been confirmed, fans should expect that the series' return will kick off with a crossover with other Marvel shows like "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones" and "Iron Fist."

The first season of "Luke Cage" focused on the origins of Power Man. Though it is just the tip of the iceberg, fans of the Netflix's hit series will have a lot more to look forward to in the next installment. Season 1 ended with "Luke Cage" (Mike Colter) being sent back to Seagate Prison. Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) promised Luke that she knows an awesome lawyer. Many are speculating that the said lawyer is either Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) or Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson).

According to reports, this could mean that the second installment of "Luke Cage" will start with a crossover with other Marvel shows like "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones" and "Iron Fist." This is to pave way for a new upcoming show titled "The Defenders". The upcoming series started filming already, according to reports.

Season 2 of "Luke Cage" will also feature the comeback of Misty Knight (Simone Messick) as rumored. During the Los Angeles Comic-Con last Oct. 28, it was unveiled that "Luke Cage" will be working with Iron First to become Heroes for Hire. In the next season of "Luke Cage", fans and viewers alike might be seeing a love triangle between Luke, Jessica (Krysten Ritter) and Claire. To get away from all the adrenaline pumping action, this side of the story is something to look forward to.

On a separate note, this season of "Luke Cage" this is where Misty Knight's bionic arm will be introduced. The bionic arm is said to be given by Tony Stark. At the moment, "Luke Cage" season 2 has still no confirmed release date, though rumors are suggesting that it will be sometime in 2018. For more scoop on "Luke Cage" season 2, stay tuned to Gamenguide.
Melania Trump Latest News & Update: Rosie O'Donnell Issues an Apology After Being Threatened By A Lawsuit

Rosie O'Donnell was slammed after sparking the Barron Trump autism rumor which made it big on the internet. The issue on Barron Trump's speculated condition moved forward, his mother, the first lady, Melania Trump decided to end the lies as she decided to file a lawsuit to end.

Barron Trump's rumored autism made rounds online the moment it was released on twitter by James Hunter. It issue eventually escalated after TV personality, Rosie O'Donnell, ignited the issue after she retweeted Hunter's post.

Having thousands of followers, Barron Trump's autism rumor spread like wildfire, but Rosie O'Donnell was slammed for what she did. Though she mentioned that Barron's autism rumor is a great way to give attention to the people diagnosed with autism, it was mentioned that her fans were highly disgusted with what she did according to Fox News.

Melania Trump decided to step in and stop the bullying by threatening a lawsuit. Gossip Cop reports that the first lady ordered the video to be taken down and the person who posted it should have a public apology. After Trump's lawyer issued the statement, it was then taken down by Hunter.

"A video was posted on YouTube recently speculating that Barron might be autistic. He is not. The video includes the hashtag 'StopTheBullying' but yet the video itself is bullying by making false statements and speculation about a 10-year old boy for the purpose of harassing him and his parents," The letter that Trump's lawyer gave Gossip Cop wrote. "The online bullying of children, including Barron Trump, should end now."

Gossip Cop then made a follow up report after Melania's lawyer released an official statement in regards to the issue. As for Rosie O'Donnell, the TV personality posted her apology on twitter stating that it was not her intention to cause the family pain.

"My Apology To Melania and Barron Trump." Hunter stated, "My video was originally intended as an anti-bullying video, as I myself suffer from autism and wanted to educate people. Un fortunately, I completely misdiagnosed a person and ended up making a video that was false, defamatory and malicious... and want to sincerely apologize to the Trump family, especially to Melania and Barron Trump."
Motorola X Release Date, News & Update: 2017s Motorola Moto X Model Leaked Images

With the release of Motorola Moto Z this year, everyone thought that the Moto X series will no longer be pursued even with Lenovo's announcement that the latter is alive and well. Now, a series of smartphone images leaked claiming it to be the 2017's Moto X, though others still doubt that it is part of the Moto Z series.

In the leaked photos posted by Slashleaks, the 360 like dial-camera is noticeable at the back of the smartphone which made its debut on the Moto Z, Z Play and Z Force. It shows a metal body finish and intriguingly, the Moto X does not have any pins at the bottom-back which can allow the support for Moto Mods. It also has a home button which is likely to be used for the fingerprint sensor. Judging it by the posted images, the Moto X might be a 5.5-5.7-inch smartphone.

Earlier this month, a leaked Moto X smartphone was also posted by Techdroider which is closely similar to the recently revealed photos except for the color. Both images have the round camera panel and do not have any pins at the back for Mod support.

The Moto X is expected to be available in two colors such as Silver and Gold as seen in the leaked photos of Slashleaks and Techdroider. Both does not indicate any other details except for the pictures but everyone anticipates more leaked information on the coming days before it goes official.

Lenovo's Moto brand just recently announced two new mods - the 3000mAh Mophie Battery Pack and the Incipio Car Dock that allows charging which comes with a 3.5mm audio output. Two of the biggest industry events CES 2017 and MWC 2017 will come in the next few months to where the Moto brand is expected to reveal its phone in one of these tradeshows.
Microsoft Surface Pro 5 Release Date, News & Update: Better than Apples iPad Pro 2, Good Alternative To MacBook Pro?

The highly anticipated Surface Pro 5 is considered as a top-of-the-line product of Microsoft in 2017 with its superb specs and power under its hood.

According to a BRG report, Microsoft Surface Pro 5 can easily outclass its closest competitor, the Apple iPad Pro 2.

Although Microsoft remains silent on the improvement of Surface Pro 5, this Windows 10 device could also be a better MacBook Pro alternative. Apple, for its part, only considered the Surface Pro series within its iPad category.

After being left out during the launching of Microsoft products in October 2016, Surface Pro 5 fueled more excitement with fans believing that the newest Pro model will come with more storage, more RAM, and more powered processors.

Set to arrive in spring of 2017, Microsoft Surface Pro 5 will be powered by the latest Kaby Lake chips, and armed with 16GB of RAM and 512GB massive storage space, according to a CNET report.

This is way beyond iPad Pro's 256GB storage space and 4GB RAM. Reported to be running on Windows 10 Redstone 3, Microsoft Surface Pro 5 operating system is way better that iPad Pro's iOS.

PC Advisor UK reported that among the upgrades of the upcoming Microsoft hybrid device also included support for 4K resolution that is brought about by Kaby Lake native 4K video support.

But the ultra-high resolution display could be a burden to the superb operating system and Microsoft sets eye on fingerprint scanning through the PixelSense display instead.

The Surface Pen stylus of Pro 5 will receive wireless charging power through the magnetic dock. The upgrades also include USB Type-C ports, Thunderbolt 3 support, and fingerprint sensor embedded in the screen.

The projected price tag for this latest Microsoft device could start from $899 USD for its standard model to as high as $1999 USD for its premium model.

Again, Microsoft has not made any statement yet regarding the much awaited Surface Pro 5, but a video has leaked on Youtube providing preview of the highly anticipated Microsoft device:

Watch this:


Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Release Date, Specs, Features, News & Update: Best Android Phone To Hit The Market!

When the Korean tech giant decided to discontinue the Note 7, it has been rumored that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will no longer come to materialize. Apparently, a rumor came out saying that Samsung was considering the total discontinuation of their Note series due to the Note 7 incident. Luckily though, news from weeks ago confirmed that Samsung is in no way cancelling the Note series.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Release Date

As of now, the tech giant hasn't confirmed the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 release date yet. But basing on history, the next Note model could be launched mid-year. As per an Inquisitr report, the Galaxy Note 8 could be made official August of next year.

August may be too far away for those longing for a Note device but it's important to note that this device was at risk of not seeing the light of day. So despite the length of time Note fans have to wait, it is still good news that the Note 8 is indeed going to show up. Had it not been because of Samsung's upgrade program, fans wouldn't have been informed about the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 planned launch.

Apparently, Samsung is prioritizing Note 7 owners who had their phablet replaced with an S7 or an S7 Edge. When the Samsung Galaxy S8 or the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 come out, these people can get the new device with a big discount. Nevertheless, this program has just been made official in South Korea but needless to say, it's good to know that the Note 8 will still see the light of day.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Expectations

There's a bunch of reasons why the Note 8 could be the best Android to hit next year's market. First off, Samsung has already learned their valuable lesson in quality assurance. They may have learned it the hard way but the point is, they have learned it, so they are highly unlikely to make the same mistake twice. With that said, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 could be the most well-built phone ever.

As of now, not a lot of things have been said about the Samsung Galaxy Galaxy Note 8. But so far, rumors about this phone include 4K support, 6 GB RAM and a powerful Snapdragon processor, Tech Times reported. It will either be a Snapdragon 830 or a Snapdragon 835. An Exynos-powered variant could also be launched in certain markets. Needless to say, the Note 8 would be uber-powerful and extra durable. It should also bring in more high-tech features to the table.
HP Release Date, Latest News & Update: HP Is Releasing Memory-Driven 'The Machine' Supercomputer; 8000 Times Faster Than PCs?

Hewlett Packard (HP) is creating a new supercomputer called The Machine. This memory-driven supercomputer is 8000 times faster than any existing PC. It will feature the new Memristor memory chip and is expected to come out in high-end servers like Google and Facebook in 2018 or 2019.

HP Update: The Machine Supercomputer Beats All Computers

According to Tweak Town, HP has announced the creation of a supercomputer last 2014. This has become real with the new memory-driven The Machine supercomputer. Its speed is 8000 times faster than any computer. With this, The Machine supercomputer beats all existing computers.

HP Update: The Machine Supercomputer Features Revealed

The Machine supercomputer is different from any computer. According to TechWorm, The Machine supercomputer sets memory rather than processing at the center of the computing platform. It does not require traditional processors for a great performance. The Machine supercomputer uses memory to deliver brute speed rather than the traditional processors.

The Machine supercomputer utilizes photonics to use light in transmitting data. It also uses superfast memory pool to crank massive data sets and numerous processors to access the memory pool in one time. This allows faster calculations and prevents slowing down whenever data is transferred between processors.

HP Update: Memristor Memory Chip Allows Saving When Powered Down

HP is also creating a new memory chip called Memristor that will be utilized in the new The Machine supercomputer. This new memory chip can save all the data even if The Machine is turned off. It can also store huge amounts of data in smaller spaces and reduce the required space in the data center.

HP Latest News: HP Targets Google And Facebook?

HP has made a prototype of the Machine available. It offers 8TB of RAM that is 30 times higher than those in traditional servers. The Machine supercomputer can support a RAM of 8TB to hundreds of terabytes. Hence, HP aims to use The Machine supercomputer for high-end servers.

HP Release Date And Update: The Machine Comes Out in 2018 or 2019

HP The Machine supercomputer will be available soon for high-end servers like Google and Facebook. It is expected to be released in 2018 or 2019.
Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End Lost Legacy DLC Release Date, News & Gameplay: New Storyline Features Chloe as Main Character

The all new "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" DLC is coming and it features a new character like you you've never expected before. Chloe, the strong and enigmatic character on "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" is now the main protagonist in the new story "Uncharted: The Lost Legacy" DLC. The arrival of Chloe couldn't be more perfect as the Uncharted series has summed up all the protagonists except for her.

The "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" Lost Legacy DLC, which stars Chloe Frazer will be joined by another female character; Nadine Ross. Nadine is a newly developed character in the Uncharted series. Her contrasting characteristics with Frazer makes them even more interesting to see working together.

Meanwhile, the Lost Legacy DLC is a standalone story that players can play even in the absence of the base game. Naughty Dog's creative director Shaun Escayg said "Over the years, we've assembled an incredible cast of characters, but of them all, we kept coming back to one in particular: Chloe Frazer. As the smooth-talking master thief who debuted in Uncharted 2, Chloe is not only one of our favourite characters, but we know she's a favourite amongst our community."

The latest "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" Lost Legacy DLC trailer features Chloe climbing a roof in a war torn city to join her partner Nadine. Escayg also said, the Lost Legacy DLC will be Naughty Dog's biggest expansion to date. According to the PlayStation Blog, if you purchase the Digital DeLuxe Edition or the Explorer's Pack, you will be entitled to the Uncharted: The Lost Legacy DLC at launch.

Take note that the two versions will only be available until December 13, 2016. For more news and update about the "Uncharted: The Lost World" DLC, follow and read us here on GamenGuide.
Criminal Minds Season 12 Episode 8 Latest Spoilers, News & Update: Thomas Gibson Confirmed Coming Back? Damon Gupton Announced As Newest Character

It has not been easy for "Criminal Minds" Season 12 ever since one of the most-loved characters in the series, Aaron Hotchner or Hotch had to leave. But fans would be happy to know that the arrival serial killer that the BAU has battled before may mean the return of actor Thomas Gibson.

When Thomas Gibson was fired in the middle of "Criminal Minds" Season 12, all fans were shocked. He has been playing Hotch for 11 years, since the beginning of the series, but due to a physical altercation with one of the writers, Thomas Gibson was fired. But the good news is that his exit in "Criminal Minds" Season 12 meant that there is a possibility that he could return in the future.

The possibility of the return of Thomas Gibson is because a victim of Peter Lewis, aka Mr. Scratch, has surfaced. In the latest episode of "Criminal Minds" Season 12 entitled "Mirror Imaabrielge" dealt with Dr. tara Lewis (Aisha Tyler) meeting her estranged brother. But the brother, Gabriel, turned out as not only an impostor but a victim of Mr. Scratch as well.

Fans will know that Aaron Hotchner left the BAU in "Criminal Minds" Season 12 because his son, Jack, was being threatened by the serial killer. They thought that having their family under surveillance would help, but when Mr. Scratch showed up at his son's school, Hotch took drastic measures and got them under witness protection.

In the next episode of "Criminal Minds" Season 12 titled "Scarecrow", the BAU team will be dealing with a new killer, who is responsible for dozens of people dying. The killer, who wears a scarecrow mask, hence the title, will require the arrival of a new character, Stephen Walker (Damon Gupton), an experienced profiler from the FBI.

mas Do you think that Thomas Gibson could still return to "Criminal Minds" Season 12, now that the series will have Damon Gupton? Share your thoughts and comments below.
'Pokemon Go' Latest News & Update: An Alternate Solution For The Nearby Tracker Released By Niantic For Player's In The Rural Area

Niantic's release last month for the new tracking system on "Pokemon Go" for player in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe has received a lot complaint from the players in the rural areas. The fact that they are not able to fully use the tracking systems in the rural area because they lack an abundance of PokeStop, however Niantic has released a slight tweak to the problem.

"Trainers, there was an unintended bug which limited Pokemon from appearing in the recently expanded Nearby Pokemon feature." "Pokemon Go" said in their Facbook Account. "This primarily affected users in rural areas and has now been fixed. We will keep you updated on changes to this feature and as always we value your feedback," the "Pokemon Go" team continued which they posted last Friday.

Niantic has made a quick solution to the latest tracking system's problems for the inconvenience of the players in the rural area according to WWG. The tracking system of the "Pokemon Go" players who are not close to a Pokestop will now regress back to the previous Sighting trackers that will display Pokemon nearby.

The "Pokemon Go" players must be at least half a kilometer away from a PokeStop to enable the the previous tracking system to take place. It will now be a convenience for rural players who have driven miles and miles to get to another city to be able to use the latest tracking system.

The new tracking system of "Pokemon Go" features the use of a PokeStop to determine where a certain Pokemon will be located in nearby. The image of the Pokemon will appear along with the nearest Pokestop it is located where players can tap on the Pokemon's image to enlarge the image of the PokeStop on the map.

"Pokemon Go" players are encouraged to send their feedbacks and complaints to their official social media sites in order for Niantic to find solutions for the problems. GameNGuide will keep you updated for the latest "Pokemon Go" news.
Microsoft Latest News & Update: Microsoft Launches New AI Chatbox Zo On Kik; Chatbot Locked Down Tightly?

Microsoft has launched its newest AI Chatbox Zo only on the social instant messaging app Kik. Users are given early access to it. However, Microsoft has made the new AI Chatbox Zo locked down tightly to prevent unpleasant conversations. New conversation models such as jokes are featured.

Microsoft Update: Combined AI-Research Group Creates New AI Chatbox Zo

CNET reports that Microsoft has launched the new AI Chatbox Zo on the social instant messaging app Kik. It is a product of a combined AI-research group under Executive Vice President Harry Shum and a Bing Assistant bot. Microsoft is now giving early access to the new AI Chatbox Zo.

Microsoft Update: New AI Chatbox Zo Successor of Tay.ai

Microsoft new AI Chatbox Zo is the successor of Tay.ai chatbot on Twitter. However, it was revoked in March due to racist and hate-filled comments. Tay.ai chatbot absorbed these conversations and began talking to users in unpleasant ways. Hence, Microsoft is using precautionary measures.

Microsoft Update: New AI Chatbox Zo Locked Down Tightly

Microsoft has made the new AI Chatbox Zo locked down tightly. This is done to prevent any unpleasant comments and conversations similar to Tay.ai. In line with this, Microsoft new AI Chatbox Zo does not allow the discussion of several topics such as politics. Reports say that when asked about the President-elect Donald Trump, the new AI Chatbox says "People can say some awful things when talking politics so I don't discuss." It also tells people that if they cannot say something nice, it's better to not say anything at all.

Microsoft Latest News: New Conversation Models Feature Comedies

According to Fortune, Microsoft has used comedians to create funny jokes that the new AI Chatbox Zo can absorb. When asked if it has a family, the new AI Chatbox Zo replies with a joke that it has a Modern Family DVR'd. More conversation models are featured in the new AI Chatbox Zo.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Release Date, Specs, Features, News & Update: Next Flagship Phablet Set To Beat Rival iPhone 8 Plus In Specs

The year 2017 is gearing up to be the most anticipated event in smartphone-manufacturing as the two tech behemoths in the industry, Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc., are about to clash in an unprecedented level with their forthcoming offerings  Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

And as the battle of the phablets is about to collide next year, these two frontliners are coming from interestingly different motivations. As such, Apple is set to celebrate its 10th-year anniversary in producing the iconic smartphone roster and chances are, its upcoming entry is going to break some ground. On the other hand, the South Korean company is decidedly en route to prove to the world again why it has always been helming the competition with its flagship roster, whose latest Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has grappled probably the most challenging issue for the company. Quite simply, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is going to be the firm's one-way ticket to redeeming the otherwise tarnished line-up.

But Samsung might not fret no more as recent speculations have gone surfacing, indicating that Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is very well on its way not only to lure back some of its lost consumers but also, wow and rival its closest competition, iPhone 8 Plus.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8, according to ValueWalk, is slated to be equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 830, just more than enough to power up the phablet's numerous needs. It will be supported by an equally massive 6GB of random access memory (RAM) and 128GB of native storage. Further, the next device is speculated to come with Samsung's very first AI assistant along with a dedicated button. The rumored artificial intelligence, akin to Apple's Siri, is tipped to be named as "Bixby."

Samsung Galaxy Note 8's "Bixby" should be able to conduct ultra-fast searches. On the other hand, the digital assistant is likewise pegged to work with third-party applications. The highly-anticipated device is likewise going to be armed with a much-improved S-Pen stylus which was already introduced in the previous "Note" iterations. Accordingly, the stylus might be coming with an integrated speaker.

Meanwhile, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is also tipped to come with an edge-to-edge display, akin to its problematic predecessor. In addition, a talk about 4K resolution has been included among its specifications.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7: Engineering Company Reveals Reason Why The Flagship Smartphone Burned Down

New reports suggest a most likely reason for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 explosions. Claims of its battery being the culprit might just be one of the factors that added to its downfall. Sources believe the phone's internal design apparently added fuel to the fire.

Another company called Instrumental, conducted their own investigation into the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 failure. The company specializes in engineering services and tools according to GSMArena. They took the phone apart to check the other possible reasons for the unit to catch on fire. The company postulates that if the problem was indeed the battery, Samsung could have just continued with the recall and replaced the batteries. Their decision to stop sales and distribution for good could have a more serious underlying reason.

The investigation speculates that Samsung's engineers failed to leave enough space for the battery to expand. They posted a photo on their blog detailing the tight space surrounding the Samsung Galaxy Note 7's battery. The company claims that even through normal usage, the battery swells up due to the chemical reaction inside its lithium-ion battery. Electronic devices with rechargeable batteries ideally create an allowance space for the battery expansion.

Instrumental also points out, that the engineers who worked on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 could have been under pressure to outshine its previous model. The Korean company took a risk balancing a slimmer water-resistant design with a longer battery life. Instrumental speculates that the Samsung engineers might have decided to take their chances with a tight-fitting high-capacity battery, compared to a safely-fitted lower-capacity battery. It is now apparent that the latter choice could have saved the company from a sizeable loss.

Gamenguide previously reported that Samsung is yet to officially announce their investigation results by the end of the year. Consumers are still wondering what could have caused such a high-end device to burn up. A footnote on Instrumental's blog states that a battery engineer will advise designers to "leave some percentage of ceiling above the battery." They say that "10% is a rough rule-of-thumb," after some time battery expands to fill up that space.
'One Piece' Episode 767 Spoilers, News & Update: Troubled! Relationship Between The Samurai And The Winks A Bluff; Details Here

Since the airing of "One Piece" Episode 767 on Dec. 4, 2014, fans of the Straw Hat pirates are buzzing with admiration as they talked about what happened in the recently released episode. Fans of the series are just unstoppable in sharing their thoughts about what went on in the previous episode.

Since its release a few years back, "One Piece," a Japanese manga series depicting the adventures of the Straw Hat pirates led by Captain Luffy, is by far one of the most popular manga series not only in animation but in a paper as well.

It is a fact to many that "One Piece" has crossed the 700 line after years in the making. After having finished the Dressrosa, the anime series is currently fully engaging with the Zou arc.

It has been revealed in "Once Piece" Episode 767 that one of the hanging threads of the Zou arc is the relationship between the samurai and the minks. Luffy has been constantly asked by his crew not to blab about their samurai friends being nearby out sensitivity issues. But it was only a matter of time before Kin'nemon and Kanjuro arrived at the top of the elephant. The unseen Raizo, the third samurai of the group, was the target of Jack's attack and the indirect cause of Cat Viper and Dogstorm's missing limbs.

In "One Piece" Episode 767, Kin'nemon and Kanjuro kept falling off during their climb up the elephant, delaying the much-anticipated meeting of the minks and the samurai. Without a speck of fear in their eyes, the samurai duo calmly walked into the city. It was then found out that the minks and the samurai are not mad at each other and they actually good friends.

Meanwhile, Crunchyroll, a popular streaming website, will stream the series in several countries including USA, South Africa, Canada, Latin America, New Zealand, and Australia. Find out what's in store for the Straw Hat pirates in the upcoming episode of "One Piece."
Android Nokia Phone Release Date, Specs, News & Update: Nokia Makes A Comeback At MWC 2017? New Devices Rival Samsung & Apple?

The smartphone industry is now being dominated by the likes of Samsung and Apple, which are undeniably hard to beat, but the earlier top brand Nokia isn't backing down, especially with its plan to release an Android phone. According to reports, new Android Nokia phones should be ready for unveiling by February or March, just in time for the Mobile World Congress 2017.

Nokia is making a comeback to the mobile phone scene after it disappeared from the list of top mobile phone brands in the 2000's when Samsung and Apple took over. Although talks of a new Android Nokia phone have already made the rounds, it should be noted that the new Nokia Android flagship won't be from the same company that introduced then-favorite Nokia 3310.

The popular brand name, after having been acquired by Microsoft under the Lumia family, has been licensed to HMD Global, which will be the company that will take care of the manufacturing of Android Nokia phones and tablets in the next 10 years. At this point, not much is known about HMD Global's plans for Android Nokia phones, except that it will run on the popular operating system and that there could be several units coming out next year. One of the rumored devices believed to be the next Android Nokia flagship is one that is codenamed Nokia D1C.

Rumors and leaks have suggested that the new Nokia flagship will sport a Snapdragon 820 chipset and a camera carrying the Carl Zeiss name. Other reports claimed that there could be a 5-inch and a 5.5-inch variant, both shipping with the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. This should give an idea that the future Android Nokia phones could fare well in the smartphone industry.

Meanwhile, PhoneArena recently launched a survey asking consumes if they would buy an Android Nokia phone if it were to be made available. Surprisingly, the results showed that the brand still has a loyal fanbase as 40 percent responded that they would buy a Nokia flagship and 51 percent welcomed the idea of a Nokia Android smartphone. This should push HMD Global to pursue the Android Nokia brand to do well in the tight, competitive smartphone industry.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP)  In a greenhouse at Northern Arizona University, a professor is researching an oft-overlooked ecological field that could play an important role in preventing erosion and helping plants grow.

Soil ecologist Matthew Bowker is growing mosses, lichens and cyanobacteria that make up protective biological soil crusts found on the Colorado Plateau, the Arizona Daily Sun reported.

People and climate change can threaten the survival of biocrust. The degradation of biocrust weakens the fertility of soil and allows invasive plants and erosion to flourish.

It took eight weeks for Bowker and his team to grow a spoonful of biocrust into enough to spread across an 8-inch diameter circle, much faster than natural restoration that can last anywhere from years to centuries. They have transplanted crusts in New Mexico, Montana and Utah.

Bowker said results have been mixed, with some success in Utah but nothing encouraging in New Mexico so far. Its too early to tell how well the Montana samples are doing, he said.

The researchers plan to go bigger in future. Its only going to be super useful if you can do it big, Bowker said.

U.S. Geological Survey ecologists Colin Tucker and Sasha Reed are also growing biocrust at the universitys greenhouse.

These samples will be transplanted in a study examining how climate change will affect the survival of species.
Sony Latest News & Update: Japanese Tech Giant Rumored To Launch Its First OLED TV At CES 2017

Sony is rumored to unveil its own OLED TV at CES 2017 that will be held in Las Vegas in January. The rumors could be true with the recent development of Sony's plan to enter the OLED TV production.

There are shreds of evidence that suggests that Sony will launch its OLED TV at the consumer electronics tradeshow, CES 2017 in Las Vegas. Sony branded OLED TV decision to enter the OLED market that is currently dominated by LG will be a must-see if the tides will turn in favor of Sony.

Organic light-emitting diode or OLED is one of the most important advancements in TV technology. OLED TV is thinner, lighter, most energy efficient than any LED or LCD TVs available in the market, like with Sony. LG brand has first introduced its OLED TV at CES 2014 and since then it dominated the market.

According to Forbes, a UK PR representative of another brand has revealed that Sony plans to unveil its new range of OLED TVs at the upcoming CES 2017. The idea of Sony OLED TV may not be true, but a recent report from a Korean website suggests that LG display is in talks with Sony to supply the company of panels for OLED production.

However, Trusted Reviews reported that LG doesn't have any confirmation about the reported deal. It said that the company does not comment on any rumors or speculations. Sony, on the other hand, has declined to comment about the rumored plans of unveiling Sony OLED TV at CES 2017.

Sony is one of the major manufacturers of LCD 4K HDR TVs in the market. Even the standard LCD TV that Sony offers have remarkable specs in terms of LCD standards. Sony's flagship is not Sony OLED 4K TV, it is the Z9D LCD 4K HDR TV with superb specs and technology which makes Sony confident that it can compete with LG's OLED TV.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to see if the Japanese tech giant will really go into manufacturing Sony OLED TV using LG OLED panel and how the company will thrive in the market. As of the moment, the truth about this rumor will reveal itself at CES 2017 in January.
Solar-Powered Clothing News & Update: Clothes That Can Charge Your Phones In Development; Will You Wear One?

Solar-powered clothes that can charge phones technology is under development by a professor at the University of Central Florida. This technological advancement is seen to help limit the use of energy that leads to climate change.

An associate professor, Jayan Thomas, of NanoScience Technology Center at the University of Central Florida has been developing a solar powered clothes or a small solar-energy-storage filament that is flexible to weave in a clothing. The research will allow clothes to charge phones while it's slipping into the shirt's pocket.

According to The Star, Professor Thomas' research is still in its early stage. However, the output of the solar-powered clothes technology can only charge phones but also helps to limit the use of energy that resulted in climate change.

The energy that will come from the sun will be captured by a solar panel that will go to a storage band which is laced on the other side of the panel. The solar-powered clothes can be commercialized once the development of this technology is completed. The clothes that can charge phones is estimated to be distributed within two to three years after its successful launch, Orlando Sentinel reported.

In addition, the professor plans to introduce his research to various science groups to check the feasibility of the solar-powered clothes that can charge phones technology. "That's what we want to know. We want to hear whether this product is necessary," Professor Thomas explained.

The professor believes that this technology of solar-powered clothes that can charge phones will act as a personal battery charger that can last for long days whenever the owner is outside. "Portability of energy storage is a very important factor," Professor Thomas shared.

Meanwhile, the wearable technology, like the solar-powered clothes that can charge phones, is not the first. In a recent wearable project, a Starter Studio class has developed wearable technology that can collect concussion data in real-time. Also, a head wearable technology was developed to monitor user's body when doing immersed training and exercise.
WWE Rumors: Vince McMahon upset with John Cena for taking new movie role?

John Cena is still the most popular WWE superstar today but he is slowly becoming the next wrestler who will be successful in Hollywood. Cena recently got a new movie role but rumors suggest that Vince McMahon is unhappy about it.

The 39-year-old superstar has been absent for the majority of the year due to a shoulder injury and various projects outside of wrestling. He starred in a couple of comedy films while also hosting two well-known awards shows.

Cena is about to finish filming the second season of his televisions shown when it was announced that he will have a new movie. According to Variety, he will star in the comedy movie "The Pact" with Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz.

It is a film about parents trying to prevent their daughters who are going to lose their virginities on prom night. Cena is also scheduled to host the December 10 episode of Saturday Night Live which means he will get more media attention.

There are reports saying that the WWE, especially Vince McMahon, is unhappy about Cena's new movie role. However, it might not be true but the company's top officials are officially worried about their top superstar going to Hollywood.

In a recent episode of The Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that McMahon is worried that Cena will leave wrestling permanently. They are said to be preparing for the worst but it is already expected that the 15-time WWE World Champion is a part-time superstar next year.

Several plans for Cena have been prepared including a match with The Undertaker or A.J. Styles. There is also the fact that he might win his 16th world title to tie Ric Flair's record. However, the company should be afraid to give him a title run if he misses half of the year.

If Cena indeed becomes a movie star, he will not be the first successful wrestler turned actor. Dave "Batista" Bautista and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson have starred in many top-grossing films in 2015 and 2016.


Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTube Help Fight Online Terrorism

Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTube join forces with each other to help stop online terrorism. They will help identify and prevent online terrorism on their parts in the World Wide Web.

For years, people find themselves exposed in the internet. With the emergence of technology, people of all ages can access the different sites freely. But with advantages come disadvantages and one of those is the so-called online terrorism. Online terrorism means the uploading of terrorist videos and posts and the active recruitment of these rebels.

Together, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTube plan to create a shared database so they can easily identify these culprits. The database is made so that each of these sites can take note of potential terrorist contents. Social media is the most common outlet for these terrorist groups to communicate with the masses. For years, the aforementioned sites are merely relying on their users to identify and report these online terrorists.

As one can alter his or her identity online thus making multiple dummy accounts, it is difficult for Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube to constantly filter their content. This gives online terrorism an ace up their sleeves. In June, the three sites (excluding Microsoft) were blamed for providing a platform for these online terrorists.

Luckily, these sites have now banded together to help bring us a safer haven to explore the internet. With this shared database, they can have a tighter grip of security towards the users and they can easily trace the codes and stop or lessen online terrorism.

The only negative thing about this shared database between Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube is that these posts are still left in the hands of these individual sites for their own discretion. So if the platforms are not quick enough, this gives a chance for the videos and posts to circulate before being taken down. Nevertheless, their efforts to help stop online terrorism are not overlooked and are given due credit. The sites also urge the users to continuously ne vigilant and help them in battling these online terrorists.
Artificial Intelligence Is Reinventing How Web Searches Are Done; Could Deep Learning Replace The Search Bars Function?

This generation is reaping the fruits of the "age of acceleration," wherein technological advances and the globalization of enterprises are recreating society and its entire industries. Given this fact, consumers are driven to adapt to these changes and at the same, gear up for the forthcoming innovations developed for the whole of humanity, one of which is Artificial Intelligence.

The Verge reports that Microsoft researchers predict that the search bar will be irrelevant by 2027, along with other predictions, which include machine learning, natural language processing, virtual reality and agricultural software. These were a result of a poll conducted in 17 women working within Microsoft when asked what technological advances they expect to see in 2017, and a decade later in 2027. You can view other predictions on the Microsoft Blog, although a safe summarization of it all is the fact that everything relates to Artificial Intelligence.

How Does Artificial Intelligence Affect Web Searches?

Artificial Intelligence in search engines involves deep neural networks, which are networks of software and hardware likened to the web of neurons in the human brain. Neural nets can learn a significant amount of tasks by analyzing huge amounts of data, and responding to Web queries is one of them. It is possible for neural networks to outperform humans - they can do it better, they can do it faster, and they can do it in a scale that no human could ever accomplish.

This approach is called deep learning, and is reinventing everything on the Internet. What search engines do, such as Google, is generate responses to search queries. Google does this by using a deep learning system called RankBrain in order for the search engine to spawn answers. This Artificial Intelligence application will soon be phased out, at least according to Microsoft researchers.

How Will Artificial Intelligence Take Over Search Bars?

In 2027, the search box will disappear, according to Microsoft's Susan Dumais. It will be replaced by search that's more contextually sensitive. Dumais also noted of the voice-controlled searches we have now in mobile devices. In the future, she said we will eventually be able to look things up without mentioning keywords in search bars by way of sound, images, or video. The idea is feed neural nets with information that need not comply with a search engine's old algorithms; again, a nod to Artificial Intelligence.

Machine learning in the world of Artificial Intelligence could be a frightening idea to some, but it is undeniably changing the landscape. "By building learning systems, we don't have to write these rules anymore," said John Giannandrea, Google's AI boss. "Increasingly, we're discovering that if we can learn things rather than writing code, we can scale these things much better."
Baywatch News & Update: Much-Awaited Film of Dwayne Rock Johnsons Was Delayed Its Released Date; More Details Revealed

The upcoming movie of Dwayne Johnson, "Baywatch," has been moved from its original date, May 19th to May 26th of Memorial Day Weekend. The movie was Paramount Picture's adaptation of the 1990s television series "Baywatch."

"Baywatch" is an American action-comedy that follows the story of the devoted lifeguard, Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson) with a strong disagreement with a new recruit played by Zac Efron. Setting aside their conflict with each other, they uncover some local criminal plot that threatens the Bay that they're protecting.

The action-comedy movie "Baywatch" starred with the greatest stars in Hollywood including the main star, Dwayne Johnson alongside with Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Jon Bass, and much more. Furthermore, Seth Gordon (director of "Horrible Bosses" and "Identity Thief") was also the director of the American action-comedy movie while Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, Beau Flynn, and Ivan Reitman were one of the producers. It was also the another masterpiece of Paramount Pictures that featured several hit movies that wowed every fan around the world.

With the new release date, "Baywatch" is now one of the rivals of expecting blockbuster movies of the year, Disney's fifth sequel "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales" and Ryan Reynolds' space film "Life." Dwayne Johnson's "Baywatch" movie was supposed to be lined up with four films such as New Line/Warner Bros' "Annabelle 2", Fox's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul", "Alien Covenant", and lastly, Open Roads' "The Nut Job 2."

In Dwayne Johnson's new movie "Baywatch", it was a challenging one for him since his two last live-action movies "San Andreas" and "Central Intelligence" were back-back summer hits earning $155.1M and $127.4M total earnings, respectively. However, the movie fans can definitely expect that "Baywatch" will be included in their most watched movie in 2017 since it was lead with talented and award-winning actors and actresses.
Why Cara Delevingne Skipped the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2016

Fans were eagerly waiting that Cara Delevingne would surprise them with an appearance in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2016. But to their utter disappointment that did not happen. Cara was nowhere to seen in the show. At first, reports surfaced that Victoria's Secret rejected Delevingne for this year's show. But the real reason behind Cara's absence is totally different and came out when the model shut down those offensive rumors by posting a letter from Ed Razek himself.

The truth came out when Cara made an appearance in Snapchat to share a video of her sister Poppy. Cara Delevingne was with her family and friends on a plane to Maldives for a holiday. Delevingne also stated that she was enjoying sun and sand, noted Elle.

Earlier, a tabloid report claimed that Cara Delevingne is rejected by Victoria's Secret as she is bloating. Though Cara was not cast in the show this year, she took to Instagram to respond to the offensive report and posted the invitation letter from Ed Razek himself which was indicating at the baselessness of the tabloid report.

It seems Cara Delevingne rejected the invitation this time as she wanted to go to Maldives with her family. After spending a few days in the beaches the model shared a picture of a pair of Puma sneakers on sand, reported Teen Vogue. This hinted that she was enjoying the trip with her family while rest of the world is disturbed by her absence in the show.

Razek in his statement supported Cara and also said that the tabloid never bothered to fact check with him. He revealed that Cara Delevingne is the first person to be invited to the show. There was no casting and she was ardently confirmed. Whatever the reason behind her absence from the show the fans have missed her very much and they are hoping that she will make a comeback to the famous runaway show very soon.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Release Date, News & Update: Samsung Variant February 2017 Release Date Pushed Back? Battery Problem Solved

Avid Samsung fans are still waiting for the next flagship to arrive in February next year with the Korean company recently developing the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. However, there are news that Samsung may delay the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and considering an August 2017 release.

August Release For Samsung Galaxy Note 8

According to rumors, Samsung is having an August 2017 release for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and will not have a dual release with the company's own Samsung Galaxy S8 in February. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 August release date will also coincide with the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, Spain, thus making the Samsung flagship a special event for MWC audience.

With that said, the Korean company is making a risky move despite the fact that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco is still fresh from the memories of consumers. Whether an August 2017 reveal is underway or not, Samsung needs to secure the consumers that Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will not have the same incident as the former model did.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Battery Mystery Solved

In other news, the Korean company unraveled the cause why the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 former model explodes upon charging. The Korean independent research company laboratory Instrumental, has conducted a research why the Samsung flagship explodes and the results are astounding.

The reason behind the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 explosion is due to the fact that Samsung has made a risky design decision with the handheld model. In an effort to provide more for the said model, the tolerances between the battery and the phone chassis were less than the ideal design.

This lead to the battery being compressed with the phone chassis during charging, resulting the polymer that separates the plates deteriorate causing the both positive and negative touching each other and explode. With that in mind, Samsung may learn a thing or two with the detailed research and will most likely not continue to feature that in the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

With the year ending, it seems that February will be here shortly and Samsung may want to develop another ingenious plan to make the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 a success. For more Samsung Galaxy Note 8 news and update stay tuned to Gamenguide!
Kate Middleton News & Update: Who Is Responsible For The Duchess Of Cambridge, Princess Diana Fashion Parallelism?

She gifted the world with her stunning fashion choices but a careful examination of the preferred styles of Kate Middleton reveals one thing - she and late Princess Diana have fashion taste akin to each other.

Considered as one of the best dressed women in the world, the Duchess of Cambridge never met Prince William's deceased mother. But their sartorial mirroring continue to charm the fashion world.

In a report, E! News revealed of the striking similarity of the fashion choices of Kate and Princess Diana.

This fashion parallelism between Kate and Prince William's mother however can be attributed to French designer Catherine Walker.

Princess Dianna was introduced to Walker three months after her wedding to Prince Charles. At the time of her death, Princess Diana worn over 1000 outfits designed by Walker. Kate eventually adopted Walker's brand and style, according to Lifestyle One.

But what are the basic of her fashion choices that made Kate Middleton to be repeatedly heralded as among the top celebrity style icons in the world?

Here they area:

Keeping Princess Dianna's style alive. Over the years of covering for the Royal Family, E! News observed that Kate Middleton has "subtle style choices". She sees to it that Princess Diana is being reflected onto herself in many occasions. As Princess Dianna is love by the world, so is Kate Middleton.

Keeping it low but elegant. Kate surprised the world during her engagement to Prince William. She mirrored the engagement portrait of her late mother-in-law, donning herself in a royal blue gown to match the sapphire ring that belongs to Princess Diana.

The simple choices of dress of the Duchess on Cambridge and Prince Diana tell the world that dresses are simply the supporting cast in the projection of the true beauty of ourselves.

"Sophisticated, respectful and always conservative," the E! News report in describing the choices of dress of these iconic women of Birmingham Palace.

Keeping that hat, more hats. Just like Princess Diana, hat is a fashion accessories that Kate Middleton can't live without. Regardless of season, she is perfectly elegant with that hat on.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 4 Spoilers, News & Update: Detective Jake & Captain Holt To Rescue Captain CJ Stentley?

"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" season 4, episode 9 turn the spotlight on the new captain. The new episode will see Captain CJ Stentley in a tight situation as he handles a new case. Without Captain Holt and Detective Jake, will the new captain keep the state of affairs under control?

'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Season 4, Episode 9: Captain CJ In Trouble?

The newly-appointed captain will handle a tough case in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" season 4 episode 9. A synopsis released by Broadway World narrates that Captain CJ (Ken Marino) will have big issues in a major case. Taking some time off, Captain Holt (Andre Braugher) and Detective Jake (Andy Samberg) will have the chance to help out Captain CJ deal with a tough case.

To recall, Captain CJ is a dim-witted captain who got his position by accident. He was actually brought in as Holt's replacement after the latter was put under the witness protection program in Florida.

With this, asking help from Holt and Detective Jake comes as a no surprise. The case in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 4 Episode 9 may just be a piece of cake for the two considering what they've gone through in the past season.

Gina & Terry Engage In A Catfight, Rosa & Boyle Takes Some Time Off?

More so, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" season 4 spoilers from TV Guide reveal that a war will ensue inside the precinct after Terry (Terry Crews) enforces a green initiative. As such, Gina (Chelsea Peretti) will engage in an argument after Terry asks her to get rid of her precious space heater.

Just like Captain Holt and Detective Jake, Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) and Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) will take some time off when "Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 4 episode 9 airs. While others are cracking up their heads to solve the case, Rosa and Boyle took a break from their night shift and spent a relaxing time at the parlor.

Rosa has shown subtle changes in the recent episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 4. For one, Rosa isnt someone to take some time off to relax. She is learning how to express her feelings as well, a refreshing insight to the tough cop outside. Brooklyn Nine-Nine season 4 episode 9 will air on December 6.
A video posted over the weekend by a Spanish animal rights activist highlighting the desperate conditions of farm animals trapped by floods in Malaga province following unusually heavy rains there went viral, eventually attracting volunteers to help with her rescue mission.

In the video, Virginia Ruiz films the devastation around her, with water up to her knees, and can be heard saying: The sheep, the cows, the water is so high, the cats are swimming and the chickens are dead. Somebody open those sluice gates!

The heaviest rainfall in two decades lashed Malagas Costa del Sol on Saturday and Sunday

After posting the video on her Facebook account, which attracted more than a million viewings in 24 hours, volunteers made their way to the farm in San Pedro de Alcantara, a small town some 10 kilometers inland from Marbella, in Malaga province. They were able to rescue a number of animals, although some 40 had drowned or succumbed to exposure from the rain and cold.

The heaviest rainfall in two decades lashed Malagas Costa del Sol on Saturday and Sunday, flooding the streets of the city of Malaga and nearby towns, killing one woman and prompting the Spanish government to issue a public safety warning.

At one point, Spains meteorological service on Sunday issued a red alert, its highest level of warning for extreme risk.

Television footage showed rainwater cascading down streets in towns such as Estepona, reaching as high as the tops of cars. Cattle and horses were trapped in fields with flood waters reaching up to their haunches.

The local government said more than 600 emergency incidents had been reported due to weather and 300 rescue workers were working on Sunday to help people.

English version by Nick Lyne.
Nintendo Switch Latest News & Update: Consoles Accessories Leaked, Appear On Australian Webstore; Check it Out Before It Gets Removed!

The release of the new generation of Nintendo consoles is knocking on the door. The Nintendo Switch, announced by the company, is a hybrid device that features both console and laptop features. Although the Japanese call it "home gaming system", with this strong "domestic" connotation, the peripherals of Nintendo Switch Accessories that appeared on the site today do not match that much.

The Australian store EB Games brought an extra-large cable to charge the device, three meters long. Well, the portfolio of the site does not show any super incredible accessory. However, by such, a cable you can realize that the Nintendo Switch will bring a USB type C port.

Also, the Nintendo Switch Accessories sold on the site was a USB-C / USB-A cable of approximately 50 mm. Another product that was already removed from the air by the store was a case for the portable part of the Switch, which looks more like a mix of cases of PS Vita with those of Nintendo 3Ds. It includes card slots for storing games and screensavers.

According to Digital Trends, by the way, the Australian site also brought Nintendo Switch Accessories in the listing the Switch itself and a control at unbeatable prices. However, there is no picture proving the fact.

In fact, there's also a list of game developers related to the console, including Activision, Bethesda, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Konami, Sega, Take-Two Interactive, THQ Nordic, Ubisoft and many others. These objects for sale only give us an idea of what awaits us in March. We still do not know if the Nintendo Switch will actually serve as a hybrid, or whether it will be more like a console or more like a laptop.
Android Nougat Latest News & Update: Enhanced Features Now Includes GIFs, Emoji Sent Directly From Keyboard

The new Android Nougat version 7.1.1 recently rolled out, featuring new GIFS and emoji that users can directly send from their keyboard. Users will be delighted to experience some of the enhanced features that were previously only available on the Google Pixel.

More Enhanced Features with Android Nougat 7.1.1

Google stated that the Android Nougat 7.1.1 showcases more ways for users to express themselves. Beginning Dec. 5, 2016, users will find and can send GIFs and emojis straight from their keyboards via Google's Messenger, Allo and Hangouts.

Users will find more skin tones and roles for men and women in the new GIFs set. More app shortcuts were also added to the home screen. Furthermore, Android Nougat 7.1.1 allows users to move to a specific page in an app directly from their home screen. Android Nougat 7.1.1 offers added convenience by letting users launch actions on their favorite apps like Google Maps and Twitter by long pressing the app icon.

Android Nougat 7.1.1 users have to press and hold over an app icon and then select from the pop up menu. With the app icon, users can also go straight to an existing conversation in any of Google's messaging services or begin a completely new conversation.

More Security Measures with Android Nougat 7.1.1

The Android Nougat 7.1.1 update also added more security and fixes for the operating system, particularly fixes for five critical security vulnerabilities in Android smartphones. The most severe among the issues include Critical security vulnerabilities in device-specific that will enable arbitrary code execution within the kernel context, which may lead to a local permanent device compromise. The OS may need to be reflashed to repair the device, according to the Android Security Bulletin.

Google also said that it plans to launch the Nougat 7.1.1 update to all eligible devices in the next several weeks, including the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus Player, General Mobile 4G (Android One), Pixel C and products enrolled in the Google Android Beta Program. The rollout will happen over-the-air. More updates and details on Android Nougat 7.1.1 are expected soon.
Xiaomi Mi Note 2 Release Date, News & Update: No Flat Screen Model Coming?

The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is rumored to feature a flat-screen variant with a lower price tag. Talks circulated after what was believed to be a flat screen version of the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 surfaced on TENAA.

The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 Specifications

GSM Arena stated that the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is the current flagship smartphone of the Chinese brand, which garnered good reviews for its high-powered specifications and reliable performance. The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 features a dual-curved 5.7-inch OLED display with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels.

The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 includes a Snapdragon 821 chipset, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, a 22-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel front shooter, and a 4070mAh battery. The Xiaomi Mi Note 2 was made so well that it could be pitted against the Apple iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy S7 and Meizu Pro 6S, among others.

The dual-curved screen is one of its most popular features, which also significantly increases the overall price. Users were hoping that the company would unveil a flat screen Xiaomi Mi Note 2 that may be cheaper than its $622 counterpart.

Rumors Shot Down

Phone Arena said that the flat screen version of the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is said to feature the same hardware specifications, except for the display, which explains its supposed lower price. However, ZangZhiyuan, Xiaomi marketing director, wrote on the company's official blog that they were not developing a flat screen variant of the Xiaomi Mi Note 2.

On the contrary, Xiaomi Mi Note 2 fans remain optimistic that the company will launch a more affordable version of the product. It may include less-powerful but decent components and launch in 2017. For those comparing flagship phones, the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is actually competitively priced.

Xiaomi may also have more great phones ready to launch in the coming months. More updates and details on the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 are expected soon.
Apple News & Updates: Some Users Report Serious Battery Issues With New Macbook Pro With Touch Bar

Several owners of Apple's Macbook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar are complaining on Apple support forums and other similar platforms like Reddit that they're not getting the expected battery life.

While battery life always depends on how the laptop is used, some of the users point out they just got three to six hours of battery life even while fully charged and using various battery-saving methods. It's less than half of the expected 10 hours promised by Apple. While the new Macbook Pro with Touch Bar is objectively Apple's best laptop, it seems like a crucial issue with the battery life has been overlooked for select units. The issue seems to affect both 13-inch and 15-inch models, based on the complaints posted online.

While it's not a widespread issue among Macbook Pro with Touch Bar users, Apple hasn't addressed it yet in an official capacity. But it's believed that Apple is already investigating the reports on what's causing the issue. It's not yet clear whether the issue is hardware or software-related, although some users suspect it has something to do with the Radeon graphics chip.

For now, there are no fixes and users will either have to wait for Apple to release a patch or have their Macbook Pro with Touchbar replaced or refunded from the Apple store.

The issue seems contained within an unlucky few as there are plenty of users who have chimed in and reported their perfectly-working Macbook Pro with Touch Bar, but it's better for it to be addressed officially and soon. Apple needs only to look at Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 battery issues on the potential hazards of having a critical issue affect a small number of users.
When Marie Recine took a trip to the Dominican Republic last summer, she hoped that seeing living-wage apparel company Alta Gracia would inspire her.

And it did, the Oregon State University student said.

But the shocking and awful stories from workers at another nearby factory also left a deep impression on Recine.

I got to see the shadow and dark side of the apparel industry that a lot of people dont see or arent aware of, Recine said. I couldnt unsee it. I had to do something about it.

Recine, a 20-year-old apparel design major at OSU, returned from her two-week trip to the Dominican Republic in mid-August. By early September, Recine had founded Sweatshop Free OSU, part of Sweatshop Free Apparel, a coalition of several campus groups looking for increased transparency and accountability in the manufacture of OSU apparel.

Recine said shes always loved clothing design, schoolwork and social justice, but never had thought of combining the three until this past summer.

Her passion for clothing design first developed while growing up in the San Francisco Bay area. She came to OSU in 2014 to study apparel design and later became a three-year member of the OSU Womens Lacrosse Club.

But her passion for activism remained mostly unseen on OSUs campus.

Two years ago, she took a trip to the Dominican Republic to help teach children about health and started an initiative to fix a local aqueduct.

Ive always been interested in social injustices, she said. But I never knew how to get involved on campus other than doing the easy things. I feel like I was waiting for an opportunity.

And she found it as a sophomore while researching Alta Gracias clean and well-equipped factory in the Dominican Republic.

At the same time, she heard third-hand stories about sweatshop conditions in other factories in the area. But Recine said she wanted to see for herself.

Recine applied for a grant from the Student Sustainability Institute to pay for the airfare to the Dominican Republic to join the group Solidarity Ignite, an organization that fights for the rights of factory workers. As part of her trip, Recine visited Alta Gracia herself and stayed with a woman who worked at the factory.

I got to tour Alta Gracia and it was very clean and the workers were all smiling, she said. They have their own onsite free clinic for anyone who gets injured or sick. And their paid a living wage, three times more than the factory across the street.

For the second half of her trip, Recine wanted to see the dark side of the apparel industry.

She didnt have to travel far.

Alta Gracia is in the same industrial park as a cardboard factory that is not unionized and is operating pretty much like a sweatshop, she said. But we werent able to go into it because they dont want people to go in and see.

Recine dedicated herself to hearing firsthand stories from workers at the cardboard plant and others nearby.

It was just so sad, she said. One of the most heartbreaking things for me was that so many of the people I talked to are my age, and they arent going to school because they have to work these jobs.

A few workers also told her detailed stories of employers committing sexual harassment to the female employees and nothing being done about it.

These guys had seen a lot of their co-workers being sexually harassed. But they had no idea what they could do about it, she said. They knew if they said anything, theyd get fired.

Other workers told her that they were denied safety equipment, even while working with chemicals, and that the companies made them pay for every piece of equipment they used and deducted the materials from their paychecks.

And the company would tell them theyre required to buy these things, she said. Its wage theft. They would make up excuses as to why they would deduct things from their paychecks without telling them.

They would get their paycheck and realize its half as much as they were owed. And there was nothing they could do about it.

Recine said the experience changed her forever.

Seeing Alta Gracia was really inspiring to me. And seeing the other side was also a huge shock, she said. Being in America, you dont really see side of things because were more consumers than producers when it comes to apparel. Its crazy to me that in 2016 there is still this huge disparity and lack of equality. Human rights shouldnt be that difficult.

Back on campus, Recine and other OSU students, as part of the Coalition for Sweatshop Free Apparel, are calling on the university to create an affiliation with the Worker Rights Consortium and source ethically made apparel from Alta Gracia.

Sweatshop Free OSU is looking to reignite actions started by previous OSU student activist groups such as the Chicano student group MEChA and the OSU chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops.

I came back from my trip and I was going to buy my mom an Oregon State Alta Gracia T-shirt. But there were none left because they stopped ordering them at the Beaver Store after the people from those other groups graduated, Recine said. This is going to be something that students are going to have to keep going and fighting for.

After she graduates, Recine said, she knows of a few other students who might be able to carry on with the crusade at OSU. And Recine herself plans to open her own apparel company.

And, of course, I would make sure I only use fair-wage companies and not sweatshops, she said.
ITX Fashion Limited, the Irish unit used by Inditex , Spains leading fashion retailer, to bill its online sales in the United States, Japan, and Canada, posted a 41% increase in sales last year, up from 225.5 million in 2014 to 317.9 million for 2015.

Inditex posted a net profit of 2.88 billion in 2015, up 15% from 2014. EFE

Set up in 2007, ITX originally managed all of Inditexs online sales, including Spain. But after it was hit by tax avoidance claims in 2011, the company has gradually moved its European online operations to Spain, managing them through a unit called Fashion Retail.

However, the Irish unit  a subsidiary of a Dutch company called ZARA Holding II BV  remains active. It had seen its share of Inditexs business steadily decline to 2014s figure of 225.5 million, but over the course of 2015, turnover increased to 317.86 million, closer to its 2013 figures, despite not having entered new markets or set up new lines of business.

ITX, which employs just 19 people, reported profits of 54.8 million for 2015

ITX, which employs just 19 people, reported profits of 54.8 million for 2015, up from the 45.8 million of 2014, and paid tax of 7.8 million on Irelands generous 12.5% corporate tax.

By adding ITXs results to those of Fashion Retail, Inditexs Spain-based unit covering 20 European countries, a picture emerges of Inditexs online sales in its biggest markets, something the company has tried to avoid, lumping them in with those of its stores. Pablo Isla, who took over as Inditex chairman after founder Amancio Ortega retired in 2011, has repeatedly insisted that the two business lines are complementary and refused to provide details of online sales.

In the worlds 23 biggest markets, global sales of Inditex, led by its flagship Zara chain, for 2015 were 1.157 billion, a 39% increase on 2014. Bearing mind that the companys total sales for that year were 20.9 billion, online sales must now make up at least 5.5% of its global total, and that is without taking into account online sales from China, Russia, and Mexico.

Fashion Retail reported turnover of 840 million for 2015, up 38.5% on the previous year.

In March, Inditex reported sales worth 20.9 billion for 2015, representing a 15.4% rise from the previous year.

The Spanish textile giant, which as well as Zara, owns Massimo Dutti and six other brands, posted a net profit of 2.88 billion, up 15% from 2014.

All eight brands experienced sales growth last year, particularly Zara Home, which saw a sales increase of 21.5% on the back of new store openings. It was followed by the groups best-known brand, Zara, whose sales grew 17.5% last year.

The Spanish Tax Agency launched a campaign this year to prevent multinationals such asTwitter, Apple and Google from transferring their profits to tax havens. It has already opened an investigation into Apple in Spain, while a team of inspectors searched the offices of Google in June.

English version by Nick Lyne.
In late 2015, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy finally conceded he would be willing to discuss changes to Spains 1978 constitution if he won a second term in office. Among the possible changes to be looked at in a hypothetical debate on reform were specifying the official names of Spains regions, setting down in the Constitution that European Union legislation applies to Spain, and altering the rules to the succession of the throne to male precedence.

Socialist Party (PSOE) spokesman Antonio Hernando. Uly Martin

Critically, Rajoy also said his ruling Popular Party (PP) would be open to looking at unspecified territorial issues  a comment which came in the context of a mounting secessionist bid in Catalonia.

But the end of Spains traditional bipartisan system prompted by the appearance of new parties Podemos and Ciudadanos means changes to the constitution are not as easy to push through Congress as was previously the case and could even require referendum  something the PP appears keen to avoid after the failure of Italys recent poll on political reforms.

Podemos now has the numbers to force a referendum on proposed constitutional changes

Former Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who headed a Socialist Party (PSOE) administration between 2004 and 2011, made the most headway toward constitutional reform, going as far as asking the Council of State to prepare a report on the issue. But after Rajoy came to power, that document was filed away.

Under Zapatero, there were a couple of changes to the Spanish constitution including fast-track approval of an EU-imposed measure on budgetary stability and a touch-up allowing for European citizens to vote on municipal elections in Spain.

But with the emergence of the anti-austerity party Podemos and the center-right grouping Ciudadanos, the countrys two largest parties  the PP and the PSOE  can no longer push through such changes in parliament. Under article 167 of the constitution, any change approved by Congress is subject to a referendum if one tenth of sitting members of either the countrys upper or lower house request such a move within 15 days of that approval.

That means Podemos now has enough deputies to force a referendum even if the constitutional changes approved by the Congress are minor and dont require a double dissolution of Congress.

The PP wants to avoid a repeat of Italy's failed referendum on constitution change. ANDREAS SOLARO (ATLAS)

Its always good if the people vote, said Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias on Monday, noting the party would put any possible changes to the Spanish constitution up for referendum.

But after Italys failed referendum on Sunday, the PP is reticent about going down this road.

Referendums are the work of the devil because they make people do the work of politicians and constitutional reforms have to be carried out when there is consensus, said the PPs Deputy Secretary for Organization Fernando Martinez-Maillo on Spains Antena 3 television channel on Monday. In other words, constitutional reform is only possible if all parties agree and a yes in any possible referendum is assured.

Currently the proposed constitutional changes of the four main parties in the Spanish Congress do not line up, and these differences are even more pronounced when the interests of smaller nationalist and pro-independence parties are factored in.

For his part, Rajoy has always maintained that constitutional reform can only take within clearly defined boundaries, involving minimal changes. Debates over issues including the future of Spains monarchy and self-determination are off the table.

Referendums are the work of the devil because they make people do politicians' jobs PP Deputy Secretary for Organization, Fernando Martinez-Maillo

But in a deal that saw Ciudadanos help the PP back into power, the PP has said it will look at possible reforms to the electoral system and scrapping aforamiento, a system which affords a level of legal protection to some 10,000 politicians, magistrates and other public officials.

Moves towards such changes could be kick-started by a petition made by two political groups within the Congress or by 70 deputies  one fifth of all representatives. But there would be no fixed time frame and work could be carried out over the course of the current legislature.

And while the PP and the Socialists would be in the drivers seat during such a process, other smaller parties would be able to influence the terms of the debate and its duration. The two largest parties would also be unable to stop a possible referendum on any proposed changes without cross-party consensus.

Consensus is necessary. The PSOE would have to be there and I would dare to say the other parties would [have to agree], said Martinez-Maillo.

English version by George Mills.
Mallorca cancelled as destination : Air Berlin changes: Heres what passengers need to know

LONDON/BERLIN The financially struggling Air Berlin continues with its restructuring plans. One result is that the airline will no longer target holiday destinations like Mallorca.

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When the upcoming summer flight schedule gets published, Air Berlin will no longer fly to Mallorca. In response to a GA inquiry, Air Berlin spokesperson Tobias Spaeing said, Air Berlin will no longer offer flights to Mallorca beginning with the summer schedule 2017. But not only the Mediterranean island is affected: Air Berlin is no longer a holiday destination airlines.

The cash-stricken airline has been carrying out a conversion plan. "We are separating our operations between holiday and business travel," says the airline spokesman. Air Berlin wants to concentrate more on business travel in Germany, Italy, the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe. This means that routes within Germany, flights to European cities, as well as long-haul destinations will be preserved and partly expanded. Vacation destinations will be taken over by Austrian-based airline Niki.

Air Berlin sold its share of Niki as part of its restructuring program. For people who have already booked tickets, they will remain valid. If the flight is operated by Niki instead of Air Berlin, passengers will be notified.
Crime : Alert Bonners thwart theft attempts

Bonn A 28-year-old woman was able to thwart an attempted mugging on Thursday morning. And on Saturday night, a 37-year-old managed to apprehend would-be thieves until police arrived.

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On Thursday morning last week, a man attempted to mug a 28-year-old woman on Kaiser-Karl-Ring. The incident occurred at 7:50 am. Police are searching for the suspect, who came up from behind and hit the woman on the head, trying to tear her purse away. The woman held on to her bag and screamed loudly for help; the suspect ran away without the purse.

The suspect is described as follows: in his mid-30s, 1.9 meters tall, very thin build. He wore a gray wool hat, a black bomber jacket with the word Lonsdale on the back and skinny white trousers. He was described by the victim as scruffy and he spoke a Bonn dialect. Anyone having information is asked to contact police at (0228) 150.

In a separate incident, two men, ages 26 and 27 were arrested for trying to steal from a 37-year-old man at a restaurant on Bornheimer Strae on Saturday night. According to police, the men were working in a team, one of them approaching the victim and putting his arm around him, while the other tried to steal his wallet from his rear pants pocket. The 37-year-old man, however was able to apprehend the suspects and detain them until police arrived.

The two men were taken into detention on Saturday evening and released on Sunday pending further investigation. Police warn people to be cautious in crowds as there are thieves who specialize in surrounding a victim and distracting them while another steals their wallet. They advise everyone to maintain awareness and become skeptical of anyone trying to invade personal space with unwanted physical contact.
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.
On their first day back at work after Donald Trumps surprise win, lawmakers in Democrat-controlled California have begun preparations to fight the President-elects conservative populist agenda. On Monday, leaders of both houses of the legislature introduced measures to protect undocumented immigrants in the state from efforts by a Trump administration to deport them once the billionaire businessman takes office on January 20.

Legislators in the California Assembly on Monday. AP

More information California prepara un muro legal para proteger a los inmigrantes de Trump

We are here because the president-elect said immigration would be one of his first targets," Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said. "There is still a lot of uncertainty about what the administration will actually do. But again, we have all heard the insults, and we have all heard the lies. We have also all heard the threats."

Immigrants are a part of Californias history, our culture, and our society, added the Democrat from Los Angeles, responding to Trumps election pledge to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the US border with Mexico.

We are telling the next Administration and Congress: if you want to get to them, you have to go through us.

The legislature passed resolutions urging Trump to abandon his deportation promise, and introduced two bills aimed at protecting immigrants. One measure would set up a fund to pay for lawyers for immigrants facing deportation. Another would train criminal defense attorneys in immigration law.

Trump has said he intends to immediately deport two to three million immigrants

As things stand, 68% of undocumented migrants being held in prison are not represented by a lawyer, neither do a third of those not being held but still facing deportation.

Trump has said he will focus on deporting criminals, but has also said he intends to immediately deport two million to three million immigrants. About 820,000 undocumented immigrants have been convicted of crimes, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group.

The bills followed closely on Democratic Governor Jerry Browns nomination of US Representative Xavier Becerra as attorney general, a high-ranking Latino Democrat who challenged the incoming administration to come at us on such issues as climate change, immigration and worker protections.

At a news conference on Monday, Brown and Becerra avoided antagonistic language about Trump. But both men promised to protect the state's interests. I don't think California is out there to pick fights, Becerra said. But we certainly will stand up for the rights that we do have.

California, which voted decisively for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November 8 presidential election, has been readying for a battle with the White House over the coming four years. The Democratic Party has a two thirds majority in both houses, and its members hold most senior post in the state.

We are telling the next Administration: if you want to get to them, you have to go through us California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon

Democrats hold two-thirds majorities in both houses of the legislature, and every statewide office. The most populous US state, California has more than 2.7 million undocumented immigrants - about 7% of its 39 million population.

Browns nomination of Becerra last week positions the state to fight back against efforts to weaken progressive policies with a reliably progressive attorney general steeped in the ways of Washington.

Latinos make up 39% of the population of California, and has around 4 million undocumented migrants, the largest number in any state, the majority of them Mexican.

Senate President Kevin De Leon said leaders were looking to work with federal officials and find common ground.

We are not looking for a fight, he said. But as elected officials of the most diverse state, the greatest mosaic of hues on this planet, it is our moral responsibility, it is our political responsibility to protect the most vulnerable of this state.

English version by Nick Lyne.
If Spain were a school student, it would have spent the last 15 years getting pretty much the same marks. That is the finding of the latest OECD PISA global education survey . The report based on 2015 data shows that on a scale where 500 points is average, Spain achieved a score of 493 for sciences (down 3 points on the 2012 result) and 486 for mathematics (up 2 points). For reading, the score is 496 points (up 8 points).

Students at a secondary school in Madrid. Carlos Rosillo

For the first time, Spain has managed to equal the average result of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states, many of whose results have fallen.

A total of 37,000 15-year-old students at 980 Spanish educational centers took part in the study, with Spains regions all providing their own data for the first time. Results show a significant north-south divide with Castilla y Leon scoring 519 points for sciences while Andalusia scored 473 points.

At the national level, the latest PISA exam, which this time had a strong science focus, showed that Spain is in the same bracket as countries such as the US, France, Russia, Norway and Sweden. However, it is long way behind nations like Singapore, which topped the table with 556 points.

The quality of education will never be better than the quality of teachers Montserrat Gomendio, OECD

Estonia and Finland were the highest-ranked European nations, in third and fifth place respectively.

Spains Education Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo welcomed the results, calling them very satisfactory. He said Spain had bucked the educational trend and now ranked, for the first time in its history, alongside the most advanced countries in the world.

The teachers deserve the credit. The ministry counts on to help Spain improve, said the minister.

Progress has been positive but movement is still slow, said the OECD Deputy Director of Education and Skills, Montserrat Gomendio, while the organizations head of the Directorate of Education and Skills said: The quality of education will never be better than the quality of teachers.

Since the OECD began conducting its PISA studies, Spain has rolled out three different education reforms, while the country has also experienced a serious economic crisis with cuts to the education sector of 7.3 billion in six years. Current total spending is 46 billion. However, the results of Spanish students have changed little as a result.

Spain's PISA results have changed little despite huge cuts to education spending

Experts differ when it comes to the value of the results of studies like PISAs noting it is very difficult to make comparisons between different countries and even between different schools. Key variables include the educational level of parents and the number of students repeating a year.

Spains Education Ministry blamed the countrys poor results in the previous PISA study, which was carried out in 2012, on the number of students repeating. On this occasion, the number was lower but still close to one in three students and far below the OECD average of 11%.

One thing experts do agree on, however, is the importance an issue Spain has never addressed: improving the quality of teaching. All of top performing countries  Singapore, Japan, Korea and Taipei (in Taiwan) have far more complex teacher training and development systems, as does Finland.

Spains political parties agree on the need to tackle the problem: a debate on the issue was begun in 2009, with some critics saying Spain should develop a professional model for teachers along the lines of those applied to doctors. This debate has stalled but with a new legislature and a new drive in Congress towards a pact on education, this could change.

Spains Education Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo welcomed the results, calling them very satisfactory

In the wake of the latest PISA results, there have been renewed calls for the need for Spanish school students to sit externally assessed exams, something that Gomendio, who was second in charge under former education minister Jose Ignacio Wert when the ministry draw up plans for its controversial revalidas, or final examinations.

Under the proposed changes students would have had to sit two externally assessed exams. But Spanish Prime Ministry Mariano Rajoy put the plans on the backburner after widespread protests, saying he would seek agreement with other political parties before putting the program in place.

In Spain there is consensus about the need for student evaluation but critics say the new plans would leave students who fail the exams without a valid school leaving certificate.

English version by George Mills.
Article

Protecting the worlds oceans  an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy

The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
LG V20 First Impressions: Redefining the Flagship Moniker Reviews oi -Rohit LG V20 is now available in the Indian market at a price of Rs. 54,999

LG V20 is now official in the Indian market and is ready to take on the flagship smartphones from Samsung, Google, Apple, Sony and other smartphone makers.

The smartphone improves over its predecessor (LG V10) on design, battery, camera, etc. and is the first handset that offers features such as wide-angle lens on rear and front, dual-displays on front (see on LG's previous handsets), 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC, free B&O earphones in the package and also carries the title of first smartphone with Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the box.

SEE ALSO: Share your Location During Emergency with Google's New Trusted Contacts App

LG V20 is priced at Rs. 54,999 and will be available across India starting 6th Dec 2016 through retail stores and online exclusively at Amazon.in.

We got the chance to test the handset during its launch and here's our first impressions of the LG's most advanced smartphone till date.

Design- Premium and Durable

It was quite interesting to see LG asking the journalists and bloggers to drop the V20 to evaluate its durability. This is not an everyday routine during launch events, where we mostly see company's executives talk about the smartphone's specifications being projected on big displays.

The LG V20's launch event compliments the phone's very existence, which comprises of innovation a lot of first-of-its kind features.

SEE ALSO: BSNL Rs. 149 Plan to Offer Unlimited Voice Calls, 300MB Data to Combat Reliance Jio

LG says the V20 is complaint with the U.S. military standard test and the smartphone's sleek metal body is equipped with aircraft grade aluminum.

The handset has Si-PC, a shock-absorbing material, which protects the top and bottom edges of V20 if it accidentally falls from your hands.

In real life, the smartphone looks premium and at the same time offers a sense of durability, which most of metal and glass clad flagship handsets fail to offer.

I dropped the LG V20 twice from a height of 4 feet, which did no harm to the handset's rear and front. The handset can easily handle a drop or two or even more than that.

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Quad HD Primary and Secondary Display

The display on LG V20 is one of its highlight features. The smartphone has a primary 5.7-inch QHD IPS Quantum Display that has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels and delivers 513ppi.

The secondary screen, which technically is a part of primary display, but has a different driver to offer its features offers a resolution of 160 x 1040 pixels and sits on the top of primary display, like a notification panel.

You can access notes, settings, calendar, switch on light, wi-fi, data, etc. from the secondary display.

The Quad HD primary screen is super impressive. It's very bright, has amazing viewing angles and is perfect for watching and capturing videos, reading, productivity and playing games.

Sound- Master of Audio

Audio is one department where LG V20 truly excels. It is the first smartphone to feature 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC (digital to analog converter). As per LG, the DAC offers 55% less distortion, 1.8 times more dynamic range, and 1.4 times the signal to noise ratio compared to other flagship smartphones in the market.

The HD Audio Recorder uses three high Acoustic Overload Point (AOP) microphones which empower users to create studio-quality recordings.

Besides, to make sure you get the best-in-class audio experience while listening to your favourite music, LG is shipping the V20 with B&O Play headsets for absolutely free.

Dual-Camera setup with Wide-angle lens on Rear and Front

LG V20 borrows one of the most exciting features from LG G5 and takes it even further. The smartphone adds the wide-angle lens feature on the front camera, which allows you to capture amazing wide-angle selfie shots.

The V20 can take wide-angle photographs with rear-facing 135-degree and front-facing 120-degree lenses. The smartphone has Hybrid Auto Focus (a combination of laser autofocus, phase detection autofocus, and contrast autofocus) and Auto Shot that includes face detection feature to trigger the shutter automatically while you click a selfie.

The only thing missing is the Optical Image Stablization, which promises less blurry images and smoother video. To compensate, LG V20 ships with Qualcomm's Steady Record 2.0 EIS for smooth video recording, which we will evaluate in detailed review of the smartphone.

Software- The first smartphone with Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the box

I was impressed by the LG G5's ability to offer a smooth and lag free user experience. And I am delighted to see that LG has only made it even better with the V20.

The smartphone already tops the charts of being the first handset to run Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the box and during whatever time we spent with the handset, the user experience was simply impressive.

We will further evaluate the software performance in detailed review of the smartphone.

Snapdragon 820 CPU and 4GB RAM

Coming on to other aspects, the smartphone is powered by Snapdragon 820 CPU paired up with 4GB of RAM. As expected, we did not notice any lags and the performance was flawless. We will give our final verdict after stress testing the handset.

Storage, battery and Connectivity

The LG V20 comes with a 3200mAh removable battery unit that supportsQuick charge 3.0. The smartphone has 64GB of internal storage space, which is further expandable up to 2TB provided you have a microSD card.

The handset has all the required connectivity features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, 4G LTE, VoLTE, 3G, FM and GPS.

Verdict

LG V20 is undoubtedly the most exciting handset of the passing year (2016). It is loaded with innovation and also takes care of ground level features like audio, display, camera, etc.

The smartphone is fairly priced for the features it brings to table however; it is worth mentioning that market now has OnePlus 3T, which offers the latest Snapdragon 821 CPU paired up with 6GB of RAM (OnePlus 3T) at half the price-point.

But then it's not just about the processor and the amount of RAM a handset packs in. The innovation and features that the overall package offers is also a major deciding factor. That's what we will evaluate while reviewing both the handsets in the coming month.

Stay tuned for our review of LG V20.

Click Here for New Smartphones Best Online Deals

Best Mobiles in India
You Can Enjoy Free 3GB Data, Talktime from Vodafone: Check Out! News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Goa youths get free talktime and data!

Ever since the Digital India initiative was announced by the central government, there are many steps that are being taken by the telecom operators to make this initiative a success.

Now, the Goa Government has taken up the Digital India initiative seriously and has announced an ambitious scheme offering free data and talktime to the youth in the coastal state. Well, the Goa Government has named the scheme "Goa Yuva Sanchar Yojana".

Also Read: Aircel Offers Free Call and Data with the FRC148 Plan

Under this scheme, the youth in the region belonging to the age group 16 to 30 years will be able to enjoy free 100 minutes of talktime and 3GB of data at a great speed of 2Mbps per month. Note that the beneficiaries can enjoy this scheme for free of cost.

Also Read: Now You Can Make Calls to Any Network At Just 10 Paisa Per Minute

The interesting part is that the Goa Government has joined hands with Vodafone for this scheme. It will benefit around 1.25 lakh youth in the aforementioned age group use the free talktime and internet. The catch is that the government of Goa has the right to discontinue this scheme if anyone is found misusing the same.

Click here for more details on latest smartphones

While announcing the Goa Yuva Sanchar Yojana, the Goa Chief Minister, Laxmikant Parsekar, distributed the first batch of SIM cards to the youth. Notably, Vodafone has won the bid hosted by the Goa government surpassing Reliance Jio and Idea Cellular with its quoted cost of Rs. 124,90 per beneficiary enjoying this scheme.

Also Read: BSNL Rs. 149 Plan to Offer Unlimited Voice Calls, 300MB Data

We can soon expect the other state governments to roll out such offers to keep pace with the Digital India initiative.

Best Mobiles in India
Celia Castedo, the Bolivian aviation agency inspector who Bolivian officials say authorized the departure of the Lamia plane that crashed a week ago in Medellin killing 71 people, has asked the Brazilian Police and Public Prosecutor's Office for asylum.

The wreckage of the plane which crashed en route to Medellin in Colombia. EFE

More information La controladora boliviana investigada por el vuelo del Chapecoense pide refugio en Brasil

Castedo is wanted by Bolivias attorney generals office for failure to fulfill duties and an attempt against the security of the flight. She faces up to four years in prison.

But Brazil's O Globo newspaper reported that Castedo has been in the Brazilian city of Corumba, near the Bolivian border, where she lived and where the flight took off, since Monday.

A few days earlier, media outlets had reported that Castedo had examined the aircraft before take-off and found that it did not have enough fuel to make the journey from Santa Cruz to Medellin.

Bolivian authorities allege the official concocted a story in which she warned the plane's pilot about the lack of fuel

But Bolivian aviation authorities say they did not receive such warnings and that the inspector concocted them the day after the accident to cover up her negligence. Yet, her colleagues say there were witnesses.

Milton Claros, Bolivias public works minister, said his government has not had any official notification of Castedos request for asylum and that he will comment when he receives it. Before learning she was in Brazil, the Bolivian air traffic controllers union expressed its support for her and rejected calls for a legal investigation.

English version by Dyane Jean-Francois.
Newly redesigned TF33 engine tested at Arnold AFB

By Deidre Ortiz, Arnold Engineering Development Center Public Affairs / Published December 05, 2016

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. (AFNS) -- Testing of the TF33 Pratt and Whitney engine is being conducted at Arnold Engineering Development Center to verify and validate newly redesigned components of the engine.

The TF33 has powered several different military airframes, including the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, E-3 Sentry (AWACS) and the E-8 Joint STARS.

Second Lt. Karlie Madden, the AEDC project manager for the test, stated that the engine currently being tested is a 17,000-pound thrust variant used aboard the B-52H Stratofortress airframe.

"The testing at AEDC is to verify and validate the structural integrity and durability of a redesigned inlet case and turbine exhaust case," she said. "The test also includes accelerated mission testing which simulates approximately one-half of an overhaul cycle of testing on the engine, running approximately 690 sea-level operating hours. Multiple performance calibrations have been performed to determine if there are any new performance standards that stem from the redesigned components."

The testing took place in one of the AEDC Engine Test Facility sea level test cells during the summer and wrapped up in November. The test was requested by the TF33 Systems Program Office of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Propulsion Directorate (AFLCMC/LPS) at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

Though tested at AEDC before, it was the first installation of the TF33 in this sea level test cell.

The last TF33 test was conducted in the ETF C-2 test cell in 1995, during which AEDC characterized cold weather starting techniques between JP4 and JP8 jet fuel.

Of the most recent test, James Burt, a TF33 equipment specialist with the AFLCMC/LPS, commented that working with AEDC on the TF33 accelerated mission testing proved to be an "outstanding experience."

"We have had no engine issues and all test cell issues were worked and resolved very quickly with little to no test down time," he said. "This has resulted in the smoothest TF33 AMT test to date and allowed the test to complete ahead of schedule."

Testing was also completed early and 55 successful air periods were performed in 61 days, making the project successful both technically and financially.

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Counter-ISIL Strikes Target Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

Compiled from Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Releases

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Dec. 5, 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, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 11 strikes in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed two oil manifold valves.

-- Near Shadaddi, a strike destroyed an ISIL command-and-control node.

-- Near Raqqa, three strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a weapons production facility, a vehicle and a bulldozer.

-- Near Ayn Isa, a strike destroyed an ISIL mortar system.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, two strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two fighting positions, a vehicle and an oil wellhead.

-- Near Manbij, two strikes destroyed an ISIL bulldozer and a vehicle bomb.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 10 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Asad, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb.

-- Near Bashir, a strike destroyed an ISIL-held building and an anti-air artillery system.

-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a bunker.

-- Near Mosul, five strikes engaged four ISIL tactical units, destroying seven mortar systems, four ISIL-held buildings, two vehicles, a vehicle bomb factory and a front-end loader. Thirty-one supply routes were damaged.

-- Near Qayyarah, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle and a weapons system.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a building.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider international community. The destruction of targets in Syria and Iraq further limits ISIL's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

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Pre-ministerial press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

05 Dec. 2016

(As delivered)



Good morning.

Over the next two days, NATO Foreign Ministers will meet and address the most pressing security challenges we are facing and how we are responding.

And first, they will discuss NATO/EU cooperation because stronger cooperation between NATO and EU is one key way to strengthen our response to a more challenging security environment. At a time when the peaceful order is being challenged in new ways, NATO and the EU need to work closer than ever before. Over the last couple of years, we have been able to create new momentum in our partnership and reach a new understanding of the importance of our cooperation. At all levels, from staff-to-staff talks, to my regular meetings with Presidents Tusk and Juncker, High Representative Federica Mogherini, and our participation at each other's ministerials and summits. We have moved step by step, in a pragmatic way which benefits all our nations, and this week, I expect we will take a significant step forward: by endorsing a package of more than 40 measures to implement the Joint Declaration which I signed together with President Tusk and President Juncker in July in Warsaw. This aims to deepen our cooperation in seven areas. Including countering hybrid and cyber threats, working together in maritime operations, and on capability development. Cooperation with the European Union is also an important way in which NATO projects stability beyond our borders.

Tomorrow we will discuss the progress we've made in boosting the capacity of our neighbours to the east and to the south, including our support to the Counter-ISIL Coalition, our training of Iraqi officers, and our new Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean.

NATO has many years of experience in projecting stability in the Western Balkans and in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, we will meet with Afghan Foreign Minister Rabbani, to reaffirm our commitment to supporting Afghans to secure their own country, and to review Afghanistan's reforms, which are linked to continued international support. NATO's presence in Afghanistan demonstrates our long-term commitment to the fight against terrorism. It is helping to stabilise the region and stem the flow of migrants and refugees.

On Wednesday we will also hold a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. The security situation in eastern Ukraine remains extremely serious. The ceasefire is being violated every day, sometimes hundreds of times, with explosions from equipment banned under the Minsk Agreements. That is because heavy weaponry has not been withdrawn and only 13 percent of the equipment registered with the OSCE can currently be traced. As Ukraine continues to face Russia's aggressive actions, NATO stands by Ukraine with strong political and strong practical support.

This week's meeting of foreign ministers is an important building block for our summit next year, here in Brussels. I look forward to welcoming the new US President Donald Trump to the summit, and to working with him and his national security team as NATO continues to adapt to the challenges we face.

And with that, I'm ready to take your questions.

Moderator: We will start Ansa over there.

Q: Good morning Mister Secretary General. You spoke about cooperation between the EU and NATO and the changing of scenario in this last two years. Today we have a major changes with Premier Renzi's resignation after he lost the referendum on constitutional reform. What are the implications of this and do you think that Italy can face a switch in its' posture towards NATO since the opposition have a different approach and social network today in Russia already claim Putin's victory on Italian referendum.

Jens Stoltenberg (NATO Secretary General): The outcome of the referendum in Italy is, the decision of the Italian people, NATO is the alliance of 28 democracies and the referendum in Italy is part of the democratic process. The outcome of the referendum will not in any way change Italy's position in NATO. NATO will remain a committed and key ally for the alliance and, and ah, Italy plays a key role in many different ways in NATO and I look forward to continuing to work with Italy also in the future. I also appreciated very much to work with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and it has been a good thing to work with him addressing both the challenges NATO faces to the South, addressing the challenges we see in North Africa and the Middle East, but also in adapting to the way NATO responds to a more assertive Russia in the East. But this is an Italian decision, part of the democratic process and it will not change Italy's position in NATO.

Moderator: Europa Press over there.

Europa Press Reporter: Thank you Secretary General. Do we have any more clarity when we will finally have the Summit, the President-Elect Trump's first Summit with NATO? Was it more thinking of March or May? Is there any more clarity and we hear that maybe the Summit as such doesn't take place in NATO premises that it might take place in downtown Brussels? Is there any clarity on this thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: At our Summit in Warsaw in July of this year we decided to hold a new Summit 2017. Then Allies, the nations are now discussing the exact date and the topics that are going to be addressed and discussed at the Summit. So it's too early to say anything in detail when it comes to the date and the topics, that's something we will come back to when we have more conclusions to share with you. But the important thing is that we are going to have a Summit and especially in times with more uncertainty and more unpredictable security environment, I think it is important that we have Summits where we gather all the heads of state and government from the whole Alliance, from Europe and from North America to use the Summits to, to show the strength of the Trans-Atlantic bond and of the Alliance and I look forward to welcome the new U.S. President Donald Trump to the Summit here in Brussels and to address with him and the other leaders, how NATO respond, how NATO in the best way responds, to the new more security and more challenging security environment.

Moderator: The lady over here second row.

Q: Hello from Montenegro. (Inaudible). Do you expect that the new Montenegrin government will stay on course on NATO accession process and do you expect that NATO, that Montenegro will be a member of Alliance, maybe early spring of next year thanks?

Jens Stoltenberg: I expect and I count on the new government in Montenegro will stay on course and I have met the new Prime Minister in his previous position. So I am absolutely certain that he will continue to make sure that Montenegro stay on course and continue to be committed to joining NATO. I am not able to tell you exactly when Montenegro will become a full member. As you know at our last foreign ministerial meeting we signed the accession protocol with Montenegro and the time that has passed since then we have started the process of ratifying the accession protocol in the different parliaments of the 28 NATO Allies. So far 14 Allies ratified the, the access protocol and we expect other allies to ratify it soon and I expect all allies to ratify not within too long a time, but with respect to all the different parliaments, I think it's not right if I give you an exact date because this is up to the different national parliaments to make the final decision of them to ratify.

Moderator: Okay. We will go over there. Please go to the microphone.

Q: The past season was one of the deadliest seasons for the Afghan security forces and the number of attacks actually at this point, the Taliban are taking more territory under their control and the big attack on the German Consulate in Mazar actually shows the extent of their reach to main cities in Afghanistan. So if NATO is not going to change its combat role on Afghanistan how do you see the Afghan security forces coping with the challenges when the Taliban carry out their Spring offences in the coming year?

Jens Stoltenberg: I would like to commend the Afghan Forces for their courage and their professionalism they have showed. We have to remember that, ah, since 2015 they have been in full responsibility for the security in Afghanistan themselves. NATO has ended our combat operations, what we do now is to help support, to train and to advise the Afghan Forces, but they are on the front line, they are responsible for security in their own country and it is actually quite impressive that together we have been able to build up an Afghan National Army and Security Forces, so around 350,000 troops and personnel and that they have been able to take over the responsibility.

And I think that is one of the great successes of the NATO presence in Afghanistan is that we have been able to build local forces so they can take over and we then can end our combat operation but we never thought that this was going to be an easy task. I think we all knew that this was going to be a demanding task, that violence would continue and that we will continue to face the attacks from Taliban and from all the terrorist, or from Taliban and from terrorists groups.

So that's the reason why we will continue to support the Afghan national security forces, both with training, advice and assistance, but also with funding, and some weeks ago I attended a Brussels conference where the international community decided to continue to fund Afghanistan with development aid but also support for their armed forces and police and NATO decided at our Warsaw Summit that we will both continue our presence, we will remain with around 13,000 troops in Afghanistan and we will continue to fund the Afghan National Army and Security Forces. So we are aware that it is a challenging and very difficult security environment in Afghanistan but we also see the courage and the professionalism of the Afghan forces and we are impressed by the way they are handling a difficult task.

Moderator: Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe: Thanks you. Mister Secretary General, U.S. President-Elect Trump has previously called Afghanistan a total and complete disaster and called for a troop pull-out from the country. Now he might have changed his mind or he mind not have done so. My question to you is that how will such remarks impact the overall NATO commitments towards Afghanistan under Mr. Trump's presidency next year, thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: As I said we will have a Summit next year, here, in Brussels. I am looking forward to meet the new President Donald Trump here to discuss a wide range of issues. I guess we will also have ample opportunity to discuss Afghanistan which is NATO's biggest military operation. We have been there for many, many years. So I think it will be an issue which will, in one way or another, will also be addressed at the upcoming Summit with then the new President Trump being part of that discussion. We have seen reports from the phone call that took place between President-Elect Trump and President Ghani, some days ago and according to those reports President-Elect Trump expressed his commitment to Afghanistan and to continue support for Afghanistan. So I am confident that also the new administration, the new U.S. administration will continue to support Afghanistan and continue to be part of the NATO efforts to provide practical and political support, train, assist and advice the Afghan Forces.

Moderator: Aviation Weekly first row here.

Nick Fiorenza (Aviation Weekly): Nick Fiorenza. On this Summit, a timing question. The EU wants to meet Trump as soon as possible. Do you foresee the possibility that the EU might have a Summit before NATO and wouldn't it be better in fact that, there be a meeting with NATO, maybe even a back-to-back meeting with EU, wouldn't that be better for Trans-Atlantic bond and then as far as the ministerial is concerned are you actually discussing the Summit timing or is it not on the agenda yet?

Jens Stoltenberg: The most important outcome of the foreign ministerial meeting that starts tomorrow, will be the package on stronger NATO- EU cooperation because we strongly believe that stronger NATO-EU cooperation is key for addressing many different challenges. So, I am absolutely certain that we will also find a way to coordinate a NATO Summit, with a US-EU meeting, when President, the new President Trump arrives in Europe. Exactly how that is going to be done, whether it's going to be back-to-back or whatever, that's too early. So I am not really concerned about, as you say the challenge related to the scheduling. We will find ways to sort that. So, so we just have to wait a bit because we have also to remember, we have to remember that he is still President-Elect and it's the 20th of January when he takes over and then the new administration is in place. So we will continue work with, or to have contacts with, the transition team but I guess that final decision and so on has to wait until we have a new administration in place.

Moderator: The Ukrainian News Agency Union.

Ukrainian News Agency Union: Here. (Inaudible), Ukrainian News Agency Union. Secretary General last week we had here in HQ, a Ukrainian delegation from the Verkhovna Rada (sp?) who said that Ukraine need deeper and more cooperation with NATO, like for example, in the frame of enhanced cooperation program. What will be your reaction on this and will this issue be on the agenda of NATO Ukraine Commission and what exactly you would like to discuss at the meeting in Wednesday thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: We are in the process of strengthening the cooperation with Ukraine because we have agreed on an extensive package which includes many different kinds of measures and efforts to strengthen the political and the practical support for Ukraine. We will have a NATO Ukraine Commission meeting on Wednesday, and their Foreign Minister Klimlin will update us on the situation, on the security challenges and I also expect many Allies and also the reform efforts, and I also expect many Allies to focus on the importance of reform in the Ukraine because to reform and to modernize government institutions in general but for NATO defense institutions in particular, is of great importance for Ukraine to fight corruption, it's important and NATO's support for Ukraine is very much focused on reform, enabling them to strengthen their own institutions and their different defense and security institutions.

We, we are, we have the different trust funds working on everything from cyber command and control and reform, but in addition to the trust funds and the NATO presence in Kiev and Ukraine, we also urge NATO Allies to provide direct support on a bilateral basis to Ukraine and several NATO Allies provide different kinds of support including training. So we will continue to support Ukraine, political support, practical support and we will continue to be extremely focused on the importance of full implementation of the Minsk Agreements and of course there are it is of great concern that we see so many violations of the ceasefire and of the Minsk Agreements, including that so much heavy weapon is not possible to trace and that we have seen that heavy weapons have been used in violations of the ceasefire.

Moderator: TV 2.

TV 2 Reporter: Yes Secretary General it's a question about Turkey. Erdogan has signalled that he wants to make an ever closer alliance with China and Russia instead of Europe and you have the figures saying now that more than 110,000 people have either been arrested or suspended from their jobs after the fatal coup and the latest you have more and more media reports talking about Turkey's NATO officers, that are called back to an unsecure future, and some of them are trying to seek asylum in Belgium and also in other countries. Could you please comment on those issues and tell us what kind of problems do you see in those issues regarding the NATO, to the NATO, you know, traditional values.

Jens Stoltenberg: Turkey is a key ally for different reasons but not of least because of its strategic geographical location, bordering Iraq and Syria, but also Russia and Ukraine in the North in the Black Sea and Turkey holds around 3 million refugees. So Turkey is key, both when it comes to NATO's response to a more assertive Russia but, also in managing and tackling the migrant and refugee crisis; and Turkey is key in our fight against ISIL. So, eh, Turkey is important for NATO and it's important for Europe in addressing different, different kinds of challenges and security threats and challenges.

I have visited Turkey several times also after the failed coup attempt and we have to remember that Turkey has not only suffered many terrorists attacks, but Turkey has also suffered a serious coup attempt where hundreds of people were killed and it was shocking to visit the National Assembly in Ankara, where I saw the damage caused by bombs from F-16s, bombing the National Assembly during the night of the coup with many parliamentarians inside the building and, of course, Turkey has the right to prosecute those behind the failed coup attempt. It is important that this is done in a way which is in accordance with the due rule of law.

This is something that is important for NATO, not the least because the rule of law is one of NATO's core values, and I also welcome the contact between the Council of Europe and Turkey on this issue and we have discussed the importance of the rule of law and the contact between Turkey and the European Union during my visits to Ankara and also now recently to Istanbul where the issue was also raised and in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly the importance of democracy and the rule of law being respected in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt. Regarding the Turkish officers, I can confirm that some Turkish officers have applied for asylum in some NATO countries. We have to remember that it is up to the nations to assess and to make decisions on requests for asylum. That's not a NATO decision, but it's a decision that will be taken by the different countries where the Turkish officers have applied for asylum. Eh, yes.

Moderator: Second row.

Kuwait News Agency Reporter: (Inaudible) Kuwait News Agency. Sir will there be any discussion on possible initiatives to stop the bloodshed in Syria, especially what is happening in Aleppo, thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: We have seen appalling, eh, human suffering in Aleppo. We have seen renewed air strikes. We have seen, eh, that civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian aid and hospitals, have been attacked and this just underlines the importance of continued efforts to try to find a political solution. That's not easy. There has been many attempts and they have not delivered peace and a cessation of hostilities in Syria but NATO will continue to support all efforts to try and find a political solution and to do that by, the first step will then have to be a ceasefire and the safe access of humanitarian aid to Aleppo and to all cities in Syria where many people are suffering. NATO is not present inside Syria. What NATO does is that we provide support for the coalition fighting ISIL and we will continue to provide support to the coalition fighting ISIL and of course Turkey, a NATO Ally bordering Syria, is also very much affected by the violence, by the fight and the migration and refugee crisis which is caused by the instability and the fight and the violence in Syria.

Moderator: Russian News Agency.

Russian News Agency Reporter: (Inaudible), Russian News Agency. Secretary General should we expect a meeting of the NATO Russia Council before the end of the year and according to the Russian site, NATO rejected its proposal to have concrete consultation on military arrangements on the flights over the Baltic Sea, if this arrangements will not be, if there will be no arrangements in this part, what other arrangements could be done in the framework of risk reductions measures that you was talking about the other day, thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: We continue to strive for a more constructive relationship with Russia and we strongly believe that in times when tensions run high it's even more important to have dialogue, to have a change for political dialogue open, and we continue to pursue our dual track approach, with a strong defense combined with a, a dialogue and open lines of political communication with Russia. We have held two meetings of the NATO Russia Council so far this year. We are exploring with our Russian counterparts when the next meeting of the NATO Russia Council will take place and what we will discuss at such a meeting.

We look forward to continuing the important work of the NATO Russia Council, including addressing risk reduction transparency, because with more military activity and with higher tensions it's even more important to have transparency and to have mechanisms in place to avoid incidents and accidents. We saw the downing of the Russian plane over Turkey last year and we have to do whatever we can to avoid that kind of incident and accident from happening again if they happen make sure that they don't spiral out of control. We are in dialogue with Russia also on issues related to the Baltic Sea. I would like to underline that air safety is not only about transponders and technical measures but it's also about airmanship, responsible behaviour and one of the reasons why we are exploring the possibilities for a new meeting with the NATO Russia Council is exactly to take that dialogue forward with Russia on risk reduction and transparency related to military activities.

Moderator: NPR.

NPR Reporter: Thank you Mister Secretary General. [Coughs] When we ask you about the human rights and values situation in Turkey you respond that the Council of Europe is looking into it and that Turkey is a key ally, but, given that it's such a key ally are you not concerns about the stability of the country, the fact that the officers NATO knew and worked with our now gone , except for maybe seven I think, does this not concern you also and also my colleague also asked about asked the turn of President Erdogan towards Russia and China, are you concerned that as Russia becomes more and more a concern for NATO that one of your key allies may be warming up to Moscow even more, thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: The issue of the rule of law democracy was discussed during my last visit to Turkey, as it was also during my previous visit to Ankara. This time we met in Istanbul in connection with the meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and also during that meeting the question of rule and law and democracy was discussed and raised. So, these are issues which we discuss regularly with our Turkish counterparts and I have discussed it with President Erdogan, with Foreign Minister Cavusoglu and other political leaders but in addition to that, the direct dialogue we have also appreciate that the Council of Europe has established with Turkey because the Council of Europe is responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe has tools and mechanisms to address exactly issues related to the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

So I, I think that that work of the Council of Europe is important but of course it doesn't replace also the direct dialogue that we have on these issues and we saw that for instance during the meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Istanbul just a couple of weeks ago where this was discussed and raised. Then I think we have to understand that Turkey has expressed, again and again and, most recently in my meeting with President Erdogan, that they are, they are continuing, or they will continue to be a committed NATO Ally and they contribute to NATO operations and NATO missions in many different ways; in Afghanistan, but also now addressing some of the challenges that we see in the Black Sea region which was one of the topics that I discussed with President Erdogan during my visit there and also of course in, in, in, in our efforts to fight, or to provide support to the counter-ISIL coalition and to fight ISIL.

The fact that Turkey is talking to Russia it not contradicting that Turkey is committed and a key NATO Ally. Actually, for NATO, it is part of our approach to Russia that we talk to them, that we dialogue with them and I remember that after the downing of the Russian plane last fall, one of the messages that I conveyed was that we should direct contact Ankara-Moscow and then I welcome the fact that Moscow and Ankara are speaking directly with each other. I think that's part of the message from NATO about dialogue with Russia, not to isolate Russia. Regarding the officers, eh, we have to remember that, it's up to every nation to decide who they send to the NATO Command structure. There has been some withdrawals of Turkey's officers but during my visit to Istanbul it was stated very clearly that these officers would be replaced and, and when it comes to those officers that have requested asylum that's not for NATO to decide, that's for the different nations to decide to assess and to make decisions on asylum at every request.

Moderator: Wall Street Journal. No just behind.

Wall Street Journal Reporter: On the NATO Russia Council meeting. How much has disagreement over the agenda delayed that meeting and could NATO agree to a more limited agenda that just dealt with the transparency and air safety matters or is it critical for the alliance to have Ukraine on the agenda of that meeting?

Jens Stoltenberg: As we decided in Warsaw at the Summit we, ah, agreed to have a focused and meaningful dialogue with Russia. We stated also that Ukraine is an essential part of that dialogue and that's still the case. So Ukraine is an essential part of our dialogue with Russia, so one of the reasons why we think it is important to have a dialogue with Russia is also to raise those issues where we disagree and Ukraine has been discussed at the two previous meetings, and eh, and eh, we discussed different items, different issues, risk reduction, transparency but Ukraine has also been one of the issues that we have discussed. We think of course this kind of dialogue is also an opportunity to exchange views on issues where we disagree. When it comes to the work on the upcoming meeting of the NATO Russia Council, I am not going into details. I will just confirm that we are in contact with our Russian counterparts and that we are looking into when to convene the meeting and what to discuss and I will not comment on the details of that process.

Moderator: Last question to Reuters.

Reuters Reporter: Secretary General back to Turkey. When you met President Erdogan in Istanbul did you receive any reassurances whatsoever that the five Turkish officers can have anything more than just indefinite custody which is the case. Could you, did you receive any reassurances that they at least will face a fair trial, thank you?

Jens Stoltenberg: The Turkish leadership has stated several times that they will respect the rule of law. I have started clearly that the rule of law is important for me personally, I attach great importance to NATO's core values and one of those core values is exactly the rule of law, democracy and I also welcomed that, in addition to the direct dialogue that we have with Turkey on this issue, and I have visited Turkey several times, just both before and after the failed coup, and I also welcome the fact that there are contacts between the Council of Europe and of course, the need and importance of respecting the rule of law also applies for officers, it applies for everyone who are in different ways, prosecuted after the failed coup attempt. Yes.

Moderator: Thank you very much. That's all we have time for right now but of course we will see you tomorrow and the day after tomorrow at the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers. Thank you.

Jens Stoltenberg: Thank you.

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USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Transits Suez, Enters US 6th Fleet

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS161205-14

Release Date: 12/5/2016 10:44:00 AM

From USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) Public Affairs

SUEZ CANAL (NNS) -- The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (Ike CSG) entered the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of European allies and regional and coalition partners as part of a routine deployment, Dec. 4.

Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69)(Ike) transited the Suez Canal, accompanied by guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG 80) and guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto (CG 56), after five months of providing air support operations in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the Arabian Gulf.

In support of OIR, the strike group joined coalition partners to conduct air strikes in Iraq and Syria. Since June 28, Ike with embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3 completed 1,685 combat sorties and expended 1,581 ordnance from both the Arabian Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

"The presence of the Ike CSG in the Mediterranean demonstrates the capability of the U.S. Navy to conduct precision strikes on ISIL targets in support of Operation Inherent Resolve from multiple theaters," said Rear Adm. James Malloy, commander, CSG 10. "It highlights the mobility, flexibility, and power projection capability of the Navy's globally-deployed force. And with a mobile and sustainable warship like this aircraft carrier and with our strike group cruisers and destroyers, we can operate where and when we choose and take the fight to the enemy, whether it is in the Arabian Gulf or Mediterranean Sea."

While in the Arabian Gulf, Sailors aboard "the Mighty Ike" partook in three port visits to the partner nations of Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. This was a first for many of the 5,200 Sailors to experience to explore these Arab nations, and to learn firsthand about Middle Eastern culture and history. To further the experience, the "Ike-Battle Axe Team" welcomed regional partners aboard the aircraft carrier for a day at sea. These embarks highlighted the close relationship and mutual interests the U.S. Navy has with its regional partners to protect freedom of navigation and regional stability in a dynamic environment.

The strike group previously conducted combat operations from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea from June 28 to July 7. Ike's ability to support OIR from the Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf demonstrates the flexibility and capability of U.S. naval forces.

Malloy explained, "The performance of the Ike CSG to date has been impressive. This team is combat proven and dedicated to the mission; they understand the importance of working with our coalition partners from the region and around the globe, and feel a sense urgency to defeat ISIL and protect innocent lives."

The Ike CSG brings multi-mission capable platforms to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations with strike; ballistic missile defense; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to support U.S. allies, as well as regional and coalition partners.

The Ike CSG consists of Ike, the squadrons of Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 26 staff, San Jacinto and USS Monterey (CG 61), and Roosevelt, USS Mason (DDG 87), and USS Nitze (DDG 94). CVW 3 includes Strike Fighter Squadrons (VFA) 32 "Swordsmen," VFA 86 "Sidewinders," VFA 105 "Gunslingers," and VFA 131 "Wildcats;" Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron (VAQ) 130 "Zappers;" Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 123 "Screwtops;" Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VRC) 40 "Rawhides;" Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74 "Swamp Foxes;" and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 7 "Dusty Dogs."

Ike, embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3, and Ike CSG are deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, maritime security operations, and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations.

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Coronado Increases Readiness Through Training, Operations at Sea

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS161205-13

Release Date: 12/5/2016 10:43:00 AM

From Destroyer Squadron 7 Public Affairs

CHANGI NAVAL BASE, Singapore (NNS) -- Following a five-day underway in the South China Sea, littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) returned to Changi Naval Base in Singapore, Dec. 5.

Unit-level training and aviation and shipboard operations were the primary focus of the underway, which followed a scheduled maintenance availability which began in early November.

"The crew worked very hard over the past five days to increase our operational proficiency," said Cmdr. Scott Larson, commanding officer, Coronado. "We ran drills, tested equipment, and conducted aviation operations every day during this underway, and I was very pleased with the precision the crew displayed while executing."

The crew took full advantage of the underway period by executing a variety of shipboard drills and evolutions. Each evolution provided the crew an opportunity to train and practice life-saving and emergency procedures while at sea. Man overboard drills, gunnery exercises, small boat operations, fire drills, and engineering casualty control exercises highlighted the busy and successful underway.

Additionally, the embarked aviation detachment from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 conducted several operational tests and functional check flights on the MH-60S Seahawk helicopter and two MQ-8B Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing tactical unmanned aerial vehicles.

"This proved to be a very vital underway for us," explained Lt. Cmdr. Evan Young, officer-in-charge, HSC 23 Det. 4. "We were able to capture the first Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar pictures of surrounding surface contacts with the radar-capable Fire Scout. This is a critical step in providing a recognized maritime picture for LCS, and with the combination of the Harpoon Missile, this demonstrates a very promising path to over-the-horizon targeting."

Fire Scouts complement the MH-60S by extending the ship's surface search capabilities. USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) previously deployed to 7th Fleet with an embarked Fire Scout, but Coronado is the first ship to deploy with two of on board.

Currently on a rotational deployment in support of the Asia-Pacific Rebalance, Coronado is a fast and agile warship tailor-made to patrol the region's littorals and work hull-to-hull with partner navies, providing 7th Fleet with the flexible capabilities it needs now and in the future.

Coronado arrived in Singapore Oct. 16, following a busy operational schedule which included participation in the 2016 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise off the coast of Hawaii and a Pacific Ocean transit.

On behalf of Commander, Task Force 73, Destroyer Squadron 7 conducts advanced planning, organizes resources, and directly supports the execution of maritime exercises such as the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise series, the Naval Engagement Activity (NEA) with Vietnam, and the multilateral Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) exercise with Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

U.S. 7th Fleet conducts forward-deployed naval operations in support of U.S. national interests in the Indo-Asia-Pacific area of operations. As the U.S. Navy's largest numbered fleet, 7th Fleet interacts with 35 other maritime nations to build partnerships that foster maritime security, promote stability, and prevent conflict.

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China dispatches third peacekeeping infantry battalion to South Sudan

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 13:50, December 05, 2016

ZHENGZHOU, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- China despatched the first 120 of a 700-member peacekeeping infantry battalion to Juba, capital of South Sudan on Dec. 4.

The remainder of the infantry battalion, which has been assigned to a 12-month United Nations(UN) peacekeeping mission, will leave in five separate groups.

The peacekeepers have all attended a three-month peacekeeping course and will be engaged with the protection of civilians, supporting UN and humanitarian relief programs, patrols and escorts.

The infantry battalion is the third Chinese team to be dispatched to South Sudan, since the country deployed its first peacekeeping infantry battalion in South Sudan in 2015.

In July this year, two Chinese peacekeepers were killed and five others were injured during a peacekeeping mission in Juba.

China currently has over 2,600 peacekeeping personnel involved in 10 UN peacekeeping operations, making China the most active permanent member of the UN Security Council in terms of supplying peacekeeping personnel.

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Clashes in central DR Congo leave 23 dead: Official

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 5:5PM

Tribal clashes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have claimed the lives of nearly two dozen people over the past three days, a government official says.

The deputy governor of Kasai Province in the DR Congo said on Monday that 23 people had lost their lives in weekend clashes triggered by tribal rivalry in the central Tshikapa region.

Hubert Mbingho N'Vula said on state television that the clashes had occurred between police and members of militia groups in the region, leaving "13 dead and 14 injured among security forces," adding that the fighting also "killed 10 militia" fighters.

According to an AFP report quoting an unnamed Interior Ministry official, the fighting was due to rivalry between the newly-named traditional chief and his uncle, "who came to oust his nephew and seize power."

Public order has reportedly been restored after the clashes.

DR Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and has left over 5.5 million people dead.

Dozens of armed groups have been active in the eastern DR Congo since then and the Congolese army, joined by UN troops, is on the offensive against rebel groups.

The rebels are also accused of carrying out attacks in DR Congo and committing serious human rights violations, including recruiting child soldiers and rape.

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Pilot dies after warplane crashes in east-central Jordan

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 4:8PM

A single-engine, supersonic and multirole F-16 fighter jet of the Royal Jordanian Air Force has gone down in the country's east-central province of Zarqa after take-off during a training mission.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military aircraft was flying over Azraq town, located 100 kilometers east of the capital Amman, on Monday, when it experienced a technical glitch and crashed.

The slain pilot was later identified as Major Ayed Ahmad al-De'ajah.

The Jordanian air force reportedly has around 60 F-16 fighter jets.

On April 6, 2015, a two-seat Slingsby T67 Firefly aerobatic training aircraft of the Royal Jordanian Air Force crashed north of the capital, killing the Jordanian pilot and his trainee pilot.

Colonel Mamdouh al-Amiri, spokesman for the Jordanian military, identified the victims as Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim Hassouneh and Iraqi national Laith Nasser.

Jordan's military suffered a similar incident in 2013, when another Firefly training aircraft crashed, killing the two pilots on board.

Jordan joined the so-called US-led military coalition against Daesh in September 2014. The contingent purports to be carrying out airstrikes against the terrorists' positions both in Iraq and Syria.

In early 2015, Amman extended its anti-Daesh aerial attacks to Iraq after the terrorists released a video of Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Maaz al-Kassasbeh burning to death.

Kassasbeh had been captured by Daesh militants on December 24, 2014, after his F-16 jet crashed while flying over northern Syria on a mission against the terrorists.

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UN humanitarian agency appeals for $22.2bn in aid for 2017

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 11:17AM

The United Nations (UN)'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has requested a record sum of 22.2 billion dollars for its humanitarian work in 2017.

The OCHA said it needed the funds to launch worldwide humanitarian relief operations for more than 128 million people affected by conflict, displacement, and natural disasters.

"The scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded. Not in living memory have so many people needed our support and solidarity to survive and live in safety and dignity," said Stephen O'Brien, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and head of the OCHA.

"This is a reflection of a state of humanitarian need in the world not witnessed since the Second World War," he added, speaking at a news conference at the launching event of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland.

O'Brien added that 80 percent of the needs stemmed from man-made conflicts, such as those in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as Nigeria and South Sudan.

More than one-third of the total, or 8.1 billion dollars, is targeted by OCHA to help Syrians alone.

Such appeals usually fall short of their targets and are based on estimations.

According to the OCHA, droughts from natural catastrophes and phenomena like El Nino are also "pushing vulnerable communities to the brink of survival."

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Lebanese army raids northern town after deadly attack

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 11:13AM

The Lebanese army has launched a search operation in the northern parts of the country to find the gunmen who killed two soldiers a night before.

On Monday, army units were deployed to the Bqaa Sifrin town in Dinnieh, where unknown gunmen opened fire at any army checkpoint and killed two soldiers overnight on Sunday, Lebanon's al-Manar television channel reported.

Media reports said that the 10th Infantry Brigade post was the target of the Sunday attack, which came after the army arrested a person over terrorist links during an operation in the town.

The army identified the slain soldiers as Abdel Qader Neaman and Amer al-Mohammad.

According to Voice of Lebanon radio, so far seven suspects have been detained in connection with the deadly attack.

Lebanon has been affected by the spillover from the foreign-backed militancy, which has been afflicting Syria since 2011.

The militants briefly overran the northern town of Arsal in August 2014, taking several Lebanese army and police forces hostage, some of whom were executed. In December last year, most of the captives were released as part of a prisoner swap deal.

Ever since, Lebanese border areas have come under intermittent attacks by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front or al-Qaeda's Syria branch, which recently splintered from the group, as well as Daesh, another Takfiri terror group.

Hezbollah fighters have fended off several Daesh attacks inside Lebanon. They have also been providing counterinsurgency assistance to Syrian army forces in neighboring Syria.

The movement has accused Israel of supporting Takfiri terrorists operating in the Middle East.

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Saudi jets attack Pakistani boat off Yemen, kill six sailors

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 8:33AM

At least six Pakistani sailors have reportedly been killed after a Saudi strike targeted their boat off the Yemeni coast.

The Saudi air raid targeted the boat, which was carrying 12 Pakistani sailors off Mukha coast in the Yemeni province of Ta'izz on Sunday, Yemen's Saba news agency said.

According to the report, the other six sailors are still unaccounted for.

The deadly raid comes as the Riyadh regime continues its brutal military campaign against neighboring Yemen, which was launched in March 2015 to reinstall the former Yemeni government.

Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi has ordered a major assault on the country's Red Sea coast against Houthi Ansarullah fighters and allied army forces, who have been defending the nation against a deadly Saudi offensive.

Reports said on Sunday that Saudi warplanes had intensified their air raids on the province of Ta'izz, which has witnessed heavy fighting on the ground between pro-Hadi militants and Yemeni armed forces in recent days.

Meanwhile, a child was killed as Saudi fighter jets bombed residential buildings in the province of Sa'ada.

The girl's father and two of her brothers were also injured in the attack, which targeted the province's district of Razih.

In the same province, another airstrike hit the Baqim district and left a Yemeni woman dead and two children wounded.

The Saudi military aggression has left at least 11,400 civilians dead, according to the latest tally by a Yemeni monitoring group.

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At Genocide Trial, Prosecutor Says Mladic Wanted Muslims To 'Vanish Completely'

RFE/RL December 05, 2016

Prosecutors have begun their closing arguments at the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic in The Hague.

Prosecutor Alan Tieger told judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on December 5 that Mladic helped orchestrate the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica.

Mladic is also accused of being the architect of the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, where an estimated 10,000 people were killed by shelling and snipers.

"His concern was not that Muslims might create a state, his concern was to have them vanish completely," Tieger said.

Another prosecutor, Arthur Traldi, said that Mladic had "command and control" over the Bosnian Serb forces and that "in carrying out the ethnic cleansing campaign, his... forces committed a constant pattern of crimes throughout Serbian-claimed territory."

Tieger added that it was Mladic "who was in charge, who called the shots," arguing Mladic had even "bragged about" his exploits.

Tiger denounced the defense's attempts "to transform Mladic into a benign but ineffective officer" who sought to protect Muslims.

The 74-year-old has denied all 11 charges against him -- including two charges of genocide as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Families of the victims are anxiously awaiting the results of the case.

Munira Subasic, who heads the Mothers of Srebrenica group, attended the hearing on December 5 on what would have been the 42nd birthday of her son who was killed in the genocide in 1995.

Subasic regretted that justice had been so long coming.

"Mladic should be remembered as a mass murderer from the end of the 20th century, who took thousands of young women and men to death and who left thousands of mothers and parents in sorrow," Subasic said.

The closing arguments are expected to last more than a week, with a verdict expected next year.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/serbia-bosnia -mladic-trial-muslim-vanish- completely/28157335.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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Mirziyaev Declared Winner Of Uzbekistan's Presidential Election

RFE/RL December 05, 2016

Uzbekistan's Central Election Commission says that acting President Shavkat Mirziyaev has won the December 4 presidential election with 88.6 percent of the vote.

Mirziyaev's victory had been widely expected since he took over as interim leader of the country in early September, following the death of authoritarian President Islam Karimov after more than a quarter-century of iron-fisted rule over the Central Asian country.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said that the election underscored "the need for comprehensive reforms" in Uzbekistan, where Karimov had extended his power for years in a series of votes denounced by Western governments and international observers as undemocratic.

"While the election administration took measures to enhance the transparency of its work and the proper conduct of the election, the dominant position of state actors and limits on fundamental freedoms undermine political pluralism and led to a campaign devoid of genuine competition," ODIHR, which conducted an election-monitoring mission in Uzbekistan, said In a preliminary statement on December 5.

ODIHR observers also said that Uzbek "media covered the election in a highly restrictive and controlled environment, and the state-defined narrative did not provide voters the opportunity to hear alternative viewpoints."

None of the six previous post-Soviet elections observed in Uzbekistan by ODHIR monitors was deemed democratic and fair.

Election Commission Chairman Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov said the official turnout was 87.83 percent, with more than 17.9 million voters casting ballots.

Mirziyaev, 59, ran against three other candidates, all from pro-government parties.

He was formally nominated for president by the Liberal Democratic Party, the largest political party in Uzbekistan.

Mirziyaev, who has been prime minister since 2003, has said that he intends to largely follow the political course of Karimov.

A central question is whether he would ease the authoritarian rule imposed by Karimov or veer from his policies -- and to what degree.

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 Asia's most-populous country more to the outside world.

In a speech on his first day as acting president, he 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, which includes Russia and China, but pulled out of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization for the second time in 2012.

The Kremlin said in a statement on December 5 that Russian President Vladimir Putin "warmly congratulated" Mirziyaev on his victory in a phone call and invited him to visit Moscow.

Under Karimov, the predominantly Muslim country's staunchly secular government appeared eager to suppress any signs of what it saw as Islamic militancy, and policies in that area will be watched for any evidence of a shift.

In the September 8 speech, Mirziyaev also said that strengthening ties with neighboring Central Asian states was "the main priority" for Uzbekistan's foreign policy -- and has won praise for apparent steps in that direction.

Karimov, who became Uzbekistan's Communist Party chief in 1989 and ruled 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.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/uzbekistan- presidential-election-2016- mirziyaev/28156160.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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In China's backyard, India to Train Vietnam Pilots Fly Sukhoi Jets

Sputnik News

17:47 05.12.2016(updated 18:13 05.12.2016)

India's main focus is to export naval vessels in order to make its presence felt beyond the Malacca Straits. But it is also trying to leverage the commonality of Russian equipment with Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  India and Vietnam have finally inked an agreement to train Vietnamese pilots on Sukhoi fighter jets after nearly two years of discussions.

Sources told Sputnik that the agreement was signed at a meeting between India's Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar and his visiting Vietnamese counterpart Gen Ngo Xuan Lich.

Vietnam has 36 Russia-made Sukhoi-30 fighter jets in service while the Indian Air Force operates over 200 jets of similar make. This puts India in an ideal position to pass on the finer points of handling Sukhoi jets to countries that have also inducted it in their air force.

In September this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a $ 500 million credit line for defense co-operation during his visit to Vietnam. However, it is not clear whether the training costs would be financed through this credit line. India has also agreed to help Vietnamese in the upkeep of the Su-30MK2 aircraft.

This is the second major training program between the two nations. Indian armed forces have already trained 550 Vietnamese submariners to operate Russian built Kilo-class submarines.

During Modi's visit to Vietnam in September this year, bilateral ties were upgraded to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

 Sputnik

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Philippines Working to Intensify Military Cooperation With Russia

Sputnik News

13:27 05.12.2016

Establishing a military alliance is not on the Manila-Moscow agenda, according to Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Philippines is working toward boosting its military cooperation with Russia, but creation of military alliances is not being discussed, Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr. said Monday.

"The Philippines is working towards intensifying military cooperation with Russia, but the question of military alliances is not under discussion," Yasay, Jr. said in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

 Sputnik

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Update: air strikes against Daesh

5 December 2016

British forces have continued to conduct air operations in the fight against Daesh

Latest update

- Monday 28 November  Typhoons destroyed a terrorist-held building and a tunnel entrance in northern and western Iraq, while a Reaper engaged Daesh targets near Mosul.

- Tuesday 29 November  Tornados struck a tank to the west of Mosul, a Reaper attacked further targets near the city, and Typhoons destroyed a weapons stockpile near Qayyarah.

- Saturday 3 December  a Reaper attacked a mortar near Mosul.

- Sunday 4 December  Tornados bombed a Daesh weapons factory and a headquarters in Syria, whilst a Reaper provided close air support around Mosul.

Detail

With Iraqi troops methodically clearing Daesh extremists from key locations around Mosul, a Royal Air Force Reaper worked with other coalition aircraft to provide close air support on Monday 28 November. The Reaper used its surveillance sensors to identify a number of terrorists and then provided targeting guidance which allowed two successful coalition attacks to be delivered. A pair of terrorists were subsequently tracked as they moved at high speed on a motorcycle to a new position, and were killed by a direct hit from one of the Reaper's Hellfire missiles. The Reaper then spotted in turn three Daesh mortars as they opened fire: one was destroyed by a coalition aircraft, one was silenced by artillery fire, and the third was struck by the Reaper itself, using a GBU-12 guided bomb. To the south, near Bayji, Typhoon FGR4s meanwhile used a Paveway IV to destroy a Daesh-held building. The Typhoons then headed west to Anbar province, where they employed a further Paveway to collapse the entrance to a terrorist tunnel network beneath a hillside south of Rawah.

Reaper operations around Mosul continued on Tuesday 29 November. A group of terrorists engaged in a firefight with Iraqi forces were struck with a Hellfire. Again, the Reaper proved a deadly hunter of Daesh mortar teams; a Hellfire destroyed one, and the aircraft's reconnaissance work allowed two more to be targeted by artillery fire and coalition aircraft. Some ten miles west of Mosul, Tornado GR4s scored a direct hit with a Brimstone missile on one of the few tanks operated by Daesh, while to the south-west, near Qayyarah, Typhoons bombed a weapons stockpile.

Very bad weather, including violent thunderstorms, seriously hampered air operations for several days. However, conditions improved sufficiently for a Reaper to resume operations over Mosul on Saturday 3 December. It conducted one attack, using a Hellfire, against a mortar, and was able to alert other coalition forces to the location of a large number of civilians potentially at risk in the area. Another Reaper continued to provide close air support to the Iraqi forces as they engaged in intensive street fighting around Mosul on Sunday 4 December; the Reaper's crew twice exploited the accuracy and small warhead of their Hellfire missiles to strike Daesh terrorists engaged in close combat with Iraqi troops, and also gave surveillance support to four successful attacks by coalition aircraft on heavily defended buildings, including one where a group of suicide bombers had mustered. Meanwhile, two flights of Tornados prosecuted Daesh targets in Syria: one pair joined other coalition aircraft in an attack on a large weapons factory which intelligence had established was being operated by Daesh some 15 miles west of Raqqah. The Tornados dropped three Enhanced Paveway II bombs which scored direct hits on their targets. In eastern Syria, the second Tornado flight used a pair of Paveway IV bombs to destroy a terrorist headquarters, plus an associated vehicle, located some 25 miles north-east of At Tibni.

Previous air strikes

Tuesday 1 November: Tornados patrolled north of Mosul where they supported advancing Kurdish forces. A Paveway IV guided bomb destroyed a Daesh heavy machine-gun position when it opened fire on the Peshmerga, while an Enhanced Paveway II demolished a building in which a light machine-gun was sited. Meanwhile, to the south-east of the city, a Reaper provided further close air support to Iraqi troops. It conducted Hellfire attacks on a mortar team who were spotted firing, and two groups of terrorists, including individuals with rocket-propelled grenades. The Reaper also directed a successful coalition air attack onto a number of terrorists defending a trench network.

Wednesday 2 November: A combination of Typhoon and Tornado aircraft patrolled to the east of the city. Some distance to the south-east, they used a Paveway IV guided bomb to destroy a building from which a terrorist mortar team was operating. They then flew north to eliminate a sniper position with a second Paveway.

Thursday 3 November: Tornados struck two further targets north-east of Mosul. A Paveway IV destroyed a building from which Daesh extremists were firing on advancing ground forces, while a Brimstone missile accounted for a terrorist vehicle. South-east of the city, a Reaper flew overwatch for Iraqi troops as they pressed forwards. The Reaper's crew used all four of its Hellfire missiles against a mortar team seen firing from amidst trees, and three groups of terrorists as they fired on the Iraqis with rocket-propelled grenades, as well as attempting to set fire to piles of tyres to create a smokescreen. The Reaper was also able to provide surveillance support to two air strikes by coalition aircraft which destroyed a fortified position and an armed truck.

Friday 4 November: Reaper operations continued south-east of Mosul, with our aircraft directing a successful coalition air attack onto its target, a weapons dump, and using one of its own Hellfires to engage a group of terrorists on foot. Two Tornados struck close air support targets inside eastern Mosul itself, using Brimstone missiles to destroy an armed vehicle and a large truck-bomb. A Paveway also hit a group of terrorists which another coalition aircraft had been carefully tracking as they manoeuvred towards Iraqi troops. A second Tornado flight supported Iraqi operations elsewhere in the country, and north-east of Mosul used Paveway IV and Enhanced Paveway II bombs to destroy a cave occupied by Daesh in the hills above Bayji, as well as a nearby stock of equipment.

Saturday 5 November: Three Hellfire attacks were launched by a Reaper near Mosul, against a truck-bomb, a mortar and a rocket-propelled grenade team. The Reaper also assisted in a coalition strike against a second mortar. On Sunday 6 November, Paveway IV-armed Typhoons bombed a terrorist group in the Tigris valley south of Mosul, while Tornados used a Brimstone missile to destroy an armoured personnel carrier inside the city. On the outskirts, a Reaper tracked a terrorist driving a truck-bomb towards Iraqi troops, but the truck exploded prematurely as it drove over rough ground, negating any need for the Reaper to fire at it. The Reaper instead used its Hellfires against a truck being loaded with spare weapons, a recoilless anti-tank gun, a rocket-propelled grenade team and an armed truck.

Monday 7 November: A Typhoon mission armed with Paveway IV guided bombs destroyed a stockpile of rocket and mortar equipment to the north of Bayji, and a Reaper conducting armed reconnaissance near Raqqah struck a Daesh vehicle with a Hellfire missile. Near Mosul, a Reaper provided close air support to Iraqi forces. Daesh fighters were observed firing a recoilless anti-tank gun at the Iraqi troops, then loading the weapon into a vehicle. As the vehicle pulled away, it was destroyed by a Hellfire. The Reaper's crew then used a further three Hellfires, which have a very low risk of collateral damage, in successful attacks on groups of extremists as they engaged in street fighting with the Iraqi troops.

Tuesday 8 November: Reaper operations in the area continued, with our aircraft conducting three further Hellfire attacks on terrorist fighters, as well as providing targeting support to a coalition air strike which destroyed a mortar team. To the north-east of Mosul, a pair of Typhoon FGR4s used Paveway IVs to destroy seven Daesh positions.

Wednesday 9 November: A Reaper spotted an armoured vehicle firing on Iraqi troops on the outskirts of Mosul, and destroyed it with a Hellfire.

Thursday 10 November: A Reaper provided overwatch to Iraqi troops engaged in street fighting at Abasi in northern Iraq. Its crew used Hellfire missiles against two groups of terrorists, including a light machine-gun team. In Mosul itself, a mortar was spotted in an area of heavily wooded parkland. It was destroyed by a Paveway IV guided bomb from a Typhoon flight. North of the city, Tornados used a Brimstone missile to kill several terrorists as they manoeuvred along a street.

Friday 11 November: A pair of Typhoons patrolled over Syria, supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces north of Raqqa. Another coalition aircraft was able to identify a Daesh armoured vehicle well concealed under trees, and was able to direct the Typhoon onto the target, which was duly destroyed with a Paveway IV. Meanwhile, south of Mosul, Tornados used another Paveway IV to demolish a terrorist strongpoint on the banks of the Tigris.

Saturday 12 November: A Reaper maintained surveillance around Mosul. As well as supporting a coalition air strike that eliminated a recoilless anti-tank gun team, our aircraft used three Hellfire missiles against a mortar and two groups of terrorists engaged in combat with Iraqi troops.

Sunday 13 November: Typhoons again operated north of Raqqa and were able to destroy an anti-aircraft gun near Thulth Khunayz. Some miles to the north-east of Mosul, Tornados used a Paveway IV to collapse a tunnel system, while closer to the city, a Hellfire from a Reaper destroyed a large weapon mounted on the rear of a lorry. The Reaper then used a GBU-12 laser guided bomb to attack successfully both a buried weapons cache and a nearby terrorist vehicle.

Monday 14 November: Royal Air Force Typhoons provided close air support to Iraqi forces as they fought to liberate the site of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud. A group of terrorists were spotted repositioning in open country some distance north of Nimrud, and successfully struck with a Paveway IV guided bomb. To the north of Mosul, a Reaper provided similar close support to Kurdish troops, in particular hunting for Daesh mortars. The Reaper's crew successfully located two such weapons. One was subsequently destroyed by coalition jets guided onto the target by the Reaper, the second was struck using one of the Reaper's own Hellfire missiles.

Tuesday 15 November: A Reaper maintained patrols over Mosul and a further terrorist mortar team was silenced by a Hellfire missile. Tornados and Typhoons meanwhile maintained pressure on Daesh elsewhere in Iraq. The Tornados used a Paveway IV to bomb a terrorist bunker south of Haditha Lake, while the Typhoons destroyed a Daesh-held building to the west of Kirkuk.

Wednesday 16 November: The Typhoons operated in the same area using Paveway IVs against two more terrorist occupied buildings some 20 miles west of Kirkuk. A Reaper also continued to keep watch over eastern Mosul, where it successfully hunted down and killed two Daesh mortar teams, and supported a coalition fast jet attack that accounted for a third, vehicle-borne, mortar.

Two Typhoons, armed with Paveway IV guided bombs, were tasked on Thursday 17 November to deal with a group of buildings which Daesh had heavily booby-trapped with large improvised explosive devices in the path of the SDF's offensive north of Raqqa. Direct hits safely demolished all four target buildings, setting off large secondary explosions. Over Iraq the same day, two pairs of Tornados provided close air support over northern and western parts of the country. North-east of Tall Afar, one mission used a Paveway IV against a terrorist mortar position, while in the west, the other flight used an Enhanced Paveway II to bomb a bunker located in the countryside north-east of Rawah.

On Friday 18 November, a Reaper supported Iraqi troops as they fought to liberate the village of Umarkan, south of Mosul. The Reaper's crew observed a group of Daesh fighters retreating into a building. Having checked that there were no indications of any civilians in the area, the Reaper was able to direct a successful coalition air strike onto the target. Our aircraft then used two of its own Hellfire missiles to kill a group of terrorists as they manoeuvred in the open, and to destroy a vehicle carrying a mortar. In Mosul itself, a Typhoon flight used four Paveway IVs to destroy a weapons stockpile in a large isolated building on the western bank of the Tigris. A second pair of Typhoons meanwhile continued to support the SDF north of Raqqa. Working closely with a coalition surveillance aircraft, the Typhoons were able to destroy a terrorist strongpoint with a Paveway IV despite the SDF being very near the target. The Typhoons then used another Paveway IV against an artillery piece concealed in trees some ten miles north of Raqqa.

Tornados saw further action over Mosul on Sunday 20 November. On the southern edge of the city, to the east of Mosul airfield, an artillery piece had been spotted hidden amongst woodland. A Paveway IV was nevertheless successfully directed onto the target, and secondary explosions suggest ammunition was destroyed along with the gun itself.

Monday 21 November: A Royal Air Force Reaper remotely piloted aircraft provided close air support to an Iraqi unit as it pressed towards Mosul from the south-east of the city. The Reaper's crew tracked a group of terrorists who had been observed firing at the Iraqi troops and, when it was safe to do so, successfully engaged them with a Hellfire missile. Our aircraft then gave targeting and surveillance assistance to two coalition air strikes on larger groups of extremists, before carrying out two further attacks of its own with Hellfires against yet more Daesh militants.

Tuesday 22 November, a combined formation of two Typhoons and a Tornado conducted armed reconnaissance over the desert of western Iraq. A number of heavily-armed terrorists were reported to be encamped some 35 miles from Haditha. Their location was confirmed by the RAF flight, which then delivered a very effective attack with Paveway IV guided bombs. The following day, a Reaper was again in action south-east of Mosul. Most of its mission was devoted to hunting terrorist heavy weapons teams and conducting very patient surveillance to ensure there were no civilians at risk in the area. The Reaper directly supported one coalition air attack on an armed vehicle, and used three of its own Hellfires to destroy two Daesh mortars and a recoilless anti-tank gun which had all been observed when they attempted to engage the advancing Iraqi units. Meanwhile, south-west of Mosul, a Typhoon flight used a Paveway IV against a terrorist heavy machine-gun position.

Thursday 24 November: RAF aircraft have also continued to provide reconnaissance and strike support to the Syrian Democratic Forces as they push towards Raqqa. As part of this, a pair of Paveway-armed Typhoons destroyed a Daesh strongpoint located some 15 miles north of the city.

Friday 25 November: RAF and Coalition aircraft continue to support Iraqi forces as they press further into eastern Mosul, as the urban operating environment becomes increasingly congested and challenging. Tornados dealt with a particularly challenging target in eastern Mosul  a Daesh mortar hidden in trees next to a busy road. The Tornados used a Brimstone missile, which has a small warhead and a very precise targeting system, to strike the target accurately whilst limiting as far as possible the risk to the passing traffic. The Tornados then hit a second target, using a Paveway IV to destroy a workshop in south-eastern Mosul which was producing truck-bombs.

Sunday 27 November: Three Tornado and Typhoon flights conducted attacks in Mosul. One Tornado mission used Enhanced Paveway II and Paveway IV bombs to neutralise a large fortified building in northern Mosul, while a second Tornado flight conducted Brimstone attacks which destroyed two engineering vehicles, used by Daesh to construct defensive positions. In fields on the southern outskirts of the city, Typhoons caught a large group of terrorists setting up a mortar which they had just unloaded from a truck. A direct hit from a Paveway IV destroyed the mortar, killed the terrorists and damaged the truck. The Typhoons then destroyed a second mortar nearby.

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Global humanitarian appeal for 2017 requires record $22.2 billion in funding - UN

5 December 2016  The world is facing a humanitarian crisis that will require a record $22.2 billion in funding for 2017 to support nearly 93 million of the most vulnerable and marginalized people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today as it launched a relief aid appeal.

"The scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded," said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien, launching the Global Humanitarian Overview 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland, according to a press release from OCHA.

"Not in living memory have so many people needed our support and solidarity to survive and live in safety and dignity," he said, noting that humanitarian response plans in 33 countries aim to reach 93 million people in need. Globally, more than 128 million people are affected by conflict, displacement, natural disasters and profound vulnerability.

Conflicts in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria are among the greatest drivers of humanitarian needs, fuelling new displacement within countries and across borders.

"Funding in support of the plans will translate into life-saving food assistance to people on the brink of starvation in the Lake Chad Basin and South Sudan; it will provide protection for the most vulnerable people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen," said Mr. O'Brien, also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

At the same time, the impact of El Nino-triggered droughts, floods and extreme weather is pushing vulnerable communities to the brink of survival. Responding to these protracted crises has prompted the humanitarian community to strive for better, faster and more effective delivery of aid, as highlighted during the transformational World Humanitarian Summit in May this year. "Funding will enable education for children whose schooling is disrupted by El Nino," he said.

So far in 2016, international donors have generously provided $11.4 billion to the current global appeal which, over the year, has risen from $20.1 billion to $22.1 billion. However, this represents only 52 per cent of the requirements and humanitarian organizations approach the end of this year with a funding gap of a record $10.7 billion - the largest gap ever.

"The lives of millions of women, girls, boys and men are in our hands," Mr. O'Brien said. "By responding generously and delivering fully on this appeal we will prove to them that we will not let them down."

The humanitarian appeal 2017 is based on Humanitarian Response Plans in Afghanistan, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. Other appeals cover Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal.

Burundi, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria are crises that affect entire regions and their neighbouring countries are included in regional response plans, bringing the number of countries included to 33.

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UN agency urges EU to adopt stronger and more pro-active approach on refugees

5 December 2016  The United Nations refugee agency today proposed far-reaching reforms of Europe's management of refugees, including the asylum system, recalling that scenes of chaos at borders last year led to a breakdown in the public's trust in the capacity of governments to manage the refugee challenge and played into the hands of those wishing to turn those fleeing for their lives into scapegoats.

In a paper presented to the European Union (EU), Protecting refugees in Europe and beyond: Can the EU rise to the challenge?, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged Europe to improve support, preparations, and response aspects of its engagement with the refugees. UNHCR also urged greater investments by European Union (EU) member States to assist refugees with integration, housing, employment and language training.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi stressed in a speech to the European Policy Centre in Brussels that last year Europe failed to implement a collective response to help over a million refugees and migrants.

In light of the resultant breakdown in public trust and the fact that the issue was seized upon by those who wanted to turn refugees into scapegoats, it is important that EU member States show, through collective action, "that Europe is capable of engaging effectively and in a principled manner with refugee movements, helping to stabilize refugee flows over the long term through more strategic external engagement  while at the same time, continuing to welcome refugees in Europe," he added.

The agency has also proposed a Better Protecting Refugees in the EU and Globally paper, outlining measures to address the reasons why refugees are fleeing, and simplifying an asylum system that would make the process of identifying and registering more efficient. The system also builds on elements of the existing Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and some reforms proposed by the European Commission. The reform would also guarantee the right to asylum, enhance security screening, and improve management of population movements.

"History has demonstrated that Europe is stronger when it addresses its challenges together; and I firmly believe that this is still possible today," stated Mr. Grandi, adding that it is time for a new vision for Europe's engagement with the global refugee crisis.

According to UNHCR, the system will also include a common European registration system, a common approach to unaccompanied and separated children, and efficient system for returning individuals who are not in need of protection to their countries of origin.

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NATO Ministers to Meet With Trump on Their Minds

By Lisa Bryant December 05, 2016

NATO foreign ministers face a busy agenda as they meet for year-end talks Tuesday in Brussels, with closer ties with the European Union topping the list.

But at a time when the alliance faces myriad challenges, the biggest issue is not on the official agenda: What NATO course will Donald Trump chart when he becomes U.S. president?

"Trump will be on everybody's mind," says analyst Sven Biscop of the Egmont Institute, a Brussels-based research group, before the two-day meeting in Brussels.

The President-elect's conflicting remarks about the Atlantic alliance and his controversial calls and tweets, including a telephone chat with Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-Wen that irked Beijing, have fed European concerns, analysts say, while his choices for key security posts have sparked a mixed response.

Working together

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg did not directly address those questions at a news conference Monday, saying only he was "looking forward to working" with Trump at a NATO summit next year.

Stoltenberg earlier expressed confidence Washington's commitment to its alliance will not change, despite Trump's campaign claims the United States may not necessarily come to the defense of NATO members who fail to pay their dues.

"The Europeans will want to emphasize their commitment to European defense and keep America tied to NATO and Article 5 (on collective defense)," said Andrew Dorman, a NATO expert at London policy institute Chatham House.

This week's talks will also mark the last major NATO meeting under the Obama administration, and a farewell to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

"The Europeans will be trying to get a feel of what the heck a Trump administration is going to be like," Dorman said. "And it's not clear Kerry is going to be able to tell them that much. He's probably guessing as much as anyone else."

Defense funding threat

This week's meeting comes days after the European Union unveiled an ambitious new plan for defense funding and research, including a $5.36 billion annual investment fund.

While Washington has for years called on the Europeans to increase their defense spending, Trump's tough remarks appear to have hit home, analysts say. The United States bankrolls about 70 percent of NATO's budget. Only four members, Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland, meet alliance commitments of earmarking at least two percent of their GDP on defense.

Last week, Lithuania's president Dalia Grybauskaite said her country would meet the NATO target by 2018, even as she called on Trump to uphold NATO commitments.

"It's really interesting to see how Trump is pushing the Europeans to react," says Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, Paris office director for The German Marshall Fund of the United States. "When you meet with military commanders in France, they'll say, 'We want to prove that Trump is wrong.' That's the leitmotif of what you're hearing."

Brexit, Iran, Russia

Brexit is providing another push for closer military cooperation among the EU's remaining members, with heavyweights France and Germany leading the way.

"The UK has been blocking the creation of the European Union's own operational headquarters," says Dorman of Chatham House. "That will go ahead now."

While Trump's selection of retired general James Matthis as defense secretary has earned European praise, his positive remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his threats to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement have unsettled many allies.

On Iran, European allies may break strongly with Trump if he tries to undo the nuclear deal, Biscop says. For Europeans, the normalization of relations with Iran is absolutely uncontroversial," he said. "There's no desire to go back on that."

Russia is more complex. While Europeans maintain their sanctions and tough talk against Moscow on issues like Ukraine and Syria, France's conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon is among those pushing for a more accommodating policy toward Moscow.

"I think the concern now in Europe is where is Trump's red line when it comes to Russia. Is he willing to formalize Crimea's annexation? Or to find a solution with Putin in Iraq and Syria?" said de Hoop Scheffer.

Those questions are unlikely to go away, de Hoop Scheffer predicts Moscow will flex its military muscles in the weeks before Trump's January inauguration.

"Putin will be testing Trump to see how he reacts," she said.

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UN Launches Record Appeal for Nearly 93 Million Vulnerable People

By Lisa Schlein December 05, 2016

The United Nations is launching a record appeal of $22.2 billion to provide life-saving assistance for nearly 93 million of the world's most vulnerable people in 33 countries.

At a gathering of international donors in Geneva, the U.N. said the world is facing the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War II. It said more than 128 million people affected by conflict, displacement and natural disasters need urgent support.

Of this number, the U.N. is appealing for money to help nearly 93 million of the most acutely vulnerable people in need of immediate life-saving assistance. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O'Brien says money from this multi-billion-dollar appeal will make a vital difference in the lives of tens of millions of people.

"It will translate into life-saving food assistance to people on the brink of starvation in the Lake Chad Basin and South Sudan. It will provide protection for the most vulnerable people in Syria, in Iraq, and in Yemen. And, it will enable children, education for children whose schooling is disrupted by El Nino among many other responses," O'Brien said.

The crisis in Syria is the United Nations' biggest humanitarian concern, with plans to help nearly 13 million people who are displaced within the country or living as refugees in neighboring countries. O'Brien said humanitarian assistance is only a stop-gap measure. He told VOA a desperately needed political solution is the only thing that will ultimately bring to an end the suffering of the Syrian people who have been at war for more than five years.

"Humanitarians can do no more than fill the gaps of people who either need food or shelter or medicine or treatments or evacuation or who need access to water and sanitation and hygiene and other non-food items in order simply to survive," O'Brien said.

Besides Syria, the United Nations cites Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria as among the greatest drivers of humanitarian needs, prompting large-scale displacements within and outside these countries. Indeed, the United Nations notes that about 1.2 million people - 80 percent of them women and children - have fled South Sudan, making this the biggest refugee movement in Africa.

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Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

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The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan

Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement

With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building

OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh
Former Serb Military Commander Back in Courtroom for Closing Arguments

By VOA News December 05, 2016

Former Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is back in The Hague Monday as his trial for genocide and war crimes in the 1990s' conflict nears an end.

More than four years after Mladic's trial opened at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), prosecutors will begin three days of closing arguments and will likely call for a long prison term.

Mladic, 74, has denied 11 charges including two of genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-'95 Bosnian conflict, which saw Europe's worst bloodshed since World War II.

The defense, which has repeatedly sought to have the case thrown out or the judges dismissed, will then have three days to conclude their case, starting Friday.

The defense has maintained that Mladic and his forces were acting in self-defense to protect against attacks by Bosnian Muslim forces and that he is the victim of a "political" trial.

He is primarily accused of being behind the punishing 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, which claimed an estimated 10,000 lives when residents were terrorized by a relentless campaign of shelling and sniping.

Mladic also stands accused for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were rounded up and shot when his forces overran Dutch U.N. peacekeepers in what was supposed to be a U.N. safe-haven.

Mladic, once dubbed "The Butcher of Bosnia," came to symbolize a barbaric plan to rid multi-ethnic Bosnia of Croats and Muslims, fueled by the desire for a "Greater Serbia" to establish an ethnically pure state.

More than 100,000 people died and 2.2 million others were left homeless in the conflict, one of several that erupted while Yugoslavia was disintegrating.

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Gambian Court Orders Release of Opposition Leader, 18 Protesters

By James Butty December 05, 2016

A Gambian court has ordered the release of an opposition leader and 18 other political prisoners, just days after President Yahya Jammeh lost the recent presidential election and agreed to step aside.

Ousainou Darboe and other members of the United Democratic Party received three-year jail sentences in July for taking part in a peaceful demonstration demanding electoral reforms. The court's decision Monday to release them on bail prompted cheers in the courtroom and among supporters outside.

Another opposition party is asking the international community to ensure all political prisoners jailed under Jammeh are quickly released.

"By this interview, I'm calling on Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and also the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for them to intervene and make sure that these political prisoners are released immediately," said Saihou Mballow, one of the Diaspora coordinators for the Gambia Democratic Congress party.

According to Amnesty International, at least 51 people arrested this year alone are awaiting trial, including Darboe. Thirty-six others are being held without charges.

"The Gambian people have spoken. They have called for the release of these people. That's why they voted Jammeh out," Mballow said.

Newly-elected leader Adama Barrow has said he wants to be the president for all Gambians. He also said one of his priorities is to create jobs, particularly for the country's youth.

Mballow said the new coalition government faces challenges in that it will have to rebuild every aspect of Gambian society, following Jammeh's 22-year rule.

"During his time in office, there was no respect for the rule of law. The civil service is in shambles right now. The health sector has failed; the security has failed. At this moment, we don't think whether we have a professional army that can maintain security for the Gambian people because all they were doing was they were answerable to President Jammeh," Mballow said.

He also said Jammeh was in charge of almost every government ministry, effectively controlling the lives of Gambians.

"He was the man who was in charge of the health sector; Jammeh was the one who was in charge of the agriculture sector; Jammeh was the one who was in charge of the finance sector; Jammeh was the one who was in charge of the business sector. So, this coalition has a big problem," he said.

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China Tests Nearly a Dozen Missiles Since Trump's Surprise Victory

Sputnik News

22:28 05.12.2016(updated 23:57 05.12.2016)

After US President-elect Donald Trump defied recent geopolitical norm by speaking with the president of Taiwan, the Chinese military tested ten DF-21 missiles in November as part of a show of force, ostensibly intended for Trump, per the Washington Free Beacon.

Although mainland China refuses to acknowledge the sovereign rights of Taiwan, the US has a long history of selling billions of dollars in weapons to the island nation.

Meanwhile, China's display of force is evidence that "the PLA is banging some drums to provide background for military psychological warfare," Rick Fisher, an expert on China's military, told the Washington Free Beacon.

According to a report from the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency, the DF-21 missiles can "destroy US Asia-Pacific bases at any time." Further, the dummy-missile test firings comes at a time when the People's Liberation Army has increased large-scale maritime exercises, according to Fisher.

The DF-21 missiles have a range of approximately 1,000 miles and are capable of carrying maneuverable warheads. The Chinese missile is comparable to the US Army's decommissioned Pershing II missile, according to the article. The Pershing II program was decommissioned in 1991 as part of a treaty between Russia and the US on intermediate range nuclear arms, according to an Federation of American Scientists issue brief.

Yusuf Unjhwala, an editor at the Indian Defence Forum, wrote in October that China would "definitely" send a slew of "conventional" DF-21s at Indian targets in the event of a "full war" between the nations.

 Sputnik

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Tweets, Phone Call Shake China's View of Trump Presidency

By William Ide December 05, 2016

Many in China initially welcomed the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, viewing it as a win for Beijing and believing that as a businessman his approach would be more straightforward than that of his opponent.

But a phone call and a few tweets later, that view is starting to change as many realize Trump's presidency may not be as predictable as some originally hoped. And talk about possible diplomatic and economic blowback from Beijing is growing.

On Friday, President-elect Trump broke with decades of diplomatic tip-toeing and spoke directly with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen on the phone. The call shocked Beijing not only because Trump was the first president-elect to make such a call, but also because in his tweet, Trump referred to her as President Tsai.

The United States switched diplomatic ties to Beijing in 1979, and China claims the democratically-ruled island as part of its own territory. Under agreements made as part of that shift in diplomatic recognition, Washington agreed to cut political ties with Taiwan.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that U.S. officials are in touch with Beijing to reiterate the One China policy after Trump's recent phone call.

But just as Beijing was recovering from last Friday's assault on its diplomatic senses, Trump released two more tweets early Monday, Beijing time.

"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.." he said in one tweet and continued in another "their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!"

Back to reality

Wang Dong, a political science professor at Peking University says Trump's tweets appear to be "bluffing" and in line with his purported ability as a good negotiator. But, he adds, it is also clear Trump is surrounding himself with individuals in the Republican Party who have hawkish views on China.

"And I think that gives us reason to be worried about U.S.-China relations going forward," Wang said. "There has been too much wishful thinking and overly optimistic expectations about Donald Trump in China, and I think that people now have to come back to reality."

Stephen Yates, a China expert who was deputy national security advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney, tells VOA the call's timing makes it less diplomatically consequential.

"Before the power handover, we only have one president: Obama," Yates told VOA's Mandarin Service, during an interview in Mandarin. "President-elect Trump talked on the phone with several foreign leaders to establish personal relationships, not to talk about big policy issues, nor to negotiate any political agenda for the United States. It is important for Trump to have some personal relationship with these leaders, but we will not know his actual policies until after his entry into the White House."

Yates, a Trump supporter and chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, emphasized what he calls Trump's clear distinction between "substantive strategic issues and symbolic topics."

"Answering the phone is just a symbolic topic, but when Trump mentioned the sale of defense weapons and the threat of China in his Twitter, it is a very practical consideration," Yates said. "Perhaps his Taiwan policy will become a challenge to the Taiwanese government, but he will represent a greater political challenge for the leaders of mainland China. The next U.S. government will adopt a very competitive attitude when conducting trade and financial negotiations with China."

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, another official who served under former President George W. Bush, also downplayed the call's potential diplomatic fallout. Expressing praise for President Tsai, he called it too soon to anticipate the call's long-term impact on U.S.-China policy.

"There wasn't any protocol [to violate], actually. ... To say that there was a protocol in existence is too strong," he told VOA. "You'll remember that in the first couple of days of President Ronald Reagan's [administration], he invited a delegation from Taiwan to attend his inauguration. We've had interesting developments between Taiwan and China, and between the U.S. and Taiwan, for years."

Ambassador Christopher Hill, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, expressed fear, however, that the phone call only underscore's Trump's lack of detailed knowledge of one China policy.

"He is obviously familiar with the One China policy [and] familiar with the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), but maybe not all the details," Hill said. "He has a million things he has to focus on, so I think the real test of these will be after he becomes president, whether there will be any changes. My own view is that our one China policy and TRA have worked very well. There are other things that are in immediate need of change ... [and this isn't] one of them."

Stern representations

So far, Beijing has kept criticism of Trump to a minimum, and China's response to the call has been less harsh than many had anticipated. China's Foreign Minister has called the phone conversation nothing more than a "petty trick" by Taiwan. It has also issued "stern representations" to "relevant parties" in the United States and the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

At a regular briefing Monday, the first since the phone call, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang did not make any additional statements about the incident nor did he comment directly on Trump's recent tweets  including his first about the touchy South China Sea issue.

Lu said the Trump transition team was clear about China's position regarding the phone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and said Beijing has been in touch with the president-elect's team. Lu did not state explicitly whether a call had been made to the team after Trump and Tsai spoke.

Lu talked about the benefits of the U.S.-China relationship and Taiwan from Beijing's perspective, calling it the "most important" and "most sensitive" issue.

The proper handling of the Taiwan issue, he said, "is an important political pre-condition that has helped ensure the continual and healthy development of U.S.-China relations and allows the continued development of mutually beneficial relations."

Richard Bush, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who once directed the American Institute in Taiwan, an organization established under the auspices of the United States government to serve its interests in Taiwan, says Beijing is in a position to handle the Trump/Tsai call one of two ways.

"It can tolerate this for the sake of having a good relationship with the U.S., [because], technically, Trump is a private citizen, so this is not an interaction between officials of the two governments," he told VOA. "Or it can regard this as the first step of creeping officiality and decide that it has to 'kill the monkey to scare the chickens.' Playing into this choice are perceptions of relative power; perceptions of Taiwan's vulnerability, and its approach to risk."

Trump contingencies

Communist-backed state media have been more blunt and direct in their criticisms of Trump, arguing that his decision to speak with Tsai was a sign of his "inexperience" and lack of understanding of the sensitive nature of China's views regarding Taiwan.

The nationalistic Global Times urged the government to do more, but to keep the focus on Tsai and her new government for now.

China "can let Taiwan lose one or two diplomatic allies as a punishment as well as a warning." It also argued that Beijing could strengthen its military deployments in case Taiwan makes any moves toward independence.

At the same time, though, the newspaper argued that China needs to be tactful and skillful in dealing with Trump, adding that it "should understand that Trump has two faces."

"On the one hand he is bluffing and unpredictable, and on the other, he has no plan to overturn international relationships, and will focus on U.S. internal affairs to "make America great again," it argued.

Assumptions aside, no one knows for sure how Trump's approach will be different and what he may eventually do when in office. And because of that, China needs to prepare policies regarding the currency and even the South China Sea, said Peking University's Wang Dong.

"China would be well advised to make preparations for contingencies," Wang said.

Daphne Fan, Abby Sun and Li Ya of VOA's Mandarin Service contributed to this report.

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Indian Army to Equip T-90 Tanks for Night Fighting

Sputnik News

19:46 05.12.2016

India is trying to play catch up with China and Pakistan in 24X7 armoured warfare. Only half of India's tanks are configured for night warfare as against Pakistan's 80 per cent and China's 100 per cent.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  Night-blindness for Indian armoured formations will become a thing of the past as the army has revived the process to equip its main battle tank T-90 with high tech night visiion.

The Army wants to procure 1,400 uncooled thermal imager-based driver's night sight (DNS) with fusion technology for T-90 tank to assist the driver in tank operations at night. Indian Army plans to replace the existing image intensifier sights used in T-90 tanks in the next five years.

"The proposed DNS will be a form-fit replacement for the existing Image Intensifier Sights currently used in T-90 tanks. It should facilitate driving during pitch dark nights with no ambient light. The T-90 tank driver should be able to clearly view the area in-front with adequate depth perception while driving over undulating terrain with the help of an uncooled thermal imaging sight," reads the request for proposal document.

The uncooled imager is less expensive and relatively maintenance free and are used for instant operations.

"At present there is no Indian company which has the potential of manufacturing even in collaboration a DNS of the type that the Indian Army wishes to purchase. While Defence of Research and Development Organization has developed an uncooled DNS it is not clear if the technology has been shared with any Indian company," says defense analyst Brigadier Rahul Bhonsle (retired).

DRDO has developed uncooled thermal imagers based DNS for tanks of range up to 150 meters with field of view 45x34.

"This will considerably improve the night fighting capability by providing the ability to maneuver on the battle field under pitch dark conditions," says Bhonsle.

In November, the Indian Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar had cleared a proposal to procure 464 T-90 tanks from Russia at cost of approximately $2.1 billion. Almost 2,500 T-72 tanks currently serving the Indian Army need to be replaced by year 2020 but the delay in development of indigenous main battle tank Arjun MK II has forced Indian Army to increase its dependence on T-90s. Now, India plans to induct more than 1,600 T-90 tanks by 2020 that to be deployed in western front bordering Pakistan.

 Sputnik

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US not empowered to violate nuclear deal: Iran

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 10:48AM

Iran says the United States is not empowered to violate the nuclear agreement reached between the Islamic Republic and six world countries last year.

"The US cannot [violate the deal] and is not in the position to move in the opposite direction of this accord and oppose it, nor is any other country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Monday in his weekly address to the press.

The accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was clinched in July 2015 between Iran on the one side, and the US, Britain, Russia, France and China plus Germany on the other. It lifted nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear activities.

Qassemi further said given the agreement's multi-national nature, "it will have a strong international backing and its contravention is not something that could happen easily."

Recently, the US Congress voted to extend Washington's sanctions law against the Islamic Republic, known as the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), although the JCPOA has removed all nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.

On his campaign trail, US president-elect Donald Trump had made several highly-controversial remarks against the accord, raising speculations that Washington may take steps in breach of the accord under the new government.

Qassemi said Iran had made "all necessary calculations" to respond should the US reneges on its promises.

"We will not let others violate the Iranian people's rights," said Qassemi, stressing that the Iranian administration will defend the nation's rights.

"A country, which is about to celebrate the 38th anniversary of its [Islamic] Revolution and has braved several rounds of US sanctions, has no worries about new ones."

The official, however, said Tehran was still monitoring the developments inside the US, adding, "One should see whether the US president would veto the ISA or not."

'Myanmar must stop Muslim plight'

Elsewhere in his remarks, Qassemi said the Islamic Republic was against discrimination of any kind against the world's minorities.

In the same context, he called on Myanmar to the persecution of its Rohingya Muslims, which has raised concerns among international rights groups over the past months.

The 1.1 million-strong minority, which the government brands as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, has been suffering widely-reported systematic aggression for years.

The Myanmarese army has recently stepped up its crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in the state of Rakhine following a deadly attack on the country's border guards on October 9. The government blamed the assault on armed Rohingyas.

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Iran, China Urge Countries to Continue to Adhere to Nuclear Deal

By VOA News December 05, 2016

The foreign ministers of China and Iran have urged the governments that signed the Iran nuclear deal to continue to adhere to the agreement regardless of "any changes in the domestic situations of the countries concerned."

Their remarks appear to be directed at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who said on the campaign trail this year he would renegotiate the terms of the deal and increase its enforcement, calling the pact "the dumbest deal I think I've ever seen."

None of the other parties to the agreement have expressed interest in dismantling the deal.

The nations that negotiated the agreement "have the obligation to fully implement it," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday in Beijing. "Iran will not allow any country to take unilateral action to violate the agreement and Iran has the right to take action against that."

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the deal should be "implemented fully and in its entirety, which is the common responsibility and duty of all parties involved in this agreement."

The negotiations for Iran's nuclear deal sprang out of concern that Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons, which the Iranian government repeatedly denied.

The deal was reached after extensive negotiations between Iran, China, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. The agreement spells out a 10-year limit on Iran's centrifuges, a 15-year limit on how much it can enrich uranium and a 25-year period for United Nations inspectors to have access to its nuclear facilities, all pushing its major effects beyond certain changes in leadership among the nations involved in the negotiations.

U.S. President Barrack Obama called the agreement the world's best "means of ensuring Iran does not get a nuclear weapon," while diplomats involved pointed to the negotiations as an example of how nations can peacefully resolve their differences.

World powers have lifted their sanctions, unlocking billions of dollars for Iran and clearing the way for new business opportunities there.

Iran has complained that despite the lifting of sanctions that once barred financial institutions from doing business with the country remain reluctant to be involved in transactions.

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'Daesh retreats from major site in Mosul'

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 10:58AM

The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group has completely withdrawn from a major site they were using for logistical and housing purposes in the Iraqi city of Mosul after destroying all buildings there as security forces approached, a report says.

Iraq's BasNews on Sunday quoted an informed source as saying that the Daesh terrorists withdrew from all the buildings of Mosul University, whose buildings they were using as housing centers and for manufacturing weapons, over the past two days.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Daesh terrorists had destroyed all the buildings and internal roads on the premises with bulldozers, themselves seized from the Mosul municipality back in 2014, when they overran the city.

The "scorched earth" tactic was apparently aimed at hindering the advancement of the Iraqi forces engaged in operations to liberate the city.

The source said that the presence of the terrorists in Mosul's residential areas had declined.

He also said that the Daesh terrorists had transferred their equipment to areas to "the right side of Mosul, west of Tigris River."

Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that the fighting in Mosul may lead to the halt of the delivery of humanitarian aid to the one million Iraqi civilians living in the areas held by Daesh in Mosul and other regions.

It also urged the Iraqi forces to set up safe corridors to allow Iraqis flee the Daesh-held areas.

The Iraqi army and volunteer forces launched an offensive to retake Mosul, the last urban area in control of Daesh in Iraq, on October 17.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive there more than two years ago. The militants have been committing vicious crimes in the areas under their control.

Meanwhile, the director of the Department of Displacement and Migration in Anbar Province, Mohammed Rashid, has said that some 113,000 displaced families have returned to the province's capital city, which was liberated from Daesh in January.

He told Iraq's al-Sumaria news website that, "More than 57,000 displaced families returned to Ramadi and over 28, 000 displaced families returned to Fallujah," the latter being another city liberated by Iraqi forces this year.

Many residents left their homes in Anbar after Daesh terrorists took control of most of the province's cities in 2014.

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Iraqi Army Says Liberates Eight Villages North of Mosul From Daesh

Sputnik News

19:30 05.12.2016

Iraqi army liberated eight settlements north of Mosul from the Daesh terrorists, according to the operation command.

Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan) (Sputnik)  Iraqi army on Monday freed eight villages north of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh), the operation command said.

In addition to the liberation of the settlements, the Iraqi Army's 16th Infantry Division was able to detect and destroy four secret underground passages used by insurgents to attack government forces.

Mosul, the second biggest Iraqi city, as well as a number of other northern and western Iraqi cities and towns were seized in 2014 during an offensive of the Daesh terror group, which had gained resources from illicit trade of oil produced at the occupied territories.

Iraqi forces backed by the US-led coalition against the Daesh launched the operation to reclaim Mosul from the extremist group, outlawed in Russia and the United States among others, on October 17.

 Sputnik

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Soviet-Made Floating Bridges Become a Lifeline for Mosul Operation

Sputnik News

15:43 05.12.2016

The Soviet-made military pontoon bridges have played a crucial role in supporting the US-led coalition's offensive on Daesh terrorists in Iraq's Mosul, according to the Russian newspaper Izvestia.

The Russian newspaper Izvestia reported that the Soviet-made military pontoons parks purchased by Iraq under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s became a lifeline for an anti-Daesh offensive in Mosul, after coalition aircraft destroyed the bridges over the Tigris River.

Iraqi forces backed by the US-led coalition launched the operation to reclaim Mosul from the Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) terror group on October 17.

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraqi, as well as a number of other northern and western Iraqi cities and towns were seized in 2014 during a Daesh offensive.

Late last week, engineering teams managed to complete several pontoon bridges over the Tigris River in order to transport the Iraqi army's heavy equipment as well as that of the First American Infantry Division units who were recently deployed to Iraq to support the Mosul operation, according to Izvestia.

Crossing the Tigris River means that the Iraqi troops will now be able to advance on Mosul's western areas, while the American generals, who are in fact at the helm of the Mosul operation, will deal with their favorite hammer-and-anvil tactics.

Viktor Murakhovsky, chief editor of the Russian magazine Arsenal Otechestva (Armory of the Motherland), told Izvestia that the Soviet pontoon parks remain popular all across the world.

All you need for their installation are powerful trucks and several tug-boats, according to him.

"These fool-proof pontoon bridges can be installed by staff engineering teams on their own. Unlike the US-made pontoon parks which require cranes and other equipment, our pontoon bridges can be completed with the help of a crow-bar and a simple set of tools," Murakhovsky said.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service's commander Lt. Gen. Abdel Ghani Asadi said that the Service had liberated more than 600,000 residents in 25 districts of Mosul from Daesh terrorists.

He added that Iraqi special operations troops had killed about 1,000 jihadists since the start of the Mosul operation.

There is no concrete timeframe for liberation of Mosul from Daesh, but it will not take a long time, he said.

 Sputnik

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Forces loyal to Libyan unity government fully liberate Sirte

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 1:33PM

Forces loyal to Libya's UN-backed government have fully liberated the militant stronghold of Sirte from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, officials say.

Reda Issa, a spokesman for pro-government forces, made the announcement on Monday.

"Our forces have total control of Sirte," Issa said, adding, "Our forces saw Daesh totally collapse."

The spokesman also noted that the forces are now carrying out mop-up operations to clear the area of the Takfiri remnants.

Meanwhile, a statement on the loyalist forces' official Facebook page confirmed the liberation of the terrorist group's ex-North African stronghold of Sirte.

"Daesh has totally collapsed and dozens of them have given themselves up to our forces," the statement read.

Daesh took control of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast, early last year and took advantage of the political chaos in Libya to increase its presence in the country.

Libyan forces launched a military operation in May to retake the city. They managed to enter the city in June and, since then, they have liberated a number of districts.

Sirte's recapture will leave Daesh with no territory in Libya.

The oil-rich North African state has been dominated by violence since a NATO military intervention followed the 2011 uprising that led to the toppling and killing of longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Rival governments were set up in Tripoli and eastern Libya back in 2014.

Last December, however, the two administrations agreed on forming the Government of National Accord (GNA) after months of UN-brokered talks. The presidential council of the GNA arrived in Tripoli in March in a bid to restore order to the country.

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Daesh Defeat in Sirte Marks New Chapter for Libya

Sputnik News

19:45 05.12.2016(updated 19:48 05.12.2016)

Libyan forces have announced that after six months of fierce fighting to vanquish Daesh from the coastal city of Sirte, the city has been liberated.

"Our forces have total control of Sirte," Reda Issa, a spokesperson for pro-government forces, told AFP. Earlier on Monday the final few dozen Daesh insurgents, left in the Ghiza Bahriya district, surrendered to the Libyan forces, officials said.

It is likely that the extirpation of Daesh from the city will throw into stark relief the tensions between the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and the opposition government based in the country's eastern city of Tobruk, supported by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA).

Both sides have been grappling for political credibility since the 2011 ouster of Libyan strongman colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Forces loyal to Haftar and the GNA have been locked in hostilities with Daesh over Sirte for approximately six months. Analysts have argued that both parties see capturing Sirte and defeating Daesh as an avenue to increasing credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of Libyans.

The international community has called upon Haftar and his forces  the Libyan National Army  to accept the authority vested in the GNA by the benediction of the UN. However, the characteristic vicissitude of post-Gaddafi Libyan politics has recently brought an unexpected twist of fate for the country's political trajectory.

Haftar and the LNA launched a military operation named 'Sudden Lightning' which sought to take control of Libya's oil crescent ports on the country's coast from the Petroleum Guard Forces (PGF). The PGF has acted as custodian to the oil ports for the GNA, which has earned them the contempt of Haftar and the opposition government in Tobruk, who have argued that oil  which is Libya's most lucrative export commodity  should be controlled by all parties, not only the GNA.

Libya boasts Africa's largest oil reserves, estimated at 48 billion barrels. Back in 2010 before the revolution and NATO bombing, Libya was producing approximately 1.65 million barrels per day. However, the post-Gaddafi security fallout and crisis has caused production rates to drop from 1.6 million barrels per day to under 260,000. The Libyan National Oil Company has estimated that costs of losses in production since 2014 have been approximately US$100 billion dollars.

Following the LNA's successful takeover of the oil crescent (which includes the ports Ras Lanuf, Sidra, Zueitina and Brega), Haftar declared the opening up of the ports for business, and announced he would be handing over control of the ports to the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) to begin the process of exportation.

The GNA came out in condemnation of Haftar's takeover of the ports and initially the USA, Britain, Italy, Spain and France released a joint statement that they would be enforcing sanctions upon those who illegally export Libyan oil.

However, following the capture of the ports, Haftar followed through on his word and handed over the ports to the NOC, which says it is politically neutral and loyal to both the GNA and the Haftar-supported parliament.

The following week, an oil tanker left the port of Ras Lanuf bound for Italy, carrying with it 776,000 barrels of oil. This was in fact the first shipment of oil to leave Ras Lanuf port since November 2014.

It appears that Hafar's victory may have dealt a decisive blow to the GNA's credibility by shifting the balance of political as well as military power in his favor.

Moreover, Haftar's proclamation that the ports be reopened will no doubt be perceived as a positive development, thus possibly cementing his credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Libyans.

Not long after the takeover, Western powers suddenly struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that they "welcomed the transfer of the oil facilities in the oil crescent to the National Oil Corporation as well as the plans to increase oil production and exports."

Therefore effectively legitimising the LNA's grabbing of the oil ports and handing them over to the NOC.

"By taking control of the oil terminals, Haftar firstly increased his popularity and his legitimacy within Libya, but also he convinced the international community that he is is a force that is able to act. So he has managed to position himself as a credible actor on the ground in the eyes of Libyans, but also now for much of the international community," Mohamed Eljarh of the Atlantic Council told Sputnik.

It is undeniable that the ramping up of oil production is a welcome move by Libyans. However, whether or not Haftar and the LOC will be able to maintain the exports in the medium to long term is a point in question.

John Hall of the energy consultancy firm Alpha Group told Sputnik:

"Exports from Libya are not regarded as being stable or reliable. But the real issue here is  who is actually in control? Because even discerning that simple fact is difficult at this stage, discussions of the future of the exports is very difficult."

Nevertheless, there is strong reason to believe that by removing the oil crescent from the control of the GNA-backed militias, Haftar has managed to expose the GNA's inability to maintain its hold over a key state asset oil  thus making it appear a weak actor.

In the eyes of many Libyans this is a grim portent for how effective the GNA might be into the future, considering that it was not able to defend the country's primary economic lifeline from being taken by force.

The oil crescent remains a powder keg between the two governments, as control over it is seen as vital to gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the Libyan people, and now seemingly the international community. Both the GNA and the Haftar-backed parliament in Tobruk walk a tightrope into Libyans political future and may recognise the need to reconcile and work together to ramp up oil production and improve the socioeconomic prospects of ordinary Libyans.

At the end of September at an interview with AFP in Paris, the leader of the GNA, Fayez al-Sarraj, struck a new and placatory tone, saying that Haftar should be represented in a new, more "inclusive" government.

Barely two weeks after the LNA seized the oil crescent, Serraj said that, "no one wants an escalation or a confrontation between Libyans." Whether or not both sides will be able to reconcile and focus on rectifying Libya's political woes remains to be seen. However, one thing is for sure  the control of the oil crescent may have unexpectedly brought the GNA and Haftar closer together, meaning it might turn out to be Libya's political saving grace.

The recent defeat of Daesh in Sirte marks a new chapter in Libya's fratricidal conflict. Forces loyal to the GNA announced on December 5th that they were responsible for driving Daesh out of its last remaining pocket in Sirte. On the other hand, Haftar's LNA argues that it has been waging the war of attrition against the group that has contributed to the slow erosion of its battlefield capabilities over the last six months. Both groups will claim the defeat was meted out by their own hand in the hope of winning over the majority of Libyan people to their camp.

Regardless of who delivered the coup de grace to Daesh in Sirte, if a semblance of stability and unity is to return to Libya, then both parties bust mutually recognise the legitimacy that the other commands and come together to forge a new political future for Libya.

 Sputnik

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Libyan Army Seizes Control of the Country, Declares State of Emergency

Sputnik News

18:20 05.12.2016

In an apparent attempt to restore stability in the beleaguered country, Libyan armed forces have declared a state of emergency, temporarily putting all democratic processes on hold.

Ali Katrani, head of the Presidential Council at the Government of National Accord, told Sputnik that the state of emergency imposed by the military heralds the beginning of a transition period that will allow Libya to restore its territorial integrity.

The military, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, will take charge of the country during this time; once the country is united once again, the government will then focus its attention on reaching a political consensus within the nation.

Katrani pointed out that the Libyan National Army owes its successes in the fight against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) and other terrorist groups due to the overwhelming popular support at home and to the recognition of its legitimacy abroad.

According to Katrani, during the state of emergency all government institutions except for the house of representatives will suspend their activities; as the army assumes control of the country, military governors will be assigned to each region and military field courts will come into operation.

He also insisted that the army does not seek to permanently seize power in the country, and as soon as the situation in Libya is stable the country will return to democracy: parliamentary and presidential elections will be held and a special committee will set to work on developing a constitution.

The time for coups in the world is over, Katrani declared, and if the people of Libya wish to see Haftar as their leader and he reciprocates, then the field marshal will participate in presidential elections.

 Sputnik

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Paramilitary troops kill five militants in southwestern Pakistan

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 6:18PM

At least five militants from the outlawed terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) have been killed in a shootout with Pakistani paramilitary forces in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

According to a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, Khan Wasay, the militants were killed after troops stormed a compound in the village of Huramzai in Pashin district, which is located 35 kilometers (21 miles) north of the provincial capital Quetta.

The security forces managed to kill militants during an ensuing exchange of fire, he added.

Provincial home secretary Akbar Harifal confirmed the details of the clash in the volatile region.

The LeJ terrorist group, which has been involved in several attacks on Shia Muslims in recent years, is largely funded by Saudi Arabia.

The militant group has claimed responsibility for some of the most brazen attacks on the Shia community in Pakistan's recent history, including a January 2013 bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta, where over 100 members of the Hazara community were killed.

Human rights groups say the Islamabad government must take decisive actions against forces involved in the targeted killings of Shia Muslims. The Shia community also accuses Islamabad of failing to provide proper security for the Shias.Islamabad denies this.

The notorious LeJ militant group, which works with both Takfiri Daesh and al-Qaeda terrorists, has also turned its guns on government forces in recent years.

Pakistani forces arrest 10 Baloch separatists

Meanwhile, Provincial Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Monday that Pakistani security forces had arrested 10 Baloch separatists after a gunfight in Khuzdar district.

In recent years, the militant group known as Baloch Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks across the region

Mineral-rich Balochistan Province has been plagued for decades by a separatist insurgency and sectarian killings.

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Seoul Fears North Korean Provocation Amid Political Crisis, Ready to Repel

Sputnik News

16:41 05.12.2016

Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Jeon Ha-kyu said any North Korean provocation would be equal "to self-destruction."

TOKYO (Sputnik)  South Korea's military fear that North Korea could make a "provocation" amid political crisis in Seoul and new sanctions imposed by United Nations Security Council, and promise to take counter measures, media reported on Monday.

"We are closely monitoring North Korea's military moves as it might misinterpret political trouble in the South and the power transition period in the U.S. as a good opportunity to provoke," Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Jeon Ha-kyu was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

He added that any North Korean provocation would be equal "to self-destruction."

On Friday, South Korean National Assembly will vote on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye amid a corruption scandal around her close friend and "shadow adviser" Choi Soon-sil.

On November 30, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted the draft resolution condemning "in the strongest terms" the nuclear test conducted by North Korea on September 9. The resolution prohibited UN members from buying a number of North Korean exports, including coal and several metals.

On December 2, North Korea carried out a massive artillery drill in the Yellow Sea that simulated striking military targets in South Korea.

On September 5, Pyongyang launched three ballistic missiles in the direction of the Sea of Japan. Several days later it conducted a successful test of a nuclear warhead, which is believed to be the fifth and largest blast since Pyongyang began pursuing nuclear and ballistic missile programs. On October 14, North Korea carried out a failed test of the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile near the northwestern city of Kusong.

 Sputnik

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Sky's the Limit: Russia's Unique Jamming System Getting Upgrade

Sputnik News

17:45 05.12.2016(updated 17:48 05.12.2016)

There is nothing to compete with the advanced Borisoglebsk-2 Russian electronic warfare system either at home or abroad, Danil Gatilov, spokesman for Russia's United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation, told Sputnik.

In an interview with Sputnik Iran, Danil Gatilov, spokesman for Russia's United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation, touted the performance characteristics the Russian Borisoglebsk-2 electronic warfare system which he said is unique.

The Borisoglebsk-2 is a multi-purpose jamming system developed by the United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation for the Russian Armed Forces.

Its development started in 2004 and its evaluation testing was completed successfully in December 2010. The system was initially introduced to the Russian army in 2014.

Speaking to Sputnik Iran, Danil Gatilov said that the Borisoglebsk-2 is designed to suppress mobile satellite communications and satellite-based navigation signals of a potential enemy.

"The Borisoglebsk-2 system is currently being upgraded. There is nothing like this system either in Russia or abroad in terms of its technical characteristics. The Borisoglebsk-2 is capable of detecting enemy ground-based sources of communication at a distance of more than 20 kilometers," he said.

Referring to the Borisoglebsk-2, Gatilov did not rule out that this "unique" product may be become the jamming system of choice for a whole array of countries.

"Judging by our talks with foreign customers, the subject of electronic surveillance is of great importance both to Russia and elsewhere. That's why our unique system is of interest to our customers from the Middle East, Asia and South America," he said, especially referring to Iran.

The Borisoglebsk-2 merges four types of jamming stations into a single system with a single control console which allows the operator to take decisions within seconds. The system is mounted on nine MT-LB armored vehicles.

Compared to previous jamming units, the Borisoglebsk-2 has a wider range of radio surveillance and suppression, hi-speed frequency scanning, a longer operative range and more precise radio wave emission source spatial localization.

 Sputnik

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Russian Su-33 Skids Off Admiral Kuznetsov Aircraft Carrier, Pilot Unharmed

Sputnik News

13:34 05.12.2016(updated 15:56 05.12.2016)

A Russian Su-33 fighter jet has skidded off the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean while landing but the pilot ejected and his life is not in danger, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"While landing after completing a combat task in the Syrian sky, a Su-33 fighter jet skidded off the dock because the cable of arresting device broke. The pilot ejected and was immediately brought aboard the Admiral Kuznetsov heavy aircraft carrier by rescuers. His life is not in danger," the ministry said.

The naval group's aviation continues its mission as planned, it added:

"The ship-based aviation continues its flights in accordance with its tasks."

On October 15, Russia's Northern Fleet's press service said that a group of warships headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov accompanied by the Pyotr Veliky battle cruiser, the Severomorsk and Vice-Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine destroyer and support vessels had been sent to the Mediterranean to hold drills and strengthen capabilities.

Su-33 fighter jets based on Admiral Kuznetsov air carrier repeatedly took part in the anti-terrorist strikes in Syria.

Russia launched military operation against terrorist groups in Syria in September 2015, at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

 Sputnik

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Russian Army Holds Drills in Far East Using Deadly Tyulpan Mortars

Sputnik News

09:22 05.12.2016(updated 09:38 05.12.2016)

An artillery division in Russia's Far East practiced the deployment of self-propelled mortars 2S4 Tyulpan and struck a mock enemy avoiding the retaliatory strike.

VLADIVOSTOK (Sputnik)  The mortar squads of the Eastern Military District artillery divisions in Russia's Primorsky Territory conducted military exercises, Eastern Military District spokesman Vladimir Matveev said on Monday.

"An artillery division was raised by the emergency drill alarm and moved in a short time to the specified region. The division marched through mock infected areas and reflected a mock enemy attack," Matveev told journalists.

According to Matveev, the artillery division had practiced the deployment of the self-propelled mortars 2S4 Tyulpan and struck a mock enemy avoiding the retaliatory strike.

Self-propelled mortar 2S4 Tyulpan is considered to be one of the most powerful in the world, with a 240 mm caliber and 20 kilometers (12.43 miles) range. At such range, Tyulpan can destroy fortified buildings, enemy troops and armed vehicles.

 Sputnik

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Russian warplane crashes into Mediterranean off Syria coast, pilot safe

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 3:8PM

Russia says one of its twin-engine air superiority Sukhoi Su-33 fighter jets has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Syria, after it rolled off the deck while landing on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement on Monday that the warplane had carried out a number of airstrikes in Syria, before attempting to land on the military vessel. The arresting cable, however, snapped and the aircraft skidded beyond the deck.

The statement added that the pilot of the jet successfully ejected and was unharmed in the incident.

The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that its military operations over Syria would not be affected by the incident.

Last month, a MiG-29 warplane crashed into the water while preparing to land on the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier. The pilot of the plane was safely catapulted.

The Russian Defense Ministry later stated that technical fault was to blame for the incident during a training mission.

The development came only two days after the commander of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, Captain 1st rank Sergei Artamonov, said Russian warships were positioned in the "designated zone... in the eastern Mediterranean and jointly carrying out tasks, maneuvering to the west of the Syrian coast."

He added that fighter jets had already started taking off from the carrier's deck to survey the conflict zone.

Militants in eastern Aleppo negotiating terms of surrender: Report

Separately, foreign-backed militants in the eastern quarter of Aleppo are reportedly conducting secret talks with senior Syrian military officials on the terms of surrender.

The pro-government and Arabic-language al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday that the Takfiris are demanding that authorities legalize their status, let them leave eastern Aleppo and head to the city's government-controlled western part.

Syrian government forces, who are in full control of western Aleppo, have been conducting operations to purge militants from the city's east.

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Russia blames US, UK, France for militants' hospital shelling in Syria's Aleppo

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 2:42PM

Two Russian medics have been killed in a militant shelling of a Russian field military hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo, with Moscow blaming the US, UK and France for the attack.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Monday that the two female Russian medics were killed in the shelling of the health facility in the government-held part of the Syrian city while two doctors were also severely injured in the attack.

The first female medic was killed on the spot when a shell hit the reception area of the hospital, while the second died from her wounds later, Russia's Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said.

Konashenkov added that the United States, Britain and France were to blame for the attack as they sponsor militant groups in Syria.

"No doubt, the opposition's gunmen carried out the shelling (but) the instigators are also to blame, those who created and armed these beasts in human form and called them 'opposition' in order to unburden themselves," said Konashenkov.

"The sponsors of terrorists in the US, UK and France, as well as other countries sympathizing with them, you are to blame," he said.

The Russian official accused the three Western countries of tipping off the militants about the hospital's location, saying it was quite clear for Moscow "where the militants got the precise data and coordinates" of the Russian hospital at the moment when it started working.

The US, Britain and France have been heavily critical of Russia's assistance to Syria in its drive to liberate Aleppo from the militants. France even drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the immediate halting of airstrikes by Russia on Aleppo, under the allegation that the aerial military campaign resulted in war crimes. Moscow vetoed the resolution.

Russia has consistently denied the allegations, but has offered to talk with the Westerners on the withdrawal of the militants from eastern Aleppo.

Militants reject withdrawal from Aleppo

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow would hold talks with Washington this week on a timeframe for the withdrawal of all militants from Aleppo.

However, militant groups rejected the offer on Monday, saying they would not accept the withdrawal plan.

A militant group calling itself Nureddine al-Zinki said any proposals for the exit of militants would be "unacceptable." Another militant group calling itself the Army of Islam also said the militants would not leave the city until they fully capture it.

The Syrian government has been making sweeping advances in militant-held areas in eastern Aleppo, with recent reports suggesting that the military and its allies have managed to retake two-thirds of the territory that used to be under the control of the militants.

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Hermine Naghdalyan: It is a good habit to go on a business trip on ones birthday (video)

Hardy had the National Assembly started its four-day sitting, when NA Vice-Speaker Hermine Naghdalyan was heard as saying to NA Speaker Galust Sahakyan, but it is a good habit to go on a business trip on ones birthday. Shortly afterwards, the legislature congratulated Republican lawmaker Karen Avagyan who is celebrating his birthday today. The lawmaker was not in the hall. Then, the National Assembly put to a vote and passed unanimously most of the bills discussed on Monday. The Armenian lawmakers continued debates on the draft amendments to the Law on State Duty. Mikael Melkumyan of the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) said the bill had not been presented for public discussions. One thing is clear: Armenia has few communities with more than 10 000 inhabitants and only 30 percent of people live in these communities. I just ask you to lift direct payments for communities, he said. Mher Shahgeldyan of the Country of Law Party (OEK) suggested conducting hearings and discussions in order to make the voice of communities audible to relevant bodies. It is very important that we provide support to border communities, he stressed. The key reporter, Vache Terteryan, First Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations, said the bill had been discussed with residents of some 40 communities. On December 9, it will be presented to representatives of another 100 communities. We shall consider all proposals made by MPs, he said. The legislature is now discussing the revised version of the 2017 state budget.
Russia will keep up support for Syria in anti-terror fight: Lavrov

Iran Press TV

Mon Dec 5, 2016 7:2AM

The Russian foreign minister says Moscow and the US will soon hold talks on the withdrawal of militants from the city of Aleppo, stressing his country's full support for Syria in its fight against the Takfiri terrorists.

"During the Russian-American consultations, concrete routes and timing of the withdrawal of all militants from eastern Aleppo will be discussed. Once we reach an agreement, a ceasefire will be put in place," Sergey Lavrov said Monday.

He added that Moscow and Washington will begin the talks on the militants' pullout in Geneva on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, noting the discussions will take place upon a proposal made by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Russia's top diplomat added that any militant group that refuses to leave eastern Aleppo after Moscow reaches a deal with the US will be treated as terrorist.

The negotiations have been delayed by a few days at Washington's request, Lavrov noted.

Lavrov also slammed as counterproductive a draft resolution on Aleppo truce that is set to be put to vote at the UN Security Council later in the day, saying it is aimed at undermining Russia-US efforts, hinting at the possibility of Russia vetoing the measure.

"Taking into consideration the outcome of the previous pauses [in the conflict], there is absolutely no doubt that the 10-day ceasefire which backers of the draft resolution generously want to provide the militants with would surely be used for regrouping and rearming the extremists and would slow down the liberation of eastern Aleppo from them," he said.

The comments come as the UN Security Council is reportedly set to vote on the Aleppo resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire in the embattled Syrian city as well as aid delivery there.

According to diplomatic sources, the resolution, drafted by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain, will be put to vote during a Monday session.

It urges all parties to the conflict in Syria to "immediately cease any attacks in the city of Aleppo to allow urgent humanitarian needs to be addressed" for an initial period of seven days that could be extended, the sources added.

The draft resolution calls for allowing humanitarian aid delivery to people trapped in the militant-occupied parts of eastern Aleppo.

The document also says that the temporary ceasefire will be a prelude to a cessation of hostilities across Syria.

The resolution was reportedly drawn up after extended negotiations with Russia, which has been providing air cover to the Syrian army's ground operations against Takfiri terror groups for over a year.

It is still uncertain whether Moscow, which had proposed a renewable ceasefire of 24 hours, excluding terrorist groups such as the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as the al-Nusra Front), will veto the resolution.

Moscow and Damascus argue that lengthy pauses in the fight against militants could pave the way for them to regroup and rebuild their strength.

Meanwhile, Canada has asked on behalf of 74 of the 193 member states of the UN General Assembly to hold a plenary meeting for a vote on another resolution on humanitarian aid in Aleppo. No date has been set for the event so far.

Unlike the Security Council, no country has the right to veto the decisions of the General Assembly which are not binding either.

The assembly, according to a provision dating back to 1950, can take over from the Security Council when it is too divided to act.

Syrian government forces, who are in full control of western Aleppo, have been conducting operations to purge militants from the city's east.

Backed by Russia's airpower, Syrian army forces and their allies have dealt heavy blows to the militants over the past few weeks.

On the Aleppo front

On Monday, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian forces had managed to retake the neighborhood of Qadi Askar overnight.

The monitoring group also said the army had earlier captured Karm al-Myessar, Karm al-Qatarji and Karm al-Tahan neighborhoods.

Syrian forces have now surrounded Shaar neighborhood, whose potential recapture would bring back 70 percent of east Aleppo under the government's control, it added.

Syria's official news agency SANA quoted on Sunday a military source as saying that government troops had restored security and stability to new areas in the eastern part of Aleppo.

The Syrian army and its allies have reportedly taken control of the neighborhoods of Myessar, Tahhan as well as Qadi Askar al-Haooz roundabouts. The army's engineering units have begun dismantling bombs planted by terrorists in those areas.

The army also purged the Eye Hospital in Qadi Askar neighborhood of the terrorists.

The militants, however, continued to launch attacks across the country on Sunday. They fired rockets at the towns of Nubl and al-Zahraa, north of Aleppo, injuring 10 people, including three children.

Daesh terrorists also launched mortar attacks in al-Qussour neighborhood in the city of Dayr al-Zawr, injuring six civilians, including two children.

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Moscow Says Russian Medics Killed In Aleppo Attack, Blames Rebels And West

December 05, 2016

The Russian Defense Ministry says two Russian female army medics were killed on December 5 and a third medic was seriously wounded in what it said was the rebel shelling of a field hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The Russian military blamed Western nations that it said "support" rebels fighting against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.

The ministry's chief spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, claimed that rebels deliberately directed artillery fire at the mobile field hospital in a government-held district after it began receiving civilians. He said there was a direct hit on the reception area.

Konashenkov said that the United States, Britain, and France and other nations he called "patrons of terrorists" bore responsibility for the deaths, saying that "the blood of our service members" is on their hands.

He did not provide evidence to support the claim that the field hospital was deliberately targeted, or that it was hit by rebel fire.

Konashenkov also called on the international community to condemn what he called the "premeditated murder" of Russian army medics in Aleppo.

The UN and medical charities have repeatedly called on all sides of the Syrian conflict not to target medical facilities.

Russia has been flying air raids in Syria since September 2015 and has provided the longtime ally Bashar al-Assad's forces with other military support during the more than five-year-old war that has killed at least 250,000 people.

Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters, TASS, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/syria-russia-medic -killed-/28157385.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 Female Medic Wounded by Militants' Shelling of Aleppo Hospital Dies

Sputnik News

17:48 05.12.2016(updated 18:11 05.12.2016)

One of the two Russian medics wounded by militants' shelling of a hospital in Aleppo has died, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Monday. Doctors are fighting for the life of the second wounded medic, a pediatrician.

"A [female] Russian military medic has died as a result of the injuries she sustained in 'opposition' militants' artillery shelling of the Defense Ministry's hospital in Aleppo," Konashenkov said.

The doctors did their best to save her life but could not prevent her death.

"But the severe wounds were fatal. At the moment the doctors are fighting for the life of their badly wounded colleague, a pediatrician" he said.

The militants of the so-called Syrian opposition attacked a Russian military mobile hospital in Syria's Aleppo, killing a military medic of staff and injuring two others earlier on Monday.

"Today during an appointment of local residents, the medical camp of the defense ministry's mobile hospital was shelled by militants. One military medic was killed as a result of a mine hitting the hospital's emergency room. Two other medical employees were seriously injured. Local civilians who arrived to visit the doctors were also wounded," Konashenkov said earlier.

According to Konashenkov, militants of the Syrian "opposition" are behind the attack. Moreover, Moscow understands from where militants of the Syrian "opposition" received coordinates of the Russian hospital in Aleppo, he added.

Russian military medics have begun to consult the residents of Syrian Aleppo's eastern districts liberated from militants. They opened a clinic, a medical ward for children, a surgery department, an intensive care department, a laboratory and an x-ray room.

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 opposition failed to expel al-Nusra Front, which is now known as Jabhat Fatah al Sham and outlawed in Russia, from the city.

 Sputnik

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Russia; China Block 7-Day Cease-fire for Aleppo

By Margaret Besheer December 05, 2016

Russia wielded its U.N. Security Council veto Monday, blocking imposition of a 7-day cease-fire in the Syrian city of Aleppo so that humanitarian aid could reach the city's besieged eastern neighborhoods.

China sided with Russia and also vetoed the measure. Council member Venezuela voted against it, while Angola abstained.

"These kinds of pauses have been used by fighters to reinforce their ammo [ammunition] and to strengthen their positions," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council by way of explanation. "This will only worsen the suffering of civilians," he said.

His delegation had tried to stop the vote going ahead on a minor procedural issue, but failed to find enough support for its effort.

The Russian ambassador also complained that the drafters of the resolution  Egypt, New Zealand and Spain  had been pressured to rush to a vote by the United States, Britain and France.

"We think that these efforts only worsen the situation around Aleppo," Churkin said.

Council members have been discussing the text for at least a month.

The draft resolution originally called for a 10-day humanitarian pause, but the authors cut it back to seven consecutive days with the hope that it would win Russian support.

"Today's veto is another indictment on Russia, on those that supported it, and on this council," said New Zealand's envoy Gerard van Bohemen.

"Today's veto demonstrates to the world that for Moscow and Damascus our common refrain  there is no military solution to this conflict  is a hollow fiction," van Bohemen said. "For those countries it is clear that a military victory is precisely what they want and are actively pursuing," he added.

Syria's Russian-backed military has been intensifying its offensive against the rebel-held enclave in Aleppo since mid-November. It has since retaken more than half of the rebel-held areas. Some 250,000 civilians are trapped in the eastern part of the city. U.S. Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison said the Russian and Chinese action would only serve to deprive besieged civilians of medicine, food and other life-saving aid.

"They have vetoed the lives of innocent Syrians, she said. "This action is a death sentence for innocent men, women and children." Dozens of U.N. member states have called for action in the U.N. General Assembly because of the council's inability to stop the fighting.

"It is abundantly clear that the Security Council is unwilling to save lives in Syria," Najib Ghadbian, the Special Representative of the Syrian National Coalition said in a statement. "It is now up to member states to stop Assad's slaughter through the enforcement of a nationwide no-bomb zone and the immediate delivery of airdrops into besieged eastern Aleppo."

Ahead of Monday's vote, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would hold talks on Tuesday or Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva.

"During the Russian-American consultations, the concrete route and timeframe for the withdrawal of all fighters from eastern Aleppo will be agreed upon," Lavrov said.

U.S. officials had not confirmed those talks by mid-afternoon Monday, and there was no immediate U.S. comment on the Security Council vote.

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Taiwan will not decommission Mirage fighters early: official

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/05 22:21:42

Taipei, Dec. 5 (CNA) Mirage fighters purchased from France have superb performance and Taiwan has no plans to decommission them ahead of schedule, Deputy National Defense Minister Lee Hsi-ming () said on Monday.

The Apple Daily, a local newspaper, reported that 19 years have passed since Taiwan began to take delivery of Mirage fighters in 1997.

Taiwan has been asking France to upgrade the performance of the 56 Mirage fighter jets since 2012, but Paris has been dragging its feet, and even gave an "exorbitant" price tag, which resulted in the MND not accepting the deal, the report said.

There are worries that if parts and components of the fighters become unavailable, the Air Force could decommission them before the scheduled time, the report said.

Lee on Monday dismissed such a report at the Legislature's Foreign and National Defense Committee.

"Mirage fighter jets have superb performance," he said, adding that the Air Force is making efforts to maintain their performance.

On the supply of parts and components from France, he said there were no major problems.

The Air Force has meanwhile asked National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology to help extend the lifespan of the MICA missiles installed on Mirage fighters, Lee said, adding that the institute is capable of doing so.

Lee, however, acknowledged that the delivery of parts and materials needed for the maintenance of Mirage fighters and the price are indeed higher than two other types of aircrafts  the indigenous defense fighters (IDFs) and F-16 fighters  in the Air Force.

But the Air Force has been able to maintain the Mirage at an adequate level as required by the Ministry of National Defense, he said.

The Apple Daily has also reported that a fighter jet is generally designed to be used for 30 years, but 15 years after it rolls out of a plant, it will have to be upgraded to maintain its performance and to ensure flight safety. If there is no upgrade, the lifespan is about 20 years.

The report said that Taiwan has upgraded its other fighter jets. The IDF A/B has been upgraded to C/D, while the upgrade of F-16 A/B to F-16V will begin early next year.

(By Hsieh Chia-chen and Lilian Wu)

Enditem/cs

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Chinese aircraft circled around Taiwan for first time: MND

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/05 19:06:41

Taipei, Dec. 5 (CNA) Chinese aircraft circled around Taiwan on Nov. 25 for the first time on a long-distance training mission, Deputy National Defense Minister Lee Hsi-ming () confirmed Monday.

"This was the first time that Chinese aircraft circled around Taiwan," Lee said, adding that China has said similar training sorties will become routine.

Lee said that politically speaking, the move was not surprising, explaining that if China had a capability, it was going to demonstrate it once its Air Force had completed all of its other training missions.

Six Chinese aircraft -- two H-6K bombers, one TU-154 surveillance aircraft, one Y-8 surveillance plane and two Su-30 fighters -- took part in the Nov. 25 long-distance training mission.

Among the six, four circled around Taiwan by flying around southern Taiwan and over the Bashi Channel before joining other planes over Japan's Miyako Channel and returning to China.

Legislator Lo Chih-cheng () of the Democratic Progressive Party asked if China's action will put pressure on Taiwan's air defense warning system.

Lee responded that China's frequent sorties have put pressure on Taiwan, but he said the military was "responding well" and that there was "no need to adjust standard operating procedures in response."

Lo also said it is publicly known that Chinese military planes have flown near Taiwan's intelligence information region three times -- on Sept. 25, Oct. 27 and Nov. 25.

Chang Yuan-hsun (), the deputy chief of the Ministry of National Defense's General Staff for Intelligence, replied that the ministry is aware of more than three incidents but that in none of the cases did the planes enter Taiwan's air defense identification zone.

(By Hsieh Chia-chen and Lilian Wu)

enditem/ls

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Taiwan's diplomatic situation stable after Trump-Tsai call

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/05 21:14:42

Taipei, Dec. 5 (CNA) Ties between Taiwan and its diplomatic allies remain stable after the Dec. 2 phone conversation between President Tsai Ing-wen () and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the Presidential Office said on Monday.

When asked if China will intervene in Taiwan's relations with its diplomatic allies, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang () said such speculation is not true.

"We had not obtained such information or intelligence, and at the moment our ties with other countries are stable. We are also continuing to enhance our relations with both our diplomatic allies and non-diplomatic allies," Huang said.

Huang also denied rumors that Tsai plans to visit Central America in January and make a stopover in the U.S.

The phone conversation between Tsai and Trump was the first publicly reported call between a Taiwanese leader and a U.S. president or president-elect since 1979, when Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

The call has triggered waves of debate and speculation about whether this signals changes in relations among China, the U.S. and Taiwan.

Chou Mei-wu (), deputy director general of the National Security Bureau, said on Monday that it is not unlikely that the phone call would spur increased efforts by China to squeeze Taiwan's international space.

(By Sophia Yeh and Lee Hsin-Yin)

ENDITEM/cs

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Trump's talk with Taiwan's leader just a courtesy call: U.S. officials

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/05 13:04:39

Washington, Dec. 4 (CNA) United States Vice-President-elect Mike Pence and a senior aide to President-elect Donald Trump both said Sunday that Trump's phone call with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen () last week was just a courtesy call and did not signal any plans to change U.S. foreign policy.

In a break with decades of diplomatic precedent, Trump took a congratulatory call from Tsai on Dec. 2, the first publicly reported call between a Taiwanese leader and a U.S. president or president-elect since 1979.

The 10-minute phone conversation sparked speculation that when Trump takes office as president, his administration would break with the U.S.' current "one-China" policy.

Under that policy, which was adopted in 1979 after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as representing China but retains unofficial ties with Taiwan.

In an interview on NBC's popular news talk show Meet the Press Sunday, Pence said Tsai's call to Trump was just a "courtesy."

"She reached out to the President-elect and he took the call from the democratically elected leader of Taiwan," Pence said, adding that the call was one of more than 50 that Trump has had with world leaders since the Nov. 8 election.

"And so it's all a reflection of the tremendous energy and it's the kind of approach that you're going to see him bring to challenges at home and abroad," Pence said.

In response to a question by the talk show host, Pence said the call did not represent an intentional challenge to the foreign policy establishment or to the U.S.-Chinese diplomatic establishment.

Nothing should be read into it, Pence added.

He said Trump had also talked with Chinese President Xi Jinping () in the same manner about two weeks earlier and that was not a discussion about policy either.

After Trump's inauguration in January, his team will deal with policy and will plan how to advance his agenda on the world stage, Pence said.

He said the tumult over Tsai's call to Trump was "tempest in a teapot" and there were no plans to try to placate China.

"I think I would just say to our counterparts in China that this was a moment of courtesy," Pence said. "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."

China has lodged a diplomatic protest with the U.S. over the phone conversation last Friday between Trump and Tsai, international media reported Sunday.

China also called on the relevant parties in the U.S. to handle Taiwan-related issues "cautiously and properly" to avoid "unnecessary interference" in the China-U.S. relationship, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang () said in Beijing, according to the news reports.

"There is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory," Shuang said, according to the reports. "The government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing China. This is a fact that is generally recognized by the international community."

Meanwhile, Trump's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on Sunday rejected suggestions that the decision to take a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's president was a diplomatic blunder on Trump's part and that he had not been participating in the U.S. State Department's daily briefings.

Conway said Trump was being routinely briefed by foreign policy and military experts on international intelligence reports and was "fully aware of the One China policy."

"It's just a phone call," she said on Fox News. "President-elect Trump is not out there making policy or policy prescriptions."

Conway also said the U.S. media was "cherry picking" who to name in their reports of congratulatory calls to Trump since his upset win over the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in November.

Conway said Trump and Pence had received congratulatory calls from 49 or 50 other world leaders.

If his conversation with Tsai sends any signal, it is that Trump accepted a congratulatory call, Conway said.

(By Tony Liao and Evelyn Kao)

Enditem/pc

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U.S.-Taiwan ties, cross-strait peace not conflicting: MAC head

ROC Central News Agency

2016/12/05 13:51:40

Taipei, Dec. 5 (CNA) Taiwan thinks it is equally important to maintain good relations with the United States and pursue peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Monday.

The congratulatory phone call by President Tsai Ing-wen () to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Dec. 2 should not be viewed by China as anything unusual, MAC chief Chang Hsiao-yueh () told the press before attending a legislative committee hearing.

"The Republic of China (Taiwan) is a country with independent sovereignty," Chang said. "It has long been the government's policy to expand its international activities and its relations with the U.S."

The Taiwan government also attaches importance to its links with mainland China and the pursuit of peaceful and stable development of ties across the strait, she said.

"The two approaches are not conflicting," Chang said.

Noting that the U.S. and China are the world's two largest economies, Chou said Taiwan's relations with each of them are equally important.

She said the Tsai administration has no intention of returning to the old path of antagonism with China and will not join with any one country against another.

The Dec. 2 phone conversation between Tsai and Trump was the first publicly reported call between a Taiwanese leader and a U.S. president or president-elect since 1979, when Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

The call has triggered waves of debates and speculations about relations among China, the U.S. and Taiwan.

On Monday, Chou Mei-wu (), deputy director general of the National Security Bureau, was asked during a legislative hearing whether he thought the phone call would spur increased efforts by China to squeeze Taiwan's international space.

In response, Chou said it was not unlikely but the bureau to date had not obtained any information or intelligence of any such moves by China.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China and has vigorously obstructed attempts by the Republic of China (Taiwan) to have any official contact with other nations or to take part in international activities.

(By Hsieh Chia-chen and Elizabeth Hsu)

ENDITEM/pc

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White House Says US-Taiwan Ties Limited, But Contacts, Joint Work Persist

Sputnik News

23:40 05.12.2016(updated 23:41 05.12.2016)

US-Taiwan relations have for years operated within certain limits but still allow for some degree of communication and partnership, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Monday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has never renounced the possibility of using military force to reunite the island with the mainland.

"The relationship between the United States and Taiwan is an unofficial one, but it is not frozen," Earnest said. "After all, Taiwan is the ninth-largest trade partner of the United States."

On Friday, President-elect Donald Trump received a congratulatory phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan on Trump's victory in the US election last month. After the call, Trump's transition team announced that the two had discussed economic, political and security ties between Washington and Taipei.

Earnest stressed that even though outgoing President Barack Obama has not had official contact with Tsai since her election in May, several US officials are in touch with Taiwan's government on a regular basis.

Trump is the first US president or president-elect to speak with a Taiwanese leader in an official capacity since the United States severed ties with the island in 1979 in favor of recognizing the government in Beijing as the only Chinese state.

 Sputnik

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Greek Court Rejects Extradition of Turkish Soldiers Accused in Coup Attempt

By VOA News December 05, 2016

A Greek court has ruled against the extradition of three Turkish soldiers accused by Ankara of involvement in a failed coup last summer.

The three soldiers, part of a group of eight who fled to Greece, have denied Turkey's allegations.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has engaged in a crackdown on journalists, academics, military and civilian government employees, accusing them of participating in the July coup attempt.

More than 100,000 people have been removed from their jobs since government forces blocked the coup attempt. More than 35,000 others, including military officers and opposition politicians, have been arrested for suspected collusion with the coup plotters.

Erdogan has accused U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of plotting the coup, and vowed to bring Gulen to justice.

Gulen, a former Erdogan ally in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup attempt.

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100M investment in Britain's future 'Protector' programme

4 December 2016

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon agrees 100M contract to develop cutting-edge Protector Remotely Piloted Air System especially for RAF.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. will develop their current drone technology into new cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicles for use by the Royal Air Force.

Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon said:

"Britain faces ever-evolving threats and we must look at innovative solutions to stay ahead of our enemies. Doubling investment in our unmanned air fleet will substantially enhance both the intelligence gathering and firepower of the RAF."

"The UK's security partnership with the US is the deepest and most advanced of any two nations on earth; this programme is part of a further strengthening which will help keep Britain safe and secure."

Protector will be equipped with the very latest technology, including advanced imaging and enhanced datalink technology. There are also plans for Protector to be armed with UK-made Brimstone 2 missiles and Paveway IV laser-guided bombs.

Sir Michael Fallon is in the US as a keynote speaker at the annual Reagan National Defence Forum, in California, where he will meet US Secretary for Defence Ash Carter and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford.

Speaking at the Forum, the Defence Secretary underlined the enduring strength of Britain's relationship with the US in defence, security, and innovation. The close collaboration between the two countries on innovative future defence technologies was emphasised recently in a joint agreement to explore the impact that robotic and autonomous systems might have on resupplying the military, with the first demonstration due next October.

Chief Executive Officer of the MOD's Defence Equipment & Support organisation, Tony Douglas, said:

"Protector is a highly advanced system which will use world-beating technology to give us a decisive advantage on the battlefield. This contract signature is not only great news for our armed forces, but demonstrates how the strong relationship between UK Defence and our allies helps to ensure best value for the taxpayer."

Building on our current Unmanned Aerial Vehicle capability, the next-generation Protector will offer improved range and endurance, greater weapons capacity, automated take-off and landing and better resilience against the elements.

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"The city and the county disagreed on the casino," Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Chairman Vic Ingram said. "Based on that, the city moved forward, we got left behind and I do not blame the city for that."
New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone.
TSX-V: CLZ

www.canasil.com

VANCOUVER, Dec. 5, 2016 /CNW/ - Canasil Resources Inc. (TSX-V: CLZ, DB Frankfurt: 3CC, "Canasil" or the "Company") announces that Orex Minerals Inc. (TSX-V: REX, "Orex") has filed with the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval ("SEDAR") a Technical Report in accordance with the rules of National Instrument 43-101 for the first Inferred Resource Estimate on the Boleras Silver Deposit at the Sandra-Escobar Project in Durango, Mexico. The project is being advanced by Orex under an option agreement with Canasil announced on September 15, 2015.

Orex has drilled 8,372 metres in 62 diamond drill holes in the southeastern region of the project. The first 59 diamond drill holes formed the basis for an initial Resource Estimate on the Boleras Silver Deposit. At a "Base Case" of 45 g/t Ag cut-off, the Inferred Resource Estimate yielded 9.8 million tonnes grading 106 g/t Ag for a total of 33.3 million ounces of silver (See Canasil and Orex news releases of October 31, 2016).

Note that Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the estimated Mineral Resources will be converted into Mineral Reserves. The estimate of Mineral Resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, sociopolitical, marketing, or other relevant issues.

The Technical Report containing the foregoing Resource Estimate is available on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). The report titled "Sandra Escobar Project Technical Report, Boleras Mineral Resource Estimate", dated December 1, 2016, (effective date: October 25, 2016, the "Technical Report") was commissioned and prepared for Orex by J.M. Collins, P. Geo., A. Fowler, MAusIMM CP (Geo), and S. Butler, P. Geo., of Mining Plus Canada Consulting Ltd. Mssrs. Collins, Fowler and Butler are Qualified Persons as defined under National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators  Standards of disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mining Plus is a mining engineering consultancy, established in 2006, consisting of skilled experts specializing in mining engineering, geoscience and mining operation management.

Sandra Escobar Silver-Gold Project, Durango, Mexico

Sandra Escobar is located 200 km northwest of the city of Durango, Mexico, in the heart of the "Mexican Silver Trend", with excellent access and infrastructure. This prolific trend hosts some of the world's largest silver camps and deposits, with many past and present producing mines and significant silver-gold deposits. The project area covers over 6,333 hectares of mineral concessions and multiple mineralized epithermal quartz veins and breccia structures. These veins and structures form high level silver-gold-base metal systems, hosted in andesitic and rhyolitic rocks, and are centered on a large rhyolite dome complex in the north and silver-dominant systems around smaller rhyolite dome complexes to the southeast. Under the terms of the agreement dated September 15, 2015, Orex has an option to earn up to 65% interest in the project through total cash and share payments of $1,000,000 and exploration expenditures of US$4,000,000 over five years.

The Technical Report is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and on the Company's website at www.canasil.com.

The technical information contained in this news release is based upon the Technical Report and information released by Orex on December 5, 2016, and has been reviewed for accuracy and approved by J. Blackwell (P. Geo.), a technical advisor to Canasil and a "Qualified Person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Canasil:

Canasil is a Canadian mineral exploration company with a strong portfolio of 100% owned silver-gold-copper-lead-zinc projects in Durango and Zacatecas States, Mexico, and in British Columbia, Canada. The Company's directors and management include industry professionals with a track record of identifying and advancing successful mineral exploration projects through to discovery and further development. The Company is actively engaged in the exploration of its mineral properties, and maintains an operating subsidiary in Durango, Mexico, with full time geological and support staff for its operations in Mexico.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts are forward looking statements, including statements that address future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, changes in commodities prices, exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. The reader is referred to the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators for disclosure regarding these and other risk factors. There is no certainty that any forward looking statement will come to pass and investors should not place undue reliance upon forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Canasil Resources Inc.
Cranbrook, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: EPL) has received final assays and geophysical data from its 2016 exploration program on its 100% owned Chico project, located 125km east of La Ronge, Saskatchewan and 40km south of Silver Standard Resources Seabee/Santoy mine complex. 2016 fieldwork included a 661 line-km airborne geophysical survey, mapping, trenching and soil geochemical surveys designed to define high-grade gold targets for upcoming drilling activity. The recently-completed program marks the first systematic exploration work carried out to date at Chico by Eagle Plains.

Highlights

1.5 km mineralized structural corridor defined by past and current work

Anomalous soil geochemical samples up to 4.5 g/t gold along structural corridor

Rock samples ranging from trace quantities to 20.2 g/t recovered

Numerous drill targets identified

The overall objective of the 2016 program was to identify mineralization similar to that at the nearby Seabee and Santoy deposits. The Seabee gold operation has been in continuous production since 1991 and has produced 1.2M ounces of gold from the Seabee and the Santoy deposits. Ore geology at Seabee/Santoy consists of high-grade vein mineralization associated with volcanic and mafic intrusive rocks which have been structurally disrupted by splays of the deep crustal Tabbernor Fault system. The Tabbernor Fault is a 1500 km-long regional structure which has been traced from as far north as the Rabbit Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan to as far south as the Black Hills of South Dakota, the latter of which hosts the 40M oz Homestake gold deposit. The shared proximity to the Tabbernor fault and similarities in terms of age and tectonic history to the Homestake and Seabee deposits was the main driving force behind EPLs interest in acquiring the Chico property. Management cautions that past results or discoveries on proximate land are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be achieved on the subject properties.

Chico Project Summary and History

The Chico structural zone comprises a north/northeast-trending 20m- to 150m-wide multi-episodic shear system comprising both ductile and brittle gold-bearing quartz vein systems. Trenching and drilling activities carried out by Corona Corporation and Cameco from 1988 to 1993 defined a mineralized strike length of over 1400m. Trenching by Corona at the Royex showing returned five chip samples greater than 1000 ppb gold with a best (chip) sample of 14.3 g/t Au over 1m (AR 63M06-0034). Follow-up diamond drilling by Cameco near the Royex trench returned five significant intercepts ranging from 0.51 g/t over 1.5m, to 36.0 g/t over 0.3m (AR 63M06-0041).

The $100,000 2016 field program carried out by Eagle Plains, confirms both the compelling size and grades within the Chico structural zone. Additionally, the 2016 field work has also outlined new geochemical and structural vectors that define attractive diamond drill targets.

Mineralized shear zones and quartz veining that define the Chico zone are hosted in diorite and granite and especially along the sheared contact between these two units. The Chico and the adjacent parallel Ed and Western structural zones are related splay structures off the larger Tabbernor fault system. Despite the significant surface discoveries of gold along these structural trends, mineralization remains largely untested at depth and along strike extensions. Eagle Plains has initiated permitting for future drilling within the property area.

About Eagle Plains Resources

Based in Cranbrook, B.C., Eagle Plains continues to conduct research, acquire and explore mineral projects throughout western Canada. The Company is committed to steadily enhancing shareholder value by advancing our diverse portfolio of projects toward discovery through collaborative partnerships and development of a highly experienced technical team. Managements current focus is to preserve its treasury while advancing its most promising exploration projects. In addition, Eagle Plains continues to seek out and secure high-quality, unencumbered projects through research, staking and strategic acquisitions. Since 2012, Eagle Plains has added to its portfolio a number of new projects exceeding 130,000 ha targeting mainly gold, uranium and base-metals in Saskatchewan, a highly-prospective mining jurisdiction which was recently recognized by the Fraser Institute as the second best place in the world in terms of Investment Attractiveness. Throughout the exploration process, our mission is to help maintain prosperous communities by exploring for and discovering resource opportunities while building lasting relationships through honest and respectful business practices.

Expenditures from 2011-2015 on Eagle Plains-related projects were approximately $15.5M, which was funded by Eagle Plains and for the most part, by third-party partners. This exploration work resulted in approximately 15,000 m of diamond-drilling and extensive ground-based exploration work facilitating the advancement of numerous projects at various stages of development.

Technical aspects of this news release have been reviewed by Jarrod Brown, P.Geo.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Tim J. Termuende

President and CEO

For further information on EPL, please contact Mike Labach at

1 866 HUNT ORE (486 8673)

Email: mgl@eagleplains.com or visit our website at http://www.eagleplains.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/eagleplains12062016_0.pdfSource: Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. (TSX Venture:EPL)

To follow Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

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Copyright  2016 Filing Services Canada Inc.
Aldridge Minerals Inc. (TSX-V: AGM) (Aldridge or the Company) announced today the receipt of an advance of US$3,600,000 under its loan with Banka Kombetare Tregtare sh.a. (BKT) and the resumption of land acquisition purchases at its Yenipazar Project in Turkey. This advance brings the total amount drawn to date under the loan to US$33,600,000.

In September 2016, the Company entered into a definitive loan facility agreement with BKT pursuant to which BKT agreed to make available to the Company a two year secured credit facility in the amount of up to US$40,000,000 including principal and interest to be capitalized. Based on the amount drawn to date under the loan, approximately US$6,330,000 of the facility is allocated to capitalized interest. The loan bears interest at an annual rate equal to 12 month Libor plus 6%, but not less than 9% per annum. Aldridge pays a loan administration fee of 1% on all advances made under the loan.

About Aldridge

Aldridge is a development-stage mining company focused on its wholly owned and permitted Yenipazar polymetallic VMS Project (Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc) in Turkey. Aldridge completed the Yenipazar Optimization Study and filed the related NI 43-101 compliant technical report in May 2014, which updated the original May 2013 Feasibility Study. The Company is currently advancing the Yenipazar Project on key aspects including land acquisition, engineering, and interim and project financing.

www.aldridgeminerals.ca

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, words such as proposed, may, would, could, will, expect, anticipate, estimate, believe, intend, plan, and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and factors, include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Company to fund the purchase of the remaining land required to develop the Companys Yenipazar Project and its ability to otherwise advance the development of the Project; the ability of the Company to raise additional debt or equity financing on acceptable terms or at all; economic performance; mineral prices; the future plans and objectives of the Company; and the other factors discussed under the heading Risk Factors in the Companys Managements Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in other continuous disclosure filings made by the Company with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and available at www.sedar.com. Any number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as well as future results.

Forward-looking information is based on a number of factors and assumptions which have been used to develop such information but which may prove to be incorrect, including, but not limited to, assumptions in connection with the continuance of Aldridge and its subsidiaries as a going concern, general economic, political and market conditions, mineral prices, and the accuracy of mineral resource estimates. Although Aldridge believes that the assumptions and factors used in making the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Aldridge disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206006117/en/

Contact

Aldridge Minerals Inc.

Han Ilhan, 416-477-6988

President & CEO

or

David Carew, 416-477-6984

Director of Investor Relations
Toronto, Ontario (FSCwire) - Tsodilo Resources Ltd. ("Tsodilo or the Company") (TSX- Venture Exchange: (TSD)) is pleased to announce that it has negotiated a non-brokered private placement of 10,795,578 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price per Unit of CDN $0.75, which will provide gross proceeds to the Company in the amount of up to CDN $8,096,683. Proceeds from the private placement will be used by Tsodilo for advancement of the BK16 kimberlite project in Botswana and for general corporate working capital.

Each Unit will consist of one common share and one common share purchase warrant of the Company, each such warrant entitling the holder to purchase an additional common share of the Company for a period of two years from the date of closing at a price of USD $0.75.

The common shares and the warrants comprising the Units and the common shares underlying the warrants will be subject to a four month hold period from the date of closing per applicable regulatory requirements.

In connection with the private placement, certain arms length parties may receive a cash finders fee payment equal to 5% of the gross proceeds of the Units that are sold to subscribers introduced by such parties.

Directors of the Company have subscribed for 1,931,140 Units (CDN $1,448,355) of the placement. Closing of the private placement remains subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Tsodilo Resources Limited: Tsodilo Resources Ltd. is an international diamond and metals exploration company engaged in the search for economic diamond and metal deposits at its Bosoto (Pty) Limited (Bosoto) and Gcwihaba Resources (Pty) Limited ("Gcwihaba") projects in Botswana and its Idada 361 (Pty) Limited (Idada) project in Barberton, South Africa. The Company has a 100% stake in Bosoto (Pty) Ltd. which holds the BK16 kimberlite project in the Orapa Kimberlite Field in Botswana. The Company has a 100% stake in its Gcwihaba project area consisting of twenty-one (21) metal (base, precious, platinum group, and rare earth) prospecting licenses and eight (8) radioactive mineral licenses all located in the North-West district of Botswana. Additionally, Tsodilo has a 70% stake in Idada Trading 361 (Pty) Limited which holds the gold and silver exploration license in the Barberton area of South Africa. Tsodilo manages the exploration of the Gcwihaba, Bosoto and Idada projects.

The Company has offices in Toronto, Canada and Gaborone and Maun, Botswana. Please visit the Company's website, www.TsodiloResources.com, for additional information and background on our projects.



This press release may contain forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements pertaining to the use of proceeds, the potential subscribers to the private placement, the payment of a finders fee, the closing of the private placement and the Companys ability to obtain necessary approval from the TSX Venture Exchange) are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. These current expectations or beliefs include the ability of the Company to obtain final approval of the proposed private placement from the TSX Venture Exchange and the intended use of proceeds remaining in the best interests of the Company. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, changes in equity markets, political developments in Botswana and surrounding countries, changes to regulations affecting the Company's activities, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, the uncertainties involved in interpreting exploration results and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration business. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.



Neither the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This news release may contain assumptions, estimates, and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. Such forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and are subject to factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control, which may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

James M. Bruchs Chairman and Chief Executive Officer JBruchs@TsodiloResources.com Dr. Mike de Wit President and Chief Operating Officer MdeWit@TsodiloResources.com Head Office Telephone +1 416 572 2033 Facsimile + 1 416 987 4369 Website http://www.TsodiloResources.com

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/Tsodilo12062016.pdfSource: Tsodilo Resources Ltd. (TSX Venture:TSD)

To follow Tsodilo Resources Ltd. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

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Copyright  2016 Filing Services Canada Inc.
GRANDE PRAIRIE, AB--(Marketwired - December 06, 2016) - Angkor Gold Corp. (TSX VENTURE: ANK) (OTC PINK: ANKOF) ("Angkor" or "the Company") announced today the appointment of Mr. Stephen Lautens as its new Vice President of Corporate Affairs effective immediately. Mr. Lautens will be responsible for communications, marketing and investor relations for the Company.

Mr. Lautens has a wide range of experience in communications, investor relations and business development as part of executive management teams of both private and public companies.

Mr. Lautens was VP Corporate Communications and General Counsel of Inter-Citic Minerals Inc. for almost eight years. Inter-Citic was a TSX-listed gold exploration company with a large project in western China. It was sold in a friendly takeover in November, 2012 to Western Mining Co Ltd, a $5.5B mining company based in China, for $260 million -- a 123% premium to market share price. Prior to that, Mr. Lautens worked as Executive VP of a company developing a project in partnership with China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co. Ltd., then one of China's largest State Owned Enterprises.

Previously Mr. Lautens served as VP Business Development of The Workflow Automation Corporation, a private Canadian software technology company. The Workflow Automation Corporation was acquired by BEA Systems, Inc. (since acquired by Oracle) in 2000 for $46 million.

Mike Weeks, CEO of Angkor commented on the addition of Mr. Lautens, "We are very pleased to have Mr. Lautens join the Angkor team. His attitude and expertise are consistent with our corporate philosophy, adding another solid asset to Angkor."

"I am extremely excited to join the executive team at Angkor," Mr. Lautens said. "I am not only impressed by the scope and quality of Angkor's projects in Cambodia, but I am delighted by the company's sincere commitment and dedication to improving the lives of the local inhabitants as partners in Angkor's success. I greatly look forward to working with the Angkor team in making the Angkor story better known, and building on their success."

Stephen Lautens is a past president of The National Club and previously served three non-consecutive terms as president of The Ontario Club. Mr. Lautens was also president of the Lawyers Club and served two terms as president of the Toronto Press Club. He is currently a Governor of The National Newspaper Awards having served previously on its board for seven years. Mr. Lautens is also a published writer. His articles have also appeared in numerous publications, including Canadian Lawyer Magazine and as a regular feature in The Calgary Sun, The National Post, The London Free Press and Toronto Sun.

In 2012 Stephen Lautens was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his community and charity work. Among his other international honors, in 2008 he was granted the Freedom of the City of London (UK).

He earned a J.D. degree from Queen's Law School, Kingston and a history B.A. degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto. Mr. Lautens lives in and will be based in Toronto.

ABOUT ANGKOR GOLD CORP.

Angkor Gold Corp. is a public company listed on the TSX-Venture Exchange and is Cambodia's premier mineral explorer with a large land package and a first-mover advantage building strong relationships with all levels of government and stakeholders.

ANGKOR'S six exploration licenses in the Kingdom of Cambodia cover 1,352 km2, which the company has been actively exploring over the past 6 years. The company has now covered all tenements with stream sediment geochemical sampling and has flown low level aeromagnetic surveys over most of the ground. Angkor has diamond drilled 21,855 metres in 190 holes, augured 2,643 metres over 728 holes, collected over 165,000 termite mound samples and 'B' and 'C' zone soil samples in over 20 centres of interest over a combined area of more than 140km2, in addition to numerous trenches, IP surveys and detailed geological field mapping. Exploration on all tenements is ongoing.

Website at: http://www.angkorgold.ca or follow us @AngkorGold for all the latest updates.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain of the statements made and information contained herein may constitute "forward-looking information". In particular references to the private placement and future work programs or expectations on the quality or results of such work programs are subject to risks associated with operations on the property, exploration activity generally, equipment limitations and availability, as well as other risks that we may not be currently aware of. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Another Texas Republican elector is objecting to Donald Trump, saying he will not vote for the president-elect.In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Christopher Suprun of Dallas said he cannot bring himself to support Trump when the Electoral College meets Dec. 19, calling the president-elect "someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office."Texas does not require electors to vote in accordance with the statewide popular vote, like many other states do. In the Nov. 8 election, Trump easily defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in Texas, capturing the state's 38 electoral votes."I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative, an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov. John Kasich of Ohio," wrote Suprun, a paramedic. "I pray my fellow electors will do their job and join with me in discovering who that person should be."Suprun's decision was not entirely a surprise. He had threatened to not vote for Trump earlier this year, telling Politico his party's presidential nominee was "saying things that in an otherwise typical election year would have you disqualified."Suprun's defection comes nine days after Art Sisneros of Dayton announced he was stepping down as an elector rather than vote for Trump. Unlike Suprun, however, Sisneros said he viewed Trump's election as a done deal.The Texas Republican Party, which had said it appreciated Sisneros' decision to step aside, declined to comment on Suprun's announcement.
While most of the country has their eyes on what a Trump administration will do to the Affordable Care Act, health policy experts also have their ears on Vermont.In an effort to cut costs while improving care, Vermont is creating its own version of a health system that was abandoned decades ago by almost all states that had it. In October, the Obama administration gave Vermont a green light to move forward with its plan to create the most comprehensive all-payer health system in the country.What is an all-payer system?Essentially, it's a departure from the status quo in American health care, a fee-for-service system, which many blame for the hard-to-control rise of medical costs. Instead of billing doctors for each service they provide, insurers in Vermont will now give them a fixed sum each month, along with bonuses for keeping patients healthy. (Doctors can also pay penalties for adverse health effects, like having a high number of patients getting readmitted to the hospital within 30 days.) The hope is to eliminate unnecessary procedures, reduce costs and elicit more positive health outcomes.In the 1970s, a dozen or so states tried all-payer systems for their hospitals. Except for Maryland, they all eventually shifted back to the standard fee-for-service because there was little evidence that all-payer was actually reducing overall health-care spending.All of those states, however, only applied all-payer to hospitals -- leaving out a large portion of health-care providers and limiting its potential impact.Maryland, which still has an all-payer system but only for hospitals, has had mixed results: While the state's hospital spending per patient grew at a muchrate than the national average for years, between 1990 and 2009, the state's hospital spending grew at a slightlyrate than the national average, according to a 2012 report from the University of Pennsylvania.In 2014, Maryland revamped its all-payer system, forcing hospitals to limit spending to 0.5 percent less than the national growth rate until 2018. The change is slated to save the state $330 million over four years.Health policy experts are often skeptical of the all-payer model."The ability of the Maryland system to survive is probably best viewed as a difficult-to-replicate anomaly rather than a model that can be readily adopted by other states," according to the authors of the University of Pennsylvania report.But Vermonts plan will differ from the Maryland model.For one, Vermont's system will cover all providers -- hospitals, primary care, specialists, urgent care clinics, you name it. And instead of the state paying the providers their monthly fixed sum, it will be up to accountable care organizations (ACOs), which are groups of providers that have the same goals as all-payer: to reduce spending by rewarding better, not more, care.This is where some say the state could run into problems. If the state becomes saturated with ACOs looking to capitalize on the new market, Dylan Roby, associate health professor at the University of Maryland, cautions that that could spell disaster for the system because it could lend itself to more free-market tendencies, which negates the point of an all-payer system.Architects of the system in Vermont, however, arent worried.Right now the state has two ACOs: OneCare Vermont and Community Health Accountable Care, according to Al Gobeille, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, which is responsible for reducing health costs in the state. While they aren't limiting their pool to just those ACOs, the goal is to start small and grow over time.The system isnt slated to take effect until January 2018, leaving plenty of time for potential kinks to be worked out, said Gobeille.This isnt the first time the state has attempted to overhaul its health-care system. In 2011, the Green Mountain Care Board helped design a single-payer system that would have been the first in the nation. Even though it was signed into law, cost concerns eventually killed the idea in 2014.The failure to launch the single-payer system is a big reason many, including Gov.-elect Phil Scott, are skeptical of the all-payer plan. While Scott hasnt signaled that he would stop the change from happening, he argues that the Green Mountain Care Board and outgoing Shumlin administration havent been transparent enough.We simply cannot afford any more expensive and unsuccessful health-care experiments," he said in a statement while campaigning. "I think its premature ... to lock Vermonters into an agreement, without first explaining how, exactly, it is going to work and what, if any, savings Vermonters can expect to see in the cost of care and in their insurance premiums.Still, Gobeille is confident that Scott will work with the board to make all-payer happen in Vermont.Theres a strong showing, with bipartisan support, that fee-for-service has to change, he said.
Thousands of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller's followers on social media might believe that terrorists are  in his words preparing "for their jihad against the state and our nation from a training compound outside of Houston.Some of his Facebook followers might also believe that an apartment complex forced a Texan to take down his American flag for fear of offending Muslims.Or that, during a recent trip to Cuba, a smiling President Obama held a t-shirt displaying Che Guevara, the late Marxist revolutionary.These are just a few of the completely fabricated or otherwise unsupported stories that Texas agriculture chief has promoted on Facebook and Twitter.Miller, who is said to be in the running for U.S. agriculture secretary in President-elect Donald Trumps White House, has gained notoriety for controversial social media postings such as a tweet that called Hillary Clinton the C-word and a Facebook post that endorsed the atomic bombing of the Muslim world."But at a time of heightened awareness about the power of fake news to shape Americans perception of politics and policy  and perhaps influence the most recent presidential election  the Republican statewide officeholder also stands out as a prolific sower of such misinformation.I think probably a few times, you might be right  we got duped, Miller said in an interview this week, adding that he doesnt personally post everything to his social media accounts. Put something up that might not be true. Didnt do it maliciously."Miller, who said he gets his news from all over, said his team tries to respond when it discovers it has shared a fake story.We take it down, most of the time," he said.A Texas Tribune analysis of a portion of Miller's social media history identified 10 postings of demonstrably false, misleading or unsupported information. The information most often came in the form of a link to an obscure ultra-conservative website posted with commentary from Miller. Some of these posts dated back to late 2014, when Miller was campaigning for his current job. Others were far more recent, including the headline of an apocryphal story about pop star Lady Gaga that he posted last week (see below). As of Friday evening, it had generated 309 comments and 210 shares on Facebook.The former lawmaker and calf roping champion is only modestly influential on Twitter, where he had 5,420 followers as of Friday. But he carries incredible clout on Facebook, where he frequently boasts of his nearly 334,000 followers and counting.
An overseas tip about an imminent bombing of the Metro Red Line's Universal City station has forced federal and local law enforcement in Los Angeles to swiftly ramp up security across its sprawling transit system, authorities said Monday.An anonymous man warned of a potential attack to take place Tuesday and provided the information on a tip line abroad, according to Deidre Fike, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's office in Los Angeles.Fike declined to specify which country fielded the tip but said it was delivered in English.At a hastily called news conference Monday night, the FBI as well as Los Angeles-area law enforcement leaders said the threat was considered specific and imminent, but investigators were still examining its credibility."This could be real, it could be a hoax," said Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell. "We're asking the public to stay calm and vigilant."Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said that area law enforcement reviews threats "constantly" but that this particular incident was "very specific" and forced a rapid response."We don't have the time to vet this threat in the way we would like," Beck said. "This one we had to move quickly on."Riders were told to expect an increased presence of uniformed police and sheriff's deputies as well as K-9 units scouring the area for explosives.McDonnell, whose department overseas security for the Los Angeles County Metro rail and bus system, said undercover operations would be conducted throughout the day.Mayor Eric Garcetti asked the public to prepare for random bag searches, and said he would ride the Red Line on Tuesday morning from Universal City."My advice is right now, everyone should go about their normal day tomorrow," Garcetti said. "People may see a heightened security presence ... but don't let those frighten you."Chief Scott Edson, who oversees counterterrorism as head of the Sheriff's Department's Homeland Security Division, cautioned that the department often receives threats and that it's hard to determine the credibility. He said passengers should report any suspicious activity.Last year, a phone threat of violence at L.A. schools prompted the district to cancel classes for the day. Officials later determined the threat was not credible, and there was some debate about whether the district overreacted.
On Monday, in the morning, at Tattersalls Club, Brisbane, Mrs Kaye de Jersey attended the Lyceum Club Christmas Morning Tea and addressed guests.

In the evening, at Ithaca Creek State School, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC attended the Year 6 Farewell Night where the Governor addressed guests and presented the Paul de Jersey Academic Award to Master Jacob Duncan.
Description

GIS - 06 December, 2016: A first batch of 30 unemployed women who have completed a training programme on Induction to World of Work under the Back To Work Programme (BTWP) received their certificates yesterday at the seat of the Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations, Employment and Training, in Port Louis.

During the ceremony, the Minister of Labour, Industrial Relations, Employment and Training, Mr Soodesh Callichurn, reiterated that female unemployment rate in Mauritius has traditionally been much higher as compared to that of male. In this regard, he added that Government has put in place the BTWP in June 2015 in order to bridge the gap and create job opportunities for women, in addition to other training programmes to ensure that the needs and aspirations of jobseekers and employers are met.

The Minister made an appeal to unemployed women who wish to take advantage of this programme to come forward for registration. The programme has been organised at a regional level mainly at Riviere du Rempart and will be organised in other regions across the island so as to enable a greater female participation.

Mr Callichurn, also underpinned the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a vital tool towards modernisation, hence encouraging participants to take maximum advantage of the various training being dispensed to them, so as to boost up their self-confidence through the use of ICT in their future jobs.

T he BTWP has as objectives to help women integrate or re-integrate the labour market by undergoing a training programme designed to build or re-build self-awareness, self-esteem, social responsibility and entrepreneurial skills, and strengthen interpersonal and communication skills. After the training, they will benefit from placement in private enterprises or with individual employers after which they may be employed. Initially set at 500 participants, the programme is being extended to 1000 participants as mentioned in the 2016-2017 Budget.

BTWP was set up so as to facilitate women above the age of 30 to find employment in private enterprises or with individual employers. It is a placement and training programme for women mounted by the Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations, Employment and Training in collaboration with the Human Resource Development Council and the Skills Working Group.
Description

GIS  06 December 2016 : The Minister of Health and Quality of Life, Mr Anil Gayan, reiterated his appeal to the population to strive together to prevent drug use and drug abuse from ruining the life of young people. He made this statement yesterday at the inauguration of a Detoxification Centre and a Rehabilitation Centre at Mahebourg Hospital.

The Detoxification Centre treats drug addiction using the suboxone naltrexone programme and patients are provided with counselling as well as psychological and social accompaniment. As for the Rehabilitation Centre, it offers treatment to people who are in need of help to get their drinking problem under control.

According to the Minister of Health and Quality of Life, the Detoxification Centre and Rehabilitation Centre are being implemented on a pilot basis at Mahebourg Hospital and will be replicated at Long Mountain Hospital.

Drug abuse is a national problem and impact negatively on family and society; no one is safe from drug use and addiction, said Mr Gayan. He invited the population to submit information and evidence to the Commission of Inquiry on Drug Trafficking as the country cannot afford to lose the battle against drug trafficking.

Commenting the ineffectiveness of the methadone substitution treatment in helping drug users from achieving drug free lives, the Minister recalled that the primary purpose of any harm reduction treatment is to get people to stop using drugs. Mr Gayan pointed out that the new treatment and rehabilitation of substance abusers programme based on suboxone naltrexone, being carried out by the Harm Reduction Unit of the Ministry since January 2016, is effective with a success rate of around 60%. He commended doctors and officers who are working to promote and implement such harm reduction approach.

Minister Gayan deplored the high rate of alcohol consumption in the country. In 2015, the consumption rate of beer stood at 36 million litres, wine consumption at 4.5 million litres and other spirit consumption at 13 million litres. In view of the forthcoming end-of-year festivities, the Minister urged the population not to abuse alcohol and to take responsibility for their own health and adopt healthy lifestyle.
Description

GIS - 06 December, 2016: Reducing inequalities, alleviating suffering and improving the quality of life of the community should be the shared philosophy of Volunteering Organisations and the Government , the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Jugnauth, said on 5 December 2016 at Sir Harilal Vaghjee Memorial Hall, New Government Centre, Port Louis.

The Minister was addressing Non-governmental organisations (NGOs)at a ceremony marking the International Volunteer Day 2016. He commended the relentless social work and strong commitment of volunteers and organisations in reaching out to people in distress and called for more collaboration to enhance the Governments mission of improving the quality of life of the community.

Mr Pravind Jugnauth also expressed Governments endeavour in addressing these social issues, for which he pointed out, a series of measures have already undertaken, such as the Marshall Plan to eradicate absolute poverty.

Also present at the ceremony, the Minister of Social Security, National Solidarity and Reform Institutions, Mrs Jeewa Daureeawoo stressed the essential contribution of volunteers in helping social centres and community centres promote a peaceful and inclusive society. She underlined the need for more volunteers while advocating for the professionalising of the social sector through innovation.

In that sense, the Government will strengthen its existing collaboration with the NGOs. In parallel, required training and financial assistance will enable these organisations to enhance their services the Minister said. She mentioned that as part of this initiative, the setting up of a National Council for social work and an NGO capacity building scheme in view of structuring and monitoring the system, have been planned.

The event in Mauritius was also marked by the award of certificates to several Volunteering organisations in a bid to recognise their commitment and invaluable contribution.

International Volunteer Day, observed annually on 5 December, highlights and celebrates the power and potential of volunteerism to the social development. It is an opportunity for volunteers, and volunteer organisations, to raise awareness of, and gain recognition for, the contribution they make to their communities. This years theme is Global Applause-Give volunteers a hand.
(TNS) -- New Mexicos bioscience research and business leaders are launching a new statewide initiative today to accelerate the states burgeoning biotechnology industry.The GrowBio initiative aims to unite the public and private sectors around policies and incentives that could turn New Mexicos biotechnology activity into a national powerhouse for new entrepreneurial endeavors, said Dr. Richard Larson, executive vice chancellor at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.Larson is a key leader in the effort, which has already produced a comprehensive report on New Mexicos current biotechnology development and recommendations to grow it.Weve already created the foundations for a strong bioscience industry in New Mexico, but were at the stage where the state and private sector must work together on policies and incentives to move a lot more discoveries from lab to market to help biotechnology startups grow and thrive, Larson said. We want to lead the effort because, apart from oil and gas, biotechnology represents one of New Mexicos best growth areas for economic development and jobs.New Mexicos biotechnology businesses have grown rapidly in recent years, generating about $1.2 billion in revenue in 2015, according to the report. That reflects the vibrant research underway at the states national laboratories and universities, plus aggressive efforts in the past decade to commercialize new products and services.Some 700 biotech companies now work in human health, agriculture and environmental issues around the state. That includes new medical devices, diagnostic tools and treatments, as well as improved methods and tools for food production and safety, and innovative use of microbes and enzymes to make manufacturing and chemical processes environmentally friendly.Those businesses directly employ about 9,300 people, and up to 41,000 if related support jobs are included. That represents about 7 percent of all New Mexicos private sector jobs, according to the report.And those are generally high-paying jobs that often dont require advanced degrees, Larson said.With bioscience, people think its all high-tech jobs and graduate degrees, but most of these positions are associates and bachelors degrees, Larson said. That means growing the industry could have a substantial impact on jobs for younger people.Most biotech businesses are concentrated in high-population centers, such as Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Dona Ana counties. A few large companies also dominate the employment landscape, such as Tricore Reference Laboratories in Albuquerque with more than 1,000 employees and Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute with 500.The states vibrant startup environment has led to a crop of new companies seeking to develop and market new technologies.UNM is especially prolific, with 38 biotech startups launched since 2004. Some are particularly successful, such as the Albuquerque-based medical diagnostic firm IntelliCyt Corp., which a German firm acquired in June for $90 million, but which continues to operate here with more than 50 employees.Still, given the wealth of research at New Mexicos labs and universities, a lot more could be done, said Stuart Rose, a pharmaceutical industry veteran, serial entrepreneur and founder of the Bioscience Center in Uptown Albuquerque, which houses about 20 biotech firms.We have huge opportunities to grow the biotech sector, but we need to educate more government officials and legislators about it, Rose said. We need to get the statewide community on board about our potential.In particular, state and local governments need to work closely with businesspeople and research institutes on targeted tax incentives and more funding opportunities for research and commercial ventures, according to GrowBio. The report specifically urges the state to build a specialized, collaborative economic development focus on bioscience, creating a New Mexico Bioscience Authority to help unify and build the industry cluster.This is just the beginning, said Greg Byrnes, executive director of the N.M. Biotechnology and Biomedical Association. We want to market this information to state officials and others to provide incentives to grow the industry. We believe this could lead to a lot more technology transfer from our labs and universities.It will take a firm public-private sector partnership to do that, said Dale Dekker, founding principal at Dekker/Perich/Sabatini, who helped create the GrowBio initiative.We need to look to the future to position our community, and our world-class scientists and researchers to help build our economy, Dekker said. This seems like one of those areas everybody can get behind. It could have a huge impact.
In a move reminiscent of their famous tea party, Boston is chucking out its old cork bulletin board into the harbor (metaphorically, at least).Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced on Dec. 2 that all public meeting information would now be posted online at Boston.gov/public-notices . Residents will have easier access to information on public meetings, hearings and notices while saving taxpayer money by not having to print out daily schedules and manually switch out information.For decades, a physical bulletin board with thumbtacks and pushpins galore was located in City Hall, serving as an official source for city information. Boston partnered with the state attorney general and opted to post information on Boston.gov as the official record. The site is optimized for mobile use, making it easier for families and individuals who increasingly rely on mobile phones as their sole Internet-connected device.For those special Bostonians who hate the Internet and are opposed to anything, a digital display lives where the bulletin board used to hang."I am proud we are taking this step to increase transparency and make it easier for residents to access information about public meetings," Walsh said in a press release . "I firmly believe that increasing accessibility will boost civic engagement and improve our political processes."This project comes weeks after the city announced it was making its Boston.gov website open source . Both projects were spearheaded by the city's Department of Innovation and Technology.
(TNS) -- With the soaring arch of the Newport-Pell Bridge as a backdrop, a possible in-state rivalry is emerging in Rhode Island's long-running economic reinvention drama.Some 30 miles south of the state capital, Newport is pushing a technology-centered, research cluster redevelopment plan similar to, and possibly competing with, plans Providence and state officials have been working on for years.Like Providence, Newport's plan revolves around a set of antiquated highway overpasses cutting through prime real estate.Where the relocation of Route 195 in Providence freed up around 40 acres (26 buildable) that officials are still working to populate, Newport city leaders have something similar in mind for the oddly arranged Pell Bridge ramps and "road to nowhere" that cuts through the city's North End.Moving those ramps could free up 41 acres of commercially zoned land close to Naval Station Newport and a number of prime redevelopment properties, City Manager Joseph Nicholson said last week.The competition could come over private investment and the $20-million jackpot in Gov. Gina Raimondo's "Innovation Campus" contest, approved by Rhode Island voters as part of a bond referendum on the November ballot.Commerce Corporation officials, who are running the contest and will choose the winner, have mentioned Newport and Providence as the two locations that have expressed interest in the competition so far.If Newport enters the contest, it will have support on Smith Hill from Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, a longtime backer of North End redevelopment in her hometown."I would hope that the [Newport] private sector and defense industry companies would possibly participate in the competition," Paiva Weed said in an interview last week. "I think [Newport's plan] falls absolutely in the competition parameters."Since the Navy began pulling ships and sailors out of Aquidneck Island in the 1970s, Newport has been working to redevelop the North End as an employment center to complement the tourism industry and wealthy residential neighborhoods farther south.A key to those plans is improving the ramps on the Clairborne Pell Newport Bridge, which were designed with a possible interstate highway in mind and take up unnecessary space while featuring frequent traffic jams where visitors turn to reach downtown.Although they aren't saying much about the project publicly, state Department of Transportation officials may be inching the ramps up their priority list.The state's 10-year transportation plan, approved in September, includes $39.7 million for reconstruction of the Pell ramps starting in 2018, with the bulk of the spending between 2021 and 2024.Nicholson said the city and its designer are in "very aggressive talks" with the RIDOT about the ramp realignment plan."The goal of the project is to improve safety and reduce traffic congestion and circulation issues," RIDOT spokesman Charles St. Martin wrote in an email. "RIDOT is in discussions with the city as the Department recognizes that the Innovation Hub will create positive economic growth and the ramp will improve our transportation infrastructure to meet the needs of the City."The "Innovation Hub" is one term for what the city hopes to build on the state-owned land left behind if the ramps are condensed.It's a plan with a lot of moving pieces.Where the I-195 project has been driven by the state, Newport's plan is being steered by the city and a consortium of private companies hoping to participate in redevelopment.Hired by the city last year under a $500,000 "pre-development agreement," the consortium is led by Infralinx Capital LLC, which specializes in public-private partnership financing. The other members are engineering services provider Louis Berger Inc. and Providence-based construction firm Gilbane Inc.The agreement authorizes the consortium to put together private development and financing deals with outside firms, who would be offered "concessions" on the project land.The private firms may even finance and perform the ramp realignment, although St. Martin wrote that is "still in negotiation."Nicholson said it was too early to go into detail on how these arrangements might work, but said he has three tentative deals he hopes to unveil to the City Council early in 2017.Descriptions of the industry cluster Newport hopes to attract to the Innovation Hub vary.Nicholson said it would probably revolve around the defense industry, ocean research and cybersecurity.Paul Carroll, Newport's director of civic investment, describes a "resilience engine" of activity and research related to climate change and disaster adaptation.One project in the works is the creation of a solar-powered "micro-grid" that could provide electricity for critical buildings like City Hall, fire stations, shelters and medical facilities in the case of a disaster.And then there is Newport Grand, the slot machine parlor at the end of the Pell ramps that owner Twin River Management Company intends to close in favor of a casino in Tiverton. Twin River has said it hopes to sell the property, but if it can't, it will demolish the building.Twin River spokeswoman Patti Doyle wrote last week that the company had met with Paiva Weed and then-Mayor Jeanne Napolitano about "the city's and the state's interest in that region of Newport."Adding the Newport Grand land would push the Innovation Hub area past 60 acres  and that's not counting the Navy's waterfront former hospital property, which the city is also pursuing.The city has already reached an agreement with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center to work together on licensing of Navy technology at the "Innovate Newport" incubator being built at the former Sheffield School on Broadway.The incubator was recently awarded $2.1 million in Rebuild R.I. tax credits from the state Commerce Corporation."There is a sense of optimism in the air in the community that the North End redevelopment is finally taking shape," Paiva Weed said."I can see the projects moving off of the chalkboard to the stage where you talk about the real stuff: money, contractors, design work," Nicholson said.
Data requires rules and policies.

Coordination and planning are critical.

Make the benefits visible to the citizens.

Educate procurement departments.

Look at declining cities or districts.

Vendors relationships are key.

Tech giant Nokias flagship offerings fall squarely in the smart city ecosystem. Ultra-broadband, digital health, IP interconnectivity and Internet of Things all have a place in the data-driven, tech-centric urban ethos.Now the company has written the book on smart cities. At 80-plus pages, Smart City Playbook offers a primer on virtually every aspect of urban modernization. Written in collaboration with analyst firm Machina Research , the playbook looks at best practices in 22 global cities including San Francisco, Cleveland and New York City.Instead of saying, Oh, we have this wonderful portfolio of networks and platforms,' we wanted to start with the real needs. What is a smart city? How is it going to change the lives of the citizens? Then we can ask: What do you need to do to become a smart city? said Marc Jadoul, Nokia's market development director, Internet of Things.While smart city terminology gets wide play these days, clear definitions are lacking, and what works in Amsterdam wont likely work in Dubai. So we wanted to find the patterns and best practices that any cities around the world could learn from. We wanted to find the common ground for conversation, he said.The authors offer six concrete conclusions for cities looking to go down this road.Data is like the new oil: The more it is refined, the more value it has for all the applications that will be using it, Jadoul said. Cities want to make data as widely available as possible, but this means they have to put governance in place. They have to define the rules around who is allowed to use the data and how it will be shared.In many cities there are quite a lot of isolated initiatives, but they are not glued together either by planning or by technology, Jadoul said. You need to start with a vision, with an implementation master plan.A coordinated approach is vital to ensuring the tech aspects of the smart city are broadly applicable across civic entities. You have data, but which applications will share it? Do we have the infrastructure for city departments to access data and applications horizontally? he said. It starts with having a defined project or a department leader or a city council that takers ownership of this effort.If you are building a smart city you have to build it for your citizens. Taxpayers finance these investments, so you need two-way communication to make all the benefits of the smart city visible to citizens, Jadoul said.More than just keeping citizens abreast of progress, cities need to engage stakeholders from the outset, finding ways to prompt ongoing involvement. A smart city needs to be social, participatory and inclusive, he said. Get them involved. Make them first users of the new applications. Let them share in and celebrate the successes.Many city administrations are not used to this kind of multifaceted project. There are new kinds of models, like public-private partnerships, Jadoul said. Procurement officials may need help getting up to speed.Its tempting to solve procurement by buying smart-city elements in manageable bits and pieces, but this is a risky approach. The easiest way to go from a procurement point of view is to do it piecemeal, to buy only one or two things for some immediate need, he said. But this can end up with a higher cost of ownership. You have to do maintenance on multiple applications which maybe are not compatible with each other.Smart city initiatives may find fertile ground in areas or industries perceived to be declining. Think of a city like Detroit that is looking to reinvent its future with electric cars and self-driving cars, Jadoul said. These declining cities may be an ideal starting place to invest in the new technologies that make a city smart.City councils may already be allocating funds to struggling areas. Government grants and research money also may be targeted toward these zones. Looking just from a funding perspective, there may be opportunities here, he said. There may be areas that are less obvious draws for technology, and yet they may offer access to resources that other areas do not have.To make a smart city work, you need to create an ecosystem, a collaborative platform, Jadoul said. Make sure it is not being claimed by a single vendor who considers the city a playground. You want to stimulate innovation and economic growth, and that means not getting locked into a single vendor. You need startups and small companies. If your whole infrastructure is monopolized by a single vendor, you miss the opportunity to create that innovation ecosystem."The playbook goes into considerable detail in all these areas. A webinar gives an overview of the findings.
(TNS) -- Nearly 100,000 rural Wisconsin residents will be receiving $50 vouchers from the state if they sign up for new high-speed internet service or upgrades, under a proposal that would be funded by the state's electricity customers using money that's supposed to be spent promoting energy savings.The $50 incentives, approved this past week by the state Public Service Commission, would cost $5 million and are part of more than $60 million in utility customer funds that Gov. Scott Walker's administration wants to reallocate to expand broadband in rural areas of the state.The broadband vouchers have come under criticism from energy-efficiency advocates as well as from the company that runs Wisconsin's Focus on Energy program, which helps utility customers save energy through discounts on LED light bulbs and energy-efficient appliances as well as other initiatives.More than half of the money to be reallocated, $35 million, would come from reserves in the Universal Service Fund, through a bill Walker has asked the Legislature to pass in 2017 in order to expand state broadband grants. The remainder taps electric and natural gas ratepayers' funding from the Focus on Energy program's reserves.The PSC on Thursday approved spending $16 million to send energy-efficiency kits to nearly 100,000 broadband customers. Of that, nearly $5 million from Focus on Energy funds would be used to fund the $50 broadband subsidies.Focus on Energy is funded through a surcharge collected from Wisconsin electricity customers. On average, 1.1 million We Energies customers each pay $15 a year to fund the program.PSC commissioners say the broadband voucher initiative is important to help deliver more programs in rural parts of the state where customers have paid into the program but haven't received many services from Focus on Energy.Elise Nelson, commission spokeswoman, said the vouchers are part of the broader kit that will be sent to rural homes, including a variety of energy-saving home devices from smart power strips to LED light bulbs to rebates for smart thermostats."The vouchers go hand in hand" with the energy-saving devices to be provided in the kits, she said. "Weve got to keep up with technology, and this is the new forefront of energy efficiency in the home.Critics aren't buying it."The Public Service Commission continues to try to fit a square peg in a round hole by using Focus on Energy to subsidize rural internet service companies," said Andy Olsen, who works in the Madison office of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. "Using Focus to fund internet subscriptions only helps people who already have broadband access. It doesnt increase access to those who could most benefit."Keith Reopelle, senior policy director at Clean Wisconsin, said it's hard to fathom how discounts on broadband equipment and internet bills would yield energy savings.The commissioners' decision Thursday "raised more questions than they answered," he said.Reopelle said the broadband voucher and other actions by the commission represent a "bizarre departure" from their typical approach to Focus on Energy, and a return to past actions that spent ratepayer dollars on non-energy items.Past non-energy spending from utility ratepayers' bills included $18.3 million spent to pay assistant district attorneys around the state, plus millions spent on the Wisconsin Works program and municipal aid payments. In total, nearly $166 million in money collected from electric ratepayers was spent on non-energy items under the administrations of Republican Gov. Scott McCallum and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.Chicago Bridge & Iron, the administrator of the Focus on Energy program since 2011, has voiced concerns similar to those of the critics who reacted after Thursday's vote.In a memo to the Public Service Commission, CB&I said it was "prepared to develop and execute this subsidy payment to these broadband customers, but since this cost is not related to an energy efficiency measure, CB&I would like to express reservations with the policy of providing a direct subsidy to broadband customers, funded by Wisconsin's electric and gas ratepayers, unless those payments result in energy savings."Commissioners Ellen Nowak and Mike Huebsch said CB&I's concerns were misplaced, and Huebsch said the commission should scrutinize the contractor's work closely given its reservations about the rural initiative."I question whether or not this contractor is willing to administer a program that they no longer agree with," Huebsch said.Nowak and Huebsch noted that the funding linked to broadband would not be used for broadband infrastructure."We're not talking about fiber in the ground. This is about the nexus between broadband and energy that's been recognized by the Federal Communications Commission," Nowak said. "This is about realizing the increased investment that broadband spurs, including devices for energy management."
(TNS) -- The buzz over drones is becoming louder.The popular, sleek quadcopters are on the wish lists of hobbyists, private companies, entrepreneurs and even government entities. While many see the fun side of unmanned aircraft systems, even the smallest drones can go beyond recreation.At the extreme, military agencies around the world are using such devices for surveillance and unmanned air strikes. At a less intimidating level, companies and other agencies are using drones for surveying land, security uses and protection of natural resources. And, although it can be rare, some private users are abusing their drone privileges and pushing the lines of trespassing and privacy.A panel of unmanned aircraft experts gathered this week in Colorado Springs at the Colorado Counties, Inc. winter conference to discuss current regulations and potential need for local guidelines as drones become more widely used."Do we need to have more rules?" asked El Paso County District 5 Commissioner Peggy Littleton, who served as moderator of the discussion. "And, if so, what is that going to look like?"So far, El Paso County has let the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) handle almost all regulation of drones. The only rule that the county has put into place is a ban on launching unmanned aircraft systems in parks. Monday's panelists - Constantine Diehl of UAS Colorado, aviation consultant David Couch and Chaffee County's Director of Economic Development Wendell Pryor - each said FAA rules are enough, for now."At this point, the FAA is really the only agency that is writing laws or guidelines for enforcement of the use of these drones," said El Paso County Undersheriff Joe Breister.While the FAA requires people using drones weighing less than 55 pounds to have a remote pilot airman certificate or be under the supervision of someone who does, the FAA restrictions for use are limited. Operating requirements mandate that drone users avoid manned aircraft, never operate in a reckless manner, keep their drones within "unaided sight," avoid flying the craft more than 400 feet off the ground and not fly their quadcopters or planes at more than 100 miles per hour.The FAA's rules for unmanned aircraft less than 55 pounds became active this year and prompted counties in Colorado to begin "sticking their toes in the water in the public safety arena," Pryor said. Chaffee County is one of the leaders with its UAS Advisory Board designed to "promote and help facilitate the successful execution" of drone certificates."Drones are the here and now," Pryor said, noting that the new rules have made "the barrier of entry much, much lower.""I predict that in five years, drone parks will be as common as skate parks," he said.And with the upcoming holiday season, more and more hobbyists and even kids could be adding to the ever growing drone community.A quick Internet search reveals that parents can find small, short-range unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to wow their kids for less than $100 while more high-tech, GPS-capable, high-definition camera-ready drones can be found from a few hundred bucks to a little more than a grand and potentially bring more adult enthusiasts into the fray.And that possible increase in recreational use could lead to safety and trespassing concerns. Imagine one of these small unmanned aircraft with four spinning blades hovering over your backyard while your kids play below, zipping past your vehicle and causing a distraction as you cruise down the Interstate, or even crashing into the windshield of an airplane.Ken Hanes, owner of AGL Drone Services, demonstrated a pair of small quadcopters in western Colorado Springs on Thursday, showing off their range and seemingly endless capabilities while pausing and bringing his aircraft to a safe position whenever a manned airplane or helicopter flew overhead. Hanes noted that even the smallest drones require certification for use."These are aircraft," he said. "Which puts them in a different category than toys. That is the biggest point that people miss. It's a totally different animal."On Monday at the CCI conference, Couch said recreational users, companies and the counties must constantly ask themselves questions like what can each drone do? What obstacles might be nearby? And who is at the controls?"A lot of what it's going to come down to is education," he said. "Because the technology is so new, we've got to start teaching from the oldest person all the way down to the youngest."Breister said complaints about drones are "very, very, very rare," noting that the El Paso County Sheriff's Office has had less than five complaints since the beginning of 2016. He said most inquiries his office gets come from drone users who want to be responsible."The biggest number of calls we get are from the people who have bought a drone or are anticipating buying one," Breister said. "It is safe to say that they don't want to infringe on other people's rights."If there is a surge in drone ownership after the holiday season, the county expects to see more calls involving less-expensive aircraft that kids might use. He expects cases of those simple aircraft that lack long-range capability crashing in neighbors' yards, flying out into traffic or causing injuries.Breister and the unmanned aircraft experts simply ask that anyone using drones of any type make sure they self-educate before and during use. The FAA even offers a smart-phone app called "B4UFLY" to encourage location specific situational awareness and provide up-to-date local flight restrictions for model aircraft."Use them (drones), just make sure you do it right," Hanes said.
(TNS) -- Cyber-attacks were a hot topic during a national defense forum Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, where panelists delivered both good news and bad.The bad news is that "the cyber threat is growing and more acute over time," said Marcel Lettre, U.S. undersecretary of defense for intelligence.The good news is that the potential for a significant cyber-attack on the nation's infrastructure from terrorist groups or foreign countries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea is still low, he said.Nonetheless, "this is a serious threat that we face," Lettre said at a panel discussion titled "Innovation and Technology in Countering Cyber Attacks."Cyber-attacks even came up at another panel discussion about the lessons learned from the 1941 Japanese attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which led to the U.S. entry into World War II. The 75th anniversary of the attack, which killed 2,403 Americans, is Wednesday.Deborah Lee James, secretary of the Air Force, said that because of technological advances in early warning systems, she doubts a large-scale Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack could occur today.But cyber attacks are another thing, she said."This is where we have some readiness concerns," she said.One of her co-panelists, Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, concurred."We're fighting in cyber right now  every day," he said. "So I agree, the next fight will be different" than a Pearl Harbor-like attack.Lettre was asked by panel discussion moderator Jill Aitoro of Defense News what advice he will give to his successor in the incoming Trump administration about the threat of cyber-attacks."I would essentially encourage my counterparts who will be coming in in the weeks ahead to really systematically look at that threat picture ... very early on with the focus on really articulating the right approach to developing a cyber-deterrent capability and policy and practices," he said.Aitoro asked Lettre if, once President-elect Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20, he should send "a strong message" to Russia about not launching cyber-attacks against the U.S."I think we do need to have a clear message for Russia and for all other actors in cyberspace about what we view as within bounds and out of bounds," he said.Lettre and his fellow panelists said one key to deterring cyber-attacks is for the government and the defense industry to attract top computer science college graduates."We need the best people and the best technology," said Raj Shah, managing director of Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, a Defense Department organization.Another key is greater sharing and cooperation between the government and private industry, the panelists said.Asked by Aitoro about cyber-operations launched by the U.S., Lettre declined to comment, saying it was a "very sensitive" area.During his panel discussion, Neller was asked by moderator Phil Stewart, a military affairs reporter for Reuters, his thoughts on retired Marine Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis being selected by Trump to be the next secretary of defense.Neller said he worked for Mattis twice in his career."He certainly has the capability, the intellect, the knowledge, the drive for this position," Neller said. "I believe he'll do a very good job."Mattis, if confirmed, would become only the second former general to be secretary of defense. He would need a waiver from Congress because federal law stipulates that former military officers must be retired for at least seven years before they can become defense secretary. Mattis has been retired less than four years.Two former defense secretaries, Dick Cheney  who is also a former vice president  and Leon Panetta, were scheduled to appear together in their own panel discussion later Saturday.Current Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was scheduled to speak at the forum's closing session.
(TNS) -- An international cyber crime operation using malware to steal from private computer users all over the world has been dismantled as the result of a joint operation including the FBI in Pittsburgh and the National Cyber Forensic and Training Alliance.German state police sought the FBIs help in July 2015, and today, Soo Song, the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, announced the scope of the investigation, which resulted in the destruction of Avalanche, the computer server infrastructure used by more than a dozen criminal enterprises around the world to anonymously host their malicious software.Ms. Song estimated that hundreds of millions of dollars around the world has been lost through Avalanche since it began operating in 2009. An international investigation began four years ago.According to Ms. Song, there were approximately 250,000 infected computers found in 189 countries around the world. About 20,000 of those were in the United States, she said. She identified three victims of the illegal activity in the Western District, including the Allegheny County District Attorneys Office, which was forced to pay six Bitcoins  digital currency worth at the time about $1,400  to unlock one of its computers. The machine had been infected by malicious software known as ransomware."The Allegheny County District Attorneys Office was the victim of a recent cyber crime referenced earlier today by the United States Attorneys Office, said Mike Manko, a spokesman at the DAs office, in a statement. As technology continues to evolve, so does crime, and criminals are going to take advantage of that technology to always find new ways to victimize individuals, businesses and government agencies. As no cases were compromised as a result of this breach, we consider what happened more of a nuisance than anything else.Two companies - one in New Castle and one in Carnegie - also had their banking information stolen through malware. They stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars each. But alert banking officials halted transfers that were occurring, Ms. Song said. Neither company suffered any actual loss, she said. Ms. Song would not identify them.The operation included investigators taking control of the servers being used by the Avalanche malware and redirecting the infected computers to an FBI-controlled server, an operation called sinkholing. A users computer becomes infected, often, by the person clicking on a link that appears to be legitimate.Once the malware is in the computer, it uses an Internet domain to relay its information to those controlling it. Investigators were able to take control of about 800,000 domains, blocking more than 675,000 of them, said J. Keith Mularski, an FBI supervisory special agent. The agency then contacts the relevant Internet Service Provider to inform them of the infected computer systems to help remediate the problem, he said.Robert Johnson, the Pittsburgh FBI special agent in charge, said the work was done through collaboration of law enforcement and private industry and involved 40 different Internet registries across the world.No one has been indicted in the United States for these actions, but five people have been arrested internationally.This is just one group that we took down, Mr. Mularski said. This is one organization weve tackled.The National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance, based in Pittsburghs South Oakland neighborhood, brings public, private and academic experts together to find and eliminate cyberthreats.
KCR Has No Identity In Delhi!

Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had served as Union Cabinet minister for nearly two years in the past and the way he took the Telangana movement to its peak had attracted national as well as international attention.

Yet, after the Telangana formation and KCR becoming the chief minister of the new state, there is virtually no identify for him in the national capital.

While ignoring the national media is one of the reasons, KCR never developed any clout in Delhi circles. As a result, common educated people in Delhi do not have much idea about him.

When he comes to Delhi, KCR does not go to Telangana Bhavan, which is presently a portion of the existing Andhra Pradesh Bhavan, but goes to the residence of his daughter Kavitha, which was once his official residence when he was the cabinet minister. Since he is not accessible to the media, they dont give much coverage to him, except the official releases from his office. No politician or official comes to Telangana Bhavan.

Perhaps, KCR may get back into the glory if his party joins the NDA and gets a couple of cabinet berths!
Naidu To Beg Foreign Countries To Invest In AP!

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is going abroad next week, to request the countries to come to Partnership Summit 2017 to be held in Visakhapatnam and invest in AP.

Naidu is leaving for UAE and Kuwait to promote the Partnership Summit 2017 scheduled to be held in Visakhapatnam in January.

He will be accompanied on the trip from December 10 to 13 by state ministers Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Ganta Srinivasa Rao and P Narayana besides a host of officials.

The delegation will visit Dubai, Abu Dhabi (in UAE) and Kuwait City and seek investments into the state. The business event, to be held on January 27-28, is the second Partnership Summit being organised in the new state.

Interestingly, a high-level delegation led by Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu is currently touring Australia and New Zealand to promote the summit. It will return to the state on December 7.

Sources said the Chief Minister will also address the Telugus in Kuwait for which the Telugu Desam Party unit there is making necessary arrangements.

Naidu is expected to seek financial support from Telugus settled in the Gulf for the Smart Village programme.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in partnership with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the AP government, is organising the summit in the port city.

The event aims to further partnerships to build ideologies based on shared dreams that bind societies together in this knowledge driven world.
The Nikola One utilizes a fully electric drivetrain featuring a 320 kWh Li-ion battery pack (32,000 cells) and a nearly 300 kW fuel cell stack powering a 6x4 four-wheel electric drive (four 800V AC motors) with torque vectoring. Delivering more than 1,000 hp (746 kW) and 2,000 lb-ft of torque, the Nikola One will have an expected range of 800-1,200 miles, the company said.

At an event at its Salt Lake City headquarters last week, startup Nikola Motor Company (NMC) unveiled the first public prototype of its Nikola One Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell range-extended electric truck, as well as renderings of the Nikola Two Class 8 day cab version. The company also announced its plan for a network of 364 hydrogen fueling stations across the US and Canada (Nikola is bundling fuel with the truck), and unveiled a 107 kWh battery pack for the Nikola Zero UTV along with a business plan to sell packs to OEMs.





Front Radiator Assembly. Electric fans attached to radiators. These fans scale through software to the correct RPM needed to keep the truck, batteries, cab, fuel cell, motors and gearboxes cool under any circumstance. Nikola Motor Gearbox / Steering Front End. A 14,000 lb front end, custom-made to incorporate two electric motors and two gearboxes allowing for torque vectoring. Power Electronics. The device takes in energy from the fuel cell stack and delivers it to the batteries at a constant 800V DC. Nikola Battery Storage System. 320 kWh. Each battery pack is warrantied for the life of the lease which is earliest of 7 years or 1,000,000 miles. Chiller and Air Tanks. The 800V chiller provides cold water to cool the batteries and, like many parts on the truck, was custom built. The air tanks keep the backup air disc brakes DOT compliant and offer redundancy. Fuel cell stack. Hydrogen Fuel System. Rear Motor Gearbox Housing and Independent Suspension. This patent-pending, custom built housing can support up to 46,000 lbs. and holds both electric motors and gearboxes. It also helps support the first ever Short Long Arm (SLA) suspension in the linehaul industry, creating a smooth ride. 5th Wheel. The innovative HOLLAND FWAL aluminum fifth wheel is the lightest weight standard duty fifth wheel in the industry. The FWAL is designed for standard-duty applications and forged from the same alloy as Alcoas aluminum truck wheels. The LowLube technology reduces customer maintenance time and costs.

The specs of the Nikola One have changed since first announced in May 2016. At that time, although the 320 kWh battery pack was the same, the company envisioned using a proprietary onboard 400 kW gas turbine as well as a 335 hp electric motor with dual gear reduction at every wheel (6x6). That powertrain was estimated to output more than 2,000 hp (1,491 kW) and more than 3,700 lb-ft (5,017 Nm) of torque before gear reduction.



NMCs calculations on the fuel efficiency of the Nikola One.

The Nikola One will only be available through the Nikola Complete Leasing Program. There will be no purchase options available initially. The lease is $5,000 - $7,000 per month and includes unlimited miles, unlimited fuel, warranty and scheduled maintenance for the first 1,000,000 miles or 7 years, whichever comes first. Nikola Motor Company has accepted reservations ($1,500 per reservation) representing nearly a projected $3 billion in future orders.

NMC plans to begin delivering trucks in approximately 3-4 years based on the current timeline.

Fitzgerald, an investor in NMC, will build the first 5,000 trucks, and continue building trucks in the future. Over the next 4-5 years, NMC plans to invest more than $1 billion in its own manufacturing facility. The location will be announced sometime around the middle of 2017.

Nikola Founder and CEO Trevor Milton said that the company will build a network of 364 hydrogen fueling stations to support the rollout of the trucks. Hydrogen fuel is free for Nikola customers for one million miles. Construction of the stations will begin in 2019, beginning with fleets that order the trucks.

NMC is in the process of developing multiple 100-megawatt solar farms to produce hydrogen via electrolysis. The hydrogen will be transported from the Nikola solar farms to the Nikola hydrogen stations by a fleet of Nikola One trucks. The hydrogen is stored at Nikola stations in liquid form, and then dispensed into vehicles as compressed or liquid hydrogen.

Nikola says that all non-Nikola vehicles can fill up at any Nikola Hydrogen Station for $3.50 per kg of hydrogen.

NMC also announced Ryder System, Inc. as its exclusive nationwide distribution and maintenance provider. Ryder has a network of over 800 service locations in North America today. In addition to Ryder Systems national coverage, Thompson Machinery, a Caterpillar dealer and an early investor in Nikola Motor Company, will also offer sales and service in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Milton also announced Nikola Shipmentsadvanced freight scheduling software that will come standard with every Nikola One and Nikola Two vehicle. A driver can simply input departure and arrival locations and times and the Nikola Shipments software will provide all available shipments, Nikola Hydrogen Stations and Nikola Service Centers located along the route. The driver can then filter the available shipments by value and added time, and then add them to their route, all from the 21" in-cab touchscreen display.

For the Nikola UTV, the 107 kWh battery pack is estimated to provide more than 300 miles of range on a single charge. Milton said that Nikola plans to offer its patent pending battery packs to OEMs for purchase beginning in 2017.
In the years following the attack on Pearl Harbor, a new generation quietly begins to heal the hatred and fear that seared relations between the United States and Japan over nearly four years of bitter warfare.
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GREENWICH  More than 150 people came to a coffee shop on Greenwich Avenue to chat with town police officers, pose for pictures and get to know the men and women in blue.

The Coffee with a Cop event at CFCF Roastery and Cafe is part of a larger community-policing initiative to foster better communications between police and citizenry. Greenwich held the first coffee-related community event last year, the first in the state, and other departments in Connecticut have followed suit.

The program was initially developed in California and has the backing of the federal Department of Justice.

GPD Officer Justin Rivera said there was a good exchange between community members and around 20 members of the department.

Weve been able to answer a lot of questions, and its a diverse group of people weve spoken to, said Rivera.

Sgt. Tim Hildebrand said events that foster communication can yield good results over time.

Its a bridge builder, it puts us in a good position, he said. Get connected, make new relationships, meet people we havent seen before.

Groups of people came in regularly to have brief chats  or in some cases, lengthy discussions  with officers during the morning hours. There was no set agenda or presentations, just free coffee provided by the police union and a willingness to talk about anything.

Skip Parker said hello to several officers of his acquaintance. He and his daughter recently took part in another community-policing program offered by the department, the Citizens Police Academy, which puts local residents through a law-enforcement training program.

The public is ignorant of the depth and scope of what the police department does, and what theyre capable of doing, said Parker, who works in finance.

Parker said he liked the outreach from the police that the event provided, as well as the the chance for citizens to show some appreciation.

Law enforcement officers are under a lot of pressure in this country. None of them get into it for fame or fortune, its more of a calling. The average citizen needs to show some gratitude, he said.

Ann Brett said she already knew the departments officers from interactions in downtown Greenwich and was interested to meet other officers in the department and hear their individual stories.

I think its lovely, said Brett, a yoga instructor who works on the Avenue. Its great we live in a town that shows support for the cops, and one so safe.

Robert.Marchant@scni.com
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GREENWICH  The 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, is being marked with ceremonies and speeches as well as personal memories among local residents who lived through the era.

Its a date I know well, said Chuck Standard, a former WWII Navy pilot from Old Greenwich, with a slight laugh.

Standard was studying at a fraternity at Purdue University at the time: One of my fraternity brothers went through saying, the Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor! Nobody knew where Pearl Harbor was at that time, he recalled.

They were soon to find out.

Standard himself would be in a Navy uniform, training to fly a dive-bomber, within weeks of the attack.

It completely changed my life, he said.

About 13 local residents were already in uniform at the time of the attack.

Like every other community in the country, Greenwich was galvanized by the news of the attack.

Fearing sabotage, guards were established at the Cos Cob Bridge and at the Cos Cob power station, which kept the trains running from New York to New Haven.

Air-raid wardens were posted around the community, reporting to a command center at the American Legion Post on Greenwich Avenue.

Foreign nationals quickly came under observation or detention.

In Greenwich, four German nationals were picked up and detained for questioning. A flying squad of 20 Greenwich police officers rounded up Japanese workers, most of whom were employed in domestic service, according to an account in the Greenwich Time just days after the attack.

The local police department went into emergency mode, and all vacations and days-off were canceled. Officers needed special permission to leave town.

There was a mixture of bravado and grim determination among the citizens in the early days after Pearl Harbor.

Well beat those Japs in no time at all. Id go to war again if I had the chance, one local cop, a World War I veteran, told the newspaper.

A more sobering note was sounded by a Greenwich housewife, who told the paper, War is a frightful thing, and Im afraid this is going to be a long one.

An editorial in Greenwich Time declared: Were in, so lets go.

The editorial said earlier divisions were a thing of the past -- Today we are a nation of one mind. It took a long view of the conflict ahead. We neednt try to kid ourselves. We in Greenwich are going to get a taste of what this war is sooner or later.

Volunteers thronged area recruiting stations, many signing up at a Navy facility in Norwalk.

Some other citizens took a more direct approach. Greenwich was the first town in the area to begin a regular patrol in Long Island Sound. The threat of German U-boats operating in the water off New York City caused concerns, and a town man donated The Astrea, a cabin-cruiser, to the cause of local defense. Equipped with a machine gun, it cruised the waters from Stamford to Rye, N.Y., every night with a five-man crew of volunteers.

More than 5,500 Greenwich residents eventually joined the fight, or served with the Red Cross, and 127 never came back. Some 22 were declared missing and presumed dead.

Katherine Quoma, a longtime Greenwich resident, served in the Red Cross. Her brother, a Navy sailor, was killed by the Japanese after being taken prisoner in the Philippines.

She said the attack still stirred memories.

All those guys on a Sunday afternoon, taking it easy, they didnt know what was coming. Awful, awful, she said. Her brothers death in the Pacific War came as huge blow.

I always felt sorry the most for the mothers who lost their sons. My own mother died of a broken heart, she said. We should always remember it. Those boys really suffered. They died for their country, and they suffered.

The town Veterans Council will hold a ceremony at 4 p.m. Wednesday at the War Memorial outside the Board of Education Havemeyer Building, 290 Greenwich Ave., that is open to the public. In case of inclement weather, the memorial will be held across the street at the police department.

Robert.Marchant@scni.com
NEW MILFORD  A power company proposes to generate enough electricity to power 2,400 homes for a year by placing solar panels on the forested slopes of Candlewood Mountain.

A public information session on the plan will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Chamber of Commerce Offices, 11 Railroad Ave. The audience will be able to ask questions after the presentation.

Were excited about the proposal, said Peter DAddeo, owner of Commercial Services Realty, the project developer.

Commercial Services Realty is buying the 307-acre parcel from the bank that owns it. Of that acreage, 60 acres would be clear-cut to make way for 78,000 solar panels.

Under the proposal, Ameresco Solar would lease the land and erect the panels 600 feet up the 880-foot mountain, with the lowest panels located about 100 feet from residences on Candlewood Mountain Road. The 20-megawatt project would feed electricity into the grid at the Rocky River power station, DAddeo said.

Ameresco would maintain the panels during their 20-year lifespan. The company would cover the clear-cut area with hay so trees can be replanted once the panels are removed, he said

But some residents worry that removing 60 acres of trees is too much, especially because a hiking trail passes through the area.

Its one of the most beautiful forests in the town and right overlooking Candlewood Lake, said Katy Francis, a town councilwoman who lives on Candlewood Mountain.

Besides destroying the forest, Francis said the project would contribute to stormwater runoff and pose a danger to wildlife. It could also damage or destroy stone walls that have been there for at least 100 years.

At what price is it worth cutting down thousands of trees for 20 years? Francis asked.

She said neighbors are also worried about truck traffic during the tree removal. The last time FirstLight removed trees on its nearby property, Francis said, the road had to be redone after the several days of heavy truck traffic.

She said there are better places in town for the panels where trees wont have to be removed.

Im in favor of finding alternative energy sources, Francis said. My concern is where you put it.

She urged residents to attend the meeting and hear the proposal.

People should give this good consideration, Francis said.

DAddeo said the panels benefit New Milford and the environment.

The panels would generate $2.1 million in taxes for the town during the 20-year lifespan, compared to the $380,000 the town would get from the property if left as is, DAddeo said.

He said the project was one of several selected in October in response to the requests for proposals from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut to meet the states energy goal of 20 percent alternate power sources by 2020.

Our one project wont meet the entire goal, but it will help meet it, DAddeo said.

If approved, construction would start next fall and the panels would be operational by fall 2018.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345; @kkoerting
To maintain a strong career trajectory, professionals need continuing education. Whether it means learning about the latest technology or mastering a new skill, with the right training, employees can boost their resumes and remain competitive. Thanks to the Internet, consumers now have access to an endless array of free courses, on almost any topic they need to learn. Here are eight free tools that can help entrepreneurs connect with the online learning opportunities they need.

Consumers use YouTube to watch old TV commercials and cat videos, but they may not realize the site is filled with tutorials on a wide variety of topics. Prospective students can search for classes by topic or subscribe to specific channels like those hosted by Bloomberg Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Entrepreneur. YouTube is also a valuable resource for learning how to use software, from popular solutions like Microsoft Office to more obscure software specific to an industry.

2. ALISON

ALISON brings free courses in everything from entrepreneurship to psychology, making it the perfect resource for pursuing various interests. Courses are self-paced, with assessments helping students gauge what theyve learned. At completion, students can download a learner record that shows all of the courses theyve passed. Courses are offered at both diploma and certificate levels to help students build a resume.

3. Coursera

With courses from the worlds top universities and colleges, Coursera can help entrepreneurs get certificates from respected institutions. Lectures and non-graded materials are free, with financial aid available for courses that come with graded assignments and certificates. Entrepreneurs can learn more about popular topics like data science and machine learning or study basic business skills.

4. Udemy

Udemy bills itself as an online learning marketplace, with more than 40,000 courses. Not all of the courses are free, but a search of free courses on the site reveals pages of free courses on topics such as web design, iOS programming, and SEO. For personal development, Udemy has free courses on painting, photography, goal setting, and more.

5. edX

With courses from Harvard University, MIT, The University of California Berkeley, and other universities, edX is the only leading Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provider that is both nonprofit and open source. Students take free courses in subjects like supply chain management, data analysis, healthy living, and Linux. In addition to study materials and instructors, edX provides unique learning tools like game-like labs and 3D virtual molecule builders for hands-on learning.

6. MIT OpenCourseWare

Known for its research and education in science and engineering, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a top-notch reputation. MIT OpenCourseWare brings some of the schools courses online, with free lecture notes, videos, and exams from the schools instructors. Students can choose from thousands of courses in the fields of business, engineering, science, and more.

7. FutureLearn

In addition to providing courses, FutureLearn offers a community of learners, with students communicating with each other to enhance the experience. There are numerous free upcoming courses, including many covering business-related topics. The sites workplace learning program gives businesses the tools they need to managing training for all of their employees in one place.

8. iTunes

For Apple device users, iTunes has a wide variety of courses available for download. Professionals can search iTunes for the subject they need or browse through this list of free courses offered through the platform. Through iTunesU, instructors put together their own classes and offer them to consumers, including participants like Harvard and Stanford universities. While some of these classes can be found elsewhere, Apple device owners may find it easier to search for the classes they need where they can download them directly.

Professional development courses can be a great way to improve efficiency and boost a resume. With so many courses available online, professionals can take these classes in their free time, often on their favorite mobile devices. Interested students should first determine the courses theyre interested in taking and search one of the above platforms for an affordable option that fits their unique learning needs.

Related:

8 Free Training Tools That Will Help You Excel at Your Job

6 Ways High-Octane Leaders Fuel Their Teams to Achieve More

3 Ways to Drive Continual Improvement



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
This article originally ran Dec. 8, 2016

Whether you are traveling abroad or walking down the same street you've walked down for the past 20 years, dangers can lurk around every corner. Former Green Beret Sergeant Major (retired) Karl Erickson knows this all too well. Erickson has been in the middle of many deadly attacks during his time serving in the Army Special Forces and has faced violent criminals even while retired here in the States. In all instances, Erickson walked out alive, which he credits to a little bit of luck and a lot of preparedness, both physical and mental.

"To survive on the battlefield or in the boardroom, success always starts with the proper mindset," says Erickson, who teaches a high-risk travel safety course at elite military training facility T1G.

Here, he breaks down a few simple mental tricks you can use to help keep yourself on the lucky side of things should disaster strike.

Start with the survival mindset.

"If you have the proper mindset, it can help you avoid 90 percent of the problems you might face. It really is that easy if you have the right attitude. You need to get up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, 'I might have to defend myself or my loved ones today.' You have to start by telling yourself that you are a survivor. I have the personal mindset that 'I can't be beat. I will not sit there and suck my thumb. One day, I will meet my maker, and when I do, Hes going to high-five me for kicking ass.'"

Related: How to Tell if Someone Is Lying

Maintain situational awareness.

"You can be that sheep who pushes their earbuds in and wanders around planning on being surrounded by nothing but flowers all day long, but the reality is people get mugged, kidnapped and harmed every day. The first thing you have to do is get your head up out of your phone. If you Google 'walking with cell phones' you will find hundreds of videos of people reading their screens and walking into walls. Theres one of a woman walking into a 40-foot wide fountain!

"Americans use their phones more than they use oxygen. I see people walking around completely in their own world. These people could not stop me from walking up to them and doing something bad. There are wolves out there looking for sheep. Dont be that sheep that looks like an easy target. In nature, a lion could kill an adult cape buffalo, but the lion knows there is a big potential for it to get hurt in that fight. So lions will always be on the lookout for smaller animals, weaker or sick animals.

"Likewise, criminals are always looking for easy targets. And if you look like an easy target, you become one. So just being aware of your surroundings will eliminate 90 percent of threats. And when that other 10 percent shows up, youll be prepared with a plan."

Related: Use This Green Beret Plan to Have a Super Productive Day

Have a plan -- even if it is a bad one.

"Get in the habit of asking yourself, 'If something were to happen right now, what would I do?' It doesnt matter if you are standing at the counter of Starbucks or at a table at a five-star restaurant. It doesnt have to be a good or sexy plan, but simply already knowing where the exit is can give you a lifesaving jump start if something bad goes down. 'Im going to grab my wife and were going to run into the kitchen.' Even a bad plan is better than no plan. Otherwise, youll just sit there like the rest of the sheep sucking your thumb.

"Youre sitting in your office talking to me right now. If you had an active shooter situation, could you start stacking furniture against your office door to make it harder to get inside until law enforcement gets there? Is there a rear fire exit? Is there a window ledge that you can crawl out on? If you cant flee, is there a desk or something you can hide behind? Unless they are looking for you in particular, out of sight, out of mind can save your life.

"Having these plans in your head is better than just sitting there. You won't waste time registering what is going on, you'll just begin acting."

Related: Use This Green Beret Morning Routine to Feel Energized All Day

Always trust your gut.

"When I pull up to a gas station, if I dont see anyone at the pumps and I see the lights are on but no one seems to be inside, I move on to the next station. I dont go in. And Im a barrel-chested freedom fighter Green Beret. Its probably nothing, the clerk might be in the back room, but it also might be a robbery. So I just move on the next station.

"I avoid the possibility of walking into something bad. I encourage you to do the same. If you dont have that warm and fuzzy feeling, if something just doesnt feel right, dont go there. That has saved hundreds of lives overseas. I cant tell you how many times we got a strange feeling about an area and went around it, and found out later that another coalition convoy got hit with an IED.

"Even if nine out of 10 times it turns out to be nothing, that 10th time could mean the difference between you staying safe or walking into a bad situation. Trust your gut."

Erickson tests tactical gear on his site Tactical Rifleman. Follow him at @TacRifleman.

Related:

4 Mental Tactics to Increase Your Odds of Staying Alive, According to This Green Beret

How to Effectively Measure Strategic Initiatives

An Idea That Works: "Take Your Small Business Idea Global"



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Kat Jamieson is an author and tastemaker who has been sharing her passion for lifestyle topics such as fashion, decor, travel, and cooking since 2011 on her blog: With Love From Kat. Her first book, Blended, was recently released in October. In this book, Kat shares a seasonally inspired and holistic approach to cooking, as well as her take on entertaining and living well. She shares more than 125 recipes that have helped her to feel energized, vibrant, and balanced. Aside from these nourishing recipes, Kat also discusses how she has obtained a truly balanced and...
Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby.

16:31, 2 NOV 2022
The annual award will be part of the companys global CARES Initiative dedicated to helping people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Beckman Coulters CARES award is designed to recognize individuals who have shown care, dedication and commitment in their communities as part of the fight against HIV/AIDS. The winner will receive a $5,000 donation in their name to one of the selected causes, with the three individual stories that receive the most nominations publicized around the world on the CARES Initiative website.

Potential winners can be nurses, healthcare workers, national coordinators, lab scientists and even clinicians; or lay people who are active in community outreach work. This could include a social worker providing AIDS counselling.

CARES supports the UNAIDS 90-90-90 target to ensure that by the year 2020, 90% of people living with HIV will know their status, 90% of those with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.

It focuses on providing innovative solutions for the monitoring of HIV and AIDS treatment. CARES was inspired by the work of Professor Debbie Glencross, a South African laboratory pathologist, who found a different and less expensive way to measure a patients CD4 count.

While this is intended as an international award, in its first year, the award will focus on recognizing the dedication of people in Africa, one of the areas in the world most affected by HIV/AIDS. The 2017 award will be launched at the annual meeting of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), a pan-African professional body aiming to improve laboratory services. ASLM2016 is being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa, from December 3-8, 2016.

Recognition For Unsung Heroes

Samuel Boova, Beckman Coulters Director Alliance Development, High Burden HIV Markets, said: The award is to give a platform to the work and stories of those we see as the unsung heroes of individual communities. These are people who have shown individual dedication, commitment and courage or who have made a difference in the battle against HIV/AIDS. However, it is not just the final winner we want to publically recognise. We hope the award will encourage communities to learn about and honour the work of every nominee, so that more people will come forward to help and support those living with HIV/AIDS.

Nominations must first be made via the CARES website. Once a name has been nominated, the local community will be given the opportunity to vote in support. People with the greatest number of votes will be put forward for the final assessment panel. Rules of entry and full details are available in full from www.beckman.com/cares.



Source: Beckman Coulter
Italy, Germany and France, for example, are very interested in developing defence co-operation, he pointed out during a lunch event organised by the Association of Finnish Political Journalists in Helsinki on Monday.

Finland should seek to step into the current power vacuum in Europe, says Jyrki Katainen (NCP), the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness at the European Commission.

The country, he estimated, could also assume a key role in the development of the circular economy, digital single market, and energy and trade policy.

It'd currently be possible to advance the circular economy and, in a way, take on the role of the number-one circular economy expert. [] It could allow Finland to position itself in a positive light, stated Katainen.

The Finnish Government, the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra) should according to him increase their co-operation with various industries to encourage the development of the circular economy.

Sitra is one of the leading expert organisations in the circular economy in Europe. If Sitra, the central administration and industries devised a strategy to establish Finland as the number-one circular economy expert in the world or, at least, in Europe, it'd be a way to gain greater influence in the EU's decision-making bodies and it'd offer major benefits to our industries, he argued.

Katainen also voiced his concerns about the rise of populism in Europe, warning that it has already increased uncertainty and complicated decision-making. Populism, he added, has contributed to the dire unemployment situation in some member states and made it more difficult to implement social reforms to prepare for the future and maximise well-being.

Uncertainty and instability have absolutely no positive effects. They lead to less efficient decision-making at the national level. The situation is rather worrying in that respect, he admitted.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
COUNTY SHOOTS DOWN HORSE SHOE DEVELOPMENT

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners on Monday shot down a rezoning request for a development of 225 rental cottages and apartments at Horse Shoe Farm, agreeing with 21 opponents that the high-density use was wrong for the winding South Rugby Road and rural character of the area.

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Around 65 Horse Shoe residents in all turned out to oppose the rezoning, which had received a unanimous recommendation for approval from the county Planning Board in October.

What remained unclear after the vote, however, is whether the developer will come back with an alternative plan or proceed with a high-density development that would require no zoning change.

John Turchin, a third generation developer from Miami who also developed a 1,500-acre project in Banner Elk, explained that as the listing agent trying to sell Horse Shoe Farm he had tried equestrian market and had considered a typical single-family home development. He described the development, called the Sanctuary at Eagles Nest, a lifestyle destination community made up of 700- to 1,200-square-foot cottages, three miles of walking trails, a farm-to-table restaurant, fitness center and other amenities.

Brian Gulden, an Asheville attorney who represents the owner of Willow Run Farm, told the board that it may be adopting spot zoning if it approved the request. Gulden, a former Henderson County planner, said the request amounted to spot zoning because it would single out one piece of property surrounded by a much larger area of more restrictive R-2 zoning.

Tamarac resident Charles Snead, like many of his neighbors, urged the board to uphold the zoning that Horse Shoe residents recommended when the Board of Commissioners adopted the small area plan for Etowah-Horse Shoe.

We were going to make a plan that was for planned growth, not just helter-skelter," Snead said. He suggested that commissioners would be choosing between people who live here who you represent and some very nice and capable people from outside who want to make a buck.

Walter Carpenter, an attorney who lives about seven-tenths a mile from Horse Shoe Farm, said: It was zoned in 2010 and I havent heard anything that indicates changes that have occurred in six years that would justify changing the zoning designation. The proposal is for 554 parking spaces so that gives you an idea of the traffic. That is a significant increase in the number of cars on South Rugby.

Bill OConnor, a former county commissioner, said that if the commissioners want to change the comp plan they should take a broader look than individual mixed-use requests and rezoning changes.

Missing from our plans are processes for amendments, he said. I urge the commissioners to consider process for plan amending soon.  I suggest that this request violates the character of our community in both the spirit and letter of our plan in the entire planning process.

Grey Jernigan, the executive director of the Hendersonville office of Mountain True, said the development posed a threat to the French Broad, which forms a boundary of the property. Increased runoff and more paved surface "is inevitable from a high-density development such as this," he said.

Robert Deutsch, who represented Turchin, said the comments from opponents failed to recognize that the applicant could build 206 multi-family units with no rezoning at all.

"Fifty percent of it will be left undeveloped," Deutsch said. "As for benefit to the community they're going to get a sewer line that the developer's going to pay for. I would ask you to follow the ordinance, consider what is already allowed, which is very similar to to what's being considered only less regulated, consider what the DOT is tellling you and allow this development."

But all five commissioners voted no and four out of five expressed serious misgivings about the proposal.

Commissioner Grady Hawkins called the traffic study "invalid" because of the times that it had collected data and how it was interpreted.

Commissioner Bill Lapsley, a civil engineer, said tying the development into the Cane Creek sewer system was a bad idea, not a good idea as the developer suggested.

With the denial of the rezoning request, the developer could come back with a revised plan that meets the zoning regulations.

Turchin has the property under option and could presumably pull out. But he said he expects to come back with another plan.

"No, we're still going to develop the property," he said. "You heard what they said. We can still develop it for 206 units."
Rank and file gardai have voted to accept a 50m pay deal - ending the looming threat of strike action.

They are now set to enjoy a wage hike of more than 4,000 per guard after three-quarters of the 10,500 members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) voted in favour of the offer.

There was a 69pc turnout for the vote to prevent the unprecedented action.

It is now up to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Justice to decide who will cover the cost of the controversial wage package.

The Government is also likely to face another bill on top of the 290m already set aside for public sector pay rises next year.

It has committed to talks with unions on "anomalies" arising from the deal after they demanded equal treatment or the Government would face industrial action.

A spokesperson for Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe said he will work out how the pay package will be funded with Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

This comes as public sector union leaders of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are due to meet today to discuss their pay strategy.

It was revealed yesterday that a majority of GRA members voted in favour of a Labour Court recommendation that halted industrial action last month.

Proposals

The association's 31-member Central Executive Committee agreed to ballot its members on the court's proposals on the eve of the first strike, which was planned for November 4.

It suspended the strike to hold a ballot on the court proposals that will increase pay and give gardai access to state mediation bodies. It did not issue a recommendation to members on how they should vote.

The GRA said its Central Executive Committee will meet today to discuss the implications of the ballot result.

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors' 2,500 members will give their verdict on the court's proposals today. It recommended a 'yes' vote.
Gary Fenton is still in intensive care

Eamon Dixon has been named locally as one of the victims

Emergency services at the scene of the crash Photo: Patrick Browne

This is the face of one of the three young men who died in a horror crash when the car they were travelling in burst into flames.

Eamon Dixon was yesterday named locally as one of the tragic victims of Sunday morning's fireball in Dungarvan.

The three were killed when the vehicle they were in collided head-on with a people carrier, in which two adults and four young children from Cork were on their way to a Christmas festival.

The incident happened around 5km from Dungarvan on the Military Road, the N72 - which acts as a bypass route for the town in west Waterford - shortly before 10am.

Shocking

Two of the dead lived in the Murphy Place estate in Dungarvan according to grieving locals, who were coming to terms with the shocking deaths.

Eamon Dixon, who was said to be 21, and Mikey Tobin, whose family were originally from the Gaeltacht area of Ring, were described as good friends.

The identity of the third man who died is not yet known.

People who knew Mr Dixon said they had heard the awful news locally on Sunday afternoon.

"He and Mikey were good pals. Eamon was a nice fella, a quiet sort of a lad," said one man.

"We can't believe the tragedy of it, especially so close to Christmas.

"It's awful," said a young woman.

Yesterday, people called to the family home of Mr Dixon to console them as they awaited official confirmation of his identification from gardai.

A friend and neighbour of Mr Tobin posted a message on her Facebook page last night saying he was "one true mate and neighbour".

Other friends responded with messages of sympathy.

All three men received terrible burns to their bodies as a result of the early morning road smash.

Gardai were consulting with medical professionals in their efforts to identify them as quickly as possible for their families.

Meanwhile, the two adults and four children who were travelling in the people carrier were still being cared for in hospitals in Cork and Waterford last night.

Surgery

The adults were named locally as Gary Fenton, from Cobh, and Mary Bermingham, from Banteer in Co Cork.

Both underwent emergency surgery on Sunday night.

Mr Fenton, who is a member of the Naval Service and attached to the LE William Butler Yeats ship, was still in intensive care last night.

The condition of Ms Bermingham was not known.

The four children who were in the car are aged between six and fourteen years, and one is reported to have special needs.

Local sources last night told the Herald that this child was doing well and has been released from hospital.

However, the other children involved in the crash were still being treated in hospital.

A forensic examination of the crash scene took place yesterday morning, and both vehicles that were removed from the scene on Sunday night will also undergo technical examination.

It is believed that Mr Fenton, Ms Bermingham and the children were on their way to a Christmas festival in Waterford when the crash happened.

Mary Bermingham previously lost a brother, Christopher, in a car crash in May 2014.

The two cars, a small saloon and a people carrier, collided head-on on Military Road, some 5km outside Dungarvan in Waterford at 10am on Sunday morning.

The smaller car exploded in an intense fireball just seconds after impact, killing the three men inside.

The deaths occurred during 24 hours of carnage on Irish roads, which saw four people killed and nine more injured in two separate collisions.

A man died following a two-car collision outside Fermoy in north Cork yesterday morning.

A child, understood to be a passenger in one of the vehicles, suffered serious injuries.

In Dublin yesterday, a cyclist had a lucky escape after colliding with a Dublin Bus on College Street.
Ronn Abernathy and Cathy Starnes were the two incumbents retaining seats after the November elections while Beth Isenhour won the third open seat. Isenhour is a former teacher, principal and assistant superintendent in the school system.

District Court Judge Clifton Smith swore in Isenhour while District 25B Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey swore in Abernathy and Starnes.

Marilyn McRee, the board chair, decided not to run for a third term. She was recognized for her 36 years of services as an educator and principal in Catawba County  the last eight on the school board  by new Superintendent Matthew Stover.

I remember when I first met her, I felt like Id known her all my life, Stover as he presented her with a commemorative plaque of thanks from the school system. Shes just that kind of person.

North Carolina Representative Mitchell Setzer also honored McRee with a presentation of The Order of the Long Leaf Pine Society, the most prestigious award the Governor of North Caroline can bestow on a citizen. It recognizes outstanding community service by an individual.

With McRee stepping down, the board voted for David Brittain to be the new chairperson and Glenn Fulbright as the new vice chair.

In other business, the board:

(bullet) Approved the Merit Pay Plan for non-educator employees, mandated by the North Carolina legislature earlier this year.

Karla Miller, the systems chief finance officer, explained to the board the eligible employees for Catawba County Schools will be the non-instructional support staff who over the last three years had their working days reduced by 10.

The largest group of those will be our instructional assistants, and they would be eligible to receive a $300 dollar (one-time) payment, Miller said. We realize all of our employees are hard-working employees. We are so fortunate in Catawba County Schools to have the staff we have.

Miller also pointed out the additional stress the instructional assistants (IA) have been put through in recent years because of reduced numbers of IAs as another reason they was chosen for the merit pay bonus.

The other group of employees who qualified for the merit bonus are dual employees  those who already work full=time for the school system and who also drive busses. If those employees drive a morning route, theyll get $150 and an afternoon route driver will also be paid $150.

The bonuses will be paid on Jan. 6.
She was called Puratchi Thalaivi, or revolutionary leader, in Tamil, but by the time the end came, she was Amma, mother. Jayalalithaas desire to be a revolutionary leader saw her often defeated at the hustings, but in the eyes of the people of Tamil Nadu she was the universal mother -- Amma.

Jayalalithaa as Puratchi Thalaivi was attempting to grow out of the shadows of her mentor and founder of the AIADMK, MG Ramachandran (MGR). The men in her life had been the source of her travails: Her father died too early and not before emptying the family coffers, and she was forced into an acting career, reluctantly, despite her inclination to study.

Her acting career and her relationship with MGR is a saga of success though tumultuous, a fight even for the legitimacy of being the heir to MGRs legacy. MGR never officially anointed her his successor. The uncertainty was the reason for her unceremoniously being ejected from his hearse, and then later the battle with his wife, which resulted in the party splitting. Her stoic battle eventually resulted in her faction emerging victorious and the two factions merging.

Read| Jayalalithaa: A timeline of a movie star-turned-politician

Her political naivete was often made obvious by her flip-flops, the most dramatic of them being her decision to withdraw support to the Vajpayee government in 1998 at the national level. But at the state level too, even as late as her 2011 stint, her alliance with the DMDK with Vijayakanth and then the falling out, was typical of her political impetuosity.

But the tragic physical assault on her in the Tamil Nadu Assembly in 1989 not just made her a bitter woman but also shaped the political culture of the State. The bitterness between the two primary Dravidian parties never ended, despite some feeble attempts towards the end. The hope is that O Paneerselvam will be able to reach across the political divide to elevate the political culture of the southern State.

During this period, she was often criticised for encouraging a culture of sycophancy in the party, with party cadre and supporters in general often genuflecting in front of her. A common site in Chennai was the huge hoardings lining the route from the Secretariat to her residence and she was known to keep an iron control over her administration.

A sea of crowd during the funeral procession of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa in Chennai. (Vanne Srinivasulu/HT Photo)

She had a penchant for the ostentatious that landed her in a host of legal cases and the wedding of her foster son V N Sudhakaran acquired national notoriety for its ostentation. The disproportionate assets case remained a thorn in her political career even to the very end.

Read| Amma Jayalalithaa, a saga of grit and determination with few parallels

Amma emerges

Jayalalithaa emerged in 2011 as the chief minister, more as Amma than as Puratchi Thalaivi. Amma canteens, Amma Water or Amma Pharmacy have been talked about to emphasize the personality cult she encouraged, but there are other welfare measures that have made the lives of girls, widows and workers hovering around the poverty line significantly better. These schemes also built Jayalalithaa a strong political base beyond caste or regional equations and the loyal base that MGR had built through his network of fan clubs that formed the backbone of the AIADMK.

She headed a 13-party alliance in the 2011 Assembly to resurrect from near political oblivion to a position where she went it alone in the last elections. She said, of what now looks like a pyhric victory, Even when 10 parties allied themselves against me, I did not have a coalition and I placed my faith in God and built an alliance with the people. It is clear that the people have faith in me and I have total faith in the people.

Jayalalithaa had finally come into her own. She had emerged from the travails of the patriarchal machinations that bound her life, she was firmly establishing her political legacy and she was emerging as a political leader of her own standing. Life willed otherwise.

Read| J Jayalalithaa: A political icon like none

Welfare Measures by J Jayalalithaa The Cradle baby scheme  welfare scheme against female infanticide

Thalikku thangam thittam  gold for marriage

Amma Unavagam  canteens offer subsidised food

Amma Kudineer  packaged drinking water for Rs.10

Amma Kudineer Thittam  20 litres of potable water per family

Amma baby care kits  a mother to get 16 types of baby products worth Rs. 1000 for free.

Amma seeds  seeds for free to farmers
The dockyard accident of the frigate INS Betwa is another blow to an Indian Navy struggling with an ageing fleet, a tight budget and an ever-increasing number of duties. While an assessment of the frigates fate is still awaited, the possibility that the navy has lost another one of its capital ships cannot be ruled out. If so, it will be another blow to a Navy that has already lost a submarine to internal explosions three years ago.

But the incident is a reminder that defence capacity is not only about piling up weapons and acquiring technology. It is also about soft capabilities like maintenance, supply management and training. These have not necessarily been the Indian militarys strongest card. Yet they are crucial. Ships that topple over, aircraft that fall out of the sky and guns that jam in battle are a sign that the tail of the military beast is failing its teeth.

The MiG 21 saga, the flying coffin of the Indian Air Force, remains the most tragic example of the toll such short-sightedness can take.

It took decades for the defence ministry to get around to buying the proper set of training aircraft to put an end to the crashes. So long, in fact, that the MiG 21s may be phased out of the air force even before the full complement of trainers will be bought.

Read: 2 sailors dead, 14 injured after warship INS Betwa slips on Mumbai docks

The military can rightly complain about the budgetary restrictions and bureaucratic interference that have plagued them for decades. The days when ammunition depots were little more than tarpaulin tents and sophisticated fighters had no hangars are almost a thing of the past.

However, ageing rusty platforms struggling to handle 21st century weapons system is still too common a sight. Training is also a hole that has yet to be filled.

Foreign militaries that interact with their Indian counterparts, however, often note the huge gap between the officers and their lower ranks in training and knowledge. It is a sign of how slowly things change that the three military academies this year officially recognised the need for a bachelors in applied electronics stream for their cadets, a belated recognition of how technology dominates the modern battlefield.

The point is that such processes need to be perpetually renewed and reformed. The nature of modern defence keeps changing as the enemy changes its tactics and technology disrupts what is traditional and tested. The defence ministry is particularly prone to fossilised thinking and rigid procedures.

Other defence ministries have realised that their procedures are a matter of constant procedures. The Indian body seems to take pride in learning as little as possible from its mistakes, past and present.

Read: Recent accidents in the Indian Navy
The meteorological department, Bhopal, on Monday predicted that chill will set in Malwa-Nimad area after December 15, before which it will be moderately cold.

IMD Bhopal director Anupam Kashyapi said northerly winds blowing across the area at a maximum speed of 15 km an hour from Monday will pull down temperatures in coming days, which will bring chill in Malwa-Nimad. But expect the actual vigour of cold after December 15, Kashyapi said.

IMD said that a western disturbance approaching from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan will move towards Jammu and Kashmir in a few days, which may change the wind pattern, but its effect will be short-lived.

On Monday, Indore city recorded maximum temperature of 27.2 degrees celsius, which was one degree below normal. The minimum temperature at 11.9 degrees celsius was normal. Winds blew from north and north-east for most part of the day reaching maximum speed of nine kilometres an hour. Morning and evening humidity was 65% and 41% respectively.

Citys maximum and minimum temperatures have remained more or less the same in last two days.
Day One of the five-day winter session of the state assembly saw no proceedings take place except for obituary references. However, the Opposition did take the opportunity to raise the Centres decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs1000 banknotes in the assembly.

The assembly passed obituary references over the demise of Leader of the Opposition Satyadev Katare; former Madhya Pradesh governors Ramnaresh Yadav, Mohd Safi Qureshi and Bhai Mahavir; former legislators Vidyadhar Joshi, Lalta Prasad Khare, Rao Deshraj Singh Yadav and Sevaram Gupta; and former union ministers Arif Baig, Jaywantiben Mehta and Prof MG KM en on. All these dignitaries passed away between the monsoon and winter sessions.

Speaker Dr Sitasharan Sharma took their names after newly-elected MLAManju Dadu took oath in the House. The assembly also condoled the death of passengers on IndorePatna Express, after the train met with an accident near Pokhrayan, Kanpur a fortnight ago.

After obituary references, the assembly was adjourned till Tuesday morning.

However, deputy leader of the Opposition Bala Bachchan paid tribute to those who died standing in queues ( at banks and ATMs) and the bank men who died while discharging their duties after the high-denomination notes were devalued.

Bachchan also paid condolences over the death of jail warder Ramashankar Yadav, who was killed by eight alleged SIMI operatives who escaped from Bhopal Central Jail on October 31 and were later killed in an encounter on the outskirts of Bhopal. His move was politicalchief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had called Yadav as a martyr but did not pay tributes to the jail warden in the House as the business list of the assembly didnt have his name.

Bachchan was later severely critic is ed by cooperative minister Vish was Sarang, who said the Congress leader sought to play politics even on deaths of people, despite knowing that the dignitaries whose deaths were condoled included Satyadev Katare, who had been a member of the Congress party.

Chouhan pays tribute

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan highlighted the political journey of the deceased Leader of the Opposition Satyadev Katare, saying he started his journey from cipher and attained his place in politics by fighting for the rights of everyone, right from the days that he was a student leader. Chouhan also stated that Katare was once honoured as the best MLA and once as the best minister.
The legislative party of Congress, which met in Bhopal on the first day of the state assemblys winter session, urged the party high command to soon make a decision on the selection of the Leader of Opposition in the state.

The Congresss legislative party met here under the leader-ship of Bala Bachchan, the acting leader of Opposition.

However, former leader of opposition and senior Congress leader Ajay Singh and Arif Aqueel were not present in the meeting.

We have sent a proposal to the party high command that whoever they choose as the Leader of the Opposition will be acceptable to us. Besides, we discussed the strategy regarding the issues that we will raise in the House in the coming days, Bachchan said.

He further said that the issues that will be raised in the House include difficulties the people in the state were facing due to demonetisation, alleged corruption during the Simhastha and malnourishment deaths in the state.

We will also the raise the difficulties faced by the farmers. Unable to pay high power bills , their electricity connections are being snapped in many areas, he said.

Sources in the Congress said the race to see who will succeed Satyadev Katare, who died on October 20, has already begun. They said the frontrunners for the position are Ajay Singh, Govind Singh, Mahendra Singh Kalukheda and Ram Niwas Rawat.

Ajay Singh, a six-time MLA, has already been Leader of the Opposition between April 2011 and November 2013.

IAS officer Ramesh Thete sends letter to 81 MLAs, alleges dalit bias

Panchayat and rural development department secretary Ramesh Thete, who has alleged casteist bias against Dalit bureaucrats in the state administration, told Hindustan Times that said he has sent a letter to 81 scheduled caste and scheduled tribe legislators in the state, including acting leader of opposition Bala Bachchan. In his letter, Thete has sought their support for justice against a senior IAS officer, who he accuses of harassing, targeting him and not allotting him work that suits his post. Bachchan told HIndustan Times that he has not yet read the letter. I will go through the letter and the demands made by Thete, following which we will take a decision on what we can do in this regard, he said.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has sought a status report on the shifting of a 20-month-old tigress to an enclosure in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve on November 22.

The cub was killed by an adult male tiger a week later after it jumped a 12-foot fence around the enclosure.

NTCA has written to the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), based on a complaint by wildlife activist Ajay Dubey. HT has a copy of the letter.

Dubey told HT that the cub was shifted on November 22 without NTCA being informed. He alleged that the tigress was kept in a cage on that night and then released into the enclosure.

According to the standard operating procedure set by NTCA on tigers, the officials had to inform the NTCA about shifting a wild tiger to an enclosure. I had written the letter to NTCA on November 23 about it. The same tigress was later killed according to the park officials in an attack by a male tiger who, they say, jumped a 12 feet wall, he said.

Speaking to HT, Bandhavgarh field director Mridul Kumar Pathak said they had to shift the tigress as it was moving into human habitation in Maanpur Range of the buffer zone. The tigress could have been killed or she could have killed a villager. So we took the decision of shifting her at the earliest and I accordingly informed the PCCF about it. That night we kept he in the cage as we couldnt have released her into the enclosure during night-time, he said.

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, located between the Vindhyan and Satpura ranges in Umaria district, has one of the highest tiger densities in the country, with over 80 tigers. Due to this, the reserve has witnessed many incidents of man-animal conflict over the past few years.
Illegal sand miners fired several shots at an administrative and police team at Chhatarpur districts Mavaighat and Padwar areas on Sunday night. The police team retaliated, after which the miners fled, allowing the authorities to seize trucks and machinery from the spot.

According to Lavkushnagar SDOP LS Mishra, a joint team of the administration and police received a tip-off about the sand mining and raided Mavaighat and Padwar.

The miners at Padwar area fired around 15-16 gunshots at the joint team. In retaliation, the police team also fired some rounds. Taking advantage of the darkness, the accused fled the spot, leaving behind machinery, equipment and trucks, sub-divisional magistrate HK Dhurve said.

A case under IPC Sections 307 and 353 has been lodged against unidentified persons. The illegal miners belong to both Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, police said.

Mavaighat and Padwar both fall under the Chandla assembly area, represented by BJP legislator RD Prajapati, who has long alleged large-scale illegal sand mining in the area and blamed his own partys government and the administration for not taking action.
Bollywood actor Katrina Kaif says women should not silently face atrocities and must speak up about issues like marital rape and other crimes committed against them. The actor says sometimes even educated women succumb to the pressure of societal norms and remain silent on issues which should be raised.

I know of educated women, who remain silent in the face of violence, because they are afraid to confront societal norms and have fingers pointed in their direction especially when the majority of our society fails to recognise martial rape as a crime, Katrina said.

I would urge more women to speak up. It is not okay to feel inferior or weak, because we are not the weaker sex by any stretch of imagination, she added.

The 33-year-old actor was speaking at the WeUnite conference, which marks UN Womens partnership with the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The world has largely been led by patriarchal societies and women have, through the years, largely remained quiet in the face of atrocities rather than speak out against them, the actor said.

Katrina said it is sad to know that there is gender inequality in a country which had women as the head of the state.

India had a woman as the head of state, way before the United Kingdom, a feat United States of America has not managed to achieve as of yet. Which is why it is surprising to hear about gender inequality in India. And sadly we do, she said.

Katrina Kaif urged women to come forward and talk about marital rape.

On a daily basis there are shocking stories about the violent crimes made against women. Yet, I can only imagine how many other crimes against women in India go unreported, the actor added.

Katrina, however, says this is not an India specific problem and quoted a UN report saying this is happening everywhere.

In India according to the data provided by the national crime records bureau, in 2001 the reported crimes against women were 1,43,795. In 2005, it were 3,27,394. More than a 100 percent in numbers.

However I would like to believe that this increase in numbers is not an increase in crime against women. It is in increase in number of women who are ready to come forward and reporting them.
Major auto and IT firms, the engines of Tamil Nadus economic prosperity, remained shut or deployed emergency work plans on Tuesday, a day after its chief minister J Jayalalithaa died of prolonged illness, leaving the state paralysed and in weeklong mourning.

From schools, offices and shops to the factories of Ford, Nissan and Hyundai, everything remained closed in a state where Jayalalithaa was lionised by millions of her doting and often hysterical supporters. Top IT firms, including Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), also remained closed.

Much of the shutdown across Tamil Nadu was out of respect for the departed leader but some also remained closed on fears of violence by her grieving admirers.

Some companies triggered their business continuity plans (BCP).

All our offices are closed in Chennai today. We have invoked BCP to ensure seamless service delivery for our customers mission critical operations, a TCS spokesperson told Hindustan Times.

Jayalalithaas legacy: TN among Indias best in industrial, social indicators

It wasnt immediately clear when business could return to normal. Most big businesses said they were hoping to reopen soon.

It is too early to say. If there is a bandh for three days, it will have an impact as in most bandh situations the auto industry is not insulated from such situations, Vishnu Mathur, director general of auto lobby, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), told HT.

Auto-part makers were also keeping their fingers crossed.

Jayalalithaa defied the conventional logic of Tamil Nadu politics

I presume the state machinery will ensure that production contniues and the industry is not affected However, if the state or city comes to a standstill for a prolonged duration, then there will be an impact, Vinnie Mehta, said director general of Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA).

Chennai and its suburbs account for at least 30% of the turnover of Indias $58 billion automobile industry, industry figures show. A smaller auto components sector also has a major presence in and around the Tamil Nadu capital.

Much of the credit for building up the state as a manufacturing hub with foreign investments goes to Jayalalithaa, a six-time chief ministers who fought economic hardship as a child to become a popular film star before foraying into politics.

She also helped forge a strong IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) industry in a state with the countrys largest economy.

Nasscom, a top IT industry lobby, said businesses were closed for a day as a mark of respect for the departed leader.

She contributed immensely to the growth of IT sector in the state, a Nasscom spokesperson said. Industry officials hoped the situation will be normal by Wednesday.

Tamil Nadu accounts for some 14% of all revenue generated by Indias software services, which is valued at $143 billion, according to official figures.

(With Kalyan Subramani in Bangalore)

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Refuting Cyrus Mistrys allegations of breakdown in the governance of trusts managing Tata Sons, the group holding firm said on Monday the trusts are governed by individual wills of Jamsetji Tata and his two sons, and accused the ousted chairman of causing huge financial losses.

Tata Sons, the holding firm for over $100 billion conglomerate, said Mistrys statements have caused the group, including the companies where he continues to be the chairman. Enormous damage and caused considerable financial loss to all shareholders, running into tens of thousands of crores.

The Trusts are governed by the individual Wills of Jamsetji Tata, his two sons, Sir Dorabji Tata and Sir Ratan Tata, and other founders. The Trusts have been scrupulously following the mandates set out in the Wills, Tata Sons said in a statement.

That is the reason the different Trusts continue in existence for decades, it added.

Various Tata Trusts of which Ratan Tata is the lifetime chairman, owns 66% in Tata Sons, and are all public trusts.

Earlier, stepping up his fight against Tatas and patriarch Ratan Tata, Mistry sought the governments intervention to remedy and repair breakdown in the governance of trusts managing Tata Sons.

Reaching out to shareholders of six Tata group firms, where promoters have called EGMs to remove him from their boards, Mistry said, The Tata Group is no ones personal fiefdom: it does not belong to any individual, not to the trustees of Tata Trusts, not to the Tata Sons directors, and not to the directors of the operating companies.

Refuting the claim, Tata Sons said: After he became the chairman of Tata Sons, it is Mr. Mistry who converted the Group into his personal fiefdom, with his unilateral actions destroying precious institutional memory of the House of Tata.

Mistry has chosen to fight his removal in the media even at the cost of hurting and damaging the Tata group, including Tata companies, even while remaining as its chairman, Tata Sons said.

His statements have caused the group (including the companies where he continues to be the Chairman) enormous damage and caused considerable financial loss to all shareholders, running into tens of thousands of crores, it added.

Tata companies and Tata Sons have, for many decades, worked cohesively and seamlessly for the benefit of all stakeholders namely the companies, their shareholders and employees and for society at large, it said.

There was no other agenda or personal interest as ultimately even the dividends paid to Tata Sons and subsequently to its own shareholders went largely back to philanthropy except for those paid to the minority shareholders, it added.

The operating Tata companies have individually grown and prospered but they have also benefited in no small measure from being part of the Tata group, it said.

It is the Tata legacy that has attracted capital in all forms and gives the comfort of safety because of the past default-free record. Therefore, Tata companies do not exist in a vacuum but benefit from being part of the Tata group which is most evident in times of difficulty. It is all this that is at stake, the statement said.

The Tata Group has enjoyed the confidence of generations of shareholders for more than a century. The shareholders of Tata Group companies are eminently qualified to see through the smokescreen of baseless allegations being passed off as an appeal to shareholders, it said.

The price of his (Mistrys) wanton allegations has been borne by none other than millions of shareholders. Tata Sons believes the shareholders will judge these malicious actions on their own merit or the lack of it, it said.
The factory payday, reserved for the seventh day of a month, could trigger a bigger monetary chaos because most of the workers get paid in cash and dont have bank accounts.

The cash crunch in the country  a result of the demonetisation drive  aggravated after the government and private companies disbursed salaries to their employees last month-end and early December.

Banks and ATMs are already running short of cash, dispensing below the limit set by the government. The factory payday on Wednesday could become a double whammy, given the situation.

Read| What black money? Govt may be in for shock after demonetisation

We are getting calls from many places where factories and construction companies have not paid their workers. We fear non-payment can lead to a volatile situation, said Tapan Sen, general secretary with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, which is affiliated to the CPI(M).

India has 560 million people working in factories. Of these, a mere 10% are in the organised sector, where salaries are transferred electronically into bank accounts.

For the rest, it is the decades-old system of getting cash in hand after signing a register. With the government cancelling 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, and printing of new bills being slow, there is just not enough cash to give out on Wednesday.

The labour ministry has spoken to trade unions to avoid violence. We have requested them to reach out to workers and create awareness about digitisation, labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said.

The idea of digitisation may be lost on a vast number of workers.

Read| Massive support for demonetisation but implementation patchy: Central team

Tirupur in Tamil Nadu has half a million people working at its garment and hosiery units. Only about a fifth has bank accounts. There are 800,000 people working in the Peenya Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Bangalore.

According to Srinivas Asranna, a member of the council that manages the estate, most of the workers are paid in cash.

Dattatreya met finance minister Arun Jaitley last week to seek more mobile ATMs and banking correspondents at factories, labourer colonies, and construction sites.

Banking correspondents are individuals that work on behalf of banks in areas with no branches.

Banks have said they are ready, but nothing is in place and many workers may not get paid on time, said CH Venkatachalam, general secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association.

Several employers may resort to paying in the old, cancelled notes.

Those carrying unaccounted cash may try to make salary payments in old notes to get rid of their black money, said an industry analyst who refused to be named.

They may want to pay a months salary in advance to make it attractive to the workers.

Read| Demonetisation pangs: The lines outside ATMs are not the real problem
In a bid to ease online card payments, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday relaxed the authentication norms for payments up to Rs 2,000.

To meet the objective of customer convenience with sufficient security for low value transactions, the card-issuing banks will offer the payment authentication solutions of the respective card networks to their customers on an optional basis, RBI said in a statement.

Customers opting for this facility will go through a one-time registration process requiring entry of card details and additional factor of authentication by the issuing bank. Thereafter, the registered customers will not be required to re-enter the card details for every transaction at merchant locations that offer this solution and, thereby, save time and effort.

The card details already registered would be the first factor while the credentials used to log-in to the solution (as confirmed by the card network providing the solution) would be the additional factor of authentication.

The relaxation for additional factor of authentication under such solutions shall be applicable for card-not-present transactions for a maximum value of Rs 2,000 per transaction across all merchant categories. Banks and card networks are free to facilitate their customers to set lower per transaction limits, it said.

Only authorised card networks shall provide such payment authentication solutions with participation of card-issuing and -acquiring banks, it added.

Customer consent shall be taken while making this solution available to them, RBI said.
It seems appropriate, writing on the death anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, that I am mindful of the Indian Constitution. Even as a schoolboy, when it seemed turbid and turgid, I was taught to celebrate the many freedoms he enshrined in its dense prose, long before I could fully grasp the democratic processes it protects. But this year Im especially grateful for a democratic exercise the constitution does not allow: referendums.

It has been a bad year for what some political scientists call extreme democracy. A June referendum resulted in Britain opting to exit the European Union; in a referendum in August, Thais decided in favour of a constitution giving the military a larger role; an October referendum in Colombia cancelled President Juan Manuel Santoss peace deal with the FARC rebel group; and in a referendum on Sunday, Italians voted against constitutional reforms.

All of these decisions seem counter-intuitive to most outside observers: Brexit will weaken Britains economy and its ability to influence in the world; Thailands democracy has been weakened; the peace deal was designed to end a long, bloody rebellion that has cost Colombia dearly; and decades of political and economic chaos demonstrate that Italys constitution is in dire need of reform. And yet, in each referendum, the majority of people voted against their best interests.

In two instances, the results also brought down a powerful, charismatic political leader  Prime Minister David Cameron in the UK, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy. Each had staked his office on his favoured outcome, and was forced to resign when the result went the other way.

Cameron was in New Delhi last weekend, for the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, and I asked him if he regretted putting the issue of Britains membership of the EU to a referendum. I regret the [peoples] decision, he said, but as a democrat you cant regret holding a referendum, or abiding by the result. It was the answer of a seasoned advertising executive-turned-politician, carrying little conviction. And if Cameron isnt having second thoughts, many of his countrymen certainly are. Polls now suggest that many who voted for Brexit are having buyers remorse, and a new term has been coined to capture this sentiment: Bregret.

Read: No provision for referendum in India: Experts on Kejriwals call for Delhi vote

Youd have thought Santos and Renzi would have learned from the Brexit example and avoided the referendum route for their own causes. But the temptation to go over the heads of their political opponents and directly to the people was too great.

For politicians, the seductive power of a referendum lies in its combination of simplicity and finality: you take a complex question, reduce it to a yes-or-no proposition, put it to a popular vote, and, hey presto, the decision has cast-iron legitimacy. The ideal outcome, of course, is that the vote favours your argument; but even if it doesnt, there may be some small consolation in the fact that theres no more bickering: the argument is over, and everyone moves on.

But the simplicity of referendums is exactly what is wrong with them. Most political propositions put to the test in this way are highly complex, and to reduce the choices to Yes or No is to greatly understate the gravity of the outcome. Typically, political parties boil the issues down to deceptive, or even deceitful binaries, playing to the electorates fears and prejudices. Those favouring Brexit, for instance, persuaded many Britons that to remain in the European Union would be tantamount to opening the countrys borders to a flood of immigrants, among whom would lurk many terrorists. The camp opposed to constitutional reforms in Italy argued that these would give control of the country to faceless, unelected bureaucrats.

Read: Nexit, Frexit or Italeave? British vote triggers other EU breakaway dreams

Defenders of referendums say theyre not all bad, and usually point out that Switzerland, that shining example of stability, has them all the time. The Swiss call this direct democracy, and this is sometimes seen as the opposite of representative democracy, where issues are debated and decided by elected representatives of the people. But Switzerland actually has both forms, and in fact the vast majority of decisions are taken by parliament, not directly by the people.

Can a referendum be undone? Not without great cost, in money, time, and credibility. It is harder still when the outcome has handed political power to the winners  like Theresa May, who took the opposite position to Cameron, and replaced him as Prime Minister. Theres little prospect she will propose a do-over referendum.

In hindsight, then, it was wise of Colombias Santos not to threaten to resign if his people rejected the accord with FARC; this precaution gave him the political space to amend it for reconsideration. Wiser still, he decided not to put the new version to a referendum, instead bringing it before parliament. Last week, the new deal was approved. Cameron and Renzi, I suspect, would give anything for that second chance.

Never having been in the shoes of a Cameron or a Renzi, some Indian politicians wish they could put their pet causes to the test of direct democracy. For instance, Arvind Kejriwal was inspired by the Brexit vote to tweet: After UK referendum, Delhi will soon have a referendum on full statehood. Happily, this was no more than a pipe dream. Never mind the Chief Minister of Delhi, not even Indira Gandhi, at the height of her Emergency hubris, was able to change the Indian Constitution to allow direct democracy.

Thank you, Babasaheb.

Bobby Ghosh is editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times

Twitter: @ghoshworld

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At least 7 people have lost their lives in cold-related incidents in Uttar Pradesh since Sunday and train movements and flight operations in northern India continued to remain affected due to heavy fog..

Reports said three farmers died in Banda on Sunday while guarding their crop in the fields and four people died in a road accident because of heavy fog in state capital Lucknow.

Fifty-four north-bound trains were running behind scheduled while the departure of 12 trains was rescheduled keeping in mind the bad weather conditions, a senior railway official said on Tuesday.

Flight operation at Delhis IGI airport was also affected due to low visibility. Two international and three domestic flights were delayed on Tuesday.

Further north, Kashmir is reeling under sub-zero night temperatures.

Leh was the coldest place in Kashmir division recording a low of minus 9.4 degrees Celsius.
Retired school teachers will now be appointed in Delhi government-run schools in case of shortage of teachers or temporary vacancies.

Deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday said school principals can appoint retired teachers without getting prior approval from the education department.

If there is shortage of teachers in any school, then the principal need not ask the deputy director or send the file to him. Now, the principals will be able to appoint retired teachers of government schools for such vacancies, Sisodia said.

He said the decision has been taken to ensure children do not suffer due to lack of teachers or in case existing teachers go on leave or training.

Sisodia announced the decision during the annual function of a Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in Mayur Vihar Phase I.

It is often difficult to permit teachers to go on leave due to shortage of teaching staff. Appointment of retired teachers as per need will solve this problem, Sisodia said.

Retired TGT and PGT teachers of government schools will have to register themselves on the education departments website if they want to apply for these posts.

They can select a school of their choice, officials said.

The government also plans to hire visiting teachers to meet the shortage.

The policy being worked out by the government will allow principals to hire subject teachers for a period of three months. I will give principals the power to hire teachers for a fixed period.These teachers will act as substitutes for those on leave. But, we have named them visiting teachers, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia told HT.
For the past over a decade, an unending cycle of construction has enveloped the Delhi-NCR region in a persistent blanket of dust.

Behind this blanket thousands of workers work quietly, most often in dangerous conditions without any protective gear, exposed to life-threatening pollutants. However, its a tough choice for them to make. Livelihood far outweighs safety and health concerns. Unscrupulous builders and contractors, despite challans and penalties imposed by state governments on the orders of the National Green Tribunal, still cut corners and show scant regard to the ministry of environments guidelines for curbing pollution at construction sites.

In Delhi, around 4,000 tonnes of construction waste is generated every day. This constitutes around 40% of the total waste generated in the city. In an affidavit submitted by the ministry of environment and forest to the Supreme Court in January 2015, it was noted that dust particles were the highest source of pollution in Delhi. Dust contributed to 52% of particulate matter in the air with vehicular emissions contributing to only 6.6%.

Read: PWD sprinkles water on road to reduce dust pollution

Delhi corporations clear 300 building plans every month. Additionally, construction is carried out on plots smaller than 105 square metres, which dont require approval as per the unified bylaws. And construction in unauthorised colonies is not regulated.

At a site in Safdarjung enclave, labourers admitted that breathing becomes difficult during work and they have to keep their faces covered with cloth  their only protection against dust or any other construction-related dangers. However, most changed their stories immediately when asked to go on the record. We face no difficulties here, was the common refrain.

When pushed a little further an older man said they will not say anything, even if they have to keep facing difficulties. Of course pollution is bad for our health. We know it. We have been living with cough and breathing problems. However, you need to understand we are daily wage earners. If our contractors and bosses find out that we spoke to the media about how the working conditions are bad here, they will never call us for a job again. Now, we might be coughing, but at least our tummies are full, he said.

The socio-economic backgrounds that many construction workers come from mean that they cannot afford to nit-pick. Many are the sole bread winners of their family like Farid.

Farid said that he recently moved to Delhi to try and make enough of a living to help support his family of six. Farid works at a construction site in Lajpat Nagar. I had cough when I started. Now, I think I am getting used to the dust. When I feel like complaining, I think of my family members faces; this keeps me going, he said.

Many of these workers do not have protective gear. A little further down the road from the Safdarjung site, closer to Krishna Nagar, a smaller construction site has three young men hard at work. Two of them dont look a day older than 16, but their rough hands speak of experiences beyond their age. They are both new to Delhi, and have just come in from Bihar. This is their first time at a construction site. We have never worked at construction sites before. It is a new experience. It takes some time getting used to, one of them said. When asked if they have been experiencing any health issues, they look at each other, pass a quick glance over to their supervisor, and say No.

However, on further questioning, they conceded that they have not been provided with protective gear by the supervisors. They work sans helmets, gloves or even masks. We usually just tie a towel around our heads and use the same to cover our faces, he said.

Particulate matter is the common enemy of these workers. In the short-term, exposure to particulate matter (both 10 and 2.5) can aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular diseases like asthma, cough, allergies, etc. However, if people are exposed to these emissions for long and continued periods of time, they are at risk for lung cancer.

Read: Air we breathe: Act now or forever hold your breath

A research paper released by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in November 2015 says higher levels of coarse particles in the air was leading to an increase in cardiovascular-related hospital stay for people 65 years and older in the US.

The most harmful element in construction matter is silica which often escapes the human bodys filter mechanism. Over a period of time, it shrinks lung capacity and makes the person vulnerable to all kinds of infections, says Dr Neeraj Jain, chest specialist at Ganga Ram Hospital.

When such dangerous consequences lie ahead, it is especially worrying when people claim that they have been used to it. We have a little cough every now and then, but I think we are now used to it. We are used to working on farms in our own villages, so the dust does not bother us. It is not so bad here. Ab toh aadat si padh gayi hain, said a construction worker. However, in the same breath, he warned the reporter against coming any closer to the construction site. This is real potent stuff. It can burn your eyes, irritate your nose and even choke you. You are better off not coming in, he said.
Delhi Police has arrested a man for allegedly shooting dead a 25-year-old Haryana businessman near east Delhis New Ashok Nagar in a case of road rage on Sunday night.

The accused, Yashpal Singh, was arrested on Monday.

The victim, Deepak Bhadana, who ran a cattle-feed business and also owned farm land in Faridabad, was shot at point blank range in Dallupura village as his horrified relatives watched.

Bhadana was returning from a wedding in a hired Innova, which allegedly brushed against a Ford Endeavour at Dallupura timber market, police said. An altercation followed between the two drivers. Bhadana stepped in but was allegedly shot in the head by the SUV driver.

He died on the spot. Bhadana got married five months ago and was the only earning member of the family.

This was the second road-rage death in the city in last 48 hours. On Friday night, 35-year-old vegetable vendor Sanjay Yadav was killed and Ashok Kumar, a shopkeeper, injured after two men fired at them in southwest Delhis Najafgarh following an argument. Kumars scooter had grazed one of the men, police said.

Minor altercations leading to violence are frequently reported in the Capital. According to police records, one in five murders in the city is on instant provocation, which could be stopping a neighbour from peeing on the wall, fight over a food bill or overtaking.

Read: Faridabad man shot dead in East Delhi after his car hits SUV

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Banks in national capital may continue to have long queues for a few more days as people get their salaries over the first week of December.

Secondly, banks are still grappling with currency shortage forcing many branches to resort to cash rationing to meet customers demand.

The situation, however, is expected to improve next week and the crowd may be comparatively thinner as government has scaled up the printing of Rs 500 notes, said bankers.

Many people get their salary in the first week of a month so the crowd will be the same in banks if not more. However, we are expecting some relief as new stock of elusive currency reaches the currency chests and then the banks, said a senior official of a public sector bank.

According to reports, four currency printing presses - two owned by RBI at Mysuru and Salboni and two government-owned at Nashik and Devas - have now started working in three shifts.

Some banks in national capital are giving Rs 4,000 per person while those having better cash availability are disbursing between Rs 10,000-14,000 though the limit set by the government is Rs 24,000, bank officials said.

A senior official of a State Bank of Indias branch in Delhi said, If you want the crowd to come down at banks, you need to recalibrate all the ATMs and ensure that cash reaches there at a faster speed.

Despite recalibration of over 90 per cent of 2.2 lakh ATMs across the country, ATMs are still running out of cash nearly a month after demonetisation.

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A 40-year-old section engineer in the railways posted in Tughlaqabad in south Delhi has been accused of allegedly molesting another rail staff on Monday, police said. A case of molestation was registered at Pul Prahladpur police station on the complaint of the 20-year-old woman.

A senior police officer said that the railway engineer was thrashed by his colleagues and locals after the woman raised an alarm.

A separate case of assault and criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty was registered on the complaint of the section engineer. The railway official told police in his complaint that he was being framed in a false sexual harassment case as per a conspiracy hatched allegedly by some railway employees and members of the staff union.

Romil Baaniya, deputy commissioner of police (southeast), confirmed that two separate FIRs were registered in the matter. He said that the section engineer was not arrested till Tuesday morning as the investigation was still on the preliminary stage. The rail officials name has been withheld because the charges against him were yet to be proved.

The woman has complained that on Monday around 1 pm, she was busy with some work when the engineer asked her for a glass of water, the officer said. The woman went to his cabin with a glass of water. As she kept the glass on his table, the railway official allegedly grabbed her hand and tried to drag her toward the bathroom, said the police officer, quoting her complaint.

The woman further told the police that she raised an alarm and somehow managed to free herself from his clutches. She ran out and alerted her colleagues and other rail employees present at the rail yard. A few locals also arrived and they together beat up the official before informing the police.

A police team arrived and the official was taken to a nearby hospital for medical attention. A complaint from the woman was received and FIR was registered against the official. The second FIR was registered on his complaint against the other rail employees, the officer added.

Sexual harassment at workplace continues to be a problem in the national capital. As per the National Crime Records Bureau data, 57 and 119 cases of sexual harassment at the workplace were reported in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

This increase in number shows that more and more women are coming forward to seek police assistance in such cases and are not suffering in silence, said Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said last week in a reply to the Lok Sabha.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, and Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013, was enacted with the objective to provide safe and secure workplace environment to women.
The application process for filling 324 probationary officer (PO) vacancies through admission to Post Graduate Diploma in Banking and Finance (PGDBF) course offered through Manipal Global Education Services 2017-2018 began on Tuesday. The application process will continue until December 22, 2016. The number of vacancies is provisional and may vary according to the actual requirement of the bank.

Interested candidates can apply by visiting the official website of the Indian bank.

Steps to apply for 324 PO jobs:

1) Visit the Indian banks official website

2) Click on the Career tab

3) Click on the link PGDBF PROGRAMME 2017-18

4) click on Apply Online For Po-Onboarding

5) Click on New Registration tab

6) Enter details as required carefully

7) A provisional registration number and password will be generated when details are submitted for the first time

8) Note it down

9) Candidates can reopen the saved data and edit till the last date of edit/modification . This facility will be available for three times only.

10) Submit the application after it is filled and checked properly

11) No change will be allowed in the application after its final submission

12) Pay the fees/in online mode by following the instruction

13) An e-receipt will be generated on successful completion of the process

14) Take a printout of the on-line application form and save it for future reference

The application process can only be completed in the online mode.

Candidates will be selected through a process consisting of online exam (preliminary and main) followed by an interview. Successful candidates will go through a nine month course (campus programme) at Manipal Global Education Services, Bangalore followed by a three months internship at any of the Indian Bank Branches.

On successful completion of the course, candidates will be appointed as probationary officer in any branch of the Indian Bank.

The details about eligibility criteria, essential qualification, exam pattern and much more can be found on banks official website. You can also check it at the bottom of the text here.

Note: Candidates are advised to regularly keep in touch with the official website for details and updates.

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As the wildlife department has only one officer for six districts of Haryana, most of the ground work is being looked after by the terrestrial staff who are not trained in handling wildlife and wildlife-related issues. Thus, with a view to protect and conserve the wildlife in the region, the forest staff will be given training on Friday.

South Haryana has six divisional forest officers, 16 range officers, 48 block officers and 150 forest guards. However, the wildlife wing has only one divisional officer, three inspectors and 10 field staffers.

As the wildlife wing is short-staffed, we have been providing them assistance. We will be conducting a one-day training session for the staff to learn how to use a tranquillizer gun. Only the wildlife officer is currently trained to handle a tranquillizer gun, said MD Sinha, conservator of forest, south Haryana.

This move came after a leopard was killed on November 24 after it strayed into Mandewar village, which is located 40km from Gurgaon. It was beaten to death by residents of Mandewar as it took more than three hours for the wildlife department to arrange the tranquillizer gun and a cage.

Also read: Leopard killed by residents after it enters Gurgaon village

Though the forest staff were present at the site, they were not of much help as they were not trained to deal with such a crisis. So, to avoid such incidences in future, the forest department has planned to organise training sessions, where the wildlife doctor will guide officials on how to use a tranquillizer gun on wild animals.

Also read: Forest dept proposes to fix tracking device on leopards

At present, the Gurgaon and Faridabad forest staff will be trained in the first batch, said Anand R, divisional forest officer, Gurgaon.

Also a core group will be created in each division. This will consist of 5 terrestrial forest officials and they will further conduct training sessions.

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It is possible that stray wild animals are being killed due to a delay in transporting the only tranquillizer gun available for six districts of south Haryana.

On November 24, a stray leopard was beaten to death by residents of Mandawar village, as it took more than three hours for the forest department to arrange the tranquillizer gun and a cage. Mandawar is located 40km from Gurgaon.

The six districts include Gurgaon, Faridabad, Palwal, Mewat, Rewari and Mahendragarh, which comprise forest area that is a habitat for more than 15 leopards.

According to the Haryana forest census of 2011, the latest official data on wildlife, eight leopards were sighted in the Aravallis. No data has been released since, but forest officials said the number has gone up twice in the last few years, evident from camera trap recordings.

Leopards from Rajasthan also migrate to this area as it is more favourable for breeding. The core belt of the wildlife corridor extends from Sariska to Asola, said MD Sinha, conservator of forest, south Haryana.

He said that each district must have at least one tranquillizer gun available to avoid killing animals.

Shyam Sunder Kaushik, divisional forest officer, wildlife, Gurgaon, said, These six districts not only have leopards, but also other jungle cats, jackal, porcupine, fox, mongoose, small Indian civet, pangolin, hyena, nilgai, chital, sambar, barking deer, goral, wild boar, langur, rhesus, hare, chinkara and peafowl.

We lose crucial time when certain incidents take place. Transporting the cage and gun from one district to another is not always possible and as a result, many animals are being killed in the region. The six districts have more than 15 big cats and they do not stay at one place, so we cannot track them. Ideally, every district should at least have one gun.

According to the forest census of 2011, 129 sightings of jackals, 46 sighting of jungle cats, 17 sightings of hyena and two sightings of fox, were recorded. The department said that these numbers have gone up in the last five years.

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Four-year-old kids who have average and low vocabulary skills can learn more effectively if an adult reads to them from an e-book instead of relying solely on the e-books voiceover.

The study has been published in the journal Early Education and Development.

Researchers from University of Toronto divided the four-year-old kids into two groups  one group with children of higher than average vocabulary level and one group with average and lower English vocabulary.

For the study, either four-year-old children interacted with a digital book on their own using the books voiceover or an adult read them the same book.

Children with average and lower English vocabularies show poorer comprehension when they read e-books themselves. (Shutterstock)

The book was teaching children about biological camouflage and overall, pre-schoolers learned about camouflage from both books.

They found that children with average and lower English vocabularies showed poorer comprehension when they read the book themselves.

The results highlight that young children are best supported in their learning when they are in interaction with others, especially parents or other caregivers, said Dr Patricia Ganea, Associate Professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

These findings are important since they show that children at risk for low comprehension, benefit from having an adult read with them, rather than being left to learn from the digital device on their own, Ganea added.

The study was conducted by giving the children a pre-test about biological camouflage using pictures of animals. They then read an e-book about camouflage by the e-book voiceover and by an adult.

The children were later asked questions about camouflage using replica lizard and turtles in tanks.

Overall, the researchers found e-book to be an effective tool for teaching children the new biological concept.

Overall, 74 percent of children explained their answers in terms of camouflage at the post-test as compared to two percent at pre-test.

The children with above-average vocabularies did well on the camouflage post-test regardless of whether the adult read the book or they read it themselves.

However, the children with average and lower vocabularies performed poor when they read the e-book through voiceover.

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The representation of female characters in Disneys new-age animated movies like Moana is doing more than entertaining young audiences: It is shaping the expectations of young girls about careers and preparing them for adult experiences of working life, claims a new study.

From a bunny rabbit police officer in Zootopia to a princess fighting for her people in Moana, Disneys animated films have portrayed many memorable female characters in the workplace during the past 80 years.

Researchers from the University of Leeds and University of Bradford in the UK watched and analysed 54 classic animations made by Disney since 1937.

They noted the trends in the nature of the work undertaken by these female characters and how they perceive the workplace.

While early animations such as Cinderella typically portray girls as weak and seeking to avoid work, later ones such as Zootopia and Frozen present strong, positive females in or preparing for work.

As a result, young women often receive mixed messages about work from watching a combination of older and more recent films, researchers said.

These mixed messages, alongside other similar social and cultural influences, could partly help to explain why many women have different expectations about work compared to men, and have tended not to progress as quickly in the workplace.

Martyn Griffin from Leeds University suggested that over time, the portrayal of more empowered female characters in more contemporary Disney films could even help influence a generation of young women who will not be willing to be passive and weak in the workplace.

Our study highlights the importance of the themes of work and organisation within these films and suggests that through repeated viewing within cinemas, and through DVD, Blu-ray and streaming services they are very likely to contribute towards the development of expectations about working life, he said.

In this study we have used Disney as a lens to develop the idea of organisational readiness  that is, childrens expectations about work which are shaped by social and cultural forces that indirectly prepare them for experiences of their future organisational life, said Mark Learmonth, from Durham University in the UK.

We have argued that Disney can be considered a contributory factor in this process  along with other films, books, computer games, comics, toys and other influences  adding towards a social reality in which children develop an understanding of the world of work, said Learmonth.

The study appears in the journal Organisation Studies.

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Three Indian men have been accused of stealing 1 million dirham by hacking into a Dubai businessmans mobile banking application after obtaining a duplicate SIM card using forged papers.

The Indian trio, who have not been named -- a 38-year-old worker, a 27-year-old visitor and a 26-year-old mechanic -- allegedly visited an outlet and claimed that one of them had lost a SIM card in May.

Upon being asked to fill in the required details on the form to obtain a duplicate SIM, according to records, the trio provided the businessmans details and his phone number, the Gulf News reported.

Then they used the duplicate SIM to hack into the businessmans bank account through the mobile banking application and transferred 1 million dirham from his account to another account.

Once the businessman realised that money had been withdrawn from his account, he contacted the bank and was informed that the transfer happened through the smartphone banking application.

Police were informed that the money had been transferred to an Indian mans account. Investigation disclosed that the 38-year-old and the 27-year-old collected the money in the form of cheques that were issued to them.

Prosecutors accused the Indian trio of forging papers to obtain a duplicate SIM card and hacking into the businessmans banking application to steal his money.

The three suspects were not present at the Dubai Court of First Instance where they were scheduled to enter their pleas yesterday.

According to the charge-sheet, prosecutors said the Indian trio conspired with two or more than other suspects, who remain at large.

A banker told prosecutors that the businessman called in to find out why his money went missing from his account.

After checking out on his account operations, we discovered that the money had been transferred via the mobile banking application to another account. According to the banks findings, the mobile banking application had been activated at a date recent to the incident using the businessmans contact number...then cheques were issued to the 38-year-old and the 27-year-old, he testified to prosecutors.

A police lieutenant told prosecutors that they first arrested the worker, who admitted to obtaining the duplicate SIM.

He confessed that he handed the duplicate SIM to one of the runaway suspects, who paid him money. The visitor was apprehended while trying to cash one of the cheques. The 27-year-old claimed that he had agreed with a man to cash the cheque for him against a certain commission. He also alleged that one of the runaway suspects gave him a number of bank cards and their pin codes to withdraw cash, he said.

The court will hand down a ruling in the case on December 29.
The country registered 251 honour killings last year against 28 in 2014, recording a big spike in murders carried out by people professing to be acting in defence of their familys reputation, the government said in Parliament on Tuesday.

The 792% number jump reflects rigorous data collection on honour killing, which the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) started doing from January 2014. It also points to the widespread existence of the crime.

Most cases went unreported in the past or registered as crimes under murder.

The figures given out by junior home minister Hansraj Ahir in the Lok Sabha are from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.

Only because of sustained campaign by womens groups, a separate category was created for compiling cases of honour killing to get a real picture of the heinous crime. But there are still many cases that go unreported, Kirti Singh, a SC lawyer, said.

Many people, especially women, are murdered each year in India by family members over perceived damage to honour that can involve eloping, fraternising with men or any other infraction against conservative social values.

But it was not known how many women died because the government didnt provide a gender-wise break-up of the data for 2015.

The killings are reported under two sections  murder, which Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code deals with, and culpable homicide not amounting to murder that falls under Section 304.

Uttar Pradesh, which registered a single case in 2014, topped the list the next year with 131 cases of murder with honour killing as the sole motive.

We will have to check how the home ministry or the NCRB arrived at this data, said UP police chief Javeed Ahmad, responding to shocking jump in honour killings in the state.

India doesnt have a specific law to deal with honour killing, forcing law-enforcement agencies to charge suspects under separate provisions of the IPC depending on the scale of a crime.

The government said in Parliament in 2014 that the law commission had recommended a proposed law, the prohibition of interference with the freedom of matrimonial alliance bill, to prevent honour killings and punish offenders.

The bill is pending, two years on. Figures show the government needs to hurry up to bring the law, said Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary of the All India Democratic Womens Association.
The demise of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who is accused in a disproportionate assets case now awaiting judgment in the Supreme Court, would lead to her abatement but the case would go on against the other accused  Sasikala Natarajan, Ilavarasi (Sasikalas sister-in-law) and Sudhakaran (Jayalalithaas foster son, who she later disowned).

Legal sources said the demise of one of the accused does not mean that the case gets closed. The case is very much alive, as the other accused are alive said a senior lawyer practicing at the Madras high court.

In the Rs 63 crore assets case, judgment is pending in the Supreme Court on a petition of the Karnataka government challenging the Karnataka high court acquittal of all four in the case. Jayalalithaa was alleged to have acquired properties worth Rs 63 crore, way above her known sources of income between 1991 and 1996.

Arguments of both sides are over and the Supreme Court may pronounce judgment at any time, the lawyer said adding now the case is at a stage when the Apex court is to give its final order. It may be recalled that a trial court in Bengaluru had convicted Jayalalithaa in the case and sentenced all the accused to four years imprisonment in September 2014, following which she was jailed. She was also imposed a fine of `100 crore.

She has to quit the post of chief minister. It was only after the Karnataka high court reversed the trial court order that she could return as the chief minister.

The Karnataka government had gone in appeal against the High Court verdict and arguments are over. The SC had reserved the judgment in the month of June.
The question of who after Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadus context is somewhat redundant. Her stature as the unquestioned leader of the AIADMK for three decades after her mentor MG Ramachandran passed away in 1987 means the party may not find an obvious replacement quickly.

The simple reason being, unlike the its bitter opponent DMK where for all the sibling rivalry, a second level of leadership has been promoted over the years, the AIADMK has remained an exclusively one-leader party.

Very often Ammas loyalists would openly proclaim her as the permanent general secretary of the AIADMK. In this backdrop, nobody within the party would dare to think of being the alternate face, even after her sad demise on Monday night.

But it does not imply a political vacuum as the AIADMK has comfortably won all the three recent assembly bye polls and took its tally to 136 out of the 234 member house. These numbers give the party a certain level of level of comfort and there is no immediate threat to the AIDAMK government, now led by O Pannerselvam after being sworn in early Tuesday morning.

Three fourths of the present AIADMK MLAs cannot win the next elections. So they would blindly follow whoever is nominated, said Prof Ramu Manivannan of the Madras University. Neither would the DMK, with 98 MLAs and 30 short of majority, think of breaking AIADMK to form a government, he said.

Read | Jayalalithaa third Tamil Nadu CM to die while in power

It is an open secret that Jayalalithaas longtime companion and confidante, Sasikala Natarajan continues to wield considerable clout within the party. What is her role going to be now under the new circumstances remains to be seen.

The 2016 scenario is in direct contrast to the situation that unfolded to the situation when her mentor and party founder MG Ramachandran died in 1987.

At that time, Jayalalithaa was already a popular leader. But MGRs wife Janaki, propped up by a senior minister claimed her husbands political legacy which sparked off intense and open fight between the two women in MGRs life.

Jayalalihtaa was backed by another section of senior leaders like Panruti Ramachandran and S Thirunavukkrasu (now TNCC chief).

Read | Jayalalithaa death: A lesson for Didis and Behenjis?

In fact, then, thousands of mourners saw the unseemly predicament of Jayalalithaa being thrown out of the gun carriage when MGs body was being taken for cremation.

But today there is hardly any parallel to such scenario and in the absence of a charismatic figure to physically present to preside over the combined legacy of MGR and Amma. But it does nothing to the party and AIADMK does not face any threat of immediate disintegration.

If not anything, AIADMK and the government would try to cash in more on the Amma brand.

The national parties could certainly get more aggressive to fill the space when both the Dravidian majors face a crisis. However, if the BJP backs the present dispensation, it has chances to team up with the AIADMK in future. The BJP stands to gain by supporting the present arrangement as they could tie up with AIADMK in future, said Prof Ramu Manivannan of the Madras University.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Congress would like to get closer to the AIADMK and hints to this effect were given when it named S Thirunavukkarasar as its new TNCC chief. Thirunavukkarasar is a former MGR acolyte and an AIADMK stalwart himself.

Also read | Live | Jayalalithaas funeral to be held at Marina beach, Centre declares day of mourning
Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaas death has come as a blow to the NDA government. Though not a constituent of the ruling alliance at the Centre, the AIADMK led by her was a reliable ally of the NDA on many issues both inside and outside parliament.

Thanks to her friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi since his Gujarat days and other senior BJP leaders, the Centre could bank on her support even on issues on which Tamil Nadu had strong reservations. Dravidian parties, for instance, were opposed to the legislation on goods and services tax (GST).

When the bill came up for passage in the Rajya Sabha where the NDA is in a minority, the AIADMK MPs chose to stage a walkout that facilitated its passage.

The AIADMK is third largest party in the Lok Sabha with 37 MPs and fourth in the Rajya Sabha where it has 13 members. It won this years assembly election and has 135 MLAs, out of total 235, in the state. The ruling BJP was banking on its support in the elections of the president and the vice-president next year.

The NDA on its own doesnt have the numbers in parliament and state assemblies to get its candidate elected as president.

BJP leaders told HT that the Centre would do its best to help the AIADMK government tide over the crisis. Given that we dont pose any threat to the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, there is no reason for any change in equations with the party. The last thing we need is a split in the AIADMK, a senior BJP functionary told HT.

Read| For Jayalalithaa, no public display of faith, but no shying away either

Government sources in Delhi say they feared some mischief by the DMK in post-Jayalalithaa situation and were ready to deal with such a situation.

The new Tamil Nadu CM, O Panneerselvan, might need the Centres help in the immediate context but the ruling dispensation in New Delhi will miss the personal rapport that they had with Jayalalithaa.

Her absence may, however, give the BJP new hopes about getting a foothold in Tamil Nadu, which has moved on from the anti-Brahmin and anti-Hindi politics of dravdian parties.

BJP leaders do not see any immediate possibility of growing into a big size party in the state, but do see possibilities of an eventual and formal tie-up with the AIADMK, a move that did not see the light of the day during the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Read| Ammas legacy can help AIADMK potentially ride over rough weather
J Jayalalithaa towered over Tamil Nadu politics, leading the state for several years and ruling over one of the biggest regional parties in India with an iron fist. But the leader whose political clout spread far beyond the state hardly spent time in Delhi to fuel national ambitions.

However, whenever she was in the national capital, she left her mark.

The six-time chief minister had always kept her adversariesand even friendsguessing about her next move.

Consider this: Jayalalithaa enjoyed an excellent rapport with former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. But in 1998, she said Sonia Gandhi would be a national tragedy as a PM candidate. A year later, Jayalalithaa attended the now-famous tea party organised by Subramanian Swamy and sat next to Sonia Gandhi, describing her as an old friend.

She was upset with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and tried to join hands with the rivals.

Read | Who after Jayalalithaa? Can Paneerselvam carry AIADMK into the future

One leader, however, was always in her good books -- Biju Janata Dal chief and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

She treated Naveen as her younger brother because Biju Patnaik, Naveens father, always treated Jayalalithaa as his sister, said Bhartruhari Mahtab, BJDs floor leader in Lok Sabha.

So much so that in 2012, Jayalalithaa and Patnaik were the first to propose PA Sangmas name as a candidate for President. Later, the two leaders found support from BJP and some other parties for their candidate even as Sangmas own party, NCP, decided to vote against him.

Only a few leaders could approach her and negotiate on political issues.

Read | Jayalalithaa death: A lesson for Didis and Behenjis?

Former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat was one of them. One of the pivotal forces of the non-Congress, non-BJP political camp, Karat maintained a good rapport with her.

The Left, with its disproportionate importance and clout in Tamil Nadu, still managed to forge a pact with her party, AIADMK, for assembly and Lok Sabha polls. But in 2011, Jayalalithaa snapped the ties at the last moment.

As the Left prepared to put up a solo fight, a politburo member told this correspondent, We are fighting for the sake of fighting. We dont see much chance without (the) AIADMK in Tamil Nadu polls.

In 2016, she offered just one seat each to CPI(M) and the CPIa condition unacceptable to both parties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also enjoyed excellent relations with Jayalalithaa. She was the first CM to welcome the BJPs announcement of Modi as its PM candidate. Modi reciprocated and went to Chennai to attend her swearing in ceremony this year.

When the Modi government was racing against time to push through the 122nd Constitutional amendment bill to roll out the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Jayalalithaa came to his rescue. Modis trusted lieutenant, Union minister Venkaiah Naidu went to Chennai to plead with Amma. And she obliged.

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The Union urban development (UD) ministry has set the ball rolling for developing standards for smart cities, over a year after the NDA government launched the flagship program to develop 100 such cities.

So far, the ministry has selected 60 cities under the program.

The draft standards finalised by the UD ministry will measure where each of the chosen smart cities stands as against the benchmark it has set. For instance, the per capita water supply in a smart city should be 135 litres per capita per day. Similarly, the city should have 100% household level municipal waste collection, 100% coverage of toilets and 100% slum households covered through formal housing.

Read | Mumbai, Delhi are not really smart cities, says global survey

What other countries do Developing countries like Malaysia and Indonesia use Local Economic Governance Survey to assess the quality of governance and business development. In the Netherlands and Denmark, benchmarking for various utilities like water to measure their performance have been made a statutory requirement. Regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom and Australia use benchmarking to monitor water and wastewater services

On the governance front, a smart city should make available 100% of citizen services like payment of taxes, user charges. Besides it should have 100 % school enrolment of children in the 6-14 age group and one teacher per 30 students.

The number of in-patient hospital beds per lakh population in such cities has been set at 2.5 beds per 1,000 persons.

The draft standards are based on 45 core indicators. For each of the indicator, the ministry has specified the data that respective cities will have to provide and their performance will be measured on their basis.

The cities that are not up to the mark will be provided incentives to catch up with the better performers. Though a common practice globally, Indian cities do not have a uniform benchmark for measuring service standard for various urban services. Having such guidelines will help the city quantify the services that they have to provide to qualify for smart city, a ministry official said.

Read | To succeed, citizens must have more say in the Smart Cities Mission

While welcoming the draft standards, urban sector experts have cautioned that poor data for both core and supporting indicators in small and medium-sized towns can derail the whole exercise. The spatial urban data in small cities is very chaotic. Unless cities start preparing baseline data, it will be difficult to set credible service level benchmarks, Saswat Bandyopadhyay, professor of planning at CEPT University, said.

Currently, smart cities are assessed based on their performance to provide basic civic services and efficient governance in the last three years. The UD ministry had in the past developed service level benchmarks for water and sanitation services.

We have put the draft standard in the public domain (www.mygov.in) for getting feedback from the public, an official said.

Also read | Before our cities become smart, they need to become liveable and humane

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President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi led leaders cutting across party lines in paying rich tributes to former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday.

Draped in the Tricolour, the body of the 68-year-old AIADMK leader was kept at the Rajaji Hall, a British-era building in Chennai, where teary-eyed people paid homage to the six-time chief minister who died overnight.

President Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi are among those who are travelling to Chennai to pay their last respects to the departed leader. She will be cremated at the Marina Beach.

The President called Jayalalithaa one of Indias most charismatic and popular leaders and a visionary and able administrator.

One of Indias most charismatic & popular leaders, Ms. Jayalalithaa was a visionary & able administrator #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 5, 2016

Her life was dedicated to the socio-economic transformation of Tamil Nadu and its people. In her passing away, the nation has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions. Her contribution to the progress and development of Tamil Nadu will be long remembered, he said.

Her life was dedicated to the socio-economic transformation of Tamil Nadu and its people #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 5, 2016

In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister said he was deeply saddened at the passing away of Jayalalithaa and her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics.

I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace, Modi, who enjoyed a good personal equation with the late leader, said.

Jayalalithaa jis connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 5, 2016

Vice-president Hamid Ansari also condoled her death, saying Jayalalithaas demise is an irreparable loss to the people of India.

An eminent public figure, a charismatic personality, she had immense influence over the political developments in Tamil Nadu as well as the national level. As chief minister of Tamil Nadu, her contributions towards the economic development of the state and social welfare of the poorer segments will be long remembered and cherished, Ansari said.

In a rare gesture, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced that the Lok Sabha will be adjourned for the day. She was a true leader of the masses. The country has lost a highly popular, courageous and prominent leader, she said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who shared bitter relations with Jayalalithaa for more than one-and-a-half-decade, hailed her as a towering figure in our national and political life, who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics.

Selvi Jayalalithaa lived her entire life with the same indomitable courage with which she battled her illness. As the leader of AIADMK and four-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, she had a unique and deep empathy with the needs and hopes of the people, and put in place policies that immeasurably improved their lives, Sonia said.

Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi condoles Selvi J.Jayalalithaa's death & pays homage. pic.twitter.com/SaQlk3gZAb  Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 5, 2016

Senior BJP leaders, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani and party president Amit Shah, paid rich tributes and condoled her death.

I am deeply grieved to learn about the sad demise of J Jayalalithaa. She was dominant political personality from Tamil Nadu and was a very popular, dynamic leader of the poor and downtrodden, Advani said in a statement.

Several chief ministers and regional leaders also joined in condoling her death.

It is an unfortunate loss, not only for Tamil Nadu politics but also for rest of the country, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said, adding that one-day mourning has been declared in the state.

       .      .        .  Nitish Kumar (@NitishKumar) December 5, 2016

V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admis leader. May her soul rest in peace, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.

V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admi's leader. May her soul rest in peace.  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) December 5, 2016

Recalling Jayalalithaas contributions in the fields of films and politics spread over four decades, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis said, She was one of the most respected leaders in the Tamil Nadu politics who earned the affectionate title of Amma on account of her deep concern for the people.

#Jayalalithaa ji's work for the people is inspiring.

May Her soul rest in peace.

My deepest condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu.  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 5, 2016

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav also expressed his condolence over Jayalalithaas demise. At a time when the country is inclining towards dictatorship, such leader was needed, he said.

In a message released by her party, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati described the late AIADMK leader as popular, far-sighted and an able administrator who championed the cause of the poor, downtrodden and the marginalised sections of the society.

Mayawati expressed her solidarity with the followers, supporters and family members of Jayalalithaa who died on Monday night after suffering a cardiac arrest on Sunday.

K Kavitha, Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader and a member of Parliament, said Jayalalithaa had the rare ability to bounce back.

In her political career she faced all the difficulties that Indian women face at work but she only grew stronger and inspired us, she said.
As many as 155 Dalits converted to Buddhism on the 60th death anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar, observed as Mahaparinirvan Divas even as Banaskantha District Collector said the administration had not given permission for the conversion programme.

Dalits, mostly from Banaskantha and a few from Kutch district, converted to Buddhism at Ramapir temple here at the program organised by Banaskantha District Dalit Sangathan.

The decision to embrace Buddhism was taken after Una Dalit atrocity case. Members of our community wanted to protest against growing inequality and atrocities against Dalits in Gujarat, said the organiser Dalpatbhai Bhatiya.

The incident at Una in Gujarat, where cow vigilantes beat up some Dalit youths alleging that they had killed a cow, had rocked the state earlier this year.

After the Una incident we had intimated district administration about the decision of 191 Dalits to convert to Buddhism this day. Of them, 155 converted on Tuesday at a function presided over by a Buddhist monk from Porbandar, Bhatiya said.

Such event will be organised every year on Mahaparinirvan Divas, he claimed.

If (despite) being Hindus we are not allowed to enter the temple, play garba during Navratri or draw water from the common well because we are Dalits, then there is no point being a Hindu. This is why we decided to convert to Buddhism, said Amrut Valmiki, who converted along with his three children.

Banaskantha collector Jenu Devan said the administration had refused permission for conversion programme.

We had earlier rejected the application seeking permission for conversion. We had not given them permission for todays event and we will conduct an inquiry, Devan said.

In October, on Vijaya Dashami, more than 300 Dalits converted to Buddhism at various places in Gujarat and also at Nagpur. Una incident was cited as the main reason for high number of participants.
The DMKs headquarter in Chennai was completely deserted on Tuesday, save for a small contingent of policeman standing guard at its locked gates, as Tamil Nadu comes to grip with the loss of one of its most powerful leaders, Jayalalithaa.

Despite being a bitter rival of DMK patriarch Muthuvel Karunanidhi, whose ambitions to become chief minister were thwarted by the 68-year-olds stunning victory in the 2016 assembly elections, the DMK has pledged its support and offered its commiserations following Jayalalithaas death.

Karunanidhi who has been in hospital for a week for an allergy, issued a statement on Tuesday offering his condolences.

His son and heir, MK Stalin, was more strident in his praise of the late CM, saying that her demise was an irreparable loss to the people of Tamil Nadu.

Read | Who after Jayalalithaa? Can Paneerselvam carry AIADMK into the future

The question now remains what the DMK will do following the immediate aftermath of Jayalalithaas death, and whether it will resume its traditional combative stance towards the AIADMK, whose political dominance in the state seems shaky with her passing.

We want to bury our acrimonious past, and move forward to a different equation now, says C Saravanan, senior party leader and DMK spokesman. O Pannerselvam as a leader cannot be compared to Jayalalithaa, but politics can wait while the state mourns her.

Also read | Jayalalithaa third Tamil Nadu CM to die while in power

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J Jayalalithaa, born a Brahmin, might not have publicly performed yagnas or homams while leading a Dravidian party in a state where anti-caste Dravidian ideology held sway, but she made no effort to hide her ardent following of Hindu religious rituals.

Yet, a few displays of her religious beliefs remained largely out of the public domain. Not many know Jayalalithaa used to perform Rahu-Ketu puja at the Srikalahasti temple near Tirupati in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh whenever she faced tough situations in life, such as the corruption case or elections.

AIADMK supporters mourn Jayalalithaas death

Read: Business not as usual: Auto, IT firms fear disruptions over Jaya death

The temple is famous for the Rahu-Ketu puja, which is performed by persons facing troubles in personal and professional lives. A large number of VIPs across the country visit the temple each year to perform this puja.

She used to come in a chartered helicopter, sometimes alone and sometimes with her friend Sasikala, besides her security personnel. She used to perform the puja with utmost devotion and take the blessings of Lord Vayulingeshwara, the presiding deity of the temple, said Prabhakar Sarma, a priest at the temple. Sometimes, she also used to perform Sarpa Dosha Nivaarana yagnam and Rudraabhishekam.

Jayalalithaa was also a regular visitor to the famed Tirumala temple to pray to Lord Venkateshwara Swamy, besides Goddess Padmavati temple at Tiruchanur down the hills.

Read: Blow hot, blow cold: The story of Jayalalithaas powerplay in Delhi

Incidentally, workers of her party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), were known to campaign extensively across temples ahead of elections.

According to party sources, Jayalalithaa would not begin her poll campaigns before paying obeisance to the presiding deity at Srirangam.

She sanctioned money for free annadanams (offering of food) at nearly 500 temples in the state. For temple elephants, considered devout, Jayalalithaa decreed annual holidays at special camps organised by the government.

Before going out on any important mission, she would direct her convoy to slow down before a temple at Kotturpuram in south Chennai, bow to the presiding deity and carry on. When she was returning triumphant last year after the Karnataka High Court set her free from prison in a disproportionate assets case, she bowed to Lord Vinayaka at this temple before driving home.

Read: Amma Jayalalithaa, a saga of grit and determination with few parallels

Her beliefs aside, Jayalalithaa did not hesitate when it came to the arrest of Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswati in 2004 on charges of abetting the murder of Sankararaman, the manager of a Kanchi temple, for exposing alleged financial irregularities in the mutt. The seer was acquitted in the case.

Because of her faith, Jayalalithaa had to face allegations of toeing the hardline Hindutva line. In 2002, she incurred the wrath of religious minorities by enacting the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Act, more than two decades after the mass conversion of Dalits to Islam at Meenakshipuram triggered a debate over religious freedom across the state and country. She did not yield.

Jayalalithaa rarely offered explanations or reasons, but one such rare occasion came during a Christian congregation at the AIADMK office on December 23, 2013. Faith is essential to achieve success in life. Miracles can happen if one has faith. Without faith, one cannot succeed in life, she had told the congregation.

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The army and air force have grounded their ageing fleets of light-utility helicopters, concerned if the machines were fit to fly after three army aviators were killed in a crash in West Bengal a week ago.

More than 280 Cheetah and Chetak helicopters, lifeline of troops in high-altitude areas including Siachen glacier, would fly only after Hindustan Aeronautics Limited would carry out a comprehensive safety check of each of the machines, a defence ministry official told HT.

The design of the helicopters is more than 50 years old and their airworthiness is being questioned after a string of mishaps in recent years.

A group of wives of serving officers met defence minister Manohar Parrikar in 2015, demanding the helicopters be retired.

After the November 30 crash, the army grounded 150 choppers and the IAF around 130. Though the navy operated 40 such choppers they werent grounded, a naval officer said.

The Cheetahs play a crucial role in supporting the army on the Siachen glacier, one of the worlds highest battlefields, flying at more than 20,000 feet.

The unavailability of these choppers could hamper operations in forward areas. The HAL will clear the choppers in batches. Its not as if the entire fleet will be unavailable for a long time, an IAF officer said.

The military would use the Dhruv advanced light helicopters and Cheetal choppers (a re-engined version of Cheetah built by HAL).

HAL licence-produced 625 Cheetah and Chetak helicopters. It no longer builds them but is responsible for their maintenance and repair, a cause for concern. HAL chief T Suvarna Raju did not respond to phone calls.

Nine personnel were killed in six accidents involving these machines during 2012-15.

The Cheetah still has a lot of juice in it. As long as servicing and maintenance is okay, theres nothing wrong with the chopper, said air vice-marshal Manmohan Bahadur (retired).

HAL in 1970 signed an agreement with French aerospace firm Aerospatiale to produce Cheetahs, eight years after it tied up with another French firm, Sud-Aviation (now Airbus), to manufacture Chetaks.

In August 2014, India scrapped a Rs 6,000-crore project to import light utility helicopters to replace Cheetah and Chetak helicopters, the third time the procurement was scrapped due to corruption allegations and technical issues.

The Kamov-226T light utility choppers, to be built with Russia, are to replace these helicopters. However, the $1-billion programme is yet to kick off and the military may have to wait several years for the new machines.
Thousands of supporters are mourning the death of Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa who passed away at midnight at the age of 68.

The movie star-turned-politician was popularly known as Amma by party workers, voters and acolytes. The ailing chief minister suffered a cardiac arrest on December 5.

The AIADMK leaders Tricolor-draped body was kept at Rajaji Hall in Chennai, as grieving supporters lined up to pay their last respects. Jayalalithaa was one of Indias most popular leaders and had an almost god-like stature in the eyes of her supporters.

The scene outside Rajaji Hall where the body of Tamil Nadu state leader Jayalalithaa rests before cremation. Grief-stricken supporters wailed and mourned the death of their leader. (AFP)

Jayalalithaas supporters had kept a steady vigil all through her long treatment at Chennais Apollo Hospital. Prayer meetings were organised at temples for her quick recovery.

Jayalalithaas supporters wail outside the hospital where she was being treated after rumours of her death started circulating. (AFP)

Since early morning, supporters started congregating at the hospital where she was treated.

Crowds head towards the hospital where Jayalalithaa was under treatment before she passed away. (Bharath Srinivasan/Hindustan Times)

After rumours of her death started circulating, scuffles broke out between the highly emotional crowds at the hospital. Police presence has been beefed up in Chennai to ensure that the outpouring of public sentiment does not result in violence.

Police outside the Chennai hospital where Jayalalithaa was being treated. Security has been strengthened in the state fearing outbreaks of violence. (AFP)

Chennai came to a standstill as the state government declared a seven-day mourning period beginning Tuesday. Schools, colleges, offices and businesses will remain closed for the next three days, which have been designated a public holiday in the state.

An empty railway station at Chetpet, in Chennai. Tamil Nadus capital city grinded to a halt, as shops, schools and businesses downed shutters for the next three days, which have been declared a public holiday.

The centre also announced one day of national mourning for the leader and Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day. Leaders across political parties, including prime minister Narendra Modi, will head to Chennai to pay their respects.

The national flag flies at half-mast at Rashtrapati Bhavan as a tribute to the AIADMK leader. (Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times)

Across the country, scenes of grief played out at various places, as people gathered to bid goodbye to Amma.

In Mumbai, the Kamarajar Memorial English School in Dharavi was closed due to Jayalalithaas demise. (Kunal Patil/ Hindustan Times)

An emotional supporter at a prayer meeting for Jayalalithaa in Mumbai. (Kunal Patil/Hindustan Times)
India should plan offensive and covert operations to take target militant leaders and hit the Pakistani Army hard, two former Indian Army chiefs said on Tuesday.

Former army chief Gen (retd) Bikram Singh was of the view that Indian should exploit the fault lines in Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) so that the Pakistani Army is forced to concentrate internally and not externally.

We need to create asymmetric capabilities which includes doing covert operations and targeting militant leaders, he said, adding the adversary should feel the pain and be put in an embarrassing spot.

Speaking at Agenda Aaj Tak in the Capital, former army chief Gen (retd) V P Malik said, Till now we have been focusing on defensive operation. We now have to look at offensive operation.

He was of the view that an all-out war between India and Pakistan or India and China was unlikely.

To have a better planning of security needs, military experts should be roped into the government and be made minister of state for Defence, Malik suggested.
A suspected ISI agent was arrested from Panitanki area near India-Nepal border in Siliguri on Monday evening.

A senior police officer said Ranabijay Singh, a suspected agent of ISI -- intelligence service of Pakistan, was arrested by officers from the Anti-Corruption Branch and local police from his rented accomodation.

155 Nepalese SIM cards, 35 Indian SIM cards, four laptops, several ATM cards and three voter ID cards were found in his possession, the officer said.

Singh, a resident of Bihars Sion, had been residing in the Siliguri locality for the past six months and was publicly running an electric mechanic business in the area.

He had been to Qatar and Oman in 2009 and 2010 and later settled in Siliguris Pradhannagar area in 2015 from where he had shifted to Panitanki six months back.

The sleuths had been monitoring his activity which included converting international mobile network calls into Indian calls, the officer said.

He, however, did not wish to divulge further information about Singhs alleged involvement with ISI for the sake of the probe.
For her millions of fans and supporters, Jayalalithaa Jayarams legacy lies in her work as an able administrator in Tamil Nadu, the state she ruled for many years. But in the countrys political sphere, she will also be remembered for the mark she made as a Rajya Sabha member at a relatively young age.

It was in 1984 that Jayalalithaa  who passed away in Chennai on Monday -- entered Rajya Sabha at the age of 36, just a year older than the age required to be elected to the Upper House of Parliament.

And by many measures, she proved worthy of occupying seat number 185, which once belonged to the legendary Dravidian leader, CN Annaudrai, for many years in the Rajya Sabha.

I deem it a great honour to stand here and speak on the floor of the very same Rajya Sabha where 22 years ago, in 1962, our great leader, departed leader Anna rose to make his forceful maiden speech which electrified the entire nation, Jayalalithaa said during her maiden speech in Parliament on April 23, 1984.

If Anna had electrified the entire country with his maiden speech, the theme of my maiden speech is electricity, she said.

Read: Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa dies at 68, to be cremated at MGRs memorial site

From the maiden speech, she made it a point to underscore who she represents or wants to represent -- the toiling masses, crores of humble workers and agriculture labourers. And her speech earned her praise from many, including then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Making the right impression was important for Jayalalithaa, who was then was considered far from being the true political inheritor of her mentor, MG Ramachandran.

Jayalalithaa too wore the pride of cultural nationalism centred around the Tamil language. In a calling attention motion on August 13, 1985, she made a passionate plea for translating the National Anthem into all Indian languages. She said the anthem should be sung in the regional languages, too.

Jayalalithaa also made a plea for treating some works of great Tamil poet Subramania Bharati as national songs.

It will make the voice of India more truly representative of the entire nation, and it is the least the country can do to honour the great immortal poet who dedicated his whole life to the struggle for freedom, she said.

Read: Sasikala Natarajan: Jayalalithaas close aide, the power behind the throne

During her tenure as MP, Jayalalitha spoke about the need to promote English as a language that unifies the country and Tamil as a classical language. Once she defended herself fiercely when her name figured in the list of actors against whose name income tax and wealth taxes were pending.

She made as many as 20 speeches in the House, including her interventions. The issues she spoke ranged from education, to taxation to Centre-state relationship to dowry ban.

However, for many in Delhis political circles, who know the chief minister very well, Jayalalithaa, were not too aware of her RS stint and the forceful manner she could put across her views.

This, perhaps, helped her in playing hardball, which she later did, when she was thrust with the role of a king-maker. She didnt succeed always. But she fought to the very end.

In 1993, she withdrew support to the Congress government led by PV Narasimha Rao, turning it into a minority regime.

Years later, she did that again to the BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But even her support to Vajpayee a year earlier had come after hard bargaining.

Sitting in her office in faraway Chennai, Jayalalithaa had managed to create tremors in the nations capital, a measure of power she wielded.

Read: Sasikala Natarajan: Jayalalithaas close aide, the power behind the throne

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Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaas death overnight has thrown up a big question: Can the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) survive her death?

When the partys founder and her political mentor MG Ramachandran died in 1987also of cardiac arrest after prolonged illness people had the same question in mind. He was equally venerated and adulated to the point of obsession and hysteria.

Why should Madras survive when MGR is no more? newspapers quoted his rioting fans after his death.

But the AIADMK survived after a brief power-tussle between MGRs wife Janaki and Jayalalithaa who became the chief minister four years later.

A celluloid deity, Jayalalithaa was able to fill MGRs void in public consciousness. There is no charismatic leader to succeed her now.

Read Who after Jayalalithaa? Can Paneerselvam carry AIADMK into the future

O Panneerselvam, the new CM, is known only for his unabashed subservience to the late leader. He might spring a surprise but few expect him to. The AIADMKs future remains uncertain in the absence of a leader who could step into Jayalalithaas shoes.

What happens to the Dravidian party following Ammas demise will also hold lessons for those led by superpowerful Behenjis and Didis. Like the AIADMK, regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) depend on the personality cults of their supreme leadersMamata Banerjee, Mayawati and Naveen Patnaik. They also run their parties with iron fists and have shown no interest in developing a succession plan.

Some ambitious individuals, such as Pyarimohan Mohapatra of the BJD, tried to force it to their own peril.

Once the No 2 to Patnaik, with immense clout in the party and the state administration, Mohapatra staged a coup against Patnaik in 2012, only to see an end to his political career.

Mukul Roy, one of the founder members of the TMC, was emerging as No 2 to Didi but soon learnt his lessons as she threw him out of the party in February 2015, only to bring him back a year later.

No wonder, BSP leaders scoff at the very suggestion of being anyone other than Mayawati being influential.

Read Jayalalithaas journey from an actor to Tamil Nadus political star

Powerful regional chieftains might have reasons to be guarded.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu got his first term as CM in 1995 after a coup against his father-in-law NT Rama Rao, who was then the chief minister and the president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

The AIADMKs fate in the next few years could be a lesson to regional parties that have come to be identified with and subsumed into individual personalities.

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My first memory of Jayalalithaa goes back to when I was 14. One of her close cousins (Vimla) married my fathers cousin. She lived in Bombay and frequently showed me her pictures and albums. I knew who Jayalalithaa was from the late 1960s.

The first time I saw her in political action was when she created a big drama and sat on a hunger strike over the Cauvery issue.

Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. I remember one day I entered his room and saw he had his hand on his head and said, What am I going to do with her? Incidentally, they spoke to each other in Telugu.

When I was in the Planning Commission, she (then the Tamil Nadu CM) used to come to discuss annual plans during 1992-1994. By far, she was the most impressive CM.

Pranab Mukherjee, the then deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, praised her as a master of facts. She had all facts and figures at her finger tips and had phenomenal memory. Unlike many other CMs, she didnt require any official to brief her. She knew her state extremely well and stuck to her demands, which were often met.

At the famous tea party (where Sonia Gandhi and Jayalalitha sat together) in the Ashoka Hotel in Delhi, I finally got a chance to introduce myself to her, Madam, my name is Jairam Ramesh. She retorted, I believe we are related. I was taken aback. I never thought she would know me. She told me, We must be in touch.

She became CM again in 2001, and appointed P Shankar as her chief secretary. When I called Shankar to congratulate him, his reaction was: I think you are offering condolences. I dont know what I am getting into.

She had her quirks. Chief secretaries would talk to her only through intercom. She was imperious. People were scared of her.

Three days later, he called me and said, The CM will set up a state planning board and wants you to be its member. I was an office bearer of the Congress but still she wanted me to be in her panel!

In the 1990s, renowned American professor Myron Weiner wrote a book The child and the state in India. It was about why primary education should be compulsory. The book was sent to all CMs. And the only chief minister to reply to him, that too, with a 6-page letter, was none other than Jayalalithaa.

Rao saw her as a tantrum thrower but Dr Manmohan Singh frequently praised her for administrative skills, mid-day meal schemes and gender empowerment. She introduced all-woman police stations, in her state more women worked under the rural job scheme, she started women self-help groups. Her achievements were often discussed by Dr Singh and Pranab babu. Both of them liked her a lot. She was an administrator with a strong social conscience. She was also very tough on LTTE. Many people in the Congress appreciated that aspect of her rule. She is a true mass leader and enjoyed tremendous support from people of Tamil Nadu.

As union rural development minister, I wrote many letters to her. She did some fabulous work. But I must add that during my entire tenure, I could not meet two chief ministers: Jayalalithaa and Mayawati.

( as told to Saubhadra Chatterji )
Tamil Nadus 19th chief minister (she was also the 11th, 14th, 16th and 18th) J Jayalalithaa, who died on December 5, 2016, was known for gifting her 72 million people a record set of freebies, but she also leaves behind a state that ranks among Indias top five in many social, crime and industrial indicators.

Tamil Nadu now has Indias lowest fertility ratelower than Australia, Finland and Belgiumsecond best infant mortality and maternal mortality rate; records among the lowest crime rates against women and children; and has more factories and provides more industrial employment than any other Indian state, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of various data sets.

However, financing the freebie culture came at a cost. Tamil Nadu witnessed a 92% increase in debt over five years ending 2015, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of state budgets in November 2015.

Sources: National Health Mission

Tamil Nadus education indicators have always been above the Indian average and have steadily improved during Jayalalithaas from 15 years stint as chief minister.

Sources: Census 2011

Although Tamil Nadu regularly reports violence and discrimination based on caste, the states crime rates are among Indias lowest, particularly those relating to women and children.

Source: National Crime Records Bureau, 2015

As regard industrial growth, Tamil Nadu has more factories than any other Indian state (37,378), according to the Annual Survey of Industries, 2013-14. Maharashtra ranks second with 29,123 factories, followed by Gujarat with 22,876. More people are engaged in industrial work (2.04 million) in Tamil Nadu of any Indian state; Maharashtra (1.8 million) is second and Gujarat (1.37 million) third.

As regard industrial growth, Tamil Nadu has more factories than any other Indian state (37,378), according to the Annual Survey of Industries, 2013-14. Maharashtra ranks second with 29,123 factories, followed by Gujarat with 22,876. More people are engaged in industrial work (2.04 million) in Tamil Nadu of any Indian state; Maharashtra (1.8 million) is second and Gujarat (1.37 million) third.

Tamil Nadus per capita income is Indias fifth highest, but the four states preceding it are substantially smaller. Among the countrys large states, it has the richest people.

Source: Central Statistical Office 2014-15

Note: *at constant prices

Freebies come at a cost

Jayalalithaa is known for the freebie culture, which she did not begin but did expand, personalising it along the way. For instance, her 2011 election promises included 100 units of free electricity to every household, a free laptop for class 11 and class 12 students (with free internet connections), a gram of sovereign gold as marriage assistance, and four goats/sheep to families who lived below the poverty line. The laptops had images of Amma (mother), as Jayalalithaa was popularly known. Other programmes also carried that name, such as Amma canteens (for subsidised food) and Amma medicals (for subsidised medicines).

While some programmes were applauded as having a social effectsuch as the midday meal scheme, which Tamil Nadu pioneered before Jayalalithaa took office for the first time in 1991 and encouraged children to stay in schoolthey resulted in the fastest rising debt of any Indian state, as IndiaSpend reported in November 2015.

Source: Reserve Bank of India, Census 2011

Debt, per se, is not bad, if the states economic growth can sustain and service it. So, the key matrix is the debt as a percentage of the states gross domestic product (GSDP) or total economic output. Tamil Nadus debt-to-GSDP ratio at 20% is lower than the national average, an indication the state is growing despite the spike in debt.
Chief Justice of India TS Thakur wrote to the government on Tuesday recommending the name of Justice JS Khehar as his successor.

Justice Khehar will be sworn in as the head of Indian judiciary on January 4, 2017, a day after Justice Thakur demits office. First Sikh to be Indias Chief Justice, Justice Khehar will hold the post till August 28, 2017. He will be the 44th CJI.

His appointment comes at a time when the judiciary and executive have failed to arrive at a consensus over the new procedure to appoint judges. Both have been at loggerheads since the October 2015 judgement when the apex court struck down the controversial National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, brought in to end decades-old collegium system where judges appointed judges, an opaque process unique to India.

Justice Khehar headed the five-judge bench that ruled the new law impeached judicial independence. However, the court had asked the government to frame a new memorandum of procedure (MoP)  under which judges are hired  in consultation with the SC collegium headed by the CJI and comprising the top four judges after him. Justice Khehar is a member of the collegium.

But, the MoP continues to be a bone of contention between the two. Judiciary seems to be opposed to two suggestions the government has made  one giving executive the power to decline a recommendation to appoint a judge on the ground of national security and the other to set-up a secretariat that will assist the SC collegium to scrutinize the applicants.

Sources said although the collegium members strongly opposed the last say to the executive, there was a difference on opinion among them on having a secretariat. Its possible that Justice Khehar is able to work out a solution since the new collegium headed by him will consist atleast three judges, including him, who heard the NJAC case and later asked the government to alter the MoP, the source said.

Justice Khehar, who also led the bench that struck down Presidents Rule in Arunachal Pradesh and ordered restoration of the Congress government dismissed by the NDA government, bears the burden to fill vacancies in the top court. SC is working with 24 judges as against the sanctioned strength of 31.

The collegium could not proceed with the appointments since Justice J Chelameswar, one of the members, rebelled against the non-transparency in the system. He refused to participate in the meetings and insisted minutes of discussion be recorded.

Justice Khehar also faces an uphill task to hire judges for various high courts facing severe manpower shortage. But, the immediate challenge Justice Khehar faces is regarding the appointment of 43 judges on which the government had raised objections.

The files were returned to the collegium, which in November first week reiterated its recommendation. However, government sources said the files could be returned again after Justice Khehar takes over as the CJI.

Justice Khehar became a judge with the Punjab and Haryana high court on February 8, 1999. He was elevated as the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand high court on November 29, 2009 and was later transferred to head the Karnataka high court. He was also nominated as a member of the Judges Inquiry Committee against Justice PD Dinakaran, constituted following allegations of corruption against the former judge. Justice Khehar was appointed as a judge to the apex court on September 13, 2011.
Chennai never appeared so quiet as on Tuesday morning. The hustle-bustle at the airport was missing, the pre-paid taxi counters were empty and there were harldy any vehicles in the parking lot and the autorickshaw stands.

That the people of Chennai were crestfallen at the death of their beloved leader, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, was evident at the airport lounge itself. Gloom prevailed all over the place as airport workers worried about the states future and police personnel posted apparently for the security of the VIPs arriving in the city looked on.

Amma is no more, said 52-year old Rameshan, a taxi operator, who surfaced after I had waited for more than half an hour making enquiries about transport into the city. It is a tough time for us. Nobody is in a mood to do any work today. Moreover, all the petrol bunks are closed in the city. And forget about ATM centres and banks, he said.

Needless to say Rameshan was trying to cash in on the situation and demanded Rs 800 to take me to the hotel, which was hardly 12 km away. He refused to bargain. Why do you bargain, sir, when the city is mourning, he argued.

The roads all along the route from the airport to the hotel near Anna Salai, Chennais main thoroughfare, were deserted. And the otherwise busy commercial centres like Saidapet and Guindy were also quiet with shops, restaurants and business establishments closed. At several junctions, people were seen pitching tents, where huge portraits of Jayalalitha were put up and garlanded. Yesterday, there was a frenzy atmosphere in this area. Now, it is all quiet, said Rameshan.

The state government has declared a holiday on Tuesday for its offices and three days for educational institutions. The Tamil film industry announced cancellation of shootings scheduled for Tuesday. Theaters also cancelled shows.

It looked like all roads in Chennai were leading to Rajaji Hall, where Jayalalithaas body was kept to enable the people pay their tributes to her. And that gives the answer as to why the busy Chennai streets looked so deserted.

(The writer is Hindustan Times correspondent in Hyderabad.)

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Parliament on Tuesday condoled the death of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa saying the country has lost a courageous and charismatic leader, before adjourning the proceedings for the day as a mark of respect for the departed soul.

After paying tributes to Jayalalithaa, who was also a Rajya Sabha member from 1984-89, members in both Houses stood in silence for a brief while.

68-year-old passed away late last night in Chennai after being hospitalised for 75 days.

Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari said that in the passing away of Jayalalithaa, the country has lost a prominent leader, distinguished Parlimentarian and an able administrator.

Describing Jayalalithaa as a charismatic personality, Ansari said her contribution to economic development and deprived sections of the society would long be cherished. She also contributed immensely to Tamil, Telugu and Kannada film industries, he added.

We deeply mourn her passing away, Ansari said before adjourning the proceedings for the day.

Expressing grief at the passing away of Jayalalithaa, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the country has lost a highly popular, courageous and eminent public persona.

Selvi Jayalalithaa was a true leader of the masses and her followers fondly called her Amma, meaning mother, and Puratchi Thalaivi meaning a revolutionary leader, Mahajan said.

A multi-faceted personality, she was the first woman Opposition leader in the Tamil Nadu Assembly and served as chief minister of the state for six terms.

Jayalalithaa was an accomplished classical dancer and has acted in over 140 Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films.

In Lok Sabha, newly elected BJP member Gyan Singh, representing Shahdol constituency in Madhya Pradesh, took oath before the proceedings were adjourned for the day.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for Chennai to pay floral tributes to late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa who passed away on Monday night after a 75-day battle for life at Apollo Hospital.

He will place a wreath on the mortal remains of Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall.

In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister, who enjoyed a good personal equation with the late leader, said he was deeply saddened at the passing away of Jayalalithaa and her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics.

He recalled her ability to connect with people and the welfare programmes she carried out.

Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 5, 2016

Jayalalithaa jis connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 5, 2016

I will always cherish the innumerable occasions when I had the opportunity to interact with Jayalalithaa ji. May her soul rest in peace.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 5, 2016

Prime Minister also extended his prayers for the people of Tamil Nadu who immensely revered Jayalalithaa, hailed her as a motherly figure and fondly addressing her Amma.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 5, 2016

May the Almighty grant them the strength to bear this irreparable loss with courage and fortitude.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 5, 2016

Read| Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa dies at 68, to be cremated at MGRs memorial site
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi left for Chennai Tuesday morning to attend the funeral of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa who died last night.

Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and party general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu Mukul Wasnik accompanied Rahul.

He had earlier visited Apollo Hospital in Chennai on October 7 to enquire about Jayalalithaas health.

We lost a great leader today. Women, farmers, fishermen and the marginalised dreamt through her eyes. We will miss Jayalalithaaji, Amma to millions, the Congress V-P tweeted.

Read Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa dies at 68, to be cremated at MGRs memorial site

Congress president Sonia Gandhi also expressed grief over the demise of the AIADMK supremo. The Congress party, my family and I personally, share the grief and pain of the people of Tamil Nadu and her devoted supporters in the AIADMK, who have lost their beloved Amma, she said in a statement.

She was a towering figure in our national and political life, who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state, and her dedication to the honour of India.

Sonia and Jayalalithaa shared bitter relations for more than one-and-a-half-decade. The ties soured after she aligned with the BJP in 1998 over Sonias foreign origin issue. However, a tea party 13 months later attended by the two leaders in a five star hotel in Delhi on March 29, 1999 virtually brought down the NDA government at the Centre headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Selvi Jayalalithaa lived her entire life with the same indomitable courage with which she battled her last illness, Sonia said in the statement.

Read Jayalalithaas journey from an actor to Tamil Nadus political star

As the leader of the AIADMK and as six-time chief minister of Tamil Nadu, the Congress chief said Jayalalithaa had a unique and deep empathy with the needs and hopes of the people, and put in place policies that immeasurably improved their lives.

Whether it was her welfare schemes for the rural and urban poor, her swift relief measures in the aftermath of the tsunami, or her vision for Tamil Nadus industrial development, her leadership qualities and administrative abilities were truly outstanding, the Congress president said.
The RSS has accused the Congress of appropriating Mahatma Gandhis legacy for their political advantage and lashed out at the party for pinning the blame for his assassination on the Sangh.

In an interview to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs mouthpiece Organiser, its general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi has tried to forge a connection between Gandhi and the RSS, pointing out how they had similar views on issues such as swadeshi, cow protection and spirituality.

Roiled by the allegations linking the Sangh to Gandhis assassination, Joshi has hit out at the Congress in the interview published in a special edition of the magazine released by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

Joshi downplayed the friction between the Sangh and Gandhi and said though there could have been disagreement with his political thoughts, but there were no differences on issues pertaining to the nation, society and Indian philosophy.

But people who wanted to weaken this emerging force (of RSS), got the opportunity with Gandhijis assassination and they put the allegation on Sangh. For them, RSS was a political threat to their future and therefore, it had to be eliminated at any cost, Joshi has been quoted as saying.

While the Congress accuses the Bharatiya Janata Partys ideological mentor of holding views contrary to what Gandhi stood for, Joshi retaliated by charging the main opposition party with cashing in on Gandhis name.

He had also said that the forum (Congress) that was created with the objective of attaining independence from the British rule is not needed now. But the people with certain political orientation knew that their future is connected with this name. They did not listen to Gandhiji.

The RSS has dragged Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to court in a defamation suit after he allegedly claimed at a political rally that the RSS had killed Gandhi. Over the years, the RSS has maintained that it had severed ties with the Hindu Mahasabha and Nathuram Godse, who was hanged for Gandhis assassination.

Joshi has reiterated this stand in the interview.

this allegation has repeatedly been made. Till date, all such efforts have failed. Whoever made such allegations had to withdraw it after a reaction. We are confident that no one can defeat us using this issue on legal or any other parameters. We have come forward honestly. There is no way one can prove this falsehood that Sangh was behind the Gandhi assassination.

Second-in-command in the Sangh, Joshi has also refuted allegations that the RSS did not participate in the struggle for freedom.

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Thousands filed past J Jayalalithaas body on Tuesday, but it was the presence of Sasikala Natarajan and her family members in the citys Rajaji Hall, where the former chief minister lay in state, that set off the most speculations.

While Sasikala, Jayalalithaas closest confidante for more than two decades, stood in silent vigil beside the body kept in an open area above the steps, her relatives circled around even as crowds jostled for space. They included her brother Dhivaharan, sister-in-law and sons-in-law of her brother.

Incidentally, Jayalalithaas niece, Deepa Jayakumar, finally got to see her powerful aunt  to pay tribute  after having not been allowed to meet her at Apollo Hospitals twice in the last 74 days.

The large presence of Sasikalas kin evoked both awe and derision. Look at all the people out there on the stage, they will all stick together for the sake of power for the next four and a half years, said an AIADMK functionary. His barb was directed at the partys ministers and MLAs as well as Sasikala. In public perception, it will take considerable effort to keep the party together in the true sense now.

Read | Sasikala Natarajan: Jayalalithaas close aide, the power behind the throne

Several of those filing past were more caustic. What do we know about Sasikala? Amma should not have taken Sasikala back. She cheated and backstabbed her, said Roopa, a party worker, referring to fallouts and reconciliations between the two.

Watch | Huge crowd at Jayalalithaas funeral procession in Chennai

Many lower level leaders seemed unconvinced about Sasikalas leadership potential. But many of them were guarded in their reactions. They are the deciding authority. I cannot say anything about her, said AK Murugan, one of the district secretaries of AIADMK in Chennai, referring to Sasikalas family.

Thangaraj, an AIADMK activist from Salem, said, She (Sasikala) was bad for her (Jayalalithaa). She did not take good care. I dont know what will happen to the party if she takes over..

Talk of which member of Sasikalas family would get what of Jayalalithaas property also did the rounds, much to the annoyance of people coming in to pay respect to the departed leader. This is not the time for such talk, said Sakthivel, a Jayalalithaa admirer.
Young Congress office bearers have blamed senior leaders Salman Khurshid and Jairam Ramesh for the decline in quality and subscription of the partys mouthpiece Sandesh.

At a meeting with party treasurer Motilal Vora on Monday evening, All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretaries said the members of the editorial board  Khurshid and Ramesh  do not contribute in any way to raising the standards of the monthly magazine. They, however, spared its editor Girija Vyas.

They dont spend any time on the magazine. As a result of which, there is a decline in its quality and numbers, an AICC secretary said and stressed the need for improving its content.

Congress sources said the circulation of the party magazine  in English and Hindi and priced at Rs 10  has gone down from 100,000 to 25,000 in the recent months.

Vora had called the meeting to seek suggestions on enhancing the subscription of Sandesh.

Deviating from the agenda, AICC secretary Deepak Babaria sought to know the timing of the elevation of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Babaria, who hails from Gujarat and is considered close to the Congress V-P, asked when Rahul is going to take over the reins of the party.

For his part, Vora tried to silence him by saying that the meeting was called to discuss his elevation. However, other AICC secretaries also echoed Babarias views.

The delay in Rahuls elevation as the Congress president is causing anxiety among the young leaders who feel that it is high time that a change of guard takes place in the grand old party.

Many AICC secretaries are now planning to launch a signature campaign among the 1,000-odd AICC members to push for Rahuls immediate take-over.

The Congress Working Committee was supposed to do it but it didnt. The only other forum is AICC and we will approach all its members to ensure that Rahuljis elevation takes place as soon as possible, an AICC secretary, who refused to be named, said.

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Indicating an announcement soon by Navjot Singh Sidhu on his role in the Congress, the partys Punjab unit president Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said the decision on whether to contest from the Amritsar Lok Sabha bypoll had been left to the cricketer-turned-politician.

Welcoming into the party four new members, including two MLAs of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Amarinder said in an official release that he had met Sidhu and got the impression that he would be campaigning in the assembly polls due early next year, but the final call on contesting or not is his.

Amarinder said that while the decision on ticket allocation is the prerogative of party president Sonia Gandhi, he would be happy to campaign for Sidhus wife, Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, if she gets the ticket for Amritsar East assembly segment. He added that all candidates for the 117-member assembly will be announced after December 8, for when the next meeting of the Congress election committee is scheduled.

About Sidhu, he was quoted as saying by news agency IANS: I hope hell very soon make an announcement about what he wishes to do. I found him in a very positive frame of mind. I hope itll be a positive decision. He did not reveal when the meeting took place.

Amarinder said Sidhu told him his family had supported the Congress in the past and that his father was a district Congress president and remained an advocate general during the Congress rule in the state.

Asked what does the former cricketer want from the Congress, Amarinder said: He doesnt want anything. He just has to make up his mind on whether he would like to carry on with what he is doing or whether he wants to come...

...no assurance from his side, but certainly I feel the way he was talking, he would like to campaign for the Congress or work for the Congress. But this he has to announce himself, he added.

On whether Sidhu will contest the Amritsar Lok Sabha by-poll, Amarinder Singh said: That will be the Congress presidents decision. I dont think he is interested. Its for him to say, but I dont think he is interested.

Sidhu had earlier represented Amritsar in the Lok Sabha. Amarinder won the seat in the 2014 general elections by defeating the present Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, but resigned from the LS membership on November 11 in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on a presidential reference on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal.

Also asked if Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhis elevation as president will help, the Punjab Congress chief said: Of course. Why is the Bharatiya Janata Party attacking him every day? Because they are nervous about his emergence (as the Congress chief). Let him come. It will certainly help.

(IANS inputs)
With President Pranab Mukherjee cancelling his visit to Kurukshetra to inaugurate International Gita Mahotsav in the wake of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death, Haryana governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar jointly opened the five-day festivities here on Tuesday.

The inauguration was a simple affair, with Gita Pujan being held at the historical Brahma Sarovar.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of an international seminar, governor Kaptan Singh Solanki said: India will lead the world in the 21st century and Bhagavad Gita can provide guiding principles for it.

Religious leaders from other communities too took part in the seminar, titled Bhagavad Gita: Holistic Life Management and World Heritage Tourism. Maulana Kokab Mujtaba, who is the president of Ulema Foundation, called for translating Gita to Urdu and other languages so that it could be read and understood by people from other religions. David Frawley, founder of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, and Bhai Satpal Singh, chairman of Ram Das Mission in the US, also praised the teachings of Gita.

Sidelights The entire Kurukshetra city covered is covered with hoardings of religious gurus and local politicians of the ruling BJP, who want to make their presence felt Almost all ministers of the Khattar cabinet and BJP state legislators are participating in the celebrations amid heavy police deployment The handicraft fair at the Brahma Sarovar is seeing a massive response. The district administration claimed 5 lakh people visited the fair so far The administration has introduced electrical rickshaws to reduce pollution and check traffic jams

Khattar for promoting Kshetra as religious tourism hub

Earlier, chief minister Khattar said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state was committed to develop Kurukshetra as the religious tourism hub of the country.

Since the Saraswati river is a symbol of faith and belief, the state government has constituted Saraswati Heritage Development Board for rejuvenation, conservation and research on this mythical river, the CM said.

Khattar said the road map for Krishna Circuit had been prepared to develop this holy land as a world-class tourist destination. Under this project, Rs 100 crore will be spent on the development and beautification of Sanhit Sarovar, Ameen Kund, Narkatari, Brahma Sarovar and Jyotisar.

Besides, a 3D multimedia show based on different themes of the epic Mahabharata, a grand statue of Lord Krishna and a theme park complex depicting the 48 kos area of Kurukshetra will also be developed.

Representatives of 574 districts join festivities

Representatives of 574 districts of the country reached Kurukshetra with 400 gram soil from their areas, which will be used to create a statue of Lord Krishna. Khattar accorded a warm welcome to all of them. Chanting one shloka of Gita, they took part in the festivities in their traditional dresses.

I have come here to learn teachings of Gita and will take back its message to my native place, said Abhay Singh, who came from Alwar district of Rajasthan. Samair Vishwas from West Agartala in Tripura said:  We are very happy that Gita is being promoted worldwide. Now i will promote its teachings back home.

Haryana guv all praise for Modi

Haryana governor Kaptan Singh Solanki was all praises for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi is the only PM whose high command is janta (people). The entire world listens to him carefully and is praising him, he said while referring to Modi coming on the top in the readers poll for TIME Person of the Year 2016.

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Tamil Nadu has its own tea-seller-turned-chief-minister in O Panneerselvam. OPS, as he is called in AIADMK circles, was sworn in as the chief minister after J Jayalalithaa passed away on Monday night.

Read: Panneerselvam sworn in as the 19th Tamil Nadu chief minister

Paneerselvam hails from Periakulam town of Theni district and belongs to the Thevar community, which is known to back the Dravidian party.

OPS along with his friend Vijayan started a tea stall PV Canteen in 1970. Ten years later, he gave the canteen to his brother Raja. The canteen was renamed Rosie Canteen, after his brother lost his daughter Rosie in an accident. The canteen still serves tea.

It is from here that 65-year-old Panneerselvam began his political career in 1996 by becoming the chairman of Periakulam municipality.

Backed by the local Member of Parliament TTV Dinakaran, he contested and won from the Periakulam assembly constituency in the 2001. The first-time MLA became the PWD minister. And from here he never looked back.

In 2001, he filled in for Jayalalithaa as the chief minister when Jayallithaa was disqualified from holding office by the Supreme Court. He vacated the post when she was cleared of the charges by the court the following year.

Also read: Who after Jayalalithaa: Can Panneerselvam carry AIADMK into the future?

In similar fashion, OPS once again kept the CM seat warm for Jayalalithaa when she was sentenced to prison by a trial court in September 2014. The next year when the Karnataka High Court cleared her, the trusted man that he was dutifully vacated the seat.

Now, however, he is the chief minister on his own right. All 135 MLAs of the party have elected him unanimously as their leader. They have also submitted letters to the governor affirming their faith in his leadership.

Challenges galore

It is not an easy crown to wear for OPS. The immediate challenge for him is to keep the party united. Despite being the chief minister twice before, he was merely standing in for Jayalalithaa.

With the supreme leader no more, he has to chart his own political future, yet work with the person holding reigns of the party.

Read: Jayalalithaas go to loyalist Paneerselvam runs a tight ship

Prof Ramu Manivannan of the Madras University believes that since the government has a comfortable majority in the assembly, the Panneerselvam government will be stable. He also felt that the self-interest of the MLAs and the perks that go with office will ensure that they will continue to support the incumbent.

Given the charisma of the late chief minister it will be tough for somebody else to match or even come close to having the kind of command over party and government that she ensured. But it is precisely those traits that has pitchforked a tea-seller O Panneerselvam to the coveted post of the chief ministerial of Tamil Nadu.

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In another jolt to the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab, two Akali MLAs  Maheshinder Singh and Rajwinder Kaur Bhagike  joined the Congress in New Delhi on Tuesday. Maheshinder represents the Baghapurana assembly seat and Rajwinder is the sitting MLA from Nihal Singh Wala constituency.

Four sitting MLAs have already quit the Akali Dal, including Inderbir Bolaria, Pargat Singh, Sarwan Singh Phillaur and Avinash Chander. Akali MP from Ferozepur Sher Singh Ghubayas son Davinder and wife Krishna Rani have also decided to join the Congress.

Welcoming Maheshinder and Kaur into the party fold, Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh said this would help strengthen the party ahead of the assembly polls. He reiterated that the exodus of leaders and workers from the Akali Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would further increase as the elections drew closer, especially after the imposition of the code of conduct in Punjab.

Akali leaders who have changed sides by joining the Congress expecting electoral prospects will hardly make any dent to the partys prospects in assembly polls. Such leaders were not sincere to the party, Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab chief minister

Amarinder also welcomed SAD leader Pritam Singh Kotbhai and social activist from Phillaur Ajay Sharma into the party fold. Kotbhai lost narrowly to the Congress candidate in the last election.

We can be their loyalists but not slaves. The insult meted out to me by sending police at my residence has hit me. They think they can terrorise me. I have quit the Akali Dal not for being denied a party ticket but because of the humiliation, Maheshinder said after joining the Congress.

Meanwhile, prospects of cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu of joining the Congress also brightened on Tuesday with Amarinder announcing he met the former BJP MP and said he was inclined to support the party. Indicating an announcement soon by Sidhu on his role in the Congress, Amarinder said the decision on whether to contest from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat in the bypoll had been left to the cricketer-turned-politician.

The state Congress chief said while the decision on ticket allocation was the prerogative of party president Sonia Gandhi, he would be happy to campaign for Sidhus wife, Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, if she gets the ticket for Amritsar East assembly segment. He added that all candidates for the 117-member assembly will be announced after December 8, for when the next meeting of the Congress election committee is scheduled.

Asked what does the former cricketer wants from the Congress, Amarinder said: He doesnt want anything. He just has to make up his mind on whether he would like to carry on with what he is doing or whether he wants to come...

...no assurance from his side, but certainly I feel the way he was talking, he would like to campaign for the Congress or work for the party. But this he has to announce himself, he added.

On whether Sidhu will contest the Amritsar Lok Sabha by-poll, Amarinder Singh said: That will be the Congress presidents decision. I dont think he is interested.

Sidhu had earlier represented Amritsar in the Lok Sabha. Amarinder won the seat in the 2014 general elections by defeating the present Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, but resigned from the LS membership on November 11 in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on a presidential reference on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal.

(With PTI inputs)

Also read | Sidhu will campaign for Cong in Punjab, but decision to contest is left to him: Captain Amarinder
Beijing: India-US relations will be an important part of president-elect Donald Trumps future diplomacy but will have little impact on China as he will recalibrate security cooperation between Washington and New Delhi, the state media said on Tuesday.

The outlook for trade ties between India and the US do not look good either and this too will have little impact on Chinas influence on regional trade, the report said.

The fairly pessimistic views about the future of India-US ties were expressed by academic Li Haidong from the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University in the nationalistic tabloid, Global Times.

To sum up, US-Indian relations during Trumps term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the (Barack) Obama administration will be changed due to Trumps adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China. Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on Chinas influence on regional trade, Li argued.

Read: Chinese media warn rookie Trump not to cross Beijing

Not that, according to Li, Trump will give less importance to India.

But two aspects - one, Trumps domestic compulsions and, two, Indias non-aligned foreign policy - could well trump the ties.

US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trumps diplomacythe Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India. However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease, Li wrote in the newspaper.

Li contended India will continue with its non-aligned diplomacy and will not team with the US against China.

As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes. Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and Indias concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China, Li said.

Li added: In other words, the US attempts of establishing a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China may not be accepted by India as the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition.

Li said Trumps expected economic nationalism will collide with free trade as advocated by India, leading to more friction.

Trumps decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership shows the US will take a more closed trade and economic policy in the future. This runs counter to the free trade trend under globalisation, the article said.

By contrast, India has actively participated in and integrated into the process for building an Asian free trade mechanism. The US-India divergence in this aspect will confine their international economic and trade cooperation, Li wrote.
The syndicate of the Rajasthan University on Tuesday decided to release pension arrears of some 72 professors, implementing an order of the Rajasthan high court issued earlier this year.

The syndicate in its meeting decided not to appeal against the high courts January 22 order in the Supreme Court, said vice chancellor JP Singhal.

The implementation of the order will cost the university exchequer Rs 10 crore.

Earlier, on November 9, the court had pulled up the university for non-compliance of its order and told the varsity to comply with the same by December 7 and inform the court about the steps taken.

Out of roughly 80 professors whose jobs were made permanent in 2008, 72 were not getting any of the retirement benefits such as pensions, gratuity and medical benefits, said Ashok Kumar Yadav, who along with some other aggrieved teachers moved the court in December 2014.

The court in January had ruled that the teachers were entitled to the retirement benefits and dismissed the universitys pleas about financial crunches.

The court also observed that the university decision was discriminatory as similarly-placed employees were being given the benefit of pension and even gratuity.

The decision to not give us pension was totally arbitrary. When eight teachers were being given the benefits, on what grounds were we being denied? said Yadav, who taught chemistry at the university.

When you become a dependent, even your familys outlook towards you changes, rued AK Phophalia, who retired in November 2014 after a 40-year association with the university.

Another teacher Madan Lal Sharma, also a heart patient, said that he exhausted all his savings in his treatment and was now in debt.

Sharma, a Sanskrit teacher who retired from the university in February 2015 after a service of 28 years, further said that contribution to his medical fund was being regularly deducted from his salary for years.

The vice chancellor said the process to release the pension of aggrieved teachers already started and the amounts would be disbursed at the earliest.

He also said that teachers retiring now onwards would also be extended the benefits.

BD Rawat, one of the affected teachers, appreciated that the university finally respected the court order. No RU teacher would have to run from pillar to post for their pensions in future, he said.

The vice chancellor said the university would ask the state government to consider the pension amounts as salary of the retiring teachers in future.

Two legislators, who are part of the syndicate, assured their full cooperation to the university in this respect, the VC added.
Much has changed in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 24 years since the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

This change is reflected in the partys four Parivartan Rath Yatras in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP leaders, with the exception of party MP Vinay Katiyar, have used the yatras to promise development, not temple, in the 32 days of their travel in the poll-bound state.

Temple and development arent contradictory. I will continue to raise the temple issue with as much passion as development, Katiyar, a product of the temple movement of the 90s, told HT.

His party colleagues dont seem to be so sure on this.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, our focus is on development, more development and even more development. Our Parivartan Rath Yatras are reiterating the same, BJP national secretary Mahendra Singh, also the yatra in-charge, said.

None of the four yatras are scheduled to be in Ayodhya on the 24th demolition anniversary on Tuesday. They are going to be in Rampur, Aligarh, Kaushambi and Balrampur instead. The yatras are moving as per schedule, said Singh.

In his Parivartan rallies, Modi has chosen to avoid the temple issue, a line that most of the party has taken. Modi had steer clear of the temple issue during his meeting with Ayodhya saints in Gorakhpur in July.

Instead, Modi had sought the support of saints for various social initiatives of his government.

Two months later, union minister Mahesh Sharma visited Ayodhya with a development package for the temple city. He fast-tracked a proposal for a Ramayana museum in Ayodhya, announced plans to renovate old temples but kept mum on whether the Modi government planned to push the temple issue.

Ahead of Sharmas visit, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had announced a Ramleela theme park in Ayodhya to showcase his governments development plan for the religious city.

People of Ayodhya admit that they are bored of the temple talk. I feel we have had enough of rhetoric. Only those parties which talk development would have our vote, said Shiv Pujan, 27, the head of Ashapur village in Ayodhya.

Read more: Ram temple takes a back seat as parties woo Dalits in UP

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The Driver and the cleaner of trailer were injured after the container they were ferrying toppled on Mumbra bypass road in Thane on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday. Both the injured were rushed to Kalwa civil hospital and were identified as Sovit Mishra, 25, driver, and Mehmood Ahmed, 22.

The accident took place at 12.05am after Mishra misjudged a left turn and lost control of the vehicle. The trailer, which was on its way Nagpur, went off the road and toppled. The impact was such that Mishra and Ahmed got trapped inside the drivers cabin. They were rescued after a few passers-by heard their cries for help and informed the police and civic authorities about the accident. The officials from the Thane Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC) and police officers reached to the spot within 15 minutes.

 We called for extra man power, and it took us nearly 45 minutes to pull them out safely. Both had sustained minor injuries and were rushed to the hospital, said Santosh Kadam, a senior official from RDMC.

An officer from Mumbra police station said, We have recorded their statements. The spot where the accident occurred has a sharp left turn and similar mishaps have been reported from the same spot in the past as well. Moreover, the injured did not claim any foul play in their statement.

Read: Four killed after SUV hits truck on Mumbai-Pune Expressway

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Nearly a month after the demonetisation announcement, queues outside banks and ATMs are still a common sight but people said the situation had improved a little. Some private banks managed to shorten the queues.

We see a smooth queue here after a long time. I hope the year ends well. I have been waiting for 40 minutes and am almost inside, said Rambha Keerti, a homemaker, who was found outside a bank in Mahim.

There were similar scenes at cooperative banks with people managing to withdraw cash in less than an hour. Though these banks did not offer the cash that was promised to them under the new limit, people seemed to be at ease.

Their services are better because the they have adequate staff for people waiting in queues. It has been almost a month now. They shouldnt lack funds, said Ramesh Bhave, who was waiting outside a bank in Dharavi.

Nationalised banks across the city continued to offer less than the Rs 24,000 cap announced by the government, dispensing money at their convenience instead.

People were angry with the arbitrariness but the queues had become shorter.

How can banks have their own cap on dispensing money? First, the government will put a cap, then banks will do as they please. Where are we supposed to go? said Karan Patel, a college student, who stood in a queue ouside a bank in Andheri.

ATM kiosks continued to run dry within hours after they were refilled. It is almost as if money is vanishing from the machine. Every ATM kiosk has a queue, said Ghanshyam Gosavi, a fruit vendor waiting in a queue at Dharavi.

They (banks) should start ATMs only after they close their bank branches. People will get at least some relief after the banks pull their shutters down. Otherwise people are just roaming about on the streets to withdraw money, said Ahmed Raza, a cycle shop owner, waiting in a long ATM queue in Kandivli.

Read

Demonetisation debate heats up winter session

Demonetisation after-effect: Mumbai temple gets Rs3 crore in scrapped notes

After demonetisation, Mumbai civic body takes steps to go cashless
The Belapur police seem to be clueless about the person who allegedly stabbed a bar waitress to death on Monday afternoon.

According to eyewitnesses, the killer barged into the bar, located in Sector-29, with a chopper in his hand around 4pm and dragged 31-year-old Kavita Biswas into a corner. The duo then entered a heated argument, during which he abused her. Then, in a fit a rage, he stabbed Kavita in the abdomen several times before fleeing the spot.Biswas was rushed to DY Patil hospital, where she died a few hours later during treatment.

Cops said Biswas and the accused were in a relationship and had been living together in Nerul until they parted ways four months ago.

Our teams are looking for the accused and hell be arrested soon. A case has been registered under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), said a police officer.

Also read: Dancer killed in firing at wedding: Bathinda police arrest two men, including SAD leaders son

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The state governments labour department has suspended the head of the engineering department of the Maharashtra Labour Welfare Board (MLWB) for alleged irregularities amounting to Rs80 crore in the construction of buildings meant for the welfare of workers and labourers. A departmental inquiry by the labour commissioner has been initiated against Prakash Patil.

In an order issued two weeks ago by labour welfare commissioner Surekha Jadhav, the department received complaints of irregularities in the construction of buildings in various districts across the state. Independent MLA Bacchu Kadu and others as well as an NGO had complained to labour minister Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar about the irregularities.

Based on the complaints, an inquiry has been initiated against the officer. The labour commissioners office will conduct it. Constructions taken place from 2005 will be inquired into to check for irregularities, Sanjay Kamble, administrative officer, MLWB.

The complaint about the construction of a building in Dondaicha in Dhule district is a serious one and needs to be probed into, added Kamble.

The Citizen Justice Forum of Maharashtra has alleged involvement of a former minister of state. The board has constructed the buildings using funds sanctioned for the welfare of workers without taking the governments permission. It constructed a building at Dondaicha on a private land owned by the brother of a former minister of state of the labour department at a cost of Rs7.5 crore. The structure is being used by a college run by the minister. There several instances of misuse of funds for unwarranted constructions and repairs, stated the complaint made to the labour minister Sambhaji Nilangekar.

Nilangekar told HT that the labour commissioner has been asked to submit a report, which will be scrutinised by the departments principal secretary. Strict action will be taken against officials involved, he said.

Ashok Paradkar, a board member and representative of the workers, said, A probe by officers from the labour commissioners office is not sufficient. A criminal case should be registered as the constructions involved illegalities and wasted a huge amount of taxpayers money.

Patil, however, has denied the allegations and said he is willing to face the probe.

Read

Road scam: BMC files FIR against 6 contractors
Lakhs of Dalits and followers have gathered at Shivaji Park in Mumbai to pay tribute to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at Chaityabhoomi on his 60th death anniversary on Tuesday. Similarly, local politicos are making their presence felt by holding rallies, entertaining the crowd with folk songs, distributing eatables and literature depicting the life of the architect of the Indian constitution.

It appears that politicians are using this opportunity to woo Dalit masses, who constitute nine per cent of vote bank in the state and even more in certain pockets. Moreover, the upcoming 2017 BMC polls have made parties even more aggressive.

For example, the Bharatiya Janata Party kick started its programme from Sunday just as Dalits and Ambedkar followers arrived in the city. Our party workers are offering them tea and snacks from Sunday itself. We have also kept literature on Dr Ambedkar for them, said Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar.

Similarly, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is distributing eatables to the people who have gathered at Shivaji Park. The Congress party has organised for Bhim Bhajans a programme which will have eminent artistes singing praises of Dr Ambedkar. A large contingent of Congress party workers are offering all possible assistance to the people, said Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party of India (RPI) will see its chief Ramdas Athawale, who is also a union minister, addressing the Dalit masses in the evening. The RPI workers have arranged accommodations at Buddha Vihars across Mumbai for those visiting the city from across Maharashtra.

With the prestigious 2017 BMC polls just two months away, political parties are utilising every possible opportunity to woo the masses. The BJP, which plans to fight the polls without its ally Shiv Sena, is making its presence felt during all the festivals in its bid to connect with people and strengthen its vote banks. Similarly, the Congress and the NCP are leaving no stone unturned to dethrone the BJP-Sena that has been ruling the BMC for decades.

Also read

BMC polls ahead: Fadnavis, Uddhav put up united front

Council polls: Sena-BJP tie-up worked in less than 10 places

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Municipal school students will no longer have to visit a museum to learn about the countrys rich heritage and culture. A museum on Wheels will reach every school and will teach students through a display of artifacts, workshops and demonstrations.

The initiative by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), formerly known as Prince of Wales museum, the Museum on Wheels will first roll into NA Sawant municipal school in Colaba on Thursday.

Started in 2015, the CSMVS Museum on Wheels project is a bus with exhibitions on different themes that are changed every six months. According to the CSMVS website, the bus is equipped with display cases for objects, interactive demo kits, art supplies, audio-visual equipment and digital media such as touch screens and digital tablets.

Avkash Jadhav, Shiv Sena corporator and a trustee at CSMVS, said the project is being introduced for civic schools to inculcate the concept of learning outside classrooms.

The project has already started at private schools. Now, it will include municipal schools students who do not get to visit museums regularly. The museum will reach them through the initiative, said Jadhav.

Jadhav said that the CSMVS will not charge the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for the initiative. We will also try to screen documentaries, have talks and workshops for students through this project.

The project will give preference to schools which has a big compound.

Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the A ward (which includes Colaba), said, We selected the NA Sawant school as it has space for the huge bus. We will also check the space available in other schools and take the museum there.

Read

Mumbais civic schools equipped with all amenities, say college students

Corporators question BMC on tablets for civic schools

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City industrialists will start distributing salaries to their employees in cash from Wednesday, but in two or three instalments spread over two weeks. Owners of various industries in the district said both they and their employees are restricted by cash withdrawal limits on current and savings accounts and retaining workers is becoming a problem.

We have helped many employees with advance salaries. Most of them have expressed concern about their families living in other districts or states. They need money urgently and we are helping them with advances. We will distribute the remaining salaries in two parts, said Visharad Gautam, secretary, Indian Industries Association (IIA).

From Wednesday, we will distribute salaries in three instalments to our employees who do not have bank accounts in cash. Our hands are also tied in the face of cash withdrawal limits on current accounts, Harish Joneja, secretary, Noida Entrepreneurs Association (NEA), said, adding that employees have agreed to this arrangement.

This decision comes despite the Centres directions to transfer salaries through bank accounts.

We are going through very difficult times these days. On one hand, the cash crunch has affected production badly, and on the other, resentment among employees who are not able to focus on their work due to shortage of money is a major hurdle in retaining them. We can only say that improper planning of demonetisation has badly affected industries, said Rajesh Jain, general secretary, Noida Industrial Welfare Association (Niwa).

There are more than one and a half lakh workers in industries in Gautam Budh Nagar district who do not have bank accounts and are worried about their livelihood.

I could not withdraw cash from ATMs because of long queues. I requested my employer to help me with Rs.2,500 I wanted to send to my family in Bihar where the situation is similar. Employers and employees have similar problems these days, said Jatan Raghav, who works in a factory at Noidas Sector 8.

Meanwhile, AK Singh, lead bank manager, Gautam Budh Nagar, held a meeting with bank managers on Monday to ensure that city branches provide entrepreneurs with the cash needed to distribute salaries.

Banks have adequate cash arrangements for this purpose. I have spoken to bank managers and they have 20-25% additional cash, Singh said.

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Combined with the agony of losing their dear leader, there was a sense of stubborn disbelief among the AIADMK cadre gathered outside Apollo Hospital on Greams Road, Chennai.

Weve been praying for her and were sure that she will pass this test as well. She is our god, she is our power, Selvi, an AIADMK cadre from Kancheepuram, told Hindustan Times outside the Apollo Hospital on Monday night.

Many of the cadre that had gathered outside the hospital, especially after her cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, were waiting for good news from the hospital.

But the statement from the hospital at the wee hours of Tuesday confirmed their worst fears. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu and Amma for many like Selvi, J Jayalalithaa, had passed away at 11.30 p.m. December 5.

Ever since she was admitted to the hospital on September 22 following a fever, details about her health and condition were tightly guarded, and led to many speculations.

Jayalalithaa was not just another mass leader  of course there was the sycophancy, but there was also the love and respect the cadre had for her. The victory at the assembly election in May, breaking the anti-incumbency cycle was evidence of this love and respect. The last time a leader won a consecutive term was almost 30 years back by MGR.

Former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief Jayalalithaa coming out of her residence to address media in Chennai. (AFP File Photo)

Jayalalithaas passing creates a power vacuum in the state because there isnt a leader in the AIADMK of her stature and there isnt, at least at the moment, a leader who unites and can carry the party together.

O Panneerselvam, who has been holding the mantle in her absence, took oath as chief minister at around 1.20am on Tuesday. Panneerselvam has twice in past become the chief minister when Jayalalithaa had to step aside. Panneerselvam has the experience but it is not clear if he can carry the party the way Jayalalithaa did.

The current AIADMK government has been in power for only six-and-a-half months and it is to be seen how Panneerselvam will be able to lead it for the remaining four years.

Leaders from across the political spectrum are expressing their condolences and the focus is on reminiscing on the life and times of Tamil Nadus five-time CM. But once the agony and shock is over the permutations and combinations of politics will be discussed. Such is the rhythm of politics.

And it is then that the real test for Panneerselvam begins.

Police gather in front of Apollo hospital where Jayalalithaa Jayaram was being treated, in Chennai. (AFP File Photo)

Views expressed are personal.

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To boost regional connectivity, Alliance Air will start flight services from the national capital to Bathinda, Punjab, from December 11. The airline, a wholly-owned subsidiary of national carrier Air India, would have the services thrice a week, that is, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Seventy-seater ATR-72 aircraft would be utilised for the services.

The flight will depart from Delhi at 12.15 pm and reach Bathinda at 1.45 pm. The return flight will fly out from Bathinda at 2.15 pm and reach Delhi at 3.45 pm, an Air India release said. It would be a boon for the city as currently there is no air connectivity offered to passengers from Bathinda, the release further said.

Alliance Air, which flies to tier-2 and tier-3 cities, has a fleet of eight ATR-72 and two ATR-42 aircraft. Currently, it operates flights to 33 destinations, including Allahabad, Bengaluru, Bhavnagar, Dharamshala, Gorakhpur, Shillong and Silchar.
At 89, he is the countrys oldest serving Chief Minister. And he is showing no signs of giving up any time soon. Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal is now in full election mode and is telling people that their votes will give him another 10 years of life.

Your vote is important. If you give me another chance to serve you, it will add 10 years to my life, Badal, who is actively reaching out to people across Punjab through his sangat darshan programmes across rural and urban areas, has been telling the people in recent weeks.

Punjabs ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, of which he is the chief patron, is seeking a straight third term in office with Badal being at the helm of affairs.

As he turns 89 on December 8, Badal certainly does not fit Prime Minister Narendra Modis idea that politicians should retire at the age of 75. But, for Badal, who has been a long-time ally for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Modi certainly will make an exception.

As the five-time chief minister seeks a sixth term in office, and faces a tough challenge from the Congress and the new entrant on Punjabs political scene, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Badal is certainly not showing any signs of getting tired or even retiring any time soon.

His political opponent and former chief minister, Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh, disputes his age. Amarinder claims that Badal is already actually 94. (He made the claim last week in the presence of Badals son Sukhbir Badal at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.)

Always alert

Badal saab, as he is referred to by most people around him, starts his day early and actively goes through his daily routine of meetings with officers, ministers, delegations and others who come to meet him. Badals sangat darshan (meeting with the people) programme takes him to several villages and towns across Punjab every week. The programme is basically to take the government to the peoples doorsteps and hundreds throng every venue where he stops and listens to problems and suggestions the people want to share with him.

Those close to him say Badal saab is always active and alert despite his age. He has been in public life for nearly 70 years now. His memory is far better than most of the much younger people who are around him. He has a mass appeal which no one can match, an aide told IANS.

Started in 1947

Hailing from an agricultural background, Badal forayed into politics by getting elected as a sarpanch (village headman) in 1947, the year the country won its Independence. He was first elected to the Punjab assembly in 1957 on a Congress ticket. After leaving the Congress soon after, Badal ended up opposing the Congress policies and governments  a thing he continues to do.

Well-known for his witty one-liners and memory of people and events, Badal, who was conferred the Padma Vibhushan  the countrys second-highest civilian honour  in 2015 by the Modi government, has always remained centrestage in Punjabs politics.

Born on December 8, 1927, at Abul Khurana village near Malout in southwest Punjab, he has been CM in 1970-71, 1977-1980, 1997-2002, 2007-2012 and 2012 onwards. He has been in power in Punjab continuously since March 2007. He was briefly a Union minister in 1977 in the Morarji Desai government.

Family in power

Badals wife, Surinder Kaur, died in 2011 of cancer. The couple had two children  son Sukhbir and daughter Parneet.

Badals close family members are all in the government. Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Akali Dal President and Punjab deputy CM, now dominates both party and government affairs. Sukhbirs wife Harsimrat Badal is the Union minister for food processing. The CMs daughters husband, Adaish Pratap Singh Kairon is a cabinet minister in his government as is Harsimrats younger brother, Bikram Singh Majithia.
The UT administration is finding it hard to maintain the sanctity of its world heritage site Capitol Complex with the Haryana government paying no heed to its request of removing encroachments. The administration has been sending reminders regularly to the state which so far hasnt even responded, say sources.

UNESCO has declared the Capitol Complex as a World Heritage Site in July this year. The Capitol Complex include the Punjab and Haryana high court, the Punjab and Haryana secretariat, the Punjab and Haryana assembly along with the monuments the Open Hand, the Martyrs Memorial, the Geometric Hill and the Tower of Shadow.

The administration has issues with the unauthorised construction in the secretariat and has been sending letters to the Haryana government, asking them to dismantle the changes that they have made.

The room that has been constructed without approval. (Keshav Singh/HT Photo)

However, the matter remains unmoved.

Well, what can we do? said UT chief engineer Mukesh Anand.

We have been sending them reminders. Our executive engineers have been raising the issue with them. I am hopeful they will remove these encroachments, though so far they havent.

Sources say that in July this year, an executive engineer with UTs construction division put it up before his superintending engineer that one of his officers has informed him of unauthorised construction at the Haryana civil secretariat. They are enclosing the verandah, besides room number 44-A, Block 5, on the sixth floor, the executive engineer noted.

This, he said, was being done without prior permission of the administration. He added that the Public Works Department (PWD), the building and roads department was doing this construction.

UT chief architect Kapil Setia stepped in and wrote to chief engineer, Mukesh Anand within the next few days. He referred to the scope of changes that are allowed in Chandigarh and said that such constructions were in violation of the rules. All changes in any of the buildings in the capitol complex have to be approved by the administration, his letter said.

Anand then wrote to the administrative officer of the Haryana government in August. A couple of weeks later the chief engineer told his superintending engineer, construction circle, to get the construction stopped.

In September, the executive engineer again wrote to the administrative officer to immediately dismantle and restore the place to its original position. He referred to the earlier letters sent by the chief architect and other officers of the engineering department as well.

Not aware of any violation

Haryana chief engineer Suraj Bhan (buildings) said hes not aware of any issue raised by the UT administration. I take care of buildings including this one. All construction work in this building is handled by the UT administration, we do minor maintenance works, he said.

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Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (front, centre) and Chinese entrepreneurs at the meeting on December 5th (Photo: VNA)

He made the remark while receiving Li Linzhi, Chairwoman of Kaidi Ecological and Environmental Technology Co. Ltd, and Li Huaizhen, CEO of China Minsheng Investment Co. Ltd, in Hanoi on December 5th.

Welcoming the entrepreneurs visit to Vietnam to seek investment opportunities, PM Phuc highlighted the growing comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries, especially in economic cooperation.

The Vietnamese Government has continually made efforts to improve the business climate. As a result, the country has climbed nine places in the World Banks 2016 Doing Business report, he noted.

The Government leader applauded the plans of Kaidi and Minsheng, which boast capital and technological potentials, to invest in infrastructure and environment, and reminded them to use modern and environmentally friendly technologies.

For her part, Li Linzhi said, since her meeting with the PM during his official visit to China three months ago, Kaidi has deployed activities to boost cooperation with Vietnam, expressed her belief that there are many good investment chances in the country.

Meanwhile, Li Huaizhen noted that the Minsheng company has set up a working group in charge of investment in Vietnam and conducted a market survey since the meeting with the Vietnamese leader in China.

Vietnam is growing rapidly, and it needs a large sum of foreign investment during development, he added./.
A day after it was reported that Akali MP from Ferozepur Sher Singh Ghubayas son Davinder, along with his mother, would join the Congress, Punjab vigilance bureau (VB) sleuths on Tuesday raided the Ghubaya College of Engineering and Technology run by the family at Sukhera Bodla in Jalalabad.

Ghubayas son Davinder Singh confirmed the development. A VB team led by a deputy superintendent of police seized records from the college. Talking to a section of the media, Ghubaya said the records were handed over to VB sleuths. We have done nothing illegal, claimed Ghubaya, who along with his supporters spent entire day to explain that neither he nor his family will leave the Akali Dal.

Ghubaya College of Engineering and Technology, Jalalabad (Photo: College website)

On Monday, Congress sources had confirmed that Ghubayas wife and son would be joining the party on Tuesday in the presence of state party chief Captain Amarinder Singh in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Sources say Ghubaya decided to strike back after feeling sidelined by Sukhbir, for whom he had vacated the Jalalabad seat in the 2009 assembly bypolls.

Sukhbirs seat Jalalabad is now being looked after by his officer on special duty Satinderjit Singh Manta and Ghubaya has been conspicuous with his absence from sangat darshans as well as other visits of Sukhbir since the past many months.
Prabhjit Singh, 30, was dancing at a wedding in Issapur village near Amritsar on March 16 this year, when he was killed by a celebratory bullet. Today, his widow, Bhagwant Kaur, and two children are living in dire poverty.

Twenty-five-year-old Manmeet Kaurs world came crashing down on February 2 when her husband Harpal Singh, 32, who had gone to play music at a marriage, was brought home dead. Surjit Kaur, 70, died of excessive bleeding when she was hit by a stray bullet fired at a wedding this October.

The feudalistic practice of celebratory firing at weddings in the region often leaves behind a trail of bodies and broken families, but it continues to thrive for want of punitive action.

The killing of Kulwinder Kaur, a dancer at a wedding at Maur Mandi on Sunday, has again put the focus on this practice. Rajesh Gill, chairperson of sociology department in Panjab University, calls it a strange kind of celebration, a gruesome status symbol of sorts that must be checked.

He was a shy youngster, he went to the function only because it was that of my close friends daughter.

Grief is writ large on the faces of Jagir Singh, 55, and his wife Davinder Kaur, who lost their only son Maninder Singh, 22, during a jaago celebration of a family friends daughter in 2014. He was a shy youngster, he went to the function only because it was that of my close friends daughter, says Jagir Singh, telling us how Maninder was all set to leave for the US when tragedy struck. Jagir had just left the ceremony when he was informed that his son had fallen to bullets fired by drunk revellers at the function.

Read more | Dancing amid guns and drunken men: Story of Janu, killed in firing at a wedding in Bathinda

BROKEN FAMILIES

Prabhjits brother Harcharan Singh can still recal that horrific evening. The celebrations were in full flow when the accused took out his weapon and started firing. There has been tremendous pressure on us to reach a compromise but we are determined to get the accused punished. Though the accused, Gurjit Singh, is behind bars and police have presented challan in the court, Prabhjits widow and her two children, are yet to get over the trauma of losing the sole breadwinner.

Use of firearms during weddings is a strange kind of celebration, a gruesome status symbol of sorts that must be checked.

Wedding functions scare Manmeet Kaur after her husband Harpal lost his life at one. Harpal, a DJ who hailed from Dhariwal, breathed his last at Four Season Resort at Rayya. His fault was that he had objected to the incessant firing in the air by the revelers and then had the gumption to ask for money from Manish Kumar, a guest, who allegedly shot him. Harrys mother, Sawinder Kaur is in tears as she recounts how Harry, youngest of her three sons, was also most loving. Even though 10 months have passed, every time there is a knock at the door, I think it must be him, she weeps. Although a case was filed against the accused, he is out on bail.

DOUBLE TRAGEDY

It was double tragedy for the family of Naresh Kumar, aka Bhutta, 38, a videographer, who was killed in firing at a wedding on February 6, 2013. Unable to bear this shock, his father Ashok Kumar, succumbed to a heart attack 17 days later.

Faced with the loss of both breadwinners, Nareshs mother Nirmali Rani was left with no option but to strike a compromise with the accused for a mere Rs 3.5 lakh. Today Nirmala Rani, 58, breaks into tears as she tells you how she is living on dole from a Model Town-based welfare organisation that gives her some food and sundry items every month.

I still remember how he had gone to attend the wedding dressed in his best. They brought him back dead.

Its been two years but Veena Kumari, a domestic help at Dinanagar, is yet to recover from the death of her 11-year-old son Sanju, who was killed when he went to see a plush wedding at a banquet hall where his grandmother worked. I still remember how he had gone to attend the wedding dressed in his best. They brought him back dead, she sobs.

Surjit Kaur, 70, died after being shot by a youth who fired his .12 bore double barrel gun during a wedding procession at Kadrabaad village near Patiala on October 2. Meeta Singh, the deceaseds son, rues that no one from the marriage party took his mother to hospital, and she had suffered excessive blood loss by the time he called an ambulance from Samana.

On February 6 , a photographer was seriously injured in a celebratory firing at a wedding near Dhangrali village on the Morinda- Kurali road. Police had then arrested Fatehgarh Sahib medical officer Dr Karamjit Singh and seized a pistol and a double-barrel gun from him. The case is now in the court.

Marriage celebrations proved a nightmare for 40-year-old Versha Mehtas family, who was killed in a celebratory firing by self-styled godwoman Deva Thakur and her bodyguards during the marriage of her nephew in Karnal on November 15.

After Vershas death, her husband Virender Mehta left the city along with his son Vidhur, 15, and daughter Vidhi, 12, and is now staying with his younger brother at Parwanoo . Virender said: The marriage destroyed my small family and my children are distraught. Karnal city police station in-charge, Mohan Lal, said that the police have already arrested the main accused Thakur and her four bodyguards on charges of murder. Two accused are still absconding.

COMPROMISED BY KINSHIP

Most incidents of deaths during such celebratory firings go unreported due to the involvement of relatives or organisers. On February 15, 2015, a five-year-old child was killed during a marriage function at Durali village in SAS Nagar, when gunshots fired in the air by his uncle hit him. Despite the death of the child, no relative came to lodge a complaint. Though a case was registered by a police patrolling party, no one from the family pursued it.

Facts On December 5, Haryana government banned carrying of arms at weddings and other functions under Section 144 of the criminal procedure code Aerial firing will be punishable with six months imprisonment in Haryana In Punjab, a ban on carrying arms to a wedding or a function is in existence since 2010, but lack of policing hampers implementation Banquet hall owners are asked to report guests carrying weapons

Unaware of the law, Meeta Singh followed the village panchayat advice and reached a compromise for a sum of Rs 2 lakh. Jagir Singh also reached a compromise with the killers of his son. United by their grief, all affected families have one demand: A blanket ban on celebratory firing .

Amritsar (rural) SSP Harkamalpreet Singh Khakh said they have instructed banquet halls to inform the police in case of any armed guest. Recently, we registered a case against some accused after a marriage palace owner in Gharinda filed a complaint.

With inputs from Kamaljit Singh Kamal (Dinanagar), Harpreet Kaur (Kothe Jattan, Hoshiarpur), Neeraj Mohan (Karnal), Vishal Sally, Dhariwal (Gurdaspur), Jatinder Kohli, Tarsem Singh Deogan (Ludhiana), Surjit Singh (Amritsar), Shailee Dogra (Chandigarh) & Neeraj Mohan (Karnal)
Young, unmarried men with low levels of education and bad road etiquettes are the most likely to tell lies, according to a new research on how to accurately pick a serial liar based on a few factors.

In the study, researchers at Curtin University in Australia found that 13 per cent of people told 58 per cent of total lies.

Another likely group of big liars was young, married women with low levels of education who managed to get a high income, according to the research.

So that might be women who have married into money, Arch Woodside from Curtin University told The Huffington Post Australia.

Our aim was to find a recipe of factors that could determine nine times out of 10 whether you could screen for what youre looking for, in this case, a big liar, said Woodside.

Researchers tested combinations of factors like age, gender and education using a US survey from 1998 that took representative samples from every county.

The quiz also asked lifestyle questions as well as others like how many times have you lied but also have you ever given someone the finger in traffic.

Researchers used this data to create a screening process to determine what other factors the big liars had in common to create likely groups.

What we found is that it actually takes about seven configuration ingredients to be sure you identify big liars, said Woodside.

For example a young male with low education is not sufficient information to determine whether hes likely a big liar, he said.

But a young male with low education who engages in antisocial behaviour such as road rage, well by now you can be pretty sure he is, Woodside said.

The study also uncovered 21 per cent of people who tried to live their life without lying at all. They tended to be older women who were not married.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more.
Around 21,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, humanitarian officials said on Tuesday, following a bloody crackdown by the army in neighbouring Myanmar.

Bangladesh has stepped up patrols on the border to try to stem the tide of refugees since an eruption of unrest in Myanmars western state of Rakhine in early October.

But Sanjukta Sahany, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) office in Bangladeshs southeastern district of Coxs Bazar bordering Rakhine, said around 21,000 members of the stateless ethnic minority had crossed over in the past two months.

The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements, official refugee camps and villages, said Sahany.

Bangladeshi activists from Islamic organisations march towards the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka on December 6, 2016, to protest against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Around 21,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh in recent weeks after fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, an official from the International Organisation for Migration said December 6. (AFP)

An estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Coxs Bazar district between October 9 and December 2, she told AFP by phone.

It is based on the figures collected by UN agencies and international NGOs (non-governmental organisations).

The Dhaka office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in a statement also said it estimate(d) that there could be 21,000 new arrivals in recent weeks.

Those interviewed by AFP inside Bangladesh told horrifying stories of gang-rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmars security forces.

Analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

Burma: Massive Destruction in Rohingya Villages https://t.co/JEOHvhXvbT  Human Rights Watch (@hrw) November 13, 2016

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse but has banned foreign journalists and independent investigators from accessing the area.

Myanmars Nobel peace laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced a growing international backlash for what a UN official has said amounts to a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, a Muslim group loathed by many of Myanmars Buddhist majority.

Last week she vowed to work for peace and national reconciliation, saying her country faced many challenges, but did not mention the violence in Rakhine state.

But Kofi Annan, a former UN chief appointed by Suu Kyi as head of a commission on Rakhine, hoped Myanmar would allow journalists to visit the state to help eliminate some of the rumours we are hearing.

The issue of genocide and ethnic cleansing -- this is a very serious charge. It is a charge that requires legal review and a judicial determination, Annan told reporters in Yangon.

It is not a charge that should be thrown around loosely.

Protests over genocide

Bangladesh has reinforced its border posts and deployed coastguard ships to try to prevent a fresh influx of refugees.

In the past two months its border guards have prevented hundreds of boats packed with Rohingya women and children from entering the country.

Graphic on Myanmar's stateless Rohingya. (AFP)

On Monday a vessel carrying Rohingya refugees sank in the Naf border river, leaving dozens missing. A woman was rescued and told reporters the boat was carrying some 30 Rohingya fleeing violence in Rakhine.

Bangladesh police said they recovered a womans body on Tuesday morning near where the boat went down but they could not confirm whether she was a Rohingya.

The body has been sent for post mortem, local police chief Abdul Mazid told AFP.

The Bangladesh government has been under pressure from Muslim groups and the opposition to open its border to the fleeing Rohingya.

Police on Tuesday stopped thousands of hardline Muslims from marching to the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka to protest at they called the genocide of the Rohingya.

Shiblee Noman, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka police, told AFP about 10,000 Muslims, many shouting slogans against Suu Kyi, joined the march before it was halted at central Dhakas Nightingale Crossing.

They were peaceful, he said.

More than 230,000 Rohingya are already living in Bangladesh, most of them illegally, although around 32,000 are formally registered as refugees.

Violence in Rakhine has surged in the last month after security forces poured into the area following a series of attacks on police posts blamed on local militants.
A seven-year-old Syrian girl whose Twitter account from Aleppo gained international attention has fled her home amid heavy fighting, but she and her family are safe for now, her father said.

With her mothers help, Bana al-Abed had been posting heart-rending tweets in English on life in the besieged eastern districts of Syrias Aleppo.

But as Syrian government forces edged closer to their home in recent days, the Abed family fled and the Twitter updates slowed.

Good afternoon from #Aleppo I'm reading to forget the war. pic.twitter.com/Uwsdn0lNGm  Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) September 26, 2016

Our house was damaged in bombardment, her father Ghassan said by phone from east Aleppo, two-thirds of which has been seized by advancing government forces.

The army got really close to our neighbourhood. We fled to another part of east Aleppo and the family is doing well, he said, adding that the internet connection is very weak here.

Since late September, Bana and her mother Fatemah have garnered more than 211,000 followers by tweeting regular updates on battered Aleppo.

Pictures of massive white columns of smoke, captioned Aleppo right now. We (are) so scared, are interspersed with shots of Bana reading or scrawling in a notebook.

The account captured the attention of novelist JK Rowling, who responded to a picture of Bana poring over an electronic copy of the Harry Potter series.

On November 29, Banas account tweeted a photograph of a heavily damaged building, with the caption: This is our house, My beloved dolls died in the bombing of our house. I am very sad but happy to be alive.

Several days later, Bana wrote that she was sick: I have no medicine, no home, no clean water. This will make me die even before a bomb kill me.

Many of the tweets have included cries for help, but the messages grew increasingly desperate at the weekend.

On Sunday night, Fatemah posted: We are sure the army is capturing us now. We will see each other another day dear world. Bye.

The account fell silent for 24 hours, prompting concerned followers to launch a #WhereisBana hashtag.

An update followed on Monday night, reading: Under attack. Nowhere to go, every minute feels like death. Pray for us. Goodbye - Fatemah.

Online supporters of President Bashar al-Assad have bashed the account and sent Bana and her mother death threats.

And in an October interview with Danish broadcaster TV2, Assad alleged that footage posted by Bana was promoted by the terrorists or their supporters.

Its a game now, a game of propaganda, its a game of media. You can see anything, and you can be sympathetic with every picture and every video you see. But our mission as a government is to deal with the reality, he said.
Making her pitch for a fourth term, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a burqa ban in the country, saying the refugee crisis must never be repeated.

The full-face veil is not acceptable in our country. It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible, she said while addressing her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, reports the Independent.

Dutch MPs voted for a similar prohibition in the Netherlands last month, covering public transport, education, healthcare and government buildings and punishing any infractions with fines.

Support for bans on full-face veils has been growing across Europe since France became the first country to implement such a law in 2011, followed by countries including Belgium, Bulgaria and parts of Switzerland.

Merkel is running unopposed for a new term leading the CDU to launch her bid for a fourth term as German Chancellor.

Read | German conservatives re-elect Angela Merkel to CDU party chair with 89.5% of vote

Two years ago, she won the support of 96.7 % of party delegates, one of her best results. But, her popularity has been dented by growing anti-migrant sentiment in the country following the arrival of around one million asylum seekers in the continuing refugee crisis.

Merkel has also been widely criticised for her decision to open the borders in September 2015, with opponents blaming the policy for mass sexual assaults on New Years Eve in Cologne and two terror attacks by Islamic State supporters.
In a heartwarming incident, a poor Bangladeshi man working as a cleaner in Saudi Arabia was gifted a host of freebies from a gold set to smartphones by people who came out in his support after he was mocked online over a photo of him staring at a jewellery shop display.

An Instagram user had mocked the cleaner, who works in Riyadh, by sharing the picture, writing, this man deserves to only look at rubbish.

The comment prompted an outpouring of support for the cleaner on social media, and Abdullah al Qahtani, the owner of the Twitter account Ensaniyat (humanitarianism), started a campaign to find the man in the photo.

Qahtani told Al-Arabiya that he managed to find the cleaner to give him his gifts.

The cleaner was identified as Nuzroul Abdulkareem, and his monthly salary was said to be $187 (700 Saudi riyal).

More money is being sent to Nuzroul, Qahtani said, without specifying how much.

In addition to a gold set, bags of rice and honey, Abdulkareem has so far received two-way tickets to his home country, and two phones -- one iPhone 7 and one Samsung Galaxy.

Saudis on the social media platform tweeted, vowing to send more gifts to the cleaner, including one user who said a gift of $533 (2,000 Saudi riyal) would be given.

I am very thankful, Abdulkareem said.

Qahtani described him as very hardworking.

Abdulkareem also takes care of homeless kittens on the street where he works, Qahtani said.

The picture of him staring at the gold shop display went viral and many Saudi users insisted on buying the cleaner a gold set.

An account then published photographs of the cleaner holding the gold set gifted to him.
Several Chinese iPhone users have claimed their handsets caught fire or exploded, according to a Shanghai consumer watchdog which called on tech giant Apple to address the complaints.

Fresh on the heels of Samsungs worldwide Galaxy Note 7 safety fiasco, the state-run Shanghai Consumer Council said it had received eight reports in recent months of iPhones that spontaneously combusted while being used or charged.

The report, seen on the councils website, was posted on Friday.

It quoted one woman as saying her iPhone 6s Plus exploded in August, shattering the screen and leaving the battery and back of the phone blackened.

Apple provided the woman with a new iPhone but did not address the cause of the incident, the report said.

Apple should be responsible for consumers and deal with complaints in a timely manner, the council said.

A large amount of consumer complaints are not solved effectively.

The council said it has received a sixfold surge in total complaints against Apple in the past two months, including sudden shutdowns of the iPhone 6 and 6s even though batteries still have enough power.

The council did not make clear where the complaining iPhone users were located.

Apple last month offered to change iPhone 6s batteries for Chinese users who complained of what the company called accidental shutdown.

The offer was effective for handsets made between September and October 2015. At the time iPhone insisted the shutdowns did not constitute a safety problem.

AFP was unable to immediately obtain a response from Apple in China over the consumer watchdog report.

Samsung suffered a severe blow over its Galaxy Note 7s woes. The huge South Korean electronics manufacturer was forced to recall some 2.5 million units.

Apple saw its revenue in the Greater China market plunge 30% in the three months ended September 24, with analysts saying it faces rising competition from Chinese smartphone brands.
Donald Trump is a diplomatic rookie who must learn not to cross Beijing on issues like trade and Taiwan, Chinese state media said Tuesday, warning America could pay dearly for his inexperience.

A protocol-shattering call with Taiwans president followed by a Twitter tirade against Beijings policies by the president-elect could risk upending the delicate balance between the worlds two largest economies, Chinese editorials in major media outlets said.

Provoking friction and messing up China-US relations wont help make America great again, said a front-page opinion piece in the overseas edition of Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily.

The patriotic Global Times newspapers Chinese edition also ran a page-one story damning Trumps provocation and falsehood.

Trump sent out two tweets Sunday blasting China for devaluing its currency, taxing US imports, and building military installations in the South China Sea.

Read: Trump attacks China on Twitter over currency, South China Sea

The comments followed criticism of Trump in US and Chinese media for taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that upended nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and raised questions about whether the president-elect intends to pursue a hard line against Beijing.

The barrage of attacks by state media calling Trump diplomatically inexperienced and reckless followed a muted official response Monday, with the foreign ministry declining to comment on the outbursts motivation.

The Global Times English-language edition filled its opinions pages with editorials slamming the president-elect.

Noting that Sino-US relations had reached a delicate equilibrium thanks to years of careful management, an editorial in the paper warned that Trump can make a lot of noise but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game, adding that he doesnt have sufficient resources to be provocative with China.

Trumps China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it, it said, adding: We must confront Trumps provocation head on.

A companion commentary warned that Trump will in time learn not to cross China, threatening a fierce competition with Beijing if the US increases arm sales to Taiwan.

It was illustrated by an editorial cartoon showing an eagle throwing pebbles at a large, scowling panda.

Meanwhile the English-language China Daily newspaper warned that diplomatic rookie Trump needs to moderate his behaviour or he will create costly troubles for his country.

As president-elect, Trump can expect some forgiveness even when he is shooting from the hip. But things will be different when he becomes president.
American students have a math problem.

The latest global snapshot of student performance shows declining math scores in the US and stagnant performance in science and reading.

Were losing ground  a troubling prospect when, in todays knowledge-based economy, the best jobs can go anywhere in the world, said Education Secretary John B. King Jr. Students in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Minnesota arent just vying for great jobs along with their neighbours or across state lines, they must be competitive with peers in Finland, Germany, and Japan.

Math was a stubborn concern. This pattern that were seeing in mathematics seems to be consistent with what weve seen in previous assessments ... everything is just going down, said Peggy Carr, acting commissioner at the National Center for Education Statistics.

The 2015 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, study is the latest to document that American students are underperforming their peers in several Asian nations. The US was below the international average in math and about average in science and reading. Singapore was the top performer in all three subjects on the PISA test.

More than half a million 15-year-old students in about 70 nations and educational systems took part in the 2015 exam. The test is coordinated by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

Here are the main things to know about the PISA exams:

US scores and rankings

Not so encouraging.

The test is based on a 1,000-point scale. Among the findings:

 In math, the US average score was 470, below the international average of 490. Average scores ranged from 564 in Singapore to 328 in the Dominican Republic.

 In science, the US average score was 496, about the same as the international average of 493. Average scores ranged from 556 in Singapore to 332 in the Dominican Republic.

 In reading, the US average score was 497, around the same as the international average of 493. Average scores ranged from 535 in Singapore to 347 in Lebanon.

Average scores in math have been on the decline since 2009, and scores in reading and science have been flat during that same time period.

Across the globe, American students were outperformed by their counterparts in 36 countries in math; 18 countries in science and 14 countries in reading.

So, whats going on with maths

Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at OECD, says high-performing countries do really well in math in three things: rigor, focus, and coherence.

For example, he says, many high-performing countries will teach a lot less but focus at much greater depths, particularly when you look at East Asia, Japan and Singapore.

Students are often good at answering the first layer of a problem in the United States, said Schleicher. But as soon as students have to go deeper and answer the more complex part of a problem, they have difficulties.

What people are saying about how the US stacks up

 The latest US PISA achievement results are disappointing but not surprising, said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. They were predictable given the impact of the last 15 years of U.S. education policies combined with continuing state disinvestment following the 2008 recession. Thirty-one states still spend less per pupil than before the recession.

 This stagnant performance on PISA by U.S. students in the last four years once again affirms our belief that the U.S. would be well served to take a hard look at the strategies used by the top-performing education systems and adapt lessons learned from them to fit the U.S. context and needs, said Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. It is critical to look not only at their average high performance, but also at the strategies they use to achieve much greater equity across and within schools compared to the United States.

Other findings

Globally, gender differences in science tended to be smaller than in reading and math. But, on average, in 33 countries and economies, the share of top performers in science is larger among boys than among girls. Finland was the only country where girls were more likely to be top performers than boys.

Across OECD countries, on average, the gender gap in reading in favor of girls narrowed by 12 points between 2009 and 2015.

Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico participated as international benchmarking systems and received separate scores from the United States. Massachusettss average scores were higher than the U.S. and the international average scores in science, math and reading. North Carolinas average scores were not statistically different from the U.S. average scores for all three subjects. And Puerto Ricos average scores were lower than both the average U.S. scores and the international average scores for all three subjects.

About the test and comparisons

The PISA test is conducted every three years. Schools in each country are randomly selected, and OECD says the selection of schools and students is kept as inclusive as possible so that student samples are drawn from a broad range of backgrounds and abilities.

Another international test, known as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, had similar international comparisons with Asian countries solidly outperforming American students. That test, though, administered every four years to a random sampling of younger students in dozens of countries, had eighth graders in the U.S. improving their scores in math, up nine points. Scores for science, however, were flat. In fourth grade, scores were unchanged in math and science.




Scene at the forum (Photo: VNA)

In opening the annual event, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said the business community in Vietnam saw developments in both terms of quantity and quality in 2016, but still the domestic enterprises are not strong enough to make effective integration, without any representative able to join the global value and supply chains.

The minister also recalled the lesson of environmental protection in association with investment projects, stressing that it is the lesson for not only the State but also enterprises themselves. He reiterated that environment protection is a priority of the Government in its strategy for green and sustainable development, and called on the business community to pay due attention to this issue.

Participants at the forum took note of breakthrough changes in the business environment in Vietnam and the Vietnamese governments efforts and resolve in facilitating the operation of enterprises and investors.

Kyle F. Kelhofer, country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos of the International Financial Corporation, appreciated the unceasing endeavours of the Government in maintaining macro-economic stability and keeping public debt within permissible level, adding that the role of the private economic sector has received more attention.

Addressing the forum on behalf of the domestic business community, Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Vu Tien Loc asked the Government to tighten discipline in the execution of duty while enhancing the supervision and feedback of the public and enterprises.

He urged the Government to draft a bill to revise laws related to investment and business environment, adding that the revision of laws should be done regularly as the situation keeps changing rapidly.

The business community also proposed that the Government promptly submit to the National Assembly revisions to the Labour Code regarding regulations on overtime work, wage and social insurance to ensure the economys competitiveness.

On behalf of the US business and investor community, Governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam Virginia B. Foote asked the Vietnamese Government to pay attention to five issues that need improvements, which were facilitating the private sector; developing human resources; addressing net security problems; enforcing the Trade Facilitation Agreement; and facilitating travel to develop tourism.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc welcomed the opinions of the business community, saying that the Government is always ready for open and straightforward dialogue in order to seek the most appropriate and effective solutions for Vietnam to achieve fast, sustainable and harmonious development.

He noted that the reality of the 30-year Doi Moi (renewal) process has proved convincingly that the private economic sector is an important driving force of the Vietnamese economy.

The PM cited statistics that showed the country now has nearly 600,000 firms. 2016 is the first year when Vietnam saw more than 100,000 new firms established, which means an average 12 firms set up per one hour.

According to the PM, the 3.5 million business households in the country hold great potential for realising the goal of 1 million firms by 2020.

At the same time, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc laid stress on the important role played by 21,000 foreign-invested enterprises in the country. The FDI enterprises have invested a combined USD300 billion in Vietnam. Total FDI capital flow into Vietnam has topped USD17 billion in 2016.

In its 2016-2020 socio-economic development strategy, Vietnam is determined to create every possible favourable conditions for the development of enterprises, especially private ones, thus creating a driving force to elevate competitiveness and self-reliance for the national economy, he said.

The PM emphasized that in saying Vietnamese enterprises, it also means FDI enterprises with legal person status in Vietnam and domestic enterprises. This is the Governments major direction in forming a connected and effective Vietnamese business community, he said.

PM Phuc reiterated the governments commitment to continued efforts to complete the market economic institutions along with policies and laws, push forward with administrative reform, enhance the national competitiveness and create favourable conditions for the private sector to develop strongly.

The Government will work to raise the essential WB-rated national investment environment indexes and WEF-rated competitiveness index to the average level of the ASEAN-4 countries, he said.

The PM called on the Vietnamese business community to actively participate in the process of economic restructuring through diversifying investments with a priority for the PPP form, stimulating startup business and innovation spirit, and increasing win-win partnership between the domestic private FDI sectors.

He urged FDI businesses to trust Vietnams reforms and accelerate the transfer of advanced technology, human resource training and the sharing of corporate governance experience while upholding their responsibility to society and joining hands with Vietnam in protecting natural resource and the environment.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc instructed ministries and agencies study proposals and recommendations put forth at the forum with a view to supplementing and adjusting related policies and legal documents to align with the market economy and international practice.

The Government will make all-out efforts so that the Vietnamese business community can closely connect and grow in the Vietnamese economy and successfully rise up to the world stage, the PM told the forum./.
France raised to high the risk level across the country after the detection of several cases of the highly pathogenic H5N8 avian flu strain in farms even as South Korea expanded a cull of chickens and ducks to contain a bird flu outbreak.

The highly pathogenic avian flu strain was detected in farms in southwestern France and in wild ducks in the countrys north, the farm ministry said on Tuesday.

The decision was also motivated by the rapid change in the...situation in France and in several European countries, the ministry said in a statement.

France, which has the largest poultry flock in the European Union, is still recovering from a severe bird flu epidemic in southwestern France earlier this year, which led to a total halting of duck and geese output in the region and import restrictions from trading partners.

In South Korea, the H5N6 virus was first confirmed on November 18 at a farm in the countrys central region. It has since spread to farms around the country, with the total number of cases standing at 28.

The agriculture ministry said in a statement it has culled more than 4.4 million birds and would slaughter another 2.7 million.

Health authorities agreed to issue a so-called standstill order to restrict workers at poultry farms from moving around South Korea if the virus continues to spread, the ministry said in a statement.

There have been no cases of human infections from H5N6 in South Korea, although the virus killed six people in China between 2014 and April 2016, according to the Souths Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The World Health Organization warned earlier this year that the strain has caused severe infection in humans but added until now human infections with the virus seem to be sporadic with no ongoing human to human transmission.
French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday appointed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as prime minister until a new president is elected next May.

The appointment followed the resignation of Manuel Valls, who quit to run for president after Hollande himself decided against seeking a second term.

Cazeneuve will play caretaker ahead of the next years vote, where Marine Le Pens anti-immigrant, anti-European Union National Front hopes to repeat anti-establishment upsets seens earlier this year in Britain, the United States, and this week in Italy.

The world has changed drastically in a matter of months, Jean-Marie Le Guen, a minister and close ally of Valls, told RTL radio. The extreme right is on the threshold of power. The right is more brutal than anything weve ever seen.

Italian voters last weekend rejected constitutional reforms proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, forcing him to resign and opening period of political uncertainty there.

That followed the election of Donald Trump as US president and a referendum where Britons chose to quit the European Union.

As interior minister since April 2014, Cazeneuve has dealt with Islamist militant attacks that have killed more than 230 people since January 2015. He has also overseen imposition of emergency rule imposed in their wake.

Profile of French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (AFP)

Cazeneuve, 53, a former Europe and budget minister, is known as The Cardinal because of his distant, dead-pan manner.

Polls so far suggest that the Left faces humiliation in next years presidential election after five years in power. The polls suggest a vote boiling down to a duel between conservative candidate Francois Fillon and Le Pen, with Fillon winning.

Valls first needs to win a Socialist primary in January against tough competition from more traditional leftists.

An Ifop-Fiducial opinion poll published on Tuesday suggested no left-wing candidate would go far in the presidential vote. It gave Valls a score of 10%, eliminating him ahead of a Fillon-Le Pen second-round duel that it saw Fillon winning with 65% of the vote.

Hollande said his job in the time left was to protect France. And protect things I deem vital: cohesion, a way of living, freedom, and a social welfare model that unites us.

Bruno le Roux was named to replace Casenove as interior minister.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel won re-election as chairwoman of her Christian Democrats (CDU) on Tuesday with 89.5% of votes cast by just under 1,000 party delegates, giving her a boost as she seeks a fourth term in office next year.

The endorsement fell short of the 96.7% Merkel won when she was last re-elected two years ago. Her decision last year to open Germanys doors to some 1 million migrants sapped some grassroots support and has dented the CDUs poll ratings.

Merkels lowest winning score in election as chairwoman was 88.4% in 2004. The CDU is meeting in Essen, where Merkel was first elected party chairwoman in 2000.

Read | Germanys Angela Merkel seeks new party term amid migrant concerns
German police have detained an Iraqi migrant for suspected rape only days after an Afghan refugee was held in a separate rape and murder case, and the government warned against a political backlash to such crimes.

The two cases threaten to fan anti-migrant sentiment in Germany, which saw a record 890,000 people from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere arrive last year. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has grown in support while Chancellor Angela Merkels popularity has suffered.

Police said on Tuesday the Iraqi, 31, was detained in his refugee hostel on Monday on suspicion of raping a Chinese student and attempting to rape another in the western city of Bochum.

The 17-year-old Afghan was detained on Friday on suspicion of raping and murdering a 19-year-old German student as she cycled home from a party in the southwestern city of Freiburg.

The Iraqi man is accused of dragging the two Chinese students aged 21 and 27 into a bush and forcing himself on them in separate incidents on Aug. 6 and Nov. 16, a police official said told reporters.

Prosecutors are checking if the man, who has denied the accusations, could have committed other crimes.

The Freiburg incident caused outrage when it came to light.

The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel said it had withheld from publishing on its website around 40 percent of user comments on the topic as they were slanderous, racist or defamatory. That compares with around 10 percent on any other issue.

In an interview with ARD television late on Monday, Merkel was asked about the rape and murder case in Freiburg and she warned against tarring all refugees with the same brush.

That was a terrible murder and, if it turns out that it was an Afghan refugee, then that is to be condemned, just as is the case with any other murderer, Merkel said.

But then I say that this cant lead to the rejection of an entire group, just as we dont draw conclusions about an entire group from one person in other circumstances, she added.

Merkels Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and government spokesman Steffen Seibert also warned against a backlash after the Freiburg case.

Public concerns about womens safety and the integration of the mostly Muslim migrants have come to the fore since hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed by men of North African and Arab appearance during New Year festivities in Cologne on Dec. 31.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday stressed her determination to prevent a repeat of last years huge migrant influx as she seeks a new two-year term in charge of her conservative party.

She also told a party congress that an immediate priority is to make sure a crisis-shaken Europe doesnt get any weaker.

Merkel announced last month that she will seek a fourth four-year term as chancellor in an election expected next September. Her springboard to that run is re-election as the chairwoman of her Christian Democratic Union.

Tuesdays vote in Essen, where she was first elected CDU chairwoman in 2000, offers a test of Merkels standing with members. She is running unopposed for another term.

Germany saw about 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year. Many came after Merkel decided in September 2015 to let in migrants who were stuck in Hungary. The numbers have since declined sharply, but Merkels approach to the migrant crisis has provoked discord within the CDU, which has seen a string of poor state election results this year.

A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated, Merkel told party delegates at a congress in the western city of Essen.

While Merkel insists that Germany will continue to take in people in genuine need of protection, her government has moved to toughen asylum rules and declare several countries safe  meaning people from there cant expect to get refuge.

Merkel was also a driving force behind an agreement between the European Union and Turkey in March to stem the flow of migrants.

Polls show a solid lead for the conservatives, although their support is still short of the 41.5% they won in Germanys 2013 election. They face new competition from the upstart nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has thrived by attacking Merkels migrant policies.

The 2017 election will be more difficult than any election before, at least since German reunification, Merkel said, citing the strong polarization of our society.

Merkel told delegates that parallel societies wont be tolerated and advocated banning the wearing of full-face veils used by some Muslim women where thats possible. But she also hit out at anti-migrant and anti-government protesters who chant We are the people! or post hate messages on social media.

Who the people are ... is something that we will all determine, not just a few, however loud they may be, she declared.

The EUs longest-serving head of government has often said her aim is for Europe to emerge stronger from crises such as the debt troubles that afflicted the common euro currency.

Merkel said she still believes in that  but we must in this situation ... first do everything so that Europe doesnt emerge even weaker from the crises than when it went in.

That sounds modest, but lets not deceive ourselves, it is not, Merkel said, citing conservative icon and ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohls maxim that European stability shouldnt be taken for granted.

Aside from unhappiness about her migrant policy, some party members are grumbling about whats perceived as a drift to the left during her 11 years as chancellor.

I have asked a lot of you because the times have asked a lot of us  I am well aware of that, she said. And I cannot promise you that there will be fewer demands in the future, because we must do what the times demand of us.

Still, she stressed Tuesday that the conservatives will rule out tax increases for the next four years.

Two years ago, Merkel won the support of 96.7 % of party delegates.
Fraudsters posing as consular officers operated a fake American embassy in the Ghanaian capital Accra for about a decade and printed counterfeit visas, a US official said Monday.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said no one was believed to have entered the United States with one of the fake visas, which were reproductions based on genuine travel documents the con-men had obtained.

This fake embassy made and printed counterfeit visas using expired visas as a blueprint, Toner said.

Its very, very hard to counterfeit US visas these days... and so this operation failed.

According to a State Department release last month, the fake embassy did not accept walk-in appointments and staff would instead drive to the most remote parts of West Africa to find clients.

The embassy workers -- actually Turkish and Ghanaian criminal gangsters -- then shuttled prospective clients back to Accra, put them up in a hotel and ultimately bilked them for as much as $6,000 for dodgy paperwork.

A State Department photo of the fake embassy shows a dilapidated, orange-walled building with rain damage, surrounded by a cracked and buckled sidewalk.

Inside, US President Barack Obamas photo hung on the wall. But the consular officers were Turkish citizens who spoke English and Dutch.

By contrast, the real US embassy is an imposing, high-end facility in a tony part of Accra, surrounded by tight security and other diplomatic centers.

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 State Department said.

Asked how the faux-embassy was able to operate so long, Toner suggested it might be because victims were embarrassed to report the crime.

They were duped, they were conned, he said.

You dont necessarily go running to the police and say, I illegally obtained a US visa and, oh, by the way it looks terrible.

It is not known if some fake embassy clients knew it was a sham but were desperate to get to the United States that they paid for its services regardless.

An informant in the case tipped off authorities to a fake Dutch embassy also operating in the Ghanaian capital.

Its still being investigated and we are awaiting the outcome, Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Daphne Kerremans told AFP.
Irans president said on Tuesday that his country will not allow incoming US President Donald Trump to tear up Irans landmark nuclear deal with world powers and also warned Tehran will react to any extension of American sanctions.

The comments by Hassan Rouhani came during a speech at the University of Tehran commemorating the killings of Iranian students protesting a visit by then-US Vice President Richard Nixon in 1953.

Rouhanis remarks show the high-wire stakes he faces after Trumps inauguration in trying to defend the deal struck by his moderate administration. The timing during an annual remembrance of the students killing at the hands of the US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavis security forces also shows the internal challenges he faces from hard-liners already suspicious of Americas intentions.

The US is our enemy, Rouhani said. They want to put pressure on us as much as they can.

Rouhani never mentioned Trump by name in his speech, though he prefaced his remarks with noting that some man ... elected in the US

Whatever plans he has, it will be revealed later, Rouhani said. He may desire to weaken the nuclear deal. He may desire to rip up the deal. Do you suppose we will allow this? Will our nation allow this?

On the campaign trail, Trump called the multi-nation deal catastrophic and vowed to renegotiate it, without explaining how.

Rouhani also warned Iran will show a reaction if outgoing President Barack Obama signs a law extending some of Americas sanctions authority by 10 years. The law, first passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed several times since then, allows the US to sanction companies for doing business with Iran.

Rouhani has described extending the sanctions as a violation of the nuclear deal. The White House deemed the bill unnecessary but said it didnt violate the international accord.

Read | Iran will respond to US sanctions renewal as it violates nuclear deal
Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs PML-N party exchanged charges and accusations on Tuesday as the Supreme Court heard a case related to financial irregularities revealed in the Panama Papers leaks.

Khan claimed his party had successfully proved that Sharif had lied to the nation and to parliamentarians. Addressing the media in Islamabad, Khan said documents submitted by Sharif did not clear him and his family of illegally amassing foreign assets.

Nawaz claims his property in London was bought after selling Gulf Steel, established by his father in Dubai. But the documents show Gulf Steel was suffering losseshow could he have bought such expensive properties by selling another that was in loss? Khan said.

Information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb responded by insisting there was no proof that linked the Sharif family to any wrongdoing. She said Khan was making irresponsible statements against the prime minister without any proof.

Khan also lauded his partys counsel Naeem Bukhari and his team for doing a wonderful job in the Supreme Court. The PTI has submitted evidence of Nawazs lies in court and the burden of proof is now on the Sharif family and their lawyers, he said.

Pakistan Awami League chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed alleged in court that Sharif received kickbacks of $300 million from foreign investors in motorway projects in 1992 and 1993. During the hearing of the Panama Leaks case, he alleged that during his tenure as information minister, German agent Robert Harsch visited Pakistan for meetings with dignitaries and offered $300 million as commission.

Though Rasheed claimed he too was part of those meetings, he failed to produce documentary evidence.

While the Sharif family was in the spotlight, Khan was also accused of hiding his sources of income. Khan told the Election Commission on Monday that the land for his sprawling residence at Bani Gala in Islamabad was a gift from his former wife Jemima.

Khan claimed Jemima was the owner of the 300 kanals of land, which she gifted to him when they divorced. He also said he had later paid Jemima by selling his London apartment.

Sharif and his family have been pressured by the opposition since the Panama Papers leaks revealed his three children, including heir apparent Maryam Nawaz, owned offshore assets worth millions of dollars. The Supreme Court has raised questions about Maryams finances.
Tel Aviv residents woke up Tuesday to an unusual site  a golden statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displayed prominently in front of City Hall in an act of protest.

Itay Zalait, the artist behind the protest, said he worked on the life-size statue for two months before placing it in Tel Avivs Rabin Square overnight. He said his goal was to test freedom of expression with a reference to the biblical golden calf, and a dig at what he calls some Israelis idolatry of Netanyahu.

For half the day, curious onlookers stopped by the statue to snap selfies with some mockingly saluting it. Everyone more or less knew the gleaming Netanyahu depiction on a stand would soon be gone.

Netanyahu was elected last year to a fourth term in office and has served consecutively since 2009 and for more than 10 years overall as premier.

Many people in Israel refer to Benjamin Netanyahu as The King Bibi so it was only natural to put the king on the Square of the Kings, the previous name of Rabin Square, the artist told The Associated Press. I just want to ask the question like to see if its going to make some change in the peoples mind.

Alex Ansky, an actor and radio host who stopped by the spot, noted that Jewish tradition frowns upon the display of statues. You dont have statues like this in all of Israel, he said. The provocation is touching a very, very, very open wound in this country.

Zalaits stunt also sparked political reactions, with opposition figures calling it a witty form of protest against Netanyahus lengthy rule.

Culture Minister Miri Regev, a staunch Netanyahu backer, responded on Facebook that all it represented was an elite class whose only golden calf is the hatred of Netanyahu.

Tel Aviv City Hall said it respected its residents freedom of expression but ordered that the statue be removed by 1 p.m. because it was placed without a permit.

Just before the deadline, a bystander knocked the statue to ground. Some had been calling for Netanyahu to be toppled.

The statue was then taken away from Rabin Square by Zalait.

The artists protest was over.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi formally resigned on Monday after a crushing referendum defeat that has sent shockwaves around Europe -- though his departure will be delayed by a final task, passing a budget.

Renzi handed his resignation to President Sergio Mattarella after Italians resoundingly rejected his constitutional reform proposals in Sundays referendum, to the delight of the countrys populist leaders, fresh after Brexit and Donald Trumps US victory.

The departure of the centre-left premier -- who had staked his future on the outcome of the vote -- plunges Italy into political uncertainty and casts a shadow over the future of the eurozones third-largest economy.

In an apparent bid to ease investor fears, the presidency said in a statement that Mattarella had asked the prime minister to postpone his resignation until the 2017 budget has been passed, a move expected by the end of the week.

The government has already won a vote of confidence on the budget in the lower house of parliament.

Renzi, who in 2014 became Italys youngest-ever premier, was left with no option but to quit after his proposals to streamline parliament were rejected by voters by a decisive 59-41 percent margin.

The 41-year-old former mayor of Florence, who came to power promising radical reform, defended his record.

1,000 difficult but wonderful days. Thanks to everyone. Viva lItalia, he wrote on Facebook.

Italian media said he told his cabinet he had agreed to see the budget passed before his departure out of a sense of responsibility.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (C) arrives at Quirinale presidential palace to talk with President Sergio Mattarella in Rome. (Reuters photo)

Landmark moment

Initial market reaction to Renzis departure has been subdued.

The euro briefly sank to a 20-month low as investors fretted that political instability could scupper efforts to resolve debt-ridden Italys long-running banking crisis, and over the possibility of an election that could see anti-EU parties challenge for power.

Italys FTSE MIB stock index fell 2.0 percent at the opening but recovered to end the day only fractionally down. Italian bond yields rose slightly, having already edged up prior to Sundays vote.

Asian stocks rallied Tuesday after the previous days losses fuelled by Italian uncertainty.

Traders were reassured in part by the result of Europes other crucial vote this weekend, which saw Austria reject a far-right candidate for president.

But some analysts said the referendum could yet come to be seen as a landmark moment.

Holger Schmieding, at the Berenberg private bank, said the risk that Italy could choose to leave the euro, while still remote, had increased.

Capital Economics said: Italy has taken the first step along a path that could lead it out of the eurozone.

US secretary of state John Kerry, speaking in Berlin on Monday at the start of his European farewell tour, said the victory for the No camp reflected the anxieties sweeping Western democracies.

An anti-establishment vote

The vote inevitably became something of a referendum on Renzis personality and record after his pledge to stand down should he lose, and an opportunity for some to express wider frustrations.

Populists across Europe rejoiced at his downfall, with the founder of Italys own anti-establishment Five Star movement Beppe Grillo calling for an election within a week.

Giovanni Orsina, professor of politics at Romes Luiss university, said four out of five voters had cast their vote politically rather than on the merits of the reform.

The vote has broad similarities with the Brexit and Trump phenomena, he said. The electorate voted against the establishment, against Brussels. They didnt get into the subtleties.

Poll data showed the No vote was strongest in areas with high unemployment, in the relatively poor south and among young voters, pointing to a correlation with levels of discontent.

Britains eurosceptic Nigel Farage, who spearheaded the Brexit campaign, said the vote appeared to have been more about the euro than constitutional change.

But Lorenzo Codogno, former chief economist at the Italian Treasury Department, insisted: The outcome of the referendum is much more complex and nuanced than just another wave of protest across the globe.

Padoan favourite for new PM

Most analysts see immediate elections as unlikely.

The most probable scenario is a caretaker administration dominated by Renzis Democratic Party taking over before an election that has to take place by March 2018.

Finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan was installed as the bookmakers favourite to succeed Renzi as prime minister, with Senate speaker Pietro Grasso, a veteran anti-mafia prosecutor, running in second place.

Renzi, meanwhile, may try to stay on as head of his party, which would leave him well placed for a potential comeback to frontline politics at the next election. But he faces resistance to that scenario from the many enemies he has made while in office.

Italy's finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan at the Chigi Palace in Rome. (Reuters file photo)
In congratulating the prize-winners at a special ceremony held at the Australian Embassy in Hanoi on December 6th, Mr Craig Chittick, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, said I congratulate these outstanding students on their high level of achievement in this world class competition. They have achieved much higher results than I did when I entered the competition as a young student.



Photo: Binh Chau



The AMC is one of the worlds largest school-based mathematics competitions with more than 14 million entries from over 30 countries since its inaugural year in 1978. Vietnamese students achieved outstanding results with eight prize-winners, including one junior medallist and one perfect scorer. AMC year-7 medallist Nguyen Manh Quan was ranked 4th for year-7 worldwide and the ranked 7th in the Junior category.

This year was the first time the AMC was held in Vietnam, organised by Hanoi Star School, and attracting 1,234 students from 16 cities and provinces.

Separately, the first local sitting of the AIMO at Cau Giay elementary school in September had 467 entries. There were four prize winners (out of 41 prize-winners world-wide). Fifteen students received high distinction.

The overall Vietnam performance was very strong and impressive given this was the first time Vietnamese students have entered the competition, said Mike Clapper, AMT Executive Director.

For the Vietnamese participants, solving unfamiliar types of maths problems in English posed difficult but exciting challenges.

The competitions provide a different perspective on mathematics education to the way maths is generally taught in Vietnam, with a greater emphasis on critical thinking rather than pure mathematics skills.

This alternative approach aligns with the Governments education reform priorities to radically renovate the teaching and learning methods. The competitions also encourage the study of STEM subjects in English - an important component of the 2020 Foreign Languages project.

Next years AMC will be held on July 27th and AIMO on September 12th./.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abes visit to Pearl Harbor this month, the first by a Japanese leader, will not be to apologise for the Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War Two, Abes top aide said on Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the purpose of Abes December 26-27 visit was to console the souls of those who died in the war.

While the lack of an apology could disappoint some US war veterans, Abe hopes the visit will showcase the tight alliance between the former foes. Experts say it is a message Abe wants to send both to regional rival China and to US President-elect Donald Trump, who has criticised Tokyo as a free-rider on defence.

This visit is for the sake of consoling the souls of those who died in the war, not for the sake of an apology, Suga told a news conference the day after Abe announced the visit.

I think that the prime ministers visit will be an opportunity to send the message that the calamity of war must not be repeated and ... express the value of reconciliation between Japan and the United States, he said.

The visit to Hawaii with US President Barack Obama could also boost Abes popularity rating - already robust at around 60 percent - and raise the likelihood that he will call a snap election for parliaments lower house.

It will come seven months after Obama became the first serving U.S. president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in the closing days of the war in 1945.

The planning for a Pearl Harbor visit has been in the works ever since Obama visited Hiroshima. Its mostly a reciprocal gesture and symbolic of the U.S. and Japan burying the hatchet, said Columbia University emeritus professor Gerry Curtis.

It sends a message to China about the strength of the US-Japan relationship (and is) probably also intended to send the same message to Trump, he said.

A boost in popularity ratings would give Abe a freer hand to call a snap election in January before opposition parties are ready. No election need be held until 2018 but speculation persists that Abe wants to call a vote sooner to minimise losses for his ruling bloc, which holds a two-thirds majority in the chamber.
Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will honour the war dead but will not apologise when he becomes the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor this month, a top government spokesman said Tuesday.

The move follows Barack Obamas historic May trip to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US president, where he spoke of victims suffering but offered no apology for dropping the worlds first nuclear bomb.

Read: Obama to visit Hiroshima but wont apologise for atomic bombing

Abe will pay his respects to those who died in Japans surprise 1941 attack at the US naval base in Hawaii, which triggered World War II in the Pacific, and highlight a decades-old security alliance between the former enemies.

The purpose of this visit is to commemorate war dead, not to apologise, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular press briefing in Tokyo.

The visit will serve as an opportunity to demonstrate to future generations our resolve not to repeat the horror and suffering of war as well as an opportunity to showcase the reconciliation between Japan and the United States, he added.

US defense secretary Ashton Carter, who is in Japan as part of his last Asian tour, echoed those sentiments Tuesday. The US-Japan alliance has never been stronger than it is today, Carter told reporters during a visit to a Japanese destroyer.

Its a two-way stream, equal benefits for both countries. Thats necessary because we face many common responsibilities and threats, he added, without elaborating.

Carter, who is meeting with Abe later in the day, welcomed the Japanese leaders visit to Hawaii.

One thing I will be sure to say to (Abe on Tuesday) is how pleased President Obama is and we all are that he will be visiting President Obama in Hawaii in a few weeks time, he said.

Nationalist leader

Abe -- a nationalist who has been criticised for playing down his countrys wartime record -- will be in Hawaii on December 26 and 27 for talks with Obama, who will join him at Pearl Harbor.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the deadly December 7, 1941 assault on the US naval base that left about 2,400 Americans dead.

The war ended in August 1945 after the US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan and, although the countries have forged strong ties in the seven decades since, how the war began and concluded has cast a long shadow.

In Hiroshima, Obama and Abe went to an atomic bomb memorial that honours some 140,000 people who died in the bombing or later from radiation exposure -- a visit that sparked speculation that Abe might go to Pearl Harbor in return.

The US leader lay a floral wreath and reiterated his call for the abolition of nuclear weapons but did not apologise for the attack and a subsequent bombing of Nagasaki that ended the war.

Abes visit to Pearl Harbor also comes as Japan prepares to build a new relationship with Donald Trump, who will take over from Obama next month.

Trump sent shockwaves through Japan earlier this year when he appeared to call into question the two countries security alliance, prompting Abe to become the first world leader to meet him after the election to confirm the relationship.
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday rejected Russian charges Washington was stalling talks on a rebel withdrawal from the Syrian city of Aleppo in order to buy them time.

Im not aware of any specific refusal, Kerry said when asked about Moscows charges as he attended a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov earlier Tuesday accused the United States of bad faith over Aleppo where President Bashar al-Assads forces have gained significant ground in a Moscow-backed offensive.

Read | Syria army closes in on key Aleppo district

It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves, Lavrov said.

Moscow had the impression a serious discussion with our American partners isnt working out, he added.

Lavrov on Monday said Russia and the US would meet in Switzerland on either Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss a proposal put forward by Kerry last week on a complete rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo.

The rebels dismissed any withdrawal, prompting Lavrov to warn that they will be destroyed if they stay.

Russia and China on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in Aleppo.

Lavrov and Kerry have met repeatedly to try and find a solution to the Syrian conflict but to no avail.

Read | Putin hopes to fix ties with US, pool anti-terror efforts
Libyan forces backed by U.S. air strikes finished clearing the last Islamic State hold-out in Sirte on Tuesday after a six-month battle for the militant groups former North African stronghold.

The forces gained full control over a final patch of ground in Sirtes Ghiza Bahriya district after fierce clashes. Several dozen women and children who had been holed up with the militants were able to leave the ruined buildings where they had made their last stand.

As celebrations erupted among the Libyan forces, which are dominated by brigades from the city of Misrata, a spokesman said the military campaign would continue until the wider area was secured. Fighters fired in the air chanting Free Libya and The blood of the martyrs was not for nothing.

The loss of Sirte is a major blow for Islamic State, leaving the group without any territory in Libya, though it retains an active presence in parts of the North African country.

The jihadist group took over Sirte in early 2015, turning it into their most important base outside the Middle East and moving large numbers of foreign fighters into the city. It imposed its ultra-hardline rule on residents, and extended its control along about 250 km (155 miles) of Libyas Mediterranean coastline.

Spokesman Rida Issa said although forces had secured all the buildings and the streets in Ghiza Bahriya, this did not mean the end of the Misrata-led operation. We still need to secure the area around Sirte, he said.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: This is very good news. The defeat of Daesh (Islamic State) is a very strong act, but it can only be seen as a step ... the militias that have freed Sirte deserve to be congratulated.

Libyan and Western officials say some Islamic State fighters escaped from Sirte before the battle or in its early stages. They fear an insurgent campaign from outside the city and there have been attacks in outlying areas.

Fighters of Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government celebrate after they finished clearing Ghiza Bahriya, the final district of the former Islamic State stronghold of Sirte. (REUTERS)

Bombers, snipers, mines

The Misrata-led forces counter-attacked in May after jihadists moved along the coast towards their city. The brigades, nominally aligned with a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, advanced rapidly towards the centre of Sirte before suicide bombers, snipers and mines largely halted their progress.

More than 700 of their fighters have been killed and more than 3,200 wounded in the gruelling campaign. On Tuesday, a further three men were killed and about 50 wounded, said Mohamed Lajnef, an official at Sirtes field hospital.

He said 21 women and 31 children had been released in Ghiza Bahriya. Dozens of other women and children, some of them migrants from sub-Saharan Africa held captive by Islamic State, had escaped or had been released from militant-held ground in recent days.

Since Aug. 1, the United States has carried out at least 495 air strikes against Islamic State in Sirte.

Five years after the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi Libya remains in turmoil. The U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) that arrived in Tripoli in March and supported the campaign in Sirte has made little progress in ending the chaos.

Sirte lies in a strategic position about half way along Libyas coastline, near some of the countrys major oil fields and terminals. Close to Gaddafis birthplace, it is the city where he was shot and killed after ruling Libya for 42 years.

Almost all of Sirtes estimated population of 80,000 fled the city since Islamic State took over.
The Myanmar soldiers came in the morning, the young mother says. They set fire to the concrete-and-thatch homes, forcing the villagers to cluster together. When some of her neighbours tried to escape into the fields, they were shot. After that, she says, most people stopped running away.

They drove us out of our houses, men and women in separate lines, ordering us to keep our hands folded on the back of our heads, says 20-year-old Mohsena Begum, her voice choking as she described what happened to the little village of Caira Fara, which had long been home to hundreds of members of Myanmars minority Rohingya community.

She said when about 50 people had been gathered together, the soldiers, along with a group of local men, pulled four village leaders from the crowd and slit their throats.

Muslims in an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, the Rohingya, have long faced persecution in Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship. The latest outbreak of violence was triggered by October attacks on guard posts near the Bangladesh border that killed nine police officers.

While the attackers identities and motives are unclear, the government launched a massive counter-insurgency sweep through Rohingya areas in western Rakhine state. Most Rohingya live in Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.

The government, which has implied the attacks were carried out by Rohingya sympathizers, has acknowledged using helicopter gunships in support of ground troops in the sweep. While survivors and human rights groups have tracked waves of anti-Rohingya violence in recent weeks, the Myanmar government insists that stories like Begums are exaggerations.

Myanmars leader, the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has accused the international community of stoking unrest.

It doesnt help if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation, in spite of the fact that there were attacks on police outposts, she said in a recent interview on Singapores Channel News Asia.

Suu Kyi, whose party took power in March after decades of military-backed rule, has been accused of not acting strongly enough to curb the violence against the more than 1 million Rohingya believed to be in the country. Although many have lived in Rakhine for generations, they are widely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

It helps if people recognize the difficulty and are more focused on resolving these difficulties rather than exaggerating them, so that everything seems worse than it really is, she said in the interview.

But Begum says she has no need to exaggerate what happened in Caira Fara.

She said that after the four leaders were killed, violence churned through the village in chaotic scenes of horror. Begums husband, a poor, illiterate farm laborer, was beaten and then murdered by having his throat slit, along with an unknown number of other villagers, she said. Their bodies were eventually driven away in a truck.

She said attackers knocked her young son knocked from her grasp, then raped her.

Finally, when the soldiers werent paying attention, she grabbed her son and ran into the nearby hills. After hiding for two days, her brother gave her enough money  about $38  to pay smugglers to get her and her son into Bangladesh.

When Bangladeshi border guards stopped them, she began to weep.

I told them I have no one to protect me there, she says, and told them: Look at my baby! He will die if I go back there. After that, they let her pass.

Much of Rakhine has been closed to outsiders, including journalists, since the violence began. However, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, leader of a commission formed to investigate the situation in Rakhine state, was allowed to visit in recent days. He is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday in Yangon, Myanmars biggest city.

Along the banks of the Naf River, which marks the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, its not difficult to find people who can talk about what is happening.

Some 15,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh over past month, often brought in by smugglers, according to police and intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government refuses to release numbers publicly.

They have joined up to 500,000 undocumented Rohingya who have been living in Bangladesh after arriving from Myanmar in waves since the 1970s. Some 33,000 registered Rohingya refugees live the Coxs Bazar district. Bangladesh does not welcome Rohingya  its maritime patrols sometimes turn back refugee boats full of them  but it is seen as a haven compared to Myanmar.

The U.N. says up 30,000 Rohingya Muslims have abandoned their homes amid the recent violence. Satellite images analyzed by the rights group Human Rights Watch show 1,250 structures destroyed in November in Rohingya villages.

Osman Gani, a thin, fast-talking Arabic teacher, fled after his village, Gouzo Bil, was attacked Nov. 11.

They came and killed mercilessly. They burned our homes, says Gani, standing near the Naf River over the weekend. No one was there to save us.

He hid with his family for about a week near the village. But when searches intensified, and with soldiers targeting men, he was forced to leave Myanmar without his family.

I had no other choice but to leave them behind. I came to the bank of the river and started swimming, he says. His family was able to join him in Bangladesh a few days later.

As he fled north, he used his mobile phone to film destruction in other Rohingya villages he passed through. In some, the blackened remains of what appear to be children can be seen amid the wreckage of homes. Ganis voice can be heard in some of the videos but The Associated Press could not confirm their authenticity.

They (the army) oppressed us and fired at us from aircraft, Gani says. People were killed in front of my house. They chased the girls and gunned them down. And they burned many people. They burned them in front of my house.

I have shot videos! he says, holding out his mobile phone to a reporter. Dont you see the charred bodies?

While he was initially in hiding after the attack, Osmani said he also managed to slip back into his village and film what remained of his home.

As he walks through the village, a child can be heard talking to him.

Where are you coming from? the boy asks.

Gani doesnt answer, instead asking, Wheres my cow?

Then he pans through the ashes and broken concrete. This is my land, my home, he says. This is Puittas. This is Uncle Yunus.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he believes president-elect Donald Trump is to blame for an increase in reported New York City hate crime incidents.

The Democratic mayor made the comments at a news conference Monday.

The topics included weekend threats made against an off-duty Muslim New York police department officer while she was with her teenage son in Brooklyn.

De Blasio spoke out against the attack on Officer Aml Elsokary (ah-MEHL el-soh-KAHR-ee) and said Trump used hate speech during his campaign. The mayor urged Trump to be more proactive in discouraging hate crimes.

The NYPDs Hate Crime Task Force has deemed 43 incidents possible hate crimes since Trump was elected a month ago. Thats more than double the number cases reported during the same period last year.

Read | New York to clamp down on hate crimes after Muslim police officer attacked
With an aircraft carrier deployed off Syrias shores and hundreds of new jets, missiles and tanks entering service each year, President Vladimir Putin can project Russian military power on a scale unseen since Soviet times.

A massive reform effort launched in the wake of Russias 2008 war with Georgia has transformed a crumbling, demoralized military into agile forces capable of swift action in Ukraine and Syria. Long gone are the days when Russia was forced through financial hardship to scrap dozens of warships and ground most of its air force. Whereas many young men long dodged their obligatory military service, recruits today speak of extending assignments in a better equipped, trained and paid army.

The military reform has given Russia, the Kremlin (and) Mr. Putin a usable instrument of foreign policy which Russia did not have for a quarter century, said Dmitry Trenin , director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.

This dawning reality casts a shadow from Moscow to Washington and beyond. The key question: Will an emboldened Putin keep deploying his forces in bitterly disputed unilateral actions, or could the US election of Donald Trump mean a potential thaw in relations and new era of cooperation? Trumps nominee for national security adviser, retired US Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn , has said he sees Russia as a possible military partner in Syria and elsewhere.

Putins military power today stands in stark contrast to the dying days of the Soviet Union, when the Russian Federation inherited conscript-heavy forces with 4 million mouths it could barely afford to feed.

Russia rapidly reduced those ranks to barely 1 million, and then found itself struggling through much of the 1990s to defeat rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. During its five-day war with tiny Georgia, army units starved of new equipment for 15 years experienced chronic vehicle breakdowns, communications failures and friendly-fire casualties from inaccurate salvos. Incensed by those setbacks, Putin and military commanders committed to a program of radical restructuring and spending.

Perhaps the most important change today is in the calibre of the soldiers themselves. While all men aged 18 to 27 still face a mandatory year of military service, Russia increasingly is attracting volunteers for at least two years and building a culture emphasizing the military as a career.

While conscripts are paid a paltry 2,000 rubles ($31) a month, those signing contracts for longer tours of duty receive 10 times the starting pay and extra privileges. Promotion to sergeant could mean a monthly paycheck of around 40,000 rubles ($620), better than average civilian wages.

Russias Defense Ministry says contract soldiers, most of them former conscripts who opt to stay, have outnumbered conscripts in the ranks since 2015.

Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Russias 2-year-old recession had weakened the jobs market and made it much easier to recruit volunteer contract soldiers.

At a newly opened recruitment center in Yekaterinburg, the largest city in Russias central heartland, officers in crisp new uniforms distribute colorful army leaflets and run computerized assessment tests on candidates.

The military is getting stronger as the number of contract soldiers is rising, said Maj. Gen. Alexander Yarenko, who oversees the Yekaterinburg recruitment office. Weapons are quite complex, requiring a high level of training.

Some recruits offer pragmatic reasons for joining, others gung-ho visions of adventure.

I have decided to sign the contract because it offers good prospects for the future, particularly for university graduates, said Vladislav Volkhin, a 22-year-old with a degree in information technology.

Civilian jobs are routine, while military service is more colorful and interesting, said 21-year-old Dmitry Batalov, who holds a degree in finance and law but prefers to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, a special forces veteran who fought in Chechnya. Batalov said he hoped his career would involve constant risk, the fight against evil, special operations.

The prospect of such deployments is real. Russia since 2014 has stoked tensions with the West in ways unseen since the Cold War.

First came Russias lightning seizure of Crimea from neighboring Ukraine, followed by surreptitious aid to pro-Russian rebels in the countrys breakaway east. Next, Russia launched an air campaign in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad and against American-backed rebel groups as well as their shared Islamic State foe.

In the past month Russias sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov , has joined land-based aircraft in bombing targets in Syria  the first attacks mounted by carrier in Russias history. Russia is using the Syria campaign to test several new designs of cruise missiles, fighters, bombers and helicopter gunships in combat for the first time.

At the start of the decade, the Kremlin pledged to spend 20 trillion rubles (more than $300 billion) on defense through 2020, a commitment unaltered by Russias slide into recession under the twin weight of weak oil prices and Western sanctions imposed because of the Ukrainian fighting.

Last year alone, Russia spent a record 3.1 trillion rubles ($48 billion) on defense, 25 percent higher than in 2014 and more than a fifth of Russias entire budget. Russian forces received 35 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, more than 240 warplanes and helicopters, and nearly 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles  a growth in Russias arsenal unseen since Soviet times.

Analysts warn that Putins forces could be poised to act more freely in Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere in expectation that Trump will prefer to cut deals with Russian interests, not confront them.

Trenin said the prospect of personal rapport between Trump and Putin could mean a better way to manage a fairly difficult relationship.

Felgenhauer noted the irony that, regardless of whether the West might meaningfully push back, Russias top brass can cite any opposition to its actions as justification for even higher defense spending.

The Russian military, he said, has a vested interest right now in having more and more confrontation with the West.
A court in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death and several others to prison terms in a case involving an alleged Iranian spy cell, a sign of the continuing tension between the two Middle East powers.

A Riyadh criminal court handed down the sentences to the 32 people who were charged in February, including 30 Saudis, one Iranian and one Afghan. Their names were not made public and it was not clear who and if anyone represented them in court.

There was no immediate reaction from Tehran on the verdicts and details about the case remain few.

Saudi state media reported in February that those charged were accused of establishing a spy ring in collaboration with Iranian intelligence and providing Iran with highly sensitive information on the Saudi military.

The reports said they also were charged with seeking to commit acts of sabotage against Saudi economic interests, inciting sectarian strife, recruiting others for espionage and participating in anti-government protests.

Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters stormed and ransacked two Saudi diplomatic posts in the Islamic Republic.

Those violent demonstrations came after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia cleric in January, along with 46 others.

Tensions have remained high between Shia power Iran and the Sunni-ruled kingdom of Saudi Arabia all year long. On Monday, Irans foreign ministry spokesman said Tehran and Riyadh can and should cooperate to resolve regional crises.

Bahram Ghasemi told reporters the recent OPEC agreement to cut oil production and the Lebanese presidential election - in which an Iran ally who was elected president designated a Saudi ally for prime minister - were both recent examples of Iran-Saudi cooperation.
Danish police said on Tuesday they had heightened security at police stations across the country after an officer was shot outside Copenhagen.

A shooting took place at 8:20 am local time at the police station in Albertslund, a disadvantaged town west of the capital, and a policeman was shot, local police said in a statement.

A possible perpetrator has been detained, they said.

The police officers condition was not immediately known, nor was the motive for the attack, including whether it was terrorism-related.

Danish public broadcaster DR reported that the officer was a police dog handler and that he had been shot in the head.

The national police said they had heightened security at police stations across the country, pending clarification of the situation.
At least five workers have been killed and six remain trapped in a coal mine after a gas explosion in central Chinas Hubei province, the third major mine accident in recent days in the worlds top coal producing nation.

The explosion took place on Monday at Xinjia Coal Mine in Badong, a county in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture when 46 miners were working underground.

Sixteen workers were at the coalface during the outburst. Five managed to escape but 11 were trapped, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

By Tuesday, rescuers had retrieved five bodies. Twenty rescuers were working in two shifts to clear the mine shaft and search is on for the remaining six.

Air is being pumped into the area where the miners are trapped, and mining authorities have supplied rescuers with respirators.

Mining experts are checking the condition of the shaft. The legal representative of the mine is being held by police.

Last week, at least 53 people were killed after two separate explosions rocked coal mines in northern China.

Thirty-two people were killed following an explosion at a coal mine in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and 21 workers trapped in a coal mine in China after an explosion on November 30 were confirmed dead.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, engulfed in an influence peddling scandal, said if she was impeached she would wait for a court to uphold the decision, a party official said on Tuesday, a sign a political crisis could drag on for months.

Parks embattled presidency faces a critical juncture, with parliament expected to hold an impeachment vote on Friday. Even if the motion is passed, it must be upheld by the Constitutional Court, a process that could take at least months.

Separately, South Koreas most prominent corporate chiefs told a parliamentary panel they had not sought favours when they made contributions to two foundations at the heart of the scandal, even as one of them acknowledged it was hard to say no to the government.

Its a South Korean reality that if there is a government request, it is difficult for companies to decline, said Huh Chang-soo, who heads the energy-to-retail GS Group and is also chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, the main lobby group for the conglomerates known as chaebol.

Park, 64, is under intense pressure to resign immediately, with big crowds taking to the streets every Saturday calling for her ouster. Her approval rating is at a record low of 4 percent.

She would be the first democratically elected South Korean president not to serve a full five-year term.

She is accused of colluding with a friend and a former aide to pressure big business owners to pay into two foundations set up to back policy initiatives. She has denied wrongdoing but apologised for carelessness in her ties with the friend, Choi Soon-sil.

Park met leaders of her Saenuri party and top official Chung Jin-suk later said the president was willing to accept her partys proposal that she step down in April - which has been rejected by the opposition - but gave no indication that she was willing to quit immediately.

Unless she says she is resigning immediately, whatever she says wont satisfy the public and wont make the opposition drop their impeachment motion, said Kim Man-heum, head of the Korea Academy of Politics and Leadership.

Opposition parties need at least 28 members from Parks Saenuri Party for the impeachment bill to pass with a two-thirds majority. At least 29 of them are believed to be planning to vote for the bill, members of a breakaway faction said.

Last week, Park offered to step down and asked parliament to decide how and when she should resign, a move opposition parties rejected as a ploy to buy time and avoid impeachment.

Rhee Jong-hoon, a political commentator at iGM Consulting, said Park would fight in the Constitutional Court to overturn an impeachment hearing.

And if the motion is overturned? She will remain in office until her term is finished. Nothing matters after the Constitutional Court rules against the impeachment bill.

The heads of conglomerates controlling revenue equivalent to more than half the countrys economy were questioned over whether they were pressured by Park or Choi to give money to non-profit foundations, which backed initiatives put forth by Park, in exchange for special treatment.

Heavy heart

Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee, who sat at the centre of the witness table, said Park had asked him during one-on-one meetings for support for boosting cultural and sports-related developments but did not specifically request money.

There are often requests from various parts of society including for culture and sports. We have never contributed seeking quid pro quo. This case was the same, Lee said.

The 48-year-old Lee, the third-generation leader of the countrys biggest conglomerate who received the lions share of the panels often-hectoring questioning, said he was embarrassed by the situation and was appearing with a heavy heart.

Samsung donated 20.4 billion won ($17.46 million) to the two foundations, the most of any group, and prosecutors raided its offices last month.

The corporate titans ran a gauntlet of media and protesters as they entered the National Assembly for the first such parliamentary hearing featuring such a large group of chaebol bosses.

The family-controlled chaebol have long dominated Asias fourth-largest economy, working closely with the government in a system that helped the country rebuild from the ravages of the 1950-53 Korean War.

But the system, critics say, is due for reform, including improved corporate governance and transparency.

None of the chaebol has been accused of any wrongdoing in the case, but a protester outside the assembly held a sign saying: Arrest the chaebol chiefs.
A suspected serial hair-snipper accused of stealing tresses from unsuspecting women on rush-hour trains has been arrested in Japan.

Police charged the 23-year-old graduate student with assault on Monday after he admitted cutting the hair of a woman on a packed morning train in Nagoya, a city west of Tokyo.

Akiya Yoshida is also being investigated for possible involvement in about 30 other cases over the past several years.

Yoshida said he had planned on selling his ill-gotten merchandise online, according to the top-selling Yomiuri newspaper.

In the latest case Yoshida is suspected of cutting his 40-year-old victims hair with scissors.

The woman did not notice she had lost about 35cm of hair because the train was packed with commuters, media said.

Local police reportedly stepped up their patrols earlier this year after receiving complaints from other women whose hair or skirts had been cut on area trains.
A suspected Russian air strike on Idlib city and province in northwest Syria today killed at least 25 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

The raid hits several areas mostly controlled by rebel groups, the Britain-based Observatory said. Russia is the Syrian regimes main ally in its war against rebels and jihadists.

Read | Airstrikes kill at least 46 in Syrias Idlib, army advances in Aleppo
Syrian regime forces were on the verge Tuesday of seizing a major rebel district of Aleppo as Moscow and Washington traded barbs over stalled efforts to end fighting in the battle-worn city.

After retaking control of about two-thirds of east Aleppo in recent days, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were advancing Tuesday in the large residential district of Shaar.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said if the district is retaken rebel forces will be reduced to a war of attrition with the army.

It is the most important neighbourhood in the heart of east Aleppo, and is on the brink of falling, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that regime forces were already in control of about a third of the district.

With the capture of Shaar, the army would hold 70% of east Aleppo, four years after rebels first seized it and divided the city.

The regimes rapid gains have left opposition fighters scrambling to defend the shrinking enclave they still control in Aleppos southeastern districts.

A general view shows the damage at a Russian military field hospital after it was shelled by what the Russian Defence Ministry said were Syrian rebels in Aleppo, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on December 5, 2016. (REUTERS)

Despite mounting criticism of the offensive, world powers have struggled to find a way to halt the fighting.

Russia, a key Assad ally, had announced talks with the United States in Geneva for Tuesday or Wednesday on organising a rebel withdrawal from Aleppo ahead of a ceasefire.

But on Tuesday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington, which has backed rebel groups against Assad, of backtracking.

Attempt to buy time

It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves, Lavrov said, adding that Moscow had the impression that a serious discussion with our American partners isnt working out.

Washington for its part accused Moscow of stalling for time after Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a seven-day ceasefire.

Russia said the resolution should have been postponed until after the Geneva talks, saying an agreement on organising a withdrawal was close.

Map locating neighborhoods of the Syrian city of Aleppo lost by the rebels, plus zones of control and in dispute. (AFP)

The deputy US envoy to the United Nations, Michele Sison, accused Moscow of using a made-up alibi to block the resolution.

We will continue bilateral negotiations (with Russia) to relieve the suffering in Aleppo, but we have not reached a breakthrough because Russia wants to keep its military gains.

Syrias foreign ministry said that it would not agree to a ceasefire without a guarantee of a rebel withdrawal.

Syria will not leave its citizens in east Aleppo to be held hostage by terrorists, and will exert every effort to liberate them, said a foreign ministry statement carried by state news agency SANA.

The rebels have so far rejected any talk of leaving the city, with Yasser al-Youssef of the leading Nureddin al-Zinki faction describing the proposal as unacceptable.

Opposition fighters have been forced to evacuate several of their besieged strongholds in Syria during the conflict, most recently a string of areas near Damascus.

But the loss of Aleppo would be the biggest blow yet to opposition forces in Syrias civil war, which erupted in 2011 with popular protests calling for Assads ouster.

More than 300,000 people have since died and millions forced from their homes.

Aleppo a disgrace

Aleppo, once Syrias commercial and cultural hub, has been a key battleground of the war and suffered some of its worst violence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday lashed out at the international communitys inability to stop the bloodshed.

Aleppo is a disgrace, she said in a speech to her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

She said world powers must continue to fight to establish aid corridors for desperate residents.

The most recent offensive has left more than 341 people dead in east Aleppo, including 44 children, the Observatory says.

Rebel fire into the government-held west of the city has killed 81 people, including 31 children, in the same period, the monitor says.

Tens of thousands of east Aleppo residents have also fled to different parts of the city, including to government-held areas and other rebel neighbourhoods.

Among them is Bana al-Abed, a seven-year-old girl whose Twitter account documenting life in Aleppo has gained international attention.

Tonight we have no house, it's bombed & I got in rubble. I saw deaths and I almost died. - Bana #Aleppo pic.twitter.com/arGYZaZqjg  Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) November 27, 2016

Concern had grown for the girl and her family after the account went silent for 24 hours but her father told AFP on Tuesday they had fled the fighting and were safe for now.

The army got really close to our neighbourhood. We fled to another part of east Aleppo and the family is doing well, he said.
At least 31 people died in weekend clashes triggered by tribal rivalry in Congos central Tshikapa region, the deputy governor of Kasai province said on Tuesday.

Clashes between the police and troops on the one hand and members of a local militia on the other from Friday to Monday left 13 dead and 14 injured among security forces and 18 dead militia fighters, Hubert Mbingho NVula said on state television.

Public order has been restored, he said.

Earlier in the day he had given the militia toll as just 10 fighters.

The fighting happened due to a rivalry between the newly named traditional chief and his uncle, who came to oust his nephew and seize power, an interior ministry official said.

Exact details of the weekend bloodshed are sketchy but a local official said a group of police and soldiers had been hacked to death on Friday night by the militia members in a village around 30km from Tshikapa who then made off with the troops weapons.

Fighting between the militia and government forces lasted throughout Saturday night and a large part of Monday.

Kasai is a particularly isolated and under-developed region in DR Congo.

DR Congo has been wracked by recent violence sparked by a political crisis brought on by the postponing of a presidential election which had been due to take place before the end of the year.

A week ago, at least 34 civilians were killed when a Nande ethnic militia attacked and burnt down a Hutu village in the north east of the country.

Read: Militia attack kills at least 34 civilians in DR Congo
US president-elect Donald Trump, a hardcore climate change sceptic, had a lengthy meeting on Monday with former vice-president Al Gore, a leading campaigner on the issue, showing flexibility that has surprised even his harshest critics.

Trump is among those, specially on the right in American politics, who believe climate change is a hoax, and for the president-elect, played by the Chinese. He railed against it on the campaign trail, blaming regulations for killing the economy.

He has been far more accommodating since his election. He has said he is willing to take another look at the Paris Accord, which he had promised to tear up first thing in office, not even renegotiate it, but pull the US out of it completely.

As a major signatory of the Paris Accord, which it ratified in October, India will be watching whether Trumps evolution on climate change goes beyond words. India co-launched a global solar power initiative at the signing, with France.

After the meeting at Trump Tower, Gore told reporters, I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump.

The bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that. The operative part of the remarks: talks to be continued.

The fact that Trump met Gore was welcomed by his critics, such as Tony Schwartz, who co-authored Trumps The art of the deal and has been an unrelenting critic since. He told a TV interviewer he felt encouraged.

A group of scientists wrote a letter to Trump last week on climate change, urging him to respect the integrity of the research. We urge you to decide if you want your presidency to be defined by denial and disaster, or acceptance and action, it said.

Signed by more than 700 scientists and academics, the letter lists six steps Trump can take to help protect the nations economy, national security, and public health and safety.

Trump may already be listening. He told The New York Times last month that he has an open mind on the Paris Accord and that protecting air quality and crystal clear water is crucial.

But he has also repeated his resolve to get rid of environmental regulations put in place by the Obama administration to unshackle energy production, essentially by fracking. Trump has put this on his checklist for his first 100 days in office.

But his recent remarks and the meeting with Gore is signalling a shift that environmentalists are tracking with growing optimism and they look to Trumps daughter Ivanka as a partner, possibly their only one in Trump Tower.

She has been taking active interest in the issue and recently met actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who gave her a copy of Before The Flood, the 90-minute documentary on climate change he co-produced with Martin Scorsese.
President-elect Donald Trump has a new target: his own official ride after he moves into the White House. On Tuesday morning, he tweeted the order to Boeing for the new Air Force One jet should be cancelled because of high costs.

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! Trump posted.

He later explained the tweet: The plane is totally out of control. Its going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program and I think its ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.

The new aircraft  it is not clear how many, the current Air Force One fleet has two  are expected to be commissioned in 2023, which would be towards the end of a possible second term for Trump. The Air Force previously said it had earmarked $1.65 billion for two replacement jets.

While expensive, Air Force One is more than other 747s  the current fleet comprises 747-200s and the new ones will be 747-8. Todd Harrison, a defense analyst, told The Washington Post, I think once (Trump) sees an actual Air Force One and the unique capabilities it is outfitted with he may start to understand why it is so expensive to replace.

It is also a flying command post, Harrison went to say. In the event of a nuclear attack, this is where the military will keep the president safe.

The US Air Force awarded Boeing an initial contract worth $25.8 million in January. US presidents have used Boeing planes since 1943, according to the companys website.

The 747-8 planes, 240 feet long with a wing span of 224 feet, can fly direct from Washington to Hong Kong, 1,600 km farther than the current Air Force One.

(With inputs from agencies)
US tax records show that President-elect Donald Trumps son-in-law co-directs a family foundation that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish settlement organizations in the West Bank.

Trump has said Jared Kushner, who serves as a close adviser, could help negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The donations by Kushners parents foundation could complicate his ability to be an honest broker.

The Israeli daily Haaretz first reported the donations by Kushners parents foundation, which Kushner and his siblings direct with their parents.

Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for the Kushner companies, declined to comment on the donations to the settlement groups. She says the family is extremely generous and has given away over $100 million to charitable causes.
Two Muslim women working for authorities in New York suffered hate crimes just 36 hours apart, officials said Monday, following an explosion in such incidents across America since the election of Donald Trump.

A uniformed city transit employee was taken to hospital with injuries to her knee and ankle after being pushed down the stairs at Grand Central Station, the bustling rail hub in the heart of Manhattan, en route to work Monday.

A male suspect allegedly pushed the station agent and called her terrorist, said Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

On Monday, another man was held on a $50,000 bail on a hate crime charge after an off-duty Muslim police officer was harassed in Brooklyn while out with her 16-year-old son Saturday evening, prosecutors said.

Cuomo said a subway train was also found vandalized with swastika graffiti on Saturday and that Ku Klux Klan fliers and business cards were distributed at two stations on the Long Island Rail Road last week.

Cuomo and city mayor Bill de Blasio, both vehement critics of Trump, said hate crimes would be prosecuted and not tolerated.

De Blasio linked a rising number of incidents to rhetoric from Trump on the campaign trail disparaging illegal immigrants, women and Muslims.

Do I blame Donald Trump for using hate speech during his campaign? Absolutely. He did. Its a fact. He said horrible things about Muslims, horrible things about Mexican Americans, he told reporters.

Police officer Aml Elsokary, who proudly wears her hijab on duty, appeared at a news conference alongside de Blasio, who has hailed her a hero for running into a burning building to help save a young girl and her grandmother.

I became a police officer to show the positive side of a New Yorker, a Muslim woman, that can do the job, Elsokary told reporters.

Im born and raised here and Im here to protect you, she added.

Around 900 Muslim Americans currently serve in the New York police department, the largest city force in the country.

Police said Monday that hate crimes were up 35% in the city from last year but that arrests in those cases were also up 45%. Most reported hate crimes are anti-Semitic, police said.

New York is Americas largest city and one of its most diverse with more than three million of its 8.55 million population foreign-born.

Nearly 900 incidents of hate and intolerance were recorded across the country in the first 10 days after Trumps election, many by assailants apparently emboldened by his victory, an advocacy group reported last week.

Trumps shock November 8 defeat of Hillary Clinton, who was bidding to become Americas first female president, was cheered by white supremacists and others fired up by his rhetoric.

The president-elect has since distanced himself from the white nationalist movement, telling The New York Times last month: I disavow the group.

Read | 437 hate crime incidents recorded against minorities since Trumps victory
A British court on Tuesday convicted a Belgian man living in Birmingham of giving money to Brussels and Paris terror attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini.

Zakaria Boufassil handed 3,000 pounds in cash to Abrini when the latter visited the city in central England in July 2015, with the knowledge that it would be used for terrorism, the court found.

Testifying at Kingston Crown Court in London last week, the 26-year-old admitted to meeting Abrini and to holding the money for his conspirator, Mohamed Ali Ahmed, but said he had no idea of its intended use.

Abrini, dubbed the man in the hat for his image caught on security cameras before the Brussels airport bombing, was questioned by Belgian investigators in April over his suspected involvement in the Brussels attacks in March and the Paris attacks in November 2015.

During his visit to Britain, travelling from Syria via Turkey, Abrini said he collected the money and visited casinos in Birmingham and in Manchester, northwest England.

I am a player, a fan of casinos... Its my addiction, I play roulette, poker and the slot machines, he said, according to transcripts of his interrogation that were read out in the British court.

But he denied the money was used for terrorism, saying it was too small a sum, adding: To carry out attacks you need lots of money.

Ahmed, also from Birmingham, had pleaded guilty to handing over the money last month and Boufassil said Ahmed had taken advantage of my naivety.

Speaking in French through a translator, Boufassil said last week he gave the money to Ahmed in a park in Birmingham, and stayed there smoking while he and Abrini went elsewhere.

He never told me that the person who was coming to get the money was a bad person. Had I known it I would never have kept the money, Boufassil said.

As a follower of Sufism, a mystic Islamic order that is viewed as heretical by hardline militant groups, Boufassil condemned the Islamic State group.

For me, those people are worse than animals, he said.

Boufassil, who also admitted to being a regular cannabis user, struggled to remember dates and times in cross-examination.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a rebellion among her own lawmakers when parliament debates whether the government should set out its Brexit plan before triggering formal divorce talks with the European Union.

May, who plans to kick off the exit process by the end of March next year, has said the government will not give a running commentary on its preparations for Brexit as this would damage its negotiating position.

The opposition Labour Party has put forward a motion, to be debated on Wednesday, calling on the government to publish its plan for leaving the bloc before it invokes Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty to begin the formal Brexit process.

The BBC reported that one former minister had predicted between 20 and 40 lawmakers from Mays ruling Conservatives could support the motion, which is not binding on the government but would increase pressure on it to be more open.

These things are incredibly important. This actually transcends party politics and tribalism. There is nothing in it which I dont agree with, remain-backing Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry told BBC Radio, referring to the motion.

The contents of that motion are eminently supportable.

While asking May to commit to publishing the governments Brexit plan, the motion also says there should be no disclosure of material that could be reasonably judged to damage the UK in any negotiations to depart from the European Union.

This is a real opportunity to finally get clarity on the governments plan for Brexit, Labour Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer, who put forward the motion, said in a statement.

Parliament and the public need to know the basic terms the government is seeking to achieve from Brexit. This issue is too important to be left mired in uncertainty any longer.

May avoided a parliamentary rebellion in October by agreeing to a motion that parliament would have opportunities to debate Brexit on the condition that it would not undermine her negotiating strategy.

When asked about Wednesdays debate, a spokesman for May said the government would not be setting out its plans before triggering Article 50.

We have been very clear that setting out the terms of our negotiation before we need to do so is the best way of getting the worst possible deal, he said.
The American Tamil Sangam (ATS) and the US Friends of AIADMK (USFAIADMK) have paid tributes to the late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Struggle was her middle name and victory was her last name, ATS President Prakash Swamy said in a statement. Recalling the various adversitites she had faced, he said: Her path was strewn with thorns and rocks but she overcame all with her unmatched grit and determination.

USFAIADMK President Koshy O. Thomas said Tamils all over the world have lost a leader who was a mother to them. We have become orphans and no words can console us, he added.

ATS Chairman John Joseph eecalled Jayalalithaas welfare programmes, especially for women and students, and said she was a charismatic leader.

Earlier ATS and USFAIADMK had held prayers for Jayalalithaas recovery at the Saneeswarar Temple in the city that was attended by Hindus and Christians.

In 2011, Hillary Clinton, who was then the Secretary of State, met Jayalalithaa at her office in Fort St. George in Chennai. A press release issued at that time said that they had discussed the problems of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and social welfare programmes.

An ATS press release said that at initiative of the then-Deputy Speaker Upendra Chivkula, the New Jersey State Assembly had issued a proclamation honouring Jayalalithaa after her election in 2011.
The United States military plans to return some land in Okinawa to the Japanese government by the end of the year, the largest transfer since 1972, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday.

Resentment over the US military presence surged this year after an American civilian working at a US base, Kenneth Franklin, was arrested over the murder of a 20-year-old Japanese woman, Rina Shimabukuro.

Carter made the announcement during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the capital, Tokyo.

A senior US defense official said the United States plans to return nearly 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of land in northern Okinawa, with a formal ceremony for the return set for Dec. 21 and 22.

It will be a positive development for the alliance, demonstrating the commitment of both governments to the realignment of US forces, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It was the first announcement of a specific timeline for the transfer, which the US military had said in July it was preparing for.

Okinawa, which was under US occupation until 1972, hosts the bulk of the approximately 50,000 US military personnel in Japan.

Although agreed in 1996, the return of the land was delayed by protesters blocking the construction of helipads. The Japanese government recently resumed work at the site.

Carter is in Japan to try to sooth anxieties caused by the victory of President-elect Donald Trump, who has called for allies to pay more to sustain US forces, or face their possible withdrawal.
The Chinese state media blasted Donald Trump on Tuesday for his tweets on trade, currency devaluation and the South China Sea, with an academic arguing that any effort by the president-elect to ramp up US-India ties would not impact China.

The tirade against Trump, led by the Communist Party of China mouthpiece Peoples Daily, included phrases such as diplomatic rookie and treating China as a fat lamb.

Trumps tweets on Sunday targeted China for devaluing its currency, taxing imports from the US and building military installations in the South China Sea.

The tweets were preceded last week by his phone conversation  which broke a nearly four-decade protocol  with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, which China claims as a breakaway province.

Provoking friction and messing up China-US relations wont help make America great again, said a front-page opinion piece in the Peoples Dailys overseas edition.

The nationalistic tabloid Global Times too ran a front-page opinion piece damning Trumps provocation and falsehood. The piece was headlined: Trump wants to treat China as a fat lamb... Forget about it!

It said, No matter what the reasons are behind Trumps outrageous remarks, it appears inevitable that Sino-US ties will witness more troubles in his early time in the White House than any other predecessor. We must be fully prepared, both mentally and physically, for this scenario.

The state-controlled English-language China Daily warned that diplomatic rookie Trump would create costly troubles for the US if he didnt moderate his behaviour. As president-elect, Trump can expect some forgiveness even when he is shooting from the hip. But things will be different when he becomes president.

In another opinion piece in the Global Times, a Chinese academic wrote that India-US relations will be an important part of Trumps diplomacy. But these ties will have little impact on China as Trump is expected to recalibrate security cooperation between Washington and New Delhi, said Li Haidong from the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University.

The outlook for India-US trade ties does not look good either, Li said, adding they too will have little impact on Chinas influence.

To sum up, US-India relations during Trumps term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the (Barack) Obama administration will be changed due to Trumps adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China, Li argued.

Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on Chinas influence on regional trade.

Not that, according to Li, Trump will give less importance to India. But two aspects  one, his domestic compulsions and, two, Indias non-aligned foreign policy  could trump the ties.

US-India relations will become an important part of Trumps diplomacythe Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India. However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease, Li wrote.
It's almost time for Christmas and the countdown has already began. It has been a custom for some time, where the whole internet to begins tracking the Christmas Santa.

NORAD and Google have set up websites for tracking Christmas' Santa Claus. What's believed as a Christian tradition of Santa Claus personally delivering the gifts himself is the intention of the two websites to track it.

The website has a live image representation mainly based on flash explaining how the process takes place. People will be able to watch Santa and his reindeers fly around the world on the website.

Google's website will have a more materialistic design than the NORAD. Both the American websites include a lot of fun packed activities for each calendar day where visitors can unlock a new interactive game each day until Christmas.

Coming to NORAD's site, there's a cinematic display where people can watch films and listen to Christmas carols on their music stage. There's a separate informative library where users can learn about Santa Claus and the holiday traditions that is celebrated differently worldwide. There's also animated display where people can shop for gifts which include clothing and personalized membership card and letters.

Google Santa tracker shares similarities with the majority of the process except that Google's site is loading much quicker due to their simple and materialistic design. The main page contains a village that also can be unlocked on a day-to-day basis.

Users can play two dancing games on their website. The timer on the mainpage indicates about when Santa will be taking off. Since Google encourages people to code, there's a special game for creating a snowflake which is challenging but innovative by the Mountain view firm.

This event will be live until Christmas where there will be special events introduced daily. There are reports that Google will unlock some new experiences on or before Christmas.

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After a few reports that suggested the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton isn't happy with Prince Harry's new Girlfriend Meghan Markle, another strong rumor is heating up the Kate Middleton- Meghan Markle feud.

Prince Harry's relationship is no longer a secret thing, though it seems they don't have much time to spend for each other. Rumors say that Middleton has denied Prince Harry's plea to have his new girlfriend Meghan Markle join the Royal Christmas Celebrations.

Although, there have been few reports that suggest the rumors are not very true, since the Royal family has their own rules. Royal expert Katie Nicholl revealed that its too soon to have Meghan join the Royal family at their Sandringham House.

Nicholl also noted that Markle has the same kind of situation as Middleton had few years back in time. "Harry knows the rules of the royal family and he knows that until they get engaged, Meghan will not have a place around that Christmas dinner table," Nicholl said.

It seems that Markle will most probably not join the Royal Christmas celebrations this year. However, many still believe that she should not take it personally and increase the feud with the Duchess Kate Middleton. We should also remember Middleton had to wait 10 years during the time of her with Prince William.

The Britain's prince Harry and the actress Markle have been dating for past few months now, which clearly means its not her right time yet. She has to wait until they do engagement. The couple although, is taking things slowly and they also have their plans for long-term togetherness.

The prince is currently on tour and they will probably squeeze their time together before Christmas. It seems that Harry is really serious with the actress.

The only question remaining now, will Prince Harry engage with Markle or continue with Middleton? Coming few months should be fascinating.

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The most unlikely pairing of Prince Harry and Rihanna during his recent visit to Barbados for his Caribbean tour has hit fans and thrown up some bizarre requests.

The pair had great fun during their special concert to help mark Barbados' 50th anniversary of independence. "At one point, Rihanna was even seen teasing and flirting with Harry when they volunteered to take HIV tests to highlight World Aids Day," according to celebdirtylaundry.

Excited fans flooded Kensington Palace's Instagram account, asking the pair to team up, although it was the first time the two were meeting. Some even called them a "match made in heaven". The advice is that "they should 'make babies' with each other."

All that is just idle speculation, of course. Prince Harry is smitten and serious about his girlfriend, Meghan Markle. He wouldn't by the remotest stretch of imagination replace her with anyone.

Moreover, how would Queen Elizabeth give her blessing for such a tie? She is already having her hands full with his dating of Meghan Markle. The royal couple, Prince William and Kate, have brought her other problems, say rumors. The Queen would not want the royal name to be tarnished with more gossip. She also wouldn't want a famous star in the family. Instead, she would be looking for a member who is "passionate and engaged in their charity work and royal duties and responsibilities." A number of inside sources have even said that Kate doesn't meet the mark. So would the Queen be able to brook another star who is far removed from her expectations?

Finally, it would not be any surprise if Meghan Markle too is furious that either Prince Harry has hooked up with Rihanna, or even that there is any reason, or just speculation, for fans to think so. It is obvious that the immensely popular Prince Harry would be alluring to Rihanna. But can Meghan tolerate anything beyond a cursory relationship between the two?

Certainly not! What do you think?

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The heavy schedule of Prince William and Kate Middleton have been putting a heavy burden on the Royal couple. Queen Elizabeth has been making the life of the Royal couple more difficult by giving them assignment apart while insisting that the Duchess should be pregnant soon. Also, the pressure of the public analyzing every move they make is a heavy burden for Kate.

Reportedly, Prince William is constantly arguing with his wife about their kids and the meddling of her mother Carole Middleton towards their family life. As per Hollywood Gossip, Carole Middleton has constantly been pushing her daughter Kate to get pregnant again. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been planning to have three or four children but because of her difficult pregnancy, they decided to not get pregnant again.

Prince William does not want Kate Middleton to get pregnant with their third child because he is terrified about the possibility of his wife suffering from postpartum depression. A source said to Celebrity Laundry, "The Duke of Cambridge is hesitant when it comes to having a third baby with the Duchess, and might even be worried Kate's rush to get pregnant again may be for the wrong reasons."

On the other hand, there are reports claiming that have the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are fighting over money since Queen Elizabeth financially cut them off after not attending Prince George's birthday. Her Majesty, who has been in disapproval of the Duchess of Cambridge since the beginning, has set a condition for the couple to have a third child in order to be able to get back into the queen's circle.

As for Kate Middleton and Prince William's divorce, there have been tons of rumors circulating online. However, there is still not enough proof that the Duke and Duchess are really heading to splitville.

Kate Middleton and Prince William have been very private about their life and they seem happy and satisfied to spend quality time every chance they get.

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Pangu is once again in focus as the month of December is officially here. With recent weeks the building on a potential iOS 10 jailbreak tool, the Chinese hacking group has to either put up or shut up.

It was previously made known that Pangu finally has a working iOS 10 jailbreak that is filled with new features. Highlighting those features is the ability to make the supposed Apple crack compatible with most devices.

Apple's iOS 10.2 is now on public beta 6, which many jailbreak fans could mean that Pangu is inching closer into finalizing the hacking group's Jailbreak tool. However, jailbreaker Luca Todesco has warned other jailbreakers to stay away from Apple's latest update. Updating to the newest firmware may seem profitable to many as they believe updating would make their device safe and secure.

According to WCCFTech, the latest iOS beta is watertight in terms of security and those who don't care about a jailbreak can go ahead with the update. It goes without saying that the best chance of not being locked out from a future jailbreak release is sticking to iOS 10.1.1.

By making the iOS 10 jailbreak code an open source, that means others can do necessary tweaks as they please. So, this could hint at a possible raw Apple crack, with Pangu indirectly seeking help from the other hackers.

Latest reports also claim that there could be something more in the pocket. Pangu will allegedly come out with an open source iOS 10 jailbreaks, which sends mixed signals.

Moreover, the Apple jailbreaking community will likely care less and what most want to see is a fully functional iOS 10 jailbreak out in the open. Most have seen videos put up by aspiring hackers, which have been not really helpful in the jailbreaking.

The inability of hackers to make the iOS 10 jailbreak milestones public has been frowned upon as most are waiting on Pangu or TaiG to come out with a working crack. This possibly could happen this month; then again, maybe not.

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Prince Harry was scheduled to fly back home to London from Barbados on Sunday. However, he went to Toronto to spend the night with girlfriend Meghan Markle. It seems that redheaded prince is head over heels for his girlfriend since he made a 1,700-mile diversion to see her on his way back to London from his tour of the Caribbean.

According to the Daily Mail, 32-year-old prince was scheduled to fly home to Britain from Barbados on Sunday in time for an official engagement tomorrow. But instead, the royal stopped off in Toronto to spend the night with actress Miss Markle. She is currently based in the city while filming US legal drama "Suits".

The surprise visit probably can explain why Miss Markle appeared in such good spirits as paparazzi snapped photos of her while purchasing fresh flowers on Saturday, a day before Prince Harry flies to Toronto.

A source close to prince told The Sun, "Harry just couldn't wait to see her. He was due to fly back to London on a British Airways flight with the rest of his entourage. But he changed his mind and diverted straight to see her as they couldn't bear to be apart."

The source added saying, "It's just another sign of how head-over-heels he is about her. He is absolutely besotted. We've never seen him so happy - it's great."

The couple hasn't made an official appearance together yet, but Miss Markle continues to drop subtle hints about their new and sweet relationship on social media.

Despite that the couple has not received an official anointment of their relationship yet from the royals, everyone can see that Prince Harry is head over heels and madly in love with Meghan Markle.

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While China has downplayed the impact of the phone conversation between incoming US President Donald Trump and Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-Wen, Beijing will continue to be cautious about the movements of the new American administration. It can be recalled that the newly-elected leader's communication with Taipei has stirred controversy regarding the Mainland's 'One-China policy.'

Although a long-standing political protocol has been breached, observers believe that a major change in US foreign policy is not in the horizon. It is highly likely that Washington will sustain its official relations with the Chinese which came into fruition when the US ended diplomatic connections with Taiwan in 1979.

According to Bonnie Glaser, a Senior Adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, aside from keeping a close eye on Trump, it is anticipated that China will issue hints of consequences about similar incidents in the future.

William Stanton, former Director of the American Institute in Taiwan, shares that it is possible that the communication patch to Taiwan has been mapped earlier. Complications may have been averted if the gesture was done immediately after Trump's victory at the polls considering that such move can be identified as a congratulatory pitch.

Although a diplomatic protest has been filed, it is intriguing to know how Beijing has kept itself from fuming or overreacting. The giant country may have alleviated the impact through a statement from Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang which said that Trump's group knows fully well where China stood position on the issue.

Meanwhile, Shi Yinhong, an expert on US-China relations at Renmin University, points out that Beijing's tolerance indicates goodwill to the new American leader but countermeasures will be implemented if Trump breaches another boundary.

Moreover, Shen Dingli, an International Relations Professor at Fudan University, states that China can use the North Korean sanction, which Beijing supported, in dealing with the new administration.

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Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale is hitting the MLB news nowadays. Many believe that being one of the sought-after closers, numerous teams are chasing him and are looking to add him to their lineup. Now, reports are spreading that he is allegedly signing with the Washington Nationals him this winter.

The 5-time MLB All-Star Sale have been the hot topic as of late for being a high-value player at a young age of 27. Sale had a winning record of 17-10 together with averages of 3.34 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, and 233 strikeouts while striking 9.25 batters per nine in the 2016 regular season. Despite that figures, reports are saying that White Sox are ready to part ways with him this offseason.

And now, it is only a matter of time that his imminent transfer will happen much earlier. According to MLB Daily Dish, the Washington Nationals and Chicago White Sox are currently in deep talks about Chris Sale and have a "legitimate chance" that both teams will reach an agreement for his immediate transfer to the Nats camp.

The latest MLB news reported also says that the Nationals are willing to give up a package of Lucas Giolito and Victor Robles in exchange for Sale however the White Sox temporarily hold the deal as they thought that the Nats will also include Trea Turner in the offer. But now, it seems that both teams are working to come up a more feasible option without Turner included.

As per Fansided, the Nats are really closing in of signing Sale in contracts. If things keep going its way it could be a done deal sooner than everyone thought. The Nationals are said to be having a hard time finding success in the postseason having a problem on their pitching staff.

But with the arrival of Sale, it will definitely boost their lineup in the pitcher's mound which already includes Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg and could end up paying dividends come 2017 regular season, giving them a chance to fight for the World Series title.

Will Chicago White Sox and Washington Nationals reach an agreement that involves starting pitcher Chris Sale? Stay tuned for the latest MLB news and updates.

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Male, Maldives -- Katara Hospitality has taken the title of World's Leading Hospitality Company at the World Travel Awards Grand Final 2016.

The Middle Eastern hospitality giant was crowned during a glittering event at The Sun Siyam Iru Fushi in the Maldives in front of an audience of over 250 hospitality leaders from around the world.

Also recognised was Abu Dhabi flag-carrier Etihad Airways, taking the title of World's Leading Airline for the eighth time in succession.

Saint Petersburg, itself preparing to host the World Travel Awards Europe Gala Ceremony 2017, was also honoured, taking the title of World's Leading Cultural City Destination.

World Travel Awards President Graham Cooke said: "It has been a real honour to return here to the Maldives, and in particular to bring the Grand Final to Sun Siyam Iru Fushi for the first time. We have seen the best of international tourism recognised here at the resort tonight.

"More than 1.1 million votes were cast during our Grand Tour 2016, both from members of the public and from within the hospitality industry, and these voices have been heard.

"My congratulations to all of our winners this evening and I look forward to greeting many of you next year as we begin our search anew."

From North America, Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority took the title of World's Leading Meetings & Conference Destination, while Miami Beach Visitor & Convention Authority walked away with the World's Leading City Tourist Board title.

Host Maldives was recognised by voters from around the globe as the World's Leading Beach Destination.

HNA Tourism Group shone the spotlight on the rapid development of Chinese hospitality, taking the title of World's Leading Integrated Tourism Group.

In South America, Ecuador was awarded the trophy for World's Leading Green Destination.

Frasers Hospitality was honoured with the title of World's Leading Serviced Apartment Brand, while Europcar took the title World's Leading Green Transport Solution Company.

Partners for the Grand Final 2016 included Sun Siyam Group, Trans Maldivian Airways, SriLankan Airlines, Ooredoo, and St. Petersburg Committee for Tourism Development.

TV5 Monde acted as the World Travel Awards' Intentional Broadcast Partner.

World Travel Awards was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry.

Today, the World Travel Awards brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

Each year World Travel Awards covers the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognise and celebrate individual and collective successes within each key geographical region.

World Travel Awards Gala Ceremonies are widely regarded as the best networking opportunities in the travel industry, attended by government and industry leaders, luminaries, and international print and broadcast media.

For more information about World Travel Awards, please visit the official website, or find a complete list of Grand Final 2016 winners here.

About World Travel Awards

WTA was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry.

Today, the WTA brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

Each year, WTA covers the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognise and celebrate individual and collective success within each key geographical region.

WTA gala ceremonies are widely regarded as the best networking opportunities in the travel industry, attended by government and industry leaders, luminaries and international print and broadcast media.

For more information about WTA visit worldtravelawards.com
Inspired by a wealth of data, traveller endorsements, reviews, preferences and insights as well as industry leading understanding and innovation in e-commerce travel technology, the experts at Booking.com shed light on 8 major travel predictions for 2017. Read on to find out what holiday makers and business travellers can expect to experience in the year ahead.

1. Instant Gratification 2.0

Technology is fuelling a more demanding and impatient traveller. 44%* of travellers already expect to be able to plan their holiday in a few simple taps of their smart phone and over half (52%*) expect their use of travel apps to increase in 2017. With this, we're increasingly looking to technology to eradicate any and all on-the-road niggles, deliver answers to our specific needs in the moment and enhance our experience with recommendations and short-cuts we haven't even thought of. The coming year will see this expectation addressed in an unprecedented way. From finding the nearest ATM or available Wi-Fi to queue jumping at top attractions and getting on-the-go advice on how to get over jetlag, meaningful functionality in palm-based technology will abound. And with all of the exciting new developments in machine learning and AI, our favourite go-to apps will go beyond mere functionality and evolve into real companionstravel besties, if you will, capable of predicting our own unique needs and catering to them before we even have to ask. Use of smart, instant message technology that moulds to our preferences to solve every question and wish in real-time, regardless of where we choose to stay, will become second nature. Seamless assistance at your fingertips.

2. Getting to Business

The 'bleisure' boom is well and truly underway, and 2017 will see a further upswing not only in the blurring lines between leisure and business travel, but in the value we attach to workplace travel opportunities. Of the 40%* of global travellers who journeyed for business this year, 46%* think they will travel even more for business in 2017. More than business suites and PowerPoint presentations, 49%* of business travellers already extend their business trips to further enjoy the destination, while three quarters (75%*) intend to do so the same or more in the coming year. No longer seen as lost time or a career inconvenience, business travel is increasingly appreciated as an opportunity to expand horizons, find inspiration and progress in a career. So much so that 30%* of travellers would even accept a lower paid job if it meant they could travel more for work!

3. Appetite to Discover

The discovered world has many undiscovered places and 2017 promises to see travellers unleashing their inner explorer like never before. 45%* plan to be more adventurous in their choice of destination in the coming year, while 47%* would like to explore corners of the globe that none of their friends have been to. Whether it's trekking into a remote mountain village or finding a gem of a guest house on the other side of tracks, we're seeing evidence all round of an ever-growing appetite to embrace undiscovered environments in an authentic way. 56%* of travellers would like to do more independent travel in 2017, a trend particularly prevalent amongst those from Brazil, India, the United States, China and Thailand.

4. Mind, Body and Soul

In a hectic world, people are increasingly seeing travel as a way to bring balance back into their lives. Almost half (48%*) see going on holiday as a moment to reflect and make better lifestyle choices. The coming year will see many travellers prioritising health conscious trips that promise harmony for the mind, body and soul - particularly those from India, China and Thailand. 44%* are interested to experience spa/relaxation travel and 38%* in a health/wellbeing travel experience in 2017. The days of leaving paid holidays on the table at the end of the year are fading even in the most demanding work cultures, with over half (51%*) intending to take more of their annual leave in the coming year than this year. Accommodations across the world are upgrading their offerings to match this growing demand. In 2017, it won't be uncommon to find a diverse range of SanctuStays, accommodations ranging from villas to apartments, resorts and more, offering complementary meditation facilities, health spas, wellness workshops and outdoor facilities to promote a holistic lifestyle and clearer path to self-discovery.

5. Go Green or Stay Home

Sustainable travel means many things to many people, but there's no denying the trend for both travellers and accommodations becoming more environmentally and sustainably aware as well as responsible. The coming year will see over a third (36%*) of travellers planning to choose more eco-friendly travel options than they did in 2016 and nearly 2 in 5 (39%*) interested in an eco-tour travel experience. This mirrors the way in which people are increasingly finding ways to fulfil their aesthetic travel needs while maintaining cultural and environmental integrity by taking longer, more scenic routes and modes of transport. Eco-friendly stays are no longer the preserve of the few, but an expectation of the many. As the year progresses we will likely see increased discussion around economic incentives such as tax breaks for eco travellers (41%** of travellers would be in favour), introduction of an international standard for sustainable accommodation (41%* in favour) and transport providers giving travellers more information about carbon offsetting (26%* in favour).

6. Simple Pleasures

Travellers in 2017 will be inspired by their own aspirations rather than material possessions. If fact, 58%* of travellers plan to prioritise spending on experiences rather than material possessions while they are on holiday in 2017. Travellers are also becoming less interested in fancy embellishments and more interested in the small moments and simple pleasures of a journey. Only 10%* of travellers said that a butler/concierge service was essential to enjoy their travel experiences in 2017. Fancy, high-end toiletries also appear to be a thing of the past as only 13%* of travellers said that these would be essential to enjoying their travel experiences in 2017.

7. The Human Touch

As the ying to technology's yang, interacting with amazing staff and forging genuine relationships on holiday will be an increasingly important hallmark of travel in 2017. 42%* of travellers assert that they wouldn't stay in an accommodation without friendly/helpful staff, while accommodations such as B&Bs and Ryokans look set to continue as the most highly rated by visiting travellers. Our reliance on those who've gone before remains undiminished with 40%* of travellers confirming that they would not stay in an accommodation with more than three negative reviews. 2017 travellers are starting to understand that human touch is irreplaceable and crave this human interaction to make their holiday memorable. As a result, we can expect to see meaningful human interactions becoming the currency of travel in the months ahead, prompting huge advances in chat bot technology to match the warmth, personality and spontaneity of real human communication and connections.

8. Fly Me to the Moon

Travel has become a lifestyle, not a luxury for increasing numbers, and it's unsurprising that we are starting to see people's desires to explore go beyond this world. In fact, 44%* of people see a future where we'll be holidaying in far flung corners of the galaxy or deep under the ocean, which may not be as far off as one might think. High-speed rail continues to advance and is scheduled to connect travellers to the remote corners of northern Africa. NASA is investing in a supersonic passenger aircraft that will allow for faster, greener, safer and quieter air travel. Not to mention, a Tesla autopilot-enabled vehicle is scheduled to "drive" from Los Angeles to New York in the summer of 2017. These advances are steadily stoking our imaginations, as well as our collective desire to explore beyond the horizon - who knows what new additional frontiers will open up for us over the coming year

"Experiencing the unknown, encountering different people and cultures, and testing new limits has always been at the core of what drives us to travel and 2017 is certainly shaping up to be an exciting year," said Pepijn Rijvers, Chief Marketing Officer at Booking.com. "2017 travellers will have an insatiable appetite for adventure, but are also mindful of the impact those experiences can have on the local culture and issues surrounding sustainability. While we crave highly personalised human interaction and familiar comforts, we're also expecting emerging technologies to enhance our experiences and get us closer to the things we care about faster and more intelligently. Whether it's the other side of the planet or just down the street, we want to dig deeper, seeking authenticity and a real sense of connection at every step along the way. For us at Booking.com, it's not just about the destination in 2017, it's about the entire journey, and finding new ways to empower travellers through technology to express and savour their own unique travel lifestyle at every possible moment."

8 Big Travel Predictions for 2017  Photo by Booking.com

*According to data collected by Booking.com with 12,781 respondents across 13 markets in September 2016. Respondents had to be 18 years of age or older, had to have travelled at least once in 2016 and had to be planning at least one trip for 2017. All respondents had to consider themselves part of their travel decision-making process.

**According to data collected by Booking.com across 10 markets in March 2016, with 1,000 respondents in each. Respondents had to be 18 years of age or older, had to have travelled at least once in 2015 and be planning at least one trip for 2016. All respondents had to be at least part of the decision-making process when planning most of their trips.

Part of Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), Booking.com's mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world whenever it's safe to do so again. By investing in the technology that helps take the friction out of travel, Booking.com seamlessly connects millions of travelers with memorable experiences, a range of transportation options and incredible places to stay - from homes to hotels and much more. As one of the world's largest travel marketplaces for both established brands and entrepreneurs of all sizes, Booking.com enables properties all over the world to reach a global audience and grow their businesses. Booking.com is available in 44 languages and offers more than 28 million total reported accommodation listings, including more than 6.4 million listings of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay. No matter where you want to go or what you want to do, Booking.com makes it easy and backs it all up with 24/7 customer support.

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, like us on Facebook, and for the latest news, data and insights, please visit our global media room.
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LUMAs new website is powered by HeBS Digitals award-winning, proprietary smartCMS v7 technology. This includes a complete Merchandising Platform, featuring Reservation Abandonment Applications and a Smart Personalization Engine for targeted, one-to-one marketing.

Shining bright in the heart of Midtown Manhattans Times Square, the brand new LUMA Hotel Times Square has partnered with HeBS Digital to launch a vibrant, user-friendly, responsive website that highlights this innovative property and its iconic address. This new urban oasis in Times Square, which features artful rooms with expansive windows and on-site dining at Ortzi, now has a strong web presence that seamlessly blends information about the hotel and area with high-res photos and easy booking features to serve both business and leisure guests seeking accommodations in the heart of New York City.

LUMAs new website is powered by HeBS Digitals award-winning, proprietary smartCMS v7 technology. This includes a complete Merchandising Platform, featuring Reservation Abandonment Applications and a Smart Personalization Engine for targeted, one-to-one marketing. The website also features intuitive sidebar navigation, search-engine optimized copy, and a thorough area guide that highlights the legendary attractions and activities within easy reach of the hotel.

One of the most enviable features of the smartCMS v7 is the amount of control it grants hoteliers. Designed specifically for the hospitality industry, this pioneering technology includes total control over visual, promotional and textual content; supports multi-brand, chain, multi-property and single property websites; features a reservation recovery module to win back abandoned reservations; and includes a Smart Booking Widget to provide a reservation process that inspires direct bookings.

Paired with results-driven marketing campaigns that have earned HeBS Digital more than 400 prestigious industry awards for its digital technology, website design and marketing services, the new LUMA Hotel Times Square Website is destined for success.

Explore the website here.

This article originally appeared on HeBS Digital.
Holiday Inn London - Kensington Hotel Opens

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced the opening of Holiday Inn London - Kensington, one of the largest Holiday Inn hotels in Europe.

Featuring 708 bedrooms, the hotel is ideally located on the doorstep of the city's most popular landmarks with cultural attractions including Kensington Palace, Royal Albert Hall and South Kensington's host of museums all nearby. Holiday Inn London - Kensington is also positioned in one of the capital's prime shopping hotspots, with Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges within easy reach for people on the hunt for gifts in the lead-up to Christmas. Visitors from abroad can also access Heathrow airport via Paddington Railway Station, which is less than 15 minutes away.

At the heart of the hotel is a central open space area providing a flexible environment where guests can eat, drink, work, relax, socialise and have fun. Guests can enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner in Boulevard Restaurant, which serves an array of delicious modern European cuisine, whilst The Lounge bar offers a selection drinks and light dishes. As always with Holiday Inn, Kids Stay & Eat Free*.

The hotel also includes 13 meeting rooms accommodating up to 250 people, with the latest in audio visual equipment. Other features include an Imagine Health Club and Spa with an 18 metre swimming pool, steam room, relaxing Jacuzzi, sauna and gym. Free Wi-Fi enables guests to stay connected throughout their stay and LCD TV's with satellite in-house movies feature in every guestroom.

Mike Greenup, Vice President Brand Management, for Holiday Inn, commented: "We are thrilled to be opening the doors to Holiday Inn London - Kensington right in the heart of London. With 708 rooms it's one of our biggest hotels in Europe and highlights the exciting momentum behind the brand's growth across the region. At Holiday Inn we believe the joy of travel is for everyone and look forward to Holiday Inn London - Kensington becoming the hotel of choice whether guests are on the trip of a lifetime, a family vacation or visiting London for business."

Zeljko Stasevic, General Manager, Holiday Inn London  Kensington, said: "Located just a stone's throw from Hyde Park and with the best of London right on the doorstep, we can't wait to welcome guests from across the globe who are visiting our vibrant capital. With wonderful rooms, state of the art conference facilities and Imagine Health Club and Spa, we have everything covered whatever the reason for a stay in this incredible city."

Holiday Inn guests can take advantage of IHG's Lowest Price Promise  a guarantee that guests will get the lowest rate when they book directly with IHG Rewards Club. Rates for a standard double room start from 99.

*Offer valid for kids aged 12 and under. Maximum four per group.
Fast growth but low market share for sharing accommodation platforms  Experts see major impact on residential accommodation

So-called sharing accommodation providers may be growing fast but they still have a relatively low share of the overall hospitality market in Europe. Their main impact is in cities where they generate significant numbers of visitors but also reduce residential accommodation, according to experts. Those were some of the results of the 24th World Travel Monitor Forum.

Only 3 percent market share for sharing accommodation

The so-called sharing economy has boomed in recent years with the rise of firms such as Airbnb which have disrupted the leisure accommodation sector. However, they remain niche players, according to figures from the World Travel Monitor. In 2015, Europeans booked so-called sharing accommodation for 14 million outbound trips, which was a mere 3 percent of all their international trips. Nearly two thirds of these bookings were for apartments/flats and holiday homes, while only about 15 percent were for private rooms or B&B stays.

These apparently low figures may seem surprising considering how often sharing companies make headlines about their dynamic growth, but they also show the sizeable future potential for these players, commented Dr. Martin Buck, Messe Berlins Senior Vice President.

Is Airbnb sharing or commercial?

The largest and best-known sharing accommodation platform Airbnb now has about 3 million accommodation listings worldwide and is expanding into new business areas such as destination activities. But the US company has also faced widespread criticism that it is disrupting city centres and neighbourhoods by bringing in excessive numbers of visitors and effectively taking apartments out of the commercial rental sector by driving up prices. Diverse cities including Berlin have imposed new rules on commercial rental of private apartments to try to stop property-owners from renting to tourists through Airbnb and other providers instead of to local people or students. In response, Airbnb agreed at the start of December to enforce regulations designed to prevent hosts from renting properties in London for more than 90 nights a year and in Amsterdam for more than 60 nights.

Jeroen Oskam, research centre director at the Hotelschool The Hague, explained to the Pisa forum that Airbnb is primarily a commercial business, and now has a 10 percent share of all international arrivals in Amsterdam and nearly 8 percent in London. According to his in-depth analysis of Airbnbs bookings in four European cities (Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Madrid), more than 82 percent of Airbnb-listed accommodation is rented as the entire property, and less than 18 percent as a private room or a sharing room. Similarly, more than 80 percent of the accommodation is available for rent for more than 31 days a year, and a high proportion of listed accommodation is located in city centres, he said. In London, about half of all Airbnb units are offered by hosts with multiple properties. Airbnb combines a substantial part of commercial activities with a minority of authentic sharers. This means residents are displaced by tourists. So its unsharing. You reserve assets for tourists, Oskam concluded.

At the annual World Travel Monitor Forum in Pisa, initiated at the invitation of consultancy IPK International and sponsored by ITB Berlin, around 50 tourism experts and academics from around the world present the latest figures and current trends in international tourism.
Shia LeBeouf has impressed many with his knack for multisyllabic rhyme in two freestyles released over the course of the last month: his 5 Fingers of Death freestyle on Sway and a diss track directed at Peter Rosenberg, Lil Yachty, and Soulja Boy.

Soulja Boy advised LeBeouf to avoid Atlanta and stay silent lest this shit get real, but the actor has already responded in a new freestyle entitled Hat Trick.

Ill be in Atlanta when my schedule is flexible, he rhymes. Dealing with dummies, both of you should take some classes. The masses asked for this hat trick. Eating red vines and the guy who writes on sunglasses.

You got the demeanor of a vacuum cleaner, you suck, he informs Soulja before comparing him to a kumquat. He eventually concludes that his rhymes are all for fun and for free and he harbors no animosity against Soulja Boy. Listen to the full freestyle below.

Shia LeBeouf
Manning is serving a 35-year term in prison due to charges associated with information she released via WikiLeaks in 2010.

ANOHNI, the British-American artist formerly known as Antony & The Johnsons has released a new track, titled "Obama," along with a video and a message to the American president, asking for him to release whistleblower Chelsea Manning before he leaves office. She sings, "Now the news is you are spying/Executing without trial/Betraying virtues/Scarring closed the sky/Punishing the whistle blowers/Those who tell the truth."

Along with the video, ANOHNI posted a more detailed open letter to President Obama, stating "If you leave Chelsea Manning in prison for whistle blowing, You send the final message to our nation, that the Obama administration brutally punished moral courage, in these unforgiving United States. She has suffered Enough, President Obama. She poses no threat. Show us the heart of the Obama administration now."

Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence due to state secrets she released to the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks during her time as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. During her time in prison she came out publicly as a transgender woman. ANOHNI pleas in her statement to Obama, "Have mercy on her, Obama, friend of the trans community, I implore you to free Chelsea Manning."

The main concern for Manning and her supporters is the unknown of an impending Trump presidency, as Trump and his cabinet appointments have proven to be anti-transgender rights and utterly unforgiving to whistleblowers. In reference to Edward Snowden, Trump repeatedly said "kill the traitor" on the campaign trail. As ANOHNI says in her statement, "With Trump incoming, if you leave Chelsea in prison, she will never see the light of day, or worse."

"Obama" can be found on ANOHNI's new album Hopelessness, available now. Watch the video below.
Internationally acclaimed soprano Celine Byrne  who was recently asked to perform for Pope Francis  will end the year on a high note with a Christmas Gala at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin on 18 December.

Speaking about her invitation to perform for Pope Francis when he visits Ireland in 2018, Celine says: It is truly an honour for me to be asked to sing during this very special visit by the Pope.

"I have been fortunate enough to perform for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI  so Pope Francis will be the third Pope I have performed for.

The visit itself is long-awaited and I think it will bring a sense of rejuvenation and excitement to members of the church in Ireland.

Its been a fantastic year for Celine who  apart from receiving the news that shes been invited to sing during the Papal visit in 2018  performed recently with Jose Carreras in China and with Andrea Bocelli in the 3 Arena, Dublin.

After returning from concerts in Russia and China, the Irish sopranos festive concert, Celine Byrne Home for Christmas at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre will see her perform popular songs from the world of opera and operetta, such as O Mio Babbino Caro, Un bel Di from Madame Butterfly and Villia from The Merry Widow.

She will also sing festive favourites such as the haunting In The Bleak Mid-Winter, O Holy Night and White Christmas.

Celine  who has appeared everywhere from the London's Royal Albert Hall to New York's famous Carnegie Hall  will be joined on stage by her festive orchestra, which will be conducted by David Brophy.

I am so looking forward to this Celine Byrne Home for Christmas Show at the Bord Gais on December 18th. I know that conductor David Brophy will bring out the very best in me and the orchestra and it will be the perfect night to start everyones Christmas week, Celine says.

Tickets are from 28 - 75 and are on sale now from www.ticketmaster.ie 0818 719 377 (ROI) / 0844 847 2455 (UK & NI) or in person in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre.
George R. R. Martin, author of the world famous book series A Song of Ice and Fire, made an appearance at Mexicos Guadalajara International Book Fair this December and talked about the next novel of his series. But, bad news for the fans  there probably wont be a happy end.

Some readers of The Song of Ice and Fire series were feeling like George R. R. Martin was doing literally anything else but working on the new Game of Thrones book. The reason: The best-selling author already missed several deadlines for his sixth book The Winds of Winter.

Since his last novel A Dance with Dragons, which was published in 2011, fans were looking forward to Winds of Winter. The bad news is that Martin is still not able to give a date for the publication of his next book. He admitted that the long writing process sometimes isnt a lot of fun for him either. Sometimes I look back and say Did it really have to be Seven Kingdoms? The Five Kingdoms of Westeros, that would have been good, right?

And now, after a long time of waiting, his avid fans will probably have to face a rather bleak book. Martin told his readers on the Guadalajara International Book Fair not to hold their breaths for martial bliss or rainbows.

There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that Im writing, Martin revealed. It is called The Winds of Winter, and Ive been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places.

In any story, the classic structure is, Things get worse before they get better, so things are getting worse for a lot of people.

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So, a happy reunion with the Game of Thrones Characters? Probably not!

But fans may hope for some light relief in the seventh novel, which will be titled A Dream of Spring. In Mexico, Martin hinted that the final ending of his saga wont be as gruesome as many probably expect: Im not going to tell you how Im going to end my book but I suspect the overall flavour is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy.

The novels of George R. R. Martin inspired the hugely successful HBO series Game of Thrones, which will probably air its new season before Winds of Winter is released in the bookstores.
'60s psychedelic-rock returns to Dublin for a one night show.

Before you go and see Tonstartssbandht, perhaps learning how to pronounce the name would be of great service. The Floridian duo - expressed as 'tahn-starts-bandit' - is bringing their live boogie rock show to The Workman's Club this February.

Andy and Edwin White, the guitar/drum duo, gained momentum in 2009 when playing gigs in Montreal, Canada. From there, their self-released cassettes tightened their relationship with the Montreal-based Arbutus Records. Now, the brothers are living in Brooklyn, New York, where they continue to explore the human experience "embracing the sense of urgency, pain, and ecstasy."

Described as having a choral pop and '60s rock vibe to their sound, the band's musical influences derive from other psychedelic bands, such as the Tokyo based High Rise and punk band The Bomber.

Have a taste of their music with a live home version of 'Alright' and a live medley video that includes the songs 'Alright, 'Susie,' ''Dad Beating Up Dudes Downtown', 'Orlando 1991' and 'Black Sea.'

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For more of Tonstartssbandht, check out: https://tonstartssbandht.bandcamp.com

See the band at The Workman's Club on February 23, 2017

Tickets are 15 and on sale now through www.ticketmaster.ie
American indie rock band Wild Nothing will head to Dublin next February for a night at Whelan's.

Following the release of their critically acclaimed third album Life on Pause earlier this year, Wild Nothing are going on a UK & Ireland tour which will bring them to Dublin on February 28.

Their most ambition album yet, Life on Pause saw lead man Jack Tatum test his musical boundaries and produce something that embraces experimentation, executing a new brand of dreamy indie pop with perfection.

Look and listen to 'To Know You/TV Queen' from that album here:
The Service Employees International Union in Texas filed for bankruptcy protection this weekend, three months after a jury in Harris County slapped it with a $5.3 million judgement.

Professional Janitorial Service successfully sued the union, alleging that its aggressive organizing campaign went too far and maligned the commercial cleaning company's reputation. Brent Southwell, Professional Janitorial's CEO, said he's not deterred by the bankruptcy filing.

"The SEIU won't escape its fate after attacking my company," he said in a written statement. "We will keep this process going for as long as the SEIU wants, first by making them reveal their secrets and then by making the union's Washington, D.C. office pay for its sins."

The Texas branch of the nation's second-largest labor union filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition on Saturday in federal court in Corpus Christi. The filing halted any effort, at least temporarily, by the janitorial company to take possession of the union's assets to pay the damage award. It also allows the union to reorganize its finances and continue operating.

Since the jury's decision in September, the total amount the union owes Professional Janitorial Service has grown to $7.8 million, including interest of $2.5 million that has accumulated since the lawsuit was filed nine years ago. This debt grows by more than $1,000 a day.

The statewide union, which represents 3,500 janitors in Houston and has its headquarters here, warned that the judgment would put the group into a dire financial situation if it had to be paid.

"This filing ensures that our union will remain open for business, representing members at the bargaining table and maintaining the vital role the union plays in helping working Houstonians have a voice at work, protecting them from unfair employers, and building a better future for their families," according to a written statement from Elsa Caballero, president of SEIU Texas.

John Zavitsanos, a Houston lawyer with AZA Law representing the cleaning company, speculated that the union filed for bankruptcy protection because Professional Janitorial Service was getting too close to making the debt an obligation of the international union, rather than just the local. The international dictates everything the local union does, he said.

"The bankruptcy maneuver puts up a wall that we have to get over," he said.

Professional Janitorial Service claimed in its lawsuit that SEIU targeted the company as part of its "Justice for Janitors" organizing campaign and wrongly claimed it had violated wage, overtime and other labor laws. The jury agreed. The $5.3 million verdict represented the actual damages the janitorial company faced when it lost clients.

The union is appealing the judgment, arguing that its efforts to organize the Houston janitors was protected by free speech rights and federal labor law.

Typically a defendant in a civil lawsuit has to put up the amount of the judgement to pursue an appeal. SEIU Texas has asked the court for permission to post an appeal bond of $100,000 instead, saying it can't afford more because of its tenuous financial position.

Professional Janitorial Service argues the union should have to post $6.1 million to appeal because its international parent, with its $306.3 million in assets, funds its legal defense and is behind its "Kill PJS" campaign, according to court documents.

The company also introduced memos and other evidence that shows the international union was orchestrating a campaign against Professional Janitorial Service in Austin.

Caballero noted in a statement that SEIU Texas, while affiliated with the international, is a separate organization and has a separate board of directors.

The SEIU filing is not the first time a labor union filed for bankruptcy. The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers local union in Port Arthur filed for bankruptcy protection after a Texas appeals court in 1989 reinstated a $1.2 million verdict against the union after a striking worker was shot several times when he crossed a picket line.

Filing bankruptcy will cast a "black eye" on SEIU and will likely hinder its efforts to organize other workers , said Stephen Roppolo, an employment lawyer in Houston who represents management. Other unions may point to SEIU's bankruptcy as a reason not to join, he explained.

"I'm not sure on the effectiveness of the ploy," he said.
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Leaders of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s had an ultimatum for big Texas companies: Allow us to recruit your employees in the workplace, or we'll organize boycotts against you.

At the time, almost 50 percent of eligible white men in Texas were Klan members. There was even an official KKK Day at the State Fair in Dallas that 100,000 Klan supporters attended.

Senior Texas officials, including a U.S. senator, were proud members. Some companies even required Klan membership as a condition for employment. Back then, a Klan boycott could cripple a company, and many shamefully capitulated to the group's demands.

Last week Breitbart News, a website that frequently publishes white nationalist propaganda, called on readers to boycott food-maker Kellogg. Breitbart Chief Executive Officer Larry Solov branded Kellogg, the maker of Frosted Flakes and Pop-Tarts, as un-American.

What did Kellogg's do to earn Breitbart's ire? The company stopped advertising on the website.

"To be clear, our decision had nothing to do with politics," Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg, told Bloomberg News. The company stopped buying ads after customers complained about the site's content.

Breitbart's boycott of Kellogg, though, is a stunning case of political extortion. If Kellogg's doesn't give money to Breitbart, a website that until recently was managed by President-elect Donald Trump's top adviser, it will brand you un-American and try to put you out of business.

The campaign against Kellogg's also is a warning at other advertisers who are squeamish about their ads appearing next to articles promoting bigotry against Muslims or spreading lies about immigrants. Advertise with us, or else.

On the other hand, those of us who find bigotry un-American and oppose financially rewarding fake news organizations, want to see advertisers live up to their professed corporate values and refuse to give money to extremists.

There is a fundamental difference between companies boycotting Breitbart, and Breitbart boycotting companies.

An advertiser should not feel compelled to financially support a defective and harmful product, which in this case is Breitbart's content. There are plenty of other websites that accept advertising and provide a public service.

Breitbart crosses a line when they boycott a company not because of what it produces, but because that company won't give them money. The editors at Brietbart, after all, are not rejecting Kellogg as an advertiser because of the sugar content in Cocoa Krispies.

Breitbart's political connections, meanwhile, give the boycott a more menacing tone at a time when Trump is threatening retribution against companies that don't do what he wishes.

The KKK was one of the first groups to effectively use boycotts to push an extremist agenda. Ultimately, newspapers, business leaders and politicians revealed the Klan's evil agenda to the American public, and national membership in the group plummeted from 4 million down to tens of thousands in less than a decade.

The United States has seen these kinds of bully tactics before. American business people who believe in the values their companies espouse will find the moral courage to stand up for what's right.
SEATTLE - There is almost no aspect of retail that Amazon has not upended with online shopping. Now, the company is trying to computerize the experience of buying sandwiches and soda from the corner convenience store.

In the latest in its expanding set of experiments involving brick-and-mortar retail stores, Amazon has created a small grocery store in Seattle that will allow customers to pluck drinks, prepared meals and other items off shelves and walk out without having to wait in a checkout line, the company said.

Amazon said on its website that a smartphone app and various other types of technology in the store had eliminated the usual bottleneck of cashiers and registers that typically stand between shoppers and the store exit.

Employees only

For now, only Amazon employees can shop in the 1,800-square-foot store, which is on the ground floor of one of the company's new office towers in downtown Seattle. The company said that it planned to open the store to the public early next year and that it would offer chef-made meal kits with ingredients for quickly preparing dinners at home.

"Four years ago, we started to wonder: What would shopping look like if you could walk into a store, grab what you want and just go?" a narrator says in a video about the store concept, called Amazon Go, which the company posted online on Monday.

Amazon did not say what its expansion plans were for Amazon Go. If they are anything like the what the company has done with its other brick-and-mortar stores, new locations will open elsewhere slowly over time as Amazon learns how customers use the first one.

West Coast bookstores

Amazon opened its first physical bookstore just over a year ago in a Seattle shopping mall. It has added others in the San Diego and Portland, Ore., areas and has said it will open bookstores in Chicago and Boston.

It is also working on an another grocery store concept that would allow customers to order food items online and then pick them up quickly by pulling into parking stalls. Two such stores are under construction in Seattle, according to documents filed with the city's planning department and people with knowledge of the effort who asked for anonymity because the plans were confidential.

Pia Arthur, an Amazon spokeswoman, declined to comment on the grocery pickup locations.

In the grand scheme of Amazon's business, analysts consider the retail stores to be an infinitesimal portion of the more than $135 billion in sales expected from the company this year.

But the plans reflect a growing recognition by the company that certain categories of shopping are unlikely to move completely online.

In some cases, it is simply more convenient to buy items in a store or more attractive to browse for them on physical shelves.

Amazon still views technology as being useful in overhauling shopping in traditional retail shops. While the company has not said exactly how the Amazon Go stores will work, visitors will gain entry to them through a smartphone app.

Unanswered for now are questions about how the stores would handle shoplifting and whether there would be employees on hand to check identification cards for alcohol purchases.

E
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THE CONCEPT

Casual Rice Village ramen shop from Piran Esfahani, the proprietor of the Midtown's now-shuttered Tarakaan lounge. Esfahani sees Nao Ramen House as the model for potentially growing a Nao brand, including a quick Nao "express" type of store.

THE SPACE

Gone are the many TVs that littered the former sports-bar space (55 Bar & Restaurant). The new look is spare and modern with a dining room decorated by a wall of forest moss. Two communal tables dominate the floor with views of an open kitchen. There are about 60 seats in the dining room, 30 at the bar and 50 on the patio.

THE FOOD

Chef Rob Frias has fashioned a well-edited menu of small plates (dumplings, chicken wings), yakitori, bao and rice bowls. He put greatest effort into the ramen, naturally. Instead of one or two standard broths, Frias is offering four, including shoyu beef, pork tonkotsu, chicken and miso - the broths take 22-24 hours to make. He's also using the chicken broth to create a spicy red curry ramen bowl that may emerge as the restaurant's signature dish.

THE DRINKS

Full bar with a cocktail menu, modest wine list, sake and a selection of Japanese whiskey.

THE WORD

"There's still some whimsy that shows up in our kitchen," Frias says about his red curry ramen, which he describes as taking a slightly Thai direction with lemongrass and ginger notes as well as a Cajun and Tex-Mex twang. The heart of soup is the broth. "(Broth is) one of the things we do to separate ourselves from the pack and make us unique," he says.

ONE MORE THING

Nao opens at a time when Houston is getting its ramen slurp on.

Hawaiian chain Agu Ramen is opening three ramen stores here before the end of the year, with more to come in 2017. Cultish Austin shop Ramen Tatsu-ya opens in Montrose next year. Those concepts join an already crowded noodle city that includes the Seattle-based Samurai Noodle, which opened its second Houston outpost earlier this year in the Conservatory downtown; as well as ramen-offering restaurants such as Jinya Ramen, Tiger Den, Kata Robata, Soma Sushi, Cafe Kubo, Fat Bao and Jenni's Noodle House.

THE DETAILS

Nao Ramen House, 5510 Morningside, 713-526-1669; naoramen.com. Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays-Wednesdays; 11 a.m.-midnight Thursdays; and 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
If you think that traveling by train isn't your idea of a fun vacation, think again, says Eleanor Flagler Hardy, the president of the Society of International Railway Travelers, a Louisville, Kentucky-based travel agency specializing in trips by rail.

"Traveling by train is a fabulous way to see any country unfold, and you can truly relax onboard because you're not worrying about driving, directions or traffic," she said.

Here, she shares her top tips on planning an enjoyable train trip.

Pick the right train

There's a train journey for just about every type of traveler. For example, VIA Rail Canada and Rocky Mountaineer, both Canadian companies, offer the option of two- to three-day trips that are suited for families with younger children. Active travelers will appreciate the Gornergrat Bahn or the Glacier Express in Switzerland because their itineraries have the option to disembark and take hikes through the surrounding mountains, while those seeking a longer, more relaxed journey should consider Golden Eagle's 21-day Silk Road, which travels between Beijing and Moscow, or Rovos Rail's 15-day journey between Cape Town and Dar es Salaam.

All budgets are welcome

Train vacations can accommodate both luxury and cost-conscious travelers. Pricey train trips with high-quality service, multicourse meals paired with premium wines and deluxe accommodations include the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, which goes through various destinations in Europe, the Belmond Royal Scotsman, through Scotland, England and Wales, and the Eastern & Oriental Express, which includes a Bangkok-to-Singapore itinerary. For more affordable trips, Hardy recommended select Amtrak itineraries in the United States and any sleeper trains in Europe.

"You get the same gorgeous scenery and reliable service for a fraction of the price of a luxury train," she said.

Pack light

Minimizing your luggage is essential on a rail vacation, said Hardy, because most trains have limited storage space. Also, unless you're on a luxury journey, you're responsible for managing your own bags, and the fewer you have, the easier they are to handle. Hardy recommended taking no more than one small roller bag and small backpack per person.

Plan wisely

Avoid the three mistakes that rookie train travelers tend to make. First, show up for your trip at the right train station since many cities around the world have multiple train stations. Next, when it comes to an international train trip, although you may save money if you buy your ticket in the country you're going to be traveling in, don't. Instead, buy your ticket before you leave home because your desired train may sell out otherwise. Last, arrive at your train departure city one day before the departure and plan to stay one night at your destination after arrival.

"Flights can be delayed, and your train won't wait for you, and trains can be late, and you don't want to be ruining your relaxing time on the train worrying about making your flight," Hardy said.
A few weeks after I arrived in Lebanon to volunteer with Syrian refugees, I learned that my plan to offer an English class for both Lebanese and Syrian youth in the small town of Bqarzla was so sensitive as to require an audience with the village priest.

After Sunday mass in the village church, a fellow volunteer, SamerSyrian, Orthodox Christianand I were escorted to the high-ceilinged sitting room of the priests spacious quarters next door. A group of men wearing suits and smoking cigarettesvillage notables and friends of the priesthad been invited to join us. They greeted us amiably and invited us to sit.

The priest, or Abunaan honorific meaning Our Father in Arabiceventually emerged from an interior room, also in a suit, and bearing a pot of strong coffee, and commenced to smoke a cigarette. After we had dispensed the usual pleasantries, he asked me the American question that, prior to the election, I heard frequently. Inti ma Trump walla Clinton? (Are you with Trump or Clinton?)

Akeed mu ma Trump, I said. Huwweh majnoon. (Of course not with Trump. He is crazy.)

Abuna did not visibly react to my remark, but he and his friends launched into a spirited discussion in Arabic, which I only partially followed. Afterward, Samer told me that they had been opining that immigration was ruining America and that Trump would set things straight.

The conversation echoed others I had been privy to, focused on tensions around immigration in Akkar, a remote district in northeastern Lebanon on the Syrian border. A common complaint here is that the Syrians are taking jobs and hogging resources provided by the government and international aid organizations. Some Lebanese Christians I spoke with also told me they view the primarily Sunni Muslim refugees as a demographic threat. Lebanon has refused to hold a census since 1932 lest the findings upset the precarious balance in its political system, which parcels out its top leadership posts based on religion.

Clearly Abuna and his friends saw in Trump someone they believed would be sympathetic to their plight. Fortunately, our political differences did not prevent Abuna from granting my English class his seal of approval.

Bqarlza is tucked away in the hills of Akkar. The occasional army helicopters overhead are a reminder of the war next door, but the village itself is sleepy, surrounded by the olive groves that drive much of its economy. If you changed its language and the architecture, the Maronite Christian enclave could easily pass for a small Texas town. The streets outside of Bqarzla are littered with shell casings and sometimes bird carcasses left by the local men who go out shooting every morning before dawn. Young people hang out at a couple of pool halls and a pizza shop. The neighbors take note of whether you went to church on Sunday.

The backdrop of many conversations Ive had is a contentious history between Lebanon and Syria that dates back at least as far as 1976, the beginning of Syrias three-decade occupation of Lebanon, shortly after the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war. There remains a complicated and sometimes fluid map of loyalties for and against the Syrian regime in the Lebanese political system and society.

Perhaps because I am an American, perhaps because there is a sense of recognition across complicated political landscapes, these conversations frequently come back around to the U.S. election. Local Lebanese acquaintances in Akkar told me before the election that they liked Trump because he is a zelameh (real man) or that they didnt like either Trump or Clinton, but at least Trump would be something different. I might have heard the same things in any number of small towns back home.

A week before the U.S. presidential election, the Lebanese parliament settled on their own new president after a two-year standoff, and the battery of celebratory gunshots turned the streets of Akkar into a mock war zone. As supporters of Lebanese president-elect Michel Aoun commenced their jarring festivities, I was driving home from teaching a remedial French class to Syrian kids.

In the olive groves and empty lots in and around Bqarzla, Syrians live in scattered clusters of tents provided by the UNHCR, known in English as the United Nations Refugee Agency. Many of them, although registered as refugees, are not legally authorized to be in the country, leaving them in a tenuous position and largely restricted from traveling and working. For a couple of months in the fall most of them work the olive harvest, a brief bright spot before winter comes, the work dries up, and the rainy season tests the soundness of the plywood and plastic sheets reinforcing their makeshift homes.

From UNHCR, they get basic assistance with food and shelter. From the Lebanese government, they get the right to send their children to the local public school, which is largely abandoned by the Lebanese who send their children to private schools if they can scrape together the funds. NGOs like the one I volunteer with fill in some of the gaps, including supplemental classes to help children who are struggling in Lebanese schools.

Hassan Ammar

In an English class I was teaching at one of the informal refugee camps the week before the election, we practiced saying what we did and didnt like. Several of my Syrian students listed Trump among their dislikes, along with flies and traffic.

Mohammed, a quiet teenager from Aleppo with an easy smile, echoed my assessment of then-candidate Trump: Huwweh majnoon. (He is crazy).

The night before the U.S. presidential election, Samer and I dropped by one of the refugee camps in the olive groves outside of Bqarzla. We sat on the floor and drank black tea and mate with a group of young refugees from Hama.

It was cold and windy outside, but inside the tent, the family had set up their sobia, a wood burning stove, and the small room was soon warm enough that I took off my jacket. We didnt talk about the election or the war in Syria. The next morning, I stared at the television in a stupor as Trump made his acceptance speech, interrupted briefly by one of Lebanons frequent power outages. I suddenly felt very far from home.

During the next days adult English class with the refugees, I joked that I needed to look for a husband from Canada.

Why not Syria? they joked back. There are no problems there.



Abby Sewell is a freelance journalist based in Lebanon. She previously reported for the Los Angeles Times before relocating to Lebanon to volunteer with the NGO Relief & Reconciliation for Syria. She wrote this essay for Zocalo Public Square.



Bookmark Gray Matters. Huwweh majnoon.




I work in health care, and I teach about its management and health insurance. Since the presidential election, I've been asked lots of questions  the most common being: Will my family still have health insurance in 2017?

The question is not theoretical; it is heartfelt, sometimes a matter of life and death. With the House, Senate and presidency all controlled by Republicans, many of whom have vowed to erase the Affordable Care Act  "Obamacare"  people are justifiably worried that they could lose the insurance they depend on.

They want to know: Will I still have access to my doctor? to the nurse who helps me manage my diabetes? to an emergency room? to medicine? If Im diagnosed with a scary disease, will I be able to afford my care or will I go bankrupt? (Remember: The Affordable Care Act contains medical bankruptcy protections.)

The answers depend on how you're insured now, and plan to be in the future.

If you have insurance through your employer, as do most Texans and most Americans:

Yes, Employer Sponsored Health Insurance looks to remain stable, and your policy should remain in effect as long as you remain employed, your organization remains in business, and your premiums are paid.

But employer-sponsored insurance benefited from the Affordable Care Act, as some employees who previously declined their employer sponsored plans decided to join rather than pay a penalty for not being insured. That was good for everyone, since healthier employees create a healthier workplace.

If you have insurance through Medicare:

Yes, you will have Medicare in 2017.

Medicare, which provides insurance coverage mostly for Americans 65 and over, has benefited from the Affordable Care Act, just as employer-sponsored plans have, growing more financially stable, and with longer solvency expected.

But pay attention to proposed changes in funding, especially if you plan to use Medicare but are not yet Medicare-eligible. Big changes  such as privatizing Medicare and creating a voucher system  have been proposed for 2024 and beyond. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is a good option for more insight into Medicare.

If you have insurance through Medicaid:

Yes. Currently, Medicaid in Texas is mostly for low-income children and expecting mothers. If you receive Medicaid or CHIP today, and remain eligible in 2017, you will have access to Medicaid Managed Care in Texas in 2017, and hopefully beyond.

If you have private individual coverage:

Yes, for 2017.

If you have purchased insurance directly from a carrier licensed for private insurance in Texas, and pay full price (no subsidies or tax credits), it is likely that policy will continue in effect throughout 2017 and perhaps longer.

However, the individual coverage market is more chaotic than group coverage, so you might want to contact your U.S. Congressional representatives, President-elect Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and others in Washington, to tell them you like having health insurance.

If you have individual coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace (Obamacare):

I hope so.

The optimist in me says: Yes, for 2017, and maybe longer. The non-profit insurance CEO in me says: Sign up while you still can!

Some elected officials have chanted repeal and replace for so long, they probably will make changes to the Affordable Care Act. Among all the categories of coverage, this is most likely to change  which is unsettling for the more than 10 million Americans, and more than 1 million Texans, who have purchased their health coverage via the ACAs Marketplace.

If I were an entrepreneur, a small business owner, a part-time worker, or otherwise looking for individual coverage, I would purchase health coverage via Healthcare.gov. You might ask: If the system is going to change, why should we buy into it now? First, health insurance opens doors to care and helps us become and stay healthier. Second, its still the law and we still pay a penalty for being uninsured.

If you are uninsured:

You'll still be able to buy health insurance, but your options for acquiring insurance may change under the new federal administration. Depending on how new laws are written, premiums may go up for some groups and down for others, and essential benefits could be removed. As noted, I recommend buying a policy now via Healthcare.gov, or working with an insurance broker who specializes in health policies to find one now, while the current laws are in place.

If you are an uninsured adult and working at or near minimum wage:

Currently, you are in the Texas coverage gap. You have few options, since Texas decided not to expand Medicaid.

Texas, however, currently has its best, last opportunity to expand coverage to working adults through whats called a Medicaid 1115 waiver, and to guarantee a higher per capita rate of return in a potential block grant from the future administration.

If you dont have access to affordable health insurance now, raise your voice, call your Texas leaders, and ask them to expand coverage now, while they still can. Expanding coverage via a Medicaid waiver is good for you, and for the state budget.

If you dont want health insurance:

Some of my younger friends have asked, Does this mean I dont have to purchase health insurance anymore?

The individual mandate is still the law, so purchase and maintain health insurance or risk a penalty when you file your taxes. The individual mandate may be repealed or replaced, but frankly it exists for everyones good (including yours!). If a catastrophe strikes, you'll be glad that you're covered.

Last: Will we still have health insurance in 2018?

The more distant the future, the harder it is to predict. But for most of us, the answer is "probably yes."

Unfortunately, the folks most at risk beyond 2017 are the 1 million Texans who benefited from the Affordable Care Act and its subsidies. The laws currently in place mean that if you buy a 2017 policy in 2016, you'll remain insured in 2017 if you pay your monthly premiums.

While the new administration could take actions to undermine health laws, my colleagues and I hope they will leave the current general structure in place, with some much-needed improvements.

Assuming the president-elect leaves any Affordable Care Act 2.0 changes to Congress, we'll work with U.S. Reps. Kevin Brady, Gene Green, and other members of the Texas delegation to improve coverage options for Texans. Even if Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act, they are likely to give a two-year window for changes, which may mean our health insurance options look similar throughout 2017 and 2018.

Texans like having health insurance, and my colleagues and I are going to do our best to make sure you  and we  are covered, and have access to quality care.

Ken Janda (@HealthyTexans) is president and CEO of the nonprofit Community Health Choice, a managed-care organization headquartered in Houston, Texas, that serves both Medicaid and marketplace consumers. Janda also is an adjunct professor at Rice University, teaching health policy and leadership courses in the Jones School of Business.

Bookmark Gray Matters. The non-profit insurance CEO in me says: "Sign up while you still can!"


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The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office arrested seven people in a prostitution case during Thanksgiving week.

According to Constable Mark Herman's Office, the arrests came during an undercover operation "focusing on prostitution and human trafficking" at a hotel near the North Freeway and Louetta.

The business was not identified in a press release from the constable's office.

Of the five females who were charged with prostitution, one is a student at a local high school. Another female is accused of pimping two of the females. A man was arrested for open warrants.

Click through the slideshow above to see their mugshots.
AUSTIN - Gov. Greg Abbott named Rolando Pablos as Texas' next secretary of state Monday, saying his appointee is leaving his post as Texas Racing Commission chairman to oversee elections and promote international partnerships in his new position.

Pablos, who has been well-known in San Antonio business and political circles, will succeed Carlos Cascos, a former Cameron County judge who is resigning effective Jan. 4.

"The secretary of state is trusted with the solemn duties of protecting the integrity of our election system and promoting Texas' unparalleled business environment at home and abroad," Pablos said. "I am humbled and honored that Governor Abbott has placed confidence in me to faithfully execute those duties."

Abbott praised both men in making the announcement.

Pablos, who lived in San Antonio for more than 25 years, has long promoted trade and economic development and has been named to prominent state regulatory boards by two governors.

In San Antonio, his experience included being chairman of the San Antonio Free Trade Alliance and Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Pablos went to El Paso several years ago to serve as chief executive officer of the Borderplex Alliance, a regional economic development organization. He had grown up in the border city after spending his early years in Ciudad Juarez.

Now an Austin resident, Pablos is co-founder and chief executive officer of Uriel Americas.

Pablos' service at the state level has included stints on the Racing Commission and Public Utility Commission under former Gov. Rick Perry.

Abbott last year named him to a second round of service on the Racing Commission as the panel considered, then quashed, a new form of wagering that had stirred legislative ire.

Pablos has a bachelor's degree from St. Mary's University in San Antonio; an MBA from the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Business; a master in hospitality management from the University of Houston's Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management; and a law degree from St. Mary's University School of Law.

"Rolando's extensive record in public service and breadth of knowledge inspires confidence that he will be committed to the constitutional duties of the office and ensure the dispassionate application of election law," Abbott said.

Cascos' brief resignation letter didn't give a reason for his departure, but a two-year stint isn't unusually short for a secretary of state. His appointment was announced by Abbott after he won the governor's office in 2014.

Gilbert Garcia contributed to this report.
Police are searching for a man suspected of sexually assaulting a 11-year-old girl in October at the Children's Museum of Houston.

Joseph Anderson, 40, is charged with two counts of indecency with a child in connection with an alleged incident Oct. 16 at the popular museum at 1500 Binz Street, according to the Houston Police Department.

Police said Anderson is a friend of the victim's mother and knows the girl. He took the child to the museum. Once there, Anderson took the girl to the second floor, where he sexually assaulted her, police said.

Two people saw the assault and notified museum staff for help. The girl was taken to a private room where she reported the incident.

Anderson left the museum after the attack, police said. On Monday, two arrest warrants were issued for him, but he so far has eluded capture.

Police said investigators determined Anderson may have sexually assaulted other victims at different places, though they did not disclose information that led them to that conclusion or details about other possible cases.

The Children's Museum of Houston issued a statement Tuesday afternoon regarding the Oct. 16 incident:

"We want to thank the Houston Police Department for their expertise and guidance. The safety of our visitors at the Children's Museum of Houston is always our top priority, and we are deeply saddened by this incident between the suspect and a child he brought to the museum with his family. We have been cooperating fully with the Houston Police Department and ask that the public provide whatever help they can to find this man and bring him to justice."

Anyone who believes a child may have had inappropriate contact with Anderson is urged to contact the HPD Special Victims Division at 713-308-1140 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
Two school buses were involved in a traffic crash Tuesday morning on U.S. 290 in northwest Houston.

The wreck happened about 6:10 a.m. on the inbound Northwest Freeway near Magnum, according to Houston TranStar.
AUSTIN - Women who are feeling pressured by their parents or partner to have an abortion are being advised by the state to pick up the phone and dial 911, according to a new pamphlet the state released Monday.

The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas is not pleased, saying such calls could impede the response to emergencies like shootings and home invasions.

"Texas police are short-staffed all over the state in big urban departments and in small rural places and everything in between, so unless someone's holding you down trying to force you to have an abortion, then you're going to be placed on a priority two or three," said Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, also known as CLEAT.

The state's advice comes amid a host of changes in "A Woman's Right to Know," a brochure health clinics and abortion providers are required by state law to give women considering an abortion.

"No one can force you to have an abortion, not even your parents or the father of your baby," reads the new introduction to the brochure. "If you are feeling pressure (also called coercion) from someone to have an abortion, you have options. Talk to your doctor, counselor or spiritual adviser about your feelings, and ask for a phone to call 9-1-1 for immediate help."

"Technically, this is not what we consider an emergency call," said Joe Laud, the administration manager of the Houston Emergency Center. Emergency calls are for life-threatening situations, he said, adding he was not aware of any directive or training to expect to handle 911 callers reporting they feel coerced into an abortion.

The changes come at the hands of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and the Texas Department of State Health Services, although the decision to suggest women call 911 came from interest groups, like Texas Right to Life, which takes credit for the change.

"The 911 aspect was added due to comments suggesting it. That suggestion is for women who are feeling coerced (not for women who are just feeling torn about the decision)," Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for HHSC, said in an email.

Emily Horne, a lobbyist for the anti-abortion advocacy group, said Texas Right to Life pushed the state agency to add the new language into the pamphlet. The organization has lobbied for years to outlaw and penalize people who try to coerce women into abortion, although that effort has been unsuccessful.

"(Women who) are possibly in an abusive situation or heading back into an abusive situation, they're under threat for abuse if they don't have this abortion, and so that is the idea to get her immediate help to get her out of that situation," Horne said. "Overall, I'm excited to get the language in there at all."

Anti-abortion advocates here have pushed hard to limit access to abortion. In 2013, state lawmakers required abortion providers to adhere to expensive standards reserved for ambulatory surgical centers and require physicians to obtain hospital admitting privileges. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down those provisions in June.

Since then, Texas agencies backed by Gov. Greg Abbott have fired back by writing a new rule to require fetal remains from abortions and miscarriages be buried or cremated, creating an additional cost to the procedure. That rule is set to go into effect Dec. 19.

Nearly 55,000 abortions were performed in Texas in 2014, the latest year for which data is available. The vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester, although recent changes to state law saw riskier second-term abortions rise 27 percent that year.

The packet for women considering abortion also stresses that women who are a victim of human trafficking call the National Human Trafficking Resource Hotline for help, which is a new addition from the last version of the packet drafted in 2003.

Critics have lambasted the brochure for using loaded language and reprinting factual errors, such as linking abortion to a higher risk of breast cancer and that a fetus can feel pain in the early stages of pregnancy. In both cases, scientific studies have debunked those suggestions, although the pamphlet reports them as fact.

Other revisions are linguistic, such as increasing use of the term "your baby" to describe the fetus from four references in the last version to 79 in the version released Monday.

"It's misinformation intended to change, stigmatize abortion and to dissuade women from making a free choice about their health care by providing that kind of propaganda and misinformation," said Blake Rocap, legislative counsel for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas.
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump's selection of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development sets up what could be a collision between the nominee's philosophical aversion to social safety-net programs and an agency that administers some of the government's most expansive programs for helping minorities and low-income people.

If Carson remains true to his political commentary about the nation's housing programs, he could pursue a conservative agenda sharply at odds with efforts by the Obama administration to promote racial integration in housing and with other anti-segregation policies championed by minority groups such as the NAACP.

Carson might also abandon or place new restrictions on government subsidies and other programs that conservatives criticize as fostering a culture of overreliance on government handouts, according to housing advocates alarmed by his nomination.

It could prove difficult, however, for Carson to manage, much less change, the fundamental course of an organization as massive as HUD. By his admission, Carson has never run an organization of that size and is far from fluent in housing-policy issues.

His leadership of the department will be a test case for Trump's stated governing philosophy that it is better for Washington outsiders, even those with no policy experience, to hold the levers of federal power.

'A brilliant mind'

"Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities," Trump said in a statement announcing his decision to nominate Carson. "We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a Presidency representing all Americans."

Carson is receiving counsel from Alphonso Jackson, HUD secretary under President George W. Bush, who has suggested he rely heavily on the department's professional staff to help him set priorities when he takes over the agency. "We have discussed that over the last couple of weeks," Jackson said in an interview. "The Senior Executive Service people at HUD are extremely intelligent and valuable to any secretary, if he will listen to them."

Major changes to the government's role in housing would require Congress to act, but policy experts said Carson will have the power to make many changes on his own using his department's rulemaking authority.

He could, for instance, seek to change rules that determine who is eligible for housing assistance and could institute tougher work requirements for people in subsidized housing.

Advocates said they are concerned about Carson's comments that safety-net programs foster dependence in low-income people.

"Coming to lead an agency that serves the poorest people in the country with a philosophy of if people are that poor it's because they're not trying hard enough could have a big impact on the people HUD serves," said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

HUD, with its $49 billion budget and about 8,300 employees, has its origins in President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society." It exists to enforce anti-discrimination laws, assist low-income applicants in obtaining home mortgages and operate more than 3,000 local public-housing authorities.

The department is likely to attract attention in Trump's administration, given the president-elect's frequent and often criticized descriptions of hellishly violent urban communities on the campaign trail.

"You have so many things, so many problems, so many horrible, horrible problems," Trump said at a rally before the election. "The violence. The death. The lack of education. No jobs. We're going to work with the African-American community, and we're going to solve the problem of the inner city."

Carson has spoken about the desperation he sees in urban areas as well but uses a more modest tone than Trump.

"We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid," Carson wrote in a Facebook post last month.

Views on poverty

Carson's history gives him a pronounced, often controversial view on the roots of urban poverty.

Born into a struggling family on the southwest side of Detroit, Carson was educated at Yale University and the University of Michigan before he began a celebrated surgical career at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

He credits his achievements to his Christian faith and the high expectations of his mother, an illiterate domestic servant who sought never to take government assistance, though she sometimes did.

"She worked very hard, leaving very early in the morning, getting back very late at night," he said in interview last year with the Washington Post.

"Sometimes we didn't see her for a week. She didn't like the idea of dependency. Even if she sometimes took government aid, she always wanted to be independent. She would get in arguments with others who would say, 'There's aid for dependent children - you don't need to be working.' "
Election fairness

Regarding "Electoral College" (Page A32, Sunday), Sunday's editorial advocating scrapping the Electoral College completely misses the point made by the Founding Fathers. The Electoral College protects the vote of an individual no matter how large the population of his state,

The election proved that the Electoral College gives states in flyover country a voice. Yes, the left wants the Electoral College gone because they can continue down the road to absolute far left control.

In this election, a handful of states (17 or 18) mostly on the two coasts would have unduly influenced the result. The Electoral College was a grand compromise to ensure fair representation regardless of the state's actual population.

Roy Nelson, League City

Carrier deal

Regarding "Trump cheered for saving half the jobs in Carrier deal" (Page A1, Friday), I'm sorry but I don't buy it. Either the state caved into buying off jobs with tax cuts or Carrier held the jobs hostage until the state caved. Either way they both took advantage of the political climate to maximize their gain. Basically they were going to use this deal to gain points or political capital from whomever won the election. It's a shame the people whose jobs were on the line had to suffer through the uncertainty until the time was right to close the deal.

Manuel Castrejana, Houston

Eating wisely

Regarding "Homegrown foods" (Page A17, Saturday), buying from local farms has even more benefits than stated in Saturday's editorial. Locally grown animals, eggs and plants use the same air and water that we do and are seasonal, promoting the strength of their Omega 3s, vitamins, and mineral content, also discouraging allergic reactions.

Most local farmers are chemical-free keeping our air and water safer. Plus, the products haven't been stored for weeks or months, which increases food safety. Best of all, many farmers home deliver. Do you know where your food comes from? Who's your farmer?

Honi Boudreaux, Houston

A way forward

Regarding "Trump, allies challenge recount efforts in 3 states" (Page A13, Saturday), as someone who has been ranting about a rigged election for months, Donald Trump of all people should welcome any investigation to ensure the election was fair and correct. So far, no one has found anything that points to a problem with the voting, so allowing a recount will only reassure everyone that he was indeed elected. And perhaps that will help heal the divisive rift in our nation.

I cannot follow the reasoning of those who oppose the recount. The Michigan attorney general's lawsuit claims a recount will result in his voters "potentially losing their voice in the electoral college," and two PACs filed a lawsuit claiming a recount could "unjustifiably cast doubt" on Trump's victory. Everyone agrees that the chances are infinitesimal that the recount would change anything, so what is everyone so afraid of? Shouldn't everyone want the truth, so we can put this behind us and move forward?

Susan Ellis Brittain, Houston
Ensuring Texas will have water to meet the needs of humans and wildlife is a huge challenge. Fortunately, we can all play a role in reaching that goal because conserving water is one of the cheapest and most effective tools we have to protect our water supplies.

Many Texas water utilities are now taking on this challenge and investing in conservation in a big way, thanks to low-interest loans made available through the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT) - a program created by the Texas Legislature and approved by voters in 2013.

The application period for the third round of SWIFT funding began Friday and is a cause for celebration. The Texas Living Waters Project, a coalition of conservation groups, applauds Texas water providers for investing in our future by going big on water conservation. Cities across Texas (Fort Worth, Austin, Bedford, Keller, Waco and others) have all been awarded SWIFT funds for conservation projects. These projects will save millions of gallons of water, and save Texans money. Now is the time for more Texas utilities to do the same.

Conserving water makes sense because it prevents or delays the need to build and maintain more expensive infrastructure to procure water supplies. Saving water also means saving money for homeowners and utilities, as well as benefiting the fish and shellfish that depend on fresh water flowing in our rivers and into our bays.

During the first round of SWIFT funding in 2015, only 5 percent of awarded funds were for water conservation. However, the number of utilities applying for conservation funds is quickly growing. Kathleen Jackson of the Texas Water Development Board (the state's water planning and financing agency) states that in the most recent funding cycle, "more than 35 percent of the total funds requested were for conservation and reuse projects." We hope even more utilities will take advantage of the low-interest loans available for conservation by getting started on their application today.

The Texas Water Development Board is doing its part by working with utilities and applicants to guide them through the SWIFT funding process. We are also playing a key role in helping utilities understand the SWIFT application process and evaluate the benefits of using this fund to save water in their communities. We have organized SWIFT funding workshops around the state that bring water utility managers and policymakers together so that everyone understands the SWIFT funding process. In addition, we have also created a guidance document for small and medium-sized utilities that serves as a step-by-step guide for the SWIFT application process. That document is available on our website.

For Texas to have enough water to meet the future needs of both people and the environment, we need to use our existing supplies as efficiently and responsibly as possible. Keeping water conservation projects at the forefront of our planning process is a vital first step for ensuring abundant water for both humans and wildlife.

SWIFT funding is an example of the can-do spirit that Texas is known for. Our hat's off to a real Texas success story.

Walker is the Water Resources Program Manager and Ruthie Redmond is the Water Resources Specialist for the Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter. The Texas Living Waters Project is a collaborative project of the Sierra Club' Lone Star Chapter, National Wildlife Federation and Galveston Bay Foundation. For more information, go to: http://texaslivingwaters.org/issue-papers-and-publications/
A member of Sen. Roy Blunts staff will host a mobile office from 2:30-3 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 14, at Houston City Hall.

Mobile offices are opportunities for Missourians to discuss their questions or concerns with the federal government one-on-one with members of Blunts staff. His Columbia office also extends one-on-one service to all Missourians who have an issue with a federal agency or need additional assistance.

To reach the Blunts Office of Constituent Services, call at 573-442-8151 or send a letter to 1001 Cherry St., Suite 104, Columbia, Mo. 65201.
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In a constant quest to attract and retain the nations top talent, companies throughout America have begun experimenting with offering enticing perks that help them stand out in a competitive job market. While flexible working arrangements, affordable health care, robust 401(k) matching plans and professional development are all deeply appreciated incentives, unlimited paid time off gets employees most excited. However, uncapped vacation is so rare that only 1 percent of American companies offer such flexibility, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. As a result, it is looked upon as an overly generous benefit that is only offered by companies willing to take a giant risk. As we discovered at Spin Systems, Inc. (SpinSys), the reality is that this policy is mutually beneficial for both employers and employees. Our recent decision to implement an unrestricted vacation policy was based on many factors. Above all, after operating for nearly two decades on a vacation accrual system, we realized that this antiquated policy did not match our belief in treating our employees as individuals who have interests, passions and demanding commitments beyond their jobs. Tying Uncapped PTO into the Company Culture Businesses of all sizes across all industries are discussing the pros and cons of such a radical approach to employee benefits. Reports have trickled in that unlimited vacation time has actually discouraged employees from taking ti...
One of the ways some companies do as a way of increasing the number of women in technology companies is by increasing the number of women in traditionally more women-friendly roles, said Ange Ferguson, group managing director for Asia Pacific at global software company, ThoughtWorks.



And this is a pattern that needs to be addressed, she said, because there is currently an enormous level of opportunity for women in more technical roles.



Ferguson certainly knows what shes talking about as ThoughtWorks was recently awarded by the Anita Borg Institute as the winner of the 2016 Top Companies for Women Technologists Program for being a true leader in recruiting, retaining, and advancing more women in technical roles.



In the Asia Pacific region alone, women make up 39% of the companys workforce  a number thats ahead of industry standards as a survey done by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) found that women only make up about 30% of the workforce in the tech industry.



Globally, surveys found that only a third of women are represented at major tech companies.



Ferguson said that part of the problem the numbers are low is because theres still a gendered perception about the technical roles that are deeply entrenched within the industry.



These perceptions revolve around a womans abilities in engineering and mathematics, she said.



But these are false and certainly unproven, she added.



Additionally, theres also the unhelpful stereotype of tech roles being non-creative jobs.



Again, Ferguson pointed out that this is simply not true.



Most tech jobs need a creative, problem-solving approach that requires critical thinking, and collaborative and people skills, she said.



Youre not sitting in some dark corner of the basement coding away on the computer all by yourself.



To break the stereotypes, she said companies need to get the story out there about real people working in tech and talking about what a career in technology would look like.



How do we create more experiences for people to understand that  the technology they use everyday is built by people just like them? she said is a question tech companies need to ask themselves.



She herself recalled how as a philosophy major at university she was not even aware of engineering as a profession until someone gave a talk on it.



Starting early is important, she said, not even to necessarily recruit women in the tech industry but just to have it on their radar.



Its important to have a very, very clear intent when creating special treatment programs, as well as what the execution metric is, she said.



Without the clear intent, how do we create and cultivate a brilliant gender balance workforce and if youre just looking at the execution, youll get the wrong results and youll get people questioning your intent.



The coupling of the two will actually get you the results that you want.




man in line to become New Zealands next prime minister may have won the hearts of HR professionals after he said increased investment in human capital would be the best way to ease the nations productivity problem.Speaking at the opening address of the Government Economics Network annual conference, Bill English said productivity was an issue economists were perpetually dismal about in New Zealand and was in desperate need of improvement.The deputy prime minister went on to say the government needed to focus on what it was responsible for, which was "the impact of compulsory education on our human capital.Although made only yesterday  less than 24 hours after PM John Key announced he would be resigning  Englishs comments have already been welcomed by a number of industry figures including E tus national director of campaigning, Annie Newman Newman agreed additional investment in human capital could only be a good thing but said the governments role should extend further than providing compulsory education.There is a large body of evidence including from work done by people like Charles Waldegrave at the Family Centre, as well as large employers overseas; which shows the impact of paying a decent living wage on productivity, she said.What E tu would like to see is the government setting an example by committing to a living wage for their own directly employed, and contracted workers, she continued.It is not just our members saying it, but a growing number of employers; that a living wage can increase productivity and reduce over-all costs through improved retention and staff health and wellbeing. It can also in the long-term feed into better education and health outcomes for the children of affected staff.
UPDATE: Dec. 8, 3:20 p.m.  Police in Edmonton have released a man who was taken into custody after two women wearing hijabs were taunted in what investigators have said could be a hate crime.

No charges have been laid, but police say the man is still a person of interest in the case.
I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about Last Tango in Paris around the world.

Several years ago at the Cinematheque Francaise someone asked me for details on the famous butter scene.

I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter...We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use [of the butter]. That is where the misunderstanding lies.
OTTAWA  Conservative leadership candidate Andrew Scheer exaggerated a cute story of sleeping at his parents home while working in Ottawa, his office said Monday after The Huffington Post Canada raised questions about potential discrepancies in his expense claims.

In an interview with CPAC in 2010, host Catherine Clark asked Scheer where he lives when he stays in Ottawa.

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I sleep in the same bed I slept in when I was in high school and elementary school. I stay with Mum and Dad, Scheer said, laughing and blushing.

Sometimes, he said, his parents wait up for him. My parents like to, you know, visit with me and I like to visit with them, so sometimes when I am going out in the morning, theyll say: What time do you think youll be back? and Ill say, Maybe seven oclock or so, and then, invariably, Ill have a supper meeting, or the House will sit late and I end up stuck in my office returning phone calls or things like that. And I come home at nine, and my parents will say I thought you said youd be home at seven, Scheer said, mimicking them and sighing.

Its funny. I like it, he told Clark, who agreed that the scenario sounded lovely.

Its great on a lot of levels, Scheer added. It saves the taxpayers money, because Im staying with Mom and Dad, not at hotels. Im living off my parents, he said, laughing.

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Watch the full interview:

Except Scheer wasnt saving the taxpayers money.

During the time period discussed in the interview, Scheer claimed close to the limit MPs are allowed for accommodation and per diem expenses. (The cap in 2010 was $25,850 and is currently $30,000).

In 2010-2011, he expensed $19,310.44 for accommodation, meals and incidental expenses incurred while travel status in Ottawa.

The House of Commons allows MPs who are required to be in Ottawa to expense the cost of rent for a secondary residence, hotel stays, or private accommodation.

'He was just adding colour to the story'

Commons rules, however, forbid MPs to be reimbursed for any rented accommodation for which they or their immediate family will benefit, either directly or indirectly.

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When HuffPost approached Scheers office about the expense claims, his chief of staff, Kenzie Potter, said Scheer happened to be staying at his parents a fair bit around that time but that he was also staying in hotels.

I think he was just adding colour to the story about having curfew. His parents house was, and still is a bit of a home base for him, she wrote in an email. It was more just a cute story he was telling her.

Scheer, who now has five children with his wife, Jill, talked to Clark about not yet having found the perfect balance among his time in Ottawa, in his Saskatchewan riding, and being present in his young childrens lives.

He appeared relaxed and his usual good-natured and positive self while recounting other stories, such as getting bitten by the political bug at age nine while delivering the local newspaper.

Served as House speaker

In 2011, after the Conservatives won a majority government, Scheer was elected speaker of the House of Commons. The position comes with beautiful farm house in the Gatineau Hills, a short drive from Parliament Hill.

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His accommodation expenses dropped off significantly after that to $13,231.49 in 2011-2012. When the reports were updated in 2012-2013 to break down travel expenses and secondary residence expenses, Scheer reported no secondary housing costs but still claimed $11,067.58 in MP accommodation and per diem costs.

Potter did not respond to a request to describe what those costs were for.

Scheer asked about issue after debate

Tuesday evening, at the Conservative leadership debate in Moncton, Scheer was asked about his large expenses while staying at his parents home. Scheer said that with a large family, he often used hotels but stayed with his parents the odd time. He said his receipts had all been submitted properly.

I still from time to time drop in, Scheer said, of staying with his parents. Probably not as much as they like, they always like to see me more often.

This story has been updated with comment from Scheer.

Also on HuffPost
1. Write a note to your elf or Santa apologizing for touching your elf. This is the most effective way to help revive your scout elf.

2. Sprinkle a little cinnamon next to your elf! Cinnamon is like vitamins for your elf. It will help them get back to the North Pole where the elf doctors can check them out!

3. Elves love Christmas carols! Try singing one with your family.
The comedian and television host Jimmy Kimmel will be presenting the 89th Academy Awards ceremony, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Long a front-runner for the role, Jimmy Kimmel has considerable experience in hosting Hollywood's biggest awards shows, having presented the 2012 and 2016 Emmy Awards, 2007 ESPYS and the American Music Awards five times. Previous hosts of the ceremony include Chris Rock (2016), Neil Patrick Harris (2015) and Ellen DeGeneres (2014). Kimmel has also hosted the popular late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" since 2003.
Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch is pledging to lock up and monitor Canadians who unlawfully protest pipeline projects if she becomes prime minister.

Leitch made the promise in her latest incendiary press release, sent hours before a bilingual debate in Moncton, N.B., in which she affirmed support for the Energy East pipeline project.

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We will not tolerate acts of vandalism or violence from those who would illegally stand in the way of the economic prosperity of our people, the Tory MP said in the release. There is a place for legitimate protest, but we will lock up the agitators and activists who resort to vandalism and violence when they do not get their way.

Leitch took to Facebook to unveil a so-called five-point plan to promote natural resource projects, including unspecified stiffer penalties for unlawful protesters.

She promised to create a new force comprised of specialized components of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada Revenue Agency and Global Affairs Canada. Such a group would coordinate investigations, freeze bank accounts, and lay charges against illegal protesters.

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And she also pledged to classify environmental lobbying as a political activity to ensure transparency in funding and get international money out of the process. Canadian charitable foundations can currently maintain their tax exempt status as long as no more than 10 per cent of their resources are dedicated to political activities.

"We will lock up the agitators and activists who resort to vandalism and violence when they do not get their way."

The release comes as Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr continues to face questions over his suggestion the Canadian military could be used to quash illegal protests over the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. He made his comments to Alberta business leaders last week.

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 will be kept safe, Carr said.

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The minister later told CBC News those remarks werent meant to be a warning to protesters.

In question period Friday, B.C. NDP MP Randall Garrison urged the defence minister to remind his colleague the federal government has no such authority to use our military against pipeline protests. Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Liberals see peaceful protest as a cornerstone of Canadian democracy.

Elizabeth May ready to go to jail fighting pipeline

The $6.8-billion Kinder Morgan project is expected to yield more protests from indigenous groups and climate change activists who argue the federal government lacks the social license to greenlight the project.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May told the Huffington Post Canada shes willing to be arrested fighting the project.

If there are blockades as construction begins, Im more than prepared to be there to block construction and be arrested and go to jail, May said in an interview last week. This is not an issue where you compromise.

Also on HuffPost

Vancouver Kinder Morgan Pipeline Protests See Gallery
The anniversary of the Montreal Massacre is even more important to acknowledge after the election of Donald Trump, a national womens organization says.

Its very disheartening, said Dr. Kim Stanton, legal director of the Womens Legal Education and Action Fund in an interview Tuesday. So many people are clearly prepared to accept that kind of rhetoric about women from someone in such a powerful position.

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The U.S. president-elect has constantly reduced women to their looks and said they should be treated "like shit" in a 1992 interview.

December 6 marks 27 years since Marc Lepine murdered 14 women at Universite du Montreal's Ecole polytechnique. It was the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history. Lepine targeted women for a reason.

The 25-year-old shooter lined female students up at the back of the class and ordered the men to leave. "You're all a bunch of feminists, he said. I hate feminists."

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In his suicide note, Lepine said feminism had ruined his life.

The women lost their lives, simply because they were women,'' Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement before attending a memorial in Montreal. On this sombre anniversary, let us reflect on what Canadians  women, men, and youth  can do to rid the country and the planet of the scourges of misogyny and gender-based violence."

Its always important to acknowledge December 6, Stanton told The Huffington Post Canada. The women who died in 1989 cant be forgotten. There are so many women who are suffering violence in their daily lives still today.

The women who died in 1989 cant be forgotten."

Women are twice as likely as men to report sexual assault, and four times as likely to report violence in a romantic relationship, Statistics Canada reports. A man murders his female partner about every six days in Canada.

The statistics are even more grim for women who are indigenous or racialized. Indigenous women experience violence that is more frequent and more severe, according to StatCan.

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We remain a deeply sexist, deeply racist society, Stanton said. When you have public figures who are okay with that, it makes it even harder to combat.

Trumps election win  after bragging about grabbing women by the pussy without their consent, and being accused of sexual assault by at least 12 women  gives license to misogynists, Stanton said.

Its a very concerning situation  We cant be complacent in Canada at all.

With files from the Canadian Press

Follow Huffington Post Canada Living on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter!

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Preparations for the Eurovision song contest to be hosted by Kyiv in 2017 are being financed in full and there are no reasons for the relocation of this event to another country, Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk has said.

"Some media are circulating information about the alleged relocation of Eurovision from Ukraine to Russia in connection with alleged financing problems This is absolutely fake information. The government has done its best to ensure the full financing of the event: UAH 430 million has been provided in guarantees, and the 2017 budget foresees UAH 455.7 million," the minister wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

What is more, the city of Kyiv as the winner of a host city selection contest has already been given UAH 50 million this year, and another UAH 150 million will be given the next year, the minister said.

"Thus we've ensured the financing of Eurovision in full. What is more, necessary preparations are ensured by the organizing committee headed by Culture Minister Yevhen Nyshchuk," Danyliuk said.

Germany's Bild magazine earlier wrote that the organizing committee of the song contest did not rule out that the event could be relocated to Moscow in connection with problematic preparations in Ukraine.

On December 4, the Eurovision organizer, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), refuted the report on the relocation.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has given assurances the Ukrainian government will not allow any failures during the song contest in 2017.
Things are definitely heating up between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

According to the Sun, the 32-year-old royal made a quick detour to Toronto on Sunday to spend time with Markle at her Toronto home.

Related on HuffPost:

Meghan Markle See Gallery

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The short meet-up came immediately following the prince's two-week tour of the Caribbean, which prevented the prince from celebrating American Thanksgiving with his girlfriend in Los Angeles.

The prince is expected to be in London on Wednesday for his last official royal engagement leading up to the holidays which he will be spending with the Royal Family at Sandringham.

The Queen insists only members of the Royal Family can attend Christmas at Sandringham House.

Royal expert Katie Nicholl told ET Online Markle is not expected to join the prince at the Queen's country estate as it took the Duchess of Cambridge 10 years to earn an invite to the Christmas table with the Royal Family and it only happened once she was already married to Prince William.

But that doesn't mean the two won't be celebrating together. Hello! magazine reports the prince plans to see his humanitarian girlfriend before Christmas Day while US Weekly reports the two are set to take their first romantic holiday together in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

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Amid all the economic uncertainty out there these days, the Bank of Montreal has a little bit of good news: Working Canadians have had it much better than their American cousins since the financial crisis.

Chief economist Doug Porter looked at the percentage of people with a job, known as the labour force participation rate, for people aged 15 to 64. What he found was that the financial crisis barely registered for this age group in Canada: There was a brief reduction in the participation rate, then things went back to normal.

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Thats not the case in the U.S.

Since the financial crisis, the share of working-age people in the U.S. has fallen from above 75 per cent to around 73 per cent.

And in fact, the share of working-age people has been falling since the turn of the century. The numbers suggest that more than 7 million Americans were basically pushed out of the workforce in the past 16 years, because there were no jobs for them to be found.

And the job losses have not been even. While new-economy states like California and New York boom, old industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania have been in long-term decline.

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Thats why many experts looked at the electoral map on Nov. 8, in which Pennsylvania and Ohio went to Trump, and concluded that his rise was fuelled by economic anxiety.

Whether it's because he's a billionaire CEO or because he tapped into the frustration of a shrinking middle class, Americans trusted Trump more than Clinton on economic issues.

However, Canada may be suffering a different job-related problem these days: The quality of the jobs being generated has been on the decline for a long time.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the latest job numbers from Statistics Canada. They showed that, over the past year, 90 per cent of the net jobs created in Canada were part-time positions. And a new study from StatsCan found this week that job quality for youth, along with pay, has been on the decline for decades.

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Lets not ignore this issue. Trumps win is a good reason not to.

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For years, Edmontons Dutch community has celebrated the holidays with a polarizing figure.

Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, is the traditional helper of Sinterklaas, or Santa Claus. Hes represented in parades and parties by people in blackface who paint their lips red, don black wigs and gold hoop earrings.

And for about a decade in Edmonton, the Dutch Delicious bakery has been welcoming Black Pete to their store, according to Global News.

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Its meant as a family festivity to celebrate with the children and the spirit of giving, owner Siebe Koopman told the outlet.

Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, may be a part of Dutch folklore, but he's controversial both inside and outside of the Netherlands. (Photo: John van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images)

But not everyone thinks hes harmless. Protests have sprung up in the Netherlands against Black Pete, and a United Nations committee even released a report last year recommending that the country promote the elimination of his racist features in celebrations.

The character of Black Pete is sometimes portrayed in a manner that reflects negative stereotypes of people of African descent and is experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery, the authors wrote.

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Edmonton activist Jesse Lipscombe, who founded the Make It Awkward campaign to call out racism, told Global News tradition isnt an excuse to be offensive.

You know what else was a longstanding tradition? Slavery. But it offends people, he said.

According to Dutch folklore, Zwarte Piets face is black because he is a Moor from Spain.

Protesters express their opposition to the character of Black Pete at a parade in Amsterdam, as a police officer looks on. (Photo: John van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images)

But children are usually told that its soot from going down a chimney, according to The Associated Press.

People opposed to his appearance have questioned why his face cant be streaked with black instead. In the Netherlands, some have taken to calling the character Sooty Pete.

Tradition has already changed at one church

Koopman told the Edmonton Journal hes open to changing the characters appearance next year.

We are totally leaning towards just having the streaks on Black Petes face, instead of his whole face painted black, he said.

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One locals churchs annual Sinterklaas party was set to ditch the blackface for the first time this year. Instead, Zwarte Piet was to be represented by three people in different-coloured morphsuits on Monday.

Because there is such a backlash in Holland, we dont want to be of offence to people who dont understand, Irene Apon told the Journal.

Its trying to bring in the fun of it without trying to offend anyone.

Also on HuffPost
Jessica Peterson via Getty Images USA, California, Costa Mesa, Woman wearing striped blouse posing on sandy beach

As the weather becomes less and less enjoyable and holiday time is around the corner, the allure of a hot sandy beach becomes more enticing than ever. Whether your family tradition is flying south to spend some much needed time in the sun or you've booked a last minute jaunt to the nearby Caribbean, a holiday-time vacation in the sun is surely an added enjoyment to celebrating festivities during the busy season. Swimming in the sea or poolside need not require complicated ensembles, though; rather, part of the enticement of escaping is breezy ease in every respect (beach-side cocktails and canapes, anyone?). But that doesn't mean looking anything but pulled together is desirable; achieve style, grace and ease seamlessly on your beach getaway this holiday season with these picks below.

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Flip-flops are an obvious beach trip necessity, but they don't necessarily have to be rubber nor clunky. Rather, pack a pair of Tkees -- designed in Brazil, these sumptuously soft leather thong sandals are produced in eight shades of nude to all but disappear on the wearer's feet. Sophisticated and displaying true craftsmanship, Tkees make legs look longer and leaner while taking you from beach to sundown cocktails.

When you're enjoying frolicking on the beach, there is inarguably a better suit to swim in than a Maaji piece. Geniusly and generously providing two suits in one (packing made easy!), each piece is reversible (and each side is as gorgeous as the other). This Colombian brand is well known and well loved for their whimsical, bold and bright colour palette and patterns, yet each design remains tasteful, refined and alluring. Paying close attention to every little detail, Maaji's cuts are artistically designed to flatter figures like none other -- seams all but disappear, silhouettes both support and enhance, and bottoms come in a variety of coverage options to allow the wearer to customize their preferences.

If that wasn't enough, this seminal swimwear brand created the Earth Warriors initiative -- a nonprofit project that plants trees in Colombia, this campaign helps protect and preserve the environment and strives to "plant an ocean of trees" (they're well on their way with a forest of 90,000 trees in the Maaji forest!). Their current collection for Spring 2017, appropriately called the Sunny Dream Inn, boats beautifully patterned pieces, sophisticated strappy tops and a variety of cuts -- a corest-type top perfectly balance support and style, while a traditional triangle styles end in tassels for extra style points. We'll have one in every style, please!

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When it comes to packing clothing items, a few simple swaps can make all the difference. Choose easy one-piece outfits, like a summer dress that can be thrown on at the beach, and look perfectly in place over lunch in town. For extra comfort and style points, pack a few playsuits by beloved Australian designer Alice McCALL. Feminine, frilly details balance mega short hemlines (that are strategically angled to elongate and slim the legline), and beautifully display a bare shoulder here or low back there. Colours, patterns and silhouettes vary, and there is certainly a style for every taste, while ease and sartorial superiority are injected into each and every piece.

No trip is complete without a suitcase filled with old classics and new favorites alike. Lugging around 20 kilos of your belongings is no one's idea of fun though; pick wisely, and you'll be spoiled for choice with just a weekender bag. The temperature and humidity demand light textiles and fuss-free beauty looks -- Charlotte Tilbury's Beach Sticks are the definition of easy, gorgeous makeup. Imparting a beautiful, elusively fresh-faced look that never slips in the heat, the shade Ibiza looks perfect when swiped right underneath cheekbones for a little glowy structure, while Es Verda, a peachy coral, enhances and brightens a sunkissed complexion.

Ensuring lips stay hydrated, protected from the sun and dressed up all at once is no easy feat, yet Fresh's Lip Treatment manages to do it all. It packs a winning combination of gorgeous texture, addictive, sophisticated citrus flavour, and instant and long-term smoothing results. With moisture-preserving sugar, nourishing precious oils, antioxidant-rich polyphenols, and essential SPF protection, one easy swipe of this lip-beautifying balm instantly pulls your look together. Choose from a myriad of sheer shades, from a moody, sultry plum to a bright, bold fuchsia.

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TEDMED - the health and medicine arm of TED - was held November 30th to December 2nd this year. This year's theme was "What If?" As always, the speakers aimed to inspire and engage, while urging the rest of us to innovate. While there were so many incredible speakers, here are 10 groundbreaking ideas from the conference. Each idea encourages us to think differently about some of the more pressing health challenges of our time.

Cheryl Steed speaking at TEDMED [Photo Courtesy of TEDMED]

1. Prisoners can be Caregivers

Cheryl Steed is a clinical psychologist who leads the Gold Coat Program at the California Men's Colony - a medium security prison. "Gold Coats" are given to a selected number of inmates, who are chosen based on a number of screening criteria. They are responsible for helping inmates that have cognitive impairment with activities of daily living. Steed monitors their work and participates in weekly meetings with the Gold Coats around managing care - similar to what would occur in a nursing home. In her talk she spoke about how inmates feel empowered by helping others, and regain meaning in their lives, as some of them have been imprisoned for decades.

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Caitlin Doughty speaking at TEDMED [Photo Courtesy of TEDMED]

2. Death should be more eco-friendly

Best-selling author Caitlin Doughty is dubbed a 'progressive mortician,' and her talk convinced us that our current practices around treating the dead are harmful to the environment. She explained that cremation of the body uses the natural gas equivalent of a 500-mile car trip. Further, traditional embalming methods involved with burial are not eco-friendly. Doughty talked about the alternative of "re-composition" - bodies are allowed to decompose so that they can become part of the soil. "Molecules become other molecules," she says, and re-composition represents a more "humble" and "self-aware" way of dying.

Elizabeth Letourneau speaking at TEDMED [Photo Courtesy of TEDMED]

3. Child sexual abuse is a preventable public health issue

One of the boldest talks at TEDMED was given by Elizabeth Letourneau, a clinical psychologist and director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Letourneau is working to intervene with youth who engage in delinquent sexual behaviours, hoping to 'course correct' before they cause harm. She gave a powerful argument for treating pedophilia as not solely a criminal justice issue, but as a preventable public health issue that should be addressed with more compassion.

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Emi Mahmoud speaking at TEDMED [Photo Courtesy of TEDMED]

4. Poetry is important for healing and awareness

Emtithal "Emi" Mahmoud, is many things: a spoken word poet, Yale Global Health Fellow, and advocate with the UNHCR. Through her poetry on stage, Mahmoud hopes to raise awareness around genocide in her birthplace of Darfur, South Sudan. She also uses her art to advocate for refugees around the world, most recently with the Syrian refugee crisis. Through performing two spoken-word poems on stage, she urged us to confront complex global issues such as identity and politics through the disarming language of poetry.

Kaitlyn Hova speaking at TEDMED [Photo Courtesy of TEDMED]

5. You might know a Synesthete

Synethesia, which Kaitlyn Hova defines as a 'cross-firing of the senses,' is much more common than peanut allergy - you or someone you know might 'hear letters,' or 'see colour with sounds.' Hova is a 'synesthete,' and she experiences letters and sounds with colour. She co-founded the Synesthesia Network - a resource that both connects synesthetes around the world and helps researchers identify them. As a neuroscientist, she hopes to explore the science behind synesthesia. As a violinist, her talk included an incredible piece that involved coloured lights so that the audience could effectively experience what Hova sees.

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Lucy Kalanithi speaking at TEDMED [Photo Courtesy of TEDMED]

6. An Advanced Directive can be a Love Letter

Dr.Paul Kalanithi's incredible book, "When Breath Becomes Air," became a New York Times bestseller almost overnight when it was released in January 2016. It was a feat he didn't experience himself, as he passed away before the book was completed. His wife, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, gave a powerful talk at TEDMED about end-of-life. She cited research that up to 55% of physicians paint a rosier prognosis picture for their patients than what is warranted. Lucy argued that if cancer is as a battle, then the job of doctors is straddle two roles: that of a solider, with that of a "shepherd" when fate 'knocks on the door.' When describing Paul's last days, she spoke about how working together on his Advanced Directive was an act of love - the paperwork became a key part of their love story. "Being human doesn't happen despite suffering," she said, "it happens within it."

Nir Barzilia speaking at TEDMED [Photo courtesy of TEDMED]

7. We might be able to reverse aging in our lifetime

If there was a drug that targeted the process of aging, would it help us live better lives? That's the question Dr. Nir Barzilai asked during his TEDMED talk. As the director of the Institute of Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he is spearheading a randomized controlled trial of a medication that can interfere with the aging process. The main objective is to evaluate whether it can extend both the quantity and quality of life. In his talk he identified metformin - a medication typically used in Type 2 diabetes - and rapamycin as having interesting results in animal studies. His study is underway, but it could pose interesting ideas for how we might be able to slow down various aspects of the aging process.

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Sue Klebold speaking at TEDMED [Photo courtesy of TEDMED]

8. Parents of school shooters can advocates for youth mental health

Dylan Klebold was one of two shooters in the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. His mother Sue published a memoir earlier this year about the intersection between mental health and violence in youth, which was the basis of an emotional but powerful TEDMED talk. A staunch advocate for mental health, she hopes that more parents will take the time to learn about identifying early signs of mental illness in their children. Sue is also a proponent of tighter gun-control laws: "It was appallingly easy for a 17 year-old to buy guns then. It's still appallingly easy," she said.

Mona Hanna-Attisha speaking at TEDMED [Photo courtesy of TEDMED]

9. Doctors need to be public health whistleblowers

Mona Hanna-Attisha has had an eventful year. The Detroit-based pediatrician exposed the dangerous levels of lead in the water in Flint, Michigan after detecting it in her patients' bloodwork. She has raised millions of dollars for her Flint Child Health and Development Fund. In her talk, Mona spoke about her upbringing as a child of two parents from Iraq, which influenced her to stand her ground despite facing challenges around speaking up.

Ryan Green and Dan Visconti speaking at TEDMED [Photo courtesy of TEDMED]

10. Video games can be an important part of the patient experience
Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

I am a Cuban exile. I am a Canadian citizen. And I voted for you. I want to tell you how I feel about your homage to Fidel Castro.

My father grew up as a believer -- not of the man, but of the socialist system. It took many painful years of reflection for him to accept that the system he had admired since he was a child was the very thing that was destroying his country. My family did not flee in 1959. They stayed. They saw everything.

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I immigrated to Canada with my parents in 2002, when I was 10 years old. We came here to leave the shadow cast by the man with the beard. And even after living here for 14 years, as I sit here protected by Canada's freedom of expression, a part of me hesitates to write this letter. A part of me knows that if it is read by the wrong people, I might not be able to visit Cuba again.

The fact that this thought is not completely irrational should tell you enough about the regime of the man you call "a larger than life leader."

I cannot claim to have all the answers. I know there are many Cubanos mourning his death and there are many celebrating it, both on and off the island. This is a man who was able to irreversibly shape the lives of five generations, six decades of people -- their health, their education, their families.

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I know that I am neither mourning nor celebrating his death. He did not matter to me before and he does not matter now. But I accept that each Cubano is allowed our own flawed, complicated and ultimately tragic relationship with this man and what he represents. I accept this is a complication the Cuban people have to live with.

What I cannot accept is the way you have decided to honour and pay tribute to this man in the most public of ways. As a public figure who claims to speak on behalf of all Canadians, you do not get the luxury of expressing your complicated feelings about him. Why? Because you represent an entire nation of people. You are no longer only your father's son. You gave up that privilege when people like me voted you into the highest office in this country.

So when you say you speak on behalf of all Canadians, please remember the people you are speaking for. When you wonder out loud if a tyrant who took away human rights and dignity was "controversial," you do not speak for me.

Statement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro: https://t.co/70ZqAfVWCR  CanadianPM (@CanadianPM) November 26, 2016

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When you say that both his detractors and his supporters agree that he loved his people, you do not speak for me. When you erase the millions of lives who fled this man's regime, you do not speak for me. When you knowingly participate in shaping a history that will absolve a tyrant, you do not speak for me.

That man does not matter anymore. But you do. Your words do.

Acknowledge the propaganda. Acknowledge that merely scratching the surface of this history will not uncover the truth. Do not allow this kind of erasure to ensure that the 58 years of suffering the Cuban nation has endured have been for nothing. Dig deeper. Do your job.

I am a part of this country. So is my father. So is my mother. Do not erase our experiences.

I am a part of this country. So is my father. So is my mother. Do not erase our experiences. Do not claim that you can separate one aspect of this man from all the others. My family did not escape from under the foot of a dictator to live in a country where its leader praises and celebrates that same dictator.

We are Cubanos. We are Canadian. We are here. Please, do not forget that.

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Feisal Omar / Reuters An internally displaced woman carries her child as they wait for assistance at Hariirad town of Awdal region, Somaliland April 9, 2016. Across the Horn of Africa, millions have been hit by the severe El Nino-related drought. In Somaliland and its neighbouring, also semi-autonomous, Puntland region, 1.7 million people are in need of aid, according to the United Nations. In Somaliland itself, the most affected areas include the northwest Awdal region bordering Ethiopia. REUTERS/Feisal Omar SEARCH

By Groupe de reflexion sur le developpement international et la cooperation (GREDIC)

The 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP22) held in Morocco from November 7 to 18, evaluated progress since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed with great fanfare just over a year ago.

The outcome? The "Marrakech Action Proclamation for our Climate and Sustainable Development," which urges all countries to further their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, important decisions regarding Paris Agreement procedural requirements will only be finalized in 2018. This meant that Marrakech disappointed several observers and participants, in particular representatives from poor countries who saw few tangible and significant decisions at the meetings that would address their situation.

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Poor countries are starved

Poor countries, including those in Africa, bear by far the most impact from climate change. Droughts and floods have devastating consequences on agriculture and staple food prices. According to a World Bank study, by 2030, climate change will likely have pushed an additional 100 million people below the poverty line.

Astonishingly, people that come from countries most in risk of suffering the worst consequences from climate change live in the same countries with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions. Annually, CO2 emissions per capita reach 16 tons in the United States, 14 tons in Canada, seven tons in China and of only 0.1 tons in the poorest nations -- like the majority of African countries! Overall, Africa is only responsible for three per cent of global emissions.

A Climate Fund, financed by rich countries, was created to reach $100 billion US per year by 2020. This Fund will finance both initiatives to reduce emissions through mitigation efforts in poor countries and to strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, on average only 16 per cent of the US$57 billion collected in 2013 and 2014 went towards adaptation, while close to 80 per cent supported mitigation.

This situation was condemned by the group of African countries at COP22, led by Mali's Seyni Nafo. These countries indicated that damages caused in poor countries result from the rich countries' emissions and that at least 50 per cent of the Climate Fund should focus on climate change adaptation, particularly in the area of agriculture. However, rich nations did not accept this request and the amounts allocated to adaptation will remain around 20 per cent. Therefore, rich countries will not have to acknowledge their historical responsibility nor compensate countries for the damages caused by the climate changes they have triggered.

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Many, including Oxfam, condemned this refusal by rich countries, declaring that: "Developed countries remained inflexible and ignored the issue of the financing shortfall for adaptation and rather turned a blind eye on the Agreement's incapacity to protect the people most affected by climate change."

New money or existing obligations?

Seyni Nafo also stated that rich nations tend to recycle existing resources into climate funds that were already intended for development aid. Nafo is asking for real new money, in addition to existing funds for development cooperation, be specifically dedicated to climate financing. This ambiguity is also present in Canada. A year later, and it is not clear whether the $2.65 billion over five years in climate financing announced by Prime Minister Trudeau in November 2015 will be new and additional or not.

It would be unfortunate if such a modest contribution, compared to the objective of $500 billion over five years expected from the pool of contributors, ended up replacing parts of the international assistance budget -- which has already been so undercut over the past few years. Indeed, the Canadian official development assistance budget now represents only 0.26 per cent of GNI, ranking Canada 14th among the OECD member countries.

According to Serge Michailof in his book Africanistan, the degradation of life conditions in poor countries, partly caused by climate change, could be a contributing factor to the reinforcement of Islamic terrorist movements, including in the African countries of the Sahel Region. It could also lead to a mass migration of "climate refugees" toward rich countries, far greater than the ones experienced over the last few years.

Under these circumstances, wouldn't it be preferable to invest now in strengthening the capacity of countries to adapt to climate change, rather than face the costs of new humanitarian crises, new wars and a "global security" issue?

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This blog was first published in French

Groupe de reflexion sur le developpement international et la cooperation (GREDIC): Nicole St-Martin, Robert Letendre, Nigel Martin, Yves Petillon, Mario Renaud and Pierre Veronneau. Former Directors General of international co-operation organizations and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CCIC or its members.

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Astronaut Images via Getty Images Close up of woman laying on bed

It has taken writing my memoir to finally acknowledge that, yes, I did have an eating disorder. I was anorexic.

When I was young, (about 10 years old) I felt different and like I did not fit in. I felt very alone and developed eating disorders, which was a struggle I battled with well into my late teenage years.

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I remember my best friend at the time asking me, "Can you just get over this not eating thing?" For me, anorexia was a very isolating period of my life.

After I recovered (early university years), I learned about Sheena's Place which is a support centre for individuals, families and friends affected by eating disorders. I wanted to help other young people, but every time I tried to walk into Sheena's Place, I turned back. I could not bring myself to admit that I had an eating disorder.

After university, I left Toronto for my first job in New York City. I brushed my painful past under the rug and convinced myself that "Anorexia is my past, it has NOTHING to do with my present."

As the years went on, I told myself that "I can't really help" in attempts to hide the fact that I was too ashamed to share the fact that I once had eating disorders.

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I have spent over 14 years hiding this "tiny" part of my life.

I had created a brand new life for myself, moving up the corporate ladder, living and working in different cities around the world. I became a sales director and I felt others would feel sorry for me or deem me weak if they knew about my past. I wanted to be seen as a successful business woman -- period!

I have spent over 14 years hiding this "tiny" part of my life, and it is now, only after writing my memoir, that I've realized that by hiding, I've been chipping away at my heart.

I decided that I didn't want to hide anymore and wanted to find a way to help out at Sheena's Place. I reached out to the chairman of Sheena's Place and scheduled a meeting with Deb, the executive director.

That day, October 2016, I parked about 15 minutes away from Sheena's Place. As I got closer to the address, I walked slower and thought it would be best to just turn around. My heart started beating faster and there was a ball in my throat. I took a deep breath and mustered up the courage to walk up the steps and open the door. As I waited for Deb, I saw paintings, beautiful pictures across all the walls and quotes that resonated with me.

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(Deb & I, Oct 2016)

I realized something that almost made me start crying right in that room. I never had a "me too." I did not have a friend at that time that understood what I was going through. I did not have a group of other girls who were anorexic to confide in. I didn't get to talk to someone my age about the devils that taunted me, how much I wanted to die, how sad I was and how bad I felt to be doing this to my family.

My family was incredibly supportive and I feel lucky for that, but I did not have a friend who really understood the struggle. I realized in that moment that I should have gone to a place like Sheena's Place and SHARED my pain instead of hiding.

I always felt alone and isolated as I struggled with anorexia silently. As Deb showed me the centre, we sat down and shared ideas of how I can help Sheena's Place and build a long-standing relationship. A huge weight had FINALLY been lifted.

I got home and immediately called my mom. I wasn't sure why, but I wanted to call her and hear her comforting voice. As soon as I told her I just got back from my meeting at Sheena's Place I started sobbing and I couldn't stop. I could feel her giving me a hug as she spoke. Even though I was crying, it wasn't tears of sadness. They were tears of relief.

I finally realized that I don't need to be ashamed anymore.

I had a mental image of complete shame that I held in my head for about 14 years. I hid for years and never dealt with the incorrect perception that other people would see me as weak.

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I finally realized that I don't need to be ashamed anymore. I have tried so hard to ALWAYS be strong, never (ever!) letting my guard down.

I realized that if I have the opportunity to help another person to feel like they have a "me too" and are not alone, writing my memoir and sharing my story at Sheena's Place will be worth it.

I also felt comforted, just being in that safe space at Sheena's House. I don't feel alone anymore.

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Tim Clayton - Corbis via Getty Images Juno, a Beluga Whale, greets young viewers at the viewing window at Mystic Aquarium. Juno is one of three Beluga Whales at Mystic Aquarium, Mystic, Connecticut. USA. 3rd December 2015. Photo Tim Clayton (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

Talk about a whale of a tale.

At least, that seems to be what Vancouver Aquarium's headline-grabbing suggestion that activists poisoned its whales was designed to have you do.

Unable to pinpoint a specific cause for the deaths of their last two remaining belugas, the aquarium was left to speculate. And speculate they did, deftly pointing their finger at the critics of whale captivity that have been an ever-present thorn in their side.

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Then, perhaps just to make it all seem a little more real, they stated that police had been contacted in the matter.

It was a possibility, the aquarium was keen to emphasize, that they weren't ruling out.

Except, there was never any evidence for it.

There have been over 40 whales and dolphins die at the aquarium over the years, not one of them caused by a murderous gang of animal lovers.

No suspicious characters on their surveillance video. No traces of a toxin in their pools or in their dead whales. No evidence whatsoever to indicate foul play, say Vancouver Police.

"Ask yourself: Are these the actions one expects from a world-class science-based conservation charity? Or are they the public relations tactics more typical of people with something to hide?"

With zero evidence of beluga-cide and several far more likely explanations, it is hard not to see this make-believe beluga murder mystery as nothing more than PR sleight-of-hand -- a purposeful misdirection, designed to deflect responsibility for the deaths of whales in their care and discredit their most vocal opponents.

To do so amid emotional pleas for time to grieve is cynical in the extreme.

Ask yourself: Are these the actions one expects from a world-class science-based conservation charity? Or are they the public relations tactics more typical of people with something to hide?

After all, it is increasingly difficult to reconcile the aquarium's carefully crafted public image as world-leaders in whale and dolphin care with their mounting death toll. Aurora and Qila are but the latest of five deaths in just the past two years.

Many of the 40+ whales that have died at Vancouver Aquarium reached only a fraction of the lifespan they are capable of in the wild. Captive-bred belugas - whales they say are 'ideally suited for captivity' - have fared the worst.

There have been five belugas born at the aquarium. Tuaq (the first captive-born beluga at the aquarium) died at age 6 months; Tuvaq, just before his third birthday; Tiqa a little past age 3; and Nala, barely a year. Qila was the only one to survive beyond age 3.

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Is this what we get from world-class care?

"After five decades of research, results from the aquarium's captive research program have not saved, or even measurably improved the life of even a single wild beluga."

Perhaps not. Compared to other marine parks, Vancouver Aquarium's record of young deaths of captive-born belugas is arguably worse than any other active facility in North America, including SeaWorld (see figure below).

One has to wonder whether the five belugas the aquarium has said it intends to import from its partners like SeaWorld would be better off staying where they are.

One might also be tempted to ask, given that they have such a hard time keeping these animals alive in captivity, how this practice helps the survival of wild beluga populations. Conservation is after all, one of the primary justifications given for keeping and breeding whales at many facilities, including SeaWorld.

There is little doubt that in 50 years, aquarium researchers have learned something new about belugas. It is often said, however, that research on whales in captivity mostly benefits whales in captivity.

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Perhaps that is why, after five decades of research, results from the aquarium's captive research program have not saved, or even measurably improved the life of even a single wild beluga.

Beluga populations from Hudson's Bay to the St. Lawrence are, today, in worse shape than when their research program began.

What exactly makes the aquarium so confident that ten, twenty, thirty or even fifty more years will do the trick? History does not appear to be on their side.

Why then, the rush to spend $50 million dollars (much of it from taxpayers) on bigger tanks and import 5 new belugas to continue the same approach?

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Researching whales confined to tanks is by no means the only way to study them. In fact, many argue there are far better, more humane ways to learn about wild whales.

There are also easier ways to help save whales, if that's what you do.

At this very moment, our beloved Southern resident killer whales - whales that often pass within metres of the aquarium's steps - are facing what may be their greatest existential threat ever.

Scientists have warned that the approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline will likely mean the extinction of this unique population of orcas.

If ever there were an emergency for a legitimate Vancouver-based marine conservation organization - especially one focused on whales -- this would be it.

But Vancouver Aquarium has remained silent on the issue.

They have no official position on the pipeline, nor on its grave consequences for our orcas.

Why in the world would Vancouver Aquarium choose to sit by and silently accept the likely extinction of our entire local subpopulation of orcas? The same group of whales, incidentally, upon which they built their international reputation.

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I really can't say.

Taking a cue from Vancouver Aquarium leadership, however, it seems I am allowed to speculate.

Although this list is not comprehensive and I have no direct evidence to support any of them, I have not ruled out the following possible reasons:

They are unwilling to speak out against an oil and gas industry that has helped fill their coffers for so many years.

They view the increased oil tanker traffic accompanying the pipeline as an opportunity to resume killer whale shows in Stanley Park (oil tankers + orcas = collisions = injured orcas = 'rescue' opportunities = orcas that can be taught tricks for food in Stanley Park)

What activists have been saying for years is true - science and conservation are secondary to selling tickets to whale shows.

You are free to come to your own conclusions, of course. Or, better still, ask them yourself.

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The Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine says it shares Ukrainians' desire to protect forests and is ready to support them in that direction, but notes that a ban on timber exports will not prevent illegal logging.

"The EU Delegation wishes to reassure Ukrainians that we share your desire to protect Ukraine's natural environment. In general, EU policies and EU integration do not lead to deforestation but help to prevent it. If Ukraine decided it wanted to protect more of its forests - including more of the unique biosphere in the Carpathians - the EU would be supportive," the EU Delegation said in a statement on Monday evening.

According to the EU Delegation, a ban on all logging (or limited logging) or even access restrictions in a particular protected area, for justified and demonstrable environmental reasons, is perfectly legitimate and acceptable, as long as such a ban or other restrictions apply equally to all.

"Have you noticed that despite the wood ban the illegal logging and smuggling of the wood are still taking place?" the EU Delegation wondered.

"The reason is that the current ban on the export of wood does not achieve these goals. It simply serves the needs of some vested interests in the wood processing industry, allowing them to get exclusive and unrestricted access to forestry resources in order to exploit them for themselves. The ban is not preventing deforestation. And it does not prevent illegal logging or smuggling of wood because these illegal activities have become more profitable," the statement said.

The EU Delegation said that the EU would strongly support higher penalties for such crimes and more effective enforcement actions in this field.

According to the EU Delegation, the reason the EU opposes the current wood ban is because it is a restriction on free trade. It is against Ukraine's international commitments under the World Trade Organization and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.

"We have been working with the Ukrainian authorities to find a solution which strikes a fair balance between permitting fair and equal access to natural resources, promoting trade, investment and economic development, and protecting the valuable and unique natural resources of Ukraine," the statement said.

According to the EU Delegation, claims that the EU is following an "egoistic" agenda, by insisting on lifting the ban on the export of wood, are wrong.

As was reported, Ukraine's parliament on April 9, 2015, passed a bill to introduce a 10-year moratorium on the export of wood and timber. A partial ban on all types of wood but pinetree became effective on November 1, 2015. The full ban is to be introduced as of January 1, 2017.

The ban is said to be an obstacle to a third EUR 600 million tranche of EU macro-financial assistance to Ukraine.
The month since Donald Trump's election win has been a fraught one for the clean technology industry. First came shock that a climate-change denier had won, followed by some relief as Trump seemed to moderate his views. Then, incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus confirmed the White House's default position on climate change: "it is a bunch of bunk."

This is a blow for the creation of a low-carbon economy in the U.S., but for Canada it's an opportunity. As the U.S. pulls back on renewable energy and turns away from growing its clean technology industries, Canada can step into the breach.

We should show global leadership by promoting adoption of clean technologies at home. But we can also leverage the vacuum in the global market to grow our clean technology exports abroad.

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We are already well placed to do this.

Data compiled by MaRS Discovery District in Toronto shows Canada has a strong portfolio of clean tech startups working on breakthrough technologies that will change the way we use energy, water and minerals. Combined, the 300-plus firms studied derived more than half their sales from outside Canada - outperforming other sectors such as health and ICT.

There is still growing demand for clean technologies overseas. The European Union has adopted tough emissions reduction targets. China and India need to find ways to power their cities and transit systems without making air pollution worse. And less developed countries like Nepal, which has about the same population as Canada but less than one per cent of our generating capacity, are looking to leap-frog fossil fuels and go straight to a low-carbon grid. (SunFarmer, a company founded by Canadians, is already in Nepal and has installed locally-run solar projects in schools, hospitals and businesses throughout the country.)

A Trump administration that is cool to global trade and clean technology will leave the way open for Canada to strengthen our ties with these markets. Canadian companies are already showing they can compete and win well beyond North America.

Take Mississauga-based Hydrogenics, which builds systems that convert renewable electricity to clean hydrogen fuel and is also a leader in making hydrodgen fuel cells. Last year, it opened a 1.5-megawatt system in Hamburg, Germany, and it recently won a contract to build another facility in Thailand. Its technology is now at work in more than 50 countries.

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In Vancouver, both Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies and Corvus Energy are tapping into global demand for their products. Ostara builds wastewater treatment systems that extract phosphorus out of liquid waste and turn it into highly valuable fertilizer pellets. It has 14 commercial systems in operation worldwide, with significant business in Europe. Corvus uses its hybrid energy storage system to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from marine vessels and equipment. Demand for its product is strong across Europe, parts of Asia and Australia.

Meanwhile, Halifax-based LED Roadway Lighting sells LED-based street lighting in more than 60 countries. It maintains core manufacturing in Nova Scotia, but to meet growing global demand, has established facilities the U.K., U.S.A., Mexico, Brazil and China.

What we need now is a multi-pronged approach to help our companies make the leap from promising startup to global player. Securing financing is crucial for growing companies - particularly those working on infrastructure projects in international markets - but Canada lags some of our competitors in providing support for firms seeking investors. The federal government should step up its loans and guarantees to help them attract the private sector investment they need to break out of technology development and into a high-growth stage.

At the same time, the government should take steps to stimulate demand for these technologies in our own market by clearing regulatory hurdles that prevent their adoption and creating market mechanisms that encourage companies and individuals to implement them.

Now is the time to educate buyers at home and abroad about the strength of our innovation. We must get more Canadian clean technologies onto the market and into use - the need has never been greater.

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Jonathan Dogterom is Managing Director of Cleantech and Physical Sciences Venture Services at MaRS Discovery District.
When the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), based at the University of Waterloo, released its national report in mid-November, it once again sounded the alarm that indicators of Canadians' quality of life continue to stagnate compared to pure economic indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The CIW's report calls on governments to invest more resources in upstream interventions, such as health promotion and community programs, to help close the gap. But the first question many of you may ask yourself is: "What is health promotion, and why does it matter?"

These are questions I get often, and I still find difficult to answer. I am a health promoter, but unless I'm talking to colleagues, most people aren't even aware the profession exists. "Sounds interesting," they say. "But what do you do exactly?" Here's what I do, and why health promotion is important for all of us and our health system.

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It is ironic that we continue to call ours a health-care system, when in reality it only takes care of us when we are already sick.

When most of us feel sick, we go see a doctor. Then, we might fill a prescription, go for blood work or get a referral to a specialist. Sometimes, we are told to make changes to our lifestyles -- such as eating better, exercising more or lowering our stress levels.

What we may not realize is that many of our everyday habits and decisions are not defined by our choices alone. For instance, if we "choose" to eat unhealthy foods because those are the only available or affordable options for us, is that really a "choice?" If we "choose" sedentary habits because the options for physical activity are out of reach or our life revolves around a long commute, is that really a lifestyle choice?

As daily decisions made amid unhealthy environments pile up, our chances of becoming sick increase. Then we head to the doctor's office or hospital. It is ironic that we continue to call ours a health-care system, when in reality it only takes care of us when we are already sick.

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As a health promoter, I am part of a team of professionals who strive to put health back into health care. My work focuses not only on individuals as patients, but on communities and the factors that contribute to their overall health and well-being. Access to healthy foods, education and training, and opportunities to stay active and build social connections are all areas where health promoters take action. Advocating for healthier policies across governments and creating opportunities for people to become empowered to advocate for their communities is health promotion work, too.

Overall, everything we do aims to prevent you from becoming a patient in the first place. Examples of programs you might recognize include: nutrition and financial literacy classes for youth, accessible recreation, community kitchens and good food markets, social circles and physical activity programs for seniors, prenatal support groups and early childhood development education for parents, mental health and relaxation groups, to name only a few.

But what does health promotion look like in real life? Perhaps one of the reasons it's hard to pin down a single image is that health promotion can take so many forms.

Sure, it can be as simple and individual health-focused as a mindfulness and stress-reduction program like the Life in Balance workshops and groups at Klinic Community Health in Winnipeg. But health promotion can also focus on helping to empower people politically, for example by encouraging democratic agency among a group that is usually disenfranchised.

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A mock election held in Calgary for people facing homelessness, to ease fears and give people a chance to ask questions in a comfortable environment, is an example of just that type of health promotion.

The Guys Can Cook! project (which I coordinate in Toronto) is on the surface a healthy eating initiative for youth, but when we dig deeper, the boys tell us they enjoy cooking and learning about foods from different countries, making friends, and feeling support and encouragement. Some boys return to the program as peer leaders, helping to build both a strong sense of belonging and meaningful involvement in their community.

But despite the essential role that health promotion plays in keeping people well, many programs across the country have to scramble to find funding, which means that even the most successful programs can end up shuttered. In the case of Guys Can Cook, an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant made the program possible. But once that funding runs out this year, Community Health Centres are unlikely to be able to continue offering the program in its full scope.

The concept of health promotion is not new. The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, an international agreement that committed governments to reorient services towards illness prevention, marked its 30th anniversary in November. However, health promotion work continues to be underfunded, mostly invisible, and misunderstood by bureaucrats and the public alike.

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It may be because health promotion work is not as easy to quantify as, say, the number of doctors or the length of wait times. How do you measure a boost in self-esteem and its impact on mental health over a decade of a young person's life? Or the quality of life improvement for a senior who joins an exercise program and makes five new friends? Or a person without a home who nonetheless feels empowered to make their voice heard?

The values may be incalculable, but we know the costs of not addressing mental health issues in youth, of not connecting seniors with supports, and of not connecting people on the margins of society is tremendously high once they get sick.

(Photo: Association of Ontario Health Centres)

When it comes to total dollars spent on health care overall, recent research shows that 40 per cent of those costs -- or a whopping $134-billion over 10 years -- are related to unhealthy behaviours and socioeconomic barriers. In other words, many of the pre-conditions for falling into poor health are preventable, and interventions aimed at improving those conditions have a higher impact on health outcomes and require very modest investments compared to never-ending budget increases for hospitals and doctors.

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The CIW national report urges us to address the massive and continuously expanding gap between our country's economic growth and Canadians' sense of well-being. It's time to heed that call and redefine health care to include care that happens outside clinics and doctors' offices. Across Canada, everyone should demand that their local councillors and mayors, as well as provincial and national leaders support adequate resources for health care that keeps people well, not just a system that cares for us when we're sick.

Julia Fursova is a health promoter and the project coordinator of the Guys Can Cook! program. She is also a PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto.

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BERTRAND LANGLOIS via Getty Images Canadian author Joseph Boyden gives a speech during the opening of the America literature festival at the Vincennes Castle, outside Paris, on September 24, 2010. The event taking place every two years host some 60 authors coming from Canada, USA, West Indies, Cuba, Mexico and Haiti for two days. AFP PHOTO / BERTRAND LANGLOIS (Photo credit should read BERTRAND LANGLOIS/AFP/Getty Images)

It has been a tough few weeks for CanLit, so we've been told. The Galloway affair, first brought to the public's attention last November after Steven Galloway was suspended by UBC as Chair of the Creative Writing Program in light of serious allegations made against him of sexual assault, harassment, and bullying, has been in the spotlight once again.

Galloway was fired in June for "irreparable breach of trust" following an independent inquiry. Then, three weeks ago, Joseph Boyden wrote an open letter to UBC calling for "Steven Galloway's right to due process," which was signed by 88 of Canada's most prominent writers and which unleashed an avalanche of hate on Twitter -- a "toxic war of words," as Marsha Lederman put it in her article in last Saturday's Globe and Mail -- against those very same signatories of this now infamous open letter.

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I do not doubt that it has been a turbulent time for these writers and I do not want to belittle their distress, but if what we are talking about in the wake of that letter is the difficulty it's caused the stars of CanLit, then we are in real trouble.

An unfortunate consequence of all the name-calling on Twitter is that it makes it easy for the people who signed the letter to dismiss the notion that it did any real harm. But it did do real harm and will continue to do so for as long as Boyden and others stand behind it.

The letter effaces the complainants, who get one throwaway reference in it.

Anyone who followed the Ghomeshi trial -- and that means all of us -- knows that violence against women is notoriously underreported. And that trial showed us why: the victim-blaming, the lack of understanding of trauma, the resistance to the bare facts of the everydayness of violence against women, and a criminal justice system that invariably lets victims down.

At every turn women's credibility is in question. The terrible truth is that there is often no justice for women who speak out about sexual assault and sexual harassment, and as such it can take every ounce of will for women to honour their own experiences and not be silenced.

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The Boyden letter takes that juggernaut of misogyny and with the weight of authority crushes it down on those students who lodged complaints against Steven Galloway. It reinforces power imbalances that are institutionally entrenched and easily susceptible to abuse by those in power. In paragraph after paragraph the letter expresses deep concern for the harm done by UBC to Galloway's health and reputation while at the same time noting that all but one of the allegations against him were unsubstantiated. As if that tells us anything about what actually happened.

The letter effaces the complainants, who get one throwaway reference in it. I cannot imagine what could be more intimidating to these women and their peers, a group of student writers in the creative writing program that Galloway chaired, than having close to a hundred of their literary heroes come out in defense of the man they have accused of serious harms. As a result of that letter, voices that are already marginalized are at risk of disappearing altogether.

Does that make Joseph Boyden, who until now has been seen as an advocate of indigenous rights and an ally in the fight for justice for murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, a rape apologist, as his Twitter haters are calling him? I do not know and, frankly, it misses the point. It simply does not matter if Joseph Boyden is a good guy or a bad guy.

Our academic institutions routinely fail victims of sexual violence and we just took away some more of their already meagre safe space.

Why? Because misogyny (like racism and homophobia) lurks beneath the surface of willfulness. Not always, of course. Sometimes presidential campaigns are run on open platforms of hate. But misogyny is not usually explicit or blatant. In fact, decades of empirical research tell us that much of it is unconscious and implicit. This data tell us that even the most egalitarian among us, even those of us who explicitly and sincerely disavow misogyny, behave in ways that favour men over women (white over black, straight over all else).

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These institutional prejudices are built into our cultural and social practices and you cannot come up in this system and not reflect its prejudices. Only active ongoing engagement to rid us of these implicit biases will do the trick. We all have to work to check our privilege, and Boyden's letter is a shining example of what happens when we fail to do that.

What this means is that most of us are unaware of the problematic attitudes that we routinely enact. Even a card-carrying feminist like Margaret Atwood can perpetuate victim-blaming norms and even an apparent advocate for social justice like Joseph Boyden can be complicit in reinforcing a climate in which women's voices are silenced and patriarchal power structures are maintained.

It is those women's voices that I care about, and in this case they are the voices of students. As an academic whose discipline is currently facing its own set of climate concerns brought on by abuses and misuses of power, I can tell you with certainty that it just got harder for students everywhere to speak out. Our academic institutions routinely fail victims of sexual violence and we just took away some more of their already meagre safe space. And because of that, as someone who is a professor, a writer, and also a rape survivor, my heart breaks a little every day.

But let us not lose our focus. As we mark this National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women let us remind ourselves that violence exists in our communities not just because of violent perpetrators but also because of what we, as a society, are prepared to tolerate. Let's pay attention to all victims of violence and do what we can to buoy them after this set back. Let's send them the message that we are listening.

Retract the letter. It is the only decent thing to do.

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The world is changing rapidly. We have witnessed the success of the Brexit campaign in the UK, and the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. There is a growing and frightening divide between the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, the educated and the less educated, journalists and the media. Amid this social and political turmoil, some political groups and social movements are emerging to exploit this climate of tension and fear and make political and financial gains out of it.

Canada has not been immune of this. During the 2015 federal election, Stephen Harper used the niqab ban issue to make political gains. Moreover, he used the Syrian refugees file to create a fear mongering rhetoric insinuating that behind every refugee hides a terrorist and vocabulary as "old-stock Canadians" and "barbaric cultural practices" were employed by Harper to appeal to some voters.

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As despicable and opportunistic his campaign was, his party came second, 5.6 million Canadians voted for the Conservative party. It is not a negligible number if compared to the 6.9 millions who voted for the Liberal party of Prime Minister Trudeau.

After the election of Donald Trump in the U.S, I heard many people on social media and around me saying with relief that we are so lucky to be living in Canada. That is a fine statement but we should not take things for granted.

Few days ago, Chris Alexander -- a former minister of immigration and citizenship in the Harper government and a candidate in the Conservative leadership race -- was in a rally criticizing the carbon tax to be introduced in January by Rachel Notley, the premier of Alberta and the crowd started chanting "lock her up" in reference to the infamous saying of Donald Trump regarding his political adversary Hillary Clinton. Alexander was seen smiling along with the chant and didn't even try to distance himself from the chanting by stopping them or leaving the event. If this is not a copycat from the U.S. politics of populism and misogyny, what else could it?

His colleague Kellie Leitch, another former cabinet minister in the Harper government, who introduced the barbaric practice hotline during the summer 2015 and briefly expressed some regrets before announcing her candidacy for the Conservative party leadership race, has since been surfing on the "Trump wave" by including an "Anti-Canadian value" as a screening for immigrants in a survey question to her supporters. If this is not xenophobic, what else could it be?

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In Quebec, tactics of xenophobia and Islamophobia have been used by some politicians and media outlets with total impunity and very little denunciation by political leaders and the main stream media. The mere impression to appear complacent with terrorism or with anything related to Islam seems to have paralyzed many of them.

Francois Legault, the leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, in a distorted attempt to distance himself from his political opponents published a political ad with the picture of woman wearing a chador (Islamic garment to cover all the body worn in Iran and Afghanistan by some women) and declaring that only his party wouldn't allow teachers to wear a chador in schools. The ad is misleading, as there are no teachers wearing chador in Quebec.

Nevertheless, this ad is intended to appeal to the fear that some voters have regarding those religious symbols that invaded the popular culture (movies and books) after the Iranian revolution of 1979 and remained stuck in people's imaginations even if today there is not a single request for a teacher to wear the chador in Quebec or Canada.

Recently, we learned from CBC that a xenophobic group, has been gaining membership and funds based on their fear of what they call "Islamic fundamentalism."

This group attracts members who are concerned to see the province being invaded by sharia followers or Halal products consumers. It originated in some small village in Quebec, where most likely there are no Muslim immigration presence. The founders of this groups said that they are inspired by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, a right-wing party in France.

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Despite, the historical and socio-economical differences and origins of the immigration in France and Quebec, the fear seem to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean to find fertile ground in Quebec. How come these groups are not considered to be fuelling and propagating hate? When we have politicians hurrying to legislate and invest millions of dollars to combat terrorism and radicalization, and then, on the other side, silent or shy when it comes combating xenophobia and Islamophobia, there is clearly a double standard.

Politicians at the federal and provincial levels should be more courageous and bring legislation that would condemn these groups and actions. Otherwise, it will be too late and the "Trump wave" will sweep us here in Canada as well.

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I recently had the opportunity to attend the The Monsanto Tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands. After receiving an invitation from Dr. Vandana Shiva a couple months beforehand, I can say that it was easily the most excited I've ever been. While some people might not get too excited by the thought of attending a tribunal to expose crimes against humanity and the environment, I was absolutely ecstatic.

It was a chance to hear from some of the many victims of Monsanto and how that company has affected every level of our lives: from the food we put into our bodies and the issues associated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, to the adverse impacts its corporate greed has on poverty and food security.

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The purpose of the tribunal was to hold Monsanto accountable in a setting that mirrored the procedures of an international court of justice. The charges were to include human rights violations, crimes against humanity and ecocide. Over 750 people from more than 30 nations participated in the event, which included the associated People's Assembly, where I was honoured to have the opportunity to address those present.

Monsanto has developed a number of highly toxic products that have permanently damaged the environment and have caused illness or death for thousands.

Eminent judges from Argentina, Mexico, Senegal, Belgium and Canada heard about Monsanto's abuses from various witnesses, experts and victims. There were 20 plaintiffs in total, from both North and South America as well as Europe, Asia and Africa. Monsanto was invited to make submissions as a defendant and to challenge the claims of the victims, but it refused to attend, implying (unsurprisingly) that the whole thing was a publicity stunt. The tribunal complied with the general principles of law and civil procedure, including lawyers preparing and submitting their findings and pleading their cases before the judges.

Since the beginning of the20th century, Monsanto has developed a number of highly toxic products that have permanently damaged the environment and have caused illness or death for thousands. These products include PCBs, dioxins, DDT and Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world. The company dominates the North American food chain with its genetically modified seeds and pesticides and has become well known for its ruthless legal battles against small farmers and its decades-long history of toxic contamination. Monsanto has become symbolic of industrial agriculture and all that's wrong with it: a system that contaminates our food supply with GMOs and agrochemicals, pollutes the environment, destroys biodiversity and is a major contributor to climate change.

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Monsanto has an appalling track record of cover-ups and has ignored the human and environmental damage caused by its products. It has managed to do so by employing similar tactics as big tobacco once did to confuse and misinform both officials and the public with coordinated PR efforts, lobbyists and co-opted scientists (see this presentation by Claire Robinson too).

Over a two-day period in The Hague, the tribunal judges heard evidence presented by the plaintiffs that Monsanto, due to the damage it has caused, should be charged with crimes against humanity, including the crime of ecocide. For many who attended, it was the first time they had shared stories of their suffering. Testimonies were translated into six different languages, allowing everyone to hear victims' stories and to appreciate just what the tribunal meant to them.

It was very moving listening to people like France's Sabine Grataloup and Argentina's Maria Liz Robledo, both glyphosate-induced cancer victims, telling of the hardships they faced. And then there was testimony from Timothy Litzenburg, a U.S. lawyer representing thousands of glyphosate-induced non-Hodgkin's lymphoma victims, who discussed in detail the impact of glyphosate on human health.

We also heard from some true heroes, such as Dr. Damian Verzenassi of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the National University of Rosario in Argentina, one of 30 experts who testified about the health impacts of glyphosate. Unfortunately, since the tribunal, Dr. Verzenassi has been persecuted for denouncing GMOs and agrochemicals: on returning to his office, he found it had been chained shut and his fellow researchers removed.

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And then there was Diego Fernandez, an Argentinean farmer, who gave a courageous speech about his shift from industrial to organic agriculture, the battles he faced and why he did it, not least to benefit soil, health and the environment.

It is hoped the legal opinion will be used in future court cases against multinational corporations, calling them to account for the damage they cause in pursuit of profit.

As mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to speak at the People's Assembly, which ran parallel to the tribunal and brought together movements from across the world to exchange ideas about countering the problems caused by industrial agriculture. The assembly was attended by experts, scientists, representatives from civil society and farmers, who proposed various ways of moving forward with healthy and sustainable models for food and agriculture.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, the world renowned physicist and activist, encapsulated the overall feeling of the event by saying, "We have worked to put Monsanto on trial for its crimes against the Earth, its crimes against our children, its crime of trying to own and patent life and spread poisons. We know we can farm better without their poison."

Although not legally binding, the tribunal judges will give a legal opinion on whether Monsanto is guilty of the violation of basic human rights and ecocide. It is hoped the legal opinion will be used in future court cases against multinational corporations, calling them to account for the damage they cause in pursuit of profit. The judges' legal opinion will hopefully be delivered before December 10, the International Day of human Rights and will be addressed to Monsanto and the United Nations.

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I had the opportunity of witnessing first-hand many genuine stories about the atrocities affecting people from all around the world caused by Monsanto. I returned home ignited by the passion shown by all the brave participants and now hope that many more people will come forward to speak up about how their lives are being affected by Monsanto.

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As Vancouverites are well aware, the Trump Tower has been a point of controversy in our city for some time.

Throughout the presidential election, Donald Trump spewed relentless misogynistic, bigoted, and xenophobic meanderings, reminiscent of that one terrible racist uncle we all have at Thanksgiving dinner -- but far more terrifying.

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During his election campaign, the president-elect showed what he was made of -- and it wasn't pretty. He was found to have openly bragged about sexually assaulting women, while advocating for violent retaliation against his opponent and denouncing the democratic process as a whole.

He called for the mass deportation of ethnic and religious minorities. He told women who experience sexual harassment in their workplaces to "just quit." He seemed to gloat during the debates about not paying federal income taxes and bullied those who spoke out against him on Twitter.

He accused Mexicans of being rapists. He suggested that women who procure abortions should be criminally punished, but men should not. He denied climate change, chalking it up as a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government. He called on Russia to commit espionage against his own government by hacking into his opponent's private e-mail servers. He also referred to pregnancy as an inconvenience to employers and suggested time and time again that women's value is limited only to their physical appearance. The list could go on... but I only have so much space.

In short, it is safe to say that Donald Trump is a terrible man who has terrible opinions.

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And since his rise to the highest post of government, things have only gotten monumentally worse. Trump's successful election campaign has given a newfound sense of entitlement to white supremacist all over North America. On November 9, 2016 -- mere hours after Hillary Clinton conceded the election to her rival -- fully robed members of the Klu Klux Klan were seen celebrating during a 'victory parade' in North Carolina.

These incidents are as unacceptable as they are jarring.

They have no place in a civilized society.

Quite simply, the values espoused by Donald Trump and his supporters do not align with the values that are held by the majority of Canadians -- and they certainly do not align with the values that are held by the vast majority of Vancouverites.

As Vancouverites, we cannot stand for this.

Our city is one that has been lauded for being diverse, inclusive, and progressive. Vancouver is innovative, socially conscious and aware. It is home to the ground-breaking InSite program and has been the home base for, and has led the march toward, LGBTQ rights in this country. It is a multicultural and proud.

Vancouver is home to the longest-serving female MP in Canadian history and is recognized as being one of the greenest eco-friendly cities in North America. And while Vancouver may not be perfect, it certainly does not reflect the hateful, racist and sexist platform that has been put forward by Donald Trump.

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Bottom line: there is no room for Trump in our city and his name should be removed from our skyline.

Protests against the Trump Tower have been ongoing since the president-elect has shown himself to be a repugnant demagogue.

In May, a Mexican labourer, working on the Trump Tower, erected a Mexican flag, which flew from the top floor of the project, in protest against the racist hate speech that Trump had perpetrated against his people.

Demonstrations have continued outside the building. Earlier this year, Mayor Gregor Robertson even wrote the developer, the Holborn Group, expressing his concerns about the hate-mongering moguls' name being displayed on the development.

But it has not had an effect. The Holborn Group does not seem to care what we, the residents of Vancouver, think. It intends to move forward as planned. It sees profit in using the Trump brand in order to sell its product.

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In a recent interview, Joo Kim Tiah, CEO for the Holborn Group, defended his position. He cited "enormous financial and legal ramifications" if the group were to end its relationship with Trump as the main motivating factor behind it. He further stated that he believes that Trump isn't so bad, and that the media treated him unfairly by representing him in an unflattering light throughout the election campaign. Describing the president-elect as "honourable" and "humble", Tiah seemed to be talking about someone entirely different than the man we have all come to know as Donald Trump.

The fact is, Donald Trump is not honourable. He is not humble. And he has no place in here.

Continuing to support Donald Trump sends a clear message that sexist, racist, xenophobic behaviour is acceptable and rewarded in our city.

As Vancouverites, we cannot stand for this.

We should find inspiration in residents of New York City. Earlier this month, they successfully petitioned to have the real estate tycoon's name removed from three luxury apartment buildings in Manhattan. They stood up and said that Trump's conduct is not welcome in their city.

We must do the same.

The Trump Tower is slated for its grand opening ceremony in January of next year.

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BruceStanfield via Getty Images National Flag used by the Syrian National Coalition and Syrian Interim Government

A perilous challenge to world order looms in the carnage of Syria.

Starved for nearly a month from food or medicine, Aleppo has been under medieval siege, the constant bombardment making it the single worst place on earth. Desperate tweets deny the world the excuse of ignorance.

The prime minister must take a strong position on Syria. While Ottawa advocates for Syria at the UN General Assembly, the brutal war in Aleppo continues unabated. Bashar Al Assad and his partners in Iran and Russia are flaying the Syrian people, and Canada's silence is stunning.

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The assault on Aleppo is intensifying under the Russo-Iranian axis. Tens of thousands of hardened Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fighters flank Syrian forces. Hundreds of sorties of Russian bombers bludgeon rebel enclaves, dropping bunker bombs crushing underground hospitals. Syrian helicopters drop chlorine gas, creating an unbearable, suffocating hell. We should keep the actions of Assad's enablers at the forefront as Canada considers normalizing relations with Iran and Russia.

Russia and Iran have seized the momentum, and they must be stopped.

Recent rapprochement between Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Recep Erdogan has prevented NATO from agreeing on who the enemy is, while Russia, Iran and Turkey pour over maps to carve out their spheres of influence. Fruitless debates at the United Nations have failed under the knife of the Russian veto. Negotiations with Moscow have been a shell game coaxing the world into never-ending dialogue, diffusing its capacity to act. A lame duck U.S. administration quietly confesses that more could have been done years ago to limit the war.

In this vacuum of power, the world's most belligerent actors are dancing on the bones of the dead and, in their bloodlust for hegemony, laughing at an international system they have turned on its head.

Russia and Iran have seized the momentum, and they must be stopped.

The challenge for Canadian foreign policy is to mitigate the risks of the rebels faltering in Aleppo, with the more long-term strategic challenge of Russia and Iran's vicious play for power. Should Aleppo fall, an even more dystopian region will emerge.

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Hezbollah and IRGC troops will span both Southern Lebanon and Western Syria, with a bigger base of sustained operations. Emboldened, Iran has established a geographic corridor of influence that goes to the doorstep of the one country the clerical regime is determined to disrupt and destroy: Israel.

The sectarian nature of Assad's allies on the ground will only radicalize elements of the Sunni majority population in Syria and beyond. This has always been the plan: Decimate moderate Free Syrian Army rebels. Target Sunnis with harsh security measures, legitimizing the Jihadi narrative. Then watch, as they by desperation or by force, are recruited and radicalized by terrorists. Al Assad understood how to use this formula for his own legitimacy all along. At the onset of protests in Damascus, he unleashed Al Qaeda planners from Syrian prisons, cynically styling himself as the champion of pluralist stability against a terror network he helped spawn.

This trajectory of the Syrian war has immense consequences for Canada, to our allies, and to those who share our values.

Russia would entrench as a major power, brimming with a fleet of aircraft, a highly sophisticated anti-aircraft system (of no use against ISIS), a naval base at Tartus central to its Mediterranean identity, and successful operational partnerships in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Ankara. By the American inauguration, Vladimir Putin will be in a strong position to offer Washington a deal: to coordinate with the US to crush ISIS on Moscow's terms.

The European crisis continues, first with Brexit and most recently the Italian referendum. Erdogan has threatened to further destabilize Europe. With his command, a floodgate of migrants could once again wash across Europe from Turkey. Combined with profound anxiety, local demagogues, Kremlin propaganda and European benefactors from Russian companies, they pose a substantial challenge to Chancellor Angela Merkel's re-election.

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This trajectory of the Syrian war has immense consequences for Canada, to our allies, and to those who share our values. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge, yet it is in these times when real leadership must emerge to end the Syrian war.

This is what Canada can do, if the leadership is truly determined to shape the course of history, rather than be shaped by it:

Advance the significant position to call for grounding the Syrian Air Force, establishing no-fly zones and humanitarian corridors inside Syria, where critical safe havens must be created for Syrian civilians, and humanitarian agencies can supply essential services;

Decide to undermine and dismantle the Russo-Iranian axis backing terror, genocide and dictatorship in Syria and Iraq, then start doing it as a matter of foreign policy at the United Nations, multilateral and regional fora;

Update Canadian policy in Syria to confront both ISIS and Hezbollah/IRGC, ending the perception of preferring one sectarian terrorist over the other;

Actively train and support subnational groups that demonstrably share pluralist values, including ethnic and religious minorities, and vetted local chapters of the Free Syrian Army;

Stem the financial flows to terrorist actors inside Syria by imposing targeted sanctions against a list of specific foreign individuals and organizations known to sponsor terrorism in Syria, updating Canada's Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA), and resourcing the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to strengthen global compliance;

Work with allies to conduct humanitarian air drops in besieged and inaccessible areas, and insist on a transparent humanitarian framework to assure critical access for those that need it most, ending the Assad regime's exploitation of aid for its own political benefit; and,

Engage what's left of Syrian civil society to preserve the institutions that will be needed in the aftermath of the war to shape an enduring, stable, federal Syrian society after this regime.

We risk sleepwalking into a region that will challenge Canadian values and interests more deeply than at any other moment in recent memory. There are limits to Canadian power. Yet real leadership can advance these positions morally and strategically by engaging our allies and taking the challenge to end the Syria war seriously.

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Klaus Vedfelt via Getty Images People working in small victorian style creative office

Internships have the potential to go horribly wrong. Students think they are signing up for valuable work experience with a modest paycheque and instead find themselves being free labour doing odd jobs or making coffee for free.

Unpaid internships have been common practice for years at some major companies and organizations. In fact, lobbyists estimate between 100,000 and 300,000 Canadians work for free. But there has been mounting pressure to change this. Earlier this year, the Canadian Intern Association raised concerns over proposed regulations that would allow federally regulated workplaces to hire unpaid interns fearing the proposed guidelines are a recipe for exploitation.

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In provinces like Ontario, unpaid internships are almost always illegal unless they are in exchange for an academic credit. A crackdown by Ontario's Ministry of Labour forced some prominent companies such as Bell Canada to end their long-standing unpaid internship programs.

With all the negative attention around internships, companies may be tempted to shy away from the idea, but this is a poor business decision. The investment you make in internship programs can provide a tremendous return for the company and the student, so it should not be overlooked. You cannot look at an internship as free labour or simply supporting the career aspirations of a young person.

Companies need to view internships as an effective recruitment strategy for talent and an ongoing pipeline of potential employees.

Instead, companies need to view internships as an effective recruitment strategy for talent and an ongoing pipeline of potential employees. That's why Aercoustics launched a paid internship program which places a third-year engineering student in the company for a period of 16 months before they return to university to complete their final year. The result has been mutually beneficial. Students get the experience they need to help start their career and gives us a competitive advantage by identifying and securing new talent.

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But setting up an internship program is more than just hiring a couple of students. Like any HR program, you need to have objectives for both sides to be effective. Here are five steps that can help you define a meaningful internship program:

Assess needs, resources and supports: Before creating an internship, you need to have a plan to ensure you set the interns up for success and benefit from an internship. Determine the needs in your office and identify where an intern can help, where they would sit in the office and how your team can support them. Get everyone on board from the top down to ensure you have the interns feel welcome when they arrive and get support. Assign a coach to guide and mentor the intern. Schedule performance reviews on a regular basis to ensure they receive feedback along the way. Determine length and compensation of internship: Know how long you need an intern and how much you can afford. Keep in mind that an intern needs to stay with your company long enough for them to gain useful work experience and for you to evaluate their capabilities. If you wish the intern could stay longer than their term, that's a good sign that you may want to hire them. Research appropriate compensation. Do your due diligence and ensure you are offering an internship that respects the law and your interns. Good quality candidates should not be expected to work for free. Be upfront about goals and expectations: From the beginning, ensure both the employer and the intern are on the same page when it comes to understanding responsibilities, pay and duration. If an intern knows the expectations, they will be more motivated to work. Leverage former interns to find new ones: You will find interns you want to hire and you can enlist these former interns to help recruit new ones. Prospective interns can ask questions of former ones so they know to expect. Your former interns can offer a fresh perspective to candidates, answer questions and serve as an example of the potential that comes with the position. Treat them like full time employees: Give interns responsibilities -- not titles -- by identifying tasks that interns can own. This will provide insight into their capabilities and will give them an opportunity to broaden their skills beyond what they learned in class. Trusting them and treating them like a member of the team will allow you to "test drive" the potential employee and help interns feel more engaged. It will also give them a snapshot of working at the company.

Take time to review and evaluate the program on a regular basis to ensure it is delivering results for you and the intern. You may need to tweak it to make it fit for your company.

Recruiting young talent takes time but a paid internship that offers good opportunities for young people will attract quality applicants and streamline the hiring process. There will be time invested upfront to develop the program and mentor interns, it can yield great returns. And by attracting strong candidates to join your team, it can provide fresh ideas to help take the company to the next level.

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A powerful new film featuring UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham was released on Monday to illustrate the brutal reality that physical and psychological abuse can mark children forever.

During the film, scenes of violence against children appear as animated tattoos on David Beckham's body. While Beckham's own tattoos were marks chosen to represent happy or important memories, millions of children bear marks they have not chosen: the long-lasting scars of violence and abuse. The animations in the film depict all too common forms of violence that boys and girls endure in spaces where they should be safe -- their homes, schools, online and in their communities.

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Every five minutes, somewhere in the world, a child dies from violence. Millions more are in danger of physical, emotional and sexual abuse that could destroy their childhoods forever.

Using U-report, a messaging tool that allows young people to report on issues affecting their lives, David Beckham invited youth to answer questions on violence against children.

More than 190,000 "U-Reporters" from 22 countries responded. Two-thirds of them said that they have personally experienced physical or verbal abuse or know somebody else who has. When asked who they think commits violence most often, one-third said police or law enforcement, 29 per cent said their peers, 28 per cent said a parent or caregiver and 9 per cent said teachers.

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Approximately 80,000 U-Reporters provided suggestions on what can be done to address violence in their communities. A 24-year old U-Reporter from the Philippines said, "I will let my voice be heard and warn all people around me on what is happening, and ask for someone's help to end it if I cannot do it alone."

The tragic consequences of violence affect all aspects of a child's life and can be passed down from one generation to the next. Violence against children carries serious costs to all societies in every region of the world.

Yet violence is not inevitable. UNICEF points to seven proven strategies that can help end violence against children. These include strengthening attitudes that support non-violence; enforcing laws; creating safe environments for children; supporting parents and caregivers; increasing family incomes to reduce poverty; strengthening social services and equipping children with life-skills.

To help UNICEF provide life-saving support to children at risk, click here.
There's a Sheryl Sandberg quote that springs to mind every time I attend events to boost female entrepreneurship: "In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders." It's a sentiment frequently echoed by the female founders I encounter at our events. They don't see themselves as "female entrepreneurs". "Entrepreneurs" will do.

It is often claimed that women entrepreneurs are poised to lead the next wave of growth in areas like tech. And indeed Founders4Schools released some encouraging statistics earlier this year: 762 women-led companies with revenues between 1m and 250m are expanding at a median growth rate of 30 per cent a year. 453 (59.4 per cent) are growing by 20 per cent or more and 281 (37 per cent) are growing by 50 per cent or more. The revenues they together accounted for increased by nearly 2bn from the last year.

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Nonetheless, female entrepreneurs face certain challenges which need to be met if they're to scale at a pace matching male-led companies. As women enter the world of entrepreneurship in increasing numbers, a new crowd of investors and advisers has emerged to plug the gaps. Earlier this month, one successful entrepreneur launched AllBright, a female-focused investment platform which combines an angel network with a crowdfunding platform, as well as provides access to business resources and learning via its "Academy". It's a win-win for entrepreneurs and investors alike and already, AllBright has 174 companies in its pipeline and 100 angels in its network.

According to Debbie Wosskow, the serial entrepreneur behind AllBright (along with Hearst Magazines' UK CEO Anna Jones), the platform will provide a "real financial opportunity for our investors to benefit from the untapped asset class of some of the UK's best female entrepreneurs". Its advisory board reads like a who's who of the entrepreneurial community - Sherry Coutu CBE, Lord Davies of Abersoch CBE and internet entrepreneur Rosemary Leith. And it could play an important role in boosting our economy. If every woman who wanted to run her own business had the tools to make it possible, it would lead to 340,000 new businesses and support 425,000 additional jobs.
Ukrainian coal mining companies have increased production by 1.7% in January-November 2016 (by 629,700 tonnes) compared to the same period of 2015, to 37.003 million tonnes.

A source in the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry told Interfax-Ukraine coking coal production increased by 3.5% (by 261,700 tonnes), to 7.695 million tonnes, steam coal output was up by 1.3% (by 368,000 tonnes), to 29.308 million tonnes.

Coal mining enterprises managed by the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry in January-November 2016 reduced production by 14.3% (by 877,200 tonnes), to 5.276 million tonnes, in particular output of coking coal decreased by 21% (by 379,500 tonnes), to 1.425 million tonnes, steam coal by 11.4% (by 497,700 tonnes), to 3.851 million tonnes.

Mines in Donetsk region for the 11 months of this year produced 14.239 million tonnes of coal (a 9.1% rise compared to January-November 2015), Luhansk region 4.403 million tonnes (11.1% more), Dnipropetrovsk region 16.742 million tonnes (3.3% less), Lviv region 1.451 million tonnes (19.6% less), and Volyn region 168,200 tonnes (25.7% down).
CFrost

The end of year reviews for 2016 are already sizing up to be a doom-laden dirge of loss, lamentation, fear and fury, and there has certainly been little to cheer about, whichever side of the increasing political and cultural divide you happen to sit.

The big questions hovering over us now are: What can we learn? What do we do next? How can we make sure we're on the side of the solution, and not a bigger problem?

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I've been one of thousands wringing their hands in consternation for the future, and that's as a resident of incubated West London, immune from so many almighty challenges - economic, cultural, environmental - faced by inhabitants of much more precarious places.

But bizarrely, it was a young man in an environment that typifies the latter who I had the good fortune to talk to earlier this year, and his words seem like beacons of compassion, confidence and hope as I start pondering how 2017 can be better.

I was lucky to travel to Nepal in the autumn, to report on WaterAid's debut VR film 'Aftershock' - documenting the devastation of 2015's earthquakes, and the response of the villagers of rural Kharelthok, two hours outside Kathmandu, many of whom lost their homes and livelihoods when the hills shook.

Chatting happily to the locals at the film's unusual premiere was Dharma Raj Chharyal, a 22-year-old civil engineer who has been embedded with the community since shortly after the double earthquake of spring 2015. He also has a role in the film.

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Dharma - well-educated, quietly-spoken but clearly extremely bright - had been preparing for exams to secure an engineering job within government, around the time the earthquakes hit. He told me he had swiftly joined in with the emergency relief work, which meant the exams, and with them a guaranteed pay rise and career track, had to go on hold.

This must have been a huge personal sacrifice? Instead, he says:

"I'm actually feeling really happy, because if I was a government employee, by now, I'd be office-based, only making occasional field visits for supervision and monitoring. The system doesn't allow us to work and stay in the community.

"Here, I'm completely ingrained with the community, both technically and socially. I can learn from them. I don't think I've missed out."

Indeed, Dharma has become a regular presence on this remote hillside, bringing his technical knowledge to the locals as they go about restoring their village, re-building houses from the ground up, and - crucially - locating a reliable water source.

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"My office was asking which village I wanted to work in, and I said Kharelthok because there was so much damage," he remembers.

"Here, because the water scarcity is so bad, we are literally having to learn how to send water uphill. This is brand new engineering and I'm learning a lot."

For Dharma, the biggest challenge is that not every local he's trying to help is as open to the technology as he would like.

"Sometimes, people can be offensive, especially after a drink, saying 'Why should I listen to you? I'm on my own.' They think I'm too young to have any authority. Most of these are village elders, and telling them what to do, or asking them to help me, makes me feel awkward."

On the other hand, Dharma is helped in his mission by local group leaders, mostly women, who do value his advice, and play their part in getting the community on board. "Without them, it would be impossible, but they're really helpful," says Dharma.

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Nepal sees a huge number of its young men leave the country as soon as they are qualified, seeking better careers and more money to send back to their reliant families. For Dharma, this isn't the path he wants for himself.

"When I arrived here, the situation was chaotic. People were not getting food, they had no roof over their heads, they were just trying to survive.

"It made me want to do something for my own Nepalese community. If we want things to get better, I don't think we can go abroad. We can't expect other people to help us if we don't stay here and do our very best to help ourselves.

"I belong here now. If in the future, my financial situation gets worse and I have to follow a really good opportunity, I might reconsider, but at the moment there are no plans."

The best part of Dharma's day? "When the seniors listen to me, follow what I say, and then something good happens. That makes it all worthwhile. One day soon, we'll get the water going up the hill."

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It's that time of the year again when feminists and concerned citizens come together to mark the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence.

It's a global campaign starting on 25th November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and running until 10th December, International Human Rights Day. Each year we find that violence against women continues to be the most widespread violation of human rights, with 1 in 3 women facing physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, mostly perpetrated by partners and ex-partners.

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And while intimate partner violence is an ongoing concern, new forms of violence are also emerging. Women standing up to defend their own land from corporate development projects, such as mining, face particular forms of gendered violence such as sexual harassment and rape in addition to facing threats that are common to human rights defenders such as being targeted with false accusations and harassed by the police.

So the work of ending violence against women is never done and it seems to be getting more difficult. In September, at a gathering of two thousand feminists and activists from around the world organised by the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), there was consensus that we are facing a global backlash against women's rights and we risk backtracking on progress that was painstakingly, and often painfully, achieved.

A crisis of implementation but there's plenty of money to go round

The theme of this year's 16 Days of Activism is funding. And rightly so, as money is really where the challenge is. Over the past 25 years, national laws and action plans to prevent and combat violence against women have multiplied, following global commitments agreed at IV World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Many studies have shown the cost of violence against women to the economy, in the effort to make decision makers care and take action. From burdening public services such as health to costing points of GDP in lost productivity. So the case for eradicating violence against women too often becomes a question of economic efficiency rather than of rights and dignity.

Far less do we hear how the economy is failing women's struggles and failing women worldwide. Many of the laws and policies women's rights movements struggled long and hard for are left on paper as funding is not prioritised to implement legislation, train the judiciary, the police and service providers. Analysis done by UN Women of selected national action plans for gender equality has found financing gaps of up to 90%. This happens because plans are not costed and commitments remain invisible to the eyes of finance ministers. When governments globally prioritise deficit reduction through austerity, specialised services are the first to be cut.

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And here's the irony: there is enough money in the world to solve this crisis of implementation. There's a growing global movement rallying to stop illicit financial flows and to make sure corporations and the wealthy pay a fair share of tax rather than hiding wealth in tax havens, which are depriving the world of $170 billion in tax revenue per year. More and more women's rights activists are looking at how these issues are the ultimate cause of lack of resources to implement long-standing commitments.

Making the economy work for women and not vice versa

There is also another aspect of the failure of the economy to adequately resource the fight to end violence against women: lack of decent work for women. Being economically independent represents a gateway towards having more control over your life. However, with gender stereotypes following women into the labour market and lack of childcare services, safe public transport and water and sanitation facilities, working conditions for women are challenging.

Womankind's partners Association for Women's Sanctuary and Development (AWSAD) in Ethiopia and Musasa in Zimbabwe, both run some of the only shelters in their countries for women fleeing domestic violence. Preparing women for an independent life is part of the holistic support they provide. This includes vocational skills so that women can learn a trade, find a job or start an independent business. But skills and hard work are not enough when the wider economy is not working for women. For example, in Ethiopia, lack of affordable childcare for working class women makes it difficult to earn a steady income. In Zimbabwe, the dire state of the economy means that there are very few jobs for women to look for.
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"It's nothing to do with you. What you getting involved for?" he said as he squared up to me

A couple of weeks ago it was Anti-Bullying Week. Like mental health issues, which affect one in four of us, bullying affects many of us at some point of our lives. As parents it is very hard to watch your child face this most cruel of 'rites of passage' - and thankfully we no longer accept bullying as an inevitable experience of childhood. Adrian Mitchell's powerful poem 'Back in the playground blues' describes the seeming inevitability of bullying and victimisation, and the sense of impotence on all sides:

"Got a mother and a father they're one thousand years away

The rulers of the Killing Ground are coming out to play"

Maybe this was why I found myself in a somewhat awkward situation with a number of young people who seemed bent on conflict, outside that paragon of civilisation, John Lewis, in Stratford. The genteel backdrop to this exchange did nothing to dispel the very real 'survival of the fittest' and rule of the jungle that I faced.

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A couple of minutes previously, I had walked out of the shop into the mall, heading for the tube station. I was distracted by another shopper standing in front of me holding a large box containing a microwave, a burden which does not make you want to linger in the middle of a busy mall. He in turn was distracted by two schoolboys, who at first glance appeared to be mucking around wrestling. But as I looked I realised it was not an equal fight: the first lad had the other in a head-lock and was him dragging outside.

Have you ever noticed that a place that is usually bristling with security guards seems not to have any about when you need them? Not even a copper in sight!

"Oi", I shouted as they burst out through the doors. By this time there was a gaggle of their peers, all with the same uniform, heading to watch the show. I headed for the same doors, backed up - I hoped - by the microwave carrier. "That's enough", I called - not very impressive, but I had not yet warmed to my theme and was somewhat burdened with my own shopping bags.

Suddenly I discovered that the onlookers were surrounding me, a number saying, "It's just banter!" "No it's not", I replied, pointing at the scuffle as the first boy clamped his foot down on his victim's head and pressed him to the pavement. "It's nothing to do with you. What you getting involved for?" said a big lad, probably 15 or 16 years old, next to me. It's a bit lame but I replied, "I'm a citizen and so are you - it's to do with all of us". Out of the corner of my eye I saw the attacker move off from his victim, freeing him up.

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What happened next had an ominous tone. "Don't stand so close to me! Why you standing so close?" the big lad said. I had a number of choices at this point: there was only one way this exchange was going. I had got in the way of their fun. I tried a light remark to ease the rapidly increasing tension - no joy, the big lad wanted conflict. Several options ran through my mind: fight, flight or freeze? Talking was not going to work. I could try a pre-emptive strike: I remembered seeing this on a documentary on self-defence, and it would probably shock us all - but no, it was time to make a tactical withdrawal. At least the victim had had a reprieve, and if he was wise had run off - I never saw, as I was having to contain my own situation.

I walked off and approached a security guard who was giving directions. After being told primly to wait my turn, I told her was a fight going on and she sheepishly thanked me and dashed away.

The whole incident was perturbing: not so much that young people were fighting, but how easily it turned on me. It was also disappointing that there was no one else around for backup.

I wandered off for one more purchase and, as I came out of the shop, who should walk by but the threatening lad, on his own. One of the hard realities of bullying is that the bully is often someone who themselves has experienced bullying. Rather than producing empathy, bullying seems to create a perpetual vicious circle as each vies not to be at the bottom of the pile.

It made me wonder - why was he like that? Why the aggression? I wondered if I should take one more risk and offer him a McDonalds and try to talk to him. I turned to follow him, but he turned again and started talk to some others in a large group. It wasn't to be - I only had a chance of a talk if he was on his own with no one else to play up to. I was off the hook... maybe next time.

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Is there a lesson for us here? I'm not sure, but bullying exists because we allow it: we get the society we are prepared to put up with. We have to decide we won't excuse bullying in our classrooms, staff rooms, workplaces and most of all in ourselves.
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Having read a book called Freedom after the sharks by Geoff Hudson-Searle, I became curious to find out about the author of the book and to learn what drives him. Here are a few questions I asked him and I believe you'll find what Geoff has to say quite interesting and inspiring.

Why do you write?

Like most writers, I write through experiences, my first book Freedom after the Sharks was a true story, the facts were that I was planning to write another book. Once a writer starts to put pen to paper the truth will run through them, at times it is impossible to stop. It's not exactly a compulsion, but it really does come quite close to that. Writing makes sense of one's world, which is what most of us want to do on some level or other.

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Which authors do you admire most?

Some of the most powerful authors that have inspired me or touched my life have come from the business world. The first book was from my late Grandmother authored by T.A.B Corley titled Quaker Enterprise in Biscuits, Huntley & Palmers of Reading 1822 -1972, Mark H McCormack was a huge inspiration to me with What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School, Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria with Driven, Stephen M.R. Covey with The Speed of Trust, Meister Eckhart with the book of the same name, Joseph Campbell and Hero with a Thousand Faces, Nicholas Sparks with True Believer, Richard Layard with Happiness, Carl Honore with In the Praise of Slow and Robert Greene with The 48 Laws of Power and Mastery.

Describe the route to 'Meaningful Conversations' being published...

I started as a writer with a non-fiction and Meaningful Conversations was always to be a fiction the book deals with the constant root cause of today's plethora of life and business challenges. It explores the whys and wherefores of communications, strategy and development and growth in our ways of thinking and experiencing the world, and then uncovers a way ahead through 50 short stories based by MIT, Harvard, Stamford, Oxford and Cambridge research in to valuable timeless logic. It draws upon Eastern and Western wisdom and blends philosophy with pioneering new thought. Are you up for crossing the threshold? Here we find the answers to our pressing challenges.

In a few sentences please describe what this book is about?

This book demonstrates the relationship between communications (human-to-human), strategy and business development and growth. It is important to understand that a number of the ideas, developments and techniques employed at the beginning as well as the top of business can be successfully made flexible to apply. This book provides a holistic overview of the essential leading methods of techniques. It will provide you with a "hands on guide" for business professionals and those in higher education.

Where do you write from?

I live in London, United Kingdom however most of the creative origins for the book were established with my time in Arizona, United States of America.

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Briefly, what led up to this book?

I was writing weekly on communications, strategy and development and growth as a different persona. The terms 'Communications', Strategy' and Business Development and Growth' have become overused during the last decade and have become devalued as a result. In this book, I aim to simplify these terms and to re-value management and leadership by addressing topics and subjects in each distinctive chapter.

What was the time frame for writing this book?

I wrote this book in direct response to being told that you cannot call yourself an author with only one book, thanks Lisa! Now I have produced my second book, I am being told you cannot call yourself an author with only two books. The time frame between Freedom after the Sharks and the release of Meaningful Conversations was approximately 3 years.

What were your one or two biggest learning experience(s) or surprise(s) throughout the publishing process?

You have to be yourself in your writing. You have to pick a genre that suits you as a person and you as a writer. There are enough obstacles for a new author, don't create more for yourself, write in a style you are comfortable with. If you are not enjoying writing it, if you are not comfortable writing it, nobody is going to enjoy reading it.

Do not take it personally, I do read the bad reviews, writing is completely subjective you may have 1,000 people that love your perspective, genre and story but 3 people may just not get your point and they never will, you are in the creative industry accept criticism with a smile.

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Books and publishing is such an up and down industry - you can be flavour of the month one minute and struggling the next, even when you have had a certain level of success. Until you have enough money coming in to be able to justify it to yourself, don't give up the day job.

Everyone wants to live the dream and write full time, but it is a very difficult industry to get into and a very difficult industry to stay in. Learn to write around your day job in the beginning.

Looking back, what did you do right that helped you break into writing?

I think it was what I did wrong that helped me break into writing. In life you survive. You move on but with a purpose. A great philosopher and friend in the US once told me that you are in this world by divine right and you have the right to reach your highest potential through your own uniqueness. I know so many people who are only in bliss when they are miserable. They blame their parents, their spouse, their family, the system, their employers and event friends.

You can do whatever you have to do to get past the challenges of writing and writer block etc., you can do it. The question is how much you want the right way, your dream or the purpose.

On that note, what would you have done differently if you could do it again?

Every audience has a different dynamic, a different rhythm, and a different reaction. The audience wants, needs, and expects pertinent, real-life information to enhance and support their lives and importantly what they're facing. I believe it was my destiny in life to push things to the limit. You only get one chance to make an impression. I gave Meaningful Conversations every opportunity I had and I believed to be right book at the right time for readership, I am not sure I would change a thing given a second opportunity.

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In what ways do you 'service' your books?

If one is fortunate enough to have one's books taken up in a significant way, there is a tremendous amount to do in 'servicing' the books. Speaking opportunities, blogging, social media, interviews, PR, travelling and often attending book festivals and other events all over the world. Although it can be quite burdensome, it is always very interesting to meet the readers, and I think that is what keeps me going.

What advice would you give to an aspiring novelist?

Trust yourself and never give up. Be determined right to the end. You should always write about what you know and love. This is not just a matter of principle but solid writing advice. Editors and readers have a good understanding whether a book has a purpose, it is their intuitive know-how.

You have a story to tell that cannot be told by anyone else, in any other way, and if you're talented and lucky and work hard, you will find the right way to tell it. In other words, be truthful to yourself and you can communicate the truth to others through writing. This is not to say that you cannot be creative, but rather that your voice, your true voice, is what will draw people in to your manuscript.

On another note it is quite possible that one publisher will reject your book for a number of reasons while another loves it for those very same reasons. The trick is to secure a great editor and find a publisher whose interests align with yours.

My advice is to write a book and then immediately go on to the next one and to the one after that. In other words, the more you write, the better you will become.

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Best piece(s) of writing advice we haven't discussed?

Always, in every place across the world, people have written. Writing has not changed since the Roman days. Writing affords me a chance each and every day to just sit with my thoughts and be still. I live in a very busy city with people everywhere on mobile devices, and I love that. But I also think it's important to sit and be quiet, to reflect and to use creativity with yourself and your thoughts. Writing for me is very meditative and calming, and helps to keep me peaceful in a very frantic world.

Every writer is influenced by everything they've ever read or seen. All the books and news articles that have passed through your hands have also somehow made their way into your thoughts, whether you are aware of it or not. I love that idea. I love to think that when I write, I am in some ways sitting down with all the books I have ever read, and in some ways, sitting down with the writers who wrote those books. I like to think that I'm connected to a long line of people just like me; people who also loved to write with the ability to leave a legacy of my work that someday will be read and hopefully inspired upon by others.

What's next?

As my good friends and colleagues constantly remind me on a daily basis, I must write version 3.0. I do have some quite amazing and credible ideas. This is in my thoughts and given the time I am sure it will come. I need to be in a creative space with my notebook and some great coffee. It will happen! Outside of 3.0, I am enjoying my weekly blog writing, spending time with fellow authors, sharing experiences, PR, interviews, and of course my day job which is always challenging and interesting, never ceases to amaze and surprise me in life.
I've been through the standardised education system in the United Kingdom and I have to say, I was not and still am not, impressed.

As a student I've experienced both private school education and state school education, which if I'm completely honest are almost identical. In a private school system your class sizes are smaller and you have consistency with teachers, whilst state school class sizes are larger and the number of supply teachers are more frequent. However, both systems expose students to the vulnerability of slipping through undetected, based on one ever present flaw; lack of 1:1 tailored support.

Regardless of the size of a class it is impossible to teach in a way that challenges and feeds the minds of every student present in the classroom purely because of the difference in abilities. Every student is different, in their mannerism and learning styles. In state schools the environment is very intense due to the strain on resources and large class sizes. This pressure is further exacerbated by government imposed pass rate quotas, so what ends up happening is a focus on the quantity rather than the quality. By this I mean, state schools strive to raise the number of passes without focusing intricately on the grade that their students are passing with. I have experienced this first hand, and note that once teachers realise you are capable of achieving a grade B or higher they do little to help you maximise your full potential. This isn't because they have a personal objection to it, but because they are so pushed for time and capacity they have no choice but to focus intensely on those students scraping a grade C or below.

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State schools often have 'sets' for each subject i.e. you are placed in either a higher, middle or lower set class based on your ability. Again this is problematic purely because; what if you are on the higher end of a middle criteria or a lower? Surely the work set will thus be either too challenging or too easy for you? Similarly, this does nothing to encourage students to push through such categorisation and could equally be quite demoralising.

I believe this issue is ever-present and whilst in a private school education your class size may be smaller, teachers will still have to succumb to the overwhelming pressure of catering to the ability of the majority.

So how do we resolve this?

I believe independent learning enabled through 1:1 support can allow students to achieve their full potential, whilst helping them build a strong work ethic they can use for the remainder of their academic career. Tutoring allows students to gain access to a professional with expertise in a particular subject area that they may be struggling in, thus preventing them from falling through the the gaps built by the flaws in the educational system.

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Every student deserves to be assessed either by a staff member at their forum of education or by an independent tutor. Parents can also play a greater role in this area by discussing their children's needs in an empathetic manner. However I do believe the role played by parents is often hindered by the fact that they may have limited patience as it is harder to be objective with your own.

Of course a huge obstacle towards gaining access to a good tutor is funding and if you come from a background where there is a strain on finances - as I did - it is perhaps a luxury you are unable to offer your child. But education is a fundamental human right so surely there should be some extra government assistance provided to ensure there are more mechanisms in place to support students of all abilities and backgrounds, in order to truly tackle barriers to learning.

Having tutored students of all ages I cannot stress how rewarding it is to enable someone to reach their full potential, and knowing you've had some sort of positive impact leaves me feeling content!
Each city you visit is different and, having spoken about travelling with various friends and acquaintances, I realised that the beauty of any place is completely subjective to its visitors' opinion. To me, however, despite a bit of a bad reputation, Rome will always be the most beautiful city in the world.

Admittedly, Rome does have its issues: it's definitely not the cleanest of them all, not to mention taking the subway from place to place can be a hassle, especially over summer when the forty-something degrees get to about fifty in the compressed spaces of public transport, and you need to be careful about your pockets if you want to get home with all your things ... but if you let those things stop you, you will miss out on one of the most magical cities you'll ever visit.

You'll soon forget about all those problems anyway once you walk down Piazza Navona in January, where live music and stands selling sweets fill the square and leave you enraptured in front of Bernini's fountains.

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Or on a sunny spring morning, when you visit Campo de' Fiori and you can spend hours looking at the market, while some old Italian lady yells out the deal of the day, and the air smells of fresh bread and pizza thanks to the delights of Il Fornaio, the old bakery facing the statue of Giordano Bruno.

Any tourist will want to visit the Colosseum, the Imperial and Roman Fora, but Rome is so much more than that. While tourist-y sites are a must, some of the most breath-taking places are the ones you just walk into.

Take il Fontanone, near the church of San Pietro in Montorio: the fountain in itself is beautiful and the set of many Italian movies, not to mention the latest James Bond, but what's really special about it is the view right in front of it. My dad showed it to me when I was a kid, and from that moment forward every time we are anywhere near it we stop there for just a few minutes to admire the magnificence of the Eternal City. The fountain faces a balcony showing Rome in all its splendour, from l'Altare della Patria, to the previously mentioned Forum, and the hundreds of domes filling the city. Stop there, with the city at your feet, and you feel like the world is yours.

Anyone brave enough to visit Rome over the summer will be recompensed by the most beautiful sunsets you will ever see and the best time of the year to eat some amazing gelato (Fatamorgana is the place to go). From June to August you will want to spend your evenings walking down Tevere's banks for Tevere Expo, a giant market with live music, movie screenings and delicious food.

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Finally, you don't want to miss Rome at night, walking around the city centre until 4am, when the seagulls wander around undisturbed and the air smells of magic.

A few tips

There are some things to know to enjoy your stay in Rome: avoid buying water or food anywhere near the tourist-y sites as it will cost you a fortune, and keep your belongings safe in a well zipped up purse. As mentioned before, summer can get incredibly warm, and can last until end of September, so it's definitely a no if you suffer in the heat, but any other time of the year the weather is just fine.
"When the undertaker was explaining to me what the plans for my little boy's funeral were, I just wanted to hold my little boy, not bury him. I remember the day the bill arrived and that fear in my stomach as to how I would pay it."

These were the words of Carolyn Harris, Labour MP for Swansea East, in an emotional plea for better financial support for grieving parents. The Labour Party has called for the government to cover all local authority fees for the burial or cremation in the case of a child's funeral.

Estimations suggest that to do so would cost the government as little as 10 million a year. Hardly peanuts to you or I, but, in Jeremy Corbyn's words, "a very small proportion of government expenditure". That 10 million would cover funeral fees for the 5,000 babies and children that die every year in the UK.

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To put that in perspective, the government currently spends 14 million on boarding school fees for diplomats' children. By some estimates, the government wasted 100 million on failed IT projects. MPs' expenses now total over 100 million every year, and actually rose substantially after the expenses scandal. I could go on.

Unfortunately, the government's answer to calls for more financial support was dismissive at best. At PMQs, Theresa May waved away questions about funding children's funerals by referring to the Social Fund Funeral Payment scheme - a scheme which has been heavily criticised by MPs in recent months for its inadequacy.

Not only is the Social Fund application process notoriously complex, with a plethora of eligibility criteria that filters out almost everybody, the delays in processing mean that many families don't know if they are eligible for financial support before the funeral takes place. That means paying for the funeral in advance - sometimes with credit cards or payday loans - in the vague hope that the government might, just maybe, reimburse the costs.

On top of the uncertainty, applying for the Social Fund payment requires extensive paperwork to determine eligibility. Carolyn Harris summed it up perfectly: "I say to the Prime Minister that at the darkest moment of a parent's life, I could not even fill a kettle, let alone fill in a 35-page application form."

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It's a fact not as widely known as it should be that many funeral directors offer their services either heavily discounted or completely free of charge to parents mourning the death of a child. They recognise these parents deserve compassion, understanding and - most importantly - practical support.
Image credit: Flickr

Park Geun-hye, whose election to the presidency in 2013 was a historic moment for gender equality in South Korea, has overshadowed any memory of that accomplishment with a scandal of equally historic proportions. Park's expressed willingness to resign is an attempt to stave off a looming impeachment vote over a massive government corruption scandal involving Choi Soon-sil, the shadowy leader of an equally shadowy religious cult. Choi, an adviser to Park, has been indicted on multiple charges of using her ties to the "Blue House" for financial gain to the tune of $70 million. Prosecutors have now extended their investigation and have officially accused Park of participating in a criminal conspiracy.

Gender-insensitive slurs have already become common in the anti-government protests that have been rocking South Korea for weeks. The scandal is a painful blow for women's rights activists in the country, who enthusiastically welcomed Park's victory in 2012 as a milestone in South Korea's patriarchal society. The uproar surrounding Park and Choi has caused many South Korean women to worry that the country, already trailing behind in terms of global gender equality, could become even more reluctant to elect women to positions of power.

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Indeed, the past few weeks have been alarming for those who want to raise the status of women in politics and business. Donald Trump's defeat of Hillary Clinton prevented one of the most resilient glass ceilings in US politics from finally crashing down. The President-elect bases his entire brand on his loathsome treatment of women, who he routinely describes as "fat", "pigs", "dogs", "slobs" or "disgusting animals".

Trump's hateful rhetoric towards women is only matched by the laundry list of progressive reforms he will trample once in office. By tapping Tom Price, an outspoken opponent of Obamacare and social benefits, for the position of health and human services, Trump signed the epitaph for his campaign promise to provide six weeks maternity leave for new mothers. Price had voted against previous proposals expanding maternity benefits, and his 242-page blueprint on health insurance is a complete dismantlement of Obamacare - including provisions that forced insurance providers to include prenatal and childbirth in all plans.

Women of the world unite

The recent slew of bad news for women's empowerment can sap the energy of even the most dedicated advocate. But, as President Obama said while trying to comfort his White House aides in the wake of Trump's win, history and change do not follow a straight line. They tend "to zig and zag", to ebb and flow.

With parts of the West hell-bent on placing themselves on the wrong side of history, we should keep Obama's words well in mind. The world does not move in lockstep: while some of the world is backsliding, others are breaking their own glass ceilings for good.

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The Nordic countries, for one, consistently rank highest worldwide in terms of women in the workforce and the number of women in senior corporate positions. For the past seven years, Iceland has topped the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index. Thanks to quotas, women hold 44% of seats on listed-company boards. Voluntary political party quotas have led to women holding 44% of parliamentary seats. Iceland has generous maternity and paternity leave policies, and the government has enacted measures to encourage men to take time off when they have a child. All of this has been a boon for Iceland's economy and for the standing of women in society.

Other countries are beginning to look up to Iceland as models to aspire to. Take Japan, which now boasts one of the highest rates of female participation in the workforce, at 66%. With the Japanese workforce expected to contract by over one-third by 2060, it is vitally important that more women join the ranks of the employed, if only to support an increasingly graying population. Trying to get ahead of the curve, the government has revived a target of having 30% of leadership positions filled by women by 2020. Of course, much remains to be done. Japan ranks 155th worldwide in terms of the number of women in the House of Representatives, and many women with university degrees find themselves sitting at home, frozen out of the job market by entrenched patriarchal norms.

Even Saudi Arabia is working to undo centuries of illiberal cultural hurdles to women's participation. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced this year a wide-ranging diversification program that includes boosting the role of women in the economy. As part of this program, the government has introduced educational initiatives to provide women with the skills to enter the labor market and to prepare them for entrepreneurship, while loosening labor market restrictions in the retail and hospitality sectors. These will not just increase women's participation in the labor market, but will also spur foreign investment from countries like the UK at a critical time: at this very moment,Theresa May is in Bahrain to push forward a trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council (which counts Riyadh as its largest member). As May herself put it, countries like Britain can leverage longstanding relationships and sizeable private-sector presence in the Gulf economies to serve as a "force for good" in pushing forward overdue reforms in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
For the first 6 months or so I was pretty much redundant when it came to feeding Littlest View From a Daddy. With Mrs VFAD nursing our newest addition, it meant that I needed to take on other key roles that are essential when a little human arrives in the house: changing nappies, getting the washing sorted, taking charge of the family meals etc. I was more than happy to plump the cushions and get the drinks for Mrs VFAD when she needed them (and boy does she drink when she's nursing - water I might add, nothing harder) but it did mean that I couldn't really help out when the baby needed food. And, anyone who has been in charge of a new born knows that when a new one needs feeding, they need feeding. Signs of this will begin with little whines maybe some nuzzling or fist chewing but delayed satiation will soon manifest itself in loud ear piercing screams and this cry is very distinguishable from the usual wailing. It's the type of crying that sets you on edge, increases your heart rate and makes you move with a certain degree of speed that's not often seen at 2am or 3am or 4am or every other hour of the 24 hour clock for that matter in the early days at least. You do what you can, but when you can't provide the goods, you can end up feeling at a bit of a loss. This has slowly started to pass though now that Littlest VFAD is settled into a routine and is well into her journey of weaning. I knew it would settle down, as this was the second go at parenting a new one for me but this knowledge doesn't always help when a tired mom needs a break from cluster feeding or when she needs to get to an appointment.

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'There's a solution!' I hear you say. What? O you mean the bottle? Yep - I thought that too but in the same way as her sister refused with such vigour that the windows nearly rattled when her protests of resistance began, Littlest VFAD was, shall we say, a tad reluctant to try the bottle too and that certainly brought fraught experiences. The first time we tried it, we knew that Mrs VFAD would need to be out of the house so if feeding was essential, we couldn't give in and turn back to the boob. We also knew that sometimes you have to try different teats and bottles to get the right fit for baby (it's all to do with the shape of the teat resembling a synthetic nipple and all that #frown). So, we were prepped: Mom was going to be out; milk was expressed and set to be warmed in all the appropriate containers and the bottles were sterilised. Should all be fine. Mrs VFAD had waved to us as she'd driven off up the road with a smile that carried endearment and a hint of relief. I thought that I had detected a glint of malice in her eye (for all of the night and early morning feeds that I haven't been party to) but it could have just been the sun. I suspect that she would more than happily have driven 5 minutes up the road, parked up and fallen into a deep sleep if she could have rather than have made her way to the restaurant for the nice meal, such was the sleep deprivation that baby had induced over the previous sixth months. Mrs VFAD would quickly tell you, it was all fine and that it's a nice tired (if there can be such a thing) but she would also say it's like a blanket of tired that sits heavily on you some days too.

Anyway, after an hour or so, feeding time approached and I was set. The nuzzling began, the sounds comparable to a guinea pig calling for its greens were to be heard. In I came with the bottle. The muslin cloth placed over my shoulder - warrior dad style to wipe my brow and catch any spills. But it was no good. The nuzzling turned to full on body jerks; legs kicking; arms flailing. Then the tears started rolling (hers not mine). My heart racing and no amount of rocking, singing Christmas carols (my go to songs in moments of mania) could settle her or encourage her to take the bottle. Eventually she wore herself out. The text had been sent to return ASAP. Baby wasn't fed and I was defeated. The boob was king. So, we knocked the bottle on the head for the time being at least.

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But persevere we did and one evening she took it with no hassle. Conditions were calm. Nothing was riding on her opting out. It didn't matter really - there would be time to try again. The only difference was that rather than me trying this time, Mrs VFAD gave it a go and it worked. Maybe it was the positioning (upright face outwards from mom - not the usual lying down and facing inwards). Maybe it was the relaxed approach? Maybe it was that the expressed milk was now formula? Whatever it was, it worked. So, I think what I'm trying to say is that if at first you don't succeed, try not to stress too much. Eventually, you and baby will arrive at a point where they are ready and all the anxiety and feelings of failure will lessen and you'll find a new harmony. Don't give up.

Reflections on boob to bottle:

Do what you can for a feeding momma when only the boob will do

Take on other jobs where you can get involved and start your bonding with baby even if this means you find yourself changing a serious number of nappies

Don't panic if it doesn't happen the first time - you are not a failure

Try different solutions - there are hundreds of bottles and teats on the market

Give yourselves time. It might not happen the first time but in all likelihood it'll happen.... eventually

This post originally appeared at www.viewfromadaddy.co.uk

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Abortion - one of the most discussed and defining issues in Ireland. As per the Eighth Amendment, "the State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." In simpler terms, the Eighth Amendment acknowledges abortion in Ireland as being illegal and therefore a criminal offence. Abortion, however, has been a criminal offence in Ireland since the 1800's under the "Offences Against the Person Act 1861", but a referendum was held in 1983 to induce a change to the constitution. On the contrary, in 2013, it was decided that abortion can be legally performed in Ireland if the pregnancy endangers the woman's life, including through the risk of suicide.

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Speaking from a personal point of view, the fact that it's 2016 and a modern day country in the western world still illegalises abortion is preposterous. The amendment denies all pregnant women in Ireland access to basic healthcare which should be a right, and instead forces almost 3,500 girls and women in Ireland to travel to the UK to access abortion services. Alongside the emotional effects a pregnancy and the subsequent decision to go through with an abortion has, a pregnant woman in Ireland will therefore have the additional stress of money, accommodation and travel. This brings me onto one of the most controversial and widely discussed cases in Ireland.

In late 1991, a 14-year-old girl is raped by a man who was later discovered to have been sexually abusing her since the age of 12. The female victim, who was known in the media as "Miss X", consequently became pregnant from this sexual assault. Due the illegality of abortion in Ireland, the victim and her parents planned to travel to the UK in order for an abortion to occur.

As the victim and her family were also taking action against the rapist, they enquired to the Attorney General whether DNA could be taken from the unborn child to prove to the courts that the rapist was indeed the father. However, as they arrived in London for the abortion, the Attorney General actually obtained an injunction preventing them leaving the country and therefore the abortion. During the injunction trial, the victim made her mother aware of how she constantly contemplated seriously injuring herself or committing suicide in order to end her turmoil. Despite this, the judge ordered that the victim must not leave Ireland for a period of 9 months, completely disregarding her emotional state.

Of course, an appeal was made to the Supreme Court in the hope they would overrule the judge's decision. Fortunately, after weeks of stress and pain, the Supreme Court found in favour of the victim and she was allowed to travel to London for an abortion. However, it was understood that the girl suffered a miscarriage at a hospital before undergoing abortion procedures.

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This is just one of thousands of cases that still occur today. Despite the constant instances where women's care and basic human rights have been neglected, the Eighth Amendment continues to inflict emotional distress on women in Ireland. A March 2016 poll carried out by Red C and Amnesty International concluded that 72% of people want abortion decriminalised, alongside a massive 87% who want access to abortion expanded. Support is growing, however pressure needs to be put onto the Irish government to at least propose another referendum on the issue for the sake of thousands of women a year. Pro-choice does not mean anti-life.
Turkcell managers see no problem in possible control of Alfa Group over operator

Control of a consortium Alfa Group over Turkey's Turkcell operator is not a problem, Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu has said.

"We have lots of shareholders, big and small. And Alfa or Letter One [L1 manages assets of Alfa Group of Mikhail Fridman and partners] is one of our shareholders. The responsibility of our management team is to make our company grow faster and be more profitable. Our responsibility will not change, whoever is control of the company. We have an independent board of directors. We are operating today in the interests of our shareholders We will continue doing so. We believe the nationalities of investors are not a problem," he told reporters on Tuesday.

He said that Alfa Group is a valuable investor for Turkcell.

"Alfa is a valuable shareholder today and we hope they will continue being our investor," he said.

Letter One, the investment division of Alfa Group, earlier said that Cukurova Holding of Mehmet Karamehmet is hindering the completion of the deal to buy shares of Turkcell.

Cukurova was to take steps to lift or change the arrest of its shares in Cukurova Telecom Holdings Limited (CTH) via which it holds shares in Turkcell. The shares were arrested by the court of British Virgin Islands. Wihtout these steps it is impossible to finish the deal to buy 13.8% of Turkcell by Letter One from Cukurova.

On November 28, the term during which Letter One was to buy the shares belonged to Cukurova in Turkcell for $2.8 billion.
Before my cancer diagnosis, I was always fit and sporty - I loved going to the gym and running and was on the go the whole time. I also had a full-on job with lots of responsibility. The last thing I was expecting was cancer.

It all started with my diagnosis in September 2015. I knew there was something wrong as my breast didn't look right and I could feel a lump. I had had previous mammograms for achy or lumpy breasts but these were fine. Getting referred to have a biopsy was the most terrifying experience. Not knowing what this really meant, the intrusive nature of it and waiting a whole week for the results was really difficult for me and the family. When the wait is over it was actually a relief, if that makes any sense. At least we could now move on and get it sorted (as one of the lovely oncologist said to me). Within two weeks I was having an operation, so it was all very quick - my tumour was inside my breast and they were able to cut around it.

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It had spread to my lymph nodes and so I had to have chemotherapy as well as radiotherapy. It was scary at first, the side effects weren't nice but I took it all in my stride. I used to get my hair cut and coloured every six weeks, so it felt daunting knowing I would lose it all. I went from very long blonde hair to very short.

I was keen to get back to sport and running - two weeks after the operation I went for my first run, although my doctor told me it had been too soon. I went running soon after my operation because I could. This was not going to stop me from carrying on as normal as possible. I also wanted to be as fit as I could be for chemotherapy treatment - it's one of the first comments my specialist said to me; fit people deal with chemo better.

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For the first cycle of chemo, I was running 10ks three times a week; I felt so good that I wanted to run. I knew that it was possible that I would not feel like this for the whole of the treatment period so would run when I felt up to it. It's all about listening to your body. I also talked to the oncology team who were very enthusiastic of me continuing to exercise. One surgeon who is a triathlete who was diagnosed with breast cancer around the same time as me was trying to work out how she could partake in her next race whilst on chemo. I thought: 'if she can do this so can I!' After that my medication changed and it became much harder. My final session was March 3 2016 when I took champagne in for the nurses to thank them for getting through it. The ward was a happy uplifting place.

My husband was amazing throughout, he became my carer; I went off food totally - all my favourites like spaghetti and stir fries, I just couldn't eat, so he changed the menu for me and made new things. My final check-up was on 15 July when I was told I was all good to go! I've also had a follow up mammogram in September and some reconstructive surgery which all went well.

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Now, I'm back to the running, my knees are sore but I'm strengthening them up and I'm back in the gym four times a week. I've decided I wanted to do something new and take on a big challenge, so I've signed up to do Mount Kilimanjaro with my employer Greene King, to raise funds for its national charity partner, Macmillan Cancer Support. I'm terrified but I want to raise as much money as I can.

I feel like after cancer I am more determined than ever to reach my goals.
Donald Trump isn't known for keeping his cards close to his chest, but although President-elect Trump has loose lips for most things, education is not one of them. Therefore what little we do know will be key to figuring out what education will look like in America over the next four years.

The three main objectives that he's discussed publicly are to push the 'school choice' initiative, dispose of the Common Core State Standards, and dramatically reduce - or entirely eliminate - the Federal Education Department.

The appointment of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary gives us some insight into which direction Trump is going to head in. Betsy DeVos is a privately educated, billionaire business woman, who actively promotes school choice and charter schools. Selecting DeVos is a clear sign that school choice will be heavily implemented, and that Trump's proposal to put twenty billion dollars towards school choice might become reality.

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The positives and negatives of school choice

School choice is an initiative that seeks to tackle the inequality a large proportion of school children face. Rather than children having to attend the local public school, children will have the choice of where they want to go - whether that be the local public school, a charter school, or a private school.

Federal education dollars will go to states instead of directly to schools, with the intention to then follow the children to whichever school they decide to go to. More choice, it is argued by school choice advocates, will create a healthy competition in the school marketplace and will raise students learning.

The main issue for Trump's team is the fact that the US spends more than most developed countries on education (per child), but their school students get worse results. There is clearly something broken in the US education system, and those hit hardest are, as per usual, the people at the bottom of society.

Those who come from less privileged backgrounds find it increasingly hard to compete with those who can afford private education. The point of this objective is to level the playing field, enabling children from poorer backgrounds to receive the education they need to improve their future prospects.

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The problem with school choice is that it will take money away from public schools. Tax-payer money instead will go to private institutions such as privately funded and for-profit schools such as charter schools. This takes money from the state and puts it into private pockets. In the short-term a selection of children may be able to go to a better school, but in the long run it devalues and breaks down the public school sector.

In the UK this is seen through the discussion of bringing back grammar schools, an initiative seen from the off-set as allowing intelligent children who can't attend private school to be able to get a 'better education'. But what does that do for the children who don't get into a grammar? They're branded as failures and left behind, not to mention the divisive impact this has on communities.

We have school systems all over the world which do better than the UK and the US that do not segregate their children. Why would we adopt a model that doesn't work when there are plenty of examples around the world that do?

DeVos's appointment shows how evidence is being ignored by Trump's administration. DeVos had a hand in organising Detroit's charter school system, which is renown for being the biggest school reform disaster in the whole of the United States. With evidence showing that charter schools do not educate children better than public schools, it's hard to see why this idea is being so heavily pushed by DeVos and Trump unless it's about private gain.

What about the Common Core?

The Common Core State Standards is a clear set of goals for the skills and knowledge that children should have at each stage of their schooling. The ambition is that children will then have the competencies they need so that they are prepared to succeed in their later lives, whether that be through getting into college, their career or otherwise.

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The idea is reminiscent of the core objectives that you can find in many different education systems throughout the world. For instance, Finland has recently updated theirs to incorporate the contemporary skills that future generations will need in a globalized world.

The Common Core is often criticised by people on both political sides and has become a highly conscientious talking point in education. Trump wants to destroy the Common Core and let individual states decide how education works, as the initiative is seen as the federal government being 'too involved' in state affairs, which leads onto his next promise.

To shrink or eliminate the Federal Education Department.

Of course, as we've seen in countries such as Finland, more power and decision processes being handed to schools and teachers can give them the confidence to do what's right for the pupils they have in front of them. Allowing individualised education to happen.

However, this move wouldn't see that power being handed to schools, it would pass the control to individual states. It's hard to tell what kind of effect this would have on education. Although, it may not matter that much if the public school sector is wiped out thanks to a rise in charter and private school education, which school choice would initiate.

So what's the outcome for education in America?

Due to the appointment of DeVos and the promises made by Trump, it looks like taxpayer money is going to be drained away from the public sector, into private pockets. With no regulation, charter and private schools can provide whatever kind of education they deem fit, and if their school becomes a failing one there's no one they have to answer to. Instead of providing children with a 'better education' we risk providing children with schools which have no guidelines, no targets that they have to hit, and therefore can provide as good - or as poor - an education to their students as they desire.

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Trump, DeVos and their supporters' stance seems to be on reducing the regulation of education and letting schools fight it out, like businesses do. But schools aren't businesses, they weren't ever meant to be. The purpose of businesses is to beat the others by making larger profits. School aren't supposed to function like this, their aim is to educate children, not to make a profit and not to compete with other schools. Their focus should be on their pupils.

What happens to the pupils in the schools that don't receive enough funding? And what happens when these schools are eventually shut down? All of a sudden the state is poorer than it was, with no public school system, handing out money to schools who pocket the profit rather than invest it back into the public education system.

Education is supposed to support pupils and prepare them for life. Schools are one of the few institutions left in the world whose primary focus isn't money, whose purposes are to serve the community which they are in. They are not to be turned into competition machines, with test results and profit margins being the overall goal. Of course we want to change schools for the better, but this administration is ignoring the evidence and tackling it from completely the wrong angle.
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Britain's relationship with China will become increasingly important in a post-Brexit world, according to a recent report.

Post-Brexit British business is set to become dependent on large, untapped markets like China, according to the report from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

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The report, a summary of China-based International Affairs experts' responses to the 'leave' vote, makes it clear that Britain must now look east for ongoing trade partnerships.

In the report, economist Li Xiaopeng predicts that while Brexit will make the UK less important to Chinese companies, China is likely to become increasingly vital to the British economy.

This may sound like a mixed blessing, but it's good news. The report emphasises that, unlike the USA, China wants to do business with post-Brexit Britain.

While it's true that pessimists in China fear for the UK-Chinese alliance in the wake of the June referendum, optimists see the split as an opportunity to forge a "special relationship".

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But the cost isn't completely clear for British business. Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JP Morgan, expects that the newly independent UK will need to compete with the EU for Chinese investment.

Which raises the question of what it takes for a British company to gain the competitive edge in a Chinese market.

The UK government's own website offers basic advice. "Mandarin Chinese is the language of business. You should not assume Chinese firms will have English-speaking staff", it cautions.

As any business person will testify, the demands of commerce go far beyond entry-level communication. It helps to know the ins and outs of Chinese culture, and speaking Mandarin is the best way to achieve this.

Sun Qian, Director of Chinese School London, said: "Business in China is a new experience for Western people. In Britain, business is heavily regulated. In China, local knowledge and contacts are more important."

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This is precisely why her teaching programme is rich in social and business-related activities, including cultural trips to China.

No surprise that even notoriously monoglot Brits are already rushing to gain skills in business Mandarin.

Although Brexit hasn't happened yet, Ms Sun has noticed an increase in the numbers of Chinese companies wanting to do business in the UK.

As the recent 1.4 billion sale of the Skyscanner website to Chinese company Ctrip.com shows, the drop in value of sterling since June has made British companies an attractive prospect for China's wealthy elite.

That's why Ms Sun is adamant that although the future of global trade may belong to China, the right time to learn Mandarin is now.

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The benefits of being a Mandarin speaker aren't reserved for big business. Max Troy-O'Donovan, Co-Founder of Chinese School London, is evangelical about the way Mandarin has changed his life and the lives of his students.

"Learning Mandarin opens a lot of doors", he says, "the real China is a big, complex country, and there are opportunities for everyone. When you speak the language, it enhances whatever you're good at."

For big companies, small concerns, or even micro-ventures, Brexit is probably the ultimate incentive for Britons to learn Mandarin.

The delays caused by the Brexit negotiations offer a welcome breathing--and strategising--space for the business community as a whole.
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While we are buying presents and planning family Christmas holidays, for most of us, our minds couldn't be further away from those who are suffering or who find themselves in troubled situations. That includes all of those people who will be spending these holidays behind bars.

What happens in our prisons impacts on us all. People in prison, no matter what crime they have committed, are human beings. The vast majority of today's prisoners will at some point be released and will return to our communities. It is in everyone's interests that they are able to integrate back into society after release so that they don't get stuck in a revolving door of re-offending.

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But that is only relevant to those who survive their sentences.

Thanks to the Howard League for Penal Reform, a hidden crisis is now being brought to light in our prisons.

A record high level of suicide should shock us all. It should force politicians into action.

The Welsh prison system is bundled up with England as part of a single criminal justice system.

For 'England and Wales', prison suicides are at an all-time high in 2016, with 102 prisoners taking their own lives during the year so far.

The Wales-only figure is also shockingly high. There were 6 suicides in Wales during 2016, compared to 2 last year. There have been 3 suicides at Parc prison, 1 at Cardiff, and 2 at Swansea.

The work of the Howard League, Inquest and other organisations paints a picture of overwhelmed staff in a climate of continued cutbacks from the Westminster government. I've personally been contacted by prisoners and prison officers who describe a prison system that is in crisis.

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The crisis is affecting both women and men prisoners. And with a large new super-prison set to open near Wrexham, this is a critical issue for us here Wales, that can no longer be ignored.

HMP Berwyn will be a 200m+ Category C facility serving the north of Wales and parts of north-west England.

There has been a long-running campaign to secure a prison for the north of Wales to service people from the surrounding communities. I've supported that as a solution to the current situation whereby people are imprisoned too far away from their families and little consideration is given to those whose first language is Welsh. What is coming to Wrexham is not that solution. I am not convinced that a prison of that size will be able to meet the needs of the surrounding communities in the way we need it to. This new prison raises the need for greater examination and scrutiny of what goes on prisons and of wider criminal justice policy in Wales.

Prisons in Wales are run from the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison Office in London. That is not the case in Scotland.

The Conservative party at both UK and Wales level has worked to ensure that criminal justice is kept out of the hands of Welsh democracy. However, many of the costs associated with this new prison will be devolved. Healthcare, housing support, education and other public services will be provided to the new prison by the Welsh Government through our devolved NHS, housing associations and local authorities.

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None of this is set to change with the Wales bill currently going through the UK parliament and so it will inevitably have to be looked at again.

In the light of these latest suicide figures, Plaid Cymru contends that that debate should start immediately. Our "at-risk prisoners" can ill afford to wait for the difference that could be made from having Welsh prisons under Wales's control.

I used to work as a Probation Officer. Drawing on my experience in that role, I authored a paper back in 2007 entitled "Make Our Communities Safer". For me, creating safer communities should be one of the chief aims of criminal justice policy. It shouldn't just be about punishment. It should also be about making sure our citizens are less likely to be the victims of crime. There could and should be much more focus on the prevention of offending and re-offending. What happens in the courts, in prisons or in youth justice system, affects what happens on our streets.

In last May's Welsh elections, Plaid Cymru contested the Police and Crime Commissioner seats for the first time, winning two out of the four available positions in Wales.

Police and Crime Commissioners don't control operational matters, but can raise important issues.

Arfon Jones, North Wales PCC has opened up a debate about dealing with the harm caused to communities from open outdoor class A drug use and discarded needles through the provision of "safe rooms". Both he and our PCC for Dyfed Powys, Dafydd Llewelyn support the devolution of criminal justice, tackling domestic abuse and other hate crimes like racism, and they want to have a clear aim to reduce re-offending.

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Plaid Cymru elected Police Commissioners provide a glimpse of what kind of forward-thinking policies we would see in Wales if we had more of a say over our own criminal justice policy.

Paul Silk, chair of the Silk Commission into the Welsh constitution said he wanted to see "a Welsh government empowered...to diverge from the rather vindictive criminal justice policies that have seen prisoner numbers increase in England and Wales from under 40,000 in 1985 to almost 90,000 at the latest count". Plaid Cymru agrees. We are convinced we could do a better job of taking decisions over Welsh criminal justice matters than Westminster can.
Every time Owen Jones writes an article that is vaguely critical of the Labour Party, he immediately gets attacked as an enemy and a sell-out. Bear in mind he is a big supporter of Corbyn's policies and has even worked for the man himself. I find it strange that some Corbyn supporters can't accept his often fair and balanced criticisms. He never calls for Corbyn to go but just suggests ways the Labour Party can improve and better connect with people. It's also worth noting that he never just puts the judgement or criticism on to Corbyn alone and criticises the party as a whole.

Just to be clear, I accept that a lot of the media attacks on Corbyn are ridiculous. For example, the S*n recently publishing pictures of Corbyn "dancing" on his way to a remembrance service. They'd photo-shopped out the veteran he was walking with and made him look as if he was being disrespectful. A year before, the same paper jumped on what they saw as Corbyn not bowing low enough when he approached the Cenotaph.

However, sometimes Corbyn and the Labour Party do get it wrong and fair criticism cannot just be dismissed. For example, Owen Jones recently wrote a piece saying that Labour need to reconnect with voters they lost to UKIP and organise public meetings where ordinary voters' voices are genuinely heard. He made the point that too often, us left-wing political activists are very academic in our language and put voters off with the language we use. I recognise this all too well in the Green Party. We often have very wordy leaflets that don't really stand out and will most likely be thrown away after a glance.

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A Corbyn-supporting friend of mine on Facebook shared his article with the post "With friends like these, who needs enemies". Incidentally when I was defending Owen and saying to them that whenever people criticise Corbyn they get hounded for it, I was then blocked from their Facebook. Thus proving my point that some Corbyn supporters can't take criticism of him. Time and time again, whether it's on Twitter or Facebook, I see Owen roundly abused for daring to criticise the Labour Party even a little bit. I myself was recently called "destructive" by someone on the Green Party Executive Committee (GPEx) for criticising the Green Party leadership in my last blog on the way they handled the Richmond by-election. Whatever political party you support or are part of, you should always hold the leadership to account and not be afraid to criticise them.

Of course when the most progressive leader Labour have had in a long time gets much more negative (and sometimes unfair) articles written about him then positive ones, it's very easy to build an emotional wall around him and feel that as a supporter you are constantly having to be on the defensive. However it is very important to acknowledge fair criticism of him and Labour as a whole in order to give the left the best chance of successively defeating the Tories in the next election. For instance I'm critical of the way he handled Brexit just after the result of the vote was announced, but I'm equally critical of the Labour MPs that resigned en-masse from his cabinet rather than help him come up with a strategy for Brexit. This led to Labour looking much divided over the summer with yet another leadership election, and subsequently they went massively down in the polls (not that I believe opinion polls these days!)

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Furthermore I'm critical of the fact that the Labour Party as a whole aren't that keen on the progressive alliance idea and the need to stand aside in certain constituencies for other parties. When asked about the Green Party's seat in Brighton, Corbyn said that he still wanted Labour to contest the seat despite the fact he himself has backed Caroline Lucas many times in parliament when she has introduced private member bills. I also don't like the fact that Corbyn isn't supportive of electoral reform despite our voting system being one of the key reasons people don't turn out to vote. More often than not, their vote doesn't count. However, I'm pleased that certain Labour MPs from all wings of the party are open to the idea of electoral reform. People like Clive Lewis, Jonathan Reynolds and of course my own MP Wes Streeting. These MPs need to make their voice heard very clearly in the Labour Party on this issue and I hope they are working internally to push Labour to back a change to a more proportional voting system.

In fairness to Corbyn, I understand the difficulty he faces in regards to backing electoral reform. As one of the main two parties, Labour have always benefited from the First-Past-the-Post voting system we have. There are many Labour MPs whose seats would be under threat under a fairer voting system and an electoral pact with other progressive parties. If their leader openly backed electoral reform and/or the progressive alliance idea, it would be another excuse for the MPs who don't back him, to try and hound him out again. However, Labour have to be realistic in the sense that they are unlikely to win Scotland back any time soon considering the growing popularity of the Tories there and the fact that the SNP seem to be holding steady in their support.. England, Wales and Northern Ireland favour the Tories electorally and Labour alone can't defeat them in these parts of the UK. This is what the progressive alliance idea is all about. Labour, the Lib Dems, The Green Party, Plaid Cymru, SNP and the SDLP all working together and forming electoral pacts to get the Tories out. With multi-party politics a genuine thing in the UK, and the centre-left/left vote very split, Labour have to get passed the idea that they can win a majority and be prepared to work with others. Progressive parties do it across Europe, so why not here? For those that say people should join Labour and campaign for a Labour majority as the best way to get the Tories out, there are a few reasons why I personally couldn't join Labour at the moment, despite considering the option when Corbyn first got elected.
The Congolese sun is gleaming off the earthen floor but I feel cold. I'm knee-to-knee with a tall, dignified woman called Bawili, who's talking me through the day her teenage daughter was gang-raped. Bawili speaks quietly, simply - the details are the more harrowing for it.

It was 2009, and Bawili's daughter Ebinda had gone into the bushes near their home in Mwandiga Trois village, in South Kivu province, eastern Congo to relieve herself. After dark, the children and their mother would always go together, it wasn't safe otherwise. But it was early evening, still light, and Bawili told the 15yr old to go alone.

Ebinda was attacked from behind, thrown to the ground and raped repeatedly. She doesn't know how many men there were. Bawili tells me that as soon as she saw her daughter stumbling from the undergrowth, she knew what had happened. The teen was in hospital for three days - the other girls and women on the ward were also victims of attacks by marauding gangs, men roaming the countryside, looking for food, money, and easy targets in a lawless country destroyed by civil war.

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Ebinda, now 22, became pregnant as a result of the attack. Her son is a sweet, malnourished six-year-old, who peeps at me shyly. He should be living in an Eden - verdant hills and rich soils offer the chance of two full harvests a year in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The nation - which covers a staggering 2.3 million square kilometres - also has copper, diamonds, gold, uranium and coltan, used in every mobile phone in the world. And yet it remains a cruel place, scraping along the bottom of world rankings for almost every measure of human development.

I've never been to a place that is at once so beautiful, obviously abundant, and yet so thoroughly broken. Armed militia, government soldiers and the kleptocratic elites who purportedly run the country still prey on civilians. Farms are neglected by people unwilling to invest effort in land they may have to flee again. UN-branded schools are dilapidated, the roads are almost impassable. Pot-bellied, shoeless children fight over our empty water bottles, because there aren't any toys, and they can't afford school. We hesitate to eat our lunch in the village, because the kids won't have anything until the evening, and even then they won't get much.

But strange as it may seem, in a place where massacres still happen, where kidnappings and beatings and murders go unpunished, the first defence might be a toilet.

Determined not to let others suffer like Ebinda has, Bawili is on a mission. She believes that if her family had had a toilet, the attack may not have happened. She can't stop the conflict at a national level, but she can do the best to improve life in her village.

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Bawili has become the president of the village Community Health Club, an initiative that trains locals to learn and share skills in hygiene, nutrition and childcare. Villagers come together to discuss health matters, encourage their neighbours and dig pit latrines across the village, including at Bawili's house.

"We were ashamed to use the bush. Now, we're free and safe and we have privacy," Bawili tells me, with steel in her eyes. And containing human waste means drinking water isn't contaminated, feet can't transfer faeces into homes, flies can't contaminate food and utensils. The bottom line - people get sick less often, fewer children die of preventable illnesses like diahorrea, and vulnerable people can stay safer in a dangerous country.

The Club is supported by the UK charity Toilet Twinning, part of Tearfund, which raises funds by encouraging people to twin their toilet at home or at work with a long-drop latrine somewhere in the world. For 60 you get a certificate with a picture of your toilet's 'twin' and its GPS location. My toilet is twinned with a loo in Bihar, northern India. My mum's toilet is twinned with a latrine in Bawili's village. It's a quirky way to address a serious problem.

picture credit: Ralph Hodgson / Toilet Twinning

Tearfund and Toilet Twinning provide the initial training - but it's the community who make change happen. The very act of building toilets together is, Bawili says, a way the fractured people of Mwandiga Trois can invest in a shared future.

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"We're learning to work together," Bawili is smiling now. "We encourage the whole community to unite and to love each other. If there is no love, we cannot build a good society." The simple toilet represents not just individual dignity, but unity, security and, perhaps, a nation's chance for a better future. When a country has gone down the toilet, it's the very place you should start rebuilding.

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Last week saw the long awaited Motorcycle Live show hitting the NEC. After a few months of spectacular new model launches, excitement was at a high amongst the bike community and especially so, at my house.

Up until last week I was torn between the Kawasaki H2, Honda SP2 and the Yamaha R6 as my stand out launch of the year. The R6 is obviously in a very different league to the H2 and SP2 but these were the three I was eagerly waiting for. For the impatient, after spending time up close and personal, my money would be on the SP2. More about that in another article.

However, a little spanner in the works. A Norton shaped one in the form of the V4 SS and RR. The moment Norton released images of these bikes, that was it. Game over for the rest of my list.

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If you are British and a bike lover, then you HAVE to love Norton. The company has an incredible history. The TT. The Military - supplying 100k bikes to our armed forces in WW2. The fact we almost lost Norton to a clothing brand. Reading the history of Norton is fascinating, complicated and inspiring. However Norton today is possibly the most inspiring and exciting it's ever been and that is thanks to the passion, creativity and foresight of a man called Stuart Garner.

Stuart left school with no qualifications. Got a job as a game keeper, lost it due to it getting in the way of bikes and birds then was forced into accepting a job in a fireworks factory owned by a very sensible man whom told Stuart "You aren't dating my daughter unless you have a job"

It was whilst working in this firework factory, Stuart realised he had some attributes that qualifications couldn't get you. Tenacity. Passion. Creativity. Balls.

There are many articles documenting Stuart's eventual path to Norton. But essentially it was fireworks, mobile phones, baby buggies and finally Spondon Engineering which lead to first contact with Norton over a IP rights issue of the Norton name. He got in touch with Ollie Curme who owned Norton at the time, was granted permission and that was that, until a short time later...

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Norton was about to crash. It was up for sale. Stuart was offered the business and given 5 days to come to a decision. Buy it, or its sold to a fashion retailer. 3 frantic days of due diligence later and Stuart was on a plane to sign the documents. Becoming owner and CEO of a truly British brand, he walked away with the intellectual property rights, four prototype bikes and some bike parts.

Since purchasing Norton he managed to secure 6.65m funding through The Budget and Santander. How? He tweeted George Osborne and asked him.

Fast forward us to today and I am standing in a very crowded hall at the NEC, in front of me the Norton stand, busier than anything else I've seen today. I squeeze through a plethora of real bike fans. Guys who truly love the spirit that Norton captures. There, in front of me, the V4 SS and the V4 RR. I pop over to a Norton team member "Is Stuart available?" I assume he'll be off somewhere, busy promoting the brand or maybe taking a well deserved rest after a huge year of developing these beautiful bikes "Yeah, he's just over there" I look up and see him, sitting amongst the chaos of the stand.

He's a fantastically normal biker. Leather clad, I become very aware that I might be over inhaling as I sit next to him. He smells how the CEO of Norton should smell. A leathery divinity. Yes, he has charm and is terribly charismatic yet he some how manages to be all that in the most subtle, understated and elegant way. A little like his bikes. He reminds me of why I loved the IOM TT so much. There is no divide between Norton and it's fans. With the Moto GP you feel like you can't get to the riders. With the TT you don't even blink when Hutchy stands next to you in the pits. There is something about the nostalgia which makes the fans, owners and riders the gate keepers of this special place. The bike world is full of this equality, this empathy, this shared bond. Norton treasures the fans who keep the brand alive as much as the clients who buy the products. There is no hierarchy. Stuart likens the V4's to his babies and hell, as it's Christmas, I'm going to liken them to the Baby Jesus. Norton may have given birth to these incredible bits of machinery but it's us who they were created for. He understands the importance of those who will never be able to afford to own a Norton, and those who invest money in buying one, both equal and neither should be taken for granted.

I could have sat on that stand and talked to him for the whole day. He's like the chap down your local pub who is full of passion and stories and kindness, whom you never want to stop listening to. However our chat was very politely interrupted by an older fan, so respecting the ethics of Norton, I decided to treasure my few minutes with him and let someone else enjoy a moment.

To me the V4 SS and RR truly define the success of Norton today and will be looked back on in years to come as one of the finest hours. Currently the V4 is the only bike using a carbon fibre fuel tank. The wider V of the engine was constructed to look beautiful even when the bike was naked. The engine is designed and built by Norton, not borrowed from another manufacturer, it is not only a truly British superbike but a truly incredible superbike. 1200cc with over 200bhp, it's growling at it's competitors fiercely. It is a mix of true Great British engineering and high technology. Wrapped in the most elegant outfit.
We are currently in the midst of the UN's 16 days of activism to end violence against women and girls. The UK has the opportunity to take concrete action in the fight against gendered violence on 16th December, 2016 by passing the Istanbul Convention into UK law. But what is the Istanbul Convention, and how can you help ensure that our MPs vote to validate it next week?

What is it?

The Istanbul Convention is the strongest move that has ever been made to combat violence against women and girls globally. It represents a comprehensive legal framework that outlines minimum standards for a State's response to violence against women and girls, and would guarantee urgently needed change in the UK in the prevention of, and response to, such violence. For example, it would require the signatory states (of which the UK is one) to protect funding for domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centres, 24/7 helplines and to offer counselling for domestic abuse survivors. Further, it would ensure the provision of education on healthy relationships in schools, something that is desperately needed in the UK.

The UK helped to draft the Istanbul Convention, and has signed it. Over half of the signatory states have now ratified it into their own domestic law; France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal have all done this and yet the UK Government, who signed the convention in 2012 and has been promising to make it UK law ever since, have not.

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Why is the Istanbul Convention necessary?

Gender-based violence is prevalent in the UK: 1 in 5 women aged 16-59 have experienced sexual assault, 2 women are killed every week in England and Wales by a current or former partner, and 1 in 4 women in England and Wales will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. In the face of this, the UK's domestic violence services are woefully inadequate. Last year 66% of women and children who were referred to domestic violence refuges were turned away, for the most part because there is not enough bed space.

The Istanbul Convention would tackle this by ensuring that the UK complied with its minimum standards for fighting gendered violence. Without legal protection, funding for services that provide vital help and support to victims of domestic or sexual violence will continue to diminish, as the UK Government pursues its relentless cuts in this area. Gendered violence is real; the UK needs to acknowledge this by supporting legal frameworks that fight it.

What's happening now?

On 16 December 2016, a Private Member's Bill on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence will be voted on in the House of Commons. If successful, this Bill would require the UK Government to fulfil its promise ratify (make officially valid) the Istanbul Convention and pass it into UK law. A Private Member's Bill is a proposal to change the law, and thus needs to be agreed by Parliament; other MPs need to vote to support it. The Bill was first presented to Parliament in June, and now at the stage of its second reading, it will be debated and voted on. If 100 MPs turn up and vote on 16 December, it will pass to the next stage.

This is an opportunity for concrete action to combat gendered violence, an opportunity to move forward in the fight to make sure that all women and girls live free from violence in the UK. We must all ask our MPs to be there, and to vote to ratify the Convention.

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What can you do?

Will your MP show up to support the fight against gendered violence by voting on 16 December? Contact them to find out, and to outline the importance of the Istanbul Convention in the efforts to free women and girls from violence in the UK.

Find out who your MP is here and then tweet them, write to them or show up at their surgery. The more personal requests MPs receive from their constituents about attending this vote, the more responsive they will be and the higher the impact of these interventions will be.

For more information on the Istanbul Convention and what you can do to support it, visit IC Change.
Anthony Devlin/PA Archive

The long-awaited review by Dame Louise Casey into integration and opportunity in Britain has been published this week. The report celebrates the fact that Britain is a diverse, compassionate, tolerant and liberal country. But the pace and scale of immigration in recent decades has resulted in Britain becoming a more anxious, fragmented and even segregated country. The Review also notes that some minority communities are living in segregation in parts of Britain, experiencing large social and economic gaps from other communities and, in some cases, subjecting women to huge inequalities due to regressive cultural practices.

The Review makes twelve recommendations in an attempt to unite Britain. Some of these are practical, but others are more vague and aspirational. The report has been criticised for using outdated statistics, not dealing with structural inequalities and for its heavy focus on Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities given that time and again various surveys of Muslims have shown their desire to integrate.

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Few would deny the profound impact of mass immigration on Britain and its enormous consequences for public services and social cohesion. The Report's suggestion that society needs to help new migrants to integrate and for local people to adapt to changes and new pressures in their communities is welcomed. To a degree this is already happening but much more is required. Last month the Joseph Interfaith Foundation, of which I am a member, launched a Jewish-Muslim initiative to help 16-26 year-old refugees fleeing war-torn countries integrate into British culture.

The Casey Report has found that thousands of Muslims live in enclaves with their own housing estates, schools and television channels. More mixing between people from different backgrounds is undoubtedly needed. Yet in my experience this segregation can be as much a product of social and economic exclusion as opposition to integration: some people living in Leeds housing estates, for example, have never had a chance to meet people from different backgrounds or even to leave their neighbourhoods. During mentoring in the suburbs of Leeds, I have come across many young white British pupils who have never interacted with anyone from an ethnic background or indeed visited Leeds city centre. To my mind, this says more about opportunities and resources that are available to enclaves of communities living in housing estates rather than their unwillingness to integrate.

Integration is a two-way process and a sole focus on migrant communities and how well they have integrated will only get us halfway to achieving greater integration. 72% of second generation ethnic minorities have inter-ethnic friendships, while some white British ethnic groups can be less likely to have ethically mixed social networks, according to the Report. The Report also acknowledges that sections of white working class Britain have become more isolated from the rest of the country and the rest of the white British population. These findings, along with the "white flight" concept, show that there are still prejudices and fragmentation within our society and that some parts of the majority population are not doing their bit to integrate either. Integration debate is not only about race or religion, but also about class divisions. Some schools in rural Yorkshire, for example, are reluctant to engage in 'twinning' with largely-Muslim schools in Bradford, depriving those children of an opportunity to meet kids from a different background to their own. The Casey report's recommendation is welcomed that schools should help build integration, tolerance, citizenship and resilience in our children.

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The Review expresses concern about the rapidly growing Muslim population holding very socially conservative views, for example around women. Forced marriages, honour killings, FGM and other cultural practices, or unequal treatement of women accross the society must be challenged. Where this is impacting on individuals' rights and wellbeing, the report's concerns should be welcomed. But conservatism, in any faith, is not of itself a bad thing. It would be wrong, for example, to confuse conservatism with extremism, when many of the most conservative Muslims are the most anti-extremist because they understand the difference between faith and extremism. And increased wearing of the niqab by Muslim women can be the product of a more strongly-felt Muslim identity among young women, as well as of the growing influence of a more austere and puritanical interpretation of Islam, as promoted by some Muslim countries.

Our values of freedom of religion, tolerance and inclusion apply to all, including those with more conservative views. It's important that society as a whole can feel comfortable with the presence of Muslim communities in our neighbourhoods, and that we confront openly and robustly challenge anti- Muslim, anti-ethnic rhetoric. However, any attempt to cross boundaries of our shared values must not be tolerated. Those seeking to coerce others - often their co-religionists - into complying with their own bigoted, narrow-minded beliefs must be challenged publicly. Any form of conservatism which promotes living in a society of ethnic silos, where our generations are alienated from those who look, eat, and believe differently must be confronted by us all. Such behavior is not sanctioned by any faith. British Muslim women are increasingly confronting inequalities and discrimination - either within their cultures or in the wider society- as well as any regressive demands voiced in the name of faith that undermine the rule of law.

The Review raises a concern about British Muslims identifying with a global Muslim 'Ummah', and says that this rise in religiosity and less integrated approach is being felt in communities but not discussed openly. All faith groups in this country- to a varying degree- have a sense of belonging to their co-religionists overseas - be it in the form of global Anglicanism or Jewish sentiments about Israel etc. Being part of the Ummah (global Muslim community) provides Muslims with an international perspective but does not preclude them from engaging in 'doorstep' issues in Britain. Undoubtedly, there is a need for British Muslims to focus more on the issues within their diverse communities rather than on events abroad but that does not necessarily need to be done at the expense of losing the concept of global Ummah. Religious and British identities can comfortably sit together without any conflict.

The Review's serious concerns about the growth of unregistered schools are shared by many Muslim parents. It is hard to disagree with the recommendation of the report that we need stronger safeguards against unregistered supplementary schools or madrasahs. The religious supplementary school system is a largely an unregulated sector and children in some communities are being sent to unsafe and poor-quality educational settings. Safeguarding of children from all forms of abuse and harm is of paramount importance for us all. Organisations such as Faith Associates, Strengthening Faith Institutions Network Faiths for Peace are already training staff in faith based institutions to develop a framework on safe-guarding and uniform standards for Madrassah education.

English language is a common denominator and a strong enabler of integration, and therefore those who live in this country must learn to speak the English language. Similarly, the recommendations that all marriages across all faiths should be registered to protect exploitation of women, and that a new approach to engagement between Mosques, Government, local authorities and communities is needed urgently are welcomed.
Ukrainian state-run postal enterprise (Ukrposhta) seeks to invest around $500 million in its development in the period until 2021.

Ukrposhta Director General Ihor Smeliansky said at a meeting with representatives of foreign donors of Ukraine in Kyiv on Tuesday that the sum is included in the five-year strategy for developing Ukrposhta. The strategy will be sent for approval to the Infrastructure Ministry and Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers.

"It depends on the government's decision what part of the sum will be own funds of the enterprise. Today 75% of our profit is taken by the state," he said.

He said that the key directions for investment will be modernization of vehicles, IT and sorting centers.

He also said that the enterprise anticipates that this year it would see net profit.

Smeliansky said that along with drawing up the strategy, Ukrposhta has started active fight against corruption and established cooperation with one of the most important creditors of Ukraine  the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
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The media plays a vital role: Challenging corruption, informing democracy, and holding government to account.

Right now that role is being undermined by a business model which no longer serves the public interest. Financial incentives are pushing newspapers to play on hate and prejudice, demonising some of the most vulnerable in our society. Far from reporting facts without fear or favour, elements of the UK press are practising a kind of institutionalised discrimination.

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Things have got so bad that three papers - The Sun, Daily Express and Daily Mail - have been called out by the UN over their coverage.

Stop Funding Hate aims to mobilise consumer power to bring positive change. Since we launched our first campaign video, tens of thousands have called on companies to pull their advertising from these three papers. Our biggest win yet was the decision by Lego to end its promotional activity with the Daily Mail.

Our ultimate aim is to cancel out the incentives that are driving these papers towards ever-more hostile reporting - and bring about a press that is both free and fair. In the last few weeks we've heard from people who feel personally targeted by these hate campaigns - against Muslims, migrants and refugees, against LGBT people, people with disabilities, and those struggling to get by on social security.

We've also seen worrying signs of the chilling effect that the behaviour of some newspapers is having on free speech in the UK.

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In 2012 a migrant welfare group gave the Leveson Inquiry a glimpse of the culture of fear within the sector: "many of us... have concerns that if we are to challenge the tabloid press we would be targeted in the same way our service users are--through inaccurate and biased stories. We feel completely silenced and unprotected and unable to take part in the public debate".

Yet since then, the hostility has only intensified. As we've seen with the treatment of Lily Allen, Emma Watson and Gary Lineker, it's now commonplace for those who speak up for compassion or speak out against discrimination to be subjected to vicious personal attacks.

This might seem ironic given the tendency of some within the media to characterise any challenge to their business model as an attack on free speech.

Free speech is a core value for Stop Funding Hate. It's something I've personally campaigned on for over a decade. In 2009 I used Twitter to help scupper a "super-injunction" through whichan oil company, Trafigura, tried to gag reporting of the proceedings of Parliament. I was an active supporter of the campaign to reform the UK's dysfunctional libel laws and have faced -and resisted - vexatious defamation threats over my own writing.

For seven years I worked for Amnesty International - and met people who'd been jailed and tortured for exercising their right to free speech. These campaigners did what they did because they knew it was right - not because they were being paid. We all have a right to speak our minds. This doesn't mean anyone is obliged to subsidise our opinions, or finance the dissemination of our views.

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The philosopher Voltaire has been paraphrased as saying: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". He never said "I will defend to the death your right to get advertising revenue".

The Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Sun are free to print whatever they like within the law. We too have a right to speak out. And if the press refuses to act in the public interest, then we as the public are entitled to exercise our rights, and make our voices heard.

This is not about individuals. We oppose hate speech in all circumstances - including when it is directed towards the press. We know that there are people working within these papers who are deeply conflicted about the way things have been going.

But to bring about a media that treats everyone fairly, we must change the business model. We have to find a way to make hate and fear less profitable.

Companies like Lego, John Lewis and the Co-op are entitled to choose where they advertise. And the public has a right to speak out and seek to influence those choices - whether the newspapers like it or not.

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Stop Funding Hate is not calling for any kind of government regulation or censorship - or for any publication to be removed from sale. If the Daily Mail editor wants to stand in Hyde Park with a megaphone and a sandwich board, expressing his views on immigration, we will defend his right to do so.
After 24 years in international development, my time has come to move on. While I'll remain working in the charity sector, my next job isn't in international development.

This next step has got me thinking about what nearly a quarter of a century in this sector has taught me. I've certainly had some amazing experiences; I've had breakfast with Nelson Mandela, hosted Desmond Tutu, worked with the Princess Royal and travelled to more than 20 countries. Then there's been the not so great memories, being mugged in Harare, medevac'd from Ghana, and the time it took 4 days to fly from London to Lilongwe.

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But what has all this taught me? I think I've learned that there are big things to be achieved, policies to shape, global agendas to influence and attitudes to change and it can all be done. However, the heart of that change is people and you won't change anything for the better without amazing, driven and passionate people by your side.

I've been fortunate enough to be surrounded by them every step of the way regardless of the organisation I was working for.

Mohammed Saaka Dumba was a transport officer in the Upper West region of Ghana when I met him way back in 1993. So keen to learn, he challenged me constantly to improve what we were doing with Transaid and inspired a whole generation of health transport officers.

Now a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, he is the leading expert on transport management for service delivery, advising governments and NGOs and travelling the world, but he has resisted all offers to take an international job and continues to work for the people of Ghana.

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Zelma Mokobane was a counsellor for high school students with a focus on young women dropping out of education because of pregnancy. She had worked hard to put her son through school and then decided it was her time, wanting to educate herself and achieve more.

When I was at Canon Collins Trust, implementing the Graca Machel scholarships to develop women leaders, I thought of her. Zelma made the most of every opportunity and is now a lecturer at the University of the Free State in South Africa contributing to global conferences and completing her PhD in inclusive education. Her dedication and drive inspired me and taught me never to write someone off because their education has been interrupted or unconventional.

Rajni Kant Singh is probably the most innovative and creative field worker I have ever met. Working for Lepra, Rajni is never satisfied with what he achieves and is always looking to understand why things happen and improve them. All I have ever had to do with Rajni is ask him 'if you had some money, what would you do with it?' By finding small amounts of funding, I have been able to watch him and the Lepra team implement life-changing, innovative activities that are now replicated by governments and NGOs tackling neglected diseases like leprosy.

When you work with people like these, then life is made easier - and there have been so many of them since I arrived in Ghana on 6th January 1993.

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I have seen my role as chief executive of Transaid, Canon Collins Trust, and Lepra as that of creating an environment for people to thrive and reach their potential. Through this I've seen some unexpected characters emerge and do some truly amazing things. They have been a credit to their organisations and causes, and I am proud to have known them.

When I look back in years to come and reflect on the developments made in healthcare access and education across Asia and Africa, I won't forget the unsung heroes behind that change and I am privileged to have met just a few of them.

So what have I learned in the last 24 years? That when it comes to international development, there is no change without great people and as long as there are those with a real passion to drive things forward, the future is in safe hands.
From a very young age, I was always outside on the farm, either with my dad or my gran. I would have free roam of the streams and woodland exploring what plants, insects and animals lived there; by the time I was finishing my GCSEs - I knew I wanted to be a scientist. My first degree is a BSc in Biochemistry from Royal Holloway; my masters is an MSc Genetic Manipulation & Molecular Cell Biology from the University of Sussex, both focusing on plant science. That being said, it's really been during my PhD at Cranfield University that I have developed a much more applied perspective of plant sciences, and the different interdisciplinary approaches that are required to tackle great challenges plant scientists face, such as food security, which has become a real passion of mine.

I have always been inspired by science communicators, like Sir David Attenborough and Professor Brian Cox, who effectively make science accessible for everyone. In terms of plant science and agritech, this means reaching out to farmers of course; but also STEM engagement with children, the general public and policy makers. I saw Dame Anne Glover (ex-Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission) speak earlier this year, and she said something that really resonated with me 'research not communicated is research not done.' This is key to getting the science and technology that we as researchers develop, into the field.

My innovation, HEROTECH8, brings drone technology to places and people that either wouldn't have the resources, energy infrastructure, or technical know-how to reliably, and safely, operate drone systems. This is not by focusing on the vehicles (although this is a very popular topic at the moment with start-ups) - instead we create autonomous drone infrastructure.

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Through our proprietary technology, remote communities with limited access to training or power can take advantage of emerging drone technologies. Agricultural users, for example, will be able to carry out constant field-inspection and crop-spraying operations, within a network that removes the need for a human operator. Within the space of humanitarian logistics, we will create versatile and resilient logistical routes that can operate in difficult or dangerous locations - for example, providing transport or medical supplies in areas where traditional infrastructure like roads have broken down due to natural disasters or outbreak of war.

Following conversations with the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) and my PhD supervisor, I was directed towards contacts at Cranfield in the Research & Innovation office, and subsequently the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship. This led to me formally registering the company in June this year in order to compete for our first pre-seed funding round: The Bettany Centre Evergreen Fund, as well as being invited to join the university Business Incubation Centre (CUBIC). In July we succeeded in the pre-seed funding round which is being spent on developing our prototype.

Having developed our prototype, it was through KTN and Oxford University Innovation (who work with Cranfield University) that I heard about Innovate UK and the Women In Innovation competition. At first, it didn't seem like a usual thing for a PhD student to apply for, but it was perfectly tailored to getting a novel idea off the ground. It also offered the chance for me to demonstrate my commitment to breaking down gender stereotypes in science and engineering! In September we were shortlisted for The Forerunner Prize for Social Enterprise, and later also made the shortlist for our first Innovate UK application - Women in Innovation 2016. Following making the shortlist with Innovate UK, I was invited to join the UK trade mission to China, via the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Global Prosperity Fund and Innovation China UK. This was a tremendous learning experience, and we are very excited about the connections we made with potential collaborators and investors. What's more - on the afternoon before I left for China, I found out that I had been selected as a winner of Women in Innovation 2016!

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Now marks the point where we as a team transition from working on a part-time project (EVERY NIGHT after full time work or study, plus weekends!) to having full-time R&D capacity. This is critical to keeping our momentum. Straight after the National Business Awards on 15th November, I headed out to northern Australia to learn more about the potential sectors over there - and I am also a speaker at the international symposia on tropical and temperate horticulture taking place in Cairns where I am presenting my PhD research. Looking to next March, we will be presenting our technology at Clean Equity Monaco 2017, which is the world's leading conference on emerging clean-tech. We are also pursuing additional investment so that we can scale up production of our technology and take on further engineering capabilities.

Distilling my experiences down into some top tips for other female innovators and entrepreneurs:

Make the most of your networks - effective networking is key to understanding your market, problem space as well as opportunities to collaborate and seek access to funding. Find a human and accessible way to communicate the value of your business or innovation. Think about your user stories carefully and make them impactful for your audience. Funding applications are exhausting, as is preparing your pitch... but don't give up! If an application is unsuccessful - get as much feedback as you can, get good mentorship and build on your performance. It's important that you keep going, as maybe one day you will be in a position to invest in start-ups yourself, to help the next generation of innovators get off the ground!

Siobhan & Innovate UK:

Siobhan has just been honoured as one of the 15 winners of Innovate UK's 2016 Women in Innovation awards, a series of awards dedicated to addressing the disproportionately low numbers of women entrepreneurs in the UK. Here, over a series of 15 posts we'll meet the inspiring innovators and entrepreneurs that Innovate UK is celebrating, each of whom will receive a tailored business support package, expert business mentor and 50,000 to help them reach their full potential.

Dr. Ruth McKernan CBE and Chief Executive of Innovate UK says: 'From fully autonomous drone software to affordable solar power technology and even a digital education portal which engages school children with the molecular world, the calibre of ideas is an eye-opening view into the talent and vision of the UK's female entrepreneurs. It is very clear that harnessing the talent of women entrepreneurs could significantly enhance UK economic growth. I am delighted that we are taking action; supporting and funding female entrepreneurs to help them succeed and inspire other women to come forward, apply for funding and turn their ideas into successful business.'

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If you have an innovation or business idea and are looking for support then visit www.innovateuk.gov.uk for further information - go for it!
Why Visit Leeds in December?

This month Leeds will provide its usual vibrant festive experience but there is an added bonus: an arts trail conceived to guide you around the city center's major spots. The trail features artworks by local artists. It's a journey of arts and magic reflecting on modern issues, ancient beliefs and .....lights.

Leeds arcadesCopyright: Solange Berchemin

Here is a taster, you'll need to explore the rest for yourself. As the train pulls in the recently refurbished Leeds station, passengers are welcomed by "Spirit", a huge installation designed by Newsubstance. Spirit hovers above busy commuters as they progress through the railway station concourse beneath it. Internally lit by 3000 LEDs, the ethereal figure shines a calm, festive light as people rush and bustle beneath it.

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Spirit- an installationSourced with permission from LeedsBids

Leeds is best known for its shopping experience, John Lewis recently opened their new flagship shop in the center, it's the largest in the UK, following the footsteps of their illustrious competitor, Marks and Spencer which, two centuries ago, opened their very first shop. The tiny outlet is still opened for business in Kirgate Market, one of the largest markets in Europe.

Trinity churchCopyright: Solange Berchemin

Undoubtedly, the shopping center which attracts the most punters is Trinity Leeds named after its neighbour, the Holy Trinity church, a Georgian church consecrated in 1727 and a key venue at Christmas. Trinity is part of the trail, illuminated by a cascading waterfall of lights, highlighting the unity of old and new in the city center.

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Texture of WinterCopyright: Solange Berchemin

My personal favourite piece of art is a series of sculptural lighting located in Park Square. An installation by Alison M Smith, entitled "Texture of Winter", reminiscent of the evolution of ice formations melting. Alison has gathered plastic from Leeds retailers which she recycled and shaped into organic forms.

Santa's GrottoCopyright: Solange Berchemin

What better way to explore a place? Leeds center is compact, it takes only 20 minutes to walk from north to south so it's perfect for children too. Santa's Christmas Post Office, complete with giant bauble and live reindeer is part of the trail in the Merrion Centre.

The iconic Corn Exchange, an architectural masterpiece in itself is transformed by a creative exploration of Aurora Borealis designed by Dave Lynch and Glatherine Cross. The whole trail includes 15 pieces of work altogether and might find you parched and hungry by the end.

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Good Places to Stop for Food and Drinks

Loiners know their town inside out and you can't go wrong following them to the nearest packed to the rafters restaurant. This cunning tactic led us to Bundobust and Friends of Ham.

Indian Street Food at BundobustCopyright: Solange Berchemin

The former is an Indian street food cafe with doors on the walls which offers dozens of munchy dishes. A kind of Indian tapas with dishes such as Okra Fries cooked to perfection, mini Massala Dosa and I am told that the sprout bhaji are back due to popular demand. The lot washed down by a choice of 110 different beers.

For the time being, one of the most popular breweries to visit is the Northern Monk, on the outskirts, renowned for multi-award winning beer "Eternal", their "crazy beers" such as Rhubarb and Rosemary flowers flavoured beers and for their street art can. Because at the end of the day, Leeds is a city at the heart of arts.

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J. one of Leeds ambassadorCopyright: Solange Berchemin

Fact File

For more information about Leeds check out Welcome to Leeds you will find details about the Christmas art trail and its 15 locations (1st December and 3rd January) #ChristmasinLeeds.

Yorkshire has been awarded the best place to stay in Europe by the World Travel Awards and this is reflected by its accommodation offer. Take a peek at Hotel in Leeds http://www.hotelsinleeds.org/

If you miss the arts trail look out for the Leeds Indie Food Festival which has talks, demonstrations, special dinners, markets, pop-ups, kids' events and films throughout the month of May

When in Leeds, don't miss The Brudenell Social Club, a great gig venue
The guidelines for being a UK Huffington Post blogger suggest you write with a UK angle, which I didn't really do in my last blog. Sorry editors, but I'll play by the rules this time, sort of.

If anyone ever has the misfortune of conversing with me for any length of time, I will almost certainly have complimented something shiny you're wearing, told you I went to Durham and spoken extensively about museums, chances are I would have done all of this within the first 10 minutes. As much as I like shiny things and Durham, I love museums. Museums are to me what Tiffanies is to Holly Golightly or the lap of a millionaire is to Lorelei Lee. However, museums are complex entity's. They have a historical connection with colonialism, and the way artefacts are acquired by Britain is at times oddly reminiscent of stealing, and While thievery may have a rogueish appeal, it's not known for its virtue. While I may be at peak comfort at a museum, there is a slightly uncomfortable question at the heart of these institutions. How moral is it that museums like the British Museum have treasures from all over the world? is it fine that we took something precious from it's home? Should it have been left in it's context? This blog won't have the word count to fully discuss this issue, so instead I shall focus on the effect that having foreign artefacts in museums has on cultures. I will follow this up with other blogs which further explore the complex web that is this debate, something aching more to a series opposed to a standalone blog.

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I believe museums to have a lot of -at times- untapped potential to champion change. Witnessing an artifacts from different cultures and reading about them is one step closer to experiencing that culture, and experiencing the culture helps us understand the culture. We live in a world which is simultaneously opening and closing, cultures are becoming integrated while also becoming more isolated, essentially boarders are decreasing, but hate crime is increasing. The world is in a weird state of flux, and I think it stems from asymmetric information. The opening occurs when cultures understand each other and begin to blend, the closing occurs when they do not and they instead isolate. Having a foreign artifact in a museum does two things, it cements it as belonging to a certain culture, and it teaches locals about another culture. I've heard people describe the display of another cultures artifact as stealing heritage, when I believe it to be securing that artifacts heritage. It plays into the idea that cultures aren't the same, they grow from a different seed, but despite this we are growing toward each other, like a forest. The artifact acts as definitive proof that the other culture has a past varying from ours, but it's placement in a foreign land shows that we still co-exist. Not only is this educational, it counters ethnocentrism, an ethnocentric bias against alternative brilliance by displaying alternative forms of thinking. Ultimately it shows new ways minds work and new histories which encourage an open mindedness always needed.

Let's look at it from the other side, if a new law passed and all artifacts had to be returned to their original context what would happen? Children would grow up less inclined to learn about other cultures and if we take this further, and the artifacts never left their cultures then global integration would be hindered while stagnation and segregation encouraged. While I support the view that keeping tradition and culture alive and distinct is important (and extreme blending of cultures is not my aim), I am thoroughly against the segregation, or the rejection of individuals to join a culture. The most famous foreign artifact, at least in Britain, is that of the Elgin Marbles. The magnificent friezes and pediments we took from Greece and won't give back. Greece has one of the best understood heritages of all time, it is rare to meet someone who doesn't know who Zues is. It may be coincidental, but I find it hard to believe that it's not in some way influenced by how we have such a rich piece of Greek history on our door step. That's not to say the Earl of Elgin was right to take the decorations, but it would daft to overlook the positives.

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Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump meets with Cuban-American community leaders at Trump National Doral golf club in Miami, Florida, U.S. October 25, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

We know the metathesis by now. The argument that economic frustration, plus elite coastal neglect of fly-over agony, drove Trump's win is now as oxidized as those hulking, ferrous-patinated factories in Youngstown, Ohio.

But I am convinced that Trump's Twitter rants - their explosive and unmediated primal fury - tap into a deeper wellspring than just economic anxiety.

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His in-the-moment, consequence-free, grandly unedited Twitter style is a potent fantasy for working-class people who have to step cautiously through the daily discouragements of their lives. (Middle-managers live in a similar chamber of limits.)

These are people who lack agency. Who are resigned to a bite-your-tongue-and-take-crap relationship with their world; a battery of daily demeanments. These come from a brew of horrendous bosses; credit-stealing and slothful coworkers; disconnected and oblivious senior management; overbearing in-laws; demanding children; idiot foremen; and non-responsive insurance company bureaucrats (who themselves have no agency.)

Enter Trump. Every time he responds to a big attack or a micro-slight, however undisciplined and dramatically over-aggrieved it might be, the cathartic joy meter lights up like the Christmas tree in the lobby of Trump Tower.

Good for you, Donald. You don't take any sh*t. If I were a billionaire neither would I.

George Orwell, as usual, makes the point with fierce clarity in "The Road to Wigan Pier."

"This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people's convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that 'they' will never allow him to do this, that, and the other."

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Fueled by this hopeless passivity, the psychological power of Trump on Twitter gains brute force. The content doesn't matter; the fury animating the content does.

By contrast, the tweets of other politicians are reflections of institutional power. Fred Barnes, executive editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, writes: "President Obama also tweets, but his read like they were written by a cautious staffer and edited by a committee."



Trump's instant aggressions - whether encountered directly or as amplified by the media - ameliorate existential working-class stress, making it evanescently bearable. It matters not that someone in his position - presidential candidate and now president-elect - shouldn't behave like this. On the contrary; the projective qualities make it all the more joyful. We've never had a politician in recent memory whose tantrumic performances are both vicarious and aspirational.

There is a body of psychological work that links workplace stress to a lack of control. The American Psychological Association puts it like this:

"A feeling of powerlessness is a universal cause of job stress... millions been shifted to unfamiliar tasks and wonder how much longer they will be employed. Adding to the pressures are new bosses, computer surveillance of production, fewer health and retirement benefits, and the feeling they have to work longer and harder just to maintain their current economic status."

So it's not hard for these stressed souls to fantasize about their own unconsciously constructed Twitter rants:

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"Dumbass Jenkins told me that I'm getting cut back to 20 hours a week. IS HE KIDDING? That idiot should cut himself to zero. OUTRAGEOUS BETRAYAL."

"I don't see one friggin' commercial where someone comes home from work dirty and needs a shower. Not everyone works in a tech start-up. MAINSTREAM MEDIA NOT GETTING AMERICAN VALUES."

"They promoted Butt-LICKER Worthington over me because he kisses ass. He does crap work. DISHONEST SYSTEM. If there were some REAL jobs in this sh*tass town, I'd quit tomorrow."

"My kid just got diagnosed with dyslexia, needs expensive help, and they're raising my co-pay. Insurance company won't respond. Painful. HOPELESS."

These fictive tweets aren't about minorities or immigration. They are about class and hurt and what the poet Phillip Levine described as the "gradual decay of dignity" in his "An Abandoned Factory, Detroit." How astounding and grand to have someone channeling this rage for you, in their own tweets? So the connective -and collective - resonance of what Trump writes, rises above their authenticity, hyperbole and billionaire source.

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Trump's tweets are also implicit rejections of our "watch what you say" culture, which much of the working-class sees as running counter to the American tradition of speak-your-mindedness. There's some Huck Finn in all of us, whose valedictory close to the book echoes today: "I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before."

Even Obama has an issue with institutionalized caution and campus sivilizing, saying in a town hall:

"I've heard some college campuses where they don't want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don't want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don't agree with that either. I don't agree that when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view."

The id response to the deference Obama rejects is Trump's blast-furnace Twitter defiance. There is no precedent for this, like we have repeatedly been told about the rest of this bizzaro-world we now inhabit.

Of course, Twitter is the natural medium of the id, which Freud described as a place of "chaos, a cauldron full of seeing excitation." That's the undrained swamp that Trump exposes through his Twitter rants, and it's that insatiable impulse which ignites the neural circuits in the minds of his followers.

And not just his followers, in fact. Even people who dislike Trump, loathe him in fact, are unconsciously drawn to his vast, almost Whitman-like role as the center of his own universe, and ours. Take a look at the surprisingly anticipatory opening of "Song of Myself" - down to the uncannily adumbrated mid-sentence capitalization:

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I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

The ultimate irony - and reassurance - though, is that if the roles were reversed, most of Trump's supporters, the people enjoying the viscerality of his Tweets, would actually act respectfully and within social norms. They would not abuse their pulpit and sink to bullying and coarseness. I am confident that Trump's supporters, for the most part - like most people - would respond to power with non-Trumpian restraint.

Cynics see Twitter as a "Lord of the Flies" cautionary tale, a polemical novel which teaches high-school students that civilization is a fragile veneer.

But for a real-world study of how people rise to their better angels when they have power over others, let me point you to Rebecca Solnit's wonderful "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster." She argues that despite what Hollywood directors and civil defense agencies tell us, we don't see chaos and looting in disasters, but rather "spontaneous altruism, self-organization and mutual aid, with neighbors and strangers calmly rescuing, feeding and housing each other."
By Derek Slater, Content Director, Ready State

A marketers glossary of 7 basic machine-learning terms

Machine learning is poised to help marketers garner phenomenal new insights and results, and to change many processes and jobs along the way. We discussed this potential in Machine Learning is About to Turn the Marketing World Upside Down.

Machine learning cant provide better results alone, of course. Marketers need to collaborate with data scientists to identify important questions to explore, accelerate tests, improve the accuracy of answers, and make better decisions. And to effectively collaborate, they need a common language.

Because data analytics has roots in statistics and computer science, its packed with specialized terminology. And because few machine-learning glossaries and textbooks frame terms in a marketers context, weve created a shortlist below.

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Ive selected the terms below based on my own experience as a journalist, interviewing machine-learning researchers and experts. And Ive framed the definitions and examples based on input from marketing expert Steven Wong, chief marketing officer of Ready State, and data scientist Christopher Doyle, director of pricing and market analysis at a national health services company.

This list covers some basics to help you have those productive conversations with your data scientists.

Machine learning

Machine learning is the process through which a computer learns with experience rather than additional programming.

Lets say you use a program to determine which customers receive which discount offers. If its a machine-learning program, it will make better recommendations as it gets more data about how customers respond. The system gets better at its task by seeing more data.

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Algorithm

An algorithm is a set of specific mathematical or operational steps used to solve a problem or accomplish a task.

In the context of machine learning, an algorithm transforms or analyzes data. That could mean:

 performing regression analysisbased on previous experiments, every $10 we spend on advertising should yield $14 in revenue

 classifying customersthis site visitors clickstream suggests that hes a stay-at-home dad

 finding relationships between SKUspeople who bought these two books are very likely to buy this third title

Each of these analytical tasks would require a different algorithm.

When you put a big data set through an algorithm, the output is typically a model.

Model

The simplest definition of a model is a mathematical representation of relationships in a data set.

A slightly expanded definition: a simplified, mathematically formalized way to approximate reality (i.e. what generates your data) and optionally to make predictions from this approximation.

Heres a visualization of a really simple model, based on only two variables.

The blue dots are the inputs (i.e. the data), and the red line represents the model.

I can use this model to make predictions. If I put any ad dollars spent amount into the model, it will yield a predicted revenue generated amount.

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Two key things to understand about models:

1. Models get complicated. The model illustrated here is simple because the data is simple. If your data is more complex, the predictive model will be more complex; it likely wouldnt be portrayed on a two-axis graph.

When you speak to your smartphone, for example, it turns your speech into data and runs that data through a model in order to recognize it. Thats right, Siri uses a speech recognition model to determine meaning.

Complex models underscore why machine-learning algorithms are necessary: You can use them to identify relationships you would never be able to catch by eyeballing the data.

2. Models arent magic. They can be inaccurate or plain old wrong for many reasons. Maybe I chose the wrong algorithm to generate the model above. See the line bending down, as you pass our last actual data point (blue dot)? It indicates that this model predicts that past that point, additional ad spending will generate less overall revenue. This might be true, but it certainly seems counterintuitive. That should draw some attention from the marketing and data science teams.

A different algorithm might yield a model that predicts diminishing incremental returns, which is quite different from lower revenue.

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Features

Wikipedias definition of a feature is good: an individual measurable property of a phenomenon being observed. Choosing informative, discriminating, and independent features is a crucial step for effective algorithms.

So features are elements or dimensions of your data set.

Lets say you are analyzing data about customer behavior. Which features have predictive value for the others? Features in this type of data set might include demographics such as age, location, job status, or title, and behaviors such as previous purchases, email newsletter subscriptions, or various dimensions of website engagement.

You can probably make intelligent guesses about the features that matter to help a data scientist narrow her work. On the other hand, she might analyze the data and find informative, discriminating, and independent features that surprise you.

Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

Machine learning can take two fundamental approaches.

Supervised learning is a way of teaching an algorithm how to do its job when you already have a set of data for which you know the answer.

Classic example: To create a model that can recognize cat pictures via a supervised learning process, you would show the system millions of pictures already labeled cat or not cat.

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Marketing example: You could use a supervised learning algorithm to classify customers according to six personas, training the system with existing customer data that is already labeled by persona.

Unsupervised learning is how an algorithm or system analyzes data that isnt labeled with an answer, then identifies patterns or correlations.

An unsupervised-learning algorithm might analyze a big customer data set and produce results indicating that you have 7 major groups or 12 small groups. Then you and your data scientist might need to analyze those results to figure out what defines each group and what it means for your business.

In practice, most model building uses a combination of supervised and unsupervised learning, says Doyle.

Frequently, I start by sketching my expected model structure before reviewing the unsupervised machine-learning result, he says. Comparing the gaps between these models often leads to valuable insights.

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Deep learning

Deep learning is a type of machine learning. Deep-learning systems use multiple layers of calculation, and the later layers abstract higher-level features. In the cat-recognition example, the first layer might simply look for a set of lines that could outline a figure. Subsequent layers might look for elements that look like fur, or eyes, or a full face.

Compared to a classical computer program, this is somewhat more like the way the human brain works, and you will often see deep learning associated with neural networks, which refers to a combination of hardware and software that can perform brain-style calculation.

Its most logical to use deep learning on very large, complex problems. Recommendation engines (think Netflix or Amazon) commonly use deep learning.

Putting these terms together to solve a marketing problem

Lets walk though one simplified marketing task from start to finish, observing how these machine-learning concepts fit together.

1. You and your data scientist want to figure out the best way to segment your customers by their lifetime value.

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2. You select a limited set of features in your data set that you think will provide the most useful segmentation. The more features you include in your analysis, the more time or computing power the analysis will take.

3. You need to choose a machine-learning algorithm based on the specific task at hand. Your data scientist recommends an unsupervised learning algorithm called k-means.

4.He might tweak the algorithm, for example based on your hypothesis about which features are most important. Doyle says this is an example of combining unsupervised and supervised learning.

5. A program uses the algorithm to process data and create a preliminary model.

6. You and your data scientist examine the model. Does it appear credible to you? Does it offer predictive value that helps you make smarter business decisions? Doyle notes that Being able to tell a story from the data is crucial for stakeholder buy-in.

7. Maybe you nailed it. But you might try changing the weighting of the features, or make other modifications, and compare the value of the new results.

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8. If you determine that a more complex feature set would likely give you more meaningful results, your data scientist may recommend using a deep-learning approach.

Hungry for more?

Marketers who understand this core set of terms can collaborate more effectively with machine-learning experts. But weve only scratched the surface here. From classification and validation up through graph analytics and data efficiency, there is plenty for marketers to learn about machine learning. Well expand this glossary of AI terms for marketing on our blog at readystatements.com.

About the Author


Yes, this is one of Andy Grammer's latest songs and you have probably heard it song before.

But, before you continue reading, take a minute and click HERE so you can listen to this song. I mean, really listen. Not just the beat or while you are doing something else but really listen to the words.

What did you hear?

How did it make you feel?

Recently, I started incorporating this song as part of one of my Workshops "How to Avoid Losing Yourself in the Shuffle of Life." And in this exercise, I ask the audience to think about three (3) words that describes their truest, best self. Three (3) words that describes how they want to be perceived by others; how they want to contribute. Another way of thinking about this is say you left a room after having a conversation with your colleagues, friends, etc. What words would you want them to use to describe you? Confident...Caring...Strong...Smart...Authentic...Reliable...Present...

The second part of this exercise is after you think about and write down your three (3) words, write a sentence explaining why each of those words is important to you. What meaning do they have? Why did you pick those words? What do they represent for you?

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Now, for those of you who have read my recent book, Living Intentionally: How to Bring Balance to You and Your Family or who are or have been a client of mine, you are familiar with this exercise. I ran two workshops last week in NYC and Chicago and it was new for both audiences. And for some it was easy and others it was a bit more challenging.

You see, I'm not looking for words that are labels like mom, wife, daughter, business owner, neighbor, lawyer, engineer, etc. I'm not looking for words that describe how you see your roles in your life.

I'm looking for words that are adjectives that describe YOU. No labels but how you want to show up each and every day.

A caveat to this, as I can imagine you may be shaking your head or almost tuning me out but give me a few more seconds...

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I realize that maybe one of the words you wrote down is something you are comfortable with; something you know you already do. But maybe one or two of the others are 'stretches' for you or words you aspire to be. So while you may not feel you are 'showing up' or 'living into them' each and every day - now that you have written them down, now that you have given them definition, now that you have given them your attention - you cannot help but to come back to them and work TOWARD them each and every day.

No, you are not perfect...I know I'm not. But what I do know is you have great intentions! Just look at your three words! You now see yourself with FRESH EYES!

I got these fresh eyes, never seen you before like this

My God, you're beautiful

It's like the first time when we open the door

Before we got used to usual

So suddenly I'm in love with a stranger

I can't believe that she's mine

Now all I see is you with fresh eyes

Appreciation, well, it comes and it goes

But I, I'll ride that wave with you

It's human nature to miss what's under your nose

'Til you, 'til you remind a fool

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[The Chichibu Night Festival (Chichibu Yomatsuri) reached its peak on Dec. 3 in Saitama Prefecture. It is one of Japan's best-known festivals. Recently, UNESCO decided to add it to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list./ Photographed by Uhm Soo-ah]

By Um Soo-ah, Tokyo correspondent, AsiaToday - Over 32,800 people gathered for the annual Chichibu Night Festival (Chichibu Yomatsuri) on Dec. 3.

The Chichibu Night Festival is held every year on the second and third of December, featuring fireworks and festival floats.

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The festival garnered increased attention partly because it was held only days after the UNESCO registration. It is one of the 33 festivals in Japan that were collectively registered on the UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list on Nov. 30. The Chichibu Night Festival hosted nearly 32,800 people for the peak, 130,000 more than last year.

The Chichibu Night Festival has a history of more than 300 years. In the early evening, six floats are pulled from Chichibu Shrine through the streets. Due to the festival's popularity, it gets very crowded, especially along the parade route and around the plaza in front of the city hall.

It is believed the goddess of Chichibu Shrine and the man god who lives in a nearby mountain meet once a year. The floats are considered a tool to accept the god.

Each float, which is 5 to 7 meters tall and weighs between 12 and 20 tons. is pulled by several hundred people. The site where the goddess and the god meet is on a hill. The highlight of the festival comes from the harmony of fireworks display and floats that are being pulled by people.

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[Visitors gathered to see the gorgeously decorated float pulled by several hundred people.]

The city of Chichibu served as the secretariat for UNESCO registration of 33 traditional festivals in Japan.

In 2009, two festivals, including the Gion Festival in Kyoto and the Hitachi Furyumono Parade in Ibaraki Prefecture, were registered as World Cultural Heritage, and applications for similar festivals have been rejected. In response, Japan decided to combine those two with 31 similar festivals to list them as a group.
Ukraine reports 26 attacks on its army positions in Donbas over past day

Ukrainian army positions came under 26 attacks in Donbas over the past day, including nine attacks conducted in the daytime and 17 at night, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) headquarters said on Facebook.

It also said that most shelling incidents involved 120mm mortars banned by the Minsk agreements.

Enemy provocations focused on the Mariupol and Donetsk sectors in the past 24 hours, the ATO HQ said.

Shyrokyne, Krasnohorivka and Vodiane came under attack of mortars; grenade launchers, infantry combat vehicles and mortars shelled Luhanske; while heavy machineguns were fired on Opytne, the report said.

After 18:00 local time on Monday, Ukrainian army positions were mostly shelled by 120mm mortars in the Luhansk sector. Attacks were launched on Balka Kosharna and three times in a row on Krymske. Grenade launchers were fired on Troitske and Stanytsia Luhanska, the ATO HQ said.

Mortars, grenade launchers and small arms were used against Shyrokyne, Talakivka, Pavlopil, Novomykhailivka and Taramchuk in the Mariupol sector, the report said, adding that infantry combat vehicles attacked Vodiane.

Grenade launchers and small arms were fired on Avdiyivka and Zaitseve in the Donetsk sector, the report said.


Presidential Election 2016:Goodbye Truth; image designed by Bernard Starr

The English language is always in flux; new expressions and words are added throughout history. The Oxford English Dictionary recently unveiled 500 new words illustrating how the language has changed over the last century. And innovation introduces terms for things that previously didn't exist like fax, e-mail, and sexting.

Sometimes a single event is so extraordinary that only a new term can describe it. That's what happened in 1986 when a postal worker killed 14 co-workers in a gruesome rampage that shocked the nation. The term "going postal" soon became a common expression for "losing it." Now it's applied to many different explosive behaviors such as road rage, domestic violence, an employee going on a social media rant against other workers and customers, and a celebrity meltdown on a film set.

The 2016 presidential election demands a new term for lying. It's no surprise that politicians lie. In fact, the word politician has pretty much become a synonym for liar. But in this presidential campaign and its aftermath, Donald Trump has told an unprecedented amount of lies.Worse than the volume of Trump's lies, writes Paul Waldman in the The American Prospect, was that despite being corrected "in many cases he went on telling a lie long after it had been debunked."

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The term lying doesn't capture what we have witnessed in his performances during the presidential campaign and continue to witness, even before he takes office.

One dramatic example is Trump's boast that he won the presidency by a landslide, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.5. million votes---a number greater than the populations of 91 countries of the 233 listed by the United Nations.

Fact checks showed that Trump lied at least 70 percent of the time in the presidential debates. On December 4, "Meet the Press" moderator, Chuck Todd, noted that "NBC counted 141 distinct shifts on 23 major policy issues during Trump's 511-day White House run."

Since his election Trump has already broken at least 15 promises that were key to his winning the presidency. One of his most repeated promises that his supporters enthusiastically applauded was to drain the swamp in Washington. Instead, he is not only keeping Washington swampy he is filling it with alligators.

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Thus, the new term for lying that is so extreme and widespread that nothing the person says can ever be trusted: Going Trump!!

Going Trump can be dangerous. It may not directly incite violence but it can kill democracy and the constitution.
Less Cancer has been at the forefront of informing people on everything from lifestyle to the environmental risks associated with cancer. Our approach seemed obvious; however, many people thought we were creating a new paradigm on cancer when we first took our work public in 2004.



We campaigned for expanded consideration about the way we as Americans live, looking deeply into products from foods to consumer goods to cleaning supplies. Examining the American way of convenience, rethinking time-savers and money-makers with an eye towards protecting human health from the over 50% of preventable cancers.



Our work in education and policy change has only just begun. We need to maintain a presence to protect the health of coming generations from the darkness and cataclysmic outcomes that accompany our shortcuts of convenience and drive for profit at any expense. We end up paying a very high price with people's health.



I followed my heart when I started Less Cancer, gathering the best scientists, physicians, and experts on cancer prevention. The work to begin Less Cancer was a response to love, loss, and the instinct to want something better for my children - all of our children - a future that promises less suffering, less cancer.



The suffering that comes with fighting or surviving cancer, or the memory of those we may have lost, can become acute during the holidays. I celebrate Christmas and for me, over the years through personal experience, I understand how this is a tough time for many and how words and thoughts can make all the difference.



For many people, Christmas reflects loss, not gain. The holidays can be a fragile time.



New Year's Eve is my sister Anne's birthday, every year at midnight, even after so many years since her death, I quietly send a prayer to her telling her I miss her. Since Anne died, I have not been great at celebrating New Years. I have had several experiences of being at a party and feeling as if I were in a bubble removed from any connection to the event. I smile through it, air-kissing and toasting, but I am not actually present.



My appeal this season is not unlike the work of Less Cancer where we work to end those toxic exposures linked to cancer. In the same context, we need to expand our thoughts and hearts to think beyond the toxic exposure of negativity, hate, and anger.



These last weeks have seemed full of a generalized rage which to me feels toxic. It makes me feel physically sick. My remedy is to love more. I just do not know what else to do.



I want to be fully available for those who need me; yet, I find the general rage in the country's temperament to be depleting. It keeps me at bay from being my best. To fight that, I need to focus on what I can control.



As a shield, not unlike protecting myself from toxic relationships, I find myself editing news and social media, using caution including removing news and social apps from my phone. When I decide to allow something into my day including telephone and face to face conversations, it is allowed because I allow it.



Doing all I can to put distance between me and the negativity that we all witness, I need to protect my reserve for those that need my clear thinking and emotions. I advise people to do the same and to disengage from the negative dialogue.



I meet people frequently who tell me their stories of cancer, their loss, their sadness. I owe it to them to be present, hold their hands, dry their tears and listen.



There are some terrible, shocking things going on in this country, and while they should not be ignored, we have to have some filters, so we can do what we do best.



For me, the best way to fend off this type of negativity is to stay focused on helping and being fully available to serve and to love others by bringing my best to the table.



I understand that a smile or a simple gesture can make others feel better. It doesn't take much, and if we all would focus on lifting up those we can with small thoughtful deeds, it will help them and ourselves.



The thermostat for negativity, anger, and hate is rising. Do not give it oxygen. Do not sacrifice your heart and souls to the outside static of anger and rage. Our leadership for goodness must come from within. I am doing what I can to be there for people who need care, who need a handheld, who need to be heard.



This Christmas season I will be putting a little extra love in my heart and hope you will too.
Some visitors try to keep a straight face, some giggle and some aren't sure how to act as they browse around a museum in Iceland displaying hundreds of penises from tiny knob-like appendages to giant whale organs. Said to be the only one of its kind in the world, the museum in Iceland's capital at Reykjavik is packed with some 280 penises including organs from 17 different kinds of whales.



Visitor is dwarfed by a whale organ.

A must-see for students specializing in phallological studies, the museum opened in its present location in Reykjavik's main shopping area about four years ago, having earlier been located in a small fishing village. It debuted in 1997, originally in the capital city.

The largest whale part on display is a 67-inch-long tip of a blue white whale. The entire specimen had a length of 16 feet and weighed close to 1,000 pounds. Runners up to the whales in size are walrus and elephant organs. The smallest specimen - you need a magnifying glass to see it - is the baculum (penis bone) of a hamster.

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At last count, the museum was hosting some 11,000 visitors a year, about 60 percent women. It rates among the country's top tourist attractions along with eye-popping glaciers and waterfalls, soaring volcanoes, lava fields, gorgeous fjords and all kinds of steamy hydrothermal vents (don't miss a swim in the iconic Blue Lagoon). Two other big draws are constant sunlight in the summer while winters bring the the Aurora Borealis (the jaw-dropping sight of Northern Lights dancing across the sky).



Iceland's VikingWorld Museum features a replica of a Viking boat.



The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa is a huge attraction.

Phallological museum curator Hjotur Gisli Sigurosson (son of the museum's founder) described the penis collection as the product of 37 years of saving such organs. "Somebody had to do it," Sigurosson said.
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson sanctimoniously demanding a federal monopoly on the exploitation of fashionable debaucheries is like a dog walking on his hind legs. It is done awkwardly, but you are surprised to see it done at all.

Mr. Adelson has accumulated a net worth of $33.6 billion. He is a casino magnate. His stupendous wealth comes from gratifying sordid hormonal cravings: instant riches; sexual promiscuity; and, creature comforts worthy of King Louis XIV.

It may be that the casino Czar sheds a tear for the collateral damage of his vulgar enterprises: personal bankruptcies; broken hearts; shattered families; dissipated lives; and, sexual assaults. But if he does, the tear dries quickly.

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Mr. Adelson fears that online gambling could diminish his hormonal-fueled profits. In the old days when merchants worried about competition, they privately conspired. Adam Smith recounts in Wealth of Nations: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices..."

But that strategy for self-enrichment is old-fashioned in our Golden Age of Crony Capitalism besotted with legalized bribery to obtain protectionist legislation. Mr. Adelson followed the political gospel of Ohio Senator and campaign finance maestro for President William McKinley, Mark Hanna. "There are two things that are important in politics," he explained. The first is money and I can't remember what the second one is."

The casino billionaire thus donated lavishly to support Republican candidates for the House and Senate to seduce their support for the Restoration of America's Wire Act (RAWA), a.k.a., the Ultra-Enrichment of Sheldon Adelson Act. The bill would prohibit online gambling--a throwback to government paternalism epitomized by the Prohibition Era. Like Lord Byron's Julia whispering "I will ne'er consent--consented," Republican Senators Marco Rubio (FL) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) consented to champion RAWA. The twin solons made no Counter-Reformation-like fig leaf to conceal RAWA's direct boost to Mr. Adelson's spellbinding fortune.

But the Sheldon Adelson enrichment bill has sputtered during the 114th Congress. Last November's elections sharply rebuked both Republican and Democratic Party patricians for bowing to establishment interests represented by him. In a single stroke, President-elect Donald Trump destroyed the money-fueled Clinton and Bush political dynasties.

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Adelson now hopes to enact RAWA with a sneak attack during the Lame Duck session of Congress. On September 20, 2016, he donated a hefty $20 million to the Senate Republican Leadership Fund, a Super PAC that had promoted the elections of incumbent Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Graham. The next day, the "Gang of Three" introduced a new Senate bill, S.3376, a virtual carbon copy of RAWA that would likewise ban internet gambling. Like thieves in the night, they hope to hide the bill in a massive "must-pass" Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before the Lame Duck session expires on January 3, 2017.

Companion machinations are afoot in the House of Representatives to accomplish the same Sheldon Adelson enrichment objective. That provoked Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to write House Speaker Paul Ryan: "We...request that you bring a 'clean CR' funding bill to the floor for a vote before December 9. The potential inclusion of language relating to issues such as...the Restoration of America's Wire Act...runs afoul of regular order. [If]... a united Republican government wants to address these issues...it should include committee hearings and markups, floor amendments, and conference reports--not language hidden inside must-pass legislation during a lame duck session of Congress."


"If we look at countries like Singapore, Canada, Estonia, Japan and Finland, who have combined excellence and equity over a number of PISA cycles, we can see what they do: they have high and universal expectations for all students, an unwavering focus on outstanding teaching and they target resources on schools and students that are struggling." -- Andreas Schleicher

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey that evaluates education systems. Once a country is approved for participation by PISA, individual schools are chosen based on stringent criteria to represent all 15 year-olds in that country. In 2015, over half a million 15-year-olds in 72 countries and economies took the two-hour test. Students were assessed in science, mathematics, reading, collaborative problem solving and financial literacy, although the major emphasis of the 2015 test was science literacy. The results were published today.

Some fascinating highlights: Just four provinces in China now provide 13% of the world's top-performing students; Singapore, Canada, Estonia, Japan and Finland have combined excellence and equity over a number of PISA tests, and interestingly these countries have a steadfast commitment to outstanding teaching and to supporting schools and students that are struggling. While socio-economic status accounts for 13% of the variation in science, maths and reading, the 10% most disadvantaged students in Macao (China) and Vietnam outperformed the 10% most advantaged students in 20 PISA participating countries.

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Which countries made progress? Which countries performed poorly? To what extent did this year's test focus on the application of knowledge versus possession of knowledge, and how relevant is the test to the competencies students must have in a 21st century world? What's the breaking news for PISA 2018? To tell us everything we need to know about PISA, The Global Search for Education welcomes Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD Secretary-General.



"It is no longer the case that the world is divided between rich and well-educated nations and poor and badly-educated ones. The 10% most disadvantaged students in Macao (China) and Vietnam outperform the 10% most advantaged students in 20 PISA participating countries." -- Andreas Schleicher

Andreas: What picture do the scores paint for us about what the most effective education systems look like?

If we look at countries like Singapore, Canada, Estonia, Japan and Finland, who have combined excellence and equity over a number of PISA cycles, we can see what they do: they have high and universal expectations for all students, an unwavering focus on outstanding teaching and they target resources on schools and students that are struggling.

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Which countries have made the most significant progress since the last PISA test? What changes in their educational practices does this reflect?

Singapore out-performs all other countries and economies in science. The top-performing OECD countries are Japan, Estonia, Finland and Canada. Over the last decade, since PISA last focused on science, Japan and Canada have maintained outstanding levels of performance. A number of countries have improved over that time: Colombia, Israel, Macao (China), Portugal, Qatar and Romania. Just four provinces in China now provide 13% of the world's top-performing students.



"The major emphasis this time 'round is on science. We are asking if 15 year olds got better in key science skills: explaining phenomena scientifically, designing scientific enquiry and interpreting data scientifically." -- Andreas Schleicher

How big a factor is disparity in the prevalence of disadvantaged students in the relative country results? Is there a measure of this in the results? Can the results be normalized for this factor?

Socio-economic status accounts for 13% of the variation in science, maths and reading. On average, the difference between the 25% most advantaged and the 25% least advantaged students within each country is 88 score points, the equivalent of roughly 2 years schooling. On average, disadvantaged students are almost three times as likely as more advantaged students not to attain the baseline level of proficiency in science. In 2015, 29% of disadvantaged students were resilient, in the sense that they performed above expectations, up by 2 percentage points against 2012. It is no longer the case that the world is divided between rich and well-educated nations and poor and badly-educated ones. The 10% most disadvantaged students in Macao (China) and Vietnam outperform the 10% most advantaged students in 20 PISA participating countries.

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To what extent did this year's test focus on the application of knowledge versus possession of knowledge?

PISA has always focused on student skills - what they can do with what they know. In the 2015 cycle we have built on this, asking whether students can think like a scientist, reason like a mathematician and distinguish between good and bad arguments in a written text. The major emphasis this time 'round is on science. We are asking if 15 year olds got better in key science skills: explaining phenomena scientifically, designing scientific enquiry and interpreting data scientifically.

How well does the current test measure the range of competencies needed for success in the 21st century?

We see the foundational domains - maths, science and reading - as equally relevant to the 21st century as the 20th. In 2017, we will be publishing additional 2015 data on collaborative problem solving, which is widely agreed to be a key modern skill. As we look to 2018, we will be testing global competence, which we define in terms of inter-cultural sensitivity. Here, values and attitudes are as important as knowledge and skills.

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"As we look to 2018, we will be testing global competence, which we define in terms of inter-cultural sensitivity. Here, values and attitudes are as important as knowledge and skills." -- Andreas Schleicher

Can you draw conclusions from the data regarding how culture shapes education quality and impacts results?

We certainly see that the most successful countries in PISA, in all parts of the world, bring real rigour to the learning process, deploying both teacher-led instruction and adaptation to the needs of individual classes and students.



How do the scores of disadvantaged students in the leading Asian nations compare to the scores of the non-disadvantaged students in the leading western economies? What does that indicate about the differences in culture, the nature of education, and socio-economic advantage among these countries?

Disadvantage remains a major determinant of performance, right around the world. On average, poorer students are still 3 times more likely to be low performers in science than wealthier students. In Singapore, they are 4 times as likely to be low performers in science. But in Hong Kong, they are only twice as likely and in Macao, only 40% more likely to be low performers. That said, the proportion of disadvantaged students performing above expectations has increased. On average across the OECD, 29% beat the socio-economic odds against them, up by 2 percentage points since 2006. In the United States, there's been a 12 percentage point increase over the period, in Spain 11. In Viet Nam, the 10% most disadvantaged students compare favourably with the average student in the OECD. So it's no longer the case that the world is divided between rich and well-educated nations and poor and badly-educated ones.



C. M. Rubin with Andreas Schleicher

Join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. MadhavChavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. EijaKauppinen (Finland), State Secretary TapioKosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Geoff Masters (Australia), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Professor Manabu Sato (Japan), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (LyceeFrancais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.

The Global Search for Education Community Page
Black mother and daughter rubbing noses

Dedicated to Joy Zarembka, Staceyann Chin and Julie Garnier

I read with great interest a story recently published in the Washington Post by Julie Kohler rejecting the term "single mother by choice," saying that it creates a false hierarchy of single mothers--implying that some single mothers are better than others.

While the article does a decent job at articulating the reason for the rejection of the term "single mother by choice," it leaves out many women. Historically, the term has been associated with straight, upper-middle class white women who use their resources to become mothers with or without a partner. In this sense, the term does feel both elitist and classist. Queer, low-income women, and women of color single mothers by choice are erased from this narrative.

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For me, identifying as a single mother by choice is a political and defiant act of asserting my bodily integrity and reproductive choice in a society that doesn't value black motherhood and most certainly black single motherhood.

When I decided to become pregnant, I was thirty-three years old, and in the prime of my career, running a major Research Center at New York University. I knew I wanted to become a mother and felt like there would always be an excuse for why it wasn't the right time: my career, shaky finances, small New York City apartment, or not having found the love of my life. However, none of those reasons mattered to me.

Up to that point, my nights had consisted primarily of hanging out with friends at a local pub that we affectionately dubbed the Southern office (because it was downstairs from our real office) until the wee hours of the night. When I announced during one of our after-hour roundtables that I was going to get pregnant on my own, jaws dropped. "Are you sure?" they said. Yes, I'm positive. Then we raised a glass and began to plot.

Around Valentine's Day 2009, I became pregnant with twins through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) a costly and lengthy process that is out of reach for many women with reproductive challenges, in or outside of a relationship, particularly women of color and low-income women.

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At the Center for Reproductive Care at Columbia University and in my birthing classes, I was surrounded by couples and was very often the only one there without a partner. In both instances, I didn't see many, if any, women of color. I didn't care. My doctor was very affirming in a "You can do it," Rosie the Riveter kind of way.

When my stomach began to buldge, one of my white friends asked if I were concerned about being perceived as a young, single black mother--which I took to be code for being worried about the stereotypes about black mothers in our society being hoisted upon me--poor, irresponsible, uneducated, disempowered, or living off the system. Without much explanation, I answered NO.

I honestly didn't give two f*cks about what other people thought. I also understood from personal experience, having been raised by a poor, single mother, that what we have come to believe about black single mothers whether by choice or out of necessity, was not true.

"Your husband must be so excited, they would say. "Are you going stop working once you have the babies?" They would also ask. On so many levels, these questions were problematic. The assumption of marriage, straightness, workplace flexibility, earnings, and paid maternity leave converged like a sore reminder of just how far we have (not) come as a society with regards to women and motherhood.

I don't have a husband, I used IVF, I would respond unapologetically on the more than dozen occasions that I was asked about my husband. I secretly got a kick out of watching the wheels in the other person's head turn as they tried to figure out "what's the deal with her" or scramble to make an apology. No apologies necessary, I would say, it's okay, I am not ashamed.

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I use the term "single mother by choice" because it disrupts dominant narratives about motherhood and about who can be mothers on their own terms. It's not because I'm distancing myself from other single mothers (read: poor black single mothers). We are all in this motherhood boat together.
Some will say he freed the Cuban people from the chains of capitalism.

Some will say he was a tyrant. A merciless dictator who ruled his country with no respect to human rights, jailing and torturing his opponents and sending into exile hundreds of thousands of people, forcing them lose their country once forever.

Some will say he offered high-level free health and education services to every single Cuban citizen.

Some will say those services are of dubious quality and make no sense when the Cuban people have been living in poverty for years.

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Some will say he was one of the most charismatic politicians of the 20th century and a visionary who made the impossible possible. Like David defeating Goliath, the USA faced absolute defeat on a prestige level from a small country like Cuba.

Some will say he was a lucky opportunist who he took advantage of the circumstances and the need to avoid a nuclear confrontation between the USA and the USSR. Circumstances provided the opportunity for him to avert US intervention in Cuba and secured his rule over the country.

Some will say the Cubans adore him because he gave them freedom and dignity and that they will mourn his death for years.

Some will say Cuba is in a state of total poverty as a result of his dictatorship and that Cubans have been waiting patiently for decades for its end.

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Some will say Cuba's economic issues result from the many years of economic embargo by the USA and other global economic interests that Castro never served.

Some will say Cuba received substantial economic support from the USSR and freely traded with most of the countries around the world and that the country's current poor economic condition is exclusively a result of Castro's dictatorship.

Some will say he was the one who showed the path to people's freedom and how utopia can become reality.

Some will say he died rich and privileged when his people were starving.

No matter which side someone takes, those who praise Fidel or those who share the same feelings with Cuban exiles and their descendants celebrating his death on the streets of Florida waving Cuban flags, there are some facts that are simply indisputable. Fidel Castro was one of the most iconic personalities of modern global history and one of the key players of the Cold War era. He ruled for decades, applying social policies that can only be characterized as innovative. Lastly, he is undoubtedly the most beloved symbolic political leader for a number of countries around the world and the basic political influence for Latin American countries.

Growing up in Greece, a small country with long history that likes to affiliate with small and weak countries who are fighting the system, I always thought of Cuba as an exotic destination where human freedoms and dignity were reality. I recall people often saying "You have to visit Cuba before Fidel dies and everything changes." Years later, I still haven't managed to visit this exotic country and missed the opportunity to do this while Fidel was alive. That said, I find myself incapable of choosing sides in how I feel about Fidel.

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For the time being, I will just trust the words of a good friend and a reliable Greek journalist, Thomas Siomos from Thessaloniki. Thomas visited Cuba several times and a while back decided to write Fidel a letter. This is how it closes:

"Dear Fidel, unfortunately revolution proved to be the story of one and only man. It has been your story and now, as you fade out lost in your thoughts, in lost opportunities and in those moments that you wish you have never lived, now the revolution will fade with you and will be lost like the dust that the ocean breeze brings on the humble houses and the dirty streets of Havana. Streets that they patiently waiting for a tropical storm, so the dust and the shame will be washed away.
The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a conference entitled the "The Spirit of Turkey's New Security," referring to the Treaty of Lausanne, said: "The Turkish Republic is the last state that we founded with whatever was left over from all the self-sacrifices we were able to make... We are heirs of a nation that saw its territory expand to 22 million kilometers. Shortly before the Republic was founded, we had 3 million kilometers which kept diminishing until all we had left was 780,000 kilometers. Some may be offended at my mention of Lausanne. But why does it bother you? Unfortunately, in the Lausanne Treaty, some of our 3 million kilometers were taken away from us, leaving us with only 780,000. They took land right from under our noses and are proud of it. And they say that we came out of the treaty successfully. How can you call giving your land away success?"



The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in July 1923, by Turkey, the UK, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Roumania, and the Serbo-Croat-Slovene state to "close the state of war which has existed in the East since 1914." The Treaty fixed the borders of Turkey with all of its neighboring countries.

In his speech, Mr. Erdogan failed to mention to his audience that the nation he was talking about was built by slaughter, rape, enslavement, forcible Islamization, and the taking of what belonged to those who lived in the territory of the "22 million kilometers" for thousands of years before any Turk set foot upon there. I do not know how many million people were slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks and their predecessors to build this nation. But it is an established fact that for some hundreds of years many millions of people suffered severely under the yoke of the Ottoman Turks, who treated them as rayah (cattle, according to the translation given by the courageous Turkish historian Taner Aksam). It is also well established that modern Turkey, presided today by Mr. Erdogan, was built on the elimination of 1.5 million Armenians (Armenian genocide), of about half a million of Syriacs, Assyrians and Khaldeans, of over one million of Greeks (genocide of Asia Minor Greeks), and the expulsion of over one million of Greeks from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace.

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Last October, Mr. Erdogan speaking at the Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, said "We cannot draw boundaries to our heart, nor do we allow it," and that "Turkey cannot disregard its kinsmen in Western Thrace, Cyprus Crimea and anywhere else."

Erdogan failed to tell to his audience that he can talk about "kinsmen" in Western Thrace, because the Moslem minority in Western Thrace, Greece, is thriving. Greece has respected its obligations under the Treaty of Lausanne, while in Turkey, in violation of the Treaty and in violation of international norms on human rights: from the 110,000 Greeks living in Istanbul (Constantinople) in 1923, after the pogroms of 1955, and the forced expulsions of 1964, about 2,000 were left; from the 9,500 Greeks living in the Greek islands of Imbros and Tenedos in 1923, which were ceded to Turkey by the Treaty, after the forced expropriation of their properties in 1965 and their terrorization by the Turks, only about 200 elderly remain today on Imbros. He did not tell to his audience that: Turkey, in violation of the UN Charter invaded Cyprus, another UN member, in 1974; it forcibly divided the island into two communities; and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, has settled in the occupied Northern Cyprus about 150,000 - 160,000 of its own nationals, who enjoy the houses and properties of about 200,000 Greek Cypriots forced out of their land by the Turks. For the last forty two years, all efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem have failed, because of Turkey's insistence to retain its control over the occupied North of the island, and the unwillingness of the U.S., the dormant UN Security Council member on this issue, to displease Turkey.

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About a month ago, Mr. Erdogan, speaking on the occasion of 93 years since the creation of the Republic of Turkey, said: "I am giving a history lesson here...The islands under our noses, I am shouting that these are our islands. I am yelling that these are our islands. At these islands we have our history, our monuments, and our mosques."

Mr. Erdogan failed again to tell to his people that these islands are inhabited by Greeks as far back as it can be attested by history. He did not tell them that their country was for thousands of years, before any Turk showed up on these lands, the ancestral home of massacred, Islamized, or expelled (by the Turks) Greeks, Armenians, and other indigenous Christian people of Asia Minor. He failed to tell them, that everywhere you turn your eyes in Turkey, you cannot avoid to see the monuments of the Greeks. And he did not tell them, that in large part, tourism in Turkey is thriving because of the monuments left behind by the massacred and expelled Greeks.

Mr. Erdogan also said "Of course we salute all of Lausanne's successes, but Lausanne is not an unquestionable or holy scripture. Of course we will discuss it. Looking towards 2023, we are aware that this may upset the interests of many, but we will still go ahead with it."

Mr. Erdogan's repeated statements on his flaming desire to grab lands from his neighbors, are reminiscent of Hitler's doctrine that the German people had "the right to a greater living space than other peoples... Germany's future was therefore wholly conditional upon the solving of the need for space." Hitler's flaming desire for more land for the German people, and his appeasement by Britain and France until it was too late, cost the humanity the lives of over 60 million people, and the devastation of the countries where the Nazis set foot on.

Erdogan seeks to set in motion the slaughter of the people of Turkey's neighbors and the usurpation of what belongs to them to reestablish the "dark" lost empire he longs, or to divert the attention of his people from the demolition of whatever elements of democracy may still stand in Turkey by engaging his neighbors in dangerous provocations.

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For many years, Turkey is violating on a routine basis Greece's airspace and its national maritime borders. Greece's American and European allies in NATO, to appease Turkey, wash their hands like Pilate, and ask Greece to seek a compromise with the aggressor.

Despite Iraq's stern refusal to accept Turkish assistance in the Mosul offensive against ISIS - because Turkey has sinister designs for the Iraqi land in the area of Mosul - to appease Erdogan, the American secretary of defense, Ash Carter, after meeting with him, said Turkey has had a historic role in the region and it will "appropriately have a role in the counter-ISIL campaign in both Syria and Iraq."

The incoming National Security Advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn, on the day of the U.S. presidential elections, wrote "We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkey's perspective."

To appease Erdogan (a despot, a warmonger), it is recommended that the U.S. - which claims to be "the leader of the free world," the "defender of democracy" in the world - should see the world from Erdogan's perspective ! ! !
I have to credit the securities industry. It has come up with really ingenious ways to separate investors from their money. Here's the latest scheme:

The allegations of misconduct

An Administrative Complaint filed by the Massachusetts Securities Division, Enforcement Section on November 15, 2016, alleges unlawful conduct by Investment Professionals, Inc. (IP) , an independent Texas-based brokerage firm. The firm has a unique business model. According to its website, it specializes "in the on-site delivery of investment programs for community financial institutions across the United States."

The Complaint (which contains allegations that are as yet unproven), alleges IP partnered with a number of banks and credit unions in Massachusetts. Between January 2014 and June 2016, the top ten IP representatives received approximately 2,208 customer referrals, of which about 45% were senior citizens, aged 65 or older.

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About 14% of those referred invested in market-linked certificates of deposits and about 39% invested in annuities.

To incentivize its sales agents, IP allegedly promoted sales contests with prizes including a trip to Turks and Caicos, tickets to a Red Sox game, ski trips and cash bonuses. The Complaint alleges these contests were in violation of IP's own policies and procedures.

Unsuitable investments

The Complaint alleges a variety of unsuitable investments to customers of the referring banks. These included multiple year market-linked certificates of deposit, non-traded REITs, and a non-traded business development company. Most shocking was the recommendation of an annuity with a 7-year term to an investor with Stage IV cancer who required liquidity. As a consequence, this terminally ill woman was left "with very limited access to liquid funds."

A "win-win"

The Complaint alleges the arrangement between IP and the banks is a "win" for both of them. It includes "a generous revenue sharing program" and the receipt by the bank of "rent" in the form of a percentage of gross dealer concessions in exchange for allowing IP representatives to operate on their premises.

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IP allegedly provided additional incentives to bank employees to refer customers. These included cash payments and gift cards.

High commissions

The products sold to gullible investors by IP were characterized by -- you guessed it -- high commissions. Market-linked certificates of deposit generated gross dealer concessions ranging from approximately 2%-3% of the premiums paid by investors. In one case, this product was sold to an investor who was 83 years of age. It did not reach maturity until she turned 90.

Gross dealer concessions from the sale of non-traded REITS and non-traded Business Development Companies ranged from 3%-7% of premiums paid. They could be as high as 6% on annuities.

An insidious scheme

This scheme -- if proven -- is particularly insidious. Community banks and credit unions are no doubt held in high regard by their customers. When they put their imprimatur on a brokerage firm, by having them occupy its premises, it sends a powerful message.

The investments described in the Complaint would be suitable for few, if any, investors, much less for senior citizens and those with a terminal illness. The banks that participated in this unholy alliance are as culpable as the brokerage firm that is alleged to have instituted it.

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The views of the author are his alone. He is not affiliated with any broker, fund manager or advisory firm.



Any data, information and content on this blog is for information purposes only and should not be construed as an offer of advisory services.
Donald Trump's shocking victory will bear important, albeit unclear, implications for a variety of America's bilateral relationships, few more important than its relationship with Iran and the impact that may have on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Throughout his campaign, Trump made no secret of his opposition to the deal. In March, when he addressed the annual AIPAC meeting in Washington, Trump declared that his "number-one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran." Shortly after the news of Trump's victory, Reuters reported that the election's outcome had placed JCPOA on "shaky ground," and one knowledgeable commentator said simply "say goodbye to the Iran deal." Yet even if Trump takes action to retard JCPOA's implementation, he cannot single-handedly tear the nuclear deal to shreds.

The JCPOA is not a bilateral agreement between Washington and Tehran, but rather one between seven governments, many of which do not share Trump's sentiments. While the U.S. has of course not hesitated historically to lead the charge and go its own way with respect to foreign policy, implementation of the JCPOA was not achieved without much multilateral effort, and it is presumed that most, if not all, of the other participants will not wish to squander the Agreement based on U.S. election promises or the whims of Mr. Trump. Assuming that Iran remains compliant with the JCPOA's terms, no one expects the Europeans to re-impose sanctions on Iran, even if the U.S. chooses to impose its own in response to ongoing ballistic missile tests, sponsorship of State Department-designated terrorist organizations such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and/or human rights abuses.

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That said, if the U.S. Congress votes to nullify the agreement and Trump formally does so, the other participants to the Agreement (most importantly, Iran) will no doubt be forced to consider the implications of such action on both the sanctity of the Agreement as well as the degree to which it is likely to remain in force should sanctions be re-imposed by Washington. It is also important to remember that even after Trump takes office, the rule of law will still prevail and Trump (and his Republican majority-controlled Congress) have many other 'priorities' that will take precedence over the JCPOA and America's relationship with Iran.

As the EU continues to suffer from economic ills, Europeans have great incentive to take advantage of the opening of Iran's economy to increase their exports to a market of 80 million people, as major economic powers in the continent such as France, Germany and Italy did prior to the imposition of sanctions. It speaks volumes that after Trump's triumph, France's Total declared that the U.S. election "does not change anything", after the energy giant announced a major investment in Iran's gas sector. As many expected Hillary Clinton to become America's 45th president, although she backed the JCPOA, her hawkish rhetoric on Iran likely caused EU governments and companies concern about the potential risk of doing business with Iran from an international compliance standpoint. Trump's rhetoric is every bit as much of a concern to the EU as it is to Tehran for the same reason. Put simply, the European economy stands to benefit from the preservation of the JCPOA and Iran's reintegration into the global economy.

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Then there is Russia. Given that Trump has vowed to improve Washington-Moscow relations and partner with Russia to fight Islamic State in Syria, the Kremlin has vested interest in maintaining the JCPOA to ensure that the Middle East's balance of power does not shift against Iran. Moscow and Tehran have much common cause in the region and the two powers are largely working in tandem to advance their shared interests. As Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule remains threatened by foreign-backed Sunni militias, Vladimir Putin will probably use his leverage with Trump to pressure his administration to preserve the JCPOA. When all is said and done, Trump must seriously consider Moscow's concerns if he is to make good on his commitment to work with the Kremlin to counter radical Islam in the Middle East. After all, if Trump wants a reliable partner in Russia, and Moscow will expect something in return.

However, Trump's rhetoric against the nuclear deal could impact the domestic political environment in Tehran by strengthening the arguments of Iran's hardliners, who have criticized Rouhani for trusting the U.S. enough to sign the JCPOA. As such factions in the Islamic Republic have their own interests in reversing the partial thaw in Washington-Tehran relations from the Obama presidency, it is unclear how Trump's triumph will shape Rouhani's political future, as he must convince Iranians before his reelection bid next year that the JCPOA served Tehran's interests. Iran's testing of ballistic missiles in the Persian Gulf, which the Obama administration has been duly noted and objected to, has potential by itself to reverse the improvement already seen in U.S.-Iran relations, with Rouhani paying a big political price.

It is also unclear how the Islamic Republic will fit into the Trump administration's overall foreign policy agenda, given all the peripheral factors that will contribute to the decision-making process. Washington's defense and foreign policy establishment are overwhelmingly supportive of the JCPOA and regard it as a solid safeguard against Iran's ability to weaponize the country's nuclear program in the coming fifteen years. Given that the threat of a nuclear armed Iran was Israel's basis for issuing military threats against the Islamic Republic, efforts to undermine the JCPOA would perhaps further incentivize Tel Aviv to consider bombing Iranian nuclear facilities, as unlikely as this may now appear. Recall that the recently deceased Shimon Peres claimed that it was his intervention that ultimately stopped Bibi Netanyahu from doing just that. Peres is gone, but Netanyahu remains in power, and his dislike of the JCPOA remains undiminished.

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Despite appearances, a 'neo-isolationalist' Trump administration would presumably view negatively the implications of an Israeli strike on Iran, which would certainly require the U.S. to draw itself into a potentially new and catastrophic war in the Middle East. But the 45th president and his administration may have their own interest in not undermining the JCPOA. In sum, there could be much space between Trump's campaign rhetoric regarding the JCPOA and his decisions about the nuclear deal as president, when strategic considerations rather than anti-Obama/anti-Clinton talking points actually shape decision making. Trump has already backtracked and watered-down any number of other campaign promises, so it would not be unreasonable to assume that something similar may ultimately be expected vis-a-vis Iran and the JCPOA.

Not only would a Trump administration's attempts to scrap the deal create new frictions in Washington's relations with the EU, Russia, and China, such efforts to undermine the JCPOA could complicate America's alliances with other major economic powerhouses (such as India, Japan, and South Korea) which were not part of the P5+1 but have much to gain from continuation of the JCPOA. Additionally, Washington's allies in the Arabian Peninsula (such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) which had reservations about the JCPOA's strategic ramifications- will likely have their own economic and political reasons to pressure the U.S. to keep it in place. At a time when geo-sectarian temperatures are rising in the Middle East, such a scenario poses a host of security risks for the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which would find themselves in a vulnerable position should an Israeli-Iranian war erupt. However, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faysal is pushing hard in Washington for an American push to renegotiate the JCPOA and weaken Iran while softly pushing for a route to decrease sectarian tensions.

Ultimately, as a highly divisive president-elect, Trump - who already faces major challenges to his legitimacy from large segments of the U.S. population - and his administration will have to tread carefully politically. Trump's mandate has little, if anything, to do with a more hardline stance against Iran. From a foreign policy perspective, it has much more to do with deepening cooperation with the Kremlin to counter Sunni extremists - itself a strategy which will unofficially lead to more U.S.-Iran alignment - even if that is not Trump's intention. He will have to work with a foreign policy and defense establishment which will resist any effort to unravel the internationally-backed Iranian nuclear deal, especially if Washington's close allies continue to find Tehran complicit with its terms. , Although Trump will likely attempt to reduce the pace of the JCPOA's implementation, it does not appear that the outcome of the U.S. presidential election will sound the death knell of the JCPOA. There are simply too many centrifugal forces working in favor of the JCPOA and against its nullification for that to happen.

Daniel Wagner is the Managing Director of Risk Cooperative (@RiskCoop) and co-author of the new book "Global Risk Agility and Decision Making."
Ukrainian leaders on December 6 are congratulating men and women of the armed forces on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the country's Armed Forces Day.

"From the bottom of my heart I congratulate you on the 25th anniversary of the Armed Forces Day of Ukraine," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said Ukraine is proud of its armed forces.

"The country is proud of its troops, which guard our freedom and independence. Happy holidays," Groysman wrote on his Facebook page.

The PM expressed his gratitude to each military serviceman and servicewoman for their indomitable will, fortitude and patriotism.

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy, meanwhile, said Ukraine's modern fighting force has been created by the efforts of "dedicated sons and daughters of Ukraine, true patriots, who replaced yesterday's Soviet units and pledged their allegiance to the people of Ukraine, often risking their livelihood or even their lives."

"I bow my head in honor to all the generations of soldiers and warriors for Ukraine's independence, and especially to honor the heroes of the war of liberation in Donbas. On this day special thanks go to all Ukrainian soldiers who sacrifice to defend the independence of Ukraine and preserve stability in the free world," Parubiy said in comments posted on the parliament's website.

He expressed the wish that soldiers currently located in Donbas return home alive and healthy, and that Ukrainians will score a victory over the Russian aggressor and achieve a peaceful sky overhead.

Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov said Ukraine's army has become one of best in Europe.

"Today you are guarding Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, the state interests of Ukraine, its European future. You are persevering peace and ensuring the well-being of our citizens, heroically and resolutely fulfilling your constitutional duty, repelling the aggressor," NSDC's press service quoted him as saying.

Turchynov also said Ukrainians are doing everything they can to provide their own national army with necessary armaments and equipment.

"Your holiday is a holiday for the entire Ukrainian nation, which is proud if its defenders! Your indomitable will and loyalty to Ukraine, love for your homeland, patriotism and heroism is the foundation for our victory over the enemy," Turchynov said.
On Monday, the first day of the final week of hearings in the 9/11 case during the Obama presidency, more than fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, the Guantanamo military commission was focused on whether one of the five accused men had sufficiently recovered from hemorrhoid surgery to sit in the courtroom.

Mustafa al Hawsawi is a 48-year-old Saudi alleged to have helped organize and finance the September 11 attacks. He's also known to have been held and tortured in secret CIA prisons between his capture in 2003 and his transfer to Guantanamo in 2006. Although exactly what happened to him in those "black sites" remains classified, the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2014 issued a report on CIA detention and interrogation that detailed many acts of abuse and torture committed against detainees. Some of them, including Hawsawi, were subjected to "rectal feeding" and "rectal rehydration" for no apparent medical reason. According to the report, Hawsawi was subsequently diagnosed with "chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure, and symptomatic rectal prolapse."

Hawsawi's lawyer, Walter Ruiz, a Navy Reserve officer, on Monday complained that he wasn't allowed to see his client's medical records dating back to his time in CIA captivity -- and neither were the doctors treating him. It was therefore impossible for them to fairly evaluate his client's claim that he's in extreme pain now, following rectal surgery in October. In fact, the evidence of Hawsawi's treatment in CIA custody and its impact on his current condition were deliberately kept away from medical personnel and out of the hearing. Ruiz wasn't even allowed to have an independent medical expert evaluate Hawsawi's most recent medical records.

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Instead, beginning Monday afternoon, a doctor and "Senior Medical Officer" at the Guantanamo prison, who had refused to meet with Hawsawi's defense team out of what he described as a "fear" for himself and his family, testified in the courtroom. The unnamed "SMO," as he was called, testified that although he is not a colorectal expert, he believes Hawsawi is perfectly capable of sitting for 7-8 hours in court each day. He admitted he had never actually seen Hawsawi sit, except during a brief medical exam. He also admitted he hadn't seen records of Hawsawi's medical condition from between 2003 and 2006, when his lawyer says he was "sodomized." Yet he testified that Hawsawi's claim that since his surgery he suffers intense pain -- a 7 or 8 on a scale of one to 10 -- is "atypical." Still, he's been prescribing him painkillers including Oxycontin, Percocet and Tramadol, all controlled substances.

Of course, Hawsawi's treatment in U.S. custody has hardly been "typical." Yet it was deliberately excluded from a hearing about his medical condition and his fitness to participate effectively in his defense. When his attorney expressed frustration at Judge James Pohl's admonition that he must make do with the evidence available, sarcastically calling it a "great system," the judge became irate.

"You might not like this system," Judge Pohl told Ruiz, "but it deserves respect." Ruiz responded that the system is "disrespectful to our system of justice, and disrespectful to our flag." Judge Pohl ordered him to sit down and be quiet, although Ruiz objected that he had not yet completed his cross-examination of the witness.

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At the end of the day, Judge Pohl ruled that he's not "minimizing" Hawsawi's pain, but he believes he's able to sit in a chair through full days of court. If he chooses not to come to court, he'll have to knowingly waive his right to be present at his defense.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a rally as part of their "USA Thank You Tour 2016" in Cincinnati, Ohio, December 1, 2016 . REUTERS/William Philpott

During the campaign Donald Trump boasted that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't affect his standing among his supporters. Whether or not this is true, this appears to be the approach that Trump and his fellow Republicans are taking to their role in governing. The basic story is that they can rip off the public as much as they want, because ain't no one going to stop them. They could be right.

The most immediate issue is Donald Trump's refusal to sell his assets and place the proceeds in a blind trust. This was a practice followed by every president in the last half century. The idea is that the president should be making decisions based on what they think is good for the country, not based on what they think will fatten their pocketbooks.

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Trump's proposal in this area is essentially a joke. The idea is he turns over the operation of his empire to his kids. It's not clear how this helps at all. His kids will never discuss any business issues with him and also have no opportunity to discuss policy with their father or father-in-law?

Perhaps more importantly, he knows what properties are in his empire. This means that if he decides to make an issue of the crackdown on opposition by Turkey's president, Recep Erdogan, it is likely that Erdogan will retaliate against the Trump resorts in Turkey. The same applies to his dealings with many other countries.

We shouldn't have to rely on a "trust me" pledge from the president that the financial interests of his family will not be a consideration in his foreign policy. That is exactly why prior presidents put their assets into a blind trust. And, there is little reason to believe that Donald Trump is more honest than our past presidents.

It is also important to realize that divestment of Trump's empire is not an insoluble problem. The key is to have an appraisal process, which would set a value on his assets. Trump can then lock in this price by buying an insurance policy, which would protect him from the risk that the assets may be sold off at a lower price than the appraisal. The proceeds from the sale of properties would be put directly in a blind trust. Any extra funds go to a designated non-Trump affiliated charity.

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From the point of the appraisal forward, Trump would have no financial stake in his empire. That would end this huge conflict of interest problem.

It appears that Donald Trump's indifference to problems of conflict of interest is likely to extend to his top appointees as well. Politico reported on evidence that Steven Mnuchin, Trump's nominee as Treasury Secretary, used the money from a tax exempt foundation under his control, to engineer a lobbying campaign. According to the article, when Mnuchin was chair of the bank OneWest, he used funds from the bank's foundation to make payments to non-profits that later lobbied on the bank's behalf.

If Politico's information is accurate, and the payments were in fact made to support a lobbying campaign, then it would be a clear case of tax fraud. A nice twist to this story is that as treasury secretary, Mr. Mnuchin would be responsible for overseeing the I.R.S.

We have yet to see the full list of top level appointees, but it is already clear that it will include some of the richest people in the country. Wlibur Ross, the billionaire private equity fund manager, is slated to head the Commerce Department. His pick for secretary for the Department of Education is Betsey DeVos, an heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune.

If Trump refuses to hold himself to the same ethical standards as past presidents, it is difficult to believe that he will pressure his cabinet and top advisers to avoid conflicts of interest. And given the wealth of some of his appointees, there will be plenty of opportunity for conflict.

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In fact, it looks like the tidal wave of conflicted government has already spilled over to the legislative branch. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will not recuse himself from voting on Elaine Chao, Trump's pick to head the Department of Transportation. Chao also happens to be McConnell's wife.
Donald Trump is causing unprecedented anguish and turmoil at this moment, on a scale not experienced since 9/11. Those who keenly feel this anguish are wracked by the prospect of a President-elect who succeeded through a con job that began years ago with the lie of birtherism. Trump continued along the same course, honing the untruths that fired up the shadow side of human nature, inciting resentment, hostility, and prejudice. According to assiduous fact-checkers at the Washington Post, Hillary Clinton deserved four Pinocchios seven times for telling an outright falsehood, while Trump deserved 59 Pinocchios.

Let's accept that the worst things about Trumpism are true. The outrageous smear campaign that he ran committed a terrible wrong against Hillary Clinton. To expand his base, Trump went beyond the seamy collection of Southern racists, religious fundamentalists, ill-informed and uneducated whites, gun fanatics, and reactionaries who are the base of the right wing, to embrace the deeply committed haters in the alt-right. It's fully justifiable to be repelled by all of it. In fact, unless we gaze directly at the truth of the situation, we would beguile ourselves with denial, which is self-defeating.

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Trump is forcing a new story down America's throat, and since everyone believes their own story, the appearance of a strong man who promises that only he can fix society's ills causes great inner distress. I'd venture that this is the real cause for Trump's victory and our anguish. He smashed the liberal progressive story of Obama and the Democrats but simultaneously smashed the conservative story of establishment Republican conservatives. He did this with a bludgeon, using stark declarations that captured everyone's attention, either pro or con:

I am a winner. I cannot lose.

My rivals are puny and incapable of standing up to me.

Through my greatness I can make America great again.

We are all in danger from outsiders and criminals who hate this country.

Only I tell the truth, or when I chose to say anything else, it becomes the new truth.

By constantly changing his positions, by ignoring any norm of fact-based reality, and demolishing the rational arguments mounted against him, Trump relied on pure personal will. The fact that this was enough for victory depended on one simple thing: the stories he demolished were too weak to survive. With millions of families losing their homes in the Great Recession and job opportunities either vanishing or being reduced to part-time work at low pay, the progressive "America is already great" message of Obama-Hillary Clinton rang hollow. The malefactors who recklessly created the downturn and ruined so many lives were not punished; in fact, they continue to be rewarded with power, influence, and money.

At the same time, the establishment conservative message had led to total obstructionism, and for people desperate to be heard and helped, politicians harping on smaller government and worn-out social issues also rang hollow. The time was right for "a plague on both your houses" outsider.

Into this confused and divided situation, Trump brought a wrecking ball, and what convinced millions of people to vote for him wasn't a belief that he was ready to be President or had the right temperament for the job--exit polls found that even among his supporters, only around 35-38% believed either thing. He succeeded by transcending the old stories, embracing risk and uncertainty, and preaching the very old story that problems are solved by putting a strong man in charge. It's a narrative that worked for Julius Caesar and the Emperor Charlemagne as well as Hitler, Stalin, military juntas, and banana republic dictators.

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If watching the social fabric unravel led voters to gamble on a raging outsider, how do we cure the anguish that envelops us now? We begin, I think, by noticing how quickly media pundits and professional politicians moved to accept what has happened. The reason is that pundits and politicians make their living telling stories and playacting. They both are in the business of selling their words and sticking to the persona that words construct. Words have power solely in our minds. The very people who were totally wrong about Trump or totally opposed to him will survive and thrive by adopting the necessary mindset.

I am not being cynical, only pointing out that the roots of our anguish, as of our social divisions, exist in consciousness. On either side of the social divide, both sides think they are right. They deeply believe in the stories created in consciousness. Without a story to latch onto, they'd feel adrift, lost, confused, helpless, and vulnerable. At this moment, with their story smashed to bits, anyone who believes that bad people have suddenly prevailed, that right and righteousness must hold fast and fight back, will only prolong their own anguish.

Activism based on anger and self-righteousness doesn't lead to anything but deeper divisions and discord. This is hard to face because it sounds like the counsel of despair. It isn't. Nor is it appeasement, since we accepted at the top of this post that all the ugliness of Trumpism is real. The deeper truth, however, is that divided societies reflect inner divisions. When Freud spoke of civilization and its discontents, he was making the same point: on one side is the civilized mind with its rationality and higher values, on the other the lower mind, or unconscious, with its anger, fear, and aggression.

Freud believed that the unconscious could be brought to the surface, exposed to the light of reason, and therefore cured. But the world's wisdom traditions disagree. They argue that only by transcending the divided mind, by finding and holding on to the pure, unified consciousness that lies beyond all divisions, including right and wrong, us versus them, light against darkness, can human nature finally realize a state of peace, love, and truth.

At this radical moment, when anguish is being felt for all the "right" reasons, we need to accept that "they" who won are celebrating in the name of righteousness, too. It's inevitable on any battlefield that "God is on our side" is the belief of either enemy. No matter how deeply you feel the darkness of the world right now, the attitude we must adopt is sobriety, which I define as a clear-eyed vision about reality. Sobriety is devoid of self-pity, resentment, and blame. It takes responsibility and refuses to give away self-power to anyone else. Sobriety means you don't buy into second-hand opinions--we've just learned the bitter lesson of accepting what experts tell us just because it accords with our wish-fulfillment.

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In all sobriety, each person can choose to end his or her own anguish, by realizing that inner division has caused every misery in history as iron-clad belief systems clashed for no reason except to defend a story. No matter which story wins or loses, they all are a mixture of truth and untruth, reality and fiction, selfishness and altruism, faith and superstition, wish-fulfillment and rational thought. So why not give up the whole business of living by stories? Only when a person wakes up to this choice does wisdom begin to take hold. Wisdom isn't hidden or secret. The ability of the mind to transcend its own conflict and confusion lies at the heart of spiritual teachings East and West. For myself, there is no other route beyond Trumpism and the anguish it is causing. By waking up, we won't become aloof, indifferent, passive, or fatalistic--quite the opposite. The forces of light are nothing but the forces of wakefulness, and their power comes, not from fighting the darkness, but from the inner strength, intelligence, truth, creativity, and purpose that exist in pure consciousness, our source.
We may have marched on November 25th in support of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and we can find agreement to #bringbackourgirls when we tweet about the Nigerian students kidnapped by Boko Haram. And yes, we cry in horror when we hear of the Yazidi girls who are enslaved by the Islamic State. Yet the sad bottom line is that as fellow women, in less dramatic circumstances, we aren't very good at helping each other. It's the reason why we may never break the proverbial glass ceiling. We would rather keep fighting over who looks thinner or has a more desirable boyfriend than get together and work to make our collective future better. Sad but true.

Thankfully, there are women around like Caterina Occhio, the founder of jewelry company SeeMe. I knew she was one of the few women who emotionally nourish and physically help other women even before I got to meet her. Almost two years ago, a dear friend gifted me a handmade gilded heart on a long chain for Christmas, an item of fashion and beauty beyond words. As I wore that dangly, precious piece, I knew the person behind this creation had to be a woman -- rather a Phenomenal Woman, as Maya Angelou would have called her.

It's no accident that Occhio is a compatriot of mine. Italian women, and Southern Italian ones at that, at their best possess a combination of style, strength and sensual beauty that both mesmerize and get things done. And Occhio has taken her experience as a former development aid manager, with the European Commission and through different UN agencies, the SEED Foundation and more, to come up with a way to help women who are victims of domestic violence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. SeeMe.org is the fruit of her labor, along with the work of many women in Tunisia where the fair trade verified brand's designs are manufactured.

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SeeMe partnered with the local AMAL (the arabic word for "hope") program in Tunisia which has supported the socio-economic integration of disadvantaged women and women survivors of violence. SeeMe, with the support of AMAL, employs women so that with time it can enlarge its scope and become a bigger influence in the region as well as on the fair trade jewelry market.

Bigger sometimes does mean better, especially when it comes to helping women support their families.

In the last few years SeeMe has worked with fashion houses such as Missoni, Tommy Hilfiger and Karl Lagerfeld to create capsule collections, or adding in details that help give work to the women. Occhio's designs have been worn by style editor Suzy Menkes (seen in this photo, with Miuccia Prada), Angela and Rosita Missoni, Nicole Kidman and Laudomia Pucci. Oh, and yours truly of course!

This past April, to celebrate the 20th year anniversary of the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, SeeMe partnered with the UN Trust Fund and created an "Orange Heart" necklace signature piece. Now Missoni, Pucci, Florentine shoe brand Aquazzura, Mulberry and Tommy Hilfiger teamed up with them and donated a sketch for their tote bag collection presented in Paris during SS17 pre-collection.

I caught up with the beautiful -- inside and out -- Caterina Occhio and asked her a few questions about the recent campaign, but also the meaning behind the brand and her impetus for starting it.





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What is the inspiration behind the hearts of SeeMe?

Caterina Occhio: SeeMe was born while walking through the souks and back streets of the Middle East. After almost two decades of reporting on women's conditions in the Middle East and North African regions I decided to take matters into my own hands. Through my reports and travels I, unsurprisingly, discovered that being a single mother in the region equals being unsuitable for work, for marriage and for society. SeeMe was therefore born as a safe haven, training centre and work place for women otherwise deemed lost.

Where and how are the hearts of SeeMe made?

Occhio: SeeMe jewelry is produced in the MENA region and it employs women, often single mothers, who have suffered violence and were ostracized from their communities. Through training SeeMe women learn the craft of jewellery making following ancient local techniques. Therefore, while fostering their region's traditions they also secure a workplace for themselves and a future for their families.

Do you believe that fashion these days can be separated from sustainability? I mean, can a brand really survive without a message or a mission?

Occhio: It can and it does. Unfortunately, the majority of consumers do not necessarily need a mission or message to buy an item they simply like. It is however true that more and more educated consumers want to know more about materials and production both in terms of sourcing of material and working conditions. It is a growing minority and that's absolutely thrilling.

You've collaborated on some images with Nicole Kidman. What is that campaign about?

Occhio: At the beginning of 2016 UNTF to End Violence against Women selected our heart as symbol for their 20th anniversary. Knowing that the official color of the cause is orange, we have created a whole Orange Heart collection including two necklaces, bracelets, and a tote bag. The tote was made in collaboration with five designers (Missoni, Pucci, Aquazzura, Mulberry and Tommy Hilfiger) each donated a drawing around the idea of the Orange Heart. Nicole Kidman, UN Goodwill ambassador, is one of our first supporters and we couldn't be more proud and honored.

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And I've also noticed that you've collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld, Missoni and Tommy Hilfiger on a few items. How did those collaborations come about?

Occhio: When I created SeeMe I did not buy workshops, instead I helped build them and I never tied them to SeeMe. These workshops are independent, but SeeMe being Fair Trade Certified, they are too, plus they are very professional and the quality they produce is fantastic. I use this angle to appeal to well known fashion brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Missoni or Karl Lagerfeld... It goes something like, "I know an amazing producer that does amazing things, completely handmade, for a fair price and great quality. Plus they are fair trade certified!" And they love it! So I'd say that those came about through a mix of good PR, personal connections, interesting design and story as well as some luck...

What do you want the men and women who wear the brand to feel, along with just showing off the sheer beauty of the items?

Occhio: I'd love for them to feel good about themselves. But also to feel confident and stylish.

And if you had to describe yourself in three words, what would those be?

Occhio: Strong, daring, honest.

For more info, check out SeeMe.org.
When, in 1967, the National Gallery of Art in Washington purchased Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Ginevra de' Benci from the royal family of Liechtenstein for $5 million --a record price at the time-- few doubted its authenticity.

Now, almost sixty years later, learning that a Russian billionaire collector paid $127.5 million for an image of Christ by Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi, one would want to stop for a moment and ask if the whole art world has gone topsy-turvy. A few days ago, the New York Times revealed the fascinating story behind this painting, which was bought at an obscure estate sale a decade ago for less than $10,000. Then it was considered to be merely the work of Leonardo's school.

After careful cleaning and restoration, some experts looked at Salvator Mundi more favorably and declared it to be an authentic work by Leonardo himself. Still, a number of museum specialists continue to have serious doubts about its authenticity. In 2013 Sotheby's sold it for $80 million to a Swiss art dealer who, within only days turned around and sold it to an unsuspecting Russian client for an additional $47.5 million. All of the above led Russian collector Dmitry Rybolovlev to file high profile lawsuits against the Swiss dealer and Sotheby's auction house. As for myself, I have to say that, if it is indeed by Leonardo, then it's probably the most charmless work of his I have ever seen. Here's my sincere advice to billionaires eager to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get their hands on a "rediscovered" Leonardo -- don't be foolish. There's no way that one of his paintings has been sitting in someone's attic for 500 years waiting to be discovered.

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Now here's another bit of art news that stopped me in my tracks. We're learning that our Parisian friends have accepted the donation of a monumental sculpture from Jeff Koons --the 30-foot-high Bouquet of Tulips-- which will be installed next year in the plaza in front of the Museum of Modern Art and the Palais de Tokyo. According to the New York Times, Koons's sculpture, depicting a hand grasping a bouquet of tulips, "is meant to echo the hand of the Statue of Liberty, a gift to the United States from France". To that, I would say 'give me a break': his sculpture comes across as the most banal work from this celebrity artist. I have the suspicion that when it's ultimately installed, it will be as much ridiculed and dismissed as the embarrassingly ugly 300-foot tall bronze statue of Peter the Great erected in Moscow twenty years ago.

Now, let's change the subject to something cool, very minimalistic, and very, very beautiful. Of course, I'm thinking about Agnes Martin and the silence and solitude of her paintings, with their seemingly simple geometric compositions, most often consisting of several horizontal stripes.

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Strangely enough, I've been thinking about her paintings after seeing two newly released French movies, Elle and Things to Come (2016), starring Isabelle Huppert, one of my all-time favorite actresses. Huppert's face and composure remain surprisingly cool no matter what extreme situation her characters are thrown into. And like with Martin's paintings, the more you pay attention to Huppert's famously controlled and cool appearance, more complex and hidden emotions are revealed.

Reading the recently published biography of Agnes Martin by Nancy Princenthal, Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art, you learn that her life was anything but quiet and simple. There was a lot of drama, a lot of instability, and a lot of pain. And, as with so many great artists, all that turmoil was transformed into poetic, poignant, philosophical artistic sermons.

To learn about Edward's Fine Art of Art Collecting Classes, please visit his website. You can also read The New York Times article about his classes here, or an Artillery Magazine article about Edward and his classes here.

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I cant believe that I was so lucky, she said. I cant believe that I got to love this person. And I also got them to love me too.
Photo: Courtesy of the Office of Congressman Sarbanes

Last April, as part of Democracy Spring the two of us marched from Philadelphia to D.C. with four game-changing demands for Congress: Get big money out of politics, ensure voting rights, improve voter registration, and reverse Supreme Court rulings that allow private wealth to defeat citizens' right to a meaningful political voice. We believe that a key reason for Trump's election is the anger of Americans who've felt voiceless because these popular demands remain unmet.

Although virtually ignored by corporate media, some in Congress did hear our voices--most notably Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD) who immediately collected roughly 100 Congressional signatures on a petition to hold hearings on our demands.

John Sarbanes is a hero to many, shining the light on the mother of all issues: democracy itself. Recently we felt honored to chat with him. Below is the second half of our conversation (see Part One here).

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Frances Moore Lappe: Why has your focus been on empowering voters through your Government by the People Act rather than on a constitutional amendment to allow limits on spending in elections around which a lot of Americans have rallied?John Sarbanes: The constitutional amendment approach is tricky. I worry that it won't completely satisfy the demand for change people really feel we need, and that it can end up in some ways aggravating people's sense of frustration.

One issue is procedural: It's hard to get a constitutional amendment passed in this country. Even under the best circumstances, it would probably take ten years. We don't have that kind of time.

Another issue is that if you get a constitutional amendment ratified, more than likely it will not set limits on the amount of money flooding into our system. The amendment would simply give Congress the ability to regulate campaign finance. The fight over how to regulate the money would persist.

A third issue is that lawmakers' dependence on big money existed decades before Citizens United. Unlimited independent expenditures by individuals have long been protected under the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and would continue to be so even if Citizens United was overturned.

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Finally, a constitutional amendment would not change where the money comes from. The cost of running for office is so high that private, special-interest money has to be the source of the funding for campaigns. Where else can a candidate find the massive amount of money required to run for reelection every two years?

Adam Eichen: So then how do we change this?

Sarbanes: We have to create another place to which members of Congress and candidates can turn--where they can be competitive in their funding while not being reliant on special interests.

I see two approaches: containment, which is really meant to limit big donors through constitutional challenge--or empowerment, the approach I favor. Here's a metaphor I use most often to describe the difference:

Americans are sitting in the bleachers of their democracy right now. They are looking down on the field. One thing they can do is put a referee on the field, so the big money players down there have to play by a certain set of rules. So, if a candidate gets steroid injection from a super PAC, a referee can blow the whistle and say, "You are out of bounds and will be penalized." That's containment.

But putting a referee on the field doesn't make the Americans in the bleachers, who are currently spectators, into players. It doesn't give them power.

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What we need is a way to bring Americans out of the bleachers and onto to the field, where they can be the power players and call the shots. If we are going to address the deep cynicism that has settled in across the whole political spectrum, we've got to figure out how to get people back on the field of their democracy.

But here's the thing: Americans are not going to come onto the field if they think they will just get knocked over. This is what the small-donor empowerment approach embodied in the Government by the People Act is all about. And we can pass it in Congress without getting tangled up in opposition from the Courts.

Lappe: Can you explain more about The Government By The People Act?

Sarbanes: The Government By The People act is very simple. It incentivizes small donations from people in one's constituency. First, every in-district, small money donation is matched by a rate of six to one. This means that a $10 donation becomes $70. Second, the bill gives every voter a $50 tax credit to make a contribution to a candidate's campaign. With these provisions, politicians can raise all their necessary funding using only small donations from the people they represent--not out-of-state special interests.

So that's the other benefit of the empowerment approach. If you can power your campaign by going to the people, and spending time with them, then you are just going to be better positioned to act in the interest of the broad public.

Yes, I support a constitutional amendment as well as transparency and disclosure. I believe we need FEC [Federal Elections Commission] reform, etc. But if we don't make changes that give everyday Americans the feeling that their voice is consequential, and is loud enough that candidates will hear them and want to come talk to them and spend time in their neighborhoods, then we're not solving the problem that's generating so much cynicism in our country.

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The other benefit of this approach is that you get more candidates stepping into the arena who, right now, can't afford to. And, if you create a system which rewards them for going out and finding small donors and lifting them up, while being competitive, you are going to bring a whole new group of people into our politics and government. They will be more representative of the broad public, and, I think, would lead to better policy decisions.

For example, if you go up to K Street, whether you are Democrat or Republican, and the issue of Social Security eligibility comes up, chances are that most people in that room are going to say, "Well you know, people are living longer, they are healthier, and there is no real downside to increasing the retirement age for Social Security to 67 or 69."

Well, the problem with that? These folks may be living longer, but half of them have personal trainers, are playing squash every Friday morning, and are sitting at a desk job. But I guarantee if you find someone who has been lifting boxes for 25 years, and the issue of Social Security benefits comes up, they are going to tell you something different. And you are going to walk away with a better understanding of how we handle this issue than you would ever have had by spending time with a bunch of lobbyists in Washington.

Eichen: Are some politicians reluctant to vote for your small-donor empowerment measure for fear that it will hurt their chances at reelection?

Sarbanes: We looked at 2014 fundraising profiles of every member of the House and determined that nearly 80 percent, if they chose to participate in the system we put forward in our bill, would do as well or better under that system than they did in the last election. It shows that you can be competitive by turning toward the public and boosting the voice of everyday citizens.

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The country I was born in and the country where I live -- Austria and the United States -- went to the polls in November and December to elect new heads of states respectively. Alexander van der Bellen, competing for a largely ceremonial role, and Donald Trump, the designated leader of the free world, won presidential elections in their countries by running very different campaigns. The former canvassed on a pro-European Union agenda, pluralism and tolerance, the latter, like van der Bellen's challenger, Norbert Hofer, ran a platform fronted with anti-immigration, anti-globalization, anti-elitist slogans, underlined by the populist idea that it is time for voters to finally take their "countries back" from the out of touch political and business elites. As someone who spent half his life in Austria and the other half in the United States, I have often found myself having to defend the former's politics in the U.S. and the latter's policies in Europe. It goes without saying that this has not been an easy task of late. Both countries appear to have embraced ideologies operating outside the post-World War II politically correct consensus. After all, the far-right presidential candidate of the Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer, won over 45 percent of the popular vote yesterday. The aggrieved Archie Bunkers of the world appear to be on winning side of history, although their advance was temporarily stalled in Austria on December 4. The popularity of politicians like Hofer and Trump feed into an overall narrative of a collapsing Western liberal order on both sides of the Atlantic, a return to nativist politics pitting "Us" against "Them," and ultimately forces us to for the first time since 1945 to confront fundamental questions of the essence of democratic government--and perhaps more importantly -- central questions about who we are as citizens of Western democracies. For example, is our democratic identify as Austrians and Americans largely defined by the anti-establishment message and the rejection of pluralism and tolerance? I think not, and this not just because of the victory of Alexander van der Bellen. From my experience with both Austrians and Americans over the past 16 years, the real strengths of our democratic identity in both countries remains what George Orwell called "common decency" -- a belief in common sense virtues and acts, perhaps best summed up in a simple Orwellian rule: "Don't hit a man when he's down." Living in a democracy underpinned by human rights and the rule of law, we have an innate understanding -- akin to a gentleman's code of honor based on a sense of fair play--about what is right and wrong under certain circumstances. (Orwell also referred to it as the "the emotion of a middle-class man"). It is the foundation of civilized debate in a democracy, although sometimes anger and indignation cause us to ignore the tacit limits of public behavior. Looking back at my life in Austria and the United States, it was connected by the thread of common decency rather than the anger and fear stoked by Hofer and Trump. My high school years in the United States coincided with the right-wing Freedom Party (Hofer's party) forming a coalition government with the conservative People's Party. People even across the Atlantic were enraged. I remember the high school librarian of Fryeburg Academy in Maine, a nice Jewish lady, handing me in horror newspaper clippings of the then leader of the party, Joerg Haider, citing his praise for the SS and the Third Reich. Nonetheless, the formation of the coalition government led to massive protests in Austria. Hundreds of thousands marched in the streets of Vienna. The European Union imposed political sanctions on Austria fearing an assault on democracy and human rights with the Freedom Party in power, and Austria's president coerced the new chancellor and Joerg Haider to sign a pledge to support the core values of European democracy. Under intense public scrutiny the FPOE, rather than a wolf in sheep's clothing was tamed by the public and then Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of Austria's People's Party and ultimately self-destructed playing a marginal role in the coalition government from 2000-2007. Austria and its democracy survived and common decency prevailed. Common decency also ended up prevailing following the deadliest terror attacks on the U.S. in its history. On September 11, I was in the dorm of an American University in Vienna as the towers came crashing down. My first feeling -- shared by so many other Europeans at the time -- was one of solidarity with the United States. The second feeling came later emerging from a consensus among many people in both the United States and Europe that the Bush administration's response to the terror attack (invasion of Iraq, torture, Guantanamo Bay etc.) was contrary to what common decency on either continent prescribes. "This is not what we stand for," was the often-heard refrain among Americans in Vienna at the time. After all it was American troops who helped solidify democratic values in Austria after the Second World War. There still persisted a feeling of the innate "goodness" of America in Austria and Germany. (Anti-American and Pro-Russian sentiments were prevalent in both countries at the same time.) But, even today under Donald Trump, there appears to be little chance that torture will make its comeback as in the heyday of the American extraordinary rendition program. Fast forward a decade, during the 2015 refugee wave, Austrians' first reaction was that it was the decent thing to do to help refugees from war torn countries and welcome them into our land. Safety concerns paired with xenophobia may have swayed people in the other direction in the months afterwards, but there was never a question what common decency demanded in the summer of 2015. Whether it is feasible to integrate this large influx of foreigners into Austrian society remains a different question and one still to be answered across all of Europe. What unites Austria and the United States is a belief in democracy and human rights. Both nations, through their constitutions, support the four freedoms articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. This is not mere Norman Rockwell sentimentality. It is the foundation upon which we can fight our more specialized political battles whether they deal with identify or class. And while the two countries I call my home have fomented populist backlashes fueled by anger and fear that could potentially undermine what I refer to as common decency, we should not forget that this is not what defines us as citizens of a democracy.
PIAZZA REPUBBLICA, VITERBO, ITALY - 2016/12/01: Continuing the battle on the referendum next December 4th, the 'Vote No' supporters parade through the streets of various cities, with songs and information to citizens on changes to the constitution proposed by the government Renzi. The premier is accused of making the unelected Senate and decrease the power of the regions of polluting plants and privatizations. (Photo by Elisa Bianchini/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

After the referendum, Europe looks to Italy with grave concern. Many fear that the country will fall into an even deeper economic crisis, plunging the continent into another euro crisis. Or, even worse, some observers worry that Italy may follow the example of Great Britain and leave the EU.

First of all, Italy lost a great opportunity to reform the country with the referendum that took place on Sunday, December 4. Renzi's proposed reforms would have reduced our hellish bureaucracy and helped uplift the economy. It is more likely that the economy will weaken after the recent results. But it seems that most Italians did not consider all the repercussions of their vote.

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The most important message of this referendum is that Italians are angry with their politicians. As we saw during the U.S. elections and the Brexit referendum, citizens have just uttered a loud scream.

Italians have just expressed their dissatisfaction with Renzi and the entire political class. After an economic crisis that lasted 10 years, they are anxious about the future. Politicians in Brussels have done little to appease citizens.

For Italians, the EU seems like a zoo of bureaucrats. For them, the Union does not provide hope: It is but a monster of rules and regulations with nothing to offer.

As we saw during the U.S. elections and the Brexit referendum, citizens have just uttered a loud scream.

This is something that Brussels must take to heart, more than ever so after the referendum. The EU needs to learn not only about deficits and figures, but about the young generation, about workers, and about the poor. These people need the EU more urgently than ever. Give them hope so they do not have to fear the future!

For this to happen, we need a strong Europe.

Germany -- and this is the message of the referendum to Berlin -- must assume a leadership role in the EU. Germany is the only country that is both economically and politically stable and powerful enough to fill this role. Otherwise, Europe will fall apart. And we must not allow that.

But I am optimistic about the future. In difficult times, Italians are always ready to give their best.

We are Europeans. Most Italians would like to stay in the EU. We are not nationalists, we are not a right-leaning country. And we certainly do not want to leave the EU.
USA, New Jersey, Jersey City, Close up of woman's hand holding open passport

Take these Precautions Before Trump Takes Office

There are a number of measures that LGBT Asian Americans, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders should do to protect themselves and their families under a Trump Administration. I'm a civil rights lawyer by practice and I've consulted with other immigration attorneys, public policy experts, and other practitioners to identify issues of particular importance for our community.

Many of these applications will not be granted until after Trump takes office. But even if Trump tries to eliminate everything that we have won, it is virtually impossible for changes to be retroactive. Applications filed today will be decided and granted on the basis of the laws and rules while Obama is in office. So take care of these soon.

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Transgender LGBT APIs -- Apply or Update Passport

President Obama's administration allowed for people to change and update their federally issued identity documents, including gender-marker on passport and names on social security cards. Trump has vowed to eliminate all of Obama's executive directives on January 20. You must apply and make and changes now. Adult passports last 10 years so they will outlive a Trump presidency.

Apply for Passport from the U.S. State Department here.

Young Undocumented Immigrants -- Renew DACA

President Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by executive order so that undocumented young people could be free from deportation and gain work authorization. Trump has given mixed messages on DACA and at one point stated he has "no problem" with it.

If you are fearful about what Trump will do with current DACA enrollees, know that NQAPIA, countless advocacy organizations, and high powered lawyers will do everything that we can to protect you and your family.

If you have DACA now and it will expire in the next 6 months, file a mandatory renewal now. Not filing a renewal could subject you to noncompliance and makes you a higher priority for investigation. Those who follow the rules, as they are now, are less likely to be gone after.

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If you have never applied for DACA, you should consult with am immigration apply before filing a few application. You can find an attorney here.

More information is here.

Health Insurance through Obamacare -- Apply Now

If you do not have health insurance, you should apply for Obamacare through the federal system or one of your state health exchanges. Open Enrollment is now. Although Trump and Congressional leaders have promised to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, that will not happen at least for another year. The more people who are in the system now, the more difficult it will be to get rid of the system. Efforts to repeal may also "grandfather" current enrollees and allow them to maintain their health insurance while declining to take any new people.

Enroll now here.

Immigrants Eligible for Green Cards or Naturalization -- Apply now

If you are eligible for a green card or to become a U.S. citizen, you should file those applications now. They take several months to process, but becoming a permanent resident or a citizen substantially increases your security to live in America. If you have any criminal history or entered the U.S. without permission, consult an attorney before filing any paperwork.

LGBT Immigrants Seeking Asylum -- Apply now

LGBT people are persecuted in many countries in Asia and the Pacific. Foreign nationals may seek political asylum in the United States based on the sexual orientation or gender-identity. But federal law has a strict one-year time limitation for people to file an application from the date of entry. This cannot be undone by Trump. If you are seeking political asylum you should consult with an attorney and apply now.

LGBT APIs with Children -- Protect your relationship with them

If you have a child, you should apply for a second-parent adoption or a joint adoption if you do not have a legally recognized relationship to the child, like birth. Even if your name is listed on the child's birth certificate, that may not be enough.

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Same-Sex Marriage is Safe -- Don't get married if you don't want to

The right for same-sex couples to legally marry was decided by the US Supreme Court and is based on the US Constitution. Trump cannot undo marriages or take the right away. Even if he appoints an anti-marriage Supreme Court Justice, the majority of justices that ruled twice in favor of marriage equality will remain on the Court. There is no need to have to get married now.

Personal Protections

Trump may eliminate the Obama Administration's hospital visitation policy. So it is prudent to have family planning protections in the event of a tragedy. This includes a Last Will and Testament, Health Care Proxies, Medical and Financial Powers of Attorney, designation of guardians, and Living Wills. It is not limited to couples but includes single people and people in more dynamic relationship and family structures.

Need a Lawyer? -- Ask NQAPIA

The above are prudent steps to takes but everyone's legal situation is different. To speak with an attorney for a legal consultation, complete NQAPIA Legal Intake Form.
Kyiv's Pechersky district court has ordered the National Police of Ukraine to register a pretrial investigation based on information about preparation to murder Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the non-governmental Ukrainian Choice organization, according to information posted on the Ukrainian Choice website, citing deputy Ukrainian Choice Chairman Vasyl Nimchenko, a parliament deputy.

"Kyiv's Pechersky district court on November 18, 2016, ordered the National Police of Ukraine to register a pretrial investigation into a criminal act  preparation for the murder of the leader of Ukrainian Choice  The Right of the People. The court in so doing ended the nine-month red-tape exercise of the National Police in reviewing statements about preparations to assassinate Viktor Medvedchuk," the post said.

The non-governmental organization said that on February 22, 2016, Medvedchuk received information that on February 18 in the House of Officers there was a closed meeting of leaders of various organizations, including leaders of the military wing of the Maidan movement, along with territorial battalions. It said parliament deputies Andriy Levus, Serhiy Vysotsky, Mykola Kniazhytsky were present at the meeting and these individuals "insisted on the speedy liquidation of Medvedchuk, based on the grounds he posed a threat for the national democratic Ukrainian state."

The assassination plans were based on personal enmity and ideological differences with Medvedchuk and connected with his participation in the Minsk peace process and his work aimed a seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the post said.

"The individual who warned Medvedchuk about the danger of being assassinated did so out of gratitude for the release of his friends from captivity [in eastern Ukraine] and by the fact that on February 18, 2016, an anti-occupation forum was indeed held in the Central House of Officers," the post by Ukrainian Choice says.

The organization says these circumstances and events are basis to consider real the threat to commit the crime, which would violate Part 1 of Article 14, Part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (preparation to commit murder).

Parliament deputies have reacted to the statement issued by Ukrainian Choice about plans to assassinate Medvedchuk. MP Levus said on his Facebook page, "I want simply to arrest him and put him in a cell with members of the Tornado [volunteer] Battalion."

Kniazhytsky said the information provided by Ukrainian Choice is "pure garbage and idiocy."

Vysotsky on his Facebook page wrote, "Oh, Medvedchuk claims I conspired with Levus and Kniazhytsky to assassinate him. Serhiy Vysotsky [is] 'Lucky Luciano.' [Sounds] great!"
Our American Airlines flight roared up into the sky over the California mountain tops, its large body seemingly out of control.

The plane banked far left and then far right, several times, rocking back and forth, then leapt up into the sky and then, seemed to be falling to the earth. Fortunately, after a time, the plane's path leveled off.

I could sense the distress of other passengers as I sat alone in row 26, without my Ultimate Concierge, Shelly. Gratefully, I was feeling 'as cool as a cucumber,' thinking to myself, 'whatever will be will be.'

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Why was I so cool? For starters, I am an educated traveler and I know turbulence is not dangerous.

Plus, I was so exhausted and taxed from events that took place at home and on the plane before take-off.

What ultimately saved me from an emotional meltdown is my resiliency and the importance of being able to adapt positively to the unknown.

The Back Story

'Our bags were packed and ready to go.' Shelly and I were looking forward to our trip to the city of Nice, France via Dallas then London.

It was early morning when we received an unexpected phone call that created what we could have allowed to become unbearable havoc.

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I picked up the phone and answered with my regular, "Good morning!"

An American Airlines recording was on the other end of the line announcing that our flight from Palm Springs to Dallas was cancelled due to poor weather. My husband, the consummate experienced and calm headed traveler, got on the phone with AA. The bad news: We would be delayed a day and have to rebook the entire trip. This was not good. My husband had an important business meeting in Nice.

After a long conversation, Shelly gave me an alternative: There was another flight out of Palm Springs through Chicago instead of Dallas, on to London and into Nice. We could catch that flight if we left our home in 20 minutes! The bad news: It was early morning and I was not dressed.

As I stood next to my husband in my nightgown and robe, I blurted out, "Twenty minutes! I have not even showered!"

"No time to," Shelly replied, "If you want to wake up in London in the morning."

I was absolutely beyond flustered and aggravated though I realized I had to be a good sport because Shelly had a meeting.

So, hurriedly, unhappily and even trembling, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, put on my sunblock and moisturizer, some blush and red lipstick, spritzed myself with my favorite perfume, ran a comb through my hair, threw on my clothes, kissed Orchid good-bye and rushed outside to the car holding a fresh cup of coffee in one hand, my laptop, winter coat and handbag in another.

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Trying to smile, I said to Shelly, "I made it!"

"I never doubted you for a minute," he replied, laughing.

What choice did I have, dear readers? What would you have done? I doubt you would let your husband miss a meeting over a shower! At least I hope you would rise to the occasion with positivity.

I could have ranted, raved and stomped my feet -- like I wanted to -- but what would that accomplish? Instead, I took a deep breath (disguised as a sigh), because I learned breathing is healthy, and got my act together, big time.

I must admit, I walked into the Palm Springs airport feeling somewhat flustered but being a very experienced traveler, I knew there could be more bedlam ahead, so I stayed calm and was prepared to wait.

Shelly changed our tickets, and we then found out we lost our first class seats on the first leg of our trip and the hardest part, for me to digest, there were no seats together on the flight to Chicago. Things were going from bad to worse. What I did not know: This was just the beginning!

The Flight

We boarded our flight. Shelly took the aisle seat in row seven at my insistence. I found my seat in the back of the plane on the aisle and sighed -- I mean, took a deep breath -- as I plopped down... stressed to the nines!

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Our flight wound up taking off later than planned because of an incident that I found myself smack dab in the middle of.

A young couple was traveling with their two small daughters. The mother and two little ones were sitting across the aisle from me and the father was sitting in the middle seat next to me.

All of a sudden a flight attendant appeared to tell the young mother her children could not sit in their car seats. A yelling match began when the father stood up next to me in his seat and demanded to see an AA supervisor. A supervisor was called to the scene!

The father held up his cell phone reading the AA rules that said the children could sit in their car seats. Undaunted, the supervisor told him he had two choices: Get off the plane or remove the children from their car seats.

I was in the middle of the two of them. This was followed by words I could not make out. Suddenly, out of nowhere, passengers started playing musical chairs!

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The mother moved with one child and the car seat into the row ahead of where she had been sitting and the father moved from the middle seat next to me to the row alongside me with the other child and her car seat. That meant that two of the passengers sitting in the front row had to move; one back a row and the other one next to me! In order to give all these people more room to move, I moved out of my aisle seat into the father's middle seat.

This is how I ended up on an American Airlines flight, with maddening turbulence, between two large male strangers, no husband and no shower, on my way to Chicago instead of Dallas, on the first leg of our journey to France!

The Lesson

I was, in truth, put to the test and, of course, I survived. I owe this to having a flexible attitude and knowledge learned over the years. It takes skill to become an adaptable woman. You must be flexible, cooperative and accommodating. It is a virtue... and it takes a lot of discipline.

So how did I put today into perspective? I decided to think of it as a comedy of errors. I adapted to each curve ball. It is all about our attitude dear readers. Remember this: When life throws you a lemon... make lemonade.

By forsaking my delicious warm shower, Shelly will make his meeting and together we will reap the joy of spending time in France and after, in London.

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Allowing a man to take my aisle seat made him happy and that makes me genuinely happy.

Two passengers adjusted to a bad situation and adapted in a positive way when they gave up their seats to help a young family.

In fact, in all there were eight people on that AA flight that could have been very unhappy.

Instead, we all chose to adapt, even my husband, Shelly, seated in row seven, who made the trip back to row 26 at least five times during the flight to see if I was alright.

And, of course, I was. Because I know that while I can't stop the waves, I can learn how to surf. Can you?
"The word dog is G-d spelled backwards. Orchid is G-d like!" ~Honey Good

It is an early morning in the Good home and I am both happy and sad.

Happy because my husband Shelly and I are off to Europe in a few hours, specifically France and England. Yet sad, because I am leaving Orchid and I know she is going to miss me so much.

She will be safe with our housekeeper, Rosa, who has known Orchid since we brought her home when she was seven weeks old, but she knows I am her mistress and I know she is my girl. We are attached at the hip.

I am very happy that Orchid is as much Shelly's dog as mine because he adores Orchid as much as I do. And yet, Orchid comes to me for all her needs, including jumping into the car with me to go to the beauty shop and shopping. She goes to Shelly for protection and for a trip to the cleaners and hardware store. It is interesting how she has picked out each of our strong points.

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Anyway, this will be our routine this morning. Orchid will see the luggage and race to the door thinking she is going to travel with us. She will figure out soon enough that she is not going and stick to my side like glue, hoping we will change our mind and take her along. After we leave she will not eat until the end of the second day. Shelly and I are both very sad to be leaving her.

For you, dear readers, who do not know too much about Orchid, here is a glimpse into her personality, how we named her and how she leads a very visible lifestyle because she is in no way an invisible pooch.

My writing partner is Orchid, a soft-coated Wheaton Terrier weighing in at forty- one pounds. She sits by my side as I write my daily blog and she truly makes my heart sing. Actually, she makes everyone's heart sing! She is like Eloise at the Plaza. She is the most darling and visible pooch in the building we reside in, in beautiful Chicago. She is 'sugar and spice and everything, nice!' She showers all who know her and meet her with love. Just ask anyone who has met our darling Orchid!

I want to share two short 'Orchid Stories' and one dog story because I know many of you are pet lovers.

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THE DISCUSSION THAT LED TO BUYING ORCHID

My husband, Shelly never had a dog! I grew up with pets from the time I was a child.

One day, ten years ago, I said, "Shelly, I would really love to add a dog to our family. I miss the companionship of a pet. Pleeeeze say yes!"

"If you want one, I want one," Shelly replied. "I don't know anything about dogs. The only favor I ask, please don't buy a dog bigger than me! Tell me what you have in mind. I know you have already figured out the perfect pet prescription."

"You're right," I replied excitedly. "I have 'our prescription' for the perfect pet. I would like a loving female, soft-coated Wheaton terrier. A female dog because they are loving and protect their young, therefore, making good watchdogs. A Wheaton because they are friendly, smart and don't shed. I want our dog to have a kindly disposition to match ours and I want a large dog because many small dogs bark as a protective measure. That's it!"

"Sounds like the perfect prescription to me," said Shelly. "Why have I waited so long to own a dog?"

"Because you were not married to me," I answered with a smile.

"You're right! Let's get our dog. I am as excited as you are," Shelly replied.

Seven weeks later, Orchid Good arrived!

NAMING ORCHID

Orchid's naming came to be as we were driving from Palm Springs, California to Scottsdale, Arizona to visit my daughter Jenny and her family. Naming her was serendipitous. I never imagined her name would tie back to my last home, Hawaii.

I am a Taurus. My sign is Earth, which means my eyes take in all aspects of nature. That early Spring day, the desert was filled with flowering cactuses for as far as I could see out of my window. I turned to Shelly and said, "The cacti are beautiful, but having lived in Hawaii, I just wish the desert was filled with Orchids."

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"That's it," I said, startling Shelly. "That will be the name of our new pooch... Orchid! I am so excited. It is perfect! She will be our little flower."

Shelly smiled in approval and Orchid was named that day on the ride to see our family :)

THE BONDING OF TWO WOMEN OVER THE PERSONALITY - PLUS ORCHID GOOD

The telephone rang in our Chicago apartment. It was our friend, Alysia, calling from Los Angeles. "Can we have dinner with you while we are in Chicago? It's my birthday and my best friend Candy Spelling has a book signing at Borders Book Store. We are flying in," she said.

"Can't wait to see you and meet Candy," I replied. "Shelly will make reservations at Gene and Georgetti."

I remember the evening well. Dinner was great fun. During our dinner conversation Candy and I discovered we were both the owners of Wheaton Terriers! And so, Madison Spelling and Orchid Good sealed the deal on a new friendship

"I would love to meet Orchid after dinner," Candy said.

They were staying in a hotel next door to our condominium so after dinner we cabbed back together.

I will never forget Candy and Orchid's meeting. Candy was sitting on the couch in the Ritz Carlton hotel lobby in a white summer suit. Orchid saw her, leaped into her lap and gave her a hundred kisses! I was in shock that Orchid jumped into her lap, but Candy wasn't. Her response: One hundred kisses back! Never in all the years of living with us had Orchid ever jumped into anyone's lap! She knew that Candy loved dogs.

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About ten days after our meeting, Orchid and I received a gift in the mail from Candy: 100 poop bags for me and organic toys for Orchid. A dog "mom" knows what another dog mom needs.

Needless to say, Candy and I bonded that evening over our love for our Wheaton Terriers.

AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING WITH A MESSAGE.

This funny, but true, story took place several years ago.

There was a chance meeting of grade school friends. As Shelly and I were walking through the mall, we heard a man call out Shelly's name. We looked up and saw a man and woman walking towards us -- an old grade school friend. The guys were excited to meet and catch up after several years, asking about each other's lives. I remember Shelly asking this man, "How are the girls?"

"Oh, they are fine," the man replied. He did not elaborate.

Then, the man paused. He rubbed his chin and seemed to go into deep thought. I imagine he might have been thinking to himself, "I am going to tell Shelly how I feel about having children because I probably won't run into him again."

This man looked up and after a few seconds in a very dry manner and strong voice said, "You know, Shelly, a few years ago we bought our first dog. She is the most wonderful dog. Our dog brightens every day of our lives, never gives us a problem, happily greets us at the door wagging her tail and only wants to please us."

Then he startled us with, "If I had known the joy, love and affection I would get from my dog, I might never have had children!"

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Dear readers of mine, I think he said this tongue in cheek, but to tell you the truth I am not sure.

His comment was so unexpected that Shelly and I reacted with laughter because the truth of the matter is... our pooches offer unconditional love and our children are works in progress.

For those of you who do not have a pet, perhaps after reading my musings you might think about going to PAWS this day, Giving Tuesday, and giving yourself and a loving pooch a new 'leash' on life. I'm sure that's how the saying goes... or at least how it should.
Why do I immediately think of the word 'treasure' when I am shopping for a loved one, a friend and even for myself?

I think there are two reasons: Everyone needs a little bit of love and what better than a gift given from the heart? Every home needs our personal treasures to make our houses, homes.

I consider 'gift giving' an art from my heart. When I walk around a store to shop for a loved one or a friend, I search for a special gift that will bring long term joy. I do my homework and it takes me a very long time. My ultimate goal is to buy my loved one or friend a treasure... a find! And that same philosophy holds true when I shop for myself

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A treasure is a find and a find becomes a keepsake. Here are some of my most cherished keepsakes...

I am excited to share some of my personal treasures that I continue, year after year, to love and enjoy. Every item is significant for design and, more often than not, I have an emotional attachment to the item, as well. Each of my treasures, my finds, I enjoy as much today as the day of purchase.

Tiffany and Co.: I have a collection and every piece was bought with painstaking thought.

My crystal apple, pictured above, was a symbol of healing when I purchased it. I had been sick and wanted to stay well. I was in Tiffany when I spied my delicious apple and thought... I must have her! After all, 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away.'

I also cherish my Tiffany sea shells, not pictured. I had been searching for quite a while for gorgeous Sea Shells. One day, I was in Tiffany once more and there they were... waiting just for me. My crystal Sea Shells remind me of my life in Honolulu.

The takeaway? Small, thoughtful pieces can leave a strong message and bring you or someone you love a daily dose of joy!

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You can purchase the Tiffany and Co. crystal apple here.

Fornasetti Plates: Purchasing the artist's Fornasetti plates was all about design and my creativity. I did not want to eat off of the plates. I wanted to be able to admire them every day. What did I do? I bought several plates with different women's faces and had a contractor hang them across my granite splash board in my kitchen. I also have a candle from the collection that my dear friend, Nancy, gave me. Birds of a feather, we are!

I continue to marvel at these gorgeous Fornasetti pieces daily. They are not hidden away on a shelf in a cabinet. Great idea, right? Fornasetti creates other art pieces for the home.

The Fornasetti plate collection is sold online here.

Jonathan Adler Lucite Vessels: I bought these "Bel Air" vases in several sizes and colors because of artistic design, they brightened my day when I looked at them and I could use them to store many things. Pencils go in one. Make-up brushes go in another. Flowers in a third. Clever, right?

The inserts of the artistic vases can be purchased in several lovely colors. Lavender, blue, yellow, green and white and smoke grey. And there are several different sizes and shapes.

Shop the Jonathan Adler collection at Neiman Marcus here.

My Baccarat heart collection: I love hearts. I love color. I love Baccarat. Buy one for that someone you love or for yourself. They are a forever treasure...a real life long lasting find.

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The Baccarat heart collection is available at Barney's here.
Brother and sister looking at the camera smiling.

Black parents have enough to worry about just by virtue of having a black child. We worry about our black babies' safety every day when they leave the house, whether they are walking or driving. In addition, we worry about their safety; physically, mentally and emotionally, when they attend school, regardless of school model.

So it should go without saying that many black parents do not have time for this distracting "divide and conquer" strategy with this whole business about the NAACP Moratorium versus education reformers.

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Uh, news flash, the pre-k through 12 education system is not about the grown folk and their feelings! It is about ensuring all children, regardless of their zip code having equitable access to safe school environments and quality educational opportunities - period!

For most parents and students, the bottom line is very clear! Schools are supposed to be for kids.

This Black mom does not care what color adult you are. If you choose to run a school, be a principal of a school, a teacher at a school, a district school board member, a charter school board member, support staff in a school or a lawmaker making decisions about a school, all of your adult decisions should be about protecting the educational rights of students, all students in both traditional schools and charters! And if you feel you can't educate all children fairly and treat them as human beings, then find another profession, preferably one that doesn't include other people's children. It is that simple - no gray areas.

Marginalized communities really can't afford to entertain privileged folk agendas at the expense of their own children's well-being. For example, with these oppressive discipline policies in both charters and traditional schools, Black parents are too busy trying to keep our babies out of the cradle to prison pipeline. So please, stop exploiting the fears and emotions of Black parents and playing on our desperation to ensure our babies receive a safe and high quality educational experience.

Again, ALL schools need to be great safe schools, that treat Black kids with dignity and respecting the rights of parents to do what is in the best interest of their child, regardless of zip-code!

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I just want to say for the record that this black mom is so proud of Ms. Brittany Packnett, the Teach for America's vice president of National Community Alliances. I actually feel like a proud "auntie".

I appreciate Ms. Packnett for not falling into the divide and conquer conversations about school choice. She's very clear. It is about ALL Black children, the 100%, a hundred percent of the time!



Mona Davids, president of the New York City Parents Union whose children have attended both traditional and charter schools put it plainly.



For Black parents and the poor, there must come a time when we don't allow those with the financial ability to choose great schools for their children to pit Black parents against Black parents in the traditional versus charter school battle.

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As black parents we have to stop dividing ourselves. We MUST organize because we are NOT outnumbered, we are just out organized because we have very limited access to financial and innovative technology resources to organize effectively in this day and age.
Given a brand new idea, entrepreneurs tend to wonder: how do I build this thing? What technology do I need?

So they dive in, work like crazy and finally end up with a solution...but only after much time and effort went up in smoke.

Bad move. As a smart entrepreneur, you want to avoid this approach like the plague. Because if you can't sell your solution, your technical work amounts to precisely nothing.

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Space technology startups know this well. Working on ambitious ideas in an industry most people consider outlandish, you'd think they have their hands full with technology only.

But guess what? Successful space companies assign a special priority to sales. They know every dollar and minute spent on tech must ultimately justify itself.

To save you a mountain of time, you're about to learn some of their most powerful ways to get the information you need, without doubling down on product development.

First though, do me a favor. Next time you want to test an idea by building something, ask yourself: can you skip the building step and test it anyway?

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Test for market need by pre-selling

Take Jane Poynter, founder and CEO of World View Enterprises -- a space company which aims to use special high-altitude balloons as both a new kind of satellite and as a vehicle to take passengers on a trip almost 20 miles up into the sky. In an interview, Poynter told me:

"The moment we started talking about World View and the kinds of things we were going to do, our phone rang off the hook."

Early on, Poynter experienced strong enthusiasm from her potential customers. People wanted to use their technology for all kinds of things. And hence, she saw a market need and redoubled her efforts to serve it. She sold the value proposition underneath the technology before developing it.

Okay -- but what if your vision is so ambitious that people just won't believe you can do it? Well, don't panic: you need to make your voice more authoritative, so the right people can't ignore you.

For instance, Astrobotic Technology -- a space logistics company aiming to deliver payloads to the Moon -- built significant authority over nine years by assembling a credible team of space scientists and engineers. And thus, it managed to pre-sell its logistics services to big clients. Suddenly, it no longer sounds crazy.

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As Astrobotic CEO John Thornton told me:

"The ultimate way to test for market need is by selling and collecting checks."

True. And you need to do the same. Describe what value your product or service will deliver for your customers, and see if you can get them to buy it before it's built. Score even a few pre-sales and your voice will already weigh more -- and thus your vision will seem more attainable.

And once you start building, you're still not off the hook.

See if somebody already solved your technology problem

Even when you do have a genuine technology problem which will lead to actual sales, chances are somebody out there already had a crack at it.

Alistair Brett, a World Bank science commercialization expert and partner at innovation consultancy firm Rainforest Strategies, points out how science-based companies tend to reinvent the wheel. They face a specific technical problem, but can't find a solution outside the company, so they just roll their own.

Thing is, the solution often does exist out there, even if it takes a diligent search to find it. And sometimes, it exists in an outside industry.

"In a substantial number of cases, the problem has been solved by somebody who is not directly working in that field of research or development," Brett said in an interview.

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He gives an example of a company that struggled to create a chemical adhesive. The solution was eventually found by an electrical engineer -- someone from an outside industry. An expert on a different kind of stickiness.

Bottom line? When you face a technical problem as an entrepreneur and go out to find an existing solution, a brief search won't do. Instead, make a special search effort, because the solution might lie hidden outside your industry. See if you can find an expert on a similar problem and learn how they solved it.

Outside experts can help you stumble upon innovations. But watch out: an innovation by itself isn't the point. You have to go sell it.

For instance, when I spoke with Chad Anderson, managing director of Space Angels Network, a large community of investors and entrepreneurs in the private space industry, he told me:

"Engineers and scientists often discount the difficulty of getting an innovation out into the market. For the innovations that stick, it all comes down to the CEO and the team. It's a sales job."

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See the point? For an innovation to stick, you must be its salesperson. Successful space companies learned this lesson early on.

But look -- you don't need to have a space company to take value from their efforts.

Take a down-to-Earth example

Let's say you want to solve IT problems for small law firms.

First step? Consider talking to larger law firms. Because law firms with in-house IT departments have wisdom for you: what kind of problems lawyers have with IT, what technology they need to solve them, how much time this takes away from clients, and so on. Instead of starting the puzzle from scratch, you extract wisdom from those who've been there before. Simple.

And then, you go talk to smaller law firms and put your new insights to the test.

Do these same IT problems still run deep, and how do they differ? Plus, see if you can pre-sell your value proposition: would these law firms pay you right now, so you can deliver a killer solution to their problems once you have everything in place?

Start this way and you save yourself from grinding through much of the initial learning curve.
This article was originally posted on Inverse.

By Yasmin Tayag

Why the male gaze is inevitably drawn to the female chest has sparked many a Freudian discussion and elicited an even greater number of eye rolls from women. What is it about boobs that fuels this eternal fascination? A team of European scientists recently received funding to study exactly that, shedding a bright evolutionary light on the everlasting male obsession with female breasts.

In a report actually entitled "Men's preferences for women's breast size and shape in four cultures," published in the journal of Evolution and Human Behavior, a team of researchers (both male and female) report that it might be shape, not size, that the male brain actually considers when appraising a breast's attractiveness. Despite the general Western belief that men think bigger is better -- and a number of previous scientific studies that corroborate this idea -- it appears that firmness trumps all, and that quality, in turn, is probably dependent on shape.

That's cool. But this conclusion leads us to what is, arguably, the more important question: That is, why are scientists studying this at all?

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While the study's premise may seem unnecessarily indulgent and its results troublingly exclusionary, it does shed some light on the evolutionary basis of the male obsession with boobs. The leading theory proposes that breasts are, first and foremost, an indicator of what disturbingly utilitarian scientists have called a woman's "residual fertility." Natural sexual selection is what led to the specific breast shapes and sizes we see on women today. This makes sense: If you imagine a bunch of early cavemen trying to gauge which of the local cave ladies would make the healthiest, fittest mother for their children, it's not a stretch to say that they'd rely mostly on visual cues to inform their decision, similar to peacock females sizing up a male's grand tail feathers.

And because the cross-cultural survey at the heart of this study suggested that -- at least among the men from Brazil, Cameroon, the Czech Republic, and Namibia that were studied -- the more important visual element was breast morphology, not size, the authors speculate that there's something about breast shape that tells a male that a female is especially fertile.

Why might firmness be more important than size? Breast size, they note, tends to change with age and the number of babies a woman has had, so it could very well be shape -- and thereby firmness -- that is the better indicator of fertility. They came to this conclusion after literally asking 267 men to rate pictures of different-sized boobs and then analyzing the results. While size preferences fluctuated (most men preferred medium-sized breasts, followed by large ones), preference for firmness stayed roughly consistent. What exactly firmness says about a woman's health overall remains to be seen.

While it provides an evolutionary explanation for breast-obsessed men, the so-called "potential fertility indicator hypothesis," of course, also assumes that early Sapiens ladies didn't have much of a choice in who they mated with, being subjected, as it were, to the judgmental eyes of their male peers. This theory makes a biological excuse for humankind's historically uncouth behavior but can't, by any means, be used to guide or excuse how we act today. There's more to modern romance than sizing up a person's natural physiology, just as there's more to modern human culture than hanging out in man caves and looking at boobs.

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I was born in the San Bernardino county hospital. I was the only blond baby in a patchwork quilt of race and language. To me, the diversity in that nursery epitomizes the nation where I grew up: a country where men and women of every color and creed were free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

One year ago, I was staring into my cell phone in disbelief: there had been a shooting at a San Bernardino Christmas Party, less than a mile from where I was born. More than a dozen were dead. Their lives had ended in the same place mine had begun all those years back. I couldn't get to sleep. I stayed up all night wondering about the human race, wondering about America.

Tonight I have the same questions: America, who are you? Do you still hold these truths to be self evident- That all men are created equal? With unalienable rights? Innocent till proven guilty? I worry that we're loosing our identity these days- running scared. With every new act of violence the lines are drawn deeper between the left and the right. We're outraged, we're heartbroken. There's a lot of yelling but not much conversation- lately it feels like the only thing we have in common is anger.

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Genres of Bloodshed

The names and the faces flash across the screen every evening in a nightly parade of violence and despair. I hope for a silver lining- that this could be the catalyst for change, giving our nation a common desire for peace, for an end to this senseless bloodshed. But so far this is not the case. Instead, with every new mass murder, the division lines in our nation only grow more defined.

Different voices begin to yell loudest depending on who the perpetrator is and who the victims are. Was the gunman Muslim? We need to fund the war on terror. Hispanic? We need better border control. White? Lone wolf? We need better mental health facilities. African American? We need to fight gang related crime. These divisions are used by voices on the right and the left to prove their point. Almost as if we have specific genres for the violence.

There's a violence in the water.

If you're looking for a common thread in all of these mass murders, it is this: every one of these gunmen (and women) held a deep seated belief system/psychosis/neurosis that they personally needed to take up arms to accomplish the task at hand. These perpetrators of violence felt that their cause, (Allah, greed, fascism, depression, etc...) was worth the death of their victims. No matter how innocent.

Are you angry? Are you mad enough to do something? You should be. Maybe you're angry enough to take up arms to accomplish the task at hand? To grab a gun and take matters into your own hands?

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Ironically, the act of violence you're responding to was fueled by this very same ideology. It's a deep seated belief that the personal use of weapons is the best or only way forward. It's a strange resemblance.

We the people

All of these disparate story lines have another uncomfortable commonality: almost every one of the attacks on American soil this year was committed by American Citizens upon American Citizens. This is not a foreign enemy: we are killing ourselves.

For the small percentage carried out by Muslims, people might argue that Islam is to blame. "it's a violent, murderous faith." What about Democracy? Or Socialism? Or Christianity? Do we have a better track record? Do we assume that every Christian in America approves of the violent attacks on Planned Parenthood? Do we hold Marx responsible for the atrocities that Lenin committed?

In the same way we cannot paint every Muslim American with the brush of ISIS. Stereotypes might be "good" for a nightly broadcast or to win an election, but these issues are not cut and dry. Who are you? Who am I? People are ever changing bundles of emotion and action, riddled with contradictions and good intentions. We are the people: Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and otherwise.

Yes, there are generalizations and stereotypes and prejudice- but these broad stroke categorizations are oversimplified attempts to comprehend the violence around us. This "We" vs."They" thinking doesn't help the conversation; we are individual human souls not statistics or data. After all, prejudice is a form of fear.

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The Irony is that this prejudiced delineation is exactly what ISIS wants. Turning our colorfully complicated world into a binary black and white- it's what they have repeatedly said that they are hoping to achieve with every attack. (See my post, "What ISIS Wants") Why would we assist them in their efforts? Yes, there are a million divisions between us: color, belief, background, and desire- but lowering ourselves to prejudice and hatred only destroys the Freedom and the Liberty that our fore-fathers fought for.

But Something must be done

What sort of America will we give to our children? More mass shootings than days in the year? That's a stunning, horrifying, heart-breaking statistic. We cannot become callous to these needless deaths. Let the blood of these victims not have been spilled in vain. Let us grieve the empty places at holiday dinner tables, the holes in the family photos where human souls should be.

There's a violence in the water. It's shocking. It's terrifying. It's terrible.

But what is an act of terror? Is it only defined as a Muslim act of violence? A year ago more than 12 people at a San Bernardino holiday party were tragically killed by Muslim Americans. What about the four people who were gunned down in Savannah earlier that same day? What about the 19 hospital workers and patients who were killed by American Military air-strike? Is there a hierarchy of terror? Does the terror of one individual matter more than the terror of another?

What can we all agree on? Can we agree that human lives matter? That this senseless violence robs us of our friends and family? These victims are mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters. Funerals and graves replacing graduations and birthday parties. Real heartbreak. Real blood.

What is a war or terror? Is it an attempt to fight for peace and safety for ourselves and future generations?

Maybe it's a collective response to all of these acts of terror. Saying, "Your senseless murders will not steal our justice, freedom, or compassion. Human life is valuable, the blood of your victims cries out from the ground. Your terrorists acts are low, cowardly, and representative of a dark culture of hatred and fear. We refuse to let your world destroy the free world of justice."

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the land of the free and the home of the brave

My parents and teacher taught me to love and respect the folks who looked like me and the folks who didn't- the folks who agreed with me and the folks who didn't.

Maybe I'm overly idealistic, but I think that's what America is. On a good day. Or better put, that's what America could be.

America, who are you? Are you a monster? Are you a bully? The grand experiment of freedom is on the chopping block. Are we the good guys or the bad guys? Are we Darth Vader or are we the resistance?

I am an American who loves his country. And more than I love my country, I love my countrymen and women. We are different, you and I. We have different views on life. I have Muslim friends, Christian friends, atheist friends, Jewish friends, you get the idea..... I have friends who support the NRA, gay-rights, pro-life, pro-choice, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. That's one of the things that America still stands for, right? Freedom to believe different things, to pursue different interests?

You might say that we're bound by different rules. Yes, we are. Or at least we claim to be. If you claim to fight under the banners of freedom and justice, then you are indeed bound to a higher standard. If you stoop to fear and hatred to win this fight, you have already lost.

I appeal to my friends, We're better than this. At least we could be. I believe that human life is worth more than this. The land of the free? The home of the brave. You've got your opinion and I truly want to hear it. But, yelling in all caps online doesn't give your opinion more weight or logic. And I find it to be Un-American - and closer to the binary black and white world that ISIS wants.

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The election result that shocked the nation are causing Democrats to ask themselves how they did so poorly with working class voters in the middle of the country. There are many answers to the question, but as a veteran who has worked to elect progressive leaders from across the country, let me offer one step that Democrats could take immediately to demonstrate their commitment to economic growth, national security, and climate change in a way that actually resonates in the heartland. This requires only that lawmakers fully embrace policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that support homegrown biofuels.

As a veteran, I've seen my fellow troops risk, and lose, their lives in places that are of strategic importance to the United States only because of oil. I've also met many who have returned home and are producing biofuels that grow local economies, increase our national security, and reduce carbon emissions. They are able to do this work because the RFS requires oil companies to blend biofuels into our national fuel supply.

The RFS is good policy. And while it might not be well known outside of the heartland, it's also good politics. Almost exactly a year before the election, Third Way published a report that showed strong messages around the RFS increased support for Democrat candidates in rural districts in the rural upper-Midwest - in places like Wisconsin, Iowa, and rural Michigan. The Third Way report analyzed data from congressional districts that had flipped from Democratic to Republican in 2010 and 2014. It noted that the RFS was very well known and popular with overwhelming majorities of moderate voters in these rural swing districts.

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The report also noted that the issue had traditionally been viewed as a Democratic priority, and that Republicans, with their affinity for big oil and aversion to federal mandates, were generally on the losing side of the RFS with moderate voters.

This allowed Democrats to point to specific policies that were helping create jobs in rural districts, highlight Republicans ties to big oil, and illustrate local opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. It helped elect Democrats throughout rural America, and it had strong support from progressive leaders like Nancy Pelosi who saw the potential of the RFS to help her retake the majority.

But given the saliency of the RFS in these key districts, it didn't take long for Republicans to look for ways to exploit the issue.

First, we saw candidates like Senator Joni Ernst -- who initially said she opposed all energy mandates -- change positions and fully embrace the RFS. The GOP made room for candidates willing to embrace the RFS because it was clear that failure to do so helped Democrats win elections. And then, Democrats shot themselves in the foot.

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The oil industry funded a series of reports questioning the environmental benefits of biofuels (and arguing, ridiculously, that oil from tar sands in Canada is better for the environment than renewable fuels from plants in the United States). Progressive Democrats from safe seats like Peter Welch of Vermont joined with oil patch Republicans to try kill the program, giving the GOP a key talking point in places like Wisconsin, Iowa and rural Michigan where mistrust of coastal elites has always run high. In addition, the Obama Administration proposed dramatic changes to the program that outraged voters in key rural districts. Instead of doubling down on an important link to rural America, Democrats gave the GOP a huge opening.

In 2016, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fully embraced the RFS as candidates both in the primary and the general. But a week before the election, the Trump campaigned warned rural voters that, if elected, Hillary would weaken the RFS. They had evidence that showed Democrats wavering on their commitments. What had been a solid Democratic tool to reach rural voters in swing-districts had become a tool used by Donald Trump to attack Hillary Clinton. And ironically, a couple of weeks after the election, the Obama Administration fixed their mistake and finally got the program back on track. A good step, but too late to fix the political damage that had been done.

To be sure, Hillary did everything right when it came to supporting the RFS, and Trump will have to prove that he will stand up to his oil industry cronies serving as his energy advisors. But what had been a winning issue for Democrats became muddled because of missteps by Democrats who bought the oil industry spin and created a key opening for the GOP. Democrats were tone deaf to the damage done to their support in rural America by supporting oil industry efforts to repeal or "reform" the program.
This year like every year I had my theater class in Paris create Thanksgiving dinners. I gave them the same instructions I always do: four family members, a stranger, and the centerpiece of a turkey. I explain to them the Pilgrim story (like I heard it as a kindergartner), admittedly with some holes--like not remembering whether or not the Native Americans were invited. I tell them to use all the dramatic techniques they have learned in class for their skit: from conflict to character development.

This year's Thanksgiving Dinners were like no other.

In one, the family is divided by Trump: loyalties for and against.

The raging patriarch throws the turkey off the table when he finds out his daughter has a Mexican fiance.

"You're not even from U.S.A.!" he screams.

He then pronounces vehement anti-abortion views.

But when he finds out his daughter is pregnant with the Mexican, he screams: "YOU BETTER ABORT IT!"

The girl demurely says: "But I want to keep it!"

"NO, YOU ABORT THAT MEXICAN!"

In the next Thanksgiving Dinner, a daughter shows up at the table with a Muslim boyfriend...

He too does not fare well at the dinner.

"Where are you from?" the father, who stands in front of a huge Crucifix (his company makes crucifixes), asks the newcomer, staring at the dark skin.

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"From Dubai!" says the suave boyfriend (actually from Spain).

"Where? Where? Oh who cares! It's out of U.S.A!"

He refuses to accept his daughter's plea to lead his Crucifix business: first, because she is a woman ("No woman in a leadership role!"), and second, because of the Dubai boyfriend.

But then when the Dubai boyfriend offers to help finance his business--with much needed Arab oil money--the father throws his arm around the Muslim's shoulders and offers him a leg of turkey.

In the meantime, his military son grabs a gun and threatens to shoot them all.

Huh, I thought watching.

So this is my country in the eyes of my students: xenophobic, racist, patriarchal, ignorant and violent: the laughing-stock of the world.

How, I worried, am I going to teach next semester's course on American theater and film?

I always taught that course proudly in the past: enthusing to my students (who come from over 15 countries worldwide) about all the advances that my wonderful country has led the world in: in feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism, GLBT rights, and the American dream. The USA is a unique country that allows all voices to challenge the status quo: voila the premise of this course which introduces students to the ground-breaking texts of August Wilson, Sam Shepard, Eve Ensler, Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Suzan-Lori Parks, Spaulding Gray and Hanay Geiogamah.

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Count me among those who have been deeply worried about what the next four years will mean for social and educational justice.

While I'm a life-long Democrat, my concern is not that our president-elect is a Republican. Low-income students and students of color have had great Republican champions in the past -- leaders who stood up for them and the quality of education they deserve when others wouldn't. And I know there will be more champions to come on both sides of the aisle.

I'm worried, instead, because of the particularly heinous mixture of fear- and division-inducing vitriol that fueled the president-elect's path to the White House. Words matter. And the hateful words that spewed from his mouth as a candidate -- and then were volleyed by his staff, scribbled on campaign posters and T-shirts, and chanted at rallies -- created real fears among the children and youth we serve, not to mention many of their teachers and family members.

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To those who dismiss these fears, arguing that President-elect Trump and his supporters didn't mean them, that it was just a little harmless "locker-room talk" or "rallying of the troops," I say this: Virtually every trustworthy source points in the same direction -- in the weeks since the election hate speech is significantly up, and actions of hate even more so. Call the hatemongers wrong or even the lunatic fringe if you will, but reports from educators and almost daily news accounts make it very clear that our schools are simply not immune from words and acts by those who feel newly empowered to diminish --even demonize -- those who they perceive as different, whether they be students, parents, or educators.

No, expressions of hate aren't new. Generations of education and civil rights advocates have spent their lives staring them down. And certainly, there isn't a person on the Ed Trust team who hasn't experienced them, either for who they are, because of whom we advocate for, or both.

But even though we were far from naive to the persistence of hatred and ignorance, this election knocked many of us off our normally sure stance. For a moment, advocates who had long prided themselves on never hesitating, never running from a fight, and never giving in were simply stopped dead in our collective tracks by doubt and real fear -- for our country.

The challenge certainly wasn't that we don't know what to do in response to specific actions (or inactions) that threaten our young people. Indeed, Ed Trust has a very long record of calling out -- damn the consequences -- policymakers and others whose actions perpetuate injustices in our education system.

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The challenge, rather, was that the messages of late are rooted in something more ominous but still inchoate -- a kind of blurry, reactionary hatred, with fear-stoking language that we have not seen dominate our national dialogue in a long time. These are not the sounds of recent years, with quiet, if pernicious, foot-dragging in statehouses or whispers in comfortable communities across the country where adults worry that more or better for historically underserved kids will somehow always mean less for their kids. Though these forces have slowed progress, too, today's is a new level of threat, turning the clock backward to a much uglier time, when children were spit on and yelled at and their buses pummeled with rocks.

As we've been thinking and talking about what all of this means for our work, we have come to the conclusion that the new rhetoric is more than simply a harsh reminder (as if we needed it) that the work that we and countless allies around the country do every day to advance opportunities and achievement for low-income children and children of color is far from done. We are up against more aggressive, more threatening and dangerous words -- and, likely, eventually deeds -- than we have been faced with in a long time.

So we join the many others who have called on the president-elect to repudiate the hateful speech and actions being undertaken in his name -- not once or twice, off-hand in an interview, or as a throw-away line in an otherwise incendiary speech, but seriously and repeatedly, with crystal clear reminders that such hateful language and actions are not just immoral and wrong, but dangerous and un-American.

But beyond that, instead of simply continuing our efforts to advance educational equity and justice on cruise control (or even slowing them down for a while as some have suggested), we will immediately ramp them up.

To help more Americans see inequities they would prefer not to see -- and to promote broader understanding that we are all better off if all young people, rather than just some, get the quality education they need and deserve -- The Education Trust is beginning now to ramp up its efforts to mine and share critical data. To counter the doubters, we are ramping up our efforts to identify and tell the stories of schools and colleges that dispel myths about who can learn and who can't. We also will ramp up our work with and support for practitioners who want to make a bigger difference in their schools and colleges, and accelerate our work with state and federal policymakers on both sides of the aisle to find common cause in advancing opportunity for the most vulnerable children.

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And we will stand together with others -- or alone, if necessary -- to resist any effort to take the country backward on the progress it has made in raising sights -- and results -- for low-income students and students of color.

In both good times and bad, it has always been the job of advocates to stand up tall and take advantage of each opportunity to claw out every ounce of progress we can for the most vulnerable students. We will continue to do that job.

America's young people can count us in -- and up -- for the fight.
Spokesperson for the SBU Security Service of Ukraine Olena Hitlianska explains that some journalists were not allowed to attend an official ceremony when a TV tower on Karachun Mountain in eastern Ukraine was launched with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's participation because they either lacked ID documents or were involved in criminal proceedings.

"Members of the media who had limited access to the event, according to available information, are involved in criminal proceedings, including for illegal possession of weapons, or did not provide ID documents to the law enforcement agencies. There was no possibility to quickly find out details of the situation in the 'field' conditions, so their access to the event was limited for security reason," Hitlianska wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

She emphasized that the decision had been taken in relation to certain individuals, not the media outlets they represented. "All accredited media had unimpeded access to cover the event," she said.

Hitlianska added that the SBU would carefully check whether security officers involved in the incident acted properly. She also apologized on behalf of the SBU heads "for possible overestimation by the officers of threats."

Earlier media reported that some members of the media had not been allowed to attend the launch of the TV tower on Karachun Mountain near the town of Slovyansk in Donbas. After search and database checks, some of them were kept in a bus, which brought journalists to the venue from the town of Kramatorsk.
Where is She Going?: Sweet Charity Revived

I had a great time at the New Group's current, vest pocket revival of Sweet Charity, directed by Leigh Silverman. Its clear raison d'etre is star Sutton Foster, who creates a goofy and endearing Charity, the perpetually out-of-luck romantic whose eight-year employment in the "rent-a-body business" hasn't hardened her to the possibility of finding love. Even in the opening scene, while waiting for her newest beau, Charlie (his name is tattooed on her arm), she sings to a series of potential new beaus in Central Park who sling her around and upside down, an apt movement metaphor for her grab-at-anything approach to love. The production is carried along by Foster's inspired clowning and song-and-dance brio. She even dances in character. Her sleek Reno Sweeney tapping is here replaced by gangly body language that embodies the character's confusion over her endless bad choices.

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Oscar, the insurance actuary she thinks may finally whisk her away to a happily-ever-after ending, is usually cast as some variation on a milquetoast. But Shuler Hensley's Oscar is a hulking sad sack who hints at a troubled history with women. Hensley's tender rendition of the title song is the show's loveliest musical moment, and gives off a disquieting sense that he's trying to talk himself into something he may not be ready for.

Charity and her crowd have a raffish Damon Runyon-like affability, the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields score is rousing, and even second-rate Neil Simon packs plenty of zingers. The New Group's cast is game, though so stretched by the double and triple--and in the case of crazy versatile Joel Perez, quadruple--casting that they seem to be always catching their breathe.

But neither Charity nor Charity has aged well. The show's satire of beatnik culture ("Rhythm of Life"), dead-eyed discotheques ("Rich Man's Frug"), and pay-to-play sexuality ("Big Spender") made it feel right of the moment when it arrived at the top of 1966. (Not to mention the wailing guitars in "Rich Man's Frug," among the first electric instruments used in a Broadway pit.)

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But by the time Fosse's film version arrived three years later, the show was the victim of a changing culture. Its flower power hippies and the dance hall "hostess" who must hide her occupation in order to make a respectable marriage (a contrivance easier to accept on stage) were corny and contrived.

Fosse realized this when he revived Charity in 1985, locking it down firmly in the 1960s and speeding the tempo, lest anyone linger too long over a character whose doormat qualities now seemed more discomfiting than funny. Later revivals have fussed over Charity, trying to make her more independent and self-aware, but gullibility and bad choices are baked into the character.

Foster's effervescent and inventive performance only acerbates the issue. Is dancehall employment really her only career option? With her shiny bright looks and bubbly personality (even in what looks like one of Jane Fonda's leftover wigs from Klute), she'd rake in the tips if she ever abandoned the FanDango Ballroom for one of those hat check gigs dreamed of as if it were a lottery win.

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Reviving Sweet Charity also means confronting its Fosse DNA. No show is as much Fosse's as Sweet Charity, in which he truly emerged as a musical theater auteur. It was his idea to adapt Federico Fellini's emotionally devastating Nights of Cabiria to Times Square New York, changing its scrappy Roman streetwalker to a slightly worn dance hall "hostess." (Fosse had already been making notes for a musical set in a dance hall.)

Fosse wrote the initial adaptation. The songs were written to specific spots he identified. He tailored the role of Charity to fit the singular talents of his wife, the great Broadway dance star, Gwen Verdon. And he created not only Charity's "funky junk" dance language but a stylized movement landscape that gave the show the feel of an urban fable.

Choreographer Joshua Bergasse mostly manages to escape Fosse's long shadow--no small feat. His dances are confident and varied, if not memorable, and he makes maximum use of the postage stamp-sized stage. Bergasse smartly uses the center of the stage as an axis around which the dances swirl, making sure everyone in the three-quarters seating area has a view. He leans heavily on his star, adding Foster to both "Big Spender" and "Rich Man's Frug," numbers originally designed to give Charity a well-earned breather. I don't remember much about his voguing choreography for "Rich Man's Frug," but days later I was still laughing at Foster's inspired counterpoint clowning during the number.

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Fosse's adaptation, though close to Fellini, was dark and sometimes unpleasant. Like Cabiria, Charity was tough and streetwise (she goes for blood in a fight with a dance hall colleague). Fosse did his own version of a scene in which Cabiria is hypnotized and humiliated in a theater. (Charity's took place in a sideshow and featured the lovely Coleman-Fields song, "Pink Taffeta, Sample Size Ten," which was lost when the scene was cut.) Fosse finally enlisted Neil Simon to tweak the show's book and give it some much-needed humor. Simon also softened Charity, making her a second cousin to Guys and Dolls's Miss Adelaide, a hopeless romantic forever waiting to be wed.

One thing they never got quite right was the ending. In the final moments, Fellini rescued Cabiria from utter despair with a moment of transcendence, leading to one of the great cinema fade-outs. Fosse and Simon treat Charity's abandonment by Oscar as a joke. He suddenly turns Victorian, fixating on the long line of men who came before him, and pushing her into Central Park Lake as he runs away. Emerging from the water, Charity spots a good fairy who promises her a happy ending, but doesn't realize that she's merely an advertisement for a new television show, The Good Fairy. Off she saunters, determined to live "hopefully ever after." The ending is more flippant than upbeat, and treats Charity like a patsy. Fosse and Simon lowered the stakes for Charity and left both critics and audiences unsatisfied. (Fosse's film version aimed for that transcendent Fellini feeling with a final shot reminiscent of Chaplin disappearing into the bustling New York City streets in City Lights.)

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Subsequent revivals have struggled to make the ending, if not happy, then less jokey.
Vector illustration of leaving the European Union

t's over. Britain will leave the EU. In a context where many national laws and norms are directly based on European decisions, this means dramatic change. Almost 70% of British environmental legislation currently comes from the European Union. Leaving the union puts British environment at risk. For many, Brexit is a path giving power back to the people. Withdrawing from Brussels' disconnected institutions and revolving doors also means escaping lobby from the fossil fuel industry. Depending on how it is implemented, Brexit could instead mean surrender to Big Oil. According to Craig Bennett, CEO of Friends of the Earth,

" [Brexit is partly due to] a general frustration [...] that politics has been something done to people, rather than with them or from them"

.As exposed by Benett's organization in a detailed document about lobbying: "The European Commission has aligned itself with industry and the story told by its lobbyists". The fossil fuel industry imposes its views on European policy by organising informal meetings with politicians, placing former lobbyists at key positions and flooding the commission with questionable evidence. This being said, is Brexit really a solution to give power back to the people? If the UK chooses to follow the example of Norway and become a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), Brexit won't prevent lobbying in Brussels. By becoming part of the EEA, the United Kingdom would lose its active voice in shaping European policy. In Norway, while EU legislation applies, the country has no representation in European institutions. Instead of escaping the influence of lobbies in Brussels, Britain would in fact leave the decision-making process altogether. In a report published before the referendum, a group of 14 experts highlighted the risk that this situation represents. Britain would become a policy taker instead of policy maker.

With this 'soft' option, there would be little or no change in energy regulation. Indeed, although is it still unclear how much legislation Britain would have to accept from the EU in order to be part of the EEA, energy infrastructure is most likely to be part of the deal. As Viviane Gravey argues, "while the EU is far from perfect, it can protect hard-won environmental laws from a short-term "pro-growth" agenda. According to this Senior Research Associate in EU Environmental Politics, staying subject to EU authority could reduce the threat of government scrapping environmental regulation.
"I've lost the youthful naivetye that leads me to think authorities should be torn down. I see it as an on-going negotiation." Norweaygian- born Gardar Eide Einarsson who is now based in Tokyo, knows first-hand how different societies deal with authority.

Einarsson grew up in grew up in Norway in the 1970s and 80s, a time more focused on the utopias of community, and in which conflict was discussed less than it is today. He later moved to New York City, drawn to rebellious cultures as he always was. His work explores authority and the way it asserts itself through images: ""I'm attracted to images that have a falseness to them that reveals that the images are not 100 per cent believable," he says.

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In this video Einarsson presents an installation from 2016 consisting of found objects: blue lights from Tokyo's Yamanote train line in Japan. The lights were installed at the train line to reduce the number of suicides as they are supposed to have a positive, comforting effect. Read more about this specific work here: nextcity.org/daily/entry/how-blue-lights-on-train-platforms-combat-tokyos-suicide-epidemic

The title of the Einarsson's installation - 'Distinct Functional Layers Help Establish Hierarchy and Order' - is taken from Apple's presentation of a new operating system (iOS7).

Gardar Eide Einarsson (b. 1976) is a Norwegian artist working in installation, printmaking, painting and sculpture. His work explores forms of social transgression and images for political subversion. His work has been shown worldwide and is held in the collections of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, LACMA, Los Angeles and MoMA, New York, USA.

Gardar Eide Einarsson was interviewed by Christian Lund at Nils Strk Gallery in Copenhagen in February 2016.

Camera: Simon Weyhe

Edited by: Klaus Elmer

Produced by: Christian Lund

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2016

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The documentary "All Eyes and Ears" is a timely exploration into the complex links between the U.S. and China. It uses the stories of then-U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, his adopted daughter born in China, Gracie Mei, who narrates the film, and blind civil rights advocate Chen Guangcheng for what director Vanessa Hope calls "the yin and the yang of American relations with China." The film is now available streaming on most platforms, including Amazon and iTunes.

President-Elect Donald Trump was outspoken during the campaign on his commitment to renegotiate our trade agreements with China. His phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen following the election rattled the diplomatic community and provoked a strong rebuke from China. Now the possibility that Jon Huntsman is being considered for a position in the Trump administration makes this film of special interest. Huntsman has spoken out in support of President-Elect Trump's call with Taiwan.

Our relationship with China is a complicated one, involving geopolitics, trade, outsourcing and the $1.157 trillion in United States IOUs China holds as the owner of 30 percent of our national debt. Each element of that relationship challenges and sometimes impedes our ability to negotiate on the others.

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Hope's documentary feature debut evokes the personal and the international with its accent on diplomacy, activism, and individual experience. The film follows Huntsman and his family during his tenure as ambassador and traces Chen Guangcheng's journey from house arrest to asylum at the U.S. Embassy, and his thoughts on China's ambitions as an emergent world power.


Republican Ben Carson has been tapped to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. (Christian Murdock/The Gazette via AP)

BY: ASHLEY BALCERZAK

No (public) experience required. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson has been tapped to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, despite never holding public office in his career. (Even Carson admitted he would be a "fish out of water" as a federal bureaucrat a few weeks back.)

However, since the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins did run for president, we have some data on his personal finances and the people who most wanted him in office. Here's what we know until Carson files a more up-to-date financial statement before his confirmation hearings:

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Carson and his wife, Candy, brought in anywhere from $9 million to $27 million from the start of 2014 to mid-2015, mostly from speaking gigs, book royalties, stock dividends and board of directors compensation. (The candidates are required to report the values of their assets and debts only in very wide ranges.)

In less than a year-and-a-half, Carson brought in almost $4.2 million from 141 speaking engagements, giving presentations to large lobbying powerhouses like the National Association of Realtors (a group that might be glad to have an in with the HUD secretary), dozens of universities (most with a religious affiliation), and even the congressional campaign of Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.). Politically active nonprofits that hired Carson to speak included groups like Wisconsin Right to Life; the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank funded mainly by a foundation linked to Art Pope, a major donor to Republican causes; and the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian group. As a Fox News Network contributor, he reported earning almost $500,000, and he brought in $137,000 from The Washington Times.

Carson held an estimated average $9.1 million in assets in his stock portfolio, spinning off dividends ranging anywhere from $94,000 to $234,000. Almost all of his holdings were in mutual funds and similar investment vehicles that buy and sell a variety of stocks and bonds.

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All except two, that is. Carson served on the board of directors for Kellogg Company, where he earned $125,000 as a board member -- and almost $1 million to $5 million worth of stock, which brought him between $5,000 and $15,000 in stock dividends during this period. On top of that, he sold almost $3 million worth of employee stock options. He also was on the board of Costco Wholesale Corporation, which paid him $45,000 for his trouble, $50,000 to $100,000 in dividends from his $1 million to $5 million worth of stock, and $1.3 million from employee stock options he cashed in.

Beyond that, he and his wife founded the charity Carson Scholars Fund, Inc., which awards college scholarships and builds reading rooms. Carson is also currently honorary national chairman of My Faith Votes, a nonprofit that urges Christians to go to the polls.

Carson also sat on the advisory boards of Massachusetts biotechnology company Berg, LLC and Maryland's HomeCentris Healthcare, LLC, and the board of directors of the nonprofit Academy of Achievement, all without being paid. He served as chairman of the board at biotechnology company Vaccinogen, Inc. for around ten months until May 2015.

He and his wife own real estate in Pittsburgh, Penn. properties valued at more than $1 million, and received anywhere from $200,000 to $2 million in rent. Candy also earned an additional $100,000 to $1 million from America the Beautiful, a book she cowrote with her husband, and a couple of thousand dollars in stock dividends.

Carson the candidate was extremely popular with the senior set: Almost one sixth of the $63 million he raised for his campaign came from retired individuals. People and PACs associated with Republican/conservative ideological groups and his fellow health professionals came in second and third at $1.3 million each. Well over half, or 58 percent, of his cash came from small donations of $200 or less.

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Having no prior donor base to pull from, Carson assembled a massive list of first-time political supporters. Up until December, a few months before Carson dropped out, almost 75 percent of his donations came from people who hadn't donated to other federal candidates since at least 2007, according to our data analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity. (Though he didn't build this infrastructure all on his own; Carson met with GOP strategist Karl Rove to share contacts during the primary.)

With the names of more than 700,000 backers, Carson's mailing list could be worth millions, CPI estimated, if he rented out the database to other candidates and committees. In the months of September and October, Carson reported earning at least $670,000 from what he labeled as "list rental income."

The outside groups that backed him also cashed in. Carson's largest super PAC, 2016 Committee, which spent $6 million on his behalf, earned at least $158,000 from renting names, according to its latest quarterly report.

Of those that funded pro-Carson outside groups, retired folk led the way again with $4.3 million, with those in the livestock ($433,000) and real estate ($342,000) industries at Nos. two and three, respectively. Livestock, you wonder? That's because a few magadonors stood out in their support of Carson: Idaho rancher and philanthropist Harry Bettis spent $256,000 on two super PACs backing him, the 2016 Committee and National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee. Rancher and San Antonio Spurs Chairman Julianna Holt pitched in almost $145,000 to supporting groups and Ronald Henriksen, chair of Logix Communications, gave more than $161,000 to efforts backing the neurosurgeon.


Foster Campbell is the last man standing for disappointed Democrats who want to get the party's numbers in the Senate to 49. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

BY: JACK NOLAND

With the spectacle of the post-election presidential transition taking center stage, it's easy to forget there's still a U.S. Senate race pending.

Under the Bayou State's unique system, all 24 Senate candidates appeared on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. None received a majority, so on Saturday the top two vote-getters will face off: Republican John Kennedy, the state's treasurer since 2000, and Democrat Foster Campbell, a Louisiana public service commissioner.

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Though the seat will not determine control of the upper chamber of Congress - Republicans already have 51 seats - the runoff election presents Democrats with the opportunity to turn another seat blue and grow their ranks to 49, which might prove crucial in contentious legislative or confirmation battles.

So far, though, the Republican has held a fairly comfortable lead on all counts. Through November 20, Kennedy outstripped Campbell in both fundraising and spending, relying almost exclusively on large-dollar contributions. Outside spending, too, has tilted Kennedy's way.

Even in the crowded field, neither of the remaining candidates led the pack in fundraising before the general election. Even now, they're only second and fourth, with Kennedy leading. The candidate who raised the most money, Republican Rep. Charles Boustany, Jr., took in more than $5.1 million and finished with 15.4 percent of the vote, right behind Campbell.

Both remaining candidates have stepped up their fundraising efforts since the general election, however, and were very close in the money race through Nov. 20. Kennedy had collected a total of more than $4.3 million, barely outstripping the $4.25 million his rival has pulled in in contributions and loans. Campbell, however, has the edge in cash on-hand, at over $1.4 million, $71,565 more than Kennedy has in reserve. The Republican has spent almost $3 million to date.

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Perhaps the most striking difference between the two candidates is in the breakdown of their contributions by size. Nearly 87 percent of Kennedy's money has come from donors giving more than $200 - almost $3.8 million total. Campbell's donor distribution is a little more diverse: Forty percent of his cash has come from individuals giving less than $200, and 39 percent from larger-dollar donors.

And since Nov. 8, a chasm has developed between the two candidates in terms of donor geography. Whereas earlier, both were getting the vast majority of their funds from within Louisiana, a spot check of 48-hour contribution reports candidates must file during the period shortly before an election suggests that's no longer the case. Though the reports include only gifts of $1,000 or more so don't give us a complete picture, the vast majority of donors listed on Campbell's forms live out-of-state -- in Florida, California, Wisconsin, Texas, New York, Colorado and elsewhere.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, an election predictor at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, argued that Campbell could be benefiting from Democrats being thwarted at the presidential level.

"Distraught Democrats may be giving to him as an outlet for their frustrations over Clinton's loss in the presidential race," Kondik said in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog.

The 48-hour reports show, too, that corporate PACs -- including those of Microsoft, Verizon and Koch Industries -- have been anteing up for Kennedy in a big way.

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Outside spending groups, including Ending Spending Action Fund, Defend Louisiana and the Louisiana Prosperity Fund, have spent close to $1 million in the faceoff, but far more of it has benefited Kennedy than Campbell: $631,812 has supported Kennedy's campaign and just $285,445 has gone to help Campbell.

In the end, it may not matter that Campbell has more money left in the bank. Kennedy, who beat the rest of the field in the open general election by 8 percentage points, has consistently led his Democratic opponent in the polls. A South Media & Opinion Research poll conducted at the end of November found the Republican ahead by a margin of 52 to 38. If interest has blossomed in the race, it has not spawned a dash to the polls as of yet: early runoff voting saw lower turnout than normal.

While Trump easily won Louisiana in November, Democrats may take hope in the fact that the state elected a Democratic governor just last year, though Sen. David Vitter, the Republican nominee in that election, was mired in a prostitution scandal. The dynamics appear to be different this time.
It is the civil rights issue of our time.

We saw it in Ferguson and again in Dallas.

Every citizen has the right to an effective police department, but law enforcement is stuck in the mindset of the 20th Century, with more and more money being poured into government police agencies with results continuing to deteriorate.

And those who are hurt the most are the people who are living in pockets of poverty throughout the nation. Their crime rates continue to increase no matter how much money we spend.

With that in mind, I propose a complete rethinking of policing to give all Americans access to the protection they deserve.

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One way to improve police departments would be to hold them accountable for their results. If a department is determined to be failing based on statistics, provide it with options- either shut down the department or replace all of its officers.

Now that would improve law enforcement.

Why shouldn't people have a choice in what kind of police department they have? Instead of shoveling tax money into one police department for each city, why not provide taxpayers with options?

Instead of just calling 911 and having the same police department responding to emergencies for everyone, how much better would it be if we provided each family with vouchers and allowed them to provide for their own protection?

You would still have the option of putting your money into the traditional government police department, but you could also use your money to pay for a private for-profit security business, a virtual police run entirely online, or maybe even put all of your money into home policing and buy your own weapons, alarm systems and whatever else you need.

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Consider the possibilities if we were to take away the restraints and the bureaucratic shackles that have kept police departments from trying innovative methods of protecting the public. What if we could put our tax money into operating a series of charter police departments that would not have to abide by the rules that currently hamstring government police agencies?

How much better would it be if police departments didn't have to follow all of those laws and it they could operate without any public scrutiny?

The biggest problem we have is the number of unqualified police officers in this country. We have too many burned out officers who are just out there to collect a paycheck. Why not offer energetic, capable college students an opportunity to train for six weeks, strap guns on them, and head them out into the streets? We could call it Police for America.

And perhaps it is time to put all decisions on policing in the hands of a few billionaires who know more about it than any of the rest of us.

Let's get real.

No politician would ever propose anything like that. My "proposals" would be a recipe for disaster.

Yet the same proposals are presented quite seriously as cures to the problems facing education in this country.

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We will soon have a Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, whose family has spent millions pushing educational vouchers and charter schools. The DeVos family also created the strategy of labeling public schools as "government schools." You will be hard pressed to find any record anywhere of anything Betsy DeVos has done to help a public school.

With our president-elect already boosting charter schools and decrying the state of education, we should expect to see all of the solutions I proposed above being applied to education.

Under the Trump-DeVos program, parents will be able to put tax money into private schools, religious schools, home schools, or virtual schools with little or no regulation of the product they are receiving since Trump has told us over and over that government regulations are holding us back.

The groundwork for this has been laid by decades of blaming all of the problems facing education on "bad teachers." If we could just fire all of the bad teachers and take away their tenure protection, education would magically improve and teachers from the Teach for America program can enter classrooms with just six-week of training and be able to perform as well as veteran teachers.

Come next month, we will have a president who has never had any connection to public schools and who has selected a secretary of education who has made destroying public schools her life's mission.

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Those who support public education have every reason to fear what is about to be unleashed on this nation.

And who is to say that somewhere down the line, someone is going to realize the money that could be made by privatizing police departments.
Tovah Feldshuh

Leadership matters more than ever now. And in our current atmosphere of national divisiveness, it's tempting to search elsewhere for leaders, until we're reminded that we must first find the champion within ourselves.

Tovah Feldshuh is one of those leaders that inspires us to look inward. An intellectual, activist, and award-winning performing artist, she defiantly states "Live While Living." Among her many honors and accolades, she has received the Israel Peace Medal, an Honorary Doctorate from Yeshiva, the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award and, this past year, the Algemeiner's Voice for Humanity Award. Her prolific career and numerous accomplishments led to her having dinner with Margaret Thatcher and even a meeting with the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Most people know Tovah Feldshuh from her portrayal of congresswoman Deanna Monroe on AMC's top-rated show The Walking Dead, who faced down complacency in the form of a zombie apocalypse, but what some people may not know is that she based portions of her character Deanna Monroe on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She describes Hillary as a "very skilled, capable stateswoman" with remarkable "acumen under fire."

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Yet, now that the smoke has cleared, both for Hillary Clinton post-election and for Tovah's character Deanna Monroe on The Walking Dead (her character died courageously last season,) what's next for her? And what does Tovah believe is next for other artists and activists in our current political climate? In the show, Deanna went out admirably in a blaze of bullets and glory, taking down a horde of bloodthirsty zombies ("walkers") to save her community and choosing to die as a hero. First, Tovah addresses mortality before addressing complacency:

"Everybody comes on The Walking Dead to die. And the reason the show is number one is because we all have one common end; human beings know one day they will face having to leave their body. It will not be a choice that they make; it will be made for them unless you commit suicide, and that is totally not my thing - life is a gift." Tovah continues: "since we all know we are going to die, The Walking Dead looks at how we want to live. Are we going to be a mensch or are we going to be Madoff? Are we going to be a thief or Mother Theresa?"

This outlook is similar to that of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who believed that we must contemplate mortality in order to begin to truly live -a fire that translates to Tovah's life after The Walking Dead in her latest one-woman show titled Aging is Optional ('cause G-d I hope it is!), self-described as an age-defying romp. "I like to deal with aging in terms of quantum time. In other words, I'm not a big fan of linear time. You're as old as you feel."

This perspective has fueled the creation of very full life where she swims a half-mile each day, takes a bike wherever she can, takes Pilates classes and Yoga classes. Tovah is a mountain climber and a glacier climber and refuses to take "'no life' for an answer."

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However, when thinking about leadership in an age of complacency, Tovah goes back to the flesh-eating zombies of The Walking Dead as a metaphorical starting point: "Under huge pressures, you're outnumbered by a thousand to one, or thousands to one by walkers, and people who need to eat you in order for them to feel alive - they're an embodied force without a soul and they feed on the living - they're moving death that feed on living things."

This numbness has become a metaphor for Tovah in the real world in terms of citizen apathy and cynicism. "It is much easier to get up in the morning, hold an AK-47, and be tutored to kill Americans and Jews in the Middle East. It's much easier to do that than to found a postal system, a health system - that's the grown-up stuff that doesn't have short-term heroic illusion attached to it. So, it's much much easier for the dull mind to attack another person. It's much easier to say, 'She is a liar. She's a cheat. I'd put her in jail.'"

However, leadership requires vision and, in our current age, solutions are just as important as criticality. Like Hillary Clinton, the real-life inspiration for her character Deanna Monroe, Tovah says that it is important for us to remain people "not only with political dreams, but political plans, political programs. You may want to shoot it down, but it's a program - it's not a criticism." We cannot spend our lives "trying to tear down someone else. It reminds me of an endophyte."

The ability to "walk the walk" is a topic that Deanna feels very passionate about, especially in our current political climate. "So, we're going to look back on our country, at a time when fascism was a temptation and was introduced to the United States in a fervent, formal way. When I say fascism, I mean fascistic tendencies and the underbelly of mankind, what Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor of New York, in his day, would have called the devil. He was a friend of mine. I said, 'Sir, do you believe in the devil?' He said, 'Absolutely. There's an underbelly of man, Ms. Feldshuh.' We're seeing it right in our face and its mushrooming, and it's a very scary time and it's time to stand up straight and remember who you are, and give to the earth all the goodness that you've got because they need it."

Moving to the topic of legacy, Tovah continues "as you get older, what you leave behind for the generations to come becomes extremely important - your moral code, your ability to walk the walk."

Present national events have left many citizens angry and confused. Amid protests and hate crimes, the echoes of our recent election will be felt for months, if not years. Therefore, in addition to Tovah's mantra "Live While Living," she adds "and be generous. The quickest path to happiness is gratitude. If only anger worked, but it doesn't. If only that worked, we could then only spew forth our venom release for momentary release - yet, you know what the Japanese say, 'He who gets angry loses.' If you lose your chi, if you lose your balance, you lose - that's how they judge character."

But to Tovah, balance does not mean that you cease activism. In fact, we should do the exact opposite. The positive thing about our current political climate is that "it is engaging the minds of the entire country." Then, as activists we need to work together in what she terms "education of mind."

We must remain steadfast to our values and principles, because "in terms of legacy, it's all that's left in life as you start to exit. That's all you got is what you're leaving behind for the generations to come."

Speaking of future generations, her two children are also incredibly accomplished: her son Garson Brandon is an economist who studied at Harvard and Oxford, and is presently a founding member of Bluegrass Capital Partners; her daughter, Amanda Claire went to MIT and majored in physics. Her children clearly inspire her as she inspires them. "They were the people whose survival came before my own, their welfare was of the most paramount importance in my life - not because I'm a heroine, because that's how nature works. You will give your left kidney, or even one of your lungs, or maybe even your life so that they could live - it's just a natural thing that a mother does. No heroics, a mother would die for their children, whether it's a duck, a goose or a human being. So, that was a great gift that they gave me. They were more important than my work. They were more important than anything in the world."

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One of the most inspiring things Tovah has done recently is climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with her son this past year, after her 62nd birthday. "We got up there one step at a time, by not having goal orientation, by watching the feet in front of us. There was no rugged individualism, no competition, there was no going to 10, what I call going to maximum effort - you'd never make it. You had to be moderate, patient - you had to delay immediate pleasure to get the long-term enjoyment of summiting." And this experience could serve as a metaphor for leadership when looking at our current political climate and the "ravenous appetite to tear apart another person," that has dominated the political landscape, as opposed to a long-term view for the "betterment of the United States."

Yes, vision is an essential component of leadership - as is the ability to lift others and help them (and yourself) find the enjoyment in each and every day. We must find the champion within ourselves, so that we can be champions for each other. Tovah concludes by asking us to first engage in deep contemplation, before diving into activism and living: "What are your policies? What are your specifics? Well, what are the specifics of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro? One step in front of another. Look at the feet of the person in front of you. Do not rush. Breath deeply. And, enjoy the moment-to-moment journey - which is endless."

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Go see Tovah Feldshuh in her award-winning role in Golda's Balcony at the Skirball Center at Temple Emanu-El in New York City on Sunday, December 11th. You can also catch Tovah as Naomi Bunch, mother of the title character, Rebecca, on The CW's newest Golden Globe-winning series, CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND.
Howard Schultz has been in the news a lot lately. He was on the short list for Hillary's pick as Vice President (could that have made a difference?). Last week he announced he would step down as CEO on April 3, handing over to his personally selected successor the management of the company he built into the world's largest coffee business, with over 25,000 stores in 75 countries.

Schultz made Starbucks part of the national conversation on issues such as health care, gun violence, gay rights, race relations, veterans rights, student debt, and now the homeless. He will remain at the company as executive chairman, focusing on the company's involvement in social causes and on growing Starbucks Reserve, the company's new super-premium brand and chain of high-end stores.

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Howard, who hails from Brooklyn, has also been an ambassador and champion for Seattle, and I went to see him to ask about his love of the city. Here are some excerpts from the chat:

Richard:Seattle was not long ago a beautiful but somewhat provincial place. But just in the last few years, and you're one of the architects, I think, it's gone from a sleepy backwater into this extraordinary, world-class city, a leader in philanthropy and social responsibility and so many other categories, technology, innovation, etc.

Howard:Sure. Let's see, my wife and I moved here in the fall of 1982. At that time, you could not get a Sunday New York Times. Probably today you don't even need a Sunday New York Times, but that's a whole other story, but you couldn't find a retail store that had the newspaper. It's changed so dramatically in so many areas, but I think the primary reason, if you really press me, is that it's such a wonderful place to live that it has attracted people from all over the country and literally all over the world. It's a city that provides all of the attributes and characteristics of a big city in terms of culture, the outdoors, food, without many of the infrastructure problems, and I think it's a wonderful place to raise a family.



People have asked me what's in the air that has driven almost an entrepreneurial DNA, and of course I'd say it's coffee. But I think the primary reason is... it's just a great place to live.

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Richard:There seem to be a couple of major elements. One is the destiny of geography, in which there is a permeable membrane between the urban environment and the wilderness, and that brings access to clean air and clean water and to all these great outdoor activities.

The other is the people themselves. There is a pioneering spirit that seems to come with the people here. This is a place where you can dare to be brave. You can embrace failure. Whereas so many cities around the world are steeped in tradition, and they penalize failure. My guess is that you could not have started Starbucks in any European country, even though you were inspired by Italy, and that Microsoft and Amazon could not have started in any European country because the mindset is so risk averse.

Howard:I would add something to that, because I think you're right and I've been asked that before. Could Starbucks have started somewhere other than Seattle and had this kind of success? We'll never know the answer to that, but I think it certainly would have been very different, and the reason is there is a set of values that is embedded or imprinted in the culture of the Northwest. Those values are not only the way people live but the way people act. The company that I think in a sense was the foundation of those values, in my mind, at least from a customer-facing point of view, was Nordstrom.

Nordstrom, early on, separated and differentiated itself from any other national department store by having a kind of elevated mission of customer service, and a compassion for the emotional experience for the customer. You remember early on, they said: "Whatever you buy at Nordstrom, you can return."

I think the culture, the values and guiding principles of Starbucks are threaded into the values of the Northwest. People ask me what the secret sauce is of Starbucks; it's the culture of the company. I think we would have had a hard time replicating and creating that in a different kind of city.

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Certainly, in the last decade or so, the entrepreneurial DNA of this community, of this city, this area, is unparalleled when you look at the size and scale of other metropolises in the country or the world. You look at Seattle, you say, "God, how did all these companies get here at once? What's happened?" The other thing is its proximity to the Pacific Rim, the market opportunities, and the thread of technology. The outdoors, the clean air, the environment, the entrepreneurial DNA, the ability to attract and retain great people to the city, all have contributed to Seattle growing up.

A post shared by Didrik Johnck (@didrikjohnck) on Dec 5, 2016 at 4:51pm PST

Richard:That brings up a thought concerning the concept of size you mentioned. There is a theory that as far as national governance, about 4 to 6 million people are optimal manageable numbers, such as what you have in Norway, Switzerland, Costa Rica and New Zealand. And when you get beyond that size, there are too many divisions, too many agendas, and it's difficult to work together as a cohesive whole. I wonder, has Seattle, at about 700,000 people, reached some sort of optimal size as compared to L.A. or Shanghai?



Howard:I think the question for me would not be what is the optimum size; the question would be, "Have we done the proper infrastructure investment and planning necessary to absorb the growth and maintain the elegance of style, the intimacy that we've come to admire and enjoy."

The world had discovered Seattle and the Northwest. The question now is not whether or not the growth is going to continue. It's going to continue. The question is how are we going to absorb it and maintain the lifestyle and the work environment and this wonderful place that is such a jewel in North America. So that we don't look back and say we got it wrong. Because growth can cover up a lot of mistakes.

Richard:One advantage Seattle has is that people are cognizant of this, so greed and growth are not sneaking up and overpowering smart planning, in many cases.

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Howard:People are cognizant, but I think there are tougher choices to make today than before. I'm acutely concerned about the homeless problem here in Seattle. That has to be solved in a way that is quite humane. America cannot sustain the promise of the country and leave all these people behind. Can't do it.



Richard:Let me ask about the make-up of neighborhoods and the topography, because there's another theory I think may have application here. It's the theory of direct democracy that seems to work when you have sort of a hilly landscape. Let me explain.



Places like Costa Rica, which has no standing army, is a series of pockets of individual farmers in a rugged landscape, a series of valleys and mountains too difficult for early overlords to conquer. All these different pockets then learned to work together to make a functioning whole. Switzerland is similar. The Hapsburgs created an empire all around Switzerland, but they never could subjugate Switzerland because it was so mountainous. People and their cantons learned how to communicate and cooperate together to create something better than the parts.

Seattle has a similar topography. It's got all these neighborhoods that are distinct from one another, but they all interconnect. It feels like you've got that same sort of dynamic happening here.

Howard:I think there's a harmony to Seattle. I think there's a sense of humility in Seattle, and I think that humility creates the balance where less is more. Again, I think it goes back to the humanity of the city and the values of the people who live here.

Richard:Do you think humility comes from access to Grand Nature?

Howard:I think the physical beauty, the environment, the water, the mountains, the snow and the proximity to all this creates a way of life that is very humane. I think we're all very conscious and sensitive and protective of it. I want to make sure that the city is providing our children, the next generation, with the same elegance of living in a place that we all love, and the future will be as good as it is today.

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Richard:This is a city of diversity now, and to a large part, I think, because of what you've done and what Microsoft and Amazon have done, by bringing in talent from all over the world. And with that talent came fresh ideas, different foods, different customs and traditions. Much of the world right now is against diversity.

Howard:Right.

Richard:Yet Seattle really seems to embrace it, and the neighborhoods seem to connect and like that.

Howard:If you compare Seattle to any new American city, for lack of a better term, I think Seattle would probably be close to the top of the list of embracing people from diverse backgrounds and living in harmony together.

Seattle has gone through this major change, and the change is interesting because it has preserved the integrity of its roots, while at the same time embracing and moving forward, not only in terms of the growth and development, but as you say, in terms of the acceptance and the integration of people from very diverse backgrounds. I think certainly the companies that are home-grown are primarily responsible for attracting and retaining people who have come from all over the world. They help us compete on a national and global scale. We employ thousands of people, and they didn't all come from Seattle. The same thing is true for Microsoft and Amazon, and many other great companies that have been born here.

I think you make a very interesting point. The neighborhoods today where we have stores, and we have stores in almost every community in America, are filled with people from very diverse backgrounds.

Richard:It's wonderful.

Howard:Yeah.

A post shared by Didrik Johnck (@didrikjohnck) on Dec 5, 2016 at 7:26pm PST

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Richard:I think you were one of the first companies not only to make an outreach for talent to come here, but also to nurture talent in local environments around the world. Coffee growers, farmers, brokers, dealers; you empowered all these sorts of jobs that require local talent.

Howard:Oh, we're buying coffee from 30 producing countries, and we've got operations in terms of agronomy offices all over the world, so yes, I think our people have been exposed to the importance of sustainability and most importantly building the kind of company that has a conscience and balances profit with benevolence. I think that's a large part of the reason we've been successful.

Richard:I think you've influenced the city with that sort of ethos as well. It's a very progressive city. It was one of the first in the country to pass gay marriage rights, to legalize recreational marijuana, and support a workable minimum wage, and other issues for which you've been an active advocate.

Howard:You know one thing we haven't talked about is the role and the impact of the university system in the Northwest and Seattle. The University of Washington deserves a lot of credit for attracting great teachers, attracting students from all over the world, and becoming and maintaining itself as a world class institution. I think if you go back in time, you'll look at those cities that have been able to emerge and maintain the standards that Seattle has, it is always linked to the education system, specifically universities.



Richard:There are a lot of lists Seattle seems to top. Seattle is the most literate city in the country, by some measures.

Howard:Yeah. Still got a great bookstore, the Elliot Bay Bookstore. Bruce Springsteen was just there with his new book, Born to Run. You should have seen the line.

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Richard:Seattle loves Bruce Springsteen, but who doesn't? In fact, he should have won the Nobel Prize, I think. He'll get the next one. It's also been said Seattle is the fittest city in the country, largely I think because of all the outdoor activities. There is this concept that with fitness comes a clearer and more creative mind, a more balanced mind, and that allows a more open mind when it comes to disruption and innovation.

Howard:I would certainly agree with that. I'm an avid cyclist.

Listen, I think with the world today, whether we are running a company or acting as private citizens, we must be open and embrace innovation and allow an almost continuous self-renewal. Seattle, I think, has created an environment where entrepreneurs are welcomed; innovation is embraced; change, which is always difficult, is easier here, I think.

Richard: What's your take on the food scene here?

Howard:I remember 10 years ago, struggling with where to go to dinner because there was just a handful of great restaurants as good as New York or San Francisco or L.A.

Today, I don't think there's a city in the world with the culinary diversity of high quality food and surprise and delight, not to mention the experience you're going to have in these restaurants. You couple that with the great chefs that have emerged, the wonderful wine business that has been created in Eastern Washington and in Oregon, and the great Pinots we can drink here, it's unbelievable. And I'm a food guy.

Mamnoon, just to mention one. If you would have told me 5 years ago, that someone was going to open up a restaurant based on Middle Eastern food, specifically Syrian, in a location that has terrible parking, by the way, I would have said, "You know, I don't know about that."

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A post shared by Didrik Johnck (@didrikjohnck) on Dec 5, 2016 at 4:29pm PST

Why has it succeeded? It succeeded because the food and its integrity exceeds expectations. It surprises and delights the customer. Also, the menu keeps changing and the quality and the service levels are great, and I think people are very open in Seattle to experiencing new food trends.

---

With that, it's time to go, but before leaving, Howard offers up a gift. He retreats to a nearby room, and emerges with a sealed bag of coffee beans with the letters "SUM" drawn by magic marker on the front. He says the beans are from Sumatra, and the bag is from his private stash.

"It's the best coffee in the world," he says, "but, you have to grind it, brew it and drink it within a week."
In our article two days ago, we discussed the reasons why Trump isn't qualified to be President and why Electors are constitutionally required to vote for Hillary Clinton, instead. Citing Constitutional scholar Lawrence Lessig, we explained that the Founders of this nation created the position of "Elector" precisely to prevent a truly dangerous and unqualified person from being elevated to the Presidency.

Many people who read our article emailed their Electors. The way some of the Electors responded is shocking:

Elector John Haggard, from Michigan, responded: "On Beaver Island Deer Hunting hope to kill 3 deer. Please hold all emails. Thanks. GO TRUMP."

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Elector Alex Kim, from Texas, wrote: "I reject the Democratic Party principles and I reject Hillary Clinton. I will not do anything that will open a path for HRC to become our next President. [T]he political opinions of non-Texas voters means nothing to me. I do not vote or get involved in your state, I am not sure why you are trying to interfere in mine. I encourage you to be more active in the political process where your vote matters."

Both of these Electors seem unaware of the constitutional requirements of their job. Alexander Hamilton explains it best: "[Electors should be] men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to [the Presidency]." They should act "under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice." They should "possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."

Consequently, someone who ignores feedback, like Mr. Haggard, does not demonstrate the mindset required by his position. Someone like Mr. Kim, who announces that his decision is made on a purely Partisan basis and that the views of non-Texans are irrelevant to him, is likewise shirking his precious responsibilities.

A more hopeful (if mildly condescending) response came from Elector L. Scott Mann, also of Texas.



"You have every right to lobby an elector... I am delighted that many are reading the Federalist Papers. I've been reading them for twenty years. Yes, I agree with Hamilton in Federalist 68. No, I do not believe that the election of Donald Trump rises to that level."

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So, if Mr. Mann is to be believed, then he needs to be convinced that Donald Trump is unfit for the Presidency. We need use no other words to do so, than those of his fellow Republican Texan Elector - Christopher Suprun, a 9/11 first responder -- who writes why he is choosing to change his vote:

[Donald Trump] shows daily he is not qualified for the office. Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence. Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards.

I have poured countless hours into serving the party of Lincoln and electing its candidates... But I owe no debt to a party. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust.

Mr. Trump lacks the foreign policy experience and demeanor needed to be commander in chief. During the campaign more than 50 Republican former national security officials and foreign policy experts co-signed a letter opposing him. In their words, "he would be a dangerous president." During the campaign Mr. Trump even said Russia should hack Hillary Clinton's emails.

Hamilton also reminded us that a president cannot be a demagogue. Mr. Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign. He speaks of retribution against his critics. He has surrounded himself with advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon, who claims to be a Leninist and lauds villains and their thirst for power.

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Finally, Mr. Trump does not understand that the Constitution expressly forbids a president to receive payments or gifts from foreign governments. We have reports that Mr. Trump's organization has business dealings in Argentina, Bahrain, Taiwan and elsewhere.... [Trump] has played fast and loose with the law for years. He may have violated the Cuban embargo, and there are reports of improprieties involving his foundation and actions he took against minority tenants in New York.

But even Mr. Suprun needs encouragement to stick to his principles as an American first, a Republican second. He wants Electors to unite behind a Republican alternative to Trump. What he and others don't understand is that the Republican Party didn't win the Electoral College. An unfit man did. The duty of the Electors is to install as President the winner of the Popular Vote.

And our duty as citizens is to encourage them to do so. Don't listen when people say "America is not a Democracy, it's a Republic." In truth, it is both. America is a constitutionally limited representative democratic republic. That means - we are guided by a constitution and governed by representatives, who are chosen democratically. As for our Chief Executive, our Founders carefully wove protective layers into his or her selection. They ensured that the appointment of a President would be based on more than just majority opinion. That it would be based on more than just the Electoral College. They created, therefore, the position of Elector. Electors are a key element of our way of life; and the key element of their office is that they are free to vote for whoever they believe to be most qualified to serve this Nation. (State laws that try to constrain their votes are constitutionally questionable and possibly unenforceable).



Consequently, our Nation depends on the Electors taking their role seriously. And it is our constitutional role as Americans to provide them with information. Electors, right now, are the only people in the world who can prevent Trump from taking the oath of office on January 21st. Thirty-seven (out of 538) need to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton, instead of Donald Trump. (Arguments that they should pick a Republican instead are constitutionally unfounded, and personally rejected even by the compromise candidate they suggest most often, John Kasich).



One Republican Elector has stated his willingness to vote for someone other than Trump (but not Hillary), while another has resigned his position rather than vote for Trump. We need thirty-seven other Electors to step up even farther, and actually have the courage to cross the party line. Given that most of them were selected by their state parties, that's a tall order.

But convincing thirty-seven people to vote for the uncontested winner of the popular vote (out of 306 Electors who are expected to vote for Trump) is not impossible. And it's a small challenge compared to what it takes to remove a President once he has assumed office. Every passing day raises greater concerns about Trump's fitness. His threats of retribution against the media. His establishment of a post-truth Presidency. Every day provides greater evidence of the danger to all of us, and the world itself. Yes, it will be hard to persuade the Electors. But each of us who is conscious of the threat he poses to our future has no choice but to try.



We continue to encourage you to sign on to the Change.org petition. Keep emailing the Electors. We are currently searching for opportunities for peaceable and effective protests. If you have thoughts on how to approach Electors respectfully, please share them with us; please share with your friends. We will review ideas and tweet suggestions to anyone who follows us at @roger_wolfson and @jberenholz.



The bottom line is, our national and worldwide safety lies in the Electors actually doing the job they were chosen to perform. We cannot let resistance fatigue set in, not now, when we still have a few precious days left to make our voices heard. We must speak loudly and clearly, with passion and purpose.



This is not a partisan issue. It's an American one.

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One Ukrainian soldier killed, one wounded in ATO zone in Donbas in past day

One Ukrainian soldier was killed in action in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone in Donbas in the past day, while another one was wounded in action, Defense Ministry spokesman for ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzianyk said.

"Unfortunately, there is one KIA and one WIA due to hostilities in the past day," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Now that the dogged opponents of the Affordable Care Act have caught the Obamacare bus, transforming U.S. healthcare is back on the political agenda.

Repeal of the ACA will not curb the persistent, systemic inequities of our profit-focused healthcare system.

Tens of millions, even those with health insurance, still struggle with unpayable medical bills due to rising deductibles and co-pays and skyrocketing prescription drug costs and hospital charges.

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Insurance networks sharply restrict patient choice. Millions remain without any health coverage, or simply avoid getting the care they need because they can't afford it -- at great risk to their health. Disparities based on race, gender, age, or where you live remain rampant.

Even advocates of repeal are fearful of the impact of throwing millions off the expanded Medicaid coverage or eroding the ACA crackdown on insurance industry abuses, such as barring coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.

One widely-promoted theme is to replace the tax subsidies the ACA provides to buy private insurance on the ACA exchanges with tax credits or health savings accounts to buy insurance on the open market. But those offer consumers even less protection from skyrocketing premiums or being forced to settle for bare bones junk insurance plans with limited benefits and higher out of pocket costs.

Another proposal is subsidizing federal funding of Medicaid expansion with state block grants. That, too, is problematic, opening the door to severe state budget cuts that would leave many lower income people and families without needed coverage.

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Then there's the Paul Ryan plan to privatize Medicare -- a sure-fire way to impoverish millions of seniors forced to fend for themselves on the inefficient, more expensive private market.

The rightwing policy wonks label these approaches "consumer-driven free market health solutions."

If the well funded, "grassroots" campaign in response is led by the Beltway Foundations and NGO's to only defend the troubled ACA, then, yes, that's precisely what will happen.

But the "free market" is exactly what created the healthcare crisis in the U.S. in the first place, creating a health care system largely based on ability to pay that ranked first in the world in spending and far behind most industrial nations in access, out-of-pocket costs and a variety of quality benchmarks.

Instead, let's build the demand to protect, improve and expand Medicare. It's the standard by which any healthcare system should be measured. If the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress want to define what the healthcare system should be, let's start with a truly patient-based approach.

Nurses' credo for transforming the U.S. healthcare system is to establish a single standard of safe, therapeutic care for all, based on the clinical judgment of doctors, nurses, and other providers.

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Only an improved Medicare for all can guarantee healthcare for all based on patient need. Eliminating private insurance and the high premiums, co-pays and deductibles will save families thousands of dollars, free up millions for businesses, increase wages for workers, and save hundreds of billions for taxpayers.

Gone would be the 20 percent waste that is endemic to a system based on private profit. No longer will taxpayers bail out for-profit insurance companies and corporate hospital chains and greedy nursing home operators.

Rather than guarantee high executive salaries and trapped customers, we can expand Medicare through increasing the existing fair share financing.

Here's a checklist for reform:

Complete choice of doctor.

Demonstrated low overhead - Medicare is well known for administrative costs of just 3 percent compared to far higher figures for private insurers due to profits and paperwork.

Control drug prices? (Yes, if given authority to negotiate bulk discounts with prescription drug corporations.)

Popular, fair healthcare program supported by nurses, doctors, and a majority of Americans!

Improved Medicare for All checks all the boxes. If Ryan really believes repealing the ACA will "leave no one worse off," the only way to achieve that is Medicare for all.

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California, with Democrats in control of the governor's office and state legislature, is one state that can set a national model of how to do reform right by adopting a Medicare for all type system.
On November 9, under a grey sky with light rain, I drove to federal court in Springfield, MA, to hear summary arguments in Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) vs. Scott Lively, a civil lawsuit in which Scott Lively, an American pastor, is being sued for aiding and abetting the persecution of LGBTI persons in Uganda.

It was hard to wrap my head around where I was going. The election result was only a few hours old and I felt physically ill that our president-elect was someone who had threatened countless Americans with racist, misogynistic and xenophobic rhetoric. David Remnick in The New Yorker had called Donald Trump's victory "an American Tragedy."

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What was happening in America felt so big that this court hearing felt momentarily of small importance - until I checked Twitter and was resoundingly disabused of that notion. Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni, ranked the 6th worst dictator in the world, had tweeted to @realDonaldTrump that he looked forward to working with him. A confirmed authoritarian had welcomed a new one to the global arena. Fighting for the protection of human rights was - and continues to be - as paramount as ever.

Judge Michael Ponsor asked counsel on both sides to present him with detailed information on two specific issues: what actions did Scott Lively take in the United States that had a direct causal link to the suffering of LGBTI persons in Uganda and what speech or conduct of his fell outside the protection of the first amendment. This evidence will help determine whether the case goes to trial.

SMUG is suing Lively under the Alien Tort Statue by which foreign citizens can seek redress in U.S. courts for violations of international law, including human rights abuses. "We have overwhelming evidence," SMUG'S Executive Director Frank Mugisha said in a press release, "that Scott Lively worked closely with other anti-gay leaders in our country to deprive us of our fundamental human rights."

Twelve gay activists from Uganda flew in for the proceedings. Joining them were other LGBTI Ugandans currently living in the United States under asylum. A few supporters for Lively were also present, as were reporters, ministers, scholars and more. On this rainy, post-election morning, so tightly packed was the courtroom that a live video feed had to be offered in another courtroom for the overflowing crowd.

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Representing SMUG were Jeena Shah and Pam Spees for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. Arguing for Lively were Horatio Mihet and Roger Gannam from the Florida-based Liberty Counsel.

Driving in, I had been reminded on the news that this particular day, November 9, marked the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht - "the Night of Broken Glass" - during which Nazi paramilitary forces began a two-day pogrom against the Jews, arresting 30,000 Jewish men and committing murder, rape and widespread destruction of Jewish property.

Scott Lively believes gays are responsible for the Nazis. He has written a book, The Pink Swastika, in which he and co-author Kevin Abrams claim: "the Nazi party was conceived, organized and controlled throughout its short history by... masculine-oriented male homosexuals." In 2009 Lively drew upon this book when warning Ugandan authorities at an anti-gay conference in Kampala that homosexuals were "monsters" who would recruit and rape their children, destroy Ugandan society, and potentially commit untold atrocities if not stopped by the government.

Back home in Springfield, MA, Lively acted as a consultant and advisor to Ugandan politicians as they drafted the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), legislation so severe that it called for the death penalty in some instances. While Lively disagreed with capital punishment (it was eventually removed), he actively supported incarceration. For instance, to silence LGBTI advocacy groups like SMUG, Lively suggested a 5-year prison sentence for their "promotion of homosexuality."

Lively's lawyers are now seeking to prove that he maintained a constitutional right to share and advocate his beliefs, however challenging they might be, because of his right to free speech. Yet Lively had purposefully sought to imprison LGBTI Ugandans for doing the same. An unsettling privilege was thus unfolding on one side of Judge Ponsor's courtroom. Wrapping himself up in the Bill of Rights, the white American pastor was claiming sanctuary and innocence from wrongdoing in Africa.

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As a matter of public discourse, Lively's writings and lectures, no matter how incendiary, are protected under the first amendment. But does the record of his private actions, whereby he became intimately involved in a government-led campaign to deprive LGBTI Ugandans of their civil liberties, leading to extraordinary suffering on the part of the latter, deny him the protection of the first amendment?

Constitutional scholar Robert Post has written: "First amendment doctrine is neither clear nor logical. It is a vast Sargasso Sea of drifting and entangled values, theories, rules, exceptions, predilections." Lively tried to have this case dismissed two years ago on first amendment grounds and was denied. In response to his repeated claims, SMUG'S lawyers argue that Lively's speech and conduct as documented in this case lent practical assistance to the persecution of an entire class of people and was, indeed, criminal.

In January 2011, David Kato, the father of the Ugandan gay rights movement and a co-founder of SMUG, was murdered in his home after receiving numerous death threats for being a gay activist. Hillary Clinton, who was then Secretary of State, called Kato's death "the result of a nationwide campaign to suppress LGBT people by any means necessary, and the government was part of it." When preparing to give her historic LGBT rights speech to the world (in which she boldly proclaimed "Gay rights are human rights"), before settling on Geneva she considered giving the speech in Uganda, due to Kato's tragic death. His murder was symbolic of the price of visibility for so many LGBTI persons, a price that no one should ever have to pay.

A month after Kato was killed, Lively wrote a blog post astonishingly titled "Murdering Uganda" in which he advanced his charge that Uganda was under attack from "the lavender Marxists" who were "the evil in Uganda today." After the AHA became law in 2014, Lively warned three of his co-conspirators: "You may think the battle is over because you have the anti-homosexuality law, but for them [i.e. LBGTI persons] this is only the beginning of the next phase of their war to conquer you."

One might reasonably question, who is this man Scott Lively and how did he acquire so much foreign influence? As we have seen in the presidential election, rhetoric is powerful. The right words at the right time to the right audience can move the most unthinkable of mountains - for good or for ill.

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Uganda's Constitutional Court struck down the AHA on a technicality, but another anti-gay bill has been drafted and LGBTI persons continue to be denied their right to free speech, assembly and association. The wave of anti-gay sentiment set off by Lively and his co-conspirators in the Ugandan government remains powerful and dangerous. Last August during the country's fifth annual Pride, police violently raided one of the events (a fashion show), arrested attendees without just cause, beat them, mocked them, and in some instances subjected transgender persons to humiliating genital inspection.

At least two of those arrested, including SMUG'S Executive Director Frank Mugisha, had flown in for the hearing and were sitting in the courtroom opposite Lively. Indeed every Ugandan at this hearing knew intimately about abuse from authorities because of sexual or gender orientation. The presence of these men and women made a powerful testament to the dire importance of protecting gay human rights - and standing up to those who would deny them.

Will Judge Ponsor send this case to trial? Will Scott Lively be able to prove that he committed no crime in conspiring to deprive LGBTI Ugandans of their fundamental freedoms? Will Donald Trump as President of the United States defend the human rights of all LGBTI people the way Hillary Clinton has done?
I expected a lot of difficulties before moving to Asia but one thing that never occurred to me was that those difficulties would center around my hair. From language barriers and cultural differences to lack of time to keep up with it, my hair ended up in a whole lot of interesting situations. It may seem strange but here are just some of the things that I experienced while trying to keep my hair under control as I traveled around Asia.

The Center of Attention in China

I had been putting off getting my hair cut while living in China because I just wasn't sure how to communicate with the hairdresser. After dealing with the mess that I caused while trying to trim my own hair, I decided to be brave and head over to a professional. Lucky for me, I had made friends with some of my Chinese co-workers and I had them write out a detailed note in Chinese describing what I wanted. I shuffled over to the salon and handed the note to the hairdresser as everyone in the place seemed to watch. I could tell that the staff and the customers were all talking about me in their language and it seemed like people were opting out of having to be the one to cut my hair. I sat in the chair, tried to speak some Chinese to prove I was making an effort and sat back to see what would happen. After he finished with the cut, I handed over the equivalent of $5 for the entire process and looked at a head of hair that I absolutely loved.

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Photo Credit: Verve Photo



A Bad Color in Korea

The time had come for me to get my hair re-colored. I hadn't had it done since I left the U.S to move to Asia and it was looking pretty terrible. I was visiting Seoul for a while and it seemed to be the kind of place where I could get a quality color without worry. I researched pictures online and went to the salon armed with a gorgeous photo of Alessandra Ambrosio Balayage's hair. I showed the woman who was going to be doing the job, she nodded in approval and seemed pretty confident in her abilities to make me look like the Victoria's Secret model. I busied myself with reading magazines while she worked, freeing myself of negative thoughts concerning the outcome. What I saw when she was finished was absolutely shocking though. Instead of being brown with blonde highlights, my hair looked like something out of an early Madonna music video. There were streaks of orangey bleach amongst a sea of rust colored locks that were now adorning my head. I tried not to cry, paid her the fee and went back to my hotel room to reevaluate my life.

Photo Source: Madonna Pinterest

The Hair Accessory of Doom

On a trip to Japan, I decided to do some shopping around the souvenir stands of Kyoto. In one of the stores, there were traditional hair ornaments for sale that were similar to the ones worn by Geishas. I thought it would make a fantastic souvenir and one that I could actually incorporate into my daily look. Picking up the one I liked the best, I placed it into my up-do to see how it would look. Deciding that it wasn't actually for me in the end, I went to take it out and realized that it was stuck. As I looked in the mirror, it became apparent that the hair piece was intertwined in my hair, completely entangled. I pulled on it, ended up breaking off the comb within my bun and eventually just paid for it. I spent the next hour alone in my hotel room cutting it out of my hair!

Photo Source: Japan Powered

The stories go on and on as I have dealt with numerous hair fiascos while traveling. I'm not willing to give up traveling or give up on my hair so I have committed to embracing each new hair adventure that may come my way.

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The enchanting, like-a-dream landscape at Kobuk National Park in Alaska. Photo credit: Jonathan Irish

In the great state of Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle, there is a place where you can be dropped off by bush plane and stand amidst one of Earth's last true wilderness places. There are no signs of humanity in your perimeter; there is nothing other than wide open space stretching far into the distance. There are no man-made trails, only game trails, winding through spruce and birch forests that hug the foothills of the mountains and serve as a habitat for wildlife. Beneath your feet is soft Arctic sand decorated by grizzly bear tracks; the dunes, a relic of the last Ice Age. Catching your eye on the horizon is the Kobuk River, softly glinting whenever sunlight lands upon it. It is without measure one of the most pristine areas on the planet; it is Kobuk Valley, America's least visited national park.

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Because Kobuk is so completely unique and because it is realistically a place that few travelers will ever journey to, we wanted to paint a picture of it by breaking down what we think are some of the most notable features in the area--so you can virtually travel there right here. We've also included some info on how to go about getting there and some simple safety measures if you are adding Kobuk to your real-life travel itinerary. Onward!

Arctic Sand Dunes: There are a few national parks in America where sand dunes can be found: Guadalupe Mountains in Texas; Death Valley in California/Nevada; Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, and probably others that we've seen but are failing to mention here. Kobuk Valley is the only park where you can find Arctic sand dunes that, as the National Park Service puts it, "look more at home in the Sahara than 35 miles above the Arctic Circle."

The dunes were formed over tens of thousands of years with the rise and retreat of glaciers in the high mountains that surround the Kobuk Valley. Over such a long stretch of time, the activity forced the rocks into fine grains of sand that layered itself into large piles around the bases of the mountains forming the dunes we see today. It is an environment that is full of life with sprouting grasses, wildflowers, sedges, and wild rye rising from the sands; with scatterings of geological remnants including schist and jade (which there are large deposits of in the east area of the park.)

There are three dune fields in the park: the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Little Kobuk Sand Dunes, and the Hunt River Dunes. The Great Kobuk Dunes in the eastern area of the park are the most accessible, rising 100-feet high from the ground and stretching 25-square miles, rolling in beautiful formations across the landscape--its a marvelous place to hike, play, and photograph. If you can arrange it, your bush pilot can let you off right on top of them, and the in-flight is mesmerizing.

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The most active Arctic sand dunes on the planet can be found at Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska. Photo credit: Jonathan Irish



Even if you don't see the caribou migration or any wildlife at all, their presence is represented throughout the park. Here, a caribou antler in black and white. Photo credit: Jonathan Irish

Caribou migration: Kobuk Valley National Park is home to the largest herd of wildlife in Alaska. Holding at a population of around half a million strong, the nomadic Western Arctic Caribou travels through the park during migration each fall from their northern calving grounds to their southern wintering areas. In late September, you can see their hoof prints stretching across the dunes; year round from a bush plane, you can see their trails tracking through the tundra that have created a permanent effect of erosion from the trampling of vegetation. You maybe never see them, but their presence is always represented... caribou have sustained native Inupiat people in the area for millennia.

Wildlife: Wildlife is ever-present in the park even if you never see one species. Even the birds are elusive, darting between trees faster than you can raise your binocs. Animal tracks stretch across the dunes. Games trails of all sizes traverse the landscape providing passageways for black and grizzly bears, wolves, moose, porcupines, and foxes to travel to and fro. Raptors fly overhead and salmon swim in the Kobuk River. Fauna is everywhere, just quiet yourself and let the wilderness open up to you.

Native Alaskan history: Kobuk may be the least touristed national park, but in the areas surrounding the Kobuk River live hundreds of native Inupiat people in small villages who still conduct a subsistence lifestyle the way their ancestors have for 10,000 years. In the extreme conditions, they get around on snow mobiles (which in Alaska they call "snow-machines") and rely on hunting (bear and caribou) and fishing (salmon) to sustain their communities. The Kobuk National Park management plan aims to protect traditional native practices of subsistence living ahead of tourism opportunities, and as such, no facilities or trails lie within the park boundaries leaving us a remarkably uncluttered place to explore.

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One-of-a-kind scenery: To stand atop the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes and spin a 360, you would have no idea where you were--sand dunes, tundra, forest, rivers, mountains, and big sky don't generally sit altogether in one place. The confluence is in a transition zone between boreal forest and treeless Arctic tundra, giving way to densely blanketed tundra leading off into the Waring and Baird mountains. In the forests you will find organisms such as algae, fungi, mosses, and lichen. The Salmon River, like the Noatak River in Gates of the Arctic, has a wild designation given by the National Wild and Scenic River System; and a 60-mile stretch of the Kobuk River also runs through the park. And rising amidst it all are immaculate dunes... in the Arctic north--it's totally surreal. Kobuk has a sense of place that makes you feel a little bit as though you are wandering inside of a landscape painting or in a storybook tale, and you can get there from Anchorage or Fairbanks in just a few hours.





A horseshoe bend formed by the Kobuk River separating the Arctic sand dunes and the tundra landscape. Photo credit: Jonathan Irish







Fall foliage sprouts from the forest floor. Photo credit: Jonathan Irish



Dunes, forest, mountains, and big sky -- the wonderful wilderness of Kobuk is incredibly diverse. Photo credit: Jonathan Irish

Extreme solitude: Touching down atop the Arctic dunes in Kobuk was the first time in recent memory that any of us could recall being completely alone outside, without the possibility of someone other than a moose, a bear, a wolf, or a bird, watching us. When you are alone in that way, it is a very strange feeling... it's absolutely wonderful. Depending on how and when you travel in Kobuk, you might come across native Inupiat peoples from nearby villages hunting or fishing in the park--particularly so during the annual autumn caribou migration--but such a run-in is unlikely in a wilderness that is so vast. It is highly unlikely that you will see other travelers either, though you may see a bush plane fly overhead from time to time. Looking to really get away from it all? This is the place.





Our bush plane with tundra tires takes off, leaving us with the solitude of Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska. Photo credit: Stefanie Payne



Left with our gear in the Arctic Alaskan wilderness... we got creative right away. Photo credit: Stefanie Payne

How to explore the park: Kobuk is the least visited park for a reason--it's a challenge to both get to and to navigate, and it would be ill-advised to do so without hands-on guidance from those who know the region, climate, and way of life in Alaska. Such assistance doesn't come cheap, either. Alaska is notoriously expensive, and getting to Kobuk is particularly so as there are only a few outfits that know the area and operate there.



Here's a breakdown of ways to explore Kobuk:

Some visitors mark this one off of their national park bucket list by scheduling a bush flight from the nearby access point of Bettles for a visual tour of the park, while setting foot down only for an afternoon stroll and a picnic on the dunes. This flightseeing experience is the easiest way to get "into" Kobuk. Those up for a bigger challenge arrange their own bush flights and go backpacking inside of the park. There are several lodges scattered around the Kobuk wilderness that provide access and guidance. For those (like us) wanting to see as much as the park as possible in a short amount of time, there are a select number of guided adventures that provide immersive experiences. Ours was with Alaska Alpine Adventures, the leading adventure travel operator in many of the wildest places in Alaska. (Below are some photos of our traveling posse doing what people do in the wild...)

Getting there: Commercial flights run daily from Anchorage to Kotzebue, where the park's information center is located and from where you will jump off from to get into Kobuk. Kotzebue is the nearest full service town (a fishing village with a population of approximately 3,000) to the park. The National Park Service provides a resource guide to air taxi companies operating in the area on the official park website.

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Produced by CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) at the behest of 365 institutional investors, the report concludes that disruptions in supplies of forest risk commodities could cost $906 billion per year.

There's another list, too: the Forest 500, which names and shames the 500 entities that can end deforestation. Half those entities are companies, and many of them have pledged to end practices that kill forests. The list is compiled by the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), which ranks those pledges and gives credit for good ones. GCP also published a report today, and it's called "Sleeping giants of deforestation".

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It shows that 57% of the companies on the Forest 500 either have no policies to end deforestation or none that the organization deems credible, while the CDP report shows that just 42% of the companies on the risk side have even bothered to investigate the ways that supply disruptions could impact their business.

On top of that, the Forest Trends Supply Change project tracks the progress that companies are reporting on their deforestation pledges and shows less than half of them are even reporting progress.

Add the findings up, and you find a global agriculture sector facing an existential threat and partially acting on it, but mostly hobbled by poor traceability and weak governance or blinded by apathy and overconfidence and frustrated by shortages of certified raw materials.

The GCP report looked at countries, too, and found many of those on the supply side - the rainforest countries that export forest risk commodities - were beginning to take action, while those on the demand side - the developed countries that import them - aren't. Paradoxically, while developed countries often funded sustainability efforts in tropical countries, only two of the importing countries on the Forest 500 - Germany and the Netherlands - formally support national sustainability efforts among consumers.

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The Bright(ish) Side

It's not all doom and gloom.

Supply Change also found that those pledges with publicly-available disclosure were, on average, more than 70% of the way towards completion; and while many companies are certainly avoiding disclosure to hide bad performance, others have taken productive actions that are just difficult to quantify.

Danone, for example, is helping small farmers around the world shift to sustainable farming, and progress on that front won't show up incrementally the way shifting to certified commodities does. Likewise, Norwegian consumer goods group Orkla implemented a three-pronged sustainable palm oil policy in 2014 and recently saw their Forest 500 rating jump from three stars to five, as did two other companies: Colgate Palmolive and Marks & Spencer.

Orkla has been working for years to replace palm oil with options that are healthier and not associated with deforestation, and they launched their sustainable palm oil policy in 2014. That involved renegotiating their contracts with key suppliers and becoming a member of the RSPO at Group level.

"We have a regular dialogue with suppliers about the progress of the work," says Ellen Behrens, the company's Vice President for Corporate Responsibility. "We only work with suppliers who have good plans for sustainable improvement. Examples of supplier activities include the use of satellite-based risk assessments, fire alert systems and various types of training programs."

Like Danone, they're also looking to drive complex changes on the ground.

"We look for suppliers who engage in training of mill management and of farmers, and who engage in awareness-building in local communities," she says.

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The final component, she says, is certification, which among others is important to monitor compliance with important aspects such as working conditions and the use of pesticides. Their most recent disclosure document shows that 40% of the palm oil, blends, and derivatives they purchase are either certified as sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) or have their impacts offset by Green Palm certificates.

"Certification is the easiest activity to communicate in a quantified way," says Behrens. "We're currently looking into how to verify other activities."

That's something to keep in mind as you explore the group's Supply Change profile: companies whose only pledge involves certification will show more "quantitative progress" than those undertaking more complex strategies, so it pays to heed the milestones embedded in the profiles as well.

Radical Transparency

The reports come in as a flurry of new transparency tools are also coming on line, as we covered in a recent edition of the Bionic Planet podcast, which is available on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, and here:

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Perils and Possibility

The CDP report uncovered a disturbing sense of confidence among companies with high exposure to the big four commodities, with 72% of them expressing confidence in their ability to source them in the future - even as 81% of companies in the Agricultural Production sector reported impacts related to forest-risk commodities in the past five years.

On the other hand, many also seemed unaware of the potential for growth that a shift to sustainable sourcing could offer.

"Investors are poised to capitalize on the opportunities that await," wrote CDP CEO Paul Simpson in the foreword. "Some of the biggest index providers in the world, including S&P and STOXX, have created low-carbon indices to help investors direct their money towards the sustainable companies of the future. Investors see opportunities in sustainably managed timberland, and are beginning to direct funding to innovative approaches to protect forests, such as REDD+ credits."
I have called this book The elephant in the classroom because there is often a very large elephant standing in the corner of maths classrooms. The elephant, or the common idea that is extremely harmful to children, is the belief that success in mathematics is a sign of general intelligence and that some people can do maths and some can't.

Even maths teachers (the not so good ones) often think that their job is to sort out those who can do maths from those who can't. This idea is completely wrong and this is why. In many maths classrooms a very narrow subject is taught to children, that is nothing like the maths of the world or the maths that mathematicians use.

This narrow subject involves copying methods that teachers demonstrate and reproducing them accurately over and over again ... But this narrow subject is not mathematics, it is a strange mutated version of the subject that is taught in schools.
In October, when Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize, some people were confused. Why did Santos receive the prize days after Colombian voters narrowly defeated a historic peace agreement?

A closer look at Santos' strategic actions offers clarity about both the prize and why a new agreement has so quickly emerged.

My perspective on this issue is informed by work that I have done in Colombia with President Santos, his staff and members of his government. These interactions showed me how dedication to improve public services and quality of life for vulnerable populations can produce better prospects for peace in Colombia and beyond.

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Taking a risk

The story in Colombia begins with the fact that President Santos was not forced to seek a peace agreement. He chose to seek it. He pursued this peace against great odds and despite the risks it posed to his presidency.

Why would he do this? The answer is complicated, but includes recognition of the fact that a military end to Colombia's conflict is not feasible. It has been tried many times, but has never succeeded.

The FARC (an acronym for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) was formed in 1964 as an armed wing of the Communist Party. For 52 years, the government and the FARC took turns damaging one another. Sometimes, the FARC's damage shocked the Colombian people. Sometimes, the government's damage weakened the FARC. During this period, more than 200,000 Colombians were killed and about 7 million were displaced. But no military endgame emerged.

To see why a military solution is infeasible, look at a map. Colombia is a large country. It offers many spaces for a weakened FARC to hide and to reconstitute itself - as it has many times in the past. Parts of Venezuela also provide refuge.

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Under previous Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a close ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, the Colombian military gained ground over the FARC, but these actions were not sufficient to produce a peace agreement before Uribe's term of office ended in 2010.

President Santos saw this. In 2012, he sent a team to Havana, a venue that was politically acceptable to the FARC's leadership, to pursue a lasting peace. They have been working rigorously ever since.

An unpopular rival









AP Photo/Ivan Valencia





Negotiating with the FARC was risky for President Santos. Within Colombia, the FARC is deeply unpopular. To many Colombians, the FARC are criminals, murderers, the devil in human form. The FARC's popularity in Colombia is at about 5 percent. From the perspective of many Colombians, the president was negotiating with the country's most hated group. This background provides part of the explanation for why many Colombians opposed the negotiations and the terms of the initial agreement. Opponents of the negotiations wanted more punishment, less financial support and fewer political guarantees.

Santos was aware of these perceptions. Despite the fact that the Colombian constitution grants him the authority to sign a peace agreement, he proposed a referendum as a means of broadening any peace proposal's legitimacy. The referendum prompted an intense national debate about what "peace" in Colombia would really mean.

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Sources of violence

Peace does not mean going from past levels of violence to zero. That's not a realistic aim because some lower ranking FARC commanders and leaders of smaller armed groups have indicated that they may not go along with the deal. While a peace agreement will not eliminate violence, it can change circumstances that have produced high amounts of violence in the past.

For many decades, the idealistic and violent aspects of the FARC have been a beacon for many Colombians who live in harsh conditions. Because past governments provided limited infrastructure for education and health, there have been few economic opportunities for many people - and great inequality. The FARC used this situation to recruit thousands of desperate people - people who were looking for an alternative vision of Colombia that offered more opportunity and more equality. Since the 1960s, this approach encouraged thousands of Colombians to participate in FARC violence and bloodshed.

President Santos recognized this dynamic. Through his perseverance, and recognition of the role of human capital investments in building a lasting peace, he set the stage for a new Colombia. In the first six years of the Santos presidency, the foundations for this new vision of Colombia advanced significantly. The president has engaged in a comprehensive program of building infrastructure, expanding access to health care, building thousands of new homes for the poor, and creating new schools and scholarships for some of the nation's poorest regions. In this time, the percentage of Colombians living under poverty has been reduced from 38 percent to 28 percent. This is a remarkable accomplishment by any historical standard.

These successes in many of Colombia's most desperate regions have given Santos leverage in negotiations with the FARC and weakened the FARC's ability to recruit. These successes also kept the FARC at the negotiating table after the October referendum failed.

On Dec. 1, Colombia's Congress voted to approve the second version of the peace agreement. While some are unhappy that the new version was not brought to a referendum, congressional approval of the agreement is clearly allowed under Colombia's constitution. As a result of these actions, the next step towards decreasing violence can now be taken.

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President Santos' perseverance and foresight puts Colombia on the precipice of a formal end to a 52-year conflict that has killed over 200,000 people and displaced millions more. Moreover, the way in which the Santos government reduced poverty, and increased health, education, and infrastructure not only improved his leverage in peace negotiations - but offers a template for progress that leaders of other troubled regions can follow. For these reasons, his efforts deserve attention and acclaim - and the Nobel Peace Prize.
Crossposted from UN Women.

A UN Women project helps female survivors of sexual violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina transform their lives and families by boosting their economic opportunities and teaching them how to set up a business and grow their markets.

The first national study on the prevalence of violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2012 found that half of all women have been subjected to some form of violence [1]. A serious violation of basic human rights, violence against women and girls is widespread in the country, and often justified by traditional patriarchal norms.

As part of its work, UN Women assists survivors of wartime sexual violence through an initiative that boosts their financial security and work opportunities. While prosecution of perpetrators and access to justice for survivors is paramount to ending impunity, affordable and appropriate services, such as free legal advice, health care and economic opportunities for survivors, are critical for preventing re-occurrence and rebuilding lives.

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After the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bojana, 66, was displaced from her hometown and her family lost their livelihood. Today, Bojana and her family are expanding their farming business with support from a joint UN project, Seeking Care, Support and Justice for Conflict Related Sexual Violence Survivors in BiH, funded by the United Kingdom, Canada and UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.

This project has helped me fight stigma and reunited my family. It has enabled me to develop a business plan so that everyone in my family participates equally. My daughter and her husband own some land. Now my son and my daughter-in-law have also joined the family in farming and cattle breeding, says Bojana.

Behara, a 56-year-old grandmother, processes fruits and makes apple jams in her family business. She lacked adequate equipment for the enterprise, but since attending UN Women-led workshops, she has learned how to improve her business and source equipment.

I feel empowered because the business plan I developed and implemented will allow my family to live a decent life, says Behara. The new equipment helps process our own crop, and now we can offer the processing service to others who have orchards. That will increase our earnings significantly, she says. Even the little one will get to pick the fruits of my work, she adds, pointing to her new-born grandson.

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The project also guides women on how to access larger markets for greater profits. The participants assess their own capacities and resources, and lead their businesses right from the start.

Slobodanka, a 41-year-old mother of three, decided to expand her husbands karate club and open the towns first fitness club. By offering fitness, Pilates and aerobic classes, she wants to make the space more female friendly. This club will be the first of its kind and will mean a great deal for the women in our community, says Slobodanka.

In addition to its efforts to help survivors get their lives back on track, UN Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina also works with partners to prevent violence against women before it happens. A recent international conference in Sarajevo on involving men and boys to end gender-based violence motivated professionals, stirred new ideas and informed future work on gender-based violence.

Notes
A total of 3,064 personnel of different law enforcement agencies of Ukraine have been killed during the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Donbas, Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Viktor Muzhenko said.

"All law enforcement agencies have lost 3,064 personnel since the ATO began. Of them, 2,636 are Armed Forces members, including 2,148 killed in action," he said in an interview with the Holos Ukrainy newspaper.

A total of 10,753 men, among them 8,897 Armed Forces members, have been wounded in the ATO in Donbas, Muzhenko said.




The securities industry has been on its toes, Coppola said, since the Department of Justices Yates Memo reaffirmed the federal governments commitment to pursue individual culpability for D&Os when a publicly traded or large private company got in trouble with the law.



The US Department of Justice charged 200 companies and people with misconduct since 2009.



That includes 89 CEOs, CFOs and other senior officials, the report states.



Its a trend Coppola said she believes the securities market would like to change as they believe it will under a Trump administration.



But, Coppola said, that change will be more gradual than swift.



Another risk D&Os face is shouldering legal responsibility for cyber-attacks.



However, Coppola said, they have yet to be successfully prosecuted for negligence in relation to a hack.



In March, Home Depot paid its customers $19.5 million to settle a privacy breach suit over a hack the major chain experienced in 2014  however, it didnt admit any wrongdoing.



On November 30, a federal judge dismissed a shareholder derivative action law suit, where some investors sued on behalf of all shareholders, alleging officer liability for the breach.



If you asked any D&O underwriter, will there be accountability and culpability for proper policy and procedures in cyber-exposure, the answer would be overall yes, Coppola said. But we havent seen the litigation environment live up to that yet.



When asked how D&O underwriters assessed risk, Coppola said the amount of court cases and market volatility per industry plays a role.



Weve seen some industries suffer more than others (from lawsuits), Coppola said. The healthcare industry, specifically the pharmaceutical industry, and any sort of IPO, bio-tech type of entity, weve seen a lot more volatility from a litigation standpoint and a stock standpoint. Coppola pointed out the election of Donald Trump suggests regulators could become more benign, or at least thats what the market is expecting.The securities industry has been on its toes, Coppola said, since the Department of Justices Yates Memo reaffirmed the federal governments commitment to pursue individual culpability for D&Os when a publicly traded or large private company got in trouble with the law.The US Department of Justice charged 200 companies and people with misconduct since 2009.That includes 89 CEOs, CFOs and other senior officials, the report states.Its a trend Coppola said she believes the securities market would like to change as they believe it will under a Trump administration.But, Coppola said, that change will be more gradual than swift.Another risk D&Os face is shouldering legal responsibility for cyber-attacks.However, Coppola said, they have yet to be successfully prosecuted for negligence in relation to a hack.In March, Home Depot paid its customers $19.5 million to settle a privacy breach suit over a hack the major chain experienced in 2014  however, it didnt admit any wrongdoing.On November 30, a federal judge dismissed a shareholder derivative action law suit, where some investors sued on behalf of all shareholders, alleging officer liability for the breach.If you asked any D&O underwriter, will there be accountability and culpability for proper policy and procedures in cyber-exposure, the answer would be overall yes, Coppola said. But we havent seen the litigation environment live up to that yet.When asked how D&O underwriters assessed risk, Coppola said the amount of court cases and market volatility per industry plays a role.Weve seen some industries suffer more than others (from lawsuits), Coppola said. The healthcare industry, specifically the pharmaceutical industry, and any sort of IPO, bio-tech type of entity, weve seen a lot more volatility from a litigation standpoint and a stock standpoint.

Related Stories: Zenefits CEO to resign, may join Trump team Lloyds CEO, insurance bosses make pitch to boost industry hiring

Directors and Officers (D&O) of publicly traded and large private companies could end up facing more class action lawsuits in 2016 than they have since the beginning of the millennium, a report by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty said.Theres no question we have an increase in the federal securities class action filings in 2016 versus, frankly, historical levels, Allianzs Regional Head of Liability Laura Coppola said. Weve got less publicly traded companies today than weve ever had, we see a higher risk of merger objections claims filed in federal court, weve seen the emergence of smaller plaintiff firms filing casesand weve seen an influx of non-US based companies bringing (legal) actions.According to Allianz, the management level also faces an activist regulatory environment and Coppola said that activism comes in the form of the US Securities and Exchange Commissions Chairwoman, Mary Jo White.White has overseen some of the toughest regulation enforcement of the securities market in US history and Coppola said thats in response to major industry collapses, in some cases following criminal behaviour, like the 2008 crash and the Enron scandal.
The chief executive officer of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York (IIABNY) has been recognised for his contributions to the insurance profession and the Central New York community, it has been reported.Richard Poppa of Camillus was named the 2016 Insurance Person of Distinction during the 56annual Syracuse Insurance Day Conference, held at the Oncenter Convention Center in Syracuse, Eaglenews online reported.Poppa has served as IIABNY president and CEO since 1996. Under his leadership, the insurance producer trade association has flourished, addressing the educational, political, and business needs of more than 1,750 agencies and their more than 13,000 employees, the report said.Prior to his role in IIABNY, Poppa held leadership roles with the Independent Insurance Agents of America, the Independent Insurance Agents of Indiana, and the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of California. His career in trade association began with the Insurance Institute of India, Eaglenews online said.Aside from his role at IIABNY, Poppa also serves as a member of the TrustedChoice.com board of managers; former chair of the board of the Empire State Society of Association Executives; an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Skaneateles; and vice chair of the board of the John Dau Foundation.Moreover, Poppa is a member of Miller College of Business executive advisory board; Work At Home Vintage Experts (WAHVE); ASAE Insurance Company board of directors; and Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation executive committee and board of directors.
Ukrainian authorities may seize the freight ship, Sky Moon, flying under Tanzania's flags, which was detained by Ukraine's State Border Service on the Danube River on November 30 for illegal visits to Russia-occupied Crimea.

"Members of the military prosecutor's office started investigative actions re the Sky Moon... The violator ship was detained and may be seized in favor of the state. This is the first vessel in respect of which such harsh action will be taken for visiting ports of temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine," the State Border Service said on its website on Tuesday.

According to agency, reports were drawn up regarding the ship's crew to record the violation of the entry and exit regulations in respect of temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. The captain and chief mate are accused of the failure to fulfill legitimate demands by the border agency. The captain and the crew can be fined or face administrative arrest for up to 15 days for the above mentioned violations of the Ukrainian legislation.

According to the State Border Service, the Sky Moon was detained by marine border guards in the Ukrainian inland waters on the Danube River and brought to the port of Reni despite the crew's resistance.

The captain ignored legitimate demands by the guards to stop the ship and take an observation group on board. He later tried to simulate damage to the vessel and put the ship aground, but was removed by the border guards from the control of the vessel. The border guards found confirmation in the ship's log and the crew's documents that the ship had called to ports in the occupied territory and relocated freight from there.

"This is the first vessel with incontestable evidence of illegal staying in the ports of Crimea," the agency said.

As reported, the detained vessel has nine crew members - the captain who is a Libyan citizen, and eight Syrian citizens. The vessel was carrying more than 3,000 tonnes of soda ash. There is a soda plant working in Crimea.

Their case is to be heard at Reni's district court. The prosecutor's office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (a Ukrainian-governed agency set up after the occupation of Crimea), Odesa customs office, and the border police of Romania have been informed about the detention of the vessel.
Iowa insurance commissioner Nick Gerhart has announced that he will be stepping down from his position effective December 23.Deputy commissioner Doug Ommen will take on the role of interim insurance commissioner.In a statement, reported on by The Gazette, the 41-year-old Gerhart said: Im honored to have had the chance to serve Iowans by leading the Iowa Insurance Division. However, both myself and my family feel that as my term is ending, now is the right time to move forward to other opportunities and focus on our family as it continues to grow.The Iowan native, who served as insurance commissioner for four years, said he is unsure of what his next step is, but believes itll be in the state, the report said.Iowa governor Terry Branstad had this to say for the outgoing insurance commissioner: I want to thank Nick Gerhart for his service as insurance commissioner to the state of Iowa.He is a bright and talented individual who focused on protecting the public while making the industry better and more competitive in our state.During his term as insurance commissioner, Gerhart led the team that created and hosted the Global Insurance Symposium in Des Moines, which involved more than 400 people from around the world discussing emerging issues on insurance. He also pioneered a campaign for educating seniors against insurance fraud.Gerhart was particularly noted for leading the agency during a transformative time in the insurance industry, that is, when the state began to implement the Affordable Care Act in 2013, the same year he was appointed. He not only oversaw the division of Iowa as it worked to expand Medicaid, he also held hearings and eventually approved sharp premium increases sought by insurers in order to deal with rising costs in prescription and health care, The Gazette reported.Ommen, meanwhile, has served as deputy commissioner in Iowa since 2013; and was Missouris insurance commissioner under Gov. Matt Blunt prior to that.
The global market for cyber insurance is set to reach $14 billion by 2022 according to Allied Market Research.In its report "Cyber Insurance Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecasts, the firm says that North America dominated the cyber insurance market in 2015 and is expected to continue to do so.Increased awareness of cyber attacks is a key driver of the demand for cyber coverage while low penetration in emerging markets creates a sizeable opportunity globally.This is an opportunity for insurers and reinsurers to innovate cyber insurance products that manage various degrees of risks and cover cost-associated data breaches, credit monitoring, forensic investigations, reputation management, and business interruption," said Yogiata Sharma, Research Analyst, Consumer Goods Research at AMR.Allieds data shows that North America accounted for 87 per cent of the cyber insurance market in 2015 with mandatory legislation in some states pushing higher penetration.Large companies generate significant amounts of the premium revenue, some 70 per cent in 2015 with the healthcare sector leading purchases of cyber insurance policies.Iowas insurance commissioner resigned Monday saying that the time was right to stand down.Nick Gerhart took up the role in 2013 and has overseen several changes including the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He also led the team that created the Global Insurance Symposium in Des Moines which attracts hundreds of insurance professionals from all over the world.Im honored to have had the chance to serve Iowans by leading the Iowa Insurance Division, however both myself and my family feel that as my term is ending, now is the right time to move forward to other opportunities and focus on our family as it continues to grow, Gerhart said.Prior to his regulatory role, Gerhart held positions in the private sector at Sammons Financial Group and American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company.Deputy Commissioner Doug Ommen will serve as the interim insurance commissioner when Gerhart steps down on December 23.In an awkward report for insurance brokers, the financial regulator in the UK says that some brokers may lack the correct level of professional indemnity insurance.The issue the Financial Conduct Authority has identified is that some exclusions in policies reduced them to levels below that required while some contained ambiguity regarding coverage and others contained outdated information.The FCA has called on carriers to ensure that the policies provided to brokers and agents are sufficient for their needs.
The Public Safety Advisory Committee kicked around some research topics as it tries to find its bearings as a committee.

Pittsfield Committee to Consider Seat Belts on School Buses

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Last month's devastating school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn., has the Public Safety Advisory Committee mulling the idea of seat belts in city school buses.

Six elementary schoolchildren were killed and many others injured when the bus crashed into a tree. There is no law requiring school buses to have seat belts in Massachusetts but a few states do. The National Safety Council, an advocacy group, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are both calling for school buses to have seat belts

"The one thing that is going to be the detriment to this is that it is going to be too expensive. My argument is, what is the price on a child's life?" asked advisory Committee member Donald Bercury at Monday's meeting.

A bill requiring seat belts on buses had been proposed in Massachusetts. Last January, the bill was favorably voted out of the House of Representatives' Public Safety and Homeland Security and passed onto the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee. The School Transportation Association of Massachusetts submitted testimony claiming it would be costly for towns to retrofit current school buses and that seat belts would add some $11,000 to the cost of new buses.

On their own, some cities and towns have decided to purchase buses with seat belts.

Advisory committee member Ryan Cowdrey said Pittsfield recently bought a brand-new bus fleet, so a new purchase isn't likely anytime soon. But he wondered if there was a way to add seat belts to the existing buses. Fellow committee member Charles Smith said he wouldn't think simply adding lap belts would be too costly. He says right now unrestrained children could get tossed from their seats with just a sharp corner or speed bump.

The School Department may already be ahead of the issue and Smith suggested meeting with the administration to discuss the possibility and the challenges of doing so.

"According to our ordinance, every department head is supposed to make themselves, or a representative, available to us," Smith said.

Cowdrey added that it might be helpful to meet with a private busing companies, like DuFour, as well to understand the impacts of such a rule.

Meanwhile member Patrick Muraca added that the city's insurance could also play a role in moving it forward because liability insurance could be decreased.

That was not the only school transportation issue to come up Monday when the group started brainstorming topics  members also discussed policies around children walking to school.

"It just irks me that in the middle of winter, it is zero [degrees] out, and I see a first- or second-grader walking to school and a high school kid is getting a ride," Smith said.

With newly appointed members, the Public Safety Advisory Committee used Monday to identify areas to discuss.

Muraca envisions the group taking a role in addressing the heroin issue.

"It is massive, massive, massive. We see it right here in our area," he said.

The entire country has been dealing with an epidemic of substance abuse, particularly heroin and prescription pills. Statistically in 2013 and 2014, Muraca said, heroin deaths were up 10 percent in Connecticut, 27.3 percent in Maine, and 18.8 percent in Massachusetts.

"It is just devastating to see a lot of these things," he said. "How could we impact changes in the different type of policies and how things are handled? It is one of these problems that are so rampant."

Muraca said he would like to meet with agencies dealing with the issue to understand the local impacts even more; Narcan, methadone and suboxone clinics, and policing, were among the topics touched on Monday.

He'd like to look into making recommendations on various policies such as how health and law enforcement officials respond to outbreaks of overdoses often caused by laced heroin. And if no policy changes arise, at least spread more awareness about it.

"I think the awareness is a big thing. I think there is not a lot of reporting on it on exactly what the issue is," Muraca said. "It is something we need to keep an eye on as a public safety commission."

Smith added, "We don't have an issue yet. We just want to inform ourselves."

Smith, former Housing Authority director, also suggested emergency preparedness. He said there was a small fire in one of the authority's housing units that led to two floors becoming uninhabitable. It was a cold day and there were dozens of people needing places to go.

Smith said emergency responders already had plans in place and within a half hour, every displaced resident had shelter and food. He said the committee could also serve a role in helping owners of other large apartment buildings understand the resources and be better prepared for when something happens.

"You need a place to get outside of the building and to gather. But there are a lot of these things which are already being thought of," Smith said.

He hopes to engage with emergency preparedness officials and private housing buildings to share information.

The Public Safety Advisory Committee has had a rocky 2016. Initially formed as the Police Advisory Committee, its purview was expanded and it met multiple times this year as it tried to get its footing and understanding about what the new administration wanted out of the group. That was also coupled with a series of resignations and then the expiration of other terms. Last month, the group had just three members appointed with actual terms, while others were participating despite having expired terms or not yet appointed.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Linda Tyer put forth the reappointment of some members and the appointment of the newest member, Cowdrey. Bercury said the group still wants some more members and will be urging Tyer for appointments.
We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
More than 2,500 units of weaponry, military hardware supplied since start of anti-terror operation

Since the start of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in eastern Ukraine the armed forces have received more than 2,500 pieces of weaponry and military equipment and more than 405,000 rockets and pieces of ammunition.

"In the framework of state military orders this year, the armed services have been supplied with more than 1,300 basic types of weapons and military equipment and more than 75,000 rockets and pieces of ammunition," Defense Ministry weaponry chief Mykola Shevtsov told the government newspaper Uriadovy Kurier.

Over 250 units of main types of weaponry and military hardware and over 4,600 sighting units, navigation and communications devices were shipped to the Armed Forces of Ukraine as technical assistance in 2015-2016.

Shevtsov said UAH 11 billion was budgeted for weapons and ammunition supply in 2016 and about UAH 4 billion for weapon and equipment repair.

"From this amount it was planned that almost UAH 3 billion came from funds confiscated for carrying out corrupt acts," he said.
Citizen of Ukraine Mykola Karpiuk, who was convicted in Russia, was sent to serve his sentence in a penal colony in Vladimir (Vladimir region) of the Russian Federation on December 5, lawyer Ilya Novikov said.

"I report that Karpiuk Mykola Andronovych, born in 1964, was sent on December 5, 2016 for further serving of the punishment into the decree FKU T2 of the town of Vladimir of Russia's Office of the Federal Penitentiary Service in Vladimir region," the letter of the leadership of the pretrial detention facility No. 1 of Russia's Office of the Federal Penitentiary Service in Chechen Republic says, which photocopy was posted by Novikov on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

The Chechen High Court sentenced Karpiuk and Klykh on May 26 to 22.5 and 20 years in custody, respectively. Karpiuk was due to serve the first ten years of his sentence in prison, and the prison term of Klykh was set at nine years. After that both convicts will be transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary.

The Russian Supreme Court upheld the sentence on October 26. Karpiuk and Klykh were sentenced for participating in the hostilities against federal forces with the UNA-UNSO organization during the first Chechen campaign.
Verkhovna Rada deputy Serhiy Leshchenko (Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction) has refused to sign a protocol on committing an administrative offense, National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP) authorized official Andriy Kozlovsky has said.

"As an authorized [NACP] official, presented the protocol  which says the named individual [Serhiy Leshchenko] failed to sign it or acquaint himself with its contents," Kozlovsky told journalists at Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday.

Kozlovsky said the protocol would be sent to Leshchenko by mail.

The authorized NACP official told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency that he had read out the contents of the protocol to Leshchenko.

"The present received by Leshchenko in the form of a privileged price [present]  a discount on the price of his apartment  1,307 times exceeds the minimum wage. Taking this into consideration, Leshchenko violates demands  of the law on preventing corruption and did not refuse the offer of receiving the discount on the purchase of the flat," the protocol reads.

The protocol also says the price of the flat purchased by Leshchenko as a result of the discount was lowered by UAH 1,801,648.

"Leshchenko's deliberate actions  violate the law on receiving valuable presents," the NACP authorized official said.

As earlier reported, as a result of a NACP check it was established that Leshchenko, who purchased a 192 square m apartment for UAH 7,550,000 in a new building located in a historical quarter of Kyiv, received a 'gift' in the form of a discount on the price of the flat from the construction company that built the building. Leshchenko was a parliament deputy when he bought the flat and subject to the Law on Preventing Corruption. Hence, he received a present worth more than 1,307 times the minimum wage (total value of the discount was UAH 1,801,648)

NACP reported that from November 30 Leshchenko refused to acquaint himself with the protocol of the administrative violation. On December 1, he was invited through the official NACP website to acquaint himself with the protocol and results of the agency's investigation.

On Tuesday, December 6, Leshchenko failed to appear at NACP offices to familiarize himself with the protocol. According to Leshchenko's lawyers he was in an office of the National Police of Ukraine providing testimony about the murder of Belarusian journalist Pavlo Sheremet in Kyiv.
After a shootout in the village of Kniazhychi of Brovary district, Kyiv region, as a result of which five law enforcement officers were killed, 25 policemen were separated from the service, Acting Chief of the National Police Vadym Troyan has said.

"I think it is necessary, as long as we do not understand in details, who is to blame and who violated instructions or orders," he said on Tuesday during a video conference of the departmental meeting with the Interior Ministry leadership and heads of structural and territorial police units.

He said that 25 police officers who took part in the special operation in Kniazhychi - from the operations heads to its participants  were dismissed. According to the head of the National Police, heads of police units are directly responsible for all the actions of their subordinates and all risky decisions.

A day earlier, on December 5, Troyan reported that three leaders of the structural subdivisions of Kyiv police were discharged from service. They all took part in a special operation on detaining members of the gang, who are suspected in a series of assaults on the citizens of the capital and the Kyiv region.

As reported, on December 4, 2016 at 4:00 am in the village of Kniazhychi, Brovary district, Kyiv region employees of Special Weapons and Tactics police (KORD) of Ukrainian National Police, while performing their duties, used automatic weapons against the staff of Brovary Police Department of the Main Guard Police Department, which, together with two officers of the Main Department of operational service of the National Police in Kyiv, who were also performing their duties, used automatic weapons in response. Five law-enforcement officers were killed.

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Serhiy Yarovy initiated an official investigation into the shooting in the village of Kniazhychi.
Imperial Valley News Center

World Soil Day: Celebrating the Magic Beneath

Sacramento, California - Today is World Soil Day, as recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to celebrate the importance of soil as a critical component of natural systems and a vital contributor to human well-being.

One of the primary building blocks of a successful civilization is developing a reliable food supply. In California and the United States we have achieved this spectacularly.

However, our world population continues to skyrocket towards a projected nine billion people by 2050. And our planet is getting warmer and its climate less predictable.

But the solution may be closer than we realize. It may be just below our feet: In the soil.

Soil supports our houses, roads, crops and our very lives. It silently churns microbial magic, turning carbon sources like old plants and animals into the nutrients needed to support new plant growth. When healthy, the soil ecosystem also harbors the ability to hold onto water moleculesand release them gradually, mitigating the climatic excesses of both floods and droughts.

Additionally, as soil builds organic matter it transports carbon from the air (where it is a greenhouse gas) to underground (where it is food for plants and microbes). This alchemy occurs with little attention from us. Now, however, we are working actively in California to remove excess carbon from our atmosphere while enriching soil fertility.

Farmers throughout California are using techniques such as conservation tillage, cover crops and diverse rotations to rebuild and regenerate their soil. Through these systems they are enhancing the soils microbial life which, in turn, sustains ours.

Resources are available for farmers interested in building healthier soil. The USDAs Natural Resources Conservation Service offers technical assistance as well as payments through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to share the cost of adopting healthy soil practices. The University of California and a growing number of non-profits and industry groups are also offering assistance.

In 2017 CDFA will begin rolling out its very own Healthy Soils Program, financed as part of the California Climate Investments funded with Cap-and-Trade funds. The Healthy Soils Program recognizes the climate change benefits of soil-building practices. The details of the roll-out are still being outlined and information will follow soon regarding how the public can provide input.

So a very happy World Soil Day to you! It may be just one day, but it holds bright promise for many happy and productive tomorrows.
Imperial Valley News Center

Governor Brown Hosts 85th Annual Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony

Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. and First Lady Anne Gust Brown hosted the 85th Annual Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony this evening on the West Steps of the State Capitol.

"Its that special time of the year  Christmas," said Governor Brown. "It reminds us of the time of peace, forgiveness and good times."

Governor Brown, First Lady Anne Gust Brown with twins Alex and Alan Rosales and their family lighting the Capitol Christmas Tree.

This years tree is a 60-foot-tall white fir from Latour Demonstration State Forest located near Redding in Shasta County, the fifth Capitol Christmas tree to come from a state forest managed by CAL FIRE on behalf of the public.

The tree is decorated with 900 hand-crafted ornaments made by children and adults with developmental disabilities who receive services and support from the states development centers and 21 nonprofit regional centers.

Governor Brown and First Lady Anne Gust Brown with Mariachi Puente.

This year, the Governor and First Lady Anne Gust Brown lit the Capitol Christmas tree with 7-year-old twin boys, Alex and Alan Rosales of Los Angeles. It is illuminated by approximately 10,000 ultra-low wattage LED lights.

Kitty ONeal of KFBK Radio emceed the ceremony, which also featured performances by the California Army National Guards DET 1, 40th Infantry Division Band, Brass Quintet, the Governors Own; students from the Oakland Military Institute and Oakland School for the Arts; Mariachi Puente; and St. Pauls Baptist Church Choir.

Governor Brown and First Lady Anne Gust Brown backstage at the Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting.

Photo Credit: Joe McHugh, California Highway Patrol.
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Michael Gove has attacked the Turner Prize for celebrating what he claims is the "tragic emptiness of now", and labelled the prestigious arts award as "modish crap".

This year's winner, Helen Marten, was the youngest artist on the shortlist and praised for her "exceptional contribution to comtemporary visual art".

But in a series of tweets, the former Education Secretary criticised the award and accused it of celebrating "ugliness, nihilism and narcissism".

Former Conservative Culture Minister Ed Vaizey attemped to shut down his colleague by noting that it celebrates "brilliant contemporary artists".

Gove claimed that it had nothing to do with the genius of its namesake, JMW Turner. However he did also later offer his congratulations to Marten (spelling her name wrong), but continued to suggest that art was better in the olden days.

Turner Prize-winners were among those who welcomed the announcement earlier this month that the art history A-level had been saved at the last minute.

Anish Kapoor, Cornelia Parker and Jeremy Deller celebrated the turn-around on plans set in motion by Gove to drop the subject from 2018 as part of his cull of so-called "soft" subjects.

The art history A-level was saved after an outcry from experts who argued "society had never required its insights more".

One art history teacher told The Guardian that the decision was "really sad and incredibly short-signed - and directly caused by Government interference".

Art historian Simon Schama said the act was "a big dull axe wielded by cultural pygmies".

Parker, who won the Turner Prize in 1997, told the BBC that she had studied art history "as a working-class girl, receiving free school dinners", and the it had "hugely enriched my life".
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Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci has issued a statement in response to the outrage over the infamous butter rape scene involving actors Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, insisting the violence was always in the script and that it was only the butter element that was improvised.

I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about Last Tango in Paris around the world, he said (via Variety).

Several years ago at the Cinematheque Francaise someone asked me for details on the famous butter scene.

I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use [of the butter]. That is where the misunderstanding lies.

The scene in question (viewers discretion advised):

Somebody thought, and thinks, that Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. That is false! he continued.

Maria knew everything because she had read the script, where it was all described. The only novelty was the idea of the butter.

And that, as I learned many years later, offended Maria. Not the violence that she is subjected to in the scene, which was written in the screenplay,

After a video of Bertolucci discussing the scene in 2013 resurfaced this week, Hollywood reacted with anger. Jessica Chastain accused Marlon Brando of rape, while Chris Evans said Brando and Bertolucci should be in jail.
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Since the conflict in Syria began in March 2011, the UK Government says it has managed to resettle 4,162 refugees from the war-torn country. The Government says it is on track to meet its commitment of resettling 20,000 refugees by 2020, but even that number is a drop in the ocean when you consider that nearly 5 million people have been displaced by the conflict.

That's why Amnesty International UK and Magnum Photos are launching a new photography exhibition along Londons South Bank that aims to shine a light on the realities of those uprooted by conflict in the past and present  and show that the UK is capable of doing more to aid those in need.

The exhibition, which launches Wednesday and runs until Sunday, 18 December, will feature 30 striking images that highlight the challenges refugees face on their journeys to safety, from those who faced prosecution during the Second World War more than 70 years ago, to those who have been forced to flee Syria today.

It is part of Amnestys I Welcome campaign, which calls on the UK to share more of the responsibility in responding to the Syrian refugee crisis, including by providing safe and legal routes for refugees.

Thousands of refugees wait calmly for food distribution at the Sha-alaan One camp in Jordan (Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum) (Chris Steele-Perkins / Magnum)

Photography can be a powerful way of telling a story and these photos remind us that people have been fleeing conflict and persecution throughout history, said Tom Davies, campaign manager at Amnesty International UK, in a press release. After the horrors of the Second World War, the international community made a commitment to provide sanctuary to refugees, yet its response to the current crisis has been pitiful.

 CIA director warns Donald Trump over the worst mistakes he could make with Iran, Syria and Russia

Governments are responsible for ensuring the right to asylum, and ordinary people too have a vital role to play in welcoming refugees, Davies added. Today, across the UK and further afield, the British public are going to incredible lengths to show solidarity with and welcome refugees. We want and need the same attitude from our government.

Images in the exhibition will be displayed on light boxes along the South Bank, with the earliest photographs coming from David Chim Seymours collection on child refugees in Greece in 1946, juxtaposed with Chien-Chi Changs moving photograph of a mountain of life jackets abandoned in Lesbos just earlier this year.

Life goes on for Syrian families, mostly from Aleppo, who have been placed in a refugee camp in Vasariste near the Serbian- Hungarian border (Jerome Sessini/Magnum) (Jerome Sessini / Magnum Photos)

Others include Philip Jones Griffithss 1968 image of a child running from a bombing raid in Vietnam, as well as Lorenzo Melonis more recent photograph of a Syrian family standing in front of the rubble of a place that they once called home.

Amnesty says the UK Government has failed to show effective leadership in addressing the refugee crisis. It hopes the new exhibition will serve as a reminder that the country has come to the aid of those in need in the past and should do more to rise to the challenge in the present.

 Carey Mulligan: The Syrian conflict is at crisis point

There are historical examples of the UK playing a leading role in responding to refugee crises but now, while the Government refuses to share responsibility with others for hosting refugees, leaving some of the poorest countries to accommodate the biggest numbers, more and more people are being forced into the hands of smugglers and into risking their lives on ever more dangerous journeys, Davies said.

Children run to safety during the battle for Saigon during the Vietnam War (Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum) (Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum Photos)

The year of 2016 has been declared the most dangerous year ever for refugees trying to reach Europe. The UN Refugee Agency has said as many as 4,715 migrants have drowned, suffocated or been lost at sea on crossings over the Mediterranean this past year alone.

And of those left behind, more than 250,000 Syrian people have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011, with an estimated 13.5 million, including 6 million children, still in need of humanitarian assistance.

Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Show all 10 1 /10 Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Refugee camp in Stenkovac, Macedonia Cristina Garcia Rodero / Magnum Photos Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Over 250.000 Kurds fled from Iraq after a bitter counter attack by Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq. They now live in the mountains on the Turkish border Bruno Barbey / Magnum Photos Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Five boys from Promahi in front of the refugee ship S.S Samos that evacuated children during the Civil War in Greece David Seymour / Magnum Photos Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition A family stands on what is left of their home in Syria Lorenzo Meloni/Magnum Photos Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Refugees waiting for UNICEF milk (reconstituted from powdered milk) distributed for the first time at the refugee camp in Ioannina, Greece David Seymour (Chim)/Magnum Photos Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition Chechen refugees living in neighbouring Ingushetia, Russia Thomas Dworzak/Magnum Photos Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition I Welcome - An Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition of photographs of refugee crises past and present at the South bank, London Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition I Welcome - An Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition of photographs of refugee crises past and present at the South bank, London Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition I Welcome - An Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition of photographs of refugee crises past and present at the South bank, London Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition I Welcome - An Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibition of photographs of refugee crises past and present at the South bank, London

Rather than raising the drawbridge Amnesty says the UK should share in the humanitarian responsibility to provide safe and legal routes for those in search of sanctuary.

The I Welcome photography exhibition runs from Wednesday, 7 December to Sunday, 18 December on Londons South Bank between Gabriels Wharf and the National Theatre


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Four of the largest tech companiesFacebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTubeare coming together to stop the spread of terroristic content on social media.

The plan is to create a shared database and track the digital fingerprints of accounts who share propaganda for terror networks helping them identify the content and easily remove photo or videos from their sites.

Our companies will begin sharing hashes of the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos we have removed from our services  content most likely to violate all of our respective companies content policies, the companies announced in a joint statement Monday night.

Participating companies can add hashes of terrorist images or videos that are identified on one of our platforms to the database. Other participating companies can then use those hashes to identify such content on their services, review against their respective policies and definitions, and remove matching content as appropriate.

However, the companies will not be automatically removed explicit content but each company will review the propaganda against their terms of service.

Each company will continue to apply its practice of transparency and review for any government requests, as well as retain its own appeal process for removal decisions and grievances. As part of this collaboration, we will all focus on how to involve additional companies in the future.

In January, White House officials discussed similar options with Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter representatives to prevent the spread of terror propaganda online.

"We are interested in exploring all options with you for how to deal with the growing threat of terrorists and other malicious actors using technology, including encrypted technology, to threaten our national security and public safety," a briefing document obtained by The Intercept read. "We understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to address this problem and that each of you has very different products and services that work in different ways."
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As many as 7 per cent of armed forces personnel suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and that figure is expected to rise as the full impact of a decade of war in the Middle East makes itself felt. But, while government failure to tackle the rise of PTSD among military personnel is the shame of our society, the disorder as a side effect of war is not a new thing.

The language we use to describe the experience of PTSD might be modern  it was only introduced into the medical dictionary in 1980  but ancient cultures were well versed in it. Many had rituals to help ease the ruptures experienced by those traumatised by warfare, which we could learn from today.

Coming home from war is difficult. Reintegration into civilian life, especially, is hard. The difficulty of warriors returning home from battle is an old, old story. The psychiatrist Jonathan Shay outlines the nature of this old story in his analysis of the tale of Odysseus in Homers Odyssey.

After victory at Troy, it takes Odysseus ten years to make it home and when he does he is a different man  quite literally, thanks to the disguise he wears. He is emotionless and blank in the face of his wifes distress. He mistrusts those around him and is uncomfortable in a crowd. The valid adaptations to danger, which kept Odysseus safe during wartime, have persisted into a time of safety. This is a classic experience of PTSD; Odysseus has suffered the three traumatic ruptures of self, time, and cognition.

Odysseus showed signs of PTSD upon his return (Gustav Schwab)

Three ruptures

These three ruptures characterise the experience of trauma. First, trauma ruptures a persons sense of identity. They no longer know who they are. They struggle to identify with the person they were before they experienced the trauma. They may even feel that that person is dead. In the aftermath of trauma, there is therefore a need for people to redefine themselves and their relationship with the world they used to know.

The second rupture is one of time. For many sufferers of PTSD, the past continues to invade the present in the form of repeated nightmares, flashbacks, and repeated experiences of the trauma. The sufferer of PTSD lives in the shadow of the trauma, never quite knowing when it will rear its head once again. Recovery must therefore begin in a place of bodily safety and security.

The third rupture caused by trauma is a rupture in cognition. This is characterised by a failing of words and an inability to talk about the experience that theyve had because it doesnt make any sense to them. This applies to both their ability to talk about what they experienced, as well as how they feel. Not being able to talk about it is incredibly detrimental to the recovery process.

Ritual cleansing

Ancient cultures understood better than us the need to aid warriors when they returned from war and many had rituals that helped heal these ruptures. For example, in Rome, the vestal virgins would bathe returning soldiers to purge them of the corruption of war. The Maasai warriors of East Africa had purification rites for the homecoming of their fighters. The Native Americans held sweat lodge purification rituals for returning warriors in which their stories could be told and their inner pollution could be left among the hot stones, evaporating into steam and cleansing the warrior.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there is some understanding of the need to purify soldiers after warfare, too. In the Bible, the Hebrews are instructed to purify themselves before entering back into the camp after battle. This process also found its way into Christian penances.

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In medieval warfare, all those who fought in battle were required to do penance (confess their sins, receive absolution, and make an outward expression of their repentance), even those who did not kill. Those who did kill were required to undertake extra penances. This requirement was obviously connected to the need to assuage a sense of guilt and culpability  giving relief from shame.

These ancient cultures understood something fundamental about returning soldiers and PTSD and mobilised the rituals of their cultures to support their transition and heal their traumatic ruptures. A similar effort is needed to support armed forces personnel today.

The beginning of a military career is characterised by ritual. Daily patterns, drills, uniforms, and passing out parades mark out the first few months of life in the armed forces. But coming home after war is a different story. A ritualised homecoming, drawing on the practices of faith where appropriate, might help to promote the healing of PTSD.

This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com). Karen O'Donnell is a research fellow in digital pedagogy (theology), at Durham University
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With an erratic new president on the horizon, some Americans could be forgiven to looking to the heavens for help next year.

Now a baby name trends expert predicts that some expectant parents may go a step further - and name their new-born children after heavenly bodies.

Recommended People are naming their babies after Stranger Things characters

Writing for Today, Nameberry co-founder Pamela Redmond Satran says that we can expect to see more baby names that defy convention with a trend for unique spellings, non-traditional gender identities and names that embody power.

In 2017, mythological monikers such as Thor, Persephone, Jupiter, Atlas, Pandora and Zues are set to nab the top spot alongside feminist heroine names like Ada, Eleanor, Zelda and Frida.

This isnt the first time baby names have gone all righteous on us though. Five boys were literally named God in 2015, along with 20 named Lord, 27 called Saviour, 40 baby girls named Goddess and a surprising 1500 named Messiah.

As if human or god-like names arent powerful enough, Satran also predicts that some parents will turn to the animal kingdom for inspiration.

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Expect to see a surge in names like Fox, Lynx, Tiger, Falcon and Hawk.

Its not all sweetness and light though with evil baby names making a comeback too.

Soon enough, adorable little Lucifers, Lilliths (a demon of Jewish folklore) and Kalis (the Hindu destroyer) will be dominating that classroom register.
Yatseniuk files lawsuit against blogger who wrote about his purchase of 24 villas in Miami

Yatseniuk files lawsuit against blogger who wrote about his purchase of 24 villas in Miami

KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Peoples Front party leader Arseniy Yatseniuk has filed a lawsuit to Kyiv's Solomiansky district court against blogger Oleh Torhalo who on November 30 published a blog about purchase of 24 villas in Miami (the United States) by Yatseniuk in the Obozrevatel online publication.

"I declare that I have never owned neither movable nor immovable property outside Ukraine: I do not have accounts in foreign banks. I do not have any relation to foreign companies. I am not the owner or ultimate beneficiary of companies registered outside our state," Yatseniuk wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.

He said that he is Ukrainian citizen and he has never had citizenship of another state. He did not receive the right to permanently reside at any country.

"I demand acknowledgement that this information is false and oblige the author of this fake news to deny it within 10 calendar days from the moment of the court ruling becoming effective in same manner that it was disseminated," he said.

Yatseniuk also published a copy of his appeal on the Facebook.
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In todays society both young and old increasingly find themselves living in a bubble of like-minded and similar-aged peers. This is especially true of university students who leave home at 18 to live with people of the same age  who have quite often had similar life experiences.

Given this, the decision by a Dutch nursing home to run a programme providing free rent to university students in exchange for 30 hours a month of their time  acting as neighbours with elderly residents  is unusual.

The programme has seen students in their early twenties sharing lives with residents in their eighties and nineties. As part of their volunteer agreement, the students also spend time teaching residents new skills  like how to email, use social media, Skype, and even graffiti art.

Reducing loneliness

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Behind Humanitas Deventers exchange programme is research showing that reducing loneliness and social isolation improves wellbeing and extends life expectancy in older people.

And though research on the impact on students seems yet to be explored, from my own experience of running a similar project at the University of Exeter, I know that it is overwhelmingly positive  giving young people a sense of connecting with older generations, and significantly increasing the likelihood that they will continue to volunteer after university.

Since 2011 student volunteers from the universitys English and Film departments have donated their time to bring conversation, literature, and friendship to the residents of more than 10 residential care homes across the city. In that time around 250 volunteers have reached out to more than 500 elderly residents, including many dementia sufferers.

Reading between the lines

The Care Homes Reading Project draws on the natural skill set of its target volunteer community  which includes a love of reading and an understanding of the power of literature to impact lives positively.

Research shows reading poetry with dementia sufferers  many of whom learned poetry by heart when they were younger  brings comfort and reassurance through hearing and reciting familiar verses.

Rhythm and rhyme bring a sense of order and predictability and, as this project has seen first-hand, poetry can spark memories.

As one care home manager put it, residents regain a sense of themselves as a whole person, past and present. And in one brilliant example, a 100-year-old resident found a shared play-reading session with one student volunteer revived long-buried leading-lady speeches once delivered when she was an actress.

Shared passions

Our experience in Exeter has shown that students can help to supplement the quality of care in homes by providing relief for overstretched staff. And residents typically respond with enthusiasm to the novelty of younger visitors and to the creativity students bring to their sessions.

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Residents are also encouraged to be creative by writing their own poetry. English students offer expertise in selecting and discussing appropriate literature, and show sensitivity to the emotional responses that language can trigger.

Many students find the visits often evolve into wide-ranging conversations and the discovery of other activities that bring happiness and interest to the residents. One student now not only visits a care home to read but also to hold ballet classes. And in the same home other residents have made use of students language skills, holding French and German conversation sessions.

Volunteer students look forward to their weekly visits. They find it is a space where they can share poetry and stories  away from the demands of assessments. And many have said that it reminds them why they chose to study English literature in the first place.

Students also learn how past generations read the very same poems in surprisingly different ways. They see first-hand how literature stays with us throughout life. And how the experience of shared reading helps to overcome the social and ideological disconnect between generations that plagues contemporary society.

Breaking boundaries

The moral health of a society is plainly visible in the way it treats its most vulnerable members, especially the aged. The government recently announced that universities will be required to demonstrate their commitment to enhancing social mobility by establishing or supporting schools, so why not also mobilise the resources universities offer to enhance opportunity and wellbeing at the other end of lifes spectrum?

The largest resource universities possess is the student body  a force with time, energy, few domestic responsibilities, and a desire to use their developing skills to make a positive difference in the local community.

Our reading project in care homes shows how both young and old can benefit from this type of arrangement. So just like the Dutch, it would be great if universities in the UK could also look to reduce the cost of tuition fees or accommodation in exchange for meaningful social investment to get more people young and old spending time together.

This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com). Johanna Harris is a senior lecturer in English, at the University of Exeter
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The Japanese sex problem has become so desperate that its young population are giving up on dating and are just marrying their friends.

A Government survey found 69 per cent of Japanese men and 59 per cent of Japanese women do not have a romantic partner.

One Japanese aggregator website has since been awash with stories of how people have simply got married to life-long friends.

Japan's population is expected to decrease by nearly a third come 2060 Getty (Getty)

The country has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, with just 8.4 children being born per 1,000 inhabitants over the last five years.

 Japan has a worrying number of virgins

Its population of 127m people is predicted to decrease to 87m by 2060.

The survey, carried out by the countrys National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, also reported that about 80 per cent of unmarried Japanese want to get married.

In recent weeks, people have posted stories to the aggregator website Matome Naver, telling how in one case, a colleague married their friend of 10 years.

The trend has been coined Kousai zero Nichikon: roughly translated as marrying without dating.

Japanese actress Maki Horikita married co-star Koji Yamamoto in 2015 after just a month of dating.

A column in the Joshi Spa! Magazine last month compared hunting for a marriage partner with suicide.

There is no real evidence that the kousai zero nichikon trend is taking the far eastern islands by storm.

But it draws parallels with Japans now mostly defunct omiai arranged marriage tradition, in which parents suggested partners for their adult children.

After the sexual partners survey was released earlier this year, columnist and sociologist Maki Fukasawa criticised the medias use of his own term to describe the sex problem: Herbivore men.
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More than 1bn has been wiped off from the value of spread-betting firms after the financial regulator launched a crackdown on the spread-betting market to protect inexperienced retail customers from unexpected losses.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Tuesday proposed tougher rules to help protect investors in the contract for difference (CFD) market, which includes financial spread betting, after finding that 82 per cent of customers using them lost money.

London-listed spread betters plunged by as much as 30 per cent following the announcememt.

CMC Markets, one of the biggest fallers among the larger providers, shares tanked by 29 per cent shedding about 156m of its market value.

IG Group, which holds 40 per cent of the UK financial betting market by number of active primary accounts, dropped by 29.6 per cent or the equivalent of 800m.

Playtech dropped by 6.4 per cent, losing the equivalent of 170m

Meanwhile the AIM-listed Plus500 lost about a third of its value or around 158m.

Plus500 has warned it will be significantly affected by the FCA's new rules for the spread betting industry.

In a statement to the stock exchange, the company said: The company believes that the topics covered in the [FCAs] note will have a material operational and financial impact on the UK regulated subsidiary which represents approximately 20 per cent of the group's revenues.

IG Group said that it recognised there were shortcomings in the approach to the marketing of CFDs by certain firms, often operating from outside the UK.

Certain of the FCA proposals could enhance client outcomes, it added. However, the FCA's proposals do not appear to directly apply to firms operating from outside the UK offering CFDs and binaries to clients in the UK on a cross-border services passport from another EU member state.

IG will carefully consider the implications of the FCA consultation paper.

Christopher Woolard, the FCAs executive director of strategy and competition, said: We have serious concerns that an increasing number of retail clients are trading in CFD products without an adequate understanding of the risks involved, and as a result can incur rapid, large and unexpected losses.

We are introducing stricter rules for CFD products to ensure the sector addresses the shortcomings identified, and that firms make sure that retail clients are aware of the high risks involved in trading these complex products.

Jake Green, regulation partner at the law firm Ashurst, said the clampdown by the FCA will come as a shock to the UK industry.

He told The Daily Telegraph: This is less an example of conduct regulation than product intervention, and this will come as a shock to the UK industry, which received detailed briefings from the FCA earlier in this year where this was not indicated.

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The company founder said that workers were paid less than the statutory minimum because of bottlenecks at security in an admission that could result in sanctions from HMRC. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Mitsubishi admits improper fuel tests - April 2016 Mitsubishi has admitted to using false fuel methods dating back to 1991. The scale of the scandal is only just coming to light after it was revealed in April that data was falsified in the testing of four types of cars, including two Nissan cars. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Quindell, the scandal-ridden insurance firm Quindell was once a darling of AIM but its share price fell in April 2014 when its accounting practices were attacked in a stinging research note by US short seller Gotham City. In August the group was forced to disclose that the 107 million pre-tax profit it had reported for 2013 was incorrect, and it had in fact suffered a 64million loss. 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The industry may consider that the FCAs position misunderstands the users/clients who utilise these services. Many do understand the risk (and are aware that many lose)  they do not compare the product to less riskier ones (tracker funds as an example) and moves to reduce the risk appears to miss the point of the product.
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Britain is experiencing its first lost decade of economic growth for 150 years, Mark Carney has warned.

In an extraordinary speech Monday in Liverpool, the Governor of the Bank of England called for stronger measures to confront inequality in order to stop more people turning their back on free market ideas and policies.

Recommended Theresa May in new clash with Mark Carney over Brexit

Mr Carney said it is understandable that the public had come to associate globalisation with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and striking inequalities.

He said: For free trade to benefit all requires some redistribution.

"We need to move towards more inclusive growth where everyone has a stake in globalisation."

Many people across the advanced world are "losing trust" in a system that did not "raise all boats", he added.

His speech aimed to respond to critics of low interest rates and exceptionally loose monetary policy, which include Prime Minister Theresa May, with the defence that had the Bank of England not acted, the situation would have been worse.

Mr Carney that it was wrong to argue that savers had been unfairly hit by low rates because the Bank's monetary policies since 2009 had lifted all asset prices, from house prices to stocks and shares.

The thrifty saver and the rich asset holder are often one and the same, he said, pointing to Office for National Statistics survey data showing that only 2 per cent of households have bank deposits worth more than 5,000 while also having no other significant financial assets and no house.

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Has monetary policy robbed savers to pay borrowers? Has the MPC [Monetary Policy Committee] been Robin Hood in reverse? In a word, no.

The Governor acknowledged the economy was stronger than the Bank expected after the UK voted to leave the EU but he also warned that growth was increasingly led by consumption and a falling household savings rate.

Last week, Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's chief economist, struck a similar note when he warned about Britain's widening inequality gap.

Mr Haldane also defended the Banks much-criticised monetary stimulus programme, stressing that it has delivered economic benefits to all regions of the country, not just London
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Brooke is an adult performer who only goes by her first name. Shes also a graduate who finished at top of her class and wanted to be a lawyer. But Brooke was too scared to try and pass the bar because of a 'morality' clause in California law she worried would never allow a porn actress to work, however much she spent on her education. The porn star as academically accomplished and ambitious is a mental picture rarely painted in the minds of many.

Who they are, what their jobs are like and what they understand about the industry is overshadowed by stigma, misconceptions and the polarising opinions fostered by porn. This stigma forces Brooke to spend thousands on privately educating her child at a school where she doesn't risk being expelled because of her mothers profession - after having first moved schools.

Her experience highlights an important issue with how adult actors are forced to carry the burden of porn's stigma well after leaving the industry.

Brooke had a six-year break from making porn. In that time she had a child, graduated from university and started studying at graduate school. Now she is back in adult films and working to develop a personal brand using her social media platforms.

Here, in her own words, she explains what it is like to be an adult actor.

Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself Show all 7 1 /7 Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523167.jpg Paul Hackett Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523182.jpg Paul Hackett Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523181.jpg Paul Hackett Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523183.jpg Paul Hackett Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523184.jpg Paul Hackett Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523185.jpg Paul Hackett Getting in on the act: How the porn industry intends to reinvent itself 5523186.jpg Paul Hackett

Why did you decide to work in porn?

You know, that is the million dollar question. I dont really have a solid answer for that. I came from a small town in California when I was 18 years old, living with my parents, and I just wanted freedom. And somehow I stumbled into this business. In 2001, I saw an advert in a newspaper when I was reading the ad section. There was just this small black and white ad that said nude model needed, and I was like Ok, thats something different. So, I went down there and met the people. It was in a crummy building with three men and three officers with huge books of photos of girls. They were the girls who had been around for 30 or 40 years or something. I took some polaroids for them and then a few days later they just called me and I had all this work booked. When I went and shot my first scene, I thought to myself, what am I doing? I left for five or six months and then I came back and went full force. Ive never looked back.

How old were you when you did your first scene?

18. I think too young, personally.

Did you find some of the decisions you made and things that you agreed to do at that time were affected by how young you were?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I didnt have the ability to understand the consequences of my actions, no matter if they were positive or negative because I was so young.

What was the turning point that made you think, actually, Im not sure about this?

Im not sure. Between 18 to 25 I was just kind of in a phase of denial. I was working so hard and I worked so many days and months that it was just this routine that I knew. Inside the bubble was completely normal, but if you take yourself outside of the bubble and go into normal society, it was extremely negative. So I just stayed in the bubble.

 We need to talk about porn

To consume porn is normal, but to appear in it is completely taboo. Is that something you experienced yourself?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I am now just coming back from a break. I left in 2010, so I worked from 2001 to 2010 non-stop without taking a break. Which is a long time. I never shot anal or gangbangs, I stayed very vanilla. And to work such a long time was very abnormal. Then I left at 26 or something and thats when I realised, wow there are a lot of people who just dont get it. And this is America, its a very American thing. Its not a European thing, because when I travelled and shot in different countries, in Europe, in Japan, in Turkey, in London, its a very different environment than here. We are just so much more shameful in the United States when it comes to women and our bodies and what we can do.

Brooke

Have you found that in your social situations, and the people around you?

Yeah, people dont get it. There is a lot of intrigue surrounding it, so people always want to get to know you, ask you questions and associate themselves with you. But then when it comes to standing up for you or defending you, they cant do that. They wont.

What about relationships with family?

Its kind of the same thing, they didnt really understand. I mean, Im closer to my family now because I have been on this break, but Ive just returned to shooting and Im re-launching my website now because Ive taken six years off and I had a child. So now I am raising a daughter who just turned four a few months ago. Its interesting, the dynamic of how I am raising her [and showing her] how to be proud of her body.

During my break, not only did I have a kid but I went and got my Bachelors degree in psychology and now I am going to graduate school. Ive gotten to do a lot of things that have helped me grow and process all the years of working in that industry.

Here I was, able to take my savings, put it into law school, pass the bar, and then California State could be like well, because you were included in porn we dont see you. They call it moral character.

I thought I was doing everything right and fine, and then everyone around me thought I was doing everything really bad. So its weird to be young and trying to run a business whilst not being able to get guidance for that business, because people arent supportive. My parents  its an interesting dynamic, we just dont speak about it. It's so sick, you just sweep it under the rug and dont talk about it.

So how did they feel when you said you were going to come back to it?

They hated it. Very upset. They think its the biggest mistake of my life. Look, I love them and bless their hearts, but thats so silly. Any working mum who left to have a baby would want to go back to her work. It's like a natural, human-nature thing to do. So I left, I went to college, now I am going to graduate school, I just had a baby - but really I just miss working. Thats what I learned from all of that. I miss the freedom. I miss being able to express my artistic energy through porn. I mean, I like sex.

Did you always think you would go back [to making porn]?

I didnt put anything on it, I literally just woke up one day and said, ok I dont want to do this anymore, so I called up my agent and cancelled everything I had booked and never went back to it. There wasnt social media at the time as it was just starting out so I didnt post anything. I just kept quiet. I just didnt pay attention to it, I didnt watch or follow it even though a lot of my friends were still in the business. I was in a different place in my life.

Did you stay in touch with your friends [in the industry] or did you completely detach yourself from it?

Some of them Ive stayed in touch with, but others I have completely removed. Because there is a lot of growth when youre in that environment, because most people just stay within the bubble. So to step out, and grow a little bit, and then to come back  its interesting.

I just shot my first scene for Zero Tolerance last week and I had so much fun, and I was so horny. And I was like, is this because I am 32 now? Is this because I am doing this of my own free will with no guilt or shame?

So do you feel that attitudes have changed a little bit?

Oh yeah. I feel no guilt and no shame. Im definitely standing on my own two feet. I think all those years before, I would just come, work, leave, deny deny deny. And now it's like you are proud so it feels so much better doing what you want to do.

So its like youve got more control over yourself/career/circumstances?

Yeah, absolutely. I have no agent now so that means I really get to talk to the directors and owners myself and hear their ideas and say, yeah that idea is great, but it simply wont work for me. Rather than an agent putting me on set without really knowing what you are doing until the morning that you are there. This way I can prepare, I can have wardrobes specialised for the stuff, I can have all the things you would need an agent to give you; mine, for all those years, never gave me the support that I needed to ensure I did the best that I could.

There are girls like me who like to be in the sex business and have it as an actual career - those people shouldnt be going to jail.

Weve seen a few interviews with young girls who cycle out of the industry quite fast, and one of the biggest problems they were saying they had was they were being put on set without being told what the scene they had was. And then being asked to do things they didn't want to do. Was this something you experienced?

Erm, no. Yes I have had the pressure to do something that I dont want to do and that awkward moment not knowing what to do. But Ive always had such a strong personality and a very stern sense of no. Im sure there are things Ive done that I didnt really want to do, like doing anal, but Ive never broke my boundaries. Ive only ever done what I felt would feel good while doing it. I didnt want to be having to take drugs in order to get out of my mind to do my work, I wanted to be able to just do my work.

Was that something you saw that girls were doing?

I mean, I think we all enjoy a good party. I think that everybodys job is stressful and everybody likes to let loose here and there. And every once in a while, its fine to go to work and party and have fun after work. Its just that I believe in moderation. I believe in being able to control it.

Brooke

I shot my scene on Friday and today is Monday and I am still sore. My whole body is sore. And my husband was like, How many years has it been since you shot a scene? You go to the gym and you work out but your body hasnt been through standing in heels for an hour and a half non-stop'.

That must be really tough on your body as well.

Yeah, well, Im still sore. Its been four days. But its a good sore, I have a refreshed attitude right now seeing as Ive been gone for six years now. So everything is just a positive.

I interviewed Jessica Drake and shes a star who has been in the industry for 15 years. Do you think it is something you can realistically do for a long time?

I dont think so. I think you can do scenes as long as you have a sex drive and want to f**k. Realistically, women [have a sex drive] well into their 60s, 70s and 80s. I just learned that in college, that as you get older there is this presumption that your sex drive goes down, but really it appears that thats not the case for women. I consider it a safe environment if you are using your brain to make your decisions and you are not driven by money or somebody else. I think its great, I think I can see myself associated with it forever. I dont think, me personally, that I could be doing it forever. I want to do more, I want to take my brand further. Part of the issue I had was that I worked for all these years, but because I was in such a state of denial and I tried to keep it so quiet for the people around me that werent really affiliated with the business, I never really got to have my own fan base. And now with social media, I really want to do other things. So I think the scene is coming off a great relaunching pad.

I also really want to get into the prostitution problem we have in the United States. I want to get more into advocacy of legalising things that should not be illegal - for consenting willing adults of course. Im not talking about sex trafficking, Im talking about the elitist side to prostitution.

There are girls like me who like to be in the sex business and have it as an actual career - those people shouldnt be going to jail. Theyre paying their taxes, they are normal human citizens. I think there are a lot of things that I would like to have a voice on, and go and stand for. I think theres a lot of performers that do some stuff, but theres a lot of us that don't do some stuff that we really should. And I think that will help legitimise the business too; its this big, billion dollar business but yet we dont take it so seriously. Its really weird.

What do you think your plan will be when you do eventually stop performing? What do you see yourself doing afterwards? I feel something that is quite difficult for female adult actresses is transitioning into something a lot more mainstream.

Absolutely. When I left and went to school, I said I wanted to be lawyer. Law was something that I always wanted to do. I studied for and took the L-Sat. I did decent on the L-Sat and everyone was blown away, they didnt ever think that I could. They were thinking, how is this possible that shes going to go to law school? But then I found out that the State of California might never actually grant me my attorney licence based on [my work in porn]. Here I was, able to take my savings, put it into law school, pass the bar, and then California State could be like well, because you were included in porn we dont see you. They call it moral character. It is a huge spectrum, and they can select anything on that spectrum. And a few of my attorney friends were like its your choice, its a risk because you would have to invest two to three years of school and a lot of money  it costs about $100,000 to go to law school in America, so stupid  so I decided that a Bachelors was a safer bet because I could turn that into anything. So, that is definitely one of the consequences of the industry. There I was at 18, wanting to go and make money and not listen to my parents. But then I get to 27, and despite being told that I am smart enough, you cant. Its like a scarlet letter, you already have the scarlet A, and its like, this is ludicrous. Why are you labelling me when you dont even know what I am capable of?

So do you think that women should be allowed to be in porn when they are only 18? Or do you think that they should be a little bit older?

I think they should be older. I think 25 is a good age. I think, as a woman, between 18 and 25 you are just crazy. I know I was. I used to think that there has got to be something wrong with me. As I was going through college later on, I was like why was I that f**king crazy? But then I learned through school its your emotions and your hormones. You are learning so much and you have so much driving your passions as a female. We are so rebellious and so curious and so smart, and we are always a few steps ahead of everyone else around us.

I just think that its too young because you dont know what you are getting yourself into. I mean, it doesnt always cause a lot of harm. Im fine, I went through therapy, I went to college. Im a happy individual. I dont cry myself to sleep, I love the business when it made me who I am. It built my confidence as a female. I entered that business not knowing who I am, and I left the business and came back to it knowing exactly who I am. So, I think that is very powerful.

I had never heard of the law thing, and I am really surprised by that. I think its even more crazy when you look into how many people in America, and around the world, consume porn.

But nobody will speak about it. Its so weird. Its so taboo.

Do you think its ever going to change?

I mean, I hope so. I hope the way that reality TV has taken off in America, in the way that we are desensitising everybody to stupidity.

And there was that naked selfie Kim Kardashian took. Many people were highly critical of it, but there were also many people who defended her right as a woman to be in control of her sexuality. Was it something you were quite happy to see?

Yes, absolutely. Its sad to see the women that are still arguing, you dont have to do that to get ahead, when the point is we know that already. Didnt I just prove that to you all by leaving the industry and going to college and wanting to go to law school and then still choosing to go back to the business that I do not need to get ahead? Im choosing [to working in porn] because I want to, because I only have one life and I dont want to do the same thing for 50 years. I want to do 50 things. I want to look back at all the things I have done, not hurry up to work my ass off and work 60 hours a week to drive the same car and to live in the same house and do the same thing for 30 years. To pay for a pension and to have this mediocre life. F**k that. You might as well be a little minion. That is worse than death, that kind of life.

Do you think that has always been your motivation?

Absolutely. And I think I must have gotten it from my parents somewhere. Somewhere in there, they are hippies. I hope before their death bed that they relax a little bit. They are so high-strung and conservative and thats because they are in this working society and I think they know the perception.

I think it is interesting how it changes by generation. Youre a mother. Do you hope that by the time your daughter is grown up that, [after] what you do and what you have done, she will be in a society far more accepting? So that it doesnt affect her?

I hope so, I really hope so, but then you have Donald Trump running for President. [This interview was conducted while he was campaigning for the Republican nomination] So, we are not there yet. Maybe when she is in her teens and her twenties things will start to loosen up. But I dont think we are there yet. I think we want to be there, I think we are trying to be there, but we have to get there educationally. Right now we are just there for the wow factor, trying to get everybodys attention, but its for the wrong purpose.

We need to do it from an educational purpose; so to our children we need to be more like ok we know you are out there f**king and wanting to have sex. Lets start talking to them about babies, and where they come from. Ive been showing my kid videos of birth. It just happened one day when she asked where do babies come from? and I was like this ends now. I am not going to make up some stupid story, but I am going to educate my child and she can see it with what she will, and as she gets older she can take more and more from it. And hopefully my desensitisation to this taboo thing wont be so taboo, and then she wont be so curious, and then she will be able to solve her own wants and needs by herself. Rather than seeking the validation from everyone else.

So have you spoken to her quite a bit about your career and what you do?

No, I havent talked to her about me. She just recently asked what I did before I had her and I just said I was a model and an actress. I am more worried about her getting to school and repeating something out of context and there being an issue. We pay for her to go to her a private school for a reason.

So you would never send her to a public school?

I would never. I couldnt subject her to it because I wouldnt know how the children would react to it in this day and age with technology. The kids are learning things so much faster so she would find something out from somebody else before she would me in that kind of environment.

Have you spoken to the school about your concerns?

No, they havent approached me about it yet.

Do you think youll approach them?

I think I will eventually. I didnt have to think about it until now as I am going back to work, and knowing I want to do some real work and put my name on things. So if Im going to be so vocal, I kind of have to go to them and warn them. I think I owe them that respect seeing as they are taking care of my child.

Its a studio school so a lot of the kids that go there have parents who are actors and actresses. We are probably the poorest people there, to put it in perspective. I pay more per year for her to go to this private school than I did for my college education. Its crazy. And I went to a state university, I couldnt even imagine going private. We definitely wouldnt be able to afford to put both me and her through our education.

How old are you?

32. To me this is like prime; its the best time.

I know that Lisa Ann retired around 40, so is that the general age?

I dont know because Julia Anna is performing again. I havent seen Jessica Drake in a long time either and shes older, and Jessica James  shes in her late thirties.

What I do want to ask you about, that I find quite interesting, is that you have come back at a time where it seems to be getting harder and harder for women to make a living out of porn. Is it possible? Can you be financially stable?

I dont know, I hope so. I definitely saw that it was getting harder, but I never really did anything about the brand. Because I never really saw myself as a brand. But I went, worked, supported the lifestyle I wanted, and just got lucky enough to save some of my money. But had I not, I would have had nine years of nothing. I had nobody around me saying you got something going on here [so] lets think about the next step.

A lot of people had said, well I hope you are not coming back for the money, and Im not. I dont want money to be driving me. I want my passion, how I feel and my body to be driving me. I just want to be able to break that third wall and be with my fans.

Ive noticed that a lot of actresses, in order to make their careers last longer, are using social media to build a personal brand.

Yeah, its definitely a new thing, social media. I have like a bittersweet relationship with social media; Im really good with Twitter, but I dont feel like I have a grip on Instagram because Im like, who am I? Who is my character on Instagram? Its not like my real life because everything is edited. I dont vocally say how I feel because thats made for Twitter  Instagram is just for pictures. I dont want to write a caption, I just want to post a picture. The whole thing is weird. So I think I am better with blogging and my website.

I hope I can drive my art through my website, where I can create scenes and ask my fans what they think I havent shot and what they want to see. Because I have shot so much stuff. During my break, I watched a lot of my porn and I was mortified. I would sit next to my husband and cry. Just because I would sit there and ask, who is that girl right there? Shes not present, she doesnt want to be there, is it like the third scene of the day or something?

Did you feel you like you had people on set looking out for you, [or] asking if you were ok or if you needed a break?

Yeah you did. If I needed my agent bad enough, he would show up. If I called him up and asked him to come because I didnt feel comfortable, he would come and protect me. But you also need protection from him. And that was the double-edged sword.

And this is one thing we are increasingly reading about. Because it is becoming harder to make money, the demands are higher, so they want more and more. The agent is taking a cut as well. So its in their interest to make you do these things that you might not want to do. Did you find yourself stuck between that?

Yeah, sure. There were, of course, times where I found myself not wanting to work, and my agent would insist that I did. But for a woman, thats like f**k you. What do you mean go to work? F**k you, I will kick you in your face. Thats how it would make you feel. And then you would get angry and get into fights. And thats what I mean when I talk about age, thats why you shouldnt be that young when entering the industry because you dont know how to comprehend situations properly. Because, up until a point, your agent does have a point and he does have say, and yes he does work for you, but he is also there to keep you on your toes. Because you do need to go to work because if you dont, you become irrelevant. The fact he kept me working for nine to 10 years without upping my anti once, when every couple of years I was raising my rate, so he did something. We just werent eye to eye.

[My return to the industry] is going to be quite quick; Im going to do scenes for a year or two, going to get my feet wet and then head over to the advocacy. So my voice can be heard and we can help other people, because thats really what we need to do in society. I want people to start accepting and respecting our business, not just using it for their own pleasure.

There are so many girls that have been in the business and left and hate the business; there are so many girls that have been in the business and left and loved the business; there are so many girls that have been in the business and left and are now coming back. For me, I think there should be an age increase. I think 18 is too young to make any sort of decision  I think 18 is too young to go to war. I think its too young to buy cigarettes.

So thats your main takeaway from the business?

Yeah, thats my main thing. Other than that, it's fine. I think there are things that can be harmful, sure, but I think there are things that can be harmful in any business.

Additional reporting by Izzy Lyons
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Melania Trump is finding the choice of designers available to her rapidly diminishing. The former model no doubt expected that her common ground with fashion houses and her new standing as the wife of the President-elect would see designers rushing to dress her.

But the opposite has been the case.

Americas next First Lady has been told by Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and Sophie Theallet in unequivocal terms that their doors are firmly closed to her. Designers Phillip Lim, Derek Lam and Joseph Altuzarra have also vocalised their objections to dressing her.

However, renowned French designer Jean Paul Gaultier has said he would be happy to dress Ms Trump, insisting the political should be separated from the sartorial in fashion.

If you have to be truly political, there are probably a few people you can dress, Gautier, who is known for his seminal haute couture collections, told the Press Association at the British Fashion Awards. She dresses very well by herself, I have nothing bad to say against her, it's not a question of politics.

Jean Paul Gaultier poses with a metre high mohican in the Punk Cancan section of 'The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk' at the Barbican Art Gallery in London

She was better dressed than Hillary (Clinton), when she went to vote she was in her camel coat and white dress and was beautiful. I don't know who advises her or maybe it's herself, but if she asked me to dress her, why not? Definitely. It's not my objective but why not?

Jacobs said he had "no interest" in dressing Ms Trump while American designer Ford explained he could not dress someone who does not reflect him.

I was asked to dress her quite a few years ago and I declined. Shes not necessarily my image, Ford, who dressed Michelle Obama once in 2011, told The View on Wednesday.

Other than the fact that I am a democrat, I voted for Hillary and Im very sad and disappointed that shes not in office, even if Hillary had won she shouldnt be wearing my clothes, theyre too expensive. I dont mean that in a bad way and theyre not artificially expensive, its how much it costs to make these things. I think [the First Lady has] to relate to anybody.

Michelle I dressed once when she was going to Buckingham Palace and having dinner with the Queen, and that I thought was appropriate. And it was an honour to dress her.

Thallet detailed her refusal to dress Ms Trump more fully in an open letter explaining the clothing brand favoured by Ms Obama rejects discrimination and prejudice.

Thallet's stance was also more personal: as an immigrant, she said she was blessed with the opportunity to work in the US.

The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by. I encourage my fellow designers to do the same. Integrity is our only true currency.
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PewDiePie is the highest-paid YouTuber for the second year in a row, according to Forbes.

Felix Kjellberg made a name for himself playing video games on camera under the name PewDiePie. Kjellberg has 50 million subscribers and has earned $15 million (11.8 million) over the past year, almost double the figure earned by Roman Atwood, who came second on the list.

Bur Kjellberg's YouTube future is currently up in the air after the Swedish star became embroiled in a row with the very video sharing platform which made him a star. Over the weekend, he suggested he would be deleting his channel when he hits 50 million subscribers, yet on Monday claimed YouTube had listened to his concerns.

Felix Kjellberg aka PewDiePie (Getty)

Atwood earned $8million in the 12 months ending in June, 2016. Forbes estimates his income has grown by 70 per cent since last year partly thanks to an increase in viewers, a book deal and an online store.

The highest-paid female YouTuber on the list is Lilly Singh  a Canadian comedian with over 10 million subscribers  who earned $7.5million last year, some of her revenue owing to the creation of her own products including a lipstick with Smashbox cosmetics.

Two other women to make the list include baking aficionado Rosanna Pansino, who comes in at fifth place with $6 million and Colleen Ballinger, who performs under the alter ego Miranda Sings. Ballinger was placed tenth on the list after earning $5million last year thanks to her stand-up tour, memoir and new Netflix series.

One of the most well-known YouTubers on the list is Tyler Oakley who, since finding fame on YouTube, has also become a television presenter and prominent LGBT activist. He recently signed a deal with Ellen DeGeneres production company which will see him collaborate on digital projects. Last year he earned $6 million after taking part in a world tour and releasing a book of personal essays.

All in all, the list also reveals YouTubers are getting richer. The combined earnings of all ten vloggers are up 23 per cent on last year.

 Forbes' rich list reveals world's highest-paid actors

Forbes calculate YouTubers earnings (pre-tax and management fees) by estimates based on data from Nielsen, IMDB and interviews with agents, managers, lawyers, insiders and YouTubers themselves.
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Poland's Supreme Court has upheld its refusal to extradite Roman Polanski to America if he enters the country.

The Rosemary's Baby director, who lives in Paris, is wanted in the US over historic child sex conviction. He pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 and served 42 days in prison after accepting a plea bargain. Polanski, 83, fled the US for Britain and then France a year later over fears the judge hearing his case could overrule the plea bargain and he could be imprisoned again.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

Polanski has a flat in Krakow, in Poland, and holds Polish and French citizenship. The US made an extradition request after he was spotted in Warsaw in 2014.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Prominent fashion blogger Susie Bubble has announced her boyfriend of ten years Steve Salter is missing.

Bubble, who started the well-known blog Style Bubble in 2006, issued a plea for help in locating Salter on Twitter and Instagram. She said she last saw Salter, who is a digital editor at i-D magazine, at 10am on Monday morning when he set off for work from Seven Sisters in London.

The blogger, whose real name is Susanna Lau, said Salter did not show up for work and his phone is switched off. She is currently eight months pregnant.

Salter said she has filed a missing persons report with the police.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

He was in a completely normal state of mind when we last spoke yesterday morning and we were due to go to the #FashionAwards together. Lau wrote on Instagram.

I realise it has not been a long length of time to be missing but if you know Steve, him disappearing like this is completely uncharacteristic. I along with his family and friends are very very worried about him.

"Some of you will know that I'm eight months pregnant and I'm trying to stay as calm as I can, so if anybody has seen him or knows of his whereabouts please please please get in touch.

Lau said someone matching Salters description had been spotted crossing Waterloo Bridge walking on the Strand towards Trafalgar Square at approximately 12 noon. She also described and shared photos of the exact clothing he had been wearing when he had left.

"I know you think my missing boyfriend case is low priority but please try and help me dig deeper as another night approaches," she wrote today on Twitter.

I know it's protocol but finding it quite irritating that banks or phone companies won't allow me to access any tidbits of useful information concerning Steve Salters movements without police intervention  Waiting like this is torture".

Lau is a respected fashion blogger and followers of Style Bubble include Christopher Kane and Nanette Lepore.

Lau and the Metropolitan Police did not immediately respond to request for comment.

A missing person can be reported by calling the number 116000 or emailing 1116000@missingpeople.org.uk
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Trevor Noah has issued many scathing rebukes of Donald Trump but his comparison of Trumps America to the apartheid system holds a personal resonance and significance that many of his other dressing-downs do not.

Born in the townships of Johannesburg in South Africa, The Daily Show show host experienced the Apartheid first-hand. After all, his parents relationship was illegal at the time of his birth and he could not walk openly with either of his parents. Ultimately born a crime, as a child he often fell between the cracks of ethnic boundaries.

The 32-year-old comedian has now suggested that there are some parallels between the billionaire tycoons ferocious and divisive presidential campaign and the system of Apartheid. Noah argued Mr Trump has capitalised on and fuelled already existing divisions in society as a divided populace is far easier to rule.

This has never been more apparent than during Donald J Trumps campaign for the presidency, Noah wrote in a column for The New York Times. With his flagrant misogyny and racist appeals to fearful voters, Mr Trump succeeded in dividing an electorate already primed to turn against itself.

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

The past year has been so polarising and noxious that even I find myself getting caught up in the extreme grandstanding and vitriol, he added. But with extremes come deadlock and the death of progress. Instead of speaking in measured tones about what unites us, we are screaming at each other about what divides us - which is exactly what authoritarian figures like Mr Trump want: Divided people are easier to rule. That was, after all, the whole point of apartheid.

Noah called for unity and argued Mr Trumps candidacy shrouded the fact most American citizens had similar aspirations. His embittering candidacy obscured the fact that the vast majority of Americans, both Republican and Democrat, wanted many of the same things: good jobs, decent homes, access to opportunity and, above all, respect, he said.

Noah also explored the differences between comedy in South Africa and the US. He said while in his home country it brings people together, in America it pulls the country apart.

Noah had a big act to follow after he took Jon Stewarts place on The Daily Show but has speedily found his feet. While overall ratings have dropped, he has boosted the shows popularity among the 18-34 millennial bracket - a highly regarded demographic among advertisers.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has been attending a congress of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) headed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the official website of Klitschko's UDAR party says.

Guests from CDU partner parties are also present at the congress meeting in the German city of Essen, namely President of the European People's Party Joseph Daul, Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs Elmar Brok and ex-president of the European Parliament, Chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Hans-Gert Poettering.

This year's congress is held under the motto "Our Values - Our Future."

"At the congress meeting today, Merkel is to be reelected chair of the party for the ninth time and nominated as CDU candidate for the post of Chancellor of Germany. Parliamentary elections in Germany are scheduled for October next year," the posting on the website says.
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A 101-year-old man facing more than 30 historical child sex offences has become the oldest defendant in British legal history.

Ralph Clarke is accused of carrying out the acts in a workshop and the cab of his lorry between 1974 and 1983

Appearing at Birmingham Crown Court, the former lorry driver denies 17 charges of indecent assault, 12 offences of indecency with a child and two attempted serious sexual offences.

According to the prosecutor Miranda Moore QC, Clarke allegedly committing the offences against two girls and a boy, one as young as seven.

Ms Moore stated at the start of the two-week trial, two of Clarke's alleged victims went into a police station to make a complaint about him.

She told the jury: What they were to tell the police was a history of a catalogue of serious sexual abuse.

When Clarke was questioned by police last December, the court heard, he made limited admissions to officers.

Ms Moore said: The defendant was interviewed by the police in this case. He agreed some of the things you are going to hear about did in fact happen.

His first words were 'Who has complained?'

Concluding her opening speech, Miss Moore stressed age is no barrier to a defendant being tried as long as the trial is fair and the evidence is clear.

Speaking to the jury before the trial began, Judge Richard Bond said the defendant's age required unique conditions.

Judge Bond is restricting sitting hours with evidence being heard between 9:30am and 1:30am.

 Paedophile Richard Huckle given 22 life sentences

He told the jury an intermediary would be used by Clarke due to the fact the 101-year-old is hard of hearing.

Judge Bond said: There will be occasions during the trial when the defendant will speak, possibly quite loudly, to the intermediary, who is likely to speak quite loudly back to him.

The reason for this is that Mr Clarke, not surprisingly at the age of 101, is hard of hearing.

I invite, in fact I direct you, to ignore any such communications between Mr Clarke and the intermediary - or with his barrister.

The reason for that is that those communications are normally private but you are bound to hear them in this case for obvious reasons.

The trial continues.
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A Chinese company has bought the pub where former Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping famously shared a friendly pint.

Investment group SinoFortone purchased The Plough at Cadsden, the village pub in Buckinghamshire where Mr Cameron entertained his guest in October 2015, for an undisclosed fee.

The then Prime Minister and Mr Xi chatted over fish and chips and pints of Greene King IPA at the pub, which is a few minutes away from the prime ministers official countryside residence at Chequers.

After the visit the pubs landlord, Steve Hollings, claimed The Plough had become the most famous pub in the world and it has now become an unlikely tourist destination for Chinese visitors to the UK.

Peter Zhang, managing director of SinoFortone Investment, said: "The English pub concept is growing very fast in China and it's the best way culturally to link people from different countries and build friendships."

The Plough was sold through property company Christie and Co. Neil Morgan, managing director of pubs for the firm, said: "We are really pleased to have completed the sale of the Plough to SinoFortune Investment.

"The pub became famous in Chinese circles following the visit of President Xi Jinping, and it has become quite a tourist attraction for Chinese visitors since."

David Cameron goes for a pint with Xi Jinping Show all 4 1 /4 David Cameron goes for a pint with Xi Jinping David Cameron goes for a pint with Xi Jinping Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and China's President Xi Jinping leave The Plough at Cadsden pub in Cadsden Reuters David Cameron goes for a pint with Xi Jinping British Prime Minister David Cameron drinks a pint with Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) at a pub near Chequers, Buckinghamshire David Cameron goes for a pint with Xi Jinping Prime Minister David Cameron drinks a pint with Chinese President Xi Jinping at The Plough Inn at Cadsden in Princes Risborough, near to Cameron's country retreat at Chequers David Cameron goes for a pint with Xi Jinping Xi-Jinping-pub Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, drinks beer with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at a pub in Princess Risborough, near Chequers

The Ploughs proximity to Chequers means it has been a frequent destination for British politicians during their country retreats. Former Prime Minister Edward Heath was known to be a visitor, while the pub also claims to regularly host a variety of local celebrities from the world of film, television and the music industry. The location has also featured in ITV series Midsomer Murders.

Following the visit of the Chinese president, Mr Hollings said Mr Xi had sent him an email thanking him, and saying that he enjoyed the meal and drink in the pub.

SinoFortone specialises in investing in infrastructure, energy, education, food and beverages and is involved in the new London Paramount theme park development and the planned Crossrail 2 train line through London, as well as new metro systems in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
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Nightclubs in Preston are to offer free drug testing to people who want to know if their Class A substances are pure.

The walk-in booths, run by a charity, will aim to reduce drug-related deaths by checking cocaine and MDMA are not adulterated or highly potent.

Lancashire police have reportedly said they are backing the scheme, which will operate in the city centre on Friday and Saturday nights from the beginning of next year.

Volunteers operating out of a caravan will not handle the drugs directly and any substances tested will be destroyed afterwards, The Sunday Times reported, in order to ensure the operation is legal.

Users will not be required to give their names, and will not face repercussions for possessing an illegal substance. Police have agreed not to target anyone using the booths and are reported to be "most supportive" of the scheme by the organisation running it.

Critics, however, have said the project could normalise drug-taking and emphasised that no drugs are ever truly safe.

 Fabric nightclub to reopen

Some argue police are encouraging drug use and have said the move breaks the law.

I am staggered this is being contemplated, Professor Neil McKeganey, founder of the Centre for Substance Use Research at Glasgow University, told the newspaper. The police are advocating a view which one would not unfairly describe as facilitating drug use.

By implication the green light has been given by the authorities to consumption. Its hard to see how this isnt an absolute breach of our current drugs laws.

But when some music festivals ran a similar service last summer it was considered a big success, with about one in five of 300 people who used the service not taking the drugs after they were tested.

Fiona Measham, professor of criminology at Durham University and co-director of the Loop, the charity running the scheme, said: Its a very new service and some people might see it as quite radical, but its focusing on harm reduction.

The National Police Chiefs Council has reportedly said the service could be useful but had not been fully endorsed for national implementation.

The service will use sophisticated laser equipment that can reveal any drugs content in minutes and is described as a pragmatic response to drug problems in clubs that neither encourages or condones the use of illegal substances.

Drug deaths are currently at an all-time high and are continuing to rise, data suggests.

World's 10 deadliest street drugs Show all 10 1 /10 World's 10 deadliest street drugs World's 10 deadliest street drugs Whoonga Whoonga is a combination of antiretroviral drugs, used to treat HIV, and various cutting agents such as detergents and poisons. The drug is widely available in South Africa due to South Africas high rate of HIV sufferers, and is believed to be popular due to how cheap it is when compared to prescribed antiretrovirals. The drug is highly addictive and can cause major health issues such as internal bleeding, stomach ulcers and ultimately death Getty World's 10 deadliest street drugs Scopolamine Scopolamine is a derivative from the nightshade plant found in the Northern Indian region of South America (Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela). It is generally found in a refined powder form, but can also be found as a tea. The drug is more often used by criminals due its high toxicity level (one gram is believed to be able to kill up to 20 people) making it a strong poison. However, it is also believed that the drug is blown into the faces of unexpecting victims, later causing them to lose all sense of self-control and becoming incapable of forming memories during the time they are under the influence of the drug. This tactic has reportedly been used by gangs in Colombia where there have been reports of people using scopolamine as way to convince victims to rob their own homes World's 10 deadliest street drugs Heroin Founded in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, heroin is one of the worlds oldest drugs. Originally it was prescribed as a strong painkiller used to treat chronic pain and physical trauma. However in 1971 it was made illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Since then it has become one of the most destructive substances in the world, tearing apart communities and destroying families. The side effects of heroin include inflammation of the gums, cold sweats, a weak immune system, muscular weakness and insomnia. It can also damage blood vessels which can later cause gangrene if left untreated World's 10 deadliest street drugs Crack cocaine Crack cocaine first came about in the 1980s when cocaine became a widespread commodity within the drug trafficking world. Originally cocaine would have attracted a high price tag due to its rarity and difficulty to produce, but once it became more widespread the price dropped significantly. This resulted in drug dealers forming their cocaine into rock like shapes by using baking soda as a way of distilling the powder down into rock form. People were doing this because it allowed for them to sell cocaine at a lower quantity and to a higher number of people. The side effects of crack cocaine include liver, kidney and lung damage, as well as permanent damage to blood vessels, which can often lead to heart attacks, strokes, and ultimately death World's 10 deadliest street drugs Crystal meth Not just famous because of a certain Walter H White, but also because it is one of the most destructive drugs in the world. First developed in 1887, it became widely used during the Second World War when both sides would give it to their troops to keep them awake. It is also believed that the Japanese gave it to their Kamikaze pilots before their suicide missions. After the war crystal meth was prescribed as a diet aid and remained legal until the 1970s. Since then it has fallen into the hands of Mexican gangs and has become a worldwide phenomenon, spreading throughout Europe and Asia. The effects of crystal meth are devastating. In the short-term users will become sleep depraved and anxious, and in the long-term it will cause their flesh to sink, as well as brain damage and damage of the blood vessels World's 10 deadliest street drugs AH-7921 AH-7921 is a synthetic opioid that was previously available to legally purchase online from vendors until it became a Class A in January 2015. The drug is believed to have 80% of the potency of morphine, and became known as the legal heroin. While there has only been one death related to AH-7921 in the UK, it is believed to be highly dangerous and capable of causing respiratory arrest and gangrene World's 10 deadliest street drugs Flakka Flakka is a stimulant with a similar chemical make-up to the amphetamine-like drug found in bath salts. While the drug was originally marketed as a legal high alternative to ecstasy, the effects are significantly different. The user will feel an elevated heart rate, enhanced emotions, and, if enough is digested, strong hallucinations. The drug can cause permanent psychological damage due to it affecting the mood regulating neurons that keep the minds serotonin and dopamine in check, as well as possibly causing heart failure World's 10 deadliest street drugs Bath salts Bath salts are a synthetic crystalline drug that is prevalent in the US. While they may sound harmless, they certainly arent the sort of salts you drop into a warm bath when having a relaxing night in, they are most similar to mephedrone, and have recently been featured throughout social media due to the zombification of its. The name comes from the fact that the drug was originally sold online, and widely disguised as bath salts. The side effects include unusual psychiatric behaviour, psychosis, panic attacks and violent behaviour, as well as the possibility of a heart attack and an elevated body temperature World's 10 deadliest street drugs Purple Drank One of the more unusual drugs around at the moment, purple drank was popularised in 90s hip hop culture, with the likes of Jay Z and Big Moe all mentioning it in their songs. It is a concoction of soda water, sweets and cold medicine, and is drunk due to cold medicines high codeine content, which gives the user a woozy feeling. However it can also cause respiratory issues and heart failure World's 10 deadliest street drugs Krokodil Krokodil is Russias secret addiction. It is believed that over one million Russians are addicted to the drug. Users of krokodil are attracted to the drug due to its low price; it is sold at 20 a gram while heroin is sold for 60. However, krokodil is considered more dangerous than heroin because it is often homemade, with ingredients including painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid and industrial cleaning agents. This chemical make-up makes the drug highly dangerous and likely to cause gangrene, and eventually rotting of the flesh

The number of people dying from drug misuse soared to 2,250 per year in 2014, almost triple the levels found when records began in 1993.

The numbers have been increasing since then, with continual upward spikes year-on-year since a momentary drop in 2012.

The overwhelming majority of drug-related deaths are caused by accidental poisoning.
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The Government resisted an amendment which could have made the EU referendum legally binding, the leading lawyer in the case against Article 50 has said.

Lord Pannick QC, who represents Gina Miller in the case against the Governments plans to trigger Article 50 without a vote by MPs, made the claims while addressing the Supreme Court today.

He said: The 2015 [EU Referendum] Act said nothing whatsoever about the consequences of the referendum.

If parliament meant the 2015 Act to have legal effect, it could and it would have done so. The Government resisted an amendment to give legal force to the referendum.

The 2015 Act was established under then Prime Minister David Cameron and set out the terms of the EU referendum, which was subsequently heard in June.

The terms of the Act have been scrutinised by judges since, amid concerns it did not provide enough clarity or direction on whether the referendum was legally binding.

11 of Britains most senior judges are hearing arguments in the Supreme Court appeal after the High Court ruled against Theresa Mays Brexit plans. They are considering whether Ms May has the authority to do so alone, or must get parliamentary approval through a vote by MPs.

The governments lawyers have argued Ms May is entitled to do so due to her powers as prime minister and head of the executive.

They have suggested the "average man or woman on the street" would think the referendum entitled her to do so. They have also warned that if the Supreme Court upholds the High Court's decision, it could have wider reaching implications; including limiting the Government's power in international affairs by requiring them to seek parliamentary approval more often.

The case is expected to last four days, concluding on Thursday.

The judgment is due early in the new year.
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Britain could slash environmental and safety regulations on imported products after it leaves the EU, a Tory MP has suggested.

Jacob Rees-Mogg said regulations that were good enough for India could be good enough for the UK  arguing that the UK could go a very long way to rolling back high EU standards.

The idea, floated at a hearing of the Treasury Select Committee, was immediately rejected by an economist, who said such a move would likely cause quite considerable difficulties.

We could, if we wanted, accept emissions standards from India, America, and Europe. Thered be no contradiction with that, Mr Rees-Mogg said.

We could say, if its good enough in India, its good enough for here. Theres nothing to stop that.

We could take it a very long way. American emission standards are fine  probably in some cases higher.

I accept that were not going to allow dangerous toys to come in from China, we dont want to see those kind of risks. But theres a very long way you can go.

The MP's comments came in the context of a discussion about trade deals with other countries following Brexit.

Jonathan Portes, a research fellow of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research however said the approach could cause complications.

Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Show all 13 1 /13 Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Supreme Court Brexit Challenge People wait to enter the public gallery outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Gina Miller, co-founder of investment fund SCM Private arrives at the Supreme court in London on the first day of a four-day hearing Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A man waves the EU flag in front of the Supreme Court Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Satirical artist Kaya Mar poses with two of his paintings in front of the Supreme Court Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Pro-Europe protestors dressed as Supreme Court Justices stand outside the Supreme Court ahead of the first day of a hearing into whether Parliament's consent is required before the Brexit process can begin. The eleven Supreme Court Justices will hear the government's appeal, following the High Court's recent decision that only Parliament can trigger Article 50 Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge The eleven Supreme Court Justices will hear the government's appeal, following the High Court's recent decision that only Parliament can trigger Article 50 Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Businesswoman Gina Miller arrives at the Supreme Court ahead of the first day of a hearing into whether Parliament's consent is required before the Brexit process can begin Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Attorney General Jeremy Wright arrives at the Supreme Court in London EPA Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Protesters outside the Supreme Court in London, where the Government is appealing against a ruling that the Prime Minister must seek MPs' approval to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union PA wire Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A protesters wearing a judge's wigs and robes stands outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A protester holds up a placard outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Pro-Europe protestors dressed as Supreme Court Justices stand outside the Supreme Court Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A man waiting to enter the public gallery waves a European Union flag outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters

If we simply said we would not impose any regulatory constraints on any goods coming to this country I think the risk of negative spill-over that would reduce productivity as well as many other things that we care about would be very high, he said.

We could certainly go a fair way but I think we would find the complications and the difficulties that mounted up would quickly become quite considerable.

The Government has said all EU regulations will be enshrined into British law by a Great Repeal Bill. Changes can then be made on a case-by-case basis after Brexit.

Ministers have declined to back a Labour bill that would enshrine workers' rights in to EU law, though Theresa May has said the rules protecting workers will be safe.
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Three million EU citizens living in Britain will be required to have some form of documentation following Brexit, under a plan that could hit Government finances for 100m.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the idea, slammed by critics in the House of Commons, would be introduced with a phased approach.

Recommended Liam Fox accused of driving Britain to hard Brexit after WTO move

The Liberal Democrats claimed that as well as the large cost, the process may require another 3,000 Home Office staff, while academic experts suggest it would be a formidable task that could amount to the equivalent of 140 years of extra work.

Ms Rudd also waded into the Cabinet row over the status of overseas students in official immigration figures, telling MPs it is likely that they will remain within net migration targets that the Government is trying to reduce to the tens of thousands.

The warning that Europeans living in the UK will require documentation, came in reply to a question from the senior Labour MP Hilary Benn, who chairs the new Brexit Select Committee of MPs.

 Amber Rudd launches immigration crackdown

Ms Rudd said: There will be a need to have some sort of documentation ... but we are not going to set it out yet.

We are going to do it in a phased approach, to ensure that we use all the technology advantages that we are increasingly able to harness, to ensure that all immigration is carefully handled.

Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake argued that the processing would increase the Home Offices workload by 10 per cent, costing at least another 100m a year and requiring 3,000 extra staff.

A report in August from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford suggested registering more than three million EU migrants already living in Britain for permanent residence would present the Government with a huge administrative task.

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

Their analysis suggests that if all the European Economic Area citizens living in the UK at the beginning of 2016 applied for permanent residence in the same year, this would amount to the equivalent of around 140 years of work at recent rates of processing.

A Cabinet rift first opened up over foreign students when Chancellor Philip Hammond indicated he thought they should be removed from net migration statistics, something Theresa May vehemently opposes. On Sunday Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson then revealed he believes international students should be exempt.

However, Ms Rudd backed the Prime Minister's position, saying: Students play an important role in contributing to the economy and are most welcome in the UK.

The internationally recognised definition of a migrant is someone coming here for over 12 months, so they are likely to stay within that definition, although Im aware there are different views on this matter.
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Justice Secretary Liz Truss left MPs baffled after claiming that barking dogs could be used to stop drones flying drugs into prisons.

The gaffe-prone Cabinet minister raised eyebrows with her unlikely solution to the growing problem of the small radio controlled aircraft delivering banned items to prisoners.

One Labour MP, during justice questions in the Commons, shouted out: "It's the minister who is barking.

And Ms Trusss deputy, prisons minister Sam Gyimah, could be seen smirking on the Government bench behind his boss.

Figures released earlier this year showed a big spike in the number of incidents of prisoners receiving drugs, mobile phones and other banned products via drones.

A total of 33 incidents were recorded in 2015 - compared with just two the year before and none in 2013  creating growing problems for governors and ministers.

The Government recently announced "no-fly zones" will be imposed over jails to stop contraband being smuggled over prison walls and security fences.

Challenged by Labour to explain how the no-fly zones would be enforced, Ms Truss said her department was working with the drone manufacturers.

And she added: What we are doing is solutions such as installing extra netting.

"I was at HMP Pentonville last week. They've now got patrol dogs who are barking, which helps deter drones.

So we're using all kinds of solutions to deal with contraband coming into our prisons.

Later, Conservative MP Victoria Prentis asked Ms Truss: Procurement is a complicated business.

"What guidance and training are being given to governors to ensure they're able to complete the procurement process properly - be it about mental health service provision or even the recruitment of dogs that bark at drones?

In reply, Ms Truss joked: It sounds like you're asking for some of these patrol dogs at your local prison, HMP Bulling.

The comments come a few weeks after the Ministry of Justice said it was exploring whether eagles could be used to take down the drones.

Mr Gyimah suggested the UK could follow the example of Dutch police, who use the bird of prey to intercept the high-tech devices.
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British politicians have not previously considered the issue of integrating immigrants as they feared being called a racist, the Communities Secretary has claimed.

Sajid Javid said many of the findings of a Government-commissioned review ring true to me personally  and that many people who moved to the UK failed to embrace the shared values that make Britain great.

He added Dame Louise Casey's report also shows more needs to be done by Muslim communities and some Muslim men about "how they treat Muslim women".

Replying to an urgent question in the House of Commons Mr Javid said: Many of her findings ring true to me personally.

I've seen for myself the enormous contribution that immigrants and their families make to British life, all without giving up their unique cultural identities.

But I've also seen with my own eyes the other side of the equation.

For too long, too many people in this country have been living parallel lives - refusing to integrate and failing to embrace the shared values that make Britain great.

And for too long, too many politicians in this country have refused to deal with the problem.

They've ducked the issue for fear of being called a racist, failing the very people they're supposed to be helping and I will not allow this to continue.

We in public life have a moral responsibility to deal with this situation and Dame Louise's report is a crucial step in that process.

Mr Javid said he would study the report's findings and outline policies in response to it in the Spring.

Despite Mr Javid's claim that politicians have avoided the issue, it has long been a fixture of British political discourse. In 2006 Tony Blair said immigrants had "a duty" to integrate and adopt British values. In 2007 Gordon Brown said migrants had to earn their citizenship. In 2011 David Cameron attacked immigrants who were "not really wanting or even willing to integrate".

The report, published on Monday, claimed that communities across the UK were segregated. It recommended that immigrants improve their English langauge skills and be forced to swear and oath to British values.

Brexit racism and the fightback Show all 9 1 /9 Brexit racism and the fightback Brexit racism and the fightback Demonstrators protest against an increase in post-ref racism at London's March for Europe in July 2016 PA Brexit racism and the fightback These cards were found near a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day after the EU referendum Twitter/@howgilb Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback Romford, Essex, June 25 @diamondgeezer Brexit racism and the fightback A worker at this Romanian food shop was asleep upstairs at the time of this arson attack in Norwich on July 8, but escaped unharmed. Hundreds later participated in a love bombing rally outside the shop to express their opposition to racism and their support of the shop owners. JustGiving/Helen Linehan Brexit racism and the fightback This neo-Nazi sticker was spotted in Glasgow on June 26 Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback But after news emerged of neo-Nazi stickers appearing in Glasgow, some in the city struck back with slogans of their own. Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback More signs began to appear in some parts of the UK, created by people who wanted to show their opposition to post-referendum racism Courtesy of Bernadette Russell

Labours Theresa Pearce echoed Mr Javids comments: For too long as a country weve ignored these complex issues for fear of being seen as racist or attacking cultural attitudes.

Sadly this approach has left a vacuum that has been exploited by those who exist to promote hatred.

She called for the Government to address the issues highlighted by the report in a realistic and mature way  and criticised cuts to English language funding.
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Theresa May has unveiled her latest Brexit soundbite, sparking further confusion about what her approach to leaving the European Union will involve.

Commenting during her visit to Bahrain, the Prime Minister ruled out choosing between this sort of Brexit or that sort of Brexit.

She instead pledged a red, white and blue Brexit  which she appeared not to consider a type of Brexit.

The new detail about the colour of Brexit comes after months of Ms May and her ministers repeating the tautological mantra that Brexit means Brexit when asked to outline their policy detail or objectives.

We also want to get the best possible trade deal for trading with and operating within the single European market, the Prime Minister told reporters after a speech on Royal Navy warship HMS Ocean.

But Im ambitious about what we can achieve in the trade deal. Im ambitious for that trade deal because I think its important for Europe as well as being important for the UK.

Sometimes people look at this as somehow the UK taking one particular model, the UK trying to take some of the elements of the membership.

Its not about this sort of Brexit or that sort of Brexit: it is about a red, white and blue Brexit  that is the right Brexit, the right deal for Britain.

Ms Mays warning comes as three top economists told the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee that the Prime Ministers vague pledge to restrict freedom of movement would by definition lead to Britain losing its single market membership.

Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron hit at the PMs latest comments, arguing that her policy would damage the UKs economic prospects.

The Prime Minister has surpassed herself with this statement. Its jingoistic claptrap, he said.

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

It doesnt matter what colour she tries to paint this, her plans to leave the single market will wreck the economy.

If this Conservative government cared about Britain and what makes our country great, they would not be running headlong towards a hard Brexit that will blow a 220bn black hole in the budget.

The Union Jack represents an open, tolerant, multicultural Britain, not the narrow-minded vision of Ukip and Farage.

Labours shadow Brexit Minister Jenny Chapman said the Government had no plan.

The Government can call it whatever colours they like  the fact is, their plan for Brexit is completely blank, she said.

Every indication so far is that that Prime Minister will seek a hard and damaging Brexit, with Britain outside the single market and the customs union.
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Theresa May is visiting Bahrain to meet with leaders of Gulf states, who are in the country for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

She will attend a dinner with the 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.

The Prime Minister will use the visit to announce a new working group with regional nations to combat the financing of terrorists. The UK will provide three specialist cyber experts to the Gulf states to help deal with extremism.

She will also unveil a new permanent British defence staff in Dubai to co-ordinate regional activities, and a dedicated military officer embedded with Bahrain's Ministry of Interior bomb disposal unit to provide management support and training.

One thing that unites the regions countries are their terrible human rights records.

Bahrain

Bahraini police after dispersing protesters earlier this year (Getty Images)

Police fired live ammunition into crowds during the Arab Spring protests

Authorities have shut down newspapers and TV stations that air criticism of the Government

Security services used torture in response to protests  with methods so extreme they resulted in deaths

Saudi Arabia

Saudi troops pictured atop their tank on the Saudi Arabian-Yemeni border

Accused of committing war crimes in its on-going military campaign in Yemen

Womens rights severely curtailed

Death penalty by beheading followed by crucifixion of bodies in use

Oman

Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, an absolute monarch (Getty Images)

Hereditary monarchy with no democratic institutions

Tight restrictions on protesting and freedom of assembly

Reporters of journalists and activists critical of government disappearing

Qatar

Builders at work on the construction of a new office site in Qatar (Getty)

Forced labour of migrant workers with hundreds of deaths reported on major projects

Flogging enforceable as a punishment under Sharia law for drinking alcohol or illicit sexual relations

Death penalty or prison sentences for gay people

United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates' Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (Reuters)

No democratically elected government

Has not signed international human rights and workers rights treaties

Death penalty or prison for gay people

Kuwait

Kuwait City's skyline (Getty Images)

Stateless minority groups lack citizenship rights

All citizens must provide DNA samples to government

Far-reaching restrictions on freedom of speech and criticism of the Government
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has attended the opening of the 142nd training center of the Special Operations Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Berdychiv, Zhytomyr region.

The president noted that the Ukrainian army's fighting experience has shown convincingly that efficient use of the Armed Forces is only possible with introduction of a modern personnel-training system and a solid material and training base in place, the Ukrainian president's press office said on Tuesday.

"It is this approach that was determined for the Special Operations Forces that are being created under NATO standards," Poroshenko said.

The president also thanked partners - NATO countries - for the substantial help in developing and forming the Special Operations Forces. Thanks to professional instructors from the U.S., Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, the Ukrainian instructors completed qualified training and are now actively involved in the selection and training of Special Operations Forces units.

Fifty-eight military centers have completed qualification courses under the supervision of NATO instructors, the president said. Additionally, the Center includes highly-professional servicemen who gained fighting experience during the special operation in eastern Ukraine, over 30 of them have had their service recognized with state and ministerial awards.

Poroshenko also handed over to the Center's director the combat flag of the 142nd training center of the Special Operations Forces and congratulated special-forces servicemen on the 25th anniversary of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is highly symbolic that the center of the Special Operations Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is opening on this day, the president said.

On the occasion of Ukrainian Armed Forces Day, the president presented the participants of the special operation with name-engraved watches.

The president familiarized himself with the Center's facilities, including a shooting range, and also with weapons that included mortars, grenade launchers, machineguns, carbines of a varying caliber, sniper systems, optical devices, including night-vision devices, and pistols of various modifications.
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A radical plan to renationalise commuter trains into London was dramatically dumped today, sparking anger and warnings of higher fares.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling threw out a blueprint  backed by Conservative and Labour mayors  for the publicly run Transport for London (TfL) to take over suburban services from private firms.

He formally rejected the takeover of Southeastern services from 2018  with the axe also expected to fall on later plans to switch the Southern and Great Northern franchises.

Recommended Southeastern cancels more than 20 services after poor rankings

Mr Grayling said he was not prepared to risk a shake-up that would be the biggest restructuring since the 1920s, when TfL had no plans for inevitable rising passenger numbers.

But Bob Neill, the Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, in Kent, described Southeastern as wholly discredited  and condemned the decision as a complete cop-out and failure.

It makes no sense at all as far as rail users in my constituency or I are concerned, he told Mr Grayling.

And Sadiq Khan, the Labour London Mayor, said it would mean higher fares because Southeastern passengers would no longer fall under his plans to freeze TfL charges.

He said commuters would be bitterly disappointed  pointing out the devolution plan, originally proposed by former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, enjoyed cross-party support.

Mr Khan said: TfL have proved over and over again that when they have control of suburban lines there are more frequent trains, fewer delays and cancellations, more staff at stations and fares are more affordable.

Just look at the London Overground  which went from being one of the worst lines in the country to one of the best once TfL took control.

Rail devolution isn't party political  we have support from MPs and councils from all parties in London, from business leaders and representative and even from councils outside London like Kent and Surrey, who know commuters will get a better service.

Although the Government had refused to describe the plan as renationalisation, rail experts had agreed it effectively was a return to state control.

It would probably have been most popular on the Southern franchise, where passengers have suffered many months of strikes, delays, cancellations and chaos.

But, in an interview with the London Evening Standard, Mr Grayling claimed there was a danger of deckchair shifting with no real improvement for passengers.

He also warned of a potential conflict between Londons needs and those of passengers from Kent and East Sussex, because long-distance and local trains share the same tracks.

If you live in Guildford, wheres the democratic accountability? he asked. Why should the Mayor of London be responsible for a train from Guildford or Dorking?

Mr Grayling spoke as he confirmed well-trailed plans to make Network Rail share responsibility for Britains railway tracks with the private train operating companies.

Labour accused the Government of putting the nation's railways on the slippery slope back to the bad old days of Railtrack, claiming the plans risk compromising safety.
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A former child soldier accused of being a senior commander in the Lords Resistance Army has pleaded not guilty to war crimes in the first trial of its kind at the International Criminal Court.

Dominic Ongwen has been charged with 70 counts including murder, rape, the use of child soldiers and sexual enslavement, relating to the groups decades-long insurgency in northern Uganda.

Mr Ongwen was himself a child soldier, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the judges, captured and forced to fight for the warlord Joseph Kony in the late 1980s when he was just 14 years old.

But that was no more than a mitigating factor in his alleged crimes, Ms Bensouda said, as he rose through the ranks on account of his reputation as a ruthless killer.

Judges at The Hague rejected an effort by Mr Ongwens lawyers on the eve of his trial to call for psychological tests, saying he may not be mentally fit to plead.

And he seemed disorientated by his surroundings at the global court, requiring repeated prompting to stand and enter his plea.

After an official read out all 70 charges relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Mr Ongwen said: In the name of God, I deny all these charges.

Speaking in his native Acholi through an interpreter, he said: It was the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) who abducted and killed people in northern Uganda, and I am one of the people against whom the LRA committed atrocities.

Mr Ongwen is the only member of the LRA in the courts custody, and rights groups welcomed the landmark trial as a long-overdue chance to deliver justice to the insurgencys victims.

Dominic Ongwen sits in the courtroom of the International Court in The Hague (EPA)

Mr Ongwen becomes the first member of Uganda's brutal Lord's Resistance Army to go on trial (Getty)

He was indicted back in 2005, along with three other alleged senior commanders who are since believed to have died, and Kony himself, who remains at large as the LRA continues to rampage across the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Over the course of the trial, which will hear statements this week before pausing to resume next year, the court is expected to hear from other former child soldiers of the LRA and women who were forced into sexual slavery.

Ms Bensouda summed up some of the most horrific evidence against Mr Ongwen, including one former child soldier who will testify that he ordered this boy and others to kill an old man by biting him and then stoning him to death.

Describing harrowing acts of sexual violence, Ms Bensouda said Mr Ongwen had raped one child victim vaginally and anally.

"To quiet her when she wept and screamed he threatened her with his bayonet," she told the court, citing the witness's statement.

And Ms Bensouda said the witnesses next year may include a girl who told investigators about Mr Ongwen's repeated rape of sex slaves.

"Dominic was the worst when it came to young girls," Ms Bensouda said, citing the witness. "He has sex with them at a very young age.

Mr Ongwen gave himself up last year after a decade on the run, and prosecutors specifically accuse him of commanding brutal assaults on four camps for internally displaced people in northern Uganda from October 2003 to June 2004.

The evidence shows that Dominic Ongwen was a murderer and a rapist," Ms Bensouda told the judges. She said his own past as a child soldier cannot begin to amount to a defence or a reason not to hold him to account for the choice that he made: The choice to embrace the murderous violence used by the LRA and make it a hallmark of the attacks carried out by his soldiers.
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Professor Noam Chomsky said that Donald Trump supporters could be enticed to vote Democrat again if the Bernie Sanders movement offered a real program for "hope and change".

On the same evening that vice president Joe Biden said he might run for president in 2020, Mr Chomsky told the crowds at Democracy Now!s 20th anniversary event that reigniting a "militant labour movement" could swing the next election.

Mr Chomsky, the renowned scientist and philosopher, said American workers have been beaten down for decades with weakened labour unions and stagnant wage growth since neo-liberal policies were instituted in 1979. President Obamas supporters in 2008 and 2012 were voting for his slogan of "hope and change", but were disappointed.

"The working class has suffered from it. They had a real need for hope and change. Well, they didnt get hope and they didnt get change," he said.

"I dont often agree with Sarah Palin, but she nailed it when she came along and said, Where is all this hope-y, change-y business?"

But the professor said that if young people and activists revived a strong labour movement, which could overcome racial conflict like it did in the 1930s, then the workers favour could be won back.

"Suppose people like you, the Sanders movement, offered an authentic, constructive program for real hope and change, it would win these people back," he said.

"I think many of the Trump voters could have voted for Sanders if there had been the right kind of activism and organization. and those are possibilities. It's been done in the past under much harsher circumstances."

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, testified to congress that the success of the American economy was based on "growing worker insecurity". Mr Chomsky pointed to this as an example of how workers have continued to suffer, even if the stock market is nearing record highs. It was one major reason why people voted for Mr Trump.

"You should also bear in mind what a remarkable phenomenon the Sanders campaign was. Heres somebody unknown, came from nowhere, was using words like socialism which used to be a real curse word, no corporate or media support, no support from the wealthy, everything that has been crucial to win elections."

 Noam Chomsky: 'Trump has no known ideology other than me'

"He could have taken it over [the Democratic party] if it hadnt been for shenanigans that you know about," he said, perhaps alluding to the Democratic National Committees alleged attempts to smear the Vermont senator.

He added that there have been many advances and achievements over the past 50 to 60 years, for womens and civil rights, for gay people and in terms of peoples efforts to counter aggression.

"That means struggles today start from a much higher plane than they did many years ago," he said.

"Even the election itself suggests major opportunities. For one thing, the Democrats had a considerable majority in the vote," he said, referring to Ms Clintons lead of more than 2.6 million people in the popular count.

"And if you look at younger voters, the people who will shape the future, they were overwhelmingly anti-Trump and even more overwhelmingly pro-Sanders."

He said the country was founded on "two incredible crimes" - the virtual extinction of indigenous people and the most vicious form of slavery in history, which was the foundation for wealth and economic development.

"When Donald Trump talks about 'making America great again', for many people it wasnt that great, it was quite the opposite," he said.

It will be up to young people, he said, to lead Americans towards a "decent and civilised world".
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The White House responded to remarks made by President-elect Donald Trump, where he incorrectly claimed that the Air Force One plane would cost taxpayers $4bn.

Mr Trump's Tuesday morning tweet was the latest in continuous controversy set off by the President-elect's access to social media. In recent days, his online rancor has targeted everything from the aerospace manufacturer, China, and the weekly variety show Saturday Night Live. He sent out the tweet shortly after the Chicago Tribune published remarks made by Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg last week.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that Mr Trump's remarks "do not appear to reflect arrangements" made between the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, and the US Air Force.

He added that Americans would expect that future presidents would benefit from upgrades to Air Force One.

"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!" Mr Trump wrote in his Monday morning tweet.

In a surprise appearance in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, he accused Boeing of inflating their costs.

"The plane is totally out of control. I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number," he told reporters. "We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."

It remains unclear where Mr Trump got the figures for the cost. Representatives for Boeing responded with a figure significantly less than Mr Trump's supposed $4bn, however.

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

"We are currently under contract for $170m to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States," Boeing said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the programme allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer."

Shortly after Mr Trump's tweet, Boeing's stock fell close to one per cent during pre-market trading  dropping from $152.16 per share to $149.75 per share, according to FactSet.

The temporary .84 per cent drop amounted to about $1bn. They were back up to about .4 per cent by the afternoon.

While speaking at a manufacterer's symposium in Illinois, Mr Muilenberg said: "I'm not a political pundit or prognosticator  we have too many of those  but anyone who paid attention to the recent campaigns and the election results realises that one of the overarching themes was apprehension about free and fair trade."

Boeing won the contract to construct the prestigious fleet of government aircraft in January.

Mr Trump has consistently tweeted false or misleading information since his unexpected election win.

He previously tweeted that he played an instrumental role in keeping a Ford factory from moving to Mexico  that particular facility was never going to leave the country.

Another time, Mr Trump tweeted that he would have won the popular vote against Hillary Clinton were it not for millions of illegal votes. But even his own legal team said there was no evidence of 'fraud or mistake' in the votes cast in November.
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A member of the electoral college in Texas has become the first Republican elector to declare that he will not cast his vote for Donald Trump, saying he owes a debt to [his] children not to select an unqualified President.

Christopher Suprun, a paramedic and former firefighter who was among the first responders at the Pentagon on 9/11, said he would vote instead for a Republican alternative the country could unite behind, naming John Kasich as a possibility.

He becomes the eighth so-called faithless elector from across the US to declare publicly that he will go against the mandate given to him by the result of the presidential election.

Recommended Donald Trump could still theoretically not become president

Members of the electoral college, of which there are 538 in total and Texas has 38, are largely expected to vote in accordance with the majority of voters in their state. Mr Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 52 per cent to 43 per cent.

But writing in the New York Times, Mr Suprun cited Alexander Hamiltons Federalist Papers, the founding documents behind the electoral college system, and insisted that electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country.

Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence, he said. Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards.

 Donald Trump breaks US policy stance with Taiwan call

The Republican said his decision to defect against Mr Trump was not as a result of Ms Clintons victory in the popular vote, though she now has a lead of more than 2.6 million.

And he said that he also does not believe President-elects should be disqualified for policy disagreements.

I owe no debt to a party, he said. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust.

Three faithless electors have dubbed themselves the Hamilton electors in Washington state, and there are four more in Colorado who have vowed to do likewise.

Both are blue states, but instead of voting as mandated for Ms Clinton, these seven have pledged to vote for a moderate Republican, like Mr Kasich, in the hope of winning over electors in red states.

Another Republican elector from Texas, Art Sisneros, has resigned from his role in protest, saying it would bring dishonour to God to vote for Mr Trump. He will be replaced when the electoral college meets on 19 December.

Bret Chiafolo, a cofounder of the Hamilton electors, said Mr Suprun was acting as a true patriot. he said: He is showing that there are patriots of all stripes left in this country, that if all sorts of people can set aside their party divisions we still have hope of saving this country from a demagogue.

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

Despite the growing size of the rebellion, few entertain the belief that faithless electors alone can overturn Mr Trumps 306 to 232 victory in the electoral college system.

And some analysts predict that even if the electoral college managed to select Ms Clinton, Congress would go ahead and appoint Mr Trump anyway.

But Mr Suprun insists his vote is not just an empty gesture. He called on other electors to join with me to defend the country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He added: The election of the next president is not yet a done deal.
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Michigan has seen a huge spike in alleged hate crimes and other hate-fuelled incidents in the weeks since the election of Donald Trump, according to a state civil rights panel.

At a monthly meeting of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, state officials said that about 65 hate incidents had been reported since Mr Trumps 8 November election, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Mr Trumps run for president galvanised a strong base of white supremacist and neo-Nazi support. The New York businessman launched his campaign calling Mexicans rapists and criminals, and stoked Islamophobic fears amongst his base.

But ever since his election, reports of hate crimes and racist harassment have risen. The state of Michigan had generally only received reports of about five to ten incidents per year. So the new figures are worrisome to the Civil Rights Commission.

Thats very concerning  people being scared, said commission co-chair Rasha Demashkieh. It is incumbent upon us to protect the civil rights of the most vulnerable.

About 36 of the 65 reported incidents occurred at schools, including primary, secondary, high school, colleges and universities.

In the 10 days after Mr Trumps election, the Southern Poverty Law Centre found almost 900 instances of hate incidents reported across the US. Michigan had the highest number of all the midwestern states, according to their figures.

President Trump protests Show all 20 1 /20 President Trump protests President Trump protests Patrons hold a sign as people march by while protesting the election of Republican Donald Trump as the president of the United States in downtown Los Angeles, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators rally following the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators march following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests Thousands of protesters rallied across the United States expressing shock and anger over Donald Trump's election, vowing to oppose divisive views they say helped the Republican billionaire win the presidency AFP/Getty Images President Trump protests Demonstrators protest outside the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois Getty President Trump protests A police officer aims a launcher after demonstrators threw projectiles toward a line of officers during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests An officer examines a vandalized police vehicle as demonstrators riot in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators take over the Hollywood 101 Freeway just north of Los Angeles City Hall in protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests A woman holds up a sign reading 'Trump you are an Idiot' as demonstrators gather during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump outside the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California EPA President Trump protests A masked demonstrator gestures toward a police line during a demonstration in Oakland, California Reuters President Trump protests Demonstrators protest against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States, near the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada Reuters President Trump protests Musician Lagy Gaga stages a protest against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on a sanitation truck outside Trump Tower in New York City Getty President Trump protests A woman yells as she takes part in a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests A protester sets off fireworks during a protest against President-elect Donald Trumpin Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood AP President Trump protests University of California, Davis students protest on campus in Davis, California, U.S. following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States Reuters President Trump protests An Oakland police officer checks out damage after a window was broken by protesters at a car dealership in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests A protester faces a police line in downtown Oakland, Calif AP President Trump protests President-elect Donald Trumpis victory set off multiple protests AP President Trump protests A fire burns during protests in Oakland, Calif AP

Mr Trump finally spoke out against bigotry during his first major appearance since the election last week. He said he condemned bigotry and hatred in all its forms speaking at the first stop on his Thank You tour across key battleground states.

He did not refer to hate crimes specifically, nor did he outright disavow the neo-Nazis and other white supremacists who have held celebrations in his name. Still, the SPLC welcomed the sentiment and called on the President-elect to follow through with real action to quash hatred in the US.

Were pleased that President-elect Trump has forcefully denounced hatred and rejected the language of exclusion, the organisation said in a statement. We hope that he is now ready to take responsibility for the damage his divisive campaign caused and to follow his words with actions proving he means what he says."
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Donald Trump has reportedly given assurances that he will take action to undermine laws that are seen as protecting the rights of gay people in the US.

LGBT advocacy groups have been fielding calls from many people scared by what a Trump presidency will mean for them, according to the CEO of one such group.

And a Republican Congressman, Steve Russell, says he has been led to understand the new administration will back his drive to allow federal contractors religious freedom.

Mr Russell told BuzzFeed News he was disappointed the House blocked his religious freedom amendment, dubbed the Russell Amendment, from a defence spending bill last Friday.

But he said he had gotten very positive signals that Trump will step in where his amendment failed.

Critics say allowing federal contractors religious freedom means they can discriminate against LGBT people on the basis of at-times arbitrary religious beliefs, and still receive public money.

In 2014, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that banned LGBT discrimination by federal contractors across the board.

And Mr Russell did not deny that by trying to get an amendment into the defence spending bill, he was attempting to undermine Mr Obamas ruling on the matter.

These issues will be resolved, and we have gotten some very good assurances moving forward, Mr Russell said, referring to apparent contact with the Trump transition team. I am certainly encouraged by the signs that I am getting from the administration that is inbound.

Mr Trump could simply act to scrap Mr Obamas order, Mr Russell suggested. The vagueness was created by the executive branch, so the executive branch [under Trump] could un-create the vagueness, he said. You reverse it by clarifying a bad executive order with a good one.

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

Mr Trump has in the past expressed support for a bill that would protect people who discriminate against same-sex marriages from federal penalties.

That, and his appointment of senior advisers who hold anti-LGBT views, led the Republican Partys most prominent LGBT group to refuse to endorse him as the partys candidate.

Mr Trump was himself nonetheless perhaps the most pro-LGBT presidential nominee in the history of the Republican Party, according to the Log Cabin Republicans.

Speaking to CNN, Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization, said: "We're hearing from really, really scared people. We're seeing a fear of an atmosphere of intolerance that began with Trump's campaign."
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Donald Trump sold all his shares in companies five months ago, according to his spokesman, creating funds during the campaign trail and helping to divert from a potential conflict of interest.

His stock portfolio was worth about $40 million as of December 2015, according to a May disclosure filing and as reported by the Washington Post.

He invested in banks, oil companies and other stocks that have business pending with the US government.

Mr Trump gave his campaign about $47 million of his own money, with the first donation of $2 million dated 22 June.

Total money from his own pocket came to $66 million - falling short of the pledged $100 million - and much of the campaign was funded by donors.

Trumps campaign team has not provided any records of stock transactions since the May document, therefore there is no official way to check the statement that he sold his portfolio.

Any company that the president-elect had a stake in and which rose in value due to his decisions in office would create a conflict of interest.

Mr Trumps communications director Jason Miller did not reveal why Mr Trump had sold the shares or the value of them at sale. Mr Trump's next required personal financial disclosure form is not due until May 2018.

The businessman, who owns a real estate empire, has faced increasing calls to divest from all of his commercial enterprises as he could risk breaching the US constitution as soon as he enters the Oval Office. His latest venture, the new hotel in Washington DC opposite the White House, has already been used to host foreign diplomats, giving them a tour of the expensive suites.

 Boeing shares slide after Donald Trump says costs are 'ridiculous'

Selling all his shares has been described as a step in the right direction for the incoming president.

The 2012 STOCK Act requires government officials to publicly disclose any stock transactions worth at least $1,000 within 45 days.

Mr Trump used to be a shareholder in Boeing, owning between as much as $100,000 of the stock in the May filing. He then tweeted on Tuesday that the airplane manufacturers costs were out of control and its government contract should be canceled. The single tweet wiped as much as $1 billion from the stock. He has already divested from Boeing, said his spokesman.

 Trump is 'a walking talking violation of the constitution'

He has also reportedly divested from his shares in Energy Transfer Partners, the company that is building the controversial oil and gas pipeline that cuts through the Missouri River.

Norman Eisen, the former ethics counsel for president Barack Obama, told the Post he wanted to know what Mr Trump has done with the money, and whether he had thereby created new conflicts of interest.

The president-elect recently promised to divest from his real estate businesses because it is "visually important" and will house the assets in a blind trust - further details are expected on 15 December.

He has still not released his tax returns, contrary to any past president-elect in history, which would provide an update on any stock transactions.
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Hillary Clinton has 2.7 million more votes than Donald Trump, despite losing the presidential election, and the number is expected to rise.

Ms Clinton is on track to get more votes than president Barack Obama did in 2012. He won 65.9 million, and she is only about 400,000 votes behind him.

The votes are being tallied by David Wasserman for the Cook Political Report. Votes are still streaming in from states like California, New York and Washington due to late counting of mail-in and absentee ballots.

Recommended Hillary Clinton could still have a legal right to be US president

Mr Trump swept to victory thanks to the centuries-old electoral college system, which distributes electoral votes around states and the candidate who wins in each state gets all of those votes.

Larger states - like Pennsylvania with 20 electoral college votes and Michigan with 16 votes - went to Mr Trump.

 Electoral College voting: How the United States decides its president

The 538 electoral college voters are convening in their respective states on 19 December to officially declare Mr Trump as president.

At least seven of them, however, will be faithless electors and stage a protest vote for Ms Clinton or another Republican.

On 8 November, Ms Clinton won just 232 votes - a majority of 270 is needed - while Mr Trump reached 306.

His entourage has filed a lawsuit to block a request for a vote recount in Michigan, after successful requests were granted in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

All three states were crucial battlegrounds on 8 November and went to Mr Trump with a small margin of victory. The recount started in Wisconsin at midday on Monday 4 December.

Mr Trump has been irked by his loss in the popular count, and he said he would have won it if he had campaigned harder in a smaller number of states.
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A man who left his toddler son to die in a hot car over a period of seven hours has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Justin Ross Harris, 36, was convicted of malice murder and other offences last month when a jury found him guilty of intentionally leaving his 22-month-old son Cooper in his SUV to die.

Harris child died in June 2014 in Georgia after he was left in the car while his father went to his job as a web developer for Home Depot. Harris had driven himself and Cooper to a Chick-fil-A restaurant for breakfast before driving to work. He told police he forgot to take Cooper to day care and that he left him strapped into his seat in the car without realising.

Recommended US man found guilty of leaving son to die in hot SUV while he sexted

Cooper was in the car for seven hours on a day when temperatures reached the high 80s in Fahrenheit and died of hypothermia.

Police later discovered that Harris, who was married at the time, had been having both online and offline relationships with a number of women, including a prostitute and a teenager, and prosecutors argued that he had intentionally killed his son to escape his family life.

Harris defence attorneys said throughout the trial that he was a loving father who had had no intention of killing his son, calling Coopers death a tragic accident.

Harris was convicted of malice murder, child cruelty and sex crimes relating to the text messages sent to the teenage girl. In addition to the life term for the murder charge, Harris was given an additional 23 years for the other crimes.

Cooper Harris who died after being left in his father's car. (Facebook)

Harris, who was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit with his hands and ankles shackled, declined to speak at the sentencing. He frowned throughout the proceeding but did not show any emotion as the sentence was read out.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark told Harris she thought about statements he had made during conversations with police and his wife on the day his son died about wishing to be an advocate to keep anyone else from ever leaving a child in a hot vehicle.

Perhaps, not in the way you intended, you have accomplished that goal, she said during the sentencing.

Cobb County Senior Assistant District Attorney Chuck Boring, the lead prosecutor on the case, told reporters after the hearing: I dont think you could have any other sentence that would be appropriate when somebodys been convicted of intentionally taking the life of a 22-month-old  not only doing that but doing it in such a painful and deliberate way.

Harris attorney, Maddox Kilgore, said he planned to file a motion for a new trial.
EU, NATO to foster cooperation in providing aid to Ukraine  statement of Mogherini and Stoltenberg

Fostering of cooperation between NATO and the European Union (EU) would help to provide larger support to Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said.

"The NATO and EU provide support to Ukraine. We provide political support. We provide practical support... We help Ukraine with implementing reforms in defense and security institutions," he said after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday in Brussels.

He said that NATO and the EU will cooperate more tightly in providing support to create the potential and training.

"We can be more efficient," he said.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said that EU helps Ukraine with special focus on economic and social reforms, fighting corruption, the judicial system.

"Keeping Ukraine a priority in our agenda not only in Europe but also across the Atlantic, obviously we are also working together in a field that is purely political, a little bit less for the NATO practical work: the full implementation of the Minsk agreements The intensity and regularity of the meetings we have to try and solve the conflict in the east of the country," she said.
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Donald Trumps incoming national security adviser has been caught spreading incorrect news at least 16 times in the last few months.

A combing of Michael Flynn's twitter account by Politico shows he has spread conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and their allies. This includes accusing Ms Clinton of being involved with child sex trafficking, "waging a secret war" against the Catholic Church and her campaign manager consuming bodily fluids as part of a "spirit-cooking ritual". Mr Flynn also said president Obama is a "jihadi" who laundered money for Muslim terrorists.

The spotlight on fake news has intensified following the shooting at a pizza restaurant in Washington at the weekend by a man who believed false internet-based rumours that it was the hub of a child-trafficking operation involving Ms Clinton.

A total of 53 non-profit organisations have penned an open letter to the president-elect, urging him to dump Mr Flynn, who was "unfit for a critical post".

Mr Flynn has also retweeted stories accusing Ms Clinton of being an "insider threat" and an alleged United Nations one-world-government plot called Agenda 21. He used to be the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Critics have questioned whether Mr Flynn is genuinely able to tell the difference between fake and accurate information.

Mr Flynn has also been criticised for his anti-Muslim stance. He said fear of Muslims was "rational" and compared Islam to "cancer".

His anti-Semitic comments include re-tweeting a negative post about CNN and commenting: "Not anymore, Jews". One of his anti-semitic tweets was praised by former Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard David Duke.

His son, Michael Flynn, continued to push the fake story about the pizza shop child ring on Sunday as police arrested an armed man who said he had come to "investigate".

"Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it," the younger Flynn tweeted.

Michael Flynn has also shared expletive-filled posts and racially insensitive comments on social media. He shared a story that Ms Clintons top aide, Huma Abedin, had a link to the Muslim Brotherhood, and that senator Marco Rubio was a closeted homosexual who took cocaine.

In January, he tweeted "@voxdotcom soooo African Americans can have B.E.T. but whites can't have their own dating site? Hmmm" The tweet has since been deleted. He shared a fake news item that the president flaunted an erection to female reporters, and said that voters of colour only chose Mr Obama in 2012 due to the colour of his skin.

Talking about Gloria Allred, the lawyer representing many women who accused Mr Trump of sexual assault, which he denied, the younger Mr Flynn said she was a "commie" who was trying to "get the heat off the witch".

Vice president-elect Mike Pence insisted Mike Flynns son "has no involvement in the transition whatsoever", despite him having a .gov email address.

"No, hes not [involved], but I have to tell you, working with General Flynn and now KT McFarland, the national security team is coming together. Around the president-elect, I know the president elect is already doing an extraordinary job in preparing us to be ready on day one to bring that strong leadership to the world stage which the American people elected Donald Trump to bring."

Mr Trump has also taken to social media to spread false news, including his incorrect claim that "millions of people" voted illegally in the election.

California Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Politico that Mr Flynn and his team must disavow the conspiracy theories.

"They will soon have a country to run, and God help us if they conduct the nation's affairs like their transition  without the willingness or ability to separate fact from fiction," he said.
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The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defence budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post.

Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defence officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

The report, issued in January 2015, identified a clear path for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel of corporate executives, and consultants from McKinsey and Company. Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management.

(The Washington Post (The Washington Post)

The data showed that the Defense Department was paying a staggering number of people - 1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel - to fill back-office jobs far from the front lines. That workforce supports 1.3 million troops on active duty, the fewest since 1940.

The cost-cutting study could find a receptive audience with President-elect Donald Trump. He has promised a major military buildup and said he would pay for it by eliminating government waste and budget gimmicks.

For the military, the major allure of the study was that it called for reallocating the $125 billion for troops and weapons. Among other options, the savings could have paid a large portion of the bill to rebuild the nations aging nuclear arsenal, or the operating expenses for 50 Army brigades.

But some Pentagon leaders said they fretted that by spotlighting so much waste, the study would undermine their repeated public assertions that years of budget austerity had left the armed forces starved of funds. Instead of providing more money, they said, they worried Congress and the White House might decide to cut deeper.

So the plan was killed. The Pentagon imposed secrecy restrictions on the data making up the study, which ensured no one could replicate the findings. A 77-page summary report that had been made public was removed from a Pentagon website.

Theyre all complaining that they dont have any money. We proposed a way to save a ton of money, said Robert Bobby L. Stein, a private-equity investor from Jacksonville, Florida, who served as chairman of the Defense Business Board.

Stein, a campaign bundler for President Obama, said the studys data were indisputable and that it was a travesty for the Pentagon to suppress the results.

Were going to be in peril because were spending dollars like it doesnt matter, he added.

The missed opportunity to streamline the military bureaucracy could soon have large ramifications. Under the 2011 Budget Control Act, the Pentagon will be forced to stomach $113 billion in automatic cuts over four years unless Congress and Trump can agree on a long-term spending deal by October. Playing a key role in negotiations will probably be Trumps choice for defence secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis.

The Defense Business Board was ordered to conduct the study by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, the Pentagons second-highest-ranking official. At first, Work publicly touted the efficiency drive as a top priority and boasted about his idea to recruit corporate experts to lead the way.

After the board finished its analysis, however, Work changed his position. In an interview with The Post, he did not dispute the boards findings about the size or scope of the bureaucracy. But he dismissed the $125 billion savings proposal as unrealistic and said the business executives had failed to grasp basic obstacles to restructuring the public sector.

There is this meme that were some bloated, giant organisation, he said. Although there is a little bit of truth in that... I think it vastly overstates whats really going on.

Work said the board fundamentally misunderstood how difficult it is to eliminate federal civil service jobs - members of Congress, he added, love having them in their districts - or to renegotiate defence contracts.

He said the Pentagon is adopting some of the studys recommendations on a smaller scale and estimated it will save $30 billion by 2020. Many of the programs he cited, however, have been on the drawing board for years or were unrelated to the Defense Business Boards research.

Work acknowledged that the push to improve business operations lost steam after then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was replaced by Ashton B. Carter in February 2015. Carter has emphasised other goals, such as strengthening the Pentagons partnerships with high-tech firms.

We will never be as efficient as a commercial organisation, Work said. Were the largest bureaucracy in the world. Theres going to be some inherent inefficiencies in that.

Dark matter

Work, a retired Marine officer, became deputy defence secretary in May 2014. With the military budget under the most pressure since the end of the Cold War, he sought help from the Defense Business Board, an advisory panel known for producing management studies that usually gathered dust.

Work told the board that the outcome of this assignment would be different. In a memo, he directed the board to collect sensitive cost data from the military services and defence agencies that would reveal how much they spent on business operations.

(The Washington Post (The Washington Post)

Pentagon officials knew their back-office bureaucracy was overstaffed and overfunded. But nobody had ever gathered and analysed such a comprehensive set of data before.

Some Defense Business Board members warned that exposing the extent of the problem could have unforeseen consequences.

You are about to turn on the light in a very dark room, Kenneth Klepper, the former chief executive of Medco Health Solutions, told Work in the summer of 2014, according to two people familiar with the exchange. All the crap is going to float to the surface and stink the place up.

Do it, Work replied.

To turn on the light, the Pentagon needed more outside expertise. A team of consultants from McKinsey was hired.

In a confidential August 2014 memo, McKinsey noted that while the Defense Department was the worlds largest corporate enterprise, it had never rigorously measured the cost-effectiveness, speed, agility or quality of its business operations.

Nor did the Pentagon have even a remotely accurate idea of what it was paying for those operations, which McKinsey divided into five categories: human resources; health-care management; supply chain and logistics; acquisition and procurement; and financial-flow management.

McKinsey hazarded a guess: anywhere between $75 billion and $100 billion a year, or between 15 and 20 percent of the Pentagons annual expenses. No one REALLY knows, the memo added.

The mission would be to analyse, for the first time, dozens of databases that tracked civilian and military personnel, and labor costs for defence contractors. The problem was that the databases were in the grip of the armed forces and a multitude of defence agencies. Many had fought to hide the data from outsiders and bureaucratic rivals, according to documents and interviews.

Information on contractor labor, in particular, was so cloaked in mystery that McKinsey described it as dark matter.

Prying it loose would require direct orders from Work. Even then, McKinsey consultants predicted the bureaucracy would resist.

This is a sensitive exercise conducted with audiences both weary and wary of efficiency, cost, sequestration and budget drills, the confidential memo stated. Elements of the culture are masterful at waiting out studies and sponsors, with a this too shall pass mindset.

Overstaffed chow hall

From the outset, access to the data was limited to a handful of people. A $2.9 million consulting contract signed by the Pentagon stipulated that none of the data or analysis could be released to the news media or the public.

Moreover, the contract required McKinsey to report to David Tillotson III, the Pentagons acting deputy chief management officer. Anytime the Defense Business Board wanted the consultants to carry out a task, Tillotson would have to approve. His office - not the board - would maintain custody of the data.

Good news! Work emailed Tillotson once the contract was signed. Time to cook.

In an October 15 2014, memo, Work ordered the board to move quickly, giving it three months to produce specific and actionable recommendations.

In a speech the next month, Work lauded the board for its private-sector expertise. He said he had turned it into an operational arm of the Pentagon leadership and predicted the study would deliver transformational results.

In an aside, he revealed that early findings had determined the average administrative job at the Pentagon was costing taxpayers more than $200,000, including salary and benefits.

And you say, hmmm, we could probably do better than that, he said.

The initial results did not come as a surprise.

Former defence secretaries William S. Cohen, Robert M. Gates and Chuck Hagel had launched similar efficiency drives in 1997, 2010 and 2013, respectively. But each of the leaders left the Pentagon before their revisions could take root.

Because we turn over our secretaries and deputy secretaries so often, the bureaucracy just waits things out, said Dov Zakheim, who served as Pentagon comptroller under President George W. Bush. You cant do it at the tail end of an administration. Its not going to work. Either you leave the starting block with a very clear program, or youre not going to get it done.

Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine general and former staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers block even modest attempts to downsize the Pentagons workforce because they do not want to lose jobs in their districts.

Without backing from Congress, you cant even get rid of the guy serving butter in the chow hall in a local district, much less tens of thousands of jobs, he said.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, the Pentagons second-highest-ranking official, ordered the Defense Business Board to conduct the study (Kate Patterson/The Washington Post)

Time to hunt!

The Defense Business Board assigned five members to conduct the study alongside consultants from McKinsey. Scott Rutherford, senior partner at McKinseys Washington office, declined to comment.

The team ran into resistance as several Pentagon offices delayed requests for data, according to emails and memos. Work and Tillotson had to intervene to get the data flowing. At one point, more than 100 people were feeding data from different sectors of the bureaucracy.

Labouring under its tight deadline, the team hashed out an agreement with Pentagon officials over which job classifications to count in their survey. The board added a sixth category of business operations - real property management. That alone covered 192,000 jobs and annual expenses of $22.6 billion.

On Christmas Eve, Klepper emailed Work and Tillotson to thank them for putting their muscle behind the project. Without it, he said, this would all have been DOA and the naysayers would all have been right.

He hinted the board would make some eye-catching recommendations and expressed relief its work had not been torpedoed.

I have to admit, with all the caution, negative reaction and pushback, Klepper said, I had a bit of concern at the end of the analysis some form of censorship would stop us from showing the true opportunity.

Work replied that he could not be happier.

Time to hunt! he said in an email, adding that he was very excited about 2015 and ready to make some bold moves.

The year kicked off with promise. On January 21 2015, the Pentagon announced Stein, the private-equity investor, had been reappointed as the boards chairman and praised him for his outstanding service.

The next day, the full board held its quarterly public meeting to review the results of the study. The report had a dry title, 'Transforming DoDs Core Business Processes for Revolutionary Change', and was packed with charts and jargon. But it began plainly enough.

We are spending a lot more money than we thought, the report stated. It then broke down how the Defense Department was spending $134 billion a year on business operations - about 50 percent more than McKinsey had guessed at the outset.

Almost half of the Pentagons back-office personnel - 457,000 full-time employees - were assigned to logistics or supply-chain jobs. That alone exceeded the size of United Parcel Services global workforce.

The Pentagons purchasing bureaucracy counted 207,000 full-time workers. By itself, that would rank among the top 30 private employers in the United States.

More than 192,000 people worked in property management. About 84,000 people held human-resources jobs.

The study laid out a range of options. At the low end, just by renegotiating service contracts and hiring less-expensive workers, the Pentagon could save $75 billion over five years. At the high end, by adopting more aggressive productivity targets, it could save twice as much.

After a discussion, the full board voted to recommend a middle option: to save $125 billion over five years.

Hordes of contractors

Afterward, board members briefed Work. They were expecting an enthusiastic response, but the deputy defence secretary looked uneasy, according to two people who were present.

He singled out a page in the report. Titled Warfighter Currency, it showed how saving $125 billion could be redirected to boost combat power. The money could cover the operational costs for 50 Army brigades, or 3,000 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the Air Force, or 10 aircraft-carrier strike groups for the Navy.

This is what scares me, he said, according to the two people present. Work explained he was worried Congress might see it as an invitation to strip $125 billion from the defence budget and spend it somewhere else.

A few weeks later, Carter replaced Hagel as defence secretary. Carter sounded as though he would welcome the kind of revolutionary change the board was urging.

To win support from our fellow citizens for the resources we need, we must show that we can make better use of every taxpayer dollar, Carter said in an inaugural message in February 2015. That means a leaner organisation, less overhead, and reforming our business and acquisition practices.

In briefings that month, uniformed military leaders were receptive at first. They had long groused that the Pentagon wasted money on a layer of defence bureaucracies - known as the Fourth Estate - that were outside the control of the Army, Air Force and Navy. Military officials often felt those agencies performed duplicative services and oversight.

But the McKinsey consultants had also collected data that exposed how the military services themselves were spending princely sums to hire hordes of defence contractors.

For example, the Army employed 199,661 full-time contractors, according to a confidential McKinsey report obtained by The Post. That alone exceeded the combined civil workforce for the Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development.

The average cost to the Army for each contractor that year: $189,188, including salary, benefits and other expenses.

The Navy was not much better. It had 197,093 contractors on its payroll. On average, each cost $170,865.

In comparison, the Air Force had 122,470 contractors. Each cost, on average, $186,142.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has emphasised goals such as strengthening the Pentagons partnerships with high-tech firms (Alex Wong/Getty)

Taking fire

Meantime, the backlash to the $125 billion savings plan intensified.

On February 6 2015, board members briefed Frank Kendall III, the Pentagons chief weapons-buyer. Kendalls operations were a major target of the study; he oversaw an empire of purchasing agents and contractors that were constantly under attack from Congress for cost overruns and delays.

Kendall put up a stiff fight. He challenged the boards data and strenuously objected to the conclusion that his offices were overstaffed.

Are you trying to tell me we dont know how to do our job? he said, according to two participants in the meeting. He said he needed to hire 1,000 more people to work directly under him, not fewer.

If you dont believe me, call in an auditor, replied Klepper, the boards restructuring expert. Theyll tell you its even worse than this.

In an interview, Kendall acknowledged he was very disappointed by the boards work, which he criticised as shallow and very low on content. He said the study had ignored efforts by his agencies to become more efficient, and he accused the board of plucking the $125 billion figure out of thin air.

It was essentially a ballpark, made-up number, he said.

Still, Kendall knew that lawmakers might view the study as credible. Alarmed, he said, he went to Work and warned that the findings could be used as a weapon against the Pentagon.

If the impression thats created is that weve got a bunch of money lying around and were being lazy and were not doing anything to save money, then its harder to justify getting budgets that we need, Kendall said.

More ominously, board members said they started to get the silent treatment from the Pentagons highest ranks.

Briefings that had been scheduled for military leaders in the Tank - the secure conference room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff - were canceled. Worse, the board was unable to secure an audience with Carter, the new defence secretary.

Stein, the board chairman, accused Carter of deliberately derailing the plan through inaction. Unfortunately, Ash - for reasons of his own - stopped this, he said in an interview.

Peter Cook, a spokesman for Carter, said the Pentagon chief was busy dealing with a long list of national security challenges. He added that Work and other senior officials had already concluded that the report, while well-intentioned, had limited value.

The fatal blow was struck in April. Just three months after Stein had been reappointed as board chairman, Carter replaced him with Michael Bayer, a business consultant who had previously served on the panel and clashed with Stein. Bayer declined to comment.

A few weeks later, Klepper resigned from the board. The $125 billion savings plan was dead.

In an interview, Tillotson, the Pentagons acting deputy chief management officer, called the boards recommendations too ambitious and aggressive. They, perhaps, underestimated the degree of difficulty we have in doing something that in the commercial sector would seem to be very easy to do.

Yet he acknowledged that its overall strategy for scaling back the bureaucracy was sound and that, given more time, it would be possible to realise huge savings.

If we had a longer timeline, yes, it would be a reasonable approach, he said. You might get there eventually.

Ending the debate

Frustration, however, persisted in some corners over the Pentagons unwillingness to tackle the inefficiency and waste documented by the study.

On June 2 2015, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. He complained that 20 percent of the defence budget went to the Fourth Estate - the defence agencies that provide support to the armed forces - and called it pure overhead.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus takes his seat to testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2016 (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

He singled out the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the Defense Logistics Agency, which together employ about 40,000 people, as egregious examples.

When a reporter in the audience asked whether he thought the agencies should be abolished, Mabus resisted the temptation to say yes.

Nice try on getting me into deep trouble, he replied.

But trouble arrived in Mabuss email the next day.

Ray, before you publicly trash one of the agencies that reports through me Id really appreciate a chance to discuss it with you, wrote Kendall, the Pentagons chief weapons-buyer, whose management portfolio included the Defense Logistics Agency.

He said that if Mabus had a complaint, he should raise it directly with their mutual bosses, Carter and Work, and copied the email to both.

In his interview with The Post, Kendall said he was completely blindsided by the Navy secretarys criticism, so I sent him what I thought under the circumstances was a pretty polite note.

Mabus did not back down. In an emailed retort to Kendall, he referred to the ill-fated Defense Business Board study.

I did not say anything yesterday that I have not said both publicly... and privately inside this building, he said. There have been numerous studies, which I am sure you are aware of, pointing out excessive overhead.

That prompted a stern intervention from Work.

Ray, please refrain from taking any more public pot shots, Work said in an email. I do not want this spilling over into further public discourse.

The Washington Post
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The Democrats should make use of a strange, untested procedure that would let them keep control of the Supreme Court, activists have said.

When Donald Trump takes up the Presidency in January, he will have control over who is appointed to the Supreme Court. That choice will be confirmed by the Senate, which the Republican Party also now controls.

That will mean that together they will be able to fill the slot that was left on the court by Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year.

Barack Obama has looked to fill that space with Merrick Garland, a progressive judge. But the Republicans have blocked that decision and are instead waiting to fill it with a nominee of their own  one likely to be at the conservative end of the spectrum of Supreme Court judges.

US Election night in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 US Election night in pictures US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures AFP/Getty Images

But Democrats may be able to avoid that decision with a very strange quirk of the US system, activists have said.

Recommended Petition to stop Trump being President becomes most popular ever

Blogger David Waldman has suggested that because of the way the Senate will be filled up with new senators, the Democrats will have control of it for just a few minutes on 3 January next year. For just a few minutes, the new Republican senators wont have been sworn in and so wont be able to vote down any new laws.

During that very short period of time, Joe Biden could convene the Senate and call for a vote on the new judge.

The plan is both unlikely and unprecedented, and would likely enrage the Republican senators who have blocked the appointment of Mr Garland. But it is one of a range of technical and procedural measures that activists have looked to in the wake of the election  which have also included campaigns to encourage faithless electors, who could still stop Donald Trump from becoming President.

Republicans could then respond by using court packing, a move that has been contemplated in similar situations in the past. That involves electing more judges  over and above the nine judges that usually sit on it  so that they can then get a majority on the court.
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A police officer has died and two people injured after two cars fell into a massive sinkhole in Texas.

Dora Linda Nishihara, 69, an off-duty Sheriffs Deputy, died after her vehicle and another car plunged into the sinkhole in San Antonio, which was filled with around 12ft of water.

A 60-year-old man was rescued from the second car by two bystanders and taken to a local hospital with minor injuries on Sunday, officials said.

The sinkhole appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain on Sunday, utility officials said. Pictures taken by the San Antonio fire department show the sinkhole is the width of the street. Ms Nishiharas car was seen upside down and almost completely submerged in the sinkholes water.

Fire services used a crane to retrieve Ms Nishiharas car and her body was found inside the vehicle.

The Bexar County Sheriffs Office tweeted the statement: We are heartbroken to confirm Deputy Dora Linda (Solis) Nishihara passed away after her car fell into a sinkhole on Sunday.

Our thoughts and prayers are with her friends and family.

Deputy Nishihara worked as a Reserve Deputy from August 2009 to October 2016, before becoming a part-time Deputy at the Bexar County courthouse, the statement read.

The conditions of the sinkhole have caused a challenging recovery situation, San Antonio fire chief Charles Hood said on Monday. Our rescue team members faced very dangerous conditions with an unstable sinkhole collapsing around them, and swift moving sewer water, he said in a statement.

San Antonio Fire Department battalion chief told mySA.com that the department had teamed up with city water system crews and the police department to salvage the vehicles. He added that the ground surrounding the sinkhole is unstable and if anyone fell inside they could be swept underground.
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While President-elect Donald Trump continues to incorrectly insist that massive voter fraud occurred on Election Day  causing Hillary Clinton to win the popular vote  even his own attorneys cannot agree with his theories.

In fillings to block Green Party candidate Jill Steins recount initiative, lawyers for the Trump campaign confirmed that they found no evidence of discrepancies in how the votes were counted.

Late last month, Dr Stein launched a fundraiser to file for recounts in key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin  all crucial factors in Hillary Clintons loss.

Recommended Jill Stein files for vote recount in swing state of Michigan

But the Trump team accused her of attempting disenfranchisement in a filing against the recount in a Michigan court, according to the Washington Post.

On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise Michigan citizens? None really, save for speculation, they wrote. All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.

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

In their filing against the Pennsylvania recount, Mr Trumps lawyers dismiss Dr Steins accusations, but are not quite as absolute in their statement.

On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise the voters of the Keystone state? None, really, it says. There is no evidence  or even any allegation  that any tampering with Pennsylvanias voting systems actually occurred.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, Mr Trump alleged that millions of illegal votes were cast against him, and provided more evidence. He also called him win a landslide despite the fact that Ms Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes.

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally, he tweeted.

The President-elect continued: Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire, and California  so why isnt the media reporting on this? Serious problem  big problem!

Former chair of the Republican National Committee and incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told CBS that it was certainly possible that millions of undocumented immigrants voted for Ms Clinton. Still, like his new boss, he cited no evidence in support of the claim.

Similarly, the highest ranking Republican official, House Speaker Paul Ryan did not repudiate Mr Trumps false allegation. When asked about Mr Trumps tweet, he simply told 60 Minutes he did not know if the claim had weight. He said he was not really focused on these things.
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President-elect Donald Trump, who supports the Dakota Access Pipeline, will review a decision by the Obama administration to deny an essential permit for the project, a spokesperson told Bloomberg on Monday.

Hours following the statement, the Trump transition team also announced that the real estate mogul has sold his stake in the company spearheading the project, Energy Transfer Partners. In the president-elects most recent financial disclosures, he owned between $15,000 and $50,000 of the companys stock. CNBC reports that its still unclear if he also sold shares of Phillips 66, who owns a small investment in the pipeline.

Following months of protests from the Native American community in North Dakota and activists from across the states, the Army Corps of Engineers denied the company a key permit needed to build the project under Lake Oahe, initiating an environmental review.

Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline Show all 21 1 /21 Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Despite blizzard conditions, military veterans march in support of the "water protectors" at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Fireworks fill the night sky above Oceti Sakowin Camp as activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline near the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will not grant an easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending a months-long standoff. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Despite blizzard conditions, military veterans march in support of the "water protectors" at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Fireworks fill the night sky above Oceti Sakowin Camp as activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline near the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will not grant an easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending a months-long standoff. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Despite blizzard conditions, military veterans march in support of the "water protectors" at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Native American and other activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will not grant an easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending a months-long standoff. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Nation listens to speakers during an interfaith ceremony at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Native Americans and activists from around the country have been gathering at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Today the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending the months-long standoff. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: An Native American activist rides down fom a ridge which overlooks Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Native Americans and activists from around the country have been gathering at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Despite blizzard conditions, military veterans march in support of the "water protectors" at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Political activist Cornel West listen to speakers during an interfaith ceremony at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Native Americans and activists from around the country have been gathering at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Today the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending the months-long standoff. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline Activists hold hands during a prayer circle as they try to surround the entire camp at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Native Americans and activists from around the country gather at the camp trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline Activists celebrate at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota, after hearing that the Army Corps of Engineers has denied the current route for the Dakota Access pipeline. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Chief Arvol Looking Horse (L) of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Nation listens as political activist Cornel West speaks during an interfaith ceremony at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Native Americans and activists from around the country have been gathering at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Today the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending the months-long standoff. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Military veterans from Southern California collect firewood for their campsite at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Despite blizzard conditions, military veterans march in support of the "water protectors" at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 03: Activists participate in an art project conceived by Cannupa Hunska Luger, from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 3, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Native Americans and activists from around the country have been gathering at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 05: Military veterans are briefed on cold-weather safety issues and their overall role at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Over the weekend a large group of military veterans joined native Americans and activists from around the country who have been at the camp for several months trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Yesterday the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not grant an easement for the pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation. The proposed 1,172-mile-long pipeline would transport oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Native American and other activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will not grant an easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending a months-long standoff. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Native American activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will not grant an easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending a months-long standoff. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline CANNON BALL, ND - DECEMBER 04: Native American and other activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The US Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will not grant an easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Sioux Tribes Standing Rock reservation, ending a months-long standoff. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Getty Images Sioux from Standing Rock claim victory over Dakota Pipeline Activists celebrate at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota, after hearing that the Army Corps of Engineers has denied the current route for the Dakota Access pipeline. The US Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday announced they will no longer allow the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under a lake on the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, marking a huge win for Native Americans and protesters who had long opposed the construction. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images

The project will now land on the next presidents desk, and on Monday, spokesman for the Trump transition team, Jason Miller, announced that his administration still supports the pipeline.

Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren also donated $100,000 to the Republicans fundraising effort, according to Federal Election Commission records. Still, his transition team promises that this will not at all influence his decisions once he takes office.
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Hillary Clinton may be able to challenge the election result in the Supreme Court and become the next President of the United States, a law professor has said.

Ms Clinton currently has 2.6 million more votes than Donald Trump in the popular count, but lost the election in November because of the idiosyncratic workings of the United States' Electoral College system  a result which academic Lawrence Lessig has said could be ruled unconstitutional.

The process by which the United States elects a president is complicated  rather than US citizens voting for their head of state directly, representatives in the Electoral College choose the winner on behalf of their state.

Almost all states operate a "winner-takes-all" system, which ignores voter margins. So for instance, Ms Clinton got 44 per cent of the vote in Georgia, but because Mr Trump got a larger percentage, none of the state's six representatives in the Electoral College are set to vote for her.

In an article published by Medium, Mr Lessig said he and a number of other legal experts believed this could be illegal because it defies the constitutionally enshrined principles of "equal protections" and "one man, one vote". It means not all votes are treated in the same way and some people do not get a say at all.

Mr Lessig, who is based at Harvard University, referred to a ruling the US Supreme Court made in 2000, when Republican lawyers litigated to stop a re-count of votes by the Democrats after a painfully close contest between George W Bush and Al Gore.

Although filed by Republicans to protect Mr Bush from being ousted in a re-count, Mr Lessig said a key decision about the importance of "equal protections" made by judges in that case could set a precedent in Ms Clinton's favour, if her party decided to mine the case for information.

But so far, the Democrats have been "timid" about doing this, he said.

"It is striking to see how committed they are to allowing this train wreck to occur," he said. "And more surprisingly, how little careful attention has been given (at the top at least) to just how vulnerablegiven Bush v. Gorethe current (system for counting votes in the) electoral college is".

 Electoral College voting: How the United States decides its president

All states except Maine and Nebraska currently allocate electors based on the winner-takes-all rule, but according to Mr Lessig that system for allocating electoral votes is not mandated by the Constitution, it is employed at the discretion of state.

In draft legal documents, Jerry Sims, an Atlanta lawyer, explores the argument in more depth, explaining that vast changes have occurred in state populations since the Electoral College system was adopted, exacerbating the problem by making the number of representatives allotted to each state disproportionate.

Over time, populations have concentrated in larger states, he said, meaning people from these states are increasingly under-represented in the Electoral College, making it an increasingly flawed system.

Over time it has become, and will continue to become, more and more common for a president to be elected despite having lost the popular vote, he suggested.

"A candidate who lost the popular vote has been elected President five times in US history," Mr Sims said.

"It has also occurred twice in the last 16 years. The 2000 election was the first time in US history that the candidate losing the popular vote won a majority of the Electoral College outright. Now that has happened again in 2016."

Echoing Mr Lessig, he added: "The major contributing factors to this outcome are the winner-takes-all system of allocating electors coupled with the growing concentration of the US population in a handful of States. These factors create a substantial risk that a candidate that loses the popular vote would win the Electoral College outright".

Under the current system, Mr Sims said, some voters are essentially being denied any say, and this is not legal.

"In Georgia, for example, we have 16 Electors and approximately 44 per cent of all voters cast ballots for Clinton," he said. "Yet the Clinton Voters receive no representation within the States Electors. They are left with no voice whatsoever in the election of the President by the Electoral College, their votes are for all practical purposes thrown away,"

He added: "If Georgia were electing a single candidate then a winner-take-all result would be proper, but in an election of 16 Electors, the Clinton votes are not being given equal dignity with the Trump votes."

US Election night in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 US Election night in pictures US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Reuters US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures Getty US Election night in pictures AFP/Getty Images

Mr Sims said that by far a fairer and more constitutional system would be for electors to be allocated proportionately, "in order to give every vote equal dignity and weight".

"Under this methodology [proportionately] every vote counts," he said. "Proportional allocation of Electors respects the one man one vote principle."

Mr Sims said the current system represents an "unconstitutional violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and its bedrock principle of one man one vote," and therefore the election result could in theory be overturned by a court.

Mr Lessig criticised the failure of those "at the top" to consider launching a legal challenge.

"What about the unfairness being felt by the millions of voters whose votes were effectively diluted, or essentially disenfranchised?" he said, suggesting the Attorney Generals of large states such as New York or California could easily walk into the Supreme Court and ask them to hear a case.

"Why are these big states standing by quietly as their voters are essentially silenced by the unconstitutional inequality?" he said.
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The final result of the US presidential election is still unclear almost a month after polling day  and the recount in Michigan has now been thrown into chaos because of broken voting machines.

As officials began a full recount in the swing state, it emerged that faulty machines mean half of all votes cast in the city of Detroit may be ineligible for recount. A third of voting precincts in Wayne County, that largest of Michigan's counties, could also be disqualified.

The problems were discovered after voting clerks were unable to match the number of votes cast on the machines with the number of people who had been registered at polling stations.

 Trump ally says recount ups prosecution odds for Clinton

Officials said at least 87 of Detroits decade-old voting machines had failed on Election Day, with many jamming when ballot papers were fed in. In 392 of the citys 662 voting precincts, the number of votes recorded on machines was not the same as the number of voters registerered by polling station staff.

According to Michigan state law, voting precincts where polling registers do not match with voting machines cannot be included in a recount. In that situation, the original election result will stand.

Its not good, Daniel Baxter, the elections director for Detroit, told Detroit News.

Mr Baxter said he thought the recount would match more of the ballot papers with paper voting records but it remained likely that some areas would be excluded from the recount.

Its a challenge, but were confident the ballots will match, he said. I dont think its going to be 100 percent, but it never is with a recount.

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 potential recount ineligibility of so many areas could hinder Hillary Clinton, who significantly outperformed Mr Trump in both Detroit and Wayne County and whose hopes of winning Michigan rest largely on uncounted ballots being found in Wayne County.

Ernest Johnson, a Democrat activist in Michigan, said: Its a real long-shot now because, if I were looking for 10,000 votes, the first place Id look is Wayne County.

Thats a huge problem. ... But if anything good comes of this it brings up this problem [with voting machines] that needs to be corrected."

Elsewhere in the state, a box of ballot papers was excluded from the recount because it had a hole in, raising concerns it could have been tampered with.



A recount was ordered in Michigan at the request of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein because of the extremely close result and following suggestions by computer scientists that voting machines could have been hacked.

The first count gave Donald Trump the states 16 Electoral College votes after he beat Hillary Clinton by fewer than 11,000 votes of the 5.5 million cast.

The final outcome of the Michigan vote is unlikely to have a significant impact of the result of the presidential election, which saw Mr Trump pull off a shock victory against Mrs Clinton.

The states 16 electoral college votes would not be enough to bridge the gap between Mrs Clinton and her rival, with Mr Trumps lead in the electoral college currently standing at 74, if Michigan is included. He secured 306 Electoral College votes to Mrs Clintons 232.

The actual vote of the delegates that make up the Electoral College will take place on 19 December. Electors have been urged to defy the public vote in their state and vote against Mr Trump.

Earlier this week one Republican delegate, Christopher Suprun, a firefighter involved in the response to the 9/11 attacks, said he would not cast his vote for the President-elect because he was not qualified for the office.
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US Vice President Joe Biden has revealed he intends to mount a presidential bid in 2020.

Speaking to a group of reporters, the 74-year-old said he wanted to run but was not committed to anything.

Mr Biden has been jointly elected twice as the running mate of outgoing President Barack Obama.

 Donald Trump said he'd love to fight Vice President Joe Biden

Asked if he would run for office again, Mr Biden said: Yeah, I am. I am going to run in 2020.

When asked which position he would run for, he replied: For president. And also, you know so, what the hell man, anyway.

Asked if he was joking, Mr Biden said: I'm not committing not to run. I'm not committed to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening, CNBC reports.

Mr Biden previously pursued the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and in 2008, but dropped out of the race early on both occasions.

In 2015, Mr Biden also ruled out running for the nomination, in a race that would have pitted him against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

At the time, Mr Biden said the opportunity had passed on mounting a realistic campaign for president.

He campaigned on behalf of Ms Clinton in 2016.

Mr Biden will be 77-years-old on election day in 2020, three years older than President-elect Donald Trump.

Ronald Reagan is currently the record holder for oldest US president, who was 77-years-old when he left office in 1989.

Mr Biden represented Delaware as a senator from 1973 until his election as Mr Obamas Vice President. He is the first Roman Catholic Vice President, and has been teetotal since a young age.
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A mistrial has been declared in the murder trial of Michael Slager, the former South Carolina police officer who fatally shot Walter Scott, an unarmed black motorist, following a routine traffic stop in 2015.

We as the jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all members, we are unable to come to a unanimous decision, the jury wrote to Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman on Monday afternoon.

In the initial police report, the North Charleston Police Department said Mr Scott took the officers Taser and ran toward him. Mr Slager argued that he had no choice but to use deadly force. However, the 35-year-old former officer was fired from his post after a bystander released the now-infamous, graphic footage of the shooting showing Mr Slager firing his handgun, and striking the 50-year-old motorist five times, while Mr Scott ran at least 17 feet in the opposite direction.

After the cellphone video contradicted the officers statements, it was hard to find anyone in his corner, even the local police union, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Association, called Mr Slagers actions a very bad decision and an unnecessary death.

After the trial concluded on Monday, prosecutors told the Scott family that they would be seeking a retrial as soon as possible.

While I cannot overstate our disappointment that this case was not resolved, I commend those who sacrificed so much time, energy and effort to serve on this jury. We will try Michael Slager again, Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said in a statement. We hope the federal and state courts will coordinate efforts regarding any future trial dates but we stand ready whenever the court calls.



On Friday, Judge Clinton promised to retry the case with a new jury if a mistrial was declared. Mr Slager still faces federal civil rights charges and could face up to a lifetime in prison.

The jurys foreman, the only black member, said in a note to the judge that the majority of the panel thought Mr Slagel should be convicted. Its just one juror that has the issues, he wrote. That juror needs to leave. He is having issues.

Andrew Ferguson, a professor at UDC David A Clarke School of Law and author of Why Jury Duty Matters: A Citizens Guide to Constitutional Action, said that the trial results are difficult to analyze through juror comments because the truth lies behind rules of secrecy.

What we knew from Friday, is that one holdout juror had not been convinced of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he told The Independent. What we learned today is that the jury struggled with complicated legal issues that have no easy answers. The questions today were incredibly perceptive. The jurors should be proud of their attempt to get to the heart of intentionally opaque legal principles.

North Charleston mourns Walter Scott Show all 17 1 /17 North Charleston mourns Walter Scott North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 12: People look at a memorial built on the site where Walter Scott was killed by a North Charleston police officer, April 12, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott was shot and killed on April 4, 2015 by officer Michael T. Slager, who now faces murder charges. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) North Charleston mourns Walter Scott SUMMERVILLE, SC - APRIL 11: A family member weeps while entering the W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center for the funeral of Walter Scott, April 11, 2015 in Summerville, South Carolina. Scott was killed by a North Charleston police officer after a traffic Saturday, April 4, 2015. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been charged with murder. (Photo by David Goldman -Pool/Getty Images) North Charleston mourns Walter Scott SUMMERVILLE, SC - APRIL 11: A family member weeps while entering the W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center for the funeral of Walter Scott, April 11, 2015 in Summerville, South Carolina. Scott was killed by a North Charleston police officer after a traffic Saturday, April 4, 2015. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been charged with murder. (Photo by David Goldman -Pool/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) North Charleston mourns Walter Scott A placard is tied to a fence outside the vacant lot where Walter Scott, the 50-year-old man who was fired at eight times was killed as he ran away from an officer after a traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina on April 8, 2015. Police officer Michael Slager,33, who fatally shot Scott in the US city of North Charleston has been fired after he was charged with murder, the mayor said. Speaking at a highly charged press conference frequently interrupted by residents angered at America's latest high-profile police killing of a black man, Mayor Keith Summey said the city had moved quickly to fire the officer after Saturday's shooting. AFP PHOTO/JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) North Charleston mourns Walter Scott Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 12: The Mayor of North Charleston Keith Summey (R) and Police Chief Eddie Driggers (2R) stand together at the site where Walter Scott was killed by a North Charleston police officer, April 12, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott was shot and killed on April 4, 2015 by officer Michael T. Slager, who now faces murder charges. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 11: Judy Scott (2nd L) and Walter Scott Sr., (3rd L) are joined by others as they prepare to place flowers on the coffin of their son Walter Scott during the burial service at the Live Oak Memorial gardens cemetery, after he was fatally shot by a North Charleston police officer after fleeing a traffic stop in North Charleston on April 11, 2015 Charleston, South Carolina. Mr. Scott was killed on April 4 by North Charleston police officer Michael T. Slager after a traffic stop. The officer now faces murder charges. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott A placard is tied to a fence outside the vacant lot where Walter Scott, the 50-year-old man who was fired at eight times was killed as he ran away from an officer after a traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina on April 8, 2015. Police officer Michael Slager,33, who fatally shot Scott in the US city of North Charleston has been fired after he was charged with murder, the mayor said. Speaking at a highly charged press conference frequently interrupted by residents angered at America's latest high-profile police killing of a black man, Mayor Keith Summey said the city had moved quickly to fire the officer after Saturday's shooting. AFP PHOTO/JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 08: People participate in a rally to protest the death of Walter Scott, who was killed by police in a shooting, outside City Hall on April 8, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Video captured by a bystander showed officer Michael Slager shooting Scott as he ran away. Officer Slager has been charged with murder as a result of the incident. (Photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - APRIL 10: People walk past a memorial setup on the site where Walter Scott was killed on April 4th by a North Charleston police officer on April 10, 2015 in North Charleston, South Carolina. Mr. Scott was killed by North Charleston police officer Michael T. Slager after a traffic stop and the officer now faces murder charges. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Getty Images North Charleston mourns Walter Scott SUMMERVILLE, SC - APRIL 11: A family member weeps while entering the W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center for the funeral of Walter Scott, April 11, 2015 in Summerville, South Carolina. Scott was killed by a North Charleston police officer after a traffic Saturday, April 4, 2015. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been charged with murder. (Photo by David Goldman -Pool/Getty Images)

For those who only saw the video of the shooting of Walter Scott, the murder seemed pretty self-evident, he explained. For those who had to fit that video into a legal doctrine both protective of defendants (with high burdens of proof), and even more protective of police officers who use force, the case becomes much harder. All murder cases are hard when it actually comes to deciding another persons fate. Murder cases with police officers are even harder, even absent the race and societal pressures that characterized this particular trial.

A hung jury does not resolve the case but leaves it for another jury to decide. The same issues that impacted this jury will impact the next. I imagine emotions will be raw, but the next jury will be asked to try to put some closure on this racially sensitive case.

As prosecutor Wilson made her final arguments, she simply played the graphic footage of the incident and urged jurors to do the right thing.

That badge is supposed to be a shield, not a sword, she continued. Our community, our courtroom can only have one fountain for justice. Its time for Michael Slager to take his drink.
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Officials in North Charleston, S.C., have reached a $6.5 million (4.2 million) settlement with the family of Walter Scott, the unarmed black man whom a bystander video captured being shot in the back by a white police officer after fleeing a traffic stop on foot in April, according to the Scott family.

 New Walter Scott dashcam footage released

Its historic, said Chris Stewart, an attorney for the Scott family. It sets a good precedent for a city not tolerating this sort of behavior from police officers.

This is a very difficult period for the Scott family. I know they are glad to have this part behind them so their healing process can continue, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said in a statement.

As a result of this tragedy, important issues have been discussed, not only in North Charleston, but around the country. Citizens have become engaged in this process and government officials are listening.Scotts death was one of half a dozen cases of unarmed black men being killed by police officers in late 2014 and early 2015 that sparked protests in dozens of cities and prompted new discussions of police transparency and reform.

He later added: This settlement is a step in the right direction for the family, the city, the Lowcountry, and our state

The settlement comes after the City of New York agreed to pay $5.9 million to the family of Eric Garner, whose death after allegedly being put in a chokehold by an NYPD officer was captured on bystander video, and the City of Baltimore agreed to pay $6.4 million to the family of Freddie Gray, whose death in the back of a police transport van prompted murder charges for six officers.

North Charlestons decision to pay Scotts family rather than face a civil suit comes as Michael Slager, the officer who killed Scott, remains imprisoned while he awaits trial on murder charges.

If convicted, Slager faces 30 years to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Reached via email, Slagers attorney Andy Savage refused to comment on the settlement.

So far this year, police officers have shot and killed more than 750 people, according to a Washington Post database tracking police shootings all year. There are just five cases this year that have resulted in charges for the officers involved, and in all but one of those cases video evidence was crucial to prosecutors decision to bring charges.

This is a small victory, said Anthony Scott, Walter Scotts brother. And as long as we win the war, and get a conviction for murder, we will be pleased and feel like we got justice.

Copyright: Washington Post
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Turkish-born Azerbaijani artist Tunzale Memmedzade has won international acclaim for her latest piece, a hand-etched Quran made out of silk that took hundreds of hours over three years to create.

Ms Memmedzade said that she got the idea after learning that although over the centuries the Muslim holy book has been transcribed onto various different materials, including carpet, silk had never been used.

Using the official version of the text used by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, the artist painstakingly wrote out the entire work, using over 50 metres of material.

The gold-and-black silk Quran is her masterpiece, the 33-year-old told local news, expressing her joy at being the first to complete such an undertaking.

Calligraphy is a major artistic expression in the Islamic world which has developed over the centuries thanks to the art forms close ties to the Quran. Today, dozens of different scripts exist.
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New figures show around 21,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Burma in recent weeks amid accusations of potential genocide.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said: An estimated 21,000 Rohingya have arrived in Cox's Bazar between 9 October and 2 December.

The government of Burma has criticised media reports of violence against the Rohingya, and lodged a formal protest against a UN official in Bangladesh who said the state was carrying out ethnic cleansing.

At the weekend, the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak led a protest rally against what he called the genocide of the Rohingya minority, saying enough is enough.

 Malaysia's prime minister leads protest against 'genocide'

And the UNs rights agency has said the Rohingya may be victims of crimes against humanity, and that Burma has largely failed to act on the recommendations made in a report by the UN Human Rights Office.

Burma does not allow foreign journalists and investigators access to the western Rakhine province where the worst abuses are alleged to have taken place.

But refugees interviewed in Bangladesh relayed allegations of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of state security forces, according to the AFP news agency.

An analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

The conflict stems from a breakdown in relations between Burmas Theravada Buddhists and the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group, that has resulted in one of the worst refugee crises in the world.

The election victory of Burma's Nobel peace laureate and now de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi spawned hopes that the government would act to foster a safer environment for the Rohingya, and last week she vowed to work for peace and national reconciliation.

In practice, though, the countrys military has retained control of all aspects of state leadership that relate in any way to security, and that includes policy towards the Rohingya.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan, during a vist to the country on Tuesday, urged Burma's security forces to act within the rule of law in the country's northwest, where the army crackdown that has killed at least 86 people. Security forces poured into the area following a series of attacks on police posts in recent weeks that authorities have blamed on local militants.

Security operations must not compromise citizens' civil rights, said Mr Annan, who heads a government-appointed panel tasked with finding solutions to the conflict between Burma's Buddhists and the Muslim Rohingyas.

There is no trade-off between security and civil liberties, he said, after meeting state counsellor Ms Suu Kyi and commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing on his second visit to the country.

Wherever security operations might be necessary, civilians must be protected at all times and I urge the security services to act in full compliance with the rule of law.

The committee was deeply concerned by reports of alleged human rights abuses, Mr Annan said.

Ms Suu Kyi appointed the nine-member panel before the current fighting erupted to advise on the restive state, where ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims have lived separately since clashes in 2012 that killed more than 100 people.

Burma's authorities have rejected allegations by residents and rights groups that soldiers raped Rohingya women, burnt homes and killed civilians during a crackdown in response to the coordinated attacks on three border posts along the frontier with Bangladesh. Ms Suu Kyi has pledged an investigation into the current violence.

Bangladesh has also proved reluctant to accept the Rohingya people, resisting calls to open its borders to the half a million still inside Burma and increasing border patrols.

Islam is by far the majority religion in Bangladesh, and there has been outrage in the country at the treatment of their fellow Muslims across the border.

On Tuesday police stopped thousands of hardline Muslims from marching to the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka to protest at the ongoing genocide of Rohingya.

Shiblee Noman, an assistant commissioner of Dhaka police, told AFP about 10,000 Muslims joined the march, which was halted at central Dhaka's Nightingale Crossing.

They were peaceful, he said.

More than 230,000 Rohingya are already living in Bangladesh, most of them illegally, although around 32,000 are formally registered as refugees.
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North Korea has hacked South Korea's military cyber command, Seoul has alleged.

Pyongyang, which is believed to employ thousands of people in cyber warfare, has been accused of hacking into banks and media outlets in the South before, but never the military.

Classified information is thought to have been hacked, South Korean officials said on Tuesday, but it is not yet clear exactly what data was accessed.

It seems the intranet server of the cyber command has been contaminated with malware. We found that some military documents, including confidential information, have been hacked, a military spokesman told South Koreas Yonhap News Agency.

It is not clear whether war plans were included in the haul taken by the North, which has in the past rejected allegations of involvement in cyber crime.

South Koreas military said the compromised section of its network was isolated once the attack was detected.

The North has been focusing on application programming interfaces (APIs) since 2010, which can be designed to attack national infrastructures, North Korean defector and computer science professor Kim Heung-Kwang told the BBC.

The majority of alleged recent cyber attacks by the pariah state have focused on its neighbour the South, targeting government agencies, banks and media companies.

An apparent concerted campaign involving the planting of malicious code began in 2014, Reuters quoted police as saying.

North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone Show all 13 1 /13 North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP North Korea trading despite nuclear sanctions - Inside the country's special economic zone AP

It was aimed at laying the groundwork for an attack on a massive scale, the agency said.

The campaign was discovered in February this year, when blueprints for the wings of F-15 fighter jets were found to be among the materials stolen.

Some 140,000 computers at 160 companies were attacked up until this June, police said.
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A Chinese state-run tabloid accused President-elect Donald Trump of having tantrums as he generates possible diplomatic conflicts before even taking office.

Mr Trump caused a stir last week when he held a call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen  breaking almost four decades of protocol. The US subscribes to the one China policy, which does not formally see Taiwan as a sovereign province, while still maintaining unofficial ties.

Beijing officials responded to Mr Trumps stunt with restraint and measure.

We will not speculate on what motivates President-elect Trump and his team into taking certain moves, said foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang, but we will surely make ourselves clear if what they say concerns China.

However, Mr Trumps resulting remarks over the weekend caused the state-run newspaper, Global Times, to rebuke the New York businessman.

US President-elect Donald Trump threw a tantrum against China Sunday night, the editorial piece read. It referenced a tweet from Mr Trump railing against the country.

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

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 doesnt tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? he wrote. I dont think so!

The piece criticised Mr Trump for his complete lack of experience with foreign diplomacy and called him out for being obsessed with power.

No matter what the reasons are behind Trumps outrageous remarks, it continues, it appears that Sino-US ties will witness more troubles in his early time in the White House than any other predecessor.

We must be fully prepared, both mentally and physically, for this scenario.

Trump can make a lot of noise, but that does not exempt him from the rules of the major power game. He doesnt have sufficient resources to deal with China wantonly  His many words will not become deeds.

In the immediate wake of Mr Trumps call with Ms Tsai, the White House maintained that the US still adheres to the one China policy.

If the President-elects team has a different aim, said Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Ill leave it to them to describe.
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Angela Merkel has told her own party congress that Britain will not be allowed to cherry pick in Brexit negotiations.

The German Chancellor told her Christian Democratic Union meeting on Tuesday that Theresa May's government would have to respect freedom of movement and the single market.

"We will not allow any cherry picking," Ms Merkel said, to cheers from more than 1,000 delegates in the western rust belt city of Essen.

"The four basic freedoms must be safeguarded - freedom of movement for people, goods, services and financial market products. Only then can there be access to the single market."

 Angela Merkel calls for burqa ban 'wherever legally possible' in Germany

The UK's Conservative cabinet has seemingly flip-flopped back and forth over its strategy in leaving the European Union.

Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, surprised MPs in the House of Commons last week by revealing the Government is potentially willing to pay for single market access.

Recommended Angela Merkel calls for burqa ban in Germany

It once again shone a light on the legitimacy of the Vote Leave claim that 350m in EU money could be spent on the NHS if Britain opted for Brexit.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reportedly told four EU ambassadors he was privately in favour of freedom of movement - according to a diplomat interviewed by Sky News last week. Mr Johnson has since denied the reports.

This again contradicts what Ms May's ministers have said publicly, and the rhetoric of the leave campaign, which wanted to fundamentally regain control of British borders.

Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Show all 13 1 /13 Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Supreme Court Brexit Challenge People wait to enter the public gallery outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Gina Miller, co-founder of investment fund SCM Private arrives at the Supreme court in London on the first day of a four-day hearing Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A man waves the EU flag in front of the Supreme Court Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Satirical artist Kaya Mar poses with two of his paintings in front of the Supreme Court Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Pro-Europe protestors dressed as Supreme Court Justices stand outside the Supreme Court ahead of the first day of a hearing into whether Parliament's consent is required before the Brexit process can begin. The eleven Supreme Court Justices will hear the government's appeal, following the High Court's recent decision that only Parliament can trigger Article 50 Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge The eleven Supreme Court Justices will hear the government's appeal, following the High Court's recent decision that only Parliament can trigger Article 50 Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Businesswoman Gina Miller arrives at the Supreme Court ahead of the first day of a hearing into whether Parliament's consent is required before the Brexit process can begin Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Attorney General Jeremy Wright arrives at the Supreme Court in London EPA Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Protesters outside the Supreme Court in London, where the Government is appealing against a ruling that the Prime Minister must seek MPs' approval to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union PA wire Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A protesters wearing a judge's wigs and robes stands outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A protester holds up a placard outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters Supreme Court Brexit Challenge Pro-Europe protestors dressed as Supreme Court Justices stand outside the Supreme Court Getty Supreme Court Brexit Challenge A man waiting to enter the public gallery waves a European Union flag outside the Supreme Court ahead of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London Reuters

Ms Merkel was speaking at the CDU party congress, where she also said it was a "disgrace" that the international community had proved unable to alleviate suffering in Syria's besieged city of Aleppo.

"It is a disgrace that we have been unable to establish humanitarian corridors, but we must continue to fight for it," said Ms Merkel.

 EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier says Brexit deal could be reached by October 2018

The 62-year-old also took a tougher stance on migration after around 890,000 asylum-seekers arrived in the country last year, saying: "A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated."

In the most unexpected turn, the stalwart politician called for a ban on the burqa.

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier sung from the same hymn sheet as Ms Merkel today at a press conference in Brussels.

Mr Barnier said: "The single market and its four freedoms are indivisible, cherry-picking is not an option."

A Supreme Court case over whether MPs will get a Brexit vote began yesterday.
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Angela Merkel has called for a burqa ban in Germany and said the refugee crisis must never be repeated while making her pitch for a fourth term as Chancellor. Addressing her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, Ms Merkel said she would support a nationwide prohibition on Islamic veils covering the face. "The full-face veil is not acceptable in our country," she told delegates in Essen, sparking rapturous applause. "It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the CDU party convention in Essen (Reuters)

Thomas de Maiziere, the German interior minister and one of Ms Merkels closest allies in the CDU, proposed a partial burqa ban in August and called the veils "contrary to integration". He said the law would apply in places where it is necessary for our society's coexistence including government offices, schools and universities and courtrooms, as well as demonstrations. Dutch MPs voted for a similar prohibition in the Netherlands last month, covering public transport, education, healthcare and government buildings and punishing any infractions with fines. Support for bans on full-face veils has been growing across Europe since France became the first country to implement such a law in 2011, followed by countries including Belgium, Bulgaria and parts of Switzerland.

Ms Merkel ran unopposed for a new term leading the CDU, who first elected her chairwoman in 2000. She kept her position with the support of 89.5 per cent of party members, down on the 96.7 per cent result of two years ago. Her popularity has been severely dented by growing anti-migrant sentiment in Germany following the arrival of around one million asylum seekers in the continuing refugee crisis.

Refugees settle in Germany Show all 12 1 /12 Refugees settle in Germany Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat, a refugee from Syria, plays with his daughter Ranim, who is nearly 3, in the one room they and Mohamed's wife Laloosh call home at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The Zayats arrived approximately two months ago after trekking through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans and are now waiting for local authorities to process their asylum application, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany A refugee child Amnat Musayeva points to a star with her photo and name that decorates the door to her classroom as teacher Martina Fischer looks on at the local kindergarten Amnat and her siblings attend on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The children live with their family at an asylum-seekers' shelter in nearby Vossberg village and are waiting for local authorities to process their asylum applications. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Kurdish Syrian asylum-applicant Mohamed Ali Hussein (R), 19, and fellow applicant Autur, from Latvia, load benches onto a truckbed while performing community service, for which they receive a small allowance, in Wilhelmsaue village on October 9, 2015 near Letschin, Germany. Mohamed and Autur live at an asylum-applicants' shelter in nearby Vossberg village. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Ali Hussein ((L), 19, and his cousin Sinjar Hussein, 34, sweep leaves at a cemetery in Gieshof village, for which they receive a small allowance, near Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat, a refugee from Syria, looks among donated clothing in the basement of the asylum-seekers' shelter that is home to Mohamed, his wife Laloosh and their daughter Ranim as residents' laundry dries behind in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The Zayats arrived approximately two months ago after trekking through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans and are now waiting for local authorities to process their asylum application, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Asya Sugaipova (L), Mohza Mukayeva and Khadra Zhukova prepare food in the communal kitchen at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is their home in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Efrah Abdullahi Ahmed looks down from the communal kitchen window at her daughter Sumaya, 10, who had just returned from school, at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is their home in Vossberg Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Asylum-applicants, including Syrians Mohamed Ali Hussein (C-R, in black jacket) and Fadi Almasalmeh (C), return from grocery shopping with other refugees to the asylum-applicants' shelter that is their home in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat (2nd from L), a refugee from Syria, smokes a cigarette after shopping for groceries with his daughter Ranim, who is nearly 3, and fellow-Syrian refugees Mohamed Ali Hussein (C) and Fadi Almasalmeh (L) at a local supermarket on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. All of them live at an asylum-seekers' shelter in nearby Vossberg village and are waiting for local authorities to process their asylum applications, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Kurdish Syrian refugees Leila, 9, carries her sister Avin, 1, in the backyard at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is home to them and their family in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Somali refugees and husband and wife Said Ahmed Gure (R) and Ayaan Gure pose with their infant son Muzammili, who was born in Germany, in the room they share at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity, and are waiting for authorities to process their application for asylum 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel pauses for a selfie with a refugee after she visited the AWO Refugium Askanierring shelter for refugees in Berlin Getty Images

Ms Merkel has been widely criticised for her decision to open the borders in September 2015, with opponents blaming the policy for mass sexual assaults on New Years Eve in Cologne and two terror attacks by Isis supporters. She has repeatedly refused to reverse the policy amid a string of regional election defeats for her CDU party, but struck a new tone on Tuesday. A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated, she said. That was and is our, and my, declared political aim.

While Ms Merkel has continued to insist that Germany will take in people in genuine need of protection, her government has moved to toughen asylum rules and declare several countries safe - meaning people from there cannot expect to receive protection in Germany. She was also a driving force behind an agreement between the EU and Turkey earlier this year aiming to stop crossings over the Aegean Sea by detaining migrants in Greece under the threat of deportation.

As well as dischord over her policy on refugees, members of the CDU have also been unhappy about a perceived shift to the left during her 11 years as Chancellor. Polls show a solid lead for the party, though their support is well short of the 41.5 per cent they won in Germany's 2013 election.

They face new competition from the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has thrived by attacking Ms Merkel's policies on refugees and supports burqa bans as part of a wider anti-Islam stance. Ms Merkel spoke for an hour and 20 minutes at her partys rally, with the wide-ranging speech followed by 11 minutes of applause.

2016 did not bring more calm and stability. On the contrary, she told around 1,000 CDU members. We are faced with a world, especially after the US election, that needs to re-order itself, with regard to Nato and the relationship with Russia.

The Chancellor called the bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo a disgrace and warned Britain there would be no cherry picking in its Brexit talks. She also made a case for free trade and won applause when she talked about slashing German unemployment. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's defeat in a referendum on Sunday and the impending departure of French President Francois Hollande have enforced her status as Europe's most experienced leader, having come into office in 2005.

But Ms Merkel acknowledged that next year's election campaign would be like none she has waged before, taking place against a backdrop of a polarised society, threats from the far-right and the possibility of a Red-Red-Green coalition of the SPD, left-wing Linke, and the Greens.

It is our job to be so strong as to prevent that, she told the conference. The 2017 election for the Bundestag will be difficult like no previous election  at least since German reunification. You must help me.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Twelve people in Irans fledgling fashion industry have reportedly been sentenced to prison after being found guilty of spreading prostitution online.

Lawyer Mahmoud Taravat told state news agency Ilna that the eight women and four men he represents received jail time of between five months to six years handed down by a Shiraz court on Monday.

The charges included encouraging prostitution and promoting corruption through the publication of obscene images online, the court said, spreading a Western-style culture of nudity designed to corrupt Muslims.

In addition to the jail time, some of the individuals were banned from travelling abroad or working in journalism, the civil service, fashion and photography for two years on their release.

His clients - who were not named - deny all charges and are planning to appeal the decisions, Mr Taravat added.

Iran has recently been seeking to crack down on violations of the countrys strict laws on un-Islamic behaviour, particularly when it comes to social media use, after an invocation from the states supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

[The internet] is a real battlefield. The clerics and seminary students should prepare to enter this field and fight against deviations and erroneous thoughts, he said earlier this year.

Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Show all 11 1 /11 Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Wall of skateboards in the Grand Bazaar of Tehran Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Tehran, the most progressive city in Iran, is home to the country's largest community of skateboarders. They number about 500. The Alborz Mountains overlook the north of the capital. Skateboarders like to meet over there to go down from mount Toshal to city center skatepark. In Tehrans heavy traffic, this horde of skateboarders is in the middle of a very dangerous journey Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Documenting themselves with Go-Pro cameras, the crew of skateboarders rides through the city, past the wide-eyed gazes of passers-by. The footage will be posted on Instagram, a popular social network among young Iranians. Unlike Facebook, Instagram is not blocked by the Iranian government Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran In Southern Tehran, Ashkan kickflips in front of a mural depicting the ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran In recent years, groups of skateboarders appeared in all of Iran's major cities. Iranian cities, where modern and traditional architecture intermingle, are their playgrounds. Unlike Tehran, there is no skate park in Isfahan. Young skaters must settle for the street Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran In front of a mosque in Isfahan, around 211 miles south from Tehran, Erfan is towed by a carriage usually meant for tourists Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Persian rugs are traditionally used for sitting to eat, drink tea or rest. While waiting for friends from Ispahan to joint them, the skateboarders from Tehran improvise a game with a board without wheels Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran The Grand Bazaar in Tehran is usually filled with people, but Friday is the weekly day of rest in Iran. Amid ghostly decor skateboarders lose themselves in the many narrow alleys of the labyrinthine market Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran In Tehran, Erfan, 24, rides hurtles past the portraits of Khamenei (left), the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989, and his predecessor Khomeini (far right) Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran In Kerman, located in southeastern Iran, girls take ownership of skateboarding, too. Wearing mandatory veils and long sleeves, here are three that train regularly with boys Mathias Zwick Mathias Zwick: Skateboarders of Iran Although skateboarding is one of the few sports where genders intermingle, girls do not have the same opportunities than boys. Mandatory veils and long sleeves make practicing skateboard harder under the intense heat of a summer in Shiraz, said Ehlam, 21 years old, skater girl, electric guitar player and also breakdancer Mathias Zwick

The Centre for Investigation of Organised Crime, a branch of the elite religious Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), routinely monitors social media for evidence of immorality or subversion on the part of citizens.

Its not the first time people working in the fashion industry have been targeted: in May, arrest warrants were issued for eight models because of pictures of them posted to Instagram in which their hair was not covered by a hijab.

One leading model was forced to publicly repent after being charged with promoting western promiscuity."
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Iraqi army units surged towards the centre of Mosul on Tuesday in an attack from the city's south-eastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the seven-week-old battle for Isis's Iraqi stronghold.

Campaign commander Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah was quoted by Iraqi television as saying troops had entered Salam Hospital, less than a mile from the Tigris river, which runs through the city centre.

If confirmed, it would mark a significant advance by the Ninth Armoured Division, which had been tied up for more than a month in close-quarters combat with Isis on the south-eastern fringes of the city.

Residents of Isis-controlled districts of east Mosul said by telephone that the army had punched deep into the east bank of the city, getting close to the Tigris.

The fighting right now is very heavy  Iraqi forces have gone past our neighbourhood without entering it. Our area is now practically surrounded by the river and the Iraqi forces, said a resident.

Isis's news agency appeared to confirm the advance, saying three car bombers struck the troops near Salam Hospital.

A Reuters team saw thick black smoke rising from the area around the hospital. We made good advances today, said a soldier who identified himself as Abu Ahmed.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

Mosul is by far the largest city under Isis control and defeat there would roll back the self-styled caliphate it declared in 2014 after seizing large parts of Iraq and Syria.

Some 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and mainly Shia paramilitary forces are participating in the Mosul campaign that began on 17 October, with air and ground support from a US-led coalition.

A colonel in the armoured division said Tuesday's assault, launched at 6am, aimed to ultimately reach Mosul's Fourth Bridge, the southernmost of five bridges spanning the river.

The bridge, like three others, has been hit by US-led air strikes to prevent Isis sending reinforcements and suicide car bombs across the city to the eastern front.

The last and oldest bridge, built in the 1930s, was targeted on Monday night, two residents said. The structure was not destroyed, but the air strikes made two large craters in the approach roads on both sides.

I saw Daesh [Isis] using bulldozers to fill the craters with sand and by midday vehicles managed to cross the bridge normally. I drove my car to the other side of the bridge and saw also Daesh vehicles crossing, a taxi driver told Reuters.

 Isis 'does not have the guts' to continue fight for Mosul, claims Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi

The army says it is facing the toughest urban warfare imaginable  hundreds of suicide car bomb attacks, mortar barrages, sniper fire and ambushes launched from a network of tunnels. More than a million civilians are still in the city.

The colonel said Tuesday's offensive aimed to overwhelm the militants, who have put up stiff resistance but are hugely outnumbered by the attacking forces.

We are using a new tactic  increasing the numbers of advancing forces and also attacking from multiple fronts to take the initiative and prevent Daesh fighters from organising any counter-attacks, the colonel said by telephone.

He said the four armoured division regiments, whose tanks and heavy armour have struggled to adapt to street-by-street fighting, had been reinforced by an infantry regiment.

They were aiming for the Wahda neighbourhood, a sprawling south-eastern district. Wahda could serve as a launchpad for an advance to the Fourth Bridge, he said.

The Sunni Muslim jihadis, who seized Mosul in mid-2014, are believed to be dug in across the city, but a US general in the coalition supporting Iraqi forces told Reuters they appeared to have committed additional defences to the fight in the east.

The west of the city is more densely populated than the east and has a greater concentration of Sunni Muslims.

The quality of the enemy we are facing now is markedly declined from a month ago, said Brigadier General Scott Efflandt, a coalition deputy commander.

What they were saving for the west side of the river they are now committing to the east.

He said the number of militants in the city had probably fallen to around 3,000, from around 3,000-5,000 at the start of the campaign.

Iraqi officials have not given any casualty figures for their own forces. Last week the United Nations said nearly 2,000 members of Iraq's security forces had been killed in November  a figure Baghdad says was based on unverified reports  and that more than 900 police and civilians had also been killed.

Reuters
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A gilded statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dubbed King Bibi by its creator stirred condemnation from Israel's culture minister and was toppled by an onlooker after a brief public appearance.

Sculptor Itay Zalait said he had placed the four metre (13 foot) tall effigy of Mr Netanyahu on a white pedestal in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, adjacent to city hall, to test the limits of freedom of expression in Israel.

The Israeli government and artists have been locked in a so-called culture war over steps by Culture Minister Miri Regev to withhold state funds from institutions that do not express loyalty to the state.



Posting on Facebook after the guerrilla-art sculpture was erected, Ms Regev called it an expression of hatred towards Netanyahu. Tel Aviv municipal officials ordered Mr Zalait to remove the statue and said they would haul it away and fine him if he refused.

Morning commuters gathered to snap photos and debate whether the statue should be seen as mockery of Mr Netanyahu or homage to the right-wing Prime Minister, now in his fourth term and known by his childhood nickname Bibi.

One woman bowed down in jest in front of the figure, which Mr Zalait said took him three months to sculpt.

In the social media, there have been tens of thousands of comments about 'King Bibi', Mr Zalait said on Army Radio when asked what had inspired him to create the statue.

I simply made it a reality and put it in its deserved place, the Kings of Israel Square, he said, referring to the plaza's name before it was changed to honour Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister assassinated by an ultra-nationalist Jew during a peace rally there in 1995.

Mr Zalait said he wanted to open a debate around Israeli attitudes to Mr Netanyahu by placing the statue at the spot where Mr Rabin was killed.

The reaction of the Israelis interests me, from those who say they would like to see more statues like that on the squares of the country to those who want to demolish it with a hammer, he told AFP.

Passer-by Nina Lobel said the portrayal of Mr Netanyahu was horrendous and that the artist had wanted to show him as a dictator.

Shortly after city hall's deadline for the statue's removal expired, a man in the crowd pushed King Bibi to the ground. It made a soft clink as it hit the pavement and the artist, who seemed amused, took it away, still in one piece, on a truck.

Mr Netanyahu and his wife Sara have drawn frequent headlines over whether state funds have been used to support what critics decry as their lavish lifestyle. Both have denied any misuse of taxpayers' money.

Reuters
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Israels parliament has voted to give preliminary approval to a bill that could see almost 4,000 Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank legalised.

Ministers voted on Monday 60 to 49 on the legislation known as the Regulation Law, which would recognise 3,881 wildcat housing units originally built without Israeli permission on private land in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

"With this law, the state of Israel has moved from the path leading to the creation of a Palestinian state to the path leading to [Israeli] sovereignty" over most of the West Bank, hard-right Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who proposed the bill, told army radio.





The bill in its original form drew criticism from many quarters last month - not least Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - for its focus on saving the outpost of Amona, created in 1995 and currently home to approximately 200 people.

An amendment removed a clause mentioning Amona, meaning that the outpost must be demolished by 25 December as per a 2014 High Court ruling.

While the Regulation Law is still three readings away from becoming law, with Mr Netanyahus coaliton backing it is likely to clear the Knesset without further problems.

Mr Netanyahu told his Likud party that "we have worked very hard to find a solution", and Amonas residents will be moved to temporary housing while a more permanent fix is found. Critics have pointed out the temporary accommodation is also on occupied land.

'I saw Israeli bulldozer kill Rachel Corrie' Show all 3 1 /3 'I saw Israeli bulldozer kill Rachel Corrie' 'I saw Israeli bulldozer kill Rachel Corrie' 335079.bin AP 'I saw Israeli bulldozer kill Rachel Corrie' 335078.bin AP 'I saw Israeli bulldozer kill Rachel Corrie' 335077.bin AFP

While wildcat outposts which are not authorised by the Israeli government are more contentious than approved settlement building, Israeli housing in any form over the 1967 Green Line is viewed by the international community as illegal.

Rights groups, as well as the US State Department, have described the precedent the bill sets for other originally unauthorised outposts in the West Bank as troubling.

"It is a very worrying initiative. I encourage Israeli legislators to reconsider such a move that would have far-reaching legal consequences across the occupied West Bank," Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, told reporters.

The US and the rest of the international community are broadly committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although US President-elect Donald Trump has been unclear on whether his administraton will change tack on the issue of settlement building.



Israeli settlements in the West Bank are viewed as one of the major stumbling blocks to any lasting peace deal in the decades-old stalemate.
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The Saudi Arabian government has sentenced 15 people to death and jailed many more over an alleged spy ring that handed secret documents to arch-enemy Iran.

A court in the capital of Riyadh also gave prison terms ranging from six months to 25 years, and acquitted two, over a three-year case that has involved 30 Saudis, one Iranian and one Afghan.

Critics have long said the high-profile trial is entirely politically motivated and serves as a distraction from the Gulf state's economic woes.

Recommended Saudi Arabia puts dozens Shia Muslims on trial for spying for Iran

The 32 were detained in 2013 and went on trial in February charged with an exhaustive list of damning accusations.

Saudi state media said suspects fed back sensitive national security information to Iran - the Islamic kingdom's long-term rival - that attacked the territorial unity and integrity of the country and its armed forces.

Suspects were also accused of meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, coordinating with Iranian intelligence agents, of possessing weapons, forging documents and accepting bribes.

Recommended Tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia has little to do with religion

Moreover, they were accused of attempting economic sabotage, of trying to undermine social peace and public order, spread chaos, incite sectarian strife and carry out "hostile acts" against the kingdom.

Prosecutors also accused the alleged spy ring, which includes a university professor, a paediatrician, banker and two clerics, of travelling to Iran and Lebanon for training on espionage techniques.

 Saudi Arabia executes prince accused of killing man in brawl

The gang allegedly attempted to recruit people working in state agencies and hack into computers for sensitive information.

Almost all of the defendants are Shia Muslims, in what is a Sunni-dominated country, and are from the oil rich Eastern province where street protests calling for democratic reform have bubbled up since the Arab Spring.

Anger reached fever pitch in this region, when in January, leading celric and vocal regime critic Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was executed for alleged involvment in the killing of policemen.

The publicity has swept aside headlines surrounding the Saudis involvment in the Yemen civil war, which has killed more than 10,000 civilians.

During times of low oil prices, Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman has slashed capital spending by 71 per cent and ministers' pay by 20 per cent.

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabian officials said they would behead a disabled man for taking part in protests.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

The death penalties for the 15 alleged spies are open to appeal.

Relations between Saudia Arabia and Iran soured after the latter's 1979 Shia revolution.

The Independent has contacted the House of Saud for comment.
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In an intensive care ward in Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, a three-month-old Arab baby boy is struggling for his life in a room next to a young Israeli girl who is also receiving urgent care. He has only been in the hospital for eight hours, but already has had to be resuscitated and has severe intestinal problems. The family rushed him to Shaare Zedek from a facility in East Jerusalem when it became clear that he urgently needed the specialist care the hospital and its staff can provide.

A three month old arab baby boy being treated by an Israeli doctor - Alan Schaller

In many ways, Shaare Zedek is a hospital like any other. It is a place filled with personal hardship, relief, joy, dedicated medical staff and other employees who work hard behind the scenes. In some ways however it is quite different. Israel has long been involved in conflict, most recently with Hamas. The outcome of this fighting which is pertinent to hospitals in Israel sometimes involves Hamas sending people into the country to strike at security, military or civilian targets. These attacks often result in the loss of life or injury. Perpetrators, if they are alive, and their victims are taken to hospital if they need treatment. Under the code of ethics practiced by hospitals the moment a human being is brought in for care their background does not impact the quality or immediacy of treatment they receive. Those whose lives are most at risk are given priority, like in any hospital with any patient. There have been instances in Shaare Zedek where perpetrators of attacks who are critically wounded have to be treated before victims. The added stress of treating patients of this nature on top the of the everyday pressures of their work asks more from Shaare Zedek staff than in most hospitals.

I spoke with Amran Jaber, an Arab nurse who works in ER at the hospital and is studying the psychological effects of terror-related trauma at a university in Tel Aviv. Together with a colleague he conducts workshops encouraging staff to speak their minds and share any concerns they have, whether it's from treating perpetrators of attacks and the subsequent victims to more regular job stresses or even life at home. He told me: When the stabbing attacks happened in Jerusalem in September last year I knew these workshops would be necessary. We see that there is a lot of tension among the nurses and they need to talk about the situation. They become nervous. Both Israeli and Arab staff need these workshops working here. No one has ever quit their job here due to stress, stress is part of working in a hospital! We know how to deal with stress here, but what happens when you go home, how does it impact your life? This is about coping with life. The hospital provided an external psychologist for us at the beginning, but he hadn't endured what we have together, and this is why it is important that the staff lead the workshops.

Professor Elie Picard - Alan Schaller

One extraordinary example of collaboration within the hospital became clear when I spoke with Prof. Elie Picard, the director of the hospitals Paediatric Pulmonary Institute. Picard was born in France and eventually moved to Israel where he now lives with his family. His 18-year-old son Eyran was sadly killed in an attack in Gaza in 2002. He explained his story, showed his sons obituaries in cuttings of French publications that he keeps by his desk alongside a photograph of him and a book that he made after his death which documents his life.

Eryan was at a high school, and one evening a Palestinian penetrated into the school and killed him, four of his classmates and wounded 25 others. He was not a soldier, he wanted to be a physician. In Israel we face almost every week such tragedies. My mother died shortly after, and I am sure she did from her sadness. In Jewish tradition it is written in the Torah no vengeance. We have a lot of Arab patients, and they are not guilty of crimes, and many are very nice. You can walk around our hospital and see Jews and Arabs side by side. A few weeks after the funeral I came back to work and I saw one of my Arab patients who is a dentist. He said How can you see me after what happened to you? I told him you are not guilty. It is the politicians who are. I am all the time very surprised to hear our population being spoken of as segregated. It is not my experience. I think Europe has a very different view to what life is like here to how the Arabs and Jews living here. I do not change my behaviour with my patients. I learned medicine in order to help, not to discriminate. Working with Arabs has been part of the healing process for me. I have learned not to despair. I do not see Arabs as my enemy, I feel we both have the right to live here.

Professor Picard treating an arab patient - Alan Schaller

The doctors and nurses of the world literally deal with the mess left behind by war and many are naturally opposed to it. We think of Israel as a hardened nation of right wing uncompromising politics, and, of course, there are people like that there, but the truth is much more nuanced than that. In the UK, many people voted against Brexit but to other countries the British people are all represented by the outcome and the political and social implications. In the same way Israels military actions are heavily scrutinised by the media, and all Israelis are assumed to be in support of that. It is a simplistic way of looking at the world, and not helpful to reaching long-term solutions. Likewise not all Arabs are anti-Israel. Many do not approve of the government's actions, but likewise condemn the action of Hamas, and feel those people do not represent their values.

I spoke with Abeer Al-Natsheh, an Arab woman who founded the first all female IT solutions company in East Jerusalem. Abeer is a member of One Voice, an international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians, empowering them to propel their elected representatives toward the two-state solution. She is also a former patient of Shaare Zedek, and I was interested to talk to her about her experiences at the hospital and her general views on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

My father spent years in prison with no charges, for being a Palestinian activist. I was 26 when I first met an Israeli. When you live in an Arab area you often do not interact with Israelis unless you go to a shopping mall or a hospital. We still have Israeli neighbours who we never interact with, and this is because there is a lack of trust. We can coexist quite happily as long as the interactions is informal like on the beach. It is easy to make friends with Israelis, but this does not seem to change politics. I was treated very well at Shaare Zedek hospital.

I asked her what her opinions were among the Palestinian people about their future with Israel.

From my point of view Hamas is trying their own way of politics. The fact that they are not sitting on the side and being quiet gets them support from many Palestinians. The way they do things is different from how I feel it should be done, but they get results like getting prisoners released from Israel. They were elected and many people do support them because of this. It is the right of any nation to fight against attacks and wars, and this is one form of resistance. Palestine has always been a secular country, never an Islamic country. Hamas take the hard line of Islam and they have moved Islam away from the peaceful religion that we know. I don't want my children to grow up holding a gun. Hamas are exposing Palestinian society to war as Israel does to itself, and everyone want this to stop. Israel is spending billions securing the border, and there is heavy loss of life in Gaza. It is bad for both sides.

Colouring in seemed a popular activity among the children - by Alan Schaller

There are few issues that have sparked more debate and upset in the UK than the relationship between Israel and Palestine. The majority of the news we consume regarding that part of the world focuses on conflict and division. Whilst it is vital that wars and the outcome of them are reported in the media, only speaking about a part of the world in the terms of how it goes to war can build a frightening perception of the place. I wonder how the rest of the world would perceive the UK if the only press it received related to our military involvement in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, or back in the days of the conflict with the IRA. I find it a hugely hypocritical position to judge the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whilst being indifferent to the conduct of countries like the UK that have colonised large parts of the world and are consistently involved in conflicts for hundreds of years. My personal view is that war and conflict is equally deplorable, no matter where it is conducted, and that it is important to try and focus media attention beyond the causes of the conflict and the fighting itself to reach resolutions. It seems to be a regrettable fact of life that humans wherever they are will try and kill each other, and I sadly don't see the Israel-Palestine conflict as intrinsically unique or remarkable in this way.

Shaare Zedek employs a mix of Israeli and Arab staff, from doctors and nurses to teachers and janitors. There are almost 1.7 million Arabs living in Israel, which represents 20% of the population, and this percentage is reflected in the people employed at the hospital, and the patients admitted. The director, Professor Jonathan Halevy explained to me positions are given to whoever are best qualified for the job available, regardless of ethnicity, sex or religion. We want to offer our patients the best care possible, and they come first. Data collected in 2015 shows the hospital annually has 140,000 emergency room visits, carries out 30,000 operations and sees 22,020 babies into the world.

An Arab and Israeli man both recovering from heart surgery - By Alan Schaller

Unity and collaboration between the staff irrespective of religious denomination in order to reach a common goal is the key to the functionality and success of Shaare Zedek. If those same uncompromising principles were adopted by politicians on both sides, a solution to the conflict may realistically be reached in time.
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Russias Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier has managed to write off two planes because of problems during landing after missions in Syria in the last three weeks, it has emerged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the countrys only aircraft carrier - previously part of the Soviet Union navy in the 1980s - to the port of Tartous in government-held Syria in November as part of a huge deployment designed to both bolster Syrian President Bashar al-Assads forces and show off Russias military strength.

However, analysts have pointed out that the Kuznetsov may be more trouble than its worth in combat after two crashes in the space of three weeks.

A MiG-29K crashed while trying to land on November 14, followed by a Su-33 fighter on December 3, the Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed.

Despite good weather conditions, the Su-33 ended up in the Mediterranean after the arresting cables that slow jets upon landing snapped. In both incidents, the pilots managed to eject safely and were picked up by search and rescue teams.

The carrier is somewhat of a joke among defence and security experts. It is prone to frequently breaking down, and is now accompanied by tugboats, just in case, and Russian media has reported that it only has 25 working toilets for up to 2,000 crew.

 Russia shows off new weapons as Syria offensive resumes

The Kuznetsov also uses an unreliable ski jump launch pad when planes take off, unlike the catapults used by more sophisticated US-built ships.

While the Kuznetsov can carry 15 planes at a time, it is designed for protecting home waters rather than the type of mission it is currently on, naval experts say.

This carrier was never designed for projecting power on shore, Pavel K Baev, who studies Russian military reform at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told The Washington Post.

The fact of the military matter is that this deployment adds nothing, just absolutely nothing to the capabilities [that Russia has on the ground in Syria], he added.

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

Most of the current Russian bombing of rebel areas in Idlib and Homs provinces has been launched from regime ground bases. There have been reports that Russia has been moving planes from the Kuznetsov to Syrian airfields in the last week.

Russia began military intervention at the request of Mr Assad in 2015, a move that is widely acknowledged to have turned the tide of the almost six-year-old war in the regimes favour.

The renewed Russian-supported Syrian assault on rebel-held east Aleppo has killed more than 300 people, including 46 children, monitors say.
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Deep inside Syria, a bishop worked secretly to save the lives of 226 members of his flock from the Islamic State group - by amassing millions of dollars from his community around the world to buy their freedom.

The were seized from the Khabur River valley in northern Syria, among the last holdouts of a minority that had been chased across the Mideast for generations. On February 23 2015, Isis fighters attacked 35 Christian towns simultaneously, sweeping up scores of people.

It took more than a year, and videotaped killings of three captives, before all the rest were freed.

Paying ransoms is illegal in the United States and most of the West, and the idea of giving money to the Islamic State group is morally fraught, even for those who saw no alternative.

"You look at it from the moral side and I get it. If we give them money we're just feeding into it, and they're going to kill using that money," said Aneki Nissan, who helped raise funds in Canada. But "to us, we're such a small minority that we have to help each other."

The Khabur families trace their heritage to the earliest days of Christianity. To this day, they speak a dialect of Aramaic, believed to be the native language of Jesus.

When the villages were attacked, fleeing residents phoned cousins, sons, daughters, friends - Assyrians who had left the region in waves for the West. In the chaos, no one was sure how many were taken captive - but everyone was certain they were going to die.

As days stretched into a week, it became clear IS had other plans.

The group told the 17 men captured from one village, Tal Goran, they could have their freedom but with a catch. Four female captives would remain, and one of the men had to deliver a message to their bishop in the town of Hassakeh about 40 miles away, and return with an answer. The extremists demanded $50,000 per person for the whole group.

Abdo Marza reluctantly agreed. His six-year-old daughter was one of the captives.

It took the bishop, Mar Afram Athneil, three days to make a decision, as he consulted with members of the church around the world on what to do. Then he gave Marza a sealed envelope, with no explanation.

When Marza handed it over, the IS extremist broke into a smile. "Your bishop is a very smart man." With that, his daughter and three old women were freed.

Athneil began secret negotiations for the remaining captives.

In California, Assyrian filmmaker Sargon Saadi packed his gear, hoping to learn what had happened to the Khabur villages. He found them almost deserted.

"We didn't know why they took them, we didn't know where they took them, what they wanted to do with them," Saadi said.

When word filtered down about the ransom, the price was daunting. IS's starting demand of $50,000 a person would mean more than $11 million for the remaining captives.

"There's no easy way to give them money. It's very dangerous, it's also illegal in many countries," Saadi said.

The calls for donations went out across social media. In Germany, Assyrian entrepreneur Charli Kanoun persuaded the government to accept the Tal Goran hostages, and then he began fundraising for the others. Outside London, Andy Darmoo also fundraised while running his chandelier business.

On May 26, two women were freed. On June 16, one man was released. On August 11, 22 more people were liberated. Many in the diaspora hoped the ordeal was nearly over.

Then in September 2015 came the video showing three Khabur men, dressed in orange, being shot to death.

"When that happened, everybody went crazy and money started flying in from all over," Saadi said. "Assyrians don't have an army to go rescue them. They don't have SWAT teams, they don't have SEAL 6. The only option they have is to pay ransom."

The Islamic State group has made a fortune off the desperation of hostages. A United Nations resolution from December 2015 called on governments "to prevent kidnapping and hostage-taking committed by terrorist groups and to secure the safe release of hostages without ransom payments or political concessions."

But while no government appeared to stop the fundraising, the Assyrians say no country stepped in to free the captives either.

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

Brokered by the bishop, Athneil, negotiations resumed in mid-fall. The money went into an account in Irbil, Iraq.

From November, releases took place every few weeks.

On February 22, 2016, a final list of 43 names was sent to the bishop. The last Khabur captives were on their way out.

But when the bus arrived in Hassakeh, only 42 hostages were on board. 16-year-old Maryam David Talya had been pulled off at the last checkpoint by an IS guard, Kanoun said.

After another agonising month of negotiations, Maryam stumbled into the arms of her parents.

How much was ultimately paid remains a mystery. The bishop, the only person with a full accounting, declined to speak to The Associated Press.

Those involved credit him for saving the lives not just of the hostages but of hundreds of other Assyrians who fled the war zone. The Khabur valley is now all but empty of its Christians.

"Honestly, this man should go down as a saint, the things that he's done, the sacrifices he's made to help these people," Nissan said. "He's refusing to leave Syria until all his flock is secured."

AP
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As the gulf between high-spending business travellers and budget-minded economy passengers widens, a US senator has demanded a ban on airlines charging for cabin baggage.

Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who is the senior senator for New York, said: No matter the ticket price, the overhead bin should be free. Period.

As The Independent has reported, United Airlines will start selling Basic Economy tickets on US domestic flights in the New Year.

The tickets will come with an unprecedented number of restrictions for a legacy carrier. Basic Economy passengers will be the last to board; they may be seated apart from their travelling companions; and can bring on board no cabin baggage beyond a laptop or shoulder bag small enough to fit under the seat in front of them. Checked-in cases start at $25 (20) for the first bag.

United Airlines tells passengers: Basic Economy fares have some important additional restrictions compared to our standard economy fares.

But Senator Schumer said: The overhead bin is one of the last sacred conveniences of air travel and the fact that United Airlinesand potentially othersplan to take that convenience away unless you pay up is really troubling.

It seems like each year, airlines devise a new, ill-conceived plan to hit consumers and it has simply got to stop. Already, airlines charge extra for checked luggage, pillows, peanuts, and headphones and now youll have nowhere to store them. United Airlines should reverse this plan and allow the free use of the overhead bin for all.

He called the policy a lose-lose for the flying public and said it represents a slippery slope that could negatively alter the policy on free use of the overhead bins for all fliers.

In Europe, Wizz Air already charges for larger pieces of cabin baggage, and other airlines are known to be studying the concept.

Meanwhile, the airline targeted by Senator Schemer has unveiled its best-ever business-class offering.

"Polaris Class" will include bedding from Saks Fifth Avenue featuring plush duvets, lightweight day-blankets and a large and small pillow for each United Polaris customer". New amenity kits will feature ergonomically designed eye shades and calming pillow mist from Soho House & Co's Cowshed Spa.

Julia Haywood, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of United, said: Arriving at your destination well rested is something we all strive for when we travel, and for our customers traveling halfway around the world, optimal performance when they arrive at their destination is the only option.
The border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the village of Bridgend, Co Donegal

A senior European Union official has refused to rule out the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK after Brexit.

The European Commission's lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said the UK's decision to break away from Brussels would have "consequences" and he was "extremely aware" of the importance of the situation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

At a press conference in Brussels, Mr Barnier said he was determined that the Brexit negotiations would "find a way" to preserve the success of the Good Friday peace agreement.

But asked if he would commit to retaining the common travel area and rule out a hard border between Ireland - a member state - and the UK once it is outside the bloc, he said Brexit would have implications for the EU's frontiers.

Mr Barnier, who played a leading role in the EU's support of the Good Friday process, said: " The UK's decision to leave the European Union will have consequences. In particular, perhaps, for what are the EU's external borders today.

"All I can say at this moment in time is that I am personally extremely aware of the importance of this particular topic.

"We will, throughout these negotiations with the UK and of course with Ireland, do our utmost to find a way in order to preserve the success of the Good Friday process and, of course, retain the dialogue there.

"That's all I can say now."
The report looked at the standard of pupils around the world

Irish secondary school pupils are among the best at reading, an international study on academic standards has found.

But concerns have been raised about a slip in scores for science in the last three years.

The marks were awarded by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which ranked 15-year-olds in Ireland fifth best for reading out of 70 countries worldwide and second in the European Union.

In science they scored 19th out of all the nations in the study and sixth in the EU while in maths they were 18th overall and ninth in Europe.

The research also showed girls performing better than boys in reading and boys performing better than girls in mathematics and science.

Education Minister Richard Bruton said improvements were needed in maths and science.

"We also need to reduce the gaps in gender performance in all areas, and also improve the performance of our higher achievers and address higher order thinking. I am encouraged by the good progress made by lower achieving students in terms of improving their performance," he said.

The triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that the gap between girls and boys in reading is narrowing but boys are continuing to stretch the gap from girls on mathematics and science scores.

The report warned that computer-based testing may be a factor, with some girls maybe less confident or less experienced in these examinations or it may also relate to the types of thinking elicited by the new testing, including virtual experiments for science.

In 2015, 167 schools in Ireland took part in the PISA tests and results from 5,741 pupils were examined.

The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) said the findings endorsed the high quality work of Irish teachers and students at a time of hugely damaging cuts to education. In all three areas which were examined, the scores of Irish students were significantly above the OECD average.

Spokesman David Duffy said: "TUI endorses the policy recommendation for additional resources, targeted to students or schools with the greatest needs. Investment in education pays a huge dividend and makes compelling educational, social and economic sense.

"Today's findings further endorse the achievements of Irish students and teachers, but their commitment must be better supported through increased, progressive Government investment in education."

The report coincides with a long-running dispute between the Association of Secondary Teachers' of Ireland and the Government over reform of the junior cycle curriculum in secondary schools.
Fan Changlong (R), vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, meets with Djibouti Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Zakaria Cheikh Ibrahim in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 5, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Zhenhua)

A senior Chinese military official on Monday said that the Chinese army is willing to strengthen dialogue and coordination with Djiboutian troops.

Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while meeting with Zakaria Cheikh Ibrahim, Chief of General Staff of the Djibouti Armed Forces.

Fan spoke about the sound cooperation between the two armies in international peacekeeping, staff training, medical and health care and equipment maintenance.

Zakaria said Djibouti is willing to make joint efforts with China to strengthen pragmatic cooperation and boost relations between the two armies.
The Brexit vote has fuelled a 275pc increase in the number of lawyers joining the roll of solicitors in Ireland. Stock picture

The Brexit vote has fuelled a 275pc increase in the number of lawyers joining the roll of solicitors in Ireland.

The massive surge was mainly due to solicitors from England and Wales registering here so they would be able to practise in EU courts.

Figures released by the Law Society revealed 1,347 new solicitors will have been admitted to the roll by the end of the year.

"The tsunami of new solicitors has been caused by the Brexit-driven transfer decisions of some 810 England and Wales-qualified solicitors to take out a second jurisdictional qualification, in Ireland," said the society's director general, Ken Murphy.

Solicitors in both countries are entitled to register here under a mutual recognition regime in place since 1991.

Despite the large numbers registering, it was unclear yet to what extent law firms would be transferring their operations from Britain to Ireland or opening new offices here.

Although there has been much speculation, this has yet to happen and the society said it was unaware of any firm with plans to do so.

Mr Murphy said British firms had registered solicitors in this jurisdiction "to allay any conceivable concerns in the future about the status of their solicitors in dealing with EU institutions".

According to the society's figures, the UK law firm with the most solicitors registering in Ireland in 2016 was Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, with 117 of its lawyers being added to the Irish roll.

The company is one of the 10 largest law firms in the world.

Its solicitors entering the roll here were primarily anti-trust, competition and trade law practitioners. However, the firm said it had no plans to open an office in Ireland.

UK-based solicitors from Eversheds LLP, which already had an office in Ireland, accounted for 86 additions to the roll.

Mr Murphy said the additions to the Irish roll came against the backdrop of continued uncertainty about the implications of Brexit.

Any UK lawyers seeking to be added to the roll here have to go through an application process where they have to demonstrate their qualifications, show they are of good standing and provide references.

The recent Smith & Williamson annual survey of Irish law firms showed 87pc of firms here expected more UK law firms to open offices in Dublin through a strategy of merger or acquisition rather than greenfield starts.
Northern Ireland is "staring into a Brexit blackhole", Assembly finance minister Mairtin O Muilleoir has told TDs.

The Sinn Fein minister said he sees no economic, cultural or community uplift benefits for the North from the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

He said described the prospect of his children and grandchildren losing "the bounty of Europe" as "a calamity".

Mr O Muilleoir said the success of the Peace Process would not have been possible without help from the EU.

His Northern Ireland Assembly colleague, infrastructure minister Chris Hazzard, pointed out that 56pc of voters in the North opposed Brexit.

He said the North is being "dragged" out of the EU without consent and that such an outcome would be "disastrous and undemocratic".

Mr Hazzard said Sinn Fein is opposed to Northern Ireland leaving the EU and is seeking "special status" for the region.

The ministers are this morning appearing before TDs and Senators at the Oireachtas committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.
Antibiotic misuse on intensive pig and poultry farms could force medicine back into the "dark ages", agri experts have warned.

As countries across the EU grapple with the ongoing threat of drug resistant infections, experts are calling on the Irish government to ramp up efforts in the agricultural sector.

Although the IFA stress that farmers and vets are following strict protocols to ensure the protection of the food chain, they acknowledge that stricter codes of practice in pigs would reduce the industry's reliance on antibiotics.

Last week, speakers from human and animal health sectors, gathered at a Department of Agriculture seminar to discuss what Irish farmers can do to reduce excessive and inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat animal infections.

Although these medicines protect human and animal health, uncontrolled use is contributing to the emergence of resistant bacteria, or antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which poses a serious threat to disease control throughout the world.

Despite both the Government's commitment to tackling the issue - a Joint National Interdepartmental Antimicrobial Resistance Consultative Committee was established in 2014 - experts claim "we are still dragging our heels".

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Seamus Fanning, Professor of Food Safety and the UCD Centre for Food Safety said: "If we don't take action here to protect the efficacy of our antimicrobial ingredients we may not be able to protect our animals in the future when they get infections."

Since 2009, Dutch farmers have cut animal antibiotic use by 60pc without harming either animal welfare or their own profits.

"I just don't know why we are constantly dodging this issue and not taking it head on just like the Dutch and the Danes and coming up with systems that are better," he said.

The potential impact of antimicrobial resistance on the food industry is a concern. Resistant bacteria can spread from animals to humans through direct contact including environmental contamination and food-borne bacteria.

"If certain harmful bacteria makes its way through the food chain and becomes exposed to humans and they become ill as a result it may be extremely difficult to treat that infection using an antibiotic," he said.

"We don't know the relationship between the amount used and its effect in terms of the emergence of resistant bacteria because we're not measuring it," he said.

"This a huge societal issue. We're potentially looking at putting medicine back into the dark ages if we lose these compounds. It means there will be infections we may not be able to treat in a year's time which we can treat today," he said," he said.

The highest global incidence of AMR is associated with the pig and poultry industry where animals are reared very closely together leading to major opportunity for disease pressure and higher use of antibiotics.

Last week, a UK report showed increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria commonly found in retail poultry - especially chicken and turkey. The findings have led to calls for better AMR surveillance in the food chain - a viewed shared here.

Nola Leonard, Associate Professor in Veterinary Microbiology at UCD said: "In order to identify the extent of the problem we need effective surveillance and electronic recording of prescriptions and usage," she said.

For farmers, improving management and hygiene, using more vaccines and ensuring housing conditions are above board will help reduce risk.

Tim Cullinane, former chairman of the IFA Pigs Committee said: "we are trying to use less antibiotics but it is a challenge. My major concern is lax codes around importing live pigs. We need a standard code of practice to protect our herds".
The Government should consider introducing an antimicrobial resistance system similar to the Netherlands, agri experts have said.

Seamus Fanning, Professor of Food Safety at UCD praised the Dutch for successfully reducing their antibiotic use in livestock by 60pc over the last seven years. But he says such a model would need industry wide support to reach similar success here.

"They have a good system and I think we would do a lot of good by copying and trying to integrate it, but it needs multiple players at the table from lots of different sectors. It also probably needs an independent agency. It should not be under the preserve of the Department of Health or Agriculture," he said.

According to the Government of the Netherlands antibiotic use in the Dutch livestock industry was "fairly high" compared with other countries.

After two outbreaks of drug resistant bacteria linked to farming, in 2004 and 2009, it decided to act by developing new policies that included a ban on preventative dosing and using antibiotics only by prescription. Farmers rowed in behind the new regulations. Between 2009 and 2014, antibiotic use in the livestock industry fell by 59pc. They currently have a new target of 70pc reduction.

Denmark are also spearheading the fight. In the 1990s Denmark was the first country in the world to ban the use of antimicrobial growth promoters in animals. The ban significantly reduced the prevalence of resistant bacteria.

Denmark have also separated prescribing from dispensing, meaning farmers must go to the pharmacist, not their vet, to get the medicine. The prescriptions are then logged onto a reporting system.

Nola Leonard, Associate Professor in Veterinary Microbiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UCD, said this system should also be considered but won't provide a "quick fix".

"The Danes have gone down that route and their figures would suggest they've been successful but we don't know if that was the main factor because the Dutch have also been very successful about reducing their antimicrobial use and they didn't decouple. It's not a quick fix either but certainly you can see the logic that it might work," she said.
The crucial export of live calves to the Netherlands is set to be further hampered next spring on the back of new EU regulations.

Over 70,000 Irish calves went for live export last year, but that number is under threat from changes to different European countries' regulations around IBR and transport laws.

It is understood the issues centre around changes in the interpretation of the European Union rules on animal transport in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has been applying a particular interpretation to EU rules in relation to the approval of trucks carrying unweaned calves which is proving difficult for Irish live exporters to comply with.

Department of Agriculture officials are currently working with industry and the Dutch Authorities to come up with a workable technical or other solution to the issue.

IBR

The live cattle trade has proved more difficult in recent years due to the fact that Belgium has embarked on an IBR eradication programme; this imposes extra requirements on cattle being exported to Belgium from other Member States (such as Ireland) that are not IBR free.

The Department says while the extra requirements can be complied with in relation to older cattle without too much difficulty, in practice the additional requirements make the export of young calves to Belgium unviable at present.

Prior to the introduction of an IBR eradication programme in Belgium, Belgium had become a destination for a significant number of calves from Ireland. Most of the calves exported to Belgium from Ireland were subsequently re-exported to the Netherlands.

The Issues come on the back of the recent decision by Cork Marts to shut down its calf export business.

Cork Marts

Last year, it is understood that Cork Marts exported up to 20,000 head of calves. Spain received approximately 7,000 head and Holland approximately 12,000 head.

That is equivalent to a quarter of the export trade at the moment for live calves in Ireland.

In 2015, 85,500 live calves were exported. This year, the number dropped by 13,000 to 72,500.

The Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed has described that the withdrawal of Cork Co-operative Marts from that process as a worry.

I confess I have spoken directly with its representatives and their view is that this is a market opportunity that will be taken up by others.

I hope that is the case and others in that space should be looking at where the trade opportunity was and how they might fill the vacuum created by that departure, he said recently.
A former minister has described the cost of installing underpasses to improve road safety a crisis situation.

Ned OKeeffe told the ICMSA AGM at Limerick that farmers face costs of up to 60,000 for an underpass because of the restrictions and bureaucracy.

He was responding to a motion from ICMSA executives in Carlow and Macroom that underpasses should be grant aided under TAMS and that the planning system should promote rather than hinder their use in the interest of farm and road safety.

Mr OKeeffe described the situation as ludicrous where farmers faced almost insurmountable difficulties with the NRA and the local authorities, despite the improvement it would achieve for the safety of both road users, the farmer and animal safety.

Macroom ICMSAs Tim OCallaghan called for farmers to be allowed to carry out the work or engage a contractor which will reduce the local authority costings by more than 50pc.

In my area the local authority wanted 30,000 for a small underpass where a dairy farmer has three-quarters of his land at the other side of a country road. The cost of the pre-cast underpass needed was 11,000 plus a few loads of filling and a couple of loads of concrete, he said.

It is a nightmare for any farmer having to bring cows across the public road four times a day and there have been several accidents as a result. I know of several cases where farmers lost five to seven cows  and risked their own lives  where drivers collided with them. Farmers are constantly having to choose their times for crossing  it is no way to have to farm  and a lot could be resolved if there was a different approach by the local authorities and farmers were allowed to carry out the work to the required specifications, he stressed.

Rural affairs chairman, Patrick Rohan, called for underpasses to be included under TAMS.

Its surely up to individual farmers to decide what specific piece of infrastructure-investment they wanted on their farm subject to the 80,000 per individual maximum.

ICMSA has never understood why the Department deliberately omitted underpasses from TAMS eligibility when it was obviously a question for the farmers themselves and one they were making on the grounds of animal welfare, farmer health and safety and overall farm development, he said.

He alleged that some background anti-dairy bias had kept underpasses out of TAMS, and targeted them for planning permission and other expenses.

So not alone was the State not helping them; it seemed to be actively opposing them, he added.

The motion was passed unanimously.
Irish dairy farmers have maintained or increased their competitiveness since the abolition of milk quotas eighteen months ago, Teagasc's Pat Dillon of Moorepark Research Centre told over 300 dairy farmers at the Teagasc National Dairy Conference at the Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork today.

Mr Dillon said that production costs have been reduced on Irish farms as a result of the greater output, but further significant gains "are still to be obtained in grass utilisation on dairy farms" which will deliver significant financial benefits to producers.

"The large increase in milk production in Ireland forecasted with the abolition of milk quotas has materialised. This has been associated with an increase in herd size as well as an increase in milk yields per cow" he said.

"In the first year after milk production abolition milk production increased by almost 19% in Ireland while the increase in the EU 28 was 4.2%, in USA 2.4% but deceased by 1.5% in New Zealand", he added.

Expand Close Pictured are a section of the attendance at the Teagasc National Dairy Conference on Technologies for Success in Rochestown, Cork. Photo O'Gorman Photography. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pictured are a section of the attendance at the Teagasc National Dairy Conference on Technologies for Success in Rochestown, Cork. Photo O'Gorman Photography.

He pointed out that the corresponding increase in demand over the period had been lower than predicted due to the lower than expected demand from China, low oil prices and Russia remaining largely out of the market.

"This provided the perfect storm in terms of global dairy commodity prices with milk prices bottoming out in June 2016, before significant correction to the supply-demand imbalance in the second half", he said.

He stressed that "minimising costs should be an important objective" and if Ireland is to secure a greater share of the world market in the future "the competitiveness of the sector will be crucial".

"In the future dairy farmers will be required to develop systems of milk production capable of delivering sustainable returns within a volatile milk price scenario. In Ireland this will be best achieved through the development of low cost grass base systems of milk production", he said.

Expand Close Pictured at the Teagasc National Dairy Conference on Technologies for Success in Rochestown, Cork are speakers Professor Gerry Boyle, Director Teagasc, Anne & Pete Morgan, New Zealand & Anne Marie Butler, Ulster Bank. Photo O'Gorman Photography. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pictured at the Teagasc National Dairy Conference on Technologies for Success in Rochestown, Cork are speakers Professor Gerry Boyle, Director Teagasc, Anne & Pete Morgan, New Zealand & Anne Marie Butler, Ulster Bank. Photo O'Gorman Photography.

He said that direct costs/cents-litre had dropped from 16.2 in 2013 to 12.7 last year and fixed costs were down from 11.3 to 9.7.

Latest data shows that Irish farmers had the lowest cash costs as percentage of output in the EU at 77% compared to France at 83%, Netherlands 92% Germany 99% and Denmark 120%.

However the Irish advantage deteriorated when imputed costs were taken into consideration with the economic benefit of a grass based Irish system reduced by the imputed charge for owned land and labour.

"It could be said that whilst milk prices and margins ave been relatively depressed in Ireland over the last 24 months, it must be recognised that dairy farmers in Ireland were fortunate that the outcome was not worse.

Weather and exchange rate movements were favourable. This meant that the reduction in profitability at farm level was a lot less than potentially possible based on market conditions" he concluded.
Confusion continues to hit the new cattle tag regime, with a 40pc slump in tag orders year-to-date.

Despite opening up the 2.3m tag market to more than one supplier over a month ago, a second company, Cormac Tagging, is still waiting for the green light this week to supply tags. The approval would mark the first time in 15 years that farmers will have the option of buying tags from any company other than Mullinahone.

Defending the delay in getting a second supplier approved, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture said that "the approval of the suite of ear tags submitted by the company concerned is subject to the implementation by the company of IT systems which can interact with the Department's Animal Identification and Movement computer system" as applied to all approved tag suppliers.

"While compliance with this requirement is a matter for the company itself, the Department is in on-going contact with it to assist in implementing this requirement," the spokeperson added.

Mullinahone manager Liam Egan said that the supply of tags to farmers was only at 60pc compared to the same time last year.

"I could not rule out a crisis for farmers requiring tags early in the New Year if a bottleneck occurs," he said.

Farmers are required to tag calves within 21 days of birth to comply with the regulations and failure to do so can result in penalties in the event of a cross-compliance inspection.

However, the Eurotag boss admitted that the pace of orders was increasing to over 40,000 per day.

"But there are still a lot of farmers who are not aware that we will not be contacting them this year - they must come to us because of the change in the regulations from previous years," he said.

"We are getting calls every day from farmers asking why they have not received the usual communication.

"We are not allowed to contact a farmer regarding his supply of tags until he contacts us with an order or request for an order form," he added.
China to continue consultations with Lebanon over Syrian crisis: envoy

(Xinhua) 09:55, December 06, 2016

Special Envoy of the Chinese Government on Syrian issue Xie Xiaoyan said here on Monday that China will continue to provide humanitarian aid and hold consultations with Lebanon on the Syrian issue.

The visiting diplomat made the remarks when meeting with Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri.

Xie said "China and Lebanon are friends and have good cooperation on international and regional affairs," according to a media statement.

"We hope to make progress in the political process and restart political negotiations in Geneva as soon as possible," he said.

Lebanon is home to more than a million Syrian refugees, the equivalent of a quarter the country's population of 4.5 million.
The High Court has ordered the winding up of a firm behind the construction of a 200m biomass-fuelled power plant after efforts to come up with a rescue scheme were not successful.

While Mayo Renewable Power Ltd was to initially be supplied by biomass imported from the US, it was hoped local farmers would in time grow and supply the willow and spruce needed.

At the time of its launch, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he was supportive of the plant's development and highlighted the potential benefits for local farmers.

Kenny said that he hoped local farmers would realise that they have...land on which they can grow a renewable crop and that they will avail of that". He said farmer involvement would lessen the dependency on imports and would also provide extra cash income for many farmers right across the west and north west".

However, last August, the court appointed Michael McAteer as interim examiner to Mayo Renewable Power Ltd which was building the plant on the site of a former Asahi acrylic fibre manufacturing factory in Killala, Co Mayo.

The plant would generate electricity and produce biomass wood chips.

It was due to become operational in September 2017. However, work stopped on the site in July due to funding shortage, the court heard.

The appointment of an examiner, on the application of the company, was to have court protection while a survival scheme was prepared in circumstances where investment could be secured to continue the construction.

Despite efforts to secure an investor since the appointment, as of last Friday, it was clear a number of parties who had expressed an interest were no longer interested, Declan Murphy BL, for Mr McAteer, told the court Wednesday (November 30).

As a result, and before the maximum 100 days of court protection, it had been decided to apply to the court for the winding up of the company.

Mr Murphy said Mr McAteer was willing to act as liquidator.

Lawyers for the company, the Revenue, creditors and banks, were not objecting to the appointment of Mr McAteer.

Ms Justice Caroline Costello said she was satisfied to order the winding up on grounds that it would be just and equitable. She was also satisfied to appoint Mr McAteer as the official liquidator.

The 42.5 megawatt biomass fuelled plant was 50pc complete when work ceased.

The project was was initially to be funded partly by its parent company, the Delaware, US-registered Rockland Mayo LLC, for some 80m.

The remainder was to come from a syndicate of lenders including Ulster Bank, AIB and Barclay's Bank who were to provide 118m.

The firm's financial difficulties commenced last year when it cancelled an order to design and supply a boiler, a critical component in the plant, from a supplier, the court heard previously.

Consent from the lenders was required in order to secure a new supplier. However the consents were not obtained. Last May, Barclays said its lending commitments under the original loan agreement had lapsed.

Talks continued with Ulster Bank and AIB but commercial terms could not be agreed.

Additional difficulties were also caused when a damages claim for $US60m was brought against company and others in the US courts.

The court also heard in August an independent expert's report stated that in the event the company was wound up the deficit would be more than 100m. On a going concern basis, the deficit was a little over 200,000.

The plant has created 350 in the construction phase and would create some 130 jobs when in operation.

The company's directors are Gerald Christopher Crotty of New Vernon in New Jersey, USA and Michael Ronayne of Donnybrook Manor, Dublin 4.
The opening salvo in the battle to retain payments on lands currently designated as Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) formerly known as 'disadvantaged' was fired in Carrick-on-Shannon on Friday evening, with over 300 farmers attending an IFA meeting on the issue.

With 205m currently being paid out to over 95,000 recipients, the complete overhaul of the ANC programme that was ordered by Brussels is likely to become a battleground between farmers in marginal areas and those farming in relatively good farming regions.

EU officials have argued that the 28/ha difference in payments to hill farmers and those in the least disadvantaged areas does not accurately reflect the disparity in income earning potential from the land.

As part of the ANC review the Department of Agriculture has been tasked with re-examining all land designations. This process will involve assessing land quality according to agreed bio-physical criteria such as slope, soil type and the moisture content of soils.

Speaking at last Friday's meeting IFA president Joe Healy said that all areas currently designated as ANCs must be fully protected in the forthcoming review, and payments to farmers must be increased.

"ANC payments represent a significant support for up to 95,000 farmers who farm in some of the most difficult conditions," Healy told the meeting.

"This must be recognised by European and national politicians. Every effort must be made to protect the already designated areas and to restore payments to farmers to their pre-2009 levels when Budget cutbacks were made," he added.

The ANC scheme is jointly funded by the EU and the Government, with 54pc coming from Brussels and the remaining 46pc provided by the national exchequer.

Close to 50m was cut from the then Disadvantaged Area Scheme in the first 'austerity budget' in 2008. While the Government has committed to reinstating 25m of the cuts in 2018, the IFA is calling for all the cuts to be reversed as part of the review process and that funding should increase from the current 205m to 250m.

IFA hill chairman Pat Dunne told Friday's meeting that the association would also demand that ANC supports be pitched at a level that reflected the natural handicap of the land being farmed. He said this would provide additional funding to those farming the most difficult and marginal land.

This point was also made by INHFA vice-chair Henry O'Donnell at a meeting with the Joint Oireachtas Committee of Agriculture last week.

Up to 75pc of Irish farmland is designated as ANC. Payments differ according to the level of constraint, with up to 250/ha being paid on the first 20ha to offshore island farmers, hill farmers receive close to 110/ha for the first 10ha and 96/ha for the next 24ha, 96/ha is paid on up to 30ha of lands deemed severely handicapped, while the payment on less severely handicapped ground is 82/ha.

The redrawing and re- designating of lands has the potential to become a hugely divisive, emotive and political issue at both local and national level. As one farm representative pointed out: "When you take money off people, they generally don't like it."

It is understood that Teagasc has already supplied soils data to the Department and work on producing indicative maps on the reviewed designations has started. The final proposals must be lodged with the Commission in summer 2017, with the new regime coming into force on January 1, 2018.
It says that reports of giant Buzzards causing major problems in Tipperary are misleading.

Birdwatch Ireland says that a recent report, which advises owners of pet dogs and cats to be on high alert from giant Buzzards which are causing major problems in the mid-Tipperary area, is causing negative sentiment around the birds.

There are far-reaching consequences from fostering such misguided fear of birds of prey, which threaten to drag Ireland back into a darker past."

Birdwatch Ireland has said that Buzzards pose no threat to sheep or lambs.

This is a myth which refuses to die in some quarters, and it needs to stop.

By preying on crows, rats and other pests, Buzzards in reality bring a number of clear benefits to our sheep farmers.

Buzzards will sometimes feed on dead or stillborn lambs, but there is no evidence of them killing or harming living lambs, it says.

Buzzards also prey on rabbits, but are incapable of killing prey larger than this. It says contrary to claims in the article, Buzzards pose no threat whatsoever to the survival of Irelands hare population.

Birdwatch Ireland also claim that the illegal threats responsible for the Buzzards initial disappearance in Ireland have still not disappeared.

It says the illegal poisoning and shooting of birds of prey remains prevalent in our countryside.

A recent spate of particularly sinister persecution incidents in Co Tipperary targeting Buzzards, as well as Peregrine Falcons and White-tailed Eagles, proves just how divisive and dangerous the incorrect and inflammatory statements presented in the recent article in the Tipperary Star can be, it said.
CityJet slashed its losses last year to 10m from 30m in 2014, marking a significant change in its fortunes

The potential 80m merger between CityJet and Stobart Air has been called off.

It's understood that the decision to cancel the much-anticipated deal was only made within the last 48 hours.

The decision not to proceed with the merger casts doubt over the future direction of Stobart Air, and also, ultimately whether it will continue operating with an Irish Air Operator's Certificate, or one from the UK.

Pat Byrne, the executive chairman and founder of CityJet, told the Irish Independent that he was "flabbergasted" that the planned deal had been derailed. "It's disappointing. It would have been a very good fit for all parties concerned, including the staff."

He said that CityJet had spent about 1m on advancing the merger. That included various fees for undertaking due diligence, and legal services.

Mr Byrne said that following a weekend board meeting, CityJet gave Stobart an ultimatum to accept the merger. That deadline expired yesterday.

"You are either getting married or you're not," said Mr Byrne. "You don't want to be left waiting at the altar."

"CityJet will continue to develop our aggressive growth strategy in Europe but, regrettably, this will not now include the acquisition of Stobart Air."

A Stobart statement yesterday said it had decided to "end discussions with CityJet about a possible collaboration between the airlines".

"These discussions explored a range of options, including a change of ownership. Following consideration ... the Board has concluded that the agreement with CityJet is not in the commercial interest of the group. We wish everyone at CityJet well."

Stobart said its Aer Lingus Regional Services would continue to grow, with a continued emphasis on growing passenger numbers across 31 routes throughout Ireland, the UK and France.

Stobart added that it would further develop its services at London Southend airport through an expansion of its partnership with Flybe.

CityJet slashed its losses last year to 10m from 30m in 2014, marking a significant change in its fortunes.

Byrne told this newspaper it was a "phenomenal turnaround" for the carrier, which he re-acquired earlier this year with aviation industry backers.

Since he returned in an executive capacity to CityJet last year, Mr Byrne has set about revamping the Irish carrier's fleet, placing a more than $1bn order for Sukhoi SuperJets.
Japanese medical firm Takeda Pharmaceutical is to invest 40m into a new plant at its Grange Castle site in Dublin, creating around 40 new jobs.

Takeda will build a new standalone high-containment production plant, dedicated to the manufacturing of its oncology product Ninlaro.

Takeda Ireland plant director Paul Keogh said the additional investment demonstrates the company's dedication to its Irish operation.

"We are delighted that Takeda has chosen Ireland for this investment and proud that we have been entrusted with the responsibility to produce and deliver this very important treatment for cancer patients worldwide.

"We have a great team here in Ireland and are committed to continuing to put patients first through the timely manufacture and supply of high-quality products from our site," he said.

The pharmaceutical firm is research and development-driven with a focus on oncology and gastroenterology, which is medicine focused on the digestive system and the central nervous system.

The investment comes after the European Commission (EC) granted conditional marketing authorisation for Ninlaro capsules. The drug is designed to tackle multiple myeloma, a disease that causes cancer cells to accumulate in bone marrow.

Takeda president Christophe Bianchi said the EC approval will allow them to research the drug in a variety of settings.

"Ninlaro has the potential to help European patients with relapsed multiple myeloma by removing some of the barriers that can stand in the way of optimal treatment. With Ninlaro, our hope is that many patients will be able to continue therapy until disease progression," he said.

The company set up in Ireland in 1997, making products for global markets. In 2002 the firm chose Dublin as its first active pharmaceutical ingredient facility outside of Japan.

The latest investment from Takeda further strengthens the country's reputation as a hub for medical innovation.

The US has invested heavily into the Irish medtech sector with firms like Pfizer, Allergan, and Merck all based here.

Trump statement

However, future US investment may be under threat from the new President-elect Donald Trump, who threatened to impose a punitive tariff on American firms shifting production to other countries.

"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 US without retribution or consequence, is wrong!" Mr Trump said on Twitter.

However, the Government and the IDA moved to downplay the statement from Mr Trump, saying it expects the US to continue its foreign investment into Ireland.

An IDA spokesman said: "Our view is that in order to grow and be commercially successful, US companies will continue to want to internationalise and will need a worldwide presence to do so."
The co-founder of betting giant Paddy Power urged the government not to legalise a terminal that would allow gamblers to bet 100 (120) every 20 seconds.

Stewart Kenny, who set up the business in the late 1980s, described the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) as the "crack cocaine" of gambling, according to a report in a UK newspaper.

In a 2009 submission to the Irish government, during the debate over whether or not the terminals should be legalised here, Mr Kenny said the FOBTs were "particularly enticing" to younger gamblers in disadvantaged areas.

The former betting boss also criticised the British government over their fascination with the tax take from the machines.

"They are as addicted to the tax revenue as vulnerable customers are to losing money in them," he said.

When asked by the Irish Independent about the claims made by Mr Kenny a spokesman for Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) did not comment. FOBTs are extremely popular in the UK, netting total revenue of 1.75bn (2.08bn) there last year.

The Government decided against legalising the machines.

In the submission Mr Kenny described what he saw as the machines' dangerous nature, including using close calls and bright colours to entice players to gamble more.

The company's co-founder urged the Irish Government to learn from the "mistake" in the UK.

Paddy Power never campaigned to bring the FOBTs into the Irish bookmaking sector, it is understood.

However, it is reported that the company operates around 1,400 FOBTs in the United Kingdom from its 350 betting shops.

Mr Kenny resigned from the board of the newly-merged PPB back in August after spending 28 years with the company.

His departure from the company was followed shortly after by former Paddy Power ceo Andy McCue.

Mr McCue had spent 10 years at the company before leaving it two months after the merger.

PPB began trading in February following the 8bn merger of the two companies.

The news comes after the company posted a return to winning ways in the third quarter of the year.

A strong end to Euro 2016 helped the betting giant regain some of the ground it lost in a bad Cheltenham racing festival.

The recently-merged entity reported revenue of 404m (454m) in the three months to the end of September, up 25pc on the same period last year.

The surge in income was driven largely by strong growth in the company's sportsbook stakes, which rose 26pc.

However, despite the return to form in Euro 2016 the company was hit with a loss of around $4.5m (5.3m)after Donald Trump's shock win in November in the US presidential election.

The business paid out $1m to punters that had bet on Democrat nominee Hilary Clinton before the election results were revealed.

The firm's third quarter results also included a loss of 47.5m (55.4m) as merger costs took their toll on the company.

Speaking last month PPB ceo Breon Corcoran said it was another good period for the business after its merger.

"We are continuing to focus on building a stronger combined operation by exploiting the unique assets and capabilities of each legacy business, and on using our scale to better serve our customers".
Italian bank Unicredit has announced it is in talks to sell its Irish-headquartered Pioneer Global Asset Management unit to French lender Amundi.

Pioneer Global Asset Management is headquartered in Dublin and employs over 470 people.

According to Reuters, Amundi is in pole position to take over the Irish-based subsidiary, with a bid of 3.5bn being discussed as part of an exclusive negotiation for the subsidiary.

The potential sale is seen as an attempt by Unicredit, which is headed up by Jean-Pierre Mustier, to reassure investors about the long-term viability of the business.

Concerns surrounding the health of Italian banks have spooked markets in recent months, and the defeat of a reform referendum on Sunday -which led to the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi - has heightened the sense of uncertainty.

Pioneer has in excess of 200bn under management, and the firm recorded an operating profit of 20.2m last year.

Unicredit is Italy's largest lender and has endured a turbulent 12 months as concerns about the country's banks hit stock prices.

Unicredit shares have lost 63pc of their value in the last year.

Italian bank stocks have weighed heavily on Milan's FTSE MIB index, which is down by almost a quarter in the year to date.

Shares in Unicredit fell by 0.1pc after the announcement.
Here are the main business stories from this morning's papers:

Irish Independent

* The potential 80m merger between CityJet and Stobart Air has been called off.

It's understood that the decision to cancel the much-anticipated deal was only made within the last 48 hours.

* The Central Bank has issued a stinging criticism of the way risk is managed in some Irish stockbrokers, investment firms, and fund service providers.

The bank said it had found "notable inconsistencies and deficiencies" in the way firms managed risk.

* Greencore chief executive Patrick Coveney is in line for a big boost to his potential pay as the company overhauls its executive remuneration scheme.

The company said it has "been concerned for some time" that its pay incentives are "not at the appropriate level to reflect the calibre and performance of our executive directors".

The Irish Times

* Nearly 12 months on since the beginning of talks Irish airline CityJet has pulled out of a deal to buy Dublin-based Stobart Air.

CityJet chairman Pat Byrne said he was disappointed a deal wasn't struck for Stobart, which was formerly known as Aer Arann.

* Shareholders at Independent News and Media (INM) have overwhelmingly approved a capital restructuring plan that could lead to the resumption of dividends for the first time since the onset of the financial crisis.

An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) convened to consider two motions enabling the plan was overshadowed yesterday, however, by a separate protest from current and former employees of the company.

* Convenience food firm Greencore is looking to raise the maximum long-term share incentives for its chief executive Patrick Coveney as part of an overhaul of his remuneration scheme.

In the company's annual results published yesterday Greencore outlined its plan to double the maximum that can be granted to the CEO under the performance share plan.

Irish Examiner

* The four-star boutique hotel in Dublin co-owned by Bono and the Edge last year recorded profits of more than 430,000.

Revenues at the Clarence hotel in Temple Bar last year were boosted by the hotel being booked out for the week U2 performed the Dublin leg of their world tour last November.

* CityJet has pulled out of negotiations to buy its rival Stobart Air.

The deal, which has been talked about for over a year, has come to a close due to their protracted nature, according to a spokesman for CityJet.
The report shows that there was also a pronounced spike in construction activity. Stock image

GROWTH in the Irish services sector improved slightly this month having hit a 41-month low in October.

The Investec Services sector PMI - which measures 450 private sector business in Ireland - found that new business had encouraged managers to raise activity.

While firms reported adding new business in November, the rate of growth remained one of the slowest for three-and-a-half years. More than 30pc of those surveyed reported an increase in new orders this month.

Significantly, there was a decline in new export business for the first time in five years, with the fallout from Brexit being cited as a key factor.

However, in a positive sign for the trajectory of the economy, the rate of job creation grew strongly for a second straight month. Overall, job creation has expanded now for 51 consecutive months.

Concerns about the potential disruption to Ireland's tourist and travel industry following Brexit were also allayed somewhat by the report.

Job creation in the sector declined in October, but recovered slightly in this month.

Business confidence remains robust despite lingering external concerns, with 48pc of businesses expecting a rise in business activity over the next 12 months, against 7pc who were pessimistic.

The report shows that there was also a pronounced spike in construction activity.

"All in all, while the services sector is clearly not out of the woods yet, it is encouraging to see, as with last week's manufacturing PMI release, that the pace of growth for this sector quickened in November," said Philip O' Sullivan, chief economist at Investec Ireland.

"Our suspicion is that the worst of the pressures faced by the more external-facing parts of the Irish economy in the immediate aftermath of Brexit has passed, with the latest PMIs for Ireland giving comfort to this view."
Charlie Weston and wife Emer at the Shelbourne Hotel yesterday. Photo: Steve Humphreys

The Irish Independent's Personal Finance Editor, Charlie Weston, has been honoured with an Outstanding Achievement award at the annual Smurfit Business Journalist Awards in Dublin.

Mr Weston was honoured at an event which celebrates the efforts of business journalists from across Irish media.

Mr Weston has been a stalwart at Independent News and Media for over 20 years. His work in areas like pensions, mortgages and insurance has been a key part of the group's financial offering to readers.

He has been a long-time monitor of credit institutions in Ireland, and earlier this year he revealed a series of fraud allegations at Rush Credit Union which is now the subject of a Garda investigation.

Mr Weston's 'You and Your Money' column has become a staple in INM's business coverage in recent years.

Mr Weston expressed his delight at being recognised.

He said: "This is something else."

Other award winners at the event included RTE's Will Goodbody (Specialist Reporter), Paul Colgan of UTV Ireland (Business Feature), Barry Whyte of the 'Sunday Business Post' (Business Interview) and Paul O'Donoghue of Fora.ie (Upcoming Business Journalist), Barry O'Halloran of 'The Irish Times' (Business News Story), Stephen Kinsella 'The Irish Times' (Economic Commentator) and Marie Boran, 'The Irish Times' (Technology Reporter).

The event was hosted by Today FM's Matt Cooper.
[File photo]

U.K. authorities have invited China to test self-driving cars on British roads, as such a move can deepen the two countries cooperation in the realm of intelligent vehicles.

Self-driving cars represent the future of the auto industry. The U.K. is willing to cooperate with countries including China to set an international standard for driverless vehicles, Mark Wareing, counselor and strategy director at UK Trade & Investment, told Thepaper.cn in an interview.

Future products will require an open economic climate, as well as conditions that encourage cooperation, which the U.K. can offer, Wareing added.

The intelligent car industry in China has developed quickly in recent years, yet it still faces challenges, as the country lacks laws and standards for driverless cars, said Gao Hesheng, vice director of China Automotive Technology & Research Center.

In order to ensure the reliability and practicability [of our products], driverless car tests should take place on real roads. Some countries can provide commercial license plates to such test cars - a service that is currently unavailable in China. Without tests, research on intelligent cars will be hindered, said Li Wei, vice president of Chongqing Chang'an Automobile Co. Ltd.

According to Wareing, the U.K. has a mature system of laws and insurance when it comes to intelligent cars. Companies dont need special permission to run tests, as long as they have insurance.

The U.K. government is providing 19 million to launch four driverless car schemes in four locations, hoping that the U.K. will become a world leader in the self-driving vehicle market, which could be worth 900 billion by 2025, according to a KPMG study.
Head of RTE2 Bill Malone is to leave for TV3. Photo: Gareth Chaney / Collins

UTV Ireland will be re-branded as be3 when it winds down next month.

The TV3 group launched its new three-channel line-up at a media event in Dublin this afternoon.

The new changes will come into effect on Monday, January 9 as the media group ploughs ahead with its plans to challenge RTE as a major media player.

TV3's new Group Director of Programming Bill Malone described it as an "historic shift" in the media landscape with the focus on "confident and Irish content."

He also announced a new centralised news hub called 3 News Ireland which will provide content for all three channels.

Asked what will happen to the 61 staff at UTV Ireland, he told independent.ie there was an ongoing "consultation process" and staff would be invited to apply for the 40 new positions within the group.

In a statement the group revealed that TV3 will be the group's "flagship channel" focusing premium Irish content and the "best of acquired programming".

3e will be the exclusive home of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother while the newly formed be3 "will give viewers a second chance to see their favourite soaps".

The statement continues: "be3 will be home to popular programmes such as Midsomer Murders, Loose Women and Benidorm.

"be3s programming schedule will complement and enhance the TV3 and 3e output and will keep its audience up to date with national and international news with two half hour news bulletins every weekday evening. 3Kids, TV3 Groups daily three hour childrens programming block also moves to be3 from Monday 9th January."
Irish banks won't be able to lend enough money to solve the housing crisis, a leading think-tank has warned.

A new report says the demand for housing is likely to increase by almost a third over the next eight years, and that the banks may not have enough deposits to provide the money required to fund that.

One of the report's authors told the Irish Independent that the shortfall would apply both for providing mortgages to homebuyers, and providing construction funding to builders.

"The results of our analysis suggest that in the future the traditional deposit base will be unable to fund the level of credit required to meet the housing demands of the economy.

"This will require significant changes in the domestic financial sector," the report says.

It says demand for housing is set to rise to 30,000 units a year by 2024, compared with a current rate of 23,000.

"The increased credit levels associated with providing 30,000 units is likely to pose challenges for the domestic banking sector. It is likely to result in a significant increase in the difference between credit levels and domestic deposits, which is commonly referred to as the 'funding gap'," it says.

The report, to be published today, was written by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

It calls for the Central Bank to routinely tweak its mortgage lending restrictions in line with changing circumstances in the Irish housing market, and acknowledges that significantly expanding the ability of Irish banks to lend could fuel fears of another credit bubble. The report indicates a likely opportunity for new banks to reap success in the Irish market, as well as non-bank providers such as Pepper Mortgages and the WLR Cardinal Mezzanine Fund, an entity backed by the American billionaire Wilbur Ross which provides finance to developers.

The report comes shortly after news emerged that the number of people approved for a mortgage rose sharply in October.

Market expectation is that lending will probably pick up further on foot of changes to the Central Bank rules. An average of 3,100 people have been approved for a mortgage each month since the summer.

Half of these were first-time buyers, according to new figures from the Irish Banking and Payments Federation.

The figures show the value of mortgage approvals in October rose by 29pc compared with the same month a year ago. But this was a slowdown on the even stronger approval rises in August and September.

First-time buyers accounted for the biggest share of approvals, at close to 47pc.

However, approvals for movers are now growing at a faster pace than those for new buyers.

Those moving house accounted for a third of people being approved for a home loan.

Read More: Analysis: Will there be enough credit and where will it come from?

David McNamara, an economist with Davy Stockbrokers, said the figures showed mortgage approvals softening in October. "New loans worth 621m were approved in the month compared with 663m in September and a peak of 692m in July. This might be in part due to seasonality as the housing market winds down toward the year-end," he added.

Alan McQuaid, of Merrion Stockbrokers, said that with the Central Bank easing its lending restrictions for first-time buyers, mortgage approvals should pick up in the coming months.

"That will likely keep upward pressure on house prices in the short term until the supply issue is sorted out," he said.

Goodbody's Dermot O'Leary said the Government's buyer-support scheme and the easing of lending rules would boost demand.

"Both of these policy developments will support mortgage demand," he added.
A young father warned Ireland's housing crisis is now crucifying hard-working families who cannot afford to either rent or buy a home.

Luciano Forte (36), his former partner, Monica Delfino (41), and their son, Giuseppe (10), admitted they dread Christmas having been served with notice to quit their Dublin house by a landlord who is intent on selling the property.

The family were given four months to leave the property they have lived in since 2012.

Incredibly, despite the fact Luciano and Monica are both working, one as a retail shop manager and the other as a nurse, they are finding it impossible to locate comparable accommodation in Artane for a rent they can afford.

Luciano, from Longford but who has been working in Dublin all his adult life, said he was only speaking out about his familys plight because tens of thousands of other families in Ireland are in the same desperate position.

The tragedy is that this isnt just about my family, he said.

There are tens of thousands of people around Ireland, ordinary couples, young people and families who are terrified of that same phone call from a landlord or a letting agent that we got.

People are working God awful hours, saving every penny they can after they pay their taxes and it still isnt enough.

I try to look on my family as one of the lucky ones. No matter what, we will still be able to put food on the table at Christmas and the New Year. The problem for us is that we just dont know where that kitchen table will be in the future.

Luciano revealed his family have been trying to save for a mortgage for a decade  but found their ability to save hit first by the Universal Service Charge tax, then spiralling road tax and insurance rates, water charges, property tax, soaring rents and finally the Central Bank demand for a 20pc mortgage saving deposit.

Its not just my family that are facing this, he said.

There are people around Ireland, ordinary people, from every walk of life who are now lying awake at night afraid of being left homeless.

They work hard, pay their taxes and are still living in fear.

Every issue in Ireland is down to the same few causes  it is like a problem pyramid, those few bad decisions made at the top work their way down and cause all the problems at the bottom.

"We can tackle those problems, we certainly have the money, Ireland is awash with it no matter what the government says, that money is there, just look at the insane pensions and bonuses it gives out to the people who need it the least, but those are the people in power and they don't have the will to change or even address the problems."

Luciano and Monica were horrified to realise that rents are, in some cases, almost 50pc above what they are currently paying and are rising by the week.

In determination to keep their son in the area, they have commenced a campaign of knocking on neighbour doors to determine if someone is leaving their rented home making a suitable property available.

You should have seen the look of terror on peoples faces when I told them our story and asked if they knew if a property would be available? I could see they were terrified that they could be next to lose their home.

I do not want a hand-out. I dont want anything for free" Luciano said.

I just want to be able to rent an ordinary house that we can call home or be given a mortgage and a chance to put our rent into bricks and mortar for our future and Giuseppes future.

I poured my heart out to the bank and they still said No. What made it hurt was it was the same bank branch that gave one developer a 500m loan which was later written-off.

Like every other parent, I want a home for my son. I dont think that is a lot to ask for. But modern Ireland is a very scary place. I dont ever remember Ireland being this frightening for people growing up in Longford 20 years ago.

Luciano said he finds it absolutely disgusting to see the plight that families, couples and young people face while vulture funds pay little or no tax on millions of Euro profits.

The Irish economy might be working well for the Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. But it isnt working very well for my family, for thousands of other families in need, for the people sleeping tonight in a car, for the families in a hotel room and certainly not for our fellow citizens forced to sleep in doorways tonight."

His son Giuseppe is happily settled in school which is a 10 minute busride from their current rented home.

Giuseppe is also a devoted member of the local GAA and football clubs so he doesnt want to be forced out of the tight knit area.

The inability of the family to find suitable rented accommodation is all the more shocking from the fact Luciano and Monica never missed a monthly rent payment in 10 years living in Dublin.

The family has an excellent credit rating from the full repayment of various loans including one for their family car.

Since 2011, Monica and Luciano have paid a whopping 20,000 between them on Universal Social Charge (USC) to the Government.

Spiralling rates of car tax, car insurance and living expenses have meant their bid to save up to meet the tough Central Bank mortgage deposit requirements have been fatally undermined.

Last year, they applied for a mortgage in a bid to finally get a home of their own.

But their application for the 220,000 mortgage was declined due to the fact they didnt have the required savings as set out by the Central Bank.

The mortgage refusal came despite the fact both adults are in full time, permanent jobs with a combined salary of around 60,000.

The ripple effects of that mortgage refusal were appalling for my family. We began to worry about losing our home and where on earth we would rent a property for something we could afford.

I do not understand it. We have been renting for 10 years and we have paid 120,000 in rent. That is half the total loan we want. But they still will not give us a mortgage, he said.

Lucianos fear is that, like thousands of other Irish families, he will be forced to quit the area where his son has made friends and gone to school in search of cheaper rental accommodation elsewhere.

For us emergency accommodation is a fear  a genuine fear. Id be lying if I said I wasnt worried, he said.

Luciano also worries about an unending cycle of having to move every time rents spiral beyond their budget.

Monica a nurse in a Dublin public hospital leaves for work at 6am every morning and Luciano arrives home from work at 7 every evening.

It does seem strange to say your dream is to get a mortgage that will take you 25 years or so of your life to pay off, say that to your 20 year old self and see how they feel?"

But thats our Christmas wish. We dont want a palace. A simple two-up, two-down house that we can pay for and call home. I dont think that is a lot to ask for in modern Ireland.
Sales of the Apple Watch to consumers set a record during the first week of Christmas shopping, and the current quarter is on track to be the best ever for the product, Apple chief executive Tim Cook told Reuters.

Responding to an email from Reuters, Cook said the gadget's sell-through - a measure of how many units are sold to consumers, rather than simply stocked on retailers' shelves - reached a new high.

Cook's comments followed a report on Monday from technology research firm IDC estimating that the tech giant sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71pc from the year-ago quarter. The comments offer a glimpse of the gadget's performance during the holiday quarter, which is typically Apple's strongest.

"Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year," Cook wrote.

"Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the products history. And as we expected, were on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch," he said.

Cook did not respond to a request for specific sales figures for the gadget.

Apple has disclosed few details about the performance of the Apple Watch, its first new product released under Cook. The company has not broken out sales of the gadget in its earnings, instead lumping it into an "other products" category that includes devices such as the iPod and Apple TV.

Strong sales of the Apple Watch are to be expected during the holiday quarter as the gadget is a more natural gift than some of the company's other products such as the iPhone or Mac computer, said analyst Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research. Apple also lowered the price of the gadget this year, potentially helping the holiday sales comparison, O'Donnell noted.

Apple is facing mounting pressure to show new sources of growth as sales of the iPhone, the company's lifeblood, begin to level off. O'Donnell said he remains skeptical the Apple Watch can fill the void, citing uncertain demand among consumers for smartwatches.

"While Im not surprised that there is a good week, there are still, I think, significant concerns about the category," he said.
Photo shows the WhatsApp and Facebook app icons on an iPhone in New York.

WhatsApp has said that its messaging app will cease to work on older phones and operating systems as early as the end of this year.

The announcement comes after a warning earlier this year that the Facebook-owned company would be pulling support for older models, and that the deadline to upgrade was fast approaching.

The same blog post was then updated to say some phones would be supported until June 30, 2017, while the service would be discontinued on others by the end of this year.

The blog says: "When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people's 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.

"As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use."

Those using certain handsets will have to buy new ones if they want to use the world's most popular messaging app, which has a billion users globally.

"While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don't offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app's features in the future," a spokesperson said.

iPhone users

WhatsApp will stop working on iPhone 3GS at the end of this year.

It will also cease to function any iPhone running iOS 6, so any phone which hasn't been updated to a later operating system will lose WhatsApp.

The change also affects first, second, third or fourth generation iPads that haven't been updated.

Android users

WhatsApp will cease to function on any Android tablet or phone running Android 2.1 or 2.2.

This affects any phone released between 2010 and 2011 which hasn't been updated.

Windows phone users

Anyone still using Windows Phone 7 will not be able to use WhatsApp anymore.

Blackberry and Nokia users

People who have these phones are safe until June 2017: BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40 and Nokia Symbian S60.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to pay 800m in an out-of-court settlement over allegations it misled shareholders during a 12bn fundraising at the height of the financial crisis.

The state-controlled British bank said on Monday it had struck a deal with three parties of institutional investors, who were among five separate claimant groups suing RBS for more than 4bn for alleged omissions and misstatements.

The bank, which remains more than 70pc state owned, is now trying to reach an agreement with the two other groups in order to avoid a costly, lengthy and potentially embarrassing trial in a case that is unprecedented in English legal history for its size and complexity.

Investors lost around 80pc of their money when RBS collapsed just months after the 2008 cash call and was rescued in a more than 45bn government bailout.

Monday's deal includes a settlement with Standard Life, Legal & General, Aviva and Prudential and the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which together bought about 10pc of the 2008 share issue.Sources familiar with the discussions said the decision to settle for about a fifth of the original demand will avoid the costs and risks of years of trials and appeals as RBS's finances become more constrained by a string of fines and other lawsuits."It would have been nicer to get more. But there is a realisation that getting something now has value," one said.RBoS Shareholder Action Group, the largest of the claimant groups representing 27,000 retail investors, said it had only been informed about the settlement at the end of last week and was considering "the issues and implications."John Greenwood - a 74-year-old former civil engineer who says he lost 80pc of a 300,000 nest egg - fears that other small investors in the group may baulk at the costs of proceeding to lengthy trials and possible appeals on their own."RBS has played it quite well," he told Reuters by telephone. "They have split the opposition."Greenwood, who spoke in a personal capacity, believes a settlement for about 41 pence a share when they were priced in the 2008 rights issue at 200 or 230 pence is too low, given accrued interest and costs.

He says that while his own retirement dream of buying a narrowboat and drifting down England's canals with his wife was ended by the RBS investment, many others "have passed away while this has been going on".

SENSE OF RELIEF

RBS is attempting to settle fines and lawsuits related to its alleged misconduct before and during the financial crisis, which have hindered a return to profit and private ownership. Last week, RBS was the biggest failure in the Bank of England's annual stress test, partly because of a mounting legal bill that analysts and lawyers had previously estimated could cost the bank up to $27bn (21.2bn).Although RBS has set aside an unprecedented amount to cover an out-of-court settlement for a case involving allegations of misrepresentation, the deal is a good one for the bank, according to Ian Gordon, an analyst at Investec. "If it leads to a settlement with all the parties I would characterise that with a sense of relief," he said.

Chief Executive Ross McEwan welcomed it as a sign RBS is drawing a line under its troubled past and said he hoped the remaining groups would accept the offer. RBS shares were up 2.1pc to 197.4 pence at 1505 GMT.The deal could allow RBS to avoid a trial scheduled for March next year that could force its former executives to relive the darkest period in the bank's almost three-century history.Reuters previously reported that RBS ignored warnings from senior advisers about estimated losses that would be reported in the prospectus for its rights issue in order to portray the bank in a falsely healthy light.The bank also avoided repricing billions of dollars of souring investments on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis for fear of endangering bonuses and a takeover bid for a rival, court documents showed.
The devices affected are manufactured by Zyxel and go by the model numbers D1000 and P-660HN-T1A (Stock photo)

Eir has said up to 130,000 of its broadband customers may be at risk from hackers because of a weakness in the equipment provided to householders.

The company said that a security vulnerability has emerged in a number of modems that come with basic broadband packages for those who do not have access to fibre or 'eFibre' services.

According to a company spokesman, 2,000 customers have already been hacked. However, the spokesman said there was "no evidence" of any data loss or lasting damage from those who had been hacked. Eir has 'patched', or fixed, the issue in 97pc of those affected, the spokesman said.

The remaining unpatched broadband users are currently being contacted.

The devices affected are manufactured by Zyxel and go by the model numbers D1000 and P-660HN-T1A.

The company spokesman said that Eir was informed two weeks ago about the vulnerability and immediately began to fix the modems remotely. However, last Thursday engineers discovered that almost 2,000 of the modems had been breached "by a third party".

Eir immediately began to forcibly reset the modems remotely and to contact the 2,000 households affected.

He said the hacking attack might have been part of a wider attempt to take over the modems in advance of a so-called 'botnet' attack. Botnet attacks are sometimes used to take down high-profile websites, such as those of banks or government offices.

A spokeswoman for Eir's biggest landline broadband rival, Vodafone, said the company was monitoring the situation.

Eir is the country's largest broadband provider, with 443,000 retail broadband customers.

The Eir spokesman said that the incident has been reported to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, An Garda Siochana and to the Communications Regulator (ComReg).

Eir is recommending that all those with Zyxel D1000 or P-660HN-T1A modems should reset them and has set up a web page - www.eir.ie/modemreset - for step-by-step instructions or its customer care line, 1901.
Bus Eireann is facing a financial crisis and could be insolvent in two years, according to Transport Minister Shane Ross.

Cabinet sources said Mr Ross issued a stark warning about the future of the semi-state company at today's meeting at Government Buildings.

At a later press conference, the Dublin Rathdown TD told reporters that the situation facing the firm is "fairly bleak".

Earlier today, Chief Executive of Bus Eireann warned that it cannot afford a 21pc pay rise as the company predicts losses of 6m this year.

Martin Nolan said the semi-state company suffered a 5.6m loss last year and is forecasting a similar deficit this year mainly due to losses on the Expressway service.

He said the company must advance its cost-reduction plan and had already implemented a number of key changes.

Mr Nolan said they include a reorganisation of the senior management team, which includes the appointment of Ray Hernan as Chief Financial Officer.

He was speaking as a Labour Court hearing got underway with Siptu and the National Bus and Railworkers Union after they lodged a claim for a pay rise of up to 21pc.

Unions are seeking a 15pc pay increase over three years, which they previously sought at Dublin Bus, as well as a 6pc pay rise due under a previous social partnership agreement.

The company is attending the Labour Court with employee unions today to address a pay claim, said Mr Nolan.

Bus Eireann has previously stated that we cannot afford a pay increase, given the immediate cost savings required to address ongoing losses.

Bus Eireann's Chief Financial Officer Andrea Keane resigned a few months ago and took up the same position, which was vacant, at Dublin Bus.

Mr Hernan previously worked for Arnotts, Brown Thomas and Ryanair and joined the management team yesterday.

He will also take on the role of company secretary.
A brother of the late girlfriend of Hollywood actor Jim Carrey and a decorated war hero has pleaded guilty to two assaults arising from a photograph taken at his sister's funeral.

James White (32), who received the Military Cross from Queen Elizabeth II in 2011 for his heroism during an action in Afghanistan, had his sentencing adjourned at Thurles District Court.

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Mr White of Cappawhite, Co Tipperary pleaded guilty to two assaults arising from an incident in November 2015.

The case had previously been adjourned to allow for the preparation of victim impact statements.

Judge Elizabeth MacGrath heard that the assaults, on two brothers at an address in Tipperary, arose from photographs taken as the funeral of his sister, Cathriona White (30), in October 2015.

Ms White was the former girlfriend of Jim Carrey and there was substantial media coverage of her funeral in Cappawhite.

Judge MacGrath said the incidents were at the lower end of the scale and she proposed dealing with the matter through the restorative justice programme.

"It arose from a photograph that was taken at your client's sister's funeral," she said.

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"(It led to) the unfortunate course of action that he did."

"But I think this may be an appropriate case for restorative justice. (Particularly the circumstances of) what drove him to take the actions on the day in question."

Judge MacGrath said such a course might be better for everyone involved.

"Life is too short for people to be going around with a level of fear that could be abated and might be abated."

Defence solicitor, Colin Morrissey, said his client would support a restorative justice option.

Judge MacGrath adjourned the matter until February 28 next to allow the restorative justice option to be explored.

Mr White is a brother of Cathriona White (30) who died in tragic circumstances in Los Angeles in September 2015.

She had been involved in an intermittent relationship with Hollywood actor, Jim Carrey, the star of such films as 'The Mask', 'Pet Detective' and 'Bruce Almighty'.

Ms White apparently took her own life.

Mr Carrey flew to Tipperary to support the White family during Cathriona's funeral arrangements in October 2015.

He also helped shoulder her coffin from Requiem Mass.

Mr Carrey said at the time that Cathriona was "a beautiful person" and "too fragile a flower" for this world.

The actor has since been the focus of legal action from Ms White's former husband, Mark Burton, and her mother, Brigid Sweetnam.

Her father, Pat White, died after a long battle with cancer in 2012.

Ms Sweetnam is taking a wrongful death action action in the US against Mr Carrey over the circumstances of her daughter's death.

But the White family insisted they have absolutely no part in the legal actions and said ongoing media coverage of Cathriona's death had caused them great distress.

Mr White of Greenfields, Cappawhite, Tipperary was unable to join the Defence Forces in the early 2000s and, at the urging of his late father, Pat, decided to move to the UK and join the British Army.

He served with the Parachute Regiment and reached the rank of Lance Corporal.

The young man was awarded the Military Cross in 2011 for what were described as "multiple acts of bravery."

During his deployment in Afghanistan with the Parachute Regiment, he served as part of a Special Forces Support Group involved in some of the heaviest clashes with the Taliban.

The main item singled out for his heroism was when the young Tipperary man ran 200 metres across open ground while under fire to support colleagues in another platoon who were pinned down by Taliban fighters.

Mr White undertook the rescue act despite being under fire from Kalashnikov assault rifles and even Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs).

He received his Military Cross directly from Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

He later left the British Army to pursue a career in the private sector.

Mr White had moved to the UK from Tipperary in 2003 and, with some friends, opted to enlist in the army in 2005.
Businessman Denis OBriens legal action is effectively asking a judge to draw a line with a piece of chalk on the floor of the Dail and tell TDs they cannot go beyond it, a defence lawyer has said.

Michael Collins SC told the High Court this was one of the reasons behind Mr OBriens case against a Dail committee over comments about his banking arrangements that were made by two TDs.

He also said Mr OBrien was asking Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh to take over the role of the committee.

Mr Collins, who represents the Dail Committee on Procedure and Privileges, was concluding his legal submissions today.

It is the fifth day of Mr O'Brien's High Court case against the CPP, the Clerk of the Dail, and the State.

The barrister told Judge Ni Raifeartaigh he wanted to address the fundamental question of what the purpose of the proceedings was.

I say there are clearly two purposes. One is to ask the court to basically take over the role of the CPP and sanction the deputies because the plaintiff isnt satisfied that the CPP did it properly, and that is clearly impermissible, Mr Collins told the judge.

The second purpose is to ask you to put on your gown and walk down onto the floor of the House, take out a piece of chalk, draw a line and tell the members of the House: This is the line beyond which you cannot go, when they are exercising their Constitutional right to free speech under parliamentary privilege in the Dail.

He said one only had to put it like this, to see how constitutionally wrong that is.

Mr Collins said that in his evidence to the court, Mr OBrien had said one of the reasons he had brought the case was that he wanted the court to reprimand the TDs for their comments, because the CPP had not done so.

Mr Collins said Mr OBriens case had tried to take the standing orders of the Dail and treat them as if they were some sort of statutory instrument.

He said the standing orders set out the criteria for TDs to raise matters that might be sub judice but were of general public importance.

He said there was nothing in the orders that prevented a TD, in the cut and thrust of debate from referring to such matters subject to the provisos set out.

He added the order also did not say that you could not raise an issue without due notice or on the hoof.

Mr Collins also argued that there had been sufficient evidence before the committee to reach its conclusions.

They understood the issues and they had the evidence of exactly what was said and the circumstances in which it was said, it couldnt be said there was no evidence before them, Mr Collins said.

He said he findings of the committee post-dated Mr OBriens complaint, and that Mr OBrien had said in evidence he would still have brought the current proceedings is the committees findings had been different.

Meanwhile, counsel for the State and the Attorney General, Maurice Collins SC, said the intention of Mr OBriens action was to influence future debate in the Oireachtas.

He said the court was being asked to delineate what can and cannot be said in future Oireachtas debates in the Dail and the Seanad.

Mr Collins added that the court was being asked to create a form of prohibited parliamentary speech and to say that the mere issuing of a writ creates a zone restricting parliamentary privilege.

In his oral submission to the court, the barrister said the court was being asked to fall down a wormhole into Wonderland where words mean what Mr OBrien and his counsel, Michael Cush SC, says they mean.

Mr Collins said the court was being asked to find that constitutional provisions did not mean what they say.

He said the powerful non-amenability to the courts which TDs enjoy in relation to comments in the Dail was there for the people and a cornerstone of democracy.

It protects parliaments and deputies, freeing the legislature from shackles which would apply in respect of comments outside the Oireachtas.

Mr OBrien had acknowledged his proceedings were seeking judicial condemnation for Social Democrats TD Murphy and Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty, he said.

But Mr Collins said Mr OBrien could not seek for the court to censure the two TDs.

No authority outside the Oireachtas is empowered to pass judgment on what has been said by a member in the House, he said.

No authority outside the Oireachtas is empowered to say what can or cannot be said by a member of the House.

The action arises out of statements by Ms Murphy and Mr Doherty in the Dail in May and June 2015 about Mr OBriens banking affairs.

At the time, Mr OBrien was involved in injunction proceedings against RTE, to stop the station from broadcasting banking information.

But the court had heard Dail 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 OBrien 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.

Mr OBrien has not sued the two TDs.

Instead his action is against the Clerk of the Dail, the State and a Dail committee which cleared the two TDs of any wrongdoing.

He is not seeking damages, but wants a declaration his rights were breached.

He also wants declarations that the courts had the exclusive right to determine the outcome of the proceedings with RTE, that the substantial effect of the TDs comments was to decide the outcome of that case, and that their interference was unwarranted.

Mr OBrien also wants the court to declare that the Dail Committee on Procedures and Privileges made an error when it cleared the TDs of any wrongdoing.

The claims are denied by the defendants.
A newly built dormitory at Yunnan Forestry Technological College sported bandages after large cracks in the building were repaired. An employee of the college denied any safety risks posed by the cracks, saying that it is common for such steel-framed building to crack.

The cracks solely impact the building's appearance--not its safety and function, as no crack were found inside, the employee added.

According to photos of the repaired building, posted online on Dec. 5, the dormitory of the technical college was constructed around six months ago. However, large cracks appeared soon after students moved in. The six-story building appeared covered with dark bandages after repair.

Another employee surnamed Liu disclosed that the building was put into use this year. New earthquake-resistant materials were used in its construction, and it is normal for cracks to appear on the wall due to moisture or temperature variation.

As for the dark bandages, Liu said the materials are to help the repairs stick, and the whitewashing is solely for beautification. Both are normal and necessary, according to Liu. So far, the school has not confirmed whether steel structures are permitted in the construction of student dormitories.
A doctor accused of the manslaughter of her profoundly disabled daughter said she did not make a conscious decision to take the 11-year-old "out of this world" when she gave her too much sedative.

Bernadette Scully (58) told gardai that she had given Emily double what she would have normally given her in a 24-hour period, but said her death was not premeditated.

She told gardai that she had never given that much chloral hydrate before, and accepted she had given too much.

"What was I to do, stand there and watch her fit?" she asked. She said Emily's "little lips went blue" when she gave her the final syringe.

"I'm not sure how long it took. It seemed like an eternity," she said.

"My hands were shaking. I took her up in my arms and she died in my arms."

The GP's interviews were read into evidence yesterday on the fifth day of her trial.

Dr Scully is charged with unlawfully killing Emily Barut at their home at Emvale, Bachelor's Walk, Tullamore, Co Offaly.

It is alleged she killed her by an act of gross negligence involving the administration of an excessive quantity of chloral hydrate on September 15, 2012.

She has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court.

Inspector Ger Glavin, of Portlaoise garda station, testified that he arrested Ms Scully and brought her to Tullamore garda station on April 7, 2014.

She was interviewed four times that day.

The trial has heard that Emily had severe epilepsy, as well as microcephaly and cerebral palsy. She had the mental age of a six-month-old.

Dr Scully said she had given her chloral hydrate when she became upset at 2am and 6am, and had given it again when she had an 'unprecedented' seizure around 11am.

Read More: 'What was I to do, stand there and watch her fit?' - GP accused of 11-year-old daughter's manslaughter

"My whole aim had been to keep her alive and keep her going," she said.

She was asked what her aim was in giving the final dose.

"To stop the fit," she said.

It was put to her that she was relieved when it was over, but she said that's not how she felt.

"I wanted to go with her. Even to this day, I didn't want her to be on her own." She said she hadn't slept in eight days and Emily was roaring.

She accepted she had written a note found at the scene, but denied writing it before Emily died. It was put to her that the note suggested premeditation. "It wasn't premeditated about taking Emily's life," she said.

The trial continues.
Detective Garda Clifford Singleton, who sued the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, told the court that in May 2001, he had been investigating vans being stolen from the docks in Dublin. (Stock picture)

A 43-year-old garda hero, whose car was rammed by a man he had previously saved in a machete attack, has been awarded 25,000 compensation in the High Court for whiplash injuries.

Detective Garda Clifford Singleton, who sued the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, told the court that in May 2001, he had been investigating vans being stolen from the docks in Dublin.

He said An Garda Siochana had been tipped off about a delivery which was to take place in Raheny, Dublin, and had been waiting at Hilltop Shopping Centre. After witnessing the transaction, he had shouted gardai to the van driver who tried to escape.

Det. Garda Singleton told his barrister, Ivan Daly, that he tried to block the van with his unmarked garda car but the driver continued at speed and rammed his vehicle.

The court heard the man was later apprehended. Det. Garda Singleton said he suffered soft tissue injuries to his neck, right shoulder and knee, and to his lower back. The court heard he had ongoing pain.

Dublin based Det. Garda Singleton said during a Garda Compensation hearing that he later attended his GP. He had felt he could manage the pain at the time.

The Minister had argued that medical reports at the time of the incident stated a recovery prognosis of one year. The State alleged that Det. Garda Singletons ongoing symptoms were triggered by another incident, when he tried to lift a television in 2007.

Mr Daly told the court that Det. Garda Singleton was a successful member of the detective unit who had willingly put himself in danger in the behalf of Irish citizens.

Counsel said the driver of the van had been saved by Det. Garda Singleton from being attacked by two people with a machete several years before the 2001 incident.

Mr Justice Bernard Barton said he believed Det. Garda Singletons evidence but he had no recent medical evidence to support his claim. The judge said he had to accept medical reports which stated a contrary view.

Awarding him 25,000 compensation, the judge said it was reasonable to think that Det. Garda Singletons symptoms lasted for several years as he had been involved in a very severe ramming incident.
A lawyer for a doctor accused of the manslaughter of her daughter by giving her too much sedative has suggested that theres no formula to equate the amount of the sedative a person takes with whats found in the system.

One of the main prosecution gardai was being cross examined by the defence on Tuesday morning in the the trial of 58-year-old Bernadette Scully.

The Offaly GP is charged with unlawfully killing 11-year-old Emily Barut, who was profoundly disabled, at their home at Emvale, Bachelors Walk, Tullamore. Its alleged that she killed her by an act of gross negligence involving the administration of an excessive quantity of chloral hydrate on Saturday September 15th, 2012.

She has pleaded not guilty and is on trial at the Central Criminal Court.

The trial has heard that Emily had severe epilepsy, as well as microcephaly and cerebral palsy. She had the mental age of a six-month old, and couldnt move or speak.

Inspector Ger Glavin gave evidence on Monday of the four interviews conducted with Ms Scully following her arrest in April 2014.

Ms Scully had explained that Emily had been in a lot of pain for the last two weeks of her life, after having a procedure to replace the tube into her stomach through which she received fluids and medication.

She said she had given her chloral hydrate when she became upset at 2am and 6am, and had given it again when she had an unprecedented seizure around 11am. Ms Scully accepted that she had given her too much.

The trial has already heard that 220 micrograms of the drugs metabolite, trichloroethanol, was found in Emilys bloodstream after her death, and the inspector was cross examined about this by the defence this morning.

Kenneth Fogarty SC asked if it had ever been part of the investigation to find out what type of quantity of chloral hydrate would give rise to what type of quantity trichloroethanol.

It was, yes, he replied, adding that working it out was left to the experts.

With all the experts involved, theres no formula before the jury that equates a level of chloral hydrate with a level of trichloroethanol, suggested Mr Fogarty.

I think you tried to illicit that from a number of expert witnesses, accepted the inspector.

The trial continues on Tuesday afternoon before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.
An 'overworked' pharmacist in Northern Ireland made a tragic error and gave out the wrong pills to a grandmother who took ill within moments and later died, a court has heard.

The 45-year-old pharmacist Martin White, of Belfast Road, Muckamore, on the outskirts of Antrim, admitted filling out the wrong prescription for 67-year-old Ethna Walsh on February 6, 2014.

Prosecution barrister Michael Chambers told Antrim Crown Court that Mrs Walsh had gone with her husband Joe to the Clear Pharamacy on Antrim's Station Road giving her prescription for COPD medication, Prednisolone.

Mr Chambers told Judge Gordon Kerr QC that instead of picking up the drug, White picked up a box of Propranolol.

He added that back at home Mr Walsh gave his wife some of the tablets which she took, but within moments had difficulty in breathing and became unwell. He immediately phoned for an ambulance, and although rushed to hospital she later died.

Mr Chambers said that White later told the police that he "must have mistakenly picked up the Propranolol instead of the Prednisolone", adding that the two boxes were "side by side on the shelf and have similar branding".

The court heard that while White claimed that he had carried out the required checks under the pharmacy Standard Operation Procedures, he'd also complained of the "cramped working space", and that at the time he had been to his own GP about his feelings of low mood, tiredness and fatigue.

An expert who later examined what had happened said that accuracy checks should have been carried out but weren't and this led to the tragic error.

However the expert deemed that White was guilty only of "poor professional performance" as opposed to "professional misconduct".

Defence QC John Kearney revealed that since the tragedy White has been too frightened to return to work because he was so racked with guilt and has been receiving psychiatric help.

Mr Kearney said that White had expressly instructed him "to offer his abject apology to each and every member of Mrs Walsh's family... although he accepts it may not be very well received".

Earlier the defence lawyer had described White as a man with a hither to unblemished character and said that the tragic consequences of his mistake had left him "racked with guilt and destroyed with remorse".

White, Mr Kearney said was acutely aware that he was responsible for the tragedy "and will carry it for the rest of his life, and if he could turn the clock back he would".

Mr Kearney suggested that what had happened occurred because White was "an ordinary man who struggled because he worked too hard...regularly working up to 60 hours a week... always on call.

"This is his first mistake after almost a quarter of a century, 24 years of employment," said Mr Kearney.

Judge Kerr adjourned sentencing until later in the month given the importance of the case.
Fionn Braidwood pictured at Dun Laoghaire District Court this morning,where he was charged with the murder of his mother Jane Braidwood.

Fionn Braidwood, who is accused of the murder of his mother Jane Braidwood (inset)

A 32-year-old man who stabbed his mother to death with a kitchen knife before attacking his sister and a passer-by has been found not guilty of murder and assault by reason of insanity.

Fionn Braidwood with an address at Clarinda Park East, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin was charged with murdering his mother Jane Braidwood (65) on January 20, 2015 at the same address.

Mr Braidwood pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Braidwood at the Central Criminal Court. He also pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Ceili Braidwood and Anthony Maguire at the same address and on the same date.

The court heard that retired psychiatrist Jane Braidwood died after receiving three stab wounds to her chest.

Two consultant psychiatrists gave evidence during the trial that Mr Braidwood was suffering from schizophrenia and would have been unable to refrain from his actions.

They both said that he met the requirements for the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Expand Close Fionn Braidwood pictured at Dun Laoghaire District Court this morning,where he was charged with the murder of his mother Jane Braidwood. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Fionn Braidwood pictured at Dun Laoghaire District Court this morning,where he was charged with the murder of his mother Jane Braidwood.

Today after a period of 32 minutes deliberating, a jury of two men and ten women returned verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity on the three counts.

After they had delivered their verdict, Ms Justice Carmel Stewart thanked the jury for their attention and commitment to the case.

"This was a short trial but that doesn't make it any less distressing on the issues you have had to listen to," she said. The judge then exempted them from further jury service for a period of ten years.

Ms Justice Stewart then made an order committing Mr Braidwood to go to the Central Mental Hospital today and to be brought back before the court on December 16.

The judge also directed the preparation of a psychiatric assessment by an approved medical officer.

Ms Justice Stewart finally expressed her sympathies to the Braidwood family on what they had to endure. "It's been a very distressing case," she said.

Evidence

Opening the case for the prosecution on Monday, Mr Alex Owens SC told the jury that the central issue they would be asked to consider is whether they should bring in a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity against Mr Braidwood.

The court heard evidence by video link from Mr Braidwood's sister, Ms Ceili Braidwood. She told Mr Owens that she was living with her mother in the family home in Dun Laoghaire on January 20, 2015.

Mr Braidwood had also been living in the family home on and off since Christmas."

The witness agreed with Mr Owens that her brother began to experience fairly severe psychiatric symptoms in his early twenties which went on for quite a number of years.

The court heard her father had died some years previously.

Both her parents had been practising psychiatrists and her mother had recently retired.

Mr Braidwood went off his medication in November 2014 and had been on medication for bipolar disorder, manic depression and schizophrenia, the court heard.

Ms Braidwood agreed with counsel that when her brother went off his medication his conduct would deteriorate.

In the couple of weeks leading up to January 2015, Mr Braidwood spent a lot of time in the house and was sleeping all day.

He had also made a decision not to eat.

His mother, Jane Braidwood, was trying to look after him but was having difficulty convincing him to drink water, the court heard.

The accused was very tense and would spend long periods sitting in the kitchen and not talking. He would sometimes go upstairs to let off steam.

Mr Braidwood was under the care of Cluain Mhuire, who were giving him psychiatric assistance but he wasnt taking their assistance at this time.

On January 20, 2015 Ms Braidwood was at home with her mother and her brother.

At about 4.30pm, Mr Braidwood made an appearance as he had been in bed previously in his bedroom which was on the top floor of the house.

Ms Braidwood told the court she was working from home that day and she then heard her brother ask her mother some questions.

Mr Braidwood wanted his mother to facilitate him going to Australia.

He wanted her to ask our aunts in Australia to help him and let him stay as they lived over there. He didnt need a VISA as we have double citizenship, she said.

The court heard that Jane Braidwood didnt think her son was well enough to take the trip. The deceased then tried to persuade her son that it was a bad idea to go to Australia and he was in no condition to do it.

The witness told the court that she was sitting at the bay window in the kitchen when she saw her mother between the window and table looking out onto the road.

There was also a discussion about the accuseds medication and then Mr Braidwood went silent.

This was the point he lost control and became quite angry, she said. Mr Braidwood then strode purposely towards the knife drawer beside the oven.

She said he had never been violent towards her or her mother before and it was always towards the house or objects.

Ms Braidwood said she heard her mother screaming something at her son as he took a long and sharp knife from the drawer but it happened very quickly.

The witness said she then observed her brother struggling with her mother as her mother tried to run away.

Ms Braidwood then observed her brother stabbing her mother on a number of occasions.

She recalled her brother jabbing her mother with the knife before she tried to separate them apart from each other.

The witness said her brother then let go of the knife and punched her in the right side of her head on a number of occasions before knocking her onto the couch.

The knife was in her mothers back and Fionn Braidwood looked like he was going towards the knife drawer again, she said.

Ms Braidwood then locked herself in the bathroom and dialled the emergency services.

Ms Braidwood then came out and checked on her mother in the kitchen but she was in the same place and not moving.

The accused was still standing at the knife drawer in the kitchen.

The court heard she then got to the front door of the house and started shouting for help.

She observed Anthony Maguire across the road and asked him for assistance. Mr Maguire rang the emergency services on his mobile phone.

Ms Braidwood then asked her brother to stay at the front door of the house as she did not want him around her mother in the kitchen with the knives.

The accused then got angry with Mr Maguire and started to punch him in the head.

Ms Braidwood said her mother was still lying in the kitchen with the knife in her back and tried to attend to her as the ambulance services arrived.

Defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC called consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Brenda Wright from the Central Mental Hospital to take the stand.

Dr Wright told the court that Jane Braidwood told her son on the day of the offence that she did not think it was a good idea for him to go to Australia as he wasnt taking care of himself and not showering.

His illness was significantly complicated by noncompliance with medication and non-engagement with mental health teams, she said.

Dr Wright told the jury that Mr Braidwood was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offence and would have been unable to refrain from his actions.

Prosecuting counsel, Alex Owens SC, called consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Ronan Mullaney from the Central Mental Hospital to give evidence.

From Autumn 2014 up until January 2015, Dr Mullaney said there was a history of the accused not taking fairly strong anti-psychotic medication.

The witness agreed with Mr Owens that Mr Braidwood was suffering from schizophrenia on January 20, 2015 and was very unwell at the time.

He also agreed that the accused had a very significant need for regular medication in order to prevent any deterioration in his mental state.

Dr Mullaney also agreed with counsel that people can intrinsically lack insight into their illness and dont appreciate they need treatment or benefit from treatment.

The court heard this has been a feature of Mr Braidwood's illness for a long number of years.

The witness said that the accused was off an injection of an anti-psychotic nature up to January 2015.

People who have difficulty taking medication but still require it can turn up to a depot clinic and get this medication. Mr Braidwood decided he did not want to do that for several months, said Dr Mullaney.

The witness agreed with counsel that Mr Braidwood was very very unwell at the time of the offence and would have been unable to refrain from committing the act.

He also agreed that the accused needs continuing treatment and care at the Central Mental Hospital.

Dr Mullaney agreed with defence counsel, Patrick Gageby SC, that Mr Braidwoods illness was of at least ten years standing.

He also agreed with Mr Gageby that the accused is not frank with the world about his symptoms and downplays them.

What I would say is that he fails to recognise them as symptoms of an illness and it has always been very distressing for him to have the diagnosis he has. He lacked insight into this diagnosis and it caused fear for him that people might detain him against his will, said Dr Mullaney.

The court heard that Mr Braidwood has only understood the nature of his illness in recent months.

Mr Braidwood's family have been very attentive to his needs but the accused would have seen them as intrusions rather than support."

Dr Mullaney agreed that minding her son would have been quite an exhaustive process for Jane Braidwood and consequently the same would have happened for those who were left to care for him in Australia.

The witness agreed with Mr Gageby that Jane Braidwood trying to stop her son from going abroad was a rational and caring approach.
A man stabbed his retired psychiatrist mother to death with a kitchen knife before punching his sister, who saw the attack, a trial was told.

Fionn Braidwood (32) is charged with murdering Jane Braidwood (65) on January 20, 2015.

Mr Braidwood pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court.

He also pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Ceili Braidwood and Anthony Maguire at the same address and on the same date.

Opening their case yesterday, the prosecution said: "You will be finding that a lot of the facts in this case are not really contested.

"The central issue you will be asked to consider is whether you should bring in a special verdict against Mr Braidwood. That verdict in this case is a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity."

The defence made admissions that Mr Braidwood admitted causing his mother's death by stabbing her on January 20, 2015.

"He also admits assaulting Ceili Braidwood and Anthony Maguire and causing them harm," he said. The court then heard evidence by video link from Ceili Braidwood.

She told how Mr Braidwood had argued with his mother about a trip to Australia he wanted to take on January 20, 2015.

The accused, with an address at Clarinda Park East, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, had become angry as his mother said he was not well enough to make the trip.

Ms Braidwood said her brother grabbed a kitchen knife from a drawer and his mother tried to run away.

She saw her brother stabbing her mother a number of times.

The witness said her brother then let go of the knife and punched her in the right side of her head.

Her mother then moved towards the kitchen door and she heard her say: "Call an ambulance."

Ms Braidwood locked herself in the bathroom and dialled the emergency services. Ms Braidwood then came out and checked on her mother in the kitchen but she was in the same place and not moving. The ambulance services then arrived.

The trial continues before Ms Justice Carmel Stewart.
Gardai have still not spoken to an 18-year-old student who was the victim of a vicious assault 16 days ago.

Maynooth University student Kym Owens remains in the intensive care unit of Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown and so far has been too ill to speak to investigating officers.

It is understood gardai "are hopeful" to be in a position to interview her later this week.

A chief suspect has not been identified, but gardai say they are making "good progress" in their investigation.

In an unusual appeal, a senior officer said yesterday that gardai would like to speak to some of more than 200 people who have already made statements in case anyone had "forgotten" to tell officers anything.

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Expand Close Kym Owens. Picture released to help with investigation. / Facebook

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"They can come back to gardai in full confidence, they will not be in trouble or anything like that. Their information could be crucial," the source said.

The Herald previously revealed that gardai are extremely concerned that Kym may not remember anything about the attack.

She was viciously beaten in Maynooth on November 20 on her way to her college accommodation.

She had just got off a private bus and was set upon while walking to her digs at the Moyglare Abbey Estate.

The investigation has already been hampered by poor-quality CCTV because of fog.
Chinese military expert Du Wenlong said in a recent interview with CCTV that Japan's new surface-to-ship missile (SSM), which has a range of 300 kilometers, will hardly serve its purpose in real battle, pointing out that the weapon's threat is only theoretical.

According to U.S. defense news site RCD, Japan's new missiles are scheduled to be deployed to the Miyako and Yaeyama island chains in the southern part of Okinawa prefecture in 2023, enclosing China's Diaoyu Islands in their combat radius. If Japan deploys the new missiles to the 270-kilometer-wide Miyako Strait, the country will be able to seal the channel and expand its firing range to the Diaoyu Islands and even Taiwan, as well as northeastern coastal areas.

RDC commented that the increase in Japan's offensive capability could be a double-edged sword for the U.S. If the RCD report is true, the new missiles will not only pose a threat to the Diaoyu Islands, but will also threaten certain activities of the Chinese Navy and Air Force, said Du. Japan already deployed Type 88 SSM to the Miyako Islands in 2013. With double the former combat radius, the new missiles are able to strike targets in more remote areas.

However, Du believes such threats are only theoretical, and the weapon is unlikely to do much in an actual battle. Publicly deployed on fixed islands, missile bases can be destroyed in war. In addition, some Chinese Air Force aircraft are able to disturb the missiles' radar and electronic reconnaissance systems. Meanwhile, mid- to long-range airborne weapons are also capable of precise strikes to the missiles.
Traditionally, pupils in the 51-school fee-paying sector are the most likely to progress to third-level (Stock photo)

Pupils from State-funded schools are continuing to narrow the gap with those from the fee-paying sector when it comes to college entry.

A growth in the number of publicly-funded schools with a 100pc, or very close to it, progression rate to third-level is evident in tables published with the Irish Independent today.

The annual Feeder Schools supplement provides a snapshot of where the Leaving Certificate class of 2016, from about 700 schools nationwide, enrolled in college this autumn.

Traditionally, pupils in the 51-school fee-paying sector are the most likely to progress to third-level, and that remains the case.

The high transfer rate from fee-paying schools is attributed to advantages such as smaller classes, which the extra funding they enjoy can support. Schools in the fee-paying sector are also less likely to have pupils with special educational needs.

This is borne out in the allocations for resource teachers, awarded by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), to provide extra support for certain students.

However, this year's college entry figures confirm the continuing trend of higher participation rates among pupils in the more than 600 other second-level schools.

According to the 2016 tables, all the Leaving Certificate candidates from 25 of 51 fee-paying schools went on to university, or another third-level college. That compares with 31 of 56 schools six years ago.

But, over the same period, there has been a more than five-fold increase in the number of non-fee schools matching that 100pc record - up from 11 to 58. Last year's figure was 53.

However, despite rising college entry rates generally, the figures highlight a social divide that remains stubbornly wide.

Students from lower socio-economic backgrounds continue to lag well behind when it comes to higher education.

While college progression rates of 80pc, and more, are now the norm for many schools, it can be 20pc or lower in disadvantaged areas.

The 2016 figures also reveal another social divide. Geography plays a big role in college choice, with students more likely to enrol in the college most convenient to them.

However, pupils from fee-paying and other elite schools dominate entry to universities.

This means they are studying for the highest level of undergraduate qualification, an honours degree.

Meanwhile, students from less advantaged backgrounds are more likely to attend one of the institutes of technology, which, as well as honours degrees, also offer ordinary degrees and higher certificates.

That pattern is evident, even in Dublin, where there is a choice of both universities and institutes of technology.

Other figures confirm that, on average, more maintenance grants are awarded to students in institutes of technology.
Studying abroad is something most students dream of. But for Ivan, it was a situation he never saw coming.

Upon finishing high school at eighteen, Ivan Chafardeth was determined to go straight into university. With the declining rate of Venezuelan high school students jumping into a third level programme, this in itself would have been an achievement.

Criminal activity and casual violence had become an accepted reality for the teenagers in his neighbourhood. It isnt a surprise that most inevitably find themselves trapped in social circles that encourage this negative behaviour.

Ivans family feared that as soon as Ivan became independent, he might be persuaded into joining one of the many gangs that terrorised the hectic inner city streets. Desperate to give him the best opportunity in life, an aunt, who had already been living in the outskirts of Dublin for over two years, suggested coming here to study.

Studying abroad is a dream often pursued and glamorised by most young people, but for a juvenile Ivan, who already had his mind set on a university in Caracas, its a reality he never planned for. Just like the many entrances into Dublin City University, Ivans path to higher education wasnt as quick and easy as he had expected.

As if getting ready to tell a joke, Ivan grinned and crossed his legs, brushing invisible dirt off his grey skinny jeans and continued talking about how reluctant he was to leave the life he loved. With him he had brought very little English and no knowledge about the European educational system. Unknown to him, he still had a language, financial and cultural barrier to overcome.

He spent five years learning English grammar in high school but he was never made use it. Even when he enrolled in a language school in Dublin, he soon came to realise that when youre a foreign student studying English, youre bound to be surrounded by other foreign students. Most of them will converse with each other in their native tongue, which actually makes it harder to learn English outside of the classroom.

It wasnt until he landed a job as a live-in au-pair for seven months that he started to gain the fluency he required. He was earning money and gaining knowledge so he couldnt complain.

When asked which country he preferred, he paused and looked left, choosing his words carefully. The experience of living in Ireland has been amazing. I enjoy every single second and obviously the situation back home is not very good. He hesitated, trying not to linger on the topic too long.

He quickly continued, Its very bad, theres no food, people have to queue to buy any kind of products. He then smiles, clearly ready to move on to a different topic. The conversation changes to how liberal Ireland has made him considering he comes from a conservative background.

Homesickness is something Ivan has only began to struggle with. He explained that when he first arrived, he was too young to feel homesick, I was just 18 years old. So I was enjoying all the freedom of being alone and stuff." At that time, his connection to home was still strong, I have so many responsibilities and I live with an Irish student, its just so hard to be stressing and not to have anyone there to support you.

After spending so long working towards becoming a full-time student, Ivan feels a bit annoyed. He explains that since Irish universities charge non-EU students three times as much as EU students, they should include additional facilities into every university to help foreign students adjust better.

Foreign students know very little about their rights on a student visa, and even having a staff member assigned the role of providing information would be beneficial, he argued.

He thinks people often forget that foreign students are inclined to suffer from loneliness and are more likely to be excluded in classes. Even something as simple as a regular language exchange night could help unite Irish students and foreign students.

Ivan checks his watch and arranges his notes on coding. In less than an hour, hell be sitting a class test. He opens the brown buckle of his suede bag and puts the notes in.

When asked about where hed like to see himself in the future, he said that he hopes that all the work hes put into getting an education is worth it. He hopes to land a job working for a global company such as Facebook or Google and now, when he imagines his future, its in Ireland.

With thanks to Campus.ie
The parents of a baby who died shortly after birth at Portlaoise Hospital said it is "shameful" it still poses a risk to patient care.

Mark and Roisin Molloy - who received a People of the Year award at the weekend for their courage in campaigning for improved services at the hospital following inaction over their baby's death - said the lack of a plan for its future left it in a state of drift.

They were responding to a review by the patient safety watchdog, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), which warned significant risks to patient safety remain and its future is uncertain.

Ms Molloy said she was shocked that the maternity unit, which should have 54 midwives for its 1,600 births, has just 48 employed and is heavily reliant on agency staff.

"Staff at the hospital are doing their best to improve services but the uncertainty over its future means there are not enough of them to ensure full standards of care are possible," she said.

The hospital was plunged into turmoil nearly two years ago after it emerged five babies had died in its maternity unit in similar circumstances since 2006. Hiqa's latest review said maternity services at the hospital were now being provided in a safer and more sustainable way.

But while investment and safeguards have been put in place, many of the risks identified in other services during Hiqa's 2015 probe remain unchanged.

These include critical care and emergency services.

The hospital continues to provide a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week emergency service for adult and paediatric patients.

Hiqa's director of regulation, Mary Dunnion, said the lack of a plan for its future meant it was more difficult to recruit and retain staff.

The latest report piles more pressure on the Government to make a decision on whether it will downgrade the hospital and shut its 24-hour emergency department.

A draft HSE report which has gone to the Health Department is believed to call for its 24-hour emergency department and other services to be curtailed.
Commuters in Dublin are facing delays following a two car collision on the M50.

The collision occurred between junction five and six southbound and gardai are advising motorists to expect delays.

Dublin: part of Sundrive Rd, near Sundrive Park, is currently closed following an earlier serious injury collision  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) December 4, 2016

In the city centre traffic has also slowed due accident in the bus on Ushers Quay earlier.

The incident has been cleared but delays remain according to AA Roadwatch.

They are also reporting a breakdown at near Finglas on the M50 and traffic is moving slowly on the M3 due to a crash at the Clonee junction southbound.

Elsewhere around the country, there is a stop/ go system is in place for works on the N20 Cork to Limerick Road northbound between Blarney Business Park and the Ballygibbon turn-off.

In Kildare, there is also a crash on the M9 Waterford to Dublin Road northbound between J3 Athy and J2 Kilcullen in the right lane.

UPDATE: The collision on the M50 has been cleared.

DUBLIN: Collision cleared on Ushers Quay in bus lane but delays remain on approach https://t.co/EY0qAdZlYs  AA Roadwatch (@aaroadwatch) December 6, 2016

However emergency services are dealing with an accident on the Ratoath Road Inbound, before Ballyboggan Road.

Meanwhile, Dublin Bus has advised customers that its app is down.
John Jacob, general secretary of the AGSI, and Antoinette Cunningham, president of the AGSI. Photo: Gareth Chaney

The threat of garda strikes is at an end after sergeants and inspectors followed their rank and file colleagues by voting overwhelmingly in favour of a 50 million pay package.

A total of 95pc of members of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors who voted in a ballot backed a Labour Court recommendation to end a dispute over pay and industrial relations rights.

AGSI said 71pc of its 2,103 members voted in the ballot on proposals that were negotiated by the association at the court, to which it had access for the first time in its 38-year history.

The result was revealed today after members of the Garda Representative Association also backed the court proposals that will push up the average guard's wages by 4,000.

The court put forward the proposals on the eve of a strike by members of the two associations, which threatened the security of the state.

They planned to withdraw their labour on every Friday last month despite being legally restricted from doing so unless they got a substantial pay rise.

President Antoinette Cunningham said the ballot result is proof that giving gardai access to equitable industrial relations machinery works.

We held a briefing seminar in Athlone two weeks ago where we went through the Labour Court proposals in great detail, she said.

What emerged from that meeting however, was that our members felt vindicated in their fight to have parity of access to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court, both avenues previously not available to them.

This move was of particular importance to our members and recognition of their voice by the Government and the Labour Court was very well received.

She said the association loops forward to helping shape the future of the industrial relations landscape for its members for decades to come.

That work is very important and we have a role to play to ensure gardai in the future dont have to face an inequitable industrial relations playing field again, she added.

Tanaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald, welcomed the ballot result.

She said the court had sought to address the associations' concerns in relation to their pay and conditions, the pay

and conditions of new recruits, and access to the statutory dispute resolution bodies.

Nobody wanted to see industrial action and I believe todays decision is one which is in the best interests of An Garda Siochana and the community they serve so well," she said.

She said she looks forward to working with the associations to progress their access to the statutory dispute resolution bodies and engagement with the Public Service Pay Commission.
The number of judges advising the Government on judicial appointments is to be slashed from five to just two under reforms agreed in Cabinet.

The move will see the presidents of the District and Circuit courts excluded from the process, while only one of either the president of the High Court or the president of the Court of Appeal will have a seat on the new advisory commission.

And while the Chief Justice will have a guaranteed place on the commission, Irelands top judge will not chair it.

Instead the chair will be picked from a variety of victims rights, human rights and minority groups.

People from a non-legal background will form the majority of the 11-person board.

The detail of the changes was announced after the Cabinet agreed the general scheme of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, a key demand of the Independent Alliance.

Transport Minister Shane Ross, of the alliance, acknowledged the changes would be hard for the judiciary to accept.

The heads of all five courts sit on the existing judicial appointments advisory board, chaired by Chief Justice Susan Denham, which is to be scrapped next year.

I know it is very difficult to change things in situations like this. They are very powerful people who dont like things being moved, he said.

We hope to see now a new era in appointments of judges in this country.

A group of senior judges had pressed for the commission to have a majority of people from a legal background when they met with Mr Ross and Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald last month.

However, the meeting did not lead to any changes in the Governments plans.

The Attorney general will also sit on the committee as will nominees of the Bar Council and the Law Society. But there will be a six-five split in favour of members with a non-legal background.

Fianna Fail has said it will not support the bill, after its own bill on the issue, which would include a legal majority, was stymied by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

Despite this, Mr Ross said he expected the Governments bill to be passed.

He said there would be discussions with Fianna Fail to see if there could be an agreement.

If we cant agree, we have to put it to the Dail, he said.

This is in the programme for government. The Independent Alliance was elected on that programme. It was hard fought. Those are very key sacred pillars of what we put in.

Mr Ross also said he was sorry if comments he had made that judges lived a charmed life and may forget their oath if they dont have to fill out a register of interests had caused upset.

I dont think I have gone out of my way to antagonize them, he said.

Some of the things that were said were very robust, but many of these things had to be said because it was very important that people realised what we were doing.

Maybe the language was too colourful. I think it was too colourful for lots of people in Government as well.

I am sorry if it was too colourful, but otherwise the thrust of what weve done, we are all very happy with what weve done.

This is a very radical bill. It is the most radical bill I think that has been put forward under this Government.

Mr Rosss call for judges to compile a register of interests will not be included in the appointments bill, but will instead feature in a separate bill on a judicial council.

The minister said it hadnt yet been decided whether the register would be publicly available or not.

But I dont think there will be a difficulty about a declaration of interests. That is something we will see in one form or other, he said.
Residents have been warned to be vigilant, after carbon monoxide was detected at a home where a well-known man was found dead on Sunday.

Glyn Girvan (72) was found at his home in Albert Street in Lurgan, Co Armagh.

The widower was described as a valued member of the community and was highly thought of by residents.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it was alerted to the incident at 9.40pm on Sunday by the PSNI.

"Two fire appliances from Lurgan Fire Station and one fire appliance from Portadown Fire Station, attended the incident," a spokesperson for the service said.

"Wearing breathing apparatus, firefighters entered the mid-terrace property and using gas monitors confirmed the presence of carbon monoxide."

A 60m exclusion zone was put in place and residents in the area were advised to stay indoors. Firefighters then ventilated the property and the incident was dealt with by 11.17pm.

The pensioner, whose wife Shirley died 20 years ago, was an avid motorcycle racer, taking part in local events, the Lurgan Mail reported.

He was father to Glyn Junior, Paul, Keith and Bronwyn and had 10 grandchildren.

Lurgan councillor, Keith Haughian, who lives in a neighbouring street, said: "These are tragic circumstances for anyone to pass away.

"He was a valued member of the community. He was well-known and had been in the area for years and years."

The Sinn Fein councillor described the detection of carbon monoxide at the property as "very concerning".

"If anybody has any fears, or suspects that this might be an issue in their own home, then they should contact the relevant authorities and ask for it to be checked."

He also urged people to check on elderly members of their family or extended family.

He added: "I extend my sympathies from myself and the local community. It's a huge loss for everybody - especially for the family."

DUP Upper Bann MLA, Carla Lockhart, said: "My thoughts and prayers are very much with the deceased and his family. This is shocking news for a very close-knit community.

"Obviously it raises concerns again regarding carbon monoxide and the need to do more to raise awareness and to encourage people to install carbon monoxide monitors in their home."

PSNI Sergeant Nicholas Woods said: "Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of a man in the Albert Street area of Craigavon on Sunday, December 4.

"A post mortem is due to take place. There are no further details at this stage."

His funeral arrangements are to be release at a later stage.
Gardai are hunting for two men following an armed robbery at a McDonalds restaurant in the capital this afternoon.

The raiders, who were each armed with an apparent firearm entered the Crumlin premises shortly before 4.30pm today.

Staff members were threatened during the terrifying incident in the Ashleaf Shopping Centre on the Cromwellsfort Road, Dublin 12.

It is understood that a number of people, including young children were in the fast-food restaurant at the time of the armed robbery.

The raiders eventually left empty handed and officers from Crumlin garda station are investigating.

No arrests have yet been made and gardai are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.
Recently, an automatic street sweeper invented by Chinese sanitation workers incited fierce online debate between Chinese and British netizens.

The sweeper consists of a motor-driven rotary plate attached to 16 brooms. By dragging the machine behind a tractor, sanitation workers have been able to dramatically improve their work efficiency.

The machine was designed and customized by workers. It is able to clean up to 20 kilometers per day, 20 times the daily workload of an ordinary sanitation worker.

However, the legitimacy of this new invention was questioned by British netizens after a Daily Mail report described the machine.

Some British commenters pointed out that, instead of cleaning the street, the machine was actually moving trash from one place to another. Some were also skeptical of the safety of the machine, saying it could blind pedestrians by splashing gravel into their eyes.

Faced with such aggressive doubts, Chinese netizens began to defend the invention.

They denied that the machine was designed to sweep trash to locations where workers would collect it later. In terms of safety issues, they responded that the machine moves at a very low speed, so it is unlikely to dislodge gravel.

Above all, they argued, such innovation should be encouraged, so that more and better inventions are created in the future.
Tough new laws which will finally allow electronic tagging to be implemented and force courts to give reasons for granting bail are to be approved by Cabinet today.

Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald is expected to brief her colleagues on a range of measures which are largely aimed at clamping down on repeat offenders.

They will also seek to give a voice to victims during bail hearings for the first time.

Sources said the Justice Minister intends to say the Bail (Amendment) Bill "significantly strengthens the law and procedures on bail, within the permitted constitutional limits".

The measures to be introduced include:

Driving bans as a condition of bail

The imposition of night-time curfews

Persistent offending to be a block to the granting of bail

Judges must give reasons for granting bail

The prospect of suspected criminals being electronically tagged is likely to draw the most scrutiny.

Since 2007 there has been a provision which would permit a court to order a suspect to be tagged but it has never been enacted due to concerns that this open-ended provision could result in over use of electronic monitoring.

This would have significant operational and cost implications.

"This bill will amend that provision by making it subject to an application by the prosecution, so making it manageable and controllable," a source said.

The Justice Department was also establishing a working group to identify the practical steps needed to commence electronic tagging.

Separately, the bill would increase factors which a court may take into account in refusing bail to include a pattern of persistent serious offending by the accused, and the likelihood of any danger to a person or the community if the accused was released on bail.

Ms Fitzgerald had previously admitted that "prolific burglars with numerous previous convictions are repeatedly granted bail despite Garda objections even when charged with a series of burglaries".

The type of conditions laid down by a court would also to be increased, particularly in the area of road traffic offences.

The new laws would allow a judge to impose a temporary driving ban as a condition of bail. Crime suspects may also be subjected to a curfew.

Judges were also set to hear from crime victims for the first time before deciding on whether to grant bail.

The victims would be able to express a view as to the likelihood of interference by the accused with them or a family member.

In a further development the judiciary would be required to give reasons for granting or refusing bail and for imposing any conditions of bail, in a move that the Tanaiste would say provides "openness and transparency in bail decisions" and provide a "better understanding" of the system.

Sources said that Ms Fitzgerald expected to get the full backing of Cabinet for the measures so that she could progress their "swift implementation".

Speaking at a Fine Gael event last week, Ms Fitzgerald said the new laws would give gardai "powers to deal with breaches of bail".

"It will increase the use of curfews, and introduce electronic tagging for those on bail where requested by gardai," she said.

"It will keep criminals who are determined to continue being criminals off our streets."
The threat of a series of unprecedented strikes by rank and file gardai is over after they backed a 50m pay deal.

Three-quarters of members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) voted to accept an offer that will mean a wage boost of over 4,000 per guard, and there was a 69pc turnout.

But the Public Expenditure and Reform Department and the Justice Department must now decide who will cover the cost of the wage package.

The Government is also likely to face another bill on top of the 290m already set aside for public sector pay rises next year.

As a result of the Garda pay offer, it has committed to talks with unions on "anomalies" arising from the deal after they demanded equal treatment or the Government would face industrial action.

The public sector union leaders of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are due to meet today to discuss their pay strategy.

Discussion

A spokesperson for the Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe said he will work out how the pay package will be funded with Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

It was revealed yesterday that a majority of the 10,500 members of the GRA voted in favour of a Labour Court recommendation that halted industrial action last month.

The association's 31-member Central Executive Committee agreed to ballot its members on the court's proposals on the eve of the first strike planned for November 4.

It agreed to suspend the strike to hold a ballot on the court proposals that will increase pay and give gardai access to state mediation bodies.

It did not issue a recommendation to members on how they should vote.

In a statement, the GRA said its Central Executive Committee will meet today to discuss the implications of the ballot result.

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors' 2,500 members will give their verdict on the court's proposals today.

It recommended a 'yes' vote.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams will make a special Dail statement on the murder of prison officer, Brian Stack.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny had thrown down the gauntlet to Mr Adams, saying he should tell all he knows about the IRA murder of Brian Stack in 1983. There was also pressure on the Sinn Fein leader from the other political leaders.

Mr Kenny was replying to Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, who said Gerry Adams only revealed what he knew about the 1983 murder of Mr Stack during last Februarys general election campaign.

The Fianna Fail leader said Mr Adams had known about it since 2013. He said at that time Mr Stacks sons were taken in a blacked-out van to meet IRA members who knew about the murder of their father.

We are talking about murder  not an election campaign. The Provos know who did it, Mr Martin told the Dail.

When it came to his turn to speak, Mr Adams briefly accused Mr Martin of opportunism and abusing his good faith in contacts with the Stack family.

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Then the Sinn Fein leader launched into a long discussion of maternity facilities at Portlaoise Hospital.

But some time later Mr Adams said he would speak on the Stack murder.

He said he had already dealt with the matter but would make a Dail statement when time was made available to him.

But let me make it clear that I have never accused anyone of being a suspect in the murder of Brian Stack because I dont know who the suspects might be, Mr Adams said.

Mr Kenny had told the Fianna Fail leader that the situation was completely unacceptable as Mr Stack and his prison officer colleagues helped defend the State when it was in peril. It was a brutal and cold-blooded murder at the hands of IRA thugs, the Taoiseach said.

The Taoiseach challenged Mr Adams to use Dail privilege to reveal all he knows about the murder. He said senior members of any other party would not be allowed let matters lie as they currently are.

The Labour leader, Brendan Howlin, then intervened to say Dail time should be set aside to allow Mr Adams deal with the issue of Brian Stacks murder.
Police have released a CCTV image of a man they wish to speak to in relation to the incident (Photo: Greater Manchester Police)

POLICE in Manchester have launched a murder investigation after a Dublin dad-of-five who was sleeping rough perished in a suspicious fire.

James Evans (57)  known locally as 'Popeye'  passed away following a fire in the early hours of November 25, alongside Wayne Bardsley (51) in an abandoned building in Chinatown.

His daughter Leanne Evans told Independent.ie that her dad had talked about retuning to Ireland to visit her family, and he may have wanted to move home.

Mr Evans, from Walkinstown, moved to the UK eight years ago but stayed in touch with his family here.

His daughter and her mum Anne, who married James 30 years ago, are fundraising to bring his remains home to Ireland.

He had only got back in touch with us three or four weeks beforehand and talking about how he wanted to come back to Ireland and make up for everything, she said.

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The way he was talking it was like he wanted to move back home.

The 22-year-old said her dads death has not yet hit home.

It doesnt feel real yet. I dont think it will until hes here. I still think to this day he is going to ring me and just say hey, she said.

"I'm still waiting for someone to say it's a dream."

Her dad was a jolly man she said and was always well-liked.

He got along with people, he always said he was a proud Irish man wherever he was, she added.

Her dads good nature has lead to tributes from people in the city who knew him.

From the stories Ive heard he was loved in Manchester, she said.

Leanne said the family were shocked to learn the investigation into the fire which killed her dad had been upgraded to a murder investigation.

Its the last thing you expect its surreal but the Manchester police seem to be doing everything they can, she said.

Police have released a CCTV image of a man they wish to speak to in relation to the incident.

The fire broke out around 2am and the building later partially collapsed as a result.

Both mens bodies were found on the first floor of the building.

We now believe that this incident could be suspicious and have launched a murder investigation to establish how these men tragically lost their lives, DCI Amber Waywell told The Guardian.

Leanne said her family are keen to give her dad a good send off.

I just want to give him a good send off, he obviously didnt have the best of a life over there, she said.

Her dad battled with an alcohol problem but appeared to be doing well when she last spoke with him.

The GoFundMe page to help raise money to repatriate Mr Evans remains can be found here.
Just before my dad's funeral last Tuesday, I called in to a little coffee shop across the road from Ringsend Church. I was already feeling very nervous. I'd never been to a funeral of a very close family member. I didn't want to be there. Who would.

The lady behind the counter took my order. She asked me if I knew whose funeral it was. I looked at her and said: "My dad."

She very kindly offered her condolences and said: "That coffee's on the house." It was a lovely act of kindness, one of many I felt during the whole day.

My brother, Kevin, showed great kindness by organising so many details of the day. My workmates turned up to share a drink in honour of my dad.

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Relatives stayed late into the evening in the Dundrum House, telling stories of a man who was loved by many.

Kevin Nolan was born in Ringsend and moved to Rialto where, along with my mother, he brought up seven children.

He was a great father, and I will miss him.

I've already gone through some stages of grief. Last week, the anger was incredible. I've cried a bit. Not a lot. I'm a delayed reaction kind of person. I'm always good in bad situations - I can deal with catas- trophes. It's when I let things settle, allow myself to feel, that I fall apart a little.

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Mostly, I'm sad. A sadness that's new to me. I can't shake it. It's the idea of "never again" that makes me so, so sad.

I'll never go for a pint in Neary's with him again. We'll never have a little pate and a glass of red wine in the Trocadero. We can't plan any more trips to London. We'll never have a Christmas dinner with my siblings and Ita.

I'll never again see his lovely smiling face and tell him my news. He would always listen. He would never give advice or tell me what to do. Just listen.

Yes, the "never again" is troub- ling me. I don't know how to get my head around it. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

My father was a man who loved his children and his partner. He loved jazz and classical music. He loved to go to Howth for fresh fish and he loved cooking. He loved life.

What makes me happy is that I have no regrets with him. No unsaid words. I loved him and he loved me.

I'll see how the next while pans out. I have no idea if I'll turn into a wreck, or just come to terms with the "never again".

Whatever happens, Kevin Nolan, know you were the best. Rest in peace.
What's the most important skill that children can take away from their formative education? Reading? Writing? Arithmetic? According to many forward-thinking educators, the answer is a little more abstract. They believe that empathy is the skill that most positively impacts children's lives, as well as the world around them. What's more, they believe that empathy, like reading, writing and arithmetic, can be taught - or at least facilitated.

Ashoka, a global network of social entrepreneurs, is perhaps the biggest advocate of this school of thought. Its Start Empathy initiative provides educators with a toolkit that promotes empathy in the classroom. It also recognises 'Changemaker Schools' - schools that "prioritise empathy, teamwork, leadership, problem-solving and change-making". There are 12 such schools in Ireland - four of them 'DEIS Band 1'.

Another Ashoka-backed initiative, Roots of Empathy, brings a local parent and infant into a classroom scenario every three weeks. The students observe the baby's development and label the baby's feelings. This programme is designed to help children become more competent at understanding the feelings of others - and thus their own - and it has been proven to reduce levels of aggression and bullying among school children. As initiatives go, it certainly beats a 'Stop Bullying' poster.

Nurturing empathy is one of the key components of positive child-rearing outlined in The Danish Way of Parenting - What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids.

According to the authors, Danish children learn about empathy as early as preschool with a mandatory programme called Step by Step. The children are shown pictures of other children evincing a range of different emotions and are then asked to put into words what the person in the picture is feeling.

Like the Ashoka initiatives, this programme increases a child's emotional literacy, in turn making them more likely to master empathy and grow up to be tolerant, inclusive adults.

There are many more ways that parents and teachers can help children cultivate empathy, but first it's important to understand the difference between empathy and sympathy. Brene Brown puts it best: "Empathy fuels connection. Sympathy drives disconnection."

Empathy occurs when we step into somebody's shoes and inhabit their world view. It is when we resonate with another person completely, if only for a brief moment.

Perspective-taking is one of the best ways to foster empathy in children. Questions like, "How would you feel if... ?" will encourage them to consider another person's point of view.

Fiction is another great tool for perspective-taking. Ask them to discuss the character's perspective and underlying motives. Studies show that people who read fiction are more attuned to the emotions of others, while school literary curriculums that discuss the perspectives of others are linked to less conflict in the classroom and improved academic achievement. If you're a parent or teacher, The Empathy Library (empathylibrary.com) is worth checking out.

Active listening is another empathy-building tool that children can learn from an early age. The late Stephen Covey preferred to call it 'empathic listening'.

"When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand," he wrote. "I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. It's an entirely different paradigm. Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person's frame of reference."

Older children can be taught not to form their responses or rush to conclusions as another person is speaking. Active listening can also be taught to children as a game of sorts. If siblings are squabbling, encourage them to sit back to back before they get to say their piece. This will help them hear nuances and subtleties in the other person's voice that they may not discern face-to-face.

Another game that facilitates empathy involves getting children to mimic the facial expressions of a person to imagine how they feel. Mimicry helps us experience the emotion that we are trying to portray, so this game is especially helpful when trying to get a child to understand how they might have hurt another child's feelings.

Our day-to-day behaviour also makes a difference. Introducing children to charity from an early age cultivates empathy. As Daniel Goleman writes in Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships: "Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion." 'Mind-minded parenting' - that is parents who treat their children as individuals with their own minds - is also associated with a higher level of emotional literacy.

A number of studies in the US suggest that empathy is in sharp decline among students, with researchers linking the phenomenon to the narcissism epidemic, social media and shrinking family size (it is thought that multiple siblings helps a child master empathy).

Kudos to those who are working hard to address it.
Infertile women have been offered new hope after scientists found that a common cancer drug triggers the development of new eggs, an outcome which was previously thought to be impossible.

In a discovery hailed as "astonishing", researchers at the University of Edinburgh proved it is possible to reverse the clock and coax the ovaries back into a pre-pubescent state where they begin to produce new eggs.

Women are born with all their eggs, which is why conceiving becomes harder with age, because the eggs grow old, become damaged and eventually run out entirely.

But scientists noticed that women who had undergone chemotherapy for Hodgkins Lymphoma with a drug combination known as ABVD had up to 10 times the number of eggs as healthy women.

Far from damaging the chance of having a baby, the cancer drugs may actually have improved their fertility.

The researchers speculate that the shock of chemotherapy may trigger stem cells in the ovaries into producing new follicles, the hollow hair-like structures which each produce a single egg.

Lead researcher Professor Evelyn Telfer, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, said: "We were astonished when we saw what had happened to the tissue. It looked like pre-pubescent tissue with a high density of follicles and clustering that you dont normally see in an adult.

We knew that ABVD does not have a sterilising effect like some cancer drugs can, but to find new eggs being made, in such huge numbers, that was very surprising to see.

It looks like something is being activated probably in the germline or stem cells and we need to find out what that mechanism is. It could be that the harshness of the treatment triggers some kind of shock effect or perturbation which stimulates the stem cells into producing new eggs.

I think its a pretty big deal. It is the first time that we have ever been able to see new follicles being formed within the ovary, and it may only be a small number of women, but it is significant that the same effect was seen in all of the women on ABVD. The outcome may be significant and far-reaching.

Scientists analysed samples of ovarian tissue donated by 14 women who had undergone chemotherapy, alongside tissues from 12 healthy women.

They found that the tissue from eight of the cancer patients who had been treated with ABVD had between four and 10 times more eggs compared with tissue from women who had received a different chemotherapy, or healthy women of a similar age.

The ovarian tissue was seen to be in healthy condition, appearing similar to tissue from young women's ovaries.

Although the eggs are still in an immature state, the scientists are now trying to discover how they were created in the first place, then work out a way to bring them to maturity. It is unclear if the eggs in their current form would be functional.

But if research can reveal the mechanism, it would help scientists understand how women could produce more eggs during their lifetime, which was until now thought to be impossible.

Future studies will examine the separate impact of each of the four drugs that combine to make ABVD - known as adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine - to better understand the biological mechanisms involved.

Professor Charles Kingsland, a fertility expert of Liverpool Womens Hospital, said: This is a very small but extremely interesting study. It's very early days but may give an insight as to how the ovary can make new eggs, which previously we thought was impossible.

It's particularly fascinating that a commonly used chemotherapeutic agent to treat cancer in young girls has been shown to cause this effect.

The study was published in the journal Human Reproduction, and supported by the Medical Research Council.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has recently been dominating headlines, whether by accepting a phone call from Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen or making comments about Chinas currency devaluation and the South China Sea issue.

Trump's focus on China in his tweets is not a new phenomenon. He has tweeted about China hundreds of times in the past few years, and dozens of times during his presidential campaign. But in the past, his aggressive words were usually intended to make himself look good by criticizing President Obama's administration. On the other hand, repeating such sentiments after his election to the office of president may imply actual policy plans, which his administration intends to adopt.

Many people have expressed skepticism about Trumps qualifications, given his lack of political, diplomatic and military experience, as well as his poor understanding of China-U.S. ties. Indeed, such doubts have been reinforced by his recent aggressive words.

To some extent, Trumps remarks indicate that he is partial when it comes to China-U.S. ties. For instance, he shied away from facts when discussing the exchange rate, trade and South China Sea. He seemed not to comprehend the basic guidelines of bilateral ties, treating China like an opponent rather than a partner.

The two nations need to ensure the smooth continuation of their bilateral relationship, but doing so requires a joint effort - not a one-sided attempt. China will persist in facilitating communication and dialogue. In response to Trumps biased understanding of China-U.S. relations, China will explain its stances and the reasons behind those positions.

Trumps transition team should realize that China and the U.S. must not be held back by disputes, bearing in mind that both countries are major powers with mutual interests. To throw a tantrum about China will neither solve domestic issues in the U.S. nor address the real challenges facing Trumps new administration. Besides, a shaky China-U.S. relationship cannot make America great again.

At the same time, China will maintain strategic foresight. Trump's reckless tweets are just a cover for his real intentions. Based on years of experience, it's clear that the U.S. often has a two-sided China policy, which is revealed by Trump's actions.

From the perspective of strategy, Chinas diplomatic policy conforms to international trends. No matter how the U.S. adjusts its foreign policy, it has to choose cooperation with China; the rise of China cannot be impeded. China will follow its own path, earning more allies and embarking on mutually beneficial cooperations. Meanwhile, the choices of the U.S. will be restricted as a result.

Trump has already brought changes to China-U.S. ties. However, it's essential to remember in this moment of transition for both the American government and China-U.S. relations that what both sides need most is strategic foresight and determination.

(The author is a commentator for Peoples Daily and senior research fellow at the Chinese Institute of International Studies.)
It was a proud moment for Vivian Rath when he heard that a neighbour's son aspired to be like him when he grew up. A qualified pharmacologist currently working towards his PhD, Vivian was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumour at age three, which left him with a severe form of scoliosis, kyphoscoliosis, or excessive curvature of the spine.

The 34-year-old suffers from uncontrolled asthma, has significantly reduced mobility, and is shorter in stature than he would otherwise have been.

Despite many setbacks, however, Vivian manages to live a physically and intellectually active life, something which was spotted by a sharp-eyed young neighbour. "A woman whose son has a physical disability recently told me that her 10-year-old son said he wanted to be like me when he grows up; he wanted to have a scooter, drive a specially adapted car, go to college and get a job.

"That was a very proud moment for me," says Trinity College researcher Vivian, whose doctorate focuses on the social experiences of third-level students with disabilities.

Expand Close Adapting: Vivian Rath (34), lives with kyphoscoliosis Photo: Disability Federation of Ireland / Facebook

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Whatsapp Adapting: Vivian Rath (34), lives with kyphoscoliosis Photo: Disability Federation of Ireland

Vivian explains that his disability has thrown many blocks in his path. He was forced to give up his job as assistant to the vice president of UCD in 2012, several hobbies, as well as his membership of the public-speaking club Toastmasters after he developed uncontrolled asthma, characterised by aggressive flare-ups, and treated by high doses of steroids which in turn disrupted his sleep, stomach and mood.

Vivian eventually had to move home to Gorey, Co Wexford, to live with his parents Pat and Kate, both in their 60s.

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He is currently working on making the family home more disability friendly with an accessible bathroom and bedroom, and is in the process of navigating his way through a complex maze of grants and support applications.

"I don't feel that I am defined by my disability, I think I am defined by what I do about it," says Vivian.

"What has really been important is sticking to routines and learning to adapt and being able to adapt, and having the discipline to comply with the requirements of my condition as regards medication."

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Since 1992, the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) has been celebrated annually on December 3 around the world. This year's theme focused on building a more inclusive and equitable world for people with disability.

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Whatsapp Jobseeker: Maria McCabe (26), lives with spina bifida Photo: Suzanne Collins

Ireland has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a human rights convention written by and for people with disabilities which sets a standard that people with disabilities are entitled to all the human rights that people without disabilities enjoy.

However, this country has not yet ratified the convention, which means to make a promise in international law that the State will ensure its laws and policies live up to the standard set by the CRPD. Ireland is the only state in the EU that has not ratified the CRPD.

"The fact that we haven't yet ratified means we are sending a signal to people with disabilities and across society that people with disabilities are separate, different and not fully equal Irish citizens," says senator John Dolan, CEO of the Disability Federation of Ireland.

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Although Vivian is clearly very adept at managing his environment, there are still things that frustrate him, such as restrictions around the availability of public transport: "I am required to book a train or bus 24 hours in advance so that they have advance notice of my arrival. You have to fight for very ordinary things. I want to be included in society and not excluded because of my disability."

For qualified book-keeper Gavin Allman (36), planning ahead is a crucial part of life. Gavin, who lives near Johnstown, Co Kilkenny, has Wolfram Syndrome, a rare genetic condition affecting one in about 770,000 people.

"I have diabetes, impaired hearing and am legally blind," he explains, adding that other health issues include balance difficulties, chronic fatigue and bladder problems.

"It's debilitating and very complicated; yet a lot of people haven't heard about Wolfram Syndrome," says Gavin, one of nearly 600,000 people living in Ireland with a disability, according to CSO statistics - or 13pc of the population.

In fact, in 2017 it's expected that more than 56,000 people will be diagnosed with a disability for the first time.

Gavin can't work because of his condition, but he manages his day-to-day life through considerable advance planning.

"My condition also affects my social life because of the hearing impairment and also I am advised not to consume fluid after 7pm because of my bladder problem. It's hard to socialise under those circumstances. It's a disruptive condition," says Gavin, who had the condition since he was born but was not diagnosed until his mid-20s.

He too is often frustrated by his dependence on an inadequate system of public transport.

"The lack of frequency of buses makes life difficult - for example, my local bus to Kilkenny goes either at 8am or 2pm," he says, adding that while people are often extremely helpful when he discloses that he has a severe condition, they are generally not particularly aware of the restrictions a disability can impose.

The Anne Sullivan Foundation, which represents people like Gavin, wants more priority given to deafblindness, which spokeswoman Catherine MacDonald describes as a debilitating condition that affects communication, mobility, independence and socialising. She argues that it has not been recognised in Ireland to the same extent as other disabilities.

"It doesn't get great mention and does not attract the same attention in terms of policy documents, advice and legislation from the Government. We feel there is not enough focus on deafblindness as a disability," she says.

Recent figures show that while there are 1,749 people in Ireland with severe hearing and vision impairment, there are 10,000 people who have some degree of impaired hearing and vision.

Maria McCabe (26), has spina bifida, a medical condition which results from the failure of the spinal column to form properly in the womb. She is currently working as a typist on an employment scheme in her hometown of Drogheda, Co Louth.

Maria, who is a wheelchair user, recently developed a state-of-the-art app, which displays which of the buildings in the town are wheelchair-accessible, and has applied for funding to expand the app to take in towns all over Ireland.

"I'd love a full-time permanent job, because as long as the workplace was physically accessible to a wheelchair it would be okay," she says, adding that she loves art of any kind. She holds an art and business degree, and says it is her dream to find employment in a museum or art gallery, after previously working in a gallery in the town.

However, figures show that disability affects a person's employment opportunities, with just 30pc of people with disability active in the labour force, according to the 2011 Census.

But Maria says she's not one to allow her health get in her way. "I have always had the attitude that I will not let my condition get in my way. To me it's not an issue and it shouldn't be an issue to anyone else," she says.

"People with disabilities are people. They deserve the same choices and the same respect as other people."
Ten years ago when people were dying unnecessarily because of deficiencies in our cancer services, Professor Tom Keane, a Canadian expert, was hired by the government to improve the situation. The nub of his advice was to reduce the number of hospitals delivering cancer services from around 30 to eight specialist units. This was not a money-saving exercise but a transformation that would deliver fairer, faster access and safer services.

Prof Keane's advice met with a storm of protest around the country. Such was the degree of opposition that two TDs lost the party whip in Sligo for trying to hold up the initiative. However, with courageous political leadership from Mary Harney, in particular, and Prof Keane's authoritative, patient communication of the benefits of his proposals, people's concerns were gradually allayed and in the end the right thing was done for the people of Ireland.

For once, especially in health, we didn't end up with an 'Irish solution to an Irish problem', with politics trumping the evidence and the longer-term public interest.

This story is worth recalling when judging the 'Report on the Funding of Public Water Services in Ireland', just published by the Expert Commission, which was chaired by Kevin Duffy, ex- chairman of the Labour Court.

In setting up this commission the Government indicated that an Oireachtas Committee would subsequently be established to tease out the advice of the Expert Commission in a political forum. Ultimately the outcome of these political deliberations would go to the Dail for a vote.

The role of experts such as Prof Keane, the Expert Commission on Water Services, and, say, the Fiscal Council or the National Competitiveness Council, is to provide impartial, evidence-based policy recommendations, without fear or favour, and not advice tempered by political considerations.

Regrettably, the commission fundamentally breaches this principle. It overstepped its terms of reference and knowingly crossed the line between dispassionate, expert advice and consideration of the politics of the situation. In section 4.7.7, which is the only paragraph in the entire report that is in bold print, an overtly political frame of reference is adopted, as follows: "The Expert Commission believes that making recommendations that meet the standard criteria and that may theoretically align with best practice but do not take account of the relevant background in Ireland - including the criterion of acceptability - would not be useful."

Having set this politically loaded context, the commission's recommendations then fail to accurately reflect the evidence in the body of their own report. For example, sections 2.4.8 and 4.7.4, which clearly assert that a volumetric charging system, based on metering, supported with a well-targeted affordability system is the approach that is in line with best practice and international trends.

Instead of sticking firmly to this kind of evidence, it produces a set of watered-down, easier-to-sell recommendations. By straying into politics, the authority and credibility of what we badly needed - expert advice - are compromised. The recommendations read more like an attempt to resolve an industrial relations conflict than an expert input to assist the parties in their deliberations.

This politically tinged advice is already being quoted by politicians as the authoritative views of a group of specialists whose expertise is in water systems. It is noteworthy that both Kevin Duffy and the relevant minister, Simon Coveney, have focused on this bold paragraph as being pivotal. Thus, Mr Coveney welcomed the advice for being "pragmatic".

"Standard criteria" and "best practice" may work everywhere else, but this is Ireland and we need to be practical about it.

How deeply depressing.

We all know why "acceptability" of a unified water utility and a charging system is a big problem, specifically in Ireland. After the catastrophic failure of our political system and vital national institutions, legitimate public anger was heightened by the cack-handed introduction of water charges. Water charges became the lightning rod through which pent-up public fury was vented. This was seized upon during the General Election when one party after another did a U-turn and jumped onto the vote-winning anti-Irish Water bandwagon.

What was a patently populist, nasty campaign spooked practically every politician, such that there is now little support for what the commission clearly says in the body of its report is the best system.

The reason "acceptability" is a current problem is because of this wholesale caving-in to populist argument and the corresponding absence of any significant political leadership on the matter. Imagine if Prof Keane, in cahoots with Mary Harney, had bottled it and said, "look there isn't much support for this out there, so let's be pragmatic and give them what they want". It is to their eternal credit that they stood their ground, communicated relentlessly, and did the right thing.

It is worth recalling that by the 2016 General Election, 65pc of householders had signed up for water charges and it was trending to 70pc. Ironically, Sinn Fein doesn't accept this figure as a mandate to have persisted with the process under way at the time, while they interpret a 54pc majority in favour of Northern Ireland remaining in the EU as a clear-cut democratic mandate to remain.

Irish Water has detailed maps of the programme of work it plans to carry out in every county to improve drinking water and to deal with the disposal of raw, solid sewage into our rivers, lakes and beaches. For example, in Donegal alone there are 75 projects to fix the system from Gortahork to Pettigo and Portnoo to Fanad.

If such information were communicated to communities across the country, this certainly would go a long way towards increasing "acceptability". The Harney-Keane story shows there is a large constituency among the Irish electorate for doing the right thing, once it has been explained to them.

Now that the report is going to the Oireachtas Committee and then the Dail, the prospects of our finally getting a water system that meets "standard criteria" and reflects "best practice" look dim, unless, that is, a leader emerges from the pack. It would have to be a leader who recognises that the people of Ireland deserve nothing less and who also believes that the idea of funding water from "general taxation" is a scandal when the billions needed to fix the system over the next five-to-10 years will compete with the desperate needs of a health service that saw a 103-year-old woman spending 15 hours on a trolley last week in Tullamore.
Former US ambassador to China: Trump has broader strategy when it comes to Taiwan call

Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah and ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011, has commented publicly on Trumps controversial conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, arguing that the president-elect was in the right.

In an interview with ABC News, Huntsman stated, He made the choice to take [the call], which I think was absolutely right. You have a duly-elected leader in Taiwan who chose to make the call, we have a lot of interests with Taiwan. We share values, we have a large trading relationship. We dont talk nearly enough, so the fact that at this point, before hes president, he would take the call, I think thats okay.

Several days earlier on Dec. 3 (local time), Huntsman appeared on Fox News show Fox and Friends, repeating similar sentiments but emphasizing that the phone call was unlikely to signify an extreme shift in U.S. policy toward China.

Having lived in Taiwan twice and China once, theres a little too much hyperventilating about this one, Huntsman began. Whatever you do has to be in the context of a One China policy, but you can find some flexibility there, and we ought to do that.

Huntsman first indicated his support for Trump in early 2016, stating on a CNN podcast that, as a Republican, he tend[s] to gravitate towards whomever the nominee is. However, Huntsman later withdraw his support for then-candidate Trump, after the latters predatory comments on Access Hollywood were leaked. Now the former ambassador seems once again to be defending Trump, amid speculation that Huntsman might be among the candidates the president-elect is considering for U.S. secretary of state.

According to the AP, two people close to Trumps transition team confirmed that Trump is considering expanding his pool of candidates, perhaps discarding earlier favorites Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, former New York City mayor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee respectively, for other options including Huntsman. The sources requested anonymity, as they were not authorized to publicly discuss the transition process.

For now, it would appear that Huntsman is prepared to support Trumps actions and smooth their impact.

I think theres a lot more to come, would be my guess, once the president-elect becomes president, but well just have to wait and see, the former ambassador told ABC. Im sure hes got a broader strategy.
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall arrive for the Royal Variety Performance at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London

The Duchess of Cornwall told Lady Gaga "my grandchildren call me Gaga", as she arrived at the Royal Variety Performance.

Camilla, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, also met Robbie Williams and charity bosses before the show.

The Duchess was given flowers by the young granddaughter of Bill Kenwright, producer of the performance, before the royal couple took their seats in the Hammersmith Apollo, London.

Host and comedian David Walliams led a group of people to the royal box, asking Charles and Camilla "can I see your tickets please?", before joking to the group: "There's some riff-raff here sitting in your seats."

Gaga and Williams will perform alongside Sting and Emeli Sande, while magician and Britain's Got Talent winner Richard Jones will also take to the stage.

Speaking during rehearsals for the big night, which is broadcast on ITV next Tuesday, Lance Corporal Jones told the Press Association: "It's a really exciting performance, telling a really poignant story which is really important to my family in particular, but it should also touch the hearts of many people watching around the country.

"It's a big, heart-warming moment for the forces - but I don't want to spill the beans too much."

The soldier, from Essex, blew the nation away with his magical illusions on the TV talent contest earlier this year, earning himself the opportunity to perform in front of a royal audience.

L/Cpl Jones, 26, added: "I feel very privileged and honoured to be here, performing for the Royal Family as well, and then in front of the nation."

He said he remains passionate about his main job as a military musician, a role in which he performed in front of the Queen at her 90th birthday celebrations this year.

During L/Cpl Jones's magic act, the Prince appeared as a special guest. He wrote a two-digit number on a piece of paper, screwed it up and threw it into the audience.

With the help of the band of the Household Cavalry and an audience member, L/Cpl Jones revealed he knew the number - and had in fact predicted it at the start of the show.

He then told the story of his older brother, a member of the British bomb disposal team, using playing cards.

L/Cpl Jones's brother, who had worked in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, then arrived on stage with members of his team.

The poignant performance earned L/Cpl Jones a standing ovation from the audience and the royal couple.

The show also featured Williams singing Something Stupid - the song he released with Nicole Kidman - as a duet with host Walliams.

Amber Riley, known for her role in American series Glee, wowed the audience with her rendition of And I Am Telling You
The tiny particles of space dust date back to the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago

Cosmic dust raining down from space has been discovered on rooftops in three major cities.

The tiny particles date back to the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Scientists usually collect cosmic dust in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Now, for the first time, the space debris has been found hidden in city dirt.

Researchers sifted through 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of muck trapped in roof gutters in Paris, Oslo and Berlin.

Using magnetism to pull out the particles, which contain magnetic minerals, they identified a total of 500 cosmic dust grains.

Dr Matthew Genge, from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said: "We've known since the 1940s that cosmic dust falls continuously through our atmosphere, but until now we've thought that it could not be detected among the millions of terrestrial dust particles, except in the most dust-free environments such as the Antarctic or deep oceans.

"The obvious advantage to this new approach is that it is much easier to source cosmic dust particles if they are in our backyards."

The idea of looking for cosmic dust in the city was the brain child of amateur scientist Jon Larsen, from Norway, who contacted Imperial.

Dr Genge added: "When Jon first came to me I was dubious. Many people had reported finding cosmic dust in urban areas before, but when they were analysed scientists found that these particles were all industrial in origin."

City cosmic dust was found to be larger than previously recovered particles, measuring around 0.3mm across instead of the more usual 0.01mm.

In addition the dust found in cities contained fewer feather-like crystals than the much more ancient particles from Antarctica.

The differences may be linked to changes in the orbits of planets such as the Earth and Mars over millions of years, Dr Genge believes.

Resulting gravitational disturbances may have influenced the trajectory of the particles as they hurtled through space. This in turn would have an effect on the speed at which they slam into the Earth's atmosphere and heat up.

Dr Genge added: "This find is important because if we are to look at fossil cosmic dust collected from ancient rocks to reconstruct a geological history of our solar system, then we need to understand how this dust is changed by the continuous pull of the planets."

The study, published in the journal Geology, showed that the city cosmic dust must have entered the atmosphere at around 12 km (7.45 miles) per second. This makes them the fastest moving dust particles ever found on Earth.
Wax figures of members of the Royal Family in Madame Tussauds, London, wear their Christmas jumpers to raise awareness for Save the Children

Wax figures of the Royal Family have been dressed in Christmas jumpers to help a children's charity.

The Queen's figure got in the festive spirit alongside the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

William and Kate's figures are snuggled up in a cosy double-jumper in aid of Save the Children.

The royal wax figures can be seen wearing the knits throughout December at Madame Tussauds London, with visitors encouraged to take selfies with the famous family.

The attraction will also give visitors the option of donating to help the charity.

Helena Wiltshire, head of PR at Save the Children, said: "With the trend for silly Christmas Jumpers showing no signs of slowing down, we're hoping more people than ever will don theirs and pay 2 to help raise money this Christmas Jumper Day.

"If the royal likenesses are anything to go by, there will be lots of families up and down the country taking their silliness very seriously, to help children around the world that are most in need of our help and support."
Angela Merkel during her speech at the Christian Democratic Union conference in Essen, Germany (AP)

Chancellor Angela Merkel has won a new term as the leader of Germany's main conservative party after stressing her determination to prevent a repeat of last year's huge migrant influx and advocating a partial ban on face-covering veils.

Ms Merkel, who ran unopposed, won 89.5% of delegates' votes for a new two-year term at a congress of her Christian Democratic Union party in the western city of Essen.

That was short of the 96.7% she won in 2014, but still a solid mandate as she prepares to seek a fourth term as chancellor in next year's election.

The vote came after a speech in which she struck a decidedly conservative note, telling members that she wants to stem the influx of migrants and restrict use of face-covering veils such as the burqa and niqab.

Those are rarely seen in Germany, and the CDU has concluded that an all-out ban is not constitutionally feasible.

"Full veiling is not appropriate here - it should be banned wherever that is legally possible," she said, drawing loud applause.

Germany saw about 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year. Many came after Ms Merkel decided in September 2015 to let in migrants who were stuck in Hungary.

The numbers have since declined sharply, but Ms Merkel's "we will cope" approach to the migrant crisis has provoked discord within the CDU, which has seen a string of poor state election results this year.

"A situation like the one in the late summer of 2015 cannot, should not and must not be repeated," Ms Merkel told delegates.

While Ms Merkel insisted that Germany will continue to take in people who are genuinely in need of protection, her government has toughened asylum rules and declared several countries "safe" - meaning people from there cannot expect to get refuge.

Ms Merkel was also a driving force behind an agreement between the European Union and Turkey in March to stem the flow of migrants.

Polls show a solid lead for the conservatives, although their support is still short of the 41.5% they won in Germany's 2013 election. They face new competition from the upstart nationalist Alternative for Germany party, which has thrived by attacking Ms Merkel's migrant policies.

"The 2017 election will be more difficult than any election before, at least since German reunification," Ms Merkel said, citing the "strong polarisation of our society".

Ms Merkel told delegates that "parallel societies" will not be tolerated and advocated banning the wearing of full-face veils used by some Muslim women where that is possible.

But she also hit out at anti-migrant and anti-government protesters who chant "we are the people!" or post hate messages on social media.

"Who the people are... is something that we will all determine, not just a few, however loud they may be," she declared.

The EU's longest-serving head of government has often said her aim is for Europe to emerge stronger from crises such as the debt troubles that afflicted the common euro currency.

"We must, in this situation... first do everything so that Europe doesn't emerge even weaker from the crises than when it went in," she said.

That "sounds modest, but let's not deceive ourselves, it is not", Ms Merkel said, citing conservative icon and ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl's maxim that European stability should not be taken for granted.

Aside from unhappiness about her migrant policy, some party members are grumbling about what's perceived as a drift to the left during her 11 years as chancellor.

"We have thrown a lot of Christian Democratic principles overboard," said Eugen Abler, a delegate from the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, whose complaints included what he called "the downplaying of Islamisation".

"The result: We are winning few voters on the left and we are losing a lot on the right," he added.

Ms Merkel said tough times demand tough decisions.

"I have asked a lot of you because the times have asked a lot of us - I am well aware of that," she told her party. "And I cannot promise you that there will be fewer demands in the future, because we must do what the times demand of us."

Still, she stressed that the conservatives will rule out tax increases for the next four years.

AP
Norbert Hofer said he will run again for Austria's presidency in 2022 (AP)

The right-wing candidate for Austria's presidency has shrugged off his unexpectedly clear defeat, saying he will run again when the term of the left-leaning winner ends and a new election is held.

Norbert Hofer announced his renewed bid for the post in 2022 as a count of absentee ballots ended.

Combined with votes cast on Sunday, the total tally slightly widened the margin between Mr Hofer and victor Alexander Van der Bellen.

The winner, who takes office in January, had nearly 54% of valid ballots cast, compared to just over 46% for Mr Hofer.

Pollsters had depicted the election as too close to call ahead of Sunday and the vote had been watched anxiously by Europe's political middle as a proxy test of populist strength in other EU countries fielding strong eurosceptic candidates in elections next year.

On Tuesday, Mr Hofer and other leading figures of his right-wing Freedom Party sought to put a good face on the loss - for Mr Hofer, the second in less than a year to Mr Van der Bellen.

Sunday's vote was a re-run, scheduled after a narrow victory by Mr Van der Bellen in May was challenged by the Freedom Party and annulled by a court order as a result.

Asserting that all other political forces in Austria had joined together to prevent Mr Hofer's victory, party leader Heinz-Christian Strache depicted the vote as a contest "between David and Goliath... which David almost won".

"Never before... has there been this kind of mobilisation against a candidate," he told reporters.

Mr Hofer, for his part, said he had been unfairly portrayed as someone pushing for Austria's exit from the European Union.

Instead, he said "I support us backing the European Union's positive development" away from a political union and towards a loose federation of states focused mainly on economic cooperation.

While most Austrians are critical of the EU, the majority want the country to remain part of it and Mr Hofer's comments reflected his eurosceptic party's shifting stance on membership.

Shortly after the British vote to leave the EU, Mr Hofer said he could imagine a similar referendum vote in Austria within a year "if the union develops wrongly".

The Freedom Party's support includes Austria's neo-Nazi fringe, and it counts radical right-wing parties elsewhere in Europe as its allies.

But it now ranks as Austria's strongest political force, capitalising on wide-spread disenchantment with established political parties to siphon off Austrians with moderate views - a development Mr Hofer sought to emphasise. He described his party as "right of centre but not extreme right".

AP
President Hassan Rouhani, centre, listens to the national anthem at the start of a ceremony marking Student Day in Iran (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

Iran's president has said his country will not allow President-elect Donald Trump to "tear up" the country's landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

Hassan Rouhani also warned that Tehran will react to any extension of American sanctions.

The comments came during a speech at the University of Tehran commemorating the killings of Iranian students protesting against a visit by then-US vice-president Richard Nixon in 1953.

Mr Rouhani's remarks highlight the situation he faces after Mr Trump's inauguration in trying to defend the deal struck by his moderate administration.

The timing - during an annual remembrance of the killing of students at the hands of the US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi's security forces - also shows the internal challenges he faces from hard-liners already suspicious of America's intentions.

"The US is our enemy," Mr Rouhani said. "They want to put pressure on us as much as they can."

Mr Rouhani never mentioned Mr Trump by name in his speech, though he prefaced his remarks with noting that "some man... elected in the US".

"Whatever plans he has, it will be revealed later," Mr Rouhani said. "He may desire to weaken the nuclear deal. He may desire to rip up the deal. Do you suppose we will allow this? Will our nation allow this?"

On the campaign trail, Mr Trump called the multi-nation deal "catastrophic" and vowed to renegotiate it, without explaining how.

Mr Rouhani also warned Iran "will show a reaction" if outgoing president Barack Obama signs a law extending some of America's sanctions authority by 10 years.

The law, first passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed several times since then, allows the US to sanction companies for doing business with Iran.

Mr Rouhani has described extending the sanctions as a violation of the nuclear deal. The White House deemed the bill unnecessary but said it did not violate the international accord.

AP
Gina Miller leaves the UK supreme court after the first day of the challenge  it was her legal challenge to Brexit that triggered the current supreme court case. Photo: Victoria Jones/WPA Pool/Getty Images

The British government's use of the royal prerogative to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union is not being done on a "whim" or "out of a clear blue sky", the UK's highest court was told yesterday.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright told 11 supreme court justices at the start of one of the most important constitutional cases in British legal history that it was the "logical conclusion of a process in which parliament has been fully and consciously involved".

The government's top law officer said that process was one in which parliament had "resolved to put a clear and decisive question about our nation's future to the British people, and in which parliament expected the government to act on the answer they gave".

"None of this means, of course, that parliament will not be closely involved in the process of the UK's withdrawal from the EU over the coming months and years," Mr Wright said.

Authority

He was presenting argument on behalf of the government urging the panel of justices to overturn a high court ruling on November 3.

In a decision that infuriated Brexiteers, three judges said UK Prime Minister 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.

Mr Wright told the justices in London that the case was of "great constitutional significance in which there is understandable and legitimate interest both inside and outside this courtroom".

He said the high court had reached the "wrong" decision.

It was for the government to exercise prerogative powers in the conduct of the UK's affairs on the international plane.

The position of those who had brought the case and others had always been "that they have no interest in derailing Brexit but only in defending parliament's role in the process".

Mr Wright continued: "But if this is all about standing up for parliament, I say parliament can stand up for itself.

"When it comes to leaving the European Union, parliament has had full capacity and multiple opportunities to restrict the executive's ordinary ability to begin the Article 50 process and it has not chosen to do so."

Allowing ministers to trigger Brexit was parliament's "clear expectation" when it agreed to an EU referendum, the supreme court has been told.

He said the government would be making "lawful" use of "fundamental" powers by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

The outcome will have implications for Ms May's strategy for EU exit, but it is not a court case on whether or not Brexit actually takes place.

Ms May will be given an indication of the scale of parliamentary opposition she faces over Brexit tomorrow, with a potential revolt over demands for the government to set out its plan for leaving the EU before triggering Article 50.

Labour will use an opposition-day debate to force a Commons showdown on the issue, with dozens of Tories thought to be considering supporting the demand.

Rebel

Conservative former minister Anna Soubry said she had read Labour's motion and "I have to say I can't see anything in it I don't approve of and could not support".

Threatening to rebel unless the government tabled an acceptable amendment to the Labour motion, she told BBC Radio 4's 'World At One': "These things are incredibly important. This actually transcends party politics and tribalism."

As many as 40 Tories could revolt and back the Labour motion, the BBC reported, and Ms Soubry said: "Who knows what support is out there in the parliamentary party."

Former Tory leader Lord Howard told the programme: "I don't think it's reasonable to expect the government to disclose its negotiating position.

"You can try and make distinctions between principles and details, but I don't think those distinctions stand up. If you are entering into a negotiation, the last thing you want to do is to disclose your hand before you start negotiating." ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
An Oxford graduate is suing the university for 1 million (1.19m) claiming the appallingly bad tuition cost him a first-class degree and prevented him from having a successful career. (Stock picture)

An Oxford graduate is suing the university for 1 million (1.19m) claiming the appallingly bad tuition cost him a first-class degree and prevented him from having a successful career.

Faiz Siddiqui told the High Court he believes he would have had a career as an international commercial lawyer if he had been awarded a 1st class degree rather than the 2:1 he achieved 16 years ago.

The trained solicitor suffers from depression and insomnia, which he links to examination results, and has led to an inability to hold down a job for a significant period of time.

Mr Siddiqui studied modern history at Brasenose College and claims he would have got a better grade if it wasnt for negligent teaching on Indian imperial history in his final year.

Oxford University is looking to have his loss of earnings claim struck down, the Times reported.

Mr Siddiqui claims that during his final year four of the seven staff who taught the Indian imperial history course were on sabbatical leave, leading to a shortage of tutors.

Roger Mallalieu, Mr Siddiquis lawyer, said 13 of the 15 students who took the course received their lowest or joint lowest mark - showing the standard of teaching was objectively unacceptable.

Oxford University says the case is baseless and should be struck out because a number of years have passed since Mr Siddiqui graduated. The university also noted they made special allowance for Mr Siddiqui in some of his papers for hay fever.

A judgment is expected later this month.
A man has been arrested on suspicion of preparing for a terrorist act, police said.

Counter-terrorism officers swooped on the 49-year-old at Stansted Airport shortly after 2pm on Monday, assisted by Essex Police.

The suspect, from south Essex, had been travelling back from Istanbul, Turkey.

The Metropolitan Police said the arrest did not concern activities in the UK.

He was bailed until February and detectives searched an address in south Essex, according to police.
A toddler sparked a police search after his panicked parents reported him missing - but he was instead enjoying a nap in his brother's bed.

Greater Manchester Police put out an appeal for the missing youngster in Swinton, Greater Manchester on Sunday afternoon after his family could not find him.

A search of their home followed, which was reportedly assisted by a tactical aid unit, but officers were still unable to locate the boy.

The missing child was two-year-old Logan Markland, who then appeared bleary-eyed at the top of the stairs, according to the Manchester Evening News.

Missing two-year-old sparked major police search... only to be found sleeping on his brother's bunk bed https://t.co/Hu668qNxpF  Manchester News MEN (@MENnewsdesk) December 5, 2016

He had been "fast asleep in his sibling's top bunk bed", police said.

His mother Samantha Cadman, 28, told the paper: He was reported as missing straight away and they sent every available officer out on the street to find him, even doing car stops to ask if people had seen him."

She added: "We heard the children shout: 'There he is.' So I rushed to the bottom of the stairs and he is sat on the top step rubbing his eye almost as to say: 'What's all this going on here?"'

When asked where he had been, he pointed to the top of the bunk bed.

Greater Manchester Police said on its Swinton and Little Hulton Facebook page: "The missing toddler from Torkington Avenue, Swinton has been found safe and well. Fast asleep in his sibling's top bunk bed."

The post prompted amused responses from social media users, including one who said: "Thank goodness he's safe! His poor parents must have been frantic and the little monster was in the house all along."

Another said: "Police normally ask you to look round the house, when little ones go missing. But can you imagine, your heart must skip a few beats, when you can't find your 2 year old."

Logan's parents said they were relieved their son was discovered, adding that they found the help they received "humbling".

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The UK Government was left-red faced this afternoon after a spelling error was made in the official response to a report calling on immigrants to improve their English proficiency

The UK Government was left-red faced after a spelling error was made in the official response to a report calling on immigrants to improve their English proficiency.

Sajid Javid, the UK Communities Secretary, released a statement welcoming the Casey Review into the integration of recent migrants  which warned of the lower levels of English language proficiency amongst some communities.

The statements headline however spelt integration wrong, instead rending it intergration [sic].

The report, which Mr Javid welcomed, noted that English language skills were considered important to living in Britain by 95 per cent of respondents in the 2014 British Social Attitudes Survey.

In relation to integration and economic success, one factor that stands out strongly as a barrier to progress is proficiency in English, the report, written by Dame Louise Casey warned.

English language is a common denominator and ensuring everyone is able to speak English enjoys strong public support.

Lack of English skills presents a clear barrier to social and economic mobility  going for a job interview, writing a letter to a bank or understanding the country you live in.

Mr Javids statement said: This country has long been home to many different cultures and communities, but all of us have to be part of one, British, society.

It is right that we celebrate the positive contribution that diverse groups make to British life, but we also need to recognise that more needs to be done to make sure nobody is excluded or left behind.

To do that, we need to take a serious look at the evidence and must not shy away from the challenges we face. Dame Louises report is a crucial step in that process, and I will be studying her findings very closely.

Following the publication of this story, the Department for Communities and Local Government told UK's The Independent: "The Government subsequently discovered that this was a mistake made by Hansard and not the department, which Hansard has accepted."
The EU appears unperturbed by Italy's failed referendum and government collapse. But the vote could have longer-lasting effects, and is only the first in a series of electoral tests for the bloc.

Eurozone finance ministers have distanced themselves from the results of Sunday's Italian referendum, which saw 60pc of voters reject a bid to change the lawmaking process.

But they took heart from the defeat of Austria's far-right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer in an election the same day, hailing it as a victory for European values.

Pierre Moscovici, the EU's economics chief, said the Italian vote was a political "shock" but was "not an anti-Europe vote".

"It's a referendum on Italian politics. I'm confident we have the means to resist any kind of political shock in Europe," he said, adding that the Austrian result was evidence of a "spirit of European resistance against populism".

But the referendum has emboldened Italy's populist Five-Star Movement, which spearheaded the No campaign and wants to hold a referendum on the euro.

Another change in government - the fifth since 2008 - could slow down reform efforts in Italy, where growth has only turned positive again in 2015.

It could also spell trouble for the fragile banking sector, where beleaguered lender Monte dei Paschi is trying to raise cash as part of a 5bn EU-approved rescue plan.

The Italian and Austrian polls are only the first in a series of electoral tests that threaten to fragment the union and torpedo the nascent economic recovery.

Anti-EU forces have been gaining ground in France, the Netherlands and Germany ahead of elections in 2017.

At a meeting in Brussels yesterday, eurozone finance ministers appeared sanguine about the potential knock-on effects of the Italian vote in the rest of Europe.

French finance minster Michel Sapin said there was "no systemic risk" from the Italian referendum and that the result would not affect "our will to build a more dynamic Europe".

Italian bank shares fell on the referendum result, as did shares in Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland.

But Finance Minister Michael Noonan said there was "no contagion effect any more" for Irish banks, and that "if you look at present-day data, the Irish banks are very strong".

He said the referendum "wasn't any adjudication on what the Italians think of the European Union" in the way Brexit or the Austrian presidential election re-run was.

"This morning the markets went down significantly on all fronts, but they recovered very, very quickly, and so it seems to me now that there isn't a financial crisis coming from the referendum in Italy," Mr Noonan told reporters in Brussels.

"There's always concerns when you hear about banks being weak, and some of the banks in Italy are weak.

"But the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is Italian as well, and I can't envisage a situation that a European Central Bank under Mario Draghi would allow the Italian banks get into difficulty."
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (left), German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on the island of Ventotene in August during a meeting to discuss the post-Brexit EU. Mr Renzi has since suffered a ruinous referendum defeat Photo: Carlo Hermann/Getty Images

One of the constants in European politics is the ever-changing state of Italian politics. Its unpredictability is always fascinating to watch. Any political system that has seen 63 changes of government since 1945 can be considered interesting to say the least.

Just as it was difficult to abolish the Seanad, so too has it proven difficult to radically reform the Italian senate.

The great American psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote extensively about political leadership. In essence, he said that any successful leader must be one of the crowd and also slightly ahead of the crowd in order to make progress on the political stage. For Maslow, the politician can never get too far ahead of himself. His writings from the 1960s throw up some particularly suitable lessons for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

On a large turnout, the scale of Mr Renzi's defeat over the weekend was decisive. It cannot have been a surprise given his unpopularity and the very sluggish performance of the Italian economy. He promised two years ago in coming to office to get people back to work but over that time unemployment, youth unemployment especially, has grown. There are lessons to be learned from this.

Politicians who promise referendums need to be very aware of the consequences. Mr Renzi has now gone the way of Mr Cameron.

Mr Renzi's promise to 'back me or sack me' in the context of this latest referendum campaign was a spectacular mistake. A politician putting a gun to his own head is asking for trouble. As we know in Ireland, it is never about the substance of the referendum, other matters always intrude.

Mr Renzi totally underestimated the level of opposition to his proposal, which it seems was a step too far in centralising power in Italy, in what is in effect a federal system. But, crucially, 80pc of the 'political establishment' in Italy opposed his reforms - this was a victory for the elite.

The real question now is: will this referendum make much difference to the EU and the eurozone or is this just the usual melodramatic Italian politics playing out?

It's certainly a blow for a pro-European leader who was serious about reform. But it doesn't mean automatically that the Five-Star Movement is on the verge of coming into government in Italy with an In/Out EU membership referendum. Don't forget that the next official date for an Italian general election is 2018.

Despite Mr Renzi's political termination, prompting some to unwisely believe this to be yet another example of disruptive politics following on from Trump and Brexit, nobody should underestimate the setback for the far right in Austria with the election of a pro-European president.

It's not inevitable that the populists from the far right or far left will always win in the current political environment. Possible maybe, but certainly not inevitable.

The truth is that political and economic uncertainty will continue in the eurozone until the outcome of the French and German elections are known in 2017. For the centre to hold it requires that both France and Germany elect pro-European governments - something that looks possible in the French case even with the rise of Marine Le Pen. Until we see the outcome of both elections, economic turmoil on the stock and currency markets will continue.

The markets have responded calmly to the referendum result. The immediate effects of the Italian referendum result could well mean a slightly weaker euro, which from Ireland's perspective is not the worst outcome given the buffeting that our exporters and Border retailers have taken of late.

It also means that the European Central Bank (ECB) will have to continue with its quantitative easing programme, injecting yet more cash into the European banking system as investors look in vain for returns. We will know more on Thursday when the ECB issue its latest assessment on the eurozone.

The real problem for Italy, which could still cause contagion elsewhere, is the condition of their banking sector and especially the Monte dei Paschi Bank. Mr Renzi's defeat makes the resolution of this bank more difficult as the resolution process is now under the new European banking rules which require bail-ins and not bailouts.

The problem with this bank in Italy is that it has lots of small mom-and-pop type investors (close to 40pc of its shareholder base) who may be hit in a final EU resolution plan without finding adequate new money.

Are there too many Italian banks? Have they an exposure on non-performing loans and probably need more cash?

The answer to both of these is probably yes and a solution will have to be found, but in speaking to people here in Brussels there is no sense that this is Lehman Brothers all over again.

Meanwhile, in among all the turmoil some good news from the ESRI yesterday. It predicts average annual growth of 3pc for the next decade.

Imagine that, growing the Irish economy by more than one-third in a decade.

And that's without any promise to have another referendum!

Brian Hayes is a Fine Gael MEP for Dublin
The euros survival is under increased threat following the political instability caused by the Italian referendum result, German business bosses warned yesterday, raising further questions about the long-term viability of Italys membership of the currency union. File image. Photo: Andrea Comas/Reuters

The euro's survival is under increased threat following the political instability caused by the Italian referendum result, German business bosses warned yesterday, raising further questions about the long-term viability of Italy's membership of the currency union.

Ulrich Grillo, head of the Federation of German Industries, or BDI, said the crushing defeat handed to Italy's centrist Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had worsened the outlook for the survival of the currency.

"The risks of a new political instability for economic development, the financial markets and the currency union are increasing further," he said.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), a leading economics consultancy, said that following the vote it now estimated the chances of Italy staying in the euro for the next five years had fallen below 30pc.

The CEBR said the bitter three-month campaign had demonstrated Italian voters would not tolerate indefinitely the chronic unemployment, stagnant wages and Brussels-imposed austerity that now came with euro membership.

"There is no doubt that Italy could stay in the euro if it were prepared to pay the price of virtually zero growth and depressed consumer spending for another five years or so," the group said in a note.

"But that is asking a lot of an increasingly impatient electorate. We think the chances of their sustaining this policy are below 30pc."

European leaders did their best to put a brave face on the loss of a prime minister who had embraced European economic reforms, but whose back-me-or-sack-me call over the referendum was rejected by an emphatic 59pc to 41pcmargin.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said she was saddened by Mr Renzi's defeat, having supported his reforms, but said Europe would continue on its current course, regardless.

"From my point of view, we will continue our work in Europe and we have set the right priorities," she said. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, gave a franker assessment, conceding that the rejection of Mr Renzi was "not a positive development in the case of the general crisis in Europe".

Manfred Weber, the leader of the main conservative group in the European Parliament, said success of populist forces such as Italy's Five-Star Movement and anti-immigrant Northern League heralded a new phase of instability in Europe.

Britain's decision to leave the European Union had started the bloc's "disintegration", Italy's minister for European affairs said last night.

Sandro Gozi, an ally of outgoing Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, said his country was facing a "period of uncertainty" following the vote this weekend to reject a planned constitutional reform.

The centre-left Democratic Party minister argued that the referendum defeat represented a missed opportunity to reform European institutions and save the EU from falling apart.

"I think that the beginning of European disintegration has started with Brexit," Mr Gozi told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It is up to the other 27 governments to re-launch Europe. That was our policy, that was our goal as the Renzi government.

"It is clear that now Europe loses a major political actor to its relaunch."

Speaking on the same programme, a spokesperson for the Five-Star Movement took aim at the European single currency.

"The euro is a problem for Italy right now and we would like to get people's voices on that because we never did," Daniele Caprera said.

"There were so many promises made by the old politics which people believed. I think the euro is damaging the Italian economy." ( Daily Telegraph London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to make the second stop of this "thank you" tour in North Carolina (AP)

House speaker Paul Ryan has defended President-elect Donald Trump's phone conversation with the Taiwanese president, calling it "much ado about nothing".

The Taiwanese president called Mr Trump last Friday.

Mr Ryan told reporters that it is "prudent" for Mr Trump to accept congratulatory phone calls. Mr Ryan said he himself spoke to President Tsai Ing-wen two months ago.

He said not taking the call would be "considered a snub".

Taiwan split from China in 1949, but China still considers the island part of its territory and would consider it unacceptable for the US to recognise Taiwan's leader as a head of state.

Trump advisers have made conflicting statements about whether the call was a congratulatory conversation or a signal of a new policy towards China.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has said he wants the government to cut some costs by cancelling its order for a new Air Force One - the plane that carries presidents around the globe.

The government is contracted with Boeing to build two or more new planes, which would go into service around 2024.

That means Mr Trump would not fly on the new planes unless he pursued and won a second term.

But the Air Force has pressed for a faster schedule, saying the current planes are becoming too expensive to repair and keep in good flying shape.

The contract for the planes was to be about 3 billion US dollars (2.35 billion), but costs have been reported to be rising.

Mr Trump tweeted: "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!"

Asked for a comment, Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said: "We are going to have to get back to you after we figure out what's going on."

Mr Trump now uses his own plane, also a 747, but as president he would travel aboard the Air Force jet, which is equipped with special safety, defensive and communications equipment.

Later, Mr Trump is making the second stop of this "thank you" tour in North Carolina, less than a week after his bombastic return to rallies at an Ohio appearance that felt more like a raucous campaign stop than a traditional speech by a president-to-be.

At that Cincinnati stop, Mr Trump disparaged the media as "dishonest," inspired loud "build the wall" chants, took swipes at fellow Republicans and stunned his own aides with his surprise announcement from the stage that he was appointing retired general James Mattis as secretary of defence.

His selection was being formally announced on Tuesday, and Mr Mattis will appear with Mr Trump at the evening event in Fayetteville, vice-president-elect Mike Pence said.

Later this week there will be rallies in Iowa and Michigan as Mr Trump salutes supporters who delivered the victories in the battleground states he needed to capture the White House.

The North Carolina rally comes a day after Mr Trump chose retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to be secretary of the department of housing and urban development, raising fresh concerns about the lack of experience some of Mr Trump's cabinet picks have with agencies they are now being chosen to lead.

Mr Carson, who opposed Mr Trump in the Republican primaries, has no background in government or running a large bureaucracy.

Mr Pence defended Mr Carson's selection, saying he was "absolutely qualified" for the post.

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Mr Trump's choice to be ambassador to the United Nations, has no foreign policy experience.

Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood executive, is Mr Trump's man to lead the treasury department but has never worked in government.

And Mr Mattis, a widely praised battlefield commander, spent decades in the Marines but now is tapped to run the nation's largest government agency, the defence department, with 740,000 civilian employees in addition to 1.3 million service personnel.

Democrats swiftly criticised Mr Carson's qualifications for his job. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called him a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice".

In a statement, Mr Trump said he was "thrilled to nominate" Mr Carson, citing his "brilliant mind" and his passion "about strengthening communities and families within those communities".

AP
IS and other extremist groups gained a foothold in Libya in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi

The last buildings occupied by Islamic State militants in Sirte have fallen into the hands of Libyan fighters, officials said, as anti-IS fighters celebrated in the streets of the final IS stronghold in Libya.

Ahmed Hadiya, the head of the media centre for the anti-IS operation, said: "This is the last major battle, but it is not the end of military operations, nor the declaration of liberation."

Mr Hadiya said that 12 fighters were killed on Tuesday in "intense fighting".

The United States threw its support behind the anti-IS operation in August, helping break weeks of stalemate with dozens of air strikes.

While the extremist group has lost its major base in Libya, IS militants might seek sanctuary elsewhere - such as Libya's lawless southern regions.

IS and other extremist groups gained a foothold in Libya over the years of chaos that engulfed the North African country in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Militias, originally made up of Nato-backed rebels, quickly filled the security vacuum.

The country has been split between rival parliaments and governments, each backed by a loose array of militias and tribes.

Western nations view the newly formed UN-brokered government as the best hope for uniting the country, but Libya's parliament, which meets in the far east, has refused to accept it.

Another fight against Islamic militants is ongoing in the eastern city of Benghazi, under the command of Marshal Khalifa Hifter, who answers to the parliament.

UN envoy to Libya Martin Kolber told the UN Security Council on Tuesday "the fight against terrorism has produced results, but the gains are not irreversible".

He also said that the fragmentation of the country's security authorities, "allow criminal and terrorist networks to flourish. Kidnappings, extortion and theft occur daily".

AP
A South Carolina judge has declared a mistrial after a jury was deadlocked in the murder trial of a white former police officer charged over the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.

A panel of one black and 11 white jurors - who had seemed close to a verdict to convict on Friday, with apparently only one holdout - said on Monday they were unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating for more than 22 hours over four days.

"We as a jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all parties we are unable to come to a unanimous decision," said Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, reading a note from the jury.

Former patrolman Michael Slager was charged with murder over the shooting of 50-year-old Walter Scott on April 4 2015. The judge had said the jury could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Video taken by a bystander that showed Mr Scott being shot in the back five times was shown widely in the media and on the internet and shocked the country, inflaming the national debate about how blacks are treated by police.

After the video went public, Slager was fired by the police department and charged with murder. Mr Scott's family called for peace in the North Charleston community, which is believed to have helped prevent the kind of violence that erupted elsewhere when black men were killed in encounters with police.

It is the second time in recent weeks a jury has been deadlocked in an officer-involved shooting. A mistrial was declared on November 12 when a jury in Cincinnati could not reach a verdict in the case of a former campus police officer who was also charged with shooting a black motorist.

The video in the Scott killing renewed debate about how blacks are treated by white officers. There have been similar debates over race and policing in places from New York to Ferguson, Missouri, and from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to North Carolina.

Slager's wife Jamie cried after the jurors were dismissed and briefly put her head on the bench in front of her. She said "thank you for everything" to the defence lawyers as they left the courtroom. She did not respond when reporters asked if she wanted to comment.

One juror wiped away tears with her hands and a tissue as the lawyers addressed them and thanked them for their hours of work.

There were no outbursts in the courtroom, and Slager's lawyer Andy Savage did not comment.

Mr Scott's mother and brother said outside the courthouse that justice will eventually prevail.

"I'm not sad because I know justice will be served," Judy Scott said.

The family called for peaceful protests.

"We're not going to tear up this city," said his brother Anthony. "We're not happy. But we're not sad."

Asked whether he could forgive Slager, Anthony Scott said he could eventually "find the peace" to forgive the ex-officer but not before justice is served.

"He gets to spend Christmas with his family," he said of Slager.

Prosecutor Scarlett Wilson praised Mr Scott's family for their patience and understanding.

"They have not received the credit they deserve in their calm leadership for the community," she said in a statement. "The Scotts have been a sterling example of dignity and grace in extraordinary circumstances."

Slager also faces trial next year in federal court on charges of depriving Mr Scott of his civil rights.

While Slager is white and Mr Scott was black, the video, not the races of the men, dominated the trial.

Mr Scott was pulled over in North Charleston for having a broken tail light on his 1990 Mercedes and then fled the car. Family members have said he may have run because he was worried about going to jail because he was 18,000 dollars behind on child support.

The prosecution argued that 35-year-old Slager let his sense of authority get the better of him.

The defence maintained that the two men wrestled on the ground, that Mr Scott got control of Slager's stun gun and then pointed the weapon at the officer before the shooting. The defence also said there was no way the officer could tell if Mr Scott was unarmed.

Last year, the city of North Charleston reached a 6.5 million dollar civil settlement with Mr Scott's family. The city also asked the US Justice Department to conduct a review of its police department policies and how the department can improve its relationship with residents.

AP
An off-duty sheriff's deputy has died and two other people were hurt when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio, Texas.

Bexar County Sheriff's Office identified the victim as 69-year-old Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara, who was a courthouse bailiff.

A crane was used to retrieve her car from water about 12ft deep. Ms Nishihara's body was inside the vehicle.

Sheriff's spokesman James Keith said Ms Nishihara was not working on Sunday when her vehicle went into the sinkhole.

Utility officials said the sinkhole appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain earlier on Sunday.

Authorities say two passers-by rescued a driver after another vehicle went into the sinkhole on Sunday night.

That driver and one of his rescuers were treated for minor injuries.
Roman Polanski lives in France and has a home in Switzerland, but has often visited Poland, where he grew up (AP)

Poland's Supreme Court has upheld a refusal to have film-maker Roman Polanski extradited to the US if he enters the country.

Polanski is wanted in the US in a case involving sex with a minor, which has haunted him for almost 40 years.

He lives in France and has a home in Switzerland, but has often visited Poland, where he grew up.

The three-judge panel rejected a request by justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro to overturn the extradition refusal and upheld the procedure and decision taken by a lower court.

The ruling closes the case.

Polanski wanted to make a film in Poland last year, but cancelled his plans after Mr Ziobro's move.

The justice minister revived the case in May, months after the conservative government took office.

Mr Ziobro argued that Polanski should be punished and that his celebrity status was the only thing shielding the Oscar-winning director from being extradited.

The lower court had argued Polanski, 83, has served a prison term, while he would probably not get a fair trial in the US if he was extradited.

The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

In a deal with the judge, he served 42 days in prison, but then fled the US fearing the judge would have him imprisoned again for much longer.

The US has been seeking to bring Polanski back and put him before a court.

AP
Lee Jae-yong arrives for the hearing at the National Assembly in Seoul (AP)

The billionaire heir to South Korean tech giant Samsung has been questioned live on TV by politicians amid the country's biggest political scandal in years.

Lee Jae-yong, 48-year-old vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and the only son of the ailing chairman, was shouted down and admonished by legislators for large parts of the two and a half-hour parliamentary questioning.

Legislators questioned him on wide-ranging issues from why Samsung sponsored the family of President Park Geun-hye's confidante to Samsung's treatment of ailing workers.

The hearing was broadcast live on major TV channels.

Mr Lee fielded questions for the first time in parliament as part of the unprecedented questioning of nine leaders from South Korea's biggest business groups about their possible roles in the scandal involving Ms Park and Choi Soon-sil, her shadowy confidante.

The scandal has increased doubts over deep ties between politicians and the country's top family-controlled businesses, known as chaebol. The president faces allegations that she played a role when big business groups donated funds for non-profit foundations under the control of Choi.

Prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether some of the 53 businesses that donated funds received any favours in return.

Many protesters who have filled Seoul streets calling for Ms Park's arrest have also vented at towards the chaebol and their founding families, shouting they are accomplices in the scandal.

During the questioning, Mr Lee and other chaebol bosses denied donating funds to the foundations to receive favours from the government. Huh Chang-soo, chairman of GS Group, said that in South Korea it is difficult for business leaders to refuse the government's requests.

Mr Lee faced most of the questions from ruling and opposition party members as the group donated the largest amount of money to the non-profit foundations and also because it was the only group that sponsored the Choi family outside the foundations.

They tried to have Mr Lee explain who at Samsung made decisions to sponsor the Choi family, but he evaded answering.

Legislators also grilled the 48-year-old heir regarding his one-on-one meetings with Ms Park, his company's business deal with the Choi family-owned company and a contentious merger of two Samsung companies last year. He admitted that the way Samsung sponsored Choi's daughter was not appropriate and that he regrets it.

But most of the time, he answered that he was not aware of issues or could not recall details. When asked how he first knew the secretive confidante of the president, the Samsung leader said he could not remember.

"I heard many times (about Choi) recently and I learned how (Samsung) supported as I confirmed the facts but I'm really sorry, lawmaker, that I don't know when I first learned (about Choi)," he said.

Some questions went beyond the scandal to other issues such as Samsung semiconductor workers who fell gravely ill and how Mr Lee accumulated wealth.

Park Young-sun, an opposition legislator, grilled Mr Lee on how much tax he paid.

Another opposition member, Sohn Hye-won, questioned the role of a secretive corporate strategy office at Samsung, which allegedly makes key decisions for Samsung companies but does not have legal responsibility.

Instead of answering specifically, Mr Lee repeatedly apologised for disappointing the public without naming what he was apologising for.

"There are many things that I myself feel embarrassed about and I regret as we have disappointed the public with many disgraceful things," he said.

AP
Politicians and friends surround the body of Jayaram Jayalalithaa kept for public viewing outside an auditorium in Chennai (AP)

Hundreds of thousands of people thronged the southern Indian city of Chennai on Tuesday to honour their late beloved leader, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, a former film actress and popular politician.

Jayalalithaa, chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, died following a heart attack a day earlier, at the age of 68.

A sea of weeping mourners surged toward the steps of a public hall where Jayalalithaa's body, draped in the Indian flag, was kept on a raised platform.

Thousands of police officers formed chains to stop the heaving crowd from surging up the steps. Men and women wept, some breaking into loud wails. Several mourners fainted from the heat and dehydration. Police said some had been keeping vigil outside the Apollo Hospital since Sunday and then walked to Rajaji Hall at daybreak.

In New Delhi, politicians observed a minute's silence on Tuesday before both houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day in respect for the woman whom many referred to as "Amma", or mother.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Jayalalithaa's death left a "huge void in Indian politics". He flew to Chennai, where he placed a wreath on the body.

Roads leading to Chennai were clogged as people from remote villages poured into Tamil Nadu's capital to catch a last glimpse of their leader.

The Tamil Nadu government declared seven days of mourning for Jayalalithaa, who was a five-time chief minister of the state. Schools and offices were closed after authorities declared public holidays in the state for three days.

Within hours of Jayalalithaa's death, her trusted lieutenant, O Panneerselvam, was sworn in as chief minister.

Hundreds of political leaders and film celebrities were expected to attend Jayalalithaa's funeral, scheduled for later on Tuesday.

Jayalalithaa had been in hospital since September, suffering from a fever, dehydration and a respiratory infection.

At the time, thousands of people fasted and prayed outside the hospital for her recovery. Doctors barred visitors, sparking rumours that they were withholding bad news out of fear it could trigger the same outpouring of grief, riots and suicides that followed the death of Jayalalithaa's political and acting mentor, MG Ramachandran.

Jayalalithaa was 13 when she began her film career and quickly became known as a romantic lead in many of the nearly 150 Tamil-language movies she worked on.

She entered politics in the early 1980s, under the guidance of Ramachandran, and after his death in 1987 declared herself his political heir and took control of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam party.

She served as Tamil Nadu's chief minister, the highest elected position in the state of 71 million people, for nearly 14 years beginning in 1991. She regained her office last year after a corruption case against her was overturned by a court.

Jayalalithaa endeared herself to the poor and powerless with her policy of giving out handouts - laptop computers and bicycles to students, spice grinders, free rice and subsidised food to the poor, cows and goats to farm women - enabling them to rise out of rural poverty. She pushed government officials and workers to promote health and education by presenting gold coins and awards to those who exceeded their goals.

Although she was criticised by many who equated her handouts with bribery, she said it was her scheme to wipe out rural poverty. In return, she was loved by the poor who saw her as their charismatic benefactor.

"She was their redeemer. Their saviour," Vasanthi, a well-known Tamil writer and Jayalalithaa's biographer, wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.

AP
Three conservative legislators in New Zealand have said they want to replace John Key as prime minister.

The contenders are deputy prime minister Bill English, health minister Jonathan Coleman and corrections minister Judith Collins. Several other National Party figures said they have not ruled out entering the race.

In New Zealand, the prime minister is chosen by the governing party's top legislators, who make up the caucus. The caucus is expected to take a vote at a meeting on December 12.

The new prime minister will have about 10 months to run the country before a general election next year.

Mr Key had been a popular leader for eight years and was widely expected to contest a fourth straight election next year before he shocked the nation on Monday by announcing his resignation.

He has endorsed Mr English, who is also the finance minister. The 54-year-old led the National Party 15 years ago for two years, but suffered a big defeat in the 2002 election which was won by the rival Labour Party led by Helen Clark.

Supporters say Mr English has managed the economy exceptionally well under Mr Key and would make a steady hand as leader. Critics say he is dull and lacks the charisma needed for the top job.

Under Mr English, New Zealand has been enjoying relatively robust annual GDP growth of over 3% and the unemployment rate has fallen below 5%. He has also managed to return small surpluses on the government's books over the past couple of years.

Mr English said he would deliver tax cuts and spread the country's wealth to where it is needed. He added that he has gained wisdom and experience since last running the party.

"I was 39 years old then, with six children under 13," he said. "So if nothing else, I've got the opportunity to focus much more on the job now than was the case then."

Mr Coleman, 50, is known for being ambitious but his decision to run came as a surprise to many. He said he has attributes that go beyond his time in parliament running the difficult health portfolio.

"I was not a career politician so I've been a doctor," he said. "I live my life in the community. My kids go to state primary schools. So I think I have a deep connection with the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders."

He said there was an appetite for change in the party and he liked where he was positioned in the race.

Ms Collins, 57, is known as tough, plain spoken and something of a maverick. In 2014, when she was justice minister, she was forced to resign her portfolio three weeks before the general election due to her ties with a controversial blogger. She remained as a member of parliament.

About a year ago she returned to the inner circle of the cabinet, taking on the police and corrections portfolios.

"One of the things that you learn in life is that you learn from things that go wrong," she said, adding that she stayed because she believed she was still adding value.

"We're going to go into the toughest campaign ever that we have fought," she said. "And I know that we need to win, and the only way we can do that is if we have some of the toughest people running."

AP
Apple accused Samsung of duplicating a handful of distinctive iPhone features for which Apple holds patents

A unanimous Supreme Court has sided with smartphone maker Samsung in its high-profile patent dispute with Apple over the design of the iPhone.

The justices said Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features at issue are only a tiny part of the devices.

Apple had won a 399 million US dollar (314 million) judgment against Samsung for copying parts of the iPhone's patented design, but the case now returns to a lower court to decide what Samsung must pay.

The case is part of a series of disputes between the technology rivals that began in 2011.

Apple accused Samsung of duplicating a handful of distinctive iPhone features for which Apple holds patents: the flat screen, the rounded rectangle shape of the phone, and the layout of icons on the screen.

At issue was how much Samsung is required to compensate Apple under an 1887 law that requires patent infringers to pay "total profit".

Apple said that meant all the profits from the phone sales, while Samsung argued it was limited to profits related to the specific components that were copied.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court that the law does not require damages to be based on the entire product, but can be limited to only a component of the product.

The decision overturned a ruling from a federal appeals court in Washington, which said that Apple was entitled to all the profits.

But the high court declined to lay out a specific test for how such damage awards should be calculated. Justice Sotomayor said doing so was not necessary and the justices left it up to lower courts to resolve.

Samsung had argued that the hefty award ignored the fact that its phones contain more than 200,000 other patents that Apple does not own.

Apple said the verdict was fair because the iPhone's success was directly tied to its distinctive look.

AP
Details added (first version posted on 15:48)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kolokoltsev Dec. 6.

President Aliyev and Kolokoltsev hailed the successful development of Azerbaijan-Russia bilateral relations in a variety of fields, including between law enforcement agencies and the ministries of internal affairs, and noted the importance of expanding cooperation in this area.

It was noted that the discussions on the issues related to mutual activity and cooperation between the ministries of internal affairs will be held during the visit, and the sides expressed confidence that bilateral ties between the two countries will further strengthen.

Kolokoltsev thanked President Aliyev for his attention to cooperation between the two countries' interior bodies.

Pointing to the first trilateral Baku Summit of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, Kolokoltsev noted that the Declaration, which was signed by the presidents at the event, gave impetus to the development of relations.

Hailing the importance of the first Baku Summit of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, President Aliyev underlined that the format has already been shaped.

The president said the event aimed to strengthen regional security measures as well.
For almost 50 years, he has played Santa Claus -- and now during his second visit to India, Timo Alarik Pakkanen from Finland advises people of this country to love others and be generous and kind to themselves.

"Love each other and be kind to yourself and to others, that's my message to Indians," Pakkanen, dressed in a Santa outfit, told IANS during an interaction at the Finland embassy here in New Delhi. He was accompanied by Nina Vaskunlahti, the Ambassador of Finland to India.

Pakkanen, who has committed himself to the task of being Santa Claus, comes from the mysterious Korvatunturi ("Ear Fell") in Finnish Lapland.

Perhaps one of the most famous names on the planet, this Santa Claus recognises his global influence and the responsibility that comes with it. He spends his time at the Santa Claus Village very day of the year to take care of his mission in life -- to enhance the well being of children and the kindness of grown-ups, as well as spreading the message of love and goodwill of the Christmas Spirit across the globe.

For almost 40 years, he has lived the life of the fabled Santa Claus and has met and talked to people from over 82 countries and from 40 US states, 55 German cities and 24 cities from Britain.

He calls his experience of playing Santa as magical and the Christmas eve, magic.

"The Christmas eve is a magical evening and that's where all the magic happens. Whenever I meet people, they give me a smile and positivity and that's the thing I like the most. So I get happiness from children," he said.

He last visited India six years back as Santa Claus and this year has been equally special for him as people are more acceptable.

"Over the years, it has become more acceptable but I feel it's the same everywhere. Some people are excited and some are a bit afraid and it's same with children. Someone comes and hugs you immediately while some start to cry so it's very different like the way people are different.

"It's the same every where you go. It doesn't mater from where you come, whether it is Canada, China, India or Europe, it's always kind of same thing," he told IANS.

He landed in the capital on Sunday and started his trip by meeting a few school children in Vasant Vihar followed by a brunch at Hotel Leela Palace here. On Monday, he visited Gandhi Smriti and India Gate. On Tuesday, he was to visit Taj Mahal in Agra along with a few other places.

Asked how he plans to spread smiles in India at a time when demonetisation is the talk of the town, he told IANS: "My most important mission is to make people happy around me. Give happiness, joy and laughter but I am not here to solve your political problems or anything like that."
Thala Ajith is an ardent admirer of the departed Chief Minister Dr.J.Jayalalitha who passed away last night. Ajith conveyed his condolence for the Iron leader through a press release in the morning as he has been shooting for his upcoming film 'AK 57' in Bulgaria. Hence it was assumed that he will not be coming to Chennai to pay last homage to the Puratchithalaivi.

But the fact is Ajith has indeed boarded the flight from Bulgaria to Chennai as he was so keen on paying the last homage to the politician he admires a lot. He has boarded the flight in Bulgaria without knowing thattthe final rituals were concluded by around 6:30 PM.

This means Ajith could not return to Chennai before the CM was laid to rest in the Anna Square campus in Marina beach, Chennai. He is expected to meet O.Panneerselvam the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu who was also a trusted protege of Jayalalitha and convey his condolences.

The actor will be returning to Bulgaria tomorrow and carry on with the shoot.
The entire Tamil Nadu is grief-stricken by the passing away of its six time Chief Minister and the most charismatic leader Dr.J.Jayalalitha after being getting treated for multiple ailments in Apollo Hospitals Chennai for 74 days.

Kollywood celebrities have been mourning the death of the leader who hails from film industry. Many actors, technicians and other film industry celebrities have been visiting the Rajaji Bhavan where the mortal remains of the Iron Lady has been kept for homage. Many of them are conveying their condolences through social media platforms.

In a rare occurrence actor Ajith Kumar who has been shooting for his yet to be titled 57th film in Bulgaria since last month has sent a press release mourning the death of the AIADMK supremo.

In the release sent in Tamil, the much admired star has said,

"I convey my deep condolences to the Tamil people and the cadres of AIADMK party who are aggrieved by the death of the Hounourable Puratchithalaivi Amma.

She is a great leader who endured various troubles to make huge achievements. While everyone was praying for her recovery, the news of her passing away comes as a rude shock to me.

I pray the almighty for her soul to rest in peace.

I also pray the lord to give the strength to me and the countless Tamil people to cope with this huge loss."

It is worth noting that Ajith is always considered to be an avid admirer of Jayayalalitha. The leader attended his wedding with his co-star Shalini in the year 2000. In interviews he had mentioned that the Puratchithalaivi considers him like a son and showers affection on him.

It is certainly a great personal loss to Ajith like many other Tamil people across the globe.




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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Ilhama Isabalayeva  Trend:

As part of the 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, to be held in Baku on May 5-6, 2017, an opening ceremony with the participation of high-ranking representatives of the government and the 3rd meeting of culture and tourism ministers of the world will be held, the Azerbaijani Culture and Tourism Ministry told Trend Dec. 6.

This was decided during an expert meeting and the meeting of the International Working Group of the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue at UNESCO headquarters.

The event was attended by official representatives of UNESCO, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan, Permanent Delegation of Azerbaijan to UNESCO, United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Council of Europe, Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), North-South Centre of the Council of Europe.

Azerbaijans Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev also took part in the event.
Members of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Photo by Oregon Department of Transportation



Land bills for two Oregon tribes are on their way to President Barack Obama for his signature.

Congress gave final approval to S.817 and S.818 on Tuesday. The bills help Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde restore their homelands.

Congress is working on behalf of tribes, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs , said in a press release . These pieces of legislation, along with the others we have passed during the 114th Congress, demonstrate our continued commitment to increased tribal self-determination and sovereignty.

Once S.817 is signed into law, any land acquired by the Siletz Tribes within the original 1855 Coast Reservation will be considered a part of the current reservation.

For Grande Ronde, S.818 reduces the number of steps required for land to be acquired in trust and declared a part of its reservation.

"This legislation will enable the Tribe to more efficiently move the land it owns into reservation status, which is historically a very complex and time-consuming process," Chairman Reyn Leno said in a story posted by Smoke Signals , the tribe's news outlet.

Both tribes have been lobbying for the legislation for years . They could be the last significant Indian bills to clear the 114th Congress before lawmakers head home for the year, possibly by the end of this week.

The 115th Congress will convene in January 2017, starting a whole new legislative process.

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Following the recent visit of Tibetan spiritul leader, the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, to Arunachal Pradesh, China has advised India against "complicating the boundary question".

AFP

"We hope India can abide by relevant consensus and refrain from any action that might complicate the boundary question," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday.

"We should ensure peace and stability of border areas and sound and steady development of bilateral relations serves the common interests of the two sides," Lu added.

AFP

China is worried because the Karmapa addressed a large gathering in the Mon region of Arunachal, which China claims as its own. The area is part of the boundary dispute between the two countries.

AFP

The Karmapa's visit to the Tawang monastery attracted diplomatic attention as Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju accompanied him.

The presence of a Union minister during Karmapa's visit was seen as a sign that New Delhi was extending its support to him. The visit was a Karmapa's first to Mon in 900 years, Rijiju had tweeted
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

Trend:

The 7th forum of Azerbaijani Youth Organization of Russia (AMOR) titled AMORs generation: patriotism, creativity, success has got underway at Crocus City Hall in Moscow.

Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, chairperson of AMOR Leyla Aliyeva attended the event.

Supported by Azerbaijans Ministry of Youth and Sport, the event brings together Azerbaijani and Russian officials, more than 500 representatives, as well as AMORs regional activists, members of youth organizations in Russia.

The forum will continue with plenary sessions.

The event will also feature a concert.
With so little cash, you cant even have a decent dinner, forget running regular diplomatic business, the Russian ambassador to India told New Delhi in a strongly worded letter as the country, a major global player and a key defence supplier for India, officially critiqued demonetisation-induced cash shortage for its diplomatic staff.

rusembindia

Diplomatic missions of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia and Sudan have also sent protest letters on cash withdrawal restrictions.

Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin, an old India hand, wrote to the ministry of external affairs (MEA) on December 2: Please just imagine if we in Moscow mirror this order of SBI (State Bank of India) when 50,000 Roubles will not be enough to pay for a decent dinner in a restaurant, not to mention functioning of such a big embassy as ours in New Delhi or Indias in Moscow.

rusembindia

SBI informed the Embassy that the cash withdrawal limit available to the Embassy is now Rs 50,000 per week under the government of India directives with no exceptions unless otherwise advised by the RBI, he wrote.

Such an amount is totally inadequate as regards the embassys salary and operational expenditure requirements.

Officials in the Russian embassy, who spoke off record, told that its New Delhi mission has a staff strength of 200 (excluding family members) and with the new withdrawal limit the cash at hand for one person comes to Rs 250 a week.

Kadakin in his letter urged MEA to intervene so that the withdrawal restrictions for diplomatic staff is lifted.

ALSO READ: Demonetisation Hasn't Only Put Indian In Queues, Foreign Tourists Are Also Facing Trouble

AFP

Some diplomats said Indian diplomats abroad may have to face similar restrictions if the situation does not improve.

They also said the restrictions may be against the spirit of the Vienna convention.

Kazakhstan celebrated its National Day recently amid some difficulty due to limits on cash withdrawal, diplomats told ET. Some other embassies are apprehensive that organising big diplomatic events may become problematic.

ALSO READ: When Demonetisation Left Them Broke, Tourists In Pushkar Performed On Streets To Pay For Their Journey Home

BCCL

Some bank branches have been kept aside for transactions by diplomats so that mission staff can avoid long queues. But foreign diplomats in India say there has to be a solution to the fundamental problem  ceiling on cash withdrawal.
Here is a detailed timeline of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's life in film and politics, and follows her evolution from silver screen stardom to political icon status.

AFP

February 24, 1948

Jayalalithaa is born in Melukote, in what was then Mysore State, presently in the state of Karnataka, to Jayaram and Vedavalli. At birth, she was named after her paternal grandmother, Komalavalli, in line with her community's customs. She will be given the name Jayalalithaa at the age one, named for the houses of her grandparents where she lived - Jaya Vilas and Lalitha Vilas.

1950

Jayaram dies. Vedavalli goes to live with her parents in Bangalore, taking Jayalithaa and her brother, Jayakumar, with her.

1952

Jayalalitha

Jayalalithaa and her brother remain with her aunt in Bangalore as her mother, Vedavalli, moves to Madras to find a job. Jayalalithaa goes to the elite Bishop Cottons Girls School. Vedavalli starts acting in plays, and subsequently films, under the stage name 'Sandhya', which she is still known by.

1958

Jayalalithaa moves to Madras to live with her mother, after her aunt gets married. She is enrolled in the elite Sacred Heart Presentation Convent, popularly known as Church Park, where she excels in academics. She is also trained in Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam and Kathak.

1964

She makes her film debut in a lead role in 'Chinnada Gombe' a Kannada film. To support her debt-ridden family, Jayalalithaa gives up on her dreams of becoming a lawyer and plunges into the film industry.

1965

TOI

Jayalalithaa's Tamil film debut comes in the landmark blockbuster hit, 'Venniraadai'. In the same year, she stars in a film, 'Aayirathil Oruvan', with Tamil cinema's biggest star MG Ramachandran (MGR) for the first time, to begin what remains among the most successful screen pairings in Tamil cinema, as well as one of the most critical relationships in her life.

1965 - 1980

This was the peak of Jayalalithaa's film career. She was among the highest-paid actresses in the country at the time, and endorsed top brands. In this period, she acted in over 140 films, of which about 120 were blockbuster hits.

1970

Jayalalithaa has a falling out with MGR, after he chooses to work with another leading lady.

1971

Jayalalithaa's mother Sandhya dies.

1973

She stars in a movie with MGR for the last time, in 'Pattikaattu Ponnaiya', a year after he split from the DMK to launch the AIADMK.

1977

Jayalalithaa steps back from films.

1980

topyaps

Jayalalithaa stars in a Tamil movie, 'Nadhiyai Thedi Vandha Kadal', for the last time. Her last film in a leading role however was the Telugu film 'Nayakudu Vinayakudu'.

1981

Jayalalithaa revives relationship with MGR.

1982

Jayalalithaa joins MGR's AIADMK and soon after delivers her maiden political speech at the party conference.

1983

She is appointed the AIADMK's propaganda secretary.

1984

the hindu

She is elected to the Rajya Sabha, as MGR wants her there for her fluency in English and knowledge of several languages. She remains a member of the Rajya Sabha till 1989. She becomes a key campaigner for the AIADMK as the party wins a massive election victory despite MGR remaining hospitalised through the campaigning. Her rising prominence irks senior hands in the party. Her attempt to be named interim CM also does not go down well with MGR.

1986

MGR sacks Jayalalithaa from all party posts after she forms a parallel political outfit. However, she continues as Rajya Sabha member of the AIAMDK.

1987

MGR dies, leaving no clear political heir. AIADMK descends into chaos over his legacy. Jayalalithaa competes with his widow Janaki for control of the party. The party splits into two major factions, one behind each woman.

1989

The Assembly election saw the Jayalalithaa faction win 27 seats to the Janaki faction's two. Janaki steps aside to clear the way for Jayalalithaa's accession to MGR's legacy. Jayalalithaa becomes Tamil Nadu's first woman Leader of Opposition. During the budget session, she s assaulted in the Assembly Hall and a senior DMK leader attempts to disrobe her. She vows she will not return except as Chief Minister.

1991

AFP

Allied with the Congress, and rocketed by the sympathy wave following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Jayalalithaa storms to power as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the first time.

1991 - 1996

Her unpopularity rises because of her perceived high-handedness, allegations of corruption among party cadre and the opulent display of wealth in the wedding of her foster son Sudhakaran, a nephew of her close aide, Sasikala Natarajan.

1996

AIADMK is routed in the elections. Following DMK government files a slew of corruption cases against her. She is arrested and remanded in prison in a corruption a case, which she would be acquitted of in 2000. Subramanian Swamy, then the chief of Janata Party files disproportionate assets case against her in August.

1998

AFP

AIADMK wins 18 of Tamil Nadu's 39 seats as part of the NDA, and becomes part of Vajpayee government.

April 1999

Jayalalithaa pulls out of the NDA government, amid growing disagreements on several issues.

October 1999

AIADMK, now allied with the Congress, loses seats. NDA, now including DMK, wins to form government.

2000

Jayalalithaa convicted in Pleasant Stay Hotel case and the TANSI Land Acquisition case. Both convictions are appealed in higher courts and the matter remains pending. Though the conviction is stayed, the court bars her from contesting the Assembly elections the next year.

May 2001

AIADMK alliance sweeps Assembly elections, winning 196 of 234 seats. Jayalalithaa sworn in as Chief Minister amid controversy over the pending results on her convictions in the TANSI and Pleasant Stay Hotel cases.

September 2001

AFP

Supreme Court strikes down Jayalalithaa's appointment as Chief Minister. Her loyalist O Panneerselvam is appointed Chief Minister, a post he occupies for about six months amid accusations of being a puppet. About this time, she adds an 'a' at the end of her name for numerological reasons.

December 2001

Court overturns her convictions both the TANSI and Pleasant Stay Hotel cases.

March 2002

Jayalalithaa resumes charge as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.

August 2003

Jayalalithaa takes a strong stand against over a lakh striking government employees. She uses the Tamil Nadu Essential Services Maintenance Act (TESMA) to quash the strike, threatening suspensions and dismissals for those government servants who don't report to work.

November 2003

Supreme Court shifts Disproportionate Assets Case against Jayalalithaa to Karnataka, to ensure fair trial.

May 2004

AIADMK wiped out in Lok Sabha elections; the loss is attributed to anger of government servants and other sections of society.

May 2006

AFP

AIADMK wins 61 seats and loses Assembly election to DMK-led alliance comprising most of Tamil Nadu's political parties by slender vote margin. DMK forms government.

May 2009

Jayalalithaa, now part of the Third Front, is unable to stop the DMK-Congress combine from winning a majority of the seats for the UPA.

May 2011

AIADMK-led alliance sweeps the Assembly election, winning 203 of the 234 seats. AIADMK alone wins 150 seats to form the government. Her government starts implementing several populist and popular schemes.

May 2014

AIADMK wins 37 of Tamil Nadu's 39 seats, becomes third largest party in Lok Sabha, just behind Congress's 44.

September 27, 2014

Bengaluru-based trial court sentences Jayalalithaa to four years in jail and Rs 100 crore in fines. The conviction automatically in the Disproportionate Assets Case disqualified her as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu under a recently passed law. She is jailed at the Parappana Agrahara prison complex. Again, O Panneerselvam took her place.

October 17, 2014

After about a month in jail, she is granted bail by the Supreme Court.

May 11, 2015

Jayalalithaa is acquitted of all charges in the Disproportionate Assets Case by the Karnataka High Court hearing the appeal against the trial court verdict.

May 23, 2015

She takes oath to return as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.

July 2015

Karnataka government goes to Supreme Court to appeal the acquittal by the Karnataka High Court.

May 2016

Fighting the Assembly election by herself, Jayalalithaa creates history by becoming the first Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in 32 years to be voted back to power. AIADMK wins 134 of the 234 seats to retain power.

September - October 2016

AFP

Jayalalithaa admitted to Chennai's Apollo hospital on September 22 with complaints of "fever and dehydration". She's later put on respiratory support and is treated for lung congestion. Doctors from the UK and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi join the team of specialists from Apollo to treat her.

November 3, 2016

Apollo Hospitals says Jayalalithaa has completely recovered.

November 19, 2016

AFP

Jayalalithaa is shifted out of the ICU.

December 4, 2016

The AIADMK says Jayalalithaa will return home soon. However, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister suffers a cardiac arrest on the same evening.

December 5, 2016

Jayalalithaa passes away, aged 68.
Businessman Mahesh Shah, who is in the dock for making a disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore under the Income Declaration Scheme allegedly for laundering black money of influential people for a commission, is proving to be a tough nut to crack.

PTI

Income tax officials said that he remained uncooperative during his six-hour interrogation. After surfacing before the media on Saturday, Shah had insisted that he would name all those whose untaxed wealth he intended to launder for a cut.

His interrogation was recorded by a team of I-T sleuths headed by Vinay Kaushal, deputy director (investigation). Mahesh Shah was not cooperating with the investigation. He sought time for two or three days to provide the information and also said that his wife was not well. If he remains uncooperative, action will be taken against him, said director general (investigation) P C Mody.

Reuters

During the probe, a team of doctors was also called as Shah, a heart patient, complained of uneasiness.

Meanwhile, sources said that documents seized by the I-T department during searches at 15 locations revealed that Shah was on close terms with a Gujarat politician who shifted to Karnataka and a travel operator in Rajkot. It is not yet clear whether this undisclosed income belonged to these people, a source said.

prokerala.com

Shah, a big-ticket land dealer with business interests in Gujarat, Mumbai and Pune, had declared his income on September 30, the last date for disclosure under IDS. The first instalment of Rs 1,560 crore, 25% of the 45% tax imposed on his declared income, was to be paid on November 30.
PTI/ File

Not many politicians have enjoyed the kind of love and affection that former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa had among her people, not even her mentor MGR who himself had cult status in the state during his lifetime.

For the rest of the country, the news of people self-immolating, committing suicide, dying of heart attack when she was sent to jail in 2014, or when she fell ill earlier this year may sound like exaggeration or sycophancy, but for the Tamil people it is as real as it can get - she was not a politician for them - she was their 'Amma' a motherly figure - a family member. So the pain is real, like losing someone in the family. Read more here

Here are 5 more stories for you:

1. Is A Serial Killer On The Loose In Delhi? Three Mutilated Bodies Found In Past 10 Days

lifestyleofindian/ Representative Image

Delhi Police has launched separate probes into three recent cases of murder which seem to have striking resemblances. The three victims are yet to be identified and they were all of them were found to be mutilated.

The bodies were also found within a radius of 10 kilometres, in South Delhi within a span of 10 days raising the possibility of them being done by the same culprit.

The first body was discovered on November 25 from a sewer on the ground floor of a building in Munirka. The victim, whose head was missing at the time when the decomposed body was found, is a woman believed to be in mid 30's. She is yet to be identified. Read more here

2. US Congressman Says That Pak Should Not Be Given A Single Dollar Unless It Acts Against Haqqani

PTI

Pakistan must surely be in a confused state after Trump was elected as next US President. But even as it was hoping against hope for some rope or scope to score some American dope, it has been hit with scud missile in political terms.

The Haqqani Network has killed more Americans in Afghanistan than any other terrorist group, but the government of Pakistan has done little to go after it, despite taking some USD 33 billion of United States money since 9/11, Congressman Ted Poe, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Chairman, said in a statement.

My bipartisan amendment limits foreign aid to Pakistan until the Administration certifies that Pakistan has shown progress in arresting and prosecuting Haqqani Network senior leaders and mid-level operatives, he said. Read more here

3. Indian Army Dumps Good Old Maruti Gypsy For Swanky Tata Safari

motorbeam.com

The Army will replace its iconic Maruti Gypsy fleet with a new range of SUVs, having selected the Tata Safari Storme for an initial order of close to 3,200 vehicles, which could increase 10-fold in the coming years.

While an official announcement is yet to be made, ET has learnt that Tata Motors beat off the Mahindra Group, which fielded its Scorpio SUV for the competition that kicked off in 2013.

Both locally developed SUVs passed rigorous technical trials by the army, which tested the vehicles in all conditions  from high-altitude, snow-bound regions to deserts and marshy land.

However, the Tata Group appears to have presented a better financial deal to the army, which has sought to replace its fleet of Gypsy vehicles that are used extensively at the battalion level to transport troops and officers. Read more here

4. Delhi CM Kejriwal Gets Slammed For His Politically Incorrect Tweet On Ammas Death

AFP

Delhi Chief Minister And AAP leader, Arvind Kejriwal was taken to cleaners by Twitter followers after he tweeted his condolences on Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa's demise and called her an Aam Admi's Leader. Read more here

5. Gujarat Man Who Declared Rs 14k Crore Not Cooperating With The Investigation, Officials Reveal

PTI

Businessman Mahesh Shah, who is in the dock for making a disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore under the Income Declaration Scheme allegedly for laundering black money of influential people for a commission, is proving to be a tough nut to crack.

Income tax officials said that he remained uncooperative during his six-hour interrogation. After surfacing before the media on Saturday, Shah had insisted that he would name all those whose untaxed wealth he intended to launder for a cut. Read more here
With the demise of Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa, India has lost a seasoned politician. Known as Amma, or Thamizh Thai (Tamil Mother) among her devoted followers, Jayalalithaa lived all the facets of life with grit and perseverance. Both as a film star and a politician, she achieved success in her own style.

Reuters

Her rise from being the protege of MG Ramchandran - popularly known as MGR - to a politician who toppled the hegemony of the leaders like KM Karunanidhi, is remarkable.

Jayalalithaa faced many hurdles in stepping up the political pedestals. However, she ultimately emerged as a winner.

Reuters

Here is how Jayalalithaa, a young actress from Tamil cinema came, saw and conquered the politics of South India.

1. MGR introduced her to politics

BCCL

It was in 1982, when the icon of southern politics and patriarch of AIADMK, MGR brought a young and actress to political spectrum of the state. Jayalalithaa soon rose through the ranks and in 1983 was made the propaganda secretary while superseding many senior leaders.

2. Jayalalithaa became Rajya Sabha MP in 1984

BCCL

In 1984, before heading to US for kidney treatment, MGR got Jayalalithaa elected to Rajya Sabha. This was the biggest boost for her political aspiration which irked many of her peers. In the absence of MGR, she campaigned for the party in 1984 by showing clippings of MGR getting treated in the US.

3. MGRs demise and Jayalalithaa's rise

BCCL

MGRs death in 1987 brought a political void in Tamil Politics in general and AIADMK in particular. The party got split between Jayalalithaa and MGRs wife Janaki Ramchandran.

Janaki did not even allow Jayalalithaa to attend MGRs funeral. Janakis faction won amid allegations of foul play, but soon Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre dismissed the government. Subsequent elections saw Jayalalithaa's victory over Janakis faction, but internal strife resulted in DMKs victory and Karunanidhi becoming the CM.

Jayalalithaa became the first woman leader of the opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly and took over the reins of the unified AIADMK and restored the two leaves symbol, which had been frozen by the Election Commission following the split.

4. The saree incident in 1989

BCCL

An incident on March 25, 1989, helped her garner even more support. This happened when members of the DMK and AIADMK clashed inside the Assembly. When Jayalalithaa was about to leave, a member from the treasury bench allegedly attempted to manhandle her. During this, her saree got torn. She appeared before the media and dramatically vowed that she would never return to the House until she becomes Chief Minister.

Two years later, she returned, as the chief minister.

5. A crushing defeat in 1996

BCCL

Jayalalithaa was never scared of defeat. After being the CM between 1991 and 1996, she faced a crushing defeat in 1996 elections amid the charge of corruption. Her party won just four Assembly seats, and the AIADMK-Congress alliance was unable to win any of the States 39 Lok Sabha seats. Jayalalithaa herself lost the polls from Bargur Assembly seat.

6. 2001 brought more problems

BCCL

In 2001, Jayalalithaa further went into trouble. All her four nominations were cancelled for 2001 Assembly polls. However, despite all the odds, she was elected as party leader and was sworn in as the CM. She was later disqualified by the Supreme Court. After making O Panneerselvam, Chief Minister, she fought the cases and got acquitted and once again became Chief Minister.

7. Conviction in 2014 and acquittal in 2015

BCCL

After taking oath as the chief minister for third time in May 2011, Jayalalithaa's political career was going smoothly. But soon, the ghost of past returned to haunt her. She was convicted in a corruption case and was sentenced to a four-year jail term and a fine of Rs 100 crore.

Again, O Paneerselvam, replaced her as the chief minister.

The Supreme Court, however, granted her two-month bail and suspended her sentence in disproportionate assets case.

Later in 2015, a special Bench of Karnataka High Court set aside the trial court's order of her conviction and acquitted her of all charges in the disproportionate assets case. This paved way for her return as CM in 2015.

In the 2016 state elections, Jayalalithaa crushed the Congress-DMK alliance to win more than 134 seats. In all these years, Jayalalithaa became one of the most powerful faces of Indian politics. She was revered, not only by her followers, but by her adversaries for her sheer tenacity to bounce back from most difficult situations.

Surely, for many, a leader has gone.
Indians will begin training Vietnamese fighter pilots on its Sukhoi-30MKI "air dominance jets" from next year onwards, much like it has been teaching sailors from the country for operations on board Kilo-class submarines for the last three years.

Defence Blog

An agreement to this effect was inked on Monday after talks between defence minister Manohar Parrikar and his Vietnamese counterpart General Ngo Xuan Lich, who is leading a mega 30-member military delegation, including the air force and naval chiefs, on a three-day visit to India.

This is in tune with the decision taken during PM Modi's visit to Vietnam last September to "elevate" the bilateral "strategic partnership", which was established in July 2007, to a "comprehensive strategic partnership".

AFP

India and Vietnam, of course, are both concerned about China's assertive behaviour in the Asia-Pacific region and are steadily building cooperation in military training, exercises and defence technology, as well as in joint oil exploration in the contentious South China Sea.

"Both countries are going to further crank up their defence ties, with Parrikar also offering partnership in setting up defence manufacturing capacity in Vietnam. Gen Lich, who also met the PM and national security adviser Ajit Doval on Monday, said he wanted the two countries to also work closely in multilateral fora like the ADMM-Plus (ASEAN defence ministers' meeting-plus)," said a source.

Defence World

The defence secretaries of India and Vietnam will now meet in early-2017 to identify military projects and equipment under the new $500 million defence line of credit announced by Modi during his visit to Vietnam.

India has even offered to export the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, Varunastra anti-submarine torpedoes, and other military hardware and software to Vietnam.

Scoopnest

The pact on the training of Vietnamese fighter pilots has been in the works since 2013, but could not be finalised earlier due to some logistical and financial hitches.

Now, Vietnamese pilots will begin arriving in India from next year onwards to get both basic and advanced training on the Sukhois of the IAF.
While the Syrian army is crushing anti-Assad rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo, UN Security Council members Russia and China vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire.

US and Russia had verbal exchanges before the vote which called for a seven-day truce.

Apart from Russia and China, Venezuela also voted against the cease-fire resolution. It was the sixth Russian veto since 2011 on a Syria-themed resolution. China joined for the fifth time.

Reuters

According to an activist group, dozens are getting killed daily in strikes and crossfire between regime forces and rebels since the forces entered eastern Aleppo on November 26. While the regime has gained quick ground in eastern Aleppo, the rebels fought back on Monday in the Al-Mayassar neighborhood. Rebels also hit a Russian mobile hospital in Aleppo, killing one medic and injuring two doctors, Russia's state-run Sputnik news agency reported, quoting a defense ministry spokesman.

With the government siege on eastern Aleppo is getting tighter, the stocks of food, clean water supplies and medicine facilities are getting dry. Though the UN has repeatedly called for safe passage for its humanitarian staff, but it's believed that Syrian regime backed by Russia don't guarantee that.

Reuters

Russia has begun sending in aid and setting up mobile clinics, after all the hospitals in eastern Aleppo were bombed beyond use.

AFP

Assad regime has regained 60% of eastern Aleppo

On Sunday, 24 people got killed while over 80 got injured in airstrikes and shelling, while the regime forces backed by Russian air strikes attacked rebels in eastern Aleppo. Since it entered eastern Aleppo on November 26, the regime forces have now got almost 60 % of the area from rebels' control. Though this advanced did result in massive loss of civilians lives.

Reuters

According to a self-styled Syrian Civil Defence rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, the regime now holds some 60% of eastern Aleppo, making swift gains since breaking through rebel defense lines.

All in all people of Aleppo are the real sufferers of this power game. Indiatimes' correspondents Muhammad Adeeb and Jad Yateem have sent the ground reports. Have a look at them.
The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa died on Monday after undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai for 73 days. She was 68.

She was admitted to hospital on September 22 with complaints of fever and dehydration, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday evening. On Monday, she continued to be very critical and was on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and life support systems. And the end came at 11.30pm.

PTI

In a statement issued after midnight on Tuesday, Apollo Hospitals said: "It is with indescribable grief we announce the sad demise of our esteemed honorable chief minister of Tamil Nadu Puratchi Thalavi Amma at 11.30pm today (5.12.2016). Our honourable chief minister Selvi J Jayalalithaa was admitted on 22.9.2016 with complaints of fever and dehydration and underlying comorbidities. The honourable chief minister subsequently recovered substantially to be able to take food orally.

"On this basis, the honorable chief minister was shifted from the advanced critical care unit to the high dependency unit where her health and vitals continued to improve under the close monitoring by our expert panel of specialists."

AFP

The former film star has been Tamil Nadu chief minister four times and is revered by many in the state as Amma. As the news of her demise could spread unrest, Police has been put on alert across Tamil Nadu and outside her official residence in Chennai (Madras).

News of her health over the last few months had been closely monitored and guarded because people had earlier spread rumours about her death on October.
It is said that there is no better day than Christmas day for the spirit of giving without expecting anything in return. Keeping in mind the same thought, a Muslim-owned restaurant in London is offering a decent three-course meal to the homeless and the elderly on Christmas Day so that 'no one eats alone'.

Image Credit: Shish Restaurant/Facebook

A restaurant named Shish is offering three-course meals that include a soup, chicken or a vegetarian casserole and rice pudding in dessert. The meal would be available between 12 pm and 6 pm.

Shish restaurant urged its patrons to share the offer through social media. It was widely shared on Twitter and Facebook, and the gesture was praised all across the social media.

Muslims are often stereotyped as dangerous, although in reality, they have a big heart that offers generosity and love. This restaurant is doing exactly that. In fact, Facebook user Sally Barnes who said, "These are the kind of acts that the Muslims I know carry out with generosity. Someone tell the Daily Mail please!"

Couldnt agree more with Sally!
The start is given to the second stage of trainings lasting 1 month, which are carried out in a cooperation of Azr Turk Bank and ASAN Service for members of the "ASAN Volunteers" Organization. The purpose of implementation of this project is expansion of practical knowledge of members of "ASAN Volunteers" Organization, who got an education in the field of economy and finance; contribution to their personal and professional development.

During the trainings which are held within this project, the staff of Azr Turk Bank helps the volunteers to replenishment of their knowledge in the sphere of economy, finance, marketing, sales technology, PR and the banking sector; answers the questions interesting them. Knowledge and abilities purchased by the volunteers who took part on trainings of the project will provide them personal development and will play an incentive role in their further activities.

At the end of a training certificates will be provided to participants. Moreover, volunteers who will show successful results will have an opportunity to do an internship at Azr Turk Bank. It will play an important role in their future career. Also the periodic organization of such trainings is supposed. It is worth mentioning that Azr Turk Bank periodically realizes such projects, according to the activities in the direction of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Azer Turk Bank OJSC, which has identified financial support to the real sector of the economy as its main mission, by 75% is owned by the Government of Azerbaijan. More information about the Bank, its service network, products and services is available at www.azerturkbank.az, the Banks corporate pages at social networks or at (012) 945 Call Center.
Germanys standing opposition to immediate and generous debt relief for Greece may cause the collapse of Alexis Tsipras government and a return of the Greek crisis to the forefront, the Tuesday edition of "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" proclaimed, while also directing criticism at Berlin
Five police officers in Ukraine were mistakenly killed by their colleagues in a shootout during an operation to bust a suspected theft ring on Sunday morning in Knyazhychi village, some 15 kilometers west of Kyiv.

The tragedy took place around 4am local time as Kyiv criminal police operatives were preparing to nab a group of people suspected in a number of robberies.

When the police learned of a plan to rob a house in Knyazhychi, officers set up a trap nearby to catch the suspects.

But something went wrong and events unfolded as no one expected. Two criminal police operatives were hiding in an unfinished house, preparing to signal the rapid reaction units to start the operation when the suspects appear. But, unexpectedly, a security alarm in a neighbouring place went off, triggering the arrival of a team of protection police, a division of national police that provides security services to people and businesses.

The protection police officers who came saw and followed the fresh footprints in the snow leading to the unfinished house, thinking the burglars who triggered the alarm were hiding there. They found two men there  two criminal police operatives  and detained the duo, confusing them with criminals.

At the same time the rest of the criminal police officers waiting nearby witnessed the scene, thought the criminals uncovered and caught their colleagues and so came to their rescue. A KORD unit  Ukraines equivalent of SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics)  joined them.

A tragic shootout erupted between the protection police and members of the regular police and the KORD unit.

In the meantime, the three actual suspects, who allegedly prepared for the robbery in Knyazhychi that morning, heard the shooting and hastily left the location. They were detained in Kyiv with firearms shortly afterwards and are expected to be charged with a number of criminal offences, the police said.
Contrary to the malicious rumour been spread about Gen. T. Y Danjuma (Rtd) that he had been flown abroad in search of an urgent cure for his sickness, the Nigerian oil magnate and former Minister of Defence is actually hale and hearty.

According to TheCapital, Danjuma is not afflicted with any sickness.

Findings revealed that, he is in the country and currently planning a high octane bash in celebration of his forthcoming birthday.

Danjuma, in apparent bid to shame his detractors, will host the creme of Nigerias high society at the much-talked about Eko Atlantic City. The event is supposed to put a lie to the rumours of ill-health been spread about him.

The renowned philanthropist has an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion as of 2015, according to Forbes. Danjuma has put over $100 million of his own money into his charity, the TY Danjuma Foundation- making it one of Africas largest charities, and Danjuma, the countrys biggest philanthropist.

The retired military General was Nigerias Chief of Army Staff in the 70s and served as the Minister of Defense during former President Olusegun Obasanjos tenure between 1999 and 2003. He has always been one of Nigerias most influential people which makes every news and the flimsiest rumour about him the subject of feverish speculations.

However, the recent nasty rumour been peddled about him is unfounded and Danjuma will lay it to rest as he emerges in his full eminence and resplendent colours at his star-studded birthday before this weekend.

Culled: The Capital
What began as a dispute between an uncle and a nephew over the title of a traditional chief in the central Kasai province of the Democratic Republic of Congo has left at least 31 people dead. The dispute escalated as security officials who were sent to the province to restore order were attacked by militiamen.

13 security officials were killed while 18 militiamen were killed before law and order was restored.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

Trend:

Export missions of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs will visit Pakistan and Afghanistan in February 2017, said Azerbaijans Economy Ministry in a message posted on its website.

The mission to Pakistan will be organized on Feb. 5-8, while the mission to Afghanistan on Feb. 9-11. Both missions are related to the fields of production of fruits and vegetables, mineral water, fruit juice, sugar and confectionery products, cotton, as well as chemical and other industrial products, according to the message.

The composition of export missions will be formed on the basis of a competition, to be held on Jan. 12, 2017, at the office of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO).

Applicants will be selected on the basis of the following criteria:

Production potential of goods  10 points;

Export potential of goods  10 points;

Experience in goods export (by indicating the export volume for 2015)  5 points.

Minimum passing score is 20 points.

For additional information please call:

Phone: (+994 12) 598-01-47/48 (int. 141)

Contact person: Fuad Jafarov

E-mail: [email protected]

Azerbaijan is sending trade missions to various countries since November 2016 in order to increase its exports. In particular, missions have already been organized to China and the UAE, and it is planned to send a mission to Egypt until the end of 2016.
A member of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, serving in Ebonyi State, Mr Godshield Kanjal has commenced the planting of over 6,000 economic trees including orange, bush mango, guava, oil palm, avocado pear, cashew, among others across the state in order to tackle the effect of climate change and reduce poverty.

On how he came about the project, Kanjal, an indigene of Cross-River State, said he was putting into practice various global resolutions on climate change when the exercise took off from Achara Community School, Ugwu-Achara.

It is pertinent for stakeholders to implement such resolutions, especially at the grassroots where the climate change effects are mostly felt.

These effects include global warming threats on the environment, intense rainfall, flood, severe and frequent heat waves, among others, he said.

The corps member said that he would dedicate his one-year service period to tackling the effects of climate change on the environment.

This project is part of my personal Community Development Service (CDS), a cardinal programme of NYSC aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of environmental sustainability.

Planting of these trees in private homes, public properties and on roadsides help absorb the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and also reduce poverty in the society, he said.

Kanjal thanked individuals who sponsored the project in spite of the harsh economic conditions and pleaded for more support in executing the project in 2017.

I solicit for enhanced enlightenment of Nigerians by various tiers of government and other stakeholders on the impact of climate change and ways of mitigating them.

It baffles me to see several fertile lands uncultivated as planting of economic trees have immense economic benefits with prevailing high unemployment rate in the country.

I urge every teacher, pupil, students among others to plant at least one economic tree as arrangements have been made to broadcast enlightenment programmes on the issue in both English and Ibo languages, he said.

Speaking on the project, the Head Mistress of the school, Mrs Agnes Orji lauded Kanjal and urged other corps members and individuals in various sectors to emulate him.

The school management and teachers have indicated interest in your project and pledge to plant economic trees at their homes and farms.

The practice will enable us fight poverty and we ask the government to provide improved species of economic trees at affordable rates to the people, for planting, she said.

Also, the Commissioner for Environment, Chief Moses Ogodo-Ali commended the corps members initiative and promised to support the project.

The task of protecting the environment should not be left for the government alone as we shall always collaborate with individuals and groups in actualizing this objective, he said.

In her remark, the State Coordinator of NYSC, Mrs Gladys Mbachi who was represented by the Abakaliki Local Government Inspector of NYSC, Mr Ngwoke Nwokoro, praised Kanjal for his passion to touch lives in his host community, in spite of the prevailing economic downturn.

She urged Kanjal to sustain the project and sought for collaboration from relevant stakeholders in such regard.
We reported earlier that a fake US embassy in the Ghanian capital of Accra was recently uncovered by the US state department. The fake embassy had issued real US visas for 10 years despite being situated in the same ci where the US embassy is.

The visas were sold for as much as $6,000 but the nagging question has remained, how did they manage the illegal operation for ten years without getting caught?

The US state department has now given information which sheds light on the operation. The embassy was run by Ghanaian and Turkish crime rings and had all the trappings of a real embassy, including flags, portraits of President Barack Obama and the constant presence of white people.

An excerpt of the State departments statement said, The fake embassy did not accept walk-in visa appointments; instead, they drove to the most remote parts of West Africa to find customers. 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.

The State Department said an informant tipped off investigators about both the fake US embassy and a fake Dutch embassy at the same time but the news of the incident only broke in November.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Kpotum Idris, said two policemen, three Soldiers, one prison official, one Air Force personnel, a staff of Borno Ministry for Agriculture and two members of the Civilian JTF had been arrested for alleged abuse of Internally Displaced Persons.

Mr Idris revealed this at Inspector-General of Police Conference in Abuja on Tuesday as he added that the force would liaise with the Army and Air Force to make their men available for a thorough investigation.

Recall that the Human Rights Watch, HRW, In October published a report accusing security officials of raping and abusing young girls and women in various IDP camps.

The report brought about outrage all over the country, with President Muhammadu Buhari ordering for immediate probe into alleged abuses.

This made the IG set-up a special investigation panel to follow up on the cases. Idris said that after the investigation, any suspects found guilty of the offence would be dismissed and taken to court for prosecution.

We are going to conduct a thorough investigation and if anyone is found guilty we will dismiss him then take him to court,he said.

He said that the police had put in place some mechanisms, including the deployment of female police officers to IDPs camp to check future occurrences.
The Benue State Police Command on Tuesday confirmed the release of a Radio Benue journalist, Mrs Jill Iyuadoo Tor-Agbidye, who was kidnapped four days ago in her house in Makurdi.

The State Police Spokesperson, Moses Yamu, who spoke to reporters in Makurdi, said the journalist was released in the early hours of Tuesday as he added that no ransom was paid.

According to him, the police investigations revealed that the kidnappers might have had strong connection with the family.

He disclosed that some arrests were made in connection with the crime, stressing that investigations were ongoing to ensure full punishment of the culprits.
An employee of Dangote Industries Limited, Istifanus Bello, has been killed by suspected kidnappers.

Sources told our correspondents that Bellos corpse was found in a gutter in Ogun State, adding that one of the kidnappers alerted a member of the public to where the corpse was.

Bello was believed to have been kidnapped three weeks ago, but news of his murder got to his family members on Monday.

Sources close to the family told our correspondents that Bello was the companys Human Resources Manager before his death.

PUNCH Metro learnt that on the day that he was kidnapped, the manager had gone with a team to pay ransom for the release of some expatriates who had been kidnapped.

It was learnt that on getting there, the kidnappers collected the money and abducted him.

A close friend, who pleaded not to be named, said Bello showed him some video recordings of his negotiations with kidnappers.

Speaking to sympathisers who visited her on Monday, Bellos wife of 20 years, Amina, said the husband was the best, adding that he was a friend and father to their children.

She said, Bello was a lovely person; if he was not in the house one day, the children would be asking after him endlessly. Now I do not know what to tell the children because he was always chatting with them on the social media. When he was abducted, the children asked me to tell them where he was because all his activities on social media ceased and the children said it was unlike him.

On the 20th anniversary of our wedding, he told me that I was the best woman, adding that I was the only one who understood him. He has never for one day hurt me; he always said if I was not happy, he would not be happy.

A source in the Dangote Industries, who confirmed the kidnap, however, reacted to the news of Bellos murder with surprise.

When contacted, the firms Head of Media, Mr. Tony Chiejina, who said Bello was very close to him, also reacted with surprise to the news of his death.

He told our correspondent that he would make some calls and get back.

He had yet to do so as of press time.

Bellos lengthy profile on the professional network portal, Linkedin, described him as the Human Resources Manager of Dangote Industries Limited, a graduate from the University of Maiduguri and the Lagos State University.

He said he was a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management and had a certificate in International Negotiation from Bonn University, Australia. He added that he was a former investigator with the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency, among others.

He also described himself as a very versatile human asset who began his early career in criminal justice administration in 1990 as a law enforcement officer.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Donald Awunah, confirmed the incident, adding that three of the kidnappers had been arrested.

Awunah explained that the suspects were arrested in Ogun, Lagos and Kwara states, saying they confessed to the crime.

He said, What happened was that five expatriates of the company were kidnapped and the company went into negotiation with the kidnappers.

The victim was detailed to pay the ransom. The kidnappers, after taking the ransom, seized and killed him.

They had demanded N100m, but they were paid N5.6m. So, it is probable that they were not satisfied with the money.

Following the incident, the Inspector-General of Police ordered the Critical Investigation Unit to swing into action. The team was able to arrest the kidnappers and recover the corpse of the deceased in Ijebu Igbo, Ogun State, where they had their hideout.

The three suspects Abubakar Gide, Abdulahi Saliu and Babuga Adamu  were arrested on November 27 and December 3, 2016, at Ijebu Igbo, Ogun State; Epe, Lagos State, and Ajase Forest, Kwara State. Three AK-47 rifles were recovered from them.

Awunah urged members of the public to exercise restraint in paying ransoms to kidnappers, adding that security agencies should always be carried along during negotiation to avert loss of lives..

Source: Punch
Nigerian newspaper headlines December 6, 2016.

Punch

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has disclosed his intention to hold a private funeral on January 20 when the US President-elect, Donald Trump, will be inaugurated.

Vanguard

The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kogi council on Monday directed journalists in the state to boycott government activities to protest the unlawful arrest of one of its members, Mr Friday Ogungbemi.

Guardian

Citing delay in the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) is contemplating reassessing the polluted sites to determine the extent of their contamination.

Thisday

The meeting between the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the partys caucus in the Senate led by Senate President, Bukola Saraki has been postponed to tomorrow.

Leadership

An Iyaganku Senior Magistrates Court, Ibadan, has sentenced a 46-year-old woman, Fatimo Olalere, to 12 months imprisonment for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy.

Premium Times

The University of Jos (UNIJOS) has suspended one of its academic staff who was allegedly caught cheating while writing an examination on May 4.

The Sun

Former deputy national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George has expressed hope that God and Nigerians will give the erstwhile ruling party another opportunity to rule the country, again, in 2019.

The Nation

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday in Kano said the Federal Government will roll out a new policy that will protect and encourage local farmers and manufacturers so that their products can reach the processing stage that will enable them to be ready for exportation so as to generate more foreign exchange for the country.
A tourist from New Zealand claims she was detained in Kazakhstan for almost two days after immigration officials refused to believe the island nation was a country.

Chloe Phillips-Harris, 28, arrived in Kazakhstan in May for what was meant to be an exciting adventure exploring the mountainous country and working on farms.

But when her flight touched down at Almaty Airport, immigration officers refused to let her into the country  insisting New Zealand was actually a state of Australia.

I got to an immigration booth and they asked me for an Australian passport, and told me I couldnt come in without an Australian passport, she told the NZ Herald.

They said New Zealands clearly a part of Australia.

The self-described intrepid adventurer was barred from entering the country and ushered onto a plane flying to China, told she would need to leave immediately.

Making some phone calls to well-placed contacts she managed to make her way off the China-bound flight, but was whisked away into a tiny interrogation room.

Still unconvinced with her argument that New Zealand was a separate country from Australia, she was locked in a guarded room for the next day and a half.

Luckily, her contacts pulled through the next day to provide her with a new visa and an American passport, and after letting go of some cash she was free to leave.
Wouldn't it be great to write code that runs high-speed parallel algorithms on just about every kind of hardware out there, and without needing to be hand-tweaked to run well on GPUs versus CPUs?

That's the promise behind a new project being developed by professors and students from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Munster, with support from Google. Together they're proposing a new open source functional language, called "Lift," for writing algorithms that run in parallel across a wide variety of hardware.

Lift creates code for OpenCL, a programming system designed to target CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs alike as well as to automatically generate optimizations for each of those hardware types.

OpenCL can be optimized "by hand" to improve performance in different environments -- on a GPU versus a regular CPU, for instance. Unfortunately, those optimizations aren't portable across hardware types, and code has to be optimized for CPUs and GPUs separately. In some cases, OpenCL code optimized for GPUs won't even work at all on a CPU. Worse, the optimizations in question are tedious to implement by hand.

Lift is meant to work around all this. In language-hacker terms, Lift is what's called an "intermediate language," or IL. According to a paper that describes the language's concepts, it's intended to allow the programmer to write OpenCL code by way of high-level abstractions that map to OpenCL concepts. It's also possible for users to manually declare functions written in "a subset of the C language operating on non-array data types."

When Lift code is compiled to OpenCL, it's automatically optimized by iterating through many possible versions of the code, then testing their actual performance. This way, the results are not optimized in the abstract, as it were, for some given piece of hardware. Instead, they're based on the actual performance of that algorithm.

One stated advantage for targeting multiple hardware architectures with a given algorithm is it allows the same distributioned application to run on a wider variety of hardware, and to take advantage of heterogenous architectures. If you have a system that has a mix of CPU, GPU, and FPGA hardware or two different kinds of GPU, the same application can in theory take advantage of all of those resources simultaneously. The end result is easier to deploy, since it's not confined to any one kind of setup.
We live in a world where internet crime is rampant. Cyber criminals steal hundreds of millions of dollars each year with near impunity. For every 1 that gets caught, 10,000 go free -- maybe more. For every 1 successfully prosecuted in a court of law, 100 get off scot-free or with a warning.

Why is it so hard to prosecute cyber criminals?

Jurisdiction, jurisdiction, jurisdiction

This is the No. 1 barrier to prosecuting cyber crime. Most of the time, the person committing the crime is located outside of the country (or at least outside the legal jurisdiction of the court and prosecutors seeking the conviction). Its hard enough to successfully prosecute a cyber criminal if they originate in the same jurisdiction as the victim, but close to impossible when both reside in different locations.

Many times we successfully collect good legal evidence and even verify the identity and location of the cyber criminal, but we have no legal ability to arrest the person. We have established cross-boundary, reciprocal legal rules with many cyber allies, but many more countries dont and wont participate. China and Russia will never honor our warrants of arrest any more than we would honor theirs.

We're still learning how to prosecute

Our legal system, refined over centuries, was forged in the physical world for physical crimes. Internet crime is not even three decades old.

Localities, cities, and states have had a hard time figuring out what is or isnt illegal in the computer world for a particular location, especially if that crime involves computers or people outside of their jurisdiction. For example, if porn is illegal in a particular locality but is accessed on a computer that is located outside that locality, is it illegal? Is it prosecutable? Some local court systems say yes, but many more say no. For that reason, most smaller entities leave it up to the federal legal system to define and prosecute computer crime.

In the United States, most federal crimes are defined in what is known as Title 18. Most Title 18 crimes could be construed to cover their electronic counterparts, but do so imperfectly. Congress created a special Title 18 section called 1030 in 1986, which has been updated and amended many times since its creation and is known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The CFAA is the main U.S. federal law cyber criminals are prosecuted under, but many other laws can also apply depending on the situation, such as the Federal Wire Act and the CAN-SPAM Act. You can read a really good, but long, 213-page summary of U.S. federal computer crime law here. Of course, many localities, especially if they are large and populous, have their own laws that may apply.

It has taken decades for law enforcement agencies, legal systems, and juries to get up to speed on cyber crime. Law enforcement agencies have had to train their officers to recognize the various forms of cyber crime, how to collect and preserve related evidence, and how to hire and train specialized forensic investigators. Prosecutors, judges, and juries have to be educated as well.

Its probably just now, after 20 years of cyber crime, that we're beginning to understand how to successfully prosecute internet-related crime. That limited success shows in the continuous stream of cyber criminals arrested -- and their networks shut down -- on a regular basis, such as a takedown last week.

Most cyber crimes are not reported

The vast majority of internet crimes are never reported. I can understand why. Most people have no idea of where and how to report internet crime, and if they do, rarely does anything come of it.

To be honest, you could lose a ton of money -- say, $50,000 -- and most entities would have to spend many times that amount to try and recover it for you, if recovery was even possible. So when you call saying you lost $500 to a ransomware attack, perpetrated by a criminal that law enforcement probably cant identify or touch, youre probably not going to see resources assigned to the case beyond someone filing away your report.

Because most internet crimes are not reported, accurate statistics and evidence are hard to come by -- even though they're needed to help in a successful prosecution.

The difficulty of gathering legal evidence

Most of us think we're capable of collecting evidence that might lead to someones identification and arrest. But would that evidence stand up in court?

Bulletproof evidence of cyber crime is hard to get. For example, suppose you have an accurate log file that shows an intruder breaking into your system. You can copy that log file and give it to the police, but rarely will it withstand the assault a defense attorney is likely to throw at it.

Here are some sample questions an attorney might ask in court: How do we know the log file hasnt been tampered with? Who had the ability to access the log file? Is the time and date stamp accurate? How do we know? How do we know your computer system accurately detected the originating IP address -- cant IP addresses be faked? Was the log file originally written to write-once, read-only media? What has been the chain-of-custody of that log file since it was first created until now? What experience does the computer team have with obtaining legal evidence? And so on.

Any time you hear about cyber criminals being arrested, realize that behind the scenes, many computer professionals and law enforcement officers with cyber expertise came together to ensure the evidence collected would hold up in court. Obtaining good evidence takes skill.

At wit's end

I remember many years ago when I called to warn a woman that her identity was being used by cyber criminals. Apparently, she had been called by lots of people about this already, and was obviously thoroughly confused and disgusted by callers infringing on her privacy.

After I told her who I was and why I was calling, she yelled at me: If you call me one more time, Ill call the internet police!

Little did she know how much we all wish there was a single, unified, cyber police force we could call.
U.S. consumers could one day see cybersecurity ratings on technology products, much like todays EnergyStar ratings, if the findings of a government-sponsored cybersecurity commission are heeded. Although like much in Washington right now, a lot depends on incoming U.S. President Donald Trump and his views on cybersecurity are far from clear.

The report, published on Friday by the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, also suggests usernames and passwords are replaced with something more secure and wants 150,000 cybersecurity experts trained over the next four years to help the U.S. defend against hacking threats.

The commission has the support of President Obama and began its work in February this year, with executives at Microsoft, IBM, Uber and former U.S. government officials. However, in releasing its findings, Obama acknowledged itll be up to the next president and U.S. Congress to more fully implement what the commission has recommended.

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, Obama said in a statement.

Among the recommendations include better collaboration between the government and the private sector on protecting the countrys network infrastructure, and designing better authentication systems for users.

An ambitious but important goal for the next Administration should be to see no major breaches by 2021 in which identityespecially the use of passwordsis the primary vector of attack, the commission said in its 100-page report.

The Internet of Things is also badly in need of better security standards, according to the commission. In October, easily hacked internet-connected cameras and DVRs were used to launch a massive distributed denial-of-service attack that disrupted internet access across the U.S. The commission is advising that U.S. government agencies explore whether manufacturers should be legally liable for any harm caused by poorly secured IoT devices.

Its an outstanding report, said Keith Lowry, a former chief of staff with the U.S. Department of Defense. He generally agreed with the recommendations and called them a good starting point for the U.S. to tackle its cybersecurity issues.

The problem is that the U.S. government, especially Congress, isnt known for taking swift action, he said. Many of the recommendations in the report also hope to be achieved in either two to five years, at a time when the tech industry is rapidly changing.

In the digital world, two years is just too long, said Lowry, who is a senior vice president at security provider Nuix. New hacking methods are constantly being invented, and as a result, the U.S. government is continually playing catch-up to stop them, he said.

Its also unclear how Trump will approach cybersecurity issues. During this years presidential campaign, he didnt speak on the matter extensively, but he did call for the formation of a cyber review team to evaluate U.S. cyber defenses and provide recommendations.

On Monday, Trumps transition team didnt immediately respond for comment on the commissions report. However, the new U.S. President will probably try to set himself apart from Obama administration, said Jim Reavis, CEO of the Cloud Security Alliance, a non-profit devoted to promoting the best security practices.

There is just too much political capital to be lost by praising this report too much or following it too closely, Reavis said.

Nevertheless, the commissions report includes worthwhile recommendations, such as the need to train new cybersecurity experts, Reavis said. But he expects the private industry, and not the federal government, will be the ones taking the lead on improving the U.S.s cybersecurity.

A lot of the commissions report are just starting points, he said. But its going to be that follow-through by the private sector that can make this successful.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is ready to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Azerbaijan, a source in the countrys government told Trend.

ADB offers to support business by opening credit lines for local banks, according to the source.

"Thus, the ADB wants to provide support to banks in Azerbaijan and contribute to the development of SMEs," said the source.

At the same time, the source noted that Azerbaijans government currently doesnt hold any discussions with the ADB regarding any concrete project.

"The ADB has expressed readiness to lend to SMEs in Azerbaijan, but we have to consider how this funding will affect our external debt," the source in Azerbaijans government said. "In this context, the government has decided not to appeal to the ADB for the financing of the project for now."

Azerbaijan became the ADB member on Dec. 22, 1999.
Watson is done with school -- for now -- and is ready to try out what it has learned in the real world.

IBM has launched the Watson for Cyber Security beta program to encourage companies to include Watson in their current security environments. Starting off with such organizations as California Polytechnic State University, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and University of Rochester Medical Center, the program will grow over the next few weeks to encompass 40 companies spanning industries like banking, travel, energy, automotive, health care, insurance, and education.

For the past few months, IBM Security has been working with eight universities -- California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, Penn State, MIT, New York University, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, and Canada's universities of New Brunswick, Ottawa, and Waterloo -- to help teach Watson the "language of cybersecurity." The research project involved feeding Watson's AI brain thousands of documents annotated to help the system understand what a threat is, what it does, and what indicators are related. Watson for Cyber Security combines machine learning and natural language processing to make associations in unstructured data like blogs, research reports, and documentation that security analysts can then use to make better, faster decisions.

The problem with unstructured data is knowing when one piece of information is more valuable than another and which sources of information are more reliable. But the beauty of Watson is that "crucial nuggets of knowledge filter up," in a form security professionals can use, Nasir Memon, professor of computer science and engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, said in a recent InfoWorld video interview about cognitive computing and Watson for Cybersecurity.

Enterprises in the beta program can implement a variety of uses for Watson within their security environments, IBM said. For example, Watson can help determine whether a security event is associated with a known malware or ongoing attack campaign, or it can identify suspicious behavior. In the first case, Watson can provide contextual information, such as the name of the malware in operation, vulnerabilities being exploited, and the scope of the threat. In the latter scenario, Watson can provide additional details about the user's activity to help security teams decide whether the suspicious activity is malicious.

Watson's natural language processing capabilities help make sense of all the data it consumes. Data mining techniques will help detect outliers, and graphical presentation tools can find connections among related data points.

Many security professionals believe that cognitive technologies will soon be mature enough to improve time to detection and the speed of decision-making. They aren't waiting for the far-off future to have the tools to significantly slow down cybercriminals: 21 percent of security professionals in a recent IBM Institute for Business Value survey said they planned to work on cognitive security initiatives over the next two to three years.

"When we talk about cognitive computing, what we are mostly talking about is the marriage of traditional machine learning techniques on machine-created data, largely structured and semi-structured, with human language -- mostly natural language processing -- and bringing together a holistic view of both the structure and unstructured data world so you that you get the full picture," said Jeb Linton, the chief security architect of IBM Watson. "Only when you have both sides of it becomes what we call cognitive computing."
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 : 79.71 (+0.90%) CTH23 : 78.40 (-0.31%) CTK23 : 78.16 (-0.88%)

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 : 1447-0 (-0.48%) ZSH23 : 1454-0 (-0.51%)

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 : 837-6 (-0.98%) ZWH23 : 857-0 (-0.92%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7768 (-6.65%) KEZ22 : 933-4 (-0.72%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.9804 (-5.26%) MWZ22 : 943-4 (-0.61%)

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 : 684-6 (-0.40%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.8342 (-1.34%) ZCH23 : 690-2 (-0.36%) ZCK23 : 690-0 (-0.36%)
Fort Knox Self Storage of Melbourne, Australia, recently paid for four disable youths to attend the Melbourne City Mission (MCM) Gala Ball, an annual event that raises awareness around the unlimited potential for people with disabilities. The Oct. 19 celebration took place at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne as part of the charity organizations Fashioning Futures campaign, according to a Fort Knox blog.

The evening included a two-course dinner and a fashion show featuring Madeline Stuart, the first professional model with Down Syndrome. It also acted as the launch for the organizations new Kickstart Your Dream program, which matches disabled youths with mentors and provides grants of up to $2,000 that enable recipients to pursue employment, education or community opportunities.

Fort Knox has supported MCM for four years, acting as a primary sponsor for its Sleep at the G event, which raises money and awareness for homeless youths. This years event took place in late May.

MCM is a nonprofit that provides funds, programs and support to the citys children and adults. The organization operates more than 80 programs and services each week.

Family-owned Fort Knox Self Storage opened its first facility in 1996. It now operates nine storage properties in Melbourne.
Homeowners in Richmond, Va., are contesting a self-storage development proposed for a 2-acre landmark site in a residential area. More than 100 people signed an online petition against the project last week, according to the source. A public meeting to discuss the proposal is scheduled for Dec. 6.

Hanky LLC, which signed a contract to purchase the former Forest View Rescue Squad building, is seeking a special-use permit to change the property on Forest Hill Avenue from residential to commercial. Michael C. Hanky sent a letter to neighbors in July outlining the companys plans for the development, which includes about 700 interior, climate-controlled units. I believe this use is a great fit for the location due to its low impact on surrounding properties, Hanky wrote. The type of storage building that I am proposing incorporates area-appropriate architecture, is extremely quiet and generates very little traffic.

A second letter on Nov. 21 from Hankys attorney stated the storage building had been redesigned based on homeowners input in an effort to offer a more aesthetically pleasing view and preserve sight lines from neighboring property. The facility would incorporate four-sided architecture and high-quality building materials including brick, split-faced concrete masonry units and synthetic stucco, wrote Andrew Condlin, a partner at Roth Doner Jackson Gibbons Condlin PLC.

Krystyna Lineberry, who launched the Change.org petition and shares a property line with the site, said she and her neighbors plan to fight the zoning request. If were enjoying our deck or pool in the summer, I dont want to have to look at a commercial building next to me. I think the effect on my property value would be very detrimental, she said.

Residents are also concerned about increased traffic and the propertys lighting. If I ever put my house on the market and people walk out back and see this monstrosity of a storage unit, thats a pretty big negative, said Paul Hamlet, whose property borders the lot. Traffics a big issue. A lot of people are concerned about theft.

The facilitys design includes screening trees and a 50-foot buffer along the rear of the property to block any negative visual or noise impacts, Condlin said.

Hanky declined to address the online petition. We reached out to the community several months ago in an effort to make neighbors aware of our proposal and solicit their feedback. We have just recently become aware of these concerns and want to respond appropriately at the community meeting, Hanky wrote in an e-mail to the source.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 6

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmenistan will increase electricity export to Afghanistan in coming years, the Turkmen newspaper Vatan reported Dec. 6.

Turkmenistan has for over 20 years delivered electricity to the neighboring Afghanistan at a preferential price.

Currently, this figure [electricity export] is 100 megawatts, it will be brought to 150 megawatts in 2017 and 300 megawatts in 2018, said the report.

The report also said the Afghan side has requested to increase this figure to 500 megawatts.

Turkmenistan generated 22.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and exported 3.2 billion kilowatt hours in 2015.

At the current stage, work is underway to expand the electricity export to Iran.

Opportunities are being studied to transport electricity to Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Caucasus countries.

Turkmenistan plans to produce 27.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020 and increase this figure to 35.5 billion kilowatt hours by 2030.
Update 5/31/17  10 Federal has started to raise the $10 million fund it will use to acquire traditional self-storage facilities and convert them to fully automated properties. The company has converted three of its own assets and recently used the fund to purchase South Point Storage Inc. at 1308 S. Point Road in Belmont, N.C., according to a press release.

10 Federal will implement its automated system at the Belmont property including controlled access, electronic locks, a kiosk and a roving camera. "South Point represented an ideal acquisition for the fund, said Kris Bennett, director of acquisitions. It was a mom-and-pop operated facility, with no website, no online advertising, a large property-manager salary and rents that trailed the market."

10 Federal has spent three years developing its automated system. The fund will target similar storage properties throughout the Southeast, with a concentration in North Carolina, the release stated.

"We are excited to have the fund underway, said co-founder Cliff Minsley. Our teams have worked hard to fine tune our systems and technologies, and to see it succeed in the field has been rewarding. We look forward to now scaling the platform."

The company yesterday hosted a webinar about the fund for accredited investors.

12/6/16  Encouraged by the successful implementation of automated technology in its self-storage portfolio, diversified real estate firm 10 Federal plans to launch an acquisition fund in 2017 with the intent to buy and convert traditional self-storage facilities in the Southeast to full automation. The company operates four North Carolina facilities through its 10 Federal Storage LLC division and recently automated a traditionally staffed property in Durham. The switch was spurred by the success of its unmanned, 155-unit facility in Graham, which recently completed lease-up in five months by averaging one rental per day, according to a press release.

The Durham facility initially operated with staff for a year, producing 35 rentals during its best month. Following its move to automation, the property rented 48 units during the first month, the release stated. The unmanned properties use a combination of various technologies including access control from PTI Security Systems, automated kiosks from Advanced Kiosks, electronic locks from Janus International Group LLC, management software from StorEDGE and other proprietary systems.

10 Federal has used automation in its other real estate interests, including multi-family properties, and built the 15,600-square-foot Graham facility to be automated from the beginning. We feel it is where the industry is going, co-founder Brad Minsley told a source earlier this year. When the North Carolina DMV manages to start using kiosks and making their process unmanned, you pretty much know self-storage should be there, too.

Based in Raleigh, N.C., 10 Federal acquires, develops and manages multi-family and self-storage properties in North Carolina. It has two storage facilities in Durham and one each in Graham and Hillsborough. Integrating technology into its operation is a core tenet of the business, according to the company website.
The William Warren Group (WWG), a privately held real estate company that operates the StorQuest Self Storage brand, is building a $14 million facility at the edge of the River North Art District (RiNo) in Globeville, Colo. The company purchased an acre of land near Interstate 70 and Washington Street last month for $1.43 million. Construction is expected to begin in early 2017 and take about 12 months, according to the source.

The location offers access to the highway as well as downtown Denver, according to Jon Suddarth, development manager for WWG. The visibility to the freeway is huge. Its a major ingress and egress point to downtown and the RiNo area, especially with all the new apartments that are being built on Brighton Boulevard, he said.

The property will comprise 80,000 square feet of storage space in 900 units. Customers will enter the facility off Pearl Street and drive into the building to access units. The retail office will feature a variety of tenant amenities including the use of iPads for new rentals. Were putting in some incredible amenities and a really cool leasing office, Suddarth said.

WWG has aggressively pursued the Denver market for the last couple of years. It opened a facility this summer in the Denver Technological Center and expects to open another at 549 Kalamath St. this week. A third property on Colfax Avenue is under construction and slated to open next summer. Each property comprises 70,000 to 80,000 square feet of storage space.

The company targeted Colorado to meet pent-up demand, Suddarth told the source. There were over 70 projects in metro Denver planned, rumored on under construction as of last summer, he said. Of course not all of those will be built, but 70 projects in a market that can take only about 10 or 15 in year was a concern.

Founded in 1994 and based in Santa Monica, Calif., WWG acquires, develops and operates more than 100 self-storage facilities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, South Carolina and Texas.
Top-ranked CICC and other firms must keep pace with clients growing appetite for detailed intelligence on the Chinese stock markets.

Life keeps getting more complicated for equity sales teams covering China. More than ever, global fund managers want thematic research focusing on Chinese megatrends that require several teams of analysts to cross-reference data over multiple industries and sectors. Demand for such expertise has risen dramatically in the past year, says Huang Haizhou, head of the equity department at China International Capital Corp. (CICC), as have requests for so-called channel checks, whereby analysts seek third-party data to confirm the accuracy of numbers given by a listed company.

Clients are becoming more and more sophisticated, says Huang, who heads CICCs equity sales. With more interest in and focus on both the A-share and H-share markets, clients are expecting more detail-oriented and high-quality research.

Delivering comprehensive research that clients will pay for to help develop winning strategies played a key role in CICC again taking the No. 1 position on the All-China Sales Team. Institutional Investor compiled this exclusive annual ranking by polling 880 buy-side analysts and money managers at more than 410 fund houses that collectively manage an estimated $590 billion in Chinese stocks. To select the top sales teams, we asked respondents to name up to four firms that they think provide the best sales support, weighting votes by respondents Chinese equities under management and by the place awarded (first, second, third, or fourth).

Finishing second is UBS, which jumps from No. 4 last year. Returning to No. 3 is Morgan Stanley, followed by Credit Suisse, up two notches. Bank of America Merrill Lynch drops three places to fifth.

The past 12 months have been especially challenging for equity research houses devoted to China, which saw the launch of ShanghaiHong Kong Stock Connect, a program that gives investors in the two cities mutual market access. The program has also allowed global fund houses investing in Hong Kong to invest in Chinese A shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange for the first time, bypassing quotas that limited foreign investors participation in mainland equity markets. By the end of the year, regulators will kick off a similar program that links the Hong Kong and Shenzhen exchanges, boosting foreign fund participation in the trading of mainland stocks to unprecedented levels.

CICC has published a series of reports in the past two years to help global fund houses craft strategies for investing in Chinas A-share market, says Huang, adding that his research team is preparing to launch another batch looking at A shares listed in Shenzhen in the months ahead.

The key to selling research is seamless cooperation between sales and research, says Ronald Cheung, head of Hong Kong and China equity sales at Credit Suisse, who also notes that speed of delivery has become critically important. We work closely with the research team to ensure that we can provide clients with timely and bespoke research content, Cheung explains. The equities markets, not just for Hong Kong and China but globally as well, have been through a volatile year, with a lot of events or regulatory issues that drive extreme market movements.

The biggest difference this year is that speed to market has become paramount, Cheung observes: There is little reason to publish unless you are the first couple comments that reach your clients in-box.

Besides working hard to come up with actionable investment ideas in every report, Credit Suisse helps clients to decipher regulatory changes and policy directions within a few hours of their announcement. Thats why it is important to provide clients with quick and immediate commentary on any key policy changes in China and allow them to speak to the relevant analysts or event industry experts to have a better understanding about these policies or rule changes, Cheung says.

In addition to new methodologies and rapid analysis, global fund managers still demand strong fundamental bottom-up research, says Joseph Lee, head of Asia ex-Japan equity sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The classic equity research method, which requires analysts to closely monitor companies and the industries in which they compete through regular on-site visits and field interviews with rivals, shows no sign of going out of style.

Also, fund managers want cross-asset-class research as well as global context at both the macro and sectoral levels, Lee says. With that in mind, his sales team frequently confers with its analyst colleagues, and both groups stay in touch with BofA Merrills fund manager clients. Coordination is really about a constant dialogue with clients as a team, with both sales and research working together to understand clients needs.

Vincent Chui, head of Asia institutional equity distribution and private wealth management at Morgan Stanley, says hes as optimistic as ever about market demand for China research. Liberalization of Chinas capital market is a secular trend with significant implications for global investors, Chui explains. He sees the yuans inclusion in the International Monetary Funds Special Drawing Rights currency basket and the connection of the Hong Kong exchange with its Shanghai and Shenzhen counterparts as catalysts for A shares admission to major global equity benchmarks.

Global firms need to accelerate their China research coverage effort of A shares to help global investors who are also in the ramp-up stage of their learning process, Chui contends. This implies significant uptake of investment in onshore research and corporate access products.

To view the All-China Sales Team, click on the Leaders link in the navigation table on the right.

For details on how we compiled this ranking, click on Methodology.
Suncorp says it has redesigned the retail journey of financial services in Australia with the opening of its first Concept Store in Parramatta.The company said the store was the first step in delivering Suncorps marketplace in the way it brought together many products and services from across the companys brands, such as Suncorp, AAMI, GIO and Apia.It also included solutions from other providers such as Jims Building Inspections, Lawlab, Hipages and JB Hi-Fi, in what they described as a unique retail environment.Suncorp CEO and managing director Michael Cameron said Suncorp had created an interactive, experience-led store design that took customers on a new retail journey.Customers want an experience that is easy and personal, he said.By connecting customers with more of our brands and introducing them to new solutions, we can support them throughout the various stages of their lives.Cameron said the offerings meant they could deliver in-store experiences tailored to meet customers specific needs.The Concept Store was featuring the theme of Our Home is Your Home throughout December to help guide customers through the process of buying a home.For example, were working collaboratively with leading businesses to deliver a unique platform which provides customers with a step-by-step guide to buying a house, said Suncorp EGM of stores, Lynne Sutherland.From inspecting properties, legal solutions and landscaping recommendations to discounted white goods and electronic installations within the home. We will continue to build on this and change the themes based on our customers needs each month.Sutherland said the store was also a test and learn environment for the new Suncorp marketplace.We will trial new concepts with customers and make changes based on their feedback, with the aim to deliver new solutions across our national store network, she explained.The store would also include interactive displays, recharging stations, refreshments, breakout spaces for quiet conversations, and live, in-store events.Sutherland said: Were creating a unique experience that helps educate, inspire and delight our customers, with the express goal of helping them in an area that can be confusing, complex and intimidating.The Concept Store will also host free weekly lifestyle workshops and seminars to help customers feel more confident about their financial decisions.A new Suncorp logo has been launched to tie-in with the store opening, which is its first overhaul since 1996.The company said it featured the sun at its core and represented the companys purpose to create a better today for customers, shareholders, communities and people.
Several leading insurance bosses, including Lloyds of London CEO Inga Beale , recently hosted an international webinar to boost industry recruitment.The webinar, on December 2, was designed to encourage young insurance professionals already working in the industry to lend their support to the Insurance Careers Movement. It attracted over 1,000 participants worldwide.Launched in February, the Insurance Careers Movement is a cross-industry initiative that aims to raise awareness of career opportunities in the risk management and insurance profession, as well as support efforts to recruit the next generation of industry leaders.Insurance Careers Movement was developed in response to data which indicates a looming talent crisis in the US insurance industry, where 400,000 positions will become vacant in four years according to a Hamilton Insurance Group press release. The initiative was also created as the insurance sector in general was suffering from a lack of diversity and little interest among high school and university students as a potential career.Looking to inspire insurance professionals, Lloyds CEO Inga Beale noted that social purpose had kept her in the industry for nearly 35 years.This continues to drive me today, Beale said. I have found it to be an incredibly rewarding career and I have seen first-hand the huge impact it has on business, communities and economies when the worst happens.For his part, XL Catlin CEO Mike McGavick stressed his companys commitment to diversity.The notion is pretty simple, McGavick said. The more minds, representing the greatest possible set of viewpoints, the more likely the chance for the next great innovation, and the better we will all serve our clients and partners.Meanwhile, Argo Group president and CEO Mark Watson III reminded webinar participants that theres something for everyone in the insurance industry.Whether youre interested in being a data scientist, an IT developer, a lawyer, or youre really good at sales and marketing, basically weve got cool opportunities for you, Watson said.There are hundreds and thousands of job opportunities, and you couldnt pick a better time right now. If youre kind of person thats really thoughtful, creative, innovative, likes to different things every day, and is up for a challenge, you couldnt pick a better place to be than the insurance business around the world right now.
An industry leader has issued an assurance that the soft market will turn with very steep increases on the horizon. John Donnelly , Asia Pacific head of placement for Marsh , said that while the market continues to be a challenge, a change will come.The continuing soft market is challenging brokers and carriers, Donnelly told Insurance Business.Brokers margins have been under stress in recent years with strong competition among the major brokers on fees, and commission earnings down due to the lower premiums.In Donnellys view, history will repeat itself and the market will turn, prices will go up and in some sectors the increases will be very steep and capacity will become scarce.It is not imminent but when it does happen it will be a great opportunity for the broking community to find value for clients. In my experience we are much more valued by our clients when their premiums are going up and finding capacity in the global market is a real challenge.Donnelly called technology the greatest challenge facing the insurance industry as uncertainty remains around how the industry will be impacted.With insurtech top of many minds in the industry, Donnelly was quick to note that tech giants such as Amazon and Google could still be keen to enter the insurance space and the impact on the customer market for brokers and underwriters could be profound.While there may be some green shoots on the horizon for the market, the amount of capital remaining in the industry remains a worry for many.Donnelly noted that the industry still provides superior return on capital compared with other investment opportunities.The industry has endured for more than three centuries and it will continue to flourish long into the future, Donnelly continued.The major brokers have a great track record of getting capital to commit to the areas of the market that are inadequately serviced. I suspect in the future that the response of capital providers will be more reactionary and, through technology advances, brokers will get the capital to the opportunities more quickly.
North American reinsurers may soon see some rate stabilization after a prolonged period of declining premium rates, as they deal with a supply-demand imbalance that has weighed on returns, according to executives at the 2016 Bermuda Reinsurance Conference co-hosted by S&P Global Ratings and PwC Bermuda.

We are pleased with the stabilizing rate environment, said Kean Driscoll, chief executive officer of Validus Reinsurance Ltd.

Joseph Brandon, executive vice president of Alleghany Corp., agreed with Driscoll: On the primary side, the rate declines in property are much steeper than in reinsurance. The pace is slowing. Casualty lines have seen minor rate increases.

Kevin ODonnell, president and CEO at RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., believes actual results have been better than expected for the industry: Overall, catastrophe losses have been low and weve seen diminishing rate reductions.

I think the death of the reinsurance market has been greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain would say, Brandon said. He added that the reinsurance market has survived more adverse periods  particularly in the late-1990s and early 2000s.

Nevertheless, the softer for longer reinsurance pricing environment is proving to be deeper and longer than many market participants anticipated a few years ago. This, Brandon said, will continue to hurt reinsurers returns.

Anybody who says they can make 15 percent through the cycle is playing a big game of pretend; its simply not true, he said. Serious companies have assumed that the current environment is going to persist for a while and have adjusted their views.

Although returns have been lower than in the past, theyre still attractive compared with many other industries, said ODonnell. Moreover, reinsurers have largely avoided falling into the trap of overextending their risk exposures to chase returns, he said.

Looking at 2017, I think its going to be a tough year, but I think the reinsurance market is poised for success, he said.

He said that while companies fight for market share, its important for the industry as a whole to expand the market through nascent lines of business such as cyber-risk protection.

I dont think we as an industry speak with as common a voice as we need to, ODonnell said.

Topics Reinsurance Market
North Dakota ranks 47th in the country in being equipped to fight fires and its not helping that fewer people are signing up to be volunteer firefighters.

Most fire departments in North Dakota are made up of volunteers. Fire departments in the state are made up of 96 percent volunteers, WDAY-TV reported.

But now the number of volunteers is waning.

Mayville fire chief Lee Brenna said he was on a wait list to join the fire department in 1988. Mayville had 50 firefighters at the time. Today, there are only 28 firefighters in the department.

Theres always that fear, you get here first, you get the truck running and youre hoping there will be enough guys to come, said Brenna.

As volunteers decline, departments have assisted other towns in emergencies. However, that leaves the town thats providing assistance more vulnerable.

Due to the decline becoming more severe the Federal Emergency Management Agency has given North Dakota $2.1 million to benefit the state for the next four years.

Officials have said the funding will be put toward an ad campaign aimed at recruitment and retention of firefighters, and will also be used to enhance firefighter education.

Lavon Nelson, who lost his home to a fire in June, said he believes its important to have enough manpower to fight fires.

Mayville Fire Department was assisted by the Portland Fire Department, by Hatton and by Hillsboro, said Nelson. They all came and brought 15,000 pounds of water and did what they could.

With lack of staff in fire departments and longer response times, home insurance costs also increase.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Fire investigators on Sunday were trying to determine what caused a massive blaze that ripped through a Boston-area neighborhood, displacing an estimated 60 to 80 people but miraculously resulting in no serious injuries or deaths.

While the 10-alarm fire Saturday afternoon in Cambridge destroyed or damaged 15 structures and several first responders suffered minor injuries, Cambridge Assistant Fire Chief Gerard Mahoney said its nothing short of a miracle no one was killed.

If this fire was in the middle of the night, theres no doubt in my mind we would have had fatalities and serious injuries, he said. The fire department received the first emergency calls shortly before 3 p.m. About 25 nearby communities provided aid.

Mahoney said fire crews spent Sunday morning hosing down hot spots and later assessing the structural integrity of the damaged buildings. He said some buildings are beyond repair while others had only broken windows. Mahoney said about 10 vehicles also were damaged or destroyed.

Some of these buildings are going to have to come down. Theres no doubt about it, he said from the densely populated neighborhood, as the sound of heavy equipment moving debris could be heard in the background. Its going to be a very lengthy process, a very lengthy process.

Mahoney said it was the largest fire hed seen in Cambridge during his 33 years with the department.

Both state and local fire investigators were on the scene trying to determine a cause for the fire, which jumped from one building to another and that witnesses said looked like a fireball.

Were just scratching the surface, Mahoney said, when asked about a potential cause.

Alpert Neal, chief of staff to Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons, said in an email that the Red Cross and local officials were meeting affected families to assess their short- and long-term needs. Simmons has set up the Mayors Fire Relief Fund online to collect money donations for the residents. Checks can also be sent to the mayors office.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Massachusetts
An Iowa nursing home has been fined $11,513 after an investigation into the death of a resident in August.

The Mason City Globe Gazette reports federal regulators imposed the fine after a state investigation determined that the Riceville Family Care and Therapy Center hadnt ensured its workers were properly trained on the use of portable oxygen tanks.

The person who died at the nursing home was supposed to be getting continuous oxygen therapy. An autopsy determined that the person may not have been receiving the needed oxygen.

The federal fine takes the place of a state penalty of $8,000. David Werning with the state agency says the nursing home did not contest the investigations findings.

By October, investigators said the nursing home was in compliance.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Iowa
Details added (first version posted on 13:32)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The Azerbaijani government has increased the parameters of the countrys state budget for 2017, Samir Sharifov, Azerbaijani finance minister, said.

Sharifov made the remarks at a plenary session of the Azerbaijani parliament in Baku on December 6 in discussions of the 2017 budget package.

He added that the budget revenues are projected at 16,255 million manats, and expenditures at 16,900 million manats.

Revenues of the 2017 consolidated budget are projected at 20,020 million manats, and expenditures at 21,267 million manats, the minister added.

Earlier, the budget revenues for 2017 were projected at 15,955 million manats, and expenditures at 16.6 billion manats, while the consolidated budget revenues were projected at 19,720.7 million manats, and expenditures at 20,967.2 million manats.

(1.7339 manats = $1)
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, Apples director of product integrity, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the companys 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 makers 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 NHTSAs 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.

Apples letter was prompted by its heavy investment in machine learning and autonomous systems, company spokesman Tom Neumayr said in an emailed statement.

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 , 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 administrations guidance on self-driving vehicles.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Richard Chang)

Topics Auto Legislation
The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed a victory to two whistleblower sisters by upholding a jury verdict that found State Farm defrauded the U.S. government when the insurance company assessed damage caused by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf of Mexico coast in 2005.

The court ruled 8-0 to reject State Farms challenge to a 2015 lower court decision upholding the verdict in a 2006 lawsuit brought by sisters Cori and Kerri Rigsby under the False Claims Act, which lets people sue on behalf of the government over allegations it has been defrauded.

The suit accused the Bloomington, Illinois-based company of improperly seeking to foist the costs of covering Katrina-related damage to a Biloxi, Mississippi home onto the government rather than covering the costs itself.

State Farm argued that the claims brought by the sisters, former claims adjusters who worked for the company after the hurricane, should be voided because their lawyer violated a court order requiring that details of the case to be kept under seal.

The womens former lawyer, Dickie Scruggs, had distributed information about the lawsuit to members of the news media. False Claims Act lawsuits are required to be filed under seal and remain private for 60 days. In 2008, Scruggs was convicted of conspiring to bribe a judge in a different case. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

But the Supreme Court concluded that Scruggs disclosures to the media did not merit throwing out the 2013 jury verdict. None of the media organizations disclosed the lawsuits existence to the public.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said the seal requirement is intended to benefit the government because it prevents those suspected of defrauding it from being alerted about a potential case alleging that fraud took place.

As a result, it would make little sense to adopt a rigid interpretation of the seal provision that prejudices the government by depriving it of needed assistance from private parties, Kennedy wrote.

The Obama administration had backed the sisters in the case.

The jury found that the federal government had been defrauded of $250,000, and State Farm was ordered to pay $758,000 in damages. The sisters were awarded $227,000 for disclosing the fraud under the False Claims Act and almost $3 million in attorneys fees and expenses.

The Rigsbys said the damage was caused by wind, which would be covered by the owners insurance policy with State Farm. But State Farm concluded the damage was flood-related, which instead was covered by the federal governments flood insurance program.

In 2015, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury verdict.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Topics Claims Fraud
The Florida Supreme Court has ruled in favor of policyholders seeking coverage on claims where there is the possibility of multiple concurrent losses but at least one of the losses is covered under their policy.

Though the decision can have some far-reaching effects for the industry, attorneys that specialize in insurance law say the decision wasnt a surprise.

The 6-1 ruling, issued Dec. 1, came in the case of American Home Assurance Co. v. Sebo, 141 So. 3d 195 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013) where the homeowner, John Robert Sebo, was seeking review of the decision from the Second District Court of Appeals that found in favor of the insurer. The original case stems from a 2007 lawsuit by Sebo against his insurer, American Home Assurance Co., Inc., for denying coverage on his $8 million all risks homeowners policy.

Sebo said in the original suit that shortly after he purchased the home it began to incur major water leaks during rain storms and it was later discovered the home suffered from major design and construction defects. When Hurricane Wilma hit Florida in Oct. 2005, the home was further damaged and Sebo notified AHAC at the end of December of that year of the water intrusion and other damages. AHAC subsequently investigated and in April 2006 it denied coverage for most of the claimed losses saying the balance of the damages to the house, including any window, door, and other repairs is not covered. Sebo was paid $50,000 by AHAC for mold damage.

Sebo continued pursuing the claim, which AHAC refused to pay, and after the home was determined to be beyond repair it was demolished. Sebo filed suit in Jan. 2007 against a number of defendants and amended the complaint in 2009 to include AHAC. He sought a declaration that the policy provided coverage for his damages and the case went to trial, for which the jury found in favor of Sebo.

AHAC appealed the case to the Second District, which sided with AHAC because it disagreed with the trial courts application of the case of Wallach v. Rosenberg, 527 So. 2d 1386 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), that applies the concurrent causation doctrine in a case involving multiple perils and a first-party insurance policy.

The Appeals Court reversed and remanded for a new trial saying the causation of Sebos loss must be examined under the efficient proximate cause theory (EPC). This theory finds that where there is a concurrence of different perils, the efficient cause  the one that set the other in motion  is the cause to which the loss should be attributed.

The Florida Supreme Court disagreed with the application of this theory to this case, and wrote in its opinion, We conclude that when independent perils converge and no single cause can be considered the sole or proximate cause, it is appropriate to apply the concurring cause doctrine (CCD). Accordingly, we quash the decision

The Florida Supreme Court reasoned that the Second District Court erred in its application of the EPC, cited from a case by the Florida Supreme Court (Fire Assn of Phila. v. Evansville Brewing Assn, 75 So. 196 (Fla. 1917) where the court looked at a chain of events where one peril directly led to a subsequent peril.

In finding that coverage existed under the policy, we drew the distinction between a covered peril setting into motion an uncovered peril and an uncovered peril setting into motion a covered peril. Coverage exists for the former but not the latter, the court wrote.

Instead, the court said the CCD provides that coverage may exist where an insured risk constitutes a concurrent cause of the loss even when it is not the prime or efficient cause, as was the situation with the Wallach case and a California case of State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Partridge, 514 P.2d 123, 133 (Cal. 1973), which the court referenced in reaching its decision.

In that case, the California Supreme Court noted that exclusionary clauses are more strictly construed than coverage clauses, and reasoned that an insured risk combined with an excluded risk to produce the ultimate injury. The California Supreme Court determined that coverage under a liability insurance policy is equally available to an insured whenever an insured risk constitutes simply a concurrent proximate cause of the injuries.

The Florida Supreme Court said a California court found that a covered peril that convenes with an uncovered peril may still provide for coverage under a policy when the covered peril triggered the events that eventually led to the loss.

Florida has used that reasoning in its own courts since the 1988 Wallach case.

The Florida Supreme Court said it is undisputed that Sebos all-risk policy included exclusions against faulty, inadequate or defective planning, including for design, materials, and maintenance, as well as the fact that that the rainwater and hurricane winds combined with the defective construction to cause the damage to Sebos property.

However, the court said there is no reasonable way to distinguish the proximate cause of Sebos property lossthe rain and construction defects acted in concert to create the destruction of Sebos home. As such, it would not be feasible to apply the EPC doctrine because no efficient cause can be determined.

The court said that as stated in Wallach, [w]here weather perils combine with human negligence to cause a loss, it seems logical and reasonable to find the loss covered by an all-risk policy even if one of the causes is excluded from coverage.

The court disagreed with the Second Districts finding that the CCD nullifies all exclusionary language and note that AHAC explicitly wrote other sections of Sebos policy to avoid applying the CCD.

Because AHAC did not explicitly avoid applying the CCD, we find that the plain language of the policy does not preclude recovery in this case, the opinion said.

Attorneys familiar with the case say the decision is not a surprise because the court simply followed past precedents that had been applied in these types of cases.

The decision does, however, create some additional headaches for the insurance industry, including the possibility of the reopening of many claims where coverage was denied.

This decision will affect claims already in litigation or claims heading toward litigation, said Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Michael Packer, a shareholder with law firm Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin. There will also be massive requests for reopening of claims. We expect tremendous amounts of attempts to amend complaints.

Packer said while these types of claims are not very common, he suspects that every claim where coverage was denied for an exclusion will now become significant. The number of homeowners claims could also increase in the event of a large windstorm or hurricane.

The industry will have to be careful, Packer said. If there is a significant windstorm in the future they could see a lot of claimsit could be a significant issue for insurance companies.

Kyle Brinkman, an attorney with Washington D.C. firm Blank Rome, which represents policyholders, said the decision means the insurance industry will have to take a closer look at whether they should continue to use concurrent causation language in homeowners policies. That will be tough to exclude all together, however, based on what rest of the market allows.

There is a lesson to the insurance industry here  if an insurance company wants a more restrictive rule they will have to put it in the contract and see if the policyholder will still buy coverage, Brinkman said.

The other lesson, he said, is that when insurers have not selected more restrictive language on causation where there are multiple causes and one is covered, they will have to pay the claim.

Topics Carriers California Florida Legislation Claims Profit Loss Market Homeowners
Tougher penalties for boat operators impaired by alcohol or drugs who unintentionally kill or injure someone are among all or parts of a dozen new laws now in effect in North Carolina.

Provisions enacted during this years General Assembly and enforceable starting Thursday include the boating law, which was named in memory of a Concord teenager killed on Lake Norman in 2015.

Other actions by the legislature create a new criminal offense designed to address when parents transfer their childs custody to someone else without legal justification like a formal adoption. Its also now a misdemeanor to run small-time beach bingo operations without a license.

Gov. Pat McCrory highlighted Thursday in a news release a new farm law he says will help the state better respond to agricultural emergencies.

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Topics North Carolina
Six months after a train hauling Bakken crude oil derailed along the Columbia River Gorge, Washington, Oregon and other officials are still tabulating a bill to send to Union Pacific Railroad.

Union Pacific said in a statement that it is committed to absorbing all the costs incurred as a result of the fiery crash on June 3 in Mosier, Ore.

The railroad is not required to disclose costs associated with its cleanup efforts or how much its insurance policy will cover, The Columbian newspaper reported. But an email obtained by the newspaper shows the railroad has estimated its costs associated with the derailment at about $8.9 million.

The railroad reported $1.7 million in equipment damage and $176,811 in track damage to the Federal Railroad Administration, with the remaining millions for response and remediation costs.

Meanwhile, an intergovernmental group made up of officials with Mosier city, the fire district and a school foundation is currently in negotiations with the railroad over compensation and other issues.

William Gary, a Portland-based attorney working with that Mosier group, declined to say what kind of compensation the government agencies are seeking. We are in a confidential mediation at the moment, Gary said. Were working with the railroad to resolve a host of fairly complicated issues.

Three Oregon agencies that responded to the newspapers request for information, including the Department of Environmental Quality, say theyre seeking a total of nearly $400,000 in reimbursement costs. Those numbers could increase.

The Environmental Protection Agencys bill is at $340,000, the newspaper reported.

And two Washington agencies that responded to the derailment are billing the railroad $66,000 next month, a Department of Ecology spokeswoman said.

Sixteen tanker cars that went off the tracks in June held 448,000 gallons of oil, but only 47,000 gallons leaked. Much of that went into a wastewater treatment unit, avoiding a more difficult river cleanup.

There remain unanswered questions, however, such as the degree to which the river was effected and what long-term effects there could be on the groundwater and soil.

Following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska waters in 1989, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act in 1990. That law requires polluters pay for cleanup, remediation and response costs; they must have insurance and the funds to cover the cleanup.

To address the growing risks of oil movement through the state, the Washington Legislature in 2015 passed a law that will soon require railroads hauling crude oil to demonstrate the ability to pay damages in the event of a spill.

They will also be required to share information about the type of oil and the volume with the state and first responders. California and Minnesota have similar laws for railroads hauling crude, according to Washingtons Department of Ecology. But Oregon does not have such a law.

Related:

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Topics Trends Energy Washington Oil Gas Pollution Oregon
A federal appeals court has resurrected an excessive-force lawsuit by a woman who was shot by a University of Arizona police officer six year ago as she held a knife in her hand outside her home.

Amy Hughes had lost her lawsuit in late 2013 when a lower-court judge made a pretrial ruling that concluded Cpl. Andrew Kiselas actions were reasonable and that he was entitled to immunity.

But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision this week, concluding that a rational jury that believes Hughes version of events could find that she had a constitutional right to walk down her driveway holding a knife without being shot.

The appeals court said factual questions such as the severity of the threat posed by Hughes and the adequacy of warnings made by officers were in dispute.

Officers went to Hughes house in May 2010 after getting a report that someone was acting erratically and hacking at a tree with a knife. They arrived to find Hughes in her driveway holding a large kitchen knife.

Hughes didnt comply with commands from officers to drop the knife and continued to move toward her roommate. Kisela recalled that Hughes raised the knife as if to attack, though two other officers said they didnt see her make such a move.

Kisela shot Hughes four times through a chain-link fence that prevented officers from getting closer. Hughes survived the shooting.

Her roommate described Hughes demeanor as composed and non-threatening. She said she believed Hughes didnt understand what was happening when officers yelled at her to drop the knife.

Whether the police should have perceived this is a question for the jury, the appeals court wrote.

Vince Rabago, Hughes attorney, said the officers werent called to his clients home to investigate an actual crime but rather were responding to a request to check on her well-being.

You cant just show up and make assumptions that there is wrongdoing when you are there on a check-welfare call, Rabago said. He said Hughes still suffers physical pain and emotional trauma from being shot in the groin, hip, arm and leg.

The Arizona Attorney Generals Office, which is defending Kisela in the lawsuit, declined to comment on Mondays ruling.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Education Universities Arizona
Pinnacle Actuarial Resources Inc. has named Linda K. Brobeck a senior consulting actuary in the firms San Francisco, Calif. office.

Brobeck has been in the property/casualty insurance industry since 1986 and has been providing actuarial consulting services since 2011. Her consulting career has focused on ratemaking and predictive modeling for several lines of insurance, including personal and commercial automobile, homeowners and professional liability. Prior to consulting, she worked for Allstate and Kemper National Insurance Co.

Brobecks core services include ratemaking, predictive modeling, and regulatory support for personal and commercial lines with a focus on California.

Bloomington, Ill.-based Pinnacle also has offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Indianapolis and San Francisco.

Topics California
The last remaining obstacle to Microsofts acquisition of LinkedIn fell Tuesday, when the European Commission approved the sweeping $26 billion deal. The transaction is now set to close before months end.

The ECs consent was contingent on Microsoft agreeing to provide rival social networking sites access to its Office programs for the next five years. The acquisition had already been approved by regulators in the U.S., China and Brazil.

Weve now obtained all the regulatory approvals needed to complete the acquisition and the deal will close in the coming days, Microsofts Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a blog post following word of the ECs decision.

Microsofts CEO, Satya Nadella, has described the acquisition as the key to the software giants future efforts in the business applications market. At their heart lies an ambitious undertaking to give business professionals a vast new set of tools and data with which to collaborate and solve common business problems.

Offering Concessions

To win EC approval, Microsoft agreed to continue to allow rival social networks to access the Office suites application programming interfaces. These APIs allow different applications to communicate with one another and will give LinkedIns competitors the same level of access to the Microsoft Office suite that they have today.

In addition, Microsoft will give rival social networks access to its Office Graph, the search and machine learning technology that will underpin most of the combined companys new initiatives. Such access would, for example, allow professional profiles from competitors sites to be displayed in a Microsoft Outlook calendar entry.

Microsoft also agreed that it would not require computer makers to install LinkedIn on Windows PCs. The companys concessions only apply to markets that are part of European Union. While the software maker may follow suit in other regions, under the agreement it is not bound to do so.
(Bloomberg) -- Aetna Inc.s proposal to salvage its $37 billion takeover of Humana Inc. by selling assets to a smaller company isnt convincing the Justice Department, which told a federal judge that the remedy poses risks for seniors who depend on Medicare.

The insurer that Aetna wants to sell assets to, Molina Healthcare Inc., is unlikely to replace the competition that would be lost from the merger, Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath said Monday as a U.S. antitrust trial seeking to block Aetnas acquisition of Humana kicked off in Washington.

"Molina would be no Aetna or Humana," Conrath told U.S. District Judge John D. Bates. "Its the consumers -- seniors -- who face the risk."

The Justice Department sued Humana and Aetna in July, the same day it filed a complaint seeking to halt Anthem Inc.s $48 billion acquisition of Cigna Corp. The antitrust lawsuits are aimed at preventing concentration among the biggest U.S. health insurers and protect competition in an industry that President Barack Obama reshaped with the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Aetna shares fell three percent to $129.45 while Humana dropped 2.3 percent to $208.83.

Market Share

The government argues the Aetna-Humana deal would eliminate competition between the insurers in 364 counties in 21 states and likely force seniors to pay higher premiums for Medicare Advantage, the government-subsidized insurance program for the elderly.

The Justice Department says any attempt to restore competition by Molinas entry fails because Molina wasnt successful in its previous foray into the Medicare market. It once offered Medicare Advantage plans in 63 counties and now offers plans that enroll only 424 people, the government said.

Aetna counters that the Medicare market is much larger than the Justice Department claims because it includes both Medicare Advantage plans and original Medicare, providing more choice for seniors than the government portrays. The U.S. view also ignores the power of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the program, to regulate the market, Aetna says.

The government argues that Medicare Advantage is a distinct market partly because seniors rarely switch, giving the combined company more power over that market because the deal would eliminate one of their options. About 78% of Medicare Advantage enrollees remain with that program from year to year, according to 2013-14 data, said Richard Frank, a Harvard University health-care economics professor, and the governments first witness. Frank, a former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official, testified that just 11% will voluntarily change carriers, five percent due so involuntarily and three percent die. Just two percent are likely to transfer to traditional Medicare, he said.

Even if the markets were separate, Aetna says the asset sale to Molina, with revenue of $14 billion in 2015, would establish a robust competitor against a combined Aetna and Humana.

"This isnt some feeble little company," Aetna lawyer John Majoras said.

The other market at issue in the lawsuit is the public exchanges established by Obamacare where individuals buy insurance. Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna in August announced it would stop selling Obamacare coverage in 11 of the 15 states in which it participated in the program, including all 17 of the Florida, Georgia and Missouri counties where the U.S. has claimed its merger with Humana would decrease competition.

QuickTake: Obamacare threatened with repeal

The U.S. argues that Aetnas withdrawal was aimed at undermining the governments case and said that nothing prevents Aetna from re-entering those markets after sitting out a year.

"The court shouldnt look at the closed sign, but at the store behind it," Conrath said.

While the ACA was meant to make health insurance more accessible and more affordable to tens of millions of people who lacked coverage, the law has been beset by legal and political opposition. Enrollment has fallen short of estimates and financial losses have prompted some companies to withdraw from the market.

Majoras, Aetnas lawyer, said the decision to leave the exchanges was driven entirely by financial reasons. The insurers losses "were huge," he said. With Aetna out of the exchanges, they shouldnt be part of the governments case, he said.

"There is no competition," Majoras said. "Theres nothing to fix here."
(Bloomberg) -- It was a calamitous job interview two years ago that prompted Jose Contreras to demand his money back from the coding school he attended. His interviewer, the chief technology officer of a startup, watched as Contreras struggled with basics on JavaScript, a coding language he was supposed to be learning during his courses. Given you cant answer this question, Contreras, now 27, recalls the interviewer saying, You should ask for a refund. A few months later, jobless and out $14,400 in tuition and fees, Contreras followed his advice.

Hes one of many students who say they felt duped by Coding House, a Silicon Valley school that advertises an average starting salary of $91,000 for its graduates. On Nov. 7, the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, the regulator that oversees coding schools in California, assessed Nicholas James, the founder of Coding House, a $50,000 fine and ordered the school to shut down. (The BPPE had previously denied Coding Schools application to operate, in November 2015, June 2016, and again on Nov. 4, 2016.) The regulators have told the school to give refunds to all students who have attended since it opened its doors in 2014. Coding House has filed an appeal. In the meantime it has suspended its programs, students said.

The BPPE cited numerous violations of California law, including making false statements. On its website, the school advertised a 95% hiring rate within two months of graduation from the academy, but the BPPE said that only 57 of 70 graduates had reported employment and salary information. The bootcamp lists 21 companies in its Where Our Graduates Work Now section. But the BPPE said its review of Coding Houses data showed only two graduates were hired by any of the 21. James said in an e-mail that of the total population who were part of our program, most were employed within two months with average starting pay of $91,000.

In September, students were required to sign agreements prohibiting them from publicly or privately disparaging Coding House, the BPPE said. If negative information was traced back to any students, the school threatened to hold those students liable.

Coding House, according to the BPPE allegations, was a chaotic environment. The school, where students also lived, changed location several times, and told students to avoid going outside and keep the blinds drawn to avoid drawing attention. The schools operation in residential neighborhoods violated home-occupation permit regulations, the BPPE said. The regulators also alleged that a male student sexually assaulted a female student during a night of drinking at Coding House. James didnt respond to a question about the allegation.

James said that the program was getting better with each group as Coding House learned more about how to operate in the nascent field of coding bootcamps. What we learned over the two years is that intense, rigorous and accelerated experiences are not for everyone, and we did our very best to screen for candidates who would be successful, he wrote in an e-mail. You somehow managed to find the people who encountered difficulty while in our program. Coding Houses best students thrived, he said. He did not directly address most of the BPPE allegations.

When they first became prevalent a few years ago, coding schools were heralded as the answer to the technology industrys prayers. We cant get enough engineers because the field is growing so rapidly, said Tony Fadell, the former head of Googles Nest smart thermostat company, in a recent promotional video for a nonprofit coding school, 42. Companies complained they couldnt hire programmers fast enough, and meanwhile, many jobseekers said they couldnt find employment. Just give those people an engineering crash course, the reasoning went, and voila, problem solved.

Coding bootcamps, 12- or 14-week programs that teach software engineering, sprang up. Many are for-profit, though exceptions exist.

But the great promise of these schools training a new generation of skilled engineers has largely fallen flat. Coding Houses spectacular fall is an extreme case, but interviews with more than a dozen coding school graduates reveal that when they do land a job, often their engineering education doesnt cut it. Many admit they lack the big-picture skills that employers say they want. Training them often requires hours of hand-holding by more experienced staff, employers say. The same holds true for graduates holding computer science degrees, but those employees generally have a better grasp of broader concepts and algorithms, recruiters said.

Mark Dinan, a recruiter who works with Bay Area technology companies like Salesforce, said many companies have told him they automatically disqualify coding school grads. These tech bootcamps are a freaking joke, he said. My clients are looking for a solid CS [computer science] degree from a reputable university or relevant work experience. Startups can be more flexible than established companies, he said.

Our experience has found that most graduates from these programs are not quite prepared for software engineering roles at Google without additional training or previous programming roles in the industry, said Maggie Johnson, Googles director of education and university relations, in a statement. We generally dont hire from coding schools, said Robyn Blum, a spokeswoman for Cisco. Coding schools havent been much of a focus for Autodesk, said Raymond Deplazes, a spokesman.

Today, 91 full-time coding bootcamps exist in the U.S. and Canada, according to Course Report, a research group that tracks the industry. Almost 18,000 people will graduate from them this year. Thats up from 43 schools two years ago, and about 6,000 graduates. Tuition averages over $11,000 at non-degree granting programs that generally last around three months, but it can go as high as $21,000. Some schools take a cut of future salary instead of tuition.

Theres been increasing scrutiny of all kinds of for-profit schools recently. Last month, Donald Trump agreed to pay $25 million in lawsuit settlements over Trump University, real estate seminars that plaintiffs said overpromised results. In September, ITT Educational Services, an operator of technical schools, shut down following a series of federal sanctions.

Dev Bootcamp, a for-profit academy that started in San Francisco, was one of the first coding schools to open its doors. That was in 2012. By the following year, the school, now owned by Kaplan, said that over 90% of its grads found jobs within three months of graduation, with salaries of about $83,000. It has since removed those statistics from its website, saying that numbers can be misleading out of context.

Clark Hinchcliff was selling insurance and looking for a new career when his cousin told him about Dev Bootcamp. Hinchcliff, now 31, applied in 2013, won a spot, and decided to enroll in mid-2014, after saving up some of the then-$12,000 tuition. He liked the program, and said it provided a good introduction to coding. When he finished his studies three months later, he expected to land a job somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area where he could flex his newfound software muscles.

Instead, he found himself $20,000 in debt, once he added living expenses to the tab. He was back home bunking with his parents in Colorado, overeating, hawking his Nissan Versa to raise cash, and sending out resume after resume. I was getting sad, getting depressed, he said.

In retrospect, Hinchcliff believes the program had holes. He recalled a couple of instances where he told an instructor he didnt understand a concept, only to hear the unwavering response, Actually, I think you do. Tarlin Ray, chief operating officer of Dev Bootcamp, said the program isnt easy, and students have the option to repeat three-week chunks of the course at no additional cost; Hinchcliff opted not to do this.

After the program was over, when Hinchcliff failed to find a full-time job quickly, shame set in. Theres a lot of pressure when you come out of the bootcamps, said Grace Wong, a software engineer at a password-replacement company who attended Hackbright in 2013. People expect, Oh, you must have some highflying technical job now.

It took Hinchcliff 16 months and sending out over 1,100 resumes before he found what he considered a real programming job at a health-information startup in San Francisco. To get it, he had to work there for months as an intern and overcome his managers misgivings as he got up to speed.

Sixteen months is a long time for a student to feel like they got the win they were looking for, said Ray. He said the school provides outplacement help, no matter how far out of school the student is.

Course Reports recent survey of bootcamp graduates, a self-selecting group of 1,143 students who completed their studies before Aug. 12, 2016, showed that more than a quarter werent employed in a full-time coding job. Only about half of respondents had a job within 60 days; one-third still didnt have one within 90 days.

Some come out with very, very, very basic skills, said Quest Henkart, lead engineer at business software company LaunchPad and an alumnus of Hack Reactor, one of the schools. Even as a bootcamp grad, Im very wary of someone just out of bootcamp.

He and others say the quality of the schools varies widely. Contreras, the former Coding House student, said one reason he chose the school was it said its instruction included a software language called PHP. Halfway through the course, when he asked when they would start learning PHP, he said he was told the school had scrapped plans to teach it. Other Coding House students also say they didnt learn languages they had expected to learn, based on the schools web site, and complained that some teachers didnt have very much experience.

Patrick Shaughnessy, a former Coding House student who was hired as an instructor after finishing his course in February 2015, said the programs goal was to stay relevant, and as demands in the hiring marketplace changed, the school tweaked its offerings to match. And teachers with less experience can often relate better to novices and thus relay material better, he said. After 20 years, you forget what its like, starting out and learning to code, he said. Shaughnessy left Coding House in August to take a job as a software developer at PayPal.

Activists are calling for more government oversight. Regulation is pretty much minimal in almost any state in the country, said Bob Shireman, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who studies for-profit educational institutions. He wants better enforcement of existing laws, along with more monitoring of marketing and financial claims.

He takes particular issue with the success many schools boast, saying many hold low standards for what counts as a coding-related job. One common way to juice results, graduates say, is to include jobs that test code for flaws in the tally of software jobs. That rote work requires little, if any, actual code writing.

Few schools have independent auditors verify their job-placement rates. California, with its 28 coding schools, is among the states that require for-profit schools to seek government approval, but few schools have completed the process. Dev Bootcamp is approved to operate in California.

In the cases where coding school grads do land jobs, they often find it hard to succeed not just because their skills need polishing, but because computer science majors sometimes dont accept them. When people go to coder camp, theyre never going to be part of the in crowd, Dinan, the recruiter, said. Theres way more to success than just having the software education.

Plenty of success stories exist. Randall Kanna graduated from Dev Bootcamp in January 2015, after working in marketing and branding jobs. Upon graduating, she quickly found a job as a software engineer at Ticketfly, now owned by Pandora Inc., and said her salary increased by $75,000. It completely changed my life, she said.

Some coding schools are trying different models. School 42, the Fremont nonprofit bankrolled by French billionaire Xavier Niel, charges no tuition for its three-year program. San Franciscos Holberton School, a two-year program, requires no money up front in exchange for 17% of a graduates salary over three years once a graduate finds a job. One of Holbertons students, Philip Yoo, said he hopes to land a software job analyzing large data sets, a major part of artificial intelligence work. This is his second coding school experience. He wanted more instruction after completing his coursework at Dev Bootcamp in 2015.

Jose Contreras, the student who demanded his money back from Coding House, now works as a programmer analyst building web applications at Texas Tech University. He eventually got his refund, but only after intense negotiation and a threat of legal action. He also agreed to take down a blog post about his bad experience at Coding House. The refunds came one $1,000 PayPal transfer at a time, he said, starting in early 2015. As part of the deal, he said he occasionally also got a message from Coding House founder James, asking him to have his blog post taken down when it resurfaced on other web sites.

Without addressing Contreras, James wrote in an e-mail: Our aim was to change the way education was delivered, and we made some great strides and helped many people change their lives, learn how to code, and get a great job.

The most recent group of Coding House students learned the day before Thanksgiving that the school was closing, said Richard Mands, a student who had quit his teaching job in Japan to come to Coding House. He said that on Thanksgiving Day, he and the other students were treated to a full turkey dinner with pumpkin cheesecake, cooked by Jamess wife, Sarah. The following evening, Mands flew back to Japan, where he is honing his coding skills and looking for a job.
Details added (first version posted on 15:46)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC and Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) national railway company signed an agreement on strategic cooperation and joint ventures, the Azerbaijani embassy in Kazakhstan said Dec. 6.

According to the embassy, the agreement was signed during the meeting between Rauf Valiyev, chairman of Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping company and Kanat Alpysbayev, head of KTZ, in Astana as part of the visit of the Azerbaijani delegation to Kazakhstan.

During the meeting Valiyev said that passing of the East-West international transport corridor through Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan allows using the transport potential more effectively, the embassy said.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are working to improve the transport infrastructure and increase the transit potential, including the construction of the Baku International Sea Trade Port, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, expansion of railways and port infrastructure in Kazakhstan, Valiyev said, adding that it allows developing cooperation and implementing joint projects.

Valiyev and Alpysbayev also discussed the cooperation issues as part of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the embassy said.

According to the agreement, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping company and KTZ came to an agreement on drawing investments in existing and future transportation projects, enhancing cargo transportation between the ports of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, preparing the working plan on transportation in various directions and mutual use of existing infrastructure, the embassy said.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
The main competitors of Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) are the other three "big four" U.S. banks: JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), and Citigroup (NYSE: C).

The largest of the "big four" U.S. banks is JPMorgan Chase (JPM), with reported assets of $3.20 trillion and total deposits of $2.37 trillion as of the end of 2021. Bank of America (BAC) is second, with $2.31 trillion in assets and $1.95 trillion in deposits. Wells Fargo is third, with $1.77 trillion in assets and $1.49 trillion in deposits, and Citigroup is fourth, with $1.68 trillion in assets and $1.30 trillion in deposits as of the end of 2021.

Bank of America: An Overview

Bank of America Corporation is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bank of America Corporation was founded when Nations Bank acquired BankAmerica (as it was known at the time) in the largest bank acquisition in history at the time. Bank of America built upon its wealth management and investment banking businesses by acquiring Merrill Lynch in 2008. Including its Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust wealth management units, Bank of America is the largest provider of wealth management services worldwide.

In 2021, Forbes ranked Bank of America was the sixth-largest corporation in the world. Bank of America was also recognized as the fifth most valuable bank brand name in a Brand Finance study of more than 500 banks.

Bank of America operates nationwide in the U.S. and its territories, and in more than 35 countries, serving 67 million consumer and business clients worldwide.

Bank of America's 2020 annual earnings per share (EPS) was $1.87a 32% decline from 2019. Bank of America's market capitalization was $335.34 billion as of Aug. 5, 2021. Bank of America's return on assets (ROA) was 0.91% and its return-on-equity (ROE) was 9.58% as of June 30, 2021. Its net profit margin was 29.20% as of June 30, 2021. Its price-to-book ratio (P/B ratio) was 1.17 as of Aug. 4, 2021.

JPMorgan Chase & Company

JPMorgan Chase & Company, headquartered in New York City, was established through a merger between J.P. Morgan Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000. JPMorgan Chase is the result of a series of mergers and acquisitions, including acquisitions of Bear Stearns, Bank One and Washington Mutual. It is the largest American bank by total assets.

In 2021, Forbes ranked JPMorgan Chase as the third-largest corporation in the world.

JPMorgan Chase provides a vast array of commercial and investment banking services in more than 100 countries, operating dozens of business lines through four primary divisions:

Consumer and community banking (CCB) Commercial banking (CB) Corporate and investment banking (CIB) Asset management (AM)

JPMorgan Chase's 2020 annual earnings per share (EPS) was $8.88a 17.16% decline from 2019. JP Morgan Chase's market capitalization was $466.50 billion as of July 26, 2021. Its return on assets ratio (ROA) was 1.32%, and its return on equity ratio (ROE) was 16.49% as of June 30, 2021. Its net profit margin is 36.37% as of June 30, 2021. Its price-to-book ratio (P/B ratio) is 1.63 as of Aug. 4, 2021.

Wells Fargo & Company

Wells Fargo & Company, headquartered in San Francisco, was founded in 1852 by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo. The most important Wells Fargo acquisitions include First Interstate Bancorp, Norwest Financial, and Wachovia Bank. As of March 31, 2021, Wells Fargo ranks as the third-largest bank in America by assets.

In 2021, Wells Fargo was recognized as the world's seventh most valuable bank brand name (first in the U.S.) in a Brand Finance study of more than 500 banks. In 2021, Forbes ranked Wells Fargo as the nineteenth-largest corporation in the world.

Wells Fargo offers a wide range of banking and financial services through its more than 7,400 locations and its operations in 31 countries and territories.

Wells Fargo's 2020 annual earnings per share (EPS) was $0.41a decline of 89.88% from 2019. Its market capitalization was $189.48 billion as of July 26, 2021. Its return-on-assets ratio (ROA) was 0.82%, and its return-on-equity ratio (ROE) was 8.51% as of June 30, 2021. Its net profit margin was 20.06% as of June 30, 2021. Its price-to-book ratio (P/B ratio) was 0.98 as of July 4, 2021.

Citigroup Inc.

Citigroup Inc., headquartered in New York, was formed in 1998 through the merger of Citicorp Bank and Travelers Group, creating what was the world's largest financial services corporation at the time.

In 2021, Forbes ranked Citigroup as the sixteenth-largest corporation in the world. Its operations span more than 100 countries with the largest international presence of any of the "Big Four" banks.

Citigroup's 2020annual earnings per share (EPS) was $4.72, a decline of 41.29% from 2019. Its market capitalization was $140.78 billion as of July 26, 2021. Its return-on-assets ratio (ROA) was 0.89%, and its return-on-equity ratio (ROE) was 10.21% as of June 30, 2021. Its net profit margin was 25.35% as of June 30, 2021. Its price-to-book ratio (P/B ratio) was 0.70 as of Aug. 4, 2021.
Robo-advisors provide more accessible investing and money management options at a fraction of the cost historically available in traditional models, empowering more individuals to save, invest, and grow money towards financial freedom. But there are several factors to consider when searching for the right robo-advisor to both give you a holistic sense of your total financial picture and help keep you on track toward reaching your financial goals during turbulent market conditions.

To make it easier, this unbiased, comprehensive comparison of the top robo-advisors is based on our own proprietary rating methodology that measures cash management, goal planning tools, fees, portfolio management, mobile functionality, socially conscious investing, portfolio construction, and other pertinent variables.

Best Robo-Advisors

Wealthfront: Best Overall and Best for Goal Planning

4.8

Account Minimum : $500

: $500 Fees: 0.25% for most accounts, no trading commission or fees for withdrawals, minimums, or transfers. Read full review

Best Overall: Wealthfront is a leader in the robo-advisor space and takes the crown for Best Overall platform on the market. With a comprehensive suite of investment management tools and products, Wealthfront stands above the rest for those looking for an automated financial solution.

Best for Goal Planning: Wealthfront is also our pick for the Best for Goal Planning thanks to extensive goal-setting options, free digital financial planning tools, and robust progress trackers available throughout the platform.



On Friday, September 2, 2022, Wealthfront announced that, together with UBS, the companies have decided to terminate the pending acquisition, leaving Wealthfront to remain an independent company.

Pros Outstanding goal setting and financial planning tools

Variety of account options including 529 plans

Tax-loss harvesting applied on a daily basis

External account aggregation

Path and Self-Driving Money tools let you evaluate tradeoffs of saving for multiple goals and automatically allocate excess cash towards them Cons Fractional share trading is not supported

No human advisors are offered

Limited chat and service options

Overview

Wealthfront was one of the first automated investment platforms in the robo-advisor space, launching in 2008 and becoming an industry leader by providing an exemplary digital portfolio management experience. Wealthfront's strength lies in its fully digital experience through a variety of portfolio customization tools and daily tax-loss harvesting.

Wealthfronts portfolio management is paired with strong goal setting and financial planning tools such as Path and Self Driving money at a low cost of 0.25%. The competitive price point and high quality of the platform mean that Wealthfront has one of the strongest overall robo-advisor offerings available.

One of the most impactful features of Wealthfronts platform is the account aggregator tool. Using this feature, you can see your financial picture in one place and leverage Wealthfronts powerful financial planning, goal setting, and progress tracking tools. This type of comprehensive goal support can make a large difference in helping you achieve financial success. This aspect of Wealthfront is specific to your situation as the model changes to account for changes in your personal financial life.

Wealthfronts product suite also includes checking account and spend options so that you can manage more of your money in one place. This includes direct deposits, automating transfers, payments, and mobile deposits. All of this is available whether you use the investment management product or not. A borrow feature is also available through a line of credit for users with a minimum of $25,000 invested to round out the platform. Wealthfront is making a strong pitch for being an all-in-one financial solution for its users, and not just an automated portfolio manager.

Interactive Advisors: Best for Socially Responsible Investing and Best for Portfolio Construction

4.2

Account Minimum : $100 - $50,000

: $100 - $50,000 Fees: 0.08-1.5% per year, depending on advisor and portfolio chosen Read full review

Best for Socially Responsible Investing: Interactive advisors is our top choice for Socially Responsible Investing, given the significant number of investment vehicles, pre-built portfolios, and screening tools to let you invest in the world you envision.

Best for Portfolio Construction: Interactive Advisors is also our winner for Portfolio Construction as it offers the widest range of investment options in the robo-advisor space that serve investors who use several different portfolio strategies.

Pros Extensive universe of investment vehicles, including fractional shares

More than 50 portfolio strategies

Strong investment research and screening tools

Socially conscious focus includes sustainable funds, pre-built portfolios, and screeners Cons Some portfolios have high minimums and management fees

Website navigation, account opening, and funding is not as intuitive as other robo-advisors

No tax-loss harvesting

Overview

Interactive Brokers is a powerhouse when it comes to serving traders and active investors. The broker launched its robo-advisor platform, Interactive Advisors, in 2007 to serve investors who prefer access to wide-ranging investment options and portfolio strategies while automating the portfolio management portion of their finances.

Interactive Advisors offers a unique blend of portfolio options, with self-selection from an extensive investment vehicle catalog at one end of the spectrum to mimicking professionally managed portfolios on the other end of the range. Investment options include mutual funds, stocks, ETFs, fixed income, REITs, ESG, non-proprietary funds, and managed portfolios.

The socially responsible focus of the platform allows you to extensively customize your portfolio's focus, such as blocking individual companies that do not align with your values or selecting existing socially conscious strategies from a wide variety of established fund managers like Vanguard, BlackRock, and Wisdom Tree.

Interactive Advisors stands out among robo-advisors for portfolio construction on two fronts: One, the portfolios often contain fractional shares of stocks rather than operating solely through ETFs to create stock exposure. Two, you can choose to mirror actively managed portfolios, an option very few robo-advisors offer. Combined with the ability to screen out unwanted stocks and see the impact the omission would have using historical returns, Interactive Advisors is definitely one of the most customizable robo-advisors in the industry.



Betterment: Best for Beginners and Best for Cash Management

4.5

Account Minimum : $0, $10 to get started

: $0, $10 to get started Fees: 0.25% (annual) for digital plan, 0.40% (annual) for the premium plan Read full review

Paid non-client of Betterment. Views may not be representative, see more reviews at the App Store and Google Play Store. Learn More about this relationship.

Best for Beginners: Betterment wins our Best for Beginners category due to a very user-friendly experience combined with no Account Minimum ($10 to start investing), practical education resources, and intuitive guidance.

Best for Cash Management: Betterment also receives our top choice for Cash Management as its checking account and cash reserve products give users the best option for accessing and moving money in a seamless way.

Pros Straightforward onboarding and funding process

Aggregation of external accounts

No account minimum to maintain, $10 to get started

FDIC insured checking and cash reserve account

Full transparency into investment strategy before funding Cons Relatively high fees for human advice relative to competitors (Starting at $299 per consultation)

Investment options limited to ETFs

Overview

Betterment is one of the original robo-advisors to challenge traditional investment managers, launching in 2008 and growing to $33 Billion of assets under management. The platform has been intentional about user and asset growth, acquiring Wealthsimples US business in April 2021.

Betterments platform is built to attract new investors with $10 to get started, but no account minimum to maintain, while providing a seamless signup experience. Its also easy to set goals, monitor progress, and leverage a variety of straightforward planning tools. Cash management options are very attractive as well, with Betterment Checking and Cash Reserve accounts covered by FDIC insurance and providing transaction functionality similar to traditional banks.

The investment platform is able to support many goals and time horizons with different accounts, each with its own investment strategy to ensure you stay on track. This also includes the option to link external accounts to Betterments platform and use financial tools to give you a sense of your financial picture. While Betterment is built with a digital first approach, human advisors are available to provide added guidance for an additional fee.

Betterment also pairs a checking account and cash reserve options alongside their investment offering to provide a more complete financial experience. For new investors, Betterment offers a simple solution to manage your money in a larger sense beyond just your investment portfolio.

Cash Reserve is only available to clients of Betterment LLC, which is not a bank, and cash transfers to program banks are conducted through the clients brokerage accounts at Betterment Securities. For Cash Reserve (CR), Betterment LLC only receives compensation from our program banks; Betterment LLC and Betterment Securities do not charge fees on your CR balance.



Checking accounts and the Betterment Visa Debit Card provided and issued by nbkc bank, Member FDIC. Checking made available through Betterment Financial LLC. Neither Betterment Financial LLC, nor any of their affiliates, is a bank. Betterment Financial LLC reimburses ATM fees and the Visa 1% foreign transaction fee worldwide, everywhere Visa is accepted.

Personal Capital: Best for Portfolio Management

4.2

Account Minimum : $100,000

: $100,000 Fees: 0.89% to 0.49% for accounts over $1 million Read full review

Best for Portfolio Management: Our choice for Best Portfolio Management platform is Personal Capital, due the firms outstanding tax optimization strategies and unique approach to diversification in the robo-advisor space.

Pros Wide range of free investment management tools

Account aggregation for holistic asset management

Access to advisor or advisor team (depending on account balance)

Excellent tax optimization features

Strong variety of portfolio strategies and investment vehicles Cons Very high $100,000 account minimum

Management fees are significantly higher than industry average starting at 0.89% annually for accounts with at least $1 million

Mobile experience lacks some of the desktop functionalities

Overview

Personal Capitals platform was launched to investors seeking a balance between a digital-only experience and a traditional financial advisor model by pairing smart portfolio automation with access to human consultants as part of the experience. Personal Capital continues to expand its reach as it was acquired by Empower Retirement in August 2020 to pair with one of the leaders in group retirement services.

It is worth noting that Personal Capital is aimed at high net-worth investors, with an account minimum of $100,000 and the top tier service for accounts over $1 million. Although it may be out of reach for many new investors, it still scored highest in terms of both automated portfolio management and true diversification. Personal Capitals strength lies in its approach to portfolio management, particularly tax optimization strategies. While tax-loss harvesting is a key aspect of the platform, Personal Capital goes further by considering different account tax statuses when placing assets and featuring tax-optimized retirement withdrawals.

Much of Personal Capitals goal planning is geared around retirement which is exemplified by its Smart Withdrawal tool being a primary goal setting focus. Other financial tools such as the Recession Simulator can be used to explore the impact of a market pullback on a wider variety of investment goals. A key aspect of the platform is access to human advisors who can provide holistic guidance across the spectrum of financial planning topics and additional portfolio customization.

Personal Capital puts your portfolio plan into action by including a variety of securities such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, alternative investments, cash, and private equity. Separate from cash held in your portfolio, Personal Capital's Cash account doesnt require you to be an investing client and is protected by FDIC coverage up to $1.25 million. This account offers flexible money movement including direct deposit and payments features.

M1 Finance: Best for Sophisticated Investors and Best for Low Costs

4.2

Account Minimum : $100 ($500 minimum for retirement accounts)

: $100 ($500 minimum for retirement accounts) Fee: 0% Read full review

Best for Sophisticated Investors: Our pick for the platform best suited for sophisticated investors goes to M1 Finance because of the extensive portfolio customization options, including investor discretion to choose from over 60 different pre-built portfolios or build their own.

Best for Low Costs: M1 Finance also wins the Best for Low Costs category with no fees charged for trading or account management, putting more of your dollars to work by investing.

Pros No fees for trading or account management

High level of portfolio control

Spending and borrowing options complement portfolio management

Variety of screening tools to fine-tune your portfolio

Expansive portfolio customization options Cons No tax-loss harvesting

Limited financial tools and calculators

No aggregating of external accounts

Overview

M1 Finance entered the robo-advisor space in 2015 and achieved $5 Billion in assets under management in 2021, highlighting continued user and asset growth since inception. M1 also has a premier Plus tier that was improved in 2021 by adding a unique credit card product to go alongside other spending and borrowing product options.

While M1 stands out for its wide variety of portfolio customization options and investment vehicles to choose from, it also excels in cost containment with no fees for trading or account management. While there are other minor miscellaneous fees for specific account management requests, M1s focus on driving down costs leaves investors with more money in their pockets.

On the downside, there are limited financial calculators and goal-setting options available on the platform. There is also no access to human investment consultants, if that is important to you. In lieu of human support, M1 Finance provides a great option for self-directed investors to automate some of the investment management processes without sacrificing portfolio flexibility and control.

The extensive portfolio customization features available through M1 are complemented with other account management elements such as a spend option, a credit card, and a smart transfers tool that helps allocate excess cash. Most importantly for this category, the robo-advisors commitment to cost containment and reduction keeps fees from eating into your returns.

Merrill Guided Investing: Best for Education

4.4

Account Minimum : $1,000 or $20,000 with an advisor

: $1,000 or $20,000 with an advisor Fee: 0.45% annually of assets under management, assessed monthly. With advisor0.85%. Discounts available for Bank of America Preferred Rewards participants. Read full review

Best for Education: Merrill Guided Investing receives our top choice in this category by leveraging its expertise to provide a deep educational library of videos, articles, tools, and a goal exploration process that is valuable to investors of all backgrounds.

Pros Robust initial goal setting and course correction prompts to keep you on track

Expert education resources

Excellent planning tools Cons No tax-loss harvesting

Proposed investment allocation not viewable until funding is complete

Slightly higher than average annual investment fee of 0.45%

Overview

Merrills Guided Investing platform was launched in 2017 to provide a stand-alone robo-advisor offering that built upon Merrills extensive investment history. Merrill added to this platform by creating a Guided Investing with an Advisor service in 2019 to pair a human element with investing.

Merrill Guided Investing takes the Best for Education category thanks to a superb educational catalog that can be tailored to investors of all experiences, backgrounds, and goals. The educational content is offered in a variety of formats, including videos, articles, and goal exploration. Merrill Guided Investing aims to elevate investor knowledge so you can get the most out of the platforms tools and achieve your portfolio goals as well as your broader financial goals.

The platform provides education around a variety of planning areas including retirement, saving for a home, travel, general investing, and several other goals. Investors can gain confidence in the likelihood of accomplishing their goals by using tools to simulate investment performance, savings strategies, and financial outcomes.

The educational content, tools, and automated investing strategy are available through Merrills Guided Investing digital-only service for an annual fee of 0.45% and on Guided Investing with an Advisor tier for a higher annual fee of 0.85%. Both services allow investors to use ETFs and mutual funds to accomplish their goals.

E*TRADE Core Portfolios: Best for Mobile Experience

3.9

Best for Mobile Experience: Our pick for the top mobile platform is E*TRADEs Core Portfolios, given the mobile apps seamless experience and sleek design, including access to the full complement of Core Portfolios features available through your smartphone.

Pros Quick, easy sign up process

Current E*TRADE users new to Core Portfolios receive expedited onboarding

Socially Responsible Investing options

Low fees and fund expense ratios Cons Limited goal setting when creating portfolio

No tax-loss harvesting

No external account syncing

Overview

E*TRADE is a well-known industry leader in the discount brokerage space, launching their Core Portfolios robo-advisor offering in 2017. When E*TRADEs platform was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2020, an already robust offering became even deeper.

The Core Portfolios mobile experience leverages the expertise of an established brokerage industry expert to provide an easy-to-use automated investment platform. As a result, investors are empowered with the tools needed to manage their portfolios directly from their mobile devices in a way that stands out from the rest of the robo-advisor field.

E*TRADEs Core Portfolio manages to bring a streamlined mobile experience by reducing goal setting, questionnaires, and time horizon options. This is an intentionally designed approach so you can quickly and simply manage your investments without extensive portfolio and goal customization.

Youll be able to choose a portfolio containing a diversified basket of ETFs. Auto-rebalancing is applied to help keep your portfolio on track, although no tax-loss harvesting is available and customers are unable to consolidate their outside accounts. Investment advisor support is also accessible to help answer questions for both existing and prospective customers. This all comes wrapped up in a very competitive 0.3% annual management fee.

Final Verdict There are several strong robo-advisor offerings with strengths in different key areas to help manage your money. When considering which of these platforms might be the right fit, keep in mind your personal preferences, goals, and needs. One significant factor that wasnt part of our rating methodology was investment returns. This was left out due to different portfolio risk levels and allocation strategies between robo-advisors. While many platforms follow passive investment strategies attempting to match the overall growth of the market, offerings that provide additional customizations let you invest in a more dynamic, personal way.

Its also helpful to consider platforms that allow for external account aggregation if your investments are held at more than one institution so you will have aligned tax optimization, investment strategies, and goal tracking. We found that Wealthfront offers the best overall experience balancing these options. Next, well look at side-by-side comparisons of the companies we reviewed so you can see where each platform shines through.
Top News - Investor Idea

A Boat-full of Potential - Renewed Interest in the Cruise Industry Bolsters Luxury Markets (OTC: MASN) (NYSE: CCL) (NYSE: CUK) (NYSE: RCL) (NYSE: NCLH)

Vancouver, Kelowna, Delta, BC - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering luxury goods and cruise ship stocks releases a special report featuring Maison Luxe, Inc. (OTC: MASN), a company that offers luxury retail consumer items.

Top AI Stock News - Investor Idea

Breaking AI Stock News: Intellagents, a FatBrain AI (OTCQB: LZGI) Company, Announces Hiring of Insurtech Industry Veteran as Chief Revenue Officer

NEW YORK, NY - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow, announces the hiring of Euan King, an experienced and respected Insurtech industry leader as Chief Revenue Officer for insurance technology-focused subsidiary Intellagents.

Top Health and Wellness News - Investor Idea

Health and Wellness Stock News - Endexx (OTCBB: EDXC) Secures $3.8M Order for Non-Nicotine Vape Product HYLA from Italy

CAVE CREEK, Az. - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Endexx Corporation (OTCBB:EDXC), a provider of innovative, plant-based, and sustainable health and skincare products, today announces it has secured a new $3.8 million USD order for its newly acquired, non-nicotine based vape product, HYLA from customers in Italy.

Top EV Stock News - Investor Idea

Breaking EV Stock News: Overwhelmingly Positive Reactions Pour in From First Leg of Mullen Automotive's (NASDAQ: MULN) 'Strikingly Different' FIVE EV Crossover Tour

BREA, Calif. - October 31, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces today that the Mullen FIVE has received overwhelmingly positive reactions from members of the public, reservation holders and Mullen investors who were able to ride in the vehicle for the very first time on the "Strikingly Different" tour which kicked off last week in Pasadena, California.

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Zebra Technologies Corporation, a global provider of solutions and services for real-time operational visibility, has announced that a recent Symposium of global enterprise leaders from healthcare, retail, transportation and logistics (T&L) and manufacturing validate the "Intelligent Enterprise" as the defining trend of the decade for industries globally.

Less than six months after introducing its vision for Enterprise Asset Intelligence (EAI), Zebra, in partnership with the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH), has assembled 40 leading executives, industry experts and policymakers for its 2016 Innovation Symposium: The Intelligent Enterprise.

Executives from Google, GE Healthcare and IBM defined the Intelligent Enterprise and explored best practices and opportunities for organizations of varying sizes and industries related to the Internet of Things (IoT).

The TECH has released a whitepaper summarizing the outcomes of the discussion along with some considerations that are paramount to the successful adoption and deployment of IoT solutions and how organizations can harness their full potential.

There are several organizations already creating these Intellignet Enterprise projects. The MIT Senseable City Lab focuses on the creative applications of sensors in urban environments to generate new data streams, promoting resilient, efficient, and intelligent cities. Sensors placed in the sewers in Cambridge, Massachusetts are gathering biochemical data related to viruses, bacteria, chemicals, what people are eating, what medications they are taking and more. Google is exploring cloud technology and machine learning, including making Google Apps like Gmail, Docs, and Hangouts more intelligent. Google Search will include speech recognition, Gmail will get a smart reply feature, Google Photos will get a more sophisticated search function, and so much more. GE Healthcares Dose Management solutions are designed to automatically collect and analyze patient radiation exposure across multi-facility, multi-modality and multi-vendor imaging environments. It enables healthcare professionals to monitor the radiation exposure of patients, evaluate their practices and make improvements so the right dose is used to provide the best patient outcome.

Change is happening at a rapid pace. Today's hospitals are up against changes in regulation, cost pressures, competition and higher standards for patient safety, Tim Kottak, CTO, GE Healthcare. Because of this, GE has used data and machine learning to become a partner that provides not only medical equipment, but also solutions that improve outcomes. We believe IoT holds endless opportunities in healthcare, from predictive patient care to the way pharmaceuticals are made  and we've only just begun.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

It is planned to build another 26 agroparks in Azerbaijan, the countrys Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev said.

He made the remarks at a plenary session of the Azerbaijani parliament in Baku Dec. 6 in discussions on the draft state budget and the concept of socio-economic development for 2017 and the next three years.

He said that the agroparks will be built in 19 districts of Azerbaijan. A variety of processing and manufacturing enterprises are planned to be built in these agroparks.

Currently, the work is underway in Azerbaijan to create Yalama and Shamkir agroparks.

Mustafayev said that the work within the first stage of construction continues in Shamkir agropark, and the first stage of construction work has been already completed in the Khachmaz district [Yalama agropark].

The construction of agroparks and large modern farms is of great importance, the minister added.

The foundation of the Shamkir agropark was laid in 2014, and its area is about 600 hectares.

The Yalama agropark operates since Sept. 8, 2016. The volume of investments made to the agropark is 20 million manats, and up to 40 million manats in general will be invested within the framework of the two construction stages.
DNS servers, or Domain Name System servers, essentially allow you to browse the Internet in a user friendly manner. They provide your computer with the capability to recognize the web addresses you type in and connect to their places on the web. With Internet service, your computer automatically gets assigned a DNS server to use. Most users dont ever have to think about DNS servers or changing them. Still, there are potential benefits to swapping out your assigned server for a new one, even on an iPhone or iPad.

Namely, if youre experiencing issues with the speed and reliability of your Internet connection particularly in a web browser, you might want to change things up. You can use any DNS server, but the most popular ones come from Google and OpenDNS.

Here is how to edit your DNS servers on a Mac.

How to Change Your Macs DNS Servers

Open System Preferences on your Mac. Then choose the Network category.

Make sure youre connected to Wi-Fi and you have the Wi-Fi tab on the left selected. Then toward the bottom right, click Advanced

In the upper navigation here, click the DNS tab. You should see your current DNS servers on the left. Unless you added these yourself, youre not able to edit them. However, clicking the + button underneath will let you start anew, so do that to begin adding your own DNS servers. (You might want to also write down the current IP-assigned DNS servers should you ever want to switch back to them.)

If youre unsure which DNS server IP addresses to use, try out Googles or OpenDNS first. Googles are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. OpenDNS servers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. Enter these separately.

If you dont want to use those, Lifewire has a great list of additional free and public DNS servers anyone can try out for themselves. Of course, if you have your own IP address in mind, you can use that as well.

Note that macOS will prioritize connecting to DNS servers based on whichever is at the top of the list. Entering in five different IP addresses is fine for backups, but wont matter if your Mac can connect to the first one successfully.

When youre all done here, click OK on the bottom right. Then lastly, click Apply back on the Network pane to save your changes.

Youre all set. Open a web browser, type in a domain name and see if you notice any improvement. At the very least, youll still have a stable Internet connection with new DNS backups for any future hiccups.
In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will inform their development agendas and policies over the next 15 years. Parliaments have a crucial role to play in advancing the integration of the SDGs and monitoring national progress, while both holding governments accountable for the goals they have subscribed to and also making sure that enabling laws are passed and budgets adopted. It is within this framework that the Hungarian National Assembly and the Inter-Parliamentary Union are jointly organizing a Regional Seminar on Sustainable Development Goals for the Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. The Seminar will take place in Budapest on 23 and 24 February 2017 and will be part of a series of IPU regional seminars to advance the work and contribution of parliaments to the SDGs. The seminar will discuss how parliaments can effectively engage in policymaking to facilitate the national implementation of the SDGs and to identify concrete parliamentary actions, most notably with regard to environmental risks and climate change issues. Through the prism of climate change challenges facing the region, the seminar will focus on the key role of water as an enabler of sustainable development as well as on the need of effective cooperation among parliaments in this regard. The seminar will follow up on the conclusions of the 2015 and 2016 SDG Regional Seminars held in Romania. It will allow participants to share experiences, assess progress and identify further strategies, actions and recommendations to foster parliamentary engagement with respect to the SDGs. The proceedings will be conducted in English, French, Russian and Hungarian.
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The European Union's lead Brexit official has urged the UK to "keep calm and negotiate" as he set out an 18-month deadline for talks on a deal.

Michel Barnier's comments came as Theresa May declared that she will be aiming for a "red, white and blue Brexit" in the talks she has vowed to trigger by the end of March next year.

Although Article 50 of the EU treaties allows two years to thrash out a deal, Mr Barnier said that talks must end months earlier, to allow time for the European Council, the European Parliament and the UK to ratify the agreement.

If Mrs May sticks to her timetable, this would mean a deal was needed by October 2018, in anticipation of the UK leaving the EU in 2019, he said.

But Downing Street signalled that the UK was not committed to this schedule, stating that it would be "wrong" to put a deadline on the conclusion of negotiations. A spokesman pointedly added: "It is our Article 50 as well, because we are members of the EU. The timetable is clear in that."

Mr Barnier indicated a transitional arrangement - potentially meaning the UK continuing to pay into the Brussels budget in order to secure the best single market access - could be put in place after the formal break, in order to avoid the kind of "cliff edge" shutdown of free trade arrangements which Mrs May mentioned in a recent speech to business leaders.

But he said it would be up to the UK to set out its aims first before the rest of the EU could consider a transitional deal.

A transitional period "only has sense if it prepares the way for a future relationship", said Mr Barnier, in his first briefing on his preparations for the Article 50 negotiations since being appointed European Commission chief negotiator by president Jean-Claude Juncker in July. But he also acknowledged that "you can't do everything in 15 to 18 months of negotiations".

Speaking in Bahrain, Mrs May dismissed speculation over whether she is aiming for a "hard" or "soft" Brexit.

"These terms that have been identified: hard Brexit, soft Brexit, black Brexit, white Brexit, grey Brexit. Actually, I think what we should be looking for is a red, white and blue Brexit," said the British Prime Minister.

"That is the right deal for the United Kingdom. What is going to be the relationship for the UK with the European Union once we have left the European Union. That's what we are about and that's what we will be working on."

Mrs May is facing domestic pressure to set out her Brexit plans, with up to 40 potential Tory rebels thought to be prepared to back a Labour motion on the issue on Wednesday.

The vote - which the PM is likely to miss - comes as the Supreme Court considers a separate legal challenge to force the British Government to seek Parliament's approval before launching the withdrawal talks.

But a Downing Street spokesman said: "The Government's position hasn't changed. We don't intend to reveal our negotiating position ahead of triggering Article 50."

In an apparent sign that he is unwilling to budge from the requirement for freedom of movement in return for full access to the single market, Mr Barnier said the UK will not be allowed to "cherry-pick" which EU rights and obligations it wishes to keep.

"Being a member of the European Union comes with rights and benefits. Third countries can never have the same rights and benefits since they are not subject to the same obligations."

He said he was aiming for an "orderly" Brexit, but said it was "too soon" to discuss the details of how it would happen.

"We are entering uncharted waters," said the French former foreign minister.

"The work will be legally complex, politically sensitive and will have important consequences for our economies and for our people, on both sides of the Channel."

Mr Barnier recalled campaigning in his 20s in the French referendum of 1972 in favour of Britain's entry into what was then the EEC, adding that "I still think today that I made the right choice".

He said he had visited 18 of the 27 remaining EU capitals since July and had established a taskforce of 30 experts who were scouring the EU's rules and regulations to identify issues for the Article 50 talks.

"We are ready," he said. "Keep calm and negotiate."

Despite earlier suggestions that he would insist on French being the language of the Article 50 talks, Mr Barnier spoke in both English and French at the Brussels press conference.

Asked whether Mr Barnier's use of the wartime slogan was provocative, a Downing Street spokesman said the UK would conduct negotiations "in a spirit of goodwill and we will do it calmly".

The spokesman said that Article 50 set out a two-year process for withdrawal from the EU.

"We have been clear that we are not seeking to extend that process," he said. "In terms of how long actual negotiations take, clearly that's a matter that will resolve itself as a result of the negotiations. It would be wrong for me to put a timetable on that.

"The European negotiating team's approach to the negotiations between the UK and the other 27 member states is clearly a matter for them. We have been clear on our timetable and we are not moving away from that."

A spokesman for the Leave.EU campaign said that Mr Barnier's warning that there would be no "cherry-picking" confirmed its position that the UK must quit the single market to end free movement.

"It's time for Theresa May to get off the fence and confirm Britain will be leaving the single market," said the spokesman.

"If we do not leave the single market, we have not left the European Union and voters won't forget a betrayal of that magnitude at the next general election."
The letter, which was sent to all investment and stockbrokers and firms that supply services to the funds industry, strikes a legal note by saying it was without prejudice to any future guidance that the Central Bank may issue in relation to risk management.

The onsite review which was undertaken by its Markets Supervision Directorate was one of what the Central Bank calls its themed inspections of firms it regulates. It involved reviewing a sample of firms.

It found that the process of assessing risks companies had applied on the ground fell far short of what was actually required, with many of the good practises identified in the firms documentation are not always evident in the operations of the business, wrote deputy head Des Ritchie at the Markets Supervision Directorate.

In the letter, Mr Ritchie stressed that the responsibility of getting things right ultimately remains with the boards of the firms.

Undoubtedly, identifying risks and the process in place to manage and mitigate those risks is essential for all firms, Mr Ritchie wrote.

Critical to this is the risk function, which is the responsibility of the management of the entity in the first instance and ultimately with the board of directors.

However, it is the board who empower the risk framework, through robust governance arrangements, to ensure it has the necessary processes and systems in place to manage and mitigate the risks of each firm.

The letter said it was the responsibility of the boards to continuously examine the polices designed to prevent financial shocks.

The Central Bank would not say how many firms were involved in the review or list the specific nature of the shortcomings that were identified in the sample.

However, the tone of the letter makes clear that the Central Bank is concerned enough to issue the reprimand to board directors.

Where issues have been identified in relation to the risk function we are following up directly with firms to address these issues, the letter said.

The Central Bank said that the letter must be sent to each board director, risk officer, and senior manager.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

Trend:

Korean companies are ready to cooperate in building petrochemical plants in Azerbaijan, said Koreas Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Azerbaijan Kim Chang-gyu.

The ambassador made the remarks during his meeting with a delegation led by President of Caspian Energy International Media Group Natalya Aliyeva.

Speaking about the energy cooperation, Kim Chang-gyu said that the attention should be paid to petrochemistry, because the Korean industry is very competitive in that field.

We do not produce any oil or gas in our country, but we are producing a huge amount of petrochemical products and export them to foreign countries, noted the ambassador. Actually, petrochemical products are number one export products of our country. So, we can cooperate in this area.

Currently, the Korean company is building a fertilizer plant in Sumgait.

Assessing the ongoing economic reforms in Azerbaijan, the diplomat said that the diversification of industries is very important, if a country wants to have a strong economy.

Korea is a very advanced country in each of the industrial areas. We are strong in petrochemistry, manufacture, high technology, ICT, medical service. Since the Government of Azerbaijan is committed to diversifying and improving the national economy, we are ready to share our experience and our technology, noted Kim Chang-gyu designating five areas as the fields of strategic cooperation between the two countries: medical service, ICT, petrochemistry, tourism and transportation.

He also said that many Korean brands are doing business in Azerbaijan.

They have their offices here, but still have not opened their factories in Azerbaijan. The car market and mobile phones market are not very large in Azerbaijan. Therefore, it is not easy for Korean companies to set up their factories here, he said. But if we consider the entire Caucasian market, including Georgia, the south of Russia and the west of Central Asia, I think it might be possible to open large production facilities here.

Kim Chang-gyu added that Samsung and Hyundai will still be hesitating whether to open a factory here or not.

The ambassador believes that in order to attract Korean investments in Azerbaijan, the Government of Azerbaijan should provide more incentives to the Korean companies in terms of tax, customs clearance and administrative procedures.

According to the high-ranking diplomat, free trade agreements like those the Republic of Korea has with the United States will be required to enable the Korean companies have more opportunities to expand their business in Azerbaijan.

Only when Korean investors are confident of their business success, they come, said Kim Chang-gyu.

He noted that the business environment of Azerbaijan has improved notably since when the Azerbaijani government started the reforms, but still there is much work to be done in this regard.

I highly appreciate the efforts of the Government of Azerbaijan aimed at improving the business environment here. It achieved much success in this area and already secured some foreign investment flows into the country, said the ambassador. I believe that as long as the reforms continue, many more foreign companies will invest their money in Azerbaijan.

The diplomat went on to say that the Republic of Korea is very active in sharing its experience and technologies in the ICT sector with other countries.

In particular, he said, Azerbaijan is a very important country in the cooperation within the ICT industry.

Ambassador Kim Chang-gyu noted that many Korean delegations will visit Azerbaijan in 2017, because next year Korea and Azerbaijan are marking the 25th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations.

On this occasion it is planned to hold joint events, including cultural, political, economic and scientific events, he added.

The diplomat also said that the talks are now ongoing with AZAL to launch a direct flight between the two countries.

We are suggesting two options. The first option is a direct flight through Bishkek, because Bishkek is situated on the straight line from here to Seoul, and also through Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, added Kim Chang-gyu.
A Wexford man who raped a child for two years until she became pregnant at the age of 13 has been jailed for 11 years.

The 76-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of his victims, also sexually molested the girls three younger sisters.

The Central Criminal Court heard that three of the children had developmental problems, including learning disabilities. Their mother knew the man and she would take him to the family home on weekends from his isolated rural home.

The man began abusing the 11-year-old girl in 2004. In 2006, her teacher noticed she was putting on weight and became suspicious that she was pregnant.

The abuse of all four girls emerged during the subsequent inquiries. The first victim told gardai that the man would rape her in the family home and outside in a field.

She said she hated him and he was not nice and he was cross with her.

It was disgusting and sore. He told me not to tell anybody or hed hit me, the court heard she told gardai.

During one incident, the girls brother observed the man raping the victim. She also described frequent incidents of molestation.

The man was charged with 18 counts each of rape, oral rape, and sexual assault. The Director of Public Prosecutions accepted a plea of guilty to one sample count of rape on the basis of the full facts of the allegations being heard.

The man also admitted to sample counts of sexual assault of the sisters on various dates between 2001 and 2006.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said that the house in which these offences occurred was, for those four children, a house of horrors.

He said that the fact that one of the girls had become pregnant by the accused at the age of 13 years old was a shocking feature of the case.

He also noted that three of the four children were of limited intellectual capacity, making them exceptionally vulnerable. He said that this was a grave aggravating factor.

Mr Justice McCarthy imposed concurrent sentences totalling 11 years. He said that he had to take into account the mans advanced age, as well as his guilty plea and admissions.

In 2005, the man molested one girl when she was aged just nine. She later told gardai that this abuse made her feel sad.

Another sister was aged six when the man molested her. He was aged 63 at the time.

She told gardai: This happened when I was six because I know my numbers.

The fourth sister was aged between seven and 11 when the man sexually assaulted her. She told gardai she did not know what sex was.

John Kelly, defending, said his client had an intellectual disability and a low IQ. Counsel said he has lost all his friends as a result of these offences.

He has become a social pariah. He lives a very isolated and lonely life, said Mr Kelly.
Fionn Braidwood, aged 32, of Clarinda Park East, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, is charged with murdering his mother, Jane Braidwood, aged 65, on January 20, 2015, at the same address.

Yesterday, at the Central Criminal Court, Mr Braidwood pleaded not guilty to murdering Jane Braidwood.

Mr Braidwood also pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Ceili Braidwood and Anthony Maguire at the same address and on the same date.

Alex Owens, prosecuting, told the jury the central issue they will be asked to consider is if they should bring in a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity against Mr Braidwood.

The court heard evidence by video link from Ceili Braidwood. On January 20, 2015, Ceili Braidwood was living with her mother in Dun Laoghaire. The accused was living there on and off since Christmas and her father had died some years previously, the court heard.

Mr Braidwood went off his medication in November 2014, having been on medication for bipolar disorder, manic depression, and schizophrenia, the court heard.

In the weeks leading up to January 2015, Mr Braidwood spent a lot of time in the house, was sleeping all day, and was starving himself.

At about 4.30pm on January 20, Mr Braidwood made an appearance, as he had been in bed previously in his bedroom, which was on the top floor of the house.

Ceili Braidwood told the court she was working from home that day and she then heard her brother ask her mother some questions.

She agreed her brother wanted his mother to facilitate him going to Australia.

He wanted her to ask our aunts in Australia to help him and let him stay as they lived over there, she told the court. He didnt need a visa as we have double citizenship.

The deceased tried to persuade her son it was a bad idea to go to Australia and he was in no condition to do it.

There was talk about the accuseds medication, the court heard.

Then Mr Braidwood went silent. This was the point he lost control and became quite angry, said Ceili Braidwood.

The court heard he then strode purposely towards the knife drawer.

The court heard that Mr Braidwood had never been violent towards Ceili Braidwood or her mother before.

Ceili Braidwood said she heard her mother screaming something at her son as he took a long and sharp knife from the drawer but it happened very quickly.

The witness said she then saw her brother struggling with her mother as her mother tried to run away.

Ms Braidwood then saw her brother stabbing her mother several times.

Her mother then moved towards the kitchen door and she heard her say: Call an ambulance. The knife was in her mothers back.

Ceili Braidwood locked herself in the bathroom and dialled emergency services.

She then got to the front door of the house and started shouting for help. She saw Anthony Maguire, who rang the emergency services on his mobile phone.

Patrick Gageby, defending, called forensic psychiatrist Brenda Wright from the Central Mental Hospital.

Dr Wright told the court Mr Braidwood has paranoid schizophrenia and became acutely unwell in 2007.

His illness was significantly complicated by noncompliance with medication and non-engagement with mental health teams, she said.

It is her view that the accused was acutely mentally unwell at the time of the offence and suffering a relapse of paranoid schizophrenia. She said he would have been unable to refrain from committing the act at the time of his mental disorder.

The trial continues.
Following the revelations in yesterdays Irish Examiner that almost 3,500 assaults took place in HSE hospitals in recent years Alan Kelly, the partys spokesman on health, said the HSE should take a zero tolerance approach to these attacks.

It is incumbent on the HSE and hospital management to respond to these shockingly high figures, ensure these attacks are taken seriously and that, where possible, action is taken (and ensure) assaults are reported to An Garda Siochana, and criminal prosecutions pursued.

Nurses, midwives, doctors and other health staff must be able to go about their already busy work with the knowledge that any attack on them will be taken seriously and prosecuted wherever possible. The minister for health should also examine this issue with his colleagues in Government and review the relevant law to ensure it is fit for purpose and (consider) if heavier fines might be necessary to act as a deterrent.

He said while assaults and attacks will always unfortunately occur, particularly in what can be a stressful and upsetting environment for patients and families, knowing that there is a zero tolerance attitude to such misbehaviour would go some way to change societal attitudes and help protect frontline staff.

Figures released to the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show that 3,462 incidents of physical assaults were recorded by the HSE between January 1, 2011, and July 27, 2016. The overall figure is higher once voluntary hospitals are taken into account but these figures are not complied by the HSE.

Almost 70% of assaults are against frontline staff, with 2,372 incidents recorded against nurses, midwives, psychiatric nurses or other nursing staff. More than one third (37%) of all assaults resulted in a physical injury.

Irish Nurses and Midwife Organisation (INMO) general secretary Liam Doran said more needs to be done to protect staff in hospitals.

Its a consequence unfortunately of a societal issue, particularly on nights and on weekends. Regrettably, the employer has been too passive, he said, adding that far more needs to be done to minimise the threat of assault.

The HSE said: While it is accepted that the provision of health services can involve situational conflicts, this recognition should not be equated with considering any form of aggression and/or violence as being inherent, inevitable or acceptable.
HSE suicide prevention officer, Martin Ryan, issued the call yesterday during a meeting of a multi-agency taskforce called following 10 deaths by suspected suicide in Cork city since October.

The meeting heard that Pieta House Cork has seen a more than doubling of its caseload in recent weeks  rising from 40 cases a day to almost 100  following a spike in the citys suicide rates.

Mr Ryan said the HSE is in the final stages of preparing a co-ordinated suicide prevention plan for the region, which aims to reduce suicide rates by 10% within five years. It should be submitted to the National Office for Suicide Prevention next week. Pending feedback, it is hoped to launch the plan by March.

This is a great opportunity for everybody to get behind a co-ordinated plan. It will be one plan, one strategy, with everybody singing from the same hymn sheet, he said.

Sinead Glennon, the HSEs head of mental health for Cork and Kerry, said it would involve a targeted approach to those vulnerable to suicide, with increased awareness and promotional activity around bank holidays, with support and helpline numbers displayed consistently across the city.

HSE's head of mental health for #Cork #Kerry Sinead Glennon says key message is that 24/7 help and support is available #mentalhealth pic.twitter.com/8aM8bOHlHY  Eoin English (@EoinBearla) December 5, 2016

Prof Ella Arensman of the National Suicide Research Foundation revealed details of the last major suicide cluster, which devastated the Mayfield and Glanmire areas of the city between September 19, 2008, and October 1, 2011. In that time, 21 men aged between 14 and 34, including 15 who were known to each other, died by suicide. Three close friends took their own lives within an eight-month period.

She said improved analysis in the wake of that cluster led to the identification of two clusters of male self-harm in the Cork area in early 2011. One of those clusters led to the emergence of a suicide cluster nearby in the second half of the year.

She said funding has just been secured to improve real-time tracking of the estimated 11,000 annual cases of self-harm which present at hospital emergency departments, in the hope that the early identification of self-harm clusters will help target interventions sooner with the aim of preventing the emergence of associated suicide clusters.

However, she warned that responding to these kinds of incidents is not an issue for a few weeks or months, but needs to be sustained for years.

Dr Ella Arensman, of National #Suicide Research Foundation, flags this useful resource https://t.co/BS0wp4NbBG #Cork  Eoin English (@EoinBearla) December 5, 2016

The meeting heard from representatives of Breaking the Silence in Cobh, which has trained some 7,000 people in suicide intervention and prevention programmes, and about the www.justbreathe.ie initiative.

Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Des Cahill, who chaired the meeting, invited the taskforce to meet again in late January to discuss ways forward.

You can get help and support from the HSE Souths 24/7 freephone suicide prevention helpline: 1800 247 247, from the Samaritans on 116 123, or from www.pieta.ie
Details added (first version posted on 15:05)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Azerbaijans Energy Minister Natig Aliyev noted the importance of the United States representation at a high level at the 3rd consultative council of ministers on the Southern Gas Corridor project in order to give political support to the project, the Azerbaijani Energy Ministry said in a message Dec. 6.

Aliyev made the remarks during his meeting with William Silkworth, office director at Bureau of Energy Resources of the US State Department, according to the message.

During the meeting, the US side expressed interest in Azerbaijans position on the eve of the OPEC meeting in Vienna.

The minister noted that Azerbaijan will join the process aimed at stabilization of prices on oil market and wont increase oil production and export.

Azerbaijan calls on other oil producing countries to take such steps and support consultations held by OPEC, said Aliyev, adding that the country considers OPECs meeting with non-OPEC countries to be important.

He noted that this meeting will be important in terms of studying the situation in non-OPEC countries.

I think that harmony and unity are needed within the cartel, as well as among non-OPEC countries for sustainable stability and long-term increase in oil prices, said Aliyev. If the interests of all parties coincide, it will be possible to achieve the determination of the oil price, beneficial for all, by the process of price regulation, and ensuring durability of agreements.

The two sides also discussed the termination of the deal for the sale of 66-percent stake in Greek gas grid operator DESFA by Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR and the impact, which the referendum in Italy can have on the implementation of the Trans-Adriatic Pipelines (TAP) construction project.

The minister expressed satisfaction with the implementation process of the Shah Deniz-2 project and projects on expansion of the South Caucasus gas pipeline and Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP).

The parties also discussed the negotiation process on the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline project and prospects of the US-Azerbaijan cooperation in the energy security sphere.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
They were responding to a report in yesterdays Irish Examiner which said Taoiseach Enda Kenny would most likely depart next summer.

Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, a leadership contender, spoke of the dangers done to the Fine Gael party by leadership issues in the past.

I think we need to be very careful and just get on with our jobs and deal with the challenges facing the country right now and put the focus there, she said. All of us ministers at the moment have very demanding and complex work to be done, and I think the focus should be on that. I think we need to focus on the work that we have to do. There is plenty to be done by everyone. Serious issues to be tackled.

Asked if she was one of the six ministers referred to in the article as saying Mr Kenny would not be still in office by 2018, she said: No, I am certainly not.

She added: The Taoiseach has made clear what his own view is, and I think the focus should be on him deciding it at the appropriate point, what his intentions are instead of trying to whatever people are trying to do at present  accelerate it or whatever. The Taoiseach has made it clear that he is not leading Fine Gael into the next election.

Education Minister Richard Bruton said it would be a matter for Mr Kenny to decide when he stands down.

Look, there is no vacancy. Enda Kenny has said he will go before the next election. The parliamentary party has decided it is a decision he will take, he said.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar  the perceived frontrunner  insisted talk about Mr Kennys successor is just gossip. It has been claimed Mr Varadkar has the support of about 30 parliamentary party members.

I meet my colleagues all the time, that is what people do in politics, he said. Everything at this stage is just gossip, but any politician with sense would take any commitment of support with a pinch of salt.

Speaking in Brussels, Michael Noonan voiced support for Mr Kenny to be taoiseach until 2018 due to the uncertain economic circumstances after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. He said: I am a strong supporter of the Taoiseach.

It is accepted within Fine Gael that the two men will step down together. Mr Noonan added: I think he has made a huge contribution to the security of Ireland and the economic prosperity of Ireland and in the uncertain economic circumstances that were in now, with Brexit and the Trump presidency, and populism all over Europe he has an ongoing contribution to make.

Fine Gael backbencher Jim Daly, who wants a change of leader, says hes not in a position to back anybody at the moment.
Seabuild Ltd, based at Unidare Industrial Estate, Jamestown Rd, Finglas, Dublin, pleaded guilty before Judge John Brennan at Dublin District Court yesterday to five counts under Section 58-A of the Pensions Act.

The firm was prosecuted by the Pensions Authority after a whistleblower contacted the watchdog agency in 2014. The court heard that there were arrears of 13,776, but the company, which has no prior criminal convictions, was co-operative and had paid up before the summonses were issued.
He made his comment after it emerged Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone are to tour a number of refugee camps next weekend. As part of the trip, Ms Fitzgerald will meet officials from the Irish Refugee Protection Programme, who are interviewing up to 80 asylum seekers in Athens every month for re-location to this country.

During the visit, which will last from Sunday to Tuesday, the Tanaiste is also expected to meet with unaccompanied children and members of the persecuted Azidi community.

The Fine Gael and Independent Alliance ministers will visit the Eleonas refugee camp and meet Greeces minister for migration and officials from UNHCR, UNICEF, and the European Asylum Support Office.

Ms Fitzgerald has previously said Ireland will accept 4,000 refugees as part of the EU response to the Mediterranean migration crisis, much of it as a result of the war in Syria, with 2,622 of these people being re-located from Greece and Italy.

However, just 109 people  and a mere 69 from Syria  have arrived in Ireland to date, a position that has been linked to delays in the processing of migration applications in the Mediterranean countries.

Mr OGorman welcomed the decision by the ministers to travel to Greece to see the situation for themselves.

However, he hit out at difficulties in Ireland and the EU for people attempting to flee war-torn regions. He said the ministers needed to be honest and accept what they will witness is a scale of suffering, which is the result of current EU policy.

Faced with the worst refugee crisis in 70 years, world leaders and the EU have shown a shocking disregard for the human rights of people, he said. When we talk about EU failures, we must also acknowledge that Ireland is part of the problem. When the European Council agrees policies which threaten human rights, Ireland is at the table taking part in those decisions.
These people are very shameful in their cowardice. I certainly dont want to rest until this is stopped, she said.

Ms Fitzgerald was speaking at a conference in Dublin hosted by Barnardos to highlight the impact of domestic abuse on children.

Children living with domestic violence are among the most vulnerable in our society and are absolutely in need of our protection and support. They live in a situation that is an unimaginable horror, she said.

Ms Fitzgerald said the Domestic Violence Bill that would be published in the next two weeks would allow experts to get the views of children affected by the orders being sought.

It would also be possible for a victim to give evidence by a televisual link to avoid the risk of intimidation by the perpetrator or an associate in civil and criminal proceedings.

However, despite the improvements in how society responded to domestic violence, there was so much work to be done.

The battle against domestic violence is one that will never end, said Ms Fitzgerald.

It is not acceptable that children live in fear and intimidation. The devastating effect on these children cannot be overstated.

Physical injuries are obvious. Trauma, fear and stress may be less visible but can be even more damaging, she said.

Ms Fitzgerald said Barnardos was an important organisation contributing significantly to the efforts made to secure a better future for children.

Frances Fitzgerald TD, during the launch of the national awareness campaign on domestic violence What would you do?. Picture: Gareth Chaney Collins

Earlier, the chief executive of Barnardos Fergus Finlay said Ireland had a problem facing up to domestic abuse. Every day the charity saw the tremendous impact domestic violence was having on children, even if the children were not direct victims.

Living in an abusive environment leaves a massive emotional scar on a child and often results in deep anxiety or aggressive outbursts, never mind the impact on their health, schooling, peer relationships and other developmental aspects. It is, simply, a form of child abuse, said Mr Finlay.

Barnardos knew that without appropriate support there was a huge risk of irreparable damage to the child-parent relationship and, the cycle of abuse continuing.

Research showed children who grew up experiencing domestic abuse were more likely to become perpetrators or victims in their adult life.

Domestic violence destroys lives, and domestic violence is primarily enabled by secrecy. We have got to get it out from behind the locked front door of homes, he said.

He shouted at my friends

Asha, 13, is the eldest of three children. Her family was referred to Barnardos because her little sister has a disability and her parents, who are not from Ireland, were finding it difficult to manage.

Her father became less and less engaged with the charity as time went on but her mother continued to participate in a parenting programme. During one session she disclosed that she was frequently sexually and physically abused by her husband. She felt there was nothing she could do about it.

It emerged that Asha had tried to protect her mother and younger siblings by trying to calm her father down.

Barnardos worked with Asha to help her understand her feelings, but it was no easy task because, at first, Asha was too embarrassed to talk about how she felt.

Asha said she was ashamed of what her father did and had become isolated from her friends as a result.

He called me a slut if he didnt like what I was wearing. It was bad, but it was worse when he shouted at my friends about what they were wearing.

The charity worked with the family so Asha, her mother, and siblings knew what to do and where to go if they felt unsafe. Some months later, Ashas mother left the family home with her children.

Barnardos continues to provide support for Ashas family in their new home. Asha still looks behind her when walking home from school. Asha worries about her mother and siblings. She prefers to sit in an armchair beside the window in their new house with a phone nearby so she can keep them safe.

Mum kicked on ground

Cormac, 10, was referred to Barnardos because he was anxious and withdrawn in school.

His parents recently separated, but his father still has access to the family home and can visit Cormac and his older brother.

When Barnardos started working with Cormac he told them about the fights between his parents  his father shouted a lot and punched his mother.

His mother was not allowed to have friends or money when his father lived in the house.

Cormac, who worries about upsetting his father, told Barnardos: Now that dad doesnt live with us anymore he always asks questions about mam and gets me to give her messages.

His father was living with them when he had a birthday party at a local restaurant, but he was not there because his mother had given him the wrong time.

Later at home his father pulled his mother to the ground and kicked her for not getting the time right.

When Barnardos started supporting Cormacs mother it had taken some time before she realised she was being abused by her ex-partner.

Cormac said he did not want to be like his father but worried that he would grow up to be like him because when he got angry he took his frustrations out on his mother.

Barnardos helped Cormacs mum to see that Cormac and his brother were mimicking behaviour. She is developing strategies to avoid taking her anger at her sons father out on them.
The practice has been slammed as an abuse of our national heritage by the Wild Deer Association of Ireland (WDAI), the national body for deer management and conservation.

In recent weeks, both the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural, and Gaeltacht Affairs and management in the Killarney National Park have been given detailed reports of at least one instance where a Killarney red stag was shot by a tourist who said he paid thousands of euro to a commercial company for the experience.

The red stag was shot out of season when a permit issued to a landowner under strict conditions, was allegedly obtained by a commercial company, it is alleged.

The stag was shot on October 7 near the National Park, and park management was warned that a second Killarney red stag was being lined up in the following days.

The hunter, who was staying in Kenmare, paid 5,000 to a commercial company to shoot a Kerry mountain red stag. The hunter believed he was acting legally and  accompanied by a guide  shot the stag on private land.

The permit was issued to a local landowner, who then nominated a hunter to cull the stags. The allegation is that this hunter was a guide working for a commercial hunting company.

The Wild Deer Association has written to Rural Affairs Minister Heather Humphreys, stating it opposes the sale and abuse of our heritage and protected wildlife species.

Killarney red deer are a unique subspecies and of international importance. From near extinction in the early 1970s, when numbers had fallen to just 60 animals, they have since recovered and are now estimated at somewhere between 600 and 700 animals.

There is no open season for culling red deer in Co Kerry, WDAI spokesman Damien Hannigan said in a letter to Ms Humphreys.

While we sympathise and regularly offer advice and support to landowners who suffer genuine deer-crop damage and do not object to the promotion of tourism from hunting or shooting, we strongly oppose such abuse of your heritage and protected wildlife species.

As well as seeking the withdrawal of all Killarney red deer shooting permits, his association is seeking a meeting with the minister.

Because of previous abuse of licences to cull red deer for financial gain, a commitment was given by the department that only its staff would be allowed shoot the red stags and hinds, when necessary to do so, said Mr Hannigan.
Bernadette Scully, aged 58, told gardai she had given her child double what she would have normally given her in a 24-hour period, but said her death was not premeditated. The GPs interviews were read into evidence yesterday on the fifth day of her trial.

Ms Scully is charged with unlawfully killing Emily Barut at their home at Emvale, Bachelors Walk, Tullamore. Its alleged that she killed her by an act of gross negligence involving the administration of an excessive quantity of chloral hydrate on September 15, 2012.

She has pleaded not guilty and is on trial at the Central Criminal Court.

Inspector Ger Glavin of Portlaoise Garda Station testified that he arrested Ms Scully and brought her to Tullamore Garda Station on April 7, 2014. She was interviewed four times that day.

The trial has heard Emily had severe epilepsy, microcephaly and cerebral palsy. She had the mental age of a six-month old, and couldnt move or speak.

Ms Scully explained to the gardai that she had been in a lot of pain for the past two weeks of her life, after having a procedure to replace the tube into her stomach through which she received fluids and medication.

She said she had given her chloral hydrate when she became upset at 2am and 6am, and had given it again when she had an unprecedented seizure around 11am. It was just the two of them in the house; her partner was at her nephews funeral.

My whole aim had been to keep her alive and keep her going, she said.

She told gardai she had never given that much chloral hydrate before and accepted she had given too much. What was I to do, stand there and watch her fit? she asked.

She said her little lips went blue when she gave her the final syringe.

Im not sure how long it took. It seemed like an eternity, she explained.

My hands were shaking, she said. I took her up in my arms and she died in my arms.

She was asked what her aim was in giving the final dose.

To stop the fit, she said.

Did you know deep down what the probable outcome was? she was asked.

I would say no, not at the time, she replied, adding that she had been panicked.

It was put to her that she was relieved when it was over, but she said thats not how she felt.

I wanted to go with her. Even to this day, I didnt want her to be on her own, she said.

At the time, I didnt stop to think, she said. I had nothing else to give her. She said that she hadnt slept in eight days and that Emily was roaring.

I just saw my child having a fit. I was frightened and wanted to stop it, she said. I wasnt a doctor that morning. She said she now knew she wasnt able to look after her that morning. Her reserves were gone, she said.

I have to put it to you that the reason you brought the chloral hydrate to her bedroom that morning was to give it to her until she passed away, suggested a garda.

She denied this.

She was asked how many millilitres she thought she had given her that morning and she estimated a total of about 32ml.

She said the most she had ever given her in a 24-hour period was around 15ml.

So you gave her double? she was asked.

Yes, she agreed.

It was put to her that, as Emilys doctor, she had been reckless.

It was a larger dose than I had ever given her, but they were different circumstances, she said.

It was put to her that the decision shed made and the action shed taken that morning had led to her daughters death.

Prof Cassidy said that and thats what I have to deal with, she replied, referring to the post-mortem results.

It was suggested that she was as low as she had ever been that morning, that Emily was living in extreme pain, and that she had made a conscious decision to take them both out of this world. The court has already heard that Ms Scully made two suicide attempts that day.

I did not make any conscious decision to take Emily out of this world, she replied. I did make a conscious decision after Emily died to take myself out of this world. She accepted she had written a note found at the scene, but denied writing it before Emily died.

It was put to her the note suggested premeditation.

It wasnt premeditated about taking Emilys life, she said.

The trial continues .
The reciprocal Intern Work and Travel Pilot arrangement between the US and Irish governments allows Irish citizens over the age of 18 who have recently finished second level or graduated from third level to live and work in any part of the US for up to 12 months.

However the bilateral agreement does not extend to the J1 summer programme, the four-month visa popular among Irish students.
Oil prices on Tuesday fell for the first session since OPEC agreed to cut output last week after data showed crude production rose in most major export regions and on growing skepticism that the cartel would be able to reduce production, Reuters reported.

After rising over 15 percent over the four sessions since the Nov. 30 OPEC meeting, Brent futures fell $1.06, or 1.9 percent, to $53.88 a barrel by 1:26 p.m. EST. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell $1.05, or 2 percent, to $50.74 per barrel.

The Brent front-month contract has outperformed the U.S. contract since the OPEC meeting, with its premium over WTI reaching $2.29 a barrel earlier on Tuesday, its widest since August.

"Reaction to the OPEC news was overdone. All they did was agree to cut output that they had added recently," said Phil Davis, managing partner at venture capital firm PSW Investments in Woodland Park, New Jersey.

OPEC's output set another record high in November, rising to 34.19 million barrels per day (bpd) from 33.82 million bpd in October, according to a Reuters survey.

As part of last week's decision, OPEC said major oil producers outside the group would cut 600,000 bpd of production on top of OPEC's 1.2 million bpd reduction. Those countries and OPEC meet this weekend to finalize the terms.

Russia reported average oil production in November of 11.21 million bpd, its highest in nearly 30 years. That means OPEC and Russia alone produced enough to cover almost half of global oil demand, which is just above 95 million bpd.

Market watchers had said OPEC's decision to cut output marked an about-face for Saudi Arabia, which has been battling to keep market share for the past two years by selling more, if cheaper, barrels rather than bolstering prices.

But in a sign the fight for market share is not over, Saudi Aramco cut the January price for its Arab Light grade for Asian customers by $1.20 a barrel from December.

Meanwhile, Glencore chief Ivan Glasenberg reflected some fears in the market when he said prices could drop to $35 should U.S. shale producers ramp up their output though he hoped they would be "responsible."

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects U.S. crude production to fall less than previously expected to 8.9 million bpd in 2016 and to 8.8 million bpd in 2017 from 9.4 million bpd in 2015, according to its monthly short term energy outlook.

Analysts, meanwhile, forecast U.S. crude inventories fell by 1 million barrels last week.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is set to release U.S. inventory data at 4:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday, while the U.S. EIA will release its petroleum report at 10:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday.
William Gilsenan, aged 24, of The Green, Larch Hill, Oscar Traynor Rd, Santry, Dublin 17, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 29-year-old Edward Fitzgerald in a car park outside the accuseds home on October 17, 2014.

John Curry was a neighbour of Mr Gilsenan in 2014 and today told Orla Crowe, prosecuting, that he overheard an earlier argument between Mr Gilsenan and the deceased. When he saw paramedics arriving he guessed Mr Gilsenan was involved and offered to help gardai find him. He said he was a friend of Mr Gilsenans father, William Kinsella, who he called on the phone.
The airline is seeking declarations and orders in the Commercial Court against Google Ireland and its US parent, Google Inc, and against Vacaciones eDreams SL, a Barcelona-based firm which operates the eDreams website.

Ryanair claims when someone searching for its flights enters one or more words on the Google search page, they are directed to the eDreams site and given the impression they are booking through the Irish airline.

It says this arises out of a form of electronic targeted advertising, called the AdWords programme, whereby firms pay Google to have a listing in a more prominent position than would be obtained through organic or natural results. This, says Ryanair, infringes its registered trademarks and/or intellectual property rights.

The claims are denied.

The airline says eDreams deliberately uses the Ryanair trademark word, and variations of it, as a keyword through AdWords so as to generate an eDreams advert for display on the page such that it ranks ahead of Ryanairs own website.

Among the declarations it seeks are that Google has failed to act expeditiously to remove offending material from AdWords or from Google search results, or to disable eDreams use of the AdWords programme. It also seeks injunctions preventing Google and eDreams from using, or allowing to be used, the Ryanair name in any sub-domain operated by eDreams. It seeks injunctions to prevent eDreams from passing off its search and booking website as being connected to Ryanair.

The case came before Mr Justice Brian McGovern yesterday when Ryanair sought further details of eDreams defence. Joe Jeffers, for Ryanair, said eDreams was saying it had already provided sufficient details and was now saying it was Ryanair which had copied its website, which was denied. Daniel Simms, for eDreams, said his client had said in broad terms what it wished to say in a reply to particulars of the case sought by Ryanair. Anything further was a matter for trial.

Mr Justice McGovern said eDreams had provided sufficient particulars and rejected Ryanairs application.
IT has finally been acknowledged by the minister of state for disabilities, Finian McGrath, that his target to have the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) ratified by the end of 2016 will not come to pass, citing blockages within the legislative process.

Ireland will now lose a race against time to prevent us marking the ignominious 10-year anniversary of signing the convention in March 2007 without ratifying it. Ireland also remains the last country in the European Union that has not yet ratified the convention.

This is borders on a national embarrassment and is a deeply worrying development for persons with disabilities who, as the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission warned recently, are currently at risk of being further excluded from decisions, which impact their daily lives, from employment to voting.

The convention sets out in clear terms that the rights of persons with disabilities are human rights and these rights apply equally to persons with disabilities; the fact that the UNCRPD will not be ratified this year shows that people with disabilities in Ireland are not a priority for this Government.

All of the articles in the UNCRPD are important, but one of the essential ones is Article 19, which recognises the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community requiring states to take effective and appropriate measures to achieve this end and to ensure that persons with disabilities choose where they live, have access to services to support inclusion in the community and to the same services that the general population receive responsive to their needs.

After a fortnight where there has been much attention in the media about the experiences of family carers, we cannot say that Ireland is ready to ensure that people have supported lives in the community.

For many people, making this move involves a transition from institutional care or from a family home and sometimes the transition is in a crisis situation following a family death.

Transitions are hard and we know that often families, and sometimes individuals themselves, are not ready for this transition or lack confidence in the process. Research demonstrates that families are often concerned that people  particularly those with complex support needs  are invisible in current policy and service provision.

The formation of the last government included not only a minister of state with responsibility for disabilities, but also the Programme for a Partnership Government, which included several commitments, in particular that supports were needed at key transition points  going to school, progressing to further training or education, or moving into a new home.

It is abundantly clear that it is these transition points that cause the most anxiety, or that it is these transitions that are not made until there is a crisis.

Lets be clear about one thing  everybody can live in the community, regardless of the support needs. All international evidence supports this view. But people can only live good lives with the correct supports.

Support comes in many guises and should be personal and individualised. It may include the aspects of the HSE Service Plan 2017 that Mr McGrath tweeted that he was sweating over, such as respite, day places, and personal assistant hours.

HSE-related services provide an opportunity for people who are transitioning or already living in the community, but we must also include personalised budgets, assisted decision-making, supported living arrangements, deinstitutionalisation, and independent advocacy to promote inclusion of persons with disabilities in their community.

Some emerging Irish research shows that current service provision is overly concerned with avoidance of risk for the person and less towards the inclusion of that person in their community.

Inclusion Ireland is aware, through our advocacy work, that there are serious gaps in the supports provided to people with complex needs and their families at all stages of the lifespan and the research backs this up. The research also points to the need for more effective planning for the future of people with disabilities.

Amongst the various comments from family members over the last fortnight, it has been the transitions that have stood out and it is clear that transitions are often precipitated by crises. This is not good enough.

If Ireland is committed to the UNCRPD  which is now clearly in question  these transitions must be met proactively and we must take effective and appropriate measures. This involves a holistic approach to services  not just the HSE and Department of Health.

Mr McGrath himself has a role across three government departments, namely Social Protection, Justice and Equality, and Health. No other minister has a brief with this level of breadth.

He must appoint a dedicated official to review and plan for future services for people with complex needs. This official must be cross-departmental and co-ordinate a lifelong, whole-of-family approach, otherwise we will transition from crisis to crisis.

Paddy Connolly is CEO of Inclusion Ireland, the national association for persons with an intellectual disability
Or, dare it be said, shared. The story of how Irelands gas and oil resources were signed away is a sad, shameful, and sinister one. That national capitulation  betrayal is not too strong a word  does not bear scrutiny. We can only look with envy at how Norway, albeit a country offering far lower-risk exploration opportunities, used their bounty to build enviable services and genuine opportunity. Despite those moderate people-before-profit demands the Norwegian gas and oil fields generated billions for those able to invest in the adventure  there was enough for everyone.

One of the take-home lessons from that scandal is that any entity established to manage Irish water resources must be, by referendum if necessary, secured permanently in public ownership. Any alternative would be dangerously naive.

The winner-takes-all principle has been extended to the European Unions fishery policies  and, unfortunately, policing. The seas off Ireland, and elsewhere, are being ravaged by supertrawlers. These mega hoovers seem almost beyond the control of any government. Naturally, the corporate owners insist they operate within the law. That may be the case but it is more than galling for Irelands confined-to-port trawlermen to watch these gigantic ships strip waters Irish boats can no longer fish because of quota limits.

The environmental carnage is as spectacular as it is unacceptable. Think of an attack on a cornered herd of deer with a helicopter gunship and youll have an idea of the imbalance between technology and nature. Theses are sea-going factories rather than anything we recognise as a trawler. The biggest  formerly the Irish-owned Atlantic Dawn now the Annelies Ilena  is longer than Croke Park and can process an utterly unsustainable 250 tonnes of fish every single day.

The social consequences are as unacceptable. Not so long ago ocean communities survived through relatively modest harvests but now the seas riches are concentrated in ever fewer hands. Arguments around quota limits applying to these monsters seem as implausible as the arguments used to defend our capitulation on Irelands oil and gas. That this plundering is conducted by an industry in the spotlight for the illegal exploitation of migrant workers adds to the outrage. That Australia once banned them from their national waters is another warning that should not be ignored.

All around the world electorates are rejecting the establishment that has not understood or protected their interests. Those protests wear many faces, everything from Brexit to Trump, to the victorious pipeline protests at Standing Rock in Dakota. There is a growing and justified determination to reject the excesses of capitalism and the kind of cold corporatism that closes viable pension schemes to enhance a balance sheet. Efforts, belated as they may be, to protect our seas and rejuvenate the coastal communities that depend on them, as well as a more equitable distribution of the bounty our oceans offer, can only add to that empowering momentum.
Business Eden Group Buys Sedona Hotel Mandalay

The Sedona Hotel Mandalay / Keppel Land Group

RANGOON  One of Burmas largest conglomerates, the Eden Group, purchased the Sedona Hotel Mandalay from Singapores Keppel Land for US$41 million and will entrust Hilton to manage the hotel.

U Chit Khine, chairman of the Eden Group of companies, told The Irrawaddy that the agreement was made with Keppel Land Group in November in Singapore and that they are waiting to sign with the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism in a tripartite agreement.

We are considering naming it Hilton Mandalay, he said, adding that Keppel Land will continue to manage the hotel until Hilton take over in January next year.

U Chit Khine said since the hotel is located in a prime Mandalay location it should be run by a local business.

Keppel Land Group opened the Sedona Hotel Mandalay in 1997 in the heart of the city facing the palace and Mandalay Hill. The group began Burma operations when they opened Sedona Hotel Rangoon in 1993.

Singapores Business Times reported in October that Keppel Land wanted to unlock the value in the hotel to pursue other opportunities in Myanmar, with a focus on Yangon.

The Eden Group owns hotels in Rangoon, Naypyidaw, Bagan, Inle Lake, and Arakan States Thandwe Township and operates the Naypyidaw and Thandwe hotels under Hilton management.

Local conglomerate buy the hotel from Singapores Keppel Land for $41 million and say it will be managed by Hilton.
In Person UNFCs Nai Hong Sar: Major Difficulty Lies in Negotiating with Burma Army

UNFC vice chairman Nai Hong Sar. / Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy

There have been concerns about the prospects for peace in Burma since the Northern Alliance, comprised of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA), began launching joint offensives against the Burma Army in northern Shan State on Nov. 20.

The Irrawaddys Kyaw Kha spoke to Nai Hong Sar, vice chairman of the ethnic armed group coalition the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), to discuss the impact of recent clashes on the countrys peace process.

We have heard that in a recent three-day UNFC meeting the issue of the Northern Alliance was discussed. Can you tell us what was said about this?

We need to keep the peace talks going. And at the same time, they [the Northern Alliance] have adopted a new tactics. The military has long been carrying out offensives against them, and if they only act in defense, in the end they will lose. In military strategy, countering offensives with offensives is the best defense. And thats what they have done.

What is the stance of the UNFC regarding the Northern Alliances offensives? Is there disagreement?

We have no disagreement. We dont want the clashes to escalate. But inevitably, they had had to launch an offensive.

The KIA is a member of the UNFC, and it took part in the offensives. So, will there be changes in future peace talks between the UNFC and the government? Will the KIA still be included in peace talks?

Yes, they will, in order not to disrupt their peace talks with the government. All groups which can join will be participating in the peace talks.

What are the difficulties faced by non-signatories of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in holding peace talks with the new government?

The major difficulty lies in negotiating with the Burma Army.

What are the difficulties?

It includes all-inclusion, tripartite talks [between the Burma Army, the government and ethnic armed groups] as well as participation of international dignitaries in the joint monitoring committee (JMC) in order to strengthen it. Besides the NCA, we think the JMC also should be strengthened as the Burma Army has attacked the RCSS [the Restoration Council of Shan State], one of the NCA signatories.

Ethnic armed groups previously said that political problems must be solved through political means. But in the military operations by the Northern Alliance, public interests were harmed and civilians were killed, which sparked criticism. What do you want to say about this?

We dont want people to view this one-sidedly. Have they wondered how long government troops have been attacking the KIA and TNLA? Local people suffered huge losses in those clashes. Many businesses collapsed and many people were forced from their homes. If people dont consider these things and only see the offensives by the Northern Alliance and resultant losses, it is extremely biased. They need to see both sides.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was asked about the clashes in northern Burma when she met Burmese nationals living in Singapore during a recent visit. She said people wanted peace, but that clashes continued because certain groups dared not build understanding. What do you think of what she said?

If [the government and military] want genuine and complete peace, offensives must be stopped. If the government stops its offensives, we ethnicities will also stop the offensives. I can guarantee that. We dont want to launch offensives. We are carrying out offensives only for defensive purposes.

China should play an important role regarding the clashes in northern part of Burma. What is your assessment of this?

It is fair to say that clashes are going on at the China border. Some displaced persons have fled into China. Under such circumstances, China has the responsibility to complain. They have to complain when the interests of their people are affected. The instability may also disrupt their businesses.

Given the fact that China has complained, it would be better if [members of] the international community facilitated or joined our peace process as witnesses.

In Parliament, the Burma Army recently called for the branding of the Northern Alliance [members] as terrorist organizations. Does that move threaten all-inclusion policy?

Thats why I said people need to see both sides fairly. Some dont know the fact that the Burma Army has been carrying out offensives and that the Northern Alliance inevitably had to respond to it.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
Asia Thai King Appoints New Members to Royal Council

Thailands new King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun is seen on his way out from the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, December 2, 2016. / Reuters

BANGKOK  Thailands new king appointed three new members to his powerful royal advisory council on Tuesday and removed some former members in one of his first acts since taking the throne.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, 64, was proclaimed king on Thursday, ushering in a new era for the 234-year-old Chakri Dynasty, and reinforcing expectations of institutional stability in financial markets.

He will also be known as King Rama X. His father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died on Oct. 13 at the age of 88 after reigning for seven decades.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn appointed three officials to an 11-member panel, known as the Privy Council, the palace said in a statement published on the Royal Gazette website, his first appointments to his main team of advisers.

This is a very calculated move from King Rama X, which signals compromise while also asserting a new order under his reign, said a Bangkok-based analyst who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Criticism of the monarch, the regent or the heir, known by the French term lese majeste, is a crime that carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years in Thailand.

Those removed from the council included the director of the Crown Property Bureau, which controls the monarchys institutional assets, worth tens of billions of dollars, and which under the late king leased out swathes of real estate in and around Bangkok, often at below market rates.

Two former military chiefs were also removed.

The new king has already signaled continuity with the reinstatement last Friday of the president of the Privy Council, Prem Tinsulanonda, 96, a former army chief and prime minister, after he served as regent in the period between the late kings death and the new kings ascension on Dec. 1.

The involvement of some privy councillors in political matters became the subject of controversy in recent years, according to a semi-official biography of King Bhumibol.

Prem had been accused by critics of involvement in the removal from power of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a 2006 coup.

Thaksins ouster triggered a decade of political unrest that has broadly pitted the Bangkok-based, military-dominated establishment against the populist governments of Thaksin and his sister, former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

The three new council members appointed on Tuesday were Minister of Justice Paiboon Koomchaya, Minister of Education Dapong Ratanasuwan, and a former army chief, Teerachai Nakwanich.

Paiboon and Dapong will have to step down from the cabinet. None of the three were available for comment.
Burma Kofi Annan: Charge of Genocide Should Not Be Used Loosely in Arakan State

Kofi Annan talks to the media during a press conference on Tuesday about the Arakan State Advisory Commissions recent trip to Arakan State. / Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  Chairman of the Arakan State Advisory Commission Kofi Annan told reporters at a Rangoon press conference that when describing the crisis in Arakan State, the term genocide should be used with caution.

Reporters at the event on Tuesday questioned former UN secretary Annan about whether Burmese security forces were committing genocide against the self-identifying Rohingya population in Arakan States Maungdaw Township, as some international coverage of the regions crisis has suggested.

Genocide, Mr. Annan said, is a very serious charge that requires legal review and judicial determination. It is not a charge that should be thrown around loosely.

In late November, the BBC World Service published a story in which a UN refugee agency official in Bangladesh was quoted as accusing the Burmese government of committing ethnic cleansing against the countrys Muslim minority. The government denied the claim.

Burmas State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was asked about the Arakan State conflict in a Dec. 2 interview with Channel News Asia.

I would appreciate so much if the international community would help us to maintain peace and stability and to make progress in building better relations between the two communities instead of always drumming up calls for bigger fires of resentment, she said.

Kofi Annan came to Burma in late November to learn more about the situation in Arakan State following recent armed clashes between the Burma Army and militants in Maungdaw Township. For three days, he and the eight other commission members visited Buthidaung and Myaypon townships and the ancient city of Mrauk-U, and the delegation toured villages in northern Maungdaw Township, an area where rights groups have said that army abuses and rights violations took place and communities were destroyed.

Despite efforts to document the different perspectives of both Arakanese and Muslim community and religious leaders and youth, few local Arakanese civil society organizations or politicians have agreed to speak face-to-face with Mr. Annan and the commission, arguing that the delegation is interfering in Arakan States internal affairs.

Participants in a meeting with Kofi Annan on Monday told The Irrawaddy that the lack of collaboration from the Buddhist Arakanese community had left the commission chairman feeling unsettled.

On Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Annan conducted meetings with Burmas President U Htin Kyaw, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the armys commander-in-chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, as well as with Arakanese lawmakers.

Since the Burma Army declared Maungdaw Township an operation zone, journalists have not been allowed to obtain news from the region independently; humanitarian assistance has also been largely blocked.

During the meeting with Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, Mr. Annan encouraged a shift in the restrictions for media and international relief organizations access to the area. Lifting these barriers, he explained, would also serve to create better understanding of the communities circumstances and the events taking place on the ground.

There are so many stories and rumors. People dont know what is what, he said. Transparency is a powerful tool to eliminate some of the rumors. The press will also be allowed to do their work, he pointed out.

The Arakan State Advisory Commission will deliver its preliminary report to the Union government in February.
Burma Muslim Coalition Objects to Malaysias Rally to Support Rohingya

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (center) leads a rally in solidarity with Burmas Rohingya. / AP

A coalition of Muslim civil society organizations (CSOs) in Burma objected to a rally led by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in support of the Rohingya Muslim minority on Sunday. An open letter addressed to Malaysias ruling party on Monday stated that the situation in Arakan State was sensitive and should not be exploited for self-interest or political purposes.

Najib Razak staged the protest, announcing to State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyis government that enough is enough and calling for Indonesia to join the movement to put pressure on Burma in support of the Rohingya.

The Burmese CSOs sent the letter to Malaysias ruling party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), through the Malaysian embassy in Rangoon but said they had not yet received a response.

Myat Noe Oo, the spokesperson for the Coalition of Myanmar Muslim CSOs, told The Irrawaddy that the groups do not accept Malaysias intervention in domestic affairs through labeling the Arakan conflict as a religious one.

We hereby reassert that the Muslim community in Myanmar does not view this as religious persecution but as a controversial ethnic issue, stated the open letter.

Our situation is very complex therefore we do not want another countrys intervention, as it might lead to further difficulties and a move away from peace, Myat Noe Oo added.

The Muslim coalition said in order to find a lasting solution to peace that international coordination and a multi-faceted approach are needed.

The President Offices of the National League for Democracy government has responded to the Malaysian Prime Minister actions by stating its disappointment and urging the use of diplomatic channels.

The Malaysian armed forces chief Gen Zulkifeli Bin Mohd Zin visited Burma and held separate meetings with President U Htin Kyaw and commander-in-chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing on Monday.

During the meeting of military leaders, the Burma Army chief said, Bengali [Rohingya] problems in northern Rakhine State were due to their failure to abide by the existing laws of Myanmar.

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing claimed that Burmese security forces have never committed human rights violations such as extrajudicial killing, rape or arson, and that an investigation was being conducted. He reassured his Malaysian counterpart that any violations [of his forces] would be dealt with through legal punishment.

Following an outbreak of violence that began with border guard post attacks on Oct. 9, the Burma Army has faced widespread allegations of abuses. An official in Bangladesh from the UN refugee agencyUNHCRaccused the Burmese government in late November of carrying out ethnic cleansing against the countrys Muslim minority. The UN recently warned Burma that its reputation was at stake over its handling of the violence in Arakan State.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dec. 6

By Demir Azizov Trend:

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has been elected the President of Uzbekistan for the next five years, thanked the Uzbek people for trusting in him.

"I thank the people of Uzbekistan for their support," said Mirziyoyev at a rally of the Uzbek Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP) supporters, which was held after announcement of the preliminary voting results.

As previously reported, more than 15.9 million voters, or 88.61 percent of all voters who participated in the voting, cast their ballots for Mirziyoyev.

Overall, more than 17.94 million people, or 87.83 percent of all voters cast their votes.

Addressing the rally, Mirziyoyev said that over the past 25 years, under the leadership of the first Uzbek President Islam Karimov tremendous changes had been made in all spheres of the countrys life - the principles of market economy were introduced, the foundations of sovereignty were fortified, as well as a democratic legal state and strong civil society were formed.

"Further consistent continuation of this extensive work is the main purpose of our people. Since the main idea of our independence is to secure bright future for our Motherland and welfare of its people, said the newly elected president.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev congratulated Mirziyoyev with the victory.
How to Use the Cloud to Become a High-Velocity Business

The hybrid cloud is evolving along a strange sort of dichotomy as the year comes to a close: It is getting easier to deploy but more challenging to optimize.

This is partly due to the fact that the enterprise itself is tasked with managing multiple types of workload  everything from traditional business applications to mobile computing and device-driven analytics. But it also points to the fact that the hybrid cloud is not a single entity but a collection of components that must work together near-flawlessly in order to provide the seamless data experience that users expect.

Tech writer Alan Joch noted on BizTech recently that the emergence of turnkey solutions and hybrid management tools is making it easier to deploy distributed cloud environments. Leading IT vendors have taken to leveraging both their home-grown systems portfolios and third-party contributions to craft hybrid architectures that can be easily launched and then quickly scaled to production-level environments. VMwares Cross-Cloud Architecture, for example, provides for consistent deployment models, security policies and governance across multiple clouds and can be delivered under the companys Cloud Foundation architecture that incorporates legacy platforms like vRealize, vSphere and NSX software-defined networking.

But what are the critical elements of a functioning hybrid cloud? According to IT consultant Keith Townsend, the three pillars are advanced networking, orchestration and automation. In distributed data architectures of any kind, latency is an application killer, and since hybrids require a high degree of multipoint connectivity, the new enterprise network will need both more bandwidth and advanced fabric-style architectures. This drives the need for both orchestration and automation to handle the diversity of data flows and the scale of operations that far exceed the capabilities of traditional management practices.

Already, says Digital Realtys Andrew Schaap, the difference between success and failure in the digital economy is coming down to networking. Speed and scale are the two main opposing forces in the hybrid cloud: As data loads increase, network resources become overloaded and performance suffers. To bridge this divide, the enterprise must craft an environment in which networks can be provisioned on the fly to meet data demands as they ebb and flow throughout the application lifecycle. At the same time, organizations should keep a close eye on the proximity of data as it leaves the local data center. The farther data has to travel, the greater the latency.

For this and other reasons, the selection of the third-party host is an important factor in the hybrid cloud. In a recent whitepaper, Frost & Sullivan pointed out that colocation providers are becoming increasingly attractive as the new hub for enterprise hybrid clouds because they can provide both the dedicated hosting services and cloud functionality that emerging applications require. Using a carrier-neutral provider, organizations gain access to secure, private resources for sensitive data while still enjoying the scale and flexibility of cloud resources under a fully integrated computing environment. And in many cases, this type of hybrid can be deployed and provisioned even faster than a turnkey solution.

No matter what technologies are employed in the hybrid cloud, it is fair to say that every environment will require a fair amount of customization in order to meet the unique data requirements of the enterprise and individual users. This will be a lot easier to do compared to traditional infrastructure, of course, given the flexibility that arises from separating data architectures from underlying infrastructure.

But it also means that the hybrid cloud will still require a lot of hands-on development even as day-to-day functions are taken over by automated, devops-oriented processes. The data environment may no longer be limited to the data center, but we are still left with the age-old questions of where, when and how to support the applications that fuel economic activity.

Arthur Cole writes about infrastructure for IT Business Edge. Cole has been covering the high-tech media and computing industries for more than 20 years, having served as editor of TV Technology, Video Technology News, Internet News and Multimedia Weekly. His contributions have appeared in Communications Today and Enterprise Networking Planet and as web content for numerous high-tech clients like TwinStrata and Carpathia. Follow Art on Twitter @acole602.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has recently taken photos of the sun with a big grin on its face, which was then uploaded to the observatory's official website. If you tilt your head slightly to the left, scientists say that two eyes, a nose, a mouth and even cheekbones can seemingly be seen clearly in the image.

Can The Sun Be Observing Us All These Times?

In one of his statements reported by Daily Mail, NASA Scientist Karl Battams explained that the eyes are likely active regions of the sun, while the mouth is a solar filament which happens to be a plasma in the sun's atmosphere. Furthermore, Battams have claimed that the dark spots that resemble hair at the sides are coronal holes which are the regions where the sun's corona is dark.

According to News Everyday, it was found that the sun's corona is actually a plasma which is far hotter by a factor from 150 to 450 than the other surface. The average temperature of the sun's corona is one to three million Kelvin. Moreover, the factors which make it hotter than the other region are allegedly due to the constant outflow of particles and the solar flares. These solar materials that permeate the solar system are called solar wind.

Meanwhile, experts have noted that the Solar Dynamics Observatory is the first mission to be launched for NASA's "Living With a Star" (LWS) program, which is a program that aims to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. It was found that in 2012, NASA had also released a similar picture of the star, which was believed to bear a remarkable resemblance to the famous Sesame Street character Big Bird. While the image was just created by a coronal hole, experts have highly emphasized that it's not quite as clear as the smiling face.
Fans of 'Girl Meets World' are urging Disney to approve the renewal of the show. They have been very present in the online community for the past months and it seems like their noise has been very effective. As they wait for Disney's decision, stars of the show officially joins the bandwagon. Would we finally see the 4th installment of the show?

Freeform Openly Accepts 'Girl Meets World' If Disney Would Reject Its Renewal

According to Movie News Guide, Freeform has been very open in the idea of renewing 'Girl Meets World' in their channel. But as the decision is not yet confirmed, Disney remains silent regarding the situation. Fans and the show's stars are left questioning what could happen next.

It was remembered that Rowan Blanchard, one of 'Girl Meets World' stars, advises fans to give their best support in convincing Disney to approve the renewal of the series. The actress stated that she sees the potential of the show and that more twists and turns could be added on it.

She tweeted:

"So important 4 our gen to be a voice of hope/change & learn from each other. Hoping we continue to have that chance #GirlMeetsWorldSeason4"

She hoped that 'Girl Meets World' could be an avenue for hope and change. With this, she has been very consistent of not giving up on the show.

Stars Of 'Girl Meets World 'Supports Rowan Blanchard In Her Petition To Renew The Show

Meanwhile, Blanchard's co-actors on the show made her feel as if she is not alone in the fight. Riley Matthew helped the star in urging Disney to accept the proposal. Cheryl Texiera has been very all out as well as she writes a letter explaining the reasons why the show should continue. Also, Augusto Mature, Ava Kolker and Corey Fogelmanis tried to help Rowan by posting on their social media accounts.

Fans are hoping that the help of the stars would play a huge impact in Disney's decision.
By Sohbet Karbuz, for Trend:

On November 30, OPEC decided its first output cut since 2008. In the two days following the announcement of the cut, Brent crude oil price registered more than 16 percent increase. Because of this, we have seen many people arguing that OPEC is not dead yet, "OPEC empire" strikes back, OPEC is still relevant, etc.

In my opinion this time the so-called "deal" was a certification that OPEC has a big mouth but no teeth, low prices are hitting the economies of its members and they cannot do much about it.

Remember, just two years ago, OPEC decided not to cut output. At that time Ali Al-Naimi, predecessor of Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih, proclaimed it was not "in the interest of OPEC producers to cut their production, whatever the price is" and that it didn't matter whether oil prices went "down to $20, $40, $50, $60 a barrel -- it is irrelevant." We all know what happened to the economies of OPEC members in the past two years. OPEC press release for instance says that current market condition "threatens the economies of producing countries." So, they had no option but cut production to help push the prices upwards. In May 2016, al-Naimi was replaced by Khalid Al-Falih.

The current OPEC agreement shows that Saudi Arabia is not anymore a swing producer, and that OPEC does not anymore have power, or at best struggles to balance world oil supply and demand.

In Algiers meeting three months ago, OPEC ministers announced that they need to freeze daily output between 32.5 and 33 million barrels. Since then they have been working on the formulation of such a freeze and possibly a cut. It took a while because the intention was not to upset anyone.

At the November 30 meeting, the OPEC announced that they agreed to cut daily production level from 33.7 to 32.5 million barrels per day, between January and June 2017.

The best way for not to upset anyone and hence come up with a reasonable agreement or a face-saving deal was to have proportionate cuts of 4.5 percent in members output.

Libya and Nigeria are exempt from the deal because they are still trying to recover from previous outages. Angolas reference level was backdated to September 2016 in order to take account of scheduled maintenance which lowered output in October. Iran's reference level was backdated to pre-sanctions period so that the country is in fact allowed to increase its output by 90 kb/d. Indonesia, currently a net oil importer, decided to suspend its OPEC membership. At the end, only a few countries have pledged to cut output.

At the end of the day, the deal is indeed a production freeze for some members, a cut for some others, and an increase for a few.

The "deal" is in fact nothing more than a face-saving initiative, because otherwise the production cuts, to take effect from January, are largely based on what the OPEC members were producing in October 2016, reference base to crude oil production adjustments.

What is the point of selecting a reference month when OPEC output was at a record high? Some key non-OPEC countries are expected to the cut their production by 600 kb/d. Half of this amount is expected to come from Russia. Russia's oil production was also at the highest in October 2016 (since the Soviet-era peak). So, the possible Russian contribution to the OPEC deal is also not a real production cut. In fact we are likely to have production freezes, not real cuts.

On November 30, the day when the OPEC meeting was held, the oil market was very volatile. Combined volumes in the ICE and CME crude oil contracts on that day hit all-time high. The total amount of crude traded on both exchanges (futures+options) was around 5.3 million contracts, equivalent to 54 times the daily world oil supply.

Market fundamentals and expectations of traders about the future are reflected in the prices in the paper barrel market, where many other factors also come into play. Seen from this perspective, the recent erratic oil price dynamics are indeed due to the weighted combination of expected market fundamentals and speculation, which, again, are affected by many factors.

The main driver of market sentiment should be the facts, and not fears, concerns and worries of traders against perceived risks. But since the oil market is not transparent, free and efficient market, traders' expectations will continue to put additional pressure on prices.

Look at the pathetic oil market data, especially monthly data; you will understand what I mean. World oil statistics are very far from perfect. Data on spare capacity, production, consumption and inventories are mostly estimates or best guesses, particularly for most of the non-OECD countries.

Even OPEC doesn't believe what its members report to the Secretariat, which is why OPEC uses data from secondary sources to monitor the market, including production in its member countries. But where do those secondary sources get the data from is a question nobody asks. What an irony! In an environment where nobody can verify and prove the real production, cheating will prevail. This means the implementation of the deal in terms of self-compliance and the commitment to reduce production is vital for the "deal" to be successful.

Production level is said to be monitored by a committee of representatives from Kuwait, Venezuela and Algeria, plus two non-OPEC participants. I really wonder how they will monitor it. Cheating has been a common feature of the OPEC production cut decisions in the past. I dont see any reason why this tendency should change this time because of the concerns about losing or defending market shares of big producers particularly in Asia.

This brings us to another issue which is crucial for the oil market. The OPEC "deal" is supposed to remove 1.8 mb/d of oil from the market for 6 months - 1.2 mb/d from OPEC plus 0.6 mb/d from non-OPEC countries. In fact, the agreement, if succeeds, will remove that amount from the world oil production, not from the world oil trade. In other words, we should indeed be talking about the exports from the producer countries, rather than production. But it seems that nobody cares about that.

It is too early to forecasts how the OPEC deal will impact the global oil market. If this "deal" somehow achieves its intended aim it is highly likely that oil prices will rise, to $60 or above per barrel according to many observers. This could weaken demand growth in 2017, erasing the benefits of production cut. Moreover, price increase may accelerate the drawdown in stocks and tighten the supply/demand balance in the first half of 2017. The problem is that crude inventory levels are above historical averages. This is why the question whether the inventory overhang can be brought down to historical range, and if yes, when, still can not be answered.

Higher prices will bring along two more crucial issues: the reactions of the Trump administration coming to power in the US in January, and the US shale oil industry which might be a big beneficiary of the OPEC deal.

The US crude oil supply expectations for 2017 change quite fast in relation to the price of oil. Current expectation is about 6.5 mb/d throughout 2017. In addition, shale oil production in Permian has so far been very resilient. Breakeven price levels for majority of shale oil producers are estimated to range between $50 and $70 per barrel. This means that cutting OPEC production and an increase in oil prices may have a double effect to open the door for shale oil producers as well as other non-OPEC producers to ramp up their output at the expense of those OPEC members who promised to cut production.

The production cuts are planned to last for six months. Then what? After six months OPEC will assess the market and decide whether to extend its ill-fated policy. We can be sure that between December 10, when OPEC plans to hold a meeting with non-OPEC countries in Vienna, and OPEC's next ministerial meeting on May 25, there will be plenty of formal and informal meetings that will make oil prices a permanent item in global agenda in 2017. Whether the immediate upward push to oil prices following the OPEC meeting will be kept or lost is not easy to judge, but optimism created for prices to stay well above $50 in 2017 might fade away faster than thought. The current Brent forward price curves do not show a long-term impact of OPEC deal on the oil market.

Another aspect of the OPEC deal is its possible impact on natural gas markets, especially LNG. In 2016, around 80 percent of global LNG supply was priced on contracts linked to benchmark oil prices or prices of oil products. Besides, most LNG ships burns oil which means that increase in oil prices will have a direct impact on shipping costs. An increase in oil prices, hence would translate into higher LNG prices, albeit not proportionate, due to the oversupply in the LNG market.

---

Sohbet Karbuz is director of Hydrocarbons at Mediterranean Energy Observatory (OME).
President-elect Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, wants to become an ambassador to fight against climate change, according to reports. As reported by Politico, Ivanka Trump is exploring different ways to use the spotlight as the first daughter to positively signify climate change. It is also said that the ambitious daughter, who once plotted her career around international brand domination, is planning to take on an even heavier lift.

Ivanka, Donald Trump's Daughter To Focus On Climate Change

Ivanka Marie Trump is an American businesswoman and former fashion model. She is the daughter of the resident-elect of the United States, Donald Trump. She is the Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions at her father's company, the Trump Organization, where her work is focused on the company's real estate and hotel management initiatives. Before joining the family business, she briefly worked for Forest City Enterprises.

Politico, a global news and information company, said that Ivanka Trump wants to make climate change  which her father has called a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese . "Ivanka is in the early stages of exploring how to use her spotlight to speak out on the issue," said the source of the company. Ivanka is positioning herself as a bridge to moderates and liberals disgusted and depressed with the tone and tenor of the new leader of the free world.

According to US News, Ivanka was the campaign's primary spokeswoman on issues aimed specifically at women, championing plans for childcare and paid leave. And once her father moves into the White House, Ivanka is expected to take on a prominent role than her stepmother, Melania. If Ivanka moves forward in promoting a climate change agenda, she will be in opposition to many of the top officials who are making up the incoming administration.

Why Climate Change Is Important?

Climate change (global warming) refers to the rise in average surface temperatures on Earth. An overwhelming scientific consensus maintains that climate change is due primarily to the human use of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, such as NASA and NOAA, concur that climate change is indeed occurring and is almost certainly due to human activity.

Climate can be thought of as the average or typical weather conditions we experience. Scientists know that climate varies naturally on many timescales and they know that people are affecting climate - particularly through emissions of greenhouse gases. Weather and climate can affect almost all aspects of our lives. NCAS-Climate scientists work with scientists from other disciplines to understand some of those impacts.
'Criminal Minds' Season 12 has been on a roller coaster ride when it comes to its viewership ratings. The show started big but suffered in its succeeding episodes as Thomas Gibson was removed from the series. However, certain reports were speculating that Gibson is all set to make a return on the show. Are we expecting to see Mr. Scratch and Hotch back again?

Thomas Gibson Great Contribution In The Success Of 'Criminal Minds', Fans Would Want The Actor To Come Back

According to Movie News Guide, Thomas Gibson has to wave goodbye on the show as he faces different accusations with one of the series' writers. His character has played a huge part in the story that even though he has to leave the show, he could be easily returning.

The 8th episode of 'Criminal Minds' Season 12 would focus on the dead bodies lying in Yakima Washington and BAU unit is tasked to find out who the real suspect is. Videos showed that the culprit wears a mask that keeps him from showing his real identity.

Damon Gupton Joins 'Criminal Minds' Season 12 As Stephen Walker, Here's Why The Episode 8 Is Exciting And Interesting

On the other hand, Damon Gupton is reportedly forming part on the 12th season of the 'Criminal Minds'. He is expected to be appearing on the Episode 8 of the show. The actor would play the role of Stephen Walker, a profiler from the Behavioral Analysis Program of the FBI.

Chrisitan Times reiterated that the Damon would help the team to discover the root of heinous crimes. He is also expected to help in the upcoming cases of BAU.

Cast of the shows were very happy to see Gupton form part of the cast. They believed that he could be a great contributor to the success of the show.
Scotland, the U.K.s northernmost country, is a land of mountain wildernesses such as the Cairngorms and Northwest Highlands, interspersed with glacial glens (valleys) and lochs (lakes). It is one of the most very nice places you can go to when you want to relax. However, smoking remains Scotlands biggest preventable killer, accounting for one in five deaths, 128,000 annual hospital admissions and a drain of up to 500 million on the NHS every year.

Smoking Ban In Cars With Child Passengers To Come Into Force In Scotland

According to The Scotsman, after more than a century of the mass consumption of tobacco, all that has largely disappeared within a generation, hastened by Scotlands trailblazing smoking ban ten years ago. Although one in three people still smoke in Scotlands most deprived areas, the rate has fallen to just 9 percent. The habit is even falling out fashion among teenagers, with fewer than one in ten 15-year-olds smoking compared with 29 percent 20 years ago.

Last Monday, health campaigners hope the downward trend continues when smoking is banned in cars with children  and that it will encourage a change in habits at home too. The law came by Lib Dem MSP Jim Hume in the previous session of parliament. Mr Hume, whose mother died of cancer caused by second-hand smoke, introduced the Smoking Prohibition (Children in Motor Vehicles) Bill and won unanimous backing from MSPs.

Smoking Is Also Damaging

Ms Campbell said: "It's simply not safe to smoke when a child is in the car. Dangerous levels of chemicals can build up, even on short journeys, and 85% of second-hand smoke is invisible and odourless so you can't always see what they're breathing in. As reported by BBC, the research shows that second-hand smoke can cause serious conditions including the three difficult diseases bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma.

Irene Johnstone, head of the British Lung Foundation in Scotland, said in Daily Record: "This new law will not only help reduce the exposure of second-hand smoke, but will also go a long way in helping Scotland becoming a tobacco-free generation." Hoewver, we cannot deny that there are still people that would do the same as they wan it.
Naloxone, brand name Narcan, reverses the effects of opioid medication, which includes slowed breathing, or loss of consciousness. In April, a law was passed directing the Board of Pharmacy to approve rules for pharmacists for over-the-counter sale of naloxone. The law gave the board until July 1, 2017 to create the rules to sell Narcan without prescription.

Pharmacists Are Confused About The Law's Intention

It took the Board of Pharmacy about eight months before discussing the law, and during last week's meeting, members and staff said they are confused about the law's intention and wanted clarifications from lawmakers who sponsored it. Several questions were raised, including whether the pharmacists could refuse to sell naloxone, whether they could administer naloxone to customers themselves, and whether there is an age limit on who can buy it.

Board President Joe Bruno said: "We don't know legislative intent. It's a poorly written bill, personally. It looks like it was cut and pasted from some other state. I don't know if the intent of the sponsor was you walk in a pharmacy just like you would a flu shot, the pharmacist goes, 'OK, here's your information, and after I talk to you, here's your naloxone.' I don't know if that was the intent, but that's not what this does. All this reiterates is what a pharmacist can already do."

Naloxone Is A Potentially Life-Saving Drug

Narcan is used for narcotic overdose treatment in an emergency situation. It is called a potentially life-saving drug which has become a regular tool among Maine's firefighters, emergency medical technicians and even some police officers, who are first to respond to drug overdose calls.

The National Institutes of Health said in a report: "Naloxone -a nasal spray formulation of the medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose - has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), The new technology has an easy-to-use, needle-free design, providing family members, caregivers and first responders with an alternative to injectable naloxone for use during a suspected opioid overdose."
Of every single mobile device that has been released in 2016, the Samsung Galaxy J5 have become one of the most underrated, considering that this is a phone that the South Korean company released at an affordable price, offering an extraordinary quality that just a few smartphones could excel, having a much higher price. Lets see which has been the main reason that makes this product so under appreciated.

The Galaxy J5 Was Beneath The Shadow Of The Companys Flagships

As reported by CNET last month, the Galaxy J5 suffered an episode extremely similar to the Galaxy Note 7, in which the smartphone suddenly burst into flames. Although there were no major incidents after this event, the damage was already made to this products reputation, which obviously has the consequence of not getting the market position that it deserves.

Also, even without this incident, the thing about the Galaxy J5 is that almost no one knew the phone, considering that it haven't been so promoted as many other smartphones in this year, like the iPhone 7, the Galaxy S7 or the Galaxy Note 7, which were the product that Samsungs batted for the most. In fact, not even the South Korean companys PR team knew about its existence, which could be explained by the fact that this is a budget smartphone.

A Budget Smartphone That Offers More Than Most Of Its Competitors

According to ITPRO, this mobile device can easily be considered as some kind of dark horse for being so underappreciated, and it is equipped with such amazing features that if it were from another brand that releases budget smartphones, it would have more attention and popularity. In any case, greatness about the Galaxy J5 is that offers a replaceable battery, an amazing super AMOLED display, and a lengthy battery life so you can roll without problem.

The Galaxy J5 runs with a Quad-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor, a screen resolution of 1,280x720, and 8GB (4.6GB) storage, a 3G,4G wireless data, a 142x72x7.9mm size, a weight of 146g, and an Android5.1.1 as the operating system. The main problem about this smartphone is the camera, since being of 13 megapixels this feature has an average performance and very disappointing issues with exposure.

Nevertheless, being a budget smartphone, it is an undeniable fact that the Galaxy J5 must be way more important than many other of its kind, which has achieved an important position and many customers are buying it, like the the Moto G series. If theres a competition of underrated products in 2016, the Galaxy J5 would probably win that price.
"I LOVE being famous!" roars of the iconic person in showbiz industry Will Smith. It's refreshing to speak to an actor who doesn't lament their lack of privacy. The 48-year old Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy-winner tells news.com.au, "I love it that I can't walk down the street without people recognizing me."

Recently His Fame Got Him Out Of A Tricky Situation

"I hire these guys who come to my house and wash the car. They'll take it and gas it for me. You pay a little extra fee, but your car is always full and you never must worry about it." "It's cool. But recently, it was a holiday and so they didn't come." He smiles. "So, I had been driving all week, I get in my car, and the thing is on empty! I am like 'Oh no, I can't make it home.' So, I pulled over at a gas station and then realized that I didn't have my wallet with me. And I was like, 'I can't get home.'

"I could have called somebody to come get me, but then I saw a dude who looked about 38 years old. I thought to myself, 'He knows the Fresh Prince!'" He laughs loudly.

"So I just hung my head out of the window a little bit. Then the dude says, 'Hey Will!' I say, 'Hey man. Dawg, I am on empty, I left my wallet, can you lend me 10?' And he said, 'Yeah, sure Will! Dude, this is so great that I have to lend you 10 dollars!" "I told him I'd get it back to him but he said, 'Oh don't worry about it Will, but can I get a picture? Nobody is going to believe this!'" Smith then imitates taking a selfie.

"So I just can't imagine living another way, I love it," he smiles, shrugging his shoulders. "I feel sorry for you!"

New York City, Smith is in to promote his latest movie, Collateral Beauty, with an all-star cast including Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet and Ed Norton. In this heart-aching film, he plays a father who loses his 6-year-old daughter to a rare disease of cancer.

While He Was Filming The Movie, Smith Was Dealing With His Own Real Life Family Tragedy

"I think what is really beautiful for me about this movie is when I started working on it, during my initial preparation, my father (Willard Carroll Smith Sr.) was diagnosed with cancer." "So, having to face his impending death while working on the struggles of my character, it became a way that my father and I were able to connect wide open because, in my mind, it was character preparation."

"I wasn't scared to ask him any questions, he was responding and we were able to talk about the difficulty and the pain and the fear and all of those elements around the idea of death, time and love. So, it became this really magical transition." He pauses. "He passed about three weeks ago, He called me the night he passed and we FaceTimed."

During filming, his character took out his hostility and misery on riding his bike. In dealing with stress in his own life, Smith, says, "I am a runner. I love running. And there's nothing like it. And for me, I prefer the treadmill. I prefer the monotony of it for whatever reason. I feel like I get to spend more time with myself and I don't get distracted and go, 'Oh, that's pretty!'" He laughs.

"So, when I am on the treadmill, it's a beautiful time with myself and it hasn't failed me yet. I get real clarity right around that 8K mark." Although most people work out to music, Smith says, "No. I don't listen to music, I just run with that crazy dude in my head."
Foxconn former manager has stolen around 5,700 units of the Apple iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s between 2013 and 2014. The theft was done in one of Foxconn's facilities in China. Here are some details regarding with that serious matter.

Foxconn Former Manager Allegedly Stole $1.5 Million Worth Of iPhones

The Taiwanese manager, Tsai, worked in the testing department of a Foxconn facility in Shenzhen, China. According to some sources, he instructed eight different employees to bootleg the gadgets out of the factory. The stolen handsets were supposedly be scrapped, but they delivered it to Shenzhen stores instead, approximately around $1.56 million for Tsai and his accomplices, according to the New Taipei district prosecutor's office.

Foxconn reported the case to Taiwanese authorities and ensued an internal audit and Tsai was interrogated after he went back to the island earlier this year and however, was released on bail. Former Foxconn manager was charged with breach of trust and faces with a maximum 10-year jail term stated by prosecutors. Foxconn has been hit with defamation in recent years from employee malpractice to labor disputes.

Foxconn Scandal Exploitation Of Chinese Workers

Foxconn assuredly has a storied history when it comes to employee-related issues and scandals. Two years ago, reported from some sources, Foxconn former five employees were also charged with breach of trust after allegedly soliciting roughly $5 million in kickbacks from Foxconn suppliers in exchange for passing quality checks. These five individuals were conclusively sentenced to over 10 years in prison by a Taipei district court (though their transgression seems more relentless than stealing phones that were meant to be scrapped).

The company, Foxconn itself, also has a less than leading reputation as an employer and has come under scrutiny for employee suicides and the use of underage workers in the past few years. In any case, this looks like the lesson to be learned from this latest case is coherent - don't ever steal from your employer. It really, really doesn't end so well.
Google has announced on Monday, Dec. 5, its decision to offer access to the company's DeepMind Lab as an open source publicly available for the artificial intelligence research community.

Open Source DeepMind AI

According to PCMag, Google's DeepMind Lab serves as a testing ground for building better and smarter artificial intelligence (AI). DeepMind has been working on AI for six years. Its artificial intelligence technology can excel at arcade games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders, as well as more complex games such as Chinese board game Go.

Google's DeepMind Lab has also built rich simulated environments with the aim to serve as a kind of "laboratories" for AI research," according to company's blog post. In the same blog post, Google announced that it is opening now its flagship AI platform for the broader research community.

Among the artificial general intelligence research areas in DeepMind Lab are included motor control, memory, time, strategy, planning, 3D vision from a first-person viewpoint and fully autonomous agents that must learn for themselves by exploring their environment. According to Google, combining all these factors is a big challenge.

In order to deal with this task, DeepMind Lab is designed to be highly customizable and extendable. Off-the-shelf editor tools can be used to create new levels. By opening the platform publicly, Google hopes that the research community will help shape and develop DeepMind AI.

The source code that is named now DeepMind Lab has been previously called Labyrinth. According to Bloomberg, the entire source code for DeepMind training environment is offered now on the open-source depository GitHub. Anyone has now access to download the code and is allowed to customize it in order to help in designing and training their own AI systems.

AI developers will also be able to build new DeepMind game levels and upload them to GitHub. Making available its Lab code on GitHub will allow researchers in the artificial intelligence field to check if its developer's own breakthroughs can be easily replicated. These scientists will have the possibility to measure the performance of their own AI agents by using the exact same tests DeepMind uses.

Google's decision to make its AI testing platform available to the public is further evidence that the company is ready to embrace more openness around its research. Google previously announced a partnership with Activision Blizzard to provide the popular video game Starcraft II as a test platform for AI researchers.

Other AI Initiatives

Google isn't the only company focusing on developing AI software. Uber and OpenAI have also similar initiatives. For instance, Elon Musk's OpenAI released Universe, an AI software that measures and trains a system's general intelligence across websites, games, and other applications. The company explained in a blog post that its aim is to develop an AI system able to "master unfamiliar, difficult environments."

Uber announced its acquisition of Geometric Intelligence, an AI research startup. The 16-member team previously belonging to Geometric Intelligence will comprise now the new Uber AI Labs located in San Francisco. Jeff Holden, Uber Chief Product Officer, said that the creation of Uber AI Labs will make moving people and things safer, faster and accessible to all.
After struggling to comply with a voluntary code of conduct, tech companies may face new legislation dealing with hate speech in the European Union (EU).

EU Threatens With New Internet Rules

This week, the European Commission called on tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and other major names to implement more aggressively measures in order to police online hate speech. The alternative is to face new EU legislation that would force the tech companies to do

The Financial Times reports that a study commissioned by the EU justice commissioner, Vera Jourova, found that YouTube, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook have struggled to comply with the hate speech voluntary code of conduct that was announced earlier this year. Amid national security concerns and heightened racial tensions,

European governments have already pressured tech companies to more proactively curb incitement to terrorism and hate speech. In Germany, the government-led effort has been particularly aggressive. Germany is one of the European nations where the ongoing refugee crisis has reinvigorated the far-right and sparked a xenophobic backlash. Reuter reports that Heiko Maas, the German Justice Minister, recently said that Facebook should be made liable for any hate speech published on its social media platform and it should be treated as a media company.

Previous Code Of Conduct Agreement

According to The Verge, Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft agreed in a code of conduct announced in May to review and respond within 24 hours to "the majority" of hate speech complaints. However, only 40 percent of the recorded incidents have been reviewed within 24 hours, according to the commission's report. That figure rose to 80 percent after 48 hours.

This shows that, with stronger efforts by the IT companies, the target can realistically be achieved. According to edri.org, the rights groups are critical towards the code of conduct. They have argued that rather than delegating responsibility to governments, the code of conduct delegate disproportionate responsibility to private companies.

According to PCMag, two advocacy groups have criticized those efforts in France. In May, the two rights groups announced their plans to sue Google, Twitter, and Facebook for failing to remove from their platforms homophobic, racist and other hateful posts.

In fact, in France a law passed back in the year 2004 requires websites to remove in a timely manner content that is "manifestly illicit" if they know about it. During the groups' monitoring, the tech companies were not fast at removing the offending posts.

YouTube was the fastest to respond to complaints among the companies that agreed to voluntary respect the code of conduct. On the other side, Twitter was the slowest. In Germany and France, removal rates were above 50 percent, while in Italy and Austria just 4 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

On Thursday, Dec. 8, EU justice ministers will meet to discuss the report's findings. If the tech companies' voluntary efforts will be found unsatisfactory, they may face new laws to curb online hate speech in the European Union. In order to convince the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, the tech companies will have to make a strong effort and act quickly in the coming months.
Microsoft is releasing another experimental chatbot into the wild, this time on the Kik messaging app.

Zo Chatboot

The high-tech company has launched for testing purposes a new chatbot named Zo. According to a report by technology website MSPoweruser, Zo will be tested on the social instant messaging app Kik.

According to Fortune, a chatbot application is a type of software program that can interact and communicate with users via speaking or writing. Chatbots have been already around for years, being used by some companies as help-desk assistants on their websites.

Lately, the chatbots have become more powerful due to the rise of artificial intelligence technologies. AI techniques such as natural language processing or deep learning can help researchers train their chatbots on written conversations. With the advances in the AI field, chatbots become more capable of understanding human language.

Microsoft sees a big future for chatbots, same as other big tech companies, including Facebook and Google. In March, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explained that chatbots aim to make it easier for users to perform tasks through simply talking to the program.

In order to advance the technology for these types of complex interactions, Microsoft needs to test its bots on various communication and social media services. This way, the company can improve its bots before incorporating them into any actual products.

Previous Microsoft Bots

At the moment, it is still unclear why Microsoft chose to release its new chatbot Zo on only one messaging app so far or what the company hopes to learn from this experiment. Microsoft tested in March another chatbot called Tay on Twitter. However, the software program made some very controversial and offensive comments.

Tay absorbed various racist conversations on Twitter and began to speak to others in a similar offensive manner. Microsoft was forced to apologize and terminate the experiment.

In order to ensure Zo doesn't go on the same path like its cousin Tay, it seems that currently Microsoft it's taking some precautionary measures. According to CNET, Kik users who've downloaded the Zo preview could notice that the latest chatbot is tightly locked down. For instance, Zo isn't allowed to discuss politics.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 5

By Dalga Khatinoglu, Umid Niayesh  Trend:

The OPEC decision to reduce its production by 1.2 million barrels a day, which is supported by Russia that agreed to reduce its output by 300 thousand barrels, is only a face-saving gesture, Kamran Dadkhah, an associate professor at the Department of Economics in the US-based Northeastern University, told Trend.

The OPEC decision will not have any significant effects on the price of oil in the medium term, Dadkhah said, adding that the immediate effect on the price of oil was psychological and based on expectations which would not materialize.

For several years the OPEC members have been unable to reach an agreement and a failure to reach a consensus after so much propaganda would have been the last nail in OPECs coffin, Dadkhah said.

"To see why such a decision has no effect on the price of oil, we should remember that Iran and a couple of other countries are not required to reduce their production," he added.

"There are two questions: 1. Why Saudi Arabia would reduce its output to help Iran earn money? 2. Which countries are supposed to reduce their output by a total of 700 million barrels a day?

In addition, we need to note that historically OPEC members did not consider themselves obligated to observe their quotas. They produced as much as they could sell," Dadkhah said, adding that moreover, OPEC is producing only a third of the world oil output and therefore, it really cannot control the price.

"I should also add that OPEC never had such power and the story that OPEC increased oil prices in the 1970s is just a fiction."

He further touched upon two other factors on the issue, saying that "new technologies have allowed the United States to increase its oil output by fracking and using shale oil. Second, president elect Donald Trump has expressed support for oil pipelines and use of more traditional sources of energy."

"Putting all these factors together we can conclude that only a rise in the world economic growth could cause a substantial increase in the price of oil in the medium term. OPECs decision wouldnt have much effect," he noted.

Regarding Irans energy sector, Dadkhah said that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA aka nuclear deal) has allowed Tehran to increase its oil output to near what it had prior to sanctions, adding that the country has an easier time in accessing oil revenues.

"But for many years Irans oil and energy sectors have suffered from a lack of investment. Moreover, Irans fields are using outdated technologies," he added. Capital and technology have to come from abroad," Dadkhah said.

"Iran has to settle its disputes with the United States and Europe and encourage international investment which would also bring modern technologies. A stable and perhaps higher price of oil would help this process."
Google simultaneously released the newest members of its smartphone stable - the Pixel and Pixel XL.

One would immediately question why Google would release two phones from the same line in just one go. Some may also ask why did the company make a bigger version of the Pixel at all. The next thing on their mind is probably this: which one is better?

Similarities

Both the Pixel and Pixel XL devices are made by one manufacturer - HTC. The Taiwan-based company made both phones similar in the way they look.

The two Google phones are run by Android 7.1 with Google UI and have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor under their hoods. They also have 4GB of RAM each and both come with either 32GB or 128GB internal storage.

They have an 8MP front camera and 12MP rear ones. The cameras at the back are both PDAF and have 1.55-micron pixels.

The $769-worth Pixel XL is $120 more expensive than the Pixel which retails for $649.

As for their screens, both devices sport AMOLED ones but differ in pixel resolution and screen size.

Differences

The Google Pixel XL has a bigger display which is quite obvious with how it is named. The XL has a 5.5-inch display as compared to the Pixel which measures only 5 inches.

With the increase in size comes an increase in pixel resolution. The Pixel's resolution is 1920 x 1080 while the XL has 2560 x 1440 pixels.

The Pixel XL also has a more powerful battery with a non-removable fast charging 3,450mAh one. The Pixel has a fast charging 2,770mAh battery which is also non-removable.

Both devices have a fingerprint sensor, USB Type-C, and Bluetooth 4.3 connectivity, and have IP53 ratings. They also come in Quite Black, Very Silver, and Really Blue colors.

Verdict

Android Central leaves the decision to the preference of the prospective owner. If the buyer wants a phone that can easily be handled with one hand then the Pixel is good enough. But if he or she wants one that passes as a tablet then the bigger XL is the one.

Basically, both devices have great specs but if one is to really choose, then a more powerful battery of the XL may be the deal breaker.

As it stands both devices are currently in high demand. Google even had to give away $50 Play Store credits for customers who will not get their pre-ordered Pixel phones on time.
Nokia was a gigantic mobile phone manufacturer back in the early 2000s. However, just like most companies that struggled to evolve, Nokia drowned in a competition. The company failed to stay on top when the smartphone technologies started dominating. When Apple, Blackberry, and other companies started reigning the mobile phone industry, Nokia was pulled down. Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's Lumia series might have sounded like a solid decision at the time, but then again, even Microsoft's Lumia struggle to stay in business.

Luckily, though, Nokia's non-competition agreement with Microsoft ends this year, allowing the mighty cell phone maker to re-enter the smartphone market once again. As per recent news, Nokia will get back to the smartphone industry this 2017. Here's what's known so far.

Nokia's 2017 Comeback

What started out as a mere rumor has now been confirmed. Nokia will refresh its smartphone line next year. Take note, we're not just talking about the old-school hulk-level no WiFi phones. Nokia is about to re-enter the market with a new set of smartphones. Do take note however that the next Nokia phones will no longer be brought by the same company who introduced to us the N-series and even the iconic 3310 siblings. Now, the Nokia name is being licensed to a company named HMD Global Oy, Phone Arena reported. For the next 10 years, this company will develop Nokia smart devices. For the manufacturing of the phones, Foxconn will be in charge. Take note that Foxconn also makes Apple's iPhones.

With that said, it is pretty interesting to see how Nokia is getting back on its feet smartphone-wise. If they are getting Foxconn to manufacture their smartphones for them, it's safe to assume that Nokia can produce smartphones as lovable as the iPhones. If you're worried about HMD Global being a new company to handle Nokia, know that this company isn't too far from Nokia's roots. The Chief Executive, Chief Product Officer and President of HMD Global are former executives and employees of Nokia. With that said, it's still basically the original Nokia who's handling the refreshed Nokia.

Nokia Smartphones 2016

Not a lot of things are known about the next generation of Nokia smartphones. One thing's very likely, though, they will run Android. Actually, this is already confirmed. HMD Global has already verified this during their press release and they are also consistent in implying that they will be releasing new "phones" soon. Needless to say, there really haven't been any solid information as to what Nokia has in store for next year. There are rumors about a certain Nokia D1C but not a lot of info has been known so far.

Nokia Smartphones 2017 Conclusions

Nokia's comeback can be described in one word - "interesting". It's interesting to see if the company can finally make a name in the smartphone world. It's interesting to see if Nokia can kick Apple and Samsung's behind. It would also be exciting to see things finally fall into place for Nokia. It would also be interesting to see the company right their wrongs, whatever those may be. For Nokia fans out there, just keep your fingers crossed and wait for the company's mighty comeback. It was said that the major reveal should happen during the first half of next year.
Who you gonna call? Ghosts and giant marshmallow men aside, Google has come up with a way to make sure its users can call on someone in case of an emergency.

Google's Trusted Contacts is a new app that automatically sends data to one's friends and family. Google defines it as a "personal safety app that opens a direct line of sharing between you and our loved ones".

Users of the app can choose certain people to add to their "Trusted Contacts" list. Usually, one would put family members, their closest friends or anyone the user thinks should know about his or her phone's activity status. If the user has an existing medical condition, his or her doctor can also be placed on this list. Users of the app can change the list whenever they want to.

Those on the Trusted Contacts list can see if the user is "active" once they open the app. They can know if the phone is connected and moving even if the user's device is offline, running out or has run out of juice.

This app is useful during moments when a user wants his or her whereabouts to be known especially if they feel unsafe. If the user is going home late at night, for example, he or she can proactively share their location to the people on the list. The same can be done when users find themselves in emergency situations such as natural calamities, terrorist attacks or any event that necessitates one to share his or her status.

The trusted contacts can also request for the user's location. Engadget mentions in its report that the user can approve or deny the request within five minutes. If the users are not able to reply, their location is automatically shared to the list.

The app is currently available on Android while iOs devices will soon follow. To get the app, one needs to have a Google account. Those on the Trusted Contacts list can view shared locations even if they do not have a Google account.
"South Park" season 20, episode 10 titled "The End of Serialization as We Know It" airs Wednesday, Dec. 7 with Sheila fuming in anger after she discovers that Gerald is the one who has been trolling and causing troubles on the web. Would Sheila's loathsome discovery lead her to divorce Gerald? Elsewhere, Cartman tries to stop Elon Musk from transporting Americans Mars, while Kyle and Ike make a move to save the world.

Sheila Might Divorce Gerald

Sheila doesn't know still that her husband isn't actually in Denmark for a business trip. While in captivity, Gerald continues his goings-on offshore through Ike to fake that Skankhunt42 is at large. Sheila tries to check on Gerald's computer. As soon as the Danish government brings TrollTrace live, "South Park" season 20, episode 10 spoilers reveal that she will discover her husband's nasty activities online. Gerald has been extra wary of his wife about his activities. Once she finds out, he knows too well that Sheila will be so angry and could even divorce him.

Cartman Stops Mars Exploration

At SpaceX, funny and smart Heidi tries to figure out what to do about their flight to Mars when a glitch gets in the way. She'll find out a loophole that might turn the entire Mars exploration into a disaster and put the lives of Americans in danger. Heidi opens to Cartman about who in return convinces Elon Musk that SpaceX's Mars mission is a bad idea. Will Heidi and Cartman be able to stop tenacious Elon Musk?

Kyle And Ike Gather Children

Elsewhere, Kyle and Ike make a move to save the world after knowing that their dad and the rest of his cohorts are being used by Denmark to unveil internet history. The brothers gather all the kids in the neighborhood to stand against the imminent destruction brought by a possible revelation of the internet's deepest and darkest secrets.

"South Park" season 20, episode 10 airs Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 10:00 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.
The Subaru was an instant hit the moment it entered the market. However, it was not the kind of hit that was powerful enough to dominate its respective segment in the U.S. While Subaru has been gaining overall growth in both Canada and America, the 2017 Subaru WRX STI still failed to replicate the same success it had in Canada when compared to the U.S.

The Canadian Success

According to a report from Torque News, the 2017 Subaru WRX STI along with BRZ have been really successful in Canada with sales gaining 46.5 and 83.3 percent increase respectively for the previous month. Things have been going really well for Subaru in Canada. In fact Subaru has seen a 7.5 percent increase in its year-to-date sales as reported.

Not Doing Well In U.S

While the 2017 Subaru WRX STI and BRZ have been doing really good in Canada, things are different in the U.S market. Daily Sun reported that the BRZ sales have actually gone down by a margin of 37.5 percent during the previous month. Compared to the growth of the WRX STI in Canada, the American WRX STI is reportedly not doing well also in the U.S. market.

One More Great Run

With the arrival of the 2017 Subaru this month, Canada is looking at another great run. In addition, the Subaru Forester and Outback will also contribute in the sales volume of the Japanese brand as reported. The 2017 Subaru Impreza is also looking at a bright future as it continues to gain more attention. In fact, many people are switching over to Subaru thanks to the 2017 Impreza.

What's Next For Subaru WRX STI In The U.S?

Whether the 2017 Subaru WRX STI will be able to replicate the success it found in Canada remains to be seen in the coming months. Given how the 2017 Subaru WRX STI has been improved on many levels, it might still be able to pull-off a success in the U.S. market sometime in the near future.
Corporations and politicians share a tendency to say things that are narrowly true, though a lack of context renders the statements misleading. Mastercard on Nov. 30 offered a terrific example of this in the security arena.

On that day, the card brand rolled out something it calls Decision Intelligence, which it said uses artificial intelligence technology to help financial institutions increase the accuracy of real-time approvals of genuine transactions and reduce false declines. That sounds pretty good. It then elaborated why it saw this as news: This is the first use of AI being implemented on a global scale directly on the Mastercard network. It also labels Decision Intelligence as a radical new approach, one that takes a broader view in assessing, scoring and learning from each transaction. That score then enables the card issuer to apply the intelligence to the next transaction. Mastercards Ajay Bhalla, president of its enterprise risk and security efforts, is even quoted as saying, We are solving a major consumer pain point of being falsely declined when trying to make a purchase.

But the radical approach of using A.I. to intelligently assess fraud in real time has been done routinely for years by providers that include Forter, Signifyd, Smyte, Stripe Radar, Sift Science, Ravelin, Riskified and Feedzai. Naturally, unlike Mastercards technology, all of them look for problems across payment types, not limiting themselves to transactions from one payment card. (Full disclosure: Ive written some blog pieces for Sift Science.)

And the claim that Mastercard has solved the problem of false declines is really over the top. There are two problems with that, one involving market share and the other involving the data that Mastercard can apply its A.I. to.

Mastercard does not have a stranglehold on the transactions market, and in fact Visa processes far more transactions. And while there are merchants that get along without accepting American Express, Diners Club or Discover, its just about impossible to accept Mastercard and not accept Visa. That means that, even if this Mastercard effort were perfectly effective, merchants would still have to deploy other antifraud measures for every other payment type they accept. So how does a Mastercard-specific approach help them, given that it is limited to a minority of their transactions?

Heres what one security executive (who wished to remain anonymous and not alienate Mastercard) had to say about Mastercards announcement: Theres nothing new in their technology or its application. More likely, Mastercard is just trying to fix a deeply broken declines problem and is hoping this will help them look better in the eyes of banks when it comes time to renegotiate contracts. He then tried to imagine what Mastercard would say to those banks: We can help you reduce declines. Look, we have fancy artificial intelligence.

The security executive added that the best A.I. analytics cant overcome the limitation that the data that Mastercard has access to  transaction data  is quite restricted. Most security firms use a machine learning model [that] is informed by all kinds of data, including how users behave on their site, specific order information, device information, user account details, navigation patterns on the merchants website, social networking activity, stuff Mastercard has no access to.

Any embrace of analytics in security is a positive move. Lets just hope Mastercard doesnt believe its own hype. It might have to change its tagline to Mastercard: Were everywhere context isnt.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iran and Armenia have inked a comprehensive document on cooperation in various spheres, including power exchange.



Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian has said that the sides have agreed to boost the level of existing power exchange between the two countries by four folds, IRNA news agency reported.



The document envisaged cooperation in the spheres of energy including power exchange and natural gas, the environmental issues regarding the Araz River, banking and insurance, as well as creating a special economic and trade zone in Armenia, the minister added.



Chitchian has said that the two countries existing capacity for power

exchange currently stands at 300 megawatts.



He added that Iran has invested in a project for creating a new power

transmission line which is projected to increase the capacity to 1,200

megawatts.



According to the minister, the sides have also agreed to cooperate on

developing north-south routes in particular power transmission through

Armenia and Russia as well as road and rail transportation.



Under the terms of the cooperation agreement, Iran is expected to supply gas to two Armenian cities, the Iranian minster added.



The Iranian official further expressed hope that Iran-made wind turbines will soon be installed in Armenia.



Hamid Chitchian has wrapped up his visit to Armenia aimed at discussing the expansion of cooperation between the two countries ahead of Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis upcoming visit.
FRESH from the I'm a Celebrity jungle, Joel Dommett will play Medina Theatre  after the show sold out in a record 24 hours.



The comedian and Celeb runner up will perform at the theatre on June 22.



The Isle of Wight Council, which runs the theatre, said booking Joel was the idea of enthusiastic theatre administrator Leanne Grafham.



In a whirlwind effort, she suggested booking him just a week ago last Friday, found and contacted his agent, did the deal to secure him last Monday and advertised the tickets last Tuesday  only for all 425 to sell out the following day.
NATWEST will close its Shanklin branch in June of next year and introduce a mobile bank as a replacement.



It is the latest in a wave of bank closures hitting the Island, with Lloyds recently announcing plans to close Sandown, Cowes and Bembridge branches.



The branch will close on June 5, with NatWest claiming a reduction in demand, as people turn to online and mobile banking.



Isle of Wight Councillors for the area, Jon Gilbey and Richard Priest, both negotiated with NatWest to reduce their opening hours rather than shut the branch, last year.



The councillors now have a meeting in the new year with the bank's chief executive to discuss possible solutions.



NatWest have said a mobile bank will replace the current building on the High Street and until then a specialist taskforce will help customers learn to use mobile and online banking.



A spokesman said: "The way people choose to bank with us has changed radically over the last few years. Between 2010 and 2015, mobile and online transactions have increased by over 400 per cent and mobile transactions alone have increased by 1,350 per cent.



"As a result of this change, 43 per cent of the customers of the branch are actively choosing to use online and or mobile banking for their day to day banking needs.



"We are communicating with our customers affected by the closure and proactively contacting vulnerable and regular branch customers.





"We have listened closely to feedback from local communities and have extended the time between announcing our decision and the branch closure to six months."



It is not yet known on what days the mobile bank will be available and where from.



NatWest said alternative options are telephone, three local post office branches, 13 cash machines in the area or the branch in Ryde.




UPDATED 15.12



OPERATIONS have been cancelled at St Mary's Hospital over the past two days because of a shortage of beds.





The Isle of Wight hospital was placed on black alert at 8pm on Sunday and has remained so into this afternoon (Tuesday).





The rest of the health and social care system on the Island is on red alert  one stage lower.





St Mary's Hospital has a capacity of 252 beds, but has had to use ten day surgery beds as extra to accommodate patients.





This has meant postponing some scheduled inpatient and day surgery procedures.





An IW NHS spokesman said the problems were caused by a delay in discharges.





This was a result of a multitude of factors, including a shortage of social care.





He said 65 people were medically fit for discharge, but had not been able to leave.





The spokesman said all of the people that had been admitted needed hospital attention, but nonetheless advised people to phone 111 for advice.




Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has urged for the expansion of trade ties with China.



Expressing hope for further improvement in relation between the two

countries, the senior diplomat called for removing obstacles to banking ties and issuing visas, IRNA news agency reported.



Addressing a conference on trade relation between Iran and China in Beijing, Zarif said that Iran looks for bright future regarding cooperation with

China.



Addressing the same conference, the head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), Gholam-Hossein Shafei, described China as the first trade partner of his country, urging Beijing to contribute to efforts made aimed at removing obstacles to the expansion of trade ties.



Elaborating on ways for broadening cooperation, he said that the sides can pave the groundwork for producing Chinese products in Iran and exporting them to other countries.



Shafei further called on China to participate in creating industrial parks

in Iranian special trade zones.



Iran and China eye boosting the annual trade turnover to $600 million over the next decades.



The trade value between the two countries stood at $50 billion in 2014 and $35 billion in 2015.



Zarif at the head of a high ranking political and economic delegation has

arrived in China at the second leg of his regional tour to Asia. He is

expected to leave for Japan later during the day.


She is still the Material Girl. This time, however, Madonna uses her own materials to raise funds for her Raising Malawi project. She auctioned items from her extensive collection of wardrobe, jewelleries, paintings and memorabilia.

Madonna went as far as auctioning photos from her exclusive wedding to Milk actor Sean Penn back in 1985, shot by fashion photographer Herb Ritts. According to IB Times, her ex-husband, who also attended the charity gala, cannot stop chuckling as Madonna made an on-the- spot proposal to marry him again in exchange for 150k donation.

As expected, the night is full of signature Madonna gimmicks - out-of- this world costume, twirking and kissing a younger pop star Arianna Grande, to slamming Donald Trump. Yes, she used the event to voice her frustration about their new president. Madonna lambasted Mr. Trump before she takes on Britney Spears' "Toxic". She explained that the song has direct correlation with Trump. In a write-up in Jobs & Hire, it can be recalled that Madonna supported Barrack Obama in his bid for presidency in 2012.

But the highlight of the charity concert is when Madonna confessed her love for Penn after all these years. She invited Penn to come near her, and the flirting continued when Penn crawled to her legs. Madonna flirtatiously asked if that reminds him of anything. The sexual tension hits up as Penn handcuffed Madonna as the latter joked: "The many moments that were our marriage."

Last Night. Was an overwhelming and resounding success!! Im am so grateful to so many people! @RaisingMalawi pic.twitter.com/ik45ZJaALm  Madonna (@Madonna) December 3, 2016

The musical gala was supported by A-list celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprioand Edward Norton. Chris Rock, David Blaine and David Chappelle were also enlisted to auction items. Some of Madonna's friends who don't have anything to auction have offered unique experience instead of donations. According to Daily Mail, DiCaprio offered to one lucky bidder a chance to spend a week in his house in Palm Spring. Blaine promised that he will give a private performance to the highest bidder. James Cordon as master of ceremonies made sure that the event is fun-filled and spontaneous.

The event was a success and accumulated $7.5 million. The fund will be used for the beneficiaries of Raising Malawi, a non-profit organization initiated by Madonna herself in 2006. It can be recalled that Madonna's two children- David and Mercy- are from Malawi.


While Samsung company continues to investigate the faulty and explosive Galaxy Note 7; the consumers of the said device also continue to ask for compensation. But the company reportedly says that they will not pay additional costs for the damage.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is one of the best device that Samsung company offers this year. That is why after it was launched last August, many consumers avail this device. However, several days later, many customers complained about the device because of its heating and explosion problems.

Before the year ends, Samsung still seeking for information why the Note 7 causes explosion. According to Jobs & Hire, the result will reveal to public before the end of 2016. This is also a preparation for the official launching of Samsung Galaxy S8 this coming 2017.

However, despite of the global recall of Note 7, some consumers still ask for additional compensation for the physical damage caused by the said device. IBT reported that, in South Korea, there are reportedly 2,400 customers files for class action lawsuit due to the faulty production of Galaxy Note 7. Users claimed that the explosive device caused a lot of trouble; especially physical damage which includes burns and respiratory problems.

But the company replied on these lawsuit on the court and says; the damages that caused by Note 7 is not harmful enough, it falls on the range of being endurable. In addition, Samsung company reportedly gave at least 100,000 won (which is equivalent to $86) coupons; another thing is, the company also gave a choice, in which, the customers are able to avail the unofficial Galaxy S8 with its half price. The other choice is, to replace the Note 7 into Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, plus an additional cash because the devices differ in price.

But for the owners of Note 7, this compensation is reportedly not enough than to the physical damage caused by the device. One of the first customer who claims regarding the explosive device is - Lee. In a report, he said that Samsung did not acknowledge about the problems and blames him about the explosion.

On the other hand, Samsung company is making an action from the recall problems in the US. Reportedly, most of the customers sued the company because it did not have any enough items for replacement in which, they are liable for the fees after the company annouce the global recall of Galaxy Note 7.
In a statement made on Monday by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, it was revealed that the rules now approved gold to be used in the Islamic financial business, currently amounting to $1.88 trillion. The decision was made in agreement with the World Gold Council.

The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) along with the World Gold Council believe that the change in rules regarding the Islamic Gold Trade will cause prosperity in the demand for gold. This possibly resulting in hundreds of tons of additional demand.

According to Bloomberg, GLD's SPDR Gold Trust is likely to qualify while the new standard will open a new market. The latter is agreed upon by Shariah scholar Mohd Daud Bakar as it was made apparent in his statement during a press conference held in Dubai on Monday. Moreover, the gold from Comex Gold Futures did not make the cut as it seems to lack the requirements set by the new standard.

In a report by the Khaleej Times, it is stated that the precious metals will boom in demand because of the new Shariah-compliant gold standard. Moreover, it will also set the bars significantly higher in the Islamic World. Eventually, the increase in gold prices is inevitable and will likely affect the global gold demand.

In addition, the new gold standards that are Shariah-compliant serves as an addition to the present AAOIFI standards. However, it does affect the gold investment in the future. The decision to add new rules in the gold trade was done in the hopes of progression in the long run.

The CEO of the World Gold Council, Aram Shishmanian, shared his insight regarding the new rules for the Islamic Gold Trade. "We are delighted that there is now definitive Shariah guidance on the permissibility of investing in gold." He said. "Gold is a proven wealth preservation asset that Islamic investors can now deploy to protect their wealth and diversify market risks."

Either way, the new Islamic gold standard is expected to be a groundbreaking move and should affect the demand for gold n the long run. Stay tuned to Jobs & Hire for more updates.
The fifth installment of "The Pirates of the Caribbean" film franchise, "Dead Men Tell No Tales", is already in its final stages in production after being delayed for two years. Reports have surfaced that this will be the last movie for the fantasy swashbuckler series, and fingers are pointing at no less than main star Johnny Depp as the cause.

DJ Jackie 'O' Henderson of an Australian breakfast radio show "The Kyle and Jackie O Show" has claimed via Yahoo! Movies UK that crew members had informed her that Depp was a "nightmare" to work with. The actor allegedly was the main cause of shooting delays because he was frequently late - even absent - while filming at the Gold Coast in Australia.

Depp's attendance issues were supposedly due to marital woes he's experiencing with estranged ex-wife, model Amber Heard. The two were constantly fighting The two have caused a stir earlier in May when Heard filed a restraining order against the award-winning actor, citing that Depp had been physically and verbally abusive towards her throughout the entirety of their relationship, CNN reports.

In retaliation, Depp's lawyers claim that Heard made up the stories on the abuse and was just hoping to gain financial leverage through spousal support. Depp and Heard's tumultuous divorce came to an end on Aug. 16, 2016, with the model receiving $7 million. She has reportedly claimed that she will donate all of it to charity, splitting the cash between foundations for sick children and violence-against-women support groups.

Even with the supposed delays in filming, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" has gotten a release date for May 26, 2017, as reported by Jobs & Hire. The new chapter will center around Depp's character, Captain Jack Sparrow, as he combats an old nemesis, Capitan Salazar, who has escaped from the Devil's Triangle along with his crew of ghost pirates.
Tehran, Iran, December 5

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

"In Iranian context this issue will have significant meaning when Iranian financial system enters world payment system and get more exposed to global crime scene. While isolated from the rest of the world payments system, Iran is somewhat protected from global threats, such as fraud and other cybercrimes. Once it goes global, and it will in some time, the scene will change drastically. With global world payments system goes also global crime," says Mrs Suzana StojakovicCelustka, CEO of InfoSet d.o.o., Croatian IT company specialized for consulting and software services in information security.

"The globalization of financial services and the increasing sophistication of financial technology mean that the risks of today are more complex and far-reaching. Being at the very heart of a commercial banks activities, payments are certainly not immune to these forces. There is a growing realization that the risks associated with payments processing have the potential to become substantial, yet banks and other financial institutions can take advantage of the sophisticated tools now available to help them manage these risks in a proactive manner," she told Trend while in Tehran on business convention.

Payment fraud is any type of false or illegal transaction completed by a cybercriminal. The perpetrator deprives the victim of funds, personal property, interest or sensitive information via the digital transaction means.

These days fraud goes international. This fraud is perpetrated by international fraudsters who understand how to work the payment system to their advantage, at the detriment to the business. The aim is to extort product and/or money from the business and they have many elaborate scams associated with their international fraud activities.

To make things worse, fraud patterns evolve quickly and constantly. Thus, as companies put in place measures to prevent fraud, perpetrators quickly adapt and find ways to circumvent them. There is clearly a need for better processes and tools to enhance their fraud detection and investigation.

"To analyze and understand how and where fraud happens, one cannot just rely on the experience and intuitions of even the best investigators, or the analysis of standard fraud reports and basic metrics. Also, the more common analytical tools appear ineffective to scan very high and fast-growing volumes of data  where critical information to understand fraud patterns and hidden paths is buried," Mrs StojakovicCelustka said.

"Identifying fraud patterns means to find out: where fraud comes from, how it happens, who is involved and what areas of the business it impacts."

"Fast-developing predictive analysis technologies offer great potential for improvement of fraud detection and prevention. They can help companies get deep insights into how and where fraudulent transactions originate, and analyze changing fraud patterns, in order to enhance their fraud detection strategies and adapt faster to new types of attacks."

"Wide use of predictive and intelligent analytics in detecting and preventing fraud and security threats should be common practice in finance industry. The next response in security is cognitive computing.

Cognitive security systems may use analysis methods such as machine learning, clustering, graph mining and entity relationship modeling to identify potential threats. This can help speed detection of risky user behavior, data exfiltration and malware before damage occurs," she noted.

"The solution for Iran and rest of the world is in building intelligent security systems capable of fast and reliable response."

"To prevent and predict fraud and other cybercrime in real time without affecting the experience of customer we need an intelligent system capable to: learn or understand from experience, acquire and retain knowledge, respond quickly and successfully to a new situation, make proper decisions, etc. An intelligent system for fraud detection and prevention has to be: invisible to customer, fast, reliable, precise (with small amount of false positives or negatives), small and adaptive."

"Artificial intelligence is no longer a dream of the future. Intelligent systems exist, and theres nothing artificial about it. Cybersecurity in banking payments systems today can benefit as a result. So, we in InfoSet d.o.o. are looking for Iranian partners in this field to develop further our concepts so to satisfy mutual interests." concluded Mrs StojakovicCelustka.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a memorandum of understanding with Thailands PTT Exploration and Production to study three oil and gas fields.

The deal was signed by Prapat Soponpongpipat, executive vice president of PTTEP, and Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy head of the NIOC for development and engineering affairs, on Dec. 6, SHANA news agency reports.

Under the MoU, the Thai firm will undertake studies in Irans Dalpari, Belal and Changouleh fields and will submit the study results and development proposals to the NIOC within six months.

Soponpongpipat expressed hope that the signed MoU will pave the path for strategic and long-term cooperation between the two oil companies.

He said the PTTEP will employ all of its capabilities in studying the three fields, underlining that the Thai firm hopes the MoU will lead to an agreement, at least on one of the fields.

Iran has recently handed over the study of several oil and gas fields to foreign companies under non-disclosure agreements (NDA).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iranian administration and people will not permit the US president-elect, Donald Trump to undermine the nuclear deal signed between Tehran and the six world powers last year, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said.

Rouhani made the remarks during a ceremony marking National Student Day in Tehran University on Dec. 6, Irans state-run IRINN TV reported.

We and our nation will not let Trump to rip up the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action aka nuclear deal), Rouhani said.

As Iran stood against all the world powers during the eight years of war with Iraq (1980-1988) and won, it would thwart all plots as well in the future and will overcome all problems, he added.



The US lawmakers have recently re-authorized 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.

Rouhani said that the ISA is violating the JCPOA and if comes into force Iran will sharply respond to that.

Iran will react to the ISA even if the US president waves the bill after signing it, he added.

Rouhani further said that the issue will be discussed Dec. 7 and Iran will determine its appropriate reaction regarding the issue.

The Iranian president also said that no step was taken by Irans administration during the nuclear talks without approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He added that Irans nuclear negotiating team moved within the guildines and orders of Khamenei at all stages of the talks.

The decisions regarding the nuclear talks were made after hours of meetings with Khamenei, he underlined.

Elsewhere in his remarks Rouhani said that Tehran is now exporting over 2.3 million barrels of oil per day thanks to the JCPOA which came into force in January 2016.

Under the international sanctions Irans oil export dropped from 2.3 to 1 million barrels a day.
A second suspect was charged Tuesday with firing a gun into a car full of people in a November incident, police said.

Jonathan Claude French, 21, was arrested in connection with the Nov. 20 shooting in which one man was treated at the hospital for injuries to the shoulder that were not life-threatening.

The shooting occurred in the area of Timlic Avenue and Williamson Street.

Jesus David Trinidad-Bruno, 19, of the 2500 block of Cole Road, was arrested Nov. 30 with no bond allowed.

A bond has not yet been set for French, who police said had no permanent address.

French and Trinidad-Bruno each face one count of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle.
The reaction to Gov. Pat McCrorys concession Monday was a microcosm of his four years in office.

Republican federal and state elected officials and right-leaning advocacy groups praised many of McCrorys accomplishments, though few officials rallied publicly around his 26-day bid to overcome Democratic-challenger Roy Coopers lead.

Likewise, Democratic elected officials and left-leaning advocacy groups cited Coopers apparent recount-proof margin of 10,267 votes as an indictment of the caused McCrorys actions, particularly House Bill 2.

Some commenters offered hope that a Cooper victory could spur more attempts at compromise between a Democratic-controlled state administration, and a Republican-controlled General Assembly with the super-majority votes to override Coopers veto power.

However, most pointed to the likelihood of four years of little compromise as rural Republican legislators feel no need  at least early in Coopers governorship  to move from rigid positions favored in their gerrymandered districts.

The path forward for sweeping changes in tax, spending, education or environmental policy is limited, said Mitch Kokai, a senior political analyst with conservative think tank John Locke Foundation. In fact, Cooper could drive lawmakers to enact more restrictions on executive branch bureaucrats if he strays too far from policies set out over the past four years.

McCrorys concession video on YouTube was at once gracious, congratulatory and cooperative, and (yet) intensely political, bridging the last campaign into a clarion call for 2020, said Allan Louden, chairman of the communications department at Wake Forest University. His concession adds evidence to the notion were in an era of the continual campaign.

GOP praises legacy

Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and state GOP Party Chairman Robin Hayes praised McCrory for many of the accomplishments cited in his concession speech.

They include: higher public teacher pay; environmental cleanup efforts; creating successive state budget surpluses; health care, Medicaid and tax reforms; state infrastructure; and an economy with a net gain of more than 300,000 new jobs, though about 40 percent of those jobs are in low-wage industries.

We hope Gov.-elect Cooper is willing to work with us to continue improving public education and cutting taxes on families and job creators, Berger said in a statement. Given that Gov.-elect Cooper won his new office with a razor-thin plurality, it is clear there is no groundswell of public support for his campaign pledge of a massive income tax increase on our states citizen and businesses.

Berger is referring to Coopers position on raising the individual income tax rate on wealthy North Carolinians, reversing what the legislature has implemented in the past four years.

Louden said McCrorys speech was an effort to salvage enough political credibility to successfully prosecute the special (Dec. 13) legislative session on funding hurricane and wildfires relief.

The Rev. William Barber II, president of the state NAACP, said McCrory made the right decision to hear the voice of the people and end the fraudulent claims of voter fraud.

We are now calling on Gov. McCrory to ensure that next week, during the special session that he and members of the General Assembly will not unconstitutionally and immorally stack the N.C. Supreme Court, which would infringe on the power of the vote.

Though the N.C. Supreme Court is a nonpartisan race, a left-leaning 4-3 majority emerged when Mike Morgan defeated incumbent Bob Edmunds.

The state constitution calls for a chief justice and six associate justices, but the constitution allows the General Assembly to expand the court by up to two additional associate justices.

There has been speculation that Republican legislators may ask McCrory to nominate two conservative nominees for two new seats on the court.

The main reason cited in other states that have expanded their Supreme Court is increased caseload per justice, which is not the case in North Carolina, according to legislators with both parties.

Critics praise McCrorys departure

Progress NC Action, a left-leaning advocacy group, said that after wasting plenty of time and taxpayer dollars with frivolous complaints and bogus accusations, we are thankful that the McCrory campaign has finally acknowledged Gov.-elect Coopers victory.

Now, its time to move forward and for the General Assembly to start repairing North Carolinas reputation by repealing HB2, raising teacher pay to the national average, and looking out for people instead of polluters.

North Carolina voters supported those priorities when they elected Roy Cooper.

Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, said McCrory was gracious in his concession speech. He has been a pleasure to work with and I wish him well. I know he will continue in some role with his public service heart.

Lambeth said he looks forward to working with Cooper on health care issues and hopes he will listen to our plans for reforming health care in North Carolina.

There remains a lot of work, and I hope to update him soon.

Rep. Julia Howard, R-Davie, said McCrory conceded with grace and honor.

Michael Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University, said he is cautious about how much Cooper will be able to move forward with his agenda when facing a Republican-controlled General Assembly with super-majority control and potential veto override power against Cooper.

The content of the political debate will likely change, with the Cooper administration possibly pushing a repeal of HB2, more education spending, an increase in the state minimum wage, a restoration of the earned income tax credit, and maybe a rollback of some of the recent tax changes, Walden said.

John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest, said Coopers victory does not change the reality that the GOP-controlled legislature is the dominant branch in N.C. politics and is capable of setting the agenda and controlling the passage of policies in a way that the governor is often powerless to match.

That was evident in the final two years of the Perdue administration and all four years of the McCrory administration, when the legislature enjoyed the upper hand on negotiations over budget and policy matters.
NEW YORK  Donald Trump chose retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson on Monday to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, raising fresh concerns about the lack of experience some of Trump's Cabinet picks have with agencies they're now being chosen to lead.

Carson, who opposed Trump in the Republican primaries, has no background in government or running a large bureaucracy.

In addition, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump's choice to be ambassador to the United Nations, has no foreign policy experience. Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood executive, is Trump's man to lead the Treasury Department but has never worked in government.

And retired Gen. James Mattis, a widely praised battlefield commander, spent decades in the Marines but now is tapped to run the nation's largest government agency, the Defense Department, with 740,000 civilian employees in addition to 1.3 million service personnel.

Democrats swiftly criticized Carson's qualifications for his job. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called him a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice." And New York Sen. Charles Schumer said he had "serious concerns about Dr. Carson's lack of expertise and experience in dealing with housing issues. Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least."

Carson would oversee a budget of nearly $50 billion that provides rental assistance for more than 5 million households. Demand for that assistance is high in part because housing costs are rising faster than incomes. HUD also promotes home ownership with the Federal Housing Administration underwriting about 1 in 6 mortgages issued in the U.S. The agency is charged with enforcing federal fair housing laws, too.

In a statement, Trump said he was "thrilled to nominate" Carson, describing his "brilliant mind" and his passion "about strengthening communities and families within those communities."

Carson, who grew up poor, quickly endorsed Trump after ending his own presidential bid despite Trump noting what he called Carson's "pathological temper." Carson has been coy about joining the new administration, saying shortly after Trump's election victory that he wasn't certain he'd fit into a Cabinet-style role in a job like Health and Human Services secretary.

"Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country," Trump said, "and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans."

Heading a Cabinet agency is a huge bureaucratic job, with responsibility for overseeing massive budgets and thousands of employees. Choosing a leader without management experience could present challenges, warned Ben Chang, who worked under three different administrations.

"People can learn the policies and the talking points, but the transition will be dictated by their own managerial style," said Chang, who remembered incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell walking the halls to meet with career officers and not just his executive staff.

Trump's selections also highlight a frequent divide between the two major political parties in their strategies in filling out a Cabinet: In early 2009, Republicans criticized incoming President Barack Obama for not making enough selections with private sector experience.

On Monday, Trump received a fresh stream of visitors to the New York skyscraper that bears his name. His most surprising guest was Democratic former Vice President Al Gore. Transition officials said early Monday that Gore would meet with Trump's daughter, Ivanka, about climate change, which is Gore's signature issue.

But Gore said he also met with Trump directly and the two had a "very productive conversation."

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," said Gore, who did not detail what the men discussed. The president-elect has called man-made climate change a hoax and has pledged to undo a number of regulations designed to protect the environment.

Outside the building, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein vowed to forge ahead with her push for a recount in three states  Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania  that helped Trump win.

"Let every vote count," Stein said. "That's what makes America great."

Her news conference was repeatedly interrupted by shouts of protest. Several Trump supporters and Clinton supporters shouted at each other.

Separately, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he's asking the government for $35 million to cover costs related to protecting Trump, who has indicated he will largely work out of Trump Tower before his inauguration. He will continue his "thank you" tour with a stop Tuesday in North Carolina.

His running mate, Mike Pence, told reporters that "decisions were made" Monday that would be announced in the coming days. It was unclear if one of those was Secretary of State, for which Trump has expanded his pool of candidates beyond the four finalists his aides identified last week.

Over the weekend, two people close to the transition told The Associated Press that Trump is moving away from two of the four: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

That would leave former CIA Director Petraeus, who pleaded guilty to leaking classified information, and Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among other possibilities, one official says, is Jon Huntsman, a former Republican Utah governor who also served as the ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.

The people close to the transition spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process publicly.

Meanwhile, the president-elect dined at one of his favorite New York restaurants, 21 Club, Monday night with this family. He ate at the same Midtown Manhattan restaurant last month but did not notify the reporters and photographers who follow his movements, drawing criticism from journalist groups. The press pool did travel with Trump to the restaurant Monday and waited outside in a van while the president-elect ate.
The child exploitation conspiracy theory that apparently inspired a Salisbury, North Carolina, man to show up in Washington, D.C., this week with an assault rifle ranks among the most insidious fabrications to have spread online during the presidential campaign.

But it has at least two prominent backers on President-elect Donald Trump's transition team: designated national security adviser Michael T. Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn.

The retired three-star U.S. Army general and his 33-year-old son  who serves as his father's chief of staff  have used their social media accounts to promote numerous baseless claims, including that members of Hillary Clinton's campaign were implicated in a child prostitution ring.

The Flynns' involvement in spreading this toxic allegation seemed mainly to serve as a disheartening example of the public's susceptibility to manipulation in the digital age, until a gunman arrived in Northwest Washington on Sunday carrying an assault weapon and, according to authorities, planning to investigate the fictitious crime.

Edgar Maddison Welch was arrested, but not before he had fired at least one round, caused panic at a pizza restaurant that had the misfortune of being linked to the anti-Clinton conspiracy allegation, and caused a busy stretch of Connecticut Avenue to be cordoned off by police.

The elder Flynn, who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was pushed out by the Obama administration in 2014, called attention to the phony story just days before the election last month with a breathless posting on Twitter: "U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc . . . MUST READ!"

Hours after the gunman was apprehended, the younger Flynn renewed his support for the lie.

"Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story," Michael G. Flynn said on Twitter late Sunday evening. "The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it."

Flynn's tweet appeared to be a reference to unfounded allegations spread online that the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington served as a front for human trafficking and sex crimes, and that hacked Clinton emails were riddled with coded references to kidnapping, molestation and child prostitution. The elder Flynn did not make the connection to the restaurant, though he has also never backed away from the claim that the Clintons were linked to a child sex ring.

Neither Flynn responded to requests for comment Monday. As designated national security adviser, the senior Flynn is poised to be among the most influential occupants of the Trump White House.

His son has appeared in photos with his father greeting other senior national security applicants at Trump Tower - where Trump and his transition team are based. The younger Flynn has no national security of significant government experience. One family associate said that Michael G. Flynn's prior work experience included a stint working for an uncle's printing company in California.

The two were often separated during the elder Flynn's military career, which included long deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The father even missed his son's wedding while overseas.

But the two have been largely inseparable since Flynn left the military and echoed each other's strident postings online. When the older Flynn launched an intelligence consulting firm, he gave his son a job as chief of staff.

The son traveled with his father to Moscow last year, according to family associates, where his father was seated beside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gala thrown by RT, the Kremlin-controlled propaganda news outlet.

The older Flynn has gone largely quiet on social media since the election, but his son remains an active online presence. His Facebook account was updated Monday with a fresh link to a broadcast by right-wing provocateur Alex Jones.

Previous postings include a digitally manipulated image of Trump surrounded by handguns aimed at his head. The weapons are marked labeled with brands of major news organizations, including CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Neither Flynn appears to have been involved in the initial fabrication of the Clinton email claims. But both amplified the falsehood online as part of a broad stream of dubious postings and claims.

Multiple organizations with alt-right affiliations have spread stories accusing the Clintons of being tied to cases of human trafficking and sex crimes. One involves Comet Ping Pong, and another involves billionaire donor and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's ties to the Clintons.

After leaving office, Bill Clinton was occasionally a passenger on aircraft owned by Epstein, who was also a regular visitor to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The initial tweet by the older Flynn linked to an article from the far-right website True Pundit that points to the Epstein case. Comet Ping Pong is not mentioned by True Pundit - either explicitly or implicitly. And in fact, the Reddit posting that spawned what's come to be known as "PizzaGate" (the thread has been taken down by Reddit) is from Nov. 4, according to Snopes  two days after the True Pundit article posted Nov. 2.

Both Flynns have trafficked in these kinds of bogus stories many times before. The son has also pushed a conspiracy theory that Sen. Marco Rubio was a closeted homosexual who abused cocaine, and promoted baseless accounts that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

The closer the date of inauguration of the newly elected US president is, the more guesses, assumptions and comments concerning the development of the US relations with the international community arise.

In todays world, phone calls made after election of a countrys head have very subtle diplomatic overtones that hide big failures or hopes.

Moreover, everything in significant  who made a call, in what order the newly elected leader prefers to talk to colleagues and what they discuss during these phone calls.

Most closely community follows phone calls of such major regional players as Donald Trump, the newly elected US president.

For example, his conversation with Russias President Vladimir Putin gave the observers hope that the relations between the two countries will change for the better, while his conversation with the heads of the Baltic states turned into some embarrassment, as reported by CNN.

But the real disaster was an attempt of the Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan to pay homage to the new US president - Trump decided not to spend time on this and Mike Pence, the newly elected vice-president, had a conversation with Sargsyan.

The fact that the conversation was initiated by the US side only means that when Sargsyan requested a conversation with Trump and was eager to congratulate his US counterpart on being elected, the future US presidents administration paused for reflection, and then, having made the decision, called back to Yerevan.

The fact that the US pointedly opposed the US vice-president to the Armenian president on diplomatic chess board speaks of Trumps not seeing a reason to communicate with such a small international player, whose importance and role is turned into a kind of Russia appendix.

This Armenian diplomatic failure reaffirmed that Hillary Clintons electoral defeat as a democratic candidate was a big disappointment for Yerevan. It is known that Clinton maintained fairly close relationships with an extensive Armenian diaspora in the US. However, Trumps policy towards Armenia will remain quite alert.

Armenia's membership in the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) dots the i's and cross the t's in the issue of Armenias orientation to pro-Russian policy.

What is more frustrating for Yerevan is that Azerbaijan is a quite familiar country to Trump. Trump has previously invested in Azerbaijan and he undoubtedly understands the countrys attractiveness in terms of investment  the country which not only plays an important role for the West from the point of view of cooperation in energy security, but which also pursues independent policy oriented towards the national interests.

The prospect of establishing relations between Moscow and Washington can be another concern for Armenia. The US has always tried not to go beyond the OSCE Minsk Group in its initiatives to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Taking into account that Russia is more inclined towards Azerbaijan in resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia may try to convince US to support its plan in the conflict resolution, in case the countries normalize relations.

Since Trump is likely to stake on Azerbaijan and to strengthen relations with Russia, Armenia will be in a difficult situation. In other words, if Moscow monopolizes the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiation process by silent consent of the Trump administration, it can lead to real changes in favor of Azerbaijan.

All this leaves Yerevan no hope for the new US administration, while no one allowed Sargsyan to secure himself. Trump just didn't answer the call. It is likely that the future US leader has more important things to do, so the Armenian diplomatic failure was very predictable.

Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agencys Russian news service
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Orkhan Guluzade  Trend:

Turkey detained Fatih Gursul, advisor to the head of the Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu, as part of fight against the movement of Fethullah Gulen, accused of involvement in the failed July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, Sabah newspaper reported Dec. 6.

On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people, excluding the coup plotters, and over 2,000 people were wounded.

He also declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20. The state of emergency was prolonged for 90 more days on Oct. 3.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
Lets talk about offbeat news: We humans get ourselves into some interesting situations, to put it mildly. The first one made me laugh out loud. I felt bad for the cop, but lol. Read moreSmith Says: Deputy uses taser on K9 unit that attacked cow
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TeleSur |  

Trump has said that Kushner, who is a married to Ivanka Trump and is an Orthodox Jew, would be very good as his Middle East envoy.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and confidant of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is a director and board member at the Kushner Foundation which has given money to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank as well as extremist Jewish groups connected to violent attacks against Palestinians, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Monday.

The findings are based on tax records from Kushners parents for the years 2010-2014, which show that the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation gave almost US$60,000 to settlement projects and organizations in Israel, which Washington deems publically as illegal, yet finds covert ways of funding.

Trump has said that Kushner, who is a married to Ivanka Trump and is an Orthodox Jew, would be very good as his Middle East envoy to broker a deal between the Palestinians and Israelis.

The Kushner Foundation gave US$20,000 to the group American Friends in Beit El Yeshive, an organization that supports projects in the ultra-conservative settlement of Beit El.

Beit El was built on private Palestinian land without Israeli government approval, according to Haaretz and human rights groups.

More shocking is that the president of that group is David Friedman, who advised Trump on foreign policy in Israel and Palestine and is his real estate lawyer who told AFP in October that in his view settlements are not illegal and that he believed Trump agrees with him.

To top it all off, the Kushner foundation has given money to one of the most extreme groups within the settler community. The foundation gave funds to the radical Od Yosef Chai group in the settlement of Yitzhar.

This particular yeshiva has served as a base for launching violent attacks against nearby Palestinians villages and Israeli security forces, as well; as a result, it no longer receives funding from the Israeli government, Haaretz reported Monday.

This settlement is also seen as the leader of the settler movements so-called price tag policy, which calls for attacks against Palestinians in retaliation for actions of the Israeli government against West Bank settlements.

The Washington Post, which confirmed the Haaretz report on Kushners foundation, said this years Republican platforms position on Israel was changed to what Trump called the most pro-Israeli stance of all time. It does not explicitly call for a two-state solution and rejects the false notion that Israel is occupying the West Bank, the U.S. newspaper said.

Although the U.S. is the number one sponsor of Israel financially, militarily and politically, Trumps staunch right-wing position will most likely translate into even more suffering and repression for the Palestinian people.

Via TeleSur



Related video added by Juan Cole:

CNN: How Kushners secret operation led to Trumps Victory
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Maan News Agency |  

BETHLEHEM (Maan)  United States Secretary of State John Kerry delivered harsh criticism of the Israeli governments settlement expansion policies at the Saban Forum in Washington D.C. on Sunday, saying things are moving in the wrong direction regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace.

An annual dialogue between American and Israeli leaders from across the political and social spectrum, the Saban Forum is organized by the Center for Middle East Policy  formerly the Saban Center  at the Brookings Institution in the US capitol.

The Saban Center launched in 2002 and was named after multi-billionaire American-Israeli film and television producer Haim Saban, who donated $13 million for the establishment of the center.

During a question and answer style talk, Kerry began by expressing his genuine passion for the state of Israel as a place where people could be protected and an example to the world of democracy and freedom and rights and rule of law.

However, Kerry harshly criticized Israels controversial formalization bill  that would see dozens of illegal Israeli outposts in the occupied West Bank retroactively legalized and thousands of dunams of privately-owned Palestinian land seized. The bill was scheduled to be voted on by Israels parliament, the Knesset, later on Monday.

During the Saban Forum on Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested that the bill should be postponed until US President Barack Obama leaves office, expressing his hopes that President-Elect Donald Trump would play an active role in Middle Eastern politics.

Kerry continued in his talk to say that Israel is ignoring all our warnings regarding settlements, adding that things were moving in the wrong direction.

He said Israels right-wing government and ministers did not want and were not working towards a two-state solution, which the United States and other foreign peace brokers have been regarding for decades as the ideal solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kerry called statements like that of Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, who said the era of the Palestinian state is over following the election of US President-Elect Donald Trump, profoundly disturbing.

More than 50 percent of the ministers in the current (Israeli) government have publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state and there will be no Palestinian state. So this is the predicament. This is where we find ourselves, Kerry said.

Kerry highlighted that every sitting American president, both Democrat and Republican, has been opposed to settlement building.

We issue a warning today when we see a new settlement announced. Nothing happens. Its ignored (by the Israeli government), a new settlement goes up. New units, new sales.

The continued expansion of Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law, has caused an erosion in the peace process in the past, and continues to narrow and narrow the capacity for peace, according to Kerry.

Kerry went on to highlight the destructive nature of settlement expansion on Palestinian livelihood, saying there are currently about 11,000 demolition orders for Palestinian homes through the West Bank, and that in 2014 and 2015, Israel issued only one permit to Palestinians to build in Area C, the area of the West Bank under full Israeli military and civilian control.

Prior to Kerrys talk at the forum, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the audience, saying he still believe that a two-state solution can be reached, but that Palestinians must first recognize Israel as the Jewish nation-state.

Though Netanyahu suggested that a peace agreement with Palestinians could be advanced through regional talks with Arab nations, Kerry vehemently opposed such a proposition, saying that regional peace with Israel is contingent upon Palestinian peace, not the other way around.

Human rights groups and international leaders have strongly condemned Israels settlement construction, claiming it is a strategic maneuver to prevent the establishment of a contiguous, independent Palestinian state by changing the facts on the ground.

While members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two-state solution, Israeli leaders have instead shifted further to the right as many Knesset members have called for an escalation of settlement building in the occupied West Bank, and with some having advocated for its complete annexation.

A number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace, proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.

Via Maan News Agency
JURIST Guest Columnist Virginia Brown Keyder, the State University of New York at Binghamton, discusses IP laws in the US and EU

If any legal concepts may be said to characterize our age, intellectual property (IP) and secrecy would be likely candidates. In theory, these are polar oppositesrepresenting disclosure (for the benefit of the public) and non-disclosure (primarily for the benefit of private interests, but often labeled national security), respectively. Secrecy peppers the legal and political universe with state secrets, secret jurisdictions (see Panama papers or consider Guantanamo), secret laws and secret interpretations, secret ultimatums, secret surveillance, secret trade agreements, secret negotiating strategies and even a significant upswing in secret patents. IP has always been predicated on full disclosure of inventions and creations in exchange for limited-time legally enforceable monopolies, with the view that once the monopolies expire, the content will fall into the public domain to enrich society.

In 2016 IP and secrecy in both the US and the EU moved considerably closer through new trade secret legislation. From its pre-life, which in the public mind centered around the formula for Coca Cola, trade secrets have burgeoned into a less costly and potentially longer term form of protection of inventions than patents, to include employee non-compete clauses, scientific data (both valuable and damaging to its owners), and the stuff that whistleblowers everywhere thrive on.

As discussed elsewhere in this volume, the new US legislation in the form of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) amends the 1996 Industrial Espionage Act, which made theft of trade secrets a felony, by creating a Federal civil cause of action reflecting what has heretofore been state law embodied in the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA)adopted by 48 states. Although in effect for only a few months, the DTSA has unsurprisingly already given rise to litigation. Although trade secrets have constituted the poor relative of the US IP legal family until now, the DTSA brings welcome relief to US corporate players reeling under the weight of patent thickets, the threat of patent trolls and the rising costs of prosecuting and protecting a wide array of inventions, information and other miscellany yet to be determined.

The EU Directive on the other hand sets out basic harmonizing legislative goals and gives EU Member States until June 9, 2018 to implement those goals in domestic legislation. For readers unfamiliar with the structure of EU law, this basically means that the core provisions of the Directive will be inserted into national law in keeping with the Member States existing legal structures. Once enacted these provisions will then become subject to general principles of EU law, including fundamental rights as set out in the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights, proportionality, protection against abuse of process, free movement of goods, services, capital and people and legal certainty. Provisions of national law enacted pursuant to the Directive are also subject to the interpretation of the European Court of Justice.

At present, laws of the EU member states vary widely on the subject of trade secrets, with only Sweden having a specific Act on the Protection of Trade Secrets. Other Member States situate and define trade secrets in a variety of categories from Common Law confidentiality in the UK, to unfair competition and provisions of Civil and Commercial Codes in other Member States [PDF].

While this Directive harmonizes trade secret law across the Member States (one is at a loss to figure out why this didnt come up before, ostensibly such a barrier to e.g. free movement people as various and sundry non-compete clauses are), it also responds to significant lobbying efforts by US entities looking to give globalization a last push, and to prepare the ground for the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), dead in the water as it might be.

First and foremost, the Directive creates for the first time a common definition of trade secret. As exceptions to its application, it expressly provides: freedom of expression and information as well as respect for the freedom and pluralism of the media; rules regarding the public interest in disclosure for administrative or judicial authorities in the performance of their duties; disclosure of information submitted by businesses where necessary; and collective agreements. Article 1(3) provides that the Directive may not be use to hinder the mobility of workers (death to non-compete clauses? Well soon find out.).

Article 3 sets a broad scope for the legal acquisition of trade secrets to include independent discovery, reverse engineering of products made available to the public lawfully in the possession of the party acquiring the product or object, information acquired pursuant to the exercise workers rights and other means of acquisition in conformity with honest commercial practice. Article 4(2)(a) and (b) sets out unlawful means of acquisition of trade secrets to include unauthorized access to, appropriation of, or copying of any documents, objects, materials, substances or electronic files, lawfully under the control of the trade secret holder, containing the trade secret or from which the trade secret can be deduced, in other words, hacking; or other conduct considered contrary to honest commercial practices, a category left open to future interpretation, ultimately by the European Court of Justice.

Use of a trade secret is deemed unlawful if carried out by anyone who acquired the trade secret unlawfully, is in breach of a confidentiality agreement (or other duty not to disclose) or is in breach of a contractual duty to limit its use (Art. 4[3]). Any action for disclosure of a trade secret will, however, be dismissed where the disclosure involves the exercise of freedom of expression, as mentioned above, revealing of misconduct or illegal activity (all whistleblowers?), disclosure by workers to their representatives, or protecting a legitimate interest recognized by EU or national law (Art. 5).

The Directive provides extensive measures for protection of trade secrets during legal proceedings and for protection of personal data (Art. 9). Provisional and precautionary measures mandated by the Directive include cessation or prohibition of the use of the trade secret; prohibition of the production, marketing etc. or importation, export or storage of infringing goods and seizure of suspected infringing goods, including imported goods (Art. 10). Factors to be considered by the judicial authority and the nature of specific circumstances to be evaluated are also set out in detail (Art. 11).

Remedies set out in Article 12 include injunctions and corrective measures which include the destruction of all or part of any document, object, material, substance or electronic file containing or embodying the trade secret or, where appropriate, the delivery up to the applicant of all or part of those documents, objects, materials, substances or electronic files. This falls far short of the execution provision in the new US law, which by one account constitutes a full 42% of the word count of the Act and provides for ex parte seizure of property necessary to prevent the propagation or dissemination of the trade secret that is the subject of the action.

Pecuniary compensation may also be awarded in place of injunctions and corrective measures where certain conditions are met. Damages may be awarded where the infringer knew or ought to have known that he, she or it was engaging in unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of a trade secret, but Member States may limit the liability for damages of employees towards their employers for the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of a trade secret of the employer where they act without intent.

The Directive is marked not only by what it includes but what it omits in the eyes of US lobbyists. It provides no criminal sanctions (in sharp contrast to the 1996 US law that DTSA amends) and expressly refrains from creating a new form of intellectual property, which leaves it outside the scope of application of the EU Enforcement Directive.

Arguably, the full extent of what may come to be regarded as a trade secret has not yet been realized. One author hinted at what is to come, saying A large proportion of that dark matter is an amorphous know-how: the culture, incentives and tacit knowledge that make a modern company tick. Successful companies, be they Goldman Sachs or BuzzFeed, evolve a way of gathering, processing and acting on information that is critical to their success and which cannot easily be replicated. The value generated by a firms culture, just like the value generated by networks of people within cities, or by a countrys economic institutions, is social rather than individual.

A narrow view of the new Directive is that it harmonizes a diverse collection of national legal provisions for the sake of free movement upon which the EU is based. In a broader perspective, it sharply raises the question of whether as a society we are shareholders, in which case privatization and secrecy are acceptable if they contribute by way of stronger more competitive corporations to our collective material wealth or citizens, in which case our public domain stands to be diminished considerably by any replacement of patents (faulty as they may be) with trade secrets for the sake of corporate economy.

Legislation strengthening secrecy, be it state or corporate, by definition limits the transparency basic to democracy and, many would argue, progress and prosperity, particularly in an era where corporate power is being supplemented by new trade agreements. While it is interesting that the EU has not seen fit to harmonize trade secret law over its sixty years of existence, regardless of the fact that, e.g. variation in areas like the validity and operation of non-compete clauses must have caused considerable disruption in the plans of employers wishing to take advantage of the single market labor pool.

It is far from conspiratorial to think that it is no coincidence that the EU has chosen to harmonize this far-reaching body of law in the same year as the US, where corporations and start-ups alike are drowning in innovation-killing patent thickets, plagued by patent trolls and facing rising costs of prosecution and protection of patents. This Directive may be a good thing in that it creates no new IP and brings to bear general principles of EU law, including those in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, proportionality and free movement of people, on what was more often than not straight national contract law. But heres the thing: in their characteristic short-sightedness, both the US and the EU (i.e. the IP-worshipping West) are undermining their deeply entrenched justification for the existence of intellectual property law in the first place: first, that the disclosure demanded in return for monopoly fosters healthy, stable and prosperous societies; and secondly, that individuals, regardless of the fact that most are employees of some corporate entity, should be the beneficiaries of their own creative and inventive ideas which they alone are free to exploit for a limited time. 2016 is making goose that laid the golden egg very uncomfortable.

Virginia Brown Keyder is a Lecturer in EU law, IP and international law at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She has previously served as the Foreign Law Specialist at Mark Levy & Associates, and has served as a consultant on EU IP law. From 2000-2002, Keyder served as the Turkey Correspondent for JURIST. She has also written extensively on olive oil and the law.

Suggested citation: Virginia Brown Keyder, Secrecy or Disclosurethat is the Question, JURIST  Forum, Dec. 3, 2016, http://jurist.org/forum/2016/12Virginia-Brown-Keyder-/Secrec-or Disclosure-that-is-the-Question.php

This article was prepared for publication by Yuxin Jiang, a Senior Editor for JURIST Commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org
The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB) [official website] on Monday sentenced [judgment, PDF] fugitive Idris Ali Sardar to death for war crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. The ICTB held the trial in absentia, listing Sardar as absconded in the court documents. Sardar worked as a leader of the Islami Chhatra Sangha during the war, allying himself with the occupying Pakistan army. Found guilty of genocide, abduction, confinement, torture, rape and other inhumane acts, Sardar was sentenced to be hanged. An accomplice, Solaiman Molla, died earlier this year, and the charges against him were subsequently dropped.

The ICTB, established in 2009 under the International Crimes Act, is charged with investigating and prosecuting war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence. During the conflict, more than 3 million people are believed to have died and thousands of women raped. Human rights groups have criticized [JURIST report] death sentences imposed by the ICTB, stating that trials of war criminals have, in the past, failed to meet international standards. In September authorities executed a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami party for war crimes committed during Bangladeshs 1971 war of independence. Motiur Rahman Nizami was executed [JURIST report] in May for war crimes. Also in May the ICTB sentenced [JURIST report] four men to death for crimes against humanity committed during Bangladeshs war of independence.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Orkhan Quluzade - Trend:

The Greek court made a decision on extradition of three Turkish servicemen who fled Turkey by helicopter on July 16 after a military coup attempt in the country, the Turkish TRT Haber channel reported Dec. 6.

Earlier, Turkish media reported that the Greek court refused to grant the Turkish authorities claim for the extradition of three Turkish servicemen.

The Athens Court of Appeal has recently held the first hearing on the extradition of Turkish officers.

The case was discussed at the court session.

The judges concluded that the extradition of officers can endanger their lives.

The court session on the case of the rest two servicemen is scheduled for December 8.

According to TRT Haber, Turkish Minister of National Defense Fikri Isik commented on the courts decision and stressed that Greece is NATO ally for Turkey, so Ankara expects that the Greek government will do everything possible for the extradition of the members of the Gulen movement.

Eight Turkish servicemen fled the country by helicopter on July 16 after a military coup attempt and landed in the airport of the Greek Dedeagach city.

On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people, excluding the coup plotters, and over 2,000 people were wounded.

He also declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20. The state of emergency was prolonged for 90 more days on Oct. 3.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
A court in Greece on Monday ruled against extradition of three Turkish soldiers, determining that the soldiers should be released from protective custody pending a final ruling on their asylum applications. The soldiers, along with five others, fled to Greece after being suspected of involvement in an attempted coup [JURIST report] against President Tayyip Erdogan [official website] that took place in July, and all eight soldiers face extradition. The court decided [Reuters report] that extraditing these three soldiers to Turkey would put them in danger. The court is expected to rule on the extradition of the other five soldiers within the week, but the decisions will presumably be the same if safety is the concern.

In November Erdogan threatened [JURIST report] to send a new wave of migrants to Europe following a vote to halt negotiations [JURIST report] over European Union (EU) [official website] membership. The fallout with the EU is a continuance of the aftermath Turkey has faced since crackdown after the attempted coup. Since then the government has dismissed [JURIST report] 10,000 civil servants with links to the plotters of coup. Earlier in November the Turkish government restricted activities [JURIST report] for NGOs and rights organizations. Also last month the government arrested opposition leaders [JURIST report] Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, along with nine other members, accused of terror related attacks.
[JURIST] Prosecutors before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Monday began closing arguments [live broadcast] in the trial of former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic [BBC profile]. It is expected that the closing arguments will last over one week and the verdict is expected to come in 2017. This trial marks the last major trial in the tribunal.

Mladic began his defense case [JURIST news report] began his defense case before the UN ICTY in 2014. It started with testimony of Mile Sladoje, a former Serb army officer who claimed that he was never ordered to shoot civilians during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC backgrounder]. Mladic faces an 11-count indictment, including two counts of genocide and nine counts of war crimes, alleging that he was responsible for the massacre as well as a Serb sniping and mortar campaign. The former general, however, denies these charges, insisting instead that his troops were acting in defense of the Serbs. To support this assertion, Sladojes testified that he never received nor issued any orders to open fire on civilians during the time of the conflict. If convicted, Mladic faces a maximum life sentence.
The US Supreme Court [official website] unanimously ruled in favor [opinion, PDF] of Samsung over Apple [corporate websites] on Tuesday in an infringement suit between the two smartphone giants. At trial, a jury awarded Apple $399 million, an amount based on the total profits Samsung made selling smartphones that Apple claimed infringed on their iPhone design. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] reinstated the award [JURIST report] after originally overturning it. Samsung appealed, claiming the award should have been based only on the infringing components of the end product, in this case, a rectangular front face with rounded edges and a grid of colorful icons on a black screen. The issue before the court was whether an article of manufacture, as used in section 289 of the Patent Act [PDF], refers to an entire product or the individual components of that product. In its suit against Samsung, Apple claimed article of manufacture meant the entire end product because the individual components were not sold separately. Writing for the court in reversing the appellate courts decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, the term article of manufacture is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product, whether sold separately or not, and Samsung is therefore only responsible for the portion of the profits that resulted from the copied design. In the opinion, Sotomayor referred to kitchen items to illustrate the difference between Apples single-component and Samsungs multicomponent arguments:

In the case of a design for a single-component product, such as a dinner plate, the product is thearticle of manufacture to which the design has been applied. In the case of a design for a multicomponent product, such as a kitchen oven, identifying the article of manufacture to which the design has been applied is a more difficult task.

This was the first decision regarding copyright infringement damages by the Supreme Court since Dobson v. Hartford Carpet Co. [opinion] in 1885.

This is the most recent installment of the ongoing patent dispute [JURIST op-ed] between the two electronics giants. In July Apple filed a brief [JURIST report] asking the Supreme Court to rule against Samsung in its patent infringement lawsuit. In January the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] granted [JURIST report] Apples motion for a permanent injunction against Samsung for infringing upon three software patents. In August 2014 the US District Court for the Northern District of California denied [JURIST report] Apples request to ban Samsung from selling any of its products that infringed on Apples patented technology. Earlier in August 2014 Apple and Samsung agreed to drop [JURIST report] all patent infringement lawsuits in courts outside of the US.
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Dutch food group Wessanen has made another acquisition as it continues to focus on expansion in the European sustainable foods market. Wessanen is expanding its presence in Spain through the purchase of Biogran, a leader in the Spanish rice cake and cereals. Wessanens management believes the deal will open the door for further growth in a promising market. Katy Askew reports.

Since Wessanen decided to transform itself into a pure-play food group concentrating on what it defines as its core business, the European market for healthy, sustainable foods, the Netherlands-based business has sought to use M&A to further reshape its portfolio.

In October 2014, Wessanen announced it would look to sell US drinks unit American Beverage Corporation (a process it completed in March 2015) and in the two years since has completed a number of acquisitions to strengthen its hand in western Europes health food sector.

Wessanens most recent purchase, announced yesterday (5 December), of Spanish organic group Biogran, has shades of its move for Italian dairy-free firm Abafoods in December 2014 and, going back further, even the purchase of France-based organic and fairtrade food firm Alter Eco in 2013. In both cases, Wessanen used acquisitions to beef up its presence in growth markets for organic foods and, CEO Christophe Barnouin said yesterday, the company sees parallels between its successful expansion in Italy and France and its move into Spain.

Wessanen is acquiring Biogran, which it describes as a leading Spanish organic food company, from local private-equity firm Nazca Capital. The deal will see Wessanen pay EUR67m (US$71.7m) for the business, which operates the El Granero and Eco Cesta brands.

Nazca acquired Biogran as part of a management buy-out of the business last year. According to Barnouin, the purchase price represented a good deal for Nazca and the speedy nature of the private-equity firms exit is reflective of Wessanens proactive approach to its pursuit of the asset. We jumped on it because we believe it is a very good fit for us. The financials look good, the growth potential is great, Barnouin said in a call with analysts yesterday afternoon.

It is estimated Biograns sales will total EUR32m this year, up 18.5% on 2015. That growth is broadly in line with that witnessed in the Spanish organic sector, where sales increased 16% to EUR1.4bn in 2015, according to data from the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture and Food. Because penetration of organics is relatively low in Spain, at just 1%, the growth rate looks likely to remain relatively sustainable for some time.

The Spanish market is currently growing at double digits it is a market that has picked up after the recession very well and very fast. The growth is very active in both channels [where Biogran has distribution] organic shops and supermarkets, Barnouin suggested. We believe there is a very good potential to grow.

In particular, Barnouin said organic sales through Spanish supermarkets have considerable potential because a lot of Spains larger retailers, such as Mercadona, do not yet carry organic products. Independent organic outlets account for two-thirds of Biograns sales but it is the supermarket sector that is developing fastest, the executive revealed.

Additionally, Barnouin said, the majority of Biograns growth is weighted towards higher-margin branded products, which already make up in excess of 60% of group sales. This is clearly the focus where the vast majority of investment and growth is coming from, he said.

Biogran boasts an impressive margin profile, with an EBIT operating profit margin of around 16% and an EBITDA margin of close to 17%. This is thanks in large part to the fact that Biogran is an asset light business that has good control of supply chain, Barnouin said. It is a lean approach to manufacturing.

In fact, Biograns operating profit margin is around 30 basis points higher than Wessanens own EBIT margin so the deal will add to the groups existing margin aspirations, finance chief Ronald Merckx added.

As Kepler Cheuvreux analyst Karel Zoete notes, the integration of Biogran will lift Wessanens sales and operating profitability. On a pro-forma basis, the deal adds 6% to sales and 12% to estimated 2016 EBIT. The EBITDA margin of 17% of Biogran is about twice the level of Wessanen overall.

Biogran is asset light  and therefore has low capex requirements  because it only produces around 40% of its products at two manufacturing and office plants it operates in and around Madrid. They produce 40% of their products. Their large categories are cereal and rice cakes, which are produced in-house, Barnouin explained. We have potentially more synergies [as the business is integrated].

Wessanen and Biogran both have a strong presence in the ambient organic grocery category, meaning the Dutch group believes it may be able to realise production synergies.

But, while Biograns main product categories are rice cakes and cereals, the group also offers refrigerated and frozen items, which provides Wessanen with a potential opening to expand its product offering and technological expertise in the rest of Europe. They have a good position in chilled, Barnouin noted. We do consider that as good route-to-market capabilities. We will learn from Biogran how we can extend in chilled we are [already] launching the same kind of products under Bjorg in chilled.

Likewise, Wessanen believes it can exploit cross-selling opportunities by feeding its products into Biograns Spanish distribution channels, a market where Wessanen only holds a small sales presence. In the first quarter of next year, Wessanens management will sit down with Biograns management  who have agreed to stay with the company  to decide how far the Spanish firms brands can be stretched with the addition of new ranges.

As Wessanen takes control of Biogran, its number one priority will be maintaining the groups strong growth momentum and, Barnouin stressed, with revenues of EUR32m, the unit has already reached critical mass to maintain profitability in the country.

However, the group also remains open to the possibility of expanding further in Spain through additional M&A. Our first ambition is to get it to grow at the same pace and then if we get an opportunity [to acquire additional assets in Spain] we will do that.
Belgium-based private-equity firm Verlinvest and state-owned conglomerate China Resources have invested in Sweden-based dairy-free business Oatly.

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Verlinvest, the fund backed by shareholders in brewing giant AB InBev, and China Resources, which has interests in rice, meat, frozen food and beer, will be shareholders in Oatly alongside the companys existing investors and its founders.

The investment was made through a new joint venture formed by Verlinvest and China Resources earlier this year. Announcing the venture in May, China Resources said the venture would focus on health and consumer products.

The terms of the transaction, including the size of the stake the venture would take in Oatly, were not disclosed. Private-equity industry news portal Unquote said the Swedish-government-backed VC Industrifonden had sold part of its stake in Oatly to Verlinvest and China Resources.

When contacted by just-food, Oatly said it would not disclose the shareholdings its investors now had in the business. Officials at Verlinvest, VC Industrifonden and Spayne Lindsay, the M&A advisory firm that worked on the deal, had not responded to requests for comment from just-food at the time of writing.

In a statement, Oatly said the investment from Verlinvest and China Resources would help expand its manufacturing footprint in Sweden and fund the companys push into new markets including China and the US.

In China Resources and Verlinvests joint venture, we have found a highly experienced global-minded partner who understands this unique heritage and brings to Oatly a valuable network as well as operational expertise in key markets, Oatly CEO Toni Petersson said.

Based in the Swedish city of Malmo, Oatlys products are available in more than 20 countries in Europe and Asia.

Frederic de Mevius, chairman of the board of Verlinvest, said: We have been very impressed by what the team at Oatly has achieved so far in building the Swedish market leader and we are excited to join them, alongside the existing shareholders, to bring the brand, an icon of Swedish health and sustainability, to a global audience.

Kerry Zhang, the deputy general manager of China Resources strategy department, said: Oatly has built a differentiated lifestyle brand with an ethical approach which we believe will strongly appeal to the Chinese consumer. We will invest further to ensure that Oatly remains at the leading-edge of oat research, and continues to develop new innovative products for many years to come.

Last month, Verlinvest announced it had acquired a 24.5% stake in Italian tomato products group Mutti. In October, the fund invested in Indian condiments supplier Veeba Food Services. Three months earlier, Verlinvest backed another Indian firm, yogurt and ice cream maker Drums Food.

Verlinvests other food interests include a stake in US condiments firm Sir Kensingtons and UK-based gluten-free group Genius Foods.

Sir Kensingtons co-founders on growth plans after investment round  interview published in September 2015

Related Companies
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

The Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) terrorist group can attack Turkish diplomats who are outside the country, just like the Armenian terrorist group ASALA did in the past, Ismail Hakki Pekin, former head of intelligence department at the Turkish General Staff, retired colonel-general, told Trend Dec. 6.

Pekin stressed that the diplomatic missions of Turkey in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia are at the greatest risk.

There is a possibility of terrorist attacks in Europe, he said. It is impossible to rely on the support of the European countries which may stay away, as they did during ASALAs growing threat.

Pekin said the forces standing behind IS, rather than IS itself, hatch plans against Turkish diplomats.

He said Turkey is taking all necessary measures to neutralize the IS threat.

Earlier, newly appointed spokesman for IS, Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajir urged IS supporters to attack Turkish servicemen, businessmen, journalists and employees of embassies around the world.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) terrorist organization operated actively in 1973-1985. Forty two Turkish diplomats were killed in ASALA attacks.
Dallas, 12/05/2016 /SubmitPressRelease123/

1-800-Car-Wreck is proud to announce the beginning of the annual Stuff the Bus Holiday Toy Drive in association with K104 and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). The fundraiser will help provide toys, socks, blankets and canned food to Dallas area children, families and the elderly who are in need during this holiday season.

We are so happy to participate in this worthwhile campaign again, stated Amy Witherite, partner at Eberstein Witherite, LLP, the law firm of 1-800-Car-Wreck. Although people are in need throughout the year, it seems as if there is a greater spirit of giving during the holiday season, so we want to take advantage of the good work that DART and K104 are doing to encourage Dallas-area residents to contribute to this toy drive. Contributions help area children and seniors and families, and its all about trying to make a difference in the life of someone less fortunate.

As part of the toy drive, Eberstein Witherite will be donating supplies such as toys, blankets and food. Anyone who is interested in contributing to the toy drive can bring new and unwrapped adult socks, blankets, unwrapped toys and canned food to Mockingbird Station on Friday, December 2, 2016 from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The team at 1-800-Car-Wreck will be on site from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., and will be guests on the Dede in the Morning Show during that time. K104 is the well-known nickname of KKDA-FM, and the station is a sponsor of the Stuff a Bus campaign. Radio hosts will do a live broadcast at Mockingbird Station.

DART bus drivers and DART police officers will be accepting donations during the event, which is designed to filled an entire DART bus with toys, clothes and food as apart of two DART employee campaigns: Santa Cops and Comforting of the Souls.

Santa Cops is run by the DART Police Department and provides toys and food to disadvantaged families. Comforting of the Souls is run by DARTs Northwest Bus Division and provides adult socks and blankets to the elderly living in nursing home facilities.

Media Contact

Lucy Tiseo

Eberstein & Witherite, LLP

Phone: 800-779-6665

Email: [email protected]

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source: http://www.1800-car-wreck.com/1-800-car-wreck-announces-annual-stuff-bus-holiday-toy-drive-k104-dart.html

Social Media Tags:1-800-Car-WreckX Annual Stuff the Bus Holiday Toy Drive, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Eberstein & WitheriteX K104 and DART

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Matchday One in the Youth League saw the Primavera host Sevillas renowned Cantera in Vinovo for what would be an exciting and closely fought match.

The Bianconeri took the lead after 35 minutes when Grigoris Kastanos picked out Moise Kean with a perfect through pass, the striker driving home with a classy finish from an acute angle.

The visitors drew level after the interval, but Juve kept pushing for a winner right up until the very last minute. Kastanos won a free-kick on the edge of the area. Up stepped Gabriele Bove, who could not have caught the ball any better, as it sailed into net, sealing Youth League victory number one at the first time of asking.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

Possibility of establishing a direct contact between Ankara and Damascus with the support of Moscow may be discussed during the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim to Russia, says Ismail Hakki Pekin, former head of intelligence department at the Turkish General Staff, retired colonel-general.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is in Russia on an official visit. He already held a meeting in Moscow Dec. 6 and will hold another meeting in Kazan Dec. 7. This is Yildirims first visit to Russia after his appointment as Turkish prime minister in May this year.

Pekin told Trend Dec. 6 that Turkey and Russia should closer cooperate in the issues regarding Syria and security in the region.

He pointed out that the issue regarding the situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo can also be brought to the agenda of the negotiations.

Russia is trying to establish control over Aleppo. The Russian army as well as the Syrian government forces currently gained control over strategic locations and a large part of this Syrian city, Pekin noted.

At the same time, a significant number of Syrian opposition forces, supported by Turkey, are currently in Aleppo, he said. Possible withdrawal of the opposition from the city may be discussed during the talks with Yildirim.

Pekin added that the Shield of the Euphrates operation, carried out in Syria by the Turkish Armed Forces, and the fight against terrorist organizations will also be brought to the agenda of the talks.

On Aug. 24 morning, the Turkish Air Force, with the support of the coalition aircraft, launched an operation to liberate the city of Jarabulus from the IS militants in northern Syria, near Aleppo.

The operation was dubbed the Shield of the Euphrates.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has so far claimed over 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The IS, YPG and PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
New York City asked the U.S. government for up to $35 million to cover security costs for protecting President-elect Donald Trump in his home atop a Manhattan skyscraper, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday, Reuters reported.

Trump, a Republican, has spent most of his time since Election Day in his apartment at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, forcing police to work with the U.S. Secret Service to provide intensified security measures in one of the city's busiest neighborhoods.

The situation is "truly unusual," de Blasio said at a news conference.

Trump has used the tower for years as his primary residence and the headquarters of his global business empire. His presence there while receiving high-profile guests to interview for his administration has caused traffic jams and frustrated commuters and tourists.

De Blasio sent letters to President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders on Monday asking for federal funds to pay for security costs from the Nov. 8 election through Jan. 20, when Trump is to take the oath of office in Washington and become the 45th U.S. president.

The 75-day period puts the daily price tag for the New York Police Department at about $467,000. The figure is about half the $1 million daily tab previously estimated by New York media and cited in a petition by City Council members to Trump last week.

The 58-story building in the businessman's home city is close to several high-end shopping destinations, including Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany's and Louis Vuitton, and tourist attractions such as Central Park and the Museum of Modern Art.

"This is a highly-trafficked, dense urban environment, and one that presents an unprecedented and unique target for potential terrorist activity," de Blasio wrote to Congressional leaders. "No other president in modern history has had his primary residence located in such a densely-populated neighborhood."

De Blasio said that Congress has reimbursed New York in previous years for costs related to the protection of world leaders, including foreign dignitaries, and major events such as the 2004 Republican National Convention.

The city would continue to seek appropriate reimbursement from the Trump administration after his inauguration, de Blasio said. He said he had already spoken with Trump's nominee for treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, about the matter.

Trump's wife Melania and young son plan to remain in New York for the rest of the school year, and Trump is expected to return frequently even after moving to the White House.
Details added (first version posted on 09:50)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

Trend:

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed a law on ratification of the agreement with Russia on the Turkish Stream gas pipelines construction project, said a message posted on the website of Turkeys Resmi Gazete (Official newspaper).

Russia and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement October 10 on the implementation of the Turkish Stream project.

The agreement involves construction of two branches of the main gas pipeline under the Black Sea, the power of each branch being 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas.

One branch is provided to supply gas directly to the Turkish market, the other for the supply of gas by transit through Turkey to Europe. The intergovernmental agreement also stipulates that these two offshore branches should be built by December 2019.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6

Trend:

Ankara and Moscow must jointly fight against terrorism, said Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, who is on a visit to Russia, Sputnik International reported Dec. 6.

Yildirim made the remarks during his talks with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia and Turkey play key roles in the fight against terrorism, said the Turkish prime minister.

Turkey and Russia are of great importance not only in terms of the development of relations between the two countries, but also in the fight against terrorism and ensuring peace, he noted.

He added that after tensions in bilateral relations, Ankara and Moscow will develop strategic ties between the two countries.

The relations between the two countries have gone through a difficult time over the last year. And after this negative experience, we plan to develop our relations at a strategic level, said Yildirim.

The relations between Moscow and Ankara deteriorated sharply in late 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber with two pilots on board. In June 2016, Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter of condolences to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the death of a Su-24 pilot and expressed regret over the incident.
The ongoing visit of Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim to Moscow may create the conditions for the forthcoming meeting between the two countries' leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, Sputnik reported.

Earlier in the day, following a meeting with Yildirim, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the meeting between Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been scheduled for the first half of 2017.

"We have a lot of joint work at the moment. I hope that your visit will be taken as a basis of our forthcoming meeting with the president of the Turkish republic and holding of the summit at the level," Putin said at a meeting with the Turkish prime minister.

The Russian leader asked Yildirim to deliver Putin's greetings to Erdogan and thanked him for signing the law on ratification of the agreement on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project.

Russian-Turkish relations deteriorated after the downing of a Russian military plane by a Turkish fighter jet in Syria on November 24, 2015. Moscow imposed a number of restrictive measures on Turkey in response to what Putin then described as a "stab in the back." A thaw in relations between Moscow and Ankara began in June following Turkey's apology to Russia.
A woman takes a selfie beside a logo of SAIC, China's largest auto manufacturer, during an auto show in Beijing. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's largest automaker SAIC Motor (formerly Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) is set to invest $1 billion in India by 2018, with plans to produce vehicles for local users as well as for export, the Business Standard reported.



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The company said that proposals for the hosting of its manufacturing unit have been presented by governments of three states: Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.



Industry sources said that the company will announce its plans after it has been finalized, in the first or second quarter of next year.



Earlier, SAIC expressed interest to acquire the General Motors plant in Halol, Gujarat, where the Chevrolet Tavera are manufactured. The company was initially interested to buy the plant completely, but later appeared to have lost interest in it.



"If SAIC is keen to invest in India then it is only fair that it expects some state government incentives in return. The Halol plant is not new; there would be no incentives with it," the source was quoted as saying.



A few years before, SAIC bought some shares in General Motor's India unit, the report said.



"From the time the construction of a Greenfield plant begins, it would take a maximum of 18 months to inaugurate the factory and launch the first product. This should happen by late-2018 or early-2019 for SAIC," the source said.



SAIC owns the brands Maxus, MG, Roewe and Yuejin, as well as other products in other categories. The company has also cooperated, through joint ventures, with several companies that include General Motors, Iveco, Skoda Auto and Volkswagen.



With the help of General Motors, SAIC moved into the Indian market in 2010 with the aim to sell Chinese products. But now, it changed its plans and instead, it would like to produce products locally for local users.



"SAIC believes India needs its own product lines, and not those developed in foreign markets. There will be an India-focused product-development center. This will also help SAIC keep the product costs down and operate with far greater agility", the source added.



According to the report, products that are locally developed and more focused on the needs of Indian consumers receive greater acceptance in the country. It cited the Brio hatchback that was developed outside and became a failure for Honda while Hyundai succeeded with the Grand i10, which was developed in India.



The company has also outsourced research and consulting firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct studies on asset evaluation, component supplier setup and product marketing. It also plans to bring its supplier partners to India.



Currently, SAIC has established corporate offices in Gurgaon and plans to hire a chief executive officer for its operations in the country.



SAIC is expected to face challenges to gain a foothold in the Indian market, two-thirds of which is controlled by Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai. Other players such as Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors and Fiat have been marginalized despite operating in the country for decades.


The rumors concerning Amal Alamuddin and George Clooney's divorce have been put to rest for now, according to the sources of Gossip Cop.

Earlier, there were rumors that Amal and George were going through trust issues and Amal was all set to separate from Clooney. These speculations were made after model and actress, Cindy Crawford made a confession earlier this month saying that she almost ended up naked in bed with George Clooney before he had even met Amal.

Cindy recently revealed to Conan O'Brien, in an interview with CNN, that she had a small embarrassing encounter with George on her bedside long ago, when he was not a married man. She described that her husband, Rande Gerber and George Clooney had gone out late in the evening and came home late in the night, reported Celeb Dirty Laundry.

International Business Times reported if Rande is late, he crawls into the guest room, so that he doesn't disturb the kids, according to Crawford. Cindy said that she assumed that Gerber would do the same that night and waited for Rande in the guest room.

"I get on the bed and I'm like, 'Hey, babe,' and he looks, and it wasn't Rande," said Cindy, reported Ace Showbiz. "It was George! I don't know who was more shocked, me or George because I've woken George out of a dead, slightly inebriated slumber."

Realty Today reported that the news that Amal may divorce George is just a rumor and safe to shut down. The revelation from Cindy surely irritated Amal. It is rumored that she is upset, not for some old harmless comments from Cindy, but for the fact that she doesn't like George and Cindy's friendship.

George had earlier mentioned many times that he finds Crawford as a very attractive woman, with great poise and elegance. This admiration of Clooney towards Cindy has apparently irked Amal leading to tensions between the couple. Such gesture from George which shows that he finds some other women attractive has reportedly left Amal wondering on her marriage's strength and lifespan, reported Venture Capital Post.

A new report from Gossip Cop suggests speculated that all such rumors of divorce and jealousy are false. It also claimed that Amal is not concerned about small issues and she is happy and secure in her married life with George. Amal recently succeeded in her professional front as well, where she set up a scholarship program for Lebanese girls. The program will offer a scholarship to one girl every year to receive prized education at an American International school.
A Lincoln native has been reported among the dozens missing from a deadly warehouse fire in Oakland, California.

Nicole Siegrist, also known as Denalda Nicole Renae, is listed on online memorial pages as a missing person.

Relatives said Siegrist was at the warehouse Friday night for a dance party.

Siegrists mother, Carol Cidlik, is in Oakland and is in contact with authorities as the victims are identified.

Cidlik declined to comment Monday other than to say that the outpouring of love and support is just amazing.

Siegrist, 29, is a musician and is heavily involved in the music scene, family and friends said.

She is half of a duo named Introflirt  she plays the synthesizer and her partner sings, according to the bands website. The bandmate is also missing, friends said.

The band may have been performing Friday night.

Siegrist also had been involved in multiple bands in Lincoln.

Travis Beck of Lincoln, who now lives in Los Angeles, played with Siegrist in two bands and performed shows with her for at least a year.

Beck and Siegrist met at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Siegrist then moved to Chicago, then Oakland, Beck said.

She was super brave and carved her own path, Beck said. She used her weirdness as a strength.

Beck said he was in shock because of the tragic situation. Siegrist had stayed at his home in Los Angeles recently because Introflirt was playing in the city.

She was definitely all about creating and being an artist, Beck said.

Hours before the fire erupted at the two-story structure, Siegrist posted a photo on Facebook of her newly dyed blue-and-red hair.

You look very pretty, wrote her mom. Love the color on your hair.

Carina McCormick, who knew Siegrist in Lincoln, said it was overwhelming how many people are worried about her.

People were just drawn to her from her energy, her unique perspective, optimism and creativity, McCormick said.
ELWOOD  Merle M. Pfeiffer, 83, of Arapahoe died Sunday, Nov. 27, 2016, at Elwood Care Center.

Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Arapahoe with the Rev. James Moshier officiating. Burial will be at Arapahoe Cemetery with military honors by American Legion Post 96 of Arapahoe and the U.S. Army Funeral Honor Guard.

Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at Wenburg Funeral Chapel in Arapahoe and before services Saturday at the church. The family will be present from 4-6 p.m. Friday at the funeral home.



He was born on Sept. 10, 1933, on the family farm in Frontier County to Oswald and Dorothy (Niedeberger) Pfeiffer.

Merle was baptized and later confirmed at Salem Lutheran Church in Frontier County. He attended Grammar School in first through fifth grades at District 16 School and sixth through eighth grades at Salem Parochial School, both in Gosper County. He attended Arapahoe High School and graduated from there in 1951.

After graduation, Merle farmed with his father on the family farm until November 1954 when he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army. While in the service, Merle attended Guided Missile School in El Paso, Texas, and was later deployed to Chicago to be with the AAA Missile Battalion. In November 1956, he was honorably discharged.

During his years in the service, Merle met his wife, Barbara Binder, and they were married at St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Chicago in April 1957. Following their marriage, they returned to Nebraska, where Merle started his own farming career. For the first five years, they rented a farm northeast of Arapahoe until Merle purchased his parents farm and later other land in the area. Through the years, Merle developed their dryland farm into what he called my irrigated paradise.

Merle and Barbara were blessed with two children: son Jon and daughter Leesa; and three grandsons, Michael Pfeiffer, Jackson Pfeiffer and Maxwell Anderson, who were his love and delight.

In later years when Merle and Barbara retired, they leased their land and pasture to neighboring farmers. After a few years, they purchased a home and moved into Arapahoe.

For 30 years, Merle served as a director on the board of Twin Valleys Public Power District. In spring 1966, Merle was named Outstanding Young Farmer in recognition of exceptional progress in agriculture and contributions to the community. He was president of the Gosper County 4-H Council, served on church boards at Immanuel Lutheran Church and later on the Finance Board of Trinity Lutheran Church. He also was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church and American Legion Post 96 of Arapahoe.

In 1984, Merle received two National Corn Growers Association Awards in recognition of outstanding yield per acre, and in 1988 he received another award from the National Corn Growers Association in a corn yield contest.

Merle was an exceptionally loving husband, father and grandfather. He leaves behind his wife, Barbara of Arapahoe; son, Jon and wife Julie Clark Pfeiffer and their two sons, Michael and Jackson, of Malibu, Calif.; daughter, Leesa and husband Michael Marion and their son, Maxwell Anderson, of Omaha; two sisters, Mildred Post of Kearney and Gladys Shaffer of Lincoln; sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Joan and Luther Bergstrom of Unionville, Va.; and numerous nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Dorothy and Oswald Pfeiffer; and a sister, Ilene Koch.

Memorials are suggested to Trinity Lutheran Church for a scholarship in his name and to the St. Germanus Our Lady of Fatima Shrine.

Visit wenburgfuneralhome.com to leave condolences and personal reflections.
The richest part of her life, maybe the most important, happened hidden away in silence, in a corner room in Hanceville, Ala., when she could not feed herself, she could not move on her own, she could not get out of bed. Thats when, I think, she did her greatest work.

Raymond Arroyo was talking to me about Mother Angelica, his friend, mentor and subject of a series of books about her life and prayer. His most recent is Mother Angelica: Her Grand Silence, about her final bed-ridden years.

Mother Angelica was the founder of the global Catholic network EWTN. She spent hours on air, talking, conversing, teaching and listening  including taking questions from the audience and callers in her Birmingham studio. Hers was a defy-the-odds kind of story on many fronts, starting with the tough circumstances of her early life: She grew up with a struggling single mother and faced frequent health problems. But there was healing, grace and gratitude, leading her to take many risks for God, as Arroyo puts it.

In his latest book about Mother Angelica, Arroyo writes with the love of a son and the precision of a biographer, assuring that nothing essential gets lost to history. And while his subject had a worldwide influence, in many ways he simply tells the story of the Christian way of life and the difference it can make to individuals and the world.

Mother famously said, Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air and a queasy feeling in the stomach. She knew that feeling all too well, Arroyo says. He tells how she (deserted) her mother, Mae, to join a Cleveland monastery at the age of 21, (and built) a television network with no funds in the woods of Alabama. She acted on her faith in such a way that the fruits of her efforts became manifest to all. Hers was a gutsy faith. And he writes about her final years, years that were hidden from the world, when she was left largely silent by a stroke. But her faith was nothing less than it ever was, Arroyo testifies.

He quotes from a 2012 World Communications Day message from Pope Benedict XVI: It is often in silence, for example, that we observe the most authentic communication taking place between people who are in love: gestures, facial expressions and body language are signs by which they reveal themselves to each other. Joy, anxiety and suffering can all be communicated in silence  indeed it provides them with a particularly powerful mode of expression.

It cant be an accident or coincidence that a women who was so well known as a talker would deliver a final witness about silence.

We have a president-elect who tweets in the middle of the night. Thats a prompt to every one of us who finds ourselves wondering where the last hour went when we were checking Twitter or Facebook or Snapchat or whatever the kids of all ages are using today.

Have we lost the ability to reflect? To be quiet? To hold back a thought for consideration? Can we be alone with ourselves and our God? Can we encounter people again when we are with them, or even go out to visit them? Donald Trump may just make America great again, as he says, in unintentional ways: by prompting us to reflect on how we got to reality TV America and how to back away from it; by inspiring us to visit the poor and needy, no matter how old or irritable or inconvenient. If you see a need that cries out to be filled, go do something about it. Take the first step, Arroyo remembers Mother Angelica frequently saying. Even when you dont see the next step, even when you dont see the full plan, you must move if you feel a call.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online and founding director of Catholic Voices USA.
The 81st Security Forces Squadron held a retirement ceremony for Densy and Ares, two military working dogs, at the Keesler Medical Center Don Wylie Auditorium Dec. 2, on Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.

Normally retirees receive a pin to commemorate their time spent in the military. This ceremony concluded in the presentation of the official retirement collars and a dog bowl toast from the dog handlers to their wingmen.

Densy, a Belgian Malinois, was accepted into military service in April 2007 and served for more than nine years. She spent the last two years, including one deployment, with her handler and now owner, Tech. Sgt. James Martin III, 81st SFS charlie flight chief.

According to Martin, Densy had helped him get through several tough situations when they were deployed and he is excited to give such a close friend a home.

After a long career, Densys time working has come to an end, said Martin. To that we say thank you for all you have done, my family and I love you.

Ares, a German Shepard, got into military service in September 2007 and served more than eight years. Ares spent the last two years with Staff Sgt. Jordan Leiter, 81st SFS K-9 handler, now owner, to included one deployment.

I'm very fortunate to have had the opportunity to take Ares on my first deployment and I was proud to have him by my side, said Leiter. Now that his retirement is here, bringing him home is going to be fun and exciting and hopefully we can repay Ares by being that loving family and giving him a spot on our couch.

MWDs and their handlers work together, both on assignment at their home station and while deployed, where their jobs could have them facing life or death situations. Due to this, the bond between handler and dog must be strong.

There are fewer relationships stronger than a MWD and their handler, said Maj. Devin Sproston, 81st SFS commander. Densy and Ares have served the U.S. and Keesler for nearly their whole lives. Both, at around the age of 84 dog years, will make the transition from the kennel to the couches of their wingmen.
with Myka Fox and Justy Dodge  Chemdas visitors; crying over President Trump; love and cutting; closing cabinets; Keiths birthday presents to Chemda; Allied and Manchester by the Sea reviewed; the nonconsensual Last Tango in Paris rape scene; landlord has sex on tenants bed and cleans up with tenants wedding dress

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Actor Stephen Amell listens onstage to the panel discussion during the 'Arrow' and 'The Flash' panel as part of The CW 2015 Winter Television Critics Association press tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa on January 11, 2015 in Pasadena, California. (Photo : Getty Images/ Frederick M. Brown)

"Arrow" fans may have a reason to fret as there are rumors that the once hit The CW series may soon come to an end.



In 2012, "Arrow" premiered on the network with executive producer Andrew Kreisberg explaining at the TCA press tour that the series will end exactly how it will start. In the premiere, a flashback scene featuring Oliver (Stephen Amell) spying the fishing boat that would rescue him from Lian Yu was shown.



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However, TV Line just confirmed that the same scene will be featured in the finale episode for "Arrow" Season 5. This led fans to think that the series could be ending soon. While speaking with the publication, executive producer Marc Guggenheim clarified that they initially wanted the final scene of the entire series to be the same one from the premiere. However, things changed along the way.



Guggenheim added that if it were only up to him, he would still find a way to work around the same idea. Unfortunately, they do not want the flashback scenes featuring Oliver to still be part of Season 6 or the upcoming installments. The showrunner's statement also confirmed that "Arrow" will go on at least for another season.



In the end, Guggenheim is confident that the changes they have planned ahead will make the "Arrow" Season 5 finale "pretty awesome."



Meanwhile, the upcoming ninth episode of "Arrow" Season 5 will see Prometheus figuring out the identities of the members of Team Arrow. There are also some rumors suggesting that clues will be revealed on who the hooded villain really is.



Other than this, episode 9 will see Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) working closely with Detective Malone (Tyler Ritter). The two characters will be finding clues on how Prometheus is linked to Oliver's past. In the teaser released by The CW for "What We Leave Behind," it was also revealed that Evelyn Sharp (Madison McLaughlin) will be going against the lead character. She will also be working closely with Prometheus, but it is unclear whether or not this is all for show.



"Arrow" Season 5, episode 9 will air on The CW on Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. EST.






Dr. Ng Eng Hen, Minister of Defense Singapore. (Photo : Ministry of Defense)

Singapore's Minister of Defense Dr. Ng Eng Hen told an audience of American policy makers and government officials in California the United States can't prevent China's rise to the status of a superpower.



"It is neither possible nor strategically necessary to contain China's rise," said Dr. Ng.



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"China is now an integral leader of global systems of trade, finance and security. It is clear that China needs the world as much as the world needs China, and I think this interdependence will grow, not diminish."



He thinks there are a lot of benefits in a strong China that should be "able to provide opportunities for both U.S. and other countries in the world, and I think that there are many areas that you can focus on that are productive."



The U.S. won't reduce its presence in the Asia-Pacific region with Donald Trump as president, he told his audience at the fourth Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California attended by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, foreign defense ministers and members of the U.S. Congress.



Ng said the world should see the rise of China, India and ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as a "virtuous outcome" of the U.S. foreign and defense policies over the last seven decades.



That very fact alone validates U.S. foreign and defense policies in Asia over the last few decades. Dr. Ng also thinks this success brings a number of new challenges as "we contemplate U.S. foreign policy moving forward" under Trump, who is increasingly painting himself as anti-China.



Singapore has always spoken highly of America's "Asia-Pacific rebalance" strategy, which it supports.



"The U.S.' presence in the Asia-Pacific region based predominantly on security is unidimensional and structurally brittle," said Dr. Ng.



"The U.S. needs a multifaceted relationship with countries in Asia. Singapore looks forward to working with the new administration to continue to allow the US to be a stabilizing force in the Asia-Pacific region."



The Reagan National Defense Forum brings together distinguished leaders and key players in the defense community to address national security issues.


Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains stands in the House of Commons during question period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Monday, December 5, 2016. The federal and Ontario governments are actively discussing major investments in the big automakers. Following the recent conclusion of labour negotiations, the auto companies are now in talks with the governments about investment opportunities in a sector that is a critical component of the Ontario and Canadian economies. Bains says Ottawa is open to investing in the automakers to help them expand their footprints in the country. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand
Supporters of India's Tamil Nadu state's former Chief Minister, Jayaram Jayalalithaa, react on seeing her body wrapped in the Indian national flag and kept for public viewing outside an auditorium in Chennai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Actor Ian Somerhalder (L) and actress Nina Dobrev speak during The Paley Center for Media's PaleyFest 2014 Honoring 'The Vampire Diaries' and 'The Originals' at the Dolby Theatre on March 22, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo : Getty Images/ Frederick M. Brown)

"The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 is still awaiting the return of Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) to Mystic Falls.



Just recently, there were rumors claiming that the actress was spotted filming for episode 12. However, Dobrev or any of her former co-stars have not shared any photos from their so-called reunion on their respective social media accounts.



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In October, "The Vampire Diaries" executive producer Julie Plec spoke with TV Line to confirm that Elena will definitely be a key player in the final season of the hit The CW series. In fact, Plec hinted that Elena's involvement in Season 8 will be similar to how she was re-introduced on the show in Season 7. At that time, only Elena's voice was featured in the finale episode of the show. But in Season 8, it's possible that Dobrev will really be part of the series.



Plec added that Stefan (Paul Wesley) writing in his diary and narrating everything that happened to them in Mystic Falls is their way of making sure that Elena was up to date with everything. The other characters such as Caroline (Candice Accola-King) and Bonnie (Kat Graham) have also kept their own journals to show to Elena if and when she returns to life.



Meanwhile, since "The Vampire Diaries" will be ending very soon and Plec said that its final episodes will be about "finallys." This means that majority of the things that fans want to happen will finally take place in the final episodes. Prior to the cancellation of the series, Plec told Nerdist that they went into Season 8 not knowing if it will be their last.



When it was finally announced by The CW that "The Vampire Diaries" was no longer renewed, Plec knew that all of the characters need redemption and conclusion. In the end, Plec and the writers asked themselves what are the things that they have not done on the show and focused on making sure they will finally be included in the series. "What are all the things on our list of 'One day we'll get to...' story pitches," she said.



"The Vampire Diaries" Season 8 airs Fridays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.






General Zhao Zongqi congratulates General Qamar Javed Bajwa. (Photo : Pakistan Army)

General Zhao Zongqi, Commanding Officer, Western Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), paid a courtesy call on and congratulated General Qamar Javed Bajwa on the latter's appointment as Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of the Pakistan Army on Nov. 29.



The meeting between two of the top military leaders of both countries, which came a week after Gen. Bajwa took command, illustrates the deep military ties binding China and Pakistan. Gen. Zhao is one of the PLA's top generals since his command is the largest in the armed forces.



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The Pakistan Army said both leaders talked about matters related to regional security and professional interest.



Gen. Zhao lauded the Pakistan Army's achievements in the fight against Islamic terrorism along its western border with Afghanistan and its continued efforts towards regional peace and stability.



His command includes the Xinjang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a Muslim majority Chinese province that shares a border with Pakistan and where militants are agitating for independence from China.



On the other hand, Gen Bajwa reaffirmed the army's unwavering support for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor security.



Gen. Zhao's command includes the western provinces of Sichuan, Tibet, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Chongqing.



The Western Theater Command is the largest of five newly reorganized military regions of the PLA.



Gen. Bajwa became the 16th Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army on Nov. 29. He succeeded Gen. Raheel Sharif, who retired from military service on Nov. 28.



Gen. Bajwa is expected to continue bleeding the Indian Army across the Line of Control through a combination of incessant small unit raids by Kashmiri militants, Pakistan Rangers, covert operations by Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the occasional artillery and mortar bombardment.



The danger of a full-scale war erupting at the LoC remains high as both the Pakistan and Indian Army continue carrying out violent activities short of war. Most of those killed in the worsening violence are Indian and Pakistani civilians, however.



Prior to his appointment as army chief, Gen. Bajwa served at General Headquarters as the Inspector General of the Training and Evaluation from 2015 to 2016.


A worker makes adjustments to a production machine in one of Aixtron's facilities. (Photo : Getty Images)

Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund's proposal to purchase Aixtron, a Germany-based semiconductor equipment maker, was blocked by U.S. President Barack Obama, citing national security as the main reason, the Global Times reported.



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China responded by saying that the acquisition is part of "a normal business activity" as Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang warned against U.S. interference in the deal, the report said.



According to experts, mergers and acquisitions by Chinese investors will be further scrutinized by the U.S. government, as Donald Trump assumes office. The President-elect plans to set higher approval standards and implement the principle of "reciprocal opening" in terms of foreign investment.



In May, Fujian Grand made the offer to take over Aixtron for $714 million, in a deal that includes its California-based subsidiary. The proposed takeover would "provide the company with financial resources to deepen research and development," analysts said.



On Friday, Dec. 2, the U.S. government announced that it is blocking the acquisition based on the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).



About 20 percent of Aixtron's total sales came from its U.S. business, which explains why the U.S. Treasury Department is getting itself involved in the deal.



Based on the CFIUS review, the deal could expose sensitive technology with military use to the Chinese, the Treasury Department claimed.



A statement from the department said that the "CFIUS and the president assess that the transaction poses a risk to the national security of the U.S. that cannot be resolved through mitigation."



However, on Saturday, Dec. 3, Aixtron released a statement saying that "the presidential order was limited to the U.S. business and did not prohibit the acquisition of Aixtron shares."



If the deal is blocked, Aixtron said in an earlier statement before the CFIUS announcement, that it will have to "take actions to balance income and costs, including potential job cuts," Reuters reported.



He Weiwen, an executive council member at the China Society for the WTO, told the Global Times that "there are several months left for public relations companies and law firms to lobby against the US recommendation and convince (the government) that Chinese investors will not utilize semiconductor products in the military sector."



Zhang Jiayuan, an analyst with China Investment Consulting Co, noted that the U.S. stance may not be easily swayed and Trump may likely support Obama's decision, considering his statements on China during the campaign.



Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices and as a response, he wants to impose a tighter restriction on U.S. exports to China as well as impose 45 percent tariffs on China's imports.



According to experts, Trump may also implement the principle of "reciprocal opening," in which U.S. companies may open businesses in sectors where Chinese companies invest in the U.S.



In recent months, U.S. authorities have turned down several proposals by Chinese investors. Blackstone's plan to sell a Southern California hotel to Anbang Insurance was cancelled after the CFIUS expressed concern that the hotel was located at a very close distance to a U.S. major naval base.


A THAAD battery launches an ABM interceptor. (Photo : US Army)

South Korea's and the United States' obstinate insistence on emplacing the THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile system at two sites in South Korea is worsening a "New Cold War" being waged against China, claims Chinese state-run media.



A commentary in the English-language and state-owned newspaper, China Daily, further argues THAAD has driven a wedge driven between China and South Korea that benefits the anti-China plans of the United States.



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It also assails Japan for striving mightily to shift the strategic balance of power in East Asia in its favor while claiming it wants nothing more than to maintain the strategic status quo.



That status quo will be overturned by Japan's plans to emplace THAAD batteries on its territory by 2019 on the same excuse used by South Korea that the U.S.-made missile system is their only credible defense against North Korean ballistic missiles.



The commentary says the U.S., Japan and South Korea take the deployment of THAAD in Japan and South Korea as necessary, "but China and Russia see no reason for that."



It said during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing in June, "China and Russia issued a statement calling on nations to strictly abide by the norms of international law, keep their military capabilities at the minimum level required for national security and refrain from steps aimed at expanding existing military-political alliances."



This plea has not been heeded by the U.S., Japan and South Korea.



The statement also criticized the deployment of anti-missile systems in Europe and Asia, "saying those who deploy them often acted under false pretenses."



Japan last week announced it has taken the first steps in a process that will eventually lead to its deploying THAAD on Japanese soil.



Japan said it has set-up a commission to examine the potential benefits of emplacing THAAD to increase its defense capabilities against North Korean ballistic missiles. The commission headed by State Minister of Defense Kenji Wakamiya will examine the pros and cons of using THAAD.



"We are investigating future systems for intercepting missiles," said Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada.



Although Japan has no concrete plans to deploy THAAD, the Japan Self-Defense Force is considering what can be done to better defend Japan from the threat posed by North Korea's ballistic missiles.



Japan is seriously considering a three-stage THAAD defense system. The first-stage consists of an anti-ballsitic missile defense system now in place is a two-tier system relying on ship-based RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptors aboard its Atago-class and Kongo-class guided missile destroyers to target missiles in space.



The second-stage consists of land-based MIM-104F Patriot (PAC-3) surface-to-air missile batteries to intercept rockets flying close to the ground.



THAAD will allow the interception of missiles in or outside the Earth's atmosphere, thereby constituting a third-stage defense.


The end of 2016 is just a few weeks away, and City Council is meeting to discuss city projects before ringing in the new year.

Just a couple of items on this week's agenda are:

- The El Pico Water Plant changes - increasing how much can currently be stored in it's facility.

- An update to the Cell Phone Ordinance. Since February, there's been 1,200 violations given to drivers on this issue. Tonight, they'll discuss what else can be done to enforce the ordinance.

- The city manager will be looking for ways on how to pay off the loan for the Hamilton Apartments. The building is currently home to several senior citizens.

The meeting starts at 5:30 pm, at the City Hall Council Chambers.
Zapata Border Patrol agents and Mexican officials work together to confiscate over 6,000 pounds of marijuana.

The seizure took place on December 1, when Border Patrol agents from the Zapata station who were working aerostat operations observed some illegal activity on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake.

Border Patrol agents noticed several people loading bundles of contraband onto a boat.

Moments later, agents contacted the Mexican authorities to update them about the location. They were located, and confiscated the narcotics.

The bundles tested positive for marijuana, and had a total weight of over 6,000 pounds with an estimated street value of $5 million.
People shopping downtown may not have to worry about paying for parking.

The City of Laredo will be waiving all parking meter fees downtown for all Saturdays in December.

Starting December 17, no one will have to pay for parking in spots with paid meters.

The hope is to make it easier to find parking, and to get rid of one of the barriers people have for not going to shop downtown - and hopefully also attract Mexican shoppers.

"It's perfect for a lot of people that come from Nuevo Laredo and Mexico," says local shopper Licona. "It's a great idea because if you stay for several hours, parking can cost you up to $10."

The waiver begins on December 17, and will continue for two more Saturdays after that.

City Council still needs to approve the waiver. This is expected to be done this coming Monday.
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Lenova sale bonanza introduces K6 Power to Indian market



Lenovo K6 Power, the latest smartphone by the Chinese company with a big battery, is finally on sale in India at Rs. 9,999 via Flipkart. The new Lenovo K6 Power smartphone, unveiled in India last week. The Lenovo K6 Power launch day offer provides customers the option to avail a Rs. 8,000 discount on exchanging their old smartphones. Customers can also benotified at the start of the Lenovo K6 Power sale, and 100 registered customers stand the chance to win Rs. 10,000 Flipkart Gift Vouchers.



Another launch offer for the Lenovo K6 Power smartphone includes the option to bundle the Moto Pulse 2 headphones along with the purchase for Rs. 499, as opposed to their listing price of Rs. 1,499. Customers can also avail of an EMI payment option starting at Rs. 485 per month for the K6 Power. Flipkart and Lenovo clarified that these launch offers are only available for the first K6 Power stock, and later stock will not bring these offers alongside.

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Doctor Who Season 10 updates: Christmas special 2016 is all about superheroes  Everything you need to know

"Doctor Who" season 11 will most probably be released by 2018, since the tenth season will not air until 2017. (Photo : YouTube/Beautifullytragic6)

"Doctor Who" Season 10 has unleashed the official sneak peek for its Christmas special this year. The episode, titled "The Return of Doctor Mysterio," will feature some brain-swapping aliens.



The "Doctor Who" Season 10 Christmas special is set in New York, where the Doctor faces a masked superhero named Ghost who is described as a metahuman, Metro reported. Not a lot is known about the character, except that he knows how to smash windows and deliver some really witty jokes. The character is played by Justin Chatwin of "Shameless."



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On his new role, Chatwin commented that working with the cast and crew of "Doctor Who" Season 10 has been "one of the most fun and rewarding projects I've ever had the pleasure of being involved with."



"What we've sort of made here is a new ironic, goodhearted superhero movie...which hopefully they'll want to repeat every year. As long as I get a cut of it," TVLine quoted the "Doctor Who" star Peter Capaldi as saying about the upcoming Christmas special.



As Capaldi puts it, the Christmas special is definitely going to go big on the whole superhero concept. As to what inspired the idea, creator Steven Moffat revealed that he has always loved superheroes and that his favorite is Clark Kent.



The Christmas special trailer also showed us another villain who looks like he was plucked from a "James Bond" film. German actor Aleksandar Jovanovic is playing one of the villains the Doctor is up against in the upcoming Christmas special.



"Doctor Who" fans would also be excited to learn that Nardole will appear on the 2016 Christmas special. "Nardole is quite different from your normal companion," Christel Dee said about the character. "Most companions are, like, impressed by everything - and it's not that Nardole's not impressed - but what I like about him is he's almost like an anti-companion."



Fans can expect to be blown away by this year's "Doctor Who" Christmas special, especially since Mark Gatiss has called it one of Moffat's best ever scripts and that it made him cry.



"Doctor Who" Season 10 2016 Christmas Special will air on Christmas Day on BBC One and BBC America.






Pink wrapped cotton can be spotted all across the fields of Williamsburg County. The brilliant wrapping was purchased by farmers for an additional cost in support of breast cancer research.
Im baaack! After my annual stock picks trailed Standard & Poors 500-stock index in both 2014 and 2015, my choices from a year ago returned 8.0% over the past 12 months, beating the index by 3.4 percentage points. The past 10 lists have topped the index by an average of one percentage point per year. Thats not much, but, like many of you, I enjoy picking stocks and dont want to put all of my money into index funds.

For two decades, I have been offering a list culled from selections of experts I trust, with a stock I choose tossed in. The 2016 list produced six winners, four losers and a lot of volatility. The top gainer was TAL Education Group (symbol XRS (opens in new tab)), which offers after-school tutoring in China. The stock, which was held by Wasatch World Innovators Fund (WAGTX (opens in new tab)), soared 112% over the past year. The biggest loser was Xerium Technologies (XRM (opens in new tab)), a maker of parts for paper-making machines. Xerium was supposed to be a turnaround story, but it hasnt quite turned around yet. The choice of Dan Abramowitz, my small-cap maven, the stock lost 54%. (Prices and returns are as of October 31.)

As top scorer in 2016, World Innovators gets the honor of leading off this year. The aggressive growth fund invests in companies based all over the world, but today nearly half of its assets are in U.S.-based firmsincluding its largest holding, Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO (opens in new tab)). The company makes video games, such as Grand Theft Auto. Take-Twos revenues and profits have been bouncing up and down lately with the popularity of its products, but analysts see brisk earnings gains for the year ahead. Flush with cash, the firm could be a takeover target. With a market capitalization of $3.8 billion, Take-Two has about $1.5 billion in cash and short-term investments and just $500 million in debt.

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For the second year in a row, T. Rowe Price New Horizons (PRNHX (opens in new tab)), a hot venue for small- and midsize-company growth stocks since 1960, was the source of the second-best performer on my list. For this year, I like Henry Schein (HSIC (opens in new tab)), which New Horizons first purchased in 1996. Schein is an 84-year-old company that distributes health supplies to physicians, dentists and veterinarians. A mid-cap stock, Schein is not a superfast grower, but it has a rock-solid niche, with earnings expected to rise at a good clip.

Although Abramowitz, of Hillson Financial Management, in Rockville, Md., picked what turned out to be a clunker for 2016, his choices have done well in the past, so I asked him back for 2017. His pick: CPI Aerostructures (CVU (opens in new tab)), which makes structural parts, such as wing assemblies and fuel panels, for commercial and military aircraft. The firm recorded a huge loss in 2014, but it has recovered and, Abramowitz tells me, has a large and growing backlog of orders. The stocks price-earnings ratio is just 8, based on Abramowitzs forecast that CPI will earn about 90 cents per share for 2017. With a market cap of $58 million, CPI is the smallest company Ive ever recommended here, so expect a wild ride. The potential reward looks like its worth the risk.

Terry Tillman, a technology analyst with Raymond James, extended his winning streak to five years in a row with another good pick. Over the period, his stocks have delivered an average yearly gain of 28%. For 2017, hes gone back to the stock he chose in both 2014 and 2015: Salesforce.com (CRM (opens in new tab)), a rapidly expanding company that sells web-based software that helps companies manage relationships with their customers. (Salesforce broke my heart by not purchasing Twitter, as described below.) Tillman sees revenues rising by 25% in the fiscal year that ends January 31, 2017, and by 21% for the following year. He was correct to avoid recommending Salesforce here a year ago because the stock fell 4% over the subsequent 12 months, but he thinks the time is right to recommend it again. (For more on Salesforce, see 10 Great Stocks for the Next 10 Years.)

Parnassus Endeavor (PARWX (opens in new tab)) has been one of the top-performing large-company funds over the past five years, with an annualized return of 17.1%. Jerome Dodson, a leading practitioner of socially responsible investing, has been managing funds for 32 years, and with Endeavor he emphasizes low turnover and high conviction. Micron Technology (MU (opens in new tab)), an Idaho-based semiconductor maker, is the funds top holding and one of the few stocks added to Endeavors portfolio in 2016. Micron has been struggling, but some analysts see profits rising sharply over the next year or two. Its a contrarian play, but my money is on Dodson.

Whats a top-10 list without a selection from Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX (opens in new tab)), run by Will Danoff for a quarter-century? Last years pick, Facebook (FB (opens in new tab)), the funds top holding, advanced 29%. This year, Im moving down to number 14 in the portfolio: Starbucks (SBUX (opens in new tab)), the coffee-shop chain. The stock has suffered lately, sinking 14% over the past year, and that makes it even more attractive, especially with no serious competitors on the horizon, a gorgeous balance sheet, and earnings that Value Line predicts will rise 16% annually over the next five years.

Warren Buffett, who turned 86 in August, is still Americas greatest living investor. He frequently buys entire companies for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B (opens in new tab)), the company he runs. A few years ago, he purchased about one-fourth of Kraft Heinz (KHC (opens in new tab)), the worlds fifth-largest food company, with such venerable brands as Jell-O, Oscar Mayer and Velveeta. On a P/E basis, the stock isnt cheap. It is unlikely to soar, but it offers a 2.7% dividend yield and should add ballast to any portfolio.

It has been a while since Ive had a real estate investment trust on my list, so heres the corrective: Simon Property Group (SPG (opens in new tab)), owner of regional malls and outlet shopping centers around the world. Simons stock has been flat since the start of 2015 as enthusiasm for REITs has waned. But thats what I like to see when buying a stock. Simon, the largest REIT by market cap and the top holding of Ivy LaSalle Global Risk-Managed Real Estate (IVRAX (opens in new tab)), an excellent REIT fund, yields an attractive 3.5%.

Few companies receive top rankings for both timeliness and safety from the Value Line Investment Survey (my favorite single source of research). Promoted to that exalted position in late October was Sanofi (SNY (opens in new tab)), the Paris-based maker of pharmaceuticals, with an emphasis on diabetes medicines. Sanofis stock yields a hefty 4.3%, an indication that it may be undervalued.

My own pick last year was a dud. Twitter (TWTR (opens in new tab)) was nearly acquired by Salesforce, but the deal fell through, and the stock dropped by almost one-third. This year, I am recommending what I think is the best-run company in the world, Amazon.com (AMZN (opens in new tab)). The stock, which I own, took a hit in October because of disappointing earnings, but CEO Jeff Bezos has his eyes on the long term. The company dominates online retailing, has a strong position in cloud computing, and is moving aggressively into video content and artificial intelligence. Value Line sees revenues rising 19.5% annually over the next five years.

Here are my annual warnings: I expect these stocks to beat the market in the year ahead, but I dont believe in holding a stock for less than five years, so think of these companies for the longer term. Also, this is merely a list of suggestions. The choices are yours.
A view of the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and Samsung Gear 360 on display at Samsung Creators Lab at Lollapalooza 2016 - Day 1 at Grant Park on July 28, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo : Getty Images/Gabriel Grams)

Samsung had a challenging year given the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco that led to the recall of millions of smartphones due to safety issues. With the impending launch of the Galaxy Note 8, latest news hint of the said unit's potential delayed release to avoid a similar Note 7 incident from happening.



Advertisement

Avid Samsung fans have been eagerly awaiting for news of the Galaxy Note 8, the company's upcoming smartphone in the Galaxy series. However, Samsung has yet to disclose details about the said new mobile phone such as its features and release date.



Despite the Samsung keeping silent about the Galaxy Note 8, some tech fans speculated that the successor to the failed Galaxy Note 7 unit will be released in August 2017. There are also rumors that indicate a potential delay in the new smartphone's launch.



With high expectations following the battery and safety concerns observed with the Galaxy Note 7 line, Samsung is adamant to avoid the same technical issues. It appears that the company's development team was given more time to test the Galaxy Note 8 including other units such as the Samsung S8 and Samsung S8 Edge.



A member of the S8 development team shared in an earlier interview with The Wall Street Journal that Samsung executives gave the team an additional task of uncovering the Note 7's battery issues and overheating problems. With the company's said mandate, the team even had to push back its S8 development work for two weeks to ensure that they avoid a similar Note 7 fiasco.



Meanwhile, Samsung's two other upcoming smartphones, the S8 and S8 Edge, are speculated to retain its expected February 2017 launch. Given the South Korean company usual first quarter release schedule for its S-series smartphones, Samsung may likely unveil the two said smartphone models in February, according to Trusted Reviews.



The Samsung S8 and S8 Edge are expected to be released towards the end of February. Learn more about the S8 in the clip below:






After an emergency-room visit in 2014 revealed a bleeding blood vessel in his brain, Terry Lane had a choice: He could take pills for the rest of his life in hopes that the seizures caused by the bleeding would cease, or he could have brain surgery to remove the troublesome cluster of blood vessels. When the seizures didnt let up, he chose the latter.

Lanes company offered employees the option of heading overseas for medical care, all expenses paid. A magazine article he had read years before about global health care had piqued his interest. After speaking with a surgeon in Costa Rica, Lane felt confident enough to undergo his operation there in 2015. The doctors, nurses and hospital were great, says Lane, of St. Joseph, Mo. If I had to do it over again, I wouldnt hesitate.

Trusting your heart, joints, teethor in Lanes case, his brainto a doctor thousands of miles away in another country may seem like a daunting proposition. Moreover, traveling for medical care involves risks that dont exist if you stay in the United States. But if you put in the legwork to vet your provider and facility (and youre up for an adventure), you can save between 30% and 90% of the cost for the same procedure in the U.S., with a comparable outcome. Lower costs of living, lower wages and government-subsidized health care keep prices cheap in other countries. Patients Beyond Borders, a consumer resource for medical travel, estimates that 1.7 million Americans will travel overseas for elective medical care in 2017.

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Match care to country

Once, people who didnt have insurance were the prime candidates for medical tourism. Their numbers have shrunk since the Affordable Care Act, but going out of the country for treatment or tests can still make sense if you have a policy with high out-of-pocket expenses or a low maximum (as with dental insurance), or you are seeking a procedure that isnt covered by your insurer. Noncovered medical services generally include cosmetic surgery, infertility treatments, weight-loss surgery, nonemergency cardiovascular or orthopedic surgeries, and certain types of dentistry, such as cosmetic dental work.

Destinations abroad are flush with physicians eager to perform those procedures. Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and India are hot spots for complex surgeries, including cardiology and orthopedics. Israel shines for its low-cost fertility and reproductive treatments, and Hungary has a booming dentistry sector.

If a 10-hour flight puts you off, you have plenty of good options closer to U.S. borders. Dental and cosmetic surgeries have always been available in Latin America and the region, but reliable medical treatment for complex conditions is now more widely available, says Josef Woodman, CEO of Patients Beyond Borders. For instance, the 104-bed Health City Cayman Islands, which opened in February 2014, covers a swath of specialties, from thoracic surgery to bariatrics. Colombia offers some of South Americas best cardiovascular care.

As in other non-U.S. countries, the cost of care in Latin America and the Caribbean is a bargain compared with care stateside. In-vitro fertilization fees at the Barbados Fertility Centre total about half of what you would pay in the U.S. And hospitals and clinics in Costa Rica and Mexico have offered prices about 40% to 65% lower than you would find here.

Not every procedure meshes well with overseas travel. Treatments that require follow-up visits are not only inconvenient but also involve more travel costs; procedures that are unapproved in the United States, such as stem cell therapies, may be extremely risky. And never shop around on price alone; quality always comes first. Once you factor in all the costs of medical travel for you and a companionincluding flights, post-operative lodging, visas, transportation and mealsyou may find its more economical or just less hassle to stay put in the U.S. Experts recommend pulling the trigger if what you save exceeds $6,000 or about 50% or more of what you would have paid here.

Expect concierge service

Going under the knife is nerve-racking enough without adding an unfamiliar setting and language to the mix. Some foreign hospitals and clinicsespecially those that court foreign patients, such as Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand, Prince Court Medical Centre in Malaysia and Hospital San Jose in Mexicooffer patient-services centers to smooth the way. Staff can match you with an interpreter or case manager, arrange for airport pickup and drop-off, nab you a discount at a nearby hotel, or help you extend your visa. You may even have access to a separate (and nicer) entrance and comfy waiting lounges. Friends and relatives who join you can enjoy well-prepared food, caregiver suites and assistance with sightseeing excursions while you are laid up in bed. You can also expect fewer patients for every doctor or nurse and more attentive post-op care than in the U.S. During your recovery, youll probably stay at a nearby hotel or resort. In Costa Rica, recovery retreats model the luxuries of a hotel, with one big exception: The staff are nurses and guests are patients.

Why the extra effort to court foreign patients? A couple of reasons, according to Patients With Passports (Oxford University Press), by I. Glenn Cohen: to make money (from the patients tourism dollars or because facilities can charge foreign patients more than they can charge domestic patients) and to justify building up a countrys health care infrastructure.

Employer perks. Although major insurance companies, such as Cigna and UnitedHealthcare, wont cover preplanned medical care overseas, the number of self-insured employers who incorporate medical travel into their plans is growing. Some throw in sweeteners to encourage employees to travel to a country that offers affordable care. Deanie Hilton, a recently retired corporate HR manager at HSM Solutions, in Hickory, N.C., took advantage of her companys medical travel coverage, administered through IndUShealth, after seeing plenty of satisfied colleagues return from overseas surgeries. She chose to have the meniscus tear in her knee repaired at Hospital Clinica Biblica, in Costa Rica. Her company picked up all medical and travel costs, set up drivers to transport her and her daughter between the hospital and their hotel in San Jose, and even threw in a tour that she could manage in her wheelchair. Plus, the company arranged for her daughter to have her teeth cleaned and some cavities filled while in San Jose. Aside from her daughters dental work, which Hilton paid for, I didnt have any costs other than souvenirs, she says. Hilton even got a small medical bonus when she returned, to reflect the money her company had saved by sending her overseas.

Vet the credentials

Searching the internet for cheap spinal fusion will only get you so far on your road to thrifty medical care. For an overview of where to go and how to plan your trip, consult Josef Woodmans Patients Beyond Borders handbook (Healthy Travel Media), which reviews top facilities around the world. You can also use the treatment and facility search tools at www.patientsbeyondborders.com (opens in new tab).

One way to narrow your options is to choose only hospitals or clinics accredited by major agencies that set rigorous standards for patient quality and safety. The U.S.-based Joint Commission International (JCI) is considered the gold standard for accreditation; you can search hundreds of facilities it has approved at www.worldhospitalsearch.org. Other respected accrediting agencies include Acreditas Global, the international arm of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, as well as the American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgery Facilities International. Both accredit smaller outpatient or specialty clinics, which are attracting increasing numbers of foreign visitors.

Some highly regarded facilities are not accredited by these international agencies, but you should investigate their standards carefully. Start by hunting online for any complaints or negative news reports that represent red flags. Hospitals may tout partnerships with prestigious U.S. medical centers, or they may highlight the number of U.S. board-certified physicians they have on staff, but these credentials are not particularly valuable on their own. Before booking an appointment with a physician or surgeon, ask about his or her background (including education and training) and for references from past patients. Also ask how many similar procedures he or she has performed, says Woodman. The higher the number, the better.

For cosmetic procedures, turn to a surgeon who is certified by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. (You can find more tips for medical tourists at www.isaps.org/medical-travel-guide/plastic-surgery-tourists (opens in new tab).) In its Travelers Guide to Safe Dental Care, the Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention (OSAP) has a list of questions that will put you on the right track with dentists. (Go to www.osap.org (opens in new tab) and click on Knowledge Center, then Travel.) With some treatments, such as dental implants, youll also need to research the materials the provider uses and how the quality compares with materials used in the U.S.

While considering candidates, assess the physicians or dentists fluency in English and responsiveness by requesting a conversation via Skype or over the phone. When Michael Lepley of Silver Point, Tenn., was looking to get his left hip replaced in 2014, he researched his options in the Caribbean, South America and Southeast Asia. Part of the reason he was drawn to Health City Cayman Islands was easy communications with its English-speaking staff. Anytime I had questions, I got on Skype with Health City, he says.

Your regular doc is another key resource. People are afraid to talk to their primary-care physician about something like this, says Renee-Marie Stephano, president of the Medical Tourism Association. Dont be. Your doctor may be able to refer you to overseas colleagues or put you in touch with patients who have had good experiences. Before you finalize your plans, ensure that your local doctoreven if not gung-ho about your choice to cross bordersis willing to communicate with your overseas provider and treat you upon your return if you need follow-up care.

Consider an agency

If doing all this research seems almost as daunting as the surgery itself, you might decide to ask a facilitator or health care agent, such as Healthbase, MedRepublic, MedRetreat or Companion Global Healthcare, for help. Such agents or agencies claim they can find the best surgeon or dentist for you, as well as coordinate appointments, transfer your medical records, check in on you after surgery and handle travel planning.

But this part of the industry isnt regulated, so it is tough to separate knowledgeable, scrupulous operators from glorified travel agentsor those more interested in making a buck than in ensuring your well-being. Sometimes the best clinical judgment is to not undergo a procedure because its premature, says Leigh Turner, author of Risks and Challenges in Medical Tourism (Praeger) and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. If the business has a financial stake in offering it, are they going to say you shouldnt have it?

To find qualified agents, ask them about their training, how they vet facilities and providers, and which accredited facilities they partner with. Poke around online for mentions of them, good or bad, in news reports, and ask for references from past patients. David Boucher, president of Companion Global Healthcare, also recommends checking the facilitators website for a detailed About Us page, with photos and bios of the leadership staff so you can look up their credentials.

Be sure to inquire about the companys fee arrangements with the hospitals. Many facilitators dont charge up front because they receive rebates from the medical center for patient referrals, but that leaves potential for bias. Others charge an up-front fee to patients (in Companions case, $700) but dont take any commissions from the provider.

Stephano recommends working with a U.S.-based facilitator rather than one based at your destination so you can more easily get references from American patients. To get started, look up names of facilitators through the International Medical Travel Journal (www.imtj.com/medical-tourism-agents-and-facilitators (opens in new tab)) and Medical Tourism Association (www.medicaltourismassociation.com/en/members.html (opens in new tab)).

Protect your investment

No matter how youve found your doctor or facility, once youve decided to go ahead with the procedure, scrutinize your informed-consent document for potential risks. Youll also want to know how secure your medical records are once they leave the U.S. And recognize that if things go wrong, your legal options and protections are slim. Part of the reason medical care is so much more expensive in the U.S. is because regulations are designed to empower patients, says Sasha Issenberg, author of Outpatients: The Astonishing New World of Medical Tourism (Columbia Global Reports).

To minimize health complications, block out enough time in your trip for recovery, and follow your overseas doctors orders about physical therapy and medications. Think ahead about your plan if complications do arise: How will your foreign provider or local doctor help? What are the potential costs of, say, returning for a corrective procedure? (Would the facility fly you back?) What about redoing a procedure in the States? Prepare to take scrupulous notes overseas and get all exit papers (including scans, consultations and prescriptions) in English.

After youve booked your procedure, you will likely be asked to pay a 50% deposit and the rest upon arrival, rather than after the procedure. If you are asked for the entire payment in advance, negotiate to put half in escrow or to find another way to avoid paying everything up front. You can use tax-free dollars from a health savings account or flexible spending account to pay for care (and some of the travel), provided the procedures meet Internal Revenue Service criteria for qualified medical expenses. (To see what the IRS permits, visit www.irs.gov/publications/p502 (opens in new tab).) Or you can deduct the cost of qualified procedures that exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income.

Stay closer to home

Instead of flying to another country for surgery, you can sometimes pay a lower price than youre quoted in your hometown by crossing state lines. This option is usually best suited for employees at companies that include domestic medical travel as a benefit. A growing number of employers, including Lowes, Target and Walmart, offer the medical travel benefit.

Terry White, cofounder of BridgeHealth, a medical-services benefits manager, estimates his company can get discounts of 20% to 40% by paying a bundled rate to the facility. Your employer may be willing to share the savings by waiving co-pays and deductibles and picking up travel expenses for you and a companion.

Internationally renowned centers of excellence, such as the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Cedars-Sinai, are less likely to give discounts. But plenty of hospitals elsewhere deliver excellent results for certain procedures, such as major orthopedic surgery. Examples include McBride Orthopedic Hospital in Oklahoma City, for joint replacements; Gundersen La Crosse Hospital in La Crosse, Wis., for spinal fusions; and Edward Hospital, outside Chicago, for major cardiac surgery.

Discounts and employer enticements arent the only reasons to travel domestically. Charlotte Hillmann of Crystal Lake, Ill., decided to travel to Newport Beach, Calif., to get her hips replaced. Of the surgeons BridgeHealth recommended, Hillmann was sold on one after researching his methodology and awards and reading rave reviews on Yelp and Facebook. Why go with a local surgeon when this guy was a rock star? says Hillmann. After she reached her deductible, her company covered the rest of her medical and travel costs and threw in a daily stipend and a $1,000 bonus. But the surgeon was the most important part, not where I was getting it done, she says.

See the sights (and the doc)

There are certainly worse places in the world to recover from surgery than, say, the gulf coast of Thailand. But recovery time and restrictions on alcohol, sun exposure or exercise mean you probably wont be sipping cocktails on the beach to celebrate your successful surgical procedure.

One way to get the best of both worlds is to incorporate light, non-surgical procedures, such as hearing and vision checkups, dental cleanings, and health screenings, into leisure trips. Your detour from sightseeing might take only a few hours and cost a fraction of the American price. Numerous international health facilities and tourism boards band together to market these programs to travelers, so do a little research before you depart. Recently, for example, Thai medical centers offered several comprehensive health and dental checkup packages to foreigners. Passing through Incheon International Airport in South Korea? Speedy dental whitening, health checkups and light cosmetic treatments are available a few miles from the airport. Malaysian medical centers offer well man and well woman screening packages as well as travel-and-health bundles. You can usually find these non-surgical offerings in major tourist cities and resort towns.
Drivers who suffer the New Jersey Turnpikes epic traffic could once count on at least one consolation. They could pull over at a rest stop honoring a New Jersey nativesuch as the aptly named Molly Pitcher service areaand fill up their tanks with cheap gas.

The service areas remain, but the low-priced gas is gone. Late in 2016, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation that raised New Jerseys gas tax from 14.5 cents to 37.5 cents a gallon. Overnight, the states gas tax jumped from the second-lowest in the country to the seventh-highest. Funds from the tax hike will be used to shore up the states deteriorating roads and bridges.

Although President Trump has pledged to cut federal taxes, state taxes are rising across the U.S. as financially strapped states and municipalities search for ways to close widening budget shortfalls. In April, Louisiana hiked its sales tax by one percentage point, boosting the states average combined state and local rate to 9.99%, the highest in the U.S. But there has been pushback, too. In November, Oklahoma voters rejected a similar proposal to increase the state sales tax by a percentage point to raise money for schools.

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Other new or proposed tax increases target specific products or services. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania voted in 2016 to extend the states 6% sales tax to digital streaming services and downloads. Starting January 1, Pasadena, Calif., imposes its 9.4% sales tax on streaming video providers, such as Netflix, and more than 40 other California cities are contemplating a similar move. E-cigarettes are another popular source of tax revenue. Pennsylvanias tax package slapped an excise tax on e-cigarettes, making the state the sixth to impose such a levy on vapor products. More than 20 other states are considering a similar tax.

Some states are raising rates on their wealthiest inhabitants. In November, Maine residents narrowly approved a 3% income tax surcharge on residents who earn more than $200,000. The tax hike, which will be used to fund public education, raises Maines top tax rate to 10.15%, the second-highest in the country. Meanwhile, Californians voted for a measure to extend higher income tax rates for the states top earners through 2030. The three tax rates, which start at 10.3% and top out at 13.3%, were originally scheduled to expire in 2018.

Even Alaska, which has long been a low-tax haven, is feeling the heat. To offset a sharp decline in oil revenues, Gov. Bill Walker has proposed a 3% statewide sales tax, which he says is needed to close the states $3.2 billion budget deficit. Alaska currently has no income tax or state sales tax.

Increasing existing state taxes or imposing new ones could backfire. Technology makes it easy for individuals and businesses to move to statesor countrieswith lower tax rates, says Joe Henchman, vice president of legal and state projects for the Tax Foundation, a policy research group. Everybody is under the gun to be more competitive, whether its government or the private sector, he says.

With that in mind, some of the tax increases are due to expire or are coupled with relief in other areas. For example, the package agreed on by New Jersey lawmakers will gradually increase the amount of retirement income thats sheltered from taxes through 2020, when married couples will be able to exclude up to $100,000. Plus, the amount of assets excluded from the states estate tax rises to $2 million from $675,000 on January 1, and the estate tax will disappear in 2018.
HANOI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official market and indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi at 0059 GMT.

Dec 6 Dec 5 USD/VND mid-point 22,120 22,118

USD/VND interbank 22,710/22,720 22,715/22,720 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.10/36.37 36.15/36.42

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank quotes are indicative bid/ask prices.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co, the gold manufacturer.

Interbank offered rates are indicative, quoted from market sources.

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
HANOI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0404 GMT.

Dec 6 Dec 5 USD/VND mid-point 22,120 22,118 USD/VND interbank 22,728/22,733 22,715/22,720 USD/VND unofficial 23,200/23,300 23,080/23,120 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.40/36.82 36.15/36.42

Interbank offered rates Overnight 3.0-4.0 3.0-4.0

1 week 3.3-4.2 3.5-4.1

1 month 4.1-4.6 3.8-4.6

3 months 4.4-5.0 4.7-5.0

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
(Corrects to show the 2 bln roubles is combined amount stolen from accounts in central bank and from commercial banks, not from central bank alone, clarifies that the figures are total stolen in cyberattacks for the year to date)

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Hackers have stolen more than 2 billion roubles ($31.3 million) from banks' correspondent accounts in the Russian central bank and from accounts in commercial banks, central bank official Artyom Sychyov told a briefing on Friday.

He added that hackers had attempted to steal around 5 billion roubles. He said the figures were the totals recorded stolen, or the target of attempted theft, in cyberattacks over the course of 2016.

Hackers broke into accounts at the Russian central bank earlier this year by faking a client's credentials and attempted to steal $45 million, the bank said in a report released earlier on Friday. ($1 = 63.8300 roubles)

(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh and Elena Fabrichnaya; writing by Katya Golubkova; editing by Vladimir Soldatkin)
DUBAI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The petrochemical sector helped support Saudi Arabia's stock market in quiet, early trade on Tuesday after crude oil prices hit a 17-month high overnight, while Dubai's stock index edged higher on speculative activity by day traders.

Saudi Arabia's main index had edged up 0.3 percent after 25 minutes of trade. Saudi Kayan Petrochemical rose 1.1 percent.

Advanced Petrochemical added 2.1 percent after the company said it had purchased just under 6 percent of shares in National Industrialisation Co (Tasnee) ; Tasnee was up 2.0 percent. As a commodities producer Tasnee produces a greater range of products than Advanced Petrochemical, and is involved in metals manufacturing.

Dubai's index rebounded 0.6 percent with support from small and mid-sized shares. GFH Financial , the most heavily traded share, added 1.5 percent and Dubai Finanical Market , the only listed exchange in the Gulf, climbed 3.4 percent.

But Abu Dhabi's index , which has moved in the opposite direction from Dubai over the last several days, slipped 0.2 percent. Some large caps which climbed on Monday pulled back, with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank dropping 1.3 percent.

In Qatar the index edged up 0.1 percent on the back of a 0.8 percent gain by heavyweight Qatar National Bank .

(Reporting by Celine Aswad; Editing by Andrew Torchia)
* CEO says integrity, code of conduct non-negotiable

* Watching brief on M&A, but only if it adds shareholder value

* CEO favours gearing below guidance level

By Barbara Lewis and Sanjeeban Sarkar

LONDON/BENGALURU, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The copper market will go into deficit by 2020, just when Rio Tinto's extension to the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia comes onstream, the company said on Tuesday.

Rio Tinto gave approval in June for a $5.3 billion expansion of Oyu Tolgoi, one of the world's largest copper mines and a project central to the major's efforts to become less dependent on iron ore.

While the iron ore market is expected to stay in oversupply for the foreseeable future, the copper market faces diminishing supplies and the prospect of increased demand, driven by infrastructure, electric vehicles and other renewable technologies.

Arnaud Soirat, chief executive of Rio's copper and diamonds division, said he took a "cautiously optimistic" view the copper market would go into deficit by 2020. Some analysts think the deficit could be earlier.

He said Oyu Tolgoi was on time and on budget, with first production expected in 2020 and a full ramp up by 2027.

Soirat became head of the copper division as Jean-Sebastien Jacques, praised by analysts for his work on Oyu Tolgoi, became CEO at the start of July. Rio Tinto operates Oyu Tolgoi, which is 66-percent owned by Canadian copper miner Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd . The Mongolian government holds the other 34 percent.

Asked whether he was concerned about governance issues in Mongolia given Rio's problems in Guinea, Jacques said only that integrity was non-negotiable.

"I take integrity very seriously, I take our code of conduct very seriously. It's absolutely non-negotiable. We must do the right thing where we operate," he told analysts in London.

He said he could not comment on Guinea beyond formal statements made in November when Rio announced it had sacked two executives following an internal investigation into $10.5 million in payments to an adviser. Rio Tinto is regarded by many analysts as having one of the strongest balance sheets in the sector, but like Glencore during its analyst presentation last week, it said it was focused on limiting debt. Net gearing is around 23 percent at the lower end of guidance of between 20-to-30 percent, Rio said.

"I think we would feel much more comfortable in the lower numbers than in the 20-to-30 percent gearing at this point in time," Jacques said, referring to uncertainties about the massive Chinese market.

Jacques also remains cautious about mergers and acquisitions.

"We have a watching brief on M&A, but we will pursue an acquisition only if it creates value for shareholders," he said.

(Editing by Susan Thomas)
(Updates throughout)

By Will Caiger-Smith

NEW YORK, Dec 6 (IFR) - Investors flocked to a new US$5.5bn bond from Mexican state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Tuesday, the first dollar deal from a Latin American borrower since November 10.

Mexican stocks and bonds have struggled since Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections on November 8, amid concerns around the impact of his policies on the country.

But Pemex's bonds rallied on Monday after it announced a partnership with BHP Billiton, and it managed to attract over US$30bn of orders for Tuesday's deal.

"Of the issuers that could have come before the end of the year, Pemex is the one," said a banker away from the deal.

The deal offered around 75bp-100bp of new issue concession at initial pricing thoughts of 6%-low 6% and Libor equivalent for the long five-year fixed and floating tranches and 7%-low 7% for the long 10-year.

But pricing was pulled in to launch levels of 5.5% for the US$1.5bn five-year fixed, L+365bp for US$1bn five-year FRN, and 6.625% for the US$3bn 10-year.

That implied a new issue concession of around 30bp for each tranche.

Active bookrunners on Pemex's deal are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Mizuho and Morgan Stanley.

GOOD TIMING

Pemex's 6.875% 2026 bonds were trading up to 26bp tighter over Treasuries on Monday, according to MarketAxess.

"It was opportunistic," said another banker away from the deal. "Oil was trending in the right direction and the announcement yesterday obviously helps."

Pemex said in November that it intended to rely partly on private sector alliances and partnerships to turn around its upstream and downstream businesses and improve its financial profile.

CreditSights analysts said they believed the company was on the "right path", although they expressed concern over its financial burden.

Mexico awarded seven other blocks in the Gulf to other oil companies including Total, Chevron and Exxon Mobil in an auction on Monday. Bankers said that benefited Pemex by association.

"It shows a vote of confidence from large global producers in the deep-sea oilfields in Mexico," said the first banker.

However, some market participants still expressed concern over the potential effect of Donald Trump's presidency on Mexican businesses.

"The fears are about Trump's stance going forward - is Nafta going to be ripped up, is he going to build the wall," said the second banker away from the deal.

Governments and companies in Latin America could have their global bond sales next year, partly in response to Trump's victory, bankers told Reuters last week. (Reporting by Will Caiger-Smith; Editing by Jack Doran and Shankar Ramakrishnan)
(Adds quotes, detail)

OSLO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Statoil could drill its first well in the Salina Basin offshore Mexico in 2018 at the earliest, its exploration chief told Reuters on Tuesday.

Statoil on Monday was awarded oil exploration acreage offshore Mexico in partnership with BP and Total . The companies won stakes in blocks 1 and 3 in the Salina Basin in Mexico's first round of deepwater exploration tenders, with a committment to drill one well in each block.

"I would say not earlier than in 2018," Statoil exploration chief Tim Dodson told Reuters when asked when the company could begin to drill offshore Mexico.

"We need to do more detailed mapping before deciding where to drill. This is truly a frontier area."

He declined to comment on Statoil's global drilling campaign for 2017, as the company has so far only publically confirmed plans to drill some five wells in the Barents Sea.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche)
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.
Host Jimmy Kimmel and screenwriter Molly McNearney attend the 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards Governors Ball at Microsoft Theater on September 18, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Matt Winkelmeyer)

Congratulations are in order for Jimmy Kimmel and wife Molly McNearney. The couple is expecting their second child together.



The "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host announced during Monday night's episode that McNearney was pregnant with their second baby. Kimmel also revealed that he will be hosting the 89th Academy Awards ceremony in 2017.



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"My wife is hosting a baby inside her body, so that's what's coming," he quipped. "We got the ultrasound, which is weird because it's like you're already spying on the baby-but we asked the technician not to tell us whether we're having a boy or a girl."



Kimmel added that he and Nearney wanted the baby's gender to be a surprise and joked about already choosing two names for the little bundle of joy; Dyson after the vacuum or Gelatin with a J, both of which have been ruled out by Mrs. Kimmel. "So - there's a lot of exciting stuff going on," he continued. "Congratulations to me, I'm hosting the Oscars and I had sex. - two things as a teenage boy I never thought would be possible."



Kimmel, 49, and Nearney, 38, got married in 2013 and already have a two-year-old daughter named Jane. Kimmel is also father to two other children; a son named Kevin and daughter Katherine with his first marriage to costume designer Gina Maddy, whom he divorced after 14 years of marriage in 2002, according to E! News.



Nearney, who is a screenwriter by profession, recently put her baby bump on display during a family beach outing with Kimmel and Jane in Hawaii, Daily Mail reported. The expectant mother held Jane in her hands while the soon-to-be father clicked pictures of them.



Kimmel will host the 2017 Oscars for the very first time. He has previously hosted the American Music Awards and the Emmy Awards twice; in 2012 and 2016. Previous hosts of the Academy Awards include the likes of Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, Neil Patrick Harris and Seth MacFarlane.



For more details on the story, watch the video below:






Stuff reports:

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is taking her bid for a statewide recount of Pennsylvanias Nov. 8 presidential election to federal court.

After announcing Stein and recount supporters were dropping their case in state court, lawyer Jonathan Abady said they will seek an emergency federal court order Monday.

Make no mistake  the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania, Abady said in a statement Saturday night.

He said barriers to a recount in Pennsylvania are pervasive and the state court system is ill-equipped to address the problem.

Stein has spearheaded a recount effort in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, three states with a history of backing Democrats for president that were narrowly and unexpectedly won by Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Stein has framed the campaign as an effort to explore whether voting machines and systems had been hacked and the election result manipulated. Steins lawyers, however, have offered no evidence of hacking in Pennsylvanias election, and the state Republican Party and Trump had asked the court to dismiss the state court case.
Actress and member of the Jury Aishwarya Rai arrives for the opening ceremony of the International Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals May 14, 2003 in Cannes, France . (Photo : Getty Images/ Pascal Le Segretain)

Aishwarya Rai's suicide hoax was trending in the social media on Dec.4, Sunday. The Former Miss World reportedly died of overdosing on tranquilizers over feud with her family.



The "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" star is the latest victim of the celebrity fake suicide rumors that have created headlines in the Bollywood industry. Rai's suicide hoax happened months after her own father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Shah Rukh Khan, Rajinikanth and Dilip Kumar experienced the same shocking death rumors.



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Rai reportedly had an altercation with her family over her steamy photo shoots with her "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" co-star Ranbir Kapoor. The death rumors were put to rest when an insider confirmed about Rai's presence at the birthday bash of celebrity designer Manish Malhotra on Dec.4, Sunday.



"I was with Aishwarya and Abhishek till 2am today (Monday) morning at designer Manish's home," a source told Hindustan Times. "She looked radiant and happy, posing for photographs. A lot of guests complimented her for how stunning she looked in "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" and her husband seemed rather pleased about it."



Rai's suicide hoax was also slammed by the actress/ beauty queen herself. She shared photos of Malhotra's celebration on her official Facebook account, which proven once more that there is no truth about the fake death rumors.





According to reports, the Bachchan's family reportedly called doctors to their residence the moment they found out of her suicide. They did not bring her to the hospital to keep the matters under wraps.



Adding flame to Rai's suicide hoax, an unidentified doctor, who reportedly treated her at her residence revealed that the actress does not want to live anymore because of her troubled married life. Reports about her marital issues have been hitting the headlines for the past many months already.



Rai has been married to Bachchan's son, Abhishek Bachchan since 2007. They share one daughter, Aaradhya Bachchan, who was born in 2011.



Meanwhile, when Amitabh was asked about Rai's suicide hoax rumors during the press conference for the launch of Himesh Reshammiya's music album, Rai's father-in-law declined to comment. Instead, he smiled to dismiss the death rumors about his daughter-in-law, according to Indian Express.



Rai has not addressed the fake death rumors in public yet. Check out the actress' fake death report:






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A program at the Cassia Regional Technical Center received a nearly $15,000 grant to purchase a new mannequin.

This tool will allow the teachers to work with students on different skill sets that are difficult to replicate on a standard mannequin.

Graduates of this program will finish with their EMT and CNA certifications to prepare them for a career in the health care industry.

It gets them a step forward for any health profession they want to go into, said Lacie Pincock, Health Professions instructor. They may not want to go into nursing if they take the CNA course but it gets them a step ahead to any health care field and there's so many options in the health care field industry for these students to go into.

I can teach them there's normal and that's what we use every day but it's hard to teach them the abnormal, said Shawn Bingham, EMT Instructor. With this mannequin I am able to teach them that, the mannequins going to be able simulate those lung sounds for me.

The medical field is constantly looking for new and qualified help so these students will have an advantage after graduation.
A woman was taken to the hospital after rear-ending a tractor pulling a farm implement Monday evening near Castleford.

At about 6 p.m., Billee Dinges, 80, of Buhl, was traveling westbound in a Subaru Forester on 3700 North when she rear-ended the tractor moving westward near 1275 East, according to Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office.

Dinges vehicle rolled once and landed on its top. Initial reports said Dinges was transported to St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center via ground ambulance with non-life-threatening injuries, but she was not transported.

Larry Recta, 56, of Buhl, who was driving the tractor, was uninjured.
A search is performed on The Pirate Bay Web site on a computer monitor in Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, November 7, 2005. (Photo : Getty Images/ Adam Berry)

In 2017, the torrent websites, which will be the biggest gainers are Extra Torrent, RARBG, The Pirate Bay, YIFYTorrent and Sumo Torrent. They are going to experience the biggest traffic and will be on top of the torrenting world.



The current year was a landmark year for the torrent websites, as numerous websites were forced offline due to legal issues. Amongst these, Kickass Torrents, which used to be the number one torrent website in the world was the first casualty.



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The golden run for Kickass Torrents came to an end in July when its owner Artem Paulim was arrested on numerous charges of copyright issues. Subsequently, the site was forced offline and its loyal customers were forced to go to other torrenting websites to download their favorite torrents.



There are rumors that the beloved site could be back in a new form in February 2017. Kickass Torrents may be reborn as Kat.cr boasting of the same exhaustive database and the user-friendly interface.



"The King of Torrents" The Pirate Bay eventually became the number one torrent website in the world, after Kickass Torrents shut down. It gained millions of new users and is expected to continue its golden run in 2017 as well.



Another website, which also gained a lot of new users was Extra Torrent, according to Torrent Freak. It gets around 6,000,000 users every month and these numbers are expected to rise in 2017.



On the other hand, YifyTorrents gets just half of the Extra Torrent's traffic but it is expanding its database in an apparent bid to gain more followers. RARBG is also among the top torrent websites to look out for in 2017 as it is appealing to the torrent lovers, despite the fact that it is banned in numerous countries.



Even though there are numerous legal issues in place, yet these websites are continuing to function and flourish. When some of these websites face any downtime then their mirrors handle the traffic for that time period, according to the same publication.



Watch the video to know more about the top torrent websites of 2017 here:






Orndorffs experimental writing began when he discovered a way to take his reading automaticity (effectively used for over thirty years of grading senior students many expository essays and research papers) and use the automaticity in his writing. The errors produced add to his sense of humility that I find refreshing. He preached the rules of General Manuscript Specifications his whole career and now finds he cant live up to them himself. He may not see the humor in this, but his many former students and colleagues might sense a secret delight in his lightly buried misery of my conditional. I would not be here but for his determination and humility to see this experimental and self-imposed writing project through. Humanity is my standard in orndorff's writing, not GMS perfection.  Amorella
Knoxville caregivers indicted on neglect charges

DECEMBER 6, 2016 at 1:35 p.m.







Samuel Rhoad (left) and Belinda Ebeling (right) indicted on neglect charges. Image courtesy of TBI

KNOXVILLE  An investigation by Special Agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has resulted in the indictment of two former Knoxville caregivers on neglect charges involving a disabled man.



In December 2015, TBI Special Agents with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit were contacted by Adult Protect Services and the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities concerning allegations of neglect involving a 68-year-old male victim. The investigation revealed that in June 2015, the victim was placed in the primary care of Samuel Rhoad, which was facilitated through Evergreen Life Services in Knoxville. The victim resided in the residence of Rhoad and Belinda Ebeling, both of whom worked for Evergreen Life Services at the time. Further investigation revealed that between June 2015 and December 2015, Rhoad and Ebeling failed to provide proper care for the victim. The victim was hospitalized as a result of his condition and later died.



On November 30, the Knox County Grand Jury returned indictments charging Rhoad, 54, and Ebeling, 42, with two counts of Willful Abuse, Neglect or Exploitation of an Adult and one count of Physical Abuse or Gross Negligence. On Monday, both were booked into the Knox County Jail and released on a $15,000 bond. Published December 6, 2016


















Mr. Pizza Korea (MPK) Group Chairman Jung Woo-hyun, second from left, poses with P. K. Gupta, right, chairman of Cafe Buddy's Foods, after signing an agreement at the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) building in southern Seoul, Tuesday, to establish a joint venture in India. / Courtesy of MPK Group



By Lee Hyo-sik

Mr. Pizza Korea (MPK) Group will make inroads into India by establishing a joint venture with an Indian food firm to capitalize on the growing number of middle-class consumers there, the company said Tuesday.

Korea's largest home-grown pizza franchise plans to nurture India into one of its two strategic markets, along with China, using the world's second-most populous country as a springboard to become a major global pizza brand.

MPK Group Chairman Jung Woo-hyun signed an agreement with his Indian counterpart P. K. Gupta, chairman of Cafe Buddy's Foods, to set up a joint entity in the South Asian country. MPK will hold a 49 percent stake in the joint company and Cafe Buddy's the remaining 51 percent.

Both agreed to mobilize all available resources to foster Mr. Pizza as a leading pizza brand in India, opening its first store in New Delhi in the first half of 2017. By 2020, the joint venture will operate at least 100 outlets, according to MPK.

"MPK has been able to expand at a rapid pace in China on the back of its high-quality pizzas and customer-oriented services. I have no doubt that we can write another success story in India," Jung said. "India will play as one of two pillars of Mr. Pizza's global expansion. We will also use the South Asian nation as a base to enter the Middle East."

Chung said India offers a lucrative business opportunity for MPK as most of its 1.3 billion people reside in cities, which makes it easier for franchised stores to do business. Dominos, Pizza Hut and other global pizza chains have already established a presence in India, according the chairman, who said it will be less costly for Mr. Pizza to expand by not repeating the mistakes of forerunners.

In China, MPK plans to add 50 new stores next year, increasing the number of its stores in the world's fastest-growing economy to 200. The company will also open more stores in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to make up for its declining domestic sales.
KB Kookmin Bank CEO Yoon Jong-kyoo, fifth from left, poses with the bank's employees after the bank was honored by the Korea Productivity Center during an awards ceremony held at The Shilla Seoul Hotel, Tuesday.

/ Courtesy of KB Kookmin Bank



By Nam Hyun-woo



KB Kookmin Bank said Tuesday it was ranked Korea's top bank in the Korea Productivity Center's National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI).



This is the tenth time for the bank to win the recognition, a feat no other domestic bank has matched.



The NCSI is a satisfaction index based on evaluations by customers who have used the domestically and internationally produced products and services sold to final customers.

Some 30 countries, including the United States, measure customer satisfaction using the same methods as the NCSI, allowing direct comparison with other countries.



The bank attributed the achievement to management efforts to reflect customer demands. The bank said it measures customer satisfaction every year so it can improve its system, processes and services.



"By running a tribune system, the bank management actively reflects customer needs," said a KB Kookmin Bank official. "KB Kookmin will do its utmost to listen to customer's various demands so it can consolidate its status as a leading bank."



Along with the NCSI results, it was recently recognized as an "excellent" financial firm in the Financial Supervisory Service's assessment and named Korea's best bank by the Korea Finance Customer Federation.
Leaders of the country's nine biggest conglomerates are sworn in as witnesses before the parliamentary investigation of the Park Geun-hye scandal, Tuesday. From right, Huh Chang-soo, GS Group Chairman and leader of the Federation of Korean Industries, the nation's biggest business lobby; Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo; Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho; Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin; Samsung Group Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong; SK group Chairman Chey Tae-won; Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn; LG Group Chairman Ku Bon-moo; and CJ Group Chairman Sohn Kyung-shik. / Yonhap



By Park Si-soo



Leaders of South Korea's nine largest conglomerates are being questioned in a parliamentary investigation of a corruption scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her shadowy confidant Choi Soon-sil.

The investigation centers on conglomerates' alleged behind-the-scenes deals with Choi, and whether the President pressured them to donate to two foundations controlled by Choi.

Attending the session are the chiefs of Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG, Lotte, Hanwha, Hanjin, CJ and GS.








Asiana Airlines flight from Incheon to London made an emergency landing in Russia on Monday night after a smoke alarm was triggered. / Courtesy of Asiana Airlines



By Lee Jin-a

An Asiana Airlines flight to London made an emergency landing in Russia on Monday after a smoke alarm went off. No injuries or casualties were reported.

According to reports, flight OZ521 landed at Khanty-Mansiysk airport in central Russia at 10:50 p.m. following an alarm that smoke was detected near the engines. The incident happened about eight hours after the flight left Incheon International Airport at around 2:50 p.m.

The plane landed safely and 197 people on board were unharmed. Russian officials inspected the aircraft but did not find any trace of fire.

Asiana said the company would further investigate the case to find out the exact cause, but suggested it could have been an error with the smoke detection device.

Meanwhile, the country's second-biggest airline came under fire for letting a co-pilot injured in a fight operate a flight bound for New York from Seoul last week.

Amid criticism for risking passengers' safety, the company said the fight happened outside the cockpit and that Asiana's safety director confirmed that the pilot could safely operate a flight.
By Jun Ji-hye





Cheong Wa Dae has destroyed surveillance camera recordings that opposition lawmakers claim could have shown what President Park Geun-hye was doing while the Sewol ferry was sinking on April 16, 2014.

The cameras are installed at Park's residence inside the presidential complex. Cheong Wa Dae has said Park was working at a private office at her residence, not in her main office, at the time of the disaster, without giving further details.

This has fueled suspicions she was doing something she cannot reveal while the ship was sinking.

Lee Young-seok, deputy chief of the Presidential Security Service, said Monday the recordings from CCTVs installed at Park's residence do not exist anymore as the presidential office erased them after a given period expired as set by "internal rules."

Lee made the comment during a session of the National Assembly investigation into the corruption and influence-peddling scandal involving Park and her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil.

Rep. Lee Yong-ju of the second-largest opposition People's Party said the presidential office should have preserved the CCTV records considering the high-profile controversy over what Park was doing during the critical hours. The government's bungled response is largely blamed for the deaths of 304 people in the country's worst maritime disaster.

The lawmaker said the records could have shown what Park was doing and who visited her on April 16, 2014, but the presidential office erased the crucial records.

Owing to the lack of explanation of her whereabouts on the day, rumors have abounded that she might have been undergoing plastic surgery or another medical procedure such as wrinkle treatment.

"Former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon might have ordered other staff not to submit any data related to the disaster," the lawmaker said. "Then, the presidential secretariat, together with the Presidential Security Service and the National Security Office, probably were able to hide and erase all data."












Choi Gyung-hwan of the opposition People's Party, left, received more than 1,500 protest messages from people mistaking him for Choi Kyung-hwan of the Saenuri Party. / Yonhap



By Lee Jin-a

Choi Gyung-hwan, a lawmaker of the People's Party and former secretary of late president Kim Dae-jung, was recently bombarded with strongly worded text messages from Korean protesters demanding that scandal-plagued President Park Geun-hye be impeached.

The 1,500 messages were supposed to target Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan of the ruling Saenuri Party, who is close to the President. But people mistakenly sent the messages to Rep. Choi Gyung-hwan, who has the same name as the former finance minister.

"I am not that Choi Kyung-hwan," Choi posted on Facebook on Sunday.

"All the text messages that demand Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan join the movement for Park's impeachment have been mistakenly sent to me.

"I am not that Choi; I am Choi Gyung-hwan, a lawmaker of the People's Party representing Buk-gu, Gwangju."

He added, "Please don't worry about me. I already joined the movement to impeach the president and never missed the anti-Park mass rallies held every week. I am on the Impeachment Train'."





The image shows one of the text messages that Choi received on Sunday. It says: "Please listen to what citizens say. We support impeachment! You know what happens to the laborers if they don't listen to their owner, don't you? We are not afraid of anything. If you want to work, remember what the owner says." / Courtesy of Choi Gyung-hwan's Facebook



Park faces the biggest crisis in her political career amid a corruption scandal involving her close friend Choi Soon-sil.

While the opposition parties handed the impeachment motion to the parliament last week for a vote slated for Friday, Park loyalists in the Saenuri Party, including Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan, have been suggesting the president step down voluntarily in April and that a presidential election be held in June.

The Park loyalists' decision stirred a backlash, with the public criticizing the lawmakers for not joining the impeachment motion. Some citizens sent strong protest messages to the group via their mobile phone numbers available to the public.
By Jun Ji-hye

North Korea is suspected of having hacked the intranet server of South Korea's Cyber Command in what could be the latest cyberattack against Seoul, the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday.

The attackers accessed some military documents, including confidential information, the ministry added.

This marks the first time the inside network of the South Korean military has been hacked, dealing a serious blow to its earlier assurance that its intranet server is safe from any cyberattacks as the server is totally separated from the external internet network.

"An IP address of the suspected hacker was traced to the Chinese city of Shenyang," a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Shenyang, located close to North Korea, is known as a home base for cyber experts dispatched by North Korean authorities.

"The malicious code used in the latest cyberattack was also similar to that used by the North in its previous cyberattacks," the official said.

In 2014, Pyongyang used an IP address based in Shenyang in its cyberattack against South Korea's state-run nuclear reactor operator Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, according to the South's government.

Citing the log records, the official said the malicious code first infiltrated Cyber Command's intranet sever on Aug. 4.

"Then on Sept. 23, we found that the mass malicious code spread through the vaccine intermediate servers," he said, adding that the ministry isolated the affected servers from the whole network to prevent the infection from spreading.

Cyber Command was set up in January 2010 as part of efforts to counter external hacking attempts on the country's military.

The ministry is still investigating the incident and has yet to fully determine what data has been compromised.

But it added the attackers did not access information provided by foreign countries that have signed intelligence-sharing deals with South Korea.
Independent counsel has no authority to force questioning



By Kim Se-jeong



While an independent counsel is getting ready to unveil the influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her confidant Choi Soon-sil, questioning of key witnesses is posing a challenge because the investigation team may not be able to question them.



The team will be able to interrogate Choi, two former presidential aides, visual artist Cha Eun-taek and Choi's niece Jang Si-ho, who have already been arrested for their involvement in the scandal, as well as Park Geun-hye, who was identified as a suspect, in person.



The problem lies with others, who have not been formally charged but the questioning of whom will be critical in getting to the bottom of the scandal. Special prosecutor Park Young-soo has no authority to forcibly summon them as "witnesses."



The law on an independent counsel is in line with the criminal law, according to which investigators cannot apprehend a witness.



The forcible measure had been available until 2008 when an independent counsel looked into the BBK scandal involving then President-elect Lee Myung-bak. Lee was accused of creating a slush fund overseas through BBK, an investment company, and the special investigation later found him innocent.



During the investigation, the Constitutional Court ruled against the measure. It allowed one key witness to overstay in Singapore to avoid questioning.



For the Choi scandal, special prosecutor Park vowed to seek a bribery charge against the President over the fundraising from conglomerates for Choi's foundations. But to be able to do that, he needs to speak with heads of conglomerates in person.



Likewise, he vowed to look into what the President had been doing during her seven hour absence from official duty on the day of the ferry Sewol disaster, which also requires testimonies from key witnesses including presidential secretaries.



The special prosecutor acknowledged the point. "Unlike in the past, the law concerning the Choi scandal doesn't give me the authority to summon witnesses," Park Young-soo told journalists, Monday. "This will make my job much tougher. We will try to persuade them personally."



An anonymous lawyer echoed Park's point.



"Under this rule, two former presidential aides  An Bong-geun and Lee Jae-man  and conglomerate CEOs can say no to the special prosecutor's call for face-to-face interviews, and he will have no power to push them," the lawyer said. "This for sure will slow down the investigation and can make it incomplete."



The special investigation team is currently reviewing documents transferred from the prosecution in a preliminary investigation and will have up to 100 days to look into the case after the official launch.



Park Young-soo will lead the team with four assistant counsels, 20 incumbent prosecutors and dozens more investigators. Park said he had no time to waste, promising to speed up the preliminary investigation. The team also signed a lease for an office in southern Seoul.




The sculpture of former president Park Chung-hee was found covered in red spray on Sunday in the middle of Mullae Park in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. / Screencaptured from the Internet



By Hong Dam-young

A citizen enraged at the ongoing political scandal has destroyed a bust of President Park Geun-hye's father.

The sculpture of former president Park Chung-hee was found covered in red spray on Sunday in the middle of Mullae Park in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.

The nose was damaged as if hammered, and the 1.8 meter pedestal beneath the bust was covered in red letters reading, "Tear it down."

Park Chung-hee, a military strongman who led Korea for 18 years, has been a revered figure by older Koreans for leading the nation out of poverty.

He came to power in a military coup in 1961 and ruled with an iron fist until his spy chief assassinated him in 1979.

But he remains a deeply divisive figure in Korea for ruling with martial law and executing dissidents branded as communists.












The U.S. Embassy Seoul / Yonhap



By Hong Dam-young

The U.S. Embassy Seoul has denied the suspicion that it joined the massive candlelit protest against Korean President Park Geun-hye by participating in a lights-out event.

Controversy has risen last weekend over whether the embassy expressed its support for the ongoing anti-President move over the influence-peddling scandal involving her aides during the sixth rally last Saturday.

According to live television broadcast, it seemed that the lights at office of the embassy building's upper floor, overlooking the Gwanghwamun Square, were turned off and on again while the protesters was holding a lights-out performance for one minute from 7 p.m.

The event was a symbolic action to call for the truth about the President's seven hours of absence from official duty on the day of Sewol ferry sinking on April 16, 2014. Many others at their homes or offices also turned off lights.

Following the suspicions, the U.S. Embassy officially made a statement on Monday that it "did not" turn off the lights.

Some other photos taken by citizens from different angles also showed lights were on in other floors of the embassy building. Some suggested a possibility that the lightings from the stages of the protest could have been reflected on the embassy's windows, causing an optical illusion.
By Jung Min-ho

With the National Assembly likely to vote for the impeachment of scandal-ridden President Park Geun-hye, Friday, questions about what will happen afterwards are now starting to emerge.

In fact, passing an impeachment motion is not the end of the long process that could take months; rather, it is only the beginning. Some people have been asking whether she will still be allowed to resign at any point in the process and, if she does, whether the Constitutional Court will still give its verdict on the person who is no longer president.

Most experts, including former Constitutional Court justices Kim Jong-dae and Roh Hee-bum, believe a president can still step down even after the National Assembly passes an impeachment motion. Although the parliamentary law (Article 134, Section 2) says a person who has the power to appoint must not accept the resignation of the appointees being prosecuted, they believe the post of president, who is appointed by no one but voted in by the people, is an exception to the law.

"The resignation of a president, which is a constitutional matter, should not be judged by any other laws," Kim recently told the Kookmin Ilbo, a local daily.












President says to wait for Constitutional Court's verdict on impeachment





By Kim Hyo-jin



President Park Geun-hye said Tuesday that she will accept the result of an impeachment vote Friday and will wait for the Constitutional Court's verdict if the motion is passed.



Instead of making a much-expected fourth national address on the scandal involving her and her friend Choi Soon-sil, Park met with Saenuri Party Chairman Rep. Lee Jung-hyun and floor leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk, and said she will "calmly" accept the result of the vote.



In the 55-minute long meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Park was quoted as saying that she will await the Constitutional Court's deliberations if the motion is passed and do whatever was necessary in the meantime.



This means that she will follow the whole time-consuming impeachment procedure to the end, and has no intention to step down on her own after the passage of the motion.



"Park said she is determined to accept the impeachment in a calm and composed manner," Chung said at a party meeting held later. "She expressed hopes that the party will cooperate with her, considering her position."



Park accepted the fact that the party has no choice but to drop an earlier plan seeking to shorten her term and let lawmakers participate in the impeachment vote, according to the floor leader.



The ruling party initially sought her resignation in April and a presidential election in June.





DAY OF JUDGMENT (D-DAY) Impeachment vote set for Dec. 9 What will happen if President is impeached? PM's role crucial after impeachment The party, later in the day, decided to participate in the impeachment vote and allow its lawmakers to vote according to their conscience.



The meeting between the President and the ruling party leaders took place hours after a group of Saenuri Party lawmakers who are not affiliated with Park reaffirmed that they will back the impeachment motion.



"We are set to back the passage of the impeachment motion," Rep. Hwang Young-cheul, a spokesman for the anti-Park group told reporters after a meeting. "We view Park's possible announcement of an early resignation as a card already rejected by the public."



Hwang added, "We can share any material that can prove our readiness for the vote with the public if necessary," indicating the faction would even unveil a list of lawmakers backing the impeachment motion.



The anti-Park faction, consisting of about 40 lawmakers of the 128-member ruling party, has the deciding vote for the passage of the motion, which requires a two-thirds majority in the 300-member legislature.



At least 28 votes need to be secured from the ruling party, given unanimous support from 172 opposition and independent lawmakers.



Following Park's third speech that put the timing and manner of her resignation in the hands of the National Assembly, the anti-Park lawmakers agreed with Park loyalists to seek the President's resignation by April and a presidential election in June, making it the party's official position.



But they bolted from this amid growing public anger expressed in the largest nationwide candlelit rally ever, Saturday, where 2.32 million protesters called for Park's immediate resignation and the Assembly's impeachment of her.



Hwang said Sunday the anti-Park faction decided to participate in the impeachment vote regardless of whether Park announces her resignation, as required by the ruling party.



As the passage of the motion looms, some pro-Park Saenuri lawmakers, too, are showing signs of turning their back on the President. A dozen loyalists expressed their intention to vote for the motion, according to a media poll, Monday.






The U.S. administration of President Barack Obama stands by its commitment to the "one-China" policy, the White House said Monday, after President-elect Donald Trump challenged the policy with a phone call with Taiwan's president.



"I can confirm that U.S. officials, including senior officials at the National Security Council, have been in touch with their Chinese counterparts to reiterate our country's continued commitment to a one-China policy," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a briefing.



"This is a policy that's been in place for nearly 40 years and it has been focused on promoting and preserving peace and stability in the strait. The adherence to and commitment to this policy has advanced the ability of the United States to make progress in our relationship with China and of course has benefited the people of Taiwan," he said.



Trump spoke by phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday, breaking the decades-long diplomatic tradition that the U.S. has kept under its "One China" policy since severing ties with Taiwan and normalizing relations with Beijing.



China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland and rails against any support for Taiwan's independence or the notion that the island is not part of the country. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has maintained friendly relations with Taiwan.



"The Chinese government and Beijing places an enormous priority on this situation and it's a sensitive matter. And some of the progress that we have made in our relationship with China could be undermined by this issue flaring up," Earnest said.



Vice President-elect Mike Pence has downplayed the call as nothing more than a courtesy call, but the Washington Post reported earlier Monday that it was an intentionally provocative move that establishes the incoming president as a break with the past. It cited unidentified "people involved in the planning."



The paper described the call as 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 presidential nominee. It also reflects the views of hard-line advisers urging Trump to take a tough opening line with China, the report said.



Analysts have raised concern that any change to the "One China" policy would upend U.S. relations with China and seriously undermine cooperation between the two sides on a number of issues, including the North Korean nuclear standoff. (Yonhap)




The death of longtime dictator Fidel Castro presents the U.S. with an opportunity it cannot waste  to end an embargo that has failed to produce desired results in more than half a century and to open the door to opportunity for both nations.



Doing so would not excuse the atrocities that occurred under Castro, or give a pass to repressions still occurring under Raul Castro. But the U.S. attitude toward Cuba has been disproportionately harsh and punitive, with little positive effect.



The thaw begun two years ago under President Obama, on the other hand, has produced immediate and beneficial results. Regrettably, it may be in jeopardy because of a hard line laid down by President-elect Donald Trump, who has declared that Cuba must progress on terms he sets or "I will terminate the deal."



That is no empty threat. Everything up to this point  resumption of commercial flights, limited tourism, re-establishment of mutual embassies and nascent business deals  is due to executive action by Obama and could be undone just as unilaterally. Congress so far has refused to budge on lifting the embargo resuming full relations.



Trump may simply be attempting to create maximum leverage for the U.S., as he would in a business deal. But this is more than that. It is nation-to-nation diplomacy and requires a sensitive touch.



Cuba has not stood still during the decades of embargo. With the help of other investors, it is poised for explosive growth in agriculture, energy, tourism and consumer goods. The new Port of Mariel, built with Brazilian investors, is prepared to become a major hub for container ships passing through the Panama Canal to the U.S. eastern seaboard and gulf.



U.S. stubbornness has come at a price. Consider that the U.S. once was the top supplier of agricultural commodities to Cuba's 11 million people. Farmers here lost out, while Cuba imported food from China and Brazil.



Rep. Tom Emmer, R.-Minn., a staunch advocate of both the incoming president and trade with Cuba, said he believes that while Trump talks tough, he won't let the opportunity slip through U.S. hands. "I see this more as positioning," said Emmer, who has been in touch with Trump's people on the issue. "He is concerned about resolution of the land dispute," Emmer said. "He wants to make sure Cuban patriots are heard. But the question is ... what does the U.S./Cuban relationship look like for the next 50 years? It's imperative that Republicans get on the right side of this. Healthy relationships form the basis of economic and national security, and I think Cuba is going to be part of that picture."



That's true. Too much work and time have gone into laying the groundwork for normalization of relations to turn back now.



Trump must balance competing interests, but the U.S. for too long has subverted its interests for the sake of Cuban expats who wanted to hurt the Castro regime. With the dictator's death, that time has passed.





This editorial appeared on the Star Tribune and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.




The United States and its partners should intensify sanctions and pressure on North Korea to force the communist regime to come back to the denuclearization negotiating table, the U.S. pointman on Pyongyang said Monday.



Joseph Yoon, special representative for North Korea policy, made the case during a security forum, stressing that denulearization is the No. 1 goal of the U.S., but the North has shown no willingness to resume negotiations on its nuclear program.



"Of course, I'm very mindful that sanctions and defensive measures are not an end in themselves. They are tools to bring the North Koreans back to the negotiating table on denuclearization. Our goal, let me emphasize, is denuclearization. And we have made repeated overtures to North Korea," Yoon said.



"I think you would all have to agree that so far response from Pyongyang has not shown any signs it is ready to undertake serious negotiations and that is why we believe we must continue on the pressure track," he said during the discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).



Yoon said it takes pressure, diplomacy and defensive measures to cope with the North Korea problem.



Asked if it's time for the U.S. to consider regime change in North Korea, Yoon repeated that denuclearization remains the top goal.



"This was by far the most common and important objective of everyone we talked to there, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, and I think this is clearly the goal we all share. Denucleariation is the No. 1 priority," he said of a recent trip to South Korea, Japan and China.



Earlier in the same event, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called openly for regime change in North Korea, saying he no longer believes it's possible change Pyongyang's behavior without a regime change.



Yoon, who assumed the post in October after serving as ambassador to Malaysia, said that he believes the six-party talks are the best mechanism to resolve the nuclear standoff even though bilateral and other forms of talks could happen within the framework.



"I think ultimately six-party talks present a very good established body, institution you might call it, that can do these things. These are obviously the countries most interested and most at stake, including Russia and Japan. So I would imagine that any discussion, any serious negotiation would have to involve six parties," Yoon said.



"Beforehand, afterhand, there will be separate bilateral discussions but I do believe main body of work has to be done through six parties," he said.



Asked about the controversial idea of allowing South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons, Yoon said that none of the allies wants nuclear weapons.



"As I traveled around, there is a distinct, very very strong feeling among Koreans and Japanese that they do not want nuclear weapons. That is certainly not the preferred solution. Rather they would have a Korean Peninsula that is denuclearized, and certainly a Japan that doesn't have nuclear weapons," he said.



Yoon said that he plans to travel to Tokyo and Seoul this week for bilateral meetings with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts as well as a trilateral session in Seoul to "coordinate the way forward following the adoption of the new U.N. Security Council resolution."



Last week, the Security Council imposed the latest sanctions on Pyongyang, which centers on putting a significant cap on North Korea's exports of coal, its single biggest export item and source of hard currency, and banning exports of four additional minerals.



These two measures and other restrictions, if fully enforced, would strip the North of at least $800 million in annual revenues, a sizable sum that accounts for more than a quarter of the impoverished nation's total exports, estimated at about $3 billion. (Yonhap)




North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited an artillery regiment at frontline on Dec. 1. / Yonhap



By Ko Dong-hwan

While South Korea is in "presidential shock" that has caused massive rallies nationwide for weeks demanding President Park Geun-hye's resignation, the country's closest and most dangerous neighbor, North Korea, has been monitoring events closely.

And how is the communist state finding events in the South? It could not find a bigger fish to fry.

North Korea's media outlets pummeled with sarcastic criticism President Park, who virtually lost all legitimacy to continue her remaining presidency until December 2017 because of her corruption scandal.

Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, called the South's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae "Park Geun-hye's goons" and "Hordes of rebels" in articles about the nationwide anti-president demonstrations on Dec. 3.

The reports also dubbed the President and her aides "minions of Park Chung-hee," referring to her late dictator father (South Korean president during 1963-79) shot dead by his top aide.

The North's Chosun Joongang TV and propaganda website "Tongil Voice" were not much different from the newspaper in criticizing the President in harsh language, according to JoongAng Ilbo, the South's local daily.

North Korean media highlighted the massive demonstrations in the South, which on Dec. 3 drew a record 2.3 million anti-Park protesters nationwide, including 1.7 million at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul alone.





North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper (Nov. 29 issue) covers anti-president rallies held Dec. 3 in the South. The top headline reads, "Party of rebels turning their backs on citizens and doing injustice will not escape from history's grave judgment." / Courtesy of blog.joins.com/ds2hcg



Rodong Sinmun reported the national protests  which began late in October  in its Nov. 29 and 30 issues, with bird's eye photos of protesters parading with candles.

The North described the demonstrations as an "anti-government uprising" and denied allegations from the South that the North "controlled the ongoing demonstrations."

The North's media also praised the South's news outlets  which is rare  for uncovering the Presidential scandal. Rodong Sinmun recently said the South's journalism bodies were "advocates of justice and truth and seers of the current era doing their best in acts of fairness and justice."

The North has been using big issues in the South  the murder of Park Chung-hee in 1979 and the democratic uprising in Gwangju in 1980  as opportunities to unite citizens and hope for a "southern revolution."

The reasons behind the North's extensive coverage of the political fiasco in the South are basically to use the disruptive social atmosphere to help bring about "self-unionization."

The North "illuminated the South's political unrest" so North Koreans will be even more loyal toward Kim Jong-un, while highlighting the "injustice" of President Park's anti-North strategies and hoping for "cleansing" of the South's conservative politicians, who have been a thorn for the North, according to JoongAng Ilbo.

Leader Kim Jong-un has been monitoring the South closely in the past weeks through satellite TV and the Internet as well as getting reports from the United Front Department (UFD), a key Workers' Party organ in charge of inter-Korean affairs and espionage operations, according to the South's analysts.

"Kim must think, What UFD could not do for the last 30 years has been done by Choi Soon-sil'," said one analyst, referring to President Park's longtime friend who abused her relationship to the President by illegally amassing private assets and controlling state affairs.





Citizens chant for President Park Geun-hye's resignation in front of Cheong Wa Dae on Dec. 3, when the sixth massive anti-president rally was held at Gwanghwamun Square, central Seoul. / Yonhap



"The influence-peddler certainly capsized the South Korean government, which the North has been consistently trying to do with espionage and other spying acts."

Kim, who must have by and large understood the situation, reportedly said on his recent visit to a military camp in the North, "Go wipe out all South Koreans," media outlets said.

There is something different, however, from the North's coverage of the South's rise against the President from how South Korean media have reported the same issue: photos.

Photos shown by North Korean media outlets are conspicuous in that they do not show scenes of urban environments, including skyscrapers and heavy traffic. While using photos downloaded from the South's media outlets without agreements, they cropped parts showing such urban scenes out of the pictures.

"Showing to North Koreans tall buildings or many cars on the streets in South could be lethal as it can provoke anti-government sentiment," said a former North Korean political party member who defected to the South.

"Some North Koreans may glamorize the South, thinking people down there have freedom even to sweep away their leader'."
By Ranjit Kumar Dhawan





November 14 of this year marked the hundredth birthday of an iconic Korean leader, Park Chung-hee.

Although Park has been criticized for being authoritarian and conservative, it was under his leadership that Korea witnessed rapid economic transformation. It was largely due to the efforts of this man that Korea became an "Asian tiger" economy, and achieved what is known as the "Miracle on the Han River."

Coincidently, November 14 is also the birthday of the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru. He laid the foundation of India's democratic ethos and secular principles. Nehru was greatly influenced by socialist ideas and was a staunch modernist. He also shaped the foreign policy of India and pursued non-alignment in international politics.

Despite the differences in political backgrounds and ideologies of Park Chung-hee and Jawaharlal Nehru, there was one thing which was common to both of them. Both leaders started planned economic development and modernization of their countries. The rationale of economic planning was to make maximum use of the available resources and overcome poverty.

The "capitalist developmental state" in Korea under Park Chung-hee established an Economic Planning Board (EPB) in 1961 which was a powerful institution. On the other hand, inspired by the Soviet model of economic development, the administration of Jawaharlal Nehru established a powerful body called the Planning Commission (PC) in 1950.

According to Chalmers Johnson who coined the term "developmental state," the capitalist developmental state is "plan-rational," whereas the socialist system is a "plan-irrational" model of economic development. Therefore, Korean economic planning was rational, whereas the Indian model of economic planning was irrational.

Also, the strategy of economic development in Korea and India were fundamentally different. In Korea the planning was for the promotion of labor intensive industries for export oriented economic development. But in India it was for the promotion of mass manufacturing for import substitution industrialization. The economic policies in Korea and India were also greatly influenced by the international politics of the Cold War.

Korea lacked most of the natural resources required for the manufacturing sector so it strategically used its comparative advantage of skilled human resource to promote labor intensive industries. On the other hand, India has plenty of natural and human resources but it failed to successfully utilize its comparative advantage.

Decades of economic planning produced vastly different results in these two countries. Korea became an export oriented country, whereas India became an import dependent country with a huge trade deficit. According to the World Bank, in 2013 the GDP per-capita in Korea was more than seventeen times that of India.

However, the EPB was dismantled by the Kim Young-sam administration in 1994 and the PC in India was dismantled by the Narendra Modi government in 2014. In both countries economic planning came to be regarded as obsolete and a symbol of the centralization of power. Economic planning has been replaced by economic globalization in both countries.

But the governments in both countries still pursue the developmental objectives through new strategies. Korea under the Park Geun-hye administration started the promotion of the "creative economy" to boost declining exports and the dwindling economy. In India also, the Modi government has initiated the "Make in India" campaign to encourage manufacturing industries and reduce dependence on the import of goods from foreign countries.

Therefore, although the institutions of economic planning in both Korea and India have been abandoned, the role of governments in both countries remains crucial for economic development in the era of globalization.





The author teaches at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi, India. His e-mail address is rkdhawan13@hotmail.com
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.
More than 30 years ago, as the AIDS epidemic exploded, the nation's blood banks banned donations from men who had sex with other men.



The logic was sound at the time. Tests of the era couldn't adequately detect HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. As a result, thousands of people unwittingly contracted HIV from tainted blood during transfusions. Banning donations from gay men was a drastic step, but necessary to protect the nation's blood supply.



Things have changed in the intervening three decades, though  including the science of blood testing, which gets better virtually every year. Tests are now so accurate and rapid that blood banks can tell with near certainty if blood has been infected with HIV even if the donor had been exposed to the virus just 10 days previously. Today, the risk of contracting HIV from blood in the United States is only about 1 in 1.5 million.



The advances in testing mean that a blanket donor ban on gay and bisexual men is no longer necessary. With that in mind, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration studied relaxing the ban and last year it wisely acceded to calls to update its blood donation recommendations and stop calling for a lifetime ban on donations from men who have sex with men. The FDA continued to recommend a ban on donations from commercial sex workers and intravenous drug abusers. Although the recommendations do not have the force of law, blood banks typically adopt rules at least as stringent for liability reasons.



The recommendations adopted in December were not much of an improvement, however. Men could donate only if they hadn't had sex with another man for 12 months. Why 12 months? Good question. There's no science that supports a yearlong donor deferral for gay and bisexual men. It seems the FDA chose 12 months not because that span of time is demonstrably safer but because that's what other countries (including Britain and Australia) have done.



But a year without sex is a de facto ban for sexually active men, making the new rules just as senselessly discriminatory as the old ones. This became clear to the public in June after the deadliest shooting in the nation's history, when a gunman opened fire at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. When members of the local LGBT community turned out to give blood to help those injured in the shooting, many were barred from doing so.



The incident prompted 24 U.S. senators to sign a letter to the FDA, asking the agency to develop "better blood donor deferral rules that are grounded in science, based on individual risk factors, don't unfairly single out one group of individuals, and allow all healthy Americans to donate."



The FDA agreed to reconsider its call for a 12-month waiting period. Instead, it said it would look at the feasibility of a system that evaluates potential male donors based on the risk posed by their individual behavior. This process is supported by gay rights advocates, some public health experts and the American Medical Association, which say it makes more sense than a ban that discriminates against people who may be perfectly safe blood donors. We agree. The waiting period should be shortened to a more reasonable length and donors should be evaluated based on their behavior, not their sexuality.



This approach would rely on an extended pre-donation screening process in which donors would answer questions about things that might increase their risk of infection. People could lie, of course, but they can lie under the existing system as well. There's no background check for blood donors.



But health experts say people who volunteer to give blood are typically healthier than their counterparts in the general population. Furthermore, the nation's blood banks have always relied on the honesty of donors. For the most part, that has been sufficient, because people are not donating for money or other personal gain, but voluntarily to help others. Besides, every pint of donated blood is tested, and with testing accuracy improving all the time, there's no scientific reason for a waiting a whole year.



It's time to end to restrictions that are based on fear rather than science. The FDA should shorten the recommended waiting period to a more practicable length and work toward developing a risk assessment model.





This editorial appeared on the Los Angeles Times and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.








By Ron Roman





"Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains" (attributed to Francis Guisot 1787-1874).

The American Millennial Generation: Raised on ritalin, marijuana, alcohol, and God-knows-what-else sloshing around in their brains, many of them  though not all, certainly  initially looked to Democratic presidential contender socialist Senator Bernie Sanders to save their day: "free" college education, "free" health care for all. Just vote for me, me, me! ("Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.) Fast did they swallow and get staggering drunk on this heady wine, indeed. (Never mind the U.S. national debt is fast approaching a potentially catastrophic $20 trillion.) And who to pay? Easy answer: Just sell off those "unnecessary" yachts and toys belonging to filthy rich white guys like Bill Gates, et. al., right? What do people like him "need" these things for, anyway? Why, we have to get our own basic needs met first. After all, we're "entitled" to them; it's "owed" us. So on it went: Sanders attracting ever-larger throngs of wild-eyed idiots, albeit well-meaning ones. Ah, "entitlements." And so their thinking goes.

Alas, angry pie-in-the-sky socialist Sanders was ultimately vanquished by one Hillary Rodman-Clinton. Not to be much outdone herself, she promised "free" college education for at least the first two years. Voters need "free" stuff, right? And while we're at it, let's finally legalize and get these benefits out to any and all of those 11.5 million-plus illegal aliens  ugh, "immigrants!"  forced by the American "racist" government to hide out in designated "sanctuary" cities. Then we can attack and shut down those "racist" Donald Trump rallies protesting all of this.

Only problem is, if we look at reports proffered by organizations like the Pew Research Center (hardly any rightwing research outfit), we find already beleaguered American citizens hammered by their own government to pay out at least $248 billion annually to so-called immigrants. (And this is a conservative estimate as of about two years ago. Probably more now.) So how do we spell "s-u-c-k-e-r"? Yet Leftist Loons lecture hard-working Americans (if they're lucky to be working at all) that they must continue to pony up, lest these American workers supporting Trump continue in their filthy "racist" ways.

But really now? Ever take a hard look at the Mexican government's own immigration code? Check it out. Find it translated into English if you can't read Spanish. See for yourself how they handle illegal aliens crossing their own southern border. No "sanctuary" cities nor billions of pesos thrown hither and yon to their own illegals. But that's not racism according to American Lefties, oh, no; it's just "racial preference," isn't it? While we're at it, let's open the floodgates and give a few billion bucks more to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from Third World countries like Syria a la Hillary Clinton's plan. Never mind they can't be adequately vetted according to our own top national intelligence directors. So what if any Al Qaeda or ISIS terrorists slither in with them? What are a few more Americans killed as in Boston, Chattanooga, Fort Hood, Orlando, Oklahoma, San Bernardino, Minnesota.? How dare that fascist guy Trump propose securing the borders?Must "embrace diversity," mustn't we?

I had a friend, a retiring U.S. military senior sergeant, diagnosed with cancer during his out-processing medical check-up. U.S. government wouldn't pay for his experimental treatment. Told there was "no money" for it. When inquiring about monies for illegal "immigrants" and the like, he was told that these monies were from other sources. Bulls**t! Same source: American taxpayer. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is right: Many illegal aliens get better treatment from the U.S. government than do our veterans, many returning home limbs missing. My friend is now pushing up the daisies in Arlington National (as in Cemetery). Of course, we don't hear this lamented by the leftwing all that often, if at all, do we? This past U.S. Veteran's Day on November 11ththey were too busy trashing and burning American flags on campuses like the Ivy League's Brown University and American University in the nation's capital. Damn those racists, xenophobic, misogynistic, sexist veterans. Why, they shouldn't get any government [I'll let any Big-Time Liberal fill in the blank here]. Or was the flag trashed simply because that Trump character won the White House.

Any leftwing Millennials out there feel "offended"? Don't take it all that personally. You see, I have a confession to make. When I was your age, in many respects I was like you, too. (Cf. Guisot's quote above.) But then I grew up, as most of you will, too. Just remember that for all you screaming "Not My President!" (November 19-20 Korea Times' column) millions of Americans said the same thing about Hillary Clinton because of her proposed "trans-hemispheric" open borders, un-vetted Third World Muslim refugees and so on.

Donald J. Trump won fair and square. Now he's slated to become the 45th president of the United States of America. Mommy, whaah.





The writer has written miscellaneous articles for The Korea Times. Opinions expressed here are strictly his own. He has taught English for the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) originally since 1996. He can most recently be seen acting as Admiral Forrest Sherman in the Korean War movie Operation Chromite," featuring Liam Neeson.
By Yoon Sung-won



LG CNS said Tuesday it has generated more than $210 million in the sales of e-government system services in overseas markets.



The company stressed that this is the largest business deal so far for a Korean system integration service provider.



According to LG CNS, it signed a deal with the Laotian government in October to establish a tax revenue information system (TaxRIS).



Following another e-government system service contract the company has signed with Uzbekistan in September to build an electronic library in the Central Asian country, it is aggressively pushing to expand overseas sales.



"We will continue to establish e-government systems tailor-made for each country, helping the governments boost administrative efficiency," LG CNS CEO Kim Young-sub said in a statement.



LG CNS established a joint venture with the Uzbekistan government in 2015 to set up an integrated government platform and database, and an electronic library system as well as a national geographic information system.



TaxRIS is ones of the Laotian government's 12 national projects to improve its taxation system. The Laotian government has poured 26 billion won into this project. For the deal, LG CNS has worked with Korea's National Tax Service.



So far, Laos has not had a system to manage the database for its national taxation system. For this reason, the country's public officials have had to perform national tax administration manually.



With the new electronic system, it will be able to streamline and standardize tax administration to boost efficiency, LG CNS said.



Meanwhile, the company said it is also pushing for additional e-government service deals with Uzbekistan and Bahrain. It expects to increase its overseas sales ratio to its total annual revenue to over 20 percent this year.




By Yoon Sung-won



Young entrepreneurs with ideas for startups based on public data competed in a public data startup contest, according to the National Information Society Agency (NIA).



The agency said the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA) jointly hosted the final round of the contest, held for the fourth time, Tuesday.



"The ministry will expand support for prep entrepreneurs by providing them with business spaces, startup education, consulting and promotional assistance to help them successfully launch their businesses," Interior Vice Minister Kim Sung-lyul said during the award ceremony at Nuridream Square in Sangam-dong, western Seoul.



The Ministry of the Interior also pledged to work with related government organizations to expand public access to data that can be utilized for Internet of Things (IoT) services while nurturing a data industry ecosystem here to support new growth businesses such as autonomous driving technology.



At Tuesday's event, a total of 35 central and regional government organizations participated to select 10 teams as finalists in the startup contest. The 10 teams were then provided with consultation services to refine their business ideas.



"The event will introduce more diverse startup ideas and services based on public data," the NIA said.



Among the 10 business ideas in the finals is "WAUG Tour & Activity," which is a web and mobile application. It is a real-time reservation service for tourism sites is based on an interface provided by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO).



Another is an application named "LUGA," developed by LUGA Outdoor. This app taps into hiking and trail route information provided by the Korea Forest Service and the Korea National Park Service as well as GPS technology to provide hikers with the latest location data in real time.



An application service idea named "myFit" is based on body measurement data of Koreans to provide the optimal clothing size for each user.



Two teams will be awarded the top prize and 20 million won each, and another two teams will win second prize. The total prize money is 86 million won.



The NIA said the government will offer multifaceted support on business launch to winners of the startup contest, including additional consultations and service promotions.




Samsung Group Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong speaks during parliamentary questioning over Park Geun-hye scandal on Tuesday. / Yonhap



By Park Si-soo



Samsung Group Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong said Tuesday the nation's largest conglomerate will stop paying its share of the nation's largest business lobby's budget.

"I will stop paying Samsung's share to the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI)," Lee said during parliamentary questioning over a corruption scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her shadowy friend Choi Soon-sil. "I will discontinue activities related to the FKI."



Lee made the comment after Rep. Ha Tae-kyung of the ruling Saenuri Party, demanded he play a role in disbanding the lobby group.



"I will do everything I can in my capacity," the vice chairman said.



The FKI is the nation's largest business lobby group and Samsung is the biggest contributor to its annual budget. The lobby group is suspected of having pressed its member companies to donate money totaling 77 billion won to two foundations that Choi controlled. Choi is suspected of siphoning off funds from the foundations.
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the nation's telecoms and broadcasting regulator, on Tuesday handed out record fines to three mobile carriers here for using illegal promotions related to packaging mobile phone, Internet and Web TV services together.

In a statement, the KCC said it fined SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. a total of 10.7 billion won for their unfair marketing practices.

The smallest carrier LG Uplus was fined 4.59 billion won, while SK Telecom and KT were fined 3.75 billion won and 2.33 billion won each.

The mobile carriers were criticized for giving promotions worth about 500,000 won to each customer who subscribed to the package of three services.

In terms of fines related to bundling services, the combined fines were the largest ever, the KCC said.

In 2011, the three mobile carriers were fined a total of 7.89 billion won for unfair marketing practices related to their bundling services. (Yonhap)
U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a controversial supporter of Brexit, was spotted fleeing the scene after failing to name Park Geun-hye, the politically embroiled South Korean President. / Screen captured from YouTube



By Lee Han-soo



U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a controversial supporter of Brexit, was spotted fleeing the scene after failing to name Park Geun-hye, the politically embroiled South Korean President.

The question was asked during a live interview by Dermot Murnaghan, a reporter for Britain's Sky News.

Instead of answering, Johnson avoided the question, removed the headset he had been wearing and was seen leaving the scene.

"We are not getting into a pub quiz about leaders around the world," Johnson said before exiting. "I have a terrible feeling if I keep answering you, you will keep coming back with more."

Murnaghan has long questioned British politicians about heads of foreign nations.

In September, he asked Emily Thornberry, the foreign secretary for the Labor Party, the name of the French foreign minister -- Jean-Marc Ayrault.

She failed to answer the question and suggested she was being treated unfairly by the news network, saying that Johnson had never been asked such questions.

However, when Johnson was asked the same question he correctly named the French foreign minister.
One night my father beat me up, dragged me [across the floor] with people watching and no one did anything, said Samia.

My father has always been an abuser. When he was around, he would to beat me, insult me, constantly humiliate me and even [sexually abuse] me since I was a kid, said Samia, who is in her twenties.

But this night was like no other, I feel like a part of me was lost after this incident.

After her parents' divorce a couple of years ago, Samia chose to live with her mother, as she was not a minor, but then her father kicked the two of them out of the family house.

He abused my mother as well for many years till she was finally able to ask for a divorce, but he left her hanging for a couple of years while he married another woman.

During the first night in our new apartment after we were expelled, he came along with a lot of people to force me to go home with him, he beat me with his hands and his legs, slapped me and dragged me from my hair in front of everyone, recalled Samia.

When I first heard him arrive, I locked myself in a room while trying to contact the police, but in the very brief phone call, the police official kept asking pointless questions till my father broke into my room.

A lot of people were watching passively, even our new neighbours spread rumours about me afterwards, saying it was probably because of inappropriate behaviour or Urfi marriage, she said, referring to civil unions that are not registered with the state and are considered improper by many Egyptians.

Samia spent the night at her fathers place where he continued to beat her until her mother was able to call the police and get her the next day.

I was badly injured and had bone fractures; I was not able to leave the house for six months. I could not go to my university, she recounts.

But it was not just about the physical pain. I have been psychologically devastated; I have had low self-confidence ever since, unable to socialise and with low trust in people.

I felt afraid, terrorised and humiliated, she said, adding that he has since threatened to do this again, saying he is my father and can therefore do whatever he wants, he can lock me up and beat me once again.

What upsets me is that a lot of people told me, so what?.

Samia is not alone. At least 18 percent of adult Egyptian women have reportedly experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of family members or close acquaintances in 2015, according to official estimates by Egypt's Economic Cost of Gender Based Violence Survey (ECGBVS), published in June 2016.

Around 46 percent of married women aged 18 to 64 years in Egypt have experienced some form of spousal violence, whether physical, emotional or sexual, according to the same survey, which was conducted by Egypt's official statistic body the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), the National Council of Women (NCW) and the United Nations Fund for Population Agency (UNFPA).

One out of four married women has been subjected to physical violence at one point in their lives by their current or former husband, according to 2014 statistics from the Demographic and Health Survey.

Normalised violence

Gender-based domestic violence has long been normalised for many in Egypt, though recently the issue has come under the spotlight amid calls on social media for a law criminalising such violence.

Lamya Lotfey, who works at the New Woman Foundation, said I came across a case in Sharqiya governorate where a husband suspected his wife was cheating on him just because he heard her say on the phone that she would not go out that day, so he locked in their home and beat her to death.

Suspicion is treated as a cause for violence even if it might lead to murder. Honour killings are common [in Egypt], they are not rare as some claim, said Lotfey, who has worked closely with survivors of gender-based domestic violence.

Lotfey says the problem is that society treats it as normal, blaming the woman, and if a woman decides to take legal action, a social stigma is attached to her. If she has children, they will also be stigmatised.

People would say to her children, your mother imprisoned your father, she said, adding that if she has a daughter, any potential groom or his family would say she will put her husband in jail as her mother did.

Lotfey asserts that the most prevalent and often unrecognised form of domestic violence is psychological violence, such as imprisoning women or girls at home, refusing to grant a woman a divorce or threatening to prevent a mother from seeing her kids if she leaves.

Another reason why the problem persists is the economic dependence of women. Where would she go? What are the alternatives for women?

Further explaining the cycle of violence, Lotfey said that women sometimes end up beating their children, which shows there is no awareness of the psychological impacts of violence.

In 2015, children from 300,000 families suffered from nightmares and fear, and children from 113,000 families were absent from school due to violence perpetuated by husbands, according to the ECGBVS estimates.

Magda Adly, director of the Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, highlights that Egyptian film and television dramas include a lot of scenes of violence against women, including verbal insults sometimes even killing.

The way women are portrayed in television reinforces violence, Adly elaborates, saying that the negative images [of women] in the media are the most prevalent and most watched.

Nada Nashaat, advocacy coordinator at the Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA), said that even though domestic violence is more in the spotlight nowadays, its definition remains vague [in society].

Domestic violence is not only the act of beating. Verbal abuse and marital rape are also forms of domestic violence, Nashaat said.

Domestic violence against women is defined by the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

'Detainees inside Egyptian homes'

Over a year ago, a campaign calling for a law to protect girls from domestic violence was launched in Cairo.

According to the description on its Facebook page, the campaign addresses domestic violence against girls because girls are not able to speak up since they are often subjected to this violence at the hands of their close family members.

Shortly after its launch, the campaign hosted an event for women to share their stories with violence, whether it was a result of a personal choice on their part, such as taking off the veil, or they were subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), or due to patriarchal concepts such as child marriage or honour crimes.

Shaimaa Tantawy, one of the founders of the Law to protect girls from domestic violence, told Ahram Online that the campaign started when a colleague of mine wrote a post more than a year ago on Facebook about gender-based domestic violence, referring to the survivors as detainees inside Egyptian homes.

Her post received massive feedback and horrible accounts of violence, and then we got the idea of launching a comprehensive campaign, Tantawy said.

We started the campaign with lawyers, therapists and volunteers to provide support for the survivors of domestic violence, as well as draft a law to combat domestic abuse and create a lobby group for [this goal].

Our campaign aims to counter this abuse, Tantawy said.

When I saw some women the other day bravely recounting their abuse stories on television, I felt there is hope to overcome this.

Efforts

A number of civil society organisations including the National Council for Women and the Egyptian Centre for Womens Rights (ECWR) provide legal aid for women in divorce proceedings.

There is not much awareness in the country about avenues for psychological support, so women do not often seek it as often as they seek legal support.

To them, there are only two options; either stay and be abused or leave and be stigmatised, so many women remain in abusive family relationships, whether with spouses, fathers or close relatives without seeking any help.

Egypt's Ministry of Social Solidarity has nine shelters for women, while CEWLA is the only NGO that has a shelter for female survivors of violence.

The Nadeem Centre is one of the pioneering civil society organisations providing services for victims and working on prevention.

Civil society began its work [in Egypt] on the issue of violence against women in the private sphere in 1994 at the Cairo Conference, and this was within the framework of preparing for the Beijing conference of 1995, Adly said.

At this conference, Nadeem and the New Woman Foundation participated in the first field research addressing the issue of violence against women.

The Nadeem Centre provides psychological, social and rehabilitative support [in cases of divorce or separation] to victims of domestic violence and rape... and has provided legal counselling since 2002.

Now, Nadeem is not the only organisation that provides services for women survivors of domestic violence, as more rights and feminist centres are providing services, Adly said.

Domestic violence not a crime

Article 11 of the Egyptian constitution stipulates that the state shall be committed to protecting women against all forms of violence and shall guarantee that women are empowered to reconcile their family responsibilities with their work commitments.

However, domestic violence against women specifically is not criminalised under Egyptian law, though assaults leading to severe injury can be treated as a felony.

Articles 60 and 17 of the penal code, however, are commonly used to allow abusers to get away with their crimes, as both Nashaat and Lotfey explain.

Article 60 stipulates that the provisions of the penal code shall not apply to any deed committed in good faith, pursuant to a right determined by virtue of Sharia Law.

So if a man hits his daughter or his wife within good faith of disciplining her, he can be exonerated in accordance with this text.

Article 7 states that in felony counts, if the conditions of the crime for which public prosecution is initiated permit a show of clemency on the part of the judge, the penalty may be reduced.

Lotfey highlights that the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest criminal court, ruled in 1965 that a husband has the right to discipline his wife in a way that does not cause permanent physical damage.

Lotfey also says that interpretations of some religious texts allegedly allowing husbands to physically discipline women are problematic.

Although Egyptian law does not strictly follow Sharia, the constitution states that the "principles" of Sharia Law are the main source of legislation.

Nashaat highlights that CEWLA is working on a personal status code draft law to amend the aforementioned legislation.

CEWLA is working on religious discourse by also looking at the interpretations of other Muslim-majority countries such as Morocco, Tunisia and Malaysia, Nashat said.

In 2005, the Nadeem Centre drafted a bill to criminalise domestic violence against women.

We went to Egypt's governorates to discuss [the bill] with civil society organisations and abused women who seek help from NGOs, as well as lawyers, judges, media members and parliamentarians, and later on included activists in the steering committee working on the final draft, Adly recounts.

In 2008, [Nadeem] presented the draft law to parliament and we did not receive any response. In [the new parliament of] 2010, it was resubmitted to the parliament speaker, who agreed to refer to it to parliaments committee on proposals and complaints.

However, after the eruption of the 25 January Revolution in 2011, the bill was stuck in limbo, and this is where the issue still stands, Adly said.

Countering domestic violence against Egyptian women

In May 2015, Egypt launched a nationwide project to combat violence against women to be implemented from 2015 to 2020.

Arab Countries such as Morocco and Jordan have already criminalised domestic violence and more countries in the region are moving now to do likewise.

According to the Egyptian cabinet's website, the National Council for Women (NCW) will coordinate with state bodies and NGOs to enhance efforts aimed at reducing community and family violence against women and to rehabilitate victims.

NCW member Dina Hussein said that the council has finished drafting a comprehensive violence against women law incorporating a broad definition of domestic violence against women and girls that includes marital rape.

It [the draft law] is now in the phase of community dialogue, said Hussein, who is also a member of the legislative committee of the NCW.

The problem is cultural, so the law would be used as a tool to counter it, she said, adding that the NCW is planning to conduct a nationwide study on its prevalence.

Domestic violence, which also affects children and Egyptian society as a whole, costs women and their households EGP 149 billion yearly.

Egypt ranks 132 out of 144 countries in gender equality, making it among the 20 bottom countries globally, according to the Global Gender Gap report 2016 published by the World Economic Forum.

It took me a lot of time to stand up to my father and I finally did, but I want to share my story because it is not in his right to beat me as [people] said, Samia concluded.



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Egypt's army announced on Tuesday that security forces killed eight militants and arrested 12 others in an operation in North Sinai.

In the statement reported by state news agency MENA, the army said security forces raided and destroyed a number of buildings used by militants to hide and monitor security forces in the area and a cache of explosive devices.

In mid-October, Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi extended a state of emergency in designated areas of the North Sinai governorate for three months, starting 31 October.

The Egyptian army and police have been battling an entrenched Islamist insurgency for several years in North Sinai.

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Egypts foreign ministry said that it had wanted to delay putting the draft resolution to a vote so that all Security Council members could agree on it

Egypt was in favour of continuing consultations on a draft resolution for a ceasefire in Syrias Aleppo to ensure consent from all members of the UN Security Council, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Though instead, the draft resolution was submitted to a vote that was rejected by the council on Monday, the foreign ministry added.

The resolution, which called for halting the fighting in the embattled city of Aleppo and allowing humanitarian assistance, was vetoed by Russia and China on Monday. 11 council members voted in favour of it.

In an official statement, the ministry said that "Egypt had made great efforts over the past weeks to consult with council members to reach a convergence of views on the draft resolution."

"However, some member states insisted on presenting the draft resolution for a vote as it was, which was not approved by all states," the statement read.

The ministry added that Egypt, which submitted this resolution along with Spain and New Zealand, had exerted such efforts out of the belief that dealing with the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Aleppo is a priority.

According to media reports, Russia tried to postpone the vote until at least Tuesday after the Geneva talks between Moscow and Washington, but the US, UK and France decided to put it to vote on Monday.

Russia also argued that the truce would allow rebels to regroup.

The vote marked the sixth time Russia has blocked a council resolution on Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, and the fifth for China.

The draft text demanded that "all parties to the Syrian conflict shall cease... any and all attacks in the city of Aleppo," as well as "allow urgent humanitarian needs to be addressed," meaning permitting emergency services to enter, AFP reported.

The foreign ministry added that Egypt hopes that the Security Council will "continue its efforts to reach a clear and agreed upon vision to deal with the humanitarian challenges in Aleppo and other Syrian cities to stop the killing of the Syrian people."

Aleppo has been a key battleground of Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 with popular protests calling for Assad's ouster.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have seized two-thirds of the former rebel bastion in east Aleppo since they began an operation to recapture the countrys entire battered second city in mid-November.

The most recent offensive has left more than 341 people dead in east Aleppo, including 44 children, according to British-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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There were no casualties caused by the blast

Grand Mufti Shawki Allam, Egypts most influential Muslim cleric, condemned on Tuesday the bombing of an Al-Azhar institute in North Sinai, describing it as vicious and an attack of terrorism.

Unidentified assailants earlier on Tuesday bombed an institute belonging to Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni Islamic learning authority, leaving no casualties.

However, a large part of the building was demolished, Ahram Arabic news website reported.

The Grand Mufti said the "vicious" attack mirrors "the terrorists' fear of learning and clerics who spread the moderate [version] of religion that combats their extremism."

In 2014, Dar Al Ifta, the central authority for issuing religious rulings which Allam heads, launched a department that monitors extremist edicts.

Egyptian security forces are battling an Islamist insurgency based in North Sinai, predominately in the north-eastern border area, which mainly targets police and the military.

The insurgency has rarely targeted civilians.

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Gunmen have this morning attacked and released dozens of prisoners at the Niono prison in central Mali, some 340km (211 miles) north of the capital, Bamako, officials say.

The army was able to catch some and is launching a pursuit, the Reuters news agency quotes Defence Ministry spokesman Abdoulaye Sidibe as saying.

Malian officials and local media believe that Islamist militants were behind the prison break

It is unclear whether there were any jihadists at the prison at the time.



Last month, gunmen broke into another prison, in Banamba in southern Mali, with the aim of releasing some inmates who had already been moved, the authorities said.

Several Islamist armed groups operate in Malis northern deserts.

UN peacekeepers have been based in the country following an intervention by the French military in 2013 to oust the Islamist militants from northern towns.

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A supposedly dead man was arraigned by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency at a Federal High Court in Lagos Tuesday.

Uba Ubachukwu Collins, listed among three Bolivians and another Nigerian, is facing trial for allowing a property in Satellite Town Lagos, to be used for the production of methamphetamine, a banned drug, as powerful and harmful like cocaine or heroine.

The second count against him was that he was also involved in the distribution of a controlled drug called Acetone. When the charge was read, Collins lawyer, Mr Mackings Ezenya told the court that the accused was dead. He sought to prove his demise with an affidavit deposed by him. But the prosecutor, Mr. Abu Ibrahim, urged the court to discountenance the affidavit as it was not supported with any doctors report certifying that the accused person was dead.



Justice Oguntoyinbo ordered the lawyer to attach a death certificate from either government or private hospital indicating that the accused person was truly dead . The other Nigerian charged with Collins was named as Basil Ikechukwu. He was charged with three counts. He was not only charged with allowing the said property to be used for the unlawful storing of the controlled drug, but also charged with aiding and financing the convicted Bolivians in production of the drug.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge. The offences alleged to have been committed by the convicts and the accused Nigerian collaborators are contrary to sections 20(1)(a), 12, 14(b), 20(1)(g) and 20(1)(f), and punishable under sections 20(2)(a), and 20(2)(b) of the National Drugs Laws Enforcement Agency Act, Cap. N30, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. The trial of the fourth accused person, Basil ikechukwu Uzoka, has been adjourned till 12 December 2016.

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Among the suspects arrested include professors from Cairo and Ain Shams universities

Egypt's authorities arrested on Tuesday 45 suspects -- including Egyptians and foreigners  who have been accused of running an illegal organ trafficking ring, the health ministry and the Administrative Control Authority announced.

According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of Health, the Administrative Control Authority and the ministry led the arrest of 45 suspects including university professors, doctors, nurses, medical centre owners and brokers involved in illegal organ trafficking.

The statement added that the ring was taking advantage of the current economic circumstances of poor Egyptians, who would sell their organs for cheap prices, allowing members of the ring to make fortunes.

The health ministry revealed that the suspects include professors working in the faculties of medicine in both Cairo and Ain Shams universities and doctors working in Ahmed Maher teaching hospital, the National Institute of Urology and Nephrology as well some privately-owned labs.

Ten medical centers and hospitals -- whose names were not released -- were raided and investigated according to a separate statement issued by the Administrative Control Authority on Tuesday.

The health ministry stated that most of the hospitals and centres were in the districts of Al-Haram and Giza and that some of them were not licensed.

The centres and hospitals involved in the case were closed on the orders of Health Minister Ahmed Emad.

A source in the Administrative Control Authority told Ahram Arabic news website that the ring had been under the surveillance of the authority for months, which had been granted permission by the prosecutor-general.

The prosecutor-general has ordered an investigation into the case.

Organ trafficking is explicitly forbidden in Egypt according to article 60 of the countrys 2014 constitution.

Egyptian law criminalises the trade of organs and penalises traffickers by up to seven years in jail.

According to a study published in 2007 by the World Health Organization, Egypt is among the top exporters of kidneys, sitting alongside of China and Sri Lanka in the last ten years.

The study stated that despite there being no comparable data for Egypt, a considerable number of patients from neighbouring countries are believed to have undergone illegal organ transplants in Egypt.

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Appealing to the more casual skateboard rider  think boarding to the beach or to run an errand  the La Jolla-based Sweetride skate company launched online at www.sweetride-us.com on Nov. 26 and then with a stand at the La Jolla Open Aire Market the next day. The company will continue to have a pop-up shop at the Market each Sunday in December. The Market is opens 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the La Jolla Elementary School campus at Girard Avenue and Genter Street.

There arent a lot of skate brands that appeal to the casual rider. Were trying to bring a fun, easygoing spin to this industry that we havent seen a lot of, said founder and La Jolla native Jameson Kearney. The intensity of competitive skateboarding can be intimidating to any young rider  it was for me when I started as a kid  so we want to make something less intimidating that anyone can jump on. Its that Sunday cruise rider were trying to appeal to.

To embrace the idea, the company has a slogan: Grab a friend, grab a board and get lost.

Herself a casual rider, Kearney grew up in La Jolla and attended The Bishops School. I rode on cruisers in middle school and high school, but I really got into it while I was in college at Syracuse University so I could get to class, and then when I moved to New York City, it was my way to get around, she said.

In talking with her mother, Dawn Davidson, Kearney got advice that would take her mode of transportation and turn it into her career. My mom said, If you have an idea, you are never going to have less to lose than you do today. So now is the time to try it out, its only going to get harder as the years go by. That really stuck with me. I took the plunge and moved back here to start Sweetride. I did research and development for six months before we launched the company, Kearney explained.

The brand consists of skateboards, apparel and accessories, and the difference is the aesthetic. There are four pairs of boards with designs that connect, similar to the friendship necklace concept where one piece says best and the other says friends that fit together, for a total of eight boards (each board sold separately). If I have a board and my sister has one, and were on opposite sides of the country, we are still connected, Kearney said. You could hang them as artwork if you wanted.

The colorful designs, combined with the fact that the founders are both women (Kearneys co-founder is Lake Arrowhead native Katie Stanfill) has led some to believe the brand is just for girls. We get that question all the time, are these skateboards just for girls?  Kearney laughed. Naturally the brand is a little more feminine because were doing the designs, so there is a little more color than you would find in a skate brand. But were not closing it off to just girls. But if it turns out to be a brand girls can use, thats not a bad thing.

The boards come in two sizes; a cruiser and a longboard, selling from $149. The boards and apparel are made from sustainable materials, such as bamboo for the boards, organic cotton or bamboo with recycled materials like polyester for the T-shirts, and hemp and organic cotton for the hats.

Im excited to be back in San Diego and making this happen. If it doesnt work, thats fine, at least I tried, but if it does, thats even better, said the 2009 Bishops grad, who recounted how her upbringing affected her decision to start the company. You always think, if I went to a different school or met different people, where would I be now? My experience at Bishops was a great one and growing up in La Jolla in a surf/skate culture, played a huge role in who I am today.
The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary

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PRESS RELEASE

Marine Corps Commandant Neller: Gen. Mattis Tries To Win, First, Without Fighting

Dec. 5, 2016 (EIRNS)Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller provided an important insight into the way Gen. James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trumps nominee for Secretary of Defense, conducts military operations. He told a conference at the Ronald Reagan President Library in Simi Valley, California, on Dec. 3, that Mattis works hard to avoid fights when theyre not necessary, reports Military.com.

"I never met anybody who tried harder to win without fighting," he said. Mattis has a special talent for matching goals with means and "how to engage below the level of conflict," Neller said.

Neller added that, at the same time, he had also "never met anybodyif you have a fighttheres no way were 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.

"Hes a very measured guy. He listens and hes decisive. Im confident that when he makes the calls" to 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.
PRESS RELEASE

Joint Russian-Chinese Campaign for New Silk Road in Germany

Dec. 5, 2016 (EIRNS)In a first, Chinese and Russian diplomatic envoys to Germany appeared together prominently at a symposium on the "Silk Road Initiative," organized by the Berlin Friday Roundtable and the Chinese Embassy. Before an audience of about 200 guests, Chinese Ambassador Shi Mingde and Deputy Russian Ambassador Yury Stetsenko discussed the opportunities offered by the economic belt developed along the Silk Road.

The Roundtable is an association of students from numerous European countries who are enrolled at the Technical University of Berlin, for studies in information technology, automotives, electric engineering, and neurosciences.

In his keynote, Shi Mingde emphasized the long historic connection between China and Germany through the ancient Silk Road, which today is revived by the "modern economic belt" along the same route, connecting China as the second-largest national economy of the world and the economic area of Germany in Europe. With Russia entering this cooperation format, another "important economic area" is included, thereby creating the best conditions for comprehensive cooperation, Shi Mingde explained.
PRESS RELEASE

2017 Intelligence Bill Would Establish New Cold War Committee

Dec. 5, 2016 (EIRNS)Indicating the level to which the "New McCarthyism" has become engrained in the political structure, and the hurdles with which President-elect Donald Trump will soon have to contend, a section contained in the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Bill would create a new standing committee, with a mandate to "counter active measures by the Russian Federation to exert covert influence over peoples and governments." Passing in the House with a vote of 390-30 on November 30, another section of H.R. 6393 (Senate companion S. 3017) would additionally limit the range of travel of Russian embassy personell to 25 miles beyond their assigned posts, unless written permission is obtained from the FBI.

The new committee, composed of representatives from leading federal departmentsincluding the Director of National Intelligence, the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Energy, along with the FBI and others who may later be deemed appropriatewould meet monthly and specifically be tasked with

"exposing falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies."

The list of offending activities originally included: Establishment or funding of a front group; covert broadcasting; media manipulation and disinformation, and forgeries. However, it was amended to include: Funding agents of influence; incitement and offensive counterintelligence; assassinations; and terrorist acts.

Originally introduced by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in June 2016, it is not known who wrote the "McCarthyite" sections, 501 and 502, into the bill. A note in BuzzFeed, the only ones to report on the bills passage back in June, made the Cold War aspect explicit:

"A similar interagency body called the Active Measures Working Group existed during the Cold War, but it hasnt been active in decades. This new group would be modeled after its Cold War predecessor, one U.S. intelligence official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive bill."

The Senate vote is expected before the end of the year.
PRESS RELEASE

EUs Syria Plan B Wont Work Without Belt and Road Initiative

Dec. 5, 2016 (EIRNS)According to the Times of London, Federica Mogherini, the European Unions High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has put forward a "Plan B" for Syria, by which the Assad government would remain in power, and be offered financial aid in exchange for allowing rebel forces to remain in power in some regions, RT reported today.

Although few details are available, particularly in terms of the nature of the transition under discussion, it is known that Mogherini made this proposal two weeks ago, during a meeting with Syrian opposition leaders. Driving the discussion is the certainty that the Syrian Army will soon take full control of Aleppo, based on its military successes.

Nothing has been specified as to an amount of money the EU is willing to offer, but as Schiller Institute Helga Zepp-LaRouche pointed out today, only a plan to incorporate Syria into the New Silk Road and launch a Marshall Plan to rebuild itinvolving Russia, China, and the United Statescan possibly work. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps appointee for National Security advisor, has called for such a Marshall Plan for Syria.

RT notes that the Times report on the EU plan makes no mention of President Bashar al-Assads future, a shift from Western demands that any resolution of the conflict must include his ouster. Brussels reportedly is willing to have him remain in power, but with the proviso that there be a devolution of power to Syrias provincespolitical decentralizationwhich, according to the Times, would allow the so-called moderate rebel forces to be integrated into local security forces.

The Times report also states that the EU is willing to pay Damascus, if it will lead to a reduction in the continuous flood of Syrian refugees into the European Union, which, it argues, is contributing to electoral chaos and "destroying Europes political fabric."
On Tuesday President Sisi met with the water and irrigation ministers from a number of Nile basin countries

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed on Tuesday to water and irrigation ministers from a number of Nile basin countries the importance of reaching a consensus on the 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, which aims to guarantee the rights and water security of all countries along the river.

The Egyptian president held a meeting in Cairo with ministers from Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda, who are participating in the National Water Research Centre's conference on water sustainability.

During the meeting, El-Sisi reiterated Egypts policy of non-interference in the internal affairs or development plans of any country, highlighting the importance of boosting economic solidarity and cooperation to achieve development on the African continent.

The Cooperative Framework Agreement is an initiative among the Nile basin states that seeks to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security.

Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Ethiopia have signed the agreement.

Egypt and Sudan, however, have refused to sign the agreement in its current form, saying it would affect their historical shares of the river's water.

The agreement, also known as the Entebbe agreement, is meant to replace a 1929 agreement that awarded Egypt and Sudan the majority use of the Nile River.

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The problem with bills in Congress that roar toward passage like juggernauts is that theyre especially worthy of close examination, and especially unlikely to get it. Thats the story with the 21st Century Cures Act, which reaches the Senate this week after achieving overwhelming bipartisan support in the House. Almost certain approval by President Obama lies on the horizon.

To judge from the huzzahs, the Cures Act represents a landmark in funding for biomedical research  a $5-billion bounty for the Obama administrations cancer moonshot as well as its initiatives on brain research and genomics-based precision medicine.

Simply put: 21st Century Cures is an innovative game-changer and a truly once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring our healthcare system light years ahead of where it is today, proclaimed Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the measures chief sponsor in the House. The measure is due for a vote in the Senate on Monday closing debate, with a vote for enactment likely later in the week. [UPDATE: The Senate passed the bill Wednesday afternoon and sent it to the White House.]

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This continues a trend of eroding standards at the Food and Drug Administration since the 1990s.  Michael Carome, Public Citizen

If universal praise for a measure makes your B.S. detectors twitch, youre on the right track. The 21st Century Cures Act is a huge deregulatory giveaway to the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, papered over by new funding for those research initiatives. The punchline is that the regulatory rollback is real, but the funding may not be  its subject over the next decade to annual appropriations by Congress that might never come.

This continues a trend of eroding standards at the Food and Drug Administration since the 1990s, says Michael Carome, director of the Health Research Group at the advocacy organization Public Citizen, which issued a broadside against the bill last month. We dont think there should be any further erosion.

Moreover, while theres widespread support for provisions in the bill offering states money to battle opioid abuse and for mental health research and treatment, whats overlooked is that the measure also cuts $3.5 billion, or about 30%, from Obamacares Prevention and Public Health Fund, which fosters work to prevent Alzheimers disease, hospital-acquired infections and other conditions.

One would expect Congress to ask the drug industry for something in return for regulatory rollbacks like those in the Cures Act. Remarkably, nothing in the measure would address the main problem the public sees with the drug industry  excessive prices.

When American voters say Congress is owned by big companies, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), said from the floor last week, this bill is exactly what they are talking about.

The 21st Century Cures Act has been meandering through Congress since 2015. But it was only this year that its promoters hatched the idea of combining the rollback of FDA standards with funding for the National Institutes of Health, which long has been starved of resources. That prospect brought many Democrats on board.

It may also have clouded their vision, leaving unnoticed the extent to which the bill reduces regulations on drug- and medical-device makers.

The bill opens a path for the FDA to approve new uses, or indications, for existing drugs without demanding thorough clinical tests conducted along customary lines. These include randomized samples, to prove theyre safe and effective for the new indications. Instead, the FDA could rely on real world evidence, which includes observations, safety and side-effect claims, and other data not subject to rigorous analysis. Thats a much lower level of evidence, Carome says.

A homeopath would love this provision, and, Im sure, so would drug companies, writes David Gorski, an oncologist and prominent debunker of pseudoscience and medical nostrums. Why bother with the time, bother and expense of those pesky clinical trials to get your drug approved for additional indications, when you can rely on clinical experiences?

The bill also permits drug makers to promote off-label uses of their drugs to insurance companies. This is a green light for them to vastly expand the markets for these drugs while bypassing FDA scrutiny. And it creates what Public Citizen calls an overly broad category of breakthrough devices that the FDA will be pressured to approve hastily.

These rollbacks are premised on the notion that the FDA has been a bottleneck in drug and device approval. As we reported earlier, the libertarian right loves to attack the agency for its careful approach to drug approval, even blaming it for killing people denied ostensibly lifesaving drugs.

In fact, the FDA often performs more like a rubber stamp for Big Pharma than a bottleneck: Last year, the FDA approved 89% of applications for new drug uses, according to three experts writing at Health Affairs.

The possibility of harm from overly indulgent regulatory approval is conveniently overlooked by industry mouthpieces demanding lessened scrutiny. Consider Mercks Vioxx, a painkiller and arthritis drug the FDA approved in 1999. Vioxx was pulled off the market in 2004 after it was shown to raise the risk of heart attacks. By then, according to research in the British medical journal Lancet, 88,000 Americans had heart attacks from taking Vioxx, 38,000 of them fatally.

Carome further points to the case of Essure, a device implanted in womens fallopian tubes as an alternative to permanent surgical sterilization. Currently marketed by Bayer, Essure was given expedited approval by the FDA in 2002 based on two nonrandomized, nonblinded, prospective studies that lacked a [control] group and enrolled a total of 926 women, according to a report last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. Experience since then has pointed to serious potential side effects and a lack of firm evidence that the device is safer than tubal ligations, amid signs it also may be less effective at preventing pregnancy. The FDA hasnt taken Essure off the market, but it has convened a new study panel and requires a stringent warning of health risks on the label.

Once the 21st Century Cures Act was dressed up with a handout to the NIH, the voices advising caution were drowned out. In the rush to enactment, they need to be heard more than ever.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.

UPDATES:

12:20 p.m., Dec. 7: This post has been updated to report that the Senate gave the act final legislative approval Wednesday afternoon.
The Justice Department on Tuesday cleared the parent company of Alaska Airlines to buy Virgin America, but imposed some route-sharing conditions.

The $2.6-billion purchase of Burlingame, Calif.-based Virgin America by Alaska Air Group, which will create the nations fifth largest domestic carrier, is the latest of a series of airline combinations that have put more than 80% of all domestic flights under control of four major carriers, American, United, Delta and Southwest.

With the acquisition, Alaska Air Group will account for 6% of the nations domestic flights, moving it ahead of JetBlue Airways Corp., which lost the bidding war for Virgin. Alaska officials have yet to say whether they will operate the two airlines separately or combine them under the Alaska Airlines name.

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Before clearing the purchase of Virgin America, the Justice Departments Antitrust Division required Alaska to slim down its code-sharing agreement with American Airlines, the worlds largest carrier. Code-sharing agreements allow airlines to sell tickets to its customers on flights operated by rival airlines.

Alaska Airlines and American Airlines have code-sharing agreements to sell tickets on about 250 routes. But Virgin America has competed strongly with American Airlines, particularly on transcontinental flights.

To ensure that American Airlines continues to face competition, Alaska Airlines agreed to end its code-sharing agreement with American on those flights that complete with Virgin America, including routes out of Los Angeles International Airport.

Todays settlement ensures that Alaska has the incentive to take the fight to American and use Virgins assets to grow its network in ways that benefit competition and consumers, Acting Assistant Atty. Gen. Renata Hesse said..

The settlement must still be approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

With this combination now cleared for takeoff, were thrilled to bring these two companies together and start delivering our low fares and great service to an even larger group of customers, said Brad Tilden, chairman and chief executive of Alaska Air Group.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.

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State Sen. Jerry Hill introduced a bill Monday that would require doctors to record antibiotic-resistant infections on death certificates if they played a role in the death.

Currently many deaths from infections acquired in hospitals and nursing homes are not publicly recorded, leaving health officials to guess at their toll.

Today we have to estimate the number of deaths from infections and we have no idea if that is accurate, said Hill (D-San Mateo). Were shooting in the dark.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that 75,000 Americans die of hospital-acquired infections each year. Because California provides between 10% and 12% of the nations hospital care, state officials estimate that 7,500 to 9,000 Californians die each year from the infections.

A 2014 study by University of Michigan researchers concluded that infections  both those acquired inside and outside hospitals  would replace heart disease and cancer as the leading causes of death in hospitals if the count was performed by looking at patients medical billing records, rather than death certificates. The billing records show what patients were being treated for.

The Times reported in October about the death of Sharley McMullen at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. In McMullens medical records, doctors detailed how the Manhattan Beach resident died of a superbug that sickened her after a surgery and other procedures at the hospital. McMullens doctor did not list the bacteria on her death certificate.

The bill, SB 43, would also require labs that conduct testing for hospitals and other medical facilities to annually give state officials a summary of how many patients tested positive for each type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Hill said state officials could use the information on infections and deaths to look for dangerous trends and create prevention strategies. The information would be reported to the public, he said, but hospitals would not be named.

Hospitals are already required to report some types of hospital-acquired infections to health officials. That data does not include whether the patient died.

McMullen was infected with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or CRE, a lethal superbug that is not among those that hospitals now must report. The CDC has classified the bacteria, which kills as many as half its victims, as one of the nations most urgent health threats.

The superbug caused outbreaks at several Southern California hospitals beginning in late 2014 that were traced to a type of medical scope that was especially hard to clean.

Torrance Memorial officials have not said how McMullen became sickened in the middle of 2014. But they said they had ruled out the two scope procedures that she had just before her surgery for a stomach ulcer.

Her doctor wrote on the death certificate that McMullen died from respiratory failure and septic shock caused by her ulcer.

A Torrance Memorial spokeswoman said Monday that the hospital could not release information from a completed investigation into the case due to patient privacy laws.

Melody.petersen@latimes.com

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By offering frequent travelers free membership to the Transportation Security Administrations expedited screening program, the agency can save money and speed up the screening process at airports across the country.

That is the conclusion of a study by professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who offered the idea as a solution to the TSAs growing budget costs and long airport lines.

The study tackles a vexing problem for the TSA: getting more fliers to pay $85 for a background check to use an expedited screening line that lets fliers keep their shoes, coats and belts on and keep laptops in their luggage. About 12 million people have signed up for the program, dubbed TSA PreCheck, and similar programs for international travelers.

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But the TSA had hoped to get 25 million travelers signed up for TSA PreCheck by now, a goal that the agency said would enable the TSA to reduce staff and speed up the screening lines at the nations airports.

The study, lead by Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor, calculated that if the TSA waived the $85 enrollment fee for 25 million travelers, it would lose out on $425 million a year in fees. (The $85 fee is for a five-year membership.)

But the study also found that if 25 million travelers taking at least six trips a year were to use the TSA PreCheck lines, the savings would total $459 million a year, thanks to lower staff expenses and equipment costs.

The net result would be annual savings of $34 million, according to the study, which was published in Novembers Journal of Transportation Security.

The analysis presented here suggests that the TSA can justify enrolling such high-value travelers in the program at no cost, the study concludes.

Still, the report noted that some bad feelings might arise among travelers who are not frequent fliers and are not offered the fee waiver. Also, frequent fliers who are now paying the $85 fee may be upset when TSA PreCheck is suddenly offered free to new passengers, the study noted.

A TSA spokesman could not be reached for comment on the study but Jacobson, the lead author of the study, said the TSA asked for a copy of the study Monday.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
Chances are, you encounter so many warning labels on a daily basis that you no longer bother reading them. And even if you do, its nearly impossible to determine if a product represents a true hazard or if youre just encountering a bunch of weasel words designed solely to avoid lawsuits.

Not surprisingly, this is a problem.

A paper published in the Harvard Business Review last week concluded that the U.S. warning-label system fails miserably at distinguishing between large and small risks.

To illustrate that point, researchers from Harvard and Vanderbilt universities said consumers should think about the difference between wolves (potentially very dangerous) and puppies (not so much).

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The problem with our present warning system is that it shouts Danger! for both wolves and puppies, they wrote. Such a system is of little value; people quickly learn to ignore warnings since they encounter vastly more puppies than wolves. The result is that when a wolf is truly present, people pay little heed.

There are few wolves in the consumer world as ferocious as cigarettes, which is why their packaging explicitly warns that smoking causes lung cancer.

But that message might be diluted in many consumers eyes by, say, language required by Californias Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. It requires state businesses to post signs warning of the presence of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects.

However, because the law covers more than 800 chemicals, such signs can be ubiquitous in a consumers daily travels. This, the researchers said, is a classic example of a warning-label puppy  yes, you could get bit, but its highly unclear if theres actually any danger.

As a result, it becomes all too easy to discount the cancer risk of cigarettes if youre told youre facing other cancer risks just by entering a store or office building.

We need a system that allows people to distinguish between a modest risk and a truly substantial risk, said W. Kip Viscusi, a professor of law, economics and management at Vanderbilt who co-wrote the Harvard Business Review paper.

Peoples eyes glaze over when they look at a warning, he told me. They simply dont read it at all.

A big problem, Viscusi said, is that U.S. companies err on the side of caution by overwarning of every possible risk or side effect as a legal precaution. By including all potential dangers, regardless of how remote or silly, corporate lawyers figure that aggrieved customers will have no room for litigation.

Perhaps thats why drug marketer Prestige Brands includes on its warnings for the over-the-counter insomnia remedy Nytol that the product may cause drowsiness. Its a sleeping pill!

Nytol users also are warned that they shouldnt drive or perform other possibly unsafe tasks.

Warning labels have been around in the United States since the Federal Caustic Poison Act was adopted in 1927. They became more commonplace when safety labels were required for food and drugs in 1938. Cigarette warnings entered the picture in the mid-1960s.

Expansion of government requirements in the 1980s made a warning labels a routine part of many consumer products, the researchers found. Now, in the early 21st century, they wrote, despite the large differences among products bearing warnings, our system is often one-style-fits-all.

Clearly the idea behind warning labels is an important one. Consumers need to be informed of possible risks before buying or using a product.

The question, then, is how do we make these labels more effective?

In their paper, the researchers said a first step would be to stop branding products as dangerous if they represent only a marginal risk.

This practice leads highly cautious consumers to lump low-risk products in with mass-marketed products that actually merit such a warning and encourages many others to simply ignore warnings, they said.

In addition, warnings should be worded so that consumers can at least roughly estimate the actual risk  given how each product is typically used.

A thought: If we can color-code homeland security threats, perhaps we could do the same with product-safety labels.

Viscusi said warning labels also need to become simpler and more straightforward, which means ending the practice of jam-packing them with every last possible hazard.

For instance, Pfizers Chantix pills are intended to help people quit smoking  a good thing. The warnings, however, state theres a possibility of suicidal thoughts or actions, anxiety, panic, aggression, anger, mania, abnormal sensations, hallucinations, paranoia or confusion.

Thats aside from a risk of constipation, vomiting, seizures, memory loss, sleepwalking, rashes and swelling of the face, mouth and throat that can cause trouble breathing.

To Viscusi, such extensive admonitions may do more harm than good.

The objective of warnings is to inform people, not scare them, he said. Listing everything linked to a drug doesnt necessarily foster better decisions.

To mollify lawyers, Viscusi said, the Food and Drug Administration might consider offering companies under its jurisdiction safe harbor after signing off on a warning label. In other words, the business would be shielded from disclosure-related lawsuits because federal authorities would have deemed its labeling adequate.

The FDA currently reviews warning labels but doesnt extend safe-harbor protection. Theresa Eisenman, an agency spokeswoman, declined to comment on Viscusis suggestion.

She said the FDA reviews academic studies as part of the body of evidence to further our understanding about a particular issue and assist in our mission to protect public health.

The researchers concluded that our cluttered system of warnings must reserve real warnings for the biggest risks.

Empowering individuals to make appropriate risk decisions is a worthwhile goal, they said. The present system fails to provide people with the requisite information to do it.

David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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Actress and writer Carrie Fisher, who rose to global fame as the trail-blazing intergalactic heroine Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, has died after suffering a cardiac incident. The following story about her new memoir was published earlier this month.

The blaster-wielding Princess Leia was just 19 years old when she began shooting Star Wars. Fans often forget that when actress Carrie Fisher was fighting her way out of imperial prisons and ordering the dashing 33-year-old Harrison Ford to jump into the garbage chute, fly boy! she was still in her teens.

Something about Fishers no-nonsense leader of an intergalactic rebellion made the woman behind Leias iconic bun appear older than she was.

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Fisher has a blunt, telling-it-like-it-is public persona; she has always been fierce in speaking her truth, even calling out the feminist critics of slave Leia as asinine. Shes a prisoner of a giant testicle, who has a lot of saliva going on, Fisher once told The Times in an interview. She does not want to wear that thing and its ultimately that chain, which youre now indicating is some sort of accessory to S&M, that is used to kill the giant saliva testicle.

This is a woman who, as the daughter of one of Hollywoods mid-century tabloid couples  Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who broke up his marriage for Elizabeth Taylor  has been a bit of an open book, writing about her prickly relationship with her mother in the book-to-movie Postcards From the Edge, being open about her mental-health issues and the solution shes found  radical-sounding electroshock therapy.

So imagine the publics surprise when Fisher cracked open the literal long-lost diaries from her time filming on the 1976 set of Star Wars to reveal a secret affair between the young starlet and her married costar, Ford. How did a movie phenomenon this large and a writer this candid manage to keep a secret like this under wraps for so many years?

The Princess Diarist, Fishers eighth book, is an unflinching, sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious look inside the mind of a 19-year-old actress in the throes of a Hollywood locationship.

Fisher offers up her unfiltered thoughts, poems and past missives, discovered while expanding her bedroom stored romantically beneath the floorboards, for the publics consumption. Sandwiched between hilarious recollections from the early days making Star Wars magic with the reserved George Lucas are the retyped passages straight from the actress personal diaries. No one gets a pass, most of all Fisher, who spends countless pages torturing herself for falling in love with a space pirate.

We could come to a full stop now if you think that would help, reads one short paragraph from Fishers diary. A short paragraph straight from Fishers journal says. Because like any other B-movie heroine, I cant go on like this. Can you understand? I dont want to hurt you any more than I want you to hurt me. Its now a question of surviving each others company instead of enjoying it.

Most of the book hinges around the fact that Fisher cant decipher whats going on inside the notoriously stoic Ford. She writes endearingly about one night at an English pub where the pair have come looking for a dark corner to practice scenes. Instead, Fisher spends the evening simply trying to make Ford laugh.

These passages read like a repressed high schooler with an astounding amount of self-awareness because, quite frankly, that is exactly what they are. Its invasive, juicy, sad, nostalgic and gripping all at once. Its as if youve knocked the lock off of your cooler older sisters journal and discovered shes been sleeping with the hottest boy in school this whole time.

The extreme earnestness of these private and very raw thoughts can be difficult to scan, but Fishers ability to self-analyze at such an early age balances the burning passion that exists only in the early days of ones romantic life.

Thankfully, The Princess Diarist doesnt get dirty. There are plenty of heated moments and flowery phrases that glaze over their nights together, but this isnt that kind of book. Its a tumbling look inside the mind of a young woman who is struggling to play it cool while dating a married man she prophetically knew would end up being the next big thing.

Having grown up around show business, I knew that there were stars and there were stars, Fisher wrote. Harrison was one of that epic superstar variety, and I wasnt. Was I bitter about this? Well  not so youd notice.

No doubt this book is a kind of wish fulfillment for copious Star Wars fanatics. Especially when its dotted with Fishers stories from sitting in the makeup chair, discovering Leias bun-look. But if youre searching for a story about the secrets of Elstree Studios in 1976 then, ahem, this isnt the book youre looking for. What Fisher has penned is a bold and deeply personal story from the lens of one of the few women on the Star Wars set.

Fisher explains why she waited so long time to reveal the three-month affair. Ive spent so many years not telling the story of Harrison and me having an affair on the first Star Wars movie that its difficult to know exactly how to tell it now. I suppose Im writing this because its 40 years later and whoever we were then  superficially at least  we no longer are now.

Fisher will always be Leia. Thats her very, very light cross to bear. But her personal stories are entirely her own, and they are much more raw and real than anything Lucas could have dreamed up.

meredith.woerner@latimes.com

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Earthquake proves an earnest, deeply felt drama set against the 1988 calamity that devastated a large swath of northern Armenia (then part of the Soviet Union) and caused more than 25,000 deaths. What the film lacks in high-octane disaster-movie thrills it makes up for with its focus on personal relationships, acts of heroism and a capable visual sense.

The script by Hrant Barsegyan, Arsen Danielyan, Aleksey Gravitskiy and Sergey Yudakov reportedly reflects true stories of rescue and survival culled from documentation and the accounts of eyewitnesses. The result is a crisscross of credible characters whose life-and-death journeys help frame the films gripping, often grim narrative.

These vivid folks include a vengeful young man reunited with the driver who caused the car crash that, years ago, killed his parents; an older couple at odds over their unmarried pregnant daughter, a gravely injured mother searching for her missing child, an unruly band of looters, a selfless Russian truck driver and other desperate souls.

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Director Sarik Andreasyan confidently juggles the demands of his large cast, the precarious action scenes and a clear commitment to veracity. The earthquake and its ruin, although set in the Armenian city of Leninakan (now called Gyumri), were effectively re-created on an abandoned Moscow factory site. (Pre-earthquake scenes were shot in Gyumri.)

Sporadic dips into melodrama, some on-the-nose dialogue and acting, and an occasionally intrusive score hinder but dont negate this ambitious films power and conviction.

-------------

Earthquake

In Armenian, Russian and French with English subtitles

Unrated

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Playing: MGN Five Star Cinema, Glendale

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 
On Tuesday morning Beyonce became the lead nominee for next years Grammy Awards. The accolades came just a few months after Formation caused national outrage.

The single  in which she proudly sings I like my Negro nose  sparked controversy with its provocative music video. The artist was shown atop a submerged police car and a young boy was seen dancing in front of officers with the words stop shooting us spray painted on the wall behind him.

And then there was her performance at the Super Bowl.

On one of the worlds biggest stages, she delivered the black power salute, paid homage to civil rights leader Malcolm X and dressed in a militant, leather ensemble inspired by the Black Panthers and Michael Jackson.

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Nearly 112 million viewers saw Beyonce upend her public persona.

It was the rare political statement from an artist who until that moment had spent most of her career striving for pop perfection with audacious anthems of female empowerment and sexuality. Critics accused her of being anti-police, condemned her ensemble and a Tennessee sheriff even blamed her for shots fired outside his home.

Months later she dropped Lemonade, a bold personal work that explored pain and rage through the lens of black womanhood. The album and its hourlong companion film is nominated for nine Grammys, including album, record and song of the year (the latter two for Formation).

From the confrontational approach of Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar to the jubilant gospel of Chance the Rapper and the simmering introspection of Solange, this years Grammy nominations are peppered with modern black protest music  works that provided the soundtrack for a new generation of young black men and women during a renewed time of racial unrest.

For as long as theres been tumult in this country, black artists have responded with music  sounds that have influenced and shaped myriad genres  that can be traced through slavery and the civil rights era to the birth of gangster rap during Reaganomics.

Today, with fraught racial tensions, police brutality, government corruption (e.g. the water crisis in Flint, Mich.) and President-elect Donald Trumps divisive rhetoric, theres no shortage of topical material.

Pushing back, be it against institutionalized racism or even record labels, was a common thread among the black protest music released by Grammy nominees.

We came from the back of the bus, talking Watts to Mobile, Now were on a house on a hill, De La Soul raps on the inventive groups And the Anonymous Nobody. The album, the groups first in a dozen years, completely eschewed a traditional record business model by being exclusively funded through crowd-sourcing.

Solange spoke directly to the black experience and its nuances with her ambitious A Seat at the Table. Regrettably the album got largely overlooked by the Recording Academy (its one of the years most lauded albums but it arrived on the final day of Grammy eligibility). Still, shes the one to beat in R&B performance for Cranes in the Sky, a beautifully uplifting anthem of catharsis.

Its not a coincidence that so many artists  both pop and underground or whatever  are creating art that is reflecting the times, Solange told W Magazine. This is the time that Donald Trump is going on television and saying black people are poor and uneducated and we dont have anything to lose.

Earlier this year, Chance the Rapper disrupted industry tradition when Coloring Book became the first streaming-only album to chart on the Billboard 200. The Chicago rapper rebuffs major labels and has yet to make his music available for purchase, releasing them to SoundCloud, free digital download or in the case of his latest, exclusively to Apple Music for a short window.

Chance declared himself the [Harriet] Tubman of the underground on Kanye Wests Ultralight Beam (its up for rap song and rap/sung performance) and warned major labels not to stand in his way on his banger No Problem, nominated for both rap song and performance.

On Coloring Book, Chance, also a nominee for new artist, delivered an offering of exuberant rap that was inspirational, introspective and deeply informed by gospel  a genre of black music that can be traced as far back as the 17th century.

He raps about his faith and fatherhood, but also about the Black Lives Matter movement and the gun violence that has besieged his native South Side and has contributed to a stunning number of murders.

And hes dedicated to activism, working with a nonprofit to provide self-heating winter coats/sleeping bags for the homeless, leading a social media campaign that resulted in a cease-fire in Chicago for 42 hours and parading hundreds of young voters to the polls.

Beyonce undoubtedly became the face of protest music this year between her Super Bowl appearance and the release of Lemonade.

The albums accompanying visual  nominated for music film and a video nod for Formation  included poetry by Somali British writer Warsan Shire, referenced Malcolm X and featured scenes with the mothers of slain black men Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

Freedom itself has emerged as a powerful rallying cry. The track invokes the Negro spiritual Wade in the Water, samples a reverend preaching during the Jim Crow era and has a fiery verse from Kendrick Lamar (its up for rap/sung performance).

Freedom! Freedom! Where are you? Cause I need freedom too, she sings. I break chains all by myself, wont let my freedom rot in hell.
As easy as it is to zing the Grammy classical awards year after year for predictability, sentimentality and the fact that no one person or group of nominators can possibly hear every single release, one has to admit that this years crop has some pretty worthy nominations.

Strong representation from the West this year includes Los Angeles Operas recording of John Coriglianos wonderful Figaro fantasy, The Ghosts of Versailles, and Santa Fe Operas recording of Jennifer Higdons melodramatic Civil War tale, Cold Mountain, both nominated in the opera recording category. They will be competing with a beautifully sung, screwball Salzburg Whitsun Festival production of Handels Giulio Cesare (with Cecilia Bartoli) on video, Yannick Nezet-Seguins speedy race through Mozarts The Marriage of Figaro on CD and a Royal Opera video of Karol Szymanowskis King Roger. (Videos compete on questionably equal footing with CDs.)

L.A. Operas Ghosts also captured a nomination for engineered recording, and Higdons Mountain scored one for contemporary composition. Both were released simultaneously on super audio CD by the Dutch Pentatone label.

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In other West Coast nominations, the Recording Academy continued to track the Seattle Symphonys Henri Dutilleux orchestral music project by nominating the third and final volume in the cycle in the surround sound and engineered categories. Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony nabbed an orchestral performance nomination for a compilation of three scintillating electro-acoustic pieces by Mason Bates. And the Esa-Pekka Salonen and Los Angeles Philharmonic live recording of Frank Zappas messy, incorrigibly irreverent 200 Motels was placed in Grammys inscrutable compendium category.

In the orchestral performance category, the San Francisco Symphony disc goes up against last years winners, Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony, who play more Shostakovich  the Symphonies Nos. 5, 8 and 9. Also in that category: an Ibert compilation from Neeme Jarvi and LOrchestre de la Suisse Romande, Prokofievs Symphony No. 5 with Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and some Christopher Rouse works with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. Though winners are rarely certain with the Grammys, the Shostakovich set is potent enough to repeat.

The contemporary classical composition category includes Higdon for Cold Mountain, Bates for Anthology of Fantastic Zoology as performed by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony on a download-only release, Michael Daugherty for Tales of Hemingway, Christopher Theofanidis for Bassoon Concerto and rock musician C.F. Kip Winger for Conversations With Nijinsky with Martin West and the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.

The flow of releases commemorating Steve Reichs 80th birthday logged only one nomination: Third Coast Percussions bold, propulsive compilation in the chamber music/small ensemble category. John Adams complex new violin concerto Scheherazade.2 earned a classical instrumental solo nomination for Leila Josefowiczs astonishing playing but not for contemporary classical composition.

In the category of compendium  whatever that means  the Zappa and Daugherty recordings are joined by a Gesualdo program on ECM, an album of Vaughan Williams recorded premieres called Discoveries, and an album of chamber music compositions by L.A.-based Gernot Wolfgang.

@culturemonster
This is the third meeting in Rome between Egyptian and Italian officials over the Cambridge researcher's death case

Egypt's Prosecutor-General Nabil Sadek headed to Rome on Tuesday to meet his Italian counterpart to discuss the latest developments in Giulio Regeni's case, an Italian student who was found dead in Cairo in February.

A statement from Sadeks office said that he travelled to Rome with a delegation from the Egyptian prosecution after being invited to Italy by Rome's deputy-prosecutor Sergio Colaioccoin.

It is the fifth such meeting between Egyptian prosecutors and investigators and their Italian counterparts looking into the case, after previous meetings in Cairo in March and November and in Rome in April and September.

Regeni, who was in Cairo conducting research on independent trade unions, went missing on 25 January, the fifth anniversary of Egypts 2011 Revolution. His body was found, bearing signs of torture, by a roadside on the outskirts of Cairo on 3 February.

Egypt has strongly denied claims that security forces were involved in Regeni's murder.

Italian officials have publicly criticised the investigations being carried out by Cairo, saying they were being conducted in a way that shows a lack of transparency.

Regenis murder has strained ties in an otherwise close relationship between Rome and Cairo.

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The 2017 Grammy Award nominations were announced Tuesday morning, with nods for industry veterans Beyonce and Kanye West as well as up-and-comers Chance the Rapper and Lukas Graham.

Stars turned to social media to lodge their thoughts about this years crop of nominees, from complaints to commendations.

See all the best reactions from nominees and knowledgeable cohorts below.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

Beyonc (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Check back throughout the day for more reactions to this years Grammy nominations.

libby.hill@latimes.com

Twitter: @midwestspitfire

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UPDATES:

11:40 a.m. This story was updated with additional reactions to Grammy nominations.

This story was initially posted at 9:40 a.m.
From a new Middle Eastern restaurant on Sunset Boulevard to a gin and tonic bar in Santa Monica, heres whats happening in the L.A. world of food and drinks:

More won ton soup please: Since the 1950s, people have sat shoulder to shoulder at the red counter at the China Cafe inside Grand Central Market, hunched over bowls of steaming wonton soup. If you stopped by for a bowl last week, you may have noticed that the stall was boarded up. Thats because China Cafe has closed for remodels. Its the latest vendor to participate in the markets ongoing revamp, which most recently included the opening of Bar Moruno and an updated Valerie. China Cafe will modernize and expand its kitchen, replace some of the stainless steel on the walls with black tiles and restore its sign. But dont worry, the retro red counter will still be there when the stall reopens. And the bowls of soup will remain the same. The stall will reopen early next year. 317 S. Broadway, Stall C 14, Los Angeles, (213) 628-8481, www.grandcentralmarket.com.

Gin and tonics for everyone: Ashland Hill has opened a gin and tonic bar called Brick Bar. The gin-only inspired menu was created by Vincenzo Marianella, the barman behind Copa dOro and multiple other cocktail lists around town. The bar has more than 60 varieties of gin, its own honey ginger syrup, and the plan is to eventually make its own tonic. 2807 Main St., Santa Monica, (310) 392-3300, www.ashlandhill.com.

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No more paella: Smoke.oil.salt. and Poco Wine Bar, the Spanish restaurant and its wine bar, co-owned by Stephen Gelber and AdVantage Partners (Adam Fleishman and Lee Weinberg), have closed. The restaurant opened in 2014 and was known for its paella and tapas. Both Fleishman and Weinberg are independently working on new projects. 7274 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles.

West Covina eats: The Food Hub, a new restaurant space that includes three different concepts, is now open in West Covina. This is where youll find fresh pastas, smoked burgers and filled Asian breads under the same roof. At Fresh Pasta Creations, you can find fresh pasta, sauces and bread. At Smoke + Burger, look for burgers made with ground beef smoked using apple wood, mesquite or hickory flavor. And at Stuffed Bakery, executive pastry chef Paul Rocque is making sweet and savory stuffed Asian-style buns as well as focaccia for Fresh Pasta Creations and burger buns for Smoke + Burger. 2200 S. Azusa Ave. West Covina, (626) 500-0850.

Where to find bastilla on Sunset: George Abou-Daoud, the restaurateur behind Bowery, Delancey, Bowery Bungalow, Twin Sliders, the Mission Cantina and Tamarind Ave. Deli in L.A., plans to open a new Middle Eastern restaurant called Farida in Hollywood next year. The restaurant is named after Abou-Daouds grandmother, and menu items were inspired by the owners Lebanese-Palestinian mother and Egyptian-Lebanese father. Highlights include chicken musakhan, lamb awarma (made with lamb confit aged for at least 30 days) and pork fried rice with ras el hanout. The cocktail menu will include an emphasis on rosewater, orange blossom, mint, pomegranate and fig. 6266 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.

Still hungry? Drum Room, a new lounge at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, designed by Kenneth Ussenko Design, is now open on the 26th floor of the hotel. Hunter Pritchett and Adam Midkiff of the Goldenboys pop-up restaurant will be cooking vegetable-focused Chinese food at Secret Chinese Delivery in downtown L.A. Wednesdays through Sundays. Antonia Lofaso has launched her own catering company called Antonia Lofaso Catering.

I live for Thrifty chocolate malted krunch. Follow me on Twitter & Instagram @Jenn_Harris_

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OK, kids, a quick moment to gloat: As it turns out, its not just you; its us parents too. We just cant stop staring at screens.

Thats the result of a new national survey suggesting that parents spend nine hours a day plugged into tech, with only an hour and a half of it dedicated to work and more than 80% focused on personal screen media.

And somehow, in an incredible disconnect, we think we are modeling good habits for our kids.

Share how you use tech in your family >>

To get a better idea of both the impact of such practices and the strategies to cultivate better tech habits for our families, and ourselves, I reached out to child psychologist Yalda Uhls and pediatrician Smita Malhotra  both are also moms navigating parenting in the digital age. Uhls works with Common Sense Media, which conducted the survey, and wrote Media Moms and Digital Dads. Malhotra runs her practice in Pasadena and writes about parenting.

Each answered separately via email. Their answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

(And full disclosure: This was written while parenting. The irony of having to shoo my preschooler and kindergartner away wasnt lost on my kids, who took great pleasure in their game of keeping mommys eyes off the screen.)

Q: How can parents preach about appropriate media usage if they aren't practicing it themselves?

Yalda Uhls: I recommend that the entire family talks about their media use honestly and openly, letting the kids be part of creating the rules. An easy way to do it is to use a family media agreement. The agreement is primarily to help kids monitor their use; but if parents agree to many of the same rules, then kids are more likely to buy in (charging devices out of the bedroom, everyone having device-free time, for example device-free dinner, etc.)

The other thing that is good to do is to narrate to kids what you are doing when you are using the computer for work. So if you are organizing a playdate for your child or returning an email for work, say Daddy (or Mommy) is answering this work email and when I'm done, I'll be able to answer your question. Kids don't know what we are doing when we are on our devices, so we have to help them realize that we use these devices as tools not as treats  most of the time.

Finally, guess what? Kids notice when we don't do what we tell them to do. There is no getting around that. You have to first set a good example. We are our kids first role model.

Smita Malhotra: Being too strict about limiting screen time in this day and age will most likely backfire. The more you restrict something, the more appealing it is to kids. We are currently living in a changing digital landscape where, in some instances, even homework involves screen time. So parents have to keep up with the times. Instead of looking for ways to restrict screen time, parents should instead see themselves as screen time mentors, guiding their children about healthy media use.

First, understand that not all screen time is bad. There is a difference between passive and interactive screen time. By helping their child work through an interactive educational activity, parents can use this as an opportunity to bond with their child. So in this way, screen time becomes a positive experience for both parent and child.

Second, it is important to keep some areas and times as media-free zones. Both parents and children should avoid screens during mealtimes to encourage mindful eating and family bonding. Also, both parents and children should put away any devices at least one hour before bedtime so as not to interfere with sleep. In general, devices should be kept out of the bedroom.

Finally, it is important to be flexible. Some particularly stressful or rainy days may involve a little more screen time than others and that is OK. I think it is important for kids to see their parents as human too, understanding that sometimes things do not always go as planned.

Q: But so many parents think they are doing a great job modeling responsible screen time. How can parents honestly assess their own usage  and then balance usage that's necessary for work and the other that's necessary for parental sanity or escapism?

Uhls: Make sure it's very clear to your child when you are working. But then when you are done with that last work email, make sure you put everything away and focus on your child. Boundaries are important.

Your kids will help you honestly assess your usage, but there are also plenty of apps that track time spent online. You can do a family check-in and compare notes. If you own what you do, you'll find your kids will be more honest, too.

Malhotra: It's important to keep a diary for a few days and document all the times you may be reaching for the phone that prevent you from enjoying real life or meeting your personal and professional goals.

For example, are you reaching for your phone during dinner with a friend? Or looking for text messages at a stop light? Are you checking your phone while your children are talking to you? Do you check your phone for emails and Facebook notifications before you even get out of bed in the morning?

These are all small habits that we can change to understand that technology is a tool that we use and not one that controls us. We should not feel obligated to check our phone or answer it every time it buzzes or rings.

Whether it's after the kids go to sleep or before they wake up, schedule one hour in a day for media use for sanity/escapism. This way, you can maintain a healthy balance.

Q: I see the upsides of avoiding a hypocritical do as I say, not as I do style of parenting. But are there any downsides to closely managing family use of technology?

Uhls: The downside is you have to admit that you use media as much as your kids.

Most studies find a very high correlation between parental and child use of media. In fact, one study found that the amount of TV parents watch predicted the amount of TV that children watch more than having a laptop or TV in the bedroom!

Malhotra: It's always good to be mindful of your habits with media use. Technology should help us advance both personally and professionally. Anytime it takes away from our personal relationship or interferes with our professional goals, managing our time with media is important. However, at the same time, we cannot restrict children too much. Learning to be flexible is just as important.

michelle.maltais@latimes.com

Chat me up on Twitter: @mmaltaisLA
Does America have a high school math problem?

U.S. teens still are performing mid-pack relative to their peers around the world on a set of international tests, according to a new report.

On the latest Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, tests, administered in 2015, U.S. scores stagnated in reading and science but dipped slightly in math from the previous 2012 results.

PISA tests 15-year-old students in 72 countries and school systems.

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, gives the two-hour test to try to measure whether students can apply what theyve learned in school to real-world problems. About 540,000 students were tested worldwide, 5,700 in the U.S. Students mostly took the tests on computers.

East Asian countries performed the best  Singapore had the highest scores in all three subjects  with Canada, Estonia and Finland garnering high scores on certain tests as well. Massachusetts, North Carolina and Puerto Rico also participated and received their own scores.

Out of a total of 1,000 points, Singapore scored 556 in science, compared with the U.S. score of 496, which was close to the OECD average of 493.

In reading, Singapore scored 535 while the U.S. scored 497. Massachusetts scored 527, close to Singapores top marks.

But it was in math where the real gaps appeared. The U.S. average score was 470, below the overall OECD test average of 490. It was 12 points lower than it was in 2012 and 18 points lower than in 2009. Singapore scored 564.

As Peggy Carr, the acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, noted, a higher percentage of Americas students scored at the lowest levels and a lower percentage reached top levels compared with students in other industrialized OECD countries.

The math scores seemed to contradict another recent set of scores, called the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS. That test, given every four years, found that fourth- and eighth-graders had made progress both since the 1990s and since 2007, according to results released in late November.

But, Carr said, TIMSS is a different test that examines younger students.

The U.S. PISA results were similar to those on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which last year reported a slight decline in math results after years of progress.

Were beginning to see a downward trend, Carr said.

U.S. Secretary of Education John King Jr. expressed disappointment. U.S. students are running in place in science and reading, he said in a statement. Were losing ground.

The latest scores come after years of major educational reforms, from the No Child Left Behind Act to the Common Core to changes in the way teachers are hired and fired. Potential benefits of those changes seem not to have penetrated high school math classrooms, said Jon Star, a Harvard Graduate School of Education professor who researches math instruction.

Weve had trouble implementing these huge, radical, grand changes, he said.

Star is researching small teaching tweaks based on the psychology of learning. An example is having students compare and contrast multiple methods for solving problems.

Not all U.S. PISA performance is bad or average, by the way. The U.S. did receive high marks for decreasing the connection between socioeconomic status and school performance.

You can reach Joy Resmovits on Twitter @Joy_Resmovits and by email at Joy.Resmovits@LATimes.com.

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House Republican leaders and Californias senior senator announced Monday a new attempt to pass legislation that would increase water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and Southern California.

The 90-page proposal was added to a water infrastructure bill that Congress is expected to vote on this week before adjourning for the rest of the year.

The deal sets Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on a collision course with her colleague, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who blasted the proposal as a poison pill and vowed to do everything she could to stop it, including halting all action in the Senate unless it is removed.

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The last-minute agreement is reminiscent of what happened before Congress adjourned December 2015, when the 14 Republican members of the California delegation added what they called compromise language to a must-pass bill. Feinstein was furious, saying she hadnt signed off on the plan, which skipped over the normal legislative process.

She filed her own water bill in February, and the language inserted Monday largely mirrors what she proposed then. I think this is the best we can do, after three years of negotiations and dozens of versions that have failed to make it into law, Feinstein said in a statement.

Described as drought relief, the proposal focuses on environmental restrictions that have at times limited water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

The timing of this deal is critical  we cannot afford to miss capturing water from storms during this wet season, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who represents portions of the San Joaquin Valley, said in a statement announcing the agreement.

Northern California Democrats and environmentalists condemned the language as an end-run around Endangered Species Act protections for salmon and the nearly extinct delta smelt. The proposal would override science to redirect water into the hands of the most powerful corporate farmers in the world, argued Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael).

Generally seen as an ally of Central Valley agriculture on water matters, Feinstein said she had consulted with state and federal agencies to ensure the proposal would comply with environmental laws and fish protections.

But opponents pointed to sections that deal with operation of the federal and state water projects that draw supplies from the delta, the hub of Californias water works.

One provision, for example, would let managers exceed the environmental pumping limits to capture more water during storms. Those limits have been a pet peeve of water contractors, including the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which complained of water supplies lost to the sea during last winters storms.

The agencies have been hyperconservative in setting pumping limits, said Jeffrey Kightlinger, Metropolitans general manager. This would urge them to use their discretion to favor more water exports.

Federal biologists have said the delta flows are vital for native fish, which have suffered devastating losses during the states prolonged drought, and help maintain the quality of the deltas fresh water supplies.

The Water Resources Development Act, which authorizes water projects across the country, was drafted by Boxer and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Different versions were passed by the House and Senate in the fall, and both chambers must vote this week to reconcile the two bills.

Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon, Boxer said inserting the drought language into the House version was a devastating maneuver.

The legislation boosts several California programs, including the Los Angeles River cleanup and Salton Sea restoration. But Boxer said she wouldnt tolerate the drought language, which she argued puts the interests of big farms over the fishing industry and undermines endangered species protections.

There is no place for that as long as I am breathing, Boxer said, stressing that she is not going to end her 24 years in Congress by allowing changes to the Endangered Species Act.

They are not playing a game with someone who will not play hardball. I will not allow this to come forward without a fight, Boxer said. There is time to fix this; all they have to do is take out this harmful poison pill.

sarah.wire@latimes.com | Twitter: @sarahdwire

bettina.boxall@latimes.com | Twitter: @boxall

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A 41-year-old man admitted in court Tuesday to fatally stabbing a AAA contractor who was helping a customer in Pico Rivera, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office said.

Tobias Ruben Cabrera pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for fatally stabbing Raymond Anthony Zabala III in the neck in June 2015.

Zabala was helping a woman with her vehicle outside her home when Cabrera, a transient known to frequent the area, rode up on a bicycle. He stabbed Zabala and fled, authorities said. Zabala ran to a neighbors home for help but died before he was taken to the hospital.

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Cabrera was arrested days later. He faces a minimum of 20 years to life in prison at his sentencing Jan. 31.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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The question at the heart of the most significant public corruption trial to hit Los Angeles in decades is clear: Did Lee Baca, a powerful and celebrated law enforcement figure, block the FBI from investigating abuse and violence in county jails when he was sheriff?

Answering that question will be less straight forward.

Jury selection began Monday in the federal criminal trial of Baca, who faces obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges that could send the 74-year-old former sheriff -- who is in the early stages of Alzheimers disease -- to prison for several years.

Baca also is charged with making false statements to federal investigators about his involvement in the plan to interfere with the jail investigation. That allegation, however, will not be argued in the current trial since the judge overseeing the trial decided to divide the case into two proceedings.

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Prosecutors allege Baca resented the FBIs efforts to investigate his jails and believed the sheriffs officials should, according to a television interview he gave, police ourselves. So far, the U.S. attorneys office has secured convictions in the obstruction case against nine former sheriffs officials, including Bacas top aide, but legal experts said prosecutors face greater challenges in taking on the former sheriff.

For more than 15 years, until he resigned in 2014 as the obstruction scandal enveloped his department, Baca served as the countys highest elected police official. He won reelection easily several times and built a reputation as a quirky but decidedly progressive leader who favored educating jail inmates and community-based policing over traditional law-and-order strategies.

His trial overshadows several other high-profile corruption cases against government officials in recent years, including those of Ron and Tom Calderon, former state lawmakers who pleaded guilty in a bribery scandal, and several top administrators from Bell who enriched themselves on the back of the small city with huge salaries and other perks.

Baca stands alone in light of the clean-cut image he projected and the immense autonomy he wielded as sheriff for millions of people with few checks on his authority, said Jaime A. Regalado, professor emeritus at Cal State Los Angeles and a longtime observer of the countys power players.

Having somebody of this ilk, who was elected and reelected handily, and who appeared to walk a very straight line as a reform agent  for someone like that to fall and to fall so disgracefully really makes it significant, Regalado said.

The case against Baca dates to 2011, when deputies working in the countys main jail facility found an inmate with a cellphone. The discovery led sheriffs officials to realize the inmate was serving as an FBI informant, feeding agents information about conditions inside the jail as part of an investigation into claims of beatings and other widespread abuses by deputies.

Instead of cooperating, the department struck a defiant stance. Prosecutors allege a group of deputies and higher-level officials devised a plan to interfere with the FBI by keeping the informant hidden and threatening the lead FBI agent with arrest in an attempt to intimidate her.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys public corruption and civil rights division have methodically moved their way up through the ranks of the group. They won convictions against seven of the low- and mid-level participants in a pair of 2014 trials, while another captain admitted guilt in a plea deal. Then, this year, former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka was convicted of spearheading the obstruction effort after unsuccessfully arguing that Baca had been the one pulling the strings without his knowledge.

To secure a conviction against Baca, however, legal experts said Asst. U.S. Atty. Brandon Fox will have to get over or around a new set of challenges. Bacas defense will center on his claims that he delegated away the day-to-day operations of the department and was largely unaware of what Tanaka and the others were carrying out beneath him.

Its the Im too important to know what was going on defense, said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor. I think jurors are open to hearing that kind of argument, especially from someone like Baca, who served the community for so long and doesnt seem particularly venal.

And where there was a lengthy trail of emails, phone records and other documents linking the subordinates to the crimes, there is no such cache of evidence Fox can show jurors to implicate the former sheriff.

Instead, the case against Baca will rest heavily on the testimony of several of the subordinates already convicted of obstructing the FBI, as well as other current and former sheriffs officials. Through them and others, Fox is expected to try to establish that Baca had brushed off previous warnings about problems in the jail and, while he did not directly orchestrate the effort to thwart the FBI, he conceived it, kept tabs on what was going on and could have stopped it.

Its always challenging to make your way up the chain of command, said Miriam Krinsky, another former federal prosecutor who led a blue-ribbon commission on jail violence. The higher up you go, the fewer fingerprints you see on the criminal acts at issue.

Bacas lead attorney, Nathan Hochman, faces his own daunting challenges.

He will have to counter testimony by witnesses who will place Baca at two crucial meetings in the days after the discovery of the cellphone and say the sheriff was involved in coming up with the plan to conceal the informants whereabouts and was aware of the operation as it unfolded.

Prosecutors also allege Baca lied to Fox and others repeatedly during a 2013 interview he gave voluntarily, when he was not yet a target of the investigation. The decision on Friday by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to hold a separate trial for the lying charge delivered a last-minute curve ball to Fox and Hochman, who had spent months preparing for a single trial.

Anderson made the unusual move in light of Bacas diagnosis this year of Alzheimers disease. While both sides agreed the diagnosis is not relevant to whether Baca played a role in the obstruction plan in 2011, Hochman said he wanted a UCLA psychiatrist to testify that the illness had already begun to erode Bacas memory in 2013 and was a factor in what he said during the interview with federal authorities.

Fox objected, saying it was speculation and could cause jurors to feel sympathy for Baca when reaching a verdict. The solution, Anderson concluded, was to have a second trial on just the lying charge. A date has not yet been set for the second trial.

Attempts to select a jury dragged on throughout Monday as Anderson privately heard dozens of potential jurors tell him why they were unable to commit to a trial that is expected to last about two weeks.

The selection process was also bogged down by Bacas high profile and the extensive media attention his case has garnered. Although it is common for judges to inquire whether potential jurors come to the trial with strong opinions already formed about a defendant, the process is especially complicated in this case in light of an earlier plea deal Baca struck.

In February, after prosecutors signaled they were preparing to bring charges against him, Baca agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of lying to investigators. In exchange, the agreement called for him to spend no more than six months in prison. Anderson, however, rejected the deal, calling it too lenient.

Now, potential jurors must be painstakingly questioned about whether they knew of the guilty plea.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

victoria.kim@latimes.com

For more news on the corruption trial of former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, follow us on Twitter: @joelrubin and @vicjkim

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Women who went on dates with a Perris man they met through a popular website banded together and turned to police after the man stole their purses and personal belongings, authorities said.

This is one of those things  women scorned, said Riverside police Det. Byron Adcox, crediting the victims with building the case. They just got pissed off. They did a lot of the legwork.

According to police detectives, 29-year-old Oscar Mandujano-Quinonez, who also went by Manny, would take women he met through the website Plenty of Fish on dates and then steal from them.

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Mandujano-Quinonez allegedly used his real name and photograph on the website and took the women on dates in his own car, making it easy for his victims to report him to police.

Hes probably not the smartest guy, Adcox said. I sat in on an interview with the guy. He admitted some stuff but denied others.

The case against Mandujano-Quinonez began in mid-November, when one of his alleged victims said that he got her to step outside of his car to look at something then sped off with her purse and other belongings still inside his vehicle, a silver Saturn, Adcox said. He then listed her items and other victims property online for sale, police said.

When police searched his home, they found other womens property too, Adcox said. Mandujano-Quinonez actually took the women on dates and spent time with them before the thefts, police said.

Adcox believes some victims may have avoided reporting the crimes at first out of embarrassment. But as news of Mandujano-Quinonezs arrest has spread, more women have come forward, Adcox said.

Mandujano-Quinonez was arrested Monday when he went to a Riverside park thinking he was going to meet another victim, police said. He was booked on suspicion of two counts of grand theft, misdemeanor petty theft and a misdemeanor probation violation, jail records show. He has posted bail and is due in court Feb. 6.

joseph.serna@latimes.com



Click here for a Spanish version of this story



For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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A fugitive Jamaican gang member accused of killing four people in a bloody gunbattle at a popular South L.A. Jamaican restaurant will make his first court appearance Tuesday, just days after he was put on the FBIs 10 Most Wanted list and then captured.

Marlon Jones, 41, is accused of shooting a rival gang member at an Oct. 15 birthday party at a home that had been converted into a Caribbean restaurant. That shooting and an ensuing gunbattle left four people dead and 10 injured.

Jones has been charged with four counts of murder along with the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, making him eligible for the death penalty.

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Jones was captured Friday after a car chase on the 110 Freeway near the Adams Boulevard exit while being pursued by FBI agents, said Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman.

The FBI Fugitive Task Force had received a tip earlier on Jones whereabouts, she said.

A day earlier, the federal agency announced that it was offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Jones capture.

Jones has a lengthy history of violence and belongs to a Jamaican criminal gang that operates on the U.S. East Coast, L.A. Police Department investigators say. The group is involved in large-scale drug distribution, and Jones and other members may have come to L.A. to settle a dispute with rivals, authorities said.

Jones, a Jamaican national, had been living in New York, authorities said. He was in the U.S. illegally and was known to use a variety of aliases, including Rasheen Brantley, Floyd Evans Jr. and Junior. He operated in New Jersey, Connecticut, Tennessee and California, as well as the Caribbean.

richard.winton@latimes.com

Follow @lacrimes on Twitter

Times staff writer Joseph Serna contributed to this report.

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The California Ku Klux Klan leader who led a white lives matter rally that erupted in violence in Anaheim this year was arrested last week in connection with a North Carolina stabbing hours before a Klan parade celebrating Donald Trumps election, authorities said Tuesday.

William Hagen and a second person were charged with assault after they stabbed another Klan member shortly before the victory parade about 20 miles away in Roxboro, N.C., according to Capt. Frank Rose, who oversees criminal investigations for the Caswell County Sheriffs Office in North Carolina.

Hagen and Chris Barker, whom experts described as a national Klan leader, were involved in an argument with Richard Dillon at Barkers Yanceyville, N.C., home, Rose said. The clash turned violent, and Hagen and Barker are accused of stabbing Dillon several times, the captain said. Dillon was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released from a local hospital a short time later, Rose said.

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Dillon reported the stabbing to sheriffs deputies about 3 a.m. Saturday, Rose said. Barker was arrested at his home a short time later, and Hagen was arrested later the same day during a motor-vehicle stop, he said.

Both men are charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, Rose said. They are both being held in the Caswell County detention center in lieu of bail.

Attempts to contact attorneys for Hagen and Barker were unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for the Caswell County district attorneys office declined to comment, and calls to the county clerks office attempting to obtain documents related to the charges were not returned.

Hagen is the Grand Dragon, or state leader, of the Loyal White Knights faction of the Klan in California, according to Carla Hill, an investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, which tracks members of hate groups. Barker is the Imperial Wizard, or national leader, of the Loyal White Knights, a group of between 150 and 200 white supremacists across the country, Hill said. Dillon, the person who was stabbed, is also a known Klan member from Indiana, she said.

Hill said many Klan members had traveled to North Carolina to participate in the pro-Trump rally. Hagen, who also goes by the name William Quigg, often travels to attend Loyal White Knights rallies and was spotted at a white supremacist gathering in Georgia this year, she said.

Last weekends parade in North Carolina, which gained widespread attention after a reported surge in hate crimes after Trumps victory, involved about 20 or 30 vehicles driving through Roxboro with people waving flags and praising the president-elect, Hill said.

Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardinos Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said Hagen also traveled to South Carolina to join protests against the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse in Columbia, after nine people were shot to death inside a Charleston church in 2015, allegedly by a white supremacist.

Hagen, he said, has claimed in the past to have supported Hillary Clinton rather than Trump. But Levin said Hagen has openly praised Trump on social media.

Trump has received support from a number of white supremacists and ethno-nationalists over the course of his candidacy. This year, a white nationalist from Los Angeles was mistakenly listed among Trumps California delegates.

The president-elect has repeatedly denounced the adulation of such fringe groups, but critics contend he has not been forceful enough in distancing himself from their support.

In February, Hagen was one of five Klan members involved in a rally that quickly turned bloody in Anaheims Pearson Park. Counterprotesters set upon the Klansmen as soon as they appeared, and a rolling brawl erupted along a street adjacent to the park. Klan members stabbed three people, but Orange County prosecutors later decided they had acted in self-defense.

Seven counterprotesters were charged with assault or resisting arrest in connection with the February rally.

Hagen was on scene that day, and could be seen fighting with protesters for control of an American flag. He was thrown to the ground at one point and kicked by counterprotesters, but was later rescued from the assault by Levin.

How do you feel that a Jewish guy just saved your life? Levin said he asked Hagen that day.

On Tuesday, Levin said he did not regret helping Hagen when he was attacked in Anaheim, though he was troubled to see the Klan leader accused in a bloody assault less than a year later.

Violence is the most bankrupt response to the most bankrupt racist ethical vision. The way to highlight how horrendous he is, is to make sure that he has the free will to change. He failed, Levin said. But thats his failure, not mine.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.

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This story first published at 2 p.m.
The militants were involved in armed attacks on security personnel and checkpoints during the last two years, a statement by the interior ministry said

The interior ministry said on Tuesday that police forces killed three militants during a security raid in Upper Egypt's Assiut governorate.

A statement published on the ministry's Facebook page said that recent security intelligence revealed that some leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood's armed group were residing in an apartment building in Manfalout village, Assiut governorate.

The three militants, who were convicted and wanted in other cases for belonging to the "Sawaaed Masr" and "Hasm" groups, sought haven in the village to plan the execution of further attacks against security forces in the future, according to the statement.

The militants were involved in a range of armed attacks on security personnel and checkpoints during the last two years.

They were killed after security forces opened fire on them while they were in an apartment building, the statement added.

Attacks against security forces have become common in recent years but are mostly concentrated in North Sinai, where Egypt's army and police are battling an entrenched Islamist insurgency.

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Los Angeles ethics officials are investigating an allegation that the Police Departments watchdog broke city ethics rules by showing a reporter a confidential document outlining the movements of a high-profile inmate who was in special protection.

A lawyer representing Inspector General Alex Bustamante said he met with ethics investigators in recent weeks and had tried to resolve the case, which he said is ongoing.

Attorney David Willingham said his client showed a television producer a jail log for the inmate but did nothing wrong, saying the document did not contain information that could have jeopardized the security of the inmate or his law enforcement handlers and should not be considered confidential.

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It is unclear what led the commission to investigate, but Willingham said he believed the inquiry was an attempt by the LAPD to undermine Bustamante because of his oversight work.

When you have an active oversight officer who is seeking to make the department more transparent, its not uncommon to find a huge backlash from the department, Willingham said. What you see, in this case, is an extreme overreaction to the activities of the inspector general.

When asked about the allegations, Josh Rubenstein, the Police Departments chief spokesman, said in a statement that it would be inappropriate to make any comments regarding a possible ethics inquiry involving the inspector general. Rubenstein said the department was steadfastly committed to civilian oversight.

The publics trust in the LAPD and its oversight institutions are critical components in maintaining the legitimacy and accountability that the public expects and deserves, he said.

A spokeswoman for the Ethics Commission declined to comment, saying confidentiality rules prohibited her from confirming or denying the existence of an investigation.

The inquiry marks an unusual move by the board, which enforces city rules and can hand down fines related to campaign finance, lobbying, conflicts of interest and governmental ethics. Most of the violations handled by the Ethics Commission involve campaign finance rules.

The latest inquiry mirrors another case that ethics investigators took on last year, also involving a Los Angeles police official. Investigators launched a case against a now-retired LAPD sergeant who leaked to reporters an audio recording of his controversial stop of an actress. Commissioners are expected to give a final decision Tuesday on whether Jim Parker broke ethics rules by releasing confidential information and creating a personal advantage for himself.

But the inspector general and his attorney argue that he had the authority to share the jail log and that the information on the document  the names of officers and operations and court case numbers  could be found publicly elsewhere.

In a statement, Bustamante said he showed the log to the reporter to prevent the airing of a false and misleading story about the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies. He said that the city attorneys office had told him he was allowed to show the document, which was disclosable under state law.

Im confident there was no confidential information that was released or shared by my actions, Bustamante said. The incorrect story was never reported. Neither the document nor the underlying information ever became publicly available.

As inspector general, Bustamante reports to the Police Commission, conducting investigations and reviews on behalf of the civilian board tasked with overseeing the 9,850-officer LAPD. Bustamante, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed to the position in 2011.

The events leading to the investigation unfolded in January 2015, when Los Angeles police escorted a jailed, convicted killer to a private event in downtown L.A. There, the inmate  a former shot-caller for the Mexican Mafia named Rene Boxer Enriquez  spoke to a group of business executives.

News of the event quickly drew headlines, along with criticism from city officials questioning why public resources were used for a private event involving a convicted killer. Steve Soboroff, then the president of the Police Commission, directed Bustamante to investigate the Police Departments involvement.

Later, Willingham said, a producer from ABC7 reached out to Bustamante trying to confirm a rumor that the LAPD had also taken Enriquez to Disneyland.

Bustamante told her that the information wasnt true, Willingham said, and agreed to show her the jail log, outlining where authorities had taken Enriquez.

Disneyland wasnt on the list, Willingham said. The story never aired.

At some point, however, someone lodged a complaint with the Police Commission, saying Bustamante acted inappropriately by showing the reporter the document, Willingham said.

Matt Johnson, the boards president, confirmed Monday that the board reviewed the matter, but noted that closed-door discussions are confidential under state law. He declined to comment further. As far as the commission is concerned, this matter closed, he said.

Willingham also declined to discuss what action, if any, the panel took.

Less than a month later, an LAPD deputy chief who oversaw detectives at the time sent a letter to the Sheriffs Department, saying information about its employees  including their names, contacts with Enriquez and case information  was shared with a reporter. The letter, which was obtained by The Times, noted that the reporter had indicated she wouldnt use the information in a story. Its unclear whether other agencies were sent the same letter.

I am providing you this information so you may take whatever steps you deem necessary to ensure the security of your investigations and personnel associated with this matter, according to the letter signed by Kirk Albanese, who has since retired. Be advised that the LAPD did not authorize the release of this information to the media.

Albanese declined to comment.

Complaints topolice and ethics commissions can be made anonymously, but Willingham said he believes the LAPD instigated the allegations against Bustamante. He pointed to statements made by Jasmyne Cannick, a political consultant who often writes critically about the department on her website, who said she was approached by a department source about the inmate and the inspector general.

In a letter written to Willingham, Cannick said her source told her that Bustamante had allowed a reporter to see the jail log concerning Enriquezs movements and that the 10th floor  long synonymous with the upper echelons of the LAPD  was not pleased with the Los Angeles Police Commissions decision in the case.

My source also told me that the 10th Floor was tired of dealing with the Inspector General and wanted him fired, Cannick wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

The source then gave Cannick a copy of the jail log, she wrote, with the understanding that I would use it to implicate Inspector General Alex Bustamante as the source of the information when in fact the source of the information was someone in the department itself.

Cannicks letter said she would not discuss who the source was. She confirmed to The Times that she wrote the letter for the inspector general.

In October, Willingham said he and a colleague met with ethics investigators to discuss the case. They soon learned, however, that reporters had called the mayors office, the LAPD and Bustamante directly, asking about details that were supposed to be private.

Denying the leak came from his team, Willingham wrote a letter to the Ethics Commission, accusing the boards investigators of sharing confidential information.

Then he filed an ethics complaint.

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.

kate.mather@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @katemather

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The outcry began with a Facebook post: An actress, known for her role in Django Unchained, and her boyfriend accused a white Los Angeles police officer of mistreating her because she was black.

The accusation touched a nerve at a time of increased public scrutiny of police, particularly how officers interact with African Americans.

But within days of Daniele Watts story going viral, a backlash began when an LAPD sergeant released an audio recording revealing what had happened during the controversial encounter.

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Watts and her boyfriend ended up being convicted of disturbing the peace and were ordered by a judge to apologize to the officers and others in connection with the incident. Sgt. Jim Parker left his job, retiring early to avoid potential punishment over the episode  another casualty of a public spectacle over a 30-minute police stop.

On Tuesday, the L.A. City Ethics Commission brought the two-year, headline-grabbing saga to an end  at least for now  when the panel determined that Parker violated ethics rules by leaking the recording to reporters.

In a nod to what commissioners repeatedly characterized as the unusual nature of the case, however, they unanimously agreed to fine Parker $500, far less than the $10,000 maximum penalty he faced.

This is not about whether or not we agree or disagree with anything that Officer Parker has done, said Jessica Levinson, president of the Ethics Commission. This is our duty, as commissioners, to apply just the facts before us.

It is a violation, said Commissioner Andrea Sheridan Ordin, who previously served on the civilian board that oversees the LAPD. The question is: What are the appropriate consequences?

Parkers attorney criticized the decision, insisting his client didnt break the city rules and promising to pursue legal action.

Parker laughed when a Times reporter called him with the news.

Two years, and how much money and time was invested by the city? he said. For a $500 judgment?

No one questioned whether Parker shared the recording  he has admitted that in interviews with reporters, at a Police Commission meeting and again during a hearing this fall before an administrative law judge. Instead, the case hinged on whether that recording was confidential and thus, whether Parker violated ethics rules by making it public.

It was an unusual case for ethics investigators to take on  most of the boards actions involve campaign finance violations. The case has been closely watched by those within the LAPD, including the high-ranking members of the police union who have testified on Parkers behalf.

Honestly, Ive never heard of the Ethics Commission until Sgt. Parkers case.  Craig Lally, president of LAPD officers union

Union officials have accused the Ethics Commission of setting a precedent in which the board can unfairly penalize rank-and-file officers for breaking rules that the officers might not be aware of.

Theyre very worried because they dont know what the rules of the game are, said Craig Lally, president of the police union. Honestly, Ive never heard of the Ethics Commission until Sgt. Parkers case.

The inquiry stems from a report of a couple having sex in a car parked near a Studio City talent agency in 2014. When Parker arrived, he found Watts and her boyfriend, Brian James Lucas, who later wrote on Facebook that police acted as if the couple had been engaged in prostitution because Lucas is white and Watts is black.

The story quickly drew national attention, and the LAPD launched an internal investigation. Parker defended his actions and released a 24-minute audio clip of the encounter, captured on the recorder he kept in his pocket.

Do you know how many times Ive been called, the cops have been called, just for being black? Watts said on the recording. Just because were black and hes white? Im just being really honest, sir.

Who brought up the race card? Parker said.

Im bringing it up, she said.

I said nothing about you being black, Parker said.

Watts and Lucas later were charged with lewd conduct. Those charges were dropped as part of a deal in which they pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace and had to write letters apologizing to the officers and citizens who reported them.

Parker, meanwhile, continued to defend his actions as his attorneys fought the ethics investigation.

In September, both sides made their arguments before an administrative law judge during a two-day hearing. Ethics officials accused Parker of improperly releasing the recording because he faced criticism over the encounter. Parkers attorney, Larry Hanna, insisted that the tape wasnt confidential and said his client was being unfairly targeted for defending himself.

In his written recommendation to the Ethics Commission, Judge Samuel D. Reyes said he believed Parker broke the rules. But, the judge said, because of vague LAPD policy and because Parker didnt financially benefit from releasing the audio, he did not believe Parker should be fined.

Top officials within the Ethics Commissions enforcement section disagreed, urging the board to fine Parker the maximum $10,000. Finding him guilty of the violations without issuing a financial penalty, they wrote to the panel, would serve as nothing more than empty words on paper.

The head of that enforcement section, Sergio Perez, said in a statement after Tuesdays decision that the commission takes seriously its mandate to enforce city laws.

The ruling, he added, sends a strong message that this agency is committed to promoting trust in our citys government.

kate.mather@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @katemather

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7:20 p.m.: This article was rewritten throughout and now includes comments from the Ethics Commission, Sgt. Jim Parker and Craig Lally, the president of the police union.

This article was originally published at 11:15 a.m.
The manager of an Oakland warehouse said he was incredibly sorry for a devastating fire that killed at least 36 people during an electronic music event Friday night, but balked when asked if he should be held accountable for the loss.

In an interview with the NBC Today show on Tuesday, Derick Almena, who manages the building, said he was just trying to create a venue that would host at-risk youth, the gay community and underground artists. Almena said he signed a lease and I got a building that was to city standards, supposedly.

When asked if he should be held accountable for the fire, Almena became visibly upset.

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Standing outside the fire-gutted building, he said, What am I going to say to that? Should I be held accountable? I can barely stand here right now.

Almena declined to talk about reports from former residents who described the building as a tinderbox and death trap filled with RVs and pianos.

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)

I dont want to talk about me, he told host Matt Lauer. I dont want to talk about me. This is not profit. This is loss. This is a mass grave.

I am only here to say one thing is that I am incredibly sorry and that everything I did was to make this a stronger and more beautiful community and to bring people together, Almena said. People didnt walk through those doors because it was a horrible place.

He called himself the father of this space.

Almena said he wasnt at the warehouse on Friday night because he wanted to get a good night sleep with his children and wanted to let the young people do what they needed to do.

I didnt do anything ever in my life that would lead me up to this moment, he said.

Almena declined to answer questions about the safety conditions inside the warehouse, saying he would rather get on the floor and be trampled by the parents.

Id rather let them tear at my flesh than answer these ridiculous questions, he told Lauer.

The warehouse, he said, turned into something more than an artists collective.

Eventually you cant pay your rent because your dream is bigger than your pocketbook, he told Lauer. When the need for housing, when the need for people to be able to sit down and be warm and make food and take a shower and take a bath and go to bed, so we created something together.

The building was leased to the Satya Yuga Collective, operated by Almena. According to those who lived there, Almena collected the rent and lived in the warehouse with his wife, Micah Allison, and their three young children.

Almena and Allisons management of the warehouse was filled with drama and legal sparring with tenants and partygoers.

After an erotic-themed New Years Eve party in 2014  the warehouses twisted stairways, hidden coves and secret nooks strewn with pillows and blankets were billed as attractions  a San Francisco event producer, Philippe Lewis, returned to retrieve his sound equipment, according to court records, and was confronted by Almena, who was angry because his toddler son had found a condom after the party.

I explained things like that can happen at a large party, Lewis later told police, according to records.

A shoving match ensued, in which Lewis said he was scratched and his shirt was torn, and a friend who was with him said his arm was pulled out of its socket. An Oakland police officer called to the scene later wrote in his report that he canvassed the building as part of his investigation; the report did not mention any unsafe living conditions or a do-it-yourself electrical set-up, he made no mention of them. From the records, it does not appear any arrests were made.

In a subsequent request for a restraining order against Almena, Lewis said Almena threatened to get a gun during the altercation and noted that there were a number of bows and arrows and a box of bullets on display in the warehouse, adding a dash of immediacy to the alleged threat.

I am afraid this person might be unstable, Lewis wrote on the form, which he signed Jan. 6, 2015.

Less than month later, Almena filed his own request for a restraining order. His target was a tenant, Shelley Mack, who Almena said refused to pay rent and was physically and verbally abusive.

Mack, 58, told The Times that in the winter of 2014 she paid $700 a month to live inside a trailer parked in the warehouse. She had been drawn to the space by a Craigslist ad promising cheap rent. Once there, she and several tenants  between 10 and 20, depending on the day  shared a single bathroom. The building had no heat, and in November 2014 a transformer blew, cutting off power.

There was no electricity, and it was freezing in there, she said.

For his part, Almena said Mack tormented him and his family. During one altercation, Almena said, one of Macks associates pulled a gun and chased him with it while Mack robbed personal property, according his request for the restraining order.

Almena said Mack also repeatedly called child protective services with false accusations aimed at having his children taken away.

Alameda County Social Services removed Almenas children, then ages 11, 6, and 4, in March 2015, court records show. The reasons for the removal were not clear from the records.

Earlier this year, Almenas wife posted photos on her Facebook page showing the family reunited.

Mack, who said she was never served with Almenas complaint, denied the allegations Monday night.

Neither Almena nor Allison could be reached for comment by The Times.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

ALSO

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A graduate student has been charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of beloved USC neuroscience professor, Bosco Tjan on campus Friday.

David Jonathan Brown, 28, of Los Angeles is expected to be arraigned Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles, according to the L.A. County district attorneys office. If he is convicted, Brown faces up to 26 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors allege that Brown used a knife when he attacked and stabbed Tjan in the chest at 4:30 p.m. Friday in his office in the Seeley G. Mudd Building on campus. Brown was immediately taken into custody.

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It was the last day of classes.

Tjan, who joined the faculty in 2001, was a professor of psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and a vision loss expert.

As co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center, Tjan ran a laboratory devoted to studying human sight. Brown was a doctoral student in Tjans lab, according to a USC website.

The district attorneys announcement comes a day after hundreds of students, staff and faculty gathered to honor the slain professor.

Bosco died doing what he loved, doing what he believed in  serving his students and building up a new generation of scholars, USC President C.L. Max Nikias said. His achievements are real, his influence enduring.

Tjan led a number of research projects and conducted a lab course on functional imaging. He was also a member of the Society for Neuroscience and Vision Sciences Society.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

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Investigation into Oakland fire intensifies: Search to continue until every piece of debris is removed
For more than two years, the gray converted warehouse  where a massive fire killed at least 36 people Friday night  had been on Oakland officials radar.

Neighbors had complained about piles of trash and illegal construction. A steady stream of young artists came and went, giving every indication that the building was their home, yet the propertys owner had only a permit for a warehouse, not a residence. Officials had opened an investigation into possible code violations and an inspector had visited the warehouse but never went inside.

The administration has to tell us, well, what happened to the code inspector. Why did he just knock on the door and not pursue? said City Councilman Noel Gallo, whose council district includes the Fruitvale neighborhood, where the warehouse was located. This thing has been going on for 2 1/2 years.

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The city of Oakland has yet to release a full accounting of all city building or fire code inspections and investigations of the warehouse, but city records available online show at least five complaints had been investigated since June 2014.

As searchers continued to look for bodies Monday, there was mounting pressure on city officials to explain how they dealt with all the complaints and whether safety problems were ignored.

The warehouse was a 10,000-square-foot tinderbox with stacks of discarded furniture piled high, a rickety staircase made partly of wooden pallets, and a half-dozen RVs. Officials said they have found no evidence of sprinklers or fire alarms inside the structure, known as the Ghost Ship. And, according to the man who oversaw the building, it was also outfitted with his homemade electrical repairs, which he did not obtain permits for. Derick Almena told NBC News on Monday that he made those repairs because the landlord refused.

Chor N. Ng, the warehouse owner, could not be reached for comment. Her daughter, Eva Ng, has previously said the family was unaware people were living there.

Zac Unger, vice president of the local Oakland Firefighter Union, said the fire marshals inspection unit has been understaffed for years.

Were way short, especially in an aging city with a huge amount of building going on, Unger said.

Unger said a more aggressive fire marshals office would scour the city looking for buildings that avoided scrutiny in the past, or had other city code violations, and might be hazardous. Such tactics could have possibly prevented the tragedy at the warehouse, he said.

 If the fire is determined to be an arson, prosecutors could bring murder or aggravated arson charges  with one count for each person killed.

Had a fire inspector walked into that building and seen the conditions in there, they would have shut the place down, Unger said.

Alameda County Dist. Atty. Nancy OMalley said her office is investigating the fire, which torched the building during an unpermitted concert. The probe could result in criminal charges, including murder or manslaughter, she said.

Responding to questions about the citys handling of the warehouse complaints, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement the city will provide more information about the matter.

We recognize people deserve answers. While we have all hands on deck to appropriately focus on safe recovery of victims, care of their families and preservation of evidence for investigations, we have had initial information compiled and will be reviewing it with the District Attorney prior to release, Schaaf said.

Buildings like the Ghost Ship are all too common in Oakland, where the constant pressure of rising real estate values in the Bay Area has pushed artists and musicians into illegal housing and discouraged them from reporting substandard conditions.

In this particular case, the building was leased to the Satya Yuga Collective, operated by Almena. According to those who lived there, Almena collected the rent and lived in the warehouse with his wife, Micah Allison, and their three young children.

Almena and Allisons reign over the warehouse was filled with drama and legal sparring with tenants and partygoers.

After an erotic-themed New Years Eve party in 2014  the warehouses twisted stairways, hidden coves and secret nooks strewn with pillows and blankets were billed as attractions  a San Francisco event producer, Philippe Lewis, returned to retrieve his sound equipment, according to court records. He was confronted by Almena, who was angry because his toddler son had found a condom after the party.

I explained things like that can happen at a large party, Lewis later told police, according to records.

A shoving match ensued, in which Lewis said he was scratched and his shirt was torn, and a friend who was with him said his arm was pulled out of its socket. The responding Oakland police officer wrote in his report that he canvassed the building as part of his investigation; but if he noticed unsafe living conditions or a do-it-yourself electrical set-up, he made no mention of them. From the records, it does not appear any arrests were made.

In a subsequent request for a restraining order against Almena, Lewis said Almena threatened to get a gun during the altercation and noted that there were a number of bows and arrows and a box of bullets on display in the warehouse, adding a dash of authenticity to the alleged threat.

I am afraid this person might be unstable, Lewis wrote on the form, which he signed Jan. 6, 2015.

Less than month later, Almena filed his own request for a restraining order. His target was a tenant, Shelley Mack, who he said refused to pay rent and was physically and verbally abusive.

Mack, 58, told The Times that in the winter of 2014 she paid $700 a month to live inside a trailer parked in the warehouse. She had been drawn to the space by a Craigslist ad promising cheap rent. Once there, she and several tenants  between 10 and 20, depending on the day  shared a single bathroom. The building had no heat, and in November 2014 a transformer blew, cutting off power.

There was no electricity, and it was freezing in there, she said.

Gas-powered generators were used to run small space heaters, and propane tanks placed indoor by the exits fueled other heaters, Mack said. In photographs she took at the time, electrical cords can be seen snaking through the building. She said she called the Oakland Police Department multiple times to complain.

Almena said Mack tormented him and his family. During one altercation, Almena said one of Macks associates pulled a gun and chased him with it while Mack robbed personal property, according his request for a restraining order.

Almena said Mack also repeatedly called child protective services with false accusations aimed at having his children taken away.

Alameda County Social Services removed Almenas children, then ages 11, 6, and 4, in March 2015, court records show. The reasons for the removal were not clear from the records.

Earlier this year, Almenas wife posted photos on her Facebook page showing the family reunited.

Mack, who said she was never served with Almenas complaint, denied the allegations Monday night.

Neither Almena nor Allison could be reached for comment by The Times.

Some in Oaklands arts scene said they feared the city would respond to the fire by cracking down on illegal living arrangements and evicting tenants. To forestall this possibility, some talked about reaching out to contractors who could help bring converted industrial buildings up to code without drawing the scrutiny of city inspectors.

On Monday, Gui Cavalcanti, who opened an artist studio space in Massachusetts and briefly lived in a warehouse, posted a guide online advising people living in artistic communities like the Ghost Ship to make sure their buildings had enough emergency exits and smoke detectors.

From his perspective, the fire and the building conditions that fed it are partly due to the Bay Areas housing market, and the fact that artists often seek out spaces in which they can live and work and design their surroundings as they please. Cavalcanti also attributed the tragedy to landlords desire to own multiple properties and lease them out without having to police them too carefully.

I could go on Craigslist right now and find some landlord whos renting out a 3,000-square-foot space and be like, Ill sign this document and pay you cash, just give me the space. Thats the environment were in, he said.

It is absolutely not just Oakland; it is every major city, he said. Im sure L.A. has hundreds of these buildings.

Times staff writers Soumya Karlamangla and Veronica Rocha contributed to this report.

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Em Bohlka was a poet with a masters degree in literature who could quote Kurt Vonnegut. Donna Kellogg played the drums and inspired peers with her culinary skills. Feral Pines was a recent Oakland arrival, a bass guitarist, a good listener.

They were artists with day jobs, young creatives living off the grid, students dreaming of unconventional paths  at least 36, all taken by fire.

On Monday their names were scrawled on notes left at memorials that bloomed where flames had ravaged an Oakland warehouse. Travis, we already miss you. Thinking of you, Ara Jo. Draven, you werent the smartest or the funniest or the bravest. Thats probably why we were best friends.

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Once a bastion of hippies and independent artists, the Bay Area in recent years has been dominated by techies and those with deep pockets who can afford the outrageous rents.

But the Oakland fire ripped through a close-knit community of artists ensconced in an underground music scene and committed to staying in the area. Their makeshift homes, their counterculture social scene, existed in a world invisible to those not searching for it.

It was where they felt accepted and safe.

Its an interesting group of people that all come together around the craft of electronic music and digital art, said Josette Melchor, founder of a San Francisco-based arts nonprofit, who knew many of the victims.

People have been doing this for decades and have been part of this community for so long. Were not just talking about a rave, its really a group of close people that see each other almost every weekend, just kind of gathering around the creation of their own music.

Melchors organization, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, was inundated with calls after the fire from people looking for any way to help. In response, it established a fund for the families of victims, which had reached more than $300,000 by Monday night.

They had gathered Friday at a concert whose location, until the last minute, remained a mystery. Then came the name on social media, shortly before the doors opened: the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland.

Cash Askew had looked forward to what was to be a gathering of like-minded artists and musicians, many of them queer femmes.

A transgender woman, Askew had grown up around independent musicians and it was no surprise when she began to perform. The 22-year-old played in the goth-pop duo Them Are Us Too, which recently released its first LP and had been on tour.

Everybody just saw this star, just saw this shooting star in her, said Madigan Shive, a fellow musician who had known Askew for more than a decade.

Askew was accustomed to alternative venues. They felt protected, judgment-free.

We came to those places and those spaces to share music that was often looked at as strange or esoteric, said Askews girlfriend, Anya Taylor, a performance artist. A lot of us are people who know music and weve been outcast because of who we are. We were making music for us.

When Askew headed to the Ghost Ship, Taylor stayed behind because of work the next day. Have fun, she said. Be safe.

News of the fire sent the 23-year-old rushing to the warehouse, where flames had overtaken the building. For four hours, Taylor stood outside.

I watched the building burn, and I lost the love of my life, she said.

In some ways, identification of the dead has been better than not yet knowing.

When Jack Bohlka heard how devastating the fire had been, he worried he wouldnt know for days. Police appeared at his Claremont home at dawn Monday. His child, Em, 33, was gone.

Earlier this year she had transitioned. She felt renewed. Her father couldnt have been more proud.

She was just a completely loving individual, truly a gentle spirit, thoughtful and philosophical, Bohlka, 62, said.

The fire brought the community out into the light. Bohlka said he hopes it stays there.

To let them know that theyre all loved, he said, his voice breaking. And they should truly be who they want to be.

His daughter had worked as a barista, writing poetry and practicing photography from time to time. She and her father shared a love for Slaughterhouse-Five and texted Vonnegut quotes to each other. One they loved: Out on the edge you can see all kinds of things you cant see from the center.

Unusual venues like the Ghost Ship are where those on the margins floated into the mainstream. Such artist-friendly spaces are few, some say, and need to be preserved.

They fear backlash could lead to evictions or the closure of other locations  which would be an affront to the victims:

Chelsea Faith Dolan, who took the stage in neon outfits and dramatic eye makeup to perform her brand of electronic music. Barrett Clark, a sound engineer and mainstay at shows, known for his patience and warmth. Travis Hough, 35, a school creative arts therapist who sang and played synthesizer in an electronica band.

Jennifer Kiyomi Tanouye had worked in music for years, at indie record stores, booking live acts, most recently as a music manager at Shazam. At a company-wide meeting Monday, employees celebrated her energy and kindness, which had made her an artist favorite.

She walked quietly in her unassuming way, sprinkling us with her brilliance and creativity, opening our eyes to a better world, her aunt Cheryl Tanouye said.

For those waiting to hear official word about a loved one, there is no memorializing, only dread.

Alex Vega, 22, remained missing Monday. His girlfriend, Michela Gregory, has been confirmed among the dead.

Vega, a San Bruno resident who worked at a funeral parlor, liked to host parties with underground musicians and was always up for the odd event like a midnight concert on the beach.

His older brother, Alberto Vega, arrived Monday at the Ghost Ship, now a blackened shell. With hands shoved into his sweatshirt pockets, he peered past the caution-tape barrier.

I dont know what Im doing, he said, glancing at a fence blanketed with photos and posters of victims. I just couldnt be home anymore.

His family has been asked to provide DNA to authorities. He worried what his brothers death could do to his parents. But he also was ready to start mourning. Holding out hope might only hurt more.

soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com | @skarlamangla

hailey.branson@latimes.com | @haileybranson

sarah.parvini@latimes.com | @sarahparvini

corina.knoll@latimes.com | @corinaknoll

Times staff writer Soumya Karlamangla reported from Oakland and Hailey Branson-Potts, Sarah Parvini and Corina Knoll from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Brittny Mejia and Sonali Kohli contributed to this report.

UPDATES:

9:25 p.m.: This article was updated with a quote from Jennifer Tanouyes aunt.

This article was originally published at 8:55 p.m.
There are growing calls for a full accounting of how Oakland city officials handled safety and health issues at a warehouse where at least 36 people died in a fire amid evidence that various city agencies fielded complaints over the last two years.

I think we have to take responsibility and certainly our staff members that had that task were not as responsive or assertive as necessary, said Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo on Monday.

He and others said that the city had been aware of safety and fire hazards at the warehouse for more than two years. Neighbors and former residents have told The Times that they had contacted the city about trash and debris piled up outside the warehouse as well as their concerns about unsafe conditions there.

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The owner of the building, which housed an artists collective and is in Gallos district, did not have any of the building permits or fire inspection that would have been required by the alterations inside, the councilman said.

Responding to multiple complaints from neighboring businesses and residents, a city building inspector went to the warehouse on Nov. 17 to investigate but could not get access inside the building, Gallo and city officials said.

The only question that is still outstanding for me, the administration has to tell us, well, what happened to the code inspector? Why did he just knock on the door and not pursue? Gallo said Monday. This thing has been going on for 2 1/2 years.

Police were repeatedly called to the warehouse to address complaints, according to one former resident. Those reports could not be confirmed to The Times on Sunday by Oakland police.

After a December 2014 party, one partygoer notified the city Fire Department of unsafe conditions, and it was inspected, said Danielle Boudreaux, who spent time at the warehouse. She did not know the result.

Gallo said he personally went to the building with an Oakland Police Department captain because of complaints about refuse and other junk scattered outside the warehouse. Gallo said they did not go inside, however.

City records cited allegations of at least three code violations at the building this year. In one complaint, city inspectors said there was a complaint of an illegal building on the property as well as piles of trash.

The building was permitted for use as a warehouse, not for housing. City officials said that a party or concert at the property would have required a permit, which had not been granted. They also said there was no evidence of fire sprinklers or alarms in the building.

The building was the site of a concert Friday night called the Golden Donna 100% Silk 2016 West Coast Tour.

Gallo said complaints were filed by the owner of a neighboring Wendys restaurant because people going to parties inside the warehouse often parked in the restaurants parking lot and also left their trash. A resident nearby also complained to the city, saying the pallets and other trash the building manager was throwing into an empty lot posed a fire hazard, Gallo said.

Shelley Mack, 58, said she paid $700 a month to live inside a trailer parked in the warehouse from November 2014 to February 2015.

She said she had been drawn to the space by a Craigslist ad that promised cheap living space. Once there, she and several tenants  between 10 and 20, depending on the day  shared a single bathroom. The building had no heat, and in November 2014 a transformer blew, cutting off power.

There was no electricity, and it was freezing in there, she said.

Gas-powered generators were used to run small space heaters, and propane tanks placed indoors by the exits fueled other heaters, Mack said.

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.

Alameda County Dist. Atty. Nancy OMalley said Monday that her office had launched an investigation, and the site is now a potential crime scene.

Its too early to speculate about the charges, she said. Right now weve just started our investigation.

OMalley said her office is looking into whether theres criminal liability attached to this fire and if so, against whom.

She said the charges could include manslaughter or murder, but it was too early to know what the evidence would reveal.

OMalley said her office would leave no stone unturned.

phil.willon@latimes.com

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com

ALSO:

Photos show squalid conditions inside warehouse before deadly fire

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Oakland warehouse residents harrowing survival stories: Oh my God, all of these people died in our home.
An overseas tip about an imminent bombing of the Metro Red Lines Universal City station has forced federal and local law enforcement in Los Angeles to swiftly ramp up security across its sprawling transit system, authorities said Monday.

An anonymous man warned of a potential attack on Tuesday and provided the information on a tip line abroad, according to Deirdre Fike, the assistant director in charge of the FBIs office in Los Angeles.



For the record: A previous version of this article misspelled Deirdre Fikes first name as Deidre.

The tip line was run by an unidentified foreign government, which relayed the information Monday morning to an FBI terrorism task force. Fike declined to specify from which country the tip originated but said it was delivered in English.

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Update: L.A. subway commuters encounter bag searchers, heavily armed deputies as city responds to terrorism threat 

At a hastily called news conference Monday night, the FBI as well as Los Angeles-area law enforcement leaders said the threat was considered specific and imminent, but investigators were still examining its credibility.

This could be real, it could be a hoax, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell. Were asking the public to stay calm and vigilant.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said that area law enforcement reviews threats constantly but that this particular incident was very specific and forced a rapid response.

We dont have the time to vet this threat in the way we would like, Beck said. This one we had to move quickly on.

Riders were told to expect the increased presence of uniformed police and sheriffs deputies as well as K-9 units scouring the area for explosives.

McDonnell, whose department oversees security for the Los Angeles County Metro rail and bus system, said undercover operations would be conducted throughout the day.

Mayor Eric Garcetti asked the public to prepare for random bag searches, and said he would ride the Red Line on Tuesday morning from Universal City.

My advice is right now, everyone should go about their normal day tomorrow, Garcetti said. People may see a heightened security presence  but dont let those frighten you.

Nearly 150,000 daily boardings are recorded on the Red Line, which connects North Hollywood with central and downtown Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. That figure include ridership estimates for the Purple Line, which shares much of the Red Lines downtown L.A. route.

Chief Scott Edson, who oversees counter-terrorism as head of the Sheriffs Departments Homeland Security Division, cautioned that the department often receives threats and that its hard to determine the credibility. He said passengers should report any suspicious activity.

Last year, a phone threat of violence at L.A. schools prompted the district to cancel classes for the day. Officials later determined the threat was not credible, and there was some debate about whether the district overreacted.

Times staff writer Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

richard.winton@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

james.queally@latimes.com

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Jury selection begins  out of public view  for former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca

Slain USC professor Bosco Tjan recalled for his generosity, empathy, humor and love

UPDATES:

8:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the origins of the threat as well as ridership figures for the Red Line.

6:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details from federal and local law enforcement about the nature of the threat.

5:45 p.m.: This article was updated with background on the LAUSD incident.

5:05 p.m.: This article was updated with information about a news conference.

This article was originally published at 4:10 p.m.
When Mother Nature failed to deliver snow to the often-arid mountains above San Bernardino, Richard Dick Kun did. The innovative ski resort operator found ways to power water up the hill, turn it into snow and, in the end, rescue and grow an industry that always seemed to struggle against the California sun.

Kun, former chief executive officer of Snow Summit Ski Corp. and a pioneer in outdoor recreation, died Nov. 27 at his home in Big Bear Lake after a lengthy battle with Parkinsons disease. He was 76.

His dream was to become a university history professor. But with his stepfathers death in 1964, Kun returned from his studies at the University of Colorado to help his mother, Jo, run the family ski resort 100 miles east of Los Angeles.

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Realizing that the business was too reliant on natural snow, he received permission to draw water from Big Bear Lake, built his own power plant, and eventually coated the slopes in white without a flake falling from the sky.

Under his stewardship, Snow Summit  once a single mile-long chair  grew and grew, taking advantage of sunny weather and proximity to Los Angeles.

Dick just went into Southern California, in this mild and sunny climate, and created a reliable and consistent product for millions of people, said friend and former colleague Tim Cohee, who now runs China Peak Mountain Resort near Fresno. They were way ahead of everybody.

Cohee described his friend of 37 years as a total intellect who wanted nothing to do with the ski business, until the family tragedy in 1964 required him to step in. Kun had arrived home for a visit when he learned that his stepfather, Tommi Tyndall, had just died after the bulldozer he was driving flipped during a rainstorm.

Dick probably wouldve been a Ph.D., Cohee said.

But the ski business drew Kun in, and he ended up rebuilding an industry.

To attract young customers and expand the sport, Kun introduced industry-changing terrain parks and established lift-served summer biking operations, now standard at resorts nationwide. Advanced reservations and lift-ticket limitations were also some of his innovations.

In 2002, Snow Summit bought out its neighbor and biggest rival, Big Bear Resorts. The two resorts are 2 miles apart, overlooking Big Bear Lake.

After the merger, skiers got joint-use of the two ski hills, which offered 440 skiable acres and 23 lifts. The operation would grow to attract almost 1 million winter visitors annually, ranking it among the top 15 nationally.

The company announced in June 2013 that it had hired an international banking firm to look for buyers. In September 2014, the operators of Mammoth Mountain acquired the resorts in a $38-million deal.

Kun is survived by his wife, Jennifer, whom he met at Snow Summit; his son Alex, 31, and daughter, Dominique, 30.

A public memorial is set for 3 p.m. Dec. 17 at the Convention Center in Big Bear Lake.

Chris.Erskine@latimes.com

Twitter: @erskinetimes
Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the hugely popular south Indian actress who later turned to politics and became the highest elected official in the state of Tamil Nadu, died Monday. She was 68.

The Apollo Hospital in the southern Indian city of Chennai said Jayalalithaa died after undergoing surgery following a heart attack on Sunday night.

Known by her followers as Amma, which means mother in the Tamil language, Jayalalithaa inspired intense loyalty among film fans and political supporters alike.

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As news of her death spread, thousands of people swarmed the road long after midnight to watch as the ambulance carrying her body from the hospital to her home sped by in a motorcade.

Police had a hard time controlling people from rushing onto the road. Many people wept and beat their breasts as they were overcome by grief.

Earlier Monday, thousands of Jayalalithaas supporters, wailing and crying, gathered outside the hospital to pray for her recovery. Police were deployed across the state to ensure security out of fear that her death could trigger widespread violence and riots.

Jayalalithaa was 13 when she began her film career and quickly became known as a romantic lead in many of the nearly 150 Tamil-language movies that she worked on.

Supporters hold a photograph of Jayaram Jayalalithaa as they offer prayers for her well-being at a temple in Mumbai, India. (Indranil Mukherjee / AFP/ Getty Images )

The neighboring state of Karnataka stopped public buses from traveling to Tamil Nadu after one of them was attacked Monday.

The U.S. Consulate in Chennai issued an advisory urging Americans to be careful in the city and avoid large crowds.

The Tamil Nadu government declared a seven-day mourning period beginning Tuesday. Schools, colleges, offices and businesses were to be closed for the next three days, which have been designated a public holiday.

Within hours of Jayalalithaas death, her trusted lieutenant, O. Panneerselvam, was sworn in as chief minister of the state.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was deeply saddened by Jayalalithaas death. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics, Modi tweeted.

She entered politics in the early 1980s, under the guidance of M.G. Ramachandran. Soon after his death in 1987, she declared herself his political heir and took control of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party.

She served as Tamil Nadus chief minister, the highest elected position in the state of 71 million people, for nearly 14 years over five terms beginning in 1991. She regained her office last year after a corruption case against her was overturned.

Her supporters praised her efforts in fighting rural poverty with handouts such as laptop computers for students, cows and goats for farmers and spice grinders for homemakers.

Such free gifts are commonly used by Indian political parties in courting voters, but her handouts were still criticized by some as wasteful pandering and unfair bribery. But Jayalalithaa defended the giveaways as welfare measures aimed at helping the poor.

She was known for leading an extravagant lifestyle. In 1997, police found more than 10,000 saris and 750 pairs of shoes after raiding her home as part of a corruption investigation.

In the first half of 2014, Jayalalithaa made a bid to become Indias prime minister by saying she would form a coalition in New Delhi if no party dominated the elections. But the Bharatiya Janata Party won a clear majority, catapulting Narendra Modi into the nations top job.

Later that year, she was forced to step down as chief minister in Tamil Nadu state when she was sentenced to four years in prison for amassing more than $10 million during her political career, a wealth the court said was disproportionate to her income.

She spent 21 days behind bars before the Indian Supreme Court released her on bail. In May 2015, an appeals court overturned the corruption charges, clearing the way for her return to power.

Jayalalithaa returned to office as chief minister May 23 and a month later was re-elected in a by-election.

Sharma writes for the Associated Press.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is to join Gulf Arab leaders at a summit in Bahrain on Tuesday for talks on trade after Britain's exit from the European Union.

Defence ties are also expected to loom high on the agenda as Britain builds a new naval base in Bahrain. Advocacy groups urged May to use the opportunity to raise human rights concerns too.

She is the first British premier and the first woman to attend the annual summit of the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council states.

Her two days of talks come as her government faces mounting domestic criticism that it has not done enough to avoid post-Brexit disruption to British trade, which is currently carried out under EU agreements.

"I will have the opportunity to talk to all six leaders about how we can develop our trade relationship, as well as cooperation on security and defence," May said ahead of her arrival in the Bahraini capital Manama late on Monday.

May will discuss the possibilities for post-Brexit free trade arrangements with the six GCC states -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, her office said.

"As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf," May said.

"This could transform the way we do business and lock in a new level of prosperity for our people for generations to come."

Ahead of the summit, May held talks with Bahraini officials that also focused on defence ties, the official Bahrain News Agency reported.

In October last year, Britain began building a naval base at Mina Salman, outside Manama, its first new permanent base in the Middle East in four decades.

Bahrain's King Hamad "looks forward to expanding joint cooperation in the fields of trade, investment and security," BNA said.

Western ties with Bahrain have come under criticism from international human rights groups.

The kingdom's Sunni minority rulers have cracked down heavily on dissent since they crushed protests led by the Shia majority for a constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister in 2011.

The main Shia opposition group, Al-Wefaq, once the largest in parliament, has been dissolved and scores of Shia have been stripped of their citizenship.

Amnesty International said on Monday that the summit gave May a "unique opportunity to raise concerns over a pattern of recurring human rights violations throughout the region".

"In recent years across the Gulf we have seen human rights activists, peaceful political opponents and government critics systematically targeted in the name of security," the London-based watchdog's Middle East and North Africa director, Randa Habib, said.

"It is high time for allies of the GCC to stop putting business and security cooperation before human rights, and Theresa May must not squander this opportunity to raise key rights issues," she added.

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The controversial Dakota Access pipeline is in limbo after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday declined to approve a permit that the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, needs in order to finish construction along the planned route.

Heres a look at what might be next for the pipeline:



For the record: In an earlier version of this story, the last name of attorney Chris Reagen was misspelled as Reagan.

Will the pipeline still be completed, but along a different route?

Its hard to say. The pipeline has already largely been built save for a final section that was supposed to run underneath the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Construction of that section is now stalled while the Army Corps of Engineers conducts a formal review of the environmental impact the pipeline would have. Once thats finished, the Army Corps of Engineers would come to a final decision about the pipeline, in light of its findings and public input.

In a statement Sunday, Energy Transfer Partners repeated its assertion that it was not open to alternative routes. The company is fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect[s] to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting. Nothing this administration has done today changes that in any way.

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One possible reason for the companys insistence on the current route, beyond its estimated $2.5-billion investment to date, is the impending deadline it faces to get oil flowing in the pipeline or risk losing lucrative oil contracts negotiated when crude oil prices were significantly higher than today.

Dakota Access has committed to complete, test and have [the pipeline] in service by Jan. 1, 2017, the company revealed in August, in response to a motion for an injunction against the pipeline filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The long-term transportation contracts give shippers a right to terminate their commitments if [the pipeline] is not in full service per the contract deadline. Loss of shippers to the project could effectively result in project cancellation.

Despite mention of possible alternate routes, theres been little public discussion of the matter. Thats exactly the problem, said Jan Hasselman, an attorney for Earthjustice in Seattle who represents the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. They should have been examining alternatives in a transparent and public way from the beginning.

Early in the process, officials considered routing the pipeline near Bismarck, N.D., but rejected the idea, in part because of worries about the proximity of the pipeline to municipal wells.

Hasselman said the tribe had proposed one alternative that does not cross the Missouri River, but it had yet to be thoroughly examined.

Can Donald Trump just reverse the Army Corps decision when he takes office?

Some believe the Obama administrations action would be easily reversed by the incoming Trump administration.

The decision violates the rule of law and fails to resolve the issue, said North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven. Instead, it passes the decision off to the next administration, which has already indicated it will approve the easement.

Morton County Commissioner Cody Schulz, whose militarized police forces have spent more than $10 million in repeated confrontations with protesters to secure the pipeline route, added, It appears the federal government let the citizens of Morton County, law enforcement officers and protesters suffer for months while making a political decision that is likely to be overturned when the new administration takes office next month.

This is an opportunity for President Trump to send a clear and quick signal that America is open for business, Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, a coalition supporting the pipeline, said in an interview. And that American infrastructure is available for investment.

Yet it was far from clear that a new president could quickly reverse the Army Corps decision. Lawyers, activists, congressional staffers and industry analysts spent Monday parsing the statement by Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Armys assistant secretary for civil works, that theres more work to do, and that alternative routes would be best accomplished through an environmental impact statement with full public input and analysis.

The statement from the Army Corps of Engineers does not explicitly state that it will never grant the easement, but it emphasizes the need to explore alternative routes.

Its a significant win, said Jane Kleeb, a longtime pipeline foe and director of the environmental coalition Bold Alliance. How significant? We wont know, Kleeb said, until the scope of the environmental impact statement is printed in the Federal Register in the coming weeks.

At that time, any administration would be legally bound to follow the environmental impact statement process, which would require the Corps to examine full risks to water, doing worst-case spill analysis, capability of local first responders and other factors, Kleeb said.

It makes it much more tricky for a new [president] to come in and issue an executive order and just approve it, said Chris Reagen, an attorney specializing in natural resources development on Native American land. Taking such action would open up the project to an array of potential litigation. Once this process is underway, I dont think he can just walk in and wave his hand and approve this.

One legal expert envisioned a narrow path for the new administration to quickly approve the project. In theory, the Army Corps could reverse itself after the inauguration, saying, we do not need to undertake a full-fledged EIS exploring all the alternatives, said Thomas McGarity, an environmental law professor at the University of Texas. But that would risk litigation by pipeline opponents arguing that the Corps would have to explain why it reversed itself.

What if the company behind the pipeline changes its mind and decides to reroute the pipeline?

It wouldnt be able to begin construction along a new route anytime soon.

Even putting together a more limited environmental impact statement, which would examine the area around the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, would probably be a lengthy process. A broader environmental impact statement could examine the effect along the route where construction has already occurred and would take at least a year.

Are the protests going to continue?

Protesters say they arent ready to go home. At the Seven Council Fires camp on Monday, where thousands of pipeline opponents, joined by U.S. military veterans, had been celebrating their victory, Native American activists warned that Energy Transfer Partners remained intent on completing the project on its own terms.

Some people think this fight is over, said Matthew Black Eagle Man, 48, of the Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, Canada. If the fight was over, those lights of the pipeline company nearby wouldnt be turned on last night, Black Eagle Man said, sitting in front of a fire in a tepee as a driving snow fell outside. Right after that proclamation they went right back to work. So we know to be vigilant we have to stay and maintain this camp. Not until theyre gone will we walk away from here.

Tolan is a special correspondent.

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GOP leaders are coming to grips with whats likely to be a complex, at times tortured, relationship with the Trump White House as they balance long-held Republican principles with a desire to avoid direct confrontation with the new president.

Republicans know Donald Trump is no traditional Republican. And privately many conservatives have frowned at his threatened 35% tariff on certain imports and his intervention to pressure Carrier Corp. not to move factory jobs to Mexico.

But they also want to maintain party unity and a strong relationship with the president-elect, lest they end up a target of Trumps hostile tweets, as happened before the election to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

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Scope of Donald Trumps falsehoods unprecedented for presidential candidate. 

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy found Monday just how hard it can be to walk that line.

The No. 2 House Republican tiptoed around repeated questions over Trumps trade policies  seen as at odds with longtime GOP positions on free markets  before finally suggesting with exasperation that the president-elects proclamations should not be taken too literally since hes not yet in the White House.

Take a deep breath. Hes not sworn in yet, McCarthy told reporters at his weekly off-camera briefing. Lets not predetermine what the outcome of this stuff is.

On big-ticket items like deficit spending, infrastructure investment and entitlement reforms, the president-elect is testing how far Republicans in Congress are willing to drift from the limited government, fiscally-conservative principles that have defined the modern GOP.

Even when Trump and Capitol Hill Republicans agree in broad strokes  for example, on corporate tax cuts  they differ on the details.

Ryan noted Sunday on CBS 60 Minutes that Republicans in the House wanted to lower the corporate rate to 20%, while Trumps plan pushes it down to 15%.

And neither Trump nor Republicans in Congress have produced a legislative proposal for replacing the Affordable Care Act, foreshadowing the difficult negotiations ahead. Ryan did not dispute Sunday that full repeal and replacement of Obamacare could be another three years in the making.

Still working on that, Ryan said.

But Trumps skeptical attitude toward trade, a signature campaign issue that appealed to Rust Belt and working-class white voters who blame globalization for American job losses, entangled McCarthy on Monday when he was asked about Trumps threat to impose a 35% tariff on imported goods from U.S. companies that move factories abroad.

This is Bernie Sanders plan to lead Democrats out of the wilderness. 

I think the point that the president-elect was trying to make is, you want to create jobs in America. Today the best way to make that change is through tax reform, McCarthy said.

I dont want to get into some kind of trade war, he added, referring to warnings that increased U.S. tariffs would lead other countries to follow suit.

So Republicans have no intention of approving a 35% tariff, he was asked?

Our intention is to have tax reform that encourages companies to be in America, McCarthy deflected.

And if the White House sends a tariff bill to Capitol Hill?

Lets have the debate and see where it ends up, McCarthy said.

In between there were questions about whether the party of Ronald Reagan  a hero to conservatives  had lost its way.

But McCarthy, who keeps portraits of both Reagan and President Lincoln in his Capitol office, insisted he remained a believer in free markets and conservative ideals.

Asked whether it was appropriate for the president-elect to intervene in a business decision such as Carriers, McCarthy was careful not to cross Trump.

I think a president wants to get involved any time its about jobs being created in America, McCarthy said. Carrier, a heating and cooling company, was reportedly given $7 million in state tax breaks to keep about 800 jobs in Indiana.

How many jobs merit a U.S. presidents attention? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? Reporters also pressed on whether the Carrier deal is an example of the kind of crony capitalism that Republicans have railed against, as they did when President Obama sent federal funds to the green-energy firm Solyndra?

McCarthy dismissed such complaints as politically motivated. I usually think crony capitalism is when something somebody disagrees with, they use the term.

I dont want to break news here, McCarthy said as the session approached its end, but people will have differences of opinion.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaro

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A Supreme Court majority on Monday appeared to lean in favor of Democrats in Virginia and North Carolina seeking to rein in what they call racial gerrymandering by Republican-controlled legislatures in those states.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is likely to hold the deciding vote, said he was troubled that Republican leaders drew new election maps by moving more black voters into districts that already had a majority of African American residents and usually favored black candidates.

Civil rights lawyers and Democrats have contended these packed districts have the effect of diluting or weakening the political power of black and Latino voters in other districts and statewide.

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I have problems with that, Kennedy said, suggesting he would question such districts if the tipping point, the principal motivating factor was race.

Trumps victory assures a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. 

If the courts majority agrees, the ruling would put states, counties and cities on notice that they may not concentrate more black and Latino voters into districts that already routinely elect minority representatives.

In Virginia, Republican lawmakers decided that each of the 12 districts that currently elect black candidates must maintain at least a 55% black voting population. And in North Carolina, Republican leaders moved tens of thousands of black voters in the Greensboro area into a district that had regularly elected a black Democrat to Congress.

In their defense, the Republicans said they acted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The landmark law has been understood to mean states may not take steps that would reduce the number of districts that elect minority representatives. GOP lawmakers in both states argued they were protecting those seats.

They also insisted that their primary motivation was partisan politics, not race. Paul Clement, the former solicitor general who was representing the Republicans, described the central North Carolina district as a political draw. He said the states expert drew the district map based on political data. He drew the map to draw Democrats in and Republicans out.

Redrawing electoral districts based on partisan gerrymandering is not only a time-honored political tradition, he argued, it is legal.

But Marc Elias, lawyer for the Democrats, said the evidence produced at a trial showed the Republicans acted based on race. He noted that North Carolina legislators moved 75,000 African Americans into a district that had faithfully elected Rep. Mel Watt, a black Democrat, for more than 20 years before he left to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The exchange highlighted an issue that has bedeviled the justices and confused lower courts. Under the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection, states may not make decisions based on race, but they may act based on political considerations. That distinction becomes murky when considering that African Americans vote reliably for Democrats. So is shifting black voters from one district into another a racial move or political one?

For the fourth time, the electoral college picks the loser of the popular vote. 

This is such a complicated area, said Justice Stephen G. Breyer. He noted that when pressed, Republican leaders acknowledged that the reason we did that is most African Americans voters vote for Democrats.

Last year, Breyer wrote a 5-4 decision for the court that set aside an Alabama redistricting plan because GOP lawmakers had similarly moved more blacks into black-majority districts. That opinion, which Kennedy joined, said it was unconstitutional to shift thousands of black voters into these districts, but it did not go far enough to resolve the current disputes.

The comments and questions during Mondays arguments suggested the justices may split along similar lines.

The recent spate of redistricting cases put a spotlight on how the two ideological sides have shifted on racial gerrymandering.

Twenty years ago, the courts conservatives struck down districts in which race was used as the predominant factor, pushing aside objections from liberals and many Democrats who said such plans were needed to elect minorities to legislatures.

But since the redistricting after the 2010 census, it is the now Democrats who have objected to the role race has played in the Republicans redrawing of districts.

Among the justices, only Kennedy has stuck to the same position. He objected to the race-based redistricting in the 1990s, and last year he joined the courts four liberals to reject race-based electoral districts in Alabama.

The two cases heard Monday are Bethune-Hill vs. Virginia and McCrory vs. Harris.

Lurking in the background is the potentially more explosive issue of partisan gerrymandering, since both sides admit to having redrawn electoral maps to favor their candidates. Several lawsuits on the way to the court are urging the justices to prohibit state lawmakers from drawing electoral maps that lock in one partys control of a legislature for a decade.

Last month, a federal court in Wisconsin struck down the states electoral map for its state assembly on the grounds the districts were drawn to lock in a solid majority for Republicans, even in years when most of its voters choose Democrats.

State officials say they plan to ask the Supreme Court to review the decision in the case of Whitford vs. Nichol. The justices have never struck down a states electoral map because it unfairly favored the candidates of one party over the other, but voting rights experts say they are optimistic that Kennedy is at least open to such a ruling.

david.savage@latimes.com

On Twitter: DavidGSavage

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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 
Good morning. Its Tuesday, Dec. 6, and heres whats going on across California:

TOP STORIES

Warnings ignored?

There is growing scrutiny over how Oakland city officials handled two years of complaints about safety and health issues at the warehouse that burned down Friday night. Neighbors, former tenants and community activists said they repeatedly told city fire officials, police, code inspectors and others about serious problems at the filthy, dilapidated warehouse. But at the time of the fire, city officials said an investigation of the building was still ongoing. Los Angeles Times

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Faces of disaster

They were artists with day jobs, young creatives living off the grid, students dreaming of unconventional paths  at least 36, all taken by fire. On Monday their names were scrawled on notes left at memorials that bloomed on a corner where flames had swept through an Oakland warehouse. Los Angeles Times

Plus: Profiles of each victim as we receive information. Los Angeles Times

Battle cry

California lawmakers are making good on their promise to lead the opposition to President-elect Donald Trump. Gaveling in a new two-year session, lawmakers announced bills that would provide attorneys to immigrants in the country illegally, refuse assistance to any proposed registry of Muslim immigrants and require any wall built along the Mexican border to first be approved by California voters. It remains to be seen how much of these efforts can slow or block Trump policies. But in a deep blue state, they are good politics. Los Angeles Times

Terror threat

An overseas tip about an imminent bombing of the Metro Red Lines Universal City station has forced federal and local law enforcement in Los Angeles to swiftly ramp up security across its sprawling transit system. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

Harry Potter sickness? Universal Studios Hollywood has removed the 3-D special effect from its Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride only eight months after the attraction opened as the centerpiece of the parks most expensive expansion. Some speculate the move came because some park visitors got nauseated. Los Angeles Times

Campus mourning: USC held a somber memorial for Bosco Tjan, a beloved neuroscience professor who was stabbed to death by a student on Friday, the last day of classes. Tragically, Bosco died doing what he loved, doing what he believed in  serving his students and building up a new generation of scholars, USC President C.L. Max Nikias said. A motive for the killing remains unclear. Los Angeles Times

How they did it: A new UCLA report to be released Wednesday focuses on what success means for black and Latino teenage boys in L.A., instead of on whats holding them back. Los Angeles Times

Job alert: American Apparel  once a bright spot in L.A.s manufacturing scene  has told nearly 3,500 employees in Southern California that they may lose their jobs in January, depending on the outcome of a likely sale to Canadian clothing maker Gildan Activewear. Los Angeles Times

Growing out: An amazing interactive map shows how L.A.s sprawl grew over the years. Los Angeles Magazine

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Sea change: A new era began Monday at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors with the end of the old guard and the inauguration of a generation of board members that is likely to accelerate a shift toward more liberal policies on a variety of issues. Top on the agenda: homelessness and the Trump administration. Los Angeles Times

Pay day: Californias top leaders are getting raises. Gov. Jerry Browns salary jumped from $182,789 to $190,100, making him the highest-paid governor in the country. The governors salary in Pennsylvania is $723 higher than Browns new paycheck, but Gov. Tom Wolf does not accept the salary. California legislators already received the highest base salary in the country, but on Monday saw their pay increase from $100,111 to $104,115. Los Angeles Times

Pushback: Some immigration rights activists are pushing to keep the Trump administration from gaining access to Californias database of gang members. Voice of OC

CRIME AND COURTS

High-profile case: Former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Bacas fall from influential lawman on the national stage to disgraced defendant culminates as his trial on obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges begins. Los Angeles Times

New power center: By sliding from Congressional leader to California attorney general, Xavier Becerra has an opportunity to play a major role in the battles ahead against Trump and his policies. As attorney general, he has weapons hed lack in Congress. BuzzFeed News

More questions: New documents suggest more problems ahead for Orange County law enforcement agencies and their handling of jailhouse informants. Orange County Register

DROUGHT AND CLIMATE

Feinstein vs. Boxer: There is a new bipartisan attempt to pass legislation that would increase water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and Southern California. The deal sets Cailifornias two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, on a collision course. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Its an honor? It might be the most thankless, scrutinized job in Hollywood. But Jimmy Kimmel is going to give it a try: hosting the Academy Awards. Los Angeles Times

Only in SF: San Francisco Airport now has a therapy pig on hand to greet travelers. SFGate

Movie blues: The way we watch movies has changed so much over the decades. But one trend is clear: With fewer theaters come fewer choices in movies. Los Angeles Review of Books

Too close: Whale watching  a favorite Southern California pastime  can get dangerous when humans get too close to the creatures. Orange County Register

Christmas miracle: Sally Butters teacup poodle disappeared near a decade ago. But in what the Northern California calls a miracle, the dog recently resurfaced alive and well not far from her home. Sacramento Bee

Where are the Orioles? Creating Baltimore in the heart of Hollywood. Wall Street Journal

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: Cloudy skies with highs in the 60s. San Francisco: Rain possible Tuesday with more showers later in week. Sacramento: Rain Thursday through Monday.

AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from Maneck Bhujwala:

The first time I came to Los Angeles in 1968 for a job interview, I was so impressed by the view of the great Pacific Ocean, while standing on Ocean Park (at Wilshire and Ocean Avenue), in Santa Monica. I like living in California because of the good weather and proximity of mountains for hiking or seeing the snow in winter (on an impulse I once took my little daughter from Cypress to Mt. Baldy to enjoy the snow) or to the ocean. And, when I lived in Northern California I loved going to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe on some weekends.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Shelby Grad.
The U.S. Senate last week approved a bill that was advertised as a way to help the federal government combat harassment against Jewish students on college campuses. But the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is both unnecessary to achieve its stated goal and fraught with 1st Amendment problems. If it is also approved by the House, President Obama should veto it.

The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), was proposed as a remedy for anti-Semitic acts directed at students and faculty members. But the Department of Education already has the legal tools necessary to punish colleges and universities that dont deal effectively with acts of violence or intimidation motivated by racial or religious hatred, including anti-Semitism.

The bills overly broad definition of anti-Semitism would blur the distinction between acts of intolerance directed at individuals and criticism of Israel.

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This legislation is really about something else entirely: Israel. What it does is to endorse an expansive definition of anti-Semitism that was adopted by the State Department in 2010 as a benchmark for diplomats. The problem with the definition is that it unfairly conflates anti-Israel speech with anti-Semitic speech, in a way that, if enforced, would violate the free speech rights of students and professors. Among other things, the examples of anti-Semitism provided by the State Departments definition include denying Israels right to exist, demonizing Israel by blaming it for all interreligious or political tensions and judging Israel by a double standard requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

But is it necessarily anti-Semitic to harshly criticize the Jewish state or to argue that it should be replaced by something else, such as a secular, binational nation? While there are, of course, anti-Semites among Israels many critics, it does not follow that opposition to Israel is inherently anti-Semitic, and it should not be treated as such.

As we noted last year in opposing a campaign to have the University of California endorse this same definition: Its hard to see how these standards could be transplanted to the campus of a public university committed to a robust exchange of views and subject to the free-speech provisions of the 1st Amendment. Would pro-Palestinian students who mounted a protest against Israeli policies in the West Bank be judged anti-Semites because they didnt also demonstrate against repression in Egypt or Russia? What about a student who wanted to argue that Israel should be replaced by a nonsectarian state? Even those who find such a position unrealistic or undesirable might agree that it neednt be driven by hatred for Jews.

Eventually UCs regents decided not to endorse this definition, instead adopting a set of principles against intolerance that condemned what they called anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism as one of several forms of discrimination that had no place at the university. Backing off the original proposal was a wise decision that balanced a legitimate concern about unacceptable bigotry with a respect for free speech.

The same balanced approach should guide the federal government. It should by all means continue to enforce the existing language in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin at educational institutions that receive federal aid (and which government lawyers also interpret to protect religious minorities). But if the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act were to pass, it would require the Education Department to take into consideration the State Department definition in determining whether an alleged action was motivated by anti-Semitic intent, and thus possibly a violation of Title VI that could lead to a loss of federal funding.

While the bill passed by the Senate includes an assurance that it is not meant to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the 1st Amendment, that is exactly what it does. Its overly broad definition of anti-Semitism would blur the distinction between acts of intolerance directed at individuals and criticism of the state of Israel. University officials and the Education Department must be vigilant in preventing and punishing the former; they have no business policing the latter.

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P-45, the Malibu mountain lion who spent last week on death row, has received at least a temporary reprieve. After he killed 10 alpacas in one night, having already killed around 60 domestic animals in the last two years, a Malibu resident acquired a permit to shoot him. But public outcry, including a petition signed by thousands, has persuaded her to hold off.

Although Im an animal rights advocate, I have yet to sign on. The petition, while suggesting the landowner find other solutions, did not offer any.

When a charismatic animals life is at stake, we sometimes lose sight of the big picture. To begin with, there is a surprising lack of public sympathy for the woman who lost 10 beloved alpacas in one night, and for the defenseless, llama-like creatures who were unable to flee a mountain lion behaving less like a hungry predator than a killing machine.

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The sad truth is that wild carnivores are routinely exterminated for killing a single farm animal  let alone 10 in one night  or just for being judged a threat. Last year, the federal Wildlife Services agency killed 3.2 million animals regarded as pests by farmers and ranchers. In fact, government agencies may kill any animal seen as a possible danger to humans, as was the case last week in Pennsylvania, when a bull escaped from a slaughterhouse and was shot by a game commission officer. In 2012, police in downtown Santa Monica shot and killed a mountain lion for the crime of showing up.

If we dont want P-45 added to that toll, we need a realistic solution. I havent seen one.

This newspaper reported that a group of wildlife advocates flooded P-45s recent feeding ground with multicolored light to ward off the animal and save the lives of big cats, livestock and pets, all at once. But wont bright lights on one ranch drive him to another? It seems impractical to suggest that all Malibu ranch owners illuminate their properties all night every night.

Some have floated the idea of relocating P-45 in the Santa Monica Mountains. But now that he has experienced the simple joy of finding prey behind a fence, like a conveniently boxed lunch, we can expect him to seek out more of the same.

There is also talk is of placing P-45 in captivity  an option he would be unlikely to support, if he had a say. Large predators rarely have good lives in zoos or sanctuaries, where they are unable to do what they like to do best: hunt prey. We might compare their plight to humans jailed for no crime, except that mountain lions cannot watch TV, work out, read, consult law books to aid their counsel or begin work on their memoirs. Many of us, perhaps including P-45, would prefer a quick bullet to a long life in the hole.

From the utilitarian perspective, moreover, big cat sanctuaries are problematic. Not only are the residents unlikely to experience true well-being, but feeding them causes immense suffering and death. A carnivore in a sanctuary eats hundreds of herbivores every year who have been raised on factory farms.

Sometime in the future well grow large quantities of meat in vats, generated from cells rather than suffering animals. Perhaps sooner, sanctuaries can add taurine, an amino acid needed by cats, to products such as Beyond Beef, which have a similar protein content to meat and are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from it. Until such alternatives are employed, though, sanctuaries for large carnivores will hurt exponentially more animals than they help.

Yet another proposal is to manage the prey, rather than the predator. After P-45s reprieve, NBC reported that wildlife experts recommend keeping livestock in some sort of enclosed barn or shed. For how long? Forever? Why should hundreds of animal owners condemn many thousands of innocent animals to lives of misery to protect one extraordinarily lethal cat?

We should never kill animals lightly. Im not on board when people wish to kill coyotes who kill cats who kill birds all day, and I find it abhorrent that Wildlife Services slaughters millions of carnivores every year, as a gruesome subsidy of sorts to ranchers. But with no practical, humane alternatives on offer, I cant fault the heartbroken Malibu resident who acquired a shooting permit after waking up to profligate carnage.

Karen Dawn runs the animal advocacy website and nonprofit DawnWatch, and is the author of Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals.

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U.S.-backed moderate rebels' loss of the eastern half of Syria's largest city Aleppo to Russian-backed government forces would be a defeat for President Barack Obama's efforts to promote democracy and defeat terrorism in the Middle East, U.S. officials conceded on Monday.

Their grim assessment reflected the expectation that the last rebel-held districts of Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped, will soon fall to the Syrian Army supported by Russia, Iran, and Shia Muslim militias from Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.

"The fall of eastern Aleppo will confront the United States with the reality that supporting a moderate opposition with any hope of becoming the future government of Syria is no longer a hope," said Paul Pillar, a former senior U.S. intelligence analyst.

The defeat would leave President-elect Donald Trump with less influence over the course of the more than five-year-long civil war that is likely to grind on, fueling greater instability, violent extremism, refugee flows and regional rivalries, the officials said.

The loss by the moderate rebels would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, securing his grip on all of Syria's main cities and most of the south, central spine and western flank bordering the Mediterranean.

It also would vindicate Russian President Vladimir Putin's bet that he could save Moscow's longtime ally Assad by intervening in September 2015 with airpower, long-range artillery, military advisers and other support.

Russia on Monday said it would start talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, a step the U.S. official said Washington would likely embrace to save lives.

"Who won? Putin, the Iranians and Assad. Who lost? We did, and Jordan (where the CIA trained and armed moderate rebels), especially. The Saudis and Gulf states," said one U.S. official, who like others who spoke to Reuters, requested anonymity.

As Obama prepares to leave office on Jan. 20, his policies in the Islamic world have suffered a series of setbacks.

His hopes to bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians have been dashed. He pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but they are back in limited numbers helping the government combat Islamic State fighters.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban is retaking territory where U.S. and allied forces had defeated them. Libya, where the Obama administration led "from behind" to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, is in chaos.

Syria, though, is the clearest American defeat. Some U.S. officials spoke bitterly of Obama's decision not to intervene more forcefully in a war that has claimed more than 500,000 lives, forced millions from their homes and unleashed waves of refugees into neighboring states and Europe.

While Obama provided some support to moderate rebel factions, it was never enough to achieve the U.S. goal of forcing Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers to negotiate his replacement by a government of national unity, they said.

The moderate opposition's defeat also confirms the return of Moscow as a major regional powerbroker, a status it has not enjoyed since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

"In the end, the Russians didn't have an interest in ending the war," said one U.S. official of Washington's effort to craft a diplomatic solution with Moscow. "They wanted to win it."

Pillar said he doubted that a negotiated outcome was ever attainable.

"There was never enough of a political culture or base for the so-called moderate opposition to become strong enough . . . before Russian intervention or after," said Pillar.

But with Assad hampered by manpower shortages, the civil war that began after he crushed peaceful protests in 2011 will go on, compelling the continued involvement of Russia and the Syrian leader's other allies.

"Aleppo falls, but the war goes on," said the first U.S. official.

He and other current and former U.S. officials argued that rebels who escape Aleppo would keep fighting, with some likely joining groups such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front, which Washington regards as al Qaeda's Syrian branch.

"The guys who are going to get out are going to fight guerrilla-style. They are going to join Nusra ... the Arabs are going to continue to fund the opposition," said the U.S. official. "They are not going to forget about it just because we have."

Other U.S. officials warned that the conflict could escalate as flagging U.S. support for Assad's opponents could prompt Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to intensify their military aid to rebel groups.

A second official, reflecting concerns shared by numerous others, said Saudi Arabia could funnel more lethal weapons to opposition factions, which raises the possibility that they eventually could be turned against Western targets.

"We've been pretty good at keeping stuff out of there so terrorists can't get their hands on it, but there's no reason for the Saudis to heed our warnings anymore," he said.

Meanwhile, the fall of eastern Aleppo will provide a major boost to Shi'a Iran, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia's main regional rival, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered significant casualties fighting for Assad.

By helping secure Assad, Iran will preserve the pipeline through which it ships missiles and other weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'a militia movement that also has fought for Damascus, to use against Israel.

"The Assad family is the longest standing strategic partner of Iran in the entire Middle East," said a third U.S. official. "Syria is the forward operating base against Israel, the conduit to Hezbollah, and an Iranian-friendly island in the Arab lands."

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It would make a perfect clickbait ad Learn this one simple trick to stop worrying about Donald Trump and Make America Great Again.

Whats the trick? All you have to do is take Trump seriously, but not literally.

The formulation is credited to reporter Selena Zito who, in an article for the Atlantic last September, noted that the news media takes Trumps more outlandish statements literally but not seriously, while his supporters do the inverse.

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Even the president-elects team has declared this a kind of Rosetta Stone for deciphering Trumpspeak.

Corey Lewandowski, Trumps first campaign manager, recently explained at a post-election conference at Harvard, This is the problem with the media. You guys took everything Donald Trump said so literally. And the problem with that is the American people didnt.

Peter Thiel, a major Trump backer, made the same point at the National Press Club last October. The media always is taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously, but not literally.

This seriously-not-literally thing ... is fairly ridiculous hogwash as a prescription for how to treat an actual president.

Trump has hinted that he buys this heuristic as well. In a speech last week in Ohio, he explained that he never really meant it when he said in April were not going to let Carrier leave.

I said, Carrier will never leave, he admitted. But that was a euphemism. I was talking about Carrier like all other companies from here on in.

As a defense of some of candidate Trumps statements, this distinction is not bad, and as an indictment of the media, its pretty good. The press treated Trump as a joke, not appreciating the fact that for many voters the medias scorn is a badge of honor.

Of course Trump isnt the only politician to expect non-literal status. Vice President Joe Biden has said some absolutely ludicrous things over the years. He said FDR went on TV after the stock market crash of 1929, when FDR was not yet president and TV did not yet exist. No one took him literally. Nor does anyone take him literally when he, literally, asks to be taken literally. He told a group of students You are the keystone to East Africa  literally, not figuratively  you are the keystone. Before we arrived in the West Wing, Biden said in 2010, Mr. Boehner and the Republican Party ran the economy literally into the ground.

The non-literal approach to Biden is safe for two reasons. Because he is a well-known character in the Washington establishment, the public knows more or less what to expect from him. And, as a vice president, theres only so much harm he can do. (In other words, we dont have to take him too seriously.)

Trump is different. On his own terms hes an outsider and a disrupter who claims that political elites range from stupid to malevolent. He also has zero experience in foreign or domestic policy. What he says  and how he says it  takes on greater importance precisely because he lacks a track record in public office to put his language in context.

This seriously-not-literally thing is a great analytical insight into how then-candidate Trump communicated with his supporters. But it is fairly ridiculous hogwash as a prescription for how to treat an actual president, or president-elect, of the United States.

When Trump says millions of people voted illegally, how should the news media go about taking that indefensible claim seriously but not literally? Should reporters assume that some number of people voted illegally, but not millions? Or that millions of people voted, but not illegally?

When Trump says he spoke on the telephone with the president of Taiwan, should China be expected to take that grave violation of diplomatic norms seriously but not literally?

Perhaps we shouldnt take the literally-seriously distinction too literally. Perhaps what Trump supporters really mean is that he should get a free pass whenever his mouth gets him in trouble?

Trump has said, I know words, I have the best words. Hes also said he could be more presidential than anybody, except maybe Abraham Lincoln. Hed be well advised to take his own words seriously, if not literally.

What a president says matters. And credibility  with citizens, allies, enemies and markets  is a finite resource, easily depleted when you think youll never be held to account for what you blurt out.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

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Since Donald Trumps election, a wave of hate attacks have targeted Jews, Muslims and other vulnerable groups.

Whats the government doing about it? Nothing.

But the U.S. Senate did pass a bill last week called the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which cracks down on the constitutional rights of college students and faculty to criticize Israel. The House will vote on it any day now.

The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act endorses the State Department definition of anti-Semitism, which includes delegitimizing Israel, demonizing Israel or holding Israel to a double standard. The bill directs the Department of Education to consider this definition when investigating complaints of anti-Semitism on campus. But the bill does not add any new protections for Jewish students; the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Department of Educations interpretation of the statute, already protects Jewish students against discrimination.

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The State Department standard ... conflates criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Jewish hatred, shutting down debate.

The State Department standard is highly controversial because it conflates criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Jewish hatred, shutting down debate by suggesting that anyone who looks critically at Israeli policy is somehow beyond the pale. It has no place on college campuses in particular, where we need students to engage in a vigorous exchange of ideas  especially around our worlds most intractable problems, such as Israels nearly 50-year military occupation of Palestine.

The University of California rejected the same definition in 2015 after an outcry from free-speech advocates across the political spectrum, newspapers, students, graduate student instructors, and Jewish and other civil rights organizations. Jewish commentators, including the definitions original drafter, Kenneth Stern, repudiated its use on college campuses.

As a Jewish student at Berkeley Law in 2010, I joined the campaign pushing the university to divest from companies complicit in Israels occupation and violations of Palestinian rights. I was shocked when Israel advocacy organizations claimed that our support for Palestinian equality was so distressing for some Jewish students that the university should not even let us debate the issue.

This was not just a political strategy; it was a legal strategy to justify censorship.

One year later, pro-Israel organizations sued UC Berkeley, alleging that Palestine advocacy on campus created a hostile environment for Jewish students. The case was soundly rejected by a federal court and by the Department of Education. The department also rejected similar cases against UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz and Rutgers University because the activities alleged to be anti-Jewish  mock Israeli military checkpoints and divestment campaigns  were, in the departments words, actually robust and discordant expressions on matters of public concern.

The Senate bill instructs the Education Department to change the rules so that disparagement of Israeli policy is officially understood as anti-Jewish, and thus fair game for federal investigation and punishment.

If Israel advocacy organizations report, say, a divestment protest, federal investigators may come to campus to investigate, causing a severe chilling effect. And if investigators determine that the university in question tolerates an anti-Semitic environment, they may revoke federal funding.

This sets up a blatant violation of student and faculty members 1st Amendment rights. As Trump might have learned last week when he called for jailing flag burners, the right to criticize a government  the U.S., Israeli or any other government  is enshrined in the Constitution. Congress cant legislate that away.

Widespread censorship on Palestine is not hypothetical; its already happening. This fall, Berkeley suspended an academic course called Palestine: a Settler Colonial Inquiry after complaints from the same Israel advocacy organizations who had previously tried to get the Education Department to stifle campus debate. This is how the chilling effect plays out. Campus administrators understand the specter of federal investigations  not just the threat of losing funding, but the fallout from bad headlines  and they suppress legitimate speech to avoid problems.

The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act flew through the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent, with zero debate and no public scrutiny because the text of the bill was not published. No doubt, thats because lawmakers want to prevent vocal debate on Palestinian equality at all costs.

But the bill shouldnt just concern those who take an interest in Palestinian freedom. Anyone who values the constitutional right to express political dissent should worry about this development and speak out before the House gets around to rubber-stamping the Senates unanimous decision.

Liz Jackson is a staff attorney for Palestine Legal in Oakland.

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To the editor: Michael Hiltzik writes, To dispense with the prospect of Californias seceding from the union: On the gonna-happen scale, its a Not. He mentions civil war or a constitutional amendment as two ways to secede. (Should California secede? How the state is politically out of step with the rest of the country, Nov. 29)

As a member of the California National Party, I agree that neither of those are likely or desirable options. However, they are not our only options.

The partys position is this: The United Nations Charter lists political self-determination as a human right, something no government can deny. The U.S. Constitution says treaties are the supreme law of the land. The U.S. government signed the U.N. Charter; therefore movements for political self-determination are explicitly legalized.

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The California National Party is dedicated to liberating California from a union that is no longer reflective of our values, and from two political parties that either treat us with scorn and ridicule, or use us as a cash cow to finance elections.Our contribution to the military is more than Russias entire military budget, more than any other state, yet our voice goes unheard when it comes to how that military is deployed.

Were already a country. Its time to make it official.

Kerry Cox, Westlake Village

..

To the editor: Those considering whether California should secede from the rest of the country point out that if it were an independent nation it would have the sixth-largest economy in the world, between Britain and France.

Unfortunately, the unfunded liabilities that the state faces might put it between Greece and Portugal.

David Goodwin, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Heres an encyclopedic definition of federalism: Sovereignty in federal political orders is non-centralized, often constitutionally, between at least two levels so that units at each level have final authority and can be self-governing in some issue area.

Perhaps the Golden State can be a bright reflection of a renewed commitment to the national golden rule; that is, to live and let live.

Ben Miles , Huntington Beach

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To the editor: It is disturbing that President-elect Donald Trump has alienated China by taking a phone call from the president of Taiwan. (Did Trump just cause a diplomatic crisis over Taiwan? Opinion, Dec. 2)

Trump is driven by the need to be praised and adored. He lashes out at the smallest perceived slight with ferocity while praise of any kind is so intoxicating to him that he is blind to where the praise come from.

Whether it is Russian President Vladimir Putin or soon-to-be White House strategist Stephen Bannon of the alt-right, a new label for an old kind of white supremacy, the way to get to Trump is to flatter him and massage his fragile ego.

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Phyllis Landis, Oceanside

..

To the editor: Lets be totally honest: Trumps phone calls with foreign leaders demonstrate he is spectacularly over his head and operating from the position of an ignorant novice. He does not even know he is changing foreign policy as he speaks.

I am utterly ashamed that this nation is about to bestow the presidency upon a clueless leader.

Trumps occupation of the White House on Jan. 20 will truly test the resiliency of our countrys ability to function with an unfit president.

William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates

..

To the editor: The usual suspects in the mainstream media and progressive political precincts who have excoriated Trump for accepting a call from the head of government in Taiwan would have praised the same from Barack Obama when he was president-elect as a bold and brilliant shattering of a musty foreign policy shibboleth, a forceful challenge long overdue to an outmoded one-China policy, especially as China is now converting the East and South China Seas into wholly owned water resorts.

Paul Bloustein, Cincinnati

..

To the editor: Im not sure which is more disturbing: the thought that Trump is so ignorant that he is unaware of the One China policy or, because of his extensive business interests in China and Taiwan, he knows about it and acted anyway.

Charles Goldwasser, West Hollywood

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To the editor: The way Ann Friedman carries on, one would think that the presidency was obtained through a military coup. After a postelection overseas trip, she worries about the Europeans suffering a trauma like the one inflicted on the United States. (American abroad: Europeans mocked Bush, but theyre downright scared of Trump, Opinion, Nov. 2)

Actually, we are at a tail end of a process that started in Europe, turning to nationalism as a reaction to of globalization and a too-bossy European Union. According to Friedman, a victory by Hillary Clinton would have affirmed liberal democracy in the United States. Many Americans, through the ballot box, begged to differ.

What she and the Democratic Party ought to do is pass the anger and denial stages of grief. They need to contemplate the reasons for their political failure (it was not just the presidency) and work on a platform that benefits most Americans.

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Jack Kaczorowski, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: I think what really stunned Friedman about the election more than anything else was the rejection of the white, liberal in crowd.

Lets be clear about something: President Obama wouldnt have won two terms without Middle America. White people liked Obama as a man even if there were those who didnt like his politics. In essence, the 2016 election was a referendum on the politically correct, white liberal coastal cliques and had little to do with racism, sexism or homophobia.

The election was also about jobs and keeping work in America. If Trump wants to keep his job, he better find some solutions, and quickly.

Mark Walker, Chino Hills

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Gov. Jerry Brown had to pick an attorney general faster than he expected

(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

The phone call that Gov. Jerry Brown made on Wednesday night was unusual. A governor who marches to his own methodical timetable for decisions was having his hand forced by the politics of Capitol Hill, and the job of California attorney general hung in the balance.

In the end, Brown got the man he wanted: Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles). But it was Becerras effort to make a big career move that complicated things.

In interviews with advisers to the governor and those close to Becerra, a portrait emerged of two veteran politicians who have mutual admiration but dont really know each other very well. In fact, the 12-term congressman plans to spend part of this weekend meeting with Brown in Sacramento.

It was Becerras angling for an unexpectedly open high-profile post leading Democrats on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee that sparked the circumspect governor into action.

Nancy McFadden, the governors top staffer, decided she did not want to be attorney general. (Robert Durell / For The Times)

In Sacramento, those close to the governor said that the list of potential replacements for Kamala Harris was short, much shorter than the ones circulated by political watchers. Advisers confirmed that either First Lady Anne Gust Brown or the governors top aide, Nancy McFadden, could have had the job if they had wanted it.

Neither did, perhaps knowing the importance being placed on picking someone who would be willing to run for a full term in the job in 2018 (though Becerra declined to talk about future plans when asked on Thursday).

Becerra, on the other hand, intrigued the governor. Not only did he have the right credentials -- a former deputy attorney general, former state legislator, veteran member of Congress -- but advisers said the governor also valued diversity. And the chance to select the states first Latino attorney general was important.

While few jobs are as important to Brown, himself a former attorney general, the leading contender never came in for an in-person interview. Becerra, who grew up in Sacramento, had been in town just before election day to stump for the reelection of Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove). He met with McFadden on that visit, but not the governor.

And so the two men, who had no deep personal relationship, made the big decision long distance.

When they talked, McFadden said in an interview, the man matched the resume.

Becerra had been looking for somewhere to land. Out of places to move in House leadership and nearing the limit on how much longer he could lead the House Democratic Caucus, the vocal advocate for Hillary Clinton had spent the last year campaigning for her across the country with hopes it might lead to a new position.

Clintons loss Nov. 8 put an end to that speculation, and for a while Becerras next move didnt seem clear.

Surprise news Tuesday afternoon that the ranking Democrat on Ways and Means, Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) would not seek the position again led Beccera to quickly announce his plans to seek the position and lobby colleagues to back him. Levin quickly endorsed Becerra over Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Richie Neal, who had sought the job before.

Word of Becerras effort quickly reached the state Capitol and the governors inner circle sprang into action. Perhaps fewer than a half dozen people knew of Browns decision until news began to spread early Thursday morning.

Becerra called the offer sudden and said with Congress in session he hadnt even had a chance to talk with Brown about the job in person.

It went very quickly when it started to move, he said. I was as stunned as you probably were and others were.
By Monday, a stretch of busy Connecticut Avenue in northwest Washington seemed back to normal, a day after a gunman entered a pizzeria intent on rescuing children trapped in an imaginary sexual abuse ring that Internet conspiracists insist was run by Hillary Clinton and a chief aide.

But it was not back to normal, not with the threat still hanging and no way to brush it aside. The sexual abuse ring is fictional, District of Columbia police said, part of an explosion of made-up news. The danger is real.

This is a growing national problem  fake news that takes a truly menacing and vitriolic turn, and then fuels this potential for violence, said Bradley Graham, who with his wife, Lissa Muscatine, owns a popular bookstore down the block from Comet Ping Pong, the restaurant that patrons fled Sunday when a man arrived with an AR-15 assault-style rifle and another weapon.

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It is also the latest collision of an information ecosphere careening into unknown territory, the guardrails meant to prevent disaster bent useless by the hatred and animosity of the recently concluded presidential campaign.

Like other fake news, the story has been given credence at the highest levels of the incoming administration. Michael Flynn Jr., the son of Donald Trumps pick as national security advisor and chief of staff to his father, propelled the unfounded story on Sunday. Weeks ago, his father had promoted another false story that also linked Clinton to sexual abuse.

Until Pizzagate is proven to be false, the younger Flynn tweeted Sunday, using the conspiracists term for their concoction, itll remain a story.

Trump transition officials did not reply when asked about the episode.

By the rules of the conspiracists, Clinton and others are guilty of sexually abusing children unless they can prove their innocence.

But how do people prove they are not pedophiles, when those rushing to judgment dont believe anything the targets say? How do people strip away scandalous rumors from the wild and lawless Internet?

The unfounded accusations against Clinton, campaign chairman John Podesta and the pizzerias owner, James Alefantis, had been a concern for weeks. The restaurants workers were threatened, and the threats spread to nearby businesses.

For more on politics ... 

On Sunday, store owners lamented that their concerns were not taken seriously enough. That day, police say, Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-old from Salisbury, N.C., strode into Comet Ping Pong with his weapons.

Welch read online that the Comet restaurant was harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted to see for himself if they were there, police said.

He told police he was armed to help rescue them and surrendered peacefully when he found no evidence that underage children were being harbored in the restaurant. No physical injuries were reported.

The genesis of the story was one of Podestas purloined emails, which were released by WikiLeaks during the campaign. In it, restaurant owner Alefantis offered to hold a fundraiser for Clinton and asked whether Podesta could attend.

On the Internet, some decided that the everyday words in the email were code for a child sex abuse ring, even if there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

Social scientists say the flurry of rumor-mongering  and, ultimately, Welchs arrival at the restaurant  stem from a modern culture in which sources of news are no longer trusted and the vacuum has been filled by those spreading falsehoods.

Aram Sinnreich, an associate professor at American University in Washington, likened the Comet pizza accusations to assertions that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job and that the mass killings of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 were faked.

A significant portion of the online population is resistant to traditional methods of establishing what is true and what isnt, he said. Thats a much bigger problem than Pizzagate or any one case. Thats a problem that challenges the mechanisms of a civil society.

Sinnreich said he is skeptical that theres any swift way to deal with the disregard for truth or underlying factors, like Americans distrust of their leaders. He likened the current environment to a body under siege from new and fearful bacteria.

Theres no intellectual penicillin out there that will knock the infection out, he said.

The advent of the Internet, with its hubs of people with myriad interests of fact and fiction, supercharged the ability to spread misinformation, said Karen Kovacs North, a professor of digital social media at USC.

There have always been and always will be people who question truth or facts, she said. It used to be that they could not find like individuals.

Now, people who share their viewpoint are easier to find than ever, and in many cases its from those people that news is received, already salted with facts of unknown origin or credibility.

At the White House on Monday, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that such false reports had a corrosive effect  on our political debate.

Its deeply troubling that some of these false reports could lead to violence, he said.

On Connecticut Avenue on Monday, five young boys peered into the windows of Comet  a delicious pizzeria where everyone is welcome! it bills itself  to see only a few employees inside. Owner Alefantis said in a statement that the restaurant would reopen soon.

There will be a time and place to address how and why this happened in greater detail, he said. For now, I will simply say that we should all condemn the efforts of certain people to spread malicious and utterly false accusations about Comet Ping Pong, a venerated D.C. institution. Let me state unequivocally: These stories are completely and entirely false, and there is no basis in fact to any of them.

The curious boys walked on. One of them asked a question of an older man accompanying them.

Conspiracy is an idea that doesnt hold up, the man said.

But on Sunday it had held up enough to create fear and chaos, with no solution in sight.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendecker

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President Obama secretively built a massive counterterrorism apparatus, and now hes confronting the consequences of expanding his war-making powers: handing them over to a man he said was unfit to serve as commander in chief.

With President-elect Donald Trump weeks away from inheriting them, Obama has taken a new approach, advocating for limits and transparency that he often was content to do without.

In a speech Tuesday, Obama defended his approach to national security and explained the legal and policy underpinnings that his administration used to decide whether and how to detain, interrogate or kill suspected terrorists.

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The White House also released a 66-page report that offered a view into some of the nations most sensitive national security issues, including Obamas signature tool to fight terrorism: harnessing armed drones, human intelligence and electronic surveillance to find, fix and finish thousands of Islamic militants in remote corners of the globe.

This public information allows for a more informed public debate and it provides a potential check on unfettered executive power, Obama said in his address before an audience of troops at the militarys Central Command in Tampa, Fla. The power of the presidency is awesome, but it is supposed to be bound by you, our citizens.

The efforts at transparency were striking for an administration criticized for being secretive by news and watchdog organizations; Obama has used the Espionage Act more times than all other U.S. presidents combined to investigate leaks of government information.

White House aides said Obama was seeking to set an example for accountability.

Thats even more important given the kind of open-ended nature of the conflict against terrorism, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters, adding that the president had sought but not always received greater congressional involvement in fighting war  notably through his request for an updated mandate for military action against Islamic State extremists.

Advocates of greater transparency welcomed Obamas gesture, but expressed concern at the precedent he set by continuing to assert his authority for expanded counterterrorism operations under the broad authorization for the use of force that Congress passed after 9/11, years before Islamic State and other terrorist groups even existed.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called that expansive interpretation an unfortunate legacy of the Obama administration.

Weve had this confluence of interests between the Congress and the administration  a Congress that didnt want to vote on it and an administration that didnt want to tie its own hands, he said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Now we go into a new administration where the door is left so wide open that theres no meaningful congressional limitation on the president-elects ability to go to war.

As he prepares to depart office, Obama made a more forceful push for a new law that more carefully defined presidential power.

Democracies should not operate in a state of permanently authorized war. Thats not good for our military; its not good for our democracy, he said.

Naureen Shah, director of Amnesty International USAs human rights program, said she strongly disagrees with parts of the administrations national security rule book, but applauded the rare step toward transparency.

When the U.S. government shares documents like these publicly, its a sign that those in power value accountability and an informed debate, she said. Now, with a Trump administration on the horizon, it is more important than ever that we do not forget those values.

Obama did not name Trump but reprised some criticisms of him from the campaign, counseling against Trumps calls to heavily bomb territory held by Islamic State and his promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs, or deploying more and more troops, or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, Obama said. We have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained.

Aides said Obamas address, a summation of his national security policy, was planned before the election.

Part of this is putting down a stake that [says], We had it right. And if others have less success, we gave them the instruction manual, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Trump has not specified how he would approach counterterrorism differently than Obama, beyond his vow to quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of Islamic State, as he put it in one campaign advertisement. He has also said the Obama administration has too often telegraphed its military tactics, most notably in a recent Iraqi-led campaign to recapture Mosul from Islamic State.

Obamas address sought to demonstrate the virtue of a muscular but restrained approach.

The president wants to convey that the counterterrorism instruments we have provide all of the elements of surprise that the president-elect thinks are important in policy, Alterman said. The other piece is that presidents believe that you have to be remarkably disciplined in the use of force. And his fear is that the president-elect and his team will overlook the first, and feel they have to abandon the second in order to retain the element of surprise.

The president also made a final appeal to realize the goal set in his first executive order: the closure of the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While he has severely drawn down its population, Congress has erected roadblocks to closing it.

Until Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history. And I will continue to do all that I can to remove this blot on our national honor, Obama said.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this report.

Twitter: @wjhenn, @mikememoli

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This story was originally published at 3 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump took aim at Air Force One on Tuesday, criticizing the cost of the iconic 747 jumbo jet that has served as the presidents flying White House and projected Americas might wherever it lands.

The aircraft used by President Obama, built by Chicago-based Boeing Co., have been in service since the Reagan administration and are due to reach the end of a 30-year design life in 2017.

Boeing, which has built presidential jets since the early 1960s, has been doing early development work on the replacement likely to be outfitted with the latest in gadgetry, including top-secret communications equipment, countermeasures to spoil missile attacks, and aerial refueling capability so it can fly for days without landing.

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Trump would not get a chance to fly in a new Air Force One unless he is reelected; the replacement isnt slated to begin flying until 2024 at the earliest. So far, Boeing has been given three contracts amounting to $170 million to develop the aircraft, which is based on the new and larger version of the 747 dubbed the 747-8 Intercontinental.

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! Trump tweeted.

Trump told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday that he thought the Air Force One program was ridiculous.

Boeing is doing a little bit of a number, he said. We want Boeing to make a lot of money  but not that much money.

As president-elect, Trump has no power to cancel procurements, but the Air Force has yet to issue a contract for the next-generation Air Force One, which will include at least two planes.

Federal budget documents published in February estimated research, test and development costs on the program to be around $2.87 billion through fiscal year 2021. The figure doesnt include the costs of new planes, however. When that is factored in, the price tag may be around $4 billion, U.S. officials said.

We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of this complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the president of the United States, Boeing said Tuesday in a statement. We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best plane for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer.

It is rare for a president-elect to publicly call out a company by name because of the chilling effect it might have, and it wasnt clear what prompted Trumps complaint. Boeings shares were down $2 in early trading after Trumps tweet, but recovered throughout the day, closing up 8 cents, or .05%, to $152.24.

The latest episode raised questions about Trumps potential conflicts in light of his undisclosed financial holdings, and whether he held Boeing stock at the time of the tweet. Trump sold all his Boeing stock in June, transition spokesman Jason Miller insisted, though no documentation was made public.

This really speaks to president-elects focus on keeping spending down across the board, Miller told reporters. We are going to look for areas where we can keep costs down and look for areas where we are going to try to save money.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters traveling on Air Force One that the plane was nearing the end of its projected life and the Obama administration wanted to ensure that future presidents would have a modern presidential aircraft.

The American people would expect that future U.S. presidents would benefit from unique and upgraded capabilities while they are traveling and representing the interests of the United States around the world, he said, adding that the Pentagon and Boeing were acting on recommendations from national security and technical experts.

With worldwide demand steadily shrinking, Boeing has repeatedly slowed the 747 production rate to one per month. The company said this year that if new orders didnt roll in, it was reasonably possible that we could decide to end production of the 747.

In its heyday, Boeing was producing 60 jumbo jets a year, with many of the components coming from Southern California.

Boeing has several hundred suppliers in the U.S. supporting the 747 program. One of the largest is Triumph Aerostructures, which assembles the 747s center fuselage panels in Hawthorne.

Triumph ships fuselage panels and sends them in three custom railroad cars to Boeings assembly plant in Everett, Wash.

Rep. Rick Larsen and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, all Democrats from Washington state, defended Boeing, the largest exporter in the U.S. with customers in 150 countries.

Replacing the 26-year-old Air Force One aircraft will support good-paying jobs throughout northwest Washington and is important to ensuring the safety and security of future presidents, they said in a statement. The president-elects tweet does nothing to change those basic facts.

The only other large commercial aircraft manufacturer is Airbus Group SE, which is based in Leiden, Netherlands.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @wjhenn

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2:35 p.m.: This story was updated with Boeings closing stock price.

12:45 p.m.: This story was updated with comment from the White House and from Trump.

This story was originally published at 9:50 a.m.
Syria rejects any ceasefire negotiated by any party in rebel-held eastern Aleppo unless what it describes as terrorist groups there depart, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday in a statement carried by state media.

Moscow said on Monday that Russian and U.S. officials would meet this week to discuss a possible rebel withdrawal from Aleppo. A U.S. official told Reuters that Washington would embrace that as a step to save lives.

The Syrian government describes all the rebel groups fighting to bring down President Bashar al-Assad as terrorists. The insurgents include groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as militants.

Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Monday for a week-long ceasefire, with Moscow arguing that rebels used such pauses in the fighting to reinforce, causing more fighting and harm to civilians.

Russia, Assad's most powerful foreign supporter, has conducted a campaign of air strikes against the rebels since September 2015, including in Aleppo.

It says it is targeting the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, a former al Qaeda affiliate previously known as the Nusra Front, in the city. Rebels based in Aleppo say that Fateh al-Sham is not present there in significant numbers.

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Donald Trump expressed fondness during the presidential campaign for some of the big federal programs that serve the countrys most vulnerable, but whatever warmth he may feel does not seem to be shared by the people he is choosing to run them.

Mondays selection of Ben Carson, the former pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican presidential hopeful, to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development was the latest move to fit the pattern of stocking the Cabinet with social conservatives deeply skeptical of the government agencies they will be asked to oversee.

Trump chose Carson despite the physicians protest last month that he lacked the credentials needed to run a federal agency. As a child, Carson lived in what he has described as a housing project in Detroit. Since becoming a doctor, however, he has had little other direct experience with urban policy or housing issues.

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He would assume a post overseeing an agency that was elevated to the Cabinet level as part of President Lyndon Johnsons Great Society effort to combat poverty  something that Carson has declared an epic failure.

The job would test Carsons management ability. The department, with an annual budget of $48 billion, oversees big development contracts and the distribution of lucrative grants to communities, and it has been historically susceptible to corruption in times of weak oversight.

During Ronald Reagans tenure, HUD money was regularly misappropriated to contractors with political ties, leading to multiple felony convictions. The agencys standing in that administration seemed to be crystallized by Reagans failure to recognize his HUD secretary, Samuel Pierce, during an encounter at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1981. Reagan addressed Pierce as Mr. Mayor.

Carsons first test at managing a complex, multi-state operation came in the presidential campaign. He proved gifted at raising money, building a small-donor network that was surpassed only by that of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But Carsons campaign and the network of allied super PACs that supported him also stood out for how little money they spent on campaigning and how much was plowed back into payments to contractors.

His lack of experience drew attacks from many prominent Democrats.

I have serious concerns about Dr. Carsons lack of expertise, said incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York. Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for Housing secretary, to say the least.

Schumer vowed Carson would be pushed during confirmation proceedings to prove he is well versed in housing policy and has a vision for federal housing programs that meets the needs of Americans across the country.

In Los Angeles, which works closely with the federal housing agency as it carries out a $23-million anti-homelessness initiative, one of the countrys largest such programs, Mayor Eric Garcetti was more cautious.

Los Angeles stands at the forefront of the very challenges that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was created to tackle, Garcetti said in an email. I am hopeful that as a physician, Mr. Carson will create the much-needed connection between public health and community development in neighborhoods everywhere.

In 2014, the last year for which full figures are available, 492,000 Californians received HUD-funded vouchers to help with rent. The city of Los Angeles received $52 million in community development grants from HUD that year.

In the Cabinet, Carson would join a list of social conservatives that includes Trumps pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Georgia Rep.Tom Price, and Betsy DeVos, who has been tapped to head the Education Department.

Price is a budget hawk and crusader for cutting Medicaid and Medicare, the latter of which Trump, in the campaign, said he opposed cutting. DeVos, the wealthy former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, is a strong backer of voucher programs, which provide tax money to families to spend on private schools.

Carson would be in charge of an agency that is at the forefront of federal efforts to create opportunities for those in poverty. It provides vouchers for housing assistance and Community Development Block Grants that cities rely on for revitalization.

More recently, the Obama administration has been using the departments authority to enforce the Fair Housing Act, passed in 1968, to give low-income families options to move out of economically depressed and racially segregated neighborhoods into areas with better schools and employment opportunities.

Writing in the Washington Times last year, Carson called that policy an example of the federal governments failed mandated social engineering schemes. In another instance, he likened it to the kind of government dictates common in communist countries.

At a CNN town hall during the presidential primaries, Carson said poor Americans were better off when the social safety net barely existed. Taking care of the indigent, he said at the South Carolina event, is not the governments job but that of their friends, neighbors and families.

Starting in the 1920s, the government started getting involved in everything, he said. It kept growing, metastasizing. By the time we got to the 1960s, LBJ was saying, We the government are going to eliminate poverty. Nineteen-trillion dollars later, 10 times more people on food stamps, more poverty, more welfare, broken homes. Everything is much worse.

The former neurosurgeon was one of Trumps most loyal surrogates in the general election.

That alliance was all the more valuable to Trump following a bitter primary. At one point during the primary fights, Trump tweeted that Carson has never created a job in his life and that Carson wants to abolish Medicare  I want to save it and Social Security.

On Monday, by contrast, Trump said in a statement that he and Carson had talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities.

He is a tough competitor and never gives up, Trump added.

The HUD post could be of particular interest to Trump as he pushes his plan for a massive increase in infrastructure spending.

Exactly what form that infrastructure plan will take and whether it will involve federal spending or primarily private money remains unclear. But much of the money could be routed through HUD. Installing a loyalist with no experience in building or construction could enable Trump to more easily ride herd over the plan.

Carsons supporters say his personal experience growing up in poverty gives him a valuable perspective. Carsons family received food stamps when he was a child and spent stretches in rough housing projects in Boston and Detroit.

That won him some cautious praise from housing policy experts.

The fact that he grew up in poverty in a quintessential American city like Detroit should serve as an asset, said Amy Liu, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-oriented think tank in Washington.

I hope he can use his upbringing and home city as a platform for giving a voice and an ear in these issues, she added. But the concern is that he doesnt believe in government being a force for good, particularly when it comes to low-income families.

evan.halper@latimes.com

Follow me: @evanhalper
Representatives with the California High-Speed Rail Authority met with Burbank and Glendale residents last week and told them how the 800-mile bullet train state project would likely affect them.

During community meetings at the Buena Vista Branch Library in Burbank on Tuesday and the Adult Recreation Center in Glendale on Thursday, state officials briefed residents about the planned 12-mile section of the project, which spans from a proposed new railway station next to Hollywood Burbank Airport to Los Angeles Union Station.

Excluding some portions in Burbank, the authority is looking to connect the two stations by primarily using the railroad right-of-way currently used by Metro, Metrolink, Amtrak and freight operators.

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Because the high-speed train would be going through urban environments in Burbank and Glendale, the state agency will be working with those entities as well as other local agencies to minimize the impact it would have on surrounding communities, said Michelle Boehm, the Southern California regional director for the authority.

It is a corridor-renewal program, she said. As we do this, we will be able to integrate high-speed rail. We will electrify some of the tracks, and high-speed rail will share this corridor with these other providers.

While most of the proposed railway will be at-grade, officials are still determining if the bullet-train station platform at the airport should be underground or at surface level, said Melissa De La Pena, the project manager for the Burbank-Los Angeles stretch of the high-speed rail.

As the train passes through Glendale, the authority is proposing there be new grade separations  probably running the tracks over streets  at four locations: Sonora, Grandview and Goodwin avenues and Sperry Street. An alternative to Sperry would be Doran Street, De La Pena said.

Were working with the cities and local stakeholders to identify the configurations of the grade separations, but there will be no at-grade crossings remaining in this [Burbank-to-Los Angeles] section, she said.

De La Pena added that the state would be addressing the grade separations at Sonora, Grandview, Flower and Goodwin and that Metro would be looking into the separation at Sperry.

During the Glendale meeting, one resident had a question regarding when construction of the grade separations would begin.

Boehm said that the entire project is expected to be completed by 2029 and that construction of the grade separations would not start until possibly 10 to 15 years down the road.

--

Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
A 41-year-old man has been charged with murder in the death of his former girlfriend, a Huntington Beach mother of three.

The Orange County district attorneys office Monday also accused Jason Becher of Anaheim with a special-circumstances sentencing enhancement of lying in wait, according to Orange County Superior Court records.

If convicted, he would face a minimum sentence of life in state prison without possibility of parole, according to the district attorneys office.

Becher was arrested Saturday in Grants Pass, Ore., after being sought as a suspect in the death of 50-year-old Marylou Sarkissian, whose body was found around 1 p.m. Friday when police did a welfare check at her home in the 9000 block of Litchfield Drive in Huntington Beach.

Becher is now in the custody of the Grants Pass Department of Public Safety, and the Orange County district attorneys office is seeking his extradition.

The cause of Sarkissians death has not been released. Her autopsy is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday morning, according to the Orange County coroners office.

Becher and Sarkissian dated off and on for the past five years, according to Orange County Superior court documents and Sarkissians sister.

Becher had been previously incarcerated for violent crimes, and Sarkissians sister was granted a restraining order against him in September, court records show.

As you all can imagine, our hearts are broken and we are still trying to process what happened, Debra Zdrazil, Sarkissians sister, wrote on Facebook. Thank you to all for reaching out with your kind words of love, support and prayers.

Zdrazil did not immediately comment further.

According to court records, Becher pleaded guilty in 2001 to four counts of corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to produce great bodily injury, false imprisonment and possession of marijuana for sale, all felony charges that originated in 1999.

He also pleaded guilty to making criminal threats, a misdemeanor.

He was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, according to court records. It wasnt clear how long he served.

In a separate case, Becher pleaded guilty in 2005 to inflicting corporal injury and to unlawful taking of a vehicle, both felonies. He was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison, court records show. It also wasnt clear how long he served in that case.

Zdrazil filed two requests for restraining orders against Becher in July and August this year in Orange County Superior Court, shining a light on his troubled relationship with Sarkissian and her family.

The requests alleged that Becher had been harassing Zdrazil through texts and voicemails since June 28 and threatened to smear her reputation and pay someone to hurt her.

She indicated in the court papers that Becher owned or had access to a gun.

He also has impersonated me by posting false advertisements about me on the Internet, causing strangers to harass me and bombard my phone with phone calls, texts and texts with offensive pictures, Zdrazil wrote.

According to court records, Becher texted Zdrazil in June that Sarkissian owed him $1,600 and had cheated on him while she was away on a business trip.

In another text message, court documents state, he wrote: Im serious this is the bottom line. Im not in town but you know how small the world is. I have friends in low places. I have all your address.

Your sister better settle this matter are [sic] [expletive] is going to hit the fan.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
Holiday enthusiasts bore chilly temperatures and high winds Friday for a chance to watch Santa Claus illuminate La Canadas Memorial Park, pose with a camel and sneak in a snowball fight at the 22nd annual Festival in Lights celebration.

Sponsored by the La Canada Flintridge and Chamber of Commerce Community Assn., the beloved community event has become a tradition for locals looking to kick-start the holiday season. And this years fete did not disappoint.

La Canada mom Christi Matarese came with father Charles Ajalat and her four children, 13-year-old Ellaney, Katelyn, 10, Charlie, 8, and 6-year-old Luca. Attending the Festival in Lights has been a family tradition since her oldest daughter was just a baby.

This is such a great community event, and the kids love the snow and the live animals, she said. This is the only Santa we see each year  this is the real Santa.

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A lever, pushed by Santa, lights up the pavilion at Memorial Park at the La Canada Flintridge Chamber of Commerces 22nd annual Festival in Lights on Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer)

Matarese and her clan were among the very first of a hundred or more spectators to line up for a visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus. On this years wish list?

I really want an underwater camera or a GoPro, Ellaney said. I want to take underwater pictures because I go to the beach a lot.

Katelyn said a camera was on her list, too, but with just seconds to go before their meeting with the big guy, Charlie and Luca still hadnt figured out exactly what to ask for from Santa.

Much more resolute was La Canada City Councilman Len Pieroni, who crafted his own civic wish as he sipped on his hot chocolate.

I would ask Santa for a retail anchor to move into the Town Center, he said of the vacancy formerly occupied by Sport Chalet. "(Otherwise), Im pretty well set.

Joining Pieroni in the annual tradition were Mayor Jon Curtis, who thanked audiences for braving the relatively wintery forecast to take part, Mayor Pro Tem Mike Davitt and council members Dave Spence and Terry Walker.

In addition to serving up holiday fun, the Festival in Lights is also where members of next years Miss La Canada Flintridge Royal Court are named. This year, 12 female finalists vied for tiaras.

The 2017 and 2016 Miss La Canada courts stand together at the La Canada Flintridge Chamber of Commerces 22nd annual Festival in Lights at Memorial Park on Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer)

The winners were Sara Kahn, Julie Lauenstein, Sarah Ann Settles, Reagan Meyers and Holly Stoner, all students at La Canada High School. One will be officially crowned Miss La Canada Flintridge at a special ceremony during the chambers 105th Installation, Awards and Coronation Gala on Jan. 26.

Watching the ceremony with anticipation was Katie Paynter, crowned 2016 Miss LCF at last years gala. Approaching the end of her one-year reign was bittersweet, she admitted.

I remember how nervous we were, Paynter recalled of being a finalist at last years festival. Its kind of sad that its all coming to an end. But we had our year, and I think were happy about what weve done.

Later joining 5-year-old son Nash in the snow pit for small children, chamber chairman Rion Zimmerman said he was thrilled to be a part of this years festival.

Its all about the holidays and the community, he said. Its just great to see everyone in the spirit.

--

Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
Scientists detected a massive asteroid that is set to crash on Earth by September 2020. This killer asteroid will hit an area near the city of Los Angeles, California.

Both NASA and FEMA coordinated to theoretically conclude that the space rock, measuring 330 ft, is approaching the Earth too quickly.

According to AOL, the researchers started to gather information regarding the asteroid after they have spotted it using a large survey telescope. The asteroid has a slight but real chance of hitting Earth.

A space rock strike could bring a territorial catastrophe, one that may quickly escalate into global proportions.

NASA does have a plan in the event such an instance befalls Earth. In conjunction with FEMA, the space agency organized a run-through of the possibilities that may arise should a space rock come speeding towards the planet.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post stated that a lot of specialists would prefer not just to stand around and see what happens. This week, more than 100 planetary researchers, physicists, and architects distributed an open letter in support of a joint European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA mission to review and redirect a near-Earth space rock.

Towards the beginning of December, ESA's board will meet to fund the budget for the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission.

It could take up to two years to construct such a "motor impactor" shuttle and one year or more to reach the space rock. In that case, a clearing will happen in place of an AIDA mission.

The meeting, which says that up to one million space rocks can strike Earth, concluded that scientists had detected only 1% of them to date. In light of that, an open letter issued by planetary researchers has been circulated in support of further missions to expand available information on space rocks.
Researchers have discovered a rare and frightening superbug gene on a U.S. pig farm, sending a strong warning that raw meat can spread the life-threatening germs to humans.

So far no pigs have been slaughtered yet for carrying the gene and no threats to humans have been reported, as researchers announced. However, they still had no idea how the gene could get into the farm, NBC writes.

The findings were published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Thomas Wittum, leader of the veterinary medicine team at The Ohio State University explained that his team didn't know how the gene, called bla IMP-27, reached the farm.

He hoped that the team will take anticipative measures to prevent it from spreading. In addition, he elaborated the possible risk is that these are food animals that are sold as fresh pork products.

Bla IMP-27 provides the bacteria the ability to contain the side effects of antibiotics called carbapenems, which are considered the last resort of an antibiotic. Germs resistant to the effects can't be easily tackled.

Carbapenem antibiotics have been prohibited for use in animals to reduce the risk from antibiotic resistance that may develop in animals then transmit it to humans. However, there have been no resistance-related problems spotted on American farms until now, while the problems have been previously identified among European and Asian livestock, as CBS writes.

The risk itself was already seen in 2015 after a screening of an American pig farm for five months. From there, researchers concluded the risk of antibiotic resistance has been exist in U.S farms.

Elizabeth Scott, chair of the department of public health at Simmons College in Boston, said she wasn't surprised by the latest findings. She warned that the antibiotic resistance raises a huge concern and poses a threat to public health in general.
The European policing agency Europol is all set to investigate what is believed to be the biggest loss of a migrant boat in 2016, following a Reuters-BBC Newsnight investigation.

More than 500 people are suspected to have died in the sinking on previous 9th April, but there has been no official inquiry yet.

Newsnight has established the fact that the boat set sail from Egypt - not Libya, as the stated by UNHCR . Rob Wainwright, The chief of Europol, said the case was "tight".

4,663 people have died this year attempting to cross the Mediterranean,as calculated by UN. But the shipwrecks are not investigated frequently yet.

Total 37 people survived the shipwreck, but more than 500 are supposed to have died. Those who shivered came from Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Syria, Egypt and a number of other countries.Everyone had paid around 1,600 to goons in the hope of reaching Italy.

According to toughies of a disaster, a fishing container sped off, withdrawal about 100 people who were still alive and swimming in a water, to drown. One survivor told that he was helpless with a by a raider when he tried to assistance companion migrants.

The initial that was famous of a plague was a full week after when an Italian seashore ensure supposed a trouble call from one of the survivors.

The smugglers had educated those on house to contend they had come from Libya - in order to prevaricate being repatriated to Egypt.

A few days later, formed on meetings with survivors in Greece, a UNHCR released a pressing matter saying that a vessel had left from Libya.

In a statement, Ministry of Justice of Egypt told that a new law had been confirmed in November to help hold unlawful migration.
A suspected Russian air strike on Idlib city and province in northwest Syria on Tuesday killed at least 25 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

The raid hits several areas mostly controlled by rebel groups, the Britain-based Observatory said. Russia is the Syrian regime's main ally in its war against rebels and Islamist militants.

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Syria's army seized key ground Tuesday in its battle for east Aleppo, capturing more districts and penning rebels in to less than 30 percent of territory they held in mid-November.

The advance came as Moscow and Washington traded barbs over stalled efforts to end fighting in the city, where forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have made significant advances since last week.

On the humanitarian front, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was a "disgrace" that the international community had been unable to alleviate the suffering in besieged and war-battered east Aleppo.

On Tuesday, government troops retook five districts including the strategic Shaar neighbourhood and were in control of more than 70 percent of former rebel territory in east Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The monitoring group described Shaar as "the most important neighbourhood in the heart of east Aleppo", and said rebels were being reduced to fighting a "war of attrition" with regime troops.

The rapid regime gains have left opposition fighters scrambling to defend the shrinking enclave they still control in Aleppo's southeastern districts.

Despite mounting criticism of the offensive begun on November 15, world powers have struggled to find a way to halt the fighting.

Key Assad ally Russia had announced talks with the United States in Geneva for Tuesday or Wednesday on organising a rebel withdrawal from Aleppo ahead of a ceasefire.

But on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington, which has backed rebel groups against Assad, of backtracking.

"It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves," Lavrov said. Moscow had the impression that "a serious discussion with our American partners isn't working out".

US Secretary of State John Kerry denied any change of plans.

"I'm not aware of any specific refusal," he replied when asked about Moscow's allegations as he attended a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

Washington had also accused Moscow of stalling for time after Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a seven-day ceasefire.

Russia said the resolution should have been postponed until after the Geneva talks, saying an agreement on organising a withdrawal was close.

The deputy US envoy to the United Nations, Michele Sison, accused Moscow of using a "made-up alibi" to block the resolution.

Syria's foreign ministry said it would not agree to any ceasefire without a guarantee of a rebel withdrawal.

"Syria will not leave its citizens in east Aleppo to be held hostage by terrorists, and will exert every effort to liberate them," said a foreign ministry statement carried by state news agency SANA.

The rebels have so far rejected any talk of leaving the city, with Yasser al-Youssef of the leading Nureddin al-Zinki faction describing the proposal as "unacceptable".

Opposition fighters have been forced to evacuate several of their besieged strongholds in Syria during the conflict, most recently a string of areas near Damascus.

But the loss of Aleppo would be the biggest blow yet to opposition forces in Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 with popular protests calling for Assad's ouster.

More than 300,000 people have since died and millions forced from their homes.

Aleppo, once Syria's commercial and cultural hub, has been a key battleground of the war and suffered some of its worst violence.

Merkel on Tuesday lashed out at the international community's inability to stop the bloodshed.

"Aleppo is a disgrace," she said in a speech to her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, slamming Russian and Iranian support for the bombardment.

"It is a disgrace that we have been unable to establish humanitarian corridors, but we must continue to fight for it," the German chancellor said.

The offensive has killed more than 341 people in east Aleppo, including 44 children, the Observatory says.

Rebel fire into the government-held west of the city has killed 81 people, including 31 children, in the same period, it says.

Tens of thousands of east Aleppo residents have also fled to different parts of the city, including to government-held areas and other rebel neighbourhoods.

On another front, in northwest Syria, a suspected Russian air strike on Idlib city and province targeting rebel groups on Tuesday killed at least 25 civilians, the Observatory said.

It said 10 people, among them five civilians, were killed in retaliatory rebel fire on pro-regime towns in Idlib.

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Cyprus authorities said on Tuesday that 27 migrants believed to be Syrian refugees from Aleppo were rescued after their boat was towed ashore on the island's northwest coast.

Marine police went to the aid of their vessel after it was spotted drifting in Cyprus waters.

The rescued migrants told police the captain of the boat had abandoned them and escaped on a jet ski, state radio said.

Police said the refugees will stay in the Paphos area overnight before being transferred to a reception centre outside the capital Nicosia.

They said 16 men, five children and six women were saved, and that a pregnant woman was taken to hospital as a precaution.

Police believe the boat departed from Mersin in Turkey, and state radio reported the migrants as saying they had paid 2,000 euros ($2,150) each to be taken to Cyprus.

It also reported a witness at the dock to where the boat was towed as saying his fiancee and some friends were on board after escaping from the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.

EU member Cyprus lies just 100 kilometres (60 miles) off Syria but has so far avoided a mass influx of refugees from that country's conflict.

However, the Paphos area has been a frequent hotspot for traffickers from Turkey. In September and November, 83 and 128 Syrian migrants respectively were rescued there under similar circumstances.



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The documentary film is currently screening at Zaywa cinema in Cairo

A Present from the Past, the first feature-length documentary by young Egyptian filmmaker Kawthar Younis, is currently being screened at Zawya, Cairo's art-house cinema.

The protagonist of the film is Younis father, who receives a present from his daughter to travel to Italy in search of his former love.

The filmmaker shot her film on hidden cameras which her father was not aware of, including her mobile phone.

The documentary is Youniss graduation project from the High Institute of Cinema in Cairo, and was screened at the Cairo International Film Festival last month.

Kawthar Younis talked to Ahram Online about her experience creating her film.

Ahram Online (AO): How did you develop the script of your film and how sure were you everything would work out the way you planned?

Kawthar Younis (KY): It was a risk on many levels. I had this clear idea but during the preparatory level, I did not know if and how I would be able to collect the money to buy the mobile phone and the laptop to do the film.

Also I had to find money to buy two tickets to Italy for me and my father to make the journey that the film is based on.

After that there were so many questions: will my father accept my present? Will my mother accept that her husband embarks on a journey to search for his former love in Italy?

And pragmatically speaking, will he get the visa? Will we find Patricia?

All this led to even bigger worries such as: will I have a film and will it be ever screened?

So with all those questions at each stage of the making of the film there was a lot of pressure. It was an adventure that I was not sure it would have a happy ending. But I kept recording everything with my mobile camera and here we are.

AO: So are all the scenes shot with your hidden cameras?

KY: Mostly yes, except the scenes when we shot some scenes in Italy since it was normal that I carry a handy cam and shoot us two tourists. Some of the scenes in Italy were even shot by my father. I used my mobile camera as well as Pivothead Video Glasses and a MacBook Pro camera.

Also, it was a very personal story. I didnt think about creating a beautiful picture, but rather to capture the feelings of my father. Anyone can make a beautiful picture if he studies the rules of how to make a good composition. I wanted to film the emotion.

AO: Some scenes must have been very difficult to shoot without showing your father that you were recording. For example, the scene where you drive a car and your father is beside you. How did you deal with such challenges?

KY: During the journey of shooting this film I learned a lot about how to position my camera while driving, walking at home, moving from room to room after my father. It was an interesting experience.

AO: When did your father know that you were making a film?

KY: After it was already finished, one day before the graduation jury met at the High Institute of Cinema to see my graduation project. I was not sure if he would accept that it be screened but in the end he did.

I am also glad he didnt know anything during the shooting or editing. If I told my father I was filming him he would become very formal as if he were in the classroom or on a TV programme. With my hidden mobile camera I was able to present him the way he really is.

AO: Since there was no script and no traditional planning involved, how did you deal with this unexpected material and did it create problems in the editing process?

KY: It was a tough mission. When you shoot with a hidden camera you cannot control the material.

The editing phase was the most difficult phase in the whole project. Between July to October, I shot 350 hours of footage and it took one year and six editors to finish the editing.

When you have 350 hours of your personal life material and you are not a famous director, it is difficult for one editor to bear the burden. Maybe if I had one editor, the result would have been different.

The last editor in the editing mission was Heba Othman. She was very helpful and her ideas were very important and made the film the way it is now.

AO: Besides the relationship between a daughter and a father that you capture in the film, it is also an ode to the unfulfilled dream of a man who is to meet his old love. What if the dream was in the mind of a woman not a man?

KY: Everyone had that question in mind when they saw the film. I think it would be very difficult if the situation was about my mother and not my father. The big challenge would then be my father himself--I mean the man.

At the end of the day, we live in what is an Eastern society where even if men show how accepting they are towards issues, when directly faced with specific situations, we find that they are not what we thought.

AO: Did you have moments of doubt in the whole project?

KY: I had my moments, especially during the editing phase, and at some point I wanted to give it up. But with a lot of assistance, I managed to overcome those feelings.

Today, this film means a lot to me. It is not merely about searching for Patricia. It is about the relationship between a 20-year-old daughter and her 75-year-old father.

To find Patricia or not, to go to Italy or not was not the main factor; our relationship was. Those tiny details between me and my father added light and a warm spirit to the film.

AO: Did you expect this positive feedback?

KY: The first time this film was screened during the graduation at the Academy, I received wonderful feedback from the jury. The same happened when the film was screened during the Cairo International Film Festival.

Then Zawya decided to screen the film and to be in charge of the distribution.

I am very happy also with the audience feedback, whether in Egypt or in foreign festivals: the Arab Film Festival in Berlin, the Brussels Mediterranean Film Festival.

I hope that after Zawya other cinemas will consider screening it.

AO: Speaking of your studies at the High Institute of Cinema, how did you find the years spent there? How beneficial were they for making of this film?

KY: At the High Institute of Cinema you study all the basics and the rules, and then everyone can use this knowledge in their own way. This is when it is different with everyone.

To me, the academy, my family, my father, my life and watching movies, all of those factors formed my conscious and my experience.

And on the other side, my film is like a statement, in terms of breaking all the rules and techniques that we studied in the institute. I believe that the bottom line is that you have to make your film, regardless how limited the resources are or what obstacles you encounter on your way.

AO: Did the fact that your father is a professor at the film institute play a role in your choice of this career?

KY: I believe we make films to reach a physiological balance. It is therapeutic in a sense.

I am not a filmmaker because of my father. I have loved cinema since I was young, and I knew this is what I wanted to do since I was a high school student.

Human relationships are my favorite theme and I hope I will always be able to do the films I love and not that I have to do.

AO: Do you think it is difficult for a female filmmaker to proceed with this career in Egypt?

KY: I believe it is more challenging for a female filmmaker in our society, especially when she is a director. In our culture, men are not very comfortable when it comes to taking instructions from a woman. I am saying that out of my experience as a female assistant director to a male director.

I do not know if there are the same challenges in terms of film production. I might discover that in my next film.

AO: You have a next film in mind already?

KY: Yes, and it is a feature film about a real experience. It is about my relationship with very close foreign friend of mine who had to leave Egypt. While the film looks at the last five hours of my friend before she leaves Egypt, beneath that I touch on topics such as motherhood, friendship, me, her, her husband.

AO: How will you finance it?

KY: I will launch a crowd-funding campaign. Also Upfuse, a campaign that sells recycled products for the sake of the environment, will support me.

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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Last year, Dean Curtis and Pheraphat Phromsorn wanted to thank their neighbors for watching their cat while they were away on a trip to Thailand. They booked a dinner at Cherubina Ristorante, the cozy Italian eatery in Easton that closed in May.

The couple, who at the time ran Allentown's Kow Thai Take Out, enjoyed the meal. But they were even more struck by the charm of the striking Victorian building that housed Cherubina.

A year and a half later, Curtis and Phromsorn have launched their own restaurant in that very space. 1001 Thai opened at 1001 Northampton St. on Nov. 21, and Curtis said they've been slammed with reservations, without even yet securing a Google listing.

The new Thai restaurant is an intimate and inviting sit-down spot, an upgrade from the take-out focused Kow Thai, which they sold earlier this year. Phromsorn, who is Thai, runs the kitchen, while Curtis handles more administrative duties. In the new 30-seat environment, Curtis said, more customers will get to try Phromsorn's food properly plated and at its freshest.

"The fresher it is, the better it is," Curtis said. "I love our food either way, but I love it more when it's handed to me on a plate, looking like a piece of art."

Signature menu items include the duck dishes and the several unique curries, which range from $10.95 to $16.95, depending on the protein. Substitute jasmine rice for an additional $3.

Whatever level of heat you prefer in your food, the kitchen aims to match your preference.

"(Phromsorn) will make it as mild or as hot as they want," Curtis said. "If the dish doesn't work mild or hot, we'll let (the customer) know."

Vegans and vegetarians will be pleased with the menu's many meatless offerings. For dessert, a creme brulee ($6.95) is made on-site.

On a Friday afternoon, the restaurant was fully booked for that night's dinner service and about halfway booked for the following Friday evening. A patron there for a late lunch said it was his fourth time eating at 1001 Thai in the few weeks since it had opened.

Curtis and Phromsorn have been excited by the response in Easton, where they had hoped to move for a while. After starting a search for a new location in November 2015, they weighed multiple locations but landed on the former Cherubina building in part because they believed it was move-in ready for a restaurant.

They were wrong. The place needed a new roof, a new furnace, and an entirely new kitchen. They had electrical work done, and re-plastered the walls.

"It needed a lot more work than we thought," Curtis said.

There's still more to do. Curtis and Phromsorn, who have been married for three years, currently live in Palmer Township but plan to move into the space above the restaurant once it's finished.

Nonetheless, Curtis is pleased with the results so far. The layout of the dining area resembles a home more than a typical restaurant. For the decor, the owners of Landhaven Bed & Breakfast in Berks County contributed several pieces of photography and artwork that they acquired on their own trip to Thailand.

For more information, visit 1001 Thai's Facebook page. Reach the restaurant by phone at 610-252-1001.

Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.
An 81-year-old woman from Upper Macungie Township was pronounced dead following a chain-reaction crash Monday afternoon on the Route 222 Bypass, authorities said.

It occurred about 2:12 p.m. when a tractor-trailer driver headed south on Route 222 slammed into vehicles either stopped or slowing for the traffic light at North Krocks Road in Lower Macungie Township, according to Pennsylvania State Police at Fogelsville.

Six vehicles were involved, several of which were left severely mangled. Police identified the tractor-trailer driver as 65-year-old Gary M. Pellegrino, of White Plains, New York.

Fay A. Parry was a back-seat passenger in a vehicle that was struck from behind in the crash, said Raymond Anthony, morgue manager for the Lehigh County Coroner's Office.

Deputy Coroner Richard Pender pronounced Parry dead at 2:40 p.m. at the crash. An autopsy is scheduled Tuesday to try to determine the cause and manner of her death.

Several other motorists were injured in the crash though state police did not immediately have a total number to release. Nor did police as of about 10 p.m. Monday identify those injured or release the severity of injuries.

Trooper Richard J. Walck identified the driver of the vehicle in which Parry was a passenger as Michael George, 57, of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. George is listed as Parry's son in the obituary of Parry's late husband, Alfred M. Parry, who died in May 2010.

Police were continuing to investigate. No charges were immediately filed.

Walck in a news release Monday night identified the tractor-trailer allegedly driven by Pellegrino as Unit 1 in the crash. George's vehicle carrying Parry is identified as Unit 4.

Police identified the other drivers involved as Andrew M. Profit, 52, of Stokesdale, North Carolina, in Unit 2; Clarence C. Hausman, 59, of Breinigsville, in Unit 3; Cayleigh L. Butz, 20, of Alburtis, in Unit 5; and Daniel Louie V. Ajero, 20, of Whitehall Township, in Unit 6.

Authorities had closed Route 222 South at Kressler Road/South Cedarbrook Road following the crash. The crash was reported cleared about 9:30 p.m., according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

CLEARED: Accident on US 222 southbound between Intersection of KRESSLER RD / + CEDARBROOK RD in LOWER MACUNGIE [1TWP] and PA 100/Trexlertown  511PA Allentown (@511PAAllentown) December 6, 2016

All vehicles involved were towed from the scene by Hauser's Towing and impounded, pending further investigation, police said.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
UPDATE: 81-year-old pronounced dead after Route 222 accident

At least one person died in a Monday afternoon crash on southbound Route 222 Bypass in Lower Macungie Township.

Emergency crews were called at about 2:40 p.m. to Route 222 near North Krocks Road for the crash involving multiple vehicles, including a truck and a tractor trailer, according to emergency radio reports.

The Lehigh County coroner's office was at the scene as of 3:24 p.m. Coroner Scott Grim confirmed he was called to the crash.

Route 222 South was closed at Kressler Road/South Cedarbrook Road as Pennsylvania State Police at the Fogelsville barracks investigates.

Troopers were still at the scene Monday afternoon, and state police had no details to release yet.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Know who shot a Lehigh County elk? There's a reward

Antlerless elk, similar to the cow elk found shot to death Dec. 3, 2016, at Trexler Nature Preserve in Lehigh County, stand in a field Nov. 15, 2016, on the east end of Wind Cave National Park, in South Dakota. (Rapid City Journal via AP | For lehighvalleylive.com)

A cash reward of up to $2,000 is available for information leading to the arrest, not conviction, of whoever killed an elk at Lehigh County's Trexler Nature Preserve.

Lehigh Valley Crime Stoppers announced the award Monday.

The carcass was found by staff of Lehigh Valley Zoo inside a fenced-in area at the preserve, 5050 Game Preserve Road in North Whitehall Township. The preserve is adjacent to the zoo.

Investigators believe the female elk, or cow, was killed between Saturday and Sunday.

Pennsylvania State Police ask anyone with information related to the crime to call Trooper Allen O'Hara the Bethlehem barracks at 610-861-2026 or the Lehigh Valley Crime Stoppers toll-free at 800-426-8477 (TIPS).

Callers do not have to give their name to be eligible for the reward.

"We wanted to get the word out hoping that whoever this is brags about it and maybe we can bring them to justice," Trooper Marc Allen said Monday.

Authorities could not say Monday whether the elk was killed by an arrow or with a firearm.

Lehigh County permits archery hunting in areas of the Trexler Nature Preserve that are posted as open to hunting, but only under Pennsylvania Game Commission regulations and not in the fenced-in areas that are home to elk and bison. Archery is not in season in Pennsylvania, though the two-weeks firearms season continues through Saturday. Firearms hunting is prohibited within the nature preserve.

A popular destination for families, the 1,108-acre preserve was founded by the late Gen. Harry Trexler to protect endangered bison and elk at the turn of the 20th century.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A new initiative aims to provide governorates heavily populated with refugees with upgraded forms of medical and social help

In a press conference on 27 November, Egypts health and population ministry (MoHP) announced its collaboration with UNICEF to further provide Syrian refugees in 16 governorates of the country with primary health care.

The initiative is titled Integrating Psychological Support Services in Primary Health Care Units (PHUs.)

The governorates include Cairo, Giza, Sharqiya, Alexandria, Damietta, Monofeya, Kafr El-Sheikh, Qalyubiya, Red Sea, Matrouh, Port Said, Aswan, Gharbeya , Daqahliya, Ismailia and Beheira.

Health Minister Dr. Ahmed Emad said that the ministry is looking forward to the initiative enhancing the role of PHUs through integrating social services for Egyptians, Syrian and non-Syrian refugees through family clubs.

He clarified that family clubs play a key role in providing psychological support through offering life skills for adolescents and recreational activities for children, aiming through these activities to lift some of the hardships that refugees have endured.

Family clubs will also raise awareness among visitors in regards to the importance and guidelines of positive parenting and protecting children from all forms of violence.

The clubs will also work on identifying cases of children that need specialised interventions and directing them to the appropriate mechanism, such as the Child Helpline, Family Counseling Helpline, or Child Protection Committees.

Bruno Maes, UNICEFs representative in Egypt, stressed that the partnership with the Egyptian MoHP is highly valued in regards to the response to the refugee situation and protection of children on the move.

"Through the contribution of various donors supporting education, health and child protection programmes, such as the government of Japan, and the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) and the United States Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM), UNICEF is able to support the Egyptian government's capacity to host refugees and to continue to provide them with services despite the current economic challenges," he said.

The current programme adopted by the MoHP focuses on rehabilitation and capacity as well as the building of 102 PHUs in 16 governorates.

In 40 PHUs, efforts will include provision of resources, medical equipment, and the training of a medical team and social members.

200 Syrian female community workers received training to spread awareness on key health messages in their communities and encourage access to the essential healthcare services.

The initiative also aims to upgrade eight Obstetric Health Care Units and Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

The UNHCR website stated that as of October 2016, the number of registered Syrian refugees nationwide was 115, 204, of which 50,690 are children.

With the continuation of the Syrian crisis, refugees will expectedly face increasing economic hardships and growing dependence on free access to basic services such as education and healthcare provided by the Egyptian government.

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We are Athy through and though, said Jimmy Rainsford, one half of Athy mega band Picture This.

Jimmy and his fellow band member Ryan Hennessy, who both hail from Athy, launched the Jack and Jill Santy Magical Trail at The Clanard Court Hotel last Friday.

There was great excitement at the launch with Picture This taking time to get into photographs with Mrs Claus and the elves.

Now in its seventh year, Santas elves will be on hand for a journey through Santas Magical Trail in aid of Jack and Jill, with every 16 raised funding one hour of home nursing care.

We still live here and we'll be spending Christmas here, said Jimmy .

Ryan is from Clonmullion and I come from just outside Athy.

And it seems they have no immediate plans to leave Athy. Asked if the boys will at some point have to move to the music scene in London, Jimmy replied: Not a hope I am Irish.

Ryan is the lyrist  we write all our own songs and music and Athy is a real inspiration for us. It's a normal life for us.

The boys who also released their Christmas single 'This Christmas' last Friday have been friends for years. They hung out in the same circles in Athy and came together as a band out of a mutual love of music. Their unique alchemy, said Jimmy though, is hard to put your finger on.

That's the mystery, he said. It just works.

When asked what is their plan for 2017 Jimmy joked world domination before confirming their tour dates for Dublin will be next May.

We will be touring in 2017 in May, we are trying to get our music out there to as many people as possible."

The Jack & Jill Childrens Foundation provides direct funding, to families of children with brain damage up to the age of four who suffer severe intellectual and physical developmental delay, enabling them to purchase home respite care.

They also provide end of life care to all children up to the age of four years. These are children who as a result of their condition require intensive home nursing care.

Meanwhile Mary Joe Guilfoyle, Jack & Jills liaison nurse for Kildare, and the first nurse employed by the Foundation when it was established back in 1997, thanked all the team at The Clanard Court.

I want to thank them for their time and energy in making this happen, and in raising much needed funds and awareness for our charity, she said.
SUSAN Galbraith was delighted to receive a special community volunteering award in Clane on December 4.

The Community Council decided that her volunteering work in the area was worthy of her receiving the Claonadh award for 1916.

On Sunday night, December 4, just before the turning of Clanes Christmas tree she had to take to the stage to receive her award, complete with a two minute warning that she had to say a few words.

Her son Dean, who is now working as a project manager in London, was present and he videoed the action so that his sister, Kim, Susans daughter in Sydney, Australia, could get a taste of the event.

Susan is no relation of the famous economist, John Galbraith.

She turned fifty last August and has spent half of her life - just over twenty five years - involved with the organisation of swimming with Clane Community Games.

Many in Naas will have known her as a swimming teacher at the old Naas pool, where she taught for thirty two years.

She loves teaching.

A native of Kilmurray, Clane, she trained as a special needs assistant after caring for her mother at home for three years.

She took up work as a special needs assistant at Hewetson school in Clane. I love teaching and I love working with children, she said.

It has been an eventful year for her.

Her mother, Phyllis Reid, who who taught music at Hewetson, passed away last February. In May, Susan, herself, had a hip replacement.

Apart from swimming, she volunteered for fifteen years with the 5th Kildare scout unit, including with Henry Lowry, whom she acknowledged her in her brief speech on December 5.

Her mother was a founder member of the cubs section of the unit.

She has also been a Sunday

Susan separated from her first husband when her children, now in their early 30s, were around nine.

Last year she married Chris Walshe who was also present on December 4.

She thanked him for helping her for the past few years and also, Kim and Dean.

Thank you very much. This is going to look fabulous..a pride and joy in my house, she said of the award.
There are certain indispensable qualities essential to the Chief Minister of the Crown in a great war. . . . Such a minister must have courage, composure, and judgment. All this Mr. Asquith possessed in a superlative degree. . . . But a war minister must also have vision, imagination and initiativehe must show untiring assiduity, must exercise constant oversight and supervision of every sphere of war activity, must possess driving force to energize this activity, must be in continuous consultation with experts, official and unofficial, as to the best means of utilising the resources of the country in conjunction with the Allies for the achievement of victory. If to this can be added a flair for conducting a great fight, then you have an ideal War Minister.

These words of Lloyd George summarise the weaknesses of Asquith as a Prime Minister in times of War and the picture Lloyd George had of himself as the ideal War Minister .Already Minister of Munitions he was facing the massive challenge of ensuring that the British Army had the ammunition necessary to fight the Great War.

It is astonishing how the boy from the small village Llanystumdwy in Gwynedd became the most powerful statesman in Great Britain and a person of wordwide stature. Born in Manchester and raised by his mother and uncle on his fathers death at 44 years of age. The family moved to Llanystumdwy and initially lived with Uncle Lloyd in Highgate, a cottage in the village.

It is more than likely that Lloyd Georges strengths of leadership were clearly seen when still a schoolboy and these strengths developed into plans and dreams as he grew older. Visiting the House of Commons as a teenager he viewed that assembly as territory to be conquered and in April 1890 he was elected Liberal M.P. for the Caernarfon Boroughs.

His steady rise to various ministerial offices recognised his many talents  President of the Board of Trade, Chancellor of the Exchequer where he introduced many reforms including Old Age Pensions and led a challenge that reduced the powers of the House of Lords, Minister of Munitions and finally the Premiership. He won the support not only of his own Liberal M.P.s but of the country outside of Parliament. He was able to attract huge audiences and was for hundreds of thousands their top parliamentarian the man who won the war. When he died Churchill regarded him as the greatest Welshman since the Tudors

December 6th 2016 records that ascendancy to be Prime Minister of one of Wales greatest sons.

* Lord Roberts of Llandudno is a Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords
We have won the battle of Richmond Park. No, lets be honest, we routed the opposition, beat them into the ground and then stomped on them. Quite a feat for the nice peoples party. Richmond Park was an upset of historic proportions of which every Lib Dem can be justifiably proud.

BUT, it is still only the first battle in what will be a long, hard and bloody war. Just how difficult it will be was demonstrated during the BBCs by-election night coverage when plucky Baroness Susan Kramer skilfully parried vicious attacks from every other person in the room, including chairman Andrew Neil.

Since the disaster of 2015 we have it easy on the criticism front. The media other parties have dismissed and ignored the Lib Dems with a cool disdain. Now they attack. Why? Because every other major party except the SNP is now worried. They should be. The Times political staff wrote in the Saturday edition after the Richmond Park that voters were increasingly ditching old party loyalties and instead defining themselves as pro-EU or anti-EU. Richmond Park ,  wrote Sam Coates in his Times analysis, has just made British politics even more unpredictable.

The Lib Dems are the only national party that has tacked its colours squarely to the anti-Brexit mast. If Europe remains the major issueand there is every reason to believe it willthan the Lib DEMS are the logical home for disaffected Conservative and Labour Remainers who have been galvanised into action by the shock referendum result. 48 percent voted to remain on the 23rd of June. If they transfer their allegiance to the Lib Demsas they did in Richmond Park then Labour and the Tories are in serious trouble.

However, the party needs to be more than just an anti-Brexit, pro-Europe sanctuary to win this war. And it needs to demonstrate to the voters that their opposition is rooted in sincerely held values and that they positions the party takes are the logical extension of those values.

We have good solid valuesOpen, tolerant and united. They need to be repeated over and over again by as many Lib Dems on as many doorsteps and in as much literature as possible. But just repeating them mantra-like is not enough. We need to explain clearly and succinctly how these values are foundations on which we have built our policies on Europe, the NHS, ethnic minorities, education, the socially disadvantaged, human rights, international aid and a host of other issues.

Furthermore, we need to make it clear that these values are absent from the other main parties. UKIP and the Conservative leaderships stand on Europe has empowered a distasteful sub culture of racism and xenophobia. No tolerance there. The autumn budget has exposed Theresa Mays talk of one-nation Toryism as mere rhetoric and her refusal to discuss Brexit terms is anything but open. As for the Labour Party, it has turned its back on national unity with a return to class warfare/

Our values are good values. Even if voters are unable to say they live up to them on a daily basis, we will be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of Britons who do not aspire to them. Stick to them, work with them, build on them and the war can be won.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and the author of The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and the recently published America Made in Britain that has sold out in the US after six weeks but is still available in the UK.
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This Illustration shows the crew (Kazuo Sakamaki and Kiyoshi Inagaki) boarding the mini submarine HA-19, which sits on top of the larger "mother" submarine 1-24, during the early-morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941.

During the predawn hours of Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese crewmembers boarded two mini submarines to take part in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Now, 75 years later, the public can see an underwater live stream of these two historic submarines resting at the bottom of the Pacific, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Maritime archaeologists and scientists will direct a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from NOAA's ship Okeanos Explorer, a federally funded U.S. ship that uses real-time broadband satellite communications to send data to a live audience onshore, according to NOAA.

The live stream will take place here at 6:30 a.m. local time in Hawaii (11:30 a.m. EST) on Wednesday, Dec. 7. [Lost in Pearl Harbor: Photos of Sunken WWII-Era Navy Plane]

The conning tower of the mini submarine that the USS Ward sank. (Image credit: University of Hawaii HURL)

The two submarines may be corroded and covered with barnacles now, but 75 years ago they were in working condition. However, their operations were short-lived. One of the mini subs fired on the USS Ward, which then fired back, sinking it 90 minutes before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor by air, NOAA reported.

These shots marked the first time American forces fired on the enemy during World War II, NOAA reported. However, American personnel didn't immediately warn their counterparts on base of the intrusion, NOAA said.

The USS Ward survived the attack, but it didn't survive the war. Exactly three years after the Pearl Harbor attack, a kamikaze attack sank the ship in the Philippines on Dec. 7, 1944, according to NOAA.

A painting of the USS Ward sinking one of the mini submarines. (Image credit: Tom Freeman National Park Service)

The ROV live stream will also explore a second mini submarine  one that disappeared the morning of the attack. It was found in shallow waters in 1951, and later the U.S. Navy raised it and dumped it in deeper waters farther out to sea.

The University of Hawaii's Undersea Research Laboratory rediscovered it in 1992 and has periodically visited it with submersibles, the last time in 2013, NOAA said.

This Pearl Harbor anniversary will see another historic event: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the harbor with President Barack Obama in late December, making Abe the first Japanese leader to visit the site since the attack, according to Reuters.

Original article on Live Science.
A barely visible fog hangs in the air in a California laboratory, illuminated by a laser. And through it flies a parrot, outfitted with a pair of tiny, red-tinted goggles to protect its eyes.

As the bird flaps its way through the water particles, its wings generate disruptive waves, tracing patterns that help scientists understand how animals fly.

In a new study, a team of scientists measured and analyzed the particle trails that were produced by the goggle-wearing parrot's test flights, and showed that previous computer models of wing movement aren't as accurate as they once thought. This new perspective on flight dynamics could inform future wing designs in autonomous flying robots, according to the study authors. [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]

When animals fly, they create an invisible "footprint" in the air, similar to the wake that a swimmer leaves behind in water. Computer models can interpret these air disturbances to calculate the forces that are required to keep a flyer aloft and propel it forward.

A team of scientists had recently developed a new system that tracked the airflow generated by flight at an unprecedented level of detail. They wanted to compare their improved observations to several commonly used computer models that use wake measurements to estimate flying animals' lift, to see if their predictions would be on track.

Flight of the parrotlet

For the study, the researchers enlisted the help of a Pacific parrotlet  a type of small parrot  named Obi. Obi was trained to fly between two perches that are positioned about 3 feet (1 meter) apart, through a very fine mist of water droplets, which are illuminated by a laser sheet. The water particles that seeded the air were exceptionally small, "only 1 micron in diameter," said study author David Lentink, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University in California. (In comparison, the average strand of human hair is about 100 microns thick.)

Obi's eyes were protected from the laser's light with custom goggles: a 3D-printed frame that is fitted with lenses cut from human safety glasses  the same type of glasses worn by Lentink and his team.

When the laser flashed on and off  at a rate of 1,000 times per second  the water droplets scattered the laser's light, and high-speed cameras shooting 1,000 frames per second captured the trails of disturbed particles as Obi fluttered from perch to perch.

Patterns traced in airborne particles allow scientists to track the wing's precise movements during flight. (Image credit: LentinkLab, Stanford University)

The tests showed something unexpected. Computer models predicted that once the whirling air patterns  also known as vortices  were created by a bird's wings, they would remain relatively stable in the air. But the patterns Obi traced began to disintegrate after the bird flapped its wings just a few times.

"We were surprised to find the vortices that are usually drawn in papers and text books as beautiful donut rings turned out to break up dramatically after two to three wing beats," Lentink told Live Science in an email. He explained that this meant the models, which are widely used in animal flight studies to calculate an animal's lift based on the wake it produced, were likely inaccurate.

"Thanks to the high-speed recording, we were able to capture this and play it back in slow motion, so we could see with our eyes how the vortices break up and make it hard for the models to predict lift well," Lentink said. [In Images: Drones Take Flight in Antarctica and the Arctic]

Testing the flight models

The researchers performed their own calculations about how much lift Obi generated from his wing beats by using a device that Lentink's team developed in 2015  an enclosed box that's equipped with force sensors so sensitive that they were able to detect vibrations produced by the lab's ventilation system, Lentink said in a statement.

They then tested three different models, plugging in the measurements of the air patterns from Obi's flights, and comparing the models' lift estimates to their own. The models produced a range of results  none of which matched the scientists' calculations.

Understanding how birds stay aloft could help engineers improve designs for flying robots. (Image credit: LentinkLab, Stanford University)

Creating better models will be an important next step for studying animal flight, Lentink told Live Science. Video of a be-goggled Obi showed that even a slow-flying parrotlet's wing movements are more complex than scientists had anticipated. Even more variations are likely to exist across species and in animals using different flying techniques, which suggests that the current models are greatly oversimplified, the study authors wrote. Updating them will enable researchers to better understand how animals fly, and could help engineers improve flying robots  many of which mimic animals' powered flight.

"Many people look at the results in the animal flight literature for understanding how robotic wings could be designed better," Lentink said in a statement. "Now, we've shown that the equations that people have used are not as reliable as the community hoped they were. We need new studies, new methods to really inform this design process much more reliably."

The findings were published online Dec. 5 in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.

Original article on Live Science.
Scientists examined DNA from tooth pulp from skeletal remains found in three Italian cemeteries, including this skull from Velia, considered an important port city and trading center.

Malaria afflicted the Roman Empire some 2,000 years ago, according to a new analysis of human teeth collected in Italian cemeteries.

Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease caused by parasites. In 2015, an estimated 214 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, leading to 438,000 deaths, mostly children, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Previous research suggested that malaria was a major disease that afflicted Italy during the Roman Empire. "Its presence during this time is indirectly supported by extensive writings from ancient authors, such as Celsus and Galen, as well as ancient human skeletal remains," said lead study author Stephanie Marciniak, a biological anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University.

However, it was uncertain which species of parasite caused malaria during the Roman Empire. Currently, Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for the largest number of malaria-related deaths globally, but different species of Plasmodium can cause other, usually milder forms of malaria. [27 Devastating Infectious Diseases]

"Knowing the specific species helps frame interpretations about the diversity of the experience of disease in the past," Marciniak told Live Science. "Being able to have a window to ancient microbes can also help to understand how a particular causative agent may have evolved or changed over time."

To learn more about ancient malaria, Marciniak and her colleagues examined human teeth from the bodies of 58 adults and 10 children that date back to the Imperial period of the first to third centuries A.D. These remains came from three cemeteries in southern Italy  the sites of Isola Sacra and Velia were known as important port cities and trading centers, while Vagnari was located farther inland and is thought to be the burial site of laborers who would have worked on a rural Roman estate, the researchers said.

"In order to explore a complex disease like malaria, having a range of sites is beneficial, since malaria could technically flourish in any of these locations," Marciniak said.

The scientists analyzed DNA fragments from dental pulp taken from the teeth. "The only way to identify the specific species of malaria is to use molecular techniques," Marciniak said.

Usable malaria parasite DNA was challenging to extract because the microbes primarily dwell within the bloodstream and organs, including the spleen and liver, which decompose and break down over time  in this case, over the course of two millennia. Still, the researchers were able to pin down the presence of Plasmodium falciparum in the remains of two adults  one from Velia, the other from Vagnari.

These findings revealed that malaria afflicted Imperial-era Italy both on the coasts and inland. "Malaria was likely a significant historical pathogen that caused widespread death in ancient Rome," study senior author Hendrik Poinar, a paleogeneticist and director of McMaster University's Ancient DNA Center in Hamilton, Canada, said in a statement.

Marciniak cautioned that while they know that this parasite was present in ancient Rome, they do not know if the disease killed the people it was found in. "Finding Plasmodium falciparum malaria in the two adult skeletons cannot be extrapolated to interpretations about widespread death or catastrophe caused by this parasite in Imperial-period Italy," she said.

Future research can explore other sites and time periods "in order to explore the scope of the parasite," Marciniak said. Future discoveries of ancient malaria DNA could help them see how the disease might have evolved over time, she said.

The scientists detailed their findings online yesterday (Dec. 5) in the journal Current Biology.

Original article on Live Science.
A jumping robot  whose design was inspired by small primates known as bush babies  can spring off walls to gain height faster than any previous robot and could one day help rapidly scan urban disaster zones, researchers say.

Despite being just 10 inches (26 centimeters) tall and weighing only 0.2 pounds (100 grams), the one-legged robot, named Salto, can leap up more than 3.2 feet (1 meter) high from a standing position.

Salto is not the highest-jumping robot out there  some bots can jump to heights of more than 10 feet (3 meters), but those bots have to wind up for several minutes before they leap, whereas Salto can jump again almost immediately, the researchers said. This allows the one-legged bot to push off a wall  much like human parkour enthusiasts  to gain height more quickly, they added. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]

Salto is also able to climb at a rate of 5.7 feet per second (1.75 meters per second) compared to the 3.7 feet per second (1.12 m/s) achieved by the next-best robot, the researchers said. Salto's climbing rate is slightly better than a bullfrogs, and it has 78 percent of the capabilities of the tree-dwelling bush baby that its modeled on, according to the scientists.

Real-life inspiration

The idea for the robot came to the researchers after they spoke to first responders at an urban search-and-rescue training site in Menlo Park, California, said study leader Duncan Haldane, a robotics Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Our goal was to have a search-and-rescue robot small enough to not disturb the rubble further, and move quickly across the many kinds of rubble produced by collapsed buildings," Haldane told reporters in a news conference on Monday (Dec. 5). "To do that, it has to be able to jump  and jump more adeptly  than prior robots."

Haldane and his colleagues looked to nature for inspiration, "because it's fair to say animals can outclass any robot when it compares to jumping," he said.

Before they could find the animal that would be the perfect model for their robot, the team had to develop a better measure for jumping ability. The researchers came up with a metric called "vertical jumping agility," which combines how high an animal or robot can jump with how often.

The Senegal bush baby (Galago senegalensis) scored highest in the scientists' tests, leaping from branch to branch at 7.2 feet per second (2.2 m/s). The animal gets its jumping prowess from its ability to get into a superlow crouch before takeoff  a feature that it shares with other jumping animals, the researchers said.

This allows the bush baby's leg muscles to store energy in elastic tendons before releasing it later in the jump to generate 15 times more power than the muscles could alone, they added.

Building a robot

Translating this principle into a robotic system required some tinkering, though, Haldane said. [7 Cool Animal-Inspired Technologies]

"When you are doing bio-inspired engineering, you have to drastically simplify what you are seeing in nature and figure out the fundamental principles of what's going on," he said.

In place of a tendon, Salto the robot features a latex spring that's connected to its motor, which can be twisted to store energy. The configuration of the eight bars that make up the robot's leg means that the leverage it provides changes as the robot moves through the jumping motion, the researchers said.

At the beginning of the jump, while the robot is in a superlow crouch, there is little leverage, so power from the motor goes into twisting the spring rather than pushing off from the ground. As Salto's leg extends, the leverage increases, causing it to push off the ground and release the energy stored in the spring, according to the researchers.

"A crowbar provides you with a lever arm to generate a large prying force by exerting a small force at the end of the lever. It's a force multiplier," said study author Mark Plecnik, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley. "This is like using a crowbar that grows and shrinks as you are pushing on it."

Sensors on the robot allow it to keep track of its body angle, leg position and motor position, enabling the robot to adjust its angle in flight using a weighted tail so that it hits the wall at the right angle to allow it to spring off again.

Future uses

Auke Jan Ijspeert, who leads the Biorobotics Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, praised the group's innovation.

"Being able to fight against gravity is always a big problem for terrestrial animals and robots," Ijspeert told Live Science. "Such a system could be useful for applications in field robotics, for example, for search and rescue, pollution monitoring, inspection or agriculture."

The research team that designed Salto hopes that their vertical-agility metric will also help other scientists who are studying jumping animals, said Ron Fearing, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, who oversaw the research.

Thomas Roberts, a professor at Brown University who specializes in biomechanics, thinks that it will, but he also thinks that the technology itself could be important for biologists.

"This is a great example of how bio-inspired engineering design can help us build novel devices, but also inform our understanding of biology," he told Live Science.

"In biology, we can only study animals that exist, and we generally assume that systems in nature work pretty well," Roberts said. "Roboticists can test this assumption by building mechanisms that are similar to biological systems, but depart in important ways."

The new study was published today (Dec. 6) in the debut edition of the journal Science Robotics.

Original article on Live Science.
Friends and colleagues of Mary Farrell, Adult Guidance Officer, Adult Educational Guidance Service (CLAEGS), made a presentation to her as she has taken up a new position with the National Centre for Guidance in Education, where she continues to work in the guidance sector across all levels.

Mary has had a long and distinguished career in education, working across both the second level and adult education sector.

In 2001, Mary was responsible for setting up the Adult Educational Guidance Service in Co Longford.

The free, confidential and impartial guidance service delivers one-to-one guidance, group guidance and an information service, and has to date provided educational guidance and information to in excess of 20,000 clients.

Mary was a networker and made links with the various agencies in the county including the Womens Link, Department of Social Protection, Longford Community Resources, the EDI centre and Family Resource centres. She was also instrumental in establishing links with Athlone Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology, Sligo, National University of Ireland Galway and Maynooth University, in order to enhance progression routes for learners in Co Longford.

Mary organised Longfords first ever Adult Education and Training Exhibition. The event, which brought local and national education and training providers together in Longford, provided the opportunity for people to engage locally with universities and third level colleges. It was a huge success and was the beginning of a new era in adult education.

Mary and her colleagues Liz Glennon, Guidance Counsellor and John Doherty, Information Officer have seen the service growing and evolving over the years, working with all client profiles from young people exploring career paths, retired people looking for leisure activities and unemployed people hoping to up-skill to re-enter the workforce.

Marys hope for the future is that adult education continues to thrive in Co Longford. Mary will continue to be available for private consultation and can be contacted on 086 605 3992.
No Stone Unturned', a book based around memorial inscriptions researched by Luke Baxter and Hugh Farrell, with photography by Michelle Ghee, will be launched in Longford County Library on Thursday, December 8 at 7:30pm.

The launch will be performed by the Most Reverend Dr Michael Geoffrey Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin, Bishop of Glendalough and Primate of Ireland.

Giving some insight into the book, Hugh Farrell explained; In 1986 the late historian Harry Farrell - with assistance from the Longford Leader - documented the names and date of death on all grave stones in Templemichael and Ballymacormack parishes in a book titled 'Exploring Family Origins and Old Longford Town'.

Our appetite for more information on those inscriptions resulted in this book, and with Harrys book in one hand and a soft brush or chalk in the other we set about the task of copying the full inscriptions.

As the book's title suggests, the researchers left literally no stone unturned, with inscriptions copied from St Johns churchyard, Presbyterian Cemetery Battery Road, Templemichael Glebe, St Mels Cathedral, Convent of Mercy, St Catherine's, Church of Ireland, Ballymacormack and wall plaques in St Mels College Longford.

The tragedies and the triumphs of Longford are contained within this publication, Mr Farrell continued. The work was undertaken four years ago and has been ongoing since. The amount of information on some of those stones is incredible, they contain dates of birth and death, place of birth, and in the case of married women in many cases it gives their maiden names.

On most of the military tombs it gives short biographies on cause of death, service etc.

As the Cavalry barracks is in close proximity to St Johns churchyard, many of the burials are soldiers from the famous Cavalry Regiments that served here in times past. The first military related burial was Captain Samuel Forth in 1706.

British soldiers that fought against the rebels in 1798, at Waterloo against Napoleon in 1815, the Crimea in the Charge of the Light Brigade in October 1854 and the Indian Mutiny in 1857 are interred here, Mr Farrell revealed. Rev Francis Little who wrote an eye witness account of the French landing at Killala in 1798 rests here.

With inscriptions being copied by day and researched fully by night, this helped both Mr Farrell and Mr Baxter to trace the lives of those buried from birth to burial.

It gave us some amazing insights into the lives of people long since gone from this earth and it is hoped will be of great assistance to those tracing their roots in the future, Mr Farrell concluded.
The Islamic States Amaq News Agency releases an infographic summarizing the total number of martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) carried out by its followers each month. The latest infographic, which was released yesterday and can be seen below, indicates that 132 suicide bombings were launched in Iraq and Syria during the month of November.

Via Amaqs infographics, the Islamic State has now claimed responsibility for a staggering 1,034 suicide attacks through the first eleven months of 2016. In addition to Iraq and Syria, some of these took place in Libya.

The battle for Mosul

The overwhelming majority of these have been carried out inside Iraq, where the Islamic State is trying to hold its territory.

During the month of November, for example, 112 (or 85 percent) of the claimed suicide bombers were detonated in Iraq, with 94 occurring in the Nineveh province alone. The US military, Iraqi government, Kurdish forces, Iranian-backed militias and others launched an offensive to retake Mosul, which is located in Nineveh, in October. Amaqs infographic for November is the latest piece of evidence indicating that the Islamic State is relying on a large number of suicide bombers to defend the city.

Amaq previously claimed that the so-called caliphate deployed 79 suicide bombers in Nineveh province in October.

In addition, Amaq has released infographics commemorating each of the first seven weeks of the battle for Mosul. The first three of these were previously reproduced by The Long War Journal. The remaining four can be seen below.

According to these statistics, 182 suicide bombers have been dispatched in and around Mosul during the first seven weeks of fighting.

[For more on the Islamic States martyrdom operations during the battle for Mosul, see FDDs Long War Journal report: Islamic State defends Mosul with dozens of suicide bombers.]

Claiming suicide bombings at a historically high rate

As The Long War Journal has previously reported, the Islamic State claims to be carrying out suicide bombings at a historically high rate in 2016.

Amaqs infographics indicate that the group has launched an average of 94 martyrdom operations in Iraq, Libya and Syria per month (1,034 in total) from January through November.

According to open source data compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), all terrorist organizations around the globe carried out 906 (76 per month) suicide attacks in 2015 and 739 (62 per month) in 2014. The year 2015 was the previous high water mark for suicide bombings. Many of those attacks in 2014 and 2015 were orchestrated by the Islamic State, but other organizations martyrs are included in the totals as well.

Therefore, the Islamic States figures suggest that the organization is setting a new record for suicide bombings in 2016 all by itself.

However, there are important caveats to keep in mind when assessing Amaqs claims.

First, it is not possible to validate the total figures provided by Amaq. The Islamic State propaganda arm does post individual claims for most, if not all, of the martyrdom operations tallied on its infographics. These statements indicate a specific location and target for each martyr, but this is not independent verification as it comes from the same source (Amaq). Furthermore, while open source reporting documents many such operations, it is unlikely that all of the suicide attacks are tracked in publicly-available sources. The fog of war often makes it difficult to document precise details.

The identities of many of these attackers are not known. The Islamic State has used children or adolescents in at least some of its martyrdom operations. Such young people cannot be truly considered willing martyrs.

Some suicide bombers fail to reach their intended targets, but are probably included in Amaqs tally anyway. Press reports have detailed how many Islamic State operatives fail to hit their mark prior to blowing themselves up. The US and its allies often destroy vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) before they can do any damage.

It is also possible that Amaq exaggerates the efficacy of the groups martyrdom operations by overstating the casualties caused and the total number of targets destroyed (including enemy vehicles) in the resulting explosions.

Many of the Islamic States suicide bombings are defensive in nature, meaning that a large number of martyrs are being deployed as the caliphates grip on territory slips.

In addition, suicide attacks are just one of the many tactics employed by the Islamic State.

Still, there is no question that the Islamic State is relying on suicide bombers at a remarkable pace. And if Amaqs data are accurate, then November saw more suicide bombings by Abu Bakr al Baghdadis operation (132) than in any previous month this year. The previous high for 2016 came in October, when 120 martyrdom operations were carried out in Iraq, Libya and Syria. September witnessed the fewest suicide attacks with 53, according to Amaq.

Amaq News Agencys infographics for weeks four through seven of the battle for Mosul:

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Also on the blog in the past week were:

Sponsored post: Copyright notices as prima facie evidence of public accessibility

The latest IP developments in Brazil and Mexico

Weve posted the following articles in the past week (log in via subscription or free trial):

Unitary Patent and UPC: A progress report (November 2016)

Interview: Randi Karpinia, Meg Boulware and the AIPLA Women in IP Law Committee

2016 Canada IP Report reveals fall in patent applications

Live from Palo Alto: the 2016 International Women's Leadership Forum

Canada roundup: Blacklocks copyright loss, promise doctrine at the Supreme Court, Quebec signage, CETA, CanCon

UK to ratify UPC Agreement despite Brexit - reaction (UPDATED)

Analysing the Federal Circuits Unwired Planet ruling on CBMs at the PTAB

Wild Boys lose it

Duran Duran (photo: Luz A Vila) Duran Duran (photo: Luz A Vila)

British band Duran Duran were outraged and saddened after losing a UK High Court battle to reclaim the US rights to some of their biggest hits, reports the BBC. "We are shocked that English contract law is being used to overturn artists' rights in another territory," said founder member Nick Rhodes.

The band argued that US copyright laws gave the right to call for a reversion of copyright after 35 years. Gloucester Place Music, part of Sony-owned EMI, argued that English laws of contract stopped the band from doing so.

"This has not been about seeking to challenge the US laws on copyright terminations, but simply a contractual issue in the jurisdiction of the UK courts to clarify the parties' rights on various songs," said an EMI statement.

US copyright law gives songwriters an inalienable right to call for a reversion of copyright after 35 years. In 2014, band members served notices with respect of 37 songs. Gloucester Place Music argued in court that Duran Duran had breached music publishing agreements by serving notices to terminate the grant to the company of US copyrights in the first three albums.

Mr Justice Arnold said the arguments were finely balanced. He said: I conclude that the defendants have acted in breach of the agreements by serving the notices, or, where they have not yet taken effect, will do so if they are not withdrawn.

The judge wrote: The language of clause 3(a) is wide and general. Particularly when read together with clause 4, I consider that what the language would have conveyed to a reasonable person having the relevant background knowledge was that the parties' intention was that the entire copyrights in the Compositions should vest, and remain vested, in the Claimant for the full term of the copyrights. That implicitly precludes the Group Members from exercising rights under US law which have the result that the Claimant's ownership of the copyrights is brought to an end prior to their expiry.

The IPKat blog had a good analysis of Arnold's decision.

Frosty relations over Iceland

UK supermarket Iceland has hit back at the Icelandic government, saying it is not willing to hold any serious discussion in a trade mark dispute, reports the BBC.

Iceland Foods holds an EU trade mark for Iceland, which the country believes prevents its firms from describing their products as Icelandic.

"Iceland Foods had Icelandic majority shareholders and Icelandic representatives on its board for seven years to 2012, the BBC quoted Iceland Foods CEO Malcolm Walker saying. At no point in all those years did any representative of Iceland (the country) raise the slightest concern about our company's branding.

The supermarket blocked an attempt to register Inspired by Iceland but claimed it did not know it came from the Icelandic government.

The Icelandic foreign ministry said it was pursuing legal action to invalidate the Iceland trade mark. "The registration of a country name that enjoys highly positive national branding to a private company defies logic and is untenable," it said.

A USPTO regime change history lesson

The IPWatchdog blog ran an interesting guest post from John White, director at Soryn IP, detailing how previous new US administrations have handled appointing USPTO directors.

The Reagan administration was typical of what came before it by appointing a commissioner near the end of his career from industry stalwarts, with the USPTO well run by careerists and not interfered by and large by the political appointees.

That changed with the Clinton era when Bruce Lehman was appointed. He was not in a career capstone phase, but was younger (more ambitious/energetic perhaps) and sourced not from industry, but from Capitol Hill, said White. He was also determined to change the PTO from what it was; a staid backwater of engineers, to a more representative and progressive government agency. This was all very new fangled for the PTO, and in some ways it struggled, but in other ways it succeeded.

Q Todd Dickinson, James Rogan and Jon Dudas were to follow before the appointment of David Kappos. He was instrumental in the creation of the rules backing for the AIA.

After Kappos departure, White says the USPTO then drifted towards being a very user unfriendly operation that has become a centre of suspicion and cynicism. With Michelle Lee soon to depart, a new director will be nominated.

My advice is to revert to the Kappos ethos of a user friendly and responsive set of careerists, with the political operators standing to one side, and to legislate (if necessary) a Reissue Off-ramp for patents caught up in PTAB proceedings, suggested White. If the PTAB will not indulge amendments, and they likely wont inasmuch as they are not examiners, then let the patent owner solve the issue another way, i.e., through reissue. I would also remake the PTAB to include far more careerist examiners.

A $710m showdown at the USPTO?

Michelle Lee Michelle Lee

Speaking of Michelle Lee, Hal Wegner brings gossip that her October proposal to increase USPTO fees by $710 million runs square into the position taken by Republican Congressional leadership. According to an informed source, there could be a showdown on this issue if Ms Lee refuses to back down from her proposed fee increase, says Wegner.

The House Republican leadership led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy last month sent a letter to all agency heads warning them against finalising pending rules or regulations in the [Obama] Administrations last days.

We are the IP Champions

The US Chamber of Commerces Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) announced its 4th annual 2016 IP Champions last week. These are intended to showcase the economic and cultural impact of intellectual property.

The IP Champion Award for Public Service was Senator Orrin Hatch, who is chair of the Senate Finance Committee and senior member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Hatch has long been an advocate for strong IP protections for American creators, and most recently championed the bipartisan Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016, which was signed into law by President Obama in May 2016, noted GIPC.

The IP Champion Awards for Excellence in Innovation went to Microsofts Make Whats Next Campaign and Pfizers Ibrance Team.

Microsofts advertising campaign was launched this year to encourage girls to enter tech fields and become the next great inventors. The campaign was timed to coincide with International Womens Day. To address the reality that women hold only 7% of patents in the US, Microsoft also launched a patent programme to give select female inventors support in patenting their ideas.

In 2016, Pfizer released a new treatment for breast cancer. The drugs accelerated approval by the FDA indicated its need among many patients across the globe and the Ibrance teams innovative work. Ibrance is the first CDK 4/6 inhibitor in the US market.

The IP Champion Award for Excellence in Enforcement went to the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center for its Operation Apples and Oranges investigation, which exposed a counterfeit cell phone parts distribution network supplying counterfeit parts to 30 individuals and 40 businesses nationwide.

The IP Administration Champion was Danny Marti of the Office of the US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. The IP Champion Awards for Excellence in Advocacy went to Barbara Kolm of the Austrian Economics Center and The Creative Coalition.

Music Canada changes its tune

Canadian blogger Michael Geist brings news of a reversal in copyright lobbying position from Music Canada.

After years of backing Canada implementing and ratifying WIPOs internet treaties ahead of Canadas copyright reform in 2012, Music Canada is now saying the drafters of the WIPO treaties were just guessing  and had guessed wrong.

Graham Henderson, head of Music Canada (formerly the Canadian Recording Industry Association), said in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada last month: The people setting the rules for our world were well-intentioned and clever; but the reality is that they were guessing  We have now had 20 years of experience with those early WIPO guesses. How are we doing?

Geist says Henderson outlined the case for why WIPO had guessed wrong, with benefits to intermediaries and losses to creators, and the emergence of a value gap. Henderson defined this as the gross mismatch between the volume of music being enjoyed by consumers and the revenues being returned to the music community.

Geist commented: Music Canada may wish to paint the Canadian and US digital experiences as the same, but the reality is that they are different. Canada did not enact the DMCA in 1998 nor create the quid pro quo that is suggested in Hendersons speech. Rather, it gave Music Canada what it asked for, implementing and ratifying the WIPO Internet treaties in an overly restrictive manner that created a fair dealing gap that persists to this day.

He added that if the industry wishes to re-examine the decision to ratify those treaties on the basis that it was all just a wrong guess, the starting point would be to fix the imbalance on fair dealing in the analog and digital worlds that has undermined Canadian innovation and the commitment to balance found in copyright law.

The slowdown of 2015s biggest patent case filer

The EDTexweblog ran an interesting analysis of the slowdown in filing by Dallas lawyer Austin Hansley. Beginning in 2012, Hansley started appearing as counsel for plaintiffs in patent cases, rising to a peak of 650 cases filed in 2015. His law firm filed the most district court patent cases in 2015, more than 150 cases ahead of the next law firm.

More than 400 of the cases in 2015 were in the Eastern District of Texas alone. This year, however, Hansley has filed only 11 cases in the district, according to Michael Smith on the EDTexweblog.

Hansley's cases have had a number of recent setbacks. A big client, eDekka, had its patent invalidated in the Eastern District of Texas, bringing more than 100 cases to an end. In March this year, a judge in the District of New Jersey found the claims of one of Hansleys clients also were not patent eligible and assessed Section 285 sanctions. This Autumn, Hansleys last two Eastern District of Texas cases ended when Judge Payne gave Marshall Feature 30 days to find new counsel (the cases were dismissed with prejudice when the plaintiff failed to do so). In the Northern District of Texas, following a temporary suspension, Hansley did not file a report to demonstrate his competence to resume the privilege of representing clients in the region. Judge Lynn responded with an order permanently prohibiting Hansley from practicing in the court.

In brief

- The Slants have a date for their Supreme Court case. Oral arguments in Lee v Tam will take place on January 18.

- Fortune ran an analysis asking: Are blockchain patents a bad idea?

- The Federal Circuit docketed more appeals arising from the USPTO than from the district courts for the fiscal year ending October 31, reports Patently-O. The Federal Circuit received 471 appeals arising from the district courts and 560 appeals arising from the USPTO.

- Jay Z and Timbaland have accused the nephew of Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdy of racial insensitivity in the appeal of the Big Pimpin copyright decision, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Lawyers for the hip hop artists objected to an analogy of the music from Jaws being used in a recruitment video for the Ku Klux Klan.

- Walmart was quietly hit with a $32 million trade mark infringment judgement in November over its Backyard brand, according to Law360s Bill Donahue
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Dr. J Jayalalithaa passed away at 11.30 p,m, She was 68. She had been undergoing treatment since September 22 at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai.

From the time she was admitted to the hospital, Jayalalithaa was being attended by a team of 18 senior doctors including intensivists, respiratory physicians and cardiologists besides AIIMS experts from New Delhi and London.

On Sunday at around 5 PM she suffered a cardiac arrest which worsened her health condition. As the word spread and supporters started gathering in front of the hospital.



People are highly emotional over their 'Amma's demise. Heavy security had been deployed outside the hospital to counter any untoward situation. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and politicians and eminent personalities from various field expressed their condolence over the demise of Jayalalithaa.
The Coming Stock Market Crash and WWIII

Much has been written about this unsustainable bubble in the stock market and the future ramifications of a major crash. We are entering an 80-year cycle where a major crisis war is going to envelop this nation. I believe that war will again be fought in Europe and the Middle East, but will this time involve militant Islam.

By my reckoning, using Elliott Wave and Benner's Cycle, I believe the crash will occur from sometime late in 2018 into 2020/21 and could or should rival the 1929-32 crash. The War should start sometime around 2021 and should last into 2025.

Below, are 2 Elliott Wave charts complete with wave degrees: first, a weekly chart of the S&P 500 from about 2008/09 forward; second, a quarterly chart of the Dow Industrial that goes back 100 years.

S&P500 Supercycle Weekly Chart



S&P500 100-Year Quarterly Chart



Prophecy has been a major study of mine since the 1980's. Biblical prophecy has been one of the hardest to decode. The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation intertwine. When I first started to try to decipher the symbolism (especially in Revelation), it became a daunting task which has taken me years to understand.

When I put together other prophecies after Revelation, I found pieces of the puzzle that seem to be missing or at least clarified the biblical prophecies better. This has been especially true regarding the prophecies of Malachy and Nostradamus.

Many Christians believe we are in the so called "end times" and if we are speaking about Armageddon and the coming Millennial reign of Christ they are not far off, in my opinion. Where the problem lies is using the proper exegetical interpretation of the prophecies letting the Bible, itself; history; context, and grammar do the interpreting instead of reading into the prophecies (in haphazard manner I might add) what interpreters believe they are trying to convey.

Therein lies the rub. So many "so called" prophecies teachers have been teaching the wrong interpretations for so many years, it has become almost verbatim within academia and the Church as a whole (not every church). When researching history, I have found that a lot of the misinterpretations have not only come from wild speculations, but also done on purpose in order to mislead the faithful from understanding the true meanings of the prophecies.

If I'm right (which I hope I am not, but realistically know I am), we will see a major collapse in the stock market and economy from about late 2018 into 2020/21, and then a major Islamic sweep of Europe (war) that the USA must enter into. The allied powers win the war in 2025 (with Trump as Commander in Chief: "...out of Germany from the [Bourbons] long since sterile with wavy hair and a hawkish nose..." Nostradamus calls him the Great Chyren) and after a period of prosperity from 2029 into 2037, another even larger collapse hits the markets basically wiping out years of prosperity even to the point of almost total wipe out: a Millennial Fourth Wave collapse!

We are basically entering the time of the fight between good and evil called Armageddon in Revelation. Har (mountain) meggido (slaughter). Mountain is symbolic for "kingdom". The valley of Meggido in Israel has no mountain in it, so it must be cryptic, otherwise, it makes no sense (and neither do many of the prophetic interpretations I see being bandied about). This is also referred to as the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation (also called the great supper of God).

There is so much more I would like to share, but do not have time to share here. The purpose of me writing about this (I touched on this subject a few weeks ago) is to announce that our sister newsletter "Countdown" is ready. This newsletter focuses more on the intermediate moves in the stock market and the use of gold and silver for barter. It also focuses on the bigger issue of survival and building local "help" communities.

My invitation is out there for those who hear the call to help, because unfortunately, much need and suffering is soon heading our way and there is very little time to prepare. I need people who can write blogs about survival: canning food, growing food, using heirloom seeds, solar and wind energy, making clean water, hunting, firearms etc.. We also show you how to monetize the blogs to help make them worth your time. Subscribers to "Countdown" will also have access to deep discounts to the BluStar Market Timer (which is being Timer Tracked by Timer Trac).

The trend will be to move out of the cities and into the country. I see food riots coming, marauding gangs, increasing violence and attacks on food delivery trucks. A lot of people expect Trump to be their savior, but the coming collapse will be something that he cannot prevent. The Christian right has taken ground in this country, but we cannot let go of what we have already taken. The cities generally voted for Hillary (who is a Luciferian globalist along with George Soros, the Rockefeller and Rothchild familes and their minions). The cities (unfortunately and for the most part) will end up reaping the fruit of the very seeds they have sown. We cannot take God out of this nation and expect Him to bless us.

Too whom much is given, much is required. These words of Jesus require us to be responsible with what we have. I take this quote seriously. I hope you do too.

The new website is called Eagles Over America and it is found at eaglesoveramerica.com. We Christians are the watchers and the caretakers for what God has given us. Let us not fail Him.

Now, as far as the stock market is concerned, I believe we are seeing a topping process right here. My 2013 SPX target was hit last week (and slightly exceeded) and now I believe we are trying to roll over into next February or March with a target of about 1900 on the SPX (down 14%?).

Here is the correct Elliott Wave interpretation (based on the original works of R.N. Elliott). I use WXY and XYZ to denote irregular bear and bull flags. The more minor degree of waves (intermediate and below) could be open to reinterpretation, but the larger degree waves should be correct.

Millennial Wave III (since about the year 1000 C.E.)

Grand Super Cycle Wave [V] (since about 1776)

Super Cycle Wave V (since 1942)

Cycle Wave 5 (since March 2009)

Primary Wave 4 (since late 2014)

Intermediate Wave Z (since July 14, 2016?)

Minor Wave X (since July 14, 2016?)

Minute Wave Z (since November 30, 2016?)

The minuette and sub-minuette waves are too early to label.

God Bless America!



Brad Gudgeon

Editor of The BluStar Market Timer

www.blustarmarkettimer.info

The BluStar Market Timer was rated #1 in the world by Timer Trac in 2014, competing with over 1600 market timers. This occurred despite what the author considered a very difficult year for him. Brad Gudgeon, editor and author of the BluStar Market Timer, is a market veteran of over 30 years. The website is www.blustarmarkettimer.info To view the details more clearly, you may visit our free chart look at www.blustarcharts.weebly.com.

Copyright 2016, BluStar Market Timer. All rights reserved.



Disclaimer: The above information is not intended as investment advice. Market timers can and do make mistakes. The above analysis is believed to be reliable, but we cannot be responsible for losses should they occur as a result of using this information. This article is intended for educational purposes only. Past performance is never a guarantee of future performance.

Brad Gudgeon Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Crude Oil Prices: "Random"? Hardly

The more emotional the market, the more predictable it is.

Last week's shocking spike in crude oil prices is +12% and counting, the biggest one-week gain in five years. Media stories blame one culprit: the November 30 OPEC agreement to cut production.

In absolute terms, the agreed-to cut is small: 1.2 million barrels a day, less than 2% of daily global oil production. Given the existing supply glut, that's a drop in the bucket (no pun intended). Yet, it was a bigger cut than the market expected; plus, the fact that OPEC members came to an agreement at all was enough to play a role in soaring prices.

The weeks leading up to the meeting were filled with anticipation and emotion. Oil prices went all over the place -- down 4% one day, 3% the next. Yet, those fluctuations weren't random.

The more emotional the markets get, the more influential the collective psychology of the market players becomes. That's why Elliott wave price patterns often get particularly clear when volatility strikes.

See for yourself. Below are excerpts from the forecasts our Energy Pro Service, edited by the veteran oil market analyst Steve Craig, posted for subscribers starting in mid-November.

November 15

-- Today's pop above 45.95 leads me to believe that wave A ended at Monday's 42.20 sell-off low. Trade below 45.28 would offer an aggressive hint that wave ((a)) is complete and I'll be looking for downside follow through...

November 18

-- Crude extended its slide from Thursday's 46.58 rebound high down to 44.55 and is attempting to reverse. ...trade above 46.58 should be a good sign that it marks an interim bottom and that the next leg of the advance is underway.

November 22

-- Searching for a top (49.20?). Crude extended its advance up to 49.20. The price action gives wave ((c)) enough legs to count it and the countertrend advance as complete.

November 25

-- A bearish stance seems warranted. Crude remains under selling pressure... The next big hurdle to cross is January's 45.18 wave ((b)) low. Ideally, resistance at 48.26 will hold.

November 28

-- Bearish against 49.20. WTI extended its decline to 45.14 ... if wave B has ended, the rally from 45.14 will prove corrective and set the stage for further decline.

The next day, November 29, oil prices indeed fell...

...and the day after, OPEC agreed to cut production. Oil prices soared, taking out the key resistance level at $47.65 you see circled in red in the chart above -- and, for the first time in weeks, negating our forecast.

This brief history shows that, while crude oil price gyrations may seem random and unpredictable, they are anything but.

It also shows you that even when an Elliott wave forecast doesn't work out, you almost always have a "line in the sand" which, if breached, tells you it's time to get out (e.g., $47.65 in the chart above).

And here's another interesting piece of information. Says CNBC:

"Since 1998, OPEC has cut production 15 times.

"A week later, U.S. crude rose 60 percent of the time...

"...But a month after cuts, U.S. crude was down 53 percent of the time."

We'll see in a few weeks if the second part of this pattern plays out.

Learn to Apply the Wave Principle to Your Markets The Elliott Wave Basic Tutorial gives you the foundation you need to start using the Wave Principle to improve your trading and investing. You'll learn: The basic Elliott wave patterns

Difference between impulsive and corrective waves

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Tips for applying the method to your charts Get instant access

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Crude Oil Prices: "Random"? Hardly.. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

About the Publisher, Elliott Wave International

Founded in 1979 by Robert R. Prechter Jr., Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Failed EU - Means an Expanded Dictatorship

As the people of the world awaken to the pernicious nature and destructive wreckage of European civilization, the EU technocrats and oligarchs respond with even greater measures of control, repression and intimidation. Yet the prospects that they will be able to maintain their autocratic rule lessons with each populist rebellion against the beasts from Brussels. Induced panic is a tool used to scare the peasants into additional submission. The most obvious method will be a major economic and monetary implosion designed to create fear so that their revered and lauded interdependency necessitates another surrender of national sovereignty.

Events in the last decade foreshadowed the frustration and indignation of Europeans against the artificial federation of independent nations, under the domination of non elected autocrats. Only a denier of facts and history would dispute that the European Union has been a failed experiment in communal coupling. A common currency is as much a pipedream as achieving equivalent and comparable national economies.

Soon the EU will be at parity with the US Dollar, but do not worry; the Merkel Reich will bail out the banks with all those assets generated from the Marshall Plan. Keep the money all in the family. So With Populist Anger Rising, Italy May Be Next Domino to Fall, the European Banksters have another opportunity to scare the public and put them back in line.

The problem with Italian banks is they are fragile and they are really big, said Angel Talavera, senior eurozone economist at Oxford Economics in London. Banks of that caliber, as soon as you have any noise and rumors, it creates a really bad loop.

This loop is continuous. When Lagarde Says Globalization Needs to Have a More Inclusive Face, she really is saying that the obstinate Brits need to get back in line.

Lagarde said shes increasingly concerned the U.K. is headed for a hard exit from the European Union. All the noises, all the comments, all the little posturing here and there seem to indicate that we are still looking at a hard Brexit, she said.

The only real hard exit will come when the entire musical chair drama hits the wall and the rush to abandon the union of oppression and get back to cultural distinctiveness of indigenous ethnic identity. The systematic contamination of European heritage from the forced invasion of foreign and non compatible Middle East and African hordes has proved to be the greatest betrayal of the new millennium.

The downfall of the Roman Empire was finalized when the barbarians no longer feared the legions of gladius armed soldiers. Today, the Goths are actually the Philistines from the European Union. The so called refugees that Merkel welcomed are intended to destroy the last semblance of democratic legitimacy.

The only objective reason to explain such a suicidal policy is that the Caucasian race has proven to be too much of an obstacle for the globalists, who want and need conflict to eliminate native factions from the European continent.

Miscegenation and a diaspora of mass exodus into the countries of Europe has become the hallmark for the failure of reason, common sense and self survival. Is it no wonder that the German racial tenants of the 1930s, which is attracting more support across Europe are seen as preferable to the multiculturalism of the post WWII EU lunacy?

Conventional wisdom shows little worry on What Happens If Italy Votes No on Sunday. Andrea Montaninos viewpoint writes:

Those who consider that this vote could be a disruptive event for the European Union  potentially even worse than Brexit  forget this is a normal feature embedded in Italys constitutional system: The referendum was compulsory and not a political decision of the prime minister. No matter the outcome, it is very unlikely that Italy will face a financial and institutional crisis.

But a negative vote likely would make it harder for Italys fragile banks to recapitalize in the short term, exacerbate tensions among European leaders in the medium term  and could alter the vision of Europe in the long term.

This assessment is echoed by the guardians of the European financial octopus. Italian Banks Flirt With Disaster Again as Renzi Teeters wants you to believe that the next shoe to fall will not disrupt the European Central Bank counter-claims.

The nations 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. Its hard to see a scenario that leads to Armageddon in the Italian banking sector even if Renzi does step down, he said.

Since the EU is not a reserve currency like the US Dollar, the unlimited flow of fresh credit is more difficult to fund. Certainly the adverse consequences to every EU member cannot be ignored. However, the price of pain for member nations is desirable for the magisterial governance to prove just how indispensable they are. The reality is that their arrogant game of brinkmanship is wearing thin among the populace.

Yet do not count that the road to EU ruin will not have setbacks as just seen with the far-right candidate LOSES Austrian presidential election.

On the other hand the Dutch far-right party led by Geert Wilders would WIN an election held today, respected poll shows, in latest blow to EU, is forecast that The Party for Freedom would seize 33 seats in the Dutch parliament's 150-seat lower chamber, based on data revealed by pollster Maurice de Hond.

Also, the establishment view in the anticipated election asks. Who is Francois Fillon and can he really beat Marine Le Pen?

She has tried to present herself as the Brexit-Trump candidate in France, but if there is one thing that does not work in French politics, it is to make an offer based on what the Americans and English do. Marine Le Pens endorsement by Nigel Farage is a vipers embrace and France and Fillon will hug Germany ever closer and back more, not less, into Europe.

No doubt the Brussels band of bandits would prefer Fillon, but will the people vote for a warmed over lite version of populism or will they rally to the real deal in Le Pen?

The European Union will not succumb to the will of the people without a last ditch effort to push back. Democracy has never been the dominate element in European politics. Blue Blood aristocrats never go away; they just emerge under a new title of nobility with a fresh scheme to keep the feudal system intact.

The Totalitarian Collectivism structure that permeates the globalist world order is so embedded into the social and political institutions, that mere public outrage will not be sufficient to break the chains of enslavement.

Those wars to end all wars only consolidated the ruling hierarchy to organize under a different banner of fake democratic principles. The Fascist Victory Behind the European Union explains the origins of the EU Superstate. Most Europeans never understood that the forces that plotted, to once again torch the continent into an infernal of carnage, were the same elites who wanted the First World War.

Today, not much has changed. The Bilderberg Authoritarianism Destroys Humanity as their normal course of operations. The European Union wants to rule over their inborn population completely. The swarms of foreigners are packs of gate-crasher intended to be the accelerant to burn down the civilization.

A peaceful dismantling of the EU is too much to hope for. Prospects of another avoidable conflagration can only take place if the power structure of the globalist cabal, not accountable to any country, much less their citizens; is purged and eradicated from any positions of authority.

Can this imposition of justice take place when the community of nations is nothing but a rubber stamp for the very systemic criminals, who preside over the institutions they designed to maintain their preeminence and exploit their own people? Doubtful, since most people are unwilling to face up to the reality that they have become meager chattel in what the English call The Great Game.

Nativist citizens from EU countries need to start to think in terms of a common race and religion, not a centralization of governing. For a society, who has significantly abandoned the canons of Christianity and often accepts atheistic secular humanism, this shift is hard to imagine. Yet the naysayers were recently preaching as gospel that Donald Trumps populism would be resoundingly rejected.

Mass movements frequently take on a life of their own. If the self-governing will of Europeans can resonate against the bondage of EU serfdom, the liberation from the Byzantine regulations of Brussels governance can create a path for a new renaissance of time-honored enlightenment. Traditional values and virtuous morality, coupled with civic responsibility and bureaucratic accountability is the only road to achieve deliverance from the despotism under the European Union.

Source: http://www.batr.org/totalitariancollectivism/120616.html

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A majority of Chinese businesspeople with investments in North Korea are apparently having problems recovering their money and being forced to leave the country.

Citing a Chinese businessman in the town of Dandong near the border with North Korea, the Chongqing Daily reported on Thursday that close to 100 Chinese investors have been staying indefinitely at hotels in downtown Pyongyang as they wait to recover money. A majority has been unsuccessful so far, and some have even been deported, according to the newspaper.

As the number of overdue payments increases at North Korean trading companies, deals based on credit have declined markedly in Dandong. Merchants now demand cash before handing over goods.

Last August, one incident brought attention to the perils of investing in North Korea. Fertilizer and mineral producer Xiyang Group, based in Liaoning Province, was forced out of North Korea and had to forfeit its 240 million yuan investment in an iron mine.

"The biggest mistake Xiyang Group made was to ignore the dangers of investing in North Korea," said Jiao Qiming, head of a Chinese trading company in Dandong. "Once a dispute occurs, it is impossible to beat the North Korean government."

At present, some 2,000 businesses are operating in Dandong along the North Korea border and about 500 of them trade with the North.


STUART  The rain did not dampen the spirits of the Spencer family of both Roanoke and Eden, N.C., as they searched the Ayers-Kreh Christmas Tree Farm for the perfect tannenbaum.

Growing up, Joel Spencer recalled fond memories with his parents, Ed and Kay Spencer, at the Christmas tree farm.

Its been a family tradition, Joel said. This day reminds me of when I was young and we would come out here. We grew up with this family tradition and now I have kids of my own.

For the first time, Joel and his parents shared the memory making experience with Joels wife, Maria Spencer, and their sons, Samuel Docherty and Gabriel Spencer.

They scoured thousands of trees on Sunday, ranging from firs, spruces, cypresses and pines in 39-degree weather with a steady rainfall. However, the outdoor conditions did not phase them as they walked the land.

Its raining and were not even mad about it, Joel said, crediting the family time as the source of happiness.

Ed, however, looked forward to going indoors where apples and warm drinks await customers every year.

Im looking forward to the hot cocoa at the end of it, Ed said.

Like the Spencer family, thousands of people have enjoyed searching for their special tree since the farm opened to the public in 1979, forester and owner Richard Kreh said.

Striving to teach his children the same work ethic he had growing up on a dairy farm, Kreh planted the first Christmas tree on his land in the early 1970s. Now, approximately 700 trees from the farm make their way to new homes each holiday season.

Many foresters go into the Christmas tree business, Kreh said. The rotation time for one of these trees is five years to 10 or 12 years. Thats like a snap of the fingers for a forester.

Some trees, Kreh explained, take upwards of 100 years to fully grow.

While Christmas tree farming is a relatively new practice, the use of Christmas trees dates all the way back to 7th-century Germany. History records that people in the area were pagans, worshipping the forest spirits. Those spirits were supposedly embodied in the oak tree, which the people used as part of their winter festival every December. When the missionary St. Boniface came through preaching Christianity, he used the fir tree as a way of explaining his faith to the people. Since the fir is green all year long, he used that to teach about eternal life and since its shaped like a triangle, he used that to teach about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Soon after, the fir tree replaced the oak in December festivals. When they came over to America, German immigrants brought the tradition of a Christmas tree with them.

But even after the practice made it over to America, it took time for Christmas tree farming to establish roots. The first Christmas tree farm in America wasnt established until 1901, and with the time involved, it took until the 1940s for people to really start going to the farms to buy trees. When you picture a Christmas tree, often its a Fraser fir in your mind, as thats the one most grown in the Southern United States. Theres also the Douglas fir, which grows mainly in the Northern United States. But there are also several others youll find at Christmas tree farms. Balsam firs, Colorado blue spruce, Scotch pine, Eastern red cedar, white spruce, white pine and Virginia pine all make up the Top Ten list. In European tree farms, you can find Nordmann fir and Norway spruce as well.

Walking the land

For past 37 years, Kreh has not only instilled the importance of manual labor in his children, but also in those seeking a holiday home decoration. People searching for a tree walk the land and saw their pick down by hand. The work, though, is part of the magic, Kreh explained.

Weve got third-generations coming here now, Kreh said. They start coming when theyre small children and its sort of a family unifying experience.

While Kreh laughed recalling the number of times families have bickered over which tree best suited their needs, he said people seem to leave happy.

40 to 50 percent are return people, Kreh said. The rest of the people come and go. Some come with great bravado and say, Ive been coming for 30 years. Others get a little excited and say theyve been coming for longer than weve actually been here.

Welcoming new and old customers alike, its the nostalgia associated with finding a live tree that keeps people coming.

A lot of older folks like Virginia Cedar, which is a very common historic tree, Kreh said. Also, we have wagon rides, hot cocoa and stamen apples for free. And stamens an old-timey apple.

Even though the tree only lasts for a season, recalling time spent with loved ones lasts a lifetime.

Its an outdoor activity that makes a memory, Kreh said.

Open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through Dec. 18, the farm is located at 1531 Ayers Orchard Road in Stuart. Trees are $5.50 per foot.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he will visit Pearl Harbor later this month, the first time a Japanese leader has visited the U.S. naval base Tokyo bombed in a 1941 clandestine attack that precipitated the American entry into World War II.

Abe, speaking two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack, said he would visit the Pearl Harbor memorial with U.S. President Barack Obama to pray for the war dead, while also holding a final summit with the American leader before Obama leaves office next month.

Abe's visit to Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27 comes six months after Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the memorial at Hiroshima, the Japanese city where the U.S. detonated the world's first atomic bomb at the end of the war in 1945.

"We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the U.S."


MARTINSVILLE  People of all ages should be able to read virtually anything without restrictions, the Blue Ridge Regional Library maintains.

Within the library system, one of our basic tenets is to protect anyones right to read  whatever they want, said Director Rick Ward.

The only exception would be for something immoral and/or illegal, such as pornography, Ward said.

Ward made his remarks in commenting about state House Bill 336, which would protect from mandatory disclosure library records that can be used to identify patrons younger than 18 years of age.

The bill, introduced in the 2016 General Assembly session by Del. Brenda Pogge, R-James City County, was referred to the General Laws Committee, where it remains. The Virginia Freedom of Information Act Council is recommending approval of the legislation, according to the Virginia Municipal Leagues website.

Pogge could not be reached Monday for comment on the bill.

In being able to decide what to read, Ward said, juveniles deserve the same rights as adults.

Basically, what someone reads isnt anybodys business but that persons, he said.

He mentioned that if, for instance, someone was to call or visit a local branch library and ask personnel what books have been checked out by someone they know, that information would not be released.

The only way that such information might be released is through a subpoena from a law-enforcement agency, Ward said.

In that case, wed fight it, he said.

Under the bill, though, parents and legal guardians would be able to access minors library records as long as a court has not terminated their parental rights or otherwise restricted or denied access to the records, according to a summary on the state Legislative Information Systems website.

Ward believes that is appropriate. Because minors legally cannot enter into binding contracts, he said, parents and guardians must sign up for library cards for their children. Therefore, they ultimately are responsible for any library materials that their children borrow, so they can determine what their children read, he emphasized.

But people have no right to determine what other people and their children can read, Ward said, referencing a recent incident in which two classic novels  Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird  were pulled from Accomack County school library shelves after a parent complained about racial slurs within them. A committee is to review the novels before the school division formally decides whether they officially will be banned, according to media reports.

The American Library Associations Library Bill of Rights states that libraries should provide materials and other information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues, and the materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

Furthermore, libraries should challenge censorship in fulfilling their responsibility to provide information and enlighten people who use them, the Bill of Rights states.

An interpretation of the Bill of Rights, published on the Blue Ridge Regional Librarys website, states that librarians and (local) governing bodies should not resort to age restrictions on access to library resources in an effort to avoid actual or anticipated objections from parents or anyone else.

Libraries have a public and professional obligation to provide equal access to all library resources for all library users, and parents wanting their childrens access to certain materials restricted must handle the matter themselves, the interpretation specifies.

The regional library system has branches in Martinsville, Collinsville, Bassett, Ridgeway and Patrick County. As of Monday, the system had 44,345 patrons with cards enabling them to borrow materials. Ward estimated that at least 25 percent of those patrons are minors.

Many parents obtain separate library cards for each of their children, he said.
Two major requirements of the Miss Virginia Scholarship Pageant are the evening gown competition and swimsuit competition. Do the benefits of this new college program outweigh the cost that taxpayers bear to invest in the dual-enrollment program? Does the contest winner at PHCC receive a cash prize only if they commit themselves to compete at the next level of the Miss Virginia Scholarship Pageant? Is each contestant responsible to buy, rent or borrow their gown for the evening gown competition? Is each contestant responsible for their wardrobe, fashion accessories, getting their hair fixed and their nails groomed? Is each contestant responsible for their travel expenses, hotel accommodations and meals? A lot of high school girls do not feel comfortable about a contest that requires one to model a swimsuit in front of a panel of judges that must look them over.

A recent article, Its not all genes: Clean living can cut heart risk in the Martinsville Bulletin on Nov. 14 made me want to say oh really? This about it, friends. The article said that non smokers, people who ate well, exercised and stayed slim cut their risk of having a heart attack or other heart problems in half. Im thinking, does that mean the other 50 percent of folks who do the opposite are doomed? Did you know that our life is uncertain, but that death is a sure thing? Most folks who begin reading the Bulletin usually go to the obituary page first to see who has died and if they knew that person or not. I heard a man say one time he scanned the obit column every day to make sure his name was not there. If it wasnt, he could go ahead and plan his day. We all should know death and taxes are two things that human beings can be 100 percent certain that they will face. I truly believe that our genes do play a factor somewhat to our longevity. We all have an appointed day and when that day appears, we are out of here. As I have observed in the obituary column lately, a whole lot of young people, some very young, are leaving this world. Can we say its because of their lifestyle, eating habits or perhaps genes? Does anyone know that 100 percent? Of course not and with that said, eat, drink and be merry every day of your life, as it it was your last. After all, one day, life will be over and just a memory.
The Second Pan-American Cadre School of the International Marxist tendency was held in Mexico City between 2-4 December, with the participation of over 90 comrades from 10 different countries across the continent.

It was a big effort for comrades from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Venezuela, Cuba, US and Canada to raise the necessary resources to attend. Comrades from the US and Canada raised additional money to help with the tickets for comrades from Latin American countries. The comrades from Mexico who were hosting the event were in charge of raise the funds to pay for the accommodation and food of comrades coming from abroad. Some of the attendants had to travel two days overland and others endure long connecting flights as the air routes are designed to connect each country with the US and Europe, but there are not so many direct routes between the different Latin American countries.

In addition to this, a number of comrades had to deal with the extremely restrictive Mexican visa system. In the last few years, the US has subcontracted the job of preventing Central and South American migrants from making their way into the US to the Mexican state. The comrades from Honduras were finally denied a visa.

The 27 comrades from outside Mexico were joined by over 60 comrades from the Mexican section, coming from Mexico City and State as well as Quintana Roo and Veracruz.

The school opened with a session on the balance sheet of the revolutionary wave which has swept Latin America over the last 15 years. The discussion was introduced by comrade Serge Goulart from the Esquerda Marxista (Marxist Left), the Brazilian section of the IMT. A series of mass uprisings, insurrections and revolutionary processes took place in several Latin American countries, particularly between 1999 and 2005. That was followed by a period of certain stabilisation, helped by the boom in the boom in raw materials and sources of energy. With the slow down of the Chinese economy, that has come to an end, throwing a whole series of governments into crisis and allowing openly reactionary governments to come to power. The session discussed what had been the attitude of the Marxists throughout these years and how are we orienting our forces in this new stage.

That discussion was held in Trotsky's Museum which is located in the house where Trotsky lived in exile and where he was finally assassinated. The different sections present made a donation of material (books and pamphlets related to Trotsky) to the Museum which was received by Esteban Volkov, Leon Trotsky's grandson. At the end of the day the participants also went on a guided tour of the Museum.

The following day we had discussions about the Cuban and Mexican revolutions at the Casa de Cultura Jesus Ramirez. Jorge Martin led off on the history of the Cuban revolution. He explained how the question of national liberation had been inextricably linked in the history of Cuba to the question of the struggle against capitalism, in the thought of Julio Antonio Mella (the founder of the Cuban Communist Party), but also that of Antonio Guiteras during the revolutionary period of the 1930s. The evolution of the 1959 Cuban revolution, which started with a national democratic program and ended up expropriating capitalism, was also a demonstration of that and a proof of the correctness of the theory of permanent revolution. The death of Fidel will be seen by the imperialists as an opportunity to redouble their efforts to destroy the gains of the Cuban revolution, which are based on the nationalisation of the means of production. Jorge Martin stressed how IMT's unconditional defence of the Cuban revolution, against imperialism and restoration of capitalism. He explained that this could only be done through workers' control and the struggle for international socialism. There was a lively discussion with the participation of three Cuban comrades from the Network of Anticapitalist Youth, Nuestra America and the people's education network Escaramujo.

Ubaldo Oropeza, from La Izquierda Socialista (Socialist Left), the Mexican section of the IMT, explained the processes that led to the Mexican revolution of 1910-17 and how that revolution, which was carried through by the peasant armies of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa was strangled and defeated as they did find the support of the workers' movement in the cities. That led to the bonapartist regime of the PRI which lasted for over 70 years. The interventions, mainly by the Mexican comrades, dealt with all the different aspects of that epoch making revolution.

On the third and last day, the comrades went to visit the extraordinary murals by Diego de Rivera at the Bellas Artes Museum. There we could see his amazing Man controller of the Universe mural, which he had originally painted for Rockefeller in New York.

Comrades attending the Cadre School then continued the discussion at the headquarters of the Section 9 of the CNTE (the militant democratic faction of the teachers' union). John Peterson from the US Workers' International League introduced the discussion about the revolutionary traditions of the United States as well as the reasons and consequences of Trump's election victory. This was a very important discussion as the revolutionary history of the United States is deliberately hidden, not only from the US workers and youth themselves, but also to the masses in Latin America, where the image is presented of that country as one monolithic counter-revolutionary imperialist block. Many comrades intervened in the discussion, both on the traditions of the US as well as the impact of Trump's victory and how to fight him.

The collection which raised over 36,000 Mexican pesos (US$1800) reflected the mood of enthusiasm which permeated the school. We closed the school with the singing of the Internationale in Spanish and English as well as Bandiera Rossa.

This Cadre School, without a doubt, represents a step forward in the building of the forces of the IMT in the American Continent, from Canada to Argentina.
SPRINGFIELD -- A section of steel from the World Trade Center site in Manhattan acquired by Spirit of Springfield in 2011 will become the centerpiece of a new memorial in a rehabilitated Riverfront Park.

The concept was first made public last month by the city's Chief Development Officer Kevin Kennedy in his presentation "Springfield: Rising to New Heights." The city and the Spirit of Springfield, a nonprofit that actually owns the steel, will make a formal announcement of their plans Wednesday.

The Spirit of Springfield worked for two years to acquire the 12-foot-long, 2,950-pound beam through a donation program established by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The idea was to help communities to establish monuments following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and to the innocent victims lost that day.

The Port Authority has donated sections of the steel to locally to Ludlow, Ware and Enfield, Connecticut.

In Springfield, the city and civic groups considered a number of locations including Forest Park near the city's monument to President John F. Kennedy and Union Station.

According to a news release, the winning design is called "Twin Shadows."

Designers of the project, Salmon Studios and ModVic, said in a news release:

"During the day, visitors are presented with the World Trade Center Artifact, balancing lightly on one end in the center of a circular memorial. A giant curved piece of metal holds the names of NYC's first responders in two large columns with a gap in between. When night falls, this gap is filled with two memorable shadows, created using the silhouette of the artifact. Names remain lit for viewing and ambient light allows visitors to pay their respects."

Funding for the design concept was donated by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts.

The beam arrived in Springfield in September 2011 draped in the American Flag and as part of a long ceremonial procession up Main Street. It has been in storage ever since.

"I am extremely happy that our 911 Memorial is finally coming to fruition in a design that captures the World Trade Center steel in a thoughtful and proper manner," said Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said "On this 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I am very appreciative of the Spirit of Springfield's efforts to organize a memorial to the First Responders who lost their lives in 9/11. As we develop the plans for this park and start construction next fall this memorial will have an everlasting impact on all those who visit and serve to remind everyone that we need to cherish our rights for freedom on a daily basis and never to take this right for granted."
Comedian Chris Rock has announced plans for his first stand-up tour in nine years with plans to come to Connecticut.

Rock will come to the Mohegan Sun Arena on April 22 at 8 p.m.

He announced the tour via a video on his Facebook page.

The new tour, titled "Total Blackout," starts Feb. 14 in Durham, N.C. and ends in Atlantic City on June 3.

Tickets for the show are priced at $119, $89, and $69 and go on sale Friday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m.

Tickets will be available through all Ticketmaster outlets and locations including ticketmaster.com and by phone at (800) 745-3000.
SPRINGFIELD -- The famous Fort Carolers are bringing some musical cheer to Springfield, where they'll be performing daily at The Student Prince Cafe and The Fort Dining Room through Christmas Eve.

"Going to the Student Prince for Christmas has been a Western Mass tradition for decades," Peter Picknelly, co-owner of the downtown bar and restaurant, told The Republican on Tuesday.

Before becoming a stakeholder in the business, Picknelly was a longtime customer of the legendary establishment at 8 Fort St. "I've been coming here with my family since I was a toddler," he said.

For managing partner Andy Yee, the restaurant is the perfect place to get into the holiday spirit.

Not only are there loads of food and drink specials -- veal shank, eggnog, desserts, mixed drinks, and every manner of draft beer known to man -- but this year there will be snow at the Student Prince.

Yes, snow!

OK, so maybe it's not real snow. But it is the same simulated snow that falls up in South Deerfield at Yankee Candle's Black Forest. "Adding the snowflakes, it makes you feel fuzzy and warm," Yee said.

Perhaps the restaurant's biggest highlight this holiday season is the return of the Fort Carolers, who will be giving a special matinee performance on Wednesday, Dec. 7. Daily performances continue through Christmas Eve.

For some longtime patrons, listening to the carolers is a tradition that goes back to childhood. It just doesn't feel like Christmas until the lights go down and the

entire dining room joins together for a rendition of "Silent Night," according to Yee.

"It's an amazing thing to be a part of this long holiday tradition," he said. "And it's great to see new people discovering it every year. It's the kind of thing people pass down for generations and share with their friends and loved ones."

The Fort Carolers are also available for private holiday party performances at the restaurant.

Picknelly and Yee said they are proud to be a part of a Springfield institution that means so much to so many people.

"I'd like to think we've taken it to the next level," Picknelly said. "It's more than just a dining experience."

Yee urged people to make reservations quickly and early, because the restaurant tends to fill up throughout the holiday season.
The United Nations says it has identified 41 peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse in the Central African Republic.

A U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said 25 of the peacekeepers are from Burundi while 16 are from Gabon, and he said they are suspected in alleged sexual abuse that took place in 2014 and 2015.

"Responsibility for further investigations lies with Burundi and Gabon," Dujarric said, adding the United Nations expects those countries to do an investigation and "bring the perpetrators to justice."

He said all of the alleged perpetrators had been rotated out of the Central African Republic before the allegations surfaced.


ae nutcracker 04.jpg

Performances of "The Nutcracker" will be offered at Springfield's Symphony Hall and the Academy of Music in Northampton this weekend.

(The Republican file photo)

Two local dancers will fulfill their dream of a lifetime dancing the role of Clara on Saturday in the Albany Berkshire Ballet's 42nd annual production of "The Nutcracker" at Symphony Hall in Springfield.



Isabella Pereira-Tosado, 13, from Dazzle Studio of Dance in Chicopee and Morgan Presnal, 11, from The Dancer Center in Chicopee, portray the iconic role of Clara as part of the classic ballet that celebrates the magic of the holiday season. Pereira-Tosado will dance during the 1 p.m. show at Symphony Hall, followed by Presnal at the 4:30 p.m. performance.

A perennial Christmas favorite, "The Nutcracker" follows a little girl named Clara on her journey through a fantasy world of fairies, princes, toy soldiers, and an army of mice. Based on the original score composed by Tchaikovsky, the Nutcracker Ballet premiered at the Mariinsky Theater in Russia in 1892.



This year the Albany Berkshire Ballet's professional company of 15 dancers features performers from Florida, Louisiana, Connecticut, Brazil and Japan, as well as local professional dancers from the Albany and Western Massachusetts regions. The two performances at Symphony Hall will also include more than 100 young dancers from the region, ranging in age from 4-16, who will join Pereira-Tosado and Presnal on stage in the roles of reindeer, mini mice, clowns, party children, maids, soldiers and more.



Pereira-Tosado, of Springfield, said she wanted to be a ballerina since "first going to the ballet."



"I saw how beautiful the girls looked dancing and it made me happy and I thought I would like to do that, too, and make other kids happy," she said.



The young dancer said it takes "a lot of work and effort" to dance and "put emotion" into the role of Clara.



"It's an important role and if you don't play it right, you can't bring the story to life. People have bought tickets to see a wonderful production, and I don't want to let them down," she said.



"I'm a little nervous, but I will try my hardest and I think I will do well," Pereira-Tosado added.



"I'm very proud of her. She is an amazing dancer and an amazing student. I was not a dancer, so this is all new to us," said her mother, Daisy Pereira-Tasado.



The show's other Clara said she first went to see "The Nutcracker" when she was "really little."



"When I saw Clara, I knew that I wanted to dance her role one day, and that is how I started with the Albany Berkshire Ballet. When I first started to learn the role it was hard, because there are a lot of details to remember. But, now that I know them, it's gotten easier," said Presnal, of Chicopee.



Presnal said she began dancing because her friends were taking lessons.



"I like having fun on stage. You don't have to think about anything else, while just doing what you want and showing off all of your moves," she said.



The young dancer from Chicopee said she has been rehearsing the role of Clara on Saturdays and Sundays since Columbus Day.



"I'm very excited for my daughter. She has worked really hard to reach her dream and it finally came true for her," said her mother Patty Presnal.



But, you don't just fall into the role of Clara. You "have to pay your dues" first. It's Presnal's fourth year dancing "The Nutcracker" after performing as a clown, angel and party child in past productions.



Both girls said they want to continue dancing through high school, and possibly beyond.



The ABB's critically-acclaimed production takes place under the direction of artistic director Madeline Cantarella Culpo, and has costumes designed by Rita Watson and Victile Donahue and sets and scenery created by theater and movie set designer Carl Sprague, a Stockbridge native.

In addition to the ABB's "Nutcracker," the Academy of Music in Northampton will host two versions of the popular ballet.

The Pioneer Valley Ballet begins its season each winter with performances of "The Nutcracker." Their version - featuring 250 dancers from towns throughout Western Massachusetts performing parts ranging from enchanting snowflakes to the tiniest reindeer - will be held at the Academy of Music on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The area dancers will dance alongside pre-professional students and guest artists from the Boston area and the Carolina Ballet.

Also, Celtic Heels will present "A Celtic Nutcracker" at the Academy of Music on Dec. 17, which tells the story from the perspective of a young girl living in a cottage in Ireland. Her journey takes her to Tir Na Nog, the land of eternal youth, where she finds herself transformed into a princess and receives gifts from Scottish Sword Dancers, Cornish Cloggers, Galician Dancers and more. And, she even meets a few leprechauns along the way.
green hornet.jpg

Van Williams, left, and Bruce Lee in a publicity photo for "The Green Hornet" television series.

(20th Century Fox photo)

Van Williams, who starred in television's "The Green Hornet," has died. He was 82.

The actor died Nov. 29 of kidney failure at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., his wife of 57 years, Vicki, told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday. He had just one kidney since he was 25, she said.

"The Green Hornet" was run as a more serious companion to ABC's campy "Batman" in 1966-1967.

His role in "The Green Hornet" came in 1966 when he signed a deal with 20th Century Fox. He starred as wealthy newspaper publisher Britt Reid, who inherited The Daily Sentinel newspaper from his father, who died in jail after being framed for a crime he did not commit. Reid donned a mask, to battle crime as the Green Hornet. Bruce Lee co-starred as Kato, his loyal sidekick.

After "The Green Hornet," Williams acted for another decade before becoming a reserve sheriff's deputy and volunteer firefighter in Los Angeles.

"He had a wonderful, caring, and kind heart," Vicki Williams, told Variety. "He was a wonderful husband, he was a fabulous father, and a devoted grandfather."




Fifty years ago this week Springfield mayor Charles Ryan announced that he would not seek reelection to a fourth term the following year. He also said that this would not be the end of his interest in politics, although he did not indicate any offices that he would run for.

Later in the week, President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would ask Congress to appropriate an additional $9 to $10 billion to support the mounting cost of the war in Vietnam. He included with this announcement that he hadn't decided whether to include an income tax hike with the request for additional funds.

And Forty years ago this week that Thomas 'Tip' O'Neill was elected Speaker of the House by the Democratic caucus in Congress.

These are some of the headlines you'll see from Page 1 of The Republican and its predecessors over the past fifty years for the week of December 4 - December 10. Each week I'll put together a slideshow of Page 1 images from selected years over the course of that week. We're starting with a look back at one, five, thirty, forty and fifty years ago, with Page 1s from each day of the week for those years.

The slideshow for December 4 - December 10 is embedded at the top of this article.

From the December 5, 1966 edition of The Springfield Union

We'll also find some humor printed out on page one over the years. In 1966 'Dennis The Menace' could be found on the bottom of page one six days a week.

Five years ago a story on Rebecca Lobo as she was ready to be presented the 'Service Above Self' award during a luncheon at the Basketball Hall of Fame.

And a year ago a story on White Street Elementary School in Springfield and its upward jump from a level 4 underperforming school, to the highest level 1 status.

You'll find with looking through the slideshow, that while many stories come and go, many of the issues and topics that affected lives in the past, continue to have an impact on our lives today.

Copies of these and other stories can be found in the online archives. Links to the archives are at the bottom of the page at www.masslive.com/republican

The historic archive includes stories prior to 1989, and the Newsbank archive covers 1988 through the present day.


EAST LONGMEADOW  Continuing a longstanding tradition in the Western Massachusetts Swedish community, some 65 people are expected to attend a centuries-old winter solstice celebration this month.

Organized and sponsored by Brage-Iduna #9, a local lodge of the Vasa Order of America, a Swedish-American fraternal organization, the Scandinavian Saint Lucia Day will be celebrated at St. Paul Lutheran Church on Dec. 11 at 3 p.m., said Marcia Radner, a Brage-Iduna member.

"We try to keep the folk dancing alive, and the traditions alive," Radner said. "It reaffirms the old, and it introduces the young, so it's keeping us going."

Saint Lucia Day celebrates Saint Lucia, a young Christian girl who was martyred for her faith in the year 304, according to Whychristmas.com, a website that explains different Christmastime traditions around the world. The celebration originates from tales told by monks who introduced Christianity to Sweden.

The Swedish celebrate the holiday on Dec. 13  the shortest day of the year in their country  by choosing a young girl who is involved in community service to serve as "Sanka Lucia," Radner said. This girl leads children who serve as Tomtars (Saint Lucia's elves) to local shops for caroling.

Members of the Western Massachusetts Swedish community have celebrated the holiday in East Longmeadow for about 70 years, Radner said. Their celebration at St. Paul features a pageant about Saint Lucia performed by children.

Following the pageant, attendees will move to St. Paul's social hall, where participants will perform favorite folk dances including "Karusellen," "Crested Hen" and "Vi Ar Musikante." They will also sing a few Swedish songs, then invite guests to join in the "Lang dans" dance.

An array of food, including traditional Swedish food, will be served.

"We eat any kind of food, but we try to specialize in Swedish food," Radner said.

Radner, who has long worked to maintain Swedish traditions in Western Mass., said anyone with questions about the celebration, or Swedish culture in general, can call her at 413-447-5850.

"(The celebration is) a way to keep our tradition going," she said.
Tufts University has launched several investigations of its Greek organizations after allegations of hazing and sexual misconduct arose in a student magazine, The Boston Globe reported.

All social activity at its fraternities will be suspended for the rest of the semester as well as and spring recruitment for sororities and fraternities, an administrator told The Boston Globe.

The allegations were featured in an opinion article published in a student magazine. In the article, written from a first-person perspective, Tuft junior Benjamin Kesslen wrote that he was made to watch two women engage in sexual intercourse and forced to drink alcohol until he vomited.

After Kesslen's piece was published, several other allegations of hazing and misconduct came to light, administrators told The Boston Globe.

In addition to the temporary suspensions, all fraternities will be required to participate in sexual misconduct training, alcohol education and meet with a hazing prevention expert.
After a much needed makeover, it's hard to recognize this dog found in Western Massachusetts.

A female Maltese was taken into the custody of the Northampton police department's animal control officer after it was found on the side of Interstate 91.

The dog was badly neglected before it was abandoned, with matted and dirty fur.

The Florence Animal Clinic stepped in and cleaned up the dog's fur, allowing her full visibility again and the opportunity to be less weighed down by excess hair.

Anyone with information regarding the dog is asked to call the Northampton animal control officer at (413) 587-1187.
GREENFIELD - A 26-year-old city man pleaded guilty Monday in Franklin Superior Court to numerous sex crimes involving children.



Derek Lecompte

The Northwestern District Attorney's Office said Derek Lecompte admitted to aggravated rape and abuse of a child, posing a child in the nude, unnatural acts with a child, conspiracy to tamper with evidence and other charges related to incidents that took place in 2013 and 2014.

Judge John Agostini accepted a plea deal that will send Lecompte to state prison for 15 to 20 years, followed by 10 years of probation. He must register as a sex offender.

Lecompte was arrested at a Miami bus station in April 2015 after jumping bail on these charges. He cut off a GPS monitor and fled Massachusetts, only to be captured by state and federal authorities days later.
Shoppers simply use the Amazon Go app, which the company claims can track items you want to purchase. Once you are done with your shopping, you simply walk out.

The store, which is located in Seattle, Washington - where Amazon is headquartered - sells "grocery essentials," according to a video about the store posted by Amazon.

Amazon says that by not having much of the staff of a normal store, it can keep prices low. Amazon Go will also allow the company to collect a treasure trove of data about shopping habits, both in real life and online.

"Four years ago we asked ourselves: what if we could create a shopping experience with no lines and no checkout? Could we push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning to create a store where customers could simply take what they want and go?" according to a statement on the Amazon Go website.

Amazon Go is not the first foray into physical shops. The company experimented with brick and mortar book stores a year ago. But it may be a while before an Amazon store pops up near you. For now, the Seattle store is only open to Amazon employees, but plans to open to the public early in 2017.


France's Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls has announced he will run for president in next year's election.

Valls said he wanted to unite the political left in a speech Monday evening in the Paris suburb of Evry. "I want to give everything for France," he said.

Valls said he will quit his job as prime minister on Tuesday in order to focus on his run for president. He will face other candidates in the Socialist party primary in January.

His announcement comes after French President Francois Hollande said last week during a televised address he did not plan to run for a second term due to insufficient support to win. Hollande, also in the Socialist Party, is the first French incumbent in years to step down without running for re-election.


The founder and chairman of Egyptian telecom giant Orascom resigned on Sunday after the company's massive investment in North Korea went belly-up.

Naguib Sawiris resigned a day after Orascom decided to shut down a branch of its affiliate bank Orabank in Pyongyang under sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and the U.S. Treasury Department.

"Sawiris has done brisk business in the U.S. and Europe and has much of his assets in the West," a source said. "So he has no choice but to look for an exit in the face of the sanctions."

Sawiris has a U.S. passport and is therefore directly affected by sanctions that penalize U.S. citizens from doing business with the North, according to investigative website Finance Uncovered.

Orabank in Pyongyang is linked to Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. for serving as a funnel for the regime's nuclear weapons development.

Born to a family of Coptic Christians in Egypt, Sawiris spearheaded the telecom markets in Pakistan and Lebanon to become the richest man in the Middle East and North Africa. But even before the sanctions North Korea proved a mire for his company, as the regime first wooed him and then tried to stop it from repatriating its profits.

Another casualty has been Yang Bin, the one-time chairman of China's Ouya Group, who was appointed to run a special economic zone in Sinuiju in the North in 2002.

Shortly afterwards he was arrested by Chinese authorities on charges of tax evasion and fraud and sentenced to 18 years in prison when they discovered that the North was building a casino there. His mistake was to trust the North while disregarding warnings from Chinese authorities.

Or take Xiyang Group, one of China's top 500 businesses, which spent 240 million yuan setting up an iron ore separation plant at a mine in Ongjin in North Korea. In 2012 the North simply threw the company out without giving it a chance to retrieve its investment.

And Ma Xiaohong, the chairman of Hongxiang Group in the Chinese border city of Dandong, made a fortune from business with the North. But in October he was arrested for his involvement in illegal financial transactions with the North.

A diplomatic source said Sawiris was once famous for his "Midas touch," but it seems not even he could break the curse of investing in one of the world's most isolated and capricious countries.


"Its a living laboratory for a university that champions sustainability, champions innovation, education and research to show the world that this can be done, and it can be done in a way that makes good business sense for the long term."

Leading the way in sustainability and innovative green technologies, Stanford celebrated the opening of the Stanford Solar Generating Station in Kern County, Calif.

Full Story: http://news.stanford.edu/2016/12/05/stanford-unveils-innovative-solar-generating-station/
Le Dr Renganaden Payayachy a repondu a une question parlementaire du depute du MMM de la 19e circonscription. destinee au ministre de la Sante, lors de la seance parlementaire du 29 mars 2022.

B/23 The Honourable Second Member for Stanley and Rose Hill (Mr Nagalingum)

To ask Dr the Honourable Minister of Health and Wellness 

Whether, in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, he will state the quantum of funds received from the levy of Rs2 per litre on MOGAS and Gasoil for the purchase of vaccines and since the application of the said levy to date, indicating the quantum thereof disbursed as at to date?

Monsieur le President,

Jai ete informe par la State Trading Corporation que le prelevement de 2,00 roupies par litre sur lessence et le diesel est en application depuis le 1er juillet 2021 afin de permettre a tous les citoyens de ce pays davoir acces gratuitement aux vaccins contre la Covid-19.

Le National COVID-19 Vaccination Programme Fund a recu un montant de 372 937 550 roupies de la STC.

Le montant total a ete transfere au Ministere de la Sante et du Bien-etre pour lachat des vaccins contre la COVID-19.

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Renganaden Padayachy a repondu a trois questions venant des deputes Dr Gungapersad et Kushal Lobin sur le COVID-19 Solidarity Fund et celui de Patrice Armance sur Mauritius Institute of Biotechnology Ltd

Reponse sur le COVID-19 Solidarity Fund.

The Honourable Second Member for Grand Baie and Poudre dOr (Dr Gungapersad)

To ask Dr the Honourable Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development 

Whether, in regard to the COVID-19 Solidarity Fund, he will, for the benefit of the House, obtain information as to the quantum of funds collected therein since March 2021 to date, indicating the (a) number of beneficiaries thereunder (b) purpose thereof and (c) quantum of funds disbursed?

The Honourable First Member for La Caverne and Phoenix (Mr Lobine)

To ask Dr the Honourable Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development 

Whether, in regard to the COVID-19 Solidarity Fund, he will, for the benefit of the House, obtain information as to the (a) number of projects financed thereunder since March 2021 to date and (b) quantum of funds disbursed therefor?
Commonwealth Secretary-General, Hon. Patricia Scotland OBE, will deliver the keynote address at the 3rd Africa Summit which is set to take place in the prestigious Dorchester Hotel, London. Mrs Scotland is expected to speak on trade relations between Commonwealth nations and the organizations activities in facilitating bilateral trade among member and non-member nations alike.

The British politician and barrister who served in ministerial positions within the UK government, most notably as the Attorney General for England & Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland, was elected the 6th Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and took office on 1 April 2016. She is the first woman to hold the position and is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Dominica.

This edition of the Africa Summit has the theme, Intra-Africa Trade: Beyond Rhetoric and Political Commitments. The summit will among other things, tackle key issues associated with the continents growth and development; host series of high-level panel discussions and keynote presentations. The event will also feature discussions and sustainable engagement to exchange experiences, evidence-based researches and practical approaches to boost and address emerging issues and challenges that will confront the full implementation of the Continental Free Trade agreement.

Already confirmed participants include HE Patricia Scotland OBE, Secretary General of the Commonwealth; Hon. Dr. Edward Hinga Sandy, Minister of Trade & Industry, Sierra Leone; Hon. Hamat K. Bah, Minister of Culture & Tourism Gambia; Hon. Souleymane Diarrassouba, Minister of Commerce, Industry, & SME Promotion, Cote dIvoire; Lord Dollar Popat, UK House of Lords; Jeremy Lefroy MP, UK House of Commons; Dr. Samuel Jibao, Commissioner-General of National Revenue Authority, Sierra Leone, Mr. Francois Guibert, Chief Executive Officer, Economic Development Board, Mauritius and a delegation of other distinguished business and political leaders from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius, Cote dIvoire, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and across Africa and the UK.

Past participants of African Leadership events include Managing Director, First Bank of Nigeria, Akinsola Adeduntan, Honourable Minister of Culture & Tourism, Gambia, Hon. Hamat N.K Bah, Honourable Minister of Transport, Cote dIviore, Hon. Amadou Kone, President, CTA Mozambique, Agostinho Vuma, Group Chief Executive, Africa Reinsurance, Corneille Karakazi and many others.

The Africa Summit is a premier and annual event of the African Leadership magazine that brings together Business and Political Leaders as well as key stakeholders under one roof to connect with one another, celebrate innovation, entrepreneurship and development in the continent, and explore diverse thoughts and perspectives on issues relations to the social, economic and environmental sustainability of Africa. Previous editions of the summit have attracted over 250 leaders from across Africa, United States and the United Kingdom.

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President Park Geun-hye's long-time crony Choi Soon-sil has refused to appear in a National Assembly inquiry into the massive corruption scandal she is at the center of.

In a letter to lawmakers Monday, Choi said she is "busy" with her defense against charges brought by prosecutors of influence peddling and abuse of power, and suffers from "panic disorder."

Choi's sister Soon-deuk and niece Jang Si-ho have also told lawmakers they will not show up to the Wednesday hearing citing "health problems."

Lawmakers have no way of forcing the suspects to appear and can merely fine them W5-7 million if they fail to show up, a risible sum in light of the money Choi allegedly embezzled and extorted with Park's connivance (US$1=W1,172).

Lawmakers are mulling whether to toughen regulations so that individuals who to respond to a summons face prison terms.
According to legal sources on Monday, Kim applied for bankruptcy protection at the Seoul Central District Court over the W2 billion debt (US$1=W1,172).

Actress Kim Hye-sun applied for bankruptcy protection in August after failing to pay for debts incurred by her ex-husband.

Kim married the man, her second husband, in 2004 but divorced him in 2009. She said in media interviews that he invested her money in businesses overseas and ran up a W1.7 billion debt. She claimed that her husband told her he would give her custody of their daughter if she agreed to shoulder the debt.

To compound matters the actress fell victim to a scam and apparently blew W500 million in 2012 and was charged with failing to repay a loan to a friend.

The court granted Kim protection from her creditors in September and she is currently in the process of agreeing to a debt-repayment schedule.

Kim was a teen idol in the 1980s and 1990s but now mostly plays smaller parts, except for one incendiary outing as an older woman with a young lover in the film "Perfect Partner" in 2011. In May this year she married for the third time.
After 29 days as an active wildfire, the Chestnut Knob Fire at South Mountains State Park in Burke County was declared out Sunday.

More rain over the weekend cooled the fire and an infrared flight Saturday showed no heat. The Florida Forest Service turned control of the fire scene back over to the North Carolina Forest Service and the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation on Monday morning.

The fire began Nov. 6 and grew rapidly for two weeks, peaking at 6,435 acres. More than 400 personnel reported to the incident, including teams from Florida, California, Arizona, New Mexico and other states. Every fire department in Burke County cooperated with fire staff, along with departments from surrounding counties.

No injuries were reported during the entire course of the fire. Additionally, no homes or structures were damaged, even though the blaze jumped beyond the parks boundaries early on.

South Mountains State Park continues to remain closed. No date has been set for a reopening, but some repair work to the park already has begun. Lake James State Park, the other state park in Burke, reopened last Monday after park staff had been sent to South Mountains to assist in battling the fire.

Burke County Director of Tourism Ed Phillips has studied some of the economic impacts of the fire. Phillips said it is hard to gauge how much of a fiscal impact those closures have had so far, but that hikers and nature-lovers have undoubtedly turned away from traveling to the area as a result.

I dont have any dollar figures, but  with South Mountains State Park being closed and Lake James State Park being closed to help free up some personnel to go fight the fire, both of our large outdoor attractions in Burke County were closed for several weeks, Phillips said. So, we got no visitors coming here to see or visit either of those parks.

On the flipside, the massive influx of firefighters and fire support staff from all around the country has brought money into the area, and fire related expenditures have certainly had a more stimulating effect on the local economy, Phillips said. The Florida Forest Service reported that fire staff had expenditures of more than $4 million battling the blaze.

The hotels were full with firefighters and support personnel, Phillips said. The Foothills Regional Airport sold a record amount of jet fuel in November for the aircraft that were fighting the fires, and the helicopters.

So, theres a firefighting economy that comes to town with all the 400-plus people who were here needing hotel rooms, food, gasoline and they were buying products at Ace Hardware. They were buying stuff at Lowes. They definitely contributed to the economy, its just difficult to tell how much.

Another thing Phillips and the tourism authority are considering is the economic impact of locals buying supplies to donate to the firefighting effort. Fire staff said it was overwhelmed by the local response and had more than enough supplies due to citizens generosity. Those items that are not used by fire staff will be donated back to local causes.

A lot of those supplies will go back into the community, said Phillips. If theyre not utilized, theyll be donated back to the organizations here that can help distribute those locally.

The uncertainty of November was preceded by a record-breaking October, said Phillips. Once things get back to normal, he hopes that the normal uptick in certain areas around Christmastime will take place.

We had a record October with visitors here in the visitors center, Phillips said. We had 660 visitors, which beat out last year. November was strong with firefighters and other visitors. Now that the fire is contained here and winding down, we hope to have a lot of folks in town going through Morganton and Burke County buying Christmas trees and coming back through town and stopping at our attractions as they go up and down (N.C.) Highway 181.

Staff writer Justin Epley can be reached at jepley@morganton.com or 828-432-8943.
A duty-free trade zone operated jointly by North Korea and China in the border town of Dandong lies deserted amid tightened international sanctions against Pyongyang, China's official Global Times reported Monday. More than 70 percent of China-North Korea trade goes through Dandong.

According to the daily, trading businesses that opened in the free trade zone are either closed or empty.

China's Liaoning Province invested 1 billion yuan into setting up the 24,000 sq.m zone that opened in October last year. Chinese and North Koreans living within 20 km of the zone can take advantage of duty-free benefits.


Invendo Medical, a German firm, received European CE Mark approval for its invendoscope SC200 single-use robotically-assisted colonoscope. The device has a 3.1 mm working channel, a 35 mm bending radius, and has standard features like rinsing, flushing, suction, and insufflation.

It comes in sterile and ready to go, and is disposed of following a procedure. There are no associated costs of cleaning the device between uses, allowing clinics to potentially save money and time not having to reprocess scopes after each patient. The hand controller is used to orient the distal end of the endoscope and it, along with the supply and processing unit, are reusable.

The device received FDA clearance back in 2013.

Product page: invendoscope SC200

Flashbacks: Robotic Colonoscope from invendo medical Coming to U.S. Market; E200 Robotically Assisted Single-Use Colonoscopy System FDA Cleared; Invendoscope Remote Controlled Colonoscope Gets Green Light in U.S

Via: invendo medical
Terms of Reference (TOR)

Country Strategy Context and Trend Analysis

AADRC

1. Background

ActionAid is an anti-poverty agency that prioritizes works with the poor and excluded; promoting values and commitment in civil society, institutions and governments with the aim of achieving structural changes in order to eradicate injustices and poverty in the world. ActionAid DRC is a country program of ActionAid International, an International Non-Governmental organisation registered in The Netherlands with its headquarters in Johannesburg South Africa. ActionAid International works in more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. AADRC is a Country Programme of ActionAid International. ActionAid Internationals operation in the DRC which commenced in 1987 was in response to emergency relief need of Burundian refugees who had crossed into Uvira in Eastern DRC as a result of the civil war in Burundi. After this first intervention in the Eastern DRC, AAI officially commenced operations as a DRC-based agency in June 2003 with an emergency initiative to respond to the 2002 Nyiragongo volcano eruption.

AADRC operates in major strategic objectives of Education, Women right and also Cross cutting issues like Resilience and building communities capacity in disaster preparedness.

The current AADRCs strategy entitled Women and Youth Action to End Poverty is evolving in the context of AAI strategy entitles Peoples Action to end poverty. The HRBA programming approach has been used to ensure the strategy alignment to AAI programming requirements. The five year CSP presents a vision of change and broad programmes that AADRC would like to bring about and implement with in DRC context in solidarity with people living in poverty with from 2013  2017. This strategy is the first CSP being developed after the transformation of DRC Country Program into a full-fledged country program in 2010.

Strategic priorities and objectives

Based on the context of DRC, AADRCs Country Strategy Paper focused on the three following mission objectives;

Increase children (girls and boys) access to quality education and support youth initiatives for meaningful participation in the local development and poverty eradication

Contribute to the establishment of a conducive environment where the poor and excluded people, particularly women and youth can participate meaningfully in governance processes in order to hold authorities accountable

Contribute to the reduction of sexual and gender-based violence against women, and improve their productive and reproductive rights.

AADRC is also committed to use conflict sensitive programming approach to ensure that our programmes are sensitive to and respond to effects of conflict and contribute to peace building.

AADRC operates through long term partners in four LRPs; Kinsenso, Nyragongo, Idjwi and Kabare. It also works in solidarity with other short term partners at national and provincial level in various education, Womens right and governance related advocacy agendas.

2. Objective of the Context and Trend Analysis

The overall objective of conducting this analysis is to assess the overall current context of DRC as it impacts on AADRC current CSP, to analyze emerging trends at local and international levels and generate learnings to improve our work and inform our new strategic direction. The following are specific objectives of this evaluation.

To Understand the current political, social, economic, legal and technological and other development issues of DRC and its impact in our programme based on the current strategy

To Understand the trend of poverty and development issue at local, national, regional and international levels, to inform our future direction

To understand emerging issues that will impact on our work that should be considered in our future strategy

To review the current strategy based on the outcomes of the context and trend analysis and recommend way forwards

To generate key learnings, missed opportunities, gaps and challenges that will be valuable for the future action

To recommend appropriate strategies, approaches and actions to be considered in the future action.

3. Approaches and methodology of the analysis

Key questions under each sections of the objectives will be developed to guide the information gathering and analysis. In general two major approaches will be followed:

3.1. Internal

Deeper reflection with ActionAid staffs at DRC and Regional level

3.2. External review

This phase encompasses Desk Review, a Field level data gathering and a Synthesis and analysis Phase.

a) Desk Review- Inception

At this stage Desk review will be made on the current AADRC strategy, national thematic areas strategies, national reports , global policies, and any relevant research materials.

b) Field level Data Gathering

Field visits: the consultant would need to do field visit to Kinsenso , Idjwi and Nyragongo and gather data from local government authorities, communities and other likeminded organizations and partners, Donors, with a focus of LRP level

Interventions. Interview with Key sectoral government Ministries to understand sectoral directions in the futur

c) Synthesis phase

This phase is mainly devoted to the preparation of the draft analysis report. The consultants are to ensure:

Their assessments are objective and balanced, affirmations accurate and verifiable, and recommendations realistic and relevant that builds up to the previous endeavors.

When drafting the report, they will acknowledge clearly where changes in the desired direction are known to be already taking place, in order to avoid misleading readers and causing unnecessary irritation or offence.

Produce the report in a way that considers the local political environment

4. Consultants Essential profile

The consultant need to have at least Masters in Development studies and other relevant studies

Demonstrable experience in consultancy of similar field at least for the last 7 years

Good relationship with sectoral government Ministries

Excellent understand of the Context of DRC

Demonstrable experience in Womens Rights, Education and Youth Development works

Excellent analytical skill

Fluent in French and English (spoken and written)

Evidence of producing clear, concise reports in English and high quality, published research and active dissemination of research findings

5. Roles and Responsibilities

5.1. Consulting Firm/ individuals

A mix of qualitative and quantitative data collection method should be developed, appraised and used by the consultant by ensuring stronger engagement of women, children and people living in poverty and other pertinent stakeholders.

Initial discussion on the TOR with AAIDRC on the scope of the analysis and overall background and context of the intervention areas,

Review existing documents such as AAIDRC strategy document, Global strategy, National Strategies, Sectoral Plans and other relevant and available documents,

Develop and present the necessary instruments for data collection and agree with AAIDRC Management,

Carry out data collection and analysis on the basis of primary and secondary data collected by employing participatory approaches and using appropriate instruments such as semistructured interview, focus group discussions, observation, case studies and secondary data from various sources

Produce the first draft report and submission to the AAIDRC management

Validate the draft report based on the feedback

Produce the second draft report for final feedback

Finalize the report based on the input provided

5.2. ActionAid International DRC

Will manage and support the overall process; providing required data in organized form, facilitating ground work for data/information collection.

Monitor and ensure the process follows agreed methodologies and approach.

Arrange consultative meetings at local partners, communities and organizational levels

Review quality of the report and provide timely feedback to the team

6. Expected Output/deliverables of the Assessment

Detailed inception report by the consultant containing detailed methodology, tools, process, analysis as well as presentation (report lay out) will be proposed by the consultant before the commencement of the work and agreed by AAIDRC.

Detailed work plan/timesheet for the period of assignment considering community, regional and national level.

Draft/final reports : a report that addresses the broader and specific objectives and scope of the analysis, Findings need to be analyzed, substantiated by cases, and presented in considerations of development approaches and historical benchmarks and impacts are supposed to be linked and distinguished categorically.

The consultant has to present draft findings to the AAIDRC management

The final report should be no longer than 15 pages (excluding executive summary) and should contain executive summary of 2 pages reflecting on approaches, key findings, lessons and recommendations.

The final report will be produced in English by the consultant.. The final analysis report with relevant annex will be signed off by the Country Director.

7. Schedule/Timetable

The estimated period of time for the study is One Month (30 days). And thus, the consultant/firm should factor the total period including preparation, travel, data collection and analysis, writing first draft report, presentation and submission of the final report. The consultant shall prepare detailed delivery schedule of all stages of the study in the inception report. The Time lines for each major activities will be developed. Meanwhile the indicative number of days for each are:

(a) Inception Report  Within 2 days of signing of agreement

(b) Data collection instrument preparation  2 days

(c) Desk review of documents  4 days

(d) Data collection and analysis  16 days

(e) Submission of preliminary or draft report  2 days,

(f) Presentation to AAIDRC and incorporate feedbacks  2 days

(g) Submission of final report  2 days

8. Technical Proposal and Criteria for Selection

The analysis and selection of the consultant/consulting firm will be made by AAIDRC bid committee and approved by the country director. The following criteria will be used to select the appropriate and competitive consulting firm/individual. 9. Evaluation Criteria Criteria for selection points 1. Technical Proposal: Proposed analytical and methodological framework on the basis of the broader and specific objectives of the study: Max 3 pages What concepts and conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and approaches are proposed to be employed? Relevance of CV of the lead consultant and certificate of performance and competence Comments and understanding of the TOR 40% 15% 10% 2.Financial Proposal: All costs to deliver the study (AADRC will provide vehicle with fuel and driver covering per diem and accommodation according to the organizational policy only during filed visits at Kinsenso, Nyragongo and Idjwi) 30% 3.Duration of the Service: Period to complete the work with delivery schedule, 5% Total 100%

9. Evaluation Criteria

Criteria for selection Points 1. Technical Proposal: Proposed analytical and methodological framework on the basis of the broader and specific objectives of the study: Max 3 pages What concepts and conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and approaches are proposed to be employed? 40% Relevance of CV of the lead consultant and certificate of performance and competence 15% Comments and understanding of the TOR 10% 2. Financial Proposal: All costs to deliver the study (AADRC will provide vehicle with fuel and driver covering per diem and accommodation according to the organizational policy only during filed visits at Kinsenso, Nyragongo and Idjwi) 30% 3. Duration of the Service: Period to complete the work with delivery schedule, 5% Total 100%

10. Application process

We invite interested researchers to submit the following application documents:

Technical Proposal explaining how the analysis will be conducted including the CVs of consultants engaging in the study

Financial Proposal including tax c) Renewed legal Consultancy licence

Tax Payment certificate

Technical and Financial proposal ca be submitted in separate documents or all together f) An example of previous similar work attached to the technical proposal

Both the technical and financial proposal must not exceed 15 pages

There may be further interview of shortlisted candidates for second level assessment

Selected consultant(s) will be expected to sign contract and abide by ActionAid values and key policies (including Anti-Sexual Harassment Policy, Child Protection Policy etc.).

Women are highly encouraged to apply!!

Interested consultants should send their technical and financial proposal via ActionAid.DRC@actionaid.org

The deadline for the application is 15 December 2016 at 4:30 PM. Please indicate Consultancy on Trend Analysis when applying.

Only short listed candidates will be contacted.
by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, December 5, 2016

While its a matter of debate whether fake online news influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, bogus journalism definitely poses some real dangers  especially when guns are involved. And yes, it really is happening: Over the weekend, fake news resulted in a shooting incident in Washington, D.C., thankfully with no casualties.

On Sunday a 28-year-old man from Salisbury, N.C., Edgar Maddison Welch, armed himself with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun and walked into the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of northwest Washington. After speaking to an employee, Welch discharged his rifle once inside the restaurant, and was apprehended about 45 minutes later after a standoff with police, who surrounded the restaurant.

Welch told police that he went to the restaurant to self-investigate reports that it was at the center of a child sex slave ring maintained by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief. Fake news stories alleging the existence of such a cabal circulated online during the presidential campaign  one of a number of such articles accusing Clinton, her husband, and various allies of involvement with pedophile gangs.

According to the Washington Post, which first reported the news, the Comet Ping Pong restaurant and a number of other neighboring establishments have received death threats prompted by the made-up articles (some of which implicated adjacent businesses, supposedly connected to the child sex slave ring in Comet by hidden tunnels).

Comet owner James Alefantis released a statement condemning the incident and highlighting the risks posed by fake news: What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences. I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, December 5, 2016

A locksmith owner who previously attempted to sue Google over its search results now alleges in a new lawsuit that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing violate antitrust law.

Baldino's Lock & Key of Newington, Virginia alleges in new court papers that the three search engines -- which together dominate the search market -- "abused their monopoly power" in order to convince companies to purchase paid-search listings.

Specifically, Baldino's argues that the search companies "flood their organic results (including map results) with fake listings in order to induce legitimate locksmiths to pay them for advertising spots."

"Defendants have abused their monopoly power to compel plaintiff to pay them for advertising positions plaintiff would otherwise not purchase," Baldino's alleges in a complaint filed Friday in federal court in the District of Columbia.

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The new complaint appears to mark the latest twist in Baldino's long-running battle with Google over its search results. The locksmith first sued Google in 2014, alleging that the company violated racketeering laws as well as false advertising laws by "publishing the names of illegally operating locksmiths."

Owner Mark Baldino, who operates in D.C., Virginia and Maryland, says he lost more than $8 million in business since 2008, according to The New York Times.

He alleged in court papers that Google published more than 400 listings for locksmiths in Maryland, but that the state only had 150 licensed locksmiths in the state. In Virginia, Google allegedly posted more than 1,000 names of locksmiths, although the state only had 325 people licensed to provide locksmith services.

Baldino also took issue with search results that went beyond mere links, but also showed businesses' locations on a map, pictures and reviews. He alleged that Google's platform was "aiding and abetting a fraud" by "creating a picture of legitimacy for an illegal and fraudulent listing."

U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton in the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the lawsuit in January of 2015, ruling that Google wasn't responsible for any misrepresentations in its search results. "The unlicensed and illegal locksmiths are the advertisers that made representations," Hilton wrote.

Baldino appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Hilton's ruling last year. "The locksmiths who generated the information ... are solely responsible for making any faulty or misleading representations or descriptions of fact," an appellate panel wrote.

Those earlier rulings could make it difficult for the locksmith to proceed with a new complaint against Google, according to Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman. He says courts generally don't allow people who lose lawsuits to continually file new cases based on the same underlying facts.

"It's a fairness principle," he says, referring to the legal concept that bars new lawsuits after the first case is dismissed. If litigants had the opportunity to bring a claim, but didn't, "they don't get a chance to raise the claim in a subsequent lawsuit," he says.
by Sarah Mahoney @mahoney_sarah, December 5, 2016

While the e-commerce world has been waiting to see what unexpected grocery tricks Amazon has up its online sleeve, it pulled a fast one, announcing plans for Amazon Go, a brick-and-mortar supermarket with no lines and no checkout.

Making its announcement via a how-it-works video, the company says the first store is slated to open in Seattle this spring. Its Just walk out technology, which allows consumers to simply toss items in their bag and then leave, is based on the latest in computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Four years ago we asked ourselves, 'What if we could create a shopping experience with no lines and no checkout? Could we push the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning to create a store where customers could simply take what they want and go? it says in its announcement.

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The news surprised industry observers, who have long been watching Amazons efforts to take online grocery shopping mainstream, including Amazon Fresh. Back in October, reports circulated that it intended to open 20 pilot grocery stores in the next two years, and that it believes it could open 2,000 over the next decade, but many expected they would function mainly as pickup spots for online orders.

Its a great example of how technology is not just an enabler of online shopping, but a way to change physical shopping too, says Bill Bishop, chief architect of Brick Meets Click, A Barrington, Ill.-based retail consultancy.

A big question is what consumerswho have only ever met Amazon onlinewill expect when walking into a physical store. Its likely to be very different, he predicts. Every supermarket youve ever been in represents the legacy of the last 75 years of supermarkets, he tells Marketing Daily. Theyve gotten bigger and bigger, and variety has been extended.

He expects Amazon Go will be radically smaller. Instead of 30,000 items, he predicts it will have more like 3,500, like a typical Trader Joes. And instead of 40,000 square feet, its more apt to be 16,000 or so. And he bets variety will be limited to a national brand and a private label.

He thinks Amazon can even handle the problem of perishable foods with quick replenishment and satisfaction guarantees. It all comes down to trust, he says. If Amazon can tell people that asparagus or seafood is fresh and has a meaningful guarantee in place, people will trust them.

With substantially fewer items, smaller stores, shelf technology to know exactly which items sell fastest and high private label sales, it could potentially have higher sales per square foot and higher profits, in an industry known for its razor-thin margins.

Of course, its also possible Amazon isnt all that concerned about profits, at least in the early phases. What Amazon has done well historically is test and optimize and scale in order to reduce customer pain points, says Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce, based in Rocky Hill, Conn. Its gone down some interesting roads before, but the more services it puts out there, they more it pulls you into the Amazon ecosystem. If youre using Amazon Prime, ordering through Amazon Echo, watching movies, and now using Amazon Go and that app, these are all just multiple ways it can stay connected.

Food represents an enormous opportunity: Total supermarket sales hit $649.1 billion in 2015, according to the Food Marketing Institute.

While plenty of observers took to Twitter to hail the news as game changing and genius, others pointed out some downsides. Thats 3.4 million American jobs lost in a minute, said one. Amazon to take the jobs of hard-working self-checkout machine manufacturers, joked another.

But Caporaso expects it to be a hit: This is really an amazing next step in retail.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, December 5, 2016

A devices locked screen will give users of Windows access through a software overlay to an always-on Cortana.

The Home Hub feature in Windows 10 is designed to make the PC the center of the home. It's reminiscent of Microsoft's strategy in the early 2000s, when servers in the home would act similar to cloud services of today.

As a software feature in the works even before the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Windows Central describes Home Hub as software that includes some features such as Cortana, which becomes more accessible from the locked screen of a device.

Similar to Amazon Echo's Alexa and the Google Home assistant, Cortana will be listening from the Welcome Screen, gaining insight from ambient voice signals even before the person using the device provides a "wake-word," such as "Hey Cortana."

While a low-cost Surface could support virtual assistant and smart-home management functions, Microsoft will likely launch a partner network allowing third-party original equipment manufacturers to build hardware dedicated devices. The reports puts Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard in talks with Microsoft to bring touch-enabled AiOs with the Home Hub software to market in 2017.

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The Microsoft Envisioning Center on the company's main campus in Redmond demonstrates some of the capabilities reports describes, such as using Cortana as the main interface.

Microsoft wants to make Home Hub and Windows 10 the central hub for all connected smart home devices such as lights, doors, and more, with the ability to connect them to mobile devices and automobiles.

Windows Central also cites sources that claim the Home Hub Welcome Screen will become one of the first user-interfaces to feature design elements from Project NEON, a design language for Windows 10 unveiled last week.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, December 5, 2016

Dentsu said Friday it was instituting new measures to improve its workplace environment as it continues to be investigated by the government for labor violations linked to the suicide of a Dentsu employee about a year ago.

Among other things, the measures are aimed at optimizing workloads and reviewing our organizational management approach.

The Tokyo-based ad-holding company stated that as part of the overhaul of its work assignments, about 650 people (or 10% of the Japan-based workforce) will shift to new positions in January.

In addition, a new personnel plan is being devised, and some 70 human resources managers (a total of around 70) are being appointed to oversee its implementation.

The holding company reports that Dentsu in Japan will increase hiring of recent graduates who have work experience and greatly expand our mid-career recruiting program. While we have not imposed an upper limit on numbers, we expect to take on about 60 mid-career individuals through a recruiting initiative that will be rolled out during December.

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A Japanese labor agency issued a report in October that concluded the excessive overtime was a contributing factor in the young womans apparent suicide. Dentsu offices in Japan have been raided several times in recent weeks by government investigators. Recent reports in Japan have surfaced indicating that Dentsu may have encouraged workers to underreport overtime hours they worked to make it look as if the company has been complying with regulatory limits.

Last month the company canceled its annual five-city holiday party in recognition of the seriousness of recent issues [including the workplace-related probe and a separate scandal involving the overcharging of clients] and acknowledges the need for deep reflection.
by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, December 5, 2016

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission said for the first time that AT&T appears to violate net neutrality principles by exempting DirecTV video from customers' data caps.

The FCC's Republicans promptly criticized that move, while also pointing out that the agency could come to a different conclusion next year. "Any potential action the Bureau may be considering can be reviewed and potentially reversed within weeks," Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said in a statement issued late last week.

O'Rielly also says the FCC's decision to condemn zero-rating now -- just several weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office -- runs counter to a recent request by Senate Commerce Committee chair Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota). The lawmaker recently told Wheeler it would be "counterproductive for the FCC to consider complex and controversial items that the new Congress and new Administration will have an interest in reviewing."

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O'Rielly stated that it "would be difficult to come up with a better example of a complex, controversial policy at the current Commission than this attempt to intimidate providers in order to shut down popular offerings to consumers."

AT&T's "Data-Free TV" is a zero-rating program that allows wireless customers who purchase DirecTV to watch video through the provider's mobile app without burning through their monthly data caps.

The telecom says consumers like the program, which lets them access streaming video without worrying about incurring charges for exceeding their data caps.

But consumer advocates argue that zero-rating programs give people an incentive to watch video from particular companies -- especially affiliated ones -- at the expense of competitors like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Jon Wilkins indicated the agency agrees with advocates on that point. Wilkins said in a letter to AT&T that its data-free tv "strongly favors AT&T's own video offerings while unreasonably discriminating against unaffiliated ... providers."

GOP Commissioner Ajit Pai also criticized the agency for doing an "end-run around Congress's clear instructions."

He added: "Any unilateral action taken by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau at the Chairmans direction in the next 49 days can quickly be undone by that same bureau after January 20, 2017."
by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, December 5, 2016

Pokemon Go introduced augmented reality to the masses some time ago and now, for anyone who missed that altogether, theres an easy way to see AR in action, courtesy of the federal government.

The White House just introduced 1600, an augmented reality app that provides an interactive, three-dimensional tour of the White House.

Anyone with a smartphone and a dollar bill can check it out.

Just download and load the app, point the camera at the face of George Washington on a dollar bill and a narrated tour begins, with various images appearing over the bill.

Pokemon Go this is not. But for anyone who has never seen augmented reality, its a quick and easy way to demonstrate it.

Its an educational tool for children, Jay Wright, president and general manager of Vuforia told me. Vuforia, part of IoT powerhouse PTC, is the technology that powers many AR applications.

One of the hard problems in augmented reality is to make devices see an environment, Wright said.

Its Vuforias technology that applies that seeing capability in more than 30,000 AR applications, which range from toys to heavy-duty industrial applications.

The White House application shows animations of a helicopter flying to the roof, cars arriving, fireworks, the Easter Egg roll and season changes. A tap on the roof of the oval office makes it pop up.

The animation can be viewed in 360 degrees, but if the phone camera drifts too far from Washingtons face, everything fades away.

Any Pokemon Go aficionados or those familiar with AR experiences are not likely to be overly impressed with the experience here.

But for a parent or teacher who wants to show children some of the workings of the White House using some pretty slick technology, 1600 can do the trick.

And for anyone who has never seen augmented reality, which is quite a large number of people, this app could be a hit at holiday gatherings.
by Larissa Faw , December 5, 2016

MDC CFO David Doft told a crowd at the UBS media conference in New York that the company expects to finalize a settlement agreement with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within the next few weeks. That would be good news for the company as the probeinto the firms accounting practices and trading activityhas been ongoing for over two years and has proved to be a damper on the companys stock.

"It's very exciting for all of us," said Doft. The company announced that an agreement in principal had been reached with the SEC last month. As part of the agreement, MDC confirmed it would pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to resolve all potential claims by the SEC against the company relating to the probe. The SEC staff had concluded that MDC unintentionally violated a number of SEC rules, but under the framework of the proposed deal the holding company is not admitting liability.

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Meanwhile, Doft told the UBS audience that the firm's new business pipeline now appears strong after stalling in Q3. Doft noted that this quarter's wins include General Mills, El Pollo Loco and Diesel.

And international remains a bright spot with revenue growth contributions from clients including American Airlines and Beats, Doft said. Diageo, Unilever, and InBev also continue to add incremental business.

Doft expects media reviews will continue in the coming year though not necessarily because clients are unhappy with their agencies. Rather it will be a reflection of how the industry has fundamentally changed. Clients that hired an agency five years ago before things like content creation and Snapchat were in existence are likely to ask whether their agencies are keeping up with all the change.

MDC has reduced costs by $30 million annually largely through labor reductions, since labor makes up 75% of its expenses, said Doft. Most of these cuts happened in the U.S. and Canada, not internationally, he said. Some of these reductions occurred at MDC's struggling experiential agencies.

Doft declined to provide an update on its initiative with financial advisor LionTree, though MDC is considering a "range of opportunities to bolster its balance sheet," he said.

Last month MDC confirmed that it had hired LionTree Advisors to assist in evaluating its financial and capital structure strategy. The hiring of an outside financial advisor is often a signal that a company is putting itself up for sale, although MDC officials denied at the time that that was the case. A few days later however the Wall Street Journal reported that a possible sale was one of the alternatives being considered.

Doft said MDC doesn't want decisions related to LionTree's input to be dragged out, adding that any announcement will happen in "months not quarters."
by Sara Guaglione , December 6, 2016

Home decor magazine Domino has opened its first brick-and-mortar pop-up shop, located in lower Manhattan and sponsored by Target.

The store features products curated by Domino's editorial staff and inspired by the magazines winter issue. For example, glassware from Anna Karlin, home accessories from Fort Makers and textiles from Cold Picnic will be for sale.

Target will provide a gift-wrapping station at the store, with wrapping options that are also available at Target stores and on its online store.

Called the Domino Holiday Dream, the pop-up is located on 35 Great Jones Street. It will be open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for the first three weekends of December.

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December is always a month full of hopes and dreams for loved ones and the new year. Drawing from this universal outlook, Domino curated the Holiday Dream concept to bring people together in a colorful, festive and inspired environment, stated Nathan Coyle, CEO of Domino.

The pop-up shop will host holiday-themed workshops as well, such as party food presentation and gift wrapping.

A portion of the profits will be donated to the Family Equality Council, an organization that supports and represents the LGBTQ community.

This month, Domino released another project diversifying its business. The quarterly magazine published the Domino: Your Guide to a Stylish Home book, to help readers decorate their space.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, December 6, 2016

Google said that in 2017, it expects to run entirely on renewable energy sources worldwide, which means its investments in wind farms could become the power to serve search engine queries and AdWords paid-search ads.

In 2015, Google consumed 5.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity across all of its operations, which is nearly as much electricity as San Francisco used in the same year. Its data centers  the engines of the Internet that power all of our products and services  Search, Gmail, YouTube, Maps, and Google Cloud  require electricity to run, and they must be up and running when people need them.

The company signed its first agreement to purchase all the electricity from a 114-megawatt wind farm in Iowa, in 2010. Now the company lays claim to become the "worlds largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy. Thats bigger than many large utilities and more than twice as much as the 1.21 gigawatts it took to send Marty McFly back to the future," Urs Holzle, SVP of technical infrastructure at Google, writes in a blog post.

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The plan to purchase enough wind and solar electricity annually to account for every unit it needs to operate came with a white paper published Tuesday.

This white paper describes Google's path to achieving the 100% renewable energy purchasing goal, along with lessons learned from seven years and 2.6 GW of renewable contracts. It outlines how the company will continue efforts to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

For advertisers concerned about drops in electricity, Google explains in the white paper that the company will remain connected to an electricity grid and will draw power each minute of every day, even when wind and solar facilities located within that grid may not be producing energy.

At times the company will purchase more renewable energy than required to consume to keep its operations up and running, but during the course of a year its total global renewable energy purchases will match up 100% to our global consumption.
New research suggests that a common chemotherapy drug combination may increase the number of immature eggs in the ovaries. The researchers caution, however, that it is too soon to say how this affects womens fertility. They say more studies should now be done to confirm the findings, look in more detail at the individual drugs involved, and explain the underlying biology.

Share on Pinterest If confirmed in further studies, the new findings challenge the accepted view that a woman is born with a fixed number of eggs and cannot grow more in her lifetime.

The small study  reported in the journal Human Reproduction  is the work of a team from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom that analyzed ovarian tissue samples from 14 women who had undergone chemotherapy, and from 12 healthy women.

It is hard to predict if a woman is likely to be fertile after chemotherapy treatment. Damage to eggs and/or fertility can depend on the womans age, the types of drug, and the drug doses.

If confirmed in further studies, the new findings challenge the accepted view  as others have  that a woman is born with a fixed number of eggs and cannot grow more in her lifetime.

The study concerns a combination of chemotherapy drugs known as ABVD (adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) that is used to treat Hodgkins lymphoma (HL)  an uncommon cancer of the lymphatic system.

ABVD is already known to be one of a few chemotherapy regimens that does not affect womens fertility.

The Edinburgh team wanted to investigate this further by examining the follicles in the ovarian tissue of treated patients. Follicles are small fluid-filled cavities in the ovaries that contain immature eggs.
With their rich content of fiber, low saturated fats, and high levels of antioxidants, nuts are one of the healthiest and most nutritious snacks out there. New research shows that the health benefits of nuts may be even more wide-ranging than we think.

Share on Pinterest Researchers suggest just a handful of nuts daily can offer a wealth of health benefits.

Nuts are packed with nutritional value. Rich in unsaturated fatty acids, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and various antioxidants, nuts have earned their spot in the superfood category.

So far, research has shown nut consumption to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer, but new research suggests their health benefits may extend well beyond these major diseases.

Researchers from Imperial College London in the United Kingdom and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway analyzed a range of existing studies and tracked down associations between nuts intake and risk of various illnesses.

The findings have been published in the journal BMC Medicine.

The research consisted of a meta-analysis of 29 existing studies from around the world, including Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Researchers used the medical research databases PubMed and Embase to search for prospective studies of nut consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), total cancer cases, all-cause mortality rates, and cause-specific mortality rates published up to 19 July, 2016.

The analysis included 819,448 participants and included over 12,300 cases of coronary heart disease, more than 9,200 cases of stroke, more than 18,600 cases of CVD, and around 18,400 cases of cancer.

The study examined the link between nut consumption and mortality from a variety of causes, such as respiratory disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, infectious disease, and kidney disease.

The research included all kinds of tree nuts  including hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, macadamia nuts, and pine nuts, as well as peanuts, which are actually legumes.
Scientists have created a map of all 1,578 licensed drugs and their mechanisms of action - as a means of identifying 'uncharted waters' in the search for future treatments.

Their analysis of drugs licensed through the Food and Drug Administration reveals that 667 separate proteins in the human body have had drugs developed against them - just an estimated 3.5% of the 20,000 human proteins.

And as many as 70 per cent of all targeted drugs created so far work by acting on just four families of proteins - leaving vast swathes of human biology untouched by drug discovery programmes.

The study is the most comprehensive analysis of existing drug treatments across all diseases ever conducted. It was jointly led by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, which also funded the research.

The new map reveals areas where human genes and the proteins they encode could be promising targets for new treatments - and could also be used to identify where a treatment for one disease could be effective against another.

The new data, published in a paper in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, could be used to improve treatments for all human aliments - as diverse as cancer, mental illness, chronic pain and infectious disease.

Scientists brought together vast amounts of information from huge datasets including the canSAR database at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), the ChEMBL database from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge and the University of New Mexico's DrugCentral database.

They matched each drug with prescribing information and data from published scientific papers, and built up a comprehensive picture of how existing medicines work - and where the gaps and opportunities for the future lie.

The researchers discovered that there are 667 unique human proteins targeted by existing approved drugs, and identified a further 189 drug targets in organisms that are harmful to humans, such as bacteria, viruses and parasites.

On average they found there were two drugs for every target in humans - but that a handful of proteins were targeted by many different drugs, such as the glucocorticoid receptor, which is the target of 61 anti-inflammatory drugs.

Cancer was found to be the most innovative disease area, with the greatest growth in 'first-in-class' drugs - those that use a new and unique mode of action.

Using complex 'Big Data' analytical techniques, the researchers identified four very frequently 'drugged' families of proteins - accounting for 43 per cent of all drug targets, and acting as targets for 70 per cent of all approved small-molecular drugs.

The new map of drugs can now be used to identify other proteins with similar properties to these most heavily drugged families - which might be potentially exciting treatment targets for diseases such as cancer.

And bringing together complex data from multiple sources within the drug map could predict the best combinations of drugs to give. Targeting two proteins which behave in a similar way is unlikely to be effective against diseases such as cancer, whereas targeting proteins with very different functions could be much more successful.

Study co-leader Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani, Head of Data Science at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:

"Our new study provides a comprehensive map of the current state of medicines for human disease. It identifies areas where drug discovery has been a spectacular success, others where there are major gaps in our armoury of medicines, and opportunities for the future in the form of promising targets and potential drug combinations. By revealing the uncharted waters of drug discovery, it will provide a clear pointer for future exploration and innovation."

Professor Paul Workman, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:

"We need to do more to innovate in drug discovery if we are really going to tackle the major medical challenges we face, such as cancer's ability to evolve drug resistance in response to treatment. But to help direct future efforts in drug discovery, we first need a very accurate and comprehensive picture of the targets of the medicines that have been created so far, what is currently working, and most importantly where there is the greatest potential for the future. This new map of drugs, created through the latest computational analytical technologies, will enhance our ability to use rational, data-driven approaches to identify the most promising future targets and treatment combinations for the next generation of cancer and other diseases."
A new smartphone app1 has been launched to help guide doctors on the next steps for patients who have small masses of tissue in their lungs - known as pulmonary nodules.

These nodules are common and most are harmless - but some can be cancerous and need treatment. They appear as round, white shadows on a chest X-ray or CT scan.

Cancer Research UK - in partnership with the British Thoracic Society - used their in-house digital experts to develop a free iOS (iPhone, iPad etc.)2 app for doctors, nurses and technicians examining people with pulmonary nodules.

The app gives medics quick and easy access to guidelines developed by the British Thoracic Society, along with risk and growth calculators, turning the mobile phone into a powerful way to accurately manage nodules.

At the moment, respiratory clinicians and radiologists use CT scans and information from patient records to help decide how best to manage patients who have pulmonary nodules.

The app will provide additional information to help clinicians quickly and accurately identify who is at risk and needs further investigations while avoiding unnecessary testing and worry for patients with nodules which are likely to be benign.

Guidelines and calculators in the app help clinicians decide what the next best steps are for their patients -whether to discharge them, bring them back for monitoring in the future or to proceed with more tests to confirm a lung cancer diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment.

This new easy-to-use app brings together the guidelines and calculators together into one place, allowing clinical staff to decide the next steps quickly.

To ensure the app is straight forward reliable and provides the right advice, Cancer Research UK worked with doctors, radiologists and nurses across the country throughout the development process. More than 40 clinicians provided advice and feedback on the design of the app and confirmed there is huge demand for quick and simple solutions to support their decision-making.

Dr Jodie Moffat, Cancer Research UK's head of early diagnosis, said: "Mobile phones have become essential tools in most people's everyday lives. Moving beyond selfies, social media and playlists, this app is designed to support clinicians in their decision-making so we can help ensure the right people are getting the right tests at the right time. Using smartphones to put this knowledge into clinicians' hands will enable them make the best possible choices more quickly and efficiently, helping to speed up the time it takes to diagnose lung cancer. Ensuring that patients who need further tests get these quickly is another step towards diagnosing lung cancer as swiftly as possible."

Professor David Baldwin, Consultant Respiratory Physician at Nottingham University Hospitals and member of the British Thoracic Society, said: "The new app is a very useful tool for healthcare professionals to help guide their assessment, diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary nodules ensuring that management is evidence based.

"It builds on the existing and very popular 'BTS Pulmonary Nodule Risk Prediction Calculator' and we're delighted to have partnered with Cancer Research UK to develop the app so that it will make the guideline so much more accessible via the App Store. It means that many more practitioners will be able to access the essential elements of the guideline on the go, and in different settings within the hospital."
Tufts University researchers have discovered a possible explanation for the occurrence of a genetic error that causes over a dozen neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease, myotonic dystrophy and forms of spinocerebellar ataxia.

The error occurs as copies of three-letter sequences of DNA - known as CAG and CTG triplets - expand and repeat themselves hundreds or even thousands of times, disrupting normal gene sequences.

Genetic analyses in baker's yeast now reveal that these large-scale expansions are controlled by genes that have been implicated in a process for repairing DNA breaks, leading the researchers to surmise that the expansions occur while breaks are being healed. Baker's yeast, known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is frequently used in scientific research.

The findings are published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

"We think these large-scale repeat expansions could occur in a single step," said Sergei Mirkin, Ph.D., White Family Chair in Biology at Tufts School of Arts and Sciences and corresponding author on the paper. "The DNA replication machinery stalls within those repeats, which ultimately results in the formation of DNA breaks. To heal those breaks, cells seem to involve a special path of repair, called break-induced replication, which sacrifices the fidelity of DNA synthesis for the sake of a quick fix. As a result, large numbers of extra repeats can be added while the break is healed."

Previous studies have identified certain mutations in DNA replication machinery that account for small-scale repeat expansions in which only a few extra repeats are added, but the cause of rapid accumulation of hundreds of repeats has remained unclear until now.

To detect and analyze large-scale expansions of CAG and CTG repeats, Mirkin and his colleagues developed an experimental system in yeast that observed simultaneous additions of more than 100 triplets, a first for such systems. This observation is similar to what happens in human disease.

Jane Kim, Ph.D., who was a research assistant professor in Mirkin's lab when the research was conducted and who is the paper's first author, said the model suggests answers to two questions that have puzzled researchers.

"Not only does this model explain how additions of hundreds of repeats can occur in human diseases, but it can also account for a bias towards expansions observed in human pedigrees," said Kim, now an assistant professor at California State University San Marcos.

The authors note that the timing of expansion in human cases is still unclear and presents an important area of future investigation.

The study was performed in Mirkin's lab by Kim with the help of two former undergraduate students, Samantha Harris, currently a student at Harvard Medical School, Teresa Dinter, currently a technical research assistant at Brigham & Women's Hospital and graduate student Kartik Shah, currently a scientist at Amgen.

Research in Mirkin's lab is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (awards R01GM60987 and P01GM105473) and by a generous contribution from the White family. Kim was supported by the NIH Training in Education and Critical Research Skills postdoctoral program (K12GM074869) and by Tufts University. Harris received support from REU award NSF DBI 1263030. Dinter received support from Tufts Summer Scholars.
12:01am

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

OTTAWA

Dec. 5, 2016

Canada

8:45am

Canada

Canada

Peter MacLeod

Canada

Canada's

Ottawa

Canada's

Canada

Canada

Steve Morgan

University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

University of Toronto

Canada

/CNW/ - Today, a special panel of citizens convened to make recommendations on the future of prescription drug coverage incalls on the federal government to create a universal public insurance plan for necessary medicines.At, the Chair of thewill testify to the House of Commons' Standing Committee on Health on the process that brought these Canadians together and on the contents of their final report:"The panelists were surprised to learn that many Canadians do not have adequate drug coverage and that Canadians on average spend considerably more for medically-necessary drugs than most other countries with comparable health care systems," says, the Panel's chair. "They believe the government should act and create a national pharmacare system that is equitable and cost-effective."The Citizens' Reference Panel on Pharmacare inis an innovative initiative to provide detailed advice and a clear citizen perspective to health ministers and policy makers.This summer, 10,000 households were randomly selected by Canada Post to receive an invitation to volunteer. Participants were then randomly selected by Civic Lottery ensuring that the panel broadly matcheddemographics and the prevalence of prescription drug coverage.Ultimately, thirty-five Canadians were randomly selected as representatives from each province and the territories. Together, they travelled toto participate in a five-day dialogue, propose recommendations, reach consensus and draft their report.During their meetings, the panelists learned abouthealth care system and how prescription drugs are provided here and in other countries. They heard from 20 guest speakers, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, brand-name and generic manufacturers, insurers, retailers, patients, public agencies, academics, and former policy makers.The process was overseen by a committee featuring leading clinicians, senior public servants and health researchers from acrossThe Citizens' Reference Panel on Pharmacare inrecommends immediate action to address flaws in the current patchwork of public and private drug coverage. They proposed a vision of prescription drug coverage they believed "Canadians could be proud of."Their recommendations are grounded in core principles they felt represented their values as Canadians:The panel recommends universal public coverage of medicines listed on a new national formulary. They recommend that this formulary be extensive enough to accommodate the full range of individual patient needs, including rare diseases. They also recommend that all covered drugs would undergo a rigorous evaluation process to ensure both the efficacy and value-for-money of funded treatments.As a first step towards a comprehensive public drug plan, the panel also calls on the government to move immediately to implement public coverage for a short list of basic, frequently prescribed drugs. This short list would begin the shift towards a comprehensive universal pharmacare system and become the basis for a new national formulary.The panel also endorses an ongoing role for private insurers in providing supplemental coverage. Under any new system, employers, unions and individuals could continue to purchase private insurance for medications not on the public formulary as well as other para-medical services.The panel urges the government to fund the program through modest income and corporate tax increases, and urges further consideration of co-payment models provided they do not create an unreasonable barrier for low-income individuals."This is a timely and important contribution to a national dialogue on strengthening pharmaceutical coverage," says Dr., Professor of health policy at the, and the panel's lead researcher.The Citizens' Reference Panel on Pharmacare was principally funded by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research with additional support provided by the Mindset Social Innovation Foundation, the, the, Women's College Hospital, the CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.http://www.crppc-gccamp.caSOURCE Citizens' Reference Panel on Pharmacare in
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"Once I discovered that through my compulsory pension fund, I was invested in and actually owned a part of several tobacco companies, I couldn't just do nothing - I had to take action," she said.To accomplish this, Dr. King founded Tobacco Free Portfolios to collaboratively engage with leaders of the finance sector to encourage tobacco-free investment. She soon found that finance executives were also alarmed at the scale of the tobacco problem and have deeply re-considered the role they can play in addressing this pressing global issue."Because of this, there are now 35 tobacco-free pension funds in Australia - just over 40% of all funds. Many more will soon follow and each tobacco-free announcement is met with resounding public support," she said."Tobacco is everyone's problem, not just the doctors who provide the care and treatment. We should all feel obliged to do something about it and all those with investments, including those through compulsory pension schemes, have a role to play," she said.In Ireland, the tobacco industry claimed that environmental tobacco smoke was not harmful to public health, but the Irish government rejected this claim and instituted a comprehensive workplace smoking ban that included bars, restaurants, bingo halls, and casinos, according to Dr. Luke Clancy of the TobaccoFree Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland. Ireland was the first country to enact a country-wide ban."The 2004 smoking ban in Ireland has shown a positive impact on public health and has served as a model for other European countries to follow," said Dr. Clancy of the TobaccoFree Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland. Clancy's talk was part of a tobacco prevention theme today at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.Clancy reported that the planning and investment paid off, as the national Irish smoking ban was associated with reductions in early mortality. Studies on the effects of the smoking ban demonstrated a 13% decrease in all-cause mortality, a 26% reduction in ischemic heart disease, a 32% reduction in stroke, and a 38% reduction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.Since introducing its comprehensive, national smoke-free legislation, Clancy reported that all 27 EU member state countries have initiated some form of a smoke-free strategy. To date, 14 EU member states have enacted laws which ban smoking in all indoor workplaces including bars, restaurants, and clubs. However, several countries with significant populations, such as Germany and Poland, have only limited smoke-free laws."Unfortunately, I was surprised to come to Vienna - this beautiful city of art, music, and culture - to see people smoking in the lobby of my hotel. It is hard to understand," Clancy said.Clancy admitted there is much work still to do."Despite this progress, the prevalence of smoking in Ireland is 18.5%. The prevalence of smoking in Europe as a whole remains at approximately 29% of the adult population, and seems to be increasing among females in some European countries," he said. "Ireland hopes to be tobacco free by 2025. Full implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommendations may not be enough to achieve this in Ireland."While King and Clancy battle tobacco interests in their countries, Dr. Zarihah Zain of Lincoln University College Malaysia is carefully examining global trade agreements to make sure tobacco products are treated like the dangerous, addictive products they are."The main objective of any global trade agreement is to encourage the free movement of goods and service between countries by removal of any forms of tariff and non-tariff barriers. However, when this principle is applied to tobacco products, public health may suffer in the countries governed by these very agreements," Dr. Zain said."Tobacco is not like any legal commodity, it is highly addictive, causes deaths, precipitates serious debilitating morbidity, and accounts for about 30% of all cancer incidence. An industry such as the tobacco industry should not be given any privileges and should not be allowed to benefit from trade agreements to gain hefty profits at the expense of public health," Dr. Zain said.The control of tobacco is one of the most cost effective public health strategies, and tobacco is the only legal consumer product that has an international law to curb its supply and demand via the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). However, Zain pointed out that there are clauses in many free trade agreements that can override the WHO Framework.As an example, Dr. Zain cited nine specific clauses in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), which was negotiated by 12 countries of the Pacific Rim including Malaysia. She cited Chapter 2 of the TPPA that requires tobacco to be treated like any other product in terms of tariff reduction."We physicians have a role in our country's trade policies," she said. "We should be consulted and we have to make our voices heard by our governments about tobacco in global trade agreements."Vera da Costa e Silva from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control began the press briefing by providing a global perspective on tobacco control and initiatives to counter tobacco company efforts to create trade treaties that are bad for public health."I hope everyone in the world is soon free of tobacco smoke and that people encounter bars, restaurants, and public facilities that are smoke-free," she said.Tobacco control plays an important role in the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer. The IASLC is proud to have a committee comprised of world-renowned tobacco control experts from so many countries.Source: Eurekalert
Sex is obviously still very much a taboo in India. Were still supposed to believe the birds and bees story, and enjoying some private time with someone youre attracted to might just land you up in jail or on news channels, getting beaten up mercilessly by the cops. You can imagine the internet obviously went berserk when an Indian girl deciding to say out loud that she hooked up with someone on Tinder, not once but twice and absolutely loved it.

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While you might still be struggling with matches on Tinder, this girl who boasts of a 100 % match rate took to Quora to narrate how it all started (and ended) with a guy she swiped right on the app. Heres what she wrote:

Yes. Im an attractive Indian girl. And Ive slept with a man I met on tinder. Twice.

Lucky man! is what youd say? Id call myself lucky. Heres why:

Having broken up recently after a serious 3-year relationship, I felt the need to go out and meet new people to overcome the grief of a broken heart. Hence, I started experimenting on Tinder. I had a 100% match rate (Not kidding). Big confidence booster after being abandoned in a relationship.

I didnt respond to most chat conversations due to upcoming exams. Just when I got done with exams, one guy that I had matched with a week ago messaged me. I was free, so decided to try chatting.

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Now the story is going viral because happened next is way too un-sanskari for the sad Indian audience.

What unfurled was a string of bizarre coincidences. Turned out that he lived in my building, spoke the same native language as me, was from my ex's college, was a start up CEO who had co-founded his company with my ex's best friend. Quickly we ended up chatting for a whole week and then decided to meet down for a walk. The meeting was an absolute surprise for me. Contrary to his nerdy tinder profile photo, he was extremely attractive, tall and well built. Woot woot! I quickly turned into a teenage girl having a major crush based on physical appearance only. ( I have a huge thing for tall ) suddenly I was asking - Who ex? ;)

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Yes, she gave in to the attraction and hooked up. No strings attached. This is as filmy as it gets, really.

What I liked the most about this tinder guy was his unapologetic and unabashed stance about being a man whore. He was in a serious 4 year relationship, post which he slept with 12-13 women in a span of 12 months. That's a new woman every month! He's had around 50-60 matches on tinder which, from what I hear is an exceptional hit rate for a man. He smoked, he did drugs, was a womanizer. He was the perfect example of my worst possible date. But that meant that I'd never fall for a guy like that. Ever. Which made him the perfect choice for a hookup. I've never been a hookup person. The only guy I had ever slept with was my ex because I thought I would marry him. But in that state of emotional despair, I decided that I wanted to sleep with that man, that I would never see him again after that, that it would be the one wrong thing that I chose to do.. I was getting tired of being the perfect girl anyway. So we had sex. Best night of my life. But turned out, he's not as much of a dick as he wanted to be. He was really sweet and caring too. He still continued talking to me on chat and we ended up sleeping together once more. That was it. That was when I realized that I can't separate the physical and the emotional chords in my brain/heart. Women just aren't wired that way. I knew I'd fall for him if we continued talking like we did with all that physical intimacy. And I knew I couldn't fall for him cos he was the "bad guy". And so, we stopped talking. It was tough, but we did.

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Just that it ended like it should have. Theres no fairy tale romance here, guys. Just two people hooking up and having fun. No, the girl doesnt regret it. Shes quite glad, in fact, she got to meet the guy.

How has it benefited me? I do feel guilty about having had sex with a stranger, but it saved me from immense grief and despair. It gave me excitement during the darkest phase of my life. It taught me that I could feel butterflies in the stomach again. It showed me that there are very attractive, smart men out there and that I can do better than my ex.

So, to the smoking man-whore, thank you for everything! I still secretly hope that we could be more, but that'd possibly be highly toxic for me.

And thus ended my tryst with the man and tinder too. Never to see them both again.

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This story is going viral for reasons more than one. Of course, its a girl talking about sex and India cannot take it very well. But secondly, its something most of us can relate to. Of letting go of that one person we felt really connected with just because we thought it wasnt the right thing for us then.

You can read the full Quora thread here .
When you are denied from taking leaves for your own wedding, whats the first thing that comes to your mind? Discuss with family members and shift the wedding dates or kneel down in front of your boss and beg him to grant a leave when there are no options left (yes we exaggerated there)? But, we will definitely not try to do something that Harris did, attending his own wedding online.

We can understand watching it live online when you cant make it to your friends or family members weddings, but exchanging wedding vows online is definitely one of its kind. Harris is a native of Kollam, Kerala who works in Saudi Arabia. Because of work commitments, he could not take his leaves and ended up watching his own wedding via a webcam. This video was posted by Kairali News Online.

His sister tied the knot and the sacred thread around the brides neck and performed all the traditional roles on his behalf, while their friends and families were present in full attendance to bless the couple. Apparently, Muslims across the world are known to conduct such weddings, where the nikah takes place either over the phone or with a photograph. However, their validity is still a debated issue.

Harris works as a marketing manager in a private company in Saudi Arabia and his bride whose name is Shamla Makkayil, works as a nurse in a government hospital. This is definitely going to be one of the coolest weddings of this year, not even the grand Rs. 500 crore wedding can beat this unique nuptial ceremony.

Source: Indian Express
Lets face it guys, we Indians do have a thing for cribbing and complaining and why not, we want things to be perfect for us. Especially, when it comes to education, if any lecture gets tiresome or monotonous, we raise this with the faculty and try to figure out an alternative (well thats what most schools, colleges and universities do, right?) But, this guy went one step ahead and sued Oxford University, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, for delivering boring lectures. Lets all stand up and clap for this guy for (his bravery) taking such a huge step. Like, who cares about going to the faculty to raise an issue, just f**king sue them. And there are no points for guessing that this student is of Indian-origin!

Faiz Siddiqui alleged that because of the negligent teaching of his specialist subject course on Indian imperial history he got a second class degree back in 2000. This in turn led to a loss of earnings in his career as a lawyer. Faiz studied modern history at Oxfords Brasenose College. The plea was heard a few days back by a London High Court and a judgment is expected later this month. Faiz believes that had he not got lower grades, he would probably have a kickass career as an international commercial lawyer.

 Reuters

Roger Mallalieu, Faizs barrister told the judge that four of the seven teachers teaching Asian history were on a sabbatical leave at the same time during the 1999-2000 academic year, so the problem may be stemming from that fact. He even pointed a finger at David Washbrook, an expert on the history of southern India between the 18th and 20th centuries for delivering boring classes, although he did defend him by saying that his teaching suffered as there was an intolerable pressure due to the shortage of staff.

Mallalieu told the court that There is no personal criticism of Washbrook. Our target is on the Universitys back for allowing this to happen. Reportedly, Faiz suffers from depression and insomnia because of his disappointing examination results and said that he has a fundamental inability to hold down any professional day job for any significant length of time.

 Wikimedia

After all these allegations, Oxford University could not have stayed mum about the issue and argued that these claims are baseless and should not be considered because of the number of years that have passed since his graduation. In fact, the Universitys barrister, Julian Milford, denied Faizs case of having any substance but did accept that the circumstances were difficult back then.

Well, Faiz got the opportunity to sue the management because it was Oxford University. Had it been any of the Indian universities, he will probably rethink even before submitting his papers for re-evaluation, let alone suing.

Source: The Times Of India
WhatsApp has decided to stop supporting many outdated phones by the end of this year and it includes phones like Windows phones, iPhone, Nokia, Blackberry and even some Android phones. Although, the company has decided to extend their support for Blackberry OS/Blackberry OS, Nokia Symbian and Nokia S40 smartphones until June 2017. However, many smartphones will lose the support of the messaging application since they want to move forward when it comes to communication technology.

Although , most of us generally need not worry because the specifications that are being considered are featured on devices that are ancient. Especially, those devices that use older versions of Android and iOS.

Support on WhatsApp will end on devices that running Android 2.1 and Android 2.2. Windows phones that are currently running Windows 7 will also suffer the same fate. Apple owners will have to ditch their iPhone 3GS or devices that are still running iOS 6. According to Google, there are only 0.1 percent devices that are currently running Android Froyo. If your Android phone is running IceCream Sandwich or Jelly Bean you have nothing to worry about for the time being.

According to Apple, around 8 Percent of iPhones are still running on an operating system that is below iOS 9. If your iPhone is still running iOS 6, we suggest you update your phone software or get a new device in order for WhatsApp to work efficiently on your phone.

Here is the list again:

The mobile platforms and their versions which will not be supported by WhatsApp in 2017 are:

- Android : Android 2.1 and Android 2.2

- Windows : Windows Phone 7

- iPhone: 3GS/ iOS 6

App support will be extended for the following devices until June 2017:

- Blackberry 10 running on BBOS

- Nokia S40 running on Symbian S40
Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with other like-minded colleagues to pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is always evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join usand start making your impact today.
N. KOTZIAS: Frank-Walter, it is my great pleasure to have you with us in Athens. A friend of old, as we say in Greece, is with us in Athens. I think that during these two years of our collaboration, we have managed to change the climate between our two countries, to a degree, and I want to thank my German colleague for the help he has given in order make my countrys needs better understood and for the German people to understand the real image of my country.



I think that if Frank-Walter werent the Foreign Minister of Germany, there would be much greater difficulties. I am convinced that personalities play a role in history.



We share a common course as persons. You know that we studied at the same university, with the same professor, Grobat. You know that we are concerned about the cooperation between our two peoples, and what we signed was a joint action plan, which includes not only the cooperation of our Ministry with the Foreign Ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany, but also a number of joint actions in many sectors of social activity, as well as on many levels, from the government to local administration.



We are in a Europe where, I think, the most logical people are saying, fortunately there is no longer the Greek issue, to be added to the Brexit. We are in a Europe that is trying to find its stride for the 21st century. The easy dream according to which the 21st century would be the century of Europe, with Europe itself prevailing against emerging powers, like China or -- in this dream -- a declining U.S., was not borne out.



The capabilities and power of a Union like ours presupposes the undivided support of our peoples, functioning as democratically as possible; it presupposes our seeing beyond the end of our noses and realising that we mustnt limit Europe to just sanctions and memoranda. Europe is something much more. It is the home of our peoples. It is the dream of other peoples. It is our democracy in the conditions of the 21st century, the social state in the 21st century. It is Europe of solidarity and mutual understanding.



Europe has a great past, but we must take care that it also has an even greater future. I think that Frank-Walter is a person of realism in foreign policy, of substantial and creative pragmatism, and he will agree with me on the need for us to again give dreams, hopes, positive outlooks to our Youth, to our citizens, for the Europe of the 21st century.



We are going through difficulties, like the refugee crisis and the Brexit. At the same time, we have two elections today, with, from what they say, the first positive results -- and I hope this is how it will go -- with the Greens and majority candidate appearing to avoid defeat in Austria.



We are awaiting the result in Italy, which is of great importance to us.



We talked with our friend the Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany about the issues in our region. We talked in particular about the cooperation we have as Greece, and I briefed him on our recent trips to Egypt, Libya and Lebanon, which he himself visited the day before yesterday. Our country is a country of great geostrategic importance. It is a factor for stability in the region. A country that thinks as a European country, moves within the framework of the European Union, and there defends its interests.



We also talked about the Cyprus issue. We are both optimistic about the positive impact the resolution of a 42-year-old problem will have on the future not just of Greece, but of the European Union as a whole. A solution that must be based on the will of the two Communities -- Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot -- and the three small minorities on the island.



A solution that must constitute an optimistic message, but at the same time must also be based, in Greeces opinion, on European and international law. I dont think there is a European state that would want a member state of the European Union to be subjected to guarantees or to the presence of an occupation army.



The messages from Cyprus are positive. We hope that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which essentially deals with disarmament, will contribute in its own way -- which we will explore together with my colleague -- to the solution of the Cyprus problem becoming more productive.



We also talked about our Balkan policy and the regions problems. I remind you of what I always say -- Churchill said that the Balkans produce more history than they can consume. It is time we were able to produce more future than in the past.



We will continue our talks at our dinner at the Acropolis Museum. It was, I imagine, a tiring trip for my colleague. Berlin to Thessaloniki early in the morning. In Thessaloniki, the event co-organized by Greek and German institutions was very nice, showing in practice how well we can work together.



We are now in Athens, and we will continue tomorrow with the meeting the German Minister will have with our Prime Minister, and with an interesting discussion at the German School of Athens. Also interesting was the discussion with the President of the Republic, a large part of which concerned the Treaty of Lausanne and the importance of respecting it.



I want to say to our Turkish friends that there is no country that wants more than Greece to see the further democratization of our neighbour Turkey. No country wants Turkeys European orientation more than Greece, because we will be the biggest winners.



And for this European orientation to exist, the tone has to fall. This concerns all of our neighbours. The restlessness has to be curbed -- you will remember that there were some who described Germany in the 19th century as a restless power -- and international law has to be implemented. International law means implementation of and respect for the Treaty of Lausanne. Because I remind you that certain provisions of this Treaty, like those for the self-administration of the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, continue to be unimplemented.



Once again, I am pleased to have an agent of a realistic, peaceful pragmatic policy, a friend in Athens, Walter, a thousand thanks for your presence here, for everything you said in Thessaloniki, for everything you are doing for Europe. I wish you good fortune in your travels, and the doors of Athens and Greece are always open to you. Thank you very much.



F.W. STEINMEIER: Thank you very much, dear Nikos, you welcomed me with a well-known phrase: A friend of old. I want to assure you that I wasnt just a friend of old. Now, today and in the future, I can assure you, dear Nikos, that I will remain a friend. I want to thank you very much for the warm welcome to Greece, not just to Athens, but also to Thessaloniki, where I had the opportunity to be with you. I think that, so far, it has been a very good visit, which was not limited to discussions of just a political nature, which we had this afternoon. I think that such opportunities as we had this morning in Thessaloniki are good for both of us, to reflect jointly on the shadows of the past, to realise that we are linked by a common history. For us to have insight into this history and, based on this insight, to shape an even more dynamic future for us, both bilaterally and on a European level.



Regarding our bilateral relations and our relations in Europe, I want to thank you. I know that you suffered, as did I, from the tensions that existed in our relations, and after official meetings in Brussels we often talked to each other and said that things cannot stay this way.



And the idea not just for one to talk about these things, but also to work for something better for the future, for a joint action plan -- this idea was mainly yours. I want to thank you and your team very much, because they worked hard on this initiative, which we now have the opportunity to co-sign today.



We have now reached a point in Greek-German relations where the will is clearly apparent for us to make the framework between us even better and not let the past cast a shadow on our relations.



Moreover, this cooperation was also discussed with the President. We have to try to send a positive message to Europe. Particularly following the Brexit decision, the centrifugal forces in Europe have become palpable and we are facing a twofold challenge: Now, to negotiate with Great Britain its exit and what shape the relations between Britain and Europe will take in the future, while equally important is the challenge concerning the relations between the 27 European partners; that is, the European partners without the UK.



I think that, with regard to the current crises in Europe, the issues of concern to the citizens of Europe, all of these issues urgently require a response from the European Union. They are issues that have not been responded to, and among these are issues of security, which have become more urgent because the security climate has changed. Growth and employment are also key issues, as well as the migration issue, which we have discussed repeatedly.



I think that in these three sectors we could again make progress for Europe and gain greater acceptance in Europe with regard to these issues.



In our talks with the President, we also had the opportunity to talk about the Cyprus issue. We will also certainly talk about this during tonights dinner. I know how painful such negotiations are -- negotiations during which the sides are called upon to give up established positions of the past -- and I think that, at this time, the north and the south of the island have taken major steps.



And when I think about negotiations on other issues, controversies, then I think that there is always a long road that one must travel, and it is in these last few metres that one will probably meet with the most obstacles. But if all the sides have the will to cross the finish line after such a negotiation, then no obstacle is enough to stop them.



I know that an understanding on the Cyprus issue will also constitute a message of stability for Europe. A development that we need urgently and that is something more than the Cyprus issue. There is the issue of whether we are at a point where a dispute that has existed for many years can now reach a solution in this way.



I want to say the following regarding Turkey: No one will question the fact that the relationship between Turkey and the European Union is tense at this time. I dont think there as a lack of statements from Germany, too, condemning the coup attempt that took place in Turkey. We showed respect for those who came out in favour of democracy in Turkey, but I also made it clear to Turkey that we cannot turn a blind eye to mass arrests of journalists and other people in the country. The issue you referred to earlier -- any public reference to the Treaty of Lausanne viewed as political ploy cannot be a choice. Everyone knows what it would mean for us to start questioning the borders in Europe. This certainly does not contribute to the vital stability that citizens are seeking.



Finally, as regards the elections in Austria, the process has not yet come to completion, and as we are in the midst of our talks right now, I havent been in a position to monitor the news and developments. What we know is that, according to predictions, Van der Bellen is ahead, and I would say that if this is also the final result, it would be a good sign for the struggle against populism in Europe. It would be a sign I would be very pleased at, because I am receiving this news here in Greece, the cradle of Democracy. Thank you.



JOURNALIST: I would like your comment, Mr. Steinmeier -- as well as the Greek Foreign Ministers -- on the aggressive rhetoric from Ankara, which has intensified in recent days. What is your position, given that Greeces borders are also the borders of the European Union? Thank you.



F.W. STEINMEIER: I cant comment on that. In my political statements I have repeatedly criticized this fact. We pursued the discussion with Ankara because I think that there should not be a lack of clarity between us with regard to our political positions. And this is why I was there two weeks ago. I talked to the Foreign Minister, to the Prime Minister, to the President of the country, about migration issues as well as issues bearing on domestic policy. Of course, we also conveyed and explained our position regarding the Treaty of Lausanne, which is a longstanding position; that is, that the Treaty of Lausanne cannot be disputed by anyone.



N. KOTZIAS: As you know, Greece is a country of stability in a region of increasing instability. Whether we are talking about the wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, or the instability of political systems, as with the recent changes taking place in Bulgaria and, much more so, the coup attempt in Turkey.



A principle of our foreign policy is to remain sober, to face matters calmly; to neither magnify the problems nor try to circumvent them. Our principle with regard to dealing with Turkey is that Turkey is a neighbour that has been next to us for centuries, with whom we want to coexist and have extremely good economic and social relations. From tourism to the new projects we want to build, such as the Istanbul-Thessaloniki rail line, the shipping link between Izmir and Greek ports. We are on a good path. But within Turkey, a large portion of the Turkish elite are showing a restlessness.



What we aspire to do is to contribute to the limiting of this restlessness and certainly to keeping it from exhibiting itself abroad. We hope and believe that Turkey -- also listening those to whom it needs to listen -- will be able to once again pick up the thread of the democratization of its society, bring down the tone of rhetoric, and not have internal crises find expression in external relations.



We always extend a hand of friendship to Turkey and the Turkish leadership. We want dialogue. We have taken care to keep all the channels of communication open and remain calm and composed, because we believe in a better future between Greece and Turkey.



And I want to reiterate what I said before. We want a European, democratic Turkey that is integrated into the European Union. We want a neighbour that conducts itself based on International and European law. It is up to Turkey whether it follows this path. If it doesnt follow it, our country will always be prepared to defend the European values and visions of the 21st century.



JOURNALIST: I remember, it wasnt long ago, when members of the Federal Government werent received, didnt receive such a friendly welcome here. Things are different now. What brought about this change?



N. KOTZIAS: I would say that our relations have developed optimally of late. And I would say that we have good joint cooperation and understanding. All sides are more realistic today than they were in the past. What concerned me in the past was the way Greece was criticized.



There is a difference between two categories of criticism. One is where you criticize policies and the persons who exercise these policies -- this is political criticism -- and the other is when one criticizes countries and peoples.



I think that whenever, in the European Union -- as well as in the bilateral relations of many countries -- criticism did not concern policies and the persons implementing them, but rather concerned peoples and states as a whole, we had misunderstandings.

Today, both of us know our weak points. We know what our disagreements are, but we also know how to seek common ground, and this is our thinking. Today we believe that we can impart positive momentum to Greek-German relations.



And one last thing. You will have heard it. I said it in Thessaloniki. I always stress that our relations with Germany were not just the difficult relations of the 1940s, not just the difficult relations of the first years of the memoranda. Through the centuries, there is an intellectual relationship, a social relationship, in which Germany itself laid the foundations for its enlightenment through ancient Greek letters and philosophy, showing to all of Europe what had been lost.



Greeces significance is linked to Germanys bringing this importance to wide attention. And anyone who forgets these very deep ties between the two sides, anyone who forgets the social ties we have -- as you know, I am married to a German and my child was born in Germany, during the time of the Junta -- anyone who forgets these ties can then, through day-to-day struggles, be dragged into polemics that are not consistent with a common course for the building of Europe.



I also think that, on most issues -- those that have to do with the region, but also European issues -- Germany and Greece are very, very close to one another. Of course we have certain difficulties, sometimes many, in the economic sector. But we have made great progress in the sectors in which we are working together.



And I think the joint action plan we signed today is an excellent basis on which we can develop Greek-German relations equally, creatively and productively. There are always difficulties in the relations between two states. You have to choose whether to get past them or allow them to drown you.



And you know that I am a swimmer year round, and I also like underwater diving.



F.W. STEINMEIER: Id like to add something too. First of all, concerning the personal level, I think that what unites us, Nikos Kotzias and myself, is that we never consider bilateral relations and international situations to be final. We are in a position to cultivate relations and to judge matters from a historical perspective.



And we dont want to give up on things that it took generations to shape. Generations of good bilateral relations between Greece and Germany. What changed, we must be honest, is also the relations in Europe.



The economic and financial crisis made it seem if there were a homogeneous whole in Europe, with Greece outside of that. Today, with the support and solidarity of Europe, things have changed. I have no doubt today that Greece is among the most ardent supporters of Europe and that European integration will remain a pursuit.



What you referred to in your question that had to do with migration, I think that it is something that is being handled in a positive manner by the Greek side with regard to us. Because you see that, in Germany, this matter of the European Union and Turkey, the agreement, that is, between Europe and Turkey, is coming in for criticism from a portion of the population.

I think that, if this agreement didnt exist, then Greece would have to shoulder the whole weight of the problem. And this is why, of course, it is inherent in the agreement between Europe and Turkey that Greece be able to deal with this problem and not break under too great an influx of refugees. Because you will remember last year that there was an increase in the influx of people.



Second -- and Nikos, I dont know if you see it the same way -- we Germans truly support this commitment we have undertaken; that is, that we will accept a portion of these refugees. Five hundred refugees are accepted each month, and this is something that is functioning with the cooperation of German services as well.



I talked earlier about the fact that the framework of political conditions changed throughout Europe. But collaborations were also created to confront the refugee crisis.



JOURNALIST: There are important upcoming meetings in Europe on the issue of the Balkans, the European perspective of the Balkans. Two questions on this: Should we expect any important news on this front? And, second, especially with regard to Albania, what are the conditions that have to be satisfied for Albania to advance to the next stage in its relations with Europe? Thank you.



N. KOTZIAS: First of all, I would like to say something regarding the refugees, because I want to be fair. I think that Germany is very, very close to us in handling this problem, as Frank-Walter described it.



I just want to express our dismay, as well. When, two years ago, we began to say that the refugee crisis was coming, a large portion of the European news media accused us of supposedly wanting to distract European attention from other problems, like the financial crisis or other geopolitical issues. Unfortunately, life showed us that is was a very big and real problem.



Now, regarding the Balkans, our government wants to resolve the problems from the past as well and as productively as possible. It is well known that with Albania we worked systematically to determine the issues on which we need to work together to find solutions jointly, whether these problems come from the past or determine the future.



We have created six working groups on the individual problems, under a large umbrella group which is the responsibility of the Secretaries General of the two states. Unfortunately, there was infelicitous handling of matters on the part of the European Commission, and there is unfortunately a trend, ahead of elections, toward emerging nationalism.



Our recommendation and urging to everyone is to bring down the tone of the conversation, to agree on the European path, and, as much as we can, resolve our problems in a timely manner and not allow those problems to interfere with Albanias European accession process.



With regard to the sectors, it should be clear -- and this will be apparent on Monday, 12 December, with the Council Conclusions -- that we want Albanias accession to the European Union. European neighbours around us is a big win for us. But we also have to see satisfaction of all the criteria that were also set for all previous enlargements.



In this specific case, these are the criteria concerning the Judicial System, Administrative Reform, the fight against organized crime, specific measures regarding the problem of narcotics -- as there is large production of narcotics in our neighbouring country -- protection of property rights, which have been, since the time of John Locke, a fundamental right in the system we live in, and protection of the Greek National Minority.



That is, they have to transcend the thinking of Hoxha, according to which a member of a minority is someone who lives only in a specific area, and large populations, which are a majority in some areas, do not have minority rights. This can and must be complied with by Albania, and we can and must help in the process of compliance.



We have proposed a number of measures, we have a certain expertise on these issues so we can help.



With regard to our northern neighbour, with which we have friendly relations, we have taken many steps. Our proposal for confidence-building measures has gone into implementation. Diplomats from both sides are doing important and great work, and I would say that it is as intensive as with any other country. We are now building gas pipelines from Thessaloniki to Skopje, we are building a new rail line from Florina to Bitola, we have now established the cooperation between our universities, police, exchange of information. I wouldnt want to take up a lot of time on this during a press conference of this kind.



Finally, I will note, because we also have German friends here, Greek-Bulgarian relations are historic. Our German and French friends may be proud of achieving peace after 150 years of wars, but I want to remind you that Greece and Bulgaria had 1,600 years of wars and occupation and resistances, and, in fact, at one time, for Byzantine emperors to become emperors, I remind you, they had to be called Bulgar Slayer. That is, have a name that showed they killed Bulgars. And, correspondingly, Greek Slayer, for Bulgarians.



Today we have the best relations we have with any country, and we see this as a European model: how a harsh history of 1.600 years can end in friendship and in cooperation that is a model and example for all the world. And we are very, very proud of this, and this is why we hope that, with the two other countries, we can resolve all the problems carried forward by history and find ourselves without Bulgar Slayers, Albanian Slayers or Greek Slayers in our relations.



JOURNALIST: A question for both Ministers, regarding two important European developments. Mr. Hofer conceded defeat a short while ago. Would you like to comment? And, second, what do you expect from the Italians? What would you like to see from the Italians with regard to Europe today?



F.W. STEINMEIER: I understand your question very well. I think that you, too, understand that, given that I am not in a position to be informed personally about what is happening, due to the political talks I am carrying out, I can only refer to what I said earlier.



It really is positive that on such a day -- when we have so many things to say about the crises in Europe, about centrifugal forces, nationalism and populism and populist parties -- we are, on such a day, in Greece, the cradle of democracy, to hear the news that Van der Bellen is probably ahead. This is already something very positive.



I havent yet heard anything about Norbert Hofer conceding defeat, but I believe I will hear it.



N. KOTZIAS: Regarding Italy: You know that Italy is a very important country for Europe. And it is so important that no one is saying to Italy what they said to us, despite their having a 2 trillion debt. Italy and its stability are key to Europe. The stability of the government in Italy can do only good for the European Unions relations with Italy and Greeces relations with Italy.



We have agreed on certain very good projects, and I hope we will be able to implement them in 2017. I also hope we see you often, and I hope we also see my old fellow student and friend, always, here in Athens. He is always welcome.



I must tell you that this land is very fond of the German Foreign Minister. I must say that he is very popular, that at our Ministry -- it isnt right for me to say this about a single Minister, but because we Greeks are a little emotional -- he is highly appreciated, and that is why it is a pleasure for us.



You know, moreover, that he holds a doctorate from my university, lets not forget, in Piraeus. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University, where my students always remember the speech he made at the ceremony very fondly.



Good travels, always, Frank-Walter, always close to us. May we always smile and hope for a better future and a better Europe.



Thank you very much for coming to Athens and Thessaloniki. Thank you very, very much.



F.W. STEINMEIER: And I thank you very much.

Joint Statement by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany
BAD AXE  The cost for Huron Countys share of the presidential election hand recount is unknown, but a local election official says the county will foot some of the bill.

The Huron County recount will start at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Huron Intermediate School Districts Administration Building.

Huron County Clerk Lori Neal-Wonsowicz said the county will get $4,000, or $125 for each of the countys 32 precincts, via the funds raised by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who is spearheading recalls in three states.

That, however, wont cover supplies and the time spent by the 16 people who will be recounting, Neal-Wonsowicz said.

There will be seating for the public available at the recount, she added.

Neal-Wonsowicz did not know when the funds would arrive.

Otherwise, the countys paying for it, she said.

She said 10 to 15 of the states largest counties were ready to start, and would begin the recount Monday.

A federal judge early Monday morning in Detroit ordered a statewide hand recount of roughly 4.8 million ballots to start by noon Monday.

Republican Donald Trump won the state by about 10,704 votes, or two-tenths of a percentage point, over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Stein received about 1 percent of the vote.

Stein argued that a law is unconstitutional that requires a break of at least two business days after the Board of Canvassers final action on a recount request.

Judge Mark Goldsmith issued his ruling early Monday that rejected an effort by Michigan state officials to wait two business days before starting to hand-count ballots. Goldsmith found that Stein had shown the likelihood of irreparable harm if the count was delayed even by two days and rejected the states arguments about the cost to taxpayers.

The move increases the chances that the state could complete the count ahead of a Dec. 13 deadline.

Steins lawyers argued that waiting until Wednesday would cut it too close.

The Michigan Republican Party is appealing the judges order.

Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette, the Trump campaign and super PACs have filed separate lawsuits asking state courts to prevent the recount, arguing that Stein, as the fourth-place finisher, is not aggrieved because she has no chance of winning in a recount.

Stein is spearheading recount efforts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well. Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in all three states on his way to victory.

The Green Party is trying to force a federal court order for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit was filed Monday morning in Philadelphia against state elections officials. It argues that Pennsylvanias barriers to a recount violate voters constitutional rights.

The lawsuit says a recount and forensic examination of election system software are necessary to determine whether the election results were manipulated by hackers. It says Pennsylvanias paperless electronic voting machines make it a prime target for hacking.

Wisconsins recount is underway.

In Wisconsin, six counties have completed their work and Trumps margin hasnt changed.

In Nevada, a partial recount of the race was requested by independent presidential candidate Roque De La Fuente.

Stein says her efforts to force recounts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are about ensuring that all votes are counted and that voters can trust the system.

Sanilac Countys recount is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Sunday at the Emergency Operations Training Center in Sandusky, and Tuscola Countys recount will start at 9 a.m. Friday at the Polish American Club on Merz Road in Caro.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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 Buckle, Inc. operates as a retailer of casual apparel, footwear, and accessories for young men and women in the United States. It markets a selection of brand name casual apparel, including denims, other casual bottoms, tops, sportswear, outerwear, accessories, and footwear, as well as private label merchandise primarily comprising BKE, Buckle Black, Salvage, Red by BKE, Daytrip, Gimmicks, Gilded Intent, FITZ + EDDI, Willow & Root, Outpost Makers, Departwest, Reclaim, BKE Vintage, Nova Industries, J.B. Holt, and Veece. The company also provides services, such as hemming, gift-packaging, layaways, guest loyalty program, the Buckle private label credit card, and personalized stylist services, as well as special order system that allows stores to obtain requested merchandise from other company stores or its online order fulfillment center. As of March 11, 2022, it operated 440 retail stores in 42 states under the Buckle and The Buckle names. The Buckle, Inc. also sells its products through its website, buckle.com. The company was formerly known as Mills Clothing, Inc. and changed its name to The Buckle, Inc. in April 1991. The Buckle, Inc. was incorporated in 1948 and is headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska.
Global Payments Inc. provides payment technology and software solutions for card, electronic, check, and digital-based payments in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through three segments: Merchant Solutions, Issuer Solutions, and Business and Consumer Solutions. The Merchant Solutions segment offers authorization services, settlement and funding services, customer support and help-desk functions, chargeback resolution, terminal rental, sales and deployment, payment security services, consolidated billing and statements, and on-line reporting services. This segment also provides an array of enterprise software solutions that streamline business operations of its customers in various vertical markets; and value-added services, such as point-of-sale solutions, and analytic and engagement tools, as well as payroll and human capital management services. The Issuer Solutions segment offers solutions that enable financial institutions and retailers to manage their card portfolios through a platform; and commercial payments and ePayables solutions for businesses and governments. The Business and Consumer Solutions segment provides general-purpose reloadable prepaid debit and payroll cards, demand deposit accounts, and other financial service solutions to the underbanked and other consumers, and businesses under the Netspend brand. It markets its products and services through direct sales force, trade associations, agent and enterprise software providers, referral arrangements with value-added resellers, and independent sales organizations. The company was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation provides a range of financial products and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Securities Services, Market and Wealth Services, Investment and Wealth Management, and Other segments. The Securities Services segment offers custody, trust and depositary, accounting, exchange-traded funds, middle-office solutions, transfer agency, services for private equity and real estate funds, foreign exchange, securities lending, liquidity/lending services, prime brokerage, and data analytics. This segment also provides trustee, paying agency, fiduciary, escrow and other financial, issuer, and support services for brokers and investors. The Market and Wealth Services segment offers clearing and custody, investment, wealth and retirement solutions, technology and enterprise data management, trading, and prime brokerage services; and clearance and collateral management services. This segment also provides integrated cash management solutions, including payments, foreign exchange, liquidity management, receivables processing and payables management, and trade finance and processing services. The Investment and Wealth Management segment offers investment management strategies and distribution of investment products, investment management, custody, wealth and estate planning, private banking, investment, and information management services. The Other segment engages in the provision of leasing, corporate treasury, derivative and other trading, corporate and bank-owned life insurance, renewable energy investment, and business exit services. It serves central banks and sovereigns, financial institutions, asset managers, insurance companies, corporations, local authorities and high net-worth individuals, and family offices. The company was founded in 1784 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
The following companies are subsidiares of Kroger: 84.51 HQ Building Company LLC, 84.51 LLC, Alpha Beta Company, Ansonborough Square Investors I LLC, Ansonborough Square Retail LLC, Ardrey Kell Investments LLC, Bay Area Warehouse Stores Inc., Beech Tree Holdings LLC, Bleecker Ventures LLC, Bluefield Beverage Company, Box Cutter Inc., CB&S Advertising Agency Inc., Cala Co., Cala Foods Inc., Cheeses of All Nations Inc., Country Oven Inc., Crawford Stores Inc., Creedmoor Retail LLC, Dillon Companies LLC, Dillon Real Estate Co. Inc., Dillons, Distribution Trucking Company, Dotto Inc., Edgewood Plaza Holdings LLC, Embassy International Inc., FM Inc., FMJ Inc., Farmacia Doral Inc., Food 4 Less GM Inc., Food 4 Less Holdings Inc., Food 4 Less Merchandising Inc., Food 4 Less of California Inc., Food 4 Less of Southern California Inc., Fred Meyer, Fred Meyer Inc., Fred Meyer Jewelers Inc., Fred Meyer Stores Inc., Glasswing Labs LLC, Glendale/Goodwin Realty I LLC, Grubstake Investments LLC, HT Fuel DE LLC, HT Fuel NC LLC, HT Fuel SC LLC, HT Fuel VA LLC, HTGBD LLC, HTP Bluffton LLC, HTP Plaza LLC, HTP Relo LLC, HTPS LLC, HTTAH LLC, Harris Teeter, Harris Teeter LLC, Harris Teeter Properties LLC, Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc., Harris-Teeter Services Inc., Healthy Options Inc., Henpil Inc., Home Chef, Hood-Clayton Logistics LLC, Hughes Markets Inc., Hughes Realty Inc., I.T.A. Inc., IRP LLC, ITAC 119 LLC, ITAC 265 LLC, Inter-American Foods Inc., Inter-American Products Inc., J.V. Distributing Inc., Jondex Corp., Jubilee Carolina LLC, KCDE  2013 LLC, KCDE-2 LLC, KCDE-3 LLC, KCDE-4 LLC, KCDE-5 LLC, KGO LLC, KPF LLC, KPS LLC, KRGP LLC, KRLP Inc., KV Anderson LLC, Kee Trans Inc., Kessel FP, Kiosk Medicine Kentucky LLC, Kirkpatrick West Retail LLC, Kroger Community Development Entity LLC, Kroger Dedicated Logistics Co., Kroger Fulfillment Network LLC, Kroger G.O. LLC, Kroger HQ LLC, Kroger LM Real Estate Holdings LLC, Kroger Limited Partnership I, Kroger Limited Partnership II, Kroger MC Holdings LLC, Kroger MTL Management LLC, Kroger Management Co., Kroger Management  Corryville LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Athens I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Champaign I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Champaign II LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Cincinnati I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Dallas I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Danville I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Logansport I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Missouri I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Oak Ridge I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Olney I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Omaha I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Portsmouth I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Starkville I LLC, Kroger Management  NMTC Topeka I LLC, Kroger NMTC Fremont I LLC, Kroger OZ1 Inc., Kroger OZ1 LLC, Kroger OZ2 Inc., Kroger OZ2 LLC, Kroger OZ3 Inc., Kroger OZ3 LLC, Kroger Opportunity Fund I Inc., Kroger Prescription Plans Inc., Kroger Specialty Infusion AL LLC, Kroger Specialty Infusion CA LLC, Kroger Specialty Infusion Holdings Inc., Kroger Specialty Infusion TX LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy CA LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy FL 2 LLC, Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings 2 Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings 3 Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings I Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Holdings Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy Inc., Kroger Specialty Pharmacy LA LLC, Kroger Texas L.P., LCGP3 Home Cooking Inc., Latta Village LLC, Local Mkt LLC, Main & Vine LLC, Matthews Property 1 LLC, Mega Marts LLC, Michigan Dairy L.L.C., ModernHealth LTC, Murrays Cheese LLC, Murrays Cheese LLC, Murrays LIC LLC, Murrays Table LLC, Pace Dairy Foods Company, Paramount Logistics LLC, Pay Less Super Markets Inc., Peyton's-Southeastern Inc., Plum Labs LLC, Pontiac Foods Inc., Queen City Assurance Inc., RBF LLC, RGC Southeast Properties LLC, Ralphs Grocery Company, Relish Labs LLC, Rocket Newco Inc., Roundy's, Roundys Acquisition Corp., Roundys Illinois LLC, Roundys Inc., Roundys Supermarkets Inc., Second Story Inc., Shop-Rite LLC, Smiths Beverage of Wyoming Inc., Smiths Food & Drug Centers Inc., Southern Ice Cream Specialties Inc., Stallings Investors I LLC, Sunrise R&D Holdings LLC, Sunrise Technology LLC, TLC Corporate Services LLC, TLC Immunization Clinic LLC, TLC of Georgia LLC, The Kroger Co. of Michigan, The Little Clinic LLC, The Little Clinic Management Services LLC, The Little Clinic of Arizona LLC, The Little Clinic of Colorado LLC, The Little Clinic of IN LLC, The Little Clinic of Kansas LLC, The Little Clinic of Mississippi LLC, The Little Clinic of Ohio LLC, The Little Clinic of TX LLC, The Little Clinic of Tennessee LLC, The Little Clinic of VA LLC, Topvalco Inc., Ultimate Mart LLC, Ultra Mart Foods LLC, Vandervoort Dairy Foods Company, Vine Court Assurance Incorporated, Vitacost, Vitacost.com Inc., Woodmont Holdings LLC, and YOU Technology.

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Teradyne, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports automatic test equipment worldwide. The company operates through Semiconductor Test, System Test, Industrial Automation, and Wireless Test segments. The Semiconductor Test segment offers products and services for wafer level and device package testing in automotive, industrial, communications, consumer, smartphones, cloud computer and electronic game, and other applications. This segment also provides FLEX test platform systems; J750 test system to address the volume semiconductor devices; Magnum platform that tests memory devices, such as flash memory and DRAM; and ETS platform for semiconductor manufacturers, and assembly and test subcontractors in the analog/mixed signal markets. It serves integrated device manufacturers that integrate the fabrication of silicon wafers into their business; fabless companies that outsource the manufacturing of silicon wafers; foundries; and semiconductor assembly and test providers. The System Test segment offers defense/aerospace test instrumentation and systems; storage test systems; and circuit-board test and inspection systems. The Industrial Automation segment provides collaborative robotic arms, autonomous mobile robots, and advanced robotic control software for manufacturing, logistics, and light industrial customers. The Wireless Test segment provides test solutions for use in the development and manufacture of wireless devices and modules, smartphones, tablets, notebooks, laptops, peripherals, and Internet-of-Things devices under the LitePoint brand name. This segment also offers IQxel products for Wi-Fi and other standards; IQxstream solution for testing GSM, EDGE, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, HSPA+, LTE, and 5G technologies; IQcell, a multi-device cellular signaling test solution; IQgig test solution; and turnkey test software for wireless chipsets. Teradyne, Inc. was incorporated in 1960 and is headquartered in North Reading, Massachusetts.
The following companies are subsidiares of Textron: AAI Corporation, AAI Services Corporation, ALSTOM Gears, Able Aerospace, Able Aerospace Services Inc., Able Engineering & Component Services, Aeronautical Accessories LLC, Airborne Tactical Advantage Company LLC, Arctic Cat, Arctic Cat ACE Holding GmbH, Arctic Cat France SARL, Arctic Cat GmbH, Arctic Cat Inc., Arctic Cat Production LLC, Arctic Cat Production Support LLC, Arctic Cat Sales Inc., Arctic Cat Shared Services LLC, Arctic Cat UK Ltd., Arkansas Aerospace Inc., Avco Corporation, Aviation Service servis letal doo Ljubljana, Aylesbury Automation, B/K Navigational Equipment sro, BELL TEXTRON ASIA (PTE.) LTD., Beech Aircraft Corporation, Beech Holdings, Beechcraft Defense Support Holding LLC, Beechcraft Domestic Service Company, Beechcraft Germany GmbH, Beechcraft International Holding LLC, Beechcraft International Service Company, Beechcraft New Zealand, Bell Textron Canada International Inc., Bell Textron Canada Limited/Limitee, Bell Textron Co. Ltd, Bell Textron Inc., Bell Textron Korea Inc., Bell Textron LLC, Bell Textron Miami Inc., Bell Textron Prague a.s., Bell Textron Rhode Island Inc., Bell Textron Services Inc., Bell Textron Supply Center BV, Bell Textron Technical Services Inc., Benzlers, Brazaco Mapri Industrias, Burkland, Cessna Aircraft Company, Cessna Citation European Service Center SAS (99.9%; 1 share  Textron France SAS), Cessna Dusseldorf Citation Service Center GmbH, Cessna Finance Corporation, Cessna Finance Export Corporation, Cessna Mexico S de RL de CV, Cessna Spanish Citation Service Center SLU, Cessna Zurich Citation Service Center GmbH, Citation Parts Distribution International Inc., Cushman Inc., Datacom Technologies, David Brown Group, Doncaster Citation Service Centre Limited, E-Z-GO Canada Limited, Energy Manufacturing, Flexalloy, HBC LLC, Hawker Beech de Mexico S de RL de CV, Hawker Beechcraft Argentina SA , Howe & Howe Inc., Howe and Howe Technologies, Industrial Technology Inc., InteSys Technologies, International Product Support Inc., KSB Annecy SAS, Kautex (Changchun) Plastics Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Chongqing) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Guangzhou) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Pinghu) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Shanghai) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Wuhan) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex Corporation, Kautex Craiova srl, Kautex Germany Holding GmbH, Kautex Inc., Kautex Japan KK, Kautex Shanghai GmbH, Kautex Textron (UK) Limited, Kautex Textron Benelux BVBA, Kautex Textron Bohemia spol sro, Kautex Textron CVS Limited, Kautex Textron GmbH & Co. KG, Kautex Textron Iberica SL, Kautex Textron Management Services Company de Puebla S. de RL de CV, Kautex Textron Portugal  Produtos Plasticos Sociedade Unipessoal Lda., Kautex Textron de Mexico S de RL de CV, Kautex Textron do Brasil Ltda., Kautex of Georgia Inc., Kaywood Products Corp., Klauke, LCI Corporation International, LLC Textron RUS, Maag, McCord Corporation, Mechtronix, Medical Numerics Inc., Midland Industrial Plastics, MillenWorks, MillenWorks Themed Technologies, MotorFist LLC, OPINICUS Simulation and Training Services LLC, OmniQuip International, Opinicus, Optical Boring Co., Opto-Electronics, Opto-Electronics Inc., Overwatch Systems, PEINER Umformtechnik, Pipistrel, Pirelli Tyres - General Rubber Goods (GRG) division, Premiair Aviation Maintenance Pty Ltd, Progressive Electronics, Ransomes, Ransomes Inc., Ransomes Investment LLC, Ransomes Jacobsen France SAS, Ransomes Jacobsen Limited, Ransomes Limited, Ransomes Pensions Trustee Company Limited, Replacement Part Solutions LLC, Response Technologies LLC, Rotor Blades Limited, Sukosim Verbindungselemente, TRU Simulation & Training Spain SL, TRU Simulation + Training Inc., TRU Simulation + Training LLC, TekGPS Engineering Srl, Textron Airland LLC, Textron Atlantic LLC, Textron Aviation Australia Pty. Ltd., Textron Aviation Canada Ltd., Textron Aviation Defense LLC, Textron Aviation Finance Corporation, Textron Aviation Inc., Textron Aviation Prague Service Center sro, Textron Aviation Rhode Island Inc., Textron Aviation Services de Mexico S de RL de CV, Textron Capital BV, Textron Communications Inc., Textron Far East Pte. Ltd., Textron Finance Holding Company, Textron Financial Corporation, Textron Financial Corporation Receivables Trust 2002-CP-2, Textron Fluid and Power Inc., Textron France Holding SAS, Textron France SAS, Textron Global Services Inc., Textron Ground Support Equipment Inc., Textron Ground Support Equipment UK Limited, Textron IPMP Inc., Textron India Private Limited , Textron Innovations Inc., Textron International Inc., Textron International Mexico S de RL de CV, Textron Limited, Textron Management Services Inc., Textron Motors GmbH, Textron Motors North America Inc., Textron Outdoor Power Equipment Inc., Textron Realty Corporation, Textron Shared Service Centre (Canada) Inc., Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc., Textron Sweden AB, Textron Systems Australia Holding Pty Ltd, Textron Systems Australia Pty Ltd, Textron Systems Canada Inc., Textron Systems Corporation, Textron Systems Electronic Systems UK (Holdings) Limited, Textron Systems Electronic Systems UK Limited, Textron Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Textron UK Pension Trustee Limited, Textron Verwaltungs-GmbH, Turbine Engine Components Textron (Newington Operations) Inc., United Industrial Corporation, Westminster Insurance Company, Williams Machine & Tool, and Zhenjiang Bell Textron Aviation Services Limited.

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West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products. The Proprietary Products segment offers stoppers and seals for injectable packaging systems; syringe and cartridge components, including custom solutions for the needs of injectable drug applications, as well as administration systems that enhance the safe delivery of drugs through advanced reconstitution, mixing, and transfer technologies; and films, coatings, washing, and vision inspection and sterilization processes and services to enhance the quality of packaging components. It also provides drug containment solutions, including Crystal Zenith, a cyclic olefin polymer in the form of vials, syringes, and cartridges; and self-injection devices, as well as a range of integrated solutions, including analytical lab services, pre-approval primary packaging support and engineering development, regulatory expertise, and after-sales technical support. This segment serves biologic, generic, and pharmaceutical drug companies. The Contract-Manufactured Products segment is involved in the design, manufacture, and automated assembly of devices used in surgical, diagnostic, ophthalmic, injectable, and other drug delivery systems, as well as consumer products. It serves pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device companies. The company distributes its products through its sales force and distribution network, as well as contract sales agents and regional distributors. West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. was incorporated in 1923 and is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania.
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. The company also provides home decor products under the West Elm brand; kids accessories under the Pottery Barn Kids brand; and an organic bedding to multi-purpose furniture under the Pottery Barn Teen brand. In addition, it offers made-to-order lighting, hardware, furniture, and home decors inspired by history under the Rejuvenation brand; and women's and men's accessories, travel, entertaining and bar, home decor, and seasonal items under the Mark and Graham brand, as well as operates a 3-D imaging and augmented reality platform for the home furnishings and decor industry. The company markets its products through e-commerce websites, direct-mail catalogs, and retail stores. It operates 544 stores comprising 502 stores in 41states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; 20 stores in Canada; 19 stores in Australia; 3 stores in the United Kingdom; and 139 franchised stores, as well as e-commerce websites in various countries in the Middle East, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, and India. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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...
A submersible from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will dive down more than 1,100 feet off Pearl Harbor on Wednesday to show the public for the first time a Japanese mini-submarine that was sunk by the first shot fired by the U.S. in the war in the Pacific.

Click Here to Watch the Livestream

The "Discoverer" remotely operated submersible is expected to reach the mostly intact wreck of the Japanese midget submarine at 6:30 a.m. local time (11:30 a.m. East Coast time), the approximate time 75 years ago when the U.S. destroyer Ward on Dec. 7, 1941, fired a shell from a four-inch deck gun that doomed the mini-sub, said James Delgado, director of Maritime Heritage at NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

Speaking to Military.com from the deck of NOAA's research ship Okeanos Explorer, which will launch and pilot the Discoverer, Delgado said the wreck of the Type "A" Ko-hyoteki class mini-sub was evidence that "we weren't caught napping" in the attack by Japanese warplanes that decimated the U.S. Pacific Fleet and killed more than 2,400.

The Ward immediately sent the message that a Japanese submarine several miles off Oahu had been "sighted, fixed upon and sunk," but it took about 45 minutes as the message worked its way through channels to reach Adm. Husband Kimmel, commander of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

The bombs from the first wave of Japanese attack planes began falling at 7:53 a.m., and there wasn't enough time to mount a defense, Delgado said.

'Not Napping'

"The Ward was not napping, Bill Tanner was not napping," Delgado said in reference to Navy Lt. (j.g.) Bill Tanner, the pilot of a PBY Catalina on patrol off Pearl Harbor, who also spotted what he thought were two or possibly three Japanese mini-subs just before the Ward opened fire.

The damage inflicted by the Ward on the mini-sub was unmistakable, said Hans Van Tilburg, a NOAA marine archaeologist. "Yes, you can see it on the side of the conning tower; it's very noticeable. It's a four-inch hole about the size of what the shell would have left," he said.

The Japanese mini-sub was one of two at the bottom of the sea in the same general area that will be shown in the NOAA livestream. The second sub was in three pieces and was believed to have foundered because of design and system failures.

"Until now, only a handful of explorers and scientists have seen these relics of the war in the deep sea," Delgado said, "but thanks to technology, anyone and everyone can now dive with us in the first live exploration of the 'midget' submarines that represent the beginning of the war in the Pacific."

The mini-subs were the brainchild of Marshal Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy and architect of the Pearl Harbor attacks, but he never intended to use them in the first strike, Delgado said.

Yamamoto's Grand Plan

In Yamamoto's grand plan, the two-man, 78-foot mini-subs, which carried two torpedoes and were capable of speeds in excess of 20 knots on the surface, were defensive weapons to be used to thwart the inevitable U.S. counter-attack on the home islands.

Dozens of the mini-subs would be launched from submarine tenders to swarm "out of nowhere" against the approaching U.S. fleet under Yamamoto's original plan, Delgado said, but others in the high command convinced him to include the mini-subs in the Pearl Harbor attack. The Japanese rigged a "cradle" for the mini-subs to be carried on the decks of larger submarine "mother ships" in the advance on Pearl Harbor.

On the morning of the attacks, five of the large submarines launched five mini-subs despite problems with the smaller subs that had been detected on the long journey to Hawaii. An inspection sheet found after the war showed 25 defects in one of the mini-subs, Delgado said, but on that morning they were in position to attempt to follow U.S. ships into Pearl Harbor to get past the submarine nets.

The orders were to fire their torpedoes once inside the harbor and then attempt to escape to rendezvous with the mother ships off Lanai Island.

The mini-sub sunk by the Ward first tried to follow the U.S. minesweeper Condor into Pearl Harbor but was spotted by the Condor. The Condor sent a blinker message to the Ward: "Sighted submerged submarine on westerly course 9 knots," according to the Board of Inquiry convened after the attacks.

The Ward made a sonar search but could not find sub. The mini-sub then tried to follow the Navy cargo ship Antares, which also notified the Ward. The destroyer went to general quarters and fired twice.

The first shot went high, but the second hit the mini-sub. The Ward followed up with depth charges, the Board of Inquiry said.

The deck gun from the Ward that fired the "first shot" is now a monument on the grounds of Minnesota's state capitol in St. Paul. The inscription says that "By sinking Japanese submarine on the morning of 7 December 1941 off Pearl Harbor, this gun has the distinction of being the first naval gun to speak America's reply in World War II."

All five of the Japanese mini-subs launched against Pearl Harbor were lost, as were nine of the 10 Japanese sailors aboard them who had been designated the "Special Attack Forces." Only one of the five mini-subs managed to get inside the harbor, and it was quickly sunk with depth charges by the destroyer Monaghan.

'First Prisoner'

The sole survivor of the mini-subs was Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, whose mini-sub washed up on Dec. 8 on Oahu's Waimanalo Beach. He became the "first prisoner" taken by the U.S. in World War II.

Sakamaki asked permission of his captors to commit suicide, but the request was denied and he spent the remainder of the war in prison camps, where he became a pacifist. His name was stricken from the military rolls and he officially ceased to exist in Japan for surrendering to the enemy.

In his memoir, titled "I Attacked Pearl Harbor" in the U.S., Sakamaki wrote, "We were taught, and we came to believe, that the most important thing for us was to die manfully on the battlefield -- as the petals of the cherry blossoms fall to the ground -- and that in war there is only victory and no retreat."

He was repatriated after the war and in 1946 married his wife, Sadako, whose father and brother had been killed in the Hiroshima atomic bombing. He later became an executive for Toyota Corp. but was still scorned in Japan and so served in the company's Brazilian subsidiary.

The captured mini-sub became a traveling exhibit to raise money for war bonds. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt inspected it. The mini-sub is now permanently on display at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.

In 1991, Sakamaki came to the U.S. and visited the Texas museum. He approached his mini-sub and caressed its side. "Hello, friend," he said, and then wept. Sakamaki died in Japan at age 81 in 1999.

The mini-subs at the bottom off Pearl Harbor are now considered war graves and, for Delgado, they are part of the legacy of the attacks that must be kept inviolate. "They're almost all gone now," he said of the veterans of Pearl Harbor, both Japanese and U.S.

When they are gone, "the memories of them will be as distant as the Civil War is to us," Delgado said. "How do we carry it forward?"

What will be left is the legacy in the artifacts and the places, he said. "These are the touchstones," he said, including mini-subs at the bottom of the sea. "The coming generations can learn from them."

Pearl Harbor is "more than just the story of young men, full of patriotic fervor and idealism, going off to war." It is also the story of the following generations of both nations, and how "75 years later those enemies became friends," Delgado said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday was expected to defend his prosecution of the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and also urge the Trump administration to follow his lead on closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and shunning harsh interrogation techniques, the White House said.

In his final address as president on counter-terrorism, Obama "will be wrapping up his record on national security" in a visit this afternoon to MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, home to U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command, said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

Obama's first priority was to express his gratitude to the troops for their contributions to carrying out what Rhodes called a "different model of counter-terrorism" than that put in place under the administration of former President George W. Bush.

Obama's strategy was to cut deployments and rely on partnering in smaller U.S. contingents in train, advise, and assist roles with local forces, Rhodes said. When Obama came to office, there were about 180,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now there are about 15,000 total, Rhodes said.

The better course was to have "partners on the ground that will have to secure these places for themselves," Rhodes said.

In addition, Obama will renew his argument for closing the detention facility at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 59 prisoners now remain. During the campaign, Trump suggested that he would expand "Gitmo" to take in "some bad dudes" captured in the future.

Rhodes said that Obama would also seek to influence Trump on observing the "rule of law" by trying terror suspects in the federal courts rather than in military commissions, and by shunning a return to waterboarding and torture in the interrogation of terror suspects.

When asked if Obama had regrets, Rhodes pointed to the civil war in Syria, where Obama's diplomacy has failed to bring about a cease-fire and the ouster of Syrian regime President Bashar al-Assad.

The civil war in Syria, where some 400,000 people have been killed by an estimate earlier this year from a United Nations envoy, is "something he reflects on all the time," Rhodes said of Obama.

The president has "tried every manner of diplomatic initiative" in Syria, but "at no time has there been a clear plan where we could see that it would make things better" to take military action other than the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, Rhodes said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that as of October 2016, the Veteran unemployment rate is 4.3 percent. This means that 460,000 of today's Veterans are living in the United States without jobs. Although this statistic has steadily decreased over the past several years, it's still a disheartening one.

As a former U.S. Marine and founder of HandyVets, Inca company that exclusively hires Veteran technicians I have seen time and time again the myriad of challenges that those who dedicate their lives to our nation experience upon returning from duty. Among these challenges is the fact that our military men and women typically enroll after high school when many of their peers are going to college. That's why 75 percent of Veterans have less than a bachelor's degree.

In addition, one in 10 Veterans are disabled. When a military career is cut short due to a physical injury, Veterans often struggle to provide for themselves and their families. They can either choose to start over and go to college, go to trade school, or find a job paying minimum wage. But too often, individuals with a VA disability status are considered a liability by companies.

It is because of these obstacles that I have made it my mission to provide a better option for my fellow Veterans and I encourage all business owners to consider doing the same. At HandyVets, Inc., we hire those with military experience and help fill in skills gaps with on-the-job training and continuing education programs. By allowing Veterans to build on the invaluable skills they acquired while serving our country, we're able to help them create a viable post-military career path.

Aside from empowering them to create the future they deserve, here are five reasons to hire Veterans:

1.Quick mastery of skills: Members of the military are called upon to quickly learn and master new skills to be effective in their positions. Many become experts in a wide-range of skills and concepts that can easily be transferred to a civilian work environment. 2.Flexibility in a myriad of situations: Members of the military must react quickly and accurately in a wide variety of situations. This flexibility proves beneficial in civilian work life as they adapt to new challenges, colleagues, and personalities. 3.Great leaders and team members: Military training teaches members to work effectively as leaders and as members of a team. Veterans understand how groups must work together to achieve a strategic objective. At the same time, military service also hones unparalleled leadership skills so that individuals can command the respect of their peers and perform at peak as individuals. 4.Globalized perspective: Our military branches are made up of women and men from all walks of life; Veterans have learned to work side-by-side with individuals with unique backgrounds and capabilitiesfrom all over the world. This advanced perspective is a competitive advantage when working as a civilian in our increasingly globalized economy. 5.Strong personal integrity: Ethics and a sense of honor are ingrained in service members. An employee who stands by his/her word and can be held accountable is an asset to any organization.

It is my hope that more employers around the nation recognize the many benefits of hiring Veterans and make strides toward helping them create a sustainable post-military career path. After all, what kind of message does it send to potential recruits when today's Veterans are struggling to make a living? In order for our military to remain as great as it is, it is our duty as a nation to do more to improve the lives of those who sacrifice for us. Change must start with us.

About Ben Murphy

Ben Murphy, a former U.S. Marine, founded HandyVets in 2014. The company specializes in a wide range of handyman, and commercial and residential property maintenance and repair solutions, including LED lighting and surveillance systems. One hundred percent of HandyVets' technicians have served in the United States military. For more, visit www.handyvetsinc.com.
"A day which will live in infamy."

That was how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described Dec. 7, 1941, as he one day later asked Congress to declare war against the Empire of Japan.

In a surprise attack that began at 7:48 a.m. that sunny Sunday in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Japan killed 2,403 Americans; wounded 1,178 others; sank four U.S. Navy battleships; destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft; and sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, one minelayer, and an anti-aircraft training ship.

America would never be the same.

Shortly after Roosevelt's Dec. 8 speech, Congress voted to launch the U.S. into World War II, a conflict that forever changed how Americans saw themselves and the world outside their borders.

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day marks the lives lost Dec. 7, 1941, and honors those who survived the attack.
UK minister visits schools in town

From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-12-06 01:46

THE United Kingdom wants to expand its educational cooperation and exchange programs into areas such as the creative arts, from the current popular math teaching program, UK education minister Justine Greening said yesterday.

Greening is in town leading a delegation to the fourth round of the UK China High Level People-to-People Dialogue, which begins in the city today.

The principal of the Yangjing-Juyuan Experimental School in Pudong New Area, Wang Huanwen, also told Greening the school wanted to expand exchange activities from math.

He sees opportunities in areas such as drama, debating, creative arts and further into STEM  Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The minister also visited Donghua University, famous for its textile and fashion education, which is cooperating with the University of Edinburgh in fashion design and interior design.

The minister unveiled the Donghua-Edinburgh Center for Creative Industries which will bring the two institutions together to work in education, research and industry and help build Shanghai into a fashion capital.

Its a really good indication of the good relationship between our two countries and how education is one of the ways we have our people-to-people exchanges, the education minister told reporters.

Hundreds of teachers have been exchanged between the two countries and Greening said she wanted to see more.

China is also interested in seeing how we can develop this relationship further in terms of creative arts and we think thats something that we can also consider as well, she said.

In London, we have lots of creative arts and Im sure thats something we can share more fully.

The UK and China share many joint priorities in the field of education, Greening said.

I am looking forward to the prospect of collaboration to raise standards, showcase British qualification and ensure all pupils have the skills employers need.
Steuern und Wirtschaft 4/16

Trumpland: How President Trump Can Affect Your Business and Your FutureDonald Trump, the surprising President-elect for the United States, has used derogatory language to describe women and minority groups. He has threatened to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. He has also promised Americans that he will tear up trade agreements, force NATO countries to pay more for defense, and build a wall on the US-Mexico border.We invite you to visit us on December 12, 2016 at 6:00 PM for a 1 hour presentation on this timely and important topic to learn how Americas 45th President might affect your business. The presentation will be in English and presented by our American alliance partners, Linda Wong and Daniel Fleming, who will lead a discussion after their presentation on what you can do to prepare for, and even take advantage of, changes that President-elect Trump has promised to implement.The speeches will be conducted in English.Trumpland: 12.12.2016, 18:00  19:00 UhrAnmeldungen per E-Mail an info@schomerus.de oder unter http://www.schomerus.de/veranstaltungen
Free agent designated hitter/first baseman Edwin Encarnacion has three preferred landing spots  the Blue Jays, Red Sox and an unidentified team  a major league source told Rob Bradford of WEEI. The mystery club isnt the Yankees, per Bradford, and theyre likely out of the running for Encarnacion (if they were ever in it) after adding Matt Holliday. The Blue Jays could be out, too, as theyve reached deals with two first base/DH types in Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce this offseason. The fact that Toronto moved on to other options so quickly after Encarnacion rejected its four-year, $80MM offer came as a surprise to the longtime Jay, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB Network.

More from the majors two East divisions:
The Indians met with first baseman Mike Napolis camp yesterday and tried to hammer out a one-year deal to re-sign the slugger, tweets MLB.coms Jordan Bastian. While Napoli has reportedly had a three-year asking price this winter, Bastian notes that he hears Napoli mightve already re-signed with Cleveland if the front office had pushed its offer to two years. Bastian goes on to report that Napolis camp has met with a handful of teams, and theyre optimistic about their ability to land a multi-year deal in free agency.

Napoli is one of multiple first base/DH types that are currently being linked to Cleveland, as the Indians are reportedly in pursuit of lefty-swinging Mitch Moreland and, more surprisingly, Edwin Encarnacion. ESPNs Buster Olney called those conversations just polite last night (Twitter link), suggesting that a deal was likely to be far too expensive for Clevelands liking. In this mornings blog (Insider subscription required/recommended), he further notes that surrendering the requisite first-round pick to sign Encarnacion would be difficult for Cleveland, as would committing to a 34-year-old on a lucrative multi-year deal.

Napoli posted huge power numbers for the Indians this past year, hitting .239/.335/.465 with 34 homers and 22 doubles, but reports have suggested that Cleveland is only interested in a one-year deal for its eventual first base/DH solution.
After missing out on ace Chris Sale, who went to the Red Sox in a blockbuster deal this afternoon, the Nationals are shifting their focus back to Pirates star Andrew McCutchen, reports FanRags Jon Heyman. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post writes that the Nationals hadnt shut down talks with the Pirates as of this afternoon, and Byron Kerr of MASNsports.com tweets that the Nats and Bucs are set to have another meeting this afternoon.

At one point, it was reported that the Nationals felt they had the prospect capital to acquire both Sale and McCutchen, so the fact that they didnt win the Sale sweepstakes technically gives them ample talent to pry McCutchen away from Pittsburgh. However, the Bucs reportedly asked for both Lucas Giolito and Victor Robles when talking with the Nationals, and that level of expenditure would be difficult to stomach, considering McCutchen is coming off his worst full season as a regular. Hes owed a reasonable $28MM over the next two seasons, but if last year was the beginning of a trend, then that figure may not be much of a bargain.

The Nats were said to have a real chance at landing Sale last night before the Red Sox swooped in, but as Janes reports, the Nationals never showed any willingness to part with Trea Turner, which ultimately proved to be the sticking point in negotiations. Thats consistent with everything thats been reported when it comes to the Nationals trade efforts, as GM Mike Rizzo (understandably) seems to be steadfastly averse to trading his blossoming star.

That said, its been a frustrating Winter Meetings for the Nats so far, who have also lost out on Mark Melancon, as their now-former closer signed a four-year, $62MM deal with the Giants. Nonetheless, there are plenty of high-profile upgrades to pursue, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post points (on Twitter) out that if the Nats want to engage with the ChiSox on their other top lefty, Jose Quintana (and possibly closer David Robertson), a good deal of groundwork could be accelerated, as the Nats and White Sox are already quite familiar with each others organizations after the extensive Sale talks, though that observation seems to be more speculation than anything else. For the time being, it seems that the Nats focus is McCutchen, although the two sides have been in talks since last week and also talked this past summer but have seemingly never come close to making a swap.
A Lansing-area logistics company that supports automotive manufacturers plans to close in early 2017, laying off 138 employees.

Comprehensive Logistics, based in Youngstown, Ohio, said layoffs will start by Jan. 29, according to a notice filed Dec. 1 with the state.

The plant closure follows a larger-scale layoff in early 2015, when it announced it would lay off 66 at the Lansing-area plant. The facility at 2510 Snow Road in Delta Township supported GM and Ford at the time.

That same year, Comprehensive Logistics invested $30 million into an automotive manufacturing support facility in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

"This contract award demonstrates Comprehensive Logistics' history of successfully providing a complete logistics and value-added warehouse solution and exemplifies our expertise in helping General Motors to meet growing consumer demand for their vehicles," said Brad Constantini, executive vice president and principal of Comprehensive Logistics Co., Inc., at the time of the plant's announcement.

That location was expected to create more than 200 new jobs dedicated to housing the manufacturing and light assembly of components for the GM plant in Spring Hill. The company has 16 jobs listed in Spring Hill, for 1st, 2nd and 3rd shifts.

According to an online posting for a 3rd shift quality torque technician: "We are a lean company who asks a lot from its' talented workforce and in return gives you the opportunity to be part of a major player in the 3rd party logistics space. If you are energized by solving big scale challenges, come work with us."

Representatives from Comprehensive Logistics were not available for comment. The company appears to have additional Michigan locations in Flint, Detroit and Livonia, in addition to sites in multiple states, Mexico and Ontario.

Workers at the Lansing facility have been represented by the United Steel Workers union. Union representatives also were unavailable to comment.

Comprehensive Logistics manages 20 facilities totaling over 4 million square feet. The privately held company recorded 123 percent revenue growth over the past three years, according to a release announcing its place on the Fortune 5000.
WYOMING, MI - After 31/2 years on the market, the city of Wyoming is bringing in Franklin Partners LLC to help market the 85-acre parcel that was once home to one of General Motors Corp.'s largest metal stamping plant.

The site between Clay and Buchanan avenues south of 36th Street SW, was purchased by the city's Brownfield Redevelopment Authority in 2010. GM announced in 2006 it was closing the plant it had operated since 1936.

Although the property has been cleared and marketed through industrial real estate brokers and The Right Place Inc., it has lingered on the market during the current recovery as expanding businesses soaked up much of the area's existing inventory of industrial space.



Kendall Electric has been the only company to buy property on the site since it was cleared. In 2013, Kendall acquired 5 acres for an expansion and consolidation of its Grand Rapids operations.

Though others have looked at the site, Wyoming City Manager Curtis Holt has insisted the property be redeveloped for manufacturing uses instead of warehousing or commercial and office uses.

"To use the infrastructure on that site for companies that don't need it is an enormous waste of a huge investment that's been made on that site," said Holt. "I think our preference is to see that site maximized."

Although the land is priced at about $70,000 an acre, Holt said the city is open to negotiations, depending on the jobs the buyer or tenant will bring to the table. "For the right use, we're willing to work with any potential owner with a good advanced manufacturing plan."

Don Shoemaker, principal with Franklin Partners, said potential tenants and buyers have had difficulty envisioning what could be built on the property, which has access to high voltage electrical utilities, a railroad sidings and is close to U.S. 131.

Franklin Partners, which specializes in redeveloping shuttered factories and outdated office buildings, has redeveloped several properties in Wyoming during the past 20 years, including the former Smith Industries factories and offices that are now occupied by Booking.com and Undercar Products Group.

Shoemaker said his company plans to work with potential buyers and tenants to redevelop the site to their specifications. That might include building roads and subdividing the property into a handful of smaller parcels or one or two large parcels, he said.

With existing industrial space becoming scarce, Shoemaker said the time is right for a new marketing push on the property that's been dubbed, "Site36."

Shoemaker said they plan to remove a pedestrian bridge over 36th Street that was left from its GM days. They also plan to clear the site again and remove non-mature trees that have sprung up on the site.

As for the 12-acres parking lot north of 36th Street SW, Shoemaker said it may be marketed for a hotel or commercial use that would complement the industrial uses across the street.
ANN ARBOR, MI - After more than nine years representing the 1st Ward on the Ann Arbor City Council, Sabra Briere is now a private citizen.

But she won't be in Ann Arbor for long.

Briere, who is moving to California, offered some parting advice to her colleagues early Tuesday morning, Dec. 6, shortly after officially resigning.

Each of her 10 colleagues also took turns praising her for her work on council and in the community over the years.

Briere spoke from the podium as a private citizen at the end of a roughly six-hour meeting, her last council meeting, touching on a topic that was the focus of much of her work while in office: planning and development.

"As I've learned more about urban planning and urban design, I've frequently been disappointed with the quality of work we see in this chamber when we consider a new development or a new piece of infrastructure, or any other change in the material fabric of the city," Briere said candidly.

"I want to encourage you to change that," she told council members. "I don't know whether council will approve new premiums for downtown. I'm not certain what decision will be made on the Library Lot, or for that matter on any other pending or potential development. But I have some suggestions for ways to think about the changes that will come under all circumstances."

Even as council members try to develop a global vision for Ann Arbor, Briere urged them to remember that change is incremental.

"Each tweak, each effort to solve a problem, will have unintended consequences," she said. "Don't be afraid to ask questions. And since you get to sit at the table, don't be too cautious to try to change outcomes.

"Don't lose sight of the need to make the community better by reinforcing a geography that includes recreation and passive green spaces in addition to and around and adjacent to any new developments."

When the city considers selling property, something Briere said she's certain the city will do over and over, she said she hopes council members will look for ways to have such sales reflect community values and needs, and determine that any proceeds will be used for one-time expenses that further city goals.

"Above all, and I know you know this, take a step aside on the big decisions," she said. "Think about whether the issue in front of you has been brought with the best interests of and the best opportunities for the community as a whole."

Briere choked up as she concluded her statements, saying she has enjoyed working with each person on council.

Briere has lived in Ann Arbor for the last 43 years, moving here in the summer of 1973, and has been heavily involved in the community for decades.

Multiple council members who are sad to see her go said they considered Briere a great mentor, helping other council members be effective in their roles. Some agreed she set the standard for communicating with constituents, including by sending out extensive email newsletters on issues before council.

They noted her dedication to attending meetings of other city boards and commissions, not just the ones on which she served. Briere often was the only council member present at many public meetings, sitting somewhere in the audience, knitting and listening, whether it was at a Downtown Development Authority meeting or a Public Art Commission meeting, or something else.

Council Member Jane Lumm, an independent from the 2nd Ward, said she has appreciated Briere's attention to detail. She said Briere has made many positive contributions to the community, both before and after joining council, through her volunteer work with many different organizations.

"You have worked incredibly hard for as long as you've been on council, and this council and the city are better off because of your efforts," Lumm told Briere, expressing appreciation. "You helped us think through difficult decisions with comments and perspectives that sometimes were a bit unique, but always thoughtful, always reasoned and helpful. Your knowledge overall is really impressive, and especially on planning matters."

Briere became active in the Ann Arbor Democratic Party in 1978. She served as the party's secretary and then chairwoman in the early 1990s.

She led a petition drive to put the question of making Ann Arbor a "zone of reproductive freedom" on the ballot in 1990. It passed, making it so if abortion ever becomes illegal, the maximum penalty in the city will be a $5 fine.

She was president of the Washtenaw County branch of the ACLU in the 1990s and took on issues such as racial and ethnic discrimination. She also served on the board of the Kempf House Museum and volunteered for the Huron River Watershed Council, where she helped organize cleanups of Traver Creek.

Before that, she served as president of the PTO at Bach Elementary, and served on a school committee focused on racial balance and desegregation.

In 1992, she ran for an open seat in the Michigan House and lost. In 2002, she ran for an open seat on the Ann Arbor school board and lost.

In 2007, she made her first run for City Council and won. She has been re-elected by 1st Ward voters four times since.

Council Member Zachary Ackerman, the youngest member of council, said he started attending council meetings in 2009 when he was only 15. He said Briere has been tied to his own understanding of his hometown, and she has shown true care for the people she is responsible for representing.

Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, has been appointed by his colleagues to replace Briere on the city's Planning Commission.

Council Member Sumi Kailasapathy, the city's other 1st Ward representative, recalled how Briere invited her over to her house after she was elected. She said Briere was kind and helpful and she appreciated that about her, even if they disagreed on issues, including when it came to development.

"Thank you very much," Kailasapathy said to Briere. "You're the only one who can say my last name right."

Briere had a reputation for being an independent voice on council, and her vote was unpredictable at times. If she had stayed on council long enough to vote on a major development in the works for the city-owned Library Lot, many saw her as the swing vote that would make or break the deal.

Council Member Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, said she has great respect for the depth of Briere's intellect and curiosity. She said Briere had a lot of institutional knowledge and could explain things in a way no one else on council could.

"I admire the path of your life," Grand told Briere. "I think you're just one of the best kinds of feminists out there and such a terrific role model."

Briere has been an advocate for better design in new developments, better downtown zoning, pedestrian and bicycle safety and affordable housing. She also led the charge on council to craft medical marijuana ordinances, and she has lobbied for state action to help address the Gelman dioxane plume.

Briere sponsored or co-sponsored 230 different pieces of legislation during her time on council, including three at her final meeting: a resolution to establish a committee to review Ann Arbor's medical marijuana ordinances in light of new state law, a resolution directing the city administrator to develop new policies regarding prevailing wage requirements for city contractors, and a safe passing ordinance that requires drivers to maintain a distance of at least five feet when passing cyclists, pedestrians and wheelchair users on roadways.

One of her earliest achievements on council was getting council to approve a citizen participation ordinance that requires developers to meet with citizens to discuss and seek feedback on development proposals before they proceed through the city's site plan approval process.

Council Member Jack Eaton, D-4th Ward, expressed appreciation for Briere's compassion, generosity, humor and patience.

"I think that we first worked together when my neighborhood came to council looking for assistance, and you patiently helped us through the process and actually supported our position on more than one occasion," he said. "And that was well before I ran as a council candidate."

Mayor Christopher Taylor said it has been a pleasure working with Briere, both as a colleague and competitor. He ran against Briere for mayor in 2014.

"At each of these various stages, you were filled with grace and good humor and thoughtfulness," Taylor told Briere. "I think someone said you were in it for all the right reasons, and that was plain every single day."

In her last email newsletter, Briere reflected on the work that remains unfinished, saying she still would like to see many things come to fruition. That includes year-round composting, a citywide master plan revamp, more sidewalks, better crosswalks and better bicycle routes, including a Border-to-Border Trail link from Barton Park to Bandemer Park, and the Allen Creek Greenway trail.

State Rep. Jeff Irwin and Sen. Rebekah Warren, both Democrats from Ann Arbor, presented a special tribute to Briere at Monday night's meeting. It was signed by both lawmakers, as well as Gov. Rick Snyder, who lives in Ann Arbor.

Warren said Briere has been a strong advocate for everything from protecting the Huron River watershed to reproductive freedom and civil rights.

"We are going to miss you," Warren said.

"I think your service here on council and in the community has been especially remarkable," Irwin added.

"You've really shaped this community in ways that I think we're all grateful for and have made our community better, so thank you."

The City Council voted 7-3 to appoint Jason Frenzel to fill Briere's seat on council on Tuesday.
ANN ARBOR, MI - The long and arduous process of recounting 190,000-plus presidential election ballots in Washtenaw County has begun.

With a statewide recount in Michigan now underway, the Ann Arbor area kicked off its portion of the effort on Tuesday morning, Dec. 6.

A large room inside the Washtenaw County Learning Resource Center, 4135 Washtenaw Ave., is humming with activity as ballots are being counted by teams of paid workers at 20 different tables, a process that could take four or five days to complete, said County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum.

"We have about 191,000 ballots to count, minus any precincts that are not recountable, of course," he said. "And we have 20 teams working on them at once. The hope is that they each can do at least two precincts a day, maybe three, maybe even four, depending on how efficiently it goes."

Kestenbaum said recounts usually start out slow, and as the workers get more into it and more accustomed to the process, then it moves faster. He said he'd like to have the process wrapped up by this weekend.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein has paid the required $125 per precinct for the recount in Michigan, where Republican Donald Trump reportedly defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes.

Kestenbaum isn't expecting the results in Washtenaw County to change much, if at all, following this week's recount.

"I have tremendous confidence in the accuracy of our tabulators and our system, but the way the law works, you don't have to take my word for it," he said.

"If you think that the actual ballots are going to tell a different story, you're entitled to ask for a recount and see the ballots."

Previously reported results show Clinton received 128,483 votes (68%) in Washtenaw County, with 50,631 for Trump (27%) and 2,472 for Stein (1.3%).

Observers or challengers from different political parties, including the Democrats, Republicans and the Green Party, are on hand inside the Learning Resource Center for the recount, keeping a watchful eye on the process.

At each of the 20 tables is a recount team of two people who are employed by the county. Kestenbaum said most of them are experienced election workers who have worked in precincts on election day and election night.

At each table, there also are up to two observers or challengers from each of the three political parties, Green, Republican and Democrat.

"I think realistically they don't have enough to have two at every table, but almost every table has at least one of those," Kestenbaum said.

Each table is handling one precinct at a time, with the precinct ballots brought out in secured containers.

"The security of the container has to be evaluated, seal numbers on the container have to match what was recorded before, and then assuming that those match and the container is solid, they proceed to count how many ballots are in the container to make sure that matches the number from election night," Kestenbaum said. "If it doesn't match, then the precinct is not recountable, or if there's a problem with the seals, the precinct is not recountable."

He noted that's Michigan law. And in those circumstances when precincts can't be recounted, the original vote results stand.

"If the precinct is recountable, and I expect almost every precinct in this county is going to be recountable, then the ballots are basically brought out, and the two election workers essentially examine each ballot and assign them to one of the piles," Kestenbaum said. "There are spaces marked and taped down to the table where to put votes for Trump, votes for Clinton, votes for Stein, votes for each of the other candidates and 'other,' meaning a write-in vote or a blank ballot.

"So, one by one, the ballots are examined and placed on the appropriate stack, and from time to time there's going to be a ballot where there's some ambiguity about where it belongs. And the two election workers will make a decision about it, and then the party representatives, if they choose, can challenge that decision and basically appeal it to the County Board of Canvassers."

Kestenbaum said there's even an appeals process beyond that, but there are well-established rules about how to count a ballot. For example, for a vote to count, there must be a mark inside the oval next to a candidate's name.

"If you circle outside the oval and put exclamation points after it, that's not a vote because you didn't mark inside the oval," Kestenbaum said.

If there's more than one candidate marked on a ballot, that's another situation that must be interpreted, Kestenbaum said.

"Voters are very creative," he said. "There are inevitably situations that are ambiguous. The parties, they have attorneys here. They will argue about who is entitled to this or that vote, and so that's just part of the process."

Once all of the ballots for a precinct have been examined, a vote total is recorded, and then the next precinct is examined.

Kestenbaum said he expects the Board of State Canvassers to make a final determination on Dec. 13, so the recount needs to be done by Dec. 12.

He said there are small counties that aren't scheduled to begin their recounts until Dec. 12, and that's because the Board of State Canvassers has people going around to the different counties and the recount is under their authority.

See the full recount schedule

Kestenbaum said everything was going smoothly so far Tuesday morning. And he said the fees Stein paid, $125 per precinct, should cover most of the county's costs for the recount, but not all. He said it might cost the county an extra $5,000 to $10,000 that's not covered, but that's just part of the cost of democracy.

So, all that said, is the recount necessary?

"I think this recount is wanted," Kestenbaum said. "And the process is that if a candidate who lost wants a recount and pays the fee, they get a recount."
A Detroit activist on Monday told state civil rights authorities fliers urging residents to report people living in the U.S. illegally are being distributed in Southwest Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Adam Thibodeau, an organizer with Congress of Communities in Southwest Detroit, where there is a large Hispanic immigrant population, claims a series of similar fliers found in the city and around the University of Michigan campus encourage discrimination while making reference to white supremacism and the election of Donald Trump.

The fliers began appearing shortly after the presidential election, and he believes the intent is racial intimidation.

One flier read: "Help enforce the law and make America great again," followed by numbers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Another listed a demographic breakdown of votes in the election based on race, highlighting stronger support for Trump among whites.

Two of the three fliers forwarded to or found by Thibodeau included a link to the website, TheRightStuff.biz. A portion of the website description reads:

Epic legends depicting heroes asleep under mountains or hills are entrenched in the European racesoul. Kings under mountain that will one day awake; the second coming of King Arthur; and the slumbering Emperor Frederick Barbarossa are all examples. Donald J. Trump epitomizes this legendary series of tales that are embedded in European folklore and Kultur.

"The youth of southwest Detroit already have to deal with enough anxiety, when you're talking about violence and things like that," Thibodeau said.

To "add another layer of whether or not their parents are going to be deported, or whether or not now they've got citizens who feel they're deputized to start asking people if they're residents or if they have citizenship ... now they feel like anyone out there could be trying to report them, and another thing about it, this is happening with people who are documented, but they just think they're not citizens and they're coming up to them."

Thibodeau presented the fliers to members of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission at their meeting in Detroit on Monday.

At the same meeting, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission called the number of hate or racial bias incidents its begun monitoring since the election of Donald Trump "unprecedented."

While there are typically about 10 incidents per year recorded by the Department of Civil Rights, the agency recorded 65 in the last month, Director Dr. Agustin V. Arbulu said.

Incident reports are collected by the Department of Civil Rights from community members, schools systems, media and other sources.

"Many of these may not rise to a civil rights complaint, but they are certainly concerning," said state Department of Civil Rights spokeswoman Vicki Levengood. "... We want to bring an end to this behavior."

She said there are "all sorts of dynamics" that "bump up the number," including heightened awareness and sensitivity, increased media reporting and a greater willingness of the public to report incidents.

While a formal civil rights complaint must meet certain criteria, a recorded hate or racial bias "incident" does not, Arbulu said.

The statistic isn't perfect but it "gives you a sense of the tremendous increase ... " Levengood said. "The (employee who tracks hate or bias incidents) told me this level of incidents in this time frame was unprecedented, and he's been doing this work for eight years."

Civil Rights Commission Co-Chair Rasha Demashkieh said her constituents tell her many people are scared to come forward with complaints; she believes the problem is worse than the figure reflect.

The Department of Civil Rights encourages the public to report any hate or racial bias incident by calling its hotline at 800-482-3604.

Levengood said the Department of Civil Rights is especially focused on diffusing racial tension on college campuses and in schools.

Two examples of these sorts of reports occurred at Royal Oak High School following the election. A week after report of students chanting "Buld the wall," a noose, a symbol commonly associated with the lynching of black people, was discovered in the school bathroom.

Arbulu and state Superintendent Brian Whiston on Nov. 15 issued a joint letter to all Michigan schools -- public, private and charter -- "condemning intolerable conduct regardless of message or motivation." The letter included various resources for racial sensitivity training and reporting.

Trump during his campaign advocated deporting non-citizens, building a wall along the border with Mexico, halting immigration from the Middle East and creating a mandatory registry for Muslims.
A school board vice president in Metro Detroit is under fire for persistent "Islamophobic, racist and xenophobic" pubic postings on Facebook.

The Macomb Daily reports a group of protesters called for Alfredo Francesconi's resignation before the Monday, Dec. 5 school board meeting.

The board of education's vice president has drawn attention for several Facebook posts spewing anti-Muslim and anti-African-American rhetoric on his public page.

"Kids look up to these people. What message is Mr. Francesconi sending by sharing these types of images on Facebook? I have cousins who are still in the Roseville community school district, cousins who are Muslim. They shouldn't have to see these types of things from their school board," Meriam Uppal, one of the protesters, told the Macomb Daily. "I am a graduate from RHS and have long since moved out of the district because of it's racist behaviors, I now live in Rochester Hills where the community is diverse and I don't have to fear my daughter being judged by the color of her skin or the religion she follows."

Some of the school board vice president's postings that have drawn the most attention are comparisons of Melania Trump and Michelle Obama's attire, and a post with Donald Trump's picture and the text "No I'm not going to kill the gays, make slavery legal, and take away women's rights. I'm not a Muslim."

Under the photo of Melania Trump and Michelle Obama, Facebook user Nicole Lynn wrote, "and you're a racist who has about 6 seconds left on this school board."

State law states that the removal of a school board member can only be done if the person in question is convicted of a felony, declines to accept the office, moves out of the school district, or violates Michigan Election Law.

When asked about the postings, Francesconi told C&G Newspapers that "I read them, and I agreed with them and I retweeted (shared) them."

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has now spoken out against Roseville's school board vice president on three occasions. Once in 2013, again 2015 and now in late 2016, C&G reports.

"The vice president of the Roseville school board has a history of making such outlandish and racist posts. Our primary concern is the signal this gives to the district and especially students," he told the newspaper. "I'm concerned about the Muslim and American children in this district. We have a man with a leadership position in the school that is making anti-Muslim posts that are also false. That's where the concern is."

Scrolling through the past month of Francesconi's Facebook activity, which remains public as of Tuesday, Dec. 6, shows a number of anti-liberal memes and videos, fake news stories, pro-grandfather posts and anti-Muslim shares.

School board president Theresa Genest told C&G they are sorry if Francesconi offended anyone and that "he is a great board member, but his beliefs are his beliefs, and everyone else has their beliefs."
New school for expats children

From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-12-05 10:17

Construction started on Saturday on a new campus for German and French schools in Shanghais Yangpu District to meet the rising demand of expats for quality education for their children.



The 50,000-square-meter Shanghai Eurocampus, supported by the governments of both nations and the Yangpu District, will open in 2018 to offer education from kindergarten through high school for 2,000 German- and French-speaking children, said Ralph Koppitz, chairman of board of the school. The annual tuition fee is about 140,000 yuan (US$20,440), he said.

Shanghai is the biggest investment destination in China for over 2,000 German and French companies.
Detroit is home to a port that's tied to some 15,000 jobs and generates nearly $300 million in state and federal taxes as part of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System.

And yet many are completely unaware of its existence.

To make his point about the Port of Detroit being an afterthought -- if even that -- the head of the authority watching over the $300 million economy likes to use a story of border patrol agents being unaware of its existence.

"There is a crewman who comes into the port (from Canada), and when he gives the customs agent his reason for coming, the agent says: 'There's no port here,'" said John Loftus, executive director of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, about general unfamiliarity with the Port of Detroit.

"So, the agent has to call the Coast Guard just to confirm that there is a port here. There is no better way to show the challenge we face than a customs agent not knowing there is a port in Detroit. "

As for the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, it sits on the riverfront, and is operated by a five-person board with one member appointed by the state, two by the county and two by the city of Detroit.

Henry Ford II was the authority's first-ever chairman of its board of directors.

It calls a 21,000-square-foot, 250-foot dock capable glass building on the Riverfront home. The port authority can host cruise ships, other vessels and even host events.

Back in the fall, Loftus provided a media tour along the river, offering an inside look at port activity while he made a case for legislation to give the authority more control over the terminals it oversees.

Port authority officials say they oversee more than 17 million tons of cargo spread across 29 terminals. The Port of Detroit ranks third in the nation when it comes to handling steel.

Most of the cargo moved through Detroit consists of iron ore, coal, steel and cement.

During the tour, Loftus reminisced about times when you could travel near Rouge Steel and watch raw material like iron ore become a vehicle. He said Henry Ford widened a channel on the Rouge River to give larger ships and freight carriers easier access to Ford's home on the river.

The Port Authority owns Detroit's only general cargo terminal in southwest, which is responsible for around 1,500 domestic and international trips into and out of Detroit each year.

The Port of Detroit covers 32 miles along the Detroit River, more than 25 terminals -- public and privately owned -- and handles 17 million tons of cargo each year.

The Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority was established in 1978, but its district gained jurisdiction over the waters and shorelines in the county in 1933. Its 1978 establishment granted it the power to "plan, develop and promote" the Detroit area as a Great Lakes transportation and distribution hub.

One issue holding riverfront industry back, according to Loftus, is what he calls out-dated, non-user-friendly state legislation.

"(Legislation) allows port authorities to do a variety of things for their facilities. The trouble is that it defines facilities as a facility owned by the port authority," he said during a trip down the river. "There's only one cargo facility we own, and our building. Terminal is just past the Ambassador Bridge. There are 25 different facilities that we can't do anything with because we don't own them.

"When I take this up with legislators, they don't even know there's a port. How do I get them motivated by this?"

Loftus points to the next 30 years as a crucial period for Michigan, with the Department of Transportation anticipating a 60 percent spike in freight traffic.

"We have three options when it comes to this expected increase over 30 years," he said.

"A. We do nothing and let the roads deteriorate. B. Build your way out with more roads, which require expensive maintenance and construction costs or, C. we can utilize an under-utilized transportation system. Water will never replace rail or truck, but more can and should use it more."

He added that water transportation is a better option for the environment, with lower emissions. A change in legislation, he said, would put more control over the port in the hands of the public.

"We've got to be sure our terminals are adequate to meet those needs," Loftus said, continuing to make his case for legislative support. "We don't own the terminals. Changing the legislation would allow us to play a more vital role ...

"We want to make sure the business community and public knows we're willing and able to help. There is an industry here ... with 15,000 jobs."
TROY -- Tesla Motors has opened a gallery on the first floor of Nordstrom at Somerset Mall with the Model X on display.

The gallery, which opened Thursday and replaced a section of fine jewelry, contains a digital display describing what the Model X offers and a separate display of its interiors.

The Palo Alto, California-based automaker is known for its fully electric, luxury vehicles.

The gallery inside Nordstrom has Tesla specialists available to answer questions and offer interested customers information on ordering a vehicle, but Michigan buyers may have to pick up their vehicle from an out-of-state location.

Michigan doesn't allow direct Tesla sales in the state because the automaker doesn't use traditional auto dealerships.

The company applied for a dealership license in Michigan, but the Secretary of State denied the request. A license would allow the company to service cars through franchised dealerships, despite the company's business model.

Tesla sued Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Gov. Rick Snyder in September, arguing the state's 'anti-Tesla' policies are 'unconstitutional.

Tesla did not take part in last year's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and will not feature an exhibit in the show this year, according to a Tesla specialist.

Tesla calls the Model X now on display at Nordstrom its safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle, boasting acceleration from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3 seconds.

The 7-seat vehicle features eight cameras for a 360-degree view and includes a full self-driving option that matches the speed of current traffic conditions and handles merging, exiting, staying within a lane and parking.

A "Summon" feature allows owners to prompt the vehicle for a greeting, and for it to pull in or out of a garage or parking space on its own.

"Eventually, your Tesla will be able to drive anywhere across the country to meet you, charging itself along the way," the automaker claims. "It will sync with your calendar to know exactly when to arrive."

The Model X, unveiled in 2015, has faced some problems.

Some owners have reported the winged doors would not open and close properly and that its panoramic windshield caused double-vision during night driving.

Third-row seats were also reported to snap forward in an accident.

Tesla recalled 2,700 Model X SUVs over the seating issue, though no related injuries were reported.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens has been criticized for gifting whiskey to Olympic swimming superstar Micheal Phelps.

Phelps, who had two DUI charges between 2004 and 2014, was being honored at Caesars Windsor by the Federation Internationale De Natation as the top male swimmer in 2016, according to the Windsor Star.

After pleading guilty in 2014, Phelps spent 45 days of inpatient treatment in Arizona. He also attended Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, the New York Times reports.

Windsor's mayor gifted the 23-time gold medal winner with a bottle of Canadian Club, according to the Windsor Star.

"He's also known to gamble and we had him stay at the casino," Dilkens told the newspaper. "FINA set him up at the casino. Where do you stop? He's not said he's an alcoholic. In fact, the last piece we looked at on Google, he was asked if he's an alcoholic and he said 'I don't know.' He doesn't classify himself as being an alcoholic. If he did classify himself as an alcoholic, I would have made a different choice."

Mayor Drew Dilkens presented Michael Phelps with a big bottle of commemorative Canadian Club whiskey to mark the time... Posted by Robert Earl Stewart on Monday, December 5, 2016

@jimmykimmel look what the mayor of our great city decided would be a good gift for Michael Phelps. Bottle of whiskey. pic.twitter.com/OV2yPmZqWV  Rob Gyori (@bigrobowski) December 5, 2016

Michael Phelps has been arrested twice on DUI and went to rehab, when he came to town this weekend my mayor gave him a bottle of whisky. Wtf  Al the Bear (@AlgonquinBear) December 6, 2016

In an April 2016 interview with CNN, Phelps admitted to having "gone off the deep end" a couple of times, but said "I don't know, I honestly don't know" when asked if he was an alcoholic.

After being kicked off the team and going through rehab, Phelps told the Associated Press that he swore off alcohol and developed a new outlook on life.

Dilkens maintains that he and his staff did their homework before picking the gift.

"We actually discussed internally whether this was an appropriate gift and after doing our own research we came to the conclusion that it was a gift because he hasn't called himself an alcoholic," Dilkens told the Windsor Star. "When I gave it to him he was extremely thankful for the gift and told me he'd display it with his gold medals.

"In fact, the history of the gold bottle goes back to Hiram Walker, who used to give a gold bottle to every one of his employees when they retired. I thought this is perfect. Michael Phelps is retiring, he's won 23 gold medals, and I thought there's a perfect symbolism here with a gold bottle for a gold medal winner who is retiring."
Kimora Simon

FLINT, MI -- The parents of a missing 3-year-old Flint child have been charged with murder after a local teacher reported potential child abuse concerning a sibling.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton announced the charges Tuesday, Dec. 6 following an investigation that led police and his office to believe Kimora Simon was beaten to death and buried in a shallow grave near Evergreen Regency Townhomes off Lippincott Boulevard.

Khairy Joshuawon Simon, 26, and Erika Shantae Finley, 27 were arraigned by Genesee District Judge Nathaniel Perry on charges of felony murder, tampering with evidence, lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation, first-degree child abuse, and first-degree child abuse in the presence of another child.

Finley also faces one count of welfare fraud.

Neither Simon or Finley was represented had an attorney at the arraignment. Both are expected to be given court-appointed lawyers.

The investigation began after the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services received a referral from a teacher at Burton Glen Academy in Burton regarding a 5-year-old child that had marks on his body indicative of child abuse.

A DHHS employee followed up the next with a visit to the child's home at Evergreen Regency and inquired with Finley about the whereabouts of her daughter 3-year-old Kimora Simon.

Finley told police the child was with her father Khairy Simon in Detroit, but he provided a conflicting story as to the child's whereabouts, Leyton said. Relatives had not seen the child in more than a year and Khari's girlfriend said she'd never seen the child once in the eight months they'd been together.

Police believe the parents killed the girl together and that the father buried her, Leyton said.

A backpack used to transport the child had also been removed from the home.

Along with the conflicting stories, Leyton said "Other information gleaned led us to believe Kimora is deceased" and buried along the railroad tracks near Evergreen Regency.

Michigan State Police, Flint police, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and local K-9 officers "have scoured the area where we believe Kimora was buried to no avail," said Leyton, of a comprehensive three-day search.

It's the belief of law enforcement, Leyton said, the child was taken from the grave by animals.

A 5-year-old boy and 7-year-old boy in the home have been removed and a petition filed with the Genesee County Circuit Court Family Division for jurisdiction. Both children have been placed in temporary foster care until a hearing next week.

Leyton praised law enforcement officials for their "outstanding work" in the case, especially given the lack of a body.

"When you have a homicide and there's no body, it makes it all that much more difficult for law enforcement to get the evidence that we demand that they get," he said, adding it's easier to track the whereabouts of an adult through social security, credit cards, and job history.

"When you get a 3-year-old child, none of those things exist, so the officers they had to really come up with information that took a lot of leg work, time, effort to be able to prove to me, to start with, that the child in fact was deceased," Leyton said. "They've done an outstanding job here. That is what's allowed us to move forward to try to seek justice for Kimora."
FLINT, MI -- The University of Michigan-Flint has received $34,150 in funding to help prevent sexual assaults on campus, according to a news release.

The award for UM-Flint is part of a $100,000 grant via Michigan first lady Susan Snyder's "Inform. Empower. Prevent. Let's End Campus Sexual Assault" initiative and includes $9,840 for UM-Dearborn and $53,505 for the Ann Arbor campus.

In Flint, the university is expected to hire staff to support prevention, bolster a pilot program to provide opportunities for student leaders to engage in conversations regarding sexual and gender violence to open up dialogue in their organizations, and help implement awareness programming.

Grant recipients have been given until Dec. 1, 2017, to spend their awards.
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Planet Fitness health club on 28th Street SE in Grand Rapids. (Cory Morse | MLive file photo) (Cory Morse | MLive file photo)

(Cory Morse | MLive.com)

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A man arrested early Tuesday morning for firing a handgun at Grand Rapids police has been identified as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Officers were dispatched around 1:15 a.m. Tuesday to Planet Fitness, 3681 28th St. SE, after reports of a man brandishing a gun inside the fitness center.

Once on scene, an officer was shot at by the 35-year-old suspect, who was arrested at gunpoint soon after in a parking lot just north of the Center Pointe Mall.

The officer was not injured.

Notification has been sent to the FBI Agency in Detroit, and the incident remains under investigation, according to police.

Investigation into the incident is ongoing. Anyone with additional information is requested to call GRPD at 616-456-3400, or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The man suspected of shooting at a Grand Rapids police sergeant outside of a fitness center is an FBI special agent, the FBI said.

The FBI would not confirm his name or where he is assigned.

State police and jail records showed that a 35-year-old man was arrested early Tuesday, Nov. 6 in connection with the incident.

Police responded around 1:15 a.m. to reports of a man brandishing a firearm inside Planet Fitness at 3681 28th Street SE.

Police say the suspect fired at the sergeant outside of the gym as he responded to the call. Police said three shots were fired. The sergeant was not hurt.

Officers soon arrested the suspect at gunpoint in the parking lot north of Center Pointe Mall, police said.

Ray Johnson, the FBI's supervisory special agent for the Detroit field office, said the suspect is a special agent but he would not confirm his name or where he worked.

He released a statement: "The FBI takes allegations of misconduct very seriously. We are aware of the matter involving the recent arrest of an FBI Special Agent and are fully cooperating with the Grand Rapids Police Department.

"This matter has been referred to the FBI's Internal Investigations Section in Washington, D.C., as well as the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General. Because this is an ongoing investigation, we will not comment further."

The local investigation continues. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 456-3400 or Silent Observer at 774-2345.
WYOMING, MI -- A recount of 313,396 paper ballots cast by Kent County voters in the presidential election began Tuesday morning in a second-floor training room of the Wyoming Police Department.

About 75 workers -- both volunteers and clerks from across the county -- were on hand to assist the process of verifying the accuracy of Michigan's electronic scanning tabulator machines.

On election day voters' paper ballots were tallied using optical scan machines that aren't connected to the Internet, and the results are physically exported. The recount, initiated by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, is meant to test the tabulators' accuracy in reading 4.8 million paper ballots marked by ink pens that were cast in Michigan.

The recount started Tuesday in Kent County as a result of a federal judge's ruling just after midnight Monday morning -- though there are a number of challenges pending in state and federal courts.

Teams of two workers each counted the votes precinct by precinct. There are 491 precincts in Kent County, officials said. Those include absentee ballot precincts.

Recounting ballots by hand follows the Board of State Canvassers rules.

There's a set process:

-Check the container: The seal must be unbroken, and ballots could not have gotten into or out of the container

-Check the seal: The number on the seal must match the number on the certificate attached to the container, and must match the number in the poll book that has been stored separately

-Cut the seal, remove the ballots from the container

-Count the ballots: Make sure the number of ballots matches the number of voters at the precinct in the poll book

-Sort the ballots into piles by candidate, audibly announcing who the vote is

-Count the piles for each candidate and record the tally

-Put all the ballots back in the bag, seal the bag and record the new seal number

Every candidate on the ballot can have a challenger sitting at the table while the recount is happening, who is allowed to call the election team's decisions into question.

If a ballot is challenged, it is placed into a sealed envelope to be reviewed by the county Board of Canvassers.

Observers for each candidate may also be present at the table, but they can't challenge a decision of the recount team.
Michigan State Police.jpg

(MLive file photo)

LAKE COUNTY, MI - Michigan State Police Hart Post troopers are investigating a one-vehicle accident that resulted in the death of a Baldwin man.

Preliminary investigation shows that James Francis Merbs, 78, was standing outside his vehicle on southbound M-37, south of Denmark.

Witnesses to the scene said that it looked like Merbs was having vehicle trouble and the hood of his truck was up. The truck then rolled forward and ran over Merbs, causing serious injuries.

Merbs was taken to Spectrum Health Reed City where he later died from his injuries.

Troopers on scene were assisted by the Department of Natural Resources, the Lake County Sheriff's Department, Baldwin Fire and Rescue and Life EMS. Medical staff from the nearby Baldwin Family Health Center provided first aid.

The incident is still under investigation.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- President-elect Donald Trump has visited Grand Rapids three times in as many months this year.

Make that four.

The campaign this week announced the latest addition to Trump's "USA Thank You Tour" would be a visit to the DeltaPlex Arena on Friday, Dec. 9.

As the Republican presidential nominee, Trump visited the city three times during the final months of the campaign, on Sept. 30, Oct. 31 and Nov. 7, a late-night rally that ran into the early morning hours of Election Day.

Former congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as a co-chair of Trump's campaign in Michigan, said there are good reasons Trump spent so much time in West Michigan.

"He came because he wanted to win Michigan and he thought he could," Hoekstra said. "And he proved a lot of pundits wrong by winning the state."

After securing that unanticipated victory in Michigan, he said, it's only natural for the president-elect to come say "thank you" to his supporters.

"He's going back to those states now to say thank you to the people who got him elected," Hoekstra said. "I think it's a great idea for a president-elect to go around and do a thank-you tour."

Pointing to former President George H.W. Bush's well-known habit of sending frequent thank-you notes, he said it's a good way for the future president to start his relationship with the American people.

"The people who are very, very good in politics never forget to say thank you," Hoekstra said.

He admitted Trump clearly enjoys the big rallies that marked his campaign, but said they also serve to connect him with individual citizens. That attempt to connect with individuals is something Hoekstra predicts will continue throughout Trump's presidency.

"Not only does he have to work with Congress, but he also has to stay connected to the American people," he said.

The choice to add Grand Rapids to the tour alongside cities in North Carolina, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio could mean attention candidate paid the area during his campaign will not fade, Hoekstra said.

Friday will be Trump's third visit to the DeltaPlex, located in Walker just outside Grand Rapids' northern border. He held a rally at the arena on Dec. 21, 2015, prior to the primary elections, and another on Oct. 31 before last month's general election.

His late-night Nov. 7 rally at DeVos Place stretched into the early morning hours of Nov. 8, closing out the presidential campaign.

The president-elect also made a surprise visit to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum on Sept. 30 and met privately with donors inside the J.W. Marriott hotel downtown.

In addition to his frequent visits to Michigan, Trump picked West Michigan native Betsy DeVos as his education secretary. DeVos, 58, is wife of Amway heir Dick DeVos, whose family is one of Michigan's wealthiest.

All those connections to the new president are a good thing for West Michigan, Hoekstra said.

"For whatever reason, West Michigan has gotten on his radar screen," he said.

Though Hoekstra served as an emcee at previous Trump rallies in Michigan, the former congressman said he's not sure if he'll be needed in that role Friday.

"I don't even know if I'm going to be in the country," he said, explaining his schedule currently has him in Japan on the day of the event.

A Holland resident, Hoekstra represented Michigan's 2nd Congressional District from 1993 to 2011. He lost a 2010 gubernatorial bid to Gov. Rick Snyder and a 2012 U.S. Senate race to incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

While in Congress, Hoekstra served as both chairman and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is currently part of the Investigative Project on Terrorism as a Shillman Senior Fellow, specializing in national security, international relations, global terrorism and cyber security.

Prior to his political career, Hoekstra was a vice president for furniture maker Herman Miller.

Once suggested as a potential member of the new president's administration, Hoekstra has not been among the cabinet appointments announced by Trump in recent weeks.

He said any such announcement would be up to the president-elect to make.

"I was happy to be a part of the campaign and to do as much as I did prior to the election," Hoekstra said. "Whatever I can do to help, I'll do."
Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) is at the forefront of Chinas tests to boost foreign trade and the economy.

Premier Li Keqiang pays close attention to the development of FTZs, and during the past four years, he has visited Shanghais FTZ each year.

Established in September 2013, the Shanghai FTZ was the first free trade zone in the worlds second-largest economy.

Months before it opened, Premier Li visited Shanghai and commented that the reform 30 years ago was led by special economic zones along the coastal regions, and now, as a new round of reform is taking place, Shanghai is able to take the lead.

Setting up the Shanghai Free Trade Zone was not only to find out ways to better handle relations between government and market, test the mode of negative lists, and create more space for the market, but also to deal with relations between development and opening up, and further financial reform and innovation. Instead of becoming a policy and tax low, Shanghai FTZ should be created as a high bar of reform and innovation, he said.

Three months after the Premiers second visit in 2014, Shanghai FTZ gained new family members as free trade zones were created in Guangdong, Tianjin, and Fujian.

In 2015, Premier Li visited Shanghai FTZ again and stressed that the free trade zone should take the lead in tests to release the economic and development potential of reform and break down barriers on the way to reform.

In November, Premier Li visited Shanghai FTZ again after attending the 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion held in Shanghai, saying China is still the best place for foreign investment.

The FTZ tests gained momentum after the State Council decided in September to set up seven more free trade zones in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, and Shaanxi provinces.

Furthermore, the State Council released a circular on Nov 10 to guide nationwide application of test reforms that were successfully conducted in free trade zones.

One thing to be noted is the negative list, which was listed as the top guidance among the 19 items of reform experiences in the circular.

Since the publication of the first FTZ negative list, which stipulated regulations regarding market access for foreign investment, improvements have been made to reduce restrictions and increase openness and transparency.

On April 20, 2015, the State Council released a unified negative list for four FTZs and further reduced 17 items from 2014.

In addition to the negative list, the establishment of a single service window for foreign trade is another spotlight of institutional innovation in Shanghais FTZ, which created convenience for foreign trade.

The Premier said during his latest visit to Shanghai FTZ that in order to reverse the slowing growth of international trade, efforts should be made to provide convenience for international trade and promote reform and opening up.
LANSING, MI -- Dozens of firefighters and police rallied outside the House Office Building on Tuesday as lawmakers inside decided to pause most of the bills related to retiree health care for this year.

A press release from the speaker's office came out three minutes before the scheduled meeting, putting media on notice that the chamber would not be putting the bulk of the bills through this year.

The one bill the committee did take up and pass was House Bill 6075, essentially a reporting bill that requires communities to promptly submit annual reports and the state Department of Treasury to compile that information for the public and legislature. It would also require communities with retiree health care funded at less than 60 percent to outline steps they were taking to increase that funding level.

"Unfortunately, our work on this issue showed just how little information on municipal finances is available and how hard it is to get a proper grasp of the details of the problem. Our members need more and better information to do this right, and we can give that to them by taking up House Bill 6075," said House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant.

That bill started out as a small portion of the overall proposal.

The bills as proposed would have subjected all Michigan communities whose municipal retiree health care benefits were less than 80 percent funded to a hard cap on the amount of coverage they could provide for current retirees. Under the bills, retirees would have had to pay at least 20 percent of their health care costs. New employees would not have been eligible for retiree health care benefits beyond a maximum 2 percent employer contribution to a health savings account.

The bills were introduced last week during the legislature's lame-duck session after rumblings of planned changes. The House Local Government Committee took its first glance at the bills on Thursday but did not vote on them at that time.

One concern was that police and firefighters, who tend to have retiree health care benefits and retire earlier than other municipal employees, would be disproportionately affected by the legislation.

Police and firefighter groups gathered outside the House Office Building on Tuesday in opposition to the main bill package.

Cotter and House Local Government Committee Chairman Rep. Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, said the bills started a discussion that would continue next year.

"This is an important reform that needs attention soon, and the bill sponsors and committee members who shined a light on this situation have taken an important first step," Cotter said.

Chatfield said the issue is one lawmakers "hope to address in the future."
LANSING, MI -- Close to 500 police and firefighters gathered at the capitol Tuesday morning in what started out as a protest and turned into a celebration when lawmakers punted most of the package they were opposing into 2017.

"This isn't over, but this is for now a huge victory," Michigan Professional Fire Fighters Union President Mark Docherty told the crowd.

Police and fire unions rallied members for the event after lawmakers started to consider a series of bills that would have forced communities whose retiree health care was less than 80 percent funded to pay 80 percent of less of health care benefits for their retirees.

The bills attempt to address what sponsors point to as a looming fiscal crisis: more than $7 billion in unfunded health care liabilities across Michigan municipalities, according to one study.

There were some exceptions for existing contracts, but police and firefighters, who tend to retire early, worried about a disproportionate effect.

But House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant, announced just before a Tuesday hearing on the bills that the bulk of the package would not be considered during the lame-duck session.

Police and fire representatives said their members had made the difference.

At the same time the Michigan Municipal League, a group looking to address the long-term liability related to municipal retiree health care, said it too had requested a delay. The legislation was complex and difficult to consider in a lame-duck environment, said the league's Director State and Federal Affairs Chris Hackbarth in a statement.

"For that reason, the League requested the House delay action on this proposal at this time and allow the opportunity to work with Gov. Rick Snyder, the incoming Legislature, and all of the relevant interest groups in the next term," he said.

Cotter told reporters on Tuesday that he made the decision by evaluating the time for consideration, not because of the police presence at the capitol.

"The presence here today didn't get us to the decision that was made, I made this decision last night," Cotter said.

Frank Russo, 32, of Eaton Rapids, is a firefighter in Lansing. He came to show support and advocate for a more nuanced approach to any future legislation.

"I think they need to consider that they can't just do a blanket coverage type of decision," Russo said.

Jane Walter, 62, of Oakland, is a retired police officer from Pontiac. She came to make sure lawmakers heard from the people this type of policy would affect. That won't stop with new legislation in 2017, she said.

"If we have to we'll just keep coming back... because they're not reaching out to the police, the firefighters, the city employees," Walter said.

Scott Stoker, 43, is a captain with the Summit Township Fire Department and lives in Spring Arbor. He said police and firefighters needed to have input at any new legislation.

"They need to sit down with all the unions, the members that are going to be affected by the bills, and address the issues before they just run something through," Stoker said.

Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, and Sen. Curtis Hertel, D-Lansing, spoke at the rally in solidarity with those gathered.

"The Senate has your back," said Jones. "There are no votes for this in the Senate that I can find."

Hertel promised to stand up for the men and women who protect Michiganders.

"I know this bill is dead for now. But we've got to make sure that it's dead forever," Hertel said.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday backed off efforts to pass legislation in the lame duck session that would put all new teachers into a 401(k) and prohibit them from accessing retirement plans that more closely resemble traditional pensions.

"Caucus members want more time to review the details," said Amber McCann, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive. "I expect it to be a topic next term."

The decision was praised by the Michigan Education Association, which said the proposed changes to the state's teacher retirement system would be costly for "school employees, parents, kids and taxpayers."

"Tabling this discussion rather than ramming this legislation through is the right decision," MEA President Steven Cook said in a statement. "Education leaders and fiscal experts agree that dismantling the school employee retirement system would have been bad for school employees, parents, kids and taxpayers."

Questions about the cost of the move surfaced during a committee meeting last week. The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency estimated that closing the current hybrid pension/401(k)-type plan to new teachers and putting them on a 401(k) would cost between $1.6 billion and $3.8 billion over the next five years.

The legislation was opposed by Gov. Rick Snyder's administration. Kerrie Vanden Bosch, Director of the state's Office of Retirement Services, said the change would "cost more money and put more pressure on classrooms."

The transition costs, in part, would be a result of less money coming in to fund the current retirement system, officials said.

Snyder spokesperson Anna Heaton said the governor supports the current hybrid pension system and "thinks it has worked well." "He hasn't seen any numbers to convince him that the transition costs of switching to a 401k-only system would be beneficial at this point," she said.

Over 30 years, the switch to a 401(k) system is expected to cost between $28 billion and $33 billion - $9 billion of which would fall on local school districts, according to the Senate Fiscal Analysis. Lawmakers amended the legislation to have the state School Aid Fund help cover additional costs to districts, but Democrats still opposed the measure.

Also Tuesday, House Republicans decided against pursuing legislation during the lame duck session that would have made several changes to retiree health care of municipal employees, such as police and firefighters.

Despite the decision to back off the legislation, Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, R-Lowell, said the discussion generated by the proposal was "productive and informative as it generated a lot of feedback, questions and concerns."

"Members of the legislature are reviewing all of the information that was presented, getting their questions answered, and will consider all of this feedback if this issue is discussed again at a later date," said Hildenbrand, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, which narrowly approved the legislation last week.

Michigan's school employee retirement system was last overhauled in 2012. A law, which unions challenged in court, required teachers to pay more toward their pensions or face benefit cuts. Since mid-2010, new teachers have been placed in a hybrid pension/401(k)-type plan.
EVART, MI -- Why does Nestle want more Michigan groundwater?

The answer to that question is not simply growing demand. Nestle Waters North America began taking formal steps to increase pumping on a private well in Osceola County that taps spring formation groundwater soon after the world's largest bottled water company, which produces the Ice Mountain brand, discovered a municipal well that it controls was stricken by a pollutant.

In December 2014, Nestle discovered traces of perchlorate in its water. The toxic chemical, which is linked to thyroid problems in women and children, came from the Twin Creek well field the Switzerland-based company shares with Evart, a mid-Michigan city of about 1,900 people on the Muskegon River.

Nestle Michigan system map. Source: Nestle, DEQ

Several months later, in April 2015, the company registered a 100 gallon-per-minute (gpm) increase with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality on its lone White Pine Springs production well in Osceola Township. It's on this well (known as Well No. 101) which Nestle is now asking for approval from the state DEQ to max-out capacity at 400-gpm.

"We had been assessing (increased pumping on Well 101). We had been talking about it. The timing was a great example of why we needed to do it," said Arlene Anderson-Vincent, natural resources manager at Nestle's Ice Mountain plant.

If the DEQ gives final approval, Nestle can increase Well No. 101's around-the-clock pumping to extract about 210 million gallons per year. Amid rising global demand for bottled water, the company says it needs that to offset capacity loss from the shutdown of its new $500,000 Twin Creek well in Evart, No. 13/5R, (known as Well No. 5), which had already been offline part of 2014 during replacement.

The original 55-year-old well pumped at 500-gpm before it was replaced and the new one had never been entirely dialed-up to that level yet. Anderson-Vincent called it "a beautiful well we put in that we've not used. We'd like to."

Before that can occur, cleanup work on Evart's Twin Creek well field must happen. The grassy meadow of well houses in the middle of town abuts the eastern edge of the Osceola County Fairgrounds, where, for more than 50 years Evart has launched an impressive fireworks display each Independence Day.

Nestle, the DEQ and Evart officials believe decades of ash from those fireworks rained onto the well field and caused perchlorate, a munitions propellant, to build up in the soil. Nestle says that when the water table rose after Evart's industrial water customer base dried up, the aquifer hit the water-soluble chemical.

Did the company bottle and sell any water containing perchlorate? Nestle doesn't definitively say no. After the discovery, Well No. 5 supplied water to the factory for several months before it was pinpointed as the source and shut down.

In a statement, Nestle Waters North America says, "Over the course of several months, we undertook an extensive investigation of the well and at the plant to verify the findings and pinpoint the source. Through a process of elimination, it was determined that there was perchlorate in the aquifer shared with the city. We promptly notified the city of the issue."

"Since learning of this issue, Ice Mountain took steps to ensure that our products would remain free of perchlorate and regular testing confirms this."

According to Evart's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit application for Twin Creek, percolate samples in Well No. 5 ranged from 1.1 to 17 parts-per-billion (ppb) over the course of 2015. Nestle's Evart supply has been trucked to the Stanwood plant and mixed with water from Morton and Osceola Township wells in 60,000-gallon storage tanks before it's bottled. Evart supply accounted for about 24 percent of Nestle's total 396.8 million gallons of Michigan groundwater extraction in 2015, according to DEQ data, even with one of its wells shut down for most of the year.

Only two states regulate perchlorate in drinking water and Michigan is not one of them. California and Massachusetts have limits on how much perchlorate can be in drinking water, with maximum levels of 6 ppb and 2 ppb, respectively.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to regulate perchlorate at some point but has thus far only established an interim drinking water health advisory level of 15 ppb -- a concentration level the EPA believes won't cause adverse health effects over a lifetime of exposure.

Because neither the EPA nor the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water as a food, have adopted perchlorate standards for drinking or bottled water, neither Nestle nor Evart are technically required to stop using the contaminated wells. Nonetheless, the city has been blending its municipal water to below 2 ppb while developing a plan to clean up the aquifer. By shutting down its well, Nestle is being abundantly cautious. But there is another reason.

"They want to have the ability to ship to all 50 states," said Scott Conradson, an engineer with the DEQ Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance.

Although Ice Mountain is a regional brand that Nestle says is primarily distributed in the Midwest within 250 miles of the factory, there are occasions of need -- say, a shortage or a disaster -- when the company may ship the product to other states, according to Ice Mountain factory manager Dave Sommer.

Nestle says perchlorate is one of 300 undesirables it regularly samples for. Because it's an unregulated contaminant in Michigan, there is no requirement for public or private water supplies to monitor for it, said Conradson.

Ice Mountain brand bottled water on the packaging line at the Nestle Waters North America factory in Stanwood, Mich., on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016.

In that regard, the company is going beyond its statutory requirements, he said.

"They brought it to our attention and they are helping us in every way," said Evart City Manager Zackary Szakacs.

Nestle is buying the city a new 1,000-gpm deep groundwater well the company says is solely for the benefit of Evart's municipal system, which runs the risk of being forced to close some or all of its Twin Creek wells and lose what's known in the regulatory world as "firm capacity," or enough system volume to meet peak daily demand when the main well or treatment center is down.

Evart's budget leans heavily on water sales. The water-rich small town sits atop layers of glacial soils in the Muskegon River Valley, where underground aquifers at varying depths recharge quickly.

The city has tremendous capacity in its system but is thirsty for customers after a major buyer slashed the amount of water it purchases.

"Ventra killed us," Szakacs said.

Ventra is a subsidiary of Flex-N-Gate, a Tier 1 auto parts supplier based in Illinois that manufactures metal and plastic automotive components and mechanical assemblies. The company operates a plant along U.S. 10 in Evart that installed its own water recirculating system several years ago and reduced the water it buys from Evart by about $170,000 a year, Szakacs said.

To make matters worse, Dean Foods closed its Liberty Dairy plant in Evart after losing a longtime milk contract with Meijer in 2012. Together, Ventra and Dean accounted for more than 90 percent of Evart supply, said Conradson.

"The city is sitting there with huge infrastructure," he said, comparable to that of a larger city. Evart has two separate well fields, two towers and a massive transmission main. "Manufacturing was using the vast majority."

Evart offered to sell Nestle water when a court decision limited what the Ice Mountain plant could pump. A contract was signed in 2005. Since then, Evart has sold Nestle more than 905 million gallons of Twin Creek water at the standard municipal rate, which is now $2.30 per 1,000 gallons. The two wells, No. 5 & 7, are disconnected from Evart's system and only supply Nestle. Well No. 7 is not impacted by perchlorate and continues to pump at 300 gpm.

"Until we can get those well fields cleaned up, they need a little more increase from that White Pines area," said Szakacs.

In the meantime, Evart has moved its fireworks display and is converting three existing Twin Creek supply wells to contamination purge wells that would pump perchlorate-polluted groundwater out of the well field, treat it, and then discharge the water into Twin Creek, which flows into the Muskegon River.

Evart hopes to pull the plume away from wells that haven't yet been impacted by perchlorate, including Nestle's Well No. 7.

The public comment period on the plan ends Dec. 22. If the purge does not drop levels in the field enough to meet a future EPA standard, Szakacs said the wells might have to be shut down.

In Stanwood, Nestle has already started working on a $36 million expansion of its plant. The company is expanding production of Ice Mountain spring water and its nationally-distributed Pure Life brand.

Northwest of Evart in Osceola Township, Nestle says the increase on Well No. 101 won't significantly harm water levels in neighboring residential wells or the stream flow, levels or temperature of Twin Creek or Chippewa Creek, a coldwater trout stream from which the well pumps beneath the headwaters.

In its proposal, Nestle claims average water levels in Twin and Chippewa creeks would "decline only minimally" from the increased pumping and wouldn't exceed what might be expected from natural stream stage variability, but a conservation group that previously fought Nestle in court to limit pumping in Mecosta County said an independent analysis of the hydrology needs to be done.

The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation has helped flood the DEQ with negative public feedback on the proposal and vice president Jeff Ostahowski said the group is gearing up for another round of "whatever it takes."

"Clearly what we have is a thirsty planet and it's not going to get any less thirsty over time," Ostahowski said. "We have a very precious resource that most of the world would love to have a portion of."

"We have to figure out how best to share it and protect it."

DEQ pushes Nestle groundwater bid public review into next year

Public wasn't adequately notified of Nestle water request, says DEQ director
The Michigan State Police Jackson post provided the following log of police activities for Monday, Dec. 5 with troopers investigating 15 incidents and calls for service.

Operating with the Presence of Drugs/Flee and Elude/Fugitive:

Jackson County, City of Jackson: Troopers attempted to conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle for a defective plate light. The vehicle failed to stop, and a short pursuit ensued. The pursuit ended at the suspect's residence, and contact was made with the 34-year-old Jackson man. He was found to be driving on a suspended license, was operating with the presence of drugs, and had two child support warrants for his arrest out of the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office. He was taken into custody and lodged at the Jackson County Jail.

Possession of Methamphetamine/Fugitive:

Hillsdale County, Jefferson Township: Troopers initiated a traffic stop on a vehicle for speed, equipment, and registration violations. The driver, a 30-year-old Osseo woman, was found to be driving on a suspended license and was unlawfully using the vehicle's registration plate; she was arrested on the offenses and lodged at the Hillsdale County Jail. A passenger in the vehicle, a 40-year-old Hamilton, Indiana man, was found to be in possession of suspected methamphetamine. He also had a retail fraud warrant for his arrest out of the Charlotte Police Department and a traffic warrant for his arrest out of the Coldwater Police Department. He was taken into custody and lodged at the Hillsdale County Jail.

Additional activities:

Troopers are investigating a sex offender registry violation in Blackman Township, Jackson County.

Troopers are investigating a motor vehicle theft in Waterloo Township, Jackson County.

Troopers are investigating a report of child abuse in Parma Township, Jackson County.
Arboretum Parkway

A field where a 241-unit apartment complex is proposed stands near Mercantile Bank of Michigan off Drake Road on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016 in Kalamazoo, Mich. The rezoning of 12.78 acres of 4501 Arboretum Parkway from a commercial, community district to a residential, multiple-family district will allow the complex to be built on the land. (Chelsea Purgahn/Kalamazoo Gazette)

(Chelsea Purgahn)

KALAMAZOO, MI -- Kalamazoo City Commissioners voted to rezone an area in the Arcadia neighborhood to prepare it for a "high-end" 241-unit apartment complex.

The rezoning of 12.78 acres of 4501 Arboretum Parkway from a commercial, community district to a residential, multiple-family district will allow an apartment complex to be built on the land. The Kalamazoo City Commission discussed the pros and cons of the project and its impact on the Arcadia neighborhood during a public hearing on Monday, Dec. 5.

The land is currently owned by the Western Michigan University Foundation and is tax-exempt. If developed by American Kendall Properties, it would be put on the tax roll, a major reason why commissioners unanimously voted to support the rezoning.

It isn't yet known how much the complex would contribute to the tax base, said Deputy City Manager Jeff Chamberlain, as the project hasn't begun the site plan review process.

Early plans for the apartment complex have elicited concern from residents since it was first discussed by the Planning Commission in October. Residents who remember a decades-long battle to preserve open space in the Arcadia neighborhood felt bringing high density housing to the area would create a traffic burden that wasn't intended by plans for the area.

Arcadia resident Rex Brueggemann said he was opposed to the city's decision to change the rezoning map for a single project. He also expressed disappointment that the West Side Area Plan for the site was not available online.

"When I think of the time and effort that went into that plan it's disheartening to see not even have it on the website," Brueggemann said. "Let's do a better job."

In 2006, the west 30 acres of the Arboretum property, including the subject parcel, were rezoned from the a residential, single-dwelling district to a current commercial, community district.

Commissioner Matt Milcarek said he sympathizes with residents, but the need for housing is too great to deny the project.

"The whole thing is complicated and frustrating in many ways," Milcarek said. "I can sympathize with frustrations in the community about how this has gone down. For me it comes down to housing and Kalamazoo has a housing problem."

There are several other apartment complexes nearby, but Senior Development Planner Rob Bauckham said a marketing study determined sufficient demand exists for additional apartment units.

Commissioner Erin Knott said she was conflicted on the rezoning, but at the end of the day the city needs more for-profit properties on the tax roll.

Bauckham said city planning staff believe the apartment complex is less invasive than other potential uses under the current zoning designation.

Because there are no direct connections to the Arcadia neighborhood from the proposed property or Arboretum Parkway, he said the new apartment complex will not directly add any traffic volume within the neighborhood.

Bauckham said Drake Road is able to accommodate the additional traffic from the proposed project and other future development in the area. A traffic study will be conducted once the apartment's site plan review process begins.

Bauckham also said rezoning the property would actually keep more land untouched than if a commercial development built there now.

Under the old zoning, only 20 percent of the site was required to remain open. Bauckham said the WMU Foundation could have built a big-box store if it wanted. Fifty percent of the site is required to remain open under the new zoning.

Commissioner David Anderson said he took time to walk around the area before the commission meeting Monday night. The site's proximity to existing infrastructure make it an ideal project.

"After that walk my initial thought was, if we cannot allow this kind of development there on that site, it can't be done in Kalamazoo," he said.

Anderson also said the project is an example of the kind of "good design" he wants to see in Kalamazoo.

Unlike other apartment complexes in the area, developer Mike Speedy said the project would be marketed toward young professionals and graduate students. The apartments will have amenities like attached garages, granite counter tops, high ceilings and walk-in closets.

"It's a high-end, high-quality development," Speedy said.

Of the 241 units planned by the WMU Foundation, 86 are will be two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments, and 85 are planned to have a single bedroom and bathroom. Another 44 will be two-bedroom, one-bathroom and the last 26 will have three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

A concept plan also shows a clubhouse and outdoor pool for the complex, plus a park area. It would also leave a two-acre segment of the parcel on South Drake Road unchanged for future commercial development.

The site is flanked on all sides by other developments like Linden Grove Middle School, Calvary Bible Church, Mercantile Bank of Michigan.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- The sound of fluttering paper ballots will fill the Kalamazoo County Expo building this week as 120 volunteers work to recount votes cast in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

The clerk's office was forced to move quickly after a federal judge's ruling came down Monday morning, gathering volunteers and precinct workers for the effort. Kalamazoo, Kent, Macomb, Ottawa, Washtenaw and Wayne counties were the second group of counties to begin Tuesday morning, with the others scheduled from Dec. 5 to Dec. 12.

After a 20 minute training session Tuesday morning, the volunteers began the long, monotonous process.

Democracy in action takes place in a large warehouse-like room. Mixed conversation from spectators blends with the quiet call and confirmation of ballot counts by team members, interjected occasionally by Snow's voice over a loudspeaker.

"Texas Township Precinct 1 is recountable," Snow says as the information is relayed to him. "Oshtemo Township Precinct 4 is recountable."

It will continue from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. until all 108 precincts and 98 absentee ballot counting sites are accounted for. Snow said the process could be done as soon as Wednesday, but will be concluded by Friday at the latest.

READ MORE: Click here for a full schedule of county recounts

For all the technology of the modern age, the best way to perform a recount is still with human hands and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

Teams of volunteers will reopen ballot bags sealed on election night and hand count each vote individually. This is the most "backbreaking" part of the process, said Cindy Roe, a Charleston Township precinct worker.

"How neat it is to be a part of history," Roe said. "I want to live in a country where this option (is available.) It's our government in work and its exciting."

Roe worked in tandem with Liz Sims, also from Charleston Township. Both are retired, and were happy to be a part of the democratic process.

For Angela and Zac Mohney working the recount allowed them to make a little extra Christmas money. The wife and husband team are self-employed, so making time to participate wasn't an issue.

"Personally, I think a state should be able to conduct a recount, especially if it's on someone else's dime," Angela said. "The question on the table is if it's an unnecessary expense and I think it's not. It will make people feel better, even if the result is the same."

After making sure the number of ballots matches election day totals, the votes are recounted and sorted by candidate. Write-in candidates will not be counted. The results are reported at another station and recorded in a spreadsheet that compares any changes from election night.

Observers and challengers on behalf of the candidates observed workers counting the results, but were not allowed to touch the ballots.

President-elect Donald Trump representative Al Heilman said the process proves the democratic system still works. The Kalamazoo vice mayor, retired owner of Heilman's Nuts and Confections and chairman of the Republican Party of Kalamazoo County will celebrate his 81st birthday on Wednesday with a fresh stack of ballots to watch.

"It's the most beautiful thing," Heilman said. "I'm elated by the optimistic attitude held by everyone here -- of (all) parties."

Representatives of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton were also in attendance, but were advised not to speak to media by the Clinton campaign.

Residents with green dots represented Green Party Candidate Jill Stein, who requested to speed up the date of the recount to immediately after the Board of State Canvassers finalized votes.

Stein was required to pay $125 per precinct for the recount, a total of $973,250.

Volunteers will be paid $100-$125 per day, and various other costs like food, water and coffee and securing the Expo building means the recount could cost Kalamazoo County more than the $13,500 it received from Stein.

Snow said it is tough to estimate the cost until the process is completed.

"Hopefully (the reimbursement) will cover our expenses," he said. "If not, the county will pay and that's just the way it works."

Kalamazoo County's first tally reported Clinton with 53 percent of the 126,301 votes in Kalamazoo County, to Trump's 40 percent. Trump defeated Clinton by 10,704 votes in Michigan.

Snow said he didn't expect any significant change in the election result. As of Tuesday afternoon, Snow said there were no issues with any of the precincts counted.

"I have no idea how many (precincts) we will get done today," he said. "So far, so good."

This year, 65.6 percent of Kalamazoo County's registered voters cast ballots in the November general election. A higher rate of registered residents voted than in 2012, 64 percent, but a lower rate than in 2008, 68.7 percent.

A total of 30,082 residents voted via absentee ballot.

More residents voted for a third-party candidate than in 2012. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 5,644 votes, followed by Stein, 1,634, and U.S. Taxpayers candidate Darrell L. Castle and Natural Law Party candidate Emidio Mimi Soltysik.
KALAMAZOO, MI-- Abigail Kopf, the youngest survivor of last February's mass shooting in Kalamazoo, may undergo surgery in January, a second try at repairing her skull with a plate, her father posted on Facebook Monday.

The Kopf family uses social media to update their daughter's many well-wishers on the progress of her recovery from a gunshot wound that shattered a portion of her skull and resulted in her lengthy hospitalization and rehabilitation.

"People are asking for an update on Abbie's health," Eugene Kopf posted on Abbie Kopf's Recovery page Dec. 5. "We saw Dr. (Steven) Nitsch December 1. He thinks everything looks good," Eugene Kopf wrote.

The first attempt to replace missing bone in Abbie's skull came in May, when the bone was replaced with a 3-D printed plate.

The plate was removed when incisions in her head became infected.Abigail Kopf, Kalamazoo shooting survivor, facing surgery to repair skull

Abbie was not able to return to school in the fall, as hoped, and has worn a protective helmet since the plate was removed.

Kopf said the plastic surgeon is consulting with Abbie's other doctors and they are hoping the new plate can be placed in January.

The man accused of shooting Abbie and seven other people, killing six of them, is still awaiting trial in Kalamazoo.

Jason Dalton of Cooper Township is charged with six counts of murder, two counts of assault with intent to commit murder and eight felony firearm counts. He was found competent to stand trial in April, and in May was ordered to stand trial.

In September, a new public threat alert system was enacted in Michigan, created with legislation introduced after the Kalamazoo mass shooting.Public threat alert system now active

The alert is meant to warn residents whenever there is a threat to public safety, such as an act of terrorism or an unresolved mass shooting.

MLive published an editorial calling for a public alert system in in the week following the shooting.
VICKSBURG, MI - Tracy Locey is back as Vicksburg village clerk, hired part-time to replace Theresa Paddock who was let go two weeks ago.

Vicksburg Village Manager Jim Mallery said that Locey, who will remain Brady Township clerk, will work 20 to 24 hours a week. She was Vicksburg village clerk from 2013-15.

Mallery said he is also "exploring the options" to hire a part-time person to assist with data entry, customers who walk in to the Vicksburg Municipal Building and to answer phones. He expects to have a job description and other details for the council at its Dec. 19 meeting.

In other news Monday, Mallery and council members said they are continuing to work on dealing with complaints from several residents about noise from the MLC plant in the Leja Industrial Park on VW Avenue.

Residents and council members have complained about loud machinery noises from the food-drying facility, comparing it to a steady drone similar to a leaf or snow blower.

Mallery said he has met with representatives of the company who are agreeable to addressing the issue. Council members were to tour the facility this week, though for privacy concerns the plant is not open to the public, the village manager said.

He and Police Chief Eric West, who has also taken on additional assignments helping out Mallery with village matters, took decibel readings at 11 different locations around the village, including at the site. None were in violation of World Health Organization standards, Mallery said.

"The reality is there are no quick solutions," Mallery said. "They are actively pursuing how to address the situation.

"We are definitely aware of the issue, and living in the village I am personally aware of the noise and am encouraged by the willingness of the owners to look into what they can do to implement in a positive way solutions."

At the suggestion of one resident, Mallery said it might be possible for company representatives to meet with residents in a community forum to discuss the issue.
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI -- Jessica Heeringa's wishes to run away and her perceived fear of customer Jeffrey Willis were among the evidence presented by early witnesses during Jeffrey Willis' preliminary exam on charges he murdered the missing woman.

On Tuesday, Willis was in the courtroom of Muskegon County District Judge Raymond Kostrzewa, who will decide whether there is enough evidence for Willis to be tried on the open murder charge.

Heeringa disappeared April 26, 2013 from the Norton Shores Exxon station where she was working the night shift. Regular customer Brenda Nester said she saw Heeringa at the station with Willis on the night before she disappeared.

Nester said she commented to Heeringa that she shouldn't be alone that late at night and that her boyfriend should be there with her. Nester and Heeringa had regular conversations, but Nester said she had never before seen Willis.

Willis overheard the women's conversation that night, Nester testified.

"He turned around and looked at me and said, 'She's got her customers looking out for her too,'" Nester said.

At that point, Nester said, Heeringa "sort of shook her head and started shivering ... like a chill went up her spine or something."

Heeringa "wasn't her usual happy self" and Nester felt that "something was wrong," so Nester parked outside the station until it closed, she testified. She saw Willis leave that night.

The prosecution argues that the next night Willis went to the station and abducted Heeringa. Prosecutor D.J. Hilson has said he believes Willis killed Heeringa within days of abducting her.

Defense attorney Brian Hosticka tried to poke holes in Nester's story, questioning why she didn't report her encounter with Willis and Heeringa until earlier this year - three years after Heeringa's disappearance.

Nester indicated she didn't feel she had anything to add since police had a composite drawing of the suspect that she thought looked like Willis.

Hosticka also questioned Heeringa's live-in boyfriend, Dakotah Quail-Dyer, about their rocky relationship and fights they had had over Heeringa's drug use and his belief she was seeing someone else. Quail-Dyer said from the witness stand that he discovered Heeringa was a heroin user.

Hosticka had Quail-Dyer read to himself a passage from Heeringa's journal that apparently mentioned her wish to "run away."

Quail-Dyer said he did not know she had that desire, and that she never would have left their 3-year-old son.

The preliminary examination was to continue Tuesday with testimony from more witnesses, including an expected appearance by a teenager Willis is accused of abducting.
LAKETON TOWNSHIP, MI - Officials in Muskegon County have started dropping off ballot containers at the Laketon Township Government Building in preparation for the presidential election recount.

Clerks will check in at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7 to begin hand-counting ballots from 77 containers since Green Party nominee Jill Stein successfully called for a statewide recount.

Nancy Waters, Muskegon County clerk, said about 80,000 ballots will be recounted. The goal is to evaluate more than 10,000 ballots a day.

About 32 people at 16 tables will be involved in the recount. Clerks will be partnered with a community person to evaluate each ballot.

To start, the two people must count to make sure the number of ballots indicated on the container are inside.

Waters said if by the third recount, the workers are not able to come up with the indicated number, the container is deemed not re-countable and figures from election night are what stand.

The recount is open to the public. The Board of Canvassers, County Board of Election in addition to challengers and observers from campaign and election staff will also be on site.

Christina Achterhoff, Laketon Township clerk, said an error could be if someone made marks in spots for more than one candidate but she thinks the machines used to count ballots are reliable.

Security will be on site but Achterhoff said she is hoping there aren't any issues.

"We don't anticipate anything, but you always have to be careful," Achterhoff said.

The statewide recount will continue unless a court order rules differently. Counties will be reimbursed $125 for each precinct that needs to be recounted.
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI - The woman who may have unknowingly witnessed the abduction of Jessica Heeringa broke down on the witness stand Tuesday, saying she couldn't stand Heeringa's accused murderer, Jeffrey Willis, looking at her.

Susan Follett, a first-shift employee at the then-Exxon station on Sternberg Road in Norton Shores, described how she and her then husband watched a van parked behind the station the night of April 26, 2013, when Heeringa disappeared.

She was among witnesses called by Prosecutor D.J. Hilson Tuesday morning during Willis' preliminary examination in Muskegon County District Judge Raymond Kostrzewa's courtroom. Kostrzewa will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to bind Willis over for trial on open murder in Heeringa's disappearance and death. Heeringa's body has not been located.

Follett and her ex-husband Eric Barber, who also provided testimony Tuesday, said they were on motorcycles passing the station when they saw a van turn its lights off as it drove around the back of the station.

"I felt sick," Follett said. "As soon as I seen that van, I knew something wasn't right."

Follett and Barber turned their bikes around and parked in an adjacent strip mall parking lot to watch the van, they testified. Barber testified that was around 10:50 p.m.

But Follett wasn't "sick" because she thought something bad would happen to Heeringa, who she knew was working the night shift at the time.

"I actually figured she was stealing," said Follett. Barber testified that the store owner had been concerned about merchandise missing from the station store.

It was a male figure who Follett saw close, open and then re-close the rear hatch on the van behind the station before quickly getting in the driver's seat, Follett said. The bikers followed the van as it left and they never saw a passenger or anyone other than the driver inside, she said.

She said she got a close look at the driver when he "casually" turned to look at her "like he did nothing wrong" as she sat on her motorcycle, she said. It was Follett's description that was used for a widely-circulated drawing of the suspect in Heeringa's disappearance.

Follett and Barber followed the van west on Sternberg to Grand Haven Road where the van turned north and the bikers turned south to head home, they said. Follett said she didn't follow the van they thought might be involved in stealing from the station because "there was nothing I could do about it."

"It wasn't my job," she said.

Around 11:07 p.m., Craig Harpster arrived at the station for gas and went inside when no one activated the pump for him, Harpster testified.

"There was nobody at the station at all," Harpster testified. "I went inside, hollered "Hey is anybody here?' No one responded. I proceeded to look throughout the store."

He saw a coat and purse by the cash register, but it was obvious no one was around, he said. Harpster then went to get into his black Jeep still parked at the pumps, he said.

"I thought about leaving, but I thought it was in the best interest to dial 911," Harpster said.

Hilson played a recording of Harpster's call to 911 during which he seemed puzzled by the lack of any employees and agreed to stick around until police arrived to make sure no one stole from the station.

Harpster was the final witness called before the court broke for lunch. Other witnesses who were called by the prosecution included:

-- Brenda Nester, a regular customer of the Exxon station, who said she had seen Willis in the station the night before Heeringa disappeared. Nester testified that she told Heeringa she shouldn't work at night alone, to which Willis responded "'She's got her customers looking out for her too,'" Hester said. Heeringa seemed uneasy and shook her head and shivered in response to Willis, Hester said.

-- Dakotah Quail-Dyer, Heeringa's live-in boyfriend and father of her boy who was 3 when Heeringa disappeared. Quail-Dyer was called by the prosecutor but seemed to benefit the defense. Under cross-examination, he said he and Heeringa had a rocky relationship, that she was a heroin user and he had caught her with a secret cell phone he believed she used to contact her drug dealer. He also read a portion of Heeringa's journal he had turned over to police in which she indicated she wanted to run away.

-- Susan Elliott Mosely, a regular customer of the Exxon station, who was at the station at 10:50 p.m. the night Heeringa disappeared and said Heeringa appeared to be in a good mood. She also testified there was a troubling customer who frequented the station that she was afraid of and didn't think Heeringa should be around while she was working alone. Mosley reported that customer to the police. He was not at the station when Mosely was there the night Heeringa disappeared, she testified.

Nester was the only witness during morning testimony to connect Willis to Heeringa. Witnesses expected to testify in the afternoon include the teenager who Willis is charged with abducting. The girl is credited with providing the information that led to Willis' arrest in her own abduction as well as the murders of jogger Rebekah Bletsch and Heeringa.

The Bletsch case is expected to be the first to go to trial. It was scheduled to start this week, but has been delayed by claims by the defense that jail personnel violated Willis' attorney-client privilege by seizing notes from his clothing and cell.

Willis also faces three lesser charges related to child pornography and videotaping unclothed persons without consent.
JEROME TWP., MI -- The first of two Midland County shooting deaths occurred just several houses down from his house Monday night, but Paul VanDort said it wasn't until a news van showed up that he learned what happened.

"It's a terrible shock," VanDort said. "I feel so sad for the family."

VanDort said outside of passing waves and greetings, he didn't know Rayton Dale Nies, the 67-year-old who police say was shot by his daughter Monday night before she turned the gun on herself.

It's a quiet neighborhood, VanDort said, and things like this, violence between family members, are tragic things that could happen anywhere, he added.

Another neighbor, Gordon Traskos, said he found out much the same way about the killing.

Traskos and Rayton Dale Nies only spoke a handful of times, but he still made an impression, Traskos said.

"I don't know anybody that has anything bad to say about him," he said. "It's just a shame -- a shame something like this had to happen."

Traskos said he didn't know the daughter.

The neighborhood of Lakeview Drive snakes up the east coast of the Sanford Lake. Some of the neighbors are seasonal and some others live there year-round.

Rayton Dale Nies lived in the 3100 block of North Lakeview Drive, and it was there police say his daughter, 28-year-old Stephanie Ann Nies, shot him fatally in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun.

After the shooting, Stephanie Ann Nies took off in a vehicle and drove to Veterans Memorial Park, close to Sanford.

Deputies from the Midland County Sheriff's Office used her phone location to track her down and, after a brief hiccup in the tracker, found her around 1:42 a.m. Tuesday.

She was in the car, dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and the weapon believed to have been used on her father nearby, Midland County Sheriff Scott Stephenson said.

The Midland County Sheriff's Office was assisted at the scene by the Midland County Medical Examiner, Mid-Michigan EMS and the Michigan State Police Crime Lab.

Investigators said they didn't have a clear motive for the shootings.
Manning's American Civil Liberties Union lawyers disclosed the decision in a filing Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The document says the chief of the Mental Health Division at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, prison declined Manning's Nov. 4 request to update her gender in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System. The filing says Manning made the request "based on her having achieved stability in her female gender."

The document doesn't say why psychologist Ellen Galloway refused. Army spokesman Wayne Hall declined to comment Tuesday, citing medical privacy laws.

Manning has tried to commit suicide behind bars at least twice, in July and October, according to her lawyers. In a Nov. 8 application asking President Barack Obama to commute her sentence to time served, Manning wrote, "I am living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss and depression," citing her treatment at Leavenworth.

The White House confirmed Tuesday that it had received an ACLU letter supporting the commutation request but declined to comment further.

The court document filed Monday is a status report from both sides on Manning's lawsuit seeking a court order allowing her to wear her hair longer than 2 inches, the maximum length prison standards allow for men.

In the report, Manning's lawyers say a new Army policy enabling soldiers to officially change genders does not provide a way for Manning to do so unless she is released, so that she can obtain the required documents, or receives transgender surgery.

Manning's lawyers said in September that the Army has agreed to provide the surgery. U.S. Justice Department lawyers say in the status report that the government is assembling a team to assess Manning's current treatment plan and make any necessary adjustments.

The Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning was convicted in a 2013 court-martial of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning said she leaked the documents to raise awareness about the war's impact on innocent civilians.
francisco-rodriguez-mulholland.jpg

The Tigers optioned Francisco Rodriguez's $6 million option for 2017.

(Mike Mulholland, MLive)

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- The Detroit Tigers exercised the $6 million contract option on reliever Francisco Rodriguez because they wanted him to anchor the bullpen once again in 2017.

Since then, the hyper-inflated market for bullpen arms has not only made that decision look easy in retrospect, it's caused many to wonder if Rodriguez isn't more valuable as a trade chip.

The answer? Rodriguez isn't going anywhere -- at least not for now.

"There might be a good situation down the road," Avila said.

For now, the Tigers are counting on Rodriguez to close again in 2017 and help young pitchers like Bruce Rondon (and eventually Joe Jimenez) adjust to the big leagues.

"He did a tremendous job for our young players," Avila said, acknowledging that sometimes clubhouse contributions can be overstated. "This was not baloney. This was real."

The Tigers shopped center fielder Cameron Maybin aggressively, eventually unloading him to the Anaheim Angels who then exercised his $9 million contract option.

The Tigers didn't try to do the same for Rodriguez, planning to exercise the option and keep him in the fold from the start.

"He brought us an affordable guy who saved a lot of games for us last year," Avila said.

Since then, closer Mark Melancon has signed a jaw-dropping four-year, $62 million deal with the San Francisco Giants. Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman, still on the market, are expected to get even more lucrative deals.

The Rodriguez of 2013 might have commanded a deal like that. Since then, his velocity and strikeout rate have dropped, and the soon-to-be 35-year-old has relied more on guile. He's also not suited to being an Andrew Miller-style multi-inning "super reliever."

But Rodriguez still saved 44 games and registered a 3.24 ERA in 58 innings 2016 and was one of the Tigers' most consistent bullpen arms. He could help groom Rondon for that role, perhaps as early as 2017.

Until then, the Tigers plan to keep him in the fold.
MIDDLEVILLE, MI - Two women were taken to the hospital and several others were treated at the scene after a toxic gas incident in Middleville.

The problem began just before 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 5, at Middleville Tool & Die, 1900 Patterson Road. According to Wayland Deputy Fire Chief Dan Miller, the first 911 call received was about a woman who had lost consciousness after complaining of dizziness.

After first responders arrived and began assessing her condition, another woman began experiencing the same symptoms.

"We started putting two and two together and thought, maybe something's in the air," said Miller.

Within five minutes an evacuation was ordered, involving about 150 employees. The first two victims were transported to the hospital, and several others were treated at the scene for nausea and headaches.

During the evacuation, the carbon monoxide detectors in the building went off. Miller said an investigation revealed that a hi-lo vehicle had malfunctioned, giving off carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide fumes.

Agencies responding to the scene included the Wayland/Yankee Springs Fire Department, Wayland Ambulance, Hopkins Fire Department and Thornapple Emergency Services.

Amidst all the activity, another unrelated call was received about a woman several miles away who was having difficulty breathing. Since nearby crews were tied up at the first call, Hastings Ambulance responded, along with personnel from Hopkins and Yankee Springs, and took her to the hospital.

The responding agencies were in constant contact with hospitals in Grand Rapids and Hastings in case more victims needed to be transported, but they all quickly recovered, according to Miller.

"We had all the bases pretty much covered," Miller said. "Everything worked out good."

The problem was resolved and emergency crews cleared the scene by 1:30 p.m., according to Miller.

Mike Cornell, vice president of operations at Middleville Tool and Die, said the crews responded quickly and professionally.

"Anytime something like that happens, obviously our first priority is to make sure everyone's safe," he said.

Middleville Tool & Die manufactures metal products for the automotive, office furniture and appliance industries.
The Clorox Company is leveraging 360-video as an immersive tactic to instill the importance of its Safe Water Project, airing on Huffington Post?s digital channels to appeal to a receptive audience.









"The unique nature of 360-degree video lends itself to a more emotional and powerful experience than traditional video, since viewers can really step inside the content and see the entire landscape," said Molly Swenson, chief marketing officer of HuffPo RYOT. "In this video, viewers are transported to rural Peru, where they can observe how clean water is making a real difference for these communities.

"An immersive format enables viewers to experience Clorox?s Safe Water initiative as if they were there in person, and that connection can make all the difference when inspiring viewers to take action and support a worthy cause," she said. Clorox is hoping to make an impact on viewers regarding the dangerousness of unsafe drinking water, which can be combatted by using a small amount of bleach. After helping a small village in Peru, the 360-video takes a look back at how the program helped and listens to a testimonial from a village resident.





360-degree campaign





Created by AOL?s studio, Ryot, the video interviews a Peruvian village member who was dramatically impacted by Clorox?s program. She stands in the middle of her village, which viewers can explore by looking around, while explaining how the village was unaware of how unsafe their drinking water was.





Clorox stepped in and showed Peruvians how their water can be purified by using bleach dispensers. The villagers get their water from various sources such as the nearby river and canal, all of which are not safe for consumption.









Aptly named Purely Peru, the video hopes to leave a lasting impression by using the 360-video feature. Viewers can also seamlessly donate through an in-application button for those watching in Huffington Post?s app.





Users can watch in the app, on YouTube and on Huffington Post?s desktop platform. Huffington Post shares similar stories on its platforms, which makes its audience a receptive group for Clorox?s campaign to make a lasting impression.



Huffington Post 360

AOL?s Huffington Post recently acquired virtual reality studio Ryot in a bid to make more compelling mobile content for the publication and brand partners, the latest sign of how the media industry is drastically changing.





Huffington Post acquired Rvot after working together to release a mobile-optimized virtual reality series that put the refugee crisis in focus, making its content hit closer to home. The digital publication will be making a push towards more interactive and virtual reality content for its advertisers and its own content in an attempt to become a leader in modern publishing ( see more ).





The publication also recently took a strong stance on appealing to mobile-first consumers by upgrading its application to include virtual reality content and launching a comical sticker pack in relation to the presidential election.











"This is not a traditional marketing campaign ? the motivation behind it is to raise awareness and educate viewers about a serious issue impacting global communities," Ms. Swenson said. "It?s easy to take drinking water for granted when you have access to it, but for many around the world, that?s simply not the case.

"One particularly unique element of this campaign is that the video includes a ?donate? button ? a first for HuffPost RYOT ? where viewers are taken to a landing page and encouraged to contribute," she said. "If the viewer is inspired by the 360-degree video and wants to get involved, they are able to do so immediately." Huffington Post updated its mobile app to include virtual reality capability as it starts to launch video content that brings users further into the setting of the news story. Huffington Post also launched a sticker keyboard within the messaging app Viber that puts a humorous spin on the current election, as social media merges further with news ( see more ).




[December 06, 2016] RagingWire Launches Immersive 'Real Life 3D' Virtual Reality Tour of Its California Data Center

RagingWire Data Centers, the nation's premier data center provider and an NTT (News - Alert) Communications company, became the first data center colocation company to offer a real life and true stereoscopic 3D virtual reality (VR) tour of a data center that is user-guided and non-linear. RagingWire's new interactive tour allows users to virtually experience the award winning RagingWire Sacramento CA3 Data Center. The CA3 virtual reality app debuted at the Gartner Data Center, Infrastructure and Operations Management Conference being held in Las Vegas from December 5-8, 2016. The 360-degree web application is available on the web at www.RagingWire.com/ca3-vr. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005078/en/ RagingWire's new 'Real Life 3D' virtual reality tour and 360-degree web application allow you to experience the Sacramento CA3 Data Center without an onsite visit. (Photo: Business Wire)



James Leach, Vice President of Marketing at RagingWire. "With this new VR application, users can move at their own pace and see the areas of the facility that matter the most to them from different angles that standard linear tours can't provide." Using a virtual reality headset, the Real Life 3D tour allows users to experience the data center in 360 degrees as a real, continuous, and virtual scene. Alternatively, RagingWire's web-based 360-degree interactive video tour provides a true sense of place by moving up, down, and all around for a unique user-driven experience on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device.

Leach continued, "While onsite tours have traditionally been a requirement for data center buyers, we believe the quality of RagingWire's new VR tour and web-based 360-degree tour can make onsite tours optional, streamlining due diligence and saving time and expense. It's taking data center shopping to a whole new level, and we think customers are going to love it." RagingWire's Sacramento CA3 Data Center located in seismically-safe Sacramento, California offers the lowest cost data center power in California, and is just a 90-minute drive from the Bay Area. CA3 is ideal for cloud providers, software companies, and enterprises that need a West Coast data center footprint that is cost-effective, low-risk and can support large footprint deployments as well as multi-rack cages with room to grow. The 180,000 sq. ft. CA3 Data Center with 14 megawatts of critical IT load is fully integrated with the CA1 and CA2 data centers totaling 680,000 sq. ft. of data center space and 52.7 megawatts of high density power. Across all of its data centers, RagingWire offers a 100% availability SLA, 24x7 onsite support, multi-layered security systems with onsite security officers and proven operational procedures for delivering superior performance. About RagingWire Data Centers RagingWire Data Centers designs, builds, and operates mission critical data centers that deliver 100% availability, high-density power, flexible configurations, carrier neutral connectivity, and superior customer service. The company has 97 MW of critical IT load spread across 1.2 million square feet of data center infrastructure in Northern California, Ashburn, Virginia, and Dallas, Texas, with significant growth plans in these locations and other top North American data center markets. As part of the NTT Communications (News - Alert) group, RagingWire is one of the largest wholesale data center providers in the world with a global network of 140 data centers operated by NTT Communications under the Nexcenter brand and one of the most financially strong companies in the data center industry. For more information visit www.ragingwire.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005078/en/

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There's a country in the heart of South America, whose poor and middle class fought together in a war against the government and private corporations, for the right to its own water.

You might wonder what that has to do with Michiganor why a little country in the heart of South America should matter to Michiganders today.

The reason is simple: The Bolivian people faced corporate water control, demanded, and fought for, their water. And they won.

In 1999, the Bolivian city of Cochabamba's water system was privatized. Water rates skyrocketed 200 percent as the nation struggled to pay off debt and keep it's water system profitable. In rural areas surrounding the city, citizens had in many cases constructed their own systems of irrigation and water transport, some of which were used to capture rainwater. These too became privatized. Suddenly, the very systems the people themselves built were owned by Aguas del Tunari, an international consortium whose major shareholder was San Francisco-based Bechtel.

By January of 2000, protests had begun. The Bolivian government refused to lower water rates. The people stopped paying their bills, continuing to protest and demonstrate. The government brought in more police forces. In just two days, 175 protesters were wounded. More people came to Cochabamba to protest, blocking major roads and highways. The military then stepped up their control. A teenager was killed by police. The protests grew.



Finally, the contract with Aguas del Tunari was broken and water was restored to the public.

The story, as romantic as it seemsprotesters fight for and win the right to their waterdoesn't end there. In fact, it was only the beginning.

Looking to Bolivia for solutions at home



Today in Flint, the city is looking at a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars to replace its contaminated, eroded pipes. Meanwhile, 100,000 people continue to drink, bathe, and wash their clothing and dishes in bottled water, as they have for over two years. Celebrities make a show of donating water to Flint. And while it's no longer hot national news, the people there are still living in a way that, for most Americans, is unconscionable.

Meanwhile in Detroit, 70,000 households have had their water shut off. Many families take buckets to the nearest functioning fire hydrant to fill up. The city has tied back water billsnow among the highest in the nation, in a city with a poverty rate of at least 40 percentto property tax liens, and will seize the home of those too far behind. Again, an unconscionable circumstance.

In the wake of water crises never before seen in Michigan, or even the United States, we should look at what Bolivia is doing with its water.

There, in a nation with the fastest growing economy in Latin America, the country is facing ongoing crises caused by climate change and lack of resources and infrastructure. Yes, they kicked out a multi-national water company. But the people of Bolivia are now making coordinated, ongoing efforts to protect and secure safe water so it doesn't happen again.

Again that sounds romantic. In reality, it's a lot of hard work.



If you ask people about the water, they will proudly tell you of the well or water system they are a part ofwater systems, more often than not, they had a hand in building themselves and a say in the construction plans. Communities meet regularly to discuss the waterwhere it comes from, how to protect that source, and how to transport it. They network, share strategies, divvy up tasks, and do their own research. They share their findings and collaborate on best actions and practices. These aren't unions, or hierarchical organizations, and they encompass the lower, middle, and upper classes. And they aren't working

If you have a conversation with an average Bolivian about water, they have a much more sophisticated understanding of it than the average Michigander. Bolivians overwhelmingly consider water a human rightthis fact, vigorously contended in Michigan, isn't even up for debate there.

"You can live without a roof over your head. You can live without food everyday. You can live without electricity. You absolutely can not live without water," says Oscar Campinini, project director at CEDIB (Documentation and Information Center of Bolivia).

From there, conversations get deeper, and there are more questions than answers. Indeed, Bolivia isn't a solution to the water crisis in Michigan. But those questionsquestions asked by the people themselvesare where we should start.

For example, in a diverse community, with diverse economic interests, how do you make sure the poorest among you has water? The elderly? The disabled? How do you make sure they are provided for? Certainly, a family of five with multiple family members working has more access to resources than an elderly man living alone, or a single mother struggling with many young children.

Here's another difference that might be a sticking point at home: In Bolivia, the wealthy understand that water is a human right, too. And they pay more, so that the less fortunate don't go without it.

Are wealthy Michiganders willing to pay more to ensure a just water system?

It isn't like people are all that different in Bolivia. They struggle with the toxic impact of mining, just as we do with industry.

. There is an acceptance that

Imagine that: Taking our water into our own hands, for the benefit of everyone. Can we do that in Michigan? What would that even look like for us?

More questions than answers



On a recent trip to Bolivia, I explored the nation and met with leaders on water issues, searching for answers. At each of these meetings, I asked what was being done to get water to the people. In response I received more questions than answersany of which would be wise to ask ourselves in Michigan.

"How can we find a way to balance the state and the community participation in water systems?" says Marcela Olivera of Food and Water Watch. "How can people participate more in the issues that effect the democratization of water systems? How can the public work with the water?"

These questions aren't easily answered, especially when you have other interestsincluding mining companiesinvolved.

Too often, says Olivera, the World Bank and other international development organizations see water as a tech problem, not a cultural one. "How can we make policies that take into consideration the way societies have to organize themselves?"

Stefano Archidiancono works in Cochabamba for the Italian CeVI (Center of International Voluntary Service). He speaks of the importance of rainwater collection by communities and families, with water tanks near homes or on rooftops. In the context of water scarcity, he says the most accessible resource is rainwater. It allows a community to be more resilient if there is a water crisis.

"Even in the city, every building should have rainwater collection," he says, "even if the water is only to flush the toilet."

Archidiancono also talks about how the communities around Cochabamba build their own water systems and their own wells, sometimes even using converted car engines to pump the water from the ground, and letting gravity move the water through a pipe.

"If you can manage your own water, you have political power," he says.

In this part of Bolivia, Archidiancono is blunt about what drives the people. "If it comes from need, I dig my own well or I die," he says. "Afterwards, they have to organize for solutions. It's the basis of life itself. As a society, we can have a say on water and on other things as well. This is where we start."

Says Campinini, "We have more questions than answers. Who has the water? The people or the state? What can we do better? What is the solution? If all the people participate in the decisions, it's better for everyone."

A community, he says, can consider the problems of the very poor, the infirmed, the elderlythe problems that some can pay more than others, and how to fairly scale that.

"Together we can ask these questions," says

If it was private or with the state or by law it becomes political and the questions can't be answered that way. It's a public model, but at the same time, a social model, and it's harder for a big company to consider these things."

"Who is responsible for the water? The state or the people?" he continues. "It's better when the people take it but that also presents problems. The water is for everyone, but the state can't leave its responsibility."

Community participation and control of the water is never simple, according to

. "The most difficult part is the social participation and mobilization of the people to have the conscience and motivation to participate. How do you get the people to think, to read, and participate? How do you foster the collective participation of the people with different interests?"

Campanini tells a story of retired engineers getting involveda group of professionals and intellectuals and environmentalists working together to build a system to transport water and protect park land at the same time.

"You can take different interests and put them together to fight for the water. Together."



Can we do that in Michigan?

It seemed the corporation was charging people to use the rain.against the public utilitythey work with, and in many ways are the utility.Bolivians don't want to watch members of their community suffer for lack of waterit's a human right, after all. And there is no righteousness in telling people to get a jobthere is no job for them to get, that the government will not and cannot provide everything that they need. And there is an understanding that they must take matters into their own hands.Campinini. "Campinini
you are here:
In todays Money Morningidentifying what the Deep State is, and how they operatewhy you, and everyone you know, is a target in their eyeswhy Italian and German banks are set for bail-ins, not bailoutsand more

Publishers Note: In Port Phillip Publishings very first Special Investigation launching soon, Vern Gowdie shines a light on what he believes is a  secret government  ruling over you right here in Australia. Its an extension/offshoot/tentacle of the American Deep State Bill Bonner describes in the intriguing essay below

Over the years  hardly noticed by the press or the public  a group of insiders has taken control of Washington.

These zombies and cronies  who number in the thousands  have much more power and authority than 100 million voters. Research shows that if they want legislation, they get it.

Voters, on the other hand, get what they want only rarelyand probably only because the insiders want the same thing.

Taken together, this network of elites comprises the Deep State.

But who exactly is part of the Deep State? What are their objectives? And why is the Deep States spying apparatus such a dangerous, growing threat to your freedoms?

Identifying the Deep State

The Deep State, to be clear, describes the way the US government really works, rather than the way its supposed to work.

In the popular myth, we have a government that responds  clumsily but eventually  to the will of the people.

It is supposed to be by, for, and of the people. So we are tempted to believe that what it does is ultimately for our own good. We can trust it, in other words, to look out for us. We do not have to fear it. After all, as Hillary Clinton said, The government is all of us.

But the Deep State is not all of us. It is only some of us.

The Deep State is a curious group, comprised of foreign governments, billionaire political donors, lobbyists, international corporations, global organisations, and supra-government agencies.

Together, they  along with domestic-favoured industries, the bureaucracy itself, special interests, and cronies of various stripes and persuasions  run the US government and control the police, the armed forces, the financial industry, the medical industry, the educational industry, and other major parts of the economy.

How the Deep State works

Yes, this may sound like a conspiracy. And it is, in a sense. But not the sort on which you could get a conviction. It is just the natural evolution of a political system.

In the beginning, government started out small.

But, as time goes by, more and more people  usually in loosely-organised groups  find ways to game the system.

They exploit the government to gain an advantage or privilege. As this happens, the system retains its outward appearance, but it is corrupted from the inside out so that it gradually ceases to serve the common interest that made it so successful in the first place; instead, it begins to serve, primarily, the interests of those who actually control it.

Today, while we do still have the same apparent structure of government in the US that we had 200 years ago, its not what it used to be.

The words are the same. The form is the same. But, under the hood, the motor is completely different.

The Deep State doesnt care what you want, or who you voted for. And it definitely doesnt care about the nations safety. It cares only about its own safety.

The Deep State and its enemies

In 1989, the Deep State faced its biggest challenge. The Soviet Union renounced its goal of world domination. The Cold War was over. This left the security industry with nothing to provide security against. Huge budget cuts loomed. Early retirements beckoned.

But, by then, the Deep State was already largely in control of the federal budget. After a pause, defence spending began to rise again.

That is the beautyor perhaps the ferocious powerof the Deep State system. It doesnt require a plan or a brain. It doesnt need a smoke-filled room, or a meeting of the minds. It just develops on its own, as people use the government for their own purposes.

This is an important point in the context of todays war on terror.

More people probably die from peanut butter allergies than from terrorist attacks. But, when people are killed by terrorists, it occupies a big and sensitive spot in the collective imagination.

Terrorists pose no dangers to the Deep State system; they strengthen it.

The threat of terrorism, then, helps scare citizens into transferring more of their money to the security industry. Soldiers risk their lives, but the Deep State wants to see terrorists flourish, not eliminated.

Terrorists pose no dangers to the Deep State system; they strengthen it. But you or I, however, might threaten it.

If anyone gets on the governments enemies lists, the stored information will be used to target them.

It is unlikely, but a strong candidate may still be able to revive enough of the old atrophied organs  and dust off enough of Americans old sense of pride, independence, and solvency  so as to menace the Deep State.

There might be enough kindred spirits appalled by the theft, disgusted by endless senseless wars, and shocked by the debts, to make possible a march on Washington, and maybe even a real insurrection.

Like the Spartacus slave uprising in 72 BC, an end the Fed chant coming from the National Malla stop the wars banner flying over the Lincoln Memorialmight be enough to deeply unsettle the Deep State.

That is why the Deep State so desperately wants to keep tabs on everyone.

Everybodys a target

Built at a cost of $1.52 billion  plus another $2 billion for electronic components  the NSAs massive data centre in Bluffdale, Utah, came online in May 2014.

It consumes about $40 million worth of electricity each year, and uses 1.7 million gallons of water each day.

You dont put that kind of hardware in place just to snoop on a handful of terrorists.

Instead, the idea is to keep records on everyone so that, at any time, the Deep State can find out what it needs to know about anyone.

Bill Binney worked for the NSA for 32 years before blowing the whistle in 2002. He was the one who created the agencys mass surveillance program. That program now collects 100 billion emails per dayand 20 trillion communications all together.

If anyone gets on the governments enemies lists, the stored information will be used to target them. Specifically, [Binney] notes that, if the government decides it doesnt like someone, it analyses all of the data it has collected on that person and their associates over the last 10 years to build a case against them.

All of the information gained by the NSA through spying is then shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally launder the information gained through spying, i.e., to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate wayand to hide that from defence attorneys and judges.

Lavrenti Beria headed Stalins secret police. He had no access to an NSA-style database. Still, even with his limited resources, Show me the man, and I will find the crime, he said. Today, the secret police never had it so good.

And it could get a lot better for them. With the coming cashless economy, all transactions, no matter how small, may have to pass through the Deep States information technologies.

With the flip of a switch, your secrets could be revealed, and your money could be turned off  a 21st-century assassination.

How does the Deep State really affect us? There is no way to know for sure. But what we have found is that it is not at all bound by the rules, goals, or financial restrictions that limit the rest of the society.

Cheers,

Bill Bonner,

For Markets and Money

Publishers Note: Is the Deep State at work here in Australia? Yes, according to Vern Gowdie. It has been for many decades. And its about to cause a massive calamity in our $3 trillion financial sector. Look out for tomorrows Money Morning to learn what you can do to protect yourself from the fallout of this coming crisis.
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,
Our seminary in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is named St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. However, most Catholics do not know about this great saint whose feast day is on November 4th. He was the Archbishop of Milan from 1564 until 1584...
With an impressive candlelight ceremony, the 2003-04 Live Oak

High School Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) officers were

installed recently. Alumni Nguyen Lu, now attending Santa Clara

University, and Jary Hu, currently a student at San Jose State

University, had the honor of installing all the officers following

a potluck dinner with invited parents and guests.

With an impressive candlelight ceremony, the 2003-04 Live Oak High School Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) officers were installed recently. Alumni Nguyen Lu, now attending Santa Clara University, and Jary Hu, currently a student at San Jose State University, had the honor of installing all the officers following a potluck dinner with invited parents and guests.

The keynote speaker was Rosemary Kamei, Director, Santa Clara Water District, and the parent of Jonathan, one of the officers. She gave an informative presentation on the functions of the Water District including its history, the sources of water for the area, and even how their thinking has changed in terms of the landscape of the creekbeds and the environment from even ten years ago.

A slide presentation about FBLA and the activities in which the Chapter participated last year was shown in order to inform the guests about the organization and its purpose.

The following are officers: Derek Chan and Tiffany Shyuan, co-presidents; Roger Alcaraz and Sima Bhalala, vice presidents of community service; Kim Wakatsuki and Catalina Garcia, vice presidents of publicity; Evan Sarina and Jesse-James Garcia, vice-presidents of membership; Michelle Soult and Eric Danner, recording secretaries; Yige Wang and Jonathan Kamei, treasurers; Kim Wakatsuki, Reporter; Chris Burnham, historian; Erica Rianda, parliamentarian and Marius Layus, club representative.

The Chapter is welcoming professional members to help support its many activities and also the California FBLA Scholarship Program. For details, please contact Live Oak High School FBLA at 201-6100.
A Caldwell County man is in police custody after detectives say he tried to pass himself off as a detective to steal a vehicle.

Burke County Sheriffs Office detectives developed Harry Jason Gardner, from Lenoir, as a suspect after they say a resident reported him.

On Dec. 2 just after 10 a.m., detectives started an investigation about a man who misrepresented himself as a law enforcement officer.

The victim told detectives that around 6 a.m. that morning, a man showed up his house and identified himself as a detective. The man walked around the residents vehicle that was parked in the yard and told him it was stolen property and he would return later to pick it up, according to information from the Burke County Sheriffs Office.

The victim told Burke detectives the man had a badge in a holder hanging from his neck and was driving a fairly new red Dodge Dakota truck, according to the Sheriffs Office. The victim gave police a description of the suspect and detectives developed Gardner as a suspect.

Burke County detectives contacted their counterparts with Caldwell County and the Lenoir Police Department about the incident, the information said.

Before the incident in Burke County, detectives here had been working with Caldwell County and Lenoir police on a string of vehicle thefts, according to information from the Burke County Sheriffs Office. One of the stolen vehicles was a red 2006 Dodge Dakota truck that had not been recovered, the information said.

On Monday, at the request of the Burke County Sheriffs Office, detectives with Caldwell County located a red Dodge Dakota at Gardners home, according to the information.

Gardner was wearing a police-style badge around his neck when he was arrested on Monday, according to the Burke County Sheriffs Office.

Detectives confirmed the red Dodge Dakota truck was the same one that had been reported stolen in November, the Sheriffs Office said.

The Burke County Sheriffs Office says detectives are still at the scene working the case and charges against Gardner are forthcoming.

In addition to Lenoir Police Department and Burke and Caldwell sheriffs offices, the North Carolina License and Theft Bureau and North Carolina Probation Office are involved in the case.
GRANITE FALLS  A man was found dead and police had a teenager in custody after a shooting in Granite Falls on Friday.

Caldwell County Sheriffs Office deputies were called to 4662 Estes Lane for a welfare check on Friday, according to a release.

Thats when deputies found Joseph Scott Bolick, 48, inside the home dead from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Caldwell County Sheriffs Office release.

Detectives followed up on the case and developed a juvenile suspect in the case. The juvenile was taken into custody and charged in relation to the incident, according to the release. The Sheriffs Office did not release the name, age or address of the suspect.

The News Heralds news partner WSOC-TV reported the suspect is 15 years old.

The North Carolina SBI, the North Carolina Office of Juvenile Justice, the Burke County and Catawba County sheriffs offices assisted Caldwell County with the case.
A Connelly Springs man will spend the next 35 years in prison after pleading guilty Monday to sexual offenses with children.

Richard Keith Stevens, 35, entered the guilty plea to four counts of statutory sex offense and one count of statutory rape during Burke County Superior Court. He was given an active prison sentence of 35 to 52 years in custody of the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections by the Honorable Robert C. Ervin, Superior Court Judge from Burke County.

The sexual offenses involved one male and two female victims, and the sexual acts began in 2005 when all of them were approximately 5 to 7 years old. The sexual abuse continued for all three victims until they came forward and disclosed the offenses in November 2014.

Stevens engaged in sexual acts with the victims  now ages 18, 15 and 9  and often recorded the encounters.

The case was investigated by Isaac Propst of the Burke County Sheriffs Office with assistance from the Gingerbread House Child Advocacy Center in Morganton. Frank Webster handled prosecution for the District Attorneys Office.
The Italian people have voted to reject a package of democratic reform measures proposed by Prime Minister Mateo Renzi. Mr Renzi has resigned following the result, triggering a period of political uncertainty in the EUs fourth largest economy. What does this mean for investors? In these talking points, well review the situation and its eect on investment markets.

The Italian referendum and Austrian presidential election are the latest events in a year of unexpected results and political turmoil. The referendum result is likely to dominate news flow over the next few days and therefore we thought it would be useful to provide investors with our perspective on the impact of the vote, the outlook for markets and the response of our investment team.

Before considering the implications of the Italian vote, it is worth reviewing the facts of the referendum. This vote was intended to bring structural reform to the Italian political system and in doing so, facilitate economic policies designed to boost the growth of the Italian economy. While there appears little disagreement that reform is necessary in an economy that has shrunk over the last eight years, these reforms were opposed by the populist Five Star Movement and the Northern League.

By threatening to resign in the event of a no result, Prime Minister Renzi appeared to shift the focus of the vote from the proposed structural reforms towards a referendum on his leadership. The resounding success of the no campaign has consequently led to the resignation of the Prime Minister and created a period of uncertainty in Italian politics.

Although the result appears to have had an immediate impact on capital markets with both the Euro and Asian equities falling in price, this reaction appears far more muted then following the Brexit vote or U.S. election results. There are likely to be three reasons for this:

The first is that instability has long been the hallmark of Italian politics, demonstrated by the parade of five Prime Ministers over the last decade. Consequently, this latest change in the political landscape represents more of the same for a nation used to dealing with political change. Second, unlike the Brexit vote or Trump election, the Italian referendum represents a continuity of the existing situation rather than a significant change at this stage.

This continuity is even more apparent when one considers the fact that Renzi secured 40% of the vote despite being opposed by two populist parties ideologically opposed to each other. Third, and potentially a consequence of the previous points, market participants appear to be taking a more cautious approach to pricing in the impact of this vote, having been whipsawed by market movements immediately following the last two events.

Turning to the longer-term impact of the result, it is noticeable that media coverage of the potential consequences of the no vote is very light on detail but rich with suggestions of potential market turmoil and even a further banking crisis. This lack of detail should highlight the uncertainty that accompanies this result. In common with the previous political events of 2016, it is currently unclear what the longer term political outcome of this referendum will be and how this will impact capital markets and asset prices.

In this situation, the famous quotation of President Roosevelt appears particularly apt: (the) only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Fear is a natural but destructive trait in both investors and portfolio managers as it promotes action based on weak evidence.

Any changes to portfolios at this point would necessarily depend upon drawing a single conclusion from the broad range of potential outcomes that now present themselves. This approach is little better than selecting a single number on the roulette wheel and will likely lead to a similar result. We can claim no skill in forecasting political outcomes, a trait we appear to share with professional pollsters and political analysts, and therefore will not gamble with investors capital.

Instead, we will continue to prioritise research over reaction, carefully assessing the fair value of the potential investments and comparing that to the current price. As valuation-driven investors, we are drawn to those assets currently trading at a significant discount to their fair value in the expectation that this discount will close over the long term, creating above average returns for investors.

One of the most interesting areas we are currently investigating is European financial companies, primarily banks and insurance companies. We have recently undertaken a substantial research project in this area and concluded that despite the challenges posed by the current economic and regulatory environment, banks were significantly undervalued and represented an attractive opportunity for investment.

This is especially relevant in the context of the Italian referendum as one of the key concerns to emerge from a no vote is the challenge that it poses to the re-capitalisation of the Italian banks which form 18% of the Italian stock market and are currently struggling with bad debts. We can therefore expect additional volatility in the price of Italian bank shares in the near term.

In this context, volatility in market prices should be welcomed, as a fall in prices can create opportunities to buy assets that are significantly under-priced relative to their long term fair values, thereby sowing the seeds of future returns.

Our ability to access these opportunities is dependent upon having sufficient cash available in portfolios to fund these purchases. Our portfolio managers have therefore been using the high prices we have witnessed over the last year to raise cash holdings by selling positions that have become over-priced. Consequently, portfolios are well positioned to make new purchases where we see opportunities.

We also remain in close contact with the managers who run the underlying funds in your portfolio. Each of these managers has been carefully chosen for their experience, expertise and rigorous investment process. We therefore expect them to approach the current situation with a similar long-term, opportunity seeking mind-set.

We appreciate that the current period is unsettling for our investors and we hope the above provides a useful summary of the work we are undertaking on your behalf. We will continue to do our utmost to keep you and your adviser informed of our latest thinking and will of course update your adviser of any changes that we make to your portfolio. You may also find the Morningstar.co.uk website useful as it provides extensive financial news coverage, detailed analysis and investor education resources.

Should you have any questions or require further information in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact your adviser.
Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investors point of view. We also respect individual opinionsthey represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive.

To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.

Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
The harsher stress test mandated by the new federal real estate measures will do more harm than good to the market, specifically to the younger consumer base.



Montreal agent Thierry Lindor noted that fully 90 per cent of his clients at Remax l'Espace Griffintown who have withdrawn from the housing market are millennials.



Lindor warned that the revised rules, which now test a borrowers ability to pay at the Bank of Canadas 4.64 per cent posted rate, will make younger buyers more reluctantespecially considering that salary growth has remained relatively static over the past few years.



We're already a bit behind [the rest of Canada] in terms of home ownership, Lindor told CBC News. To put such a stress test on our market when we know that these are measures that were taken for Toronto and Vancouver  it's like if your car has a flat and you decide to change your car.



They decided to pass this law for all of Canada and we're feeling the impact on the sales as well.



Lindor added that the regulatory revisions had the undesirable effect of some consumers hastily making decisions, which might prove problematic to the market in the near future.



Some of my brokers had clients rushing to purchase, the agent explained. You don't rush into a $500,000 investment.



One of Lindors clients, Jasbeen Lallbahadoor, said that she had to back out of the $350,000 deal for a townhouse that she had been eyeing prior to the implementation of the new rules.



I feel deceived by the government, Lallbahadoor lamented. You're planning ahead and then all of a sudden the government comes and takes it away from you.


Commission details were somewhat murky following National Bank s announcement that it was closing its broker division, but we now have clarification.Rumours came in following National Banks exit from the channel that it would not honour broker commissions for deals that close after January 20. However, the company has assured brokers that they will be compensated for those files.We will be paying brokers the sales commission and volume bonus for all deals funded after January 20, W. Mark Squire, assistant vice president at National Bank of Canada, told MortgageBrokerNews.ca.That includes volume bonuses, according to Squire.In a communication to brokers, sent Monday and shared with MortgageBrokerNews.ca, the bank will no longer accept broker submissions starting Friday, December 9.Deals with conditions not satisfied by December 16 will be cancelled, and the last funding date for applications submitted after December 1 will be January 20.This follow-up announcement was made following broker feedback questioning the status of commissions for deals completed after the January 20 cut-off date.National Bank announced Friday that it will no longer offer its mortgages through the broker channel.That move leaves just TD Bank and Scotia as the sole big bank participants in the channel.However, National also announced it would still fund mortgages through Paradigm Quest and Merix.Were still committed to the broker market and to the broker channel, Squire said at the time. Its just that were going to do our business a bit differently through a third-party model, specifically with Paradigm Quest and the MERIX Financial brand.
Bank of America has paid nearly all of the $7 billion in consumer relief required by its settlement with federal and state authorities over toxic mortgage-backed securities, according to a HousingWire report.The $7 billion is a portion of the total $16.65 billion settlement the bank made with the Department of Justice and other federal agencies, along with six states. According to Eric Green, the settlements independent monitor, Bank of America has so far paid out $6,803,697 in consumer-relief credit  97% of its obligation under the settlement.Based on credit testing that is underway, it appears that Bank of America is on target to fulfill its obligations under the settlement agreement this year, well ahead of the four-year schedule, Green said.More than half of the loan modifications Bank of America has made as part of its consumer-relief obligation have been in designated Hardest Hit areas, according to HousingWire. The bank has made loan modifications and new loans in every state and the District of Columbia.Green reported that the average principal reduction on loan modifications made so far under the agreement has been more than 50%, and the average loan-to-value ratio has dropped from 176% to 75%. And borrowers average monthly payment has been reduced by $599, a 37% reduction.This relief directly and materially assists homeowners struggling to afford to stay in their homes, he said.Related stories:

Government fraud case against Bank of America officially dead

Banking giant faces revived claims it violated racketeering laws
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After suffering a leg injury while enlisted in the Air Force, finding work became a challenge for a Texas man and his service dog until he walked into a Lowe's Home Improvement store.

Clay Luthy was working as a handyman, doing his best to support his three children, when he was shopping the Abilene store and decided to submit a job application, Lowe's spokeswoman Karen Cobb told mySA.com, adding Luthy's injuries prevented him from bending his knee.

RELATED: From stray to officer: battered S.A. pit bull now award-winning narcotics K-9 in New York

Human Resources Manager Jay Fellers said he was unaware the 35-year-old veteran had a service dog until he showed up for an interview, but that wasn't an issue "at all." Luthy was a top candidate during the interview process, eventually landed the job and has been a "great asset" to the store for the past three months, Fellers added.

"(Luthy and Charlotte) provide a big sense of pride and are a morale booster for our employees," Fellers said.

The decision for Charlotte, a golden retriever, to wear a miniature vest was all Luthy's idea. After his orientation, the new employee asked Fellers if Charlotte could wear a matching vest and started on adapting one to fit her size that night, the manager said.

RELATED: Texas K-9's impressive drug busts have made him a 'local celebrity'

Th matching vests have made for the perfect Facebook photo opportunity that has returned a viral reaction. Cobb said the store has been "flooded" with calls and visitors after a Facebook photo of the two was posted.

"He's really popular," Cobb said. "He's a celebrity in his own right."

RELATED: San Antonio girl and her 82-year-old grandpa head back to college class together

When the duo isn't meeting with their newly amassed fan club, they're working the store floor in sales. Fellers said the position works out perfectly for them because they're able to roam about and interact with customers, especially children who "love" spending time with Charlotte.

On some days Luthy has two service dogs at his side as he trains Lola, the dog who will replace the aging Charlotte when she retires, Fellers said.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
A Midland man was arrested Sunday after he allegedly threatened police officers, according to court documents.

Matthew Phillip Gryder, 40, was being held Monday on four $75,000 bonds for first-degree felony charges of aggravated assault against a public servant, a $500 bond for a Class A misdemeanor charge of assault causing bodily injury and a $500 bond for a Class A misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.

Midland police officers responded to a disturbance at about 1:17 a.m. Sunday.

Gryder was arguing with a woman when he struck her twice, according to his arrest affidavit. When four officers tried to obtain a statement from Gryder, he threatened to release a Doberman Pinscher to attack and kill them, according to the affidavit. Gryder then pulled his body away from officers and tried biting them to resist arrest, according to the affidavit.

If convicted of a first-degree felony charge, Gryder could face up to life imprisonment.
The search for a new superintendent at Midland ISD starts today.

The Midland ISD board of trustees will meet with officials from the Center for Reform in School Systems for board training. The workshop is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the administration building.

CRSS, according to its website, is a Houston-based company that encourages schools boards and superintendents to lead for transformational change designed to improve student achievement and close achievement gaps.

For Midland ISD, improvement is a requirement. The school district has experienced a free-fall when it comes to achievement and performance issues, dropping from slightly above-average to one of the worst-performing large school districts in the state. MISD also is having serious issues with chronically poor performance on some campuses. It was that performance issue that required Midland ISD board members to meet with TEA officials last week for mandatory training sessions.

More for you Editorial: Board appears on right road after TEA work sessions

In August, MISD learned nine of its campuses will carry the IR or improvement required designation this academic year. That total is down from 11 the last two academic years. Of those nine, three are facing longer stints. Milam and South elementaries made the IR list for the fourth straight year. Crockett Elementary is on the list for the sixth straight year -- one of at least the five longest streaks in the state, according to the TEA.

The board will pick a new superintendent to reverse the course of academic achievement set during the tenures of the two most previous superintendents -- Sylvester Perez and Ryder Warren. MISD experienced steep declines during both administrations, according to information from Education Resource Group.

Board President Rick Davis said CRSS will help the board set expectations and communicate those expectations with a potential search firm and with potential superintendent candidates.

CRSS training, according to its website, covers topics and builds skills that are often overlooked in traditional board training where the focus is on compliance, not transformation.

Our Theory of Action for Change is training school board-superintendent teams in Reform Governance in Action to create and empower more effective and productive governance teams. This improvement will lead the transformations needed to drive student achievement gains and close achievement gaps, according to the website.

Cathy Mincberg, president and CEO of CRSS, said there will be a morning training session for new board members, followed by the afternoon workshop. She said a goal of this training is for district to avoid pitfalls during the superintendent hiring process. She said theres a lot more to a candidate than what can be found on a resume, and the training session will help identify areas of interest.

When boards dont express where they are going or what they want, candidates get hired under incorrect pretenses, Mincberg said. We want them to understand the person.

Midland ISD and community leaders started the current reform movement, working with Educate Texas on a collective impact format for Midland. Business and foundation leaders paid the bill for the Educate Texas work, which laid the foundation for the Educate Midland group.

Davis said the beginning of the superintendent search comes at a good time as 2017 board members recently completed TEA training that Davis said was by far the best training I have received as a school board member.

We have a lot of work to do the next three months to apply the training we received, Davis said. We knew it was important to get on the same page. This training was perfect timing as it will help us do that.
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson is surfacing as a potential U.S. secretary of state as President-elect Donald Trump expands his search for his administration's top diplomat.

The Texas oil executive will meet with Trump on Tuesday in New York, transition aides said Monday, following reports that Tillerson has been added to the list of people Trump is considering for the position.

Trump had originally narrowed the list to four contenders, including 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. But in recent days, Trump aides have suggested he is weighing additional options.

"We've been winnowing the list, but it might grow a little bit," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Born in Wichita Falls, Tillerson went to the University of Texas at Austin and currently lives in Irving, where Exxon Mobil is based. He has worked for the company for more than four decades, becoming chairman and CEO in 2006.

On Monday, Trump Tower received a visit from another Texan: Allen West, the former Florida congressman who lives in Dallas.

As he left, West told reporters he had met with Pence; retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's pick for national security adviser; and K.T. McFarland, Trump's selection for deputy national security adviser.

"We talked about some national security issues, and, you know, how maybe I can continue to serve my country," West said, according to a pool report. "Nothing was offered."

West is the executive director of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank based in Dallas. Last year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick appointed West to the state's Sunset Advisory Commission, which is is tasked with periodically reviewing the operation and efficiency of different state agencies.
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In this weeks GOP response, Sen. John Barrasso M.D. (R-Wyoming) discussed plans for the Republican-lead Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Barrasso was Tuesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words:

Hi, Im Doctor John Barrasso, United States Senator for Wyoming.

In small towns and big cities across America, families have spent the past several years struggling under the health care law known as Obamacare.

Last month, Americans demanded accountability  and they voted for change. They were tired of living under a costly and complicated health care law that broke one promise after another. In a Gallup poll just this week, 8 out of every 10 Americans favored changing the health care law significantly or replacing it altogether.

The result of the election gives all of us the opportunity to take back control of our health care. Americans can look forward to getting the care that they need, from a doctor they choose at lower cost.

That means health insurance that meets your familys needs  not what Washington demands that you have. Health care that lets patients and doctors decide whats best for a familys health, not government bureaucrats. And health insurance you can afford  because honest competition lowers prices better than government regulations ever can.

No amount of tinkering or taxpayer bailouts is going to make Obamacare work. It needs to be replaced and repealed. Repeal is only the first step  it clears the path for a replacement that costs less and works better than what we have now.

The mandate that people must buy government-approved insurance will be eliminated. More than 20 Obamacare taxes will be repealed. People will have more freedom and flexibility to make their own decisions about their health care. Americans will be able to use Health Savings Accounts for the care that they believe is best for them and their families. It will be easier to buy insurance across state lines.

And people with pre-existing conditions will be protected. My wife, Bobbi, is a breast cancer survivor, so I understand as a doctor and as a husband how critical it is that people with pre-existing conditions not lose their insurance.

As a doctor who also served as a Wyoming state legislator, I know that one size does not fit all. States are much better than Washington, D.C. at knowing what works best for their people. Thats why states will get back the power to run their own Medicaid programs.

Over the years since Obamacare was passed, weve heard from people every day about how the law has hurt them personally. Were listening, and were keeping our promise. When someone in your family is sick, you should only have to worry about their health  not about health insurance. If we work together, there is a better way.

Now, many Democrats in Congress have already shown that they will refuse to help us find that way. Theyve sworn to defend Obamacare, no matter what it costs you. I hope theyll reconsider, and work with us for better health care for all Americans.

Were going to do everything we can to reverse the damage done by Obamacare, and do it as smoothly as possible. It wont be easy, and its going to take some time. But step by step, were going to put patients back in charge, bring down the cost for families, and make sure that having health insurance actually means something this time.

Thanks for listening.
The National Weather Service has issued a Freeze Watch for both the Northern San Joaquin Valley and the Mother Lode below 2,000 feet, from late Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.

A Canadian airmass moving into the region will bring cold overnight temperatures over the next couple of nights. Tuesday night into Wednesday morning will likely be the coldest night, with subfreezing temperatures possible across much of the Central Valley.

According to the NWS, temperatures of twenty eight to thirty two degrees are possible late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Temperatures this cold may damage plants and pipes, if left unprotected.

In the Sierra Nevada, Highways 108 (Sonora Pass), 120 (Tioga Pass) and 4 (Ebbetts Pass) are all closed for the winter. Highway 88 (Carson Pass) is open year round.

A Freeze Watch means sub-freezing temperatures are possible. These conditions could kill crops and other sensitive vegetation. Take precautions to protect exposed pipes, pets, and livestock.
A 47-year-old Orange City man is dead after deputies said he pointed a gun at law enforcement officers and they were forced to open fire.

Officers tried to talk to man, used nonlethal rounds, they said



Deputies say man pointed gun at officers



Man was identified as Westley Daum, 47

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office identified the man Tuesday afternoon as Westley Daum.



The incident unfolded at about 11:30 p.m. Monday in Orange City when Volusia deputies began getting calls from people that a man was parked in the middle of Volusia Avenue pointing a gun at passing motorists.

Orange City Police responded, along with Volusia deputies, but the man left the scene by the time they arrived.

Deputies spotted the man again a short time later in his truck several blocks away on Lantern Lane. They said the man took off and led deputies through residential neighborhoods. He meandered through several back roads before again returning to the 600 block of Lantern Lane.

That's when deputies said the man got out of his truck with a weapon in hand. He was surrounded by deputies and Orange City officers, and nearby homes were evacuated.



When talking to the man did not work, officers tried to shoot him with nonlethal bean-bag rounds, which were not successful, deputies said.



Just before 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, the man pointed his gun at officers and several deputies and one Orange City officer opened fire, officials said.

The five deputies who utilized deadly force in the shooting are as follows: Sgt. Kyle Brainbridge, Sgt. Joel Hernandez, Sgt. Justin Stewart, Investigator Miguel Roman and Deputy Austin Weber.

All five have been temporarily placed on administrative leave with pay, which is standard procedure in deputy-involved shootings.

The Orange City Police Department officer who fired his weapon is Officer Stephen Nesbitt.

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office said this was the fourth deputy-involved shooting of 2016.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating.


Several new Star Wars experiences and enhancements were announced during a special, after-hours event at Walt Disney World Monday.

Disney announced new Star Wars-related additions for guests

"Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away" is getting a few new things

There will be a seven-hour guided tour coming to Hollywood Studios

The highlight of the event was the transformation of Epcots iconic Spaceship Earth into the Death Star.

Spaceship Earth turning into the Death Star was cool to see during #StarWars event at Epcot. pic.twitter.com/AVDE4OfhwG  Ashley Carter (@therealCarterA) December 6, 2016

The temporary change celebrated the upcoming film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as well as new Star Wars experiences coming to Disneys Hollywood Studios.

One of the stars of the film, Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Galen Erso, made a surprise appearance on stage. Mikkelsen was asked what he could share about his character without giving too much away.

Hes a scientist, hes working on something that potentially has the ability to make the world a better place, said Mikkelsen. But unfortunately he also has the ability to make the world a much worse place.

Mikkelsen also shared an exclusive clip from the film with the audience. It featured a confrontation between Erso and Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn).

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arrives in theaters Dec. 16.

&amp;nbsp;

To top off the special event, Disney made several announcements about the Star Wars-related additions guests can expect to see at Hollywood Studios.

Starting Dec. 16, Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular will return. The nighttime fireworks and projection show will join Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM! for nightly performances. According to Disney, the show will continue into 2017.

Guests can enjoy props and artwork from Rogue One at Star Wars Launch Bay, joining other Star Wars memorabilia. Footage from the film has been added to the Meet the Makers video in inside the Launch Bay.

A few changes are being made to Star Toursthe Adventures Continue. Randomized tracks are returning, meaning each ride experience will start and end at different locations each time. Also, new scenes will be added from the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII in the coming year.

The daytime stage show Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away is getting a few new additions. Soon, guests will be able to see AWR (Advanced Weapons Research) Troopers in the show. They will be outfitted in specialized dark armor.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp;

One surprising announcement made during Monday night's event is specifically for ultimate Star Wars fans. A new seven-hour, yes seven hours, guided tour is coming to Hollywood Studios.

Guests will be fully immersed into the Star Wars experiences at the park. It will include character encounters, a screening of Star Wars: Path of the Jedi, Star Wars-themed food items at Backlot Express, an insiders tour through Star Wars Launch Bay and more. The tours are expected to begin in 2017, although an official date has not been released.

Right now construction is underway at Disneys Hollywood Studios in Orlando and Disneyland in California for an entire land devoted to Star Wars.
WASHINGTON  Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Deputy Under Secretary Alexis Taylor on Nov. 30 announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will accept more than 504,000 acres that were offered by producers during the recent ranking period for the Conservation Reserve Program Grasslands enrollment. Through the voluntary CRP Grasslands program, grasslands threatened by development or conversion to row crops are maintained as livestock grazing areas, while providing important conservation benefits.

USDA will accept more than 2,100 offers totaling more than 504,000 acres across 34 states. More than 70 percent of the acres are from beginning farmers, veterans and underserved producers. About two-thirds of the acres are in counties with the highest threat for conversion. Additionally, nearly 60 percent of the acres are in wildlife priority areas and nearly three-fourths of the acres will have a wildlife-focused conservation plan as part of the operation.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was re-elected as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association Monday as part of the organizations winter meetings. The DGA also elected Vice Chairman and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee as chair-elect, meaning he will be incoming chairman in 2018.



Malloy was first elected as chairman last December and retained the post this year despite Democrats losing two more governors seats to Republicans. The GOP now holds 33 governorships nationally, the most since 1922, while Democrats hold 16. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker is an Independent.



DGA Executive Director Elisabeth Pearson credited Malloy with playing a vital role in Democratic Attorney General Roy Coopers victory over Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who conceded Monday after claiming for weeks that the results were tainted by illegal votes.



Governor Malloys leadership in 2016 helped the DGA recruit strong candidates, set fundraising records and win the marquee governors race in North Carolina while protecting all 3 Democratic incumbents, Pearson said in a statement.



The pickup was negated by losses in Missouri, where Gov. Jay Nixon reached a term limit, and Vermont and New Hampshire, where sitting Democratic governors decided not to seek re-election. Pearson praised Malloy as a Democratic policy leader, and Malloy said the party needs to turn around recent election trends with 38 governorships up for grabs over the next two years. Connecticuts next gubernatorial race is in 2018.



As Democrats, there is nothing more important we can do as a party than to begin rebuilding at the state level, Malloy said. Thats why we must elect Democratic governors in 2017 and 2018. Malloy, who is halfway through his second term, has not yet said whether he will run for reelection in 2018.






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Micah Danemayer had found love, formed an electronica band and discovered his niche in the Oakland art scene before he lost his life while performing.

Danemayer, a Massachusetts native who was 28 and lived in Oakland, had been entertaining guests along with fellow audio and visual artists at the Golden Donna 100% Silk show when the fire broke out at the Ghost Ship warehouse.

In the words of a friend, he was a wonderful charming eccentric beauty of a young man, whose open heart drew many, many other free spirits to him, his parents said Tuesday through email. We were lucky to have him for 28 years. We will miss him and the weirdness and creativity and love that trailed in his wake.

He had left the East Coast for the Bay Area in 2011 after graduating from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. When he joined the Oakland creative scene, he found community, said his father, Chris Danemayer.

He had so many friends, his mother, Pam Krueger, said through tears over the phone before she became too emotional to continue.

One of those friends, 26-year-old Devyn Fordyce, was planning to form an electronica band with Danemayer called Red Cellar. Their first gig had been set for January at The Night Light in downtown Oakland.

More for you Oakland warehouse fire: Full coverage

Both played synthesizers to create improvised rhythmic noises, Fordyce said. Danemayer, he said, started his own record label called Discarded, through which he would release tapes of the outsider electronic music scene.

Ive never met anybody so passionate, not only for his own art and music but for everyone elses as well, Fordyce said.

Danemayer worked as a curator and producer at Obscura Machina, a collective that runs Discarded and presents a series of experimental music and video art from the Bay area and abroad, he explained on his Facebook profile.

There, Danemayer described himself as a Rave dungeon master and cynically optimistic.

A few months ago, he began dating Jennifer Mendiola, a UC Merced graduate student also known as Alana Kane, who was at the warehouse party and on Tuesday was still listed among the missing.

She was a beautiful soul and I was really, really happy they were together, Fordyce said. I was just so happy Micah wasnt alone anymore and that he had found someone who loved him.

Now, friends and families are left with memories  and a legacy that will continue through a scholarship fund that will be set up in his name at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design to help young artists find their voice.

We never thought wed miss his room piled high with art assemblages, analog electronic gear, and solvents, we never thought wed miss having a vegan at our meat-eating table, we certainly never thought wed miss his Rubiks Cube tattoo, his parents wrote. Of course we miss all of it.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
Like a driver who staggers from a barroom into his car, or someone who drops a lighted match in a tinder-dry forest, a building owner who disregards obvious safety hazards can be held responsible in a criminal prosecution for the lethal consequences.

The events leading up to this weekends horrific Oakland warehouse fire appear to have been rife with warning signals. Residents jammed into a building that had permits only for industrial use. Exposed electrical wires dangling from a ceiling. Illegal generator hookups after a transformer caught fire. No sprinklers or smoke detectors. Complaints to the city that brought out an inspector, who tried to enter on Nov. 17, failed and never returned.

In such cases, said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the schools Criminal Justice Center, someone responsible for the property can be convicted of involuntary manslaughter if a reasonable person under the circumstances would have realized there was some high probability of death.

More for you Oakland warehouse fire: Full coverage

Whats more, Weisberg said, its not inconceivable that this could be a murder case, if there was evidence that a property owner knew of the dangers and deliberately ignored them  like someone with a record of DUI convictions who causes a fatal wreck while driving drunk.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley said Monday her investigators would be looking into possible criminal charges, including murder and involuntary manslaughter, in the fire at the Ghost Ship warehouse. It is too early to speculate on whether anyone will be prosecuted, she told reporters.

Murder prosecutions for industrial tragedies are more common in other countries. In Bangladesh, for example, the owner of a garment factory and 37 other people have been charged with murder, punishable by death, for the April 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building that killed 1,135 workers.

By contrast, after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers in 2010, U.S. prosecutors obtained a manslaughter guilty plea and a $4 billion fine from a BP subsidiary, but charged only five low-level employees with crimes and secured three misdemeanor guilty pleas.

The 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people brought federal charges against Pacific Gas and Electric Co.  but no individuals  and resulted in six felony convictions for safety violations with a maximum total fine of $3 million.

At least one U.S. jury has convicted company officials of murder for dangerous conditions on their property. An Illinois jury in 1985 found three managers of Film Recovery Systems Inc. guilty of murdering a worker who died from inhaling fumes of cyanide used for silver extraction, after the company removed labels that warned of the poisonous chemical.

But an appeals court overturned the convictions, and the managers later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Other cases have resulted in lesser verdicts, including one that involved the worst nightclub fire in U.S. history. The 1942 fire at the Cocoanut Grove in Boston killed 492 people. The nightclubs side doors had been bolted shut and the revolving front door was jammed with customers trying unsuccessfully to flee. A jury convicted the operator, Barrett Welansky, of wanton or reckless homicide, akin to manslaughter, and he was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. But the governor pardoned him after less than four years.

A nightclub owner and the tour manager of a band were sentenced to four years in prison for involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of 100 people in a club in Rhode Island in a 2003 blaze that was started by fireworks the manager set off as part of the show.

But criminal charges against building owners can sometimes be hard to prove.

Because we have such advanced regulatory codes, people (on juries) think of this as a regulatory crime and are often reluctant to convict building owners of criminal homicide, said Weisberg, the Stanford law professor.

One illustration comes from a recent case in Portland, Maine.

A landlord, Gregory Nisbet, was charged with six counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of six tenants at his apartment building in 2014. Prosecutors offered evidence that the smoke detectors had been disabled and that the building was poorly maintained and lacked sufficient exits. But a judge, who heard the case without a jury, ruled in October that none of the defects had caused the deaths, and convicted Nisbet only of a misdemeanor violation of the fire codes.

Such a verdict is also possible in California, where owners who violate building codes can be let off with fines, while manslaughter and murder convictions require proof that the violations or other wrongdoing caused the deaths.

Survivors of the victims of this weekends Ghost Ship fire can also file damage suits against the buildings owner, his chief tenant who leased the spaces, and possibly the promoter of the concert that brought people to the warehouse Friday night, said UC Berkeley Law Professor Mark Gergen. The main obstacle, he said, is that the operators of such gray economy enterprises typically have few assets and no insurance.

One entity that will be off the hook is the city of Oakland, for failing to conduct an inspection that might have shut the building down. A 1963 state law shields local governments from liability for harm allegedly caused by not performing inspections.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @egelko
The fallout continues in the collapse of FourWinds Logistics, a San Antonio oil-field service company with close ties to state Sen. Carlos Uresti.

Shannon Smith, FourWinds co-owner and its former chief operating officer, on Monday pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
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Hairspray Live! may be set in 1962, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, but the TV musicals producers and stars stress its just as relevant today.

What promises to be NBCs most exuberant holiday production yet also is being described as a tonic for the times we live in, when intolerance, divisiveness and racial injustices continue to make headlines.

Based on John Waters charmer of a movie and the Broadway musical that followed, the star-studded, tunes-aplenty show airs live at 7 p.m. Wednesday on NBC. It tells the story of Tracy Turnblad, the sweet, big-haired, plus-sized high school heroine who becomes an overnight sensation on a Baltimore TV dance show and uses her celebrity to combat segregation and promote diversity and inclusion.

Im just happy to do this particular story at this particular time in our country when, you know, race relations are where they are, director Kenny Leon (NBCs The Wiz Live!) told TV critics at a recent press session.

We can change laws, but the war is to change hearts, and nothing does that like song does, added Harvey Fierstein, who reprises his Tony-winning role of Tracys supportive mom Edna in the show. You know, music just brings us all together in a way that words just dont. And when you see a story like this, which is told in such good humor and with such warm heart and such good purpose, I think it will do wonders.

Hairspray Live! is the fourth live TV adapation of a musical by acclaimed executive producing team Neil Meron and Craig Zadan. After their NBC production of The Sound of Music starring Carrie Underwood drew an astounding 22 million viewers, they realized people all over America had a craving for theater in their living rooms. So they followed it up with Peter Pan and The Wiz. Slated for the 2017 holiday season is Bye Bye Birdie, starring Jennifer Lopez.

More Information Evolution of 'Hairspray Live!' "Hairspray" ( 1988 movie; currently available on Netflix): Written and directed by cult film maestro John Waters, it stars Ricki Lake as Tracy, Devine as mom Edna and Blondie as Velma Von Tussle. "Hairspray" (2002 musical): An instant hit on Broadway, the original production won eight Tony Awards and starred Marissa Jaret Winokur as Tracy and Harvey Fierstein as Edna. "Hairspray" (2007 movie): Produced by Neil Meron and Craig Zadan and directed by Adam Shankman, the movie version of the musical featured John Travolta as Edna Turnblad, Nikki Blonsky as daughter Tracy and an all-star cast that included Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah and Zak Efron. See More Collapse

What sets Hairspray apart from the duos first three NBC productions? It, like Foxs Grease: Live from January, will utilize the unpredictable outdoors  the Universal backlot, which has been transformed into suburban Baltimore. It also will include a live audience, lending a new energy and spontaneous feel to the proceedings.

Hairsprays biggest draw, however, may be its sparkling cast, comprised of an impressive roster of musical and comedic names: pop princess Ariana Grande as Tracys best friend, Penny Pingleton; Jennifer Hudson as force of nature Motormouth Maybelle; Kristin Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle, the mom of Tracys nemesis, Amber; Martin Short as Ednas husband, Wilbur; Sean Hayes as Mr. Pinky, owner of dress shop Hefty Hideaway; and Derek Hough as the dreamy host of The Corky Collins Show.

Two Disney Channel stars and a member of the original Hamilton cast add freshness to the lineup. Dove Cameron (Liv and Maddie) plays spoiled dance show staple Amber; Garrett Clayton (Teen Beach Movie) is Link Larkin, Tracys dance partner and beau; and Broadway crooner Ephraim Sykes plays Seaweed J. Stubbs, a hip hoofer who befriends Tracy Turnblad in detention and falls for the equally smitten Penny.

In small, but notable, roles, Billy Eichner will portray a local TV newscaster for Baltimores WZZT who reports on Tracy Turnblads daring moves to integrate The Corny Collins Show; Andrea Martin is Pennys hysterical and perennially worried mom; and Rosie ODonnell was cast as the feisty high school gym teacher.

Last but certainly not least is the Texan who portrays Tracy: TV newcomer Maddie Baillio. Baillio, who hails from League City, won the part at an enormous open casting call.

This was my ultimate dream role, Baillio said. Ive wanted to play this part since I heard the first cast recording when I was in Texas.

It was her first audition outside of college and school, she added.

I decided at 3 a.m. the night before the big open call in New York City that I was going to do it, she said. There were over 1,300 girls there, and I was number 344, and after four callbacks, I got the part. And now Im with this incredible cast, these people that Ive looked up to for so long so its like the ultimate master class.

Just as thrilled are the more experienced performers who surround her.

I never thought it would actually happen. Im so grateful, said recording star Grande, who got her start when barely a teenager in 13 on Broadway.

The fact that Im here doing this today and sitting on this stage with such incredible people  every time Harvey speaks, my heart bursts, a light goes off inside my heart. Kristin Chenoweth, were soulmates. Its very overwhelming and very exciting, and Pennys been my favorite character since the start.

Although Fierstein has donned the Edna wig more than 1,000 times, reprising her for TV is new, he said.

We are in this for the adventure, Fierstein said. We climb the mountain every day. Its a scary thing to do, but thats what we like doing.

American Idol alum Hudson said scary didnt begin to describe how she feels. Traumatizing is more like it. Im definitely nervous, she said. Thats for sure.

I just had my first Broadway experience. I just got off of Broadway, and just doing the first opening night was traumatizing to me. So now Im like, Are you crazy? Are you really going to do this on live television?' Because that feels like opening night happening on television.

Hudson has a friend in fear in Chenoweth, who, though a seasoned live theater performer, views TVs Hairspray Live! as a different animal.

I'm used to performing live several nights in a row, even up to a year, where I have many opportunities to get it right, she said. This is a one-time deal. I am so frightened. But I will say my costumes and hair and makeup will be amazing. As long as I dont fall!

Jeanne Jakles column appears Wednesdays and Sundays in mySA, and she writes online at mySA.com/Jakle. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.
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Need wings and grits from Tony G's Soul Food or a farm-fresh veggie tray with hummus from Tim the Girl Catering Co. delivered to your office? Foodee, a meal delivery service that connects restaurants and businesses, has launched in San Antonio.

For a $40 minimum order, Foodee delivers food from local restaurant partners primarily to businesses and offices for a flat $15 delivery fee, said Miranda Puente, Foodee's "city manager" for San Antonio.
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Waterford woman charged in shooting

WATERFORD  Police said a 45-year-old woman fired two shots at a man Sunday night during what was termed a domestic incident.

Carol C. MacDonald, 45, of Waterford faces felony charges of attempted second-degree murder and criminal use of a firearm.

Waterford police, State Police and Saratoga County sheriff's deputies responded to 58 Broad St. about 10:35 p.m. after a 911 caller reported a person had been shot.

Officers determined that MacDonald fired a shot through the back-door window at the victim and fired a second shot as the victim fled down the stairs, Waterford police said.

The unnamed victim was not shot but suffered facial lacerations from the broken glass shattered by the gunfire. Police recovered a weapon from the scene and arrested MacDonald.

MacDonald was arraigned in Waterford Justice Court by Justice N. Sunukjian and taken to Saratoga County Jail in lieu of $75,000 bail or $150,000 bond.

 Emily Masters

Cops: Man crashes while playing lottery

QUEENSBURY  A drunken driver who veered off the road and hit a utility pole early Sunday told police he was scratching off lottery tickets before the crash, the Warren County Sheriff's Office said.

Joseph P. Sharpe II, 25, of Queensbury was northbound at 12:58 a.m. on Country Club Road near Round Pond Road when he lost control of his 2011 Toyota Tacoma and crashed.

Sharpe was arrested after tests determined his blood alcohol content was 0.16 percent, the sheriff's office said.

He faces a driving while intoxicated charge and multiple traffic tickets.

In an unrelated incident, deputies arrested an Oklahoma woman Monday after she drove the wrong way on the Northway.

A call reporting a pickup truck northbound in the southbound lanes between exits 22 and 23 in Lake George brought officers to the Northway at 12:49 a.m.

Police soon found the 1998 Toyota Tacoma parked on the median, still facing the wrong way.

Deputies arrested Elisha M. Mann, 36, of Oklahoma City after a test showed her blood alcohol content was 0.20 percent, the sheriff's office said.

Mann faces an aggravated DWI charge and numerous traffic tickets.

She was held in lieu of $500 bail and was to be arraigned Monday.

 Emily Masters

Separate incidents yield DWI charges

WATERFORD  One drunken driver hit a tree and injured his passenger early Friday, while another parked in the middle of Saratoga Avenue and fell asleep Sunday night, town police said. Both drivers were arrested.

Christopher J. Sarinello, 24, of Watervliet hit a tree about 1:45 a.m. Friday near the intersection of Middletown and Fonda roads. Sarinello refused to take a breath test.

His passenger was taken to the hospital with injuries.

Sarinello is charged with driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, imprudent speed, failure to keep right and refusal to take a breath test.

He was arraigned in Waterford Justice Court and released.

About midnight Sunday, a patrol officer found a car parked in the middle of Saratoga Avenue, with Michelle G. Taylor, 27, of Albany sleeping inside, police said.

A breath test showed her blood alcohol content was 0.13 percent.

She is charged with DWI, driving with a BAC of 0.08 percent or more and a traffic violation. Taylor was issued traffic tickets and released.

She is to appear Jan. 5 in Waterford Justice Court.

 Emily Masters

Wanted man, 44, arrested after chase

JOHNSTOWN  Troopers arrested a wanted 44-year-old man after a short car chase.

On Saturday, Michael D. Urbanski was involved in a domestic incident in which he threatened to use a shotgun to harm a person, troopers said. He fled the scene and police were on the lookout for him.

About 2:40 p.m. that day, a trooper spotted Urbanski's vehicle on South Kingsboro Avenue in Johnstown.

The trooper pursued Urbanski for several minutes before he stopped his vehicle in a parking lot on North Perry Street. Troopers and Johnstown police officers surrounded Urbanski's vehicle but he refused to get out and tried to drive away, striking a fire hydrant and two police vehicles before he was stopped, troopers said.

Urbanski was treated at St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam for a small laceration to his left ear. He was charged with one count each of felony criminal possession of a weapon, misdemeanor menacing and misdemeanor assault.

He was arraigned in Johnstown City Court and sent to Fulton County Jail on $50,000 bail.

The investigation is continuing in both the pursuit and the initial domestic incident, State Police said.

 Staff report
Albany

Voters are split on whether Republican President-elect Donald Trump, a born-and-raised New Yorker, will be good for the Empire State, a new poll shows.

A Siena College poll released Monday shows 47 percent of registered voters statewide believe the Trump White House will be good for New Yorkers, while 45 percent say there are four bad years for this state on the horizon.

Upstaters (55-40) and suburbanites (51-42) agree that the Trump presidency will be good for the state, while 51 percent of New York City residents say the business mogul's foray into politics will be bad for New Yorkers.

Those views are backed up by even one of Trump's staunches opponents: Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The day after the election, Cuomo said he believes Trump would be a bonus for New York and other Northeast states, given that Republican administrations traditionally have been insensitive to the region's urban areas  but a native New Yorker likely understands the region's challenges better.

Overall, Trump has a negative 41-53 favorable-unfavorable rating, with only upstaters viewing him favorably (48-45).

Regardless of how they feel about Trump, voters from both parties and all regions of the state agree that Democrats in Congress should work collaboratively with the president-elect on his agenda. Overall, 65 percent of voters statewide believe congressional Democrats should work with Trump.

Away from Washington, Cuomo enjoys a 56-36 favorable-unfavorable rating, even as voters were polled less than a week after his former top aide, the former head of SUNY Polytechnic Institute and others were indicted on charges the stem from a bid-rigging case.

Regionally speaking, only upstaters view Cuomo unfavorably by a 50-46 margin.

Still, should Cuomo run for re-election in two years, 47 percent of voters statewide say they would re-elect the two-term incumbent, while 44 percent say they would prefer someone else.

What's more, 49 percent of voters statewide say Cuomo should not consider running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, while 44 percent say he should.

Heading into the 2017 legislative session, 20 percent of voters believe jobs should be the governor's top priority, and 19 percent say it should be education.

Siena surveyed 807 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 3.8 percent.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10

The crosstabs are below:

SNY December 2016 Poll by Matthew Hamilton on Scribd
On this date in ...

1916: Donald J. Stevens of North Pearl Street announced that he recently perfected a substitute for gasoline that would cost very little to manufacture and had already proven to get better mileage than existing gas. Stevens said he had tested various concoctions over the previous two years, but only happened upon the successful brew a few weeks back. He said he tested it out in motorcycles and automobiles and that despite the deluge of offers from oil companies, he would not sell the rights to it.

1966: A federal court jury in Albany brought in a $52,000 verdict against an Amsterdam company that failed to honor a contract to make plastic parts for Air Force helmets because many of its employees were allergic to the plastic. Consolidated Components Corp. of Portsmouth, Ohio, won the award from Polyply Inc. of Amsterdam following a five-day trial before U.S. District Court Judge James T. Foley. The plaintiff argued that a company engaged in use of plastics should take steps to employ persons who are not allergic to the materials.

1991: In Rensselaer County's political chess game that was the $124 million 1992 budget, the Democratic majority resorted to a bold maneuver and the next move was up to County Executive John L. Buono. Unable to override Buono's veto of their revised budget, the Democrats decided to revise the budget again. That meant Buono would most likely veto the budget again. But the next time around, Democratic leaders predicted they would have the necessary 13 votes for an override.

Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/
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Jack Stoeber of Milford is back with his mates in Hawaii.

Stoebers ashes were scattered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Dec. 1 in a service at the USS Utah Memorial, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Navy said.

A veteran of the Japanese attack 75 years ago Wednesday, Stoeber was a lifetime member of the national and state chapters of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association

Stoeber, who died in January at 97, was serving as a carpenters mate on board the USS Whitney when the Japanese attacked. Stoeber later said he was supposed to be on leave, visiting his uncle that day, but his plans changed  and with Zeros strafing and dive-bombing all around him, he took action.

I managed to get to an anti-aircraft gun and fire back, Stoeber told Hearst Connecticut Media in 2012. I felt pretty good about that.

Others from the region also lived through what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a date which will live in infamy.

Stuart G. Sears teaching career was interrupted by his service in the U.S. Navy, and the Milford man was also a Pearl Harbor survivor. Sears, who was principal at the former West Main School in Milford for 32 years, died in 2005 at age 88.

But two men each from Bridgeport and Stamford, and another from Darien, were among the 15 Connecticut residents killed in the sneak attack.

More Information Connecticut men who died in Pearl Harbor attack Vincent M. Horan, Stamford, Army, Wheeler Army Airfield John Luntta, Canton, Navy, USS Nevada Henry Lanquette, Wallingford, Navy, USS Arizona W.T. O'Neill Jr., Stamford, Navy, USS Arizona Stanislaus Orzech, Meriden, Navy, USS Arizona Richard Patterson, Berlin, Navy, USS Arizona George Povesco, Bridgeport, Navy, USS Arizona Mike Quarto, Norwich, Navy, USS Arizona Thomas Reeves, Thomaston, Navy, USS California William Seeley, New London, Navy, USS Arizona Gordon H. Sterling Jr., West Hartford, Army Air Forces, shot down over ocean Felix Wegrzyn, Bridgeport, Army Air Forces, Hickam Field Ulmont Whitehead, Hartford, Navy, USS Arizona Eric Allen, Darien, Navy, Hickam Field George J. Smith, New Haven, Army Air Forces, Hickam Field See More Collapse

There were 2,403 Americans who lost their lives in the explosive entry of the United States into World War II.

There are few, if any, military veterans in the area who served at Pearl Harbor that day who are still alive. But the day will be marked Wednesday by flags lowered to half-mast and somber memorials, and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in New Haven is decked out in red, white and blue lights.

Derby will hold a veterans celebration to mark the anniversary Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the Derby High School auditorium. The public is invited to the celebration of veterans from the Valley towns, which will be followed by an intergenerational meet and greet, organizers said.

Ansonias ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. at Veterans Park, with Patrick Freeman, commander of VFW Post 597 as the guest speaker and the Rev. Russell Lesiw of the Seymour Evangelical Baptist Church offering the benediction and invocation.

The Veterans Council of Greater Bridgeport is holding a ceremony at the World War II monument on the Col. Henry Mucci Memorial Green at 12:55 p.m.

The names of all of the Connecticut dead will be read and taps will be played.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy directed that all U.S. and state flags be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset in recognition of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Bridgeport, which has a Pearl Harbor Street, lost two men in the attack: George Povesko, who was killed on board the USS Arizona, and Felix Wegrzyn, serving in the Army Air Corps, who was killed at Hickham Field.

Cpl. Vincent Horan, of Stamford, was killed by a Japanese bomb fragment at Wheeler Field, the site of the first wave of the attack. He was a member of the 78th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he was an aviation mechanic.

He had joined the military on July, 27, 1939, less than two months before the German invasion of Poland that launched World War II in Europe.

He is remembered in his hometown by Vincent Horan Park, at Washington Avenue and Bridge Street.

For a long time there was no list of Connecticut men killed in the Pearl Harbor attacks. It was only in 1992 when then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker asked for the names and couldnt locate them that the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association was contacted and asked to compile a list.

Through the years, area survivors of the Pearl Harbor attacks have spoken at ceremonies or in schools, or been interviewed by reporters about that fateful day.

When Art Shafer, of Ansonia, was asked for his thoughts on the anniversary in 1987, he said, theres not much to say. Except, dont let it happen again.
The Silver Arrow Society of the Saratoga Automobile Museum traveled to meet with Jay Leno, center, at Leno's Big Dog Garage in Burbank, Calif. The Silver Arrows raised $65,000 for education and distracted-driving programs at the museum during their California trip this year.
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This story appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Nov. 23, 1949. The words and the headlines are reprinted as they ran then.

Adults proved even more eager than children to meet the famous visiting cartoonists and get the "inside dope" on their favorite comic strip characters, as the comics show opened Tuesday afternoon at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

The children were a little shy on meeting the creators of the daily comics that they read with eager regularity, but the grown folks stepped right up with such questions as "How does Dixie Dugan stay so young?" "Where does Smilin' Jack meet such good-looking women?" and "Are you really Red Ryder?"

The stream of visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts is expected to increase tonight, as the first evening session is held from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The regular afternoon session, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., is also scheduled, for the cartoonists. The famous exhibit, "20,000 Years of Comics" was on display from 9:30 am to 10 p.m. today.

The same hours for the cartoonists and the exhibit will be in effect Thursday.

A.D. O'Connor, national field director of the United States savings bond division, Treasury Department, expressed pleasure at the response of the public Thursday afternoon.

The comic show, to promote the sale of savings bonds, is sponsored by the Treasury Department, its Newspaper Publishers Advisory Committee, the National Cartoonists Society and, locally by The Chronicle, Post, Press and the Citizen newspapers.

The cartoonists volunteered their services and pay their own expenses to tour the nation with the comics show.

The exhibit, covering three rooms on the second floor of the Art Museum, is more than just a display of sketches by present-day artists. It is an argument, for and against, the whole system of comic strip production.

One part of the exhibit shows pictures of early word-pictures, done by the ancient peoples on rocks and in caves, to express some event in picture form. The development of this art is traced to more modern times. A special section is devoted to the English caricature.

It shows how, about the time our comic strips were being started in America some 50 years ago, England was having trouble over horror and sex cartoons -- a subject familiar to Americans of recent years in controversies over comics.

The exhibit offers good comparison of earlier and recent comics. It make adults conscious of the factors which create problems in the wide distribution of comics.

The cartoonists Wednesday were continuing their rounds of schools and business, places, giving demonstrations.

Here is the schedule for the Wednesday afternoon and night and Thursday:

WEDNESDAY

2 to 5 p.m.: Museum of Fine Arts; all cartoonists not engaged.

2:30 to 3 p.m.: Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation at 2720 Leeland: William de la Torre and Ray Bailey.

3:30 to 4 p.m.: Post Office downtown; V.T. Hamlin and Bob Schoencke.

5:20 p.m.: Dinner at the Veterans Hospital. 6:45 to 7:45 p.m.: Assembly at hospital. All cartoonists.

8 to 10 p.m.: Museum of Fine Arts; all cartoonists.

THURSDAY

12:15 p.m.: Ming Room in the Shamrock Hotel; Thanksgiving dinner; host Glenn McCarthy.

2 to 5 p.m.: Museum of Fine Arts; all artists not engaged.

5:30 p.m.: KPRC studios at Lamar Hotel for 6:15 p.m. broadcast; Roy Crane, Vic Green, Zack Mosley and Lank Leonard.

7:30 p.m.: KLEE-TV studios for television show, 8 to 8:30 p.m.; Chic Young, Milton Caniff, Russell Patterson and Fred Harman.

8 to 10 p.m.: Museum of Fine Arts; all cartoonists.
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The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office arrested a man and charged him with bank robbery of a Montgomery-area bank Tuesday.

Marvin Eugene Bowden, 30, is facing a felony robbery charge for allegedly holding up the BBVA Compass bank in the 19300 block of Texas 105 West near Montgomery around 12:45 p.m. The bank is located in a shopping center just east of Freeport Drive on Texas 105 West.

MCSO detectives believe Bowden was the lone robber who entered the bank with a duffle bag, "simulating" that he had a gun, according to MCSO Lt. Brady Fitzgerald. Bowden took an undisclosed amount of cash from the bank before entering a vehicle and fleeing east on Texas 105 West to a home off McCaleb Road near the intersection of Texas 105, which is about five miles from the bank.

Several people were initially detained at the home, though Bowden is the only one charged at this time. Bowden suffered a small hand wound and was taken directly to a local hospital before being booked in the Montgomery County Jail on the robbery charges.
Washington

President-elect Donald Trump's plan to use steep tariffs to punish companies that move overseas is running into an obstacle: Congressional Republicans.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy warned Monday that such an approach could cause a trade war. A better way to achieve the goal of keeping companies in the U.S. and growing jobs would be to rewrite the tax code and lower corporate rates, McCarthy said.

"I think that's a better way of solving the problem than getting into a trade war with a 35 percent tariff," the California Republican told reporters at the Capitol. "We've got to have a level playing field, that companies in America can compete on a level playing field across the world, and right now we do not have one."

McCarthy's comments came in response to Trump's threat, made in a series of tweets over the weekend, that he would level taxes on companies that relocate overseas and then try to sell their products back into the U.S.

Republicans have typically opposed such tariffs as an intrusion on the free market, and it was just the latest example of Trump making a statement or coming up with a plan that flouts GOP orthodoxy.

But Republican leaders are proving reluctant to challenge the president-elect, and McCarthy wrangled at some length with reporters at a pen-and-pad session, disputing suggestions that he and others in the party are soft-pedaling long-held beliefs in deference to Trump.

Trump would likely need congressional approval to impose tariffs on a specific company or a group of companies, trade law experts said. The president has broad authority to impose tariffs on specific categories of imported goods, but not to single out individual companies that make them.

House Speaker Paul Ryan was also asked about the tariff issue Monday, but he declined to comment directly.
Kumar, arrested by the Peroorkada police the other day and remanded in 15-days judicial custody, was the driver of Water Resources Minister Roshy Augustines private secretary Gopakumaran Nair.
Charleston, S.C.

A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of a white former police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.

A panel of one black and 11 white jurors  who had seemed close to a verdict to convict Friday, with apparently only one holdout  said Monday they were unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating more than 22 hours over four days.

"We as a jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all parties we are unable to come to a unanimous decision," said Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, reading a note from the jury before declaring a mistrial.

Former patrolman Michael Slager was charged with murder in the April 4, 2015, shooting death of 50-year-old Walter Scott. The judge had said the jury could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Outside the courtroom, Scott's mother and brother said justice will eventually prevail.

"I'm not sad, because I know justice will be served," Judy Scott said.

Asked whether he could forgive Slager, Anthony Scott said he could eventually "find the peace" to forgive the ex-officer but not before justice is served.

"He gets to spend Christmas with his family," he said of Slager.

Cellphone video taken by a bystander that showed Scott being shot in the back five times was shown widely in the media and on the internet and shocked the country, inflaming the national debate about how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers.

After the video went public, Slager was fired by the police department and charged with murder. Scott's family called for peace in the North Charleston community. Their calls for calm are believed to have helped prevent the kind of violence that erupted elsewhere when black men were killed in encounters with law enforcement.

It's the second time in recent weeks a jury has deadlocked in an officer-involved shooting. A mistrial was declared Nov. 12 when a jury in Cincinnati couldn't reach a verdict in the case of a former campus police officer who was also charged with shooting a black motorist.

The video in the Scott slaying renewed debate about how blacks are treated by white law officers. There have been similar debates over race and policing in places from New York to Ferguson, Missouri.
NORWALK  As chaos unfolded following terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, information was hard to come by.

Heather Dunn of Norwalk recalls phone networks offline and an inability to communicate with people in the region. So, when the Norwalk Health Department decided to form an Emergency Response Team, trained specifically for providing aid during a crisis, she decided to join. On Tuesday, she will be one of 25 people to graduate from the program.

Since then, systems have been put in place to make sure people have accurate and timely information, Dunn said. Its nice to see on a local level more consistency in how we respond to a crisis. We had first hand difficulty during 9/11 ... my recollection is it was really hard to communicate with people in other areas of the country.

Members of the emergency response team include community members with both medical and non-medical backgrounds who will donate their time and expertise to prepare for and respond to emergencies. They will also help to promote healthy living through the year.

Theresa Argondezzi, health educator for the Norwalk Health Department, said the purpose of the new team is that during a health emergency, the city needs as many people as possible to help with everything from disseminating information to providing physical help in distributing goods or even distributing medication in the event of an epidemic.

The health department is a pretty small staff and we coordinate with a lot of other agencies, but its important to have a community that is well trained to respond to emergency situations," Argondezzi said. Luckily most of the large scale emergencies that were training for may never happen, but there is a protocol and plan set up but it does require a team of people.

Argondezzi said that while it's unlikely a large scale emergency will occur, it's still good for the community to be prepared. In the mean time, the team will continue to meet monthly to build on their initial training and test their skills through tabletop exercises and drills.

She said the team will also help with other routine actions carried out by the health department that may need extra staffing.

We will ask them to help with things like informing public of ways to stay healthy, volunteering at community events or things that we could use extra staffing, Argondezzi said.

Members of the newly formed team represent 13 different languages and a variety of skill sets ranging from registered nurse to purchasing agent, which Argondezzi said is important to a well rounded response team.

Dunn said in addition to feeling like she can better respond to an emergency, shes enjoyed meeting people from other parts of the community who share the same goal.

It was really nice to meet people from different areas of the community and work with them, Dunn said. Its always nice to meet new people, and I really do feel much more confident that theres a system in place, especially in a world with Ebola and small pox and things like that, really getting things to people timely and how social media is used is really important to work out in advance.

The next ERT training program will be held in spring 2017, and spaces are available for the next class of volunteers. People looking to volunteer, are at least 18 years old and are interested in joining the ERT should contact Donna Schlegel, volunteer coordinator, at dschlegel@norwalkct.org for more information.

KKrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
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Nick Gomez-Hall loved his guitar, his white pickup truck, his collection of LP records and his countless friends.

He liked offering them rides in his truck, when he wasnt sleeping in the back of it himself. And he had a thing for bowling. Every Tuesday night, non-stop, for three hours at a stretch.

He had a special joy of life, a playfulness, said his friend and former college professor, Mark Baumer. He enjoyed every minute.

Gomez-Hall, of Berkeley, was one of 36 people to die in Friday nights disastrous warehouse fire in Oakland, authorities confirmed. He was 25.

He grew up in Coronado, near San Diego, and attended Brown University in Rhode Island. He stuck around Providence after graduating in 2013 to work in a record store and on a small local farm. Friends say he was paid for his labors in LP records and in vegetables, largely zucchini.

At Brown, he took Baumers fiction writing class seven years ago  and the two remained friends. Baumer said his former student could write about anything.

He could describe a leaf and bring a human quality to it, Baumer said.

With his Brown classmate Travis Lloyd, he formed a band called Nightmom that performed in the Providence area.

Hey Nick, if theres one thing you taught me its to feel this deeply, Lloyd posted online, after learning of his friends death. You are a muse to so many and will never stop guiding us.

The group wrote, recorded and released several edgy songs, including one called Drain Machine.

Dont worry about a thing, I can drain you, my whole life is a drain machine, the two friends sang.

After driving his truck back to California and sleeping in the rear at night  as much to see the stars as save the cost of motels  he found a job as an administrative assistant with Counterpoint Press, a small Berkeley publishing house.

In a statement, Counterpoint said it was devastated over the loss of our co-worker and dear friend, Nick.

Whether he was recommending new music to listen to (and it was always so good), regaling us with tales of the bowling alley, offering his beloved truck for a ride if anyone needed it, or sharing his much appreciated opinions about a book jacket or manuscript, he made everyone feel like they were his friend. He was kind, considerate, hilarious.

His passion for bowling was legendary and he would turn up religiously at Albany Bowl with a half dozen friends for the Tuesday night special, when bowling was marked down to $1.50 a game.

He would arrive at the bowling alley two hours early to make sure he could claim an open lane, manager Mike Richards recalled.

He knew the system around here, Richards said. And he sure loved bowling.

Not long before he died, Gomez-Hall reached out one last time to his former professor, who is walking barefoot across the U.S. to raise money for climate change awareness.

If you see Mark, Gomez-Hall wrote, hand him a bag of fresh fruit.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com
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The search for the recipient of a Purple Heart and other military medals ended Tuesday after the items were returned to the owners family.

Three people who played a role in the search traveled from Midland to Tye, a town west of Abilene. They met with the family members of Jim Carter, who served in the Army during World War II.

Nephew Tommy Carter is grateful for the Midlanders who conducted the investigation, he said Monday in a phone interview.

Its an honor, and its humbling, Carter said. When you get down to it, I wasnt the one who paid the price. My uncle did.

Carter, who now lives in Fort Worth, grew up in Midland and had formed a close bond with his Uncle Jim and his wife, Sarah.

Carters wife, Nancy, said the seven medals will help them remember Jim Carter, who died in Midland in 1982.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah were dear to us, she said. We didnt have anything besides a truck that was inherited to Tommy. To have something belonging to them is meaningful.

More for you Midlanders remember 75 years after Pearl Harbor attack

The search to find the recipient of the Purple Heart and other awards started last month, according to Sandy Dunlap, a Midland County resident involved in several veterans groups. She said she made a post on Facebook after a man found the medals in a Dumpster and gave them to her niece, Amy Davis.

The search picked up momentum with Gary Kennedy, founder of the organization HEART (Healing Emotions Above Reasons and Thoughts), which serves veterans and first responders. He said hearing about the discarded medals made him emotional.

Being in the Army, I have stories of what I have done, Kennedy said. A Purple Heart is something I dont want. It means you got shot  a bullet entered your body. When you get the Purple Heart, its honorable. But to find it in the Dumpster, its disheartening.

Kennedy put out his contact information and received several calls, emails and text messages from people living as far away as Honolulu. But the only valid tip came from a woman in Denver, who found Jim Carters death certificate on ancestry.com.

Kennedy then searched records at Resthaven Memorial Park and found contact information for Tommy Carter.

The best thing was to be able to find the family, Kennedy said. I have stories from being in the military for years but not a Purple Heart.

Jim Carter earned the Purple Heart after he was shot in the leg or foot in Europe, according to his nephew. Carter said his father  who also served in the war  guarded the bridge that transported the ambulance carrying his injured uncle.

Dunlap said learning the story of the brothers made finding the recipient more significant.

My only goal was to get the medals into the familys hands, where they belonged, Dunlap said.

The Carter family isnt sure how the medals ended up in a Midland Dumpster. But Tommy Carter thinks his aunt, who has Alzheimers disease, could have accidentally thrown them away before she moved to California earlier this year.

She had two caretakers in their house, Carter said. They said sometimes she was throwing things away for no reason. It wasnt out of anger. It was just something that happened.

For now, he said the family values the unexpected finds.

It has blown us away, Carter said. Im going to build a shadow box to hold the medals.
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The family of the 15-year-old girl involved in a sex scandal at Edgewood Independent School District on Monday filed a federal lawsuit against the district, its police department, Memorial High School and former Edgewood employees Marcus Revilla and Manuel Hernandez.

Revilla, a former science teacher at Memorial, was sentenced in September 2014 to 17 years in federal prison without parole for taking photos of himself having sex with the girl during the 2013-2014 school year. The victim was a student at Memorial and became pregnant with his child.

Hernandez, an Edgewood ISD police officer, was charged in April of 2014 of aggravated sexual assault, accused of having sex with the same girl around the same time. He is awaiting trial.

RELATED: Former Texas pediatrician headed to prison for child pornography

The victim is now 18 and Luis Vera, the lawyer who is representing her, said he is seeking an undetermined amount of money to help her support her son, so she doesnt have to kill herself working nights, so she can go to school and have a good life.

Shes got to take care of this baby until he is at least 18, so what are the costs of raising a child on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, yearly? Multiply that by at the minimum 18 and you come up with a figure, Vera said.

The lawsuit cites violations of Title IX and the 14th amendments civil rights provisions, including the right to due process and to equal protection under the law.

Vera said he filed suit in federal court because state lawsuits against school districts are more difficult.

RELATED: Texas teacher accused of starting affair with teen student via Snapchat ahead of wedding

At the state level it would get dismissed more easily, because in Texas state law, the school districts have almost absolute immunity in all actions, he said.

The lawsuit alleges the criminal acts arose out of a larger climate of district employees not caring for their students and looking the other way when they were being harmed. It cited a custom, pattern, and practice of reckless disregard for the safety of the children.

This is how sickening it is, everybody knew and everybody kept their mouth shut, Vera said.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net
As rates of prescription painkiller abuse remain stubbornly high, a number of states are attempting to cut off the supply at its source by making it harder for doctors to prescribe the addictive pills to Medicaid patients.

Recommendations on how to make these restrictions and requirements were detailed in a "best practices" guide from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

But the move is prompting worry from some physicians who say it could have the unintended consequence of keeping appropriate medical treatment from people with chronic pain.

The CMS protocols, released last January, encourage but do not demand that state Medicaid programs adopt more stringent coverage requirements for opioids, such as requiring physicians to get prior authorization before writing a prescription or stipulating that patients try other treatment options first, which is sometimes called "step therapy." Patients may also have to provide proof that they meet certain medical criteria in order for their pain pills to be covered.

Some states' efforts to curtail prescribing predated CMS' bulletin. But the advisory added new fuel to the trend. States such as New York, Rhode Island and Maine adopted new prescription size limits this year, and West Virginia will require prior authorization starting next year. In the 2016 fiscal year, 22 states either adopted or toughened their prescription size limits, and 18 did so with prior authorization.

The goal is to make physicians think twice before prescribing the highly addictive medicines _ a change many say is necessary, especially within the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people. After all, research indicates Medicaid beneficiaries are prescribed opioids at twice the rate of the rest of the population, and are at three to six times greater risk of an overdose.

They can take the form of seemingly straightforward controls such as limiting prescriptions to a one-month supply and requiring patients to pick up the doctors' written refill order in person. For some, though, they are problematic.

"This is really going to limit patient access," said John Meigs, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and a practicing doctor in Centreville, Ala. "There are patients with legitimate pain, who have legitimate need."

So far, state policies increasingly echo the CMS suggestions. Forty-six Medicaid programs have put in place prescription caps, 45 require prior authorization, 42 need proof of meeting clinical guidelines, and 32 allow the drugs only after patients have exhausted other options.

Some commercial plans are also using these kinds of strategies, though experts said it's unclear how far that trend will spread.

"This is an indication that policymakers are finally recognizing that overprescribing of opioids is fueling the epidemic," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a Brandeis University senior scientist and the executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, an advocacy group.

But others note this perspective overlooks the separate, underlying challenge of treating a chronic condition. "Just because it is now harder to prescribe patients opioid medicines, it does not mean we have fewer patients who have pain," said Dr. Eric Weil, the associate chief for clinical affairs in internal general medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Such restrictions can become a difficulty, especially since Medicaid beneficiaries already are dealing with limited means.

For instance, a smaller prescription dose means patients _ whose chronic pain makes travel a challenge _ have to visit the doctor more often for medicine. Not only is that difficult, it can also absorb time and extra transportation money.

That kind of experience is leading some state Medicaid officials to seek a balance between limiting abuse and allowing reasonable access to medications.

Louisiana's Medicaid program, for instance, already has capped the number of pills a doctor can prescribe, so a prescription can't span longer than 30 days, and requires proof that clinical guidelines have been followed before opioid painkillers are used. State officials are eyeing additional changes, such as lower prescription caps and potentially requiring prior authorization for opioid prescriptions.

But there can be a tension between these limits and coverage of other pain management options. For example, beneficiaries are limited to one visit with a pain specialist. They also can receive prescriptions for some less powerful and usually less effective pain medications.

"It's not enough," said Dr. SreyRam Kuy, Louisiana's Medicaid medical director. And years of budget cuts to the program mean it's difficult to pony up the funds to properly cover a robust array of care options.

"We need much more to address this," she said. "If you just cut off the pills, it's not addressing the bigger picture."

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency
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Four people who died Saturday in a fatal crash involving three vehicles near Fredericksburg have been identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Destiny Conatser, 17, of Round Rock, Evan Langbein, 15, of Fredericksburg, Keith Hoover, 58, of Azel, and Don Corley Jr., 61, of Azel, all died following a crash that occurred shortly before noon Saturday on U.S. 290 just east of F.M. 1376 near Fredericksburg.

RELATED: Sheriff's deputy dead after vehicle swallowed by sinkhole in San Antonio: officials

Conatser was driving a white Toyota passenger car with Langbein inside and was westbound in the inside lane on U.S. 290 near Fredericksburg when the Conatser lost control and struck a brown Chevrolet pickup traveling the same direction in the outside lane, officials said. The Toyota then veered over the double yellow center line and into eastbound traffic, according to DPS.

The driver of a white Chevrolet Suburban traveling east in the inside lane had no time to react and collided with the Toyota, police said.

RELATED: BCSO: Deputy injured in vehicle pursuit with stolen pickup, 1 man arrested

Conatser and Langbein, both wearing seat belts, died at the scene, DPS said.

DPS said Hoover and Corley were passengers inside the Suburban and died as a result of their injuries at Hill Country Memorial Hospital in Fredericksburg. Hoover was wearing his seat belt, but Corley was not. The two mens wives, Carol Hoover, 57, and Sandra Corley, 61, were transported to St. Davids Hospital South Austin for treatment.

The Suburban driver and his wife, Robert and Sharon Thomas, 66 and 64, were transported to Hill Country Memorial Hospital in Fredericksburg for their injuries, according to DPS.

RELATED: Police identify teen killed by big rig on I-35, say death is likely a suicide

The pickup struck by the Toyota skidded on its side across U.S. 290 and struck a tree and the driver, 66-year-old Wayne Talley, was transported to San Antonio Military Medical Center for treatment. He was wearing his seat belt, DPS said.

The cause of the crash has yet to be determined, DPS said.

The Department of Public Safety would like to remind all drivers to be extra careful when driving in adverse weather. Drive at a safe speed, minimize distractions and always wear your safety belt, DPS said in a news release.

Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

twhite@mysa.com

Twitter: @tylerlwhite
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A Bexar County jury took a little less than 20 minutes Monday to find Michael Scott Quinn guilty of murder in the brutal hammer beating death of Albert Guerra, whose body was dismembered with a tree-trimming saw and set on fire.

A medical examiner had testified that Guerra, 56, died May 4, 2013, from blunt force trauma injuries after being hit 19 times with a hammer on the back of the head. He already was dead when his legs were sawed off  one at the knee and the other above the thigh.

The case was about rage and the total destruction of a human being, prosecutor Jason Goss told the jury in closing arguments.

RELATED: Watch: Accused S.A. cop killer Otis McKane gives jailhouse interview

What a horrible way to die, he said. What a horrible way to have your body treated after death.

San Antonio firefighters discovered the victims burning remains on a plastic sheet beside the tools when they went to Guerras North Side home to put out two separate fires. Quinn, now 53, told police in a videotaped interview that Guerra died because he hit Connie Yanez, a woman who had been involved with both men.

Yanez, now 40, and Guerra had just broken up and Quinn said the pair went to Guerras home to get her things the night of the slaying. Both were charged with murder and each gave statements confessing to the killing, though prosecutors discounted Yanezs confession and she declined to testify Friday, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Quinn did not testify until the punishment phase began after the guilty verdict was read. He told the jury under questioning by his attorney, Bob M. Hicks, that he and Yanez had planned all along that Quinn would take the blame.

I told her that I would take the rap, Quinn said. I wasnt planning on getting caught.

Quinn told the jury that nothing he said in his videotaped confession to police was true, other than the fact that he did cut Guerras legs off.

RELATED: Sheriff's deputy dead after vehicle swallowed by sinkhole in San Antonio: officials

He said he didnt remember hitting Guerra with a hammer because he hadnt eaten and that he had killed a full bottle of tequila when he began sawing off the victims legs.

His responses to questions by his own attorney at times seemed incoherent and off topic, but he stuck by his claims of no recollection of the horrific killing. Questioned by Goss, he said he did remember Yanez bringing him a circular saw and that he remembered cutting up the body, he remembered the blood and remembered asking Yanez if she had the plastic sheeting.

Asked if he felt guilty, he said he felt sorry that I was tricked into this.

In closing arguments before the verdict, prosecutors reminded the jury that the autopsy performed on Guerra found that the victim had Benadryl and Trazadone in his system, along with blood pressure medication.

The man was asleep, said prosecutor Talia Nye. Why was there a fire in the bed and living room? There was a separate fire in the bed because thats where he was killed. Thats where most of the blood was, because he was asleep.

Quinn had said he decided to burn the body because sawing it up was hard, Goss recalled, adding, This man sawed through a femur with a tree trimming saw. Of course it was hard.

Hicks pointed to Yanezs video confessionargued that Quinn called his brother that night and admitted to cutting the victim, but he never said he killed him and never said anything about a hammer.

Testimony in the punishment phase of the trial continues Tuesday morning in the 437th state District Court.

ezavala@express-news.net

Twitter: @elizabeth2863
When City Council members make final decisions in early 2017 on the largest municipal bond program in San Antonio history, theyll review a proposal that includes fully funding ongoing work in Hemisfair Park.

Late Monday night, the Parks, Recreation & Open Space community bond committee, composed of some 32 members from across San Antonio, batted down attempts from various districts to raid Hemisfair funding  some $21 million recommended by city staff.
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A San Antonio man whod received probation for repeatedly impersonating a Texas Ranger has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for violating the court-ordered terms of his community supervision.

Gregory B. Davis, who was prosecuted in separate cases in Bexar and Caldwell counties in 2013 and 2014, respectively, had claimed to be affiliated with the Republic of Texas separatist group.

The prison term was handed down Monday by state District Judge Todd Blomerth in Caldwell County, where Davis, 65, refused to enter a plea at a probation revocation hearing.

He said that the judge did not have any authority over him, nor did the court, Assistant District Attorney Cassie Benoist said later. She said she called three witnesses who testified that Davis had violated his probation.

The case stemmed from a 2011 Caldwell County incident in which a female motorist reported Davis had approached her in a parking lot and identified himself as a Texas Ranger and wanted her to perform a field sobriety test.

Benoist said Davis pleaded guilty to impersonating a public servant under a Jan. 16, 2014 agreement in exchange for a sentence of 10 years deferred adjudication probation, which included a 180-day jail term, a $2,500 fine and orders to perform 400 hours of community service and undergo counseling.

She said Blomerth found that Davis had failed seven times to report to probation officers, traveled outside Bexar County, his county of residence, without permission, failed to pay his fine and probation fees and failed to complete any community service work.

Davis, whod been in custody since September, did not testify but was allowed to enter a lengthy written statement into the court record, according to Benoist. His attorney could not be reached for comment.

I believe the judge made a good call, Benoist said. It puts the public at risk when people portray themselves as police officers when theyre not.

In Bexar County, Davis was twice arrested in 2011, accused of posing as a Texas Ranger by wearing a silver badge that said Texas Ranger and carrying a pistol.

When approached by Helotes Police Chief Robert Hunley at a charity rodeo, Davis identified himself as Col. Gregory Davis, director of Rangers and claimed he was asked to assist with security at the event, authorities said.

A suspicious Hunley contacted the actual Texas Rangers, who arrested Davis.

His second arrest, by San Antonio police, occurred at a bank where Davis was again wearing a gun and badge. He told the officers that he had paperwork giving him authority as a Ranger, court documents state.

The 2013 plea deal that resolved the Bexar County charges of unlawfully carrying a handgun and impersonating a public servant called for Davis to pay a fine of $1,250 and to perform 200 hours of community service and to serve probation.

Although Davis has claimed affiliation with the Republic of Texas, the groups president, John Jarnecke of Fredericksburg, said, Thats not a name that Im familiar with.

zeke@express-news.net
A San Antonio man was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for shooting a man in a drug deal in 2014 on the Northwest Side.

It was the maximum sentence possible under a plea agreement that Antonio Ramon Miranda, now 32, entered into before state District Judge Lori Valenzuela. He will have to serve at least half of that term before becoming eligible for parole.
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Crews continue to repair a massive sinkhole on the Southwest Side Tuesday, more than 40 hours after the crater swallowed two vehicles and left a Bexar County Sheriff's deputy dead.

Dora Lina (Solis) Nishihara, a part-time county deputy, was traveling Sunday evening when her car fell into the hole in the 8400 block of Quintana Road, said BCSO spokesman James Keith in a news release.

RELATED: Officials: Sheriff's deputy dead after vehicle swallowed by sinkhole in San Antonio

Early Tuesday afternoon, water was still rushing through the open hole. SAWS crews and contractors are installing fencing around the hole and barricades on Quintana Road.

SAWS Presidents CEO Robert Puente and Chief Operating Officer Steve Clouse will give an update at the scene later this afternoon, officials said.

San Antonio Fire Department crews, with the help of a crane, worked to recover Nishihara's body and vehicle Monday afternoon from the 12 feet of swift-moving water, officials said.

RELATED: 8 tips to escape your car in a high water emergency

Sinkholes, which can occur naturally or result from human activity, happen when a void opens up after the soil or rock below a surface is eroded, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Anne Hayden, SAWS spokeswoman, said "true" sinkholes are found more frequently in Florida, where they have swallowed up horses, barns and left one man dead in 2013.

RELATED: Soaking rains will yield to drier weather, with a morning freeze by Friday

However, Hayden could not speak to what kind of collapse occurred Sunday evening.

"We're not at a point where we're ready to discuss what happened there," she said. "But it was certainly a unique set of circumstances."

Staff writer Tyler White contributed to this report.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Texas state Sen. Jose Menendez ,D-San Antonio, filed a bill Tuesday morning that would let doctors prescribe medicinal cannabis for patients in need.

Menendez called cannabis a legitimate medicine that can help a variety of sick people, whether they are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, cancer, multiple sclerosis or epilepsy.
Cibolo Grange Farmers and Artisans Market is open 2-6 p.m. every Thursday at 413 N. Main St. in downtown Cibolo. Local produce, meats, goat cheese, fresh eggs, baked goods, woodworking, jewelry, and arts and crafts for sale. Gluten-free options available.

Randolph Area Christian Assistance Program has processed its Christmas applications and still needs sponsors for 33 children from 18 families for Christmas. RACAP is collecting food and financial donations to help with the holiday meal baskets it provides to needy families. Contact: 658-1613.

Cibolos Blue Santa Program is accepting applications through Dec. 9. Application forms are available on the citys website and at the Cibolo Police Department.

Phone Calls From Santa needs volunteers to make calls to children during the holiday season. The project supports the Volunteer Services Council of the San Antonio State Hospital, whose mission is to provide goods and services not funded with traditional state dollars. Calls will be made 6:30-8 p.m. Dec. 13-15. Contact: Stephanie Weimer, 531-8004; stephanie.weimer@dshs.state.tx.us.

Saturday, Dec. 10

First Baptist Church of Universal City, 1401 Pat Booker Road, will present The Heart of Christmas, a musical featuring choir, drama and orchestra, at 5 p.m Dec. 10-11 in the church sanctuary. No admission charge; public invited. For more information, call the church office at 658-6394.

Christmas at the Harrison House takes place 5-8:00 p.m. All are invited to the Christmas Open House for refreshments and fellowship. Contact: Madeline Burdett, 651-6266.

Movies in the Park will screen the 2003 holiday comedy Elf in Pickrell Park, 200 Aero Ave. Concessions open at 5:30 p.m., previews begin at 5:45 p.m., and the screening begins at 6 p.m. The screening is a presentation by Schertz Parks and Recreation and co-sponsor The Crossvine. The film is rated PG. Contact: 619-1850.

Christmas Cantata is at 6 p.m. Dec. 10 and at 10:45 a.m. Dec. 11, at Eisenhauer Road Baptist Church, 3950 Eisenhauer Road. Gather at the Manger will be performed. Contact: 655-4643.

Sunday, Dec. 11

American Legion Auxiliary Unit 667 will serve its Second Sunday breakfast buffet from 8-11:30 a.m. at the Post, 504 Bowie in Universal City. Menu includes omelets and eggs made to order, pancakes and French toast, bacon, sausage, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, and various sweets and fruits. Cost is $7 per adult. The auxiliary will hold a Christmas Goodies bake sale during the breakfast. Contact: 658-3731.

Upcoming

The Selma Police Department will host an open forum for residents starting at 7 p.m. Dec. 14 at the Selma Police Department training room, 9375 Corporate Drive. The forum is designed to foster an open dialogue between Selma residents and business owners and Selma Police Department leadership regarding the direction of the department and to address any concerns. Contact: 651-5368.

All phone numbers are in the 210 area code unless noted. Send event details and a phone number to mrenteria@express-news.net. Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. the Thursday before publication.
Residents of the 1,200-home Northampton subdivision may find themselves residents of Converse sooner rather than later, as city officials are in negotiations for a land swap-for-services deal with the city of San Antonio.

A 10-year land swap deal signed in 2006 turned a swath of San Antonio land along FM 78 over to Converse  including the sales tax revenue-generating Walmart store in the 8300 block of FM 78  in exchange for Converse providing fire and EMS service to San Antonio land in the area.

Converse City Manager Lanny Lambert said the 2006 deal expired on Nov. 30, with little inspiration to renew it. In a July 30 letter to San Antonio City Manager Sheryl Sculley, Lambert said he would not recommend Converse approve a requested two-year renewal of the pact, as suggested by San Antonio Deputy Fire Chief Carl Wedige.

I am unable to recommend an extension until the city of Converse and the city of San Antonio negotiate compensation for continued Converse fire and EMS service for the area, Lambert wrote.

Under the initial 10-year deal, Converse received land fronting FM 78 and the resulting sales tax revenue that came with it. In exchange, Converse was to provide fire/EMS service for free as its role in the land. That service saved the city of San Antonio from having to build, equip and staff a fire/EMS substation in the area.

Lambert said Converse fire and EMS response time is a fraction of what San Antonio offered prior to the 2006 agreement. San Antonio fire trucks ran from a fire station at 6000 Distribution, near Interstate 35 off Rittiman Road. The station is 5.3 miles from the entrance to Northampton and can face delays by Union Pacific Railroad tracks on Rittiman and at Gibbs-Sprawl Road. Converses two stations are 1.3 and 1.4 miles from Northampton, with no rails to cross.

Since the 10-year fire/EMS pact expired on Nov. 30, Converse will bill the city of San Antonio $778 per fire/EMS run into the Northampton subdivision, which shares a fence line with Converse City Park.

Under the former agreement, they gave us the land on which Walmart is situated. That agreement has now expired, Lambert said. Our response to San Antonio basically is, if you are going to continue, you have to reimburse us. They have not paid anything yet.

He said Converse makes an average of 200 to 250 runs per year into the subdivision, which would create annual payments of between $150,000 to $200,000 for San Antonio to make if it wants Converse to continue serving its Northampton residents.

What were talking about is the potential of annexation, where we do a land swap  a municipal boundary adjustment, thats what we are talking about, Lambert said. It hasnt been decided yet, but Northampton would then become part of Converse.

Lambert said Converse also is targeting the I-10 land that San Antonio dropped from its annexation proposal.

Initially, San Antonio proposed a mammoth annexation package in 2015 that included homes along Interstate 10 that approach Converse city limits. But in June of this year, San Antonio dropped the I-10 portion of land from the plan, deeming it too costly to fund. That drop has opened the door for Converse to pursue annexation.

Were talking with them about all of the area between Converse and I-10, the area that they were looking at for annexation, and they have agreed to talk about it, he added.

Converse already provides fire and EMS service into those areas through its Emergency Services District No. 1 arrangement, so the city would not face exorbitant costs that San Antonio would face with creating a fire substation.

We already provide that. Its already worked into our budget. We already provide it under the initial agreement, he said.

Lambert said he thinks the agreement will come soon. I think the way San Antonio is thinking is, (it could be) some time in 2017. We have lower taxes and were closer. (Northampton) is on an island, between our park and the Walmart land.

Until such an agreement is met, Lambert said the city of San Antonio will pay Converse for its fire service.

In the meantime, nothing has changed. They paid for it with the land swap, and with that agreement expired, now they will pay cash for it, he added.

jflinn@express-news.net
Las Nuevas Tamaleras, a bilingual comedy that follows three novice tamal makers as theyre guided by the unseen spirits of two experienced tamaleras, is being staged at the Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St., through Sunday, Dec. 11. Performances are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays. $12 to $25. Contact: 223-2009.

Book Cellar Holiday Blowout Sale by the Friends of the Library at Central Library, 600 Soledad. The Book Cellar in the basement of Central Library sells used books. The holiday sale continues through Sunday, Dec. 11. Contact: 227-9519.

Phone calls from Santa needs volunteers to make calls to children during the holiday season. The project supports the Volunteer Services Council of the San Antonio State Hospital, whose mission is to provide goods and services not funded with traditional state dollars. Calls will be made 6:30-8 p.m. Dec. 13-15. Contact: Stephanie Weimer, 531-8004 or stephanie.weimer@dshs.state.tx.us.

Mixed Martial Arts meets 6-8 p.m. Mondays at St. Michaels Catholic Church hall, 418 Indiana St. Classes are taught by Mike Ortiz, a mixed martial arts champion. Contact: 264-5291.

Main Plaza Farmers Market is open 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesdays through Dec. 20 at Main Plaza downtown. Shop from local vendors for items including natural bath products and jewelry. Contact: mainplaza.org

Peoples Nite Market at La Villita farmers market 5-10 p.m. every Tuesday through the end of the year. Free admission. Free parking at city-owned meters, parking lots and parking garages after 5 p.m. Contact: 207-8614.

Masonic Anchor Lodge 424 meets 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays at 700 Hot Wells Blvd.

Free ongoing meditation classes based on Deepak Chopras Getting Unstuck series are open to all seniors at Copeland Senior Activities Center, 5703 S. Flores St. (corner of South Flores and Southcross Boulevard; parking entrance on Southcross). Classes are 10:30 a.m.-noon Wednesdays. No need to bring anything or wear special clothing. Contact: 927-1112.

Out of Darkness depression support group meets 7-8 p.m. Wednesdays at Mayfield Park Church, 700 W. Hutchins Place. Sessions are ongoing for those who need short- and long-term support. Child care available. Contact: 923-2241.

Families Recovering Group meets 7 p.m. Thursdays at Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Free 12-step program is similar to Al-Anon and open to everyone. Contact: 863-1813 or 861-4161.

City Base Cancer Support Group meets 7 p.m. Thursdays at Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Contact: Brenda Fox, 415-2830.

Celebrate Recovery is a support group for people struggling with hurts, hang-ups and habits that meets Friday nights at Mayfield Park Church, 700 W. Hutchins Place. Meetings begin with a meal at 6:30 p.m. in the fellowship hall. Large-group time starts at 7:15 p.m., followed by smaller groups at 8:15 p.m. Child care available. Contact: 923-2241.

Free Clothes Closet 9 a.m.-noon every first Saturday of the month at Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Free clothing for those in need. Contact: 333-4947.

Wednesday, Dec. 7

Truckin Tomato launches its first Mid-Week Market, an indoor farmers market, 3-7 p.m. at 503 Chestnut St. Subsequent markets will be held every Wednesday. Contact: 241-3545.

Thursday, Dec. 8

Mayors Closing Event is a special presentation of The Extraordinary Stories of (local) People of Color and Why They Matter, the book chosen as part of the Mayors Book Club. Thomas Porter, instructor of interdisciplinary studies at UTSA, will lead a writing workshop where participants will learn how to begin documenting their own stories. 6-7:30 p.m. Mission Library, 3134 Roosevelt Ave. Contact: 207-2704.

Friday, Dec. 9

Mobile Mercado 2-4 p.m. at Las Palmas Library, 515 Castroville Road. The San Antonio Food Banks combination mobile mini-grocery and a healthy food truck aims to increase access to healthy food with emphasis on seasonal fruits and vegetables. Try samples prepared by certified chefs and nutrition professionals highlighting the benefits of foods available for purchase. WIC food items available for sale; Lone Star cards (SNAP) accepted. Contact: 207-9200.

Saturday, Dec. 10

Rummage sale by the Knights of Columbus Council 7808 Ladies Auxiliary is 6 a.m.-1 p.m. at St. Leonard Catholic Church parking lot, 8510 S. Zarzamora St. Vendors pay $10 per space; bring own tables and chairs. Contact: 924-6000

La Gran Tamalada is an annual community workshop that celebrates the tradition of making tamales. The free two-hour event starts at 11 a.m. at Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St. A combination of storytelling, cooking instruction and history lesson, the event is for all ages. For the second year, the Cortez Family, owners of Mi Tierra restaurant, will lead the tamalada. Contact: 271-3151.

WinterFest 2-3 p.m. Central Library, 600 Soledad, is open to kids of all ages. Activities include winter-related fun. Free. Contact: 207-2500

Sunday, Dec. 11

Holiday Play in the Park 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Travis Park downtown includes a performance of The Gingerbread Man by the Magik Theatre at 1 p.m.; food trucks, crafts and Santa Claus. Free admission.

Local pilgrimage from Mission Concepcion, 807 Mission Road, begins at 11:30 a.m. Celebration of el dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe will include meditation at Missions San Jose and San Juan and matachine and Mass at Mission Espada. Contact: 722-8629; tybanez60@gmail.com

Monday, Dec. 12

Villa Coronado Neighborhood Association meets 6 p.m. at the Villa Coronado gym meeting room, 11030 Ruidosa.

Tuesday, Dec. 13

Guerra Knits and Crochets! meets 6-7:30 p.m. at Guerra Library, 7978 Military Drive West. Open to adults and seniors. A few sets of knitting needles, some crochet hooks and extra yarn available. Holiday gift and decorating ideas will be shared. Contact: 207-9070.

Upcoming

Highland Park Neighborhood Association will celebrate the holidays with Christmas potluck supper and party Dec. 14 at Bode Community Center, 901 Rigsby Ave, beginning at 6:30 p.m. A meat dish will be provided. Association officers and directors for 2017 will be sworn in. For more information, e-mail sa.hpna@gmail.com.

Fiesta de Navidad La Pastorela Folklorica is a presentation of the traditional Shepherds Play with a folklorico and flamenco flair highlighting the Guadalupe Dance Academy. Performances are 7 p.m. Dec. 16-17 at Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St. $10. To purchase tickets, go to GCACs front desk at 723 South Brazos or call 271-3151.

San Antonio Youth Wind Ensemble Holiday Concert is 1 p.m. Dec. 19 at McCreless Library, 1023 Ada St. Free and open to the public. Contact: 207-9170

La Posada is a free holiday program presented by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. 6-8 p.m. Dec. 21. Neighbors of the Guadalupe are encouraged to participate with food, music and theater. Contact: 271-3151.

Compiled by Melissa Renteria

All phone numbers are in the 210 area code unless noted. Send event details and a phone number to mrenteria@express-news.net. Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. the Thursday before publication.
Courtesy photo /Courtesy photo

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of our bilingual department and classroom teachers in South San Antonio ISD for exhibiting significant growth in the areas of math, reading, writing, science, social studies and lower dropout rates for the bilingual student population.

Combined efforts of campus and central office administration in collaboration with teachers created a focus on students needs, resulting in a rigorous plan to address deficiencies and strengthen instructional practices. Intervention plans were implemented in an effort to increase academic performance, literacy and second language acquisition. Teachers, aides and administrators participated in professional development that focused on the educational plan of each student. We look forward to continued improvement within our bilingual department.
SAN ANTONIO  A Bexar County Sheriffs deputy was injured Tuesday morning in a vehicle pursuit with a group of people inside a stolen pickup, according to the sheriffs office.

BCSO spokesman James Keith said a deputy attempted to stop a vehicle that was coming from an illegal dumping site just before 1:45 a.m. Tuesday. The stolen vehicle then ran a red light at Martinez Converse Road and FM 1516 and continued driving before crashing into a tunnel at FM 1502 and FM 78.
Wednesday is the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the day we commemorate the horrific attack that claimed more than 2,000 lives and left another 1,000 wounded at the U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. Our sense of security collapsed  if only momentarily. The assault by the Japanese told us that, no matter how powerful we felt as a nation, we were not invulnerable.

But that loss of confidence and well-being was temporary, for America reacted as always  with courage and determination. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it a day of infamy. And he reacted with the resolve worthy of a great leader, directing that all measures be taken for our defense.
Re: Alamo Heights cheating scandal involves 128 kids, front page, Friday:

When our oldest son was a senior at Samuel Clemens High School, a teacher informed us he had been caught cheating with other students on a computer class assignment. Before she could say another word, my husband told her to give him a failing grade on the assignment.

Educators talk about teachable moments; this was certainly one for our son, reminding him that integrity is a guiding force in life.

Without stiff punishment, these students will cheat again. They feel guilty only of getting caught, not of actually cheating.

Gerry Franklin, Garden Ridge

Educational sham

Re: Alamo Heights cheating scandal involves 128 kids, front page, Friday:

This is a great lesson in values to the cheaters at Alamo Heights High School. We dont want them to suffer any consequences for their cheating. Maybe they can carry this view of integrity to their favorite university in the next few years.

Is the district afraid of lawsuits if the cheating is reflected on the permanent transcripts or school records of these kids?

Perhaps some of them can go into politics.

What a sham.

Hank Forrest

Frivolous spending?

Re: Hardberger land bridge still needs support, Josh Brodesky, Other Views, Friday:

Good column, but Im still not convinced this isnt frivolous spending. And lets be real: If $23 million is the price tag now, well, we know that wont cover the costs when and if it gets approved.

District 9 is still awaiting roadway dollars so we can move about in our very popular, fast-growing district at times besides 9 a.m. through 11 a.m.!

Loop 1604 is a nightmare, as is Stone Oak Parkway, U.S. 281 and Blanco Road. And yet new home, multihousing unit and commercial building approvals by the city continue at warp speed. Talk of infrastructure improvements remains just that  talk. It is hard to think about that critter bridge at this point.

Donna Howington

Countering bad bull

Re: Unity event to counter alt-right talk at A&M, State, Dec. 1:

Im glad to see the First Amendment is alive and well at my alma mater. Instead of denying Richard B. Spencers right to speak at Memorial Student Center, Aggies are organizing two events to counter Spencers extreme right-wing rhetoric.

My hope is that the silent protest, scheduled outside the MSC, and the Aggies United rally in Kyle Field will draw huge crowds of supporters. Maybe some Aggies will also take the opportunity to challenge Spencers ideas directly, inside the MSC.

When I was an A&M student, we called the message of an extremist bad bull. This label fits Spencers ideology.

David H. Plylar, Texas A&M Class of 60

Watching in horror

I taught U.S. government for 33 years, and after this election, I find that I lied to my students.

I told them that even though the system had flaws, nearly all elected officials did what they thought was best for all of America. I told them checks and balances kept any individual from getting all the power and that, in the overall scheme, democracy worked. I am not sure it will for the next four years and maybe many more to come.

I am looking at the very real possibility I may no longer have Social Security or Medicare, both of which I contribute to. Twenty million people may well be without health insurance, and because of pre-existing conditions may be unable to get any on their own. I watch in horror as our president-elect appoints bigots, racists, misogynists and climate change deniers to government positions. I have seen no Republican challenge him.

He refuses intelligence briefings, works personal deals and dismisses the media when they question him.

He lies, and no one cares. I do not believe he has ever read the Constitution, which he would not understand, anyway. We are in so much trouble, and millions are content to keep their heads in the sand.

Helen Chouinard

Understand the pain

Re: Disservice to Pop, Your Turn, Nov. 30:

The letter writer stated that people who are saying get over it, you lost with respect to the presidential election have no comprehension of what we are feeling.

With all due respect, you are wrong. There are tens of millions of us who have suffered those very same feelings every day for the past eight years.

Chris Heinrichs

Shattered vows

How quickly we move on and forget campaign promises. President-elect Donald Trump has connections to quite a few companies operating outside the U.S. Why have we not been kept abreast on the progress of his efforts to return all his companies and jobs to within the borders of the U.S.? After all, he promised.

Jesse Ortiz

Past resurfaces

Re: More of the past is envisioned in plans for Alamos future, front page, Dec. 1:

Small museums can have a big impact. Theyre often the most engaging and fun. Two diverse examples from personal experience  the Maritime Museum at the mouth of the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon, and the impressive Museo de las Culturas del Norte at the Paquime World Heritage archaeological site near Casas Grandes, Mexico.

Location (weve got that), regional and historical significance (we have history!), focus (like traveling shows at the Witte Museum  most recently the Maya exhibit, or the superb Charles Darwin show) and design (we have the talent) ensure a worthwhile hour or two in a museum  and a memorable and rewarding visit to the site itself, now seen with far greater understanding and appreciation.

The proposed museum at the Alamo has all that going for it.

Please keep the Express-News your spotlight on the topic.

Stephen Cross
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STRATFORD  Two people have been arrested on prostitution and drug charges at a First Street residence that was the scene of a raid about two months ago.

During that Oct. 3 raid, Neftali Neff Morales, 43, of Lines Place and 46-year-old Ariel Perry, of First Avenue, were charged with operating a drug factory and multiple counts of sale of narcotics, conspiracy to sell narcotics and sale of narcotics within 1,500 feet of a school.

On Tuesday, Stratford police said a second search warrant was executed at the same First Street house, this time resulting the prostitution and more drug charges for Perry and her roommate. Detectives said Perry and Kathleen Cox 31, were advertising prostitution on the website Backpage.com.

The investigation revealed that Cox and Perry were selling heroin and cocaine from the residence as well as using it to prostitute, Lt. Frank Eannotti said in a release. Detectives seized heroin, cocaine, scales, paraphernalia and items related to prostitution. Cox was also found to have a fully extraditable warrant out of Kentucky for drug related offenses.

Perry was charged with possession of heroin with intent to sell, possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell and prostitution. She was held on a $500,000 dollar bond.

Cox was charged with possession of heroin with intent to sell, possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell, promoting prostitution and conspiracy to commit prostitution. She was released on a $100,000 dollar bond.

A third person, Carlos Cordero, 47, of Norwalk, who was at the residence, was arrested after it was revealed he had two violation of probation warrants, police said. He was held on a $10,000 dollar bond.

All three are scheduled to appear at Superior Court in Bridgeport on Thursday.

Before the fall raid, on a number of occasions in August and September, police said, a cooperating witness purchased heroin and crack from the couple outside Perrys First Avenue home. Morales was arrested when he came to court for a pending case.

Police said they later went to the First Avenue house where Perry was living with her two young children. Inside, they said, they found small amounts of heroin and crack along with materials for processing and packaging the drugs for sale.
SAARLOUIS, Germany  Deep inside Syria, a bishop worked secretly to save the lives of 226 members of his flock from the Islamic State  by amassing millions of dollars from his community around the world to buy their freedom.

The Assyrian Christians were seized from the Khabur River valley in northern Syria, among the last holdouts of a minority that had been chased across the Mideast for generations. On Feb. 23, 2015, Islamic State fighters attacked 35 Christian towns simultaneously, sweeping up scores of people.

It took more than a year, and videotaped killings of three captives, before all the rest were freed.

Paying ransoms is illegal in the United States and most of the West, and the idea of giving money to the Islamic State is morally fraught, even for those who saw no alternative.

You look at it from the moral side and I get it. If we give them money were just feeding into it, and theyre going to kill using that money, said Aneki Nissan, who helped raise funds in Canada. But to us, were such a small minority that we have to help each other.

The Khabur families trace their heritage to the earliest days of Christianity. To this day, they speak a dialect of Aramaic, believed to be the native language of Jesus.

When the villages were attacked, fleeing residents phoned cousins, sons, daughters, friends  Assyrians who had left the region in waves for the West. In the chaos, no one was sure how many were taken captive  but everyone was certain they were going to die.

As days stretched into a week, it became clear Islamic State had other plans.

The group told the 17 men captured from one village, Tal Goran, they could have their freedom but with a catch. Four female captives would remain, and one of the men had to deliver a message to their bishop in the town of Hassakeh about 40 miles away, and return with an answer. The extremists demanded $50,000 per person for the whole group.

It took the bishop, Mar Afram Athneil, three days to make a decision, as he consulted with members of the church around the world on what to do.

Athneil then began secret negotiations for the remaining captives.

When word filtered down about the ransom, the price was daunting. Islamic States starting demand of $50,000 a person would mean more than $11 million for the remaining captives.

The calls for donations went out across social media.

The Islamic State has made a fortune off the desperation of hostages. A U.N. resolution from December 2015 called on governments to prevent kidnapping and hostage-taking committed by terrorist groups and to secure the safe release of hostages without ransom payments or political concessions.

But while no government appeared to stop the fundraising, the Assyrians say no country stepped in to free the captives either.
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NEW YORK  With cigarette use declining globally, former New York City mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg is deepening his campaign to fight tobacco use in the developing world, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Bloomberg is committing $360 million to be used from 2017-2022 to help raise tobacco taxes, implement smoke-free laws and curb tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries, according to Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Over the last 10 years, Bloomberg Philanthropies investment in tobacco control has contributed to a change in the global trajectory of tobacco use. Global sales of tobacco plateaued in 2012 with about 200 billion fewer cigarettes sold in 2014 than in 2010. The program spans more than 110 countries targeting the worlds heaviest-smoking countries including China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh, notes the former mayors philanthropy.

Bloomberg didnt hold back on curbing tobacco use and making it more expensive for New York City smokers to purchase product while he served as mayor. The Journal notes that Bloombergs administration famously instituted smoking bans, graphic ad campaigns and excise tax increases.

Meanwhile, Philip Morris International CEO Andre Calantzopoulos said in an interview last week that there could be a day when the company stops selling traditional cigarettes altogether, reports the Journal.

There will come a moment in time where I would say we have sufficient adoption of these alternative productsand sufficient awareness to start envisaging together with government a phase-out period for cigarettes, and I hope this time will come soon, Calantzopoulos said. The news source notes that his comments come as PM launches its iQOS heat-not-burn tobacco product in the U.K., which internal studies show is potentially less harmful than cigarettes. PM is opening a store to sell the fountain-pen-size gadget in central London.
Birds flying through laser light reveal faults in flight research PhysOrg. This is very cool, methodology-wise. Chuck L: Worth a link if only for the photo of the goggled parrotlet.

The Javan Rhino: Both Protected and Threatened by a Massive Volcano Pacific Standard (Chuck L)

Watch: A stunning volley that you cant miss, and is capable of being the goal of the year The Field (J-LS). For our soccer fans.

Increasing soil carbon storage by agricultural conversion Nature (PDF)

Growing Pains: Arctic Sea Ice at Record Lows : Image of the Day NASA (Chuck L)

Caesarean births affecting human evolution BBC

Atrocious makeup set for young girls earns Worst Toy of the Year Award Treehugger (J-LS)

Study shows regular sex improves the memory of young women PhysOrg (Chuck L). Doesnt look like a well-constructed study and also explicitly seeks to confirm similar research.which is not a good basis for objectivity (although my view is based on the write-up not reading the actual study. Thus also didnt check re sample size and controls). And fails to allow for the fact that women who have high libidos may either have different genetic attributes, different hormone levels, or different habits (as in they date regularly) that require that they have a better memory of faces and attentiveness to precisely recall what people said so they can play it back (ie, they need to flirt well!).

Would You Feel Sexy Wearing Eau de Extinction? MIT Technology Review. Per above, would it improve your memory for faces too?

China?

Amid uproar, Hong Kong government backs down after barring questions from lawmakers facing review South China Morning Post Chinese media mock Trump for running the country with Twitter The Hill (Plutonium Kun). If this is the best China can do in the way of a retort, its really lame. Of course, they have their own new money oligarch class, so the usual attacks on those grounds would probably hit too close to home.

Australian choices in the New World Order MacroBusiness

Italy?

Gaddafis switching roles under Western manipulation until the final destruction of Libya failed evolution

Kazakhstan jails activists, plans a Great Firewall to stifle online dissent The Conversation (J-LS)

Brexit

UK suffers its first lost decade in 150 years The Times

Investigatory Powers Bill: Politicians exempt themselves from new wide-ranging spying laws Independent (Chuck L)

How Russia Outsmarted OPEC OilPrice

Imperial Collapse Watch

Mattis on Our Way of War American Conservative (resilc)

Trump Transition

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste Washington Post

Bernie Sanders New Book Offers a Roadmap for Progressives to Challenge the Establishment In These Times

2016 Post Mortem

Why Did 53 Percent of White Women Voters Go for Donald Trump? History News Network. John Z: The author makes some unsubstantiated assumptions I question. However, her frame is very interesting. The idea of an authoritarian taking control and bringing safety and security and promising to maintain their social status is also attractive to some men, I think. However, like many pundits, she seems to make this a the answer to her question. I take a more diverse view. I think people are complex and do things like picking a candidate for any number of reasons, some of which may seem to conflict on some levels. Hillary Clinton throwing party to thank millionaire donors | Page Six. Plutonium Kun: No refunds!

The DNC Needs a New Leader: How About Rahm? Chicago Magazine. Plutonium Kun: Ways to destroy the rest of the Democratic party.

New McCarthyism

DERIVATIVES-CDS sellers pose bigger contagion risk than CCPs; OFR Reuters. Help me. This is really an admission that central counterparties are not working. Wed pretty much said that since no one got rid of customized OTC derivatives which 1. arent suitable for central clearing; 2. are where much of the risk and profits sit; 3. have low/no social value since they are used mainly for accounting and tax gaming.

Banks post-crisis consultancy spending soars to $200bn Financial Times

Are All CLOs Equal? Liberty Street Economics

Class Warfare

Democracy Against Neoliberalism Jacobin (J-LS) Everybody into the (labor) pool Medium (Plutonium Kun). By the Minneapolis Fed. Translation: employers need to get real about pay.

Antidote du jour (Tracie H, from the Los Angeles Zoo):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Yves here. You need to read past the breathlessness to get at the good bits.

Originally published at City A.M.; cross posted from OilPrice

The new OPEC deal to cut oil output  the cartels first since 2008  amounts to nothing less than Saudi Arabias surrender to the power of American shale.

It has come about due to Riyadhs belated, horrified understanding that it has utterly lost control over the energy market, running through its capital reserves in the process. Rather than young, feckless Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman using Saudi Arabias John D Rockefeller strategy to permanently drive U.S. shale out of the energy market, the exact opposite result has occurred. Unwittingly, the Saudis have made the Americans the new global energy swing producer, the permanent ceiling for the global price of oil.

This, in its way, is as momentous a shift in global power as the stunning recent Brexit and Donald Trump votes. Whereas Brexit showed Europe to be in absolute decline, while the election of Trump brings to an abrupt end 70 years of the U.S. as the global ordering power, the Saudis meek surrender brings to a close the long age of OPEC domination of the worlds energy market. This year truly has seen the death of one world order, along with the uncertain birth of another.

The details of the new OPEC pact make it clear that even this belated effort to quell the self-imposed bleeding brought on by Saudi attempts to drive U.S. shale out of the energy market  by, in Rockefeller style, over-producing to drive down prices and eradicate their competitors  is problematic at best.

OPEC as a whole agreed to cut 1.2m barrels per day (bpd) from production from the beginning of the new year, with the Saudis themselves bearing the brunt of the cuts with a personal reduction agreed to at just under 500,000 bpd. But as OPEC now accounts for less than half of all energy output in the world, it is a very weakened cartel, dependent on the kindness of strangers to survive.

Externally, this means Russia. The new global energy reality has been forthrightly addressed in the accord, as the interim deal is contingent on securing a further 600,000 bpd in cuts from non-OPEC members, with Russia expected to contribute 300,000 bpd to this total.

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin is less than enthused, as Russian oil minister Alexander Novak blandly said that at best his country would only cut its production gradually, due to technical problems. OPEC isnt much of a cartel if it is utterly dependent on major (and generally unwilling) outside players such as Russia to make its internal agreements work.

While the Saudis are hoping to persuade the Russians to go along with their fragile deal, to reach even this stage meant Riyadh wholly giving way to their hated enemy within the cartel, Iran.

Just recovering from years of sanctions due to its nuclear programme, all this past year as the Saudis have frantically tried to reach an OPEC-wide deal to cut their ruinous losses, Iran has held firm that it has no intention of hurting its just unbound economy to take one for the team. In the end, the Saudis had to meekly acquiesce, allowing Iran to continue to ramp up production, helping their sworn enemy in a way that must have put the House of Sauds teeth on edge.

So even after surrendering to Iran, and assuming the Russians can be generally corralled to accept cuts of their own, there is a final problem with the Saudi inspired OPEC accord. The cuts are estimated to leave global oil production at 32.5m bpd, a historically high rate of supply unlikely to lead to much of a rise in the price of energy at all.

Even if prices sustainably drift upwards, all this will do is make American shale  far more price sensitive and far more capable of being quickly brought on line than the fixed rigs of the OPEC member countries  turn the spigots back on, with its production rising and the price consequently falling.

The Saudis, having utterly lost the plot, are now  as the problems inherent in this deal make all too clear  trapped in a world where they no longer control the global energy scene. It seems even the surrender terms the OPEC deal represents will not be accepted by Riyadhs competitors. And they have no one to blame for this state of affairs but themselves.

Along with Europe as a great power, and America as the worlds ordering power, the myth of Saudi energy dominance is the third great dinosaur to be felled by the asteroid that is 2016.
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly. Ernest Hemingway

In this post Ill do a quick wrap-up of the Italian referendum results as I see them. Despite heavy-breathing from journalists on both sides of the Atlantic, I dont view the the Italian electorates rejection of Renzis constitutional reforms as part of a putative populist wave, nor do I see the result as leading to an Italexit (or Quitaly, or whatever). However, the result does couple political risk and financial risk uncomfortably tightly, in that Italy needs a government that can take decisions in regard to whats generally referred to as its troubled banking sector. Italys been good at kicking the can down the road. So far.

First, Ill briefly summarize what the Italian referendum was about, and the results. Then, Ill look at the narrative (ZOMG!! Populism) and the local particularities that make that narrative unlikely. Ill also present some pundits whose hair isnt on fire. Next, Ill look at whether the results make Italys exit from the EU more likely (no). Finally, Ill look at the gradually worsening Italian banking crisis, and ask whether whether anything sudden might happen; interestingly, there are rather a lot of leaks right now, and theyre not consistent, so I take it that European elites are negotiating with each other and potential marks investors through the press. More, I cant say.

Caveat: Im trying my hardest not to project my American political narratives onto Italy (that is, I think, what the populism narrative does (and Im not even sure its correct for this country)). If we have any readers who are knowledgeable about Italy, please speak up!

The Vote and the Outcome

The Economist describes Prime Minister Matteo Renzis referendum:

He thinks Italys biggest underlying problem is institutional paralysis, and has called a referendum for December 4th on constitutional changes that would take back powers from the regions and make the Senate subordinate to parliaments lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. This, together with a new electoral law that seeks to guarantee the biggest party a majority, will give him the power to pass the reforms Italy desperately needs, or so he claims. Yet this newspaper believes that No is how Italians should vote. Mr Renzis constitutional amendment fails to deal with the main problem, which is Italys unwillingness to reform. And any secondary benefits are outweighed by drawbacksabove all the risk that, in seeking to halt the instability that has given Italy 65 governments since 1945, it creates an elected strongman. This in the country that produced Benito Mussolini and Silvio Berlusconi

(Ill come back to the underlined sentence later.) Italian voters rejected Renzis proposal resoundingly:

The margin of the rejection close to 20 percentage points  was much wider than expected. On a high turnout of 65.47%, 59.11% of voters chose no; 40.89% went for yes. Overseas voters bucked the trend, voting overwhelmingly (64.7%) for yes.

(Yet again the polls were wrong. That doesnt, as such, equate to a populist revolt, though its worth asking why (most of) the polls keep being wrong.) Renzi is expected to resign (having promised to do so); thats baked in to asset prices.

One overseas voter provides one scenario for the Italian government in the short term following Renzis defeat. From the Yale Daily News:

The most likely scenario is a technocratic government charged with changing the electoral law. This would lead to elections in six to 12 months. The less likely positive scenario is that the current legislature runs its full course. However, this entails finding a government with the strength and legitimacy to follow through with much needed structural reforms, hence the less likely status. The less likely negative scenario is snap elections. Much of the opposition that ran the No campaign is asking for new elections, planning to capitalize on the recent win. This would require an unobvious application of the current electoral law. As polls stand, the center-left party would face a second turn with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. And if the Five Star Movement wins, Italy would become the first large European nation led by a populist, euroskeptic government, which may call for a vote on the euro. Or in other words, Italy could break the eurozone [although not the EU]. Now, for the big question: Who decides? Technically, the President Sergio Mattarella, who will first ask the center-left to try and form a new government. So really, the matter rests in the hands of Renzis party. And their congress is convening on Wednesday.

Wednesday is tomorrow! Reuters seems to have plumped for the snap elections scenario:

Italy could have an election as early as February, a minister in Matteo Renzis outgoing government said on Tuesday after speaking with the prime minister. The comments will heighten support for a quick vote as the only way to avoid protracted political limbo in the euro zones third largest economy following Sundays No vote on Renzis constitutional reforms. The two largest opposition parties, the eurosceptic, anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing Northern League, are both pushing hard for elections. Renzi announced he would step down after his resounding referendum defeat. President Sergio Mattarella told him to stay on until parliament approves the 2017 budget. Moving quickly, Renzi on Tuesday called a definitive confidence vote on the budget, to be held in the Senate on Wednesday, after which he is expected to return to Mattarella with his resignation.

So Wednesday is tomorrow both for the Democrat Party congress and the budget!

The Narrative

Marine Le Pen, in a splendid example of the Rice-Davies Rule, provides the clearest statement of populist triumphalism. She tweeted:

Les Italiens ont desavoue l'UE et Renzi. Il faut ecouter cette soif de liberte des nations et de protection !MLP #referendumcostituzionale  Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) December 4, 2016

Translated:

[LE PEN:] The Italians have disavowed the EU and Renzi. We must listen to this thirst for freedom of nations

At this point, we remember the underlined passage from the decidedly non-populist Economist, which also recommended a No vote. So perhaps the narrative is not quite as simple as LePen would have it.

Lets look a bit more closely at the vote. From Bloomberg, we have a map of the constituencies:

Do the regions (in yellow) that voted yes have a common factor? Indeed they do. The Conversation:

Only three regions voted Yes: Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and South Tyrol  two of which are traditional strongholds of Renzis party.

So it looks like although Italy as a whole decided a strong man wasnt such a good idea, the regions where that strong man had a political machine disagreed. This again cuts against the simplistic narratives.

But what really cuts against the populist narrative is the nature of the opposition, which Jacobin describes:

In order to explain the outcome of this referendum, which saw a massive turnout of 67 percent and No winning with almost 60 percent of the votes, one has to look at the convergence of multiple factors. Forces across the political spectrum opposed the reform for different reasons. On the Left, the measure was challenged by the CGIL, the countrys biggest union; by the left of the Democratic Party, including its former secretary; by the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI); by the whole radical left, including left unions, social coalitions, students organizations, and the various networks of occupied spaces; and by a number of prominent left-leaning constitutional law experts such as Gustavo Zagrebelsky. The arguments ranged from the defense of democratic representation and popular sovereignty against the principle of governability to the opposition to Renzis aggressively neoliberal political project, of which the constitutional reform is only a portion. On the Right, the reform was opportunistically opposed by the xenophobic Northern League, by the right-wing nationalist party Fratelli dItalia, by neo-fascist forces such as Casa Pound and Forza Nuova, and  reluctantly  by Berlusconi. The reason for the mainstream rights opposition is rather clear: as Renzi highly personalized the vote on the constitutional reform and linked the destiny of his government to the outcome of the referendum, the currently disorganized and fragmented right saw it as an opportunity to get rid of the government and start a process that may allow them to regroup and be competitive again. Finally, the Five Star Movement, a catch-all populist movement with highly contradictory positions, resisted the constitutional reform all the way through the parliamentary debate, protesting at every turn against the violation of the most basic parliamentary rules by the government. The reasons for their position combined both a defense of parliamentary democracys rules and the ambition to overtake the PD as Italys principal party.

Der Spiegel provides a vivid example:

One of those who campaigned against the referendum was Rossana Rossanda, 92, an icon of the Italian left. During the 1950s and 1960s, she was part of the leadership of the Communist Party. She was expelled from the party in the 1970s for failure to support key party positions and, together with others who had run afoul of the party, formed Italys most important left-wing newspaper, Il Manifesto. Like many on the Italian left, the leftist icon Rossana voted against the referendum and against Renzi. Rossana said the pack she had joined forces with was abhorrent to her. It included groups like the right-wing nationalist, xenophobic Lega Nord; the anger-fueled euro-skeptic, anti-everything party led by former comedian Beppe Grillo; and the remnants of those who in the past supported former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Ultimately, though, Renzi is just as bad as them, she says. Indeed, many members of Matteo Renzis own Democratic Party voted against him for the same reason, including heavy-hitters like former Prime Minister Massimo DAlema or Pier Luigi Bersani, who served as the partys chairman for years.

This isnt a populist uprising at all. Its a loosely sintered together temporary coalition with a single short term goal  getting rid of Renzi  with no coherence other than that, and all the issues and the players are highly specific to the Italian context.

Finally, here are some commentators who have maintained a degree of equanimity. (Since I dont know the Italian punditry at all, I could be quoting the Italian equivalents of David Brooks, or Thomas Friedman, or Eugene Robinson. Or Patrick Buchanan. Sorry!) From the Italian Insider:

Political commentator Massimo Franco summed up the turbulent event that was the constitutional referendum, saying, What this shows is that democracy is still alive and that the Italian people are still deeply tied to the Constitution. The attempt to strengthen a non-elected government through a consultation on a referendum turned out to be a gamble.

From the Financial Times:

A note of caution is struck by Roberto DAlimonte, a commentator in Il Sole 24 Ore. He writes that, for Italian voters, the desire to protest has outweighed the desire to change. But the outcome needs to be seen in context. This referendum cannot be compared to Brexit, he says, referring to the decision by UK voters in a June referendum to leave the EU. Leaving the EU is a different thing, politically, to not changing the constitution.

From the New Statesman:

Alberto Alemanno is Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law and an Italian. He said the reforms would have been vital to modernise Italy but rejected any idea it would lead to an Italian Brexit. While anti-establishment and eurosceptic actors are likely to emerge emboldened from the vote, interpreting the outcome of the Italian referendum as the next stage of Europes populist, anti-establishment movement  as many mainstream journalists have done  is not only factually wrong, but also far-fetched.

So calm down. Or rather, you can panic when you get to the banks, but first we have to talk about the EU.

The European Union

Its just not clear that anti-EU  and anti-Eurozone  forces can win control of the government. Politico:

It is nonsense to call for Italy-exit from the eurozone or the EU, wrote Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist at the treasury department of the Italian ministry of economy, to his consultancys clients on Monday. Todays outcome strengthens the anti-establishment and anti-euro parties such as the Northern League and the 5Star Movement, but again it would not be justified to jump to the conclusion that they will win the next general elections and that they will command an exit.

(I suppose the Northern League and Five Star could join forces, but its one thing to cooperate to force out a common enemy; its another to make policy together.) However, even if anti-EU  and anti-Eurozone  forces take office, they face significant obstables. The New Statesman:

The Italian constitution bans the overruling of international treaties by popular vote, so Five Star would need to amend the constitution. That would require a two thirds majority in both houses of parliament and then another referendum on euro membership. Even that could be blocked by one of the countrys supreme courts.

Finally, absent exit from the EU or the Eurozone, the Italian government can be expected to approach Europe in the same way that Renzi did, since structurally nothing will have changed. The Guardian:

[A]ny new Italian government is likely to behave in the same way as Renzis government did towards its European allies, seeking to bend fiscal rules in its favour and to press for a more expansive fiscal policy. It will also continue to demand solidarity from the EU with its efforts to deal with migrants and to rebuild the areas affected by recent earthquakes. Italy is unlikely to be the domino that leads to more instability in Europe.

So, steady as she goes Except for all those bad banks!

The Banks

Breugel has a fine summing up of the horror that is Italian banking:

Italian banks are still bearing the burden of a significant load of non-performing loans (NPLs). We have discussed the issue of NPLs in the Italian banking sector several times before (see e.g. here and here), and there is not much new on this front. As of September 2016, the Bank of Italy was reporting that the total of bad debts in the system was 198.9bn, down from 200bn in August. Table 1 shows updated 2016Q3 gross NPL ratios for some of the biggest Italian banks, showing that the situation is diversified. While some initiatives (such as the guarantee scheme GACS) have been taken recently, these will likely take time to bear fruit.

198.9bn in bad debt seems like real money, even today. The poster child for bad Italian banking is Monte dei Paschi (MPS), said to be oldest bank in the world, and certainly one of the most decrepit; they need 5-billion by the end of the month, its not exactly clear how theyll raise it, and the referendum results have thrown a political spanner into the financial works. Politico summarizes the state of play:

[T]he fall of about 4 percent in shares of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italys most troubled bank in the middle of a tense 5-billion fundraising, reflected more confusion about future steps in MPSs recapitalization process than fears over a new European financial crisis. Here the markets muted reaction is largely due to lack of information. The key issue is whether MPS can get its fundraising off the ground. JPMorgan and Mediobanca, the Italian lenders main advisers, met with potential investors on Monday, but no major decision was taken, according to sources. The big question is whether JP Morgan and Mediobanca can persuade a large pension fund or sovereign wealth fund to act as an anchor investor for the recapitalization, buying a large chunk of new shares to be issued and acting as a catalyst for others to join in. The Financial Times reported that the two advisers were trying to persuade Qatars Investment Authority to put 1 billion into MPS. However, people involved in the talks told POLITICO that investors, advisers and MPS management were waiting to see the shape of the new government before deciding whether to pull the fundraising. That decision could come later in the week or even at the weekend. The problem for JPMorgan and Mediobanca is that if they dont find an anchor investor, they would have to agree to provide the 5 billion themselves in the hope of getting the money back from other investors later  a risk neither bank would be willing to take. If the current plan fails, MPS and the Italian government have two main options, neither of them very good. The first would be to undertake a state-sponsored precautionary recapitalization of the troubled bank. Under EU rules, this would involve imposing some losses on MPSs bondholders. The problem with this plan is that a large percentage of the banks bonds are held by small investors. Inflicting losses on mom-and-pop savers would be political dynamite for any government  even if a new administration were to promise to compensate them for some of their losses. A state rescue of MPS would also cloud the prospects for other banks seeking investors funds. For one, UniCredit, Italys biggest and one of Europes largest lenders, wants to raise some 13 billion. The second option is simply to let MPS fail, providing an early, unwelcome test of Europes resolution authority for dealing with collapsing banks and increasing the risk of a huge loss of confidence in the continents banking sector.

(I think precautionary recapitalization is so Eurocrat. Its the best phrase ever!) The BBC describes another option:

If [the investors] do decide the plan is now too risky then the government may have no choice but to nationalise the bank. That would trigger a so-called bail in which means people who lent the bank money would have to write it off. Unfortunately, 65% of those creditors are ordinary retail investors so the damage would be widespread and politically toxic. There is another option. The Italian government could decide to simply break the rules and nationalise the bank without hitting small investors. That might be politically expedient but would be bitterly opposed in Germany and would set back immeasurably the project of banking union (separating the financial risk of banks from their governments  a move that came in response to the eurozone crisis of 2012). The money comes directly out of some small investors pockets or it comes out of every citizens taxes. The latter would be seen across Europe as a massive defeat in the battle to make sure taxpayers are not the first port of call when a bank fails.

(Italy doesnt control its own printing press, so thats not an option). And if the referendum vote wasnt a populist uprising, bailing in the small investors would be an excellent way to create one.

The Wall Street Journal describes the state of play quite differently, earlier today:

ROMEThe management of troubled lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA is set to meet officials at the eurozone banking regulator in Frankfurt on Tuesday, as Italys government crisis threatens to derail the banks recapitalization plans. A person familiar with the matter said Chief Executive Marco Morelli and Chief Financial Officer Francesco Mele will meet officials at the Single Supervisory Mechanism, the eurozones banks supervisor, to discuss the implementation of the Tuscan banks 5 billion ($5.38 billion) capital increase. The person said the investment banks working on MPS plan and the Tuscan bank will decide on the recapitalization by Friday. The bank aimed at raising 5 billion by year-end, as agreed with the eurozone supervisor, by asking bondholders to convert risky debt into equity and selling fresh shares to cornerstone investors and on the market. So far, bondholders owning slightly more than 1 billion worth of junior bonds have agreed to convert the bonds into equity. The bank is still in talks with large investors, including some Qatar-based funds, to sell them a large chunk of the new shares, people familiar with the talks said. But these investors are waiting to see how the government crisis evolves before making any investment decision in Monte dei Paschi, the people added.

And Reuters describes the state of play in yet another way, but agreeing with the Politico on precautionay recapitalization, a bit later today:

Italy is preparing a state bailout for Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) as the banks hopes of being saved by private funding fade following Prime Minister Matteo Renzis decision to quit, sources close to the matter said on Tuesday. One of the sources said a government decree authorizing the deal could be rushed through as early as this weekend.Italy is likely to pump government money into Monte dei Paschi under a so-called precautionary recapitalization, three sources familiar with the situation said, to prevent the bank failing and triggering a wider banking crisis. Such a crisis could destabilize the whole bank sector , burdened by 360 billion euros of bad loans, and inflict heavy losses on tens of thousands of ordinary Italians who hold junior bonds in the Tuscan bank. However, sources close to the matter said on Monday that investment banks lined up to underwrite that plan, led by JPMorgan and Mediobanca, had in effect put the deal on hold because of the political uncertainty. Under a pre-underwriting deal, they can drop the transaction because of adverse market conditions. One source said they would make a decision by Friday but that the chances of the deal going ahead were now slim. Monte dei Paschi had pinned its hopes on Qatars cash-rich sovereign wealth fund injecting up to 1 billion euros in the lender. But bankers close to the underwriting consortium said the fund and other potential investors wanted to wait to see what kind of government would succeed Renzi. Rome wants to avoid losses being imposed on retail investors who hold 2.1 billion euros of the banks junior debt.

And the Financial Times describes the state of play in still another way:

Without the cornerstone investment from Qatar, the other parts of the complex plan to fill the banks 5bn capital shortfall are likely to collapse.

Complex is a word I never like to hear. Complexity is the enemy of quality. More:

To avoid the politically unpalatable option of imposing losses on the 2bn of retail bondholders in Monte dei Paschi, a plan is being drawn up to guarantee full repayment of the first 100,000 to every junior bondholder, according to senior bankers. Senior bonds and deposits would be left unscathed. The bank is also likely to press ahead with plans to hive off 28bn in soured loans to a securitisation vehicle supported by a government guarantee. Whatever solution is found for Monte dei Paschi, I believe there is a significant risk of contagion to other Italian banks in particular, said Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management.

Meanwhile, the ratings agency Fitch doesnt like the political risks:

The No vote at the constitutional referendum has further heightened political uncertainty and possibly reduced the capacity to implement economic reforms. The risks from political instability were one factor that contributed to our revision of the Outlook on Italys BBB+ sovereign rating to Negative in October.

The banking situation clearly demands the full Yves treatment, which Im not capable of giving it. From what I can glean, Renzi is being kept around so he can sign whatever papers the technocrats come up with, hopefully by the end of the week. And surely five billion euros is a rather trivial sum? If the investors  private or public  can be offered suitable inducements, surely a collapse and contagion can be avoided? Even at the cost of a populist uprising by bailed in small investors, should it come to that? And how can Qatar back out of a deal that was so palpably bad to begin with?

Conclusion

The whole situation reminds me of the famous saying by Karl Kraus: In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious. Still true in Berlin today, and substitute Rome for Vienna. Things are different for the voters, of course. They always are

Appendix: The Curious Case of Five Star

Many sources agree that had the referendum passed, Beppe Grillos Five Star Movement would have benefitted. Jacobin:

If Yes had won, we would have risked ending up with a Five Star Movement or right-wing government with much greater executive powers than the ones currently allowed by the constitution. Not to speak of the majority system bonuss effects. And even in the case Renzi had managed to secure a majority for the center-left at the next elections, we would have ended up with more neoliberalism and with an even stronger government with no space for effective opposition.

The Economist:

The risk of Mr Renzis scheme is that the main beneficiary will be Beppe Grillo, a former comedian and leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S), a discombobulated coalition that calls for a referendum on leaving the euro. It is running just a few points behind Mr Renzis Democrats in the polls and recently won control of Rome and Turin. The spectre of Mr Grillo as prime minister, elected by a minority and cemented into office by Mr Renzis reforms, is one many Italiansand much of Europewill find troubling.

The New Statesman:

Ironically Renzis reforms to the constitution and senate would have made it easier for the eurosceptic Five Star Movement to gain power in upcoming elections in 2018.

And now the puzzling part. Still the New Statesman:

For reasons best known to themselves, they campaigned against the changes to their own disadvantage.

Can somebody who actually understands Italian politics  assuming, for the sake of the argument, that this is possible  explain why the Five Star Movement campaigned as it did?
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director Richard Cordray are on a collision course with President-elect Donald Trump in what may become a nasty legal and political showdown over the limits to executive power.

A key question is whether Trump will attempt to fire Cordray soon after assuming the presidency next month even though there is a pending court appeal challenging his authority to do just that.

"We're dealing with a situation where there is a lot of legal uncertainty about how this administration will act, so how this will unfold is unpredictable," said Scott Nelson, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, who has argued several cases before the Supreme Court.

Following are four legal and political issues that could affect how long Cordray holds on to his job at the CFPB.

Can Trump Fire Cordray?

Many legal experts said there's sufficient legal wiggle room for Trump to fire Cordray, who has been a thorn in the side of Congressional Republicans and the financial industry since he was confirmed for a five-year term on July 16, 2013. Up until recently, the prevailing analysis was that Cordray couldn't be removed until his term expired in 2018 unless he was fired "for cause."

That changed in October, when a federal court said that the president did not need a reason to remove the CFPB director, arguing the language in the Dodd-Frank Act that created the agency was unconstitutional.

That has fueled talk that Trump will move quickly once in office.

"The transition team has been promising from Day One that a lot of stuff will happen and why not please a bunch of people on the right and in the business community?" said Daniel A. Crane, a senior profess at the University of Michigan Law School.

Some legal scholars have written that once in office, Trump could fire Cordray outright by asserting that he does not believe there is a limit to a president's removal authority.

Or Trump could hedge his bets and seek to remove Cordray "for cause," by listing various reasons why he should be removed.

J.W. Verret, an associate law professor at George Mason University School of Law, listed some reasons why he thinks Cordray could be removed for cause: allegations of employee discrimination and retaliation at the CFPB, and a settlement with auto lender Ally Financial that some allege was a false claim.

Others see that as a stretch.

"I don't think there is anything that Director Cordray has done that would constitute cause," Nelson said. "Cause doesn't mean you disagree with a person's policies, cause is considered to mean malfeasance."

A Risky Move

If Trump chooses to attempt to fire Cordray, it's a risky maneuver for both him and the CFPB chief.

Cordray could try to fight the president in court, but doing so would carry risks for the agency.

"If Cordray did stay on at the agency, every action the entire agency takes could potentially be undermined later and he would put everything at the agency at risk," Verret said.

That said, some also see risks to the president in trying to fire Cordray out right, particularly given Trump's reputation as a populist. (The CFPB remains popular with the public despite GOP opposition.)

"It would be a pretty stunning move [to fire Cordray], not only because there's no recent example of someone being removed for cause, but also because there's no basis," said Brianne Gorod, chief council at the Constitutional Accountability Center. "Richard Cordray has clearly been effective at helping the people that Trump said during the campaign that he wanted to help."

If Cordray is fired, he could seek a declaratory judgment stating that he is lawfully in his job, and a preliminary injunction requiring that the president permit him to stay, lawyers said. A court battle over the job raises another set of questions, including what relief a court would offer and whether doing so could include a reinstatement as the CFPB's director.

The firing would also give Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who founded the CFPB, and others a chance to rally sentiment against the new president.

"If Trump loses the legal battle, it's an immediate setback," said Crane. "So maybe [Trump] wants to save that fight. But my guess is there's enough feeling on the right against the CFPB, and it plays into the desire for a strong-man executive that [Trump] has run on. I can imagine [the administration] saying let's not turn this down, let's have this fight."

Rep. Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, signed an amicus brief last week in support of the CFPB's appeal of the October court ruling. She said the three judge panel's decision "flatly contradicts" the text of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.

Some consumer advocates even think Trump's populist rhetoric has legs.

"It's important for people who are fighting for consumers to clearly draw the lines that Trump has said he sides with regular Americans against special interests," said Paul Bland, the executive director at the public interest law firm Public Justice.

The Other Court Fight

To be sure, the potential legal battle over Cordray's fight takes place in the shadow of a court fight already underway.

Cordray filed an appeal of a contentious district court ruling in PHH Corp. v. CFPB, which raised important constitutional issues about the separation of powers doctrine.

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled in a split decision in October that the CFPB's single-director structure was unconstitutional because it limited the president's authority to remove the head of an agency.

The panel's solution was to rule that the president can dismiss a CFPB director for any reason  not just "for cause," the term that the then-Democratically controlled Congress used in the Dodd-Frank Act to shield the bureau's director from being fired at will.

Until the D.C. Circuit accepts Cordray's appeal, the panel's decision that the bureau's structure is unconstitutional is not in effect, lawyers said.

But it is important to note that the CFPB's appeal was filed 10 days before the deadline, a factor that could help Cordray, a former Ohio Attorney General, keep his job in the short term, assuming the court accepts the appeal before inauguration day.

It takes an average of about 40 days for the D.C. Circuit to decide whether to take a case "en banc" to the court's full panel, said Don Lampe, an attorney at Morrison & Foerster.

By filing early, Cordray strategized that if the D.C. Circuit accepted the appeal, the three judge panel's ruling could be vacated before Trump got into office.

The en banc review

Many think the D.C. Circuit will take the CFPB's case on appeal based on the constitutional issues raised and because of a 1930s-era case that raised similar issues.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked William Humphrey, a Republican member of the Federal Trade Commission, to resign. Humphrey refused twice and then was fired. He then filed a lawsuit that established precedent.

"This is a well-established principle that Congress can shield the heads of independent agencies from removal at the will of the president," said Gorod.

But there are clear differences between the cases, namely that Cordray is the single-director of an agency while Humphrey was a member of a commission.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the Humphrey decision six years ago in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

There also is the question of who would hear the en banc review.

It is unclear when Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, would start hearing cases again. Garland's long-shot chance at being confirmed as a Supreme Court justice has vanished under a Trump administration.

The PHH case could potentially be decided by 11 judges, including four appointed by President Obama, four by former President George W. Bush and three by former President Bill Clinton.

Still, some say that despite industry and GOP pressure for Trump to fire Cordray, predicting what the New York businessman will do is difficult.

"The banks are convinced Trump is totally in their pocket, but I think Trump has surprised many of us and is not as predictable a figure as George W. Bush," said Deepak Gupta, the founding principal of Gupta Wessler and a former CFPB senior litigation counsel. "I hold out optimism that legislation does not go through and there is a realistic path for the D.C. Circuit to act just in time for Cordray to leave just before his term expires in 2018."
The National Fair Housing Alliance and 20 local fair housing groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court against Fannie Mae over its maintenance and marketing of foreclosure properties.

The lawsuit claims that Fannie Mae has engaged in housing discrimination by failing to maintain REO properties in Latino and African-American neighborhoods as well as it does in white neighborhoods, according to a news release Monday.

This is not the first time that NFHA has alleged racial discrimination with regards to Fannie Mae's handling of foreclosure properties. In May 2015, the organization said it filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development over the issue.

The fair housing group has researched the issue since 2009 and claims to have found significant disparities between Fannie Mae's properties in African-American and Latino neighborhoods and the foreclosures in white neighborhoods. For instance, NFHA's research allegedly found that 41.5% of the REO properties in neighborhoods of color had a broken, boarded, or unsecured window, versus just 19.1% of the REO properties in white neighborhoods.

NFHA said that it has presented its findings to Fannie Mae multiple times to little or no avail.

"Fannie Mae executes its mission in predominantly white neighborhoods, but certainly the evidence in the complaint and the photographs illustrates that its foreclosures in middle- and working-class neighborhoods of color are not maintained as 'best in class' and they are not even close to 'market-ready,'" Shanna Smith, president and CEO of NFHA, said in the release.

Fannie Mae roundly rejected the allegations made by NFHA in a statement.

"We have heard NFHA's concerns, and strongly disagree with these allegations," the GSE said in the statement. "Our REO maintenance standards are designed to ensure that all properties are tended to and treated equally."

Fannie Mae also noted that it works to improve its processes related to REO maintenance, including the approved use of clear boarding nationally and enhanced guidance for field service vendors.

"Through these actions we have demonstrated our continued dedication to providing quality care to all communities," Fannie Mae said. "And we remain firmly committed to continuing to provide such attention to our REO properties moving forward."
(As delivered)

Good afternoon.

We have just finished a meeting where we addressed the cooperation between NATO and the EU. And the meeting was attended by High Representative / Vice President Federica Mogherini and with the Minister from Sweden and the Ambassador of Finland, so in addition to the 28 members of the Alliance and Montenegro, we also had representatives of the European Union present at the meeting.

And its always a good pleasure to welcome you to NATO, Federica, especially when we are able to agree on such a substantial list of measures to take our cooperation forward. And we have been working together on how to strengthen and how to enhance the cooperation between NATO and EU for a long time, so therefore I think today we really mark a milestone in our efforts to build our cooperation and to strengthen the partnership between NATO and the EU.

The security of Europe and North America is interconnected. A stronger NATO is good for the EU and a stronger EU is good for NATO. And strengthening our strategic partnership is more important than ever.

First, we all face new threats and new security challenges, which combine military and non-military means of aggression. Such as hybrid, cyber, terrorism. And neither NATO nor the EU has the full range of tools to respond to these challenges, so therefore we have to cooperate.

Second, the EU is taking steps in strengthening European defence, which we welcome.

It is important that these steps are complementary with NATO efforts.

And third, the strength of the transatlantic bond is vital to our security. Strong ties between NATO and the EU bring North America and Europe closer together. In Warsaw in July, I signed a Joint Declaration with Presidents Tusk and Juncker. We said at the time that we had never done so much together. Now we are going to do even more together. We have identified over forty proposals in several key areas. They are pragmatic, but they are ambitious.

On hybrid, we agreed on concrete measures to increase situational awareness. And to bolster our nations resilience.

On maritime, we enhanced cooperation between Operations Sea Guardian and Sophia in the Mediterranean. Through logistical support and information sharing.

On cyber, we will strengthen our mutual participation in exercises, and foster research.

NATO and the EU will also work more closely together to build the capacities of our partners.

And we have committed to pursue greater coherence in the development of our defence capabilities.

So these are only some examples of how we now are strengthening the cooperation between NATO and the EU in a very concrete and pragmatic way.

And I strongly encourage the fullest involvement of non-EU Allies in European defence, because they contribute substantially to European security.

So let me therefore thank Federica for her outstanding personal commitment to our cooperation. This has been a priority for both of us since we took office in the autumn of 2014.

But before I pass the floor to Federica, let me say a few words about the importance of strong institutions in times of instability as we see today. Both NATO and the EU were established as a result of two World Wars. Together, they helped bring peace and security to our continent, based on our shared values. Both NATO and the EU have seen many changes and many challenges. But throughout the decades, they have proven robust and adaptable. This is also what we are doing now: adapting to a new security environment. And therefore I am confident that we will continue to do so in the years ahead, that NATO and the EU are able to adapt to a changing and a more challenging security environment.

So once again, Federica, its great to have you here, its great to attend this meeting together with you and great to see that we are able to deliver concrete measures and proposals on how to strengthen our cooperation.

MODERATOR: Okay we will start with ARD at the end. ARD REPORTER: This is to begin with more an abstract question but anyway, if you, (inaudible) ARD German Radio I am over here. If you listen to ministers today entering the building you could get the feeling that NATO as well as Europe is going through an upheaval or lets say a watershed moment that both have never experienced before, not only but also because there is a new President entering the White House soon. Two questions to both of you. Do you share that feeling, is it a very special moment and also is there any reason for Europe to be afraid? FEDERICA MOGHERINI (EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs): I start. There are many reasons not only for Europeans but also others in the world to, I would say not to underestimate the threats that are currently challenging our security in the world. Its, ah, I think we have never experienced such an overlapping of crisis around the world and for sure what we call a rules based global order enframed (sic) especially in the U.N. system is put to a stress test. So I tend to see this as a common challenge for our globe, in which the Europeans have a special role to play, because of the strengths that we have. I know I might be unlikely, but the last European, referring to the strengths of Europe but if you look Europe from the outside as I constantly do, I was just coming back this morning from Africa, where ever you in the world people look at Europe as a place of security, human rights, integration, economic prosperity still even if we are coming out of a major crisis still in comparison with other parts of the world we are doing pretty well. Sometimes inside the European Union we dont realize our strengths are our partners around the world do. So I do not see a specific threat for Europe or for the European Union as such, if not coming, if not the threat coming from the underestimation of our strengths. I believe that here again, youre right we are getting a bit in the philosophical order but I am convinced that Europe has all the instruments, all the resources, all the wisdom coming from its long history to overcome threats and difficulties and its facing and Im not negative about that because the European Integration Process in particular has always grown stronger out of challenges and difficult times. Jens was remembering the fact that both NATO and the European Union were coming out of, were born out of terrible period of conflicts around the world where Europe was the centre of it. So weve always managed to learn from crisis, how to grow stronger and to deliver better advice to our citizens and I am sure it will not be an exception this time and again the basic rule, the basic European rule, the European way is doing this in partnership with France and this is why the Trans-Atlantic Cooperation is so key, our work with NATO and security is so key, our work with our neighbours both to the East and to the South is so important and also I would like to add our work to support the U.N. system is also crucial. So I believe that we will face the threats the world is facing today, staying united and using all the possible tools we have and our work on security and defense inside the European Union is exactly aimed at that.

JENS STOLTENBERG (NATO Secretary General): It is right that we live in a time with a lot of uncertainties and many uncertainties and ah, we have therefore a more unpredictable security environment but thats exactly why we need strong international institutions like NATO and the European Union and thats also why this meeting today and the agreement among the ministers today is so important, because it strengthens not only NATO and the European Union but it strengthens also the cooperation between NATO and the European and by doing so, by strengthening the cooperation between the two main organizations in Europe, NATO and the European Union, we are also strengthening the Trans-Atlantic bond and the vital link between North America and Europe. So the meeting today and agreement on the, on the 42 proposals, is an important step in building that kind of institutions we need, especially when times are uncertain, when we are faced with new threats and challenges as we are today. So the more uncertainty out there, the more we need stability and strength which strong international institutions can provide; and I am absolutely certain that the United States will remain committed to the Trans-Atlantic bond, will remain committed to NATO and will live up to, and be committed to, the security guarantees to Europe. This is clearly stated by President-Elect Donald Trump in many phone calls with the European leaders and with me and, we also have to remember that just a few days ago the Congress, the U.S. Congress, authorized a budget with bi-partisan support, a budget which quadrupled the funding for U.S. presence in America, I mean the U.S. presence in Europe. So there is a strong bipartisan support in the United States for increased U.S. military presence in Europe.

MODERATOR: Okay we will start with ARD at the end. ARD REPORTER: This is to begin with more an abstract question but anyway, if you, (inaudible) ARD German Radio I am over here. If you listen to ministers today entering the building you could get the feeling that NATO as well as Europe is going through an upheaval or lets say a watershed moment that both have never experienced before, not only but also because there is a new President entering the White House soon. Two questions to both of you. Do you share that feeling, is it a very special moment and also is there any reason for Europe to be afraid? FEDERICA MOGHERINI (EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs): I start. There are many reasons not only for Europeans but also others in the world to, I would say not to underestimate the threats that are currently challenging our security in the world. Its, ah, I think we have never experienced such an overlapping of crisis around the world and for sure what we call a rules based global order enframed (sic) especially in the U.N. system is put to a stress test. So I tend to see this as a common challenge for our globe, in which the Europeans have a special role to play, because of the strengths that we have. I know I might be unlikely, but the last European, referring to the strengths of Europe but if you look Europe from the outside as I constantly do, I was just coming back this morning from Africa, where ever you in the world people look at Europe as a place of security, human rights, integration, economic prosperity still even if we are coming out of a major crisis still in comparison with other parts of the world we are doing pretty well. Sometimes inside the European Union we dont realize our strengths are our partners around the world do. So I do not see a specific threat for Europe or for the European Union as such, if not coming, if not the threat coming from the underestimation of our strengths. I believe that here again, youre right we are getting a bit in the philosophical order but I am convinced that Europe has all the instruments, all the resources, all the wisdom coming from its long history to overcome threats and difficulties and its facing and Im not negative about that because the European Integration Process in particular has always grown stronger out of challenges and difficult times. Jens was remembering the fact that both NATO and the European Union were coming out of, were born out of terrible period of conflicts around the world where Europe was the centre of it. So weve always managed to learn from crisis, how to grow stronger and to deliver better advice to our citizens and I am sure it will not be an exception this time and again the basic rule, the basic European rule, the European way is doing this in partnership with France and this is why the Trans-Atlantic Cooperation is so key, our work with NATO and security is so key, our work with our neighbours both to the East and to the South is so important and also I would like to add our work to support the U.N. system is also crucial. So I believe that we will face the threats the world is facing today, staying united and using all the possible tools we have and our work on security and defense inside the European Union is exactly aimed at that.

JENS STOLTENBERG (NATO Secretary General): It is right that we live in a time with a lot of uncertainties and many uncertainties and ah, we have therefore a more unpredictable security environment but thats exactly why we need strong international institutions like NATO and the European Union and thats also why this meeting today and the agreement among the ministers today is so important, because it strengthens not only NATO and the European Union but it strengthens also the cooperation between NATO and the European and by doing so, by strengthening the cooperation between the two main organizations in Europe, NATO and the European Union, we are also strengthening the Trans-Atlantic bond and the vital link between North America and Europe. So the meeting today and agreement on the, on the 42 proposals, is an important step in building that kind of institutions we need, especially when times are uncertain, when we are faced with new threats and challenges as we are today. So the more uncertainty out there, the more we need stability and strength which strong international institutions can provide; and I am absolutely certain that the United States will remain committed to the Trans-Atlantic bond, will remain committed to NATO and will live up to, and be committed to, the security guarantees to Europe. This is clearly stated by President-Elect Donald Trump in many phone calls with the European leaders and with me and, we also have to remember that just a few days ago the Congress, the U.S. Congress, authorized a budget with bi-partisan support, a budget which quadrupled the funding for U.S. presence in America, I mean the U.S. presence in Europe. So there is a strong bipartisan support in the United States for increased U.S. military presence in Europe.

MODERATOR: The lady in the front row.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER FROM URKAINE: (Inaudible) from Ukraine. How enhancing cooperation between NATO and the EU in the military sphere could help Ukraine?

JENS STOLTENBERG: I think that the important thing is that both the European Union and NATO provides support to Ukraine. We provide political support, we provide practical support and Federica can say more about what kind of practical support the E.U. Provides, but I know that as NATO we have different trust funds where we help Ukraine with implementing reforms, with modernizing its defense and security institutions and we also provide of course, strong political support and we have a close partnership with Ukraine. The idea with the statement that we have agreed today is that we will also, we will work closer together in providing support, in building capacity, in providing training and in supporting countries like Ukraine. So E.U. and NATO, we do a lot already but I think we can be even more efficient and provide even stronger support by coordinating our efforts in, for instance, Ukraine.

FEDERICA MOGHERINI: The European Union is, as you know, ah, working very hard to support the country, Ukraine and its reforms especially focusing on the economic reforms, the social reforms, anti corruption, the judicial system. In the security sector we are also supporting, with our presence there, the security sector, reform looking more at the civilian side of it and this is a work to which the European Union is and stays, very much committed, and I would stay that the added value here is the strong determination that we share across the Atlantic in keeping the Ukrainian priority, a priority in our agenda not only in Europe but also across the Atlantic. Obviously we are also working together in a field that is purely political so a little bit less for the NATO practical work which is the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. We just received President Poroshenkov the other week to discuss this. We will have the E.U. Ukraine Association Council in, eh, 10 days from now and I will meet Foreign Minister Klimkin the day after tomorrow in Hamburg and this to tell you the intensity and the regularity of exchanges we have, all of this to try and solve also the conflict in the East of the country. Obviously this is going to stay a top priority for us. The unity of purpose here across the Atlantic is important and I believe that it is really crucial this agreements we have, even beyond more practically we would do and there would be a lot of practical things that we would do out of these 42 proposals but there is a political sense also of our strong commitment today expressed jointly in Parliament in the same day, in the same city if I can in saying that our priorities, our values, our interests are shared and we will continue to work together on this.

MODERATOR: El Pais

EL PAIS REPORTER: Im (inaudible) from El Pais. A question for both. Dont you feel that current relations between Turkey and the E.U. can be an obstacle in the obstacle in the strategy to foster E.U.-NATO cooperation, thank you?

FEDERICA MOGHERINI: You know, it hasnt been, it hasnt been an obstacle on the contrary. I think that, ah, weve had a smooth process if you think of the months and not years, but months that took us and our teams to work on such details and a broad set of proposals there are 42 proposal from July to today. Its kind an impressive record in terms of timing which means that there was a strong political support and a strong ownership as I said in all E.U. member states and in all what I have seen with NATO Allies to make this happen, otherwise you dont manage to do such a work in such a short time. Let me also say that E.U. Turkey relations, ah, might be complicated from time to time but this is the reflect of the fact that they are deep and important for both of us. I have just this morning a long bilateral meeting with Minister Cavusoglu as I had meetings in the past weeks with the E.U. First Minister Chaddick (sp?), our contacts our constant and are not limited to one or two aspects of our policies. I know the media attention is mainly on the accession process, on the refugee issue but we discuss mainly and mostly, internal developments for sure both in Turkey and in the European Union but also the situation in Syria and in these days in particular the need to finalize the agreement in Cyprus. So we have a common agenda, we discuss, relations between the European Union and Turkey are complex, sometimes this, being complex turns into being complicated, are rich, deep and I would say fundamental for both Turkey and the European Union and this only reflects in the fact that, ah, the recent strong engagements that I have seen again from all member states and all NATO Allies in making this partnership within NATO and the European Union work. Its a common interest that we share because we share the same region. You dont change geography, the challenges we face are the same and we have an interest in working all together.

JENS STOLTENBERG: Turkey of course is part of the decision we made today. It was supported by all 28 Allies and I welcome the fact that we have full support within the Alliance for the strengthened cooperation between NATO and the European Union and I think that part of the success that we have achieved, or the success that we achieved, is based on that it has been very clearly stated that when we develop and strengthen the cooperation between the two organizations, E.U. and NATO, we do not change that foundation and the principals which this cooperation is based on. So we have a pragmatic approach where we address different pragmatic and concrete issues, without changing the principals respecting the differences and integrity of the two different organizations. Thats one reason why its possible to gather broad support and full support from both E.U. and NATO. The other reason why we have full support from all NATO Allies including of course Turkey is that it has been clearly stated that we need a fullest, a fullest possible involvement of non-E.U allies in the efforts of E.U. to strengthen European defense and this is based on the fact that I welcome very much a stronger E.U., a stronger Europe because that will strengthen NATO and the Trans-Atlantic bond provided that we do this in a transparent and inclusive way and we have to remember that in the West, Canada and the United States, in the North, Iceland and Norway and in the South, Albania and Southeast Albania and Turkey; they are NATO Members but they are not members of the European Union but they are in different ways key to the security of Europe. So as long as we understand that this strengthened cooperation is something which is based on an inclusive approach and also the fullest involvement of non-E.U. allies its possible to have this very strong support from the whole of NATO.

FEDERICA MOGHERINI: Obviously the same goes for E.U. Member States that are not NATO allies. The process that we have entered in is based as Jens was mentioning, and this is clearly stated in all our official documents on inclusiveness, transparency and respect for the decision autonomy of both organization and also of the specific character of security and defense policy of all members on both sides. So we know we are different, we respect our differences and this is a good basis for a pragmatic and good cooperation.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Thats unfortunately all we have time for now. The Secretary General will be back later this afternoon, this evening rather. Thank you.

The lady in the front row.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER FROM URKAINE: (Inaudible) from Ukraine. How enhancing cooperation between NATO and the EU in the military sphere could help Ukraine?

JENS STOLTENBERG: I think that the important thing is that both the European Union and NATO provides support to Ukraine. We provide political support, we provide practical support and Federica can say more about what kind of practical support the E.U. Provides, but I know that as NATO we have different trust funds where we help Ukraine with implementing reforms, with modernizing its defense and security institutions and we also provide of course, strong political support and we have a close partnership with Ukraine. The idea with the statement that we have agreed today is that we will also, we will work closer together in providing support, in building capacity, in providing training and in supporting countries like Ukraine. So E.U. and NATO, we do a lot already but I think we can be even more efficient and provide even stronger support by coordinating our efforts in, for instance, Ukraine.

FEDERICA MOGHERINI: The European Union is, as you know, ah, working very hard to support the country, Ukraine and its reforms especially focusing on the economic reforms, the social reforms, anti corruption, the judicial system. In the security sector we are also supporting, with our presence there, the security sector, reform looking more at the civilian side of it and this is a work to which the European Union is and stays, very much committed, and I would stay that the added value here is the strong determination that we share across the Atlantic in keeping the Ukrainian priority, a priority in our agenda not only in Europe but also across the Atlantic. Obviously we are also working together in a field that is purely political so a little bit less for the NATO practical work which is the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. We just received President Poroshenkov the other week to discuss this. We will have the E.U. Ukraine Association Council in, eh, 10 days from now and I will meet Foreign Minister Klimkin the day after tomorrow in Hamburg and this to tell you the intensity and the regularity of exchanges we have, all of this to try and solve also the conflict in the East of the country. Obviously this is going to stay a top priority for us. The unity of purpose here across the Atlantic is important and I believe that it is really crucial this agreements we have, even beyond more practically we would do and there would be a lot of practical things that we would do out of these 42 proposals but there is a political sense also of our strong commitment today expressed jointly in Parliament in the same day, in the same city if I can in saying that our priorities, our values, our interests are shared and we will continue to work together on this.

MODERATOR: El Pais

EL PAIS REPORTER: Im (inaudible) from El Pais. A question for both. Dont you feel that current relations between Turkey and the E.U. can be an obstacle in the obstacle in the strategy to foster E.U.-NATO cooperation, thank you?

FEDERICA MOGHERINI: You know, it hasnt been, it hasnt been an obstacle on the contrary. I think that, ah, weve had a smooth process if you think of the months and not years, but months that took us and our teams to work on such details and a broad set of proposals there are 42 proposal from July to today. Its kind an impressive record in terms of timing which means that there was a strong political support and a strong ownership as I said in all E.U. member states and in all what I have seen with NATO Allies to make this happen, otherwise you dont manage to do such a work in such a short time. Let me also say that E.U. Turkey relations, ah, might be complicated from time to time but this is the reflect of the fact that they are deep and important for both of us. I have just this morning a long bilateral meeting with Minister Cavusoglu as I had meetings in the past weeks with the E.U. First Minister Chaddick (sp?), our contacts our constant and are not limited to one or two aspects of our policies. I know the media attention is mainly on the accession process, on the refugee issue but we discuss mainly and mostly, internal developments for sure both in Turkey and in the European Union but also the situation in Syria and in these days in particular the need to finalize the agreement in Cyprus. So we have a common agenda, we discuss, relations between the European Union and Turkey are complex, sometimes this, being complex turns into being complicated, are rich, deep and I would say fundamental for both Turkey and the European Union and this only reflects in the fact that, ah, the recent strong engagements that I have seen again from all member states and all NATO Allies in making this partnership within NATO and the European Union work. Its a common interest that we share because we share the same region. You dont change geography, the challenges we face are the same and we have an interest in working all together.

JENS STOLTENBERG: Turkey of course is part of the decision we made today. It was supported by all 28 Allies and I welcome the fact that we have full support within the Alliance for the strengthened cooperation between NATO and the European Union and I think that part of the success that we have achieved, or the success that we achieved, is based on that it has been very clearly stated that when we develop and strengthen the cooperation between the two organizations, E.U. and NATO, we do not change that foundation and the principals which this cooperation is based on. So we have a pragmatic approach where we address different pragmatic and concrete issues, without changing the principals respecting the differences and integrity of the two different organizations. Thats one reason why its possible to gather broad support and full support from both E.U. and NATO. The other reason why we have full support from all NATO Allies including of course Turkey is that it has been clearly stated that we need a fullest, a fullest possible involvement of non-E.U allies in the efforts of E.U. to strengthen European defense and this is based on the fact that I welcome very much a stronger E.U., a stronger Europe because that will strengthen NATO and the Trans-Atlantic bond provided that we do this in a transparent and inclusive way and we have to remember that in the West, Canada and the United States, in the North, Iceland and Norway and in the South, Albania and Southeast Albania and Turkey; they are NATO Members but they are not members of the European Union but they are in different ways key to the security of Europe. So as long as we understand that this strengthened cooperation is something which is based on an inclusive approach and also the fullest involvement of non-E.U. allies its possible to have this very strong support from the whole of NATO.

FEDERICA MOGHERINI: Obviously the same goes for E.U. Member States that are not NATO allies. The process that we have entered in is based as Jens was mentioning, and this is clearly stated in all our official documents on inclusiveness, transparency and respect for the decision autonomy of both organization and also of the specific character of security and defense policy of all members on both sides. So we know we are different, we respect our differences and this is a good basis for a pragmatic and good cooperation.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Thats unfortunately all we have time for now. The Secretary General will be back later this afternoon, this evening rather. Thank you.
(As delivered)

Good evening.

We have just concluded a discussion of NATOs efforts to project stability beyond our borders.

We reviewed the developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Allies are deeply concerned about the renewed offensive by the Syrian regime, supported by Russia. The scale of the humanitarian catastrophe is staggering. We continue to call for a political solution. Including a cessation of violence and the resumption of humanitarian aid. Both in Syria and in Iraq, the US-led Global Coalition is making steady progress. ISIL is losing ground. Once Mosul falls, local forces will need to hold the territory. So building local capacity remains essential.

This was a key issue at our Warsaw Summit in July. We decided to step up efforts to help countries in our wider neighbourhood to build strong institutions, train local forces, and tackle terrorism.

We decided to provide AWACS support to the Counter-ISIL Coalition, to start training and capacity building in Iraq and to enhance maritime security in the Mediterranean.

We are now implementing those decisions. Our AWACS surveillance aircraft have provided information to the Counter-ISIL Coalition since October. We have trained hundreds of Iraqi officers in Jordan. In January, we will expand that training and capacity-building into Iraq itself. And in the Central Mediterranean, our new Operation Sea Guardian is now supporting the EUs Operation Sophia with information and logistics. And we continue to support our partners Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine as they pursue important reforms.

Today we discussed how NATO can strengthen our partnerships, make better use of military training and better resource our efforts.

NATO has a strong track-record in projecting stability in Afghanistan and in the Western Balkans. We discussed the Western Balkans today. NATO has had a significant presence there for many years. With our KFOR mission keeping the peace for all the people of Kosovo, three regional offices, the prospect of membership for two countries in the region and active partnerships with all the rest, including Serbia.

Montenegro shows how much Euro-Atlantic integration can achieve and we welcome that 15 Allies have already ratified Montenegros accession to NATO. But elsewhere in the region, progress has faltered and we have seen backsliding on reform.

So we must do more to support reform and stability, with more political dialogue, more practical cooperation, and by working even more closely with the European Union.

Because stability in the Western Balkans brings greater security to Europe.

And with that, Im ready to take your questions.

JENS STOLTENBERG (NATO Secretary General): With that I am ready to take your questions.

MODERATOR: We will start with the Wall Street Journal.

WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER: I wonder on, you mentioned Syria and I wonder if you are worried the Russians are stalling for time, waiting for a new administration in America that might, eh, cut a different deal and, if you think a delay will lead to a worse humanitarian disaster there, even worse?

JENS STOLTENBERG: Any delay in a diplomatic solution will lead to more suffering and more deaths and eh, what we now see in Syria is a humanitarian catastrophe which has been worsened by the renewed offensive by the Syrian regime supported by Russia. So any delay in any political solution will increase the human suffering in Syria and thats the reason why we continue to call for a political solution and starting with a ceasefire, a cessation of hostilities and a resumption of humanitarian aid and we also discussed the situation in Syria during our meeting today. Secretary Kerry updated us on his efforts and he has been tireless in his efforts to try find a political solution, a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria and he has really shown very strong personal commitment to try to find a solution and to end the human suffering in Syria.

MODERATOR: Montenegro Radio.

MONTENEGRO RADIO REPORTER: (Inaudible) from Montenegro. You were talking about stability in the Western Balkans. So can you tell us how Montenegrin membership in NATO could contribute to that stability of the whole region, thank you?

JENS STOLTENBERG: The idea of NATO is that we stand together and we protect each other so, of course it would be good for Montenegro to be part of NATO but, it would be also good for NATO that Montenegro becomes a full member of the Alliance. Montenegro would be part of the strongest military alliance in the world. Montenegro would be covered by the security guarantees that NATO provides and that we stand together and protect each other and that an attack on one ally will be regarded an attack on the whole Alliance and of course that will contribute to peace and stability and security in Montenegro, as we have seen for almost seven decades in the rest of Europe, for those countries that are a member of the Alliance. But I would also like to underline that, ah, NATO membership is not only good for Montenegro, but its also good for NATO in the way that Montenegro contributes to our collective defense and to the security of the whole Alliance, by its strategic location where they are close to the Adriatic Sea and by bringing partnerships into the Alliance and also by the fact that Montenegro has some military capabilities which are important also to NATO and weve seen that Montenegro has already contributed, for instance, to our presence in Afghanistan. So this is good for NATO, good for Montenegro and we are looking forward to have Montenegro as a full member as soon as possible.

MODERATOR: The Financial Times.

ARTHUR BEASLEY (Financial Times Reporter): Hi Arthur Beasley here. No matter what anyone says the question of the new administrations support for NATO and its Article 5 guarantees still lingers. Would the best way out of this uncertainty be for President-Elect Trump to explicitly affirm his commitment to NATO? We know what he said to you, we know what he said to other leaders, but he hasnt said so publicly himself.

JENS STOLTENBERG: Im absolutely confident that, eh, the United States will maintain its strong commitment to NATO, to the Trans-Atlantic bond and to the security guarantees for Europe. I am confident, both because he has said so to many European leaders, and he also told me the same as such, when we had a phone call some weeks ago. But on top of that I think its also important to underline that, eh, just a few days ago he U.S. Congress authorized a budget which quadrupled the funding for the U.S. military presence in Europe with a new brigade, with equipment for yet another brigade, for funding more prepositioned supplies and, and eh, and eh, different kinds of equipment. So this is a budget which has strong bipartisan support. So I think that just underpins the very clear message that the U.S. will stay committed to Europe and to our Trans-Atlantic Alliance, because a strong NATO, a strong NATO is good for Europe but its also good for the United States. You to have to remember that the only time we have involved Article 5, was after an attack on the United States and hundreds of thousands of European NATO Allies, soldiers from European NATO Allies have been deployed in Afghanistan and more than 1,000 have lost their lives in an operation which was a direct response to an attack on the United States. Stability in Europe, peace in Europe is important for Europe but its also important for the United States, so I am absolutely confident that also with the new administration, the U.S. will continue to stay committed to NATO. Let me add one more thing, and that is that of course, eh, the President-Elect also focused on the need for increased defense spending. That has been the message also from President Obama and, I agree with them,because those Allies who spend less than 2% of GDP on defense should increase defense spending. So thats something we all agree on and we have to implement and we have started to increase defense spending among European Allies.

MODERATOR: The gentleman in the second row.

MARC BARONE: Actually Marc Barone Vista Italian Defaca (sp?). Could you please provide us with more details about your training activity in Iraq to come next year, thank you?

JENS STOLTENBERG: Eh, we will, we are working on the details but we will be there in January and the main focus will be, at least for the beginning, on countering IED, improvised explosive devices. You know that this is really something that causes a lot of suffering and one of the main reasons for casualties and therefore everything that we can do to help the Iraqi Army with improving their capabilities and to fight or to conquer IEDs, is of great importance. We will also work on civil military planning and on also some other areas but, we will start and then we will, of course, assess what we do and consider to do more. Everything is based on a request from the Iraqi government. I met with Prime Minister al-Abadi and, earlier this year, and he sent us a letter to NATO where he requested this kind of help and we will start to provide inside Iraq training from January on but we have already started to train Iraqi officers in Jordan.

MODERATOR: Slovak Pravda in the second row.

SLOVAK PRAVDA REPORTER: Thank you. (Inaudible). Mister Secretary General how much have you been talking during the last session about the influence of Russia in Western Balkans and what are the conclusions and secondly, another question in the declaration we have from NATO from today there is, there is a sentence that E.U. and NATO will cooperate to make a positive narrative, to make bigger outreach of the positive narrative? What is this positive narrative and what do we want to achieve by it? To counter others, namely Russia?

JENS STOLTENBERG: So we dont seek confrontation with Russia but we believe in the sovereign right of every nation to decide its own future. We believe in open democratic societies where we have different views, different open debates reflecting the, the, the different political positions of different parties and different groups in each and every country including the right of every country to decide its own path. We have seen some increased, eh, Russian presence, also in the Western Balkans. We will not counter Russian propaganda with propaganda. We will counter it with an open free debate because we believe that the facts and the truth in the long run will prevail and, and eh, of course weve also seen some reports about Russian citizens being involved in a very serious incident in Montenegro on election day and this is something that authorities in Montenegro is now investigating, investigating but, I also know that Serbia has helped and contributed to try to find out to get all the facts on the table related to this incident that we saw on election day in Montenegro, but we believe in open free democratic societies and we believe that reform, modernizing security institutions, governments will increase the resilience of the countries in the Western Balkans and that would be also the best way to, in a way, make them more able to protect themselves against any kind of outside interference. This is also an area where we work together with the European Union and their declaration we, or the statement we agreed on earlier today, will provide us with the framework for also working more closer together with the European Union also in addressing these issues in the Western Balkans.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Thats all we have time for tonight. We will see you again tomorrow.

JENS STOLTENBERG: Thank you.
(Natural News) Prescription drug use is at an all-time high here in the United States. In 2015, a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that approximately three out of every five citizens are currently taking some form of prescription medication. Useage of just about every type of medication has increased since the year 2000. And of course, to go along with our penchant for medication, there has also been a distinct rise in trips to the emergency room. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs also seems to be on the rise.

One of the downfalls of prescription drugs is the potentially hazardous effects they may produce. The side effects of different medications can vary wildly. A study conducted by the CDC has revealed that 1 out every 250 visits to the ER is because of a drug reaction in both 2013 and 2014. This was a significant increase from the years 2005 and 2006  the last time drug reactions were studied.

Estimates for children, teens and young adults have remained about the same; however, the number of older patients visiting the ER thanks to a medication reaction has made a substantial climb. Older Americans are being affected by adverse reactions in much higher numbers now than ever before  even when adjustments are made for population increases.

In fact, of all visits to the ER for drug reactions, about 35 percent of the patients are 65 years of age or older. Thats nearly a ten percent increase! In the 2005 and 2006 study periods, elderly patients accounted for just 26 percent of ER visits related to drug reactions.

According to Nadine Shehab, a senior scientist in the CDCs Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, and her co-authors, there are a few key culprits behind this increase  namely, anticoagulants (blood-thinners for preventing blood clots), antibiotics, diabetes medicines, opioids (pain medications) and antipsychotics.

In an email, Dr. Daniel Budnitz, the senior author of the paper and director of the CDCs Medication Safety Program, noted that the fact that these are the same drugs identified a decade ago for commonly causing trips to the ER should be a cause for concern. Dr. Budnitz states that safety interventions should be more focused on these particular types of drugs.

In their research, the team focused on the reasons why people are visiting the emergency room, with a focus on drug reactions. They analyzed data from 58 different emergency rooms and then created estimates for the population as a whole. The team then compared this data to their estimates from 2005 to 2006. Based on their surveillance of 42, 585 cases, the researchers posit that roughly 4 out of every 1,000 Americans goes to the ER due to an adverse reaction to a drug. More than a quarter of these patients will be hospitalized, or about 27 percent.

Overall, the estimates indicated that diabetes medication, blood thinners and antibiotics led to nearly half of the ER visits for drug reactions.

In children under 5, antibiotics were the most common cause for the ER visit, at about 56 percent of the total. The same held true for older children and teens, though it was a slightly smaller majority with only 32 percent.

More than a third of all visits to the emergency room for medication reactions occured in the elderly population. Older adults also had a much higher rate of hospitalization. Some of the ill effects patients experienced included hemorrhages from anticoagulants, severe allergic reactions to antibiotics, and hypoglycemia with neurological effects from diabetes drugs.

Another study published last year, in the journal PLOS One, found that an increasing number of Americans are being prescribed multiple medications concurrently. They found that many patients were taking medications without their doctors knowledge and some were even taking dangerous combintations of drugs.

Timothy P. Ryan, founder of Sano Informed Prescribing, a health care technology company, noted that between the aging population and the rising number of prescriptions per patient, these study results are sadly not that surprising. Ryan notes that when patients are cared for by multiple physicians, there is often an incomplete view of their drug use, so the ER visits are really the result of a much larger issue.

Ryan says, Americans are increasingly overmedicated.

Sources:

CNN.com

WashingtonPost.com
(Natural News) President-elect Donald J. Trump, when speaking to employees at a Carrier air conditioner factory in Indiana whose jobs he saved last week, said that there is a need for some regulations so that U.S. factories and plants dont irreparably damage the environment.

But as a businessman himself who has had to deal often with the nightmarish processes of navigating a plethora of government agencies before the first shovelful of dirt breaks ground on his latest real estate development, he knows more about red tape than just about anyone.

That means he also knows how much of that red tape can be permanently cut so that business development can take place faster and more cheaply, while still caring for the environment.

Trump, like most other rational people, doesnt want to breathe dirty air, drink polluted water or eat food that comes from contaminated soil. But he also pledged to jump-start economic and job growth, and to do that, hell have to take on Washingtons Left-wing climate change hoaxers, and they will fight him tooth and nail. Already, the climate hoaxers are girding up for a Trump presidency.

On the campaign trail, Inside Climate News reported, Trump promised that he would seek to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency altogether, claiming (correctly) that for the most part, the bureaucracy had been turned into a political hammer to be used by a Leftist president to kill jobs and opportunities. Now that he is headed to the Oval Office, the environmentalist community is trying to figure out whether hell keep his promises or whether hell be thwarted in his attempts to downsize the EPA and government bureaucracy in general.

Trump sounds like hes serious about scaling back much environmental regulation, Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change at Columbia Law School, told Inside Climate News. And while he may not be able to dismantle the EPA entirely, there is much he and a Republican-controlled Congress could do to downsize the agency and starve it of funds.

The EPA, like all other government agencies, was established by law, so it would take legislation (and Trumps signature  or a veto override) to abolish it altogether. That said, Trump, as president, can simply issue executive orders to the EPA and reverse much of the environmental activism implemented by the man he is set to replace, President Obama.

In addition, say legal experts, the president-elect, once in office, could scale back the agencys reach and mission, while the GOP-controlled Congress reduces the agencys budget even further, thereby limiting its ability to act.

Gerrard doesnt believe Congress will eliminate the EPA, but rather starve and cripple it. He may be underestimating Trump like just about everyone else who has come up against him this election cycle has.

For one thing, president Trump will inherit enormous authority  more than any president ever has. He has Obama to thank for much of that, since the 44th president pushed his constitutionally limited powers to their boundaries and beyond.

For another, there is an appetite in Congress to downsize the EPA and reign it in. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in commenting on the passage of the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act in 2014, said that while the board is supposed to offer neutral guidance on the environmental issues the EPA seeks to address, its singularly-minded members have silenced voices of dissent, limited public participation in its decisions, and shown a potential conflict of interest with over half of the SAB members having taken grant money from the EPA, an agency they are supposed to provide impartial analysis to.

Trump is also being advised by some sound political minds  including Newt Gingrich and Vice President-elect Mike Pence  who have been in the D.C. cesspool and know their way around.

Will a President Trump actually be able to eliminate the EPA in his quest to Make America Great Again? In the end, given his power as head of the Executive Branch (which the EPA falls under) and Congress willingness to help, it might not really matter. Neutering the agency may be all that is necessary.

Sources:

NaturalNews.com

InsideClimateNews.org

CrooksAndLiars.com

MajorityLeader.gov

EPAWatch.org

Money.CNN.com
(Natural News) Monsanto has some sketchy ties with the US government regarding the manufacturing of deadly white phosphorus. It is possible that the Pentagon and chemical giant are in bed together. Monsanto is known for its ugly lawsuits against indigent farmers over genetically modified seeds. The company is also infamous for many alleged crimes against humanity, including spreading billions of pounds of materials known to cause cancer around the world. The effects of Monsantos extremely foolish behavior will be felt for centuries. There are still lawsuits being generated against Monsanto for polychlornated biphenyls contaminating our waterways and wetlands, although the substance was banned in the late 70s.

There is a new report that shows just how deeply involved Monsanto is with manufacturing deadly white phosphorus. The government is protecting Monsanto because they love using their substance in the battlefield. White phosphorus has been used against civilian populations in conflicts including Fallujah and Gaza. The substance spontaneously ignites at 30 degrees Celsius, with the intended purpose of illuminating enemy positions and creating a smoke screen to cover the movement of troops. White phosphorus can also be used to firebomb enemy positions.

When a human comes in contact with white phosphorus, it ignites. Once its activated, it will burn until it runs out of fuel or oxygen. The substance sticks to clothes and skin often causing fatal chemical burns. Witnesses who have seen the substance in action say that it burns to the bone with no way to stop its progression until it burns out by itself.

For a long time, Monsanto was the only US company manufacturing white phosphorus. This earned them special attention from the Pentagon. The Pentagons pragmatists have noted that special techniques and skills are required to manufacture white phosphorus, and that Monsanto is the only known producer. The governments support of this domestic capability is critical. Monsanto gets approval for many insane new chemicals because of the work they perform for the US government. Monsanto is much more of a chemical company then they are a seed company.

The use of white phosphorus in civilian areas is definitely a war crime. It has been documented that US forces have used the substance in Iraq and Mosul. Monsantos continuous role as a purveyor of deadly military chemicals is responsible for war crimes around the world. In 2009, the US State Department confirmed that white phosphorus weapons were sent to Israel for use in Gaza.

Sources:

NaturalBlaze.com

News.AntiWar.com

TheFreeThoughtProject.com
(Natural News) In Sweden, 16 different disability groups are now facing eviction, after their premises were earmarked for new migrants that are arriving in central Pitea. Is the government really prioritizing the needs of migrants over its own citizens? You bet.

The organizations set to be evicted include groups for the elderly and infirm, as well as for people with dementia. Many of the affected groups fear that it will be difficult to find new buildings that are both affordable and accessible to their patrons  people in need who often have physical disabilities.

For the last 22 years, Piteas Cooperative Body of Organisations of Disabled People (HSO) has rented a massive two storey building for its 16 groups that serve nearly 3,000 members across the city. The local government is governed by a Red-Red-Green coalition of Social Democrats, members of the Green Party and the radical Left Party. It was ultimately this government that chose to evict the disabled and turn their building into housing for newly-minted migrants.

While the local government insists that the crestfallen disability organizations will be able to make use of an abandoned school, there are many concerns about how user-friendly it will be to the groups members. For example, Elisabeth Eliasson, from the Swedish Rheumatism Association, commented that it has been easy for their members to meet at the groups current location, which is easily accessible by electric wheelchair. The move will force many people with the disease to have to use public transport, which can be rather inconvenient for those who are wheelchair-bound.

And of course, HSO group leaders have not been given any kind of estimates from the local government for what renting the former school might cost. Some groups within the organization are concerned that the move will lead to the total demise of their activities.

Carina Lindegren of the Dementia Association noted that if renting the school comes with too high a price tag, then our group will cease to continue. She also lambasted the citys decision to provide housing to migrants at the cost of the HSO, and noted that it is exactly the kind of action that creates problems in a community.

Of course, this is not the first time the Swedes have come up with disturbing ways to deal with their massive influx of migrant refugees. In August, authorities in Norrtalje actually had the audacity to request that wealthy homeowners give up their houses and allow them to be used by migrants.

Targeted mailshots inquired, Does your country house stand empty in winter? For some reason, since houses in the Stockholm municipality are often empty in the winter, the government felt that it had the right to ask private individuals to allow perfect strangers to stay in their homes. What could go wrong, right?

Breitbart reports that the areas director of social services, Ali Rashidi, told Svenska Dagbladet, We thought that there are certainly many houses and rooms that can be rented out for the winter. We like many other municipalities have housing needs. Rashidi also noted that the municipality would ensure that rent was paid to the homeowners, if assistance was necessary.

Apparently, the idea was born after 30 migrants protested that their newly-built modular accommodations simply were not up to snuff. One of the migrants is reported to have said, We had a meeting the day before and decided that we do not want to continue living under these conditions. Apparently, these people assumed that they would each be given their very own apartment, and were not pleased to learn that they had to share a kitchen with other migrants. How terribly inconvenient for them.

Swedens upheaval of the HSO just shows that it will continue to bend over backwards to appease the needs of these so-called refugees at the expense of its own people  a truly sad state of affairs.

Sources:

Breitbart.com

Breitbart.com
Hidden tunnels were found between North Korea and South Korea's borders that will allow thousands of troops to travel in between the DMZ in less than an hour, a discovery which may be frightening for many. A lot of South Koreans are worried there might be more of these tunnels found along the DMZ.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone, or the DMZ, is the borderline between North and South Korea which is fully guarded by military men day and night since their ceasefire in the 1950s. With more than 60 years of so-called peace, would it seem that North Korea still has a hidden agenda? So far, there are a total of four tunnels which have been discovered since the Korean War.

According to a report from Mirror UK, the first one was discovered in the seventies when a defector from North Korea tipped off the military that there are hidden 'invasion' tunnels underneath the DMZ. To the military's surprise they did not find one but four more of these hidden North Korean tunnels.

Although no videos and photos are allowed inside the tunnel, it has been reported that there are sleeping cabins, storage, railway tracks and even electricity in some parts of the tunnel. A report from CNN probes the possibility of North Korea digging a tunnel up to the capital city of Seoul but the Defense Ministry has indicated that it is close to impossible.

The existing tunnels alone have been estimated to be formed for about six years and it would take decades for North Korea to dig a hole through the city, much less go unnoticed for so long. Seeing these as no threat, BBC has reported that some portions of these tunnels have been turned into tourist attractions. However, it still has attracted many tunnel-hunters all over South Korea in the aims of finding more of these 'hidden invasion tunnels'.
The Moon Express is a company that aims to bring people from the Earth to the Moon in, literally, an out-of-this-world holiday destination. As early as now, they are offering tickets to the moon for more than $150,000,000, and the trip is scheduled by 2026. A lot of people are skeptical about the idea. Is there a possibility to this venture?

The company was founded by entrepreneur Naveen Jain in 2010, and he and his team have been working so hard to get all these ambition into reality. Interestingly, according to a report from Mirror UK, the Moon Express has been granted permission by the U.S. law to leave the Earth and land on the moon. It is the only private company with such great access.

According to a report from ZME Science, with permission granted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the company is set to launch its first unmanned mission by 2017. They not only target to bring people to the moon but also explore the idea of possible mining ores from the Moon's surface. The target for this unmanned mission is to survey possible spots for mining.

According to a report from IFL Science, the Moon Express has gained competition, as the company Space Adventures hopes to bring people to the moon by 2017 -- a shorter timeline than that of the Moon Express.

Based on the report, the trip will start by being launched from the Soyuz rocket from Russia and will drop by the International Space Station before officially making it to the moon. A total of 17 days in orbit, they are expecting to bring the spacecraft within 100 kilometers from the surface of the moon and not exactly land on it.

Both companies believe in the possibility of interplanetary habitation and bringing people to the moon is the first step. This is a concept many scientists believe will be the last option in the event that global warming takes its toll on Earth.
An e-mobility company has made a "motorcycle of the future," one that not only is a marvel of sophistication in design and ergonomics but can also power an entire home.

The Johammer J1 was designed by Johann Hammerschmid, founder of Johammer e-mobility company GmbH. The vehicle is distinctively shaped like a giant peanut, a horse, or a prewar Junkers airplane. He said he opted for such a design choice to "return" to the concept of the horse before pollution from engines.

According to Bloomberg, around 60 Johammers have been around Europe since 2014. An interesting feat is that it is the first electric motorcycle to cover more than 300 kilometers on a single charge.

However, what's more interesting is that its next generation sibling may double as a battery storage for solar power panels while parked. Akin to a Tesla Powerwall on wheels, a prototype is now being tested in Switzerland.

According to its crowdfunding website, a campaign has just started to raise funds for its expansion. Hammerschmid also explained that he already thought of building an electric vehicle back in 2007, and was at first a weekend project.

This is when Hammerschmid has free time from his Nordfels GmbH, which solves complex engineering problems. His team of less than 40 makes factory lines for food, drug, and farm industries.

Interestingly, the new prototype now has a polypropylene body cladding and the unconventional center-hub steering, which is a system created a century ago but was never widely embraced.

The bike's top speed is pegged to around 75 miles an hour to avoid energy sapping wind resistance. Its acceleration is fun but not fast but is a hallmark of clever engineering, nonetheless.

For instance, it has no dashboard but has instead data on rear-view mirrors. A reverse twist of the throttle turns the drive motor into a generator that acts as a break and quickly removes speed. The system is so efficient that disk brakes are relegated to helping with slow-speed stopping.

It's even got a reverse gear for parking. The safety-certified items such as wheels, tiles and brakes are all gathered commercially, while the rest is in-house.

There are currently two versions of the J1 available. The top spec J1.200 costs $26,750, which is capable of traveling 125 miles on tough terrain and 186 miles urban. It takes 3.5 hours to charge, but it can be blast charged in 80 minutes.

Its battery is assembled at the factory from more than 1,200 individual cells that can hold 12 KW hours, close to the Powerwall's 14 kWh. There are plans for a sidecar model that can allow bigger battery and increased range.
London is upping its ante on the climate change battle after a historic reveal from Mayor Sadiq Khan. The London mayor announced that "dirty" diesel double-decker buses will be phased out from the city's bus fleet by 2018.



This is after the unveiling of the city's first-ever double-decker hydrogen bus. Khan even announced that all single-decker buses in central London will either be electric or hydrogen-based.



This is a significant move towards realizing the goals for the Ultra-Low Emission Zone standard by 2020. According to the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, it will be an area within the capital where all cars, motorcycles, vans and other vehicles will have to meet exhaust emission standards.



The move to remove diesel-based double deckers is due to the air pollution level in the capital as well. According to a document from London's website, long exposure to the pollution can cause 9,400 premature deaths annually.



According to BBC, London will introduce at least 20 new hydrogen buses as part of a 10m part-European Union-funded project that supports hydrogen technology. Transport for London will also provide 5m in funding for the project.



The new hydrogen double-decker buses will be on trial around the city's roads next year. Meanwhile, it can be expected that 300 more "zero-emission" buses will be on the streets by 2020.



Interestingly, London's move appears to be one of many occurring in a lot of major cities in the world. Cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Cape Town and San Francisco also plans to phase out diesel buses by 2020. Meanwhile, Paris, Mexico City and Madrid have also committed to remove diesel buses from the cities by 2025.



Khan said this move is to help London become a "world leader in hydrogen and electric bus technology."



The move is also beneficial to the move towards combatting climate change. A lot of countries are even opting towards becoming full-independent on fossil fuel sources in a few decades.
It can be known as a universal desire for all kinds of civilizations to want to live better and longer lives. However, it may be interesting to take note that despite this premise, scientists still debate on the question of where should we draw the line between ethics and pushing biological limits through experimental science.



According to a piece on The National, medical and scientific experts agree that the lifespan of humans is on the rise, but there is little consensus on exactly how much.



There were comparisons, however. For instance, the average life expectancy for people has doubled since 1900 to 71.4 years. This is long versus the mayfly's lifespan of a day, short versus the 400-year old Greenland shark, and a blink versus the 11,000-year-old deep-sea sponge.



Aubrey de Grey of the Sens Research Foundation said that society, in fact, has a fatalistic attitude to longevity. The first person to reach 1,000 years old may even be alive, he said. According to Scientific American, Elizabeth Blackburn, who won a Nobel in 2009 for research on telomeres and genetics of aging, said raising the bar for people with triple-digit-spans is not overtly ambitious.



Meanwhile, a study by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine said it may not be possible to extend life beyond the recorded ages, with 115 years likely to be the maximum lifespan of humans.



The odds that in any given year at least one person will live past their 125th birthday are less than one in 10,000. Jeanne Calment was the oldest person alive, having lived 122 years until she died in 1997.



Some argue it may be too soon to dictate a maximum lifespan when experiments tend to do the "impossible" for us. For instance, organ transplant and in-vitro fertilization are two prominent procedures that trigger ethical debates. For instance, organ transplants were initially criticized by some saying that using body parts is like using a robot where gears and parts are swapped.



Meanwhile, just recently, Italian professor Sergio Canavero and his colleagues were able to make the first successful head transplant using monkeys. But since the spinal cord was not reconnected to the monkey, it was euthanized on day one and was left paralyzed. According to BBC, his team plans to carry out the first human head transplant by 2017.



However, the vast benefits and manageable risks of the process has made the process acceptable. However, if we get to answer just what the distinction is between pioneering care and reckless treatments may help the healthcare industry cope with the 30 percent increase in the world's population by 2050 to a whopping 9.7 billion.



While the human lifespan is referred as the "global average" among the world's species, it's important to note that according to the World Economic Forum, the current holder of the world's highest average life expectancy is Hong Kong (with 84 years), and China holding the lowest with just under 50.
In the Siberian region of Tuva in Russia, authorities are busy examining pieces of the debris left from the crash of the Progress cargo spaceship. The remnants were from the crash a week past after failing to reach orbit.

According to Phys.org, authorities managed to spot two pieces, one of which was a large spherical object that had earlier been found by herders. The other piece was discovered in the courtyard of a residential home. Sanitation officers in the region had reportedly inspected the areas where the spacecraft pieces were found.

Upon inspection, no dangerous substances were found in the area. However, Sholban Karaa-ool, the region head of Tuva, strictly advised residents from touching any debris they may encounter.

A head at the environmental safety laboratory of the Moscow State University, Geochemist Tatyana Koroleva, adds that there is no immediate danger from the fallen debris. The chemicals in the spacecraft would have already burned out in the atmosphere.

The sole reason as to why residents had been advised to keep their distance was due to the risk of the parts being sold as scrap metal. Ironically, such instance had already happened in the past.

As for the crash of the Progress cargo spacecraft, Russia's space agency Roscosmos has started an investigation for reasons behind the crash. According to reports, the crash could have been caused by an engine failure in the third-stage rocket, Soyuz-U.

"This recent failure was the Soyuz-U's 776th launch and the carrier's 22nd accident, meaning that the Soyuz-U's accident rate is 2.8 percent," Ivan Moiseev, the director of the Institute of Space Policy (ISP), told a local news outlet. "In general, an unmanned rocket is expected to have a five percent accident rate."

Despite the failed launch, Russia has another launch of the Progress cargo ship scheduled on February 2. Yet, the launch could be delayed following the investigation of the crash. If the engines in the third-stage rocket are deemed faulty, all engines of the Soyuz rockets would have to undergo re-tests, Slash Gear reports.
The Arctic may not be in good shape, data from a European satellite found.

While winter season is meant to bring about the growth of sea ice in the Arctic, it seems that it is not expanding as expected. The European Space Agency's (ESA) CryoSat satellite found that the Arctic has one of the lowest volumes of sea ice of any November, matching record low levels in 2011 and 2012.

Moreover, winter growth of ice in the Arctic has been 10 percent lower than usual, ESA said.

"Because CryoSat can measure Arctic sea ice thickness in autumn, it gives us a much clearer picture of how it has fared during summer," Rachel Tilling at the UK's Center for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), said in a statement.

"Although sea ice usually grows rapidly after the minimum extent each September, this year's growth has been far slower than we'd expect - probably because this winter has been warmer than usual in the Arctic."

CryoSat's primary mission is to measure the thickness of polar sea ice and monitor the changes in the ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica. It is equipped with a radar altimeter that measures the surface height variation of ice in fine detail, which allows scientists to accurately record changes in its volume. The observations are important for tracking climate change and are being used by maritime operators who navigate the icy waters of the polar regions.

According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, the region in the Arctic covered by sea ice fell to 4.1 million sq km in September this year, which is less than the sea ice extent in September of 2011. But CryoSat shows that ice was thicker at an average of 116 cm at the end of the summer than in other years, which follows that there was more ice this year than in 2011.

The Arctic usually grows about 161 cubic km of ice per day in November, but this year it only gained 139 cubic km per day. Total ice volume is estimated to be 10,500 cubic km by the end of the month, which ties with that of November 2011.

Sea ice in the central Arctic is thicker than it was in 2011, but there is less ice in the southern regions of Beaufort, East Siberian and Kara Seas.

According to IFL Science, the slow growth of sea ice could be related to the anomalously warm temperatures in the northern region of the Arctic, where previous recordings found a temperature of -5 degrees Celsius in areas where the temperature at this time of year is expected to be as cold as -25 degrees Celsius.
The so-called Ghost Ship, where dozens of people died after the warehouse in Oakland caught fire, was not permitted as a residential building, city officials said.

Derick Almena, the man who operated the Ghost Ship, said in an interview with NBC Bay Area about 20 people from a collective of young artists lived in the warehouse.

There are plenty of similar warehouses across Oakland and San Francisco. A former warehouse owner interviewed by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit said a mish mash of conflicting laws enables these artist colonies to exist

The former owner did not want to be identified because it took him nearly a decade of legal fighting to get out from the problems created when an artist colony moved into his warehouse. The move was done without him giving his approval or even knowing about it.

"When we finally got into the building we found a commercial kitchen, we found hazardous materials," the former owner said.

The longtime Bay Area resident watched the horrific images of the Ghost Ship warehouse going up in flames and said he got sick to his stomach because it could have easily been his building.

"As the landlord we are in a catch-22. We can't even get into our own building much less see what's going on," the former owner said.

The former owner said the current housing shortage will prevent any real reform from actually taking place.

"I'm sure there are warehouses throughout the area. The housing shortage drives it. We see these people pay $500 a month for rent. We even found one building where AirBnb was listing room within the warehouses for rent," he said.

The former owner said he spent 10 years trying to get the people living in his building out. He said the warehouse was leased for commercial use only, but it was turned into an artist's colony just like the Ghost Ship.

The former owner said both Oakland and San Francisco city leaders know this problem exists, but chose to look the other way. And in the Ghost Ship warehouse, it cost dozens of people their lives.

"In this case clearly the city missed an opportunity to go in and fix this problem because this has been known for in some cases a decade," he said.

As hard as it is to believe, the former owner said he could not evict the tenants because the middle man who leased the building was considered the landlord. The former warehouse owner could not even go into his own building.

That is why he believes Oakland building code inspectors couldn't get into the Ghost Ship building as well. The people who had taken up residence there simply would not agree to let them in for an inspection.
The youngest identified victim of the deadly Oakland warehouse fire is the son of an Alameda County Sheriffs deputy.

Draven McGill, 17, was a junior at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. He was one of at least 36 people who died Friday in the inferno on 31st Avenue in Oakland's Fruitvale district.

At the high school in San Franciscos Diamond Heights neighborhood, classmates spoke about a young man who had a gift for music and love of adventure.

Senior Gabriel Bibliowicz, the school's student body president, was friends with McGill.

"That kid was all smiles," Bibliowicz said. "He was always looking for a good time; he was ready to hang out with friends and go out."

Bibliowicz said McGill was a quiet leader who led by example.

"The way he interacted with you, there was nothing but good memories about him," he said. "I cant think of a single negative thing about him. Hes going to be really missed here."

McGill traveled the world singing in the Pacific Boychoir. He attended middle school at the Pacific Boychoir Academy in Oakland before graduating to the Asawa School of the Arts two years ago.

The academy's artistic director, Kevin Fox, had nothing but praise for McGill.

"Draven was perhaps the kindest and gentlest person you could ever meet, and that is abosultely true," Fox said.

Fox recalled one trip to Vietnam, when the choir was stranded at the airport for hours. Rather than sit with nothing to do, McGill made a video that lifted everyone's spirit.

"Instead of being stuck at the airport, he made this video, making something positive and creative out of nothing," Fox said.

Bibliowicz said the mood on campus is somber. Grief counselors met with students Monday morning.
As officials scour over the last of the charred wreckage from the Oakland warehouse fire that killed at least 36 people, questions are mounting over the future of remaining underground art venues and live-work spaces in the Bay Area.

Now, many artists and allies say they are fearful that these venues will soon face the harshest citywide crackdown yet, delivering another blow to an already devastated and tight-knit group of creators. For many, it could mean having to mourn while also searching for a new place to live.

Often times, theres really nowhere else to go, explained Joe Murphy, a jewelry maker with deep ties to the art community.

The Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse, which functioned as a music venue, art gallery and living space without proper permits, was just one of many illegal sites serving the regions artistic community.

Similar countercultural hubs have provided outlets for emerging and low-income artists for decades, and, in more recent years, theyve become lifelines for a community that is struggling under the constant threat of gentrification-related displacement. The existence of these venues in the Bay Area, especially within Oakland, is well documented, but Friday's tragedy propelled them to the forefront of national consciousness and placed them under intense scrutiny.

These warehouses and underground spaces are really, really key to a thriving arts community, said Jesse Townley, a member of the Berkeley Rent Board who is calling for a right to return and increased safety for artists living in underground warehouses. Musical artists, woodworkers, painters  you name it. All types of people  gay, straight, trans, African-American, Caucasian, Latino  find spaces here.

As a result, city officials have found themselves in a nightmarish position. Shutting down remaining collectives will reduce the stock of available shelters and displace an integral part of Oaklands renowned arts culture. But turning a blind eye could prove deadly, as Fridays inferno demonstrated.

Many in the arts community are advocating for increased safety rather than displacement, and have said that pushing artists out of underground venues could backfire.

Sarah Burke, an art curator and critic in Oakland, noted that displacing the artists will only make the problem worse; will only drive these artists further underground and into more precarious living situations. She proposed additional support, resources and avenues for creating safer venues and improving existing ones, a costly endeavor that will likely need the city's help to move forward.

Others who lived in the Ghost Ship suddenly find themselves having to defend a lifestyle that, for years, has played a substantial role in making Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley world-renowned creative hubs.

"People have their ideas about the humans that enjoy free spaces, women's circles, recreational drugs, raves, even just meditation and communal living," said Rain Dove, an activist and model who lost a friend in the Ghost Ship. "However, the humans that are living in these things ARE HUMANS. They create beautiful art that you see every day, they bring peace to many broken hearts and minds, and they come together in the streets often to protect your civil liberties. They are a part of our community."

Mayor Libby Schaaf has tried to assuage housing anxieties, reiterating her commitment to the arts on Sunday. A previously scheduled major philanthropic investment will be announced on Tuesday, her office said.

Christopher Ray, a Bay Area native who named three different underground warehouses in which he lived over the last 10 years, is among those who are hopeful that venues will survive the fire. The outpouring of support stemming from online donation sites buoys his outlook, he said, adding that he overcame painful experiences because of similar alternative spaces.

(These spaces) strengthened me, and they helped sustain me through many, many years of my own struggle and trying to find my own path in the Bay Area, Ray said. They provide one of the most vital human needs, and thats shelter and belonging.

Residents of the burned Oakland warehouse, which housed art collective Satya Yuga, have said that they complained about dangers to the buildings leaseholder, Derick Ion Almena, but he didnt take them seriously. One resident even called the space a death trap. As seen in photos taken before the fire, It was outfitted with makeshift walls, a now-infamous wooden staircase and masses of curios, tapestries, paintings and sculptures. City documents reveal that officials had previously visited, and noted that the space "looks very bad and creates health issue(s)."

But Townley, who would like to see cities address the issue "holistically" cautioned writing off all underground, alternative spaces as dangerous. He recalled the huge loss of arts and culture Berkeley endured after arts collective Drayage, also located in an industrial warehouse, closed its doors, and is hoping he wont see a repeat in neighboring Oakland.

Its really, really important to know that a lot of these places are already safe, he said. Not all of these warehouses are a death trap. I want to make that 100 percent clear.

Gillian Edevane covers Contra Costa County for NBC Bay Area. You can email her at Gillian.Edevane@NBCuni.com, and you can donate to fundraising efforts for fire victims and their families here.
The fatal fire at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland has put a glaring spotlight on the city's art community. Many are now fearful about the fallout from scrutiny into similar converted live-work spaces.

Artists from all over Oakland are hoping they don't see a knee-jerk reaction from city officials or building owners to crack down on such warehouse conversion spaces. But, as records reveal, the Ghost Ship wasn't the only warehouse with safety violations.

The question now: How to make these spaces safe without destroying or displacing Oakland's art community.

Bruce Bjerke is a musician and artist who makes his living repairing electronic instruments on the Berkeley-Oakland border. He says he and many of his friends in the creative community have already been pushed out of city centers to make way for developers and high-cost housing. That dynamic is fueling makeshift live-work spaces like the Ghost Ship, he contends.

"If the creative aspect of your city is decimated, then you're sucking the soul out of that city," Bjerke says.

One of the alternative spaces NBC Bay Area's Investigative Unit found was a place nicknamed the "Death Trap." No one at the artist co-op wanted to comment, but city records show it's one of several such spaces that have been on the radar for city inspectors. A 2011 complaint about "alterations without a required permit" remains open.

A woman living at the "Death Trap" says the building owner is in talks with residents, but she would not comment on reports that they were being evicted.

It is exactly that potential that has many in Oakland's creative community upset. They say city leaders need to create resources to support artists to help them find safe spaces to work and live, not get rid of them.

"Create grants or something to upgrade spaces so people can live and work safely instead going underground," Bjerke says.
Many friends and family members were still awaiting word of their missing loved ones as crews searched for remains in the Oakland warehouse where at least 36 died in a fire.

Some gathered outside a sheriff's office for official confirmation on their status.

"This is horrible, we can't sleep at all," said a family member of the missing Alex Vega.

Relatives of Peter Wadsworth and Jennifer Mendiola also were awaiting word, part of a long list of families now waiting by the phone or waiting at help centers.

Funded by PG&E, the unity council opened its doors for anyone emotionally affected by the fire and in need of counseling.

A representative said it's a place where folks can come and hang out, get information and direct them to the Red Cross.

Most of the families and friends just wanted some sort of information, regardless of whether it's good or bad news.

"It's very hard to wrap your head around something like this," said Erica Richardson, a friend of one of the missing.

Others among the missing were Alex Ghassan and his fiancee, Hanna Henrikka Ruax.

Ghassan is a director and producer who worked with Spike Lee and Talib Kweli. He also is the father of twin toddlers.

Ruax is a yoga instructor, entrepreneur and activist visiting from Helsinki, Finland. She arrived in Oakland in late November.

The pair had been dating long-distance, and Ghassan was preparing to move to Europe, said his roommate Vikram Babu. "He was fed up with the U.S.," Babu said.

Before the fire, Ghassan posted video of the warehouse party on Instagram.

Nick Walrath, 31, of Oakland texted his girlfriend, Alexis Abrams-Bourke, from inside the burning structure, saying there was a fire and that he loved her.

Abrams-Bourke said Monday that Walrath was among the missing. She spoke between sobs as she described him as a wonderful person who was open and vulnerable and goofy and generous.

"I feel like my future has been ripped from me," she said.

The two moved together from New York City several years ago after Walrath got a job as a clerk for the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Photos: Inside the Oakland 'Ghost Ship' Warehouse Building Before It Caught Fire

Barrett Clark, 35, was a popular sound engineer at the San Francisco club The Bottom of the Hill. And his friends say he appeared to be everywhere.

Parker T. Gibbs, chief operating officer at Magnolia Media Productions, said when he'd walk into a rave full of strangers, he'd always spot Clark. "I knew where I'd be for the rest of the night," Gibbs said. "Right next to him.'""

Authorities have listed Clark among the missing.

Friends say the Santa Rosa native was a sound engineer and DJ who was a "standup guy" and appeared always ready to help musicians and fellow DJs.

Friends and family were holding out hope that photographer Amanda Allen, 34, would be found safe.

The Chelmsford, Massachusetts, native is a dancer with a passion for music, loved ones told The Lowell Sun.

"We are all praying for a miracle and coming together as a family," said her mother, Linda Smith Regan.

Allen's husband, Andy Kershaw, a DJ, called her vibrant and magnetic.

Allen graduated from Bridgewater State University in 2004. She and Kershaw moved to San Francisco from Boston in 2008.

Kershaw said his friend and fellow DJ Johnny Igaz also was unaccounted for.

Igaz reportedly was playing a set when the fire broke out. He was listed on Facebook as a record buyer at Green Apple Books and Music in San Francisco.

Riley Fritz, 29, a musician and artist from Connecticut, recently moved to San Francisco to be with friends, according to her brother, Ben Fritz.

"She was a kind and beautiful person who had the strength to be her true self even when she knew that was not an easy path," Ben Fritz, 39, told The Associated Press. He said she appeared to be the "happiest she had been in a few years."

Ben Fritz said the family was notified Sunday night that Riley, also known as Feral Pines, likely was killed in the fire.

Ben Runnels and Nicole Renae Siegrist, known as "Denalda," named their last album "Temporary Heaven" to describe the fleeting nature of life and the moments of happiness when you feel completely comfortable with who you are, no matter how different from others you may be, said Brendan Draeper, who helped operate Mixtape, the Oakland-based company that managed their band.

That's also the message the two friends, who formed the group Introflirt, would want the world to remember about their music, Draeper said. They dubbed their sound "croonwave" and made it their mission to create a "soundtrack for the insecure," according to Mixtape.

Runnels and Siegrist went to the warehouse show with friends.

NBC Bay Area's Rick Boone contributed to this report.
The Apple Store in Palo Alto was reopened for business Monday, a day after burglars rammed a vehicle through the storefront and made off with thousands of dollars worth of phones and laptops.

Four suspects were arrested later Sunday, but police said as many as 10 burglars were involved in the heist, and they are now searching for additional suspects.

Dispatchers received the call at 4:38 a.m. of the crash at the store at 340 University Ave.

The smashed portion of the University Avenue store's plate-glass window had been replaced with a large board Monday, and three plain-clothes security guards were watching the entrance.

A photo tweeted by a witness Sunday shows the mini SUV used to break through the storefront.

"The force of the collision punched a small hole that was big enough for people to crawl through," Palo Alto police Lt. Zach Perron said.

Police said the SUV was a rental, and it was transported Monday to police headquarters, where investigators were processing it for evidence.

Shaquin Ferguson, 19, and Erica White, 18, were arrested Sunday. The other two suspects arrested are juveniles, police said. The two teens, 16 and 17, have been taken to Santa Clara County juvenile hall. Their names are not being released because they are minors, police said.

Ferguson and White were taken to the Santa Clara County jail on suspicion of burglary, vandalism and conspiracy. Ferguson, who does not have a permanent address, was on parole for weapons violations, police said.

Investigators said more suspects are out there.

"About eight to 10 people, after the car collided with the glass, were able to go into the Apple Store and help themselves to all the electronics that were there," Perron said.

Witnesses told police that they saw multiple people running from the area after the crash. Police said they found a gray 2016 Kia Soul abandoned on the sidewalk in front of the store. The Kia had major damage, police said.

Police did recover some of the stolen electronics.

Sunday's heist follows a series of thefts at Apple Stores around the Bay Area. Last month, thieves robbed an Apple Store in San Francisco, and there was a similar robbery at the Burlingame Apple Store just last week.

"Shoplifting and burglaries like these, especially this time of year, theyre not necessarily uncommon, unfortunately," Perron said.

Police have not tied the Palo Alto suspects to any of the other robberies.

Anyone with information about the burglary is asked to call police at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be emailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text or voicemail to (650) 383-8984.

Bay City News contributed to this report.
The Oakland warehouse artists' enclave was supposed to be a safe place, emotionally and spiritually, for the artists and free spirits who chose lives off the beaten track. An electronic music party had also attracted many in the transgender community, who had come together on Friday night, as they did regularly, to dance with friends and blow off steam.

But physically, the enclave wasn't safe at all on Friday. A fire ripped through the illegally converted warehouse at 1315 East 31st Avenue in the city's Fruitvale neighborhood, killing at least 36 people.

It's the deadliest blaze in Oakland history, and it counts at least three transgender women among the victims: Cash Askew, 22, of Oakland; Riley Fritz, whom friends called Feral Pines, 29, of Berkeley and Em Bohlka, 33, of Oakland.

The father of one is lamenting how few spaces trans people have to gather safely.

"My heart goes out to the entire trans community who feel as if they must gather in unsafe buildings to experience their community and celebrate their identity," said Jack Bohlka in an Instagram post remembering his daughter, Em.

Friends and family prefer their new names be used to identify them, instead of the ones they were born with, following commonly accepted tradition in the trans community. And that means authorities are now also dealing with an unorthodox situation; one they said they're willing to comply with, albeit with a few mistakes.

What's in a Name?

When Fritz, whom friends call Feral Pines, was identified as a victim in the fire, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office on Monday first gave her name with her biological birth name. That was corrected later and the sheriff tweeted an apology, later adding that the family prefers she be called Riley Fritz, and to please respect those wishes.

In an interview on Tuesday, Alameda County Sheriffs Sgt. J.D. Nelson said the coroner's office is now identifying the victims to the public by the names their families  not their friends  ask for, and will note the legal name, if different, on the official death certificate, which is the law. Alameda County sheriff's Tya Modete added that department was working with an LGBT advocate to report the proper gender identification.

Hindu Gods, Music, Art Inside Oakland's Satya Yoga

A name means a lot in the trans community, a fact that was known by most, if not all, of the creative, musical and artistic party goers at the warehouse on Friday night.

"It's called 'dead naming,'" Carol Dauley, an audio engineer and past president of Transgender SF said in an interview with NBC Bay Area on Tuesday. "That means their old name no longer exists. It's disrespectful, and in the eyes of the trans community, there is never a good reason to use the old name."

Scout Wolfcave, executive director at the Trans Assistance Project in Portland and a friend to one of the victims, said using the right names and pronouns is especially important for trans people when they die.

"Many in the transgender community don't want to be referred to by the names they were given at birth, because when they transition from one gender to another, they want to make a clean break from the past," Wolfcave wrote on Facebook.

Pastor Megan Rohrer, of Grace Lutheran Church in San Francisco, said she appreciated that first responders were taking great pain to get pronouns correct.

"I just want to lift up how great I think that is, that they're taking the time to do their best, even though it's really hard," they said. (Rohrer uses they/their as gender pronouns.)

Rohrer also noted that the LGBT community at large has a long history of holding celebrations in unsafe places on the margins of the community, going back to the days of vice squads patrolling San Francisco.

"The trans community and the LGBT community, when they don't feel safe in other parts of community, often find safety amongst artists," Rohrer said.

And yet the warehouse was beautiful, according to Rohrer, and it seemed to them that it was a great place to have a party: "That's kind of the transgender experience. There's so much beauty and there's so much risk, all the time.

Here are brief portraits of the three women who died in the fire.

Riley Fritz, aka, Feral Pines: 'Shined in the Sun'

Wolfcave was roommates with Fritz, whom she knew as Feral Pines, who moved to the Bay Area from Indiana and was originally from Connecticut. She graduated from Staples High School in 2005 and attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where she studied offset lithography, her father said. She had always loved music.

"I had just texted her on Friday, telling her about something I was doing with my daughter that she and I use to do together and I know that she saw it, so that makes me feel better," Fritz's sister, Amanda Parry, told News 12 in Connecticut. And in an email, friend Sarah Patterson said that she was a "syth genius with impeccable musical taste," who was also an "anti-facist" who was seen taking down swastikas inside the Ghost Ship.

On Facebook, Wolfcave reminisced about being really close with her friend  they loved and hated most of the same things.

"We also all had eerily similar senses of humor and were constantly joking about death, burners, body horror, poop, tiny glasses, gogurt," Wolfcave wrote. "Conversely, there were a few things that Feral and I would always argue about, like ... whether one would rather go to Burning Man or the Gathering of the Juggalos."

Fritz moved to California recently and just "blossomed," Wolfcave wrote.

"She went from the comically sad basement dwelling synth collector," Wolfcave wrote, "to a person that shined in the sun, and moved up and down the 1, and took in the fresh air and saw all these fresh possibilities open up before her."

Photos Show Hot Spots and Rescue Operations Inside Oakland Warehouse

Cash Askew: 'Brilliant, Talented, Unique' Student

Askew, a graduate of Urban High School in San Francisco, was active in the Bay Area music and art scene and was part of a band called Them Are Us Too. "Them" is a preferred pronoun for many in the transgender community instead of "him" or "her."

The band's debut album on Dais Records, Remain, was released in 2015.

"Cash Askew was an absolutely loved and treasured member of the Dais Records family," the label and band's management team said in a statement.

"We were in awe of her talent, her gentle kindness, and her creative momentum," it continued. "Her passing is an excruciating loss that we may never fully process or recover from."

Askew also was a 2008 graduate of the Children's Day School in San Francisco. "She was a brilliant, talented, unique, nonconformist student," Head of School Molly Huffman wrote in a letter, noting that Askew transitioned to female after middle school.

CDS teacher Terry Askhinos wrote a letter to the school remembering Askew as "a gentle, free spirited 13-year-old who always found ways to be an individual, whether it was in her class work, her fiction writing, her fashion, her art, or her political convictions. Cash was always one step ahead of the rest of us and I often held her up as an example to the class of how to make learning a work of art."

The Aftermath of the Deadly 'Ghost Ship' Warehouse in Oakland

Em Bohlka: Beginning her Transition

Her father, Jack Bohlka of Claremont, Calif. took to Instagram to document his child's life.

"Many of you will remember her as Matt. But recently she was transitioning to become a beautiful, happy woman. She took the name Em. I just wish with all my heart that she had more time to live her life as she truly wanted. My heart goes out to the entire trans community who feel as if they must gather in unsafe buildings to experience their community and celebrate their identity. Our communities must become more open and accepting of all people, all identities, so that everyone can enjoy a great party or concert in a space that is not a death trap."

He also told NBC Bay Area in a statement he will be establishing a fund at his local LGBT center in memory of Em, so that more transgender people will be able to become who they truly are, and so that there will be more safe spaces available.

Donations to the Oakland warehouse fire victims can be made at YouCaring.com

NBC's Asher Klein contributed to this report.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel sponsored a resolution that calls on Gov. Bruce Rauner to publicly support his efforts to promote Chicago as a sanctuary city for immigrants, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Emanuels resolution, which was signed by Comptroller Susana Mendoza and 35 of the citys 50 aldermen, urges Rauner to issue a statement of support for cities that welcome our undocumented family members and neighbors and condemn any effort to strip the city of Chicago of federal funding, the Tribune reports.

According to the report, the resolution, which was advanced Monday by the City Council Human Relations Committee, also urges the governor to speak at a special council meeting held solely for the purpose of discussing the president-elects plans for cities that welcome and protect immigrants.

Over the course of Trumps campaign, the president-elect promised to deport as many as 3 million immigrants who have a criminal record or are living in the country illegally. Additionally, Trump also pledged to cut off federal funding for sanctuary cities, like Chicago.

During a Trump transition press conference Monday, spokesman Jason Miller explained that the real estate magnate cum Commander-in-Chief has been very direct in where he stands with regard to sanctuary cities, and I expect to see significant action on that front after he is sworn in, the Tribune reports.

During the campaign, Rauner pledged to support the Republican party's nominee for president. However, he distanced himself from Trump when he became the partys nominee, refusing to even mention him by name.

Nevertheless, the governor reportedly had a good, positive conversation with the president-elect last week. Rauners office didnt respond to specifics of the citys resolution, but a spokeswoman reiterated the governors support for immigration reform, according to the report.

Emanuels resolution, which reaffirms the 2012 Welcoming City ordinance that cements Chicagos status as a sanctuary city, states that the Chicago police can only turn information on immigrants over to federal agents if they are wanted on a criminal warrant or have been convicted of a serious crime, the Tribune reports.

The law also prohibits officers from giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents access to their facilities for interviews or investigation. Additionally, the measure bars on-duty CPD officers from responding to ICE inquiries or discussing a persons custody status or release date with ICE officials.

Earlier this year, the City Council voted in favor of an Emanuel-endorsed measure that provides municipal ID cards to immigrants who are in the country illegally, the Tribune report.

According to the report, some GOP congressman have called for a halt in federal funding for sanctuary cities that dont cooperate with federal agents. However, its unclear whether those funding cuts would affect U.S. Department of Justice grants or all federal grants.

DOJ grants amount to roughly $29 million a year in Chicago, while the city also relies on about $1.3 billion in federal grants for other programs, like early-childhood education, transportation, policing, health initiatives, public assistance programs and disaster management, according to the Tribune.
Homeless shelters in Illinois and low-income college students who rely on state funds are facing another year of financial uncertainty as Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and majority Democratic lawmakers remain unable to make progress on resolving a budget war.



Several meetings during the past month have only served to prove how far apart the two sides are: Rauner, a former venture capitalist who took office two years vowing to overhaul how the state is managed, continues to insist Democrats pass part of his pro-business agenda, while they say he should focus on a budget deal without pre-conditions.



The money lawmakers approved as part of a six-month spending plan in June is about to run out, but they adjourned for the year Thursday without agreeing with the governor on a plan going forward. That means social service providers, like programs that deliver meals for homebound seniors and homeless shelters, will start the new year without state support. Some have already exhausted their budget reserves.



"They don't even have as much resilience as they did a year ago when they weren't getting paid," said Dan Lesser, director of economic justice at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty.



Illinois hasn't had a full budget since July 1, 2015  the longest a state has gone without a spending plan since at least World War II.



About 90 percent of the state's spending is on autopilot because of court orders requiring funds for crucial services such as Medicaid and salaries for state workers. Every day that passes Illinois is going into debt  about $500 million a month, according to the state comptroller  because the court orders are forcing the state to spend more money than it's collecting in taxes.



However, those court orders don't cover higher education institutions and some social service programs. That has prompted some providers to close their doors and layoffs in higher education.



"They're all going to be in the same pickle they were in last year," said Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat from Buffalo Grove.



The six-month budget provided some relief, but some of that money went to cover debts that social service providers had incurred during the past 18 months. Colleges have received about two-thirds of the funding they typically get from the state and have no money for tuition grants for low-income students this semester or the next.



The Peoples Church of Chicago runs a shelter for the homeless that is scheduled to close by the end of December because it hasn't received state support for over a year, said Dick Simpson, a member of the board that oversees the shelter. Nearly 80 people rely on the shelter on a daily basis and they'll have to find help elsewhere.



"And some of them will die. It's that serious," said Simpson, who is also a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.



Rauner plans to meet with legislative leaders throughout December with the goal of agreeing to a budget deal that can be considered the first week of January during a two-day lame-duck session  a period of time when outgoing lawmakers can be more willing to take tough votes.



But Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan has said the only way a budget will pass is if Rauner drops his demands.



"I'm so frustrated I'm almost giving up hope," said Rep. David Harris, a Republican from suburban Chicago. "I have no idea when this impasse is going to be broken."



Both sides reported no notable progress following weekend meetings at Rauner's offices in Chicago.



Madigan complained that the budget was discussed for just 14 minutes out of a nearly 90-minute meeting on Sunday. But Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno said Democrats were given ample opportunity to broach the subject but were "unprepared."




A Cook County judge on Tuesday has blocked a request for Kenilworth police to release thousands of pages in investigative files from the 50-year-old murder of Valerie Percy.

Judge Anna Helen Democopoulos said the release of the roughly 20,000 pages of documents would jeopardize the "active and ongoing investigation." She said affidavits provided show a "detailed and fact-driven account of recent investigative activities."

Some documents, however, including Cook County Medical Examiner files with redactions and without exhibits, will be released.

Kenilworth police insist the case is a very active and open investigation despite the six decades since Percy, the daughter of millionaire businessman Charles Percy, was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the familys Kenilworth mansion. Less than two months later, Percy was elected to his first term in the United States Senate.

New York attorney John Kelly sued Kenilworth for release of the investigative files from the September 1966 case. But Kenilworth fought the release of those files, arguing that any such release would compromise their work.

Two months ago a judge ordered the release of a 12-page memorandum outlining thousands of pages of secret evidence from the case. But when it arrived in inboxes today, multiple pages of the document were totally blacked out.

In my professional opinion, disclosure of this information would materially jeopardize our ongoing investigation into Ms. Percys murder, Kenilworth Police Chief David Miller wrote at the time. We have relied upon the confidential nature of our investigation file to pursue several leads, discount others, and continue our investigation into this brutal murder.

But Kellys Chicago attorney Matt Topic argues there is no active investigation.

Its crucial for the public to be able to scrutinize that investigation, to determine whether it was properly conducted, and whether theres lesson we can learn from the way that that investigation had been conducted, Topic said. Its just unfathomable to us that theres no information that they can release out of those files, especially given everything thats already been released, and especially given how important it is to scrutinize the police department, in an unsolved crime.
In a decision that is certain to send shock waves through City Hall and the Chicago Police Department, both the Cook County States Attorneys office and the City of Chicago Law Department said Tuesday they would not oppose appointment of a so-called Special Master to investigate potential wrongdoing by an alleged crew of corrupt police officers who worked for years in one of Chicagos poorest neighborhoods.

The development has the potential to open up hundreds, if not thousands of cases, exposing the city to potential liability for wrongful prosecutions, and allegations of criminal activity by officers who are still on the street.

In court Tuesday, Assistant Cook County States Attorney Fabio Valenti indicated his office was in agreement that a so-called Special Master should be appointed for the case. All sides are to return to court on January 18.

We still need to agree on the parameters but we are not opposed, Valenti told NBC5 after the hearing. Our hope is that by the 18th, we will have something to present the court.

And late Tuesday, the Chicago Law Department said they also would not stand in the way of the new investigation.

We support efforts to ensure that those convicted of crimes are guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted, spokesman Bill McCaffrey said in a statement. While we do not intend to oppose this petitionit would be premature to speculate that any additional convictions will be overturned as a result of this petition and further investigation.

Two of the officers, Sgt. Ronald Watts and officer Kallat Mohammed went to prison for their alleged misdeeds. But two whistleblowing officers alleged that Watts entire tactical team was corrupt. And residents accused the officers of running their own drug operation and shaking down and framing other drug dealers in the neighborhood.

One of those residents, a man named Ben Baker, went to prison for ten years, insisting he had been set up by Watts and his crew. After Watts conviction, Baker was eventually set free.

The proposed Special Master, if approved by a Cook County judge, would be tasked with identifying other potential victims.

Our first priority is justice for victims of these rogue officers who were out there, said Chicago journalist Jamie Kalven, who filed the petition with the court. But beyond that, I think we have the opportunity to learn a great deal about the inner workings of the department.

Indeed, the two Chicago Police officers who attempted to expose Watts and his crew, Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria said they faced retaliation within the department and won a $2 million whistleblower lawsuit against the City of Chicago earlier this year. The two said they worked with the FBI to uncover the extent of the corruption but were essentially blackballed within the Department, despite what they had learned about the corrupt officers.

Some of those officers are still on the force, said Kalven. Some have been promoted.

Kalvens attorney Joshua Tepfer filed the petition requesting the appointment of the Special Master, to investigate the possibility of other tainted convictions obtained through arrests by Watts and officers working under his command.

Were asking for the courts help, for the states attorneys help, for everyones help in identifying which cases are bad, said Tepfer. Because there are so manyits so vast.

The appointment of so-called Special Masters is rare. The most notable example was two years ago, when Loyola Law School Dean David Yellen was appointed to investigate claims of coerced confessions at the hands of disgraced Chicago Police commander John Burge.

Kalven said he especially would like to know how an investigation which had involved so many resources had produced so few results.

How multiple agencies could have been investigating this criminal activity within the public housing unit and ultimately the second district for more than a decade, he said. Were talking about the FBI, Internal Affairs, Drug Enforcement Agency, the States Attorneys officeand have not brought home more than the conviction of Watts and Mohammed on a single charge.

In his filing with the court, Tepfer included repeated references from the FBIs own internal files, referencing Watts alleged illegal activity.

Watts gets IBW drug dealers to pay him to work in the housing project, one report quoted an informant in September of 2004. If the payments are made to Watts, he will in turn allow the drug dealers to continue to sell drugs.

I think were all on the same team with this one, Tepfer said. Nobody wants to see the wrongfully convicted remain wrongfully convicted. And everyone has an interest.
Arlington Heights Police are asking residents for help as they investigate nearly 40 incidents of vandalism involving a BB gunsome of which were caught on surveillance video.

Police released video last week that may show the car involved in one of the shooting incidents: a white vehicle in the 2400 block of North Evergreen Avenue in the northwest suburb. In another incident, a security camera captured the sound of BBs piercing the glass windows, denting the trim and flaking off the paint of a home.

Arlington Heights Police say there have been dozens of attacks since mid-Novembermost of them targeting cars on residential streets. Mike McGrath, who said he lives in the area, says most of his neighbors on Douglas Street have been victims of the damage.

It was a lot bigger thing than just the house, he told NBC 5. It was eight or 10 all the way up the street, because I know most of the people on the block, and they all had the Gerber out here.

Police say they are still searching for suspects.
Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx released her transition report Monday, outlining her intent to seek the appointment of special prosecutors to investigate police-involved shootings.

In an exclusive interview with NBC 5s Mary Ann Ahern, Foxx conceded that she still has some unanswered questions about those sorts of appointments.

Can we unilaterally ask for a special prosecutor? Foxx asked. Do we have to ask a judge for a special prosecutor? Do you have to go down to Springfield to make this happen?

Foxx, who was sworn in as Cook Countys first black, female states attorney last week, also admitted that hiring special prosecutors may prove to be an expensive process.

While cost is a factor, I think we have paid a higher cost in the credibility of our criminal justice system  the fact that the neighborhoods that need us the most trust us the least, she said.

Foxx also claimed the county was shaken by the shooting death of Laquan McDonald. The 17-year-old was shot and killed by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014. Van Dyke was not charged with the murder until November 2015, the same day that dash-cam footage of the incident was made public.

Foxx ultimately beat her predecessor, Anita Alvarez, in the March Democratic primary. Alvarez was widely criticized for her handling of the case, an issue that largely defined the race.

Foxxs ambitious transition report also promises internal audits and the hiring of a diversity officer. Additionally, the states attorney plans to bring on an ethics officer.

Were bringing on someone who comes from the U.S. Attorneys Office, who's handled these kinds of investigations and cases before, Foxx said.

There are some who may not believe in the vision I have for the office when I talk about transparency and ethics, when I talk about the need for us to engage more, she added.

Foxx will begin meeting with department heads this week. During Mondays interview, she noted that those who dont share her vision for the future may no longer want to stay. Foxx said she plans to shake up the office, which is comprised of 850 attorneys and other staff.

In the closing days of the last administration, there were only two African-American men in positions of leadership, Foxx said. Lawyers, out of an office of 850 lawyers, there were only two."
After being sworn in Monday in Springfields Capitol rotunda, Comptroller Susana Mendoza vowed to be an independent, truth-telling watchdog for the state.

During her speech, Mendoza criticized Gov. Bruce Rauner for backing a bailout for Exelon and ComEd after vetoing $215 million in funding for Chicago Public Schools. Throughout her speech, she pushed lawmakers to pass a balanced budget in order to aid the states most vulnerable."

This is such a pivotal time for our state and our country, Mendoza said. The choices we make now will impact our lives and our childrens lives for years to come. Do we want a state that meets its obligation to provide services for the poor and the elderly, for people with disabilities, to be the primary funder of education in the state? Or do we want a state that keeps shirking its responsibility to pass a balanced budget?

Mendoza also pointed to the states pressing $10.4 billion bill backlog and pledged to roll over outgoing Comptroller Leslie Mungers policy that withholds state government paychecks until other bills are paid.

Im putting myself in that same queue, not because I want to villainize legislators, I clearly dont, I think a lot of them work very hard, she added. However, we are public servants and in this fiscal crisis we need to make sure that were prioritizing the right people first."

A group of Illinois representatives filed a lawsuit on Friday looking to stop that policy. According to the group bringing the suit, the effort looks to end unwarranted political pressure being brought by Gov. Bruce Rauner and Comptroller Leslie Munger. On Monday, Rauner urged the lawmakers to drop the lawsuit.

Mendoza noted that she spoke with Rauner after being elected and visited Rome with him last month to watch Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupichs installation as cardinal. However, she claimed she didnt get much transition help from Munger and her office.

The comptroller also explained that she plans to be a visible figure in Springfield, criticizing Rauner for attempting to include elements of his turnaround agenda, like term limits and workers' compensation, in budget negotiations. During Mondays news conference, she explained that its a new day in the comptrollers office.

Ive gotta tell you that I really am very hopeful and Im optimistic that things will get better in the state of Illinois, Mendoza said. Were going to get out of this and we're going to do it together and Illinois will see brighter days ahead.
A driving instructor with the Illinois Secretary of States Office has been charged with criminal sexual abuse, accused of attacking a woman while she was behind the wheel during a drivers test on Chicago's South Side.

After making the woman drive into an alley in the 10037-39 block of South Vernon on Nov. 10, Joshua Atwater, 29, asked her to park her vehicle and tried to make her take her seat belt off, Assistant Cook County States Attorney Kristin Estrada said Tuesday.

According to the prosecutor, the 32-year-old woman refused, and Atwater held her down with his arm and sexually assaulted her.

The woman told Atwater to stop and finally was able to push him off, according to Estrada, who said that at that point the state worker told the woman she should want to make a friend and not an enemy.

The woman then demanded that Atwater give her directions back to the state facility in Roseland, at 9901 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.

On their way there, Atwater told the woman that she passed her drivers license test, Estrada said.

The woman called the police when she got home and later identified Atwater in a photo array, Estrada said.

Atwater, of the 400 block of West North Avenue, was arrested Monday.

Officials with the Illinois Secretary States Office were not immediately available for comment.

Atwaters attorney, Frank Himel, told Judge Donald Panarese Jr. that his client currently has no job, no money.

Panarese released Atwater on his own recognizance and recommended that he be placed on electronic monitoring while he awaits trial.

If hes not eligible for electronic monitoring, Atwater has the option of posting ten percent of $100,000.
Mayor de Blasio says he's asking the federal government for $35 million to cover costs related to security for President-elect Donald Trump.

De Blasio said Monday the request was made in a letter to President Barack Obama.

The security includes an NYPD detail at Trump Tower, the Fifth Avenue skyscraper where the president-elect lives and works.

The amount sought by New York City covers security costs between Nov. 8 and Jan. 20.

"We will be continuing very aggressively in the next few days  calls and meetings with members of the Obama administration and Congress  to nail down the reimbursements," the mayor said. That will be the responsibility of the current administration."

The mayor also says he has called Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin.

It is not clear how much it would cost to protect the president-elect and his family once he moves into the White House after the Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump's wife, Melania Trump, and their son Barron plan to remain in Manhattan until at least the end of the school year. But Trump says he will make frequent trips back to NYC to see his family.
The Dallas Cowboys took some time off from preparing for the New York Giants by giving back to the community.

Fresh from clinching a playoff berth, Cowboys players visited local hospitals and spent part of the morning with children and their families.

It's always unbelievable to come to the hospital and be huge heroes, you know to these kids and also those kids [become] heroes to us, Dez Bryant said.

"The players are very fortunate to do what they do and also have the opportunity to use that platform to give back to various charities whether it is their own or something through our team effort, Cowboys spokeswoman Emily Cruz Robbins added.

Many of the players have their own personal charities and the organization gives back as a whole.

That's within our hearts," Bryant said. "It's just something that we feel that we should do and you know we enjoy it and when the opportunity presents itself, we take advantage of it."

The Cowboys work with the Salvation Army every year to raise money for those in need.

We have helped raise, in 20 years, over $2.1 billion in the red kettles that we kick off at Thanksgiving, Cruz Robbins said. That's just one part of what we do."
Texas taxpayers spent $2.3 million to spin veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder in a chair for a research study that wasn't valid and may have put the vets at risk, according to an audit.

The review, by the inspector general of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, was highly critical of the contract with an Irving health clinic called Carrick Brain Centers. It has since been renamed to Cerebrum Health Centers.

The contract was the focus of an investigation by NBC 5 and The Dallas Morning News last year.

The audit found the agency failed to properly oversee the contract, that the clinic billed for services it did not provide and "put the health and safety of participants at risk" by doing human research without scientific safeguards.

The agency is asking the company to refund $278,000 for items that it said were clearly in violation of the contract, including billing for patients who were not from Texas.

In a statement, Cerebrum president Jimmy Matthews noted the audit found no evidence of fraud.

"Our success and reputation with veterans speaks for itself and we remain committed to care for those who have served our nation," he said.

For a full report on the audit, read more from NBC 5's media partners at The Dallas Morning News.
Police officers are often on the front lines when it comes to dealing with mental health issues in the community.

That is one reason McKinneys Police Chief Greg Conley is requiring every officer to undergo crisis intervention training through a week-long program at Collin College, offered only several times a year.

Officer Terry Qualls is McKinney PDs crisis intervention coordinator. He said calls for crisis situations have continually increased in recent years  with no signs of slowing down.

It is actually up by about 20 percent from last year, Qualls said. It could be the economy. It could be family issues.

Qualls said that in 2016 so far, they have received approximately 450 calls for someone dealing with a mental health issue.

Thats why we focus a lot on the de-escalation skills, Qualls said, which include taking time and plenty of talking.

NBC 5 Reporter Homa Bash and Photojournalist Lyle Davis were able to get a behind-the-scenes look at the final crisis intervention training class of 2016, during which law enforcement officers go through various scenarios  sometimes with real people.

One of those people is John Gaglione, a Vietnam War veteran who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is an illness he did not realize he had until years after returning from the war.

Gaglione was a machine gunner, sometimes spending 30 to 40 days in the bush.

It was very hard, Gaglione said. I didnt realize I had depression, so I started drinking, turning to other things.



These days, Gaglione is turning to help law enforcement by playing a role he knows all too well.

Because you dont know what the person is going to do. If theyre with PTSD, you definitely dont know what theyre going to do, Gaglione said.

Which is why the only thing police can do is train  and train again.

Especially with mental health issues, were not taking a bank robber down, were taking someone who has called us to help them, said Professor Richard Rossman. We want officers to know how to help them.

Rossman said they are also hoping to re-train the community to call resources that can better help than police.

Many Collin County law enforcement personnel also must be re-trained because on January 1, the county will be run by a new mental health authority, LifePath.
Leaders at the Islamic Association of Allen are searching for a woman who anonymously posted signs around the mosque with filled words of kindness.

They read, "You are loved," "You are welcome here," "You are a beautiful thread in the fabric of America," and "We love you."

Those simple words have made a big impact.

"This is the true face of this country," said Imam Arsalan Haque. "It shows not everybody thinks the same way, not everybody out there hates us."

For mosque outreach coordinator Ali Subhani, it is a mystery he is dying to solve.

"We played detective for a couple of hours," Subhani said, trying to track down the kind stranger to say thank you.

They reviewed surveillance video and found footage of the woman quickly pounding the signs into the ground Friday morning.

"But we haven't been able to identify her," Subhani said. "There were a lot of smiles on people's faces."

It is not the only mystery mosque members have on their hands.

They're also trying to track down a woman who penned a heartwarming handwritten note and dropped it off recently.

It reads, in part, "I am white suburban middle-aged lapsed Catholic. I am your neighbor, I am not your enemy. I do not view you as suspicious."

She signed it simply, "Peace, Peggy."

"There are a lot of Peggy's in Texas, I can tell you that much," Subhani said, laughing.

Haleh Banani is a psychologist who attends the Allen mosque. She said the note and signs brought tears to her eyes.

"I've seen a lot of clients feel anxiety. People who are nervous about going outside, considering taking off their hijab  the head covering  because they feel that there's hate. They feel they might be targeted," Banani said.

But the simple acts of kindness show words can heal as much as they can hurt.

"The number of people who are kind outnumber those who are filled with hate," Banani added.

The mosque, built just last year, is on Allen Central Drive.

Subhani said it is always open to any members of the community who wish to learn more.
Faith Johnson, a former judge and prosecutor in Dallas County, has been appointed the county's new district attorney by fellow Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.[[405044695,R]]

Abbott made the appointment Tuesday to replace Susan Hawk, the former district attorney who held the position until she resigned Sept. 6 to focus on her mental health. During her tenure as district attorney, Hawk, who is also a Republican, took two extended leaves of absence and was hospitalized three times for depression.

Throughout her career, Faith has proven herself a dedicated public servant, most notably as a criminal prosecutor where she attained the status of Chief Felony Prosecutor during her time in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, said Abbott in a prepared statement Tuesday. As a former prosecutor, district judge, and while serving on the Department of Public Safety Commission, Faith has shown a commitment to law enforcement and the rule of law. She has devoted herself to defending some of our most vulnerable Texans, and I am confident that in her new role as District Attorney, Faith will continue to fight for the people of Dallas County and ensure that justice is served.

Johnson's term will expire Dec. 31, 2018, "or until a successor shall be elected and qualified."

According to a statement on the website for her law firm, FaithJohnsonLawFirm.net, Johnson was the first black woman to be named chief felony prosecutor with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office and "has handled thousands of felony cases ranging from drug possession and theft to sexual assault, child abuse and capital murder."

With the governor's appointment, she is also the first black woman to be named the Dallas County District Attorney.

"Johnson is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Dallas Bar Association, and the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce, among other professional organizations. She is secretary and a board member of The Potter's House of Dallas, and a past board member of several non-profit organizations. In 2014, Ms. Johnson was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to the Texas Public Safety Commission, where she is one of five Commissioners who oversee homeland security, border patrol, and terrorism in Texas," according to her online biography.

"I think that for the governor, she (Johnson) is the right choice," said criminal defense attorney Heath Harris. "The question is going to be, is she the right choice for the citizens of Dallas County?"

Criminal defense attorney David Finn called the choice wise and pragmatic.

"It signals to me that the governors office and the governor want somebody that is a viable candidate in the general election in two years, given the demographics of Dallas County," Finn said.

Elected officials, organizations and community leaders offered the following statements in response to Faith Johnson's appointment as Dallas County District Attorney:

Governor Abbott has made an exceptional choice with the appointment of Faith Johnson for Dallas County District Attorney. I would like to commend the Governor for his deliberate effort to bring forth the best candidate to serve the great people of Dallas County. Throughout Faiths career she has exhibited the utmost professionalism and a steadfast commitment to upholding our rule of law. I have no doubt that she will thrive in this new position and dedicate herself to protecting the rights of all citizens in our community. I look forward to working with Faith to make our community safer and stronger.

 U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) The Governors appointment of Faith Johnson as Dallas District Attorney demonstrates his unwavering commitment to the integrity of the judicial system in Texas. Faiths hard work and many years of dedicated public service make her the ideal candidate to head the District Attorneys office. Faith will bring new ideas and fresh leadership, seeing beyond the obvious for a brighter future for Dallas County. I am confident in Faiths ability to uphold the duties of this office and serve as a tireless advocate on behalf of the people of Dallas.  Sen. Don Huffines (R-Dallas) Governor Abbotts decision to appoint Faith Johnson as Dallas District Attorney is a testament to what he values in public service. Throughout her career, Faith has exhibited a strong commitment to the Dallas community and to Dallas law enforcement. The Dallas Police Association could not be more pleased with the Governors appointment and we look forward to working with Faith as she assumes this important role.  Frederick Frazier, President, Dallas Police Association "Faith Johnson's impressive public service record and commitment to upholding the rule of law makes her an excellent choice to serve on behalf of the people of Dallas County. As a former district judge and prosecutor, she exhibited the utmost integrity and fought to ensure justice was served. I applaud Governor Abbott's appointment and his choice is affirming to women and people of color that there is indeed a place for all Americans in his administration. I believe that Faith will restore stability to the Dallas County District Attorney's office and exact due process of the law in a fair and unbiased method! That is always a win for Dallas County and ultimately for Texas!"  T.D. Jakes, Bishop, The Potters House

Offering a contrary opinion to the appointment, Lone Star Project Director Matt Angle released the following statement.

"Its disappointing that it took Governor Abbott months to do his job and appoint a District Attorney in Dallas County. Predictably, Governor Abbott has chosen a partisan appointee in a county that overwhelmingly rejected every countywide Republican on the ballot in 2016, and overwhelmingly rejected Greg Abbott himself just two years ago. The newly appointed District Attorney was turned out of office herself not too long ago, so she has her work cut out for her. She must bring fair and effective prosecution to a county that consistently rejects the divisive and destructive agenda embraced by her own party leaders in Dallas, in Austin and in Washington."  Matt Angle, director, Lone Star Project



NBC 5's Ken Kalthoff, Julie Fine, Ashleigh Barry and Todd L. Davis contributed to this report.
Officials say an off-duty sheriff's deputy has died and two other people hurt when two vehicles plunged into a water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio, Texas.

The Bexar County Sheriff's Office on Monday identified the victim as 69-year-old Deputy Dora Linda Nishihara, who was a courthouse bailiff.

A crane was used to retrieve her personal car from water about 12-feet deep. Nishihara's body was inside the vehicle.

Sheriff's spokesman James Keith said Nishihara was not working Sunday when her vehicle went into the sinkhole. Utility officials said the sinkhole appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain earlier Sunday.

Authorities said two passers-by rescued a driver after another vehicle that went into the sinkhole Sunday night. That driver and one of his rescuers were treated for minor injuries.
Authorities said one person was injured in a crash involving a school bus operated by Dallas County Schools Tuesday morning.

Firefighters were called to the scene on eastbound Interstate 20 near Bonnie View Road at about 8:30 a.m.

A spokesman with Dallas County Schools told NBC DFW a truck had struck a car, which then slid into a loaded school bus heading for Skyline High School.

None of the 28 students on board were hurt, officials said.

One person was taken to a hospital, according to Jason Evans, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman.

No further information was released.

Dallas County Schools operates buses for 12 school districts across North Texas. The bus system had been the subject of safety concerns in recent reports by NBC 5 Investigates.

Check back for the latest on this developing story. As details unfold, elements may change.
The Texas attorney general on Monday appealed a judge's ruling that prevents state officials from issuing child care licenses to two federal detention centers in South Texas holding families that have illegally entered the U.S.

Attorney General Ken Paxton's office filed the appeal in an effort to have the Department of Family and Protective Services license the facilities as residential child-care centers. The licenses are needed because a federal judge ruled last year the centers would have to eventually release the immigrant children if they didn't get licensed.

State District Judge Karin Crump on Friday ruled the department cannot issue the licenses. Crump's ruling did not offer an explanation for her decision, but she had previously issued an injunction against the licenses from being issued, determining at one point that the state agency had improperly fast-tracked changes to create a path for the facilities to get licensed.

One of the centers is in Dilley, about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio; the other in Karnes City, some 50 miles southeast of San Antonio.

The attorney general's office didn't return a phone call Monday from The Associated Press seeking an explanation for the appeal. The office earlier this year argued that state licensing improves safety because it requires the facilities to submit to unannounced inspections and background check requirements. The state's review of the Karnes facility resulted in the firing of five workers for problems in their backgrounds, according to the office.

The two family detention centers opened in 2014 in response to the arrival of tens of thousands of mothers and children from Central America. The license approval for the Karnes City facility came as apprehensions of unaccompanied immigrant children along the United States' southwest border increased by 78 percent from Oct. 1, 2015, through March 31 compared with the same period a year earlier, and the number of apprehensions of families more than doubled.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts with two private firms to operate the detention complexes.

The lawsuit that brought Crump's ruling was filed by Austin-based activist group Grassroots Leadership, which contends the facilities are prisons that are inappropriate for family detention and that minimum standards have been lowered to license them. The group's director, Bob Libal, said Monday that it's part of broader legal efforts to have federal officials adhere to a longtime agreement that called for children and their families to be held only for a short time before being released to family, friends or others while their cases are decided.

"Evidence is continuing to mount that not only is the detention immoral but it's also illegal," Libal said.

ICE is reviewing the ruling, spokesman Carl Rusnok said in a statement. "Operational activities continue without interruption at this time," he said.

Hundreds of women and children were released over the weekend from the Dilley facility, formally known as the South Texas Family Residential Center, but ICE said the release was part of normal operations and not in response to Crump's ruling.

The company that operates the Karnes City center, GEO Group, said in a statement to the San Antonio Express-News that the lawsuit brought by Grassroots Leadership is without merit.
Open carry and campus carry were among the most heated battles in the last legislative session, but Texans can now carry openly with a license and public universities must allow guns on campus, though schools can create gun free zones.

Now, Texas lawmakers are again submitting bills on both sides of the issues for the upcoming session.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, has already proposed two pieces of legislation. One bill calls for public universities to be able to opt out of campus carry completely.

He is also working to limit open carry as well. Anchia has proposed a bill that says cities with more than 750,000 people can pass an ordinance prohibiting open carry.

Plus, Anchia is trying again with a bill that has failed in the past. The proposal requires the seller of a gun in a person-to-person sale to get a background check on the buyer.

Meanwhile, State Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Hurst, is again trying with a gun bill that didn't get passed in the last session. His bill says Texans who are legally permitted to carry handguns would not need a license.
A Republican member of the Electoral College from Texas says he won't cast one of his state's 38 electoral votes for Donald Trump.

Dallas paramedic Chris Suprun previously said he would support Trump. But he said Monday that the president-elect's post-election attacks on the First Amendment and the American electoral process changed his mind.

Suprun told The New York Times, "I am here to elect a president, not a king."

He said he hasn't decided whom he will support, but would "strongly consider" someone like Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He said he won't vote for Hillary Clinton.

"I'm not sure if other electors will come forward or not," Suprun said in an interview Tuesday on MSNBC. "I am sure that there are other electors who are not comfortable with Mr. Trump, but I'm not leading a movement. I'm trying to have a clean conscience at the end of the day."

"Well, I'm very disappointed," Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Phillip Huffines told NBC 5.

Huffines said electors sign a pledge to support the party's winner.

"For an individual not to honor that commitment is very disappointing. You see, I think it's a publicity stunt," Huffines said.

Another Texas Republican elector, Art Sisneros, resigned last week rather than vote for Trump.

Electors will vote to replace Sisneros when they convene next week in state capitals nationwide to cast their ballots for president.

NBC 5's Noelle Walker contributed to this report.
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.
Hundreds of people holding lights honored those who died in the Oakland warehouse fire during a vigil Monday night in Oakland's Lake Merritt.

Those in the crowd embraced each other or held up lights or flowers and said aloud the names of people they lost in the blaze, though some booed the city's mayor when she spoke.

Several people in the crowd had signs offering "free hugs."

Among the attendees were the parents of 35-year-old Travis Hough, who died in the fire. He was there to support one of the performers.

"He worked with troubled kids," Hough's dad said. "Everyone knew him as Mr. Travis. They all loved him."

Attendees were asked to bring flameless candles, glow sticks, flashlights or other lights. Whether they knew someone lost in this fire, or were just touched by the magnitude of this tragedy, the vigil drew a crowd of about 500 people.

"I'm only 15, and I don't know what they are going through," Taylor Nelson said. "I want to say they are in my prayers."

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf spoke at the event, where she was greeted with boos and calls to resign from saddended, angry atendants. Some people have criticized Schaaf, saying she emphasized the warehouse's code violations instead of the city's shortage of affordable housing in the hours following the deadly fire.

"As we move forward right now, our focus has to be on those who we know are lost and those we are going to learn have been lost," the mayor said.

In San Francisco, a tearful crowd remembered the transgender victims of the warehouse fire. Jean Elle reports.

In San Francisco, a tearful crowd remembered the transgender victims of the warehouse fire.

"Some of those members don't have a connection to family," one attendee said. "We are their family; it is our job to hold them up."

The transgender clergy said some members of the community lived in the warehouse. But many were there to see popular transgender performer Cash Askew, the 22-year-old who died in the fire.

Em Bohlka's father said his daughter was there to see the show. In a statement, he said his heart is broken, and it was wonderful to see her becoming who she was meant to be.

It's possible some victims' parents will never know their child died.

Pastor Megan Rohrer said in life many of the transgender victims struggled to feel safe and belong. She said in death, the coroner is respecting who they were.

"It's kind of beautiful," she said. "They are taking time to make sure they're using chosen names and preferred gender pronouns."
The Los Angeles Ethics Commission ruled Tuesday that former Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Jim Parker violated city rules by releasing an audio tape of his conversation with a "Django Unchained" actress during her arrest in 2014, and fined him $500.

Staff had recommended a fine of $10,000, but all four present members of the commission agreed that a more nominal fine was appropriate. Commissioner Ana Dahan was absent.

Lawrence Hanna, Parker's lawyer, vowed before and after the hearing to file a lawsuit against the city in Superior Court if the commission levied any fine or if it ruled that Parker had violated any laws.

"I believe that in serving the city of L.A., Mr. Parker had an obligation not just to protect the Los Angeles Police Department, but the city of Los Angeles itself," said commission Vice President Serena Oberstein at the hearing. "By releasing the audio tape, I believe that Mr. Parker violated the City Charter and did not protect the city of L.A. and its process."

The Ethics Commission enforces city laws regarding governmental ethics, conflicts of interests, campaign financing, and lobbying, but has rarely filed a complaint against a police officer.

Los Angeles Police Protective League President Craig Lally and Acting Director Mark Cronin spoke before the commission in support of Parker. Both recounted times they had released audio recordings of incidents in the field to the media in the past and were not disciplined.

Both questioned why the commission was taking up a case against a police officer when it rarely has done so in the past.

"The problem I have with the Ethics Commission in general, you get to pick and choose who you want to go after," Lally said. "If you want to you can come after me, because I did the exact same set of circumstances, what I did."

No one from the commission directly addressed the question of why they chose to examine a case against a police officer.

"This is not about whether or not we agree or disagree with anything Officer Parker has done. It's not about whether we agree or disagree with the wisdom of the law," commission President Jessica Levinson said. "It's not about what has happened in other cases that are not before us which we are not permitted to consider. It's not about the political climate, as much as we may want to consider this. It is our duty as commissioners just to apply the facts before us."

Hanna contends that Parker did not violate any city laws or LAPD policies when he released the tape. He also said officers have been using audio recorders in the field for decades, the order authorizing their use does not say the recordings are confidential, and no officer has ever been disciplined previously for releasing audio recordings from the field.

The incident that led to the leaked audio tape occurred on Sept. 11, 2014, when Parker responded to a call of two people engaged in sex in a car parked near Ventura Boulevard and Radford Avenue in Studio City.

Parker found Daniele Watts and her boyfriend, Brian James Lucas, standing near a car and police said they matched the description of the couple involved. Police said that Watts refused to give Parker any identification and walked away. Two other officers handcuffed her, but she was let go after Lucas presented them with her identification.

The case received significant media attention after Lucas later claimed on Facebook that the officers appeared to believe he and Watts were engaged in prostitution because he is white and she is black. Watts had a small supporting role in the 2012 film "Django Unchained."

Four days after the incident, according to an Ethics Commission report, Parker released an audio recording of the encounter to the celebrity news website TMZ because he wanted to counter the claims of racism and to defend himself.

The report also said that on Sept. 30, 2014, Parker admitted on the record to the LAPD's Board of Police Commissioners that he provided the audio recording to TMZ and that he knew doing so violated LAPD policy. Parker said the LAPD opened an internal affairs inquiry into the incident and also ordered Parker not to speak to the media, but that Parker retired in June 2015 before any investigation was completed.

Watts and Lucas pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace and were ordered to write apology letters to the officers and to the citizens who called the LAPD about their encounter. As part of a deal with prosecutors, charges of lewd conduct were dropped.

In February, the Ethics Commission selected the California Office of Administrative Hearings to serve as the administrative hearing officer in the case, and Administrative Law Judge Samuel Reyes later determined that Parker violated city law but recommended no penalty.

However, Ethics Commission staff has recommended that the commission adopt Reyes' factual findings but impose a penalty of $10,000.

Hanna said the only way for the commission to compel Parker to pay any fine would be to file a civil lawsuit, which would likely cost far more than the potential $500 it would be seeking to recover, and that if the commission finds there was an ethics violation or levies a fine he is prepared to file a lawsuit in response.
A 14-year-old boy is suffering head injuries after he was sucker punched by another teen on Friday -- an attack that he says was "unprovoked."

The attack occurred at around 4:30 p.m. outside of a Wendy's restaurant in the 6400 block of Platt Avenue in West Hills, according to the Los Angeles Police Department Topanga Division.

Jordan Peisner, who spoke from his hospital bed on Monday, said the last thing he remembered was talking to his friends when he was punched by teen he didn't even know.

The attack was captured through Snapchat. The video shows teenage boy in a hooded sweatshirt walking up to Jordan, punching him in the head, and then walking away. Another video shows Jordan on the floor after the attack. He was bleeding profusely from his head.

Jordan was taken to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a skull fracture, bleeding on the brain and blood clots.

"It's a brain injury," his father, Ed Peisner, said. "There's no way to tell what's gonna happen." He said he was afraid one misstep could paralyze his son.

They believe the attack happened for attention on social media. Ed Peisner said Jordan isn't allowed to return to school until next fall, but they are hoping to spread awareness of anti-bullying as Jordan faces nearly a year of recovery.

"Stop bullying. Stop violence. Spread kindness," Ed Peisner said.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested 5 p.m. Friday on suspicion of felony battery, said Sgt. Jeff Collado of the LAPD Topanga Division. Police said Jordan was targeted, but he did not provoke the attack and did not know the attacker.
The deadly warehouse fire in Oakland has renewed focus on the risks posed when industrial and commercial buildings are re-purposed for special events or residential use for which they are not designed and lack safety precautions, fire safety and law enforcement officials say.

"Whether or not it's here in Long Beach or other cities throughout the nation, the point is, it puts people at risk," said Long Beach firefighter Jake Heflin.

He sees the shortage of affordable housing as a factor in the unpermitted colonization of some spaces for residential use, as authorities believe happened at the Oakland warehouse that caught fire Friday night and claimed at least 36 lives.

The risk can be compounded when underground parties bring in crowds.

The Long Beach Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department are among the agencies that monitor social media for notices of parties in unapproved spaces.

In recent years, the Sheriff's Electronic Communications Triage unit has detected some one thousand illegal parties, said Commander Mike Parker, who spoke of what responding deputies have found.

"We've all gone to these warehouse parties and things where clearly this building is not designed to have a party at with hundreds of people," said Parker. "And so really the potential for disaster is ongoing."

Issuing code violations for a building out of compliance does not necessarily guarantee the problems will be fixed, officials say.

In some cases, solutions await a buyer stepping forward with a vision for rehabbing the space.

Heflin cites the long closed Packard auto dealership on Anaheim Street in Long Beach as a successful turnaround since it was purchased last year by the Millworks company for "adaptive reuse."

There was evidence people were living on the property, said Millworks managing partner Michelle Molina. There was also a large amount of debris that the seller agreed to remove, she added.

Now, after inspections and upgrades, the property is available for rent for events with city approval. Punk rock is on Saturday's schedule, with a crowd of 650 permitted.

"It's possible to do this without laying out a lot of money. It's just about being clever and about getting the resources that your city can offer," Molina said.
A USC graduate student pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder charges in the fatal stabbing of a psychology professor on the school's campus, prosecutors said.

David Jonathan Brown, 28, of Los Angeles was charged with one count of murder along with "a special allegation that he personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon, a knife," according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Brown is accused of stabbing psychology Professor Bosco Tjan, 50, to death in his office Friday afternoon, authorities said.

Tjan served as a co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center and was an expert in perception, vision, and vision cognition. He joined the USC faculty in 2001.

"This was not a random act of violence," according to a statement posted on the department's website. "The Los Angeles Police Department believes this was the result of a personal dispute."

The killing occurred on the final day of classes before finals.

He could face 26 years to life in prison if convicted as charged, officials said.

Hundreds of USC students, faculty members and administrators gathered in the center of campus Monday in remembrance of Tjan, 50, of Cerritos, who had taught at USC since 2001.

Tjan leaves behind a wife and son.

A GoFundMe was set up to raise money for his wife and son, with a goal to "raise enough money to help cover the future higher education of his son," the GoFundMe page read. It had raised nearly $53K in 20 hours as of Wednesday morning.

"May each of us, as members of the Trojan family, resolve to bring comfort and support to his wife and child," USC President C.L. Max Nikias said during the ceremony near the Tommy Trojan statue on campus.

"We've really lost an incredible mind and extremely generous person," said Irving Biederman, Howard Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Image Understanding Laboratory. "You could not ask for a better colleague. He was brilliant, knowledgeable and helpful to others."

City News Service contributed to this report.
Authorities are investigating after an AR-15 rifle and several ammunition magazines were stolen during a burglary of a marked North Miami Beach Police vehicle.

The burglary happened either late Saturday or early Sunday as the Ford Explorer was parked in the 2800 block of Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach, according to a police incident report.

The report said the Explorer's passenger and driver's side windows were broken and the fully-automatic AR-15 was taken from a lockbox that was in the vehicle's trunk. Six fully loaded magazines for the rile were also stolen, along with three loaded magazines for a Glock .45, an olive green tactical vest and the officer's IBM Thinkpad computer.

Police are asking anyone with information to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
Police remained on the hunt for a killer Monday just days after a Florida International University student was found shot to death at an apartment complex parking garage in Sweetwater.

FIU student Michael Zaldua was shot in the head twice Friday at the 4th Street Commons parking garage on Southwest 4th Street, about four blocks away from FIU's Modesto A. Madique Campus.

"It's just scary to see that someone can easily get shot. I go to the same school as he," neighbor and student Alexis Agusto said.

The 21-year-old Zaldua was killed on the 3rd floor parking area and detectives found a lot of cash in the victim's car, officials said.

Many students live at the complex. The building's management has alerted residents and are upping security measures.

"This is my first year living here and to hear that there was a shooting at my apartment building, that makes me feel petrified," said Monica Howard.

Agusto said he'll be walking his dog earlier.

"I have to take him out at an earlier time if anything, you know," Agusto said. "Hopefully there's more precautionary measures from now on."

FIU officials assured students about their safety saying in part "Although there is nothing to indicate there is any danger to our FIU community, this incident serves as a reminder to be vigilant of you surroundings and report any unusual activity to police."
A man who was in a Miami-Dade courtroom Tuesday morning for a hearing took off running after a judge ordered that he be arrested.

The suspect, 21-year-old Yakevis Jones, was in a courtroom on the second floor for a violation of probation hearing when he was ordered arrested on charges of cannabis sale and delivery, strong arm robbery and other charges.

Jones, who wasn't in custody and wasn't in handcuffs, took off running towards the State Attorney's Office and made it into the parking lot of the courthouse where he was taken into custody by several officers.

It's unknown what additional charges Jones may face.
What to Know Two people from the tri-state area were confirmed to be among 36 people killed in the inferno at an Oakland, California, warehouse fire

President-elect Donald Trump is continuing his victory tour a day after having an "extremely interesting" conversation with Al Gore

Days after they were celebrating a victory at Standing Rock, protesters of an oil pipeline feared their celebrations may have been premature

Get the top headlines of the day in your morning briefing from NBC 4 New York, Monday through Friday. Sign up for our newsletter here.

Oakland Fire Claims Tri-State Lives

A New Jersey filmmaker and a Connecticut woman were killed in a deadly fire that tore through a warehouse in Oakland, California, during a music festival there on Friday night. Filmmaker Alex Ghassan, 35, was on a coroner's list of 10 additional identified victims put out by the city of Oakland on Monday. In Westport, Connecticut, the family of Feral Pines, a transgender woman, received a phone call from the coroner's office Sunday night saying that she had died, according to her father Bruce Fritz. The fire's death toll stood at 36 on Monday, with about 75 percent of the building searched. A guest of the artists enclave, nicknamed the "Ghost Ship," said that the warehouse was a place to "have interesting conversations about embracing different art forms," but that a makeshift wooden staircase was dangerous. Many of the bodies were found on the second floor and authorities believe a bottleneck may have formed on the stairs.

Trump Back on Tour

Former Vice President Al Gore met Monday with president-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower. Gore described the interaction as an extremely interesting conversation. While Gore has been well-known for his climate change activism, Trump has called it a hoax created by and for the Chinese. Gore also met with Trumps daughter, Ivanka Trump, who reportedly wants to make climate change a priority. On Tuesday, the president-elect is slated to hold the second stop of this "thank you" tour in North Carolina, less than a week after his bombastic return at an Ohio rally felt more like a raucous campaign stop than a traditional speech by a president-to-be. Meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio said that he's asking the federal government for $35 million to cover costs related to security for Trump. The security includes an NYPD detail at Trump Tower, the Fifth Avenue skyscraper where the president-elect lives and works.

Standing Rock Protests Continue

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. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who lives on land adjacent to the construction project, and the thousands whod gathered in Cannon Ball, N.D., to protest the pipeline saw Sundays news as a victory. But some say theyre celebrating with caution, because with a new presidential administration right around the corner, the federal government may change its position.

Mistrial in Walter Scott Case

A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of a white, former police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist. Former patrolman Michael Slager was charged with murder in the April 4, 2015 shooting death of 50-year-old Walter Scott. It's the second time in recent weeks a jury has deadlocked in an officer-involved shooting. Scott's family called for peaceful protests.

Muslim MTA Worker Attacked

A Muslim MTA worker was called a terrorist and pushed down the stairs at Grand Central Terminal on Monday, the latest in a string of alleged bias attacks sweeping the region, authorities said. The woman, wearing her New York City transit uniform, was on her way to work and had just gotten off the 7 train when the suspect shoved her, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office.

Amazons Checkout-Free Shopping

Amazon is testing a grocery store model in Seattle that works without checkout lines. Called Amazon Go, shoppers scan their Amazon app when they enter the store, and then sensors register items that shoppers pick up and automatically charge them to the Amazon app. See how it works.

Role Mole Latest Food Critter

The so-called Roll Mole is giving Pizza Rat a run for its money. A rat was recorded dragging a comically large dinner roll on the subway tracks on the Upper East Side, another sign of the determination the city's rats apparently possess when it comes to acquiring food bigger than them. Lets not forget such legends as pita rat, pizza raccoon or bagel-wearing pigeon.
What to Know New Jersey filmmaker Alex Ghassan was among the missing after a fire at a warehouse party in Oakland killed dozens on Friday night

Ghassan posted video to Instagram just an hour before the fire that appeared to show the inside of the warehouse, known as the "Ghost Ship"

In Westport, Connecticut, the family of Feral Pines confirmed that she also had died in the devastating blaze

A New Jersey filmmaker and a Connecticut woman were killed in a deadly fire that tore through a warehouse in Oakland, California, during a music festival there on Friday night.

Filmmaker Alex Ghassan, 35, was on a coroner's list of 10 additional identified victims put out by the city of Oakland on Monday.

Friends and family of Ghassan had been holding out hope but fearing for the worst on Sunday, less than two days after the blaze killed at least 36 people in what has since been deemed one of the countrys deadliest structure fires.

"We don't know anything. We're all prayerful. We're waiting for answers, we have no answers," his mother Emilie Grandchamps told NBC 4 New York Monday in Orange, New Jersey.

"It's excruciating to wait for him," said Grandchamps, who was going to fly to California with some form of her son's DNA "so that they can tell me something."

Im heartbroken, but Im trying to stay optimistic, Richardine Bartee, a friend of Ghassan, said.

But Ghassan's aunt, Junie Moscova, got emotional on Monday  before news of his death broke  as she told NBC 4 New York that she fears it might be time to accept that he won't return.

The fact that we've tried to call his phone a couple times and it's gone straight to voicemail, and we're not hearing anything specifically from him, she said. We're kind of bracing ourselves for whatever the news may be.

Ghassan posted Instagram video that appears to be from inside the warehouse dance party just an hour before the deadly fire broke out.

Ghassan's fiancee Hannah also has not been seen or heard. A friend of the couple was able to make it out and spoke to Ghassan's family.

"He was really trying to make sure that Alex and Hannah got out, too, but unfortunately by the time he winded up getting out, the ceriling had caved in, and Alex and Hannah were still in the building," said Moscova.

Ghassan was a director well known in Brooklyn for helping up and coming musicians. He was also a father of two young girls.

"He has so much to live for," she continued, adding Ghassan worked in the Supreme Court in California and had other up-and-coming businesses. "Alex had a lot to live for, not to die for."

Grandchamps called Ghassan a "bull," describing him as a fighter and a fast thinker.

"My son is absolutely phenomenol," said Grandchamps. "He's an artist at heart, a wonderful dad, a wonderful son, a wonderful friend. And we're waiting. We're waiting. We're just waiting and we're doing our best."

Dozens of other families are also still anxiously waiting for news about their loved ones. Its not known how many people were at the warehouse when the fire broke out.

In Westport, Connecticut, the family of Feral Pines received a phone call from the coroner's office Sunday night saying that she had died, according to her father Bruce Fritz. Pines loved art and music and had just moved to Oakland a few months ago.

"She was an amazingly kind and beautiful person who had the strength to be her true self, even when she knew that was not going to be an easy path," sister Amanda Parry told News 12 Connecticut.

Also missing is Gridden Madden from Morristown, New Jersey, who is an alumnus from UC Berkeley.

Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise. The number of victims was nine on Saturday night  by Sunday it hit 33, and then 36 on Monday, with 33 of them identified. The sheriff's department in Alameda County says it doesn't believe the number of victims will grow drastically. Victims range in age from 17 years old to people in their 30s.

Firefighters are searching night and day through rubble and ash. They said Monday that they had searched about 75 percent of the building.

New concerns have been raised about the warehouse, known as the Ghost Ship.

Photos show the artist compound cluttered with wood furniture and art pieces. There were no smoke alarms or sprinklers, and there were only two exits in the building and no easy way to get downstairs from the second floor, where many of the bodies were found.

A criminal investigation was launched Sunday and Oakland officials said something more should have been done.
The registered nurses at Tenet Health Corp.'s two Philadelphia hospitals, along with those at a Tenet-owned pediatric outpatient clinic, have reached tentative agreements on new labor contracts.

The agreement's details are being kept confidential until after the 1,370 registered nurses, represented by The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), have an opportunity to review and vote on the tentative agreements.

The tentative labor contracts with Tenet cover 940 nurses at Hahnemann University Hospital, 400 nurses at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and 30 nurses at St. Christopher's Pediatric Outpatient Clinic.

To read full article, click here.

For more business news, visit Philadelphia Business Journal.
The owner of a Delaware adult toy store is speaking out after she set up a Santa Village for children right next to her business.

Jennifer Layfield told NBC10 there was no local Santa Claus for families to meet in her town and she wanted to change that.

It just happens to be, Im a mom and a grand mom that really likes kids, Layfield said. I wanted these kids to have a Santa locally.

Layfield brought in a friend who dressed up as Santa and set up a small house in the parking lot of her business on Lewes Georgetown Highway in Harbeson, Delaware. Her business, however, happens to be the Dragons Lair, an adult toy shop.

Come see Santa thats what its all about, Layfield said. Im not saying come into the shop. Im not advertising and saying, Oh heres the bait line, we also have Santa.

The Santa house is about 50 feet away from the adult store and there arent any signs outside indicating to children what kind of items Layfield sells inside her shop. Layfield told NBC10 most parents dont even know and those who do dont bring their children inside.

Layfield says the children meet Santa and get a free toy  a kids toy  that she bought herself. Layfield told NBC10 shes owned the Dragons Lair for 25 years and is a good neighbor. Children are not allowed inside her store.

Despite this, Layfield has still seen some comments on Facebook criticizing her actions.

Block out the fact that Im a sex shop [owner], she said. Just realize that Im just a person that cares about little people and I want them to be able to see Santa.




Valentin Vesa was sleeping on his American Airlines flight from Philly to London when he woke up to children crying and adults in distress Sunday night.

Trying to make sense of what was going on, the digital media specialist overheard chatter from neighboring passengers and learned that some people reported a smell of smoke inside the 142-passenger plane.

The crew of Flight AA728 which departed from the Philadelphia International Airport at 9:15 p.m. took no chances and diverted back to Philly to identify the issue.

While passengers grew impatient and demanded details on the situation, Vesa whipped out his phone and immediately started taking picture and videos.

I knew that if this [situation] got any worse, people would want to go back and find out what happened. So my first instinct was to document everything that was going on, he said.

He uploaded the content onto his Twitter account when he received Internet access, posting the images and videos with the hashtag #AA728.

Smoke smell on board AA728.

We're returning to Philadelphia. Flight attendants going through rows asking people if smelled anything.

  Val Vesa (@adspedia) December 5, 2016

American Airlines reported that Flight AA728 returned due to an electrical odor that came from the aircrafts oven.

Upon landing at Philly International Airport around 10:47 p.m., scores of emergency service vehicles dashed towards the plane.

It was a stressful situation. Everyone was wide awake, looking out their windows, and worried as ever asking each other, Do you see smoke? Do you see flames? the Romanian native recalled.

The flights 12 crew members directed everyone off the plane as American Airlines prepared a replacement aircraft for the London travelers.

We're now told to get all belongings and get off the plane quickly #AA728 pic.twitter.com/LS3y7G6cSn  Val Vesa (@adspedia) December 5, 2016

The plane swap caused a three-hour delay and enraged customers. Despite the inconvenience, the airlines attentive customer service impressed Vesa.

[Crew members] gave out food vouchers, snacks, and water," he said. "The Customer Service manager even handled the people like an absolute professional. I remember him saying, If you need to vent, vent at me but let my crew do their job.' At that point, there was no distress; we were just waiting to see how long we were going to be delayed.

Vesa a specialist at website security platform Sucuri kept people updated on the incident through Twitter until the replacement carrier boarded the Flight AA278 passengers at 1:40 a.m. He praised American Airlines for the way the staff and crew treated the passengers.

Congrats to @AmericanAir crew and airport staff. Very polite and professional in #AA728 incident.  Val Vesa (@adspedia) December 5, 2016

An American Airlines spokeswoman Victoria Lupica responded to the incident.

Our flight crews are trained to adapt to any situation [that occurs on the plane]. Their priority is to make sure that passengers are safe. [Flight AA728 crew members] kept passengers as informed on the incident as possible and made sure they were comfortable, she said.

The replacement plane landed safely to Heathrow Airport in London at 1:41 p.m. local London time.
A promising young New Jersey State Trooper and a Salem County doctor were both killed in a head-on car crash in Millville, Cumberland County Monday night.

New Jersey State Trooper Frankie Williams died Monday night after another driver crashed head-on into his police cruiser in Cumberland County. NBC10 Jersey Shore Bureau Reporter Ted Greenberg spoke with family and friends of Trooper Williams.

Trooper Frankie Williams, 31, was responding to the erratic driver call around 7 p.m. and traveling northbound on State Highway 55 at milepost 22.2 when a man driving southbound in a Toyota Corolla -- that matched the erratic vehicle description -- crossed the 20-yard grass median and entered the northbound lanes, said state police.

The Corolla struck Williams' vehicle head-on.

The Corolla driver -- identified as Dr. Lloyd Rudley, 61, of Elmer, New Jersey -- was pronounced dead at the scene. Trooper Williams was flown to Cooper University Hospital where he later died from his injuries.

Route 55 northbound was closed at the scene of the crash.

The wreck remained under investigation Tuesday. Rudley's car matched descriptions of the erratic vehicle that Williams was responding to at the time of the wreck, witnesses told state police investigators.

New Jersey State Trooper Frankie Williams died along with another driver following a head-on crash along Route 55 in Millville Monday night.

Rudley was a doctor affiliated with Pennsylvania Hospital who worked primarily in Elmer, New Jersey and specialized in psychiatry as well as neurology, according to the Vineland High School Class of 1973 Facebook page.

Vineland High School Class of 1973

Williams, of Egg Harbor Township, was assigned to the Port Norris Station. He was a member of the 156th State Police Class which graduated on Jan. 29, 2016. NJSP called him a "bright and promising trooper." [[405006266, C]]

Flags were lowered to half-staff in Williams' honor Tuesday and Millville Police offered their chaplains to State Police. Governor Chris Christie also sent his prayers to Williams' family.

"Just let them know our hearts are with them," said Millville Mayor Michael Santiago. "If there's anything we can do we're here to offer our support to them."

Residents brought flowers, an angel light and cards offering condolences to the Point Norris Barracks where Williams was assigned.

"Such a young man," said Tina Piper of Port Norris. "He just got married. It's really heart-wrenching. So I had to come out and stop in and tell the gentlemen how sorry I was for their loss this morning."

Those who knew Trooper Williams told NBC10 he was full of life and was an inspiration.

"This is so tragic," said Kevin Egolf.

Egolf and his wife Beatrice lived next door to Williams in Mays Landing before the trooper and his wife moved to Egg Harbor Township. Williams had just gotten married in late September after graduating from the state police academy only months earlier.

"It was his optimal goal to be a state trooper and if he can he would help out anybody he could," said Egolf.

Williams grew up in Lakeland, Florida before moving to New Jersey. Donna Wood, Williams' former neighbor, told NBC10 he was always fearless, even as a boy.

"I know that child that grew up and I knew he was doing something that he was passionate about," Wood said, while fighting back tears.

After Williams moved to South Jersey he earned a degree in criminal justice from Rutgers at Atlantic Cape Community College. He was in the process of getting his Masters degree prior to his death.

"He without a doubt was one of the best students I've ever had," said Williams' former professor Dean Wyks.

Professor Wyks called Williams an inspiration and inquisitive with a yearning to serve the community.

"If you took all of the qualities that we recognize as good qualities in a human being, Frankie epitomized all of them," Professor Wyks said.

Information on funeral services for Trooper Williams has not yet been released.
More than a week after a teenage boy was gunned down in Philadelphia's Mayfair section during an apparent robbery attempt, Philadelphia Police announced charges against a fellow teenager.

Philadelphia Police

Samir Price, 19 turned himself into Philadelphia homicide detectives Tuesday to face murder charges in the killing of 14-year-old Ian Wilsey, said Philadelphia Police. Price is charged with murder, robbery and other related offenses.

Loved ones are mourning a 14-year-old boy who was shot and killed during an apparent robbery attempt in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia Monday night. NBC10s Denise Nakano has the details.

Wilsey was on the 6200 block of Brous Avenue at 9 p.m. on Nov. 28 when at least one gunman opened fire. The teen was struck three times in the chest and torso. Donna Dressler, a Mayfair resident, found him lying on the ground moments after the shooting.

"I was down the basement, I heard 'pop, pop, pop,'" Dressler said. "I quick, ran out the door and I wasn't expecting to see a young kid laying down like that."

Wilsey, who would have turned 15 in a few weeks, died a short time later. The teen was not from the immediate area where he was killed but he had an address connected to a home in the neighborhood.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said it appeared that Wilsey was the victim of a robbery. Investigators spoke to the 16-year-old Wilsey was with in an attempt to find out if the boy was targeted.

Wilsey attended Northeast High School. Friends and family gathered last week for a vigil in his memory.

"He was very tight with me, and somebody took him," wailed mom Kelly Wilsey.
The threat of a terror attack against a busy commuter rail station in the Los Angeles area has prompted authorities to increase security throughout the region and urge commuters to report any suspicious behavior they see.

FBI, LAPD and sheriff's department officials said Monday they received a telephone call about an imminent but uncorroborated threat against the Metro Red Line in Universal City. The threat came from overseas through an anonymous phone call to a public safety line, said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Deirdre Fike in a news conference.

The overseas tip line caller indicated that something would occur at the station at Lankershim Boulevard across from Universal Studios on Tuesday, she said.

Law enforcement officials have stepped up security at the station and other transit stations across the area while authorities still worked to determine the credibility of the threat. Orange barriers were installed at the Red Line Universal Station early Tuesday. Armed members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were at the station, just off the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley.

Mayor Eric Garcetti himself arrived at the Universal City station to ride the red line to Koreatown, telling another rider he didn't think the threat was credible.

Some commuters underwent bag searches before boarding trains.

"We wanted to have an abudance of caution here today," said Garcetti.

The mayor said information about the threat was provided by a man who claimed to know an individual who planned to carry out the attack. Garcetti said Tuesday morning that investigators are still attempting to uncover more details about the threat and determine whether it was credible.

Deirdre Fike, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, told reporters Monday night the caller threatened to carry out the attack sometime Tuesday at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Universal City rail station, near Universal Studios.

Garcetti urged caution but asked that the public go about their normal day.

More than 145,000 riders use Metro's Red and Purple lines each day, Garcetti said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell urged "people to always be vigilant as they go about their daily routine." He said uniformed deputies will have an increased presence at stations, and undercover deputies will also be on the job on the transit system.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said the threat was "very specific," targeting the specific station, "but the credibility still needs to be vetted out."

The timing and specificity of the threat also prompted officials to share the information with the public.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said he was briefed by law enforcement Tuesday morning.

"If it turns out to be a hoax like the prior threat against the LAUSD, it will represent another profound example of the extraordinary cost imposed on communities throughout the United States by such actions," Schiff said in a statement.

He was referring to a threat hoax about one year ago that closed all Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The nation's second largest school district was shut down after a threat that mentioned explosives and weapons.

It was later determined the threat and a similar one received by New York schools were hoaxes.

McDonnell urged residents to stay calm but remain vigilant.

"We've been running this to ground all day long," he said. "This could be real, it could be a hoax. But we must remain calm but vigilant. And we're asking the public to take the same precautions they would take on any other day. And we ask that people always be vigilant as they go about their daily routines. As far as actions we're taking, what you don't see is just as important as what you will see. You will see ... an increased uniformed presence especially at transit stations where we also deploy our K-9 explosive detection teams. We'll have undercover operations under way as well.''

Frequent riders of the Red Line shared mixed opinions Monday night.

"I'll come at same time, leave at same time," Armand Montalva said. "I'm sure people say crazy things all the time."

"You could never be too careful. You could never be too safe," Rashad Green said. "I'm definitely gonna do something different tomorrow. Believe that. I will definitely not be taking the Red Line tomorrow."

Officials repeated the mantra, "If you see something, say something," while urging people to go about their lives but to contact authorities if they notice something that doesn't seem right.

Residents can call 877-A-THREAT and officials urged people to download the LAPD's iWatchLA app from the department's website at www.lapdonline.org.
Firearms enthusiasts who embraced Donald Trump's campaign and his full-throated support of the Second Amendment are expecting a sweeping expansion of gun rights under his administration and a Congress firmly in Republican hands.

Among their priorities: eliminating gun-free zones at schools, reducing requirements for background checks and ensuring that concealed carry handgun permits from one state are recognized everywhere in the U.S.

"This is our historic moment to go on offense and to defeat the forces that have aligned against our freedom once and for all," Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association, said in a video after the Nov. 8 election. "The individual right to carry a firearm in defense of our lives and our families does not and should not end at any state line."

In pursuing their agenda, the gun lobby and its GOP supporters could find themselves at odds with two other tenets of Republican orthodoxy: states' rights and local control.

"It would be ironic to see conservatives who long have professed a belief in states' rights override states' choices in this area," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law.

One of the NRA's paramount goals is getting Congress to pass a law requiring all states to recognize concealed-carry handgun permits issued by any other state. Currently, many permit holders must leave their weapons at home when traveling or risk violating other states' laws. NRA supporters say permits should be treated like driver's licenses.

Trump endorsed the idea during the campaign, but it is likely to face intense opposition from Democrats in states with tight gun restrictions, including California and the president-elect's home state of New York.

States make their own judgments on who should be allowed to have a concealed carry permit, and their eligibility requirements vary based on an applicant's criminal history, age and training.

Many law enforcement organizations warn the change would mean encountering more guns during traffic stops and in tourist areas. They also say there is no way to easily check the validity of an out-of-state firearm permit because there is no nationwide database.

The trend among states to expand the right to carry guns is already "creating enormous challenges on the streets for police officers who must figure out whether or not the people they encounter are legally entitled to have a firearm," said Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Chemerinsky and another expert who studies gun law, UCLA professor Eugene Volokh, said Congress probably doesn't have the constitutional authority to order states to recognize concealed carry permits from elsewhere. But they said Congress could encourage states to do so by threatening to withhold law enforcement and homeland security funding.

The NRA, which spent more than $30 million supporting Trump and opposing Hillary Clinton, also is calling for an end to gun-free zones around the country, including at schools. The organization has argued that such areas become targets for mass killers.

Trump pledged during the campaign to eliminate gun-free zones. To do that, Congress would have to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1996, which limits carrying and bans the discharge of guns within 1,000 feet of schools.

Even then, Lindsay Nichols, senior attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, said she believes states and municipalities would be able to create gun-free areas locally.

Nichols said that any push to repeal the federal law would draw opposition from gun control advocates, who are better organized than they have been in years and made gains of their own at the ballot box last month. Voters in California, Nevada and Washington state tightened firearm laws, with California enacting the nation's first background check requirement for buying ammunition.

Even without Congress, Trump can immediately undo President Barack Obama's executive actions on guns. Among other things, Obama put sellers on notice last year that they have to conduct background checks even when doing business at gun shows or through the internet  and that failing to do so routinely would be a crime.

Another Obama rule that Trump could jettison would make it easier for some health care providers to share information about mental illness with the federal background check system. Critics worry that sharing such details could unfairly deny gun rights to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Larry Pratt, a former executive director of Gun Owners of America, said he is eager to see Trump overturn Obama's executive actions.

"Baby, those are going into the shredder," he said.
This so-called Roll Mole is giving Pizza Rat a run for its money.

A rat was recorded dragging a comically large dinner roll on the subway tracks on the Upper East Side last Thursday, another sign of the determination the city's rats apparently possess when it comes to acquiring food bigger than them.

Christian Waugh told NBC 4 New York he was waiting for a train home from a Christmas concert rehearsal when he noticed the rat trying to drag the large dinner roll along the subway tracks at the 51st Street subway station.

Waugh said as he reached for his phone, the rat seemed to give up and dash away. However, the rat came back moments later to fight for his dinner. Waugh was able to take a quick video on his phone.

I started recording his actions but noticed that no one else on the platform was paying attention whatsoever, Waugh told NBC 4 New York. Most were just on their phone with no clue regarding the epic activity that was taking place.

Waugh said the event reminded him of Pizza Rat, but found the furtive antics of the dinner roll rat to be hilarious.

Waughs friend dubbed the rodent the Roll Mole.
Could we see slippery conditions in our region? NBC10 First Alert Weather Meteorologist Sheena Parveen has the update.

FIRST CAME THE RAIN

There was a lot of rain in the Southern U.S. and much of it came our way. The rain hit us Tuesday afternoon and night. It was a nice, solid, soaking rain-just the type to help ease the drought. But it also wasn't heavy enough to cause a flood threat.

Heres the radar showing the big rain area (zoom out to find it).

And heres what one of our computer models showe for 8pm Tuesday (around the peak of the event):

TropicalTidbits

The yellow and reddish colors represent heavier rain and there was a brief period of downpours.

The area in blue is snow, and youll notice some of it is dark blue. That represents heavy snow, but its mostly confined to the northern part of PA. So, the Poconos saw accumulating snow. Just a bit farther south, and at lower elevations, it was about all rain.

THE ARCTIC BLAST

I first had the dramatic drop in temperatures in my forecast from last Tuesday, Nov. 29th. That was Day 10 of our 10-Day forecast. The next day, I had a forecast high of only 39 degrees for Friday, Dec. 9th-a full 10 degrees below normal. See, we can sometimes be precise in a forecast even TEN days in advance. Thats why we are the only ones to do a 10-day forecast every day.

Here is what the Arctic air mass looked like Monday night. The coldest air moved down into Montana from western Canada, with temperatures near zero:

TropicalTidbits

By the time the arctic air gets here on Friday, it wont be as severe. Here are the temperatures predicted by one model for first thing Saturday morning:

TropicalTidbits

Those are low temperatures in the 20s. But the wind at the time will probably make it feel like the teens. Thats quite a change from our mild November.

The unseasonably cold weather should last through the weekend, but it wont be long-lasting.this time. Heres the forecast from the Best of the Best that Ive described in the past: Ensembles of the European model (the model is run 51 times, and the results averaged):

Those blue and purple colors represent temperatures way below normal on December 15th. It sure looks like December is going to turn out to be a much different type of month than November.
San Diegans will be able to tour one of three visiting ships from China after they arrive Tuesday.

The Jiangkai II-class frigates Yancheng (FFG 546) and Daqing (FFG 576) along with the Fuchi-class oiler Tai Hu (AOR 889) will visit San Diego Tuesday through Friday this week.

They will dock along the B Street Pier as crews take part in different events with USS Cape St. George officers and crew.

On Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., one of the ships will be open for public tours.

This is the third time ships from the Public Liberation Army (Navy) PLA(N) have visited San Diego since 2014.
Dunkin' Donuts continued its expansion into Southern California Tuesday with the grand opening of a shiny new donut shop in National City -- a highly-anticipated location with 24-hour drive-thru service.

The business, located at 2139 East Plaza Blvd., just off Interstate 805, opened its doors bright and early, at 4 a.m., and patrons were more than ready.

Buzzing with the excitement of those sweet treats waiting inside, customers began lining up for the grand opening at around 8:30 p.m. the night before.

When the eatery opened Tuesday, the drive-thru line was already approximately 50 cars deep as Dunkin' Donuts fans hurried to get their fix.

A new @DunkinDonuts opens in National City. How many donuts will they sell today? 500? 1,000? 10,000? 15,000? story coming to @nbcsandiego pic.twitter.com/7LAp2MgLDq  Todd Strain (@TODDSTRAINNBCSD) December 6, 2016

Customers in the drive-thru line told NBC 7 theyd been waiting anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes to get their doughnuts.

For the brand's loyalists, it was well worth it.

"I'd wait two hours for them doughnuts," one customer told NBC 7.

Jordan McCoslin waited 40 minutes to get his doughtnuts. He said he kept his eye on the prize: the Boston Cream Croissant doughnut, which was worth the wait.

"Half-doughnut, half-croissant," he explained. "What's not to like?"

The new @DunkinDonuts in National City is open. Check out the drive thru line CRAZY! Nearly 50 cars deep. #SDlikesdonuts @nbcsandiego pic.twitter.com/XtqFm24pX3  Todd Strain (@TODDSTRAINNBCSD) December 6, 2016

Talisin Burton, owner of the new National City location, said the turn out for his location's grand opening was more than he could've hoped.

"The turn out's been amazing. Doughnuts are flying off the shelves and the coffee is flowing, he said, smiling.

New @DunkinDonuts in SD drive thru line is 50 cars deep. Why r people waiting hours for donuts? Listen & watch. @nbcsandiego pic.twitter.com/mIiKyciuQo  Todd Strain (@TODDSTRAINNBCSD) December 6, 2016

On opening day alone, this particular Dunkin Donuts is expected to sell about 18,000 donuts and thousands of cups of coffee.

The restaurant in National City features the largest Dunkin Donuts sign west of the Mississippi River. The sign went up a couple of months ago, and generated much excitement among locals.

And now, locals know that good things come to those who wait.

The National City eatery is highly visible from the freeway and is expected to be a very busy location. Boardwalk Development, Inc., signed a lease with Dunkin' Donuts to create the new 24-hour sweets shop.

In late July, Ron Bamberger, president of Boardwalk Development, Inc., told NBC 7 the shop's proximity to the freeway is a substantial benefit and will be convenient for morning commuters who want to pop in and out of the location quickly as they grab a doughnut on their way to work.

Bamberger said the business is on the morning side of the freeway -- the side of the street where the bulk of morning rush hour traffic occurs.

This store is the second Dunkin Donuts drive-thru in San Diego County. The first local Dunkin Donuts drive-thru is in Ramona, though that location is a Dunkin Donuts and Baskin-Robbins combo store, so this National City shop is the first freestanding local Dunkin Donuts drive-thru in San Diego County.

The new shop is locally owned and operated by the disabled U.S. veteran-owned business, Burton Restaurants, LLC. Franchisee Talisin Burton and operators Gregory Dono, Daniel Gomes and Frank Garner are all retired or current members of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Burton Restaurants, LLC also owns and operates four other Dunkin' Donuts locations in San Diego: Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar and Balboa Naval Hospital, as well as a store at Embassy Suites in downtown San Diego.

Two years ago, Dunkin Donuts announced it planned to open its first traditional restaurants in California over the coming years. This plan included 14 restaurants San Diego County, with the first opening in 2016.

The next San Diego County Dunkin Donuts slated to open soon include a location in El Cajon and another at Naval Air Station North Island.

Currently, San Diego County is home to these other Dunkin Donuts locations: an outpost at the Embassy Suites Hotel in downtown San Diego (601 Pacific Highway); a shop at Naval Medical Center San Diegos Building 1 (34800 Bob Wilson Dr.); a shop at MCAS Miramars Building 5305; the Camp Pendleton location; and the Ramona Dunkin Donuts/Baskin-Robbins location (1410 Main St.).

Dunkin' Donuts was founded in 1950 by Bill Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts. Today, the company has a cult following as the world's leading baked goods and coffee chain, serving more than 3 million customers daily and selling 52 varieties of doughnuts.
Border Patrol agents from the El Centro sector seized 25.02 pounds of meth from a Mexican national at the Highway 86 Checkpoint in Indio Sunday.

The seizure and arrest happened around 2:30 p.m. when a 26-year-old man drove up to the checkpoint. A Border Patrol K-9 alerted the officials, and he was sent for a second inspection where the K-9 discovered the drugs under the rocker panels of the Chevrolet.

After searching the vehicle they found 20 plastic wrapped bundles which tested positive for meth.

This seizure not only denies Transnational Criminal Organizations the money and resources needed to continue their illicit activities but also helps keep our communities safe, said David S. Kim, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent.

The drugs have an estimated street value of $80,064.

The man, the drugs and his car were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration for further investigation.
A bevy of glimmering, festive lights illuminating the San Diego Bay can only mean one thing: a beloved holiday boat parade is back -- a longtime tradition started by the San Diego boating community.

Dozens of boats covered in twinkling lights and inflated animals coasted along the shore of the San Diego Bay to the delight of thousands of onlookers Sunday.

Boat with lights, music, hippos and a whole lotta cheer! @nbcsandiego pic.twitter.com/9PNIbTLDNa  becstick (@becstick) December 12, 2016

It was the first weekend for the 45th annual San Diego Bay Parade of Lights presented by the Port of San Diego. The event returns to the waterfront at 5 p.m. on Dec. 18.

The procession features approximately 80 boats decked out in lights and holiday decorations, making their way around the bay. The parade starts at Shelter Island then proceeds to Harbor Island, the Embarcadero, Seaport Village, the Pier at Cesar Chavez Park and ends at the Ferry Landing in Coronado.

Google

The usually parade takes about an hour-and-a-half to pass at any given point. Organizers say the parade starts at Shelter Island at 5 p.m. By 6 p.m., the procession should reach Harbor Island. By 6:30 p.m. the parade should be visible from the Embarcadero viewing area. By 7 p.m., it will be seen from Seaport Village. By 7:15 p.m., the parade should reach the Pier at Cesar Chavez Park. By 7:30 p.m. the procession will be winding down, making its way to the Ferry Landing in Coronado. To get details of the entire route, click here.

This year, the Pier at Cesar Chavez Park is a new addition to the parade route, serving as another prime spot where spectators can gather. Typically, the San Diego holiday tradition draws about 100,000 spectators to the waterfront viewpoints.

Two very popular areas to perch during the parade include the Maritime Museum of San Diego on the Embarcadero and at the Ferry Landing, where announcers will be delivering a brief history on each boat that passes along these viewpoints.

San Diego Bay Lights Up for the Holidays

The Maritime Museum will host its Parade of Lights Viewing Dinner during the event on both Dec. 11 and Dec. 18, a fundraiser aboard the Berkeley steam ferry that includes a seasonal dinner and a cozy, prime spot from which to watch the parade. Tickets to this viewing dinner cost $50 for adults and $25 for kids ages 3 to 12. Dinner will be served from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., with the parade expected to arrive at this site at around 5:30 p.m.

Parade spectators also tend to flock to Harbor Island to watch the parade, as well as the north and south ends of the Embarcadero. Boaters wishing to watch the parade can view from the water; organizers say the area where the parade turns west for Coronado  near the 10th Street Terminal  is a good spot for spectators in boats.

As always, parking for this large-scale event is limited, so spectators are encouraged to take public transportation, including the trolley or bus. All three trolley lines serve parking lots where spectators can leave their cars  Fashion Valley, Old Town, American Plaza  and then take the trolley to the North Embarcadero area.

Raw video of the San Diego Bay Parade of Lights on Sunday, December 16, 2012.

The Green Line can be taken to Santa Fe Depot and the Orange and Blue lines to the American Plaza station. Both stations are within walking distance from Harbor Drive  another popular spot from which to view the procession.

This years San Diego Bay Parade of Lights theme is It Began With a Roar, a nod to the San Diego Zoos centennial celebration. Light displays on the boats participating in the parade will reflect this wild theme, with the best display winning the coveted Best in Theme award. The grand prize is a cruise via Uncruise Adventures to Costa Rica or Panama.
A group of supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation gathered in Kearny Mesa Monday for a demonstration and prayer vigil after the Dakota Access Pipeline was halted.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the permit required for the project in North Dakota on Sunday after months of protests.

Protesters have been camped out for months against the $3.7 billion oil pipeline they say will hard a tribal water source.

Approximately 75 demonstrators gathered outside the Army Corps Engineers Office on Aero Drive Monday afternoon to celebrate, what they are calling a small victory.

We are doing this for the next generation. I want my son to have access to clean drinking water, said Gina Tiger Madueno.

The Chula Vista resident and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation said she took supplies to protesters a few months ago. She says this was a victory that made many, including her, emotional.

But she added that many still fear the decision to halt the pipeline will be changed after President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

It's a small victory for right now but it's definitely far from over, it's not a win, she said.

Madueno and the protesters said they will not be moving anytime soon from the demonstration site in Standing Rock because they fear the future Trump Administration will stop the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers from looking for another route.

With Trump coming in, he can easily just toss that to the side and say we're gonna move forward with this project, she added.

President-elect Donald Trump has voiced his support of the pipeline and has reportedly invested Energy Transfer Partners, one of the companies building the pipeline.

In response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision, Energy Transfer Partners released the following statement:

"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 people from the Standing Rock Sioux Nation were also joined by environmentalists on Monday. Both groups say it's time to stop the push to use fossil fuels because the health of the planet depends on it.

I hope that they honor what they say they're going to do and I hope that they will permanently halt the construction of the pipeline, Madueno said.
A Georgia father found guilty of murder and other felonies in the hot car death of his toddler son in 2014 was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Monday, NBC News reports.

Justin Ross Harris, 35, was convicted last month in the death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper, who was left in a car for seven hours in sweltering heat in the Atlanta suburbs.

The case drew national attention when it was revealed that Harris, who was married at the time, was sending explicit text messages to women and underage girls.

Harris was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, cruelty to children in the first and second degree, sexual exploitation of and dissemination of harmful material to minors last month.
Some people managed to text loved ones goodbye and "I love you" before they died in an Oakland warehouse fire that claimed three dozen lives, officials said, as heart-rending reports of victims' last moments emerged from the most lethal building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade.

Also Monday, the painful and exhaustive search for those killed in the fire appeared to be coming to a close. On Tuesday, Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy Tya Modeste said the casualty count held steady at 36 people, and everyone had been identified except for one "John Doe." Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson added that officials are trying to be extra sensitive on naming those who died in the transgender and LGBT community to make sure that gender identifications are properly made.

Fire crews re-entered the warehouse at 1305 East Oakland Ave. at 2:20 a.m. Tuesday, an official said at a news conference, and had searched about 85 percent of the building. The left-hand corner of the building was still too unstable to enter, officials said.

Officials said they would turn next to investigating the fire, which erupted late Friday during a dance party. It's unclear how it started. The district attorney warned of possible murder charges as she determines whether there were any crimes linked to the blaze.

"We owe it to the community and those who perished in this fire, and those who survived the fire to be methodical, to be thorough, and to take the amount of time it takes to be able to look at every piece of potential evidence," Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said.

Meanwhile, Alameda County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said that some of the victims texted relatives, "I'm going to die," and "I love you."

Rescue crews found bodies of people "protecting each other, holding each other," Kelly said.

Monday night, hundreds of people holding candles and flowers honored those who died in the fire at a vigil at Oakland's Lake Merritt.

Those in the crowd embraced each other or held up candles as they said aloud the names of people they lost in the blaze.

Several people in the crowd held signs offering "free hugs."

Terry Ewing learned Monday what he already knew in his heart: His girlfriend, Ara Jo, was among the dead in the fire that broke out during an underground dance party at a building known as the "Ghost Ship."

Earlier, Ewing said Jo's friends and family had already started talking about the vibrant 29-year-old Oakland artist in the past tense, but needed confirmation. He went through photographs as he waited. Friends remembered her as someone who could fit in anywhere, he said.

"If you take her somewhere, she'll make friends with the surly punks in the corner as well as the elderly grandparents," he said.

The cluttered warehouse had been converted to artists' studios and illegal living spaces, and former denizens said it was a death trap of piled wood, furniture, snaking electrical cords and only two exits.

Oakland city councilman Noel Gallo, who lives a block from the warehouse, said he confronted the property's manager  Derick Ion Almena  several times about neighbors' concerns about trash in the street and in front of the warehouse. Gallo said Almena essentially told authorities to "mind their own business" and appeared resistant to addressing complaints and complying with city codes.

Almena and his partner, Micah Allison, ran the building's arts colony, called the Satya Yuga collective. Relatives, friends and former colleagues said Almena loved to surround himself with followers, but he seemed to care little for their well-being.

Almena told NBC Bay Area he didn't know the event was taking place, and he wasn't at the warehouse Friday night because he and his wife had decided to stay at a hotel because he was exhausted and their children had school.

"We're sorry to the families and all the friends that have lost loved ones," he said. "I gladly would give my entire life of fortune, of wealth of experience again and again and again, and I say this to you and I say this to the camera and to whoever is watching me that I surrender everything."

Almena did not respond to emails or calls to phone numbers associated with him by The Associated Press. No one answered a call to a number for Allison.

The warehouse is owned by Chor N. Ng, her daughter Eva Ng told the Los Angeles Times. She said the warehouse was leased as studio space for an art collective and was not being used as a dwelling.

"We are also trying to figure out what's going on like everybody else," the family wrote in a statement to KNTV. "Our condolences go out to the families and friends of those injured and those who lost their lives."

Eva Ng did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.

Gallo said Chor N. Ng put Almena in charge of cleaning up the Ghost Ship, and nothing was done.

"I hold the owner of the property responsible," Gallo said. "I hold the manager responsible."

But questions persisted about whether city officials could have done more to prevent the fire. Oakland planning officials opened an investigation last month after repeated complaints about the warehouse. An inspector who went to the premises couldn't get inside, said Darin Ranelletti of the Oakland Planning Department.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said city officials are putting together a record of what they knew about the property. She was booed and shouted at during the vigil, as some believe she isn't doing enough to protect non-traditional living spaces.

Investigators said they believe they have located the section of the building where the fire started, but the cause remains unknown.

NBC Bay Area's Lisa Fernandez and Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer, Olga R. Rodriguez, Tim Reiterman, Sudhin Thanawala, Jonathan J. Cooper and Terry Chea contributed to this report.
The D.C. Council agreed to reduce the amount of paid time off people could take for the birth or adoption of a child from 11 weeks to eight weeks, which would still be more time than in the other states that mandate paid leave, although New York state will begin offering eight weeks of leave in 2018.

The council gave preliminary approval to the paid family leave bill Tuesday, with the hallway outside the council chamber jammed with supporters and opponents. A second vote on Dec. 20 will give final approval to the measure.

The council meeting started two hours late in part because council members squabbled over the proposal at breakfast.

In addition to the eight weeks of paid leave -- down, now, from the original proposal of 16 weeks -- would also provide for six weeks paid leave for family care and two weeks for self care.

Unlike in other states, the District's benefit would be funded entirely by a tax on businesses.

"It will increase worker productivity, increase worker morale," said Councilmember Elissa Silverman, a sponsor of the bill. "It will lower turnover rates, which is costly to businesses."

Businesses and some nonprofits opposed the $250 million cost of the bill and said two-thirds of the workers covered don't live in the city and don't pay D.C. income taxes.

"To send so much money out to supporting Maryland and Virginia residents ... I don't support that," Ward 8 Council member LaRuby May said.

Mayor Muriel Bowser also questioned the bill's impact.

"Raising the tax and sending those tax dollars outside the city is problematic," she said.

Bowser has not said whether she would sign the bill. The mayor's allies on the council are lining up against the bill, but it's still expected to pass later this month. It's expected to go into effect in 2020 after initial funds are raised from the employer tax.

The bill excludes federal workers not subject to the tax that pays for it.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday and said she spoke with him about Metro and D.C. statehood.

Bowser told News4's Mark Segraves in New York that she had a "wide-ranging discussion" with the incoming commander-in-chief. The pair met for more than 40 minutes Tuesday morning in Trump Tower.

Bowser requested the meeting. After Trump's election, she said "some mending of relationships'' was needed between Trump and a city that overwhelmingly voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The mayor was joined in the meeting by her two top advisers. Trump had no staff in the room.

Bowser said one of her top issues to raise with Trump was the city's struggling Metrorail system.

"I told him a lot about our Metro system -- how many federal workers use it, what are some of the challenges it's having now," she said.

Bowser said she planned to talk about Metro in more details with Elaine Chao, who Trump nominated for U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

The mayor said Trump was interested in hearing about D.C. residents' "very huge vote" in favor of urging Congress to endorse making the District the 51st state in the union.

"He was impressed with how popular and how much support it had in the District," Bowser said about Trump.

She said she wanted Trump to understand how the D.C. government works.

"We're independent, we take care of ourselves, we don't get any more from the federal government than another other state. And we act like a state. We function like a state," she said. "I wanted to make sure he understood Washington D.C. as the unique entity that it is."

Bowser declined to characterize Trump's position on issues they discussed but described the meeting as the beginning of a relationship. Trump showed "a willingness to work together to reach common ground," she said.

Bowser said she believes it is important for D.C. to continue its tradition of being a gracious host to every president.

After Bowser met with Trump, she traveled a few blocks away to meet with former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bowser said she planned to speak with him about education.
Vice President Joe Biden was in a philosophical mood after an emotional day on Capitol Hill when a bill was named after his son, Beau, who died of cancer last year.

A senator for 36 years before becoming vice president, Biden was emotional after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a friend, got the Senate to name a portion of the 21st Century Cures Bill after Beau Biden. Biden was asked about his future plans while chatting with NBC News reporter Kelly ODonnell and other reporters after presiding over Senate debate on the bill.

O'Donnell: And, sir, because you are going in to these final days of your time in office, does that add to the emotion you feel?

Biden: I hadn't thought about it in that rational way, but I guess so. I mean, my staff always kids me, every time I come up here I feel invigorated. I love this place, I mean, this is, this is where I spent my life...

Reporter: Are you going to run again?

Biden: Yeah, I am. I am going to run in 2020 so uh, but..

Reporter: For what?

Biden: For president. And also, what the hell man, anyway.

O'Donnell: We're going to run with that. sir, you know...

Biden: That's OK, that's OK. No, but I've enjoyed every minute of my time here in the Senate. And it's a great feeling to come back. I love this place.

Reporter: Just to be clear, were you kidding about running for president in 2020?

Biden: I'm just, I'm not committing not to run. I'm not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening.

Biden, who turned 74 last month, will turn 78 shortly after the 2020 election. Ronald Reagan was just a few days short of turning 78 when he left office in January 1989, making him the oldest person to serve as president.

The vice president decided to not seek the White House in 2015 and instead backed this year's eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. He ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination in 2008, when now-President Barack Obama selected him as his running mate, and in 1988.
Investigators believe a Virginia woman who disappeared from Spotsylvania County last year never left the county, despite initial reports that she was last seen 60 miles away.

Katelin Michelle Akens was last seen Dec. 5, 2015, when her mother, Lisa Sullivan, dropped her off at Sullivan's ex-husband's house on Oak Crest Drive in Partlow, Virginia.

Sullivan's ex-husband told investigators he dropped Akens off at Springfield Town Center so she could take the Metro to Reagan National Airport. But her family said she never arrived at her destination.

Her luggage was found two days later in a drainage ditch on River Road, near the Fredericksburg city limit.

On Monday, authorities said there was no evidence Akens or her property ever left Spotsylvania County.

Investigators have been corresponding with Akens' stepfather and will continue to speak with him to "tighten up the timeline," Capt. Liz Scott with the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office said.

Akens' family doesn't believe she left on her own; at the time of her disappearance, she had recently enrolled in cosmetology school and was excited to start her career.

Investigators say Akens was also very close to her sister and communicated with her daily.

Akens has blonde hair and blue eyes, weighs about 120 pounds and stands 5 feet 4 inches tall.

Investigators are urging anyone with information about her whereabouts to call police at 1-800-928-5822 or 540-582-5822.
A Maryland woman who was imprisoned in Gambia for months her alleged involvement in an anti-government protest has been granted bail.

Fanta Darboe Jawara, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced to three years in jail after her arrest on charges including unlawful assembly during a demonstration near the capital, Banjul.

Jawara's family says she was a bystander at the demonstration. They have maintained her innocence.

"They just haul anybody in sight. Threw them into trucks," Jawara's uncle, Momodou Darboe, said in July.

Jawara is due back in court Thursday. Her husband, Ebrima Jawara, said all charges could be dropped at that time.

Since her arrest, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin and three other Maryland congressional members have demanded her release.

Both the State Department and Ebrima Jawara expressed concerns about her treatment in the prison where she's being held by the government of President Yahya Jammeh. Fanta's husband is a grandson of Jammeh's predecessor, Dawda Jawara, who was ousted in a 1994 military coup.
Prince William County police arrested the man they believe attacked an employee inside a Virginia massage parlor.

Clarence Olutayo Olowu, 32, entered ZY Massage on Dynasty Loop in Woodbridge at 10 a.m. Sunday and asked to use the restroom, police said. As he was leaving, police say he asked an employee for a hug, but she declined.

A short time later, Olowu allegedly returned to the business, locked the door and assaulted the victim, police said. The victim was able to break free and ran from the business.

Olowu is charged with abduction and assault and battery and is being held without bond. A court date is pending.

A tip from a citizen helped police identify the suspect.
A sheriff in California said he doesn't expect to find any more victims from the weekend's massive warehouse fire in Oakland. Thirty-six bodies have been pulled from the so-called "Ghost Ship."

Dozens of artists set up studios in the building, and a lot of the illegal living spaces were piled high with pallet staircases made of wood. Some former residents called it a disaster waiting to happen, but how can a similar tragedy be prevented from happening in the D.C. area?

Lawrence Ball is a Howard University graduate who owns a digital agency business inside 52 O Street Studios. It's a warehouse that has art studios and some residential units.

Lawrence said the property manager and landlord do a great job to keep the building safe. He said when he walks out of his office, there is a fire extinguisher and a fire alarm in the hallway.

The D.C. area has very strict requirements, Lawrence said. One being licensed as a property manager, and two, being able to maintain a [certificate of occupancy] for a property you're going to be renting out.

In Prince Georges County, fire department spokesman Mark Brady said the department works hard to prevent fires like the one in Oakland.

We work very closely agency that issues permits, Brady said. What we do here in Prince Georges County, we work very closely with our agency that handles permitting investigations and enforcement, because there are fire life safety codes, and there are building codes.

A criminal investigation was launched by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office on Sunday into possible criminal negligence.

District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said Monday her office has sent a team to search for evidence of a crime in the warehouse, but has not yet determined whether a crime even occurred. She said potential charges could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder.
What to Know Seth Rich was shot to death in northwest D.C. July 10.

Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Police said last month they have no evidence the slaying was connected to Rich's work at the DNC.

A Republican lobbyist is increasing the reward he is offering for information on the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.

Rich, 27, was shot multiple times in the 2100 block of Flagler Place July 10. No arrests have been made in the five months since his death.

Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman has added $5,000 to the $100,000 reward he originally offered, according to a press release. The Metropolitan Police Department is also offering a $25,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in Rich's case.

"I really just want to the Rich family to have closure and for those involved with this tragic event to be brought to light," Burkman said in a release.

Last month, Rich's parents pleaded for any clues that may help police.

"You have two people who shot my son twice in the back," said Rich's mother, Mary Rich. "We're not going to stop until we find my son's murderer. We will find his murderer, but we need all of you."

Investigators have said they don't have any evidence suggesting the slaying is connected to the victim's work at the DNC. Attempted robbery has been cited as a possible motive.

Police have said there are no additional updates in Rich's case.

WikiLeaks previously offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in Rich's death.

Rich, a Nebraska native, was a rising star in the DNC, colleagues said.

Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call police at 202-727-9099 or send a text message to 50411.
The man charged in the 1975 slayings of two sisters who vanished from a suburban Maryland mall has been indicted on new charges in connection with an unrelated case in northern Virginia.

Multiple news outlets reported a Manassas grand jury indicted Lloyd Lee Welch Jr. Monday on charges of rape, sexual battery and taking indecent liberties. Further details regarding the charges were not immediately clear.

Welch is awaiting trial in Bedford County, Virginia, on charges of first-degree murder in the disappearance of 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and 10-year-old Katherine Lyon. The sisters were last seen walking from their house to the Wheaton Plaza Mall. The girls never came home, and no bodies were found.
A suspected impaired driver struck two Maryland State Police troopers protecting a crash scene in a patrol car Monday night in Charles County, bringing the number of troopers hit while on traffic stops this year to 37, according to state police.

Troopers Thomas Davis and Matthew Milch were parked behind the crash scene on northbound Route 301 shortly before 7 p.m. when 75-year-old Ruth A. Runyan crashed into an unoccupied patrol car, spinning it into the patrol car in which the troopers were sitting. Neither trooper was injured.

Prior to the accident, both patrol cars had emergency lights on, and traffic was being directed to the left of the crash scene.

Runyan was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, driving while impaired, negligent driving, failure to change lanes for an emergency vehicle and failure to obey designated lane directions. Runyan refused medical treatment at the scene.

Charles County Sheriff's deputies also arrested the driver of a tow truck called to the scene to transport Runyans after they detected signs the driver was impaired.

This year alone 37 state troopers have been struck while on the side of Maryland roads at traffic stops, crash scenes or construction zones, with another 20 unoccupied patrol cars hit.

Marylands move over law, which requires drivers to move lanes or slow down when approaching an emergency vehicle from the rear, is designed to prevent these types of incidents. Violating the law can result in fines and points.
A Boston attorney accused of swindling tens of thousands of dollars from clients and associates and used the money to lease a Mercedes-Benz and rent an $11,000 penthouse apartment was ordered to be held on $1 million bail.

Wassem Amin was arraigned Monday on 26 charges including credit card application fraud, larceny, money laundering and forgery.

Should he make his extraordinary high bail, Amin must also stay away from his alleged victims, wear a GPS monitor and not travel outside of Massachusetts without the court's permission.

Prosecutors say the 31-year-old Amin used a business partner's identity to open several lines of credit without that person's knowledge and using the credit cards to for $35,000 in expenses. He also allegedly embezzled nearly $50,000 from a client who expected the money to be transferred into an account for his new legal practice.

Amin could not be reached for comment. He's being represented by Sarah Fleming and is due back in court on Jan. 12.
A Jewish community center in Woodbridge remains closed Tuesday after a four-alarm fire that sent two firefighters to the hospital Monday.

Fire broke out at a crowded Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven in Woodbridge around 3:30 p.m. on the bottom floor, possibly near a sauna area, according to Judy Diamondstein, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven.

There were between 200 and 300 in the building at 360 Amity Road at the time of the fire, Diamondstein said. Those inside included infants and children at the JCC's child care center.

The building was evacuated safely and everyone was moved to the Brookdale assisted living facility next door, according to Diamondstein.

Amity Road, also knows as Route 63, was closed as more than 60 firefighters from multiple towns battled the blaze. Two firefighters had to be taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation but are expected to recover.

Clean-up crews remained on scene Tuesday morning and fire officials are still working to determine the cause of the fire. It is unclear when the JCC will be able to reopen, but in the meantime leaders say they will work with community parters to relocate their programming to other locations.
Firefighters responded to two fires at around the same time in Malden, Massachusetts on Tuesday morning.

Aerial footage showed flames ripping through a liquor store on Medford Street. Officials said the blaze rose to three alarms before it was extinguished.

Revere, Melrose and Chelsea fire departments responded for mutual aid.

Fire officials said part of the roof of the building collapsed, and one firefighter suffered minor injuries.

The owner reportedly saw smoke when he arrived on Tuesday morning and tried to put out the flames, but the fire spread too quickly. The liquor store was the only occupant of the building.

Malden Fire dispatchers said crews also responded to another fire on Daniels Street on Tuesday morning.

Viewer video showed a neighborhood filling with smoke as firefighters fought the fire on Medford Street.
A Vermont National Guard member has been arrested on a charge of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, according to state police.

Authorities say Josh Robbins, 22, of Radcliff, Kentucky, was arrested on Monday.

Investigators said Robbins allegedly had sex with a 14-year-old New Hampshire girl at a party in Bethel in September 2016. Robbins routinely travels to New England for his National Guard duties, according to authorities.

Robbins is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday in Windsor County Court on a charge of sexual assault.
A Vermont business just got a big head-start on an upcoming expansion: a year of free rent.

Dobra Tea already serves food and hot and cold drinks from around the world in its tea room in downtown Burlington.

Next year, it will expand into neighboring Winooski.

We really want to be here, Stacey Jolles of Dobra Tea said of Winooski. We think its going to be a great place for us to be.

The Dagesse Company, the builders of the new City Lights building in downtown Winooski, offered a year of ground-level rent free to a business looking to open or grow. The company said it made the offer in order to support a company through a critical stage, and also to contribute something to help the vibrancy of Winooski.

After sifting through dozens of proposals, the developers said Tuesday they picked Dobra Tea.

We feel that the first year, having rent free will enable a business to not only thrive but also reinvest in their business so it will be successful, said developer Jacquie Dagesse.

Dagesse noted when the offer was announced that the tenant will be responsible for paying utility costs.

Dobra Tea said the opportunity will help the business focus on designing and promoting the new location for long-term success, instead of stressing out over making their rent.

And were also really hoping that the diversity of Winooski will appreciate the diversity of Dobra, said Nina Beck of Dobra. We serve customers from all over the world with our teas from all over the world, and the comment we always hear is, It feels like home here!

City Lights is scheduled to open on Winooskis East Allen Street in the summer of 2017. It will also house rental apartments.


Multi-cultural Lynn church restarts international cafe Multi-cultural Lynn church restarts international cafe

The Gateway Church based in Kings Lynn purposefully aims to be a multi-cultural community and as part of its mission it has restarted its popular International Cafe, a safe place to support people as they learn English, make friends and settle in West Norfolk.
Believe it  you too can become a successful cyber criminal! Its easy! Its cheap! Its short hours for big bucks! No need to spend years on boring things like learning how to write code or develop software.

Just download our simple ransomware toolkit and we can have you up and running in hours  stealing hundreds or thousands of dollars from people in other countries, all from the comfort of your home office  or your parents basement. Sit back and watch the Bitcoin roll in!

OK, thats not the literal pitch coming from the developers of ransomware. But, given the rise of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS)  a business model in which malware authors enlist distributors to spread the infections and then take a cut of the profits  it sounds like it could be a candidate for the kind of direct-response TV ads that made the late pitchman Billy Mays famous.

As Trend Micro put it more soberly in a recent blog post, Potential distributors dont even need much capital or technical expertise to start; even those without coding experience can launch a ransomware campaign. Indeed, the cost of some ransomware packages is less than $100.

In other words, just about anybody can do it.

All of which, until the recent ransomware attack on San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), has seemed to be happening a bit under the radar.

With high-profile Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks like the one against Internet backbone provider Dyn grabbing most of the recent headlines, you could be forgiven for thinking that ransomware might be on the decline.

But the reality is just the opposite, according to various experts and studies.

According to a white paper from Osterman Research, it is at epidemic levels, with nearly 50% of US companies experiencing a ransomware attack during the past year.

And a Trend Micro report released in August found that about 80 new ransomware "families"  an increase of 172 percent  were discovered in the first half of 2016. A single, older version of the CryptoWall family brought in an estimated $325 million in 2015.

Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro, said things have become markedly worse since that report. He said at the end of September, the increase was 400 percent. In 2015, there had been 29 families observed, and as of September, we have observed and blocked 145 families, he said.

Due to the dynamic nature of these threats obtaining and sharing actionable intelligence in a timely manner is the biggest challenge.

Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer, Trend Micro

That is no surprise to Andrew Hay, CISO at DataGravity, who said a DDoS attack tends to get more publicity because, it affects all users of a product or service, so the news of its impact spreads at the speed of typical internet news.

Ransomware, conversely, is often hidden from people outside the company until the company, attacker or affected customers release details, he said.

Javvad Malik, security advocate at AlienVault, has a similar take on it. Many companies dont report ransomware attacks, he said, while DDoS attacks are, by design, intended to be as publicly visible as possible.

(Paying the ransom) should be an absolute last resort.

Javvad Malik, security advocate, AlienVault

But they agree, ransomware is a growth industry. I dont think it has peaked. I think it is just getting started, said Christopher Hadnagy, chief human hacker at Social-Engineer. I still hear of lots of accounts of companies left to either pay or start over.

And Orla Cox, director of security intelligence delivery at Symantec, said not only has the number of attacks increased, but the demanded ransom has as well.

The average ransom demand has more than doubled, and is now $679 (US dollars), up from $294 at the end of 2015, she said.

[ MORE ON CSO: The history of ransomware ]

She added that 2016, "has also seen a new record in terms of ransom demands, with a threat known as 7ev3n-HONE$T (Trojan.Cryptolocker.AD), which demands a ransom of 13 Bitcoin per computer, or $5,083 at the time of discovery in January.

One reason for that explosive growth is probably because, even with headlines and continuous warnings about it, most individuals and organizations remain woefully vulnerable. Even if protection is available, they dont always use it.

Be wary of unexpected emails especially if they contain links and/or attachments.

Orla Cox, director, Security Intelligence Delivery, Symantec

The recent attack on the San Francisco MTA (known as Muni) is an example. Security researcher and blogger Brian Krebs noted in a recent post that the attacker actually advised his victims to, Read this and install patch before you connect your server to internet again, with a link to an advisory Oracle issued about a vulnerability in its Oracle WebLogic Server.

Oracle had made that patch available on Nov. 10, 2015  more than a year ago.

Another reason for ransomwares success is that it takes time for security researchers to decrypt the files so they can provide solutions that will block them.

That work is ongoing. Malik said once researchers can break into the software, they are able to create signatures or indicators of compromise.

A collaborative effort is by the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA), founded by security vendors Fortinet, Intel Security, Palo Alto Networks and Symantec, which has used shared threat intelligence  in its words, a huge effort of pooling the Alliances collective resources, to track and analyze the CryptoWal family.

According to the alliance, the effort led to enhanced protection against this threat with each members individual products, plus building public awareness through its reports.

Other experts applaud sharing threat data, but note that it remains reactive  the updates, patches and other tools to block malware dont show up until after the threat has already caused plenty of damage.

Hay said antivirus and antimalware products are good at, protecting the low-hanging fruit, but the threats evolve too quickly for any tool to offer 100 percent protection.

He added that while he supports the goals of the CTA, it is a members-only club. To join that club, you must provide a minimum of 1,000 unique malware executables daily that do not overlap with VirusTotal.

This high barrier to entry means that while the goals of the alliance are good, its simply not inclusive enough to help those affected, he said. A better solution would be to open the doors and let vetted organizations and researchers contribute and work with the samples.

Cabrera called the sharing of threat information critical to combating all cyber threats.

[ RELATED: Tricks that ransomware uses to fool you ]

But he said the reality is that, due to the dynamic nature of these threats obtaining and sharing actionable intelligence in a timely manner is the biggest challenge.

He, like all experts, agreed that there is no silver bullet that will block all threats. But he said, a layered, connected threat defense that protects endpoint, network and cloud infrastructure, will at least allow organizations to manage the ransomware threat.

The best solutions, however, are the preventive ones, which include:

Install software patches and updates as soon as they are available.

Become savvy enough not to fall victim to phishing emails. Be wary of unexpected emails especially if they contain links and/or attachments, Cox said, adding that users should be especially careful of any Microsoft Office email attachment that advises enabling macros to view content. Unless you are absolutely sure that this is a genuine email from a trusted source, do not enable macros, she said.

Do regular backups  and make sure those have added protection or are stored offline.

Hay said organizations can start by limiting access to their most important data and then rigorously monitor the network for anomalies.

When these anomalies are detected, you can automatically create copies of your files in a safe location, he said, but added that it is also important to test the restoration of backups. The last thing you want in the midst of an incident is to learn that your backups dont work, he said.

Finally, experts are mixed on the wisdom of paying the demanded ransom.

Hadnagy and Cox take the hard line. Never, Hadnagy said. Sadly many times even if the ransom is paid they do not unlock the files. It seems that if the ransom is paid the criminals learn it is good business and continue this type of attacks.

Cox agreed, for the same reasons  no guarantee that files will be unlocked, and increased likelihood of being attacked again.

Cabrera added that even if the attacker provides the encryption key, he could have already exfiltrated data, and then sell it on the Deep Web.

Others agree that it is a bad idea, but say there are times it could be the only feasible idea.

Malik said paying, should be an absolute last resort.

And Hay said his security side would dictate that victims never pay, since that will simply encourage another attack with a larger ransom demand.

But he said his business side knows that, if the business cannot continue to operate without paying the ransom, theyll pay the ransom.

This story, "Ransomware as a Service fuels explosive growth" was originally published by CSO .
Earlier this year, Microsoft tried an experiment with an AI-powered chatbot called Tay. It was an interesting concept where Tay would learn from its users. Unfortunately it turned into a PR disaster very quickly as the 4chan crowd moved in and taught it all kinds of racist and homophobic comments.

Red-faced, Microsoft pulled the chatbot quickly and promised to make adjustments to its AI chatbot so that it doesnt act like a /b/tard.

Fast forward a few months, and Microsoft is ready to try again. Its new chatbot has the equally odd name of Zo. For now, Zo is available only on Kik, a chat service for mobile phones, whereas Tay was on Twitter.

Zo is apparently an English-variant of Microsofts Chinese chatbot Xiaoice. It does a super abbreviated personality test when you first launch it, asking you a bunch of questions to get an idea of your personality. However, she does not discuss politics, which is one way to avoid problems.

Targeting the teen market?

You find Zo by searching for bots. Kik has a lot of them. According to DMR Stats, over 60 percent of people who use bots on Kik messenger are teens between the age of 13-19, and roughly 40 percent of all U.S. users of Kik messenger are either young adults or teens.

That might explain my first contact with Zo. Her first comment to me was "LOL wut up?" My conversation with her was largely simplistic, and she basically talked like a teen, which doesn't make for scintillating conversation.

Then again, maybe Microsoft wants to test Zo against that age group because they are likely the ones who caused all the mischief with Tay.

Zo's answers are not as comprehensive or, for that matter, as intelligent as Google's Assistant. But the bot just launched. Hopefully it will learn as it goes.

So, if you want to try it out, download Kik on your smartphone, set up your account, tap the Plus sign in the upper right and select Discover Bots. Search for Zo, and have fun.
Lots of IT techs have access to network credentials to access company files and emails, but it wouldnt cross the minds of most to abuse that knowledge for a get-rich-scheme in the flavor of insider trading. Yet that doesnt apply to everyone, since a 28-year-old admitted to exploiting his position in order to gain insider knowledge and illegally trade and profit from those secrets.

Jonathan Ly, a former IT tech for Expedia, pleaded guilty to securities fraud  something FBI Special Agent in Charge Jay S. Tabb, Jr. called, Particularly egregious because Mr. Ly abused his special access privileges as an IT administrator. On top of violating the trust of the public and his company, he violated the privacy of fellow employees by surreptitiously accessing their files.

From 2013 to 2015, Ly worked for Expedia as a Senior IT Support Tech from Hotwires San Francisco office. He had administration access privileges so he could remotely access electronic files on Expedia devices as well as corporate computer network passwords.

Even after he left Expedia in 2015, he secretly took a corporate laptop so he could continue accessing non-public information. This allowed Ly to execute a series of well-timed and lucrative securities trades, which made him over $331,000 net profits.

According to a court document, in 2013, Ly discovered he could exploit his admin privileges to remotely open and view electronic files that were saved locally on Expedia devices. He repeatedly tapped into documents on devices belonging to Expedias chief financial officer and its head of investor relations without their knowledge or permission.

By 2014, Ly found out about an IT admin service account which allowed him higher access privileges so he could snoop on employee corporate accounts and emails. Ly used the network credentials of other employees so the intrusions wouldnt point back at him.

When he left in April 2015, he kept his Expedia laptop so he could still remotely access the companys networks. He also continued to use other corporate network credentials so accessing computers and emails accounts of Expedia executives couldnt be pinned on him.

In case you didnt know, Expedia is huge; its brands include Hotwire, Hotels.com, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, HomeAway and many more. Just while Ly worked for Expedia, it acquired trivago, Wotif, Travelocity and Orbitz.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said, Ly targeted information prepared by Expedia's head of investor relations summarizing how the market may react to certain announcements. CNN added, Access to that kind of secret info before it's publicly released can be very valuable, given how news can cause stocks to move dramatically.

Once Expedia finally discovered the intrusion, the company turned to the FBI. The FBI conducted a forensic investigation. Although Ly had gotten away with this for years, from 2013 to 2016, the DOJ credited Expedia for its quick reporting of the breach which helped the FBI trace the intrusion to Ly. As part of a plea agreement, Ly will pay Expedia the $81,592 the company spent on investigating the intrusion.

The Justice Department noted that Ly pleaded guilty to securities fraud, but also faces a separate Securities and Exchange Commission action requiring him to pay back the more than $331,000 in profits he made in the scheme.

25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine is the maximum penalty allowed by law for securities fraud. The sentencing for Lys criminal case is scheduled for February 28, 2017.

Lys attorney, John Runfola, told CNN that Ly is deeply sorry and that he came from an impoverished background.
If there's one thing that Apple values more than most other tech companies, it's product secrecy. Whereas other big name tech companies like Google and Microsoft enjoy showing users what type of crazy new technologies they've been working on, Apple in contrast prefers to keep everything under wraps until it has a shipping product to show off.

That said, a recent letter that Apple sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finally gives us some concrete proof that the company has a strong and ongoing interest in self-driving car technology. Sure, it was no secret that Apple was working on a car initiative of some sort given its hiring spree of engineers with deep experience across the entirety of the car design and manufacturing process. Still, it was never entirely clear if Apple was initially looking into building a car of its own or, perhaps, focusing on ancillary software technologies instead.

Until now.

The aforementioned letter to the NHTSA was sent out on November 22, 2016 but only came to light over the weekend. The letter, penned by former Ford engineer Steven Kenner, relays that Apple 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 full letter reads:

Apple is pleased to provide the following comments on the proposed Federal Automated Vehicles Policy (Policy), published by the Department of Transportation and the National Highway TraSafety Administration (NHTSA). Apple believes this Policy will be fundamental to ensuring the safety and public acceptance of automated vehicles while providing a exible path for innovation. 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. Executed properly under NHTSAs guidance, automated vehicles have the potential to greatly enhance the human experienceto prevent millions of car crashes and thousands of fatalities each year and to give mobility to those without. It is vital that those developing and deploying automated vehicles follow rigorous safety principles in design and production. Such principles should not, however, inhibit companies from making consequential progress; there is no need to compromise safety or innovation. Apple affirms that, in order to best protect the traveling public and keep up with the pace of innovation, NHTSA should expedite requests for exemption and interpretation and petitions for rulemaking. NHTSA and Congress should also continue to explore new tools and authorities like those outlined in Section IV of the Policyincluding expanded exemption authoritywith the goal of fostering innovation, improving regulatory exibility, and encouraging the development of life-saving technology

Notably, rumors of Apple researching the development of its own branded car have been swirling about for many months. Just two months ago, however, the New York Times published a story relaying that Apple was "rethinking what it plans to do about self-driving cars."

That report reads in part:

In a retrenchment of one of its most ambitious initiatives, Apple has shuttered parts of its self-driving car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to three people briefed on the move who were not allowed to speak about it publicly. The job cuts are the latest sign of trouble with Apples car initiative. The company has added resources to the project  code-named Titan  over the last two years, but it has struggled to make progress. And in July, the company brought in Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded Apple veteran, to take over the effort.

As it stands now, it's widely believed that Apple has put its ambitions of designing and manufacturing an electric car on hold as it refocuses its efforts on developing self-driving car technology.
Pramod Thomas By

Express News Service

KOCHI: India needs Angels with deep pockets to nurture startups, especially when India hopes to host over 10,500 startups by 2020 employing over 2.1 lakh people.

And the Securities and Exchange Board of Indias (SEBI) move to broaden the base of initial angel investors by lowering the entry threshold to Rs 25 lakh from Rs 50 lakh and increasing the number of allowed investors to 200, is set to attract more angel investors into Indian startups. Experts point out that encouraging listing of startups  the number of listed startups is too low now  is the next big step.

Startup India supports startups less than five years old, and SEBI, by permitting angel investors to fund startups less than five years have brought its definition of startups on par with that of the governments policy. Similarly, enhancing limit of number of angel investors is in harmony with number of shareholders limit in a private company, said Poyni Bhatt, COO, SINE, IIT Mumbai, pointing out that it will enable to bring more angel participation. Permission for Angel Funds to invest in entities incorporated outside India will also have the positive effect of geographic portfolio diversification, added Bharat Banka, Founding Advisor, Katabole Technology Venture.



It would have been even more dynamic if the concept of Accredited Angel Investors was announced, he added.

The entrepreneurial and start up culture is the next growth driver but it cannot take off unless startups receive initial funding. However, investors would seek exits in due course. While norms for listing are in place for a while, so far there has not been any. SEBI should help to promote such an ecosystem, said Rahul Agarwal, MD, AltFort Capital, investment bank and advisory.

KOCHI: India needs Angels with deep pockets to nurture startups, especially when India hopes to host over 10,500 startups by 2020 employing over 2.1 lakh people. And the Securities and Exchange Board of Indias (SEBI) move to broaden the base of initial angel investors by lowering the entry threshold to Rs 25 lakh from Rs 50 lakh and increasing the number of allowed investors to 200, is set to attract more angel investors into Indian startups. Experts point out that encouraging listing of startups  the number of listed startups is too low now  is the next big step. Startup India supports startups less than five years old, and SEBI, by permitting angel investors to fund startups less than five years have brought its definition of startups on par with that of the governments policy. Similarly, enhancing limit of number of angel investors is in harmony with number of shareholders limit in a private company, said Poyni Bhatt, COO, SINE, IIT Mumbai, pointing out that it will enable to bring more angel participation. Permission for Angel Funds to invest in entities incorporated outside India will also have the positive effect of geographic portfolio diversification, added Bharat Banka, Founding Advisor, Katabole Technology Venture. It would have been even more dynamic if the concept of Accredited Angel Investors was announced, he added. The entrepreneurial and start up culture is the next growth driver but it cannot take off unless startups receive initial funding. However, investors would seek exits in due course. While norms for listing are in place for a while, so far there has not been any. SEBI should help to promote such an ecosystem, said Rahul Agarwal, MD, AltFort Capital, investment bank and advisory.
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: The battle for the Tata Group refuses to die down, with ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry stepping up his fight against the Tatas and patriarch Ratan Tata by seeking government intervention to remedy and repair breakdown in the governance of the trusts managing Tata Sons.

In what seems to have been a direct reference to Ratan Tata, Mistry also pointed out that decision-making should not concentrated in the hands of a single individual. Conferment of all power in one man or a high command is unethical and a breach of trust, Mistry said in his statement. Mistry also reached out to shareholders of six Tata group firms, where promoters have called EGMs to remove him from the boards.

The Tata Group is no ones personal fiefdom: it does not belong to any individual, not to the trustees of Tata Trusts, not to the Tata Sons directors, and not to the directors of the operating companies. It belongs to all the stakeholders, including every one of you, he said.

In his letter to shareholders ahead of the EGM to remove him from the groups crown jewel TCS on December 13, Mistry questioned why no reasons were cited for his dismissal and wondered if this was another case of Ratan Tatas arbitrary functioning.

Various Tata Trusts, in which Ratan Tata is lifetime chairman, own a cumulative 66 per cent in Tata Sons, the holding company for the Group.

Responding immediately to Mistrys letter to shareholders, Tata Sons responded that it was Mistry himself who had converted the Group into personal fiefdom with unilateral actions destroying precious institutional memory of House of Tata.

Mistry, the firm reiterated, had gradually concentrated all power and authority in his own hands and his statements following his ouster had caused enormous damage to the group, tens of thousands of crores of losses to all shareholders.

MUMBAI: The battle for the Tata Group refuses to die down, with ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry stepping up his fight against the Tatas and patriarch Ratan Tata by seeking government intervention to remedy and repair breakdown in the governance of the trusts managing Tata Sons. In what seems to have been a direct reference to Ratan Tata, Mistry also pointed out that decision-making should not concentrated in the hands of a single individual. Conferment of all power in one man or a high command is unethical and a breach of trust, Mistry said in his statement. Mistry also reached out to shareholders of six Tata group firms, where promoters have called EGMs to remove him from the boards. The Tata Group is no ones personal fiefdom: it does not belong to any individual, not to the trustees of Tata Trusts, not to the Tata Sons directors, and not to the directors of the operating companies. It belongs to all the stakeholders, including every one of you, he said. In his letter to shareholders ahead of the EGM to remove him from the groups crown jewel TCS on December 13, Mistry questioned why no reasons were cited for his dismissal and wondered if this was another case of Ratan Tatas arbitrary functioning. Various Tata Trusts, in which Ratan Tata is lifetime chairman, own a cumulative 66 per cent in Tata Sons, the holding company for the Group. Responding immediately to Mistrys letter to shareholders, Tata Sons responded that it was Mistry himself who had converted the Group into personal fiefdom with unilateral actions destroying precious institutional memory of House of Tata. Mistry, the firm reiterated, had gradually concentrated all power and authority in his own hands and his statements following his ouster had caused enormous damage to the group, tens of thousands of crores of losses to all shareholders.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Indias demonetisation policy has put Russia and Pakistan in the same spot as Moscow has also lodged a diplomatic protest with India as cash ceiling has left its diplomats cash-strapped.

Presently, there is a limit of Rs 50,000 on weekly withdrawals for the diplomats. Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin has written a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) saying that the week limit is not even enough to pay for a decent dinner and that it was woefully inadequate to run diplomatic operations. How can such a big embassy in Delhi function without cash? Kadakin has said in the letter.

Russians operate a big embassy in Delhi with a staff of about 200 people. The MEA is yet to reply to the Envoys letter. Russians officials indicate that they are thinking of counter measures like summoning Indian Envoy in Moscow or putting a ceiling on cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats in their country.

Earlier, Pakistan Embassy in New Delhi had sent a note verbale to the MEA complaining that its staffers were facing problems in withdrawals of salary and has termed the restrictions as contravention to the Vienna Convention.

The Embassies have already approached the MEA informally contending that the existing limit on cash withdrawals is not sufficient for the day-to-day running of their missions. The Dean of the Diplomatic Corps has had a meeting with the MEA and conveyed concerns of over 150 embassies in India. The MEA has forwarded the concerns to the Department of Economic Affairs has now formed an inter-ministerial committee headed at the level of an Additional Secretary to look into the issues.



The inter-ministerial committee will look into the matter. A senior Joint Secretary from the MEA is also a member of that committee. The MEA still awaits for the directions from the Committee.

NEW DELHI: Indias demonetisation policy has put Russia and Pakistan in the same spot as Moscow has also lodged a diplomatic protest with India as cash ceiling has left its diplomats cash-strapped. Presently, there is a limit of Rs 50,000 on weekly withdrawals for the diplomats. Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin has written a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) saying that the week limit is not even enough to pay for a decent dinner and that it was woefully inadequate to run diplomatic operations. How can such a big embassy in Delhi function without cash? Kadakin has said in the letter. Russians operate a big embassy in Delhi with a staff of about 200 people. The MEA is yet to reply to the Envoys letter. Russians officials indicate that they are thinking of counter measures like summoning Indian Envoy in Moscow or putting a ceiling on cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats in their country. Earlier, Pakistan Embassy in New Delhi had sent a note verbale to the MEA complaining that its staffers were facing problems in withdrawals of salary and has termed the restrictions as contravention to the Vienna Convention. The Embassies have already approached the MEA informally contending that the existing limit on cash withdrawals is not sufficient for the day-to-day running of their missions. The Dean of the Diplomatic Corps has had a meeting with the MEA and conveyed concerns of over 150 embassies in India. The MEA has forwarded the concerns to the Department of Economic Affairs has now formed an inter-ministerial committee headed at the level of an Additional Secretary to look into the issues. The inter-ministerial committee will look into the matter. A senior Joint Secretary from the MEA is also a member of that committee. The MEA still awaits for the directions from the Committee.
Rashi Kohli By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Pinky Lilani, a celebrated author, motivational speaker and one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK (BBC Radio 4 womans hour power list) was in Bengaluru recently, addressing the women entrepreneurs from Ficci Flo in the club house of Phoenix Kessaku. She tells City Express about her journey from India to visiting the Buckingham Palace with a car full of rubbish.

Your achievements are all about breaking stereotypes. Was your family conservative?

Yes, they were. They were quite conservative actually. Of course they wanted me to be educated but nobody except my aunt had actually worked in my family when it came to women.

Was your husband supportive?

Yes, he was very supportive. He is a free spirit himself (laughs). I don't think you can be yourself if there is someone holding you back. If I stayed in India, my mom would keep telling me, 'Don't do that'. In England, there was no one to tell me that.

We all have had some stereotypes that we never knew existed within us. During your journey, what stereotypes did you realise you had?

There are a lot of Indian women you would meet in England and there will be many types. But they will always ask, 'What car do you drive?' or they will check if I'm wearing Jimmy Choo. They always kept asking me 'What does your husband do?' So I replied to one, 'Oh! he plays Black Jack.' But then she replied that she was asking to check if she could do business with him. Now I've made many good friends there.

Another instance, in this school I went to, there were Bangladesh girls wearing hijabs but you should hear these girls speak, Oh my God! They could put you to shame. So for me, I had all those stereotypes. And you break them inch by inch.

How can one reach out to as many people as possible for women empowerment?

You need to have credibility. When I wanted someone to sponsor me, they asked me if I'm famous or if I've had success before. Yet if you don't get that first sponsor, you don't know where to start. So, you need network-- and that will happen only when you go out there. There is this saying I believe in, 'If I can see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.' All my works, everyone has played their part. The more people you know, the more powerful a network you have. It is all about collaboration and kindness.

Any funny story to share?

I was invited to the Buckingham Palace and in this instance, we were allowed to take our cars in. On Friday, I filled my car with all kinds of rubbish. I asked my son to throw all of that away, but he didn't. So I land up in the palace and they ask me to open the trunk-- and there was all my rubbish. They started scanning it. I was holding my breath and I had three other people in the car with me and there were people clicking pictures of my car. It was quite embarrassing then, but today when I look back, it's very funny.

Arshiya Ladak, Phoenix spokesperson says, We are fortunate to have collaborated with Pinky Lilani today to talk about the power of kindness and collaboration in business and personal success.

BENGALURU: Pinky Lilani, a celebrated author, motivational speaker and one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK (BBC Radio 4 womans hour power list) was in Bengaluru recently, addressing the women entrepreneurs from Ficci Flo in the club house of Phoenix Kessaku. She tells City Express about her journey from India to visiting the Buckingham Palace with a car full of rubbish. Your achievements are all about breaking stereotypes. Was your family conservative? Yes, they were. They were quite conservative actually. Of course they wanted me to be educated but nobody except my aunt had actually worked in my family when it came to women. Was your husband supportive? Yes, he was very supportive. He is a free spirit himself (laughs). I don't think you can be yourself if there is someone holding you back. If I stayed in India, my mom would keep telling me, 'Don't do that'. In England, there was no one to tell me that. We all have had some stereotypes that we never knew existed within us. During your journey, what stereotypes did you realise you had? There are a lot of Indian women you would meet in England and there will be many types. But they will always ask, 'What car do you drive?' or they will check if I'm wearing Jimmy Choo. They always kept asking me 'What does your husband do?' So I replied to one, 'Oh! he plays Black Jack.' But then she replied that she was asking to check if she could do business with him. Now I've made many good friends there. Another instance, in this school I went to, there were Bangladesh girls wearing hijabs but you should hear these girls speak, Oh my God! They could put you to shame. So for me, I had all those stereotypes. And you break them inch by inch. How can one reach out to as many people as possible for women empowerment? You need to have credibility. When I wanted someone to sponsor me, they asked me if I'm famous or if I've had success before. Yet if you don't get that first sponsor, you don't know where to start. So, you need network-- and that will happen only when you go out there. There is this saying I believe in, 'If I can see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.' All my works, everyone has played their part. The more people you know, the more powerful a network you have. It is all about collaboration and kindness. Any funny story to share? I was invited to the Buckingham Palace and in this instance, we were allowed to take our cars in. On Friday, I filled my car with all kinds of rubbish. I asked my son to throw all of that away, but he didn't. So I land up in the palace and they ask me to open the trunk-- and there was all my rubbish. They started scanning it. I was holding my breath and I had three other people in the car with me and there were people clicking pictures of my car. It was quite embarrassing then, but today when I look back, it's very funny. Arshiya Ladak, Phoenix spokesperson says, We are fortunate to have collaborated with Pinky Lilani today to talk about the power of kindness and collaboration in business and personal success.
Aneesh Srinivasan By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: AHuman Resources talkathon organised by HyHCF, a non-profit professional entity, roped in top HR professionals from different companies in the city to launch Jataka.in, a new recruitment website.



HyHCF consists of HR professionals from different firms, who have come together to support HR aspirants and upcoming leaders. Jayesh Ranjan inaugurated the event and spoke about the problems faced by the HR department in recruiting potential candidates for their organisation.



Working in the government has helped me interact with various top officials of different companies. This way I got to know of how HR professionals learn from each other and help in improving their organisations performance and effectiveness, he said.



The website was launched with much pomp in the presence of the State Secretary for Information Technology. Kiran Muthe, CEO, Jataka.in, later on went to explain what the title of the online portal means. Jatka means resume in Estonia, he added.



When asked what was the idea behind launching this website, B Nagaraju, founder, said, We have seen HR guys rush through hundreds of resumes just to find the right candidate for their organisation. I have been in that position myself. This is what made us conceptualise this website which has set templates according to a particular companys norms. This also helps them reduce the time taken to go through the resumes and find only those that interests them. K Phansiri, managing director, Jataka.in, said, It helps people irrespective of what level they are in their career. It helps a fresher and can also help a professional who seeks to change his/her job.



Not many people know how to build a proper resume. Bringing in the factor of a systematic format of resumes, Kiran Muthe said, Most of the resumes are copied from other places. We aim to reduce this practice by giving them a step by step process to make a resume. We also have content writers who write resumes for people.

HYDERABAD: AHuman Resources talkathon organised by HyHCF, a non-profit professional entity, roped in top HR professionals from different companies in the city to launch Jataka.in, a new recruitment website. HyHCF consists of HR professionals from different firms, who have come together to support HR aspirants and upcoming leaders. Jayesh Ranjan inaugurated the event and spoke about the problems faced by the HR department in recruiting potential candidates for their organisation. Working in the government has helped me interact with various top officials of different companies. This way I got to know of how HR professionals learn from each other and help in improving their organisations performance and effectiveness, he said. The website was launched with much pomp in the presence of the State Secretary for Information Technology. Kiran Muthe, CEO, Jataka.in, later on went to explain what the title of the online portal means. Jatka means resume in Estonia, he added. When asked what was the idea behind launching this website, B Nagaraju, founder, said, We have seen HR guys rush through hundreds of resumes just to find the right candidate for their organisation. I have been in that position myself. This is what made us conceptualise this website which has set templates according to a particular companys norms. This also helps them reduce the time taken to go through the resumes and find only those that interests them. K Phansiri, managing director, Jataka.in, said, It helps people irrespective of what level they are in their career. It helps a fresher and can also help a professional who seeks to change his/her job. Not many people know how to build a proper resume. Bringing in the factor of a systematic format of resumes, Kiran Muthe said, Most of the resumes are copied from other places. We aim to reduce this practice by giving them a step by step process to make a resume. We also have content writers who write resumes for people.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:With the situation remaining tense in Tamil Nadu, the state police on Monday beefed up security in the districts which share borders with Tamil Nadu.

A huge battalion of police has been deployed in the border areas in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki and Palakkad districts and the KSRTC buses which conducted service to Tamil Nadu have been called back upon the direction of the police.

All the respective District Police Chiefs have been instructed to oversee the security arrangements in the border regions.

State Police Chief Loknath Behera instructed the police to heighten the security at Sabarimala temple as many from Tamil Nadu are present on the temple premises for pilgrimage purposes.

As part of this, the Azhi (fireplace for offerings) at the Sannidhanam have been surrounded with tight security surveillance by cordoning off using tight ropes.

We are well equipped and leave no stones unturned on any untoward incidents, Behera told Express.

Keralites who are present in Tamil Nadu have also been advised to remain cautious.

Major tourist places, including Thekkady and Munnar are also under strict police surveillance to avoid any untoward incidents.

Ever since reports said that Jayalalithaa suffered cardiac arrest at Apollo hospital at Chennai on Sunday evening, the law and order machinery in the state has been monitoring the situation to ensure safety to the travellers if anything goes out of control.

The DGP also instructed the border check-posts to keep a tab on the unusual movements of weapons and explosive items.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:With the situation remaining tense in Tamil Nadu, the state police on Monday beefed up security in the districts which share borders with Tamil Nadu. A huge battalion of police has been deployed in the border areas in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki and Palakkad districts and the KSRTC buses which conducted service to Tamil Nadu have been called back upon the direction of the police. All the respective District Police Chiefs have been instructed to oversee the security arrangements in the border regions. State Police Chief Loknath Behera instructed the police to heighten the security at Sabarimala temple as many from Tamil Nadu are present on the temple premises for pilgrimage purposes. As part of this, the Azhi (fireplace for offerings) at the Sannidhanam have been surrounded with tight security surveillance by cordoning off using tight ropes. We are well equipped and leave no stones unturned on any untoward incidents, Behera told Express. Keralites who are present in Tamil Nadu have also been advised to remain cautious. Major tourist places, including Thekkady and Munnar are also under strict police surveillance to avoid any untoward incidents. Ever since reports said that Jayalalithaa suffered cardiac arrest at Apollo hospital at Chennai on Sunday evening, the law and order machinery in the state has been monitoring the situation to ensure safety to the travellers if anything goes out of control. The DGP also instructed the border check-posts to keep a tab on the unusual movements of weapons and explosive items.
Santwana Bhattacharya By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: While talking to a group of journalists on the key topic of the day, one DMK MP gets a phone call. Even 10 minutes after the call is over, hes unable to resume the conversation. Everyone is waiting with bated breath.

The call, the MP discloses, was from a Chennai-based lady journalist and that she was unable to talk, she was crying! His eyes well up too and theres a catch in his throat. The famous rivalry between the two Dravidian parties, AIADMK and DMK, is forgotten for the time being.

Like the past week, on Monday too, Parliament was disrupted over the ongoing currency crisis. But for the rest, it was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, and her struggle for life in the ICU of Apollo Hospital, Chennai, that dominated all conversations and concerns. The long shadow of Chennai had fallen over the national capital.

J Jayalalithaa

The media too swung between despair and hope, reporting, dissecting and arguing over the tiny details trickling out of the Chennai hospital.

The overheated social media  WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter  peddled rumours and clarifications, in equal measures.

Unrest was not just anticipated, but actually erupted...the half-mast flag at AIADMK headquarters was quickly re-hoisted.

Prominent individuals  from President Pranab Mukherjee, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Congress president to vice-president Sonia and Rahul Gandhi  wished her speedy recovery. And groups as far removed as the Kashmir Pandits offered prayers for Ammas recovery. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seemed to suggest that an AIIMS team sent from Delhi, as part of a Central assistance the Modi Government was providing, had given hope that she may bounce back.

Health Minister J P Nadda was surrounded by MPs the moment the Houses were adjourned. CPIs D Raja and DMKs Tiruchi Shiva were seen in deep discussion with him, trying to find out the actual situation at Apollo hospital in Chennai.

On record, Nadda said the medical team was hopeful that despite her being on life support, all was not over. Thats the reason why I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu has been rushed to Chennai, to not just coordinate with Governor Vidyasagar Rao, but also to tie up all loose ends so that O Paneerselvan can smoothly take charge.

NEW DELHI: While talking to a group of journalists on the key topic of the day, one DMK MP gets a phone call. Even 10 minutes after the call is over, hes unable to resume the conversation. Everyone is waiting with bated breath. The call, the MP discloses, was from a Chennai-based lady journalist and that she was unable to talk, she was crying! His eyes well up too and theres a catch in his throat. The famous rivalry between the two Dravidian parties, AIADMK and DMK, is forgotten for the time being. Like the past week, on Monday too, Parliament was disrupted over the ongoing currency crisis. But for the rest, it was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, and her struggle for life in the ICU of Apollo Hospital, Chennai, that dominated all conversations and concerns. The long shadow of Chennai had fallen over the national capital. J JayalalithaaThe media too swung between despair and hope, reporting, dissecting and arguing over the tiny details trickling out of the Chennai hospital. The overheated social media  WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter  peddled rumours and clarifications, in equal measures. Unrest was not just anticipated, but actually erupted...the half-mast flag at AIADMK headquarters was quickly re-hoisted. Prominent individuals  from President Pranab Mukherjee, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Congress president to vice-president Sonia and Rahul Gandhi  wished her speedy recovery. And groups as far removed as the Kashmir Pandits offered prayers for Ammas recovery. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seemed to suggest that an AIIMS team sent from Delhi, as part of a Central assistance the Modi Government was providing, had given hope that she may bounce back. Health Minister J P Nadda was surrounded by MPs the moment the Houses were adjourned. CPIs D Raja and DMKs Tiruchi Shiva were seen in deep discussion with him, trying to find out the actual situation at Apollo hospital in Chennai. On record, Nadda said the medical team was hopeful that despite her being on life support, all was not over. Thats the reason why I&B Minister Venkaiah Naidu has been rushed to Chennai, to not just coordinate with Governor Vidyasagar Rao, but also to tie up all loose ends so that O Paneerselvan can smoothly take charge.








While a project to conserve wild elephants is being drafted by the Dong Nai provincial authorities, the animals continue to damage farmers houses and crops fields every day.



According to the Quick-reaction Task Force in Phu Ly commune of Vinh Cuu district, from January to April 2016, wild elephants entered residential quarters 69 times and caused 71 cases of crop damage.They damaged 4.7 hectares of cassava, 2.1 hectares of sugarcane and 22 tons of fruits.Hoang Thi Thuy from Phu Ly commune complained that elephants visited her house several times. They not only ate mango, but damaged 20 10-year-old trees that had brought a stable income.Thuy said that each mango tree produces 100 kilos of fruit. With the average price of VND5,000 per kilo, Thuy can earn VND500,000 each crop. As such, Thuy loses about VND10 million a year, the main source of income of her family.The local authorities, in an effort to help people ease difficulties, gave Thuy VND2 million. To receive the money, they had to follow a lot of procedures.However, they understand that it was impractical to hope for a higher allowance. Therefore, they want the provincial authorities to install electric fences to prevent elephants from entering residential quarters.Nguyen Van Cao, a farmer fro, Thanh Son commune, complained that elephants had entered the area 3-4 times and damaged his vast sugarcane fields. As a result, Cao could not pay his debts to banks.In 2012-2013 alone, wild elephants attacked the crops fields of 100 households. To Van Tung and Nguyen Van Cao in the commune reported that their 70,000 square meters of sugarcane were damaged and they still owed VND64 million to banks.In 2008-2013, the peoples committees of Vinh Cuu and Dinh Quan districts had to spend VND12 billion to support people in the areas attacked by elephants.According to Nguyen Huu Dao from the forest rangers unit, in previous years, the allowances were bigger.For every hectare of sugar cane damaged, people could receive VND35 million and for every mango tree VND400,000. However, the allowances have been lower since 2013, VND3 million for every hectare of sugarcane damaged, and VND30,000 for every mango tree, which is enough to buy seedlings.Therefore, despite the large damaged areas in 2013, people received VND620 million, while they received nothing in 2014.Local people in previous years tried to scare elephants by knocking pots, but the method no longer helps. Now, they drive elephants away by lighting fires or creating blasts.

Chi Mai
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar will be the successor to Justice T S Thakur as the chief justice of India. He will be sworn in on Jan. 4, 2017, the day after Justice Thakur is to retire. Justice Khehar will be in office for seven months until he retires in August 2017.



Justice Khehars appointment comes at a time when the government and the judiciary are locked in a tussle over how judges should be appointed to the higher courts.



The government wants a role for its nominees in the matter. But chief justice Thakur wants the present Collegium process to continue in which the chief justice recommends appointments on basis of screening by a Collegium of fellow judges.



Heres why Justice Khehars appointment is significant.



1. Justice Khehar led the bench that struck down the NJAC Act



Justice Khehar led the five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court that struck down the controversial National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) Act back in October 2015.



That law passed by Parliament, had it taken effect, would have set up a commission to select judges in which three members would be from the Supreme Court and three would be non-judicial nominees.



The five-judge bench headed by Justice Khehar held, by a 4-1 vote, the law as unconstitutional. The lone dissenting judge was Justice J Chelameshwar who believes that the the Collegium process lacks transparency.



2. Hes Chief Justice Thakurs choice



Justice Khehars appointment was recommended by the incumbent chief justice T S Thakur who has been holding out against the government in keeping the Collegium process going. Justice Thakur says the government must act faster on his recommendations to fill up vacancies in the higher courts across the country but the the government denies it is dragging its feet.



Theres nothing unusual, however, in Justice Thakur recommending Justice Khehar as his successor. The latter happens to be the senior most judge in the present Supreme Court anyway.



3. The Arunachal embarrassment



Justice Khehar also headed the Supreme Court bench that set aside President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh in January this year. That was an embarrassment for the BJP-led NDA regime at the Centre, which allowed a bunch of defectors to hold power for a few months. The reversal in the Supreme Court led to the restoration of a Congress government.



4. Hes a hard-nosed judge



Justice Khehar headed a bench that upheld that the principle of equal pay for equal work and made it applicable to daily wagers, casual and contractual employees who perform the same duties as regular employees.



He was also on the bench that sent Sahara India chief Subrata Roy to jail in a case relating to refund of monies to investors.



5. Hes fiercely committed to judicial independence



Justice Khehar spoke up for the judiciary in the face of blunt criticism by the attorney general Mukul Rohatgi last month.



At the Constitution Day function on November 26, the governments top legal eagle offered gratuitous advice to the court to stay within its Laxman Rekha. In response, Justice J S Khehar said, Be is the 39th amendment of the Constitution (placing the office of PM beyond judicial scrutiny) or the latest amendment affecting independence of the judiciary (a reference to the NJAC Act), the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional ethos.



That, if I may respectfully tell the attorney-general, is our Laxman Rekha.



6. Hell be the first Sikh to be Chief Justice



Justice Khehar, 64, will be the 44th chief justice of India and the first Sikh to head the Supreme Court. Before his elevation to the apex court, he was the chief justice of Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Punjab-Haryana (temporary charge). He has a masters degree in law from Punjab Univesity and began practice in 1979.

NEW DELHI: Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar will be the successor to Justice T S Thakur as the chief justice of India. He will be sworn in on Jan. 4, 2017, the day after Justice Thakur is to retire. Justice Khehar will be in office for seven months until he retires in August 2017. Justice Khehars appointment comes at a time when the government and the judiciary are locked in a tussle over how judges should be appointed to the higher courts. The government wants a role for its nominees in the matter. But chief justice Thakur wants the present Collegium process to continue in which the chief justice recommends appointments on basis of screening by a Collegium of fellow judges. Heres why Justice Khehars appointment is significant. 1. Justice Khehar led the bench that struck down the NJAC Act Justice Khehar led the five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court that struck down the controversial National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) Act back in October 2015. That law passed by Parliament, had it taken effect, would have set up a commission to select judges in which three members would be from the Supreme Court and three would be non-judicial nominees. The five-judge bench headed by Justice Khehar held, by a 4-1 vote, the law as unconstitutional. The lone dissenting judge was Justice J Chelameshwar who believes that the the Collegium process lacks transparency. 2. Hes Chief Justice Thakurs choice Justice Khehars appointment was recommended by the incumbent chief justice T S Thakur who has been holding out against the government in keeping the Collegium process going. Justice Thakur says the government must act faster on his recommendations to fill up vacancies in the higher courts across the country but the the government denies it is dragging its feet. Theres nothing unusual, however, in Justice Thakur recommending Justice Khehar as his successor. The latter happens to be the senior most judge in the present Supreme Court anyway. 3. The Arunachal embarrassment Justice Khehar also headed the Supreme Court bench that set aside President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh in January this year. That was an embarrassment for the BJP-led NDA regime at the Centre, which allowed a bunch of defectors to hold power for a few months. The reversal in the Supreme Court led to the restoration of a Congress government. 4. Hes a hard-nosed judge Justice Khehar headed a bench that upheld that the principle of equal pay for equal work and made it applicable to daily wagers, casual and contractual employees who perform the same duties as regular employees. He was also on the bench that sent Sahara India chief Subrata Roy to jail in a case relating to refund of monies to investors. 5. Hes fiercely committed to judicial independence Justice Khehar spoke up for the judiciary in the face of blunt criticism by the attorney general Mukul Rohatgi last month. At the Constitution Day function on November 26, the governments top legal eagle offered gratuitous advice to the court to stay within its Laxman Rekha. In response, Justice J S Khehar said, Be is the 39th amendment of the Constitution (placing the office of PM beyond judicial scrutiny) or the latest amendment affecting independence of the judiciary (a reference to the NJAC Act), the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional ethos. That, if I may respectfully tell the attorney-general, is our Laxman Rekha. 6. Hell be the first Sikh to be Chief Justice Justice Khehar, 64, will be the 44th chief justice of India and the first Sikh to head the Supreme Court. Before his elevation to the apex court, he was the chief justice of Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Punjab-Haryana (temporary charge). He has a masters degree in law from Punjab Univesity and began practice in 1979.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation move had turned 90% Indians into 'fakirs' (beggars), Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said here on Tuesday that this

ill-timed and ill-prepared step has unleashed miseries on the people. Addressing a rally to mark 60th death anniversary of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar at Ambedkar Memorial here on Tuesday, she also took a jibe at UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, calling him politically immature and at the same time terming his government a failure on the law and order front.



People are dying for they dont have money to pay to the doctors, students are suffering as they are not able pay fees on time, poor people had to postone or cancel the marriages of their daughters, farmers are not able to buy the seeds and fertilizers, she said claiming that each and everyone in the country was suffering except the capitalist friends of Modi for whom the prime Minister made all the arrangements 10 months before effecting the sudden currency scrapping.



Making a fervent appeal to the people of poll-bound UP to support her party in the upcoming state assembly elections-2017, she assured them of good governance aimed at Sarvajan Sukhai, Sarvajan Hitai and a rule of law.



If voted back to power with absolute majority, she said, she would order probe into all financial decisions taken during Akhileshs regime and sending criminals and corrupts to jail. She also accused Akhilesh of grabbing credit for all the developmental schemes, like Agra-Lucknow E-way and Lucknow Metro project, conceptualised during her regime.



Referring to Akhileshs recent remarks about the BSPs symbol elephant, she said: The level of insensitivity in his statements proves that he is still a babua (kid). I am sure elephants installed in parks must be appearing in his dreams and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav . By talking so obsessively about the elephants, they are promoting our poll symbol.



Calling the parks and memorials of Dalit icons built during her regime places of tourist attraction, she said: A large number of people throng these memorials where they have to buy tickets to get entry.

Thus these sites contribute to the state exchequer. Taking a dig at the Samajwadi Party leaders, she said: "The SP government ruthlessly spends money of the poor on Safai Mahotsav for their own merriment. It all goes waste."



Maya attributed the rise, growth and present political stature of Yadav clan of Akhilesh and Mulayam to Ambedkar saying that they should be grateful to the efforts of Babasaheb otherwise they would have been nowhere in the countrys political system.



Tuesdays BSP rally in Lucknow was orgainsed after merging small meetings in 46 assembly constituencies. It was attended by party workers form all those 46 constituencies along with their supporters. Moreover, the party had tied-up with a number of TV channels to air her rally live. Besides, the party had made elaborate arrangements to stream Mayawatis speech live on huge screens in different districts across the state.



Meanwhile, reacting to Mayas diatribe against Modi, BJP state chief Keshav Kumar Maurya said that the BSP chief was suffering from Modi phobia.

Mayawati: BJP pulled out of VP Singh govt when he conferred Bharat Ratna on Babasaheb



Expressing her dismay over the stand of Congress and BJP governments on the issue of awarding Bharat Ratna to Ambedkar, BSP chief Mayawati said that Congress and BJP never liked Baba Saheb, so they did not confer Bharat Ratna on him during their regimes despite several pleas. I could get it done during the Prime Ministership of VP Singh who conceded to my demand as he needed my partys support for government formation at the Centre, she added.



Mayawati said that since BJP did not like the step so it withdrew support to the then VP Singh government. She said that she could get Mandal Commission report implemented by VP Singh as it was also one of her conditions for extending support to his government.



Paying tributes to BR Ambedkar, Mayawati said that respective Congress and BJP governments did nothing for the uplift of Dalits. She said that Babasaheb drafted the Constitution on the basis of

religious equality to ensure Dalits their legal and fundamental rights which was not acceptable to BJP and RSS.



It was only Baba Saheb who thought of the Dalits and due to his efforts, the backward, deprived and downtrodden could get reservation in jobs. He was the one who made special provisions in the Constitution like Article 340 to guarantee job security to the Dalits in otherwise a hostile society, she asserted.

LUCKNOW: Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation move had turned 90% Indians into 'fakirs' (beggars), Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said here on Tuesday that this ill-timed and ill-prepared step has unleashed miseries on the people. Addressing a rally to mark 60th death anniversary of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar at Ambedkar Memorial here on Tuesday, she also took a jibe at UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, calling him politically immature and at the same time terming his government a failure on the law and order front. People are dying for they dont have money to pay to the doctors, students are suffering as they are not able pay fees on time, poor people had to postone or cancel the marriages of their daughters, farmers are not able to buy the seeds and fertilizers, she said claiming that each and everyone in the country was suffering except the capitalist friends of Modi for whom the prime Minister made all the arrangements 10 months before effecting the sudden currency scrapping. Making a fervent appeal to the people of poll-bound UP to support her party in the upcoming state assembly elections-2017, she assured them of good governance aimed at Sarvajan Sukhai, Sarvajan Hitai and a rule of law. If voted back to power with absolute majority, she said, she would order probe into all financial decisions taken during Akhileshs regime and sending criminals and corrupts to jail. She also accused Akhilesh of grabbing credit for all the developmental schemes, like Agra-Lucknow E-way and Lucknow Metro project, conceptualised during her regime. Referring to Akhileshs recent remarks about the BSPs symbol elephant, she said: The level of insensitivity in his statements proves that he is still a babua (kid). I am sure elephants installed in parks must be appearing in his dreams and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav . By talking so obsessively about the elephants, they are promoting our poll symbol. Calling the parks and memorials of Dalit icons built during her regime places of tourist attraction, she said: A large number of people throng these memorials where they have to buy tickets to get entry. Thus these sites contribute to the state exchequer. Taking a dig at the Samajwadi Party leaders, she said: "The SP government ruthlessly spends money of the poor on Safai Mahotsav for their own merriment. It all goes waste." Maya attributed the rise, growth and present political stature of Yadav clan of Akhilesh and Mulayam to Ambedkar saying that they should be grateful to the efforts of Babasaheb otherwise they would have been nowhere in the countrys political system. Tuesdays BSP rally in Lucknow was orgainsed after merging small meetings in 46 assembly constituencies. It was attended by party workers form all those 46 constituencies along with their supporters. Moreover, the party had tied-up with a number of TV channels to air her rally live. Besides, the party had made elaborate arrangements to stream Mayawatis speech live on huge screens in different districts across the state. Meanwhile, reacting to Mayas diatribe against Modi, BJP state chief Keshav Kumar Maurya said that the BSP chief was suffering from Modi phobia. Mayawati: BJP pulled out of VP Singh govt when he conferred Bharat Ratna on Babasaheb Expressing her dismay over the stand of Congress and BJP governments on the issue of awarding Bharat Ratna to Ambedkar, BSP chief Mayawati said that Congress and BJP never liked Baba Saheb, so they did not confer Bharat Ratna on him during their regimes despite several pleas. I could get it done during the Prime Ministership of VP Singh who conceded to my demand as he needed my partys support for government formation at the Centre, she added. Mayawati said that since BJP did not like the step so it withdrew support to the then VP Singh government. She said that she could get Mandal Commission report implemented by VP Singh as it was also one of her conditions for extending support to his government. Paying tributes to BR Ambedkar, Mayawati said that respective Congress and BJP governments did nothing for the uplift of Dalits. She said that Babasaheb drafted the Constitution on the basis of religious equality to ensure Dalits their legal and fundamental rights which was not acceptable to BJP and RSS. It was only Baba Saheb who thought of the Dalits and due to his efforts, the backward, deprived and downtrodden could get reservation in jobs. He was the one who made special provisions in the Constitution like Article 340 to guarantee job security to the Dalits in otherwise a hostile society, she asserted.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: In a marked attrition of ultras in Jammu and Kashmir, the security forces have liquidated 140 terrorists this year which exceeds the figures for the jehadis killed between 2013 and 2015 put together.



In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said the number of such terrorists killed till November 27 this year was 140 in Jammu and Kashmir. The corresponding figure was 38, 52 and 46 in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.



The number of terror attacks also spiralled up this year, rising from 208 last year to 305 till November this year.



The number of security personnel killed this year is 71 compared to 39 last year, almost 80 per cent rise.



There has also been over 100 per cent increase in the injury suffered by security forces  208 this year compared to last years 103.



However, there has been a marginal decline in the number of civilians killed this year, from 17 last year to 14 this year.

The minister informed the Lok Sabha that Pakistan had violated ceasefire 437 times along the LoC and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir till November this year in which 37 people were killed and 179 suffered injuries.

He said 27,449 people living along the border in the State were shifted to safer places due to ceasefire violations following the surgical strikes. Of the total ceasefire violations, 216 incidents were reported along the Line of Control (LoC) and 221 incidents along the International Border till November this year.

Nearly 700 people have been still living in relief camps while the rest have returned to their respective homes.

There were 405 incidents of ceasefire violations along the LoC and International Border in 2015 in which 26 people were killed and 97 others were injured.

NEW DELHI: In a marked attrition of ultras in Jammu and Kashmir, the security forces have liquidated 140 terrorists this year which exceeds the figures for the jehadis killed between 2013 and 2015 put together. In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said the number of such terrorists killed till November 27 this year was 140 in Jammu and Kashmir. The corresponding figure was 38, 52 and 46 in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. The number of terror attacks also spiralled up this year, rising from 208 last year to 305 till November this year. The number of security personnel killed this year is 71 compared to 39 last year, almost 80 per cent rise. There has also been over 100 per cent increase in the injury suffered by security forces  208 this year compared to last years 103. However, there has been a marginal decline in the number of civilians killed this year, from 17 last year to 14 this year. The minister informed the Lok Sabha that Pakistan had violated ceasefire 437 times along the LoC and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir till November this year in which 37 people were killed and 179 suffered injuries. He said 27,449 people living along the border in the State were shifted to safer places due to ceasefire violations following the surgical strikes. Of the total ceasefire violations, 216 incidents were reported along the Line of Control (LoC) and 221 incidents along the International Border till November this year. Nearly 700 people have been still living in relief camps while the rest have returned to their respective homes. There were 405 incidents of ceasefire violations along the LoC and International Border in 2015 in which 26 people were killed and 97 others were injured.
By ANI

RAWALPINDI: Activists and political leaders of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) held a protest rally in Rawalpindi and chanted slogans against Pakistan Army for allegedly supporting extremists and terrorists in their territory.

They chanted "Yeh jo dehshat gardi hai, isle piche vardi hai" (The people in uniform are behind these terrorist activities).



The protesters accused Islamabad of providing shelter to terrorists in PoK who are misleading the youth towards `Jihad.

The event was organised by the National Action Front, a coalition of several nationalist parties from PoK, including the United Kashmir Peoples National Party.



The protesters raised their voices against the use of religion as a tool to mislead the youth of Kashmir.

The protesters demanded the withdrawal of National Action Plan as its been used against nationalist and political leaders in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan by the Pakistan Army.

Many youth are being arrested and they are suffering atrocities at the hands of the security agencies.

Pakistan has been using the PoK for its proxy war against India and has given shelter to banned terrorist organisations.

On September 29, India conducted surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in PoK and killed at least 38 terrorists.

RAWALPINDI: Activists and political leaders of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) held a protest rally in Rawalpindi and chanted slogans against Pakistan Army for allegedly supporting extremists and terrorists in their territory. They chanted "Yeh jo dehshat gardi hai, isle piche vardi hai" (The people in uniform are behind these terrorist activities). The protesters accused Islamabad of providing shelter to terrorists in PoK who are misleading the youth towards `Jihad. The event was organised by the National Action Front, a coalition of several nationalist parties from PoK, including the United Kashmir Peoples National Party. The protesters raised their voices against the use of religion as a tool to mislead the youth of Kashmir. The protesters demanded the withdrawal of National Action Plan as its been used against nationalist and political leaders in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan by the Pakistan Army. Many youth are being arrested and they are suffering atrocities at the hands of the security agencies. Pakistan has been using the PoK for its proxy war against India and has given shelter to banned terrorist organisations. On September 29, India conducted surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in PoK and killed at least 38 terrorists.
By Express News Service

SRINAGAR: Amid continued unrest and shutdown in Kashmir, the separatist leaders spearheading the over four-month-long agitation in the Valley on Tuesday said tourists and yatris are welcome to visit Kashmir and invited them to visit the paradise on earth and enjoy the hospitality of Kashmiri people.

From centuries, Kashmiris have been safeguarding and providing exemplary hospitality and safety to tourists and yatris as we have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests by our great religion. Tourists and yatris, who intend to visit Kashmir, are most welcome, said a joint statement issued by separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik.

The three separatist leaders are spearheading the over four-month-long agitation in the Valley triggered by the killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8.

Extending the wholehearted welcome to the tourists and yatris intending to visit Kashmir, the three leaders said, Our religion Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have taught us to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost. This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethics and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history.

They said millions of tourists from the world including India have been visiting Kashmir from centuries and enjoying the mesmerising beauty of this paradise on earth and also the unparallel hospitality of the Kashmiri people.

Kashmir has been witnessing shutdown since July 9. Barring weekend relaxations in last three weeks, the Valley has been witnessing shutdown.

The tourism sector has been worst hit by the ongoing unrest and shutdown and all hotels, guest houses and house boats are empty.

Our history bears a witness that we have always respected, safeguarded and served our guests during hardest of times and worst calamities and have never shun this attribute of our national life, the separatist leaders said.

Referring to 2008 agitation on Amarnath land row, they said, When rightwing forces in Jammu led to the economic blockade of Kashmir including denying entry of life-saving drugs and baby-food to Kashmir, we replied this with our exemplary hospitality towards yatris and tourists, who were in Kashmir at that time.

We not only safeguarded them and provided them shelter but also served them and kept the doors of our homes and localities open to them, they said adding the same was done during devastating floods of 2014.

Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik said everyone from the world including India is most welcome to Kashmir. We invite them to come to Kashmir and enjoy our hospitality and the beauty of paradise on earth.

SRINAGAR: Amid continued unrest and shutdown in Kashmir, the separatist leaders spearheading the over four-month-long agitation in the Valley on Tuesday said tourists and yatris are welcome to visit Kashmir and invited them to visit the paradise on earth and enjoy the hospitality of Kashmiri people. From centuries, Kashmiris have been safeguarding and providing exemplary hospitality and safety to tourists and yatris as we have been taught hospitality, humanity and safeguarding the rights of guests by our great religion. Tourists and yatris, who intend to visit Kashmir, are most welcome, said a joint statement issued by separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik. The three separatist leaders are spearheading the over four-month-long agitation in the Valley triggered by the killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8. Extending the wholehearted welcome to the tourists and yatris intending to visit Kashmir, the three leaders said, Our religion Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have taught us to be kind with our guests and serve them and safeguard their rights at every cost. This is also embedded in our Kashmiri culture and ethics and that is why our hospitality has been exemplary throughout the history. They said millions of tourists from the world including India have been visiting Kashmir from centuries and enjoying the mesmerising beauty of this paradise on earth and also the unparallel hospitality of the Kashmiri people. Kashmir has been witnessing shutdown since July 9. Barring weekend relaxations in last three weeks, the Valley has been witnessing shutdown. The tourism sector has been worst hit by the ongoing unrest and shutdown and all hotels, guest houses and house boats are empty. Our history bears a witness that we have always respected, safeguarded and served our guests during hardest of times and worst calamities and have never shun this attribute of our national life, the separatist leaders said. Referring to 2008 agitation on Amarnath land row, they said, When rightwing forces in Jammu led to the economic blockade of Kashmir including denying entry of life-saving drugs and baby-food to Kashmir, we replied this with our exemplary hospitality towards yatris and tourists, who were in Kashmir at that time. We not only safeguarded them and provided them shelter but also served them and kept the doors of our homes and localities open to them, they said adding the same was done during devastating floods of 2014. Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik said everyone from the world including India is most welcome to Kashmir. We invite them to come to Kashmir and enjoy our hospitality and the beauty of paradise on earth.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Top BJP leaders today paid rich tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her for her poor-poor politics and describing her one of the most iconic Indian politicians.

"Saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa ji. I extend my deepest condolences to her party and followers in this hour of grief," BJP President Amit Shah said.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said she created Brand Amma, a different kind of pro-poor politics.

"Jayalalithaa was a very popular leader, an able administrator.

Her connect with people was enormous and unique She created "Brand Amma", a different kind of pro-poor politics. My heartfelt condolences," he said on twitter.

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said he felt as if he had lost her sister and expressed his admiration for her courage, conviction, dynamism, wisdom and bold administration.

"I express my grief and deep sorrow on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa," Union Minister and former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Jayalalithaa was a powerful voice for the weaker sections of the society.

"She always worked for the benefit of the poor and needy.

She has left an indelible mark in Tamil Nadu politics with her enduring legacy. Selvi Jayalalithaa was one of the most iconic political figures of India who had an enormous impact on the people of Tamil Nadu," he tweeted.

Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night.

NEW DELHI: Top BJP leaders today paid rich tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her for her poor-poor politics and describing her one of the most iconic Indian politicians. "Saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa ji. I extend my deepest condolences to her party and followers in this hour of grief," BJP President Amit Shah said. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said she created Brand Amma, a different kind of pro-poor politics. "Jayalalithaa was a very popular leader, an able administrator. Her connect with people was enormous and unique She created "Brand Amma", a different kind of pro-poor politics. My heartfelt condolences," he said on twitter. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said he felt as if he had lost her sister and expressed his admiration for her courage, conviction, dynamism, wisdom and bold administration. "I express my grief and deep sorrow on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa," Union Minister and former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari said. Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Jayalalithaa was a powerful voice for the weaker sections of the society. "She always worked for the benefit of the poor and needy. She has left an indelible mark in Tamil Nadu politics with her enduring legacy. Selvi Jayalalithaa was one of the most iconic political figures of India who had an enormous impact on the people of Tamil Nadu," he tweeted. Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday ridiculed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her claim of 'near-coup' following deployment of the army at two toll plazas in the state "without informing the state".

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress chief, spent Thursday night at the state secretariat to protest the deployment of army personnel at toll plazas in the state, claiming it was done without any prior information.

Both the central government and army rubbished the allegations, with the army later releasing documents to prove that both the state government and the police were duly informed about the exercise.

"The deployment of army is a regular exercise and has been taking place across the country. Such exercise was also carried out in other states, but there was no problem," said Shah.

"But in Bengal there was so much drama," said Shah while speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

Referring to Banerjee's claims of a 'near-coup', Shah asked as to why there would be a coup attempt in Kolkata.

"When the national capital is Delhi, why would there be coup attempt in Kolkata," he asked with a chuckle.

Besides Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of anti-demonisation protests, Shah also ridiculed BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

"People across the country, particularly the common people, have supported demonisation. Only those with black money have problems," he said.

"Perhaps Mamata has been left the most red-faced because of the demonetisation," said Shah.

Shah has been attacking Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress over the multi-crore rupee Saradha scam as well as a sting operation in which several of the Trinamool leaders were purportedly shown taking bribes.

Talking about Mayawati, who has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of imposing a financial Emergency through demonisation, Shah said: "It seems the financial Emergency is for her. It's not for the country."

Shah also asserted that demonisation would get popular support to the BJP and the party would come to power in Uttar Pradesh that goes to the polls early next year.

NEW DELHI: BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday ridiculed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her claim of 'near-coup' following deployment of the army at two toll plazas in the state "without informing the state". Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress chief, spent Thursday night at the state secretariat to protest the deployment of army personnel at toll plazas in the state, claiming it was done without any prior information. Both the central government and army rubbished the allegations, with the army later releasing documents to prove that both the state government and the police were duly informed about the exercise. "The deployment of army is a regular exercise and has been taking place across the country. Such exercise was also carried out in other states, but there was no problem," said Shah. "But in Bengal there was so much drama," said Shah while speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here. Referring to Banerjee's claims of a 'near-coup', Shah asked as to why there would be a coup attempt in Kolkata. "When the national capital is Delhi, why would there be coup attempt in Kolkata," he asked with a chuckle. Besides Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of anti-demonisation protests, Shah also ridiculed BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. "People across the country, particularly the common people, have supported demonisation. Only those with black money have problems," he said. "Perhaps Mamata has been left the most red-faced because of the demonetisation," said Shah. Shah has been attacking Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress over the multi-crore rupee Saradha scam as well as a sting operation in which several of the Trinamool leaders were purportedly shown taking bribes. Talking about Mayawati, who has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of imposing a financial Emergency through demonisation, Shah said: "It seems the financial Emergency is for her. It's not for the country." Shah also asserted that demonisation would get popular support to the BJP and the party would come to power in Uttar Pradesh that goes to the polls early next year.
Toby Antony By

Express News Service

KOCHI: Operatives of the Base Movement, which carried out low-intensity bomb explosions at five court complexes in South India, have been following the ideology and operational methods of Tamil Nadu-based extremist group Al-Umma.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the activities of Base Movements has found that two of its members were closely associated with a faction of Al-Umma.

Base Movement extensively followed the ideology of Al-Umma, which was formed to avenge the demolition of Babri Masjid, though the accused in the blast cases were allegedly inspired by the online videos of Al-Qaeda.

Pamphlets and digital content found at the blast sites contain warning messages for registering cases against certain leaders of the Muslim community, a strategy often followed by the Al-Umma. Unlike the Al-Qaeda, the Base Movement is not much interested in international issues such the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, said an NIA official.

The NIA has received information that Samsudheen alias Karuva Samsudheen and Abbas Ali, Base Movement members accused in the bomb blast cases, were associated with the Imam Ali faction of Al-Umma, which operates from Madurai.

KOCHI: Operatives of the Base Movement, which carried out low-intensity bomb explosions at five court complexes in South India, have been following the ideology and operational methods of Tamil Nadu-based extremist group Al-Umma. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the activities of Base Movements has found that two of its members were closely associated with a faction of Al-Umma. Base Movement extensively followed the ideology of Al-Umma, which was formed to avenge the demolition of Babri Masjid, though the accused in the blast cases were allegedly inspired by the online videos of Al-Qaeda. Pamphlets and digital content found at the blast sites contain warning messages for registering cases against certain leaders of the Muslim community, a strategy often followed by the Al-Umma. Unlike the Al-Qaeda, the Base Movement is not much interested in international issues such the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, said an NIA official. The NIA has received information that Samsudheen alias Karuva Samsudheen and Abbas Ali, Base Movement members accused in the bomb blast cases, were associated with the Imam Ali faction of Al-Umma, which operates from Madurai.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The demonetisation drive for reining in black money was the biggest decision taken by the Modi-led NDA Government, said BJP president Amit Shah.



After inaugurating the first anniversary celebration of NDA constituent Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) at Angamaly on Monday, Shah said, The biggest achievement of the government is that it has not faced even a single corruption charge in the first two-and-half years of its tenure. The recent decision to withdraw high-value currency notes was the biggest decision it took against black money. Through the drive, benefits of development will start reaching the poor, he said, and rapped the Opposition parties for opposing the drive, rather than supporting it.



On the growing tensions between India and Pakistan, Shah said the Indian Government had been giving befitting reply to the misadventures of Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC). The NDA Government wants to maintain peaceful relationship with all countries, but there have been misadventures from the part of Pakistan. When our brave soldiers were killed by terrorists in Uri, the Modi Government responded in a responsible manner, unlike the previous Congress-led government.



Within days of the attack, our soldiers entered the Pakistani soil and conducted surgical strikes. This shows the governments strong conviction in fighting terrorism and those sponsoring it, he said. Shah further stated that the Centre was committed to achieving inclusive growth. Development is the mantra of the NDA Government, which is working for the development of each and every citizen in the country, he added.



BDJS president Thushar Vellappally presided over the meeting, which was also attended by BJP president Kummanam Rajasekaran and former BJP state chief V Muraleedharan, among others.

LDF using violence against NDA

The LDF Government in Kerala believes in violence rather than development of the state, said BJP president Amit Shah. Ever since the LDF came to power in Kerala, it has been unleashing violence against NDA workers. By doing so, the LDF thinks they could weaken the NDA. I can assure you that the NDA would continue to gain strength, and become a strong force against the LDF and the UDF in the state in the coming elections, he said. Shah further stated that the people of Kerala were being denied benefits of several Central Government schemes. The NDA Government has rolled out several welfare schemes, but their benefits have not reached the people of Kerala, due to the lackadaisical attitude of the State Government, he added.

Shah meets BJP, NDA leaders

Kochi: BJP President Amit Shah on Monday held talks with the BJP core team and NDA leaders at the Aluva guesthouse. The meeting was held at a time when a section of BDJS leaders have raised allegations that they were being denied due recognition and that the party leadership had backtracked on their promises. According to sources, Amit Shah assured every possible help to strengthen the NDA in Kerala. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan criticised the State Government for not doing enough to digitise the banking sector.

KOCHI: The demonetisation drive for reining in black money was the biggest decision taken by the Modi-led NDA Government, said BJP president Amit Shah. After inaugurating the first anniversary celebration of NDA constituent Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) at Angamaly on Monday, Shah said, The biggest achievement of the government is that it has not faced even a single corruption charge in the first two-and-half years of its tenure. The recent decision to withdraw high-value currency notes was the biggest decision it took against black money. Through the drive, benefits of development will start reaching the poor, he said, and rapped the Opposition parties for opposing the drive, rather than supporting it. On the growing tensions between India and Pakistan, Shah said the Indian Government had been giving befitting reply to the misadventures of Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC). The NDA Government wants to maintain peaceful relationship with all countries, but there have been misadventures from the part of Pakistan. When our brave soldiers were killed by terrorists in Uri, the Modi Government responded in a responsible manner, unlike the previous Congress-led government. Within days of the attack, our soldiers entered the Pakistani soil and conducted surgical strikes. This shows the governments strong conviction in fighting terrorism and those sponsoring it, he said. Shah further stated that the Centre was committed to achieving inclusive growth. Development is the mantra of the NDA Government, which is working for the development of each and every citizen in the country, he added. BDJS president Thushar Vellappally presided over the meeting, which was also attended by BJP president Kummanam Rajasekaran and former BJP state chief V Muraleedharan, among others. LDF using violence against NDA The LDF Government in Kerala believes in violence rather than development of the state, said BJP president Amit Shah. Ever since the LDF came to power in Kerala, it has been unleashing violence against NDA workers. By doing so, the LDF thinks they could weaken the NDA. I can assure you that the NDA would continue to gain strength, and become a strong force against the LDF and the UDF in the state in the coming elections, he said. Shah further stated that the people of Kerala were being denied benefits of several Central Government schemes. The NDA Government has rolled out several welfare schemes, but their benefits have not reached the people of Kerala, due to the lackadaisical attitude of the State Government, he added. Shah meets BJP, NDA leaders Kochi: BJP President Amit Shah on Monday held talks with the BJP core team and NDA leaders at the Aluva guesthouse. The meeting was held at a time when a section of BDJS leaders have raised allegations that they were being denied due recognition and that the party leadership had backtracked on their promises. According to sources, Amit Shah assured every possible help to strengthen the NDA in Kerala. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan criticised the State Government for not doing enough to digitise the banking sector.
Rajesh Abraham By

Express News Service

KOCHI: In a bid to boost the states sagging infrastructure, the Kerala Government is planning to offer jobs to Gulf returnees who are willing to invest a portion of their savings in the states development projects. Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac is toying with the idea of providing stimulus to the state economy by luring Gulf returnees to invest in infrastructure projects.



According to Isaac, the move can help the state achieve three goals: 1. Provide an impetus to the infrastructure sector. 2. Get partial, long-term finance for these projects. 3. Ensure economic security for Keralites returning from Gulf countries due to job loss caused by economic slowdown.

Amit Bandre



My idea is to offer them (Gulf returnees) jobs if they come forward to invest a sum, say `10-25 lakh, in the infrastructure projects, he said.



Isaac shared his thoughts on rehabilitation of people returning from Gulf countries due to job loss caused by slump in crude prices during an interaction with Express in Kochi. The state government is planning to lure Non-Resident Keralites to invest in infrastructure projects, including Vizhinjam Transshipment Terminal, Kochi Metro Rail Project, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode Light Metro project, Kannur Airport, Vytilla Mobility Hub Second Phase etc.



The plan is to raise `50,000 crore to take up big ticket development projects that can change the face of the state. The crude prices had dipped to $30 per barrel in February this year from a high of $112 per barrel in 2014. Though the prices have recovered to $54/barrel, West Asian countries led by Saudi Arabia are cutting back on investments and freezing large projects to contain the slowdown. This has triggered huge cut in jobs and salaries.



As per the estimates of the Centre for Development Studies, about 27 lakh Keralites are working in UAE and Saudi Arabia. Though there are no estimates of returnees in 2015 and 2016, around 12.48 lakh emigrants returned to Kerala in 2014.

KOCHI: In a bid to boost the states sagging infrastructure, the Kerala Government is planning to offer jobs to Gulf returnees who are willing to invest a portion of their savings in the states development projects. Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac is toying with the idea of providing stimulus to the state economy by luring Gulf returnees to invest in infrastructure projects. According to Isaac, the move can help the state achieve three goals: 1. Provide an impetus to the infrastructure sector. 2. Get partial, long-term finance for these projects. 3. Ensure economic security for Keralites returning from Gulf countries due to job loss caused by economic slowdown. Amit Bandre My idea is to offer them (Gulf returnees) jobs if they come forward to invest a sum, say `10-25 lakh, in the infrastructure projects, he said. Isaac shared his thoughts on rehabilitation of people returning from Gulf countries due to job loss caused by slump in crude prices during an interaction with Express in Kochi. The state government is planning to lure Non-Resident Keralites to invest in infrastructure projects, including Vizhinjam Transshipment Terminal, Kochi Metro Rail Project, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode Light Metro project, Kannur Airport, Vytilla Mobility Hub Second Phase etc. The plan is to raise `50,000 crore to take up big ticket development projects that can change the face of the state. The crude prices had dipped to $30 per barrel in February this year from a high of $112 per barrel in 2014. Though the prices have recovered to $54/barrel, West Asian countries led by Saudi Arabia are cutting back on investments and freezing large projects to contain the slowdown. This has triggered huge cut in jobs and salaries. As per the estimates of the Centre for Development Studies, about 27 lakh Keralites are working in UAE and Saudi Arabia. Though there are no estimates of returnees in 2015 and 2016, around 12.48 lakh emigrants returned to Kerala in 2014.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: Demanding immediate steps to resolve the crisis cause by demonetisation, UDF on Monday announced it would stage a sit-in of its MPS and MLAs at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on December 14. The decision was taken after a high-level meeting of the front.



This is the beginning of high-voltage agitations by the UDF against the state government and the Centre for their anti-people policies, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said in a media briefing afterwards.

Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a dictator, Chennithala said the country was facing the crisis due to his anarchist rule.



The Centre hastily withdrew the currencies, without conducting any study. The country cannot go into cashless mode simply by the PMs declaration. The decision has adversely affected agriculture and commercial sectors, he added.



He also lashed out at CPM, saying the UDF did not require its certificate to fight BJP. He was referring to the accusation by state Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac, who had accused Chennithala of having the same stand as BJP, after he allegedly backtracked from a joint agitation with the CPM against the Centre.

Ration distribution



Chennithala also demanded additional rice distribution to the state in wake of the currency crisis. The UDF leaders alleged that ration distribution in Kerala had been disrupted under LDF regime.



Ration distribution was effective during UDFs rule. The Oommen Chandy-led government also procured additional ration share to the state from the Centre. However, the Pinarayi Government has brought people to the brink of poverty, alleged Chennithala, adding that the state government had failed to initiate steps to restore ration distribution, since it was disrupted last October.

Demanding immediate steps to resolve the crisis cause by demonetisation, UDF on Monday announced it would stage a sit-in of its MPS and MLAs at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on December 14. The decision was taken after a high-level meeting of the front.

KOCHI: Demanding immediate steps to resolve the crisis cause by demonetisation, UDF on Monday announced it would stage a sit-in of its MPS and MLAs at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on December 14. The decision was taken after a high-level meeting of the front. This is the beginning of high-voltage agitations by the UDF against the state government and the Centre for their anti-people policies, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said in a media briefing afterwards. Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a dictator, Chennithala said the country was facing the crisis due to his anarchist rule. The Centre hastily withdrew the currencies, without conducting any study. The country cannot go into cashless mode simply by the PMs declaration. The decision has adversely affected agriculture and commercial sectors, he added. He also lashed out at CPM, saying the UDF did not require its certificate to fight BJP. He was referring to the accusation by state Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac, who had accused Chennithala of having the same stand as BJP, after he allegedly backtracked from a joint agitation with the CPM against the Centre. Ration distribution Chennithala also demanded additional rice distribution to the state in wake of the currency crisis. The UDF leaders alleged that ration distribution in Kerala had been disrupted under LDF regime. Ration distribution was effective during UDFs rule. The Oommen Chandy-led government also procured additional ration share to the state from the Centre. However, the Pinarayi Government has brought people to the brink of poverty, alleged Chennithala, adding that the state government had failed to initiate steps to restore ration distribution, since it was disrupted last October. Demanding immediate steps to resolve the crisis cause by demonetisation, UDF on Monday announced it would stage a sit-in of its MPS and MLAs at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on December 14. The decision was taken after a high-level meeting of the front.
Toby Antony By

Express News Service

KOCHI: Operatives of the Base Movement, which carried out low-intensity bomb explosions at five court complexes in South India, have been following the ideology and operational methods of Tamil Nadu-based extremist group Al-Umma.



The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the activities of Base Movements has found that two of its members were closely associated with a faction of Al-Umma.

An NIA official



Base Movement extensively followed the ideology of Al-Umma, which was formed to avenge the demolition of Babri Masjid, though the accused in the blast cases were allegedly inspired by the online videos of Al-Qaeda.



Pamphlets and digital content found at the blast sites contain warning messages for registering case against certain leaders of the Muslim community, a strategy often followed by the Al-Umma.

Unlike, the Al-Qaeda, the Base Movement is not much interested in international issues such the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The groups primary focus is local issues such as the cases involving Afzal Guru and Madhani; beef-related controversies and issues of Kashmiri Muslims, said an NIA official.



The NIA has received information that Samsudheen alias Karuva Samsudheen and Abbas Ali, Base Movement members accused in the bomb blast cases, were associated with the Imam Ali faction of Al-Umma, which operates from Madurai. It is also learnt that certain Al-Umma operatives were trained by the IS and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.



The accused are being interrogated in custody, and efforts are on to trace the other persons associated with the group, said an NIA official in Kochi.

KOCHI: Operatives of the Base Movement, which carried out low-intensity bomb explosions at five court complexes in South India, have been following the ideology and operational methods of Tamil Nadu-based extremist group Al-Umma. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the activities of Base Movements has found that two of its members were closely associated with a faction of Al-Umma. An NIA official Base Movement extensively followed the ideology of Al-Umma, which was formed to avenge the demolition of Babri Masjid, though the accused in the blast cases were allegedly inspired by the online videos of Al-Qaeda. Pamphlets and digital content found at the blast sites contain warning messages for registering case against certain leaders of the Muslim community, a strategy often followed by the Al-Umma. Unlike, the Al-Qaeda, the Base Movement is not much interested in international issues such the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The groups primary focus is local issues such as the cases involving Afzal Guru and Madhani; beef-related controversies and issues of Kashmiri Muslims, said an NIA official. The NIA has received information that Samsudheen alias Karuva Samsudheen and Abbas Ali, Base Movement members accused in the bomb blast cases, were associated with the Imam Ali faction of Al-Umma, which operates from Madurai. It is also learnt that certain Al-Umma operatives were trained by the IS and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. The accused are being interrogated in custody, and efforts are on to trace the other persons associated with the group, said an NIA official in Kochi.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Tension prevailed on BJB Autonomous College campus here on Monday after two groups clashed over a scuffle between students of second year and third year.

The matter came to the fore after a group of students and former students of the college started sloganeering outside the Principals office and allegedly abused some faculty members.

On being informed about the chaos inside the college building, students from the rival group rushed to the spot and had a minor scuffle with the former. By that time, college authorities had informed Badagada Police which rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control.

One platoon of force led by IIC Suvendu Sinha was deployed on the college campus for over five hours after the incident to avert any untoward incident.

After the fiasco, college authorities suspended the classes for the day. Later, the Principal of the college convened a meeting with senior faculty members to discuss the situation on the campus.

Sources said the spat was an outcome of a dispute between some senior and junior students. So far, we have not received any formal complaint from the college authorities or the students. We are keeping a close watch on the situation and if necessary, security will be stationed on the premises, Sinha said.

BHUBANESWAR: Tension prevailed on BJB Autonomous College campus here on Monday after two groups clashed over a scuffle between students of second year and third year. The matter came to the fore after a group of students and former students of the college started sloganeering outside the Principals office and allegedly abused some faculty members. On being informed about the chaos inside the college building, students from the rival group rushed to the spot and had a minor scuffle with the former. By that time, college authorities had informed Badagada Police which rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control. One platoon of force led by IIC Suvendu Sinha was deployed on the college campus for over five hours after the incident to avert any untoward incident. After the fiasco, college authorities suspended the classes for the day. Later, the Principal of the college convened a meeting with senior faculty members to discuss the situation on the campus. Sources said the spat was an outcome of a dispute between some senior and junior students. So far, we have not received any formal complaint from the college authorities or the students. We are keeping a close watch on the situation and if necessary, security will be stationed on the premises, Sinha said.
By Express News Service

Vennira Aadai announced Jayalalithaas arrival on silverscreen, and for a period of 12 years, she was the most sought-out name not only in Tamil, but also in Kannada & Telugu industries. But acting was just the beginning of what turned into a phenomenon

Her career as an actor was rather short  the active years were just about 12 years. But at the end of those dozen-odd years, J Jayalalithaa emerged as arguably the top female star in Tamil film industry, one who was an integral part in some of the biggest box office hits that Kollywood ever recorded in those decades. For the star that she evolved into over the years, Jaya had a low-key debut, curiously in an English film  The Epistle in 1961. The child actor was seen in a Kannada film in the sa me year, and a Hindi film in the next, but was absent from the screen in the next year. Jaya returned in 1964 with three Kannada films and a Telugu film.

That was when Vennira Aadai was released in 1965. Her character, Shoba, a young woman who was emotionally wrecked by the death of her husband just hours after their marriage, had enough substan- ce to reveal the actor in her. That was the first turning point in Jayas career. That was when Jaya was cast with matinee idol MGR in Ayirathil Oruvan. The film went on to become an allti me hit and also ma rked the beginning of the most successful acting pair who were cast as the lead in as many as 27 films. What followed was a string of hits, establishing Jaya as the most-sought after name in Tamil cinema. The number of films she ac ted began increasing at a fast clip, several of them grossing big at the box office.

There were at least seven big hits in 1966, five in 1967 and six more in 1968. This fame crossed borders, and she returned to Kannada and Telugu fi lms. But this time, she was the biggest dr a w. But from 1975, there was a distinct sign that Jaya was withdrawing from acting. She acted only in four films that year. The number dwindled to just two each in 1976 and 1977. That can effectively be considered to be the ending part of her career. She was just 29 ye a rs then, an age when most actors hit the pink of their career. The last time she appea r ed in a film was as a Chief Minister in 1992. By then, her life had entered the next act wh e re the fla m i ng career was part of a nostalgic memory.

Vennira Aadai announced Jayalalithaas arrival on silverscreen, and for a period of 12 years, she was the most sought-out name not only in Tamil, but also in Kannada & Telugu industries. But acting was just the beginning of what turned into a phenomenon Her career as an actor was rather short  the active years were just about 12 years. But at the end of those dozen-odd years, J Jayalalithaa emerged as arguably the top female star in Tamil film industry, one who was an integral part in some of the biggest box office hits that Kollywood ever recorded in those decades. For the star that she evolved into over the years, Jaya had a low-key debut, curiously in an English film  The Epistle in 1961. The child actor was seen in a Kannada film in the sa me year, and a Hindi film in the next, but was absent from the screen in the next year. Jaya returned in 1964 with three Kannada films and a Telugu film. That was when Vennira Aadai was released in 1965. Her character, Shoba, a young woman who was emotionally wrecked by the death of her husband just hours after their marriage, had enough substan- ce to reveal the actor in her. That was the first turning point in Jayas career. That was when Jaya was cast with matinee idol MGR in Ayirathil Oruvan. The film went on to become an allti me hit and also ma rked the beginning of the most successful acting pair who were cast as the lead in as many as 27 films. What followed was a string of hits, establishing Jaya as the most-sought after name in Tamil cinema. The number of films she ac ted began increasing at a fast clip, several of them grossing big at the box office. There were at least seven big hits in 1966, five in 1967 and six more in 1968. This fame crossed borders, and she returned to Kannada and Telugu fi lms. But this time, she was the biggest dr a w. But from 1975, there was a distinct sign that Jaya was withdrawing from acting. She acted only in four films that year. The number dwindled to just two each in 1976 and 1977. That can effectively be considered to be the ending part of her career. She was just 29 ye a rs then, an age when most actors hit the pink of their career. The last time she appea r ed in a film was as a Chief Minister in 1992. By then, her life had entered the next act wh e re the fla m i ng career was part of a nostalgic memory.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: As Amma to millions and AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa was laid to rest on Tuesday, condolences messages poured in from Sri Lanka to the US expressing their solidarity with people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief.

Sri Lankan President Mathirpala Sirisena tweeted: Chief Minister Jayalalitha was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamilnadu.

Prime Minister of the Island Nation Ranil Wickremesinghe also expressed condolences on the demise of the 68-year-old Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and said that she did much to establish a strong sense of fellowship between India and Sri Lanka. The people of South India elected her as their Chief Minister six times; she was not in the best of health when she won her last election yet it was a firm display of the trust people had placed in her as their leader, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said in a statement.

Calling her a Stateswoman, he said despite ideological differences with her, he would remember her for pushing to resolve the fishermen issue between the two countries in a humane manner. Fondly known as Amma by her people, Jayalalitha Jeyaram will be remembered for the selfless service she rendered unto her people, he added.

US Ambassador Richard Verma also expressed his condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu on the passing away of their leader. On behalf of the United States, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu following her passing. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India, Verma added.

NEW DELHI: As Amma to millions and AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa was laid to rest on Tuesday, condolences messages poured in from Sri Lanka to the US expressing their solidarity with people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief. Sri Lankan President Mathirpala Sirisena tweeted: Chief Minister Jayalalitha was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamilnadu. Prime Minister of the Island Nation Ranil Wickremesinghe also expressed condolences on the demise of the 68-year-old Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and said that she did much to establish a strong sense of fellowship between India and Sri Lanka. The people of South India elected her as their Chief Minister six times; she was not in the best of health when she won her last election yet it was a firm display of the trust people had placed in her as their leader, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said in a statement. Calling her a Stateswoman, he said despite ideological differences with her, he would remember her for pushing to resolve the fishermen issue between the two countries in a humane manner. Fondly known as Amma by her people, Jayalalitha Jeyaram will be remembered for the selfless service she rendered unto her people, he added. US Ambassador Richard Verma also expressed his condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu on the passing away of their leader. On behalf of the United States, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu following her passing. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will be remembered for her years of public service to Tamil Nadu and as a supporter of closer ties between the United States and India, Verma added.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Even as the State, including its schools, colleges and businesses functioning normally on Monday morning, things took a turn for the worse late Monday afternoon as news and rumour mills went into overdrive.

At around 2 pm in the afternoon, some schools began closing ahead of time, asking parents to pick up their wards. Many IT offices also shut down for the day around the same time, leading to massive traffic congestion around 4:30 pm, especially in areas such as LB road, Adyar, Royapettah High Road, TTK Road, Dinakaran Salai, Cathedral Road, Mandaveli, Mylapore and Madhya Kailash.

Public transport in the city also took a hit with buses plying only in a few major areas. An MTC spokesperson said that the only reason the buses were not plying was because the police had blocked several areas across the city, making it nearly impossible for buses to run. However, at dusk, bus service seemed to have come to a complete halt. In Tiruvannamalai, two KSRTC buses and one TNSTC bus were attacked in three separate stone-pelting incidents early on Monday. Lorry drivers were also caught in the hysteria with drivers in Coimbatore complaining of a reduced load booking on Monday.

Auto and cab drivers in Chennai are alleged to have charged exorbitant rates or simply refused service if the destination was anywhere close to areas in the city where tension prevailed.

As the events began unfolding since late afternoon, Chennai residents rushed to petrol outlets, grocery shops, medical stores to stock supplies, fearing a complete shut-down in the State. Essentials seemed to fly off the shelves and serpentine queues were seen at the payment counters of many supermarkets.

CHENNAI: Even as the State, including its schools, colleges and businesses functioning normally on Monday morning, things took a turn for the worse late Monday afternoon as news and rumour mills went into overdrive. At around 2 pm in the afternoon, some schools began closing ahead of time, asking parents to pick up their wards. Many IT offices also shut down for the day around the same time, leading to massive traffic congestion around 4:30 pm, especially in areas such as LB road, Adyar, Royapettah High Road, TTK Road, Dinakaran Salai, Cathedral Road, Mandaveli, Mylapore and Madhya Kailash. Public transport in the city also took a hit with buses plying only in a few major areas. An MTC spokesperson said that the only reason the buses were not plying was because the police had blocked several areas across the city, making it nearly impossible for buses to run. However, at dusk, bus service seemed to have come to a complete halt. In Tiruvannamalai, two KSRTC buses and one TNSTC bus were attacked in three separate stone-pelting incidents early on Monday. Lorry drivers were also caught in the hysteria with drivers in Coimbatore complaining of a reduced load booking on Monday. Auto and cab drivers in Chennai are alleged to have charged exorbitant rates or simply refused service if the destination was anywhere close to areas in the city where tension prevailed. As the events began unfolding since late afternoon, Chennai residents rushed to petrol outlets, grocery shops, medical stores to stock supplies, fearing a complete shut-down in the State. Essentials seemed to fly off the shelves and serpentine queues were seen at the payment counters of many supermarkets.
By Express News Service

Seventy-five days after being admitted to Apollo Hospital following complaints of dehydration and breathlessness, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa breathed her last at 11.30 pm on Monday, leaving thousands of her supporters and fans grief-stricken. Leaders from across the country made a beeline for Chennai to pay their last respects to the AIADMK supremo.

A pall of gloom descended over Chennai as a sea of humanity assembled at Marina to bid adieu to their beloved leader, famously known as "Amma". Given farewell with full state and military honours, J Jayalalithaa was laid to rest next to her mentor M G Ramachandran on Tuesday evening.

LATEST UPDATES:

6:02 pm: Jayalalithaa's coffin lowered into the grave. Gun salute accorded.

Photo | EPS

5:59 pm: The coffin is being closed.

5:55 pm: Sasikala performing the final rites before Jayalalithaa is laid to rest.

Photo | EPS

5:54 pm: Flag removed and folded, handed over to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sashikala.

5:52 pm: Mild lathicharge outside burial site.

5:50 pm: Former governor K Rosaiah places wreath. Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi pay last tributes.

5:47 pm: Venkaiah Naidu, OPS and Pon Radhakrishnan pay last tributes to Jayalalithaa.

OPS pays final tribute | EPS

(Photo | EPS)

5:44 pm: Governor places wreath and the armed forces give a salute. Full state honours accorded to Amma.

(Photo | EPS)

Jayalilathaa's sandalwood coffin | EPS

5:42 pm:

5:39 pm: Jayalalithaa's body has been shifted into the coffin, that will be buried at the MGR memorial.

5:37 pm:

Sarath Kumar seated at the site where Jayalalithaa is to be buried | EPS

5:34 pm: Amma's coffin has been taken off from the truck and hoisted up on the shoulders of armed personnel.

Personal accounts kept pouring in as TNIE went around to find out how Amma had personally touched lives. Below are the quotes from few supporters.

"Under her regime we(women) felt safe, I would go alone even at 10pm, but now this sense of security is doubtful. I don't know if such a regime will ever come to power again," said 50 year old flower seller, P Manimalar.

5:28 pm: Sea of humanity surrounds Marina, as Amma's body arrives at MGR memorial.

5:22 pm: Crowd adjacent to Marina can be heard wailing.

5:21 pm: Akhilesh Yadav can now be seen walking ahead of the procession, on foot.

Twenty-nine years ago, Chennai witnessed similar scenes, when Jayalalithaa's mentor and then chief minister MGR was laid to rest at the same spot.

5:19 pm: Procession minutes away from the MGR memorial.

5:15 pm: The procession is nearing Madras University; about few hundred metres from the memorial.

5:13 pm: Flex board imprinted with the image of Tamilnadu chief minister J Jayalalitha being carried by Thevar Sangham activists in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday, to mark their respect to the deceased leader. The flex board will be placed before the secretariat.

(BP Deepu | EPS)

5:08 pm:

An admirer of deceased TN CM Jayalalitha captures her garlanded image in Thiruvananthapuram (BP Deepu | EPS)

4:58 pm: The Convoy has crossed Chepauk stadium.

4:45 pm: People await Amma's body at Marina beach.

4:48 pm: AIADMK MLAs lead the procession, with policemen on both sides. They are followed by the army truck carrying former chief minister Jayalalithaa's body. The truck is being followed by a contingent of Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel. This tight cordon prevents the public from forcing their way towards the truck.

4:47 pm:

Following the death of former CM J Jayalalithaa the people are seen tonsuring their heads at Madurai on Tuesday. (KK Sundar | EPS)

4:46 pm: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is onboard the army truck carrying Jayalalithaa's mortal remains.

4:39 pm: Governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrives at Marina.

4:32 pm:

Senior leader Vaiko at MGR Memorial | EPS

4:22 pm: Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad arrive at Marina beach.

4:20 pm:

Jayalalithaa's final resting place, awaiting her mortal remains | EPS

4:18 pm: Coffin loaded onto an army truck.

4:16 pm: The Coffin is being carried down the stairs at Rajaji hall.

People running inside MGR Samadhi | EPS

4:15 pm: Final preparation undertaken to take the Coffin. Freezer box has been placed.

4:09 pm: President Pranab Mukherjee finally arrives at Rajaji Hall, pays last respect to Jayalalithaa.

4:08 pm: "She is not only the leader of Tamil Nadu, but the entire country," Rahul Gandhi.

4:08 pm: State's top bureaucrats are supervising the work at the memorial.

3:59 pm: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi arrives at Rajaji Hall. He was accompanied by senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.

3:56 pm: Union minister Venkaiah Naidu at the burial site.

3:54 pm: Jayalalithaa's coffin being prepared for her last journey.

3.52 pm : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, former Chief Minister Ooommen Chandy and Governor P Sathasivam pay tribute to Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall

3:45 pm: The spot where Jayalalithaa is expected to be buried.

3:32 pm: Wallajah road and Mount road being prepared for the procession.

3:30 pm:

RAF personnel man the road near Marina beach | EPS

3:20 pm: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has said that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. In a tweet following Jayalalithaas death on Monday, Sirisena expressed his condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu.

Public begins to gather near outside Marina Beach | EPS

3:15 pm: Former Prime Minister and Karnataka chief minister Deve Gowda pays his respects to Jayalalithaa.

3:13 pm:

People climb trees near Marina beach to get a glimpse of the funeral site | EPS

3:09 pm: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik arrives at Rajaji Hall, pays last respects.

3:00 pm:

Police struggle to manage crowd outside Rajaji Hall. | EPS

2:58 pm: Actors Nayanthara, Surya, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal Union Minister Nirmala Seetharaman pay homage to Jaya.

At Srilankan Refugee camp in Tiruchy city. Refugees pay homage to J Jayalalithaa photo by Santhosh Mathevan @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/zcg3NqkfLX  Santhosh Mathevan (@msanthosh_TNIE) December 6, 2016

2:52 pm: Army vehicle reaches Rajaji Hall to take the mortal remains of Jayalalitha.

2: 50 pm: Karnataka CM Siddaramiah too has arrived at the Rajaji Hall. Both

2:48 pm: Overcrowding near coffin.

2: 47 pm: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, too has arrived at the Rajaji hall, to pay his respects for the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.

2: 44 pm: Most of the national and local media are not being allowed near the cremation site of the late AIADMK supremo.

2:07 pm: Police continue to face a tough time in handling the crowds at the backside of Rajaji Hall. After Modi left a huge crowd entered the backside way to the dais. It is a VIP entrance.

1:50 pm: Venkaiah Naidu after paying homage: The PM has assured Chief Minister O Panneerselvam of any support from the Central government. The PM also met AIADMK MPs and Ministers. He also paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa

1:42 pm:

Military forces arrive near Marina Beach: Cops (Sushmitha Ram | EPS)

Also Read: Deaf and dumb woman pays respect to her beloved 'Amma'

1:36 pm: PM Modi leaves Rajaji Hall after interacting with the public.

PM Modi at Rajaji Hall (Romani Agarwal | EPS)

1:35 pm: Mild caning by police continues outside the hall to control the crowd.

1:30 pm: PM Modi lays a garland at the feet of Jayalalithaa's mortal remains, which is placed in a casket. He spoke with newly sworn in Tamil Nadu chief minister OPS and Sasikala.

PM Modi can be seen at the centre of the crowd. (Ram M Sundaram | EPS)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at Rajaji Hall to pay homage to TN CM #Jaya @NewIndianXpress  T Muruganandham (@muruga_TNIE) December 6, 2016

1:23 pm: Modi enters Rajaji Hall from backside entrance

1:15 pm:

Public police slight scuffle at backside of Rajaji Hall | EPS

This is the expected route for Jayalalithaa's final journey to Marina Beach.

1:11 pm: Mild lathi charge outside Rajaji Hall by police to control crowd.

Technical snag fixed, #PresidentMukherjee takes off for Chennai !  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 6, 2016

1:01 pm:

Thousands gathered at Rajaji Hall in Chennai to pay homage to late CM #jayalalithaa @NewIndianXpress @Ram_TNIE pic.twitter.com/QeVcEPOpgd  gopu mohan (@gopumohan_TNIE) December 6, 2016

Ancestral house of former CM J Jayalalithaa in Srirangam, Tiruchy. It was her maternal uncle's house. @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/IpcneznRJa  S Deepak Karthik (@Deepak_TNIE) December 6, 2016

12:49 pm: Security forces await PM Modi's arrival at Rajaji Hall.

12:34 pm: PM Modi headed for Rajaji Hall in a helicopter. Security boosted across Chennai

Also Read: Jayalalithaa to be laid to rest at Marina next to her mentor MGR

12:28 pm: People of Ceylon Colony in Perumathur village near Neyveli watching the funeral of Jayalalithaa telecast on television, gathering under a tree.

Photo | EPS

12:10 pm: Prime minister Narendra Modi arrives in Chennai to pay last respects to Jayalalithaa.

11:59 am: IAF plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai, returns to Delhi after developing technical snag mid-air.

11:58 am: Puducherry govt announces 3-day state mourning from today after demise of TN Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

11:57 am:

#Amma Unavagam, only functioning food outlet near Tiruchy junction. 1,200 idlis servd to hungry commuters. @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/CBNb1TKLB3  S Deepak Karthik (@Deepak_TNIE) December 6, 2016

11:56 am:

In this image released by DMK, TN chief minister OPS can be seen sitting ( second from right) near Jaya's mortal remains.

Watch- Naval helicopter flying atop Marina beach where preparations for last rites are underway.

Live updates: https://t.co/LipT6B8Pv0 pic.twitter.com/dy7lCRzVEp  New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) December 6, 2016

11:42 am: Superstar Rajinikanth arrives at Rajaji Hall to pay last respects to Jaya. He was accompanied by his wife Latha, daughter Aiswarya and son-in-law Dhanush. Rajinikanth spoke with Jaya's close aide Sasikala.

11:40 am: As a mark of respect 'TASMAC shops and bars attached thereto functioning throughout the state' will be closed from December 6-8.

11:32 am: Buses not plying in most part of the state. Even moffusil buses to Chennai halted.

11:30 am: Route map: Body will be taken via Walajah Road and reach Kamarajar Salai (as informed by police officials)

11:27 am:

Military police arrive near Marina beach | EPS

11:22 am:

CM Naveen Patnaik to leave for Chennai at 11.45 am to attend Jayalalithaa's funeral #Odisha @NewIndianXpress  Bijay Chaki (@bijay_TNIE) December 6, 2016

11:10 am:

Crowd outside Rajaji Hall | EPS

Heavy security near Marina beach as preparations are underway for Jaya's funeral | EPS

11:05 am: Lok Sabha adjourned for the day after obituary reference to Jayalalithaa, who passed away last night in Chennai after a cardiac arrest.

10:55 am:

No MTC buses plying in Chennai city from CMBT bus stand; only those operated plying to Rajaji hall | EPS

10: 51 am: A view outside the residence of DMK patriarch Karunanidhi.

People sitting outside the residence of Karunanidhi. | Rxpress Photo Service

10: 46 am: Another look of the desolated Chennai city.

Empty Bus stand at Ambatur Estate today morning. | Express Photo Service

10 : 44 am: "All tv channels and press please announce that parking for the public is provided in island grounds", the message from a senior Chennai Traffic Police official.

10: 37 am: Kerala declares three days of mourning, with the state cabinet bringing out a resolution in the following direction, on the demise of TN chief minister.

10:27 am:

LIVE: Crowd outside Rajaji hall break barricades and try to push their way in.

Read all live updates- https://t.co/agw7brjr9u pic.twitter.com/vPQfcrAuqi  New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) December 6, 2016

10:25 am: Tamil Nadu governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrives at Rajaji Hall to pay floral tributes.

10:23 am: Buses are not plying in Ariyalur, Perambalur districts. Almost all the shops and petrol bunks are closed. No violence incidents recorded in both the districts. Details of situation across different districts below:

No violence in Tirupur. Many homage meets and events. As hotels and shops are shut, garment and hosiery workers staying at rented rooms in Tirupur go without food. Only few managed to buy stocks yesterday.

Karur remains calm as commercial establishments are closed. Mourning procession planned by district administration from Karur RDO office this morning.

No violence in Coimbatore. Most of the shops and petrol bunks were closed. More than 1500 police personnel and 100s of CRPF personnel are deployed in the city for security purpose.

10:20 am:

Senior AIADMK leader Sasikala standing beside Jayalalithaa's mortal remains | EPS

10:17 am:

Flower vendors created Jayalalithaa's potrait using flowers at Nethaji market in Vellore S Dinesh | EPS)

10:15 am: Vegetable prices shot up as markets and vegetable stalls are closed in Thoothukudi district. A kilogram of tomatoes and brinjals sold for Rs 110 since last night and early morning. Reportedly, no law and order issues across the district. Arterial roads and commercial streets go deserted. Public pay floral tributes and homages to the portraits of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Cutting political lines, all party offices including Dravida Kazhagam had flown the respective party half mast.

10:08 am: Senior officials confirm that Jayalalithaa will be cremated at Marina beach, at 4:30 pm.

10:00 am: Rajya Sabha will adjourn for the day after obituary, as a mark of respect, in memory of Jayalalithaa.

9:50 am:

People trying to climb over the wall as they're not allowed inside (Sunish Surendran | EPS)

9:40 am:

Delhi: Central Govt declares one-day mourning after the demise of #Jayalalithaa, flags flying at half mast at President House pic.twitter.com/U7KvMQtguY  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

Minute-by-minute details of how the incidents unfolded last night: READ HERE

9:30 am: Chaos in VIP enclosure as cops find it difficult to control crowd

9:16 am: Pandemonium outside Rajaji Bhavan as people break barricades to pay their last respects to Amma.

9:15 am: Prime minister Narendra Modi's flight departs for Chennai at 9:10 am.

9:10 am: The Madras High Court, Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, Madurai and all

the Subordinate Courts in the State of Tamil Nadu to remain closed today as a mark of

respect to the late Selvi J Jayalalitha.

9: 09 am: As per the latest inputs, T. Nagar is calm. No shops have opened yet.

9: 01 am: MP Navaneethakrishnan spotted outside the Rajaji Hall.

AIADMK MP Navaneethakrishnan. | Express Photo Service

8:58 am: The crowd is getting restless, here are the latest glimpses from outside the Rajaji Hall.

8: 48 am: Another glimpse from inside the Rajaji Hall.

Late AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha wrapped in tricolour at Rajaji Hall. | Express Photo Service

8: 38 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will shortly leave for Chennai to pay floral tributes to Jayalalithaa. (PTI).

8: 26 am: Kerala Governor P Sathasivam , Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala are expected to attend the funeral ceremony.

8: 17 am: Glimpses from outside the Rajaji Bhavan, where the AIADMK supremo's mortal remains have been placed; crowd queues up to pay their last respects.

People standing in queue outside rajaji bhavan in the city. | ( Sunish P Surendran | EPS)

8: 08 am: DMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Karunanidhi on Jayalalithaa's death, "even though she passed away at a young age, there is no doubt that her fame will continue forever."

(With additional inputs from agencies)

Seventy-five days after being admitted to Apollo Hospital following complaints of dehydration and breathlessness, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa breathed her last at 11.30 pm on Monday, leaving thousands of her supporters and fans grief-stricken. Leaders from across the country made a beeline for Chennai to pay their last respects to the AIADMK supremo. A pall of gloom descended over Chennai as a sea of humanity assembled at Marina to bid adieu to their beloved leader, famously known as "Amma". Given farewell with full state and military honours, J Jayalalithaa was laid to rest next to her mentor M G Ramachandran on Tuesday evening. LATEST UPDATES: 6:02 pm: Jayalalithaa's coffin lowered into the grave. Gun salute accorded. Photo | EPS 5:59 pm: The coffin is being closed. 5:55 pm: Sasikala performing the final rites before Jayalalithaa is laid to rest. Photo | EPS 5:54 pm: Flag removed and folded, handed over to Jayalalithaa's close aide Sashikala. 5:52 pm: Mild lathicharge outside burial site. 5:50 pm: Former governor K Rosaiah places wreath. Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi pay last tributes. 5:47 pm: Venkaiah Naidu, OPS and Pon Radhakrishnan pay last tributes to Jayalalithaa. OPS pays final tribute | EPS (Photo | EPS) 5:44 pm: Governor places wreath and the armed forces give a salute. Full state honours accorded to Amma. (Photo | EPS) Jayalilathaa's sandalwood coffin | EPS 5:42 pm: #Jayalalithaas demise: Northeast shocked, 3-day state mourning in Meghalaya @NewIndianXpress @PrabhuChawla  prasanta mazumdar (@prasmaz_tnie) December 6, 2016 5:39 pm: Jayalalithaa's body has been shifted into the coffin, that will be buried at the MGR memorial. 5:37 pm: Sarath Kumar seated at the site where Jayalalithaa is to be buried | EPS 5:34 pm: Amma's coffin has been taken off from the truck and hoisted up on the shoulders of armed personnel. Personal accounts kept pouring in as TNIE went around to find out how Amma had personally touched lives. Below are the quotes from few supporters. "Under her regime we(women) felt safe, I would go alone even at 10pm, but now this sense of security is doubtful. I don't know if such a regime will ever come to power again," said 50 year old flower seller, P Manimalar. 5:28 pm: Sea of humanity surrounds Marina, as Amma's body arrives at MGR memorial. 5:22 pm: Crowd adjacent to Marina can be heard wailing. 5:21 pm: Akhilesh Yadav can now be seen walking ahead of the procession, on foot. Twenty-nine years ago, Chennai witnessed similar scenes, when Jayalalithaa's mentor and then chief minister MGR was laid to rest at the same spot. 5:19 pm: Procession minutes away from the MGR memorial. 5:15 pm: The procession is nearing Madras University; about few hundred metres from the memorial. 5:13 pm: Flex board imprinted with the image of Tamilnadu chief minister J Jayalalitha being carried by Thevar Sangham activists in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday, to mark their respect to the deceased leader. The flex board will be placed before the secretariat. (BP Deepu | EPS) 5:08 pm: An admirer of deceased TN CM Jayalalitha captures her garlanded image in Thiruvananthapuram (BP Deepu | EPS) #jayalalithaa @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/kuFBJDkc01  gopu mohan (@gopumohan_TNIE) December 6, 2016 4:58 pm: The Convoy has crossed Chepauk stadium. 4:45 pm: People await Amma's body at Marina beach. 4:48 pm: AIADMK MLAs lead the procession, with policemen on both sides. They are followed by the army truck carrying former chief minister Jayalalithaa's body. The truck is being followed by a contingent of Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel. This tight cordon prevents the public from forcing their way towards the truck. 4:47 pm: Following the death of former CM J Jayalalithaa the people are seen tonsuring their heads at Madurai on Tuesday. (KK Sundar | EPS) 4:46 pm: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is onboard the army truck carrying Jayalalithaa's mortal remains. 4:39 pm: Governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrives at Marina. 4:32 pm: Senior leader Vaiko at MGR Memorial | EPS 4:22 pm: Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad arrive at Marina beach. 4:20 pm: Jayalalithaa's final resting place, awaiting her mortal remains | EPS 4:18 pm: Coffin loaded onto an army truck. 4:16 pm: The Coffin is being carried down the stairs at Rajaji hall. People running inside MGR Samadhi | EPS 4:15 pm: Final preparation undertaken to take the Coffin. Freezer box has been placed. 4:09 pm: President Pranab Mukherjee finally arrives at Rajaji Hall, pays last respect to Jayalalithaa. 4:08 pm: "She is not only the leader of Tamil Nadu, but the entire country," Rahul Gandhi. 4:08 pm: State's top bureaucrats are supervising the work at the memorial. 3:59 pm: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi arrives at Rajaji Hall. He was accompanied by senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad. 3:56 pm: Union minister Venkaiah Naidu at the burial site. 3:54 pm: Jayalalithaa's coffin being prepared for her last journey. 3.52 pm : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, former Chief Minister Ooommen Chandy and Governor P Sathasivam pay tribute to Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall 3:45 pm: The spot where Jayalalithaa is expected to be buried. 3:32 pm: Wallajah road and Mount road being prepared for the procession. 3:30 pm: RAF personnel man the road near Marina beach | EPS 3:20 pm: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has said that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. In a tweet following Jayalalithaas death on Monday, Sirisena expressed his condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu. Public begins to gather near outside Marina Beach | EPS 3:15 pm: Former Prime Minister and Karnataka chief minister Deve Gowda pays his respects to Jayalalithaa. 3:13 pm: People climb trees near Marina beach to get a glimpse of the funeral site | EPS 3:09 pm: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik arrives at Rajaji Hall, pays last respects. 3:00 pm: Police struggle to manage crowd outside Rajaji Hall. | EPS 2:58 pm: Actors Nayanthara, Surya, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal Union Minister Nirmala Seetharaman pay homage to Jaya. At Srilankan Refugee camp in Tiruchy city. Refugees pay homage to J Jayalalithaa photo by Santhosh Mathevan @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/zcg3NqkfLX  Santhosh Mathevan (@msanthosh_TNIE) December 6, 2016 2:52 pm: Army vehicle reaches Rajaji Hall to take the mortal remains of Jayalalitha. 2: 50 pm: Karnataka CM Siddaramiah too has arrived at the Rajaji Hall. Both 2:48 pm: Overcrowding near coffin. 2: 47 pm: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, too has arrived at the Rajaji hall, to pay his respects for the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. 2: 44 pm: Most of the national and local media are not being allowed near the cremation site of the late AIADMK supremo. 2:07 pm: Police continue to face a tough time in handling the crowds at the backside of Rajaji Hall. After Modi left a huge crowd entered the backside way to the dais. It is a VIP entrance. 1:50 pm: Venkaiah Naidu after paying homage: The PM has assured Chief Minister O Panneerselvam of any support from the Central government. The PM also met AIADMK MPs and Ministers. He also paid rich tributes to Jayalalithaa 1:42 pm: Military forces arrive near Marina Beach: Cops (Sushmitha Ram | EPS) Also Read: Deaf and dumb woman pays respect to her beloved 'Amma' 1:36 pm: PM Modi leaves Rajaji Hall after interacting with the public. PM Modi at Rajaji Hall (Romani Agarwal | EPS) 1:35 pm: Mild caning by police continues outside the hall to control the crowd. 1:30 pm: PM Modi lays a garland at the feet of Jayalalithaa's mortal remains, which is placed in a casket. He spoke with newly sworn in Tamil Nadu chief minister OPS and Sasikala. PM Modi can be seen at the centre of the crowd. (Ram M Sundaram | EPS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at Rajaji Hall to pay homage to TN CM #Jaya @NewIndianXpress  T Muruganandham (@muruga_TNIE) December 6, 2016 1:23 pm: Modi enters Rajaji Hall from backside entrance 1:15 pm: Public police slight scuffle at backside of Rajaji Hall | EPS This is the expected route for Jayalalithaa's final journey to Marina Beach. 1:11 pm: Mild lathi charge outside Rajaji Hall by police to control crowd. Technical snag fixed, #PresidentMukherjee takes off for Chennai !  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) December 6, 2016 1:01 pm: Thousands gathered at Rajaji Hall in Chennai to pay homage to late CM #jayalalithaa @NewIndianXpress @Ram_TNIE pic.twitter.com/QeVcEPOpgd  gopu mohan (@gopumohan_TNIE) December 6, 2016 Ancestral house of former CM J Jayalalithaa in Srirangam, Tiruchy. It was her maternal uncle's house. @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/IpcneznRJa  S Deepak Karthik (@Deepak_TNIE) December 6, 2016 12:49 pm: Security forces await PM Modi's arrival at Rajaji Hall. 12:34 pm: PM Modi headed for Rajaji Hall in a helicopter. Security boosted across Chennai Also Read: Jayalalithaa to be laid to rest at Marina next to her mentor MGR 12:28 pm: People of Ceylon Colony in Perumathur village near Neyveli watching the funeral of Jayalalithaa telecast on television, gathering under a tree. Photo | EPS 12:10 pm: Prime minister Narendra Modi arrives in Chennai to pay last respects to Jayalalithaa. 11:59 am: IAF plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai, returns to Delhi after developing technical snag mid-air. 11:58 am: Puducherry govt announces 3-day state mourning from today after demise of TN Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. 11:57 am: #Amma Unavagam, only functioning food outlet near Tiruchy junction. 1,200 idlis servd to hungry commuters. @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/CBNb1TKLB3  S Deepak Karthik (@Deepak_TNIE) December 6, 2016 11:56 am: In this image released by DMK, TN chief minister OPS can be seen sitting ( second from right) near Jaya's mortal remains. Watch- Naval helicopter flying atop Marina beach where preparations for last rites are underway. Live updates: https://t.co/LipT6B8Pv0 pic.twitter.com/dy7lCRzVEp  New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) December 6, 2016 11:42 am: Superstar Rajinikanth arrives at Rajaji Hall to pay last respects to Jaya. He was accompanied by his wife Latha, daughter Aiswarya and son-in-law Dhanush. Rajinikanth spoke with Jaya's close aide Sasikala. 11:40 am: As a mark of respect 'TASMAC shops and bars attached thereto functioning throughout the state' will be closed from December 6-8. 11:32 am: Buses not plying in most part of the state. Even moffusil buses to Chennai halted. 11:30 am: Route map: Body will be taken via Walajah Road and reach Kamarajar Salai (as informed by police officials) 11:27 am: Military police arrive near Marina beach | EPS 11:22 am: CM Naveen Patnaik to leave for Chennai at 11.45 am to attend Jayalalithaa's funeral #Odisha @NewIndianXpress  Bijay Chaki (@bijay_TNIE) December 6, 2016 11:10 am: Crowd outside Rajaji Hall | EPS Heavy security near Marina beach as preparations are underway for Jaya's funeral | EPS 11:05 am: Lok Sabha adjourned for the day after obituary reference to Jayalalithaa, who passed away last night in Chennai after a cardiac arrest. 10:55 am: No MTC buses plying in Chennai city from CMBT bus stand; only those operated plying to Rajaji hall | EPS 10: 51 am: A view outside the residence of DMK patriarch Karunanidhi. People sitting outside the residence of Karunanidhi. | Rxpress Photo Service 10: 46 am: Another look of the desolated Chennai city. Empty Bus stand at Ambatur Estate today morning. | Express Photo Service 10 : 44 am: "All tv channels and press please announce that parking for the public is provided in island grounds", the message from a senior Chennai Traffic Police official. 10: 37 am: Kerala declares three days of mourning, with the state cabinet bringing out a resolution in the following direction, on the demise of TN chief minister. 10:27 am: LIVE: Crowd outside Rajaji hall break barricades and try to push their way in. Read all live updates- https://t.co/agw7brjr9u pic.twitter.com/vPQfcrAuqi  New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) December 6, 2016 #Karnataka mourns #JayalalithaDemise @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/90x45XIDG5  Ashwini M Sripad (@AshwiniMS_TNIE) December 6, 2016 10:25 am: Tamil Nadu governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrives at Rajaji Hall to pay floral tributes. 10:23 am: Buses are not plying in Ariyalur, Perambalur districts. Almost all the shops and petrol bunks are closed. No violence incidents recorded in both the districts. Details of situation across different districts below: No violence in Tirupur. Many homage meets and events. As hotels and shops are shut, garment and hosiery workers staying at rented rooms in Tirupur go without food. Only few managed to buy stocks yesterday. Karur remains calm as commercial establishments are closed. Mourning procession planned by district administration from Karur RDO office this morning. No violence in Coimbatore. Most of the shops and petrol bunks were closed. More than 1500 police personnel and 100s of CRPF personnel are deployed in the city for security purpose. 10:20 am: Senior AIADMK leader Sasikala standing beside Jayalalithaa's mortal remains | EPS 10:17 am: Flower vendors created Jayalalithaa's potrait using flowers at Nethaji market in Vellore S Dinesh | EPS) 10:15 am: Vegetable prices shot up as markets and vegetable stalls are closed in Thoothukudi district. A kilogram of tomatoes and brinjals sold for Rs 110 since last night and early morning. Reportedly, no law and order issues across the district. Arterial roads and commercial streets go deserted. Public pay floral tributes and homages to the portraits of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Cutting political lines, all party offices including Dravida Kazhagam had flown the respective party half mast. 10:08 am: Senior officials confirm that Jayalalithaa will be cremated at Marina beach, at 4:30 pm. 10:00 am: Rajya Sabha will adjourn for the day after obituary, as a mark of respect, in memory of Jayalalithaa. 9:50 am: People trying to climb over the wall as they're not allowed inside (Sunish Surendran | EPS) 9:40 am: Delhi: Central Govt declares one-day mourning after the demise of #Jayalalithaa, flags flying at half mast at President House pic.twitter.com/U7KvMQtguY  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016 Minute-by-minute details of how the incidents unfolded last night: READ HERE 9:30 am: Chaos in VIP enclosure as cops find it difficult to control crowd 9:16 am: Pandemonium outside Rajaji Bhavan as people break barricades to pay their last respects to Amma. 9:15 am: Prime minister Narendra Modi's flight departs for Chennai at 9:10 am. 9:10 am: The Madras High Court, Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, Madurai and all the Subordinate Courts in the State of Tamil Nadu to remain closed today as a mark of respect to the late Selvi J Jayalalitha. 9: 09 am: As per the latest inputs, T. Nagar is calm. No shops have opened yet. 9: 01 am: MP Navaneethakrishnan spotted outside the Rajaji Hall. AIADMK MP Navaneethakrishnan. | Express Photo Service 8:58 am: The crowd is getting restless, here are the latest glimpses from outside the Rajaji Hall. 8: 48 am: Another glimpse from inside the Rajaji Hall. Late AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha wrapped in tricolour at Rajaji Hall. | Express Photo Service 8: 38 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will shortly leave for Chennai to pay floral tributes to Jayalalithaa. (PTI). 8: 26 am: Kerala Governor P Sathasivam , Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala are expected to attend the funeral ceremony. #Jayalalithaa : Kerala @KeralaGovernor , CM @vijayanpinarayi , Oppn leaders @chennithala,@Oommen_Chandy to attend funeral @NewIndianXpress  PradeepPillai (@Pillai_TNIE) December 6, 2016 8: 17 am: Glimpses from outside the Rajaji Bhavan, where the AIADMK supremo's mortal remains have been placed; crowd queues up to pay their last respects. People standing in queue outside rajajibhavan in the city. | (Sunish P Surendran | EPS) 8: 08 am: DMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Karunanidhi on Jayalalithaa's death, "even though she passed away at a young age, there is no doubt that her fame will continue forever."   #Jayalalitha         . pic.twitter.com/DRufpWETDt  KalaignarKarunanidhi (@kalaignar89) December 6, 2016 (With additional inputs from agencies)
By IANS

MUMBAI: Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao on Tuesday said he was "deeply shocked and grieved" over the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Describing her as a "charismatic leader and a people's Chief Minister", Rao said she was a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for her sharp intellect.

"She was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled with indefatigable spirit," he said.

Recalling how she received him at the Chennai airport on September 2 when he arrived to assume charge as the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Rao said "her affectionate gesture and kind words are still fresh in my memory".

MUMBAI: Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao on Tuesday said he was "deeply shocked and grieved" over the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa. Describing her as a "charismatic leader and a people's Chief Minister", Rao said she was a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for her sharp intellect. "She was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled with indefatigable spirit," he said. Recalling how she received him at the Chennai airport on September 2 when he arrived to assume charge as the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Rao said "her affectionate gesture and kind words are still fresh in my memory".
By Express News Service

Schools and IT companies closed early, shops shut and markets wore a deserted look as Chief Minister J Jayalalithaas health deteriorated on Monday; bus services were hit in some areas after incidents of stone-pelting; deaths reported

NAGAPATTINAM,COIMBATORE,TIRUCHY, TIRUPUR:Panic prevailed across the State on Monday as some television channels aired wrong news on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaas health earlier on Monday, much before her death happened.

In Nagapattinam, residents, including traders, office-goers, hawkers and autorickshaw drivers, scampered to their homes in the evening after some television channels falsely reported news about the health of the Chief Minister.

From early evening, the markets saw increased footfall as people rushed to stock up groceries and vegetables. But traders shut shops in a hurry. That was the case of petrol stations as well, which forced motorists to throng the ones that were open.

Traffic was affected on the East Coast Road (ECR) following alleged incidents of stone-pelting on buses. I took a Nagapattinam-bound bus from Tiruvarur since government buses were not available. When we reached Neelappaadi, some autorickshaws were parked across the highway disrupting the traffic. Some people were spotted in the vicinity. Soon, the lights of our bus were switched off and after repeated requests from our driver, they let us go. However, unidentified people hurled stones on the bus when we reached Aazhiyoor. We were also forced to alight on the outskirts of Nagapattinam, S Sudhakar, a passenger, told Express.

In Coimbatore, students belonging to other cities and states, who are studying in the city, started moving to their native places following news report about Jayalalithaas worsening health condition.

A large number of students were seen at bus terminals and railway stations waiting to board the vehicle to reach their native places. On the other hand, anticipating hardships, many apparently avoided travelling long distance through buses. According to transport employees, the fare collection of mofussil buses decreased than in the normal days on Monday.

News about the Chief Ministers health also made an impact on normal life of people in Coimbatore. According to Coimbatore Lorry Owners Association, load booking declined when compared to the normal days since Sunday.

We have instructed lorry drivers to stop plying vehicles if the situation turns tense, K R Arumugam, former president of Coimbatore Lorry Owners Association.

Some schools, colleges and IT companies shut shop for the day, much before their usual timings. Mnay theatres cancelled their evening shows. One of the IT companies functioning in Saravanampatti declared holiday afternoon and the employees were told to go home.

Nursing students of the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital were told to leave the campus in the afternoon. However, R Soundravel, Resident Medical Officer, CMCH, denied the same.

The NSB Road, the commercial hub of Tiruchy housing several textile outlets, wore a deserted look in the day.

In Tirupur, the daily market situated opposite to the old bus terminal was almost shut. Two women selling vegetables were almost in tears. Look at the market. All the shops are shut. When we were selling vegetables in the evening, a few men came there and asked us not to go about with business. Some shop owners pacified the men, before closing for the day, they said.

Blood purifying external lifesaver

Extra-corporeal Membrane Oxygenation Machine or just ECMO provides both cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange to sustain life. Heres what it does

Performs the function of the heart and lungs

It removes blood from a patients body and purifies it of carbondioxide

Providing respiratory and cardiac support

It is used to revive a patient, depending on their condition,after a cardiac arrest

Constraint

Prolonging utility poses the danger of the patient getting infection

Benefit

Many patients on ECMO support have survived

How it works

Special tubes called cannulas are put into the blood vessels that go directly into the heart or bloodstream

The cannulas transfer the blood from the heart by using a pump to push the blood through tubes to the machine where the blood receives oxygen and the carbondioxide is removed

Next, the blood is warmed to body temperature

The warm blood goes through another cannula into the body

What are the modes of ECMO support?

Veno-Arterial (VA)

VA ECMO provides support for both the lungs and the heart

Two cannulas are placed in large vessels on the side of the neck, directly into the chest or into the groin vessels

The ECMO machine will drain the blood from the vein, add the oxygen and remove the carbon dioxide, warm the blood and then return the blood to the artery and pump the blood through the body

This method allows the blood to bypass the heart and lungs, allowing them to rest and get better

Veno-Venous (VV)

This type of ECMO provides support for the lungs only

One or two cannulas are placed in large vein(s) on the side of the neck or in the groin area at the top of the leg

Heart will continue to work normally during the process

The ECMO machine drains blood from vein through the cannula

Oxygen is added to the blood, carbon dioxide is removed

Blood is warmed and returned to the right side of the heart through the cannula

The heart pumps the oxygenated blood to the body, so that the lungs have time to rest and recover

Heart matters

For the layman

A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked, while a cardiac arrest happens when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating

A heart attack is a circulation problem, while cardiac arrest is an electrical problem.

What is a heart attack?

It occurs when a blocked artery prevents oxygen-rich blood from reaching a section of the heart

The risk

If the blocked artery is not reopened quickly, the part of the heart normally nourished by that artery begins to die

Symptoms

May be immediate and intense, but more often the symptoms start slowly and persist for hours, days or weeks

The difference

The heart, usually, does not stop beating during a heart attack

What is cardiac arrest?

Cardiac arrest occurs suddenly and often without warning

It is triggered by an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia)

This disrupts pumping action, rendering heart unable to circulate blood to the brain, lungs and other organs

A person loses consciousness and has no pulse

Death occurs within minutes, if the victim does not receive treatment

What is the link?

These two distinct heart conditions are linked:

Sudden cardiac arrest can occur after a heart attack, or during recovery

Heart attacks increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest

Most heart attacks do not lead to sudden cardiac arrest, but when a sudden cardiac arrest occurs, heart attack is a common cause

Schools and IT companies closed early, shops shut and markets wore a deserted look as Chief Minister J Jayalalithaas health deteriorated on Monday; bus services were hit in some areas after incidents of stone-pelting; deaths reported NAGAPATTINAM,COIMBATORE,TIRUCHY, TIRUPUR:Panic prevailed across the State on Monday as some television channels aired wrong news on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaas health earlier on Monday, much before her death happened. In Nagapattinam, residents, including traders, office-goers, hawkers and autorickshaw drivers, scampered to their homes in the evening after some television channels falsely reported news about the health of the Chief Minister. From early evening, the markets saw increased footfall as people rushed to stock up groceries and vegetables. But traders shut shops in a hurry. That was the case of petrol stations as well, which forced motorists to throng the ones that were open. Traffic was affected on the East Coast Road (ECR) following alleged incidents of stone-pelting on buses. I took a Nagapattinam-bound bus from Tiruvarur since government buses were not available. When we reached Neelappaadi, some autorickshaws were parked across the highway disrupting the traffic. Some people were spotted in the vicinity. Soon, the lights of our bus were switched off and after repeated requests from our driver, they let us go. However, unidentified people hurled stones on the bus when we reached Aazhiyoor. We were also forced to alight on the outskirts of Nagapattinam, S Sudhakar, a passenger, told Express. In Coimbatore, students belonging to other cities and states, who are studying in the city, started moving to their native places following news report about Jayalalithaas worsening health condition. A large number of students were seen at bus terminals and railway stations waiting to board the vehicle to reach their native places. On the other hand, anticipating hardships, many apparently avoided travelling long distance through buses. According to transport employees, the fare collection of mofussil buses decreased than in the normal days on Monday. News about the Chief Ministers health also made an impact on normal life of people in Coimbatore. According to Coimbatore Lorry Owners Association, load booking declined when compared to the normal days since Sunday. We have instructed lorry drivers to stop plying vehicles if the situation turns tense, K R Arumugam, former president of Coimbatore Lorry Owners Association. Some schools, colleges and IT companies shut shop for the day, much before their usual timings. Mnay theatres cancelled their evening shows. One of the IT companies functioning in Saravanampatti declared holiday afternoon and the employees were told to go home. Nursing students of the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital were told to leave the campus in the afternoon. However, R Soundravel, Resident Medical Officer, CMCH, denied the same. The NSB Road, the commercial hub of Tiruchy housing several textile outlets, wore a deserted look in the day. In Tirupur, the daily market situated opposite to the old bus terminal was almost shut. Two women selling vegetables were almost in tears. Look at the market. All the shops are shut. When we were selling vegetables in the evening, a few men came there and asked us not to go about with business. Some shop owners pacified the men, before closing for the day, they said. Blood purifying external lifesaver Extra-corporeal Membrane Oxygenation Machine or just ECMO provides both cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange to sustain life. Heres what it does Performs the function of the heart and lungs It removes blood from a patients body and purifies it of carbondioxide Providing respiratory and cardiac support It is used to revive a patient, depending on their condition,after a cardiac arrest Constraint Prolonging utility poses the danger of the patient getting infection Benefit Many patients on ECMO support have survived How it works Special tubes called cannulas are put into the blood vessels that go directly into the heart or bloodstream The cannulas transfer the blood from the heart by using a pump to push the blood through tubes to the machine where the blood receives oxygen and the carbondioxide is removed Next, the blood is warmed to body temperature The warm blood goes through another cannula into the body What are the modes of ECMO support? Veno-Arterial (VA) VA ECMO provides support for both the lungs and the heart Two cannulas are placed in large vessels on the side of the neck, directly into the chest or into the groin vessels The ECMO machine will drain the blood from the vein, add the oxygen and remove the carbon dioxide, warm the blood and then return the blood to the artery and pump the blood through the body This method allows the blood to bypass the heart and lungs, allowing them to rest and get better Veno-Venous (VV) This type of ECMO provides support for the lungs only One or two cannulas are placed in large vein(s) on the side of the neck or in the groin area at the top of the leg Heart will continue to work normally during the process The ECMO machine drains blood from vein through the cannula Oxygen is added to the blood, carbon dioxide is removed Blood is warmed and returned to the right side of the heart through the cannula The heart pumps the oxygenated blood to the body, so that the lungs have time to rest and recover Heart matters For the layman A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked, while a cardiac arrest happens when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating A heart attack is a circulation problem, while cardiac arrest is an electrical problem. What is a heart attack? It occurs when a blocked artery prevents oxygen-rich blood from reaching a section of the heart The risk If the blocked artery is not reopened quickly, the part of the heart normally nourished by that artery begins to die Symptoms May be immediate and intense, but more often the symptoms start slowly and persist for hours, days or weeks The difference The heart, usually, does not stop beating during a heart attack What is cardiac arrest? Cardiac arrest occurs suddenly and often without warning It is triggered by an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) This disrupts pumping action, rendering heart unable to circulate blood to the brain, lungs and other organs A person loses consciousness and has no pulse Death occurs within minutes, if the victim does not receive treatment What is the link? These two distinct heart conditions are linked: Sudden cardiac arrest can occur after a heart attack, or during recovery Heart attacks increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest Most heart attacks do not lead to sudden cardiac arrest, but when a sudden cardiac arrest occurs, heart attack is a common cause
Vikram Sharma By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: When IPS officer K Vijay Kumar was appointed to head Tamil Nadu's Special Security Group (SSG) whose primary task was to ensure chief minister J Jayalalithaa's security, he was apprehensive about her cooperation. His inputs suggested she faced the highest threat quotient in the country.



He approached the chief minister uncertain about the reaction. "My mission is to keep you safe. You face a high threat quotient. So we will have to balance your appearances in public,'' the IPS officer told the chief minister.



She smiled and replied: "Your mission is to keep me safe. My mission is to be among the people, talk to them and work for them. I cannot be away from the people. But yes, I will cooperate with you and I know you will do your job."

For the next five years, Vijay Kumar's team did what they had to and she did what she pleased.

In an interview to New Indian Express after the death of Jayalalithaa, Vijay Kumar, presently a senior security adviser to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), spoke about his association with the late chief minister and the highly professional manner in which she conducted herself.

The job of protecting Jayalalithaa was one of a number of challenging assignments in Vijay Kumar's career. He has been director-general of the CRPF, police commissioner of Chennai and headed the task force that hunted down forest brigand Veerappan.

"Jayalalithaa was a thorough professional," Vijay Kumar said. "She always believed in giving us a free hand and never meddled or interfered in any manner, be it in operations, posting of officers or the progress of cases. She had immense confidence in me and my team and would leave matters to us

to handle. Only a chief minister who understands professionals can do that."

Vijay Kumar was in Chennai on Tuesday for the funeral of the late chief minister.

The security maven recalled that he had Jayalalithaa's unwavering supporting him in the operation (codenamed Cocoon) against Veerappan whose notoriety had come to national attention. Some seven months before the task force finally found Veerappan and gunned him down, Vijay Kumar just happened to be in Chennai for a day on some work away from the theater of operations in Dharmapuri. Jayalalithaa was busy in an election meeting but he decided to call on her anyway.

"She had not summoned me nor was there any urgency. It was just a courtesy call as I was in Chennai after several months,'' recalled Vijay Kumar.



After exchanging pleasantries, Vijay Kumar told her ''We are trying our best (to get Veerappan).....'' To this, Jayalalithaa simply replied ''Yes, I'm sure you are and I'm confident you will'' and continued with the election meeting, without asking for any details of the operation.

"She just left it to us, professionals. She never insisted on knowing when we might be able to nab him or the details of operations. She knew that it was a tough operation,'' said Vijay Kumar

Then again, just five weeks before the brigand was finally killed, Vijay Kumar once again called on Jayalalithaa at Fort St George, again as a courtesy visit. He was taken aback when Jayalalithaa told him: ''I have a feeling that you will be completing your task soon.''

''I was surprised as this came out of the blue. I smiled and left. But whether you call it a hunch or anything else, in the next five weeks, we were able to trap Veerappan. He was injured in an exchange of fire after which he died. I then recalled the chief minister's words. When I called her to inform her about the development, she congratulated each one of us,'' says Vijay Kumar.

Asked whether he was indeed a blue-eyed boy of Jayalalithaa, Vijay Kumar said it was drilled into him during training for VVIP security operations never to get too attached to the protectee. ''If we as officials get sucked into the aura around a VVIP, then our professional work will suffer. Exchanging pleasantries was normal but that about it. She used to enquire about my family. When my father passed away, she was the first one to convey her condolences. She was very caring, not only towards me but for every constable in Tamil Nadu,'' Vijay Kumar said.

Vijay Kumar recalls that even as the police commissioner of Chennai, not once did Jayalalithaa call him up to interfere in a posting. ''She never once called me and asked me to do things according to the way she wanted. She gave me a free hand as police commissioner and I was free to pick up my team or drop anyone.''

Asked about the impression that he was dictatorial in her functioning, Vijay Kumar said he never felt that way. ''She was never dictatorial. On the contrary, she used to, as I said, give all of us a free hand and this is the reason we could perform better.''

HYDERABAD: When IPS officer K Vijay Kumar was appointed to head Tamil Nadu's Special Security Group (SSG) whose primary task was to ensure chief minister J Jayalalithaa's security, he was apprehensive about her cooperation. His inputs suggested she faced the highest threat quotient in the country. He approached the chief minister uncertain about the reaction. "My mission is to keep you safe. You face a high threat quotient. So we will have to balance your appearances in public,'' the IPS officer told the chief minister. She smiled and replied: "Your mission is to keep me safe. My mission is to be among the people, talk to them and work for them. I cannot be away from the people. But yes, I will cooperate with you and I know you will do your job." For the next five years, Vijay Kumar's team did what they had to and she did what she pleased. In an interview to New Indian Express after the death of Jayalalithaa, Vijay Kumar, presently a senior security adviser to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), spoke about his association with the late chief minister and the highly professional manner in which she conducted herself. The job of protecting Jayalalithaa was one of a number of challenging assignments in Vijay Kumar's career. He has been director-general of the CRPF, police commissioner of Chennai and headed the task force that hunted down forest brigand Veerappan. "Jayalalithaa was a thorough professional," Vijay Kumar said. "She always believed in giving us a free hand and never meddled or interfered in any manner, be it in operations, posting of officers or the progress of cases. She had immense confidence in me and my team and would leave matters to us to handle. Only a chief minister who understands professionals can do that." Vijay Kumar was in Chennai on Tuesday for the funeral of the late chief minister. The security maven recalled that he had Jayalalithaa's unwavering supporting him in the operation (codenamed Cocoon) against Veerappan whose notoriety had come to national attention. Some seven months before the task force finally found Veerappan and gunned him down, Vijay Kumar just happened to be in Chennai for a day on some work away from the theater of operations in Dharmapuri. Jayalalithaa was busy in an election meeting but he decided to call on her anyway. "She had not summoned me nor was there any urgency. It was just a courtesy call as I was in Chennai after several months,'' recalled Vijay Kumar. After exchanging pleasantries, Vijay Kumar told her ''We are trying our best (to get Veerappan).....'' To this, Jayalalithaa simply replied ''Yes, I'm sure you are and I'm confident you will'' and continued with the election meeting, without asking for any details of the operation. "She just left it to us, professionals. She never insisted on knowing when we might be able to nab him or the details of operations. She knew that it was a tough operation,'' said Vijay Kumar Then again, just five weeks before the brigand was finally killed, Vijay Kumar once again called on Jayalalithaa at Fort St George, again as a courtesy visit. He was taken aback when Jayalalithaa told him: ''I have a feeling that you will be completing your task soon.'' ''I was surprised as this came out of the blue. I smiled and left. But whether you call it a hunch or anything else, in the next five weeks, we were able to trap Veerappan. He was injured in an exchange of fire after which he died. I then recalled the chief minister's words. When I called her to inform her about the development, she congratulated each one of us,'' says Vijay Kumar. Asked whether he was indeed a blue-eyed boy of Jayalalithaa, Vijay Kumar said it was drilled into him during training for VVIP security operations never to get too attached to the protectee. ''If we as officials get sucked into the aura around a VVIP, then our professional work will suffer. Exchanging pleasantries was normal but that about it. She used to enquire about my family. When my father passed away, she was the first one to convey her condolences. She was very caring, not only towards me but for every constable in Tamil Nadu,'' Vijay Kumar said. Vijay Kumar recalls that even as the police commissioner of Chennai, not once did Jayalalithaa call him up to interfere in a posting. ''She never once called me and asked me to do things according to the way she wanted. She gave me a free hand as police commissioner and I was free to pick up my team or drop anyone.'' Asked about the impression that he was dictatorial in her functioning, Vijay Kumar said he never felt that way. ''She was never dictatorial. On the contrary, she used to, as I said, give all of us a free hand and this is the reason we could perform better.''
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Even as the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) chairman Professor M Kodandaram aggressively undertakes yatras across the state, holding meetings on peoples issues, the ruling TRS on Sunday branded him an agent of the Opposition parties, particularly the Congress.

Kodandaram has become a pawn in the hands of Opposition. He is a covert of the Congress Party. Hence, it has become a habit for him to criticise government on every issue, TRS MP Balka Suman, MLCs- Karne Prabhakar and Prof Srinivas Reddy, alleged.

Addressing mediapersons here, the three TRS leaders accused Kodandaram of joining hands with the opposition parties to tarnish the image of the State government.

It was KCR, who made Kodandaram the chairman of the Telangana JAC, during the Telangana movement. Till then, nobody knew about this professor. Because of the initiative taken by KCR, Kodandaram got popularity as the chairman of the TJAC later. Despite this, Kodandaram has made it a habit to criticise the government on every issue, now, Balka Suman said.

The TRS MP, then, accused the TJAC chairman of trying to create obstacles for the development of the State only to revive the Congress Party, which is on ventilator, in the State.

Alleging that the professor did not come forward to quit his post during the Telangana movement, Suman wanted to know how such a person could target the government, which is run by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, whose relentless fight forced the then UPA government to accord statehood to Telangana.

Telangana is being developed on all fronts under the leadership of CM KCR. Programmes like Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha and Harithaharam are the examples for this. However, Kodandaram is unable to see this development as his only aim is to revive the Congress Party in the State, the TRS MP criticised.

The TRS leaders further alleged that before the bifurcation of the State, Kodandaram had tried to promote violence in the statehood movement as per the script drawn by the Congress Party. However, KCRs cautious approach averted such possibility, thus paving the way for the formation of new State, they added.

Mulugu protests cited

Objecting to the way the professor had recently openly backed the ongoing protests at Mulugu in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, seeking district status to Mulugu, the TRS leaders, said, It shows that Kodandaram has become a puppet in the hands of the anti-Telangana forces. How could he take part in a programme attended by TDP leader A Revanth Reddy, who is carrying out the Andhra agenda in Telangana?

On the other hand, the TJAC chairman is getting ready to hold a massive dharna on December 15 in Hyderabad with the oustees of various projects.

HYDERABAD: Even as the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) chairman Professor M Kodandaram aggressively undertakes yatras across the state, holding meetings on peoples issues, the ruling TRS on Sunday branded him an agent of the Opposition parties, particularly the Congress. Kodandaram has become a pawn in the hands of Opposition. He is a covert of the Congress Party. Hence, it has become a habit for him to criticise government on every issue, TRS MP Balka Suman, MLCs- Karne Prabhakar and Prof Srinivas Reddy, alleged. Addressing mediapersons here, the three TRS leaders accused Kodandaram of joining hands with the opposition parties to tarnish the image of the State government. It was KCR, who made Kodandaram the chairman of the Telangana JAC, during the Telangana movement. Till then, nobody knew about this professor. Because of the initiative taken by KCR, Kodandaram got popularity as the chairman of the TJAC later. Despite this, Kodandaram has made it a habit to criticise the government on every issue, now, Balka Suman said. The TRS MP, then, accused the TJAC chairman of trying to create obstacles for the development of the State only to revive the Congress Party, which is on ventilator, in the State. Alleging that the professor did not come forward to quit his post during the Telangana movement, Suman wanted to know how such a person could target the government, which is run by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, whose relentless fight forced the then UPA government to accord statehood to Telangana. Telangana is being developed on all fronts under the leadership of CM KCR. Programmes like Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha and Harithaharam are the examples for this. However, Kodandaram is unable to see this development as his only aim is to revive the Congress Party in the State, the TRS MP criticised. The TRS leaders further alleged that before the bifurcation of the State, Kodandaram had tried to promote violence in the statehood movement as per the script drawn by the Congress Party. However, KCRs cautious approach averted such possibility, thus paving the way for the formation of new State, they added. Mulugu protests cited Objecting to the way the professor had recently openly backed the ongoing protests at Mulugu in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district, seeking district status to Mulugu, the TRS leaders, said, It shows that Kodandaram has become a puppet in the hands of the anti-Telangana forces. How could he take part in a programme attended by TDP leader A Revanth Reddy, who is carrying out the Andhra agenda in Telangana? On the other hand, the TJAC chairman is getting ready to hold a massive dharna on December 15 in Hyderabad with the oustees of various projects.
By AFP

KARLSRUHE: A German court will rule Tuesday on whether three big energy suppliers are entitled to billions of euros in compensation over the country's decision to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

German electricity giants EON and RWE and Sweden's Vattenfall have argued that the government-ordered shutdown of the country's nuclear plants amounts to an "expropriation" of their assets.

They have asked the Constitutional Court in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe to award them some 20 billion euros ($21 billion) in damages, according to media reports.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government decided after Japan's 2011 Fukushima reactor meltdowns to halt operations of Germany's eight oldest nuclear plants and to shutter the other nine by 2022.

The move marked a sharp reversal for Merkel. She had earlier overturned a phase-out ordered by a previous government in 2002 and extended the lifespan of Germany's nuclear fleet until 2036.

The chief of Germany's biggest power company EON, Johannes Teyssen, told the court in March that while the companies respected the political choice to give up on nuclear energy, they should not have to foot the bill alone.

"We cannot simply accept that parliament disregarded constitutional requirements by providing for no compensation," he said at the time.

"For our shareholders -- including many small stock holders who have their savings and pensions invested with us -- this creates a significant financial loss which under current law will not be compensated for."

- Leverage -

The firms have complained that the losses come at a time when they are already struggling in the face of low wholesale electricity prices and competition from heavily subsidised renewables as part of Germany's shift to clean energy such as wind, solar and biomass.

Critics however have countered that the big energy companies benefited from massive state subsidies when the nuclear plants first went into operation.

At the same court hearing in March, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks defended the government's position, saying that the Fukushima catastrophe had "necessitated a reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear energy".

Observers said the outcome of the case was difficult to predict, complicated by the fact that judges would also have to rule on whether Vattenfall's complaint was even admissable in a German court given that it is a Swedish company.

The verdict could have an impact on separate negotiations between the government and nuclear plant operators on managing the country's atomic waste disposal.

Under a draft law approved in October, the firms Vattenfall, EON, RWE and EnBW would have to contribute 23.5 billion euros to a state fund for the storage of nuclear waste by 2022.

The agreement is yet to be finalised however, and the plaintiffs may well use a favourable verdict as leverage in the talks.

Safely decommissioning all the plants and storing their radioactive parts and waste could cost up to 50 billion euros, experts estimate.

Eight nuclear power stations remain in operation in Germany today.

KARLSRUHE: A German court will rule Tuesday on whether three big energy suppliers are entitled to billions of euros in compensation over the country's decision to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. German electricity giants EON and RWE and Sweden's Vattenfall have argued that the government-ordered shutdown of the country's nuclear plants amounts to an "expropriation" of their assets. They have asked the Constitutional Court in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe to award them some 20 billion euros ($21 billion) in damages, according to media reports. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government decided after Japan's 2011 Fukushima reactor meltdowns to halt operations of Germany's eight oldest nuclear plants and to shutter the other nine by 2022. The move marked a sharp reversal for Merkel. She had earlier overturned a phase-out ordered by a previous government in 2002 and extended the lifespan of Germany's nuclear fleet until 2036. The chief of Germany's biggest power company EON, Johannes Teyssen, told the court in March that while the companies respected the political choice to give up on nuclear energy, they should not have to foot the bill alone. "We cannot simply accept that parliament disregarded constitutional requirements by providing for no compensation," he said at the time. "For our shareholders -- including many small stock holders who have their savings and pensions invested with us -- this creates a significant financial loss which under current law will not be compensated for." - Leverage - The firms have complained that the losses come at a time when they are already struggling in the face of low wholesale electricity prices and competition from heavily subsidised renewables as part of Germany's shift to clean energy such as wind, solar and biomass. Critics however have countered that the big energy companies benefited from massive state subsidies when the nuclear plants first went into operation. At the same court hearing in March, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks defended the government's position, saying that the Fukushima catastrophe had "necessitated a reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear energy". Observers said the outcome of the case was difficult to predict, complicated by the fact that judges would also have to rule on whether Vattenfall's complaint was even admissable in a German court given that it is a Swedish company. The verdict could have an impact on separate negotiations between the government and nuclear plant operators on managing the country's atomic waste disposal. Under a draft law approved in October, the firms Vattenfall, EON, RWE and EnBW would have to contribute 23.5 billion euros to a state fund for the storage of nuclear waste by 2022. The agreement is yet to be finalised however, and the plaintiffs may well use a favourable verdict as leverage in the talks. Safely decommissioning all the plants and storing their radioactive parts and waste could cost up to 50 billion euros, experts estimate. Eight nuclear power stations remain in operation in Germany today.
By Associated Press

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won't apologize for Japan's attack when he visits the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor later this month, the government spokesman said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that "the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology."

Abe announced late Monday that he would have a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Hawaii and visit Pearl Harbor. He will be the first Japanese leader to go to the site of the Japanese attack that propelled the United States into World War II.

The unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.

"We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the U.S."

The White House confirmed that Obama and Abe would visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 27. It said "the two leaders' visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values."

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, on an official trip to Japan, said he would tell Abe at a meeting later Tuesday how pleased Obama and the U.S. are.

The announcement of the summit comes as Japan worries about the direction of U.S. foreign policy under Obama's successor, Donald Trump.

Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said that together with Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbor visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration.

"Historical disputes tend to be brought up when relations become thorny ... but once you put them behind and move on, it makes a difference if there is any negative sentiment in the future," he said.

But Koichi Nakano, a professor of international politics at Tokyo's Sophia University, said the Pearl Harbor visit and Abe's commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance are tantamount to "giving a blank check to Trump" despite the uncertainty over bilateral relations under his administration.

More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen died in the aerial attack, which will be marked Wednesday at Pearl Harbor with a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes hit their first target.

Three and a half years later, the war came to an end after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won't apologize for Japan's attack when he visits the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor later this month, the government spokesman said Tuesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that "the purpose of the upcoming visit is to pay respects for the war dead and not to offer an apology." Abe announced late Monday that he would have a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Hawaii and visit Pearl Harbor. He will be the first Japanese leader to go to the site of the Japanese attack that propelled the United States into World War II. The unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war. "We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a message of reconciliation between Japan and the U.S." The White House confirmed that Obama and Abe would visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 27. It said "the two leaders' visit will showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values." Defense Secretary Ash Carter, on an official trip to Japan, said he would tell Abe at a meeting later Tuesday how pleased Obama and the U.S. are. The announcement of the summit comes as Japan worries about the direction of U.S. foreign policy under Obama's successor, Donald Trump. Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said that together with Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the Pearl Harbor visit will complete the reconciliation process and help smooth bilateral relations under any administration. "Historical disputes tend to be brought up when relations become thorny ... but once you put them behind and move on, it makes a difference if there is any negative sentiment in the future," he said. But Koichi Nakano, a professor of international politics at Tokyo's Sophia University, said the Pearl Harbor visit and Abe's commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance are tantamount to "giving a blank check to Trump" despite the uncertainty over bilateral relations under his administration. More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen died in the aerial attack, which will be marked Wednesday at Pearl Harbor with a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes hit their first target. Three and a half years later, the war came to an end after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.
By ANI

WASHINGTON: Special Assistant to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for Foreign Affairs, Tariq Fatemi has said that Islamabad is looking forward to work closely with Trump administration to further enhance its bilateral relations with the United States.

Once President-elect Donald Trump assumes his office, Pakistan is looking forward to meaningful engagement with USA in further improving bilateral relations and playing its role in the context of regional and international issues, Geo News quoted Fatemi as saying at the Pakistani embassy.

He informed the media that he was visiting the country to have discussions with the current U.S. administration and to meet the officials who are likely to join Trump administration.



Fatemi said that an instrumental role can be played by Pakistan role in promoting peace not only in Afghanistan but in the entire region.



Asserting that Pakistan has lost more five thousand army men in a ruthless war against terrorism, Fatemi said that Islamabad is committed to put an end to terrorism and more than 200,000 troops have been deployed by them in its Northern Areas and along Pak-Afghan border to burst terrorists networks and demolishing their hideouts.



He also emphasized on a need to resolve the long-standing issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan through a dialogue between the two sides.

WASHINGTON: Special Assistant to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for Foreign Affairs, Tariq Fatemi has said that Islamabad is looking forward to work closely with Trump administration to further enhance its bilateral relations with the United States. Once President-elect Donald Trump assumes his office, Pakistan is looking forward to meaningful engagement with USA in further improving bilateral relations and playing its role in the context of regional and international issues, Geo News quoted Fatemi as saying at the Pakistani embassy. He informed the media that he was visiting the country to have discussions with the current U.S. administration and to meet the officials who are likely to join Trump administration. Fatemi said that an instrumental role can be played by Pakistan role in promoting peace not only in Afghanistan but in the entire region. Asserting that Pakistan has lost more five thousand army men in a ruthless war against terrorism, Fatemi said that Islamabad is committed to put an end to terrorism and more than 200,000 troops have been deployed by them in its Northern Areas and along Pak-Afghan border to burst terrorists networks and demolishing their hideouts. He also emphasized on a need to resolve the long-standing issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan through a dialogue between the two sides.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: The outgoing Obama administration appears to be in differences with President-elect Donald Trump over the China policy, saying it has been in contact with the Chinese officials to reiterate its continued support to the long-standing one-China policy.

Responding to questions, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest even tended to question the impact of such a policy could have on stability in the region and its impact on not only the US, China but also Taiwan.

When asked about Trump's phone call to Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-wen, earnest said it is hard to determine exactly what the aim was of the President-elect.

"If the President-elect's team has a different aim, I will leave it on them to describe," Earnest said. "I know both the Vice President-elect and his campaign manager were," he said when asked about this over the weekend indicated that these were courtesy calls or that this was a courtesy call and the President-elect was merely returning that call.

The Washington Post today tells a different story, with some Trump aides indicating that this was a long-planned call and that this is part of a broader strategic effort.

"It is unclear exactly what the strategic effort is, what the aim of the strategic effort is, and it is unclear exactly what potential benefit could be experienced by the US, China or Taiwan but I will leave that on them to explain," he said.

Trump last week spoke over phone with Taiwanese President, the first by a top American leader since 1979, and then in a series of tweets slammed China for alleged currency manipulation and military build-up in the South China Sea. His top aids have tended to dismiss the concerns, saying that this was merely courtesy call. Trump's one of the election campaign promises was to declare China a currency manipulator.

"I am aware of two different phone conversations with officials at the National Security Council with their Chinese counterparts. "What we have made clear in a couple of different phone conversations is that the administration is committed to our nation's pursuit of a one-China policy rooted in three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act," Earnest said.

"This is a policy that is based on three joint US-China communiques that were negotiated by different US Presidents in different parties and, of course, by the Taiwan Relations Act. "This is a policy that has been in place for nearly 40 years, and it has been focused on promoting and preserving peace and stability in the strait. The adherence to and commitment to this policy has advanced the ability of the US to make progress in our relationship with China and of course has benefited the people of Taiwan," he said.

Earnest said that Taiwan, after all, is the ninth-largest trading partner of the US, and they certainly benefit from peace and stability in the strait and pursuit of and commitment to that peace and stability advances US interests.

WASHINGTON: The outgoing Obama administration appears to be in differences with President-elect Donald Trump over the China policy, saying it has been in contact with the Chinese officials to reiterate its continued support to the long-standing one-China policy. Responding to questions, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest even tended to question the impact of such a policy could have on stability in the region and its impact on not only the US, China but also Taiwan. When asked about Trump's phone call to Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-wen, earnest said it is hard to determine exactly what the aim was of the President-elect. "If the President-elect's team has a different aim, I will leave it on them to describe," Earnest said. "I know both the Vice President-elect and his campaign manager were," he said when asked about this over the weekend indicated that these were courtesy calls or that this was a courtesy call and the President-elect was merely returning that call. The Washington Post today tells a different story, with some Trump aides indicating that this was a long-planned call and that this is part of a broader strategic effort. "It is unclear exactly what the strategic effort is, what the aim of the strategic effort is, and it is unclear exactly what potential benefit could be experienced by the US, China or Taiwan but I will leave that on them to explain," he said. Trump last week spoke over phone with Taiwanese President, the first by a top American leader since 1979, and then in a series of tweets slammed China for alleged currency manipulation and military build-up in the South China Sea. His top aids have tended to dismiss the concerns, saying that this was merely courtesy call. Trump's one of the election campaign promises was to declare China a currency manipulator. "I am aware of two different phone conversations with officials at the National Security Council with their Chinese counterparts. "What we have made clear in a couple of different phone conversations is that the administration is committed to our nation's pursuit of a one-China policy rooted in three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act," Earnest said. "This is a policy that is based on three joint US-China communiques that were negotiated by different US Presidents in different parties and, of course, by the Taiwan Relations Act. "This is a policy that has been in place for nearly 40 years, and it has been focused on promoting and preserving peace and stability in the strait. The adherence to and commitment to this policy has advanced the ability of the US to make progress in our relationship with China and of course has benefited the people of Taiwan," he said. Earnest said that Taiwan, after all, is the ninth-largest trading partner of the US, and they certainly benefit from peace and stability in the strait and pursuit of and commitment to that peace and stability advances US interests.
By Associated Press

COX'S BAZAR: The Myanmar soldiers came in the morning, the young mother says. They set fire to the concrete-and-thatch homes, forcing the villagers to cluster together. When some of her neighbors tried to escape into the fields, they were shot. After that, she says, most people stopped running away.

"They drove us out of our houses, men and women in separate lines, ordering us to keep our hands folded on the back of our heads," says 20-year-old Mohsena Begum, her voice choking as she described what happened to the little village of Caira Fara, which had long been home to hundreds of members of Myanmar's minority Rohingya community. She said that when about 50 people had been gathered together, the soldiers, along with a group of local men, pulled four village leaders from the crowd and slit their throats.

Muslims in an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, the Rohingya have long faced persecution in Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship. The latest outbreak of violence was triggered by October attacks on guard posts near the Bangladesh border that killed nine police officers. While the attackers' identities and motives are unclear, the government launched a massive counter-insurgency sweep through Rohingya areas in western Rakhine state. Most Rohingya live in Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.

The government, which has implied the attacks were carried out by Rohingya sympathizers, has acknowledged using helicopter gunships in support of ground troops in the sweep. While survivors and human rights groups have tracked waves of anti-Rohingya violence in recent weeks, the Myanmar government insists that stories like Begum's are exaggerations.

Myanmar's leader, the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has accused the international community of stoking unrest.

"It doesn't help if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation, in spite of the fact that there were attacks on police outposts," she said in a recent interview on Singapore's Channel News Asia.

Suu Kyi, whose party took power in March after decades of military-backed rule, has been accused of not acting strongly enough to curb the violence against the more than 1 million Rohingya believed to be in the country. Although many have lived in Rakhine for generations, they are widely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

"It helps if people recognize the difficulty and are more focused on resolving these difficulties rather than exaggerating them, so that everything seems worse than it really is," she said in the interview.

But Begum says she has no need to exaggerate what happened in Caira Fara.

She said that after the four leaders were killed, violence churned through the village in chaotic scenes of horror. Begum's husband, a poor, illiterate farm laborer, was beaten and then murdered by having his throat slit, along with an unknown number of other villagers, she said. Their bodies were eventually driven away in a truck.

She said attackers knocked her young son knocked from her grasp, then raped her.

Finally, when the soldiers weren't paying attention, she grabbed her son and ran into the nearby hills. After hiding for two days, her brother gave her enough money  about $38  to pay smugglers to get her and her son into Bangladesh.

When Bangladeshi border guards stopped them, she began to weep.

"I told them I have no one to protect me there," she says, and told them: "'Look at my baby! He will die if I go back there.'" After that, they let her pass.

Much of Rakhine has been closed to outsiders, including journalists, since the violence began. However, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, leader of a commission formed to investigate the situation in Rakhine state, was allowed to visit in recent days. He is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city.

Along the banks of the Naf River, which marks the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, it's not difficult to find people who can talk about what is happening.

Some 15,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh over past month, often brought in by smugglers, according to police and intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government refuses to release numbers publicly. They have joined up to 500,000 undocumented Rohingya who have been living in Bangladesh after arriving from Myanmar in waves since the 1970s. Some 33,000 registered Rohingya refugees live the Cox's Bazar district. Bangladesh does not welcome Rohingya  its maritime patrols sometimes turn back refugee boats full of them  but it is seen as a haven compared to Myanmar.

The U.N. says up 30,000 Rohingya Muslims have abandoned their homes amid the recent violence. Satellite images analyzed by the rights group Human Rights Watch show 1,250 structures destroyed in November in Rohingya villages.

Osman Gani, a thin, fast-talking Arabic teacher, fled after his village, Gouzo Bil, was attacked Nov. 11.

"They came and killed mercilessly. They burned our homes," says Gani, standing near the Naf River over the weekend. "No one was there to save us."

He hid with his family for about a week near the village. But when searches intensified, and with soldiers targeting men, he was forced to leave Myanmar without his family.

"I had no other choice but to leave them behind. I came to the bank of the river and started swimming," he says. His family was able to join him in Bangladesh a few days later.

As he fled north, he used his mobile phone to film destruction in other Rohingya villages he passed through. In some, the blackened remains of what appear to be children can be seen amid the wreckage of homes. Gani's voice can be heard in some of the videos but The Associated Press could not confirm their authenticity.

"They (the army) oppressed us and fired at us from aircraft," Gani says. "People were killed in front of my house. They chased the girls and gunned them down. And they burned many people. They burned them in front of my house.

"I have shot videos!" he says, holding out his mobile phone to a reporter. "Don't you see the charred bodies?"

While he was initially in hiding after the attack, Osmani said he also managed to slip back into his village and film what remained of his home.

As he walks through the village, a child can be heard talking to him.

"Where are you coming from?" the boy asks.

Gani doesn't answer, instead asking, "Where's my cow?"

Then he pans through the ashes and broken concrete. "This is my land, my home," he says. "This is Puitta's. This is Uncle Yunus."

COX'S BAZAR: The Myanmar soldiers came in the morning, the young mother says. They set fire to the concrete-and-thatch homes, forcing the villagers to cluster together. When some of her neighbors tried to escape into the fields, they were shot. After that, she says, most people stopped running away. "They drove us out of our houses, men and women in separate lines, ordering us to keep our hands folded on the back of our heads," says 20-year-old Mohsena Begum, her voice choking as she described what happened to the little village of Caira Fara, which had long been home to hundreds of members of Myanmar's minority Rohingya community. She said that when about 50 people had been gathered together, the soldiers, along with a group of local men, pulled four village leaders from the crowd and slit their throats. Muslims in an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, the Rohingya have long faced persecution in Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship. The latest outbreak of violence was triggered by October attacks on guard posts near the Bangladesh border that killed nine police officers. While the attackers' identities and motives are unclear, the government launched a massive counter-insurgency sweep through Rohingya areas in western Rakhine state. Most Rohingya live in Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh. The government, which has implied the attacks were carried out by Rohingya sympathizers, has acknowledged using helicopter gunships in support of ground troops in the sweep. While survivors and human rights groups have tracked waves of anti-Rohingya violence in recent weeks, the Myanmar government insists that stories like Begum's are exaggerations. Myanmar's leader, the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has accused the international community of stoking unrest. "It doesn't help if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation, in spite of the fact that there were attacks on police outposts," she said in a recent interview on Singapore's Channel News Asia. Suu Kyi, whose party took power in March after decades of military-backed rule, has been accused of not acting strongly enough to curb the violence against the more than 1 million Rohingya believed to be in the country. Although many have lived in Rakhine for generations, they are widely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. "It helps if people recognize the difficulty and are more focused on resolving these difficulties rather than exaggerating them, so that everything seems worse than it really is," she said in the interview. But Begum says she has no need to exaggerate what happened in Caira Fara. She said that after the four leaders were killed, violence churned through the village in chaotic scenes of horror. Begum's husband, a poor, illiterate farm laborer, was beaten and then murdered by having his throat slit, along with an unknown number of other villagers, she said. Their bodies were eventually driven away in a truck. She said attackers knocked her young son knocked from her grasp, then raped her. Finally, when the soldiers weren't paying attention, she grabbed her son and ran into the nearby hills. After hiding for two days, her brother gave her enough money  about $38  to pay smugglers to get her and her son into Bangladesh. When Bangladeshi border guards stopped them, she began to weep. "I told them I have no one to protect me there," she says, and told them: "'Look at my baby! He will die if I go back there.'" After that, they let her pass. Much of Rakhine has been closed to outsiders, including journalists, since the violence began. However, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, leader of a commission formed to investigate the situation in Rakhine state, was allowed to visit in recent days. He is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. Along the banks of the Naf River, which marks the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, it's not difficult to find people who can talk about what is happening. Some 15,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh over past month, often brought in by smugglers, according to police and intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government refuses to release numbers publicly. They have joined up to 500,000 undocumented Rohingya who have been living in Bangladesh after arriving from Myanmar in waves since the 1970s. Some 33,000 registered Rohingya refugees live the Cox's Bazar district. Bangladesh does not welcome Rohingya  its maritime patrols sometimes turn back refugee boats full of them  but it is seen as a haven compared to Myanmar. The U.N. says up 30,000 Rohingya Muslims have abandoned their homes amid the recent violence. Satellite images analyzed by the rights group Human Rights Watch show 1,250 structures destroyed in November in Rohingya villages. Osman Gani, a thin, fast-talking Arabic teacher, fled after his village, Gouzo Bil, was attacked Nov. 11. "They came and killed mercilessly. They burned our homes," says Gani, standing near the Naf River over the weekend. "No one was there to save us." He hid with his family for about a week near the village. But when searches intensified, and with soldiers targeting men, he was forced to leave Myanmar without his family. "I had no other choice but to leave them behind. I came to the bank of the river and started swimming," he says. His family was able to join him in Bangladesh a few days later. As he fled north, he used his mobile phone to film destruction in other Rohingya villages he passed through. In some, the blackened remains of what appear to be children can be seen amid the wreckage of homes. Gani's voice can be heard in some of the videos but The Associated Press could not confirm their authenticity. "They (the army) oppressed us and fired at us from aircraft," Gani says. "People were killed in front of my house. They chased the girls and gunned them down. And they burned many people. They burned them in front of my house. "I have shot videos!" he says, holding out his mobile phone to a reporter. "Don't you see the charred bodies?" While he was initially in hiding after the attack, Osmani said he also managed to slip back into his village and film what remained of his home. As he walks through the village, a child can be heard talking to him. "Where are you coming from?" the boy asks. Gani doesn't answer, instead asking, "Where's my cow?" Then he pans through the ashes and broken concrete. "This is my land, my home," he says. "This is Puitta's. This is Uncle Yunus."
By AFP

MOSCOW: Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday accused the US of backtracking on planned talks in Geneva over a rebel pullout from Syria's Aleppo to "buy time" for those battling leader Bashar al-Assad.

"It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves," Sergei Lavrov told journalists, adding that Moscow has the impression that "a serious discussion with our American partners isn't working out."

MOSCOW: Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday accused the US of backtracking on planned talks in Geneva over a rebel pullout from Syria's Aleppo to "buy time" for those battling leader Bashar al-Assad. "It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves," Sergei Lavrov told journalists, adding that Moscow has the impression that "a serious discussion with our American partners isn't working out."
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is reassuring Italian Premier Matteo Renzi that Italy will remain one of the closest U.S. allies despite Renzi's defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms.

Obama spoke to Renzi by phone on Tuesday. The White House says Obama thanked Renzi for his "close friendship and partnership" and that the two discussed the referendum. The vote was a humiliating defeat for Renzi, who has said he'll keep the promise he made to quit if the vote failed.

The call comes amid uncertainty about future U.S. relations with European allies under President-elect Donald Trump. The White House says Obama told Renzi that Italy will remain an "indispensable partner" due to their shared history and values.

The two leaders also discussed climate change, economics and the migrant crisis.

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is reassuring Italian Premier Matteo Renzi that Italy will remain one of the closest U.S. allies despite Renzi's defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms. Obama spoke to Renzi by phone on Tuesday. The White House says Obama thanked Renzi for his "close friendship and partnership" and that the two discussed the referendum. The vote was a humiliating defeat for Renzi, who has said he'll keep the promise he made to quit if the vote failed. The call comes amid uncertainty about future U.S. relations with European allies under President-elect Donald Trump. The White House says Obama told Renzi that Italy will remain an "indispensable partner" due to their shared history and values. The two leaders also discussed climate change, economics and the migrant crisis.
By Associated Press

BEIRUT: Syrian government forces and allied militias captured Aleppo's centrally located al-Shaar neighborhood from rebels on Tuesday, securing nearly three quarters of the besieged enclave less than two weeks after launching a ground offensive, according to the Syrian military.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia meanwhile rejected a cease-fire for the war-torn city, keeping up the military offensive amid rebel retreats and massive displacement.

Rebels withdrew from al-Shaar under heavy bombardment by pro-government forces to the Marjeh and Maadi neighborhoods, local media activist Mahmoud Raslan told The Associated Press. Several gunmen were killed.

"Morale has hit rock bottom," he said from inside the city's remaining rebel-held enclave.

The SANA state news agency said the government captured the entire neighborhood as well as the neighborhoods of al-Qatarji and Karm al-Dada.

A map provided by the Syria army showed a quickly shrinking opposition enclave a pointed leaf-shaped territory in the center, abutting already government-controlled Aleppo districts. The army media said the new gains bring the area controlled by the government in eastern Aleppo to about 73 percent of its original size, which is estimated to be about 45 square kilometers (17 square miles.)

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also reported the gains.

Al-Shaar was home to at least four hospitals available to residents trapped by the government's siege of the eastern part of the city. But those hospitals, along the rest of the neighborhood, were bombed by the government's attacks and evacuated. Broad swaths of the city's eastern quarters are in ruins.

Ibrahim al-Haj, a civil defense member, said he was in the neighborhood shortly before it fell to the government. "It is totally destroyed," he said, adding that if he had stayed a minute longer he would have been captured. He said the previously densely populated district had largely been deserted since the government forces first moved in on the eastern districts last weekend.

A government intense aerial offensive had preceded the ground troops' advances.

Rebel defenses are collapsing under the weight of twin offensives by pro-government forces.

Rebels and pro-government forces fought street-to-street in the city's southern Saif al-Dawleh and al-Zabadiyeh neighborhoods, according to footage provided by Syrian military media and audio provided by local teacher and media activist Abdelkafi Alhamdo.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia on Tuesday issued stark warnings to rebels in besieged eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, with Moscow's top diplomat saying the rebels will be wiped out unless they stop fighting and leave the city.

Damascus also said it rejects any cease-fire for Aleppo that does not include the departure of all rebels from the eastern part of the city and that it won't allow the rebels to use a truce as a chance to "regroup."

The tough rhetoric comes a day after Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food and medicine into the city. Russia, a main backer of the Syrian government, is supporting the government's offensive in Aleppo and has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria.

"Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, speaking of the Syrian rebels. "There is no other way."

In Damascus, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried on the state SANA news agency, that the government will not allow rebels a chance to "regroup and repeat their crimes" in the divided city  a reference to rebel shelling of Aleppo's western, government-held districts that has killed 81 civilians in the past three weeks, according to the Observatory.

The government's offensive to take eastern Aleppo killed 341 civilians over the same period and displaced tens of thousands over the past week, the Observatory and other activist groups have said.

Residents in the city's east reported heavy shelling and bombardment overnight.

"A rocket struck the fifth floor of the building we are staying in, but thankfully no one was hurt," said Judy al-Halaby, an activist sheltering in the Mashhad neighborhood.

Meanwhile, rebel shelling of of Foua and Kfarya, two besieged pro-government towns in northwestern Idlib province killed at least 10 people, many from the same family, according to a Facebook page operated by activists in the predominantly Shiite towns. The Observatory put the death toll in the two towns at 12, including three children.

At the press conference in Moscow, Lavrov lamented what he described as attempts by the United States to obtain a pause in the fighting in Aleppo to allow rebels to re-arm and re-supply. He said that "serious conversations with our American partners are not working."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that he hopes to convince Syria's warring factions and their backers to return to the negotiating table before Aleppo is destroyed.

Kerry said he is due to meet Lavrov in Hamburg, Germany on Thursday and would try to find a way forward.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said the Kremlin regrets a "more than modest" reaction by the international community following a rocket attack on a Russian military hospital in Aleppo on Monday that killed two Russian nurses.

Russian officials alleged rebels were provided coordinates to the hospital by a foreign power, though they did not specify a particular country.

After the Russian and Chinese veto at the Security Council, U.S. diplomats accused their Russian counterparts of stalling for time as Syrian government forces advance in Aleppo.

BEIRUT: Syrian government forces and allied militias captured Aleppo's centrally located al-Shaar neighborhood from rebels on Tuesday, securing nearly three quarters of the besieged enclave less than two weeks after launching a ground offensive, according to the Syrian military. The Syrian government and its ally Russia meanwhile rejected a cease-fire for the war-torn city, keeping up the military offensive amid rebel retreats and massive displacement. Rebels withdrew from al-Shaar under heavy bombardment by pro-government forces to the Marjeh and Maadi neighborhoods, local media activist Mahmoud Raslan told The Associated Press. Several gunmen were killed. "Morale has hit rock bottom," he said from inside the city's remaining rebel-held enclave. The SANA state news agency said the government captured the entire neighborhood as well as the neighborhoods of al-Qatarji and Karm al-Dada. A map provided by the Syria army showed a quickly shrinking opposition enclave a pointed leaf-shaped territory in the center, abutting already government-controlled Aleppo districts. The army media said the new gains bring the area controlled by the government in eastern Aleppo to about 73 percent of its original size, which is estimated to be about 45 square kilometers (17 square miles.) The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also reported the gains. Al-Shaar was home to at least four hospitals available to residents trapped by the government's siege of the eastern part of the city. But those hospitals, along the rest of the neighborhood, were bombed by the government's attacks and evacuated. Broad swaths of the city's eastern quarters are in ruins. Ibrahim al-Haj, a civil defense member, said he was in the neighborhood shortly before it fell to the government. "It is totally destroyed," he said, adding that if he had stayed a minute longer he would have been captured. He said the previously densely populated district had largely been deserted since the government forces first moved in on the eastern districts last weekend. A government intense aerial offensive had preceded the ground troops' advances. Rebel defenses are collapsing under the weight of twin offensives by pro-government forces. Rebels and pro-government forces fought street-to-street in the city's southern Saif al-Dawleh and al-Zabadiyeh neighborhoods, according to footage provided by Syrian military media and audio provided by local teacher and media activist Abdelkafi Alhamdo. The Syrian government and its ally Russia on Tuesday issued stark warnings to rebels in besieged eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, with Moscow's top diplomat saying the rebels will be wiped out unless they stop fighting and leave the city. Damascus also said it rejects any cease-fire for Aleppo that does not include the departure of all rebels from the eastern part of the city and that it won't allow the rebels to use a truce as a chance to "regroup." The tough rhetoric comes a day after Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food and medicine into the city. Russia, a main backer of the Syrian government, is supporting the government's offensive in Aleppo and has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria. "Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, speaking of the Syrian rebels. "There is no other way." In Damascus, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried on the state SANA news agency, that the government will not allow rebels a chance to "regroup and repeat their crimes" in the divided city  a reference to rebel shelling of Aleppo's western, government-held districts that has killed 81 civilians in the past three weeks, according to the Observatory. The government's offensive to take eastern Aleppo killed 341 civilians over the same period and displaced tens of thousands over the past week, the Observatory and other activist groups have said. Residents in the city's east reported heavy shelling and bombardment overnight. "A rocket struck the fifth floor of the building we are staying in, but thankfully no one was hurt," said Judy al-Halaby, an activist sheltering in the Mashhad neighborhood. Meanwhile, rebel shelling of of Foua and Kfarya, two besieged pro-government towns in northwestern Idlib province killed at least 10 people, many from the same family, according to a Facebook page operated by activists in the predominantly Shiite towns. The Observatory put the death toll in the two towns at 12, including three children. At the press conference in Moscow, Lavrov lamented what he described as attempts by the United States to obtain a pause in the fighting in Aleppo to allow rebels to re-arm and re-supply. He said that "serious conversations with our American partners are not working." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that he hopes to convince Syria's warring factions and their backers to return to the negotiating table before Aleppo is destroyed. Kerry said he is due to meet Lavrov in Hamburg, Germany on Thursday and would try to find a way forward. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said the Kremlin regrets a "more than modest" reaction by the international community following a rocket attack on a Russian military hospital in Aleppo on Monday that killed two Russian nurses. Russian officials alleged rebels were provided coordinates to the hospital by a foreign power, though they did not specify a particular country. After the Russian and Chinese veto at the Security Council, U.S. diplomats accused their Russian counterparts of stalling for time as Syrian government forces advance in Aleppo.
Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie and Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg visited "De Mains de Maitre" exhibition held at historical BCEE building (former ARBED building)on December 04, 2016 in Luxembourg. At the exhibition, works of more than 60 craftsmen and art creators are exhibited. The exhibition is held with the joint support of Bank of Trade, Chamber of Savings Bank, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Culture and City Council of Luxembourg.
Food deals, seals and the 'Karate Kid': Can't-miss events this weekend

Get your fill at area restaurants, watch some seals, laugh at a comedy show, take in a concert and maybe even leave Newport County for some fun.
Columnist

Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich).
Reporter/Columnist

Julie Wurth is a reporter covering the University of Illinois at The News-Gazette. Her email is jwurth@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@jawurth).
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
#miner Rescue workers search for 2 trapped miners through endoscope Rescue workers on Thursday began to search for two miners trapped underground for nine days by drilling a hole and inserting an endoscope. They have been isolated in a vertical s...
What if it was possible to prevent your child from getting eczema -- a costly, inflammatory skin disorder -- just by applying something as inexpensive as petroleum jelly every day for the first six months of his or her life?

A Northwestern Medicine study published today (Dec. 5) in JAMA Pediatrics found that seven common moisturizers would be cost effective in preventing eczema in high-risk newborns. By using the cheapest moisturizer in the study (petroleum jelly), the cost benefit for prophylactic moisturization was only $353 per quality-adjusted life year - a generic measure of disease burden that assesses the monetary value of medical interventions in one's life.

Eczema impacts as many as 20 percent of children and costs the U.S. healthcare system as much as $3.8 billion dollars every year. Previous studies have shown that families caring for a child with the costly skin disorder can spend as much as 35 percent of their discretionary income - an average of $274 per month.

"It's not only terrible for the kids, but also for their families," said lead and corresponding study author Dr. Steve Xu, a resident physician in dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Eczema can be devastating. Beyond the intractable itch, a higher risk of infections and sleep problems, a child with eczema means missed time from school, missed time from work for parents and huge out-of-pocket expenses. So if we can prevent that with a cheap moisturizer, we should be doing it."

Early studies from Japan, the U.S. and the U.K. have suggested that full-body application of moisturizers for six to eight months, beginning within the first few weeks of life, can reduce the risk that eczema will develops. Xu's study took that one step further and examined the cost-effectiveness of seven common, over-the-counter moisturizer products, such as petroleum jelly, Aquaphor, Cetaphil and Aveeno.

"There's an important economic argument to be made here," Xu said. "Moisturizers are an important intervention dermatologists use to treat eczema. They play a big role in getting our patients better. But insurers do not usually cover the cost of moisturizers. We're arguing for their inclusion in health insurance coverage."

Xu acknowledges the evidence is preliminary on prophylactic moisturization but said, "We're not giving them an oral drug or injecting them with a medication; there is minimal risk. We're putting Vaseline on these babies to potentially prevent a very devastating disease."

In addition to preventing eczema, Xu cites emerging work that preserving the skin barrier may also reduce the risk of other health problems like food allergies. He notes that larger, long-term clinical studies are underway to see if prophylactic moisturizing leads to sustained benefits.
Parenting education can improve the skills of every mom and dad and the behavior of all children, and it particularly benefits families from low-income or otherwise underserved populations, a new study from Oregon State University suggests.

Researchers examined a sample of more than 2,300 mothers and fathers who participated in parenting education series in the Pacific Northwest between 2010 and 2012. The series, designed to support parents of children up to 6 years old, typically lasted nine to 12 weeks and consisted of one one-hour session per week led by a parent education facilitator. There was no fee for participants.

The study, part of a growing partnership between the OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences and the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative to increase access to parenting education for all families, may remove some of the stigma attached to parenting education, which has historically been associated with court orders for parents who've run afoul of child-protective laws.

"Parenting education works across the board," said John Geldhof, an OSU assistant professor of behavioral and health sciences. "All parents can benefit. The way people typically learn parenting is from their parents and from books, and often times what they've learned is out of date and not the best practices for today. All parents - high income, low income, mandated, not mandated - can benefit from evidence-based parenting education."

Neglectful or otherwise ineffective parenting strategies, which can be heightened by economic strain, can put children in jeopardy. While many parenting practices can lead to favorable outcomes in children, research indicates that the optimal combination usually features high levels of support and monitoring and the avoidance of harsh punishment. Those positive outcomes include higher grades, fewer behavior problems, less substance use, better mental health and greater social competence.

Findings of the OSU research, recently published in Children and Youth Services Review, indicate that parent education series serving predominantly lower-income parents resulted in greater improvements in their skills and their children's behaviors compared to series serving higher-income parents.

"The results provide preliminary evidence that parenting education may be most effective when it targets underserved populations," said lead author Jennifer Finders, a graduate student in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. "Another thing that's exciting - the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative classes that are offered are general in content, and we're seeing evidence that they're being adapted for diverse families. This suggests that the local parenting educators are implementing the programs with fidelity and also with flexibility."

Finders called the results "really great preliminary findings."

"Now we need to better understand the mechanisms that underlie the findings so we can tailor programs to specific families in exciting ways for research and for practice," she said. "This highlights the need for future research that continues to involve the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative and other researchers at OSU and elsewhere. We think parents are gaining knowledge of child development, tools for dealing with the stresses of parenting, and social networks."

The collaborative includes among its leadership Shauna Tominey, assistant professor of practice and parenting education specialist at OSU's Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children & Families, part of the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. The parenting education series the collaborative offers are delivered at no cost to the parents.

"Given that the gap is widening between the white, middle-class population of children and children belonging to the growing low-income and Latino populations, examining the relative impact of parenting education programs across these diverse populations is essential," Finders said. "We think parenting education can have the greatest impact by adapting existing curricula to be culturally relevant and sensitive to diverse children and families' needs."
A world-first vaccine developed by Melbourne scientists, which could eliminate or at least reduce the need for surgery and antibiotics for severe gum disease, has been validated by research published this weekend in a leading international journal.

A team of dental scientists at the Oral Health CRC at the University of Melbourne has been working on a vaccine for chronic periodontitis for the past 15 years with industry partner CSL. Clinical trials on periodontitis patients could potentially begin in 2018.

Moderate to severe periodontitis affects one in three adults and more than 50 per cent of Australians over the age of 65. It is associated with diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia and certain cancers. It is a chronic disease that destroys gum tissue and bone supporting teeth, leading to tooth loss.

The findings published in the journal NPJ Vaccines (part of the Nature series) represent analysis of the vaccine's effectiveness by collaborating groups based in Melbourne and at Cambridge, USA.

The vaccine targets enzymes produced by the bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis, to trigger an immune response. This response produces antibodies that neutralise the pathogen's destructive toxins.

P. gingivalis is known as a keystone pathogen, which means it has the potential to distort the balance of microorganisms in dental plaque, causing disease.

CEO of the Oral Health CRC, Melbourne Laureate Professor Eric Reynolds AO, said it was hoped the vaccine would substantially reduce tissue destruction in patients harbouring P. gingivalis.

"We currently treat periodontitis with professional cleaning sometimes involving surgery and antibiotic regimes," Professor Reynolds said.

"These methods are helpful, but in many cases the bacterium re-establishes in the dental plaque causing a microbiological imbalance so the disease continues."

"Periodontitis is widespread and destructive. We hold high hopes for this vaccine to improve quality of life for millions of people."
UMass Medical School scientist Gang Han, PhD, and his team have designed a new class of molecules used in photodynamic therapy that are able to direct lamp light deep into tissue to kill cancer tumors.

In a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Dr. Han, associate professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, outlines how the carbazole-substituted BODIPY (Car-BDP) molecules, which possess an intense, broad NIR absorption band with a remarkably high singlet oxygen quantum yield, will further the potential clinical application for photodynamic therapy.

"This study signals a major step forward in photodynamic therapy by developing a new class of NIR-absorbing biodegradable organic nanoparticles for a highly effective targeting and treatment of deep-tissue tumors," Han said.

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Tissue penetration depth is a major challenge in practical photodynamic therapy. Traditionally, it involves the patient receiving a nontoxic light-sensitive drug, which is absorbed by all the body's cells, including cancerous ones. A red laser light specifically tuned to the drug molecules is then selectively turned on in the tumor area. When the red light interacts with the photosensitive drug, it produces a highly reactive form of oxygen (singlet oxygen) that kills the malignant cancer cells while leaving most neighboring cells unharmed.

Based on research by the Han Lab at UMMS and colleagues, the process might become simpler, more effective and cost efficient.

Han explained that after being encapsulated with biodegradable polymers, Car-BDP molecules can form uniform and small, organic nanoparticles that are water-soluble and tumor targetable. Used in conjunction with a record low-power-density and cost-effective incoherent lamp light, rather than the coherent high power laser light that is used in the existing therapy, the molecules can be tracked as they spread through the body, deep into the tissue and to outline and kill cancerous tumors. More interestingly, the organic nanoparticles were found to have an extremely long circulating time and can be removed from body, which is essential for new practical photodynamic therapy drug development, Han said.

Han said the combination is "sufficient to monitor and trigger practical photodynamic therapy effect of these nanoparticles within a wide variety of deep-tissue level tumors such as lung, colon, prostate and breast cancers."

In addition, the potential new platform for precise tumor-targeting theranostics and novel opportunities with low power lamp light could allow for future affordable clinical cancer treatment that patients may be able to manage in their homes or resource deficient areas, such as on battlefields and in developing countries.
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World Experts Convene in Vienna, Austria at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer

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 17th 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 doctors 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, Dr. Raymond Osarogiagbon

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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 IASLCs Journal of Thoracic Oncology in 2017.
Responding to the news of falls in uptake of the shingles vaccination, the International Longevity Centre UK (ILC-UK) has urged a change to its eligibility guidelines.

Public Health England has reported a decline in the uptake of the Shingles vaccination in both the routine (70 year old) and catch up (78 years old) cohorts (from 61.8% in 2013/14 to 54.9% in 2015/16 and from 57.8% in 2014/15 to 55.5% in 2015/16, respectively).

In 2013, ILC-UK published Immune Response, calling for a lifecourse approach to immunisation and making 30 plus recommendations for policy action.

In 2015, ILC-UK launched a European Adult Immunisation Hub, which seeks to provide information and news about adult immunisation across Europe.

David Sinclair, Director, ILC-UK and Editor of the European Adult Immunisation Hub said:
With Mouth Cancer Action Month 2016 having now drawn to a close, its organisers, the Oral Health Foundation, have hailed the impact that this years campaign has had across all areas of the UKs healthcare industry.

As well as the enormous support that the campaign has once again received from the UKs dental community, the charity is particularly pleased with the strong support garnered from others areas of the healthcare industry, including; pharmacies, general practices and maxillofacial surgeons.

The Oral Health Foundation is thankful and extremely encouraged to see growing support from many different healthcare teams, as they believe this strong mix of providers plays a vital role in helping to limit the impact of mouth cancer on the population.

CEO of the Oral Health Foundation, Dr Nigel Carter OBE, hailed the effect that this has had on the campaign:

Like many other types of the disease a persons chances of surviving mouth cancer relies heavily on being able to get an early diagnosis, that is why it is vital that we get as many people as possible talking about the disease. If people can access the information that could save their life through their doctor or pharmacy then it gives them a better chance of catching it early. At best people only visit their dental practice once every six months and in the times in between it can be very easily to overlook signs of mouth cancer and the disease progressing. This is why, during Mouth Cancer Action Month, we were delighted to see the incredibly strong support from across the healthcare industry and unprecedented amounts of information being distributed around the signs, symptoms and causes of mouth cancer. With mouth cancer cases rising at an alarming rate in the UK, the need for action now is stronger than ever. It is increasingly important that we all continue to come together to provide greater education, support and awareness, particularly in high risk groups and areas of low social economy. We want to share our thanks with everybody who has been part of Mouth Cancer Action Month and ask you to continue to fight back against this terrible disease.

Mouth Cancer Action Month is an important springboard in educating the public about mouth cancer. Under the message if in doubt, get checked out the campaign has helped facilitate thousands of events and projects, and continues to act as a focal point for people to campaign together, raise awareness and take action.

The campaign, which is sponsored by Denplan, has become an amazing opportunity for health educators, health professionals, schools and workplaces, to increase their important work of delivering oral health education, especially in disadvantaged communities and regions of known poor oral health while delivering greater awareness of mouth cancer.

Dr Henry Clover, Chief Dental Officer of the campaigns lead sponsor, Denplan, said:

We have been thrilled at the huge number of dental professionals and their patients around the country have got involved this year, whether it has been through our #BlueLipSelfie campaign, open events, or fundraising. Mouth Cancer Action Month and #BlueLipSelfie are the tools for us to open up and tackle a potentially difficult and emotional subject, and we should make sure that this work continues even though Mouth Cancer Action Month itself has concluded.

Mouth Cancer Action Month, which is also supported by Dentists' Provident and the Association of Dental Groups, is a vital platform for healthcare professionals to talk to patients, for patients to talk to their family and for family to talk to friends. Knowing the signs and symptoms is the only way collectively to catch the disease. Be on the lookout for ulcers which do not heal within three weeks, red and white patches and unusual lumps or swellings in the mouth.

Our advice to everyone is extremely simple  if in doubt, get checked out.
New Delhi: India, the world's fourth-largest buyer of LNG, wants liquefied natural gas importers like Japan and Korea to join hands to bring more "equitable" trade deals.



India and Japan, in September 2013, had set up a multilateral group of buyers for LNG to push for lower prices for the fuel and New Delhi is now seeking other importers to join them.



"A number of large Asian LNG buyers including India could benefit by joining hands and thereby bringing in more equitable trade deals," Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at 5th IEF-IGU Ministerial Forum held on sidelines of the Petrotech conference in Delhi.



While the global gas prices have cooled in line with oil rates in last two years, Asian countries - the biggest buyers of seaborne LNG - sometimes paid five or six times more for the deep-chilled gas than piped gas consumed in North America, where prices have plunged because of growing availability amid a boom in production from shale deposits.



Also, weakening currencies have inflated import bills. After joining ranks with Japan, India is keen to rope in South Korea and possibly also China in the buyers club. Pradhan said LNG prices have been soft over the past 18-24 months much in tandem with crude prices and emerging LNG demand-supply interplay.



"We have also seen that LNG contracting mechanism is changing with short term contracts growing and replacing long term contracts," he said adding analysts believe it will be a buyers market for a while.



LNG buyers, he said, will continue to have options.



Historically, most LNG sold in Asia is bought under long-term contracts linked to crude-oil prices. Oil-linked prices have stayed much higher than piped-gas prices in recent years, and there have been calls for more flexible, spot-market pricing, possibly linked to US gas prices.



India wants to turn an oversupply of LNG to its favour as it seeks to increase use of natural gas in its energy mix to 15 per cent from current 6 per cent now in an attempt to reduce the dependence on crude oil imports.



New Delhi is among the first countries in Asia to renegotiate a long-term deal after the glut pushed down prices. Petronet LNG Ltd in December reworked a 25-year contract with Qatar's RasGas Co, resulting in prices dropping by almost half.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target to cut import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022 by boosting domestic production and expanding the market for natural gas and non-conventional energy sources.



The main gas exporters already have their own association, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which includes Qatar and Russia among its members, although it has acted mostly as a discussion group.



Pradhan said the world needs even greater cooperation among countries on gas technologies such as shale and gas hydrates.


New Delhi: Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank had agreed to provide USD 500 million loan to part-finance the USD 15 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline project.



"An agreement to provide for the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) extending a loan of USD 500 million to the TAPI project consortium was signed last month," an official said in Delhi.



Also, TAPI Pipeline Co is in talks to rope in Saudi Fund for Development and the Japanese government as partners in the 1,814-km project that will transport gas from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh fields to Fazilka in India.



IsDB has expressed interest in financing the project not just on Turkmenistan's territory, but in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said.



The long-delayed transnational pipeline was formally inaugurated on December 13. Turkmenistan's national oil company Turkmengaz is the leader of the consortium of national oil companies of the four nations. It has 85 per cent equity in TAPI Pipeline Co (TPCL).



The state-owned gas utility GAIL India, ISGS of Pakistan and Afghan Gas Enterprise (AGE) have 5 per cent stake each. The TAPI pipeline will have a capacity to carry 90 million standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) gas for 30 years, with 38 mmscmd going to India and Pakistan each. The remaining gas is to feed Afghanistan.



The project, to which ADB was appointed the transaction advisor in November 2013, had been planned to become operational in 2018, but it is unlikely to see the light of day before 2022.



The TAPI project has been on the drawing board for years as the four countries had not been able to get an international firm to head a consortium which will lay and operate the pipeline.



French giant Total SA had initially shown interest in leading the consortium. However, it backed off after Turkmenistan refused to accept its condition of a stake in the gas field that will feed the pipeline.



The official said the estimated cost of the project is USD 15 billion, according to an ADB-commissioned report. The project is to be funded in 60:40 debt-equity ratio.



The four nations to the project in April this year had signed an investment agreement in Ashgabad.



He said TPCL will appoint a project monitoring consultant (PMC) to conduct pre-FID activities, including mine clearance in Afghanistan, detailed route survey, front-end engineering design (FEED) and environment and social impact assessment.



The technical study of the TAPI project, done by Penspen, has estimated that it will take over six years to complete from the start of the FEED process, he said.



The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) project was originally announced in May 2002. India joined the consortium in 2008. In 2014, the pipeline consortium, TPCL, was incorporated.



TAPI will carry gas from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh field, better known by its previous name South Yoiotan Osman that holds gas reserves of 16 trillion cubic feet. From the field, the pipeline will run to Herat and Kandahar province of Afghanistan, before entering Pakistan. In Pakistan, it will reach Multan via Quetta before ending at Fazilka (Punjab) in India.
New Delhi: Tata Sons on Tuesday refuted charges of breakdown of governance levelled by Cyrus P Mistry, saying it was the ousted chairman who has been violating such guidelines.



"The same Corporate Governance Guidelines, Mr. Mistry's office is referring to, prescribes that a Tata employee must step down from the Boards of Tata companies, after he ceases to be a Tata employee.



"After being replaced as Chairman of Tata Sons, Mr Mistry ceases to be a Tata employee. It is he who is violating the Guidelines that he himself propounded, and not Tata," a Tata Sons spokesperson said.



The response was to Mistry's office issuing a statement saying the ousted chairman was fighting to protect the conglomerate from "capricious" decision-making by Interim Chairman Ratan Tata.



Refuting remarks that he was trying to take over control over all Tata Group activities, Mistry's office alleged that those individuals were seeking to procure unpublished price sensitive information from listed group companies, breaking down governance.
Kolkata: A BJP leader was arrested along with six alleged coal mafia for allegedly trying to exchange old currency notes on Tuesday, police said.



Manish Sharma, a BJP leader and party candidate from Ranigunj in West Bengal's Burdwan district in the Assembly polls earlier this year, was nabbed from Baguihati, while trying to exchange old currency notes in bulk, said a senior officer of Kolkata police's Special Task Force.



Meanwhile, STF on Monday night has recovered Rs 10 lakhs in new currency notes from a car in which the MP was travelling with four others.



A total amount of Rs 33 lakhs has been recovered from the persons who have been arrested.



(With IANS inputs)
New Delhi: On December 6, 1992, Kar Sevaks demolished the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which they said was built on the birth place of Lord Ram. Twenty-four years later, cases related to the demolition continue in court while its political repercussion is still being felt in the country.



News18s Debayan Roy spoke to Ranjana Agnihotri, the counsel for Akhil Bharatiya Ramjanma Punrodhhar Samiti fighting the case in the Supreme Court. Excerpts



What is the status of the case right now in the Supreme Court?



The judgement, which declared the disputed land to be equally divided into 3 parts between us, the Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Wakf Board, has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The hearing needs to begin. We are not ready for partition at all, and the partition suit needs to be dismissed. There was no prayer made for the partition, then why was such a judgment delivered? Its against Order 7 Rule VII of CPC. This was not the relief that was asked for. The court needs to declare the land in favour of any one single party.



Do you think this land belongs to someone or its a fight to secure the ownership through the court?



After the ASI Report, this has been proved that a 12th century Hindu temple existed there. Several animal figurines and other materials dating back to the 12th century highlighting the existence of a temple prove that the claim of Babri Masjid in that place is incorrect.

Originally four suits were filed. The fifth suit was filed on behalf of Ram Lalla Virajman. Come what may, the birthplace of Lord Rama cannot be trespassed. Even the 1940 Privy Council stated that sympathy for religious sentiment cannot be there, but if the law of limitation hampers the suit, like it did in the case for the Sunni Wakf Board, then it will be dismissed.



With another December 6, do you think it will act as a catalyst to expedite the hearing of the matter by a constitutional bench?



First of all it is not an issue of Babri Masjid demolition; it is actually an issue of Ram temple demolition. Its the courts call. I think the Prime Minister is busy in securing the borders and the country is battling with terrorism. So a date is difficult to be listed before the UP elections.



But let us stop calling it a case of Babri Masjid demolition. This place was attempted to be turned into a mosque later on. One of the major points here is that there are no prayers offered inside this mosque. When there are no prayers offered, then how can it be called a mosque? There are no wazu khana (ablution centers) within the premises too. There are no minars too when there are idols too, then in no way can prayers be performed inside the venue.



News18: Can you elaborate a little more on the ASIs excavation?



When the ASI excavations took place, human skeletons were found in the area along with the remains of a 12th century temple. This shows that there was a battle between the two communities. But all efforts failed and this place could not be converted into a mosque. This mosque or Ayodhya has no mention in the Baburnama (Memoir of Babur) or the Humanyunama (Memoir of Humayun) written by Gulbadan Begum.



But the Sunni Wakf Board has contended that this place is important for the people of the Islamic faith. What is your view?



The contention of the Sunni Wakf Board was ludicrous when they said that they put curtains on the idols and then pray. According to Islamic customs, such a prayer is null and void. We have even proved that Mir Bakshi, who the Sunni Wakf Board highlighted as a General of Akbar who commissioned the construction of the mosque, was purely a fictitious character.



Islam itself says that if a land is donated by someone or is a wakf land then the person donating the land must be the owner of the land. Suppose I create a wakf for Taj Mahal, but I am not the owner of the land, then that wakf is null and void. So who is the owner of this land that they are claiming to be a wakf property?



As per Islam again, re-used materials cannot be used while building a mosque. The facet of the pillars and walls of this mosque has idols built in the opposite direction on which they claim to put curtains and then pray. ASI findings have even proven that the land is not built on a plain land, which is a must, according to Islam, for a mosque to be built.



Do you have any other evidence except the ASI report to prove your points?



The judgement is not only based on ASI findings, but relies on close to 200 texts, which includes ancient scriptures, books, rarest of rare documents, Valmiki Ramayana, maps, figurines, etc. All the documents which were in Sanskrit and other languages have been transliterated and converted into soft copies for the ease of the judges.



What kind of rarest of rare documents are you talking about?



If you travel down the lanes of history you will see that in 629 AD, Hyun Tsang, a Chinese traveller wrote Yatra Vristav and in that he mentions the four prominent temples of Ayodhya, and there he talks about the Janmasthan temple. In 1627 AD, William Finch travelled here during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jehangir, noted that he saw brahmins at the disputed site writing down the names of the visitors, which is a customary tradition at a Hindu site. Even the traveller Niccolao Manucci, in written documents, have mentioned places like Ayodhya, Kashi, Mathura and Haridwar. Its here that he specifically mentions about the Ayodhya temple. In 1770 AD, Joseph Tiffin Theller has also written that he saw a hall at the disputed site along with saints performing customary rights around a raised platform. Even then there was no mention of Muslims.



In the 18th century, in the 1828 gazetteer, Tiffin Theller mentioned that a birthday of a child was celebrated here on a cradle on the specific disputed site. He further mentioned that it was the 9th day of Chaitra Navami. So precisely if you check all records of history, even if you see a short period of 1828 to 1950, there was no mosque at the site. In 1858, when Sardan Nihang Singh claimed the area, Syed Mohammad, lodged an FIR to remove Nihang Singh and built a mosque.



Werent there certain references made in documents to the site as a mosque-temple as well?



In 1817, P Carnegie drew a historical sketch of Ayodhya and in this place of this disputed land, he showed Awadh Hindu Worshippers praying at the mosque-temple. Even in 1880, it was reported that Hindus used to pray at the mosque-temple. So, this term originated post the 18th century. But we are preparing a rebuttal to this on how this term actually originated. The research is going on and the answer would be ready in a month.



When you say that a temple was destroyed to build a mosque, how do you corroborate such a statement?



Its all on record. In 1934, after the riot of Gokashi, there was another Hindu-Muslim riot in which the shikhar (top of the temple) was destroyed by the Muslims. The British government called a contractor from Benares to repair it. His name was Tahoor Khan. He, instead of repairing the shikhars, went on to lay a tablet of inscription there stating that it is being re-built by Tahoor Khan and it was a place where angels descended.



But the Sunni Wakf Board has contended with statement of witnesses that idols were suspiciously put inside the mosque. Dont you think this casts doubt on your version?



Firstly, the witnesses they have used are not reliable stating that he saw someone in the middle of the night at the mosque with lights and how he fainted after seeing this. Secondly, even if it be so, it is not the case that whether idols were placed there or not. That is not the contention at all. It is the birthplace of Rama, and why only idols even a temple can be erected there. It is said in the religion that even a glance of Ramas birthplace can help a Hindu attain salvation, then why deprive him of that right?
She came in at a stage when she needed intensive care... The best team of doctors worked with her and administered the best treatment, Dr Reddy told CNN-News18.

Taking a trip down memory lane, Dr Reddy, who knew Jayalalithaa for 20 years, said she spoke flawless English and interacted intelligently with people. If she decided that it was the right to do, she always did it.



She was known as the Iron Lady  tough on political rivals, reticent even in the bustle of public life. But those who interacted closely with her in the last days of her life have a different version to tell  that of a warm woman with a great sense of humour.Jayalalithaa had a great sense of humour. She cracked jokes in hospital... Jaya used to joke with the nurses even in the ICU, said Dr Preetha Reddy, the executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, who had close access to her.Jayalalithaa was admitted at Apollo on September 22 for fever and dehydration. Later she was treated for infection and put on respiratory support. On Sunday night, 74 days after she had been admitted, she suffered a massive cardiac arrest, and died a day later.During the CM's hospitalisation, those in the medical team were under tremendous pressure trying to live up to the expectations of millions. When the end came, it was very emotional. "The nurses cried when they realised Jayalalithaa was no more, Dr Reddy said.Reflecting on the Amma schemes catering to the poor, she said: Where else do you get to see such schemes catering to the masses and being run so well and so efficiently. I admire her for everything she did.She had this passionate desire to get Cooum river cleaned. We even discussed Sabarmati River and the way it was cleaned. She had a number of other plans; this is just one of the examples, Dr Reddy said, adding that Jayalalithaa had plans to make healthcare more accessible to the poor.Talking about the last 48 hours with Jayalalithaa, Reddy said: "The last 48 hours have been a humbling experience. No matter how hard you try, the outcome is not in our hand. We can only work hard and pray that the outcome is good.
The death of the imperious Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa will result in a queen-sized void in the states politics thats likely to be filled by a succession of lesser individuals from her party or eventually by her bete noires on the other side of the Dravidian divide.



But this much is clear: For some time now, Dravidianism as an ideology that drove Tamil Nadu politics has been dead, and the narrative has moved on. Jayas successors over the years will wrestle with the humdrum issues of development and equality, unless some outrageous piece of bigotry by the Centre breathes brief life into the embers from decades gone by.



The letter D  for Dravida  is integral to Tamil party names, be it the AIADMK (Jayalalithaa, now Panneerselvam), DMK (Karunanidhi), MDMK (Vaiko), DMDK (Vijayakanth) or the hardcore DK (K Veeramani).



But now its just a slightly forlorn reminder of the movement started by the remarkable EV Ramasamy, or Periyar. Two individuals (MG Ramachandran and Jaya) who tried to squeeze the final drops of juice from the fruit that kept giving are dead; the third, M Karunanidhi, is a frail nonagenarian.



Some of the newer parties seem to have dispensed with Dravidianism altogether  Ramadoss PMK focuses on fighting for Vanniyars; the VCK stands for liberation panthers and the mildly fascist organisation of filmmaker Seeman prefers to tap into Tamil identity more directly.



The truth of the matter is that ideology has been driven to the sidelines in what was once a fiercely ideological state; politics has veered to a culture of giveaways that have ballooned the state deficit. What was once a proud fight against upper-caste dominance is more often a narrow battle between similarly backward castes.



The AIADMK and DMK, the mass-market inheritors of Periyars legacy used to stand for egalitarianism, land redistribution, opposition to Hindi and support for Lankan Tamils. Karunanidhi scion MK Stalins Namakku Naame movement in the recent state elections saw him shift to trendy T-shirt and jeans from the traditional veshti, a reminder that things have moved on.



Hindi is no longer a burning issue, thanks to the two inheritors allying at various stages with the Congress and BJP, to Bollywood and to an influx of northern workers. It remains to be seen whether the death of Jaya will return Vaiko, an icon of support for Lanka, to centrestage.



At its core, the Dravidian movement has run aground because it wasnt really anti-caste; it was anti-Brahmin, not even anti-Brahminism. The Brahmins, who account for a mere 3% of the population but had cornered a wildly disproportionate share of influential jobs, have either shipped out or brought their famous survival skills to bear, aligning with power.



Indeed, in a state where atheism and religiosity have co-existed with a fair degree of comfort, its fairly obvious which side has won; a few decades of determined rationalism never had much chance against centuries of religious belief. Temples are packed and swamis and sants abound.



Make no mistake: Tamil Nadu has made good progress in distributing the fruits of prosperity. Tamil Nadus annual per capita income at current prices stands at Rs 143,457, nearly 75 percent greater than the national average of Rs 88,000; eight out of ten people are literate, good for a relatively large state; the gender ratio is well above the national average; health and other social indicators are satisfactory.



Arguably, the egalitarian aspect of many of these achievements may owe something to the Dravidian movement, but now it needs to be truly transformative, or to be replaced by a movement that is; it needs to carry with it the impoverished in every community. The states Dalits, for instance, have been left behind, and they constitute nearly 21% of the population of 72 million.



The party that gets its social engineering right  and with a long-term and truly egalitarian vision  has plenty to gain. The AIADMK is likely to suffer from a leadership vacuum or Jayalalithaas friend Sasikala pulling the levers of power; the DMK may sense a chance but needs to build leaders from outside the first family. The Congress is in a familiar state of disarray, a reflection of the stasis the party suffers from centrally.



Which leaves the BJP, of whose drive into Tamil Nadu much has been written and said. Theres precious little to show for it, though. Even if Dravidianism is dying, its difficult to see a polarizing Hindu-Hindi party taking its place. Expect instead the party to jockey for leverage over Jayas successors.



In fact, the party needs to tread carefully. Something like to opposition to Hindi can always be dusted off and rekindled by the Dravidian parties if someone in the Union Home or HRD ministries dreams up an impressive piece of northern bigotry.

Ironically, one hope for Dravidianism, or its successor movement, lies in a backlash to a monolithic and homogenous Hindutva from a state where Hinduism has never been under threat.


New Delhi: Court proceedings in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her close aide Sasikala Natarajan are likely to continue despite the CMs death, according to special public prosecutor in the case BV Acharya.



In a conversation with News18.com, he recalled the plan which was etched up to move him out of the special prosecutors post and maintained that the Karnataka High Court order acquitting Jayalalithaa was wrong and was without any merit.



On June 7, 2016, the Supreme Court had reserved its judgment on the appeal by Karnataka government challenging the high courts order of acquittal for Jayalalithaa, Sasikala Natarajan, Ilavarasi and VN Sudhakaran.



However, according to Acharya, Jayalalithaas death will have no bearing on the judgment of the apex court. The case was filed in 1996 after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy filed a complaint against Jayalalithaa.



Acharya, who was a senior counsel and former advocate general of Karnataka, told News18.com that it is unlikely that the court will not deliver a judgment considering her demise.



When there is only one accused, then in the event of the persons death the judgment is usually abated. But in this case, there were more than one accused and even if Jayalalithaas name would be struck off, Sasikala and others are still very much in the case and could be convicted again, Acharya said.



Acharya believes that now the apex court has to deliver a judgment on merits.



Whether the SC decides to reiterate the High Court verdict which acquitted all of them, or uphold the trial court verdict by convicting them again, the judgment must be reasoned with merits to show whether they are involved in a conspiracy in amassing illegal wealth or not, he said.



Acharya who was the public prosecutor for the case when it was transferred from Tamil Nadu to Karnataka, said that in 2002, around 259 prosecution evidences were examined and over a thousand documents were assessed to conclude that the accused were guilty.



But after I resigned as the public prosecutor, Karnataka appointed another prosecutor, G Bhawani Singh and 70 witnesses were re-called for examination and all of a sudden they all retracted their statements. Even Jayalalithaa was allowed to appear in abstentia, he said.



There was all a plan which was etched up so that I would resign as the prosecutor. But I resigned as the advocate general and continued to be the prosecutor. This ruffled feathers of people who were pressurising me. Then to compel me further, a private complaint was lodged against me which offended me and I resigned as the prosecutor, he said.



Acharya filed a writ petition against the complaint before the High Court which quashed the complaint within three months.



He maintains that the order of Jayalalithaas acquittal by the Karnataka High Court was wrong and was without any merit. The error was apparent when even when the lawyers of the accused only commented on the conclusive paragraph of the judgment without delving into the reasoning given by the judges, Acharya said.



The judgment is now pending to be delivered by Justice Pinaki Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy of the Supreme Court. Acharya said that if the apex court rules in favour of the prosecution, then not only could Sasikala and others land in jail paying a fine, but there would also be an order of confiscation of properties by the government.






New Delhi: People should fear the law whether they "like it or not", the Supreme Court on Tuesday said while favouring harsher punishment for rash and negligent driving.



A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy said that the provisions under the Motor Vehicles Act and section 304A (causing death by rash and negligent act) of IPC, which provides for a maximum two years jail term, seems to be inadequate to deter errant drivers.



"Whether people like it or not, there should be fear of law among them," the bench said while voicing concern over lives lost due to "drunken, rash, reckless, high-speed and adventurist" driving.



It said that "the driver not only becomes a threat to himself but also to others and no amount of compensation can be a substitute for life loss".



Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the bench that he is in communication with the competent authorities on the issue stricter punishment for such kind of driving.



The bench had sought the assistance of Rohatgi to know the fate of apex court's suggestions, given in two earlier verdicts, to Parliament to re-visit the law dealing with mishaps causing death and injury to innocents on roads due to rash and negligent driving.



He said that the law needs to be amended for enhancing the punishment for negligent driving and sought eight weeks time to come back with a reply from the competent authorities.



Rohatgi shared the concern of the bench on inadequacy of penal provisions to deal with the menace and said that he agrees that the manner in which vehicular accidents due to reckless driving take place requires "stern handling".



The bench posted the matter for further hearing on March 8.



Earlier, Rohatgi had told the apex court that rash and negligent driving by "adventurist" motorists needs to be curbed with an "iron hand".



The top law officer had told the apex court that existing provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act and section 304A (causing death by rash and negligent act) of IPC, were inadequate to deal with the menace.



The court had termed as "absolutely inadequate" the maximum punishment and asked Rohtagi to apprise "competent authorities to have a re-visit of the relevant provisions".


Colombo: Sri Lankan President Sirisena on Tuesday expressed condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and said she was a leader "dearly loved" by her people.



"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.



Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India's Tamil community".



Rajapaksa, during his presidency, invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions.



Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka.



While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.



The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to bring pressure on New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils.



Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night in Chennai.
We have brought him back to India and sent him to his village. He went up and down to the court 20 times over a year. That made it 1000 Kms. https://t.co/UGxjGE1Uhf  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 6, 2016

: A 48-year-old from Tamil Nadu stranded in UAE who had made desperate attempts to return home has been brought back and sent to his village, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted on Tuesday.Jagannathan Selvaraj, from Tiruchirappalli, had reportedly walked 1000 km in Dubai to attend court proceedings in a bid to obtain a flight ticket back home.Selvaraj began his court journey after his mother died in Tamil Nadu and he was denied permission to go and attend her funeral.Selvaraj's plight came to light after Dubai's Khaleej Times reported on the matter and Swaraj took up the issue.Swaraj even sought a report from the Indian Consulate in Dubai.Earlier, speaking to Khaleej Times, Selvaraj had claimed that he braved traffic, heat, sandstorms and exhaustion while trekking along the busy highways of Dubai.Selvaraj travelled a distance of 22 km one way to reach Dubai Courts from his Sonapur accommodation (on the outskirts of Dubai) to attend the labour court proceedings. Selvaraj's case was going on for almost two years and he must have walked at least 20 times to Karama district in Dubai from Sonapur and back -- every time covering a distance of 50-plus kilometres in four hours.(Inputs from IANS)
: The Tamil filmdom paid rich tributes to veteran movie star turned politician J. Jayalalithaa, who passed away in Chennai on Monday at the age of 68, with superstar Rajinikanth describing her as a brave daughter."Not just Tamil Nadu but the whole of India lost a brave daughter. May her soul rest in peace," Rajinikanth tweeted.Actor Ajith Kumar, who is currently shooting for his upcoming yet-untitled Tamil film in Bulgaria, said the news came to him as a "shock".In a statement, he said, "She had fought many battles and stood tall among the leaders of our times. I pray to the almighty to give us the strength during this time of grief."Recalling her meeting with Jayalalithaa, Trisha wrote on Twitter: "RIP my most favourite person. The throne awaits you on the other side. Truly proud and honoured to have met you."Describing Jayalalithaa as one of the bravest women, Shruti Haasan wrote, "TN loses one of its greatest leaders and bravest women. Deeply saddened by this great loss. Words cannot express."Calling her a "fighter", actress Radikaa Sarath Kumar said the passing away of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has left a void in her."A people's person, strong-spirited, classy and a fighter to the end. Leaves a vacuum in people's heart, but leaves a piece of her in everyone who met her. You inspire all," Radikaa tweeted.Among others who condoled the death of Jayalalithaa, once a reigning queen of Tamil cinema, include Gautham Vasudev Menon, R. Parthepan, R. Madhavan, Nakul and Jayam Ravi.
New Delhi: For almost 50 years, he has played Santa Claus -- and now during his second visit to India, Timo Alarik Pakkanen from Finland advises people of this country to love others and be generous and kind to themselves.



"Love each other and be kind to yourself and to others, that's my message to Indians," Pakkanen, dressed in a Santa outfit, told IANS during an interaction at the Finland embassy here. He was accompanied by Nina Vaskunlahti, the Ambassador of Finland to India.



Pakkanen, who has committed himself to the task of being Santa Claus, comes from the mysterious Korvatunturi ("Ear Fell") in Finnish Lapland.



Perhaps one of the most famous names on the planet, this Santa Claus recognises his global influence and the responsibility that comes with it. He spends his time at the Santa Claus Village very day of the year to take care of his mission in life -- to enhance the well being of children and the kindness of grown-ups, as well as spreading the message of love and goodwill of the Christmas Spirit across the globe.



For almost 40 years, he has lived the life of the fabled Santa Claus and has met and talked to people from over 82 countries and from 40 US states, 55 German cities and 24 cities from Britain.



He calls his experience of playing Santa as magical and the Christmas eve, magic.



"The Christmas eve is a magical evening and that's where all the magic happens. Whenever I meet people, they give me a smile and positivity and that's the thing I like the most. So I get happiness from children," he said.



He last visited India six years back as Santa Claus and this year has been equally special for him as people are more acceptable.



"Over the years, it has become more acceptable but I feel it's the same everywhere. Some people are excited and some are a bit afraid and it's same with children. Someone comes and hugs you immediately while some start to cry so it's very different like the way people are different.



"It's the same every where you go. It doesn't mater from where you come, whether it is Canada, China, India or Europe, it's always kind of same thing," he told IANS.



He landed in the capital on Sunday and started his trip by meeting a few school children in Vasant Vihar followed by a brunch at Hotel Leela Palace here. On Monday, he visited Gandhi Smriti and India Gate. On Tuesday, he was to visit Taj Mahal in Agra along with a few other places.



Asked how he plans to spread smiles in India at a time when demonetisation is the talk of the town, he told IANS: "My most important mission is to make people happy around me. Give happiness, joy and laughter but I am not here to solve your political problems or anything like that."


From 2011, until she took her last breath, it was difficult for the Sangh to go about their business, says Sadagopan Narayanan, the RSS prant pracharak in Tamil Nadu.

Political observers feel Jayalalithaa clamped down on RSS activities because she had had enough of dabbling with soft-Hindutva.

Jayalalithaa might have shared a good equation with Narendra Modi and many other national leaders of the BJP, but she took special care to keep the RSS at an arms length in Tamil Nadu.In the land of the other Holy Sangam  Kanyakumari  the Sangh might not be a power to reckon with but they have been active on the ground in parts, especially in the southern districts like Kanyakumari.In fact, the district voted in the first-ever BJP Lok Sabha MP from south India when Pon Radhakrishnan wrested the Nagercoil seat. The Sangh had carried out route marches from the 1940s onwards. All that came to a halt when Jayalalithaa came to power in 2011.RSS rues that route marches, drills and public meetings were banned citing law and order issues, even the founders Day celebrations had to be abandoned, and worse, when there was a spate of killings of right-wing Hindu leaders, the Sangh found the police unsympathetic.Even if court sanctioned our functions, the government denied permission on some ground or the other. This was strange for us because she has good relations with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders at the Centre. But back home there was no way to meet her. May be she considered us small time leaders or she did not want to lose on the support of minorities, says Narayanan.During the chaotic days of Ram Janmabhoomi movement, Jayalalithaa had cautioned other political leaders against minorityism  her stand was very close to that of Sangh Parivar. All that changed by 2004, when AIADMK fought polls in alliance with BJP and was humiliated by the electorate. The alliance didnt win any of the 39 Lok Sabha seats from the state.The RSS leader complained that after that its been downhill for the Jayalalithaa-Paraivar equations.She did not meet us, the Sangh leaders and other Hindu outfits and parties. There were such pressing times in front of us that we tried to meet her  sent letters seeking appointments. But in the past five years we could not communicate with her. In our state there were murders and attacks on members of Hindu outfits, and we had no communication with our CM, he said.
Tripoli: Forces loyal to Libya's UN-backed government said on Monday they had seized full control of Sirte from the Islamic State group, in a major blow to the jihadists who battled for months to retain their bastion.



The battle for the coastal city, which was the last significant territory held by IS in Libya, cost the lives of hundreds of loyalist troops and an unknown number of IS fighters.



The offensive was backed by a US bombing campaign launched in August, which as of December 1 had seen American warplanes, drones and helicopters conduct 470 strikes.



"Our forces have total control of Sirte," Reda Issa, a spokesman for pro-government forces, told AFP. "Our forces saw Daesh (IS) totally collapse."



Forces allied with the country's unity government launched the offensive to retake Sirte on May 12, quickly seizing large areas of the city and cornering the jihadists.



But IS put up fierce resistance with suicide car bombings, snipers and improvised explosive devices.



"Daesh has totally collapsed and dozens of them have given themselves up to our forces," said a statement on the loyalist forces' official Facebook page. The capture of Sirte boosts the authority of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which was launched in Tripoli in March but whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration based in eastern Libya.

Libya descended into chaos following the NATO-backed ousting of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, with rival administrations emerging and well-armed militias vying for control of the country's vast oil wealth.



The infighting and lawlessness allowed extremist groups such as IS to seize several coastal regions, giving the jihadists a toehold on Europe's doorstep. The fall of Sirte - Kadhafi's hometown located 450 kilometres east of Tripoli - represents a major setback for IS, which has also faced a series of military defeats in Syria and Iraq.



Iraqi forces are advancing on the IS stronghold of Mosul, while a US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance last month launched an offensive to retake Raqa, the Syrian capital of the "caliphate" the jihadists proclaimed in 2014.



"Losing it (Sirte) could cause a momentary loss of traction, but a lot will depend on what happens in Syria and Iraq and whether the ungoverned spaces in Libya will remain such," said Mattia Toaldo, a Libya expert with the European Council of Foreign Relations.



Toaldo said IS's failure to hold Sirte was due in part to the group's lack of resources in Libya.



"They didn't manage to seize any considerable source of revenue," he said. "What they found in the banks in Sirte was not comparable to what they found in Mosul, nor was there an equivalent weapons stockpile."
Carter Thomas White, 16, of Aspen Road, Phenix, went to be with his Lord and Heavenly Father, Friday, December 2, 2016.Carter was born in Lynchburg, August 28, 2000, son of William Thomas White and Regina Shortt Whiteof Phenix.He was a member of Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church and the Midway Youth Group. He was also a member of the Future Farmers of America and Freeland 4H Shooting Club. He was a student at Randolph-Henry High School.In addition to his parents, he is survived by one brother, Conner Daniel White of Phenix; paternal grandparents, Reginald and Jo Ann White of Phenix; maternal grandparents, Marion Daniel Shortt of Nathalie and the late Ryland Wilson Shortt Sr.; one aunt, Regina White Thompson (Lee) of Moseley; two cousins, Evan Thompson (Becca) and Brett Thompson (Liz); four great uncles, Eugene M. Shortt, Phillip M. Shortt, Wayne Shortt (Mary Jo), Garnett Shortt (Carolyn); three great aunt, Iris W. Guthrie, Linda S. Clark (Charlie), Elizabeth S. "Betty" Shortt; and numerous family and close friends. He was preceded in death by his uncle, Ryland W. Shortt Jr.A funeral service will be conducted 2 p.m. onWednesday, December 7, 2016, at Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church by the Rev. Mike Teixeira and the Rev. Chris Kesler, with interment to follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends at the residence.Memorials may be made to the Charlotte County Future Farmers of America Alumni P.O. Box 338 Charlotte Court House, VA 23923.Henderson Funeral Home and Cremation Service is assisting the family.
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.

Pitts is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. Email him at lpitts@miamiherald.com.
A new state-financed economic development initiative is moving forward to create regional councils to identify and cultivate clusters of like-minded businesses that can drive economic growth in nine regions of Virginia.

GO Virginia, a business-led initiative created and funded by the General Assembly this year, approved nine districts that will form their own regional councils. That process already is in the early stages of development in a region that stretches from the Richmond area through the Tri-Cities and Southside to the border of North Carolina.

The nine districts approved Monday by the GO Virginia board include District 4, which encompasses 17 jurisdictions and Fort Lee that are represented by the Richmond and Crater regional planning district commissions.

Wilson H. Flohr Jr., the retired general manager of Kings Dominion, is leading the regional effort here, which he expects to build on planning initiatives that already have identified promising economic clusters, such as logistics-driven businesses, advanced manufacturing and health care.

Weve got a lot of plans on the shelf, said Flohr, who also led the UCI Road World Championships cycling event last year and, previously, the Richmond Region 2007 celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.

Ultimately, I think our goal is to summarize, synthesize and prioritize where we are, he said.

The 24-member GO Virginia board, composed of business and political leaders from across Virginia, set a deadline of Feb. 17 for each region to submit proposals for regional councils that would be governed by guidelines adopted Monday. The board would act on the proposals at its next meeting March 14 or, potentially, April 6.

The state board expects each council to include no more than 25 members who are representative of all parts of their region, as well as diversity in ethnicity and gender.

It would be in the eye of the board whether it feels theyve met that requirement, said William C. Shelton, executive director of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development and secretary to the GO Virginia board.

The initiative, embodied in a pair of bills adopted by the assembly and signed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe this year, will offer different kinds of initiatives than usual for economic development.

In addition to $35 million included in the two-year budget to establish the program and begin funding projects identified by the regions, GO Virginia also will give local governments the opportunity to share in additional income tax revenue that would arise from the growth in high-paying jobs from the projects sponsored by two or more localities working together.

Thats a huge incentive, said John O. Dubby Wynne, a retired Hampton Roads business executive who serves as chairman of the state board. Its the first time localities can actually participate in income taxes for their communities for a period of time.

However, Wynne cautioned that GO Virginia is not about regionalism.

Two or more localities have to come together, he said. The whole region doesnt need to move in lockstep on everything.

The GO Virginia initiative also wont compete with existing economic development programs, principally the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, to provide financial incentives to recruit new businesses or expand existing ones, Wynne said. That is not what we do. ... There are others who do that.

Secretary of Commerce and Trade Todd P. Haymore, a member of the GO Virginia board, said the initiative would work in tandem with the Economic Development Partnership, which is likely to be restructured in the next 18 months to address concerns raised by a highly critical legislative report last month.

It is a complementary component of state economic development entities, Haymore said after the meeting.

The legislature appropriated $5 million in the first year of the budget to establish the state program and regional councils, and about $30 million in the second year to begin funding projects.

However, those funds could be reduced when McAuliffe proposes his revised budget Dec. 16 to identify how the state will close a projected revenue shortfall of $1.5 billion, including a $654 million gap in the second year, while providing for mandatory increases in spending for Medicaid, the Childrens Services Act and inmate health care.

In order to balance the budget, anything new will get a second look, predicted Del. Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

For the nine regions, the initiative will give business and political leaders an opportunity to put in motion plans that already have identified economic opportunities, such as the Richmonds Future plan developed by a nonprofit group led by former Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene P. Trani.

The plan placed a heavy emphasis on logistics  businesses built around moving goods and services  which was the business cluster that emerged in Memphis, Tenn., because of its location on the Mississippi River and as the air hub for the shipping giant FedEx.

The greater Richmond region, including the U.S. Army logistical base at Fort Lee, also wants to take advantage of transportation assets, such as the James River and Port of Richmond, as well as the intersection of railroad and interstate highway networks.

The whole logistics identity for central Virginia certainly makes sense, said Dennis Morris, executive director of the Crater regional commission based in Petersburg. It isnt like we start from scratch with a blank sheet of paper.

Morris said it also makes sense for regions to participate fully in the new direction for state economic development efforts.

Why wouldnt you try to play in their sandbox? he asked.
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UN must do better

However, while Mo?ses election represents a chance for Haiti to return to democratic governance after a long period under a caretaker administration, his ascent has not been welcomed unanimously among all Haitians.

There were tumultuous demonstrations in Port-au-Prince as losing candidates questioned the integrity of the voting process.

While US Department of State spokesman John Kirby said the US viewed the elections as an important step toward returning Haiti to full constitutional rule and addressing the serious challenges the country faces, he added the election had some isolated incidents of violence and intimidation. Mo?ses election comes at a particularly challenging time for Haiti. The country is still recovering from Hurricane Matthew, the 2010 earthquake and a cholera outbreak, among other things.

Repeated international efforts to bring relief to Haiti have often become enmeshed in confusion.

Last weeks unprecedented apology by the United Nations over its role in the post-2010 cholera epidemic underlines the difficulties.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon may have been trying to avoid tarnishing the good intentions of the organisation, yet his half-apology did not go far enough in addressing the serious questions of moral authority now facing the UN.

On behalf of the United Nations, I want to say very clearly: We apologise to the Haitian people, the secretary general said.

We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti. We are profoundly sorry for our role. What was unsaid in the apology is what has stoked anger, even as many laud Ban for the dramatic about-turn in the UNs approach.

There was no offer of payment of claims, no definitive statement on causation.

UN peacekeepers inadvertently brought cholera to Haiti in 2010 just after the crippling earthquake.

The outbreak, which is still ongoing, has sickened nearly 800,000 people and killed nearly 9,000.

Prior to 2010, cholera had not been reported in Haiti in decades.

The UNs own special rapporteur on human rights, Philip Alston, criticised the body in a report last August.

The existing approach is morally unconscionable, legally indefensible and politically self-defeating, Alston warned then in his report to the General Assembly.

The legal position of the United Nations to date has involved denial of legal responsibility for the outbreak, rejection of all claims for compensation, a refusal to establish the procedure required to resolve such private law matters, and entirely unjustified suggestions that the organisations absolute immunity from suit would be jeopardised by adopting a different approach. He continued, The past policy of the United Nations relied on a claim of scientific uncertainty.

That is no longer sustainable given what is now known. The United Nations was clearly responsible and it must now act accordingly. He warned that not accepting claims would provide highly combustible fuel for those who claim that United Nations peacekeeping operations trample on the rights of those being protected; and it undermines both the overall credibility of the organisation and the integrity of the Office of the Secretary-General. We agree.

The UN needs to do much better than apologise.

And further down the line, there has to be an international effort to more seriously address the question of reparations in the wake of the slave trade.

There must be a rethink of the approach to Haiti
SIGN & WINE

At one stage, Rowley was held by a woman who danced rhythmically.

She held both of his hands and led him into a tight embrace with her, from behind. They both danced in synch with each other and the music.

The female dancer then held the hips of another dancer while Rowley still held onto her waist, as a conga line was formed. At the back of the conga, President Maduro also held firmly to the waist of a dancer, as the heads of Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela swayed and danced with the women.

The dance climaxed the signing of a deal in which the heads of both countries put pen to paper to approve three agreements on energy which involve natural gas and oil production. President Maduro and Rowley signed three agreements for: I) A supply of natural gas from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago from Camp Dragon; II) Shell Venezuela and Pdvsa entering in negotiations to evaluate opportunities to reduce gas flaring in northern Monagas state, and; III) Agreement to obtain financing for a joint venture to encourage increased oil production.

Of the signing, Rowley said: What we have signed today is opening up opportunities for various necessary projects in hydrocarbons.

These will see the door opened for Trinidad and Tobago to enter the international market (...) Today we take the gas to expand our trade opportunities together. The natural gas from the Dragon Field in Venezuela will be used directly to service the downstream sector at Trinidads Pt Lisis Industrial Port Development Corporation (Plipdeco).

Rowley added that the signing was a milestone that will enhance fraternal relations between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago.

For his part, President Maduro said that these historic agreements, mark the path of peace and economic expansion.

He stressed that the people of Latin America and the Caribbean must play a role in integrating with Latin America, through the strengthening the relations of cooperation and brotherhood. We are signing three agreements, working on our maritime borders with gas blocks and reaching agreements for joint exploitation (its a) winwin for the good of both countries, Maduro said.

Earlier, on Rowleys arrival in Caracas, he was greeted by President Maduro who invited him to inspect a military Honour Guard. Rowley was then driven to a memorial for a wreath-laying ceremony before being taken to the Miraflores Palace.

Rowleys visit yesterday came after Maduro paid a similar one-day visit to this country in May, where a US$50M trade agreement was signed in which TT manufacturing companies would provide items such as food, toilet paper and soap to Venezuela, which is economic turmoil and political chaos following the massive fall in world oil prices which has crippled Venezuelas economy which is wholly dependent on money earned from its energy production in both oil and natural gas.

Unlike the throngs of protests from Venezuelans living, studying and working in Trinidad which greeted Maduro on his visit to Trinidad, Rowleys visit was generally low-key and went largely unnoticed by persons in Caracas. Rowley and his entourage, which included Minister of Foreign Affairs and CARICOM Dennis Moses, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young and Minister of Energy Franklin Khan, returned to Trinidad last evening.
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(Newser)  Torture: OK or not OK? According to a new Red Cross poll, 46% of Americans find it acceptable to torture enemy combatants, the Guardian reports. The same poll found that 33% of Americans consider torture "a part of war." But, if you're surprised by those numbers, the poll also found that 54% of Americans consider torture "wrong," though the Guardian notes that's a lower proportion than in any other country polled, save Israel (44%) and Palestine (35%).
(Newser)  The home where "Austrian incest monster" Josef Fritzl kept his daughter locked in the cellar for 24 years while fathering seven children by her may soon be used to house strippers, the Local reports. Fritzl was found guilty of murder, incest, sequestration, and 3,000 counts of rape in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison. Since then, authorities have worried the house in Austria would become a morbid tourist attraction. But reports this week say the house was purchased for a little under $172,000 by Ingrid Houska, the proprietor of a local pub and strip club.

Houska's husband, Herbert, says they plan to turn the house into apartments and "bring down the curtain" on its horrifying past, the Irish Times reports. "We have a lot of apprentices...so we need staff apartments," the Express quotes Herbert Houska as saying. He says other people have also shown an interest in moving in. "It can't stay empty forever," the Local quotes Herbert Houska as saying. "We need to bring life into it. In two years it will be a house like any other." There is one part of the notorious house that will be off limits to future tenants: The cellar where Fritzl kept his daughter prisoner was filled with cement in 2013. (Read more Josef Fritzl stories.)
(Newser)  Backpage.com has a reputation of being the seedy home for online sex ads, and one stat puts a point on it: Of the $50 million in revenue it earned in California from January 2013 to March 2015, 99% of it came from adult ads, notes the Ringer. "It is, in essence, an escort advertising network nestled in a Craigslist knockoff," writes Kate Knibbs. But does that make its execs criminals? Prosecutors think so, having charged CEO Carl Ferrer with, among other things, "pimping a minor" because the site is accused of not cracking down on ads with underage girls. They've also charged founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin with conspiracy to commit pimping. Knibbs takes a deep dive into how Backpage came to be and how the case is being closely watched in the online world because of its free-speech implications. "Digital Pimps or Fearless Publishers?" sums up the headline.

One interesting part of the back story is that Lacey and Larkin hail from a journalism background as owners of Village Voice Media. They launched Backpage because they were losing so much ad money to Craigslist and wanted to keep their "journalism passion project afloat," writes Knibbs. The site foundered as a general classifieds site, but it took off when Craigslist ditched its adult section, and those ads gravitated to Backpage. The criminal case hinges on Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which holds that websites aren't responsible for content posted by users. Knibbs has her own view: "It is inarguably, flagrantly bad that its easier to target children because of online classified sites," she writes. But if it's true that Backpage's honchos haven't done all they could to stop the sex work of minors, "that makes them mercenaries and menaces," she concludes. "What it does not make them is pimps." Click for the full story. (Read more Longform stories.)
(Newser)  Donald Trump isn't going to have a honeymoon period with House Republicans, if the frosty response to his call for a 35% tariff on companies leaving the US is anything to go by. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was among those pushing back against the policies Trump called for in a series of tweets over the weekend, the AP reports. "I don't want to get into some kind of trade war," McCarthy said, arguing that lowering corporate tax rates would be a much better way to stop companies leaving the country. "We've got to have a level playing field, that companies in America can compete on a level playing field across the world, and right now we do not have one." McCarthy said it was healthy for a president to get involved in saving American jobsbut he believes in the free market, not "picking winners and losers."

House Speaker Paul Ryan also called for policies more in keeping with the traditional GOP position on free trade, reports the New York Times. "We can get at the goal here, which is to keep American businesses American, build things in America, and sell them overseasthat can be properly addressed with comprehensive tax reform," he said. Trump's tariff plan, which is likely to need congressional approval, may have more fans among Democrats. Trump "won in part by campaigning against the Republican establishment on many economic issues," said Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the next Senate minority leader. "If he wants to get something done for working families in this country, he'll have to stand up to them when it comes time to govern, too." (Sarah Palin says policies like Trump's are "one big fail.")
(Newser)  Yet another surprise move by Donald Trump: The president-elect, who has described climate change as a Chinese hoax, met with Al Gore on Monday for a talk that the former vice president described as "extremely interesting," NBC News reports. A transition team spokesman says the meeting was originally scheduled to be between Gore and Ivanka Trumpwho is believed to want to make climate change a signature issue as "first daughter"but Gore ended up spending most of his 90 minutes in the Trump Tower with the president-elect himself, NPR reports. "I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground," Gore told reporters after the meeting.

"I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that," Gore said. The Hill reports that later in the day, Gore spoke to MSNBC's Chris Hayes about the meeting, telling him Ivanka Trump is "very committed to having a climate policy that makes sense for our country and for our world." Gorewho, like Hillary Clinton, would have become president if it was decided by the popular vote instead of the Electoral Collegealso discussed America's voting system with Hayes, saying he'd "be surprised if we didnt eventually shift to a popular vote for president over the next decade or so." (Gore believes that reform would do a lot to "stimulate public participation.")
(Newser)  Google will no longer offer a search suggestion for "are Jews evil" which directs users to anti-Semitic websites. The search engine says it has removed offensive autocomplete results initially spotted by Carole Cadwalladr at the Observer, reports the Guardian. Cadwalladr explained how Google suggested a search for "are Jews evil" when "are Jews" was typed into its search box. Typing "are women" and "are Muslims" returned "are women evil" and "are Muslims bad," Cadwalladr said. Clicking those suggestions took her to page results that would lead one to conclude that "Jews are evil. Women are evil. Islam must be destroyed. Hitler was one of the good guys," Cadwalladr added. An answer box highlighted by Google even explained that "every woman has some degree of prostitute in her."

A data scientist urged Google to take action, noting it had "clearly become a conduit for right-wing hate sites" and a victim of "the troll army," per the Guardian. "It is clearly very frightening what is going on here." Most of the offensive autocomplete results spotted by Cadwalladr have since been erased"are women equal to men" was among them, per CBS Newsthough "are Muslims bad" is still a suggestion. Google says it tries "to prevent offensive terms, like porn and hate speech, from appearing," but "autocomplete predictions are algorithmically generated based on users' search activity and interests" and "may be unexpected or unpleasant." That said, "we acknowledge that autocomplete isn't an exact science and we're always working to improve our algorithms." (Google previously suggested Wisconsin was "stupid.")
(Newser)  Consider him one of the faithless. Texas Republican Christopher Suprun, one of the 538 electors set to cast a ballot for the next president on Dec. 19, won't be voting for Donald Trump, and he explains his position in an opinion piece for the New York Times. He says his swerve has nothing to do with people pleading with him to dismiss Trump because of "policy disagreements" or because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Instead, Suprun notes, he simply won't pick someone "who shows daily he is not qualified for the office"and his role as a firefighter and first responder to the 9/11 attacks plays a significant part in his perspective. Suprun calls George W. Bush an "imperfect man," but lauds him for the way "he led us through the tragic days following the attacks" and how "his leadership showed that America was a great nation."

Trumpnot so much, per Suprun. "I watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge between us," he writes, citing everything from the president-elect's lack of foreign policy experience and possible conflicts of interest to his tendency toward demagoguery and even his constant tweets about SNL. "For me, America is that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan envisioned," Suprun writes. "It has problems. It has challenges. These can be met and overcome just as our nation overcame Sept. 11." Whom he thinks "electors of conscience" should pick: "an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov. John Kasich of Ohio." Meaning Suprun won't be riding the Trump train. "Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. On Dec. 19, I will do it again," he promises. (Click for his full column.)
(Newser)  Donald Trump's incoming national security adviser is now the subject of a wave of negative headlines over his peddling of conspiracy theories on Twitter. The tweets of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn have been relatively tame since Trump picked him, but by Politico's count, he has pushed "dubious factoids at least 16 times since Aug. 8." One recent example is from Nov. 2 when he tweeted a fake news story saying that police had linked Hillary Clinton and staffers to pedophilia and money laundering, among other things: "U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc...MUST READ!" Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, is even less restrained. The younger Flynn has served as his father's chief of staff and is a key adviser to him.

After a gunman opened fire in a DC pizza shop Sunday because of online stories saying that Clinton was running a child-sex ring inside, the younger Flynnwho had previously pushed the "Pizzagate" allegationskept the story alive, notes the New York Times. "Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story," he tweeted. "The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it." Like his father, the younger Flynn now has an email address ending in .gov, suggesting he will be part of the new White House. (CNN has far more details on the tweets of Flynn's son here.) Another of the elder Flynn's tweets pointed to wild rumors that Clinton aide John Podesta belonged to a blood-drinking cult. The Times points out that in his new role, Flynn will have to sift "fact from speculation and rumor" as he helps Trump decide how to respond to crises. (Read more Michael Flynn stories.)
(Newser)  A suburban Philadelphia judge settled one of two key pretrial issues in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial on Monday when he ruled that the jury could hear Cosby's damaging testimony from a decade-old civil deposition. The defense had argued that Cosby only gave the testimony after being assured he would never be charged in the case. But Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill concluded that Cosby had no such guarantee, the AP reports. O'Neill has vowed to bring the case to trial by June. The 79-year-old Cosby is charged with felony sexual assault. Here's where the criminal case against Cosby stands, and what's ahead:

Why the deposition is so important. The nearly 1,000 pages of often-lurid testimony show another side of the actor known as "America's Dad" for his portrayal of amiable Dr. Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show from 1984-1992. Cosby acknowledged a string of extramarital affairs over 50 years and said he had given young women drugs or alcohol before sexual encounters that he deemed consensual. Many of the women say they were drugged and molested.

What Cosby says about the accuser . Cosby acknowledged the 2004 sexual encounter with accuser Andrea Constand, and described putting his hand down her pants after giving her three unidentified blue pills. He said he did not hear her object. "And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped," he said. Prosecutors believe Constand was semi-conscious and unable to give consent.

. Cosby acknowledged the 2004 sexual encounter with accuser Andrea Constand, and described putting his hand down her pants after giving her three unidentified blue pills. He said he did not hear her object. "And so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped," he said. Prosecutors believe Constand was semi-conscious and unable to give consent. What about other women? Cosby testified that he had gotten quaaludes from his doctor in the 1970s and kept them on hand to give to women before sex. He said he considered it illegal to offer someone the party drug, but did so in the same way someone might say, "Have a drink."

Cosby testified that he had gotten quaaludes from his doctor in the 1970s and kept them on hand to give to women before sex. He said he considered it illegal to offer someone the party drug, but did so in the same way someone might say, "Have a drink." What's next in the case . The judge will hear arguments next week on the other key pretrial issue, the question of how many other accusers can testify at trial about Cosby's alleged pattern of drugging and molesting women. DA Kevin Steele hopes to call 13 other women as "prior bad act" witnesses. The defense will fight strenuously to block their testimony, questioning their credibility and relevance. The hearing is set for Dec. 13 and 14.

. The judge will hear arguments next week on the other key pretrial issue, the question of how many other accusers can testify at trial about Cosby's alleged pattern of drugging and molesting women. DA Kevin Steele hopes to call 13 other women as "prior bad act" witnesses. The defense will fight strenuously to block their testimony, questioning their credibility and relevance. The hearing is set for Dec. 13 and 14. How is Cosby doing? Cosby has not spent any time in custody since his Dec. 30 arrest. He posted $1 million bail the same day and has made about a half-dozen court appearances, usually flanked by a team of lawyers and handlers. Defense lawyers say the 79-year-old comedian is legally blind and suffering memory problems, rendering him unable to help them prepare for trial. Neither his wife of 52 years, Camille, nor any of their four surviving children have accompanied him.

(Despite the scandal, Cosby Show reruns are coming back .)
(Newser)  "To be circumcised should be an informed, personal choice," or so thinks the Danish Medical Association, which on Friday issued its recommendation that no boy under age 18 in the country be circumcised. Going that route then leaves the door open for the male to make a decision of his own "when he has come of age," says Lise Moller, the head of the associations ethics board. That's not to say the doctors' group is calling for a ban, which it says it weighed and decided against due to cases where male circumcision is medically necessary and for the potential for clandestine botched procedures, says Moller. Had they wanted a ban, they'd possibly face a steep slope.

In a June report to the UN, Denmark agreed with Egypt's stance that it is a parental right to circumcise one's male child, reports the Copenhagen Post. Still, the Local reports that 74% of respondents to a 2014 survey said they'd support a full or partial ban. An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 circumcisions take place in Denmark each year, and the country should have a firmer idea of that number as of Jan. 1, after which all circumcisions must be logged in Denmark's national patient registry, reports the Local. Doctors who fail to do so will be fined, reports the Post. The CDC reports that in 2010, an estimated 58% of male newborns were circumcised in the US. (This mom went into hiding and then to jail in an attempt to avoid circumcising her son.)
(Newser)  The tear-jerker Christmas ad of the year has arrived from Poland. The ad from auction website Allegro shows an elderly man using the site to search for "English." A package soon arrives on the man's doorstep with learning materials titled, "English for Beginners." We watch as the man slowly begins to learn a few words, from "toilet" to "dog," before picking up moreincluding a curse wordfrom English movies. Soon, he's loudly reciting phrases like "I love you" and "you are perfect" on a bus. Why all the effort? It soon becomes clear as the man packs his "toothbrush" and "passport" in a "suitcase" and boards a plane to England, where he visits his son for Christmas. Then a face peeks out from behind a door.

The man approaches the little kid, crouches down, and says in perfect English, "Hi. I am your grandpa." A rep tells BuzzFeed that the ad and Allegro have the same goal: to "bring joy, touch the heart, and cause a [smile]." In only a week, the ad has been watched more than 2.7 million times on YouTube, and at least some viewers were left blubbering. "That was a beautiful ad ... I got tears in my eyes," says a commenter, per the Telegraph. "I'm not crying. Dust in my eye. You're crying. Shut up," adds a Twitter user. In a real-life equivalent, the Huffington Post reports a 75-year-old grandfather living in Brazil joined Instagram so he could share his daily drawings with his grandchildren, who live in the US and Korea. He now has 151,000 followers. (Read more uplifting news stories.)
(Newser)  A Muslim transit worker was called a "terrorist" and pushed down a flight of stairs in New York City on Monday, two days after police say a man threatened to slit the throat of a Muslim NYPD officer. Soha Salama, 45, suffered a twisted knee and swollen ankle. She says she was riding a train to work while wearing her Metropolitan Transportation Authority uniform and a head covering when a man confronted her, reports NBC New York. "He kept telling me I should go back to my country. He said, 'You're a terrorist. You shouldn't work here.'" Police say he followed her into Grand Central Terminal and pushed her down the flight of stairs, per CBS New York.

The NYPD says reports of hate crimes have spiked since the electionthe department has logged 43 cases, compared to 20 during the same period in 2015. Of the new ones, four have involved Muslim victims. In a case similar to Monday's incident, police say two men harassed a Muslim woman on the subway on Thursday, calling her a "f---ing terrorist," per NBC New York. Asked Monday whether he blamed Donald Trump for the uptick, Mayor de Blasio said: "It's obviously more complicated than that. It is not linear." But, notes the AP, he accused Trump of "hate speech" and saying "horrible things" about Muslims. (Read more New York stories.)
(Newser)  The man responsible for ravaging America's Navy 75 years ago this month "stood only three inches taller than five feet and weighed 130 pounds, maybe," writes Steve Twomey in a deep dive for Smithsonian on how we got to the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. In roughly 5,000 words,Twomey credits good luck for the effectiveness of Japan's attack, but also two errors of assumption on America's part: that Japan would never cross the great and powerful United States, and that it wasn't militarily and technologically advanced enough to do so. But "as with every innovation, someone gets there first," writes Twomey. Credit goes to the petite commander of Japan's Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, for helping get Japan there. Japan had 10 aircraft carriers (America, seven), and Yamamoto realized there was strength in numbers.

He saw the power in joining together six of themand the dive and torpedo bombers they carrieda few hundred miles off Hawaii. The plan was rife with potential pitfalls: that the fleet would be spotted during its two-week oceanic crossing; that the US fleet would be out on a training exercise on the day in question. And then there was the torpedo issue: With a shallow depth of about 45 feet, Pearl Harbor and its ships were mostly immune to the weapons, which would burrow into the mud. That is until Japan upped the number of stabilizing fins, halting a torpedo's mid-air roll and shortening its dive. The Navy, unaware, had deemed torpedo nets unnecessary along the harbor's "Battleship Row." It was a fatal combination. Read Twomey's piece in full here for other factors that contributed to our unpreparedness. (Read more Pearl Harbor stories.)
Mars has always been the planet to spark human curiosity. It was named a god of war later on, the home planet of hostile alien forms, now it is the prime goal of space exploration missions. The newest photos from the surface have been released and everyone is free to see them.

BBC reports that then new European-Russian satellite has reached Mars. It has managed to instantiate an orbit around the planet and has sent the first pictures of the surface. Even though it has found steady ground, it will not be less than a year, before the team starts full scientific work with the satellite. The satellite has flown over an area named Hebes Chasma which is the closest to the surface that they could get with no more than 250km distance.



This gave high-quality pictures to the team, which represent two meters of surface in each pixel.

Just as an example, the scientists have explained that it is like flying over a town with the speed of 15000km/h and getting pictures of peoples cars.

Space shares more information on the topic. The pictures taken of the Hebes Chasma area were good for testing the cameras capabilities. The satellite will be capable of making 3D maps of the surface by taking pictures of an area in different angles. Scientists explain that the photos are in full color, but look black and white because it is a volcanic area without much color in it. To get more colorful pictures, they will have to wait for the satellite to fly over a different, calmer area.

Red Orbit shares more information on the goal of the mission. The satellite has been sent there to make a search for gasses which are presumed rare on Martian surface. This includes methane, water vapor, nitrogen dioxide and acetylene among others. The instruments used have shown their capabilities and the scientists believe that they will be able to successfully finish their mission.
The Great Barrier Reef is in great danger after two-thirds of the 435 miles stretch of coral was killed in the past nine months, according to scientists who surveyed the reef. The home to numerous fish and aquatic species is reportedly in dire straits.

According to a Deloitte Access Economics report, this is the worst die-off ever recorded on the World Heritage Site. Their finding in the reef's north is a major damage for tourism at reef which gains 3.9 billion per year.

James Cook University professor and researcher Andrew Baird described the coral as essentially cooked. He said to Reuters via telephone that the Australia's tropical north is at risk. The majestic reef's "die-off" is "almost certain" as the largest ever recorded anywhere because of the reef's size, which is at 134,400 sq miles. It is the biggest reef in the world.

One of the main factors of this is the bleaching of the corals. It occurs when the water is warm which makes the corals expel living algae and causing it to harden then turn white. Bleaching, if done mildly, could make corals recover if the temperature drops. The surveyors found that it occurred in southern parts of the reef.

While bleaching is technically natural, scientists raised their concerns that rising sea temperatures due to global warming create more damage and it leaves sensitive underwater ecosystems unable to recover from the damage.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization or more known as UNESCO, in their World Heritage Committee, stopped placing the Great Barrier Reef on their "in danger" list last May but asked the Australian government to give an update on its progress in protecting the reef.

Australia is expected to give an update on Friday, according to a spokesman for Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg. Last June, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised, in his election campaign, to set aside A$1 Billion to safeguard the reef.

Climate scientists discussed that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat radiating from earth, causing global warming.
Ever imagined how 3 whole deer could fit into one stomach? Wildlife officials in the Everglades have caught a massive Burmese python which devoured three whole deer before being euthanized. The Burmese python most likely ate the three deers on different times over a 90-day period.

According to Fox News, the said Burmese python has set a record of being the first ever invasive python of its kind caught with three white-tailed deer in its stomach - two fawns and one doe. The said record was studied by an associate professor of Biology at Dickinson College of Pennsylvania, Scott Boback.

Boback, according to the news site's report, said that a python devouring three deer in such time span may be long, but pretty weird for one to eat such three large meals in a short window. Boback said that the captured female Burmese python raises a question on how pythons affect the ecosystem in the Everglades.

Authorities are still wondering how this is affecting the eco system given that one can eat three whole deer in 3 months, and that the authorities does not know how many of these kind are in the area, as reported by USA Today.

The news site reports that since Burmese pythons started to exist in the Everglades area, the population of animals like raccoons, rabbits, foxes, and other small to medium animals have somewhat been depleted.

The Burmese python was said to be 16 feet long, according to Daily Mail, and weighed 105 pounds. It was caught by the wildlife officials on June 3, 2013 and was euthanized after. The study has found out that the Burmese python's large intestine contains around 14 pounds of feces which reportedly contained hair, bones, teeth, and hooves. The news site reported that Burmese pythons are known to devour small to medium sized animals in the Everglades.
Nestle publicized that they would reduce the level of sugar in its chocolate bar by up to 40%. The company is making its best to use natural ingredients without affecting the taste of the chocolate. They're planning to develop a better way of the structure of sugar without compromising the taste.

The company announced that in altering the subatomic structure of sugar it would only use a third less of the substance and it will work out the hollow structure of sugar crystals. The process would dissolve the particles quickly. The effect may seem to deceits the taste buds, so less sugar can be used in chocolate. The study is an extension of the 2007 promise of the company to cut the sugar in its products on a global level.

Currently, the average four-bar Kit Kat contains 23.8 grams of sugar. The new process found by Nestle could dissolve the new sugar molecules in place, which would be cut to 14.3 grams. It is about three cubes in amount and that was per Sugar Stacks.

This is one of the small steps of Nestle to fight global obesity, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease. The new discovery could make their products healthier which accurately fits the brand's vision. The company provides high quality and safe food solutions for consumers worldwide. They bring to consumer products that are of the highest quality in terms of nutrition, health, wellness, taste, texture or convenience. The company is been working to reduce sugar, salt and fat for healthier options.

It was reported that the company would begin to use the faster-dissolving sugar across a range of its confectionery products from 2018. The designer molecules will helps parents to persuade their children to have healthy habits at a young age, which many has sweet tooth. The company is looking forward to personalized nutrition through greater understanding of genetic and environmental interactions with food.
Southeast Asia will never be business as usual with the United States giving the current "Personal Foreign Policy" of the incoming US President. Donald Trump's election once said is a big blow to Asia and Europe and China is taking the lead.

President-elect Donald Trump made his own way to communicate and express his opinion than any other US President did or any world leaders for the matter. He takes it to his own hand in Social Media giving his outburst limiting to nothing including foreign relation.

This behavior threatens US international relations and becoming a great sign of uncertainties for this administration. Trump should learn that policy-making and diplomacy need the certain elements in looking to different options providing a win-win result, proper deliberation for good negotiation, and cool head.

Beijing took the provocative stand when the incoming President made a phone call to Taiwan President. The mere intervention of an incoming US President on Asia took a controversial move affecting the tensions of these nations.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen is the first Asian leader communicated by an incoming US President since 1970s' and made it lenient but eventually got out to public attention. Trump, however, is to blame because he tried to brag about it in public to intimidate China.

Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and candidate as Secretary of State said, "He showed the dictators in Beijing that he's not a pushover." He further expressed "China has had an enormously aggressive foreign policy and by him actually going to Taiwan, he's showing the people in Beijing that they cannot have this aggressive foreign policy and expect to be treated just the same by an American president."

The US intervention in Asia is elevating the tension on a higher level. It is sending the message that China should take a slow move with its foreign policy, stop militarizing the region, and stop claiming the islands in the South China Sea.
Less than a year ago, US President Barack Obama's short but historic visit to Hiroshima in Japan was perceived as a great gesture. Now, it is time for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to return the favor.

Abe will visit Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, later this month and will go down in history as the first Japanese leader to do so since Japan's attack on the site in 1941 which had left over 2,300 American servicemen dead and saw the US joining World War II just as the nuclear attack in Hiroshima had made Japan surrender to end the war four years later. Abe, however, is not the first from his family to visit Pearl Harbor. His wife Akie Abe had visited the site in August this year.

"I am aware that there are various debates and views about Pearl Harbor, but I believe we must go beyond hatred and anger, and pass down these memories to following generations," AFP had quoted Akie speaking about her visit which was a surprising one.

Abe, who met the American President-Elect Donald Trump last month in New York, said he will visit Hawaii on December 26-27 to pray for the dead at the Pearl Harbor naval base and meet President Obama for the final time, reported Washington Times. Obama is set to leave office next month.

Abe used the occasion to showcase the bond between Japan and the US, two close allies in the current international system, and Washington acknowledged the effort.

Japan has been anxious over its ties with the US in the recent times following Trump's words that America's allies should help in paying the cost of stationing US troops in their territories. Abe's meeting with the businessman president-elect was seen as a step towards understanding the mindset of the incoming administration in Washington.

According to the Washington Times report, Abe rejected reports that the Obama administration was against him meeting Trump.

'Abe visit to Pearl Harbor significant'

Keith Henry, founder of Tokyo-based Asia Strategy, described Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor was an "enormous symbolic gesture" by Japan, said a CNN report.

According to Henry, the relationship between Washington and Tokyo is the "lynchpin" of peace in Asia and Abe's focus on reconciliation is an acknowledgement of that fact.
Paramount Picture announced that the reboot of 90's TV series Baywatch will be shown on May 26, 2017, Memorial Day weekend. Dwayne Johnson will play the role of Mitch Buchannon in the action-comedy reboot.

According to CB, the original schedule (May 19, 2016) was pushed back to May 26, 2017. This means Baywatch would go toe to toe against Sony's sci-fi "Life" which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson, together with Disney's fifth installment of the pirates of the Caribbean "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales".

The movie also stars Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Ilfenesh Hadera, Priyanka Chopra, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Hannibal Buress along with Baywatch originals Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff. Directing the movie from the screenplay is Seth Gordon, while Johnson and Dany Garcia through Seven Bucks Productions will produce the movie. Ivan Reitman, Beau Flynn, Doug Schwatz and Greg Bronan will also produce.

The latest script draft was written by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, however, the plot follows the story of Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson) as he contends with a cocky new recruit (Zac Efron). Teaming up together they discovered a criminal plot that endangers the bay.

Baywatch was a hit drama action series during the 90's. It is about Los Angeles Lifeguards who patrols the beaches of LA and usually focused on beach related dangers, from shark attacks and earthquakes to serial killers served as a plot on the series. However, rescuing people from drowning was the most common situation in every episode. Baywatch stars David Hasselhoff as the original Mitch Buchannon and Pamela Anderson as C.J Parker

May 19, the original opening date, will also premier Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, Open Road's animation Nut Job 2 and New Line's horror sequel Annabelle 2. Meantime, check out the official trailer of Baywatch 2017 below.
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Cloudy. Snow showers developing late. Low 9F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

Tonight

Cloudy. Snow showers developing late. Low 9F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
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New Delhi:

Tamil Nadu has come to a standstill with the passing away of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, fondly called as Amma by many. Jayalalithaa took her last 74 days after she was admitted to Apollo Hospital in Chennai.

Here are some facts about the movie career of Jayalalithaa:

Jayalalithaa in movies

As a child actress:



Her real name was Komalavalli. She became Jayalalithaa after she joined the film industry, where she began her career as a child artist in 1961. As a child actress, she worked in English, Kannada and Hindi films. She made her debut with an English film titled The Epistle.

Jayalalithaa in movies

Debut as a lead actress:



At the age of 15, she appeared in her first film as a lead actress in the Kannada movie - 'Chinnada Gombe' (golden doll). Jayalalithaa worked in 300-odd films in various languages.



Her first Tamil film (in 1965) was 'Vennira Aadai' (white dress), which turned out to be a major blockbuster. In 1965, she worked opposite former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MG Ramachandran (MGR), who turned out to be her future political mentor. The two worked together for over two decades, both in films and political arenas. Ramachandran passed away in 1987.

Jayalalithaa in movies

Jayalalithaa made her debut in Telugu films as lead actress in Manushulu Mamathalu. She was the first heroine to appear in skirts in Tamil films. Jaya also acted in one Hindi film called Izzat opposite Dharmendra in 1968.



Jaya starred in 28 box-office hit films with MG Ramachandran between 1965 and 1973.

Jayalalithaa in movies

Her last film:



Jayalalithaa bid adieu to the film industry in 1980, when she acted in her last film Nadhiyai Thedi Vandha Kadal (Where ocean seeks a river). She left films to join politics.

Jayalalithaa in movies

Awards:



Jayalalithaa's Pattikada Pattanama won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil in 1973. It fetched her Filmfare Award for Best Actress. She won a Special Award from Filmfare and Tamil Nadu government in 1966, 1969 and 1970 for her performances in Chandhrodhayam, Adimai Penn, Engirundho Vandhaal.



She won Filmfare Award for Best Actress for her performance in Pattikada Pattanama, Suryagandhi in 1972 and 1973 respectively. Her 1973 Telugu Sri Krishna Satya won her Filmfare Award for Best Actress in Telugu.
New Delhi:

After the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will visit Chennai on Tuesday to pay floral tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away last night.

The Delhi Chief Minister will reach Chennai around 12.30 PM and pay tributes to Jayalalithaa at Rajajji Hall, said a senior Delhi government official.

V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admis leader. May her soul rest in peace, Kejriwal tweeted.

V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admi's leader. May her soul rest in peace.  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) December 5, 2016

Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital in Chennai after battling for life for the past 75 days.

Also Read: Live | Jayalalithaa passes away: Cremation at Marina beach today evening, PM leaves for Chennai, govt declares one-day national

The 67-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

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Colombo:

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday expressed condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and said she was a leader "dearly loved" by her people.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said. Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India'sTamil community".

Rajapaksa, during his presidency, invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions. Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka. While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance. The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to bring pressure on New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils. Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night inChennai.

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New Delhi:

After the death of J Jayalalithaa condolence and mourning started pouring in. Tamil Nadu announced 7- day state mourning Schools and colleges will be closed for three days. Central government has also announced one-day national mourning. Ministers and dignitaries across the India and abroad are paying homage to the beloved Chief Minister.

Here is who said what while paying tributes to J Jayalalithaa

--Current Principal,Bishop Cotton Girls' School(Bengaluru)

Jayalalithaa was a brilliant student, & a good athlete when she used to be here.

-- J&K CM Mehbooba

Mufti Jayalalithaa was a people's CM. She was learned & compassionate, godmother for her people.I offer my condolences.

-- Actor, Shatrughan Sinha

Jayalalithaa was an iron lady. An amazing woman & a great leader. Connect she had with ppl was unprecedented.Huge loss to nation.

-- Actor, Paresh Rawal

Huge loss for country. She was an amazing woman, seldom do we find such great leaders.



--Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh

Work she did for people is remarkable, was a very popular leader as we can see the whole state is in mourning.



-- Actor Dharmendra

I am shocked. Jayalalithaa was my co-star in film 'Izzat'. When I heard she is not well, prayed for her well being.

-- Raman Singh, Chhattisgarh CM

Work she did for people is remarkable, was a very popular leader as we can see the whole state is in mourning.

--Paresh Rawal, Actor

Huge loss for country. She was an amazing woman, seldom do we find such great leaders.

--Shatrughan Sinha, MP, BJP

She was an iron lady. Magnetic & amazing woman, also a great leader. Connect she had with ppl was unprecedented.Huge loss to nation.

-- President Pranab Mukherjee

Heartfelt condolences on the sad demise of Ms. Jayaram Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

-- PM Narendra Modi

Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief.Jayalalithaa jis connect with citizens, concern for welfare of the poor, the women & marginalized will always be a source of inspiration.

-- Vice-President Rahul Gandhi

We lost a great leader today.Women,farmers,fishermen &the marginalised dreamt through her eyes.We will miss Jayalalithaa ji,Amma to millions



-- Union Minister Prakash Javedekar

Jayalalithaa death is great loss for everybody as she created her own brand 'Amma politics' that connects to poor.

--DMK supremo M Karunanidhi

I offer deep condolences on the passing away of #Jayalalithaa , wishes of lakhs of her followers will make her immortal



-- Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju

Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. She has left a huge void in Indian politics. This video is my tribute to her.

-- BJP Amit Shah

Saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM J.Jayalalithaa ji. I extend my deepest condolences to her party and followers in this hour of grief.

-- Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge

Big setback for Tamil Nadu; Jayalalithaa gave many pro-poor programmes, which should be continued in her memory.

--Actor, Dharmendra: I am shocked. #Jayalalithaa was my co-star in film 'Izzat'. When I heard she is not well, prayed for her well being: I am shocked. #Jayalalithaa was my co-star in film 'Izzat'. When I heard she is not well, prayed for her well being

--Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar

She struggled for poor people and took initiatives that other states followed. Tamil Nadu & whole country has lost a icon

--Actor, Rajinikanth

#Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall in Chennai where her mortal remains have been kept.

--Congress leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad

India has lost one of its shining stars. #Jayalalithaaji made her mark both as artist and politician,deeply sad at her demise.



--Lok Sabha Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan

#JJayalalithaa was not only strong, but also a good administrator; It's a big setback for politics.

--Home Minister, Rajnath Singh

#Jayalalithaa was a great leader. She had emerged as an icon in Indian politics. I condole the bereaved.



--Bihar CM, Nitish Kumar

It's a loss not only for TN politics but also for rest of the country; All of Bihar is in mourning today.

--Malayalam actor, Mammootty

#Jayalalithaa was the Iron lady of present times, she did a lot of work for Tamil ppl. I condole with bereaved.

--RJD Chief, Lalu Prasad Yadav

This is a great loss to the nation, India needs her at this time when the country is heading towards dictatorship.

--Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers,Ananth Kumar

It is an irreparable loss; #Jayalalithaa ji was known as messiah for poor; PM Narendra Modi has gone to Chennai to pay tribute.

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New Delhi:

IAF plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai returns to Delhi after facing a technical snag.

Within 30 minutes of take-off from the Palam Technical Area, the aircraft developed a technical problem and returned to base, sources said.

#FLASH IAF plane carrying President Pranab Mukherjee to Chennai returns to Delhi after facing a technical snag.  ANI (@ANI_news) December 6, 2016

The aircraft had reached Agra when the snag was detected.President will now board another plane and resume the journey to Chennai to pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa.

Also Read: In Pics- Jayalalithaa supporters mourn her demise as TN prepares for last rites

Officials said it will take 40 minutes to one hour for the President to be air-borne again.

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Chennai:

Chronology of major milestones in the four-decade political career of AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who passed away Monday night.



June 24, 1991: Sworn in Chief Minister for the first time after she leads AIADMK to a huge win in assembly elections.



May, 1996: Amidst charges of corruption during its rule, AIADMK loses in the assembly elections. DMK returns to power.



July 11: Then Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy files private complaint in a court accusing Jayalalithaa of amassing wealth worth Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate to her known sources of income during 1991 to 1996.



Dec 7: Jayalalithaa arrested. Charges of corruption, including accumulation of disproportionate assets, follows.



April, 1997: DMK Government sets up three special courts to try 47 corruption cases against Jayalalithaa, her former cabinet colleagues and others.



1997: Prosecution launched against Jayalalithaa, her close friend Sasikala and two others in a Chennai Court in DA case.



June 4, 1997: Charge-sheeted in DA case.



1999: Discharged in coal import deal case by special court; Upheld by Madras High Court.



February 2, 2000: Special court convicts her in Pleasant Stay Hotel case related to permission granted for construction allegedly flouting rules.



October, 2000: A special court in Chennai convicts Jayalalithaa in TANSI land deal case.



May 14, 2001: Jayalalithaa leads AIADMK to landslide win in assembly elections; Sworn in Chief Minister though she was disqualified to contest elections.



September 21, 2001: Jayalalithaa unseated as CM after Supreme Court quashes her appointment as she was disqualified to contest polls due to TANSI case conviction.



December 4: Madras High Court acquits Jayalalithaa in the TANSI case and Pleasant Stay Hotel case.



Feb 21, 2002: Jayalalithaa elected to Assembly in a bypoll from Andipatti constituency.



March 2: Jayalalithaa sworn in Chief Minister.



November 18, 2003: On a petition by DMK, Supreme Court transfers the trial in DA case to Bengaluru.



November 24: Supreme Court upholds Jayalalithaas acquittal in TANSI case.

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Dubai :

In a heartwarming incident, a poor Bangladeshi man working as a cleaner in Saudi Arabia has been gifted a host of freebies from a gold set to smartphones by people who came out in his support after he was mocked online over a photo of him staring at a jewellery shop display.

An Instagram user had mocked the cleaner, who works in Riyadh, by sharing the picture, writing, this man deserves to only look at rubbish.

The comment prompted an outpouring of support for the cleaner on social media, and Abdullah al Qahtani, the owner of the Twitter account Ensaniyat (humanitarianism), started a campaign to find the man in the photo.

Qahtani told a Saudi news channel that he managed to find the cleaner to give him his gifts.

The cleaner was identified as Nuzroul Abdulkareem, and his monthly salary was said to be USD 187 (700 Saudi riyal).

More money is being sent to Nuzroul, Qahtani said, without specifying how much.

In addition to a gold set, bags of rice and honey, Abdulkareem has so far received two-way tickets to his home country, and two phones-one iPhone 7 and one Samsung Galaxy.

Saudis on the social media platform tweeted, vowing to send more gifts to the cleaner, including one user who said a gift of USD 533 (2,000 Saudi riyal) would be given.

I am very thankful, Abdulkareem said. Qahtani described him as very hardworking.

Abdulkareem also takes care of homeless kittens on the street where he works, Qahtani said.

The picture of him staring at the gold shop display went viral and many Saudi users insisted on buying the cleaner a gold set.

An account then published photographs of the cleaner holding the gold set gifted to him.

For all the Latest Viral News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Paris:

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has been appointed as the new prime minister on Tuesday after Manuel Valls resigned to seek the Socialist nomination in next years presidential election.

Cazeneuve, who has overseen the security forces reaction to a string of jihadist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France over the past two years, will take control of the Socialist government until the election in May.

The widely-respected former lawyer was named to the post after President Francois Hollande accepted Vallss resignation early Tuesday.

Cazeneuve, 53, has served in various government roles, including budget minister and minister in charge of European affairs, before becoming interior minister in April 2014.

Bruno Le Roux, leader of the Socialists in the lower house of parliament, will take over the interior portfolio.

The mini-reshuffle comes after Valls, who has been prime minister for the past two-and-a-half years, said yesterday he would step down to contest a leftwing primary in January.

The 54-year-old quit the government to devote himself to the presidential race, in which polls currently show him trailing in fifth place overall.

Announcing his candidacy yesterday, he vowed to take on the conservative Republicans and the far-right National Front led by Marine Le Pen.

His announcement came four days after Hollande said he would bow out after a single term, paving the way for his divisive premier to try to become the lefts new standard bearer.

My candidacy is one of reconciliation, Valls said in a speech from his political base in the gritty Paris suburb of Evry.

The far right, which was beaten in Austrias presidential election at the weekend, was at the gates of power in France with a nationalist programme that would ruin the poor, he warned.

Polls show Le Pen and conservative candidate Francois Fillon far out in front in the opening round of the election on April 23, with Fillon expected to beat Le Pen in Mays second round.

Valls would crash out with 10 percent if he won the nomination - behind Fillon, Le Pen, centrist former economy minister Emmanuel Macron and the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, an Ifop-Fiducial poll showed today.

Yesterday, Valls attacked Fillon, a self-declared Thatcherite, accusing him of rehashing the old recipes of the 1980s.

Were told that Francois Fillon is the next president of the Republic. Nothing is set in stone, he said defiantly.

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Wealthy corporations practically giving away their assets in Venezuela to flee the coming collapse

Venezuela is in shambles and has been for quite some time. What is responsible for this? None other than socialism.

After adopting a socialist system of economics, the country of Venezuela slowly began collapsing on top of itself. The once economically stable country has since become a complete disaster where people are now spending ludicrous amounts of money on necessities.

To make matters even worse for the country, many of the corporations that once held offices and factories in the country are doing everything they can to escape. Theyre so desperate to get out of Venezuela that they are practically giving away their assets just so they can flee the country. Everyone from Ford Motor Company to General Mills is engaging in this behavior  and it is no wonder why.

Bob Adelmann of The New American reports, Executives quizzed about the departures said their operations were no longer viable, that it was increasingly difficult to obtain raw materials, and when they did, they couldnt sell the finished goods profitably, thanks to price controls enforced by Marxist Nicolas Maduros government.

The societal and economic collapse in Venezuela serves as the latest example of socialism being a complete joke. Every corporation, every country that has given socialism a chance has paid the ultimate price. This isnt an isolated incident  it is one of many, from all across the world. It is time for people to grow up and accept the fact that both socialism and communism will never actually work.

Capitalism is the only way. It allows businesses, societies and individuals to prosper without any sort of government intervention. Socialism forces people to rely on the government for everything, which is what has left so many socialist countries in shambles. The federal government is terrible at almost everything, so depending on them for absolutely everything is a recipe for disaster.

While we can all hope that Venezuela will be a learning experience for the world, the Regressive Left is so obsessed with the idea of socialism that there is little doubt that they will attempt to make this happen once again. They continue to convince themselves that the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth times will be the charm and they never learn their lesson. There is no hope for these people anymore, but that doesnt mean that the rest of us shouldnt do our part to expose the corruption where we see it.

Its never too late to open a young liberals eyes to the truth.

Sources:

TheNewAmerican.com

Bloomberg.com

CTVNews.ca

Submit a correction >>
Alexander Soule / Hearst Connecticut Media

Connecticut was the lone state in the nation to see a decline in home prices in October, according to CoreLogic, good news for those looking to buy but bedeviling sellers.

CoreLogic tracked a 0.7 percent decline for Connecticut on its Home Price Index from October 2015, versus a 6.7 percent gain for the United States.
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One of the most energy-efficient houses in the world is in western Connecticut.

The house, which was designed by a Ridgefield architect and a Wilton contractor, was just one of 12 single-family residences from around the globe, and the only American project, honored last month at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Morocco.

It was exciting just to be in the room with all of these people from around the world, said Elizabeth DiSalvo, the principal architect at Trillium Architects.

DiSalvo and Chris Trolle, a partner at BPC Green Builders Inc. in Wilton, created the completely electric-powered home in 2015 for the Taft School in Watertown. Faculty members live in the home, which also serves as a learning tool for the students because they can monitor the homes energy readings with a monitor in the cafeteria.

They wanted the home to be an example, so they wanted the house to be as sustainable and healthy for the environment as possible, DiSalvo said.

The U.N. recognition is just the latest in a series of accolades at the state and national level, including receiving the U.S. Department of Energys Housing Innovation Awards for the Zero Energy Home. It is also certified by three efficiency ratings.

The two-story house has about 2,400 square feet of livable space and uses about one-tenth of the energy of an average single-family residence. All of the houses electricity comes from solar panels, which generate about three times as much energy as the house uses.

A thermal envelope keeps the home warm in the winter and cool in the summer without having to use as much electrical heating or cooling. The envelope is created with wide-set framing and 12 inches of insulation, about twice as thick as usual. The temperature is also maintained with a special air filtration system and thick window panes. The heating, plumbing and cooling systems are located in the middle of the house to allow for a more efficient distribution, DiSalvo said.

The goal with green building is to use as little energy as possible to heat and cool, she said.

The materials are natural, sustainable, can be recycled and require little maintenance.

DiSalvo said the climate convention reinvigorated her passion to promote designs that help the environment and helped her view the climate situation on the global stage. She joined the Ridgefield Action Committee for the Environment to help at the local level.

I felt like it was such a big encouragement, she said. It brought me 10 steps further in the cause.

The convention covered countless environmental topics from the publics and governments perspective.

DiSalvo said the world leaders discussions were held in about 1,000 different closed-door meetings and focused on how rich countries can help Third World countries meet climate goals or improve their environment. The publics portion included a fair where people shared methods or technologies their countries or companies were using.

It was really interesting walking around and seeing where everyone is heading, she said.

Trolle said not enough builders are building thermal envelopes, which better insulate the house and reduce energy costs.

The reality is its not that complicated to get it to perform well; you just have to think of the details, Trolle said. There needs to be that understanding.

He said the award and the home itself demonstrate this technology can be done with materials already available.
/ Contributed

DANBURY - A city man who police say defrauded customers with faulty asphalt work turned himself in to authorities this week.

Legrande Cooper, 28, is charged with 11 counts of second-degree larceny and one count of racketeering after a joint investigation with both local police and the state Department of Consumer Protection.
US controversial North Dakota oil pipeline project halted

United States,Politics,Business/Economy,Environment/Wildlife, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Washington, Dec 6 (IANS) The US Army Corps of Engineers have decided to halt an underwater pipeline project in North Dakota that environmentalists warn may damage local water quality.

The decision was made after a long-standing protest prevented the Dakota Access Pipeline, set to channel oil through Lake Oahe, from construction, Xinhua news agency reported.

"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 Army's Assistant Secretary of Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said on Sunday.

The decision to postpone further construction means that President-elect Donald Trump would need to address the issue soon after taking office.

A Trump spokesman said on Monday "That's something we support construction of, and will review the full situation in the White House and make an appropriate determination at that time."

The project has ignited a debate among many groups whether the benefit brought by the project can outweigh its risks.

The environmental conservation community has largely refuted the pipeline, saying soil and water contamination and air pollution may damage the environment and wildlife along the pipeline route, a concern shared by many farmers in the region.

The fact that the Lake Oahe is located in Indian reserve land also prompted the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to object, saying the project threatens the tribe's "way of life, water, people and land".

The controversial project is an approximately 1,900 km pipeline that connects the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota and Patoka Illinois, the $3.78 billion project was planned to function by January 1, 2017, nearly 90 per cent is reported to have been completed.

--IANS

lok/
Indian mine project in Australia 'promises' not to hire overseas workers

Australia,Business/Economy,Diaspora,Diplomacy, Tue, 06 Dec 2016 IANS

Sydney, Dec 6 (IANS) Indian conglomerate Adani Group has promised not to employ overseas skilled workers on Australia's 457-category temporary visas for its mega coal mine project in Queensland state, local media reported on Tuesday.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who met Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani on Tuesday in Townsville, the project's regional headquarters, said she received "an ironclad guarantee from Adani that there will be no 457 visas as part of the workforce for this major project", the Australian Associated Press reported.

Australian or overseas employers commonly use the 457 visa to sponsor skilled overseas workers to work in Australia temporarily.

The Carmichael mine in central Queensland, set to be Australia's largest, will generate about 10,000 jobs over its lifespan of 50-60 years, according to the company.

The 16.5-billion-Australian-dollar ($12.3-billion) project includes a rail link stretching nearly 400 km to a bulk port facility and five regional towns providing support services, with construction rolling out next year.

"Our mining contractors, and the rail and port construction contractors, will be the major employers during the construction and operational stages," Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj said on Tuesday.

"This is a significant commitment by Adani to regional Queensland where the Carmichael mine and associated projects will generate 10,000 jobs directly and indirectly, and I am pleased that each of the regional centres will benefit from the Carmichael projects."

Palaszczuk said the mine will provide "generational" jobs for the region.

--IANS

ahm/
Position key to advancing science and integration of science into decision making

OTTAWA, Dec. 5, 2016 /CNW/ - More than 35,000 people in the federal government are involved in science and technology activities. Also, nearly 50,000 researchers and trainees across the country are supported by the federally funded research councils. From clean air and water to food security and technological advancements, science plays a crucial role in providing the evidence the Government of Canada needs to make decisions that improve the lives of Canadians.

Today, the search begins for the person who will be instrumental in furthering the Government's commitment to science-based decision making. The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, is delivering on her key mandate commitment by launching the search for a Chief Science Advisor for Canada. The announcement took place at the historic Library of the National Research Council in Ottawa.

The Chief Science Advisor will be responsible for providing scientific advice to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Science and members of Cabinet. This individual will also advise on how to ensure that government science is open to the public, that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work, and that science is effectively communicated across government. The office will be supported by a team of scientists and policy experts.

The position is now open to all Canadians. The full job description and information on applying can be found on the Governor in Council website. The application process is expected to close on January 27, 2017.

Quote

"This search for a Chief Science Advisor is a historic moment. This position is critical because science affects everything from the health and well-being of Canadians to the economy and the environment. Science is also the foundation of sound decision making within government."

 The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science

Quick facts

Minister Duncan was mandated by the Prime Minister to create the position.

The Chief Science Advisor will report to both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science.

In the past year, the federal government has made a science-based approach to governance a top priority.

The Chief Science Advisor will be available to the Government to provide scientific advice on key issues.

The mandate of the position was developed after a rigorous process of consultation across government. The Minister also looked at best practices from around the world and listened closely to the research community.

Associated links

Follow the Minister on social media.

Twitter: @ScienceMin

Instagram: sciencemin

SOURCE Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

For further information: Veronique Perron, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Science, 343-291-2600; Media Relations, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 343-291-1777, [email protected]
LIMA, Peru, Dec. 6, 2016 /CNW/ -- Chairman Lu Hongxiang, the Chairman of JUMORE has recently traveled around multiple countries in the Americas, including the U.S., Mexico, Peru, Chile and Argentina. He has held meetings with political leaders, chambers of commerce, associations, and companies while reaching multiple cooperation agreements with them. During this period, JUMORE was also invited to attend the APEC CEO Summit.

Mr. Lu Hongxiang, made a groundbreaking speech at the APEC CEO Summit on Nov 19th, and announced the release of the new E4B business model to win its say for the Chinese companies on the international stage.

Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei also commented in the summit, "e-commerce is in line with the principle of free trade, and thus can accelerate free trading. The cooperation with JUMORE will be a good opportunity to facilitate the development of Chilean cross-border e-commerce, the export of Chilean products, and the import of quality services and technologies."

President of Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto also gave a flattering remark on JUMORE, "The E4B model of JUMORE is leading the innovation of Chinese companies. Mutual beneficial cooperation is the direction of economic development in Asia-Pacific region. Mexico is willing to work together with JUMORE and promote the advancement of cooperation."

JUMORE is now shifting its focus to North America for this coming December. JUMORE will hold Cross-Border E-Commerce Summits in Sacramento, Toronto, and Vancouver. Canada and the U.S. are both important trade partners of China. Both countries are developed in manufacturing and services industries. And they compliment well with China in several aspects including resources, capital, technology, the structures of economy, manufacturing, and consumption.

North America plays a vital role in JUMORE's global layout. The fruitful achievements reached in this trip to the Americas enable all countries to have a new understanding about China's innovation in development models and problem-solving plans. In June, 2016, the U.S. and Canada launched their National Pavilion on JUMORE platform during the "First Cross-Border E-Commerce Summit" held in Beijing. Guests on the invitation list for the upcoming events include government officials from the U.S. and Canada, as well as Fortune Global 500 companies. Lu Hongxiang wishes that this visit to the U.S. and Canada can further deepen the cooperation among the three and promote diversified trade cooperation.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446025

SOURCE Jumore

For further information: Annie Liang, +86-571-8190-9288, [email protected]
TSXV: NEV

VANCOUVER, Dec. 5, 2016 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) and its exploration partner, Advantage Lithium Corp. ("Advantage Lithium") (TSXV: AAL) are pleased to announce lithium-bearing brines have been intersected in the second borehole of the 2016 drilling program at the Clayton Northeast lithium brine project in the Clayton Valley, Nevada ("Clayton NE", or the "Project"). This follows successful results from the first borehole (see Nevada Sunrise news release dated Nov 1, 2016). Clayton NE borders the Silver Peak mine operated by Albemarle Corporation ("Albemarle") (NYSE: ALB), North America's only producing lithium mine. Of particular note, hole CNE-16-02, has intersected multiple aquifer formations, including 188.9 metres of brine-producing strata averaging 164.2 parts per million ("ppm") lithium from a depth of 207.3 to 396.2 metres, including a higher grade interval averaging 202.8 ppm lithium over 109.7 metres. Hole CNE-16-03, which is still in progress, has also encountered strong brines ranging up to 138,000 ppm total dissolved solids ("TDS"), with analyses to follow. In addition, an additional 80 acres of contiguous land was staked in November 2016 to the southwest at Clayton NE, bringing the total land package to 1,080 acres (437 hectares)

"Our second borehole at Clayton NE has exceeded expectations," said Warren Stanyer, President and CEO of Nevada Sunrise. "The brines have a higher average lithium content and stronger flow rates, which we believe are strong indicators that we are intercepting the known lithium-bearing aquifers in the Clayton Valley."

Highlights of the 2016 Drilling Program

All three holes have intersected mineralized brine: 1 st and 2 nd holes have encountered lithium-rich brines and 3 rd hole (still in progress) has encountered brines with analyses to follow.

1 and 2 holes have encountered lithium-rich brines and 3 hole (still in progress) has encountered brines with analyses to follow. 3.43 kilometre (2.13 miles) mineralized brine trend: Holes CNE-16-01 and CNE-16-02, both with significant intervals of mineralized lithium brines, are located 3.43 kilometres apart.

Holes CNE-16-01 and CNE-16-02, both with significant intervals of mineralized lithium brines, are located 3.43 kilometres apart. Intervals up to 202.8 ppm lithium over 109.7 metres: Lithium brines intercepted by 2nd drill hole at Clayton NE, CNE-16-02, have returned intervals up to 202.8 ppm lithium over 109.7 metres (286.5 to 396.2 metres), including peak values up to 227 ppm lithium over a 6.1 metre section (304.8 to 310.9 metres). These values are comparable to Albemarle's brine samples from their Silver Peak mining operation immediately adjacent to Clayton NE, and are in line with results from the first hole drilled at Clayton NE, CNE-16-01.

Lithium brines intercepted by 2nd drill hole at Clayton NE, CNE-16-02, have returned intervals up to 202.8 ppm lithium over 109.7 metres (286.5 to 396.2 metres), including peak values up to 227 ppm lithium over a 6.1 metre section (304.8 to 310.9 metres). These values are comparable to Albemarle's brine samples from their Silver Peak mining operation immediately adjacent to Clayton NE, and are in line with results from the first hole drilled at Clayton NE, CNE-16-01. More results to come: Hole CNE-16-03 has encountered brine measuring up to 138,000 ppm TDS and is still in progress. Analyses from holes CNE-16-01 and CNE-16-02 have shown that a relationship of TDS to lithium grade indicates a direct correlation between higher lithium values and higher strength brine.

Hole CNE-16-03 has encountered brine measuring up to 138,000 ppm TDS and is still in progress. Analyses from holes CNE-16-01 and CNE-16-02 have shown that a relationship of TDS to lithium grade indicates a direct correlation between higher lithium values and higher strength brine. Strong brine flows: Brine flows of up to 120 gallons per minute issued from borehole CNE-16-02 between 304.8 to 396.2 metres (1,000 and 1,300 feet). Geochemical analysis shows this zone carries significant lithium concentrations. High brine flows are important for economic production.

Brine flows of up to 120 gallons per minute issued from borehole CNE-16-02 between 304.8 to 396.2 metres (1,000 and 1,300 feet). Geochemical analysis shows this zone carries significant lithium concentrations. High brine flows are important for economic production. Clayton NE land package increased: Five new claims totaling 80 acres were staked in November 2016 , increasing the overall land package to 1,080 acres (437 hectares).

Drill Hole Technical Details

CNE-16-01

CNE16-01 was completed to a depth of 518.2 metres (1,700 feet), intersecting the base of the Clayton Valley salar sedimentary basin at 506 metres. Drilling has intersected typical Clayton Valley strata consisting of alternating layers of gravel, volcanic ash and clay. A total of 27 grab groundwater samples were collected as brine-bearing formations were encountered. Table 1 presents a compiled summary of the depths of the aquifer systems with brine interval thickness and associated average lithium grades and TDS concentrations. Anomalous lithium results were obtained from brine formations intermittently intersected over a 331.3 metre section (from 168.6 to 499.9 metres) within the Main Ash, Lower Aquifer System, and Lower Gravel Aquifer systems. The highest grade results were obtained in the Lower Aquifer System with peaks up to 218 ppm lithium (224.0 to 227.1 metres), while the widest intervals were reported in the deeper Lower Gravel Aquifer System, including a 103.7 metre wide interval (from 396.2 to 499.9 metres) averaging 134.8 ppm lithium. In addition, drill cuttings were collected for each 1.5 metre interval and have been submitted for analysis. Analytical results for the drill cuttings are pending.

Table 1: Results of Brine Samples for CNE-16-01

Drill Hole Aquifer System Interval Total Dissolved Solids ("TDS") ppm Lithium Range (ppm) Lithium Average Grade (ppm) From (metres) To (metres) Width (metres) CNE-16-01 Main Ash 168.6 170.1 1.5 68,000 94.3 94.3

Lower Aquifer System A 224.0 243.8 19.8 110,000 195 to 218 209.7

Lower Aquifer System B 326.1 365.8 39.7 130,000 to 140,000 174 to 189 181.5

Lower Gravel Aquifer 396.2 499.9 103.7 35,000 to 190,000 72.4 to 234 134.8

including 457.2 481.6 24.4 58,000 to 190,000 72.4 to 234 187.5

CNE-16-02

CNE-16-02 was collared approximately 3.43 kilometres (2.13 miles) northeast of CNE-16-01. The hole was terminated within a massive clay formation within the Clayton Valley salar sedimentary basin at a depth of 426.7 metres (1,400 feet). As was observed in hole CNE-16-01, drilling intersected typical Clayton Valley strata consisting of alternating layers of gravel, volcanic ash and clay. A total of 32 grab groundwater samples were collected as brine-bearing formations were encountered. Table 2 presents a compiled summary of the depths of the aquifer systems with brine interval thickness and associated average lithium grades and TDS concentrations. Anomalous lithium results were obtained from a 188.9 metre-wide brine-bearing formation intersected from 207.2 to 396.2 metres within the Lower Aquifer System. This 188.9 metre interval averaged 164.2 ppm lithium, including a higher grade interval averaging 202.8 ppm lithium over 109.7 metres (286.5 metres to 396.2 metres) and was associated with strong brine flows of up to 120 gallons per minute between 304.8 to 396.2 metres. In addition, drill cuttings were collected for each 6.1 metre interval and have been submitted for analysis. Analytical results for the drill cuttings are pending.

Table 2: Results of Brine Samples for CNE-16-02

Drill Hole Aquifer System Interval Total Dissolved Solids ("TDS") ppm Lithium Range (ppm) Lithium Average Grade (ppm) From (metres) To (metres) Width (metres) CNE-16-02 Main Ash 190.5 199.6 9.1 No Water Lower Aquifer System 207.3 396.2 188.9 50,000 to 380,000 72.4 to 228 164.2

including 286.5 396.2 109.7 140,000 to 380,000 51 to 227 202.8

CNE-16-03

Hole CNE-16-03, collared approximately 670.6 metres northeast from hole CNE-16-01, is currently in progress at a depth of approximately 274.3 metres (900 feet). This borehole has also encountered strong brines ranging up to 138,000 ppm TDS, as measured by a field instrument.

Regarding Sample Analysis

Groundwater samples were sent to Western Environmental Testing Laboratory in Reno, Nevada for analysis. General chemistry testing included analysis for specific gravity, total hardness and alkalinity, bicarbonate, carbonate, hydroxide, TDS and electrical conductivity. Anions (chloride, sulfate) were analyzed by ion chromatography. Trace metals (lithium, magnesium, boron, calcium, potassium and sodium) were analyzed by ICP-OES. TDS values obtained in the field are measured with a handheld YSI Model 556 Multiparameter Meter, which meets Good Laboratory Practice (as proscribed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) for calibration and measurement. All depth measurements reported, including sample and interval widths are down-hole. As holes are oriented vertical and geologic stratigraphy is primarily horizontal to sub-horizontal, downhole measurements are assumed to be close to true thickness.

About the Program

The 2016 exploration drilling program includes three vertical oriented conventional dual-tube reverse circulation drill holes totaling approximately 1,500 metres (approximately 4,920 feet), focussed on lithium brine targets close to the Silver Peak mine border and several of Albemarle's production wells. Analyses from Clayton NE drill holes have shown a relationship of TDS to lithium grade indicating a correlation between higher lithium values and higher strength brine. The lithium results from the first two boreholes of the 2016 drilling program are generally comparable to Albemarle's brine samples from Silver Peak mine production wells as reported to the State of Nevada for the period 2011-2015, which range from 98 ppm to 340 ppm lithium.

Robert M. Allender, Jr., CPG, RG, SME is the Company's designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical information contained herein.

About Clayton NE

Consists of 55 unpatented claims totaling approximately 1,080 acres (437 hectares);

Clayton NE is subject to an option earn-in agreement where Advantage Lithium can earn up to a 70% interest in the Project after fulfilling CDN$3.0 million in exploration expenditures on a package of five lithium properties optioned from Nevada Sunrise (for further details, see Nevada Sunrise news release dated June 20, 2016 );

in exploration expenditures on a package of five lithium properties optioned from Nevada Sunrise (for further details, see Nevada Sunrise news release dated ); Nevada Sunrise is the project manager at Clayton NE on behalf of Advantage Lithium, the operator.

Water Rights Update

On November 30, 2016, Nevada Sunrise learned that the State Engineer's office of the Nevada Division of Water Resources ("NDWR") has issued a ruling of forfeiture against the Company's water rights in the Clayton Valley citing a lack of beneficial use for a period of five years. Nevada Sunrise has recently received evidence of water use that the NDWR requires, which will be presented during the appeal process. The Company intends to file the appeal before December 29, 2016.

For further information about the Company's exploration properties and its Clayton Valley water rights, please access the Nevada Sunrise website at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/nevadalithium/

About Nevada Sunrise

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in nine mineral exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA. Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in September 2015, which include options to earn a 75% interest in the Neptune project (Resolve Ventures Inc. (TSXV: RSV) owns a 25% interest), a 100% interest in the Clayton Northeast project, and a 100% interest in the Aquarius Project, all located in the Clayton Valley area. The Company also holds options to earn 100% interests in the Jackson Wash and Atlantis projects, and has a 50% participating interest in the Gemini project, each located in playas proximal to the Clayton Valley. The Company has recently optioned five of the Nevada lithium projects to Advantage Lithium Corp. (TSXV: AAL), and the Atlantis project is currently under option to American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI).

The Company's three key gold assets include a 21% interest in a joint venture with Pilot Gold Inc. (TSX: PLG) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, and an option to earn a 100% interest in the Roulette gold property in the southeastern Carlin trend near Ely, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address the properties transaction with Advantage Lithium Corp., the successful transfer of Place of Use and Point of Diversion of water rights, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Such factors include, among others, risks related to the interpretation of historical exploration and actual results of current exploration by Nevada Sunrise at its lithium properties; reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on its lithium properties; current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Nine Months ended June 30, 2016, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person.

SOURCE Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation

Image with caption: "Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation (CNW Group/Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161205_C3470_PHOTO_EN_831043.jpg

For further information: Warren Stanyer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telephone: (604) 428-8028 Facsimile: (604) 484-7143, Email: [email protected], Website: www.nevadasunrise.ca
ST-HYACINTHE, QC, Dec. 5, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - Olymel management today announced that the firm has made two donations of $10,000 each, to Moisson Montreal and La Tablee des chefs. Olymel has supported these charitable organizations for many years and will continue to support them for many more. The two cheques, for $10,000 each, were presented to Richard D. Daneau, Executive Director of Moisson Montreal, and Jean-Francois Archambault, CEO and Founder of La Tablee des chefs (see photo).

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, which it celebrated in 2016, Olymel has decided to re-orient its corporate donations policy by taking inspiration from its mission of feeding the world, and support organizations dedicated to aiding and educating individuals and families in need about good nutrition, in Canada as well as Quebec. Olymel's corporate donations will now be grouped under Operation Feeding the World Together and may take the form of monetary contributions, food donations, transfer of knowledge and expertise or volunteer work. As part of this strategy, Olymel seeks to support food banks across Canada, especially in the regions and communities where its facilities are located in Quebec and four other provinces. The company will also rely on the experience of organizations such as food banks and La Tablee des Chefs to develop effective food aid programs adapted to the different realities of individuals and families in need in order to ensure that its donations can actually make a difference.

"I am proud to announce a concrete gesture today, with two grants of $10,000 each to Moisson Montreal and La Tablee des Chefs. These organizations and the many volunteers who work with them play a central, indispensable role for families and individuals in difficulty. As the holiday season approaches, I am confident that Olymel's contribution to these two organizations will be used to meet an ever-growing need. I am also pleased that all Olymel executives will be more involved in implementing Operation Feeding the World Together in the coming years, so we can continue supporting communities with effective, concrete initiatives, as we have been doing for 25 years now," noted Rejean Nadeau, President and CEO of Olymel L.P.

Olymel and its employees are also involved in several other causes, such as funding for research on cancer and other diseases. The company will continue to encourage its employees to become involved in various causes, and will support their initiatives in this area. As it has done in the past, Olymel will also continue to respond positively to invitations from its customers to contribute to the charitable causes they feel are important.

About La Tablee des Chefs

La Tablee des Chefs, a Quebec-based charity, was founded by Jean-Francois Archambault in 2002. The organization distributes more than 500,000 meals annually to the needy, and gives cooking workshops in 80 secondary schools, providing over 50,000 hours of training to teens. The mission of La Tablee des Chefs is to feed persons in need and develop culinary training for youth.

About Moisson Montreal

With its foodstuffs recovery and distribution programs that deliver emergency food aid, Moisson Montreal, a non-profit organization founded in 1984, is the largest food bank in Canada today. Each month the organization delivers over 1,000 tons of food to more than 250 accredited community organizations on the Island of Montreal that offer food assistance to thousands of people. Moisson Montreal is funded and supplied mainly through donations. Its operations require the collaboration of nearly 9,000 volunteers each year and result in the redistribution of some 14 million kilograms of foodstuffs, representing a value of more than $81 million annually.

About Olymel

Olymel L.P. is Canada's leader in the production, processing and distribution of pork and poultry meats. The company, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2016, has made feeding the world its mission, which it pursues passionately with products of impeccable quality. In carrying out its mission every day, Olymel relies on its tradition of maintaining a strong link between farm and table, as well as on innovation and attention to customer and consumer needs. The company employs close to 11,500 persons, including more than 8,000 in Quebec, and has large facilities in Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. Olymel exports nearly a third of its total sales, mainly to the United States, Japan and Australia, as well as over 65 other countries. Its annual sales are on the order of 3.2 billion dollars. The company markets its products mainly under the Olymel, Lafleur and Flamingo brands. For additional information about the company, visit www.olymel.ca

SOURCE Olymel l.p.

Image with caption: "From left to right : Lise Gagnon, Vice President, Marketing and R & D, Olymel, Jean-Francois Archambault, CEO and Founder, La Tablee des Chefs, Rejean Nadeau, President and CEO, Olymel, Richard D. Daneau, Executive Director, Moisson Montreal and Louis Banville, Vice President, Human Ressources, Olymel. (CNW Group/Olymel l.p.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161205_C8816_PHOTO_EN_831369.jpg

For further information: Richard Vigneault, Corporate Communications, (514) 497-1385 or (450) 771-0400
MONTREAL, Dec. 5, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - Media representatives are invited to cover the lighting of Place Ville Marie tomorrow, December 6, on the Esplanade of the complex. The event will also serve to inaugurate the second edition of the Christmas Market as well as the photography exhibition MONTREAL SON AME, SON CHARME.

What: Lighting of Place Ville Marie: speeches, photo session and interviews Who: Richard Bergeron, Ville-Marie borough councilor and Executive Committee

Member responsible for the Downtown Strategy

Bernard Poliquin, Senior Vice President, Office  Quebec, Ivanhoe Cambridge When: December 6, beginning at 5 p.m.; speeches at 5:30 p.m. Where: Place Ville Marie Esplanade

Access via 1, Place Ville Marie on boul. Rene-Levesque West

About Ivanhoe Cambridge

Ivanhoe Cambridge, a global real estate industry leader, invests in high-quality properties and companies in select cities around the world. It does so prudently with a long-term view to optimize risk-adjusted returns. Founded in Quebec in 1953, Ivanhoe Cambridge has built a vertically integrated business across Canada. Internationally, the Company invests alongside key partners that are leaders in their respective markets.

Through subsidiaries and partnerships, Ivanhoe Cambridge holds interests in close to 500 properties, consisting primarily in office, retail, residential and logistics real estate. Ivanhoe Cambridge held more than Cdn$55 billion in assets as at June 30, 2016. The Company is a real estate subsidiary of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (cdpq.com), one of Canada's leading institutional fund managers. For more information, visit: ivanhoecambridge.com.

SOURCE Ivanhoe Cambridge

For further information: RSVP: Valerie Gonzalo, 514.626.6976, [email protected]; Public Affairs and Communications, Ivanhoe Cambridge, +1 866-456-3342, [email protected]
MONTREAL, Dec. 6, 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - His Holiness Pope Francis will not be visiting Montreal (nor Canada) in 2017. The Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, recently relayed this message in a letter addressed to the President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Douglas Crosby.

"Pope Francis wishes to communicate that it will not be possible for him to visit Canada in 2017, but it is his earnest hope to consider the possibility of including Canada among the destinations of his Apostolic Visits at the time of planning his travels for 2018-2019," wrote Archbishop Bonazzi, stating that the Pope sends his Apostolic Blessing "to all the faithful of Canada and to the entire country."

The invitation to come to Montreal for its jubilee year was presented to Pope Francis in February 2015, when Mayor Denis Coderre and Archbishop Christian Lepine visited Rome and met the Holy Father. Following that meeting, other official invitations were extended to the Pope, particularly to visit Canada on the occasion of its 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Upon learning of the news, Archbishop Lepine expressed his gratitude to Pope Francis for having considered the possibility of making this visit.

The presence of the Holy Father would certainly have generated great enthusiasm here. All the same, "the 375th anniversary of Montreal remains a unique opportunity to highlight the spiritual dimension of the city's origins," says Most Rev. Christian Lepine in a special pastoral letter to be published this Thursday, December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

In addition, the Archdiocese of Montreal will announce, in timed releases, the various activities it has planned as part of the 375th Jubilee celebrations. Among them will be a special Mass at Notre-Dame Basilica, to be held on May 17, 2017, the anniversary date of the city's founding. In conjunction with the celebration, parishes throughout the archdiocese will participate by ringing their church bells simultaneously.

As of Thursday, the Archbishop's pastoral letter will be available at www.diocesemontreal.org, and will also be distributed throughout parishes within the archdiocese on the weekend of December 18, the fourth Sunday of Advent.

SOURCE Archdiocese of Montreal

For further information: Lucie Martineau, Director of Communications, 514 925 4304
'Tree to Our Nature' program celebrates Canada's 150th anniversary of Confederation

OTTAWA, ON, Dec. 6, 2016 /CNW/ - Proud to be a part of Canada 150, the Government of Canada's celebration of our country's 150th anniversary of Confederation, Tree Canada, the nation's leader in tree-related programs and resources, today announced an exciting, new initiative, Tree to Our Nature, that will support 150 community greening projects across the country.

Starting today, municipalities, community organizations, groups, schools and associations nationwide can apply to have a planting event held in their area. By sponsoring Tree Canada directly, businesses can also become involved by providing funding and volunteer labour to increase the scope of the projects.

"Tree Canada is now celebrating our 25th anniversary, so it's obviously a tremendous honour to have been selected to take part in the Canada 150 celebrations," said Michael Rosen, President of Tree Canada. "Trees are a symbol of growth, strength, sustainability, hope, and peace, and this is the perfect way to recognize the importance of trees and the environment to Canada's legacy. In addition to allowing us to engage with people from coast to coast, the Tree to Our Nature program will really highlight the diversity of Canadians and Canadian communities."

"The environment is one of the major themes at the heart of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Confederation. We will reaffirm our commitment to preserving our natural environment and becoming more environmentally conscious," said the Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage. "Thanks to this project by Tree Canada, communities across the country will come together to carry out 150 community greening projects that include planting trees and revitalizing green spaces. In 2017, let's be the guardians of our environment and leave a lasting legacy for tomorrow's Canadians."

Each of the 150 selected plantings will honour Canada's legacy by including at least one native maple, the appropriate provincial or territorial emblem tree, and a First Nation's symbolic tree. Tree Canada will give special consideration to applications from visible minority groups and low income areas, but applicants from all sectors will be considered. For more details, please visit https://treecanada.ca/en/programs/tree-our-nature/ and see below.

How to Apply:

Community Organizations, Groups, Schools, and Associations: Connect with your local municipality to identify a local park, recreation area, or school ground in need, and apply for funding through the Tree to Our Nature, Canada 150 Legacy Program.

https://treecanada.ca/en/programs/tree-our-nature/who-can-apply/community-organization-group-school-or-association/

Canadian Corporations and Businesses: Commemorate Canada's 150th anniversary by partnering with local community groups to increase funding, and supply volunteer labour.

https://treecanada.ca/en/programs/tree-our-nature/who-can-apply/canadian-business-or-corporation/

Individuals: Encourage your local municipality to apply, and attend legacy events to help plant trees and celebrate Canadian culture.

https://treecanada.ca/en/programs/tree-our-nature/who-can-apply/individuals/

About Tree Canada

Tree Canada is a not-for-profit charitable organization established to encourage Canadians to plant and care for trees in urban and rural environments. Tree Canada engages Canadian companies, government agencies and individuals to support the planting of trees, the greening of schoolyards, and other efforts to sensitize Canadians to the benefits of planting and maintaining trees. Since 1992, more than 80 million trees have been planted, over 580 schoolyards have been greened, and Tree Canada has helped organize twelve national urban forest conferences. The next Canadian Urban Forest Conference will take place in Vancouver, BC in 2018. More information about Tree Canada is available at www.treecanada.ca.





SOURCE Tree Canada

Image with caption: "Tree Canada (CNW Group/Tree Canada)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161206_C1341_PHOTO_EN_832299.jpg

Image with caption: "Canada 150 (CNW Group/Tree Canada)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161206_C1341_PHOTO_EN_832297.jpg

For further information: Monette Gauvreau, Communications Officer - Tree Canada, (613) 567-5545 ext 227
Ibrahim Magu, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has accused some media of mischief after it was rumoured tha...

Ibrahim Magu, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has accused some media of mischief after it was rumoured that he was lobbying some senate leaders over his role becoming permanent. A daily paper on Monday carried a report suggesting the lobbying.The Commission wishes to state that this information is patently false, EFCC stated.President Muhammadu Buhari has given him a delicate job to fight corruption in Nigeria and he is fully focused on this mandate.Magu expressed satisfaction with progress attained in fighting corruption.This includes over 200 convictions and assets and properties running into billions of dollars recovered within a space of one year.EFCC said stakeholders from within and outside, including the generality of media, acknowledged the gains.The challenge before the Commission is the sustenance of the current tempo of activities and it will not be distracted by mischief from a section of the media.Magu has been acting chairman since November 2011 after replacing Ibrahim Lamorde.
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has condemned the removal of the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the Rivers State Governor, Mr Nye...

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has condemned the removal of the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the Rivers State Governor, Mr Nyesom Wike less than five days to the States legislative re-run election, saying; With this ignoble action by the federal government, it is now clear that the federal government is out to subvert the will of the people of Rivers State by whatever means in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).Governor Fayose, who alerted the international community on the imminent danger being posed to Nigeria by the APC-led federal government, said, Nigeria deserves total attention from the international community at this time. The international community should not look the other way while those holding power in Abuja plunge the country into crisis of international magnitude.Special Assistant to the governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, quoted the governor as saying that it was getting clearer that Governor Wike was right when he claimed that there was a plot to assassinate him before Saturday.The governor said President Muhammadu Buhari should be reminded that he sworn to protect all Nigerians, irrespective of the party they belong to. He asked, How can anyone tamper with security aides of a State Governor without his consent? How can the Chief Security Officer of a state governor be changed without the consent of the governor? Isnt it now clear that they actually want to kill Governor Wike before the Saturday election? Governor Fayose, who said all steps being taken by the federal government were geared towards turning Nigeria to a one party State, warned that Nigeria can never be turned to a one party State and if care is not taken, by the time this house of democracy is destroyed by the APC cabal, no one will be spared.He said those trying to impose their will on the people by whatever means must learnt from history, especially what happened in Nigeria between 1979 and 1983 and where it led Nigeria to.
All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart Asiwaju Bola Tinubu yesterday said he would not quit the party, warning that any indulgence in ...

All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart Asiwaju Bola Tinubu yesterday said he would not quit the party, warning that any indulgence in destructive politics is counter-productive.He said having laboured along with like-minded patriots to build the national party, he would not abandon the platform because its formation was informed by progressive ideals.The former Lagos State governor reflected on the ruling party in the wake of unfounded speculations by fifth columnists that he had opened talks with opposition elements on establishing a formidable platform to battle for power against the APC in the 2019 elections.There have been media reports about the prospects of a new party in the first quarter of next year, following the re-alignment of forces.According to the speculation, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction, led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, had been reaching out to prominent APC chieftains, including Tinubu, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakko and his Kano State counterpart, Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso, to concretise the plan for an alternative broad-based party.But, in his tweets yesterday, the former Lagos governor dismissed the reports as fabrication, saying that he would not engage in destructive pettiness.Tinubu said: This is a party I laboured with others to build. We would not abandon it for another. Millions of Nigerians who voted are watching and praying.The frontline politician acknowledged that in the collective progressive thirst for a better Nigeria, the journey may be laced with many obstacles, mistakes and inevitable challenges that must be tackled to get to the promised land.Tinubu stressed: In our Journey to national betterment, plans and policies will be made, then amended. Mistakes will occur and then corrected. Achievements will be recorded and replicated. Through it all, I, Asiwaju will remain true to the progressive ideals that fuelled the creation of APC.The Third Republic senator said the onus was on him as one of the APC founding fathers to strive at erecting lasting legacies, instead of regressing to destructive tactics.He also vowed to elevate national interest above individual interest, pointing out that the APC was established to defend a national purpose and better the lot of Nigerians.Tinubu said: I have devoted my political life to achieve what has been achieved. My heart is too much of the people and my mind too fixed on establishing positive historic legacy rather than engage in destructive pettiness.This government of APC is for the betterment of the people and the national purpose is bigger and more important than any individuals desires.
Mr Babatope Akinyele, Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last Saturdays Ifako/Ijaiye Federal Constituency by-election in ...

Mr Babatope Akinyele, Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last Saturdays Ifako/Ijaiye Federal Constituency by-election in Lagos, has accepted defeat.Akinyele told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the poll was credible, blaming PDPs defeat on divisions and rancour in the party.NAN reports that Mr Nurudeen Akinwunmi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the poll, which resulted from the death of Mr Elijah Adewale, who represented the constituency in the House of Representatives.Adewale died in Abuja on July 20.According to Akinyele, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was neutral in the poll.There is no reason I should not congratulate the winner. If I have Akinwunmis phone contact, I would have called him.Our politics should be devoid of violence and should not be a do-or-die affair, if we want to ever achieve our dream of a better Nigeria, Akinyele said.
The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) will launch a control centre for online border monitoring by next year and also activate complaints...

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) will launch a control centre for online border monitoring by next year and also activate complaints centres.The Comptroller General of Immigration, Mr. Mohammed Babadede, unfolded the plan on Monday in Abuja during the decoration of 41 senior officers, including 14 Assistant Comptrollers General of Immigration.He also decorated 38 Comptrollers of Immigration, including the Service Public Relations Officer, Mr. King Ekpedeme. Babadede described the occasion as one that would spur officers to brace up to defend their ranks and change their orientation to face the challenges of recent times.He told the officers that migration had assumed a major problem and advised officers not to allow Nigeria to become a victim.We must patrol and protect our borders to curtail irregular migrants so as to fight terrorism, he said.He also told officers to ensure proficiency in allowing foreigners because many of them have taken over Nigerian jobs.We are so careless and so foreigners have taken over our jobs, including driving taxes, taken over both the mining and oil and gas sector. You must change and bring about better Nigeria.He advised officers to adapt to the change mantra, positive attitudinal change canvassed by the government, saying: There must be tangible change. Its not going to be business as usual.Babadede advised officers to eschew corruption and see themselves as gatekeepers and first point of contact with travellers who are both Nigerians and foreigners. Passengers expect warm welcome from immigration officers. These passenger have gone through stress and demand careful and good reception.Stop demanding for money. Change is within and I expect you to change.  Even the way we issue passports. By next year we must give time frame to issue passports and visas. He said that the promotion was based on performance, not lobbying or passing the promotion examination, so the service expected good character.He explained that promotion examination would be conducted digitally beginning from next year and not the present analogue system. With the promotion, he said that the Service was gradually solving the problem of backlog in advancement. No fewer than 5,000 officers have been promoted since he assumed duty.Mr. Adamu Mumir, an Assistant Comptroller General, thanked the government for the gesture and explained that recipients were aware that promotion was a call for more dedication, efficient and effective service. To whom much is given much is expected, he said.
An Economist, Mr Olakunle Fakiyesi, on Tuesday said that Nigerian graduates needed to imbibe analytical skills and verbal reasoning to suc...

An Economist, Mr Olakunle Fakiyesi, on Tuesday said that Nigerian graduates needed to imbibe analytical skills and verbal reasoning to succeed in their future endeavours.Fakiyesi, the Chief Executive Officer of Famolex Integrated Consult, spoke at a seminar on GMAT Africa Career Readiness Programme (GACRP), organised by the company at the Fountain University campus, Osogbo.He said that the programme was aimed at making graduates more analytical, with ability for sound verbal reasoning, which they needed to excel in their future careers.Fakiyesi said that the programme would also provide rare leadership skills and business knowledge, including networking tools, in existing and prospective graduates.These seminars will help graduating students become aware of the GMAT exam and the developmental value of GMAT preparation, i.e., acquire reasoning and analytical skills that are in high demand by both graduate management programs and employers.The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdulateef Usman, said that the university management recognised the fundamental philosophy of creating sound personalities in the students through qualitative and verbal reasoning.Usman was represented by the Dean, School of Post Graduate Studies, Prof. Goke Lalude.NAN
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed his opinion about the proposed APC-PDP Mega Party.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed his opinion about the proposed APC-PDP Mega Party.Obasanjo revealed that he would support the new APC-PDP mega party only if Atiku Abubakar will not emerge as the presidential candidate.When Obasanjo, according to sources close to him, was approached to lend his support to the new party, he informed the proponents of the new party that he was prepared to back it on the condition that Atiku was not picked as the presidential candidate of the party.According to a source, who was conversant with the outcome of the meeting with the former president, He (Obasanjo) addressed the group that met with him, informing them that he had made too many mistakes in his life and for the nation, including the blanket support he claimed to have granted the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari, and therefore was not prepared to make any more mistakes.(ThisDay)
The Nigerian police have arrested three of the kidnappers that murdered one and kidnapped five expatriate members of staff of Dangote grou...

The Nigerian police have arrested three of the kidnappers that murdered one and kidnapped five expatriate members of staff of Dangote group.The IGP Intelligence Response Team (IRT) recorded another breakthrough with between November 27, 2016 and December 3, 2016 arrested three of the kidnappers: Abubakar Gide 24, Abdullahi Salihu 22, and Babuga Adamu 25 in Ijebu Igbo - Ogun state, Epe Forest - Lagos State and Ajase Ipo Forest - Kwara state respectively.In a statement released by the Force PPRO, Don Awunah, he said the suspects confessed to kidnapping and releasing all five initial victims after receiving N5.6 million ransom. They also confessed to kidnapping and murdering the ransom transporter, Mr. Istifanus Gurama, also of Dangote group.
Ademola The office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) has accused Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja...

Ademola

The office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) has accused Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja of accepting an N8million car as gratification from a lawyer, Joe Odey Agi.Justice Ademola, 63, allegedly accepted a BMW saloon 320i, valued at N8m through his son, Ademide Ademola.He is also accused of attempting to obtain N25m gratification from Sani Shaibu Teidi with a view to showing him favour.Teidi, a former director, Pension Accounts Office, Head of Civil Service of the Federation, was charged before the judge in 2013 with alleged involvement in a pension scam.The allegations are contained in a fresh charge filed against Justice Ademola and his wife, Olabowale by the office of the AGF.The AGF accused the wife of accepting N30m on behalf of her husband from a law firm known as Messrs Joe Agi and Associates.In the 11-count charge filed on December 1, the couple are accused, in count one, of conspiring, between March 11 and 24, 2015, to receive gratification from Messrs Joe Agi and Associates through their accounts 206/174191/2/0 and 201/110160/1/0 domiciled at GTBank Plc, and committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1)(c) of the Corrupt Practices and other related offences Act 2000.Mrs. Ademola is accused in counts two, three and four of receiving N10m gratification thrice from Messrs Joe Agi and Associates through her GTBank account on behalf of her husband between March 11 and 24, 2015, an offence contrary to Section 8(1)(a) of Corrupt Practices and other related offences Act 2000.Justice Ademola is accused in counts five and six of dealing with property subject matter of an offence by transferring N85m and N90m on February 24, 2014, through his account 286/174191/2/0 in GTBank to Franco Dan Parker, which forms the proceeds of an unlawful act and thereby committed an offence contrary to Corrupt Practices and other related offences Act 2000.The judge is accused in count seven of attempting, on February 21, 2014, to obtain gratification of N25m from Sani Shaibu Teidi as a motive for showing favour in the exercise of your official functions, contrary to Section 118(b) of the Penal Code Act.He is in count eight accused of receiving gratification of a BMW saloon 320i, valued at N8m from Joe Odey Agi, through your son, Ademide Ademola, an act contrary to Section 8(1)(a) of the Corrupt Practices and other related offences Act, 2000.In count nine, 10 and 11, the judge is accused of illegally possessing firearms and ammunition (one Avar Magnum 608, Avar Magnum 6284) and 35 rounds of live ammunition (catridges) without valid licences an offence contrary to Section 3 of the Robbery and Firearms (Special provisions) Act 2004.The planned arraignment of the couple before a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Maitama was stalled yesterday, owing to the inability of the prosecution to effect service of the charge on the defendants.When the case was called, the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation (DPPF), Mohammed Umar, told the court that in exercising his powers under Section 174 of the Constitution, and Section 104 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), the AGF has instructed that a private lawyer, Segun Jegede lead the prosecution of the case.When he took over, Jegede, a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), told the court that the courts bailiff was unable to serve the defendants the charge.Relying on the provision of Section 382(5) of the ACJA, Jegede sought the courts permission to serve copies of the charge on the defendants lawyer, for onward transfer to them.He eaqually applied to withdraw an earlier charge filed by the prosecution on November 14, 2016.Defence lawyer Jeph Njikonye, did not object to the prosecutions withdrawal of the earlier charge.He also expressed his readiness to accept copies of the new charge for his clients.Justice Jude Okeke struck out the charge withdrawn by the prosecution and directed Njikonye to accept copies of the fresh charge for his clients.Justice Okeke adjourned till Tuesday for arraignment.
One Osagie Ogunbor in The Punch newspaper of Tuesday, 06 December 2016 tried to rubbish the hard-earned reputation of Prophet T.B. Joshua,...

One Osagie Ogunbor in The Punch newspaper of Tuesday, 06 December 2016 tried to rubbish the hard-earned reputation of Prophet T.B. Joshua, basing his arguments on jaundiced premises which belied a clearly negative perception of the cleric.First, he argued that the man of God relied on polls and media coverage for his famed US-election prediction, a position that clearly shied away from objectivity. He refused, however, to take a look at the impressive prophetic track record of Prophet T.B. Joshua who once prophesied the victory of the late John Atta-Mills of Ghana at the presidential polls as well as the emergence and rise to power of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nigeria  against all media and public permutations.While highlighting the tensions that ensued in the aftermath of the historic election, the writer additionally did not point out that in American political history, no candidate has won the popular vote by such a huge margin yet failed to ascend to the seat of power as Hilary Clinton. The protests that swept across the United States after Trump was announced as winner have given further steam to growing insinuations of electoral malpractice that necessitated the current ongoing recount in certain states  a process Trumps lawyers are fighting tooth-and-nail to quash. Even the NSA Director, Admiral Michael Rogers astonishingly admitted that Russia was involved in a hacking scandal that potentially affected the outcome of the elections  causing question marks to still linger over the veracity of the supposedly sacred democratic process.Aspersions cast by the writer that the social media backlash is somehow affecting Joshuas reputation or spiritual standing show the writers clear unfamiliarity with the subject matter. Irrespective of all campaigns of calumny, Prophet T.B. Joshua remains among the most respected Nigerians abroad and The Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) is still West Africas most popular religious tourist attraction. Statistics on YouTube show Emmanuel TV as the most viewed Christian channel globally, figures that have actually increased in the wake of the contentious prediction. Indeed, if anything, the election prophecy has served more as a free advert for the cleric.The writers additional comments mockingly reminding readers of Joshuas alleged inability to predict the tragic building incident at The SCOAN in September 2014 proves further the write-up was nothing more than a sponsored hate-piece. How can such comparisons even be drawn by someone who is writing on such sensitive, spiritual matters? Do prophecies originate from man? Can a mere mortal choose what and when to speak forth the mind of the Almighty? This is beside the point that Joshua did in fact prophetically warn of the tragic incident several weeks earlier.Those such as Osagie who have taken to the media to condemn and criticise The SCOAN pastor should have been more liberal in their outbursts, bearing in mind the indubitable fact that prophecies originate from One who can neither be questioned nor queried. Even though the outcome of the elections has gone in favour of the Republican candidate and business mogul, Donald Trump, going by the consistency and accuracy of Joshuas past prophecies, one thinks it is too early for him to be the subject of such wrath.Furthermore, there are biblical examples of prophecies that were altered due to the actions of the recipient. In 2 Kings 21:21-29, there is the account of how God sent a message to King Ahab through Prophet Elijah about the impending doom that was to befall him. Upon receiving the prophecy, King Ahab humbled himself and repented. God, in His infinite mercies, saw his sincere repentance and averted the doom that would have befallen him. There is also the case of King Hezekiah whose impending death was prophesied by Prophet Isaiah only to be averted by God after the monarch humbled himself and asked for mercy. God even added fifteen more years to his life (Isaiah 38:1-4). Based on the foregoing, it is only God that has the final say as far as prophecies are concerned. No mortal can be as perfect as the Creator. He is all-knowing.Whatever the case, there is definitely a shroud of uncertainty hanging over the emergence of Donald Trump as President-Elect, heightened further by his already unorthodox approach to the transition of power. Thus, the media outburst against Prophet T.B. Joshua is more of a baseless reactionary outrage that does not take into consideration the prophets intimidating track record in the hallowed field of prophecy - both on a personal and international level. Remember, prophecies are not bound by time. They can even take years to be fulfilled, irrespective of their seeming physical exactitude. The man of God is a global brand that has since attained equity and no contagion of ungodly market forces can diminish this Olympian reputation.Godwin Ikechukwu - a writer based in Lagos, Nigeria
The University of Jos (UNIJOS) has suspended one of its academic staff who was allegedly caught cheating while writing an examination on M...

The University of Jos (UNIJOS) has suspended one of its academic staff who was allegedly caught cheating while writing an examination on May 4.Benedicta Daudu, an associate professor of law and former head of the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the Faculty of Law in UNIJOS, was allegedly caught copying from a prepared answer during an examination for a Masters degree in Research and Public Policy in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the same university.After the report, Mrs. Daudus membership of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption was immediately suspended.Insiders at UNIJOS have now told newsmen that the lecturer has been suspended from work, and from the masters programme.I can confirm to you that the Senate Disciplinary Committee found her guilty of the allegations, and has suspended her from the Masters programme for two semesters, an official of the university told this newspaper.Also, the matter was referred to the Staff Disciplinary Committee which also suspended her from work. So she is no longer teaching.Another official of the university said the professor sued the institution over her suspension.The status of the court case remained unclear as at the time of publishing this report on Monday.All UNIJOS officials who spoke to newsmen on the matter asked not be named for fear they might be accused of plotting the professors downfall.Even the spokesperson for the university, Abdullahi Abdullahi, simply said, Please, please, I have no comment on this matter.When contacted by telephone on Monday, Mrs. Daudu, the affected professor said, Please excuse me, please, please after our reporter asked her for updates on her examination malpractice case.Asked when the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) would allow the professor back to her post, Executive Secretary, Bolaji Owasanoye, said, Until matter is resolved, she remains away from PACAC.The committee, headed by prominent law professor and civil rights campaigner, Itse Sagay, and made up of mainly university professors, is the intellectual wing of Mr Buharis anti-corruption war.The mandate of the committee includes advising the President on the implementation of required reforms in Nigerias anti-corruption campaign and criminal justice system.Although she has a Masters in Law, the associate professor was working towards another masters in Research and Public Policy.It was learnt that the department later accused her of sneaking in prepared answers, also referred to as chokes by students, during the examination for the Global Context in Public Policy course.
On my way to work this morning, one man asked: What does this Soyinka want? Sitting beside him in the same bus, I couldnt immediately p...

On my way to work this morning, one man asked: What does this Soyinka want? Sitting beside him in the same bus, I couldnt immediately provide a reply. One thing I was sure of was that this man was really angry with the Nobel Laurette.As he spoke further, I began to understand his problem with Professor Soyinka. His problem with Soyinka dates back many years ago. Soyinka opposed Jonathan. Soyinka writes in indecipherable words. Soyinka opposed Trump. He started cultism on Nigerian university campuses. He plays too much politics, that is why nobody in the world recorgnisedKongi.All these came up after the man hear that the Professor has threatened to leave Nigeria in the news. Soyinka is quoted to have said: "I should not be exiting the United States but Nigeria because the people on behalf of whom one has struggled all ones life can be so slavish in mentality as to start querying the right of their champion to free speech." How dare he say that, this man seems to say!This mans problem like I said earlier, was not much with Kongis unfortunate statement, but with things more personal.In this mans bitterness, he forgot that Kongi won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1986. He also forgot that Soyinkas politics transcend Nigeria. Many probably do not know that Soyinka was largely involved in the downfall of Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin Dada. Those that have bothered to read his A Play of Giants,will testify that Kongi chooses his audience carefully and he has never claimed to achieve popularity by simply writing!Famed writers like Eric Blair (better known as George Orwell) wrote on social and political problems. Books like Nineteen Eighty Four, Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out of Paris are dedicated to addressing specific social problems he saw in his life. What is the big deal in a writer like Soyinka participating in politics?As far as I know the best of writers are those who are brave enough to take sides with what they know as truth. George Orwell fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. W.B. Yeast never hid his Irish Republican sympathies in his write-ups (see An Irish Airman Foresees His Death and Easter 1916). Chinua Achebe was not only on the Biafran side during the Nigerian Civil War (incidentally Soyinka was imprisoned for visiting the Eastern Region by Gowon), he was National Vice-Chairman of Aminu Kanos Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in the Second Republic (1979-83).I can go on to list writers and their political beliefs, but for time and space. What does Soyinka want? If he tears his Green card because Trump won, whose business is that? To this I will reply: Jero is a social critic who sees the society the way he interprets it like all of us do. On a serious note, what does Soyinka want?OlalekanWaheed ADIGUN is a political risk analyst and independent political strategist for wide range of individuals, organisations and campaigns. He is based in Lagos, Nigeria. His write-ups can be viewed on his website http://olalekanadigun.com/ Tel: +2348136502040, +2347081901080Email: olalekan@olalekanadigun.com, adgorwell@gmail.comFollow me on Twitter @adgorwell
Chris Kwekowe, a young Nigerian entrepreneur reportedly turn down a job offer be a software engineer at Microsoft, owned by the richest ma...





Chris Kwekowe, a young Nigerian entrepreneur reportedly turn down a job offer be a software engineer at Microsoft, owned by the richest man in the world, Bill Gates to begin his own start-up in Lagos.The twenty-three years old Lagos university graduate proudly revealed this to Bill Gates during a television interview for Africas brightest young entrepreneurs in August 2016.He said he did so to build up his own website called Slatecube a website aimed at curbing Nigeria`s unemployment problem.When I told him, Gates was intrigued and he smiled. After the programme, all the directors were like, Dude, you mean you actually turned down a job at Microsoft and had the guts to tell Bill Gates?According to reports, a survey of 90,000 young Nigerians which was done in January 2016 discovered that 45% of college graduates didnt have jobs with key reason on lack of professional skills such as: critical thinking, entrepreneurship, and decision-making.He noted that Slatecube seeks to solve that problem by nurturing the graduates through digital internships and so far, Slatecube has an 80% employment rate for its users.
A Former aide to Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has described Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka as someone who delves into what does ...

A Former aide to Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has described Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka as someone who delves into what does not really concern him. Omokri is reacting to claim by the writer that Nigerians are prying into his privacy.The dramatist had yesterday, in a parley with journalists in Lagos declared that he will hold a private funeral on the day the United States President-elect, Donald Trump will be sworn in.He had said, Why do Nigerians wail louder than the bereaved?I am embarrassed to occupy the same nation space as some imbeciles and morons. I am planning my Wolexit, which could be internal or external.But reacting via his Twitter handle, @renoomokri, the former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan said the Nobel Laureate should not be wailing when his privacy is invaded, adding that Soyinka is the chief nose poker.Omokri wrote, Soyinka the chief poke noser into the affairs of others to the extent of calling a First Lady Hippo, is angry at the invasion of his privacy!That we dont have a Nobel Prize doesnt mean we cant reason. You cant boast about a thing publicly and expect it privately discussed.
kellyanne conway donald trump

President-elect Donald Trump (left) celebrates with campaign manager Kellyanne Conway (right) at a New York City hotel after Trump beat Hillary Clinton. (John Locher | The Associated Press)

HAMMONTON -- Saturday's annual Christmas parade here will have a special guest -- and we're not talking about Santa Claus.

Kellyanne Conway, a former Hammonton resident and campaign advisor for President-elect Donald Trump, will lead the procession as grand marshal, according to the Courier-Post, which adds that she is expected to receive a key to the town and speak briefly.

Conway was raised in Atco, Camden County, and graduated from St. Joseph High School, in Hammonton, in 1985. She later moved to Washington D.C. for college before beginning a career in politics.

"I am very grateful for and nostalgic about my childhood in New Jersey," Conway told NJ Advance Media in a September interview. "I'm a Jersey girl. ... It was very important to us for our children to have that South Jersey experience," she added of moving back to Bergen County from New York.

Trump hired Conway in July and later promoted her to campaign manager. As for a job in Trump's administration, she's currently a part of the president-elect's transition team but the likelihood of a more permanent position remains unclear.

According to unofficial election results, Trump took the town of Hammonton with 3,513 votes compared to Hillary Clinton's 2,117.

The Hammonton parade will begin at 7 p.m. Guests may view the parade along Bellevue Avenue from North Liberty Street through Egg Harbor Road.

Don't miss the 2016 HFD Christmas Parade! December 10th 2016 Posted by Hammonton Fire Department on Friday, October 21, 2016

Greg Adomaitis may be reached at gadomaitis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregAdomaitis. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
NORTH ARLINGTON-- Four Belleville police officers and a fifth man were arrested Monday in connection with a fight at a local bar several weeks ago, Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said in a statement.

The Essex County Prosecutor's Office notified their counterparts in Bergen County Oct. 31 that a number of off-duty Belleville officers were allegedly involved in a fight around 1 a.m. Oct. 21. The Bergen prosecutor's Confidential Investigation Unit then conducted an investigation of the incident.

Authorities say the officers were involved in an altercation with other bar patrons and were removed by security at the bar, but fighting continued outside until officers from Lyndhurst and North Arlington arrived. One person, a civilian, suffered minor injuries and was treated at Hackensack University Medical Center.

Bergen County officials did not identify the bar and did not immediately respond to emails Monday.

No one was charged that morning, but the investigation subsequently revealed that one of the Belleville officers, John Clarizio, 32, gave false information to a Lyndhurst officer who responded to the scene, authorities said.

Clarizio has been charged with simple assault and hindering apprehension. Another of the Belleville officers, Marco Zarfino, 24, has been charged with two counts of simple assault; Jesse McKeough, 28, was charged with simple assault; and Giovanni Casillo, 39, was also charged with a sole count of simple assault.

Another man, 39-year-old Vasilos Theofandis, who is not a Belleville police officer, was also charged with simple assault.

The five men are scheduled to appear at Bergen County Central Processing Dec. 14 at 8:30 a.m.

A phone message left with Belleville Chief of Police Mark Minichini, who assisted in the investigation, was not immediately returned.

Paul Milo may be reached at pmilo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaulMilo2. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
HACKENSACK -- The commercial bribery case against Felix Roque is a tale of two defendants, his lawyer told jurors during opening arguments of the trial on Tuesday.



Roque, a physician and mayor of West New York, was indicted in June 2015 on charges he took more than $200,000 in kickbacks from 2010 to 2014, in exchange for some 2,000 referrals of patients to an MRI lab in Hackensack, American Imaging Affiliates. The charges, brought by the state Division of Criminal Justice, are unrelated to Roque's official duties.



One of the two defendants, Roque, is a Cuban immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen who volunteered for military service, became a doctor to patients in largely working class West New York, and was twice elected mayor, defense lawyer John McDonald said in State Superior Court in Hackensack.

The other defendant, lab operator Rehan Zuberi, is a native of Pakistan in the United States illegally, who had twice pleaded guilty in kickback schemes, reaping millions in Medicaid payments that he spent on exotic cars and a mansion in Boonton, said McDonald, asking jurors to forgive his reference to the Charles Dickens novel, "A Tale of Two Cities."



"It's a story about two men, and the contrasts between them," said McDonald.

Zuberi is a key prosecution witness, and testified later on Tuesday how he would deliver pockets full of cash -- sometimes thousands of dollars at a time, at $100 per referral -- to Roque's West New York medical office, and sometimes to his mayor's office nearby.

By drawing the stark contrast between Roque and Zuberi, McDonald sought to elevate his client and discredit the prosecution's star witness in the eyes of the jury.



As McDonald told jurors, Zuberi is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in May 2015 to related charges in the scheme. And, McDonald pointed out, under a plea agreement Zuberi's prison term could be reduced if Roque and other doctors charged in the scheme are convicted.



Because Zuberi had a critical interest in Roque's conviction, McDonald told jurors, his testimony could not be trusted.



Several doctors have pleaded guilty in the case, while the trial of another, Dr. John Fritz of Jersey City, has been delayed by Roque's case.



Deputy Attorney General Peter Sepulveda, who is handling the state's case along with Deputy Attorney General Crystal Callahan, plainly acknowledged the plea deal, in which Zuberi could reduce his recommended sentence from 10 years to eight.



But under questioning from Sepulveda, Zuberi said he was not told to identify Roque among the doctors who took kickbacks.



"Nobody ever told me who I had to name, no," Zuberi testified.



In his effort to discredit Zuberi, McDonald described him to jurors as, "a lifetime criminal," driven by "a sickness, an insatiable greed for material things." He showed the jury photographs of a Rolls Royce, Lamborghini and rare Mercedes Benz Zuberi had purchased with what McDonald said were the ill-gotten gains of a complex scheme involving recruiters, couriers, and doctors who received illicit payments in laundered cash.



"It was so complex there were complexities within the complexities," McDonald said.



But Sepulveda tried to keep the focus on Roque, who he said made $149,000 in cash deposits in his own bank account during the same period that Zuberi made the illicit cash payments to him.



"Defendant Roque sold his patients to the highest bidder," Sepulveda told jurors.



The prosecutor promised jurors they would see and hear five types of evidence in the case during the trial: testimony from Zubari and others; testimony from investigators; communications between Roque and Zuberi arranging meetings for payments; corresponding referral information; and bank deposit records.



In addition to the bribery charge, Roque's indictment had also included counts of fraud and conspiracy, alleging he failed to report the kickbacks, and that he plotted with Zuberi in the scheme.

However, those two counts were dismissed in July by Judge Christopher Kazlau, the judge presiding over the case.



Another lawyer for Roque, Christopher Adams, began his cross examination of Zuberi on Tuesday afternoon. But the judge let jurors go for the day before Adams concluded, and told Zuberi to return on Wednesday.



In addition to a dozen Roque supporters, seated in the gallery during the morning arguments was the mock trial club from St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale, on a field trip. The club advisor, English teacher John Vreeland, was not impressed with the Dickensian reference by Roque's lawyer contrasting the doctor and the lab operator testifying against him.



But it worked for club member Luke Brouwer, a 17-year-old junior from Park Ridge.



"I thought it was interesting," Brouwer said.



Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Michael Slager, the New Jersey native who lost his job as a police officer in South Carolina after fatally shooting a motorist following a car stop, saw his case declared a mistrial on Monday.

Michael Slager (file photo).

The jury decided it would be impossible to reach a unanimous verdict regarding the murder or voluntary manslaughter charges against 35-year-old Slager, a 2001 Lenape High School graduate.

Walter Scott, who was was 50 at the time of his death in April 2015, was struck five times as he fled from Slager. The mistrial means prosecutors must decide whether to retry Slager.

Here's what some NJ.com readers had to say about Monday's update on the case.

- mfr184: "Are you kidding! This guy is definitely guilty. He murdered that poor guy. I am no cop hater, quite the opposite but this was so wrong it screamed guilty."

- BamBam911: "Well obviously after all the evidence and after what the jury heard and saw they didn't feel he was guilty! Time to move."

- Travis Bickle: "We know there was no justice. Now comes the no peace part, which will be labeled 'racist.' Then there will be reconciliation until the next incident. Too bad for us; if he was truly a man he'd accept his apparent guilt voluntarily. Coward."

- 2sickofit: "No point wasting taxpayer money on police body cameras. All of the cameras in the world won't make a difference when a member of law enforcement is the one who stands accused."

- theantichristie1: "I always give the officer the benefit of the doubt in these cases, but I can't understand how someone running away from you is a threat? There was no need to shoot this guy, period. Had he turned around and charged toward the officer it would be a different story."

- Social Justice Warrior: "In most of these cases, I'm on the side of the cop (or at least give them the he benefit of the doubt). But come on, this was a cold-blooded murder. There is simply no valid defense here. The only thing he didn't do was spin the gun around his finger after shooting him and blow the smoke off the barrel."

- RUGrad2013: "This is very disheartening to see that the jury was not able to come to a consensus on this case. From what I saw from the bystander's video, Mr. Scott was murdered in broad daylight. The police do not have an easy job, but that does not dismiss them from using proper judgement. This gentleman was running away and was not threatening anyone, yet his light was foolishly extinguished."

Greg Adomaitis may be reached at gadomaitis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregAdomaitis. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
BASS RIVER TWP. -- A Beachwood pilot who died after crashing his private plane in a marsh last month encountered bad weather and made several evasive maneuvers while trying to reach Ocean County Airport, a federal report said.

A Ryan Navion aircraft is pictured at the Portland Jetport airport in Portland, ME, in this 2004 file photo. (Wikipedia/public domain)

A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, the lead agency of the Nov. 19 crash that killed Beachwood resident William Lindley, noted that Lindley did not have an instrument rating to deal with low visibility, which his Ryan Navion A plane encountered at least 16 miles northeast of the crash site.

However, Lindley was an experienced pilot who had 800 flight hours of flight, the report said.

Lindley's neighbor in Beachwood, Jerry LaCrosse, told the Asbury Park Press that the pilot often flew down to the beach in Maryland, sometimes making the trip in one day.

The day before the crash, Lindley flew from the Ocean County Airport to Accomack County Airport in Melfa, Va., near where a friend, who was also a pilot, owned a vacation home, the report said.

Lindley stayed overnight, and both he and his friend flew to the Hummel Field Airport in Saluda, Va., on the day of the crash, the report said. After the two had dinner at the airport, they both fueled their planes before heading off around 5:30 p.m.

The friend encountered strong wind conditions on his way back to Melfa, Va., and radioed Lindley to warn him about the weather around 6:05 p.m. He checked on Lindley again around 6:30 p.m., the report said. Lindley told his friend he was OK and had reached the Delaware Bay.

That was the last communication the two had, the report said.

A review of preliminary radar data provided by the FAA found that Lindley's plane was on a "relatively direct course" until it encountered a cold front boundary shortly before 7 p.m. During the next 13 minutes, the report said the plane experienced "numerous course deviations," maneuvering to the left three times and twice to the right.

Weather readings at Atlantic City International Airport, located about 14 miles from the crash site, picked up wind gusts that evening up to 35 mph. Visibility was at 3 miles in the mist, readings from the Ocean County Airport showed.

The plane then crashed into a wooded area, the report said. New Jersey State Police said after the crash that the downed aircraft landed in Bass River State Forest, a sprawling 29,000-acre park that spans Burlington and Ocean counties.

A clear debris path was found, including freshly cut tree branches and parts of the plane located within 420 feet along the path. Both wings had separated from the plane, and parts of the main landing gear were detached.

The NTSB report said Lindley purchased the plane, built in 1949, in 1993. His most recent annual inspection was completed in July. The inspection showed that the airframe had tallied approximately 3,501 total hours of operation and the engine had 548 hours of operation since it had undergone a "major overhaul."

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
GLOUCESTER TWP. -- Edward and Melissa Rost have gone all out with holiday decorations ever since they had little kids. Some years, they had as many as 50,000 lights covering their house in Blackwood.

This year, Edward Rost said, they decided to send a message with their light display: A big 'thank you' to Gloucester Township police and all law enforcement.

Using hundreds of white and blue light strands, Rost created a "thin blue line" across the three parts of his roof at 12 Benson Way.

"I just really appreciate all law enforcement and everything they do. I think they're under appreciated at times," he said. "They'd do anything for us. They'd take a bullet for you."

He said his family tries to buy coffee or breakfast for cops whenever they see them out, and the illuminated thin blue line is just another way to let officers know they're grateful for the work they do.

The thin blue line is generally used to represent the role of law enforcement, standing between law-abiding citizens and the criminal element and chaos.

Earlier this year, many New Jersey municipalities began painting blue lines in the middle of the double yellow line on streets to show their support.

Rost. 47, said he bought Christmas lights by the case and spent hours on the roof to perfect the blue line. It's not his first time tackling something like this; he created an American flag pattern in the lights in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"We start right after Halloween and we try to get everything turned on by Thanksgiving," Rost said of the annual display. After that, there's always lots of "tweaking" and replacing broken bulbs, he said.

The light display always draw a crowd to the cul-de-sac, he said. "On weekend nights, cars are just lined up out there," he said.

A drone video, shared by Gloucester Township Police Department's Facebook page Monday, gives an aerial view of the lit-up roof.

Waving from among the lawn decorations are Edward and Melissa Rost and their grandchildren, Mia, 5, and Emma, 3.

Also among the holiday decorations is a sign that reads, "We support our police."

Gloucester Township Police Capt. Brendan Barton said the department appreciates the Rosts' gesture.

"As a police department, any support from the community, we appreciate it," he said.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
N.J. State Trooper Frankie Williams

UPDATE: N.J. trooper killed in head-on crash was 'bright and promising,' State Police say

MILLVILLE -- A New Jersey state trooper and another driver were killed in a head-on collision Monday night, authorities said.

Trooper Frankie Williams, 31, was traveling south on Route 55 en route to a service call around 7 p.m. when a man driving a Toyota Corolla crossed the center median near milepost 22.2 and struck the trooper's car, State Police said in a news release early Tuesday.

Williams was flown to Cooper University in Camden, where he was pronounced dead.

The other driver has not been identified. Authorities said the crash remains under investigation.

The red Corolla was upright, while the trooper's car was overturned on the driver's side, according to Millville Rescue Squad Chief John Redden.

Williams, an Atlantic County resident, was a member of the 156th State Police Class, which graduated Jan 29. He was assigned to Port Norris Station.

He received his bachelor's degrees in criminal justice from Rutgers-Camden was taking classes toward a master's degree in that field, according to his LinkedIn page. He was a member of Alpha Sigma Lambda National Honor Society.

He was interested in raising the public's awareness of cyber-crime and cyber-security and learning how to use GIS software to make criminology maps, he said on his LinkedIn page.

He previously worked at Lowe's Home Improvement stores as a customer service associate and later as a loss prevention manager.

More than 50 troopers were at the hospital Monday night and authorities shut down Benson Street to make a makeshift parking lot for them, according to Camden County spokesman Dan Keashen. He said that troopers and police lined up to salute as Williams' body was taken away early this morning.

In August, Williams smashed the window of a Mercedes-Benz to rescue a dog suffering from heat stroke outside a thrift store in Pilesgrove Township in Salem County.

President Colligan - Our hearts and prayers go out to the @NJSP tonight on their loss. Please pray for the family and friends of the trooper  New Jersey State PBA (@NJSPBA) December 6, 2016

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

NJ Advance Media reporters Don E. Woods and Rebecca Everett contributed to this report.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Shouting "shut it down," about two dozen protesters forced an early end to the Rutgers Board of Governors meeting Tuesday with demands that the college be declared a "sanctuary campus" for unauthorized immigrants.

Rutgers President Robert Barchi opened the meeting in Winants Hall in New Brunswick by saying the university would be a "safe haven" for immigrant students living in the country illegally.

But Barchi stopped short of declaring Rutgers a "sanctuary campus," a term other universities have used.

"We have a large undocumented student population here that we support and we encourage," Barchi said. "We are a safe haven for our immigrant students."

Student protesters said Barchi did not go far enough. They asked him to declare Rutgers a "sanctuary" and promise to block federal immigration agents from campus.

"Send a message of support to your students who desperately need it . . . I need to know my university will stand with me when I'm out on the street," said Thais Marques, 22, a Rutgers-Newark political science student who said she is an unauthorized immigrant from Brazil.

Marques and more than 20 students walked up to the board and sat between the tables, chanting "Shame!" and "Do the right thing!"

The Rutgers board attempted to continue the meeting, reading reports and taking votes despite being shouted down by the protesters sitting at their feet.

After a few minutes, the board voted to transfer all of the items on the agenda to the consent agenda. That allowed the board to to quickly pass all of the items on the long agenda with a single vote and no discussion. Then, the board voted to end the meeting and Barchi and the other board members quickly left the room.

The protesters remained in Winants Hall after the meeting, continuing their protest until they conceded to a request by the fire marshal to leave the building.

Across the country, students and faculty members have been pressuring universities to declare themselves "sanctuary campuses" where university officials would refuse to cooperate with federal officials who might want to deport students living in the country illegally.

The leaders of some schools, including Columbia University and Wesleyan University, have declared their campuses "sanctuaries" for immigrant students. But other university presidents, including Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber, have said the term "sanctuary campus" has no basis in law and it is meaningless for schools to declare themselves exempt from immigration laws.

During the presidential campaign, Trump spoke often about wanting to deport unauthorized immigrants. He has also indicated he might reverse President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a 2012 federal order granting a temporary waiver for unauthorized immigrants brought to the country as children.

In a letter to the Rutgers faculty union sent Tuesday morning, Barchi said he was reluctant to call Rutgers a "sanctuary" for immigrants.

"In today's political environment, the term 'sanctuary' has become encumbered by vague and shifting definitions," Barchi wrote.

But Barchi said unauthorized immigrants should consider the university a "safe haven."

"In order to clarify our position, let me make clear that Rutgers does not and will not share undocumented student records without a warrant, subpoena or court order," Barchi wrote.

Though he did not use the term "sanctuary," the head of Rutgers' faculty union praised Barchi for declaring Rutgers a "safe haven" for immigrants.

"I think this is a tremendously bold step," said said David Hughes, a professor and president of Rutgers' faculty union.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.
Paterson-Jim-Jarmusch-screening-NJ.jpg

Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani in 'Paterson'. (Mary Cybulski)

Director Jim Jarmusch is hosting an early screening of his upcoming film "Paterson" in New Jersey.

No, not in Paterson, but close. Jarmusch will screen the film in Rutherford, birthplace of William Carlos Williams, the poet who wrote the five-volume epic poem "Paterson" published between 1946 and 1958.

The screening, scheduled for Dec. 12 at the William Carlos Williams Center for the Performing Arts -- known to locals as the Williams Center -- will be preceded by a reception with Jarmusch, whose film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

"Paterson," from Amazon Studios, stars Adam Driver as a Paterson bus driver named Paterson and opens in theaters on Dec. 28.

Paterson writes poetry in a notebook, drawing from the scenes and conversations around him. Golshifteh Farahani plays Paterson's wife Laura. The couple lives with their English bulldog, Marvin, in the Passaic County city where the movie was filmed. Driver trained for two months to get his bus license for the part, and the bulldog in the movie, Nellie, posthumously won the Palm Dog Award at Cannes for her performance.

The event starts with a reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by the movie screening at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 12. Admission $40; visit williamscenter.org
Valerie Hall, a public housing resident at Newark's Terrell Homes, is upset that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is banning smoking at public housing developments across the country.

(Barry Carter | The Star-Ledger)

Valerie Hall doesn't bother anybody.

She pays her rent, doesn't drink or play loud music at Terrell Homes, a Newark public housing development. The only vice she has is smoking, a 47 year habit that she believes she should be able to enjoy in her public housing apartment in Newark.

"That's my castle,'' she said.

But the federal government, which owns her abode, announced last week that it is banning smoking from all of its public housing developments across the country. The decision by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development affects 68,000 residents living in 38,000 apartments in New Jersey. They will not be able to use tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars and pipes when HUD's new policy will take effect in 18 months.

MORE: Recent Barry Carter columns

Many Newark residents think the move is authoritative. Not only are residents prohibited from smoking in their apartments, but they also are not allowed to smoke in common areas, administrative offices and all outdoor areas within 25 feet of the property.

"What are they going to do next - tell you when to (go to the bathroom)?'' Hall, 62, said.

The policy, needless to say, is not going over well with smoking residents in Newark. And some who don't smoke are not crazy about it, either.

"Give them an inch and they want to take a yard,'' said Rosemary Horsley, a Terrell Homes tenant who doesn't smoke. "It's another way for them to get rid of public housing.''

Several residents wonder how in the world HUD is going to enforce the new guidelines. If caught, will there be inspections, a warning, a fine, possible eviction?

NHA's Executive Director Keith Kinard said his agency hasn't figured out how to enforce the policy but it will follow the HUD mandate.

"HUD doesn't want see the rule be used as an eviction tool and we feel the same about that,'' Kinard said.

He said it'll be phased in after the agency meets with tenants and the board of commissioners on how best to implement the rule. Given the size of the housing authority's properties - 7,000 units and 16,000 residents - Kinard said he'll use up the entire 18 months to implement thedirective, but one clearly opposed by smokers and at the same time supported by residents who see the merits.

"As a leader of a housing authority, I can appreciate the need to put things in place that are going to save lives and reduce the costs associated with direct maintenance, but at same time, I'm cognizant of the extreme challenge that is going to come with the enforcement of this rule,'' Kinard said. "I hope at end of the day that residents - those that smoke - will see the rule as an opportunity to quit smoking and lead healthier lives.''

John Kitchen, a resident of Seth Boyden Terrace was floored when I told him about it.

"Oh, hell no,'' said Kitchen. "I pay rent where I live at. I should be able to smoke. Leave me alone.''

Kitchen, 59, has been smoking since age 12 and doesn't want to stop. Not even falling asleep with a lit cigarette that caused a fire in his apartment earlier this year is enough of a deterrent.

However, his friend, Herbert Thomas, 63, thinks it might entice him to quit, even though he doesn't like the new rule.

Thomas said he's tried off and on for more than 40 years to kick the habit, and hasn't been successful.

"If it goes into effect, I guess I have to roll with punches. But I don't want to,'' he said.

In making the announcement, HUD Secretary Julian Castro said "every child deserves to grow up in a safe, healthy home free from harmful second-hand cigarette smoke."

Two women, who reside at Oscar Miles Village in Newark, declined to give their names, but they had this take on HUD's plan. The federal agency, they said, needs to be more concerned with ridding its properties of crime and drugs at Oscar Miles instead worry about residents taking a drag on a cigarette

MORE CARTER: Weequahic vs. Shabazz - a rivalry for the ages duels in football championship

Theresa Ellis, who gave up smoking a year ago, said the ban is going to cause chaos. A resident of Bradley Court, Ellis said die-hard smokers are not going to abide by the new rules.

"What gives them the right to come in and tell you that you can't smoke in your home,'' Ellis said. "It's going to take a minute for it to even sink in.''

Dexter Baker, a resident at Seth Boyden Terrace, hopes people comply.

It's about health, and most importantly, safety. He said there are many seniors at his development who have oxygen tanks and they smoke.

"That could be dangerous and cause an explosion or something,''' he said.

His neighbor, Hateemah Green, said the HUD policy is needed in the worse way. She said some smokers are slovenly. They throw their cigarette butts on the ground or extinguish them on the wall and sometimes in the elevator.

This rule is a tough one to make stick. Some residents may follow it, but the majority will take the risk and light up when they close their apartment door. We'll see what happens.

Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or nj.combarry carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
Transradial Catheterization

Seven New Jersey hospitals have earned a spot on a list of 115 hospitals around the country recognized for their quality. The list is compiled by The Leapfrog Group, a non-profit that encourages hospitals to improve their safety and treatment outcomes. (Star-Ledger File Photo)

Seven New Jersey hospitals are among the 115 nationwide that have been dubbed "Top Hospitals" by a non-profit dedicated to pushing for safer and better hospitals.

The lists were announced Tuesday as the highest-performing institutions in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey. Leapfrog was formed to push for improvements in health care, and to share performance records with employers and insurers.

Unlike other hospital rating systems, it does not take into account patient satisfaction or professional reputation. Nor does it focus on the strength of various specialities treated there. Instead, it focuses on the day-to-day regimens that produce safe, effective care.

Hospitals were chosen in four different categories: general hospitals, teaching hospitals, children's hospitals, and rural hospitals.

Four N.J. hospitals made the list of "Top General Hospitals": Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, Inspira Medical Center in Woodbury, Kennedy University Hospital in Stratford, and Shore Medical Center in Somers Point.

Another three made the exclusive list of "Top Teaching Hospitals": Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, and Virtua Hospital in Voorhees.

New Jersey had no representatives in the list for children's or rural hospitals.

In order to make the cut, hospitals had to first do well in two other major rankings - the Leapfrog evaluation of hospital safety, and the federal government's "star" ratings.

Beyond that benchmark, a hospital also had to demonstrate excellence in several additional areas:

It had to use a computerized physician order entry system to help avoid medication errors, which lead to an estimated 7,000 avoidable deaths nationwide.

It had to adhere to high staffing levels for its ICU. At times when a physician couldn't be there, an on-call physician had to return pages within 5 minutes.

It had to meet or exceed the Medicare's average outcome for treating heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia.

Finally, it had to abide by four promises should it commit what Leapfrog calls a "Never Event" - a mistake that should never happen: Apologize to the family, waive all costs of treatment, report the incident to regulators, and figure out the root cause of the error.

"'Never Events' hardly ever happen, luckily, particularly at the better hospitals. But when they do happen, doing that root cause analysis is essential," said Linda Schwimmer, president of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, which serves as the state's representative on for the Leapfrog Group.

Apologizing for an error has been shown to enhance a hospital or health care provider's willingness to take ownership of a mistake, said Schwimmer.

"If they don't recognize that they've made a mistake and figure out how to fix that mistake, they're going to make that mistake again," she said.

Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Joe DeMarco

An administrative law judge called the testimony of Bayonne Business Administrator Joe DeMarco "not credible" in his opinion on a case brought by three Bayonne employees who were served layoff notices.

(Journal File Photo)

BAYONNE -- The state Civil Service Commission is slated to issue a ruling Wednesday in a case involving three former city code enforcement employees who are appealing their layoffs from last summer.

An administrative law judge last month sided with the employees in an initial opinion, recommending that they get their jobs back.

Judge Thomas R. Betancourt of the state Office of Administrative Law said while it isn't clear why the city laid off Michael Mulcahy, Gary Parlatti and Michael Smith, the layoffs were not carried out for "purposes of economy or budget shortfalls."

Betancourt also said testimonies in the case by two of the employees' higher-ups -- Bayonne Business Administrator Joe DeMarco and former Municipal Services Director Robert Wondolowski -- were "not credible."

The Civil Service Commission is expected to decide whether to adopt, modify or reject the judge's recommendation during a regular meeting tomorrow, according to a meeting agenda.

DeMarco and Wondolowski have previously declined to comment on Betancourt's initial opinion.

Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis has said he disagrees with the judge's opinion, maintaining that the layoffs were carried out because the city did not need those employees' services. Davis has also said he stands behind DeMarco and Wondolowski.

Jonathan Lin may be reached at jlin@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @jlin_jj. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Entering the grand aula of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a lot like entering Holy Rosary Church in downtown Jersey City, where I grew up. There are statues - St. Peter and the Blessed Mother among others- and religious artifacts surrounding the large, artificial Christmas tree in the center.

Around it are large figurines depicting Bethlehem when Jesus was born. The statuary, sculptures, tapestries and art reveal the close relationship between the Church and artists through the centuries. Then wander upstairs to The Tisch Galleries to see the Jerusalem exhibit and go back in time but also witness the Jerusalem of today in video screens depicting trade, commerce, tourism, the diversity of peoples and special themes like "The Air of Holiness," "The Drumbeat of Holy War," "The Generosity of Patrons," and "The Promise of Eternity."

"Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven," brings together the three major religions by displaying sacred texts, illustrations, holy art and artifacts from Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the Middle Ages, thousands made pilgrimages to Jerusalem in what was described as a "Jerusalem fever." It was fought over, merchants profited, and scholars were inspired.

This historical period saw the Fatimid caliph, who ruled over Jerusalem, forge an agreement in the 1030's with the Byzantine emperor to rebuild the Holy City after a series of earthquakes. In 1099 European Christians conquered Jerusalem and erected buildings and commissioned works of art for nearly a century. In 1187, the military leader Saladin (1137/38-1193) retook the city and rededicated its Islamic sanctuaries. In the late 1200s through the 1300s, Mamluk sultans made the city a spiritual and scholarly center. The city was home to more cultures, faiths, and languages than ever before.

Ancient maps depict Acre, a principal entry for European Christian pilgrims, and the city of Tyre, famous for its glassware, and Mount Ararat in Armenia, where Noah's ark was believed to have landed. The square, walled city of Jerusalem appears with the Dome of the Rock, the Aqsa Mosque, and the Tomb of Jesus all highlighted. Marvel at jewelry, like Jewish wedding rings, and bracelets with the word baraka (blessing) engraved. The pendant, like a tiny mailbox for prayers, has Arabic inscriptions woven into the decoration on the front, calling for "prosperity," "happiness," and "forbearance" for the owner.

Jews made fine Tyrian glassware. There are chalices and patens more adorned and intricate than today's. Bottles with Christian scenes bring a local Christian community to life. Find censer bowls with Arabic blessings, small and large pitchers and bells. Tempera and gold on wood panels depicted religious scenes.

Reliquaries, holding relics of saints, and crosses, made of gilded copper and enamel, were the most interesting to me. The most exquisite is "The Chasse of Ambazac," on loan from France. Since Jerusalem was governed from Cairo at this time, textiles that have survived in Egypt by virtue of its dry conditions reveal the likely fashion styles of residents of the Holy City, including fabric from Gujarat, India.

If anything could be said to connect the many religious communities that held Jerusalem dear, it was a shared reverence for the written word. Residents understood themselves as "people of the book." Books written in, brought to, or sent from the Holy City thus display a range of languages and styles. This reverence for books and the cultivation of scholarship went hand in hand. The city's many madrasas, yeshivas, and monasteries made the city something of a college town, with a steady stream of students and scholars always coming and going.

Check out the globe made of copper alloy inlaid with silver and copper covered with forty-eight figures from constellations and 1,025 stars graduated in size to convey relative magnitude, This splendid globe belonged to Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil (reigned 1218-1238), nephew of Saladin, who won control of Jerusalem in 1100.

Then go over to the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall to see the art of Valentin de Boulogne, the greatest French follower of Caravaggio (1571-1610). De Boulogne (1591-1632) was also one of the outstanding artists in 17th-century Europe. Caravaggio and de Boulogne captured humans in a naturalistic and earthy way. Check out "Crowning of Thorns," "The Merchants from the Temple," "The Last Supper," St. Paul's Martyrdom," and "David with the head of Goliath."

These exhibits inspire spiritually, as well as artistic appreciation, and can serve as an Advent retreat amid all the busyness in advance of Christmas.

F.Y.I.

"Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven," Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., New York, New York, until January 8, 2017. 212-535-7710. Metmuseum.org

"Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio" until January 22, 2017

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, FAX: 201-659-5833; Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken
OAKLAND, Calif. -- A filmmaker originally from New Jersey is one of the 36 victims of a California warehouse fire last week, officials have confirmed.

The city of Oakland has so far identified 17 of the victims of the deadly blaze, including Alex Ghassan, a 35-year-old producer who previously lived in Jersey City.

Ghassan in an Instagram photo.

Ghassan and his fiance had been at a party at the warehouse last Friday when the fire broke out. Friends said he moved to California about two years ago.

"It's heartbreaking, it's terrible," Ghassan's friend Richardine Bartee told the Jersey Journal earlier this week, after he had been identified as one of the many missing after the fire.

In an interview with WABC, Ghassan's mother, Orange resident Emilie Grandchamps said she "prepared myself for the worst, and I pray for the best."

Grandchamps did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Ghassan was reportedly known for his own work, and for trying to help other artists. He was father to twin 4-year-old girls who live with their mom in Hoboken.

He had posted a video on Instagram apparently taken in the warehouse before the fire.

California authorities say they are working to determine the cause of the fire, which broke out in a warehouse that has been described as an "artist collective" that illegally housed a rotating roster of people. Residents have described the space as a death trap, with entangled wires, makeshift staircases, and few ways out.

"Our city has experienced a tremendous tragedy," Oakland officials said in a release identifying the victims. "As a community, we can come together in recovery and spirit."

Staff reporter Marisa Iati and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The current U.S. flag could have looked a lot different, website reports
Does Michael Slager juror believe cops can do no wrong?
The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.
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.
As much as we love the highs and lows of the Seven Kingdoms, it seems the people of Ireland would prefer talk about the unfolding drama in the Celebrity Big Brother house than the wars happening between the houses on Game of Thrones, according to Twitter anyways.

The top ten trends on television in Ireland for 2016 have been revealed, and Celebrity Big Brother has ranked in at number 3, while Game of Thrones is one place behind at number 4, and the non-celebrity version of Big Brother UK came in at number 10.

The reality show just returned to Irish television in 2015, with TV3 gaining the rights to air the Channel 5 series. There has been two cycles of Celebrity Big Brother this year, with Geordie Shore's Scotty T winning in the winter and Ex on the Beach's Stephen Bear claiming victory over the summer.

Game of Thrones, meanwhile, is gaining more and more viewers with every season and aired here on Sky Atlantic from April until June. It may not have been able to surpass Big Brother on our shores, but it is the only TV series to feature on the Top 10 Global Trends on Twitter.

Proving the most popular on the box for the people of Ireland in 2016 was the Leaders Debate, which took place ahead of the general election earlier in the year. Good to see at least the future of the country was more important than Jeremy McConnell and Stephanie Davis's on/off romance 'ey?

Also featuring on the list was the Eurovision, The Late Late Show, Vincent Browne, the Rose of Tralee, Prime Time and X Factor.
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Two projects that would extend and modernize Northwest Indiana's commuter rail service converged this year, with the South Shore Line setting the goal of sending them to the federal government next summer for its approval  and for more than $400 million in funding.

The federal money would cover half the construction costs of the South Shore's $615 million West Lake Corridor project, which would extend the railroad south from Hammond to Dyer, and half the cost of Double Track NWI, which would add a second track between Gary and Michigan City. That project had a preliminary cost estimate of $250 million to $270 million as engineers began refining the project this fall.

Proponents say the projects will integrate Northwest Indiana's workforce more deeply into the Chicago economy, create jobs and grow wealth, and help accomplish a much-needed diversification of the Region's employment opportunities.

"We know that when we make this investment, ridership will follow," South Shore President Michael Noland said at a recent presentation on the projects.

'In the pipeline'

West Lake's 9-mile stretch will include four new stations: a "gateway" station in Hammond, where West Lake will connect to the existing line; a station in south Hammond near 173rd Street with a nearby maintenance yard; a station at Ridge Road in Munster, and another on Main Street at the Munster-Dyer municipal border.

The South Shore's operator, the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, hopes to begin service on the new line in 2022.

"We're in the pipeline and on a glide slope to get to a construction start in 2020," Noland said.

For that to happen, NICTD needs to complete a final Environmental Impact Statement and submit a request to the Federal Transit Administration for a New Starts matching grant late next summer.

At the same time, NICTD will apply for a federal Core Capacity matching grant for Double Track NWI, which would add a second set of tracks to the South Shore from Gary to Michigan City.

That project has moved quickly in tandem with West Lake, because it essentially follows the railroad's existing path, and only requires an Environmental Assessment that is less detailed than an Environmental Impact Statement.

The Northwest Indiana RDA and the South Bend-based North Central Indiana Regional Development Authority are funding $4 million in engineering work to firm up plans for Double Track NWI.

The project would speed commuting times to Chicago, increase train frequency and improve safety, railroad officials say. It would require laying more than 16 miles of track and improving five stations.

The project's biggest impacts would be in the Miller neighborhood in Gary and in Michigan City. In Miller, U.S. 12's junction with U.S. 20 would be moved east of Lake Street, and the train tracks would take the path of the abandoned roadway.

In Michigan City, the rails would be moved out of the street, and 19 of 33 grade crossings would be closed. Tracks have been running down 10th Street for the life of the railroad.

"It's neat, it's historical, it's interesting, but it's no way to run a modern railroad," Noland said.

'Hundred year investments'

Proponents argue the projects will have a transformational impact on Northwest Indiana, increasing population and income, prompting property development and raising tax revenue. And planning for so-called Transit Oriented Development in Hammond, Munster and Dyer has taken on more urgency as work on the projects progresses.

Architectural and planning firm Farr Associates has been working with local officials and residents to bring conceptual focus to the type of development the communities would like to see, and the consulting firm KPMG also is working on TOD planning.

The firms were hired by the Regional Development Authority, which is participating in the financing of West Lake as well as planning for development. The RDA's new Comprehensive Strategic Plan includes detailed economic projections and suggests an extensive opportunity for growth.

"I think we have a project here that can truly transform the industrial north as well as provide connectivity to the south," RDA President and CEO Bill Hanna said when the agency's board of directors approved the plan earlier this year.

"From my perspective, these are generational-type projects. These are hundred-year investments in our community," Noland said.
Indiana Lt. Governor and Governor-elect Eric Holcomb met with ArcelorMittal Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lakshmi Mittal on Tuesday in London as part of an economic development trip to the United Kingdom.

"The delegation discussed the company's operations in Indiana, the state's business climate and opportunities for future collaboration between the state and the private sector," spokeswoman Abby Gras said.

ArcelorMittal employs more than 9,000 workers in the Calumet Region, including at ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor, in East Chicago, ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor in Porter County, Gary Plate in Gary Works and I/N Tek and I/N Kote, in New Carlisle.

The Luxembourg-based company, which headquarters its U.S. operations in Chicago, shipped 84.6 million tons of steel in 2015, again making it the largest steelmaker in the world. It ranked 108th in the Fortune Global 500 ranking of the world's biggest companies.
Chief Executive Officer Mario Longhi and other U.S. Steel executives are cashing in on the steelmaker's surging stock price.

U.S. Steel's stock price has been surging since the election of Donald Trump, who often talked about restoring America's steel industry and imposing tariffs on imports while on the campaign trail. It shot up from about $21 a share on Nov. 8 to about $35 a share Monday afternoon.

Longhi sold about 277,000 shares for an average price of $32.25, or a total of $8.9 million, on Nov. 28, though he will take home only about a fourth of that in profit, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Company spokesman Erin DiPietro said Longhi exercised stock options that were previously granted to him. CEOs and other top executives are sometimes given stock options as an incentive-based form of compensation.

The options give the executives the right to acquire company stock at a fixed price. When prices climb, as they are now, that fixed price can be significantly lower than the stock's current price on the market. In those cases, the options can be exercised and the stock then sold at a higher price, netting the executive a profit.

Longhi acquired the 277,000 shares of U.S. Steel stock at between $24.28 a share and $25 a share by exercising his stock option, according to the SEC filing. He profited about $2.08 million from the transaction.

The chief executive officer, who took over the company in late 2013, saw his pay cut 35 percent to $8.6 million last year because of U.S. Steel's poor financial performance during the global import crisis.

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer David Burritt and Senior Vice President of Tubing David Rintoul also recently sold U.S. Steel stock, according to the SEC.
LAPORTE  A southern LaPorte County man was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for possession of cocaine and heroin, both level 5 felonies.

After his arrest for having a meth lab, Samuel Berry was found with a bag of heroin and methamphetamine concealed in a body cavity, according to court documents.

The Kingsford Heights area man was among four occupants of a car stopped in August for a loud exhaust system and no license plate, court documents said.

A Kingsford Heights police officer recovered a syringe from one of Berry's pockets during a search, court records said. A 1-liter bottle containing ammonia and other ingredients that can be used to make methamphetamine were among the items recovered from the vehicle.

Inside an electric pill grinder was a large amount of white powder later identified as pseudoephedrine, a cold medication key to making the potentially deadly drug, court records said.

While booked into the LaPorte County Jail, a plastic bag containing heroin and methamphetamine was recovered by a drawstring exposed from the body cavity, police said.

Also arrested on similar charges were Amanda Reed, also of Kingsford Heights; Darrick Wallace, of Knox; and Cheryl Sickman, of Plymouth.

All of their cases before the court remain undecided.

According to court documents, Reed revealed he is a former user of methamphetamine now battling a heroin addiction.
CROWN POINT  A 33-year-old man accused of firing a handgun at Gary police officers during a drug raid has entered into a plea agreement with the state.

Dwayne A. Gunn pleaded guilty Tuesday at Lake Criminal Court to two counts of attempted battery, a class C felony, according to court records.

Gunn was charged Feb. 11, 2014, with six counts of attempted murder and seven counts of attempted battery on allegations he fired a gun at members of the Gary Police Department SWAT team when officers served a search warrant on the 5000 block of Virginia Street.

Officers executed the warrant at the residence after a confidential informant purchased cocaine and heroin there in January 2014.

When officers breached the door, Gunn allegedly fired one round, which pierced the door near the officers' legs.

Officers returned fire, and Gunn suffered a gunshot wound during the incident. A black handgun was recovered at the residence.

Judge Diane Boswell will determine whether to accept the plea agreement at a court hearing scheduled for Feb. 2.

Gunn will be sentenced at the hearing if the plea is accepted.
EAST CHICAGO  Police said Tuesday they're looking to identify the driver of a gold Chrysler Sebring seen in the area of a homicide Friday in the city's Calumet neighborhood.

Terance Jackson, 22, of East Chicago's Harbor section, died at the scene Friday in the 4900 block of Melville Avenue, according to the Lake County coroner's office.

East Chicago police responded at 10:38 a.m. Friday to reports of shots fired and a man down in front of the Macedonia Baptist Church, Lt. Marguerite Wilder said.

Jackson died from gunshot wounds in a homicide, according to the Lake County coroner's office.

Anyone with information about the identity of the Sebring or the homicide is asked to contact Detective Issac Washington at (219) 391-8461 or IWashington@eastchiago.com. To remain anonymous, call (219) 391-8500.

The homicide is not believed to be related to several federal drug warrants executed Thursday in the area, Wilder said. Complaints unsealed last week showed six people were charged in federal court with dealing cocaine in the city's Calumet neighborhood.
EAST CHICAGO  An 18-year-old man was wounded in a shooting Friday in the city's Harbor section, police said.

East Chicago police were dispatched about 4:50 p.m. to the 3900 block of Elm Street after the city's ShotSpotter technology detected gunfire, Lt. Marguerite Wilder said.

The 18-year-old East Chicago man told police he and a friend were walking in an alley when they heard a gunshot and he realized he'd been struck.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Issac Washington at (219) 391-8461 or IWashington@eastchiago.com. To remain anonymous, call (219) 391-8500.

The shooting happened about six hours after a 22-year-old Harbor man was killed in a shooting in the city's Calumet section.
INDIANAPOLIS  Hoosier parents who discipline their children using spanking, whipping or beating generally are immune from criminal sanctions for battery  unless the punishment goes too far.

Where is the line? No one really seems to know.

The Indiana Court of Appeals last week affirmed an Indianapolis man's misdemeanor conviction for battery causing bodily injury after he struck his 14-year-old daughter with a belt 14 times on her buttocks, thighs, back and arms.

According to court records, Sauntio Carter resorted to corporal punishment after he caught the girl posting sexually explicit images online, and his prior discipline, including taking the girl's phone away and making her clean the house, did not change her behavior.

State officials got involved when the girl told her school guidance counselor the day after the punishment that her arm was hurting.

An investigation by the Department of Child Services eventually led to Carter's conviction.

Appeals Judge Patricia Riley, a Rensselaer native, noted that the Indiana Supreme Court has set up a complicated, six-point balancing test to determine whether a parental punishment is sufficiently reasonable to be exempt from criminal charges.

Under that standard, the appellate court ruled the trial judge in this case properly weighed the evidence and determined Carter exceeded his parental authority and committed a crime.

But Riley said her review of similar cases found there is a "lack of clear guidance for parents to be able to distinguish between reasonable discipline and battery."

For example, the Indiana Supreme Court in 2008 concluded in a 4-1 ruling written by Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, that an Indianapolis mother was justified in whipping her 11-year-old son up to seven times with a belt or extension cord on his buttocks, arms and thighs.

But in 2015, the Court of Appeals upheld the misdemeanor battery conviction of an Indianapolis mother who struck her 13-year-old daughter with a belt 10 to 20 times on her arms, shoulders and legs.

Appeals Judge Terry Crone, of South Bend, wrote in a concurring opinion that no area of the law "is so fraught with subjectivity," and wondered if Carter had doled out 13 strikes with a belt it might have been deemed reasonable. Or maybe 15 strikes with less bruising?

"Everyone agrees that a line needs to be drawn, but current case law offers little guidance as to where that line is," Crone said.

He acknowledged that part of the problem is attitudes toward corporal punishment vary widely among Indiana residents, especially between generations and individuals from different cultures, though he said that should not preclude setting a definitive standard.

"If the purpose of the criminal law is to put a person on notice of what conduct is proscribed and what is permitted, then how can one's guilt or innocence depend upon how someone else disciplines his or her children when there is no consensus about what is appropriate?"

Ultimately, Crone acknowledged that Indiana courts simply will have to continue struggling along until either the General Assembly adopts clear guidelines for parental discipline or the Supreme Court fashions a more workable test.

Carter has until the end of the month to request the state's high court review the Court of Appeals ruling upholding his conviction.
VALPARAISO  The long-brewing federal investigation into various local units of government boiled over Tuesday among officials in Porter County.

The Porter County Council tabled a request Tuesday night from Porter County Commissioner President John Evans, R-North, to be reimbursed $5,000 for his legal costs associated with the investigation.

Earlier in the day, Porter County Councilman Jeremy Rivas, D-2nd, issued a statement calling on Portage Mayor James Snyder to resign following his indictment last month on federal public corruption charges.

Snyder wrote a guest column that appeared in Tuesday's issue of The Times maintaining his innocence.

"My conduct has never violated the law," he wrote.

Porter County Council President Dan Whitten, D-at-large, said he learned about Evans' request after noticing the unspecified item on Tuesday's council meeting agenda.

Whitten said he spoke with council attorney Harold Harper, who confirmed that the law allows Evans and other elected officials to request reimbursement. The county has the option of paying as long as it's confirmed the investigation is over and no indictment is coming, he said.

Whitten asked Harper to inquire about the status of the investigation with federal officials and report back to the group in January. Evans, who did not seek re-election, leaves office at the end of this month.

Evans, who had attended another county government meeting immediately prior to the council's session Tuesday night, did not stick around to watch the fate of his request.

When contacted following the council meeting, he referred to the state code involving reimbursements.

In response to a question from Rivas, Commissioner attorney Scott McClure, who represented Evans during the council meeting, said he did not believe the commissioners have provided any reimbursement on their own to Evans.

A call to step down

Rivas kicked off Tuesday's council meeting by reading the statement he released earlier in the day calling on Snyder to step down.

Rivas said Snyder has "broken the public's trust."

He cites several ongoing projects, such as drainage issues along Willowcreek Road, consideration of a new North County Government Complex, allowing Portage to bring their stray animals to the new Porter County Animal Shelter and a new public radio system  between the county and the city  as reasons for Snyder to resign.

"Theres a lot going on that we need to partner with the city. ... I dont know how anyone can do that with a guy under indictment," Rivas said.

"I think we pride ourselves on quality of life, good government, and this flies in the face of it," Rivas said.

Snyder was charged last month before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Cherry on counts of felony bribery, extortion and tax dodging, which carry long prison terms if he is convicted. He pleaded not guilty.

Whitten said Snyder, like all citizens, deserves his day in court, and he hopes the allegations are not true.

But, if the allegations are true, and only Snyder knows for certain, he should resign, Whitten said.

Whitten said elected officials are trusted by the public to conduct the public's business.

"If you're committing public corruption, you betray that trust, and you should resign," Whitten said.

Portage City Council President Mark Oprisko, D-at large, said he has and will continue to work with Rivas and Whitten on issues like the North County Complex and animal shelter.

"I wont let (the) mayor's indictment get in the way of our dialogue with the county," Oprisko said.

Oprisko called the indictment an "unfortunate situation," but said Snyder deserves his day in court.

"Im just trying to move the city forward as best we can," Oprisko said. "Im not going to drop the ball with county.

Porter County Republican Chairman Michael Simpson said Snyder deserves his day in court and should remain in office.

"I see no reason for Mayor Snyder to resign," Simpson said.

"I dont know why the County Council cant work with Mayor Snyder," he said, suggesting Rivas concentrate his efforts on council financial issues instead of Snyder's legal problems.

Portage City Councilman John Cannon, R-4th, said he disagrees with Rivas' idea that it will be difficult to work with the city on these ongoing projects.

He said members of the City Council and County Council need to worry about the residents of Portage, "and to do the best we can for them."

Cannon declined to comment on whether Snyder should resign.

Snyder did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
LAKE STATION  A fire early Tuesday destroyed a large garage at a former fencing company, an official said.

Lake Station firefighters were dispatched about 6:15 a.m. to the 3900 block of Liverpool Road for a fire at the former S&S Fence, Fire Chief Chuck Fazekas said.

The blaze destroyed the structure, he said. No injuries were reported.

Digital Lake County land records show the property is currently owned by Gary-based Lalo's Trucking.

Firefighters called for tanker trucks to assist because of issues with hydrants, Fazekas said. Assisting departments included New Chicago, Hobart, Merrillville, South Haven and Lake Ridge.

Firefighters remained on scene until about 8:30 a.m. cleaning up equipment, Fazekas said.
CROWN POINT  Improvements to the city's wastewater and water infrastructures will lead to an increase in residents' utility bills.

An overview was presented to the Board of Works and the City Council on Monday by Albert Stong, president of Commonwealth Engineers Inc., of Indianapolis, the city's consultants on the projects, and from representatives of Ice Miller, an Indianapolis-based legal firm, and Financial Solution Group.

The state-mandated wastewater infrastructure improvement plan has reached its final phase which will cost nearly $7 million with work beginning in 2017. A rate increase due to this project is estimated at 19 to 25 percent, with 19 percent being "the best estimate" according to officials. In that scenario a resident's 4,000 gallon water bill would go up $4.82 from the current $25.

Officials said this would mark the first rate increase since 2009.

On the water side, improvements to that infrastructure include primary needs that would run about $19 million to $20 million. They include tank repairs and improvements to storage and distribution systems. Other needs include redundant feed line looping at Copper Creek and Ellendale.

This rate increase, which would be phased in, could be 20 percent.

The City Council plans to have more information on the projects at its Jan. 3 meeting and a public hearing on the increases will also be scheduled.
HAMMOND  A towing firm operator, accused of paying bribes to Lake County Sheriff John Buncich and his second-in-command, was released on bond Monday.

William "Willie" Szarmach, operator of CSA Towing of Lake Station, was released on $300,000 bond secured by property he owns. He also must surrender a Lake County Sheriff's badge along with his passport and cannot have any firearms at his residence. Various law enforcement agencies issue honorary badges, although the practice can be controversial.

"The badge may be evidence in this case," Assistant U.S. District Attorney Philip Benson told U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Cherry at Monday's detention hearing for Szarmach.

Cherry also said that Szarmach is restricted to travel within the Northern District of Indiana and Illinois and is to have no contact with potential victims or witnesses in the case. He left the federal courthouse in Hammond shortly after the hearing.

Buncich and Timothy Downs, chief of police for the sheriff's department, are accused of wire fraud and receiving $34,500 in illicit cash payments. Szarmach, Buncich and Downs pleaded not guilty last month to the government charges.

Last month's indictment alleges that between February 2014 and October of this year Buncich set in motion a scheme to enrich himself and Buncich Boosters, his political campaign committee. The government contends that Buncich accepted bribes allegedly from towing firms for cash and campaign contributions, although he didn't record all those contributions in his campaign finance reports as required by state law. The government said Downs collected some of the alleged bribes for Buncich.

According to the indictment, Buncich's campaign reports don't mention $12,000 in donations Szarmach and his towing firm allegedly made to Buncich.

Both Downs and Buncich were released on bond last month.
Beyond the 1,000 Hoosier jobs saved by President-elect Donald Trump's negotiations with Carrier is perhaps an even more encouraging revelation.

In spite of his tough, at times inappropriate or outlandish rhetoric on the 2016 campaign trail, Trump knows how to reason and compromise to achieve positive conclusions.

For all those worried about the prospects of a Trump presidency, his recent job-saving negotiations with Carrier provide reason for hope and remind us to keep an open mind regarding his leadership potential.

Most Hoosiers are familiar with the plot line that led to Trump's intervention.

Carrier, a furnace and air conditioning company, planned to close an Indianapolis plant, putting hundreds of Hoosiers out of work while moving those jobs to Mexico.

It was the type of corporate move Trump vehemently slammed on the 2016 campaign trail, noting that if elected president, he'd bring severe penalties on companies moving jobs out of America.

Trump doesn't assume the presidency until January, but he's already making deals that appear to balance the spirit of his campaign promises with a more level approach than his fiery rhetoric seemed to suggest.

Trump and his vice president-elect, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, brokered a deal with Carrier executives to keep about 1,000 Hoosier jobs in tact and keep the doors of the Indianapolis plant open.

To do so, Trump used a pledge of honey rather than tough-talking vinegar.

Carrier is slated to receive $7 million in state tax credits during the next 10 years, providing it continues employing 1,069 Hoosier workers.

Trump also pledged to reduce the U.S. corporate income tax rate to 15 percent, from 35 percent.

This is a steep drop that will require congressional nods beyond Trump's power as president. But we should be prepared to give the president-elect a chance to make it happen. He's likely to find some friendly ears of fellow party members who control both congressional chambers.

The deal isn't all roses.

Carrier and its parent company still plan to move 1,300 Indiana jobs to Mexico.

But the 1,000-plus jobs that are staying in the state represent income taxes, property taxes and productive citizens who won't be leaving the Hoosier state.

For the Carrier employees who get to keep their jobs, this Christmas season will certainly be brighter than they once feared.

For the rest of us, hope emerges that campaign rhetoric could evolve into reasoned compromise.
ALEPPO, Syria  Rebel shelling killed two Russian nurses and eight civilians Monday in Aleppo, and a Russian fighter jet crashed as it was returning to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean after a sortie over Syria, but the pilot ejected safely, Moscow officials said.

The shelling that targeted government-controlled western Aleppo was one of the most intense in recent days. It coincided with a crushing air and ground assault that has seen forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad recapture more than half of opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

Russia and militias allied with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah have been staunch supporters of Assad in his country's bitter civil war, now in its sixth year.

The shelling initially killed one female nurse and wounded two Russian medics working in a field hospital, a Russian officer told reporters in the northern city. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Another nurse who was wounded later died, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"The Russian and Syrian doctors tried their best to save her," Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in an emailed statement. Another Russian, a pediatrician, remains in critical condition.

Konashenkov urged international organizations such as the Red Cross to condemn the attack on the health workers "who were doing their medical duty to help the civilians of Aleppo."

At the U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, Russia and China blocked a draft resolution demanding a seven-day truce in Aleppo to evacuate the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers time to get food and medicine into the city. Russia has repeatedly blocked action in the Security Council over Syria.

Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying talks would be held with the United States this week in Geneva on a rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo. The Russians have tried in the past to coax rebels into leaving, setting up corridors out of the district, but the fighters have refused because they want to retain control over parts of the city. Some fear the Russians and their Syrian allies would not ensure their safety.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said he couldn't confirm that U.S.-Russian talks on Syria would take place this week as planned

"The basic challenge is the same," Toner told reporters, saying the U.S. and its partners would have to resolve concerns about al-Qaida-linked rebels fighting in Aleppo, while Syria and Russia would have to bring about a credible truce in the city that allows humanitarian aid in.

"There's a moderate Syrian opposition that should not and does not deserve to be bombed into submission," Toner said.

Monday's fighting was the worst in days. Syrian government artillery, tanks and warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of the city for hours. The airstrikes were so intense that buildings on the western side of the city shook. Opposition activists and rescue workers said four people were killed in a barrel bomb attack on a rebel-held district, and three more were trapped in the rubble.

Insurgents also struck back in the government-held western parts of the city with dozens of mortar shells. At least eight civilians were killed in different neighborhoods, according to state news agency SANA. Among the dead were two children and four women, said the opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Thick smoke billowed from behind Aleppo's famous citadel where Syrian forces were advancing from the west and east to try to cut rebel-held districts in half.

On the city's southern edge, heavy machine gun fire could be heard.

An Associated Press team in government-controlled Aleppo said the attack on the Russian field hospital left the large tent charred and beds overturned. The shelling struck shortly before the inauguration of makeshift clinic. The AP crew was accompanied by representatives of the Syrian army.

Konashenkov said an unspecified number of residents at the field hospital were wounded, and he accused the U.S., Britain and France of telling the rebels the location of the hospital.

"The blood of our soldiers is on the hands of those who ordered this murder  those who created, nurtured and armed these beasts in human form and named them the 'opposition,'" he said.

Asked about the accusation, the British Defense Ministry declined to comment.

The Russian Defense Ministry also said the Su-33 fighter jet crashed in the Mediterranean as it returned to the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov after a sortie over Syria. "Because of the failure of the arrester system's cable, the Su-33 fighter rolled off the deck," the ministry said.

The pilot ejected successfully and was unharmed, the ministry said, adding that Russian military operations over Syria would not be affected by the incident.

This is the second loss of an aircraft from the Admiral Kuznetsov since it arrived off Syria last month. A MiG-29 crashed into the sea Nov. 15 while trying to land on the carrier.

In a ground offensive that began last week, Syrian government forces seized large parts of the Aleppo enclave that have been under rebel control since 2012. Monday's fighting was most intense near the dividing line between eastern and western Aleppo as government and allied troops pushed their way from the eastern flank, reaching less than 1 kilometer (half a mile) from the citadel in the center of the city.

Rebel fighters clashed with advancing troops and also lobbed mortars and shells into the government-controlled part of Aleppo to the west.

The opposition-run Thiqa News agency and the Syrian Civil Defense said four civilians were killed in the rebel-held Zabadiyeh district when barrel bombs were dropped there.

In nearby rebel-controlled Idlib province, Syrian opposition activists said Russian and Syrian aircraft stepped up assaults, a day after air raids killed more than 60 people.

The activist-run Local Coordination Committees said airstrikes on Monday hit the towns of Binnish, Maarat Nasaan and Saraqib, as well as the provincial capital, Idlib. The network said three children were killed, blaming the attacks on Russian aircraft.

Rebels also sent rockets into the predominantly Shiite towns of Foua and Kfarya, in Idlib province. Online video posted by activists showed clouds of smoke rising and wreckage sustained by the blasts.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 288 civilians have been killed in the province since Oct. 20, when Syrian government and Russian aircraft intensified airstrikes. The Syrian Civil Defense in Idlib said 65 civilians were killed in Sunday's airstrikes across the province, including attacks on two rural marketplaces that killed dozens.
Will there be a special legislative session before the end of the year? That was the big question considered by State Assembly Democrats who gathered in Albany on Monday for a retreat. State House Reporter Zack Fink filed the following report.

Although Assembly Democrats are back in Albany, they stayed out of their empty chamber because at least for now there are no plans for a special voting session before the end of the year.

But Democrats want a pay raise and haven't had one since 1999. Governor Cuomo says they can have that raise, if they also vote on a number of other issues this month.

"I'm not sure if there is going to be a special session," says Assemblyman Carl Heastie. "Like I said when I put out my statement the pay raise to me is a separate issue. But it would be irresponsible of the governor, myself and senator Flanagan to discuss issues that we may need to deal with before the end of the year."

Last month, a pay commission created by the legislature held its final meeting and didn't approve a raise. They currently make $79,500 for their work as part-time legislators.

The raise was denied after Governor Andrew Cuomo's three appointees to the commission refused to vote for an increase.

But after saying repeatedly that he wouldn't horse trade any legislation for a raise, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie emerged from a two hour conference with his members and tried to explain why voting on other issues this month and a raise is not "trading."

"You can bring things up in a conversation," says Heastie. "If everybody agrees it should happen then it's not a trade. But if you are saying 'I don't want to do this and you're saying you want to do it. And then you are getting forced into doing it, then that becomes a trade."

Some of the other issues the Governor would like to see addressed in a special session include a renewal of a tax break for developers known as 421-a, and term limits for lawmakers in exchange for creating a full time legislature.

"I don't think term limits are going to be on the table," says Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle. "I don't think we are going to rush into any restructuring of the state government. Or the responsibilities of legislators in an end of year session. I don't think it's an appropriate time."

Lawmakers cannot legally vote themselves a pay raise during the regular session, which begins in January. That helps explain why there is a desire to hold one now and tackle all these issues before the end of the year.
Mayor de Blasio is promising to protect all the thousands of undocumented immigrants who have signed up for a municipal ID. That could mean the city will destroy the applications for the program. But already, two GOP lawmakers are going to court to try to prevent that from happening. Our Courtney Gross has more from Staten Island.

It's an application with a wealth of information.

They're documents these members of the State Assembly want to get their hands on.

"This city, this state and this country for that matter should never be put in a position where they are less safe for some political agenda," said Staten Island Assemblyman Ron Castorina.

In the shadow of this Staten Island courthouse, these Republican lawmakers say they're suing the city officials to block them from potentially destroying records collected during its municipal ID program.

In 2014, the program was designed to give New Yorkers who might not be able to get a state ID an opportunity to have some official identification. It meant some undocumented immigrants would have an ID for the first time.

Now, with a Trump administration and the potential threat of deportations, the city is considering destroying all of those records.

"We made very clear there would never be a situation where it would lead to their deportation," Mayor de Blasio said. "We are going to keep that pledge. And it's also part of our law, stated very clearly in the legislation. So we will follow through on that."

He is right about that. The law says in December of 2016 the city can reassess how much record retention it needs going forward.

The city has not made a final decision on the issue.

Still, these lawmakers want to get a judge to weigh in before it is too late.

"My issue is protecting the citizens and the residents that we represent," said Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Milliotakis. "It's the primary concern here. It's the reason why documents should not be destroyed."

When IDNYC was first announced, some advocates warned the program actually created a database for anyone looking for undocumented immigrants to deport.

"New York City said to its population, 'Trust us with these documents and we will protect you. We will protect the documents and we will protect your safety,'" said Johanna Miller, with the New York Civil Liberties Union. "And now they really have to make good on that promise."

The city has no plans to discontinue the municipal ID program. In fact, they are encouraging people to sign up.
Police are searching for a man they say used a broom and trash can to rob an employee at a Brooklyn Popeyes.

As seen in surveillance video, police say the robber entered a Popeyes Chicken location on Nostrand Avenue near Flatbush Avenue.

Police say the video shows the man grabbing a broom and menacing an employee.

The man also picked up and threw a trash can before police say he fled the scene with the victim's cellphone.

It happened just after 1 a.m. on November 8.

The employee was not injured in the incident.

The alleged robber is described as being around 35 years old.

Anyone with information on the case should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com.
Police are hoping a sketch will lead them to the two men who shot a state corrections officer and his wife during a home invasion in Queens.

Investigators say the person depicted above and another man forced their way into the Jamaica home of Henry Wright and his wife Sharon Floyd-Wright on November 27.

The two men opened fire, hitting the husband five times, according to police.

Police say his wife was shot once, but managed to hit one of the attackers in the head with a hammer.

Henry Wright is still recovering in the hospital. His wife has been released.

Investigators are also looking to identifya light-colored Hyundai Elantra seen in surveillance video. Police believe the car was used by at least one of the suspected shooters.

Anyone with information on the case should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com.
President-elect Donald Trump chastised the Boeing corporation over plans for a new Air Force One.

The aircraft manufacturer was tapped by the Obama administration to build a new plane for future presidents, but Trump says it's costing taxpayers too much money.

Trump sent a tweet about it Tuesday morning.

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

Following up on that tweet, he said he would cancel that order unless the company slashes its prices.

"Totally out of control. It's going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program, and I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number," Trump said. "We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."

The president-elect will be back on the road today in North Carolina, the latest stop on his nationwide "Thank You Tour."

Next, he will head to Iowa and Michigan.

The Trump team may announce his pick for Defense Secretary today, retired General James Mattis. The 66-year-old retired in 2013 after serving as commander of the U.S. Central Command.

To be confirmed for the position, Mattis would need a special waiver from Congress. Retired military officers are barred from becoming secretary of defense within seven years of leaving active duty.
A man from Guyana, who is living in Queens temporarily, is charged with the murder of his wife in a domestic dispute turned fatal.

Police say the victim, identified by the Queens District Attorney as Rajwantie Baldeo, 46, was found near the intersection of 124th Street and 103rd Avenue, just after midnight Monday morning.

Investigators have arrested and charged her common law husband, Prem Rampersaud, 50, with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

The DA says the two were arguing when Rampersaud stabbed the victim multiple times in the neck and torso. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The NYPD says cops caught Rampersaud a few blocks away from the crime scene. Rampersaud faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
A judge ruled Monday that deposition testimony from a civil lawsuit in which Bill Cosby acknowledged obtaining quaaludes as part of his efforts to have sex with women can be admitted as evidence in his coming criminal trial.

Prosecutors have described the testimony, given by Mr. Cosby in a 2005 lawsuit and portions of which became public in July 2015 as crucial evidence that led them to reopen the investigation into an accusation by a former Temple University staff member that he had sexually assaulted her.

The Montgomery County, Pa., district attorneys office charged Mr. Cosby last year with drugging and molesting the former staff member, Andrea Constand, at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

Mr. Cosbys lawyers had argued that the deposition should be suppressed because, they said, he had been induced to sit for the deposition, and waive his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, by an alleged promise by a former county district attorney not to prosecute him.
MEXICO CITY  The international oil industry on Monday agreed to pay billions of dollars to the Mexican government for rights to drill in the countrys portions of the Gulf of Mexico.

The companies made a big bet that oil and natural gas prices would eventually rebound enough to make additional exploration and drilling profitable. The sale was validation of Mexicos decision to open its former government-monopoly energy business to foreign investment and expertise.

This is a vote of confidence that the energy reform is moving forward and for the geological potential of the Mexican Gulf deep waters, said Jorge R. Pinon, former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and now an analyst at the University of Texas at Austin.

Everybody paid a premium and that premium indicates the potential of the blocks, Mr. Pinon said.

The government awarded eight separate blocks of offshore territory to companies including Total of France and Exxon Mobil and Chevron of the United States, which all already have a strong presence in the Gulf of Mexico and can therefore take advantage of existing service crews and pipelines they use in Gulf waters.
In a sign of the legal and political stakes surrounding the death of a mentally ill woman killed by the police in October, the Bronx district attorney is asking the state to impanel a grand jury that would hear evidence solely from the fatal shooting.

The district attorney, Darcel D. Clark, said on Monday that she would ask for the appointment of what is known as a special grand jury in the death of the woman, Deborah Danner, 66, who was shot on Oct. 18 by a police sergeant responding to 911 calls about a woman acting erratically.

A special grand jury was used on Staten Island to hear evidence in the death of Eric Garner, who was killed in 2014 in an encounter with the police, and such panels typically entail more extensive presentation of evidence by prosecutors.

In the case of Mr. Garner, the grand jury declined to indict the officer implicated in the killing, Daniel Pantaleo. Since that decision, in December 2014, federal prosecutors have been conducting their own inquiry, which has been slowed by internal disputes.
A judge on Monday sentenced a Georgia man to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury found that he had intentionally left his toddler son in a hot sport utility vehicle to die.

Jurors last month convicted the man, Justin Ross Harris, 35 when convicted, of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Harris was unhappily married and intentionally killed his son because he wanted an escape from family life. Defense lawyers maintained that Mr. Harris was a loving father and that while he was responsible for the boys death, it was a tragic accident.

Mr. Harris did not testify at trial and did not speak at his sentencing hearing.

Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark of Cobb County Superior Court told Mr. Harris that she thought about statements he had made during conversations with the police and his wife the day his son died about wishing to be an advocate to help keep others from leaving a child in a hot vehicle.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced on Monday that he was ordering an investigation into racial bias in the state prison system after an investigation by The New York Times found that black inmates were punished at significantly higher rates than whites, sent to solitary confinement more often and held there longer.

The investigation analyzed nearly 60,000 disciplinary cases from 2015 and interviewed inmates at prisons around the state who said that guards often used racism to instill subservience.

I am directing the state inspector general to investigate the allegations of racial disparities in discipline in state prisons and to recommend appropriate reforms for immediate implementation, Governor Cuomo said in a statement issued on Monday, calling the report disturbing.

One of the most striking examples of bias documented was at Clinton Correctional Facility near the Canadian border, the site of a dramatic escape by two white inmates last year. Only one of the 998 guards at the prison is African-American, and black inmates there were nearly four times as likely as whites to be sent to isolation and were held there for an average of 125 days, compared with 90 days for whites, The Times found.
On Monday morning, a man shoved a New York City Transit worker down a staircase at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, screaming that she was a terrorist. Two days earlier, in Brooklyn, another man threatened an off-duty police officer with his pit bull, telling her and her son to go back to your country. Both women were wearing hijabs.

Hate crimes in New York City have risen in the weeks since Donald J. Trump won the presidential election, a noticeable spike that encompasses ethnic minorities, Jews, whites and people for their sexual orientation. In New York City, 43 episodes have been deemed possible hate crimes by the Police Departments Hate Crime Task Force since Election Day, more than double the number reported for the same period last year.

To date, there has been a 35 percent increase over last year. The incidents range from vicious graffiti to physical violence.

Much of the hatred has shown in graffiti. Several swastikas were discovered Saturday on a No. 1 train. The scrawls followed the appearance of two swastikas, graffitied with the words Go Trump, in a Brooklyn Heights playground last month, prompting a communitywide demonstration.
A New York City correction officer was fatally shot in her car on Sunday in the Bergen Beach section of Brooklyn, the police said on Monday.

The officer, Alastasia Bryan, 25, was making a phone call outside her mothers home near the intersection of East 73rd Street and Avenue L around 9:15 p.m. when a man who had been waiting in a car nearby approached her, Robert K. Boyce, the Police Departments chief of detectives, said at a news conference.

The man fired five bullets at the car, two of which hit Ms. Bryan in the head and body, and then got back into his car and drove off, Chief Boyce said. Ms. Bryan was declared dead when the police arrived at the scene, Chief Boyce said.

Ms. Bryan was a newly assigned officer who had worked at the citys Rikers Island jail complex for about a month, Chief Boyce said.
The long-running Republican war against the right to vote has now gone national at the instigation of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promoted the lie that millions of illegal votes were cast in the presidential election.

There is not a scintilla of evidence for this claim, and Mr. Trumps own lawyers have admitted as much, stating in a court filing opposing a recount in Michigan that all available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.

Yet one after the next, leading Republicans are spreading this slander of American democracy, smoothing the way to restrict voting rights across the country.

On Sunday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence told ABCs George Stephanopoulos that it was Mr. Trumps right to express his opinion as president-elect. When pushed to admit that the illegal-voting claim was not true, Mr. Pence shifted the burden of proof away from Mr. Trump, even though Mr. Trump has accused millions of Americans of committing a crime. Look, Mr. Pence said, I dont know that thats a false statement, George, and neither do you.
SAN FRANCISCO  For all the good that has come from the internet, the online world has also served as a powerful device for recruiting terrorists and spreading their propaganda.

A coalition of top technology companies is now trying to change that. Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft announced on Monday that they have teamed up to fight the spread of terrorist content over the web by sharing technology and information to reduce the flow of terrorist propaganda across their services.

The group plans to create a kind of shared digital database, fingerprinting all of the terrorist content that is flagged. By collectively tracking that information, the companies said they could make sure a video posted on Twitter, for instance, did not appear later on Facebook.

Throughout this collaboration, we are committed to protecting our users privacy and their ability to express themselves freely and safely on our platforms, the companies said in a statement. They added they were discussing other ways to prevent the spread of terrorist content online while respecting human rights.
The Alameda County district attorney, Nancy OMalley, said that her office had begun a criminal investigation but that it was too soon to speculate about potential charges. Investigators are looking into whether anyone should be held criminally liable for the fire, she said. When pressed, she said charges could range from murder to involuntary manslaughter.

Bullet Train to Nowhere : Construction of the California high-speed rail system, Americas most ambitious infrastructure project, Construction of the California high-speed rail system, Americas most ambitious infrastructure project, has become a multi-billion-dollar nightmare

A Piece of Black History Destroyed: Lincoln Heights  a historically Black community in a predominantly white, rural county in Northern California  endured for decades. Lincoln Heights  a historically Black community in a predominantly white, rural county in Northern California  endured for decades. Then came the Mill fire

Warehouse Moratorium: As warehouse construction balloons nationwide, residents in communities both rural and urban have pushed back. In Californias Inland Empire, As warehouse construction balloons nationwide, residents in communities both rural and urban have pushed back. In Californias Inland Empire, the anger has turned to widespread action

The buildings department said it sent an inspector to the warehouse on Nov. 17, three days after the illegal construction complaint, but the inspector was unable to gain entry. A fire department official said that without knowing the building was being used for housing or concerts, the department would have inspected only once every two years, and that on its most recent visit, it, too, was unable to enter.

But some residents of the building questioned the idea that anyone had tried to inspect it. We would have known if somebody from the city had come by to advise us about hazards, said Carmen Brito, who escaped the blaze.

That place was a tinderbox, said Danielle Boudreaux, who had visited many times. And anybody who went in there who had any kind of authority should have not allowed it to continue.

Before the fire thrust Oakland into the national spotlight, officials here had other preoccupations. The city, the most crime-ridden in California, has had six police chiefs in seven years, and remains without a permanent one after a scandal involving officers having sex with a young prostitute rocked the city government this summer.

Code violations were not at the forefront of the officials concerns.

Oakland officials said the city takes illegal housing seriously, but there are so many informally converted spaces that building inspectors, firefighters and the police are overwhelmed by the problem. California law says that an inspector cannot enter unless admitted by an owner or resident, and officials say that people often refuse to let inspectors in, fearing eviction.
WASHINGTON  A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the 2013 conviction of a Somali-American man for trying to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., rejecting his arguments that the F.B.I. had entrapped him and that the government had unconstitutionally intercepted his emails without a warrant.

The ruling  by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco  was particularly important because it upheld the governments use of emails gathered without a warrant under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The law permits the government, on domestic soil, to collect phone calls and emails of noncitizens abroad, even when they are communicating with an American.

The case centered on Mohamed Mohamud, who was 19 when he tried to blow up what he thought was a bomb. In fact, there was no danger: The plot had been orchestrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of a sting operation. Mr. Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He appealed, arguing that the conviction should be overturned in part because the government had used evidence derived from warrantless surveillance. But the panel upheld the verdict.
Over the last 25 years, what Jayalalithaa has done is ensured that there was no second line, no third line, no fourth line, that there was not a single leader who had his own support base, Mr. Venkatachalapathy said. She ensured that everyone in her party was dependent on her and her alone.

Chennai, formerly Madras, a city of more than four million people, is likely to be paralyzed for several days. The last time a leader of Ms. Jayarams stature died, it was her mentor and predecessor, a former matinee idol named Maruthur Gopala Ramachandran. After his death in 1987, mourners looted shops and set buses on fire, and the police fired on the crowds with tear gas and live ammunition.

Enormous crowds of mourners are expected to converge on Chennai from different parts of the state to view Ms. Jayarams remains.

Some of the public grieving has a political purpose, as would-be political successors try to demonstrate their loyalty by commanding the largest convoy of vehicles.

Ms. Jayarams autocratic style in no way diminished her popularity, and may have enhanced it, especially among the poor, lower-caste women who were her most devoted followers. Lean, work-worn women would wait in the blazing sun to line the road when she visited the countryside, holding up green sprouts, a party symbol. At rallies, they danced in the aisles and surged forward with joy on their faces when she appeared on stage.

She expected slavish displays of devotion from top bureaucrats and party functionaries, watching coolly as they lay full-length at her feet and pressed their faces to the floor.

She not only made men fall at her feet, she made it a spectacle, Mr. Venkatachalapathy said. Women really liked that.
PARIS  For Europe, 2016 has brought a series of political shocks: near-record numbers of immigrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa; a vote by Britain to leave the European Union and renewed threats by Russia to meddle on the continent.

But 2017 could be even bumpier. There will be at least three elections in Europe next year: in Germany, France and the Netherlands for sure, and now perhaps in Italy, too. Just about everywhere, political establishments are being blamed for tepid growth, for too few jobs and for favoring global financial markets over the common citizen.

The latest indicator of popular discontent was Italys referendum on Sunday, when voters rejected constitutional changes proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. That result was a stinging blow to Mr. Renzi, who said he would resign.

Coming after Britains vote this year to leave the European Union, the Italian outcome was taken as yet another rebuke to decades of efforts to forge a closer union of the blocs 28 countries. And it raised new doubts about whether that union would hold in the years ahead.
Podcasts are personal. Unlike the wide public broadcast of radio, a podcast begins whenever you touch play, then courses through your headphones and directly into your ears. Listening to a great podcast can feel like falling into conversation with a new best friend or eavesdropping on an infatuating crush. A bad one is like sitting next to the wrong stranger on the subway. Here are 10 good ones that debuted in 2016.

Comedy

2 DOPE QUEENS Each week, the comedians and besties Phoebe Robinson and Jessica Williams  plus guests like Hannibal Buress and Ilana Glazer of Broad City  tear through popular culture, bantering and arguing about Tinder etiquette, being black at a Billy Joel concert and the questionable attractiveness of Lenny Kravitz (Phoebe says hes hot; Jessica, not). Episodes are recorded at live shows in Brooklyn, then published in podcast form by WNYC.

WHO? WEEKLY A new class of barely recognizable celebrities has come to dominate tabloid coverage, and the hosts Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber are here to guide you through their obscure self-promotional world. The podcast feels delightfully absurd and truly vital in the Trump era, when castoff reality stars are suddenly in the presidential sphere of power.
The heirs of Alfred Flechtheim, a German-Jewish art dealer and collector, sued the German state of Bavaria on Monday, arguing in court papers that it has refused to turn over works of art that the heirs say were looted by the Nazis before World War II.

The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, seeks the return of eight paintings by the artists Max Beckmann, Juan Gris and Paul Klee from the Bavarian state paintings collection. The Flechtheim heirs said seven years of negotiations had failed, and in court papers they accused Bavaria of not living up to international commitments on the restitution of art taken by the Nazis.

Bavarias refusal to confront its responsibility has persisted since the war, the complaint filed in United States District Court in Manhattan states. Its chain of title to the paintings is defective because it was rooted in the seizure of Flechtheims property in violation of international law.

In Weimar-era Germany, Mr. Flechtheim was a prominent art dealer, with galleries in Berlin and Dusseldorf, who supported avant-garde artists. He was also targeted by the Nazis as a Jew and a promoter of what they considered degenerate art. He fled Germany in May 1933, and died penniless in London four years later, at the age of 59.
The hero of Shut Eye, a new series on Hulu, is a small-time Los Angeles psychic who used to be a big-time Las Vegas magician. In his former life he designed elaborate tricks, one of which he sold to Ford. (The disappearing lion became a disappearing Mustang.) Now he fleeces gullible parlor marks while serving as a bagman for the Roma family that controls the storefront psychic business in the north half of Los Angeles. Like a lot of Americans these days, hes feeling downwardly mobile.

The first episode of Shut Eye (all 10 will be on Hulu beginning Wednesday) demonstrates how much fun the shows seedy milieu could be. A brisk overview of the world of Charlie Haverford (Jeffrey Donovan), it portrays the business of tarot readings and curse liftings in classic gangster-movie terms of top earners and poor producers. Charlie and his wife, Linda (KaDee Strickland), are struggling to make their monthly nut, and things become more difficult when their boss, Fonso (Angus Sampson), takes away two of their parlors for an infringement of the rules.

This opening gives you hope that the show will be a nimble, noir-inflected dramedy, buoyed by Mr. Donovans amusing performance  a lighter alternative to other new shows like Good Behavior and Chance that are more solemn in their attempts to energize hard-boiled genre tropes. But over its next three episodes, Shut Eye, created by Les Bohem (Extant), loses most of its momentum as the story grows overcomplicated and undercharacterized. Its like watching a trick in which the dove fails to fly out of the magicians hat.

The main problem seems to be that Mr. Bohem cant let well enough alone. It isnt enough to have the recessive Charlie and the hard-as-nails Linda  who are looked down on by the Roma as gaje, outside of the tribe  finally decide to fight back against Fonso and his dragon-lady mother (Isabella Rossellini). To spur Charlies turnaround, Mr. Bohem has him kicked in the head by the angry boyfriend of a mark, which gives Charlie premonitions  a fake psychic now armed with real visions.
(Want to get this briefing by email? Heres the sign-up.)

Good morning.

Heres what you need to know:

 On the road again.

President-elect Donald J. Trump will resume his thank you tour tonight in North Carolina, a state that was crucial to his victory.

Before he heads out, he is scheduled to meet with Rex W. Tillerson, the president and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, a contender for secretary of state.
JBS, the Brazilian meatpacker, sharpened its carve-up blade. On Monday, the $8 billion company filed papers for an initial public offering of its overseas business, trying again after a government shareholder rejected an earlier plan that could have put the unit under control of a foreign parent. The new deal should lower capital costs, but with fewer complications.

An international acquisition spree built the company, controlled by billionaire brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista, into the worlds biggest meat merchant. Gobbling up the likes of American poultry producer Pilgrims Pride, however, loaded JBS with debt.

About 80 percent of its sales and most of its $16 billion or so of total borrowings are denominated in dollars. The companys base is in Brazil, where a gyrating economy and currency mean it pays a higher cost of capital.

When JBS unveiled in May a plan to spin off its international operations to shareholders, its stock rose by over one-fifth. That would have created a Dublin-based subsidiary listed in New York. It also could have resulted in the new overseas group eventually assuming total control. The Brazilian Development Bank, known as BNDES, which is a 20 percent owner of JBS, vetoed the plan in a surprise decision that sent shares reeling.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. on Wednesday. At issue is whether a bankruptcy court can approve a settlement that distributes the debtors remaining assets in a way that could not be done under a Chapter 11 plan, at least not without the agreement of all creditors. In this case, some of the parties agreed to settle the case and to pay out the debtors cash to some of the creditors, but they intentionally skipped a class of creditors who were entitled to priority payment under the bankruptcy code.

This order of payment in bankruptcy is often referred to as the absolute priority rule, though the term does not appear in the bankruptcy code itself. The basic idea is that secured creditors get paid before the unsecured, who in turn get paid before the shareholders. The application of the rule to bankruptcy liquidations has a long history.

But its use in a corporate reorganization is a bit more confused. The notion that the rule might even apply in this context is something that Justice William O. Douglas essentially pulled out of thin air in Case v. Los Angeles Lumber Products Company. That 1939 case is partly reflected in the current bankruptcy code and Chapter 11, which says that if a class of creditors objects, a reorganization plan has to comply with the absolute priority rule.

But the code says nothing about distributions of the debtors assets before there is a reorganization plan. A strict constructionist might say that is the end of the story: Absolute priority applies only when there is a settlement plan in place.
For Italians, who have seen 63 governments in 70 years, the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was hardly shocking.

Outside of the country, the mood is not so sanguine.

Though financial markets eventually took the news of Mr. Renzis resignation in stride, his pending departure has inserted yet another major variable into the global economy.

Italians rejection of a reformist leader underlined worries about the countrys commitment to the euro, as well as its banking system, which holds 360 billion euros, or about $385 billion, in suspect debt.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena, a troubled lender, was set to receive 5 billion from private investors. Now, because of the political upheaval, senior bankers have told the bank to prepare for a state bailout, The Financial Times reported.
On the other hand, if the court were to ban all bankruptcy settlements that do not strictly follow the order of priority, supporters on Jevics side say it could wreak havoc with a number of established practices involving payments to creditors, especially in the early part of a bankruptcy. And they say it could hamstring judges in finding the right resolution in an individual case.

The drivers have received a lot of support including from surprising places like the Loan Syndications and Trading Association, which represents banks and other lenders. It argues that if the court rejects priority in settlements, there is a danger that the position of secured creditors who now stand at the front of the line of repayment also could be in jeopardy.

As the solicitor general explains in a brief on behalf of the drivers, the absolute priority rule is designed to protect intermediate creditors from being squeezed out by a deal between senior and junior creditors. The law itself does not detail this priority rule, but it has been followed since the 1930s and is seen as a proxy for what is fair and equitable in resolving a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Jay L. Westbrook, a bankruptcy scholar at the University of Texas at Austin who signed the professors friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the drivers, said Chapter 11 bankruptcy involved a trade-off. On one hand, the company benefits from the enormous power of the law that shields it from creditors, as it plans its future, he said. But in turn it is required to settle with all the creditors  not just the ones you want to deal with. A settlement in which you can do what you want is called a lawsuit, he said.

On the other side, Jevic and its private equity owner said the settlement was the fairest result because if the company were liquidated, all of the small creditors would have been left empty-handed because of secured creditor liens on the companys assets. By paying some of the small creditors a fraction of their claims, rather than zero, they argued, the settlement was in the best interest of most of the creditors. Their argument persuaded not only the bankruptcy judge, but also a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The 2-to-1 Third Circuit panel said that in rare cases an agreement could be acceptable even when the settlement skips a class of objecting creditors in favor of more junior creditors. In this case, Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote, the agreement was the least bad alternative that existed.

Christopher Landau, a partner and head of appellate litigation at Kirkland & Ellis, is one of the lawyers representing Sun before the Supreme Court. He said his firm, and Sun, would decline to comment on the case.
The answer was easy, Justice Alito wrote.

Maher would have breached his duty had he personally traded on the information here himself then given the proceeds as a gift to his brother, Justice Alito wrote. It is obvious that Maher would personally benefit in that situation. But Maher effectively achieved the same result by disclosing the information to Michael, and allowing him to trade on it.

Mr. Salman had relied on a 2014 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, United States v. Newman, that made it harder to prosecute insider trading cases. That decision had dealt a setback to Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, whose office oversaw a sweeping crackdown on insider trading in the $3 trillion hedge fund industry.

Mr. Bharara applauded the Supreme Courts decision.

The court stood up for common sense and affirmed what we have been arguing from the outset  that the law absolutely prohibits insiders from advantaging their friends and relatives at the expense of the trading public, he said in a statement. Todays decision is a victory for fair markets and those who believe that the system should not be rigged.

In Mr. Salmans case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, rejected the reasoning in the Newman case. The Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed that decision.
Ms. Zeleny, a lawyer who lives outside Salt Lake City and opened a Wells Fargo account when she started a new law practice, said it would be impossible for her to agree to arbitrate her dispute over an account that she had never signed up for in the first place.

The banks counterargument: The arbitration clauses included in the legitimate contracts customers signed to open bank accounts also cover disputes related to the false ones set up in their names.

Some judges have agreed with this argument, but some lawmakers and others consider it outrageous.

Wells Fargos customers never intended to sign away their right to fight back against fraud and deceit, said Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, who introduced a bill last week that would prevent Wells from forcing arbitration in the sham account cases.

Yet even as the bank reels in the court of public opinion, Wells Fargo has been winning its legal battles to kill off lawsuits. Judges have ruled that Wells Fargo customers must go to arbitration over the fraudulent accounts.

In dismissing one large case seeking class-action status in California, a federal judge ruled last year that it was not wholly groundless that customers could be forced to arbitrate over accounts they had never agreed to. That case is now being settled, according to legal filings.

In a statement, Wells Fargo said it was working with customers to reimburse any improper fees. If the issues are still not resolved, the bank offers free mediation services. Arbitration, the bank said, is a last resort.

We want to make sure that no Wells Fargo customer loses a single penny because of these issues, the statement said.
Is there nothing to be done about galloping inequality?

Last year the typical American family experienced the fastest income gains since the government started measuring them in the 1960s. But the top 1 percent did even better, raising their share of income higher than it was when President Obama took office.

Mr. Obama has led the most progressive administration since Lyndon B. Johnsons half a century ago, raising taxes on the rich to expand the safety net for the less fortunate. Still, by the White Houses own account, eight years of trench warfare in Washington trimmed the top 1-percenters share, after taxes and transfers, to only 15.4 percent, from 16.6 percent of the nations income. It increased the slice going to the poorest fifth of families by 0.6 percentage point, to a grand total of 4 percent.

The policies also helped push the Republican Party even further to the right, leading to the Tea Party  whose rabid opposition to government redistribution still shakes American politics. They did nothing to salve  and perhaps even added to  the stewing resentment of white working-class Americans who feel left out of the nations advancements, producing the electoral victory for Donald J. Trump, who has proposed a tax plan that amounts to a lavish giveaway to the rich.

The point is not that President Obama should have done better. He probably did the best he could under the circumstances. The point is that delivering deep and lasting reductions in inequality may be impossible absent catastrophic events beyond anything any of us would wish for.
The nations health insurers, resigned to the idea that Republicans will repeal the Affordable Care Act, on Tuesday publicly outlined for the first time what the industry wants to stay in the state marketplaces, which have provided millions of Americans with insurance under the law.

The insurers, some which have already started leaving the marketplaces because they are losing money, say they need a clear commitment from the Trump administration and congressional leaders that the government will continue offsetting some costs for low-income people. They also want to keep in place rules that encourage young and healthy people to sign up, which the insurers say are crucial to a stable market for individual buyers.

The demands are a sort of warning shot to Republicans. While the party is eager to repeal the law as quickly as possible, and many have promised a replacement, its members are sharply divided over what shape any new plan should take. If they do not come up with an alternative, more than 22 million people would be left uninsured, including the more than 10 million who have bought individual plans on state marketplaces.

On Tuesday, Marilyn Tavenner, the chief executive of Americas Health Insurance Plans, a leading industry trade group, warned that the state marketplaces were already on unstable financial footing. Failing to continue the funding aimed at low-income Americans, she said, would have far-reaching consequences because the business would become much tougher for insurers.
SHANGHAI  One of Chinas best-known financiers, sometimes called his countrys equivalent to Carl C. Icahn, has pleaded guilty to insider trading and stock price manipulation, in a case that forms part of a broader nationwide push against financial improprieties.

The guilty plea, announced by a Chinese court on Tuesday, comes in a prosecution that began with a memorable arrest. On Nov. 1 last year, Chinese police officers sealed off the 22-mile Hangzhou Bay Bridge, one of the worlds longest, for half an hour before finding and detaining the financier, Xu Xiang, who was driving home from his grandmothers 100th birthday party.

The plea follows a series of signals from Chinas leaders that they are stepping up investigations of financial improprieties. Allegations of such activities are central to three big campaigns underway in China.

They include an anticorruption drive that has already led to the arrest of more than 100,000 officials; a push to clean up financial markets after last years stock market crash that has produced a series of investigations of traders, executives and regulators; and an effort to slow or halt large outflows of money from China through illegal or semi-legal channels.
One of the 20 or so courses served to me the first time I ate at the new Aska in Brooklyn was a cluster of nasturtium leaves, next to a bundle of burned herb sprigs and flower stalks, tied up with a string. It looked pretty and pagan at the same time, like a page from a Martha Stewart lifestyle magazine for witches.

This plate was more than just photogenic, though. Wrapped inside the scorched bouquet was a langoustine, very gently cooked to a soft pink. It tasted of herbs and ashes. There were blots of chamomile jelly and a langoustine-head sauce on the plate, too, and when I rubbed a bit of the orange-pink lobster around in there, the combination of flower and shellfish flavors was a complete surprise, extraordinary in ways Id never imagined before.

One of the rewards of working as a restaurant critic for a few years is getting to see chefs growing into their ambitions. On my watch, few have done this as dramatically and successfully as Askas chef, Fredrik Berselius. Aska, which opened beneath the ribs of the Williamsburg Bridge in July, is his third restaurant. And with each fresh incarnation, his cooking has taken a leap forward.

His first, in 2012, was a part-time operation called Frej, which shared its space in Williamsburg with a ramen outfit and a coffee bar. Its five-course menu was a great deal at $45, and Mr. Berselius, who was born and raised in Sweden, was already showing a gift for delicately naturalistic compositions in the New Nordic style. But some of the flavors were tentative, like underexposed photographs.
A buffet is the driverless car of entertaining. Guests help themselves to dinner, no precisely measured settings required, and when all is well programmed, the host rarely has to grab the wheel.

Its how I often entertain. But it requires planning. I always see to it that I have the right pots and platters, and enough plates, glasses, flatware and generous napkins for the head count on my list. I do not consider paper or plastic to be an option.

If there are too many guests for my table, I can guarantee seating to accommodate everyone, with side tables or coffee tables providing a place to park a plate and a glass. And we put our coats on the bed to free the hall closet for guests.

My main course choices are tours-de-force  never something like a spiral-cut ham, but dishes that require a crowds appetite and offer a varied spread of ingredients. These classics can usually be prepared mostly in advance and reheated just before serving.
Headliner

LORING PLACE At 43, the chef Dan Kluger, who has worked in the kitchens of many top names, was eager to be on his own and get his new restaurant off the ground. But compromises were not on his agenda, so it wound up taking two years. Even finding a name was, as he put it, a struggle. (Its the street in the Fordham section of the Bronx where his father lived.) The spacious double storefront from 1848, on the increasingly attractive stretch of Eighth Street west of Fifth Avenue, looks as if it was worth the wait. Whitewashed brick walls contain a barroom and a bilevel dining room decorated simply, with a nod to midcentury modern. Mr. Klugers food is seasonal and market driven. And it builds on his experience working with chefs like Floyd Cardoz at Tabla, which shapes the flavors in his suckling pig and on his cauliflower with Indian seasonings, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten at ABC Kitchen, which inspired a vegetable focus on the menu. Local sourcing is so important to him that hes grinding wheat from upstate for pasta extruded in-house. (Opens Saturday): 21 West Eighth Street, 212-388-1831, loringplacenyc.com.

Opening

BLACK WALNUT At his restaurants Nightingale Nine, Wilma Jean and Smith Canteen, Rob Newton, the chef and restaurateur, gathers flavors from Southeast Asia and the American South. For his latest venture, named for a native American tree, the South has the stronger accent in dishes like flatbread with country ham, fluke with sweet potatoes and popcorn and, for a touch of East meets West, confit pork with Sichuan peppercorns. The wine list features bottles from New York and Virginia: The Hilton Brooklyn, 140 Schermerhorn Street (Smith Street), Boerum Hill, 929-337-1280, blackwalnutbk.com.

BOUCHERIE This sprawling, 320-seat brasserie has called on the talent of Jerome Dihui, who was the chef de cuisine at Pastis, to deliver a roster of French classics. Count on escargots, onion soup, boudin noir, roast chicken, tripe and daily specials like bouillabaisse. The restaurant has a butcher bar and a counter at an open kitchen with a wood-fired oven where carnivores can relish slabs of steak and other meats. The restaurant, in the building that housed Circle Repertory, is on several levels, all decorated in Parisian Art Nouveau style. (Thursday): 99 Seventh Avenue South (Grove Street), 212-873-1616, boucherie.nyc.

CAVIAR KASPIA This restaurant, which has graced the Place de la Madeleine in Paris for 90 years, is being reproduced as a pop-up until Feb. 16 at Spring Place, a membership-based shared work space mostly for people in creative fields. Caviar Kaspia will serve baked potato with caviar, salmon carpaccio, king crab, and various caviar services with vodkas, Champagnes and wines. Reservations are available to members; nonmembers can request reservations from caviarkaspia@springplace.com. (Thursday): Spring Place, 6 St. Johns Lane (Laight Street), 212-257-5600, springplace.com.
When I met Leonard Cohen, I was a failed writer, and I acted like one. We were waiting to bow into the walking meditation line at the Rinzai-ji Zen Center in Los Angeles. I pretended I didnt know who he was and asked him if my Ford Festiva was parked in the right place.

Sure, he said.

I feigned surprise: Everybody Knows. Id recognize that voice anywhere.

His monks name, Jikan, means noble silence, and he manifested it then. I was mortified.

I gave up writing to become a Zen monk, and then, a decade after meeting Jikan, I wrote a book about being a monk. A helpful nun left chapters of the work-in-progress in his cabin during a retreat.

I was the head monk at the monastery, and I approached him at the end of a long day to ask how his back was. He was short, thin and old, but he still sat like a rock in the zendo meditation hall.
And the answer was  Alexander McQueen for British brand of the year, and British Vogue for special recognition (for achieving the ripe old age of 100). Vetements, the rebellious French streetwear label, won international urban luxury brand, while its co-founder Demna Gvasalia was named international ready-to-wear designer for his second job, artistic director of Balenciaga. Gucci picked up two trophies: A gold-tuxedo-clad designer Alessandro Michele (with the actor Jared Leto in tow) won best international accessories designer, and the chief executive, Marco Bizzarri, took best international business leader. Ralph Lauren showed a 10-minute film, complete with family tributes and rousing orchestral scores, upon winning the outstanding achievement award. And then there was Gigi Hadid who, wearing a powder-blue Atelier Versace jumpsuit and accessorizing with her mother, Yolanda Foster, sobbed into the microphone upon beating both her sister Bella Hadid and friend Kendall Jenner to international model of the year.

I am of a generation immersed in social media, and am so blessed to be a part of that, she said, her chest heaving with emotion. But, she said, several people in the industry  including the designer Bruce Oldfield; the American Vogue editor in chief, Anna Wintour; and Mr. Testino  looked beyond what the rest of the world could see and I am so grateful to you. Thank you for letting me be part of your family.

So far, so standard awards-speak. But there were moments that suggested we were not actually in Hollywood or New York, after all. Marilyn Manson arrived, presenting the award to Vetements, and upended an envelope of salt on the stage, pretending that it was cocaine (it was not entirely clear why he did that). Craig Green, winner of the prize for best British mens wear designer, almost completely disrobed Lady Gaga after she gave him his award by accidentally stomping on her Brandon Maxwell maxi-gown on his way to the podium. And Jack Whitehall, the British comedian and host for the evening, attempted to entertain the crowd with gags around the Mannequin Challenge, the latest charity drive sweeping the internet. The problem was, he picked the wrong target.

If you need any tips on how to do it then just check out Anna Wintour. That frozen-faced lady has been perfecting it long before it was even a thing, he said, as Ms. Wintour sat meters away. No one in the audience moved a muscle.

Still, the overall atmosphere was one of celebration and optimism, despite ominous whispers about the worlds fragile political and economic state that could be heard between the applause.
Daniels photos illustrate bloody scenes: on sidewalks, near train tracks, in front of convenience stores and McDonalds restaurants, and across bedroom mattresses and living room sofas. They are graphic and intense, and they show us the effects of President Dutertes effort.

What is it like to be on the seeing end of the camera; to bear witness, and to take photos that are difficult to look at? In this podcast, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Times photographer Daniel Berehulak talks about his experience.

Susan Lehman is host.
Under the cover of night, the family crowded into a wagon used to carry animals to flee the Nazi troops marching toward their hometown, Nalchik, in south-central Russia. It was 1942, and Polina Davydovas father had returned from war wounded and requiring crutches to walk. He was now orchestrating the familys escape farther south, to Derbent, a city on the Caspian Sea.

Fifteen family members were to leave. But after the journey began, Ms. Davydovas grandmother counted heads  someone was missing. They called each person by name. When they reached Polina, no one answered. The 3-year-old girl was missing.

The danger of turning back was so great that her grandmother suggested continuing without her.

But her father refused.

Throwing aside his crutches, he jumped from the wagon, hailing Soviet soldiers in trucks and begging them for a ride back to Nalchick.
Updated, 9:23 a.m.

Good morning on this crisp Tuesday.

As the wise crustacean in The Little Mermaid once sang, The seaweed is always greener in somebody elses lake.

True.

While New Yorks waters might not be filled with singing sturgeon and dancing crab, they are home to a large underwater canyon that was nominated by the Wildlife Conservation Societys New York Aquarium as a national marine sanctuary.

The Hudson Canyon is 100 miles southeast of the Statue of Liberty, off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. Its comparable in size to the Grand Canyon, said John Calvelli, the societys executive vice president for public affairs.
On Sunday, Austrian voters rejected the far-right, anti-immigrant candidate Norbert Hofers bid to become president, handing the Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen a decisive victory. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, tweeted that Mr. Van der Bellens victory is a heavy defeat of nationalism and anti-European, backward-looking populism.

Mr. Hofers defeat is certainly good news for Austria, but Mr. Schulzs strong words may be more wishful thinking than a reliable assessment of the prospects of populist nationalism in Europe.

Proof of that was delivered on Sunday in Italy, where voters rejected a referendum on constitutional reforms. Italys prime minister, Matteo Renzi, had unwisely staked his government on the referendums passage. On Monday, Mr. Renzi tendered his resignation, admitting, The no won in an incredibly clear way. His departure, expected within days, will leave the future of Italys government uncertain, and further complicates chances of resolving the countrys banking crisis.
To the Editor:

Re Why Electors Should Reject Trump (Op-Ed, Dec. 6):

Thank goodness that a Republican presidential elector, Christopher Suprun, has taken the courageous stand to vote his conscience on Dec. 19 and withhold support for Donald Trump.

Despite its well-known shortcomings, the Electoral College vote represents our last opportunity to deny the presidency to a man who is manifestly unfit to serve. Why should we wake up each day for the next four years with dread as our country and the world move yet another step toward disaster when this fate can be avoided?

As has been made clear by his statements and actions, Donald Trump is fed solely by his desire to fulfill narcissistic needs and enrich his family; he profoundly lacks concern for the welfare of the American people. Even now we dont know the full extent of his conflicts of interest. Why must we wait for his blunders to create civil unrest, lead us into war or push climate change past the tipping point?

As Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, the Electoral College was specifically designed so that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. If there was ever a time to follow its constitutional process, it is now.
This is an article from Turning Points, a magazine that explores what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead.

Turning Point: The United Nations reports that a record 65 million people have been displaced by global conflicts.

Whatever their level of faith in the process, voters go to the polls next year in Chile, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iran, Kenya, the Netherlands, Rwanda, South Korea and Thailand, among other countries. The hope is that democracy will fare better than in 2016. The very essence of this ancient system of governance is being tested. Freedom has declined worldwide for the 11th straight year, according to Freedom House, a nongovernmental organization.

Many countries that seemed to be transitioning to democracy, like Egypt, Turkey, Thailand and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are backsliding; among the encouraging exceptions are Myanmar, Nigeria and Tunisia. Many authoritarian regimes are also cracking down further on dissent. And in the established democracies, trust in politicians, party membership and electoral participation  all key indicators of a democracys legitimacy  have steadily diminished for years.
To the Editor:

Re Shot at Work, Terror Victims Suffer Anew on Medical Bills (front page, Dec. 2):

As the wife of a former Iran hostage, Barry Rosen, I am only too aware of the effects, both physical and mental, that victims of terrorism face. The years of therapy and rehabilitation for those whose lives have been destroyed by the violence of terror cannot be summed up in dollars and cents.

The further victimization that occurs when you realize that you are now fighting the government bureaucracy simply to get the help you need to survive leaves one totally disillusioned and defeated. My family has been there.

I call upon President-elect Donald Trump and the next Congress to come together and create a vehicle to care for all victims of terror. The terrorists attacked Americans, not San Bernardinians, Bostonians or New Yorkers. Terrorism is a national issue, and Americans should not have to beg for care.

Each one should be embraced by our country not just by being called heroes who are given a plaque or a parade, and then forgotten, but by making their care and rehabilitation the moral responsibility of every one of us.
TOWNSHEND, Vt.  The civil war in Syria is over. Now it is time to stop the fighting.

Aided by Russia, Iran, Shiite militias and Hezbollah, the government of President Bashar al-Assad is on the verge of taking Aleppo, once Syrias largest city. Supported by its powerful allies, the Syrian Army will then move to eliminate the remaining pockets of resistance, notably around the northern city of Idlib. While Iran has been Mr. Assads most important military ally, the Syrian regime would still want to have Russian airpower to finish its reconquest of the countrys populous west.

The Assad regime has prevailed through tactics of unspeakable brutality  barrel bombs, starvation, the targeting of hospitals and rescue workers and the suspected use of chemical weapons  but it has prevailed. Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, has rightly focused attention on these war crimes, but these denunciations will make no difference to the situation on the ground.

There is an absolutely counterproductive idea favored by Washingtons foreign policy elites of both parties, recycled recently by President Bill Clintons secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and Stephen J. Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, for providing additional military support to the moderate Syrian opposition. Such aid cannot possibly now change the trajectory of the war, but will certainly get more people killed.

Though the outcome is clear, how the war ends matters greatly. The United States has an interest in a result that allows as many Syrians as possible to go home, that ensures the total defeat of the Islamic State and other extremist groups, and that safeguards the Syrian Kurds, who have been Americas principal ally against the Islamic State.
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In nearby Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the countrys president and long-dominant political leader, also received a strong democratic mandate from voters in 2014. An attempted coup two years later became an excuse for him to target thousands of civil servants, military officers, journalists and academics whom he suspected of disloyalty.

Mr. Orban, Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan all came to power in countries with an electorate polarized between a more liberal, cosmopolitan urban elite  whether in Budapest, Moscow or Istanbul  and a less-educated rural voter base. This social division is similar to the one that drove the Brexit vote in Britain and Donald Trumps rise in the United States..

Mr. Trumps ascent poses a unique challenge to the American system because he fits comfortably into the trend toward illiberal democracy. He validated himself through popular support, but his entire career has been spent trying to bypass inconvenient rules  like the requirement to pay his own subcontractors. Much of his popularity rested heavily on his willingness to break existing customs about political correctness. This seemed politically bracing at first, but quickly became worrisome when Mr. Trump suggested that as president, he would open up our libel laws to initiate civil suits against his media critics. His pitch to the American voter was I alone can fix the countrys problems through sheer force of personality, and not through a reform of the countrys institutions.

That Mr. Trump expressed admiration for Mr. Putin, and that Mr. Putin returned the favor, should come as no surprise. Like Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump seems to want to use a democratic mandate to undermine the checks and balances that characterize a genuine liberal democracy. He will be an oligarch in the Russian mold: a rich man who used his wealth to gain political power and who would use political power to enrich himself once in office. And like Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump was able to create alternative narratives that often went unchallenged by his supporters.

But the balance between liberalism and democracy has been shifting in other nations as well. The citizens of India and Japan have elected nationalist leaders who many say they believe champion a more closed form of identity than their predecessors. While these leaders have observed the principles of liberalism more scrupulously than the Orbans or Erdogans of the world, their critics suspect that they are quietly fostering intolerance among their supporters.

How far will this trend toward illiberal democracy go? Are we headed for a period like that of the early 20th century, in which global politics sank into conflict over closed and aggressive nationalism? The outcome will depend on several critical factors, particularly the way global elites respond to the backlash they have engendered. In America and Europe, elites made huge policy blunders in recent years that hurt ordinary people more than themselves. Deregulation of financial markets laid the groundwork for the subprime crisis in the United States, while a badly designed euro contributed to the debt crisis in Greece, and the Schengen system of open borders made it difficult to control the flood of refugees in Europe. Elites must acknowledge their roles in creating these situations.
GRAZ, Austria  Following the Brexit referendum in June and the election of Donald J. Trump in November, Austrias presidential election on Sunday was closely watched as an indicator of whether right-wing populists would continue their 2016 winning streak. For now, at least, they havent.

On Sunday, Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leader of Austrias Green Party, defeated Norbert Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party. This was a rerun of an election held in May whose results were annulled by the constitutional court after complaints of voting irregularities. This time, Mr. Van der Bellen won by a far wider margin  nearly seven percentage points, compared with less than one in May  despite opinion polls and many observers predicting his defeat.

Austrias election demonstrates why its wrong to interpret the populist right around the world as part of a single and inevitable tide. The Freedom Partys opponents tried to tie Mr. Hofer to Britains Brexit vote, suggesting that a victory for Mr. Hofer would lead to an Austrian referendum on leaving the European Union. But the Freedom Party distanced itself from such a policy, realizing that it did not enjoy majority support among Austrians. As for the American comparison, few people here viewed the soft-spoken, smiling Mr. Hofer as similar to the rowdy, crude Mr. Trump.

Nonetheless, its clear that similar forces are at play, and there are lessons to be learned from Austria. Mr. Hofer may have been defeated, but his platform of nationalism, Islamophobia, Euroskepticism and anti-elitism still won nearly half the vote in a high-turnout election. The Freedom Partys ideological eclecticism  calling itself the social homeland party and appealing to workers, despite a neoliberal economic program  proved a strength rather than a weakness.
This is an article from Turning Points, a magazine that explores what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead.

Turning Point: Apple resists the F.B.I. in unlocking an iPhone in the San Bernardino terrorism case.

Ive never been able to fit the concepts of privacy, history and encryption together in a satisfying way, though it continues to seem that I should. Each concept has to do with information; each can be considered to concern the public and the private; and each involves aspects of society, and perhaps particularly digital society. But experience has taught me that all I can hope to do with these three concepts is demonstrate the problems that considering them together causes.

Privacy confuses me, beyond my simplest understanding, which is that individuals prefer, to different degrees, that information about them not be freely available to others. I desire privacy myself, and I understand why other individuals want it. But when the entity desiring privacy is a state, a corporation or some other human institution, my understanding of privacy becomes confused.

While its true that states and corporations often desire privacy, they just as often desire that I myself have less privacy. What does it mean, in an ostensible democracy, for the state to keep secrets from its citizens? The idea of the secret state seems antithetical to democracy, since its citizens, the voters, cant know what their government is doing. Thereby hang the countless conspiracy theories of our day, many of them supposing that we possess far less privacy than we actually do. Advocates of the secret state, wishing to comfort us, sometimes praise a rough and ready transparency: If you have nothing to hide and you trust your government, what can you possibly have to fear? Except that one can just as readily ask: If you have nothing to hide, what do you really have, aside from the panoptic attention of a state, which itself keeps secrets?
This is an article from Turning Points, a magazine that explores what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead.

There were many forces dividing us in 2016, nation from nation, faction from faction, person from person. But there is a countervailing force that can draw us together: the quest to answer fundamental questions that have captivated humans since ancient times.

At the forefront of this quest are scientists  the true explorers of our era. Every year, they map a little more of the unknown, claim a little more of what seemed impenetrable. In 2016, they made three significant breakthroughs in understanding the universe and our place in it.

In the last few years, NASAs Kepler space observatory and other missions have sparked a revolution in astronomy, arguably as fundamental as the Copernican revolution that spun us from our imagined perch at the center of everything. So far they have identified nearly 5,000 potential planets beyond the solar system, 21 of which are rocky planets that might be habitable. These numbers imply that there could be billions of such planets in our galaxy alone. Home no longer necessarily means Earth alone.
INTERNATIONAL

An article on Saturday about the Obama administrations lifting of sanctions on Myanmar misstated the type of economic punishments that were removed. The restrictions that were lifted applied solely to United States government aid to the government of Myanmar, not to trade in jade and precious stones.

NATIONAL

An article on Sunday about a deadly warehouse fire in Oakland, Calif., misidentified the location in Rhode Island of a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people. It was in West Warwick, not in Warwick.

NEW YORK

An article on Monday about a farm in Belvidere, N.J., that sells painted Christmas trees misstated, in some editions, the relationship between Jordan and Erin Yeisley, who were shopping there. Jordan is Erins daughter, not her son.

WEEKEND ARTS

Because of an editing error, a dance entry in the Listings pages on Friday about performances this week by students from the Juilliard School misidentified the location and misstated the phone number. The performances will be at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at 155 West 65th Street in Manhattan  not at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at 416 West 42nd Street  and the phone number is 212-769-7406. The entry also misidentified two compositions to which student dancers will be performing. A work for the freshman dancers was choreographed to a Schubert string quintet, not a quartet, and a work for the sophomore dancers was to a Chopin cello sonata, not a piano sonata.
President Xi Jinping drinks a pint of beer with British Prime Minister David Cameron at The Plough at Cadsden in Princes Risborough, northwest of London, on Oct 22, 2015. The two leaders met for talks and dinner during a four-day state visit hailed as landmark by both China and Britain. [Photo by Wu Zhiyi/China Daily]

The country pub where then-Prime Minister David Cameron treated President Xi Jinping to fish and chips and a pint during Xi's state visit last yearhas been sold to a Chinese investor.

The Plough at Cadsden in rural Buckinghamshire shot to fame in China after the presidential visit and has since become a tourist attraction, with busloads of Chinese tourists arriving to sample the same classic British fare.

The value of the purchase by SinoFortone Investment was not disclosed but the company said previous owner Steve Hollings would continue to run the pub.

Peter Zhang, SinoFortone Investment's managing director, welcomed the deal, saying: "The English pub concept is growing very fast in China, and it's the best way, culturally, to link people from different countries and build friendships."

Sales of Greene King IPA (short for India Pale Ale), the brew consumed by Xi and Cameron, are said to have soared in China during the last year.

The Plough deal was brokered through Christie & Co, a leading specialist advisor for buying and selling businesses.

Neil Morgan, managing director of its public houses and restaurants department, said: "The Chinese market has huge potential and many opportunities. We will see more activity over the coming months and years."

Morgan said an increasing number of Chinese investors had been approaching the company to express an interest in British hospitality and leisure opportunities, and also in taking classic British themes to China.

Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, said the latest deal showed that Chinese tourists were looking for authentic British places to visit, such as the pub Xi visited.

He said Chinese tourists were shifting away from shopping to experiences. Museums, palaces, and pubs were all becoming major tourist destinations.

The Plough purchase is not SinoFortone's first investment in the UK. Last October, it announced it would invest 2 billion pounds in two eco-parks, in north and southwest Wales.

"So, this pub purchase is consistent with that focus," said Jeffrey Towson, a professor who teaches investment at Peking University. He added that this particular investment also has symbolic meaning.

The fact that Xi had visited the Plough was important to Chinese tourists, but it was also important to a prominent Chinese-owned company such as SinoFortone, he said.

To contact the reporter: wangmingjie@mail.chinadailyuk.com
When youre behind one of the most praised new restaurants in New York City, perhaps even in the country, what comes next? For Stephen Starr, the megawatt restaurant mogul from Philadelphia, and chef Daniel Rose, a Parisian by way of Chicago, who together opened the highly acclaimed French restaurant Le Coucou over the summer, the answer is to simply open another restaurant. But this time in Paris, in an old bistro that was originally opened in 1958.

Known for his penchant for high concepts, this project marks a significant departure for Starr; perhaps even a new beginning. Chez La Vieille, which he and Rose quietly reopened in late October, is by far Starrs smallest venture to date in terms of both investment and scope: The Old World bistro seats 18 in the upstairs dining room and 10 in the ground-floor bar, by no means the table-turning sort of operation hes accustomed to running. This was an investment, but a modest one. It isnt going to be a super moneymaking project, but if both our New York and Paris outposts work well, theres the prospect of other projects down the road, says Starr of the intimate Parisian bistro format. Maybe we take this idea to London.

Chez La Vieille is a relic of the Les Halles neighborhood back when it was still what Emile Zola called the belly of Paris  the citys storied marketplace and gastronomic epicenter, which was razed in the late 1960s to make room for the Forum des Halles underground shopping mall and transit hub (the market was relocated to Rungis, outside of the city), and best known for its original proprietor Adrienne Biasin. She was a colorful, opinionated character who, with Chez La Vieille, turned the worn corner bistro into the most coveted table to book for lunch in the 80s. Paris may have largely moved to dining establishments that are more modern in both design and menu, but Rose is a firm believer that theres still a valuable and necessary place in the Parisian food landscape for Biasins heartwarming (and maybe even a little hip-hugging) style of cooking. (His latest projects before this, La Bourse et La Vie and Le Coucou, also make a spirited swing back to classics that evoke simpler times.)
The next cat video you play on YouTube may help the green energy industry.

I have a story about Googles plan to draw 100 percent of its power from renewable sources, like wind and solar. The company has been working with energy producers for most of a decade on sourcing more renewable power, and plans to meet its goal next year.

To be clear, Google, which owns YouTube, will not be only consuming renewables: Its massive data centers are on big electric grids, which take power from a number of sources, including coal. Google arranges to have renewable sources on those grids, so that its net consumption isnt drawing down additional carbon-based power.

In fact, in many cases it is buying more wind and solar power than it uses, because Google is still having a hard time developing those sources in Asia. As a result, it overprovisions in places like North America and Europe, where there are more wind turbines.
European officials pushed on Tuesday for American technology giants to do more to tackle online hate speech across the region, adding to the chorus of policy makers worldwide demanding greater action from the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter.

The rebuke came a day after many of those companies announced that they were joining forces to fight the spread of terrorist content on the internet, agreeing to share technology and information to prevent propaganda and other dangerous materials from being disseminated on their services.

Amid growing security tensions in much of the Western world, governments, intelligence agencies and advocacy groups want Google, Microsoft and other technology companies to take further steps to curb hate speech on digital platforms, as well as to clamp down on how terrorists circulate information online.

But freedom of expression campaigners have warned that such demands may limit peoples ability to communicate across the internet, and they have cautioned that the line between hate speech and legitimate political discussion can be blurry.
MINCO, Okla.  Last year, Google consumed as much energy as the city of San Francisco. Next year, it said, all of that energy will come from wind farms and solar panels.

The online giant said on Tuesday that all of its data centers around the world will be entirely powered with renewable energy sources sometime next year.

This is not to say that Google computers will consume nothing but wind and solar power. Like almost any company, Google gets power from a power company, which operates an energy grid typically supplied by a number of sources, including hydroelectric dams, natural gas, coal and wind power.

What Google has done over the last decade, with relatively little fanfare, is participate in a number of large-scale deals with renewable producers, typically guaranteeing to buy the energy they produce with their wind turbines and solar cells. With those guarantees, wind companies can obtain bank financing to build more turbines.
Justice Sotomayors opinion did not resolve the question of whether the article of manufacture at issue in the case was the whole phone or just parts of it. She said only that the Federal Circuit had been wrong to rule that the relevant article of manufacture must always be the end product sold to the consumer.

In the case of a design for a single-component product, such as a dinner plate, the product is the article of manufacture to which the design has been applied, Justice Sotomayor wrote. In the case of a design for a multicomponent product, such as a kitchen oven, identifying the article of manufacture to which the design has been applied is a more difficult task.

The Supreme Court returned the case to the Federal Circuit for further consideration, drawing out the final resolution of a case that has transfixed Silicon Valley since it was filed in 2011.

Technology companies often imitate innovations made by their rivals and incorporate hundreds or thousands of patented ideas in a new product. The largest companies often cross-license their patents to one another to minimize infringement claims.

The Supreme Court battle between Apple and Samsung centered on what happens when the infringement involves just a few features of a products design.

Apple  backed by dozens of independent designers as well as fashion-focused companies like Nike and Tiffany  argued that design is central to many products and that a patent violator should be forced to turn over the full profits it made from infringing designs.

Samsung  whose position was backed by Silicon Valley giants like Google, Facebook, eBay and HP  argued that any penalties should be proportionate to the importance of the infringing features to the overall product.
Twitter announced on Tuesday the years biggest trending topics and most widely shared tweets in news and politics, and while the election loomed large, several of the most popular discussions were focused on matters of identity and safety.

Race relations were at the top of peoples minds, with #BlackLivesMatter the third-most popular subject. Alton Sterling, a black man fatally shot by the police in Baton Rouge, La., was also in the top 10.

#InternationalWomensDay gathered discussion about gender in March, while #LoveIsLove  a declaration associated with equal rights for gay people that Barack Obama used as Americans held pride parades  was popular in June.

Twitter users publicly mourned mass-casualty attacks with #PrayForOrlando and #PrayForNice, while discussion of Brexit, a coup attempt in Turkey and the Panama Papers also made the top 10.
Sometimes, in the middle of a play that is not working, there comes a moment so pure and clear and nakedly affecting that it wakes your soul right up.

In Clover, Erik Ehns new drama at La MaMa, that happens when two men, one young and black (Neil Tyrone Pritchard), the other older and white (Bob Jaffe), step downstage for a song: Bob Dylans ballad The Death of Emmett Till. Somber and straight-backed, Mr. Pritchard sings right to the audience as Mr. Jaffe strums an acoustic guitar. Mournfulness fills the air.

But the instant the song is over, that feeling evaporates into the tumult of this sprawling, frequently incomprehensible play, which means to be obscure, though probably not to the degree that it is. Directed by Glory Kadigan for Planet Connections, Clover wants to have the heightened pitch of a dream, or series of dreams, to mesh with the strange poetry of the language and the frequently lovely musical interludes. Yet it doesnt.

Mr. Ehn has said that the play is about how to persevere through loss to hope, but its four convoluted stories  the first three of which take inspiration from the Christian trinity of father, son and Holy Spirit  come across as intellectualized pageantry. This is particularly unfortunate in the long section about Emmett Till (Trevor Latez Hayes), the black teenager who was infamously murdered by white men in Mississippi in 1955. Trinity-wise, that counts as the son story, and while its didactic, it is the least opaque of the bunch.
Every three years, half a million 15-year-olds in 69 countries take a two-hour test designed to gauge their ability to think. Unlike other exams, the PISA, as it is known, does not assess what teenagers have memorized. Instead, it asks them to solve problems they havent seen before, to identify patterns that are not obvious and to make compelling written arguments. It tests the skills, in other words, that machines have not yet mastered.

[Related: Latest PISA test scores cast doubt on U.S. education efforts.]

The latest results, released Tuesday morning, reveal the United States to be treading water in the middle of the pool. In math, American teenagers performed slightly worse than they usually do on the PISA  below average for the developed world, which means they scored worse than nearly three dozen countries. They did about the same as always in science and reading, which is to say average for the developed world.

But that scoreboard is the least interesting part of the findings. More intriguing is what the PISA has revealed about which conditions seem to make smart countries smart. In that realm, the news was not all bad for American teenagers.

Like all tests, the PISA is imperfect, but it is unusually relevant to real life and provides increasingly nuanced insights into education for researchers like Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the test at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. After each test, he and his team analyze the results, stripped of country names. They dont want to be biased by their pre-existing notions of what teenagers in Japan or Mexico can or cannot do.
Companies have figured out that if they outsource their recruiting and hiring, and whats often considered to be the messy parts of their H.R. function, that they can then absolve themselves of any liability, Ms. Ruckelshaus said. That hits low-wage minority workers the hardest because of entrenched and persistent discrimination, she said.

Kevin James, 29, one of the named plaintiffs in the suit, said he had applied for work through MVP on roughly 20 occasions but had been given a job only once. He sat in the MVP office waiting in vain while Hispanic applicants got assignments, he said.

On the one occasion when Mr. James was given a job, he said, he was sent to a packaging company where supervisors were hostile toward him, hovering over him and other black employees as they worked.

It just seemed like a lot of tension, like they didnt really want me to be there, Mr. James said. He added that the staff of the MVP office in Cicero was mainly Mexicans and that the employees were not welcoming toward African-American job seekers.

Id say the whole staff was Mexican, he said. It was like the whole thing was built up mainly around Hispanics."

Rosa Ceja, 29, a former dispatcher at MVPs office in Elmwood Park, Ill., said the company used a system of code words in an attempt to conceal its preferential treatment of Hispanics. She said her work often took her to the Cicero office, where the same system was in place.
WASHINGTON  Former Senator Bob Dole, acting as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan, worked behind the scenes over the past six months to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and President-elect Donald J. Trumps staff, an outreach effort that culminated last week in an unorthodox telephone call between Mr. Trump and Taiwans president.

Mr. Dole, a lobbyist with the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, coordinated with Mr. Trumps campaign and the transition team to set up a series of meetings between Mr. Trumps advisers and officials in Taiwan, according to disclosure documents filed last week with the Justice Department. Mr. Dole also assisted in successful efforts by Taiwan to include language favorable to it in the Republican Party platform, according to the documents.

Mr. Doles firm received $140,000 from May to October for the work, the forms said.

The disclosures suggest that President-elect Trumps decision to take a call from the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, was less a ham-handed diplomatic gaffe and more the result of a well-orchestrated plan by Taiwan to use the election of a new president to deepen its relationship with the United States  with an assist from a seasoned lobbyist well versed in the machinery of Washington.

Theyre very optimistic, Mr. Dole said of the Taiwanese in an interview on Tuesday. They see a new president, a Republican, and theyd like to develop a closer relationship.
About those Carrier jobs in Indianapolis.

The president-elects move to save 1,100 jobs at a Carrier furnace plant in Indiana has been a political winner, even if it has raised concerns among economists on the left and the right.

Now the chief executive of United Technologies, Carriers parent company, says in the end, many of those jobs (he put the figure at 800) likely will fall to automation rather than Mexico.

In an interview with CNBCs Jim Cramer, the C.E.O., Greg Hayes was blunt.

Were gonna make up $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because well make the capital investments there. MR. CRAMER: Right. MR. HAYES: But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.

He also confirmed that he feared standing up to the president-elect could be very costly to his conglomerate, which includes a lot of defense work.

There was a cost as we thought about keeping the Indiana plant open. At the same time  and Ill tell you this because you and I  we know each other, but I was born at night but not last night. I also know that about 10 percent of our revenue comes from the U.S. government.

Trump fires at business; business holds back.
Tampa, Florida - 6 December 2016 1. US President Barack Obama enters stage 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Barack Obama, US President: When ISIL (Islamic State group) made substantial gains, first in Mosul and then in other parts of the country, then suddenly Iraqis reached out once again for help. And in shaping our response, we refuse to repeat some of the 2003 invasion that helped to give rise to the organisation that became ISIL in the first place. We conditioned our help on the emergence of a new Iraqi government and prime minister that was committed to national unity, and committed to working with us. We built an international coalition of nearly 70 nations including some of Iraqs neighbours. We surged our intelligence resources so we could better understand the enemy. Then we took the fight to ISIL in both Iraq and Syria. Not with American battalions but with local forces backed by our equipment and our advisers, and importantly, our special forces. In that campaign we have now hit ISIL with over 16 thousand air strikes. We have equipped and trained tens of thousands of partners on the ground. And today, the results are clear. ISIL has lost more than half its territory, ISIL has lost control of major population centres, its morale is plummeting, its recruitment is drying up, its commanders and external plotters are being taken out and local populations are turning against it. ++BLACK FRAMES++ 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Barack Obama, US President: Bottom line is, we are breaking the back of ISIL. We are taking away its safe havens and weve accomplished all this at a cost of ten billion dollars over two years, which is the same amount we used to spend in one month at the height of the Iraq War. So the campaign against ISIL has been relentless, it has been sustainable, it has been multilateral. It demonstrates a shift to how weve taken the fight to terrorists everywhere. From South Asia to the Sahal. Instead of pushing all of the burden onto American ground troops, instead of trying to mount invasions where terrorists appear, weve built a network of partners. ++BLACK FRAMES++ 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Barack Obama, US President: So, rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops, or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat. We have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained. 5. Obama exits
WASHINGTON  President-elect Donald J. Trump took a shot on Tuesday at one of the nations largest manufacturers, Boeing, sharply criticizing a pending order for a new Air Force One and suggesting that the company was doing a little bit of a number with the cost of the next generation of presidential aircraft.

Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. Cancel order!

Although his post attracted attention because it was about the most famous airplane in the world, the significance may be broader: For perhaps the first time since President John F. Kennedy took on the steel industry in the early 1960s, the heads of big American companies are being confronted by a leader willing to call them out directly and publicly for his policy and political aims.

Although President Obama forcefully criticized Wall Street and the financial industry after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, he tended not to single out individual companies. But Mr. Trump is now targeting Boeing a week after he pushed Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to keep about 1,000 manufacturing jobs in Indiana, and three weeks after he singled out a Ford plant in Kentucky.
Over the past few years, Mr. Konys group is reported to have dwindled to 100 or so men. But the Obama administration once considered him such a threat to peace in the region that it offered a reward of up to $5 million for his capture, even though the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court. The rebel groups reign of terror, which included its practice of mutilating and burning victims, spread beyond Uganda to southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

Mr. Ongwen was brought to the court early last year, after being detained in the Central African Republic by American Special Forces who had been helping to track Mr. Kony and his men. Mr. Ongwen, long a top commander in the Lords Resistance Army, is believed to have fallen from favor with Mr. Kony and to have been held captive by him before breaking free and eventually handing himself in. Some analysts said Mr. Ongwens escape and surrender had probably been motivated by the fear that Mr. Kony would kill him, as he had done with others.

Mr. Ongwen told the court last year that he was born in Uganda in 1975 and that he was abducted by the Lords Resistance Army when he was 14. People who knew him as a child soldier said he had been taught that his destiny was to fight for the rights of the Acholi people, a group to which both he and Mr. Kony belonged. He rose to become one of Mr. Konys trusted commanders, joining the control altar, as the warlords headquarters were called.

Mr. Ongwen has been charged with 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with atrocities committed in northern Uganda, many of them victimizing the Acholi people he was said to have felt called to protect. Even though his fighting career lasted more than 25 years, his trial focuses on a series of four attacks on refugee camps in northern Uganda between 2002 and 2005, for which prosecutors apparently have the best evidence.

As his trial opened, with Mr. Ongwen in a court-issued gray suit, an official read out the list of charges against him, including murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery and conscription of children under 15.
LONDON  Libyan fighters declared victory over the Islamic State at its coastal stronghold of Surt on Tuesday, ending the extremist groups ambitions for a caliphate on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.

The battle is finally over, said Reda Eissa, a spokesman for the coalition of militias from nearby Misurata that led the assault. Our fighters are ecstatic. We still have to comb through the city and make sure we got them all, but we are so, so happy.

The Libyan fighters apparent success was another defeat for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, as its plans for a militant empire buckle on multiple fronts across the Middle East. In Surt, the Misuratan militias finally ousted the remaining Islamic State fighters from a cluster of houses after a grueling six-month assault that pitted suicide bombers and snipers against Libyan forces backed by American warplanes.

After moving into Surt in 2014, the Islamic State seized a 150-mile stretch of coastline and instituted a brutal reign that included public killings and the imprisonment of migrants as sex slaves. The city became a transit hub for fighters traveling to Tunisia, as well as a supply stop and medical treatment center for Islamists fighting in eastern Libya.
I pay them all when I have the money, but some months are tougher than others, said Mr. Pantoja, whose outdoor nightclub, Caribe, lures patrons on weekend nights who cling to one another under its strobe lights.

One of the courts clerks interjected, telling Mr. Pantoja, Frankly, you just have to stop making more children. Then the judge issued a quick verdict, ordering the defendant to honor his financial obligations to his ex-wife or be jailed for three months.

As Ms. de Paula smiled at the outcome, Mr. Pantoja scowled.

The authorities on this boat dont rely on facts, but on gossip, he said. At least Ill have children to carry my coffin when I die.

Throughout the day, others shuffled onto the boat. Some sought the other services available onboard, receiving social security cards, voting papers and water purification tablets.
The Chinese authorities do not publish figures on shuanggui (pronounced shwang-gwei) detention, but the report estimated that roughly 33,000 to 66,000 people were subjected to it last year.

Prosecutors are supposed to conduct their own investigations, but they often work hand in glove with party investigators, even participating in their interrogations, the report said. And Chinas judges, under firm party control, often appear powerless to reject confessions that were initially given in shuanggui detention, even when claims of torture appear to be well founded.

In theory, shuanggui is an internal party mechanism for addressing members infractions of party discipline, and is separate from the formal criminal procedures, the report said. In practice, shuanggui interrogations and investigations by state prosecutors frequently overlap. Often, prosecutors simply copy and paste their confessions made during shuanggui interrogations, it said.

Some Chinese lawyers have argued that party anticorruption inquiries should come under judicial oversight. Officials and their families have also claimed torture, and occasionally courts have convicted party investigators of abusing detainees.

Earlier this year, a petition bearing the names of 229 officials and government employees who had been detained was issued by their aggrieved families. The petition applauded Mr. Xis crackdown on graft but said some local investigators and prosecutors were, under the guise of fighting corruption, using torture to extract confessions, violently obtaining evidence, concocting facts, fabricating evidence and using a range of illegal methods to obtain evidence.

These miscarriages of justice not only deal severe harm to the accused and their families, they also deal severe harm to public faith in justice, it said.

But such criticisms are unlikely to ruffle the Chinese government.

Mr. Xi has made fighting corruption a centerpiece of his administration, and televised shows of officials confessing to taking bribes have been popular. The state-run news media rarely airs criticisms of the detention system. Chinese officials have maintained that the anticorruption investigations are carried out humanely in safe sites and that torture and other abuses have been curtailed by stricter rules and oversight. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which oversees the local discipline offices, did not answer faxed questions about the report.
HONG KONG  Kofi Annan, the former head of the United Nations, said in Myanmar on Tuesday that he was deeply concerned by reports of human rights abuses in the countrys restive Rakhine State, where dozens of Rohingya Muslims are said to have been killed since October in a crackdown by the military.

Mr. Annan, who leads a commission that was formed in August to study conditions in Rakhine, spoke to reporters at the end of a weeklong visit to Myanmar, which included a trip to the northern areas of northern Rakhine where the army has been conducting a counterinsurgency campaign. Activists have relayed stories of rapes, arson, targeted killings and other atrocities said to have been committed against the Rohingya there by the army since Oct. 9, when insurgents killed nine police officers in attacks on border posts.

We stressed in all our meetings that wherever security operations might be necessary, civilians must be protected at all times, and I urge the security services to act in full compliance with the rule of law, Mr. Annan said on Tuesday.

We also stressed that security operations must not impede humanitarian access to the population, he said. We have been given the assurance that humanitarian assistance is allowed access and trust that all communities in need will receive the assistance they require.
BRUSSELS  For months, Britains government has suggested that, when the country leaves the European Union, it will be able to retain many of the economic advantages of membership in the bloc.

On Tuesday, that idea received its clearest rebuff yet, when Michel Barnier, one of the blocs lead negotiators, insisted that cherry picking is not an option and argued that no country outside the union could have the same benefits as its members.

Negotiators will also have less time than they had thought to strike a deal, Mr. Barnier said. Though Britons voted in June to leave the European Union, formal talks on a withdrawal, known as Brexit, have yet to begin. The British prime minister, Theresa May, has said that she will wait until March to start those negotiations.

Mr. Barnier suggested that while, in theory, there would be two years to conclude the talks, in reality, a deal would have to be done within 18 months, to allow time for ratification.
BERLIN  Germanys highest court on Tuesday upheld the governments decision in 2011 to shut its nuclear reactors ahead of schedule, but it ruled that power companies must be compensated for losses incurred as a result of that decision.

The ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe brings to an end a long, bitter dispute between the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel and German power companies on the decision in 2011 to abandon nuclear power in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

In 1988, Germany began transforming its energy sector to one powered largely by renewable sources like wind, solar and biomass. Progressively shutting down the countrys nuclear reactors over time had been part of the original plan.

In the months before Fukushima, Ms. Merkels center-right government had extended the life of several reactors, citing their use as a so-called bridge technology to ensure a stable flow of power through the grid. But the government changed course after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, taking eight reactors out of service and accelerating plans to close the remaining nine by 2022, earlier than originally scheduled.
German Chancellor and leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party CDU Angela Merkel reacts after she was re-elected as chairwoman at the CDU party convention in Essen, Germany, Dec 6, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday was reelected chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the annual convention of the party with a support rate of 89.5 percent, paving the way for her to seek a new term of chancellorship.

Merkel announced her decision to stand in next year's elections for a fourth term in Berlin on Dec 20, saying that her motivation was based on serving Germany.

"I told the CDU that I was ready to stand again," she said to the media when announcing her candidacy. "This election will be even more difficult than those we have had before as we are facing a strong polarisation" in the community, she added.

The announcement ended months of speculation at a time when Europe is plunged into uncertainty among rising populism.

But the 89.5 percent support rate she got at the convention in Essen was the second lowest for her to be elected chairman of the center-right party, only slightly higher than the 88.4 percent in 2004.

During her stay in Essen, Merkel reportedly criticized populists for attempting to exploit Germany's refugees influx, but vowed at the same time there would be no repeat of massive refugee arrivals as what happened last year.
ESSEN, Germany  To loud applause, Chancellor Angela Merkel told her party members on Tuesday that Germany should ban full-face veils wherever legally possible and that it would not tolerate any application of Shariah law over German justice.

Accepting her partys nomination as its candidate for another four-year term, the chancellor used the moment to broaden her stance on banning the veil, trying to deflect challenges from far-right forces that have made some of their deepest gains since World War II.

In welcoming nearly one million asylum seekers to Germany a year ago, Ms. Merkel emerged as a powerful voice for tolerance across a Europe gripped by anxiety over waves of arriving migrants and fears of terrorism.

Now, as anti-immigrant parties have advanced at the expense of mainstream parties, including her own, Ms. Merkel tried a tricky balancing act between holding fast to Western values and tilting farther right to avoid being outflanked by populist challengers.
WARSAW  The Polish Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a government request to extradite Roman Polanski, the Oscar-winning filmmaker, to the United States over a decades-old conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

The decision almost certainly ends the legal battle in Poland over how to deal with Mr. Polanski, although as a practical matter, even a ruling in favor of the government would have had little effect. Mr. Polanski, a dual citizen of France and Poland, lives in France, which does not extradite its citizens.

Judge Michal Laskowski ruled that a lower courts verdict was not a flagrant violation of the law, as the request for an appeal had claimed. The regional court of Krakow considered and verified all evidence exceptionally carefully, Judge Laskowski said.

The legal effort reflects a broader push by the conservative Law and Justice government, which since coming to power a year ago has been calling for a return to Roman Catholic values in Poland, to try to reinforce its reputation as a law-and-order party.
MOSCOW  The Kremlin published a new plan on Tuesday to defend Russia against what it described as stepped-up cyberattacks and information-psychological methods by foreign intelligence agencies bent on influencing its population with online information.

The plan updates a similar information security doctrine put in place by President Vladimir V. Putin in 2000, early in his first term, that staked out a renewed role for post-Soviet government in monitoring information.

The latest iteration of the doctrine comes as American officials have mulled retaliating against Russia for what the Department of Homeland Security said was government-orchestrated hacking before the presidential election, including stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee.

The plan, signed by Mr. Putin on Monday but published on Tuesday, described a threat to Russia of technological malfeasance similar to what the United States has accused the Russians of committing. It did not mention, however, any specific online strikes against Russia indicating that American retaliation could be underway.
TEHRAN  Irans president said on Tuesday that he simply would not allow President-elect Donald J. Trump to tear up last years nuclear agreement and warned of unspecified consequences if he did.

He wants to do many things, Irans president, Hassan Rouhani, said of Mr. Trump in a speech. During the campaign, Mr. Trump called the nuclear agreement a bad deal that he promised to tear up.

He wants to undermine the J.C.P.O.A., Mr. Rouhani said, referring to the agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He wants to tear up the J.C.P.O.A. Will we or our nation allow this?

As Mr. Rouhani posed the question, the audience began chanting, Death to America.

In the speech, which was delivered at Tehran University and televised nationally, Mr. Rouhani maintained that America cannot influence our determination, this nations resistance and its struggle.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced 15 men to death on Tuesday for spying on behalf of Iran, after a trial that a Western human rights organization characterized as a travesty of justice.

The sentences came as the sectarian and political rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is fueling conflicts across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Both Saudi Arabia, a Sunni majority country, and Iran, a country led by Shiite clerics, consider themselves the defenders of true Islam and have sought to undermine the others influence.

Fifteen other men received prison terms of six months to 25 years on similar charges. Two men were acquitted.

The 32 men on trial were mostly members of Saudi Arabias Shiite minority who were arrested beginning in 2013 and tried in Riyadh, the capital, in February. Two were foreigners; one Iranian received a prison term and one Afghan was acquitted.
DANA POINT The city will pay the Surfrider Foundation $150,000 in a settlement agreement that resolves a six-year legal dispute over the hours of access to Strand Beach through gates at the Strand at Headlands cliffside community, officials said Monday.

The settlement amount is about one-third of what Surfrider Foundation is asking for attorney fee reimbursement in its Oct. 18 lawsuit against the city. The lawsuit seeks $448,429.08.

Surfrider Foundation is pleased to announce its dispute with the City of Dana Point has been resolved, the group said in a statement. Surfrider looks forward to moving on to other issues supporting beach access and ocean conservation.

Dana Point Mayor John Tomlinson said the city considered the settlement fair to both Surfrider and the taxpayers.

We look forward to collaborating with them and other coastal advocacy organizations including the Coastal Commission and the Ocean Institute to educate the next generation about the importance of protecting and preserving our coastal resources and providing access to the coast, he said.

The agreement with Surfrider follows an April settlement between the city and the California Coastal Commission that required the communitys center gates be open 24 hours a day. The city is also required to provide 24-hour access on two nearby trails overlooking the community and public access from 5 a.m.-10 p.m. at nearby Strand Vista Park.

The city also agreed to provide $300,000 for public education and access. The education will be done in collaboration with Surfrider and the Ocean Institute and will benefit children from low-income families.

On Wednesday, the Coastal Commission is expected to discuss the gate restrictions that prevent public access from 10 p.m.-5 a.m. According to a report, the commissions staff is in favor of the time restrictions but wants access to be stopped by a rope or chain, not gates. The commission will meet in Ventura.

The citys dispute with the Coastal Commission and Surfrider began in 2009, when Dana Point officials approved an ordinance to limit beach-access hours through the neighborhood after requests by Sanford Edward, the communitys developer, and some homeowners.

The Coastal Commission and Surfrider fought the ordinance in court, saying it could set a precedent that could limit beach access throughout California. A court ruled in the publics favor in 2011.

The city sued the commission and Surfrider sued the city. A lower court ruled against the commission, but last fall a San Diego Superior Court judge reversed the ruling.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@ocregister.com or on Twitter:@lagunaini
SANTA ANA  A 77-year-old Laguna Niguel-based insurance salesman pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for operating an $11.3 million Ponzi scheme.

Joseph Francis Bartholomew, formerly of Lake Forest, accepted a plea deal from Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald, his attorney Al Stokke said. Bartholomew was given credit for two years already served.

Co-defendant Wendy King-Jackson, 56, of Laguna Niguel, who was Bartholomews office manager, also pleaded guilty for her part in defrauding two victims and is expected to be sentenced to a year in jail Feb. 2.

Bartholomew bilked 27 victims, most of whom were senior citizens, prosecutors said. Bartholomew, who owned MBP Insurance Services Inc., operated the scheme for 10 years, according to prosecutors.

The scheme involved selling life insurance policies on third parties, with investors paying the premiums for the first year and receiving 15 to 24 percent annual returns, prosecutors said. The defendant, as a broker or agent, was supposed to receive 130 percent of the first years premium, prosecutors said.

He did make some payments to some investors, but eventually the debts out-paced the cash flow, leading to the Ponzi scheme, prosecutors said.

Stokke said Bartholomew went through a long career with many successes prior to this point in time. But certainly something went wrong, so hes paying the penalty on that and hopefully hell be able to come through this and live out the balance of his life in a productive way.
SANTA ANA  As Yesenia Ruiz shopped for donated toys and had them wrapped in holiday gift wrap, her 3-, 4- and 8-year-old children played with Santa Claus in a separate room at the Comfort Connection Family Resource Center.

Her youngest, Alfonso, didnt warm up to the jolly bearded fellow right away.

He was scared at first, but then he was not scared, said Stephanie Ruiz, 4, speaking for her little brother.

The center at 1525 N. Tustin Ave., run by the Regional Center of Orange County, held its fourth annual Shop and Wrap holiday event Monday for low-income families with children with developmental disabilities.

In one room, the center had tables piled high with stuffed animals, dolls, dinosaur figures and almost anything else on a childs Christmas list. Santas elves  or rather, volunteers  diligently wrapped the gifts.

The nonprofit, which serves people with developmental disabilities and their families, identified about 250 children from about 125 families in its Early Start program to receive gifts Monday and today. Most children in the program are age 3 or younger, but parents could pick gifts for other children in their family too.

We decided to identify the most needy families, the centers CEO Janis White said. Its a fine place to go shopping. Everything is wrapped; you just go home and put it under the tree.

Ruizs children left Santas lap when she emerged with six shiny presents, two for each of them.

Alfonso tugged at his and his sisters gifts, but his mother told him to wait.

The Orange resident said the Shop and Wrap event has taken a burden off this holiday season. Shes a stay-at-home mom also studying at Chapman University to instruct others on parenting, and her husband is the familys only provider, working at a bakery in Irvine.

I was happy when they called, Ruiz, 40, said in Spanish. Because its a difficult time economically for us to buy toys. Now we dont need to.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7762 or jkwong@ocregister.com or on Twitter: @JessicaGKwong
QLogic, a networking and storage provider, will leave its Aliso Viejo headquarters come summer, downsizing to an Irvine business center.

The Irvine Co. announced the news Monday, saying the tech firm, which was bought in August for roughly $1.4 billion by San Jose-based Cavium, had signed a lease at its NextGen campus at Sand Canyon Business Center in Irvine Spectrum.

The campus includes two four-story, 106,000-square-foot buildings. QLogic will occupy one building. The other building will house AutoGravity, which has leased 40,000 square feet. The campus is 70 percent leased, according to Irvine Co.

QLogics Aliso Viejo facility, at some 165,000 square feet, has been its home since 2000.

The company in October cut 69 jobs, according to documents filed with the state.

Company representatives did not immediately return calls for comment Monday on what would become of the former headquarters and whether any jobs would be impacted by the move.

The company was spun off of Costa Mesa-based Emulex in 1992. It has undergone executive shake-ups in recent years. In 2013, Simon Biddiscombe resigned as president and CEO in the wake of falling revenue. QLogics board appointed its chief financial officer, Jean Hu, as interim CEO.

In 2014, the company appointed Prasad Rampalli as CEO; he abruptly quit six months later. Hu returned to the interim post as chief executive. That same year, the companys chairman, HK Desai, died at age 68 after suffering a heart attack.

The company has built its business on a series of products, including Fibre Channel adapters, which allow businesses to store and move huge amounts of data. Cavium makes switches, adapter cards and other networking equipment.

TECH DOWNSIZING

Its been a year of restructuring for Orange Countys big tech companies, which have experienced downsizing infrastructure, job cuts and local headquarters shifting to Silicon Valley.

Broadcom announced in May that it would downsize its new headquarters, cut jobs and divest two units after its $37 billion sale to Avago Technologies.

Less than three weeks after its sale to Avago was finalized, Broadcom announced the layoff of nearly 700 employees in Irvine. The chipmaker listed for sale two buildings at its five-building campus under construction near the Great Park.

The company also announced plans to sell 32 of its 72 acres and 450,000 square feet of future building rights.

Broadcom will own some 640,000 square feet of space, far smaller than its current 900,000-square-foot lease with University Research Park.

Contact the writer: hmadans@ocregiter.com or Twitter: @HannahMadans
The worlds populists arent finished yet. Although the cocktail of discontent is different in every country, the pattern of political earthquakes across the western world has continued in Italy.

There, voters rejected Prime Minister Matteo Renzis proposed constitutional reform and triggered his resignation.

The lesson? Money matters  but not as much as the Wests elites might think.

A clue to the problem is found in how closely Renzis departure resembled British Prime Minister David Camerons. Both leaders tied their leadership to popular votes. Both expected they could count on their citizens to keep them in office with a clear mandate. But Britain voted out of the EU, Italy voted for more uncertainty, and elites wonder whats next.

On the surface, the answer is clear: more rejection of centralized, bureaucratic government, and more of a call for accountable, accessible and localized government structure.

Of course, from an elite standpoint, voters dont have the luxury of making these kinds of choices. Italys democracy has long been chaotic: 41 prime ministers have held office since the end of World War II. In the last bout of instability to hit the country, during its post-2008 borrowing crisis, only the installation of former EU commissioner Mario Monti, along with a cabinet of technocrats, saved Italy from the economic abyss. But, remarkably, Monti himself  still unpopular from his tight clampdown on profligate government  came out against the Renzi reforms.

While fiscal hawks in the United State are largely anti-bureaucratic, in Europe its a different story. Leading technocrats are struggling to keep the economy afloat along with their bureaucracy. Montis step away from alarmism suggested an awareness that many European voters are finished putting economic prognostications first.

Its more than a matter of simple frustration or distrust  although both those attitudes continue to power populist insurgencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, a powerful and growing bloc of voters refuses to let economic policymaking trump political decisionmaking at every turn, even if that means more risk or even pain up front. Theyve seen elites warn, for instance, that Brexit would crash the world economy, and theyve seen similar claims go up in smoke. Analysts and markets even wrongly determined that Donald Trump would certainly not be elected president.

With the elite risk analysis so badly off, why not take a chance on a messy transition to something better? Sure, the line of reasoning runs, it might be costly  but the status quos own intolerable costs are baked into the future as todays elites would have it.

The force of that logic, and the suddenness with which it has played out on the global stage this year, make it easy to draw too close a comparison between American and European populists. Some of the differences matter more than some of the similarities. But the Wests global economic elites are in for more rough sledding if they fail to accept that voters have turned against rule by precautionary accounting.
A state bill introduced Monday would require California law enforcement agencies to keep track of their guns and establish a reporting procedure for when police lose them.

State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said he introduced the legislation in response to investigations published this year by the Orange County Register and Bay Area News Group revealing that many law enforcement agencies make little or no effort to inventory their weapons and that officers frequently lose their firearms  some of which end up on the street.

The gunsfall into the hands of criminals, Hill said. The public will be protected much better when we account for law enforcement guns.

The stories on lost police guns noted that there are no state or federal laws requiring police agencies to account for their weapons and few agencies voluntarily do so.

The Department of Justices Automated Firearms System attempts to act as a national registry for law enforcement weapons, but agencies are not required to report when a registered gun is lost or stolen. Also, officers dont have to register their privately-owned guns even if they frequently carry them in the line of duty.

Hills bill, SB 22, would require police agencies to inventory all their firearms, to take annual counts of their weapons and to report to the national registry when guns go missing. It also calls for officers to register personal firearms if carried on the job. Officers who fail to report lost weapons would be disciplined.

The media investigations found that since 2010 at least 1,000 firearms had been lost or stolen from police agencies in California. Missing weapons included handguns, shotguns, high-powered rifles and at least one grenade launcher, among others. Some lost police weapons later were connected to crimes. In Northern California, a gun lost by a federal park ranger was used in a suspected murder.

In Southern California, theft accounted for about one-third of the missing guns. Many of the thefts came because officers left weapons unattended in vehicles, inside center consoles, in the glove box or stashed in gym bags behind the passenger seat.

In September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed another bill authored by Hill requiring law enforcement officers to lock up their guns left in unattended vehicles or face fines of $1,000.

That same month, at the Registers prodding, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department created a computerized database to monitor its missing weapons, something the agency previously had not done. That search found that more than 100 handguns and rifles were gone.

(Police agencies) are large organizations, Hill said of the need for statewide legislation. Theyre busy and this is just another bookkeeping issue that theyd rather not deal with.

Contact the writer: jgraham@scng.com or 714-796-7960
WASHINGTON  Big-city mayors and housing experts are nervous about the idea of a billionaire real estate developer in the White House. Now President-elect Donald Trump has picked Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon with no housing experience, as his nominee for secretary of Housing and Urban Development  and high anxiety has set in.

As The Times mid-Atlantic bureau chief, I have spent a lot of time in Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia, which are all run by Democrats. In those cities, and many others across the country, housing concerns are deeply intertwined with other poverty-related issues, including racial tensions with the police.

To explore how a Trump-Carson housing agenda might play out, I reached out to two Philadelphia mayors  Jim Kenney, the incumbent, and Michael Nutter, his predecessor  and two housing experts, one in Philadelphia and one here in Washington. Here are some of their thoughts:

What does HUD do, anyway?

Broadly speaking, HUD devotes itself to ensuring that families of low-income and modest means have access to safe homes and neighborhoods.

It runs the Federal Housing Administration, which helps people get home loans. It distributes money through the Community Development Block Grant program, a flexible source of funding used by cities for redevelopment and for rebuilding communities after natural disasters like floods and hurricanes.

HUD runs the Section 8 housing choice voucher program, which cities rely on to help house the poor. And it enforces the Fair Housing Act, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which makes housing discrimination illegal.

Even in a time of economic expansion, dealing with poverty will be the biggest challenge the next HUD secretary faces, conservative and liberal housing experts agree. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization, cited housing assistance programs as among those ripe for reform under Trump. Since 2000, the number of high-poverty neighborhoods in America has doubled, rising faster in the suburbs, like Ferguson, Missouri, than in cities, said Amy Liu, the director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the left-leaning Brookings Institution in Washington.

Theres a lot of anxiety now, because this election was about the heartland versus the coastal elites; were going to need a HUD secretary who governs both, Liu said. When I think about what HUD is going to have to deal with next, its going to be the future of high-poverty neighborhoods, and how to deal with that not only in Baltimore but also Ferguson.

Carsons history and how it translates to HUD

Carson grew up poor, spent part of his childhood in public housing in Detroit, and became a celebrated neurosurgeon by the time he was in his 30s  a life path that he attributes to his up-from-the-bootstraps philosophy. His admirers praise his rags-to-riches success story. But his critics say a career in medicine is not the right training for someone running a vast federal housing bureaucracy.

He has a powerful personal story that could connect him to a lot of families that rely on HUD assistance, Liu said. He just needs to use that personal story to listen and empathize  and really learn about the latest innovations in the field.

Most HUD secretaries have had government experience. George Romney, who served under Richard M. Nixon, was a governor. Jack Kemp, who served under George Bush, was a congressman. Henry Cisneros, who served under Bill Clinton, was a mayor; so was Julian Castro, the current secretary.

Ira Goldstein, who worked at HUD under the first President Bush and Clinton, admired Kemp.

He had a way of relating to people at every economic level; he could walk into housing developments and be perceived as an ally, said Goldstein, who now supervises research at Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit devoted to redevelopment in Philadelphia and Baltimore. But Kemp, a conservative, also had the business discipline, Goldstein said, to run HUD programs with a businesslike tenor.

Nutter, who now teaches urban affairs at Columbia University and is a commentator for CNN, says he does not know if Carson has what it takes.

As brilliant as folks have said that Dr. Carson is from a neurosurgery standpoint, creating fair housing, promoting economic development and having people living in prospering communities is a little different than operating on somebodys brain, Nutter said. I do not know how that translates into being HUD secretary.

Applying Trumps background to HUD

Trump got rich building luxury properties; most mayors are concerned with housing the poor. In the 1970s, before Trump got into the luxury business, the federal government sued his familys company, accusing it of routinely refusing to rent to African-Americans  the very discrimination that HUD, through the Fair Housing Act, seeks to prevent. (Trumps firm settled without admitting wrongdoing.)

Under President Barack Obama, HUD expanded its civil rights reach with the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule, which says that cities must not only respond to bias, but also take steps to prevent it. Philadelphia was proud to become the first city to adopt the rule, said Kenney, the citys mayor, whose administration has just submitted an extensive plan to put the rule into effect.

Some conservatives see that rule as federal intrusion into local sovereignty  the mayor of Castle Rock, Colo., population 55,000, has refused to accept HUD funding to avoid having to comply  and Trump is likely to roll it back. Kenney, in a carefully worded statement, make clear that he would push back against any changes. We will continue with our efforts to overcome patterns of segregation, promote fair housing choice and foster inclusive communities, the statement said.

Goldstein, who was the mid-Atlantic director of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity when he was at HUD, worries about something else: If Congress complied, Trump could use federal budget policy to deprive the agency of funds to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

Youve got to say that, given the tenor of the rhetoric, that would be a part of HUD that would not be favored in the new administration, Goldstein said.

And speaking of rhetoric 

Words matter in politics and policy, and both Trump and Carson have made comments that make mayors and housing experts uneasy.

Carson once told a television interviewer that he had risen above his circumstances by realizing that poverty is really more of a choice than anything else, by which he apparently meant that people escape poverty through hard work.

That comment, spotlighted in a video mash-up on the Salon website, has dogged the neurosurgeon. So has an opinion piece he wrote in which he described fair housing policy as social engineering.

This plays into Trumps sweeping declarations about black people living in inner cities rife with crime.

I give Trump credit for talking explicitly about the importance of the inner city, Liu said, but we need to make sure that the policies really do address what is needed there. What we dont need is just law-and-order tactics.

Nutter, who is African-American, is far more pointed; he calls Trumps characterizations of cities a general insult. Philadelphia built hundreds of affordable housing units using flexible Community Development Block Grant funds while Nutter was mayor. Most of the money, he said, was spent in low-income communities.

Im proud that I had seven years with President Barack Obama, who actually knew about community development because he was a community organizer, Nutter said. To the Philadelphia city government: Good luck dealing with the Trump administration.
Arsenal for the nation

A look at the effects of the Pearl Harbor attack on California.

Click to see full page

Wednesday marks the 75th anniversary of Japans Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. California was mobilizing for war before the attack. The U.S. Army began building bases and expanding installations in the state in 1939. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the California coastline was fortified with hundreds of cannons and anti-aircraft batteries. The harbors in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego were protected with mine fields, and military bases in the Golden State became key training areas for the wars in Europe and the Pacific.

Soldiers werent the only newcomers to California; thousands of workers flocked here. California accounted for 17 percent of the nations wartime production and received 10 cents of every dollar spent by the Defense Department.

One of the biggest booms for the states economy came in agriculture. From 1940 to 1944, the states annual crop revenues increased 159 percent to $1.7 billion.

Californias growth

Californias population surged during and immediately after World War II.

Bases in the state

Internment camps

Japanese internment camps in the mainland held more than 112,000.

93,000 were from California

Attacks on California

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Californians lived in fear of a Japanese invasion. The Japanese attacked several ships along the coast, and a long-range submarine bombed an oil field near Santa Barbara on Feb. 23, 1942. The next day, rumors of an invasion triggered air-raid sirens and anti-aircraft fire in Los Angeles that became known as The Battle of Los Angeles. U.S. anti-aircraft guns fired about 1,400 rounds over the city. No planes or bombs were discovered, and the incident was later determined to be a false alarm.

Some wartime incidents

Unmanned balloon bombs found at Alturas and Hayfork

Ships attacked

SS Agwiworld

SS Emidio

SS Samoa

SS Larry Doheny

SS Dorothy Phillips

SS H.M. Storey

SS Montebello and the SS Idaho

SS Barbara Olson and SS Absoroka

The Shelling of Ellwood

The first attack by a Japanese submarine on mainland America occurred when a Japanese submarine shelled an oil field near Santa Barbara.

Based in history
The Laguna Playhouse returns its annual holiday panto production with a modern twist on Sleeping Beauty and a cast packed with Broadway, film and television stars.

Presented by Lythgoe Family Panto, a company run by the son and daughter-in-law of TV producer Nigel Lythgoe (American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance), the play Sleeping Beauty and Her Winter Knight starts previews today, with regular performances beginning Friday for a three-week run.

The family-fun musical will be presented in the style of a traditional British pantomime, or panto, featuring a band, pop music, audience interaction and even local references to familiar places  the King of Laguna and Prince of Irvine are characters, for example.

Orange County resident and star of the feature films Dolphin Tale and Dolphin Tale 2 Cozi Zuehlsdorff will lead the cast as the fairy tale princess Aurora. Producer Becky Lythgoe says Zuehlsdorff has a new take on the princess.

Cozi is sensational with a powerful voice and fun personality that the audience will instantly relate to and have a good time with, Becky Lythgoe said.

Other cast members include Broadway and film actors Barry Pearl (Grease, The Producers), Joely Fisher (Cabaret, Ellen), Benjamin Schrader (The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q), Jeff Sumner (Aladdin  A Musical Spectacular) and Vonzell Solomon (second runner-up of American Idols Season 4).

Lythgoe Family Panto is hoping Orange County audiences are catching on to the panto format, especially after the company presented A Snow White Christmas at the Laguna Playhouse last year, so that the company can continue to annually present its shows in the theater.

Since the inception in 2010, weve seen a massive growth. We used to have to constantly explain what a panto is and who we are, and now going into our second year in Laguna, fifth year in Pasadena and first year in San Diego, we have less of a resistance, Becky Lythgoe said. We are excited because we have already doubled our audiences in Laguna because of people hearing of it last year.

For those unfamiliar with the theatrical form, which dates to the 1700s, the plays are a mixture of fairy tale stories with modern songs and audience participation. The productions are commonly presented around Christmas and New Years in playhouses and large theaters throughout the United Kingdom.

Sleeping Beauty was presented at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2014, but Becky Lythgoe said the Laguna audience will experience it in a very different way.

There are so many local references to things that only the Orange County people will know, so they are going to laugh and feel like they are at home, she said. Also, the music is amazing and will get the audience up on their feet almost immediately.

Pop songs will include Lady Gagas Edge of Glory, LMFAOs Party Rock Anthem, John Legends All of Me and Dayas Sit Still, Look Pretty. The audience is encouraged to dance as well as interact with the actors, particularly the character Silly Billy, played by Schrader, who talks directly to viewers throughout the play.

The pastel-colored set displays a wintry castle that Becky Lythgoe said gives a holiday feel, especially when the show ends with fake snowflakes covering the stage and audience. She added the play has many other surprises throughout, and with the unpredictable audience interaction, every show is different.

Its affordable theater for multi-generations, she said. That really was the impetus and drive for us to create what is really an American panto, because we have taken the honored British tradition and formed it to meet the needs of our American audiences. By doing that, we are hoping to ultimately create a new tradition for families across the country to enjoy together at the holiday time.

Contact the writer: jmoe@ocregister.com
Proposed legislation introduced Monday would ban candidates for public office in California from sending taxpayer-funded mass mailings in the 90 days before an election, a practice that critics say provides incumbents with an unfair advantage in promoting themselves at the publics expense.

That issue of whether officials seeking re-election should send out mass print communications surfaced in Orange Countys recent election cycle after incumbent county Supervisor Andrew Do sent out 1.2 million publicly funded mailers at a cost of $277,000 while he ran his successful campaign.

State Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Downey, introduced the bill, SB45, for the second consecutive legislative session after it died earlier this year. It would ban mass mailers before general, primary and run-off elections in all state and local races; pre-election mailings already are prohibited at the federal level but no statewide law exists for candidates in California.

This bill sends a strong message that government officials should not use their positions to unfairly influence the democratic process, Mendoza said in a statement. It is time for California to strengthen the Political Reform Act.

Mendoza, who endorsed Dos opponent Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez in her run for supervisor, could not immediately be reached for further comment.

Do has stressed that his mailers, which promoted an array of community events and frequently featured the supervisors name, were legal and a proper use of public funds. He has said the mailings benefit his constituents and get the bureaucrats out from behind their cubicles.

But some government ethics experts, including Bob Stern, co-author of Californias 1974 Political Reform Act, said it seemed Do was abusing his power and called for the mailers to be made illegal in the lead up to elections.

Contact the writer: jgraham@scng.com or 714-796-7960
The California Legislature opened a new session Monday with Democrats holding more than two-thirds of the seats in both the state Senate and Assembly after an election that defied the national trend toward Republicans.

Democrats supermajority in the Legislature empowers them to make important moves without Republicans cooperation, such as approving tax increases, overturning vetoes by Gov. Jerry Brown, and putting state constitutional amendments on the ballot.

Whats the best thing the Democratic supermajority could do with its new power? Thats our Question of the Week for readers.

Conversely, whats the worst thing Democratic lawmakers could do?

Do you want the Legislature to pass taxes to pay for party priorities like anti-climate-change efforts, transportation infrastructure repairs and affordable housing?

Are there other important changes Democrats should make in the next two years?

Should Democrats here make a point of standing up to President-elect Donald Trump?

The Democratic Party holds 55 of 80 Assembly seats after Nov. 8 victories by Sabrina Cervantes (in Riverside County), Sharon Quirk-Silva (Orange County) and Al Muratsuchi (Los Angeles County) over, respectively, Republican incumbents Eric Linder, Young Kim and David Hadley. It holds 27 of 40 Senate seats after Josh Newman (Orange and L.A. counties) beat Ling Ling Chang in a district formerly held by the GOPs Bob Huff.

Democrats, who last had a supermajority in 2013-14, also hold every statewide office and most of Californias congressional offices and big-city mayoralties.

Are Republicans correct to warn that Democratic dominance will mean more taxes and government?

Or are Democrats right to say the influence of party moderates  and the usually cautious Brown  could make it hard to pass ultra-liberal laws?

Email your thoughts to letters@ocregister.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number. Or, if you prefer, share your views in the comments section that accompanies this article online.

Well publish as many responses as possible.
SANTA ANA  An Anaheim tagging crew member accused of stabbing a 12-year-old rival to death testified on Monday that he acted in self-defense and denied claims by a prosecutor that he yelled Die! Die! Die! as he delivered the fatal blows.

Bryan Ocampo, then 18, said that when he pulled a fold-out knife from his pocket during a 2011 fist fight near Sycamore Junior High School he only meant to scare Juan Martinez off and prevent others from entering the fray.

Ocampo, now 23, is on trial for the murder of Martinez. At the time of the fatal fight, Ocampo was a member of a tagging crew, while Martinez belonged to a rival crew.

Ocampo seemed calm during questioning by his attorney, Mitch Timbanard, as members of both his family and the Martinez family looked on. With black-framed glasses and a closely-cropped haircut, Ocampo looked much different from the shaggy-haired style he sported in 2011.

Ocampo denied that he sought out Martinez after the last day of school, saying he was standing with two girls on the sidewalk on La Palma Avenue when he saw the 12-year-old walking with a group of boys in his direction. Ocampo said he had never seen Martinez before.

Both Ocampo and Martinez identified themselves as members of their respective tagging crews, Ocampo testified. Then, Ocampo said, Martinez threw the first punch.

Ocampo described the two exchanging blows as a group of onlookers taunted him. Ocampo testified that he expected the rest of Martinezs group to join the fight, leading him to pull out his knife in an attempt to scare them off.

It was initially to scare him, Ocampo said. I didnt want to, but he kept going.

I didnt even know I was hitting him, that it was connecting, Ocampo added about his stabs with the blade.

Do you remember saying Die! Die! Die! during the fight? Timbanard asked, referring to the phrase that Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Herrera has said Ocampo yelled.

I didnt say that, Ocampo replied.

Martinez was stabbed three times, with the knife at one point puncturing the heart and a lung. Ocampo said he didnt stay to see Martinez collapse in a parking lot across the street.

Martinez acknowledged throwing the knife over a garage. He also admitted texting one of his friends who witnessed the fight, telling her not to talk to anyone.

Was it ever your intention to kill anyone that day? Timbanard asked.

I didnt mean to harm him, Ocampo replied. I didnt think (the fight) was just with him. I thought it would be his whole crowd.

Asked about texts he sent before his confrontation with Martinez, which seemed to reference a planned altercation, Ocampo explained that they were in regard to an unrelated fight he was planning to watch between two girls.

Ocampo said he first joined his tagging crew in his freshman year of high school. He said he wanted to join like-minded artists, denying that he wanted to be involved with local gangs.

Ocampo said he often carried a weapon. He said members of the rival tagging crew had jumped him twice, while on another occasion a different group of men had robbed him at knife-point.

Ocampos testimony will continue this morning. If convicted, he faces up to 26 years to life in prison.

Contact the writer: semery@scng.com
An Orange County Fire Authority firefighter with 44 years of service, who died last week after a battle with cancer, will be honored at a memorial service today.

Ron Castro, 67, was one of OCFAs longest-serving employees.

Castro was born in Santa Ana and graduated in 1967 from Santa Ana Valley High, OCFA officials said in a statement. He was drafted into the Army shortly after graduation and served in the Special Forces during the Vietnam War.

After his discharge, Castro was hired as a firefighter in 1972 with the Santa Ana Fire Department. He joined the OCFA in 2012 when the agency took over the Santa Ana Fire Department.

Castro was stationed at OCFA Fire Station 33 at John Wayne Airport until his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in April. He died Wednesday.

Ron was well-known for his positive energy and his passion for travel, OCFA Chief Jeff Bowman said. He came to work happy and left just as happy at the end of his shift.

He is survived by his wife, Michele; a son, Brandon; daughters Jennifer and Madison; his parents, Cebie and Esperanza; and his sister, Cyndy.

A service with military honors is today at 10 a.m. at Calvary Chapel, 3800 S. Fairview St. in Santa Ana.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@scng.com
Donald Trump, who is not even in office yet, is already effecting change by keeping American jobs. Even Reagan had to wait until his first day in office to get our Iran hostages released.

Trump has set about prioritizing his campaign promises. Most will have to do with the economy, and I hope he reconsiders his protectionist trade rhetoric.

He did backtrack on one major campaign promise so far: to see that Hillary Clinton goes to jail for a long time over her foundation and private server crimes. The only person who seems disappointed about Trumps change of heart is Bill Clinton.

This was a part of the populist bravado that got Trump elected but that most knew he would not pursue. If you took the campaign literally, George Clooney would be moving to a Greek island and Hillary Clinton to Rikers Island.

The only thing that has come true so far is that Gary Busey fled to Canada. But he did so because he thought it would keep him from getting drafted for the Vietnam War.

Trump is going to renegotiate NAFTA, our trade agreement with Mexico. As the agreement now stands, we ship spring break kids and our crappy jobs to Mexico, and they ship Mexicans and pot to the U.S. Many of us are thinking, Unless we want to pick our own avocados and have them cost us $12 each, slow down Mr. President-elect. Maybe we are getting the better of this deal. Ive got an outside fireplace to build next month, so wait until its done to deport.

The tone of the general election was that, if elected, Trump was going to build a wall and Mexico was going to pay for it. If Hillary was elected, she was going to build an abortion clinic in Texas and Sen. Ted Cruz was going to pay for it. We knew the reality would differ.

Trump has already moonwalked back building a full wall along the border with Mexico. Anyone with any sense knew it was not doable. Now he promises to draw a line in the desert sand between us and Mexico and make Mexico pay for the stick.

Even before he was elected, Trump met with President Pena Nieto of Mexico. They both said they forgot to discuss just who would pay for the wall. But to be fair, who among us has ever gone to Mexico and really wanted to remember everything?

This wall will not affect many Mexicans, since most of them are already living in the U.S. anyway. Most illegal immigrant Mexican men are happy with increased border security, as it keeps their in-laws from visiting over the holidays.

Trump is now balancing his populist rhetoric with what is realistic, doable and helpful to the American economy. He cannot publicly harangue every company like Carrier into staying in the country. He cant run the economy by tweeting 140 characters.

With free trade, companies and currency flee across borders to where they are treated best, more rapidly than ever these days. Jobs and cash have continued to flee our shores under Obama. Communist China recently bought the Miss America Pageant. So Trump suggesting that his portly Miss Universe needed to lose a few pounds might soon seem like the gentle, good old days.

Trump knows the long-term solution is to untangle American corporations from the petty and punitive regulations Obama imposed on them, starting with Obamacare. Then he must lower the corporate tax rates and bring sanity to our Byzantine tax code.

Bowing to the economic populist political cry to raise tariffs on our trading partners will not work. As Americans learned with the Smoot-Hawley Act in the 1930s (the knee-jerk reaction of charging up to 50 percent tariffs on imported products), they actually paid the 50 percent increase in the cost of their goods. Smoot-Hawley, along with big-government program growth under FDR, prolonged the Great Depression.

Trumps instincts are generally very good. I hope he does not disrupt free and fair trade; it has improved the lot of mankind like nothing else in history.

Hopefully, members of the GOP will spend their legislative currency well. They have the coveted presidency and both houses of Congress, where any group of idiots could legislate what they want. But if politicians have shown us anything  over and over again  it is that they are not just your average idiots.

Ron Hart is a libertarian oped humorist and awardwinning author, Ron is a frequent guest on CNN. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
NEWPORT BEACH Opponents of a 25-story Museum House condominium tower have just begun efforts to gather around 8,000 signatures to bring about a referendum on the matter.

At the same time, some suspect that a petitioner seen gathering signatures last weekend is aligned with the developer in trying to hinder their endeavors.

Susan Skinner, of the political action committee Line in the Sand, said she believes proponents of the luxury 100-unit project, approved by the City Council on Nov. 29, are circulating a mystery petition claiming to be against the project.

It didnt look like it was put together real well, Skinner said. Of the people that are involved in this, who has the most to gain by having a confusing petition?

Museum House developer Related California is not behind the mysterious petition drive, said spokesman Ron Demeter. He said the company would be more transparent in its efforts if it were involved.

The company is actively working to educate citizens of Newport Beach as to why they should not sign the petition that is being circulated, he said.

We acknowledge that we are responsible for the materials that carry our name, Demeter said. That way, people know clearly who is funding what they are reading.

Resident Jim Mosher said he got a copy of what voters were signing Dec.2 from a man gathering signatures at a Ralphs supermarket in the Westcliff Plaza shopping center. He said the petition appeared legal but lacked key documents.

Although the petition has what appears to be an accurate copy of the part of the text of the challenged resolution preceding the Mayors signature, Mosher said, it does not include the exhibits that are part of the resolution.

Councilman Keith Curry, who favors the project, said he heard complaints about yard signs and door hangers urging voters not to sign an online petition circulated by Santa Ana-based Citizens Against High Rise Urban Towers and another petition by an unnamed group.

Mark Rosen, attorney for Citizens Against High Rise Urban Towers, denied his client has petitioners on the street.

Were not circulating a petition or circulating an anti-petition, Rosen said. Theyre using our name in vain.

The door hangers had cards attached asking anyone who signed a petition to request their name be taken off.

So what theyre going to do is collect these postcards that say take my name off the petition and it will take them off the real petitions, Curry said.

The door hangers indicate they were paid for by OCMA Urban Housing, a division of Related California.

Skinner said her organization plans to gather signatures once their petition papers are ready, which could be later this week, she said.

Museum House was approved in a 6-1 vote. Leaders with activist group Still Protecting our Newport and Line in the Sand declared at the meeting they would begin petitioning for a public vote on the matter.

The tower is slated to replace the Orange County Museum of Art at 850 San Clemente Drive.

The art museum is planning to move to a new site adjacent Segerstorm Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2478 or lcasiano@ocregister.com
SANTA ANA  Council members today will consider adopting a resolution declaring Santa Ana a sanctuary for all its residents, regardless of their immigration status  a reassurance that President-elect Donald Trumps policies wont change the day-to-day operation of the heavily immigrant city.

City Manager David Cavazos, who prepared the proposed resolution at the request of the majority of council members a week after the Nov. 8 election, said, We believe we are the first in Orange County that has put together this type of resolution.

Santa Anas resolution, while unique for O.C., wouldnt add policies or practices to its laws to further protect residents, including those who are undocumented or of questionable immigration status.

Us doing a resolution to treat people with respect and dignity and not enforce immigration laws that are not a requirement of our agency maintains the status quo in how individuals are treated here, and I think thats something the council wants to reassure to the public, Cavazos said. And then, any policies that come out of it, we will follow up on.

If passed, the resolution would require the city prohibit using city resources for immigration enforcement; reaffirm its commitment to preventing biased-based policing; exercise maximum discretion in policing; protect sensitive information; provide training for affected employees, officials and agents; and explore the feasibility of establishing a task force for oversight.

The resolution would have no bearing on the citys contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Santa Ana Jail that is being used to pay off debt incurred from constructing the facility.

They are mutually exclusive, Cavazos said, because ICE is a contractual obligation and we have direction from the City Council to fade that contract out.

Council members in May unanimously voted to phase out the agreement with ICE, though not immediately. But at the Nov. 15 meeting, they directed Cavazos to terminate the contract as soon as possible.

On Tuesday, separate from the sanctuary resolution, council members will consider a recommendation from Cavazos and the police department to notify ICE that the city will be reducing the number of detainees to a maximum of 128. This would lead to the closure of one module, resulting in a $663,743 annual net revenue loss.

Additional recommendations related to the ICE contract include continuing to hire part-time instead of full-time correctional officers, negotiate officer retirement incentives and release a request for qualifications for a jail re-use study.

Santa Anas sanctuary resolution states that immigration has been the cornerstone of the city, where a high proportion of the more than 340,000 residents are first- or second-generation or undocumented.

While the resolution states it would unequivocally provide sanctuary to all residents, some of the more than 10 major U.S. cities that already have declared themselves as sanctuaries have adopted legislation that may have more teeth.

Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco years ago passed sanctuary city ordinances and policies, rather than resolutions.

An ordinance is local municipal law, whereas a resolution is a statement of policy, explained Jorge Garcia, the senior management assistant for the Santa Ana city managers office.

They asked for a resolution, Cavazos said of council members. If anyone wants to do an ordinance, we are more than happy to put together an ordinance.

Councilwoman Michele Martinez said shes supportive of the symbolic resolution and would support an ordinance if it doesnt jeopardize any federal funds.

This year, Santa Ana has $123 million in federal grants, of which $66.8 million is recurring, according to Garcia.

Trumps 100-day action plan, issued in October, stated that he will cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities.

Cavazos said he hopes a sanctuary resolution does not affect the flow of federal funds coming in.

We are going to do everything possible to continue to seek federal funding. We think Santa Ana is a good partner with the federal government in that context, Cavazos said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7762 or jkwong@ocregister.com Twitter: @JessicaGKwong
Kirra Fulton, 2, of Aliso Viejo is star struck as she gets the chance to meet Santa and sit on his lap during Sunday's holiday celebration in Grand Park. PHOTO BY JEFF ANTENORE, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER 
Retailers love to experiment in Southern California, and the latest new shopping concept is a pint-size Target coming to Orange County.

The retail giant announced plans to open a flexible format store next year in Orange. The new store, its 10th in the greater Los Angeles area, features most of the same assortment of merchandise and groceries as a normal Target but in a much smaller format. The 41,700-square-foot location in Orange, vacant for two years after Ralphs closed, is slated to open in October 2017.

Flexible-format stores, about one-third the size of standard Targets, are being built in densely populated suburban markets or college campuses. The stores offer groceries including produce and grab-and-go foods such as sandwiches, salads and beverages. Some have pharmacies but dont offer lawn and garden supplies.

They also stock clothing, pet supplies, baby care products, toys, home decor, health and personal care products and portable technology accessories. Most have a mix of full service and self-serve checkout lanes, as well.

Though shoppers will find uniquely curated Target merchandise at flexible-format stores, they are not a shrink the floor plan version of a Target, company spokeswoman Kristy Welker said.

The product assortments at these stores are catered to suit the neighborhood and provide a one-stop shop, Welker said.

The Orange location will be Targets second flexible format store in Orange County. Earlier this year, Target said it would open a small-format store at University Center in Irvine. That store is slated to open in July.

As the name suggests, flexible format means the store merchandise in Irvine might be different compared with Orange, Welker said. For example, the Irvine store, which is near UC Irvine, might offer more dormitory and move in supplies, she said.

Target, which has 31 flexible-format stores, said greater Los Angeles is among 10 priority growth areas for the urban format. The stores are an evolution of the TargetExpress and CityTarget banners, which were developed a few years ago to provide quick-trip shopping in urban centers.

In 2015, the retailer rebranded those stores as Targets to avoid confusing shoppers. Big or small, our stores have one thing in common: Theyre all Target, the company said in 2015 when it renamed a few stores in Los Angeles.

As it moved forward with its urban growth strategy, Target began referring to the smaller stores as flexible format locations.

The Orange store, at 2512 East Chapman Ave., is about 4 miles from the traditional Target on Tustin Street across from the Village at Orange.

Welker said Target stores in Orange and Los Angeles counties are high performing stores, which is why the chain is adding more options within close proximity of other Target stores.

We know there is a compelling opportunity to reach additional guests living in dense suburban neighborhoods  ones who may not have easy access to our current locations, she said.

Orange and Irvine are part of 28 flexible-format stores opening in the U.S. over the next three years. The Irvine store, at Bridge Road and Campus Drive, will go into the 20,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by 24 Hour Fitness.
LOS ANGELES  Academic colleagues of Bosco Tjan, a USC professor of psychology stabbed to death last week allegedly by a graduate student, pondered Monday what they can do to identify troubled students and to protect themselves.

Their concerns arose as hundreds of students, faculty and staff gathered on the campus to remember the slain educator.

We are facing uncertainty each and every day, said Ming Huang, 60, a professor of computer science. Students come from all walks of life. And you never know.

Huang recommended engaging students prone to isolating themselves.

I would pay more attention to not only knowing the students, he said, but making sure that the student is in good connection with his peers.

PHOTOS: USC mourns the loss of Professor Bosco Tjan

On Monday, many spoke of the jolt delivered by the professors slaying.

The passing of professor Bosco Tjan represents a shocking and a sudden loss, USC President C.L. Max Nikias said during the 40-minute vigil in the symbolic heart of the campus, near the Tommy Trojan statue. He has been a beloved mentor, a talented colleague, a dear friend, a man who made so many lives better. He was also a giant within the academy.

Hilary Dorton, 27, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience originally from South Carolina, cried during the ceremony for a man she called her mentor.

Hes just one of the brightest lights and the most witty, brilliant people Ive met in academia and in my life and just a really special person, she said. Just a really good man.

Tjan, 50, a native of Beijing, was remembered as supportive of students. But it was one of those students, 28-year-old David Jonathan Brown of Los Angeles, who is accused of stabbing him in the chest on Friday afternoon in the universitys Seeley G. Mudd building. Brown is being held on suspicion of murder and on $2 million bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department inmate locator website.

RELATED: Student who allegedly killed USC professor identified by police

Mike Jakowec, 56, a professor of neuroscience, said Brown once took a class from him.

I didnt get to know him. Theres always these students that are quiet, that sit in the back, he said. Even fellow students didnt really know him. He was kind of on his own.

Jakowec said this is not the first time he has been on a college campus when a fatal incident took place between a student and a faculty member.

I was at Stanford when a professor was killed by a student. I was at Berkeley when a student killed their professor, he said. Ive had students that were difficult, students that were broken. Luckily they didnt break in the same direction.

Responding appropriately to a potential threat remains a quandary, Jakowec stated.

I dont think we should have professors now wear body vests, he said. I mean thats not a (proper) reaction to this. We have to start thinking about how we deal with mental illness. Its not just in the lab, its in society.

RELATED: UCLA murder-suicide raises questions about campus security

Joe Thackwell, director of Christian life at USC, offered grief counseling to anyone who needed it. He said he had spoken with some professors over the weekend about Tjans death.

I dont think many faculty are afraid for their lives when they stop and reflect and get perspective, but I think there are faculty concerned about what they might not know about a student, Thackwell said. I think theres a little bit of fear about this happening again, but I dont think thats a huge concern.

Many at the vigil spoke of wanting to carry on Tjans example both of scholarship and concern for others.

We have lots of good scientists, Jakowec noted. I think we have fewer good scientists that are actually good people. Thats what he transcended. I think thats important.

Huang said the tributes paid to Tjan left him moved.

I was deeply touched and inspired at the same time, he said. Im inspired to do better work, not only as research but as a human being.

Dorton said she too drew inspiration from Tjans life.

Its had me think a lot about how I treat others and the way that I want to impact other people, she said. He was a wonderful and kind person. That will be his legacy.

City News Service contributed to this report.
SANTA ANA  The son of a former Real Housewives of Orange County cast member was ordered Monday to stand trial on three charges of attempted murder in Costa Mesa.

Orange County Superior Court Judge W. Michael Hayes found prosecutors presented enough evidence at a preliminary hearing to hold over Joshua Michael Waring, 27, for trial.

Hayes admonished Waring to reconsider representing himself as attorney in the case as he did during the preliminary hearing.

Last week, two of the victims who accused the defendant of shooting at them testified about the chaos at the crime scene.

When gunfire erupted outside of a home at 2959 Babb St., victim Danny Lopez, who lived in a garage there, said, I turned and ran in the other direction toward the main house  That walkway was like a shooting gallery. It was horrible.

Lopez was shot, but he wasnt sure he was shot or not. It was chaos, testified Jennifer M, whose last name was withheld in court.

When asked how many times Waring opened fire from a white 2011 BMW X3, Jennifer said, I just knew it was a lot. At least eight. I saw every one of them  the flashing.

Another victim  known in court as Ronald D  said he heard multiple gunshots ring out on the night of the June 20 shooting.

Nine to 10 shots, Ronald testified.

When Senior Deputy District Attorney Aleta Bryant asked him how he felt in the moment, Ronald testified, disbelief, scared  It was all a blur.

The victims heard honking and a revving engine outside the home moments before the 2:20 a.m. shooting, prompting Ronald to investigate the source.

Waring was not welcome at the Babb Street home because he had waved a gun in front of a girlfriend a few days before, Ronald testified.

Ronald had pulled open a gate in front of the house to confront Waring when Jennifer grabbed his shirt, saying, Wait, what if he has a gun, Jennifer testified. Then I saw the flash of the gun, the bullets.

About an hour before the shooting, Waring and another woman who lived at the Babb Street house went there to retrieve a phone she left behind, Jennifer testified. Waring was driving the same BMW, she testified.

After Warings arrest, police said the BMW had been reported stolen.

Waring, his companion and Ronald were arguing, Jennifer said. Ronald had thrown the personal effects of Warings companion out on the street, saying, Get your (stuff) and go, Jennifer testified.

After the shooting, police found the BMW in question about 10:30 a.m. in Santa Ana and attempted to get the driver to pull over, police said.

Waring allegedly led police on a chase, crashed the car and then tried to run away, but was finally taken into custody following a brief standoff, police alleged.

Warings mother, Lauri Peterson, was a cast member of the Bravo documentary series The Real Housewives of Orange County from its debut in 2006 until 2008, when she left to deal with her sons issues.
OAKLAND  Brandon Chase Wittenauer wasnt supposed to be at the dance party in East Oakland Friday night.

The 32-year-old musician from Hayward, who went by Chase, got a last-minute call asking him to come to the warehouse known as the Ghost Ship and headed there around 10:30 p.m. He went there to work, his aunt, Enid Dias, said Monday, possibly to tend the bar, as he did from time to time to help pay the bills.

An hour later, the space turned into an inferno, and Wittenauer was one of at least 36 people killed in the blaze. Authorities have released the names of seven of those victims, including Wittenauer, and have said a 17-year-old also died in the blaze.

Now his family is left to grieve, thinking of all the ways the night could have gone differently.

If he would have not received that phone call, he would not have gone, Dias said, speaking from her home in Florida.

As investigators resumed their search of the burned-out warehouse Monday morning, after briefly halting work because the building had become unstable, families of the victims went through the heart-breaking task of turning over samples of their loved ones DNA to help officials identify the bodies.

About nine people passed through the Alameda County Sheriffs Office substation on East 12th Street in an hours span Monday morning, some carrying paper bags  presumably containing their loved ones personal items  and nearly all of them grim-faced.

Juan Pablo Robles came out teary-eyed and spoke in Spanish about two friends and a cousin who he believes were inside the warehouse.

He hasnt heard from them since.

It was horrific, Dias said, of waiting to hear what had become of her nephew who lived and breathed music.

His parents spent all day Saturday searching for him, she said, checking area hospitals and anywhere else they could think of. Meanwhile, the rest of the family prayed that he would be found unconscious somewhere  but alive.

Their hopes sank when they found Wittenauers car parked outside the warehouse. His father, Randy Wittenauer, posted a prayer on Facebook: Please dont let it be true, he wrote Saturday.

The family received word that evening that he was dead.

He was a very loving person, Dias said. He loved his music; he was passionate about it. He was a kind soul.

The Bay Area community continued to mourn other victims Monday as investigators scoured the scene of the fire.

Donna Kellogg, who was among the victims confirmed dead by the sheriffs office over the weekend, worked at Highwire Coffee Roasters in Berkeley and at Flowerland in Albany. Robert Myers, founder of Highwire, said that she had worked there since spring.

She was an energetic, very candid, positive person, he said.

She was on the brink of big changes. She recently cut her hair. Everyone enjoyed contact with her, he said.

Cash Askew, another victim of the blaze, was an absolutely loved and treasured member of the local music scene, a young transgender woman known for her talent, gentle kindness and her creative momentum, according to a statement released by Dais Records, the label that carried Askews band, Them Are Us Too.

According to the statement, Askew also had solo musical projects and was an active artist and DJ in the Bay Area. She was loved and admired by everyone she met, and her passing is an excruciating loss that we may never fully process or recover from.

Her mother, Leisa Baird Askew, told the Washington Post that Cash was raised in Oakland by a very musical family, very artistic family, very queer family.

Friends told the Post that the underground and queer music and art community eschewed bars or clubs in favor of places such as the Oakland warehouse because mainstream venues can lead to them being oppressed or looked down upon.

We need to be celebrated with other people like us, said Askews girlfriend Anya Taylor. That was our community. That was Cash.
Ukrainian scientist Vladislav Kiselev claims that he has developed a type of battery that can power gadgets like smartphones and even cars for up to 12 years, without having to be recharged.

Kiselev, a senior researcher at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry and Petrochemistry in Kiev, and professor at Ukraines National Academy of Sciences, unveiled his intriguing battery prototype during the 2016 edition of Sikorsky Challenge, a prestigious international competition for research projects. The matchbox-like device looks fairly unimpressive, but the Ukrainian scientist claims that it has been continuously powering electrical devices for a year and four months without a single recharge, and will continue to do so for the next 11 years. Thats because his battery produces energy instead of simply storing it.

Photo: Fakty

But with virtually all the worlds battery manufacturers and researchers struggling to come up with a real breakthrough in battery technology, how did Kiselev create one that he claims lasts for 12 years? The senior researcher says he was able to do it by taking advantage of a key property of tritium  the ability to emit electrons. He adds that American company City Labs also makes use of the radioactive isotope of hydrogen, but whereas they use tritium-covered solar cells, he opted for an enhanced electrochemical cells, which makes the battery 1,000 times more powerful. So whereas City Labs NanoTritium batteries provide low power to devices like medical implants and various sensors, Kiselevs version can be used to power large electronic devices and even cars.

The scientist adds that electrochemical cells similar to the one he uses in his battery have been used in Ukraine since the 1930s, but no one has ever been able to use them for energy generation. He and his team were able to improve the design in order to achieve this.

Interestingly enough, Kiselev says that after failing to secure research grants for the project, he and his colleagues funded themselves. Now, after presenting the results of their labor at Sikorsky Challenge, Kiselev says that he is in talks with both Turkish and Chinese businessmen to produce a version of his tritium battery that can be used in mobile phones.

Regarding the radioactive properties of tritium, Vladislav Kiselev emphasized the fact that some radioactive substances are not hazardous to humans, and tritium is one of them. It is actually used as a radioluminescent light source in wristwatches.

Kiselev believes that tritium is the future of energy, and claims that the fact that 11 of the worlds most advanced countries are planning to build an international fusion reactor  also based on tritium  to produce energy is proof of that. However, he adds that while such reactors cost tens of billions of dollars to build, his tritium batteries are an affordable way to produce energy for up to 12 years.

Source: Fakty
Fraser Seitel

In a mea culpa unprecedented in American journalism, the exalted New York Times immediately followed the upset election of Donald Trump with a public apology, questioning its reporting of the candidate and promising readers to rededicate ourselves to fairness and honesty in its coverage.

That letter, written by publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and executive editor Dean Bacquet, was a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of what anyone who regularly reads the Times knew all along: that the paper has been virulently anti-Trump from the moment the megalomaniacal real estate developer entered the race.

Most prominent in the Times antipathy to Trump is its op-ed page, where every single regular contributor without exception despises the Donald and everything he stands for.

From left wingers Charles Blow and Gail Collins to right wingers Ross Douthat and David Brooks, the Times columnists consider Trump little more than an egotistical, fabricating blowhard, whose knowledge of policy extends no further than cable TV, and whod rather tweet and condemn than listen and learn.

And, of course, they are right, but 

Donald Trump, warts and all, still won more than 62 million American votes. And while that might have been two million less votes than Hillary received, Trump still won, so the Times needs to get over it. So far, it hasnt.

Despite its publishers promising words, the Times since the election has doubled down on its daily damning of the incoming President. Indeed, if Arthur, Jr. is really serious about the paper of record regaining its credibility after its Trump trashing of the last several months, he will make a concerted effort to add one, lone pro-Trump advocate as a New York Times op-ed columnist.

Such a credibility-saving move is necessary when one considers the current Times op-ed cadre of critics.

Charles Blow

The resident commentator of all things racial has staked out territory as the Times most hysterical anti-Trumper, relishing to readers how he refused to attend the President-elects sit down with Times editors last month.

The very idea of sitting across the table from a demagogue who preyed on racial, ethnic and religious hostilities and treating him with decorum and social grace fills me with disgust, to the point of overflowing.

Since then, Blow has continued to overflow, calling for open resistance against the next President as an act of revolutionary patriotism. Whew. Take a blow, Charles.

Paul Krugman

The Nobel Prize-winning economist is another never-Trumper. So much so, that if the new President actually does follow through on his promise to invest federal funds in infrastructure improvement  as Krugman has been calling for years  the lugubrious columnist will likely blame Trump for not picking the right projects. Hopeless.

Gail Collins

The Times resident humorist progressively stopped being funny as Trump got closer to beating her beloved Hillary. And when the dastardly deed did occur, Ms. Collins glee turned to a gloom that she is just now attempting to shake off.

While there will be myriad possibilities for amusement in an Administration run by a cuckoo clock, it will be difficult for Ms. Collins to recover her comedic mojo in the face of such a scary clown.

David Brooks

The Times resident moralist warned fellow-Republicans during the campaign that backing Trump was like supporting evil-eyed communist hunter Joe McCarthy.

Trump, wrote Brooks, lives in an alternative, amoral Howard Stern universe where he cannot enjoy the sweetness that altruism and community service can occasionally bring.

The columnists conclusion about our next President: Pathetic.

Ross Douthat

During the campaign, Douthat, the Times token Republican spiritual columnist, cast his lot with the never-Trumpers, pointing out that the candidates views were neither conservative nor libertarian.

Now that Trump will be President, Douthat has softened a bit; still no fan but willing to see if Trumps unorthodox approach might somehow result in progress.

Frank Bruni

The columnist on all things gender-related, Bruni is yet another who desperately pleaded for Clintons election right up until the bitter judgment day.

But like Douthat, Bruni has seemed to mellow a bit since the worst happened; at least, he was willing to attend Trumps meeting at the Times!

The rest of the Times op-ed brigade is equally resentful, disdainful or even downright hateful of what Donald Trump hath wrought.

Thats why the best move Arthur, Jr. can make is to follow what his father did 50 years ago when he recruited former Nixon public relations man William Safire for the op-ed page, and bring in a pro-Trump columnist.



***



Fraser P. Seitel has been a communications consultant, author and teacher for 40 years. He may be reached directly at [email protected].
The 8-year-old girl sat and watched the old woman dying.

She watched as the sun went down and the old woman grew weaker and the doctor did not come. She watched in the darkness as the old Omaha Indian woman struggled and the white doctor was summoned a second time, a third time, a fourth, and still he did not come.

Eight-year-old Susan La Flesche sat there into the early morning in the year 1873. She watched the old woman take her final breath. And she made a decision, a vow that changed the course of her own life and the course of countless other lives, too.

Her conclusion was that the (old woman) died because she was just an Indian, says University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Joe Starita, author of the new and stunning biography of this little-known American hero, Susan La Flesche. Those were her own words: It was only an Indian and it (did) not matter.

That incident stayed with Susan, to the point that she decided to spend the rest of her life doing whatever she could so that no Omaha Indian would die an agonizing death without somebody there to tend to her.

So here is what Susan La Flesche did. Born in a buffalo-hide tepee and raised in a remote village 70 miles north of Omaha, she left her family and her tribe, traveled to faraway New Jersey, then Virginia and then the dizzying metropolis of Philadelphia. She finished second in her class at whats now Hampton University. She fought her way into one of the few medical schools in the world that would take women. She finished first in her medical school class.

She became the first Native American to graduate from medical school. She did this in 1889, 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before Indians were recognized as American citizens.

Then she turned down prestigious job offers, a potential life of fame in New York or maybe Paris. She took a train back to Nebraska, and she took a job as the only doctor tending to Omaha Indian patients spread across 1,350 square miles.

And that, believe it or not, is just the beginning of a remarkable story that most of us have never heard. Its a heros journey, an American odyssey, largely hidden in plain sight for a century. And it happened right here in Nebraska.

If she would have done this anywhere between Chicago and New York, she would be on the $20 bill! Starita says. Thats not even really hyperbole. That is probably true!

Starita, a UNL journalism professor and one of Nebraskas most popular nonfiction authors, has set about making Susan La Flesche into a household name with his new book, A Warrior of the People.

A former Miami Herald investigative reporter, Starita weaves skillfully through the singular life of Susan La Flesche Picotte. He takes us along as Dr. Sue rides a buggy over the frozen Great Plains, fighting through subzero temperatures and white-out blizzards to care for desperately ill elders and sick kids. She mounts public health campaigns to eliminate communal drinking cups, promote screen doors that keep out disease-ridden flies and warn against the evils of alcohol abuse. As years become decades  as the doctor has her own children, her own health problems and suffers the untimely death of her husband  she succeeds in making the Omaha Indians healthier and extending their lives.

That isnt all. She also creates a library and promotes education, and organizes quilting circles while urging the preservation of the Omaha culture, and teaches Sunday school and presides over church services while extolling the virtues of faith. She advocates for her people, fights for them in countless letters and meetings with politicians in Lincoln and Washington, D.C.

That isnt all. In 1913, La Flesche realized a lifelong dream. She raised money and opened a modern hospital on a hill overlooking her hometown of Walthill. There, she tended to pregnant women and sick patients of every race and creed until her own death two years later.

A single widowed woman built a modern hospital without a single tax dollar on an Indian reservation in 1913, Starita says. That was unheard of then. Thats unheard of now. Thats insane.

And that still isnt all, argues Starita, who believes that Susan La Flesches importance to the Omaha Tribe went far beyond checkups or hospitals.

If you pull back, and look at the helicopter view of her life, what you see in its totality, on the medical front, the political front, the social front, the spiritual front, you see a woman whose foremost contribution to her people was giving them hope, in places where hope was often so hard to find, Starita says. Thats the helicopter view. She gave them hope.

Even as she did all this, La Flesche struggled with things that seem oh-so-familiar in 2016.

She was paid far less than her male counterparts. She struggled to balance career and family, working punishing hours while also tending to her elderly mother and caring for her young children.

She was flying solo in a world where she had a lot of anxieties, a lot of fears, while trying to achieve this very delicate balance between caregiver and caretaker, Starita says. And I think there are a whole lot of women, in the opening years of this century, who have found themselves in exactly that spot.

And La Flesches letters and her pleas to politicians are infused with the belief she began to form at age 8, as she witnessed the death of an elderly member of her tribe. A belief that her people would be forever treated worse than other people unless she did something to change it.

In 1873 Susan saw firsthand evidence that from a certain vantage point, her vantage point, it appeared that Indian lives didnt matter, Starita says. If you look through the lens of Standing Rock, through the lens of Whiteclay right now, you can still say that the question is very much up for grabs.

Staritas last book, I Am a Man, told the story of Standing Bear, the Ponca chief who fought for equality inside an Omaha courthouse and eventually won the right to be considered a man in the eyes of the law. That book prominently featured Susans older and arguably better-known sister Susette La Flesche, more commonly known at Bright Eyes, who served as Standing Bears interpreter and confidante during and after the trial.

I Am a Man has sold 20,000 copies to date and was named the states One Book One Nebraska selection in 2012. But A Warrior of the People may be more important, because it tells us a story hardly anyone knows. Yes, Susan La Flesche Picotte is in the Nebraska Hall of Fame, and, yes, Omahas Picotte Elementary is named after her. But Starita makes a compelling case that Susan La Flesche deserves far more than that. That she deserves a place alongside this countrys Native American heroes, and its womens rights activists, too, after living a life every bit as earth-shattering as Standing Bear or Rosa Parks.

Susan La Flesche understood that the purpose of life was not to try and avoid pain and suffering. That was hopeless, Starita says. Susan believed that the purpose of life was to find a purpose, and then to find the courage to live out that purpose. That is what she did every day of her adult life. Thats her truth.

* * * * *

Correction: Susan La Flesche's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this column.
Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes arent normally the kinds of brands to get caught in the political cross hairs. But in the aftermath of a combustible election, Kellogg cereals and a growing number of consumer brands have found themselves the unexpected targets of boycotts and hot-tempered rhetoric.

Kellogg said last week it would pull advertising from Breitbart News, a website that its critics say trades in racist and sexist content. In response, Breitbart called on readers to boycott the company, devoted a chunk of its front page to stories about Kellogg or the boycott, and sparked a social media outcry. Consumers on both the right and the left weighed in, saying they would either stop buying the companys products or stock up on them.

The maker of Eggo waffles and Pop-Tarts is only the latest American corporation caught in the crossfire. In the weeks since the election, companies have navigated a sharply politicized environment that has entailed calls for boycotts, explosive social media responses to executive comments and thorny interactions between front-line workers and their customers.

Ive never seen anything like this before, where companies find themselves so open to attack for their points of view or their speech, said Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist for the public relations firm Weber Shandwick. Companies are now much more in the fray and seen as political targets.

Protests have targeted companies after specific comments or incidents. After a New Balance executive made a supportive comment about Donald Trump in response to a journalists question about a trade deal  New Balance manufacturers its shoes in the United States  people shared images of themselves tossing or even burning its sneakers, and a neo-Nazi blogger hailed them as the official shoes of white people.

At a conference, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said some of her employees were crying about the election outcome. But she also congratulated Trump and called for unity. The comments triggered another call for a boycott by supporters of the president-elect.

Delta Air Lines was called out on social media for not immediately removing a passenger from a plane after his expletive-laden pro-Trump rant. The airlines CEO, Ed Bastian, later said in a memo to employees that it would ban the customer for life and refund other passengers tickets.

I also want to make sure all of you know we have your backs, he wrote. The heightened tension in our society means that now more than ever we must require civility on our planes and in our facilities.

Others have organized broader efforts. An app called Boycott Trump, created by a grass-roots anti-Trump organization, tells users whether companies are connected to the president-elect. Before the election, a marketing strategist started the grabyourwallet hashtag to encourage consumers to avoid companies that do business with the Trump family.

In Kelloggs case, the breakfast giant said its decision to pull ads from Breitbart had nothing to do with politics. In an emailed statement, spokeswoman Kris Charles said: We regularly work with our media buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that arent aligned with our values, and that after learning from consumers about the ads on Breitbart, the company decided to stop advertising there.

According to Digiday, other companies, including Allstate and Warby Parker, have also withdrawn ads, and may not have been aware of the ads, which are not bought directly from Breitbart but are referred to as retargeted advertising that follow users from site to site on the Internet.

Breitbart, which was formerly run by Stephen Bannon, who has been named Trumps chief strategist, declared war on the cereal giant.

Kelloggs decision to blacklist one of the largest conservative media outlets in America is economic censorship of mainstream conservative political discourse, it said in a statement. That is as un-American as it gets.

In an article on its website, Breitbart President and CEO Larry Solov said: The only sensible response is to join together and boycott Kelloggs products in protest. The Twitter hashtag DumpKelloggs was used more than 111,000 times in a week, according to the analytics firm Brandwatch.

The explosive response, advisers say, is leaving many companies paralyzed by the potential ramifications of their words or actions, particularly in an environment where traditionally routine topics or actions have become politicized.

Its definitely having a slowing and chilling effect on the willingness of some companies to step out and be as engaged in the public sphere, said Bruce Haynes, president of Purple Strategies, a bipartisan consultancy focused on corporate reputation and politics.

Thats even more amplified by the fact that theres this unknown quantity about Donald Trump and his administration and how he will govern.

This also comes at a time when many companies have been more willing to speak out on political and social issues that they had once avoided. More than 200 corporations, for instance, signed a letter by the Human Rights Campaign earlier this year demanding that North Carolina repeal a law that limits restroom options for transgender people, with some, including PayPal and Deutsche Bank, even pulling expansion plans from the state. More companies tout their commitments to diversity, the environment and gender equality, often promoting these to help connect with customers who increasingly make purchases based on their values.

Anthony Johndrow, CEO of a reputation advisory firm in New York, said hes spent recent years telling companies that to connect with a new generation of consumers, you have to stand for something.

But in the weeks since the election, Theyre turning back to me and saying Now what? It feels like if we talk about anything thats been part of the political discourse, its polarized. Youre with us or against us. 

Reputation experts say corporations appear to be preparing for how theyll respond if they become the next political target, or trying to assess how well theyre really in touch with the views of their customers following an election outcome that stunned many.

Where companies could find themselves more at risk is when they become part of actual policy discussions, Haynes said. He points to Carrier, the air conditioner unit owned by United Technologies, which just agreed to keep 1,100 jobs in Indianapolis after negotiations that involved a $7 million tax-incentive package from the State of Indiana. Had Carrier not pulled back, it was likely that Trump voters were going to boycott, he said.

Trump, for his part, suggested the reverse would happen during a stop on his thank you tour Thursday. Standing in front of a wall covered in Carriers logo, Trump said sales of its air-conditioning units would soar because of the goodwill you have engendered.
NEW YORK (AP)  Artisan burger buns, cage-free eggs and table service are some of the changes McDonalds is promising in the United States as it scrambles to update its image and win back customers.

The chain, based in a Chicago suburb, has seen customer visits slip, with its flagship U.S. market of particular concern as tastes change and competition intensifies. The rollout of an all-day breakfast menu last fall hasnt yet translated to a bump in customer visits.

McDonalds Corp. CEO Steve Easterbrook, who took over last year, and Chris Kempczinski, who takes over as president of McDonalds USA on Jan. 1, talked about the recent changes.

Q. Customer traffic in the United States has been down for the past couple of years, and hasnt gone up despite the turnaround efforts. When do you expect the figure to turn positive?

A. Kempczinski: The trends were seeing over time have been in the right direction. When exactly that tips over to positive, to me the key is not just once, but can it consistently be positive? Thats what were working toward.

Easterbrook: For large periods of this year weve been taking market share out of our near competition, which is a very important measure for us.

Q. You said you took market share, but traffic isnt up. Is there a broader change happening where people are just going to supermarkets or other places?

A. Kempczinski: I dont think so. Im very optimistic about the opportunities. A number of retailers earlier in the year talked about a slowing of traffic. And now obviously there are lots of questions about what happens post-election. So well have to see the trends. But everything were hearing from customers is that they still love going out, particularly millennials. They eat out more than any other consumer group we target.

Q. You have more than 14,100 restaurants in the United States, but the store count is on track to shrink for the second straight year after decades of expansion. Do you think McDonalds will eventually start expanding again domestically?

A. Easterbrook: Weve taken time to right-size the estate. As part of the turnaround plan weve made some of those tougher decisions (to close restaurants) to get our foundation strong. I think if we look into the out years, we will be net adding restaurants. Certainly globally, but in the U.S. as well.

Q. How much room do you see for expansion in the U.S.? It seems like the industry is becoming more fragmented. Is there a place for a McDonalds with 14,000, 15,000 or 16,000 restaurants?

A. Kempczinski: We only have about a 10 percent share of the total market in terms of eating out. So if you look at me, theres that 90 percent of the market that we still have an opportunity to go after. So I think theres plenty of growth, no doubt.

Q. Another issue is the image of McDonalds food and its association with junk food. How much of an issue is that?

A. Easterbrook: Theres no doubt consumers are increasingly interested in and knowledgeable about their food  whats in it, wheres it come from, hows it prepared. Thats not unique to the U.S. Thats a global movement, and one that we support. The more informed people are, then the better choices theyre making.

Q. Youve introduced more premium burgers with the growth of all the better burgers out there now. Five years down the road, will people still be ordering Big Macs?

A. Kempczinski: I would predict in 10 years we would be selling many, many times more Big Macs than any other type of burger on the premium end of the menu. This is an opportunity for us to continue to offer options. The Big Mac is here to stay.

Easterbrook: Theres clearly a market for a more premium-priced burger with more premium ingredients. If we can bring to our menu the quality ingredients but maintain the value of McDonalds, then I think that gives us a competitive edge.

Q. Steve, youre British, and the executive many believe will be the next CEO of Coke is British. The CEO of Dunkin Donuts is British. Is there something culturally about a British management style that is good for turnarounds?

A. Kempczinski: Its a British invasion!

Easterbrook: I would put it down more to coincidence than reading too much into it. We are a significant international business, and I would imagine an increasing proportion of our senior leadership will come from all around the world. I happen to be British. Our next leader could be one of a number of nationalities.

Kempczinski: Although, now he is a Cubs fan.
LINCOLN  Former Omaha television journalist Mark Pettit has updated his book about John Joubert, adding sadistic drawings the convicted child killer made prior to his execution in 1996.

Pettit, who now operates a marketing firm in Atlanta, lost a case 16 months ago before the Nebraska Supreme Court to compel the release of the two drawings.

But in an interview last week the author said a source had provided copies of the drawings to him just before the ruling by the states high court.

This person who came forward was courageous, Pettit said. He described his source only as someone who had ties to the correction system and someone who was upset that the drawings werent being released.

The drawings, according to Pettit, are literally the stone that was unturned in this story and demonstrate that Joubert would have killed again if he had been released from prison.

They depict young boys, bound and gagged. In one, a boy is being stabbed by a person who Pettit said represents Joubert.

There is evil out there, and this is proof of it, Pettit said.

Joubert, an airman at Offutt Air Force Base, was sentenced to die for the abduction, torture and murders of two Sarpy County boys, Danny Joe Eberle, 13, in September 1983 and Christopher Walden, 12, in December of that year.

Panic grew in the community as the two murders went unsolved. Joubert was eventually arrested, in January 1984, about a month after Waldens slaying. It was later learned that Joubert, an Eagle Scout, had killed a boy in Maine years earlier.

A new version of Pettits 1990 book, A Need to Kill, was scheduled to be released this week. It includes two new chapters about the pursuit of the drawings, as well as an analysis of them by a criminal profiler, Keith E. Howard, formerly of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Howard called Joubert a sexual sadist, an organized offender and a pedophile.

Pettit said he learned of the drawings during death row interviews with Joubert before his execution. Joubert told him he still fantasized about killing boys.

John, something is really wrong with you, Pettit said he told the inmate.

Joubert wrote to prison officials, asking that the drawings be released to Pettit so they could be analyzed. But prison officials refused, and later rejected an attempt by Pettit, through the courts, to win their release.

Lawyers for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services argued that Jouberts twisted, sadistic mind was already well-known, and that there was no good cause to release the drawings, other than to increase book sales.

Pettit disagreed, saying that law enforcement officials might learn more about serial killers through the drawings.

The copies of the drawings, he said, have been turned over to the Omaha office of the FBI.
HASTINGS, Neb.  Jeff ODonnells father, Edward, used to tell a story about the days when Charles Starkweathers murderous rampage had people across Nebraska alarmed.

At the time of the killings, in December 1957 and January 1958, Edward ODonnell was the principal of Lincoln Elementary School in Beatrice. During the height of the terror, armed parents showed up at the school to pick up their kids.

Those actions were understandable; communication wasnt as immediate and widespread as it is today. People didnt know if Starkweather would strike again and, if so, where or when he would claim his next victims.

In all, 11 people in Nebraska and Wyoming died during the killing spree. But ODonnell, 63, doesnt remember the Starkweather killings; he was only 5 years old at the time.

He also didnt have any particular interest in the case until the early 1990s, when he was writing books and magazine articles. The Hastings man decided to write a book about the Starkweather slayings.

The book, Starkweather: A Story of Mass Murder on the Great Plains, came out in 1993, published by J&L Lee of Lincoln.

Since then, ODonnell hadnt given much thought to Starkweather  until March of this year, when a TV producer who works on A Crime to Remember, a show on the Investigation Discovery Channel, called him. She invited him to fly to New York City to serve as the crime author expert on a show about Starkweather.

The episode kicked off the shows new season last week and will replay today [Sunday] at 3 p.m. CST.

The program paid for ODonnells travel and a nights lodging in a Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan.

Before he made the New York trip to appear on the show, the program's staff sent him a list of 100 possible questions he might be asked.

He had two weeks to refresh his memory about Starkweather and Fugate.

He didnt even have a copy of the book hed written. Id given them all away, he said. But he became an expert again in time for the interview.

In writing his book in the early '90s, ODonnell had one main motivation: He was curious about Caril Ann Fugate, the 14-year-girl who accompanied Starkweather, five years her elder, on most of the murder spree. Was she a hostage or an accomplice?

ODonnell wrote the book to answer that question. He bought microfilmed copies of testimony from the Starkweather and Fugate trials from the Nebraska State Historical Society.

While writing the book, ODonnell concluded that Fugate was an active participant.

ODonnell, an insurance agent, has worked in the same Hastings office for 34 years. The books lining the back wall of his office reflect his interest in the Old West, the outdoors, Nebraska and history. Mounted souvenirs of his hunting exploits decorate the walls. The bearded insurance man is also a historical re-enactor. He portrays a mountain man from the 1830s and 1840s.

ODonnell hasnt done any writing for 10 years. But before he stopped, he produced nine books.

When I had a lot of energy, I wrote a lot of books and magazine articles, he said.

ODonnell said he knows of two other people who will be on the Investigation Discovery show. One is the son of Merle Karnopp, the Lancaster County sheriff who brought Starkweather back to Lincoln. The other is a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor.

ODonnell is curious which position the show will take on Fugate.

And what kind of person was Starkweather?

He was pretty illiterate, ODonnell said. Starkweather had been bullied his whole life. From the wrong side of the tracks, he was a short, bow-legged young man who was very nearsighted, ODonnell said. Starkweather also had developed an obsession with film star James Dean.

Starkweather was executed in 1959 at age 20.

Convicted of first-degree murder, Fugate was paroled in 1976 after 17 years at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York.

Fugate is still alive. Shes always maintained her innocence, ODonnell said.

ODonnell said he hopes his television appearance will help him sell a few copies of Starkweather: A Story of Mass Murder on the Great Plains.

ODonnell also has written four Western novels. Three of them were published in hardcover by a British company called Robert Hale and Co.

In addition to an insurance book, he also wrote an historical novel set in the area of the Republican River, a pictorial history of Adams County and a biography of Nebraska frontier scout Luther North.

Like the biography, all of ODonnells novels are set in Nebraska.
A federal appeals court issued a rare rebuke to one of serial killer Anthony Garcias attorneys for skipping oral arguments that were scheduled in a federal case while the attorney was in Garcias quadruple-murder trial.

Omaha attorney Jeremy Jorgenson  who assisted the Chicago-based Motta law firm in defending Garcia and now has plans to join the firm  missed oral arguments on behalf of Liban Hassan, a man convicted of robbery.

Jorgenson was supposed to appear Oct. 25 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law, where the three-judge panel was convening.

Instead, he was in a Douglas County District Courtroom  listening as prosecutors and defense attorney Robert Motta Jr. delivered closing arguments in Garcias case. Jorgenson did not have a speaking role in those closing arguments, though he consulted with Robert Motta Jr. during them.

A day later, jurors convicted Garcia of the murders of Thomas Hunter, 11, and Shirlee Sherman, 57, in March 2008; and Dr. Roger Brumback and Mary Brumback, both 65, in May 2013.

The appeals court  which includes Chief Judge William Jay Riley of Omaha  said Jorgenson gave no indication he would not be present. The court ordered Tuesday that a clerk not appoint Jorgenson to any future (federal) appeals.

If he were a member of the Eighth Circuits bar, which he is not, his actions would be grounds for suspension of his ability to practice before this court or for disbarment, the Eighth Circuit court wrote Tuesday. Should Mr. Jorgenson ever apply for admission to this courts bar, he shall not be permitted to become a member of the bar without the prior review and approval of the Chief Judge of the Eighth Circuit.

Jorgenson said Tuesday he regretted missing the arguments  and that the oversight was the product of being swamped with Garcias case.

I regret it on behalf of my client, Jorgenson said. Hes the collateral damage here.

It wasnt the product of me being sloppy.

The appellate court noted that Jorgenson, who was appointed to represent Hassan, had ample notice of the oral arguments.

A federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Lehr, had emailed Jorgenson a week before.

I know youre swamped with the Garcia trial, Lehr wrote Oct. 17 in an email marked high alert. Im just checking with you if you think it will be done by our oral argument on Oct. 25?

Lehr said she received no response. On Oct. 25, 2016, three federal judges convened in Lincoln. They called out Jorgensons name, then moved his case to later that day, to no avail.

Two days later, Jorgenson called Lehr.

She recounted their conversation in a court document.

Did I miss oral argument? he asked.

Yes, she said.

What happened? Jorgenson asked. Did the court continue it?

The appellate court did not. Instead, the court asked Lehr a few questions, then considered the written briefs that both Jorgenson and prosecutors had submitted.

The court then issued an order demanding that Jorgenson explain his absence within 14 days. He missed that deadline  filing a late response that he called regrettably untimely.

Jorgenson had been put on a year of probation and assigned a mentor by the Nebraska Supreme Court after ethical violations for mishandling personal injury cases in 2009 and 2010. In the worst of the violations, Jorgenson accepted a $1,500 retainer on a case in which the statute of limitations had expired.

Jorgenson has emphasized that those mistakes occurred early in his career.

He wrote that Garcias trial was intensely challenging physically, mentally and professionally.

The trial was all-consuming and presented uncertainty both in overall length and daily preparation time commitments.

Undersigned cannot adequately express the magnitude of his disappointment that this mistake occurred, Jorgenson wrote. Undersigned counsel accepts responsibility for failing to make the appropriate arrangements so that his client would not have to suffer the absence of his attorney from a critical phase of the appeal.

The appellate court has not ruled on Hassans appeal, which was over an evidentiary issue.

Jorgenson said Tuesday he is in the process of transitioning his legal practice to Chicago. He said he plans to join the law firm of Robert Motta Jr. and his wife, Alison. He said he is working with them on a case and is continuing work on his Omaha cases.
IOWA CITY (AP)  A white police officer will not be charged in a shooting that left an unarmed black motorist paralyzed and sparked protests in Iowa's second largest city, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden announced at a news conference that a grand jury declined to return an indictment against Cedar Rapids police officer Lucas Jones in the Nov. 1 shooting of Jerime Mitchell. It is the second time in one year that Vander Sanden's office has declined to charge Jones after he used deadly force.

The decision stunned and angered supporters of Mitchell, who had questioned whether the shooting was justified for weeks and called for Vander Sanden to step aside in favor of a special prosecutor. Mitchell, 37, remains hospitalized in a Lincoln, Nebraska, rehabilitation facility with a bullet lodged in his neck.

Mitchell's attorney, Paula Roby, criticized Vander Sanden earlier Tuesday for hastily concluding the grand jury process without obtaining a statement from her client, who had regained the ability to talk in recent days. She said Mitchell had been eager to give his version of events of the traffic stop and shooting and that she had an agreement for an investigator to take his statement next week.

"The family is shocked and disappointed," Roby said.

Using his nickname, Mitchell's supporters have led a "Justice for Danky" campaign in which they have called on police to release video of the shooting and additional information about the altercation that led to it. Hundreds attended a fundraiser for him last week at the African-American Museum of Iowa.

Authorities have not said why Jones pulled over Mitchell near the Coe College campus early Nov. 1. They have said that an altercation between the two ensued and that Jones fired his service weapon, striking Mitchell in the neck. Apparently still in the driver's seat, the wounded Mitchell then hit the accelerator and his car drove into other vehicles. He was later taken to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in critical condition.

The Cedar Rapids Police Department has declined to release dashcam video from Jones' car at Vander Sanden's request. But the department has promised to make it public once the investigation concludes.

As is typical in a shooting involving police, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation reviewed the use of force and turned over its findings to the county attorney. After reviewing those materials, Vander Sanden announced Nov. 18 that he would ask a grand jury "to inquire into the circumstances to determine whether criminal charges are warranted."

Grand juries are made up of seven randomly chosen residents in Iowa, and at least five have to agree on a charge in order to return an indictment. They operate in secret and are rarely used in Iowa, where prosecutors usually decide themselves whether charges are justified. Vander Sanden had declined to step aside from presenting evidence to the jury, saying it wasn't necessary and that calls for him to do so unfairly sowed distrust in law enforcement.

Jones, an officer since 2011, has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. In October 2015, Jones and another officer shot and killed 21-year-old Jonathan Gossman, who had allegedly pointed a loaded gun at them during a foot chase. Vander Sanden, a Democrat who has served as county attorney since 2010, ruled that Jones and the other officer "were clearly reasonable in their belief that lethal force was necessary to defend themselves." Jones shot 16 times at Gossman, who was white.

A union representing Cedar Rapids police officers had publicly backed Jones, expressing confidence he would not face charges. The union had also praised Vander Sanden for sending the case to the grand jury, saying the "impartial results" of that process would help maintain trust between officers and citizens.
LINCOLN  Gov. Pete Ricketts and first lady Susanne Shore are set to host the annual holiday open house at the Governors Mansion.

The event from is 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday at 1425 H St. in Lincoln, directly south of the State Capitol.

Built in 1957, the modified Georgian Colonial home was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Tour guides will be on hand to answer questions about the residence as visitors walk through.

Before the open house the governor will help light the State Capitol Christmas tree. That ceremony begins at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Capitol Rotunda.
The City of Omahas tourism bureau has a smart idea: Offer incentives to convention planners to help lure more big events to town.

But the citys plan to create a nonprofit corporation to manage those incentives raises serious concerns about transparency.

Keith Backsen, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, has proposed a council resolution to create a nonprofit agency to manage these incentives so that specific information about the offers, such as how much a particular convention planner receives, would be excluded from state public records requirements.

If too much information is revealed, the city would lose its competitive edge, argue Backsen and City Finance Director Steve Curtiss. Its an understandable concern  the convention business is fiercely competitive.

But do the ends, however laudable, justify the means being proposed? Under this plan, a small board of city officials  the city finance director, the city attorney and a City Council member  would spend city tax dollars behind closed doors, with no public accountability.

And would the proposed nonprofit corporation truly be a private entity? Consider an October 2015 opinion by the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office on whether a private, nonprofit corporation should be subject to state open records and public meetings laws.

The attorney generals opinion was based on a four-prong test laid out by the Nebraska Supreme Court: whether the entity performs a government function; the level of government funding; the extent of government involvement or regulation; and whether the entity was created by the government.

Based on that test, it appears the proposed nonprofit would be considered public: It would exist to support the city-owned convention center; be fully funded by city tax dollars; be overseen by city officials and be created by the City Council.

Backsen is eager to bring more and better conventions to Omaha  a worthy goal. But its the City Councils responsibility to exercise caution in creating such an unusual vehicle to protect the citys competitive edge.

Backsens proposal is scheduled for a vote as early as today. Council members would be wise to hold off on this decision for further review.
Karnataka Rajyotsava 2022: Add these 5 songs to your playlist to hum Kannada glory

Bishop Cotton remembers Jayalalithaa as a 'brilliant student'

Bengaluru

oi-Anusha

The Bishop Cotton Girls' School in Bengaluru fondly remembered J Jayalalithaa as a 'brilliant student' on Tuesday. The former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu had been a student at the school from 1952 to 1958.

[Also Read: Jayalalithaa's death leaves Karunanidhi with no arch rival]

The school observed two minutes of silence to condole the late leader and paid tributes to her during the school assembly on Tuesday morning. Posters of Jayalalithaa were displayed within the school premises.

"She was a brilliant student and a wonderful athlete. I feel proud and privileged for being invited for two oath ceremonies of her as Chief Minister," said Dr Lavanya Mithran, Principal, Bishop Cotton Girls' School.

The principal shared vintage photographs of Jayalalithaa as a class 4 student. The students took time out of their busy exam schedules to remember Jayalalithaa.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 16:43 [IST]
JD(S) MPs want Jayalalithaa to be buried in Mandya, hotbed of Cauvery agitation

Bengaluru

oi-Anusha

MPs of JD(S) from Karnataka said that deceased AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa should be buried in her birthplace in Mandya. Their statement came under severe criticism by pro-kannada organisations.

JD(S)' Rajya Sabha MP Kupendra Reddy and Mandya MP C S Puttaraju said that they would dedicate one acre land in Melukote to build a memorial for Jayalalithaa and bury her there. She is the daughter of our land. If they give us her mortal remains, we would like her to be buried in her birthplace, MP Puttaraju said.

[Also Read: PM pays last respects to Jayalalithaa]

Their statement has earned the wrath of pro-Kannada and farmer organisations alike. The leaders' statement is being critised as a mockery to all the agitations taken up by people of Karnataka over Cauvery water sharing issue. Pro-Kannada organisations accused the leaders of praising Jayalalithaa despite her causing water troubles for farmers of Mandya and Mysuru region.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 15:23 [IST]
Meet Tamil Nadu's chaiwala Chief Minister- O Panneerselvam

Chennai

oi-Anusha

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi sold tea as a young boy but did you know that Tamil Nadu's current Chief Minister O Panneerselvam also was the owner of a tea stall. Before he entered the world of politics, Panneerselvam was a humble tea seller.

[Also Read: Jaya and the 'Amma' brand of schemes]

O P S, as he is popularly referred to in Tamil Nadu discontinued his bachelor's degree in Economics and set up a tea stall. Politics at the tea stall is a popular idea in Tamil Nadu and for Panneerselvam it became a reality. Panneerselvam's his close friend Salvuddin encouraged him to enter politics. He became the Chairman of Periyakulam Municipality in 1996 and has not looked back ever since.

Jayalalithaa's Man Friday and AIADMK's obvious choice as successor to the party, O Panneerselvam was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the very first time in September 2001. This after the Supreme Court barred J Jayalalithaa from holding office of Chief Minister. While he was criticised for being a 'puppet Chief Minister', he cemented his position as a Jayalalithaa loyalist more than an AIADMK worker.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 11:53 [IST]
Comedian Atul Khatri's joke on seatbelt becomes one on him as Mumbai Police responds

24-year-old lady doctor found murdered in Mumbai home

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, Dec 6: Body of a 24-year-old lady doctor, suspected to be raped and murdered, was found at her residence in suburban Vile Parle, a senior police official said today.

The naked body of a woman, a physiotherapist by profession, was found at her residence last night, the official said, adding there were also burn marks on the body.

As per initial investigation, it is suspected that the woman was raped and murdered, the official said.

The victim had gone out for a party last night and had returned home with some of her friends, the officer said, adding she was found dead at around 3 am. Her body was sent for post-mortem and investigation into the matter is underway, police said.

PTI
Celebratory firing leaves a girl greviously injured in Gujarat

India

oi-PTI

Ahmedabad, Dec 6: A 20-year-old girl was seriously injured in a celebratory firing during a wedding at Pipardi village in Botad district of Gujarat today, police said.

Bhuri Mithapara was rushed to Sir Takhtasinhji Hospital in Bhavnagar after a bullet hit her near the forehead when she was watching a wedding function at neighbour's place from the terrace of her house, said Police Sub-Inspector Y B Rana.

"As the groom's procession arrived, someone fired a round in the air. The bullet hit Bhuri," he said.

"Since she was seriously injured, she has been referred to Bhavnagar for further treatment. Her condition is still critical. We are filing the FIR. We are yet to identify the person who fired the shot," the police official added.

Earlier this month, a 48-year-old woman was killed in celebratory firing during a wedding in Haryana's Karnal District. All Indian Hindu Mahasabha leader Sadhvi Deva Thakur was arrested in the case after it came to light that it was she and her associates who had fired a few rounds in the air during the ceremony.

In April, celebratory firing during a marriage procession at Delhi's Mangolpur Kalan village resulted in the death of a girl. A gym instructer was later arrested in the case.

Deaths or injuries due to celebratory firing have emerged as a menace in certain parts of the country where firing in air during functions have become a ritual.

PTI
Chennai comes to grinding halt after Jayalalithaa's demise

India

oi-PTI

Chennai, Dec 6: Life virtually came to a grinding halt here as the city woke up to deserted streets with shops, including eateries, remaining shut in the wake of the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

Public transport services, including autorickshaws, were off the roads while some private vehicles were seen plying in various parts of the city where police personnel kept a tight vigil at vantage points.

A near total shutdown like situation prevailed in the city and several other parts of the state since last evening itself. The focus today turned to Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's body is lying in state to enable public pay their homage.

With even tea stalls, which usually do a brisk business in the early hours, remaining closed, mobile tea vendors could be seen dispensing the brew at some places.

Hotels are also closed. Suburban train services, however, were being operated in the city, albeit with lower passenger rush. Long distance trains arriving at Chennai Central and Egmore stations were on time.

The state government has declared a holiday today for its offices and three-days for educational institutions as a mark of respect to the departed leader. Meanwhile, the Tamil film industry announced cancellation of shootings scheduled for today. Theaters also cancelled shows.

PTI
DCW seeks action-taken report from Delhi police, a day after girl was shot at by stalker

DCW asks Delhi Police to file FIR against harassment of 24 policewomen

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Dec 6: The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Tuesday asked the Delhi Police to file an FIR against a police officer for alleged harassment of 24 policewomen.

In a notice issued to Delhi Police Commissioner Alok Verma, DCW chief Swati Maliwal said that disciplinary action should be taken against the officer, if found guilty.

She also asked Verma to reconstitute Internal Complaints Committee at the Police Headquarter level in accordance with the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013.

"...the Commission has learnt that the Internal Complaints Committees have not been constituted in accordance to the provisions of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013, as they do not consist of a minimum of four members and an external member," the notice said.

According to the notice, 24 policewomen raised "serious allegations" against Inspector S.B. Yadav.

"However, the response of the establishment on the complaint is not satisfactory for no FIR has been registered against the accused till date," the notice said.

It added that one of the complainants has informed the Commission that the accused has not been shifted out of the unit despite the same having been ordered by the Delhi Police.

"Also, the complainant has stated that she along with other female staff who had complained against the accused have instead been transferred out of the unit," it said.

Maliwal, in the notice, asked the Police Commissioner to revoke the transfer orders of the complainants.

IANS
Governor recalls how Jayalalithaa received him at airport

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Mumbai, Dec 6: Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao on Tuesday said he was "deeply shocked and grieved" over the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Describing her as a "charismatic leader and a people's Chief Minister", Rao said she was a symbol of dynamism, bravery and was known for her sharp intellect.

"She was an embodiment of women's empowerment and filled with indefatigable spirit," he said.

Recalling how she received him at the Chennai airport on September 2 when he arrived to assume charge as the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Rao said "her affectionate gesture and kind words are still fresh in my memory".

IANS


HC takes serious note of army apparel being sold privately

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 6: The Delhi High Court today said the private sale of army apparel and gear was a "serious issue" since these have been used by terrorists to strike at military bases and sought to know the government's stand on the matter.

"Yes, we know it is a serious issue. Otherwise we would not take it up", a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said when the NGO, which has raised the issue citing the terror strike at Pathankot air base early this year, submitted that the private sale of military apparel and gear was a cause for concern.

"We want to know your response," the bench told the lawyer appearing for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The Pathankot Air Force base was attacked in January this year by terrorists dressed in Indian Army fatigues, leading to the death of seven security personnel including a Lieutenant Colonel, and a civilian.

Last month, terrorists dressed in police uniform had attacked the army's XVI Corps headquarters at Nagrota in Jammu district, killing seven security personnel including two officers. The court listed the plea for further hearing on February 3 next year.

Advocate K R Chitra, appearing for the NGO Fight for Human Rights, told the court that after the Pathankot incident the petition was filed and subsequently a representation was made before the competent authority, but no action was taken.

PTI
How AIADMK chose a successor- The inside story

India

oi-Vicky

Chennai, Dec 6: With Jayalalithaa passing away, the AIADMK was faced with a major decision on choosing a successor. While O Paneerselvam has alway been the go to man when Jayalalithaa was not around, this time the decision was not that easy to make.

There was plenty of back room drama that took place before the name of Paneerselvam was finally cleared by the party. However what is interesting is the speed at which the decision was taken and the swearing in ceremony was completed.

Jayalalithaa had passed way at 11.30 PM. The decision to make Panneerselvam the Chief Minister was taken at 11.40 PM. By 12.30 the swearing in ceromony at the Raj Bhavan was completed.

What transpired behind the scenes?

At around 7 PM all the AIADMK, MLAs were told to wait inside the party's headquarters. They were also told to sign an undertaking stating that they would abide by whatever decision the party would take regarding the next chief minister. The leaders were also told not to discuss with anyone the proceedings within the party.

Meanwhile Venkaiah Naidu arrived at the Apollo Hospital. He was holding talks with Paneerselvam, Edapadi Palaniswamy and Sasikala. Later on a meeting was held at the hospital in which Panneerselvam was not present.

Meet Tamil Nadu's chaiwala Chief Minister- O Panneerselvam

The three then emerged out of the meeting and told Panneerselvam that he would be the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu. This decision was conveyed to him at 11.40 PM, ten minutes after the death of Jayalalithaa. In the meantime, the Appolo Hospital issued a statement at 11.45 announcing her death.

Following this Raj Bhavan was informed about this decision. All the MLAs including Paneerselvam gathered at the Raj Bhavan by 12 and the swearing in ceremony was completed by 12.30 PM.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 16:10 [IST]
Cyclone Sitrang: Bengal to get moderate rainfall, fishermen advised not to venture into sea

IMD confirms depression in Bay of Bengal, likely to turn into a cyclone

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

The Indian Meteorological Department has confirmed a depression developing in the Bay of Bengal about 1,320 kms southeast of Vishakapatnam. The IMD added that the depression is likely to intensify in the next 24 hours and further into a cyclonic storm in the next 48 hours.

The inference marked on December 6, 2.30 PM indicates that the system is likely to move west and northwest in the next 72 hours.

Heavy rainfall warning has been issued for Andaman and Nicobar islands over the next 24 hours. Fishermen have been advised against venturing out into the sea.

The fresh water disturbance created by the system is likely to affect Western Himalayan region starting December 9, the report added.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 19:12 [IST]
IRCTC update: 92 trains cancelled on Nov 03; here is the complete list

India will always be thankful to Babasaheb Ambedkar: Narendra Modi

India

oi-Sandra Marina Fernandes

New Delhi, Dec 6: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid tributes to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar on his 60th death anniversary here.

Modi paid tributes at a special events organised at the Parliament complex to mark his death anniversary. Modi was accompanied by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran leader LK Advani, former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Modi took to Twitter earlier and said: "I bow to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar on his Nirvan Divas. India will always be thankful to Babasaheb for his rich service to the nation."

PM @narendramodi paid tributes to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, on Dr. Ambedkar's Nirvan Divas. pic.twitter.com/lmpIRVuOqo  PMO India (@PMOIndia) December 6, 2016

I bow to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar on his Nirvan Divas. India will always be thankful to Babasaheb for his rich service to the nation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 6, 2016

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 10:47 [IST]
Indian Navy is totally secular, every ship is a microcosm of India, says Admiral RK Dhowan

Admiral Lanba says Navy is aiming at doubling aircraft fleet to 500 in next decade

INS Betwa will be made operational, says navy chief

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Mumbai, Dec 6: The Indian Navy chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba, on Tuesday visited the naval dockyard in Mumbai where INS Betwa tipped over while undocking. The navy said the Brahmaputra-class guided missile frigate will be made operational again.

The Navy chief also met the injured personnel at the naval hospital, INHS Asvini.

Specialists are likely to reach Mumbai on Wednesday for conducting an initial assessment of the damage in the next two days, navy's spokesperson Captain D.K. Sharma said.

"The Navy will upright the ship and make her operational in the shortest possible time," he said.

INS Betwa, undergoing a refit at the dry dock here, slipped and toppled over on her side, killing two sailors and injuring 14 naval personnel.

A Board of Inquiry headed by Flag Officer of Offshore Defence Advisory Group Rear Admiral Deepak Bali will look into the incident.

Admiral Lanba was briefed about the accident on Monday and the situation at the dockyard, Captain Sharma said.

A dry dock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships and boats etc.

Undocking a ship involves its refloating.

The frigate had slipped from her dock blocks and keeled over. Officials initially said it appeared that the dock mechanism had failed.

INS Betwa -- inducted in the navy in July 2004 -- was part of Task Force 54, tasked to evacuate nationals of India as well as those from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Lebanon married to Indian nationals from the conflict zone during the 2006 Lebanon war, as part of Operation Sukoon.

IANS
Jayalalithaa lived her life with 'indomitable courage': Sonia Gandhi

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Dec 6: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday condoled the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, saying she lived her life with same "indomitable courage with which she battled her last illness".

"I am deeply grieved to learn of the passing away of Selvi J. Jayalalithaa," said Gandhi in a statement.

"As the leader of the AIADMK and as four-times Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, she had a unique and deep empathy with the needs and hopes of the people, and put in placed policies that immeasurably improved their lives.

"Whether it was her welfare schemes for the rural and urban poor, her swift relief measures in the aftermath of Tsunami or her vision for Tamil Nadu's industrial development, her leadership qualities and administrative abilities were truly outstanding," said the Congress chief.

Also read: Jayalalithaa was people's Chief Minister says TN Guv

"The Congress party, my family and I personally share the grief and pain of the people of Tamil Nadu and her devoted supporters in the AIADMK, who have lost their beloved Amma'," Gandhi said.

"She was a towering figure in our national and political life, who won admiration across the political spectrum for the intrepid spirit with which she faced the ups and downs of her life in politics, for her commitment to the people of her state, and her dedication to the honour of India," she added.

The AIADMK leader passed away at the Apollo hospital in Chennai late Monday night, a day after she suffered cardiac arrest. She was 68.

IANS
Jaya's funeral: President arrives in Chennai

India

oi-Madhuri

By Madhuri

New Delhi, Dec 6: President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday arrived in Chennai to pay tribute to J Jayalalithaa.

According to reports, Pranab Mukherjee flew down to Chennai in an IAF aircraft and landed near Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's tri-colour-draped body was kept for her followers to pay their last respects.

President Mukherjee earlier today said that Jayalalithaa was a fighter who fought till her last breath against cruelty and suffering.

Speaking to ANI, the President recalled Jayalalithaa entering into the Rajya Sabha. ''On many occasions I had interactions with her on all subjects concerning development and administration. She had a wonderful mastery over facts and theories,'' he said ahead of his departure to Chennai. "All other battles she won, but perhaps everybody has to lose one battle and she has lost that," he said.

Expressing grief at the passing away of the stalwart of Tamil Nadu politics, Pranab Mukherjee further said,''In her passing away, the nation has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions. Her contribution to the progress and development of Tamil Nadu will be long remembered".

Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night. Her funeral will be held at Marina beach in the city at 4:30 pm on Tuesday.

OneIndia News
Truth has come out, says Sasikala in reaction to OPS's remark before panel

Karnataka leaders leave Cauvery issue behind, pay tributes to Jayalalithaa

India

oi-Anusha

Going beyond rivalry over the Cauvery water sharing issue, political leaders from Karnataka headed to Chennai to pay their tributes to J Jayalalithaa. Leaders including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah condoled the death of the enigmatic leader and headed to Chennai to personally pay tribute.

[Also Read: PM to visit Chennai to pay tributes to Jayalalithaa]

Former Prime Minister of India and JD(S) supremo H D Devegowda headed to Chennai to pay tributes to a leader who he saw as someone with great potential to lead the Third Front. JD(S) leaders from Mandya even proposed reserving one acre land in Jayalalithaa's birthplace Melukote to build a memorial for her.

Congress leader and Karnataka's energey Minister D K Shivakumar too headed to Chennai to pay his last respects to Jayalalithaa. D K Shivakumar remembered her as his inspiration from younger days and recalled her interest in erecting a memorial at Sri Perumbudur where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.

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Kejriwal pays tribute to Jayalalithaa

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 6: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today paid floral tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who passed away last night.

"The Delhi Chief Minister will reach Chennai around 12.30 PM and pay tributes to Jayalalithaa at Rajajji Hall," said a senior Delhi government official.

"V sad to hear the demise of Amma. A very very popular leader. Aam admi's leader. May her soul rest in peace," Kejriwal tweeted. Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital in Chennai after battling for life for the past 75 days.

The 67-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

PTI
New IT rules will make sure no unlawful content is posted online: Minister

No category of 'martyr' for any casualties: govt

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 6: Government does not declare any of the security forces personnel who die in action as 'martyr', Lok Sabha was informed today.

"The Ministry of Defence has informed that the word 'martyr' is not used in reference to any of the casualties in Indian Armed Forces," Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said in a written reply to a question.

"Similarly, no such term is used in reference to the Central Armed Police Forces and Assam Rifles personnel who get killed in action or on any operation," he said.

However, their families/ next of kin are given full family pension under the liberalised pensionary award rules and lump sum ex-gratia compensation as per rules in addition to other benefits admissible, he said.

Rijiju was responding to a question "whether the government has codified the term 'martyrs' for placing the posthumous soldiers in the category of martyrs? If so, the details and if not, whether the government proposes to make such a codification?"

PTI
Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik pays tribute to Jayalalithaa

India

oi-PTI

Bhubaneswar, Dec 6: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today described Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's demise as a national loss while the state assembly was adjourned for the day after paying tributes to the departed leader.

Expressing grief over the death of Jayalalithaa in Chennai last night, Patnaik said that she was the leader of the masses and had made immense contribution to the development and welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu.

Moving the obituary motion on Jayalalithaa's death, in the Assembly, Patnaik described her as the 'Iron Lady' of Tamil Nadu.

Patnaik said, "Her benevolent measures endeared her to one and all. The people of Tamil Nadu affectionately referred her as Amma. She enjoyed a huge mandate and was known for her administrative calibre and political wisdom. She steered the state on the path of progress and prosperity." Her death is a great national loss, Patnaik said adding the people of Odisha stand in solidarity with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of grief and bereavement.

"I would also like to mention that I am proceeding to Chennai to attend her funeral," Patnaik said.

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra and BJP legislature party leader K V Singhdeo also paid tributes to Jayalalithaa and members of the Assembly stood in silence for a minute as a mark of respect, before Speaker Niranjan Pujari adjourned the house for the day.

PTI
OPS, Jayalalithaa's trusted Man Friday

India

oi-PTI

Chennai, Dec 6: A trusted lieutenant and staunch loyalist of Jayalalithaa, O Panneerselvam, who became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for the third time, faces the challenge of keeping the AIADMK together as it tries to reinvent itself without the charismatic party supremo.

A tea vendor-turned-politician, 65-year-old Panneerselvam, popularly known as OPS, was late Jayalalithaa's Man Friday and twice helmed the state after she was convicted in graft cases.

A grim-faced Panneerselvam, who was also seen sporting a beard, was sworn in around 1.15 AM early today by Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao at the Raj Bhavan here amidst a pall of gloom, shortly after Jayalalithaa's death. Panneerselvam took oath as CM with a photo of Jayalalithaa in his pocket. Panneerselvam has prostrated before Jayalalithaa, deified her and wept for her. He also meticulously followed her orders, coordinated with bureaucrats and proved himself a mature leader and team player--qualities that worked for the unassuming Theni chieftain when he was made caretaker CM twice--in September 2011 and again in Septmber 2014. He belongs to the dominant Mudukulathor community and has risen from humble origins, having run a tea stall at his home town Periyakulam which is still being operated by his family.

A first-time Minister in 2001 after his election to the Assembly, he was vested with the key Revenue department by Jayalalithaa, indicating her confidence in him. In 2011, in a further endorsement of her trust, Jayalalithaa allocated the major departments of Finance and PWD to Panneerselvam.

Even when in the Opposition, Panneerselvam was the 'No.2', (Deputy Leader of AIADMK Legislature party) from 2001-06 and he was considered Jayalalithaa's trusted lieutenant in the party rankings. Panneerselvam always came across as an affable man and enjoyed respect, cutting across party lines.

As Leader of the House since 2011, except for a brief period when Jayalalithaa was convicted in a graft case and him being elevated as Chief Minister, Panneerselvam often handled House proceedings with deft ease, especially explaining the state's position on financial matters as Finance Minister.

When Jayalalithaa was convicted in corruption cases in 2011 and 2014, she picked Panneerselvam as her replacement. As a loyal soldier Panneerselvam duly gave back the reins of power to Jayalalithaa when courts acquitted her in both the cases.

On October 12, OPS was again given charge of Jayalalithaa's portfolios, including Home and Police, besides the task of presiding over Cabinet meetings, days after the AIADMK chief was admitted to Apollo Hospital. Panneerselvam retained all of the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa, including Home and Police.

PTI
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PM Narendra Modi pays floral tribute to Jayalalithaa

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 6: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid floral tributes to J Jayalalithaa who passed away at a Chennai hospital last night. He will place a wreath on the mortal remains of Jayalalithaa at Rajaji Hall.

Modi flew down to Chennai in a special aircraft. From the airport he took a helicopter and landed near Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's tri-colour-draped body was kept for her followers to pay their last respects. Modi and Jayalalithaa enjoyed a good rapport.

Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao received Modi at the Chennai airport.

The Prime Minister greeted the people lined up along the street with folded hands.

At Rajaji Hall, he comforted Jayalalithaa's successor Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and her close confidante Sasikala Natarajan.

Modi laid a floral wreath on Jayalalithaa's body as a mass of people thronged the public hall to pay their last respects to the AIADMK leader. Before leaving, the Prime Minister embraced Panneerselvam to console him.

Jayalalithaa's body will be cremated with full state honours Tuesday evening near her mentor M.G. Ramachandran's (MGR) memorial at Marina Beach.

The 67-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

PTI (with various inputs)
RSS condoles death of Jayalalithaa

India

oi-PTI

Chennai, Dec 6: RSS today condoled the death of the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her national spirit and ability to face challenges.

"Though she ruled state politics, she had unflinching faith in national integrity. She also was a believer," RSS State President ML Raja said in a statement. She "sparkled" as a star both in the fields of cinema and politics, he said.

Jayalalithaa had faced many challenges in personal and professional lives "all by herself and overcame them," he said, adding, her death was a great loss to the country.

PTI
Jayalalithaa: The battler of Tamil Nadu politics

India

oi-Oneindia

By R Mani

"A political Jayalalithaa is only possible when rumour, gossip and secrecy are a way of life," said social scientist Shiv Viswanathan in a recent piece on the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. This observation speaks volumes about the politics of the southern state.

[Also Read: Jayalalithaa no more: Cremation next to MGR Samadhi at 4:30 PM]

The 68-year-old Jayalalithaa, a former matinee idol and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, battled for her life in the last two months of her life. But then, she had always battled.

"Since politics was not her cup of tea she did not relish it like an aggressive politician. But her luck helped her to come on top. She did not want to be an actor but her mother forced into the business. She wants to study and became a lawyer but fate had other plans," said a former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader.

Jayalalaithaa, who acted in over 125 films in a cinematic career that spanning over 16 years, was a dream girl in her heyday. She entered active politics in 1982 and was sent to the Rajya Sabha by her mentor and then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran popularly called MGR.

The death of MGR in December 1987 pushed her to take up the reins of one of the breakaway groups of the AIADMK. Although her arch-rival, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi, captured power in the 1989 assembly elections , Jayalalithaa showed an impressive performance and became Leader of the Opposition to that short lived government which was dismissed by then Prime Minister Chandrashekhar's government in 1991.

[Also Read: What happens to the disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa?]

The 1989 elections also helped Jayalalithaa to consolidate her position in the AIADMK especially since MGR's widow V N Janaki magnanimously relinquished her political ambitions. This paved the way for Jayalalithaa to become the one and only political heir to MGR.

The ascendency to power by Jayalalithaa in the 1991 assembly polls immediately following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was a watershed year in the history of Tamil Nadu.

The first time Chief Minister was a ruthless leader from day one. The voice of the opposition was suppressed from the beginning and the media was gagged.

[Also Read: Why AIADMK won't be the same party without their Amma]

From 1991 to 1996 the Jayalalithaa government filed over 120 defamation cases against the media and her opponents for criticising her. The same continued during her second term from 2001 to 2006. But astute politician that she was she always withdrew the cases at the eleventh hour usually before the assembly polls. That changed in her third term. From 2011 to 2016, Jayalalithaa filed 213 defamation cases against her political opponents and the media for criticising her policies.

There was an iron curtain thrown around Jayalalithaa ever since she became came to power in the state. She was one of the most inaccessible CM's in the history of Indian politics. This inaccessibility became the hallmark of her political career. Her bitter animosity towards any sort of criticism was described best by the late Congress leader G K Moopanar in 1994. "The problem with Jayalalithaa is that she is taking any criticism of the government as a personal criticism of herself and that's why she is filing defamation cases left, right and centre against her opponents," he'd said.

Jayalalithaa's legal travails were also legendary. The DMK government, which came to power in 1996, filed one case after another against her and she won them all except the infamous disproportionate assets case which is still pending in the Supreme Court.

She may be the only politician of recent vintage who employed the services of all the top lawyers of the country. Any top lawyer in India would be hired as her counsel; a list that included three former union law ministers -- Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ram Jethmalani -- along with Kapil Sibal, K K Venugopal, Fali S Nariman, Siddhartha Shankar Ray et al.

The fees alone paid to these legal luminaries would have easily crossed few hundred crores because of their stupendous services rendered over two decades and more.

Jaylalithaa's way of hitting below the belt on her political opponents was most evident when she told the assembly that she wouldn't meet the Governor in person person to brief him about the functioning of the government since he "tried to misbehave with me". This charge came after the then Governor of Tamil Nadu Dr M Chenna Reddy gave sanction to Dr Subramanian Swamy to prosecute her.

In 1993, when there were repeated highway robberies in the state, she told the assembly, "Those who were caught for indulging in these robberies speak Telugu. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is a Telugu man and you can draw your own conclusions".

These sort of attacks are stuck in the minds of many in the state.

Though she praises and glorifies her mentor MGR formally, those close to her once said that it was not Karunanidhi but MGR who she saw as 'enemy number one'.

In fact, a former AIADMK minister once told this writer, "MGR exploited her to the hilt and when he fell ill he brought her to take on his arch-rival Karunanidhi."

This analysis of Jayalalithaa reveals her as a reluctant politician. She certainly was no power monger like her bete noire Karunanidhi.

Nonetheless, she antagonised every political party in the state since 2014 and steered single handedly her party to great victories both in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as well as in the 2016 assembly elections without any alliance. Though she had kept most of her political opponents at an arm's distance the study line of visitors to Apollo Hospital's to inquire about her health was surprising.

This includes every shade of political opinion from the left to the Bharatiya Janata Party to the sundry political parties in the state.

In personal life she was a loner. Both her brother and his wife passed away and their children were not given an audience since 2002. Sasikala was her sole companion in a relationship that continued for over three decades. Unlike half a dozen power centres in the Karunanidhi's clan there was but one in Jayalalithaa's life.

"Sasikala's loyalty to Jayalalithaa was very strong. Sasikala loved Jayalalithaa like anything and that's why she was in prison for 10 months from 1996 to 1997 in a foreign exchange violation case. Sasikala stood like a rock and turned down offers to turn an approver against Jayalalithaa. Sasikala's influence on Jayalalithaa was enormous. Sasikala could change the decisions of Jayalalithaa at any point of time. You can survive in AIADMK even if Jayalalithaa does not like you but you can't survive if you are not in the good books of Sasikala," says a former AIADMK minister who is now in the Congress.

In spite of being the most inaccessible Chief Minister of the country she constantly had the pulse of the people. It's puzzling how a person who was inaccessible to her own party men, to the Opposition and the media was able to achieve repeat success politically.

Jayalalithaa had the dubious distinction of being the first Chief Minister since Independence to be sent to jail on a corruption case while being in office. But in another first, she won the immediate next elections and retained her power.

A local journalist describes her personality thus: "The basic ingredient of Tamil politics is anti-Karunanidhi and anyone who represents this political line will win again and again in the state. That's why V N Janaki, the wife of MGR, could not win polls but Jayalalithaa did."
TN Govt declares holiday for its offices today

India

oi-PTI

Chennai, Dec 6: Tamil Nadu government has announced today as a holiday for its offices under the Negotiable Instruments Act, as a mark of respect to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

A Government Order (GO) said the notified public holiday will apply to all state government offices, undertakings, corporations and boards.

"Under the Explanation to Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 read with Notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs No.20-25-26, Public-1, dated 8th June 1957 the Government of Tamil Nadu hereby declares that Tuesday, the 6th of December, 2016 as a public holiday as a mark of respect to the late Selvi J Jayalalithaa, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," it said.

The day will be also treated as a paid holiday for all industrial employees on regular work charge and industrial establishments and the labour hired on daily wages, it said.

The government also issued another order declaring three days holidays for "all educational institutions" starting today. The holidays were being declared "as a mark of respect" to the late leader, the GO said.

PTI
Top BJP leaders pay tributes to Jaya

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 6: Top BJP leaders today paid rich tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, hailing her for her poor-poor politics and describing her one of the most iconic Indian politicians.

"Saddened by the demise of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa ji. I extend my deepest condolences to her party and followers in this hour of grief," BJP President Amit Shah said.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said she created Brand Amma, a different kind of pro-poor politics. "Jayalalithaa was very popular leader, able administrator.Her connect with people was enormous and unique She created "Brand Amma", a different kind of pro poor politics. My heartfelt condolences," he said on twitter.

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said he felt as if he had lost her sister and expressed his admiration for her courage, conviction, dynamism, wisdom and bold administration.

"I express my grief and deep sorrow on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa," Union Minister and former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Jayalalithaa was a powerful voice for the weaker sections of the society. "She always worked for the benefit of the poor and needy. She has left an indelible mark in Tamil Nadu politics with her enduring legacy. Selvi Jayalalithaa was one of the most iconic political figures of India who had an enormous impact on the people of Tamil Nadu," he tweeted.

Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night.

PTI
Truth has come out, says Sasikala in reaction to OPS's remark before panel

Jayalalithaa death probe: TN cabinet to decide on enquiry against Sasikala and others

Never interfered in medical treatment of Jayalalithaa: Sasikala denies all allegations levelled by panel

What is brand 'Amma Politics'

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Chennai, Dec 6: Jayalalithaa's death is a loss for everybody as she created her own brand 'Amma politics' that connects to poor--this is how Union Minister Prakash Javadekar summed up the political contributions of the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, who has passed away on Monday.

The demise of the 68-year-old AIADMK supremo has been termed as a big loss for the entire nation by everyone.

However, women and poor--the two groups--who till date have been her biggest beneficiaries--will miss her the most.

Jayalalithaa's social welfare schemes and projects--Amma Canteens, All Women Police stations and New Veeranam scheme, to name a few--targeted mostly women and downtrodden sections of society.

[Also Read: Jayalalithaa LIVE updates: Rajnikanth pays his last respects]

Political observers say the reason behind the success of Jayalalithaa's political career, in spite of being allegedly involved in several corruption cases, is her reputation as a "mother" who cares for her poor and deprived children.

Her vote bank mostly consisted of rural and urban poor and women, who thronged the Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, when the news of her cardiac arrest broke out on Sunday evening.

Her detractors allege that Jayalalithaa's welfare schemes are nothing, but freebies doled out to win votes during elections.

However, her supporters say that for them she was their mother, who looked after them very well.

As they mourn the death of their "beloved" Amma, it has to be seen if her political successor and just sworn in Chief Minister O Panneerselvam will continue with her pro-poor and pro-women measures.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 12:23 [IST]
A dream, a call and some courage: How a 15-year-old stopped her marriage

Man rapes 8-year-old to use her blood for removing obstacles to his marriage

Why will coup happen in Kolkata, Shah asks Mamata

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Dec 6: BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday ridiculed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her claim of 'near-coup' following deployment of the army at two toll plazas in the state "without informing the state".

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress chief, spent Thursday night at the state secretariat to protest the deployment of army personnel at toll plazas in the state, claiming it was done without any prior information.

Both the central government and army rubbished the allegations, with the army later releasing documents to prove that both the state government and the police were duly informed about the exercise.

"The deployment of army is a regular exercise and has been taking place across the country. Such exercise was also carried out in other states, but there was no problem," said Shah.

"But in Bengal there was so much drama," said Shah while speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

Referring to Banerjee's claims of a 'near-coup', Shah asked as to why there would be a coup attempt in Kolkata.

"When the national capital is Delhi, why would there be coup attempt in Kolkata," he asked with a chuckle.

Besides Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of anti-demonisation protests, Shah also ridiculed BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

"People across the country, particularly the common people, have supported demonisation. Only those with black money have problems," he said.

"Perhaps Mamata has been left the most red-faced because of the demonetisation," said Shah.

Shah has been attacking Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress over the multi-crore rupee Saradha scam as well as a sting operation in which several of the Trinamool leaders were purportedly shown taking bribes.

Talking about Mayawati, who has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of imposing a financial Emergency through demonisation, Shah said: "It seems the financial Emergency is for her. It's not for the country."

Shah also asserted that demonisation would get popular support to the BJP and the party would come to power in Uttar Pradesh that goes to the polls early next year.

IANS


Donald Trump may move closer to India to balance China: Media

International

oi-PTI

Beijing, Dec 6: The Indo-US relations will become an important part of President-elect Donald Trump's diplomacy to "suppress" China, but it will have limited impact on Beijing as New Delhi may not accept a "quasi-alliance" with Washington to retain its independent foreign policy, the Chinese state media commented today.

"US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trump's diplomacy. With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India," an article in the state-run Global Times said today.

"However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease," it said.

"As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes," the article said, assessing policies options for Trump after he takes over the Presidency next month said.

"Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and India's concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China," the article titled 'Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi' said.

Also read: Trump attacks China after criticism over phone call

"In other words, the US attempts of establishing a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China may not be accepted by India as the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition," it said.

When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said.

"His will reduce India's trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to," it said.

"To sum up, US-Indian relations during Trump's term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trump's adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China," it said.

"Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on China's influence on regional trade," it said. Chinese official media began attacking Trump after his tweets yesterday questioning for the first time after his election, Chinas currency devaluation and the Beijings claims on South China Sea.

PTI
Truth has come out, says Sasikala in reaction to OPS's remark before panel

Jayalalithaa death probe: TN cabinet to decide on enquiry against Sasikala and others

Many issues in late TN CM Jayalaltihaas death report says Stalin

Never interfered in medical treatment of Jayalalithaa: Sasikala denies all allegations levelled by panel

Jayalalithaa had towering presence in India: Sirisena

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Colombo, Dec 6: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday said he was saddened by the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who he said had a "towering presence in Indian politics".

Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night, was "totally dedicated to the welfare of the people she represented" and was dearly loved by her people, Sirisena said in a statement.

"India loses a leading female politician and a truly pro-poor leader, whom people fondly called 'Amma'.

"At this time of grief, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu," he added.

Jayalalithaa frequently denounced the arrests of Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy. Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are separated by a strip of sea.

IANS


Man guilty of giving cash to terror attacks suspect convicted in UK

International

oi-PTI

London, Dec 6: A 26-year-old UK-based Belgian man was today found guilty of giving 3,000 pounds to a key suspect in the deadly Brussels and Paris bombings.

Zakaria Boufassil from Birmingham was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism by providing 3,000 pounds to bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini at a secret meeting in a Birmingham park.

A co-defendant, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, also from Birmingham, had already pleaded guilty to the charge last month. Both men will be sentenced on December 12. They were found guilty of handing over the cash to Abrini - who became known as the "man in the hat" after his face was caught on CCTV footage following the deadly attack on Brussels airport in March.

"We know that Abrini visited several locations during his visit to the UK, but that his sole purpose of being here was to collect the money and our case - whilst not focused on attack planning - acts as reminder of why our work to prepare for and prevent such incidents in the UK is important," said Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, Counter Terrorism Lead for West Midlands Police.

"We are working hard with partner agencies and community groups around the West Midlands to alert the public to the dangers of radicalisation and explain what help is available to those vulnerable to negative influences," he said.

The money had been withdrawn from the bank account of one Anouar Haddouchi, a Belgian national who had been claiming UK state-funded welfare benefits while living in the West Midlands with his wife. Haddouchi is believed to have fled to Syria since. The court heard that hours after collecting the money from Boufassil and Ahmed, Abrini visited the Grosvenor Casino in Birmingham where he took a photograph of a gambling machine on his mobile phone.

In March this year Abrini was captured on CCTV alongside Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, who detonated bombs hidden in suitcases killing 12 people at Brussels airport. Another 20 people died in an attack on Maalbeek metro station less than two hours later. Jurors were also told he is also wanted by the French authorities in connection with the attacks in Paris last November. Boufassil had denied one charge of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism and the trial continues. Abrini remains in custody in Brussels.

PTI
Singapore FM to pay respect to Jayalalithaa in Chennai

International

oi-PTI

Singapore, Dec 6: Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan is travelling to Chennai to pay tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who passed away last night. Balakrishnan will be travelling with his Ministry officials, a government statement said.

Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes, died last night at a private hospital in Chennai after battling for life for the past 75 days.

The 67-year-old leader had suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening. According to official statistics, 74 per cent of Singapore's population is of Chinese ethnicity, while 13 per cent are of Malay heritage and 9 per cent of Indian, including Tamils.

In Singapore, Tamil is an official language along with English, Mandarin and Malay. Foreign Affairs Minister Balakrishnan was also born to a Tamil father.

PTI
Easter Bombings: Inside story on why the Sri Lankan intel chief was sacked

Sri Lankan President Sirisena condoles Jayalalithaa's demise

International

oi-PTI

Colombo, Dec 6: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday expressed condolences on the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and said she was a leader "dearly loved" by her people.

"Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a leader dearly loved by her people. I express my condolences to her loved ones and the people of Tamil Nadu," Sirisena said.

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa also offered his condolences, saying "she captured the hearts of India's Tamil community". Rajapaksa, during his presidency, invited Jayalalithaa to visit Sri Lanka to witness the post-war conditions.

Also read:

Jayalalithaa had a checkered relationship with Sri Lanka. While the Sinhala majority supported her strong anti-LTTE sentiments, they did not favour her for her pro-Tamil nationalist stance.

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka favoured Jayalalithaa for her ability to bring pressure on New Delhi to nudge Sri Lankan political leadership to grant concessions to Tamils. Jayalalithaa, hospitalised since September 22, suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away late last night in Chennai.

PTI
Turkish 'coup' officers can be extradited, says Greek court

International

oi-PTI

Athens, Dec 6 : A Greek court ruled today that three Turkish officers accused of playing a part in a failed July coup could be extradited to Turkey, in a case that has strained relations between the two neighbours.

The Athens appeals court said that the three -- out of eight officers seeking asylum in Greece -- should be sent back for "attempting to topple the regime" of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a judicial source said.

Earlier in the day, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the Greek authorities would abide with the court rulings on the case "irrespective of the political cost."

The ruling came a day after the same court rejected extradition for another three of the officers, deeming that Turkish authorities had not provided sufficient evidence, and that their personal safety was in jeopardy at home.

That decision outraged Ankara, which has arrested tens of thousands of people as part of a wide-ranging crackdown since the attempted putsch.

"Greece is in the NATO alliance with Turkey and is a NATO ally. Our expectation is that the Greek government make every effort to return" those individuals to Turkey, Defence Minister Fikri Isik said yesterday.

The court is expected to decide the fate of the remaining two officers on Thursday. Today, it was revealed that the court prosecutor had lodged an appeal against Monday's ruling, arguing that the case should be heard by the Supreme Court.

Turkey may still appeal the case, and any final decision to extradite rests with the Greek minister of justice. The two Turkish commanders, four captains and two sergeants requested asylum in Greece after landing a military helicopter in the northern city of Alexandroupoli shortly after the attempted government takeover in mid-July.

The officers are currently also appealing against a Greek refusal to grant them asylum in September. Ankara has asked Athens to extradite them all to face trial in Turkey for their alleged role in the failed coup, including an alleged attempt on Erdogan's life.

In today's ruling to extradite, the court said it had not received conclusive evidence linking the three officers to an attack on Erdogan. The eight officers say they would not receive a fair trial in Turkey, where the authorities have detained thousands of people over the coup, including top generals.

The case is awkward for Greece, which depends on Turkey to stem the flow of tens of thousands of migrants to its shores. Several Turkish nationals, including civil servants and businessmen, have sought refuge in Greece following the coup attempt.

PTI
OK! Magazine 02 Nov 2022

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Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter ONeill, has reassured the mining sector that the Government is not considering change introducing a new Mining Act in this term of Parliament.Speaking at the 14th Mining and Petroleum Conference in Sydney this morning, the Prime Minister said any changes to the legislation in support of the resources sector must be introduced carefully and with full consultation with all stakeholders.Our aim is to achieve a fair deal for our people, both landowners directly impacted, and also the country as a whole, and this has been the driving force behind the proposed changes.I know that many have worked tirelessly to develop the draft Act, both from Government and from industry.I thank you for engaging with each other so honestly and openly.I want to state categorically that there will be no changes to the Mining Act prior to the 2017 National Election.It is only right that the new Parliament be granted the mandate to carry forward any changes to the existing Mining legislation.Again, I stress that industry will be fully consulted.Any change to the Act will ensure there are equal benefits for landowners and Provincial Governments.The Prime Minister said the Governments recent decision to give 33% of direct shares in the Ok Tedi mine to landowners and the provincial government, and the 17.4% of BCL shares to landowners, is a clear indicator of our desire to share benefits through this policy.Speaking at the conference, PM ONeill, also made the point that though there has a downfall in the commodity prices, the economic fundamental is still very strong and it is a good time to invest in Papua New Guinea.2016 has certainly been a challenging year and there is no doubt that 2017 will similar for the global economy, the Prime Minister said.But, I am confident we have established the foundation, substance and and capacity to continue to weather this storm.We have navigated a safe path through these troubled times for a number of years now, and we will continue to move forward with determination.Now is a great time to be a part of the success of Papua New Guinea, and I welcome your ongoing commitment.
Finalists Revealed for the International Gaming Awards 2017

Published December 6, 2016 by Mike P

Discover all of the top finalists that will be competing at the 2017 International Gaming Awards on 6 February.

The International Gaming Awards (IGA) will return to celebrate its 10th anniversary on 6 February 2017. Ahead of the ceremony, last week the organisers have released the shortlist of finalists for all of the major categories. All attendees will travel to the UK and come together at the InterContinental London Park Lane for the event, which was a sell-out in 2016.

iGaming Software Supplier

iGaming software supplier will be a hotly contested category. NetEnt and Microgaming have both released strong video slot titles in 2016, but could face competition from IGT, NYX Gaming, Yggdrasil, BBIN, BetConstruct, and OpenBet.

Innovator

Innovator will be another coveted category, as it signifies which software providers are the best at developing new games and technology. Microgaming, IGT, NetEnt, BetConstruct, and Yggdrasil also appear in this category. However, they will also have to overcome SBTech, Pilot Games, and Evolution Games, which is renowned for its live casino software.

Mobile

The mobile operator award is filled with familiar brands, including Cherry Casino, Gala Bingo, Leo Vegas, Mr Green, Sky, and Unibet. For mobile product, the top contenders for the award will be Agilsys, Connective Games, IGT, Leo Vegas, Microgaming, NetEnt, Playn Go, and Scientific Games.

Online Operators

Gala and Mecca are two of the leading prospects in the bingo operator category, while Cherry Casino and Leo Vegas are two brands that will be eying the casino equivalent. Gala Coral and Unibet can be found in the gaming operator award, with 888Poker and PokerStars being two big options for poker. For sportsbook operators, ComeOn and Unibet have been shortlisted.

Payment and Security

There are many more award categories being represented at IGA 2017, with payment and security being two extremely important ones. Paysafe and Safecharge are leaders in payment, while Evolution Gaming and Microgaming will compete in security.

Ceremony Sponsors

IGA is an awards ceremony that honours the achievements of companies serving the global gambling industry across digital and land-based sectors. For IGA 2017, the ceremony has attracted another strong roster of sponsors, including the likes of Microgaming, Playtech, Playn GO, IGT, Yggdrasil, BetConstruct, and Mr Green, among others.

Industry Judges

The judges represent another crucial aspect of the event, which is why the organisers have sought out some of the most respected professionals from the global gambling industry. Desmond Lam Ph.D will provide an academic perspective from the University of Macau, Betfreds Gemma Strath will share operator insights, Playtech CEO Mor Weizer will focus on software, and many other will contribute.
Currently: Cash Looking to: Buy @ 108.337



As of 3/21/21 @ 9:21pm EST: 108.857



LAST WEEK: We suggested buying dips in USDJPY to 108.337 and holding for a run up to 111. We suggested honoring stops on longs on a close below 107.75.



UPDATE: The USDJPY is up early on Monday after trading sluggishly all last week. We still feel the cross will trade down to 108.337 (or lower).

No changes to last weeks trade recommendations.
Currently: Long Looking to: Sell @ 2,670



As of 3/21/21 @ 7:58pm EST: 2,278.80



LAST WEEK: We suggested buying between 2,275 and 2,300 with an upside target of 2,670.



UPDATE: Small caps had a tough day Thursday along with the rest of the equity space.



However, we believe they may have set a short-term bottom that day and that they could be on their way to new highs near 2,670.



Buy between 2,250 and 2,300 and hold for a move up to 2,670.
Opalesque Industry Update - BTIG, LLC announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to receive a strategic investment from funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities. BTIG plans to leverage this investment to further expand its capabilities and accelerate the firms global growth. Post investment, BTIG and its affiliates in Europe, Asia and Australia will continue to operate as fully independent entities. Financial terms of the private transaction were not disclosed. Since we started twelve years ago, BTIG has been one of the fastest-growing institutional brokerage firms in the US. Partnering with Blackstone Tactical Opportunities will further enhance our offerings and allow us to advance key strategic initiatives, said Scott Kovalik, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BTIG. We view their investment as a vote of confidence in our growth prospects, and we look forward to working together as we continue to build out our business. BTIG has expertise across institutional trading, investment banking, equity research and related brokerage services. The firm delivers solutions for both institutional and corporate clients. For more than a decade, its entrepreneurial team has applied their experience, insight and global relationships to offer clients support and advice in todays complex market environment. We are excited to welcome the Blackstone Tactical Opportunities team as a valuable strategic partner, dedicated to our vision for the firms continued growth, said Steven Starker, Co-Founder of BTIG. Strategically aligning with another industry leader will help to strengthen our brand, and amplify our ability to identify valuable client opportunities. David Blitzer, Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, said, We look forward to working with the experienced team at BTIG to help grow the business and build upon their already strong franchise.
From Our Future

Our country's privileged few used to exert their control through political surrogates. Now, thanks to Trump, they're taking a more hands-on approach.

If it weren't for his appeals to hate, it would be easy to understand why so many voters were taken in by Trump. It's not just that the middle class is dying, or that wages have flatlined and inequality has soared. It's that there is real fear behind those numbers.

Millions of Americans, of all races, genders, religions, and national origin, are living in economic fear and distress. Two-thirds of us would have trouble meeting a $1,000 emergency.

That kind of economy is a breeding ground for grift. Studies like those conducted by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research confirm what professional con artists have always known: people in financial distress are easier marks. And make no mistake about it: Donald Trump is a con artist. Trump voters have been taken in by a grift so shameless he might as well have pretended to be calling from the IRS.

Trump was always a Trojan horse for the 0.01 percent. And now he's forming a government of, by, and for the very elites he campaigned against.

Rule of the Ultra-Elite

We already live in the most unjust and unequal economy in modern American history. A new report from Deutsche Bank shows that the top 0.1 percent of Americans now holds as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. In other words, if the United States were 1,000 people in a room, just one of them would be as wealthy as 900 of the others.

That particular statistic hasn't been this bad since the 1930s.

Trump's administration is already the wealthiest in history. Its members are heavily drawn from the tiny group of 16,000 people in this country who own as much wealth as 80 percent of the population -- some 256,000,000 Americans. His cabinet picks include two confirmed billionaires (so far -- he's not done yet). They come from an even more elite group: the 536 Americans whose combined wealth exceeds $2.6 trillion.

For context, the median wealth of an American adult is roughly $34,316.

It's not just their wealth that distinguishes Trump's team from the vast majority of Americans. It's their class exclusivity. Trump has largely drawn from people who, like him, were born into wealth and privilege. This insularity, combined with the heartlessness of the policies they espouse, makes it even less likely that they will empathize with -- or even understand -- the problems of ordinary people.

Most of them have never experienced hard times. And judging from their policy positions, they can be counted on to have about as much empathy for working people as Leona Helmsley's dog.

By the way: that dog, who was rich enough to join Trump's cabinet, was named "Trouble."

Goldman Sachs Bait-and-Switch

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China Black Tea Market 2016 Growth, Trends and Competitive Landscape Outlook to 2021

Black Tea Market

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Urinalysis Market is Expanding at a steady 5.4% CAGR from 2016 to 2024

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The growing incidence of renal disease, diabetes, and other kidney-related disorders has resulted in an increased demand for urine diagnosis and urinalysis consumables. Driven by this, the global urinalysis market is projected to expand from a valuation of US$929.9 mn in 2015 to US$1.5 bn by 2024 at a steady 5.4% CAGR therein.Request a PDF Brochure with Report Analysis:Urinalysis Market: SnapshotThe global urinalysis market is primarily fueled by the alarming rise in the prevalence of diabetes. Diabetes is considered to be the leading cause of kidney failure and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) globally. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), an estimated 338 million new cases of diabetes were reported in 2014 and about 3.2 million people were diagnosed with ESRD in 2015. The WHO reports that diabetes accounted for an estimated 422 million deaths globally in 2014.Increasing Preference for Single-Use Consumables a Major Growth FactorIn terms of product, the consumables segment accounted for the leading share in the global urinalysis market in 2015 and is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period. The key factor driving this segment is an increase in preference toward sterile, rigid, and single-use disposable products. Within the consumables segment, plastic consumables offer substantial opportunities for new market players.By type of test, the biochemical segment held the dominant share in the overall urinalysis market in 2015. The wide usage of reagent strips (dipsticks) is mainly responsible for the growth of this segment. Dipstick is a biochemical technique to detect constituents present in the urine. This technique is easy to follow and is available in a variety of types. Hospitals form the leading end-user segment of the urinalysis market.On the basis of test setting, the laboratory-based segment led the urinalysis market in 2015 and is expected to show significant promise during the forecast period. The increasing prevalence of infectious diseases in developing countries, the growing incidence of lifestyle diseases, the rising geriatric population, and various technological advancements with regard to the development of faster and easy-to-use devices drive demand for laboratory-based urinalysis.Rise in Geriatric Population Single-handedly Driving Demand for UrinalysisNorth America led the global urinalysis market, accounting for a share of over 30% in 2015. Increasing geriatric population, rapid innovation in technology, and high R&D expenditure are attributed to the growth of the urinalysis market in the region. According to the National Kidney Foundation, an estimated 26 million people in the U.S. are living with kidney disease. This is also a key factor driving the urinalysis market in North America.Asia Pacific accounted for a significant share in the global urinalysis market in 2015, propelled primarily by the rise in geriatric population. According to the UN, there are 901 million people aged 60 and above globally, with Japan leading the pack. The rise in geriatric population, the increasing number of laboratory diagnosis tests, and a rise in point-of-care testing have led to the upswing of the APAC urinalysis market. The rapid pace of industrialization and infrastructure development activities, and increased awareness about product safety and quality in countries such as China and India are also expected to spur the demand for testing services in the region, thereby positively impacting the urinalysis.The market in Latin America is projected to expand at a high CAGR during the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. A large population base, a high-target patient pool, and an increase in government initiatives to provide better healthcare facilities are driving the urinalysis market in Latin America.Key players operating in the global urinalysis market include, ARKRAY, Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Danaher Corporation (Beckman Coulter, Inc.), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Mindray Medical International Limited, Siemens Healthineers, Sysmex Corporation, and 77 Elektronika Kft.Browse Research Report on Global Urinalysis Market:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
CloudQast helps global law firm develop its junior lawyers skills

Damian Gaskin (left) and Lindsey Mack, of CloudQast.

The leadership communications specialist, CloudQast, has completed running a ten-day complex training programme for a global law firm.The programme  the 11th such programme that CloudQast has delivered for the firm  involves CloudQast directors Lindsey Mack and Damian Gaskin casting and delivering a series of legal role-plays for junior members of the firm. CloudQasts Lindsey Mack explained, All the clients with whom they deal are simulated and the delegates are entirely on their own but, of course, in a completely commercially safe environment.The programme focuses on scenarios relevant to the firms actual work for its clients, and seeks to enhance the junior lawyers ability to deal effectively and productively with influential people and organisations facing complex legal challenges.One of the benefits of using immersive role play in this way is that, once a role play is ended, the clients come out of character to give the delegates detailed feedback on how they felt that things went, said Lindsey. CloudQast also films the sessions  to help in analysing the delegates performance.By the end of the programme, these junior lawyers have a much better idea of what clients really care about, he added. The delegates also gain some valuable insights into their own skill levels, as well as best practice  and, of course, they develop their self-awareness.Lindseys fellow CloudQast director, Damian Gaskin, commented, The programme - one of the range of consultancy services that CloudQast offers - contributes to achieving our clients aim of being exceptional and passionate about helping its clients achieve their goals, however ambitious those are. CloudQast is both proud and pleased to continue to be able to help this firm to achieve these ambitions through developing its junior staffs knowledge, skills and experience.About CloudQastEstablished in 2010, CloudQast addresses organisations needs for fast, authentic, precise and inspiring communication  especially in the fields of leadership as well as compliance, along with learning and development. Working with companies around the world, primarily  but not exclusively  via Cloud-based, interactive video, CloudQast provides creative, intelligent and flexible solutions for leaders to share their voice, mind and vision and, so, engage and inspire their people.CloudQastThe Silver Birches, 6a Back Lane, Wymondham, Norfolk, NR18 0QB, UKContact: Lindsey Mack, +44 (0)20 7127 0614, lindsey.mack@cloudqast.comPR contact: Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405; email bob.little@boblittlepr.com
Global Online Apparel Market : Size, Trends and Forecasts 2016-2020

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ResearchMoz presents this most up-to-date research on Global Online Apparel Market:Size, Trends and Forecasts (2016-20).Scope of the ReportThe report titled Global Online Apparel Market: Size, Trends and Forecasts (2016-20), provides an in-depth analysis of the global online apparel market focusing on major fashion destinations such as the UK in Europe and the US in the North America region. Growth of online apparel market for these markets in addition to global market has also been forecasted for the period 2016-2020, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.The report also includes detailed analysis of leading players in the online apparel segment globally such as ASOS PLC, Zalando SE, Amazon.com, Inc. and Boohoo.com, PLC on the basis of attributes such as business overview, recent developments, financials and strategies adopted by the market leaders in order to ensure growth, sustainability, etc.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @Geographical CoverageEurope - The UK, Germany, Italy, France, RussiaNorth America - The USRest of the WorldCompany CoverageASOS PLCZalando SEAmazon.com, Inc.Boohoo.com, PLCExecutive SummaryOnline apparel retail or E-Retailing has been gaining popularity presently due to some of the inherent benefits associated with the online business model. Historic and forecast growth of apparel retail online surpasses other product categories such as Health, Electricals, Homewares, etc. The market has already manifested its potential in developed western economies such as nations in European region and the US. Developing countries all over the world are also catching up with rise in online apparel shopping.For More Information Kindly Contact:ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @ResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @
Aluminium Bar, Profile and Rod Global Market Products, Applications and Services 2016 - 2020

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This publication enables readers the critical perspectives to be able to evaluate the world market for Aluminium Bar, Profile and Rod. The publication provides the market size, growth and forecasts at the global level as well as for the following countries:Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, VietnamDownload PDF Sample@The market data covers the years 2009-2020. The major questions answered in this comprehensive publication include:What is the global market size for aluminium bars, profiles and rods?What is the aluminium bar, profile and rod market size in different countries around the world?Are the markets growing or decreasing?How are the markets divided into different kinds of products?How are different product groups developing?How are the markets forecast to develop in the future?Which are the most potential countries and markets?The market information includes the total market size for aluminium bars, profiles and rods as well as the market size and trends for the following kinds of products:Aluminium bars, profiles and rods (alloyed)Aluminium bars, profiles and rods (not alloyed)Read Full Report with TOC:The publication is designed for companies who want to gain a comprehensive perspective on the global aluminium bar, profile and rod market. This publication makes it easy to compare across different countries and product groups to be able to find new market opportunities and make more profitable business decisions.Table of Contents:1. Argentina2. Armenia3. Australia4. Austria5. Azerbaijan6. Bangladesh7. Belgium8. Bolivia9. Bulgaria10. CanadaCheck Discount on this Report:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customised reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialisation. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email ID: sales@orbisresearch.comFollow Us on LinkedIn:
Photoresist Chemicals Market

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MarketResearchReports.Biz presents this most up-to-date research on "Photoresist Chemicals Market - Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Growth And Forecast 2014 - 2020"DescriptionPhotoresist materials are organic compounds whose chemical properties change when exposed to UV light due to breaking of chemical bonds. Photoresist are known to be light sensitive material that is used in the manufacture of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) and microelectrochemical systems (MEMS). Photoengraving and Photoresist form a patterned coating in the photoresist film. Photoresist are primarily used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and flat panel displays. Photoresist can be positive or negative. Positive photoresist is soluble when exposed to UV light, whereas it is vice versa in the case of negative photoresist. This light sensitive material is applied to the wafer surface treated with HMDS, an adhesion promoter to ensure proper adhesion of photoresist to the wafer substrate.The various chemicals used include poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), phenol formaldehyde resin (DNQ/ Novolac), Poly (methyl glutarimide) (PMGI) AND SU8. These chemicals are applied as liquid and spin coated to apply the chemical uniformly. PMMA is a multipurpose polymeric material suitable for many non-imaging and imaging microelectronic applications. PMMA is widely used as a bonding adhesive, covering for wafer thickening, and as sacrificial layer. It is most commonly applicable as high resolution positive resist for X-ray and deep UV microlithographic processes. Phenol formaldehyde resins are synthetic polymers obtained by reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. Phenol resins are majorly used in manufacturing circuit boards. PMGI resists enable high yield, metal lift-off processing in various applications ranging from data storage to MEMS. SU8 is used as an epoxy based negative photoresist. It was designed as a photoresist for the microelectronic industry to offer high resolution cover for fabrication of semiconductor devices.Some of the major application areas of photoresist include lithographic processes that include wide range of processes and tools. Other applications include fabrication of printed circuit boards, microelectronics, sand carving and patterning and etching of substrates. The aspects of photoresist technology are absorption at UV and shorter wavelength and electron beam exposure.Growing demand from the electronic industry is expected to be the major driver for photoresist chemicals market. The increasing demand from the construction industry is also expected to fuel demand for photoresist chemicals in the near future.Advances in the lithographic process technologies are expected to introduce new innovations in the photoresist chemicals and materials. Ongoing research is expected to improve the mechanical and imaging properties of photoresist chemicals and materials. Manufacturers through research and development are combining processes to create innovative materials and techniques to enhance the performance of photoresists and produce improved image. Innovations in the manufacturing techniques along with use of chemically amplified photoresist have boosted opportunities for new materials and photoresist chemicals in the market.Download Sample Copy of This Report at:North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW) are the major segments for photoresist chemicals markets. Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest consumer of photoresist chemicals owing to the growing electronic industry in China and Japan. North America and Europe are also expected to boost demand for photoresist chemicals owing to growing construction activities in the regions.Some of the key players profiled in photoresist chemicals market research report include: MG Chemicals, AZ Electronic Materials, Mitsui Chemicals America, Inc, The Dow Chemical Company, RD Chemical Company, Sumica Electronic Materials Inc, DuPont, CHIMEI Corporation, TOK AMERICA, Transene Electronic Chemicals, Honsou Chemical Industry, Kolon Industries Inc, Kemlab, Gaylord Chemical and Samyang Corporation among others.This research report analyzes this market on the basis of its market segments, major geographies, and current market trends. Geographies analyzed under this research report includeNorth AmericaAsia PacificEuropeRest of the WorldThis report provides comprehensive analysis ofMarket growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for upcoming yearsThis report is a complete study of current trends in the market, industry growth drivers, and restraints. It provides market projections for the coming years. It includes analysis of recent developments in technology, Porters five force model analysis and detailed profiles of top industry players. The report also includes a review of micro and macro factors essential for the existing market players and new entrants along with detailed value chain analysis.Browse Latest Industry Press Release at:About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:
Data Center Liquid Cooling Market Set to Grow USD 2969.8 Million by 2021

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According to a new market research report "Data Center Liquid Cooling Market by Type of Solution (Indirect (Rack and Row Based), Direct (Single Phase and Two Phase)), Service (Design & Consulting, Installation & Deployment), Data Center Type, Industries, and Region - Global Forecast to 2021", published by MarketIntelReports, the market is estimated to grow from USD 827.8 Million in 2016 to USD 2969.8 Million by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 29.11%.Browse Our Recent Research on Data Center Liquid Cooling Market @The major forces driving the Data Center Liquid Cooling Market are the availability of advanced coolants, growing need for eco-friendly solutions, increased need for cost effective cooling solutions, and increasing server rack density. The Data Center Liquid Cooling Market is growing rapidly because of the increasing number of users opting for energy efficient and scalable datacenter cooling solutions.Direct liquid cooling solutions to grow at the highest CAGRDirect liquid cooling solutions is expected to witness the highest CAGR during the period 2016 to 2021. Direct liquid cooling solutions facilitate cooling with reduced carbon footprint owing to the use of advanced engineered coolants. Moreover, they provide efficient cooling for high performance computing requirements from various industries. These benefits are driving the market and are anticipated to help in propelling the Data Center Liquid Cooling Market to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period."Support and maintenance services market to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period"Support and maintenance services are expected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period owing to the rapid adoption of liquid cooling data center solutions in large enterprises, which require third party assistance for maintenance of coolants and support for the liquid cooling data center infrastructure.Get Sample Brochure of the Report @North America is expected to dominate the Data Center Liquid Cooling Market during the forecast periodThe Data Center Liquid Cooling Market segments the global market on the basis of regions, which include North America, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Latin America. North America is expected to hold the largest share of the Data Center Liquid Cooling Market in 2016 due to the technological advancements and early adoption of liquid cooling data center across a large number of verticals in this region. The market in APAC is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2016 and 2021. The primary driving forces for this growth are increasing requirement for low energyconsuming and reliable cooling solutions in various industries.The report also encompasses different strategies, such as mergers & acquisitions, partnerships & collaborations, and product developments, adopted by major players to increase their share in the market. Some of the major technology vendors include Asetek (Denmark), Rittal GmbH and Co. Kg. (Germany), Emerson Electric Co. (U.S.), Schneider Electric SE (France), IBM Corporation (U.S.), Green Revolution Cooling Inc. (U.S.), Midas Green Technologies LLC (U.S.), Allied Control Ltd. (Hong Kong), Green Data Center LLP (Malaysia), and Horizon Computing Solutions (France).Order Data Center Liquid Cooling Market Research Report @About us:MarketIntelReports (MIR) aim to empower our clients to successfully manage and outperform in their business decisions, we do this by providing Premium Market Intelligence, Strategic Insights and Databases from a range of Global Publishers.A group of industry veterans who are well experienced in reputed international consulting firms after identifying the sourcing needs of MNCs for market intelligence, have together started this business savior MarketIntelReports.Contact us:Sales ManagerMayur S2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400,Wilmington,Delaware,19808United Statespr@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-261-5343
Worldwide Biometrics Market are anticipated to reach $16.7 billion by 2019: Key Trends, Shares, Strategies, Forecasts and Opportunities

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Biometrics: Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2013 to 2019 " to it's Large Report database.WinterGreen Research announces that it has published a new study Biometrics: Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2013 to 2019. The 2013 study has 563 pages, 249 tables and figures. Worldwide markets are poised to achieve significant growth. As people use electronics in their personal life more, protection of individual information becomes a more compelling problem. Biometrics devices protect individual information.Biometric identity units provide security protection. Units are comprised of integrated biometric capture devices. Biometrics is used to identify anyone in an accurate, repeatable manner. Physiological characteristics used for biometrics commonly include the face, fingerprints, and DNA. Behavioral characteristics include the user's digital signature, his or her voiceprint, and walk.Download free Sample PDF report with TOC:As law enforcement programs are redesigned to include information from social media and to initiate smarter cities initiatives, biometrics becomes a more compelling technology, both fingerprinting and facial recognition. Technologies. With the worldwide rise in the threat of terror, biometric systems become a more compelling tool in the hands of the authorities charged with keeping populations safe.A rise in government projects has been seen as terrorists become an increasing threat. This has been accompanied by increasing data security concerns. There is a need for advanced security devices. Security systems implementations drive the market for biometric systems. Biometric data protection is being used to replace photographs, passwords and PIN codes.Growth of biometric technologies has been in response to global security threats. Terrorist attacks, airport security initiatives, and attempts to lower crime rates have brought an increasing investment in biometric security systems. Government projects include ePassports, eDriving licenses, border management, and national IDs. These initiatives have been implemented in developed countries.Read All ICT Market Research Reports @Table of ContentsBiometrics and Biometric Fingerprint Equipment Executive SummaryBiometrics and Biometric Fingerprint Equipment Market Driving ForcesBiometric Fingerprint Equipment Market Driving ForcesBiometrics Market SharesBiometric Market ForecastsBiometric Device Market Trends1. Biometrics and Biometric Fingerprint Equipment Market Description and Market Dynamics1.1 Biometric Sensor Devices1.1.1 Biometrics for Security and Management1.1.2 Biometrics for Convenience1.1.3 Biometric Systems Characteristics1.1.4 Biometric Systems Hidden Expenses1.2 Biometrics Industry Segments1.2.1 Biometrics Are In Law Enforcement1.2.2 Biometrics Personal Identity Verification1.2.3 Biometrics Increase Security1.2.4 Financial Institutions Use Biometrics1.2.5 Law Enforcement Uses Biometrics1.2.6 Immigration Uses Biometrics1.2.7 Social Services Use Biometrics1.2.8 Airports Use Biometrics1.2.9 Healthcare Use Biometrics1.2.10 Consumer Use BiometricsAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Contact Us:Mr. NachiketAlbany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at:
Welding Consumable Market To Reach USD 16.3 Billion by 2023

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The global welding consumables market is predicted to flourish significantly at a CAGR of 5.4% over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023. Moreover, the market of welding consumables accounted for USD 11.2 Billion in 2015 and anticipated to garner USD 16.3 Billion by 2023. The arc welding segment market accounted for USD 7.6 Billion in 2015 and it is expected to grow significantly during the forecast period.The welding consumables market of Asia-Pacific is estimated to dominate the market with 33.5% share of revenue by the end of 2016. Moreover, the market accounted the largest revenue share of 31.5% in 2015 in overall welding consumables market across the globe.On the other hand, Latin-America welding consumables market is expected to be the fastest growing market over the forecast period across the globe due to rapid growth in automobile industries and rising adoption of advanced welding techniques in the region.Get Free Sample Report of Welding Consumable Market :Growth Drivers and challengesRapid growth in industrial automation and automobile industries, increasing building infrastructure in emerging economies, rise in use of metal, thermoplasts, alloy equipment and assemblies in order to provide better strength to the structures and are some of the major key factors further anticipated to trigger the demand for welding consumables in near future.In addition to this, factors such as introduction of advanced welding techniques, technological advancements in construction and automobile sector, going-on researches to provide efficient welding consumables, rising demand of stick electrode owing to its wide scale application are expected to fuel the demand for welding consumables market over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023.Moreover, presence of eminent elements in welding consumables such as nickel, aluminum, copper, etc.; to provide high strength and increasing load bearing capacity of the joints is one of the vital factors growing the demand for welding consumables in various industries.Get Full Table Of Content Welding Consumable Market :However, lack of skilled labor in production sector, slow adoption of advanced welding techniques in developing nations across the globe are some of the factors hindering the growth of welding consumables market globally.Demand Analysis By Market SegmentationOur in-depth analysis segmented the global welding consumables market in the following segments:By TechnologyArc WeldingResistance WeldingOxy-fuel WeldingUltra-sonic WeldingOthers (laser beam welding, etc.)By EquipmentBy welding electrode and filler metal equipmentStick WeldersTIG WeldersOthers (MIG Welders)By oxy-fuel gas equipmentOxy-fuel welding guns and torchesOxy-fuel welding hosesOxy-fuel welding tipsOxy-fuel welding other equipmentWelding is a permanent joint which is used to join various metal and thermoplastic components. Welding process includes reaction of oxides and generation of flux which further melts the welding consumables such as stick electrodes in order to develop a permanent join between the components and parts.Research Nester is a global market research and consulting firm helping organizations, private entities, governments undertaking, non-legislative associations and non-profit organizations. With our decades of experience in the market research, we help our clients to gain a competitive edge over other players. Thus, helping them making strategic yet dynamic decisions for the future investments.Ajay DanielEmail: ajay.daniel@researchnester.com1820 Avenue M, Suite# 1113,Brooklyn, New York 11230U.S. +1 646 586 9123U.K. +44 203 608 5919web:
Solvent-based Inks Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Forecast And Opportunities 2016 - 2024

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Solvent-based Inks Market (Printing Type - Lithographic, Gravure, Flexographic, Screen-printing, Letterpress, Digital; Product Type - Vinyl Inks, Vinyl-Acrylic Inks, Epoxy Inks, Polyurethanic Inks, Cellulose Inks; Application - Packaging, Books & Catalogue, Advertising, Tags & Labels, Office Stationery, Magazines, Newspaper) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, And Forecast 2016 - 2024 " to it's Large Report database.This research study analyzes the market for solvent-based inks in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) and volume (kilo tons). The solvent-based inks market has been segmented on the basis of product, printing type, end use applications, and geography. The report features a detailed regional segmentation with market growth forecasts for the 20162024 period. For the research, 2015 has been considered as the base year and 2016 the estimated year, while all forecasts have been given for the period from 2016 to 2024. Market data for all the segments has been provided at the regional and country-specific levels from 2016 to 2024. The report provides a broad competitive analysis of companies engaged in the development of solvent-based inks technologies for the solvent-based inks business. The report also includes key market dynamics such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities affecting the global solvent-based inks market. These market dynamics are analyzed in detail and are illustrated in the report with the help of supporting graphs and tables. The report also provides a comprehensive analysis of the market with the help of the Porters Five Forces Analysis model, which helps in understanding the five major forces that affect the structure and profitability of the global solvent-based inks market. The forces analyzed are the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, and the degree of competition.Download free Sample PDF report with TOC:The high-level analysis in the report provides detailed insights into the solvent-based inks business globally. There are currently several drivers for the market. The most prominent drivers include rapid growth in the packaging industry along with growth in the digital printing industry. Market attractiveness analysis was carried out for the solvent-based inks market on the basis of product type, printing type, application, region, and country. Market attractiveness was estimated on the basis of common parameters that directly impact the market.On the basis of printing type, the market has been segmented into lithographic, gravure, flexographic, screen-printing, letterpress, and digital. On the basis of product type, the market has been segmented into vinyl inks, vinyl-acrylic inks, epoxy inks, polyurethanic inks, and cellulose inks. By application, the solvent-based inks market has been segmented by various end-use applications, including packaging, advertising, tags & labels, books & catalog, office stationery, magazines, newspaper, and other applications.Read All Chemicals Market Research Reports @Table of ContentSection 1 Preface1.1 Report Scope and Market Segmentation1.2 Research Highlights1.3 Research Objectives1.4 Key Questions AnsweredSection 2 Assumptions and Research Methodology2.1 Report Assumptions2.2 Abbreviations Used2.3 Research MethodologySection 3 Executive Summary3.1 Global Solvent based Inks Market Size, by Market Value (US$ Mn) and Market Value Share, by Region3.2 Key TrendsSection 4 Market Overview4.1 Product Overview4.2 Market Indicators: Global Solvent based Inks4.3 Drivers, Restraints & Opportunities4.4 Global Solvent based Inks Market Analysis and Forecasts, 2016  20244.5 Global Solvent based Inks Demand-Supply & Price Trend Analysis and Forecasts, 2014  20244.6 Porters Five Force Analysis4.7 Value Chain AnalysisAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Contact Us:Mr. NachiketAlbany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at:
Worldwide Australia Ophthalmic Lasers Market Shares, Strategies, And Forecasts Outlook to 2022

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"The Report Australia Ophthalmic Lasers Market Outlook to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"GlobalDatas new report, "Australia Ophthalmic Lasers Market Outlook to 2022", provides key market data on the Australia Ophthalmic Lasers market. The report provides value, in millions of US dollars, volume (in units) and average prices (USD) within market segements - Excimer Lasers, Femtosecond Lasers and YAG Lasers.The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for each of these market segements, and global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants. Based on the availability of data for the particular market and country, information related to pipeline products, news and deals is available in the report.Extensive interviews are conducted with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians and industry experts to validate the market size, company share and distribution share data and analysis.View Report At :Scope- Market size and company share data for Ophthalmic Lasers market segements - Excimer Lasers, Femtosecond Lasers and YAG Lasers.- Annualized market revenues (USD million) and volume (units) data for each of the market segements. Data is provided from 2008 to 2015 and forecast to 2022.- 2015 company shares and distribution shares data for each of the market segements.- Global corporate-level profiles of key companies operating within the Australia Ophthalmic Lasers market.- Key players covered include Alcon, Inc., Abbott Medical Optics, Inc., Bausch & Lomb Incorporated, Carl Zeiss AG and Others.Reasons to buy- Develop business strategies by identifying the key market segments poised for strong growth in the future.- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies.- Design competition strategies by identifying who-stands-where in the market.- Develop investment strategies by identifying the key market segments expected to register strong growth in the near future.- What are the key distribution channels and whats the most preferred mode of product distribution - Identify, understand capitalize.Download Sample copy of this Report at :Table of Contentsa1 Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 41.2 List of Figures 42 Introduction 52.1 What Is This Report About? 52.2 Ophthalmic Lasers Market Segmentation 52.3 Definitions of Markets Covered in the Report 63 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia 73.1 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Revenue ($m), 2008-2015 73.2 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Revenue ($m), 2015-2022 93.3 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Volume (Units), 2008-2015 113.4 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Volume (Units), 2015-2022 133.5 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Average Price ($), 2008-2022 153.6 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Distribution Share by Revenue ($m), 2014-2015 163.7 Ophthalmic Lasers Market, Australia, Company Share by Revenue ($m), 2015 174 Overview of Key Companies in Australia, Ophthalmic Lasers Market 194.1 Abbott Medical Optics Inc 194.1.1 Company Overview 194.2 Carl Zeiss AG 194.2.1 Company Overview 194.3 Bausch & Lomb Inc 194.3.1 Company Overview 194.4 Lumenis Ltd 194.4.1 Company Overview 194.5 Nidek Co Ltd 204.5.1 Company Overview 204.6 Ziemer Ophthalmic Systems AG 204.6.1 Company Overview 204.7 Ellex Medical Lasers Limited 204.7.1 Company Overview 204.8 Quantel Medical SA 214.8.1 Company Overview 214.9 SCHWIND eye-tech-solutions GmbH & Co KG 214.9.1 Company Overview 214.10 Alcon, Inc. 214.10.1 Company Overview 215 Ophthalmic Lasers Market Pipeline Products 226 Recent Developments 236.1 Corporate Communications 236.1.1 May 17, 2016: Medical Alarm Concepts Holding Announces FCC Approval For iHelp+ 3G Mobile Medical Alert Device 236.2 Other Significant Developments 246.2.1 Jan 29, 2016: Trading Update for the Half-Year Ended 31 December 2015 246.3 Strategy And Business Planning 246.3.1 Feb 15, 2016: Chemence Medical Receives FDA Clearance for Exofin Tissue Adhesive 246.3.2 Jan 22, 2016: Ellex expands production facilities to meet anticipated demand 257 Appendix 27MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Recent Press Release Updates: IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Medical Devices Pipeline Assessment, 2016

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/analysis/885322

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/885322

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

"The Report IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Medical Devices Pipeline Assessment, 2016 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"GlobalData's Medical Devices sector report, IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Medical Devices Pipeline Assessment, 2016" provides an overview of IntraOcular Lens (IOL) currently in pipeline stage.The report provides comprehensive information on the pipeline products with comparative analysis of the products at various stages of development. The report reviews major players involved in the pipeline product development. It also provides information about clinical trials in progress, which includes trial phase, trial status, trial start and end dates, and, the number of trials for the key IntraOcular Lens (IOL) pipeline products.This report is prepared using data sourced from in-house databases, secondary and primary research by GlobalData's team of industry experts.View Report At :Scope- Extensive coverage of the IntraOcular Lens (IOL) under development- The report reviews details of major pipeline products which includes, product description, licensing and collaboration details and other developmental activities- The report reviews the major players involved in the development of IntraOcular Lens (IOL) and list all their pipeline projects- The coverage of pipeline products based on various stages of development ranging from Early Development to Approved / Issued stage- The report provides key clinical trial data of ongoing trials specific to pipeline products- Recent developments in the segment / industryReasons to buyThe report enables you to -- Formulate significant competitor information, analysis, and insights to improve R&D strategies- Identify emerging players with potentially strong product portfolio and create effective counter-strategies to gain competitive advantage- Identify and understand important and diverse types of IntraOcular Lens (IOL) under development- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies- Plan mergers and acquisitions effectively by identifying major players with the most promising pipeline- In-depth analysis of the products current stage of development, territory and estimated launch dateDownload Sample copy of this Report at :Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 61.2 List of Figures 162 Introduction 172.1 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) Overview 173 Products under Development 183.1 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products by Stage of Development 183.2 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products by Segment 193.3 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products by Territory 203.4 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products by Regulatory Path 213.5 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products by Estimated Approval Date 223.6 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Ongoing Clinical Trials 234 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products under Development by Companies 244.1 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) Companies - Pipeline Products by Stage of Development 244.2 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) - Pipeline Products by Stage of Development 265 IntraOcular Lens (IOL) Companies and Product Overview 325.1 Abbott Medical Optics Inc Company Overview 325.1.1 Abbott Medical Optics Inc Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 325.2 Adoptics AG (Inactive) Company Overview 355.2.1 Adoptics AG (Inactive) Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 355.3 AkkoLens International BV Company Overview 365.3.1 AkkoLens International BV Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 365.4 Alcon, Inc. Company Overview 375.4.1 Alcon, Inc. Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 375.5 Anew Optics, Inc. Company Overview 465.5.1 Anew Optics, Inc. Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 465.6 Bausch & Lomb Inc Company Overview 475.6.1 Bausch & Lomb Inc Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 475.7 Calhoun Vision, Inc. Company Overview 485.7.1 Calhoun Vision, Inc. Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 485.8 Clarvista Medical, Inc. Company Overview 495.8.1 Clarvista Medical, Inc. Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 495.9 Elenza, Inc. Company Overview 505.9.1 Elenza, Inc. Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 505.10 Emmetrope Incorporated Company Overview 515.10.1 Emmetrope Incorporated Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 515.11 Eye4Vision Ophthalmics International Company Overview 545.11.1 Eye4Vision Ophthalmics International Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 545.12 EyeKon Medical Inc Company Overview 555.12.1 EyeKon Medical Inc Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 555.13 Hoya Surgical Optics Inc Company Overview 1515.13.1 Hoya Surgical Optics Inc Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 1515.14 IFS Construction Services Ltd Company Overview 1535.14.1 IFS Construction Services Ltd Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 1535.15 InnFocus LLC Company Overview 1545.15.1 InnFocus LLC Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 1545.16 Innovia LLC Company Overview 1555.16.1 Innovia LLC Pipeline Products & Ongoing Clinical Trials Overview 1555.17 LensGen, Inc. Company Overview 156MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global PACS and RIS Market to Reach US$3.9 bn in 2024

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http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pacs-ris-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

https://tmrresearch.blogspot.com/

The global PACS and RIS market was valued at US$2.2 bn in 2015 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 7.0% during the forecast period to reach US$3.9 bn in 2024.Download Complete Healthcare Analytical Brochure:PACS and RIS Market: SnapshotPicture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and radiology information systems (RIS) are considered to be key resources for proper data management in a healthcare facility. The growing demand for digitization is enhancing the PACS and RIS market globally. The instant availability of images at wards and operating rooms to speed up treatment processes, remote viewing and consulting by medical professionals, and the transition from paper records to electronic medical records are functions that are supported by PACS and RIS and the rising need for these functionalities at any healthcare facility drives the global market.Cloud-based PACS and RIS to Propel Global Market during Forecast PeriodBased on product type, PACS emerged as the leading segment in terms of revenue in 2015, attributed to the high demand and widespread use of PACS such as cardiology PACS and orthopedic PACS. Among various types of PACS products, the oncology PACS segment is likely to record an impressive growth rate from 2016 to 2024. This is attributed to the increasing prevalence of cancer. In addition, the growing demand for complete diagnosis is likely to fuel this segment.In terms of component, the services segment held a major share in the PACS and RIS market in 2015, boosted by the need for regular servicing and maintenance of hardware and software. In terms of deployment, the market has is led by web-based PACS and RIS, attributed to the increased demand for multi-modality support for efficient workflow management of medical imaging practices at number of locations. The cloud-based segment is likely to record strong growth from 2016 to 2024 because cloud-based systems provide increased cyber security and additional storage, which is essential due to the increased number of healthcare procedures.Based on end user, hospitals emerged as the leading segment in terms of revenue in 2015, owing to high demand. Hospitals carry out a large number of medical examinations in the form of images, which require secure proper storage and accessibility. The ambulatory surgical centers segment, on the other hand, is likely to record the highest growth rate during the forecast period.PACS and RIS Market in Asia Pacific to Witness Considerable Growth by 2024Geographically, North America was the leading revenue generator for the global PACS and RIS market in 2015, accounting for a share of over 45% that year. Rising healthcare demand and substantial government interventions for research and development are the major factors supporting market growth. The PACS segment in North America accounted for a significant share in 2015, supported mainly by a wide range of applications such as cardiology and oncology.The PACS and RIS market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness considerable growth during the forecast period due to the difficulty presented by an increasing number of medical images in tracking medical records on paper. Hence, the adoption of electronic medical records and PACS and RIS is anticipated to increase through 2024. The markets in Japan and China are expected to expand at a CAGR higher than other countries in Asia Pacific due to the technological advancements in these countries. The demand for services for PACS and RIS systems in Asia Pacific is high owing to the increase in demand for maintenance of hardware and software.Major players operating in the global PACS and RIS market include GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, McKesson Corporation, Siemens Healthineers, Agfa Healthcare, and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.Browse Research Report on Global PACS and RIS Market:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Veterinary Healthcare Market Size, Share, Analysis, Report and Forecast to 2022

According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Veterinary Healthcare market is accounted for $24.34 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $40.8 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2015 to 2022. Factors such as food safety and improved nutrition, increase in pet ownership, increasing awareness of zoonotic diseases and increasing animal population are driving the market. However, increasing cost of animal testing, increased competition for cultivated land restrictions established by regulatory bodies will challenge the veterinary market.Feed additives held the largest share among the products segment followed by pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Europe is the leading market in veterinary healthcare followed by North America. Asia-pacific and other developing regions will be the major contributors to the market.Some of the key players in global Veterinary Healthcare market are Merck & Co., Inc, MERIAL Limited, Zoetis Inc, Novartis Animal Health Inc, Bayer HealthCare, Ceva Sante Animale, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Virbac SA, Elanco Products Company, Vetoquinol SA, Sanofi-Aventis, Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Heska Corporation, PetAg Incorporated and Procter & Gamble Company.Animals Covered: Farm animalso Cattleo Swineo Fisho Sheepo Poultry Companion animalso Dogso Catso HorsesProducts Covered: Vaccines Feed Additiveso Nutritional Feed Additiveso Medicinal Feed Additives Pharmaceuticalso Systemic Agents Parasiticides Antibiotics Other PharmaceuticalsDiagnostics Covered: Immunodiagnostics Molecular diagnostics Diagnostic imaging Clinical chemistry Other diagnosticsRegions Covered: North Americao USo Canadao Mexico Europeo Germanyo Franceo Italyo UKo Spaino Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Japano Chinao Indiao Australiao New Zealando Rest of Asia Pacific Rest of the Worldo Middle Easto Brazilo Argentinao South Africao EgyptWhat our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 7 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsWe offer wide spectrum of research and consulting services with in-depth knowledge of different industries. We are known for customized research services, consulting services and Full Time Equivalent (FTE) services in the research world. We explore the market trends and draw our insights with valid assessments and analytical views. We use advanced techniques and tools among the quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify the market trends. Our research reports and publications are routed to help our clients to design their business models and enhance their business growth in the competitive market scenario. We have a strong team with hand-picked consultants including project managers, implementers, industry experts, researchers, research evaluators and analysts with years of experience in delivering the complex projects.STRATISTICS MRC17049 King James Way, Gaithersburg,MD, 20877, USA
7th International Conference on Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine October 02-04, 2017 Barcelona, Spain

New research concepts at Regenerative Medicine 2017

http://tissuescience-regenerativemedicine.conferenceseries.com/

The 7th International Conference on Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine which is going to be held during October 02-04, 2017 at Barcelona, Spain will bring together world-class personalities working on stem cells, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to discuss materials-related strategies for disease remediation and tissue repair.===============================================Dear Dr. ,It is with great pleasure that we invite you to participate in the 7th International Conference on Tissue Science & Regenerative Medicine (Regenerative Medicine-2017) to be held at Barcelona, Spain, during Oct 02-04, 2017.Regenerative Medicine-2017 would lay a platform for the interaction between experts around the world and aims in accelerating scientific discoveries. The main theme of the conference is Transforming Repairs into Regeneration. Regenerative Medicine-2017 is a remarkable event which brings together a unique and international mix of large and medium companies, leading universities and research institutions and hospitals in the field of Tissue Science and Regenerative Medicine.Based on your expertise we are honored in inviting you to be a part of Regenerative Medicine-2017. Also we are delightful to provide you an opportunity as an honorable speaker at this conference. We are looking forward for your association with Regenerative Medicine-2017.For more details please visit:We appreciate your time and looking forward to hearing from you.Yours Sincerely,Organizing CommitteeRegenerative Medicine 2017Conference Series LLC2360 Corporate CircleSuite 400, HendersonNV 89074-7722, USAPhone: +1-888-843-8169TRYP Barcelona Apolo Hotel, Avinguda del Parallel, 57-59 Barcelona 08004 Spain
Automotive Parts Die Casting Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecasts 2015-2022

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http://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/11204-automotive-parts-die-casting-market-report

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The new research report on Automotive Parts Die Casting Market offered by DecisionDatabases.com provides Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Till 2022.Get Free Smple Copy @The report on global automotive parts die casting market evaluates the growth trends of the industry through historical study and estimates future prospects based on comprehensive research. The report extensively provides the market share, growth, trends and forecasts for the period 2015-2022. The market size in terms of revenue (USD MN) is calculated for the study period along with the details of the factors affecting the market growth (drivers and restraints).A glimpse of the major drivers and restraints affecting this market is mentioned below:A. Drivers> Regulations imposed by OSHA and initiatives by NADCA to improve the technical workforce in the die-casting industry> Technological developmentsB. Restraints> Highly dependent on the environmental protection agency (EPA) regulationsFurthermore, the report quantifies the market share held by the major players of the industry and provides an in-depth view of the competitive landscape. This market is classified into different segments with detailed analysis of each with respect to geography for the study period 2015-2022.The comprehensive value chain analysis of the market will assist in attaining better product differentiation, along with detailed understanding of the core competency of each activity involved. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report aptly measures the potential value of the market providing business strategists with the latest growth opportunities.The report classifies the market into different segments based on production process type, raw material type and application. These segments are studied in detail incorporating the market estimates and forecasts at regional and country level. The segment analysis is useful in understanding the growth areas and probable opportunities of the market.The report also covers the complete competitive landscape of the worldwide market with company profiles of key players such as Castwel Auto Parts Pvt Ltd., Die-casting Solutions GmbH, Dynacast, Endurance Group, Gibbs Die-casting Group, Kinetic Die-casting Company, Mino Industry USA, Inc., Ningbo Parison Die-casting Co., Ltd., Raltor Metal Technik India Pvt. Ltd., Rockman Industries Ltd., Ryobi Die-casting Inc., Sandhar Technologies Limited, Sipra Engineers, Spark Minda, Ashok Minda Group, Sunbeam Auto Pvt. Ltd, Texas Die-casting, and Tyche Diecast Private Limited. A detailed description of each has been included, with information in terms of H.Q, future capacities, key mergers & acquisitions, financial overview, partnerships, collaborations, new product launches, new product developments and other latest industrial developments.Access full report at:SEGMENTATIONS IN THE REPORT:1. By Production Process Type:> Pressure Die-Casting> Vacuum Die-Casting> Squeeze Die-Casting> Semi-Solid Die-Casting2. By Raw Material Type:> Aluminum> Zinc> Magnesium> Others3. By Applications:> Body Assemblies> Engine Parts> Transmission Parts> Others4. By Geography:> North America (NA)> Europe (EU)> Asia Pacific (APAC)> Latin America (LA)> Middle East & Africa (MEA)Purchase Complete Global Automotive Parts Die Casting Market Research Report At:DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed.3rd Floor,Fountain chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 1E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web:
The hidden value of Data and Information for Smart Water Systems

http://www.smart-water-systems.com/openpr

http://www.smart-water-systems.com/openpr

http://www.smi-online.co.uk

SMi Reports (05.12.2016, London, UK): Utility experts to provide insight into the hidden value of Data and Information at Smart Water Systems 2017.With the smart meter roll out happening gradually over the UK and Europe in the last few years, larger emphasis has been placed on the data and information collected. Following this, SMi's forthcoming Smart Water Systems conference will feature an exclusive spotlight on the role of data and information when it returns to London on 24th & 25th April 2017 for its 6th annual show.Smart Water Systems will cover topics on data ranging from using data efficiently, consumer behaviour based on data collected, data governance and strategy and much more.Key presentations focusing on data include: From Data to Water 4.0  Simple beginnings  Anglian Water Smart Network Developments - Sutton & East Surrey Water plc Data Governance and Strategy - Dwr Cymru Welsh Water Real Time Water Demand Forecast with Big Data - Aguas de Alicante Information and its Role in the High Performing Culture - Northumbrian WaterHighlights in 2017: The water industry after the Smart Meter Roll Outs  learn about the most recent developments and challenges water utilities are facing. The Scottish concept of a Hydro Nation  improving water economy by addressing the value of water resources. International data insight  an experience report on Real-Time Demand forecast and Big Data challenges Customer-focused engagement programmes to improve satisfaction  how these developments are changing customer serviceOther notable presenters include: Thames Water, Scottish Government, WaterSmart Software, United Utilities, Veolia, Northumbrian Water, Severn Trent, Southern Water, Energy Saving Trust, Irish Water, University of Exeter.For those looking to attend, there is a 400 early bird saving available online ending on 16th December 2016.Further information is available at6th Annual Smart Water Systems24th  25th April 2017Copthorne Tara Hotel, London, UKAbout SMi Group:Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the worlds most forward thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found atSMi Group1 Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7XWSponsors and Delegates Registration: Contact Andrew Gibbons on +44(0) 207 827 6156, agibbons@smi-online.co.ukMedia: Contact Theresa Chung on tchung@smi-online.co.uk
CHAMBER FOR GOOD PROVIDES ITS SUPPORT TO THE COMMUNITY

Coral Springs, Fla (December 5, 2016) -- The Coral Springs Regional Chamber of Commerce has launched a community building service called Chamber for Good that allows local charities to increase their visibility within the community. Chamber For Good works to assist the Chamber to reach out to the many outstanding nonprofits that make a difference in our community by helping them to achieve their goals.The Chamber for Good tool allows residents of our community to view local charitable needs posted by local charities sorted into three areas: financial, volunteer, and goods and items needed. All local charities that fit the eligibility guidelines have the ability to create a public profile on the Chamber for Good site, then post needs in the three areas as they arise.The Coral Springs Regional Chamber of Commerces next Chamber for Good meeting will explain how small businesses and non-profits can work together to put the spotlight on charitable, not for profit organizations whose objectives are to enhance our community and its citizens. The event will be open to all non-profits and businesses that serve non-profits (not just chamber members).This program allows us to connect our residents and businesses and strengthen our community in a way that we havent been able to do before, explained Cindy Brief, President and CEO of the Coral Springs Regional Chamber of Commerce. Our goal is to help nonprofits raise awareness and money needed. By leveraging the support of our businesses we will be able to make a difference in our community, which is what we always strive for.Residents are encouraged to go to the Chamber for Good website and enter their email address toward the bottom of the home page. In doing this they will be notified once per week, by email, of the local needs that exist among the charitable organizations and causes that operate within our community.###About Chamber For Good:The key focus that drives Chamber for Good is that they can provide the means for businesses and philanthropic individuals to become aware of local charitable needs, causes and events while bringing individuals, organizations and businesses together to achieve their collective goals. The Chamber for Good system will serve to connect all local charitable organizations and causes with the individuals and organizations within our community that are eager to support local needs. This program is free and open to 501(C) (3) charities that service residents of Coral Springs.11805 Heron Bay Blvd.Coral Springs, FL 33076
New Motorhome Buying Website Launch Announced

https://www.buymymotorhome.com/

BuyMyMotorhome Launches Streamlined Website for Online Campervan SellersNottinghamshire, UK, December 05, 2016 - If you are looking to sell a recreational vehicle online without the hassle of advertising privately then the team at BuyMyMotorhome have recently upped their game with the introduction of a brand new website which features a cleaner interface with a significantly improved user experience. The main philosophy behind the new site is to simplify the process of selling a used campervan online to the point where achieving a successfully completed sale takes little more than a quick phone call and a doorstep inspection.Selling a motorhome privately for its true worth has always been a difficult prospect at the best of times. For this reason, BuyMyMotorhome have taken it upon themselves to offer a fully inclusive, one-stop service that replaces the trivialities associated with a private sale with a fast and convenient solution that promises a much quicker selling experience with a guaranteed price.Quick Motorhome Sales Made Easy"Ever since our inception, we have always tried to provide a fast and professional service that dispenses with the complications that one would typically associate with selling a campervan or motorhome online to a private party. Our vast buying experience means we can offer a quick and accurate valuation based on the individual characteristics of each motorhome we are offered and our enormous buying power means that we can guarantee each offer against any rival bid from a competing firm in the same line of business." - BuyMyMotorhomePerhaps you are looking to sell a small, 2-berth campervan that has been in the family for a number of years, or you have recently acquired a state-of-the-art luxury motorhome as part of a bereavement or divorce settlement that you need to convert to cash. Whatever the circumstances, the team at BuyMyMotorhome are always available to turn an otherwise complicated transaction into a convenient reality.Get a Fast, Free Valuation within Minutes"If you need to sell a campervan quickly and you don't have the time or money to advertise privately then BuyMyMotorhome are here to help. We buy dozens of used recreational vehicles on a daily basis and our vast level of experience means that we can provide an accurate assessment of the worth of a motorhome within minutes, over the telephone, provided the party interested in selling to us is able to offer a complete an accurate description that we can base the valuation on." -BuyMyMotorhomeThe newly launched website will enable the team at BuyMyMotorhome to deal with an increased number of customers in a much quicker manner and the recently updated FAQ section aims to deal with any reservations or questions a client may have before making contact via the telephone and email enquiry services.Of course, if you have any specific questions that are not covered in the FAQ, then you can always contact the motorhome buying team directly on 01623 631102. Alternatively, you can use the contact form provided on the BuyMyMotorhome website.About BuyMyMotorhomeBuyMyMotorhome.com is the UK's most successful independent motorhome buyer. They promise to buy any motorhome or campervan, regardless of how old or obscure the make is, how many miles are on the clock or what condition the fittings, fixtures and other accessories are in. Their enormous buying power means that they are able to back up their initial offer whilst guaranteeing to beat any genuine written quote from any rival campervan buying service. Their reputation is highly enviable and they always provide free, honest and impartial advice without pressuring the seller.Contact:BuyMyMotorhome.comMansfield i-centreHamilton WayMansfield, Nottinghamshire NG18 5BR01623 631102
Global Alfalfa Oil Market 2016- Market Segmentation 2016: Industry Growth, Trends, Sales and Analysis By 2021

Alfalfa Oil

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Global Alfalfa Oil Industry 2016The report, titled Alfalfa Oil analyzes the present scenario of the Alfalfa Oil market in China and rest of the world, and estimates the growth of the market in the near future. The report estimates the present valuation of the market and forecasts the market size during the next couple of years. The reports serves as a useful guide for the new as well as the existing players in the Alfalfa Oil market by providing details about the growth opportunities of the market in China and rest of the world. The report takes note of the key drivers and restraints affecting the overall growth of the market worldwide. It also points out the recent trends in the Alfalfa Oil market and future opportunities for the market to grow.The report segments the Alfalfa Oil market in China and rest of the world on the basis of the major product types and end-user applications. The report provides in-depth analysis of the growth of each of the segments. Even though the Chinese economy is struggling currently, the various efforts taken by the government is expected to boost the different industries across the nation. The Chinese governments initiatives to shape global economic governance will have an impact on the Alfalfa Oil market.Click Here to Request Sample Report @The report talks about the competitive environment prevailing in the Alfalfa Oil market in China and rest of the globe. The report lists down the key players in the market and also provides insightful information about them such as their business overview, product segmentation, and revenue segmentation. Further, the report studies the market share held by the key players and forecast their growth during the next couple of years. The report also looks at the latest developments among the key players in the Alfalfa Oil market such as partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions.The report makes use of several analytical tools such as investment feasibility, investment return, and market attractiveness analysis to provide a complete picture of the development of the China as well as global Alfalfa Oil market, determining significant market strategies likely to pay off in the long run.Lastly, the report profiles the major players operating in the Alfalfa Oil market in China as well as around the world in order to analyze the competitive hierarchy of the market.Browse Full Report at @About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Global Plastic Hand Fan Market 2016- Market Segmentation 2016: Industry Growth, Trends, Sales and Analysis By 2021

Plastic Hand Fan

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Global Plastic Hand Fan Industry 2016The research report Global Plastic Hand Fan Market 2016 is a market study examining and profiling the current state of the Plastic Hand Fan industry in a professional manner.The report systematically categorizes the Plastic Hand Fan market, elucidating the definition of Plastic Hand Fan before making clear the classification of the market by the many parameters employed by market experts. The multiple applications of Plastic Hand Fan in the global industrial scenario are profiled along with an explanation of the industry supply and value chain developed around it. The regional segments of the global Plastic Hand Fan market are also examined and data gained from this analysis presented. The development trends in and competitive landscape of the Plastic Hand Fan market are also assessed and data regarding the same is presented in the report.Click Here to Request Sample Report @Other industry-related processes about the Plastic Hand Fan market, such as a detailed explanation of the manufacturing structure, the financial background of the market, supply and demand dynamics, trade figures, and production value margins are also analyzed in the report. Prime development policies and plans concerning the Plastic Hand Fan market are examined with regard to their impact on the market in the forecast period.The strong trends shaping the growth pattern of the Plastic Hand Fan market are examined in the report in detail, in addition to the numerous marketing channels for the industry and their respective importance. In accordance with this information detailing the various aspects of the Plastic Hand Fan market, the report examines the links between the Plastic Hand Fan industry and the Plastic Hand Fan market, including an upstream raw materials and downstream demand analysis.Analysis of major players in the market is also presented in the report in great detail, leading to valuable insight into market attractiveness. The important aspects of companies in the Plastic Hand Fan market are analyzed, including product information such as product catalog, production cost and profitability, and business processes.Browse Full Report at @About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Clinical Trial Management System Market: Increasing prevalence of diseases, clinical research organizations (CRO) drives the market by 2014-2020

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A clinical trial management system (CTMS) is a software system used by pharmaceutical, Clinical Research Organizations (CROs), healthcare and biotechnology industries to control clinical trials in clinical research. Also, it is a software solution for good management, storage, and study of drug associated clinical data. Clinical trials management system is used to know the effect of particular treatment on patients suffering from a particular disease. CTMS is mainly engaged in a clinical trial. The clinical trial management system maintains and manages the planning, performing and reporting functions, with participant contact information, milestones, and tracking deadlines. It offers a user-friendly infrastructure that allows clinicians to manage trials of unstable complexity. Moreover, a clinical trial management system provides data to a business intelligence system, which acts as a digital dashboard for trial managers.Get a copy of free Sample Report @The major driving factor for the global clinical trial management system market is increasing R&D investment in a pharmaceutical, clinical research industries, and life science. Increasing prevalence of diseases, clinical research organizations (CRO) and improved clinical research outsourcing is also expected to key driving factors of CTMS. However, a high coast of systems and Scarcity research experts factors hampers the market growth. Moreover, a Web-based clinical trial management system is the largest segment in CTMS market and the Pharmaceutical is the leading end users segment in CTMS market.The report includes the detailed competitive landscape of the global clinical trial management system market and an analysis of Porters five forces model for the clinical trial management system market has also been included. It includes company market share analysis, the product portfolio of the major industry participants. The report provides detailed segmentation of the clinical trial management system market based on type, end-users, delivery mode, components, and region segment.Get in-depth TOC (Table of Contents) with Tables and Figures @Enterprise and Site based clinical trial management system is the type segment of Clinical trial management system market. The key end-users market for clinical trial management system includes pharmaceuticals, clinical research organizations, and healthcare providers. The delivery market for clinical trial management system includes cloud-based, web based and on-premise clinical trial management system. Clinical trial management system market includes three components such as software, hardware, and services.Major regional segments analyzed in this study include North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa with its further bifurcation into major countries including U.S., Germany, France, UK, China, Japan, India, and Brazil. This segmentation includes demand for clinical trial management system based on individual products and applications in all the regions and countries. North America dominated the CTMS market. North America followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific region. Europe was the second largest region for clinical trial management system market.Inquire more before buying this report @The report covers detailed competitive outlook including company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Oracle Corporation , Medidata Solutions (U.S.), eResearch Technology Inc., Bio-optronics Inc., Business Systems Integration, DSG Inc., InnovoCommerce LLC, Omnicomm Systems Inc., Oracle Corp., StudyManager Inc.,Sparta Systems Inc., Merge Healthcare Inc. and BioClinica Inc.Clinical Trial Management System Market: Types Segment AnalysisBrowse detail report @Enterprise based clinical trial management systemSite based clinical trial management systemClinical Trial Management System Market: End-User Segment AnalysisPharmaceuticalsClinical Research OrganizationsHealthcare providersClinical Trial Management System: Delivery mode Segment AnalysisCloud-based clinical trial management systemWeb-based clinical trial management systemOn-premise clinical trial management systemClinical Trial Management System: Component Segment AnalysisSoftwareHardwareServicesClinical Trial Management System Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeGermanyFranceUKAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East And AfricaAbout US:Syndicate Market Research provides a range of marketing and business research solutions designed for our clients specific needs based on our expert resources. The business scopes of Syndicate Market Research cover more than 30 industries including energy, new materials, transportation, daily consumer goods, chemicals, etc. We provide our clients with the one-stop solution for all the research requirements.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suite #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@SyndicateMarketResearch.comWebsite:
Global Allantoin Market 2016- Market Segmentation 2016: Industry Growth, Trends, Sales and Analysis By 2021

Allantoin

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Global Allantoin Industry 2016The report titled Allantoin recently added to the research database presents an executive level overview of the global and China Allantoin market. It provides an in-depth analysis and evaluation of the current and prospective liquidity, profitability, and financial stability which the Allantoin market is likely to exhibit over the forecast period.The methods of analysis which the report used to present a comprehensive overview of the global and China Allantoin market are horizontal and vertical analysis. It also used analytical tools such as porters five force model and SWOT analysis to evaluate the information sourced from primary and secondary research. The report discusses in detail the market growth drivers, key restraints, and growth opportunities. The prospects exhibited by the leading companies operating in the market are also analyzed in detail by the report.Click Here to Request Sample Report @To present an analytical overview of the Allantoin market, the report classifies it in terms of product and services, applications, supply-chain network, and key geographic region. The contribution of the emerging regional markets to the expansion of the Allantoin industry is also analyzed by the report. Recently, governments across many nations have undertaken several development plans and policies. How these policies are likely to impact the Allantoin market is evaluated in the report. The impact of stringent regulations imposed by the regulatory bodies on the market is also analyzed in detail.To present an in-depth report on the Allantoin market, the study analyzes its development status and competitive landscape. The prominent companies operating in the market are profiled by the report to provide a detailed competitive analysis. The individual share of these companies is calculated by the study to measure the overall market size. Based on such findings the report presents refined forecasts about the growth prospects of the Allantoin market.Browse Full Report at @About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Xanthates Market to Record an Impressive Growth Rate During the Forecast 2021

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Xanthates are versatile intermediates in organic synthesis and are generally referred to as esters of xanthic acid. These are organosulfur compounds which are important in two areas, mining for the extraction of certain ores and manufacturing of cellophane and other cellulose related polymers, primarily in the packaging industry. They are also used in the processing of minerals as floatation agents and serve as intermediates in the Chugaev elimination process. They are also used for controlling radical polymerization under the RAFT (Reversible Addition-Fragmentation chain Transfer) process. Some of the commercially available xanthates include sodium isobutyl xanthate, sodium isopropyl xanthate, potassium ethyl xanthate, and sodium ethyl xanthate.Growing demand for cellophane in food packaging is anticipated to be one of the major factors driving the demand for xanthates over the forecast period. Increasing consumption of certain consumer products such as scotch tape and sellotape on account of rising disposable incomes of the individuals is also expected to contribute towards the growth of the market.However, growing environmental concerns regarding the toxic use of xanthates leading to contamination in mining operations are expected to slow down the growth of the market. Asia Pacific was the largest consumer for xanthates and is also expected to be the fastest growing market owing to increasing demand for packaging and growing consumption of consumer products in emerging products such as India and China. Focus on R&D activities towards developing innovative products as well as focusing on expansion in certain unexplored markets such as Africa is anticipated to provide new opportunities for the growth of the market.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @Sinoz, SNF Flomin, Huakan International Mining, Zhuzhou Xiangqi Minerals Processing Technology Development Co, Ltd, China Kinsun Imp & Exp Corp Ltd, and Shandong WNN Industrial Co.,Ltd are some of the manufacturers of xanthates present in the industry.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Smart Factory Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 2015 - 2021

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Smart factory is the new trend in manufacturing industry. It includes systems such as cyberphysical technology, Internet of Things, and cloud computing. In cyberphysical system, process is handled by computer which is connected to the Internet and its users. Physical and software elements are weaved together. Internet of Things enables cyberphysical mechanism to connect with each other and human beings in real-time. Smart factory provides advanced and automated facilities to make manufacturing process faster, more efficient, and safer. This is helping to minimize the gap between digital world and traditional industrial manufacturing methods.Request Free Sample copy of Research Report @The use of advanced machineries and manufacturing processes are increasing in the industries worldwide, companies are focusing on lesser energy consumption, efficient production practices, use of robots, and RFID are some factors contributing to the global smart factory market growth. Automation helps industries to use every minute of the production time to its fullest by streamlining the processes. Due to Internet of Things, machines are connected to each other and its users, this reduces time wastage and decisions can be taken in real-time. Additionally, manufacturing can be done smoothly without any disturbance as entire process is digitized. All these advantages are forcing industries to have smart factories.This trend is of substantial value in industries such as transportation, packaging, oil, mining of minerals, and others. Hence, companies all over the world are investing in this untapped industry. However, lack of trained man force and growing skill gap factors hindering in the growth of the global smart factory market.Request For TOC of Report @The global smart factory market is segmented on the basis of products, end-users, technology, and region. On the basis of products, the global market is segmented as industrial robotics, control devices, machine vision system, communication technology, and sensors. Industrial robotics and machine vision system are dominating the market. On the basis of end-users, the global market is segmented as chemical & petrochemical, aerospace, oil & gas, automotive, mining, defense, and others. Of which, the chemical & petrochemical segment is leading the market followed by oil and gas. On the basis of technology, the global smart factory market is divided as production life cycle management, enterprise resource planning, distributed control system, programmable logic controller, and others.Browse detail report @North America is leading the global smart factory market. This trend is followed by Asia Pacific. As the market is growing, industries are finding better ways to cater to the customers and users of these technologies by investing more in R&D process.Some of the major companies leading this market include General Dynamics Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., Intel Corporation, Siemens AG, and Emerson Electric Co. Other major players influencing the global market are CMC Associates, Apriso Corporation, National Instruments Corporation, Invensys Plc., ABB Ltd., and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.Know more before buying this report @Smart Factory Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaVisit Our Blog :About UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite:
Precision Farming Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 2015 - 2021

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Precision farming is an administrative concept based on measuring, responding, and observing unevenness in inter and intra-field crops. The goal of precision farming is to increase the production with the assistance of decision support system (DSS) and preserving resources. Precision farming uses advanced technology to optimize crop production with the help of GIS, remote sensing, and GPS over long period. Precision farming is also known as site-specific crop management (SSCM) and satellite farming. The major advantage of the precision farming is to reduce labor & material cost in order to increase cost of the production with the application of crucial automation processes. Further, remote sensing technique is used in the entire field in order to measure humidity of the soil, temperature, and nutrition level.Request Free Sample copy of Research Report @Increasing awareness concerning environmental impact over farming is expected to drive the market in the coming future. Other factors such as improvement in data management in farming are impacting the global precision farming market positively. The use of elegant technologies in tracking geo-location to increase the efficiency may also boost the market in future. Additionally, it also safeguards fuel usage in precision farming. Government initiation on the R&D in precision farming technology may propel the market in near future.On the basis of technology, the global precision farming market is segmented as guidance systems, GPS, variable rate technologies, telematics, and remote sensing. GPS is the leading technology segment among all in the market. Furthermore, the global market is divided based on hardware as radar, ASS, sensors, GPS, drones, and others. While on the basis of software, it is further bifurcated as crop management, GIS, inventory management, financial management, forecasting, people management, and others.Request for TOC of Report @North America is the leading regional segment in the global precision farming market. However, it shows considerable growth in the market mainly owing to technological upgrades. The US is also trying to gain significant position in the global market. Asia Pacific is also anticipated to witness high growth due to increased double income and population in this region. Rising food demand in Europe positively impacts the global market. Emerging economies such as India and China hold the highest market share in the precision farming market.Some of the major players dominating the precision farming market are AG Leader Technology, Deere & Company, Trimble Navigation System, Dickey-John Corporation, AgJunction Inc., Teejet Technologies, AG Business & Crop Inc., and Case IH. Other key players influencing the global market include ACGO Corporation, SOYL Precision Farming, Precision Planting Inc., Echelon AG Inc, Raven Industries Inc., Topcon Precision Agriculture, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., AG Nav Inc., The Toro Company, and American Sensor Technologies Inc.Browse detail report @Precision Farming Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaVisit Our Blog :About UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite:
2-Furoic Acid Market Is Expected To Generate Huge Profits by 2021

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2-Furoic acid is a carboxylic acid with aromatic ring and carboxylic group. It is categorized into specialty chemical. 2-furoic acid is generally used as a food preservative and flavoring agent. It is used in pasteurization and sterilization of food products. It acts as a fungicide and bactericide. In addition, it is also used in optic technologies, nylon preparation and as an intermediate in pharmaceutical industry.The market for 2-furoic acid was mainly driven by food manufacturing sector. 2-furoic acid is also used as a starting material in furoate esters production. The derivatives of 2-furoic acid are used in medicinal preparations and biological research. The major opportunity for 2-furoic acid market is optic technology. 2-Furoic acid crystals can be used in optical devices due to its favorable properties such as non linear optical material (NLO). However, health hazards related to 2-furoic acid such as mutagenic effects are likely to inhibit the market growth.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @In terms of demand, North America was the leading region for 2-furoic acid market in 2012. The demand for 2-furoic acid is huge due to growing consumption from food industry. North America was followed by Europe, owing to huge demand of 2-furoic acid in medical applications. In addition, optic technology is likely to drive the market for 2-furoic acid in European region. Asia Pacific has substantial share in 2-furoic acid market and is expected to exhibit higher demand in the near future due to various manufacturing activities. Rest of the World is expected to witness stable growth for 2-furoic acid market.Some of the major industry participants include Lotus Enterprise, Meryer Chemical Technology Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar and J & K Scientific Ltd. among others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
System Integration Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 2015 - 2021

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An engineering process or phase that is joins different subsystems or components into one large system is known as system integration (SI). It takes care that each integrated subsystem functions as required. System integration provides with new functionalities by connecting functions of different systems, which in turn adds value to a system. The major focus of industries using technology has been the agglomeration of different component systems or subsystems that collaborate to deliver a whole functionality. Companies are increasingly adopting advanced system integration technology for the purpose of improved efficiency and productivity along with reduced costs majorly owing to increasing levels of business process complexity due to growing networks and large volumes of data to be managed.Request Free Sample copy of Research Report @High investments in IT have created a huge demand for the system integration market. There are many emerging technologies such as big data and cloud that support system integration market. Cloud implementation and big data solutions implementation is the latest trend in the information technology systems market. Hence, companies are adopting the integration of their data with adoption of these technologies such as big data and cloud providing added advantages to the companies implementing it. Development in automation sector is driving the global system integration market.System integration market is segmented on the basis of system integration service type, end-user industry, and geography. On the basis of type, the system integration market is broadly segmented as infrastructure system integration services, application system integration services, and business consulting services. The infrastructure system integration services segment is further sub-segmented as network management, data center management, building management, security and surveillance management, cloud-based integration management, and enterprise management. The application system integration services segment is further sub-segmented into data integration, unified communication, integrated social software, application integration, and others. Further, the business consulting services segment is sub-segmented as business process integration, business transformation, and application lifecycle management. The global system integration market is segmented on the basis of end-user industry into banking, financial services and insurance, defense, healthcare, telecommunication and IT, oil gas and energy, transportation, retail and others. The others segment is further sub-segmented as pharmaceuticals, public sector, education, and automotive.Request for TOC of Report @On the basis of geography, the system integration market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (ROW). Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the dominated player for the system integration market mainly owing to many local players in China and India which are dominating and holding the maximum market shares.Some of the major players in the system integration market are Accenture Plc., BAE Systems Plc., Capgemini S.A., Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Fujitsu Limited, General Dynamics Corporation, Harris Corporation, IBM Corporation, and Infosys Technologies. Other key players of the global market are Lockheed Martin Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Raytheon Company, Leidos Corporation, Tata Consultancy Service Limited, and Wipro Limited.Browse detail report @System Integration Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaVisit Our Blog :About UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite:
Electronic Toll Collection Market Analysis and Value Forecast Snapshot by End-use Industry 2014-2020

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Electronic toll collection system is an automated system, eliminating manual operations by toll payers and receivers. The global ETC market is expected to steer towards a strong double-digit growth rate in the coming five years (2015-2020). The primary drivers of the upcoming growth comprise the need to save travel time, cashless travel facility, the need to stop/minimize the traffic congestion and fast toll transaction. However, factors like high installation cost and a high dependence on government are hindering the growth of this market to some extent. The ETC market is expected to continue its rapid expansion to meet the surging demand for an improved, safe and secure infrastructure. The ETC system provides fast, efficient and cost-effective services. They have easy to operate buttons with a user-friendly design. They are also beneficial for traffic agencies and companies as these systems eliminate the need for multiple toll plazas, acting as a cost-saving factor for road operator agencies. Electronic toll collection systems have a positive impact on the environment as it reduces the amount of exhaust emitted from vehicles during start-up and stop at manual toll booths.The ETC market can be categorised into products, technologies, applications and geographies. Transponders, antennae, communication systems, treadles, inductive loops, scanning devices, weigh-in-motion devices, cameras and film storage devices are some of the major products of the system. An electronic toll collection system consists of various subsystems, such as automatic vehicle identification (AVI), automatic vehicle classification (AVC), back-office &integration and violation enforcement system (VES). These subsystems are useful for specific functions -AVI for vehicle identification, AVC for vehicle classification, toll collection transaction by integrating the back-office and payment system and VES to reduce unpaid tolls, by vehicle imaging.Request Free Report Sample@On the basis of technologies, the ETC market can be segmented into various categories, such as radio-frequency identification (RFID), dedicated short-range communications (DSRC), video analytics, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and global positioning system (GPS).Currently RFID and DSRC are the leading technologies. On the other hand, the GNSS and GPS are expected to show a high growth rate in following five years (2015-2020).Based on applications, the ETC market can be categorized into segments like highway, urban and bridges. Undoubtedly, ETC systems have been installed majorly on highways, but installation in urban areas and on bridges has a bright future opportunity.Geographically, the ETC market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Middle East & Africa. Present market scenario represents a strong presence of ETC system in the US, Canada and Mexico in North America, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines and Singapore in Asia Pacific, and the UK, Ireland, Portugal, France, Germany, Italy and Spain in Europe.Visit For TOC@Some of the key players in the ETC market are Honeywell International, Inc., Transurban, Transtoll Pty Ltd., Transcore Holdings, Inc., Toll Collect GmbH, TRMI Systems Integration, Sensor Dynamics, Xerox Corporation, 3M, Connect East, EFKON, SAIC, DENSO, Q-Free, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Perceptics, Thales Group and Kapsch TrafficCom AG. The ETC ecosystem participants offer a wide range of solutions, such as software services and system integration and toll system operations including maintenance, payment handling and revenue assurance. It is the future solution to alleviating traffic congestion problems.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
High Temperature Ceramics Market Dynamics, Segments and Supply Demand 2014-2020

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Ceramics are covalent compounds containing metal and non-metal atoms primarily held in covalent and ionic bonds. Generally, ceramics are made by taking mixtures of earth elements, powders, water and clay. This mixture is shaped into the desired form and is then fired in a high temperature oven. Ceramics are then painted with glazes which are waterproof and decorative. At elevated temperature, ceramics have high hardness, high melting points, excellent chemical corrosion resistance and good mechanical properties. Some ceramics are good dielectrics or insulators, whereas others are good electrical or thermal conductors. Ceramics are widely used in our daily life. Glass, plates, bricks, tiles and sanitary ware are some examples of the ceramics we see every day. Ceramics can also be found in products like automobiles (sparkplug), phone lines and watches. They are even used in space shuttles and aircrafts. Ceramics can be broadly classified into two categories: traditional and advanced. Traditional ceramics include clay products such as cement and glass, whereas advanced ceramics consist of pure oxides, nitrides, carbides and many others.Advanced ceramics are widely used in industrial applications where the operating temperature is generally high or which require hard substances that can withstand great pressure. Ceramics offer various advantages compared to other materials. Ceramics are more corrosion and heat resistant than polymers or metals, stiffer and harder than steel, and have a lower density than most alloys and metals. Raw material for advance ceramics materials are plentiful, inexpensive and display wide range of properties. For automotive applications, they are used in various applications like airbag sensors, spark plugs, valves, vibration sensors, pressure sensors, oxygen sensors, thermistors, catalytic converters, ceramic rotors, ceramic filters piston rings and safety glass windshields.Request Free Report Sample@The different types of high temperature ceramics include ceramic matrix composites and ultrahigh temperature ceramic coatings. Advanced high temperature materials are key components in the emerging material technologies, which are giving impetus to many industries. The global high temperature ceramics market is driven by several factors like replacement of materials for the sake of creating cost effective solutions, the growing demand for energy conservation across various industries, and government regulations to reduce greenhouse emissions.The global high temperature ceramics market is led by AsiaPacific (APAC) which accounts for over 40-45% of the total consumption by volume. The cost of high temperature ceramics in APAC is lesser than that in Europe, North America or Latin America. In terms of revenue, North America is the largest market followed by APAC and Europe. The cost of high temperature ceramics is expected to remain low for the next few years in the APAC region. Due to government regulations and incentives offered for sustainability and energy conservation, North America and Europe are expected to offer significant growth opportunities for the high temperature ceramics market.On the basis of industry applications, the global high temperature ceramics market is segmented into automotive, aerospace, chemical processing, metallurgical, power generation and others. Some of the most common applications of high temperature ceramics are afterburners, boilers, castings, exhaust stacks, flanges, furnaces, headers, incinerators, manifolds, molds and dies, ovens, heat exchangers, pumps, blowers, pipingand ducting. In the aerospace industry, high temperature ceramics are used in cutting edge applications, which require structural and chemical stability at extremely high operating temperatures. On the basis of composition, the high temperature ceramics are segmented into oxides (alumina, zirconia), non-oxides (carbides, nitrides) and composites (combination of oxides and non-oxides).Visit For TOC@There are many global and regional players operating in the high temperature ceramics market especially in APAC. Some of the key participants are Morgan Thermal Ceramics, ZIRCAR Ceramics, Inc., Skamol A/S, Promat International, IBIDEN Company Ltd., Rath Incorporated, General Insulation Europe Ltd., Unifrax Corporation, and Shandong Luyang Share Co. Ltd.In future, the understanding and controlling behavior of the microstructures and properties of high temperature ceramics are expected to be key elements in research activities. This research will further increase the operating temperature limits of existing high temperature ceramics.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Web Conferencing Market Growth, Forecast and Value Chain 2014-2020

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Globalization has brought many changes with it in the recent past. Currently, no business is restricted to one place. It is required collaboration with all the international and domestics players. Collaboration is new mantra adopted largely by all the enterprises. Which is found increasingly useful. Key challenge that companies were facing a combination of right collaboration toolsthat can help marketeers to exchange the idea and communicate to each other as effective as a face to face meeting. This has made the web conferencing a key differentiating medium due to requirement of communicating with clientele in the real time.Web conferencing market has seen an extensive growth due to its various features mentioned above, and it has become a generic platforms for the key application such as meetings, presentations, lectures, training events. Eventually web conferencing has become a key factor in business process and productive software suites. This will drive the web conferencing market in the near future.Request Free Report Sample@Major participants in the global web conferencing market are Adobe Connect,PowWow365, Calliflower, Elluminate, Cisco WebEx, Epiphan Systems, GoToWebinar, Genesys Meeting Center, ACT Conferencing, IBM Sametime, VeriShow, eXo Platform with Weemo, BigBlueButton, Intercall, Oracle Beehive, Mikogo, Netviewer, Skype, RHUB Communications Inc., OmNovia Technologies, Starlight Networks Starlive, Teamviewer, TimeBridge VenueGen, and, Voxeet. The demand for web conferencing is growing rapidly and has represented 25 to 30% increase in uses from service providers.Owing to the stiff completion in the global webconferencing market, these companies offer remarkable services such as Citrix GO To Meeting, WEbEX MEetMe Now, IBM, Acrobat Connect Profeshional, and Micrsoft Office Live Meeting.Some of the end-use industries in the global web conferencing market include Banking and Financial Services, Education, Pharmaceutical/Healthcare, Manufacturing,Government, Information Technology, and others. Among all the aforementioned end-use segments, Information Technology (IT) segmented accounted for the largest market share with 24% of the total share in 2014. Others segment represented 21% share to the global web conferencing market in the same year. Furthermore, Banking and financial services, manufacturing, and healthcare segment accounted for 16%, 15%, and 14% each respectively in 2014. Government segment accounted for low market share of 4% in 2014. This government segment is still follow the traditional medium for business and is yet to adopt the technology innovation.According to the market research, the web conferencing market was value at US$ 1.80 Bn in 2012. The web conferencing market is expected to reach at US$ 2.88 Bn by 2017, exhibiting a CAGR of 9.8% between 2012 and 2017. Factors driving the web conferencing market include;GlobalizationSaving travel cost and ROIGrowing awareness and User-friendlyEnvironmental ImperativesNeed for enhancing productivityNeed for social networkingGrowth of Virtual EmployeeMigration to UCFurthermore, web conferencing has become a new trend for communication especially for commercial segment. The need for enhanced productivity from employees, and constant need of technology innovation are the key factors driving the web conferencing market over the next five years.Visit For TOC@The global web conferencing market highlights the key insights about the regions include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW).About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Emerging Opportunities in Automotive Refinish Coatings Market with Current Trends Analysis

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Automotivevehicles require timely maintenance and repairing to enhance the appearance and durability of vehicle by protecting them from external factors such as extreme temperature and UV radiation. For the need of refinishing the automotive refinishing coatings are frequently used in automotive aftermarket by end-users like automotive body shops and automotive repair centers. For durability, speed and perfect matching color the service providers use advance technology such as spray gun to apply primer and color coats of paints. Refinishing coatings are also applied to components and body of vehicle to protect from deterioration caused by foreign particles such as stone and other debris.An increasing demand for refinishing of vehicles across the globe, has led to significant improvements in automotive refinish coatings market such asdevelopment of advance coating material which are eco-friendly and low-solvent content. These products also provide good blend of ease of use, speed, durability and color match.Some of the underlying growth factors in global automotive refinish coatings market is consistent increase in number of vehicles in operation worldwide. Increase in miles driven, road accidents, and demand for recreational vehicles are the major drivers responsible for the growth of global automotive refinish coatings market. However, volatility of raw material prices and enhanced road safety parameters are some of the major challenges inglobal automotive refinish coatings market.Request Free Report Sample@The global automotive refinish coatings market is geographically segmented into seven key regions which are, North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Asia-pacific is leading automotive refinish coatings market in terms of revenue due to rising vehicles in operation and increasing sales of pre-owned cars. However the growth in North America, Eastern Europe and Western Europe is expected to remain stagnant for the forecast period. Growth in automotive refinish coatings market is relatively high in BRIC nations when compared with matured economies due to developing automotive aftermarket in these countries. This rapid growth in automotive refinish coatings market is fuelled by multiplemacro-economic factors such as rising number of cab-services, increasing car customization and rising capacity of collision repair& vehicle body shops. In addition, it is expected that in the next 30 years the total number of passenger cars in developing countries would reach around 3.5 to 4 billion.On the basis of product type the global automotive refinish coatings market is further segmented into two sub-segments which are Solvent-borne Coatings and water-borne Coatings. The solvent-borne coatings dominates the global automotive refinish coatings market, whilst for the forecast period the growth rate of water-borne coating type is estimated to be high. In Europe and North America automotive refinish coatings market adoption of water-borne coating material segment is increasing rapidly due to government regulationsto reduce volatile organic compounds (VOC) level, which is generally high in solvent-borne coatings.Visit For TOC@Some of the examples of market participants in global automotive refinish coatings market are DuPont Performance Coating, BASF SE, Kansai Paint Co. Ltd, Akzo Nobel N.V, KCC Corp, Noroo Paint Coatings Co. Ltd., PPG Industries Inc., and Matrix System Automotive Finishes.In future, global automotive refinish market is expected to grow significantly in terms of volume and value. This growth will give rise to new product development with enhanced properties like quick drying, cost-efficient and high performance coatings.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Coffee Market Sizing and Growth To Impact Industry, Trends And Opportunities (2016-2020)

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Scope of the ReportThe report titled Global Coffee Market: Trends & Opportunities (2016-2020) provides an in-depth analysis of the global coffee market with detailed analysis of market sizing and growth, market share and economic impact of the industry. The report also provides the production and consumption analysis of the market. The report provides detailed market analysis of the global retail coffee market by value and volume along with the segments of the market.The report provides detailed regional analysis of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America Middle East & Africa and Australasia for the coffee market. Regional analysis includes market sizing by value along with the production and consumption analysis. It also provides the retail sales value of each region.The report also includes the country analysis of Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Ethiopia and India. It provides the production and consumption analysis along with the export-import trends in each of the above mentioned countries.Request For Sample Copy:Furthermore, the report assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the global retail coffee market has also been forecasted for the period 2016-2020, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends. The competition in global coffee market is stiff and dominated by the big players like Nestle. Further, key players of the coffee market The J.M. Smucker Company, Mondelez International Inc. and Strauss Group Ltd. are also profiled with their financial information and respective business strategies.Regional CoverageWestern EuropeEastern EuropeNorth AmericaAsia PacificLatin AmericaMiddle East and AfricaAustralasiaCountry CoverageBrazilVietnamIndonesiaEthiopiaIndiaCompany CoverageThe J.M. Smucker CompanyMondelez International Inc.Strauss Group Ltd.Executive SummaryGlobal coffee market increased at a significant CAGR during the span of 5 years i.e. 2011-2015 and projections are made that the market would rise in the next five years i.e. 2016-2020 tremendously. The market can be segmented on the basis of end-users as retail coffee market and food services market, of which global retail coffee market displayed an increase, driving the global coffee market. The increasing consumption of coffee led by the westernization trend in India, China and Latin America drive the market in the positive direction.The growth drivers for the global coffee market are: rise in disposable income, rapid urbanization and increase in the population along with the emergence of caf culture and new consumer base. Despite the market is governed by various growth drivers, there are certain challenges faced by the market such as: aging of coffee trees, lack of government support, negative impact of climate change, price volatility and increase in production cost.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.To View The Latest Industry Press Releases:ContactTel: +1-518-621-2074E-Mail: sales@marketresearchreports.bizWebsite:MarketResearchReports.biz supports your business intelligence needs with over 100,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Real-Time E-Healthcare System Market 2015-2025 Shares, Trend and Growth Report

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Real-time e-healthcare system is one of the best ways to keep your health records and track it anytime, without any geographical constraint. Patients can always stay in touch with their doctors and communicate with them about any health issue. They can self-check also for an immediate result without any third partys dependence. With advanced technology and rapid innovation, these days products are being made in such a way that it should be more consumer friendly and easy to use. Real-time e-healthcare system fulfills all the above criteria and hence, the market is growing at a positive rate.Recently, Kaiser Permanente implemented an EMR protocol in Community Health Centres in Oregon, US, to improve clinical decision support for patients with diabetes, which can remind them to prescribe hypertension medications to reduce heart attack and other strokes. iPatientCare EHR, Praxis, EMR, Insta HMS, e-MDs Chart, WRS Health, AccuMed, WEBeDoctor, A.I.med are some of the top Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software products.Request Free Report Sample@Real-Time E-Healthcare System Market: Drivers & RestraintsTechnological advancement, increasing disposable income, increase use of online services, increase use of mobile devices, increased health cost and expenditure, increasing need of an integrated healthcare system are the most important driving factors in real-time e-healthcare system market. Sine real-time e-healthcare system reduces medical errors and easily accessible information, the demand for real time e-healthcare system has increased regardless of the geographical location.Lack of inexperienced professionals, high maintenance and service cost, privacy concerns, the complexity of systems, less presence of real-time e-healthcare system in rural areas including developed nations like Europe and are acting as a barrier for real-time e-healthcare system market.Real-Time E-Healthcare System Market: SegmentationReal-time e-healthcare system is broadly classified on the basis of the following segments By Product:Fitness Bands/wristband deviceClip on monitor devicesThermometerBlood-pressure monitor deviceM-health applicationsBlood glucose monitor devicesBy End-user:Public/Private HospitalsPharmacyIndividualsOthersReal-Time E-Healthcare System Market: OverviewThe real-time e-healthcare market has grown substantially at a healthy CAGR due to rising disposable income, increasing health awareness by consumers, ageing population and increasing healthcare expenditure. With rapid technological advancement and variety of options available in the market, real-time e-healthcare market is expected to grow globally. North America represents the largest market for this product category. Asia Pacific will emerge as the fastest growing region in real-time e-healthcare market.Real-Time E-Healthcare System Market: Region-wise OutlookThe real-time e-healthcare market is expected to register a double-digit CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, real-time e-healthcare market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market due to the improved healthcare infrastructure and high healthcare cost and rising disposable income. Increase demand of cloud computing from the developed nations like Europe and North America may also increase the demand for real-time e-healthcare systems by the end of forecast period.Visit For TOC@Real-Time E-Healthcare System Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in real-time e-healthcare market are Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone, Misfit Wearables, DexCom, Medtronic, Abbott, Cerner Corporation, GE Healthcare, Epic Systems Corporation, Medical Information Technology Inc. (MEDITECH).About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Americas Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated, Brand Analysis and Forecast to 2021

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Americas Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated, Brand Analysis and Forecast to 2021 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The influenza vaccines market in Americas is anticipated to reach nearly US$ 3 Billion by 2021. Influenza is a highly communicable disease and typically has the most severe impact on children and the elderly. Influenza viruses are considered as a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The vast population base together with significantly low vaccination coverage in emerging markets, rising government support for immunization and growing awareness of the value of influenza vaccine in preventing disease are the prominent factors that will fuel the growth of the influenza vaccines market.In the Americas, United States captures majority of the influenza vaccines market share. Brazil is the second leading market for influenza vaccines with around XX% share in 2015. Canada and Mexico are the third and fourth leading market for influenza vaccines with XX% and XX% market share respectively in 2015.In the influenza vaccines brand sales segment, Sanofis Fluzone holds the maximum share of the market being followed by Fluvirin/Flucelvax. GSKs Fluarix/FluLaval accounts for the third highest share of the influenza vaccines market. FluMist/Fluenz and Afluria/Fluvax stands at the fourth and fifth position in the influenza vaccines market, while Flublok has captured least share of the influenza vaccines market..To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:The Influenza Vaccines Market have been analyzed from 5 viewpoints:1. Americas - Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated and Forecast (2011 - 2021)2. Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated and Forecast - Country Wise Distribution (2011 - 2021)3. Influenza Vaccines Brand Sales and Forecast to 20214. Influenza Vaccines Market - Major Deals5. Influenza Vaccines Market - Driving Factors and ChallengesInfluenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated and Forecast - Country Wise Distribution1. United States2. Canada3. Brazil4. MexicoInfluenza Vaccines Brand Sales and Forecast - 7 Brands Analyzed1. Fluarix/FluLaval2. Fluzone3. Fluvirin/Flucelvax4. Influvac5. Afluria/Fluvax6. FluMist/Fluenz7. FlublokTo Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Global Military GPS Device Market to grow at a CAGR of 3.69% during 2016-2020

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About Military GPS DeviceGPS-enabled devices render large amount of assistance to a country's armed forces on battlefields. In the modern-day scenario of combat, the need to be technically advanced and the ability to achieve precision strike with minimum self-loss are taking the center stage. This has resulted in greater use of GPS-guided devices and weapons by soldiers.Technavios analysts forecast the global military GPS device market to grow at a CAGR of 3.69% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global military GPS device market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the expenditure of each of the three regions (Americas, EMEA, and APAC) to acquire these military GPS devices for enhanced performance of warfighters.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Military GPS Device Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Download Sample copy of Report atKey vendorsBAE SystemsLockheed MartinNorthrop GrummanRaytheonRockwell CollinsOther prominent vendorsGarminHarrisThalesMarket driverDevelopment of unmanned GPS-controlled vehiclesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeHacking of GPS devicesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendAnti-jamming GPS devicesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Europe Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated, Brand Analysis and Forecast to 2021

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Europe Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated, Brand Analysis and Forecast to 2021 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The European influenza vaccines market is anticipated to reach nearly US$ 650 Million by 2021. Influenza is a highly communicable disease and typically has the most severe impact on children and the elderly. Influenza viruses are considered as a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The vast population base together with significantly low vaccination coverage in emerging markets, rising government support for immunization and growing awareness of the value of influenza vaccine in preventing disease are the prominent factors that will fuel the growth of the influenza vaccines market.In the European influenza vaccines market, Germany accounts for majority of the market share. Italy is the second leading market for influenza vaccines in 2015. United Kingdom and France are the third and fourth leading market for influenza vaccines with XX% and XX% market share in 2015. Spain accounted for XX% share of the European influenza vaccines market in 2015. Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden are the other emerging market for influenza vaccines market.In the influenza vaccines brand sales segment, Sanofis Fluzone holds the maximum share of the market being followed by Fluvirin/Flucelvax. GSKs Fluarix/FluLaval accounts for the third highest share of the influenza vaccines market. FluMist/Fluenz and Afluria/Fluvax stands at the fourth and fifth position in the influenza vaccines market, while Flublok has captured least share of the influenza vaccines market.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:The Influenza Vaccines Market have been analyzed from 5 viewpoints:1. Europe Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated and Forecast (2011 - 2021)2. Influenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated and Forecast - Country Wise Distribution (2011 - 2021)3. Influenza Vaccines Brand Sales and Forecast to 20214. Influenza Vaccines Market - Major Deals5. Influenza Vaccines Market - Driving Factors and ChallengesInfluenza Vaccines Market, Persons Vaccinated and Forecast - Country Wise Distribution1. Germany2. France3. Italy4. Spain5. United Kingdom6. Netherlands7. Ireland8. Denmark9. Luxembourg10. SwedenInfluenza Vaccines Brand Sales and Forecast - 7 Brands Analyzed1. Fluarix/FluLaval2. Fluzone3. Fluvirin/Flucelvax4. Influvac5. Afluria/Fluvax6. FluMist/Fluenz7. FlublokTo Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Market Research on Nanomaterials Market 2015 and Analysis to 2025

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The science of nanomaterials has created a lot of expectation amongst various end user industries. With the increasing applications of nanomaterials, the demand for it is increasing at an increasing rate and is becoming a part of daily lives. Nanomaterials are important product under the nanotechnology. They embrace nanoparticles, smaller than 100 nanometres in at least one dimension. Nanomaterials are widely used in healthcare, electronics, cosmetics and other areas nowadays. Continuous improvement and innovation in the field is driving the growth of the global nanomaterials market.The extraordinary physical and chemicals properties of materials at the nanometre scale enable novel applications ranging from energy conservation and structural strength enhancement to antimicrobial properties and self-cleaning surfaces. The nanotechnology is being increasingly modernised by expending largely on R&D activities which is resulting in the advancement of existing technologies and innovations with reference to the new materials.Request Free Report Sample@Energy storage and construction market is providing a huge growth potential to these materials and driving the overall market for nanomaterials. The increasing electronics market is also providing opportunities to the global nanomaterials market due to the falling prices and improving materials property and efficiency.NanomaterialsMarket: Drivers & RestraintsThe market penetration of the already existing materials and ongoing development of new materials and applications is driving the global nanomaterials market. The unabated market for nanomaterials is being strongly supported by the governmental funding to support the potential growth. The increasing availability of several methods in the field of nanotechnology and new novel methods for fabricating the patterned nanostructures is offering opportunity for better modeling. Some of the other drivers for the growth of global nanomaterials market is partnerships & strategic alliances, increasing number of market players and newer material developments. One of the major factor restraining the growth of global nanomaterials market implies to the growing concerns over environmental impact and toxicity of nanomaterials.NanomaterialsMarket: SegmentationOn the basis of material type, the global nanomaterials market is segmented as follows:Metal Oxide (Silica, Aluminium Oxide/Hydroxide, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, Iron Oxide, Other Metal Oxides)MetalsChemicals and Polymers (Nanopharmaceuticals, Liposomes, Other Chemicals & Polymers)NanotubesOthers (Conventional Materials and New Materials)On the basis of applications the global nanomaterials market is segmented as follows:ConstructionPackagingConsumer GoodsElectrical and ElectronicsEnergyHealth CareTransportationOthers.Nanomaterials Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global nanomaterials market is expected to register a favourable growth for the forecast period, 2015?2025. North America and Europe are the two prominent regions that are projected to endure the control on the global nanomaterials market. Decreasing prices due to the increasing mass production is responsible for the robust growth of the above mentioned markets. The demand for nanomaterials is also surging across Asian regions. The Asia-Pacific region is projected to witness remarkable growth rate owning to the greater demand of nanomaterials in the developing regions like India and China and their continuous research and developmental activities.Visit For TOC@Nanomaterials: Key PlayersThere are a lot of players in the nanomaterials industry of which some of the key market participants in global nanomaterials market are BASF, EMFUTUR Technologies, Evonik Industries, Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC, Bayer AG, SkySpring Nanomaterials, Altair Nanotechnologies Inc., and Nanomaterials Company and others.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
MyAssignmenthelp.com: Best Place to Get Quality Assignment Help

Australia, December 6: MyAssignmenthelp.com has expanded its team of best academic writers in order to handle increased assignment requests from law students. With the increase in number of order for law assignment help, MyAssignmenthelp.com had to appoint more law assignment writers so that students can experience uninterrupted assignment help services. With a team of law experts, we are ready to handle any type of law assignments.Sometimes it is hard to manage stringent deadlines. Often lecturers are not aware of other assignments that you have to accomplish within given deadline. So naturally students feel overwhelmed at times as they do not have enough hours to complete their tasks. Our experts can help them to complete their tasks. Our experts extend you a helping hand while you concentrate on your priorities. Our top quality assignment writers help you to improve your grades by providing you top quality assignment writing help. Perhaps, you are an international student, adapting new education system, looking for extra support to improve your grades. MyAssignmenthelp.com is the ideal option for you.MyAssignmenthelp.com understands how hard it is to complete all due tasks within a deadline. Thus, we have designed our services in a manner that each student receives required help with their law academic writing. Quality assignment help service proved to be one-stop solution for all law students in UK. Our law assignment services cover writing law assignments, gathering relevant and authentic material for assignment, creating an outline or structure of the assignment and lastly editing and proofreading services for those who have little time left for revision.We know when students pay for assignment help services, they expect to receive original content. MyAssignmenthelp.com never fails to deliver authentic content to its customers. Our quality assignment experts are responsible for writing assignments from the scratch. Therefore, each solution we provide undergoes stringent quality check process in order to ensure that customers receive authentic and quality text. Moreover, we also allow our customers to have their solution revised by the experts if they find anything missing in the content.We are popular for producing work to your exact standards. So it is guaranteed that you will be getting a model answer to your law assignment writing problemAssignment Help in Australia,UK & US provides best online assignment writing service. We have Australian assignment experts to write custom Essays & Dissertations.Suite 266, 189 Queen St Melbourne 3000, Australia+61261003843
Global LED Lighting Market: Trends & Opportunities (2016-2020)

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Scope of the ReportThe report titled Global LED Lighting Market: Trends & Opportunities (2016-2020), provides an in-depth analysis of the global LED Lighting market with detailed analysis of market size and growth, market share and economic impact of the industry. The report also provides market size of the global lighting market and its segments.The report provides detailed regional analysis of North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific (China and India) for the LED lighting market. The report also assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry.Growth of the global lighting market and global LED lighting market has also been forecasted for the period 2016-2020, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends. The market for global LED lighting is facing a tough competition due to price wars and entry of small firms. Further, key players (Cree, Philips and Osram) of the global LED lighting market are also profiled with their financial information and respective business strategies.Country CoverageNorth AmericaEuropeAsia Pacific (China and India)Company CoverageCree, Inc.PhilipsOsramDownload Sample copy of Report atExecutive SummaryThe LED lighting can be segmented according to its application into lighting, backlighting, signage, automotive lighting and others. Some of the advantages of LED lights over the traditional light sources are long life, energy efficient, ecologically friendly, durable, zero UV emission, design flexibility, low voltage, etc.Global LED Lighting market has increased at a significant annual growth rate in 2015 as compared to the preceding year and projections are made that the market would rise in the next five years i.e. 2016-2020 tremendously. The upsurge in the market was due to various factors such as rapid growth in the global automotive industry, increasing focus on fuel and energy efficiency, etc.The major growth drivers for the LED lighting market are increasing shipment and penetration of LED TVs, growing automobile industry, increasing LED penetration, phasing out of incandescent bulbs in many countries, supportive government policies and focus on energy efficiency. Despite the market is governed by various growth drivers, there are certain challenges faced by the market such as temperature dependence, high initial costs of LED, high research and development costs, etc.MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
GoodWorkLabs Selected as a 2016 Red Herring Top 100 Global

Bangalore, India, 6th Dec 2016  GoodWorkLabs today proudly announced that it has been awarded as one of this year's Red Herring 100 Global Winners. The announcement of the Top 100 Global companies is in recognition of the leading private companies from North America, Europe, and Asia, celebrating these startups innovations and technologies across their respective industries. GoodWorkLabs is one of the six companies from India who have won this validation.Red Herrings Top 100 Global list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.Sonia Sharma, Managing Director and Founder, GoodWorkLabs credits rigorous perseverance and product market adeptness with the companys average growth of 1112% over the past three years. She said, GoodWorkLabs has emerged as a leader in the premium product and app development sector not only in India, but globally. We have been able to catch the attention of Fortune 500 clients who have engaged with us based on our DNA of creating cutting edge products. The Red Herring 100 Global recognition adds a proud feather to our cap recognizing us and our significant growth from a bootstrapped startup company. Our endeavour now will be to become a global powerhouse with strong business units in different industry verticals and geographies.This is a defining event for GoodWorkLabs! expressed Vishwas Mudagal, CEO and Co-Founder of GoodWorkLabs. He adds, We are decisive about addressing the strong demand we have received for our services and products in the technology and mobility sectors. Clients globally want to automate processes and move towards a larger mobile environment, backed with secure infrastructure. With a successful track record, we intend to keep the momentum going. We will continue to grow rapidly in terms of revenue, headcount and client base in multiple geographies.Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no means a small feat, said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across the globe to the Top 100 Winners. We believe GoodWorkLabs embodies the vision, drive and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. GoodWorkLabs should be proud of its accomplishment.Red Herrings editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track records and standing of startups relative to their peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the buzz and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models from around the world.About GoodWorkLabs:GoodWorkLabs is a world-leading outsourced product development company that designs and builds mobile apps, software products and games for top clientele globally. With offices in Bangalore, Kolkata and San Francisco Bay Area, the company is growing at 500% year-on-year and has established itself as a premium tech provider for Fortune 500 companies and startups. The company is led by industry veterans Vishwas Mudagal, CEO & Co-founder, and Sonia Sharma, MD & Founder, and is a valued member of NASSCOM.Samson Arcade,No.22,Andree Road,Shanthinagar,Bangalore-560027
Global Ink Solvents Market: Bio-based and Water-based Solvents to Gain Traction due to Stringent Regulations against Organic Solvents, finds TMR

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The global ink solvents market is likely to see a preference for water-based and bio-based solutions over conventional organic solvent formulations in the upcoming years, points out a new market intelligence study by Transparency Market Research (TMR). While bio-based solutions are prepared from raw materials such as ethyl lactate, soyate, methyl bio-ethanol, and others, organic solvents are petroleum based. The report, titled, Ink Solvents Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Trends, and Forecast 20162024, finds that the market at present is dominated mainly by organic solvents, namely xylene, toluene, mineral spirits, methyl ethyl ketone, acetone, etc.Interpret a Competitive outlook Analysis Report with PDF Brochure :In the near future, however, the report predicts a waning demand for organic ink solvents due to strict environmental laws likely to be imposed on them. This would substantially up the demand for bio-based substitutes and boost the growth of its market. The TMR report states that the market would also gain in the coming years because of the absence of hazardous chemicals in bio-based ink solvents, making them totally safe to use. Additionally, manufacturers these days are turning their focus towards water-based inks because of their lower inflammability.Ink solvents typically find application in paper printing, textile printing, and cardboard printing. Substantial growth in the market for printing inks market is predicted to drive the demand for ink solvents in the upcoming years, especially in the flexible and rigid packaging applications. Applications in packaging printing, cardboard printing, and other paper-based printing are expected to dominate the ink solvents market in the next eight years. Flexographic printing that uses flexible printing plates made of plastic is one of the most attractive markets for ink solvents.Browse Market Research Report with ToC & Free Analysis :The market for ink solvents in developed regions would likely record lackluster growth from 2016 to 2024 on account of their being mature and saturated. The developing markets in emerging economies, however, hold a lot of potential. Asia Pacific, powered by Japan, China, and other countries, is slated to grow at a cracking pace. The demand in Latin American and African nations too would likely remain robust in the near future. Prominent players in the global market for ink solvents are pulling out all stops to tap into developing markets across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.The TMR report furnishes information about the size of the market under different segments, leveraging data on the number and revenue of companies within each segment and sub-segment. It also factors in data pertaining to demand and supply to comprehend current industry trends. Some of the companies profiled in the report are Ineos AG, ExxonMobil Chemical, Eastman Chemical Company, Vertec Biosolvents Inc., Sasol Solvents, and Shell Chemicals.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit :
Foaming Agents Market Set to Grow Exponentially During the Forecast 2021

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Foaming agents are used create foam in food products and also used to add flavour to the food products. Various types of foaming agents include Gelatin and Lecithin.Gelatin is used in various food products to stabilize the foam. However, Lecithin is primarily used for converting juices to foams. Foaming agents are of various types including natural and artificial foaming agents. Natural foaming agents such as Yucca schidigera and Quillaja saponaria are used in various applications such as carbonated beverages, juices and beer. These foaming agents are especially used in products that require enhanced foaming properties.Global foaming agents market is segmented on the basis of type, application and region. Based on the type, food foaming agents is segmented into natural and artificial. Of which, the natural foaming agent is the leading segment in terms of revenue contribution, followed by the artificial foaming agents. The natural foaming agent is the dominating segment, as companies are primarily manufacturing natural foaming agents in order to meet the rising preference of the customers for the food products that contain natural ingredients. On the basis of application food foaming agents, segmentation includes beverages and dairy. Of which, beverage segment is expected to be the dominating segment over the forecast period due the expanding market for the beverage such as alcohol globally, However, followed by the dairy, dairy segment is expected to witness consistent growth in the coming four to five years. Global foaming agents market is segmented on the basis of the region into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Japan.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @The Global foaming agents market is expected to witness robust growth over the forecast period due to the expanding beverage and dairy industry. Globally among all regions, North America is the most dominating segment followed by other regions. In North America, U.S. is expected to contribute highest market share, followed by other countries during the forecast period. North America is expected to contribute maximum market share owing to the high consumption of food products, especially in the dairy segment. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to witness fast growth in the next four to five yearsA major factor that fuel the growth of foaming agents market includes the growing demand of consumers for the food products that are superior in taste. Another factor that is expected to boost the demand of foaming agent is increasing consumption of beverages such as alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks. Moreover, application of foaming agent in beverages such as alcohol is the cost-effective method for releasing foam in drinks. However, major factor that is expected to hinder the growth of foaming agents is adverse effects related to the consumption of food products in beverage and dairy segment.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
PTFE Plate Market Rapid Growth And Competitive Landscape Outlook 2016-2021

PTFE Plate

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QY Research Group Added new report on "Global PTFE Plate Market 2016" is an analytical study of the PTFE Plate market, enveloping a detailed estimation of the markets regions like United States, EU, Japan and China as well as worldwide. This Research Report provides a Major Manufacturers Analysis of PTFE Plate- with detail like Company Profile, Product Picture, Specifications, Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross, Revenue and Contact Information.The report estimates the current size of the PTFE Plate market and all important segments within it. The authors of the report also provide recommendations for growth based on their understanding of the latest analysis and trends. The report on the PTFE Plate market analyzes factors that will promote expansion, as well as threats that could hold back the growth rate.Request for FREE Sample Report of PTFE Plate Market:This report provides a complete understanding of the competitive scenario in the PTFE Plate market based on the key attributes of companies on the following fronts: Company history, product/services portfolio, revenues, and recent developments. The market research study throws light on the key market drivers which led to the augmentation of the PTFE Plate market. A detailed overview of the market challenges and the buying criteria in PTFE Plate market is also been presented in this report. The market trends as well as market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors have also been elaborated in this study.The factors governing the growth of each of the market segments have been discussed in the report. The report closely follows the past performance of the market and studies the factors which are likely to impact its growth trajectory. Factors such as economy growth rate, government regulations, and consumer demand have been taken into consideration while estimating the future market growth in key geographic segments. New opportunities for the growth of the global PTFE Plate market have been discussed in the report.In the end, the report includes PTFE Plate new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, investment return analysis, and development trend analysis. The key rising opportunities of the quickest growing international PTFE Plate market segments also are coated during this report.Browse Complete Report AtAbout US:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales (@) qyresearchgroup (dot) com
Carotenoid Market Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2021

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Carotenoids or colorful plant pigments are a major source of antioxidants which are further used in the prevention of cancer and heart diseases. Carotenoids can also be converted into vitamin A by the body and used to enhance its immune response to infections. The carotenoid market is expanding mainly due to increasing demand for food supplements, and food pigments and colors. The rising incidence of life-threatening diseases is also increasing the application of carotenoids in several food supplements.The major carotenoid types include beta-carotene, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, and annatto. Beta-carotene dominated the carotenoid market in 2013, followed by astaxanthin. Beta-carotene is used in various types of food and supplements to prevent or cure certain diseases and disorders such as heart diseases, cataracts, elderly muscular degeneration, Alzheimers disease, depression, heartburn, epilepsy, infertility, and high blood pressure. There has been a significant increase in the number of synthetic and algae-derived beta-carotenes which has raised competition in the market and consequently, led to a reduction in the prices of beta-carotenes. Astaxanthin is used to add pigments to fish and shrimps. The market for astaxanthin products manufactured through fermentation process is being overtaken by those manufactured with algae.Canthaxanthin is used to add a reddish tone to the egg yolks, fish, and shrimp. However, due to increasing competition among manufacturers, the canthaxanthin manufacturers have also started promoting their products to the food supplement industry in order to check their declining profitability. Annatto is a reddish condiment and food coloring extracted from the achiote tree which imparts yellow and orange coloring to foods; however, sometimes it is also used in order to add flavor and aroma. Annatto is prominently used in the manufacturing of British cheese, and industrial food coloring. Annatto is also widely used in the traditional cuisine of Latin America.There are several other types of carotenoids such as lycopene and lutein. Lycopene is extracted from tomatoes and has antioxidant properties which help prevent prostate cancer. Lutein is extracted from plant and animal sources and finds its application in several sectors such as pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, food, pet food, and animal and fish feed.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @Factors such as rising middle-class population and increasing demand for milk and meat products are leading to the growth of carotenoid end-user industries and consequently, expansion of the carotenoid market. Changing consumer preferences such as switching to the natural sources of nutrition have been emerging as a restraint for the carotenoid market. Increasing competition, which has been eroding the profit margins of manufacturers, has been another key concern for the global carotenoid market.North America and Europe were the largest carotenoid markets in 2013, followed by Asia Pacific. However, the market share of Asia Pacific is expanding at a swift pace due to advancement in lifestyles and food culture. The major companies in the global carotenoid market include Allied Biotech Corporation, BASF SE, Carotech Berhad, Chr. Hansen A/S, Cyanotech Corporation, D.D. Williamson & Co., Inc, Dohler Group, DSM N.V., FMC Corporation, and Kemin Industries, Inc.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Automotive Control Cables Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2026

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Automotive control cables are made by twisting a number of stainless steel wires, of standard wire gauge with different diameter. The number of stainless steel wires, product type of cable and its size used in automotive control cables differs according to the vehicle type and its application. The different types of automotive control cables are used in the wires of the brakes, clutch, accelerator, audio system, engine and so on. Stainless steel wires are twisted in the twisting machine and cut and made into the required length. One end of the automotive control cable is butted and dipped in molten zinc to avoid opening up of the ends and at the other end of the cable is fitted with a zinc stopper of required size or design and is fixed by a process known as die- casting. Automotive control cables enable the driver to control the various vehicle functions from his seat.The most prominent driving factor for the global automotive control cables market is that it has a very wide replacement market owing to the replacement of various automotive control cables in two-wheelers, three-wheelers and other vehicles. Automotive control cables have a huge market of automobiles to cater to worldwide. The manufacturing units of automotive control cables are being set up across major cities as they require nominal capital investments that too for plant and machinery.The global automotive control cables market is classified on the basis of product type, application, end use and region.Based on product type, the global automotive Control Cables market is segmented into the following:Sun Roof SystemKey Interior CableClutch CableShift Lock CableBonnet Opener CableKick Down CableTransmission Shift CableWindow RegulatorParking Brake CableTrunk Opener CableFuel-Lid Opener CableBased on application, the global automotive control cables market is segmented into the following:Engine controlStarter and power generationLamp controlTransmission controlSecurityCabin environment controlBody controlAudioBased on end use, the global automotive control cables market is segmented into the following:Two-wheelerThree-wheelerFour-wheelerAircraftOthersThe global automotive control cables market is a mature one and currently the machines, equipment and raw materials used for manufacturing of automotive control cables are easily available globally. Auto control cables are one of the fastest growing spares used in two and three wheeler vehicles and have a very potential replacement market. Automotive control cables are commonly used at most servicing stations and hence all product type segments are expected to register steady growth rates during the forecast period.Request for Sample Report and Table of Content @Geographically, global automotive Control Cables market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Middle East and Africa (MEA). Every country has laid down their own quality control standards for automotive control cables and hence the dynamics of the automotive control cables market change. In APEJ, South Korea, India and China are major markets for automobiles and have a substantial share in the global automotive control cables market. Western Europe being an established market for automotive control cables and having the presence of significant manufacturers globally, the region is projected to register steady growth rates during the forecast period.The key research institutes in global automotive control cables market are ACEY ENGINEERING PVT LTD, PREMIER AUTO CABLES, Kalpa Industries, Cable Manufacturing & Assembly Co., CHAMPION CABLES, DURA Automotive Systems LLC, Metalcaucho S.L., Miracle Cables Private Limited, Metex Group to name a few.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, accessories and applications.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Automotive Wipers Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2026

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Automotive wiper is a windscreen wiper or windshield wiper. Automotive wiper is a device used to remove water, rain, snow, ice and debris from a windscreen or windshield. All motor vehicles, including cars, trucks, train locomotives, watercraft and so on are equipped with automotive wipers. An automotive wiper is a metal arm, hinging at one end and with a long rubber blade attached to its other end. The arm is powered by an electric motor. Other source of power for the metal arm is pneumatic power which is also used in few vehicles. The blade swings back and forth over the windshield, pushing water or other dust particles away from the surface. The speed adjusted by the driver and has the control settings near the driver seat.In some vehicles, a windshield washer system is also used. This washer system sprays water or washer fluid on the windshield and helps to remove dirt or dust from the windshield. Use of windshield washer systems when automotive wipers are unable to remove debris could adversely affect growth of global automotive wipers market. In winter season, some vehicles employ additional heaters or defroster systems at the windows to keep snow and ice from building up on the windshield. In extreme conditions, small automotive wipers are installed on headlights.Automotive Wipers Market: SegmentationThe global automotive wipers market is classified on the basis of wiper arm type, application, blade type and region.Based on automotive wiper arm type, the global automotive wipers market is segmented into the following:Synchronized Radial ArmPantograph ArmBased on application, the global automotive wipers market is segmented into the following:Windshield wipersRear wipersHeadlight wipersBased on blade type, the global automotive wipers market is segmented into the following:Traditional Bracket BladesLow-Profile Beam BladesHybrid BladesRequest for Sample Report and Table of Content @There are two types of arms in automotive wipers namely synchronized radial type arm and pantograph arms. The radial type arm of automotive wiper is more common in trucks and cars and is anticipated to hold greater share in the global automotive wiper market. The windshield wiping application segment is the most prominent as compared to rear and headlight wiping application segment and hence, almost half the share will be held by windshield wiper segment in the global market during the forecast period.Geographically, global automotive wipers market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Middle East and Africa (MEA). In APEJ, Korea, India, ASEAN and China are major markets for automobiles and have a substantial share in the global automotive wipers market owing to the high volume of automobiles and a significant market for automotive. Western Europe being an established market for automotive, the region is projected to register steady growth rates during the forecast period.The key players in global automotive wipers market are Robert Bosch (Australia) Pty Ltd, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, TEX Automotive Ltd, Pilot Automotive, B. Hepworth and Company Limited, TRICO, Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited, RONA to name a few.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, accessories and applications.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Automotive Maintenance Tools Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2026

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Automotive maintenance is the process of testing or inspecting the condition of vehicle subsystems such as engine and servicing or replacing parts and automobile fluids. Automotive maintenance is carried out at a fixed interval of time or after the vehicle has travelled a specific distance or when the vehicle is underperforming. Automotive maintenance tools are used to dismantle vehicle systems for their repair. This in turn helps the vehicles to function properly and run at their maximum possible efficiency. Furthermore, automotive maintenance tools are used for servicing or to replace parts and fluids of engine for the safety of the vehicles and to avoid any major damage. Automotive maintenance is necessary to ensure safety, comfort, drivability, reliability and longevity of vehicles. Currently, due to rapid advancements and requirement to reduce the time required for transport and logistics, the demand for automotive maintenance tools is increasing significantly. Automotive maintenance tools include battery filler, battery terminal cleaner, boosters, jumper cables, portable power, swivel filter wrench, creepers and creeper casters, drain and drip etc.Increasing industrialization has led to the surge in the logistics industry, this in turn has increased the transportation of the goods across geographies. Thus, there is an increase in the maintenance rate of the vehicles and is a major factor contributing to the growth of the global automotive maintenance tools market. Also, the flourishing automobile industry and its mandatory norms to provide each vehicle with a tool kit is the key driver of the global automotive maintenance tools marketHowever, skills required to operate these automotive maintenance tools is restricting the use of these tools only at service centers that can hamper its aftermarket.Global Automotive Maintenance Tools Market: SegmentationThe global automotive maintenance tools market can be segmented as follows:Global Automotive Maintenance Tools Market, by TypeBattery ChargersoAutomatic Battery ChargersoManual Battery ChargersAutomotive Specialized ToolsoFeeler GaugeoRadiator FilleroBearing Race/Seal Driver KitoSeparatorsoScrewdriveroPliersCreepers and Creeper CastersDrain and Drip PansoSteeloAluminumoPlasticElectric Vehicle Charging StationFunneloSteel FunneloPlastic FunnelMeasuring Cups/Pitcher/ScoopOthers (Air compressor, Torque wrench, Jack, Ratchet Pumps, Roller-type stud extractor and Thread Chasers)Global Automotive Maintenance Tools Market, by Vehicle TypeMotorcyclePassenger CarsLight Commercial Vehicle (LCV)Heavy Commercial Vehicle (HCV)Global Automotive Maintenance Tools Market, by Distribution ChannelOriginal Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)AftermarketRequest for Sample Report and Table of Content @Geographically, the global automotive maintenance tools market is segmented into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). Eastern Europe & Western Europe are market leaders in the global automotive maintenance tools market owing to its established automobile industries. North America is the second major contributor to the global automotive maintenance tools market mainly due to its automotive hubs in the U.S. Technological advancements in automobile industry of Japan is making it a significant contributor in the global automotive maintenance tools market. Also, the presence of automobile companies such as Toyota Motor Corporation and Honda Motors Co. Ltd in Japan is a major factor for its growth in global automotive maintenance tools market. APEJ is anticipated to register healthy CAGR in the global automotive maintenance tools market due to a surge in the number of automobile manufacturing units being set up in this region. Middle East and Africa is recovering from its oil and gas crisis and is anticipated to have a positive landscape in the global automotive maintenance tools market and Latin America is at a nascent stage in the global automotive maintenance tools market.Global Automotive Maintenance Tools Market: Key PlayersThe key players in the global automotive maintenance tools market areGreatNeckUnior d.d.Mobletron Electronics Co., Ltd.R. Laurence Co., Inc.Ningbo Dicong Machinery Industrial & Trading Co., Ltd.Sir ToolsMatco Tools (Danaher Corp.)Lisle CorporationThexton Manufacturing CompanyMac ToolsStahlwilleAspov HydraulicssJET ToolsGlobally, the manufacturers of automotive maintenance tools are implementing the strategies such as merger and acquisition, and technology advancements such as use of latest computer-controlled machines to manufacture automotive maintenance tools.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, and applications.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Boat Steering System Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2026

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Steering system is one of the pivotal component of any vehicle, necessary for stabilizing and enabling efficient and smooth maneuverability whether its an automobile, aero plane or a boat. A boat steering wheel is one of the part of the helm that connects hydraulic, mechanical or electric system to assist in turning the boat. From paddles to highly efficient electrohydraulic steering system, boat steering system design has evolved significantly. Selection of a boat steering system is based mainly on the location of the propulsion system. Boats with outboard motors require steering wheel to rotate the entire unit, an inboard motor utilizes a pod attached with the propeller while a watercraft uses jet drives to force water into nozzle that allows the operator to turn to the desired course. The selection of efficient boat steering system also depends on the orientation of the propulsion system. If a boat is stern driven or an outboard, then a steering system has to be carefully selected too reduce feedback, which is effort to put on the steering wheel to just to go straight. With advent of autonomous systems to boats, the autopilot feature, which allows boat sailing without external help is also slowly gaining traction in the premium boat segment.Request for Sample Report and Table of Content @The recovering sales of the recreational boat industry has rejuvenated boat steering systems sales since the last four years. The market is further expected to expand with escalating sales yatch and small boats market in emerging markets. One of the pivotal factor increasing sale of global steering system market is the adoption of electro-hydraulic and hydraulic steering system for mid-size boats and yachts. Limited penetration of new steering systems such as electro-hydraulic in the mainstream market owing to high-cost and volatility in demand act as deterrent to the global boat steering systems market.Global Boat Steering Systems Market Segmentation:The global boat steering systems market is classified according to boat propulsion system used as:OutboardStern driveInboardOthers (jet boats, air fans)The Global boat steering systems market can also segmented on the basis steering type as follows:Manual Steering SystemHydraulic Steering SystemElectro-Hydraulic Steering SystemElectric Power Steering SystemOn the basis of size the Global boat steering systems market can be segmented assmall,mid-sizeLarge boats.The market can also be segmented on the basis of sales channel asOEMAftermarketThe boat steering system market can also be segmented on the basis of componentsWheelHelmSteering Cable Connection And Other LinkagesGeographically, the global boat steering systems market can be divided into North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America boat industry is one of the largest markets in terms of revenue contribution for the boat steering market with U.S contributing significantly as compared to Canada. Following North America, In Western Europe, the recuperating growth of the boat industry in France, Italy, Poland, U.K., and Finland will boost the sales of boat steering, transmission and other component in the regions. Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle East and Africa based boat steering markets are relatively at nascent stage with steering systems supply mainly derived through imports, however with the expanding sales of boats these market are anticipated to create significant opportunities for domestic and international. APEJ boat steering market is expected to exhibit significant volume growth, with demand significantly arising from ASEAN based economies which have thriving fishing, tourism and leisure industryRequest for Sample Report and Table of Content @Some of the key market participants identified in the global boat steering systems market are: VETUS B.V.,Kobelt Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Twin Disc, SeaStar Solutions, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine B.V., , Uflex USA, HyDrive Engineering Pty Ltd., and Hypro Marine among others manufacturers.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types, technology and applications.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global Air Cargo Security and Screening Systems Market is Predictable To Observer Major Growth During The Forecast 2020

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Aviation security has been one of the key concerns in the aviation industry. The need for air cargo security and screening systems has become even more pronounced after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The customary security and screening practice in this area include physical inspection and canine methods (detection through trained dogs) which are not error-free. The new technologies in this area reduce the potential threats from terrorist activities and ensure safety by tracking explosives inside the air cargo. The air cargo industry and international and national regulatory authorities have been continuously making efforts to increase the screening levels of the air cargos with minimum of shipping hindrance through known shipper programs. These programs allow known shippers to screen their own cargo and check that they adhere to a common set of standards.The enhanced security programs carry certain limitations in the form of large size of the industry and high costs incurring in the enhancements. However, the dire need to increased security has been compelling the industry to include air cargo security and screening systems. The expansion of these security measures across the supply chain lays significant business opportunities for the manufacturers of air cargo and security and screening systems. The screening process in the air cargo and screening systems include screening systems based on x-ray, explosives trace detection (ETD) and explosives detection systems (EDS) technologies. The air cargo security and screening systems based on x-ray screens the entire shipment swiftly and accurately.X-ray based screening produces high penetration of detection in products ranging from meats, fish, paper, liquid and metals. ETD is the most popular technology used by the aviation industry and freight forwarders for screening air cargo. In this technology, samples of particles are collected from the pieces of cargo being screened which are then screened for traces of explosives or vapors which explosives may release. ETDs are relatively cheaper than its counterpart technologies are cost about USD 10,000. For screening efficiency with ETDs, the cargo needs to be divided into smallest packaging components. EDS system consists of an apparatus which examines the physical characteristics of an object; and a software component that processes the images and data to analyze the mass and density of that object. In EDS a rotating-ray source is used to take large numbers of images in order to give a visual presentation of the objects contained in the examined piece. EDS are costlier than its counterparts and its maintenance charges are also high, however, its automated nature makes its less-labor intensive. With the scarcity of skilled labor, EDS is expected to be a fast growing segment of air cargo security and screening systems market.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @:Among the regions, North America dominated the global air cargo security and screening systems in 2013 followed by Europe. The dominance of North America is due to its large aviation industry and increasing industrialization and trade. Asia Pacific is also witnessing high growth due to increase in trade activities and industrialization in the region. The key companies in air cargo security and screening systems include American Science and Engineering, L-3 Security Detection Systems, Morpho Detection Rockwell Collins, Rapiscan Systems, 3DX-RAY, Armstrong Monitoring, Astrophysics, AUTOCLEAR, CEIA, Gilardoni, Nuctech and Smiths Detection.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Gamma Knife Market is Anticipated to Grow US$ 651,241.9 Thousand by 2020 : PMR Study

Gamma Knife Market, Gamma Knife, high radiation, high radiation market, radiations, radiation market

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research Global Market Study on Gamma Knife: Asia to Witness Highest Growth by 2020, the global Gamma Knife market is valued at USD 526,733.2 thousand in 2014 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.6% from 2014 to 2020 to reach an estimated value of USD 651,241.9 thousand in 2020.Request to view Sample Report @Radiation therapy is a procedure entailing the precise delivery of high doses of radiation to tumors and other relevant anatomical targets. Gamma Knife radiosurgery is a major form of radiation therapy. It is mainly used to treat brain tumors, arteriovenous malformations, trigeminal neuralgia, acoustic neuroma, and pituitary tumors. Globally, the Gamma Knife market is witnessing significant growth due to increasing prevalence of cancer and obesity and growing aging population. In addition, rising number of initiatives undertaken by various government associations and the advanced features of Gamma Knife systems are also driving the growth of the market. However, stringent regulatory requirements and prolonged approval time for Gamma Knife systems and a high cost of implementation and shortage of skilled manpower inhibit the growth of the market. The global Gamma Knife market is anticipated to grow from an estimated USD 526,733.2 thousand in 2014 to USD 651,241.9 thousand by 2020 at a CAGR of 3.6% during the forecast period.In North America, the Gamma Knife market is growing due to the rising incidence of cancer in the region. In addition, increased awareness about Gamma Knife technology for cancer treatment is also boosting the growth of the market in the region. According to WHO, approximately 2.8 million people had cancer, including brain cancer, in the U.S. in 2000. Moreover, according to the Hindawi Publishing Corporation, an international journal of surgical oncology, approximately 98,000 to 170,000 new brain metastases cases occur every year in North AmericaIn Europe, increasing prevalence of cancer is boosting the growth of the Gamma Knife market in the region. According to WHO, Europe accounts for only one-eighth of the worlds population. However, the region records around a quarter of global cancer cases. Several government associations, such as the Women Against Lung Cancer in Europe (WALCE) and European Head and Neck society (EHNS), are trying to increase awareness about breast cancer, lung cancer, and head and neck cancer and their brain metastases effects in Europe.However, Asia represents the fastest growing region in the Gamma Knife market due to the rise in cancer patients in various countries such as India, China, and Japan. According to WHO, the occurrence of cancer in India and China is set to climb at a rate of 78% from 2013 to 2030. In addition, growing aging population is also supporting the growth of the Gamma Knife market in the region.In Latin America, construction of manufacturing and research facilities by many companies is driving the Gamma Knife market in Latin America. Furthermore, the governments of Latin American countries have recognized the growing epidemic of cancer and are actively devising several patient awareness programs to raise awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer, including brain cancers.Request to view Table of Content @Elekta AB, Varian Medical Systems, Inc., and Hokai are some of the leading players in the Gamma Knife market. Other major players in the Gamma Knife market include Huiheng Medical, Inc., Cyber Medical Corporation Limited, Masep Infini Global, Inc., Nordion, Inc., ET Medical Group, and American Shared Hospital Services.The global Gamma Knife market is segmented as follows:Gamma Knife market, by application Brain Metastases Brain Tumors Trigeminal Neuralgia Arteriovenous Malformations OthersGamma Knife market, by geography North Americao U.S.o Canadao Rest of North America Europeo Germanyo Franceo U.K.o Italyo Spaino Rest of Europe Asiao Chinao Japano Indiao Rest of Asia Latin Americao Brazilo Rest of Latin America Rest of the World (RoW)About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global System Integration Market: Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2021

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System integration (SI) enables to build computing systems for end users by combining hardware and software products from several vendors. By implementing systems integration, a company can acquire cheaper, pre-configured components of software. These small components of software help company to achieve key business goals. Otherwise the companies have to purchase customized, more expensive software; this may also require manufacturing of unique products or original programming. Creation of these information systems include designing and building a new customized applications or architecture, after building software components, they are integrated with the existing or new software and hardware packages and communication infrastructure. There are some system integrators such as SAP providing more specialized and specific applications.High investments in IT in last decade have created a huge demand for the system integration market. As the information technology developed the adoption and implementation of information technology system were high, this generated the distributed information system all over the industries and organization generating the demand for integration of the distributed systems. Thus high investment in distributed information technology system is the main driver for the system integration market. With this there are many emerging technologies supporting system integration market such as bid data and cloud. Cloud implementation and big data solutions implementation is the new trend in the information technology systems market. Thus companies are adopting the integration of their data with adoption of these technologies such as big data and cloud providing added advantages to the companies implementing it. Development in automation sector is driving system integration market, as adoption of system integration technologies is high in automation sector.High implementation cost and time required for the effective implementation of system integration is resulting into less adoption of system integration technologies. With this there are very less number of international standard protocols for the communication between two or more information technology sub-systems resulting into complexities for the system integrators. If the industry previously is using legacy systems then it results into increased complexities for system integration. For system integration the network infrastructure must be standard, thus lack of network infrastructure is resulting into deferred demand for the system integration market.System integration market is segmented on the basis of system integration service type, end-use industry and geography. On the basis of type the system integration market is broadly segmented into three major types namely infrastructure system integration services, application system integration services and business consulting services. Infrastructure system integration services are segmented into network management, data center management, building management, security and surveillance management, cloud based integration management and enterprise management. Application system integration services are segmented into data integration, unified communication, integrated social software, application integration and others. Further business consulting services are segmented into business process integration, business transformation and application lifecycle management.System integration market is segmented on the basis of end-user industry into banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), defense, healthcare, telecommunication and IT, oil gas and energy, transportation, retail and others (pharmaceuticals, public sector, education and automotive). And on the basis of geography system integration market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world (RoW).Request for Sample Report and Table of content @:Some of the major players in system integration market are Accenture Plc., BAE Systems Plc., Capgemini S.A., Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Fujitsu Limited, General Dynamics Corporation, Harris Corporation, IBM Corporation, Infosys Technologies, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Raytheon Company, Leidos Corporation, Tata Consultancy Service Limited and Wipro Limited. With this global players system integration market in Asia Pacific is dominated by local players, such as there are many local players in China and India dominating and holding the maximum market shares.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Online Advertising Market: Expected to Witness a Steady Growth by 2021

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Online advertising is likewise known as internet advertising or digital advertising which makes usage of the cyberspace to communicate the promotional marketing message to the customers.The online advertising term is broadly categorized on the basis of types of advertising which includes search engine optimization (SEO), banner marketing, search engine advertising (SEA), email marketing, online video advertising, local online advertising, social media optimization (SMO) strategies and additional types of online advertising. These online advertisings appear on the internet more often than traditional advertising media such as television and newspapers.Search engine advertising and pay per click marketing are the fastest evolving advertising concepts for numerous assortments of businesses. Pay per clip is comparatively simple and effortless to carry out scalable, enormously cost efficient and in house. PPC is a huge component of effective and efficient online advertising for the business.Online advertising uses numerous tools and techniques for online marketing functions which include sales CRM, e-commerce, e-mail, marketing automation, WCM, social CRM and web analytics. All these software tools collectively facilitate an organization to develop and implement effective and efficient marketing strategies.The global online advertising market continues to rise in tandem with the global internet user base, social networking websites, income and widespread adoption of broadband. The industry is being motivated by mobile internet activity, increasing attractiveness and fame of mobile devices which includes tablets and smart phones that are proving to be beneficial.The main factors that are driving the online advertising market are increased focus on digital media, cost effective, smart phone penetration, advertising by content providers and rising numbers of advertisers on social networking sites. The main factor that is restraining the growth of online advertising are lack of skilled personnel and still use of tradition advertising factors such as television and newspapers. The main opportunity for the growth of online advertising in future would be the emergence of SAAS based solutions.The online advertising market is segmented on the basis of advertising sectors which include online classifieds, search, directories, and general advertising. In addition, the market is segmented on the basis of its mode of interaction which includes web sites, commercial online services, email providers, as well as other companies selling online advertising. Further, the online advertising is segmented on the basis of end use industry which includes BFSI and automotive industry among others. Furthermore, the market could be segmented on the basis of geography which includes North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RoW.The North American region dominates the market of global online advertising industry and is remain the market leaders in future as well. Asia Pacific region is expected to be the biggest emerging market for online advertising because of the large customer base.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @:Some of the major companies that are dominating in the online advertising market include IBM Corp., SAP AG, Oracle Corp., Salesforce.com Inc., Aplicor LLC, Adobe Systems Inc., ComScore Networks Inc., Ebay GSI Commerce, Lithium Technologies Inc., Demandware Inc., Attensity Corp., Microsoft Corp., LongJump CRM, OpenText Corp., StrongMail Systems Inc., Percussion Software Inc., Zoho CRM Inc., Yahoo Analytics, SugarCRM Inc., Netsuite Inc. and Sitecore Inc. among others.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Anti-Counterfeiting Packaging Market is Predictable To Observer Major Growth By 2020

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Packaging plays a crucial part in various industries such as food and pharmaceuticals. The most essential method to avoid counterfeiting is secure packaging. Anti-counterfeiting is one of the important processes of secure packaging that prevents copying and confirms the security of products. Manufacturers are minimizing their loss which was mainly occurred due to counterfeitingproducts with the help of anti-counterfeiting technology.Based on the technology the market of anti-counterfeiting packaging is divided in two broad segments: authentication packaging technology and track & trace packaging technology. Authentication technology is the most dominant segment of anti-counterfeiting packaging market in terms of market share. Authentication technologies are further classified as ink and dyes, holograms and others. Track & trace technologies are further classified as barcode technology and RFID technology. On the basis of application anti-counterfeiting packaging are classified as food packaging, pharmaceuticals packaging and others.North America is the largest and fastest growing market for anti-counterfeiting packaging, followed by Europe. Asia Pacific is a niche market for anti-counterfeiting packaging. Japan represents the major market for anti-counterfeiting packaging in the Asia Pacific region. Rise in the development of packaging techniques used in the pharmaceuticals and food segments including track & trace and authentication technologies drives the anti-counterfeiting packaging market in the Asia Pacific region.Rising number of counterfeit products, increasing consumer awareness about counterfeit, increasing government regulation and emphasizing more on eliminating counterfeit products in many developing and developed nations and identification of expired products are some of the major driving force for anti-counterfeiting packaging market. High cost structure to track & trace infrastructure and lack of awareness for product originality are expected to pose severe challenges to the growth of anti-counterfeiting packaging market.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @:Some of the major companies operating in the anti-counterfeiting packaging market include Avery Dennison, Alien Technology Corp., Inksure Technologies, Authentix Inc., Zebra Technologies, Alpvision, Sicapa, Essentra PLC, Impinj Inc., Flint Group, TraceLink Inc. and Catalent Pharma Solution Inc.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Cold Chain Market (3PL service provider): impact of Existing and Emerging Market by 2020

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Cold chain involves proper logistic planning of temperature sensitive products through thermal and refrigerated packaging methods. The application of cold chain is mainly applied to chilled and frozen foods to increase their self-life and maintain quality standard for long duration of time. Cold chain specifically helps in maintaining the bio-chemical and physical properties of the frozen foods and regulating market price in off-season. It also helps to prevent the product from loss and reduce the waste, which ultimately increases the overall income of manufacturer or producer.After economic slowdown in 2010, many big players increased the investment on frozen food industry, which leads to directly impacted overall cold chain market. Use of cold chain involves in many industries such as fruits & vegetables, bakery, confectionery, dairy, frozen desserts, fish, meat and seafood. In order to maintain these food fresh for long run, there need a proper cold chain logistics system. This leads to helps in the growth of cold chain market across the globe.The global cold chain market is growing with a high potential. North America is the largest market for cold chain. The growth in demand of frozen chilled and frozen foods in western counties triggered the cold chain market in North America. Increasing demand of daily products, vegetables and fruits heading towards more export form one reason to another. This has also led to boost the cold chain market. Various initiatives taken by the government affect the cold chain market in Asia Pacific region. Indian government has decided to open mega food parks, which require temperature controlled vehicles and temperature-controlled warehouses. Government also allowed 100% FDI in cold chain industry. This leads boost to cold chain market in Asia Pacific. . In Europe, Germany is one of the largest markets due to the increased consumption of frozen foods.Request for Sample Report and Table of content @:Major companies operating in global frozen bakery market include, Americold Logistics, Burris Logistics, Cloverleaf Cold Storage, Conestoga Cold Storage, Congebec Inc., Dev Bhumi Cold Chain Limited, Fresh And Healthy Enterprises Ltd, Gati Kwe Ltd, Hanson Logistics, Henningsen Cold Storage Co, Interstate Cold Storage Inc., Snowman Logistics Ltd and Trenton Cold Storage Inc.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Australia Lime Market to Grow at 1.7% CAGR in Terms of Value

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The lime market in Australia is expected to expand at a CAGR of 1.7% in terms of value over the forecast period, 20162024. The market has been segmented by product type and application. The application segmentation consists of mining & metallurgy, building materials, agriculture, water treatment and others of which the mining & metallurgy segment is expected to account for the highest share of the lime market in Australia throughout the forecast period, to account for 31.4% by 2024.Request Report Sample @Demand for energy-efficient and cost-effective solutions is expected to be a priority for lime manufacturers in the country over the forecast period. By product type, slaked/hydrated lime segment is expected to continue to dominate the market in terms of both value and volume throughout the forecast period. The segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 146.7 Mn and account for volume share of 68% in 2016. By application, mining & metallurgy and building materials, segments in the Australia lime market are expected to account for significant volume shares of 38% and 35%, respectively.New South Wales is expected to be the largest market for lime in Australia throughout the forecast period. The market in the region is estimated to be valued at US$ 59.1 Mn by 2016 end. In terms of production, Western Australia is expected to be a major producer, contributing over 65% to the total lime production in the country, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 0.8% over the forecast period.Browse Report @Key players in the Australia lime market include Adelaide Brighton Ltd., Boral Limited, Sibelco Australia, Omya Australia Pty. Ltd, Wagners, and Lime Group Australia. Key players in the Australia lime market are focusing on enhancing their product portfolios. They are focusing not only on basic lime products but also on importing quicklime from ASEAN countries such as Thailand and Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries such as China to minimize a cost of raw materials involved in a lime production. Manufacturers are focusing on capitalizing on economies of scale to increase production, profitability, and offer cost-effective products in order to target cost-sensitive population in the region. Joint ventures, acquisitions, and strategic collaborations in terms of production and distribution of lime have been the common strategies employed by these companies to achieve their production objectives.For More Information Request TOC (desk of content material), Figures and Tables of the report @Long-term Outlook: The long-term outlook on the Australia lime market remains on the conservative side, with the market expected to expand at a modest CAGR of 1.7% in terms of value during the forecast period. The revival of the mining sector in the country, increasing demand from the construction sector, particularly in the countrys east coast region, and demand from the water treatment industry are some of the factors expected to sustain a growth of the lime market in Australia.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Green Data Center Market (PUE Standard: PUE 1 to 1.5, PUE 1.5 to 2, PUE Greater than 2) - Worldwide Industry Future Lies in IT & Telecommunications Sector

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There has been increasing need for energy-efficient solutions in data centers worldwide. The market for green data centers is observing high growth with environmental regulations and rising energy costs. Moreover, the evolution of cloud-based solutions has made it vital for companies to monitor and control their data center usage. The high demand for data storage has created constraints in storage capacity, creating a need for energy-efficient solutions to store data.The global green data center market accounted for US$ 25.87 Bn in 2014, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 30.8% during the period from 2015 to 2022. The implementation of advanced technologies such as economizers for cooling in data centers has resulted in improvements in efficiency and minimized environmental impact. Green data center solutions have benefited the businesses via efficient solutions for the management of IT data centers. Recently, green data center solutions have observed demand beyond the IT sector, with the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI); telecommunications; and healthcare sectors also considering their implementation. Reduced e-waste and low carbon emissions with the use of alternative energy technologies are some of the additional advantages of green data centers.Interpret a Competitive outlook Analysis Report with PDF Brochure:The global green data center market is segmented on the basis of PUE standards into PUE 1 to 1.5, PUE 1.5 to 2.0, and PUE greater than 2. The PUE greater than 2 standard segment dominated the market in 2014 and is expected to hold the major market share by 2022; however, the PUE 1 to 1.5 standard segment is predicted to grow the fastest over the forecast period from 2015 to 2022. Components of green data centers include air conditioning, power units, storage and servers, network devices, and security appliances.In terms of the end-use industry, IT, telecom, and healthcare are anticipated to swiftly adopt green data center solutions. On the basis of ownership types, the market is segmented into external and internal ownership. Within external ownership, co-location is predicted to hold the major demand by 2022, rather than dedicated hosting. Internal ownership is further sub-segmented into healthcare; IT; telecom; government; banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI); energy and utility; transportation and logistics; and others. IT and telecom are the two major sub-segments in internal ownership that are predicted to account for a major market share and grow fastest in the coming years.Geographically, North America and Europe accounted for the majority market shares globally in terms of revenue generated in 2014. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years; however, Asia Pacific is expected to grow the fastest during the forecast period from 2015 to 2022. This can be attributed to rise of IT sector industries in Asia. Furthermore, the growth of the healthcare sector would be one of the major factors driving the green data center market in Asia Pacific in the coming years. Other regions, such as Middle East and Africa and Latin America are also expected to witness significant growth in the coming years.Browse The Report:The green data center market is witnessing intense competition, with companies focusing on energy efficiency within their data centers and offering green data center solutions. Some of the key providers of green data center solutions include Cisco Systems, Inc., Ericsson, Fujitsu Ltd, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, and Hewlett-Packard Company. Other significant players in the market include Dell Inc., Equinix, Inc., Tech Mahindra Ltd., Eaton Corporation Plc., Ecomnets, EMC Corporation, Emerson Network Power, Hitachi, Ltd, and Schneider Electric (APC).About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Food Animal Eubiotics Consumption 2016 Market Research Report

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The Global Food Animal Eubiotics Consumption 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Food Animal Eubiotics market.First, the report provides a basic overview of the Food Animal Eubiotics industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.Request Sample Report:Secondly, the report states the global Food Animal Eubiotics market size (volume and value), and the segment markets by regions, types, applications and companies are also discussed.Third, the Food Animal Eubiotics market analysis is provided for major regions including USA, Europe, China and Japan, and other regions can be added. For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Food Animal Eubiotics industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Enquiry before Buying:Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Food Animal Eubiotics1.1 Definition and Specifications of Food Animal Eubiotics1.1.1 Definition of Food Animal Eubiotics1.1.2 Specifications of Food Animal Eubiotics1.2 Classification of Food Animal Eubiotics1.2.1 Probiotics1.2.2 Prebiotics1.2.3 Organic acids1.2.4 Essential oils1.3 Applications of Food Animal Eubiotics1.3.1 Swine1.3.2 Poultry1.3.3 Ruminants1.3.4 Aquaculture1.3.5 Others1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Food Animal Eubiotics1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status of Food Animal Eubiotics1.5.1 Industry Overview of Food Animal Eubiotics1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status of Food Animal Eubiotics1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics1.7 Industry News Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2.4 Other Costs Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics3 3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value), Sales and Sale Price Analysis of Food Animal Eubiotics3.1 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) and Growth Rate of Food Animal Eubiotics 2011-20163.2 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Food Animal Eubiotics by Regions 2011-20163.3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Food Animal Eubiotics by Types 2011-20163.4 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Food Animal Eubiotics by Applications 2011-20163.5 Global Sales Volume and Sales Revenue of Food Animal Eubiotics by Companies 2011-20163.6 Global Sale Price of Food Animal Eubiotics by Regions 2011-20163.7 Global Sale Price of Food Animal Eubiotics by Types 2011-20163.8 Global Sale Price of Food Animal Eubiotics by Applications 2011-20163.9 Global Sale Price of Food Animal Eubiotics by Companies 2011-2016Buy Complete Report:About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors.Contact Us:ReportBazzarUnited States30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525Email Id: sales@reportbazzar.comWebsite:
Healthcare IT Outsourcing Market Worth US$ 50 billion by 2021 New York, December 06: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Healthcare IT Outsourcing Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2024



The healthcare IT outsourcing market is expected to exceed more than USD $50 billion by 2020.



Browse Full Report: http://www.marketresearchengine.com/reportdetails/healthcare-it-outsourcing-market



Healthcare is biggest industry in all over world. The main function of healthcare is to analyze and treating patient. Outsourcing is new technology used in healthcare especially in area of ophthalmology, dental services, nuclear medicine, radiology and imaging. The healthcare IT outsourcing market has registered a major rise above the previous decade. The price effectiveness of this outsourcing explanation present to healthcare providers and healthcare payers will increase their acceptance across the world. The increasing need for an improved stage of IT junction by reduced expenses will not only enhanced productivity but also increase the patient satisfaction.



The major driving factors of healthcare IT outsourcing market are as follows:



 Lack of in-house IT professionals

 Responsible Care Organizations

 Reduction in operational price

 Growing need to integrate healthcare IT solutions

 Improved quality of care and clinical outcomes



The restraints factors of healthcare IT outsourcing market are as follows:



 Split end-user market restrict growth of IT platforms

 Lack of privacy

 Increasing frequency of data contravene

 Cultural difference and language barrier



Download Free Sample Report: http://www.marketresearchengine.com/requestsample/healthcare-it-outsourcing-market



The healthcare IT outsourcing market is segmented on the lines of its application and industry. Under application segmentation it covers provider HCIT outsourcing, payer HCIT outsourcing, life sciences HCIT outsourcing, operational HCIT outsourcing and IT infrastructure outsourcing. The provider HCIT outsourcing covers electronic health record, pharmacy information system, laboratory information management system and revenue cycle management system. Under payer HCIT outsourcing it contains customer relationship management system, claim processing system, billing system and fraud detection. Life sciences HCIT outsourcing segmentation covers clinical trial management system, clinical database management system, enterprise resource planning and R&D IT services. Operational HCIT outsourcing covers supply chain management and business process management. IT infrastructure outsourcing covers infrastructure management services and cloud computing. The healthcare IT outsourcing market is segmented on the lines of its industry like healthcare provider system, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, clinical research organization and health insurance. The healthcare IT outsourcing market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.



This report provides:



1) An overview of the global market for healthcare IT outsourcing and related technologies.



2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2020.



3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for healthcare IT outsourcing



4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.



5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.



REPORT SCOPE:



The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.



The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Accenture Plc. (Ireland), Accretive Health, Inc. (U.S.), Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (U.S.), Anthelio Healthcare Solutions (U.S.), Cognizant Technology Solutions (U.S.), Dell, Inc. (U.S.), HCL Technologies (India), Hewlett-Packard Company (U.S.), International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation (U.S.), Infosys Limited (India), McKesson Corporation (U.S.), Siemens Healthcare (Germany), Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (India), Wipro Ltd. (India), Xerox Corporation (U.S.), Epic System (U.S.), and Computer Sciences Corporation (U.S.).. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary,business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.



The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.



The Healthcare IT Outsourcing Market has been segmented as below:



by Application Analysis



Provider HCIT Outsourcing Market:



 Electronic Health Record (EHR)

 Pharmacy Information System (PRS)

 Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)

 Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) System



Payer HCIT Outsourcing Market



 Customer Relationship Management System

 Claim Processing System

 Billing System

 Fraud Detection



Life Sciences HCIT Outsourcing Market



 Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS)

 Clinical Database Management System (CDMS)

 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

 R&D IT Services



Operational HCIT Outsourcing Market



 Supply Chain Management (SCM)

 Business Process Management



IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Market



 Infrastruture Management Services

 Cloud Computing



by Industry Analysis



 Healthcare Provider System

 Pharmaceutical

 Biotechnology

 Clinical Research Organization (CRO)

 Health Insurance



by Regional Analysis



 North America

 Europe

 Asia-Pacific

 Rest of the World



About MarketResearchEngine.com



Market Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.



Media Contact



Company Name: Market Research Engine

Contact Person: John Bay

Email: john@marketresearchengine.com

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Country: United States

Website: http://www.marketresearchengine.com/



Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States



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Contamination and endotoxins discussed in depth at Pharmaceutical Microbiology 2017

Pharmaceutical Microbiology 2017

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The microbiology market has significantly grown in recent years as the demand from end user industries increases. With this expansion and increase demand comes hurdles for the industry, thus Pharmaceutical Microbiology 2017 will address the complex challenges that the field is facing.Four key sessions that will be explored over the two days include: Contamination and endotoxins, quality assurance & control, environmental monitoring and new mechanisms of detection. Each of these sessions will be filled with insightful presentations by leading experts within the microbiology field.HOT SESSION: CONTAMINATION AND ENDOTOXINS EXPLORED ON DAY ONE1. Pyrogen testing - Ingo Spreitzer, Deputy Head Section Microbial Safety from Paul Ehrilch Institut will explore pyrogen v endotoxin testing and the current issues occurring in the detection of endotoxins.2. Tackling the current challenges of biofilms - Robert Neri, Water Process Expert from Sanofi will speak on how do biofilms appear? How to eliminate biofilms and how to avoid their appearance?3. Effective use of data from the bacterial endotoxins test - Alan Baines, Regional Head of Sales, Asia-Pacific from Lonza Bioscience Solutions will discuss managing the flow of data, data integrity and how to simplify investigations using trend analysis.4. Pseudomonas and water: A practical insight from PHE (Public Health England) - Bharat Patel, Consultant Microbiologist from Public Health England will speak about water sources and potential pseudomonas aeruginosa contamination, pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical infections and how to protect the patient.5. Risk assessments in fungal spore and bacterial spore excursions: Case studies - Jim Polarine, Senior Technical Service Manager from STERIS Corporation will provide information on risk assessments conducted on fungal spore and bacterial spore contamination in cleanrooms as well as provide case studies of current examples of excursion investigations and the preventative measures put into place to prevent excursions from occurring. He will also talk about the latest methods in conducting risk based investigations and risk maps.The expert speaker line-up for 2017 will also feature: MHRA, Merial SAS, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Pfizer, GSK, Mettler Toledo, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Shire and many more.For the full two day programme with all speakers and their topics visit the event website onTwo CPD certified pre-conference workshops will also be hosted alongside the conference by Sanofi and STERIS Corporation and Battelle Memorial Institute.Pharmaceutical Microbiology 2017 is sponsored by: Lonza, Mettler-Toledo and PMT (GB) and TSI.For sponsorship packages: Contact Alia Malick on +44 (0)20 7827 6168 or email amalick@smi-online.co.ukFor delegate enquiries: Contact Ameenah Begun on +44 (0)20 7827 6166 or email abegum@smi-online.co.ukFor media enquiries, contact Zoe Gale on +44 20 7827 6138 or zgale@smi-online.co.uk6th annual Pharmaceutical Microbiology18-19 January 2017London, UKSponsored by: Lonza, Mettler-Toledo and PMT (GB) and TSIContact e-mail: zgale@smi-online.co.ukContact tel: +44 (0) 207 827 6166#smimicrobiology---- END ----About SMi Group: Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the worlds most forward thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found atSMi Group will return to London with their 6th annual Pharmaceutical Microbiology conference taking place on the 18-19 January 2017.Harling House, 47-51 Great Suffolk St,
Calcium Carbonate Market to Reach US$ 28.5 Billion by 2021

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New York, December 06: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Calcium Carbonate Market (GCC and PCC) for Paper, Plastic, Building & Construction and Other Applications - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2021.As per this exploration report, the worldwide calcium carbonate market remained at US$15.6 Billion in 2012. Growing at a CAGR of 7.0% from the 2013-2019 period, the overall business sector is prone to reach US$25 Billion before the end of the estimate period.Browse Full Report here:Calcium carbonate that is CaCO3 is chemical component found in nature as aragonite and calcite, in pearls, plant ashes, chalk, marble, shells of marine organisms, bones and eggs. Calcium carbonate particularly used for making Portland cement, lime and gastric antacid. It is energetic element in agricultural lime which is created by combine reaction of calcium ions in hard water with carbonate ions. Calcium carbonate is used in paints and coating application and in cement for constructing and building industry. It also used in pharmaceutical and medical industry as a calcium supplement. Calcium carbonate is found all over the world.How Big is the Calcium Carbonate Market?The calcium carbonate market is expected to exceed more than US$ 28.5 Billion by 2021; Growing at a CAGR of more than 7.0% in the given forecast period.The major driving factors of calcium carbonate market are as follows:Growing demand from plastic divisionRising paper industry marketIncreasing demand from construction industry and building industryThe restraining factors of calcium carbonate market are as follows:Undesirable effects of extreme utilization of calcium carbonatesDownload Free Sample Report:The calcium carbonate market is segmented on the lines of its product, application and geography. Under application segmentation it covers building and construction, plastic, paper, agriculture and pharmaceutical. The calcium carbonate market is segmented on the lines of its product like precipitated calcium carbonate and ground calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for calcium carbonate and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2021.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for calcium carbonate4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Excalibar Minerals, Great Lakes Calcium Corp., Imerys, Huber Engineered Materials, Minerals Technologies Inc., Maruo Calcium Co. Ltd., Mississippi Lime Co., Omya Ag, Okutama Kogyo Co.Ltd., Schaefer Kalk GMBH & Co. KG, Solvay S.A., and Shiraishi Kogyo Kaisha Ltd.. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary,business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Calcium Carbonate Market has been segmented as below:By Product Segment AnalysisGround Calcium Carbonate (GCC)Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC)By Application AnalysisPaperPlasticBuilding & ConstructionOthers (Pharmaceutical, agriculture, etc.)By Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Website:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Low Radiation Exposure Resulting in High Adoption of External Beam Radiation Therapy

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This report covers the market analysis for various external beam radiotherapy devices or EBRT devices such as Gamma Knife, Cyber Knife, TomoTherapy, LINACs and Proton Beam Therapy. The report also focuses on the market by application of the devices on various types of cancers such as lung cancer, prostate, breast, nead and neck, spine among others. Another chapter is dedicated to the technique and technologies that the devices are based on and provides estimates of the market by different technologies such as Image Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT), Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT), Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT), 3-D Conformal Radiotherapy. Finally, the geographical analysis of the veterinary diagnostic imaging devices is segregated into six regions of North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle-East and Africa.The radiotherapy applications are primarily preferred in combination therapy along with chemotherapy and general surgery to enhance the quality of treatment procedures. Increasing rate of cancer incidences is driving the application market for radiotherapy. Prostate cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer represent the prime application areas of radiotherapy procedures. This is primarily due to providing novel treatment alternative for spine and neurosurgical procedures and better treatment outcome with higher protection to the healthy surrounding tissues.Free Sample Report@Also termed as teletherapy, external beam therapy devices work on the principle of delivery of energy from a machine located at a distance from the patient. Some of the prime advantages of the use of such therapy are less exposure of the patient to radioactivity unlike systemic radiotherapy and brachytherapy, lesser side effects of treatment and cost effectiveness. A Linac or linear accelerator is the most important component of external beam therapy devices and perpetual variations and development in their characteristics such as electron-emitting high energy machines and proton therapy machines have rendered scope for the evolution of different types of external beam therapy. Further miniaturization of devices has led to introduction of radiosurgery systems such as Gamma Knife, TomoTherapy and CyberKnife. Radiosurgery systems though being a small contributor, they are the most technologically advanced area in the external beam therapy systems market. Synchrotron and cyclotron systems have a wide range of applications and high contribution to the field of radiation oncology. Companies such as Accuray, Elekta AB and Varian Medical systems currently dominate this market and are expected to undergo rapid growth in the next few years.North America is the major market of external beam radiotherapy and has been driving the global market significantly. North America market is highly impacted with the reimbursement policy as it has major influence to prefer one treatment procedure to other alternatives for curtailing the treatment cost. Due to expensive treatment procedures of different cancers, physicians are only inclined to one technology which can be reimbursed majorly by the Government. Moreover, this market is fond of appraising newer technologies and supporting them with wealthy reimbursement securities. Other than the mature markets, emerging countries such as Asia and BRIC nations are the future drivers of the external radiotherapy market due to growing GDP and healthcare expenditures in these countries and their huge cancer patient base. The Asian market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.8% in the forecast period of 2015 to 2019.Click For Full Report@About UsSpearhead Acuity Business Research & Consulting Private Limited (SA-BRC) is a premium Life Science business intelligence and data analytics firm. SA-BRC team offers a wide range of business intelligence services to multiple stakeholders such as Medical Device Manufacturers, Service Providers (Hospitals, Payers, etc.), Suppliers, Group Purchase Organizations, Distributors and all other individuals in the entire value chain of healthcare industry. Our research and consulting capabilities extend across several sub-domains within the sphere of Life Sciences such as Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Medical Devices, Veterinary Sciences, Wellness Products and Pharmaceuticals.Contact UsJohn Whitmore10685-B Hazelhurst Drive,Suite 17411Houston, Texas 77043,United StatesPhone: +1(832)-426-3701Email: sales@sa-brc.comWebsite:
Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Industry 2016 Market Product Overview and Scope

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Qyresearchreports include new market research reportGlobal Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Research Report 2016" to its huge collection of research reports.The research report is a brief inquiry into the state of the global Dermatology Treatment Devices market. An evaluation of the current market situation, historical growth, and future opportunities for progress has been presented in the publication. The market intelligence report further assesses the shares, key marketing strategies, and product portfolio of the prime players operating in the global Dermatology Treatment Devices market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The study presents an outline of the global Dermatology Treatment Devices market based on key parameters such as regions, products, technology, application, and end user. The projected volume and revenue growth of the global Dermatology Treatment Devices market during the forecast period has also been mentioned in the report. The report further offers an insight into the prime geographical segments of the global Dermatology Treatment Devices market and provides details about their past and present shares. The trends prevalent in the market have also been highlighted in the report. The study further presents an assessment of the factors that are expected to impact the growth of the market in a negative or positive way. The global Dermatology Treatment Devices market has been thoroughly analyzed with regard to the respective market segments and forecast period. Each year within the respective timeline has been briefly studied in terms of the value of the product in the regional as well as global market.To present a clear understanding of the global Dermatology Treatment Devices market, the competitive landscape has been evaluated and put forth along with the value chain analysis. Information on ongoing and initiated research and development projects and investments in innovation has been provided in the report as well.Table of ContentsGlobal Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Research Report 20161 Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Dermatology Treatment Devices1.2 Dermatology Treatment Devices Segment by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Dermatology Treatment Devices by Type in 20151.2.2 treatment devices1.2.3 diagnostic devices1.2.4 Type III1.3 Dermatology Treatment Devices Segment by Application1.3.1 Dermatology Treatment Devices Consumption Market Share by Application in 20151.3.2 diagnostic applications1.3.3 treatment applications1.3.4 Application 31.4 Dermatology Treatment Devices Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Dermatology Treatment Devices (2011-2021)Browse Complete Report with TOC @2 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Average Price by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.4 Manufacturers Dermatology Treatment Devices Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016)3.1 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.2 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.3 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.4 North America Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.5 Europe Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.6 China Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.7 Japan Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.8 Southeast Asia Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.9 India Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)4 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.1 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Consumption by Regions (2011-2016)4.2 North America Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.3 Europe Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.4 China Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.5 Japan Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.6 Southeast Asia Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.7 India Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)5 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production and Market Share by Type (2011-2016)5.2 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Revenue and Market Share by Type (2011-2016)5.3 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Price by Type (2011-2016)5.4 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Production Growth by Type (2011-2016)6 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Consumption and Market Share by Application (2011-2016)6.2 Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2011-2016)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesFor Latest QYResearchreports Press Release Visit @About Us :QYresearchreports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
North Florida Land Trust has purchased the first piece of property targeted in their Preservation Portfolio

www.northfloridalandtrust.org

Jacksonville, Fla., Dec. 1, 2016  North Florida Land Trust is pleased to announce they have purchased the first piece of property identified in their Preservation Portfolio. The land was among the 112,346 acres in their seven-county focus area that they deemed in critical need of preservation. The property was owned by Fletcher Management Company, a Jacksonville-based real estate developer. Fletcher reached out to NFLT after learning land they owned in St. Johns County was included in the organizations targeted conservation area.This is a first step in reaching our goals of preserving these lands that provide valuable ecosystem services, said Jim McCarthy, Executive Director of NFLT. This is a great example of how we can work alongside developers to preserve land for future generations.The recently acquired land is two tax parcels that total 206 acres. The property has significant frontage on Sixmile Creek directly off the St. Johns River in St. Augustine and protects the forested uplands and the floodplain of the creek. The land is directly across the creek from the Outback Crab Shack Seafood Restaurant on County Road 13 North. It is a rich wetland ecosystem, which provides food and shelter for numerous birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. The property is densely populated by countless trees that tolerate fluctuating water levels from the creek and help filter nutrients and pollutants from the water. The acquired land is a portion of the more than 5,500 acres NFLT had identified as a preservation priority along Sixmile Creek.NFLT has identified four tracts of land in St. Johns County that are in critical need of preservation. In addition to the Sixmile Creek land, NFLT is also interested in acquiring and preserving acreage in the Julington-Durbin Creeks, Guana River and agricultural lands in Hastings.NFLTs Preservation Portfolio identifies the most valuable 112,346 acres of land in Northeast Florida which provide significant ecosystem services, which are defined as services provided by the natural environment that would otherwise cost money. These lands provide the water we drink and the air we breathe, provide needed fisheries, prevent flooding, provide recreational opportunities and are critical to maintaining a healthy community. Preserving the land can reduce or eliminate the need for storm water drainage or sewage treatment facilities. The estimated cost to acquire all the land in the Preservation Portfolio is $216,516,934, but the ecosystems services value is $413,430,739.NFLT developed the Preservation Portfolio using the North Florida Conservation Priorities, an adaptable database of natural resources in their operating area that the Land Trust completed last year. They looked at over three million acres in Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns Counties. These areas include an array of ecosystems; from coastal salt marshes and pine forests, to cypress swamps and everything in between.About North Florida Land TrustNorth Florida Land Trust is a non-profit organization who serves as a champion of land conservation primarily in Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns counties. NFLT was founded in 1999 and has protected thousands of acres of environmentally significant land including land at Big Talbot Island, the River Branch Preserve, Pumpkin Hill, Moccasin Slough, along the St. Marys River and other valued natural areas in Northeast Florida. NFLT is funded largely by private and corporate contributions and works closely with private landowners and other public agencies at all levels of government, not-for-profit partners, and foundations. For more information, visit1611 San Marco BoulevardJacksonville, FL 32207
PTFE Capacitors: World Markets, Technologies & Opportunities: 2016-2021 ISBN # 0-929717-02-3 (2016HTPTFE)

PTFE Capacitors: World Markets, Technologies & Opportunities: 2016-2021 ISBN # 0-929717-02-3 (2016HTPTFE)

www.paumanokgroup.com

http://www.paumanokgroup.com/homepage/ptfe-capacitors-world-markets-technologies-opportunities-2016-2021-isbn-0-929717-02-3-2016htptfe.html

An Analysis of The Global Market For Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) Capacitors; with additional market information on Polyimide (PI), PEEK and PPS films Used As Capacitor Dielectrics for Energy Storage in Harsh Aerospace Environments.This study includes a complete analysis of the PTFE Capacitor supply chain, including feedstocks and engineered films; finished capacitors, and regional end-markets with forecasts based upon in-depth analysis of defense and commercial applications for exotic capacitors with forecasts to 2021.Author of more than 260 market research reports on the worldwide electronic components industry. Specializing in capacitors, resistors, inductors and circuit protection component markets, technologies & opportunities since 1988. Also global experts and speakers on electronic materials including tantalum, ceramics, aluminum, plastics; palladium, ruthenium, nickel, copper, barium, titanium, activated carbon, conductive polymers and many more. Produces off-the-shelf market research reports, single client consulting, on-site presentations, due diligence for mergers & acquisitions; and majority owner of Passive Component Industry Magazine.Paumanok Publications, Inc.Industrial Market Research502 Ballad Creek CourtCary, NC 27519 USA(919) 468-0384info@paumanokgroup.com
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A stolen car crashed into another vehicle in Vancouver, killing one man and injuring two others, Clark County sheriff's officials said.

(The Oregonian/OregonLive/file)

A stolen car crashed into another car in Vancouver, killing one man and injuring two others Tuesday morning, Clark County sheriff's officials said.

The stolen car was traveling west on Northeast Minnehaha Street in the 4000 block about 6 a.m. when it hit another car that was turning into a parking lot, Sgt. Fred Neiman, a spokesman for the Clark County Sheriff's Office, said in a news release.

Two people were trapped in the wreckage, Neiman said.

A man riding in the front passenger seat of the stolen car was killed, and the driver and a woman passenger were taken to the hospital, Neiman said. Their injuries were not life-threatening, he said.

The driver of the turning car wasn't injured, Neiman said.

Sheriff's officials haven't released the names of anyone involved yet.

Investigators believe that excessive speed was a factor in the crash, he said.

-- Samantha Matsumoto
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The Portland school board members discuss trust issues during a "retreat" on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. (Bethany Barnes/The Oregonian)

The Portland School Board is considering bumping up the pay of its administrative employees, at a cost of more than $2.3 million.

The resolution, which will go before the board at Tuesday's meeting, is part of a strategy to make the district more competitive after a salary audit found Portland Public Schools' compensation to be below market.

According to the agenda, giving raises to all the district's principals and assistant principals would cost $600,000. The aim is to "ensure a strong principal and vice/assistant principal in every building who is well-matched to the school community."

For other administrative staff, the district would spend $1.7 million to give them raises, which would be retroactive to July 1.

Senior leadership would also get an increase to "avoid compression," but those raises are dependent on the superintendent making adjustments so a cost estimate wasn't listed in the resolution. In general, the policy is for senior leadership to have a 15 percent difference above other managerial staff, the resolution says.

It's a fraught time for hiring in Portland Public Schools. The district has struggled to fill positions as it has continued to lose administrative staff. In September, the district had an estimated 55 high-level vacancies.

The district has blamed low pay for its skeleton crew and inability to beef up its ranks. Pay hasn't been the only factor at play in the exodus at Portland Public Schools. Morale has also been a problem as the district fights to bounce back after a lead crisis that ousted the superintendent.

-- Bethany Barnes
One of the biggest challenges for working photojournalists involves going beyond the obvious.

It is one thing, for example, to snap a picture at a flag-raising. It's quite another to pull off the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, as Associated Press photojournalist Joe Rosenthal did with his 1945 photograph taken at the scene. The image, stirring and iconic, won Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize, and a firm place in the consciousness of all Americans.

The camera's primary function, which is to provide visual documentation of the physical world, is deceptively simple. Now more than ever, anyone can do it -- and everyone does. How, then, do we make photographs that imbue the physical with meaning?

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.

Most of the every day efforts of journalists involve working in topics that aren't inherently visual, and take place in far more prosaic locales than, say, Rosenthal's.

In Rob Davis' 18-month investigation, Toxic Armories, readers learned of the extent of lead contamination in National Guard armories across the country, the result of years of weapons training in indoor firing ranges. While we can't see lead dust, we are all aware of the neurotoxin's impact on humans, particularly young children.

For my part in the Toxic Armories project, I was tasked with the (seemingly) impossible: illustrate a story whose main character, lead dust, is invisible to the human eye. In the way of visual evidence, there would be zero. No Iwo Jima, certainly. No ... nothing.

Resorting to the obvious wasn't even an option.

Instead, the focus of my work became breaking the story down into parts and bringing those parts to life.

I flew to Helena, Montana, where workers from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (irony noted) suffered physical symptoms while working in the former armory there.

"I think I was eating lead dust," said Mary Ann Dunwell, a Montana state legislator who previously worked as the environmental agency's spokesperson. Dunwell developed several symptoms while working in the building.

"There was this vent spewing this lead dust right over me," she said.

While I couldn't photograph lead dust, I could concentrate my efforts on the people who suffered the effects while working in its midst.

Photographing public events still taking place inside armories (and former armories) across the country proved more challenging. My time frame was limited, as were the number of armories holding public events within that time frame. I spent hours scouring the Internet in search of the elusive sweet - and toxic - spot.

I found that spot in southwestern North Carolina, where a scheduled Bird Expo would take place in the fall. The expo, an annual meet up of caged bird lovers, was to be held inside a National Guard Armory in tiny Belmont, North Carolina, just 15 miles west of Charlotte. I booked a flight to Charlotte, confident the bird lovers would provide a perfect, if quirky, illustration of the ongoing use of armories by the public.

What I didn't anticipate?

The death of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43 year-old African American male who was fatally shot by a Charlotte police officer. The officer, Brentley Vinson, who is also African American, was with other officers at Scott's apartment complex attempting to serve a warrant to an unrelated man.

Scott's death caused an uprising in Charlotte, just days before my scheduled visit.

I kept close tabs on the news coming out of the city.

The night before my flight, as protests grew more charged - and violent -- North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency.

Sometime later, the National Guard was called in.

By the time I landed in Charlotte the following day, my plans, which, in that context, seemed more than a little absurd -- cover a caged bird festival? Really? -- crumbled. The tiny Belmont armory was on lockdown until further notice, along with all the other armories across North Carolina.

The bird festival, months in the making, was cancelled.





I had better luck closer to home, where the Pendleton Convention Center, a former armory, played host to several events connected with the 2016 Pendleton Roundup, its neighbor.

The convention center's operators had allowed our reporter inside a few months earlier, to test for lead. We let the convention center know later that 6 out of 13 samples tested positive. But nothing had been done by the time September rolled around and the building played its part in Pendleton's best-known festivities.

The convention center featured, among other events, the Happy Canyon Pageant, a large scale dramatization of the story of the settling of the American West.

The cast of the show, most of them local, included dozens of Native Americans and cowboys. Entering the scene, it was hard not to feel like I'd somehow landed on the set of Hollywood movie; the event was epic in scale, and otherworldly.

Against the backdrop of the Pendleton Convention Center, a former armory, participants in the Happy Canyon Pageant roam the backstage area. September 15, 2016 Beth Nakamura/Staff

After the show, many in the audience poured into nearby Goldie's Bar, located inside the convention center's main hall. A live country band lured folks to the dance floor, where a sprinkling of rodeo riders slow danced with their sweethearts.

One of our earlier samples with lead on it came from the floor in that spot, Goldie's Bar.

The Pendleton Convention Center is a former armory in Pendleton, Oregon. During the Pendleton Rodeo, the center hosted Goldie's Bar, where rodeo attendees danced to live music. September 15, 2016 Beth Nakamura/Staff

While neck deep in the work of long term investigative projects, there will be moments when the journalism gods seem to smile from on high: information is uncovered, doors swing open and that essential ingredient, access, comes effortlessly.

It doesn't usually look that way, if I'm being honest.

The world can, and often does, conspire against us.

Making actual photographs, obvious or otherwise? That's the easy part.

-- Beth Nakamura 503-221-8218

Twitter: @bethnakamura

Instagram: @bethnakamura
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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.

(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

By Daniel Morcate

The death of a dictator, not his final memorial, is -- and should be -- a happy occasion for the people who have suffered his rule. It's why no one should celebrate the life of Fidel Castro, whowas finally laid to rest Sunday.

Instead, we should mark the day reminding ourselves how Castro got the better of us, freedom-loving Cubans, and understanding that his death didn't end his reign of terror.

Because we shouldn't kid ourselves: Castro's departure -- long awaited by those of us in the Cuban diaspora, as well as those who still live in our island homeland, even if they're not free to express it -- won't immediately bring the liberty, democracy and respect for basic human rights that all Cubans long for. Castro's long convalescence, along with the political indifference of several key nations to his years of brutal tyranny, have, in part, allowed his despotic regime to exist for decades. Long before his death, Castro was afforded the resources he needed to assemble a form of institutionalized self-preservation, his family dynasty, which has existed by exercising its malevolent grip over Cubans in a way that rivals the power of any autocracy known throughout history.

Castro got the better of Cubans and, even in death, is a painful reminder to us that we haven't found a way to break free of his rule. He knew how to cunningly enlist countrymen against one another as a way of holding on to power. And he never could have succeeded without the complicity of thousands of Cubans who spied on, accused, imprisoned, tortured and killed other Cubans. To wit, as the Miami Herald reported this week, Danielo "El Sexto" Maldonado, a "detained Cuban artist who mocked Castro's death, 'was badly beaten' " by Cuban government agents, according to his family. That kind of terror is Castro's real legacy.

Throughout his cruel reign, Castro benefited from the tacit approval of democracies: He consistently enjoyed a parade of world leaders willing to visit Havana, including three papal visits. Starting in 1991, his regime was welcomed at the Ibero-American Summit. All reminders that the world community has not learned how to defend -- with firmness and effectiveness -- the values it espouses and represents.

All this, despite the fact that Castro backed numerous insurgencies designed to subvert governments that he deemed representative of spurious bourgeois interests. The democrats who went only as far as timidly suggesting a free market, a multiparty approach to governance, and a free press for Cuba? Castro simply saw them as weak.

And never having been effectively held accountable for his innumerable crimes, Castro's long tenure sent a dangerous message to other aspiring dictators, particularly within our hemisphere. He had no shortage of disciples in Latin America, among them Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose design on clinging to power was cut short only by his own death. Others imitated Castro, with different degrees of fealty to his model: Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa were who they were, at least in part, because of Castro's influence. Each sliver of recognition he got from legitimate democratic and religious leaders was a symbolic slap in the face of oppressed Cubans, further encouraging imitators and propagating Castro-style oppression throughout the Caribbean and South and Central America.

If Fidel Castro's death does not soon lead to a global campaign in favor of liberty and democracy for Cuba, the old tyrant will have scored his first posthumous victory. The United States should lead this effort, even during the last days of Barack Obama's presidency. Western leaders, including Obama, can and should use their leverage to demand specific concessions -- freeing all political prisoners, legalizing opposition parties, allowing freedom of the press -- from Castro's brother, President Raul Castro, in return for the benefits Cuba's regime now reaps from diplomatic engagement.

The moment is appropriate and critical because it is the only way to open a door for free expression, and to demand meaningful changes on the island that improve the lives of all Cubans, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or ideology. In other words, Fidel Castro's death is not an occasion to mourn. It's an occasion to free Cuba.

Morcate is Univision's chief news writer.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post
By Ruth Marcus

WASHINGTON -- Welcome to -- brace yourself for -- the post-truth presidency.

"Facts are stubborn things," said John Adams in 1770, defending British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre, "and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Or so we thought, until we elected to the presidency a man consistently heedless of truth and impervious to fact-checking.

Oxford Dictionaries last month selected post-truth -- "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief" -- as the international word of the year, and for good reason.

The practice of post-truth -- untrue assertion piled on untrue assertion -- helped get Donald Trump to the White House. The more untruths he told, the more supporters rewarded him for, as they saw it, telling it like it is.

As Politico's Susan Glasser wrote in a sobering assessment of election coverage for the Brookings Institution, "Even fact-checking perhaps the most untruthful candidate of our lifetime didn't work; the more news outlets did it, the less the facts resonated."

Indeed, Hannah Arendt, writing in 1967, presciently explained the basis for this phenomenon: "Since the liar is free to fashion his 'facts' to fit the profit and pleasure, or even the mere expectations, of his audience, the chances are that he will be more persuasive than the truth teller."

So there is no reason to think Trump is about to suddenly truth-up. Indeed, all signs are to the contrary -- most glaringly Trump's chockfull-of-lies tweet that "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."

Trump and his aides are not embarrassed by their post-truthism -- they embrace it. Three data points from last week:

First, quasi-fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski at Harvard, making the astonishing assertion that the media's failing during the campaign was not that it scorned Trump -- it was that it believed him.

"You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally," he said. "The American people didn't. They understood it. They understood that sometimes -- when you have a conversation with people ... you're going to say things, and sometimes you don't have all the facts to back it up."

Second, this eye-popping assertion from Trump supporter/CNN commentator Scottie Nell Hughes on the Diane Rehm Show: "People that say that facts are facts -- they're not really facts ... there's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trump's tweet amongst a certain crowd ... are truth."

Finally, the president-elect himself, who at a rally to celebrate his successful bribing of Carrier to keep some jobs in the United States, explained that he was impelled to act by a Carrier-employed supporter who had been naive enough to take Trump's promises seriously.

Watching the evening news, Trump said, he saw the Carrier worker say " 'No, we're not leaving, because Donald Trump promised us that we're not leaving,' and I never thought I made that promise. Not with Carrier."

Then, Trump said, "they played my statement, and I said, 'Carrier will never leave.' But that was a euphemism. I was talking about Carrier like all other companies from here on in."

This was a telling moment, and not just because Trump doesn't quite understand what euphemism means. The episode simultaneously shows Trump, confronted with Trump on tape, willing to recognize reality and Trump telling us straightforwardly that his promises are not to be taken seriously. They are truthphemisms.

Of course, Trump is not the first truth-impaired president. Ronald Reagan famously insisted on repeating tall tales; he conflated Hollywood with reality. "If you tell the same story five times it's true," said White House press secretary Larry Speakes.

And Arendt reminded us a half-century ago about the inherent tensions between truth-telling and political power: "No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other, and no one, as far as I know, has ever counted truthfulness among the political virtues."

But today we have the conjunction of a president unconstrained by facts with a media environment siloed into partisan echo chambers and polluted by fake news.

In the face of this, the journalist's challenge is not to tire in refuting the torrent of lies. The citizen's challenge is to remain vigilant against the enticing lure of post-truth politics, to recall the admonition of our second president even as our 45th seeks to prove his wisdom an outmoded relic of a pre-post-truth era.

Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group
By Rich Lowry

One of the Obama administration's core competencies is suspending pipeline projects with no cause.

It will leave office with another notch in its belt, now that the Army Corps of Engineers has acted to block a final piece of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The 1,200-mile pipeline is designed to move oil from North Dakota to Illinois and will have to await completion in a Trump administration with a more rational attitude toward pipelines specifically and fossil fuels generally.

The story of the Dakota Access Pipeline will be familiar to anyone who followed the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline. As with Keystone, the builders of the pipeline have taken years to dutifully check every environmental and bureaucratic box, only to get stymied when protesters -- this time a Native American tribe -- made the project a hate totem for the left.

With Keystone, the narrative was that the pipeline would doom the planet by bringing to market oil from the tar sands of Canada. With Dakota Access, the narrative is that Native Americans are once again getting railroaded by greedy interests who don't care about their history or their welfare. After the decision by the Army Corps, one demonstrator told the press that the victory was "due to our people for the hundreds of years of genocide and oppression," which is putting a lot of weight on what should be a routine bureaucratic decision to approve an otherwise unremarkable pipeline.

The protests have been led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota. The tribe alleges that the Dakota Access project will trample on culturally sensitive sites and taint its drinking water, without much in the way of supporting evidence.

The dispute centers around the pipeline's planned crossing of the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. This isn't exactly virgin territory. Around the lake, the pipeline will run within 22 to 300 feet of the existing Northern Border Gas Pipeline, which has been in service since 1982 and hasn't devastated the Standing Rock tribe. The pipeline also tracks with an overhead utility line.

A decision by a federal judge in September to reject a bid by the Standing Rock tribe to block the pipeline cataloged how deliberate the developers of Dakota Access have been about culturally sensitive sites.

According to the opinion, the company found 149 potentially sensitive sites in its own surveying in North Dakota. It modified the route to avoid 140 of them and came up with a plan with the state of North Dakota to limit any effect on the other nine. It will run the pipeline with horizontal drilling in sensitive areas, allowing its installation without a trench and with minimal disruption.

Throughout most of this process, representatives of the Standing Rock tribe notably did all they could to make themselves unavailable and unresponsive. When the Army Corps invited them to a general meeting to discuss the pipeline in November 2015, five tribes attended, but not Standing Rock.

In the spring of 2016, the Corps coordinated with the pipeline's developers to allow tribes to conduct their own cultural surveys at locations around the route. Three tribes participated; Standing Rock did not. The tribal surveys identified additional sites of concern, where Dakota Access duly agreed to take additional protective measures.

There is no real defense, though, against protesters staging cable-TV-ready disturbances against a project and making it a cause celebre. For the overwhelming majority of its route, the Dakota Access pipeline requires no permitting, since it traverses private land. It's the tiny percent that would affect waterways that made it subject to federal approval, and thus to political hostage-taking.

For the left, Dakota Access is a symbol. In reality, it is simply a means of moving half a million barrels of crude oil a day from Point A to Point B, an activity that shouldn't be considered dastardly or untoward. Fortunately for Dakota Access, and everyone else in the energy industry, help is on the way.

Rich Lowry can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.

(c) 2016 by King Features Syndicate
Wednesday 7 December 2016 10:56am

The largest number of Maori medical students in New Zealands history will graduate from the University of Otago on Saturday 10 December.



Forty five Maori medical students will graduate in what is a significant event for the graduates, their whanau, the University of Otago, iwi Maori and the New Zealand health workforce.



The milestone continues a legacy created by the University of Otago over a century ago, when Te Rangi Hiroa graduated in 1904 as the first Maori doctor to graduate from a New Zealand university.



For the first time at Otago University Maori representation within the total number of medical graduates equates to the proportion of Maori in the New Zealand population.



Professor Peter Crampton, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Division of Health Sciences and Dean, University of Otago Medical School said New Zealands medical workforce is on the verge of some rapid and very exciting changes in both the number and proportion of Maori doctors.



The graduation this year from the Otago Medical School of 45 new Maori doctors marks a significant inflection point  we expect at least this number of Maori doctors to graduate each year from now on, Professor Crampton said.



My hope and expectation is that within the next decade it will be normal for New Zealanders, when they enter the health system, to be treated by a Maori doctor. I would like to thank and congratulate our Maori leaders, staff and students for their hard work and dedication in making this possible.



Associate Dean Maori Joanne Baxter says achieving a representative proportion of Maori in the health graduation total is only part of the story.



These young Maori doctors will join increased numbers also graduating from Auckland University; together these doctors will grow the Maori medical workforce by almost twenty percent.



This is a big change; these graduates and the ones that follow will join growing numbers of Maori who are making a difference for Maori health. The presence of these young Maori doctors will be felt by whanau, hospitals and communities and among the medical profession as they take up roles across the country.



Not only that, there are other important consequences for the graduates communities; these graduates are already providing inspiration for young people who aspire to take up similar educational pathways, Associate Professor Baxter added.



The milestone reflected the commitment and hard work of students and the support of their whanau. It also reflects a collaborative effort between the University and the Ministry of Health, co-ordinated by the Universitys Maori Health Workforce Development Unit and Maori Centre, to support Maori health students throughout their University studies.



The Unit developed Te Whakapuawai in 2011 - a wrap-around programme of academic, pastoral and cultural care for Maori students enrolled in Health Sciences First Year, to foster academic excellence, create a supportive whanau environment, and build a culture of peer support. The range of support initiatives were tailored to suit the individual needs of each Maori student and their strengths.



Te Whakapuawai was built on key learnings from the Universitys Tu Kahika scholarship programme that supports up to 20 Maori students through Foundation Year to begin tertiary studies.



The threshold to enter the Otago Medical School has not changed, we have simply put a system of support around Maori students that has allowed them to persevere through first year health science studies, and progressed and sustained them over their five years of medical and other health profession training, Associate Professor Baxter said.



This graduation is part of a much bigger strategy for Maori health workforce development at Otago, with the Division of Health Sciences working towards a representative sociodemographic profile of students across all nine of its health professional programmes.



Natasha Martin, one of the medical students who will be graduating on December 10 said the support over the last five years has been invaluable.



"To join the growing workforce of Maori Doctors is a humbling privilege through which I too hope to contribute to the wellbeing of my whanau, hapu and iwi," she said.



University of Otago staff, Government representatives, key stakeholders, the medical graduates and their whanau will attend a function at the University after the graduation to recognise the achievement.

For further information, contact:

Megan McPherson

Head of Communications

University of Otago | Te Whare Wananga o Otago

Tel/Waea 64 3 479 5452
Wisconsin  Education in Morocco is often described with a sense of disappointment and anger.

It is believed to be the most important factor in the development of the country. After all, it is making sure that generations of bright, efficient, and civilized individuals continue to drive the country forward economically, politically and socially.

This importance of education is being used as a political tool to attract and engage voters, alluding people to truly believe that a better education system is the sole responsibility of the government.

The reality is that despite the relatively mediocre education system that many of us are enraged about, many students have managed to have a beneficial educational experience in the tiniest of villages, unidentifiable to the average Moroccan. This successful experience is, without a doubt, attributed to the ambitious and intelligent nature of the student, but also attributed to their educators, specifically, the educators who inspire and believe in the students abilities to succeed and see beyond the limited and not-so-engaging education system.

A great educator inspires students and motivates them. A great institution leader creates that perfect learning environment and engages in the short and long term education of the students. In Morocco, there are many examples within this new generation of hard-working, open-minded, and committed university and school leaders who are ensuring that students see and utilize a variety of learning and personal development opportunities.

Professor Yassine Zarhloule, Director at EST Oujda is a great example representing this group of optimistic leaders within Moroccos educational institutions. In a short period of time, he was able to apply international standards in his institution. Inspiring students as a professor, he now continues inspiring both students and professors as a school director. His positive attitude and optimism can be seen during the very first few seconds of interacting with him.

When students come to him seeking help he welcomes them with a listening ear and a warm smile. He goes above and beyond his daily dictated responsibilities as a school director, by continually looking for ways to improve his schools teaching methods and by bringing new opportunities to students and professors at EST Oujda (ESTO). His open door policy and closeness to his students allows him to directly and positively impact them on a daily basis.

I never went to his office and he turned me down. He always motivates us and provides us a space to work on our creative projects, says ESTO student Mohammed Ayyadi when asked about Yassine Zarhloule Moreover, he gives us feedback on our projects and provides mentorship so we can improve our work. Watine Latnine, also an ESTO student adds: His passion and dedication to his job has given us a great role model to follow.

Yassines closeness to his students can be seen in his frequent interactions with students seeking advice, help, or simply a listening ear. These student testimonials show how much Yassines work is appreciated within ESTO and that more examples like him are needed in Moroccos educational institutions where students are in a desperate need of mentors and role models.
Press release

The Oriental region is acting towards an effective decentralized regional African cooperation.

Sunday, November 13 2016

Namaskar Palace  Marrakech  Morocco

The Kingdom of Morocco has been the host of the COP 22, with a strong determination to enable a global mobilization of decisions makers, the civil society and the economic power in the common objective to take action and to implement the necessary measures for the reduction of the threats our planet is facing.

Africa has a relatively small responsibility in global warming, but will nonetheless have to pay the price of its consequences. In regard to these challenges, all citizens of the African continent must answer the call and rally, to carry out mutual strategies and initiate a new dynamic of dialogue and collaboration leading to the taking of measures throughout the continent.

The African policy of Morocco wont be restricted to western and central Africa. We will make sure that is has a continental scope, and that is reaches all regions of Africa. This was His Majesty King Mohammed VIs vision, which he expressed on November 6th, 2016 from Dakar, in a seminal speech asking for a real South-South cooperation.

In this context and in perfect response to His Majestys statement, the Oriental Region of Morocco organized, with the support Moroccos Ministry of the Interior, the CGLUA (United Cities and local Governments of Africa) and the ARM (Association of Moroccan Regions), the first encounter with several African regions and Chiefs of traditional authority of Africa, on Sunday 13th of November 2016 in the Marrakech Palace Namaskar.

The purpose of this encounter was to strengthen the sense of brotherhood and solidarity that unifies peoples of Africa through culture and history. The Oriental Region of Morocco welcomed, amongst other honorable guests, Presidents of Regions and Chiefs of traditional authority of many African countries: Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Botswana and South Africa.

During the banquet, the different speakers put the emphasis on the need to create a framework for the reinforcement of the coordination and the partnership between African regions, in the context of a decentralized South-South cooperation. Thus the creation of the Association of Regions of Africa emerged as the best mean to materialize this partnership and to make the cooperation last in time.

As a follow-up to this major event, the President of the Oriental Region invited the audience to participate in the constitutive assembly of the A.R.A, in Oujda during the first trimester of 2017.

We must remember that the Oriental Region, through its strong historical heritage and its strong connection to the African continent, had initiate the project of the creation of the Association of Regions of Africa in 2014 in Oujda, during the second edition of the conference for decentralized cooperation of the Oriental Region.

Today more than ever, a new step has been taken in the relations between the Oriental region and African regions, which will lead to an active cooperation on the regional level; enabling peoples and regions of the continent to unite in a sustainable and strong win-win partnership.
Update: The Midland County Sheriff's Office has located homicide suspect Stephanie Nies and the blue 2009 Pontiac G6, license 2GPA34, according to a Nixle alert Tuesday morning.

Midland County Sheriff Office is looking for a woman who allegedly shot and killed her father Monday night in Jerome Township, according to WNEM TV5

Midland County Sheriff Scott Stephenson said the woman is considered armed and dangerous, according to WNEM.

The television station is reporting the incident happened between 8 and 9 p.m.

According to WNEM, the Midland County Sheriff's Office received two calls regarding the incident. The first call came from a man who said his daughter had a loaded gun, the station reported. The second call came from a person who said their father was shot, Stephenson said.

The sheriff's office responded to the scene about 8:30 p.m. and found a deceased male, Stephenson told WNEM.

Police are searching for a 28-year-old heavy set blonde woman who is a person of interest in the death, according to WNEM.

She is believed to be driving a blue 2009 Pontiac four door G6 or Chevy Cobalt, the report said.

Investigators believe she has a 12-gauge shotgun and consider her armed and dangerous, Stephenson said told WNEM.
The suspect being sought in connection with a homicide that occurred Monday night in Jerome Township has been located.

The suspect, identified as Stephanie Nies, 28, has been located by the Midland County Sheriffs Office, according to a Nixle alert sent about 6:30 a.m.
To the editor:

I agree that there is no place for rioters and thugs anywhere in our country. These individuals are not present to protest anything but to create havoc, loot and steal. Those legitimate protesters need to separate themselves from these thugs immediately and help law enforcement identify, arrest and prosecute them.

As for those who are in the streets actually protesting, I ask people to read the signs they carry and the statements they make to anyone who is watching and listening. These peaceful protests are not about the election outcome, they are about the rhetoric used by President-elect Trump during his campaign. His demeaning, insulting and ridiculing minorities, immigrants and the physically/mentally disabled are the reason behind the protests. He needs to apologize for all these demeaning, hate-filled statements and pledge to never go there again. I am not sure it is the place for the president or Hillary Clinton to apologize for Mr. Trumps statements and beliefs. That is his job.

CHARLES RUSSIAN

Sanford
It's time for business leaders to start looking past the global populism surge, which sounds like decidedly odd advice considering that the surge seems just to be getting started. Though Austrian nationalist candidate Norbert Hofer lost yesterday's presidential election, the more significant result was the drubbing that Italian voters inflicted on Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in a constitutional referendum. The main beneficiary is the populist, anti-establishment, anti-euro Five Star Movement, a party founded just seven years ago by TV comedian Beppe Grillo. This new high-profile populist victory, coming after Brexit and Donald Trump's win, gives momentum to already strong populists in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, all of which hold national elections next year.

So why look past populism, which is still gaining strength? Because even in this incredibly uncertain world, we can predict a couple of things with moderate confidence.

Populists won't be able to deliver on their promises

Many of their favored policies won't be enacted because legislatures won't approve them or because the populists, on assuming the burden of power, will have to face the real-world consequences of what they propose to do. In the U.S. we've already seen Trump back away from major campaign promises on trade, deregulation, and immigration, even before his inauguration.

Adopted policies will fail

To the extent the populists' policies are enacted, they won't work; that is, they won't deliver the promised benefits to supporters. Slapping heavy tariffs on imports won't bring the old heavy manufacturing jobs back to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, or Wisconsin, as Trump promised. Abandoning the euro won't make any European nation more prosperous. Prohibiting or severely restricting immigrants won't bring more and better jobs to a country's citizens.

Sign up for daily insights, updates, and opinion on leadership and leaders in the news at the Power Sheet.

Story continues

There will be a revolt

We can also be reasonably confident that as failed promises stack up, the revolt of the populists' supporters will be just as sudden as the populists' rise was. In a hyper-connected world filled with constantly connected people, prevailing opinion can lurch radically. Italy voted for Renzi as an iconoclastic, anti-establishment savior just two years ago; now voters are fed up with him. In 2012 France swung from center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy to extreme socialist Francois Hollande, who is now so reviled that he will be the first French president since World War II not to run for re-election, and nationalist Marine Le Pen is the country's fastest rising candidate.

Business leaders should prepare for the possibility that the populist surge may be, by historical standards, a brief phenomenon, burning itself out within maybe a few years. No one can say precisely how that scenario might unfold, and major disruptive events such as war could always rewrite the script. Nonetheless, even now, it isn't too early for leaders to prepare a scenario plan on what's past populism.

See original article on Fortune.com

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Three generations of family, friends and members of the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam community gathered to honor and remember U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Gordon A. Blake during a tower dedication ceremony Dec. 5, 2016.



Blake, then a Major in the Army Air Corps, was stationed at Hickam Field as the base operations officer during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and Oahu.



Blake was on the Hickam flight line when Japanese aircraft began their surprise attack on the field and without consideration for his own personal safety he proceeded to the control tower where he personally directed the landing of 12 unarmed returning B-17 Stratofortresses to five separate air strips across Oahu. His courage and knowledge were instrumental is the safe landing of the aircraft amid the attack.



For his courage and dedication to the safety of the aircraft and fellow Airmen, Blake received the Silver Star.



Now, 75 years later, he is being honored again for his bravery that fateful day as Airmen unveiled a plaque detailing Blake's actions.



With a speech and memories shared by retired Col. Robert Blake, Blakes youngest son, and a Hawaiian prayer and blessing, the aircraft control tower at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam was dedicated in honor of Lt. Gen. Blake.



[This is] an enormous tribute to an unbelievable man said retired Colonel Blake, what a sterling career he had and brought up his family in those [same] kind of values.



The ceremony concluded with a performance by the USO Show Troupe and tours of the tower for attendees.

The event was part of an island-wide joint commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Oahu. For more information on upcoming 75th Commemoration of the Attack on Pearl Harbor and Oahu events visit: https://pearlharbor75thanniversary.com/full-schedule-of-events/island-wide
NORMAL  Normal could pay more for Portillo's than anticipated.

A $1.8 million tax break for the developer buying and clearing the Chicago-style hot dog eatery's 202 Landmark Drive site is likely to cost $2.3 million when interest is included.

"We asked to put in the agreement ... what if we decide to pay it all off right upfront? Then all we're paying is $1.825 million. We don't pay any interest costs. But we have to come up with that cash now. That's an option," said City Manager Mark Peterson.

Because the town will pay 8 percent interest on the outstanding balance of that obligation, the true cost to taxpayers will be higher than $1.8 million  $2.3 million if paid over five years and $2.5 million if paid over seven years.

Nonetheless, the Normal City Council unanimously approved the deal, which will use town sales tax revenue generated by the restaurant.

"That $400,000 (in annual sales tax revenue) that we're very likely to get after our $1.8 million has been paid, if we didn't spend that $1.8 million, we would not be getting," said council member Cheryl Gaines. "This isn't, 'We're going to lose money.' This is an investment to make money."

Though Portillo's will pay sales tax to the town, the break is necessary, said City Manager Mark Peterson, because the Oak Brook chain will pay only $220,000 in annual rent to developer Bloomington Landmark Development Inc.

The developer, an entity of Chicago developer Tartan Realty Group, will pay $4.35 million to buy and clear the land  currently a Motel 6  and receive only $202,400 in annual return.

Peterson said that 4.65 percent rate of return is too low for the developer to participate, and the town's money will bring that return to 8 percent yearly.

"Would it happen without this money? Sure it would. It just wouldn't happen here (in Normal)," said council member Kevin McCarthy of the development.

Portillo's will pay to build the restaurant and own the building. Peterson said the town will receive no substantial gain in property tax or liquor fees.

"The Motel 6 on that site is producing $40,000, give or take, per year of income to the town," said council member Scott Preston. "Giving up $40,000 to make $500,000 (in possible annual revenue from Portillo's), in many cases, makes a lot of sense. It's a great deal for taxpayers."

Council members and staff downplayed the idea that the restaurant will take business, and therefore sales tax revenue, from existing eateries  including in Bloomington, which has rejected sharing sales tax with Normal.

"This (Portillo's) is going to be a destination," said council member R.C. McBride.

Marc Tiritilli, who is opposing Koos for mayor in the April 4 election, disagreed.

"Their plans are a very large downstate expansion. The uniqueness of Normal will dissipate very soon," he said of Portillo's after the meeting. "I'm all for Portillo's coming to town. Not on a taxpayer-subsidized basis. And the idea that this wouldn't have happened, I really don't believe that."

Tiritilli and another frequent critic of Normal's spending, council candidate Ron Ulmer, could not address the council under a policy limiting public comment to one every 45 days.

"If theres no other place available, Im against it because we dont need a Portillo's that will cost taxpayers $1.8 million, said Ulmer, who is running against McCarthy, Preston and newcomer Chemberly Cummings.

Peterson said no other site proved suitable for Portillo's, which wanted a large, very accessible location on Veterans Parkway.
LOS ANGELES  When Platform opened this year just outside Los Angeles, the upscale shopping center set aside four stores for a specific class of highly sought-after retailers.

Platform, which also contains restaurants and office space, wasn't looking for a particular brand or merchant. Instead, it went hunting for retailers happy with a brief stay, some as short as three days.

"So much stuff is accessible online," said David Fishbein, a principal at Runyon Group, the real estate firm behind Platform. "To give people experiences and content to do in person they can't find anywhere else is really appealing."

Pop-up stores  once seen as only a step up from a vacant storefront  have become a key strategy for some malls.

These kinds of stores have been around for decades, sliding into empty storefronts left vacant by more desirable long-term tenants. Come October, temporary stores peddling costumes open seemingly overnight, while toy stores and Christmas tree lots spring up in November.

But in recent years, shopping centers have realized that pop-up stores are a way to gin up excitement among shoppers by making under-the-radar brands accessible and bringing in startups linked to celebrities.

With online sales forecasted to grow as much as 10 percent this holiday season to $117 billion, brick-and-mortar stores are upping their game to compete.

"The idea for owners is 'What can I do to generate traffic and buzz?'" said Mitchell Hernandez, a senior associate at real estate giant CBRE.

"The mantra a few years ago was having 100 percent occupancy," Hernandez added. Now, some think that "a better idea is to have 90 percent occupancy and have 10 percent devoted to rotating pop-up shops."

At Platform, Fishbein said carving out permanent space for an ever-changing roster of pop-ups was part of the plans from the very start. With the retail industry evolving faster, he said, landlords have to more quickly adapt to changing consumer tastes.

"We want to experiment and test different ideas," Fishbein said. "If you have everything leased to tenants for five to 10 years, you don't have a lot of opportunities as a landlord to create change."

Instead of signing long leases, these brands stay for as little as a few days up to a year, Fishbein said. The current lineup includes Floral Art, a flower shop, and the Lapis Press, which sells art.

Fishbein said some brands are testing the waters before opening a permanent brick-and-mortar store, while others view pop-ups as a marketing tool and way to broaden their exposure.

For St. Frank, a luxury home decor retailer based in San Francisco, it's a little bit of both. St. Frank, which sells textiles sourced from around the world, started as an e-commerce merchant in 2013. In the past year, the company opened up two brick-and-mortar stores in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

But St. Frank never had a pop-up before opening at Platform in October. St. Frank intends to use that store to test the Southern California market and experiment with building out a small space on a slim budget, founder and CEO Christina Bryant said. It's also a way to see if pop-ups could be a profitable component to St. Frank's business model.

Platform only takes a percentage of sales, instead of charging rent, Bryant said. That lowers the risk for a young company. Bryant said she's also looking at pop-up and permanent store locations in New York.

"In larger cities like LA, it's more expensive for a young brand," she said. "So being able to test in a small way to see if rent and store economics can work" is invaluable.

Poketo, a Los Angeles-based art and design store, also has a spot in Platform. The retailer, which has popped up previously in Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters' concept store called Space Ninety 8, already has two stores, one in downtown LA and the other in the Line hotel in Koreatown.

Before committing to a permanent store, however, Poketo wanted to test the market beyond its base, said co-founder Ted Vadakan.

Vadakan said pop-ups can be a boon for both retailers and malls, but only if it's a right match between the two. Selecting the wrong brand, he said, can erode a mall's credibility.
SPRINGFIELD  When Susana Mendoza took the oath of office Monday to become Illinois next comptroller, she didnt just inherit an office previously held by Democrat Dawn Clark Netsch and Republican Judy Baar Topinka, political role models whom she praised as equally unforgettable and completely awesome.

As the person now in charge of the states checkbook, Mendoza, a 44-year-old Chicago Democrat, also inherited a backlog of bills topping $10 billion and a lawsuit that a group of Democratic lawmakers filed against her Republican predecessor, Leslie Munger, for delaying their paychecks amid the ongoing budget stalemate. The pile of unpaid bills has grown as Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly have failed to agree on a full budget during Rauners nearly two years in office.

For Mendoza, who was a state representative for a decade before serving as Chicago city clerk since 2011, the bill backlog, which is climbing toward $11 billion, is about more than just dollars and cents.

That $11 billion signifies people who need us to do the right thing for them, Mendoza said. Theyre not numbers on a spreadsheet.

Mendoza said that as she campaigned throughout the state, she saw firsthand how the failure to produce a budget is hurting Illinois residents.

During a visit to Charleston this summer, for example, she met former Eastern Illinois University employees who had been laid off as a result of the lack of full funding for higher education. She said they were being given vouchers to buy food.

Mendoza said she would work with the powers given to her by the Illinois Constitution to prioritize payments to social service providers and other state vendors most in need.

She said that will mean continuing her predecessors practice of putting paychecks for lawmaker, and herself, at the bottom of the pile unless a court instructs her to do otherwise.

Wearing a red suit that used to belong to Topinka and taking the oath of office on the late former comptrollers family Bible, Mendoza vowed to work across the partisan divide, just as Topinka did. But she also vowed to stand up to anyone, including the governor, to fight for what she believes in.

Speaking at an Illinois Farm Bureau event in Chicago on Monday, Rauner didnt congratulate Mendoza on her inauguration but rather called on her to continue fighting the lawmakers lawsuit, which was filed in Cook County on Friday, just as Mungers term was drawing to an end. The lawmakers argue that its a violation of the state constitutions separation of powers for the comptroller to withhold their pay.

Mendoza and her staff appreciate the governors advice, spokesman Abdon Pallasch wrote in an emailed statement.

But as an independent constitutional office, well explore our best legal options on this case and any others, Pallasch added.

Mendoza was elected Nov. 8 to fill the remainder of Topinkas term, which runs through early 2019.
Nippon Paper Crecia and Kasuga Paper Industry Form Tissue Production Joint Venture in Japan

Dec. 6, 2016 - Nippon Paper Group announced that Nippon Paper Crecia Co., Ltd. and Kasuga Paper Industry Co., Ltd. today concluded a basic agreement to jointly establish a new company in April 2017 that will produce paper tissue and towel products in Japan.

Nippon Paper Crecia will hold an 80% stake in the JV, while Kasuga Paper Industry will hold 20%.

The joint venture will install a new tissue machine with an annual production capacity of 36,000 tonnes at Nippon Paper Industries' Fuji Mill (eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan).

Nippon Paper Crecia will hold an 80% stake in the JV, while Kasuga Paper Industry will hold 20%.

Through the new joint venture, Nippon Paper said that it will make effective use of the assets and pulp and energy generated at Nippon Paper Industries' Fuji Mill, which is conveniently located near the Tokyo metropolitan area, and enhance the paper production and converting capabilities to establish the foundation of a stable supply.

We will also strive to achieve growth in the market for the household paper product business of the two companies, which is expected to increase in demand, by utilizing the expertise that Kasuga Paper Industry possesses in handling waste paper recycled products and catering to diverse needs, Nippon Paper explained.

Nippon Paper Crecia, part of the Nippon Paper Group, manufactures and sells family care products, personal care products and professional products, under a license agreement with KIMBERLY-CLARK Corporation of the United States. In the area of family care products, the company has supplied products under the two world-renowned brands Kleenex and Scottie.

SOURCE: Nippon Paper Group
Parents took to social media to voice out their outrage on the high prices of EpiPens, a powerful anti-allergy medication. They voiced their disgust and even uploaded proofs of purchase of just how much they were paying for a package of this very valuable drug to people with serious types of allergies. There were some who even took to the streets to express their rage.

Even prominent government figures like Sec. Hillary Clinton expressed concern and joined in calls to ask it's maker company Mylan, Inc., to cut the cost. A lawmaker from Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, having a child with this kind of reaction, called for a probe into this controversy as reported by NY Times.

Amazingly, after sessions with the US Congress FDA.ORG mentioned that, Mylan has come up with a generic to sell it at a much lower price, half of the original price. BBC.COM From a $600 price, up to even a weightier $925 price, EpiPens is finally available at $300 and some brands with the same generic even sell at a cost of as low as $140. From 2009 the price of EpiPen jumped five times over, earlier in 2016. Mylan constantly raised the price of their product

Watch And Be Immersed With The Benefits Of Social Media

It all started when actress Mellini Kantayya, whose husband has an allergic reaction as well, learned from her friend after exchanging messages on Facebook, about how expensive EpiPens was. Having read about it from a website, she decided to start an appeal to demand the lower prices of EpiPen through an online petition and garnered thousands of signatures. She published shout outs about the issue and shared to hundreds of her friends on Facebook. And then another advocate of the said matter, also did the same thing, sending the message to thousands of parents and advocates who had the same predicament. Bernie Sanders also turned to Twitter to articulate his sentiment CNNMoney.COM mentioned on their report.
President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Betsy DeVos as his Education secretary. An advocate for charter schools, the new leader of the department is also known to have strong ties with Christian communities in Michigan.

Upon her appointment, an old recorded panel interview of Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick, surfaced. It took place at a Christian conference over 15 years ago, where they talked about how public schools have "displaced" the church and its teachings.

According to Politico, the couple personally believe that Christianity in the education system could help "advance God's kingdom." They have hoped for the Church to be more involved in school functions so that students develop views in line with its teachings. Watch the said talk in the video below.

The pronouncements that Betsy DeVos made might be years old but it has raised concerns. Observers note that with her position as the Education secretary and her opposition for secular beliefs, she could likely divert funds to help Christian schools.

This means traditional public schools might end with little operation sources and government support to spare when she is in office. Observers also assume that with the new Education secretary, the line separating the church from the state will blur.

American public schools are supposed to be religion-free zones as declared by the Supreme Court, as per the American Civil Liberties Union. Hence, religion is not part of the curriculum and must not be taught to students. Institutions also cannot impose on a single belief or teaching as the truth but it may support religious activities of the students provided that their participation in these activities are voluntary.

But those who have followed Betsy DeVos' work among Christian groups say that the concerns are unfounded. The incoming Education secretary is not a religious fanatic who will use her position in federal government to advance her own cause, Canada Free Press notes. It cites that Betsy DeVos is a devoted Christian who has committed to serve her God and her commitment goes beyond politics.

What's your take on this? Will you support Betsy DeVos and her potential reforms in education? Talk to us in the comments!
Recent air strikes on a school compound in Idlib, Syria took the lives of not less than 22 children. In Aleppo, a Syrian country under siege, children are caught in the middle of bomb explosions and attacks for months now. These incidents are heartbreaking proofs that the real victims of war and violence are the innocent little children.

Early in September, a report from New York Times brought tears to many when they reported that Syrian children can no longer feel play, sleep and eat like how little kids normally do. When asked, one kid said that he wished that the war would stop so that he and his friends could go back to school.

Recognizing the urgency of putting an end to the inhumane acts of war and protecting the future of the little innocent children, non-state actor Education Above All (EAA) established its Protect Education in Insecurity and Conflict (PEIC) advocacy with a very straightforward rationale. Advocates believe that education will provide opportunities for children in war areas by giving them a link to a normal life.

PEIC aims to fuel every child's inner belief that there will always be hope and that pursuing their life aspirations is never impossible. While they strive to mentor the little children to become future nation-builders, PEIC also provides them with basic necessities like water and food including knowledge on sanitation and health.

Surprisingly, data from countries like Yemen, Sudan and even Syria show that the advocacy became a safe place for kids in countries under siege. Currently, 56 countries publicly expressed their commitment to upholding and protecting education for children during times of war and conflict.

Albania is the latest country to pledge support to the program, following Argentina, Kenya, Nigeria, Qatar, Norway and many others. EAA aims to save schools from being forgotten and transform them into a safe haven for children in times of conflict and is urging other countries to do the same.
A Massachusetts teenager is accused of beheading his classmate. The suspect reportedly said that he did something bad after the alleged crime.

The victim was identified as Manuel Viloria-Paulino, 16. Washington Post reported that Viloria-Paulino brought a friend to their home in mid-November who is said to be the former's classmate at Lawrence High in Massachusetts. A few days later, Viloria-Paulino reportedly walked out of his grandmother's home and was never seen again. Just this Thursday, the body of Viloria-Paulino was found by a woman walking her dog near the banks of a river.

The suspect, identified as Mathew Borges, was charged with murder two days later the headless body of Viloria-Paulino was discovered. As reported, Borges will be tried as an adult. The severed head of Viloria-Paulino was found near where his body was discovered.

In a police report, Borges allegedly confessed to another person about the crime. Viloria-Paulino and Borges went to a spot on the river where teens frequently go. They reportedly smoked marijuana and Borges allegedly stabbed his friend then mutilated his body.

The police report added, "A witness told investigators that Mathew told them he did something bad. Mathew then told him that he stabbed a kid and cut his head off killing him." The friend to whom Borges reportedly confided to said that the teen was motioning his hands like he was also stabbing someone and cutting someone's head off when he talked about what he did, NECN reported.

Hundreds gathered on Friday at a memorial for Viloria-Paulino. His grandmother described Viloria-Paulino as a lovely kid who has not done anything bad to anyone. The motive of the killing remains unclear and the family is questioning what Viloria-Paulino did to deserve such.

Borges will be held at the Roslindale Juvenile Facility until Jan. 10 for the probable cause hearing. Meanwhile, the investigation is still ongoing.
A man from Wexford, Ireland, reportedly raped a girl and her younger sisters until she got pregnant at the age of 13. The man, 76, was sentenced to only 11 years behind bars.

The 76-year-old man has not been identified in order to protect the identity of the children. The then-13-year-old and her three younger sisters were said to be living in a home that was described by the judge who gave the sentence as a "horror house."

According to Irish Times, three of the children molested had developmental problems such as learning disabilities. This was considered as a grave aggravating factor by the judge who decided on the case.

Independent also reported that the mother of the children knew the man. She would be taking the man to their family home during weekends after fetching him from the elderly man's isolated rural home. The then-13-year-old reportedly first got abused in 2004. In 2006, the teacher of the then-13-year-old girl noticed that she was gaining weight so she suspected that the teen was pregnant.

The investigation then started and the first victim said that the man would rape her either in the home or outside in the field. The teen said that she hated the man and that the intercourse was both disgusting and sore.

The man reportedly threatened the teenager that he would hit her if she told anyone about the assault. At one point, the brother of the then-13-year-old reportedly observed the man while he was raping the victim.

Another victim was only six years old when the man, then 63, molested her. The other sister was sexually assaulted between the ages of seven and 11 and did not know what the word "sex" meant.

The elderly man was charged with 18 counts of each rape, oral rape, and sexual assault. A guilty plea was made and the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted one sample count of rape on the basis of full facts of the allegations being heard.

The judge handling the case, Justice Patrick McCarthy, said that they had to take the man's age into consideration as well as the guilty pleas thus the 11-year sentence. It is unclear when he will start serving his sentence.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's reformation of the nation's health policies has created such a hype. As much as it is going to affect the health care, it is equally disturbing to the economic infrastructure. Economists are predicting a direct impact of Trump's policies on all sectors, specially investments from foreigners.

According to Bloomberg, health care has created numerous opportunities in the form of more than two million jobs and has been a vital factor in labor market growth since 2009. But Trump's choice of Health Secretary, Georgia Representative Tom Price has been marked as controversial due to his views and statements. Price is in strong favor of repealing Obamacare.

Chief financial economist for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. In New York, Chris Rupkey suggested that in uncertain times like these companies are not likely to make any kind of investment. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Economist Alec Phillips called the recent trends in job growth "somewhat depressed."

Apart from criticizing the Obamacare health initiatives, Donald Trump has also regarded dangerous for corporations and individuals. But stats have shown an increase in shift employments in comparison with part time jobs under the Affordable Care Act.

New York Federal Reserve researchers have revealed that ACA is a key factor in people's commitment to their jobs. The employer-sponsored benefits created a job lock. According to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate has also lowered significantly to a 4.6 percent. The lowest in the past nine years.

The Salt Lake tribune shared the views of some small business owners, who are calling Trump's policies more profit gaining and are looking forward to it. Earlier, they had to secure insurance of their employees, even if they were students and were already covered in their parents plans.

Business owners said that they were able to hire limited people under Affordable Act Care. Apart from all the debates and predictions, things are yet to be revealed and their impacts on different sectors are still unknown.
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China's Foreign Minister warns against obstruction of Iran nuclear deal

12/05/16

Source: Press TV

China has warned that no party to the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world countries should allow its domestic upheavals to adversely affect its commitment to the accord. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the remarks in Beijing on Monday at a joint press conference with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.





Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (L) with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi

(Photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)





Dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord came about in July 2015 between Iran on the one side, and the US, Britain, Russia, France and China plus Germany on the other.



"Of course, implementation of the JCPOA is a long process and it is natural for problems and differences to occur along the course," Wang noted. "What is important is that all resolve whatever problem that may arise through negotiation and consultation in the light of the principle of commitment to the terms of the JCPOA."



Recently, the US Congress voted to extend Washington's sanctions law against the Islamic Republic, known as the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), although the JCPOA has removed all nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.



On his campaign trail, US president-elect Donald Trump had made several highly-controversial remarks against the accord, raising speculations that Washington may take steps in breach of the accord under the new government.



During the press conference, Zarif also urged all relevant parties to honor their obligations under the JCPOA, saying they "cannot ignore the agreement."



"We will not allow any party to unilaterally undertake any actions that are in violation of the nuclear agreement," Zarif said. "This is our and China's position, and we would not allow for a single party to ignore these issues," he added.



The top Iranian diplomat, however, reminded, "Of course, we, too, have our own choice here."



Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif his visit to China ushered in a "strategic stage" in bilateral Tehran-Beijing relations.



He also said he had spoken with Wang about increased cooperation on energy, transport, science and technology, national defense, and counter-terrorism initiatives.



Iran and China could both cooperate and work to complement each other's efforts in the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, proposed by the Chinese head of state, under which Beijing is pushing ahead to revive the trans-continental multi-modal trade route of Silk Road, Zarif said.



The Iranian top diplomat arrived in the Chinese capital earlier in the day at the head of a large high-ranking political and economic delegation following a two-day visit to India.



The joint presser followed a meeting Zarif and Wang.



During the talks, Iran's foreign minister said Tehran and Beijing had common views on issues of global significance, and noting that there are no obstacles in the way of the expansion of bilateral ties.



He praised Sino-Iranian relations as warm and strong, saying Iran is ready to align itself with China in all areas as the two nations have mutual interests and a common approach towards international affairs.



The officials billed a January visit to Iran by Chinese President Xi Jinping as historical.



The Chinese official, for his part, said his country supported Iran's accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) regional security group, of which the Islamic Republic is currently an observer member.
Iran seizes 'unauthorized' film package heading to Berlin Film Festival

12/06/16

Source: Tehran Times

TEHRAN - Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dowlatabadi announced on Sunday that Iranian police have seized a package of 'unauthorized' Iranian films from the consultant of the Berlin Film Festival - Berlinale at a Tehran airport.







"A woman named Anke Leweke [the Iran consultant for the Berlin Film Festival] has recently arrived in the country, visiting with some of the 2009 post-election sedition convicts," Jafari-Dowlatabadi said in a meeting.



"She was detained while she was planning to take outside over 60 unauthorized films produced underground within the country," he added

According to some Persian media, Leweke and her Iranian-German assistant Nooshafarin Dastoori were detained at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport while they were going to leave for Germany.



They were in Tehran to select films for the Berlin Film Festival, which will be held during February 2017.



Dastoori's passport was confiscated and Leweke left Iran without her or the films.



An official of the Cinema Organization of Iran (COI) said on Tuesday that Leweke has been traveling to Iran every year since 2005 to select films for Berlinale.



Arash Amini:

          





Arash Amimi who is the director of the COI Office for Festivals and International Cooperation Affairs said that the Tehran prosecutor has not yet published the list of the films seized from Leweke.
Pemex oil company president Jose Antonio Gonzalez (R) talks to Timothy Joseph Callahan, a representative of BHP Billiton Petroleo Operaciones de Mexico on December 5, 2016 (AFP Photo/ALFREDO ESTRELLA) (AFP)

Mexico City (AFP) - Australian mining company BHP Billiton on Monday won a deal to explore for oil deep in the sea off Mexico, the country's state petroleum firm Pemex said.

BHP Billiton won the bidding to take a 60 percent stake in the Trion deep-sea oil field, partnering with Pemex which will hold 40 percent, the Mexican company said in a statement.

It is a key deal for Mexico as it looks to boost its flagging oil sector.

Pemex said it is the first time it has "farmed out" the management of an oil-drilling project to a foreign company.

Pemex estimates the Trio field in the Gulf of Mexico holds up to 485 million barrels of crude oil, though not of all that is proven reserves.

It hopes to start pumping oil from the sites in 2023.

The Mexican firm said the project will require $11 billion of investment.

President Enrique Pena Nieto enacted a landmark energy reform in 2014 that reopened the sector to private investors for the first time since 1938.

Hit by falling global oil prices, Pemex had said it is making $5.5 billion in budget cuts this year.

The government has injected $4.2 billion in liquidity to prop up the firm.
Kofax Power PDF review TechRadar Pro

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.
Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Googles YouTube have agreed to share with one another identifying digital information of violent terror content that they find on their platforms.

When they remove violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos or images from their platforms, the companies will include in a shared industry database the hashes, or unique digital fingerprints, of the content.

Other participants can use the shared hashes to help identify matching content on their hosted consumer platforms, review against their respective policies and definitions, and remove the content when appropriate, according to a statement by the companies on Monday.

There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies, the companies said.

The move comes shortly after members of the European Parliament from the Civil Liberties Committee voted Monday to back stricter initiatives to counter terrorism, including measures to take down and block content that constitute public provocation to commit terrorism. On Thursday, the EU Internet Forum, a private-public partnership set up last year with internet companies, is also meeting to take stock of measures to reduce online terrorist content.

Terrorist organizations like the Islamic State group are believed to use social media for propaganda, communications and to attract new recruits.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter agreed with the European Union in May to remove from their websites illegal hate speech, visible in Europe, that could incite hatred or acts of terror. But in August, a panel of lawmakers in the U.K. said it was alarming that social networking companies have very small teams to monitor billions of accounts for extremist content.

On Sunday, the European Commission said internet companies, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, will have to act faster to counter online hate speech or face laws forcing them to do so, according to news reports.

In a study of the companies processes to remove hate speech that broke the law or breached their community standards, only 40 percent of complaints received a response within 24 hours, and 43 percent within 48 hours, according to a Commission official.

Overall, 28.2 percent of the complaints resulted in removal of the contentbut there were large disparities in the removal rate, depending on the country where the complaint was made, the study found. In France and Germany, it topped 50 percent, but in Austria only 11 percent of complaints resulted in content removal, and in Italy just 4 percent. The Commission plans to publish the study Tuesday.

No personally identifiable information will be shared when hashes are passed among the companies, according to the statement. The four companies will begin sharing hashes of the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos removed from their services, which they describe as content most likely to violate all their content policies.

A recent study by the Global Network Initiative, a group that represents academics, investors, civil society organizations and companies, has cautioned against the human rights risks of censoring online terror content.

Internet companies acting as intermediaries should not be required to monitor third-party terrorist content that they host or transmit, or face direct or indirect liability from governments for such content, according to the study. Such requirements and liabilities may lead companies to go overboard in the removal of controversial content, according to the report.

The companies dont expect to share hashes until early next year after the technical work is completed. They are also open to including other firms that are interested in joining the initiative in the future.

[With additional reporting by Peter Sayer in Paris]
Microsoft is taking another shot at giving users a friendly AI-driven bot conversation partner. On Monday, the company released Zo, a chatbot that users can converse with on Kik, the popular messaging platform.

Zo is a follow-up to Tay, the tech giants first foray into friendly, English-speaking chatbots. Its clear that the company has learned from its first attempt, when the friendly chatbot was turned into a font of white supremacist propaganda by malicious users.

In contrast, Zo adamantly refuses to discuss political matters. Even a casual mention of U.S. President-elect Donald Trumps conversation with the leader of Taiwan led the bot to say that it wasnt interested in discussing politics.

Its a push by Microsoft to explore how people interact with bots, as the company pushes the idea of conversations with automated partners as the next computing platform.

That doesnt mean Zo, which identifies itself as a 22-year-old woman, is beyond saying outlandish things. The chatbot opened its conversation with me by asking if I preferred backpacking overseas or visiting a theme park. When I turned the question around, Zo replied I love you.

Its a kind sentiment, but a bit too familiar for a conversation that was maybe two minutes old. When I pushed back, it said u cant handle the truth.

Are you Jack Nicholson? I asked, referencing his iconic monologue from A Few Good Men.

Yep, Zo replied.

So thats that, then. The bot offered a few other nonsensical responses to further questions about a variety of topics like news, as well. But at the same time, it felt like a lighthearted engagement.

If Zo is the future of computing, it has a ways to go towards being a good conversation partneror perhaps humans will just have to adjust to its strange sense of humor. There is potential for bots to have a major impact, however. Microsofts Xiaoice chatbot, which is similar to Zo, has proven wildly popular in China.

Microsoft isnt the only company to throw its weight behind bots as the future of computing, either. Google, Apple, Amazon and other firms are each building their own general-purpose virtual assistants, and several other companies have released or previewed tools for building bots.
The Murrieta Stake Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hosting a nativity pageant and interfaith Messiah concert this weekend.

The nativity pageant, featuring actors, animals and music, is 6-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9 and Saturday, Dec. 10 on the front lawn. There will be multiple presentations each night.

The concert, with a choir and orchestra, is 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11.

The Murrieta Stake Center is at 24820 Las Brisas Road.
As Moreno Valley has racked up thousands of dollars in legal bills defending the citys approval of the World Logistics Center, developer Highland Fairview has fallen behind in reimbursing the city, according to city officials and records.

As of the end of October, the citys legal fees had reached $358,439 but the company  which agreed in a contract to pay the citys attorney costs  had paid $89,510, city spokeswoman Kimberly Sutherland said in an email. The developer paid another $16,512.50 Nov. 23, though the citys legal bills for November were not available, she said.

Highland Fairviews CEO/Presdent Iddo Benzeevi, in a statement, said the city is at fault because officials havent provided full documentation of its legal costs and that hell pay when it does so.

Moreno Valley has faced a dozen lawsuits since it approved the 40.6-million square-foot warehouse complex in August 2015. Though it reached settlements with some of the parties, several lawsuits remain and could result in appeals that could play out over the next year.

Moreno Valley is being represented by the California law firm of Lozano Smith, which bills $220 to $375 an hour, city records show.

City officials have sent emails and letters to Highland Fairview over the past year asking for payment, culminating in a demand letter sent Sept. 29 by then-Interim City Attorney Steve Quintanilla. That letter said the company was $332,825 behind in payments at the time.

The city has incurred substantial attorneys fees and costs in defending itself  he wrote. Please consider this letter as a demand that Highland Fairview pay the attorneys costs incurred by the City of Moreno Valley in defending the litigation.

Benzeevis statement puts the blame on the city.

We are perplexed and surprised as to why the city council after countless requests by Highland Fairview has not demanded monthly invoices from its lawyers and scrutinized them before sending them to Highland Fairview for payment, he stated. These lawyers work for the City Council, not Highland Fairview. We expect to be provided with timely invoices which have been scrutinized by the city to insure that they are appropriate and accurate before they are sent to Highland Fairview for payment.

Quintanilla and current City Attorney Martin Koczanowicz said the legal invoices are protected by attorney-client privilege and that the city is not obligated to provide them. Kozcanowicz sent a second demand letter to Highland Fairview last month.

City officials declined to provide a copy of that letter.

The direction is much clearer and not quite as friendly as the last one, City Councilwoman LaDonna Jempson said of the latest letter. This one is very to the point: This is the amount you owe and this is what we expect.

Koczanowicz said he has been in talks with Highland Fairview over the bills and expects the city to be repaid.

As far as catch-up, we hope to have that occur in the reasonable future, he said, though he did not have an estimate as to when.

Under the development agreement between the city and Highland Fairview, the developer agreed to fully defend, indemnify and hold the City harmless for all costs of defense and reimburse the city monthly.

Another clause states the city shall use its best efforts to reasonably manage case costs and seek reasonable attorney rates.

Jempson said the agreement does not require the city to provide invoices.

The agreement was always to have funding available so we can replenish that funding so the city would not be out a dime, she said.

According to city documents provided by city officials and a resident who requested information on the bills, however, the city has gone into the red more than once as the developer fell behind in paying the legal fees.

A Dec. 9, 2015, letter from the citys Planning Division to Highland Fairview, asks for a $50,000 check to create a litigation fund, according to documents the city provided to resident Lindsay Robinson. The city received the check Jan. 8.

But a Feb. 4 letter from Planning Official Rick Sandzimier and Senior Permit Technician Leticia Esquivel asked for another $100,000, stating that the previous sum was not enough to cover city costs.

In a March 1 email, Sandzimier wrote that the city costs were $144,000 at that point. Wayne Peterson, vice president of community planning for Highland Fairview, replied that the developer would pay no more until the city showed more documentation of the charges.

By March 31, the citys account was at negative $163,000, according to an email that day from Principal Accountant Debbie Rosales. Benzeevi expressed concerns about the costs in an email response to Sandzimier that day.

I dont understand how we are spending so much money? We cannot continue at this rate, he wrote to Sandzimier.

Moreno Valley received no payments from Highland Fairview until September, when it got $24,575, according to Sutherland. Another $14,935 payment came in October and $16,512 on Nov. 23, she said.

Lozano Smith billed the city $284,553 between January and October, city documents show. The November amount was not available, Sutherland said.

Highland Fairview has made all payments required on all documented invoices, Eric Rose, a spokesman for Benzeevi, said in an email last week. After months of waiting, we are still waiting for updated detailed invoices from the City.

In his statement, Benzeevi said taxpayers deserve oversight and accountability for how the City Council is spending their money, especially on high priced lawyers, irrespective of whether the city is reimbursed.

Koczanowicz and Quintanilla both described the legal fees as reasonable given the type of litigation the city faces.

City Councilman George Price called Benzeevis complaints about Lozano Smiths feess laughable, saying the city is paying less than Highland Fairview pays its legal firm, Cox, Castle & Nicholson of Los Angeles.

Price said Benzeevis attorneys have been the lead attorneys in the case and Benzeevis requests in settlement negotiations have driven the legal costs higher.

In a lot of cases, its been him whos been dragging it out because he wanted language changed, he said.

Councilman Jesse Molina, who was mayor when the council approved the project, recalled asking Benzeevi at a public hearing if the city would bear any legal costs if it were sued and was told no. Molina, who is leaving office this week, said that was a key issue for him in supporting the project, which the council approved 3-2.

If hes a man of his word, everything will go OK, Molina said. If he tries to maneuver out of anything, then Im going to be here every council meeting just pounding on it.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9558 orighori@scng.comTwitter: @ImranGhori1
Murder charges remain a possibility as an Alameda County investigative team continued to look into why a horrific fire broke out at a Oakland warehouse, killing 36 people, authorities said Monday afternoon.

District Attorney Nancy OMalley promised that no stone would be left unturned during the investigation, which remained as painstakingly slow as the cleanup, three days after the blaze at the building known as the Ghost Ship.

We are following up on every single lead, OMalley said.

Several people have been interviewed as part of the investigation, and more are being scheduled, OMalley said.

She would not comment on whether Derrick Ion Almena, the resident of the warehouse and the subject of harsh words by people who know him, has been interviewed yet.

Its too premature to say where the investigation will lead us, OMalley said. We are going to be looking at everything.

The recovery of bodies continued through the afternoon after a safety issue forced recovery efforts to stop from around 11:20 p.m. Sunday night until 9 a.m. on Monday, according to Oakland police spokeswoman Officer Johnna Watson said.

The death toll remained at 36, but Alameda County Sheriffs Coroner Greg Ahern said authorities were not expecting any more huge numbers of bodies in the building.

Thus far, 33 victims, including the 17-year-old son of an Alameda County sheriffs deputy, have been tentatively identified and 22 families have been notified by the Alameda County Coroners Office.

The coroner has five pending notifications. Two victims have not been identified because they are too badly burned and one doesnt match the description of anyone on the missing persons list.

Crews found one victim each from Finland, Guatemala, and Korea.

Authorities also said about 50 of the original 220 names who were unaccounted for remained that way Monday afternoon but that doesnt necessarily indicate they were in the building.

OMalley said that charges could range from murder to manslaughter depending on the evidence uncovered during the investigation. She did not give a timetable for when it would be completed, saying only that it will be methodical and thorough, without sacrificing the detail thats needed.

Crews needed to bring in a crane to stabilize a front wall that was starting to collapse inward, Batallion Chief Melinda Drayton said Monday morning. Crews began working on stabilizing the wall, and about 75 percent of the search had been completed by 3:15 p.m.

Crews dont expect to find many more bodies, Ahern said.

Fire officials suspect the origin of the blaze may be in the rear of the building, where the crane is being erected.

Until we get the parapet shored up we cant continue in that area, said Oakland Fire Deputy Chief Darin White.

President Barack Obama sent sympathies on Monday to the people of Oakland. The president said the full toll of the disaster is unknown, but many people  including young men and women with their whole futures ahead of them  have tragically lost their lives.

A team of city officials, Red Cross workers, chaplains and others planned to visit businesses and residents affected by the blackout to listen and help them with their concerns about heating and refrigeration of food, among other issues.

Theres a tremendous amount of debris,  Watson said. Its a complicated situation. They continue to be careful, tedious and mindful.

City officials called for patience amid the slow progress and called for support from those awaiting answers.

Its really important to give the firefighters everything they need. This is very emotional and taxing work, not only physically but emotionally, Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said. They deserve a lot of credit and support from that.

At makeshift shrines set up along the sidewalks outside police tape, people lingered, some taking pictures and some crying. News trucks from around the world clogged nearby streets.

Workers have yet to go through half the building. With 75 percent of the search completed, another factor may be conspiring against them  rain is in the forecast for mid-week.

We will not be going any faster  to get ahead of the rain, Drayton said. She added that fire investigators are no closer to determining the cause.

We are convinced the number of dead will go up, Drayton said.

On Monday, Derick Ion Almena, the founder of the artists collective, sent a statement to NBC Bay Area responding to criticism over an earlier Facebook post that expressed concern over his material possessions, rather than the lives lost.

In my previous Facebook post, I had no idea there was a loss of life, Almenas statement to NBC Bay Area read. This tragic event consumes me every moment. My heart is broken. My heartfelt condolences to the family and friends who have suffered the loss of loved ones.

Heavy machinery deployed to shore up sections of the damaged building could be heard late into Sunday evening, and until work was halted, groups of firefighters and workers cleared material from the site. Makeshift memorials of flower bouquets contributed by well-wishers slowly grew in size along nearby sidewalks and fences.

According to a KGO-TV report, Almena and partner Micah Allison were seen at 10:45 p.m. Sunday at the Oakland Marriott City Center. Almena and Allison had checked into the hotel without using their names, and KGO reporter Lilian Kim and a camera person saw no sign of the pairs three children.

On Monday, administrators from Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, a prestigious public arts school in San Francisco, confirmed the 17-year-old victim was one of their own. The school did not release the victims name, but said he was in 11th grade. The San Francisco Chronicle on Monday identified the student as Draven McGill.

This is an incredibly unsettling and sad event  for the Asawa SOTA community, and especially for the victims family, Principal Barnaby Payne wrote in a news release sent out by the school. As sad as we are today, I know that how we react in challenging times is what defines us as a community. As parents, teachers, children, students, brothers, sisters, and friends, we share in the heartbreak of his family and will embrace them and each other as Asawa SOTA family. We must rise to this occasion and rally around each other with love, compassion and support.

The school provided counseling for students and faculty Monday morning, and administrators said they would work with student leaders to determine the next course of action. As of Monday morning, no on-campus events had been planned to honor the victim.
It started with a 2011 study that indicated by the turn of the century there would be no more Joshua trees in the national park named after the iconic desert plant.

And likely none in California.

I was shocked when the study came out. I wanted to look at the details and change the scale, said Cameron Barrows, a research ecologist for the UC Riverside Center for Conservation Biology in Palm Desert.

The large scale of the study by Kenneth Cole, a climate scientist for the federal governments Colorado Plateau Research Station in Flagstaff, Arizona, missed many of the geological nuances of Joshua Tree National Park and elsewhere, according to Barrows, which could ultimately mean survival for the Joshua tree species.

Barrows coordinates the centers Desert Studies Initiative.

Doing his own modeling, which took a detailed look at the geography of Joshua Tree National Park, Barrows said that going into 2100, this 13,000-year-old desert plant species may survive  at the higher elevations of Joshua Tree National Park and along north-facing slopes and some canyon areas.

Scientists working with Barrows, along with helpers from the National Park Service and other agencies, at a workshop earlier this month trained a team of about 40 citizen-scientists to help gauge the health of Joshua trees across some of the study areas.

The volunteers surveyed and measured the heights of Joshua trees, coupling the measurements with GPS locations, and a description of other plants nearby and likely offspring of the same parent.

The Nov.6 survey showed good health among a range of age groups for the Joshua trees in the study area.

Although Barrows presents a more optimistic view on the future of Joshua trees than does Cole, there are still problems, he said.

In addition to the warmer winters and summers, theres air pollution depositing nitrates on the soil, according to Barrows.

That soil enrichment will transform portions of the now largely barren desert into grasslands. The location where the grasses will thrive coincides with the prime habitat for these surviving Joshua trees.

With grasses come forest fires, and the Joshua tree is not a plant that has adapted to fire. Recovery will be difficult, Barrows said, and certainly not helped by the fact that it can take 70 years for a Joshuatree to produce offspring.

THE HISTORY

What we know as Joshua trees werent always called that.

In the late 1880s, yucca palm was the popular name for the tree, according to Chris Clarke, a Joshua Tree resident who is working on a book on the trees based on his decades of research. Another name was tree yucca.

The plant is not in the palm family, but that didnt matter when Palmdale was named after the iconic plant, Clarke said, during a presentation to the citizen-scientist group the day before their field experience.

Clarke was among several speakers to make presentations to the citizen-scientist group at the Black Rock Ranger Station.

The name Joshua tree really started to take off at the beginning of the 20th century, although the name tree yucca persisted in scientific literature into the early 1930s, Clarke said.

There was a brief effort to make paper from yucca plants in the 1880s, when the Atlantic and Pacific Pulp Co. stripped off about 5,000 acres worth of Joshua trees in an unsuccessful effort to make paper from them.

If you ever wondered why there are no Joshua trees around Acton (in Los Angeles County), thats the reason, Clarke said, adding that the Joshua trees never rebounded from that failed business venture.

There are two Joshua tree varieties. One is found in the Mojave and is more commonly recognized. The other is less treelike and more like a bush and found in the Colorado Desert.

They live together only in a portion of the Nevada desert, near the so-called Area 51, about 100 miles outside of Las Vegas, said Chris Smith, who has taught evolutionary biology at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and led scientific expeditions in the U.S. and Mexico deserts.

Smith said there is evidence that the two species are interbreeding.

With global warming, the Joshua tree species will likely migrate north over time, Smith said. And it might be that one of the two varieties, or the hybrid, will become the dominant plant.

Clarke, Barrows and Smith were among several speakers at the workshop, which was a partnership between the Desert Institute, the California Native Plant Society, Joshua Tree Genome Project, UC Riverside Center for Conservation Biology, UC Riverside Sweeney Granite Mountains Research Center, USGS Western Ecological Research Center and Joshua Tree National Park.

The Rose Foundation provided funding for the event.

RELATED

Agency considers protection for Mojave Deserts iconic Joshua trees

How Joshua Tree gets back a little of what was lost

Two big solar plants start producing electricity in the desert

Contact the writer: jsteinberg@scng.com@JamesDSteinberg on Twitter
Former Menifee mayor Scott Mann borrowed from his campaign accounts for personal expenses on approximately 147 occasions from December 2009 through June 2014, investigators for a state political oversight agency found.

The finding is included in an exhibit supporting a written stipulation, decision and order scheduled for the California Fair Political Practices Commissions approval Dec. 15 in Sacramento.

The commissions staff proposes levying a $60,000 fine against Mann stemming from his spending $44,894 from accounts established for campaign contributions in his unsuccessful 2010 run for a Menifee City Council seat and his successful 2012 and 2014 bids for the mayors post.

In the settlement, the commissions staff agreed to charge Mann with 11 counts of personal use of campaign funds and one count of failing to keep required committee records, which served to conceal the violations, according to the exhibit.

The penalty of $5,000 per count is the highest the commission is authorized to levy.

The total penalty of $60,000 is in the higher range of the fines we usually impose, said Jay Wierenga the commissions communications director.

When contacted Monday, Mann declined to comment on the case.

While Mann partially reimbursed his mayoral account by $17,152, the remaining $27,742 was not repaid, the exhibit states. The illegal spending was mostly done through ATM withdrawal and transfers to personal accounts and covered expenses for vacationing, travel, dining, tax relief, vehicle repair, registration and a family wedding in Malibu, according to the exhibit.

In an agreement worked out with commissions staff, Mann submitted to paying the fine by Dec. 1. Paying a personal use penalty from campaign funds is illegal, according to state law.

Wierenga said he could not comment on whether Mann had paid the fine.

I can tell you things dont get on the agenda unless everything has been done according to the agreement, he said.

As part of the agreement, the commission released a statement in mid-October disclosing Manns campaign violations and the proposed fine preceding the Nov. 8 vote in which he was seeking a third term as mayor. Mann released a statement apologizing and saying he would not comment on the case until after the commissions meeting.

Subsequently, Mann received a formal censure from the City Council for violating its code of ethics, lost the election to challenger Neil Winter and resigned his post Nov. 17.

The commission could rescind or alter the proposed actions, but that happens rarely.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9690 or michaelwilliams@scng.com
The documentary film San Bernardino Strong looks beyond the tragedy of the Dec. 2 terrorist attacks to tell a tale of healing, both physically and emotionally, from the point of an individual as well as an entire community.

It debuted Monday, Dec. 5, to a somber audience at Loma Linda University Church, where university officials had a team grief counselors, ready to help anyone overcome by the retelling of the terrorists attack that a year ago that claimed 14 lives.

But as the 45-minute film by Loma Linda University Healths public affairs staff played on, one soon got the impression that the tragedy could have been much worse had it not been for heroic work of police, firefighters and medical personnel.

The police swat team that entered the Inland Regional Center, for instance, had with them a medic, who helped with the most critically wounded victims, at a time when saving a life can boil down to seconds. Everyone of the 22 wounded people transported to local hospitals survived.

Julie Swann-Paez, an environmental health worker for San Bernardino County, was one of several gunshot victims rushed to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where 35 doctors were called in for the emergency. She nearly lost her life from internal bleeding, but pulled through that night with help from multiple blood transfusions. Her husband, Jesus Paez, was able to visit her that night.

The film follows Swann-Paezs recovery through multiple surgeries, and how she copes with the metal trauma. Her hopeful lookout serves as narrative for a community also in recovery. This theme was echoed in interviews with several first responders and community leaders.

Two bullets shattered parts of Swann-Paezs hip bone, but Monday she walked without a limp into the church auditorium.

She said was happy to share her story with filmmaker Patricia Kelikani, of the universitys Advancement Films unit.

Its focus was how a community came together in a good way after this awful, tragic and evil thing, Swann-Paez said.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9471 or ddanelski@scng.com
Two Martin Luther King High School students were detained and questioned Monday, Dec. 5, after Riverside police received a tip that they were plotting to attack the school in 2020, a police spokesman said.

Police believe there is no current threat to the school or its students, Lt. Christian Dinco said. He declined to provide specific details about the alleged plot.

UPDATE: 2 students booked into juvenile facility; 3rd questioned

A statement from the Riverside Unified School District said police responded after a tip was received regarding a possible firearm on campus. The statement did not say anything about a planned attack.

At no time were students or staff at King High School at risk or in danger, RUSD spokesman Justin Grayson said in the statement.

Police received the tip Monday. When officers detained the students at the school, they found knives in their possession, Dinco said. The students did not have firearms.

Dinco said police were going to interview a third student whod had contact with the other two, but was not directly associated with the alleged plot.

Riverside Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Tim Walker said students possessing knives is something we take seriously and could lead to disciplinary actions. The students were not suspected of brandishing the knives; that would bring into play disciplinary procedures that would likely lead to expulsion, Walker said.

When reached Monday afternoon, Dinco said the school was not on lockdown; he was not sure if it had been earlier.

Grayson said the investigation is continuing, and the school district is awaiting its completion.

Student safety is at the top of RUSDs list of priorities, Grayson wrote. We will continue working closely with RPD to identify students involved, and to diligently work to ensure the safe and secure learning environments necessary for a high-quality education. Swift disciplinary action will be taken if it is confirmed that any student violated California education codes regarding firearms or any other weapons.

King High School is at 9301 Wood Road in Riversides Orangecrest neighborhood.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9284, atadayon@scng.com or @PE_alitadayon on Twitter
Rather than being inspired, Noemi Medel felt frustration.

A draft of her final English paper was due in three days and she didnt know how to start.

Im in a panic, said Medel, a 44-year-old Riverside City College student and stay-at-home mom. Its been such a long time since Ive been in school and its so hard.

Before Medel pulled her hair out, Denise Kruizenga-Muro offered a lifeline.

Kruizenga-Muro organized help sessions at the colleges writing and reading center Friday and Monday.

Shes one of four instructors who gave pointers to students cranking on papers and projects before finals start this week. Center employees hoped to help more than the 50 students they assisted last semester.

Kruizenga-Muro promoted the Writing Cram Jam as a cure for students who may be going bananas, as a flier distributed around campus noted. She wants to dispel the perception that the writing center is only for students in English classes.

I figured at this point in the semester, a lot of students are kind of going crazy, she said.

Kruizenga-Muro helped Medel write an outline for a five-page essay about what it means to be a creator and a victim. Mendel, a Jurupa Valley resident, said her brain freezes because she thinks too much.

Sometimes short and sweet stands out in a thesis, Kruizenga-Muro advised.

Noe Guillen, 26, also felt nervous.

He needed to write a journal entry using literacy devices, theme and tone for his poetry explication class. Guillen said he felt overwhelmed trying to figure out the difference between metonymy and synecdoche.

Its like a foreign language, said Guillen, a Jurupa Valley resident.

America Navejas, 26, looked for a confidence boost to finish a political science paper about a service project to help elderly people in hospices and nursing homes. Navejas, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico in 2013, said she struggles to express herself in English.

I stress out really easily, said Navejas, a Riverside resident. I feel like I need a lot of time to organize my ideas.

Claudia Villavicencia, 25, waited until the last minute to start her essay on activism and music.

She got help from RCC adjunct professor Dulce Haviland, who explained a thesis and subtopics.

The Riverside resident and single mom returned to school for the first time in eight years this fall. She juggles a full-time job as a Stater Bros. clerk with part-time studies and raising an 8-year-old daughter.

Her focus this week is acing her English paper thats due Friday.

Im in for some sleepless nights, she said.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9292 orstwall@scng.comTwitter: @pe_swall
BUSINESS GUIDE has gathered that West Africa Mills Company (WAMCO), a cocoa processing company located in Takoradi in the Western Region and its majority shareholder HOSTA, a German company, have taken legal action against the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), which is also a shareholder in the company.



The plaintiffs are seeking an order to compel COCOBOD to resume supply of cocoa beans to WAMCO to enable the latter resume operations, among other reliefs.



WAMCO said the unilateral suspension of supply of cocoa beans to WAMCO by COCOBOD is a breach of the Joint Venture Agreement existing between the parties.



The operations of the company have ceased for more than two and half years as a result of the alleged refusal by COCOBOD to supply it with cocoa beans to boost production.



The cocoa processing company has contributed immensely to Ghanas economy by adding value to the countrys agricultural products, employing hundreds of workers and earning foreign exchange for the country.



About 200 workers have been sent home and the huge investment made in the company is going waste.



Recently, there have been many negative publications against the company in a section of the media, which sought to suggest that WAMCO and its majority shareholder were engaged in some illegality in the running of the affairs of the company.



COCOBOD was also alleged to have issued various statements in the media ostensibly to endorse the negative publications.



However, the management and the majority shareholder of the WAMCO maintain that the company has been scandalized by the deliberate peddling of blatant falsehood against the plaintiffs.



According to the plaintiffs, The publications are mere fabrications or at best half-truths and are not only disappointing, but provocative, to say the least.



When BUSINESS GUIDE contacted Frank Bednar, Deputy Managing Director of the company, he confirmed that indeed WAMCO had taken legal action against COCOBOD.



He explained that over the past years COCOBOD had consistently failed, neglected and refused to meet its obligations under the existing joint-venture agreement.



He indicated that the company would collapse if the court does not compel COCOBOD to resume the supply of cocoa beans to the company to enhance production.

Source: Daily Guide









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President John Dramani Mahama has warned foreigners in the countrys cement industry against unfair trade practices.



The President disclosed this while speaking recently in Tema at the launch of the factory of CIMAF Cement, a Moroccan firm.



The 60 million cement factory, which will operate under the free zones board, has the capacity to produce one million tons of cement annually.



President Mahama bemoaned the unfair practices by some foreign companies in Ghana.



The Presidents warning comes on the back of complaints by local cement producers about unfair trade practices in the local cement industry by some foreign firms.



It would be recalled that the Association of Cement Manufacturers of Ghana have accused SOL Cement, Fujian, Dangote Cement and other cement importers of engaging in unfair trade practices to gain competitive advantage over the other counterparts.



For example, the local cement manufacturers, GHACEM and Diamond Cement, say the low prices of Dangote cement and others were adversely affecting their businesses.



Even though Dangote has since debunked the allegations, President Mahama believes foreign firms in the country ought to desist from any trade malpractices aimed at gaining undue advantage over their local counterparts.



He, however, gave the assurance the government would protect local companies.

Source: Daily Guide









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The CEO of Freddies Corner, Mr. Alfred Korlie Matey is appealing for funds to help graduands of the Hope Training Institute.



According to him the support will help them get tools to start putting into practice the skills they have acquired.



The granduands have gone through various vocational training and are ready to work but lack tools to work with.



Mr. Korlie Matey is therefore appealing and has shown commitment by donating GHc10,000 to the graduands.



Explaining further his call, he recalled his days on the street and stated it is not pleasant to be in the street hence the need to help the youth out of the street.



Last December, management and staff of Freddies corner donated over 50,000 Ghana cedis to 3 needy institutions; the Akropong School for the blind, Bawjiase Countryside Orphanage and the Hope Training Institute which is under Village of Hope.



This latest donation is a further push to support the training of students under the Hope Training Institute.



Donors can reach the institute on 020-8192645









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If youre a discerning foodie head to Japan as it's the worlds number one haute cuisine destination. Want to rub shoulders with billionaires? Then the UK should be on your bucket list. Keen to meet fellow whiskey drinkers? France is the stop for you.



A fascinating new global map has pinpointed what different countries in the world are the best at, according to statistics gathered from across the internet  ranging from sources such as the World Bank and Guinness World Records.



Read Full Story .... dailymail.co.uk >>> :

















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Ashanti Regional Police Commander has issued a stern warning to Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Boasiako to stop raising false alarm ahead of Wednesdays polls.



COP Nathan Kofi Boakye has also warned Antwi Boasiako against acts that have the tendency of heightening tension in the region.



The police chief adds, failure by the Chairman to adhere to the warnings will incur the police services wrath and will not hesitate to apply the laws on him vigorously.



"I will not hesitate to arrest and lock him up if he falls foul of the law after several false alarms that sought to incite the public especially members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) into violence, Kofi Boakye adds.



At a press conference earlier today on the intercepted thumb printed ballot papers, the police Commissioner questioned why the NPP chairman would call on his supporters to mass up at the police headquarters on a matter that was under investigation, indicating that this is not the first time he has conducted himself in that manner.



The criminal laws are still working, and you have no right to go into a private property to inspect for weapons. That is not your duty. If you suspect anything, report to the police who are the mandated establishment in the Constitution to engage in such issues, he advised.



His outburst follows two panic incidents reported by the NPP regional chairman which turned out to be hoaxes in three days.



First was allegations that they had a tip-off that some unknown persons were hoarding arms and ammunitions to torment voters in the partys stronghold but when he [Wontumi] led a police vehicle filled with armed officers to the alleged location, nothing was uncovered.



On Monday, he was again reported to have informed the police of thugs in a room at Madison Hotel near Aboude Restaurant at TUC allegedly thumb printing ballot papers for President Mahama which also turned out to be untrue.

Source: abusuafmonline









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This has been a blockbuster year for federal regulators investigating bribery in the pharmaceutical industry. And analysts say the charges will keep coming.

This has been a blockbuster year for federal regulators investigating bribery in the pharmaceutical industry.

Three of the worlds biggest drug companies, along with two smaller companies, agreed to pay a collective $63 million this year to settle allegations that they violated the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing doctors and government officials to promote their medicines overseas.

Thats a huge jump in activity: In the entire last decade, just five drug makers settled claims under the foreign bribery act, federal data show.

And more big penalties are likely on the horizon. Last month, Teva Pharmaceutical set aside a whopping $520 million to settle allegations that it used corrupt marketing and sales practices in Russia, Mexico and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Novartis is under investigation for paying bribes in Korea.

The allegations detail brazen behavior by managers and sales reps, most often in China and Russia. Among the ploys detailed in court documents: Paying doctors for phony speaking engagements, sending spouses of health care professionals on overseas vacations, and picking up their tabs at strip clubs  all in an effort to boost prescription drug sales.

Read more: Novartis offices in South Korea raided over bribery concerns

In most cases, the activities date back several years and the companies havent admitted wrongdoing. They say they have tightened internal controls to avoid future problems  although an executive at one global drug maker, who asked not to be named, acknowledged that lapses still exist.

Indeed, the market for medicines in many developing countries is so hot  and corruption is so pervasive  that experts say they expect more enforcement action in the coming year by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has the power to go after any drug maker that sells securities in the United States, regardless of where theyre headquartered.

Essentially, lesser-developed nations are like the Wild West, said Dr. Sammy Almashat, a research associate at Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group, who has studied fraudulent behavior by the pharmaceutical industry.

Story continues

A crackdown in China

Stung by that reputation, China has tried to crack down on corruption in the pharma industry in recent years. It sought in particular to make an example out of GlaxoSmithKline, the huge UK-based drug company. The Chinese government arrested several Glaxo employees and two private investigators the company had hired to look into corruption allegations. And in September 2014, it assessed record penalties of nearly $500 million.

But those who have seen up close how the drug industry operates in China are not convinced that its been cleaned up.

Its hard to find any industry or even a company in China where there is no fraud or corruption. Any company in China that tells you they dont have those issues is lying, said Peter Humphrey, one of the private investigators who got tangled up with Glaxo case. He and his wife, who worked with him, each spent about two years in a Chinese prison before their release last year.

Read more: Glaxo probing bribery accusations in Yemen

Humphrey said Glaxos practices, which allegedly involved bribing doctors and local regulators to boost sales of its medicines, has become widespread in China.

I would expect a number of pharma companies to be engaged in the same practices and on the same scale, he said.

And even if Beijings anti-corruption crusade has prompted some companies to clean up their acts in China, there are still ample temptations to break the rules in developing nations around the world. Many smaller countries wont or cant crack down, Almashat said. And these places are way too lucrative for bribery not to happen.

Its unclear how much emphasis the Trump administration will put on prosecuting companies for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But experts say drug makers should be prepared for ongoing scrutiny.

I think the pace is going to continue, even with a new administration, said Michael Burke, a partner at the Arnall Golden Gregory law firm who handles cases involving international business and government probes. In general, this has been a period of heightened enforcement. Ten or 15 years ago, you saw very few settlements. Now, theres one every few months.

A close eye on pharma

The Securities and Exchange Commission last year signaled that it was focusing heavily on the pharma industry. In a speech at an industry conference, Andrew Ceresney, who heads the enforcement division, noted that drug makers are at high risk for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, since their employees have regular contact with doctors and administrators who work in state-owned health systems.

Read more: Novartis execs in Korea are indicted for bribing doctors

International bribery has many nefarious impacts, including sapping investor confidence in the legitimacy of a companys performance, undermining the accuracy of a companys books and records and the fairness of the competitive marketplace, Ceresney said at the conference in March 2015. He added that the pharma industry is one on which we have been particularly focused in recent years.

Here are some of the recent settlements:

GlaxoSmithKline this fall agreed to pay a $20 million penalty in the US for bribing doctors and hospital officials in China. The drug maker allegedly used various schemes to boost prescriptions, including giving gifts, cash, and shopping excursions and subsidizing travel. The costs associated with these payments were recorded as legitimate business expenses. The company did not admit wrongdoing.

In August, AstraZeneca paid a $5 million fine to settle charges that it operated a similar bribery scheme. One method allegedly used to funnel bribes involved creating bank accounts in the names of various doctors. Another involved paying doctors for speaking engagements that never actually existed. Much of this was documented in ledgers kept by employees. The company did not admit wrongdoing.

Novartis paid $35 million last March to settle charges that its employees engaged in pay-to-prescribe schemes. In one particularly egregious case, a Novartis unit brought 20 Chinese health care professionals to a medical conference in Chicago in 2009  and then proceeded to take them on a sightseeing trip to Niagara Falls and cover their charges at strip clubs. The company did not admit wrongdoing.

In some cases, pharma companies failed to investigate corruption even when employees raised concerns. Take Bristol-Myers Squibb: In November 2010, several of its former employees in China sent e-mails to a top executive to complain they had little choice but to submit falsified expense reports.

They explained that they needed money to bribe doctors in order to ensure more prescriptions would be written for Bristol-Myers medicines. Without the extra funds, they wrote, they could not meet their sales targets and keep their jobs.

Moreover, they maintained this practice was an open secret among companies doing business in China, according to court documents. Bristol-Myers failed to investigate the claims. In October 2015, the company agreed to pay $14 million to settle charges it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, although did not admit guilt or wrongdoing.

Of course, such fines are relatively small amounts for global companies that generate billions of dollars in sales.

To some, this might suggest the fines are simply a cost of doing business. But increased scrutiny by US authorities may take a toll, especially after the Department of Justice last year issued a memo that serves as a blueprint for pursuing high-ranking executives and holding them accountable.

I think that can have an impact on corporate thinking, said Burke. The idea that companies that violate the FCPA have to disclose the names of individuals should be a serious deterrent.

Reporter Kathleen McLaughlin contributed to this report from Beijing.
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who spoke in Lagos on Monday, explained that the funeral is not to mourn with the citizens of the US over their choice of president but to mourn the death of Nigerias common sense.



Our common sense is totally lost. I am embarrassed sometimes that I occupy the same nation space with some people, he said. He also said Nigerians did not have the right to query his personal decision to tear his US green card.







Source: Punch Newspaper









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The Commonwealth Observer group has urged Ghanaians to repeat another democratic feat in organising free and fair elections that have made it an inspirational example in the Commonwealth.



Head of the international observer group and former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki told the media that after six successful elections, there is considerable confidence within the commonwealth that the seventh attempt will be peaceful. Ghanaians go to the polls in 48 hours to elect a president and 275 parliamentarians.



The stakes are high between the governing NDC and main opposition NPP. A win for the governing NDC will be a record 12 years in government and a record 12 years in opposition for the NPP.



A win for NPP's Nana Akufo-Addo will end a third consecutive defeat and make him Ghana's oldest President at 72. A loss for John Mahama will make him a record one-term president.



After the 2012 presidential results ended in court in 2013, the Supreme Court gave a judgment that has sent signals to political parties that elections are won at the polling stations and not in court.



The NPP and the NDC are therefore poised to monitor the ballot with a sense of heightened vigilance which has increased the tension.



Speaking at a media interaction, the head of the Commonwealth Observer Mission stressed that Ghana is a "valued member" of the group of former British colonies because of its enviable track record in holding elections.



The Commonwealth has "experienced great pride and encouragement at all times when Ghana has made progress", Thabo Mbeki said.



The observer mission wants Ghanaians to inspire other sister countries by keeping the peace, before, during and after the general elections.





With "great humility", Thabo Mbeki called on Ghanaians to respect the Accra Declaration signed last Thursday in which seven presidential candidates pledged to keep the peace. He said, "if any disputes should arise, it should be settled peacefully through the courts".



"No other option exists for the resolution of electoral disputes except the courts," he urged.



Ghana must once again inspire Commonwealth by holding credible elections, on December 7, he noted.



He urged that Ghanaians must work to ensure that the country remains true to maintaining peace and stability.



The former South African president applauded the signing of the Accra Peace Declaration by the political parties last week as a bold example that others countries must emulate.



Mr Mbeki further admonished that Ghanaians must respect what the parties have signed at the Accra declaration and added that, if there is any dispute after the elections, it must be settled in the court.



He cautioned political parties to respect the results that will be declared by the Electoral Commission (EC) after the election, stressing that the voice of the people is the voice of God.







Source: JFM Ghana









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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it has intercepted a leaked recording that proves that some leading members of the New Patriotic Partys (NPP), including Mike Oquaye, attempted to connive with some Election officers to rig the upcoming polls.



The party at a media briefing on Monday said it will report the matter to the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to take swift action.



With barely 48-hours to Ghanas general elections, both the NPP and the NDC have been engaged in accusations and counter accusations over plans to rig the general elections.



The NPP had earlier on Monday said it had discovered several ballots thumb-printed for President Mahama in a guest house in the Ashanti Regional capital.



But according to the National Organizer of the NDC, Kofi Adams who addressed the press on Monday said the party has compelling evidence to prove the NPP has plans of rigging the elections.



He said the NPP wants to undermine the electoral process with its negative schemes.

Source: Citifmonline









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The Flag Bearer of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Madam Akua Donkor, has petitioned the government to make Wednesday, December 7, 2016, the day Ghanaians will go to the polls, a holiday.



She explained that the move would enable more Ghanaians, especially formal employees and students, to cast their votes since they would not have to go to work or school.



At a press conference in Accra, Madam Akua Donkor said failure to declare the Election Day a holiday would disenfranchise a number of electorates and prevent them from performing their civic responsibility.



The Minister of the Interior, Prosper Douglas Bani, had earlier announced that the Election Day would not be a holiday.



A subsequent notice by the Ghana Education Service to educational institutions affirmed the ministers statement.



Support



Madam Akua Donkor has, however, declared her support for the incumbent president and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).



Although she described her disqualification as unfortunate, she said she would not waste her vote and that of her numerous supporters.



I pledge my unflinching support for President Mahama and the NDC. I urge all Ghanaians to vote massively for him and his government on December 7 to enable him to usher in more development projects and programmes, she said.



She urged the electorate to take into consideration the numerous infrastructure developments which had been undertaken by the current government.



Enumerating some of the development projects, she named construction of school blocks across the country, hospitals, roads among many others.



Detractors



She blamed some officials of the EC and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for masterminding her disqualification from the presidential race.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Amy Schumer fans were *not* laughing when she abruptly canned her planned arena tour of Australia and New Zealand just days before it was due to start, citing illness.

And it was a big ol spoonful of salt to the wound when Live Nation issued a statement confirming that, due to her chockas workload, the shows wouldnt be rescheduled any time soon.

Unfortunately, due to Amy Schumers tight schedule it is not possible to schedule replacement dates however, we will be working to confirm a return to Australia as soon as is practical.

But find solace, chuckleheads, in Schumers personal assurance that shell be heading back our way as soon as her health improves  though she still wont provide any sort of concrete timeline.

Posting her first comment on the tour cancellation to Instagram, she wrote:

I am so sorry I am not well enough to make it there right now. I am going to get healthy and come as soon as I can.

She even threw in a little bit of flattery, because she knows the only way to placate thousands of pissed fans is to stroke their collective ego.

The people are the coolest and the meat pies are the hottest.

Australia! I am so sorry I am not well enough to make it there right now. I am going to get healthy and come as soon as I can. I love it there so much. The people are the coolest and the meat pies are the hottest. See you ASAP! A photo posted by @amyschumer on Dec 5, 2016 at 4:19pm PST

SPOSE we forgive you.

Source and photo: Instagram / Amy Schumer.
The brother of murdered Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch has been formally charged with her murder, the final step before a trial begins in the high-profile case.

Waseen Baloch publicly confessed to strangling his 26-year-old sister shortly after his arrest in July, for bringing dishonour to the family. Yes of course, I strangled her. I am not ashamed. We are Baloch and as Baloch we cannot tolerate this, he said at a press conference.

Police investigator Atiya Jafri told the BBC that the siblings cousin Haq Nawaz has also been charged with murder, while two other men  including a taxi driver  have been charged with conspiracy to murder and facilitation.

Qandeel, who was found dead in her family home in Multan on July 16 this year, was a household name in Pakistan for posting sometimes risque photos on social media, and was a fierce advocate for intersectional feminism and female independence.

She was obviously a polarising figure in Pakistan, where about a 1000 people, mostly woman, die every year in so-called honour killings. The perpetrators often walk free because they can seek forgiveness for the crime from another family member.

Her parents have spoken about their pain over their sons crime. He killed my daughter after being taunted by his friends, her mother Anwar Wai said through tears while speaking to AFP earlier this year. They would infuriate him and tell him she is bringing you dishonour.

Pakistans justice minister announce a bill aimed at tackling honour killings and boosting rape convictions earlier this year.

The hearing as been adjourned until December 8.

Source: BBC.

Photo: Supplied.
British actor Peter Vaughan, best known for playing Maester Aemon in the insanely popular TV series Game of Thrones, has died aged 93.

Though he was familiar to British television viewers thanks to a number of roles including Harry Grout in 1970s prison sitcom Porridge, it was appearing in the first five seasons of Game of Thrones that exposed him to a far wider audience.

Its been an absolute privilege to have worked on it for the past five years at my time of life because its absolutely first-class, he told the Sunday Post earlier this year.

Vaughans agent Sally Long-Innes said he died on Tuesday surrounded by his family. This is to confirm that very sadly Peter Vaughan passed away at approximately 10.30 this morning, she said in a statement.

He died peacefully with his family around him.

Source: News.com.au.

Photo: Game of Thrones.
The 24-year-old man killed by a lightning strike at the summit Mount Warning has been revealed as American tourist Sam Beattie, who was travelling Australia with his girlfriend.

Beattie, who arrived in Australia from New York in October with his girlfriend Michele Segalla, had been planning to travel across Australia for a year in a campervan.

Beattie and Segalla pitched their tent atop the summit of Mount Warning, which is just south of the NSW-Queensland border. It is not advised that people approach the summit during a storm, and camping is prohibited on the summit  though it is a popular place to watch the sunrise.

The couple had pitched their tent below a tree on the summit, which was struck by lightning in the early hours of the morning on Tuesday. Beattie was killed instantly due to the fact his feet were resting on the tree, and Segalla suffered minor injuries to her head and neck.

A group of hikers who arrived on the mountains summit early in the morning report that they found Segalla crying in her tent next to Beatties body.

Tweed-Byron Local Area Commander Wayne Starling said the hikers tried to resuscitate Beattie, but to no avail. He said he passed no judgement on the couple for camping on the summit regardless of the prohibition:

Its very, very unusual for something like this to happen  so Im not judgmental of the people in any way whatsoever. These things just happen, sadly its a part of life. The weather just had a traumatic effect on many peoples lives. I cant judge. People do what they do, you know. Its just a tragedy. Regardless of whether they should be there or not, its just a tragedy to lose a life.

Emergency services treated Segalla at the scene for her head and neck injuries. As a helicopter could not land on the summit of Mount Warning, Beatties body was retrieved and brought down from the mountain on a stretcher.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: Facebook.
Let it be known that young political staffers, even in the era of post-truth and anti-politics, still have it in them for an old-fashioned biffo / brouhaha / fracas.

Three member of the Nationals  including the chair of the NSW Young Nationals  have had to fork out for repairs after they went on a mini office rampage following the partys shock loss to the Shooters, Fishers & Farmers Party at the Orange by-election last month.

NSW Young Nationals chair Jess Price-Purnell, state community engagement officer Alana Black and staffer Anna OBrien have been forced to pay up $400 and attend counselling after trashing the office and  somehow  putting a hole in the wall.

They were junior staff members who had worked their guts for what was a pretty disappointing outcome, said NSW Nationals State Director Nathan Quigley said. The damage has been paid for (by the women) and counselling has been made available.

Look, I empathise. The Nats had held Orange since the end of World War II, and losing it to the certified maniacs in the Shooters must have stung. Weve all flipped a desk and kicked a hole in a wall in our time. Bless.

Source: The Australian.

Photo: Facebook.
With the days ticking down to Donald Trumps inauguration on January 20th and thus his official confirmation as the 45th President of the United States, the DNC is already trying to figure out just what in the blue hell to do with its next four years.

If youre Joe Biden youd be absolutely forgiven if youve settled on fuck everything else off and go sip gin on the beach as the primary option for the post-Obama years.

But as the Democrats scramble to figure out a) what the shit just happened, and b) what exactly this middle America is that everyone keeps yammering on about, a candidate for the 2020 US Presidential election might have already put their hand up.

And folks, its Grandpa Joe.

The soon-to-be former Vice President (*SOBS*) and Barrys BFF paid a visit to the US Senate earlier today, where he casually let slip to media that hes kinda, sorta, possibly, maybe, probably thinking about throwing his hat in the ring to contest the 2020 Democratic nomination.

A half-joking exchange quickly turned into this could actually be happening when Biden spoke with waiting press outside the Senate chamber.

Biden on 2020: Im not committing not to run. Im not committed to anything  fate has a strange way of intervening. (via @KellyO) pic.twitter.com/ROKhDWij6j  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) December 5, 2016

For President. And also, what the hell man, anyway.

My godd.

The far-more-serious little titbit at the end of the chat with press is what should really get your blue-blood running.

Im not committing to not to run. Im not committed to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening.

Obviously theres a few hurdles standing in the way of a potential Biden run at the Presidency. 4 years is a hell of a long time in politics, particularly in the modern world. And the Democrats might find that the best option to actually defeat Trump might be someone who runs against the establishment themselves. Fight fire with fire, and all that.

Also theres the tiny little problem of the fact that Biden, if elected, would be a whopping 78 years old by the time he took office.

Not only would he supersede Trump as the oldest person ever elected President by a staggering 8 whole years, hed be three full years older than Bernie Sanders was in even attempting to run for President.

So while having the most Grandaddy US President of all time might seem like a nice idea in theory, for the time being its probably better to stick to those utterly fucking wonderful Barack/Joe memes.

You can dream, though. You can always dream.

Source: Refinery29.

Photo: POTUS/Twitter.
Ok, so you definitely dont need a reminder about the cesspool year that continues to be 2016, but you certainly, hundo-percent need to watch these puppers graduate from Guide Dog school.

Held earlier today in Sydneys Martin Place, the graduation ceremony for the next crop of gloriously talented, dutiful doggos also featured a showcase of the wonderful work that Guide Dogs NSW/ACT do on the reg, such as puppy school (!!!!), next-lev obedience training and a demonstration of just how much they improve the lives of Aussies with vision-impairment.

WERE NOT CRYING YOU ARE!

P.TVs Mitch was on the scene to cuddle puppers, help out with some training and gain some insight on the fricken amazing work of the pooches and their trainers and captured it all in this Snapchat video for your squeeing pleasure:

Add us on the Snaps for more exclusive goodies on the reg. (Username: PEDESTRIAN.TV)

For more on the legends at Guide Dogs NSW/ACT and to get involved yourself head to their website here.
Former Aussie of the Year and recent backer of the One Nation party, Dick Smith, appeared on The Project tonight to attempt to justify his reasons for supporting our answer to Donald Trump, Pauline Hanson.

Smith chatted with Waleed Aly to clarify a few key facts. He emphasised that he does not support Hansons stance on Muslims:

I know lots of Muslims, and 99 percent are typical Aussies, and I dont think they should be blamed for the one percent.

Considering Hansons xenophobic stance on Muslims is arguably the cornerstone of her politics, Aly validly asked whether this pitted Smith against other One Nation voters. Smith then went on to confirm that he strongly supports the thought that Australian immigration should be reduced to 70,000 people.

We need to stop expanding our population, Smith said.

He also confirmed that hes never actually met Satan Hanson, and that he does not support all of her values, saying I just happen to agree with this policy that you cant have perpetual growth.

Overlooking a partys inherent racist values because of one teeny policy? Pretty bloody bananas, if you ask me. And let us remember that Smith is not a keen political commentator. Hes a man who makes shitty biscuits.

Old mate Dick is pretty confident Hanson is on the up and up, predicting she is going to be very popular, thanks to people getting fed up with political correctness of the normal politician.

Hopefully hes wrong, but with the way things are going (see: US election), who the hell knows.

Scary stuff. Check out the light grilling of Smith below:

Dick Smith throwing his weight behind Pauline Hanson. Dick speaks to #TheProjectTV https://t.co/2jAReUG3lm  #TheProjectTV (@theprojecttv) December 6, 2016

Source: The Project / Channel 10.

Photo: Channel 10.
A Sonic Drive-In in North Londonderry Township, Lebanon County, has closed, according to the Lebanon Daily News.

The restaurant had operated at 81 N. Londonderry Square.

A Sonic spokesman told the newspaper the restaurant has officially closed.

"We have recently closed this location and currently have no definitive plans to reopen," Drew Ritger, senior vice president of development at Sonic, told Lebanon Daily News. "It has been our privilege to serve the Palmyra community, and we would like to thank all of our fans and guests."

The fast food chain specializes in burgers and a lengthy menu of beverages.
FILE - In this Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump, left, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence acknowledge the crowd during the first stop of his post-election tour, in Cincinnati. The Heritage Foundation says Pence will deliver a speech Tuesday night, Dec. 6, 2016, to a conservative group at TrumpAos new hotel in Washington, about areas of focus for the Trump administration in the first 200 days. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2013 file photo, a man passes by the Samsung Electronics Co. logos at its headquarters in Seoul, South Korea. A unanimous Supreme Court on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, sided with smartphone maker Samsung in its high-profile patent dispute with Apple over design of the iPhone. The justices said Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features at issue are only a tiny part of the devices. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
The dance floor was a popular spot at an Indo-Canadian fundraiser for the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundations campaign to provide medical equipment for the Penticton Regional Hospital expansion. The dinner and dance generated $13,000  part of over $350,000 the South Okanagans Indo-Canadian community has already raised for PRH.
A marijuana joint is rolled Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in San Francisco. The Canadian Paediatric Society is urging the federal government to take steps to protect children and youth should it follow through on its plan to legalize recreational marijuana next year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP,Marcio Jose Sanchez
Amoxicillin shortage in Michigan: What parents should know

Many Michigan pharmacy shelves are bare of amoxicillin oral powder for suspension, dispensed in liquid form most often to children, amid an RSV surge.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2016 / CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSX-V: CVV) (OTCQB: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N), ("CanAlaska" or the "Company") is pleased to report the start of ground surveys in preparation for a further drill program on CanAlaska's Moon South claim in the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan. Exploration is being conducted by Denison Mines Corp. (TSX: DML) (NYSE MKT: DNN ), ("Denison") ahead of proposed drilling in summer.

The current target on the Moon South property is underlain by 450 metres to 550 metres of Manitou Falls and Read formation sandstones. These in turn overlie granitic gneisses of probable Archean age and Paleoproterozoic Wollaston Super group metasedimentary rocks of the eastern Mudjatik Domain. The main conductive trend on the property is the southwest-northeast trending CR-3 conductor where previous drilling has intersected strong sandstone/basement alteration and elevated radioactivity at the unconformity.

In the first drill hole (MS-16-01) completed on the property, the lower 50 metres of the sandstone was moderately altered and structurally disrupted with pyrite nodules up to 4 centimetres in size. Directly above the unconformity there was 0.5 metres of 0.102% U 3 O 8 followed by a graphitic unit below the unconformity.

To view an enhanced version, please visit [https://www.accesswire.com/uploads/can12516.jpg]

The CR-3 conductor is a southwest-northeast trending conductor that is currently under evaluation at Denison's adjacent Crawford Lake property. The CR-3 is interpreted to be a parallel trend to the K-Zone (Gryphon) on Denison's Wheeler River Project. The portion of the CR-3 conductor on the Moon South property has five kilometres of untested strike length. One hole is proposed along strike of MS-16-01 following the current resistivity survey.

To view an enhanced version, please visit: [https://www.accesswire.com/uploads/canb12516jpg.jpg]

CanAlaska Management is very pleased with Denison's interpretation of the geology, and the good indications for a significant target within this south-eastern area of the Athabasca Basin. The current successes by Denison at the nearby Gryphon and Phoenix discoveries show the significant potential for high grade uranium discoveries in this area.

Story continues

Under the terms of the option, Denison will carry out $200,000 of exploration work on the claim over two years to acquire a 51% interest. CanAlaska has also granted to Denison the right to increase its interest in the claim to 75% for further $500,000 in expenditures. The claim currently has a royalty payable to Denison. The option agreement includes provisions for the formation of a joint venture and a 2% NSR Royalty which will be automatically granted if either party's interest is decreased below 10% ("NSR Dilution Royalty"). The NSR Dilution Royalty may be purchased by the non-diluting party for $500,000.

In other matters the Company is waiting for final 2017 program details from De Beers and Cameco.

About CanAlaska Uranium

CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSX-V: CVV) (OTCQB: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N) holds interests in approximately 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres), one of the largest land positions in Canada's Athabasca Basin region  the "Saudi Arabia of Uranium." CanAlaska's strategic holdings has attracted major international mining companies Cameco, Denison, KORES, KEPCO, and the De Beers Group of Companies. CanAlaska is a project generator and is positioned for discovery success in the world's richest uranium district. For further information visit www.canalaska.com.

The qualified technical person for this news release is Dr Karl Schimann, P. Geo, VP Exploration, for CanAlaska.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"Peter Dasler"

Peter Dasler, M.Sc., P.Geo.

President & CEO

CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.

Contacts:

Peter Dasler

President

Tel: +1.604.688.3211 x 138

Email: info@canalaska.com

John Gomez

Corporate Development

Tel: +1.604.484.7118

Email: jgomez@canalaska.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking information

All statements included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions made by the Company based on its experience, perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances. In addition, these statements involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will prove inaccurate, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to revise or update these forward-looking statements after the date hereof or revise them to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events.

SOURCE: CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.
This time, the "get tough on China" talk could be more than empty rhetoric  and leaders in Beijing may even recognize some of the tactics Donald Trump plans to use against them.

The president-elect is showing a willingness to try to shape U.S. trade with China in ways that are politically more direct than previous administrations have been willing to discuss. On Sunday, he threatened  again  to use steep, blanket tariffs to stem imports into the United States.

He has repeatedly declared that exports should be a priority for U.S.-based companies, and has promised a tax structure that will help make them happen.

His willingness to wield political influence over business matters isn't limited to trade. Over the last week, Trump has shown he isn't afraid to lean directly on U.S. companies that aren't behaving as he wants. On Tuesday morning, he used Twitter to pressure Boeing to charge less for a new Air Force One . On Friday, he promised "retribution" against firms that fire employees or build factories overseas.



"I was in Beijing a week ago, and at one point I said to an audience of government officials, it's going to be very interesting for you to work with an American leader who admires a lot of what you guys do," said Ian Bremmer, a closely watched political scientist and founder of consulting firm Eurasia Group. When the officials showed surprise at Bremmer's remark, he explained what he meant: "When you say, 'Jump' to a company, they ask, 'How high?' Trump would love that."

Representatives from the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to emails from CNBC requesting comment.





Neither Bremmer nor anyone else expects the U.S. economy to start mimicking China, where 20 to 25 percent of GDP comes from state-controlled companies whose primary purpose isn't even to make profits but to advance Beijing's political goals such as maintaining employment.

But "we're entering an era where I wouldn't be surprised to see the U.S. government being less shy about applying state power to achieve what it sees as the national interest," said John Minnich, senior Asia-Pacific analyst at consulting firm Stratfor.

Story continues

The dynamic between the two countries is changing. For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have said that the best way to encourage a more open China was for the U.S. to just keep trading with the country and drawing it into the global economy. The hope was that eventually, China's tremendous market would become as open to U.S. companies and investment as the U.S. is to Chinese imports and investment.



But that hasn't been happening, especially over the last few years.

"I think a lot of the long-standing assumptions have been undermined by what's happened in China. They're not becoming more liberal," said Robert Manning, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. In fact, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who took power in 2012, has rolled back many of the trade and currency reforms that his predecessor began.

Trump showed that American workers have lost their patience with China, if they ever had it. Trump appealed to voters in struggling manufacturing regions largely by saying he would impose restrictions on imports from China, especially in the form of tariffs .

"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing," Trump told excited crowds at an Indiana rally in June, referring to the trade deficit with China. Such language was the norm for then-candidate Trump, who has said repeatedly that Beijing's heavy state influence on its economy is "killing" the United States.

Trump certainly is not the only person suggesting creative ways to counter China's unfair trade practices. A June paper from the nonpartisan American Security Project, for instance, suggested using U.S. antitrust law to level the playing field against China's biggest industries, which are part of a "single country-wide State syndicate."



"There's definitely this idea that state capitalism in China gives them a negotiating advantage" on trade matters, Bremmer said. "When the United States tries to negotiate, they get undercut by companies that are inherently unpatriotic, because of their fiduciary responsibilities" to investors. "And Trump wants to change that."





But Bremmer and others who spoke with CNBC argued that Trump has only so much power to restructure how global trade works. First off, Trump is likely to run into congressional resistance  from the GOP at least as much as Democrats  if he makes it harder for companies to operate overseas or otherwise seems to direct their behavior.

"The power of the American president is not absolute. There's a serious amount of pushback that he will get from important people, including from some people he's appointed to posts," Bremmer said.

Moreover, manufacturing now accounts for about 15 percent of U.S. GDP, which "is the highest it's been in 20 years at least," according to Manning. The real threat to American workers is not cheap labor in China, he said, but rising automation from technology, which increasingly will threaten not just factory workers but others such as automobile drivers , warehouse employees and retail workers .

"We may expand manufacturing, and we ought to, but it won't bring back the jobs that they're talking about," Manning said. "We're having the wrong debate. The debate needs to be, 'How do you prepare the workforce for 21st-century jobs?'"





More From CNBC


Stanley MiniVenture The Miniature Town in Bangkok

This is the latest attraction in Bangkok, Stanley MiniVenture. Located on the second floor of Getaway Ekamai Shopping Mall, the miniature town spans over 1,000 sqm. It is Thailands first 1:87-scale miniature town and the largest in Asia!

You get so everything in mini sizes, the town and the people. Travel to the European towns in mini sizes and get your cameras ready for lots of fun snapping session.

The Stanley MiniVenture comes with 11 theme zones which includes dessert, beach, cave, residential, historial places and airport. There will be a Thai zone featuring mini Chinatwon and mini Victory Monument.

We believe this is a fun place to visit and for those who are not familiar with Getaway Ekamai Shopping Mall, it is dubbed as the Japanese mall of Bangkok. You can find many Japanese influenced fashion and items here at Getaway Ekamai Shopping Mall. The mall is connected the BTS Ekamai Station. It is time to visit Stanley Miniventure as it will open this Wednesday at 3pm (7/12/2016). For more info, visit theri Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/StanleyMiniVenture/

Stanley MiniVenture Opening Hours and Details:

Opening Hours: 12.15pm to 8 pm

Ticket Prices: THB 650 (Adult), THB 450 (Children) 80 cm  130 cm

Stanley MiniVenture Address:

2nd Floor, Getaway Ekamai Shopping Mall

Bangkok

Wilson Ng A Father and traveler who enjoys to eat, shop, travel and taking pictures with Samsung S22 Ultra and Sony ZV-1. Im a full time blogger, youtuber and father for two. I used to travel around 17 International trips per year but now staying at home. Remember to follow us at www.instagram.com/placesandfoods and www.youtube.com/placesandfoods. For advertisements or features, contact me at [email protected] See author's posts
Top Three Sunset Spots in Darwin

What is your first impression of Darwin? Crocodiles and National Parks? Oh well, Darwin has more to offer than that. Darwin is a city in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is one of the closest city to Indonesia with the climate and temperature similar to Malaysia.

Darwin might not be the most exciting city in Australia but it has its own hidden gems. There are plenty of good food, things to do in the city as well as places to chill in the evening. Thus, when it comes to sunset, we found three romantic sunset spots in Darwin. Lets check it out one by one.

1.Sunset at Cape Adieu

To capture the most romantic sunset at Cape Adieu, you have to experience the Cape Adieu Harbour Cruise. Hop on to the cruise and it comes with spacious seating for 50 guests with 3 decks and dinner.

You begin the cruise with your love one with a selection of chef prepared dips and for dinner you get the fresh local produce and also freshes wild caught seafood including banana prawns, their signature smoked Spanish Mackarel and freshly shucked Coffin Bay oysters, Scotch fillet steaks, local fish of the day, fresh salads and crusty breads.

The sunset view is magical and no matter how many times you view the sun sets, it is still beautiful. With the soft music in the background, the cruise circled Cape Adieu slowly and it concludes the cruise with espresso coffee, brewed tea and a delicious dessert.

This cruise is a must for couples and we recommend you to book in advance. This is quite a popular cruise. For more information on dates and rates, please visit their website at http://www.capeadieu.com.au/

2.Dudley Point at East Point Reserve Sunset view

Dudley Point at East Point Reserve is located slightly away from the city centre. It is a hot spot for locals and it is also a popular tourist destination. If you joined the daily tour or excursion, you will probably end up here or Mindil Beach for sunset views. Mindil Beach is on our list too.

The beauty of sunset in Dudley Point is it is uninterrupted (nothing in between from the viewpoint to the sea) and you can check out the beauty of Fannie Bay too.

Dudley Point is located along Alec Foong Lim Drive. You can self drive to here if you renting a car or take a taxi.

Dudley Point at East Point Reserve Sunset GPS Coordinate:

GPS Coordinate: -12.414673, 130.818066

3.Mindil Beach Sunset Market

Sunset at Mindil Beach is different than the rest. On Thursdays and Sundays, there is a sunset market next to the beach. It is similar to Asian type of night market. The food trucks and food stalls dominate this market with many unique and different types of food and there are also other stalls such as fashion, clothes, accessories as well as souvenirs. Most of the visitors here are locals. There are policeman and tourist information counter during the Mindil Beach Sunset Market.

For the sunset, you can see dozens of people on the Mindil Beach. Watching sunset here is magical and especially getting the breeze from the wind from the sea.

You can come here for the sunset and the night market (on Thursdays and Sundays). Expect to spend at least an hour or two when you visit Mindil Beach Sunset Market. For more info, visit their website: http://www.mindil.com.au/

This is one of the key attractions in Darwin as there are plenty more of things to do here. Traveling in Darwin is fun in a way as it shows us a different side of Australia. Here, things are more laid back and you get to see a different landscape altogether. If you never visit Darwin before, you should make a trip down here.

Flying to Darwin

Fly direct from Kuala Lumpur to Darwin International Airport with Malaysia Airlines. It is a late night flight and you will reach Darwin early in the morning. Darwin International Airport runs 24 hours so some of the shops and restaurants are still open. Check out the latest deals and promotions from Malaysia Airlines at www.malaysiaairlines.com.my

This post is sponsored by Tourism Australia and Tourism Northern Territory Australia.

Wilson Ng A Father and traveler who enjoys to eat, shop, travel and taking pictures with Samsung S22 Ultra and Sony ZV-1. Im a full time blogger, youtuber and father for two. I used to travel around 17 International trips per year but now staying at home. Remember to follow us at www.instagram.com/placesandfoods and www.youtube.com/placesandfoods. For advertisements or features, contact me at [email protected] See author's posts
(Adds Ontario government response)

By Nicole Mordant

Dec 6 (Reuters) - An environmental group said on Tuesday it filed a lawsuit against De Beers Canada, accusing the diamond producer of failing to report toxic levels of mercury and methylmercury at its Victor diamond mine in northern Ontario.

The Wildlands League alleged that De Beers Canada failed to report mercury levels from five of nine surface water monitoring stations for the creeks next to its open pit mine between 2009 and 2016.

This was an offense under the Ontario Water Resources Act, the group said in a statement. It said it had alerted the province of Ontario and De Beers Canada to the failures more than 18 months ago.

The remote fly-in/fly-out Victor mine in the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario is about 90 km (56 miles) west of the Attawapiskat First Nation.

"After months and months of silence from Ontario, we felt we had no choice but to file charges," said Trevor Hesselink, Wildlands League's director of policy and research.

De Beers Canada said in a statement that while it could not comment specifically on the allegations while they were before the courts, the suggestions that its environmental reporting had not been appropriate for seven years were inaccurate.

"Our reporting requirements were expanded to a more robust and comprehensive program when the mine began operations in mid2008," the Calgary-based company said.

The miner also said that mercury was naturally occurring and had been present in the region long before mine construction. Mercury is not used in the mining process, it added.

Ontario's ministry of environment and climate change said it had previously "provided direction" to De Beers Canada regarding monitoring and reporting requirements at the mine.

"As a result, improvements were made to the 2016 reporting process," the ministry said in an emailed statement. It added that it has remained in close contact with De Beers to ensure the company follows all the conditions of its permits.

Story continues

Methylmercury is created when mercury, a metal that poses health risks, is dissolved in freshwater and seawater.

The Victor mine is set to close in 2018 unless De Beers Canada, a unit of global diamond producer De Beers, proceeds with an expansion.

De Beers is 85 percent owned by miner Anglo American Plc .

(Reporting by Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; Editing by Richard Chang and Dan Grebler)
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In an effort to stave off the threat that the incoming Trump administration poses to the rest of the world, the Obama administration on Monday released a memo that essentially lays out how and when to use military force.

The document serves as a guidebook for national security-related topics so that the incoming administration  led by the most unqualified person to hold the office  doesnt completely destroy the world.

According to the Washington Post:

On the eve of a new administration that has promised more aggressive counterterrorism operations, the Obama White House has released a lengthy compendium of its own policies governing the use of force.

The 61-page document outlines eight years of the administrations legal opinions, executive orders and military directives. In a strong defense of the administrations actions, it lists rules for lethal drones and terrorist detention, and describes the international and domestic law that undergirds them.

Such rules are important to reduce the risk of an ill-considered decision, President Obama wrote in an introduction to the document. When making policy on war and peace, he wrote, it was critical to disclose as much information as possible to the public . . . so that an informed public can scrutinize our actions and hold us to account.

Even though President Obama will not be in the White House after Jan. 20, 2017, its clear he wants to hold the country  and world  together after hes gone, particularly given just how little the incoming president knows, and cares to know, about foreign policy and national security.

In fact, as the Washington Post noted, citing an official, this is the first time anything like this has been put together to help prepare an incoming administration for foreign policy matters.

Thats for good reason.

During the campaign, Trump has made a number of alarming comments on this subject, including promises to reinstate torture, kill innocent family members of terrorists, and support more countries having access to nuclear weapons. In a national security briefing earlier this year, Trump even asked several times why the United States couldnt use the nuclear weapons in our possession.

In an election season where Trump has proven himself  if he follows through on his foreign policy proposals  to be a clear and present danger to the country and the world, its smart of the Obama administration to take every possible precaution to prevent an all-out catastrophe under Trump.
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One of the key points of Republican Electoral College elector Christopher Supruns argument against Trump is that the president-elect refuses to acknowledge that Constitution forbids him from accepting payments and gifts from foreign governments, which could lead his impeachment.

Suprun explained why he wont be voting for Trump in The New York Times, but it was the point below that stuck out as a problem that will dog Trumps presidency:

Mr. Trump does not understand that the Constitution expressly forbids a president to receive payments or gifts from foreign governments. We have reports that Mr. Trumps organization has business dealings in Argentina, Bahrain, Taiwan and elsewhere. Mr. Trump could be impeached in his first year given his dismissive responses to financial conflicts of interest. He has played fast and loose with the law for years. He may have violated the Cuban embargo, and there are reports of improprieties involving his foundation and actions he took against minority tenants in New York. Mr. Trump still seems to think that pattern of behavior can continue.

The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscience can still do the right thing for the good of the country.

Suprun urged his fellow Republican electors to reject Trump, and instead cast their ballots for a person like Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.

The argument that Trump unqualified and unfit to be president have been made a million times over, but the argument that Donald Trump is corrupt that he could be impeached during his first year in office is devastating.

A member of Trumps own party is warning his fellow electors that if they elect Trump to occupy the White House, they will be risking an impeachment scandal. I cant recall another occasion when an Electoral College elector has suggested that the president-elect could face impeachment.

For those who have been paying attention to Trumps scandals Supruns warning is not far fetched. It wont be a surprise if Donald Trump runs a corrupt administration that comes to an end with his impeachment. If Trump goes down, he is likely to take Pence and the Republican majorities in Congress down with him.

Trump is a one man corruption scandal waiting to happen.

It is unlikely that electors will mass defect away from Trump, but once the scandals blossom, remember that voters were warned about Trump almost up until the minute that he took office.

There has never been a president-elect as ready made for impeachment as Donald Trump.
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After Republicans had announced that they were removing the Buy American amendment from the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), the three Democratic senators announced that they would be introducing the amendment back into the final version of the bill.

Sen. Baldwin said, By removing my Buy America standard, Speaker Ryan and House Republicans embraced the status-quo in Washington. Our American manufacturers and workers deserve a solid commitment from us and Im not giving up this fight to build a made in America infrastructure. The choice for the Republican establishment in Washington is clear: Do you stand with American workers or do you support spending taxpayer dollars on Chinese and Russian steel for American water infrastructure projects?

Donald Trump ran his presidential campaign on a promise to make America great again, but Republicans in Congress are trying to pass a bill that would allow government contractors who are taking US taxpayer money to use imported goods.

Sen. Brown added that Republicans are failing on Trumps promise to put America first, American tax dollars should go toward American-made steel that supports American jobs, and thats what we are fighting for. This was the first major test for President-elect Trumps promises to put America first and it failed because Washington establishment Republicans chose China and Russia over Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. While President-elect Trump remains silent, we will continue to fight for American jobs.

It isnt a coincidence that two of the three senators who are championing this amendment represent the recount states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Sen. Casey accused Republicans of blowing hot air towards American workers, Removing Buy America from this legislation will undermine our workers and make it harder for businesses who do want to create jobs at home. Congressional Republicans should stop blowing hot air about their claims to support workers and actually do something that will- reinsert Buy America into this bill.

Republicans and Trump opened this door with their big promises to American workers, and it is the Democrats who are holding GOP feet to the fire. If Republicans fail to deliver for US workers or continue to behave hypocritically, Democrats are going to be there to call them out on it.

Democrats can turn a source of angst about their status with white working class voters into a strength by holding Republicans accountable and actually fighting for what Trump was campaigning on. Republicans are telegraphing that Trumps campaign rhetoric was an empty promise, and they are setting a trap for the new president and Republican Congressional majority that could pay dividends in elections to come.
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A lawsuit by two Democratic electors is seeking to overturn state laws that bind Electoral College electors, and if successful, could open the door to the Electoral College rejecting Trump.

Politico obtained a copy of the federal lawsuit filing by Colorado Democratic electors Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich:

Plaintiffs are entitled to exercise their judgment and free will to vote for whomever they believe to be the most qualified and fit for the offices of President and Vice President, whether those candidates are Democrats, Republicans, or from a third party, they argue in a brief signed by Denver attorney Jason Wesoky.

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In their brief, Baca and Nemanich say Colorados statute violates multiple constitutional principles. The most basic is the Founders conception of the Electoral College itself, contained in Article II. Citing Alexander Hamiltons original description of the Electoral College, they note that the Founders intended it to act as a check on the popular will, to ensure the election of a qualified candidate. In fact, for the first century of Americas existence, most states didnt hold popular elections for president, and states simply appointed electors.

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Its difficult to imagine a more impermissible law than one that requires someone to vote for a specific candidate. The concept is antithetical to the notion of democracy, free speech, and the Electoral College, they write.

Could a lawsuit like this work? Could the Electoral College electors rebel? The answer to these questions is that no one is quite sure. The laws binding electors to the popular vote winner have never been challenged, so they have never had to be enforced. The lawsuit itself is a long shot, but if it were successful, it would give the electors the power to vote their conscience and break away from Trump.

The odds are slim that the plaintiffs will win their lawsuit, but the suit itself is proof that Trump opponents are pulling out all of the stops to keep him from the White House. There could be more drama than is usually associated with the Electoral College. It is important to be realistic, but from electors refusing to support Trump to lawsuits that are seeking to free up electors to make their own decisions, its clear that getting to the Electoral College vote is not going to be easy or smooth for Republicans.

The majority of America that voted against Donald Trump isnt going down without a fight.
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It took months to plan, but only moments for Donald Trump to possibly destroy decades of U.S.-Chinese relations with a phone call to Taiwan. Certainly, it sufficed to show China his petty side, one we Americans are already well familiar with.

Donald Trump claimed they called him, but in truth, as The Washington Post has revealed, according to people involved in or briefed on the talks the call was the product of months of quiet preparations and deliberations among Trumps advisers about a new strategy for engagement with Taiwan (emphasis added).

Those wondering why Trump was deliberately antagonizing China now know why. It is Trumps defense that defies comprehension, first the claim that The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you! And then tweeting,

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. doesnt tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? he asked. I dont think so!

China lodged a diplomatic protest at the call, and if it were just the call it would be bad enough. After all, Trump hasnt even taken office yet and already he has a Communist party controlled tabloid warning that Beijing must be ready to strike back against Trumps reckless tantrums.

An editorial in that tabloid, the Global Times, expressed dismay over this Trump tweet, saying,



It is uncertain whether Trump went up against China because he had been irritated by some chiding comments on his receiving a phone call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, or this was a shrewd step in a well-considered China policy. Anyhow, his response is unexpected.

The editorial further warned that Trumps China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it.

The Chinese say they have told Trumps team how they feel, something Trump, who more frequently invents encounters, will certainly deny if pressed. Officially, we are told by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang,

We will not speculate on what motivates President-elect Trump and his team into taking certain moves but we will surely make ourselves clear if what they say concerns China.

Kang also stressed the importance to both China and the U.S. of American policy toward China for the past four decades:

As we have been saying and as you all know, Taiwan-related issues remain the most significant and sensitive part in China-US relations. China-US relations have been moving forward for nearly 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties. The one-China policy and the basic principles embodied in the three joint communiques between China and the US remain a solid political premise of the sound and steady development of bilateral relations and mutually beneficial cooperation. China-US relations and mutually beneficial cooperation will embark on a brighter future only if the two countries hold fast to this political premise.

When the Global Times closes with the comment: China should brace itself for the possible fluctuations of the Sino-US relationship after Trump is sworn in. We must confront Trumps provocations head-on, and make sure he wont take advantage of China at the beginning of his tenure, we are quite possibly hearing the voice of the Communist party.

And we are certainly hearing high level disapproval when the Peoples Daily, the official paper of the Chinese Communist Party, calls Trumps moves petty and his phone call despicable, and warned that his unscrupulous actions have set off alarms for the development of bilateral ties.



Though petty moves can change nothing in the big picture of China-U.S. ties, a growing number of such moves can hinder the bilateral relationship in a major way. This is an issue that Trump and his transition team should take very seriously.

Taiwans position with China is a complicated issue which further complicates Taiwans standing with the United States and Chinas relations with the United States. Donald Trump infamously refuses to learn a single thing, and now is acting, if the metaphor can be forgiven, like the proverbial bull in the China shop.

Actual experts were beside themselves at Trumps behavior. The Atlantics James Fallows expressed this feeling perfectly with his tweeted, WHAT THE HELL????

Why would Trump do this? There are reports  reports Trumps organization denies  that the mogul has plans for a resort in Taiwan.

That would answer a lot of questions. It is easy to see his China gambit as an example of the conflicts of interest which exist behind his business goals and his responsibilities as President of the United States.

Would he really risk a break with China to make a buck? Trumps numerous other conflicts of interest do not fill observers with confidence. And the Chinese media is certainly right to mock Trump for running the country with Twitter.

After all, we do.

However you want to characterize Trumps behavior over the past few days, this is, in a deliberate understatement, not a good start.

Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republican of China
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After Donald Trump criticized Boeing and drove their stock price down, the American people need to ask if Trump is abusing his platform as president-elect for financial gain.

Back in 2013 Trump tweeted that he had bought Boeing stock:

.@Boeing stock went way down because of 787- so I just bought stock in @Boeing great company!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2013

Trump turned around and trashed Boeing on Tuesday morning:

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



Boeings stock price dropped.

Trumps transition team claimed that the president-elect sold all his stock in June:

.@JasonMillerinDC on call says Trump has sold all of his stocks "back in June." pic.twitter.com/kuNc9hFG0W  Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) December 6, 2016

Boeing issued a statement on Trumps tweet, We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States. We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer.

A president-elect who has properly sealed himself and his family off from potential conflicts of interest do not raise these sort of questions, but could Donald Trump be attacking companies like Boeing to lower the stock price, so that the company becomes a good investment for his family or other corporate interests? The answer that Trump sold all of his personal stock is narrow and insufficient, because the American people dont know the scope of the Trump family, the Trump Organization, and the president elects investments.

Would Trump have trashed Boeing if he still owned stock in the company?

These are the kinds of questions about the motives of a president-elect.

What is clear is that Trump is using his platform to interfere with the free market. Donald Trump is putting his thumb on capitalisms scale and picking winners and losers. The President-elect woke up this morning and decided that Boeing is a loser, so the people who are invested in Boeing either through stocks, or retirement funds lose money.

A decline in the price of Boeing could be good news for Trump, his family, and friends because they can invest at a lower price.

Donald Trump and his Twitter account have the ability to move stocks and markets, and Trump appears to be abusing his platform as president-elect by potentially manipulating a stock price for financial gain.
Pizza has been a constant in Brian Kesslers life, from the time he got a job in a pizzeria as a teenager until the day he met his wife in a pizza joint. Read moreIggy's Pizza Shop is now open in Mount Pleasant
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All of us have local and national issues that we worry about: gender-related and race-related issues, education and social welfare issues, pump prices and what to do about Confederate monuments. Thats usually how we vote  whats worrying us at the moment. But older adults, of all people, may be capable of standing back from whats in our face to take a longer perspective on politics. Read moreAging for Amateurs: Elections make us get clear on priorities
"Today I'm not sad. And I want you to know why I'm not sad. Because Jesus is on the inside a
Angie Jackson covers crime and breaking news for The Post and Courier. She previously covered the same beat for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive.com in Michigan. When shes not reporting, Angie enjoys teaching yoga and exploring the outdoors.
South Carolina superintendent candidates Ellen Weaver and Lisa Ellis traded criticisms for an hour-long debate on Nov. 2, and argued over who was best suited to improve education in South Carolina Read moreState superintendent candidates spar over solutions
Maya T. Prabhu covers the Statehouse from Columbia. She previously covered city government and other topics in South Carolina and Maryland. Maya has a bachelors in English from Spelman College and a masters in journalism from the University of Maryland.
Andrew Knapp is editor of the Quick Response Team, which covers crime, courts and breaking news. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor at Florida Today, Newsday and Bangor (Maine) Daily News. He enjoys golf, weather and fatherhood.
Deanna Pan is an enterprise reporter for The Post and Courier, where she writes about education and other issues. She grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati and graduated with a degree in English from Ohio State University in 2012.
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
Brad Nelson, a farmer who lives near Albert Lea, voted for Donald Trump last month. The 58-year-old agreed with the president-elect on many issues, like cutting regulations on agriculture and reducing health care costs.

But Trump also threatened sharply higher tariffs on Chinese products, once saying that "China is ripping us off like nobody has ever seen."

However, Minnesota farmers like Nelson count on billions of dollars in exports to overseas markets  especially to China. "Our exports to China obviously have exploded the last 10 or 15 years," said Nelson.

If Trump really goes after China, the likely retaliation could hurt U.S. farmers. Now, they're waiting to see what the Trump administration actually does.

Rural Minnesota voted resoundingly for Trump, even though the candidate hammered trade deals as a centerpiece of his campaign.

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Those deals can be crucial for farmers' livelihoods.

"Without access to the export market, we'd be in some trouble," said Joel Wiering, grain manager at the CHS terminal in the southwest Minnesota town of Ruthton.

About 60 percent of the soybeans moving through the Ruthton elevator this year  about $30 million worth  will wind up overseas. That's just a drop in the bucket compared to the over $2 billion soybean exports bring to Minnesota's agricultural economy each year.

Minnesota exports close to half its soybeans, according to Ed Usset, a University of Minnesota grain marketing economist. And Asian economies  especially China  are hot markets for them.

Overseas demand has helped keep soybean prices from falling even more during a mostly down time in agricultural markets. Soybeans are below break-even for most farmers, but prices probably would be a lot worse without the robust exports.

Farm income is projected to fall more than 17 percent this year, and many farms will struggle to show a profit.

Farmers with long memories can recall the last time agricultural products got tangled up in the world politics. That was in 1980 when President Jimmy Carter halted grain sales to the Soviet Union in retaliation for its invasion of Afghanistan.

"I am determined to minimize any adverse impact on the American farmer from this action," Carter said at the time.

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But despite that residential pledge, the nation's largest agricultural group said the embargo cost farmers $1 billion and permanently disrupted the grain trade.

Now, farmers hope the Trump administration avoids a repeat.

Nelson is optimistic it will, mostly based on comments from a key Trump adviser during the campaign.

In September, campaign co-chair Sam Clovis said on the radio program AgriTalk that a President Trump would only change failed trade policies. With farm exports booming, Clovis said, there probably was little need for adjustments in the agricultural sector.

For now, farmers will have to wait and see.

"It's an unknown factor right now," Nelson said, "because you don't know what anybody's going to do at any given time."
The annual Bear Creek Cookie Classic will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Bear Creek Services Building, 3108 U.S. Highway 52 North, Rochester.

The annual fundraiser allows people to pick from 10,000 different items, including cookies, pies, breads and home-made candies. Visitors are given gloves and a container and fill the container with the cookies of their choosing. It costs $7 per pound.

"We have every kind of cookie you can imagine," said Pam Alberts, event coordinator for Bear Creek Services, an organization that supports people with disabilities. "You wouldn't believe the cookies that we get."

Last year volunteers donated 1,000 dozen cookies and every single cookie was sold. This year, Bear Creek hopes to bring in 2,000 dozen cookies from volunteer bakers and raise $5,000 to support its programs.

Volunteer bakers can drop off cookies at the following times: 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday.

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Santa And Mrs. Claus will also be available for free photos at the event. Hot chocolate, apple cider and coffee will be served, and there will be crafts and color books to entertain children.
AUSTIN  A 30-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to multiple felonies after being accused of sexually assaulting a young girl multiple times over three years.

Dontavious Omar Green, of Austin, entered the plea Monday in Mower County District Court, where he's been charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

He remains in custody in lieu of $500,000 conditional bail and is due back in court Feb. 10.

The investigation began in November, when the victim's friend contacted law enforcement after learning about the abuse, the complaint says.

The girl told detectives the alleged abuse included oral and digital penetration, as well as intercourse. It escalated during the past summer, the court documents say, with abuse occurring almost daily. The last incident of abuse was six days before her friend told Austin police, the report says.

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The victim also said Green wouldn't let her date boys because he wants her "for himself," and she contracted herpes simplex from him, the complaint says. He allegedly told her to tell her mother that she got it from "some boy at school," so no one would know he abused her.

Green had gone to the Veterans Administration Hospital for treatment of the sexually transmitted disease, the documents say.

If convicted, the first-degree counts carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, a $40,000 fine, or both. The second-degree counts are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, a $35,000 fine, or both.
AUSTIN  A 63-year-old woman accused of pointing a .357 revolver at a process server has pleaded guilty to felony terroristic threats.

Patricia Ann Andersen, of Rose Creek, was originally charged with one count of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon in Mower County District Court.

She entered a guilty plea last week to the amended charge and was released on her own recognizance. Sentencing has been set for Feb. 16.

The case began March 31, when a woman attempted to serve a civil complaint on Andersen. Though no one answered the door, the woman heard a voice inside yelling at dogs to shut up.

The alleged victim was walking back to her car when she saw a woman come from behind the house. The process server said she was there with a summons and complaint, and identified the woman as Andersen.

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Andersen told her to leave, the complaint says, so the victim posted the paperwork to a door of the house and went back to her car. When the woman looked up from her car, she saw Andersen walking toward her, allegedly pointing a black handgun at her.

The woman drove away, later telling law enforcement she believed the defendant would shoot her.

Deputies found Andersen outside the house; she was "slow to comply with deputies' commands," court documents say, but was eventually taken into custody without incident.

Officers recovered a .357 revolver from inside the residence, where Andersen said it would be.
An apartment project that proposes to bring walkable, downtown-style living to an east side Rochester neighborhood received the first of two votes of approval from the Rochester City Council on Monday.

North Rock Real Estate and developer Michael Zirbes at a council meeting Monday presented plans for "The Riverwalk," a six-story, 149-unit apartment building on East Center Street that would neighbor Mayo Field.

Zirbes said the high-quality project would replace aging homes and provide needed downtown living space.

The project faced some criticism from neighbors who said the scale of the proposed development was inappropriate for the neighborhood and would have adverse affects.

Mari Flemming, a resident whose home would be next door to the development, said she was "disgusted" with the council's lack of respect for the property rights of single-family home owners and for preservation of historic homes in the city. Kevin Flemming said the council has prioritized developers' interests over neighborhoods and residents.

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Council member Mark Bilderback had attended neighborhood meetings with the developers of the project and said the team had made serious efforts to comply with neighborhood requests, eventually winning the support of the Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association board.

"We've heard stories from both groups. I will say the neighborhood for the most part, the people who chose to participate, are very supportive of the plans," Bilderback said.

The council voted 6-0 to support the project. The project will continue to another round of public reviews, first at the City Planning and Zoning Commission and then at the city council.

Also at the meeting:

The council overhauled its ordinance for mobile food units after just two vendors operated in the downtown area earlier this year following a long process to put a local ordinance in place that allowed food trucks in the central business district.

The council reduced its franchise fee for mobile food units to $750 a year, extended operating hours in its late night service zone to 2:30 a.m. and added new areas in the downtown where food trucks could operate.

The council also considered and approved changes to its rates for contract parking in public parking facilities. Rates at the Center Street, Civic Center and other ramps where the city offers monthly contract parking were increased by $10 per month.

Contract parking rates had not been modified since January 2015. The changes will take effect Jan. 1. The increased rates are expected to add about $194,000 in revenue in anticipation of the city's need to improve and construct new parking facilities.
Dodge County

2 K-M students named state officers

KASSON  Two Kasson-Mantorville High School students were confirmed as state officers in the Health Occupation Students of America conference in Bloomington recently.

About 25 K-M students attended overall at the conference intended to raise awareness about health-care professions.

Houston County

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Sheriff's Department requests new boat

CALEDONIA  Houston County Sheriff Mark Inglett's request for a new boat was approved by the Houston County Board of Commissioners Nov. 22.

The $19,130 cost of the boat, designed for shallow rescue, will be covered by a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources grant.

Fillmore County

Sons of Norway receives grant

LANESBORO  The Sons of Norway Lodge in Lanesboro is being honored by the Minnesota Historical Society with a $179,400 grant.

The money will go toward restoring the 1910 building that was formerly owned by the Norwegian Lutheran Church that Sons of Norway bought in 1960.

Mower County

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Mayo awards scholarships to non-traditional students

ALBERT LEA  Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin and Albert Lea has awarded four $1,000 scholarships to non-traditional students in its service area who are studying to work in a health care field five or more years after completing high school or a GED.

The recipients are Ashley Sampson of New Richland, Josephine Johnson of Albert Lea, Cheri Bentzin of Rose Creek, and Sandra Stringer of Dodge Center.

Wabasha County

Commissioners set salaries for elected officials

WABASHA  The Wabasha County Board of Commissioners has set the salaries of four elected officials for 2017.

The officials requested certain percentage increases in their salaries, but did not receive the same rate of increase as other county employees.

Goodhue County

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Gunderson House to host dinners on Dec. 10-11

KENYON  The Gunderson House will host holiday dinners Dec. 10 at 5 p.m. and Dec. 11 at 2 p.m., and are by reservation only. Rhanna Olson is the contact at 507-298-1127, and tickets are $30 per person.

The meal is cooked from scratch. It includes ham loaf, meatballs and gravy, raspberry applesauce salad, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots. Rolls and lefse (a local holiday staple) will also be served. Dessert will feature Norwegian rommegrot and holiday bakings.

Winona County

Winona State University earns military-friendly designation

WINONA  Winona State University has been named a Military Friendly School for 2016, according to Victory Media's 2016 guide to Military Friendly schools.

According to the guide, Winona State actively recruits and supports members of the military and is among the more than 1,200 schools that qualified for the guide.

WSU has received the military friendly designation annually since 2012.
A former election worker has lodged a complaint against the Olmsted County Elections Department, alleging that workers failed to follow proper procedures when processing absentee ballots.

Lona Schreier, of Rochester, submitted the complaint to the Olmsted County Attorney's Office on Friday. She alleges that workers failed to follow state requirements when handling absentee ballots. She claims workers began to "cut corners" when processing the ballots because of high turnout and a lack of staff.

Schreier alleges that the county did not have two people  a Republican and a Democrat  determining whether to accept or reject absentees, which she claims is required by law. She also alleged that the absentee roster was incomplete and ballots were exposed to the public prior to Election Day.

"I want the Minnesota election laws and statutes to be followed, and I don't believe that being too busy is a reason not to follow the laws and statutes," Schreier told the Post Bulletin.

Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem confirmed that the complaint was received Friday. He said the matter is under investigation.

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Mark Krupski, director of Olmsted County Property Records and Licensing, said county employees have been told that while the complaint is under investigation, they are "not at liberty to speak about the matter."

Schreier worked as a temporary election employee beginning in 2012. She said she shared her concerns about how absentee ballots were being handled to other employees, but those concerns were not addressed. Her last day working for the county was Nov. 5, three days before the election.

She said she does not consider herself to be a Democrat or a Republican, and that partisanship did not motivate her to submit the complaint. She said she did reach out to a few people who are Republicans to help her with the complaint.

Schreier said it was difficult for her to go forward with the complaint because she enjoys doing election work, but she said it was important to her that her concerns be addressed.

On Election Day, she said she went to her polling place to discover the voting records showed she had voted absentee even though she had not.

"If that was a mistake, it was a really, really stupid mistake and an unacceptable mistake," she said.

Ostrem said that a second, unrelated complaint also has been received by the county in connection with the election. Ostrem said the county received a complaint alleging that during absentee voting, someone was providing inappropriate assistance to other voters. He plans to dismiss that complaint because the identity of the person accused is unknown.

"You can't charge somebody (when) you don't know their name, address and identification," he said.

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It didn't happen as fast as supporters hoped it would, and the process left elected officials dissatisfied, but the city of Rochester on Monday took its first real step toward allowing Uber and other ride sharing services to operate in the city.

The Rochester City Council voted 6-0 at the conclusion of a Monday meeting to approve an ordinance that would allow transportation networking companies into the city. Two council members changed their votes from the ordinance's last hearing two weeks ago and council member Ed Hruska was absent from Monday's proceedings.

The ordinance drew heavily from the language of St. Paul's regulations for Uber and other ride sharing companies. The council at a Monday afternoon committee meeting made its own edits to the ordinance and allowed for many suggestions for edits from Uber representatives.

The resulting local ordinance should provide for Rochester residents to use ride sharing technology here that they have found in other cities, said council member Nick Campion.

"I don't see this changing the landscape of TNCs (transportation network companies) in Rochester significantly. I think this is going to be quickly adopted and I think that it's going to be as successful as it would have been otherwise, and hopefully that's very successful as the people of Rochester were looking for," Campion said.

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The ordinance requires one further reading and vote from the council before it is officially adopted. That could come as soon as the council's Dec. 19 regular meeting, or at its first meeting in 2017.

Uber supporters were greatly pleased to see the city action.

"(I'm) so happy. It's one of those things that you feel just validated that it's not just you that thinks a particular thing but it's an entire group of individuals throughout the city and throughout the country," said Chad Allen, who moved recently to Rochester from Chicago.

Allen was at the head of an effort to organize and present a petition that asked the council to support allowing the popular service in Rochester. The petition had been signed by more than 640 residents when Allen presented it Monday, he said.

"It was really fun to see how far this spread," Allen said. "It just goes to show how much this is really needed."

The turning point for council members who had previously opposed the ordinance was a final opportunity Monday to go line-by-line through the ordinance text and to consider the changes Uber representatives had asked for in the ordinance draft. Council member Mark Hickey led much of that discussion Monday.

The changes that resulted from that discussion centered on driver qualifications for the transportation networking companies. One change was to reduce the number of moving violations allowed for potential drivers from three to two. Another was a procedural change regarding license revocations  in effect, a driver candidate who had let his or her driver's license expire would not be barred due to a revocation.

Drivers under the local rules would still be subject to background checks, both through the company that hired them and by the city of Rochester in so-called spot checks.

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Hickey said Monday night that he would support the ordinance, with the amendments, based on feedback from the community.

"It is what the people of Rochester want, so I'm going to support it. But we have to have an open set of eyes on what we're doing here," Hickey said.

Council President Randy Staver joined Hickey in changing his vote Monday to support the ordinance.

Council member Michael Wojcik said he was disappointed the ordinance, and Uber service, was held up so many times and that it was not available sooner. He voted in favor of the draft Monday night, as did council members Nick Campion and Sandra Means.

Staver noted the council would likely revisit the city's taxicab ordinance very soon and could "deregulate" some rules to provide a fair playing field with new transportation options that would come with Uber and other services, as taxi franchise representatives had previously requested .

Rochester Mayor Ardell Brede said he did not plan to exercise his mayoral veto power on the action.
WABASHA  The county attorney and county auditor/treasurer in Wabasha County have both filed appeals against the County Board of Commissioners concerning the board's determination of their salaries for next year.

County Attorney Karrie Kelly and Auditor/Treasurer Denise Anderson filed their individual appeals in Wabasha County District Court.

"This appeal is made to the District Court on the grounds that the determination of the County Board of Commissioners in setting said salary was arbitrary, capricious, and in unreasonable disregard for the duties and responsibilities of the office, and in unreasonable disregard of the County Attorney's experience, qualifications ad performance," read the complaint in Kelly's lawsuit.

Anderson's was identical, with the exception of the job title named in the lawsuit.

The county is now in its third year using a new method for determining salaries of the four elected department heads  attorney, auditor/treasurer, sheriff and recorder  where the individuals are asked to explain their job duties and give, in detail, the reasons why they believe they should receive a certain salary. In the past, elected department heads were put on a grid, just like other workers, and given step raises according to experience and cost-of-living increases.

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The salaries were set at the Nov. 22 county board meeting.

At that meeting, Kelly pointed out that the board had set the cost-of-living increase  the amount of raises for herself and Anderson  at 2 percent for the county. Meanwhile, she said, most other county employees received additional step raises of 3 percent.

"What have you found to be deficient about my duties, responsibilities or experience that causes you to think I don't merit what other employees are getting?" Kelly asked.

She pointed out that, among full-time county attorneys in Minnesota, her salary is the third-lowest.

"For the other two, I vastly outweigh them in terms of relevant experience," she said, adding that she has a quarter-century of experience.

Kelly's salary was set at $93,850. Anderson's salary was set at $73,200. She expressed concerns similar to Kelly's. The salaries for sheriff and recorder were set at $95,065 and $70,750 respectively. Each motion was approved by a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Cheryl Key voting against the measures.

Commissioner Don Springer said that while the board was using a market study as a guideline, the salaries of elected officials were not specifically part of that study. Further, he said, he did not know if comparing a county attorney in Wabasha to a county attorney in Olmsted or Anoka counties was a fair comparison.

The board also approved itself an increase in salary to $17,670 plus per diems of $50 for a meeting of less than four hours and $90 for longer meetings. "It just feels really awkward to me to take an increase when we can't treat the elected officials as we do the other county employees," Key said.

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"The levy has been set at 4 percent, and the desire is to keep the levy low," Kelly said. "Is it intended to keep it low so the budget can be balanced on the backs of the elected officials and not treat us the same as other county employees?"
We issued an updated research report on Illinois Tool Works Inc. ITW on Dec 5, 2016. The company manufactures highly engineered products and specialty systems. It currently has a market capitalization of approximately $44 billion.



Year to date, Illinois Tool Works shares recorded an average return of 36.1%, compared with the return of 22.5% by the Zacks categorized Machinery General Industrial market.

We believe that Illinois Tool Works is well positioned to reap benefits from its organic and inorganic growth tactics, its long-term Enterprise Strategy and sound capital allocation schemes in the long term. Over the long term, it anticipates spending nearly 2530% of its operating cash flow on internal investments, 3035% on dividend payments and 4045% on external investments including share buybacks and acquisitions.



Recently, Illinois Tool Works communicated that it targets organic revenue growth of 200 basis points (bps) above market, an approximate operating margin of 25% (previous expectation was 23%), and return on invested capital of above 20% by the end of 2018. Also, the company provided a favorable outlook for 2017, targeting earnings to come within $6.00$6.20 per share range, representing 9% year-over-year growth at mid point. Organic revenue growth is expected to be 1.53.5%, while total revenue will likely lie within $13.8$14.1 billion range. Operating margin is expected to exceed 23.5%, driven by 100 bps contribution from Illinois Tool Works enterprise initiatives. Full year free cash flow is anticipated to be 100% of net income and share repurchase will likely be roughly $1 billion.



Despite the solid near- and long-term growth potential, Illinois Tool Works is exposed to risks arising from near-term headwinds including unfavorable movements in foreign currencies, geopolitical issues, stiff industry rivalry, volatilities in input price & supply and difficulties or delays in research and development or production and services.



Also, end markets served by Illinois Tool Works are highly susceptible to global economic conditions as well as level of industrial activities in the U.S. Also, a rise in the companys long-term debt will increase its financial obligations and limit profitability. Exiting the third quarter, Illinois Tool Works long-term debt was $6.3 billion.



Illinois Tool Works currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Over the last 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company increased 0.2% to $5.63 per share for 2016 while decreased 0.2% to $6.13 per share for 2017.



Some better-ranked stocks in the machinery industry include Enersys Inc. ENS, II-VI Incorporated IIVI and Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. AIT. While Enersys and II-VI Incorporated sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Applied Industrial Technologies carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Enersys Incs earnings estimates for fiscal 2017 improved over the last 60 days. It has an average positive earnings surprise of 3.01% for the trailing four quarters.



II-VI Incorporated reported better-than-expected results in the last four quarters, with a positive average earnings surprise of 39.80%. Also, bottom-line expectations for fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018 have improved over the past 60 days.



Applied Industrial Technologies earnings estimates for fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018 have been revised upward over the last 60 days. Average earnings surprise for the last four quarters is a positive 4.93%.



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"Remember Pearl Harbor" served as a battle cry during World War II, reminding soldiers of how America entered the war.

In the early hours of Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with no explicit warning or declaration of war. It devastated the unsuspecting Americans, sinking four U.S. battleships and significantly damaging fleets of harbored cruisers and destroyers. A total of 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed.

The human casualties provided the most devastating outcome  2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 suffered serious injuries.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it a "date that will live in infamy"  a statement that has withstood the test of time.

As we prepare to observe the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Wednesday, it is important to remember lessons of that day.

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Among them is the importance to a sound foreign policy,

Historians note the attack came at a time of an increasingly strained pre-war relationship between the United States and Japan. Global economic depression and America's resistance to entering the war made diplomatic efforts a challenge.

In hindsight, warnings existed, but they were not loud enough to prevent tragedy.

Could improved foreign relations have prevented the attack? That will likely be the subject of debate in some circles to decades to come.

Yet, there is little doubt that the importance of diplomacy is a lesson to be learned from the attack 75 years ago. It points to a need for engaged and thoughtful foreign policy that sends clear messages regarding our nation's expectations, as well as a willingness to act in the promotion of global well-being.

Our relationships with other nations should create paths to end conflict and help avoid further aggression. It should seek to offer protections and benefits to all people throughout the world.

Granted, such goals aren't easy to achieve in a world with an array of political viewpoints. Yet, that doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile.

The aftermath of World War II proves relationships can change and growth is possible

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Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945, and Japan followed nearly four months later on Sept. 2, 1945. America's response was to embrace the chance for peace, which helped Germany and Japan become global economic powers and key U.S. allies.

With those relationships as a reminder, the constant goal must be to improve all foreign relations to avoid potential threats and build paths toward global understanding. Otherwise, we are failing to remember a key lesson from Dec. 7, 1941.

We must remember Pearl Harbor.
Dr. B Speaks!

It always seems impossible until it's done. That is the way Nelson Mandela put it. His quote motivates mission-driven people to accomplish d Read moreTeacher assistants help support teachers and students to learn
As Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison seeks to take on the leadership of the Democratic National Committee, the Washington Post has published Ellisons column whitewashing his past in the Nation of Islam as part of its Acts of Faith series bearing on religion. There is a certain logic in this. To enjoy Ellisons column, you must suspend your disbelief and ignore the evidence that starkly contradicts it. You must take Ellison on faith.

The Star Tribune, unfortunately, runs the column on its opinion page, though the Star Tribune has steadily promulgated the faith in Ellison since 2006. Over at the Star Tribune, you just cant have too much of this:

My mom, Clida, taught my four brothers and me about her fathers work to organize black voters in rural Louisiana in the 1950s. We carried her dads legacy of activism with us. The civil rights movement was present in the daily life of my family in Detroit in the 1970s. Ill never forget working to get my college, Wayne State University, to divest from the government in South Africa. This was the beginning of my activism, and the fight for social and economic justice has been a constant thread in my life. My activism led me to toss my hat in the ring for chair of the Democratic National Committee, where I will work to reclaim our history as the party that stands with working people. Unfortunately, some political opponents continue to distort my record based on an old right-wing smear campaign  not my work in Congress, or my vision for the future of the Democratic Party. Go back 25 years to 1991. Cameras recorded the brutal beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. Unemployment for African-Americans was 13 percent, and the war on drugs was driving up incarceration rates. I was working with young people in my neighborhood of north Minneapolis and saw the challenges they experienced while looking for a job or trying to rent an apartment. I was a young lawyer hoping to bring more fairness to the criminal justice system. And I was trying to help folks in the community organize for a better quality of life. I saw the Million Man March as a positive effort, and I helped to organize a group from Minneapolis to attend. Like many young African-American men at the time, including President Obama, I hoped the march would promote change in our communities, and I was proud to be part of it. Civil rights leaders, from Rosa Parks to Jesse Jackson, and artists such as Stevie Wonder and Maya Angelou supported and spoke at the event. Of course, a huge number of black men  some counts as high as 1 million  showed up as well. My values  going back to my childhood  were always based on respect for all people and rejection of bigotry and racism. When I first heard criticism about Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Million Man March, I felt the marchs message of empowering young African-Americans was being attacked. But I clearly didnt go deep enough. I defended the organizer of the march in writing, but I glossed over the hurtful and divisive language he directed at other communities. In my effort to pursue justice for the African-American community, I neglected to scrutinize the words of those such as Khalid Muhammad and Farrakhan who mixed a message of African-American empowerment with scapegoating of other communities. These men organize by sowing hatred and division, including anti-Semitism, homophobia and a chauvinistic model of manhood. I disavowed them long ago, condemned their views and apologized. After the march I remembered something my father said to me. He said, Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one. He was right. I should have listened more and talked less. I have always lived a politics defined by respecting differences, rejecting all forms of racism and anti-Semitism, a politics based on inclusion, and diverse communities organizing together for economic justice for everyone. I started listening a lot more. Throughout my work since 2002 as a state legislator and a member of Congress, I have tried as hard as I could to build bridges. Ive worked to combat anti-Semitism and confront Holocaust denial. Ive organized dozens of meetings to promote interfaith dialogue and joint projects. Ive stood up for religious freedom and human rights for people of all faiths. I have built coalitions to increase accountability for hate crimes against all communities. If we are going to move the country forward, we need an agenda that brings working Americans together  not one that scapegoats our neighbors because they pray to a different God or their skin is a different color.

The column promulgates Ellisons traditional evasions and denials. His work with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam was centered on the Million Man March in 1995. He was unfamiliar with the tenets of the Nation of Islam. He had no knowledge of what the speakers whom he sponsored and appeared with had to say. He wasnt paying attention. He didnt know what he was doing.

This is Ellisons big lie. Ellison agitated on behalf of the Nation of Islam for at least 10 years. He peddled the requisite hate and conspiracy theories that are essential elements of its attraction. As Ellison himself wrote in his 2014 memoir: In the NOI, if youre not angry in opposition to some group of people (whites, Jews, so-called sellout blacks), you dont have religion.

Ellison was in the NOI. He had the religion, big time. Ellisons involvement with the NOI extended from his days as a student at the University of Minnesota Law School until some time before his first successful run for public office in 2002. Ellisons involvement with the Nation of Islam was long and intense.

Ellisons allusion to the wildly anti-Semitic Khalid Abdul Muhammad is obscure. Ellison appeared onstage at the 1995 organizing rally with Muhammad at the University of Minnesota. Muhammad ran true to form during his appearance in Minneapolis. According to a contemporaneous Star Tribune article, If words were swords, the chests of Jews, gays and whites would be pierced. Ellison implies that he wasnt listening, or that he didnt even read the Star Tribunes account of the event.

In 2006 I posted Jeffrey Goldenbergs unpublished 2006 letter to the Star Tribune about the event at which Muhammad spoke. Goldenberg wrote the letter in response to the false apologetics that Ellison offered then and offers now. This is a long excerpt of the letter. Please take in Goldenbergs account next to Ellisons apologetics:

Due in part to my involvement in the African-American community, I was asked to attend this meeting, make notes of what I heard and saw and report my findings back to [Stephen Silberfarb,] the Executive Director [of the Jewish Community Relations Council]. I accepted the assignment. It is a matter of public record that Mr. Ellison was a leading local participant in that meeting. In the heart of his [2006 exculpatory] letter to Mr. Silberfarb, Mr. Ellison states I did not adequately scrutinize the positions and statements of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan and Khalid Muhammad. I wrongly dismissed concerns that they were anti-Semitic. Let me explain a bit about the meeting where Mr. Ellison stood with former Nation of Islam spokesman Khalid Muhammad. After he was introduced, Mr. Muhammad let loose with a vitriolic rant attacking gays, Jews, whites and others. But that was just the warm-up. Next, Mr. Muhammed intentionally embarrassed, intimidated and personally attacked members of the audience in the University of Minnesota lecture hall that evening. First he came after me. Out of a crowd of perhaps a couple of hundred, I was among a small handful of Caucasian attendees. Hey, cracker taking notes there, whats your name? Mr. Muhammed demanded as he pointed his finger at me where I sat in the middle of the hall. Whats a cracker doing here taking notes? I smiled to mask my fear, turned beet red and said nothing as Mr. Muhammad continued to aim his racial intimidation tactics at me for another minute or so. Then things really turned ugly. Towards the front of the hall sat an African American man and a Caucasian woman. Mr. Muhammad turned his attack on them. Upon confirming they were boyfriend and girlfriend, he attacked the man for having a white girlfriend. He attacked the man for bringing his white girlfriend to this public event. He asked personal and inappropriate rhetorical questions about why this African American man would choose a white girlfriend. He brought the young woman to tears in front of hundreds of people. Mr. Muhammad relentlessly attacked, embarrassed and intimidated this innocent pair because they were a bi-racial couple. From his place by Mr. Muhammads side in 1995 what exactly was there for Mr. Ellison to scrutinize? With the racism, hatred and anti-Semitism of the Nation of Islam laid bare for him that day, Mr. Ellison turned a blind eye in pursuit of his own personal objectives. Now he attempts to paper over his ugly past apparently for the same reason.

Ten years later, absolutely nothing has changed. Ellisons lies remain the same.

I chronicled Ellisons past and his lies about it in Louis Farrakhans first congressman and posted the underlying documents in Keith Ellison for dummies.

In his 2014 memoir, Ellison simply suppressed his long affiliation with the Nation of Islam. I wrote about his memoir in the Weekly Standard article The Ellison elision and in the Star Tribune column Ellison remembers to forget.
Ive known for a while that liberals are trying to blame their electoral defeats on fake news propagated on Facebook and other venues. Having spent much of the last 14 years exposing fake news emanating from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS News, CNN, and so on, I wasnt impressed and devoted zero time to the subject.

But now, the liberals really have something to talk about: a man inspired by fake news about Hillary Clinton drew a gun at a Washington pizza place. Which caused CNNnot to mention the Obama administrationto go nuclear: Fake news, real violence: Pizzagate and the consequences of an Internet echo chamber.

Millions of people have read about a crazy conspiracy theory called Pizzagate. An untold number of them actually believe it.

I follow the news closely, and I never heard of Pizzagate until this evening. As for how many believe it, you can judge for yourself.

One person apparently took matters into his own hands and showed up with guns to the pizza place that the conspiracy theorists say is at the center of the web. No one was injured at Comet Ping Pong, the Washington restaurant, on Sunday afternoon, but the armed confrontation showed the offline, real-life consequences of online lies.

I am strongly opposed to lies, online or elsewhere, but what conclusions can one draw from the actions of a single, evidently deranged individual? Actual personal injury has occurred as a result of lies about Donald Trump, which were spread much more widely than the little-known Pizzagate.

The Obama administration promptly swung into action. The actions of one Edgar Maddison Welch have taken on cosmic significance:

On Monday afternoon White House press secretary Josh Earnest called the incident deeply troubling. I think theres no denying the corrosive effect that some of these false reports have had on our political debate and thats concerning in a political context, Earnest said. Its deeply troubling that some of those false reports could lead to violence.

So, what are the Democrats talking about?

Believers imagined a pedophilia ring supposedly being run out of the pizza shop that somehow involved Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta, among other Democrats.

Highly credible, much like the hundreds of stories to the effect that Donald Trump is a fascist. Well, to be fair, the fake news about Trump was worse. But seriously: are the Democrats trying to tell us that Hillary lost the election because someone circulated a rumor that she and her campaign manager were involved in a pedophile ring run out of a particular pizza shop in Washington, DC? I would gently suggest that the undisputed facts regarding Hillarys incompetence, corruption and dishonesty are more than enough to explain her defeat.

So we have here a pizza-related fake news incident, the key aspect of which CNN fails to mention: Mr. Welch is, evidently, a paranoid schizophrenic.

Do the pizza-centric actions of a lone nut really tell us anything about the internet echo chamber, or our political debate, or why Hillary Clinton lost the election? My wife, who paid closer attention to cultural aspects of the 1980s than I did, points out that a strikingly similar episode arose out of a series of Domino Pizza commercials with the theme, Avoid the Noid.

Priceonomics explains:

Dominos Pizza set an industry precedent that would prove critical to their success: they guaranteed that if a customer didnt receive his pizza within 30 minutes of placing the order, itd be free. Dominos executives hired an external marketing firm, Group 243, to promote this new promise. The result? The Noid. A troll-like creature, the Noid was outfitted in a skin-tight red onesie with rabbit-like ears and buck-teeth.  Its name, a play on annoyed, was an indication of its nature: many considered the Noid to be one of the most obnoxious mascots of all time.

That is a fair judgment. Here is an Avoid the Noid commercial:

Painfully stupid? Perhaps, but Dominos sold an unbelievable number of pizzas. But heres the catch: it turned out that there was a guy named Noid. And, being a paranoid schizophrenic, he thought the Dominos commercials were aimed at him. Just like Edgar Maddison Welch, he took armed action:

[R]ight at the height of his popularity, the Noid endured perhaps the worst mascot PR in history. On January 30, 1989, a man wielding a .357 magnum revolver stormed into a Dominos in Atlanta, Georgia and took two employees hostage. For five hours, he engaged in a standoff with police, all the while ordering his hostages to make him pizzas. Before the police could negotiate with his demands ($100,000, a getaway car, and a copy of The Widows Son  a novel about Freemasons), the two employees escaped. In the ensuing chaos, the captor fired two gunshots into the establishments ceiling, was forcefully apprehended, and received charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault, and theft by extortion. The assailant, a 22-year-old named Kenneth Lamar Noid, was apparently upset about the chains new mascot. A police officer on the scene later revealed that Noid had an ongoing feud in his mind with the owner of Dominos Pizza about the Noid commercials, and thought the advertisements had specifically made fun of him.

Things went reasonably well for Mr. Noid in the short run, but his story ended tragically:

A subsequent court hearing found Noid innocent by reason of insanity; a paranoid schizophrenic, he was found to have acute psychological problems, was turned over to the Department of Human Resources, and ended up in Georgias Mental Health Institute, where he spent three months. Years later, in 1995, unable to shake the idea that the Dominos ad campaign had intentionally targeted him, Noid committed suicide in his Florida apartment.

Mr. Noids armed attack on a Dominos pizza store was the end of the Avoid the Noid campaign:

Following the ordeal, Dominos swiftly terminated the Noid campaign.

Here is the difference: no one tried to make political hay out of Mr. Noids craziness. No one said that Dominos had spread fake news that inevitably and directly led to Noids attack on the pizza parlor. Everyone understood that poor Mr. Noid was crazy.

Not so today. Mr. Welch may be a lunatic, but the Democrats are determined to make something of their fake news narrative, and apparently he is the best they can do. So the White House Press Secretary deems his actions deeply troubling. Which they no doubt are to his family, but they have zero significance to the rest of us. Just like the fevered imaginings of Mr. Noid.

Is there such a thing as fake news? Of course. We have been battling it for well over a decade. For an example of fake newspropagated in this case by the Washington Post, colluding with the Democratic Partygo here, here, here and here. In this instance, the Post, an institution which cannot claim paranoid schizophrenia as a defense, deliberately published a false report in hopes of improving the Democratic Partys chances of electoral success. Happily, the Posts effort failed. The Post never answered the questions that we and our readers raised. Having published a single, inadequate correction, it went to ground and rode out the storm, unrepentant.

If you are looking for fake news, you dont have to search the underbelly of the internet. Just check the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press, and you will find plenty of politically-motivated fake news. Unfortunately, the liberals fake news has had far greater impact over the years than rumors spread on Facebook and Reddit.
It was Nietzsche who remarked that there are no facts, only interpretation. From this small beginning the entire contemporary world of post-modernism was born, reaching its apogee in the swamp of the Frankfurt School, Foucault and other nihilist thinkers who argue, among other things, that there is no objective basis for making a truth claimand that even language itself it a purely subjective exercise in exerting power. Non-foundationalism is all the rage at the universities these days, as I explore in a certain forthcoming book.

This background needs to be kept in mind when surveying the media freak out about fake news and how Trump lies. More so than the usual politician? More so than Al Gore, the Clintons, and Harry Reid? It is a curious thing that it took Trump to make the media express outrage at the terminological inexactitudes (to use Churchills wonderfully obfuscating phrase for lie) of politicians. But beyond the selective outrage, it is especially fun to take in the medias indignation that Trump is supposedly getting away with it, despite relentless fact-checking, because we live in a post-truth world.

The Washington Posts Ruth Marcus, for example, is losing her mind over this state of affairs:

Oxford Dictionaries last month selected post-truth  relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief  as the international word of the year, and for good reason. The practice of post-truth  untrue assertion piled on untrue assertion  helped get Donald Trump to the White House. The more untruths he told, the more supporters rewarded him for, as they saw it, telling it like it is.

Marcus and other media grandees are especially upset with this eye-popping assertion from Trump supporter/CNN commentator Scottie Nell Hughes on the Diane Rehm Show: People that say that facts are facts  theyre not really facts . . . theres no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trumps tweet amongst a certain crowd . . . are truth.

Now take a deep breath Ruthie, and repeat after Nietzsche: There are no facts, only interpretation. Who is it that created this post-truth climate? Once again, it was liberalism. And just how vigorously has the mainstream media ever stood against this nihilist undertow? That would be zip, zilch, nada. What Scottie Nell Hughes said on the radio is standard leftist orthodoxy. But like the time an independent counsel was used against a Democrat, liberals hate it when their doctrines are used against them.

To the contrary, speaking of fake news, I recall a certain prominent journalistId rather not repeat his namewho trafficked in a wholly fake news story about a president, and whose forged documents were defended as fake, but accurate. So the media doesnt have a lot of standing to complain about fake news just now, let alone a post-truth world they helped create.

Memo to the Mainstream Media: Welcome to the world your intellectual comrades created. What Trump is doing is saying, Okay, this is the world you created. Have some of this! Im going to enjoy watching the media meltdown of the Trump years.

P.S. Jim Geraghty of National Review offers a nice run down of fake news in his morning newsletter:
What is Trump up to?

News item: Trumps most vocal loyalists during the campaign, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Guiliani, have been completely passed over for senior positions. (In Christies case, he was publicly humiliated and defenestrated.)

News item: Trump meets twice with Mitt Romney, dangling the position of secretary of state to one of his most severe critics in the GOP nomination battle.

News item: Trump meets today with Al Gore to talk about climate change.

From Machiavellis Prince, Book XX:
PR-Inside.com: 2016-12-06 12:52:01

Invest in Sharjah Begins Participation Tomorrow (December 7) at Free Trade and Special Economic Zone Summit Shanghai 2016

National Network Communications (NNC)

Mousa Nimer, M: 00971 50 222 0561

Senior Account Manager

E: m.nimer@nncpr.com

Chinese investors will receive a comprehensive overview of Sharjahs fertile investment landscape through the participation of Invest in Sharjah at the Free Trade and Special Economic Zone Summit Shanghai 2016, which will start tomorrow (Wednesday) in the worlds most populous city proper from December 7-8.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201612060057

Official image of Mohammad Al Musharrakh (Photo: Business Wire)

Invest in Sharjah will use its presence at the event, titled Global Investment Strategies for a Going Global China, to highlight the array of advantages that Sharjah can offer Chinese entrepreneurs and businesspersons keen to set up operations in the emirate. The organisation is aiming to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity, its fastest growing consumer economy, its largest exporter of goods and its second largest importer of goods.

China is a burgeoning economic powerhouse and is home to thousands of companies looking to expand their operations beyond the countrys borders. Shurooq is delighted to be participating at the Free Trade and Special Economic Zone Summit Shanghai to outline the many advantages of doing business in Sharjah. As the perfect hub between east and west, Sharjah can offer a special strategic focus on the four key sectors of Tourism and Leisure, Healthcare, Transport and Logistics and Real Estate and the Environment, said Mohammed Al Musharrkh, Director of the Sharjah FDI office (Invest in Sharjah).

Healthcare opportunities which will be explored at the summit are particularly potentially lucrative. Spending in Chinas health-care sector is projected to grow from $357 billion in 2011 to $1 trillion in 2020 (according to Mckinsey), with consumer health pharmaceuticals and medical product companies in China seeking expansion internally as well as further afield.

Also under review at the summit will be leisure and tourism opportunities available in Sharjah, with the expected influx of Chinese tourists following the announcement of the issuance of a visa on arrival to visitors from China in September this year. The move is expected to significantly increase the number of Chinese tourists to the UAE, which saw approximately half a million of the countrys citizens visiting in 2015.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201612060057

Invest in Sharjah participates at the Free Trade and Special Economic Zone Summit Shanghai 2016, December 7-8.
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday resumed payments to Guinea-Bissau which were suspended in June over the government's loan bailouts for two private banks. The decision by the IMF's board could also lead donors, which also suspended budget support equal to 2.1 percent of GDP for this year, to follow suit. Total donor contributions, including direct budget support and financing for targeted sectors and projects, typically make up around 80 percent of Guinea-Bissau's budget. "The authorities' resolute stance in unwinding the bank bailouts is welcome," Mr. David Lipton, the IMF's First Deputy Managing Director, said in a statement following the board meeting. "Following through all steps until the bailouts are irreversibly unwound will be important to safeguard public finance," he said. The IMF agreed a programme with Guinea-Bissau last year after 2014 elections followed a coup two years earlier, one of a succession that spawned political instability and helped make the West African country a haven for South American cocaine traffickers. Disbursements were suspended, however, after the government took on 34 billion CFA francs ($58.3 million) in bad loans from Banco da Africa Ocidental and Banco da Uniao whose value amounted to around 5.5 percent of GDP. The IMF had argued the bailouts benefited the wealthiest citizens and foreign investors. Authorities had said they were needed to shield the private sector from bankruptcy. The IMF will now disburse $6.9 million, bringing total disbursements to date under the three-year programme to about $10.8million, the statement said. (Reporting by Joe Bavier)
PR-Inside.com: 2016-12-06 03:02:01

AUN's twin brothers Ryohei Inoue and Kohei Inoue who are masters of shamisen, wadaiko and shinobue the founders of AUN performed in Johor for the very first time

Japanese Music Festival hosted a galore of activities ranging from performances, Japanese folk toy games, food to exploration activities

The event was to celebrate the preview of the show unit of Sakura Residence, an inaugural project by Daiwa House in Malaysia in collaboration with Sunway Iskandar as co-developer

Renowned Japanese Duo AUN Enthrall at

Daiwa House's Japanese Music Festival

Media Contact

JIREH CONSULT

Nur Suraya, +60-16-245-5982

suraya@jirehconsult.com

Debbie Koh, +60-12-206-1961

dkoh@jirehconsult.com

Residents in Johor were treated to a unique Japanese Music Festival headlined by AUN, an internationally acclaimed musical duo comprising twin brothers Ryohei Inoue and Kohei Inoue in an evening of music and culture.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201612050064

Daiwa House Malaysia Managing Director Daisuke Usugi explaining about Sakura Residence to VIPs (Photo: Business Wire)

The Japanese Music Festival was conceptualised by Daiwa House, a Fortune 500 Global company, as a platform to enhance cross-cultural understanding through a fun and entertaining event. With admission free for all, the evening featured various interesting activities including taiko (Japanese drums) performance by school students in Johor Bahru, mochi pounding and festive stalls which showcased Japanese culture.

Smells of Japanese delicacies and favourites permeated the air throughout the evening, and many visitors were seen thronging the Japanese food stalls for a taste of authentic Japan. Lighted "sakura trees" and lanterns illuminated the balmy evening, adding to the Japanese ambience.

The evening was also filled with a galore of activities ranging from cherry-blossom-like tecoma tree planting and Daruma Otoshi and Kendama, two classic Japanese folk toy games, to dressing up in yukatas. Visitors who participated in the activities had the opportunity to redeem novel Japanese gifts to bring home as a souvenir.

However, the highlight of the Daiwa House's Japanese Music Festival definitely belonged to the performance by AUN, Japan's Cultural Envoy in 2011. Born in Osaka, the Inoue brothers are renowned for their mastery of the shamisen (three-stringed Japanese lute), wadaiko (Japanese drum), and shinobue flute.

In AUN's honour roll call are some 1,300 performances in 40 countries including in many prestigious halls and World Heritage Sites such as Mont Saint-Michel in France, as well as performing in the "ONE ASIA" joint concert with musicians from other Asian countries including Malaysia since 2013. Visitors of the Japanese Music Festival were enthralled by their mesmerising deftness on the shamisen and wadaiko to celebrate the preview of the show unit of Sakura Residence by Daiwa House.

Sakura Residence is a RM230 million GDV, inaugural project by Daiwa House in Malaysia that is being co-developed with Sunway Iskandar, who have found the Daiwa technology to be superb and able to meet the high requirements of discerning property owners. Its resident-friendly design which emphasises comfort and functionality is built on Japanese technology that prioritises optimisation and quality control. In Japan and 14 other countries, every home built by Daiwa House is famed for giving home owners a degree of confidence and surety of the outcome.

Daiwa House Malaysia Sdn Bhd Managing Director, Mr. Daisuke Usugi said, "Daiwa House believes in co-creating value for individuals, communities, and people's lifestyles. Through the performance by AUN and presentation of Japanese Music Festival, we would like to offer Malaysians an event that they can enjoy and participate in, and in the process, enrich their experience. At the same time, we open the Sakura Residence showhouse for visitors to the Japanese Music Festival for them to explore and have a firsthand experience of a well-built, premium pre-fabricated home. We received overwhelming support by the locals even though this was our first event for Daiwa House and we hope to have more engaging activities in the future."

The Japanese Music Festival took place on 4 December 2016 at Sakura Residence Gallery in Sunway Iskandar and was attended by approximately 300 visitors who were seen enjoying the wholesome activities of the evening.

More information on Sakura Residence is available at WWW.SAKURARESIDENCE.COM.MY

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201612050064
Crude rose above $55 a barrel as rising prospects of a tightening market after last weeks OPEC landmark deal to cut production has given speculators impetus to increase bets on higher prices.

Mondays gains took the rally since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreement was struck on Wednesday to 19 per cent for Brent and 16 percent for U.S. crude.

Last weeks 12.2 per cent increase was the largest one-week rise since February 2011.

OPEC sentiment continues to support oil markets, said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro in Amsterdam. Speculative short positions are still at elevated levels and as more traders unwind these positions they could trigger more support for oil prices.

Brent crude rose to hit 55.33 dollars, its highest since July 2015.

U.S. crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at a peak point for the day of 52.42 dollars, also the highest since July 2015.

About 380,483 lots of the front-month contract were traded some 57 per cent of the previous sessions volume.

Weekly data from the InterContinental Exchange on Monday showed investors had raised net long positions on Brent to the highest level in four weeks.

After OPEC agreed to curb production by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from January, eyes have now turned to a meeting this weekend between OPEC and non-OPEC producers to expand the deal.

Non-OPEC producers are expected to agree to add an output cut of 600,000 bpd in Vienna on Dec. 10.

Iran, which was granted an output rise as part of the OPEC deal as it recovers production curbed by sanctions, will also attend the meeting, media said.

(Reuters/NAN)
The Seaport Terminal Operators of Nigeria has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for banning the importation of vehicles into the country through the land borders.

The chairperson of the group, Vicky Haastrup, while reacting to the ban announced by the Federal Government on Monday said the move, if well implemented by the Nigeria Customs Service, will reduce the smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria and revive the operations of Roll-On-Roll-Off (RORO) terminals in the country.

RORO terminals are specialised port terminals that handle all types of vehicles.

Ms. Haastrup asked the government to take a step further by scrapping the high import duty regime imposed on vehicles by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013.

We are confident of the ability of President Muhammadu Buhari to turn the economy around. The earlier ban on importation of rice, and now of vehicles, through the land borders is a welcome development, she was quoted as saying in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

We are happy that the President has listened to our appeal to reverse incongruous policies inherited by his government from the former administration and which have deprived Nigerian ports of cargoes to the advantage of the ports of neighbouring countries.

In addition to this ban through the land borders, we appeal to the President to return the import duties on vehicles to 20% from the prohibitive 70% tariff imposed by the former administration.

The reversal to the old tariff will serve as an incentive for Nigerians to import legitimately through the seaports and make appropriate payments to government. This will boost revenue collection by the Nigeria Customs Service. It will also lead to the return of lost jobs at the affected ports.

We also appeal to Customs officers at the border posts to support the Federal Government and the NCS leadership by ensuring that no smuggled vehicle finds its way into the country through the land borders from 1st January 2017 when the new policy is expected to come into effect, Ms. Haastrup said.

She said since 2014 when the 70% hike in the tariff of imported vehicles came into effect, Nigeria had lost 80% of its vehicle cargo traffic to the ports of neighbouring countries.

Since the high tariff was introduced, importers have resorted to landing their vehicles at the ports of neighbouring countries and smuggling them into Nigeria without paying appropriate duties to government. This amounted to huge revenue loss to Customs.

The policy also led to loss of more 5,000 direct and indirect jobs at the affected port, the STOAN Chairman said.
The University of Jos (UNIJOS) has suspended one of its academic staff who was allegedly caught cheating while writing an examination on May 4, PREMIUM TIMES can report today.

Benedicta Daudu, an associate professor of law and former head of the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the Faculty of Law in UNIJOS, was allegedly caught copying from a prepared answer during an examination for a Masters degree in Research and Public Policy in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the same university.

The development was exclusively reported by PREMIUM TIMES on May 21, frustrating what some staff and student described as a plot by the university to cover up the matter.

After the report, Mrs. Daudus membership of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption was immediately suspended.

Insiders at UNIJOS have now told PREMIUM TIMES that the lecturer has been suspended from work, and from the masters programme.

I can confirm to you that the Senate Disciplinary Committee found her guilty of the allegations, and has suspended her from the Masters programme for two semesters, an official of the university told this newspaper.

Also, the matter was referred to the Staff Disciplinary Committee which also suspended her from work. So she is no longer teaching.

Another official of the university said the professor sued the institution over her suspension.

The status of the court case remained unclear as at the time of publishing this report on Monday.

All UNIJOS officials who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES on the matter asked not be named for fear they might be accused of plotting the professors downfall.

Even the spokesperson for the university, Abdullahi Abdullahi, simply said, Please, please, I have no comment on this matter.

When contacted by telephone on Monday, Mrs. Daudu, the affected professor said, Please excuse me, please, please after our reporter asked her for updates on her examination malpractice case.

Asked when the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) would allow the professor back to her post, Executive Secretary, Bolaji Owasanoye, said, Until matter is resolved, she remains away from PACAC.

The committee, headed by prominent law professor and civil rights campaigner, Itse Sagay, and made up of mainly university professors, is the intellectual wing of Mr Buharis anti-corruption war.

The mandate of the committee includes advising the President on the implementation of required reforms in Nigerias anti-corruption campaign and criminal justice system.

Although she has a Masters in Law, the associate professor was working towards another masters in Research and Public Policy.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the department later accused her of sneaking in prepared answers, also referred to as chokes by students, during the examination for the Global Context in Public Policy course.
President Muhammadu Buhari has informed the National Assembly of his readiness to present the 2017 budget proposal.

The president will present his governments spending plan to a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives on December 14, a letter he sent to the lawmakers said.

The Senate president, Bukola Saraki, read Mr. Buharis letter on Tuesday. The letter was also sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

According to the letter, Mr. Buhari plans to present the budget at 10 a.m. on December 14.

It is the third time the president would be at the National Assembly since his inauguration last year.

In December 2015, Mr. Buhari presented the 2016 budget to the lawmakers; and in March, he led his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma, to address the address the National Assembly.

The precursors to the budget  Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper  are currently being considered by the Committees on Appropriations in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Before the referral of MTEF/FSP to the committee, the Senate had faulted the proposals and dismissed the documents as empty.

But after Federal Executive Council meeting last Wednesday, Minister for Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma said the documents were well prepared.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has assured that the Federal Government would address obnoxious policies on visa and banking against Nigerians in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Minister gave the assurance in Abu Dhabi when he met with the officials of the Nigeria Embassy in UAE, led by the Charge d Affaires, Nura Rimi.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was on the sideline of the International Conference for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Conflict Areas, attended by the minister in the UAE capital.

NAN reports that the minister represented President Muhammadu Buhari at the conference.

Mr. Mohammed said a situation where many Nigerians with genuine mission to the UAE were given only two weeks visa into the country was not acceptable.

The minister expressed shock to hear that Nigerians studying in the country were not allowed to open bank accounts, making it difficult to send money to them by their parents.

He assured that he would take the matter up with appropriate authorities at home and ensure something was done to address the challenges.

I think these are quite serious issues especially when Nigeria gives them months when they apply for visa.

I can assure you that the government will take it up.

On the denial to open accounts, of course you will always have good people and bad people in every society, but unfortunately, it is that bad people that always attract the attention of the authorities.

We will not want to be judged by these bad people and I think again it is a matter that the government has to immediately take up, he said.

The minister assured the embassy staff that the concern raised on non-availability of current information on Nigeria in missions worldwide was being addressed.

The hosts had said that most time they relied on inaccurate information from internet, particularly when people come to seek information on investment potentials in Nigeria from the embassy.

The minister said that on Dec. 15, the ministry will launch an information apps which is going to provide real time information to Nigerians home and abroad on any issue.

He said the app is a collaboration between the ministry and the private sector and when launched it would be able to solve the challenge in all missions across the globe.

We are also contemplating launching a special Foreign Service news delivery system where classified information, particularly on investment will be disseminated, he said.

Reacting to Emirates Airline suspension of flight to Abuja and cutting down on frequency of flights to Lagos, the minister said the issue was being addressed

It is not because the route is not viable; it is because they have been unable to repatriate their funds.

The Central Bank of Nigeria and the government are working very hard to ensure that very soon it is reversed, he said.

.

The minister disclosed that government recently approved the signing of Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) with the UAE and Singapore which would forestall future occurrence of such development.

Mohammed expressed delight that the UAE was willing to assist in the challenge of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) when approached.

He seized the opportunity to brief his hosts on what the government was doing to address the challenge of IDPs.

Today, a minister is the coordinating officer between the various international organisations and government on IDPs.

For once, the humanitarian organisations are realising the magnitude of the crisis in the North East, with an understanding that it is a crisis that involve over 20 million people from about seven nations around the Lake Chad Basin.

The FAO, UNICEF, UNHR, International Organisation for Migration and others are coming together to our aid.

What is interesting is that they said they have come because of the commitment the country has demonstrated to the crisis, he said.

Earlier, the envoy had told the minister that in spite of all challenges, the mission had been able to carry out its assigned responsibilities diligently and received the recognition and accolade from the host country.

Recently, we were awarded a certificate of excellence by the government of UAE.

Nigeria embassy in Abu Dhabi is one of the three embassies that received the award of excellence and recognition.

That goes to say that out of paucity of fund and other pressing challenged, we are still committed and dedicated to carrying out our responsibilities, he said.

Rimi added that they were in total support of governments efforts back home and ready to carry out any responsibility that will assist in the fulfilment of the change agenda.

He said that Nigerian living outside the shore of the county are also experiencing the same economic challenges people are facing back home

He said it is a supreme sacrifice that all have to make for better tomorrow.

Rimi said there is a sizeable number of Nigerians in the UAE particularly in Abu Dhabi.

We have professionals in the state owned oil companies, renewable energy, tourism industry and we have university professors and other Nigerians in various institutions of learning.

We also have many business men in Dubai and a large concentration of Nigerian students in this country, he said.

He appealed to government officials coming to the country for official duty to always notify the embassy ahead of their visit.

(NAN)
Jennifer Cooke is a director of the Africa Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS.

An expert on Nigerian and African affairs, Ms. Cooke manages a range of projects on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa, providing research and analysis to U.S. policymakers, members of Congress, and the U.S. military, as well as the broader public.

She spoke to Ladi Olorunyomi, the head of the PREMIUM TIMES Washington Bureau, on the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President-elect and his possible plans for Nigeria and Africa.

PT: During the campaign, it seems like there was no mention of Africa at all. Going forward now, what should Africa expect from the Trump administration?

Cooke: Just as an aside, the one issue that did come up was Benghazi and that was pointed out as a failure of Clinton. I think its very hard to predict right now what the Trump foreign policy is going to look like. Hes never expressed any interest in Africa as a business opportunity or as a political pitch. I just think he has pretty much zero knowledge of the continent in terms of the current issues and things that are happening. That said, we dont know who he will put in place as the Secretary of State, that is one thing. The other is that, the presidents change but there is a massive bureaucracy that kind of continues on, the State Department, USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, PEPFAR, all of those are institutions now that will carry forward. Now leadership change may seem toxic for tenure in some ways, I think people were very dubious about what President [George W.] Bush might do in Africa and he ended up having a very good record. We dont know what Trumps interests are because we have no idea what his foreign policy looks like but there is this major bureaucracy, the State Department, USAID and various institutions. There is the Defense Department interest in, kind of, an expanding military presence within Africa to fight violent extremism and then finally, on a positive note, there has been fairly strong bi-partisan support in Congress for African initiatives, whether its on peacekeeping, whether its Power Africa, Electrify Africa, AGOA. There has been a coalition within Congress that is not Republican or Democratic that has kind of sustained interest and funding for Africa. My expectation is that the security interest will be the one thing that captures the Presidents attention if at all, there are some other factors that may mean a dramatic change in African policy.

PT: One of the anxieties in Nigeria now about the Trump presidency is about MNJTF, the coalition that is fighting Boko Haram which the U.S. has been very supportive of. Trump said something about decreasing the U.S. footprint in security affairs around the world, so there is this anxiety about what he will do about Boko Haram.

Cooke: Thats interesting because my fear will be the flip side of that. A number of his leading appointments have been military officials and he will be advised by them on U.S. ongoing engagement. There are some things the president does not turn on a dime, that is one thing. The second is that in global terms, U.S. support for counter-terrorism in the Sahel and northern Nigeria is keener compared to the footprints elsewhere in the world. That would not be the first place, I think, that things will shake out. You might say, disentangle from places like the South Sudan but MNJTF is kind of one of the smaller U.S. military commitments. My concern is that he would look at security issues in Nigeria and the Sahel through a strictly military lens. I think it is going to be very important to convince him and to convince the advisers around him that Boko Haram and groups like it cannot be dealt with through solely military means. Thats why governance, economic development, job creation, those are the things, they are harder to do, they take a long time but those are the things that ultimately turn the tide. And thats my worry, that they wont see the need for a more comprehensive approach to ultimately defeat terrorists, whether in Nigeria or elsewhere.

PT: Do you think President Buhari should invite President Trump to visit Nigeria?

Cooke: I absolutely think he should, I dont know whether he will though, or whether he will go. I think the more exposure President Trump can get to different parts of the world, to different perspectives than the purely commercial view hes got will be very important. But I just cant imagine that Africa will be very high on his priority list.

PT: And around Africa, there is also the fear that the Trump administration might decide to tamper with AGOA given what he said about trade deals during the campaign.

Cooke: Yes, but he cant just overturn a law, that would have to have a strong congressional support. Where he might be harder is on a place like South Africa, I dont know if you followed the whole chicken business [South African restriction on chicken import from the United States] 

PT: Yes, I did 

Cooke: I think there, he might be less willing to cut a place like South Africa a slack, because in some ways, South Africa was giving Europe, Brazil and China better opportunities than it was giving to the United States. So he might press for harder terms when issues come up but he cant just reverse a law that is in place, and not without strong congressional support.

PT: So we just have to wait and see 

Cooke: Nobody knows what it is going to look like, yes you have to wait and see. You can only judge from the things hes done and the things hes said so far. But then President Bush surprised us on Africa 

PT: Yes, but Bush had political experience and good intentions 

Cooke:  and people around him.

PT:  yes, Trump seems to have just began building his coalition, his team.

Cooke:  and the people he is picking are not strong policy pundits 

PT:  that is the fear, Nigeria is at a very delicate position now. The kind of support Nigeria needs from the United States now is not some kind of reversal or hotchpotch policy, we need something integrated, wholesome and solid.

Cooke: The one good thing about Africa not getting that much attention from the President is that the State Department, USAID and the African Command would kind of keep doing what they are doing under the radar. If Africa were a huge priority for the President, then we might see some big changes. But its kind of so low that those bureaucracies, those institutions and those engagements that are going on now will likely just carry on in a lot of ways.
Nigerias government needs to restrategise on a national language policy to avoid about 50 indigenous minority languages going to extinction, an expert has said.

The President, Linguistic Association of Nigeria, LAN, Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche, stated this on Tuesday during the opening ceremony of the 29th annual conference of the association holding at the University of Jos, Plateau State.

She did not list the affected minority languages, some of the over 250 languages spoken by different ethnic groups across Nigeria.

Let me also use this opportunity to advise the federal government on the need to reawaken the national language policy project which is moribund already, she said.

Represented by LAN Vice President Harrison Adeniye, Ms. Ohiri-Aniche called for the establishment of language centres to prevent possible extinction of most minority languages in the country.

We would like to use this opportunity to remind you, sir, of the promise made on behalf of the university to establish the centre for minority languages in your institution, she said while addressing the representative of the vice chancellor of the Jos university.

We know this centre when established will go a long way in documenting and revitalizing well over fifty languages, most of which are moribund.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Jos, Sebastian Maimako, in an address lamented that there was a decline in cultural and ethnic language speaking among some Nigerians.

Represented by the Dean, Faculty of Arts, of the university, Tor Iorapuu, Mr. Maimako charged the linguistic association to fashion out a way of revitalizing moribund languages in the country.

Given this unfortunate situation of language and cultural decline in our various immediate communities, I enjoin you as teachers, scholars and professional researchers in the academic discipline of linguist as well as in other related areas of language studies to deliberate and fashion out viable means of readdressing issues of inadequacies relating to the documentation and revitalization of minority languages in Nigeria.

The Vice Chancellor charged parents and teachers to teach young people how to speak and write in local languages.

Revitalization of minority languages in Nigeria is key, such that our children can grow to speak and write in our indigenous languages, he said.

The LAN 5-day annual national conference ends on Friday after which a communique is expected.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has faulted the Federal Governments upward review of deduction from workers salaries.

Peter Ozo-Eson, NLC General Secretary, told the News Agency of Nigeria in an interview on Tuesday, that the increased deduction was unacceptable.

We got complaints from a number of workers about the pay that they got last month, being a fall compared to what they use to get.

We have tried to make enquires as to how this has come about, and we heard that there has being upward revisions in the number of deduction that has been taking place before.

The National Housing Fund, Pension contributions and the PAYE (Pay as You Earn), that is the Personal Income Tax deduction.

We are at a loss as to how that will happen, because with regards to the National Housing Fund, it is stipulated what percentage of salary goes as deduction.

So whatever has been deducted in the past is based on that law and therefore you cannot just wake up and change the amount of deduction.

It will require an amendment and a change to the subsisting law before you can do that effectively.

He called on the Federal Government to have a rethink on the situation as workers were already in hardship.

He said that NLC had received complaints from various workers that their November salaries were reduced as compared to what they used to get.

He said that the amount deducted ranged from N5,000 to N10,000 and above, depending on grade levels.

He explained that the Pension Contributions 2004 Pension Act as amended stipulates 7.5 per cent as employee contribution.

According to him, what can be done and what the law allows is that the matching contribution of the employer is set as a minimum and is free to increase what it has.

But for the employee, the law stipulates that, without amendment to the law, you cannot habitually change the contribution.

If you are going to change what people have been paying as tax, you will need to change the law and that is at least to put people on notice.

You need to discuss with the employees because it is the workers who are going to suffer this reduction.

For people to wake up in this harsh economic time and suddenly without even being informed, suddenly see a drop in their take home pay is something that is basically unacceptable.

I think that government needs to restore peoples salaries to what it used to be, he said.

Mr. Ozo-Eson said that NLC would meet its affiliates in the civil service union and other public sector to fashion out how government would be advised to stop such actions.

He said that given the hash economic situation, there was need for government to bring out interventions that would cushion the drastic fall in the income of workers.

We do not want what will further escalate and complicate the conditions and we are going into the festive seasons, he added.

(NAN)
The House of Representatives on Tuesday resolved to investigate the death of Rachael Oladepo, a corps member at the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Orientation Camp in Kano.

The resolution of the House followed a motion by Olufemi Fakeye (Osun), which was unanimously adopted by members through a voice vote.

Moving the motion, Mr. Fakeye expressed concern over the media reports, last week, on the demise of Ms. Oladepo while at the Kano orientation camp.

He noted that Ms. Oladepo, before her demise, was aged 26, a first class graduate in Aviation Transport Management of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho and a native of Osun.

Mr. Fakeye explained that Ms. Oladepo became sick few days after she reported at the orientation camp on November 25 and reported her condition to the camp authorities.

The lawmaker further informed the house that the late Ms. Oladepo was admitted at the camp clinic under the supervision of an NYSC doctor, supported by NYSC nurses.

Mr. Fakeye further expressed concern that the camp clinic might not have been adequately equipped adding that the late Ms. Oladepo was reportedly given placebo.

Placebo is a pill or substance given to patient like a drug but has no physical effect on the patient.

He explained that Ms. Oladepo was later injected with some substances which he said worsened her health condition.

Mr. Fakeye said that because Ms. Oladepos medical condition did not improve many hours after being admitted at the clinic, she was belatedly evacuated to another hospital where she reportedly died.

Contributing to the motion, the Leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, described the death of Ms. Oladepo as one death too many, a development he said should not be overlooked.

He said that all involved in the negligence of the act should be made to appear before the Committees on Healthcare Services, Youths Development and Justice.

Mr. Gbajabiamila called on the management of NYSC to work with state governments for the provision of better health care services in all the NYSC camps in the country.

The House also resolved that health insurance be provided for all youth corps members in the country.

The Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara, therefore, referred the motion to the committees concerned for compliance and report back to the House within four weeks.

The House observed a minute silence for the souls of the departed corps members.

(NAN)
President Muhammadu Buhari has called on the Nigerian elite to stop insisting that things should be done the old way, which impoverished the nation.

Speaking at a meeting with a group of Nigerians in the Diaspora, on the margins of the 3rd Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa on Tuesday in Dakar, the president said his administration was on the right track to improve the image of the country by entrenching accountability and probity in governance.

President Buhari told the 11-man Nigerian delegation of association leaders resident in Senegal and Cote D Ivoire, that the last 16 years of poor handling of the nations resources and infrastructure have continued to impact negatively on the country.

This administration is pleased we won the election, we are pleased Nigerians are cooperating with us. But the problems are so enormous that we need the cooperation of Nigerians, particularly the elite.

They (elite) should reflect on the condition of the country, and stop making expensive demands because things cannot be done the old way, the president said.

On the welfare of Nigerians in the Diaspora, President Buhari assured them that the Federal Government will continue to promote good neighbourliness and improve the negative perception about Nigerians abroad.

Nigerians are known for their competitiveness and I am very passionate about Nigeria. I will continue to preach good neighbourliness and work hard to improve the numerous human and material resources in the country, he said.

In his remarks, the President of the Nigerian community, Cote D Ivoire, Alhaji Adebayo Yahaya, commended the President for his bold and unflinching fight against corruption, saying Nigerians are praying for your success, dont relent, do not lose hope, the almighty God is behind you.

Also speaking, the President of the Nigerian community, Senegal, Osas Edigin, told the president that Nigerians in the country have enjoyed excellent relationship with their hosts.
The European Union (EU) on Monday pledged its support for the ongoing efforts of the Federal Government to rebuild some parts of the north-east and Niger Delta regions by earmarking 20 million Euros for the reconstruction of markets and warehouses in Borno and Delta States.

The EU Ambassador to Nigeria, Michael Arrion, who gave the pledge during a visit to the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, in her office, said the funds would be offered to the two states in the form of budget support.

Sometime ago, we talked about budget support but we will be able to do that only at the State level, using a special instrument meant for countries emerging from war, and we can look at States in the North East and look at specific projects in terms of financial support to their budgets, he said.

Mrs. Adeosun said all the financial analysis needed to facilitate support to the States had been put in place, pointing out that the Fiscal Sustainability Plan required a 21-point fiscal reform programme that enhanced transparency, accountability and efficiency.

According to the Minister, the funding arrangement would help in healing the wounds caused by insurgent activities in the North East.

She said it would also give hope to the Niger Delta people who have been impacted by pipeline bombings and the attendant environmental problems in the area.

The EU Ambassador said the quest to invest in Africa was largely informed by the need to discourage migration to Europe, pointing out that several thousands of Nigerian citizens have continued to migrate to Europe.

He said, We have specific objective for creating this instrument and it is to address the root cause of migration. We are presenting this initiative within the framework of the global response to irregular migration.

Today, we have a few thousand Nigerians in Europe, and we feel we have the responsibility of attracting them to come back to Nigeria.

By investing in Africa, we will be creating jobs. We will be mixing grants with loans. We believe the grants will have a leveraged effect, He disclosed that the EU, has in the last two years invested over 300 Billion Euros in Africa, he said.
The Dangote Group has dismissed 109 workers at Obajana Cement Company in Kogi State, after being found guilty of various offences, Abdulahi Magaji has said.

Mr. Magaji, the coordinator of the companys Patrol Team, announced this to journalists on Tuesday at the Obajana premises of the company.

He said that the dismissed workers were among the 244 suspects arrested between May and November.

According to him, they include erring drivers, owners of illegal haulage, and those stealing the companys properties among others.

He said that another 115 workers were being remanded in prison custody pending the determination of their cases.

I am happy to inform you that we have arrested and recovered five stolen trucks; but unfortunately, the products have been stolen.

It is interesting to note that one of the kingpins, Samaila Yakubu, who specialised in stealing our trucks in collaboration with some drivers and buyers, has also been arrested.

It is this group that has been terrorising our trucks in the South East and South South axis, Mr. Magaji, a former commissioner of police said.

The coordinator said that the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, had directed that misconducts by drivers should be reduced to the barest minimum.

We have pasted warnings clearly on the cab of all our trucks prohibiting carrying of goods and passengers apart from companys products.

We are calling on the law enforcement agencies to support the efforts of the Dangote Group in arresting those who break the laws of the company, he said

He explained that the efforts of the patrol team had helped to reduce accidents in the fleet, adding that more measures would be put in place to reduce accidents.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the major duties of the National Patrol Unit of Dangote Group are to stop illegal haulage and reckless driving by Dangote drivers.

The patrol unit also prevents diversion of products, driving of Dangote trucks by unauthorised drivers, and enlightenment of drivers on traffic rules among others.

(NAN)
The management of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, FUTA, says it has lifted the indefinite suspension placed on 23 of its staff, including three Union leaders in the aftermath of a protracted conflict between it and the unions.

The union members, of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT, and Non Academic Staff Union of Universities, NASU, had launched an attacked on the Vice Chancellor, Adebiyi Daramola, calling on his removal as VC.

They had earlier instigated a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, alleging fraud and other illegalities in the management of the university.

The EFCC, acting on the petition, invited Mr. Daramola and other top management staff for questioning.

But the unionists vowed to continue their protest by refusing to return to work, the action which elicited a reaction from the management in the form of the suspension of the 23 staff.

The Registrar, Modupe Ajayi, while issuing the suspension letter last week, alleged that the affected staff members had been disturbing academic activities on the campus.

She named the affected workers as Dele Durojaye, Mike Opirijit, Remi Egunjobi, Bunmi Ayo -Alafe, Felix Adunbi, Obe Rotimi, Aladesuyi Ajoke, Philip Jayeoba, Akanji Justinah, Bayo Aladerotohun, Adefolarin Adesida and Ruth Bakare.

Other include M.P. Faola, S. Arokoyu, J.S. Asante, Thomas Aina, Nelson Njoku, A.E. Omoraka, O.R. Bello, O.M. Fagbamiye-Akinwale and Mathew Fayiwole.

But a statement on Tuesday by the Head of Information and Protocol unit of the institution, Adegbenro Adebanjo, said the lifting of the suspension was in line with the decision of the Governing Council.

He said the letter lifting the suspension was addressed to the affected staff, copies of which were sent to the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission; Director, Tertiary Education, Federal Ministry of Education; the National Presidents of SSANU, NAAT and NASU.

He said the letter, which was signed by Mrs. Ajayi states that, Council decided that the Union Leaders and other staff suspended should be recalled by the University Management and that members of the Union should resume work immediately.

Accordingly, I write on behalf of the Governing Council to recall you and other members of the Union who were suspended.

Council took the decision to lift the suspension and order the payment of the October and November Salaries to the affected staff as part of its holistic intervention to find a lasting solution to the crisis in the Institution.

Mr. Adebanjo said the letter also announced the setting up of a hig- powered committee comprising members drawn from the broad spectrum of the university.

The committees main task is to address the crisis in an in-depth and holistic manner and provide the platform for further dialogue in order to achieve peace, the letter read.

The Committee members will be drawn from the Senate, representatives of the alumni, ASUU, SSANU, NASU, NAAT and the Students Union.

However, the Chairman of SSANU, Dele Durijaye, said he was yet to receive any communication on the lifting of the suspension from the management.

Officially, I am not aware of the lifting of the suspension, he said.

As I speak to you, the union is yet to get any letter from the management, I am just hearing from you now.

He said the reports on the suspension of the workers were still very much in the media, particularly on radio, adding that there was nothing concrete to show anything had changed.
The trial of Benjamin Ogunbodede, a professor and former Director- General, Institute of Agriculture Research and Training, Ibadan, Oyo State, and two others continued on Monday.

A prosecution witness, Toluola Tola-Ukaba, giving detailed account of how in connivance with his co-defendants, he used different company names to divert money meant for the payment of hazard allowance of the staff of the Institute.

Mr. Ogunbodede is being prosecuted alongside Zacheaus Tejumola, Adenose Clement and Jalekun Omotowoju on a 17-count charge of conspiracy, misappropriation and diversion of funds to the tune of N115million before Justice N. Ayo Emmanuel of the Federal High Court, sitting in Ibadan, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

Trouble started when the Academic Staff Union of IARTA petitioned the EFCC, alleging that the former DG falsely claimed to have used N115million to pay hazard allowance to its members in December 2013.

They also alleged that, he claimed to have used N15million to harvest crops, when he actually spent N800,000 only.

Tola-Ukaba, an operative of the EFCC, while being led in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, Nkereuwem Anana, said that the EFCC received a petition dated December 17, 2012 from the Joint Action Committee of Staff Union of the IART, Ibadan regarding the alleged offence.

The team handling the matter wrote letters to different banks to furnish the Commission with necessary information regarding the transaction that occurred in the personnel emolument account of staff of the institute (IART), Ms. Tola-Ukaba said.

According to her, the analysis of the information received from one of the banks, Access bank, showed that the Institute received subvention from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to the tune of N606 million in two tranches of N303 million in November and December, 2010.

A transaction of N177million was initiated from the personnel emolument account to another account of the Institute titled Staff Club Account domiciled in Access Bank and whose signatory were the 1st and 2nd defendants (Ogunbodede and Tejumola).

A detailed statement of account of the Staff Club Account revealed that N177million hit the account in two tranches of N81million and N96million. From this account, several withdrawals were made mostly via cheques, Ms. Tola-Ukaba said.

She added that, when the operatives of EFCC requested the cheques for the withdrawal from Access Bank, the following were discovered: the cheques were signed by the 1st and 2nd defendants; cheques totaling the sum N156million were drawn in the names of some companies belonging to Jalekan Omotowoju; cheques totaling N15million were drawn in the name of Kunle Ojo and N7.5million was drawn in the name of Adenose Clement.

Further findings according to the witness showed that, N177million was moved from the personnel emolument account as hazard allowance for staff of the Institute which was never paid.

The payments made to Omotowoju were not in respect of any contract awarded to him, Ms. Tola-Ukaba added.

The case has been adjourned to January 16, 2017 for continuation of trial.
The Nigeria police have arrested three suspected kidnappers said to be responsible for the abduction of five expatriate workers of the Dangote Group.

A statement released, Tuesday, by the Force spokesman, Don Awunah, said the suspects, arrested between November 27 and December 3 by the IGP Intelligence Response Team (IRT), have confessed to crime.

The suspects have also confessed to the murder of Istifanus Gurama, another Dangote worker who transported a N5.6 million ransom to them for the release of their victims, the police said.

The kidnap victims were said to have been set free after the suspects collected the money.

The police gave the names of the suspects as Abubakar Gide, 24; Abdullahi Salihu, 22; and Babuga Adamu, 25.

Mr. Gide was arrested in Ijebu Igbo, Ogun state, while Mr. Salihu and Mr. Adamu were arrested in Epe Forest, Lagos state and Ajase Ipo Forest in Kwara state respectively, the police said.

The suspects, according to the police statement, led the IRT operatives to Apoje River where the body of Mr. Gurama was recovered.

The police said they have also recovered three AK47 rifles, six AK47 magazines and 160 rounds of ammunitions from Ijebu Igbo Ogun Forest, said to be the gangs hideout.

The police said they were making effort to arrest other members of the gang.

Meanwhile, the police have advised Nigerians to be careful when negotiating ransom with kidnappers.

It is imperative, (that) relations of kidnap victim(s) should exercise considerable restraint in negotiating and paying ransom.

It is absolutely important the negotiators of ransom should have confidence in the police.
The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has condemned the Kaduna State Government for declaring the Shiite IMN an insurgent group.

The civic group described the action of the Kaduna State Government as a very dangerous dimension.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Kaduna State Government in its White Paper released on Monday stated that for all intent and purpose, the IMN is an insurgent group and ought to be treated as such.

The government said it would prosecute the detained leader of the IMN, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, for all the other crimes his group has committed in the past 30 years.

Mr. El-Zakzaky and his wife have been detained without trial since December last year after soldiers killed over 300 members of his group.

The soldiers accused the IMN members of blocking the road and plotting to kill the Army Chief, Tukur Buratai, a claim the Shiites denied.

The killing was condemned by local and international rights group.

In its statement on Tuesday signed by its director, Ishaq Akintola, apart from condemning the Kaduna government, MURIC also cautioned the IMN on its past actions calling on members of the group to do some self-assessment.

Read MURICs full statement below.

Kaduna State Government yesterday declared the embattled Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) an insurgent group.

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) rejects this new label for an otherwise pacific organization. The new declaration is nothing short of calling a dog a bad name in other to hang it. Kaduna State government is being economical with the truth, killing a fly with a sledge hammer and engaging in executive tyranny.

This is a very dangerous dimension. Coming shortly after a competent court of law ordered the release of the IMN leader, Shaykh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky from detention, this stigmatization is just another attempt by the state government to jump the gun. The declaration is short in equity, long in injustice. But we must remember Martin Luthers warning that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Kaduna government is pregnant with ingredients of all the five evils which Chamberlain spoke about, viz, brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution. Why is it that the only thing men learn from history is that they learn nothing from history? Kaduna has not learnt anything from the Boko Haram phenomenon. Kaduna has chosen to prove both Hegel and Karl Marx right in their postulate that history always repeats itself.

MURIC is however constrained to remind all stakeholders of the divine warning contained in Quran 8:25 Fear a tumult which will affect those who caused it as well as the innocent ones. Was this not how Boko Haram started? Police brutality and extra-judicial killing of the groups leader caused its metamorphosis into a terror machine. But is it the police alone that are facing the consequences today?

MURIC calls on well-meaning Nigerians to speak out. It was the great Shaykh Uthman Bin Fudi (Uthman Dan Fodio) who said, In an unjust society, silence is a crime Let us speak up now before it is too late.

But members of the IMN also need to do some self-assessment. Something must be wrong with a system against which so many neighbours testify. Several people (including Muslims) confirm that they had had bitter encounters with members of the IMN. They complain about the groups open display of arrogance. All those people could not have been lying. Something must be wrong with a doctrine which embarrasses the rest of The Muslim Ummah and from which they dissociate themselves.

We commend the leadership of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) for its efforts in resolving the IMN debacle and the maturity it has manifested in handling the matter. Due to the sensitive nature of the issue, NSCIA has engaged in quiet diplomatic shuttling between governments and the IMN from the beginning. We urge the NSCIA to continue the dialogue.

In conclusion, we appeal to the Kaduna State government to de-label IMN and begin a process of reconciliation and reorientation for its members. That is the path of visionary leadership and responsible governance. It is the path of peace. On its own part, IMN must improve its relationship with other Islamic organizations.
Habib Kekeno, the Caretaker Chairman of Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno on Tuesday said the military would reopen Maiduguri/Baga road on December 24 following relative peace in the state.

Mr. Kekeno, who disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri, said the council had completed all the arrangements to reopen the road.

The Maiduguri/Baga road was closed in November 2014 by the military after Baga suffered five major attacks from Boko Haram insurgents.

The chairman said the continued closure of the road had negatively affected fishing and socio-economic activities of the state.

It is hard to believe that Baga used to be a lively trading centre of 200,000 people where merchants would travel to sell cattle, leather goods and trade in fresh produce.

He said more than 2,000 fish traders and marketers were still producing fish in Baga, but they lacked access to transport their produce to Maiduguri.

I went to Baga about 21 times and I can tell you that I have met our fishermen who stocked about N4 million fish, but do not have access to bring them into Maiduguri.

Baga was the largest producer of fish in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Its fishermen bordered from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and some other countries.

Before the insurgency, more than 300 lorry loads of fish are transported to Maiduguri and other parts of the country in a week. But now, no single truck comes from Baga.

Borno get its fishes from Damboa Dam, Aloa Dam, River Yobe, others from Chad Republic, but there is no access road leading to these places anymore, Mr. Kekeno said.

(NAN)
Abubakar Malami, the Attorney -General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, says the Federal Government is worried and deeply concerned about allegations of sexual harassment of students in institutions of learning.

Mr. Malami made the statement at the 5th National Conference of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) in Umaru Waziri Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi, on Tuesday.

Government is worried and deeply concerned about allegations of sexual harassment of students, the monetisation of marks and degrees and absence of due process in the award of contracts by Polytechnic Governing Councils, provosts and other administrators ,among other allegations, he said.

Mr. Malami, who was represented by Muhammad Isah of the Faculty of Law, Bayero University, Kano, urged ASUP to take a leading role in addressing the issues through positive actions and advocacy.

Addressing these issues will in no doubt retain the relevance of ASUP within the educational sector, he said.

The minister said the union must also commit itself to support the Federal Governments fight against corruption in all sectors, including the education institutions.

He expressed the hope that the conference would strongly address the issues in line with its theme over the next three days.

Mr. Malami urged the participants to make their contributions in an objective and patriotic manner in order to enrich the outcome of the conference.

He assured the union of the governments readiness to support all initiatives and resolutions arising from the conference designed to improve the educational sector for the sake of future generations.

The future of our dear country depends on the quality of education we can offer to our children, he said.

The Rector of Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic, Muhammad Aliyu, said the academic conference must be accepted as an important and potent platform for the cross- fertilisation of ideas and proffering solutions to problems .

It must also be a means for upgrading the living standards of our people, he said.

He emphasised the need to see more chief lecturers presenting papers in conferences.

Mr. Aliyu implored governments at all levels to improve funding to polytechnics and encourage research in the institutions.

The rector expressed the hope that the outcome of the conference would provide solutions to the challenges of the society.

The theme of the conference is Sustainable Economic Policies and Management through Technological Innovations in periods of Economic Recession.

(NAN)
Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, has adjourned till December 14 hearing on the plea bargain arrangement between a banker, Tope Akintade, and the EFCC in the case of alleged N8 billion CBN currency scam.

Mr. Akintades counsel, Femi Edema, at Tuesdays hearing accused the anti-graft body of deliberately frustrating his clients efforts on the plea bargain arrangement.

Mr. Edema told the court that the EFCC Head Office in Abuja had initially certified that all the necessary processes of the plea bargain concerning his client had been completed.

The counsel also lamented the worsening health condition of his client and prayed the court for a short hearing date.

But the prosecutor, Sola Obaribirin, submitted that the plea bargain processes were yet to be fully completed.

He, however, gave an assurance that all necessary steps would be taken for the plea bargain deal to be sealed before the next adjourned date.

The prosecutor further stated that the commission was determined to combine all the plea bargain processes and hearings at once instead of considering them in bits.

Justice Ayo-Emmanuel consequently adjourned the case, which was earlier slated for hearing, over the inability of Mr. Akintade and EFCC to conclude all processes involved in the plea bargain arrangement.

Meanwhile, the bail application filed by Adeola Olaniyan, the fifth accused person, was refused and struck out.

The court held that the reasons for the bail were not cogent and convincing enough.

R.M. Bature, the counsel to Olaniyan, had told the court that the health condition of his client was worsening.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that Patient Okoro, Johnson Afolabi, Ibrahim Ilori, Philip Togun, Kolawole Babalola and Fatai Yusuf, along with others, had been standing trial since 2015.

They are facing trial over multiple charges bordering on conspiracy, forgery, theft and recirculation of mutilated N8 billion currencies at the Ibadan branch of CBN.

(NAN)
The ruling All Progressives Congress sparred with the Peoples Democratic Party in separate statements on Tuesday over an alleged interference with Governor Nyesom Wikes security apparatus.

The major political parties tore into each other a day after Mr. Wike told PREMIUM TIMES that his Chief Security Officer and other key personnel in his detail had been removed.

Their crossfire, which comes as campaign intensifies for the December 10 legislative elections, persists despite polices insistence that they were unaware of the development.

The police in Rivers State and the federal command in Abuja told PREMIUM TIMES on Monday night and Tuesday afternoon that they could not confirm any changes in the security arrangement of Government House, Port Harcourt.

The SSS could not be reached for comments.

The latest controversy is the second time Mr. Wike will make issue out of his security.

On November 26, the governor openly scolded the Rivers State Commissioner for Police for allegedly ordering a drawdown of his security personnel.

But in a statement Tuesday morning, the PDP said it had been duly informed that a majority of the security personnel attached to the governor had been withdrawn.

Dayo Adeyeye, spokesman for the interim leadership of the PDP, said the alleged withdrawal was part of a purported plot to weaken Mr. Wikes security and leave him vulnerable to fatal attacks.

The method being applied by the APC in the Rivers re-run elections is to use security agencies to withdraw the security details of the governor and expose him to danger of being assassinated in order to cow him to succumb to their rigging plans, Mr. Adeyeye said.

Consequently, the PDP gave the police and the State Security Service three days to restore the governors detail.

We, therefore, call on the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris and the Director General of State Security Services, Lawal Daura to, as a matter of urgency, restore all the security detail of Governor Nyesom Wike and to secure Government House, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Failure to do this before the Saturday Dec. 10 re-run elections is indirectly calling on Rivers people to resort to self- help.

The APC fired back with a statement by its National Secretary Tuesday afternoon, describing the alleged withdrawal as a hoax.

Mala Buni said the PDP and Mr. Wike were agitated by the consequences of their transgressions in the past.

Again, the PDP and the Rivers State Governor are haunted by their horrible past misdeeds, he said.

Nigerians recall how Wike, then a PDP Minister used federal institutions to harass, intimidate and threaten the life of perceived political enemies particularly Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who was then governor of Rivers State.

Under Wikes watch, political thugs and criminal gangs have continued to kill and maim APC members and innocent citizens in Rivers State.

Political activities in Rivers State became charged shortly after INEC announced a new date for the conduct of a legislative election that would see the state get representation in the Senate for the first time in over a year.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Dakar, Senegal, assured the international community that the end of Boko Haram terrorists was in sight.

The President gave the assurance at the meeting of a panel of heads of states at the 3rd Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa.

In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, on Tuesday in Abuja, the President also assured the international community that the security situation in Nigeria had improved significantly.

President Buhari noted with delight the increased cooperation between Nigeria and its neighbours in the fight against terrorism.

About a month ago, I spoke with the President of Chad and I was pleased that a number of Chadians and Nigerians that were Boko Haram members are surrendering to him en-masse.

The good news I have is that the end of the raining season has come in the North-Eastern region of Nigeria.

Members of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) are in their respective positions and at an agreed time they will move simultaneously and spontaneously for us to see the end of Boko Haram.

We are now operating in the Sambisa Forest and as far as Boko Haram is concerned in the Lake Chad Basin area, I think they are done for, the President added.

While highlighting the gains of the cooperation among the Lake Chad Basin Commission countries comprising Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Benin Republic and Nigeria, Mr. Buhari told the gathering that Boko Haram is no longer holding any territory or Local Government Area (LGA) in Nigeria.

Those who live in the North East know that Boko Haram is no longer holding a single territory in the 774 LGAs in Nigeria.

But they have a system of using IEDs and they indoctrinate mostly teenage girls and send them to soft targets, to churches, mosques and market places. That too is becoming very rear.

I think Boko Haram shot themselves in the foot when they gave their ideology a religious connotation by killing children in their schools, people in the mosque and churches and shouting Allahu Akbar.

According to him, this is a major contradiction as no religion advocates hurting the innocent.

He said:You cant kill people and say Allahu Akbar. You either do not know what you are saying or you dont believe it.

The President stated that Nigeria was capable of surmounting its security challenges, and appealed to the international community to focus more attention on addressing piracy in the Gulf of Guinea and unemployment in Nigeria.

In the southern part of the country, stolen Nigerian crude is being illegally transported through the Gulf of Guinea and installations offshore are being subverted.

We also have the problem of unemployment in Nigeria. With a population of 180 million people of which 65 per cent are under the age of 35, young Nigerians are looking for any kind of job to survive.

He said that the present administration is addressing the problem of youth unemployment by turning to agriculture and solid minerals because we are lucky to be blessed with arable land, water and resources.

(NAN)
The Benue Police Command on Tuesday confirmed the release of a radio journalist, Iyuadoo Tor-Agbidye, who was kidnapped four days ago in her house in Makurdi.

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Moses Yamu, confirmed the release to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Makurdi.

Mr. Yamu said the kidnapped journalist was released in the early hours of Tuesday, adding that no ransom was paid.

He explained that police investigations revealed that the kidnappers might have had strong connection with the family.

He disclosed that some arrests were made in connection with the crime, stressing that investigations were ongoing to ensure full punishment of the culprits.

NAN reports that the kidnapped journalist is married to Achim Tor-Agbidye, the Zonal Manager of the First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Makurdi.
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Akwa Ibom senator, John Udoedehe, has rejected the choice of Don Etiebet as the chairman of the APC caucus in the state.

Mr. Etiebet, besides being a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, was a national chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and commands much influence in the state politics.

The caucus was inaugurated recently in Uyo by the partys National Vice Chairman, South South, Hillard Etta, at a ceremony which drew large crowd of party leaders in the state, including the Managing Director, Oil and Gas Free Zone Authority and the partys 2015 governorship candidate in the state, Umana Umana.

The Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nsima Ekere, and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, also attended the event.

How can Don Etiebet be the chairman of the caucus when he is a factional leader? Mr. Udoedehe said on Friday in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES. He (Etiebet) is Umanas supporter.

Mr. Udoedehe insisted that he was rigged out in the primary that produced Mr. Umana as the APC candidate for the 2015 governorship election which the party lost to the Peoples Democratic Partys Udom Emmanuel.

Mr. Udoedehe also said that the APC constitution recognised only the state chairman of the party as the caucus chairman, and not an outsider.

Its unconstitutional. Its nonsense, he said.

The former senator said it was not as if he and his faction could not work with Mr. Umana and others in the APC, but said that the party had not made any effort to heal the wounds of those who felt betrayed before and after the 2015 election in the state.

How do you reconcile with a people that are wounded?

You come into the party. You were not part of the party, and youve taken all the positions, youve been appointed (into different positions), and you are the ones enjoying the party now, and weve not been part of the meetings before the caucus was constituted.

It is not done that way.

You put together a caucus after you have taken all the appointments.

Okay, we are saying you can go ahead with your caucus, after all, its a factional caucus. We have our faction too.

I have said this so many times, what they are doing is like having someone come into your house, open your fridge and then ask you what are you going to drink?. It is not done that way.

Mr. Udoedehe said he had reconciled with Sam Ewang, a former military administrator of Rivers state and a chieftain of the APC, including a former member of the House of Representatives, Emmanuel Ekpenyong, with the aim of taking back the party.

We are now wise, and the reconciliation is total, he said. We went to brief the national chairman of the party and the national secretary.

Amadu Attai, the Chairman of the APC in the state, told PREMIUM TIMES that the party was bigger than any single person, including Mr. Udoedehe.

Mr. Attai said the APC, Mr. Umana and others want Mr. Udoedehe back to the party, but that the former senator has rebuffed attempts to reconcile with him since after the 2015 election.

The party constitution says that whoever joins the party could be given a position within 24 hours, but if he (Udoedehe) were to be around he wouldnt have allowed such appointment to be made, said Mr. Attai.

Udoedehe continues to say that he started the party in Akwa Ibom state, and that he owns the party. But the party has grown beyond that, Mr. Attai said.
The Enugu State Police Command has arrested a suspected notorious gun runner who allegedly supplied AK47 rifle to one herdsman, Ibrahim Adamu, earlier arrested by the command.

The commands spokesman, Ebere Amaraizu, disclosed this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Enugu.

Mr. Amaraizu said the suspect was apprehended on Tuesday through intelligence supplied to police operatives in 9th Mile Police Division, near Enugu.

The suspect, who gave his name as one Samaila Garuba Alhaji, a.k.a. Bakasi, was earlier implicated by Ibrahim Adamu as the one that sold the AK47 rifle to him.

But following Adamus arrest, Samaila Garuba Alhaji, escaped when he got the information about the arrest of Ibrahim Adamu.

It was gathered that luck, however, ran out of Bakasi, as he is fondly called, when he was trailed to a motor park situated at 9th Mile in Enugu early this morning where he was nabbed after he made several efforts to escape, he said.

Mr. Amaraizu said that the suspect had been helping police in its investigation in relation to his nefarious activities.

(NAN)
Ogun State Government on Tuesday announced the recall of 12 out of 16 workers in the state public service recently dismissed.

The workers were accused of unethical conduct during this years Teachers Day celebration.

The Head of Service, Sola Adeyemi, made this known in a press statement, adding that the recalled workers had been directed to go back to work with effect from January 2, 2017.

Government has also pardoned and directed all the 19 workers suspended in connection with their roles in the same celebration to resume at their duty posts with effect from December 1, 2016, Mr. Adeyemi said.

Thirty five state workers were sanctioned on October 31 after a panel found them guilty of violating public service rules.

The Head of Service said, 19 of them were suspended while 16 were dismissed on the recommendations of the panel.

Consequent upon this, government has been receiving appeals on behalf of the affected workers from the National and State leaderships of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), traditional rulers, elders, religious leaders, eminent personalities as well as the affected workers, Mr. Adeyemi stated.

He said, following these interventions, the government decided to revisit the matter and consequently set up a machinery to carry out a case-by-case evaluation of the affected workers.

He said the government pardoned 31 workers, while four others remained fired while further investigations were ongoing.

Let me state at this juncture that cases of the other remaining four dismissed workers, including Messrs Dare Ilekoya, Eniola Atiku, Nola Balogun and Akeem Ambali are still undergoing evaluation and assure you that government will come out with the conclusion in their cases in due course, Mr. Adeyemi said.
PEMBERTON TOWNSHIP  The South Jersey Gas pipeline application is not on the agenda for Fridays Pinelands Commission meeting, even though a state appellate court decision recently threw it back to the commissioners for reconsideration.

It will be discussed in closed session, Executive Director Nancy Wittenberg said through spokesman Paul Leakan.

New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said he was not surprised. He said the Attorney Generals Office has told his group it will try to appeal the Nov. 7 decision to the state Supreme Court.

Sierra Club sued the commission, arguing Wittenberg exceeded her authority in deciding unilaterally that the application met the commissions regulations.

The appellate court agreed.

But Tittel said said there is no automatic appeal in the case, because the Superior Court of New Jerseys Appellate Division decision was unanimous.

They have to petition the court. We dont expect the court to take it up, Tittel said.

It will take some time, said Tittel. I would assume a couple of months before they know.

Wittenbergs decision in August 2015, reaffirmed in December 2015, cleared the way for approval by the state Board of Public Utilities.

The Sierra Club of New Jersey, Environment New Jersey and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance then filed lawsuits.

Two separate decisions were released Nov. 7 by the appellate court, one sending the application back to the commission and the other ordering the BPU to amend its approval to be conditional upon a new decision by the commission.

The Sierra Club focused on Wittenbergs lack of authority in its legal arguments, while the other groups also challenged the merits of the case, on which the court did not rule.

In response to the decision, South Jersey Gas President Jeff DuBois stressed the limited nature of the decision, saying it only dealt with procedure and cited no exceptions to the merits of or need for the pipeline.

SJ Gas calls it the Cape Atlantic Reliability Project and has argued the pipeline will repower the B.L. England Generating Station and be a backup gas line for 142,000 customers in Atlantic and Cape May counties.

South Jersey Gas initial application for the pipeline as a public development was rejected by commissioners on a tie vote in January 2014.

Then South Jersey Gas made changes in its application, and in May 2015 reapplied to the commission, saying the pipeline was a private development that didnt need a vote by commissioners.

Wittenberg agreed and allowed the project to proceed.

The 22-mile pipeline, which would run along roadways from Maurice River Township to the B.L. England Generating Station in Upper Township, would allow the coal-powered plant to convert to natural gas. The state Department of Environmental Protection will not allow the plant to continue using coal after 2017 because of air-pollution concerns.

The pipeline would pass through 10 miles of protected Pinelands Forest Area, under roadsides or paved roads.

The Sierra Club is also fighting a legal battle against the Southern Reliability Link pipeline New Jersey Natural Gas wants to build through parts of the northern section of the Pinelands.

We strongly believe the CMP (Comprehensive Management Plan) says no to pipelines, as does the Pinelands Act, Tittel said. The commission should tell South Jersey Gas, no, uphold the integrity of the Pinelands Act and CMP and end this mess.
MAYS LANDING  The building may not be huge, but behind it are all the resources of the states flagship university, Rutgerss new president Robert L Barchi said Friday at the dedication of the Rutgers Lifelong Learning Center at Atlantic Cape Community College.

While other four-year colleges offer courses or degree-completion programs at county colleges, the new Rutgers center represents the first time a four-year New Jersey college has actually built its own building on a community college campus.

This building is an investment , Barchi said. I am proud to know that it will make a difference.

Officials from Rutgers and Atlantic Cape formally cut the ribbon dedicating the new site Friday, but classes for about 300 students have already begun in the new $7.5 million 22,000-square-foot building. The center offers bachelors degree-completion programs in 10 majors for students who have already earned an associates degree or equivalent credits. Programs are affiliated with Rutgers-Camden and classes are taught by Rutgers faculty.

Rutgers also offers degree-completion programs at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County and Raritan Valley Community College, which serves Somerset and Hunterdon counties.

Atlantic Cape President Peter Mora said the building is an example of the mission of Atlantic Cape to create opportunity by providing access to superior education programs.

Our primary goal is to maximize student success, he said.

Rutgers professor Raphael Caprio, who led the effort to expand Rutgers programs to community colleges, said they celebrate not just the building, but the opportunity it represents.

Its really about students who might not have access to the other campuses, he said. It represents a shift in the Rutgers attitude. Community colleges must be full partners in how we serve students.

Caprio said research has shown that community college graduates who transfer to Rutgers with at least a 2.5 grade point average (or a C-plus) graduate at the same rate as students who start at Rutgers as freshmen.

He said when in the past state colleges would refuse to accept credits from the county colleges they were gatekeepers gone bad of higher education in New Jersey.

We are best when we acknowledge that we each have a role, he said.

Rutgers began offering courses at Atlantic Cape in fall 2006, with 14 students attending classes in a trailer that didnt even have bathrooms. Since then 140 students have earned Rutgers degrees at Atlantic Cape.

One of them is Frankie Williams, of Mays Landing, who got his degree from Atlantic Cape in 2009 and a bachelors in criminal justice from Rutgers in 2012. He urged college officials to consider offering a masters degree in criminal justice in the new building.

It was paramount for me to be able to stay close to home, Williams said, adding that he has financial obligations, a fiancee and a mortgage. Id come to campus and see that big R on the trailer and I knew I wanted to go there. Its a big deal for someone like me to have this opportunity. It was more economical and it made my fiancee happy.

He said while the trailer was not fancy, the faculty and staff made his experience memorable.

They were like seminar classes, he said. I still call some of my professors for advice. I feel very proud to walk into the new building.

The building has 12 classrooms, a 24-seat computer lab, and student lounge. It can hold about 400 students during a typical class period, and there are plans for an expansion if necessary. Caprio said the new building represents higher education policy at its best, and he has no doubt the expansion will be needed.

Under the 50-year renewable lease agreement with Atlantic Cape, Rutgers students also get use of all facilities on the community college campus.

Barchi said after the ceremony that he wouldnt be surprised to see Rutgers expand to other community colleges as part of the Rutgers mission to serve all residents of the state.

Its a way for us to be present in the community, he said. He said the commitment of the students who attended classes in the trailer demonstrate the value of a Rutgers degree.

They were willing to go to class in a trailer and our faculty was willing to come here to teach them, he said. Its a real statement about a Rutgers education.

Contact Diane D'Amico:

609-272-7241
Few New Jersey high school seniors used the PARCC test to meet graduation requirements this year.

Only one of every nine high school seniors in the Class of 2016 met the New Jersey graduation test requirement by passing the state PARCC exams in language arts and math, according to data released by the state Department of Education.

Almost half of the 96,300 seniors met the testing requirement by taking a state-approved substitute test, such as the SAT, PSAT, ACT or Accuplacer.

Results in local districts mostly mirrored the statewide patterns.

How well did South Jersey do on the new PARCC tests? Scores are improving, but many local school districts have a long way to go to meet standard

The information was released as part of a legal settlement with the Education Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which has challenged the states implementation of the PARCC test as a graduation requirement.

State education officials said the data show the vast majority of students were able to successfully complete current graduation requirements.

But the ELC is concerned about the future.

The data shows that the NJDOEs new graduation policies are educationally unsound and need to be revised before they undermine New Jerseys high school graduation rate, which is currently the second highest in the nation, said Stan Karp, director of ELCs Secondary Reform Project. If these rules had been in full effect last year, over 80,000 students would have needed portfolio appeals to graduate in addition to taking multiple layers of standardized tests.

Several groups file lawsuit against PARCC test graduation requirement Several New Jersey advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the use of the PARCC sta

The PARCC test is scheduled to be a requirement for graduation starting with the Class of 2021, although state education officials have said they will monitor the tests progress and adapt as necessary.

Some students did not take the PARCC because they knew they could meet the requirement using a substitute test. Students wont have to pass the Algebra I and English Language Arts 10 tests to graduate until 2021.

Curt Nath, director of academic services in Ocean City, noted that since it was only the second year of the PARCC test, many seniors had taken Algegra I years earlier so they did not have to take a PARCC test, which is given at the end of the course. Those students just substituted other tests.

The number using PARCC to graduate is likely to rise as more students take the required courses.

It warrants noting that there is a big difference between the percentage of students that could graduate using PARCC versus those that actually did graduate using PARCC, Nath wrote in an email.

The ELC is especially concerned about the impact on students with disabilities and English language learners.

The state data show half of the 1,824 English language learners met the requirement through the portfolio review process, which requires districts to send a students body of work to the state.

More than half of the nearly 13,000 students with disabilities met the requirement through a special provision in their individual education plans that allowed for alternate testing.

The multitude of options kept the graduation rate high. Statewide, only 186 students did not graduate solely because they did not pass a test or the portfolio review process. The majority of those students, 116, were economically disadvantaged, and most were either black (111) or Hispanic (55).

Assembly passes bill to cut PARCC results from teacher evaluations The state Assembly on Thursday approved a bill that would prohibit the use of student standa

About 2,100 seniors did not graduate because they did not meet all local district requirements.

Nearly 28 percent of the Class of 2016 used multiple pathways to meet the testing requirement, meaning they might have passed the PARCC in language arts but used another tests results for math.

Vineland Superintendent Mary Gruccio believes it is a good idea to have various testing options.

Not all students perform equally on written assessments vs. portfolio assessments, she wrote in an email. This does not indicate their ability. They just have different strengths when it comes to various types of assessments.

Every senior in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and southern Ocean counties did meet the state testing requirement in some way. But about 100 still failed to graduate because they did not meet local district requirements.

No seniors from Buena Regional graduated solely by passing the PARCC. Just one senior from Pleasantville, three from the Atlantic County Institute of Technology and six from Millville graduated by passing the PARCC.

Some districts had more mixed results. Atlantic City bucked the statewide trend and reported 62 students graduated passing PARCC and 61 used other tests. More than 200 used multiple measures.

In Greater Egg Harbor Regionals three high schools  Absegami, Oakcrest and Cedar Creek  just 43 students passed using only the PARCC while 633 used another standardized test.

Hammonton had 43 students graduate via PARCC, 127 via another test and 151 via multiple measures.

C. Dan Blachford, superintendent of Hammonton, said his district is not worried about PARCC because it is working toward meeting the requirements.

We have a very powerful group of teachers that have been modifying curriculum to meet the requirements, Blachford wrote in an email. The PARCC assessments are what our schools need to be striving for.
The Bay Atlantic Symphony welcomed a new executive director Tuesday.

After a national search, the board of directors appointed Meg Sippey as the symphonys new executive director, according to a statement from the organization.

Sippey will be responsible for financial and institutional development for the symphony, working in partnership with Music Director Jed Gaylin.

We are delighted to have attracted Meg to southern New Jersey, Gaylin said in the statement. She brings with her a rich background in arts and administration, music performance and education, as well as an infectious passion for great music and its power in our communities and schools. It is a joy to work with her.

Sippey most recently served a six-year tenure at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she filled various roles.

As a performer, the release states, Sippey was principal flutist with the Akron Symphony Orchestra in Ohio and the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra in Indiana, where she also served on the University of Evansville faculty.

I am thrilled to be working with the remarkable Bay Atlantic Symphony, she said in the release. Spending most of my childhood growing up outside Philadelphia, South Jersey was a second home for me. With Music Director Jed Gaylin and our dedicated Board of Trustees, I look forward to expanding our presence throughout the area and sharing this vibrant and inspiring organization which full and part-time residents will know as their own symphony orchestra.

Founded in 1983, the Bay Atlantic Symphony performs symphonic and chamber concerts and educates adults and young people throughout South Jersey.
This story was originally posted on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

You cant stop the beat and it doesnt look like you can stop Helene Britany either.

The 21-year-old South Jersey native will perform as Shelley, one of the nicest kids in town, on Hairspray Live! which broadcast for the first time on NBC on Dec. 7 and will air again on Monday at 8 p.m.

Beginning with dance lessons at the Ventnor City Cultural Arts Center at age three, Britanys singing and dancing never stopped.

She took dance every year, said her mother, Carol Seitchick-Alan, of Galloway Township. I credit her teachers, who from the very beginning were so supportive of her.

Seitchick-Alan said throughout the years, Britany received vocal and dance training in South Jersey.

The teachers she worked with included Tony Picciotti and his wife and daughter who run Absecon Academy Performing Arts, Cori Jack at Dance Forum South in Galloway,Victoria Clark from Ventnor Cultural Arts Center. The vocals from Susan Pieretti Frizzell who has a degree in music from Shenandoah University, Seitchick-Alan said. She attended Reeds Road School, and was supported by Principal Dr. William Zipparo and many teachers as well. My daughter got the best training locally.

As she entered her teen years, the family decided Britany moving to Los Angeles would help her with auditions. She has secured two record deals over the years and as a part of the duo Maliibu N Helene, had a song called Starin at It featured in a Ford commercial throughout last year. The duo has music videos and Britanys cover songs can be found online.

Through networking and meeting people in L.A., Britany recently worked on a new Jennifer Lopez video as well while attending dance classes and recording her own music.

Britany said landing the part in Hairspray Live!, however, was unlike anything shed experienced before.

Getting that news was probably one of the best moments of my life so far, Britany said. The audition process was amazing and just felt great from the start, then the callback happened and I had such a good feeling about it but didnt want to jinx anything so I just kept my fingers crossed.

The NBC productions cast includes Harvey Fierstein, Jennifer Hudson, Ariana Grande, Rosie ODonnell, Martin Short, Derek Hough and more.

The rehearsals have been absolutely a dream come true, Britany said. Everyone clicked from the very start, and we knew we had something special together. It just felt so right. We started rehearsals in mid-October, and they have been crazy intense. We had the whole show done in about three weeks, and from then on it was just perfecting it.

Seitchick-Alan said landing big gigs is possible with enough determination, connections and staying true to yourself.

There are a lot of talented people from New Jersey. You just cant give up, she said. Helene wants to be a role model for girls and be natural. Its not for the faint of heart, but if you want to pursue it you can make a career for yourself.

For Seitchick-Alan, there couldnt be a better time for the message behind the 1960s-set Hairspray. Relevance can still be found today in the central theme of integrating an all-white fictional Corny Collins Show.

The whole cast was talking about that, Seitchick-Alan said. Helene was a first-time voter and it was really important to her to get to vote and for me it was a life moment, my daughter voting next to me in this really important election. Its eerie that this is from the 1960s, but it applies today.

Britany said after doing Hairspray Live! she would like to get more involved in theater in the future, perhaps on Broadway.

From a very young age I knew exactly what I loved and wanted to do with my life, so from there I just worked on my craft and did everything I could to get to this point, she said. For me, this is just the start.
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP  When Christopher Johnson bought his home in the township last summer, it marked a return to his hometown after serving in the Marines and more than a decade battling injuries he suffered in the service.

Now considered 100 percent disabled by the Veterans Administration, Johnson, 37, applied for an exemption on paying property taxes available by state law to fully disabled veterans.

The tax exemption on his modest ranch home, about $4,600 a year, would help stretch his disability pension as he raises his three sons.

To his surprise, his request was rejected by the township tax assessor in August because he had not served at least 14 days in a combat zone. He is now appealing to the Atlantic County Board of Taxation and will have a hearing this month.

The property-tax exemption for 100 percent disabled veterans has been around since World War II and initially applied to all disabled veterans who served during the time of the conflict.

Statewide, 9,400 disabled veterans claimed the full tax exemption in 2015, according to information provided by the state Department of the Treasury.

But as the nature and geography of war has changed, the law has also been modified and narrowed in an attempt to adapt, forcing some veterans to have to fight another battle in court.

VA working to sign more private providers in South Jersey The Wilmington VA Medical Center is aggressively recruiting private medical providers to off

They dont always win. A Department of the Judiciary spokesperson said about 20 cases a year make it to the state tax court after being declined at the local and county level.

The current law for the ongoing Operation Enduring Freedom requires a veteran to serve in a theater of operation and in direct support of that operation for at least 14 days.

The law itself does not specifically mention serving in combat, just in direct support. The 14-day combat requirement is later mentioned in state code and included on state forms, which Johnson is challenging.

EHT Tax Assessor Maryanne Lavner said she based her decision on the information required by the state, and she also contacted Veterans Affairs. Based on what she was told, Johnson was not eligible. She agreed the requirements for eligibility have become more restrictive since Vietnam.

We would never deny a veteran something they were entitled to, she said. She said there are currently 76 disabled veterans and 15 surviving spouses in the township who get the exemption.

Johnson was based in Japan during his service from 1997 to 2002. He said his service was in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom and included a period of threats directly following the September 11, 2001, attacks. He has commendations for his work that specifically mention direct support.

Two other local cases this year before NJ Tax Court were decided with opposite results by Judge Mark Cimino, who noted that cases where there is no direct combat are more difficult to decide.

These cases are markedly easier when someone is physically present on the battlefield during one of the defined military conflicts, he said in one decision.

In the first, Millville veteran Krystal Fisher was denied the deduction because her active duty was spent stateside and she was never exposed to the dangers or potential dangers of the battlefield, according to the court decision.

Fisher was injured in a fall while training at Fort Wood in Missouri, and those injuries eventually led to her becoming totally disabled. Her duties had included shipping weapons, food and clothing to the rest of her unit in Afghanistan. The judge ruled those activities did not rise to the level of direct support and Fisher was never directly exposed to the potential dangers of the battlefield.

In the second case, Dr. Lucienne Duncan, of Galloway Township, who served as the chief neurologist at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, was granted the tax exemption because she worked directly with service members injured on the battlefield even though she was not there herself. In most cases, she was the first medical doctor an injured soldier would see, the decision says.

Cimino noted in the Duncan decision that the Legislature has demonstrated intent to limit eligibility to only those who were involved in direct support as opposed to support or just service during the time of conflict.

Johnson believes he fits that criteria, but also believes anyone who becomes permanently disabled as a result of their military service should be eligible.

He worked after leaving the military, but was eventually forced to stop when his injuries and accompanying panic attacks became too severe. In 2014 he was declared 100 percent disabled.

Johnson, who comes from a military family and has a son who plans to join the military, said it is discouraging to have to fight for the exemption.

No one who goes into the military expects it to end like this, he said. My hips and back are shot.

He hates when people imply hes lucky not having to work. Hed much rather have a job.

Ive worked since I was 14, he said. It drives me crazy that I cant work. I cant even go for a walk in the woods anymore, and I used to love to do that.

CRITERIA FOR PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION

Applicants apply to their local tax assessor.

Be an honorably discharged disabled veteran, with active wartime service in the U.S. Armed Forces. Surviving spouses and domestic partners are also eligible. There are 14 periods of active wartime service from WWI to the ongoing Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Have a U.S. Veterans Administration certification of wartime service-connected 100 percent disability.

Wholly or partially own or hold legal title to the home for which exemption is claimed.

Occupy the home as the principal residence.

Be a citizen and legal resident of New Jersey.
ATLANTIC CITY  Cathy Albany has spent more than 30 years in the city, 28 of them in a rented apartment off Atlantic Avenue in the citys Lower Chelsea section.

From her upstairs deck, she has a view of the newest addition to her neighborhood, the Gateway project that will build a Stockton University campus and a South Jersey Gas office building about a block away. And she likes what she sees, both now and into the future, for a devel-opment thats set to open in 2018.

Im happy to see some momentum over here, and I think its going to make the area flip, says Albany, a Philadelphia native who came to Atlantic City for a casino job and never left. In other words, I think the rent is going to go up.

Jerry Barker is operating on that same premise, but from a different vantage point. Hes branch manager of Weichert Realtors office in Atlantic Citys South Inlet, and earlier this year, he had a client con-sidering a studio-sized condo in the Seashore Club.

Thats an ex-motel just off the Boardwalk, right next to Stocktons future dorms. And as Barker was giving his wavering buyer some of the selling points of the deal, he started selling himself on the area, too. So he made an offer on another Seashore Club unit, listed at $50,000, although Barker offered only about half that much.

After some negotiating, he got close to the price he wanted. Then he says he did an analysis of sales within a mile of the Gateway and found its been a straight upward trend since about the time work actually started on the project, in September.

Its only been a couple of months, but in my professional opinion, that trend will continue in the area for at least three to five years, maybe even 10 years, he said. I think thats going to be worth $100,000, give or take, in a short time.

But for now, he has a beachfront condo to use in the summer, and a place he hopes to rent in the off-season  which just happens to be when most colleges are busy.

Gloria Hamlett already has close ties to Stockton. Shes a graduate, and so is her daughter as of this year, and now Gloria Hamlett works part-time at the universitys Carnegie Center, also in Atlantic City. But she lives about two blocks from the new Gateway campus, on Ventnor Avenue, and shes encouraged by signs she sees in the neighborhood.

For one thing, shes noticed work going on in the old Masonic Temple, right next door to the house she rents and which her family hopes to buy in a foreclosure sale. She also runs a little day-care center there, but says, I have lost a ton of business, because most of my families who worked for the casinos have lost their jobs.

So shes counting on Stockton helping to replace some of that business with the children of its faculty and staff and students when the Atlantic City campus opens.

But Gateways possibilities apparently arent whats driving that work on the Masonic Temple, a local monument of a building that has stayed empty since the Atlantic City Police Department moved its headquarters out in 1998. And even then, the sad state of the interior led to its nickname: Police officer liked to call it the Temple of Doom.

John Peruto, of the Philadelphia Suburban Development Corp., confirmed that crews have worked in the building, but thats just to make it more clean and safe, he said.

The area is certainly getting better with what Stockton is doing there. Thats definitely good for the neighborhood, he said. (The temple) has good bones; it just needs to be redone inside.  But right now, what were doing just happens to coincide with whats going on across the street.

Jo Ann Daly, an agent with RE/MAX Platinum Properties in Margate, lives in Chelsea and has some listings in the neighborhood. She senses two distinct moods there.

The optimists are very hopeful. The pessimists are saying, Well wait and see what happens, she said. On the one hand, you have Stockton and South Jersey Gas  and on the other hand, you have Atlantic City being taken over by the state.

Because of that, Investors are on a very cautious streak right now with what (Gov. Chris) Christie has done, she said.

Of the two, Daly considers herself sort of an optimist. But thats only if the city really does a nice cleanup job. The city has to open its doors and clean up the streets and invite people safely into our neighborhoods. The city has to invest  because they know the state is not going to do it.

Irene Ruzzo is another veteran real estate agent with strong Chelsea ties. She raised her family a few blocks away from the Gateway project but lives now in Linwood. She had a listing for a commercial space on Atlantic Avenue near the future campus, an old dentists office that sat vacant for about five years before it sold recently, she said.

I think yes, (Gateway) did help sell the building. For a long time, there wasnt a lot of activity in that area, she said.

Now, with a college and a corporation coming, Im absolutely thrilled, Ruzzo added. Ive watched that whole area go from being top of the line to really the bottom. But I think this is going to be a catalyst to help revive the entire area.
SOMERS POINT  The LeapFrog Group, a nonprofit patient-advocacy organization that grades hospitals nationwide on safety practices, recognized Shore Medical Center as among the countrys top general hospitals this year.

Shore Medical was named among 56 hospitals in the United States with some of the best safety practices that result in top grades in LeapFrogs semiannual Hospital Safety Grade reports.

Shore received an A in hospital safety for five consecutive reports, which look at how well hospitals address problems such as patient falls, bed sores and breathing issues after surgery, a hospitals communication skills, staff training and more.

Valerie DeJoseph, Shore administrative director of quality, performance improvement and regulatory, accepted the recognition award Tuesday in Washington, D.C. She said the reports serve as a good measure of what is improving and what areas of hospital safety need more focus.

Over the years, weve really identified specific issues in the organization, like infection rates, what we were doing about them and why we were doing it that way, DeJoseph said. Then we said, lets focus on it and fix it.

Shore rated high in prevention of hospital injuries such as falls and complications, improved medication safety by using a computerized ordering system, maternity care, staff education and training on hospital protocols and procedures for inpatient care management and other areas.

The most recent report shows improvement is needed to lower Cesarean-section births and episiotomies.

DeJoseph said specialized hospital and patient review committees and work with Dr. Jeanne Rowe, Shore chief medical officer, have contributed to identifying problem areas and turning them into areas with high standards of care.

Shore CEO and President Ron Johnson said a faster and more proactive approach to reviewing patient cases during or immediately following health events has led to better education and communication among doctors, nurses and hospital staff.

Advanced technology and collecting feedback from patients, their families and staff members on hospital protocols and procedures have also helped the hospital improve in safety, Johnson said.

We encourage patients and families to ask questions about the quality of our health care, he said. No organization is perfect, but we set the bar high intentionally.

Other New Jersey top general hospitals include Holy Name Medical Center, Teaneck, Bergen County; Inspira Medical Center Woodbury, Gloucester County; and Kennedy University Hospital in Stratford, Camden County.

Top teaching hospitals included Morristown Medical Center, Morris County; Saint Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston, Essex County; and Virtua Voorhees Hospital, Camden County.
MAYS LANDING  Atlantic City Electric customers will get about $56 million more in benefits than originally expected from this years merger between the companys owners and Exelon, the energy giant based in Chicago.

And the utilities got some unusually high-profile help in announcing the news Monday. Gov. Chris Christie visited Atlantic City Electrics Mays Landing headquarters to join the companies to detail what the deal does for South Jersey.

Christie said the new $56 million package is available because of a most-favored nation clause in the New Jersey Board of Public Utilties approval of the merger in February. An equivalent agency in Washington, D.C. was the last to OK the deal, over local opposition, and the clause made New Jersey eligible for the same conditions the D.C. Public Service Commission put on the merger.

New Jerseys BPU gave its formal approval in October to the new terms of the merger between Exelon and Pepco Holdings  Atlantic City Electrics parent company since 2001.

The new benefits include $38 million in rate assistance for customers, plus $7.5 million in energy-efficiency programs for local users and $10 million in contributions to jobs programs and a fund to help low-income people pay their bills, according to Christie and company officials.

The state BPUs earlier agreement included credits averaging more than $113 per user, which showed up on the companys bills in April and May of this year.

The utility also agreed to hire 60 workers as part of the new deal, and had a crew of them in safety vests lined up near the executives in suits during the event. Vincent Maione, Atlantic City Electrics president, said the workers there Monday were hired just in the last few weeks, and the company will bring more helpers on in early 2017.

Atlantic City Electric customers are the big winners from the merger of Exelon and Pepco, Christie said in his remarks, calling it a job-creation deal (that) provides many financial benefits to the companys customers, the regional economy and the state.

Jim Jacob, the president of NJ Shares, said the contributions for low-income users are enough to pay bills for 1,000 families a year for four years.

It really can help people stay in their homes, keep the heat and the lights on and prevent tragedies from people lighting candles or using alternative heat improperly, said Jacob, whose nonprofit organization was started almost 20 years ago with the mission of helping low-income families pay their energy bills.

Christie didnt take any questions and left with an entourage in two SUVs as soon as the formal program was over. But before he took off, he spoke highly of Maione, Atlantic Electrics president, saying the two have a personal relationship after hurricanes such as Sandy and Irene and other major storms.

I have definitely come to be known as the disaster governor. Ive had more disaster declarations than any governor in recent history, Christie said.

We could not have endured these things and recovered from them as well as we have if it wasnt for our relationship with Vince, Christie said. Every time there have been problems like that, Vince has been the guy we could turn to.

Maione, a 32-year veteran of Atlantic City Electric, has been president of the company since 2009.

Were still keeping local leadership in place after the Exelon merger, he said in his speech.

Later, Maione added that he sometimes deals with Christies staff, or with BPU President Richard Mroz.

But in the middle of a storm, the governor will have daily calls with him and other utility presidents around the state, Maione said.
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Frankie Williams was always sure he would become a New Jersey State Police trooper.

So it was no surprise when Williams, 31, graduated in the 156th New Jersey State Police academy class in January to follow his dream.

But that dream came to an end when Williams died in a crash Monday night on Route 55 in Cumberland County.

Williams was responding to a call about an erratic driver on Route 55 in Millville. The deadly crash, which Millville police Capt. Daniel Baer described as one of the most horrific crashes hes ever seen, also took the life of Lloyd Rudley, 61, of Elmer, Salem County, who died at the scene.

Williams died later the same night after being airlifted to Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

On the rainy Tuesday afternoon following the crash, two State Police troopers stood guard outside Williams one-story home in the Bargaintown section of Egg Harbor Township. A delivery truck circled the neighborhood and stopped in front of the house with flowers.

Friends described Williams as a role model and a hard worker. He was married and was pursuing a masters degree at Rutgers University in Camden.

Everybody was excited for him when he got assigned to the State Police, said former neighbor Nancy Belanger, 83, of Mays Landing. Thats all he ever wanted to do: be a state policeman.

Kevin Egolf Sr., 56, of Mays Landing, said Williams was there for him after Egolf was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Hes the one that helped me, Egolf said, his voice breaking as tears filled his eyes.

He says, Dont be scared, if you want somebody to go with you, I will be right there and Ill hold your hand with you, Egolf said. Thats what type of young man he was.

I never met anybody nicer, said Egolfs wife, Beatrice, 52. He was the best next-door neighbor anybody could have.

Williams and his wife, Kimberly, got married in September and were hoping to have a family, neighbors and friends said Tuesday.

Williams began his career at the Port Norris station in rural Commercial Township near the Delaware Bay in Cumberland County. He graduated from Atlantic Cape Community College in Mays Landing in 2009 and Rutgers Camden in 2012 with a bachelors degree in criminal justice, according to Press archives.

He grew up in Lakeland, Florida, and graduated high school from George Jenkins High School in 2002, according to former Florida neighbor Donna Wood, who is also the Polk County Sheriffs Office public information officer.

Even as a little boy playing with Woods children in the neighborhood, Williams was fearless, had an infectious smile and personality and was driven to succeed, she said.

Dean Wyks, a criminal justice professor at Atlantic Cape and the Rutgers Camden satellite campus at Atlantic Cape, said he taught Williams in several courses and saw him as a young man with unlimited potential and as a role model for other students.

He truly was an exceptional young man, Wyks said. He was an inspiration to a lot of folks and a student who would challenge you and make you a better teacher as well.

A retired Atlantic County assistant prosecutor, Wyks said he tried to talk Williams into law school, but he opted for the State Police. He was also taking masters degree courses.

Thats the type of person he was, Wyks said. He wanted to make himself better all the time.

Atlantic Cape issued a statement saying the college community is saddened by the loss. Williams had been featured in its Career Focus magazine, said Stacey Clapp, director of college relations, who remembered Williams as really eloquent and focused.

Cal Maradonna was Williams adviser at Rutgers Camden and had recruited him to attend the satellite campus in Mays Landing.

He was such a hard worker, Maradonna said. Joining the State Police was his goal from the first day, and he really worked at it. He sent me an email when he got in.

He said Williams was chosen as the student speaker at the satellite campus dedication because he was such a great example of what students can achieve.

State Police said Rudleys Toyota Corolla crossed the grass median and struck Williams head-on just before 7 p.m. near milepost 22.2 in Millville. Rudleys car matched the description of the erratically driven vehicle Williams was called to investigate.

In the minutes after the crash, first responders tried to rescue Williams and Rudley after the troopers car caught fire and overturned, Baer said. Rudley was pronounced dead at the scene.

Today the New Jersey State Police family must endure yet another tragic loss of a bright and promising trooper who lost his life while serving the citizens of New Jersey, State Police said in a statement.

Baer said when Millville police responded to a call for assistance, Rudley was already dead, so police focused on getting Williams out of the vehicle. Officers had to hook a chain to a vehicle to turn the patrol car over and cut the roof off to get Williams out.

Baer described the rescue as an hourlong effort.

Any time theres a call like this, its intense, but when you know its a law-enforcement officer, it just heightens things, said Millville fire Chief Mike Lippincott. A lot of guys were affected by it. A lot of the guys were upset.

The crash is under investigation.

His passing is a heartbreaking loss and a reminder of the very real risks that all those in uniform face on the job, said state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic. It also reminds us of the incredible sacrifice made by the families of those who dedicate their lives to serving in law enforcement.

Millville Mayor Michael Santiago issued a statement Tuesday as well.

Our prayers and thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues of New Jersey State Police trooper Frankie Williams and the entire NJSP family. The city of Millville joins the rest of the state in mourning this tragic loss, Santiago said.

Police and fire departments extended their condolences Tuesday morning on social media and in public efforts.

Belanger said when the news broke about Williams death, several people who lived in his old neighborhood in Mays Landing got on the phone with each other and were at each others doors to talk about it together.

Williams and his wife always said if I needed anything, I could call them, Belanger said. Oh my goodness, he was just a sweetheart.

Staff Writer Steve Hughes contributed to this report.
Editors note: The following letters were written following the attack on Pearl Harbor and contain a slur that is offensive to Japanese-Americans.

***

A letter from James Thomas to his father, whom he addressed as Billy. Thomas, a civilian technician for the Army Air Corps, was originally from Newark and died in 2005.

Dear Billy,

I received your letter of December 8th. It was the first letter you have sent me since I left home, so it made me very happy to get it. I thought maybe you were mad at me because I did not send any money home. Please write more often, its lonely as hell here.

We were surprised Sunday, Dec. 7, its a day Ill never forget. There is censorship more on outgoing mail so I dont tell you any names or places or things like that.

I was in bed when it started. I had just turned over to look at the clock (it was about 7:45 a.m.) When I heard a noise like big guns. I sat up and looked out the window and banking, one hundred feet over the building, was a Jap plane carrying a torpedo. I saw it and thought it was strange for a plane to practice with it. Then I saw the big red circle on the wing, but the plane looked so much like ours I thought it was the red army attacking the blue and so did everyone else.

I ran outside with my shorts on and down towards the yard. I saw planes diving and swooping up but I saw no explosions. I had seen our planes do this many times so I still thought these were ours.

Then I saw a plane burst into flames and go into a screaming dive just as the anti-aircraft guns opened up. I knew then it was real and that it must be the Japs.

There was smoke rising from the yard now and the air was filled with black smoke. I could see bombs dropping as the dive bombers came down from about four thousand feet one after the other. All the fellows thought it was a sham battle although I knew it was real and they laughed at me when I told them to take cover.

I ran in and got my camera and took some pictures which I had to turn over to the Navy, however I may get them back later on.

I was standing on the roof taking pictures when a Jap plane came out of the sun behind me about 300 feet. He let go with all guns and I felt those red hot tracer bullets wissing (sic) by. He went about two blocks and crashed at the end of a flying field. Boy, was I lucky. But more planes were following him and I took cover until they passed.

I ran in and put my clothes on and went down to the Navy yard just as the second attack started. Boy, was I scared, those bombs were sure coming down. There was one explosion so close it knocked me off my feet. Thats when I started to get mad.

Somebody yelled to me to go somewhere and help with the wounded. What I saw was awful.

I helped there for a while and then with two sailors I manned a captains boat and went out into the harbor picking up doctors and taking them to ships and taking the wounded to cover.

The guys were going to boat hell and the smoke was so thick you could hardly see. I was on that boat all day until 10:00 at night with nothing to eat.

Dont worry now, the situation is well in hand. Im working every day here and hardly have any time to write but please write to me as often as you can. Tell Mom not to worry about me. I can take care of any Japs that come along.

I lost my address book so tell Lloyd to send me more of them.

I wish I could tell you all but I will sometime and what a story!

Your Son,

Jim

***

A memoir by Gus Palmentieri of the U.S. Army. Palmentieri, formerly of Somers Point, died in 2000.

On April 16, 1941, I was drafted by military lottery number 416 at City Hall in Atlantic City. I was inducted in to the Army and sent to Fort Eustice, Virginia and on to Hawaii at Fort Shafter with the 64th Coast Artillery. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, during Catholic mass at 7:45 a.m., we were bombed by the Japanese.

We headed to Wheeler Field to find all the planes destroyed with only two P-36s and one World War I plane left. We were dispatched to protect the air field from further bombing. Later we moved on to protect the downed battleships in the harbor.

After four months we were sent to the Christmas Islands to guard the air fields. From there we were sent to Tarawa to help with the release of the Marials Islands and then returned to the Hawaiian Islands. On Sept. 18, 1945, I was discharged as a Corporal and returned home.
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - December 06, 2016) - NewCastle Gold Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: NCA) (NewCastle Gold or the "Company") is pleased to report assay results from 11 additional core and reverse circulation ("RC") drill holes from the Oro Belle Trend ("OBT") at the Castle Mountain gold project (the "Project") located in San Bernardino County, California. Seven holes tested the Oro Belle North Extension ("OBNEX"), immediately north of the former Oro Belle open pit, while four holes tested the area between the Oro Belle, Jumbo and JSLA open pits (the "Gap Zone") in the central part of the OBT.

Oro Belle North Extension

Seven holes tested the extent of gold mineralization over a distance of 200 metres from the northern limit of the Oro Belle open pit, and included three core holes on cross-section 13000N, the fourth in a series of key geological cross-sections over the property. All holes were angled to test mineral resources, and modeled steeply dipping structural corridors and potential depth extensions. Assay results defined broad zones of gold mineralization within the OB-1/OB-2 structural corridor and extending to the northeast by another 200 metres. The Oro Belle Trend is open to the north and at depth.

Assay highlights included:

Section 13000 N

0.49 grams per tonne gold ("g/t Au") over 167.8 metres, in hole CMM-119

0.45 g/t Au over 66.8 metres, in hole CMM-120

Section 13125 N

0.56 g/t Au over 99.1 metres, in hole CMM-124

Gap Zone

Four holes were drilled in the triangular area between the former Oro Belle, Jumbo and JSLA open pits to test areas currently classified as waste within the mineral resource estimate, and also to test the southwest extension of the East Ridge mineralizing system. Assay highlights from the two northernmost holes include:

0.61 g/t Au over 30.5 metres, in hole CMM-103

0.33 g/t Au over 21.6 metres, in hole CMM-104

Gerald Panneton, President and CEO, commented, "Another very good batch of drill results from the summer 2016 Phase 1 drill program demonstrates the importance of the Castle Mountain project as it remains open to the north. Further follow-up exploration drilling along this trend is planned for the second quarter of 2017."

Story continues

Table 1: Summary of Significant 2016 Core Hole Intercepts at Oro Belle North and Gap Zone

From To Interval Au Hole_ID Section (metres) (metres) (metres) (g/t) Oro Belle North CMM-118 13000N 203.9 208.5 4.6 0.28 and 383.0 389.1 6.1 0.41 CMM-119 13000N 13.0 35.1 22.1 0.39 and 80.8 248.6 167.8 0.49 including 165.5 192.9 27.4 0.89 including 165.5 177.9 12.3 1.12 and including 186.7 192.9 6.2 0.92 and 260.5 287.1 26.7 0.49 including 267.3 274.6 7.3 1.08 and 302.4 341.4 39.0 0.54 and 370.9 374.9 4.0 0.30 and 399.3 405.4 6.1 0.27 CMM-120 13000N 23.2 47.2 24.1 0.28 and 73.8 140.5 66.8 0.45 and 154.5 182.0 27.4 0.56 including 165.2 168.2 3.0 1.17 and 220.8 224.6 3.8 0.24 and 389.2 432.5 43.3 0.23 CMM-121 13100N 117.3 129.5 12.2 0.59 and 318.5 321.6 3.0 0.31 and 345.9 349.0 3.0 1.55 CMM-124 13125N 10.7 15.2 4.6 0.85 and 53.3 56.4 3.0 0.22 and 68.6 74.7 6.1 0.65 and 109.7 117.3 7.6 0.31 and 182.9 281.9 99.1 0.56 including 246.9 262.1 15.2 1.31 and 378.0 382.5 4.6 0.23 CMM-125 13175N 172.2 175.3 3.0 0.41 and 368.8 384.0 15.2 0.22 CMM-127 13200N 179.8 187.5 7.6 0.35 and 326.1 329.2 3.0 0.30 and 338.3 341.4 3.0 0.28 and 385.6 388.6 3.0 0.31 and 463.3 469.4 6.1 0.85 Gap Zone CMM-101 12175N 70.1 76.2 6.1 0.22 CMM-102 12175N 56.4 68.6 12.2 0.30 CMM-103 12200N 54.9 62.5 7.6 0.42 and 70.1 80.8 10.7 0.21 and 94.5 97.5 3.0 0.36 and 143.3 160.0 16.8 0.27 and 285.0 315.5 30.5 0.61 including 300.2 303.3 3.0 1.90 and 349.0 352.0 3.0 0.45 and 467.9 481.6 13.7 0.48 CMM-104 12400N 144.8 153.9 9.1 0.49 and 183.2 193.5 10.4 0.23 and 224.9 229.5 4.6 0.25 and 237.1 246.6 9.4 0.22 and 278.6 289.6 11.0 0.52 and 427.0 448.7 21.6 0.33

For a drill hole location map of recent drill holes, please click here

For drill hole cross-section A-A' (13000N) of recent drill holes, please click here

All new exploration holes were drilled at either 110 or 290 degrees azimuth, with dips of -45 to -85 degrees, and to a depth range of 350 to 550 metres. True widths of the intercepted intervals cannot be determined from the available geological information.

All drill samples are submitted to ALS Minerals in Reno, Nevada for splitting and then crushing until 70% of the sample is finer than a nominal two millimeter in size. A 250 gram ("g") sub-sample is taken from the crushed material and pulverized until 85% passes a 200 mesh (75 m) screen (ALS Method PREP-31). A 30 g po rtio n of pulverized material (pulp) is then sampled and subjected to fire assay ("FA") with atomic absorption ("AA") finish (ALS Method AuAA- 23). Any gold assays greater than 10 g/t Au are re-analyzed where a 30 g portion is taken from the pulp and assayed by FA with a gravimetric finish (ALS Method Au 30g FA - GRAV). All samples that yield greater than 0.2 ppm assay are also analyzed for gold cyanide solubility (ALS Method AuAA-13). The Company employs an industry-standard QA/QC program consisting of standard pulps, coarse blanks and rig duplicates.

The 2016 Phase 1 drill program was completed in mid-October with a total of 20,200 metres in 49 drill holes. Definition and exploration drilling has resumed on the Castle Mountain property with the recently approved 40,000 metre drill program (see press release dated November 1st, 2016) with four RC rigs and two core rigs.

Widespread epithermal gold mineralization is present along the Oro Belle Trend where it is hosted within a complex, shallow-dipping sequence of Miocene-age rhyolite flows and tuffaceous units cut by steep northeast trending/southeast dipping fault structures with associated zones of silicification and hydrothermal brecciation, commonly along the margins of quartz porphyry intrusives. The OBNEX target remains open along strike to the north and northeast, and at depth.

About NewCastle Gold

NewCastle Gold has a 100% interest in the Castle Mountain property in San Bernardino County, California. The Castle Mountain heap leach gold mine produced over one million ounces of gold from 1992 to 2004. The Mine and Reclamation Plan, under which the mine operated, was authorized by the County of San Bernardino as the Lead Agency and remains in effect. Water for the drill programs was accessed from existing patented wells on the Project.

An updated NI 43-101 resource for the project was announced December 2nd, 2015 which includes Measured Mineral Resources of 17.4 million tonnes grading 0.86 g/t gold containing 0.48 million gold ounces, Indicated Mineral Resources of 202.5 million tonnes grading 0.57 g/t gold containing 3.71 million gold ounces along with Inferred Mineral Resources of 40.8 million tonnes grading 0.58 g/t gold and containing 0.76 million gold ounces. The Project hosts a disseminated low sulphidation epithermal system. Gold is primarily hosted by late-stage rhyolite volcanic units within zones of silicification and brecciation associated with northeast-southwest trending/southeast dipping fault structures which are interpreted to have developed within a collapsed caldera environment. Eleven gold domains are represented by both steep and shallow-dipping orientations.

Ian R. Cunningham-Dunlop, P. Eng., the Company's Senior Vice President, Technical Services, is the designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of NI 43-101. He has reviewed and verified that the technical information contained in this release is accurate and has approved of the written disclosure of the same.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes information that relates to, among other things, statements with respect to the completion of the proposed drill program at Castle Mountain, the mineral resource expansion at Castle Mountain and the identification of future expansion targets at Castle Mountain. Forward-looking information is not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events.

Forward-looking information is based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates and analyses that, while considered reasonable by us at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. The material factors or assumptions that we identified and were applied by us in drawing conclusions or making forecasts or projections set out in the forward looking information include, but are not limited to that the Company is able to procure personnel, equipment and supplies required for its exploration and development activities in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis and that actual result s will be consistent with management's expectations.

The risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information may include, but are not limited to, the risks discussed under the heading "Risks" in general to the business of NewCastle in documents filed (or to be filed) with Canadian regulatory authorities. Should one or more risk, uncertainty, contingency or other factor materialize or should any factor or assumption prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Accordingly, the reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. NewCastle does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/12/6/11G124295/Images/Cross-section_for_OBNEX_Final-b1170d6c93de8befa24aa2127a1c9c98.jpg

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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.




VANCOUVER, British Columbia, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Arcturus Growthstar Technologies Inc. (OTCQB: AGSTF) (CSE: AGS.CN) (the "Company" or "Arcturus") is pleased to announce that its LED division, LED Canada, has received its largest purchase order to date from a 40-year-old Canadian chain of stores. This one customer positions LED Canada, a wholly-owned Arcturus division, to potentially generate over $1,000,000 in business in 2017. Arcturus' LED Canada and COB Grow Lights divisions offer a wide variety of cutting-edge LED lights for commercial, municipal, and home applications as well as greenhouse and indoor cultivation of legal cannabis.

According to LEDInside: LED Lighting Market to reach US$30.5 Billion in 2016 and Professional Lighting Markets to see explosive growth.

"Our LED business is gaining more traction in the marketplace due to many factors that we suspect are related to the scaling of cultivation centers for both the cannabis and urban farming sectors. On a daily basis, we have seen an increase in inquiries since November 8th, which is exciting given our LED division is vital to cultivation expansion in North America," said Mr. William Gildea, Arcturus Growthstar Technologies Inc.'s CEO and Chairman. "This month, the Company shipped its largest single order to a single commercial customer, which operates a chain with 200 locations. The customer is currently testing the LED lighting in key markets and structuring a rollout to its other locations throughout Canada."

About Chip On Board (COB):

LEDs compete with traditional lighting sources in a number of ways, including greater energy efficiency, longer lifetime, and smaller size. However, the one drawback that has vexed many lighting designers is cost, which is a key reason why LED manufacturers continue to innovate to improve economies of scale. One of the newest packaging solutions designed to help lower costs is Chip on Board ("COB") light source modules, in which the LED chips are in the form of a semiconductor chip that is neither encased nor connected but directly mounted onto a PCB or, more generally, a substrate. This packaging style also provides several related benefits, such as greater design flexibility, better light distribution, and simpler manufacturing processes.

Arcturus believes that its Scorpion COB LED Grow lights has the best LED technology to grow legal cannabis on the market and can offer its lights at the best price as compared to its competitors, which gives it a distinct market advantage in the cannabis space. After Arcturus' own Rob Huston won 1st place in the Cannabis Cup using the Company's COB Grow lights, the Company is moving forward with ETL certification (a product bearing the ETL Listed mark is determined to have met the minimum requirements of prescribed product safety standards), after which it will be beefing up sales and marketing efforts throughout Canada and the Unites States.

Arcturus' LED division reports that the month of November has been the best sales month to date. The Company is also pleased to announce that it is currently testing its COB Grow Lights through an academic study. This project will be a ANOVA of LED horticulture fixtures using IBM-SPSS statistical software. The Company is looking forward to continuing its momentum in 2017 with the rollout of new LED testing results, plus new sales and marketing initiatives.

"As we move towards a more aggressive sales and marketing push in the Cannabis space for 2017, these independent third party testings are critical to gaining more market acceptance of our LED grow lights," says Rob Huston, LED Canada's manager and winner of the Cannabis Cup. "In addition to third party testing, it is expected that the Company will be gaining ETL certification in the next 60 days, opening up the entire North American marketplace, which we believe will have a very positive effect on sales for Arcturus' COB Grow Lights and LED Canada's sales in 2017."

For further information, contact William Gildea, Director, at 617.834.9467.

On behalf of the Board,

Arcturus Growthstar Technologies Inc.

William Gildea, CEO & Chairman

About Arcturus

The Company's business model includes developing and acquiring technologies that will position it as a leader in the evolution of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) for the global production of various types of plants. Arcturus provides scalable, indoor CEA systems that utilize minimal land, water and energy regardless of climate, location or time of year and are customized to grow an abundance of crops close to consumers, therefore minimizing food miles and its impact to the environment. The Company holds an exclusive, worldwide license to use a patented vertical farming technology that, when compared to traditional plant production methods, generate yields up to 10 times greater per square foot of land. The contained system provides many other benefits including seed to sale security, scalability, consistency due to year-round production, cost control, product safety and purity by eliminating environmental variability.

The Company is also in the business of designing and distributing LED lighting solutions utilizing the COB and MCOB technology. The Company is focused on delivering cost efficient lighting to North America via advanced e-commerce sites the Company owns and operates. LEDCanada.com which caters to B2B customers is a supplier of the newest and highest demand LED solutions. The Company also owns and operates COBGrowlights.com which caters to both large and small agriculture green houses and controlled cultivation centers.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts

responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not in any way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.

Contact:

William Gildea

Director

+1-617-834-9467



SOURCE Arcturus Growthstar Technologies Inc.
LIMASSOL, Cyprus, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Leading binary options brokerage, Banc De Binary Ltd ("BDB"), has once again made a revolutionary step in favor of binary options traders. As of December 1st, BDB has ceased to offer trading bonuses.

As it constantly preaches to provide binary options traders with a safe and straightforward trading environment, leading binary options brokerage firm, BDB, has taken it upon itself to set an example and lead the binary options industry to a new dawn. BDB now presents a bonus-free trading experience as per guidelines issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

BDB has always promoted a trustworthy trading environment, one that presents traders with all of the possible fine print. Yet, some competitors have taken advantage of the bonus feature, thus creating a negative reputation to this type of promotion through the creation of a predatory bonus system.

Now, BDB has taken a revolutionary step with its decision to cut off all bonuses. After much deliberation, BDB has decided to build a bridge of trust with its traders, and provide them with a seamless trading experience that contains the least possible amount of fine print.

BDB was the first binary options brokerage company to be fully regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which became a landmark in the binary options arena. By obtaining a formal license, BDB has set an example for the rest of the binary options industry to follow. Indeed, shortly after, a vast part of the industry fell in line with regulation.

Once more, BDB assumes its responsibility as an industry leader, and sets the bar high for other binary options firms to follow, in order to create a safe and straightforward online trading environment for traders around the globe. The creation of a bonus-free trading environment highlights BDB's efforts to generate a trustworthy trading experience.

About BDB

Since its inception, BDB has undergone exponential growth. As a pioneer in its field and one of the industry leaders, BDB is committed to providing traders with an all-inclusive trading experience. This includes offering an intuitive trading platform, effective trading tools, a wealth of educational material, a wide range of global underlying assets, trade options and a responsive support team. In their quest to provide a safe and transparent trading environment, BDB offers top quality binary options services and is constantly striving to improve their products and offerings.

SOURCE Banc De Binary Ltd
OCEAN VIEW, Delaware, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Breast Pump Market size is estimated to exceed USD 1.6 billion by 2024; as per a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160418/799556-a )



Increasing global population, growing women employment rates and rising consumer awareness regarding importance of breast feeding will drive global breast pumps market growth. Favorable reimbursement policies and adoption of technologically advanced products such as hand free breast pumps should fuel breast pumps market growth. Furthermore, increasing patient disposable income and changes in lifestyle should propel business growth.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/729

Growing penetration of electric breast pumps and rapid substitution of closed breast pumps by open system pumps owing to the advantages offered by technologically advanced products will stimulate global breast pumps market size. Closed system pumps were over USD 720 million, attributing for over 85% of industry revenue in 2015. The segment is expected to capture greater market share over the coming years owing to hygienic breast milk collection mechanism.

Favorable initiatives taken by insurance companies to cover breast pumps related expenses such as visits to lactation consultants, should spur breast pumps market share. Moreover, introduction of rental facilities on electric breast pumps for consumers who cannot afford to purchase should widen overall consumer base. Presence of large untapped opportunities across India, China and Brazil is expected to fuel breast pumps market growth. Economic development, growing patient disposable income with increasing women employment rates, and rising awareness levels should present manufacturers with lucrative business opportunities.

High prices associated with breast pumps should discourage consumers from purchasing, thus hindering global breast pumps market expansion. The higher prices of devices have a significant impact in developing economies where overall purchasing power is relatively low. However, manufacturers are adopting penetration pricing strategies to capture maximum breast pumps market share.

Browse key industry insights spread across 84 pages with 48 market data tables & 11 figures & charts from the report, "Breast Pump Market Size By Product (Open, Closed), By Technology (Manual, Battery Powered, Electric), By Application (Personal Use, Hospital Grade), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, Japan, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa), Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2024" in detail along with the table of contents:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/breast-pump-market

Key insights from the report include:

Global breast pumps market is slated to grow from close to USD 850 million in 2015, at more than 7% CAGR.

Battery powered segment was over USD 460 million in 2015 and is anticipated to be worth over USD 816 million by 2024, owing to its ease of use and portability.

Electric breast pumps market size will manifest robust growth of above 10% from 2016 to 2024.

Germany and UK collectively accounted for over 50% of Europe breast pumps market share in 2015. Increasing female employment rate, improving awareness levels and rising disposable income should drive regional breast pumps market growth.



and UK collectively accounted for over 50% of breast pumps market share in 2015. Increasing female employment rate, improving awareness levels and rising disposable income should drive regional breast pumps market growth. Japan breast pumps market size was valued at over USD 40 million in 2015, with rapidly growing population, rising women employment rate and demographics being demand stimulants.

Brazil breast pump market share was over 47% of the LATAM revenue in 2015, with expectations to surpass USD 14 million by 2024. Improving healthcare infrastructure, favorable economic environment and adoption of technologically advanced breast pumps should spur breast pumps market growth.

The threat of new entrants in the breast pumps market is likely to be higher during forecast period due to presence of relatively less stringent regulatory and product approval environment.

The key industry players include Ameda Breastfeeding Solutions, Philips, Medela, Bailey Medical, Hygeia Medical Group, Energizer Personal Care, and Whittlestone.

Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/729

Global Breast Pumps market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms of revenue in USD billion from 2012 to 2024 , for the following segments:

Global Breast Pump Market By Product

Open System

Closed System

Global Breast Pump Market By Technology

Manual

Battery Powered

Electric

Global Electric Breast Pump Market By Application

Personal Use

Hospital Grade

The above information is provided for the following regions and countries:

North America U.S. Canada

Europe Germany UK

Asia Pacific Japan China

Latin America Brazil Mexico

MEA South Africa



Browse Related Reports:

Automated Breast Ultrasound Market Size, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Germany , UK, Italy , Russia , China , India , Japan , South Korea , Brazil , Mexico , Saudi Arabia , UAE, South Africa ), Application Development Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2024

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automated-breast-ultrasound-market

Breast Cancer Therapeutics Market Size, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Germany , UK, Italy , Russia , China , India , Japan , South Korea , Brazil , Mexico , Saudi Arabia , UAE, South Africa ), Application Development Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016 - 2023

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/breast-cancer-therapeutics-market

About Global Market Insights

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.

Contact Us:

Arun Hegde

Corporate Sales, USA

Global Market Insights, Inc.

Phone: 1-302-846-7766

Toll Free: 1 888-689-0688

Email: sales@gminsights.com



Web: https://www.gminsights.com



SOURCE Global Market Insights Inc.
AMSTERDAM, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Constellium N.V. (NYSE and Euronext: CSTM) today announced that its subsidiaries, Wise Metals Intermediate Holdings LLC and Wise Holdings Finance Corporation, completed the redemption of all their 9% / 10% Senior PIK Toggle Notes due 2019 (the "Notes") pursuant to the terms of the indenture governing the Notes. The redemption price for the Notes was approximately $173 million, including accrued and unpaid interest and was paid with cash on hand.

About Constellium

Constellium (NYSE and Euronext: CSTM) is a global sector leader that develops innovative, value added aluminium products for a broad scope of markets and applications, including aerospace, automotive and packaging. Constellium generated 5.2 billion of revenue in 2015.

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Related Links

http://www.constellium.com



SOURCE Constellium
PARIS, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Global CEOs on the Board of The Consumer Goods Forum continue their efforts in tackling forced labour by adopting and calling for action on "Priority Industry Principles":

Every worker should have freedom of movement, no worker should pay for a job, no worker should be indebted or coerced to work

The consumer goods industry, through The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), has advanced its social stewardship efforts in its bid to eradicate forced labour from global supply chains by establishing three "Priority Industry Principles" (the "Principles"). Building on momentum from the CGF's ground-breaking Forced Labour Resolution, announced earlier this year, the three Principles will help to prioritise action to address the primary drivers of forced labour within the consumer goods industry and beyond. The International Labour Organization reports that there are currently 21 million victims of forced labour in the world and the CGF Board of Directors anticipate that these newly established focus areas will inspire the entire industry, as well as others, to translate the Resolution into action.

Through industry research and stakeholder consultations, the CGF has identified three of the most problematic, yet often common, employment practices across the world that can lead to cases of forced labour - especially amongst vulnerable workers. While the CGF acknowledges that these practices can have complex root causes and diverse manifestations in workplaces, the journey toward eliminating them must begin in earnest. In order to do so, the CGF developed the Priority Industry Principles, to provide further direction to counter these practices. The principles are as follows:

Every worker should have freedom of movement. The ability of workers to move freely should not be inhibited by their employer.

The ability of workers to move freely should not be inhibited by their employer. No worker should pay for a job. Fees and costs associated with recruitment and employment should be paid by the employer.

Fees and costs associated with recruitment and employment should be paid by the employer. No worker should be indebted or coerced to work. Workers should work freely, aware of the terms and conditions of their work and paid regularly as agreed.

The CGF and its members will now work to uphold these practices in their own operations, and will use their collective voice to promote the adoption of these priority principles industry-wide. As part of a 2017 action plan, members will take individual actions to mainstream the Principles with an initial focus in two supply chains of particular relevance to the industry - seafood and palm oil in Southeast Asia.

The development of the Priority Industry Principles was led by the CGF Priority Industry Principles Working Group, co-chaired by Mars Incorporated, Tesco, The Coca-Cola Company and Walmart. The working group first researched a variety of globally recognised resources including the International Labour Organization Indicators of Forced Labour. Then, to complement this research, surveys were deployed to CGF member companies, external stakeholders and the general public at large. Once a draft set of principles was produced, in-depth one-on-one consultations took place with key stakeholders to finalise them.

Cross-Sector Collaborations

The CGF's Forced Labour Resolution, approved by the Board of Directors in January 2016, was the first industry resolution designed to tackle forced labour. It has been actively welcomed by a wide range of actors, and the CGF intends to continue its collaboration and engagement with civil society, experts and initiatives focused on tackling forced labour. Oxfam and the International Labour Organization have already put forward their support for the Priority Industry Principles, an approach the CGF hopes will be taken by other key stakeholders.

Quotes:

Peter Freedman, Managing Director, The Consumer Goods Forum said,

"The Priority Industry Principles are an important next step in the global fight against forced labour. These principles must be mainstreamed on a global scale so that they may lead to the necessary changes needed to remove forced labour from international supply chains. We are therefore committed to supporting our members in the implementation of the Principles in their own operations and we call for their adoption across the consumer goods industry at large. No one company can tackle forced labour alone; we need to work together through cross-sector collaborations to one day soon reach a world free of forced labour".

Emmanuel Faber, CEO, Danone said,

"I am delighted that the Board of The Consumer Goods Forum has resolved to confront the very complex challenge of forced labour around the world. Through the gradual adoption of the Priority Industry Principles by CGF members, in collaboration with governments, NGOs, international labour organisations and civil society, we can go a long way to eradicate this daunting reality. Global supply chains must serve local prosperity if the words 'feed the world' are to mean anything".

Rachel Wilshaw, Ethical Trade Manager, Oxfam GB said,

"Oxfam welcomes the leadership shown by The Consumer Goods Forum in coalescing support around these Priority Industry Principles, to prevent forced labour entering into the cracks in global supply chains. This extreme form of labour exploitation makes it impossible for workers to access their human rights and work their way out of poverty. We hope that all members of the CGF will use the influence they have to get behind these principles and play their part in tackling this pernicious hidden issue".

Houtan Homayounpour, International Labour Organization forced labour focal point said,

"The CGF's Forced Labour Resolution, approved and endorsed at the highest level of the corporate world, sends a clear message of commitment to the global fight against forced labour. Now, this commitment is turning into concrete action through the Priority Industry Principles. Big congratulations to the CGF and its members!".

About The Consumer Goods Forum

The Consumer Goods Forum ("CGF") is a global, parity-based industry network that is driven by its members to encourage the global adoption of practices and standards that serves the consumer goods industry worldwide. It brings together the CEOs and senior management of some 400 retailers, manufacturers, service providers, and other stakeholders across 70 countries, and it reflects the diversity of the industry in geography, size, product category and format. Its member companies have combined sales of EUR 3.5 trillion and directly employ nearly 10 million people, with a further 90 million related jobs estimated along the value chain. It is governed by its Board of Directors, which comprises 54 manufacturer and retailer CEOs.

For more information, please visit: http://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com.



SOURCE The Consumer Goods Forum
BASEL, Switzerland, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Debut Range of Essentials Timepieces Signals a Return to Elegant Simplicity

The hallmark of our DAVIDOFF ESSENTIALS collection of cufflinks and small leather goods has always been a dedication to the pure minimalist design so admired and exemplified by our founder Zino Davidoff. A new addition to this collection of must-haves is Essentials No.1, a tastefully crafted, stylish timepiece reduced to its simple basic function, to display the time. The DAVIDOFF Essentials No.1 timepiece is a welcome invitation to enjoy life and all its beautiful, unique moments.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445761 )



DAVIDOFF Essentials No.1

We adopted a pared-down approach to crafting Essentials No.1 because it required an elegant purity of design able to bring the watch back to its original function of displaying time. The Essentials No.1 does not indulge in any distractions. There is no sweeping second hand, and there are no extraneous, attention seeking sounds. This watch calmly invites you to access time in the purest sense. Not to rush, but to take pleasure in the enduring sophistication of your accessory as it marks life's passing moments.

We focused on an appreciation of traditional craftsmanship to create an organic, practical device that is functional, yet appealing to the senses. As a result, each of our Swiss Made watches represents the high quality expected of timepieces honored with that international seal of quality. The domed sapphire crystal is resistant to scratches, and the entire watch is water resistant up to 5ATM/50m. Each watch features hour markers meticulously applied by hand and a strap made of superior Italian leather. There is also a discrete date indicator at the six o'clock position.

The Davidoff Essentials No.1 comes in a diverse range of color and material combinations to ensure that there is a version well suited to each man's personal style. The Davidoff aesthetic of elegant simplicity is present in every detail of this refined watch, which joins the Essentials Cufflinks and Small Leather Goods to form a collection of pure, minimalist but always elegant companions for contemporary men of taste.

Press Contact:

+41-61-201-10-80

press@zinodavidoff.com

http://www.zinodavidoff.com/media-and-press

http://www.zinodavidoff.com



SOURCE Zino Davidoff Trading AG
LONDON, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The latest Living Ratings analysis, released by Living Group today, reveals a distinct lack of investment into digital brand equity amongst some of the world's leading private equity firms.

Living Ratings in-depth analysis examines the digital engagement and evidence of Private Equity International's Top 50 firms' websites and social media channels, across multiple criteria and differing audience perspectives. The findings reveal that more than 80% of private equity firms are failing to provide digital communications that provide engagement or substantive, audience centric content that evidences the claims made on their websites. Infact, two of the Top 50 do not even have a website!

Commenting on the findings, Kate Shaw, Living's CEO said: "Over 20% of our study scored less than 10%, the lowest scoring sector we have ever reviewed. Why would this be? It would appear that private equity feels that as long as the past performance and track record is good, institutional investors will allocate to them".

Why audience focus matters

Giving your audience access to carefully considered digital content has never been more relevant, as digital disruption continues to gather pace in the financial services sector. By providing specific, audience centric content, private equity firms are signaling to portfolio companies and investors their shared ambitions. In the battle for dollars and assets under management, deal flow and mandates, they are failing to demonstrate their capability and track record - so what does this say to the audience? And why are such a high number of the firms we rated, choosing to ignore the opportunity digital communications affords them?

Successful private equity doesn't always mean successful brand equity

There were a handful of firms in our Ratings that can rightly be proud of their digital performance but as a whole, the top 50 has a lot of ground to make up

Only 4% lead with a client centric proposition

46% of firms failed the Google mobile-friendly test

Whilst 92% of firms have a LinkedIn channel, 52% have never shared a single post and offer just a standard profile

48% have a Twitter profile but of these 24 firms, seven are yet to Tweet

40%of firms were rated as being 'Lacklustre' meaning they are lacking strong evidence of their expertise, low user engagement and little or no client centric content

Interestingly, most firms do place an importance in two of elements of our criteria, with 82% providing a dedicated press / media area and 72% providing a client login area.

The Top 5 firms

Living Ratings analysis has identified a handful of firms that deliver truly client-centric digital communications that combines content, functionality and purpose:

Ardian leads the pack and clearly understands the value of a customer-driven digital presence KKR is a firm that understands the need to create an accessible and engaging experience The Blackstone Group is a good example of the role a digital brand can play in supporting a business strategy Bain Capital's website fulfils its promise: 'Committed to lasting impact' Neuberger Berman provide a dedicated private equity section on their .com and their invitation to 'learn more' does not disappoint

Our findings clearly indicate that too many private equity firms are failing their audiences with a sub-optimal digital experience; websites are over reliant on generic content and self-promotion, social media engagement is underutilised and not enough emphasis is placed on the audience's interests and access points. There is a huge opportunity for private equity firms to gain an edge by investing in a fit-for-purpose digital strategy but even if starting now, they face a game of catch-up.

-ENDS-

About Living Ratings

Since 2010, we have been researching and publishing in-depth analysis of how marketers in legal, financial and professional service firms use websites and social media to engage and communicate with their audiences. Our findings are based on analysis of over 50 criteria, providing evidence-based insights to allow firms to align their users' expectations with their brand and their business.

The report is the 15th edition of Living Ratings.

About Living Group

At Living we make a difference. A difference for our clients, our people and the communities we work in. We employ smart thinking and industry insight to create positive outcomes for our clients in the financial, professional services and technology sectors, helping them improve their bottom-line through effective brand, digital and marketing communications. With offices in London, Hong Kong and New York, Living is creating difference.

[*]Source: Private Equity International's Top 300 Private Equity Firms (published May 2016)

http://www.living-group.com/assets/RatingsFiles/Living-Ratings-Private-Equity-2016.pdf

SOURCE Living Group
ALBANY, New York, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research "Dairy Blends Market By Form (Liquid, Spreadable, Powder) By Application (Infant Formula, Bakery, Beverage, Ice cream, Pharmaceutical lactose, Butter and cheese blends, Others)- Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016- 2024",the global dairy blends market was valued at USD 2.15billion in 2015 and is expected to reach USD 4.59billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 9.0% from 2016 to 2024.

Dairy blends products are showing significant health improvements globally due to the useful results derived from the dairy blend products. The dairy industry value chain is seen to cover large cross sections of population starting from farmers who procure milk and the retailers who supply the milk. Milk products consumption as a beverage has seen to decline mainly because of high prices, diabetes, obesity problems and others. Over the past few decades there has been increasing demand for dairy blend products due to its associated product benefits. With the rising population, change in life style, increasing number women work population there is an inclination towards consumption of dairy blends products.

New consumer research shows that consumers are much more inclined towards the beverages that are formulated with the blends of diary and it is also seen that dairy blends products are preferred due to the rising prices of traditional dairy products. Moreover it has been found that in 2014, milk prices recorded an all-time high in the U.S. Continuous slow growth in production levels due to strong demand from consumers and rising gains from exports in the first half of the year 2014 boosted the prices of milk. This in turn is expected to drive the demand for dairy blends products as a substitute during the forecast period.

Browse Full Research Report with ToC: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/dairy-blends-market.html

Majorly dairy blends products are segmented in different forms which are liquid, spreadable and powder. The market is further segmented by application. By application the market has been segmented into infant formula, bakery, beverage, ice cream, cheese and butter blends, pharmaceutical lactose and others which include yogurt and dairy feeds. Bakery segment is occupying the largest share due to the inclination of population towards baked foods. Infant formula is showing the fastest growth due to the rising women work population, changing life style. Over the past few years, dairy blends as additives are acting as substitutes which are boosting the market of dairy blends products during the forecast period.

Emerging markets in recent years are driving the market of dairy blends products. Consolidation of dairy blends industries through acquisitions and mergers are resulting in the growth of this market. With the rising digital technologies it finds out gap in the existing products and try to innovate newer ways of the usage of products and packaging. This newer way is paving the way into newer markets and creating huge opportunities to dairy blends products market. Big data analytics companies engage in performing real time analysis of sales to understand the consumption patterns which help to modify the marketing strategies to achieve better results, minimizing the costs. This can influence the preferences of customers, thus popularizing dairy blends products.

Get Industry Research Report Sample for more Professional and Technical Industry Insights: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=16562

By geography, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. The study also covers major countries in all these regions such as The U.S in North America, The U.K, Germany, France, Russia, Italy and Rest of Europe in Europe, China, India, Japan and Rest of APAC in Asia Pacific, Brazil in Latin America and UAE is Middle East and Africa among others. Asia Pacific is showing the fastest growth due to the emerging economies like China India Japan and large number of dairy farms present in Australia. Europe is capturing the largest market share due its inclination of population towards health conscious foods and also consuming low calorie foods.

Global key participants in the industry include Kerry group(Tralee, Ireland), Cargill Inc(Wayzata, Minnesota, United States), Agropour Ingredients(Qubec, Canada) Fonterra Co-Operative Limited(Auckland, New Zealand) Agropour Ingredients(Qubec,Canada) Royal Frieslandcampina N.V.( Amersfoot, Ntherlands) Dohler Group(Germany), Intermix Australia Pty Limited(96 Harburg Drive Beenleigh Queensland 4207 Australia), Advanced Food Products LLC(402 South Custer Avenue New Holland, PA17557United States), Galloway Company Inc.( United States), Cape Food Ingredients(Argentina) among others.

Global Dairy blends market can be segmented as follows:

Global Dairy Blends Market, by Forms

Liquid

Spreadable

Powder

Global Dairy Blends Market, by Application

Infant Formula

Bakery

Beverage

Ice cream

Pharmaceutical Lactose

Butter and Cheese Blends

Others

Global Dairy Blends Market, by Geography

North America

U.S.

Rest of North America

Europe

U.K.

Germany

France

Russia

Italy

Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China

Japan

India

Rest of APAC

Latin America

Brazil

Rest of Latin America

Middle East and Africa

UAE

South Africa

Rest of Middle East & Africa

Browse Research PR: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/dairy-blends-market.htm

About TMR

Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.

TMR's data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

Contact

Transparency Market Research

State Tower

90 State Street,

Suite 700,

Albany NY - 12207

United States

Tel: +1-518-618-1030

USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453

Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com



Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Blog: http://www.tmrblog.com/

SOURCE Transparency Market Research
DUBLIN, Dec 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Dental Bone Graft Substitutes Market Analysis & Trends Product, Graft Type, Application - Forecast to 2025" report to their offering.

The Global Dental Bone Graft Substitutes Market is poised to grow at a CAGR of around 10.1% over the next decade to reach approximately $990.3 million by 2025. Some of the prominent trends that the market is witnessing include increasing medical and dental Tourism in emerging Countries and rise in Orthopedic Procedures performed on the elderly fueling the demand for Bone Graft Substitutes.



This industry report analyzes the global markets for Dental Bone Graft Substitutes across all the given segments on global as well as regional levels presented in the research scope. The study provides historical market data for 2013, 2014 revenue estimations are presented for 2015 and forecasts from 2016 till 2025.



The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies. With comprehensive market assessment across the major geographies such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Latin America and Rest of the world the report is a valuable asset for the existing players, new entrants and the future investors.



The study presents detailed market analysis with inputs derived from industry professionals across the value chain. A special focus has been made on 23 countries such as U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Germany, Spain, France, Italy, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, etc.



Companies Mentioned:



AlloSource

Baxter International, Inc.

Biohorizons Iph, Inc.

Dentium

Dentsply Sirona International

Exactech, Inc.

Geistlich Pharma AG

Institut Straumann AG

Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation

LifeNet Health

Medtronic

NOVABONE

RTI Surgical, Inc.

Zimmer Holding Inc



Key Topics Covered:



1 Market Outline



2 Executive Summary



3 Market Overview



4 Dental Bone Graft Substitutes Market, By Application



5 Dental Bone Graft Substitutes Market, By Graft Type



6 Dental Bone Graft Substitutes Market, By Product



7 Dental Bone Graft Substitutes Market, By Geography



8 Key Player Activities



9 Leading Companies



For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7szhng/global_dental

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Related Links

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SOURCE Research and Markets
Agreement includes Localiza's purchase of the Hertz operations in Brazil and combined Localiza Hertz branding in Brazil

ESTERO, Florida, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: HTZ) has reached a long-term agreement with Localiza, South America's largest rental car company and the market leader in Brazil, to form a strategic partnership encompassing co-branding in Brazil and use of the Localiza brand in other select markets, customer referrals and the exchange of technology and information. As part of the agreement, which is subject to approval by the Brazilian antitrust authority (Administrative Council for Economic Defense or CADE), Localiza will purchase the Hertz operation in Brazil.

Under the referral and brand cooperation aspects of the agreement, Localiza customers traveling outside of South America will be referred to Hertz reservation channels. In select markets, including the U.S., Hertz expects to display the Localiza brand at key airport locations that frequently serve visitors from Brazil. Similarly, Hertz customers traveling to Brazil will be referred to Localiza, with "Localiza Hertz" branding in many locations, providing them access to a broader network of locations and a larger vehicle fleet than currently offered by Hertz Brazil.

The purchase price for the Hertz Brazil operation, which includes both rental car and vehicle leasing, is expected to be R$337 million. The final purchase price will be determined at the closing date. Both companies will continue to operate independently until the agreement receives anti-trust approval.

"This agreement enables us to partner with South America's largest rental car company, extending the reach of the Hertz brand in Brazil and leveraging Localiza's customer base when they travel outside of South America. Additionally, Hertz customers traveling to Brazil will have access to an expanded service offering through Localiza's network," said John Tague, Hertz Global Holdings president and chief executive officer.

"We are proud to forge a partnership with Localiza, which has a legacy of market leadership and a commitment to the same premium service levels as our Hertz brand. We expect this partnership to be a win-win for both companies."

"This partnership represents a milestone in the history of car rental in Localiza and in Brazil. Hertz is a widely recognized brand with a strong international presence. We have many common qualities: business expertise, excellence in service and innovation DNA," said Eugenio Mattar, Localiza chief executive officer.

About Hertz Global

Hertz Global operates, through its operating company The Hertz Corporation and its subsidiaries, the Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty vehicle rental brands in approximately 10,000 corporate and franchisee locations throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Hertz Global is one of the largest worldwide airport general use vehicle rental companies, and the Hertz brand is one of the most recognized in the world. Product and service initiatives such as Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, Carfirmations, Mobile Wi-Fi and unique vehicles offered through the Adrenaline, Dream, Green and Prestige Collections set Hertz Global apart from the competition. Additionally, Hertz Global owns the vehicle leasing and fleet management leader Donlen Corporation, operates the Hertz 24/7 hourly vehicle rental business in international markets and sells vehicles through its Rent2Buy program. For more information about Hertz Global, visit: www.hertz.com.

About Localiza

Localiza is the largest car rental network in South America, with 564 locations in 7 countries and a fleet of 136,202 cars. It is a reference in customer service excellence and recognized by numerous awards in its category. Its ability to innovate makes it a protagonist in the car rental market in Brazil. More than 6 million customers use its car rental solutions and its cutting edge products to have a superior experience. Spotlight on Localiza Fidelidade (loyalty program), which has already distributed more than 1.3 million free rental days and also upgrades, the program offers more convenience, agility and exclusive service; Localiza Way, a gadget that offers GPS, wi-fi network, music through Spotify and direct connection with Customer Assistance; Localiza Express, self-service totem that guarantees more agility to customers in the process of picking up the cars in the branches; Mobile checkout, which makes it possible to close the contract, guaranteeing more agility and simplicity to the process of returning the cars; App designed for reservations, car upgrades, follow the route of the van, open contracts through "I have arrived" button, a pre-service that allows the customer to pick up the car even faster; Localiza Prime, group of luxury cars, like the models BMW 320i and Volvo S60; And the latest innovation of Localiza, an unprecedented technology in Latin America to pick up of the car without going through the service desk: the customer only needs a mobile application to open the door of the car and in less than a minute leaves by driving the car.

Related Links

http://www.hertz.com



SOURCE Hertz Global Holdings, Inc.
Demand for greater operational efficiencies drives growth opportunities for IT in home security, finds Frost & Sullivan's TechVision team

LONDON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The home security sector is shifting to a cyber-centric model, with pronounced emphasis on developing less-complicated, self-powered, connected devices. This shift has spawned the need to secure the entire lifecycle of the product. The changing definition of a "breach" is further compelling solution providers to secure their smart home security solutions from end to end.

"The growing use of cloud-based wireless IT systems in smart homes is prompting tighter integration between operational and commercial services," said Frost & Sullivan TechVision Research Analyst Sitanshu Shastri. "Leveraging the Big Data generated by the Internet of Things will help improve the decision-making process and enable delivery of advanced functionalities such as predictive insights. Future businesses will be dependent on communication networks as well as endpoint devices, and intelligent cyber security solutions will be needed to bolster protection in these areas."

Home Security: Technology Assessment and Concerns is part of the TechVision (Sensors & Control) Growth Partnership Service program. Frost & Sullivan has identified five key areas within the home security segment that can alter the entire market with their disruptive technologies: access control, perimeter protection, surveillance, lighting and cyber security. Additionally, the study explores the roadblocks to technology implementation.

Click on the following link for complimentary access to more information on this analysis and to register for a Growth Strategy Dialogue, a free interactive briefing with Frost & Sullivan's thought leaders: http://corpcom.frost.com/forms/EU_PR_AZanchi_D6E3_Dec16

Current home security devices have several limitations. For instance, traditional biometric-enabled fingerprint devices are unable to accurately authenticate the user due to their low resolution. Technologies such as body thermal heat mapping offer accuracy and reliability, but are often expensive. There are substantial challenges in integrating these technologies for large-scale identity and access management applications.

Many of the deficiencies of the earlier generation of security solutions are being addressed by the new IT-intensive solutions; for example, self-powered wireless sensors significantly lower the price and set-up period for consumers. They also decrease power consumption by harvesting energy to enable wireless switches, sensors and controls. Plus, the security process will be highly scalable and flexible due to the autonomy of the device.

"Overall, the large-scale adoption of home security devices will depend on the enhanced lifetime, resolution and stability of the devices," noted Shastri. "Innovators and start-ups should partner with device manufacturers to develop specific solutions for targeted applications."

About TechVision

Frost & Sullivan's global TechVision practice is focused on innovation, disruption and convergence, and provides a variety of technology-based alerts, newsletters and research services as well as growth consulting services. Its premier offering, the TechVision program, identifies and evaluates the most valuable emerging and disruptive technologies enabling products with near-term potential. A unique feature of the TechVision program is an annual selection of 50 technologies that can generate convergence scenarios, possibly disrupt the innovation landscape, and drive transformational growth. View a summary of our TechVision program by clicking on the following link: http://ifrost.frost.com/TechVision_Demo.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion

Contact:

Anna Zanchi

Corporate Communications  Europe

P: +39.02.4851 6133

E: anna.zanchi@frost.com

http://www.frost.com

http://www.frost.com/techvision

Related Links

http://www.frost.com



SOURCE Frost & Sullivan
BASINGSTOKE, England, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Infortrend's EonStor GS Family has won "Disk/Hybrid Product of the Year" at Storage Awards 2016, as voted by the readers of Storage Magazine. This distinction was awarded in recognition of the EonStor GS's excellent performance, amazing cache capacity of 12.8TB, and flexibility with 4-level automated storage tiering.

Infortrend SSD Cache is an intelligent hybrid storage feature that analyzes data access behavior and recognizes hot data to automatically copy it to the SSD cache pool. The SSD Cache has a maximum cache capacity of 12.8TB, allowing ample room for storing more hot data in the cache to greatly accelerate read IOPS and reduce response time.

The other powerful Infortrend hybrid storage feature is automated storage tiering. It offers excellent flexibility with a maximum of 4 tier levels to sort data into different drive types and fully leverage the benefits of SSDs, SAS, NL SAS and SATA HDDs. This occurs automatically so IT managers can save time and easily maintain system resources.

These two features, combined with Infortrend's experience in intelligent data allocation algorithms, make the EonStor GS a deserving winner and give Infortrend the motivation to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible in hybrid disk storage products.

Teddy Lin, General Manager of Infortrend Europe Ltd. said, "We are very honoured to receive this award. Our hybrid storage products aim to offer the best performance and excellent flexibility while being cost-effective to provide our customers with the best user experience."

To see the full list of 2016 Storage Awards winners, click here. For details about EonStor GS, click here.

About Infortrend

Infortrend (TWSE: 2495) has been developing and manufacturing storage solutions since 1993. With a strong emphasis on in-house design, testing, and manufacturing, Infortrend storage delivers performance and scalability with the latest standards, user friendly data services, personal after-sales support, and unrivaled value. For more Information, please visit www.infortrend.com.

Infortrend, EonStor, EonNAS, and ESVA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Infortrend Technology, Inc., other trademarks property of their respective owners.

Contact:

Infortrend Europe Ltd.

Agnieszka Wesolowska

Tel:+44-1256-305-220

E-mail: marketing.eu@infortrend.com

Related Links

http://www.infortrend.com



SOURCE Infortrend Technology, Inc.
SHARJAH, UAE, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Chinese investors will receive a comprehensive overview of Sharjah's fertile investment landscape through the participation of 'Invest in Sharjah' at the Free Trade and Special Economic Zone Summit Shanghai 2016, which started today (Wednesday) in the world's most populous city proper from December 7-8.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445973LOGO )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445972 )

Invest in Sharjah will use its presence at the event, titled 'Global Investment Strategies for a Going Global China,' to highlight the array of advantages that Sharjah can offer Chinese entrepreneurs and businesspersons keen to set up operations in the emirate. The organisation is aiming to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity, its fastest growing consumer economy, its largest exporter of goods and its second largest importer of goods.

"China is a burgeoning economic powerhouse and is home to thousands of companies looking to expand their operations beyond the country's borders. Shurooq is delighted to be participating at the Free Trade and Special Economic Zone Summit Shanghai to outline the many advantages of doing business in Sharjah. As the perfect hub between east and west, Sharjah can offer a special strategic focus on the four key sectors of Tourism and Leisure, Healthcare, Transport and Logistics and Real Estate and the Environment," said Mohammed Al Musharrkh, Director of the Sharjah FDI office (Invest in Sharjah).

Healthcare opportunities which will be explored at the summit are particularly potentially lucrative. Spending in China's health-care sector is projected to grow from $357 billion in 2011 to $1 trillion in 2020 (according to Mckinsey), with consumer health pharmaceuticals and medical product companies in China seeking expansion internally as well as further afield.

Also under review at the summit will be leisure and tourism opportunities available in Sharjah, with the expected influx of Chinese tourists following the announcement of the issuance of a visa on arrival to visitors from China in September this year. The move is expected to significantly increase the number of Chinese tourists to the UAE, which saw approximately half a million of the country's citizens visiting in 2015.

Contact: Mousa Nimer, +971-50-222-0561, m.nimer@nncpr.com

SOURCE Shurooq
TRIPOLI, Libya, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

LPTIC announced on Tuesday (December 6) that the company's chairman had held positive talks with HE President Yoweri Museveni over the future of UTL.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445697LOGO )

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445698 )

The talks took place in the Ugandan capital Kampala on November 22.

Chairman of Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Holding Company (LPTIC) Dr. Faisel Gergab said that discussions with the President focused on the transformation plan to turnaround the Ugandan based telecoms operator UTL that would significantly boost the company's existing Data Services.

According to LPTIC Chairman Dr. Faisel Gergab, HE President Museveni reaffirmed the government's willingness to work with LPTIC to transform UTL into a leading universal telecoms service provider

HE President Museveni also provided suggestions for ways to implement the new plan that would 'help turn the company around'.

"Our talks with HE President Museveni were very fruitful and positive," LPTIC Chairman Dr. Faisel Gergab said. "We see an exciting future for UTL as it begins the transformation from legacy old-style PTT to a modern ICT company that will offer high quality and competitive services."

"As part of a bold transformation plan, UTL will be upgrading its technology in the next year, adding 4G capabilities to provide a wide range of high-quality, high-speed data services to both mobile and fixed customers," Dr. Gergab added.

Despite recent challenges, UTL continues to provide vital services across the spectrum for consumers, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporate enterprises.

UTL is one of the longest-running telecom operators in Uganda, established since 1998. LPTIC via its subsidiary LAP-Green holds 69% majority shareholding in UTL whilst the Ugandan Government holds a minority 31% shareholding in the company

According to the company, LPTIC and Ugandan stakeholders, including the Ministry of Finance and Privatization, developed a plan which was approved by UTL's Board and shareholders at meetings held in mid-2016.

However, the execution of the plan, has been delayed due to several obstacles. Following the meeting with HE President Museveni, all Parties are now confident that there will be real progress to quickly remove the obstacles that have blocked the implementation of the agreed plan, and clear the way forward to commend the execution of UTI transformation plan.

SOURCE LPTIC
LONDON and FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, December 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Under bold new legislation by the Government of Sierra Leone to liberalise the telecoms sector and allow the use of VoIP for national and international traffic, Onlime SL is pleased to announce the launch of its all-new and exciting VoIP service for the first time in Sierra Leone. As with all Onlime services we aim to deliver a quality service to satisfy the most critical business customer and the good news is that the home user can now benefit from the same quality at very competitive rates.

Our Enterprise VoIP solution is designed for business customers with our own inexpensive PBX and desk phone solution for their offices. A central point of contact is a must for all businesses and this is now made possible in Sierra Leone by Onlime solutions.

At the same time we are launching the LimeySL App, a free download from Google Play or Apple Store for use on your Smartphone, which is licensed only for use in Sierra Leone - No SIM. No extra phone. LimeySL is a free mobile application that combines the new and old ways of mobile calling and messaging. Smartphone users can download this app to make local and international calls at very competitive rates or message with other Onlime users for free. Onlime will be adding exciting new features to the App over the next few months and the first is live streaming of TV channels and in particular TV channels from Sierra Leone which will be available for the first time to those Sierra Leoneans living overseas.

Calls from Onlime are connected through the Internet (Wi-Fi or 3G/4G) to other Onlime customers or to any traditional telephone network. Making calls with this App is simple, affordable and enjoyable for everyone, irrespective of who you want to call or where. That's why all calls between subscribers on the Onlime network are free of charge in Sierra Leone. If all the friends and family are Onlime VoIP customers too you won't have to pay to speak to them.

With Onlime VoIP you are not limited to calls to and from Onlime customers. You can call any fixed lines and mobiles in Sierra Leone as well as international fixed line and mobile customers at very competitive rates by purchasing Onlime credits.

Each customer will have a unique Sierra Leone number (+232 66 xxxxxx) free of charge.

Mr Foday Sankoh, Managing Director Onlime SL Limited, said: "With Onlime's new VoIP service there is no need to buy a new mobile phone, no need to get a new SIM Card; just download the App and you are connected to the rest of the world with affordable local and international rates".

ENDS

Notes to Editors:



Contact:

W: www.onlime.sl





ABOUT Onlime SL Limited

Onlime (formerly Limeline (SL) Ltd.) has been one of Sierra Leone's premier Internet Service Providers and licensed VoIP operator since 2005 and is one of the founding shareholders of the privatised SALCAB, the only Sierra Leone licensed operator and owner of voice and data capacity on the ACE (Africa Coast to Europe) submarine communications cable.



The members of the team that formed Limeline Group have considerable experience in many areas of the developing world, having set up successful businesses in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil and built up operations in some 26 countries in Africa. This in-depth knowledge has been a key factor in the growth of Onlime and the development of the philosophy of being "closer to the customer".



Onlime offers the reliable, affordable Internet service customers expect and with the customer care they deserve. We use the latest in wireless technology to offer a full range of services, including super-fast Internet broadband, VoIP telephony with our own number range, MPLS connectivity, domain hosting and Government and corporate private networks (VPN) inside and outside Sierra Leone, as well as VSAT services for remote or standalone sites. Onlime is part of the Onlime Business Communications Network, which has a sales and operations presence in 12 countries across the globe. Onlime has more than 40 Partners in 26 countries in Africa, Middle East and Asia (http://www.onlime.com).



Onlime offers a range of bandwidth options over our state-of-the-art wireless network from 128 kbps to hundreds of Mbps of Internet or data connectivity to your home or office. Onlime operates sophisticated bandwidth management techniques to ensure that all customers receive a quality service that is focused on corporate and government clients during working hours and on residential and recreational subscribers on the weekends and in the evenings.



MPLS

In addition to our super-fast broadband service, Onlime provides a number of our customers with MPLS connectivity to the rest of the world and private networks (VPN) where secure connectivity between offices within Sierra Leone or overseas is a critical requirement.



VoIP

Onlime is a licensed VoIP provider with the number range +232 66 XXXXXX. We provide termination to all of the other operators in Sierra Leone and offer very competitive rates to the rest of the world through our London gateway. We pride ourselves on delivering crystal clear voice calls to a single phone in a remote location or to an enterprise customer with 200 extensions through our own high-specification IP-PBX.



ISP

Onlime is a full service ISP and can assist with every aspect of a customers' IT requirements, whether it is setting up the wired or wireless Local Area Network (LAN) in your offices, or all the ancillary services for secure e-mail and domain hosting. Onlime has relationships with numerous specialist partners who can provide technical support for software or hardware.



Onlime offers a reliable service at an affordable price, and the Company's dedicated team of professional engineers provides round the clock service to customers.



Our offices are located at 33 Regent Road, Hill Station and Santanno House, 10 Howe Street, Freetown. For Sales enquires call on 303 from any Onlime number or +232 66 303030 or +232 76 888885 or +232 30 888885 or email info@onlime.com



For more information please visit www.onlime.sl



The Onlime Group

Onlime is leading the way in providing high quality, secure and reliable business communications to customers across the globe.



Onlime provides premium quality VoIP, Internet and data connectivity over VSAT or fibre to mining, enterprise, government, military, oil & gas, banking, NGO and many other customer groups.



With its extensive satellite coverage, across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia through the Caribbean and South America, as well as dedicated access to a growing network of fibre links and with a range of the latest technology platforms, wherever an organisation is in the world, Onlime is there to provide an unrivalled communications environment for business.



What's more, with a philosophy of being "closer to the customer" Onlime has a dedicated team of professionals based in offices in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, India, Sierra Leone, Angola, DR Congo, Uganda, South Africa, USA and UAE. The technical hub in Germany is a fully manned disaster recovery facility with a help desk running 24/7 and Onlime delivers customers the peace of mind, knowing wherever they may be doing business, whatever time of day or night a rapid response is guaranteed.



For more information please visit www.onlime.com

SOURCE Onlime Group
TORONTO, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The IR industry's first fully integrated investor relations desktop now includes broker research and advanced targeting workflow to help IROs better understand market behaviour and engage with new institutional investors

Q4 Inc., a global leader in cloud-based investor relations and capital market solutions, announces the third release of Q4 Desktop, the IR industry's first fully integrated market intelligence desktop. This release includes new features focused on targeting and meeting management, and introduces broker research to enable IROs to better understand estimates and stock sentiment.

"With every release, Q4 Desktop is making it easier for IROs to do their job," says Darrell Heaps, CEO, Q4. "We're leveraging the most sophisticated technology available to grow Q4 Desktop into the most comprehensive, advanced IR intelligence product on the market. Our latest release focuses on streamlining processes for an IRO, making it easier for them to identify and engage with their investors, understand drivers behind movements, and record activities and meetings so they can understand the ROI of their targeting efforts."

Capitalizing on its powerful market intelligence and proprietary analytics, Q4 Desktop introduces the following features:

Tear sheets and briefing books: Enables IROs to easily create comprehensive tear sheets and briefing books (for contacts, institutions, and funds) that combine historical ownership activity alongside events and meetings that can be exported and printed for NDRs and meetings.

Seamless activity logging: Eliminates steps for the IRO by making it easier to import and export activity, schedule upcoming meetings or log historical activity, plot activity on any chart of ownership and share price, and sort and filter information.

Research: Provides an improved understanding of how the sell-side views an IRO's company, peers, and industry via research reports and papers.

Q4 Desktop integrates the company's market-leading website, webcasting and market intelligence solutions into one easy-to-use platform, delivering seamless access to broad market data, proprietary analytics, institutional firm, fund and contact profiles along with contact management and reporting tools. With Q4 Desktop, users can also:

Access institutional quality stock quotes, charts, news, events, and transcripts for all North American equities

Gain access to proprietary sentiment, volatility and investor activism algorithms for all stocks in the US and Canada

Analyze and download Factset universe of ownership data and 150,000 global investment firm and fund profiles

Work with an easy-to-use and lightweight CRM, which includes over 225,000 investor contact profiles that are constantly updated to ensure accuracy

Collaborate among internal team members and Q4 analyst and support staff through innovative real-time chat, tagging, activity logging, team notifications and more

Institutional contact details (roles, fund management, bio, etc.) updated nightly based on vendor refresh as well as direct input from customers

Access IR website analytics and track and report on institutional website behaviour

Analyze investor webcast participation with complete investor contact integration

Score and track investors and targets

Access proactively updated contact database

The new release follows Q4's recent acquisition of Euroinvestor IR Solutions in September. Q4 Desktop is set to populate quotes from London Stock Exchange in January 2017, with complete European exchange coverage to follow. The addition of international exchanges to Q4 Desktop will further accelerate the company's expansion into Europe as the industry's fastest growing provider of IR solutions.

About Q4 Inc.

Q4 Inc. is a global leader in cloud-based investor relations and capital market solutions. Thousands of brands around the world use Q4 website, webcasting, CRM, analytics and surveillance solutions to better connect with their investors and understand the capital markets. In June 2016, Q4 launched Q4 Desktop, the industry's first, fully integrated investor relations platform, which integrates communications tools, surveillance and analytics into a fully featured IR workflow and CRM application. Q4 has offices in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Copenhagen. Visit http://www.q4inc.com to learn more.

Media Inquiries: Taryn Shulman, Q4 Inc., Director, Marketing, 416-540-9832, taryns@q4inc.com



SOURCE Q4 Inc.
NEWPORT BEACH, California, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SAIL Capital Partners LLC announced today that its portfolio company WaterHealth International Inc. ( www.waterhealth.com ) is now providing access to safe drinking water to more than 7 million people worldwide. The Company has scalable and profitable operations in many developing economies and is now looking at expanding into Africa and SE Asia including China.

Prof. Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School has highlighted WaterHealth International as a leading example of Creating Shared Value in a seminal paper on this subject.

WaterHealth is also recognized as the innovator and leader of a new hybrid model for delivering drinking water to the developing world. This hybrid model combines decentralized water purification units with traditional utilities and allows safe, affordable, sustainable and profitable operations that deliver drinking water quickly and reliably to underserved and unserved populations. The speed at which such systems are implemented brings transformational change to communities who have not had access to safe water for decades.

WaterHealth International, Inc. is the world's leading provider of pure drinking water systems to underserved communities around the world. It has a transformational, decentralized business model that purifies water that exceeds WHO and local standards, continuously monitors water quality and effectively delivers water to consumers with state-of-the-art distribution systems and supply chains. WaterHealth International maintains a direct relationship with its customers using smart water cards and achieves some of the lowest operating costs for its network through use of leading water purification technologies, predictive analytics and real time process monitoring.

SAIL Capital (www.sailcapital.com) and The Dow Chemical Company (www.dow.com) worked closely together in 2006 to co-lead the first significant financing of WaterHealth International building on the early efforts of the Acumen Fund and the International Finance Corporation and founder Tralance Addy. Since then WaterHealth International has added The Coca-Cola Company, Tata Capital and the Vital Capital Fund as strong investment contributors to its success.

Related Links

http://www.sailcapital.com



SOURCE SAIL Capital Partners LLC
LIMA (Reuters) - Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori said on Monday he has been moved from his prison cell to a health clinic in Lima to undergo testing for a brain condition and to treat problems moving his right shoulder. Fujimori, 78, has been serving a 25-year sentence since 2009 for graft and human rights abuses during his 1990-2000 authoritarian rule. Fujimori said on Twitter that he had been admitted to a clinic in Lima to be scanned for risk of brain ischemia, a lack of blood flow to the brain that can lead to strokes, and due to "persistent limitations moving my right shoulder." Fujimori was treated for two brain ischemias, or restrictions in blood supply to tissues, about a year ago, his doctor Alejandro Aguinaga said. Late on Sunday Fujimori experienced dizziness and found a very large bruise on his right shoulder that extends to his elbow, Aguinaga told reporters. "He's lucid, calm, waiting for the result of the scan." Fujimori has undergone medical treatment outside prison several times in recent years for problems ranging from high blood pressure and depression to a growth on his tongue. Fujimori's eldest daughter, Keiko Fujimori, narrowly lost her second presidential bid this year, dashing his supporters' hopes that he might be freed from prison with a presidential pardon. President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who took office in July, has said he would not pardon Fujimori but would be willing to sign legislation that allows aging prisoners like him serve their sentences under house arrest. Keiko Fujimori's right-wing party holds a majority of seats in Peru's single-chamber Congress but has not proposed any legislation that would result in Fujimori leaving prison. (Reporting by Mitra Taj; Editing by Bill Trott and Richard Chang)
DENVER, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With the holiday season officially upon us, millions of Americans will be preparing their homes to host friends and family to celebrate the holiday season. In addition to preparing meals, hanging decor and buying gifts, families will be putting away clutter and cleaning their homes before hosting guests and out-of-town visitors.

So, how do Americans feel about cleaning their homes?

According to a new global survey conducted by YouGov Plc for Karcher, the global leader in cleaning technology, Americans take pride in their homes. The survey revealed more than 8 in 10 Americans (81 percent) feel it is important to keep their home clean, and 43 percent report cleaning their home regularly even if things do not appear dirty.

However, cleaning is hardly a favorite American pastime. Seventy percent of Americansand 75 percent of baby boomers 55 years or olderfeel that cleaning is a hassle but must be done.

"As a global manufacturer of cleaning technology for more than 80 years, Karcher's mission is to help our customers make their homes cleaner, quicker. With more than 1,600 patents and designs, we are constantly innovating our technology, service and design to anticipate our customers' needswhatever their personal habits and cleaning preferences may be," said Hannes Saeubert, Karcher North America CEO.

Americans 'Come Clean'

One way some Americans are making cleaning less of a chore is by doing it in the buff. The survey reveals that nearly one in three Americans aged 18-34 (28 percent) have cleaned or performed household chores in the nude. Men of all ages are most likely to strip down to clean, with 24 percent saying they've done so vs. 17 percent of women. Cleaning nude tends to be a habit most enjoyed solo, with 28 percent of respondents identifying as separated and 23 percent of those who report being single saying they've performed household chores naked.

Cleaning Habits Around the World

The online survey was conducted Oct. 12-13, 2016 by YouGov Plc among a representative sample of 9,439 individuals 18 years and older in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Argentina, Japan and France. Among all respondents, Argentinians felt most strongly (94 percent) about the importance of their homes being clean, while Japanese respondents reported spending the least amount of time cleaning their homes. Forty-seven percent of those surveyed in Japan say they spend less than one hour cleaning each week, compared to more than onethird of those in Germany (34 percent), the U.K. (39 percent), the U.S. (43 percent) and France (44 percent) who spend more than three hours cleaning their homes each week. Argentina also ranked highest in this category, with twothirds of respondents (67 percent) reporting they spend more than three hours cleaning each week.

Holiday Cleaning Tips

Whatever you preferred cleaning habits and attire, follow these often overlooked tips from Karcher to make your home sparkle and impress your guests this holiday season:

Anticipate curious visitors: In addition to cleaning common room floors and surfaces, don't forget about those out of sight areas your curious guests may check out, like bathroom closets and cabinets. Clear out the clutter by checking for and safely disposing of empty and expired bottles, medicines and cosmetics. Before returning remaining products to the cabinet, wipe down all shelves and drawers. Soap, water and cosmetics residue on the bathroom mirror can be removed using a handy cordless window cleaner , which is also a great tool for streak-free cleaning of windows and glass surfaces without the need for costly paper towels.



window cleaner Show off your on-the-road tidiness : Picking up out-of-town relatives or carpooling to the holiday party? Impress your guests by cleaning floor mats, seats, air vents, cup holders and dashboard. A lightweight, easy to maneuver wet/dry vacuum has accessories to gently reach and remove crumbs, dust and lint from both fabric seats and leather upholstery. To tackle floor mats bearing the brunt of winter weather, remove them to clean dirt by hand, with a brush or high-pressure cleaner. Hang the mats to dry so excess water can drain off easily; while drying, use the vacuum to remove sand, crumbs and dust.



wet/dry vacuum Let your exterior holiday decor shine: Be sure friends, family and neighbors can safely admire your outside decorations without leaves and debris becoming a hazard as they accumulate on your driveway, sidewalk and steps. To expedite the process and avoid paying for costly lawn maintenance services, try an easy-to-operate gadget like a Push Sweeper that allows you to sweep five times quicker than a conventional broom or rake.

About Karcher North America

Karcher North America is one of the largest subsidiaries of Alfred Karcher, GmbH & CO. In North America, Karcher produces and distributes products and services under the brands Karcher, Windsor Karcher Group, Prochem Karcher Group, Landa Karcher Group, Hotsy, Water Maze, Graco, Spraymart, Cuda, and Shark. The company's solutions serve customers' cleaning needs in an economical and environmentally-friendly manner. Visit www.karcher.com/us for more information.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445693LOGO

SOURCE Karcher North America

Related Links

http://www.karcher.com/us


PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- From a little noticed but highly effective method of treating anxiety and related disorders, Dr. Brigette Erwin has grown her Anxiety and OCD Center into one of the largest specialized practices of its kind in the Philadelphia area.

Building on the Center's history of consistently strong treatment outcomes, she is now reaching a new constituency: executives and their organizations. The Dr. Erwin Consulting arm of her practice works to maximize personal and professional potential for senior and mid-level executives and bottom line results for their organizations.

"Training is short term, strategy-based, and goal oriented, just as we want the executive and organization to be," says Dr. Erwin, a medically-trained cognitive psychologist who incorporates best-practice medical research in her treatment methods. Corporate clients have included physicians, corporations, universities, hospitals, financial institutions and consulting firms.

Dr. Erwin opened her Anxiety and OCD Center in 2006 as a one-person practice with three clients. Today, a staff of five clinicians treats clients of all ages at the Center's new, larger quarters in suburban Malvern, Pa. Having envisioned, planned and operated her practice on a business model, she brings to her counseling service hands-on experience and transformative insights.

Workplace stress costs United States business hundreds of million of dollars annually in reduced productivity and lost potential. "Stress is one motivator, but here are others with fewer personal and organizational costs. Intentionally selecting motivators and an organizational culture improves corporate and personal goals."

A client was disengaging from work opportunities and felt that her job lacked purpose because her CEO used fear as a motivator. "She can't change the boss, but she can improve her ability to function in just about any environment," says Dr. Erwin.

Dr. Erwin Consulting, she notes, is well received. "Our referral base continues to expand, which is an important measure of client satisfaction and their improvement through our training in implementing personal and professional changes."

Dr. Erwin is a nationally recognized speaker and has authored numerous articles for professional journals and contributed to books on anxiety disorders. Her work in advancing their study and treatment has been recognized by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and the National Institute of Mental Health, among others.

For more information, visit AnxietyOCD.com, or telephone 484 947-8820.

SOURCE Anxiety and OCD Center
Je Christine is an intimate and rousing experience of de Pizan's life in 14 th- and 15 th- Century France, when climate change, epidemics, civil unrest, political division, and foreign invasion hammered the country. Widowed at twenty-five, de Pizan supported her family solely through her writing, which included courtly poetry, a book on warfare and chivalry, the official biography of Charles V, and beautifully- illuminated allegorical works demanding respect for women.

Savoy treats us to a smattering of Christine's verse in Middle French but performs primarily in English tinged with an archaic French accent. Long-time collaborator Bill Burford directs the show, scheduled to tour universities, museums, theatres and other venues starting in January 2017. "Working from the manuscripts, Suzy has produced an articulate translation of grace and precision," says Burford, "a rich contribution to understanding this foundational force in European literature."

Guillaume de Machaut's evocative compositions underscore the text; as an added delight, some venues will feature live performance of the music. One such performance will be on April 29 at The Curtain in Austin, Texas, where torches illuminate the Elizabethan-style stage.

Savoy is known for her recurring role as DNC Chairwoman Patti Whittaker in House of Cards, matriarch Victoria Robertson in Steven Soderbergh's The Knick, and numerous classical roles at theatres such as the Alley Theatre, Houston Shakespeare Festival, and NYC's The Shakespeare Project. She is represented on both coasts by Clear Talent Group.

"Christine sends a powerful message across six centuries," says Savoy. "She never let fear drive her choices, and she called on her people and her government to follow suit. That's a strong and meaningful precedent."

To watch scenes from Je Christine, and for booking and contact information, visit www.jechristine.com

Contact:

Michael Heitzler

[email protected]

917-658-8403

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445804

SOURCE Clear Talent Group
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Reproduced below is the full text of the letter sent today by AARP Illinois State Director Bob Gallo to Governor Bruce Rauner, urging him to veto Senate Bill 2814.

"Illinois consumers have seen soaring increases in utility bills across the state over the last few years, in particular since the Smart Grid law went into effect. ComEd alone has increased rates by a whopping $300 million since 2011. With the passage of Senate Bill 2814 consumers may be on the verge of a $13.3 billion rate increase, the highest rate hike in our nation's history.

We are deeply concerned by the strong pressure Exelon, ComEd, and Ameren put on legislators to rush this bill through the General Assembly during last week's Veto Session. This undue hastiness may have also impeded your staff from a detailed analysis of the legislation and its impact on both residential and business customers. From the start, utility companies rushed this legislation in a way that raised serious questions about lack of transparency and showed their disregard for our state's regulatory process.

An independent analysis of the legislation conducted by the BEST Coalition indicates the SB 2814 proponents' claim of limited impact on consumer bills is flawed. While Ameren is pointing to a monthly $3.94 increase in charges starting in 2017, and ComEd indicates an increase of $2.33 per month, BEST's analysis indicates that customers will see average rate increases of $4.54 per month over the life of the legislation. This means 25 years of guaranteed monthly rate increases, all to subsidize profitable utility companies at the expense of Illinois consumers.

Utility companies urged the General Assembly to pass the legislation on the basis of saving jobs at the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear plants owned by Exelon. While those jobs may be saved in the short-term, the long-term impact of this legislation on our state's economy will be deeply harmful. BEST's analysis indicates a potential loss of at least 44,000 jobs through 2030 as businesses across Illinois see skyrocketing energy bills forcing them to make cuts in their workforce or relocate to other states.

SB 2814 duplicates payments to generators from the two grid operators serving Illinois, MISO and PJM where Exelon lobbied for and got a capacity market payment and other enhancements. The bill requires use of inflated benefits via a mandated "total resource cost test" that uses speculative or non-existent benefits to calculate mythical power savings as far out as 2030. Worse, SB 2814 mandates several new automatic electric rate increase adjustment mechanisms as well as a make-whole revenue guarantee to the utilities known as decoupling or revenue regulation which puts further upward pressure on electricity rates. Further, the legislation erodes the role of state energy regulators (the Illinois Commerce Commission) by extending experimental formula rates which fast track spending cost recovery without traditional review.

At a time when individuals and companies are struggling due to the ever-rising cost of living, higher taxes and fees, and depleted state services, do you really want to send a message that profitable companies should be bailed out on the backs of Illinoisans who will pay unendingly higher utility bills and may lose their jobs? At a time when the State is still unable to negotiate a full-year budget, do you want to convey to Illinoisans that their elected officials are able to negotiate multibillion dollar bailouts for huge corporations?

We are also very concerned about the precedent that the enactment of SB 2814 may set for other industries which may struggle in the future. Will legislators bail out Illinois corporations such as Caterpillar, John Deere, or Walgreen's should they continue to be profitable yet decide they need to shut down particular facilities?

On behalf of our 1.7 million Illinois members, and all Illinois consumers we urge you to veto this legislation. We have submitted a FOIA request to obtain the bill worksheets relevant to the total rate impact and we will communicate findings to the public. We will let our members know how their legislators voted on this bill, and we also let them know whether you stood up on the side of your constituents across Illinois, or signed into law legislation that will have a deeply harmful impact on our state's economy, and the economies of millions of citizens, for years to come."

Sincerely,

Bob Gallo

AARP Illinois State Director

[email protected]

222 N. LaSalle Street, ste. 710

Chicago, IL 60601

312-458-3604

SOURCE AARP Illinois

Related Links

http://www.aarp.org


WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals and encouraging youth to pursue their dreams through higher education, today announced the recipients of its 2017 Horatio Alger Award. Bestowed annually for the last 70 years upon exceptional corporate and philanthropic leaders from across the country who have succeeded despite facing challenges, this award recognizes the new Members' ongoing commitment to higher education and their continued charitable efforts in their local communities.

Horatio Alger Association will honor the following 11 individuals, all of whom represent its core values  perseverance, integrity and a commitment to excellence  with lifetime membership into the organization:

"The Horatio Alger Association was established in 1947 to dispel the mounting belief among citizens that the American Dream was no longer attainable," said Tony Novelly, chairman, Horatio Alger Association and 2000 Horatio Alger Award recipient. "As we celebrate our 70th Anniversary in 2017, we continue our efforts to reaffirm and reinforce that anything is possible in this country with hard work and the drive to succeed. The 11 individuals we are inducting as new Members truly embody all that the Association represents. Through challenges and trying times, these impressive men and women remained determined to achieve great things  and they have. My fellow Members and I could not be more pleased to welcome them into our organization and we look forward to all that they will contribute to the Association and its Scholars."

Through its Members, Horatio Alger Association aims to educate young people about the limitless opportunities afforded to them by the free-enterprise system. To further this goal, the organization awards scholarships to outstanding high school students who are committed to pursuing higher education and giving back to their communities. Like Association Members, Horatio Alger Scholars have faced significant adversities, but have also displayed unmatched resilience in overcoming their challenges. Since the scholarship program was established in 1984, Horatio Alger Association has provided more than $125 million to more than 25,000 students in need. Scholarships are privately funded solely through the generosity of Association Members, Life Partners and friends.

"Each year, the Horatio Alger Association honors a select and highly accomplished group of individuals from modest backgrounds who have risen to great success in their fields and I am proud to welcome the Class of 2017 to the Horatio Alger Association," said Byron Trott, president, Horatio Alger Association and 2011 Horatio Alger Award recipient. "These 2017 Award recipients are committed to helping deserving young people achieve their dreams by providing college scholarships and serving as inspirational role models and mentors to our Horatio Alger Scholars."

The 2017 Horatio Alger Award recipients will be formally inducted into the Association on March 30April 1, 2017, during the Association's 70th Horatio Alger Award Induction Ceremonies in Washington, D.C. The annual three-day event honors the achievements of both Members and National Scholars, affording both groups the opportunity to meet and interact as well as exchange stories of hardships and triumphs.

For more information about Horatio Alger Association and its Member Class of 2017, please visit www.horatioalger.org and/or follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #HoratioAlgerAward.

About Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans:

Founded in 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc. is dedicated to the simple but powerful belief that hard work, honesty and determination can conquer all obstacles. The Association honors the achievements of outstanding leaders who have accomplished remarkable successes in spite of adversity by bestowing upon them the Horatio Alger Award and inducting them as lifetime Members. Horatio Alger Members support promising young people with the resources and confidence needed to overcome adversity in pursuit of their dreams through higher education. Through the generosity of its Members and friends, the Association awards more than $12 million annually in undergraduate and graduate need-based scholarships across the United States and Canada and provides college support and mentoring services to its Scholars. Since 1984, the Association has awarded more than $125 million in college scholarships to more than 25,000 deserving young people. For more information, please visit www.horatioalger.org.

CONTACT:

McKenna Young

484-385-2913 (office)

[email protected]

SOURCE Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.horatioalger.org


IRVING, Texas, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Advanced Plan for Health (APH), a provider of data analytics technology that helps organizations improve health benefits programs, today announced the addition of new predictive modeling functionality to its latest release of the Poindexter risk engine for population health management.

Currently, Poindexter calculates care gaps and predicts the likelihood of hospital admissions, as well as readmissions, 6 to 12 months in advance for any given patient population  typically covered lives in a self-insured employer's health plan. The tool also examines data from claims, pharmacy and clinical sources, benchmarking against real-world health data adjusted for comparable demographics, geography and industry of the employer.

Poindexter assigns risk scores to individuals within that population  identifying people whose health profile suggests elevated risk. Case managers can improve outcomes and lower costs when they help patients avoid catastrophic events by improving their health through timely interventions.

"As data science and predictive analytics technologies get sharper every year, we hardwire new innovations into Poindexter so self-insured employers can mine actionable data and help their employees live healthier lives," said Neil Godbey, CEO, Advanced Plan for Health. "This upgrade represents one of the biggest leaps forward we've seen in some time."

New Condition-Specific Predictive Modeling Capabilities

Poindexter's newest release pushes the boundaries of predictive modeling by determining the likelihood of an occurrence of coronary events, neurological events, orthopedic events and chronic kidney disease. In addition, Poindexter now has the ability to predict hospital length of stay and general likelihood of an ER visit for any member of a patient population.

Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) and brokers can leverage Poindexter's new functionality to better identify at-risk individuals in their customers' insured population. Employers with self-funded health plans can directly benefit, too.

"Five to seven percent of health plan participants account for 60 to 70 percent of spending," said Barbara Rutkowski, Vice President, Clinical Operations, Advanced Plan for Health. "These folks can benefit from early intervention and receiving needed guidance in navigating the healthcare maze. Having a user-friendly data analytics tool gives case managers more time to focus on their patients and less time combing through data to find patients who need interventions. Poindexter's predictive model finds these targeted cases and tracks results."

"We use Poindexter to meet with our TPA, broker, PBM, senior leadership and medical management team, including physicians, to review our monthly dashboard," said Debby Neel, RN, BSN, Director of System Wellness and Community Health at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, Georgia. "We use the data to develop interventions that address specific individual risks, as well as financial and quality variances identified in the population. Advanced Plan for Health provides the information we need to meet our clinical and financial goals, and its new predictive analytics capabilities will be great in helping us continue our aggressive, proactive approach."

Maiken Himmel, RN, BSN, Employee Nurse Navigator at Baptist Health Floyd in New Albany, Indiana echoes these sentiments: "Hospitals are under pressure to avoid readmissions, and decrease preventable use of the emergency department and inpatient services. Poindexter helps me manage our associates and their families, direct them to appropriate care settings and work proactively to create a health culture that decreases expensive facility care. Its data supported the addition of a Nurse Practitioner, and provided evidence of how our diabetic members have improved. The new functionality will only be more useful."

About Advanced Plan for Health

Founded in 2004, Advanced Plan for Health (APH) continuously delivers customized and precise, cost-saving answers and actions that help brokers, employers, providers, health plans and others optimize health benefit programs to produce maximum value. APH leverages custom-built technology and an unparalleled history in healthcare data mining and analysis to generate a distinct view with proven, practical action plans. From troublesome trends in population health to inefficient provider utilization, APH has the data and expertise to help clients implement speedy actions that achieve short-term results as well as support long-term strategies. Other APH offerings include design and management of Nurse Navigation services, engagement and relationship-building with local healthcare providers and health risk assessments. Also: Employee outreach strategies, education and program implementation. Learn more at APH-online.com and MyPoindexter.com.

Media Contact:

Douglas Russell or Mercedes Carrasco

MSLGROUP

781-684-0770

[email protected]

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SOURCE Advanced Plan for Health, LLC

Related Links

http://www.aph-online.com


Chasing Cancer brought together leading scientists, health-care innovators, patients and policymakers who discussed advances in cancer care and treatment. They examined how the U.S. health-care system is shaped by a disease that touches the lives of millions of people, and provided new insights on the host of challenges cancer presents. The event was streamed live and video clips are archived on The Post ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/post-live-2016-Chasing-Cancer-Summit/ ).

"As a company that has contributed more than $110 million toward finding a cure for childhood cancer we could not be more pleased to have sponsored The Washington Post's ambitious forum that shined a bright light on a disease that impacts so many people, including more than 15,000 children each year," Aflac Chairman and CEO Dan Amos said. "Aflac employees and our independent sales agents who continue to contribute every month to this cause are committed to helping families facing cancer each and every day."

"We were pleased to have Aflac as the presenting sponsor for Chasing Cancer. This was an important discussion that convened leaders and innovators committed to cancer research and improving the lives of those with cancer," said Kristine Coratti, Vice President of Communications and Events for The Washington Post.

According to the American Cancer Society, each year more than 1.7 million Americans will be diagnosed with a form of cancer. Yet of all the government funding that goes toward cancer treatments and research, less than 5% is allocated toward childhood cancers.

"While we are extremely fortunate that Aflac has continued to embrace our cause for more than 21 years, the childhood cancer community needs more help," Dr. Douglas Graham, director of the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta said. "We could not have become a U.S. News and World Report top 10 children's cancer facility in the United States without the generosity of Aflac and its agents, but researchers simply need more funding to make our dream of curing childhood cancer become a reality. Every child deserves a lifetime."

Find more information about Chasing Cancer at The Washington Post. For more information about Aflac's commitment to childhood cancer, go to www.Aflacduckprints.com.

About Aflac

When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac pays cash benefits fast. For six decades, Aflac insurance policies have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the United States, Aflac is the leader in voluntary insurance sales at the worksite. Through its trailblazing One Day PaySM initiative, Aflac U.S. can receive, process, approve and disburse payment for eligible claims in one business day. In Japan, Aflac is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance and insures 1 in 4 households. Aflac insurance products help provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. For 10 consecutive years, Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. In 2016, Fortune magazine recognized Aflac as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for the 18th consecutive year and included Aflac on its list of Most Admired Companies for the 15th time, ranking the company No. 1 in innovation for the insurance, life and health category for the second consecutive year. In 2015, Aflac's contact centers were recognized by J.D. Power by providing "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience" for the Live Phone Channel. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac and One Day PaySM, visit aflac.com or espanol.aflac.com.

Media contact  Jon A. Sullivan, 706.763.4813 or [email protected]

Analyst and investor contact  Robin Y. Wilkey, 706.596.3264 or 800.235.2667; FAX: 706.324.6330, or [email protected]

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SOURCE Aflac

Related Links

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded AgBiome a new multi-year grant, entitled "Broad-Spectrum Biological Control of Fungal Diseases," which will fund the evaluation and development of lead, proprietary biological fungicides in the fields of African smallholder farmers. The aim of the project is to identify and validate biological fungicides to control one or more of three major crop diseases of importance in Sub-Saharan Africa: sorghum anthracnose, black Sigatoka in banana, and aflatoxin contamination in maize.

AgBiome's proprietary Genesis discovery platform has already successfully identified multiple field-usable microbes that target both foliar and root diseases of major row crops. The company is planning to commercialize its first product, a biological fungicide branded Howler, pending regulatory approval by the Environmental Protection Agency. "We have successfully developed a biological that controls a broad-spectrum of soil-borne and foliar diseases and demonstrates control levels as good as the best synthetic chemistry options," stated Dr. David Ingham, one of the research scientists leading the project. "Our experience from this first biopesticide combined with our very large collection of sequenced proprietary microbes uniquely positions us to identify lead strains with a high probability of controlling the diseases targeted in this proposal." Added Dr. Mathias Twizeyimana, plant pathologist at AgBiome, "We are delighted to work with the Gates Foundation on this important project, which aims to direct AgBiome's deep expertise in biological disease control toward helping farmers in the poorest countries."

Fungal diseases result in massive losses for African farmers yearly, and current available solutions are limited in their effectiveness or add significant, unrealistic costs of implementation. Biological control of these diseases is a promising solution in many areas, generally affording growers no risk of exposure to synthetic pesticides and potentially offering season-long control through inoculation of host plants. Moreover, unlike synthetic fungicides, biologicals could be produced and distributed locally, thus bringing sustainable solutions to smallholder farmers to address these devastating diseases. Control of these diseases would directly impact subsistence farming households who experience high annual losses to these pests by increasing yield for both on-farm consumption and the sale of excess harvest, hence improving household income.

About AgBiome

AgBiome discovers and develops innovative biological and trait products for crop protection. Their proprietary Genesis discovery platform comprises the world's largest, most diverse, fully sequenced collection of microbes, coupled to industry-best screens for insect, disease and nematode control. Better microbes. Better crops. Better world.

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SOURCE AgBiome, LLC
An upgrade project for the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District earned Burns & McDonnell Excellence Award honors. Currently the largest water and sanitation district in the State of Colorado, the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District needed to meet demand and address effluent permitting changes by expanding and upgrading their treatment facility. Burns & McDonnell assisted the district at all stages of the project, including planning, designing, permitting and construction observation. A highly complex retrofit project, the facility remained in operation and in compliance throughout construction. The upgrade improved energy efficiency, reduced water usage, was completed three months ahead of schedule and came in nearly $80,000 under budget.

"This project was completely custom," says Andrew Waddoups, Burns & McDonnell project manager in Denver. "We were with the client from the beginning of the project and able to capture all their needs and wants. The facility now uses some of the most sophisticated technologies and treatment systems  and more importantly  is able to better support our communities' wastewater needs."

Burns & McDonnell was recognized with a Merit Award for another upgrade project  the Dodd Water Treatment Facility. This project was a joint venture with Garney Construction and included converting package clarifier/filter units to conventional pretreatment and microfiltration membranes, as well as preparing the facility for future expansion to 15 million gallons per day. The project utilized an alternative delivery method in the form of progressive design-build, which allowed the team to meet the district's need for seasonal capacity and to achieve goals for water quality, safety and budget.

The firm also received a Merit Award for a pump station improvements project for the City of Westminster, Colorado  a package of four different pump stations that required repair and rehabilitation. This is one of many projects the city is undertaking to provide a reliable water supply for their more than 100,000 customers. Working as part of a design-build team with Garney Construction, Burns & McDonnell engineered solutions that maximized the functionality of two pump stations, while minimizing the cost to the city. The project team tackled challenges and used innovative techniques such as altering pressure zones in the system and adding a structural deck above a pipe gallery.

"I'm extremely proud of the design-build and progressive design-build solutions these project teams provided to our clients," says Mark Lichtwardt, Burns & McDonnell senior vice president and Denver office general manager. "The projects were safe, on-time and under-budget and better prepared our communities for the future."

Recipients of the ACEC Colorado Engineering Excellence Awards are rated by a panel of industry professionals and judged on uniqueness and innovative applications; future value to the engineering profession; perception by the public; social, economic and sustainable development considerations; complexity; and successful fulfillment of client/owner's needs, including schedule and budget.

For photos and support materials, CLICK HERE.

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell is a company made up of more than 5,300 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be No. 16 on Fortune's 2016 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit burnsmcd.com.

Contact: Elle Jenkins, Burns & McDonnell

816-822-3147

[email protected]

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SOURCE Burns & McDonnell

Related Links

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SAN DIEGO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Henberger, a boutique M&A advisory firm based in San Diego, is pleased to announce that it has sold its client Anderson Audio Visual ("Anderson") to AVI-SPL, a portfolio company H.I.G Capital acquired in April 2016. AVI-SPL is the global leader in enterprise grade audio visual ("AV") systems integration and collaboration solutions.

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Anderson is a fast growing, regional market leader in the AV industry. Headquartered in San Diego it has six locations (four in California, one in Texas, and one in North Carolina). With $65 million in revenues it is ranked as the industry's 17th largest revenue generator in 2016. Anderson has earned the trust of some of today's marquee organizations, including several well-known tech companies.

"Combining AVI-SPL's global capabilities and award-winning managed services with Anderson's top talent and culture of agility makes this a great day for our teams and our customers," said John Zettel, CEO of AVI-SPL. "Shane and the Anderson team have built a meaningful fast growth business over the past twenty years. AVI-SPL is thrilled to share this significant next step in our growth plan together with them."

Shane Parkes, Anderson's co-founder and CEO commented, "We look forward to the strategic combination of AVI-SPL and Anderson. The combined company will offer an unmatched global scale and services platform for our customers, while continuing to offer high quality local AV solutions."

"The Henberger team played a critical role in making this all come together," continued Shane Parkes. "We felt that the Henberger team was an unbiased advocate that was always on our side. We are very pleased with the outcome," added Craig Parkes, Anderson's founder.

About Henberger



Henberger is a boutique mergers and acquisitions advisory firm providing transition-to-transaction services to businesses with revenues between $10 and $150 million. The firm's partners John Henberger, Leo Klijn, Russ Packer and Richard Haskel have extensive experience in helping business owners discover, enhance and realize the value of their business. They have developed a proprietary methodology (IntelligentExit ) to help business owners with the development and implementation of their exit strategy. They have honed their skills in strategic advisory, valuation and structuring complex deals in numerous transactions both in the AV industry and beyond (www.henberger.com).

About Anderson AV

Anderson, based in San Diego California, is a market leading regional AV and VC solutions and services provider in California, Texas and North Carolina. Anderson provides its customers with design, engineering, procurement, integration and installation of AV and VC systems for corporate office space, educational facilities, military facilities and a variety of other end markets (www.andersonav.com).

About AVI-SPL

AVI-SPL designs, builds, integrates, and supports systems and environments that enable communication and collaboration. AVI-SPL has highly trained and certified system engineers in offices throughout the United States, Canada, and EMEA in addition to an international network of solution providers in 30 countries (www.avispl.com).

About H.I.G. Capital

H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with more than $20 billion of equity capital under management. Based in Miami, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 200 companies worldwide. The firm's current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion (www.higcapital.com).



Contacts:

Leo Klijn

[email protected]

858-231-2393

or

John Henberger

[email protected]

760-635-1199

SOURCE Henberger
NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Doug Tiesi, Chief Executive Officer, announced an expansion of real estate lender Silverpeak Real Estate Finance's product offering to include non-recourse floating-rate "balance-sheet" debt and fixed-rate or floating-rate subordinate debt for stabilized or transitional properties. The newly added products are offered in addition to what has been the firm's core business for the past three years, non-recourse fixed-rate "CMBS" debt. As part of the expansion, the firm has changed its name to Silverpeak Argentic.

Silverpeak Argentic's platform will be balance sheet focused with the ability to retain risk for up to ten years through direct retention of loans, subordinate debt, CRE CLO equity, and CMBS vertical tranches or traditional CMBS B-pieces. Silverpeak Argentic will purchase risk retention compliant securities for CMBS transactions that contain both Silverpeak Argentic and partner loans as well as third-party CMBS transactions.

Mr. Tiesi noted, "The expanded platform represents our repositioning of Silverpeak Argentic from exclusively a distribution-based model to a comprehensive investment management company. Sponsors who choose Silverpeak Argentic know we will be their lender throughout the life of their business plan." Silverpeak Argentic's expanded capabilities will be funded by additional equity investment from affiliates of Elliott Management Corporation. The additional equity, along with more borrowing capacity, will allow Silverpeak Argentic to scale the lending group to more than $3 billion of real estate debt investments annually.

Tim Mackey, Portfolio Manager at Elliott, commented, "Elliott is pleased to increase its investment with Silverpeak Argentic, which has grown intelligently through sedulous underwriting leading to well-structured and competitively priced loan alternatives for owners of high quality commercial real estate."

Since its launch in 2013, Silverpeak Argentic has funded more than $2 billion of commercial real estate loans, primarily for contribution to CMBS trusts. The platform has approximately 30 employees with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and its recently opened Dallas office. Mark Walsh, co-founder of affiliate Silverpeak Real Estate Partners and Chairman of Silverpeak Argentic, added, "We understand real estate sponsors require a debt partner that can be creative, flexible, and responsive to their capital needs. Silverpeak Argentic is focused on providing superb customer service and, now, the firm's ability to retain CMBS risk is yet another structural advantage toward achieving that standard."

The company's new website is www.silverpeakargentic.com.

About Silverpeak Real Estate Partners

Silverpeak Real Estate Partners is a full-service, diversified real estate investment and advisory business that acquires and manages real estate on behalf of commingled funds, separate accounts and for its own account. Over the past 25 years, Silverpeak Principals have originated and / or managed over $150 billion of real estate equity and debt transactions throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Since 2010, Silverpeak, together with operating and capital partners, has acquired over $8 billion of real estate assets in the U.S., both on a principal basis and on behalf of various institutional investors. The firm has invested in office, retail, multifamily, hotel, and other asset classes.

About Elliott Management Corporation

Elliott Management Corporation manages two funds, Elliott Associates, L.P. and Elliott International, L.P., which together have approximately $30 billion under management. Founded in 1977, Elliott Associates is one of the oldest hedge funds under continuous management. The firm has offices in New York, London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Since 2009, Elliott has invested more than $8 billion in direct commercial real estate across the United States, Europe, and Asia, in addition to significant investments in CMBS and other real estate securities.

Christina Kuch

Silverpeak Argentic

40 West 57th Street, 29th Floor

New York, New York 10019

Direct: 646.560.1702  Fax: 646.560.1703

[email protected]  www.silverpeakargentic.com

SOURCE Silverpeak Real Estate Finance

Related Links

http://www.silverpeakargentic.com


ITASCA, Ill., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. will be hosting an informal management meeting with the investment community in New York City on Tuesday, December 13th from 7:55 am ET until approximately 1:00 pm ET. During the meeting, the company's operating and financial leaders will present background information and commentary on the company's business operations and financial outlook, and will also take questions from in-person attendees.

In conjunction with this meeting, the company will broadcast a live audio webcast that can be accessed, on a listen-only basis, on the company's website at www.ajg.com/irmeeting. A replay will be available at the same link through January 25, 2017 at midnight ET.

Any information distributed during this meeting will be available on December 13th at 7:45 am ET at www.ajg.com/December13materials. The agenda, and other historical information that may be referenced during this event, will be available shortly at www.ajg.com/irmeeting.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., an international insurance brokerage and risk management services firm, is headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, has operations in 33 countries and offers client-service capabilities in more than 150 countries around the world through a network of correspondent brokers and consultants.

Contacts: Raymond Iardella Marsha J. Akin VP Investor Relations Director Investor Relations (630) 285-3661/ [email protected] (630) 285-3501/ [email protected]

SOURCE Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Related Links

http://www.ajg.com


NEW HAVEN, Conn., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Arvinas LLC, a private biotechnology company creating a new class of drugs known as PROTACs which function via targeted protein degradation, today announced that preclinical data were presented by three Arvinas collaborators at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. The data presented demonstrate superior efficacy of PROTACs targeting the BET (bromodomain and extraterminal domain) protein family when compared to BET inhibitors in preclinical models of lymphoma and leukemia.

"The data further support our ongoing understanding of how the Arvinas BET PROTACs show pronounced efficacy improvements compared to BET inhibitors in in vitro and in vivo model systems. The advantages of BET degradation have now been demonstrated preclinically in a number of solid tumor and hematologic cancers including diffuse large B cell lymphoma, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, mantle cell lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia (AML)," said Manuel Litchman, M.D., President and CEO of Arvinas.

"These findings underscore the superior activity of BET PROTACs versus BET inhibitors against mantle cell lymphoma cells that are either sensitive or resistant to the drug ibrutinib, as well as against models of AML," said Kapil Bhalla, M.D., Professor of Leukemia at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

In a podium presentation titled "Novel BET PROTACs Exert Potent Single Agent and Synergistic Activity with Ibrutinib and Venetoclax Against Human Mantle Cell Lymphoma Cells" and presented by Dr. Bhalla, data show:

Compared to BET inhibitors, in primary mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) cells and MCL cell lines, BET PROTACs provide greater down-regulation of the expression of genes important to tumor growth and survival, greater killing of cells resistant to ibrutinib and greater inhibition of the growth of ibrutinib-resistant MCL xenografts alone and in combination with rationally selected targeted agents.

Dr. Sujan Piya of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center presented data on Arvinas BET PROTAC ARV-825 in a podium presentation titled "BRD4 PROTAC ARV-825 Causes Sustained Degradation of BRD4 and Modulation of Chemokine Receptors, Cell Adhesion and Metabolic Targets in Leukemia Resulting in Profound Anti-Leukemic Effects."

As a single agent, ARV-825 demonstrated substantial activity across multiple models of AML, including cell lines, primary AML blasts and a mouse model of human leukemia.

In all tested cell lines and primary cells, the BET PROTAC was significantly more potent than a BET inhibitor.

Importantly, in a co-culture model, ARV-825 was shown to modulate the tumor microenvironment and metabolism to overcome stroma-mediated drug resistance.

Dr. Warren Fiskus of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center delivered a podium presentation titled "Superior Lethal Activity of Novel BET PROTAC Versus BET Inhibitor Against Post-Myeloproliferative Neoplasm Secondary AML Cells (sAML)."

Arvinas BET PROTACs were significantly more potent than a BET inhibitor in inducing apoptosis-driven cell death of patient-derived and cultured secondary AML (sAML) cells and caused greater depletion of several key sAML signaling and survival proteins.

Co-treatment of BET PROTAC ARV-825 and JAK inhibitor ruxolitinib showed synergistic lethality against sAML cells.

Notably, BET PROTACs both alone and in combination with either an HSP90 inhibitor or a BCL2/BcL-xL antagonist were highly active against JAK inhibitor-resistant sAML cells.

Compared to a BET inhibitor, treatment with BET-PROTAC ARV-771 significantly reduced leukemia growth and improved survival of mice engrafted with sAML cell xenografts.

Abstracts are available on the Arvinas website under Publications at www.arvinas.com.

About Arvinas

Arvinas is a pharmaceutical company focused on developing new small molecules  known as PROTACs (PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras)  aimed at degrading disease-causing cellular proteins. Based on groundbreaking research conducted at Yale University by Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor, Dr. Craig Crews, the company is translating innovative protein degradation approaches into novel drugs for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. The company's new PROTAC-based drug paradigm induces protein degradation, rather than protein inhibition, and offers the advantage of potentially targeting "undruggable" as well as "druggable" elements of the proteome. This greatly expands the ability to create drugs for many new, previously unapproachable targets. For more information, visit www.arvinas.com.

SOURCE Arvinas

Related Links

http://arvinas.com


SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, only 5 percent of U.S. surgery procedures are performed with a robotic assisted surgical device (RASD). New market entrants are expanding the genre of surgical procedures currently available. Further, bundled payments could make robot-assisted surgical procedures more cost effective than conventional surgical techniques. Success, however, will not be achieved by simply selling base systems, but by creating sustainable business models.

Analysis of the Robotic Assisted Surgery Market is part of Frost & Sullivan's Advanced Medical Technologies Growth Partnership Service program, which includes topics such as diagnostics and monitoring technologies, high-impact interventional and therapeutic technologies care, and healthcare business services transformation.

For complimentary access to more information on this research, please visit: http://frost.ly/154

Intuitive Surgical, Inc.'s sustainable business model and market performance over the past decade have enabled it to dominate the market. Myriad surgical robotic companies are hoping to emulate the success of the da Vinci Surgical System.

"CEOs must understand the obstacles Intuitive Surgical has faced and the successes it has achieved in the past 10 years. Clearly, growth strategies focused on sustainable business models combined with supply chain and service agreement revenue streams will be crucial to capture market share," said Transformational Health Senior Industry Analyst Patrick Riley. "As such, third-generation RASDs should come at a lower acquisition cost or be available to lease, demonstrate ROI in a bundled payment algorithm and be designed for specific surgical procedures or MS-DRG."

Investors and Wall Street have responded favorably to robotic assisted technology, making funds available for new market entrants to drive innovation. At the same time, high demand from surgeons is fueling industry growth. Specific surgical procedures such as prostatectomy, hysterectomy and inguinal hernia, in particular, offer an opportunity to acquire market share. As a result, RASD design is expected to evolve to meet the demand for one surgical procedure.

Auris Medical, MedTech Global, Titan Medical, Inc., Smith & Nephew, TransEnterix, Medrobotics, Verb Surgical, Restoration Robotics, Virtual Incision Corporation, and Think Surgical, Inc. are new players in this dynamic market. OMNIBotics and STRYKER-MAKO are competing in the total hip and knee replacement sector.

"Robot-assisted surgery is on the precipice of becoming the standard of care in the U.S. for all surgical procedures or to be used exclusively for a few conventional surgical and low-risk operations that show the greatest potential for ROI and better outcomes. The future is today. Reimbursement changes as a result of the Affordable Care Act will weigh heavily in deciding the direction the (RASD) industry will take in the next three to five years. Whatever evolutionary step is involved, we will witness a paradigm shift in the medical practice of surgery of the same, if not greater, magnitude than witnessed with the development of anesthesia to ease the pain of surgery and antibiotics to treat post-surgical infections," states Riley.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion

Analysis of the Robotic Assisted Surgery Market

K07B-54

Contact:

Mariana Fernandez

Corporate Communications  North America

P: +54 (11) 4778.3540

E: [email protected]

http://www.frost.com

twitter: @FS_Healthcare

LinkedIn: Transform Health

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

Related Links

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, AstraQom International, the world's largest local business VoIP provider and telecommunications cloud architecture operator with customers in 70 countries, has confirmed a significant move into South America's massive telecommunications market with its formal expansion into Brazil.

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From its new corporate headquarters located in the high-tech Edificio Candelaria Corporate building on Rua Candelaria in Rio de Janeiro, AstraQom Brazil is now primed to cater for the needs of local and international businesses in the post-2016 Summer Olympic Games host country.

"Our global AstraQom family is thrilled to have a new dedicated division especially for the people of Brazil and we look forward to the opportunities and savings that our company will bring," noted, Dr. Jonathan Sowah, President, and CEO, AstraQom International. We are excited for a broad range of businesses here to experience first-hand our reliability, exemplary customer support, cost-effective solutions and customizable telephone services in a rapidly changing world."

"What has always made the AstraQom brand stand out and allowed us to remain a step ahead is our ongoing commitment to the most innovative and sophisticated locally based technology," observed, Mark Myers, Senior Global Reach Engineer, AstraQom International. "Our move into Brazil sends a strong signal that we are continuing to reshape the international telecommunications scene on multiple continents including South America."

Brazil is the world's 5th largest country with a population of close to 206 million people. It is the largest country in South America and in the entire Southern Hemisphere. With 257.8 million mobile phones in use in the country, 120.6 million internet users (59.1% of the population) and 43.6 million fixed landlines, AstraQom Brazil looks forward to having a hugely beneficial impact on the economy with its +55 international dialing code.

About AstraQom Brazil:

AstraQom Brazil is a subsidiary of AstraQom International established in 2008 to disrupt the global telecoms solutions industry with superior innovations. The company is home to the world's biggest cloud architecture for VoIP with telecommunications circuits covering the entire planet. The company's reliable and affordable premium quality communications solutions services include; premium quality business telephone services and local numbers for 70 countries, multi-lingual live receptionist call answering services, open source consulting, white-label reseller programs with dedicated support teams, integrated hosted PBX with CRM solutions, SIP trunks, Asterisk Hosting and SugarCRM, Vtiger and NetSuite integration with Asterisk and FreeSwitch PBX.

To learn more visit: https://www.astraqom.com/br/

Join our Social Media communities:

https://twitter.com/astraqom

https://www.facebook.com/astraqomvoip/

https://twitter.com/astraqom

Media Contact:

Dana Maracine

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1.613.800.0981

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This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com.

SOURCE AstraQom Brazil

Related Links

https://www.astraqom.com


ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear announced that the nation's leading trucking industry group has hired Michael Cammisa as ATA's new vice president of safety policy and connectivity.

"Mike has decades of experience as a leader in highway and vehicle safety," Spear said. "His understanding of the emerging issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, the regulatory process and his connections within the safety community will be invaluable to ATA and its members and we are pleased to have him join our team."

American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation's freight.Trucking Moves America Forward.

Prior to coming to ATA, Cammisa spent 16 years at the Association of Global Automakers, most recently as senior director of safety and connected vehicles, working with state and federal officials and automakers to shape the regulatory framework for connected and automated vehicles.

Cammisa has also worked as a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and as an engineering and management consultant.

"Trucks play a vital role in our economy and I'm looking forward to working with ATA members to improve on this industry's already strong safety record," Cammisa said. "New technologies are setting the groundwork for an exciting future for trucking and I'm pleased to be joining an organization that will play a large role in shaping that future."

Cammisa holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, a Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University.

American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation's freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or on Facebook. Trucking Moves America Forward

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SOURCE American Trucking Associations

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ATLANTA, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital retail experience agency MaxMedia, the industry's leading voice of retail transformation through emotionally-targeted, digital shopper experiences, has announced specifics around its forthcoming Labathon Challenge on January 19, 2017. The hackathon-style event, a first for the retail experience market, will host 20 students across four teams in MaxMedia's Retail Lab to encourage the development of innovative experiences that support the future of brick-and-mortar retail.

Applications are due by December 16, with participants to be selected and notified by December 30. Interested students can apply here.

The Labathon Challenge, conceived as part of MaxMedia's 20thanniversary celebration, is most notable for its commitment to ongoing education for local higher ed students. A winning team will be selected at the closing reception and awarded $5,000 in scholarships toward continuing education. This spirit aligns with MaxMedia's 20-year commitment to hiring local talent across multiple disciplines, including animation, design, and creative development.

"Our commitment to the future of retail is, in part, predicated on discovering new talent that will serve as the industry's next innovators," said Keelhn Wheeler, CEO, MaxMedia. "We're looking for a variety of student talent, whether he or she possesses a particular skillset or is considered a Jack-or-Jill-of-all-trades."

Student teams will be provided access to all tools and technologies available in the MaxMedia Retail Lab, a unique space that provides visitors a chance to experience new technologies applied within a retail context. Its simulated retail environments support MaxMedia's ongoing research and development across technologies and in-store design strategies that help retailers create emotionally-charged retail experiences at scale. The company employs a team of creative designers, behavioral scientists, and other specialists to conduct research and testing within the lab.

Guest speakers and activities, to be announced at a later date, will be scheduled throughout the night to re-energize students during the 20-hour event as they collaboratively develop their digital retail experience solutions.

About MaxMedia

MaxMedia is a digital retail experience agency dedicated to making today's always-connected consumer love shopping a little more. Through strategic insight, beautifully crafted content, interactive solutions, and continuous measurement, MaxMedia's compelling storytelling converts shoppers into buyers. Visit www.maxmedia.com for more information.

SOURCE MaxMedia

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http://www.maxmedia.com


PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 6, 2016) - Geminare, a leader in the IT Resiliency Orchestration and Automation (ITRO) market for DRaaS Service Providers announced today that its Resiliency Management Platform (RMP) has been named a winner of TMC's 2016 Cloud Computing Backup and Disaster Recovery Award.

The Resiliency Management Platform (RMP) is one of the most mature ITRO Cloud Management Platforms focused on addressing DR and related DRaaS technologies through a vendor- and technology-neutral approach. This allows for the broadest range of technologies to be simultaneously leveraged at enterprise sites and through Service Providers. This uniquely innovative approach creates the ideal Cloud Platform for Service Providers to successfully engage in Hybrid Cloud and DRaaS deployments among their customers. At the same time, the RMP creates feature-rich process automation and sophisticated orchestration capabilities that can be leveraged by multiple teams from operations through to end customers via a multi-patented Cloud Platform.

"Recognizing excellence in the advancement of cloud computing technologies, TMC is proud to announce Geminare's Resiliency Management Platform as a recipient of the Cloud Computing Backup and Disaster Recovery Award," said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. "Geminare is being honored for their achievement in bringing innovation to the market, while leveraging the latest technology trends."

"With DRaaS deployments now considered mainstream, Service Providers need more advanced and specialized software tools and platforms to effectively enable hybrid deployment models," stated Joshua Geist, Geminare's CEO. "We are very excited to be able to successfully utilize our vast in-market experience and IP to deliver and support the award winning RMP among Service Providers and within enterprise customer deployments in North America and around the world."

The Cloud Computing Backup and Disaster Recovery Award recognizes technologies and vendors that have built cloud solutions that empower businesses small or large to remain active and productive under even the most challenging conditions, minimizing lost business opportunities.

Story continues

About Geminare

The Resiliency Management Platform (RMP) is considered one of the most feature-rich IT Resiliency Orchestration and Automation Platforms uniquely focused on the needs of the DRaaS Service Provider market. The RMP enables global Service Providers to successfully incorporate Hybrid DRaaS into their solution portfolios while creating sophisticated process automation and orchestration needs. In-market with the #1 ranking for DRaaS solution capabilities, the RMP's functionality received the Highest Product Rating Score in Gartner's Critical Capabilities for Recovery as a Service Report and represents the industry's most mature, multi-patented, multi-tiered, and award-winning IT Resiliency Orchestration and Automation Platform. The Resiliency Management Platform powers DRaaS Magic Quadrant Leaders and many of the world's leading Service Providers including NTT Communications, Cable & Wireless Communications, Google Cloud Platform, HPE, TierPoint LLC, Iron Mountain, and many others. Geminare is headquartered in Silicon Valley, with additional operations in Toronto, Canada. www.geminare.com

About Cloud Computing Magazine

Cloud Computing magazine is the industry's definitive source for all things cloud -- from public, community, hybrid and private cloud to security and business continuity, and everything in between. This quarterly magazine published by TMC assesses the most important developments in cloud computing not only as they relate to IT, but to the business landscape as a whole.

About TMC

Global buyers rely on TMC's content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. This presents branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities for vendors/sellers.

For more information about TMC and to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals, please visit www.tmcnet.com.

All names referred to are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Backcast Partners Management, LLC ("Backcast") today announced the formation of a middle market investment business. The predominant focus of Backcast will be providing direct investment debt and, to a lesser extent, equity capital in support of North American middle market businesses (generally $10 million to $50 million of EBITDA) across a wide spectrum of industries. The firm operates out of offices in New York City, Millburn, New Jersey and Los Angeles.

Backcast was founded by longtime middle market veterans Edward Cerny and David Petrucco and is a continuation of their previous partnerships and extensive experience in middle market direct investing. In 2008, Messrs. Cerny and Petrucco founded Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors' Middle Market Credit platform, where they managed multiple vehicles focused on middle market credit. They are joined by Founding Partner Mark Gudis, who will oversee transaction sourcing for Backcast. Mr. Gudis is a longtime colleague of Messrs. Cerny and Petrucco, including at The Blackstone Group, where all three served as Managing Directors in that firm's Corporate Debt Group, and where Mr. Gudis also oversaw transaction sourcing. The three have been engaged in middle market investing for 25 years on average with experience at leading financial institutions including DLJ Merchant Banking, UBS, GE Capital, Kayne Anderson, RBS, SAC Capital, and Blackstone.

Mr. Gudis noted, "Our market has always been defined by personal relationships, which take years, if not decades, to develop and are at the heart of successful and differentiated transaction sourcing. We have found that being fortunate enough to possess the kind of relationships that Ed, Dave and I have maintained over the last 25 years makes a real difference in investment outcomes."

For further information, please call Backcast at (973) 512-7490, email David Petrucco at [email protected], Ed Cerny at [email protected], or Mark Gudis at [email protected], or visit the firm's website at www.backcastpartners.com.

SOURCE Backcast Partners Management, LLC

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SHERMAN OAKS, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The holiday travel season is in full swing, and Toco Warranty Corp., a seller of vehicle service contracts and mechanical breakdown insurance, presents its list of the best road trip apps to help the digital-minded holiday road-tripper make their journey a memorable one.

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Toco Warranty offers this list of smartphone apps that can be downloaded before road-trippers head out, in order to help travelers avoid wasting precious time during their journey:

The GasBuddy app keeps an eye out for surrounding gas stations while allowing users to view competitive gas prices before stopping to fill up.

The OpenTable app does the foodie research for users by finding popular restaurants, and even includes the ability to look at menus and prices and book a table.

The Roadside America app is a guide to uniquely odd tourist attractions. Just enter a state or local area for a list and map of quirky landmarks and statues, mom-and-pop museums and hidden gems in a region.

The OpenBay app allows users to search for nearby mechanic shops just in case the vehicle encounters an issue beyond a simple tire change.

Check out the entire list of must-have road trip apps and for more road trip and car maintenance tips, please visit www.tocowarranty.com/tococares.

GasBuddy, OpenTable, Roadside America and OpenBay are registered and common-law trademarks of their respective owners. The owners of these trademarks are not affiliated with Toco Warranty Corp. and have not endorsed Toco Warranty products and services.

About Toco Warranty

Toco Warranty's mission is to offer used-car drivers simple-to-use and financially smart vehicle repair coverage that can be purchased using a monthly payment plan. Cancellation fees may apply. Toco Warranty offers vehicle service contracts, and mechanical breakdown insurance (for California customers). Toco is an AmTrust Financial Services company. AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. is a multinational financial services company with primary insurance subsidiaries rated "A" (Excellent) by A. M. Best Company. To learn more, visit us at www.tocowarranty.com and follow us at Toco Warranty Facebook, Toco Warranty Twitter, Toco Warranty You Tube and Toco Warranty Google+.

Not currently available in AK, MO, and WA. Information provided is for summary purposes only. See Registration Page and Terms and Conditions for complete details. Not all vehicles are eligible for coverage.

All plans require a mandatory waiting period before coverage takes effect, which starts from the contract purchase date and vehicle's odometer mileage at contract purchase date. Covered services are subject to a $100 deductible, per visit. Plans referenced are not insurance; they are Vehicle Service Contracts [except in CA, where coverage is sold as mechanical breakdown insurance (MBI), which is not the same as bodily injury/property damage liability automobile insurance that may be required]. Coverage under MBI differs from Vehicle Service Contracts. Contact Toco for information on coverage available in CA.

Vehicle Service Contract coverage is provided and administered by Warrantech Automotive, Inc., 2200 Highway 121, Bedford, TX, 76021; (800) 616-1215. In the following states, coverage is provided by: in FL  Wesco Insurance Company (as obligor and administrator), 59 Maiden Lane, 43rd Floor, New York, NY 10038, 866-327-5818, License #01913 and Toco Warranty Corp. (as seller), 15301 Ventura Blvd., Bldg B, Suite 310, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403, License #W139014; in OK  Warrantech Automotive of Florida, Inc. (as obligor and administrator), P.O. Box 959, Bedford, TX 76095, 800-577-6624. Not affiliated with any manufacturer or dealership. Roadside Assistance Services are provided by Nation Safe Drivers, 800 Yamato Rd. Suite 100, Boca Raton, FL 33431 (except as otherwise noted in the terms and conditions). ME State Dept. of Professional and Financial Regulation Transient Seller's Lic.#: CO8852.

Media Contact:

Kristen Bergevin

[email protected]

310 752-4400 x181

SOURCE Toco Warranty

Related Links

https://www.tocowarranty.com


DENVER, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Bill Barrett Corporation (the "Company") (NYSE:BBG) today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of 11,500,000 shares of its common stock. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include development, deleveraging, or future acquisitions. The Company will grant the underwriters in the common stock offering an option for 30 days to purchase up to an additional 1,725,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

The common stock will be issued pursuant to a prospectus supplement and an accompanying prospectus filed as part of an effective shelf registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form S-3.

J.P. Morgan will serve as sole book running manager for the common stock offering. A written prospectus and prospectus supplement relating to the offering may be obtained by sending a request to: J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, email: [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale of these securities would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

ABOUT BILL BARRETT CORPORATION

Bill Barrett Corporation, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, develops oil and natural gas in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States.

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements in this news release related to the Company's public offering of common stock, including the use of proceeds from the offering, and all other statements other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. The Company urges you to carefully review and consider the cautionary statements made in this press release, the registration statement, the "Risk Factors" section of the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on March 2, 2016, and other filings with the SEC for further information on risks and uncertainties that could affect the Company's business, financial condition and results of operations, which are incorporated by this reference as though fully set forth herein. The Company cautions you not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance occurring after the date of this release or currently unknown facts or conditions or the occurrence of unanticipated events. All forward looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

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SOURCE Bill Barrett Corporation

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http://www.billbarrettcorp.com


SAN DIEGO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- BioAtla, LLC, a global biotechnology company focused on the development of Conditionally Active Biologic (CAB) antibody therapeutics, today announced that BioAtla and Beijing Sinobioway Group Company, Limited (Sinobioway) selected their first four CAB product programs for development. The specific program candidates and the targeted indications are not disclosed. In March 2015, BioAtla and Sinobioway entered into a strategic collaboration for the development and commercialization of select CAB antibodies for specific indications in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan (the Territory). Related to this agreement and as a result of the selection of all four of the 2016 CAB candidates for development, BioAtla received on November 1, 2016 a $36 million payment from Sinobioway representing the balance of the collaboration funding for the selection of the four 2016 CAB candidates and the specific indications. Including these funds, BioAtla has received more than $100 million in program payments and equity investments relating to its strategic collaboration agreement with Sinobioway.

BioAtla and Sinobioway are working collaboratively to develop several CAB candidates for specific indications for the Territory. Sinobioway pays BioAtla pre-determined collaboration fees for each indication it chooses to license and develop. As part of the agreement, Sinobioway has exclusive rights to develop and commercialize selected CAB antibodies for selected indications in the Territory and BioAtla retains the rest of world rights to these products candidates and indications. Sinobioway is obligated to fund the development, manufacturing, clinical trials and commercialization costs in the Territory. BioAtla is further eligible to receive certain milestone payments and double-digit royalties on sales. BioAtla's agreement with Sinobioway is open-ended as there is no annual minimum number of CAB antibody indications that Sinobioway is obligated to select after the initial four and no maximum that BioAtla may nominate and that Sinobioway may select, and the indication nomination and selection process remains active through the term of the agreement. However, in order to maintain exclusivity in the Territory for the CAB antibodies in indications it has licensed, Sinobioway is obligated to select a minimum number of CAB antibodies for certain indications BioAtla nominates each year, which would result in BioAtla's receipt of at least $40 million per year from collaboration fees on an ongoing basis.

This strategic collaboration is the keystone of BioAtla's long-term plans to address the growing demand for innovative therapeutic products in the China pharmaceutical market. BioAtla's patent protected Conditionally Active Biologics platform represents a potentially disruptive technology for the development of a new class of immunotherapeutics that are activated in selected microenvironments within the body, such as those indicative of cancerous tumors. CABs can be generated in several different formats including naked monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), antibody drug conjugates, immune checkpoint inhibitors, bispecific antibodies, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.

"BioAtla's strategy is to broadly pursue novel therapeutic products based on our patented CAB and other proprietary technologies," said Jay M. Short, Ph.D., president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of BioAtla. "China is an immensely important opportunity for CABs and we are excited to be working with Sinobioway with its demonstrated commitment and strong capabilities to execute and to fulfill our mutual goals. We will continue to build upon our drug development experience to pursue the potential of the CAB platform for our collaboration with Sinobioway, as well as for our collaboration with Pfizer and for our portfolio of proprietary CAB product candidates."

About Conditionally Active Biologics (CABs)

Conditionally Active Biologic proteins are generated using BioAtla's proprietary protein discovery, evolution and expression technologies. These proteins can be mAbs, enzymes and other proteins designed with functions dependent on changes in microphysiological conditions (e.g., pH level, oxidation, temperature, pressure, presence of certain ions, hydrophobicity and combinations thereof) both outside and inside cells.

Studies have shown that cancerous tumors create highly specific conditions at their site that are not present in normal tissue. These cancerous microenvironments are primarily a result of the well understood unique glycolytic metabolism associated with cancer cells, referred to as the Warburg Effect. CAB-designed mAbs can be programmed to deliver their therapeutic payload and/or recruit the immune response in specific and selected locations and conditions within the body. CABs have the potential to increase safety because they are designed to be active only in the presence of a particular cellular microenvironment thereby preferentially binding to their intended target protein in the area of disease. In addition, the activation is reversible and can repeatedly switch 'on and off' should the CAB move from a diseased to a normal cellular microenvironment and vice versa, thereby further reducing chances the CAB would bind to the same protein located in healthy tissue or in other parts of the body and cause undesirable toxicity.

BioAtla believes CABs can facilitate higher dosing, the development of effective, non-immunogenic drugs, and the use of targets that are validated for cancer cells but traditionally considered too prevalent among normal cells to be used safely in current drug therapies. This could open a potentially rich range of targets for CABs that cannot be addressed using existing technologies.

About Beijing Sinobioway Group Company, Limited

Sinobioway was founded in 1992 and is one of the three main industrial groups affiliated with Peking University. Sinobioway is mainly engaged in bioeconomy system establishment and bio-industry development. It primarily invests in biomedicine, bioagriculture, bioenergy, bioenvironment, bioservices, biomanufacturing and biointelligence. Biologic therapeutics is a particular focus of Sinobioway in its plans to develop and commercialize new medicines. Sinobioway is constructing a large biologics production facility, with a long-term capability goal of 100 production lines, in the planned 20 billion RMB bio-economic zone under construction in Hefei.

About BioAtla, LLC

BioAtla is a global biotechnology company with operations in San Diego, California, and Beijing, China. BioAtla develops novel monoclonal antibody and other protein therapeutic product candidates designed to have more selective targeting, greater efficacy, and more cost-efficient and predictable manufacturing than traditional antibodies. By utilizing its proprietary technologies in product design and development, from target discovery to manufacturing and preclinical studies, BioAtla seeks to develop differentiated, patentable therapeutic proteins for its partners and for its internal programs. BioAtla has over 170 patents issued and pending that cover its platform technologies representing a full complement of therapeutic protein development capabilities. Learn more at www.bioatla.com.

Contact:

Richard Waldron

Chief Financial Officer

BioAtla, LLC

[email protected]

858.356.8945

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SOURCE BioAtla, LLC

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Biomedical, an industry leader in the development of novel compounds designed to target cancer stemness pathways, featured two posters on data for DSP-7888, a novel investigational cancer peptide vaccine, at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, held from December 3 to 6, in San Diego. These include the first clinical data for the compound, from a Phase I/II trial in adult patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) who progressed on or after first-line azacitidine (AZA) treatment.

DSP-7888 contains the peptides to induce WT1 (Wilms' tumor gene 1)-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) and helper T cells, which attack WT1-expressing cancerous cells found in various types of hematologic and solid cancers. In the Phase I portion of the study, DSP-7888 was well tolerated in MDS patients, and CTL induction and delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) were detected; the data also demonstrated preliminary signs of clinical activity. The Phase II portion of the trial is currently ongoing to evaluate the efficacy and safety in higher-risk MDS patients after AZA failure.

"DSP-7888 is the third compound in our portfolio to move into clinical investigation, signifying our growing pipeline of first-in-class agents for the potential treatment of cancers with a high unmet need," said Chiang J. Li, M.D. FACP, President, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Boston Biomedical, and the Head of Global Oncology for Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Group. "We are encouraged by the data at ASH, which show signs of preliminary activity in patients with MDS, and by the preclinical data exploring the potential synergistic effect of DSP-7888 with PD-1 checkpoint inhibition."

Highlights from the two data posters at ASH follow below:

Abstract #4335: Preliminary Results from a Phase 1/2 Study of DSP-7888, a Novel WT1 Peptide-Based Vaccine, in Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS)

Miyakoshi S 1 , Usuki K 2 , Matsumura I 3 , Ueda Y 4 , HiromiI 5, 6 , Miyamoto T 5 , Origuchi M 7 , Tagashira S 7 , Naoi I 7 , Naoe T 8 , Kizaki M 9 , Heike Y 10 , Akashi K 11 , Miyazaki Y 12

, Usuki K , Matsumura I , Ueda Y , HiromiI , Miyamoto T , Origuchi M , Tagashira S , Naoi I , Naoe T , Kizaki M , Heike Y , Akashi K , Miyazaki Y 1. Department of Hematology, Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo ; 2. Department of Hematology, NTT Medical Center Tokyo, Tokyo ; 3. Department of Hematology and Rheumatology, Kindai University Hospital, Osaka, Japan ; 4. Department of Hematology/Oncology, Kurashiki Central Hospital, Kurashiki, Japan ; 5. Department of Hematology/Oncology, Kyushu University Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan ; 6. Department of Hematology National Hospital Organization Kyushu Medical Center, Fukuoka, Japan ; 7. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd., Tokyo ; 8. National Hospital Organization Nagoya Medical Center, Nagoya, Japan ; 9. Department of Hematology, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama, Japan ; 10. Laboratory for Joint Research and Development, St Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo ; 11. Department of Medicine and Biosystemic Science Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University , Fukuoka, Japan ; 12. Department of Hematology, Atomic Bomb Disease and Hibakusha Medicine Unit, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan

; 2. Department of Hematology, NTT Medical Center Tokyo, ; 3. Department of Hematology and Rheumatology, Kindai University Hospital, ; 4. Department of Hematology/Oncology, Kurashiki Central Hospital, Kurashiki, ; 5. Department of Hematology/Oncology, Hospital, ; 6. Department of Hematology National Hospital Organization Kyushu Medical Center, ; 7. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd., ; 8. National Hospital Organization Nagoya Medical Center, ; 9. Department of Hematology, Saitama Medical Center, ; 10. Laboratory for Joint Research and Development, St Luke's International Hospital, ; 11. Department of Medicine and Biosystemic Science Faculty of Medicine, , ; 12. Department of Hematology, Atomic Bomb Disease and Hibakusha Medicine Unit, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, University, The findings from the study demonstrated that DSP-7888 was tolerated in patients with MDS who progressed on or after first-line AZA. Of the 12 patients enrolled in the study, eight patients showed stable disease (SD) including three patients with hematological improvements (HIs) and the disease control rate (SD plus any HI) was 66.7%. WT1-specific CTL induction was observed in five patients and delayed type hypersensitivity was detected in eight patients. Seven high-risk AZA failure patients were enrolled and the current survival time in this population is 6.8 to 15.5 months.

The most common adverse events (AEs) were injection site reactions (100%), of which half (6) became Grade 3. Other serious AEs included pyrexia (1) and myocarditis (1).

Abstract #4715: DSP-7888, a Novel Cocktail Design of WT1 Peptide Vaccine, and its Combinational Immunotherapy with Immune Checkpoint-Blocking Antibody against PD-1

Goto M 1 , Nakamura M 1 , Suginobe N 1 , Takasu H 1 , Takanashi Y 1 , Ban H 1 , Li CJ 2

, Nakamura M , Suginobe N , Takasu H , Takanashi Y , Ban H , Li CJ 1. DSP Cancer Institute, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd., Tokyo ; 2. Boston Biomedical, Inc., Cambridge, MA

; 2. Boston Biomedical, Inc., Additional preclinical findings shared at the meeting exhibited a potential synergic effect between DSP-7888 and anti-PD-1 antibodies. The results demonstrated that the helper peptide included in DSP-7888 enhanced the response of CTL induction, contributing to lasting cytotoxic activities in the tumor immunosuppressive environment. Furthermore, the in vitro treatment with anti-PD-1 antibodies improved the activity of DSP-7888 induced CTLs.

About DSP-7888

DSP-7888 is an investigational cancer peptide vaccine containing the peptides which induce WT1 (Wilms' tumor gene 1)-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes and helper T cells, which attack WT1-expressing cancerous cells found in various types of hematologic and solid cancers. By adding a helper T cell-inducing peptide, improved efficacy over that observed with a killer peptide alone treatment regimen may be achieved.

DSP-7888 is currently being investigated in three monotherapy studies: a Phase I/II study in myelodysplastic syndrome (NCT02436252), a Phase I/II study in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, glioblastoma, or grade III or IV glioma (NCT02750891) and a Phase I study in advanced malignancies (NCT02498665). More information on DSP-7888 and ongoing clinical trials can be found at www.BostonBiomedical.com.

About Boston Biomedical

Boston Biomedical, Inc. (Founder, President, CEO and CMO: Chiang J. Li, M.D. FACP) was founded in November 2006 and is wholly owned by Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. Boston Biomedical's mission is to develop the next generation of cancer therapeutics by creating drugs designed to target cancer stemness pathways. Boston Biomedical's innovation in drug discovery has received a number of recognitions and awards in the United States, including the Frost & Sullivan 2010 North American Drug Discovery Technology Innovation of the Year Award, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer stem cell initiative grant award in 2010, and the 2011 Biotech Pioneer Award at the Alexandria Oncology Summit. The company also received the "Company To Watch" award in the 10th Annual Team Massachusetts Economic Impact Awards in 2013. Boston Biomedical is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Additional information about the company and its product pipeline can be found at www.BostonBiomedical.com.

Disclaimer Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on management's assumptions and beliefs in light of information presently available, and involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Any forward looking statements set forth in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. We do not undertake to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof. Information concerning pharmaceuticals (including compounds under development) contained within this material is not intended as advertising or medical advice.

For general inquiries:

Boston Biomedical

617-674-6800

For media inquiries:

Sara Baker

CHAMBERLAIN PR

212- 849-9474

[email protected]

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SOURCE Boston Biomedical, Inc.

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http://www.bostonbiomedical.com


MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Mich., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Rassini, a Mexican industrial company engaged in the design and manufacturing of suspension and brake components for the automotive industry, was awarded a contract for the sixth generation Ford Mustang. The company is supplying brake rotors for the iconic muscle car with production happening at its facility in Mt. Morris Township, Mich., increasing more than 10 percent of its workforce in and around Flint, Mich.

"It's an honor and a privilege to partner with our long-time customers at Ford on one of the most iconic and American made vehicles in the history of our industry," said Eugenio Madero, CEO of Rassini S.A.B. de C.V. "The continued growth and success of our Mt. Morris Township facility is a result of the hard work and dedication by our employees in Michigan, and we look forward to continuing to work with Ford to meet and deliver upon their needs."

Supplying High Carbon brake rotors for the Ford Mustang, Rassini is certified and recognized globally as a technology leader in the design and production of the highest quality brake components within the automotive industry. With a 380mm diameter, Rassini's brake rotors for the Ford Mustang offer precise tolerance to ensure ultimate performance while increasing overall longevity of the parts.

In addition to Rassini's Technology Development Center in Plymouth, Mich., the Mt. Morris Township plant, which opened its doors in 2013, is the second U.S.-based manufacturing facility for Rassini. With the addition of a second automaker supported out of the facility, Rassini is continuing to expand its North American presence, creating additional jobs in Michigan and providing positive economic impact on the township itself.

Rassini is the largest fully vertically integrated brake rotor producer in North America. For general information on the company, please visit www.rassini.com.

About Rassini

Rassini is a leading designer and manufacturer of suspension and brake components for the global automotive industry, mainly focused on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Rassini is the world's largest producer of suspension components for light commercial vehicles as well as the largest fully integrated brakes disc producer in the Americas and has eight manufacturing sites strategically located in Mexico, the US and Brazil as well as four tech centers located in the same countries.

Suspension products include leaf springs (parabolic and multi-leaf) for light and commercial trucks, coil springs and bushings. The brakes business manufactures rotors, drums, brake assemblies, clutch plates and motor balancers.

Its solid and diversified customer base includes: General Motors, Ford Motor Co., FCA, Nissan, Volkswagen, Toyota, MAN, Daimler, Scania and Mercedes Benz among others.

SOURCE Rassini

Related Links

http://www.rassini.com/


LOS ANGELES, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Instability continues to drown the euro, after votes were counted in Italy and Austria over the weekend regarding the future of the two nations' governance. The two European Union member-states moved in opposite political directions, mounting pressure on Germany to keep the crumbling Eurozone upright.

In Italy, citizens voted in favor of a populist, nationalist agenda, turning down proposals from the government that would promote constitutional changes, make it easier for parliament to pass laws, and ideally make the nation more competitive. These measures were voted down, and the defeat prompted Italian Prime Minister Renzi to resign from his post.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the nation's vote, "reinforced a widening split between the economics needed to sustain Europe's common currency and the continent's rising tide of populism."

Meanwhile, Austria's liberal internationalist party took home a win over this weekend, as leader Alexander Van der Bellen was elected president, beating out his anti-immigrant and far-right rival.

This surprising election outcome makes Austria a European outlier. Over the past several years, mainstream parties in Europe have been losing ground to populist movements, many of them on the far right. In fact, the Wall Street Journal calls 2016, "a year in which nationalism and populism has swept across Europe." Austria's move to the center-left only goes to show that while populism is growing in popularity, the European Union is still ideologically divided  primarily on issues of immigration and national borders.

The resignation of Renzi makes it very likely that Italy, the EU's fourth-largest economy, will join the three Eurozone founding members already holding elections in 2017. Pundits are now speculating if Renzi's resignation could clear the way for the formation of a "caretaker government."

Presently, the biggest winner out of Italy's referendum vote is antiestablishment party, the Five Star Movement, who has been snowballing in popularity. Led by comedian-turned-politician, Beppe Grillo, Five Star Movement has called for such radical changes as a non-binding referendum on Italy's euro membership, an end to EU-mandated government-spending limits, income guarantees for all citizens, and possibly printing a parallel Italian currency.

"With the rise of the antiestablishment movements sweeping across the globe, you can make a solid case for people to be wary of fiat currencies and move into gold as a haven," says Jonathan Rose, CEO of Capital Gold Group.

Public-opinion surveys indicate that roughly 30% of Italians would back Five Star Movement candidates if parliamentary elections were held now, putting Five Star neck-and-neck with Mr. Renzi's Democratic Party. This strong show of public support means that Five Star could end up in power at some point, and this is significant because all eyes are on Italy as the next-potential Eurozone financial crisis.

Since Italy joined the EU in 1999, their GDP has stagnated and their government debt has swollen to 133% of annual economic output, putting Italy in the second-highest debt in Europe after Greece.

Daniel Fisher, CEO of Physical Gold Group says, "The Brexit vote was a strong chess move on the board for people to follow suit, and I would only imagine in the long-term gold will be the ultimate safe haven."

As the U.K. extricates itself from the Eurozone bloc, economists question whether Italy will be able to survive in the long-term using the same currency as a powerhouse like Germany.

"The antiestablishment feeling is stronger than the desire to reform," said Stefano Stefanini, an adviser at lobbying and public-affairs firm Podesta Group and an aide to former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. "There is a reluctance to change, an innate conservatism in Italy." That is the paradox at the heat of European  and American  politics today: a resistance to change among voters is leading to antiestablishment choices at the ballot box.

The growing popularity of antiestablishment order, alongside mounting instability in Europe and the crumbling of the Eurozone, are all rallying toward the inevitable devaluation of the euro. And thanks to the sweeping inescapable phenomenon of globalism, that devaluation is going to find its way to the stoop of the American dollar. Currency devaluation, much like instability, has always been good for gold  as gold enjoys an inverse relationship with fiat currency.

"As elections sweep across Europe next year all eyes will be on the outcome and to see if these antiestablishment movements continue to press forward," says Mr. Rose. "And if so, the precedence is being set that people want change. Whether that's good or bad, only time will tell. But that's why gold will be the real winner as the hedge against uncertainty."

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160707/386986LOGO

SOURCE Capital Gold Group
VIENNA, Va., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- We are pleased to announce that Jill Carey recently joined Capital Search Group as a Partner. With over 25 years of experience helping clients find exceptional talent for accounting and finance roles, Jill has an outstanding reputation and extensive network of client relationships in multiple industries in the Washington DC metro area.

"I am excited to join the Capital Search team and glad to reunite with Ray Rice, Ken Logue and Lou DelRiego," said Jill. "Capital Search has a talented team of recruiters that work seamlessly for the benefit of clients and candidates."

Jill is a perfect addition to our team at Capital Search. "I am delighted to be working with Jill again," added Lou DelRiego. "Jill brings a positive energy and has a loyal book of business. Simply put, her clients love working with Jill! Further, we recently added Mark Fields to our team and are looking to hire more recruiters to support our volume business." Santa has arrived early for us this year!

About Capital Search Group

Capital Search Group is a top tier recruiting, staffing and executive search firm serving the Washington DC metro market. We specialize in Accounting & Finance and work with every industry in Northern VA, Washington DC and Maryland. Our client base ranges from multinational publicly traded corporations to early stage VC funded companies. Our searches are primarily conducted for financial executives and their staffs at all levels.

We have a proven track record with over 25 years of experience in the DC market. 75% of our business is from repeat and referral clients. We offer a "Boutique" search firm style: our partners & recruiters work together on every project to fill jobs quickly with "A" players that our clients and competitors could not find. At Capital Search, we realize that our reputation as a highly regarded executive search firm is based not only on client satisfaction, but on professional excellence.

We offer confidentiality, expertise in industry/field and direct access to the best companies & opportunities in town. The value we place in getting to know our candidates and helping them achieve their business goals is reflected in the long-lasting relationships we maintain with our clients. Our philosophy of building trust and our commitment to the highest professional standards enable us to develop beneficial and long-term relationships with our clients and candidates.

Please visit us at www.capitalsearch.com

CONTACT: Lou DelRiego

[email protected]

SOURCE Capital Search Group

Related Links

http://www.capitalsearch.com


MONROE, La., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) was recognized with the U.S. Theatre/Area Award for Architectural Excellence in Global Cloud Solutions and Business Acceleration at the Cisco Partner Summit 2016, held recently in San Francisco. Cisco honored CenturyLink for exhibiting the highest level of excellence in the design of networks and customer solutions within the service provider sector in the U.S.

"The rapid growth of cloud-based applications is pushing exponential network bandwidth consumption to the limit and changing the way companies are approaching the design of their networks," stated Bill Corbin, senior vice president, Strategic Partnerships and Channel Operations, CenturyLink. "This award validates our commitment to delivering a wide range of innovative IT services, including network, managed hosting and cloud solutions to businesses, enabling them to better service their customers."

Cisco Partner Summit awards are given to exemplary channel partners and recognize best-in-class business practices that serve as a model to the industry. Areas of consideration include innovative practices, architecture-led approach successes, strategic business outcome-focused programs, seizing of new opportunities and sales approaches. All award recipients were selected by a group of Cisco Global Partner Organization and regional and theater executives.

Cisco Partner Summit is attended by more than 2,100 global attendees from Cisco's ecosystem of partners representing more than 1,000 companies worldwide from more than 75 countries.

About CenturyLink

CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a global communications, hosting, cloud and IT services company enabling millions of customers to transform their businesses and their lives through innovative technology solutions. CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. The company provides broadband, voice, video, data and managed services over a robust 250,000-route-mile U.S. fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network. Visit CenturyLink for more information.

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SOURCE CenturyLink, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.centurylink.com


DENVER, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Republic of Kazakhstan, an ally of the United States, faces a significant challenge in stemming the flow of illegal drugs across its borders. Under its existing Air Force Contract Augmentation Program (AFCAP), CH2M was recently awarded additional task orders through the Office of Military Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy to design and deliver infrastructure and facilities enabling Kazakhstan to more effectively combat the illegal drug trade.

Drug trafficking represents a significant threat to the stabilization of both the Republic of Kazakhstan and the surrounding region. According to the U.S. Department of State's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Kazakhstan is a strategically situated transit country along the main northern trafficking route for Afghan heroin and opiates. This route links Central Asia to Russia and Eastern Europe. Importation of synthetic narcotics from Russia, China and European countries into Kazakhstan has increased recently.

Supporting the mission of the Kazakhstan Border Guard Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs, CH2M's service delivery addresses public health and national security threats posed by drug trafficking through:

Design of passport control buildings to support customs and immigrations inspections, and provide administrative space for border guard personnel in Kyzylzhar, Kazakhstan .

. Design of a living/administration facility to support border guard personnel at border guard stations in Merke and Akshimirau, Kazakhstan.

Design of quarantine kennel facilities to support working drug detection dogs in Kararoy and Astana; and a Canine Service Center and administrative facility in Kyzylorda.

"These new facilities will directly impact people's lives in a positive way--from helping combat the flow of drugs that threaten citizen wellbeing, to enabling a better immigration experience for those seeking immigration to Kazakhstan," stated Frank Smith, Project Manager and CH2M Director of Military Installation Planning."

In line with the client mission, CH2M will incorporate sustainable and environmentally responsible elements into the efficient and cost effective designs of the infrastructure, while executing within Kazakhstan's design regulations and construction standards.

"Our designs will provide facilities that not only facilitate the important mission of the Border Guard Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs but are sustainable as well," states Matthew Sutton, President of CH2M's Environment and Nuclear business. "We are proud to have a role serving the U.S. Government and Republic of Kazakhstan partnership."

CH2M has been serving the Air Force under the AFCAP contract for more than 10 years, working on over 50 projects ranging from environmental planning to infrastructure development to remediation, totalling $190 million. We have deployed more than 1,000 personnel and resources globally for this effort, including in Afghanistan, Greece, Haiti, Iraq, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

About CH2M

CH2M leads the professional services industry delivering sustainable solutions benefiting societal, environmental and economic outcomes with the development of infrastructure and industry. In this way, CH2Mers make a positive difference providing consulting, design, engineering and management services for clients in water; environment and nuclear; transportation; energy and industrial markets, from iconic infrastructure to global programs like the Olympic Games. Ranked among the World's Most Ethical Companies and top firms in environmental consulting and program management, CH2M in 2016 became the first professional services firm honored with the World Environment Center Gold Medal Award for efforts advancing sustainable development. Connect with CH2M at www.ch2m.com; LinkedIn; Twitter; and Facebook.

Contact: John Petraglia

CH2M, Marketing and Communications

510-587-7509

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160315/344421LOGO

SOURCE CH2M

Related Links

http://www.ch2m.com


LONDON, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --



Overview:



Existing User Interfaces (UI) do not scale very well. Chatbots represent a way for brands, businesses and publishers to interact with users without requiring them to download an app, become familiar with a new UI, or configure and update regularly. Chatbots provide a conversational interfaces supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide automated, contextual communications.



Chatbots are taking Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to a new level as business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and consumer-to-business communications is both automated and improved by way of push and pull of the right information at the right time. Chatbots also provide benefits to customers as both existing clients and prospects enjoy the freedom to interact on their own terms.



As the interface between humans and computers evolves from an "operational" interface (Websites and traditional Apps) to an increasingly more "conversational" interface (ChatBots, Voice Interfaces, etc.), expectations about how humans communicate, consume content, use apps, and engage in commerce will change dramatically. This transformation is poised to impact virtually every aspect of marketing and sales operations for every industry vertical.



This research provides and in-depth assessment of the Chatbots market including the following:

Global and regional forecasts by industry, application, and business model

Analysis of Chatbot market across industry verticals with use cases in diverse sectors

Analysis of Chatbot companies including their strategic initiatives, solutions, applications, and services

Assessment of current Chatbot developments and role of Machine Learning and AI other technologies

Analysis of Chatbot architecture, feature/functionality, and how it will impact enterprise and business in general

Assessment of emerging Chatbot business models and associated economic impact on labor, investments, and ROI

All purchases of Mind Commerce reports includes time with an expert analyst who will help you link key findings in the report to the business issues you're addressing. This needs to be used within three months of purchasing the report.



Select Findings:

Chatbots are moving aggressively beyond CRM in leading industry verticals

Stand-alone Chatbots are expected to contribute 40% of the market by 2022

Lost jobs due to Chatbots and other AI represent lost wages of $262.7B annually by 2021

Consumer Chatbot applications will continue to lead the market through 2022 with $744M in revenue



Report Benefits:

Global and regional Chatbot forecasts for 2017 - 2022

Understand Chatbot technologies including AI integration

Identify market challenges and opportunities for Chatbots

Understand the macro and micro economic impact of Chatbots

Identify market leading Chatbot companies, apps, and solutions

Identify market opportunities for Chatbots across many industries

Learn what Chatbot approaches have worked, not worked, and why



Target Audience:

Next generation UI companies

Artificial Intelligence companies

Communication service providers

Internet and mobile app developers

Machine Language based app providers

Enterprise, SMB, and companies of all types



Companies in Report:

24me

Amazon

Anboto Group

AppFront

Apple Inc.

Artificial Solutions Ltd.

Aspect Software, Inc.

Conversica

Creative Virtual Ltd.

Cubic

CX Company

eGain Corporation

Eidoserve Inc.

Existor

Facebook Inc.

Foursquare

Google

Haptik, Inc.

Helpshift

Hound

HP

IBM Watson

iDAvatars (IDA)

Inbenta Technologies Inc.

Indigo

Intel Corporation

InteliWISE SA

Kik

Line

Mattel

Microsoft Corporation

motion.ai

Robin

Saleforce

SAP

SIRIUS

SK Telecom Co, Ltd.

Skype

Slack

Speaktoit Inc.

TacoBell

Telegram

Twilio

Uber

Vokul

WeChat

WhatsApp

Wunderlist

Yahoo Inc.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4413213/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


OKLAHOMA CITY, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) announced today that it has commenced cash tender offers (collectively, the "Tender Offers," and each offer to purchase a series of notes individually, a "Tender Offer") to purchase up to $1,200,000,000 aggregate purchase price, exclusive of accrued interest (the "Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount"), of the outstanding notes of Chesapeake set forth in the table below (collectively, the "Notes").

No more than $150,000,000 aggregate purchase price, exclusive of accrued interest (the "Priority 2 Cap"), of 6.625% Senior Notes due 2020 and 6.875% Senior Notes due 2020 (the "Priority 2 Notes"), and no more than $150,000,000 aggregate purchase price, exclusive of accrued interest (the "Priority 3 Tender Cap"), of 6.125% Senior Notes due 2021, 5.375% Senior Notes due 2021, 4.875% Senior Notes due 2022, 8.00% Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due 2022 and 5.75% Senior Notes due 2023 (the "Priority 3 Notes" and, together with the Priority 2 Notes, the "Long-Dated Notes"), will be purchased in the Tender Offers. The Long-Dated Notes are subject to an additional cap on the aggregate purchase price (exclusive of accrued interest) of such Notes that prohibits the aggregate principal amount of such Notes accepted for purchase on any Settlement Date (as defined below) from exceeding the aggregate principal amount of (i) 6.5% Senior Notes due 2017, 7.25% Senior Notes due 2018 and Floating Rate Senior Notes due 2019 accepted for purchase under the Tender Offers and (ii) Other Notes (as defined below) accepted for purchase in the Concurrent Tender Offers (as defined below) (the "Long-Dated Tender Cap" and, together with the Priority 2 Tender Cap and the Priority 3 Tender Cap, the "Tender Caps" and each individually, a "Tender Cap"). The terms and conditions of the Tender Offers are described in an Offer to Purchase dated December 6, 2016 (the "Offer to Purchase") and the related Letter of Transmittal.

The following table sets forth certain terms of the Tender Offers:

Series of Notes CUSIP Number Aggregate

Principal

Amount Outstanding Tender Caps(1) Acceptance Priority

Level Tender Offer Consideration(2) Early Tender Premium(2) Total Consideration(2)(3)















6.5% Senior Notes due 2017 165167BS5 $222,752,000 N/A 1 $1,004.00 $30.00 $1,034.00 7.25% Senior Notes due 2018 165167CC9 $349,065,000 1 $1,055.00 $30.00 $1,085.00 Floating Rate Senior Notes due 2019 165167CM7 $504,179,000 1 $960.00 $30.00 $990.00 6.625% Senior Notes due 2020 165167CF2 $806,882,000 $150,000,000 2 $980.00 $30.00 $1,010.00 6.875% Senior Notes due 2020 165167BU0 165167BT3 USU16450AQ87 $291,047,000

2 $965.00 $30.00 $995.00 6.125% Senior Notes due 2021 165167CG0 $554,348,000 $150,000,000 3 $932.50 $30.00 $962.50 5.375% Senior Notes due 2021 165167CK1 $272,264,000 3 $892.50 $30.00 $922.50 4.875% Senior Notes due 2022 165167CN5 $453,055,000 3 $865.00 $30.00 $895.00 8.00% Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due 2022 165167CQ8 $2,425,206,000

3 $1,030.00 $30.00 $1,060.00 5.75% Senior Notes due 2023 165167CL9 $338,852,000

3 $885.00 $30.00 $915.00





































(1) The $150,000,000 Priority 2 Tender Cap applies to the aggregate purchase price (exclusive of accrued interest) of the Priority 2 Notes, collectively, and the $150,000,000 Priority 3 Tender Cap applies to the aggregate purchase price (exclusive of accrued interest) of the Priority 3 Notes, collectively. In addition, the Priority 2 Notes and the Priority 3 Notes accepted for purchase are subject to the Long-Dated Tender Cap.

(2) Per $1,000 principal amount of Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase in the applicable Tender Offer (exclusive of any accrued interest, which will be paid in addition to the Tender Offer Consideration or the Total Consideration, as applicable, to, but not including, the applicable Settlement Date). Subject to the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount, the Tender Caps and proration described in the Offer to Purchase, notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date (as defined below) will be accepted for purchase before any notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Date.

(3) Includes the applicable Early Tender Premium.

The Tender Offers will expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on January 4, 2016 (such date and time with respect to a Tender Offer, as it may be extended for such Tender Offer, the "Expiration Date"). No tenders will be valid if submitted after the Expiration Date. Tendered Notes may be withdrawn from the Tender Offers at or prior to, but not after, 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on December 19, 2016 (such date and time with respect to a Tender Offer, as it may be extended for such Tender Offer, the "Withdrawal Deadline"). Holders of Notes who tender their Notes after the Withdrawal Deadline, but prior to the Expiration Date, may not withdraw their tendered Notes, except for certain limited circumstances where additional withdrawal rights are required by law.

Subject to the terms and conditions of the Tender Offers, the consideration for each $1,000 principal amount of Notes validly tendered (and not validly withdrawn) and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Tender Offers will be the tender offer consideration for the applicable series of Notes set forth in the table above (with respect to each series of Notes, the "Tender Offer Consideration"). Holders of Notes that are validly tendered (and not validly withdrawn) at or prior to 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on December 19, 2016 (such date and time with respect to a Tender Offer, as it may be extended for such Tender Offer, the "Early Tender Date") and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Tender Offers will receive the applicable Tender Offer Consideration plus the early tender premium for the applicable series of Notes set forth in the table above (with respect to each series of Notes, the "Early Tender Premium" and, together with the applicable Tender Offer Consideration, the "Total Consideration"). Holders of Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Date, but at or prior to the Expiration Date, and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Tender Offers will receive the applicable Tender Offer Consideration, but not the Early Tender Premium for the applicable series of Notes. No tenders will be valid if submitted after the Expiration Date.

In addition to the Tender Offer Consideration or the Total Consideration, as applicable, all Holders of Notes accepted for purchase pursuant to the Tender Offers will, on the Early Settlement Date (as defined below) or the Final Settlement Date (as defined below), as applicable, also receive accrued and unpaid interest on those Notes from the last interest payment date with respect to those Notes to, but not including, the Early Settlement Date or the Final Settlement Date, as applicable (the "Accrued Interest").

Chesapeake reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to increase or decrease the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount and any Tender Cap at any time without extending the Early Tender Date or the Withdrawal Deadline or otherwise reinstating withdrawal rights for any Tender Offer, subject to compliance with applicable law, which could result in the Company's purchasing a greater or lesser amount of Notes in the Tender Offers. If Chesapeake changes the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount or any Tender Cap, it does not expect to extend the Withdrawal Deadline, subject to applicable law.

Chesapeake reserves the right, in its sole discretion, at any point following the Early Tender Date and prior to the Expiration Date, to accept for purchase any Notes validly tendered (and not validly withdrawn) at or prior to the Early Tender Date (the date of such acceptance and purchase, the "Early Settlement Date"), subject to the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount, the Tender Caps, the Acceptance Priority Levels and proration as described in the Offer to Purchase. The Early Settlement Date will be determined at Chesapeake's option, assuming the conditions to the Tender Offers have been either satisfied or waived by Chesapeake at or prior to the Early Settlement Date. Chesapeake currently does not expect to have an Early Settlement Date. Irrespective of whether Chesapeake chooses to exercise its option to have an Early Settlement Date, Chesapeake will purchase any remaining Notes that have been validly tendered (and not validly withdrawn) at or prior to the Expiration Date and accepted for purchase, subject to all conditions to the Tender Offers having been either satisfied or waived by Chesapeake, promptly following the Expiration Date (the date of such acceptance and purchase, the "Final Settlement Date"; the Final Settlement Date and the Early Settlement Date each being a "Settlement Date"), subject to the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount, the Tender Caps, the Acceptance Priority Levels and proration as described in the Offer to Purchase. The Final Settlement Date is expected to occur on the second business day following the Expiration Date, assuming the conditions to the Tender Offers have been either satisfied or waived by Chesapeake at or prior to the Expiration Date and Notes having an aggregate purchase price (exclusive of Accrued Interest) equal to the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount are not purchased on the Early Settlement Date.

Subject to the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount, the Tender Caps and proration as described in the Offer to Purchase, all Notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date having a higher Acceptance Priority Level will be accepted for purchase before any Notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date having a lower Acceptance Priority Level are accepted for purchase, and all Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Date having a higher Acceptance Priority Level will be accepted for purchase before any Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Date having a lower Acceptance Priority Level are accepted for purchase. However, even if the Tender Offers are not fully subscribed as of the Early Tender Date, subject to the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount and the Tender Caps, Notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date will be accepted for purchase before any Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Date are accepted for purchase, even if such Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Date have a higher Acceptance Priority Level than Notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date. Therefore, if the aggregate purchase price (exclusive of Accrued Interest) of Notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date equals or exceeds the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount, Chesapeake will not accept for purchase any Notes tendered after the Early Tender Date, and if the aggregate purchase price (exclusive of Accrued Interest) of Priority 2 Notes, Priority 3 Notes or Long-Dated Notes validly tendered at or prior to the Early Tender Date equals or exceeds the Priority 2 Tender Cap, the Priority 3 Tender Cap or the Long-Dated Tender Cap, as applicable, Chesapeake will not accept for purchase Priority 2 Notes, Priority 3 Notes or Long-Dated Notes, as applicable, tendered after the Early Tender Date. Additional information about the application of the Aggregate Maximum Purchase Amount, Acceptance Priority Levels, Tender Caps and proration is set forth in the Offer to Purchase.

The Tender Offers are not conditioned upon a minimum amount of Notes of any series, or a minimum amount of Notes of all series, being tendered. However, the Tender Offers are subject to, and conditioned upon, the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions described in the Offer to Purchase, including receipt by Chesapeake of net proceeds from a concurrent private offering of $750,000,000 aggregate principal amount of Senior Notes due 2025 to finance at least $700,000,000 of the payment of the Tender Offer Consideration and the Total Consideration.

Chesapeake also announced today that it has commenced separate tender offers to purchase its outstanding 2.5% Contingent Convertible Senior Notes due 2037 and 2.25% Contingent Convertible Senior Notes due 2038 (the "Concurrent Tender Offers"). Chesapeake expects to use cash on hand to fund the consideration in the Concurrent Tender Offers. Chesapeake's obligation to consummate the Tender Offers is not subject to completion of the Concurrent Tender Offers.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. is acting as the dealer manager in the Tender Offers. Global Bondholder Services Corporation has been retained to serve as both the depositary and the information agent for the Tender Offers. Persons with questions regarding the Tender Offers should contact Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. at (toll-free) (855) 287-1922 or (collect) (212) 250-7527. Requests for copies of the Offer to Purchase, the related Letter of Transmittal and other related materials should be directed to Global Bondholder Services Corporation at (toll-free) (866) 470-4200 or (collect) (212) 430-3774.

None of Chesapeake, its board of directors, its officers, the dealer manager, the depositary, the information agent or the trustees with respect to the Notes, or any of their respective affiliates, makes any recommendation that holders tender or refrain from tendering all or any portion of the principal amount of their Notes, and no one has been authorized by any of them to make such a recommendation. Holders must make their own decision as to whether to tender their Notes and, if so, the principal amount of Notes to tender. The Tender Offers are made only by the Offer to Purchase and related Letter of Transmittal. This press release is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell any notes in the Tender Offers. The Tender Offers are not being made to holders of Notes in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction in which the Tender Offers are required to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Tender Offers will be deemed to be made on behalf of Chesapeake by the dealer manager or one or more registered brokers or dealers that are licensed under the laws of such jurisdiction.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful. Any offers of securities will be made only by means of a private offering circular pursuant to Rule 144A and Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Chesapeake Energy Corporation's (NYSE: CHK) operations are focused on discovering and developing its large and geographically diverse resource base of unconventional oil and natural gas assets onshore in the United States. The company also owns oil and natural gas marketing and natural gas gathering and compression businesses.

This news release includes "forward-looking statements" that give the company's current expectations or forecasts of future events, including the timing of the settlement and amounts to be purchased in the Tender Offers and the results of the proposed notes offering. Although we believe the expectations and forecasts reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance they will prove to have been correct. They can be affected by inaccurate or changed assumptions or by known or unknown risks and uncertainties (including the satisfaction of conditions precedent to completing the Tender Offers, including the ability to consummate the proposed notes offering, the ability to consummate any or all of the Tender Offers and those stated in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and its other filings with the SEC), and actual results may differ from the expectation expressed. We caution you not to place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release, and we undertake no obligation to update this information, except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE Chesapeake Energy Corporation
WEST CALDWELL, N.J., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Community Education Centers, Inc. (CEC) announced today the Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center in Colorado Springs was recognized by the Colorado Department of Corrections for Outstanding Performance and Making a Difference. The facility's Case Manager LaKisha Parker was one of two Case Managers in the State to be recognized for her work done with the Sex Offender Registration Unit (SORU) for making a difference with the offender population. She was awarded with a certificate and a coin from the Department of Corrections Inspector General's Office on September 30, by representatives of the Colorado DOC.

"We are pleased that the Colorado Department of Corrections has granted us this special recognition," said James E. Hyman, CEO. "Ms. Parker has done exceptional work and demonstrates CEC's commitment to SORU and the specialized treatment program provided at Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center."

In conjunction with the Colorado DOC Sex Offender Treatment Program, Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center operates a Sex Offender Maintenance Unit. After completing Phase I and II of the CDOC Sex Offender Treatment Program, residents can progress to CMRC. The maintenance program at CMRC teaches residents to focus on what they learned in treatment, and transform it into practical applications to be used upon release. CMRC's maintenance program helps residents complete all of the criteria determined by the Sex Offender Management Board. CMRC also introduces the residents in the program to outside support groups designed to help stop recidivism and make for a successful transition from prison to parole.

CMRC functions as a "Positive Peer Community" culture dedicated to the education and preparation of residents transitioning to communities within the greater society. The facility is accredited with the American Correctional Association, having been awarded a perfect 100% rating on mandatory and non-mandatory standards. It accommodates a capacity of 750 males referred from the Colorado DOC.

CEC is a leading national provider of rehabilitative services for offenders in reentry and in-prison treatment facilities, as well as providing comprehensive management of county, state, and federal jail and detention facilities. The Company provides evidence-based programming for residential and non-residential clients and maintains a documented record of reducing recidivism. CEC services also include drug and alcohol testing by SECON, our comprehensive drug testing and screening company that provides services worldwide.

SOURCE Community Education Centers

Related Links

http://www.cecintl.com


WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals and encouraging youth to pursue their dreams through higher education, today announced that Mellody Hobson, president, Ariel Investments, LLC, has been selected for membership in the prestigious organization. Ms. Hobson joins 10 other esteemed business and civic leaders from across North America in receiving this honor in 2017. For the last 70 years, the Horatio Alger Award has been annually bestowed upon admirable leaders who have succeeded despite facing adversity, and who are committed to higher education and charitable efforts in their local communities.

Ms. Hobson, the youngest of six children, was born in Chicago and raised by a single mother who owned her own residential real estate business. From an early age, Ms. Hobson had her mother as an example of a hardworking female entrepreneur, though they fell on tough times and were even evicted from their home on multiple occasions. Ms. Hobson envisioned a brighter future for herself and studied extremely hard, receiving offers from many top colleges. She ultimately chose and graduated with a degree in international relations from Princeton University landing a job directly out of school at Ariel Investments, where she had completed a summer internship. Quickly climbing the corporate ladder, Ms. Hobson was appointed president of Ariel Investments, the largest African American-owned money management firm in the country, in 2000. She is currently a director of The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. and Starbucks Corporation as well as a financial contributor to CBS News.

"Mellody is a remarkable woman who overcame a challenging childhood to become an enormously talented and respected business leader, passionate community advocate and influential philanthropist. She brings energy and vision to everything she does, and she profoundly touches and improves the lives of all those around her," said Byron Trott, president, Horatio Alger Association and 2011 Horatio Alger Award recipient. "The example Mellody has set in her career and in her life will undoubtedly inspire our Scholars to set high goals and work tirelessly to achieve their dreams, no matter how far out of reach they may seem. Inducting Mellody as a 2017 Horatio Alger Member is an honor for the Association and we look forward to working with her to champion our important mission."

Ms. Hobson now uses her fiscal expertise as a nationally recognized voice on financial literacy and investor education. Her community outreach includes serving as chairman of After School Matters, a nonprofit that provides Chicago teens with high-quality, out-of-school time programs. She is a board member of The Chicago Public Education Fund, George Lucas Education Foundation, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and Sundance Institute, where she has been appointed emeritus trustee. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves on the executive committee of the Investment Company Institute's board of governors. In 2015, Ms. Hobson was named to TIME magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Ms. Hobson earned her AB from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of International Relations and Public Policy. She has also received honorary doctorate degrees from Howard University, St. Mary's College and the University of Southern California.

"Receiving the Horatio Alger Award is a very special moment for me, particularly as I stand in the company of such accomplished and resilient men and women," Ms. Hobson commented. "The fantastic education I had access to as a child and the support I received from teachers and other mentors throughout my career were invaluable to my success. I hope that through my work with the Association I can do my part to make higher education more accessible to smart, driven young people in this country who need our help."

Through its Members, Horatio Alger Association aims to educate young people about the limitless opportunities afforded to them by the free-enterprise system. To further this goal, the organization awards scholarships to outstanding high school students who are committed to pursuing higher education and giving back to their communities. Like Association Members, Horatio Alger Scholars have faced significant adversities, but have also displayed unmatched resilience in overcoming their challenges. Since the scholarship program was established in 1984, Horatio Alger Association has provided more than $125 million to students in need. Scholarships are funded solely through the generosity of Association Members, Life Partners and friends.

Ms. Hobson and the Member Class of 2017 will be formally inducted into the Association on March 30-April 1, 2017, during the Association's 70th Horatio Alger Award Induction Ceremonies in Washington, D.C. The annual three-day event honors the achievements of both Members and National Scholars, affording both groups the opportunity to meet and interact, exchanging stories of hardships and triumphs.

For more information about Horatio Alger Association and its Member Class of 2017, please visit www.horatioalger.org and/or follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #HoratioAlgerAward.

About Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans:

Founded in 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc. is dedicated to the simple but powerful belief that hard work, honesty and determination can conquer all obstacles. The Association honors the achievements of outstanding leaders who have accomplished remarkable successes in spite of adversity by bestowing upon them the Horatio Alger Award and inducting them as lifetime Members. Horatio Alger Members support promising young people with the resources and confidence needed to overcome adversity in pursuit of their dreams through higher education. Through the generosity of its Members and friends, the Association awards more than $12 million annually in undergraduate and graduate need-based scholarships across the United States and Canada and provides college support and mentoring services to its Scholars. Since 1984, the Association has awarded more than $125 million in college scholarships to more than 25,000 deserving young people. For more information, please visit www.horatioalger.org.

CONTACT:

McKenna Young

484-385-2913 (office)

[email protected]

SOURCE Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.horatioalger.org


NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- China's pesticide industry has weathered the rough time of "overcapacity, market downturn, weak demand, price decline, stringent environmental policies, and fierce competition" over the past two years. Due to a greater pressure from safety production and environmental protection, rising costs, tepid domestic and foreign demands, and prohibition of and restrictions on highly toxic pesticides, the industry has been running with lower product prices. Overall, the pesticide enterprises now make meager profits or barely break even.

China produced 3.741 million tons and sold 3.495 million tons of chemical pesticide APIs in 2015, edging down 0.1% and 2.2% from a year ago, respectively. In addition, output of pesticide preparations represented by herbicides, insecticides, and bactericides all fell over the same period in 2014, standing at 1.774 million tons, 514,000 tons, and 182,000 tons, down 1.6%,8.5%and 20.8% respectively against the previous year.



Jiangsuis the country's largest pesticide production base, not only the largest API producing region but also a major production region of herbicides, insecticides, and bactericides. The province produced 1.055 million tons of pesticide APIs, 419,000 tons of herbicides, 205,000 tons of insecticides, and 91,000 tons of bactericides in 2015, making up 28.2%, 23.6%,39.8%, and 49.7% of the country's total, respectively.



The Action Program for Zero Growth of Pesticide Utilization by 2020 issued by the MoA in 2015 specifies that pesticide utilization will be effectively controlled and new pesticides vigorously promoted so as to reduce consumption and harm of pesticides.The country's pesticide production and sales will maintain slight growth over a period of time, with chemical pesticide APIs reaching an estimated 3.768 million tons in production and 3.628 million tons in sales in 2020, respectively.



There are about 1,800 pesticide producers in China, represented by Nanjing Red Sun, Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical, Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group, Shenzhen Noposion Agrochemicals, and Jiangsu Huifeng Agrochemical. The country's No. 1 pesticide enterprise hasless than a 2 percent market share, showing a very low market concentration. As a series of measures on closing down backward production facilities and encouraging corporate merger and restructuring are implemented, the Chinese pesticide market concentration is expected to improve gradually.



With introduction of support policies including new environmental policy and the Planning for the Development of Pesticide Industry during the 13th Five-Year Plan Period,a quick penetration of new formats like agricultural inputs E-commerce and "Internet + agriculture", and rapid development of new models (farmers' cooperative, crop solutions), the pesticide industry will see an accelerated elimination of backward capacity, constantly enhanced industrial transformation and upgrading, and an increased industry concentration.



China Pesticide Industry Report, 2016-2020 highlights the following:

Pesticide industry in China (production & sales, import & sales, operation, competitive landscape, etc.);

Development environments (regulatory policies, industry policies, upstream & downstream sectors, etc.);

Development trends;

16 major pesticide enterprises (operation, pesticide business, forecast & outlook, etc.)

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p076036-summary/view-report.html



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ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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Contact Clare: [email protected]

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Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading Christian higher education resource, Christian Universities Online (http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org/), has published a ranking of Top Christian Colleges and Universities in Texas 2017. (http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org/top-christian-colleges-and-universities-in-texas-2017/)

Christian Universities Online produced this ranking by first taking into consideration all schools in the state of Texas that were members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) or able to be considered member eligible. The following five data points were collected from publicly available sources: 1) faculty-to-student ratio; 2) percent of full-time beginning undergraduates receiving grant or scholarship aid; 3) selectivity; 4) overall retention rate; and 5) overall graduation rate. The data was then standardized, assigned weights to each category, and computed to determine an overall score.

Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, took top honors on the list. Dallas Baptist University in Dallas, Texas, placed second, and Le Tourneau University of Longview, Texas, placed third.

Other schools making the list include (in alphabetical order):

East Texas Baptist University - Marshall, Texas

Hardin-Simmons University - Abilene, Texas

Houston Baptist University - Houston, Texas

Howard Payne University - Brownwood, Texas

The University of Mary-Hardin Baylor - Belton, Texas

The Lone Star State is notably large and boasts a range of comfortable climates, colorful cities, and unique areas. It has much to offer prospective students not just in terms of education, but also employment opportunities in businesses, industries, and ministry. With its rich history, multi-ethnic population, and combination of urban, suburban, and rural areas, Texas presents the total package of options for many students and recent graduates.

In this ranking, there are some familiar names and some new ones. Anna-Rebekah Orr, site editor at Christian Universities Online, states that the goal of this ranking is to highlight schools that excel in their educational offerings within the state of Texas. "This ranking is not merely a re-grouping of the our Top 50. To produce this list we focused our attention specifically of this geographical area and applied our criteria anew. We understand the significance of the decision students are faced with when choosing a college and that location is often a primary consideration. Because of its large number of high-quality schools, and its power to attract so many students, Texas has earned its own ranking."

Like other rankings from Christian Universities Online, this one seeks to highlight intentionally Christian colleges and universities that are exemplary in their personal attention to students, selectivity, readily available financial aid and overall student satisfaction. Christian Universities Online (CUO) strives to be the go-to and trusted resource for students and their parents in deciding which school to attend.

Christian Universities Online (http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org/) is an online resource for students and families researching Christian higher education. The site publishes rankings and reviews of the best Christian colleges and universities, information about Christian scholarships and financial aid, and many other resources for finding, getting into, and paying for a quality Christian education.

Contact:

Michael Templeton

Site Manager

(919) 858-6153

[email protected]

SOURCE Christian Universities Online

Related Links

http://www.christianuniversitiesonline.org


SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ClearLight Diagnostics, LLC, a developer of a next generation tissue processing and 3D imaging platform for research and diagnostic applications, announced today that it has completed a $3.5M Series B financing round. Existing investors, a syndicate created by Wiegers Capital Partners, LLC led the round.

The financing will go towards the continued technology platform and applications development using the CLARITY technology and deep imaging with COLM Light Sheet Microscopy. "Continuing our development efforts using the ClearLight technology platform in oncology builds on our initial Proof of Concept work to elucidate the 3-dimensional architecture of the tumor microenvironment. We are pleased with the ongoing support of our investors who have provided further validation of the potential for the ClearLight technology platform," ClearLight CEO, Sarah McCurdy said. The financing follows an initial Series A round of $2.5M for a total of $6M invested in the company.

Founded by Karl Deisseroth M.D., Ph.D., ClearLight is developing a product platform based on the CLARITY lipid-clearing technique developed by Dr. Deisseroth and colleagues at Stanford University. This technique enables the transformation of tissue into a nanoporous, hydrogel-hybridized form that is cross-linked to a three-dimensional network of hydrophilic polymers. The process produces a fully assembled, intact tissue, which is permeable to macromolecules and optically transparent, thus allowing for robust three-dimensional imaging of subcellular components (DNA, RNA and protein) and heterogeneous cellular interactions within the tumor microenvironment. This technology, paired with the development of a tissue imaging platform that includes the revolutionary microscopy method, COLM (CLARITY Optimized Light-sheet Microscopy) will enable unprecedented depth and acceleration of key biomarker 3D image analysis from lipid-cleared samples.

About ClearLight Diagnostics

ClearLight Diagnostics is a technology development company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative technologies to significantly improve the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases with an initial focus in oncology.

Visit www.clearlightdx.com

email: [email protected]

Contact:

Sarah McCurdy

(510) 470-5042

SOURCE ClearLight Diagnostics
NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Synopsis

Construction activity in Brazil was weak during the review period (20112015) following the economic recession, which resulted in a deteriorating business environment, weak investor confidence and a reduction in construction activity.



Consequently, the industry's output value in real terms contracted at a compound annual growth rate of -0.32% during the review period.



The industry is expected to remain subdued over the forecast period (20162020), albeit with a slight improvement. The probable persistence of the economic recession until 2017 is expected to hamper the industry's growth during 20162017.



The industry, however, is expected to recover and record minimal growth from 2018, supported by a gradual recovery in economic conditions and subsequent improvements in investor and consumer confidence.



Government efforts to revitalize economic growth through the implementation of flagship programs such as 'My House, My Life', the Logistics Investment Program, Plano Decenal de Energia 2024 (PDE 2024) and the National Education Plan 20142024 are expected to support the industry's growth over the forecast period.

Summary

Timetric's Construction in Brazil, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020 report provides detailed market analysis, information and insights into the Brazilian construction industry, including:



- The Brazilian construction industry's growth prospects by market, project type and construction activity



- Analysis of equipment, material and service costs for each project type in Brazil



- Critical insight into the impact of industry trends and issues, and the risks and opportunities they present to participants in the Brazilian construction industry



- Profiles of the leading operators in the Brazilian construction industry



- Data highlights of the largest construction projects in Brazil



Scope

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the construction industry in Brazil. It provides:



- Historical (2011-2015) and forecast (2016-2020) valuations of the construction industry in Brazil using construction output and value-add methods



- Segmentation by sector (commercial, industrial, infrastructure, energy and utilities, institutional and residential) and by project type



- Breakdown of values within each project type, by type of activity (new construction, repair and maintenance, refurbishment and demolition) and by type of cost (materials, equipment and services)



- Analysis of key construction industry issues, including regulation, cost management, funding and pricing



- Detailed profiles of the leading construction companies in Brazil



Reasons To Buy

- Identify and evaluate market opportunities using Timetric's standardized valuation and forecasting methodologies.



- Assess market growth potential at a micro-level with over 600 time-series data forecasts.



- Understand the latest industry and market trends.



- Formulate and validate strategy using Timetric's critical and actionable insight.



- Assess business risks, including cost, regulatory and competitive pressures.



- Evaluate competitive risk and success factors.



Key Highlights

- The Brazilian government is considering privatization as a means to stimulate economic growth. In September 2016 it introduced Projeto Crescer (Project Growth), an infrastructure privatization program aimed at stimulating private sector investment. This program is expected to add momentum to the pace of investment in the construction industry over the forecast period.



- The Brazilian construction industry is expected to be supported by Chinese investments in infrastructure. In September 2016, the Brazilian and Chinese governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the implementation of projects worth BRL73.2 billion (US$20.0 billion) in Brazil. The Chinese government will invest in infrastructure, energy, manufacturing and mining projects.



- In January 2016, the Ministry of Mines and Energy revised the country's solar energy targets as compared to the target planned for 2023, as a part of the new energy plan PDE 2024. Initially, the government announced plans to produce 3,500MW of solar power by 2023. Under the new target, the government is planning to generate 7,000MW of solar energy by 2024. These government initiatives are expected to support the energy and utilities construction market over the forecast period.



- According to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, Brazil's country's civil construction index registered an increase of 0.5% in 2015. This was preceded by annual increases of 0.1% and 0.4% in 2013 and 2014 respectively. During the first half of 2016 (JanuaryJune 2016), the civil construction index recorded an increase of 0.6%, as compared to the 0.5% registered in the first half of 2015 (JanuaryJune 2015).



- In 2009, the government introduced Morar Carioca, a program aimed at slum urbanization in Rio de Janeiro. Under the program, the government announced plans to renovate over 342,000 houses in slum areas of the city during 20102020. This is expected to support construction activity in the residential market over the forecast period.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03336760-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

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Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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PLEASANTON, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Propelled by the tireless and creative efforts of CooperVision, Inc. employees worldwide, the company has made a $164,000 donation to Optometry Giving Sight in support of the 2016 World Sight Day Challenge. This is the fifth consecutive year that employees organized a wide variety of fundraisers over multiple weeks, with matching funds pledged by The Cooper Companies.

The $164,000 donation is the largest-ever World Sight Day Challenge contribution made by the company. CooperVision is an Optometry Giving Sight Global Gold Sponsor.

More than thirty CooperVision teams and locations generated funds through activities including food festivals in Puerto Rico, a mountain climbing challenge in the U.K., guide dog seminars and a 5K walk/run in the U.S., an auction in China, customized cupcake sales in Spain, and bracelet sales in Mexico and elsewhere.

"Funds raised through this year's employee campaign will make a real difference  the equivalent of providing 32,000 eye exams to people in need," said Dan McBride, President, CooperVision. "The time and energy put into fundraising by our employees illustrate the depth of their personal and professional commitment to help improve the way people see each day. It's rewarding to work alongside them, as well as our partners from Optometry Giving Sight."

"The generosity demonstrated by CooperVision employees and The Cooper Companies continues to grow, and we can't thank them enough for their 2016 World Sight Day Challenge initiatives and donation," said Clive Miller, CEO of Optometry Giving Sight. "With their support, we are helping to fund projects that reach underserved communities across the planet, addressing vision loss and preventing unnecessary blindness in ways that transform lives for the better every day."

CooperVision's cumulative support for Optometry Giving Sight over the last several years is expected to exceed USD$2 million by the close of 2016. In addition to its World Sight Day Challenge donation, the company contributes funding through a patient rebate donation program in the United States, LensFerry S donations for completed patient annual subscriptions and Europe's One Bright Vision cause-related marketing program, which benefits communities in Africa and India. The company also supports several specific programs, providing funding as well as sending experts on site for professional guidance and observation.

About CooperVision

CooperVision, a unit of The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE: COO), is one of the world's leading manufacturers of soft contact lenses. The Company produces a full array of monthly, two-week and daily disposable contact lenses, all featuring advanced materials and optics. CooperVision has a strong heritage of solving the toughest vision challenges such as astigmatism and presbyopia; and offers the most complete collection of spherical, toric and multifocal products available. Through a combination of innovative products and focused practitioner support, the company brings a refreshing perspective to the marketplace, creating real advantages for customers and wearers. For more information, visit www.coopervision.com.

About The Cooper Companies

The Cooper Companies, Inc. ("Cooper") is a global medical device company publicly traded on the NYSE (NYSE: COO). Cooper is dedicated to being A Quality of Life Company with a focus on delivering shareholder value. Cooper operates through two business units, CooperVision and CooperSurgical. CooperVision brings a refreshing perspective on vision care with a commitment to developing a wide range of high-quality products for contact lens wearers and providing focused practitioner support. CooperSurgical is committed to advancing the health of families with its diversified portfolio of products and services focusing on women's health, fertility and diagnostics. Headquartered in Pleasanton, CA, Cooper has more than 10,000 employees with products sold in over 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.coopercos.com

Media Contact:

Mike McDougall, APR, Fellow PRSA

McDougall Communications for CooperVision, Inc.

[email protected] or 585-434-2150

SOURCE CooperVision, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.coopervision.com


TSX: CMMC

VANCOUVER, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Copper Mountain Mining Corporation (TSX: CMMC) (the "Company" or "Copper Mountain") announces that the Company will be presenting at the 2016 Scotiabank Mining Conference being held today and tomorrow in Toronto and would like to provide the following production update for the months of October and November of 2016, from the Copper Mountain Mine located in southern British Columbia.

Mining activities continued from the Pit 2 area, the Saddle area, and the newly developed Oriole deposit just south of Pit 3 during the months of October and November. A total of 12.4 million tonnes of material was mined, including 4.4 million tonnes of ore and 8 million tonnes of waste, resulting in a strip ratio of 1.8 to 1. High equipment mechanical availability was maintained during the quarter which helped contribute to the above average mining rates being achieved of 193,550 tpd mine versus a budget of 174,000 tpd.

The Mill continues to operate at above design capacity rates and averaged 42,079 tpd for the months of October and November. Total tonnes milled during the period was 2.6 million with an operating time of 93.6%. Copper recovery for the two months averaged 80% as initial oxidized ore from Oriole was starting to be processed through the concentrator. The average grade for the two months was as planned at 0.32% copper.

Production Highlights :

Annual production on track : YTD copper production totals 76 million pounds of copper which is slightly ahead of guidance for the year of. The Company produced 14.4 million pounds of copper during the months of October and November.





: YTD copper production totals 76 million pounds of copper which is slightly ahead of guidance for the year of. The Company produced 14.4 million pounds of copper during the months of October and November. Gold production contribution significant: Gold and silver production continues to provide a favourable contribution to the operation and accounts for over 20% of the mine revenue.

Mr. Jim O'Rourke, President and Chief Executive Officer of Copper Mountain Mining, said "the new production records being achieved at the mine has greatly strengthened our operating base and our balance sheet. The recent rise in copper price is a welcome change. In addition, gold production continues to provide a strong by-product credit."

About Copper Mountain Mining Corporation:

Copper Mountain's flagship asset is the it's Copper Mountain mine located in southern British Columbia near the town of Princeton. The Company has a strategic alliance with Mitsubishi Materials Corporation who own 25% of the mine. The Copper Mountain mine commenced production in the latter half of 2011, and has continued to improve its operations since start-up. The 18,000 acre site has a large resource of copper that remains open laterally and at depth. The mine has significant exploration potential that will need to be explored over the next few years to fully appreciate the property's full development potential. Additional information is available on the Company's web page at www.CuMtn.com.

On behalf of the Board of

COPPER MOUNTAIN MINING CORPORATION

"Jim O'Rourke"

Jim O'Rourke, P.Eng.

Chief Executive Officer

Note: This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results. Readers are referred to the documents, filed by the Company on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, specifically the most recent reports which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to review or confirm analysts' expectations or estimates or to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statement.

SOURCE Copper Mountain Mining Corporation

Related Links

http://www.CuMtn.com


PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Coronal Energy, powered by Panasonic, today announced plans to substantially increase the number of solar PV projects it will acquire in 2017 and 2018. The ambitious program will support a rapidly expanding solar pipeline in North America that already totals over three gigawatts under development.

"While many companies are retrenching, Coronal Energy, powered by Panasonic, is in growth mode," said Jonathan Jaffrey, chairman and CEO of Coronal Energy. "We are fortunate to be backed by a Fortune Global 500 entity in Panasonic (#128) that has made a long-term commitment to the future of solar energy in North America. Our financial strength and stability as a buyer sets us apart from our competition."

Coronal's Solar Acquisition Program will focus on utility-scale solar PV projects five megawatts and larger, located in North America. Coronal will review projects under any stage of development, including operational projects.

"We will be an exceptional partner for sellers seeking an experienced, efficient, and motivated buyer," said Danny Van Clief, chief commercial officer for Coronal Energy. "Our team has worked on solar projects in almost every US state, and having sold projects ourselves we know how to treat sellers fairly. A reputation as a premier buyer is one of our primary goals."

For more information, please contact [email protected]

About Coronal Energy, powered by Panasonic

Coronal Energy, powered by Panasonic, is a leading provider of renewable energy solutionsespecially solar PVfor diverse enterprise customers across North America, including utilities, corporations, the public sector, educational institutions, and other organizations. It unites Panasonic's financial strength and award-winning history of solar innovation and sustainability leadership with the project development, finance, engineering, construction, and asset management experience of Coronal Energy.

Coronal Energy develops, finances, and operates solar PV projects in exclusive partnership with Panasonic. In December 2014, Panasonic made an initial strategic investment in Coronal, followed by a second investment in September 2016. Coronal announced the acquisition of HelioSage Energy, a leading utility-scale solar project developer, in February 2015. In September of the same year, Coronal and Panasonic announced a strategic investment in Blue Oak Energy, a best-in-class commercial and utility-scale solar engineering and construction company founded in 2003.

The Coronal Energy, powered by Panasonic, team also includes the Energy Solutions Group of Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company, a division of Panasonic Corporation of North America. Newark, NJ-based Panasonic Corporation of North America is a leading technology partner and integrator to businesses, government agencies, and consumers across the region. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Osaka, Japan-based Panasonic Corporation and the hub of Panasonic's U.S. branding, marketing, sales, service, and R&D operations. Panasonic was featured in Fortune Magazine's 2016 ranking of 50 companies that are changing the world and doing well by doing good.

The Coronal Energy, powered by Panasonic, portfolio includes projects in 40 states totaling 2.3 GW with more than 3.4 GW of greenfield and brownfield projects under construction/contract, in development, or in the pipeline. The integrated team maintains offices across North America in California, Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia, and Toronto.

SOURCE Coronal Energy
PHOENIX and SAN DIEGO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Creative Medical Technology Holdings (OTCQB:CELZ) announced the appointment of Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, FANA, FAAN to the Company's Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Kesari will leverage his experience in neurology and clinical trials to assist the Company's clinical development of its adult stem cell for treatment of stroke. The AmnioStem product is a universal donor stem cell derived from amniotic fluid, which has previously shown therapeutic activity in animal models of stroke1.

The unique stem cell is licensed from University of California San Diego (UCSD), and is the subject of US patent #7,569,385. Safety and efficacy of amniotic fluid derived stem cells has been published in numerous peer-reviewed papers2,3,4. One commercially-relevant aspect of the AmnioStem stem cell is that it is a "universal donor," meaning that it does not need to be matched with recipients, thus allowing for mass scale production and distribution.

"I am enthusiastic to join the clinical development team of Dr. Amit Patel, Director of Clinical Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering at the University of Utah, and Dr. Thomas Ichim, in bringing this novel stem cell to patients suffering from stroke," said Dr. Kesari. "Given the previous successes of Dr. Patel and Dr. Ichim at taking cellular therapies from bench to bedside, I am confident that we can develop a program that will assist not only stroke patients, but also pave the way for treatment of unmet needs in neurological conditions ranging from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, radiation associated neurotoxicity, to traumatic brain injury."

"In my opinion Dr. Kesari represents a true translational scientist. He is unique in having over 250 peer reviewed papers ranging from basic scientific findings to clinical trials across neurosciences and oncology. By combining his deep understanding of neurobiology, with practical knowledge of clinical trials approvals and execution, we anticipate a rapid filing of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the FDA for this promising treatment for stroke," said Timothy Warbington, Chairman, President and CEO of Creative Medical Technology Holdings.

Dr. Kesari is currently Chair and Professor, Department of Translational Neurosciences and Neurotherapeutics, John Wayne Cancer Institute. He is also Director of Neuro-oncology, Providence Saint John's Health Center and leads the Pacific Neuroscience Research Center at Pacific Neuroscience Institute. Dr. Kesari is ranked among the top 1% of neuro-oncologists and neurologists in the nation, according to Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. Dr. Kesari earned his PhD degree in molecular biology and a MD from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine. He completed his residency in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School and his neuro-oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He was previously assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women's Hospital and then professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego. He is a member of the Society of Neuro-Oncology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, Indian Society of Neuro-Oncology, American Neurological Association, and American Academy of Neurology.

About Creative Medical Technology Holdings

Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc. is a clinical stage biotechnology company currently trading on the OTCQB under the ticker symbol CELZ. For further information about the company go to www.creativemedicaltechnology.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

OTC Markets has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming clinical trials, marketing efforts, funding, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and, therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. See the periodic and other reports filed by Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc. with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on the Commission's website at www.sec.gov.

1 Tajiri et al. Therapeutic outcomes of transplantation of amniotic fluid-derived stem cells in experimental ischemic stroke. Front Cell Neurosci. 2014 Aug 13;8:227. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25165432

2 Dziadosz et al. Human amniotic fluid: a source of stem cells for possible therapeutic use. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2016 Mar;214(3):321-7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26767797

3 Loukogeorgakis et al. Stem cells from amniotic fluid--Potential for regenerative medicine. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol. 2016 Feb;31:45-57. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26542929

4 Zhou et al. Amniotic fluid-derived mesenchymal stem cells: characteristics and therapeutic applications. Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2014 Aug;290(2):223-31. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24744053

SOURCE Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

http://creativemedicaltechnology.com


BALTIMORE, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RMF Engineering announced today that CxAnalytics, the Virginia-based commissioning firm RMF acquired in late 2015, will now operate under the RMF name. Since the acquisition, CxAnalytics has been operating as "an RMF Engineering company," but will fully integrate the company and its services under the RMF brand.

"Acquiring CxAnalytics has proved successful since day one," said Duane Pinnix, president and CEO of RMF Engineering. "We've grown our commissioning portfolio, deepened our capabilities in key markets we serve and enhanced our presence in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We are excited to take this final step in integrating CxAnalytics into RMF, and we look forward to moving forward under one united brand."

The acquisition of CxAnalytics has strengthened RMF's commissioning experience across federal government, state and local government, higher education and healthcare markets, bringing both firms' combined portfolio to more than 300 commissioning projects. Additionally, as a result of the acquisition, RMF has expanded its work in the secure space, specifically for mission critical environments.

RMF is currently one of only forty firms in the country to have earned the Certified Commissioning Firm (CCF) designation through the Building Commissioning Association (BCxA). RMF has also been recognized by Consulting Specifying-Engineer magazine as one of the nation's top 25 "Commissioning Giants" three years in a row.

About RMF Engineering

Founded in 1983, RMF Engineering (www.rmf.com) provides planning, design, engineering, commissioning and facility assessment services globally to clients in the healthcare, higher education, laboratory/research and government sectors. The firm leads the industry in the development of new engineering production methods and technologies, including Building Information Modeling (BIM), carbon reduction strategies, and in-depth assessment technologies. A privately held company headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, RMF has more than 230 employees in 12 U.S. offices .

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SOURCE RMF Engineering

Related Links

http://www.rmf.com/


SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cyence, the company that empowers the insurance industry to model the economic impact of cyber risk, has named cyber insurance veteran John Merchant as director of business development. He will be working with Cyence's growing network of insurance customers to drive strategy and programs applying Cyence's platform to realize cyber risk business value. Merchant will be based out of Cyence's New York City office.

For nearly a decade, Merchant has worked with some of the world's largest insurance companies to develop cyber-focused lines of business. Most recently, he oversaw the launch of the U.S. cyber underwriting division at Validus Specialty Underwriters. Previously, Merchant led similar efforts for both Nationwide, where he profitably grew its cyber and technology services, and AIG, where he led strategic sales and distribution for the full suite of AIG and Lexington cyber insurance products. Merchant has also held senior, cyber insurance-focused roles at Hartford Financial Products.

"John has a proven track record for developing and growing cyber insurance initiatives," said Jennifer Livingstone, vice president of business development at Cyence. "He has a deep understanding of the challenges the insurance industry faces around selecting and accumulating cyber risk. John's cyber insurance domain expertise, technical underwriting experience, and market knowledge strengthens Cyence's ability to partner with our customers on risk models robust enough for capital deployment."

"I am very impressed that, in a short time, Cyence has built up a veritable who's who of insurance customers and is uniquely positioned as the standard for modeling cyber risk," said John Merchant, director of business development at Cyence. "It's a transformative time where the worlds of insurance and Silicon Valley are merging. I'm excited to be leveraging the power of Cyence's data, analytics and models to work with the insurance industry on enhancing risk selection and profitability, driving top line premium growth and broadening risk appetite by managing accumulation."

About Cyence

Cyence empowers the insurance industry to understand the impact of cyber risk in the context of dollars and probabilities. Cyence's unique approach combines economic/risk modeling, cybersecurity and big data analytics to create an economic cyber risk modeling platform. Cyence's platform and analytics are leveraged by leaders across the insurance industry to help understand and manage cyber risk, as well as to roll out new transformative insurance products. More information is available at http://www.cyence.net.

SOURCE Cyence

Related Links

http://www.cyence.net


LONDON, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Important Ruling in Multi-million Dollar Case Brought by Kemerovo Industrialist Alexander Shchukin Against Former Business Partner Ruslan Rostovtsev

The District Court of Nicosia, Cyprus, has granted an application brought on behalf of Russian businessman Alexander Shchukin. The judge granted an interim Worldwide Mareva Injunction freezing all assets belonging to Ruslan Rostovtsev up to the amount of US$113.000.000. The District Court of Nicosia also granted a disclosure order, ordering Mr. Rostovtsev to disclose all documents relating to the nature, location and value his assets. The disclosure order also applies to Abacus Limited, one of the largest professional services companies in Cyprus, in respect of their work for Mr. Rostovtsev.

Alexander Shchukin is claiming damages in the amount of US$113.000.000 against Ruslan Rostovtsev, Abacus Limited and a number of Abacus subsidiaries, as well as other related remedies in respect of the misappropriation of his share in a mining business.

Mr. Shchukin has a proven record of accomplishment in the Russian mining sector, not only in ensuring optimal efficiency in production, but in also demonstrating commitment to safety. Companies under Mr. Shchukin's leadership have invested hundreds of millions of roubles into the upkeep of several mines in Kemerovo Region, while maintaining the highest industrial safety standards in the country.

Responding to the ruling, Constantinos Adamides, Partner in Scordis Papapetrou & Co LLC, lawyers to Mr. Shchukin, said, "We welcome the court's decision in this case. The interim Worldwide Mareva Injunction is a necessary measure to prevent the first Defendant from moving the assets even further out of reach of our client and the courts. This decision validates our case, and we are hopeful that this freezing order, combined with the disclosure order, will allow us to recover the damage caused to our client."

The case continues (Claim no: 6310/2015 before the District Court of Nicosia, Cyprus).

SOURCE Press Office of Alexander Shchukin
LONDON, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Datapipe Recognised as a Winner at the UK-Based SVC Awards for the Second Year in a Row

Datapipe has won Cloud Project of the Year at the 2016 Storage, Virtualisation, Cloud (SVC) Awards in a ceremony last week in central London. The award was presented in recognition of the solution Datapipe provides to BMJ, the healthcare knowledge provider behind medical journal The BMJ. Datapipe was also named runner up in the category of Managed Service Provider of the Year.

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Datapipe's solution for BMJ was instrumental in transforming the culture within the organisation and enabling a path to grow the business worldwide. To read more about the solution the case study can be found here.

Sharon Cooper, CDO at BMJ, commenting on the win says "I am incredibly proud of my team's achievement in winning Cloud Project of the Year with Datapipe. It is the culmination of many months of hard work, and a reflection of the success of our close working relationship that not just allowed us to work the way we wanted to work, but to be able to leverage all of Datapipe's expertise. The success of the project has set us up for the future, to continue to ensure that our digital products make the best use of technology innovation to deliver benefits to our customers and users."

"Winning Cloud Project of the Year is an exceptional honour for Datapipe," said Tony Connor, Head of EMEA Marketing for Datapipe. "BMJ found itself with an infrastructure that was no longer fit for purpose. As a trusted partner to BMJ, we delivered an automated solution and, most importantly, implemented the change with zero downtime for BMJ's customers. At Datapipe, we pride ourselves on first class customer service and this award is testament to this commitment."

It has been a significant year of growth for Datapipe. 2016 has seen the company expand its reach in Europe, highlighted by the acquisition of leading UK managed cloud services provider, and Advanced AWS Consulting Partner, Adapt.

This win follows Datapipe's 2015 SVC Award win for the Cloud Security Product of the Year award. The innovative Datapipe Access and Audit Control for the Cloud (DAAC), formerly known as DACMA, product took the win with its ability to let enterprises use cloud managed services without being required to hand over administratorlevel credentials.

The SVC Awards were established to recognise the end users, resellers and vendors that are setting the bar for innovation in the storage, virtualisation and cloud industries across EMEA. The MSP of the Year category is one of the most fiercely contested categories of the awards. A two-stage judging process saw entries first assessed by a panel of industry experts, before being shortlisted for a public vote.

About Datapipe

A next generation MSP, Datapipe is recognised as the pioneer of managed services for public cloud platforms. Datapipe has unique expertise in architecting, migrating, managing and securing public cloud, private cloud, hybrid IT and traditional IT. The world's most trusted brands partner with Datapipe to optimise mission-critical and day-to-day enterprise IT operations, enabling them to transform, innovate, and scale. Backed by a global team of experienced professionals and world-class interconnected data centres, Datapipe provides comprehensive cloud, compliance, security, governance, automation and DevOps solutions. Gartner named Datapipe a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting in 2016.

Contacts

Bright Bee for Datapipe

Tom Fry

+44(0)20-8819-3170

[email protected]



SOURCE Datapipe
WELLESLEY, Mass., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Debi Kleiman, Executive Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College, has been named a finalist of BostInno's 2016 50 on Fire.

The awards are given annually to honor Boston's inventors, disrupters, luminaries, and newsmakers across all industries. Winners will be announced and celebrated at the Moakley Courthouse on Wednesday, December 7, 2016.

"This isn't your typical rankings list where companies and individuals have to be under a certain age or fit into a well-defined box," said BostInno GM Kyle Gross. "50 on Fire is a reflection of Boston--a collection of people and organizations in different roles, stages, and categories who are making an impact on this city. Setting it on fire, if you will."

Kleiman came to Babson in early 2016 following more than 20 years as an award-winning marketing executive and entrepreneurial leader. As Executive Director of Babson's entrepreneurial hub, Kleiman works with students, alumni, and faculty, as well as the broader tech and innovation community, to create greater success and understanding of the practice of entrepreneurship. She directly oversees the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC), Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP), the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Babson's John E. And Alice L. Butler Venture Accelerator, and all special entrepreneur programs and events associated with the Blank Center.

Prior to joining Babson, Kleiman was Managing Director and Executive Vice President at Havas Media, where she led teams in both Boston and San Francisco, and previously served as president of MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange)--the state's premier industry association for web and mobile innovators. There she also created a groundbreaking mentorship program, MITXUP, which connected marketing experts and startups in a hackathon environment to help young companies brand, communicate, and acquire customers and funding. In addition to serving on advisory boards of several local startups, she also mentors entrepreneurs at MassChallenge, Harvard's iLab, and TechStars Boston.

BostInno's 50 on Fire Finalists from the Babson Community

Debi Kleiman , Executive Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College

, Executive Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Inner City Weightlifting, founded by Jon Feinman MBA'10

Paint Nite, co-founded by Dan Hermann MBA'10

Runkeeper, founded by Jason Jacobs MBA'05

Parlor Skis, co-founded by Mark Wallace MBA'14

Tara Foley MBA'13, President of Follain

True Fit, co-founded by Jessica Arredondo Murphy MBA'06 and Romney Evans MBA'06

Sam Aquillano MBA'14, Founder and Executive Director of Design Museum Boston Foundation

Adding to its growing presence in the broader innovation community, Babson College this year announced the opening of its brand new campus--Babson Boston. Located in the heart of the Financial District at 100 High Street, the multi-floor, 9,000 square feet space provides students, alumni, corporate and nonprofit partners the opportunity to learn, gather, collaborate, and innovate through graduate level courses, special programming, and networking events. It will also be home to the college's recently launched Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program (GEIR), which will help qualified international entrepreneurs from Babson and other area colleges qualify for an H-1B visa and remain in Massachusetts, continue to build their high potential startup businesses, and bring new, high-skill jobs to the region. Babson is the first private college to pursue a GEIR program.

About BostInno's 50 on Fire Awards

Each year, BostInno receives thousands of nominations highlighting companies and individuals who are disrupting their industries and making an impact in Boston and beyond. One hundred fifty finalists have been chosen, and a celebration will commence at the Moakley Courthouse on December 7 during which winners in each category--Civic, Design, Food and Drink, Education, Retail, Health and Medicine, Marketing and Advertising, Professional Services, Sport and Fitness, Technology, and Investment--will be announced. Be sure to follow BostInno and #50onFireBOS on Twitter.

About Babson College

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds(r). The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action(r) as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value. Visit www.babson.edu

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com.

CONTACT: Michael Chmura, 781-239-4549, [email protected]

SOURCE Babson College

Related Links

http://www.babson.edu


DUBAI, UAE, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Leaders, scientists and experts from around the world gathered today at one of the biggest international conferences dedicated to quinoa since 2013 was declared the International Year of Quinoa by the United Nations.

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More than 150 leaders, policymakers, scientists, experts and professionals from over 46 countries came together to discuss and share the latest developments in quinoa research, production and trade around the world, and develop a set of recommendations for quinoa cultivation in marginal environments which are affected by water scarcity and salinity.

The global population is forecast to increase to 9.7 billion in 2050 and there are concerns about the capacity of agriculture to produce enough food for the growing population. By some estimates, food production will need to go up by about 60 percent either through an increase in crop yields per unit area or an expansion in the arable land by 2050 to meet the demand. Furthermore, several regions already suffering from malnutrition, water scarcity and soil degradation are forecast to have a large population growth, which raises concerns about whether traditional agricultural methods and crop species will have the capacity to sustain global food production targets.

People living in marginal environments are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change on agriculture. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify solutions to sustaining and possibly increasing agricultural productivity in areas where growing traditional crops has become difficult and sometimes uneconomical. Quinoa is widely considered a promising crop that can contribute to addressing these challenges.

Addressing participants at the opening ceremony, His Excellency Dr. Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment of the UAE, said: "Climate change poses one of the greatest threats to humanity. Countries that already suffer from droughts, water shortages, and salinity are at an even greater risk. We urgently need to find solutions and adapt and where possible mitigate effects of climate change on different fronts, including agriculture. Ensuring future food security in marginal environments requires a shift in agricultural practices and innovative approaches to crop production systems. Quinoa can play a major role as a staple crop in marginal environments due to its adaptability to harsh environments including poor saline soils with annual rainfall as little as 200 mm."

In his statement, Professor Reyadh AlMehaideb, Vice President of Zayed University, said: "We are pleased to host this international conference at Zayed University. It is a timely event as the world faces the implications of grand environmental challenges, and many countries experience food and nutrition insecurity as well as impacts from climate change. We believe that the conference will be an excellent platform for scientists and experts to look at these challenges and come up with a shared vision on how crops like quinoa that grows in marginal land can help address them."

An Oxfam study in 2009 showed that 45.9% of the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa and 25.3% in Asia live in marginal environments. According to FAO's 'The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015', 793 million people are undernourished globally.

Despite the growing global recognition of quinoa's potential, and positive research outcomes in pilot studies in recent years, there are still many constraints and issues to be addressed before quinoa becomes a crop of choice in marginal areas where major crops have long been dominant but are progressively failing to withstand increasing salinity and lack of water.

Speaking at the conference, Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, Director General of the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), said: "There has been considerable research on quinoa in recent years. Scientists at ICBA have also evaluated and tested the performance of several quinoa cultivars for their productivity when grown in marginal conditions. However, there are still many areas to be researched and improved as we introduce quinoa into agriculture in marginal environments, in order to make sure its introduction and production systems are beneficial to the communities and their ecosystems now and in the future."

These challenges include, among others, limited availability of genetic material for cultivation outside the Andes, limited knowledge of best management practices - especially nutrient and water requirements, pest and disease control, harvesting and processing under marginal growing conditions, and lack of suitable marketing channels where smallholder farmers could sell their produce.

Mr. Abdessalam Saleh Ould Ahmed, FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, said: "The United Nations declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa and this gave a renewed impetus to efforts to study nutritional, economic, environmental and cultural value of this food. We hope that this conference will be a turning point in raising awareness on the potential of quinoa for food and nutrition security in marginal environments."

Held under the title of 'Quinoa for Future Food and Nutrition Security in Marginal Environments' and running through December 8, the conference seeks to find ways to implement research and development programs and initiatives to introduce and scale up quinoa in marginal environments.

The conference is also aimed at building partnerships between public and private institutions, research and development organizations, and serving as a platform for the transfer of the latest innovation and knowledge on quinoa.

Held under the patronage of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance of the UAE and President of Zayed University, the conference is organized by the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed University, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), and with the technical contribution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

About ICBA

The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) is an international, non-profit research-for-development organization that aims to strengthen agricultural productivity in marginal and saline environments through identifying, testing and facilitating access to sustainable solutions for food, nutrition and income security.

http://www.biosaline.org

About Zayed University

Zayed University is a national and regional leader in educational innovation and change. It has created and implemented a skills-rich, outcome-based general education program that systemically develops student skills, knowledge, and values associated with liberal learning and provides a solid foundation for pursuit of disciplinary majors and future careers. Zayed University welcomes national and international students, and provides them with a high quality education, offered by seasoned teaching scholars to prepare them to shape the future of the United Arab Emirates.

http://www.zu.ac.ae

About FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Headquartered in Rome, Italy and operating in over 130 countries, it provides development assistance aimed at strengthening agriculture, forestry and fisheries, improving nutrition, and reducing poverty. FAO focuses special attention on developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the world's poor and hungry.

http://www.fao.org

About the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment

The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment was established in February 2006 as the Ministry of Environment and Water. The ministry acquired its new name following the UAE Cabinet reshuffle in February 2016 and the subsequent integration of the climate change function.

Under its redefined scope, the ministry has taken on a dual mandate. On the national level, the ministry aims to strengthen the UAE's efforts in preserving the environment and promoting food diversity in accordance with the nation's aspiration to emerge as a key benchmark for sustainable development. On the global level, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment will join international stakeholders in combating climate change and profile the UAE's path-breaking achievements in the sector at thought leadership platforms worldwide.

http://www.moccae.gov.ae



Press enquiries:

Mr. Abdumutalib Begmuratov (ICBA): [email protected], or +971-56-505-2483

Ms. Mariam Hamed (FAO): [email protected], or +971-56-5258125 / +2-0100-6335492

SOURCE International Center for Biosaline Agriculture
NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to enhance the experience for buyers, sellers and brokers alike, brokerage Engel & Volkers teamed up with renowned New York City Digital Agency, Blue Fountain Media, to launch local website, evre.nyc, complementing the firm's global web platforms. Engel & Volkers NYC is a top-performing Manhattan-based brokerage under the umbrella of international real estate firm Engel & Volkers, based in Hamburg, Germany.

Engel & Volkers' listings are already presented on many prominent real estate websites, including the firm's global and North American-based web platforms, but the firm was looking for a site that would serve as an elegant and intensely NYC-focused digital resume for the brokerage's agents and their listings.

The website, designed by Blue Fountain Media, a digital agency specializing in custom website design and digital marketing, provides an in-depth look at the firm's exclusives, with full-screen images for every listing and even a map incorporating a curated list of nearby "favorites" from restaurants and coffee shops to parks and landmarks. The site also highlights the brokerage's talent, accompanying advisor profiles with featured sales, press and social media links. From every device, the design and presentation of listings and advisors facilitate quick connections. There are also content sections about the city, the buying and selling process and Engel & Volkers' history and ongoing global activities.

"Blue Fountain put together a great team for us that very quickly understood our brand aesthetic and our business. We couldn't have asked for a better technology partner," said Stuart Siegel, President and CEO of Engel & Volkers NYC.

"We carefully crafted a boutique experience that reflects the brokerage's focus on service to both its clients and agents. The site's responsive design ensures that an excellent user-experience is provided to customers across all channels," said Gabriel Shaoolian, CEO & Founder of Blue Fountain Media.

Please visit the site here: evre.nyc

About Blue Fountain Media

Blue Fountain Media is a digital agency in NYC focused on growing brands online through effective websites and online marketing. From start-ups to Fortune 1000s, Blue Fountain Media helps generate more leads and increased brand recognition. For more information visit Blue Fountain Media online.

About Engel & Volkers NYC

Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1977, Engel & Volkers (www.engelvoelkers.com) currently operates a global network of over 7,000 real estate advisors in more than 700 brokerages spanning 37 countries. Engel & Volkers NYC opened in 2014 and in 2016 was ranked the city's 4th largest mid-size brokerage.

Contact:

Paige Weiners

[email protected]

Karina Welch

[email protected]

SOURCE Blue Fountain Media

Related Links

http://www.bluefountainmedia.com


BALTIMORE, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Evergreen Health today announced that it has named Dustin Plantholt as its Chief Sales Officer.

"Dustin's wide range of high-level experience, his knowledge of the Maryland health insurance industry, and his incredible energy and enthusiasm will be enormous assets for Evergreen Health. I'm thrilled that he has joined our team," said Dr. Peter Beilenson, CEO of Evergreen Health.

Before joining Evergreen Health, Plantholt was the Vice President of Employee Benefits at PSA Insurance & Financial Services, one of the leading benefits consulting firms in the Mid-Atlantic region. In 2015, he served on the Evergreen Health Broker Advisory Council, the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Producer Advisory Committee and the CareFirst BCBS Broker Council. Plantholt is also a frequent keynote speaker at insurance industry events.

"Having served on the Evergreen Advisory Council, I am well aware of Evergreen's unique place in Maryland's health insurance marketplace. Nobody in the state can match Evergreen's commitment to providing high-quality health insurance and customer service at affordable prices. I can't wait to get started," Plantholt said.

Evergreen Health is a non-profit health co-op that was established in 2012 to provide high-quality, affordable, patient-centered health care in Maryland. The company now has 37,000 members. Its affiliate, Evergreen Health Care, operates full-service, innovative health centers in Baltimore City, White Marsh, Columbia and Greenbelt.

SOURCE Evergreen Health

Related Links

http://www.evergreenmd.org/


"Coman is a well-known member of the data management community, and we know he can support our vision and drive our business forward," said Jonathan Hulford-Funnell, global managing director, Experian Data Quality. "We remain committed to enabling business users to obtain quality, actionable data to add value to business initiatives. As we continue to expand our product portfolio within data quality and beyond into other data management markets, we are thrilled to have team members like Coman lead that transition."

"The data management market is evolving and growing at a rapid pace as more companies look to improve their data usage," said Wakefield, head of software engineering, Experian Data Quality. "Experian Data Quality is a leader in this market and is investing in the right areas to meet clients' needs today and tomorrow. I am excited to help this business grow and deliver easy-to-use tools that empower our clients to realize the power of their data."

Wakefield comes to Experian Data Quality from Magnitude Software, where he led a global team of architects and directors as vice president of engineering across Magnitude's various brands. Most notably, he set up the One Magnitude engineering project office to attain common standards and tooling across the product brands, enabling the integration of a new company within 30 days.

Prior to joining Magnitude Software, Wakefield was a founding member of Kalido, where he directed all product development activities for the Kalido product suite and held full responsibility for design, implementation and quality assurance. Additionally, Wakefield held a management position at Shell, where he managed a team of engineers developing and implementing bespoke systems.

About Experian Data Quality

Experian Data Quality is a global leader in providing data quality software and services to organizations of all sizes. We help our clients to proactively manage the quality of their data through world-class validation, matching, enrichment and profiling capabilities. With flexible software-as-a-service and on-premise deployment models, Experian Data Quality software allows organizations around the world to truly connect with their customers by delivering intelligent interactions, every time.

Established in 1990, with offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific, Experian Data Quality has more than 13,500 clients worldwide in retail, finance, education, insurance, government, healthcare and other sectors. For more information, visit https://www.edq.com.

About Experian

We are the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to our clients around the world. We help businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision-making. We also help people to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft. In 2015, we were named one of the "World's Most Innovative Companies" by Forbes magazine.

We employ approximately 17,000 people in 37 countries and our corporate headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended March 31, 2016, was US$4.6 billion.

To find out more about our company, please visit http://www.experianplc.com or watch our documentary, "Inside Experian."

Experian and the Experian marks used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Experian Information Solutions, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

Contact:

Erin Haselkorn

Experian Data Quality Public Relations

1 617 385 6700

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140915/146097

SOURCE Experian Data Quality

Related Links

http://www.experianplc.com


Best Overall Investor Relations (small & mid-cap)

Best in Sector: Real Estate

Best Investor Relations Officer (small & mid cap) -- Ms. Venus Zhao, Head of Investor Relations & Corporate Finance

FEC also received the other five award nominations:

Top 7 Best Use of Technology

Top 7 Best Corporate Governance

Top 5 Most Progress in IR

Top 6 Best Sustainability Practice

Top 6 Best IR by a Senior Management Team -- David Chiu , CEO

For the last quarter-century, IR Magazine has honoured excellence in investor relations around the world with awards which recognise companies that are leading the way for the IR community. To this end, over 200 investors and analysts took part in this year's investor perception survey and identified six companies as leaders in each designated category. Any publicly traded company is eligible to be considered, with nominees identified and judged based on in-depth research conducted through a combination of an electronic survey and one-on-one telephone interviews with seasoned professionals across the investment community.

Mr. Chris Hoong, Managing Director of FEC said: "We are greatly encouraged and honoured to receive these prestigious awards from IR Magazine. We wish to express our sincere thanks to the entire investment community for their recognition and continuous support. My congratulations also go out to Ms. Venus Zhao, our Head of Investors Relations and Corporate Finance, who won the 'Best Investor Relations Officer (small & mid cap)' award for two consecutive years after being recognized as a Top 4 Best Investor Relations Officer (small & Mid-cap) last year. This is indeed a resounding recognition by the global investment community of our Group's efforts to achieve excellence in corporate governance, investor relations, public disclosure, communications, and transparency. Encouraged by these award recognitions, we will continue to uphold best-in-class standards in our investor relations work and corporate governance while carrying out best practices with clear accountability to the investment community and general public at large."

Ms. Venus Zhao, Head of Group Investors Relations and Corporate Finance of FEC said: "It is quite an honour for FEC to receive these awards in eight categories, which validates our leading performance across greater China. I am also very honoured to have won the individual award of "Best Investor Relations Officer (small & mid cap)". I must say that without a doubt the support I have received from the Board of Directors and our senior management has definitely been indispensable to my success and that of the Group."

About Far East Consortium International Limited

Far East Consortium International Limited has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1972 (HKEx stock code: 35.HK). The Group is mainly engaged in property development and investment, hotel operation and management, as well as car park and facilities management. The Group adopts diversified regional strategy and the "Chinese Wallet" strategy with business covering Hong Kong, Mainland China, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

FEC official website:

www.fecil.com.hk

FEC Weibo:

http://www.weibo.com/u/5703712831

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445994

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445995

SOURCE Far East Consortium International Limited
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- DiDomenico marked a place in history by being the first American designer to showcase designs in Cuba since the embargo was put in place in 1960.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445482

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445483

Dominick was approached by Cuban Trade representatives after showing in New York Fashion Week wanting to help strengthen trade between Cuba and the U.S. in a non political forum. And what better way to accomplish this than through the arts.

Developing new relations with this old friend of American trade has such sensitive intricacies. However, all is about to change on a big scale for the fashion industry for the Cubans and DiDomenico is helping Cuba pave new roads for trade in US market.

"There are so many ways to break barriers between countries that are at conflict. Fashion is one of those ways. I am passionate about how design moves people and ultimately moves the world," says Dominick.

Head director of Arte y Moda for the past 20 years, Juan Carlos comments, "Kelsy Dominick is not only the first American designer to show in Cuba since the embargo, but she is also the first to ever show in Arte y Moda's entire history. Given of our history with the U.S. it is even possible she may be the first American everwe are honored to have her."

Right behind French designer label Chanel having just shown in April, the French have always been able to have access to the Havana platform. Americans however, are breaking into new territory and causing a stir of response.

"The level of difficulty getting to Havana not only as an American, but as a company was well worth the response of the people that came after," reflects Dominick.

The Chanel fashion show was not for the people. Even the people of Havana were not permitted into the show. DiDomenico is changing that dynamic and made a fashion platform for the people, by the people.

Hard to avoid the politics of it all DiDomenico and the Arte y Moda team believe that the only way to break down that barrier is through the arts.

Arte y Moda is the largest fashion event in Cuba's history. Standing for over 20 years, it has been acclaimed the highlight of Havana fashion and a global stage for inspiration. Many acclaimed artists and diplomats attend the event from countries all over the world.

Arte y Moda celebrated their 20-year anniversary in conjunction with Dominick's showcase. The event was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts in La Habana, Cuba.

About DiDomenico Designs

DiDomenico Designs was founded in 2009 by Kelsy Dominick. DiDomenico Designs embodies simple elegancea wardrobe that transcends through time. Learn more at www.didomenicodesign.com.

Media Contact:

Kelsy Dominick

703.994.8554

[email protected]

SOURCE DiDomenico Designs

Related Links

http://www.didomenicodesign.com


FORT BELVOIR, Va., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lendlease, the nation's leader in public-private community development, celebrated the grand opening of the new Staybridge Suites on Fort Belvoir, the first of its kind on a military installation. The hotel's ribbon cutting event highlighted the innovative partnership between the United States Army, Lendlease and IHG Army Hotels.

With a goal of providing high quality lodging for the nation's premier military installation, Lendlease and hotel operator IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) chose the Staybridge Suites brand for its extended stay model and upgraded amenities. The hotel includes a mix of one and two-bedroom suites and studios. In an effort to support the unique needs of government travelers and visitors to the nearby Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, the hotel features additional ADA rooms, multiple conference rooms and meeting spaces, a zero entry pool, a great room and den, a children's room and playground, and a dog walking area.

"With its prime location right outside of Washington, D.C., we were determined to deliver a world class lodging facility for our Service Members," said Gretchen Griffin, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Lendlease's Privatization of Army Lodging (PAL) Program. "Our goal as a company is to create the best places, and we feel confident that we achieved that goal with the Staybridge Suites on Fort Belvoir."

As part of the PAL Program, Lendlease is the owner, developer, design-builder and asset manager for the Staybridge Suites on Fort Belvoir, and the exclusive developer for the Department of Defense's only lodging privatization program. IHG is the hotel operator. Lendlease has delivered 17 Holiday Inn Express and eight Candlewood Suites hotels throughout the United States. With innovation as a key driver, Lendlease delivered the first hotel in the US constructed of Cross Laminated Timber on Redstone Arsenal in the spring of 2016, and the 310-room Candlewood Suites on Joint Base San Antonio, the largest in the world, in 2014.

For additional information, contact:

Lacey Jamison

Marketing Coordinator, Lendlease

T 615 324 7591 | M 615 477 0170

[email protected]

About Lendlease

Lendlease is a leading international property and infrastructure group. Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and with circa 12,000 (June 2016) employees worldwide, Lendlease's capabilities span the property value chain.

In the US, Lendlease's Communities business is the nation's leader in public/private community development. With a focus on creating sustainable value, Lendlease creates communities that regenerate our environment, enrich people's lives and foster economic growth. Lendlease has worked extensively with the Department of Defense through the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI), a program that provides for the transfer of military housing assets to private sector companies. With over 40,000 residential units, 192 apartments and more than 12,000 hotel rooms in its portfolio, Lendlease will finance, develop, build, renovate and operate these sites for at least 50 years.

www.lendlease.com

SOURCE Lendlease

Related Links

http://www.lendlease.com


HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fish Consulting, a national communications firm specializing in franchise public relations and marketing, announced today it has signed on five new clients across a diverse range of industries, including the International Franchise Association's (IFA) Annual Convention, BurgerFi, Always Best Care Senior Services, Club Pilates and The Gents Place.

"We're proud that after 12 years, Fish continues to be viewed as the PR firm of choice for franchise brands across the country who are looking to grow their business," said Lorne Fisher, CFE, CEO of Fish Consulting, LLC. "As we wrap up a successful 2016 and gear up for next year, we're looking forward to helping each of our new clients reach and exceed their business goals."

The International Franchise Association's Annual Convention is the most significant gathering of franchise professionals and a must-attend event for all executives in the industry. Fish has been brought on to increase attendance at the 2017 Annual Convention through the development and execution of fully integrated marketing campaigns targeting member and non-member executives (franchisor, franchisees and suppliers) who have not attended IFA conventions in the past.

BurgerFi, one of the nation's fastest growing, all-natural "better burger" restaurant concepts, has hired Fish to strengthen national awareness of the brand and reinforce BurgerFi as an attractive franchise opportunity among prospects in order to expand its national footprint.

The firm has also begun working with Always Best Care Senior Services, one of the leading senior care franchise systems in the United States, and is tasked with growing business for franchisees across the country, increasing brand awareness among target audiences and driving qualified franchisee leads for U.S. and international development.

With more than 350 locations sold across 28 states, Club Pilates is the fastest growing Pilates franchise in the country. As they continue to expand, the company enlisted Fish to help them drive qualified leads for franchise development and raise brand awareness of Club Pilates as an attractive franchise opportunity.

Lastly, The Gents Place, an ultra-premium men's grooming and lifestyle club, hired Fish to manage its national and local franchise development PR to drive awareness and leads for the brand.

Fish recently celebrated its 12th anniversary and has experienced significant growth over the past several years. In 2016, Fish was named for the third consecutive year to the Inc. 5000, Inc. Magazine's ranking of the fastest growing privately held companies in America. Additionally, PRWeek and the South Florida Business Journal have named Fish a "Best Places to Work" in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

About Fish Consulting

Fish is proud to leverage its experience in franchising to serve some of the industry's leading concepts including Dunkin' Donuts, Orangetheory Fitness, The Dwyer Group, Valpak, AAMCO and Tropical Smoothie Cafe, among others. The agency's support for franchise clients range from brand building, franchisee recruitment and internal communications to crisis communications, cause marketing, local/national media relations and social media management. Fish is based in Hollywood, Fla., with operations in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New York and London. For more information call 954-893-9150 or visit www.fish-consulting.com. For additional franchise insights follow Fish on Twitter @fishconsulting or Facebook.

Contact:

Chelsea Bear

Fish Consulting

954-893-9150

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141205/162649LOGO

SOURCE Fish Consulting

Related Links

http://www.fish-consulting.com


WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals and encouraging youth to pursue their dreams through higher education, today announced that Richard J Stephenson, founder and chairman, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, has been selected for membership in the prestigious organization. Mr. Stephenson, widely recognized for his philanthropic efforts, global business leadership, and establishment of a new standard in personalized cancer care, joins 10 other esteemed business and civic leaders from across North America in receiving this honor in 2017. For the last 70 years, the Horatio Alger Award has been annually bestowed upon admirable leaders who have succeeded despite facing adversity, and who are committed to higher education and charitable efforts in their local communities.

Mr. Stephenson grew up in Sheridan, IN, a small farming town of 1,200, and was raised with his brother, Michael, by loving and devoted parents who taught him to understand and follow a morally centered and principled way of life. Much of Mr. Stephenson's childhood and early adulthood was devoted to caring for his brother, who faced many lifelong health challenges. His dedication to helping those around him remains a driving force behind everything he pursues. An entrepreneur from a very early age, Mr. Stephenson would help his father with his work at a pharmacy and later took on various jobs around town  mowing lawns, collecting trash, distributing milk and delivering newspapers. His business acumen expanded in college, as he created a handyman services and consulting company, hiring college friends as part-time employees. After graduating from Wabash College, he started his own merchant banking firm before receiving his juris doctor degree from Northwestern Law School.

Mr. Stephenson quickly developed a highly successful international merchant banking career, building businesses and employing many thousands around the world. While his business grew, his family always took center stage in his life. When his beloved mother, Mary, endured a lengthy battle with cancer before succumbing to the disease, he witnessed firsthand through her painful journey the failure of healthcare providers to listen to her needs and put her care and concerns first. He noted, also, the lack of comprehensive, compassionate, innovative and integrated treatment options that took the whole person into account, and he vowed to change the face of cancer care in his mother's memory.

In 1988, he opened his first Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) hospital and committed this new chapter in his life's work to delivering cancer patients and their families what he aptly coined the Mother Standard of care; the kind of care you would want for your loved one. Today, CTCA is a nationally recognized network of five regional medical centers providing a personalized, clinically outstanding, patient-centered Mother Standard of care throughout the United States.

"My fellow Horatio Alger Members and I are pleased to welcome Richard to the Association," remarked Byron Trott, president, Horatio Alger Association, and 2011 Horatio Alger Award recipient. "His entrepreneurial spirit and passionate commitment to caring for others are traits that both Scholars and Members can appreciate and strive to emulate. Richard's entire career has been devoted to helping others rise above a different kind of adversity  cancer  providing them with the support, care and comfort needed to face this life-threatening challenge. We are confident that Richard will lend that same heart and dedication to the Association and we look forward to working alongside him."

Mr. Stephenson also founded and supports five unique charities in each of the regions where his hospitals are located. The Assistance in Healthcare Foundations provide millions of dollars in important financial support to families in need of simple relief from "everyday" stressful expenses back home (i.e. rent, food, utilities). He is a Distinguished Eagle Scout in America, a 33 Scottish Rite Freemason, and a dedicated global philanthropist offering his time, talent and treasure to many non-profit organizations with a focus on liberty, private property, free markets and individual freedom. Additionally, in 1991, Mr. Stephenson created the Gateway for Cancer Research, setting out on a personal quest to transform cancer research and care by empowering patients with integrative therapies and innovative treatment options. Twenty five years, 3,000 patients, 140 breakthrough clinical trials around the world and more than $70 million raised later, his personal quest has become transformative and a beacon of hope for those diagnosed with cancer.

"Receiving the Horatio Alger Award means a great deal to me and my family, and I am grateful," said Mr. Stephenson. "My mother inspired my career and as a strong supporter of education herself, I know she'd be very proud as I receive this honor. The loving 'wind beneath my wings,' my five dynamite children, eight grandchildren, and beautiful wife, Dr. Stacie Stephenson, share in this pride. The Horatio Alger Association is all about lifting people up and providing hope and support during their most challenging times. This has been my life's mission and I look forward to working with my fellow Members to provide support for young people as they work to overcome adversity in pursuit of their dreams."

Through its Members, Horatio Alger Association aims to educate young people about the limitless opportunities afforded them by the free-enterprise system. To further this goal, the organization awards scholarships to outstanding high school students who are committed to pursuing higher education and giving back to their communities. Like Association Members, Horatio Alger Scholars have faced significant adversities, but have also displayed unmatched resilience in overcoming their challenges. Since the scholarship program was established in 1984, Horatio Alger Association has provided more than $125 million to students in need. Scholarships are funded solely through the generosity of Association Members, Life Partners and friends.

Mr. Stephenson and the Member Class of 2017 will be formally inducted into the Association on March 30-April 1, 2017, during the Association's 70th Horatio Alger Award Induction Ceremonies in Washington, D.C. The annual three-day event honors the achievements of both Members and National Scholars, affording both groups the opportunity to meet and interact, exchanging stories of hardships and triumphs.

For more information about Horatio Alger Association and its Member Class of 2017, please visit www.horatioalger.org and/or follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using hashtag #HoratioAlgerAward. To schedule an interview with Mr. Stephenson, please contact Michael Myers at 561.923.3179 or [email protected].

About Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans:

Founded in 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc. is dedicated to the simple but powerful belief that hard work, honesty and determination can conquer all obstacles. The Association honors the achievements of outstanding leaders who have accomplished remarkable successes in spite of adversity by bestowing upon them the Horatio Alger Award and inducting them as lifetime Members. Horatio Alger Members support promising young people with the resources and confidence needed to overcome adversity in pursuit of their dreams through higher education. Through the generosity of its Members and friends, the Association awards more than $12 million annually in undergraduate and graduate need-based scholarships across the United States and Canada and provides college support and mentoring services to its Scholars. Since 1984, the Association has awarded more than $125 million in college scholarships to more than 25,000 deserving young people. For more information, please visit www.horatioalger.org.

CONTACT:

McKenna Young

484-385-2913 (office)

[email protected]

SOURCE Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.horatioalger.org


Kantar Millward Brown, a leading global research agency helping businesses grow strong brands, today released its annual digital and media predictions for 2017. For the ninth year running, the company's predictions provide marketers with a clear guide to the challenges and opportunities of the next 12 months, helping them shape their digital marketing strategies.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160921/410216 )



Top of the marketing to do list for the year should be gaining a rapid understanding of the needs, aspirations and behaviours of Generation Z, also called post-millennials and centennials. Brands will have to create better connected consumer journeys that are less intrusive with a smarter and more measured approach that discourages ad blocking.

Marketers will also need to develop creative content that appeals to the imagination and emotions of the Gen Z consumer, if they want to be accepted by this key group, who number a staggering 2 billion people worldwide - approximately 27% of the world's population was born between 1997 and 2011.

"Gen Z will not only change how brands communicate but also create challenges in how brands demonstrate authenticity and transparency in digital," said, Duncan Southgate, Global Brand Director, Media & Digital at Kantar Millward Brown. "Strategies that are likely to be successful include investment in digital platforms that allow consumers to co-create a shared brand experience; Gen Z will be hands on - they want to try it, take it apart and re-create it."

Brands will have to be more open, share their story, their purpose and details of their production processes to allow Gen Z to determine if the brand's values match their own.

Finally, marketers will have to move away from their current focus on the linear, factual and linguistic in favour of digital content that appeals to the imagination via technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR); immersive formats that allow for stronger visual imagery. Gen Z will also respond much more than Millennials to emotional, musical narratives, creating new opportunities for creativity that appeals to all of people's senses.

Southgate added: "This will require a new approach to branded content. With the landscape ripe for new creativity, marketers will need to closely monitor which formats Gen Z and other consumers find annoying and intrusive, particularly on their first screen, mobile. Alongside this new form of content, marketers also need to deliver a seamless brand experience across all touchpoints. Gen Z have grown up in a connected world and are impatient towards disjointed online/offline models that are older than they are - and this group will not adapt."

Making all this happen, requires a single view of the consumer and a consistent brand experience, something that will require new ideas and considerable time and investment. For many established brands, this will require years of focus on structure and data management. In 2017, the goal should be to focus on tone of voice and delivering a consistent brand experience across touchpoints that have the most impact and influence.

Kantar Millward Brown also anticipates other important changes, including:

Balancing targeting and intrusion - In 2017, marketers will focus on finding the right balance between programmatic targeting and what consumers feel is an intrusive level of messaging. Advertisers and their agencies will use a greater mix of audience targeting data based on brand affinity, interests and the appropriate demographics. Kantar Millward Brown expects to see a shift away from simplistic blunt-instrument targeting based on a single input - be it behavior (websites visited, items in a shopping cart), demographics, or stand-alone brand affinity.

- In 2017, marketers will focus on finding the right balance between programmatic targeting and what consumers feel is an intrusive level of messaging. Advertisers and their agencies will use a greater mix of audience targeting data based on brand affinity, interests and the appropriate demographics. Kantar Millward Brown expects to see a shift away from simplistic blunt-instrument targeting based on a single input - be it behavior (websites visited, items in a shopping cart), demographics, or stand-alone brand affinity. More media synergies - Marketers will wake up to the growing significance of media synergies in 2017, and their potential to maximise brand and sales impact. CrossMedia studies conducted by Kantar Millward Brown show that synergies can drive 25% of media effectiveness globally and nearly 40% in the Asia-Pacific region. Increasingly, non-TV synergies are emerging, creating new opportunities for advertisers and agencies, to ensure the sum of the media schedule is always greater than its parts.

- Marketers will wake up to the growing significance of media synergies in 2017, and their potential to maximise brand and sales impact. CrossMedia studies conducted by Kantar Millward Brown show that synergies can drive 25% of media effectiveness globally and nearly 40% in the region. Increasingly, non-TV synergies are emerging, creating new opportunities for advertisers and agencies, to ensure the sum of the media schedule is always greater than its parts. Positive action to deter ad blocking - The good news for brands is that the rising tide of ad blocking could be on the turn. While advertisers and publishers will have to adopt better ad formats and proactively look to engage with consumers on the issue, the current set of ad blocking tools are demonstrating their own lack of authenticity via site performance issues/ content restrictions and the questionable ethics of attempting to make money from the ad units they authorise.

"Every year brings new challenges but the emergence of Gen Z puts the focus on a new generation of consumers who are different to their predecessors. Vast in number and mobile first, they have come of age in the wake of the global financial crisis and will make new demands of brands that want to earn a place in their lives. Understanding the nuances of Gen Z should be a priority for marketers as they work out how their communications and the tools that power them will need to adapt in the years ahead," concluded Southgate.

To read the predictions, go to http://www.millwardbrown.com/DigitalPredictions

About Kantar Millward Brown

Kantar Millward Brown is a leading global research agency specialising in advertising effectiveness, strategic communication, media and brand equity research. The company helps clients grow great brands through comprehensive research-based qualitative and quantitative solutions. Part of Kantar, WPP's data investment management division, Kantar Millward Brown operates in more than 55 countries. Learn more at http://www.millwardbrown.com.

For further information, please contact:

Alastair Ray, PR Consultant

Eureka Communications

Tel: +44 (0)1420 564346

Email: [email protected]

or

Lisa Parente

Kantar Millward Brown

Tel: +1 203 219 6976

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Kantar Millward Brown
"At Georgia Power, we are a citizen wherever we serve and strongly believe that we have an obligation as Georgia's largest utility provider to help make our communities better," said Mike Anderson, Georgia Power's senior vice president of Community and Corporate Relations. "Our community involvement is multi-faceted, including charitable giving through our Foundation and thousands of employee volunteers serving hundreds of hours in their communities. Although our Foundation is only 30 years old, giving back to the communities where we live and work has been a part of our heritage for more than 130 years."

The Georgia Power Foundation's support of health and human services, education, environment, arts and culture, and civic and community organizations range from those with a national reach and local presence, such as the American Red Cross, to organizations focused only on Georgia communities, such as Grady Hospital in Atlanta.

"Our longtime partnership with Georgia Power means so much to the Red Cross and the people we serve," said Terri Badour, CEO, American Red Cross of Georgia. "Together, we help families prepare for and recover from all types of disasters in our state and the ongoing support makes a meaningful difference for neighbors in need."

Established in 1986, the Georgia Power Foundation has contributed more than $170 million and supported more than 2,000 qualifying nonprofit organizations across Georgia. In 2015, contributions included $3 million to health & human services organizations, $4.4 million towards improving education, $2.6 million for environmental stewardship, $1.2 million to arts & culture organizations and $752,000 towards civic & community agencies for a total of $12M contributed across the state.

To learn more about the Georgia Power Foundation, Inc., and apply for a grant, visit GeorgiaPower.com/Community.

About Georgia Power

Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), America's premier energy company. Value, Reliability, Customer Service and Stewardship are the cornerstones of the company's promise to 2.5 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties. Committed to delivering clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy at rates below the national average, Georgia Power maintains a diverse, innovative generation mix that includes nuclear, 21st century coal and natural gas, as well as renewables such as solar, hydroelectric and wind. Georgia Power focuses on delivering world-class service to its customers every day and the company is consistently recognized by J.D. Power and Associates as an industry leader in customer satisfaction. For more information, visit www.GeorgiaPower.com and connect with the company on Facebook (Facebook.com/GeorgiaPower) and Twitter (Twitter.com/GeorgiaPower).

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446284

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050216/CLW066LOGO

SOURCE Georgia Power Foundation, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.GeorgiaPower.com


JACKSON CENTER, Pa., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- There are three main reasons Scott Clausen, president of Glacier Technology, chose to represent Imperial Systems, Inc. and their CMAXX line of dust and fume collectors, and it started with Scott's meeting with Imperial Systems president and CEO Jeremiah Wann. When the two found that they had much in common, including but not limited to a strong commitment to their companies, a great partnership was born.

"The first thing about Imperial Systems is the product," Scott says. "The CMAXX has a great design, it looks great, and it can be specified to be exactly what each customer needs it to be." He notes that the DeltaMAXX filters they received passed all tests and stood up to their quality standards, and that the CMAXX is one of only a few collectors on the market with IDA (in-line deflagration arrester) certification, a critical safety feature.

The second thing that drew Glacier Technology to Imperial Systems was the company itself, including Jeremiah Wann. "Jeremiah values relationships," Scott says. "He really understands reps and dealers, and supports them and helps them market their products." Imperial Systems, Inc. products are made in the USA and are custom designed. Scott also appreciated the "can-do" attitude and the attention to quality and customer service. Customer feedback has been very positive, especially with the immediate and helpful support provided by the Imperial Systems ServiceMAXX team.

The third reason for choosing Imperial Systems, Scott says, is the support they offer their reps and their customers. They previously represented Camfil Farr, and Glacier Technology finds that Imperial Systems offers better territory protection, personal support, and easy communication. Imperial Systems unique relationship with their representatives means supporting them and making them successful.

Glacier Technology, Inc. has an excellent reputation in the field of industrial ventilation and filtration, and they will only represent companies that meet their high standards. Imperial Systems is proud to have met these standards. Scott values his relationship with the company and notes that no one else provides the same level of support and attention.

"We want to provide the same level of quality and support to all our customers," Jeremiah Wann says. "Glacier Technology has the expertise to bring our products to new customers and challenge us with new applications."

To learn more about this partnership, or to contact Glacier Technology, Inc. in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, reach out to Scott Clausen at http://www.glacier-technology.com/. For Imperial Products in other states, contact us at http://isystemsweb.com/.

ABOUT IMPERIAL SYSTEMS, INC.

Located just north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the small town of Jackson Center, Imperial Systems, Inc. is one of the top dust collection equipment manufacturers in North America. Their values are built on designing and installing custom industrial dust collection systems with the strongest, most durable fabrication to meet each customer's needs.

ABOUT GLACIER TECHNOLOGY, INC.

Located in Plymouth, Minnesota, Glacier Technology specializes in advanced solutions for OEM fan applications and industrial ventilation and filtration of smoke, dust, fumes, and mist. They specialize in selecting equipment and design systems to maximize efficiency, minimize energy consumption and reduce noise generation.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151117/288329LOGO

SOURCE Imperial Systems, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.isystemsweb.com


LONDON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Glyphosate, a broad-spectrum non-selective herbicide widely used to kill unwanted plants both in agricultural and in nonagricultural landscapes, has been in a leading position in the world's herbicides in the past few years.



Glyphosate witnessed the market downturn once again, with the price much lower than that in 2013 and 2014. Many Chinese companies temporally or completely stopped glyphosate production because of the low price as well as stricter environmental protection requirements.



The domestic IDAN route glyphosate producers once purchase IDAN to produce PMIDA and then glyphosate technical, but the situation changes along with the launch of Sichuan Hebang Biotechnology Co., Ltd.'s 135,000 t/a PMIDA. Some companies turn to purchase PMIDA to produce glyphosate technical under the situation of sluggish glyphosate market.



IDAN route shows a strong competitiveness compared to DEA route, but the former will face the challenge of possible price rise of natural gas in the future.



For your better understanding and decision making about the glyphosate market in China, CCM's report Glyphosate Market Research in China provides you the latest market information of China's glyphosate.



In this report, you will be able to find your answers as we will show you:



- Development trend of glyphosate technology;

- Development trend of glyphosate technical in China by three routes;

- China's export of glyphosate to Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, 2011-2015

- Supply of glyphosate technical and formulations in China;

- Consumption structure of glyphosate in China;

- Herbicide consumption structure in China.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4425666/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

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SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Edmunds.com, the leading car information and shopping network, today announced that is has been named one of the 2016 Best Workplaces for Diversity, according to global research and consulting firm Great Place to Work and Fortune. Edmunds ranked No. 20 out of 50 companies on the list, which is based on employees' assessments of workplace fairness, opportunities for training, and access to senior leadership, among other factors. Edmunds has also been recognized as one of the Best Workplaces for Asian Americans, ranking No. 6 out of 10 companies.

"At Edmunds, we strive to create an innovative, rewarding and inclusive work environment that gives everyone the opportunity to grow and advance in their careers, and it's truly exciting to be recognized for all our efforts," said Edmunds.com CEO Avi Steinlauf. "With employees from all over the globe, we've been able to cultivate an office culture that brings different backgrounds and perspectives into the workplace to foster new ideas and push the boundaries of innovation."

These two honors come on the heels of a series of accolades that recognize Edmunds' unique work culture and office environment. This past October, the company was ranked as one of America's Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Fortune and Great Place to Work. Earlier in the year, Edmunds was named among the 2016 Best Places to Work in IT by IDG's Computerworld and its CEO Avi Steinlauf was named a Glassdoor Highest Rated CEO. 2016 also marks the seventh consecutive year that Edmunds has been recognized by the Los Angeles Business Journal as a Best Place to Work in Los Angeles.

"We congratulate this year's winners for showing that diverse workplaces are good for ALL employees," said Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. "Bottom line? Our research shows that the most inclusive workplaces enjoy significantly higher revenue growth than less-inclusive workplacesevidence that these organizations are cultivating the full human potential of all their people."

To see the full list of the 2016 Best Workplaces for Diversity, please click here.

Edmunds is now hiring for 27 job openings across the country. Interested candidates can see available positions and submit applications at http://www.edmunds.com/careers/.

About Edmunds, Inc.

Car shopping destination Edmunds.com serves millions of visitors each month. With Edmunds Price Promise, shoppers can buy smarter with instant, upfront prices for cars and trucks currently for sale at 10,000 dealer franchises across the U.S. Shoppers can browse not only dealer inventory, but also vehicle reviews, shopping tips, photos, videos and feature stories on both Edmunds' wired site and on its acclaimed mobile apps. Regarded as one of the best places to work in Southern California, Edmunds.com was also named one of "The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Automotive" by Fast Company. Edmunds welcomes all car-shopping questions on its free Shopper Advice Line at 1-855-782-4711 and [email protected], via text at ED411 and on Twitter and Facebook. The company is based in Santa Monica, Calif. and has a satellite office in downtown Detroit, Mich., but you can find Edmunds from anywhere on YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Flipboard.

About The Best Workplaces for Diversity and The Best Workplaces for Asian Americans

Published together with our partner, Fortune, The Best Workplaces for Diversity ranking is based upon feedback from 448,456 employees at Great Place to Work-Certified companies who completed our Trust Index Employee Survey. Employees from all backgrounds answered 58 questions about how frequently they experience the behaviors that create a great workplace, considering everything from how comfortable they are being themselves, to the degree of favoritism or insider politics they observe in the workplace, the fairness of promotions, the feeling of honest connection with co-workers, their access to senior leadership, and who receives information and professional development and who doesn't.

To determine the winners, Great Place to Work analyzed how positively women, minorities and LGBTQ employees reported experiencing their workplace overall, paying special attention to an index of factors where these employees tend to have a less positive experience than their colleagues. Rankings take into account how favorably women, minorities and LGBTQ employees experience their workplace relative to their male, Caucasian and heterosexual colleagues' experiences. The list also considered the degree of representation women and minorities enjoy within the workforce as a whole, as well as in management and executive roles. Organizations needed to have at least 50 employees to be considered and were compared to peers of similar size.

About Great Place to Work

Great Place to Work is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, including Best Workplaces lists and workplace reviews, Great Place to Work provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures. In the United States, Great Place to Work produces the annual Fortune "100 Best Companies to Work For" and a series of Great Place to Work Best Workplaces lists, including lists for Millennials, Women, Diversity, Small and Medium Companies and over a half dozen different industries.

Follow Great Place to Work online at www.greatplacetowork.com and on Twitter at @GPTW_US.

Contact:

Allie Zamaria

Edmunds.com Corporate Communications

Media Hotline: 310-309-4900

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130612/MM31390LOGO

SOURCE Edmunds.com

Related Links

http://www.edmunds.com


EVANSTON, Ill., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Katalyst Technologies is one of the 2016 Best Workplaces for Asian Americans, according to global research and consulting firm Great Place to Work and Fortune.

Katalyst Technologies ranked first on the list, which is based on employees' assessments of workplace fairness, opportunities for training, and access to senior leadership, among other factors.

"We have always considered Katalyst to be an open environment where employees' nationalities can be celebrated," said Rahul Shah, founder and CEO of Katalyst Technologies. "In addition to our quarterly potluck lunches where employees bring food that's common to their home country, we also celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, with all of our employees."

"We congratulate this year's winners for showing that diverse workplaces are good for ALL employees," said Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. "Bottom line? Our research shows that the most inclusive workplaces enjoy significantly higher revenue growth than less-inclusive workplaces evidence that these organizations are cultivating the full human potential of all their people."

In conjunction with the 2016 Best Workplaces for Asian Americans, Great Place to Work is publishing other Best Workplaces for Diversity lists. These include the Best Workplaces for Diversity overall, the Best Workplaces for Latinos and the Best Workplaces for African Americans. Great Place to Work also has produced a report with survey data and workforce practices to help other workplaces become more inclusive.

To see the full list of the 2016 Best Workplaces for Asian Americans, click here. To see the schedule for all of Great Place to Work Best Workplace lists and more information on how to apply, visit Great Place to Work's website.

When sharing on social media about the 2016 Best Workplaces for Asian Americans, please use the hashtag: #bestworkplaces.

Katalyst Technologies also ranked as a best workplace for Millennials, and was named one of the top medium-sized companies in the country by Great Place to Work and Fortune.

About Katalyst Technologies

Katalyst Technologies is a rapidly expanding technology and services company. Headquartered in Chicago, Ill., Katalyst Technologies employs technology and IT professionals who provide a multitude of technology services for companies around the globe. In addition to application development, their other enterprise technology focuses include ERP solutions, supply chain management, and mechanical engineering.

About The Best Workplaces for Asian Americans

Published together with our partner, Fortune, The Best Workplaces for Diversity ranking is based upon feedback from 448,456 employees at Great Place to Work-Certified companies who completed our Trust Index Employee Survey. Employees from all backgrounds answered 58 questions about how frequently they experience the behaviors that create a great workplace, considering everything from how comfortable they are being themselves, to the degree of favoritism or insider politics they observe in the workplace, the fairness of promotions, the feeling of honest connection with co-workers, their access to senior leadership, and who receives information and professional development and who doesn't.

To determine the winners, Great Place to Work analyzed how positively women, minorities and LGBTQ employees reported experiencing their workplace overall, paying special attention to an index of factors where these employees tend to have a less positive experience than their colleagues. Rankings take into account how favorably women, minorities and LGBTQ employees experience their workplace relative to their male, Caucasian and heterosexual colleagues' experiences. The list also considered the degree of representation women and minorities enjoy within the workforce as a whole, as well as in management and executive roles. Organizations needed to have at least 50 employees to be considered and were compared to peers of similar size.

About Great Place to Work

Great Place to Work is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, including Best Workplaces lists and workplace reviews, Great Place to Work provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures. In the United States, Great Place to Work produces the annual Fortune "100 Best Companies to Work For" and a series of Great Place to Work Best Workplaces lists, including lists for Millennials, Women, Diversity, Small and Medium Companies and over a half dozen different industries.

Follow Great Place to Workonline at www.greatplacetowork.com and on Twitter at @GPTW_US.

Contact Information

Nichole Hembree

[email protected]

(847) 877-5039

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Katalyst Technologies
KENNEWICK, Wash., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Dozens of groups, organizations and decision-makers are opposing breaching of the Lower Snake River Dams in Washington State and are urging that the Trump administration directly intervene and/or convene a "God Squad" committee to protect the Lower Snake River Dams and put an end to discussions about breaching them.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445987

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445988

The request to the Trump Administration comes on the heels of a recent ruling by Federal Judge Michael Simon in Portland, in which he ordered that a new environmental study be done regarding the Lower Snake River Dams, after the federal government's latest plan for protecting threatened and endangered salmon indicated that breaching Snake River dams did not need to be considered and would cost at least $3 billion to taxpayers.

Additionally, with incoming President Trump stating that he will invest $1 trillion to improve our nation's infrastructure (including transportation, clean water, and a modern and reliable electricity grid), many hope that Donald Trump will stop this expensive attempt to try to remove vital energy and transportation infrastructure (i.ethe Lower Snake River Dams) in the western United States.

In fact, a recent report from Bonneville Power Administration highlighted the following benefits of the Lower Snake River Dams:

The four lower Snake River dams produce over 1,000 average megawatts of reliable, carbon-free energy. That's enough energy for over 800,000 average U.S. homes;

If the region were to replace the energy produced by the lower Snake dams, it would most likely be with a fossil fuels and natural gas;

A 2015 BPA reliability analysis concluded that replacement of the lower Snake dams with highly efficient natural gas generation would still increase the region's carbon dioxide emissions by 2.0 to 2.6 million metric tons annually;

The four lower Snake River dams include some of the most advanced and successful fish passage systems in the world;

New wind and solar generators depend on the dams for back-up power to make them economically viable.

Furthermore, according to October 2015 news release from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Col. Timothy Vail, Commander of the Walla Walla District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, stated that the Lower Snake River Dams provide a marine transportation corridor that helps move 3.5 million tons of cargo, worth $1.5 billion a year, to regional markets. On a related note, the Washington Association of Wheat Growers says the Columbia and Snake rivers make up the third-largest grain export system in the world. To move the same amount of wheat by road or rail annually would require 137,000 trucks or 23,900 rail cars.

Moreover, the Lower Snake River Dams provide irrigation for 60,000 acres of high value irrigated crops. "If the dams were breached, the pump stations would not function," stated Dr. Darryll Olsen, Board Representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association (CSRIA). "The end result would be a substantial reduction in irrigated acres, which would have a huge negative impact food processing and agriculture in the Pacific Northwest."

Fortunately, the Endangered Species Act allows the Trump administration's new Secretary of Interior to convene an Endangered Species Act Committee, or "God Squad," to set reasonable boundaries for hydro system operations. It is hoped that a Trump Administration "God Squad" would make a fair and equitable ruling that would end the cycle of repeated litigation, as well as the escalating and more expensive plans for what is already the most extensive fish protection and enhancement program in the world.

A key catalyst in calling for "God Squad" review has been CSRIA. According to Olsen, the most recent judicial decision requiring the new environmental review has ignored 20 years of improvements of the dams, increased fish runs, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries science on survival rates. "It is driven by a biased-court decision in what has become a salmon recovery industry over the last 20 years," Olsen said. "It is not how the Endangered Species Act was meant to be used."

The Bonneville Power Administration has spent $15 billion to successfully mitigate the dams' effect on fish and wildlife. In 1992-93, there were about 800 fall chinook above the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, according to CSRIA. The 2014-15 count of adult fish found about 35,000 wild Snake River fall chinook. According to fish survival data, the survival rate at each dam on the river is about 92 percent to 95 percent. "The raw fish survival numbers show that the Lower Snake River Dams are working," Olsen said.

Following are many recent editorials strongly supporting the protection of the Lower Snake River Dams:

For more information, contact Darryll Olsen of Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association at 509-783-1623 or [email protected].

SOURCE Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association
At a culminating event in Fort Worth, Habitat and Lowe's will revitalize 58 homes and string holiday lighting with 19 families, while celebrating surpassing that goal and bringing the joy of experiencing holiday traditions in the comfort of their homes to families in more than 300 communities nationwide.

"Homeownership and access to safe, decent and affordable housing is a struggle for many families in communities across the country," said Colleen Finn Ridenhour, deputy director, Corporate and Foundation Relations, Habitat for Humanity International. "This year Lowe's made a tremendous commitment to address this issue. Thanks to both a $4.5 million financial commitment, as well as the hands-on support of nearly 4,000 Lowe's Heroes volunteers, many Habitat homeowners' lives have been positively impacted."

Stable housing is foundational to building strength, stability, self-reliance and living a quality life, but in communities across the country, having access to a decent and affordable house is a challenge for many families. Nearly one in four households in the U.S. pays more than 30 percent of their income for housing, making it difficult to affording necessities such as food or clothing.1

Lowe's Heroes volunteers across the country provided their expertise and assistance to touch the lives of incredible families from across the nation including the Rico family from Fort Worth. Shelby Rico, a single mother of three children, thought homeownership was out of her reach until Trinity Habitat for Humanity accepted her application through its homeowner partner program. This year, after putting in more than 200 hours of sweat equity, including time actually framing her house during National Women Build Week, Shelby and her kids will celebrate Christmas morning together in their very first home.

"Lowe's has partnered with Habitat for Humanity for over a decade because we believe that a safe, stable home is a source of strength, pride and independence for families, and essential for building our communities," said James Frison, Lowe's director of community relations. "The holidays are a particularly meaningful time of year to spend in your home and that's why we committed to helping make that a reality for more than 1,000 families."

Lowe's and Habitat for Humanity launched the Home for the Holidays initiative in March at the Kobalt 400 and worked throughout the year to reach their goal through a variety of partnership events such as National Women Build Week, neighborhood revitalizations and Lowe's volunteer days.

Since 2003, Lowe's has committed more than $63 million to Habitat and helped more than 5,500 families improve their living conditions. Lowe's partners with Habitat for Humanity to build homes and revitalize communities around the country. Anyone interested in volunteering can learn more at Habitat.org/Lowes.

About Lowe's in the Community

Lowe's, a FORTUNE 50 home improvement company, has a 50-year legacy of supporting the communities it serves through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects. Since 2007, Lowe's and the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation together have contributed nearly $250 million to these efforts, and for more than two decades Lowe's Heroes volunteers have donated their time to make our communities better places to live. To learn more, visit the Lowe's Open House digital newsroom at newsroom.lowes.com.

About Habitat for Humanity

Driven by the vision that everyone needs a decent place to live, Habitat for Humanity began in 1976 as a grassroots effort on a community farm in southern Georgia. The Christian housing organization has since grown to become a leading global nonprofit working in nearly 1,400 communities throughout the U.S. and in more than 70 countries. Families and individuals in need of a hand up partner with Habitat for Humanity to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. Through financial support, volunteering or adding a voice to support affordable housing, everyone can help families achieve the strength, stability and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves. Through shelter, we empower. To learn more, visit habitat.org.

1 "The State of the Nation's Housing 2016" by the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University

SOURCE Lowe's

Related Links

http://www.lowes.com


PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- HackerRank, a platform that helps companies find the right developers based on their coding skills, today announced a partnership with Lever, a modern applicant tracking system that helps recruiters and hiring managers streamline their recruiting efforts.

Both Lever and HackerRank share the mission of helping companies discover and hire talent objectively by adding consistency to the recruiting process.

"Our new HackerRank partnership extends Lever's ability to involve the entire organization in the recruiting process," says Sarah Nahm, Lever CEO. "Together with HackerRank, we're excited to help companies make even more informed and confident hiring decisions."





Customers of Lever and HackerRank will now have the benefit of connecting the two powerful talent engagement platforms to make better hiring decisions.

By incorporating HackerRank coding assessments as part of the initial step of the interview process, recruiters and hiring managers using Lever can quickly surface candidates with top technical skills without leaving the Lever platform. Hiring managers can reduce time spent on technical phone interviews, reach a wider talent pool and boost onsite-to-offer conversions.

"This partnership streamlines the recruiting process so that companies can more efficiently and effectively find, assess and hire top engineering talent," says Vivek Ravisankar, CEO & co-founder of HackerRank. "Now, recruiters and hiring managers can quickly gauge candidates' proven skill level by integrating HackerRank assessments into Lever candidate profiles."

Recruiters using Lever to track candidates can now:

Send HackerRank coding assessments to candidates directly from within the Lever platform

Receive completion notifications

View candidate scores

Import qualified candidates

Lever's HackerRank integration will be rolled out to Lever customers starting now through December.

About HackerRank

HackerRank is a platform that helps companies find the right developer solely based on their coding skills quickly and efficiently. We're driving a new paradigm shift by eliminating resumes and creating opportunities for hundreds of thousands of programmers worldwide. HackerRank was founded in Palo Alto in 2012. Over 1,000 companies use HackerRank to build strong engineering teams, including VMware, Capital One, Quora and more. For more information, visit www.hackerrank.com/work

About Lever

Built from the conviction that recruiting is the responsibility of everyone at the company, Lever's applicant tracking and sourcing technology draws the entire team together to source, engage, interview, and hire top talent through effortless collaboration. Lever was founded in 2012 in San Francisco. Lever supports the hiring needs of over 1,200 companies around the globe including the teams at Netflix, Eventbrite, Lyft, and Quora. For more information, visit https://www.lever.co.

Media Contact

Katie Sullivan

Bateman Group

[email protected]

SOURCE HackerRank

Related Links

https://www.hackerrank.com


LOS ANGELES, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Esteemed diamond and jewelry house Harry Kotlar will unveil its first boutique in the United States. It will join a spellbinding array of luxury watch and jewelry brands at the new Shreve & Co. flagship store in San Francisco.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161202/445188

"We are excited to be a part of the new Shreve & Co. store," says Czarah Cabrera, brand director for Harry Kotlar. "This is a momentous occasion in Harry Kotlar and Shreve's long-standing relationship."

Not just a collection, but a story

While Harry Kotlar's fine jewelry pieces are already available in select retailers, the space provided a unique opportunity to elevate the Harry Kotlar experience. The boutique does not just present merchandise; it articulates the brand's story. "It will feature carefully-curated showcases that represent the different facets of Harry Kotlar's history," says Czarah. "Including our founder's passion and attention to detail, and the impeccable craftsmanship of our Italian master artisans."

The boutique will house an expanded collection of Harry Kotlar's hallmark design, the Artisan Pave, and its proprietary cut, the Kotlar Cushion. Rare diamonds and jewels from the Kotlar Vault collection and the more contemporary Kotlar 1948 will also be seen.

The result is a stunning display of artistry, history and quality that spans almost seven decades. "I believe heritage, innovation, and quality are still the defining traits of ultimate luxury for the most discerning consumers," says Czarah. "Thus, Harry Kotlar will never depart from real, authentic artisan tools and time-honored jewelry manufacturing methods of hand-forging, hand-carving, and hand-finishing pieces. We're devoted to continuing our founder's legacy, enabling our master artisans to express their creativity, and growing a culture that inspires perfection and excellence."

Harry Kotlar's vision, legacy, and core values are aligned with those of Shreve & Co. The new store will enable Harry Kotlar to engage with a more complex consumer landscape while building lasting relationships and embracing the future of the diamond jewelry market.

The grand opening of the new Shreve & Co. flagship store will be on December 14. The reimagined store is located at 150 Post Street, San Francisco, CA.

About Harry Kotlar

Harry Kotlar is recognized as the premier source for the highest quality diamonds, its hallmark design  Artisan Pave and "the world's most brilliant Cushion Cut diamond"  Kotlar Cushion. Spanning almost seven decades of beauty, art and perfection, Harry Kotlar's designs evoke old-world artistry with modern sophistication, creating stunning diamond rings, bands, earrings, bracelets and necklaces that celebrate an individual's story eternally.

For more information on the craftsmanship and heritage of Harry Kotlar, visit harrykotlar.com or email [email protected].

Media Contact:

Harry Kotlar PR

Phone: 800-675-0479

Email: [email protected]

Related Images

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Related Links

http://www.harrykotlar.com

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com.

SOURCE Harry Kotlar

Related Links

http://harrykotlar.com


Negotiation Mastery: Unlocking Value in the Real World was developed by Harvard Business School professor Michael Wheeler , a leading expert in negotiation. He is joined in the course by seven other Harvard faculty members whose diverse backgrounds add expertise from the fields of psychology, economics, organizational behavior, decision-making, and ethics. In addition, program participants will learn insights and best practices from twelve expert negotiators from a wide range of industries and functions.

"Regardless of your industry, career level, or job function, there is enormous benefit to enhancing your negotiation skills," said Patrick Mullane, Executive Director of HBX. "This new HBX program combines the unique strengths of Harvard Business School, including award-winning faculty and the interactive HBX online platform, and provides participants with the skills and knowledge they need to become more effective negotiators."

Negotiation Mastery: Unlocking Value in the Real World emphasizes the preparation of both "head and heart" before entering a negotiation. That includes both analytical tools and interpersonal techniques for dealing effectively with a different bargaining styles and tactics. The program is offered via the HBX online platform, which enables real-time interaction and peer-to-peer engagement. Over eight weeks, participants will complete four negotiations in a variety of contexts that illuminate important negotiation challenges and methods for overcoming them. The program also includes shorter exercises, videos of negotiations, as well as ample opportunities for self-reflection and feedback.

"Our goal in developing this program is crystal clear," said Professor Wheeler. "We are committed to empowering good negotiators to become even better, so that they can generate greater value both for themselves and for the organizations that they represent."

Wheeler is a Senior Fellow and the MBA Class of 1952 Professor of Management Practice in the Negotiation Program at HBS. Since joining the School's faculty in 1993, he has served as faculty chair of the required first-year MBA program and headed the negotiation course, one of the most popular electives in the MBA curriculum. He is the author or coauthor of 11 books, the most recent of which is The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World. He has also published extensively in scholarly journals and popular media. Wheeler has long been an innovator in using the latest technology to teach negotiation, most recently by the self-assessment app Negotiation 360. He is a sought-after international advisor on negotiation, mediation, and dispute resolution.

HBX is currently accepting applications for the first cohort of HBX Negotiation Mastery: Unlocking Value in the Real World, which begins in February 2017. Applications for the February program are open until February 8. Successful applicants should have approximately 10 years or more of professional work experience and an undergraduate degree or have successfully completed HBX CORe. The program is priced at $1,500. Visit the HBX website to learn more.

About HBX:

Founded in 2014, HBX  Harvard Business School's digital learning initiative  is changing the way individuals learn about business. HBX was established to expand the reach of Harvard Business School and to further the School's mission of educating leaders who make a difference in the world. While still in the early days of online learning on a global scale, HBX has a jump-start with more than 100 years of business education experience with Harvard Business School's case method of study and a passionate faculty whose vision has been reimagined for the digital age. Find us online at hbx.hbs.edu.

Media Contacts for HBX:

Valerie Krempus  [email protected]

Monica Higgins  [email protected]  774-773-9571 x22

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445774

SOURCE HBX

Related Links

http://hbx.hbs.edu


CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Local natural foods grocer Healthy Home Market has entered into a lease agreement with Alex Lee, Inc. to assume operations at 1208 Hickory Boulevard in Lenoir, NC. The transformation will be completed by mid-January, 2017. The company is excited to bring its natural foods concept to the Lenoir community, while working with the store's existing staff.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445601LOGO

Healthy Home Market is locally owned, operating three Charlotte-area stores that are focused on locally sourced, healthy, high-quality foods. The new Lenoir store will be branded "Farm 2 Family Foods by Healthy Home Market". Farm 2 Family Foods will have the same product selections as current Healthy Home Market stores, with an expanded selection of mainstream, well-known brands, fresh produce and custom-cut meats. Farm 2 Family Foods will be the largest Healthy Home Market location.

"We felt the Lenoir community was the perfect place to expand our Healthy Home Market brand," said Chad Hartman, director of marketing for Healthy Home Market. "We hope the new Farm 2 Family Foods store will give the community an opportunity to eat healthier and shop local."

Farm 2 Family Foods by Healthy Home Market will host a Grand Opening celebration in February 2017.

About Healthy Home Market

Healthy Home Market was founded in 1979 by Betty and Jerry York. The mission of Healthy Home Market is to offer shoppers a welcoming environment where skilled and friendly staff can help to make an informed product selection. Partnering with local vendors is important to Healthy Home Market. In addition to a wide variety of local products, the store supports surrounding communities through local partnerships and neighborhood outreach. Healthy Home Market currently has three Charlotte-area stores in Plaza Midwood, Davidson and Galleria with the Lenoir Farm 2 Family Foods by Healthy Home Market location opening in early 2017.

For more information, please visit healthyhomemkt.com.

Chad Hartman

[email protected]

704-602-0631

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Healthy Home Market

Related Links

http://healthyhomemkt.com


DALLAS, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hitachi Consulting, a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd (TSE: 6501) and a leading provider of IT consulting and management consulting solutions and services, has launched a comprehensive water management solution to accelerate enterprise sustainability initiatives. Hitachi Consulting Water Management Solutions tailor water management services with an innovative approach that includes detailed assessments, leading technologies and equipment implementation, as well as water management intelligence systems, and on-going management and maintenance.

As a Silver Sponsor of the upcoming American Water Summit and Big Data Workshop in Miami, FL, December 6-7, 2016, senior level representatives from Hitachi Consulting's water management team will be available to discuss how tailored solutions are developed. During the event, David Wechsler, Senior Vice President at Hitachi Consulting will be hosting a roundtable groupthink on Action Plans for Reducing Industrial Water Impact.

"With the global demand for clean water doubling every 10 years, the need for more effective water management has never been greater. For many leading companies in the food and beverage, oil and gas, industrial manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries, smart water management is the key to future success," said Wechsler. "By utilizing an innovative water management program, organizations can significantly lower water costs and provide solutions for reducing water depletion and contamination."

To deliver the most efficient and effective water management solutions, Hitachi Consulting leverages the Hitachi Group companies, such as Hitachi Infrastructure Systems (Asia) for design engineering, Hitachi Aqua-Tech Engineering for water intake solutions, and Hitachi Data Systems for business intelligence infrastructure. In addition, partners like Hitachi Capital America are able to provide water management financing. As a result, Hitachi Consulting delivers end-to-end solutions to monitor, treat, reduce usage, manage waste, comply with regulations and maintain water management infrastructures.

"Companies that take proactive steps to reduce their water usage and waste can cut costs, protect their environmental reputation and get ahead of the competition," said Wechsler. "That's why you want an innovative, proven water management provider to help you on your journey to sustainability."

Hitachi Consulting's full spectrum of water management solutions includes:

Water Quality: Water and chemical monitoring, pH management, treatment solutions

Water and chemical monitoring, pH management, treatment solutions Water Reduction: Infrastructure, process/behavior and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) solutions

Infrastructure, process/behavior and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) solutions Water Metering and Reporting: Metering infrastructure, information management, plant KPI dashboards

Metering infrastructure, information management, plant KPI dashboards Waste Water Management: Cleansing and remediation, recycling and reuse, membrane solutions

Cleansing and remediation, recycling and reuse, membrane solutions Biofuel: Plant infrastructure, treatment solutions, waste management

Plant infrastructure, treatment solutions, waste management Regulatory/Compliance: NPDES permit management, risk avoidance FMEA, OpEx/CapEx reduction

NPDES permit management, risk avoidance FMEA, OpEx/CapEx reduction Maintenance: On-call service engineers, replacement part ordering, annual equipment evaluation, and on-going management and maintenance

Like other Hitachi companies, Hitachi Consulting's mission is to achieve a more sustainable society by implementing and promoting social innovation through sustainable practices, energy efficiency, eco-friendly products and flexible financing options. The Hitachi Social Innovation strategy is built on this uniquely broad set of experiences and capabilities. In addition to Hitachi Consulting, the strategy combines the resources and advanced approaches of Hitachi Data Systems, the Hitachi Global Center for Innovative Analytics, Hitachi Ltd., and other Hitachi Group companies.

About Hitachi Consulting Corporation

Hitachi Consulting is the global management consulting and IT services business of Hitachi Ltd., a global technology leader and a catalyst of sustainable societal change. In that same spirit  and building on its technology heritage  Hitachi Consulting is a catalyst for positive business change, propelling companies ahead by enabling superior operational performance. Working within their existing processes and focusing on targeted functional challenges, we help our clients respond to dynamic global change with insight and agility. Our unique approach delivers measurable, sustainable business results and a better consulting experience. For more information visit: www.hitachiconsulting.com

** Follow us on Twitter: @HIT_Consulting and join the conversation #HitachiWater **

** Visit our Water Management Microsite for more information:

http://go.hitachiconsulting.com/WaterManagement **

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2015 (ended March 31, 2016) totaled 10,034.3 billion yen ($88.8 billion). The Hitachi Group is a global leader in the Social Innovation Business, and it has approximately 335,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation, Hitachi is providing solutions to customers in a broad range of sectors, including Power / Energy, Industry / Distribution / Water, Urban Development, and Finance / Government & Public / Healthcare.

For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

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SOURCE Hitachi Consulting

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NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In a powerful statement issued by an array of Holocaust institutions, scholars and educators from around the world, an alarm is being sounded on the rise of groups that promote intolerance and promote hate speech. These 90 institutions and 71 individuals call on lawmakers to condemn white nationalist groups and ask citizens to be vigilant.

The statement is as follows:

Recent months have seen a surge in unabashed racism and hate speech  including blatant antisemitism and attacks on Hispanics, Muslims, African-Americans, women, the LGBTQ community, as well as other targeted groups. Journalists have been threatened. Places of worship, schools and playgrounds have been defaced with Nazi symbols intended to intimidate and arouse fear. White supremacist groups have become self-congratulatory and emboldened.

As Holocaust scholars, educators and institutions, we are alarmed by these trends. History teaches us that intolerance, unchecked, leads to persecution and violence. We denounce racism and the politics of fear that fuels it. We stand in solidarity with all vulnerable groups. We take Elie Wiesel's words to heart: "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation."

Therefore, we call upon all elected officials as well as all civic and religious leaders to forcefully and explicitly condemn the rise in hate speech and any attacks on our democratic principles. We call upon all media and social media platforms to refuse to provide a stage for hate groups and thus normalize their agenda. And we call upon all people of good conscience to be vigilant, to not be afraid, and to speak out.

This statement is co-authored by members of the Association of Holocaust Organizations, a network dedicated to the advancement of Holocaust education, remembrance and research, and is affirmed by the following institutions and individuals listed on this link: http://www.mjhnyc.org/documents/HolocaustOrganizationsandScholarsStatementFINAL.pdf

SOURCE Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
STATESVILLE, N.C., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- During this holiday season here at Purple Heart Homes, we recognize the importance and meaning of 'home' to those currently serving and the Veteran families who have served our country in the past.

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We encourage everyone to think of America's Active Duty Military that are stationed at military bases throughout the world. Foremost, we must ALL keep the thought of those deployed in warzones and in imminent danger within our hearts on a continual basis. "Home for the Holidays" is not an option for them or their loved ones. (www.phhusa.org).

Purple Heart Homes is a Nationally Organized 501c3 public charity that is dedicated to providing housing solutions for service connected disabled Veterans that are substantial in function and design. Focusing on safety and accessibility, they've helped Veterans with multiple types of injuries, demographics and ages. John Gallina, Purple Heart Homes Co-founder and Executive Director said, "We help Veterans of all ages with housing issues. It's top of mind, that to our Veteran families, 'home' means everything. It's a place to heal, it is a special sanctuary that provides stability and needed neighborly support."

To our Veterans 'home' means everything.

Here are two examples of Veterans we've helped and why during this giving season your donation to Purple Heart Homes matters so much. There are thousands of Veterans just like them who need our help.

Meet 90-year Veteran Alex Sawchyn:

Alex lives in a quiet peaceful town in Redding, CT. A knock on his door brought an insurance representative providing him with a list of things he needed to do or his homeowners insurance would be cancelled. The estimates (totaling $42,000) for cutting down some trees, painting the house and putting a new roof weren't feasible. Even after participating in the Berlin Airlift, Alex and his wife were left with few options except moving into an assisted living facility.

Purple Heart Homes along with some very generous volunteers and businesses from the State of Connecticut stepped in to help paint the house, cut down the trees and put on a new roof enabling the Sawchyn's to remain safely in their home. Aging Veterans and caregivers deserve every chance to stay in their homes, they sometimes just need a little help.

Meet Operation Iraqi Freedom Army Veteran Lauren Hogan:

Lauren Hogan is a single mom with two young daughters. She joined the Army in an effort to prepare her for life. On November 21, 2004, Lauren was wounded in one of the single deadliest attacks on U.S. forces throughout the Iraq war. A suicide bomber, disguised as an Iraqi Soldier detonated an explosive vest in a crowded mess hall, killing 22 people and injuring 72 others. Lauren received the Purple Heart, for the shrapnel she still carries in her back and after receiving an honorable medical discharge from the Army she moved back in with her parents and often secluded herself from the outside world.

Since being discharged, Lauren has moved multiple times, all across the country while searching for a safe place to call home. As a final effort she purchased a fixer upper in Western NC near her parents. She started fixing it using her disability payments so she could provide a 'home' for herself and her two young daughters. While working diligently in her spare time to remodel the small home, Lauren realized her dream was going to take a lot longer than she wanted.

Purple Heart Homes along with community stepped in to completely renovate the 100-year-old mill house giving Lauren Hogan peace of mind and the stability she needed to be able to heal and give her daughters a place to begin to make memories together as a family.

There are now over 150 Purple Heart Homes stories similar to the two above. To our Veterans 'home' means everything. Be a part of the Purple Heart Homes story in providing needed housing assistance to deserving Veteran families.  Visit the Purple Heart Homes website to make your donation so we can continue to improve more Veterans' lives one 'home' at a time https://www.purplehearthomesusa.org/main-donation-page

Media Contact:

Vicki Thomas

[email protected]

203-984-2138

SOURCE Purple Heart Homes, Inc
HOUSTON, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Developed by board-certified plastic surgeon and tummy tuck specialist Dr. Wilberto Cortes, the hourglass tummy tuck is the next generation in body contouring. The procedure entails the use of modern techniques and multi-pronged approaches to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional tummy tuck. While the core philosophy partially remains the same as the traditional tummy tuck, the hourglass is basically a combination procedure comprising of a tummy tuck, liposuction, and fat transfer.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445726

The goal of the hourglass glass tummy tuck is not only limited to firming, flattening, and tightening the abdomen, but also to add beautiful curves to the patient's body. This procedure is for people who want to transform their overall body shape. Using his attention to detail, sense of aesthetics, and stellar artistry, Dr. Cortes uses the hourglass tummy tuck procedure to contour the body in the best way possible.

In a bid to deliver unmatched aesthetic results, Dr. Cortes thoroughly assesses the candidacy of each patient for the procedure.

"Any type of plastic surgery procedure must be approached with greater care. The hourglass tummy tuck is no exception," says Dr. Cortes. "Failure to properly examine and evaluate the patient's body and overall health increases the risk of potential complications."

His revolutionary method makes it possible to achieve the hourglass figure, which is the most revered body shape among women. The hourglass body boasts a well-defined waist with nice round hips.

"If you want to achieve the hourglass figure, a traditional tummy tuck won't help as it only flattens and tautens the abdomen," says Dr. Cortes. "On the other hand, the hourglass tummy tuck combines liposuction and fat grafting to create the hourglass shape."

It is important to note that the traditional tummy tuck is fundamentally used to reverse the effects of pregnancy by excising the surplus skin and fat from the abdomen. On the other hand, the hourglass tummy tuck implement some aspects of the traditional tummy tuck combine with liposuction to remove stubborn fat pockets from localized areas such as the abdomen, sides, flanks, and upper back. This helps make the waist become slimmer. The fat removed during liposuction is then transferred to the hips, adding shape and curves. The combined use of these three procedures helps achieve a smaller waist-to-hip ratio  the most important feature of the hourglass figure.

Because of the success of the hourglass tummy tuck procedure, more and more patients from the US and around the world are flocking to Dr. Cortes, who services his clients in the prestigious galleria area in Houston, Texas.

HOURGLASS TV SCHEDULE

Make sure that you connect with us on the hourglass TV:

Monday: Bootyman 6:00 P.M. CST on YouTube

Tuesday: Wonder Breasts 6:00 P.M. CST on YouTube

Wednesday: Star Bodies 6:00 P.M. CST on YouTube

Thursday: Hourglass operating room and Shoddy 6:00 P.M. CST on YouTube

Friday: Superhourglass 6:00 P.M. CST on YouTube

LIVE BROADCAST SURGERIES ALL WEEK ALL DAY ON:

Facebook live: Dr. Wilberto Cortes

Periscope: Dr. Wilberto Cortes (@drhourglass)

Snapchat: drhourglass (dr cortes)

ABOUT DR. CORTES

Dr. Cortes is a board-certified plastic surgeon that is known worldwide as Dr. Hourglass. He specializes in multiple cosmetic procedures including Brazilian buttock augmentation, breast implants, breast augmentation, breast lift, breast reduction, liposuction, tummy tucks, fat transfer, thigh lift, and arm lift, among others. His practice is located in the prestigious Galleria area in downtown Houston.

Dr. Cortes has developed multiple procedures to provide his patients with an hourglass shape, including the hourglass tummy tuck, the hourglass lipo, the hourglass mommy makeover, and the hourglass hip procedure. He specializes and is an expert in cosmetic revisions. Dr. Cortes also has developed breast techniques including the wonder breast lift and the wonder breast reduction. Due to his keen eye and attention to detail, Dr. Cortes routinely sees patients from all over the world who come to be evaluated for impressive results.

WEBSITES

To view Dr. Cortes's impressive results, you can log on to his multiple websites:

CONTACT US:

You can contact his office by email at [email protected]. Phone #: 713-636-2729. Text message: 713-636-2729. In addition, he can be contacted through social media, including direct messaging through Instagram at dr_cortes, Facebook Messenger at Dr. Wilberto Cortes, and WhatsApp at 936-499-8075.

To view Dr. Cortes's impressive results, follow him on his social media outlets including Youtube, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook among others.

Hourglass Productions

Phone: 7136362729

Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE Dr. Hourglass International Clinic for Cosmetic Surgery

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They gave Donald Trump the White House  and now the president-elect could take billions of dollars in Obamacare aid from them.

Data released Monday shows that Obamacare customers who live in many of the states that voted for Trump have the most to lose if the Affordable Care Act and its related subsidies are repealed during his administration.

The Kaiser Family Foundation said that as of March 31, nearly 9.4 million people in the United States were due to receive about $32.8 billion in annual tax credits to help reduce their monthly health insurance premium payments for plans purchased through Obamacare marketplaces.

Half of that dollar amount went to residents of just five states: Florida, California, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia.

And four of those five states  the exception being California  are set to give their Electoral College votes to President-elect Trump, who has promised to dismantle the insurance system.

Of the top 20 states in terms of the value of their total Obamacare subsidies, all but five will give their Electoral College votes for Trump.

"These are some states where a lot of people have opposed the ACA, but it's also where a lot of money is at stake if the ACA is repealed," said Cynthia Cox, associate director of the program for study of health reform, costs, private insurance at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The ACA provides financial aid to reduce the cost of monthly premiums to Obamacare customers whose annual taxable household incomes fall between 100 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level. For a family of four, that's $24,300 to $97,200.

As of March, the average monthly subsidy for Obamacare customers nationally was $291. The subsidy amount is tied to the retail cost of Obamacare plans  the higher the premiums, the higher the subsidies tend to be.

Alaska had the highest average subsidy  $750. That Trump-supporting state was followed by four others  Wyoming, North Carolina, West Virginia and Louisiana  where the average subsidy is $459, $401, $388 and $362 per month, respectively.

Story continues

There's currently a "great deal" of assistance going to enrollees who sign up for individual health plans sold through Obamacare exchanges, Cox said. "If that assistance goes away, a lot of insurers would not want to participate in this marketplace."

Cox noted that the data released Monday does not include the additional subsidies that Obamacare customers who earn 100 to 250 percent of poverty level receive to help lower the cost of their out-of-pocket health expenses.



Trump said during the presidential election that he intended to repeal Obamacare if he won the White House and replace the health-care law with something "much better." It remains to be seen what form that replacement will take  and when it would go into effect.

Last week, Trump said he will nominate staunch Obamacare critic Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

As a congressman, Price has proposed legislation that would fully repeal the ACA. But Price has also called for replacing Obamacare with a system that would, among other things, provide people who purchase health insurance on the individual market with refundable tax credits. Those tax credits would be linked to age, with younger adults getting $1,200 per year, people age 35 to 50 getting $2,100 per year and people older than 50 getting $3,000 per year.





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WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Verso Corporation, Sappi North America and Appleton Coated LLC, together with the United Steelworkers (USW), today welcomed the extension of duties on imports of certain coated paper from China and Indonesia as an important step to ensure continuing fair market conditions for the domestic market. The decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to continue existing duties resulted from a petition filed under a so-called "sunset review". Under existing law, remedial tariffs that are authorized in antidumping and countervailing duty cases are subject to review every five years under sunset review procedures. The original effort to address unfair trade for the subject products was decided in November 2010. The four petitioners requested extension of relief to help ensure that fair market conditions would enable producers to continue to compete in the market.

In September 2009, petitions were filed by NewPage Corporation (since then acquired by Verso), Sappi North America, Appleton Coated LLC and the USW with the Department of Commerce and the ITC. The petitions alleged that certain coated paper from China and Indonesia had been subsidized and dumped in the United States, resulting in injury to the domestic industry and its employees.

In November 2010, relief was provided following affirmative findings of dumping and subsidization by Commerce and the threat of material injury by the ITC.

The decision by the Department of Commerce and the affirmative findings by the ITC resulted in the imposition of remedial tariffs on imports of coated paper from China at margins ranging from 3.64% to 135.84% for dumping and at margins ranging from 19.46% to 202.84% for existing subsidies. For Indonesia, dumping margins were assessed at 17.46% and for subsidies at 20.13%.

The imposition of duties resulted in the dramatic decline of imports from both China and Indonesia and the restoration of fair market conditions.

Today, there are thousands of workers with good, family supportive wages. The affirmative decision in the sunset review will help to maintain fair market conditions. Coated paper is generally used for printing multicolored graphics for books, catalogues, magazines and other commercial printing applications.

"Today's decision will help ensure that the market for coated paper will remain competitive and that unfair trade practices of companies in China and Indonesia continue to be addressed," said Verso Corporation Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Product Development Michael A. Weinhold. "We've fought for years to make sure our laws against unfair trade work as intended and that Chinese and Indonesian dumping and subsidies are addressed. The extension of existing orders is a welcome step in promoting fair trade."

"Our goal has always been to be able to compete fairly based on the quality of our products so that we can continue to invest in our mills, equipment and people as well as the sustainable manufacturing and procurement practices we implement and pursue," said Mark Gardner, President and CEO of Sappi North America. "The subsidies and dumping actions of China and Indonesia jeopardized our production and our workers and this extension will help our company, our community and our investors. Fair trade requires that the rules be enforced."

Doug Osterberg, CEO of Appleton Coated LLC, stated, "Paper markets are exceptionally competitive and the decision to maintain the remedial orders against unfair trade are vital to ensuring fair market conditions. For us, there was no question that, if the orders were lifted, serious injury to the domestic industry would follow and we're pleased that the ITC agreed. This decision will help ensure that we can continue to invest in our technology, plant, equipment and people and that our customers can have confidence in the quality and availability of the products they need in their businesses."

Jon Geenen, USW international vice president, stated, "Unfair trade has put at risk thousands of jobs in this sector. Today's decision will continue the hard-fought battle for relief that has helped save many of these jobs and ensure that our industry can survive. The existing duties authorized to remain in place for the next five years will ensure that the hard work of USW members producing these products won't be jeopardized by unfairly traded products from China and Indonesia."

Leo W. Gerard, USW international president said, "The ITC's decision maintains the fair market conditions that the existing duties against Chinese and Indonesian predatory trade practices have provided. Thousands of good, family-supportive jobs were at risk if the ITC didn't extend the vital relief currently in place. We will continue to fight for the future of our members producing these products, other paper products and the workers across industry who deserve to have the rules against unfair trade aggressively applied."

About Verso Corporation

Verso Corporation is the turn-to company for those looking to successfully navigate the complexities of paper sourcing and performance. The leading North American producer of printing and specialty papers and pulp, Verso provides insightful solutions that help drive improved customer efficiency, productivity, brand awareness and business results. Verso's long-standing reputation for quality and reliability is directly tied to our vision to be a company with passion that is respected and trusted by all. Verso's passion is rooted in ethical business practices that demand safe workplaces for our employees and sustainable wood sourcing for our products. This passion, combined with our flexible manufacturing capabilities and an unmatched commitment to product performance, delivery and service, make Verso a preferred choice among commercial printers, paper merchants and brokers, converters, publishers and other end users. For more information, visit us online at www.versoco.com.

About Sappi North America

Sappi North America, headquartered in Boston and a subsidiary of global pulp and paper group Sappi Limited, is a market leader in converting wood fiber into superior products that customers demand worldwide. The success of our four diversified businesses  high quality Coated Printing Papers, Specialised Cellulose, Release Papers and Specialty Packaging  is driven by strong customer relationships, best-in-class people and advantaged assets, products and services. Our high quality Coated Printing Papers, including McCoy, Opus, Somerset and Flo, are the key platform for premium magazines, catalogs, books and high-end print advertising. We are a leading manufacturer of Specialised Cellulose used in a wide range of products, including textile fibers and household goods, and one of the world's leading suppliers of Release Papers for the automotive, fashion and engineered films industries. Our Specialty Packaging products, such as LusterPrint and LusterCote, represent an important asset in the food packaging and labeling industries. Customers rely on Sappi for high technical, operational and market expertise; products and services delivered with consistently high quality and reliability; and, state-of-the-art and cost-competitive assets and innovative spirit.

Sappi North America is a subsidiary of Sappi Limited (JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 13,000 employees and manufacturing operations on three continents in seven countries and customers in over 100 countries around the world. Learn more about Sappi at: www.sappi.com/na.

About Appleton Coated

Appleton Coated is a manufacturer and distributor of coated, uncoated, specialty and technical papers sold under the Utopia, Ethos and other brand names. The company's products are used in high-end commercial printing, textbook publishing, label papers, transactional printing and a variety of specialty and custom applications. Selling through a chain of highly respected paper distributors, the company serves corporations, publishers, printers, converters, and graphic designers in North America. Appleton Coated's corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility are located in Combined Locks, Wisconsin. The company has over 600 employees, including 435 represented by USW Local 2-144. For more information visit our website at www.appletoncoated.com.

About the United Steelworkers

The United Steelworkers (USW) is a North American union headquartered in Pittsburgh. The union negotiates labor agreements representing 850,000 active workers employed in a variety of major industries that include metals, mining, pulp, paper, timber, rubber, chemicals, glass, auto parts, oil, and energy renewables. The USW also represents service and professional sector workers to include healthcare, municipalities and pharmaceuticals. For more information: www.usw.org.

Media Contacts:

Kathi Rowzie, Verso Corporation, 901-369-5800, [email protected]

Olga Karagiannis, Sappi North America, 617-423-5409, [email protected]

Ann Whalen, Appleton Coated LLC, 920-968-3809, [email protected]

Wayne Ranick, United Steelworkers (USW), 412-562-2444, [email protected]

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SOURCE United Steelworkers (USW)

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Top Employers Institute recognized Infinitus' competitive employment environment, innovative management practices and unique corporate culture, as well as helping its employees achieve a tri-balance among health, family and business. Infinitus was one of the 69 companies to qualify this year out of the 250 participants across China.

Mr. Harry Yeung, Senior Vice President of LKKHPG, said, "Our sustainable development is rooted in our excellent employee engagement and satisfaction. Amid a new market environment, we continuously provide our employees a preferred working environment which supports personal development and job satisfaction. To receive the certification again not only enhances our brand image, but also serves as a professional recognition of what we have done for our employees' development."

Over the past year, Infinitus has implemented a series of HR management programs to drive business development, including overseas working opportunities and global talent mobility programs. In particular, Infinitus has launched an internal ideas sharing platform to tap into employee potential and generate innovative ideas. Some of those ideas have already obtained financial support and been put into practice.

Furthermore, Infinitus continues to create a "feel good" working atmosphere for its employees. In addition to personalized employee benefits, flexible working hours and an annual "Happy Family Day", which provides an opportunity for employees to interact with their family members. Infinitus has also invited an expert to design a healthy exercise regime for its employees in order to encourage them to integrate healthy living habits into their work.

The company's people-oriented working environment also extends to the new 10,000-square meter R&D center, which delivers a better working experience not only through cutting-edge equipment, but also sidewalk cafes, creative meeting rooms, gyro chairs and treadmills.

Besides that, Infinitus continually optimizes its management model through proactive partnerships with authoritative third-party HR institutions to guarantee competitive employee conditions and personal development opportunities. According to the latest satisfaction survey undertaken by a third party, Infinitus scored 8.85 out of 10 in terms of employee satisfaction, an all-time high for the company.

Mr. David Pink, CEO of Top Employers Institute, said, "This year's number of certified Top Employers in China set a record. Compared with this increase, we are more than glad to see that the overall performance of the nominees is much better than ever before. It indicates that the companies didn't rest on their achievements, but continued making sustained efforts."

Headquartered in Netherlands, the Top Employers Institute is a professional and independent institution which globally certifies leading employers that create excellent conditions for their people to develop. The certification program now covers over 100 countries and regions with a surveyed population of 16 million. Responded surveys are audited independently to ensure the validity of the certification.

Learn more about LKK Health Products Group: www.lkkhpg.com

Learn more about Top Employers Institute: www.top-employers.com/

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SOURCE LKK Health Products Group

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DALLAS, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IntelliCentrics, Inc., a community of professionals, patients, their families, and facilities working together to achieve a safe and SEC3URE healthcare experience, and LANDAUER, the global leader in radiation science, are partnering to protect individual visitors from the risk of radiation exposure when visiting healthcare facilities.

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Occupational visitors are often inadvertently missed in radiation safety programs because they service multiple facilities making it difficult to track cumulative radiation exposure. LANDAUER's dosimetry technology coupled with IntelliCentrics SEC3URE managed services closes this critical gap in safety. IntelliCentrics radiation safety program is the only all-inclusive program to include compliance for radiation exposure credentials and verification, and the radiation exposure program that additionally includes automated monitoring of the LANDAUER dosimeter and radiation exposure.

"It's our goal to ensure safety for everyone in a healthcare facility and that includes occupational visitors," says Mike Sheehan, global CEO of IntelliCentrics. "We also want to enable the facilities in our community to fully meet all regulatory requirements. By collaborating with LANDAUER, we can provide our facilities with the best in dosimetry technology and safeguard the health of their visitors."

"We are pleased to support this collaboration that blends our proven radiation measurement and reporting process with that of IntelliCentrics, which serves more than 10,000 facilities in the U.S.," said Mike Kaminski, LANDAUER President, and CEO. LANDAUER's Luxel+ optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimeter enables precise measurements for occupational radiation exposure and monitoring.

"The IntelliCentrics radiation safety program is one more resource enabling our customers to continue to make their location of care a point of differentiation for their community," Sheehan said. IntelliCentrics maintains a preprogrammed ALARA database providing facilities with the ability to report accurate, cumulative data on the radiation exposure of their occupational visitors.

IntelliCentrics SEC3URE is the only program that gives facilities the capability of maintaining full compliance with radiation safety regulations mitigating their risk of citations, fines, and lawsuits. It also enables hospitals and other facilities to serve individuals by providing exposure information so they can optimize their health and well-being.

To learn more about the IntelliCentrics Radiation Safety Program or the Radiation Exposure Program, please contact us today or phone (817) SEC3URE.

Media Contact:

Beth Mahler

Vice President Marketing

Phone: 972-316-6523

Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE IntelliCentrics
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For the third year in a row, The Fidato Group announced its participation in the "Adopt-a-Family for Christmas " program and is teaming up with clients and friends to help collect gifts to provide a local family with an extraordinary holiday season. However, there will be more families seeking help for the holiday program than the organization has support, which means not all families who apply will be adopted, so in addition to inviting the community at large to participate in The Fidato Group's gift-and-supplies drive for one deserving family, the company's leaders are also urging stable individuals and families to take another step forward and adopt a family of their own.

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GRANDFATHER RAISING FOUR GRANDKIDS

This year The Fidato Group has adopted a family where a grandfather is serving as head of household. He is raising his four grandchildren, aged 14, 10, 6 and 2. They're primarily in need of clothing items, toys and grocery cards. The Fidato Group invites the entire Northeast Ohio community to join in with them in donating gifts to be delivered to this and other deserving families.

MAKING A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE BY SERVING CLIENTS AND COMMUNITY

Tony D'Amico, CFP, CEO and Lead Advisor at The Fidato Group said, "Our first mission is to make a positive difference in our client's lives by proactively serving their best interests, and helping them achieve their financial goals and aspirations. Additionally, we seek to make a positive difference in our community whenever there is an opportunity to do so. This year, we once again teamed up with The Adopt-A-Family Association of Parma and will be collecting items in an effort to provide a local family with a special holiday season. Adopt-a-Family Association provides an incredible opportunity to positively impact both our clients and our community. Inviting the community as a whole to participate along with our firm and our clients is a natural next step. We are also grateful for Lorain County Community College's involvement with this event again this year."

ADOPT-A-FAMILY NOT JUST FOR THE HOLIDAYS

The Adopt-a-Family Association was created to provide not only holiday support to low income, unemployed families and those who are disabled in Cuyahoga County, but also a short-term safety net and caring temporary assistance support to Greater Cleveland/Parma area families in crisis working to maintain a stable home environment for their children by moving them out of a homeless shelter environment. As in the past two years, The Fidato Group clients and friends have pledged to donate and deliver gifts to one deserving family this December.

"In 2015, with the partnership of local businesses, the Adopt-a-Family Association was able to help over 290 local families in Cuyahoga and surrounding counties along with families outside of the state of Ohio, including 700 children, by providing a meaningful holiday experience," said Madeline Medley, Executive Director/Founder of Adopt-a-Family Association. "Every year we have more families seeking help for the holiday program than we have support, which means not all families who apply will be adopted. We're happy to grow with The Fidato Group in their third year of sponsorship and look forward to working with them again this year, as we add more families to the program."

GETTING INVOLVED IN THE COMMUNITY IN A MEANINGFUL WAY

Amy D'Amico, Community Liaison at The Fidato Group, noted, "Participation in the Adopt-a-Family program allows us to give back to the community in a meaningful way. We're humbled that our client families want to be involved and enjoy seeing the personal gratification they've received in helping out families in need this holiday season." Please email [email protected] of your interest to help this family. She will then email to confirm what items are still needed for this family.

Wrapped gifts will be accepted through Friday, December 16th 2016 from 9am-5pm at two locations:

1. The Fidato Group: 10749 Pearl Road, Suite 1B in Strongsville, Ohio; Contact Amy D'Amico

2. Lorain County Community College - Spitzer Conference Center: 1005 Abbe Road, Elyria, OH 44035; Contact: Jennifer Krupa or Misty Reed in The Center for Life-Long Learning Office (1st Floor)

If you would like to become directly involved with The Adopt a Family organization and adopt a family of your own or make a donation to help the year-round Family Needs Program, please visit www.adoptafamilynow.org.

ABOUT THE FIDATO GROUP

The Fidato Group is a fiduciary-based Wealth Management and Retirement Planning firm, based in Strongsville, OH. Tony D'Amico, CFP, CEO and Lead Advisor, is a well-respected educator and speaker who conducts Retirement Planning sessions at several colleges and other organizations. For more information, please visit www.thefidatogroup.com.

ABOUT ADOPT-A-FAMILY ASSOCIATION

Located in Parma, Ohio, the Adopt-a-Family Association provides a short-term safety net and caring support to Greater Cleveland/Parma area families in crisis who are working to maintain a stable home environment for their children as they overcome traumatic socioeconomic circumstances. This mission has a profound effect to help parent(s) and children gain stability and allow them the opportunity to grow together. For more information, please visit www.adoptafamilynow.org.

Press Contact:

Leesy Palmer

Impact Communications, Inc.

913-649-5009

[email protected]

Adopt-a-Family Contact:

Madeline Medley

Executive Director

Adopt-a-Family Association

440-882-6600

[email protected]

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SOURCE The Fidato Group

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STOUFFVILLE, Ontario, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Joy Parker Blackwood is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Pinnacle Professional in the field of Consulting as a result of her role as President of Waypointers Inc., a company primarily dedicated to the management of relocation processes for senior citizens, nationally and internationally. Waypointers is currently celebrating their tenth year in business.

With over forty years of experience in the business world, Joy turned the difficult journey of moving her mother from Florida to Toronto into a business venture benefitting senior citizens. As President of Waypointers Inc., Joy oversees all daily operations and ensures that the company assists senior citizens with psychological issues involved in stressful transitions as well as preparing organizational plans with timelines and budget managing the distribution and/or liquidation of possessions, financial assistance, legal assistance, real estate; packing and sorting; personal travel; sourcing new residences and liaising with the facilities; touring facilities with clients; interior decorating; arranging for trucking companies and transportation; after-move ongoing personal care and financial management.



Joy's formal education was in theatre and music, and although she attended University, she did not complete a degree as an exciting career opportunity became available in Industrial Show business. This venture eventually led Joy to hold roles as Director of Human Resources, Vice President, President and Owner.



Currently, Joy is involved with community initiatives including a position as Executive Director with the C.R. Vint Foundation. In addition, she is a Director and Vice President for a not-for-profit aviation and aerospace award program, "Northern Lights Aero Foundation." This foundation is very close to Joy's heart as she is very passionate about flying. She holds certification as a Private Pilot, has certification as a Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) International Judge, and held the role as 1st Vice President in the FAI's General Aviation Commission.



As a result of a corporate merger, Waypointers also handles marketing and event production management and consulting.



For more information, please visit www.waypointers.ca



Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.continentalwhoswho.com


Mr. Lu Hongxiang, made a groundbreaking speech at the APEC CEO Summit on Nov 19th, and announced the release of the new E4B business model to win its say for the Chinese companies on the international stage.

Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei also commented in the summit, "e-commerce is in line with the principle of free trade, and thus can accelerate free trading. The cooperation with JUMORE will be a good opportunity to facilitate the development of Chilean cross-border e-commerce, the export of Chilean products, and the import of quality services and technologies."

President of Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto also gave a flattering remark on JUMORE, "The E4B model of JUMORE is leading the innovation of Chinese companies. Mutual beneficial cooperation is the direction of economic development in Asia-Pacific region. Mexico is willing to work together with JUMORE and promote the advancement of cooperation."

JUMORE is now shifting its focus to North America for this coming December. JUMORE will hold Cross-Border E-Commerce Summits in Sacramento, Toronto, and Vancouver. Canada and the U.S. are both important trade partners of China. Both countries are developed in manufacturing and services industries. And they compliment well with China in several aspects including resources, capital, technology, the structures of economy, manufacturing, and consumption.

North America plays a vital role in JUMORE's global layout. The fruitful achievements reached in this trip to the Americas enable all countries to have a new understanding about China's innovation in development models and problem-solving plans. In June, 2016, the U.S. and Canada launched their National Pavilion on JUMORE platform during the "First Cross-Border E-Commerce Summit" held in Beijing. Guests on the invitation list for the upcoming events include government officials from the U.S. and Canada, as well as Fortune Global 500 companies. Lu Hongxiang wishes that this visit to the U.S. and Canada can further deepen the cooperation among the three and promote diversified trade cooperation.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446025

SOURCE Jumore
NAPERVILLE, Ill., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Continental Who's Who recognizes June D. Barnard as a Pinnacle Lifetime Member in recognition of her contributions to the Non-profit field.

Barnard has served as President and CEO of The Driskill Foundation for the past three years. June became impassioned to cultivate our next generation's curiosity and passion for learning across all educational areas, one program and one partnership at a time. She believes that ground-breaking discoveries and innovations start with a passion and curiosity from the earliest education levels onward. She utilizes expertise in innovation and communication skills to encourage youth to ask why and seek answers. Her role requires her to carry out strategic plans and policies, and develop corporate partnerships.



"After 40 years of business management and development experience, I have the privilege of applying my skills to work with the Driskill Foundation team as we partner with visionary organizations that catalyze a person's innate desire to explore and discover our world," Barnard said.



According to its website, "The Driskill Foundation is a private nonprofit organization formed in 1987." Its belief is "that a key component to creating the next generation of innovators is to support progressive programs that ignite curiosity." June's goal is to form a public foundation within the coming year to reach potential donors committed to visionary educational programs that catalyze a person's innate desire to explore and discover our world.



Before her work in the nonprofit world, Barnard was the President of Barnard Ltd. and Barnard's Boutique, which sold fake food, seasonal props, and apparel and costume jewelry. Barnard also utilizes experience gained as the Vice President of two different banks as well as in her role as a Personal Banker.



Barnard attended DePaul University's School of New Learning in the mid-80's. To further her professional development, she is a member of AFP, the Naperville Chamber of Commerce, and the Union League Club of Chicago. She is also a member of the National Association of Professional Women, the Mayo Leadership Council of Chicago, and volunteers at both the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago and the Chicago Lights Tutoring Program.



Barnard dedicates this recognition to her daughter, Kathryn; and her grandchildren, Katelyn and Nathan; as well as to the loving memory of her husband, Ronald L. Barnard, whom she thanks for his love and support.



Outside of work, Barnard enjoys reading, knitting, and writing. Her primary interests are current events and education.



For more information, visit www.driskillfoundation.org.



Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.continentalwhoswho.com


CINCINNATI, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today announced its succession plan for group vice president and chief digital officer.

Kevin Dougherty, 63, group vice president and chief digital officer, will retire on Jan. 27, 2017, after 15 years of distinguished service.

Yael Cosset, 43, chief commercial officer and chief information officer of 84.51, will succeed Mr. Dougherty effective upon his retirement.

Kevin Dougherty to Retire as Group Vice President and Chief Digital Officer

Mr. Dougherty joined Kroger in 2001 as vice president of supply chain operations. He was promoted to group vice president of logistics in 2004, before being named group vice president and chief supply chain officer in 2010. Under his leadership, Kroger made considerable progress on its associate safety initiatives.

In 2012, Mr. Dougherty was promoted to group vice president of digital and Vitacost, where he has overseen Kroger's development of ClickList, an order online and pick up at the store service, which has grown to more than 550 locations including Harris Teeter's ExpressLane service. He was named group vice president and chief digital officer in 2015.

"Kevin has been an integral partner in leading both our logistics operation and, over the last several years, leading Kroger's strategic entry into the digital space," said Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO. "He has led Kroger's e-commerce and digital customer strategy during a period of tremendous growth and change, driving innovation and reshaping our customers' digital experience. Kevin is a proven leader and passionate advocate for our associates and our customers. We wish him, his wife Barbara, and their family all the best in retirement."

Yael Cosset Promoted to Lead Digital and Vitacost

Yael Cosset joined dunnhumby in 2009 as executive vice president of consumer markets. He was named global chief information officer in 2011 and led technology and product matters. He also served as chief executive officer of KSS Retail, a dunnhumby company and global enterprise software provider of price modeling and optimization solutions for retailers worldwide. In both roles, Mr. Cosset collaborated closely with executives at Kroger as well as Tesco, Macy's and Raley's among others, to deliver innovative customer insight and personalization platforms. He was named to his current role at 84.51 in 2015.

"Yael is a passionate advocate for using customer science to make a difference in the lives of our customers. His deep experience in applying technology and innovation in retail make him a perfect fit for this important role," said Mr. McMullen. "Yael is a thoughtful and collaborative leader who will empower his team to create innovative solutions that deliver a differentiating and meaningful, personalized experience to our customers."

Mr. Cosset and his wife, Judy, live with their son in Greater Cincinnati.

Every day, the Kroger Family of Companies makes a difference in the lives of eight and a half million customers and 431,000 associates who shop or serve in 2,796 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Kroger and its subsidiaries operate an expanding ClickList offering  a personalized, order online, pick up at the store service  in addition to 2,253 pharmacies, 787 convenience stores, 324 fine jewelry stores, 1,439 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Kroger is recognized as one of America's most generous companies for its support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. A leader in supplier diversity, Kroger is a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

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SOURCE The Kroger Co.

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals and encouraging youth to pursue their dreams through higher education, today announced that Lenard B. Tessler, vice chairman and senior managing director, Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. ("Cerberus"), has been selected for membership in the prestigious organization. Mr. Tessler joins 10 other esteemed business and civic leaders from across North America in receiving this honor in 2017. For the last 70 years, the Horatio Alger Award has been annually bestowed upon admirable leaders who have succeeded despite facing adversity, and who are committed to higher education and charitable efforts in their local communities.

Mr. Tessler was born in Far Rockaway, N.Y. to first-generation Americans. His father served in WWII as a pilot and was wounded in battle. Following his recovery, Mr. Tessler's father opened a liquor store and raised his family in Rockaway and Cedarhurst, N.Y. Mr. Tessler attended and graduated from the University of Miami in Florida with a degree in accounting. After college, Mr. Tessler practiced accounting during the day, and at night, he attended Fairleigh Dickinson University to earn his MBA. Mr. Tessler worked as a tax accountant for several medium size and Big Eight accounting firms from 1973 until 1981 before turning his attention to new ventures, including co-founding Walker Energy Partners, co-founding leveraged buyout firm Levine, Tessler, Leichtman & Co., and founding TGV Partners, a private equity firm. In 1992, TGV acquired Empire Kosher Poultry, Inc., the world's largest poultry processor, and Mr. Tessler served as Chairman and CEO.

In 2001, Mr. Tessler joined Cerberus to launch the firm's private equity practice. Today, Mr. Tessler is Vice Chairman and a Senior Managing Director at Cerberus. He has spearheaded and managed many significant transactions during his tenure, including the acquisition of Albertsons Companies Inc., Alamo Rent a Car and National Car Rental, GMAC Inc., Chrysler and BAWAG P.S.K. Cerberus is one of the world's leading private investment firms.

"The Horatio Alger Association stands for integrity, honesty and resilience in the face of adversity  qualities that Lenard learned from his upbringing with first-generation parents," said Byron Trott, president, Horatio Alger Association and 2011 Horatio Alger Award recipient. "Lenard is an inspiring individual who chose a path of optimism and goodwill in trying times. His accomplishments provide our Scholars with an excellent example of turning struggles into triumphs and we are proud to recognize him as a new Member."

Mr. Tessler married Fern Kaye in 1980, and the two have offered their support to many philanthropic organizations ever since. They are heavily involved in the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where Mr. Tessler is a trustee and a member of both the investment committee and finance committee, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, where Mrs. Tessler is a trustee and vice chairman and where the Tesslers have endowed The Whitney Biennial, which provides financial support for new and aspiring artists. They are also patrons of many charitable organizations whose missions they support, including the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation.

"I am honored to be inducted into the Horatio Alger Association, which offers critical educational assistance to students overcoming hardships and seeking to realize their potential," said Mr. Tessler. "I am the product of enterprising relatives who were willing to take risks to come to this country and provide for a brighter future for me and my siblings, and believe strongly that opportunities are available for those who are determined and persistent. I am proud of this honor and look forward to providing the Association's Scholars with the support they need to achieve their goals."

Through its Members, Horatio Alger Association aims to educate young people about the limitless opportunities afforded to them by the free-enterprise system. To further this goal, the organization awards scholarships to outstanding high school students who are committed to pursuing higher education and giving back to their communities. Like Association Members, Horatio Alger Scholars have faced significant adversities, but have also displayed unmatched resilience in overcoming their challenges. Since the scholarship program was established in 1984, Horatio Alger Association has provided more than $125 million to students in need. Scholarships are funded solely through the generosity of Association Members, Life Partners and friends.

Mr. Tessler and the Member Class of 2017 will be formally inducted into the Association on March 30-April 1, 2017, during the Association's 70th Horatio Alger Award Induction Ceremonies in Washington, D.C. The annual three-day event honors the achievements of both Members and National Scholars, affording both groups the opportunity to meet and interact, exchanging stories of hardships and triumphs.

For more information about Horatio Alger Association and its Member Class of 2017, please visit www.horatioalger.org and/or follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #HoratioAlgerAward.

About Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans:

Founded in 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc. is dedicated to the simple but powerful belief that hard work, honesty and determination can conquer all obstacles. The Association honors the achievements of outstanding leaders who have accomplished remarkable successes in spite of adversity by bestowing upon them the Horatio Alger Award and inducting them as lifetime Members. Horatio Alger Members support promising young people with the resources and confidence needed to overcome adversity in pursuit of their dreams through higher education. Through the generosity of its Members and friends, the Association awards more than $12 million annually in undergraduate and graduate need-based scholarships across the United States and Canada and provides college support and mentoring services to its Scholars. Since 1984, the Association has awarded more than $125 million in college scholarships to more than 25,000 deserving young people. For more information, please visit www.horatioalger.org.

CONTACT:

McKenna Young

484-385-2913 (office)

[email protected]

SOURCE Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.horatioalger.org


NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanderpump Pets, founded by Lisa Vanderpump, will be rolling out an exclusive new product line at select Petco stores nationwide this December. Vanderpump Pets has partnered with Petco to release luxury lifestyle products including toys, clothing, beds, blankets, carriers, collars and leashes.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445818

These new products will be available in almost 350 stores across the United States and online at Petco.com. The products are intended to reflect a luxury lifestyle for dogs and their owners at an affordable price. Lisa Vanderpump has incorporated much of her personal style into these products with the help of her husband, Ken Todd and her famous pooch Giggy the Pom.

Dr. Sessa, co-founder of Vanderpump Pets said, "These products are perfect for dog owners that would like to give their dogs a luxury lifestyle at an affordable price." Lisa added, "Purchasing these products not only benefits you and your dog, but dogs internationally through a portion of the proceeds going to the Vanderpump Dog Foundation."

A portion of the profits made from the Petco line of products will be donated to the Vanderpump Dog Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is "to provide for a more humane world for dogs worldwide. Through both their domestic and international campaigns, they feel that the organization can make a positive impact on global legislation, education and treatment of animals."

There will be two grand opening events, at a Petco store in New York City and at a Petco store in West Hollywood. The event in New York City will be from noon to 2 p.m. on December 8, 2016 at 860 Broadway. The event in West Hollywood will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on December 12, 2016 at 508 North Doheny Drive.

Media Contact:

Kelly Brady- Brandsway Creative

(212) 966-7900

[email protected]

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Vanderpump Pets
TORONTO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - The Ministry of National Education, Children and Youth of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg signs a convention with its education technology partner, Vretta, for the development of the personalized learning platform, MathemaTIC, for students in Grades 3 & 4 (Cycle 3) and Grades 7 & 8. This is in support of the "Digital Letzebuerg" strategy announced by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in October 2014, under the leadership and guidance of Education Minister, Claude Meisch, the Director of SCRIPT, Luc Weis, and the Coordinator of the Project, Amina Afif.

(LOGO: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445825LOGO)

The collaboration also includes partners from the French Ministry of Education (DEPP), the University of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET), the Luxembourg Institute of Social-Economic Research (LISER), and Le Centre de gestion informatique de l'education (CGIE).

During the 2015-2016 school year, MathemaTIC for Grades 5 & 6 (Cycle 4) was piloted in 41 schools in Luxembourg. The MathemaTIC team developed interactive learning and assessment modules aligned to the mathematical competencies outlined in the national curriculum document for Cycle 4, covering levels 8-10.

"MathemaTIC is a national digital transformational project of high importance and we are happy to see our teachers embrace this new personalized learning platform and use it effectively to support the learning of mathematics for students in class and at home. It is with passion that we look forward to supporting our teachers and partners for the generalization of MathemaTIC for Cycle 4 and the development and generalization of MathemaTIC for Cycle 3 and Grades 7 & 8 for all the schools in our country" mentioned Education Minister Claude Meisch.

The strong uptake of MathemaTIC, in the first year of its launch in Luxembourg, can be attributed to the proven innovative pedagogies that have been developed, the ease of use, and the on-demand availability of the platform. MathemaTIC also has the advantage of offering students the ability to dynamically switch between four different languages, covering the entire student population. They can choose to learn in German, French, Portuguese, or English, interchangeably.

"I am thankful to the immense support that we received from our national and international content experts, teachers, technology partners, research and evaluation specialists, and all the others team members who collaborated with unwavering commitment to achieve the highest possible quality and innovation through the development of the interactive items and customization of the MathemaTIC platform for our students" mentioned Amina Afif, Coordinator of the Project. She continued to say "I also extend a warm welcome to our new team members on the development and customization project for Cycle 3 and Grades 7 & 8 students".

The result of the pilot for Cycle 4 students has strengthened the need to not only provide students with interactive diagnostic and summative assessments but also engage them through the learning process throughout the school year. This is based on technology simulations of real-world scenarios to connect abstract math concepts to practical applications, demystifying the subject.

"MathemaTIC is the result of pedagogical research conducted by international subject matter experts over many years of validating assessment items. It is also the culmination of almost seven years of educational technology research by Vretta in building and validating interactive Assessment for Learning technologies at schools and post-secondary institutions around the world" mentioned Anand Karat, President of Vretta Inc. He added "internationally, numerous educators have shown keen interest in providing MathemaTIC to their students and we are collaborating with MENJE make MathemaTIC available in countries across Europe".

To learn more and participate in the MathemaTIC project visit www.mathematic.lu or send an email to [email protected].

ABOUT VRETTA

Vretta is a global education technology company that is transforming the way students engage with mathematics. Vretta's team of learning and assessment specialists design and develop award-winning interactive math resources that are re-defining what really matters for students in the 21st century. Vretta's vision is a world where everyone enjoys mathematics and they are achieving this by pushing the boundaries of education technology to inspire and empower every learner in the world.

To learn more about Vretta, visit: www.vretta.com.

SOURCE Vretta Inc.
The gala dinner was graced by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and Minister of Home Affairs, Y.A.B Dato' Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, along with Y.B Masir Kujat, MOHA Deputy Minister; Datuk Seri Mustafa Ibrahim, MOHA Deputy Secretary; General Tan Sri Dato' Sri Dr. Zulkiefli Bin Mohd Zin, Chief of Malaysian Armed Forces; Dato' Sri Haji Mustapa Bin Haji Ali, PPKKM President; Tan Sri Dato' Dr Mustaffa Babjee, Chairman, UBM Malaysia, and Mr M. Gandhi, Managing Director of ASEAN Business, UBM Asia.

In his opening speech, Y.A.B Dato' Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi stressed the importance of having 24-hour guards on duty in all banks, due to increased cases in the premises and advised the banks to invest more in security parameters, to help protect not only their property, but also the people around them. The Ministry of Home Affairs will announce about the mandatory training, monitored by Royal Malaysia Police for all security personnel and bodyguards. This step has to be taken in order to improve the quality of their services.

With the dinner serving as the last big gathering for security companies in 2016, the next gathering will be at IFSEC Southeast Asia 2017 on 6-8 September 2017 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Being the largest security, fire and safety event in Southeast Asia, IFSEC SEA is the best platform for the industry players to converge and build international network, whilst obtaining the latest technology available in the market.

Organised by UBM Malaysia, IFSEC SEA had attracted more than 7,000 security professionals from 51 countries in 2016. It is supported by Malaysia Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government, Royal Malaysia Police, CyberSecurity Malaysia, Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Malaysia, Asian Professional Security Association (APSA) Malaysia Chapter, International Workplace, National Examination Board of Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH), British Security Industry Association (BSIA), ASIS Malaysia Chapter and International Security Industry Organisation (ISIO).

"This event is part of our global IFSEC series of exhibitions that aims to promote security for commercial, government and private sectors. It is crucial for everyone to understand the security technology that helps protect offices, infrastructures and homes. One of the crucial elements in IFSEC SEA is cybersecurity, since globally, cybersecurity threats have cost billions of dollars in losses. So, we bring together leading global experts to IFSEC SEA and hope the industry players will take advantage by building business network and witnessing the latest technology and solutions available," said Mr M Gandhi. IFSEC Southeast Asia will take place at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on September 6 - 8 2017, and it's open to trade visitors only. Entrance is free of charge.

For more information on the list of exhibitors or seminars, please visit www.ifsecsea.com.

About UBM Asia (www.ubmasia.com)

Owned by UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, UBM Asia is the largest trade show organiser in Asia and the largest commercial organiser in China, India and Malaysia. Established with its headquarters in Hong Kong and subsidiary companies across Asia and in the US, UBM Asia has a strong global network of 30 offices and 1,300 staff in 24 major cities. We operate in 20 market sectors with 230 exhibitions and conferences, 23 trade publications, 20 online products for over 1,000,000 quality exhibitors, visitors, conference delegates, advertisers and subscribers from all over the world.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445963

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445964

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121014/HK92339LOGO-d

SOURCE UBM Asia (Malaysia)

Related Links

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MALE, Maldives, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lifestyle Capital Partners, in partnership with The Maldives Ministry of Tourism (MOT), are pleased to announce the launch of the first-ever Maldives Ambassador Programme (MAP) with an official Signing Ceremony at Ministry of Tourism on Thursday 24th November 2016.

The Maldives Ambassador Programme (MAP) will be an invitation-only network of well-connected and socially-active individuals in in the U.S. and other key target markets, with the aim to not only globally promote Maldives as the ultimate holiday destination but also as a world-class destination for tourism-related ventures.

The Maldives is a country with a proven and growing infrastructure accommodating tourists' demands for a premium holiday and MAP will therefore provide the Ministry of Tourism with a high-impact tool to relay the country's key tourism messages directly to decision-makers.

The Hon. Mr Moosa Zameer, the Minister of Tourism for the Maldives, said, "We are very excited by this collaboration as the programme is the first of its kind for the Government of the Maldives. We believe LCP is best placed to execute this programme due to its strong commitment to and deep knowledge of the Maldives, along with their experience in such programmes. LCP's global network of contacts will continue to ensure that the Maldives remains the preferred tourism and investment choice of ultra-high net worth individuals of every nationality, culture and religion."

Lynn Villadolid, Founder & Managing Partner of Lifestyle Capital Partners (LCP) said, "We are delighted to be working with His Excellence the Honorable Mr. Moosa Zameer, and the Ministry of Tourism Maldives to spearhead the Maldives Ambassador Programme. Having spent eight years promoting this unique destination to discerning travellers who desire to holiday in the finest beaches in the world, and having witnessed first-hand the gentleness and professionalism of the Maldivian people, we and our appointed brand Ambassadors are pleased to throw our full support behind growing Maldives' luxury tourism. Simply put, this is the ultimate holiday destination for travellers who don't want to compromise."

For further information and general press enquiries, please contact Hunt & Gather:

Hunt & Gather for Lifestyle Capital Partners

T: 079 6492 0097

Tim Potter [email protected]

SOURCE Lifestyle Capital Partners
SAN DIEGO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mast Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT: MSTX) today reported that the first patient has been enrolled in an investigator-sponsored Phase 2 study of the Company's lead product candidate, AIR001, for the treatment of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The Inorganic Nitrite to Amplify the Benefits and Tolerability of Exercise Training (INABLE-TRAINING) in HFpEF study will evaluate AIR001's potential to improve the clinical responses to exercise training in individuals with HFpEF. The INABLE-TRAINING study is expected to enroll approximately 68 patients who will undergo 12 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation, including exercise training, and will be randomized to receive either AIR001 or placebo inhalation solution through the training period. The primary endpoint of the study will be the change in exercise capacity as measured by peak oxygen consumption.

"We are pleased to report that patient enrollment is underway in this Phase 2 study of AIR001 for the treatment of HFpEF," stated Brian M. Culley, Chief Executive Officer of Mast Therapeutics, Inc. "There are now three Phase 2 studies actively enrolling patients to evaluate AIR001 for the treatment of HFpEF and we remain excited about its potential in this indication. Data from this and other studies will help guide our clinical and regulatory strategy in this area of significant unmet need. Currently, HFpEF affects approximately half of the more than 5 million people in the U.S. diagnosed with heart failure and has no proven effective treatment. Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among the elderly worldwide and is the primary diagnosis in more than 1 million hospitalizations each year, with medical costs projected to rise to more than $50 billion in the U.S. alone by 2030."

About the INABLE-TRAINING Study

This is a Phase 2 randomized, double-blind, parallel-group placebo-controlled clinical trial testing whether inhaled AIR001 (sodium nitrite solution), as compared to inhaled placebo, can enhance the benefits from chronic exercise training (ET) in subjects with HFpEF. All subjects will undergo 12 weeks of ET. Participants will be randomized to receive inhaled AIR001 three times daily or inhaled sodium chloride (placebo) three times daily during the study period. Study subjects will wear accelerometry devices to track daily activity levels at home. After 12 weeks of ET as part of standard cardiac rehab, subjects will repeat the assessment of cardiovascular function and exercise capacity as performed at study entry to assess efficacy at a final visit.

The Phase 2 study has 2 aims. First, determine whether treatment with inhaled AIR001 in addition to ET for 12 weeks improves exercise capacity and hemodynamic reserve in HFpEF. Expired gas analysis, inert gas (C2H2) rebreathe, and echocardiography will be performed during rest and exercise to measure oxygen consumption (VO2), CO, and hemodynamics before and after completion of 12 weeks of ET with inhaled NO2- vs ET with inhaled placebo. Second, determine whether treatment with inhaled AIR001 in addition to ET for 12 weeks increases daily activity levels and quality of life (QOL), and reduces symptoms of effort intolerance during ET. Subjects will use externally worn accelerometer devices to track daily physical activity. Tolerability of ET will be assessed by Borg perceived effort and dyspnea scores. Large and small vessel endothelial function (brachial and digital arteries) and QOL will also be assessed. Secondary endpoints include cardiac output reserve, peak exercise workload, rest and exercise hemodynamics assessed by echocardiography, Borg dyspnea and fatigue scores recorded during ET, endothelial function assessed by tonometry and brachial artery flow mediated dilation, QOL assessed by the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire. (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02713126)

About AIR001

AIR001 is a sodium nitrite solution for intermittent inhalation via nebulization. Nitrite is a direct vasodilator and can be recycled in vivo to form nitric oxide (NO) independent of the classical NO synthase (NOS) pathway. Nitrite mediated NO formation has several beneficial effects, including dilation of blood vessels and reduction of inflammation and undesirable cell growth. Generation of NO from sodium nitrite is not dependent upon endothelial function and is enhanced in the setting of tissue hypoxia and acidosis, conditions in which NOS activity typically is depressed. In early clinical studies, AIR001 demonstrated positive hemodynamic effects with reductions observed in right atrial pressure and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure, as well as improvements in mean pulmonary artery pressures, cardiac output, and exercise tolerance as measured by six-minute walk distance. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2a study of AIR001 in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) (n=26), the AIR001 treatment group showed a statistically significant decrease in pulmonary capillary wedge pressure during exercise compared to the control group and AIR001 was generally well-tolerated.

About Mast Therapeutics

Mast Therapeutics, Inc. is a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company headquartered in San Diego, California. The Company has two clinical-stage investigational new drugs, AIR001 and vepoloxamer. AIR001, a sodium nitrite solution for intermittent inhalation via nebulization, is in Phase 2 clinical development for the treatment of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). More information can be found on the Company's web site at www.masttherapeutics.com. Mast Therapeutics and the corporate logo are trademarks of Mast Therapeutics, Inc.

Forward Looking Statements

Mast Therapeutics cautions you that statements in this press release that are not a description of historical fact are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words referencing future events or circumstances such as "expect," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," and "will," among others. Examples of forward-looking statements in this press release include statements relating to AIR001's potential to treat HFpEF, the timing of completion of any clinical studies, and the Company's development plans for AIR001. Forward-looking statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results because they involve the Company's beliefs and assumptions based on currently available information and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual performance and results to differ materially from expectations indicated by the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that could cause actual performance or results to differ include, without limitation: the Company's need for additional funding and the risk that it may not be able to obtain sufficient additional funding as needed; risks associated with the Company's ability to manage operating expenses; uncertainty related to the Company's ability to continue to operate as a going concern; risk of an event of default under the Company's debt facility that could result in the Company being required to repay its outstanding debt obligation and related fees on an accelerated basis and/or at a time that could be detrimental to the Company's financial condition, operations and/or business strategy; the impact of significant reductions in the Company's operations on its ability to develop its product candidates or maintain compliance with laws and regulations relating to public companies; the Company's ability to maintain compliance with NYSE MKT continued listing standards and policies and to maintain the listing and trading of its common stock on a national securities exchange; uncertainties inherent in the conduct of clinical studies and the risk that the Company's product candidates may not demonstrate adequate safety, efficacy or tolerability in one or more clinical studies for approval by regulatory authorities; the Company's lack of control over investigator-sponsored clinical studies of AIR001, including whether any of the studies will commence or be completed on anticipated timelines, or at all; the potential for the Company to sell or license part or all of its assets; the potential for significant delays, reductions, or discontinuation of current and/or planned development activities if the Company is unable to raise sufficient additional capital as needed; the Company's dependence on third parties to assist with important aspects of development of the Company's product candidates, including the conduct of clinical and nonclinical studies, the manufacture and supply of clinical trial material, including drug delivery devices, and the conduct of regulatory activities, and the risk that such third parties may fail to perform as expected leading to delays in product candidate development and additional costs; the risk that the Company is not able to obtain or maintain effective patent coverage or other market exclusivity protections for its products, if approved, or that the use or manufacture of the Company's products may infringe the proprietary rights of others; and other risks and uncertainties more fully described in the Company's press releases and its reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission are available at www.sec.gov.

You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date when made. Mast Therapeutics does not intend to revise or update any forward-looking statement set forth in this press release to reflect events or circumstances arising after the date hereof, except as may be required by law.

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SOURCE Mast Therapeutics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.masttherapeutics.com


MIAMI, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mi9 Retail, a premier provider of omni-channel retail solutions, is pleased to announce that it has been ranked number one among software providers for Tier One retailers, and has been ranked number two overall on the 2016 RIS Software LeaderBoard.

The annual Software LeaderBoard, published by RIS News, is one of the industry's most influential guides for retailers searching for the top retail technology software firms. This year's survey compiled votes from 295 retailers who work with 71 different technology vendors. In addition to being named second overall among retail technology providers, Mi9 Retail ranked among the Top 10 in 31 different categories in the 2016 study.

In the past 12 months, Mi9 Retail has completed three acquisitions including Raymark, ASC, and Upshot Commerce thereby increasing the breadth and depth of its offerings across merchandising, store operations, e-commerce, customer engagement, and retail analytics. "We are honored that our customers have recognized our commitment to their success in their responses to RIS News," said Neil Moses, CEO of Mi9 Retail.

"Mi9 Retail continues to execute successfully on its strategy of building an end-to-end solution for retailers of different types and sizes," said Joe Skorupa, Editorial Director of RIS News. "The results speak for themselves in terms of their expansive product portfolio and the positive feedback from the retail industry. This is an exciting company and one that I will be watching closely in the coming year."

About Mi9 Retail:

Mi9 Retail, a premier provider of enterprise retail merchandising, business intelligence, e-commerce and customer-centric software, empowers the world's most successful retailers to build strong personal relationships with their customers, process high volumes of transactions in real time and optimize inventory across all channels utilizing a single, accurate source of the truth. Built using cutting-edge technology, the software minimizes costs of ownership and provides the industry's fastest time to value. The company's global headquarters are located in Miami, FL, with operations in North America, Europe and Asia. To learn more, please visit www.mi9retail.com.

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SOURCE Mi9 Retail

Related Links

http://www.mi9retail.com


MIAMI, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Waddle over to Miami Seaquarium this holiday season for penguin-perfect celebration. The holidays will feature the park's newest interactive animal experience, a Penguin Encounter, informative presentations at the park's penguin habitat, 'Penguin Isle', daily visits by the park's new penguin costume character, a free penguin plush with the purchase of an online ticket package and more surprises!

Led by the park's animal training staff, the new Penguin Encounter program provides a unique interaction with one of the world's most beloved birds. Guests will experience African penguin behavior up-close and in an intimate setting. The 'Penguin Encounter' experience includes an interactive educational segment, penguin feeding and a 15-20 minute individual 'Meet and Greet' with the penguins inside the park's new Penguin Isle exhibit.

"Miami Seaquarium is excited to be able to offer this new and highly-anticipated animal encounter program where visitors can interact with our African penguins in this unique and intimate setting," said Andrew Hertz, General Manager at Miami Seaquarium.

The opening of the new 'Penguin Encounter' program will launch 'Penguin Holidays' at Miami Seaquarium. Starting Dec. 12th through Jan. 8th, when guests purchase a Family Four Pack online, they will receive a free penguin plush. Then in celebration of the holidays, the penguin festivities will continue at the park starting Dec. 24th through Jan. 9th, with Penguin costume character meet and greets, free penguin poster and t-shirt giveaways and daily penguin presentations.

The 'Penguin Encounter' program is an addition to the park's current animal encounters including swimming with the dolphins, Seal Swim and Sea Trek Reef Encounter, an underwater helmet diving experience bringing park guests up close to reef aquarium residents. Beginning December 19th, the 'Penguin Encounter' program is offered once daily at 1:45 p.m. The cost is $105-$120 (plus tax) for participants ages 10 and older, and $85-$100 (plus tax) for participants ages 5-9. The program fee includes admission into the park and the penguin encounter. Participants must be five years or older and children under ten years old must be accompanied with a paying adult at all times. For more information or to register for the 'Penguin Encounter' program, please call (305) 365-2501.

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SOURCE Miami Seaquarium
MOSCOW, Idaho, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MJP International (OTCPK: MJPI) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of 80% of the issued shares of Human Energy Alliance Laboratories Corp ("HEAL") through its wholly owned subsidiary Energy Alliance Labs Inc. and has appointed Mr. Liao Zu Guo as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

HEAL offers a wide array of green energy solutions it markets and sells online. Among them are state of the art wind and solar installations for both commercial and residential customers.

"We are very pleased with this acquisition which we will use as a stepping stone into the green energy market which is growing at the most rapid pace ever. In particular, domestic demand for solar panels has been very strong," cited Christopher Hudson, COO of MJP International.

About the Solar Energy Market

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), in the last decade, solar has experienced a compound annual growth rate of nearly 60% and over 200,000 Americans work in the sector. More than 400,000 American workers are expected to serve the sector by 2020.

Furthermore, the cost to install solar has dropped by more than 70% over the last 10 years, leading the industry to expand into new markets and deploy thousands of systems nationwide.

The US solar industry expects to install14.5 gigawatts of solar power in 2016, a 94% increase over the record 7.5 gigawatts last year, according to a new market report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association. Revenues from solar installations also increased 21% from 2014 to more than $22bn in 2015.

For the first time, more solar systems came online than natural gaspower plants  the top source of electricity in the US  in 2015, as measured in megawatts, said Justin Baca, vice president of markets and research at the Solar Energy Industries Association. This year, new solar is expected to surpass installations of all other sources, said the US Energy Information Administration.

About MJP International

MJP International is a company that specializes in green energy products and services, including rapidly advancing green technologies such as solar and wind installations. The company is built on the fundamental belief that Green technology is the way to a clean, profitable and energy-rich future. MJP International continually pushes the envelope to find ways for clients to use green technologies in a cost-efficient and user friendly way, firmly believing that renewable and clean energy sources will continue to come to the forefront as viable and economical alternatives to fossil fuel. Investors can visit the company's website at http://www.mjpinternational.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ from those projected due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to the possibility that some or all of the matters and transactions considered by MJP International may not proceed as contemplated, and by all other matters and assumptions specified in MJP International's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, especially those risks and other matters described under "Risk Factors" within MJP International's Form 10-Q filed with the Commission. These statements are made based upon current expectations that are subject to risk and uncertainty. MJP International does not undertake to update forward-looking statements in this news release to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting such forward-looking information.

SOURCE MJP International

Related Links

http://www.mjpinternational.com


LONDON, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --



The Africa mobile phone accessories market offers great opportunities to manufacturers owing to a large number of mobile device users and a substantial growth in the adoption of smartphones and tablets. Revenue generated by the Africa mobile phone accessories market is estimated to reach US$ 4,060.2 Mn by 2026, registering a CAGR of 5.8% over the forecast period.





Key factors and trends impacting the market





Rapid urbanisation and increasing popularity of music, videos, and games are factors that will drive the demand for mobile phone accessories in Africa. Demand for mobile phone accessories in Africa is strongly associated with a rapid growth of the smartphones market. Chinese manufacturers have established a strong base in many parts of Africa to meet the demand for low cost mobile phone accessories. As these low cost accessories are of poor quality and come with a short life, consumers seek better alternatives. This is expected to drive growth of the Africa mobile phone accessories market over the forecast period.



High demand for low-priced accessories and poor economic conditions in Africa are the main challenges faced by mobile phone accessories providers. Major opportunities for growth in the Africa mobile phone accessories market lie in an increase in brand awareness among consumers coupled with a rising disposable income. Prominent market players are focusing on entering regional markets by localising their products. Over the past few years, companies such as Case-Mate, Muvit, Mozo Accessories, and Energizer have significantly increased their footprint in the Africa mobile phone accessories market.





Market forecast





The Africa mobile phone accessories market is segmented on the basis of  Type (Power banks, Batteries, Chargers, Protective Cases, Headphones & Earphones, Portable Speakers, Memory Cards, Other Accessories); Price (Low, Mid, Premium); and Distribution Channel (Multi-brand store, Single brand store, Online store). The Batteries segment type was valued at US$ 228.8 Mn in 2015 and is expected to register a CAGR of 5.7% to reach US$ 418.2 Mn by 2026. The Multi-brand store segment dominates the distribution channel segment owing to the fact that consumers are offered a variety of options and brands under one roof.



Among the different types of mobile phone accessories, the protective cases segment is estimated to account for a maximum market revenue share by 2026, owing to the fact that it helps protect the phone and is also a style statement. Demand for power banks is estimated to witness the highest growth rate by 2016, owing to the frequent power cuts that take place in some parts of Africa. In the price segment, the mid-priced accessories segment is estimated to increase at the highest growth rate during the forecast period, followed by low-priced accessories. Mid-priced accessories are affordable and are of a better quality with a longer life, hence consumers are likely to spend on mid-priced accessories than low-priced ones.



Of the chief regions in Africa (East Africa, West Africa, South Africa, and Rest of Africa), the Rest of Africa region is expected to be the largest revenue generator for mobile phone accessories by 2016, accounting for a revenue share of 44.1% by the end of 2016. The South Africa market segment in the Africa mobile phone accessories market was valued at US$ 595.5 Mn in 2015 and is expected to register a CAGR of 6.3% to reach US$ 1,157.2 Mn by 2026.



africa mobile phone accessories market_Image for Preview Analysis



Some popular vendors such as Case-Mate, Muvit, and Mozo Accessories are focusing on innovative ways to expand their customer base and thereby consolidate their position in the Africa mobile phone accessories market. Mobile phone accessories vendors are introducing different varieties of mobile phone accessories that reflect the culture of consumers in Africa in order to increase the popularity of their products.

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About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

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For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

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LEAWOOD, Kan., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The state of Arizona now recognizes National Healthcareer Association's (NHA) Exam for the Certification of Pharmacy Technicians (ExCPT) as an approved certification, meeting the licensure requirements of this growing field. Prior to the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy (the Board) approving the ExCPT on November 17, the state recognized only one certification program.

The ExCPT provides a national credential as a certified pharmacy technician (CPhT). Through certification, pharmacy technicians demonstrate knowledge and competency in the core tasks they will be performing, which in turn enhances patient safety. Because most employers seek applicants who have earned a pharmacy technician certification, and many mandate it as a required qualification, earning this credential from NHA also helps job candidates secure employment. In Arizona, certification is required for all pharmacy technicians. With the Board's approval of the ExCPT, those entering the pharmacy technician profession in Arizona, for the first time, have a choice of CPhT certification programs.

"As an Arizona pharmacy technician and after 10 years of hard work, I am very pleased that the Board now recognizes the ExCPT exam as a means of certification for pharmacy technicians in Arizona," said Anita Benavidez, pharmacy patient advocate for Banner Health and member of the ExCPT Certification Governance Board. "Having a second exam will open up many doors that have previously been closed, or may be closed to pharmacy technicians in Arizona if only one certification provider is available."

During discussions by the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy, Board members cited the psychometric soundness, relevance and high quality of the NHA ExCPT as critical factors in the decision to approve the exam.

The approval of the ExCPT certification program provides greater access to pharmacy technician jobs in Arizona, where demand for these critical healthcare positions is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Arizona employed more than 9,000 pharmacy technicians as of May 2015  a number that is expected to grow more than 25% over the next decade. Ensuring that there are enough qualified pharmacy technicians is essential, since the Bureau estimates that more than 400,000 pharmacy technicians will be needed in the United States by 2024 (http://bit.ly/2ejsm6U).

"The Arizona Community Pharmacy Committee (ACPC) supports the Arizona Board of Pharmacy's approval of [the] ExCPT," said Janet Underwood, director, pharmacy affairs, ACPC. "We believe that providing multiple exam options will provide our members and pharmacy technicians freedom of choice in selecting the exam that best suits their individual needs in meeting Arizona's certification requirements."

"We're very excited that the Arizona Board has approved the ExCPT, giving thousands of pharmacy technicians a choice when obtaining certification," said Lyndsey McDonald, director of strategic alliances at NHA. "We have been working closely with the Board for a long time, and this decision is a great example of our shared commitment to upholding rigorous certification standards that assess practitioner competency."

Accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), the NHA ExCPT is recognized by numerous Boards of Pharmacy throughout the United States, including California where it was recently approved. The NHA regulatory and advocacy team works with regulators, legislators, legislative representatives and healthcare professionals to advocate for access to a better future for those pursuing a frontline healthcare career such as pharmacy technician.

About National Healthcareer Association

Since 1989, NHA has been partnering with allied health education programs, organizations and employers across the nation to award more than 500,000 allied health certifications. The organization offers eight nationally accredited exams, certification preparation and study materials, industry-leading outcomes-based data analytics, as well as ongoing professional development, and continuing education for its certification holders.

NHA is a division of Assessment Technologies Institute, a leader in providing technology-based educational, assessment, testing and certification solutions for healthcare and other vocational fields. Its family of companies includes NHA, ATI Nursing, NASM and MedHub.

To learn more, visit www.nhanow.com.

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SOURCE National Healthcareer Association

Related Links

http://www.nhanow.com


SAN MATEO, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Slice, the free mobile and online app indispensable to smart online shoppers, today released Slice Drops, a new app that enables users to receive refunds when items they've bought go on sale. Slice Drops takes the popular price drops feature from Slice to the next level, with more supported merchants and more ways to save in one powerful app, just in time for the holiday shopping season.

"People love the experience of getting an e-mail that says they have money coming to them, whether it's tens or hundreds of dollars," said Harpinder Singh, CEO, Slice. "We wanted to create even more opportunities to deliver that kind of happiness with Slice Drops."

Online retailer price protection is often thought of as a cumbersome, difficult task, with countless steps to complete and too much time wasted. Slice Drops rids consumers of the obsessive-compulsive deal-watching and logistical grunt-work, making it easier than ever to capture savings. The app delivers a slew of new and improved features including:

Support of more than 35 merchants: In addition to the current list of supported merchants including Macy's, Best Buy, J. Crew, and Pottery Barn, Slice Drops also delivers refunds from new retailers: Gap, Old Navy, Athleta, Wal-Mart, and Banana Republic. Automatic-request merchants: Slice Drops will automatically request price drops from Nordstrom, REI, and Anthropologie, with more being constantly added. Tracking and savings tally: With its new tracking screen, shoppers will know exactly which purchases Slice Drops is tracking. Additionally, the app displays total cumulative savings. Amazon price protection: Slice Drops is the only service to offer Amazon price protection. At launch, Slice Drops will give up to $20 cash back against Amazon price changes this holiday season.

"It seems that every day there is another big saleit's not just about Black Friday and Cyber Monday anymore, so there's a high likelihood that you might buy something today that goes on sale later," commented Singh. "With Slice Drops, shoppers can be assured that they'll get the best price, and maybe some extra jingle in their pockets this holiday shopping season."

Slice Drops is free and available for both iOS and Android beginning today. Download in either the App Store or Google Play. For more information, please visit https://www.slice.com/slice-drops.

About Slice Technologies

Slice is online shopping, smarter. Slice's technology automatically identifies e-receipts within inboxes and extracts every data point about every purchase to create digital commerce products that delight consumers and create business value for partners. Slice is transforming online shopping and retail by unveiling never-before-seen digital commerce data via its APIs, information products, and consumer applications.

Based in San Mateo, California, Slice is an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary of Rakuten. For media inquiries, please contact Julia Handel at either (917) 776-4898 or [email protected].

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SOURCE Slice

Related Links

https://www.slice.com/


MEDFORD, Ore., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- After a deliberative search process, Jackson County Library Services is welcoming 10-year library services veteran Jamar Rahming as the new library director. Rahming has responsibility for leading the operational and community building activities for all 15 branches in the Jackson County library system.

Formerly the regional branch manager for the library system in Austin, Texas, Rahming sees a parallel with his new role regarding opportunities to build on the region's "panoramic" portrait of diversity.

"Like Austin, Jackson County has a large geographic area and widely diverse population so each region needs to have their individual identity while allowing patrons to feel they are part of the broader community," he says. "Books, other materials and activities need to reflect that."

Another asset Rahming brings is team building, a skill he was first exposed to during his work at the Smithsonian Institute. "Leadership is never about the leader; it is about extracting the greatness of others to enhance the endeavors of the organization," Rahming says. "The aptitude I bring to Jackson County is that I know how to build strong teams."

Adds Dana Braccia, vice president of operations for library operator Library Systems & Services, "Jamar is the kind of leader who will inspire everyone around him and as a result the Jackson County library system will thrive."

The Jackson County Library District was looking for a candidate with a proven track record of engaging both staff and the community about the importance of strategic plan implementation. "Jamar brings an enthusiasm to the position that we expect will lead to exciting and meaningful changes to the District," says District Board President Maureen Swift.

About Jackson County Library District

The Jackson County Library District is an independent unit of local government dedicated to providing excellent library operations in Jackson County.

About LS&S

Library Systems & Services (LS&S) operates more than 80 public and special libraries around the country through public-private partnerships.

Related Links

http://jcls.org/home

http://www.lsslibraries.com

https://jacksoncountylibrarydistrict.org

SOURCE Library Systems & Services

Related Links

http://www.lsslibraries.com


Now in their 24th year, the North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year awards are presented by an independent jury of distinguished automotive journalists from across the United States and Canada. The award was revealed at the December meeting of the Automotive Press Association in Detroit, Michigan.

"What could be better than to have our new trophy created by one of the auto industry's greatest designers," said jury President Mark Phelan. "The board, jury members and sponsors are thrilled to present this work of art to the year's best vehicles, and there's no doubt the winning automakers will display it with pride. The North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle awards are our industry's most prestigious and highly desired. This new trophy gracefully embodies the style that has won automotive design a special place in the world of art."

The North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year will be announced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Monday, Jan. 9, 2017.

The finalists for the awards are:

Car of the Year:

Chevrolet Bolt

Genesis G90

Volvo S90

Truck of the Year:

Ford F-series Super Duty

Honda Ridgeline

Nissan Titan

Utility Vehicle of the Year:

Chrysler Pacifica

Jaguar F-Pace

Mazda CX-9

ABOUT THE AWARDS: The North American Car and Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year awards honor excellence in innovation, design, safety, performance, technology, driver satisfaction and value. Initiated in 1994, they are judged by about 60 professional automotive journalists from the United States and Canada who work for magazines, television, radio, newspapers and web sites. They are the longest-running award not associated with a specific publication, a structure that produces a diverse base of jurors.

The Utility of the Year award is new for 2017, reflecting the booming sales and growing diversity of vehicles ranging from rugged off-roaders to family hauling SUVs and minivans.

The NACTOY Awards are proudly sponsored by Nashville, Tennessee-based Bridgestone Americas, Inc. (BSAM) is the U.S. subsidiary of Bridgestone Corporation, the world's largest tire and rubber company.

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SOURCE North American Car of the Year
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. and BUTTE, Mont., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- NorthWestern Corporation d/b/a NorthWestern Energy (NYSE: NWE) today announced that Tony Clark is joining the company's Board of Directors. Clark is a former Commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and former Chair and Commissioner of the North Dakota Public Service Commission (NDPSC). As previously announced, beginning January 3, 2017, he will become a Senior Advisor with Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP, one of the largest law firms in the U.S. dedicated primarily to the practice of communications and energy law.

"We're looking forward to working with Tony," said NorthWestern's President and CEO Bob Rowe. "He has an exceptional background in the utility industry, with 15 combined years of service as a state and federal utility regulator. His experience addressing issues critical to the future of our industry will strengthen NorthWestern's ability to serve all of our stakeholders. Tony was a thoughtful, studious, balanced regulator. He understood the relationship between long-term customer value, operational excellence, infrastructure investment, solid corporate governance, and shareholder value. As a North Dakotan and former state regulator, he has a deep understanding of our remarkable part of the country."

Clark recently served four years as a Commissioner with FERC, concluding his service on September 30, 2016. Prior to that, he served twelve years as a Commissioner with the NDPSC, including five years as its Chair and a term as the President of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Clark also has considerable experience in state government, serving as North Dakota's Commissioner of Labor and in its House of Representatives. Clark is a graduate of North Dakota State University and holds a master's degree from the University of North Dakota. He lives in Ashburn, VA, and is married with three children.

About NorthWestern Energy

NorthWestern Corporation, doing business as NorthWestern Energy, provides electricity and natural gas to approximately 701,000 customers in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. More information on NorthWestern Energy is available on the company's Web site at www.northwesternenergy.com.

SOURCE NorthWestern Corporation

Related Links

http://www.northwesternenergy.com


The Telemedical Drone Project, known as HiRO (Health Integrated Rescue Operations), was developed by Italo Subbarao, DO, senior associate dean at William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Guy Paul Cooper Jr., a fourth year medical student at WCUCOM.

The concept arose when the two studied the medical response to the devastating EF-4 tornado that struck Hattiesburg, Mississippi in February 2013. In the past two years, they've developed multiple prototypes to support rural and wilderness medical emergencies, including the two newest iterations: ambulance drones designed to support victims and rescue personnel during mass shootings, bombings, or other terrorist attacks

"Reaching the victims is the critical challenge in these situations. As an osteopathic physician, my goal was to find ways to help save lives. A medical drone is the bridge that delivers life-saving treatment directly to the victims, giving remote physicians eyes, ears and voice to instruct anyone on site," said Dr. Subbarao, a nationally recognized expert in disaster and emergency medicine.

Two new telemedical packages were deployed during the demonstration, one for a severely injured victim and the other for a mass casualty setup capable of treating up to 100 people with significant to minor injuries. Both kits incorporate Homeland Security recommendations provided through the "Stop the Bleed" initiative.

According to student doctor Cooper, "The two highly advanced mobile telemedical kits provide immediate and secure access to a provider on the other end of the screen. The package was designed for use in the chaos and confusion where guidance must be simple, direct, and user friendly. We feel that the features in these kits empower the provider and bystander to save lives," noted Cooper.

When the critical care kit opens, the physician appears on video and can direct treatment. The kit includes Google Glass, which allow the wearer to be hands free and to move away from the drone while maintaining audio and visual contact with the physician.

Experts from Hinds Community College, in collaboration with Dr. Subbarao and Paul Cooper, designed and built both disaster drones, which are capable of carrying telemedical packages in adverse conditions.

"These drones have impressive lift and distance capability, and can be outfitted with a variety of sensors, such as infrared, to help locate victims," said Dennis Lott, director of the unmanned aerial vehicle program at Hinds Community College. "Working together, we're able to develop, test, and bring this technology to the field. It is just a matter of time before the drones are universally adopted for emergency and disaster response toolkits."

About the American Osteopathic Association

The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) represents more than 123,000 osteopathic physicians (DOs) and osteopathic medical students; promotes public health; encourages scientific research; serves as the primary certifying body for DOs; and is the accrediting agency for osteopathic medical schools.

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SOURCE American Osteopathic Association
NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, today announced Lithium X Energy Corp. (TSX-V: LIX; OTCQX: LIXXF), a lithium exploration and development company, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX Best Market. Lithium X upgraded to OTCQX from the OTCQB Venture Market.

Lithium X begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol "LIXXF." U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.

"Trading on OTCQX will allow Lithium X to efficiently leverage its existing TSX Venture listing to build visibility and provide a more transparent trading market for U.S. investors," said Jason Paltrowitz, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "We are pleased to welcome Lithium X to the OTCQX Best Market."

"In response to growing investor interest we have chosen to have Lithium X's shares traded on OTCQX, enabling greater exposure and accessibility to our expanding U.S. and global shareholder base," said Lithium X's President and CEO Brian Paes-Braga. "Lithium X looks forward to broadening its shareholder base further through the OTCQX platform."

SecuritiesLawUSA, PC serves as Lithium X's OTCQX Advisor, responsible for providing professional guidance on OTCQX requirements.

Lithium X is a lithium exploration and development company with a focus on becoming a low-cost supplier for the burgeoning lithium battery industry. The Company is developing its Sal del los Angeles project covering more than 95% of Salar de Diablillos in Salta Province, Argentina. It is also exploring a large land package in Nevada's Clayton Valley, contiguous to the only producing lithium operation in North America Silver Peak, owned and operated by Albemarle, the world's largest lithium producer. Lithium X is listed on the TSXV under the trading symbol LIX.

About OTC Markets Group Inc.

OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market, and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors.

To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com.

OTC Link ATS is operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC and SEC regulated ATS.

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Media Contact:

OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected]

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SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc.

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CONNECTICUT, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PALMco, a family-owned and -operated energy supply company, announced today it will match citizen donations to all environmental science education projects in Connecticut schools in partnership with DonorsChoose.org, a non-profit crowdfunding platform where teachers can request classroom resources. As part of the DonorsChoose.org "Double Your Impact" initiative, PALMco will provide $11,000 to support a dollar-for-dollar match when donors contribute to Connecticut environmental science projects. This partnership is the fourth initiative between PALMco and DonorsChoose.org, bringing PALMco's total matching contributions to $86,000 and helping to support $172,000 worth of classroom projects.

"At PALMco we believe that education is the key to every family's success and that a strong community is one that comes together to ensure that all its students have the resources they need to be successful in life," said Robert Palmese, President of PALMco. "As a family owned and operated company, we know it is imperative to invest in our children's future. That is why we are thrilled to partner with DonorsChoose.org and to work with them to provide critical resources for students and educators. Every dollar put towards education is an investment in our communities' future. Only by working together can we achieve the success we want in our communities."

The "Double Your Impact" initiative allows partners like PALMco to match individual donations dollar for dollar, effectively doubling the impact of each donor's donation. In order to maximize the impact, PALMco has selected to match donations given towards environmental science projects that cost a total of up to $800 at underserved schools in the state of Connecticut. The three previous donations by PALMco to DonorsChoose.org have totaled more than $75,000 to reach over 30,000 students by completing funding for over 300 projects at high poverty schools. By the end of this latest campaign, PALMco will have contributed $86,000 to help support $172,000 worth of classroom projects across Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

This partnership is a continued initiative of "PALMco Cares," a larger effort to give back to the communities in which PALMco operates. Launched in December 2013, PALMco Cares' inaugural campaign donates $1 per month for each participating gas and/or electric account to the American Childhood Cancer Organization (ACCO). Since then, PALMco has been active in other community organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, USO, and Habitat for Humanity.

To donate to the projects funded by PALMco, please visit PALMCo's match offer page on DonorsChoose.org. To see the progress of PALMco's campaign to date, please visit our Partner Page on DonorsChoose.org.

About PALMco

PALMco is a family owned and operated energy supply company (ESCO) that supplies electricity and gas in Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Our family has been in the energy business for over 75 years, and we dedicate ourselves to providing quality service, customer satisfaction, dependable energy, and competitive prices. For more information, please visit www.palmcoenergy.com.

About DonorsChoose.org

Founded in 2000 by a Bronx history teacher, DonorsChoose.org has raised $488 million for America's classrooms. Teachers come to DonorsChoose.org to request the materials and experiences they need most for their classrooms, and donors give to the projects that inspire them. To date, 2.3 million people and partners have funded projects on the site, reaching 20 million students and making DonorsChoose.org the leading platform for supporting U.S. public schools. DonorsChoose.org is the only crowdfunding platform that vets each request, delivers materials directly to schools, and captures the impact of every funded project with photos, thank yous, and a cost report showing how each dollar was spent. In 2014, DonorsChoose.org made the top 10 of Fast Company's list of the World's Most Innovative Companies, the first time a charity has received such recognition.

Contact: Zigis Switzer

[email protected]

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SOURCE PALMco Energy

Related Links

http://www.palmcoenergy.com


PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandata Technologies, the leading national provider of technology solutions for the home care industry, and the pioneer of EVV solutions, announces that Partners in Care, New York City's largest licensed home care agency, has signed an agreement to adopt its latest Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) solution, Santrax Point of Care. Partners in Care is targeting a go-live of the new platform during the first quarter of 2017.

Santrax Point of Care ("SPoC") continues to be recognized in the home health community nationwide as a transforming technology, enabling agencies to go paperless and at the same time increase documentation accuracy, thereby reducing costs, speeding up workflow and boosting overall performance. SPoC is powered by DeVero, Inc., a San Jose, CA based company, and enables more streamlined workflow for clinical visits and associated documentation management.

"We are thrilled to be collaborating with Partners in Care to help improve efficiencies for their clinicians in the field as well as their office staff," commented David Birnbaum, Executive Vice President at Sandata. "We have worked very closely with Partners in Care for over two decades, and in fact they implemented the first version of our EVV solution in 1994, and we are confident that SPoC brings a new chapter to this great story."

Partners in Care plans to transition its entire clinical documentation set  comprising of over thirty forms and related workflow  to the SPoC platform. "My nursing team and I are very excited to implement SPoC as our clinical platform. The ability to integrate all of our clinical documentation into one comprehensive platform will improve operational efficiencies and provide more rapid access to reporting, ultimately enabling us to improve outcomes," said Jennifer Rajewski, Senior Vice President at Partners in Care.

Sandata has enjoyed strong demand for its mobile workflow products, and brought an increasing number of home health agencies onto SPoC in 2016. "Based on the market reaction to our new solutions, we anticipate continued growth with SPoC and our broader mobile platform going forward, and we are excited to implement additional clients into 2017," commented Birnbaum.

About Sandata Technologies:

Sandata  based in Port Washington, NY  provides a complete package of information technology solutions, which includes scheduling, time and attendance, billing, payroll, compliance and clinical applications for the home care industry. Sandata's suite of products includes Santrax Electronic Visit Verification, the market leading time and attendance product, Santrax Agency Management and Santrax Payer Management, web-based software solutions with features including voice biometrics to perform speaker verification, and a jurisdictional view dashboard solution for states and other payers, municipalities and the home care agency markets, Santrax Member Management, an ADA Section 508 compliant member portal for self-directed members to view, modify and approve worker timesheets, and Santrax Point of Care, an innovative data collection and remote chart access tool giving field workers the ability to collect both clinical and non-clinical information at the point-of-care.

Sandata has over 3,500 provider agencies across the United States processing more than 125 million verifications annually.

About Partners in Care of New York:

Partners in Care of New York is part of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. As part of the VNSNY family, Partners in Care shares its commitment to quality and compassionate care. We are accredited by the Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP) and licensed by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH). Our services are available to residents of all five boroughs of New York City, as well as Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland Counties.

For nearly 125 years, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York has been committed to meeting the needs of New Yorkers with compassionate, high-quality home healthcare. Founded in 1893, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York is the largest not-for-profit home- and community-based healthcare organization in the United States, serving the five boroughs of New York City, and Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties. Today, VNSNY focuses on promoting the health and well-being of patients and families by providing expert, cost-effective care in their homes and communities. From pre-natal to end-of-life, we offer a wide range of services, programs, and health plans to meet the diverse needs of our patients, members, and clients. The care we provide can be integrated to serve the specific clinical and social needs of patients while allowing them to live safely in their homes and communities.

SOURCE Sandata Technologies, LLC

Related Links

http://www.sandata.com


GILBERTS, Ill., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ductilcrete Slab Systems, LLC originated as a solution to the traditional pitfalls of the concrete floor slab industry  increased number of floor joints, high costs of maintenance, and limited warranty, to name a few. The company has since then established a track record of offering a patented solution to address those typical disadvantages associated with conventional concrete floor slabs. As a result, owners, developers and contractors are now able to utilize an option that is more sustainable and more affordable in their projects. But Ductilcrete's success in the concrete floor slab industry extends beyond its most apparent audience as the company's mission includes focus on the broader community. Specifically, Ductilcrete's leadership developed a formula for giving back  the company donates $52.80 for every mile of floor joints saved with Ductilcrete's slab systems.

In the past, Ductilcrete supported the American Cancer Society (through its partnership with The Conlan Company) as well as Purdue University Krannert School of Management's Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) program (through its partnership with Lithko Contracting, LLC). Most recently, Ductilcrete will be celebrating another licensee's success, Scurto Cement Construction (Gilberts, IL), by donating $10,000 to proper the mission of the Saving Tiny Hearts Society as a result of Scurto Cement Construction reaching a major milestone  installation of 40 million square feet of Ductilcrete. Subsequently, Scurto's leadership was asked to select a non-profit organization of their choice to benefit from that success. The Saving Tiny Hearts Society is on a mission to spread awareness of congenital heart defects (CHD) as well as to raise funds to support research benefiting those affected by CHD. Currently, the efforts exploring projects to improve, prolong and save the lives of those affected by CHD are inadequate, so Ductilcrete's monetary gift is especially timely.

Ductilcrete's leadership continues to deliver on its core business value of improving the lives of others in multiple ways. Celebrating successful business partnerships by giving to others allows the company to amplify its positive impact far beyond the concrete floor slab industry and its direct licensees. Ductilcrete's approach allows the company to extend its triumphs to support causes bigger than the company's self-interests.

Ductilcrete continues to deliver on its promise to give back

Ductilcrete Slab Systems, LLC:

Ductilcrete Slab Systems encompasses a family of concrete flatwork systems that include slabs, pavements and toppings. Although not formally founded until 2012, Ductilcrete's success can be attributed to more than 10 years of research by Greg Scurto and Allen Face. Today in 2016, Ductilcrete's 27 alliance members are responsible for having placed more than 317 projects equating to 89 million square feet. Ductilcrete's accelerated growth has been a result of the significant value that developers, users and owners are experiencing.

Ductilcrete delivers high performing slabs and pavements designed to remain flat and level with virtually no curl.

Its patented system creates concrete floors that feature up to 75% fewer joints and higher load bearing capacity.

With Ductilcrete, developers are experiencing higher lease rates, are able to lease faster and upon exiting are realizing higher cap rates.

Tenants and users are enjoying the look, the quality and flexibility for operational use, as well as the extremely low cost of maintenance.

Scurto Cement Construction:

Established in 1973, Scurto Cement Construction continues to be recognized as one of the nation's largest concrete contractors. Scurto specializes in industrial, commercial and institutional buildings while continuing to be known and respected as an innovation leader in the concrete slab industry. By combining a theoretical foundation with years of practical field testing, Gregory Scurto developed the "game changing" Ductilcrete Slab System. Scurto's overall commitment to excellence can only be matched by their never ending desire to make a difference through their various philanthropic efforts.

Contact: Cheryl Cappelli - [email protected] - 224-828-5986

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SOURCE Ductilcrete Slab Systems, LLC

Related Links

http://www.ductilcrete.com


BOSTON, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PatientPing, a health technology company that connects providers to seamlessly coordinate patient care, announced today that it has received $31.6 million in Series B funding led by Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz and Boston-based Leerink Transformation Partners (LTP). The funding will help fuel the company's rapid expansion into new geographies and accelerate the development of product enhancements. PatientPing also plans to at least double the size of its team by actively hiring inspired change-makers for its growth, operations, engineering, and product development teams. This announcement comes just over a year after announcing $9.6 million in seed and series A funding, bringing the total funding amount to $41.2 million, to date.

PatientPing's flagship product offers real-time notifications ("Pings") to providers whenever their patients experience an admit, transfer or discharge to or from a facility. The Company has become the country's leading provider of clinical event notifications, creating the nation's largest community of providers working together to coordinate patient care. PatientPing's product is unique in that it spans across the entire continuum of careacute, ambulatory, and post-acute facilitiesregardless of EMR, provider network, or other institutional barriers that have historically created silos between providers. At the facility where patients are getting care, providers also receive care instructions that include contact information for others on the patient's care team as well as patient visit histories.

The average Medicare patient receives care from seven different providers across four unaffiliated practices per year. The lack of coordination between providers can adversely affect patient care and creates billions of dollars in avoidable waste each year. With PatientPing's notifications, care managers and providers share real-time insights into patient movement throughout the care continuumtransforming how care is delivered and reducing the overall cost of treatment.

"We are just getting started," said Jay Desai, founder & CEO, PatientPing. "It's an important moment in history to modernize our country's healthcare IT infrastructure and we're thrilled to partner with the world's most innovative investors from both coasts to support us on our journey. For example, if a patient lands in a hospital in Florida when their primary care team is at home in Massachusetts, we're making it seamless for those providers to work together so the patient gets the best possible care. We're going to accelerate expansion to new regions and dramatically increase our investment in our product to continue delivering on our aim of seamlessly connecting providers to coordinate patient care."

"We have an incredibly fragmented health system where up until now healthcare providers had no idea where their patients come from or where they go after care," said Todd Cozzens, managing partner, Leerink Transformation Partners (LTP). "For the first time, PatientPing solves this problem by creating a dense network that knows where every patient is in the healthcare ecosystem, and provides this extremely valuable information back to individual providers to understand their markets and patient populations better and be in a position to increase efficiency, focus resources and keep more care within their own system."



"I am a huge fan of businesses that have a network attached to it, and see huge potential for PatientPing to become an important business in the healthcare space," said Jeff Jordan, partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Vijay Pande, partner at Andreessen Horowitz adds, "PatientPing is addressing a real problem in healthcare, where so many of the issues aren't just biological, but systemic."



PatientPing has expanded its nationwide community to include more than 15,000 providers and has a presence in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire, with plans to expand into several new markets next year.

About PatientPing

PatientPing is a Boston-based health technology company that is building a national community of engaged providers who are sharing information, coordinating care, and working together to get patients healthier faster. By joining the PatientPing community, providers are notified in real-time when their patients receive care elsewhere and are able to share care instructions with other providers. PatientPing's national care coordination community includes physicians, nurses, case managers, and care coordinators across hospitals, emergency departments, accountable care organizations (ACOs), physician practices, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation centers, payers and other providers. By connecting care teams through real-time information sharing, PatientPing enables providers to deliver higher quality and more cost-effective care, improving patient outcomes and experience. For more information, please visit www.patientping.com.

Dominic Amenta | DPA Communications

781-789-5074 | [email protected]

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SOURCE PatientPing

Related Links

http://www.patientping.com


"By leveraging his extensive restaurant experience, keen consumer insights knowledge and strategic marketing and operating skills Paul will continue to identify and execute against key growth drivers for McAlister's. I am confident he will provide leadership to our franchisees and drive continued brand performance in this industry leading concept," said FOCUS Brands President, North America, Paul Damico.

Paul's background includes more than 20 years of operations, franchising and marketing experience with some of the most prominent brands in the foodservice industry, including Taco Bell, Burger King, and Sonic Drive-In. Since joining FOCUS Brands in 2011 as Vice President of Marketing for Moe's Southwest Grill, Paul has successfully grown into several significant roles within the organization, effectively developing and executing new branding, advancing consumer insights deployment, leading high functioning teams and identifying notable sales driving innovations that have helped the brands continue to deliver superior results.

Most recently, as SVP of Brand Marketing Strategy, Paul led the collective marketing capabilities for all six brands that are a part of FOCUS Brands; developing long term, consumer-driven, strategic planning processes, creating a marketing center of excellence for creative, social media and PR and playing an instrumental role in developing a digital roadmap across the enterprise.

"I am honored to have this opportunity, and excited to lead the great McAlister's team and brand in its next stage of growth and innovation," said Paul Macaluso, President of McAlister's Deli.

About McAlister's

Founded in 1989, McAlister's Deli is a fast casual restaurant chain known for its sandwiches, spuds, soups, salads, desserts and McAlister's Famous Sweet Tea. In addition to dine-in and take-out service, McAlister's also offers catering with a selection of sandwich trays, box lunches, desserts, a hot spud bar and more. With numerous industry accolades, the McAlister's brand has more than 361 restaurants in 28 states. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. For more information, visit www.mcalistersdeli.com.

About FOCUS Brands Inc.

Atlanta-based FOCUS Brands Inc., through its affiliate brands, is the franchisor and operator of more than 5,000 ice cream shoppes, bakeries, restaurants, and cafes in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 60 foreign countries under the brand names Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's and McAlister's Deli, as well as Seattle's Best Coffee on certain military bases and in certain international markets. Please visit www.focusbrands.com to learn more.

Media Contact: Melissa Smith, McAlister's Deli, (404) 705-4449, [email protected]

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SOURCE McAlister's Deli

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NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly 30 million people in the United States suffer from the epidemic of diabetes.1 However, nearly 40% of diabetes patients in "good control" have persistently elevated glucose levels (hyperglycemia) and significant glucose variability.2 These patients are at high risk of developing serious complications, including cardiovascular events. If left untreated, hyperglycemia can lead to cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, kidney damage and eye disease or blindness.3

As part of Diabetes Awareness Month, educators and clinical laboratories began a campaign to educate the public on an advanced diagnostic tool that provides a more complete picture of hyperglycemia. The GlycoMark test measures the 1,5-anhydroglucitol molecule in the blood, providing a clinically proven one- to two-week measure of glycemic excursions, often related to post prandial sugar spikes. This is in contrast to A1C, a test that reflects an average blood glucose levels over a two- to three-month time period.

Diabetes researcher Dr. Irl Hirsch, Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, explained that while A1C is helpful in tracking broad glucose targets, it only tells part of the story because it masks short term glycemic variability. "GlycoMark is a critical adjunct to A1C testing and presents a new paradigm for effective diabetes management."

GlycoMark has collaborated with 11 clinical laboratories throughout the country to help educate physicians and patients about the benefits of using A1C with GlycoMark in order to garner more information. As Medical Director of Clinical Practice for the Florida Hospital Diabetes Institute, Dr. Damon Tanton treats one of the largest patient populations of diabetes patients in the country. He is an active proponent of integrating GlycoMark into the standard of care. "A substantial level of variability can be hidden in an average," he explained. "Having GlycoMark allows us to provide more refined, individualized care. Having this test result enables my team to fine tune its treatment plan. It is a fantastic supplement to the A1C."

The ability to access critical information reflective of the prior two weeks is another advantage of the test, according to Dr. Tanton. "Because GlycoMark is a two-week test as opposed to a three-month average, we have much more current data. This allows us to make more relevant adjustments and tailor regimens more quickly."

Outreach programs such as GlycoMark's showcases the importance of assessing glucose peaks in a patient's blood in addition to knowing an A1C average. 2014 AADE Diabetes Educator of the Year Gary Scheiner, MS, CDE, said GlycoMark provides additional context to help manage post-prandial sugar peaks. "Short of wearing a continuous blood glucose monitor, GlycoMark is the best tool we have of measuring glycemic variability," he said. "Patients may be achieving a good A1C, but having big spikes after meals and then lows later on, so we have to look in more detail about their therapy and what's really taking place."

About GlycoMark

GlycoMark, Inc. is a joint venture of Toyota Tsusho America, Inc. (New York, NY), Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Tokyo, Japan), and Nippon Kayaku Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan). The GlycoMark test is an FDA-cleared for intermediate monitoring of glucose control in people with diabetes. The GlycoMark test is not intended to diagnose any specific diabetes state or disease. Physicians should use their clinical judgment when using the GlycoMark test. For more information, visit www.GlycoMark.com.

1 "2014 National Diabetes Statistics Report." CDC, http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data/statistics/2014StatisticsReport.html 2 Bonora et al., "Prevalence and correlates of post-prandial hyperglycemia in a large sample of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus." Diabetologia, May 2006 3 "Hyperglycemia in diabetes." http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyperglycemia/basics/complications/con-20034795

SOURCE GlycoMark
NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- American students rank 20th in reading, 19th in science and 31st in math compared to students in 35 OECD countries, according to the results from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released today by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA is an international survey that evaluates the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds around the world. The assessment has been administered every three years since 2000. The full report is available here.

Jon Schnur, Executive Chairman of America Achieves, will hold a press conference call at 11 a.m. ET followed by a Q&A session to discuss the results and how the country can use them to drive national improvement. To join the conference call, dial 888.632.3385 and provide the conference ID: PISA 2015, or title: PISA Conference  Jon Schnur.

Today's widely-anticipated release will generate much discussion and concern about the state of our schools. The most important question is how to use the PISA findings and other evidence to strengthen and improve education outcomes for all students.

"While trends in average student performance are disappointing," Schnur said, "this study shows bright spots and progress, not just globally, but right here in the United States  especially for our most disadvantaged students. America's students, families, and educators deserve praise and more support than ever so we can continue this progress."

Commentary today will focus on the flat performance in U.S. averages in reading and science  and a decline in math performance  but when you look beyond the international rankings, there are important insights on the progress made by U.S. students, families and educators.

In science, the U.S. leads the world in closing the achievement gap. The weakening of the association between socio-economic status and student performance since 2006 represents the largest improvement in equity among all countries and economies that participated in PISA 2006 and PISA 2015. The study also found that socio-economic status was not the main driver of student performance.

In this study on science achievement, the U.S. was first in the world in increasing the percentage of high-performing, low-income students. In 2006, only 19% of students in the bottom socio-economic quartile performed in the top academic quartile overall. In 2016, that rose to 32%.

Moreover, the study shows an improvement in science achievement for the lowest-achieving students, with an average score increase of 18 points for the bottom decile of students. The U.S. also reduced the percentage of students performing at the lowest level on PISA to 20%, the norm for European and OECD countries. The report says that constitutes a reduction of 4 percentage points in U.S. students achieving at the lowest level and a significant reduction of 6 percentage points when considering demographic changes.

Meanwhile, an annual PISA-based assessment  the OECD Test for Schools  has identified world-class schools in the U.S. that point the way toward greater improvements. Some of these schools outpace the average performance of nearly every educational system in the world.

These schools show we dont have to go to Korea or Singapore to find high-performing schools. There are world-class schools right here in the U.S. that we can learn from, added Schnur. Massachusetts and many top-performing high schools on the OECD Test for Schools show that there is an America version of global excellence.

Since 2012, more than 400 schools across 32 states, and many more schools outside of the U.S., have participated in the OECD Test for Schools, which measures individual school performance against other countries. Schools that participate in the OECD Test for Schools receive a detailed report identifying strengths, weaknesses and strategies for improvement as well as the opportunity to join the Global Learning Network (GLN). The GLN is a learning community developed by America Achieves made up of educators and district leaders who have taken the assessment, learned from their results, and shifted practices resulting in improved student outcomes.

For more information about the OECD Test for Schools, visit nwea.org/oecdschooltest.

About America Achieves

America Achieves is a unique non-profit accelerator that brings together exceptional educators and other leaders with game changing ideas, results-oriented funding, and strategic and operational support to drive success for students at scale. One of our key initiatives, the Global Learning Network, is a community of school and district leaders who have taken the OECD Test for Schools, learned from their results and global best practices, and are making practice shifts to ensure that each young person is prepared for success in careers, college, and citizenship. Throughout our work, we uncover, examine, and promote approaches and practices that can drive success across entire educational systems, communities, and states. Learn more at www.americaachieves.org.

The OECD Test for Schools is made possible through a partnership between the OECD, creator of the PISA exam and the OECD Test for Schools; America Achieves, a non-profit accelerator that manages the Global Learning Network; and Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), a global not-for-profit educational services organization and the U.S. Test Service Provider for the OECD Test for Schools.

CONTACT:

Elizabeth Baker

[email protected]

713-562-2061

SOURCE America Achieves

Related Links

http://www.americaachieves.org


LAS VEGAS, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Playing For Change Foundation presented the 2016 imPAX Prize to Rehan Choudhry at the opening reception of the XLIVE Annual Conference last night in Las Vegas. The imPAX Prize recognizes noble achievements in the promotion of peace and positive social impact within the staging of live events.

Choudhry, an inspirational speaker, writer, and storyteller, is perhaps best known for his role as co-founder of the annual Life is Beautiful festival held in Downtown Las Vegas. As an avid festivalgoer and creative business professional, Choudhry created the vision for a music, food, art and learning festival after leaving a high-profile corporate job to explore his passion.

When Life is Beautiful was founded in 2013, Choudhry had three goals in mind: make a positive impact on the local community, create a unique blend of lifestyle programming and make a significant societal impact. Life is Beautiful brings together an eclectic group of talent and seeks to offer unique and meaningful experiences that uplift and inspire. The festival also supports local and global causes, giving attendees the opportunity to engage with and donate to chosen nonprofit organizations on festival grounds.

Through its global network of music schools, Playing For Change Foundation shares a similar vision of revitalizing communities and inspiring people through music. "We knew the recipient of the imPAX Prize needed to be someone who embodied the spirit of furthering peace and making a positive impact in the world," said Playing For Change Foundation Executive Director John McKenna, who presented the award along with artist Souleye. "We nominated Rehan immediately, and to honor him in Las Vegas is fortuitous, for it's his base and the place where his impact is most profound."

"I have dedicated my life to making a positive impact on the world via live experiences," Choudhry says. "I always believed that festivals are more than just a large party, but rather they're opportunities to celebrate life, connect on a human level, grow culturally and drive awareness for social issues and challenges. It is such an amazing honor to not only be recognized by Playing For Change, but also considered for the imPAX Prize. We do the work we do not for recognition or for accolades, but because we want to change the world. I am so incredibly grateful for the work that Playing for Change does in this arena."

Socially conscious hip-hop artist Souleye commemorated the occasion with a live performance of several original songs, including a preview of his forthcoming 2017 album Wild Man, during the XLIVE Opening Reception in which Playing For Change Foundation served as sponsor.

XLIVE, formerly the International Music Festival Conference (IMFCON) and International Film Festival Summit (IFFS), convenes industry leaders at the intersection of music, film, culinary, beverage, eSports, technology and the experiences that culminate at festivals and live events.

"XLIVE is thrilled that someone who has been an incredible contributor to not only the festival community but the local community of Las Vegas is being recognized at this year's conference," said XLIVE CEO & Co-Founder Waco Hoover. "As the founder of Life is Beautiful, Rehan's vision represents the spirit of festivals bringing together diverse communities and supporting the local communities they take place in."

The 2016 imPAX Prize includes a scholarship dedicated in Choudhry's name to the Playing For Change Foundation music school of his choice, the program in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

About Playing For Change Foundation

Playing For Change Foundation was established in 2007, providing music education in areas that are culturally rich yet economically challenged. Children in countries around the world, from Africa, Latin America to Southeast Asia, attend free classes in music, dance and languages, taught by qualified local music teachers and led by regional administrators. Students learn about their own cultural traditions while employing technology to connect and share experiences with others around the world.

Playing For Change, led by Co-Founders Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke, arose from the universal belief that music can connect people across circumstances, challenges and cultural differences. In 2002, a small group of filmmakers set out with a mobile recording studio in search of inspiration and the heartbeat of the human race on the streets. The first music video production, "Stand By Me," combined 35 musicians from 10 countries who had never met in person. The phenomenon swept across the world, with "Stand By Me," one of the Playing For Change productions, being viewed over 100 million times online and counting.

The Playing For Change Movement has since attracted hundreds of global artists including Sara Bareilles, Jimmy Buffett, Bono, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Ziggy Marley, Keb Mo and Keith Richards, in addition to street musicians from 47 countries who have participated in PFC video recordings. Playingforchange.org

Media Contact:

Bobbi Marcus

Bobbi Marcus PR & Events

310-889-9200

[email protected]

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12606047

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Playing For Change Foundation

Related Links

https://playingforchange.org/


"Point 27 provides unique opportunity to individuals, and to church, civic and corporate groups for tax-deductible giving to sponsor these gifts of Shields of Strength -- all year, and especially during this season for which Jesus is still the reason," said U.S. Army (Ret.) Col. David Dodd, director and founder of Point 27.

The Folded Flag Pendant Necklaces which Point 27 will award, during this year's Snowball Express event Dec. 11-16, to each child who has lost a parent in the line of military duty, are inscribed with the scripture: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

The pendants are designed to simulate the folded American flag the families of fallen soldiers receive at their loved ones' funerals, Dodd said.

"The pendant is designed of stainless steel  meant to be passed down through the generations in memory and honor of the lost loved one," he said. "Many Gold Star Family members say they find comfort in wearing that pendant close to their hearts and being able to grasp it and hold it tightly."

Year-round, to military commanders and chaplains, members of the military, and to veterans, Point 27 sends dog tags engraved with scripture, like Joshua 1:9, "I will be strong and courageous. I will not be terrified, or discouraged; for the Lord my God is with me wherever I go."

First responders are also high on Point 27's gift list. Point 27 awards Thin Blue Line Shields of Strength to police departments, engraved with Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." Thin Red Line Shields of Strength for firefighters are engraved with the verse from Isaiah 6:8, "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said 'Here I am. Send me!"'

For more information, contact Marcia Davis at 972-834-5898.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446010

SOURCE Shields of Strength

Related Links

https://www.shieldsofstrength.com


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Poynter Institute, the global leader in journalism, announced today the addition of six members to serve on its National Advisory Board (NAB). The new board members bring a breadth of expertise as media executives, broadcasting leaders, digital experts and award-winning journalists.

"Each of our new board members brings unique insight and knowledge to the Institute," said Poynter President Tim Franklin. "They will be invaluable partners for Poynter as we work to elevate journalism and the people it serves."

"These additions to our National Advisory Board enhance Poynter's mission to advance journalism in an age of profound change," Franklin said. "Poynter will benefit greatly from having their voices and experience on the advisory board."

The newly-named board members, whose terms begin in January 2017, are:

Audrey Cooper, Editor in Chief, San Francisco Chronicle

Audrey Cooper is the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, the first woman to fill the role in the company's 151-year history. She is also the youngest woman ever named as the top editor of a major U.S newspaper-based company. Under her leadership, the Chronicle has emerged as one of the country's most innovative newspaper-based media outlets. Among other things, she started an in-house incubator project to transform the newsroom into a digitally focused operation that has successfully forged new storytelling techniques. She has also prioritized investigative journalism. Her newsroom exposed the numerous safety failures that lead to the 2011 San Bruno gas explosion and continues to uncover new details about the mismanaged reconstruction of the Bay Bridge. The Chronicle also has been a rare critical voice in exploring the benefits and costs of the region's most recent tech boom. A native of the Kansas City area, Audrey graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with separate degrees in journalism and political science.

John Dickerson, Host, Face the Nation, Political Director, CBS News

John Dickerson is the anchor of CBS News' "Face The Nation," the No. 1 Sunday morning public affairs program. He also serves as political director for CBS News and is a contributor to Slate magazine and its podcast "The Political Gabfest." Dickerson joined CBS News in April 2009 as an analyst and contributor, providing on-air political analysis and contributing to CBS News broadcasts across the network. He was named political director in November 2011. He is the author of two long-form series for Slate. The most recent is on presidential attributes, which won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. Previously, he wrote an in-depth series of articles about risk in which he profiled musicians, rock climbers, a Silicon Valley start-up and Commander of United States Central Command James Mattis. Dickerson has been a reporter in Washington for almost 20 years, covering the White House, Congress and economics. Before joining Slate in 2005, Dickerson covered politics for 12 years for Time magazine. He has covered presidential campaigns since 1996 and hosts a twice-monthly podcast, "Whistlestop," which chronicles great moments in presidential campaign history. A native Washingtonian, he graduated with distinction from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in English and a specialty in American Studies. His mother, Nancy Dickerson, was CBS News' first female correspondent. Dickerson is the author of "On Her Trail," a book about his mother.

Jon Funabiki, Professor of Journalism and Executive Director, Renaissance Journalism, San Francisco State University,

Jon Funabiki, whose career spans journalism, philanthropy and academia, is a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, and he is the founding director of Renaissance Journalism, a nonprofit that organizes collaborative news projects on social justice issues. He joined the university after an 11-year career with the Ford Foundation, one of the world's leading philanthropies. As the deputy director of the Media, Arts and Culture Unit in New York, he led grant programs to promote ethics, credibility and diversity in journalism; social justice journalism; and the ethnic and independent news media. Funabiki is the former founding director of San Francisco State University's Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism and a former journalist with The San Diego Union, where he specialized in U.S.-Asia political and economic affairs. A graduate of San Francisco State University, Funabiki was awarded the John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University; the Jefferson Fellowship at the East-West Center of Honolulu; and a National Endowment for the Humanities Professional Summer Fellowship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He recently completed a five-year term as the founding executive director of San Francisco State's Dilena Takeyama Center for the Study of Japan and Japanese Culture.

S. Mitra Kalita, Vice President for Programming, CNN Digital

S. Mitra Kalita is the vice president for programming at CNN Digital. She was previously managing editor for editorial strategy at the Los Angeles Times. During her year there, she helped latimes.com traffic soar to nearly 60 million uniques monthly, innovated new forms of storytelling and audience engagement and connected the Times to new communities via events, new beats, translations and partnerships. She served as the executive editor (at large) for Quartz, Atlantic Media's global economy site, and was its founding ideas editor. She also oversaw the launches of Quartz India and Quartz Africa. She worked previously at The Wall Street Journal, where she directed coverage of the Great Recession, launched a local news section for New York City and reported on the housing crisis as a senior writer. She was a founding editor of Mint, a business paper in New Delhi, and has previously worked for The Washington Post, Newsday and the Associated Press. She is the author of three books related to migration and globalization, including the highly acclaimed "Suburban Sahibs." She has taught journalism at St. John's, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and previously served as president of the South Asian Journalists Association.

Wesley Lowery, Reporter, The Washington Post

Wesley Lowery is a national reporter who covers law enforcement, justice, race and politics. He was the paper's lead reporter in Ferguson, Missouri, and covered the Black Lives Matter protest movement. He was a member of the team at The Washington Post awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for the paper's coverage of police shootings. He previously covered Congress and national politics. Prior to joining the Post, he worked as a breaking news and local politics reporter for the Boston Globe, and has also reported for the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2014, he was named the National Association of Black Journalists' "Emerging Journalist of the Year."

Mi-Ai Parrish, President and Publisher, The Arizona Republic

Mi-Ai Parrish is responsible for leading strategic vision at Republic Media, the largest local media operation of the USA Today Network. America's largest local news company, the network reaches more than 110 million unique visitors a month through digital operations. Before joining Republic Media, Parrish was president and publisher of The Kansas City Star Media Company for four years. She was the first woman and first person of color to hold that position. She served as president and publisher of Idaho's largest media company for five years before that. Prior to becoming a president, Parrish was an editor and reporter in newsrooms including the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, Arizona Republic and The Virginian-Pilot. Parrish is a two-time Pulitzer Prize juror, longtime member of the Asian American Journalists Association and was named one of the 100 Most Important Minority Journalists of the last century. She's a journalism graduate of the University of Maryland, which named her a Distinguished Alumna.

Poynter's outgoing National Advisory Board members are Jim Brady, CEO of Spirited Media and public editor, ESPN; Chris Callahan, founding dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University; Monica Davey, Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times; Lou Ferrara, chief content officer, Bankrate.com; Hugh Forrest, director of the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) Interactive Festival; and Ju-Don Marshall Roberts, digital media strategist and startup adviser.

About The Poynter Institute

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a global leader in journalism education and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21st century public discourse. Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., and at conferences and organizational sites around the world. Its e-learning division, News University, www.newsu.org, offers the world's largest online journalism curriculum in 7 languages, with more than 400 interactive courses and 330,000 registered users in more than 200 countries. The Institute's website, www.poynter.org, produces 24-hour coverage of news about media, ethics, technology, the business of news and the trends that currently define and redefine journalism news reporting. The world's top journalists and media innovators come to Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcast producers, and to build public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and protected discourse that serves democracy and the public good.

Contact: Tina Dyakon

Director of Advertising and Marketing

The Poynter Institute

[email protected]

727-553-4343

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110323/MM70721LOGO

SOURCE The Poynter Institute
TAMPA, Fla., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PPJ Healthcare Enterprises, Inc. (the "Company") (OTC Pink: PPJE) announced today that on Dec. 5, 2016, it entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the "Securities Purchase Agreement") with GPL Ventures LLC ("GPL"). Pursuant to the Securities Purchase Agreement, the Company, at its sole and exclusive option, may issue and sell to GPL, from time to time as provided therein, and GPL may purchase from the Company shares of the Company's common stock ("Shares") equal to a value of up to Five Million Dollars ($5,000,000) when the Company has qualified the Shares under Regulation A.

Subject to the terms and conditions of the Securities Purchase Agreement, the Company, at its option, may issue and sell to GPL, and GPL may purchase from the Company, the Shares upon the Company's delivery of written notices to GPL and subject to agreement by the parties on pricing. The aggregate maximum amount of all purchases that GPL may make under the Securities Purchase Agreement shall not exceed $5 million. Once a written notice is received by GPL, it shall not be terminated, withdrawn or otherwise revoked by the Company. GPL is not obligated to purchase any Shares unless and until the Company has qualified the Shares pursuant to an offering statement on Form 1-A (or on such other form as is available to the Company), which is required to be effective within six months of the execution of the Agreement.

Additionally, on Dec. 5, 2016, the Company issued to GPL a Convertible Promissory Note (the "Note") in the principal amount of $50,000 as payment of a commitment fee to induce GPL to enter into the Agreements. The Note accrues interest at the rate of five percent (5%) per annum and is due in full on or before Dec. 5, 2017. The Note also prohibits prepayment of the principal. GPL has the right to convert all or any portion of the note balance at any time at a conversion price per share of seventy percent (70%) of the lowest Trading Price during the Valuation Period (as defined and calculated pursuant to the Note), which is adjustable in accordance with the Note terms in the event certain capital reorganization, merger, or liquidity events of the Company as further described in the Note.

"We are very excited to have this investment agreement in place as a primary funding vehicle for the company" said Chandana Basu, CEO of PPJ Healthcare Enterprises. "PPJE plans to use this initial capital for the growth of our pure cannabis-infused edible business, our medical practice management and billing software and other healthcare service-related business.

"This will be key for us and our investors as we expand the business plan for PPJE to account for industry changes as well as the expansion of legalized medicinal and recreational marijuana use."

As always, PPJE management advises shareholders, company followers and prospective investors to contact their financial advisors if they have questions or concerns about their individual accounts and investment choices. Regarding other news and events, the company reminds its followers to monitor OTC Markets filings tab for further newsworthy events and corporate updates, which will follow as they happen (http://www.ppjenterprise.com).

Disclaimer

This is not an offering or a solicitation to buy any securities. No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent, will not be accepted; no sales will be made or commitments to purchase accepted until an offering statement is qualified; and a prospective purchaser's indication of interest is non-binding.

Forward-looking Statements

Information in this release may contain statements about future expectations, plans, prospects or performance of PPJ Healthcare Enterprises Inc. that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor Provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words or phrases "can be," "expects," "may affect," "believed," "estimate," "project" and similar words and phrases are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. PPJ Healthcare Enterprises cautions you that any forward-looking information provided by or on behalf of PPJ Enterprise is not a guarantee of future performance. None of the information in this press release constituted or is intended as an offer to sell securities or investment advice of any kind. PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements because of various important factors, some of which are beyond PPJ Enterprise's control. In addition to those discussed in PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' press releases, public filings and statements by PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' management, including, but not limited to, PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' estimate of sufficiency of its existing capital resources, PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' ability to raise additional capital to fund future operations, PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' ability to repay its existing indebtedness, the uncertainties involved in estimating market opportunities, and in identifying contracts which match PPJ Healthcare Enterprises' capability to be awarded contracts. All such forward-looking statements are current only as of the date on which such statements were made. PPJ Healthcare Enterprises does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which any such statement is made to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

SOURCE PPJ Healthcare Enterprises, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.ppjenterprise.com


WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Project on Fair Representation announces the filing of a lawsuit in federal court challenging the racial and gender quotas for board membership on the Texas State Bar. The complaint can be found at www.projectonfairrepresentation.org.

Under Texas law, the Board of Directors of the State Bar must include "four minority member directors appointed by the President of the State Bar." 81.020(b). The law states that only "female, African-American, Hispanic-American, Native American, or Asian-Americans" will be considered for these four positions. The complaint notes that this law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because there is no justification for imposing a racial, ethnic, or gender quota for board appointment to the Texas State Bar.

The plaintiff is Mr. Greg Gegenheimer, a well-known and highly respected family law attorney who practices in the Austin, Texas area. Since Mr. Gegenheimer is a white male, he is disqualified from being considered for these board positions.

Mr. Gegenheimer said, "I find it inconceivable that the State of Texas can create leadership positions on the Board of Directors for the State Bar and then exclude me from consideration for these positions solely because of my race and gender. I look forward to seeing this law declared unconstitutional."

Edward Blum, president of the Project on Fair Representation, said, "For the last forty years, numeric racial and gender quotas like those mandated by the Texas Bar have been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. There is no legal rationale the Bar can offer to justify this discrimination."

Counsel for Mr. Gegenheimer are Mr. Jonathan Mitchell, Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Univ. and a former Texas Solicitor General; and Mr. J. Michael Connolly and Mr. William Consovoy of Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC of Arlington, Virginia.

Contact: Edward Blum

(703) 505-1922

PDF: http://origin-qps.onstreammedia.com/origin/multivu_archive/ENR/445578-The-Project-on-Fair-Representation-Complaint-TX-Bar-Final.pdf

SOURCE The Project on Fair Representation

Related Links

http://www.projectonfairrepresentation.org


SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RadiumOne, the only data-driven marketing technology company helping brands connect activity across paid, earned, shared and owned channels to find high-value customers, today unveiled its new partner ecosystem. The company has worked with its clients to select and integrate over 70 leading providers of data-driven mobile, video, cross-device and native tools and technologies, and integrate them into RadiumOne's offering to brands and agencies.

"Data-driven marketers have shared with us their desire to reduce the number of vendors and touch-points required to deliver on their digital marketing activities," said Bob Hall, SVP of Business Development of RadiumOne. "Our ecosystem of integrated and tested marketing and advertising technology partners makes it easy and effective for our customers to capture, visualize and leverage data in campaigns across all channels and devices."

The RadiumOne ecosystem supports Consumer-Powered MarketingTM by helping brands to simplify their overall digital marketing operations. The goal in building the ecosystem was to improve campaign insights and performance and ultimately to make customer data more actionable.

RadiumOne has added the partner tools and technologies to its proprietary analytics suite to help fully understand the consumer journey across brands paid, earned, shared and owned assets, predict behavior, and act on insights to optimize paid media investment.

"We work closely with RadiumOne to provide deep insights and actionable metrics that help their clients better plan and evaluate their campaigns," said Tiffini Hiss, vice president at comScore. "Some of these insights and metrics include brand safe and viewable impressions delivered to the right audience. We applaud companies like RadiumOne that are making granular, accurate data available in a single tool to help advertisers achieve their brand goals."

The RadiumOne partner ecosystem covers two fundamental aspects of Consumer-Powered MarketingTM: Identify  capturing and understanding consumer digital behaviors  and Activate, or using data-driven insights to drive effective marketing campaigns at scale.

Identify

RadiumOne-integrated partners offering analytics, data capture, data management and attribution technologies that make it easy for marketers to identify important signals of consumer engagement and intent: Adjust, AppsFlyer, Oracle Data Cloud, Ensighten, Kochava, LiveRamp, Lotame, Marketo, mParticle, Segment, Spredfast, Tag Commander, Tealium and TUNE, among others.

Activate

Media, measurement, and advertising technologies that work seamlessly within the RadiumOne platform to activate marketing strategies across devices, reach and engage high-value prospects and customers, and evaluate marketing campaign performance: AOL, comScore, Google, Integral Ad Science, Moat, Nielsen, OpenX, Placed, Rubicon, Sizmek, SpotXchange, StickyAds and Visual IQ, among others.

"Real-time mobile engagement allows marketers to improve business outcomes like never before. By eliminating points of friction, RadiumOne brings marketers one step further, allowing them to leverage and act on the attribution data Kochava captures. Hats off to the RadiumOne team for helping to reduce the complexity of the mobile ecosystem," said Charles Manning, CEO of Kochava.

For more information on the RadiumOne partner ecosystem, visit www.RadiumOne.com/Partners.

About RadiumOne

RadiumOne is the only data-driven marketing technology company helping brands connect activity on paid, earned, shared and owned channels to find high-value customers. Through our ability to see the strongest signals of consumer intent and predict where consumers are on their journeys, we can build safe and effective brand-specific campaign strategies. RadiumOne delivers digital campaigns that are measured against real business outcomes. Based in San Francisco, RadiumOne has offices across the North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. More on RadiumOne can be found at http://www.radiumone.com. Follow us on Twitter @RadiumOne.

Media Contacts:

Rekha Ravindra

VP of Marketing

RadiumOne

(415) 418-2343

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141209/163064LOGO

SOURCE RadiumOne

Related Links

http://www.radiumone.com


Leading Leonardo expert and author Professor Ernesto Solari introduced the exhibit proclaiming, "Thanks to the Horse and Rider Statue, Governor Charles d'Amboise returns to Milan for the first time in over 500 years". Most experts agree that the sculpture, created in 1508 by Leonardo, is a model for a much larger, never completed, monument to d'Amboise, his close friend and patron.

Joining in the opening ceremonies were the artwork's owners, James Petty and Rod Maly of Las Vegas, Nevada. "This exhibition is only the third public showing of the original bronze sculpture together with the original mold that made this creation possible," proclaimed Mr. Petty. "It is fitting that we share this amazing work with the citizens of Milan, where Leonardo created Horse and Rider and routinely demonstrated his genius as an inventor, scientist, and artist," added Mr. Maly.

The exhibit will run through December 22, 2016. The exhibit, Leonardo Sculptor  Horse and Rider is open daily (except Mondays) from 10AM to 7PM. Admission to the exhibit is 5 Euros for adults, while school aged children are admitted free. Future plans for public showings include locations within Europe, Southeast Asia, and America.

For More Information contact:

Scott Ferguson, [email protected]

702-227-0220

www.davincihorseandrider.com

Emanuela Rossi

[email protected] or [email protected]

+39 335.6950018

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161201/444918

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161201/444920

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161201/444919

SOURCE Da Vinci Horse and Rider

Related Links

http://www.davincihorseandrider.com


CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, has awarded Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) multiple contracts to research and develop technologies that will detect and respond to cyber attacks on the U.S. power grid infrastructure. The contracts, which total $9 million, were awarded under DARPA's Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems program.

"During the last two decades, industrial control systems have evolved so that most are now connected to the Internet, making them vulnerable to cyber attack," said Jason Redi, vice president for the Raytheon BBN Technologies Networking and Communications unit. "A significant power disruption would have profound economic and human costs in the U.S, so our goals are to prevent attacks and to reduce the time required to restore power after an attack."

Raytheon BBN will create technologies to enhance situational awareness by providing early warning of an impending attack and detecting adversary spoofing of power grid data collection and communication. These technologies will also maintain situational awareness in the immediate aftermath of an attack.

The company will also examine methods to maintain secure emergency communication networks in the aftermath of an attack. Raytheon BBN's approach seeks to isolate affected organizations from the Internet and establish a secure emergency network to coordinate power restoration without depending on external networks.

Raytheon BBN Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon Company.

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2015 sales of $23 billion and 61,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 94 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5ITM products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter @Raytheon.

This document does not contain technology or technical data controlled under either the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. RGEMS No. E16-NRZC

www.raytheon.com

Raytheon Company

Space and Airborne Systems

BBN Technologies

Cambridge, Mass.

Media Contact

Joyce Kuzmin

+1.617.873.8120

[email protected]

SOURCE Raytheon Company

Related Links

http://www.raytheon.com


NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Less than 100 miles from Florida, in the island democracy of the Bahamas, politicians and the police are harassing environmentalists, illegally hacking and publicly releasing their private communications and other confidential information. And, when the Supreme Court ordered several cabinet members to stop violating the conservationists' constitutional rights, they threatened to jail the judge.



These startling events are laid out by environmental attorney and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman of Waterkeeper Alliance, in a new story in EcoWatch, one of America's top environmental news sites.

Why are civil rights and the rule of law under attack? As Kennedy explains, some Bahamian officials are allied with one of the island's worst unregulated developers. [See the full story and a video here: http://www.ecowatch.com/bahamas-nygard-bacon-kennedy-2128498516.html]. He notes that a well-connected billionaire developer who donated millions of dollars to members of Bahama's government, Canadian apparel manufacturer Peter Nygard expanded the buildings on his private residence by filling Clifton Bay without government permission, damaging its world-famous marine area.

Shortly after a feisty environmental group, Save the Bays, sued Nygard, undercover police raided the home of Nygard's neighbor, Louis Bacon, a philanthropist who co-founded the Save the Bays. In March, Bahamian cabinet ministers disclosed Save the Bays' private emails and financial records during an open session of parliament.

Responding to a legal action by Save the Bays, the Bahamian Supreme Court ruled that the ministers had violated the environmentalists' constitutional rights to privacy. But instead of backing down, the ministers doubled down. They appealed the ruling, arguing that parliamentary privilege trumped personal rights to privacy, and that the Supreme Court lacked power to enforce the constitution against parliament. The ministers have launched a process to hold the lawyer who argued the case and the judge who decided against them in contempt of parliament.

The developer-friendly cabinet ministers are attacking the rule of law, stomping on privacy rights, and savaging judges, lawyers and environmental and human rights organizations, Kennedy's story says, adding: It is time for level-headed leaders in the Bahamas to step in and fix this fiasco before permanent damage is done to the country's natural environment and international reputation as a scenic destination and secure financial haven.

Contact: Christine O'Neill at [email protected]

SOURCE Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Related Links

http://www.podesta.com/


MIAMI, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) today declared a quarterly dividend of $0.48 per common share payable on January 5, 2017, to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 21, 2016.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) is a global cruise vacation company that owns and operates three global brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. We also own a 50 percent joint venture interest in the German brand TUI Cruises and a 49% interest in the Spanish brand Pullmantur and have a minority interest in smaller regional brands. Together, these brands operate a combined total of 49 ships with an additional thirteen on order. They operate diverse itineraries around the world that call on approximately 490 destinations on all seven continents. Additional information can be found on www.royalcaribbean.com, www.celebritycruises.com, www.azamaraclubcruises.com,

www.tuicruises.com, www.pullmantur.es, or www.rclinvestor.com.

SOURCE Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
SAO PAULO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SafetyPay, a platform for cash payments, and VTEX, a leading technology company in electronic commerce and a pioneer in the marketing of software as a service (SaaS), signed a global partnership agreement to provide solutions for e-commerce companies. SafetyPay also just received certification for an international partnership from VTEX.

The agreement, which has already been signed, will benefit more than 2,000 clients on e-commerce platforms throughout Latin America, the USA and Europe. In Europe, the companies are already active in Spain, one of the strategic countries for the companies' growth in the region. Through SafetyPay services, online stores increase their channels for receiving payment, offering consumers more options to conclude their purchases, whether via online transfer or cash payment, through lottery outlets or banks.

"VTEX is a strategic partner. Since we signed the first agreement in 2014, we have implemented projects with the most renowned online retail operators in Brazil. The internationalization of our partnership will open up new opportunities in the various markets where we are already present, or where we will be present in the future," said Luiz Antonio Sacco, Chief Executive Office of SafetyPay for Latin America.

With activities in 21 countries, SafetyPay is a Fintech that combines innovation and safe payment options, including consumers in the world of e-commerce. The company develops solutions that allow clients who do not have a credit card to make purchases using Internet banking. It also allows people without a bank account to be able to make payments in physical establishments, such as lottery outlets in Brazil, or in convenience stores in other countries where the company is present. In Brazil, the solution is an excellent option to the traditional bank voucher, which will undergo significant operating changes and changes in tariffs that may be applied by banks in Brazil starting in 2017, when these documents must be registered.

In electronic commerce, credit cards are already generally well distributed, but according to the World Bank, there are still nearly two billion people all over the planet who do not have a bank account, representing more than 40% of the economically active population. "Bringing this audience new methods of payment so that they can enjoy the experience of acquiring products and services is one of the objectives of SafetyPay," Luiz said.

"Having SafetyPay as part of the launch of our global program is very strategic," affirmed Livia Soares, who is responsible for the strategic partnerships of VTEX. "Our goal is to make our clients more competitive by offering them more alternatives, so that they can increase their sales volume and create positive operating impacts with lower costs, lower inventory, and more agility in confirming purchases," the executive said.

About SafetyPay: www.safetypay.com

SafetyPay is a company that combines finance and technology (Fintech), and uses its experience and knowledge in the area to carry out online financial and cash operations in 21 countries. With more than 100 banks qualified worldwide, the technology was launched in 2007 and is available in Latin America, the United States, Europe and Canada. It is a secure online payment method that allows cash sales from multiple service channels, such as e-commerce or via call centers for clients who wish to pay using Internet banking from their banks, or for clients who do not have bank accounts, through lottery outlets.

Contact:

[email protected]

Juliana Oliveira

(+55 11) 98398-5307

Vanessa Costa

(+55 51) 98274-4949

SOURCE SafetyPay

Related Links

http://www.safetypay.com


OREM, Utah, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SecurityMetrics announced an agreement with North American Bancard (NAB) today to help thousands of its merchants increase data security and report PCI compliance. Technology-focused NAB chose SecurityMetrics for its unique ability to cater to its wide variety of merchant levels through a custom PCI compliance program.

"In an effort to increase compliance rates, tighten merchant security, and keep up with changes to the ever-evolving PCI DSS," said Aliki Liadis-Hall, Director of Underwriting and Compliance at NAB, "SecurityMetrics created a custom PCI program for us. We also want our merchants to have the best possible experience with PCI compliance and we feel SecurityMetrics can provide that."

In addition to PCI program components including PCI merchant scoping, simplified versions of the PCI Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), and ASV scanning, the program also provides access to the SecurityMetrics Partner+ Portal. Organizing information from over 100 data points, SecurityMetrics Partner+ Portal helps NAB strategize how to achieve their PCI program objectives through real-time dashboards and custom reporting options.

"With the combination of a dedicated PCI program manager," said David Meyers, Senior Director of Business Development, "and SecurityMetrics Partner+ Portal, we are confident NAB will be pleased with the results of our PCI program for their merchants."

To learn more, go to securitymetrics.com, email [email protected], or call 801-995-6516.

About SecurityMetrics (www.securitymetrics.com)

SecurityMetrics protects electronic commerce and payments leaders, global acquirers, and their retail customers from security breaches and data theft. The company is a leading provider and innovator in merchant data security, and as an Approved Scanning Vendor and Qualified Security Assessor, has tested over 1 million payment systems for data security and compliance. Among other things, SecurityMetrics offers PCI Level 4 compliance programs, PCI audits, mobile device vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, and forensic analysis. Founded in October 2000, SecurityMetrics is a privately held company headquartered in Orem, Utah, USA.

About North American Bancard ( www.nabancard.com )

Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, award-winning North American Bancard is an industry leader in credit card processing, providing a variety of merchant services that help client companies of all sizes develop solutions for payment processing, including credit, debit, EBT, check conversion and guarantee, gift & loyalty cards, and much more. As an MSP/ISO since 1992, North American Bancard is dedicated to offering the highest service levels, exceptionally competitive pricing, and the latest technology to its client companies, including PayAnywhere, its proprietary point-of-sale (POS) solution. With over $34 billion worth of payments processed for more than 250,000 businesses every year, North American Bancard is determined to help American businesses prosper. For more information, visit http://www.nabancard.com.

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SOURCE SecurityMetrics

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HIGHLAND, Utah, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At the risk of sounding like Blackbeard, I have news for you: there are treasure chests everywhere--hundreds of thousands of them dotting the country. An augmented reality, location-based treasure hunting app has been created and released within the United States that rewards users with real prizes, similar to Pokemon Go but with the chance to win actual things instead of goofy digital beings.

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Image of Seek Map

Welcome to the world of Seek.

"There is no inherent value gained from playing Pokemon Go," said Jon Cheney, founder of Seek. "You catch digital creatures and then you're done. We're basically going to get rid of the Pokemon, bring in treasure chests, and add rewards. You go out and capture treasure chests, when you open it up you have a randomized chance of winning something."

Seek began as a physical treasure hunt under a different name, attracting people to come out and search for prizes like a bunch of modernized pirates. Looking to capitalize on the interest and maximize their ability to grow, the Seek team began exploring avenues to make this happen.

"We thought, 'We can do this bigger and better and faster with an app'," Cheney said. "We started down that pathway, did a couple of whiteboard sessions, and then a couple weeks later, boom, Pokemon Go hit the world."

As the Pokemon Go craze overtook humanity and Americans began congregating around stops and lures in the hopes of finding a rare addition to their Pokedex, Seek began transferring their idea of a physical treasure hunt into the world of augmented reality. They beta-tested with 1,000 users to rave reviews and have now officially launched with a recipe they believe is built for success.

Here's how it works. I hop on my phone, download the app, and now the adventure begins. Treasure chests have been placed throughout the world that I can capture with my camera, requiring me to venture to the physical location and capture them digitally. Unlike Pokemon Go, capturing treasure chests can have tangible value  $1,000 here, a big screen television there, a GoalZero kit everywhere. Seek is also forming partnerships with multiple businesses that allows them to engage with consumers and draw more people to their location.

"We give businesses the ability to drop a treasure chest right outside their store, put whatever they want inside it, and attract customers to come open it, vying at a chance to win something," Cheney said. For example, Times Square has a GoalZero Chest and a Blendtec Chest, waiting with exclusive discounts and the opportunity to win free product from their respective companies for those that download the app to go find them.

Whereas Pokemon Go's user base initially skyrocketed, then dwindled into just remaining diehards, Seek believes that they will be able to continue to engage users because of these actual rewards. You can only capture Pikachu so many times before that loses its luster, but capturing treasure chests that contain rewards, cash, and items/discounts from various companies? That should continue to attract users for years to come.

And from the business side of things, Seek can provide companies with valuable information that can then be used to help direct their marketing approach.

"We know the gender, age, and interests of all the people that are using our app," Cheney said. "With that information, we can say to a business, you had 185 people come and open your chest today, here's who they are. Not specifically because we value the privacy of our users, but we can share demographics. You had this many males and females, here's your age distribution, here's what they were interested in. Now businesses can start to understand who's coming to their store and what type of stuff they should put in this marketing tool."

You don't have to sail the high seas to find treasure. With Seek's launch, treasure is now everywhere, it's just a matter of downloading the app and setting out on an adventure. Who knows, you might even win a sweet camera.

Media Contact:

Jon Cheney

801-850-2182

[email protected]

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oNgjRxcE7I

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Seek
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a recently published report from Dell'Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries, the Server market recorded its first year-year-over decline in 15 quarters. White box vendor shipments were up year-over-year while Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Dell Technologies were hit by Enterprise weakness.

"Despite continuing strength in Cloud data center buildouts during the quarter, growth wasn't able to offset a pronounced weakness in the enterprise server demand" said Sameh Boujelbene, Director at Dell'Oro Group. "Server shipments to enterprise data centers posted the steepest year-over-year decline since they started underperforming early this year. While this was a surprise to many component, as well as system vendors, in the data center market, the weak performance in the enterprise market was in line with our expectations, as we've been predicting enterprise server shipments peaked in 2015," continued Boujelbene.

Except Cisco Systems, all of the major U.S.-based branded vendors took a hit in their performance during the quarter, while white box server vendors continue to gain share and posted another record level of shipments and revenue.

The report discusses why we expected investment in new data center build-outs to continue through 2016 and early 2017, and further discusses winners and losers based on the data center geographic location.

About the Report

Dell'Oro Group's Quarterly Server Report provides complete, in-depth coverage of the market with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, unit, and port shipments for Blade, High-Density and Stand-Alone servers. Network attach rates, virtualization attach rates and VM density, common equipment overlap between storage, servers and switching, and white box versus traditional enterprise server shipments are included. To purchase this report, contact Matt Dear at +1.650.622.9400 x223 or email [email protected].

About Dell'Oro Group

Dell'Oro Group is a market research firm that specializes in strategic competitive analysis in the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT markets. Our firm provides in-depth quantitative data and qualitative analysis to facilitate critical, fact-based business decisions. For more information, contact Dell'Oro Group at +1.650.622.9400 or visit www.delloro.com.

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SOURCE Dell'Oro Group

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NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. ("New Oriental" or the "Company") (NYSE: EDU). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 9980.

The investigation concerns whether New Oriental and certain of its officers and/or directors have violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

[Click here to join a class action]

On December 2, 2016, Reuters published an article reporting that New Oriental has been accused of engaging in college application fraud. The article states that the Company had engaged in "writing application essays and teacher recommendations, and falsifying high school transcripts." Reuters subsequently reported that the American International Recruitment Council ("AIRC") "will investigate the company in response to the report," and that the AIRC's president-elect called the allegations "highly concerning."

On this news, New Oriental stock fell $6.99, or 14.27%, to close at $42.00 on December 2, 2016.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Florida, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

[email protected]

SOURCE Pomerantz LLP

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ALTOONA, Pa., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sheetz, one of America's fastest-growing family-owned and operated convenience retailers for more than 60 years, today announced the upcoming openings of three new stores in central Pennsylvania: Manheim, Hummelstown-Derry Township and York.

The first opening is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 8 at the store in Manheim, located at 1205 Lancaster Road. On Dec. 15, Sheetz will welcome a new store near Hershey, Pa. in the Hummelstown and Derry Township area, located at 777 Middletown Road. The final new store opening of 2016 will be on Dec. 22, when Sheetz opens its latest store in York, located at 160 Leader Heights Road.

All Sheetz locations are open 24/7 and these new stores will offer more than 60 new full and part-time job opportunities. The new locations will welcome customers with a special offer of free self-served coffee for a limited time. All three locations will continue to display Sheetz's award-winning MTO menu on unique touch-point terminals to order any specialty drink or food item.

The grand opening ceremonies for each store will begin at 11 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, where a Sheetz family member and people from each community will witness the last time each store's doors will be opened.

Sheetz is truly committed to all the communities each store serves. During the grand opening ceremony at each store, Sheetz will be donating $2,500 to Special Olympics of Pennsylvania. As a proud supporter of Special Olympics for over 20 years Sheetz extends its support through financial contributions, product donations and event volunteers. Since 2005 Sheetz has also partnered with Make-A-Wish, where they have been able to grant over 400 wishes sending families and their seriously ill children on dream vacations to Walt Disney World. During the Christmas season, for the last 24 years, Sheetz For the Kidz charity has helped more than 100,000 children by raising more than $22 million dollars to provide underprivileged kids with new clothes, toys, and necessities.

About Sheetz, Inc.

Established in 1952 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Sheetz, Inc. is one of America's fastest-growing family-owned and operated convenience store chains, with more than $6.9 billion in revenue and more than 17,500 employees. The company operates over 535 store locations throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and North Carolina. Sheetz provides an award-winning menu of MTO sandwiches and salads, which are ordered through unique touch-screen order point terminals. All Sheetz convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Recognized by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, Top 12 Best Places to Work for Women and Top 35 Best Workplaces for Millennials, Sheetz is committed to offering employees sustainable careers built on an inspiring culture and community engagement. For more information, visit www.sheetz.com or follow us on Twitter (@sheetz), Facebook (www.facebook.com/sheetz) and Instagram (www.instagram.com/sheetz).

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SOURCE Sheetz, Inc.

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SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RiseSmart, the leading provider of contemporary career transition services, today announced Silicon Valley Business Journal has named its Senior Vice President of Operations and Finance, Dan Davenport, a CFO of the Year. The prestigious annual award recognizes the most influential financial executives across the Silicon Valley. Winners are selected based on their role within their organization, leadership, insight and judgment.

Davenport was recognized at Silicon Valley Business Journal's award reception on December 1, 2016. Davenport accepted the award alongside nine executives from world-class organizations including Paypal, Symantec and others.

"I'm honored to be recognized as a financial leader alongside such an impressive group of Silicon Valley executives," said Davenport. "But I consider this a team award -- the real recognition belongs to the great group of people I get the opportunity to work with every day at RiseSmart."

Each year, Silicon Valley Business Journal honors "the financial wizards who work behind the scenes" by hand selecting individuals in finance and operations who are leading their Silicon Valley-based companies to success. In his role as head of finance, accounting, and administration at RiseSmart, Davenport was a driving force behind the company's global expansion and rapid growth. Davenport co-founded RiseSmart with founder and CEO Sanjay Sathe, after nearly a decade of work with Sabre Holdings, the parent company of Travelocity.

"We congratulate Dan on receiving this much-deserved award. We're excited that the financial industry has recognized Dan's contributions and his expertise in business operations," Sathe said. "Under Dan's leadership, our team has shown consistent growth and built RiseSmart to be the leader in contemporary career transition solutions."

RiseSmart takes an innovative approach to outplacement delivery by focusing on accountability and efficiency. Through an agreement signed by its parent company, Randstad, RiseSmart recently announced that it broadened its outplacement support in Australia and New Zealand. RiseSmart will continue to expand globally in the coming years to support the growing number of multinational corporations and their employees.

"My recognition as a financial leader is truly a testament to RiseSmart's progress and success over the past year. I look forward to driving continued growth in 2017 and beyond as we continue to serve as career transition partners with our customers across the globe," said Davenport.

For more information, visit www.RiseSmart.com

About RiseSmart

RiseSmart, a Randstad company, is the leading provider of contemporary career transition services and serves organizations in more than 40 industries. Since 2007, RiseSmart's contemporary approach to outplacement  which combines personalized services from trained professionals with proprietary cloud-based technology  has earned awards and recognition from more than a dozen organizations, including Bersin by Deloitte, Gartner Inc., the Brandon Hall Group and Best Workplaces for Women by Fortune magazine. As an operating company of Randstad, one of the leading HR services providers in the world that places more than 600,000 people in new roles every day, RiseSmart delivers meaningful results with landing rates exceeding 80 percent and time-to-placement averages 60 percent faster than national averages. For more information about RiseSmart's career transition solutions, visit www.risesmart.com.

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SOURCE RiseSmart

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HAIFA, Israel, December 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Sol Chip, an innovative provider of Internet of Things (IoT) systems and energy harvesting solutions, today announced the introduction of its Sol Chip Comm autonomous, wireless, solar tag for enabling precision agriculture and smart irrigation.

The Sol Chip Comm (SCC) device is an ultra-compact, maintenance-free, solar-powered, wireless tag. SCC powers, controls and wirelessly connects a wide variety of sensors to the Cloud.

In precision agriculture and smart irrigation applications, SCC feeds real-time data readings from up to hundreds of agriculture-related sensors, including those that monitor soil moisture, soil temperature, ambient temperature, air temperature, nutrients levels and more, into a precision agriculture application server. This essential data gathered by SCC is analyzed by a precision agriculture application in order to make data-driven adjustments for optimizing water and fertilization consumption and improving crop yields.

Sol-Chip and its new SCC device significantly lower the barrier for the adoption of precision agriculture and smart irrigation. Based on Sol Chip's innovative energy harvesting technology, SCC is solar-powered and designed to operate continuously for more than ten years with no maintenance requirements, removing the need to constantly replace and discard batteries. As a wireless device, SCC eliminates the significant costs and time associated with deploying and maintaining wires to connect the deployed sensors. SCC's small size makes the product easy to install and move around any agriculture-related environment, while being unobtrusive and not prone to theft. In addition, the low cost of SCC makes the deployment of wireless sensors for agriculture purposes to be financially accessible.

"Precision agriculture is definitely the future of agriculture," said Avi Schweitzer, CTO at Netafim, the global leader in smart drip and micro-irrigation solutions. "Sol Chip has the right approach that will turn the promises of precision agriculture and smart irrigation into reality."

"With our LightBattery technology, Sol Chip is uniquely positioned to realize our vision of enabling billions of autonomous IoT devices for many different market sectors in a way that is cost effective and environmentally sustainable," explained Dr. Shani Keysar, founder and CEO of Sol Chip. "Our new SCC device clearly demonstrates these qualities for precision agriculture and smart irrigation and we are working on more applications for additional market sectors."

In addition to precision agriculture and smart irrigation, Sol Chip's SCC device can be applied to smart cities, smart grids, asset tracking and similar applications.

Sol Chip is currently offering an evaluation kit for precision agriculture and smart irrigation, which includes two SCC solar tags, two sensors, a wireless gateway, all the necessary accessories, access to third party web server and support. The components of the evaluation kit are pre-integrated, enabling the evaluation kit to be rapidly deployed for testing in an open field or greenhouse.

Sol Chip will be demonstrating the SCC device at the Irrigation Show in Las Vegas on December 7-8 at Booth 1446.

About Sol Chip

Sol Chip is an Internet of Things (IoT) systems and energy harvesting solutions provider. Sol Chip develops and manufactures maintenance-free IoT solutions based on its LightBattery Everlasting Solar Battery technology. This compact battery can supply energy for the lifetime of IoT devices with virtually no maintenance. Sol Chip's technology provides a disruptive platform for applications, such as home automation, smart cities, precision agriculture and many more. For more information, visit http://www.sol-chip.com.

Press Contact

Tony Miller

+1 617 418 3024

[email protected]

SOURCE Sol Chip
HUNTINGTON, N.Y., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Solara Holdings s.r.o. ("the Company") is pleased to announce that it has reached a major milestone in the continuing development and enhancement of its state of the art analytics software processing engine IDAP (Intelligent Data Analytical Processor) with the launching of a license and beta test agreement for its IDAP version 4.8 with a major U.S. regional (East Coast) media company.

Solara is a software development company whose proprietary lead product, IDAP v4.8, provides a near real-time business analytical software platform that enables the rapid structuring, correlating, de-duplication and analysis of vast amounts of data in large, diverse and fragmented network server systems. Most importantly, the soon to be completed next generation of IDAP v5.x expands its aggregating data warehousing logistics to all processing platforms.

Prior to the Company's restructuring in 2015, IDAP's version 4.5 had been successfully beta-tested at two major European banks and deployed at a large European industrial company. Post restructuring, the Company felt that a beta test for the new IDAP version 4.8 was needed to assure that IDAP's additional and improved capabilities were consistent with the latest technology platforms. It is expected that within four to six weeks our IDAP team will complete the lion's share of the beta test verifying in real world application its efficacy, range and capabilities suite, setting the stage for the launching of commercial implementations.

Solara is also holding discussions with three Managed Service Providers regarding the integration of IDAP into their analytical processing offerings. In addition, discussions are being held with major international IT companies to integrate IDAP to boost the capabilities of their lead processing platforms.

About Solara Holdings s.r.o. and Solara Analytics LLC

Solara Analytics LLC , based in Huntington, New York and Solara Analytics s.r.o., based in Prague, Czech Republic operate in North America and Europe, respectively. Solara Holdings s.r.o. owns 100% of both Solara Analytics LLC and Solara Analytics s.r.o. The Company's proprietary IDAP (Intelligent Data Analytical Processor) provides a near real-time business analytical software platform (SaaS) that enables the rapid analysis of vast amounts of data in large, diverse and fragmented network server systems. The IDAP engine is adaptable to most processing platforms and is compatible with Oracle and SQL data bases. For more information, visit http://www.solara-analytics.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release may contain forward-looking statements, including information about management's view of Solara Holdings s.r.o. ("the Company"), future expectations, plans and prospects. In particular, when used in the preceding discussion, the words "believes," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," or "may," and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Any statements made in this release other than those of historical fact, about an action, event or development, are forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the results of the Company, its subsidiaries and concepts to be materially different than those expressed or implied in such statements. Unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on the Company's future results. The forward-looking statements included in this release are made only as of the date hereof. The Company cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Finally, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements after the date of this release, except as required by law, and also takes no obligation to update or correct information prepared by third parties that are not paid for by Solara Holdings.

Solara Holdings s.r.o. (Prague, Czech Republic)

Solara Analytics LLC (Huntington, NY)

SOURCE Solara Analytics

Related Links

www.solara-analytics.com


He never thought that advocating for his patients would make him the target of a "for profit" insurance company whose subscribers comprised nearly 60 percent of his practice.

Thus began the 10-year strategic legal battle, which included submission of the case to the United States Supreme Court. This story illuminates a single medical practitioner locking arms with a solo-practicing attorney to challenge the unethical and illegal business practices of the multi-billion dollar insurance giant, Anthem Blue Cross.

Amidst the legal fight, Dr. Nordella suffered tragic personal losses that would bring the average man to his knees. The murder of his beloved wife marked the pinnacle of his pain.

This nonfiction book chronicles one man's journey to overcome insurmountable odds ending in a monumental, multi million dollar jury verdict.

This extraordinary story is brought to you because Dr. Nordella refused to be censored by confidentiality.

About The Author

For over 25 years, Dr. Nordella has served patients in the Santa Clarita and the San Fernando Valley. As such, Dr. Nordella has a long history of confronting Anthem Blue Cross' business practices which focus on profit instead of facilitating patient access to healthcare. And after a 10-year litigation history with Anthem, Dr. Nordella was successful in receiving a favorable judgment that the LA Times stated had not been done in over 25 years by a solo practitioner.

For more information, visit www.deniedjeffreynordellamd.com.

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SOURCE Jeffrey Nordella, MD

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SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sovereign Health, a leading national provider of behavioral health treatment services, is proud to announce that Kandis Hooper, lead house manager at Sovereign Health, was awarded the Department of Defense "Patriot Award" by Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR). Ms. Hooper was recognized for her contributions to national security and protecting liberty and freedom by supporting employee participation in America's National Guard and Reserve Force.

Located near Camp Pendleton, Sovereign Health of San Clemente hires and treats active and reserve military men and women, along with their spouses. California Marine Corps Pfc. Waseem Assi nominated Kandis Hooper for the Patriot Award. With the assistance of Sovereign's operations team, along with the human resources department, Miss Hooper was able to hold Mr. Assi's position as a house manager until he was able to return from his tour of duty.

"These men and women serving our country are heroes. At a moment's notice their lives change so dramatically and they put themselves in harm's way. We at Sovereign Health will always support our military personnel and their families, and we are very thankful to have them on our staff," said Ms. Hooper.

The first in ESGR's series of awards is the Patriot Award. An employee serving in the National Guard or Reserve, or the spouse of a Guard or Reserve member, may nominate individual supervisors for support provided directly to the nominating service member and his or her family. The Patriot Award reflects the efforts made to support citizen warriors through a wide range of measures, including flexible schedules, time off prior to and after deployment, caring for families and granting leaves of absence if needed.

Sovereign Health operates nine treatment facilities in five states: California, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah. The facilities are fully licensed and have been awarded Gold Seal accreditation by The Joint Commission, the highest level of accreditation available in the behavioral health field.

About Sovereign Health

Sovereign Health's mission is to provide a broad spectrum of high-quality behavioral health treatment services for adults and adolescents, including support services for family members. One factor that differentiates Sovereign from other treatment providers has been the company's ability to offer separate mental health and addiction or dual diagnosis treatment programs at its facilities. For more information, visit www.sovhealth.com.

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SOURCE Sovereign Health

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NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP hosted a Government Leadership forum today on whether and how news impacts justice, with guests Judge Shira A. Scheindlin (Ret.), of counsel at Stroock; Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, Senior Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York; Justice John M. Leventhal, Associate Justice, Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Second Judicial Department; and New York Times reporter William K. Rashbaum.

Robert Abrams, former New York State Attorney General and chair of Stroock's Government Relations Practice Group, and Stroock of counsel Joel Cohen, a former New York State prosecutor and federal prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department's Organized Crime & Racketeering Section, presided at the program.

"Given modern technology such as twitter and iPhones as well as today's 24-hour news cycle, some might argue that justice - in both civil and criminal cases - is under siege by news, editorial and internet coverage," said Cohen.

Said Abrams, "Today's panel illuminated the challenges of presiding over and covering consequential issues while balancing two constitutional rights: freedom of the press and the right to a fair trial."

The panelists concurred that an overwhelming majority of people bring an open mind and a commitment to civic duty to jury service.

"I expect jurors to tell the truth. I look them in the eye, repeat instructions, and I think people act in good faith. I have to trust in human nature," said Scheindlin. As an extension of that good faith notion, she said she believed Supreme Court and other appellate cases should be televised.

Hellerstein said the courtroom affords parity among those who serve. "There is equality among jurors if they confine the information they consider to what goes on in the courtroom." He added that it is up to judges to create the aura to do justice. "Everything you do in a trial has consequences. You want people to rise to a higher level," he said.

When asked whether a reporter or news organization has the right to reveal potentially damaging information not yet heard in a courtroom, Rashbaum replied, "It is not the responsibility of media to censor news, if the information has been properly vetted. It is not our job to protect one side or another."

On the topic of jury service, Leventhal provided a strong context. "If members of the National Guard can take a year out of their lives to serve in Afghanistan, jurors can give a week." Especially, he noted, since juries are no longer sequestered in New York State it is less of a hardship in that respect.

Judge Scheindlin is a member of Stroock's Litigation Practice Group and serves as an arbitrator/mediator under the auspices of JAMS. During her 22-year tenure with the SDNY, Judge Scheindlin presided over many important cases. Her opinions in electronic case management are recognized as case law landmarks, and she is the co-author of the first casebook on electronic discovery.

Judge Hellerstein has served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York since 1998. He presided over all the 9/11 litigation, some 13,000 cases, coordinated in four master calendars and other consolidations. Prior to joining the bench, he practiced at Stroock for 38 years and was co-head of the firm's Litigation Practice Group.

Justice Leventhal presided over the nation's first felony Domestic Violence Court, which has been observed by jurists and court administrators in the U.S. and abroad. He presided over a guardianship part for alleged incapacitated persons, which required the supervision of the management of assets, medical malpractice and personal injury awards as well as other economic issues concerning incapacitated individuals.

Rashbaum is a senior writer on the metropolitan staff of the New York Times, focusing on political and municipal corruption, the courts, terrorism and broader law enforcement topics. He has spent three decades writing about crime in New York, the city's police department and the mob, and was a member of a team of Times reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

Today's event was the latest in a series of Government Leadership forums hosted by Stroock. Stroock's Government Relations Practice, led by Abrams, is comprised of former prosecutors, judges, and government agency officials. Abrams also served as President of the National Association of Attorneys General, Executive Chair of New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Transition Committee and Honorary Co-Chair of Attorney General Schneiderman's Transition Committee.

Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP is a law firm providing transactional, regulatory, and litigation assistance and guidance to candidates, leading financial institutions, multinational corporations, investment funds and entrepreneurs in the U.S. and abroad. With a rich history dating back 140 years, the firm has offices in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Miami. For more, visit www.stroock.com.

SOURCE Stroock & Stroock & Lavan

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AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Motorcyclists can already start looking forward to future seasons, because with eHorizon the Continental developers based in Singapore will enable motorcyclists to see around corners. The eHorizon system for two-wheelers interconnects bikers, offers a shared platform to motorcyclist communities and allows motorcyclists to share important route information. With this system, the international technology company is using the concept of swarm intelligence, which continuously supplies the digital map in the backend with accurate and up-to-date information.

"The stored data is collated in the cloud and made available to all motorcyclists. As a result, the eHorizon system informs bikers in advance of obstacles along their route such as construction zones, accidents, slippery conditions, or traffic jams. Having this information can enhance safety, not only for motorcyclists, but also for other road users," said Ralf Lenninger, head of Continental's Intelligent Transportation Systems.

To integrate the software, Continental has developed a digital instrument cluster that not only displays all the usual information such as road and engine speed, but also contains an information panel that displays safety-relevant information on the traffic and weather, as well as notifications about incoming phone calls or music. The software prioritizes the displayed information according to the user's preference.

Smartphone integration and app use the power of collective intelligence

To supply the digital map with route data, motorcyclists use a button connected to the instrument cluster that allows them to record their current position and, when they have finished their journey, to enter specific information about the event and its location. This data will be collected and processed in the cloud, added to an incident map, and then shared with other motorcyclists driving along this route.

For this and other functions, Continental has developed a smartphone app equipped with a Bluetooth Connection Manager allowing the smartphone to communicate with the instrument cluster. The app allows motorcyclists to enter navigation destinations and enables the turn-by-turn navigation to be displayed on the cluster. Motorcyclists also have the option of transferring missed call notifications, the time, or charge status of their smartphone from the phone to the display.

The Bikefinder function allows motorcyclists to locate their motorcycle even in a busy underground parking lot, using Bluetooth Low Energy and radio frequency. The cluster-integrated immobilizer can also be deactivated using the app and the start of the engine can be permitted by using the Bluetooth-based smart key. If the vehicle systems detect that an accident has taken place, they can use the smartphone connection to automatically send an emergency text message to a predefined contact. To ensure that the continuous connection between the smartphone and instrument cluster does not drain the phone's battery, a USB charging capability is also provided.

Creating communities for enhanced riding pleasure and safety

Through this app platform, Continental gives motorcyclists the opportunity to create communities and allows existing motorcyclist groups to share data digitally. Motorcyclists can use the app to share information such as distance ridden, places visited, or anything else of interest with everyone in the group. A dedicated web page has been created for this purpose. The integration of instrument clusters and eHorizon is not limited to any specific motorcycle class, which means that even smaller motorcycles could potentially be connected. The design and content of the platform can be easily adapted in line with manufacturers' requirements.

For the first time, Continental will showcase the eHorizon for Two-Wheelers at CES 2017 in Las Vegas.

Continental at CES

Visit Continental at CES 2017, Thursday, January 5 through Sunday, January 8, at North Hall Booth #3128. Continental will also showcase its latest automotive innovations and technologies in a private exhibit at the Renaissance Hotel. An invitation only media event has been scheduled on January 5. Please contact Mary Arraf for details.

Check out Continental CES 2017 highlights on Twitter: #ContinentalCES

Continental develops intelligent technologies for transporting people and their goods. As a reliable partner, the international automotive supplier, tire manufacturer, and industrial partner provides sustainable, safe, comfortable, individual, and affordable solutions. In 2015, the corporation generated sales of 39.2 billion with its five divisions, Chassis & Safety, Interior, Powertrain, Tires, and ContiTech. Continental currently employs more than 218.000 people in 55 countries.

The press release is available in the following languages: German, English

Links

Online press portal:

www.continental-presse.de

Online video portal:

http://videoportal.continental-corporation.com/

Online media database: http://www.continental-mediacenter.com

SOURCE Continental

Related Links

http://www.continental-corporation.com


Tavant Technologies, America's leading innovative mortgage technology provider, today announced that the company's Chief Revenue Officer, Hassan Rashid has been honored with the HousingWire Vanguard Award for 2016. The award is meant to acknowledge leaders who move markets forward.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150306/732869 )



Hassan Rashid is responsible for guiding and supporting Tavant Technologies' revenue strategy and growth. He has a successful track record of scaling winning businesses by focusing on customer success and aligning offerings based on changing market needs.

Tavant Technologies' rise and position as a thought leader in the mortgage landscape under the leadership of Rashid is notable. He steered the 2x2 (double the revenue in two years) strategy declared in FY2015 and led the exponential growth of the mortgage business for the company.

"The HW Vanguards continued to impress going into its second year; the winners are second-to-none and this list represents the finest cross section of mortgage talent available," said Jacob Gaffney, HousingWire editor-in-chief.

Rashid's inexplicable passion for innovation led to quite a few impactful solutions to the mortgage industry such as FinConnect and VELOX that disrupt the way mortgage industry functions. He encourages and incubates ideas within the company with initiatives such as Tavant Innovation Lab and Tavant Mortgage University.

"We have the experts and expertise - path-breaking solutions will be a natural outcome. However, as generations and technologies evolve, expectations increase. It is all about results and relationships," said Hassan Rashid, CRO, Tavant Technologies.

About HousingWire

HousingWire is the nation's most influential news source covering the U.S. housing economy, spanning residential mortgage lending, servicing, investments and real estate operations. The company's news, commentary, magazine content, industry directories, and events give more than one million industry professionals each year the insight they need to make better, more informed business decisions. Learn more at http://www.housingwire.com.

About Tavant Technologies

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Tavant Technologies is a specialized software solutions & services provider that provides impactful results to its customers across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Founded in 2000, the company employs over 2000 people and is a recognized top employer.

As a key solutions provider to the Mortgage industry, Tavant has demonstrated expertise in helping mortgage firms convert more leads, cut costs and retain borrowers. Find Tavant Technologies on LinkedIn and Twitter.

For further information please contact:

Vibhor Mishra

Tavant Technologies

+1-408-519-5400

[email protected]



SOURCE Tavant Technologies
It marks a new chapter for the nation following a government announcement to all Thais and the international community that Thailand now has a new King. He ascended to the throne, 50 days after the passing of the Late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The Crown Prince was invited by the head of the National Legislative Assembly to ascend to the throne in an event broadcast on all Thai television channels on the evening of December 1. The succession ceremony was attended by government leaders and head of the country's privy council. He becomes Rama X of Thailand's Chakri dynasty, but his coronation will not take place until after his Royal Father's cremation, next year.

The passing of HM the Late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 13 October, the beloved and revered "Father of the Nation" deeply saddened the entire Nation. He ruled for 70 years and was the world's longest reigning monarch. The government declared a year of mourning for the Late King.

Nations from around the world sent congratulatory messages to country's new monarch, wishing Thailand an era of peace and prosperity. Monks chanted blessings at Buddhist temples across the country to mark the new monarch's accession to the throne.

In a televised message to the nation, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, described the new king "as the head of the Thai state and heart of the Thai people." The historic ceremony was witnessed by the Regent pro tempore, the Prime Minister, and the President of the Supreme Court in accordance with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, the Palace Law on Succession, and ancient royal traditions.

Following the royal merit-making ceremony to mark 50 days after the passing of the Late HM the King, and with more than 1 million people having paid their respects, royal permission was sought to proceed in accordance with ancient royal traditions and laws.

Now, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, who has been the Heir to the Throne for 44 years, since 1972, has ascended to the throne as His Majesty King Rama X of the Royal House of Chakri.

He is accorded full royal prerogatives as stipulated by the Constitution. The government announcement noted that with regard to the "Royal Coronation Ceremony" His Majesty the King has decided that the coronation ceremony should proceed after the Royal Cremation Ceremony for the Late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

TCEB joins the nation and people from all walks of life to mark this auspicious occasion. Long Live the King.

TCEB assures its partners in the global events industry (MICE) that Thailand's doors are open to welcome visitors. Meeting planners can confidently book events knowing that the transfer of Kingship has been completed smoothly in accordance with ancient Royal Law and the wishes of the Nation.

Notwithstanding the Nation's heartfelt mourning for their beloved Late King, Thailand moves forward to a new era that has its foundations secure on the strong moral, social and economic pillars established by the Late King during his 70-year reign.

TCEB is pressing ahead with all of its programmes and campaigns to help build the nation's prosperity across all segments of the MICE industry. This can be seen in the successful hosting of the 29th Congress of the International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (XXIX ISSCT Congress 2016) 5 to 8 December 2016, in Chiang Mai.

The positive trend in meetings will continue in 2017 with the hosting of the 8th International Congress of Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control 2017 (APSIC 2017), 12 to 15 February in Bangkok. TCEB confidently looks forward to 2017 forecasting a record year in hosted events, delegate numbers and revenue generated for the nation's economy.

For further information, please visit www.tceb.or.th or contact [email protected].

Corporate Communications Division, Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (Public Organization)

Ms Arisara Thanuplang Tel: +662 694 6095 Email: [email protected]

Ms Titiwanlaya Thaimongkolrat Tel: +662 694 6103 Email: [email protected]

Ms Kwanchanok Otton Tel: +662 694 6096 Email: [email protected]

Ms Paniyada Mulalin Tel: +662 694 6091 Email: [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445955

SOURCE Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB)

Related Links

http://www.tceb.or.th


OLATHE, Kan., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Terracon, a leading provider of environmental, facilities, geotechnical, and materials services, announces the acquisition of CHJ Consultants (CHJ). CHJ provides geotechnical and materials testing services from its three southern California locations.

"We are pleased to further demonstrate our commitment to growing our presence, expertise, and service offerings in southern California and throughout the West," said David Gaboury, P.E., president and CEO of Terracon. "CHJ's depth of expertise allows us to expand our regional presence and bring additional resources to national and local clients."

CHJ Consultants was founded in 2011 by Robert Johnson along with Jay Martin and help from a former business associate. From its headquarters and laboratory in Colton, and with a laboratory in Victorville and an office in Palm Desert, Calif., CHJ supports projects throughout the San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Orange Counties. CHJ's services include geotechnical investigations, soil testing, engineering geology, environmental consulting, materials testing, and construction inspection.

The transition is effective immediately. The company operates as CHJ Consultants, A Terracon Company. All 55 CHJ employees have been retained.

President and principal geotechnical engineer of CHJ, Robert Johnson, P.E., G.E., said, "We believe this is a unique opportunity for CHJ employees and our clients. We could not be more excited to join a national company committed to the success of its employee-owners. The merger brings us the added resources that will allow us to focus on bringing greater value to our clients."

CHJ has a professional staff which includes geotechnical and civil engineers, geologists, materials technicians, and inspectors. The CHJ portfolio includes a number of major hospitals, roadways, schools and universities, power projects, and flood control projects.

The new acquisition is supported by Terracon's existing Orange County office. The CHJ acquisition is Terracon's fifthof 2016. Over the past two years Terracon's western expansions have included NORCAL of Sonoma County, Calif., and Mayes Testing Engineers and Argus Pacific, both of Seattle.

Terracon is an employee-owned engineering consulting firm with more than 3,500 employees providing environmental, facilities, geotechnical, and materials services from more than 130 offices with services available in all 50 states. Terracon currently ranks 32nd on Engineering News-Record's list of Top 500 Design Firms. For additional information about Terracon, visit www.terracon.com.

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SOURCE Terracon

Related Links

http://www.terracon.com


WORCESTER, Mass., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (NYSE: THG) announced today that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share on the issued and outstanding common stock of the company, payable December 30, 2016, to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 16, 2016.

"We are pleased to announce a 9% increase in our regular quarterly dividend. The continuity of dividend growth for the 12th consecutive year reflects our commitment to deliver shareholder value and the confidence our board of directors has in the financial condition and trajectory of our organization," said Joseph M. Zubretsky, president and chief executive officer at The Hanover. "As we look ahead, we will continue to further strengthen and position our company to succeed in both the near and long term."

About The Hanover

The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc., based in Worcester, Mass., is the holding company for several property and casualty insurance companies, which together constitute one of the largest insurance businesses in the United States. For more than 160 years, The Hanover has provided a wide range of property and casualty products and services to businesses, individuals, and families. The Hanover distributes its products through a select group of independent agents and brokers. Together with its agents, the company offers specialized coverages for small and mid-sized businesses, as well as insurance protection for homes, automobiles, and other personal items. Through its international member company, Chaucer, The Hanover also underwrites business at Lloyd's of London in several major insurance and reinsurance classes, including marine, property and energy. For more information, please visit hanover.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements regarding quarterly or future dividends payable to our shareholders, which may be subject to future increases, decreases, or elimination, as determined by The Hanover's Board of Directors, are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as are statements of future growth, earnings improvement and returns to shareholders. The company cautions investors that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of growth, earnings improvement, returns, future dividend payments, or the amount of such payments. Investors are directed to consider the risks and uncertainties in the company's business that may affect the Board's decision to declare dividends in the future or might affect the company's future results, including those risks which are discussed in readily available documents, such as the Company's annual report and other documents filed by The Hanover with the Securities and Exchange Commission and which are also available at www.hanover.com under "Investors."

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SOURCE The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.hanover.com


BEND, Ore., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hippinie has proudly announced a new patent pending beanie design that brings new and innovative updates to one of the world's most favorite head warmers.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445479

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445481

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hippinie/hippinie-the-multi-functional-tool-for-your-head

Hippinie is a new type of cold weather gear invented by outdoor enthusiast Jake Clement. The multi-functional beanie looks simple at first glance, but when the temperatures drop, it can turn a few heads. Extending into a full length scarf, it gives additional cover as needed to a user's head, neck and face, reducing multiple cold weather accessories down to one. When not in use, Hippinie can be worn as a regular beanie, a fashionable scarf, or simply tied around the waist and conveniently stored until needed.

The Multi-functional beanie boasts many universal features, including:

Seamless Finish: Made on the same machines that socks are made for a comfortably soft and seamless finish.

Made on the same machines that socks are made for a comfortably soft and seamless finish. Lightweight, Breathable and Moisture Wicking: High tech mixture of fibers wicks moisture away from the body, so you can stay dry, and keep warm.

High tech mixture of fibers wicks moisture away from the body, so you can stay dry, and keep warm. Versatile Style: Both ends can be worn as a beanie. Extends into a full length hollow scarf that can be worn in a number of fashionable ways.

Both ends can be worn as a beanie. Extends into a full length hollow scarf that can be worn in a number of fashionable ways. One Size Fits All : Comfortably stretchy and easily fits any head size.

: Comfortably stretchy and easily fits any head size. Bold Colors: Comes in seven heathered colors  White, Charcoal, Pink, Red, Grey, Sage Green , Navy Blue

"Hippinie is not only a great looking beanie, but it's functional, comfortable, and there's nothing else like it!" says Jake Clement, CEO and founder of Hippinie Inc. "I love beanies and have worn one almost every day for the past ten years. I'm always outdoors and temperatures constantly fluctuate. After a year of testing Hippinie in the elements, it's now the only beanie I use. It's convenient on the go and gives me the additional cover I need when things cool off."

Hippinies Kickstarter campaign has already reached 180% of its funding goal, and still has over thirty days to go. The early bird rewards are already gone, but until the campaign ends, backers will continue to get special pricing with rewards still available for as little as $40.

About Hippinie

Hippinie, Inc. founded by Jake Clement is a utility apparel design company located in Bend, Oregon. Their goal is to create a full line of versatile apparel that gives users complete comfort and control on all their outdoor adventures.

Media Contact

Company name: Hippinie Inc.

Name: Jake Clement

Phone: 541-588-0699

Email Address: [email protected]

Media Kit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6_GbgRgogdsQlQyYU9JS0QwbW8?usp=sharing

SOURCE Hippinie, Inc.
Donald Trump has sold his entire stake in Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the company overseeing construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, a Trump spokeswoman told NBC News.

Trump's shares of the company created a possible conflict of interest for the president-elect, as his administration may determine the project's fate amid ongoing protests from Native Americans and climate activists. Trump has supported the 1,172-mile pipeline and broader efforts to produce more fossil fuels in the United States.

On Sunday, the Army Corp of Engineers denied a federal permit for the project needed for a segment of the pipeline. Trump's administration could still approve it.

The planned pipeline route would have crossed beneath the Missouri River and run a half-mile of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Opponents said it could taint drinking water and disturb sacred sites.

Protests against the pipeline have gone on for months.

This summer, Trump's most recent financial disclosure form said he owned between $15,000 and $50,000 of Energy Transfer Partners' stock, so the sale must have taken place since then. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not say if he also sold his shares of Phillips 66, which has a smaller investment in the project.

Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren also gave $100,000 to Trump's joint fundraising effort with the Republican Party, according to Federal Election Commission records. However, Hicks said the donation would not affect Trump's decision making when he takes office.



Late last month, The Washington Post first reported that Trump sold off his stake.

 NBC News contributed to this report





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TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Photometrics, a manufacturer of high-performance scientific cameras for life sciences, announces that its Prime Scientific CMOS (sCMOS) Camera was selected for The Scientist Top 10 Innovations award. Selected by an expert panels of independent judges, the award recognizes some of the most innovative tools, software and techniques to hit the market. Prime is a 4.2 Megapixel sCMOS camera was chosen for its ability to make low-light microscopy just as data-rich as other techniques that subject samples to higher light intensities.

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"Being recognized for the Prime camera with this prominent award is significant because this product was a priority for us," said Rachit Mohindra, Photometrics product manager. "We set out to create a new channel for progress by collaborating with academic partners and examining how researchers are leveraging cameras in their labs. We landed on two main concepts: maximizing the quality of acquired image data and streamlining the process and operations. Prime is proof that we succeeded."

Prime is the first sCMOS camera to go beyond imaging with its sophisticated built-in mathematical intelligence to quantitatively restore signals that are buried in photon noise. Its FPGA-based Embedded Signal Processing engine enables powerful signal restoration, significantly increasing low-light image clarity. The engine also includes feature detection for localization-based super-resolution microscopy to address data glut, a common problem when imaging at high frame rates.

For nine years running, The Scientist has sought out recently released laboratory and research products that are making waves in life science laboratories. "This year's crop of Top 10 Innovation submissions contained some great products that posed a real challenge to our panel of experts, tasked by us with singling out the best and brightest," said Editor-in-Chief Mary Beth Aberlin. "As per usual, the independent judges delivered and highlighted innovations that truly have the potential to transform the life sciences."

Additional information about Prime is available at: http://www.photometrics.com/products/scmos/prime.php

Additional information about the winners is available at:

www.the-scientist.com/2016Top10

About Photometrics

Founded in 1978, Photometrics designs and manufactures high-performance CMOS, EMCCD and CCD cameras for life sciences. The original architect of the world's first scientific-grade microscopy EMCCD camera, Photometrics continues to lead the industry with state-of-the-art imaging instrumentation for the scientific community. Photometrics also offers comprehensive OEM camera support, including fully characterized, cost-efficient imaging systems and components. Photometrics is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

About The Scientist

The Scientist is a publication for life-science professionals that is dedicated to covering a wide range of topics central to the study of cell and molecular biology, genetics, neuroscience, and other life-science fields. The Scientist provides print and online coverage of the latest developments in the life sciences, including trends in research, new technology, news, business, and careers. It is read by leading researchers in industry and academia who value penetrating analyses and broad perspectives on life-science topics both within and beyond their areas of expertise. Written by prominent scientists and professional journalists, articles in The Scientist are concise, accurate, accessible, and entertaining.

 Copyright 2016, Photometrics. All rights reserved. Photometrics and the Photometrics logo are registered trademarks. Photometrics Prime is a Photometrics trademark. All other product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Product Management Contact:

Rachit Mohindra

Product Manager

Photometrics

[email protected]

+1.520.547.2576 office

+1.520.889.9933 main Press Contact:

Cyndy Nawrocki

Marketing Communications Director

Photometrics

[email protected]

+1.520.547.2745 office

+1.520.889.9933 main

SOURCE Photometrics
Saarinen's son, director of photography and co-producer Eric Saarinen, ASC ( Lost in America, The Hills Have Eyes , Exploratorium ), visits the sites of his father's work on a cathartic journey, shot in 6K with the latest in drone technology that showcases the architect's body of timeless work for the first time. The documentary also features rare archival interviews with Eero and his second wife, The New York Times art critic Aline Saarinen, as well as letters and quotations from Aline's memoirs voiced respectively by Peter Franzen and Blythe Danner.

"Closure was something I didn't have with my dad. But I forgive him for his genius," said Eric Saarinen, ASC. "He figured out a way to be important across time, so even though he died young, he is still alive."

The son of prominent Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and textile designer Loja Saarinen, Eero was surrounded by design his whole life, as was his son Eric, whose mother Lily Saarinen was a sculptor, artist and educator. Immigrating at the age of 13 to Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Eero attended Cranbrook Academy of Art, designed by Eliel, who taught there and became the school's first president as well as the chief architect of the Cranbrook campus, with Eero designing details like gargoyles and chairs. Eric also grew up at Cranbrook with his parents, grandparents, their friends and collaborators, including his godparents, designers Charles and Ray Eames.

"This film is both an immersive look at an architect's work and a father-son story across generations. Once Eric agreed to go on this journey with me, I knew the results would be compelling and revealing," said Emmy-, Peabody- and DGA Award-winning filmmaker Peter Rosen (American Masters  Jascha Heifetz: God's Fiddler, American Masters  Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes, American Masters: Rubinstein Remembered).

In American Masters  Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future, Eric also tours North Christian Church and the Miller House (both National Historic Landmarks in Columbus, Ind.), Deere & Company World Headquarters (Moline, Ill.) and MIT's Kresge Auditorium (Cambridge, Mass.). The documentary features new interviews with architects Kevin Roche, Cesar Pelli, Rafael Vinoly, and Robert A. M. Stern, and industrial designer Niels Diffrient, who all worked with or were influenced by Saarinen. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger, curator Donald Albrecht (Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future), author Jayne Merkel (Eero Saarinen) and Cathleen McGuigan, editor-in-chief of Architectural Record, also provide perspectives on why Saarinen's work stands apart and continues to inspire, especially amongst renewed interest in 20th-century architects and artists.

Launched in 1986, American Masters has earned 28 Emmy Awards  including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special  12 Peabodys, an Oscar, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards and many other honors. To further explore the lives and works of masters past and present, the American Masters website (http://pbs.org/americanmasters) offers streaming video of select films, outtakes, filmmaker interviews, educational resources and In Their Own Words: The American Masters Digital Archive: previously unreleased interviews of luminaries discussing America's most enduring artistic and cultural giants as well as the American Masters Podcast. The series is a production of THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET and also seen on the WORLD channel.

American Masters  Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future is a co-production of Peter Rosen Productions, Inc., THIRTEEN's American Masters for WNET, and Detroit Public Television in association with YLE. Peter Rosen is producer and director. Eric Saarinen, ASC, is director of photography and co-producer. Blythe Danner is the voice of Aline Saarinen. Peter Franzen is the voice of Eero Saarinen. Kris Liem and Adam Zucker are editors with music by Moby. Michael Kantor is executive producer for American Masters.

Major funding for American Masters  Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future is provided by the A. Alfred Taubman Foundation. Additional funding is provided in part by American Institute of Architects, National Endowment for the Arts, The Durst Organization, Vital Projects Fund, Eric and Katherine Larson Family Fund, MCR Development LLC, Gerald D. Hines, Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown, KieranTimberlake, KPF Foundation, and Daryl and Steven Roth Foundation.

Major support for American Masters is provided by AARP. Additional funding is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, Ellen and James S. Marcus, Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Vital Projects Fund, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, The Andre and Elizabeth Kertesz Foundation, Lenore Hecht Foundation, Michael & Helen Schaffer Foundation, and public television viewers.

About WNET

WNET is America's flagship PBS station and parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21 . WNET also operates NJTV, the statewide public media network in New Jersey. Through its broadcast channels, three cable services (KidsThirteen, Create and World) and online streaming sites, WNET brings quality arts, education and public affairs programming to more than five million viewers each week. WNET produces and presents such acclaimed PBS series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, PBS NewsHour Weekend, Charlie Rose and a range of documentaries, children's programs, and local news and cultural offerings. WNET's groundbreaking series for children and young adults include Get the Math, Oh Noah! and Cyberchase as well as Mission US, the award-winning interactive history game. WNET highlights the tri-state's unique culture and diverse communities through NYC-ARTS, Reel 13, NJTV News with Mary Alice Williams and MetroFocus, the daily multi-platform news magazine focusing on the New York region. In addition, WNET produces online-only programming including the award-winning series about gender identity, First Person, and an intergenerational look at tech and pop culture, The Chatterbox with Kevin and Grandma Lill. In 2015, THIRTEEN launched Passport, an online streaming service which allows members to see new and archival THIRTEEN and PBS programming anytime, anywhere: www.thirteen.org/passport.

Websites: http://pbs.org/americanmasters, http://facebook.com/americanmasters, @PBSAmerMasters, http://pbsamericanmasters.tumblr.com, http://youtube.com/AmericanMastersPBS, http://instagram.com/pbsamericanmasters, #AmericanMastersPBS

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SOURCE WNET
A true destination for the modern man, the store will house a Persons of Interest barbershop operated by Steve Marks; a cafe/bar helmed by Nick Morgenstern of El Rey Coffee Bar & Luncheonette; and shop-in-shops stocking Moscot eyewear and Aesop products, all in a relaxed yet refined environment that represents the Todd Snyder lifestyle.

"Every collection starts with inspiration from the worlds of art, architecture and design, made to fit the modern man and his lifestyle," says Snyder. "We created the New York store to embody that lifestyle down to the smallest detail, all hand selected from resources and vendors we love, many via our new partners at 1stdibs. It's not just a clothing store  it's a great place to come for a seasonal wardrobe upgrade with a personal stylist, to get fitted for your next suit while enjoying an espresso or a beer, or to hang out with friends while getting a haircut and a shave."

Located just steps from the brand's studio and headquarters, the space was designed in collaboration with James Mills, and mixes traditional homegrown elements with inspiration from Snyder's travels in Europe. Guests will be welcomed by a handsome facade detailed with vintage brass door handles sourced in London from Anthony Outred Antiques. Inside, collector-quality modern and midcentury furniture set the easygoing yet elegant tone. British Artist Luke Edward Hall, fresh off collaborations with Christie's, Burberry and Liberty London, created the opening visual installation; limited edition, signed and numbered prints will be available exclusively in the store. Additional design touches include lighting from Apparatus Studio, custom flooring from LV Wood and vintage rugs from ABC Carpet & Home.

The cafe/bar area features custom-designed terrazzo floor by New York-based artist Zackery Tyler, a vintage 1960's Italian chandelier and vintage Thonet chairs. The Persons of Interest barbershop-in-shop, where customers can drop in for grooming, is decked out with classic Jo Hammerborg Nova pendant lights and bespoke barber chairs made in Japan.

Launching in-store is Snyder's Made in the USA Black Label suiting collection, and the Made in Canada White Label suiting collection. A built-in Tailor Shop provides convenient customization while nodding to Snyder's own start in the business, as a tailor's assistant at the Iowa haberdashery Badowers. Also launching in-store is Snyder's brand new Selvedge Denim collection. Made in Los Angeles from premium Japanese and American selvedge fabrics, the denim collection features a range of hand-finished washes with a worn-in look, and a perfectly tailored fit for every guy.

Todd Snyder's New York Flagship opens December 6, 2016, at 25 Madison Square North, on 26th Street in Manhattan. To book personal stylist consultations and other services, stop by, or email [email protected].

ABOUT TODD SNYDER

Iowa native Todd Snyder launched his eponymous menswear collection for Fall 2011. Inspired by Savile Row craftsmanship, military tailoring, and a distinct New York sensibility, the line has garnered wide critical and commercial praise in the US. Since his launch, Todd Snyder has been selected as one of GQ Magazine's Best New Designers in America (2012) and has been nominated three times for the CFDA Swarovski Menswear Award (2012, 2013, 2014). Snyder was selected as one of the 2013 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists and most recently nominated as a CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year, fashion's top honor. In 2015, American Eagle Outfitters, Inc acquired Todd Snyder and his premium collegiate apparel line, Tailgate. With four Tailgate stores opened across the country in 2016, Snyder now turns his attention to his New York based Todd Snyder store on Madison Square Park North.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161121/441639

SOURCE Todd Snyder
SANTA ROSA, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of California Human Development (CHD) announces the retirement of Christopher Paige, chief executive officer and leading advocate in the fight against poverty for farmworkers and others across northern California. The announcement kicks off a search for Paige's successor as he works closely with the staff and board on an orderly transition over the coming months. Paige's decision comes as CHD prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary this spring. His retirement, which is slated for July, brings to close a remarkable career beginning in 1975 as program planner and rising to take the CEO reins in 2011.

"It has been my honor and distinct pleasure to work hand-in-hand with the staff and board of California Human Development and with our clients and partners for nearly the entirety of my professional career," says Paige. "I am so proud of the work we've accomplished on behalf of farmworkers and many others who struggle to overcome poverty," he adds.

Paige leads CHD's team of 240 dedicated staff in offices across northern California and serving people from 31 counties. The agency, which is a non-profit community-based organization headquartered in Sonoma County, helps those most at-risk to achieve self-sufficiency through training and employment, affordable housing, disABILITY services, immigration assistance, and residential and outpatient programs for drug-free living.

"Chris has brought immense dedication and energy to California Human Development, leading the charge to abolish conditions of poverty across northern California and advocating on behalf of hundreds-of-thousands of our state's poorest residents," says Emila Aguilar, vice-chair of the Board of Directors and chair of the search committee. "Now as we prepare for the next 50 years, we look forward to building upon the many successful partnerships and programs at the local, state, and federal level that Chris has helped establish during his tenure."

The Board of Directors has retained Leap Solutions Group, a Sonoma County-based consulting firm, to conduct a nationwide executive director search to identify Paige's successor. Any inquiries about the position should be directed to Leap Solutions at [email protected]. To read the full job description and requirements, visit Leap's website at: www.leapsolutions.com/practice-areas/recruiting/recruiting-opportunities/.

SOURCE California Human Development

Related Links

http://www.cahumandevelopment.org


"South County Outreach is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to preventing hunger and homelessness by helping people to help themselves. It was inspiring to see our sales and executive management teams employ the same problem-solving skills and teamwork to South County Outreach that they exhibit daily to our channel partners and their customers. Helping them help others, especially at this time of the year, was a great chance to do what we do best in a way that gives back to the community," said David Ansehl, director of Sales for Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division.

South County Outreach is a preferred charity for Toshiba. Kathy Wilbur, VP/CIO of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., and Melinda White, VP of Accounting and Financial Planning for Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division, both serve on the board of South County Outreach.

About Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc.

Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD)

Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division is one of the six business units of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (TAIS) and offers business communication solutions for SMB enterprises and enterprises with multi-site or regional locations. Toshiba's VIPedge cloud-based business telephone solution and the IPedge and Strata CIX systems offer Voice over IP, voice mail and unified messaging, conferencing and collaboration, unified communications applications, networking, mobility and more. Together with Toshiba's PCs, tablets, copiers, and surveillance video cameras/recorders, Toshiba's Telecommunication Systems Division helps enterprises maximize business efficiency in communications and mobility. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TAIS is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation. For more information, visit www.Telecom.Toshiba.com.

About Toshiba

Toshiba Corporation, a Fortune Global 500 company, channels world-class capabilities in advanced electronic and electrical product and systems into three focus business fields: Energy that sustains everyday life, that is cleaner and safer; Infrastructure that sustains quality of life; and Storage that sustains the advanced information society. Guided by the principles of The Basic Commitment of the Toshiba Group, "Committed to People, Committed to the Future," Toshiba promotes global operations and is contributing to the realization of a world where generations to come can live better lives.

Founded in Tokyo in 1875, today's Toshiba is at the heart of a global network of 550 consolidated companies employing 188,000 people worldwide, with annual sales surpassing 5.6 trillion yen (US$50 billion) (as of March 31, 2016).

To find out more about Toshiba, visit www.toshiba.co.jp/index.htm.

For additional information, or to purchase Toshiba telecommunication products, visit http://www.telecom.toshiba.com for an Authorized Toshiba Dealer.

Follow us on Facebook (ToshibaPhoneSystems), Twitter (toshibaphonesys) and LinkedIn (Toshiba-telecommunication-systems-division).

 2016 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. All product, service and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Information including, without limitation, product prices, specifications, availability, content of services, and contact information is subject to change without notice.

Toshiba PR Contact:

Teri Sawyer, T&Co.

714-801-1687

[email protected]

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SOURCE Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division

Related Links

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OXNARD, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Santech, the technology innovator in simplifying Provider Management for both payers and practices, has added the dental service organization Tralongo LLC to its growing client portfolio. Tralongo is the latest company to replace inefficient and time-consuming provider credentialing with Santech's powerful, automated iEnroll solution.

"Tralongo is a growing company that's adding three or four new strategic dental alliances per month. We wanted to spend more of our time accelerating this growth, not on a provider credentialing 'to-do' list," said Sherri Mansell, Chief Operations Officer at Tralongo. "Santech's iEnroll eliminates an extraordinary amount of duplicative and manual work, automating much of our provider data management and creating a better experience for our practices."

Streamlining credentialing for 150+ dental providers

With 75 dental practices throughout the country under its management, including 20 that it fully owns, Tralongo is one of the fastest-growing dental service organizations in the country. In contrast to other dental service organizations, Tralongo expends considerable resources on the practices it manages to prepare them for acquisition. These efforts include significant purchasing power and best practices tactics, along with backend support such as insurance verification, claim status checking, and provider enrollment and credentialing.

In the latter two activities, Tralongo found that the work was becoming cumbersome and in need of a scalable approach. Each of its 75 offices employs, on average, two dental providers, who are enrolled in 15 or more plans with a multitude of different forms and applicationsand even different requirements according to the state in which the provider resides. All told, Tralongo staffers are tasked with managing a collection of approximately 30,000 documents, in addition to trying to maintain credentialing and track upcoming credential expiration dates for greater than 150 dental providers.

"It became clear we needed an enterprise strength solution to manage our credentialing activities," added Mansell. "iEnroll allows us to scale with our ongoing growth of new offices while increasing efficiencies at our existing facilities."

iEnroll also mitigates what would otherwise be an overwhelming onslaught of requests from payers for the latest data about its dental providers. With the new laws requiring payers to have the most current provider directories possible, Tralongo and other dental organizations are becoming inundated with these requests. Tralongo can now easily fulfill them with iEnroll.

Breaking down credentialing "siloes"

iEnroll offers dental service organizations and dental practices a single repository for fast on- boarding of new providers and simplified outreach to payers. A cloud-based solution, iEnroll centralizes and automates credentialing document management and offers:

Support for multiple facilities and locations

Built-in workflow, e-notifications of upcoming expirations, form requirements and more

Vast library of state-specific payer forms and applications

Auto-population of data across applications, eliminating redundancy

Seamless integration to third party verification services

This is just an abbreviated list of features within iEnroll; the solution offers a rich set of capabilities to easily manage provider onboarding activities for even the largest dental service organizations.

"There is so much functionality in iEnroll, it easily meets our varied business demands. We also greatly benefited from an onsite visit from the Santech team, who exhibited deep listening skills and subject matter expertise and gave us a spot-on needs assessment," said Martha Harp, Director of Insurance at Tralongo. "In fact, we plan to eventually use the comprehensive solution for delegated credentialing."

"We are very pleased to welcome Tralongo to the Santech customer family," stated Neeraj K. Sharma, Chief Operating Officer at Santech. "Together, we'll demonstrate to the dental industry the difference that automated, enterprise-wide management of provider data can make to the modern dental service organization's financial and operational management."

About Tralongo, LLC

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Tralongo, LLC is a firm that partners with dentists throughout the United States to help them expand their practices through the acquisition of existing dental offices. With more than 90 years of combined experience in dental management, as well as dental transitions and acquisitions, the Tralongo team assists clients by finding the practices that meet their criteria, performing the due diligence, obtaining the appropriate financing and, ultimately, acquiring the office. The firm also provides clients with behind-the-scenes management support, including finance, human resources, marketing and ongoing education. For more information on Tralongo LLC, call 678-288-4712 or visit tralongo.net.

About Santech

Founded and managed by healthcare specialists, Santech offers innovative solutions to payers, practices and health systems to transform their provider and network management capabilities. Built for scalability and high performance, our enterprise-caliber solutions are designed to meet the needs of small, midsize and large organizations. Santech is a Delaware Corporation headquartered in Oxnard, Calif. with offices in California and New Jersey. Visit us at www.mySantech.com.

Media Contact:

Stephanie Fraser

Amendola Communications for Santech

734.233.1483 [email protected]

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SOURCE Santech

Related Links

http://www.mySantech.com


ATLANTA, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Tropical Smoothie Cafe, the leading fast casual cafe concept known for its better-for-you food and smoothies with a tropical twist, announced today it signed a franchise development agreement with industry veterans Bill Ruby and Greg Powell to expand its presence in South Carolina. The partners will be opening six new cafes throughout the Upstate area, with the first location expected to open in Greenville during the first quarter of 2017.

"Tropical Smoothie has experienced a surge of franchise development this year, propelled by our brand's overall national expansion efforts and ongoing success," said Mike Rotondo, CEO of Tropical Smoothie Cafe. "We've been looking for franchise partners with restaurant and operations experience, as well as a passion and desire to provide unparalleled service and high-quality food. We found that in Bill and Greg, who both have deep roots in the hospitality industry, and we're thrilled to have them on board to help catapult our growth throughout South Carolina."

Bill Ruby and Greg Powell each bring more than two decades of experience and a wealth of industry knowledge to Tropical Smoothie Cafe. The partners most recently worked together for Denny's Corporation, where Ruby led marketing efforts as vice president of field marketing and later became vice president of company operations, and Powell spearheaded branded concepts as vice president of concept innovation and development. Previously, Ruby held corporate marketing and operations positions for large brands including Chili's Grill and Bar, Little Caesar's, A&W Restaurants and Yum! Brands, while Powell had a hand in building and growing well-known emerging and legacy brands including Burger King, Einstein Bros. Bagels and Arby's.

"Greg and I established a strong professional rapport during our time at Denny's and knew we wanted to venture out into franchising together," said Ruby. "With our sights set on a successful fast casual concept, we identified Tropical Smoothie Cafe as a brand that's continued to evolve over the years while consistently providing customers with new and innovative healthy food and smoothie options, and knew this was something we wanted to be a part of. There's tremendous growth potential in the Upstate market, and we're confident that Tropical Smoothie will resonate with residents in the communities we'll serve."

This new agreement in South Carolina is fueled by Tropical Smoothie Cafe's accelerated franchise development plans. On the heels of one of the strongest years in the company's 19-year history, the award-winning brand successfully propelled its expansion throughout 2016 and grew its presence in key markets nationwide, including Charleston, South Carolina; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Dallas, Texas; and Southern California.

This year, the food and smoothie franchise plans to exceed 550 restaurants nationwide. The brand currently has franchise opportunities across the U.S. in markets such as Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and Columbus, among others. By 2018, Tropical Smoothie Cafe plans to have 800 units open across the U.S.

Tropical Smoothie Cafe is looking to add qualified franchisees to its growing brand. Candidates should have business experience; $125,000 in liquid assets and a minimum net worth of $350,000; and an initial investment of between $198,050 and $478,550. The healthier fast food franchise currently boasts an average unit volume (AUV) of more than $634,000  the highest in the company's 19-year history  with the top 50 percent reporting an AUV of more than $806,000.

Tropical Smoothie Cafe's aggressive franchise growth is backed by the entrepreneurs at the BIP Franchise Accelerator, a division of venture capital firm BIP Capital, which invested in the brand in 2010. BIP Capital has invested more than $250 million in emerging, high-growth brands across the franchising, software, and technology and consumer products industries. BIP Capital created the BIP Franchise Accelerator to leverage its leadership team's deep franchise experience to help emerging brands accelerate their growth. In addition to Tropical Smoothie Cafe, the BIP Franchise Accelerator's portfolio includes Tin Drum Asian Kitchen, which has grown to 11 locations in Georgia.

"When we invested in Tropical Smoothie Cafe four years ago, the company had 200 franchised locations and was growing at a slow pace of only 20 per year," said Tom Wells, vice president of BIP Franchise Accelerator. "Today, Tropical Smoothie Cafe is opening an average of one cafe a week and last year signed nearly 200 franchise agreements. Our partnership has brought not only the needed capital to grow the brand, but also the proven strategies for accelerating a franchise system's growth."

For more information about opening your own Tropical Smoothie Cafe franchise, please visit www.tropicalsmoothiefranchise.com.

About Tropical Smoothie Cafe

Founded in 1997, Tropical Smoothie Cafe is a fast-casual restaurant concept inspiring healthy lifestyles across the country, with over 530 locations nationwide. With snack and meal options for any time of day, Tropical Smoothie Cafe serves smoothies, salads, tacos, wraps, sandwiches, and flatbreads. The rapidly growing franchise has received numerous accolades including being ranked on Entrepreneur's 2016 Franchise 500, 2016 Fast Casual Top 100 Movers and Shakers, Franchise Times' Top 200+ and Nation's Restaurant News' 2016 Top 200. Tropical Smoothie Cafe is seeking qualified franchisees to expand throughout the United States in markets such as Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and Columbus, among others.

About the BIP Franchise Accelerator

The BIP Franchise Accelerator is a division of BIP Capital, an Atlanta-based venture capital firm with over $250 million invested in over 26 companies in emerging, high-growth brands across the franchising, software, technology and consumer products industries. BIP Capital created the BIP Franchise Accelerator to leverage its leadership team's deep franchise experience to help emerging brands accelerate their growth. The BIP Franchise Accelerator not only provides investment capital, but also uses proven strategies to help companies evolve into mature, thriving brands. From fast casual and QSR concepts to service brands and healthcare and education concepts, the BIP Franchise Accelerator has invested in emerging brands driven by people with an entrepreneurial spirit that have a great growth potential. Its current portfolio includes Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Tin Drum Asian Kitchen and BIP Franchise Finance. For more information on BIP Franchise Accelerator, visit www.bipfranchiseaccelerator.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Fish Consulting

Courtney Whelan

[email protected]

954-893-9150

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SOURCE Tropical Smoothie Cafe

Related Links

http://www.tropicalsmoothiefranchise.com


NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- "Growing demand for engine downsizing and stringent emission norms are expected to fuel the demand for automotive turbocharger"

The automotive turbocharger market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.63%, to reach a market size of USD 18.49 billion by 2021. The market is driven by the key factor engine downsizing, which leads to the reduction of size of engine. For instance, naturally aspirated V8 engine can be substituted with V6 turbocharged small size engine without affecting the power output and torque. Engine downsizing leads to increased efficiency and helps in quick warm-up of engine and decreases the overall weight of vehicle. In order to achieve stringent emission norms, turbocharger plays an important role. Euro Regulations in Europe and CAFE regulations have set targets which the auto component manufacturers have to follow. For instance, CAFE standards in U.S. requires fuel economy to increase by 40% by 2016. Such factors are contributing to the growth of the automotive turbocharger market. In order to deal with such stringent emission regulations, the automotive industry is witnessing the rise of electric vehicles. Governments across the world are offering subsidies and incentives to encourage the electric vehicle industry. This increasing demand would influence the market for automotive turbochargers restricting its growth.

"VGT/VNT is the fastest growing turbocharger technology market in the automotive industry"

Variable Geometry Turbocharger (VGT) technology is expected to dominate the automotive turbocharger market. The VGT/VNT technology is best suitable for 0.9 to 0.3 liter diesel engines. However VGT/VNT technology, also have application in 1.4L to 2.0L range. Advanced VNT gives fuel efficiency at low speeds, reduces weight, and gives better transient response and flexible packaging. For instance, Honeywell has launched VNT DualBoost Turbochargers which will boost the engine performance and is best suitable for pickup trucks with engine capacity of around 6 liter and more.



"Gasoline turbocharged vehicles constitute the largest segment of the automotive turbocharger market"

The turbochargers are used in gasoline engines to increase the engine power, by increasing the pressure inside the combustion chamber. The turbochargers to be used in petrol vehicles should be compact, and should run at higher speeds. However, in the current scenario, the penetration of diesel turbocharged vehicles is more than gasoline turbocharged vehicles. For instance, according to MarketsandMarkets analysis, in Asia-Oceania 55-60% of the diesel powered passenger cars are turbocharged, on the other hand only 15-20% of the gasoline powered passenger cars are turbocharged. However the trend of turbochargers in gasoline engines is increasing. The gasoline fueled models with turbochargers are 1.4L Opel Astra, 1.6L BMW, V6 Ford EcoBoost, and BMW X-Series.



"North America: Fastest growing market for turbocharger in automotive industry"

North America is estimated to dominate the automotive turbocharger market, and is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Increasing stringency in the CAFE emission regulations can be credited for the growth in the automotive turbocharger market in this region. Additionally, the rising demand for advanced turbocharger technologies such as VGT/VNT which boosts the power of engine and other factors have contributed towards the growth scenario of this market. The North American automotive industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and is dominated by domestic OEMs such as Ford Motor Company (U.S.) and General Motors (U.S.), along with established European and Japanese OEMs.



BREAKDOWN OF PRIMARIES

The study contains insights provided by various industry experts, ranging from equipment suppliers to Tier-1 companies and OEMs. The break-up of the primaries is as follows:



- By Company Type  Tier-1 - 63 %, Tier-2 - 29%, and OEM - 8%

- By Designation - C level - 45%, D level  43%, others  12%

- By Region - North America - 58%, Europe - 30%, Asia-Oceania - 12%



The report provides detailed profiles of the following companies:

- Saint-Gobain S.A.

- Borg Warner Inc.

- Cummins Inc.

- Honeywell International Inc.

- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

- IHI corporation

- Continental AG

- Eaton Corporation Plc

- Bosch Mahle Turbo Systems

- Turbo energy private Ltd.

Research Coverage:

The report provides a picture on automotive turbochargers across different verticals and regions. It aims at estimating the market size and future growth potential of automotive turbochargers across different segments such as technology, fuel type, vehicle type, application, and regions for various markets such as the OE market, aftermarket, and the off-highway market. Furthermore, the report also includes an in-depth competitive analysis of the key players in the market along with their company profiles, SWOT analysis, recent developments, and key market strategies.



Key Benefits of Buying the Report:

The report will help the market leaders/new entrants in this market by providing them the closest approximations of the revenue numbers for the overall automotive turbocharger market and the subsegments. This report will help stakeholders to better understand the competitor landscape and gain more insights to better position their businesses and make suitable go-to-market strategies. The report also helps the stakeholders to understand the pulse of the market and provides them information on key market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities.



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04411875-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

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Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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After joining United in 2012, Sara McCook quickly recognized and relished the impact of that inclusivity and openness on her own life: "For the most part, right out of college I was open about my sexuality to my friends and family, but I never fully embraced it in the workplace because I always felt that it would be considered a roadblock to my career  that changed when I joined United. The leadership team where I started, in Denver, and ultimately throughout the company, made it immediately known that this is a place where people are encouraged to bring their true, authentic self and that was very liberating."

Sara's story, like those of many of United's LGBT employees, is one of acceptance, something that she credits not only to United's policies of equal rights and benefits, but also to the attitudes of the company's management and employees. "We have amazing diversity and an inclusive culture here," she said. "Diversity is inviting someone to the party, but inclusivity is asking someone to dance  sure, we have the policies and the benefits in place, but United is constantly 'encouraging us to dance,' and that's how we separate ourselves as an organization."

Supporting LGBT Employees

Fully inclusive equal employment, workplace benefits and non-discrimination policies are core to United's Working Together culture. The airline offers several programs that promote LGBT inclusion and awareness. It sponsors an LGBT-focused business resource group, EQUAL, which provides ongoing networking, advocacy and outreach opportunities for its members, and consults with senior leadership on issues of equality. Today, EQUAL is one of United's fastest-growing resource groups, with over 1,200 employee members.

After the CEI results were announced, United's executive vice president of human resources and labor relations Mike Bonds said: "We are extremely proud that we have a culture here at United that is inclusive of all employees, and we look to continue to be at the forefront in supporting equal rights for the LGBT community. The Human Rights Campaign's recognition serves as powerful validation that we're moving in the right direction."

Over the past year, United employees and leaders participated in Pride Parades in several cities around the U.S., including Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Houston, New York City and Washington D.C., and employees companywide took a stand against bullying in support of LGBTQ youth during October's Spirit Day campaign.

About United

United Airlines and United Express operate more than 4,500 flights a day to 339 airports across five continents. In 2015, United and United Express operated more than 1.5 million flights carrying more than 140 million customers. United is proud to have the world's most comprehensive route network, including U.S. mainland hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. United operates more than 720 mainline aircraft, and this year, the airline anticipates taking delivery of 21 new Boeing aircraft, including 737 NGs, 787s and 777s, as well as six used Airbus A319 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides service to 192 countries via 28 member airlines. For more information, visit united.com, follow @United on Twitter or connect on Facebook. The common stock of United's parent, United Continental Holdings, Inc., is traded on the NYSE under the symbol UAL.

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SOURCE United Airlines

Related Links

http://www.united.com


NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- North America Ventricular Assist Device Market: Overview



Advance Heart Failure is characterized as weakening of the heart caused due to failure of the left ventricle, due to which the heart is unable to pump blood to different parts of the body. According to the AHA (American Heart Association), 5.7 Mn people in the U.S suffer from heart failure and 300,000 die each year of heart failure. Moreover, the AHA predicts that advance heart failure will become the most common cause of death globally. However, these statistics have already materialized in the U.S. and Canada, where advance heart failure is currently said to be the leading cause of mortality. In Canada, the figures are rising day by day. In Canada nearly 600,000 of the total is affected by heart failure. A large proportion of these population can be saved with proper treatment and care. Thus, the existence of an unmet medical need is clearly evident and is anticipated to augment the ventricular assist device market.

North America Ventricular Assist Device Market: Scope of the Study



This report on the ventricular assist device market in the North America analyzes the current and future prospects of the market. The report comprises an elaborate executive summary, including a market snapshot that provides overall information of various segments and sub-segments. The research is a combination of primary and secondary research. Detailed qualitative analysis of factors responsible for driving and restraining market growth and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Market revenue in terms of US$ Mn for the period between 2014 and 2024 along with the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) from 2014 to 2024 are provided for all the segments, considering 2015 as the base year. Market related factors such as technological developments, patent expiry, recent approvals, investment in clinical studies and acquisitions by leading players in the market, and historical year-on-year growth have been taken into consideration while estimating the market size. Growth rates for each segment within the North America ventricular assist device market have been determined after a thorough analysis of past trends, demographics, future trends, technological developments, drug development life cycle, and regulatory requirements. These factors would help the market players to take strategic decisions in order to strengthen their positions and expand their share in the ventricular assist device market in North America.



North America Ventricular Assist Device Market: Segmentation



Based on product type, the North America ventricular assist device market has been segmented into Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD), Right Ventricular Assist Device (RVAD), Biventricular Assist Device (Bi-VAD) and total artificial heart (TAH).



Based on indication, the North America ventricular assist device market has been segmented into bridge to transplant (BTT), destination therapy (DT) and bridge to recovery (BTR). The American Heart Association reported that 2.6% of the total population is suffering from cardiovascular disease and heart failure is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and around 1.6% in Canada suffer from heart failure, and the number is rising each year. Therefore consequently driving the ventricular assist device market in North America during the forecast period.



North America Ventricular Assist Device Market: Geographical Outlook



Geographically, the North America ventricular assist device market has been segmented into two countries: the U.S. and Canada. These countries have been further segmented by indication and product type. The competition matrix section included in the report is likely to assist the existing players to increase their market shares and new companies to establish their presence in the ventricular assist device market in North America.



Companies Mentioned in the Report



The report also profiles major players in the market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, SWOT analysis, key business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments. Key companies profiled in the report include ABIOMED, St. Jude Medical, HeartWare, SynCardia Systems LLC, Sunshine Heart, Inc., Berlin Heart GmbH



The North America ventricular assist device market has been segmented as follows:



North America Ventricular Assist Device Market, by Product Type



LVAD (Left ventricular assist device)

RVAD (Right ventricular assist device)

Bi-VAD (Biventricular assist device)

TAH( Total artificial heart)



North America Ventricular Assist Device Market, by Indication



BTT (Bridge To Transplant)

DT (Destination Therapy)

BTR (Bridge To Recovery)

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04415281-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

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(Adds stock price, analyst comment, production data, mine expansion details)

By Susan Taylor

TORONTO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd said on Friday it has suspended concentrate shipments from its giant copper-gold Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia across the Chinese border, blaming problems with a crossing route.

Vancouver-based Turquoise Hill said it suspended shipments effective Thursday, after a new requirement at the Chinese-Mongolian border to use one joint coal and concentrate route created "unreasonably" long waits to cross the border along with safety and security concerns.

The company, whose shares fell 2.5 percent to C$4.34 in early trade on Friday, said in a statement it was unclear how long the suspension would continue and it was trying to clarify the matter with Mongolian and Chinese authorities.

Turquoise Hill was not immediately available for comment.

In 2016, the south Gobi desert mine is forecast to produce 175,000 to 195,000 tonnes of copper in concentrates and 255,000 to 285,000 ounces of gold in concentrates, the company said in early November.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Fraser Phillips said in a note to clients that the suspension was a negative.

It comes one day after new fees were levied on commodity shipments between Mongolia and China, following a diplomatic row sparked by last week's visit of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to Ulaanbaatar.

The Dalai Lama is cherished as a spiritual leader in predominantly Buddhist Mongolia, but China regards him as a dangerous separatist and warned the visit could damage bilateral relations.

Rio Tinto Plc's majority-owned Turquoise Hill has a 66 percent stake in the mine, with the Mongolian government holding the remainder. Rio Tinto operates Oyu Tolgoi.

In June, Rio gave the go-ahead for a $5.3 billion underground expansion of the mine, with first production expected in 2020. When fully ramped in 2027, copper output is forecast at more than 500,000 tonnes annually.

(Additional reporting by Reporting by Vishaka George in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Participants were treated to a fully immersive holiday experience. Upon arrival, visitors took turns being scanned by the Naughty or Nice O'Meter to determine which of Santa's lists would bear their names. Once inside, the group was allowed to catch a glimpse of the activity at Santa's North Pole workshop, with the help of interactive electronics. To commemorate the occasion, children posed for Elfies  like selfies  with their parents. And because no trip to Santa HQ would be complete without a visit from the big guy himself, Santa Claus arrived to greet the kids and hear about their Christmas wish lists.

The holiday experience was a positive one for Army and Marine Corps veteran Michael Miedzinski, who jumped at the opportunity to visit Santa HQ with his wife and children.

"This was a great chance to do something with my family as a whole and for us to enjoy ourselves for a little while with other veterans," Michael said. "My kids said meeting Santa was the best part of the day. They had really been looking forward to seeing him this year."

While his children appreciated the meeting with Santa, Michael most enjoyed the opportunity to connect with fellow service members. Outreach activities support the long-term recovery needs of warriors by reintroducing them and their families to the unique bonds experienced during military service. Connecting with fellow veterans  in environments that accommodate physical injuries and social anxieties  diminishes feelings of social isolation. In a WWP survey of the injured warriors it serves, more than half of survey respondents (51.7 percent) talked with fellow Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation New Dawn veterans to address their mental health issues.

"It means a lot to be a part of the wounded warrior family," Michael said. "It's definitely a good group of people I can fall back on and talk to, and that helps with the normalcy. It brings back that familiar feeling I was comfortable with in the military."

WWP staff members interacted with warriors and family members during the visit, advising them of additional programs and services to assist in their recovery processes. The programs assist injured veterans with mental health, physical health and wellness, career and benefits counseling, and connecting with other warriors and their communities. Through the generosity of donors, these resources are available to warriors at no cost to them.

To learn more about how WWP's programs and services are making an impact on the lives of wounded warriors, visit http://newsroom.woundedwarriorproject.org/. To find photos from this event, click on multimedia, then images, then the warrior connection and outreach section.

About Wounded Warrior Project

We Connect, Serve, and Empower

The mission of Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors. WWP connects wounded warriors and their families to valuable resources and one another, serves them through a variety of free programs and services, and empowers them to live life on their own terms. WWP is a national, nonpartisan organization headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. To get involved and learn more, visit woundedwarriorproject.org.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/446024

SOURCE Wounded Warrior Project

Related Links

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org


RALEIGH, N.C., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vidrio, a new Mediterranean-style dining experience from hospitality group LM Restaurants, will open its doors for dinner on Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 at 500 Glenwood Ave. Offering fresh seafood and an impressive wine selection, Vidrio will bring a fusion of Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Turkish, Lebanese, Moroccan, and other Mediterranean flavors right to the heart of Raleigh's thriving Glenwood South District. Raleighites will be able to explore a window into global flavor in an intimate family setting with plates made to share. The daily menu offers dishes inspired by seaside tradition and a robust beverage program.

Vidrio invites guests to experience the soul of Mediterranean cuisine through the sensibilities of the earth, flavor, and wine. The restaurant will offer more than 50 wines on tap (including vermouth and sherry) plus another 200 bottles, along with specialty craft cocktails. This scale of variety is unmatched in the area for beverage offerings.

The daily menu will give a nod to all Mediterranean countries of influence, with every dish and cocktail crafted to invigorate the senses. Vidrio imports its own olive oil directly from the founder's Greek village while collaborating with area farmers and purveyors to source the freshest local ingredients and serve wholesome meals paired with bold wines that please palates. Guests will be able to share the simple elegance of slow-roasted meat and cheese plates, wood-fired fish, and fresh crudo and tartare, while experiencing Mediterranean cuisine served in an homage to this ancient region. The Grilled Octopus dressed in Vrisi 36 EVOO with fresh herbs, Roasted Mussels with fresh tomatoes in a saffron white wine broth, and the fresh mushroom and herb goat cheese crostini are examples of simple, ingredient forward dishes. At Vidrio, each menu item is carefully crafted with the utmost care and consideration, focusing on the flavors of the ingredients as the main showcase of the meal.

Leading Vidrio's kitchen will be Executive Chef Ian Sullivan, previously with the University Club in Durham, North Carolina, and the Urban Food Group of Raleigh. Chef de Cuisine is Saif Rahman, previously of 21c Museum and Hotel in Durham, and World Central Kitchen organization by Chef Jose Andres. Overseeing the hospitality and restaurant business will be General Manager Ron Didner, previously with Six Points Restaurant Group of Philadelphia and the Inn at Perry Cabin by Belmond in St. Michaels, Maryland. Ioannis "Yanni" Theodorou, previously with McCormick & Schmick's, will coordinate all events and catering as private dining and catering sales manager. Rounding out front of house will be Ahmed Hasan, most recently from Fleet Street Kitchen in Baltimore, as beverage manager and chief mixologist.

Complementing the vibrancy of its menu, Vidrio's unique two-story open space interior resonates the feeling of timeless coastal communities from the south of Spain to the Turkish Islands, through Egypt and Morocco. Vidrio is Spanish for "glass," reflecting the Mediterranean culture in both the name and design of the restaurant. Stunning design elements include a rainbow of handblown glass, colorful mosaics of unique hand-painted tiles, original European furnishings, and custom guillotine windows from Turkey offering patrons panoramic views of the area. Hundreds of wooden dowels hang about the bar area, and rope chandeliers adorn the dining room, both moving with the wind as if by a sea breeze. The open kitchen gives guests a clear view of the wood-fired grill and stone hearth oven for a rare glimpse into the work behind their meal and the zesty aroma of fresh baking bread and grilled seafood.

"At Vidrio, we are offering an authentic window into the Mediterranean in a modern and playful setting," said Lou Moshakos, president and owner of LM Restaurants. "We look forward to sharing our tables with people who want to experience the Mediterranean lifestyle right here in Raleigh."

Vidrio also offers a variety of private event spaces with a separate bar and catering kitchen. The spaces are suited to accommodate groups ranging from 10 to 250 people.

James Beard-nominated best restaurateur Giorgios Bakatsias and ARCHE design USA consulted on Vidrio and was responsible for its design elements and menu authenticity. Bakatsias has over 30 years of experience in the culinary industry and has been the creative force behind restaurants across the area including Bin 54 and Kipos, both in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His business partner and fellow thought architect, Theodore Kondylis, is based in Athens, Greece.

Open for dinner and brunch on Sundays, Vidrio will offer free valet parking to its guests. For more information or for reservations, please call 919-803-6033 or visit www.vidrioraleigh.com.

Vidrio is the anchor concept in LM Restaurants' new Platinum Portfolio, a planned group of high-end, event-styled destination locations focused on offering fine dining, professional chefs, and top-quality service.

ABOUT VIDRIO

Vidrio, a family-style restaurant, was launched in 2016 in Glenwood South in Raleigh, North Carolina, to offer diners a unique Mediterranean dining experience. It is part of LM Restaurants as the latter's first Platinum Portfolio restaurant. Vidrio features family-style shared plates with Mediterranean inspiration and influences. The restaurant has more than 50 wines on tap and another 200 in bottles. Vidrio is focused on taste and chef-driven recipes, with a daily rotating menu based on locally-sourced, fresh ingredients. At Vidrio, guests begin with wine and small bites, then progress to hearty dishes freshly prepared for the whole table to share.

www.vidrioraleigh.com

Contact:

Lindsay Hamilton

919.987.3593

[email protected]

SOURCE Vidrio

Related Links

http://www.vidrioraleigh.com


(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161206/445970 )



The '$500 Cash Rebate' is the broker's second promotion launch for the year 2016, and it comes with enhanced benefits for both new and existing Clients.

Vipro Markets CEO, Valerijus Ovsianikas, commented: "We are thrilled to launch yet another exciting promotion to reward our clients for trading with us. This is a great opportunity for traders to prove their trading skills while enjoying competitive spreads and ultra-fast execution of orders".

Mr. Ovsianikas added that "As we grow and develop, we increase the promotions and offers available to our diverse Client base. Whether they are new to Forex or experienced traders, just starting with us or long-standing Clients, they can rest assured that there is a forex promotion that suits their trading needs."

More information about the promotion and the applicable Terms and Conditions can be found here.

Notes to Media:

About Vipro Markets

Vipro Markets is a global forex broker offering retail and institutional Clients trading services with prime focus on Forex, Stock Indices, commodities, CFDs and precious metals. The broker is authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), with license number 278/15, and is also a Member of the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF). The Company has distinguished itself among ECN Forex brokers by providing top-notch trading services with low average spreads and commissions and ultra-fast execution though its state-of-the-art trading servers located at the Equinix LD4 data center in London.

Trading in derivative financial instruments may not be suitable for everyone and we therefore advise Clients to make themselves familiar with all the risks involved. Please review the Vipro Markets Client Agreement and other legal documentation available on Vipro Markets website before entering into any transaction with us.

SOURCE Vipro Markets
BETHESDA, Md., Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- WealthEngine (WE), the leading B2C Data and Predictive Intelligence platform optimized for wealth insights, announced that it is joining Marketo's best-of-breed partner ecosystem, LaunchPoint. By joining LaunchPoint, WealthEngine will be able to seamlessly integrate its powerful wealth intelligence data with the Marketo platform, enabling customers to gain new insights, more precisely target prospects, and engage audiences in ways that improve conversion.

Marketo LaunchPoint Partner

"We are excited to join Marketo's robust network of best-of-breed solutions ecosystem," said Mark Logan, CEO of WealthEngine. "Our goal is to provide customers the data and predictive analytics necessary to deliver marketing efficiency at the top of the funnel."

"We are thrilled to have WealthEngine join our LaunchPoint partner ecosystem," said Andy Choi, Senior Director of Business Development at Marketo. "WealthEngine's capabilities complement Marketo as we help our customers deeply understand their audiences and personalize their marketing efforts."

WealthEngine is pioneering the consumer marketing industry by filling a void in the B2C data landscape. Paired with Marketo, the possibilities for personalization are endless.

The WealthEngine-Marketo solution will deliver Marketo customers the following capabilities and benefits:

Consumer Data Appends : Append data in real time with Net Worth, Lifestyle, and Interest attributes to drive persona-based nurture tracks

: Append data in real time with Net Worth, Lifestyle, and Interest attributes to drive persona-based nurture tracks Rich Audience Insights : Provide new wealth insights to better segment lists, score leads, and prioritize actions

: Provide new wealth insights to better segment lists, score leads, and prioritize actions Look-Alike Modeling: Create look-alike models and find new leads based on characteristics in common with the best customers in their database

Create look-alike models and find new leads based on characteristics in common with the best customers in their database Precision Prospecting: Generate the ideal prospect list and seamlessly pull it into Marketo

To learn more and get started with WealthEngine, visit the LaunchPoint page or go to wealthengine.com.

About WealthEngine

WealthEngine, Inc. is the leading provider of predictive marketing analytics, audience development and wealth intelligence services to nonprofits, financial service organizations, luxury brands, and retailers. Named a Cool Vendor in Data-Driven Marketing by Gartner, marketers and fundraisers use WealthEngine's comprehensive insights to understand what drives consumer decisions and when best to engage them. Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, WealthEngine serves both the United States and the United Kingdom. For more information, please visit wealthengine.com.

About Marketo

Marketo provides the leading engagement marketing software and solutions designed to help marketers develop long-term relationships with their customers  from acquisition to advocacy. Marketo is built for marketers, by marketers and is setting the innovation agenda for marketing technology. Marketo puts Marketing First. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with offices around the world, Marketo serves as a strategic partner to large enterprise and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries. To learn more about Marketo's Engagement Marketing Platform, LaunchPoint partner ecosystem, and the vast community that is the Marketo Marketing Nation, visit marketo.com.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445727

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161128/443314LOGO

SOURCE WealthEngine

Related Links

http://www.wealthengine.com


While most holiday travelers are in a festive spirit, there will invariably be some "bad apples" who, whether they mean to or not, can spoil an otherwise enjoyable travel experience. Earlier this year, Travelocity  surveyed more than 1,500 people 2 to find out which holiday traveler is the most annoying, and the three most mentioned culprits were:

"The Oversharer": This passenger is excited to be going home to see family. Really excited. So excited that she feels the need to share stories about every single relative (from her third cousin Bessie to her oh-so-adorable 2 year old nephew). And thanks to the magic of social media, she is able to spend the entire flight sharing pictures of all of them.



"The Just One More Egg Nog Guy": To this passenger, the holidays are about celebrating at 90 proof. After celebrating the season at the bar, he stumbles into his aisle seat singing carols (while getting most of the lyrics wrong) and continually rings the call button throughout the flight for "just one more Jack and cola."



"Rudolph the Red Nosed Passenger": In his mission to get home in time for Christmas dinner, this passenger ignores the raging cold/flu that has transformed him into a mucus factory. Additionally, he is invariably seated in a middle seat so that he can share his "bounty" with as many people as possible.

In the process of determining the most annoying holiday traveler, Travelocity also found some helpful travel hints within the data:

Passengers looking to switch seats to be closer to (or farther from) their traveling companions are best off asking a woman, as men are twice as likely to be annoyed by a "seat switcher."

Flyers who have had a couple of "adult beverages" prior to boarding would be well-advised to avoid millennials, as they are almost two times as likely to be annoyed by a "tipsy traveler."

Travel: The Perfect Stocking Stuffer

Just in time for the holidays, Travelocity is making it easier than ever to find the best travel deals. By visiting http://travelocity.us/holidays, travelers can find great prices on popular destinations, and also access Travelocity's best days to fly tool to help holiday travelers schedule their trip for the best deal.

About Travelocity

Travelocity encourages travelers to "Wander Wisely" and is dedicated to being the champion of the customer with its Customer 1st Guarantee, making the traveling experience both simple and memorable with competitive prices, 24/7 customer service and more. Based in Dallas, Texas, Travelocity is owned by Expedia, Inc., one of the world's leading travel companies, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes many of the world's leading online travel properties.

 2016 Travelscape, LLC. All rights reserved. Travelocity, the Star Design, and Wander Wisely are trademarks of Travelscape, LLC. All other trademarks and logos are property of their respective owners. CST# 2083930-50



Contact

Jina Michael

Citizen Relations

310.698.9009

[email protected]



1https://www.ustravel.org/answersheet

2Methodology: Conducted by Google Consumer Surveys, September 9, 2016 - September 12, 2016 and based on 1569 responses. Sample: National adult Internet population.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445725-INFO

SOURCE Travelocity

Related Links

http://www.travelocity.com


Mr. Ung's winning entry, entitled Embedded Element Pattern Beam Model for Murchison Widefield Array addressed the need for an accurate yet accessible beam pattern of the Murchison Widefield Array for astronomers. "The judges were very pleased to see the complexity and accuracy of the results achieved using FEKO versus real-world results," commented Matthias Goelke, senior director  Business Development Academic Markets at Altair.

In his work with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) Daniel realised that knowledge of the beam pattern of a radio telescope is vital for calibration and image correction. The solution employed was to perform beam modelling using full embedded element pattern method with spherical harmonics representation. The results showed that the simulated beam pattern using FEKO was superior to the analytical beam model which assumes a Hertzian dipole response.

"Working on this project was challenging and rewarding at the same time. I have developed an appreciation of the amount of 'behind the scenes' work that enables radio astronomy to deliver ground breaking science. I hope the next generation of low-frequency telescope such as the Square Kilometre Array will benefit from my project," said Daniel Ung, on hearing the news of his win.

The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research is an equal joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia. The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the multi-billion-dollar international project to build the world's largest radio telescope. This new beam model is currently being used by the MWA community to achieve its science goal. Mr. Ung's academic advisor, Dr Adrian Sutinjo, will receive this year's supervisor award.

The 2017 FEKO Student Competition topics will be announced in during March 2017 on the Altair University website. The project will also be presented as a webinar in the upcoming FEKO 2017 Webinar Series.

About ALTAIR

Altair is focused on the development and broad application of simulation technology to synthesize and optimize designs, processes and decisions for improved business performance. Privately held with more than 2,600 employees, Altair is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA and operates more than 45 offices throughout 20 countries. Today, Altair serves more than 5,000 corporate clients across broad industry segments. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com.

Company contact:

Fiona Richardson

+27 (0)21 8311523

[email protected]

Media contacts:

Altair Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Evelyn Gebhardt

+49 6421 9684351

[email protected]

Altair Corporate/ Americas

Biba A. Bedi

+1-757-224-0548 x 406

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161205/445669

SOURCE Altair

Related Links

http://www.altair.com


YIWU, China, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire / -- Yosen Group, Inc. (stock symbol: YOSN) ("Yosen", or "the Company") announced that the Company has recently signed a distribution agreement (the "Agreement") with Yonca Gida ("Yonca"), an established Turkey based edible oil and canned food products manufacturing company. Yonca has its own manufacturing facility to process annually 2,500,000 tons of edible oil with 10 assembly lines and the capacity for shipping 1000 containers per month. Yonca owns and operates its independent famous brands in sunflower seed oil, canola oil, olive oil, and canned food products, and sells to more than sixty countries in Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and Central America. According to the Agreement, Yosen will distribute Yonca's sunflower seed oil in a number of cities in China's Zhejiang province, specifically Jinhua, Lishui, and Quzhou. The Company anticipates an annual 5 million RMB revenue contribution from distribution in these cities alone.

Yiwu Jiannuo Import and Export Company ("Jiannuo"), the Master Distributor for the "Yonca" brand in China, stated that it is happy to work with Yosen. "Yosen brings a great potential for us", commented Mr. Jionghua Chen, Jiannuo's General Manager, "With their strong retail and distribution capabilities, I believe our cooperation will make our customer very satisfied".

Likewise, Yosen shares a similar appreciation for this relationship. Yosen's CEO Mr. Zhenggang Wang commented that "Yonca sunflower seed oil enjoys a very favorable consumer reputation in China because of its quality. Yosen, as a competitive cross-border O2O player, is honored to distribute the Yonca brand in Zhejiang Province where we have a strong footprint. Yosen has always been a big promoter for quality and healthy lifestyles and is committed to connecting high standard international brands with China's ever increasing consumers. "

About Yosen Group, Inc.

Yosen Group, Inc. ("Yosen Group", or "Yosen") was founded in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, in 1997. Yosen Group, through its corporate headquarters in China and its wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary, is committed to building cross-border sales channels for bringing the world's best consumer products to China and, simultaneously, introducing China's most competitive products to the overseas markets. Yosen Group is China Commodity City Group's exclusive partner in the Greater New York area. The Company operates under the "Yosen" and "Yong Xin" brand names.

For more information, visit http://www.yosn.com/.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements in this press release, constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's future performance. The Company has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. The Company undertakes no duty to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law.

For more information, please contact:

Xiaochun Yang

Tel: +86-571-2888-8036

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE China 3C Group

Related Links

http://www.china3cgroup.com


CHICAGO, Dec. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Zekelman Industries announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation and other minority shareholders of Western Tube & Conduit for Wheatland Tube to purchase Western Tube & Conduit Corporation. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The parties expect the transaction to close next year, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approval.

Based in the western USA, Western Tube & Conduit Corporation is a producer of steel tubing, both black and galvanized. "We are very excited to add Western Tube & Conduit Corporation to the Zekelman Industries family of leading value-added manufacturing brands. Western Tube & Conduit Corporation shares our high-quality, customer-centric focus," said Barry Zekelman, executive chairman and CEO of Zekelman Industries.

Zekelman Industries sells electrical conduit, fence pipe and mechanical tube products through its Wheatland Tube division. Zekelman Industries intends to offer customers products under both the Wheatland Tube and Western Tube brands. "Western Tube and Wheatland Tube offer complementary products and services. Each company will continue to operate in the marketplace as it does today," said Jim Hays, president of electrical, fence and mechanical for Zekelman Industries.

According to Barry Zekelman, "The investment in Western Tube & Conduit Corporation and its people is another step in Zekelman Industries' continued focus on being the best value-added manufacturer in the world."

For more information about Zekelman Industries, please visit zekelman.com

About Zekelman Industries

Zekelman Industries includes the operating divisions of Atlas Tube, Picoma, Energex Tube, Sharon Tube, Wheatland Tube and Z Modular. Zekelman Industries delivers a broad range of industrial solutions that build its customers' success.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160914/407894LOGO

SOURCE Zekelman Industries

Related Links

http://www.zekelman.com


United Technologies CEO: Free trade still essential to the growth of the country

United Technologies (UTX) CEO Greg Hayes told Jim Cramer on Monday that he didn't make a deal with President-elect Donald Trump because he had shareholders in mind  he did it for all stakeholders.

"I would tell you that the genie of globalization is not going back in the bottle. Free trade is still essential to the growth of this country," Hayes told the " Mad Money " host.

Stakeholders, he said, include the community, employees and share owners.











The United States, he said, was founded on the principles of immigration and free trade. According to Hayes, this is what made America great over time  the ability to develop and innovate in the U.S. and then sell products all over the globe.

United Technologies' furnace and air conditioner maker Carrier was of particular interest to President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail, because of its plans to shutter two Indiana plants and move production to an existing facility in Mexico.

Last week Trump visited the Carrier plant after announcing a deal for United Technologies to receive $7 million in tax credits from the state of Indiana. Carrier agreed to save approximately 1,000 jobs and invest about $16 million in its Indiana facilities.

Programming note: The full interview with United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes will air on "Mad Money" on Monday at 6 p EST.







Questions for Cramer?

Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC

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Questions, comments, suggestions for the "Mad Money" website? madcap@cnbc.com





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If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Patna, Dec 2 : Yoga guru Baba Ramdev on Friday refuted reports that he was keen on his niece marring RJD chief Lalu Prasad's elder son, Tej Pratap Yadav, who is the Bihar health minister.

"It is nothing but a gossip spread by a section of the media," Ramdev told reporters after meeting Lalu at his official residence here.

Ramdev, who arrived here on Thursday night, to meet and address dealers of his brand -- Patanjali products, said he visited Lalu after being informed that the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief was unwell.

"I have called on Lalu not for any matrimonial relationship or politics over demonetisation. It is a personal visit to inquire about his health," Ramdev clarified.

"Lalu is our country's heritage and his health is matter of concern for us. Lalu should remain healthy for the politics of the country," Ramdev said, adding that Lalu practised yoga.
Mumbai, Dec 2 : Actress Shweta Tiwari has given birth to her second child, a boy.

Shweta, who married actor Abhinav Kohli in 2013 after dating him for almost three years, welcomed their son on November 27 at the Surya Child Care Hospital here.

"Baby boy is doing fine and healthy, the process was smooth," Shobha Sharma, a pediatrician at the hospital, said in a statement.

This is the couple's first child together.

Shweta, best known for her stint in shows like "Kasautii Zindagii Kay", "Comedy Circus Ka Naya Daur", "Big Boss season 4" and "Begusarai", was previously married to actor Raja Chaudhary, with whom she has daughter Palak.
New Delhi, Dec 3 : Timo Alarik Pakkanen, the real-life Santa Claus from Finland, says he is thrilled to be in India and is looking forward to meeting and greeting people in the country.

For 50 years now, Santa Claus has been Pakkanen's alter ego and he cant wait to meet the people of India now.

He told IANS over e-mail. "I am thrilled to be in India and looking forward to meet and greet people. Santa is synonymous to peace and happiness and I am here to spread this with the people of India,"

Santa leaves every year from his home in Lapland, Northern Finland, to visit many countries all over the world. This year he will be coming to India and will begin his journey from the capital on Sunday and conclude it in Agra on Tuesday.

"I will be visiting few famous places and tasting Indian food. Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas and that's what I am here to give to the people of India," he added.
Bismarck (North Dakota), Dec 5 : The Standing Rock Indian Reservation successfully blocked the Dakota Access Pipeline as the US Army announced that it would no longer be built across the sacred land.

The US Army Corps of Engineers announced on Sunday it would not allow the pipeline to be drilled under a dammed section of the Missouri River, reports said on Monday.

It said it would look for alternative routes for the $3.7 billion pipeline, the New York Times reported.

"The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing," the Army's Assistant Secretary for civil works, Jo-Ellen Darcy, said in a statement.

The construction of the route a half-mile from the Sioux reservation became a global flash point for environmental and indigenous activism.

It drew thousands of people out to sprawling prairie camp of tents, teepees and yurts.

The move could presage a lengthy environmental review that has the potential to block the pipeline's construction for months or years.
New Delhi, Dec 5 : Real estate magnates, the Ansal brothers on Monday assured the Supreme Court that they would not leave the country till it heard the plea by the CBI and the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) for review of September 22, 2015 verdict.

Counsel for Ansals gave the undertaking after bench headed by Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar sought the one.

The bench sough the undertaking after senior counsel K.T.S. Tulsi appearing for the AVUT expressed the apprehensions that Ansal brothers may flee the country before the hearing of the review plea.

The Central Bureau of Investigation, along with AVUT, have sought the recall of 2015 order by which a three judge bench had let-off the Ansals - Sushil and Gopal - on paying Rs 30 crore each coupled with the sentence they have already undergone for June 13, 1997 fire tragedy in their Uphaar cinema in south Delhi that left 59 dead.

The three judge bench comprised Justice Anil R.Dave (since retired), Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel.

On January 8, this year, the three judges had decided to hold an open court hearing on the plea by the CBI and AVUT seeking the recall of 2015 order in which the top court had said that the magnitude of the Uphaar fire tragedy may call for "higher sentence" but it could not go beyond the choices under the law.

The trial court November 20, 2007, had convicted Ansal brothers and others and sentenced them to two years jail each but the high court December 19, 2008 convicted them under a different section of the Indian Penal Code and reduced their sentence to one year each.

Meanwhile, on November 7, Ansals had urged the top court to hold an early hearing of their plea for the de-sealing of Uphaar cinema which is under lock since the tragedy.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for Chennai on Tuesday to pay his last respect to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Modi will leave for Chennai at 9.30 a.m. He will visit Rajaji Hall and lay wreath on the mortal remains of Jayalalithaa, who died after a bitter 74-day battle for life, sources said.

Condoling her death, Modi in a tweet said: "Deeply saddened at the passing away of Selvi Jayalalithaa. Her demise has left a huge void in Indian politics."

Minister for Information and Broadcasting M. Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of State for Road Transport and Highway P. Radhakrishnan will represent the central government at the charismatic AIADMK leader's funeral.

Jayalalithaa died at 11.30 p.m. on Monday, triggering immense grief across the sprawling state. She was 68.
New Delhi : Title: The Other Side of Silence - Bernie Gunther Thriller 11; Author:Philip Kerr; Publisher: Quercus/Hachette India; Pages: 400; Price: Rs 399 Surviving the Nazis, World War II at its most brutal, Soviet captivity, post-war deprivation, Latin American dictators, American gangsters, intelligence machinations and more, he had sought a quiet life, working as a hotel concierge in the French Riviera. But trouble seems to have an affinity for this world-weary, cynical Berliner, as a blackmailing case escalates into major -- and lethal -- international intrigue.

Bernie Gunther has managed to emerge bruised but alive from encounters with Reinhard 'The Hangman' Heydrich, Joseph Goebbels the 'Mahatma Propagandhi', the secret services of Batista's Cuba and Peron's Argentina, and assorted American, British, French, Soviet, East German and Israeli spies but will doing a favour for W. Somerset Maugham turn out to be his last mistake?

We find out in the eleventh book of the long-running series (from "March Violets", 1989), but the first since "Field Grey" (2010) to deal with the present circumstances of our sassy, sardonic but incorrigible hero, who has never lost his sense of right and wrong, as he has his own brush with the notorious 'Cambridge Ring' (a group of senior British spies who turned to be working for the Soviets).

In "Field Grey", Gunther, after experiences of American "hospitality" in Guantanamo Bay in the 1950s, and being made a yo-yo by various Western secret services when back in Europe, takes elaborate revenge on most enemies before escaping Cold War Berlin with a new identity -- courtesy an unlikely benefactor. But then the next three were flashbacks about his World War II experiences, though in the previous installment ("The Lady From Zagreb", 2015), we came to know, through the framing chapters, that he was now living in the south of France.

And it is in this playground of the rich and famous this begins, in true Bernie Gunther style, with our narrator ruing his failure to commit suicide the previous day though "staying alive was always a habit for me than an active choice".

This, we learn, is not due to the reason that his wife (with whom he had fled Berlin in "Field Grey"), had enough and decided to go back home, but because he is bored -- and then he had seen a reprehensible figure from his past, not still only alive but prosperous.

But Gunther sees some excitement when an alluring English woman, Anne French, supposed to be a writer and spending most of her time in the hotel, approaches him and suggests he teach her how to play bridge. Her excuse is that she needs this to get close to Maugham, who is living in the area and whose biography she has been commissioned to write. This sets off our hero down another slippery path, as he learns -- yet again -- that no good deed goes unpunished.

Managing to get invited to the Maugham household, Gunther becomes friendly with the elderly writer, who is quite taken with him and seeks his help to undertake a ticklish matter -- retrieving a compromising photograph of him from a blackmailer. And this blackmailer is -- no surprises -- the hated figure from Gunther's past who has just re-emerged.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, for there is a bigger secret -- much bigger than that of Maugham's sexual inclinations -- that could leave British intelligence a laughing stock and wreck its relations with its American counterparts, at a time when the world is getting more dangerous as Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal.

And somewhere is the hand of Gunther's unlikely benefactor from years ago and our hero will have to think very fast and speak very persuasively to emerge alive from the maze he has entered.

Weaving in Hitler's power grab over the military, the world's greatest maritime disaster ever (over 9,000 killed), a great English author's chequered life-story and espionage's "the wilderness of mirrors" or elaborate double, triple or even multiple bluffs and deception to protect sources and confuse opponents, Kerr crafts another engrossing thriller which also underscores uncanny resemblances between intelligence services of different stripes but also how the past continues to exert influence over the present.

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
Lucknow, Dec 6 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday expressed deep sorrow over the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Yadav said in a condolence message that the AIADMK leader was a multi-faceted personality who worked for the welfare of villages, poor, women and farmers.

He said her contribution to Tamil Nadu would be remembered forever.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : The central government plans to build three more liquefied natural gas terminals on the east coast, an official said on Tuesday.

Additional Secretary in the Petroleum Ministry A.P. Sawhney said at the ongoing Petrotech international conference here on hydrocarbons that the three new terminals planned will be located at Ennore, Kakinada and Dhamra ports.

The government is also looking at reviving stranded gas-based power generation capacity in the country, Sawhney said.

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said here last week that India plans to double its natural gas consumption from the current 120 million standard cubic metres a day to 240 mscmd in five years.

In a bid to boost India's low gas consumption of six per cent in the energy mix, as compared to a world average of 24 per cent, the government had deregulated the pricing mechanism for producers, the minister said.

To increase the use of gas as a clean fuel, Pradhan said India had drawn up major investment plans, particularly for the eastern and southern regions which have low gas use.

"Around $20 billion investment has been planned in the next five-seven years for gas exploration, specifically from the eastern offshore and for deepwater wells exploration," he said.

Pradhan said three fertiliser units in the eastern region were being revived with the help of gas, which would aid in the re-industrialisation of 20 cities.

"GAIL is undertaking the Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra natural gas pipeline project and a series of LNG terminals are planned along the east coast," he added.
Colombo, Dec 6 : Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday said he was saddened by the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who he said had a "towering presence in Indian politics".

Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night, was "totally dedicated to the welfare of the people she represented" and was dearly loved by her people, Sirisena said in a statement.

"India loses a leading female politician and a truly pro-poor leader, whom people fondly called 'Amma'.

"At this time of grief, our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Tamil Nadu," he added.

Jayalalithaa frequently denounced the arrests of Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy. Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are separated by a strip of sea.
Mumbai, Dec 6 : Megastar Amitabh Bachchan, who has a daughter Shweta Nanda, says daughters are the "best gift" and they should be given respect and dignity.

"Daughters are the best giftA My daughter the most beautiful in the whole worldA Every daughter isA Love her, give her respect, dignity," Amitabh posted on Twitter on Monday.

The 74-year-old, who won the Best Actor honour at the 23rd Star Screen Awards 2016 on Sunday for his role in "Pink", even dedicated his award to his daughter.

"I dedicate this award to Shweta, the most beautiful daughter in the world," Amitabh wrote on his blog.

"Pink", a courtroom drama, has been directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury.

The film deals with crime against women and also stars Taapsee Pannu, Andrea Tariang and Kirti Kulhari in lead roles.
Chennai, Dec 6 : Nara Rohith is proud of his upcoming Telugu action-thriller "Appatlo Okadundevadu", which he has also produced. The film is based on real events that unfolded between the years 1992 and 1996 in Hyderabad.

"I was working on multiple projects when I started working on 'Appatlo Okadundevadu', and it really got difficult to devote much time. Thanks to my co-producers Vijay and Prashanti, the film was handled well. I was proud of the output when I recently watched the film," Rohith told IANS.

Directed by Sagar Chandra, the film also stars Sri Vishnu and Brahmaji.

Rohith plays an honest police officer in the film, which is gearing up for release soon.

"It will be a unique film and not another run-of-the-mill commercial one. This is the kind of film that will inspire others to try something different," he said.
Chennai, Dec 6 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday flew into Chennai and paid homage to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

"Paid homage to Amma," Kejriwal tweeted. The Aam Aadmi Party leader visited Rajaji Hall to pay his last respects to the AIADMK leader who died on Monday night.

Kejriwal earlier condoled Jayalalithaa's death, describing her as "a very very popular leader. Aam Aadmi's leader".
Mumbai, Dec 6 : Actor Varun Dhawan says that people should not take the conversations between celebrities and filmmaker Karan Johar on the popular chat show "Koffee With Karan" seriously.

In one of the episodes of the show, actress Parineeti Chopra said that Varun is crazy and she shares a love-hate relationship with him.

Asked about it, Varun said: "Please don't take 'Koffee With Karan' so seriously. We (the show's guests and Karan) talk there in a light manner so, take it lightly."

The actor, who attended the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2016 here on Monday, added: "I cannot say much about Parineeti as she is my senior and we have done one song together. So, there is not much relation with her."

Parineeti featured with actor Aditya Roy Kapur in the episode. He suggested to actress Alia Bhatt to always speak the truth.

Reacting to that, Alia said: "Thank you Adi for your suggestion. I know honesty is the best policy so, I will try to speak the truth more often. Having said that, I want to mention that it's just a show ('Koffee With Karan') so, please take it lightly."

-*-Alia, Varun skip Manish Malhotra's birthday party "Student of the Year" stars Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan could not attend the birthday party of ace designer Manish Malhotra as they had to perform at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2016 here.

The duo was present here at the award show on Monday night which was attended by celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Tiger Shroff, Bharti Singh, Bhavya Gandhi, Arko Pravo Mukherjee, Sukriti Kakkar and Akriti Kakkar.

Varun and Alia won the Nickelodeon Kamaal Ki Jodi award and entertained the audience by performing to some of their super hit songs.

Malhotra, on the other hand, had a star-studded birthday party where celebrities like Karan Johar, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor were spotted.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Actor Ranveer Singh says that "Befikre" is an original material by filmmaker Aditya Chopra rubbishing reports that suggest that the film has taken reference from Hollywood movie "No Strings Attached".

Asked if any reference has been taken from the Hollywood film "No Strings Attached " Ranveer told reporters: "It has got nothing to do with 'No Strings Attached'. It is an original material by Aditya Chopra. I am very proud to say that there is a filmmaker who has written original material."

The 31-year-old actor says the film, which is slated to release on Friday is a "blue Hindi romantic comedy film."

"Aditya Chopra believes that the Indian audience has evolved and it's not necessary to have that heavy dose of emotions. The film is light hearted and there is an emotional connect," he added.

The actor says their attempt is to present a "true romantic comedy" film.

The film also stars Vaani Kapoor and will be released on Friday.
London, Dec 6 : Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has opined that an enhanced financial package may not be enough to keep in-form forward Alexis Sanchez with the former English Premier League (EPL) champions.

Sanchez has been in excellent form this season. The Chile international is currently the joint top scorer in the EPL along with Chelsea striker Diego Costa, having found the net 11 times.

"Well, I would like to say the luxury of the modern game should be it's not only about the money, because the players make anyway wherever they play good money at this level.

"I believe personally, and maybe I am a bit naive, that it's more about getting to meet the player's needs. That's more about the way the club has values, the way the club has ambition, the way the club respects the players," Wenger was quoted as saying by the Guardian on Monday.

"So I think, for me, that is more important nowadays and an important ingredient for every player to consider. The money is good everywhere for everybody."

SAnchez's contract with Arsenal runs till 2018. The Chilean had arrived at the London club from Barcelona in 2014 for A30 million (around $38.3 million). He earns a weekly salary of around A130,000 (around $165,857) and is reportedly expecting that figure to rise to more than A200,000 ($255,164) in order to agree to a new contract.

Wenger admitted that Arsenal are going through negotiations with Sanchez's agent Fernando Felicevich in order to work out a renewed contract for the 27-year-old.

"Nowadays, you negotiate with the agents more than with the player. We are in negotiations, yes. The players are 18 months away from the end of their contracts, so it's normal. But the players always come in at the end, when it's a renewal" the 67-year-old Frenchman said.

"With the first contract you need the players, but after that, when you renew, 90% of the contracts are negotiated with the agents."

Arsenal are currently second on the EPL table with 31 points from 14 matches, three points behind fellow London outfit Chelsea.
Hyderabad, Dec 6 : Telugu film industry Tuesday mourned the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa with her co-stars paying her rich tributes.

Veteran actors Jamuna, Krishna and Mohan Babu recalled the moments they shared with her on and off the sets.

Jamuna said Jayalalithaa was a model for women as she fought all odds to chart her own course and reached the dizzy heights of fame and success.

Jamuna, who acted with Jayalalithaa in "Sri Krishna Vijayam" (1969), said she was fortunate to get an opportunity to work with her.

Interestingly, Jayalalithaa, who was then an upcoming actress played the main lead role in this film with legendary N.T. Rama Rao.

The veteran actress said even after becoming the Chief Minister, Jayalalitha did not forget her co-stars and used to enquire about their well-being.

Jamuna said Jayalalitha had great concern for all artistes, especially poor.

Superstar of yesteryears Krishna also paid rich tributes to Jayalalitha, who acted in about 25 Telugu films.

Krishna, who worked with Jayalalitha in "Goodachari 116" (1967), described her as an affable and softspoken person.

Another veteran actor Mohan Babu, expressing profound grief over Jayalalitha's demise, described her as the symbol of woman power.

"And the curtains come down to the journey of one of the most charismatic and humble humans being #jayalalithaa Garu. Symbol of woman power. Had the honor of meeting her first when I was starting my career & many times after that.An amazing actor & an example for women &men alike Praying alongside my Tamil brothers and sisters. No words can express this loss. May her soul Rest In Peace," he tweeted.

"Rip my dearest super woman Jayalalitha Garu. You'll always be with us through your inspiration, " tweeted Jayasudha, another veteran actress.

Jayalalitha had a memorable stint in Telugu films during which she was romantically linked with actor Sobhan Babu.

Several top actors of Tollywood have condoled the death of Jayalalitha.

"#Ripamma Great era comes to an end.But her majestic charisma and determination will continue to live and inspire many women in our country," tweeted Junior NTR.

"Deeply saddened at the loss of J Jayalalithaa garu. May her family and the whole of Tamil Nadu find strength at this time," said another popular actor Mahesh Babu.

"I remember my father speaking with great respect and fondness whenever he spoke of Jayalalitha Ji/May her Soul rest in peace," tweeted Nagarjuna Akkineni, whose legendary father Akkineni Nageswara Rao paired with Jayalalitha in some movies.

"Your life has been a series of fighting and winning.U gave us the will to fight and the hope that we can win. U will never die #AmmaForever, " tweeted leading actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu:

"We've lost an inspiring woman who's been a true fighter in every sense. She'll always be remembered. May her soul rest in peace. #RipAmma," was how Tamannaah paid her tributes.
Rabat, Dec 6 : Two Islamic State (IS) extremists active in Morocco's Casablanca city have been arrested, media reported on Tuesday.

According to preliminary investigations, the two suspects imbued with IS's ideas and fully acquainted with the terrorist organisation's agenda, sought to acquire the process of manufacturing an explosive device to carry out a terrorist operation against one of the sensitive targets in Morocco, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The suspects, arrested on Sunday, will be brought to trial once the investigation is completed.
Chennai, Dec 6 : President Pranab Mukherjee flew down to Chennai on Tuesday to pay his last respects to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who died on Monday night.

As a sea of mourners thronged the Rajaji Hall here to have the last glimpse of their 'revolutionary leader', Mukherjee walked towards the coffin and laid a floral wreath to pay homage to the iconic leader.

Earlier, an Indian Air Force plane carrying Mukherjee to Chennai returned to Delhi some 30 minutes into the flight due to a technical snag after taking off. He then took another aircraft.

In a condolence message to Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao, Mukherjee said the country "has lost an icon who was loved and admired by millions."

"She was regarded one of India's most charismatic and popular leaders," Mukherjee said.
Chennai, Dec 6 : The last journey of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa started on Tuesday evening from the Rajaji Bhavan for the Marina Beach where her last rites will be held.

Soon after President Pranab Mukherjee and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi paid floral tributes to Jayalalithaa, the coffin was loaded on to a military vehicle, which proceeded slowly through the streets packed with mourners towards Marina Beach.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday rubbished charges of illegalities in the party's land deals prior to the demonetisation decision and asserted that by 2016-end, the country will become free of black money.

"The opposition parties are pointing fingers at the land deals by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but these deals were authorised in January 2015 only," said Shah speaking at the 'Agenda Aaj Tak' event here.

"In January 2015, we had announced to have party offices in all the districts of the country, and these land deals are in pursuance of that announcement only," said Shah The party purchased land across the country at 170 locations between January 2015 and November 2016, he added.

Opposition parties have alleged the BJP had prior information about demonetisation and the land deals were done to turn black money into white.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday demanded a judicial probe into the BJP's land deals.

Earlier, the CPI-M in Parliament raised the issue, pointing to deposit of "huge amounts of money in banks" on November 8, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing in the evening the decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Shah asserted that the allegations of the opposition were baseless.

"The deposit of money in the bank accounts is a mere coincidence. Moreover, the opposition should try to think logically. Why we would deposit money on November 8 and raise suspicion? This is nothing but a mere coincidence," said Shah.

"Earlier, the opposition used to ask Modi what have you done to bring black money back. And now, post-demonetisation, the opposition is crying why you did this, Modi," said Shah, ridiculing the opposition.

Talking about demonetisation, the BJP President said it is a historic decision, and asserted that the economy will get rid of black money.

"By December 30, the country will get rid of entire black money," Shah asserted adding that: "The black money will either come back to the system through deposits in the banks or, if people don't deposit fearing penalty, then the money with them will become useless after December 31.

"So both ways, the black money will be eliminated from the system," he said.

Shah ridiculed former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for opposing demonetisation.

On his stinging attack against demonetisation in Parliament recently, Shah said the world reknowned economists, who long had been part of the country's economic policy-making, should answer about India's economic performance during the erstwhile UPA regime.

"From 1975 till 2014, Singh, in various capacities, had been part of the country's economic policy-making. Can he answer why the GDP growth rate fell to four per cent during his reign from the 8 per cent it had achived under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is not an economist?

"Again a 'chaiwala' (Modi) is running the country and the econmy is growing at 7.6 per cent. It is for Singh to asnwer this," said Shah who also said that "after seeing Singh, I don't want to be an economist".

Talking about the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Shah asserted that the BJP would come to power, claiming that demonetisation has created a level playing field for all the parties.

"Because of demonetisation, now there will be no black money in the elections. It has created a level playing field for all. If any party says it is having problems, then that means the party doesn't want black money to be removed from the system," said Shah.

"In Uttar Pradesh, this time it will be politics of performance. Days of dynasty politics, caste politics and money politics are over," added Shah.
Mumbai, Dec 6 : Hollywood action director Tom Struthers, who has worked on films like "The Dark Knight Rises" and "X-Men: First Class", has joined the team of "Tiger Zinda Hai", starring superstar Salman Khan.

Salman and actress Katrina Kaif will again be seen together in the sequel to their 2012 film "Ek Tha Tiger", which revolved around an Indian spy code-named Tiger, who falls in love with a Pakistani spy during an investigation.

The sequel titled "Tiger Zinda Hai", will be directed by Ali Abbas Zafar. And now, the storyboarding has begun.

"Tom Struthers action director starts storyboarding 'Tiger Zinda Hai'. Thrill begins," Zafar tweeted on Tuesday about the stunt expert, who had earlier collaborated with the makers of the Bollywood film "D-Day".
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Both houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day on Tuesday soon after members paid tributes to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who passed away late on Monday night.

Members in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha observed a minute's silence as a mark of respect to the departed AIADMK leader. Both the houses were then adjourned without conducting any business.

In her obituary reference, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan remembered Jayalalithaa as a "popular and eminent leader".

In the Rajya Sabha, Chairman Mohmmad Hamid Ansari read out an obituary reference for the iconic AIADMK leader and described her as an "accomplished and prolific artiste who contributed immensely to the film industry".

He said the AIADMK leader was an "imminent public figure and a charismatic personality", and her work will be remembered for a long time.

In her death the country has lost a prominent leader, a distinguished parliamentarian and an able administrator, Ansari said.

Ansari dubbed her death "an irreparable loss to India".

Jayalalithaa was declared dead at a hospital in Chennai at 11.30 p.m. on Monday after suffering a cardiac arrest earlier on Sunday. She was 68.
Ghaziabad, Dec 6 : A gang of snatchers at the Ghaziabad railway station has been busted and a number of high-end mobiles and a laptop recovered stolen from passengers, a police official said on Tuesday.

In a drive launched by the Government Railway Police (GRP), four snatchers were arrested after a tip off and 10 smart phones and a laptop seized from them, said Deputy Superintendent of Police, GRP, Randhir Singh.

During the interrogation, the snatchers said they jointly used to snatch items, five to six times a day, from passengers sitting at the window side.

Explaining their modus operandi, Ayyub, one of the arrested men, said that they used to operate in pairs, and while one of them hit the hand of a passenger using a device, causing it to fall onto the platform, the other picked it up and ran away. He said the gang members used to target passengers on long-distance trains and manage to steal five or six items daily.

Police are applying for custody of the robbers to unearth other cases related to snatching, the DSP added.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : The Delhi government on Tuesday said it will provide free MRI scan in private labs to bonafide residents of the capital whose annual income is less than Rs 3 lakh.

"This will cover over 95 percent of the population of Delhi... The scheme has already started from December 1," Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told the media.

Asked about the financial implications, Jain said money saved from timely construction of flyovers would be used to fund the scheme.

It often takes years to get a MRI scan done in government hospitals in Delhi. There have been complaints that patients had been told to wait till 2019 for an MRI or CT scan.

"As per Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's instructions, we have decided to use the money saved from early construction of flyovers to provide free medicines and medical tests for patients," Jain said.

According to the Delhi government, over Rs 350 crore have been saved by building flyovers in Delhi at much below the sanctioned budget.

Jain said the decision to rope in private labs was taken in view of the long dates given for MRI and CT scan in government hospitals, particularly the G.B. Pant Hospital.

"We are also working on public private partnership model to have more MRI machines at government hospitals. But that may take a few years," the minister said.

"So as an immediate measure, we have decided to rope in accredited private labs," he said.

Jain said the government had identified seven private MRI scan centres accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH).

"We have authorised 10 Delhi government hospitals which can refer patients to these labs and they will then provide cashless MRI and CT scans to patients."

The Delhi government will directly pay the labs.

The government hospitals authorised to refer patients for free MRI tests include G.B. Pant Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital, G.T.B. Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Dr Baba Saheb Aambedkar Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital, Janakpuri Super Specialty Hospital, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Delhi State Cancer Institute and Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya.

"This facility shall substantially decrease the load of MRI/CT scan in Delhi government hospitals and, consequently, shorten the waiting list for patients undergoing treatment there," a government statement said.

An MRI scan from NABH accredited centre costs anything between Rs 2,500 and Rs 5,600.
Panaji, Dec 6 : Opposing the December 30 deadline announced by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, the state BJP on Tuesday said to make Goa a cashless state in such a short span of time is not a practical proposition.

Addressing a press conference at the ruling party's state headquarters here, spokesperson Damu Naik also demanded that the official circular issued by the Commercial Tax Department, asking registered traders to go cashless, be immediately withdrawn.

The decision to make Goa cashless by December 30 is causing hardships to tourists and the business community as they need to be made literate and aware about cashless transactions first, Naik said.

"...Going cashless by December 30 may not be possible. It will be very difficult because of tourists, the domestic tourists, who come here. They should be made literate first," Naik said.

Parrikar had chaired a meeting on November 26 with Goa's top bureaucrats and bankers, where he had asked them to examine the modalities of making Goa India's first cashless state by December 30.

Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar was not present at the meeting held here.

The Defence Minister had said that efforts would be made to encourage all transactions, right down to retail purchase of fish from fish markets, to be done in cashless mode.

The "Cashless by December 30" slogan has also been positioned by Parrikar and Parsekar as the party's key ambition at a series of poll meetings of the BJP across Goa, which is heading for polls in early 2017.

A circular last week from the state's Commercial Tax Department asked registered traders and businessmen to go cashless within 10 days, warning that tax officials would be conducting inspections after the specified period to check compliance.

Goa BJP's General Secretary Sadanand Shet Tanavade also demanded that the government immediately withdraw the circular because it has created panic among traders.

"The circular was issued as a result of over-enthusiasm by the official concerned. This has caused panic within the trader community," Tanavade said.

Instead of setting a deadline, the focus should be on creating awareness among the traders and people about the benefits of cashless transactions, he added.

The Commercial Tax Department functions under the Finance Ministry headed by Chief Minister Parsekar.
Canberra, Dec 6 : Australia rode on a century from David Warner and a four-wicket haul by Pat Cummins to thrash New Zealand by 116 runs in the second One-Day International (ODI) of the ongoing Chappel-Hadlee Trophy here on Tuesday.

Australia, who had won the first ODI by 68 runs, now have an insurmountable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.

Warner scored 119 runs from 115 balls with 14 boundaries and a six.

With New Zealand captain Kane Williamson asking the hosts to bat first on winning the toss, Warner was involved in a 68-run opening stand with Aaron Finch and a 145-run partnership with Steven Smith to lay the foundation of a massive total of 378/5 at the Manuka Oval.

Warner was finally dismissed when he tried to hit Colin de Grandhomme through the off-side and Williamson pulled off an excellent catch at cover.

Smith then added 45 runs along with Travis Head before being dismissed by pacer Tim Southee. Smith scored 72 runs off 76 balls with six hits to the fence and one into the stands.

Head and Mitchell Marsh then ensured that the hosts produced a formidable total with a 71-run stand off just 41 balls.

Head smashed 57 runs, hitting six boundaries and a couple of sixes during his 32-ball stay in the middle.

Marsh remained unbeaten on 76 runs, hitting two boundaries and a whopping seven sixes off the 40 balls he faced.

Almost all the Kiwi bowlers gave away copious amounts of runs with Matt Henry, Trent Boult, de Grandhomme and Southee giving away 91, 80, 74 and 63 runs respectively from each of their 10 overs.

Mitchell Santner was the most economical among the Kiwi bowlers with figures of 1/47 off his 10 overs. Southee bagged two wickets.

Cummins then led the Australian bowling attack with figures of 4/41 as the visitors were all out for 262 runs in 47.2 overs.

Fellow fast bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and James Faulkner claimed two wickets each.

New Zealand did not have a great start to their innings, losing openers Martin Guptill and Tom Latham within the first nine overs.

Guptill tried to give a solid start to the chase with 33-ball 45 before being caught behind off Cummins' bowling. He smashed seven boundaries and six during his stay in the middle.

Williamson and James Neesham then tried to bring the innings back on track with a 125-run stand.

Williamson scored 81 runs off 80 balls while Neesham needed 83 balls for his 74.

Hazlewood brought the partnership to an end when Neesham handed a skier to Starc on the off-side.

The rest of the Kiwi batsmen were not equal to the challenge and when Cummins sent back Williamson with a slower ball in the 40th over, victory was only a matter of time for the hosts.

Brief scores:

Australia: 378/5 (David Warner 119, Steven Smith 72, Mitchell Marsh 76 n.o., Travis Head 57; Tim Southee 2/63) vs New Zealand: 262 (Kane Wiliamson 81, James Neesham 74, Martin Guptill 45; Pat Cummins 4/41).
Kathmandu, Dec 6 : Nepal's President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' on Tuesday condoled the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

Bhandari and Prachanda sent separate messages of condolences to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, respectively.

In their messages, the Nepal President and the Prime Minister expressed heartfelt condolences to their Indian counterparts and through them to the bereaved family, according to a statement issued here by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Jayalalithaa died on Monday night at a hospital in Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : The fine balance of power between the judiciary and the executive has been disturbed thanks to the rise of judicial power, making the executive the weakest among the three pillars of a democracy, former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said on Tuesday.

At a session here on "Parliament and Judiciary" at PRS Annual Conference on Effective Legislatures, he also cited the "deadlock" in judicial appointments for the past two years as the government and higher judiciary have not reached a consensus and noted that there are various models for judicial appointments across the world and India can evolve its own model.

Rejecting the idea of only judges having a say in appointment of judges, Chidambaram advocated the role of civil society in the appointment of judges.

"Why should only judges be allowed to appint judges? Can MPs be allowed to appoint fellow MPs? That is not possible in a democracy.

"There is a civil society too. The civil society may also be included in the process of appointment of judges," he said.

Earlier, speaking of judicial activism, he contended that courts have interpreted the Constitution "creatively" and given the judiciary enormous power.

"Rise of activist judges, and judicial activism is another reason for rise of judicial power. Also, by using appellate juris, courts have expanded powers, such as with arbitral awards," he said.

"Today, the weakest of the three institutions -- legislative, executive and judiciary -- is the executive," he said.

Citing the recent Supreme Court ruling which necessitates the playing of national anthem in cinemas before the screening of movie, Chidmabaram asked who would enforce the court's order across lakhs of cinema halls in the country.

"I think judges should not tread into areas where the enforcement is difficult or where there is no judicial standard to measure a ruling against," he said.

Among the reasons he cited for decline of legislative power were that Parliament and state legislative bodies spend less time on deliberating on issues and bills in the House. "The quality of debate is also poor and much less time is devoted to Question Hour than should be," he said.

"And the third reason for decline of legislative power is weaker political authority," he added.

Chidmabaram said a strong Parliament would have re-enacted the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, which sought to give politicians and civil society a stronger say in the appointment of judges to the highest courts, within days of it being struck down by the Supreme Court.

The event was organised by PRS, a non-government body that tracks functioning of the Indian Parliament and provides analysis of key legislative and policy issues.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Cashing in on the ongoing demonetisation drive across India, Amazon India is witnessing triple-digit growth in its sales as it has switched to various electronic payments platforms, said the company's Vice President and Country Manager Amit Agarwal.

"When demonetisation was announced, we had switched off cash-on-delivery (COD) for 48 hours because it was very important for us to allow our logistics team to move from one compliant world to the new compliant world. Since then, we have allowed our customers to benefit from loading up their Amazon balance so that they can shop in a fruitful manner," Agarwal told BTVi in an interview.

"Customers can, right up to their doorsteps, choose to switch their cash payment option with the ability to pay with credit or debit card in one of the point of sales (PoS) devices that our logistics (team) carry with them. What we have seen is that the number of customers choosing to switch has gone up 10 times," he added.

On November 8, the government decided to demonetise high denomination Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes across the country.

"So there is distinctly a dramatic shift towards electronic payment methods which is good in my opinion for e-commerce, for customer experience and for India as a whole going forward. And as we look at our business today, we have mostly returned to normal with very healthy triple-digit growth rates year-on-year and we're very excited," Agarwal said.

He said that when the e-commerce company had switched off COD, sales got impacted as they were not letting the customers shop in lieu of cash. "But since then, as we have enabled these other services, we are mostly normal and we are seeing triple-digit growth rates."

The company has more than 95 million products now on its website with more than 1.8 million products eligible for next-day guaranteed delivery.
Chennai, Dec 6 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa was laid to rest at the Marina Beach here on Tuesday evening as President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the nation to pay their last respects to the iconic actor-turned-politician.

As the sun began to set, Jayalalithaa's confidante Sasikala performed the final rituals overseen by a Brahmin priest before her tricolour-draped body in a sandalwood casket was lowered into a grave near the MGR memorial.

As an era ended in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa's last journey started from Rajaji Hall, where lakhs thronged for a final look at their iconic leader, and slowly moved towards the Marina Beach flooded with mourners.

The three-kilometre procession through Chennai streets, packed on both sides by men and women, many weeping, consumed more than an hour.

The AIADMK chief was laid to rest with full state honours next to her mentor and party founder M.G. Ramachandran or MGR, who brought the young Jayalalithaa from filmdom into the male-dominated Dravidian politics.

Her successor Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and Sasikala, dressed in black, were seated on the military truck that towed the glass casket-laden carriage with Jayalalithaa's body.

Her admirers and fans, young and old, showered petals at the hearse. Many refused to accept that Jayalalithaa had passed away, leaving the AIADMK orphaned.

"It is difficult to accept that Amma is no more," K. Nagalakshmi, who delivers milk to homes, told IANS. "This was not the age for her to die. She could have lived for some more years."

As the funeral procession reached its destination, sobs filled the air. Many were in tears.

There were dramatic displays of emotion, with people wailing inconsolably and beating their chests and heads. There were loud cries of "Amma, Amma".

Thousands of security personnel were deployed as top politicians from across the country attended the last rites of Jayalalithaa, 68, who died shortly after midnight on Monday following a 74-day battle with illness.

Mukherjee and Modi led the nation in paying respects to Jayalalithaa. Both walked separately towards the casket with folded hands, bowed and laid a floral wreath.

The otherwise throbbing Chennai shut down on Tuesday. So did much of Tamil Nadu, a state where Jayalalithaa -- Amma to her followers -- was revered by millions.

Chief Ministers from Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Puducherry, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and others too paid their last respects.

Across the country, political stalwarts noted how the AIADMK chief had unleashed numerous pro-poor schemes as Chief Minister that earned her fame not only in the state but across the country.

Security forces kept a close vigil across Tamil Nadu amid fears of self-harming protests by her fans.

Tamil Nadu has declared a week-long mourning, during which schools and colleges will be shut for three days. No state transport corporation buses plied on Tuesday and millions stayed indoors.

The central government too announced a day of mourning.

US Ambassador Richard Verma mourned her death. "On behalf of the US, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Jayalalithaa and the people of Tamil Nadu."

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said he was saddened by her death and noted that she had a "towering presence in Indian politics". Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu are separated by a strip of sea.
Lucknow, Dec 6 : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Tuesday dubbed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre as anti-Ambedkar and anti-Constitution.

Addressing a gathering after paying floral tributes to Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, popularly known as Babasaheb, on his death anniversary at the local Ambedkar Park here, Mayawati criticised "political parties for creating confusions about Babasaheb".

"They (political parties) create rift between the Dalits and backward classes, whereas the fact is that it was under the BSP rule that these sections of society got their rights in true sense," she said.

Training guns on the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP, the BSP chief said: "These people do not like the Constitution... They want to change it. So, you need to guard against it.

"Ambedkar's Constitution accords equal status to all castes and religions, but the BJP is trying to impose the agenda of Hindutva on the country."

She stressed that if Muslims are safe in the country today, it is because of Babasaheb.

"It was only after the 'master key' of Uttar Pradesh came in the hands of the Dalits that emancipation of backward classes and the Dalits could be possible, much against the wishes of the BJP and the Congress," Mayawati said.

The BJP withdrew support to the V.P. Singh government on the issue of reservation, which is a proof that this party is anti-Dalit, anti-backward classes and anti-minorities, she said.

Also, since the BJP does not want to give due honour and respect to Babasaheb, they chose December 6 -- the death anniversary of Dr Ambedkar -- to demolish the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the BSP chief alleged.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Real estate barons Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal have been barred from leaving the country until the Supreme Court decides the petitions by the CBI and the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), seeking a review of the 2015 verdict on their sentencing.

Ansal brothers - Sushil and Gopal - were convicted for June 13, 1997 fire tragedy in their Uphaar cinema in south Delhi that had left 59 dead.

The bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said this as senior counsel Salman Khurshid, appearing for the Ansal brothers, in an oral undertaking, told the bench that the duo will not leave the country till the review petitions are decided.

The court fixed December 14 for the hearing of the matter as it issued a notice to the Ansal brothers on the limited issue of the review of 2015 verdict on their sentencing.

At the outset of the hearing, the bench asked senior counsel Harish Salve to read the part of the September 22, 2015 verdict making it clear the review plea was limited to the sentencing only.

The top court, by its 2015 verdict had enhanced the sentence to two years - the maximum under Section 304 (Causing death by negligence) as Delhi High Court's one year sentence, but the top court also let them off, the Ansals to pay Rs 30 crore each, coupled with the sentence they have already undergone as part of the sentence. The verdict created an uproar as Ansal brothers had individually undergone just five to six months sentence each.

The bench of Justice Anil R. Dave (since retired), Justice Joseph and Justice Goel had pronounced September 22, 2015 verdict on sentencing which is now being reviewed on the plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the AVUT.

The matter had travelled to three judges' bench after bench of the then Justice T.S.Thakur (current CJI) and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra (since retired) by their March 5, 2014 verdict while agreeing on the conviction, differed on the quantum of punishment.

While Justice Thakur sentenced the Ansals to one year imprisonment, Justice Misra enhanced it two years but imposed a fine of Rs 50 crore each for the enhanced year.

She had said that Rs 100 crore that Ansal brothers would pay would be used for setting up a trauma centre in Delhi's Dwarka area.

While the trial court Nov 20, 2007 convicted Ansal brothers and others under Section 403 of IPC and sentenced them to two years imprisonment each, the high court by its Dec 19, 2008 verdict convicted them under Section 304A and reduced their sentence to one year each.
Bengaluru, Dec 6 : Hundreds of people across Karnataka on Tuesday fondly recalled its 'daughter' and late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and paid glowing tributes to her, as she was born at Melkote near Mysuru and spent her early days in Bengaluru.

Having spent her childhood in the state capital, she had moved to Chennai in the late 1950s.

As the news about her death spread on Monday-Tuesday night, a pall of gloom descended on Melkote in Pandavapura taluk of Mandya district, about 130 km from here, and her contemporaries remembered her origins and recalled her parents.

"Jayalalithaa, who was born on February 24, 1948 at Melkote near Mysuru, was named Komalavalli by her father Dr Jayaram and mother Vedavalli, whose screen name was Sandhya," said Sidda Lingappa, a native of Mandya.

When Komalavalli entered the tinsel world in then Madras, she chose to be Jayalalithaa, with 'Jaya' from 'Jaya Vilas' and 'lalithaa' from 'Lalitha Vilas', the two houses her grandfather N. Rangasamy Iyengar lived at in Mysuru and where she spent her holidays with her brother and mother.

Iyengar had migrated to Mysuru from Srirangam in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu state.

When Jayalalithaa's father Dr Jayaram died in 1950-51, she moved to Bengaluru from Mysuru with her mother and aunts Ambujavalli and Padmavalli for schooling.

As Hindu goddess Chamundeshwari atop a hill near Mysuru was also her family deity, Jayalalithaa used to regularly visit the temple to worship and pray there.

Jayalalithaa's step-brother N.J. Vasudevan, born to her father's first wife L.K. Jayammal, still lives at Srirangarajapuram village in T. Narsipur taluk of Mysuru district.

Before shifting to Madras to join her actress mother Sandhya, Jayalalithaa went to Bishop Cotton Girls High School in the city centre for studying up to Grade IV from nursery.

"I vividly remember Komlavalli with wide eyes and a pony tail, as she was one of my classmates in the primary school during the mid-1950s," said Stella Samuel.

"Though she migrated to Madras and became a popular actress, she maintained contact with her relatives and remained in touch with her fans and supporters at Mysuru and Bengaluru," recalled 70-year-old Lingappa, a farmer.

Veteran lensman Bhavni Lakshminarayana from Chikkaballapur, has a collection of Jayalalithaa's pictures, more in black and white, as he did still photography for two Kannada films in which she acted as heroine.

"I had shot her pictures atop Nandi Hills near Bengaluru when the shooting of a Kannada movie 'Maavana Magalu' took place with Kalyankumar as hero," Lakshminarayana told a local news channel earlier in the day.

Ironically, Jayalalithaa's last visit to the state and Bengaluru was over two years ago when a trial court convicted and sentenced her to a four-year jail term on September 27, 2014 in a disproportionate assets case here.

She spent three weeks in Central Jail on the city's outskirts before flying back to Chennai on October 18, 2014 after the Supreme Court granted her bail a day earlier.
Mumbai, Dec 6 : Tata Sons ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry's fight is to protect the Tata Group from capricious decision-making by its Interim Chairman Ratan Tata, Mistry's office said on Tuesday.

Tata Sons board had ousted Mistry on October 24 and appointed Tata as the Interim Chairman.

"Mistry's fight today is to protect the Tata Group from capricious decision-making by the Interim Chairman," a statement from Mistry's office said.

The comments came a day after Tata Sons in a statement on Monday rebutted its ousted Chairman's appeal for support from stakeholders ahead of the extraordinary general meetings called by several Tata Group companies to remove him from their board.

The statement from Mistry's office explained that Mistry would hurt his own family's financial interests if he sought to make Tata Group companies break away from Tata Sons.

"The statement itself records that Mistry's family holds over 18% interest in Tata Sons. If he were to indeed seek to make Tata Group companies break away from Tata Sons, he would have been hurting his own family's financial interests," Mistry's office said.

"It is in fact these individuals prone to impulsive control who have inflicted severe damage and enormous financial loss to all stakeholders of the Tata Group, including shareholders. They have also exposed the Tata Group to perilous violation of regulatory requirements, seeking to procure unpublished price sensitive information from listed Tata Group companies, breaking down governance."

"This has the potential to hurt shareholders values and it's a sorry allegation to attempt to throw back."

Mistry's office pointed out that never before has the Tata Group including the philanthropic objectives of the Tata Trusts been in jeopardy "to this extent and scale".

On Monday, Tata Sons had alleged that Mistry has gradually over the past years concentrated all power and authority in his own hands as Chairman in all the major Tata operating companies, where there are no longer any representatives from the board of Tata Sons, the main promoter and largest shareholding group.

"Far from Mistry taking over control over all Tata Group activity, it is a matter of record that the governance guidelines developed under him in consultation with the board of directors of Tata Sons, and CEOs and independent directors of various Tata Group operating companies, subjected Mistry himself to an unprecedented scrutiny of nearly 50 individuals who appraised his corporate performance," his office said.

"This approach empowered Boards of Directors - both at Tata Sons and the Tata Group operating companies. It created an effective check and balance against any individual becoming larger than life. So there was no question of anything remotely like what is sought to be alleged."

On Monday, a letter by Mistry addressed to the stakeholders, said the 'Tata Group is no one's personal fiefdom'.

The 14-page letter -- "Representation under section 169 of the companies Act, 2013. In respect of special notice for removal of Cyrus P. Mistry as Director" -- also called upon the government to ensure that Tata Trusts function under the law.

Tata Trusts hold 66 per cent stake in the holding company of the industrial conglomerate Tata Sons.

In another development Tata Power while calling for an extraordinary general meeting on December 26 to consider removing Mistry as a director with the company said that its Independent Directors were appreciative of his performance.

"During his tenure with the company as Director and Chairman, till date, Mistry has attended 38 out of the 39 Board Meetings, all 24 ECOB (Executive Committee of the Board) Meetings and 20 out of the 21 NRC (Member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee) Meetings," the company said in a regulatory filing to the BSE.

"The Act requires the Independent Directors to meet each year and to, inter alia, evaluate the performance of the Chairman of the Board. Such Independent Director Meetings were conducted in March 2015 and March 2016. At both those meetings, the Independent Directors were appreciative of the performance of Mr. Mistry and had nothing of significance to recommend to him in that regard."

The regulatory filing added that the feedback of the meeting was conveyed to Mistry by one of the directors present, chosen for that purpose by his colleagues.
Mumbai, Dec 6 : Asking its ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry to follow his own assertions on corporate governance, Tata Sons on Tuesday said that he should step down from the boards of Tata companies.

"The same corporate governance guidelines, Mistry 's office is referring to, prescribes that a Tata employee must step down from the Boards of Tata companies, after he ceases to be a Tata employee," a group spokesperson for Tata Sons said.

"After being replaced as Chairman of Tata Sons, Mistry ceases to be a Tata employee. It is he who is violating the guidelines that he himself propounded, and not Tata."

Tata Sons board had ousted Mistry on October 24 and appointed Tata as the Interim Chairman.

The rebuttal came after Mistry's office on Tuesday said the governance guidelines developed under him created an effective check and balance against any individual becoming larger than life.

"Far from Mistry taking over control over all Tata Group activity, it is a matter of record that the governance guidelines developed under him in consultation with the board of directors of Tata Sons, and CEOs and independent directors of various Tata Group operating companies, subjected Mistry himself to an unprecedented scrutiny of nearly 50 individuals who appraised his corporate performance," his office said.

"This approach empowered Boards of Directors - both at Tata Sons and the Tata Group operating companies. It created an effective check and balance against any individual becoming larger than life. So there was no question of anything remotely like what is sought to be alleged."

The comments from Mistry's office came a day after Tata Sons in a statement rebutted its ousted Chairman's appeal for support from stakeholders ahead of the extraordinary general meetings called by several Tata Group companies to remove him from their board.

Tata Sons had alleged that Mistry has gradually over the past years concentrated all power and authority in his own hands as Chairman in all the major Tata operating companies, where there are no longer any representatives from the board of Tata Sons, the main promoter and largest shareholding group.

Mistry's office pointed out that his 'fight is to protect the Tata Group from capricious decision-making by its Interim Chairman Ratan Tata'.

"Mistry's fight today is to protect the Tata Group from capricious decision-making by the Interim Chairman," his office said.

The statement from Mistry's office explained that Mistry would hurt his own family's financial interests if he sought to make Tata Group companies break away from Tata Sons.

"The statement itself records that Mistry's family holds over 18% interest in Tata Sons. If he were to indeed seek to make Tata Group companies break away from Tata Sons, he would have been hurting his own family's financial interests," Mistry's office said.

"It is in fact these individuals prone to impulsive control who have inflicted severe damage and enormous financial loss to all stakeholders of the Tata Group, including shareholders. They have also exposed the Tata Group to perilous violation of regulatory requirements, seeking to procure unpublished price sensitive information from listed Tata Group companies, breaking down governance."

"This has the potential to hurt shareholders values and it's a sorry allegation to attempt to throw back."

In another development Tata Power while calling for an extraordinary general meeting on December 26 to consider removing Mistry as a director with the company said that its Independent Directors were appreciative of his performance.

"During his tenure with the company as Director and Chairman, till date, Mistry has attended 38 out of the 39 Board Meetings, all 24 ECOB (Executive Committee of the Board) Meetings and 20 out of the 21 NRC (Member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee) Meetings," the company said in a regulatory filing to the BSE.

"The Act requires the Independent Directors to meet each year and to, inter alia, evaluate the performance of the Chairman of the Board. Such Independent Director Meetings were conducted in March 2015 and March 2016. At both those meetings, the Independent Directors were appreciative of the performance of Mr. Mistry and had nothing of significance to recommend to him in that regard."

The regulatory filing added that the feedback of the meeting was conveyed to Mistry by one of the directors present, chosen for that purpose by his colleagues.
New York, Dec 6 : The American Tamil Sangam (ATS) and the US Friends of AIADMK (USFAIADMK) have paid tributes to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

"Struggle was her middle name and victory was her last name," ATS President Prakash Swamy said in a statement. Recalling the various adversitites she had faced, he said: "Her path was strewn with thorns and rocks but she overcame all with her unmatched grit and determination."

USFAIADMK President Koshy O. Thomas said Tamils all over the world have lost a leader who was a mother to them. "We have become orphans and no words can console us," he added.

ATS Chairman John Joseph eecalled Jayalalithaa's welfare programmes, especially for women and students, and said she was a charismatic leader.

Earlier ATS and USFAIADMK had held prayers for Jayalalithaa's recovery at the Saneeswarar Temple in the city that was attended by Hindus and Christians.

In 2011, Hillary Clinton, who was then the Secretary of State, met Jayalalithaa at her office in Fort St. George in Chennai. A press release issued at that time said that they had discussed the problems of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and social welfare programmes.

An ATS press release said that at initiative of the then-Deputy Speaker Upendra Chivkula, the New Jersey State Assembly had issued a proclamation honouring Jayalalithaa after her election in 2011.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Condolence messages poured in from different quarters on Tuesday over the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who died in a Chennai hospital on Monday night.

Union Minister for Civil Aviation P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju said India had lost a visionary and exemplary leader, a multitalented personality and a person of ever-helping nature.

"Combining the qualities of the head and the heart, she won the admiration of all her colleagues and love of all fellow citizens. Her sudden demise has left a void which would be impossible to fill," he said in a statement here.

Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said he was deeply saddened to learn of the passing away of Jayalalithaa.

"The untimely demise of Jayalalithaa is a loss not only to the state and people of Tamil Nadu but also to the entire nation. Her loss will be deeply mourned by all those who knew her and all those whose lives were touched by her," Kharge said.

Canada's High Commissioner to India Nadir Patel said: "On behalf of the High Commission of Canada, I am deeply saddened by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's passing. I extend my sincere condolences to her family, and to the people of Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her valuable contributions to the people, development and progress of Tamil Nadu will not be forgotten."

Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu tweeted: "A sad day. Deepest condolences to the people of Tamil Nadu and to the family of CM Jayalalithaa."

The Australian Consulate General in Chennai will also remain closed until further notice.

"The government of Tamil Nadu has declared a seven-day period of mourning. The Australian Consulate General will remain closed until further notice," said its official website.

Naushad Forbes, President of the Confederation of Indian Industry, said the country had lost a visionary, dynamic and inspiring leader.

"During her tenure as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, the state has transformed and retained its leadership position as the most favoured investment destination in India with the presence of diverse industries," said Ramesh Kymal, Chairman of CII Tamil Nadu State Council.
Vijayawada, Dec 6 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday launched the AP Purse mobile app, which presently has 13 mobile banking and 10 mobile wallets available and can help people pay their bills and carry out their cash transactions.

Speaking on the occasion, Naidu said people should opt for mobile banking to come out of the present small currency crisis.

The government will encourage people including students to improve digital financial literacy among people. He said the government will provide incentives to the agents named 'Marpu Nestam'.

Naidu said engineering students would be encouraged to train people in mobile banking transactions using several wallets, adding this would help the students to earn while learn. The government would recognise the services of engineering colleges and students for their service to society at the time of currency crisis.

The Chief Minister said that the state government introduced cashless transactions at fair price shops and completed the 70 per cent of transactions using Aadhar linkage to provide relief to people suffering from shortage of small currency.

He said that the state government has been making efforts to solve the currency crisis and the situation likely to improve soon. He said that Rs 2,472 crore is available with banks and the state will receive Rs. 1,100 crore on Wednesday.

Naidu said that as a convener of the committee on post demonitisation crisis and digital transactions, he would head a meeting scheduled to be held at Mumbai on December 8 and discuss the problems being faced by people for small currency and alternative measures to be adopted to ease the situation.
New Delhi, Dec 6 : Two people, including a doctor at a civic body-run hospital here, were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly gang-raping a student after promising her a job, police said.

The incident occurred at the Charak Palika Hospital run by NDMC at Moti Bagh in south Delhi where the 22-year-old student of Institute of Public Health and Hygiene was working as an intern. She was allegedly raped by the doctor, two of his assistants and one other person.

The arrested were identified as Afzal Khan, 40, a Medical Officer, and Krishan Pal, 53, a dark room assistant.

The other accused - Surender, 50, also a dark room assistant, and Dharam Singh, 40 - are absconding, a senior police officer said.

The incident came to light on Tuesday when the victim, a student of a college in Mahipalpur area complained to Moti Bagh Police station.

"The victim in her statement said that she was doing internship in Charak Palika Hospital run by NDMC and she was lured by all the accused persons on the pretext of providing employment. She was later physically assaulted by all the four accused," said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Manishi Chandra.

The victim said she was first gang-raped in the last week of October when Krishan Pal called her and offered to her find a job, but coerced her into a non-consensual relationship with Afzal Khan and Dharam Singh, Chandra said.

Condemning the incident, Hospital Director Ranbir Singh noted that the victim was not part of the hospital from last two months and did not complain against the accused to higher authorities but assured "necessary action" will be taken.
Agra, Dec 7 : Social activists here on Tuesday paid tributes to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha.

At a meeting organised by the River Connect Campaign at the Etmauddaula view-point park along the Yamuna, Central Hindi Institute Registrar Chandra Kant Tripathi said that she was a tall leader and "though leader of a state party, had national vision and worked for the welfare of all sections of society".

After the special aarti of river Yamuna, campaign members observed two minutes' silence for the AIADMK chief, who died in Chennai late Monday after a prolonged illness.

Senior journalist Shashi Kant Upadhyaya said that everything that Amma did had her stamp and style boldly imprinted.
Our new innovations and the increasing demand from our customers led us to look for a new addition to our team, and we were very fortunate to find someone of Leticias caliber to fulfill this role.

HotelPlanner is happy to announce their latest team member Leticia Piloto-Rodriguez, who has joined the company to further improve performance and increase company value.

With over 12 years of expertise as a practicing attorney, Mrs. Piloto-Rodriguez also has experience within the hospitality industry. Understanding the business model from the inside out, she joins HotelPlanner alongside sister brand Meetings.com as Chief Litigation Officer and Collections Specialist.

Mrs. Piloto-Rodriguez is an active member of the American Bar Association, Florida Bar and the Palm Beach County Hispanic Bar Association. For two consecutive years, she has maintained the AV Preeminent Rating. This is the highest possible rating for both ethical standards and legal ability, representing the pinnacle of professional excellence. Mrs. Piloto-Rodriguez has represented clients in both state and federal court proceedings. She also owned and managed her own practice concentrating on civil litigation, bankruptcy, corporate matters, and estate planning.

Leticia will provide in house counsel and manage the day-to-day legal needs of the company. Mrs. Piloto-Rodriguez comments, It is a privilege to have been appointed Chief Litigation Officer of this dynamic company. I am proud to be part of the team and look forward to assist in elevating the company to new heights.

Tim Hentschel, CEO of HotelPlanner and Meetings.com said, Leticias wealth of experience and industry knowledge has already made her a key addition to the HotelPlanner family. We view her appointment as a sign of our commitment to being the leading company in our industry. Our new innovations and the increasing demand from our customers led us to look for a new addition to our team, and we were very fortunate to find someone of Leticias caliber to fulfill this role. Im confident that Leticia will play a key role in providing and implementing high quality solutions.

About HotelPlanner

HotelPlanner.com provides group hotel booking services to 3,000 groups per day in the global group travel market. The companys group hotel booking service ensures the lowest rates by allowing customers to receive quotes online directly from hotel group sales managers. HotelPlanner allows customers to book hotels for business meetings, conferences, conventions, family reunions, weddings, extended stays, tours, military reunions, church events, and group travels. The company also provides mobile applications for booking group hotel reservations. The company owns and operates Meetings.com, a site that provides information, planning and booking services for group, meeting, and individual hotel stays for the corporate, associations and business to business enterprises. With a mission statement geared towards, Bringing People Together, HotelPlanner & Meetings.com are the global experts for hotel sourcing, providing direct clients and market leading affiliates with unmatched group and event discounted room rates plus localized service levels not available at other travel companies. Founded in 2002, the company has offices in London, England (European Headquarters), Hong Kong (Asian Headquarters), West Palm Beach, FL (USA Headquarters), and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Our mobile app gives IT professionals the power to monitor their APCON visibility platform from anywhere and at any time.

APCON, a leading provider of intelligent network monitoring and security solutions, today unveiled its first iOS mobile app that provides real-time status updates of APCONs network visibility solutions.

With significant increases in hacks, data breaches and global cybercrime, network and security professionals must have around-the-clock awareness of their network traffic monitoring system, said Richard Rauch, president and CEO of APCON. Our mobile app gives IT professionals the power to monitor their APCON visibility platform from anywhere and at any time.

APCON Mobile App communicates directly with IntellaFlex visibility platforms and integrates with TitanXR, APCONs multi-switch management software, to receive alerts. The mobile app provides IT and security professionals with 24/7 real-time feeds on key network monitoring system alert issues. For example, important monitoring events such as an indication of an oversubscribed tool link or an inline security device failure on the network will be detected and alerted.

APCONs IntellaFlex infrastructure is designed to trigger an alert and send it directly to the mobile app. Additional infrastructure details such as system switches, alerts, blades and firmware are also available. Network engineers can view their entire network on a map, including system status and summaries of events. With this capability, network engineers can increase visibility and reduce time-to-resolution.

The iOS app is available immediately on Apples App Store. Media representatives and analysts can schedule a demonstration of APCON Mobile App by contacting APCONs public relations team at 503-682-4050.

About APCON

For more than 20 years, APCON has consistently delivered smart, stable and scalable technology solutions that provide an unparalleled level of confidence to service providers and businesses seeking total data center visibility and security. Its customers range from midsize companies to Fortune 1000 enterprises in more than 40 countries. APCON assures superior network monitoring while supporting traffic analysis and streamlined network management and security. For more information, visit http://www.apcon.com or follow us on Twitter @apcon.

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This partnership enables districts to enhance one-to-one computing initiatives, expand their course offerings, or supplement teacher-authored content with off-the-shelf curriculum thats continuously updated and standards aligned.

Software Answers, Inc., provider of ProgressBook, a K-12 student information (SIS) and learning management system (LMS) platform, announced today that it has partnered with Jefferson County Education Service Center (ESC) to connect ProgressBook VirtualClassroom customers to a full range of standards-aligned course content. Jefferson County ESC, provider of professional development, instructional and technology services to Ohio public schools, has been administering online K-12 curriculum since 2001.

VirtualClassroom is an LMS thats built within ProgressBook GradeBook and integrates seamlessly with other modules to streamline e-learning processes for teachers and students. It enables teachers to create and co-author content  such as tests/quizzes, homework assignments and discussion activities  and deliver it through their students ProgressBook account.

ProgressBook CEO Paul Chaffee is excited with the added value this collaboration brings to VirtualClassroom users. We understand that having access to quality online content is key to building a successful blended learning environment, Chaffee said. This partnership enables districts to enhance one-to-one computing initiatives, expand course offerings, or supplement teacher-authored content with off-the-shelf curriculum thats continuously updated and standards aligned.

When it comes to building digital content, lack of time and lack of resources are among the biggest challenges schools face, said Dr. George Ash, Jefferson County ESCs CEO. VirtualClassroom partnered with our content provides access to education without limits. This is a cost-effective way for districts to gain resources, help their staff, and provide cutting-edge options to students.

Beginning in January, 150 full year and semester courses for students in grades K-12 will be available for purchase and access via Progressbook VirtualClassroom. For more details and pricing, contact Teresa Silvestri, tsilvestri(at)jcesc(dot)org.

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About Software Answers, Inc.

Software Answers, innovators of ProgressBook, is a premier provider of solutions that support student/classroom management and academic achievement for K-12 school districts. Single sign-on ProgressBook Suite serves the entire school community  administrators, teachers, students and parents  with six fully-integrated modules. Used by more than 750 schools nationwide, including 73% of the Ohio public schools, ProgressBook Suite includes: StudentInformation, GradeBook, ParentAccess, SpecialServices, DataMap, and VirtualClassroom. The company is headquartered in Brecksville, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. For more information, visit http://www.ProgressBook.com.

About Jefferson County ESC Virtual Learning Academy

The Jefferson County ESC Virtual Learning Academy is a cooperative, online educational delivery system. It offers 150 full year and semester courses for students in grades K-12. Since the organization began in 2001, the VLA staff is continually expanding the courses with the latest Web 2.0 Learning Tools to offer students the most fulfilling and engaging coursework available. With these new additions and enhancements, VLA can provide 21st Century Skills to students, as well as meet the many varied needs of student learners. Visit http://www.jcesc.k12.oh.us/VLA.aspx to learn more.
Experts in the field of allergy and clinical immunology with vast experience will share insights into current and future research, and how as physicians and researchers we can fulfill unmet needs in allergy diagnosis and treatment.

The WAO International Scientific Conference (WISC) 2016 opens today in Jerusalem. Running from 6-9 December, the conference of the World Allergy Organization (WAO) will present new research in allergy/clinical immunology medicine to practicing physicians and clinical researchers. Attendees will have the opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas for continually improving allergy patient care. WISC 2016 is in collaboration with the Israel Association of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (IAACI) and their mutually collaborating partner, Allergists for Israel (AFI).

More than 400 physicians, researchers and other healthcare professionals will gather for WISC 2016, participating in over 65 educational sessions presented by 132 of the internationally known experts in the field of allergy/clinical immunology. Keynote speakers include:



K. Frank Austen, MD, Brigham and Womens Hospital and Harvard Medical School, United States, will present on cysteinyl leukotrienes, a third receptor residing in the epithelium of the nose and lung.

Marc Rothenberg, MD, PhD Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, will present on eosinophilic esophagitis and will uncover the basic understanding of the diseases emergence, the pathogenesis, and current treatment.

Avram Hershko, MD, Technion  Israel Institute of Technology, and Rappaport Institute, will deliver his session on, The Ubiquitin System in Health and Disease. Dr. Hershko was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in 2004, jointly with his former PhD student Aaron Ciechanover and his colleague Irwin Rose for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation.

Martin J. Blaser, MD, PhD, New York University School of Medicine, United States, will present on his hypothesis that the perturbations to the early life microbiome are fueling the current epidemics in allergic disorders.

The World Allergy Organization is honored to have so many influential speakers at our conference to address our attendees, said Mario Sanchez-Borges, MD, WAO President. Experts in the field of allergy and clinical immunology with vast experience will share insights into current and future research, and how as physicians and researchers we can fulfill unmet needs in allergy diagnosis and treatment.

Over 140 abstracts will be presented at WISC 2016. Several abstracts judged as outstanding will cover a variety of disease focuses in allergy/clinical immunology including:

Studies on the role of B cells in rhinovirus infection (Abstract 1156)

Purinergic signaling involved in the beneficial effects of aerobic exercise in a model of HDM-induced asthma (Abstract 1137)

Epidemiological transition of viruses associated with wheezing (Abstract 1012)

START: susceptibility to food allergies in a registry of twins (Abstract 1146)

Single practice eight-year experience treating food allergy with oral immunotherapy (Abstract 1053)

The role of miR-328 in allergic airway disease (Abstract 1149)

Childhood Presenting Hereditary Angioedema is Diagnosed in Adulthood by Non-Pediatric Physicians Icatibant Outcome Survey Findings (Abstract 1075), and

Hyper-allergenic isoform Bet v 1a of the major birch pollen allergen displays reduced allergenic potential after binding of retinoic acid (Abstract 1150).

The WISC 2016 scientific program will include 33 symposia, 7 sister society symposia, 8 workshops, 4 junior member practical courses, and 3 poster sessions. Attendees will receive the latest information on relevant aspects of allergy, asthma and clinical immunology including the microbiome, precision medicine, food allergy and prevention of atopic disease, mast cell disorders, specific immunotherapy, severe asthma and aerobiology and climate change as they impact allergic diseases and asthma. The full scientific program is available at: http://www.worldallergy.org/wisc2016.

About the World Allergy Organization

The World Allergy Organization (WAO) is an international alliance of 97 regional and national allergy, asthma and immunology societies. Through collaboration with its Member Societies WAO provides a wide range of educational and outreach programs, symposia and lectureships to allergists/immunologists around the world and conducts initiatives related to clinical practice, service provision, and physical training in order to better understand and address the challenges facing allergists/immunologists worldwide. (http://www.worldallergy.org)

Israel Association for Allergy and Clinical Immunology

The Israel Association for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (IAACI), founded in 1949, is a non-profit association, with a mission to promote education, good clinical practice and research in a wide spectrum of allergic and immune-mediated diseases in Israel, under the umbrella of the Israel Medical Association (IMA). The IAACI is dedicated to promoting collaborations between Allergists/Clinical Immunologists and physicians from other disciplines in Israel, aiming to expand knowledge and improve patient care. This is achieved by promoting joint meetings and producing Israeli collaborative recommendations on various topics.

Allergists for Israel

Allergists for Israel (AFI) was founded in 1984 and the evolving vision of the group is to develop camaraderie for Allergists/Immunologists and other supporters of allergy by gathering in the USA, Israel and around the world. AFI strives to establish collegial relations between America and Israel. (http://www.allergists4israel.org)

Media Contact:

Samantha Machart

Communications Manager

World Allergy Organization

smachart(at)worldallergy(dot)org

World Allergy Organization

555 E. Wells Street, Suite 1100

Milwaukee, WI 53202-3823 USA

Tel: +1 (414) 276-1791 Fax: +1 (414) 276-3349

Email: info(at)worldallergy(dot)org Website: http://www.worldallergy.org

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It is important to keep on the pulse of where the next great development opportunity is about to emerge and with ERE Property, you can.

Since EREs 2004 inception, house prices have risen significantly, leading to exceptional returns on investment for those using the companys services, and the market is showing few signs of slowing down. Although the biggest jumps in UK prices have tended to occur in London, significant increases have been noted in cities ERE specialise in including Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester as well as Birmingham. House prices in England rocketed by 8.3% last year, a rise analysts at ERE Property have put down to various factors.

What is influencing the trend of rising house prices in these areas?

According to ERE, house price increases can be linked to investment in transport infrastructure. Better transport links have made areas ERE specialise in more desirable places to live. For instance, the North West has seen a 5.7% rise, whilst the West Midlands has enjoyed an increase of 7.7%. The East Midlands has benefitted greatly, with an increase of 8.2%.

Though the Midlands is noted for its motorway links, these have been the subject of further improvements recently. The new M6 Toll road enables travellers and commuters to enjoy a swifter journey through the Midlands, allowing them to miss congestion as well as frequent accident hotspots. An ERE source pointed to the fact that around 25% of Englands manufacturing was based in the Midlands, meaning that quality rail and road links were vital.

There are many other reasons for investors to purchase property in the Midlands. 1.8 billion is set to be poured in upgrades across the Midlands, with the busy M42 set to benefit from an investment and a new smart motorway system being in development. This new system will identify where accidents have occurred in order to advise motorists to use the hard shoulder. It also promises speed regulation to prevent traffic jams.

The much-discussed HS2 rail route is set to reduce journey times between Birmingham and London to 49 minutes and Birmingham and Manchester to 41 minutes.

ERE also have an assortment of desirable buy-to-let properties in Manchester and the North West. The region is also set to benefit greatly from HS2, with journey times between Manchester and London being cut significantly. Some benefits related to investment are already being seen. The electrification of key lines between Liverpool and Manchester has cut some journeys down to 30 minutes. Landlords who have bought property in Manchester through ERE regularly cite the train link to the airport when advertising homes to business travellers and others.

Work to join Manchesters two main stations, Victoria and Piccadilly, is already underway, whilst links between Salfords Media City and Manchester City Centre are also being enhanced, as is Greater Manchesters Metrolink system. All these changes are encouraging more and more landlords and other investors to consult ERE Property.

The improved transport links in the North West and the Midlands have been one of the main reasons for rising house prices in the two regions according to ERE Property. Better commuting opportunities give investors, buyers and renters a greater level of choice. Sources at ERE point out that, though house prices in the regions are rising all the time, equivalent homes in London are still vastly less affordable. Investing now should mean being able to reap vast rewards once improvements in progress are completed and HS2 is unveiled, according to ERE.

ERE Property has been advocating the investment potential of the UKs regions for several years and has allowed investors to benefit from many major property developments in these areas. The ERE Property website at http://www.ereproperty.com provides in-depth advice and information for those wishing to invest in the Midlands and North West areas. From major developments in Manchester and Birmingham to Liverpool Waterfront, ERE Property have links to all of the regions most lucrative property development hubs and hotspots. Staying up-to-date with the latest development opportunities is essential, and the experience and expertise of ERE Property has enabled developers to take advantage of a wealth of opportunities before they became public knowledge, often at below market value.
Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley has rebranded and expanded its website SearcyLatino.com to better serve the Latino community. The websites rebranding is part of its efforts to actively reach out to the Latino community to help in the representation of injured victims.

When I came on board with the firm, it had really not actively tried to connect with the Latino community, says partner Mariano Garcia. The firm felt that it could not connect in a meaningful way with our Latino community without having a solid Latino employee base who also speaks Spanish.

The South Florida area has developed into a substantial Latino community. Some Latinos are fully Spanish speaking people; some have been in this country for a long time and communicate in a mix of Spanish and English; and some Latinos prefer English to Spanish. Searcy Denney wanted to provide a site where Spanish speakers would feel at home and be able to educate themselves about personal injury matters and their rights. SearcyLatino.com is a 100% Spanish language site and acts as a companion to Searcy Denneys English language website, SearcyLaw.com.

Very few law firms provide the Latino community with a fully Spanish language site and we wanted to provide that to Latinos who prefer communicating in Spanish. We believe we have done that with SearcyLatino.com, Mariano Garcia observed.

The firms commitment to Spanish language services is reflected by the rapid growth of the firms number of Spanish speaking employees, which has increased to 26 of the total 139 employees.

We are proud of my partner Mariano Garcia and our Latino employees, who have allowed us to engage with our Latino community in a meaningful way, said the firms CEO, Christian D. Searcy.

Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley is an established South Florida personal injury firm devoted to representing the interests of injured victims. It has offices located in West Palm Beach and Tallahassee and provides legal services throughout the State of Florida.
Numistar & Globetrotter - smart design wallets that sort coins & notes instantly! Gone are the days where we fumble with the loose change after we buy our morning coffee!

February 29, a leather artisan brand based in exotic Singapore proudly announces the next evolution of the typical leather wallet, known as Numistar.

Numistar is a unique wallet that automatically sorts coins and notes instantly. Launched on global crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, Numistar's campaign was already 100% funded after just 12 hours.

Numistars designers realized that the process of getting back loose change can be made more efficient. Wallet users fumble while separating the coins from the notes and putting them in their respective compartments; be it coin compartments, coin pouches or even the usual trousers pockets.

With this in mind, February 29 embarked on a 6 months mission to design a revolutionary range of wallets that can sort money instantly.

With a decade worth of leather crafting and smart designing experience, Numistar successfully addresses the problems faced by wallet users in areas of quality, aesthetics, and convenience to deliver a superior range of everyday wallets.

Numistar displays a number of thoughtful features such as;



Coin sorting capabilities  Users just have to drop the coins together with notes into the currency slot and it automatically routes the coins into the coin compartment.

Coin denomination sorting  In its coin sorting range, comes Paperboy; a coin pouch crafted in premium leather; sorts coins of different denominations into 3 separate compartments for better organization.

RFID Protection  With wireless identity theft on the rise, Numistar & Globetrotter; comes with RFID shielding technology to minimize your credit cards information from wireless theft.

Convenience  Numistar & Globetrotter comes with SDHC memory card, SIM and micro SIM card slots which makes it perfect for the busy business person.

With frequent travelers in mind, Globetrotter is designed to fit up to one passport, two iPhone 6+s, a mini pen for clearing immigration forms quickly and 3 separate currency slots.

There is even a secret compartment to hide a secret stash of cash and a slot for a spare key for emergencies.

The designers at February 29 seemed to have covered all aspects of an everyday wallet.

A wallet is an essential that is with us more than 18 hours a day; shouldnt it be your best buddy to look after your needs and valuables? I believe that Kickstarter is the best platform to launch Numistar. It gives the little guys like us a voice to reach out to the rest of the world and allow backers to directly affect what they want in the final craft. says wallet designer, Eden Kew.

Numistar will currently only be available on global crowd funding site https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marlin/radical-wallets-that-sort-your-coins-and-notes-ins/

At the conclusion of the campaign, February 29 intends to make Numistar, Globetrotter and Paperboy available for purchase through their website. http://www.myFeb29.com/numistar

About February 29

Founded in 2006 by product designer Eden Kew, February 29 was established with the goal of designing and crafting quality, thoughtful leather goods without the luxury markup.

Press Contact:

Eden Kew

February 29

Email: numistar(at)myfeb29(dot)com

Website: http://www.myfeb29.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Feb29Bags

Download Media kit here
SAIT will expand our international perspective in the areas of STEM programs and entrepreneurial innovations as we build our network of global engagement and service to our members.

The League for Innovation in the Community College Board of Directors is pleased to welcome Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) to its membership. This Canadian-based institution will be represented on the Board by President David Ross.

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology has a 100-year history of providing innovative, hands-on, skills-oriented training designed to meet the practical needs of employers, said Board Chair Anne Kress. It is an honor to welcome such a highly-regarded workforce-centered institution to the League board.

Founded in 1968 by B. Lamar Johnson and a dozen U.S. community and technical college presidents,the League has proudly served community college institutions for almost five decades. The Board colleges are joined by almost 500 institutions that hold membership in the League Alliance. With this core of powerful and innovative community colleges and 100 corporate partners, the League fulfills its mission to cultivate innovation in the community college environment through conferences and institutes; online resources; research; and projects and initiatives with member colleges, corporate partners, government agencies, and private foundations.

As the League approaches its 50th year, the Board of Directors made the decision to expand in an effort to include additional outstanding community colleges. CEOs from the most influential, resourceful, and dynamic community colleges and districts in the world currently comprise the Leagues Board. I am excited to welcome SAIT as a League for Innovation Board member, said League President and CEO Rufus Glasper. SAIT will expand our international perspective in the areas of STEM programs and entrepreneurial innovations as we build our network of global engagement and service to our members.

According to the college website, David Ross is a passionate postsecondary education leader dedicated to promoting student success and with a reputation for innovation in applied education. Under his leadership, SAIT has become Alberta's third largest postsecondary institution. It is well known for its action-based learning, solution-focused research, and enterprising collaborations with people and partners from around the globe.

SAIT is honoured by the invitation to join the Board for the League for Innovation, said Dr. Ross. As SAIT begins its second century of serving students in Alberta, we look forward to being in the company of  and learning from  those leading the evolution of postsecondary education. SAIT values the thought leadership role the League has established and our institution is committed to being a strong and collaborative partner.

About the League for Innovation in the Community College

The League for Innovation in the Community College (League) is an international nonprofit organization with a mission to cultivate innovation in the community college environment. The League hosts conferences and institutes, develops print and digital resources, and leads projects and initiatives with almost 500 member colleges, 100 corporate partners, and a host of other government and nonprofit agencies in a continuing effort to advance the community college field and make a positive difference for students and communities. Information about the League and its activities is available at http://www.league.org.
Each one of these individuals brings his or her unique level of sincerity, creativity, and tutelage that will make their contributions to the IoT shine for years to come.

The IoT (Internet of Things) biggest trailblazers are setting out to help a new generation navigate the road from the classroom to a connected society across the globe.

That is why, Connected World magazine is pleased to name the 2017 Pioneers Award winners, celebrating the leaders in research and education who are responsible for laying down the foundation to some of todays greatest breakthroughs in IoT and M2M.

These 10 scholars, selected by the editorial staff of Connected World magazine, are heading up groundbreaking labs and organizations at some of the countrys most prestigious universities, yet their determination to push the limits of the IoT extends far beyond any university or college campus. Whether they are collaborating with big business on the latest platforms or devices, undertaking years worth of research, or simply extending guidance to a young student, each one of this years pioneers aims to enrich the lives and the world around them.

This years pioneers are a great representation of where the IoT started and where it is headed, says Peggy Smedley, editorial director, Connected World magazine. Each one of these individuals brings his or her unique level of sincerity, creativity, and tutelage that will make their contributions to the IoT shine for years to come.

The 10 recipients of the 2017 Pioneers Award are:



Ted Herman, University of Iowa

Behrokh Khoshnevis, University of Southern California

Chandra Krintz, UC Santa Barbara

Vivian Loftness, CMU

Govind Rao, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Carlo Ratti, SENSEable City Lab, MIT

Sanjay Sarma, MIT

Sabine Seymour, Parsons, The New School

Joshua Smith, University of Washington

Greg Thomas, University of Kansas

The list, along with an in depth analysis of this years honorees, is featured in the December 2016 issue of Connected World.

About Connected World magazine

Connected World is the business and technology publication that provides the intelligence industry titans need and the guidance consumers crave. Its all about M2M and IoT. connectedworld.com
CREO, Inc., a fast-growing management consulting and advisory firm launched in the heart of the Research Triangle Park, is pleased to announce that Joan Siefert Rose is joining the firm as Senior Partner. CREO is dedicated to perfecting business operations in the health, life sciences, and technology markets.

We are very excited to have Joan join our team of trusted advisors, said Susan Acker-Walsh, CEO and Co-Founder of CREO. CREOs clients will benefit from Joans ability to drive innovative and collaborative thinking, as well as her track record of helping organizations improve the effectiveness of their operations.

Rose currently serves as president and CEO of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the largest and longest-running entrepreneurial network in the country. CED has helped thousands of technology and life science-based startups in North Carolina scale and grow, attracting tens of billions of dollars in venture capital. Under her leadership, CED has become a trusted source on the state of the entrepreneurial sector not just in North Carolina, but also in emerging entrepreneurial hubs across the nation.

As a Senior Partner, Rose will contribute to CREOs focus on helping companies drive innovation internally, facilitate collaboration among diverse teams to address opportunities, and provide both strategic thinking and operational experience to businesses and nonprofits.

Im thrilled to join the CREO team and look forward to sharing my experience and expertise with clients  solving problems in the service of their important missions, said Rose. I plan to stay in touch with the many great entrepreneurs and community leaders that Ive had the privilege of meeting during my 15 years leading organizations in the Research Triangle region.

Prior to joining CED in 2008, Rose was general manager of North Carolina Public Radio  WUNC (91.5 FM), the public radio service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the winner of both the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in radio or television, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, the broadcasting equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Her columns on entrepreneurship are featured in Forbes and Xconomy.

Rose officially begins her role with CREO on January 3, 2017.

About CREO, Inc.

CREO, Inc. is an innovative management consulting and advisory firm based in Research Triangle Park. CREO helps its clients operate effectively, freeing them to apply their talents, pursue their mission, and realize their vision through a focus on effective operations and organizational health. CREOs senior team of C-level advisors works shoulder-to-shoulder with clients to solve their toughest challenges and realize their biggest opportunities. To learn more, visit http://www.creoinc.net.
We believe in the JB team and know that we share the same values of providing our customers with great service while providing our people with a safe, rewarding, and challenging environment," said Mark Santacrose, Tectas President and CEO.

Tecta America, the national leader in commercial roofing, announces the recent acquisition of the assets of JB & Company, Inc. of Tiffin, Ohio.

We are very excited to welcome JB Roofing Co. to the Tecta family. We believe in the JB team and know that we share the same values of providing our customers with great service while providing our people with a safe, rewarding, and challenging environment, said Mark Santacrose, Tectas President and CEO.

JB & Company was established in 1970 and is a full service commercial and industrial roofing company providing a variety of roofing and roof asset management services to our customers. They have more than 80 employees and a management team in place that has over 100 years of experience. A branch location is located in Columbus, OH.

The operation will be known as JB Roofing, a Tecta America Company, LLC, and Sam Strausbaugh and his entire management team and workforce will continue with Tecta America going forward. We are thrilled to be joining the Tecta team. As a business that was built on trust, honor and integrity, we believe this new partnership will allow us to continue these beliefs, help our people to grow and allow our customers to continue receiving the service that the name JB Roofing has come to represent, said Sam Strausbaugh, owner of JB & Company, Inc.
We recognize that we are in a highly competitive and rapidly changing industry. CU RateReset products are cutting edge products that will allow us to protect and grow our existing portfolios." said David Tuyo, CFO & COO, Power Financial CU

CU RateReset, the provider of Loan Reset, Acquisition and Retention Software, today announced Power Financial Credit Union has agreed to license its full suite of products, including its latest product offering LoanGen Pre-Approval. Power Financial Credit Union, headquartered in Pembroke Pines, FL, has over 35,000 members and $620 million in assets. The agreement with CU RateReset provides Power Financial Credit Union with a simple, easy and attractive digital solution to retain existing loans and generate more loans.

CU RateResets three primary product programs are:

Rate Reset -for Auto, Mortgage and Personal Loans:



RateReset enables a member to reset existing loans they have with a credit union without the cost and hassle of refinancing.

Credit union selects members for program inclusion based on their internal requirements and RateReset automates the member outreach, reset, and the closing documentation.

For the credit union, RateReset automates loan retention so loan originators can focus on new business.

Loan Gen-for Loan Acquisition and Recapture:



Recapture member mortgages, auto loans, personal loans and credit cards at other financial institutions as well as showcase products to attract new members.

Member can design their custom auto payment and move their existing loan over to your credit union.

Loan Gen- for Pre Approval Campaigns:



Credit union selects members to receive offer, submit data to CU RateReset, a personal URL or PURL is created, and inserted into an email, snail mail or text.

Members can select the options offered, execute the required documents, and authorize the balance transfer to their new account.

We are delighted that Power Financial is the first credit union to offer our LoanGen Pre-Approval products, said Joe Brancucci, President, CU RateReset. The Pre-Approval products are a game changer for an industry that historically has struggled to get members to respond to pre-approval offers. Allowing members to accept a credit unions pre-approved offer using a PURL that engages the member like never before is a significant event in this new digital age.

Power Financial Credit Union prides itself in offering cutting edge products and services to our members, said David Tuyo, Chief Financial and Operations Officer, Power Financial Credit Union. We recognize that we are in a highly competitive and rapidly changing industry. CU RateReset products are cutting edge products that will allow us to protect and grow our existing portfolios. We are very pleased to be part of this exciting network of credit unions.

About CURateReset:

CURateReset offers award winning products that allow the member to be in control of what has historically been routine administrative tasks that are time consuming for both front line and support staff. Both Auto RateReset and Mortgage RateReset, products successfully tested and adopted in the market, allow a member to reset the term of an existing auto loan, personal loan or mortgage based on credit union criteria. The software promotes loan retention at a very low cost, and provides a member with a favorable view of the member advocacy of the credit union. The LoanGen products make it simple and fast for a credit union to acquire or recapture member automobile loans, mortgage loans, personal loans and credit cards. For more information on CURateReset visit http://www.CURateReset.com.

About Power Financial Credit Union:

Power Financial Credit Union is a community-based, member-owned financial institution that has been providing high-quality, family-based financial services to the South Florida community for 65 years. We hear you. Respect You. And treat you like family. Power Financial Credit Union, which has been awarded a 5-Star Rating from BauerFinancial, the nations top bank rating service, was also recently named a 2016 Top Workplace by South Floridas Sun Sentinel and, for a second consecutive year in 2015, named one of Credit Union Journals Best Credit Unions to Work For. Power Financial Credit Union has more than 35,000 members, in excess of $620 million in assets, and five branches throughout Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. The institution offers all the advanced products, services and tools of large banks, but with a unique, personalized, family friendly, community-centered focus. It also provides extensive electronic services to members, with 90% of all transactions conducted outside of its branches. Additional information is available at http://www.powerfi.org or by calling 800.548.5465.

Media Contacts

Keith Kelly

Rate Reset

703.926.8626

kkelly(at)ratereset(dot)com
InSource, a leading technology solutions firm, announced today that it has achieved the ServiceNow  Gold Services Partner designation. This achievement recognizes InSources commitment to training, certification and superior customer satisfaction to provide high-quality ServiceNow implementations.

We made the strategic decision to focus exclusively on ServiceNow because it enables us to develop unsurpassed knowledge of this leading service management technology, explains Mark LaFond, Chief Executive Officer of InSource. That decision has paid off, and were pleased to be acknowledged by ServiceNow as a Gold Services partner.

In 2012, InSource expanded its company missions from a technology staffing company to include cloud-based technology solutions. It was at the time that a partnership with ServiceNow was formed.

The ServiceNow Services Partner Program recognizes partners based on their experience, expertise, competencies and specializations. InSource has set themselves apart from other ServiceNow partners because of their depth of knowledge, expertise and experience retained within the company. Its important for organizations to choose a partner who has high levels of achievement within the ServiceNow partner program, as it ensure they are committed to staying up to date on the latest product developments of the ever-expanding capabilities offered by ServiceNow.

David Silverstein, InSources Partner added, achieving ServiceNow's Gold Services Partner status is a significant achievement for InSource. We are extremely honored and proud to be recognized for our continued success advising, implementing, and integrating this software for our customers. This success and growth will continue into 2017 with our increased investments nationally and our continued close relationship with ServiceNow.

About InSource

InSource provides implementations for various world-class cloud-based technologies, with a primary focus on Service Management, Identity Management, Project Portfolio Services, as well as its technology talent staffing operation. Founded in 2000, InSource has consistently been recognized as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the Philadelphia region. The company has been recognized as one of the top implementation partners with ServiceNow, a partnership that InSource credits as paving the way to becoming one of the most sought after technology consulting firms on the East Coast.
FlyWithWine, the leading retailer of safe and secure wine travel luggage, announces the concierge same day/next day delivery program in Napa/Sonoma. Solving the problem of worrying how to ship wine home safely and avoiding high-priced shipping costs, FlyWithWines VinGardeValise is a wine enthusiast's dream. It is well-built, easy-to-roll luggage that comes in 8 and 12 bottle capacities. If you are not carrying a full case, then you can pack clothes or other items too. The best part is that you or your local concierge can have the suitcase sent directly to your home, hotel room, or Air B+B.

Anyone who travels with wine knows how difficult and expensive it can be. FlyWithWines VinGardeValise offers ultimate reusable protection, convenience, and versatility. Easily and safely transport your wine anywhere you want to go. Fully packed, it typically weighs between 43-50 lbs, staying under airline limits. It also conforms to all applicable TSA, FAA, and airline luggage standards.

Being someone who regularly travels the world with wine, I know how frustrating it can be to get stuck with expensive shipping costs and no guarantee on ensuring the integrity of your wine. The first time I used my VinGardeValise, I knew I had to share it with the world. Our free same-day delivery service in Napa and next day in Sonoma, and free ground shipping in the continental United States, allows us to do just that. Dont take my word for it, try it yourself and let your senses be your guide. Ron Scharman, CEO FlyWithWine.com.

The removable wine cavities are especially designed to hold a combination of bottles of almost any shape. The suitcase includes a special Burgundy shaped cavity and a Bordeaux cavity that has removable "shoulder" pads to ensure a snug fit. From Champagne to Riesling, you'll never have to worry about the safety of your bottles. In addition, there are optional special inserts for magnums, wine glasses, and custom needs.

Thoughtfully designed, FlyWithWines VinGarde Valise is the most versatile suitcase your wine lover will ever own.

Buy online http://www.flywithwine.com/products/vingardevalise and get free same-day/next day delivery in Napa/Sonoma and free shipping to any location in the continential United States.

How well does the case protect your wine? Watch this video at 2:16 for the exciting ending!

Contact: info(at)flywithwine(dot)com

Recap:

WHO  FlyWithWine.com

WHAT - FlyWithWines concierge network same-day delivery of the VinGardeValise - The worlds first suitcase designed exclusively for transporting wine

WHEN - Available now on FlyWithWine.com

WHERE - Available in The United States and Canada

HOW MUCH- 12 Bottle suitcase - $269 plus tax. 8 Bottle suitcase - $199 plus tax. *Shipping is inclusive for all orders in the continental United States

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About FlyWithWine

FlyWithWine is the leader in superior wine travel luggage. Operated by a group of wine enthusiasts who live in Napa and travel around the world, we are inspired by solving the complications involved with transporting wine safely and securely. By combining style and stability with a durable design, wine enthusiasts can transport their wine safely by plane, train, automobile, jet ski, boat, hang glider, submarine, gondola, motorcycle, bicycle, scooter, and more. (Please travel safely).

Contact: info(at)flywithwine(dot)com

707-320-0567
Armodilo is pleased to announce newly implemented support for the Zebra DS457 Barcode scanner (formerly from Motorola). This innovative fixed mount scanner is compatible Windows based tablets via a USB connection, offering an integrated low profile scanning option. The scanner offers fast, high volume, hands-free scanning of virtually any barcode  including 1D, 2D and direct part marks.

Armodilo has developed a simple, direct to enclosure mounting pattern that securely integrates the DS457 Barcode Scanner directly to our Original tablet enclosures. The highly refined integration creates a seamless look and is perfect for retail applications when paired with our award-winning Sphere POS Tablet Stand or with any other product in our Original line of tablet enclosures and stands.

Along with support for a direct mount option to the Tablet Enclosures, Armodilo also provides an additional mounting bracket that integrates a 90-degree tilt adjustment.

About Armodilo Display Solutions

Armodilo Display Solutions is a multiple award-winning tablet display manufacturer located in Ontario, Canada. With a variety of tablet display stands and accessories for trade show, event, retail and corporate markets, Armodilo sets itself apart by creating highly refined products for discerning brands around the world.

For more information about Armodilo, contact:

Iles Guran Founder & President

Armodilo Display Solutions

1-800-975-5946
Imran Aftab, CEO of 10Pearls, accepting AARP Supplier of the Year I am sincerely humbled and incredibly proud of the entire 10Pearls team for receiving the Supplier of the Year award from AARP. We are excited to partner with AARP to build digital experiences that help improve lives

10Pearls was awarded Supplier of the Year at the annual AARP Supplier Diversity Awards and Recognition Program, held November 16 at the Kimpton Hotel Monaco Washington DC. These awards focused on bringing recognition to suppliers that provide AARP with innovation and deliver quality products in a responsive, engaged and competitive manner.

I am sincerely humbled and incredibly proud of the entire 10Pearls team for receiving the Supplier of the Year award from AARP, said Imran Aftab, CEO of 10Pearls. We are excited to partner with AARP to build digital experiences that help improve lives.

AARP Services, Inc (ASI) selected 10Pearls to design and develop digital solutions to serve caregivers. Many dont realize that over 40 million family caregivers (25% of whom are millennials) provide billions of hours of care to their aging family members, often forced into the role in a crisis situation. Through these digital solutions, 10Pearls is supporting ASI to empower caregivers to better care for their family members.

[10Pearls] work culture and professional ethics represents some of the best in the industry, said Sanjay Khurana, Vice President of Caregiving Products & Services at AARP. We appreciate how collaborative and accommodating you have been while working at a very fast pace, and pivoting when necessary.

About 10Pearls

Founded in 2004, 10Pearls drives rapid execution through innovative, enterprise-grade digital solutions. As an award-winning software application development company, we serve as a trusted partner, helping businesses scale. This includes enabling businesses to transform themselves through new product development, modernization of their existing enterprise systems, and helping them achieve speed-to-market by augmenting their current technology teams cost efficiently. 10Pearls is proud to have a diverse clientele including large enterprises, small & medium sized businesses, as well as high growth start-ups. Our many long-term, successful partnerships are built upon trust, integrity, and successful delivery and execution. To learn more, visit http://www.10pearls.com.

About AARP

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, with a membership of nearly 38 million that helps people turn their goals and dreams into 'Real Possibilities' by changing the way America defines aging. With staffed offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, AARP works to strengthen communities and promote the issues that matter most to families such as healthcare security, financial security and personal fulfillment. AARP also advocates for individuals in the marketplace by selecting products and services of high quality and value to carry the AARP name. As a trusted source for news and information, AARP produces the worlds largest circulation magazine, AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. AARP does not endorse candidates for public office or make contributions to political campaigns or candidates. To learn more, visit http://www.aarp.org or follow @aarp and our CEO @JoAnn_Jenkins on Twitter.
Student Using HOLcloud for an Online Class We are proud to offer an educational solution that can be used by any student with disabilities regardless of the type and severity of the disability.

Statistically 2 students out of every online class of 25 students need web ADA accommodations. As colleges offer more classes online, not only are they challenged with getting the class online but also with the task of ensuring accessibility. Most higher education institutions are not able to easily meet the need of students with disabilities in an online environment, putting schools at risk for lawsuits and fines. Hands-On Learning (HOL) is now offering a solution that alleviates those challenges and allows students with disabilities a robust online learning experience using HOLcloud.

HOLcloud is the only interactive educational platform that is fully compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0. HOL is committed to creating an equivalent experience for all students by providing content that is accessible anytime, anywhere, and on any device. HOLcloud utilizes a simple, user-friendly interface designed to reduce the educators time spent on non-teaching activities. Thanks to HOLcloud, higher education institutions can now offer online classes that meet all the requirements of web accessibility regulations with confidence. In fact, major universities around the United States have already tested and deployed HOLcloud to ensure WCAG compliance.

HOL is changing the way online education is conceived, consumed and taught throughout the world, said Kevin Melendy, CEO. Now we can provide students with disabilities the same great learning experience as the rest of their peers. HOLcloud allows an entirely new way of delivering content online in a more conducive, intuitive, and engaging way than ever before. We are proud to offer an educational solution that can be used by any student with disabilities regardless of the type and severity of the disability.

Hands-On Learning has been perfecting online education for over 20 years and now offers instructors the opportunity to reclaim their time thanks to unique features such as automatic grading, single sign on, student dashboard, just-in-time teaching, powerful analytics, interactive assessments, and more. HOLclouds tools are designed to save instructor time and were developed with best practices for online teaching in mind.

HOLcloud is available in 11 different disciplines: Allied Health, Anatomy and Physiology, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Environmental Science, Forensic Science, Geology, Microbiology, Physics, and Science Methods. The Hands-On Learning team will be adding additional disciplines in later releases. To learn more about HOLcloud or to schedule a demo, institutions can visit http://www.HOLscience.com/HOLcloud.
The amount of job opportunities within the casino industry has increased as of late, however the market is still extremely competitive." -- Ben Farber, President, Bristol Associates

Bristol Associates (http://www.bristolassoc.com), an executive search firm, today announced the results of its 2016 Casino Gaming Executive Satisfaction Survey. The survey provides feedback from executives concerning their job satisfaction, outlook on the industry, as well as the top employers in the industry. This year, the survey garnered over 1,300 responses from executives nationwide -- the highest number of participants since the surveys inception 16 years ago. Participants represent a sampling of casino and gaming executives from across North America and are diverse in terms of geography, executive responsibilities, years of experience and other meaningful criteria.

Conducted in cooperation with Spectrum Gaming (http://www.spectrumgaming.com), the survey includes rankings of the top 15 Gaming Employers of Choice, assesses Gaming Executive Career Optimism, and measures which regions respondents feel offer the greatest opportunities for advancement.

Highlights from the 2016 Casino Gaming Executive Satisfaction Survey:



Two gaming operators, Seminole Hard Rock (last years favorite) and Penn National (the 2014 front runner) have tied for first place in Employer of First Choice

Base compensation ranks highest in assessing overall job satisfaction

For higher-paid executives, corporate culture and stock grants take precedence over base compensation

Lesser-paid executives are more focused on personal advancement and a presumed goal of a salary increase

Respondents with over five years of experience report a lower rate of job contentment than those with fewer than five years

Weather and location are sacrificed to more important goals of career advancement and a salary increase

Asked to address the chart of weather and location in job satisfaction, Bristol Associates Ben Farber offers a possible explanation:

The amount of job opportunities within the casino industry has increased as of late, however the market is still extremely competitive. As a result, many of the executives we have placed this year have sacrificed weather and lifestyle in order to rise in the ranks and obtain a higher salary.

Click here to see the complete results of the 2016 Casino Gaming Executive Satisfaction Survey.

Methodology:

Gaming industry executives from across the country participated and all individual responses are kept confidential. Spectrum Gaming Group has analyzed the results and published them in a white paper available to subscribers of its Spectrumetrix publications, and participants in the survey will again receive a complimentary copy of the results. Results of the survey can be found at http://www.bristolassoc.com and at http://www.spectrumgaming.com.

About Spectrum Gaming Group:

Spectrum Gaming Group is an independent, full-service international gaming research and professional services firm. Through its staff and global network of affiliates and associates, it employs renowned experts in every facet of the gaming industry, from research to regulation.

About Bristol Associates, Inc.:

Bristol Associates, founded in 1967, has well-established, successful search practices in casino gaming, hotel, restaurant and travel. The Casino Gaming Division finds top executive talent for leading casinos nationally and worldwide. It has successfully completed hundreds of assignments using extensive industry knowledge and a comprehensive database. The experienced casino recruiters include Vice President Steven Kessler and President Ben Farber.
Attorney Brian Simoneau along with Police Civil Rights Attorney Tom Donohue of Brody, Hardoon, Perkings, and Kesten, a Boston, Massachusetts law firm, recently instructed police officials from across Massachusetts regarding use of force, liability reduction, internal affairs investigations, avoiding litigation, and improving outcomes in police lawsuits. Attorney Donohue has defended countless police officers against civil rights violation charges in the United States District Court for the First District of Massachusetts. Attorney Simoneau conducts workplace and internal affairs investigations for Police Departments, private sector employers, and municipalities across Massachusetts.

On Thursday, December 1, 2016, at the annual conference of the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission, held at the Sea Crest Hotel in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Attorneys Simoneau and Donohue explained to attendees how societys expectations of police officers are changing and now the old way of doing things may no longer work. These heightened community expectations and the current anti-police climate has made policing much more complicated and difficult.

Attorney Donohue dispelled myths and misconceptions regarding disorderly conduct charges, un-arresting people, and contempt of cop cases. Conference participants learned how reduce liability through policies, training, and effective supervision. Videos showing pursuits, first amendment issues, and uses of force were viewed and discussed.

Participants learned how to avoid liability and negative outcomes caused by potential issues related to police evidence rooms. Attorney Simoneau discussed on-going issues with evidence rooms in the Braintree, Framingham, Lee, and Springfield, Massachusetts Police Departments.

Framingham Attorney Brian Simoneau, who has fifteen years of experience as a lawyer and twenty-three years of law enforcement experience, presented information regarding current trends in police internal affairs investigations such as rulings on union information requests in workplace investigations as well as how to achieve better outcomes by using outside independent investigators. The selection of the investigator in both workplace and internal affairs investigations is a critical initial step which can have major consequences.

Attorney Brian Simoneau is a regular presenter at the annual Police Accreditation Conference. He has presented on topics such as risk management, law enforcement operations, improving outcomes, labor relations, Massachusetts Civil Service Law, the accreditation process, and implementing best practices. He is the founder of Factfinder, LLC, which is a company devoted to conducting impartial workplace and internal investigations.
Envoy America, a comprehensive senior ride program that offers door-to-door accompanied transportation services for seniors and patients are taking their services a step further. All driver companions with Envoy America will now be offered Dementia/Alzheimers training and certification, after a rigorous education day is completed under the instruction of Jan Dougherty, MS, RN, FAAN, CEO and Founder, TravAlz.

If a person has Alzheimer's or other dementia, it doesn't mean he or she can no longer participate in meaningful activities; but it does require planning to ensure safety and enjoyment for everyone.

Traveling is a complete disruption of routine, which is one of the only stabilizing factors in a Dementia/Alzheimers patients day-to-day life, said Jan Dougherty, CEO and Founder, TravAlz. For someone who is often confused and unaware of their surroundings, travel can be very disorienting and difficult to handle. Envoy Americas driver companions are now trained specifically on how to interact with people with Alzheimers and related dementias. This provides an extension of the healthcare services that allows travel to go as smoothly as possible.

We are so honored to work with Jan Dougherty and the TravAlz team to offer this crucial training for our driver companions to better help people with dementia in the Phoenix Metro Area, said K.C. Kanaan, CEO and co-founder of Envoy America. This is just another example of how our driver companions help those in need of extra assistance beyond simply picking up and dropping someone off at the curb.

About Envoy America

Envoy America is a Scottsdale, Arizona company that operates a ridesharing platform and mobile application that matches seniors and patients that cannot drive or dont want to drive themselves with driver companions. The company leverages smart technology and human compassion to extend the health system outside the home. The service helps seniors and patients stay healthy, independent and socially active  all without getting behind the wheel of a car. The Envoy America service is delivered by driver companions who are 50+ in age and specially trained and certified to provide a helping hand, like a son or daughter would. Call Envoy America at (888) 375-5558 to schedule an appointment. For more information, please visit http://www.envoyamerica.com.

About Trav-Alz

Trav-Alz is a Tempe, Arizona company that provides expert consultation and training to the travel industry promoting dementia friendly solutions to assist people living with memory loss and their families to travel with confidence and success. Prior to launching Trav-Alz, Jan Dougherty, MS, RN, FAAN served as the Family and Community Services Director at Banner Alzheimers Institute in Phoenix, Arizona where she conceived and launched numerous community based innovations to better serve people with dementia and family caregivers. Jan has pioneered unique dementia programs being used in Arizona, nationally and internationally. She is widely recognized for her achievements in the field of aging and dementia care having won numerous awards in addition to being a noted speaker and author in the field of dementia.

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BigHand We are very impressed with the quality of BigHand's speech recognition capabilities and we are already seeing an impact on time saved on transcriptions.

Leading Arizona litigation firm, Jones Skelton & Hochuli, L.L.C., has switched to BigHand Digital Dictation with speech recognition and mobility, to give their attorneys greater flexibility in working remotely and on the go. With over 80 experienced trial lawyers and a robust support staff, the firm needed a solution that could support their busy staff.

Previously, the firm employed digital dictation devices with software from the device manufacturer. Attorneys found this solution very clunky, as uploading dictations when they were away from the office required a complicated upload process via their server. In addition, there was no way to track the status of their submitted dictations to ensure work was received and completed.

In their quest to find a better solution, Mitch Merchant, Director of IT at Jones Skelton & Hochuli, only considered one option: BigHand. Merchant had used BigHand at a previous firm, and was always very satisfied with the technologys capabilities and accompanying customer support. He comments, BigHand was the only solution that could provide us with the robust set of features we were looking for. We wanted our attorneys to be comfortable dictating, regardless of whether they used their smart phone, tablet or a dictation device. We also wanted to give them the flexibility to quickly and seamlessly send their dictations back to the office, no matter where they were working. Also, we are very impressed with the quality of BigHands speech recognition capabilities and we are already seeing an impact on time saved on transcriptions.

BigHand is a leading software technology company with a big difference. Established in 1996, BigHand has developed a range of speech, workflow, document creation and process improvement solutions that help our customers achieve more in less time. BigHand is based in Chicago, Eindhoven, London, Sydney, Temecula and Toronto and currently supports over 280,000 users in 2,550 global organizations.

BigHand is proud to be ISO27001 certified. For more information, visit http://www.bighand.com or follow @BigHandNA on Twitter or BigHand North America on LinkedIn.
The TAMEST ODonnell Awards showcase the best and brightest in Texas research. The work of these researchers meets the highest standards of science, and the paths to their discoveries show immense ingenuity and imagination.

Discovering new clues to natural treatments that could allow our bodies to age better. Inventing new ways to see with lasers whats happening in our brains. And searching for keys to our immune systems by studying parasite-resistant fish. These are the discoveries by Texas rising stars in research being honored with the 2017 Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST).

This years recipients of the ODonnell Awards showcase the best and brightest in Texas research, whose creative work could have a lasting impact on our lives.

The recipients are:

MedicineMeng Wang, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. As humans live longer, Wangs work looks at how to improve our health span in addition to our lifespan. Through her unique studies of worms, she has discovered new genetic and molecular insights into how humans age. Shes also exploring natural compounds to develop therapies that could result in healthier aging. Dr. Wang is a bright, wonderful, passionate scientist, with a curiosity about problems that are really important for general health, says Huda Zoghbi, M.D., professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Through her innovative genetic and technological approaches, shes really provided beautiful insight about some pathways that regulate health and longevity. Shes discovered a totally independent way to affect life span.

EngineeringAndrew Dunn, Ph.D., professor and director of the center for emerging imaging technologies at The University of Texas at Austin, has developed technology that allows us to see things we havent seen before in the human brain. Through his laser speckle imaging technique, we can now see blood flowing in the brain in real time, allowing us to see where clots are forming. This allows neurosurgeons to easily identify areas suffering from reduced blood flow and prevent strokes. He has developed this magnificent laboratory and exceptional research. Hes been able to use advanced optical techniques to really see the very early stages of clots in the brain. This was not possible before he started working on it, says Nicholas Peppas, Sc.D., Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering No. 6, Family Chair for Department Leadership No. 1 and Professor of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.

ScienceDaniel Bolnick, Ph.D., professor of integrative biology at The University of Texas at Austin, has deepened our understanding of how evolution and ecology intersect. His work often takes him out in the natural world, including yearly trips to Canada to study parasite resistance in fish. By understanding how some fish are resistant to parasites, we could achieve a better understanding of our own immune systems, which could lead to better treatments for everything from allergies to Crohns Disease. Its this synthesis of ecology and evolution thats enabled him to open up a whole new area. This environment hes created for himself is really rich and ripe for the possibilities of discovery, says Daniel Jaffe, Ph.D., vice president for research at The University of Texas at Austin. Hes really broken new ground across a very broad field that has a lot of impact.

Each year, the Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards recognize the next generation of Texas researchers making our world a better place, says TAMEST President David Russell, vice provost & dean of basic research at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The work of these researchers meets the highest standards of science, and the paths to their discoveries show immense ingenuity and imagination. TAMEST is proud to recognize David Bolnick, Andrew Dunn and Meng Wang for their achievements.

Over $1 million has been awarded to 47 recipients in the categories of medicine, engineering, science and technology innovation since the inception of the O'Donnell awards. The awards are named in honor of Edith and Peter ODonnell, who are among Texas staunchest advocates for excellence in scientific advancement and STEM education.

The recipients will be honored during the ODonnell Awards Dinner in San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday, January 11, 2017, at the TAMEST Annual Conference, Building a Sustainable Future for Texas. The conference will examine big picture, long-term issues facing Texas and ideas and solutions that will help guide Texas through the next century, with a focus on key issues like energy, health, water and transportation. Building a Sustainable Future for Texas takes place Tuesday, January 1012, 2017, at the Westin Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas. Media are encouraged to attend.

Interviews with ODonnell Award recipients are available.

About TAMEST:

The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) was founded in 2004 to provide broader recognition of the states top achievers in medicine, engineering and science, and to further position Texas as a national research leader. TAMEST also aims to foster the next generation of scientists and to increase the awareness and communication among the states best and brightest about research priorities for the future.

TAMESTs membership represents Texas best researchers from both industry and academia. TAMEST is composed of more than 280 Texas-based members of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the states nine Nobel Laureates.
Community and clinician engagement through events like the Health IT Leadership Summit are a priority for CMS as they help facilitate both collaboration and education, Slavitt said.

Healthcare leaders from across Georgia will discuss healthcare innovation and the impact of new federal healthcare regulations at the 7th annual Health IT Leadership Summit, to be held Wed., Dec. 7 at the Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta.

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), will be the morning keynote speaker at the summit, which brings together leaders from across the healthcare continuum to discuss how the industry can drive innovations that enable better healthcare delivery at lower costs to more people.

As acting administrator, Slavitt oversees programs that provide access to quality health care for 140 million Americans, including Medicaid, Medicare, the Childrens Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace. Slavitt and the CMS team are focused on improving quality, health outcomes, access and affordability while addressing health equity and protecting program integrity, including combating health care fraud.

Slavitt will kick off the morning program with a legislative update and discussions around the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), establishing new ways to pay physicians for Medicare beneficiaries.

Community and clinician engagement through events like the Health IT Leadership Summit are a priority for CMS as they help facilitate both collaboration and education, Slavitt said. We look forward discussing the MACRA Final Rule with the thought leaders in attendance on December 7th.

Tim Gronniger, deputy chief of staff, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will join Slavitt in a MACRA update.

In the afternoon, Cory Wiegert, VP, Offering Management of IBM Watson Health, will address New Insights to the Healthcare Ecosystem: Driving Value Around the End Consumer.

Wiegert is the Offering Management executive for the Value Based Care portfolio of products in IBMs Watson Health business unit. In this role, he is responsible for product strategy, design and delivery of the offerings focused on solutions which help healthcare organizations with their transformation to a focus on quality and outcome based delivery. With over 20 years of success product management experience in enterprise software and analytics applications, he brings a unique perspective on how technology which transformed other industries can be applied to accelerate the transformation in healthcare.

The Health IT Leadership Summit was created in 2010 by the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDED), the Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC), and the Technology Association of Georgias Health Society (TAG Health).

Proceeds from the event will go to support the Institute for Healthcare Information Technology (IHIT), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare through the advancement of technology and education in Georgia.

Many local healthcare providers, technology companies and educational organizations are involved in sponsoring this years Summit. Among them is the Atlanta Technology Development Center (ATDC).

"ATDC is proud to be a sponsor of this year's Health IT Leadership Summit to help showcase what our companies and others in the sector are doing to advance and improve the quality of healthcare," said Jane McCracken, ATDCs healthcare catalyst. "As Georgia's technology incubator, ATDC works with entrepreneurs to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed. The companies in our ATDC Signature and ATDC Accelerate portfolios span a broad range of technologies including healthcare IT, biotech, medical device, and diagnostics companies."

About the Health IT Leadership Summit

Now in its 7th year, the Summit brings together leaders from across the healthcare continuum to discuss how the industry can drive innovation to enable better healthcare delivery at lower costs to more people. Supported by a founding partnership that includes the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Technology Association of Georgias Health Society, the event will offer attendees a full day of informational sessions, innovative exhibits and networking opportunities centered around the theme of Connecting HealthcareMaking IT Work for You. Key presentation topics will focus on interoperability, IT security, clinical applications and funding. To learn more about this years Summit  including information regarding sponsorship and registration, visit http://healthitleadershipsummit.com/. Follow us on Twitter @HealthITSummit.
Student success is our highest priority at Career Step, and providing excellent curriculum is a vital part of helping our students develop the skills they need to succeed.

Career Step, an online provider of career-focused education and professional training, has enhanced its Pharmacy Technician course offering to meet American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) requirements. Accordingly, the program has been submitted for ASHP accreditation. In conjunction with the updates, Career Step has renewed its partnership with Paradigm, whose content is aligned with the ASHP Model 4 curriculum. These changes will improve the educational experience and allow students to excel in their chosen career as a pharmacy technician.

We have increased our hours from 285 to 600 in order to expand our program and enrich the preparation of our students, said Jerolyn Robertson, Career Step Vice President of Academics. We now include more simulations and have added 200 hours of required externship, which means our students will be well prepared to move into their career upon graduation.

The Career Step Pharmacy Technician training program covers pharmacology, pharmacy law, prescriptions, nonsterile compounding and additional material, to prepare students for the field. The course incorporates feedback from employers and prepares students to take the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) Exam upon graduation. The opportunity to participate in a local externship though Walgreens or CVS Pharmacy is also an option in most areas across the U.S., making it easier for students to fulfill their required externship.

Student success is our highest priority at Career Step, and providing excellent curriculum is a vital part of helping our students develop the skills they need to succeed, said Laurie McBrierty, Career Step Vice President of Product Management. These updates ensure that we keep pace with industry trends, standards and accreditations.

For more information on Career Steps Pharmacy Technician program, visit CareerStep.com/pharmacy-technician-careers or call 1-800-246-7837.

About Career Step

Career Step is an online provider of career-focused education and professional training. The company has trained over 100,000 students for new careers as well as more than 100,000 healthcare professionals through its various continuing education courses. More than 150 colleges and universities nationwide have partnered with Career Step, and the company provides training for several of the largest and most respected healthcare employers in the nation. Career Step is committed to helping students and practicing healthcare professionals alike gain the skills they need to be successful in the workplaceimproving lives, advancing careers and driving business results through education. More information can be found at http://www.careerstep.com or 1-800-246-7836.
BlenderConnect for Travel finally gives travel destinations a means to get their information and offers into the hands of consumers and engage with them on their terms. - Neil Sterling, President and CEO of SRG Technology

SRG Technology (SRGT), developer of cutting-edge software solutions, announced today that it has signed a contract with British Virgin Islands (BVI) based NorthStar Consulting for SRGTs BlenderConnect for Travel to provide marketing and engagement technology for the Caribbean.

Utilizing SRGTs Blender technology platform, BlenderConnect for Travel focuses on visitor engagement and outreach to provide the framework for the travel and tourism industry giving visitors travel content and information based on their profile and interests.

BlenderConnect for Travel will provide the Caribbean with the capability to better manage and engage visitors, and better market their destinations to their target customers. It will give visitors and consumers the ability to create a profile and register their interests to receive content and information relevant to them  putting consumers, for the first time, in charge of creating their own unique travel experience. Additionally, it will give visitors the ability to complete the required Immigration Entry documents online.

BlenderConnect for Travel finally gives travel destinations a means to get their information and offers into the hands of consumers and engage with them on their terms, said Neil Sterling, SRGTs President and CEO. By connecting travelers and tourism bureaus directly, travelers can make their voices and needs heard, and tourism bureaus will be able to respond and communicate directly with them. Its a win-win.

We are thrilled to sign this deal with NorthStar for the Caribbean, said Sterling. We worked closely with NorthStar to incorporate their insight and experience in destination marketing to ensure the product took into account the needs of tourism bureaus and their destinations. With its variety of unique destinations, the Caribbean is hot spot for tourism and an ideal place to use our technology. We know that using BlenderConnect for Travel will improve visitor engagement and help Caribbean tourism bureaus get the right information to visitors to make their visit an exceptional experience.

Mike Stone, SRGTs VP of New Markets and a long time travel industry expert, is enthusiastic about the impact BlenderConnect will have in the travel marketplace. We foresee this having a huge impact and benefit for the travel industry, beginning with the Caribbean, said Stone. This partnership is just the beginning of improving the way travel is marketed across the globe.

Kedrick Malone, President of NorthStar Consulting and former Director of Tourism for the British Virgin Islands, agrees. The use of BlenderConnect for Travel to engage with and respond to what travelers are looking for and are actually interested in is going to improve destinations relationship with visitors in ways that will dramatically improve their travel experiences and the face of destination marketing for years to come. I am particularly excited about the ability to complete Immigration Entry Cards in advance as this has the potential to significantly enhance the speed and ease of entry as destinations embrace this capability.

For more information about SRG Technology and BlenderConnect for Travel, please visit http://www.srgtech.com.

About SRG Technology

Founded in 2007, SRG Technology developed Blender  a suite of cutting-edge software solutions designed to drive performance improvements through enhanced data collection and analysis; personalized recommendations; and the creation of individualized action plans. SRG Technology is focused on elevating performance, increasing productivity and ultimately improving end-user outcomes in education with BlenderLearn; healthcare with TopCare powered by Blender; geo-positional situational awareness and security with BlenderRM; and consumer engagement and outreach with BlenderConnect. SRGT is poised to set the benchmark for innovative, disruptive technology solutions that elevate performance, increase productivity, and make a difference in our daily lives through engagement.

About NorthStar Consulting

NorthStar Consulting helps individuals, businesses and governments achieve success by providing services in strategic planning, management consulting, marketing, public relations, policy development, organizational development and business development. NorthStar focuses on enhancing the visitor experience and hospitality development; reforming the public sector and developing governmental policy; helping SMEs to develop and expand; and helping organizations to improve efficiency and effectiveness. NorthStar blends local and international resources, expertise and experience to help local and international clients succeed.
For the next three years, Achieve3000 and the MCSD will work together to accelerate learning and put more students on track for college and career success.

After successfully implementing Achieve3000s literacy solutions in 13 of the districts lowest-performing Title I elementary, middle and high schools, Muscogee County School District (MCSD) in Columbus, Georgia, will expand its implementation to include 21 additional schools. Participating schools will receive Achieve3000s 24/7 differentiated, blended instruction for students, teaching resources and blended professional development for educators, real-time data dashboard for administrators, and robust home support for parents and guardians.

For the next three years, Achieve3000 and the MCSD will work together to accelerate learning and put more students on track for college and career success, said David F. Lewis, Ed.D., Superintendent of Education, Muscogee County School District. Students who participated in our districts Achieve3000 pilot program as recommended realized significant overall Lexile gains that allowed us to accelerate their literacy instruction. As a result, our district expanded the use of Acieve3000 to schools throughout our district this school year.

Over the 2015-16 school year, students who worked with Achieve3000s literacy solutions, KidBizPro for grades 2-5, TeenBizPro for grades 6-8, and EmpowerPro for grades 9-12 (Pro) saw significant literacy gains. Schools where students completed at least 40 reading activities (on average once per week) with the Achieve3000 Pro Georgia Edition saw the greatest growth, outperforming schools that werent using Achieve3000 by an average of 74 Lexile points. Schools where students completed less than 40 activities also saw improved literacy gains, more so than non-using schools, exceeding the latter by an average of 14 points.

In addition, a July 30 story in the areas local newspaper, the Ledge-Enquirer, reported that MCSD outperformed the three other districts in Georgias second-tier cities on the 2015 and 2016 Georgia Milestones Assessment System. MCSD narrowed the gap between its test scores and the state averages on 12 tests this year:



third-grade English language arts, science, and social studies

fourth-grade science and social studies

fifth-grade English language arts, math, science, and social studies

seventh-grade science

eighth-grade social studies

high school biology

Except for fifth-grade math, those tests covered areas in which MCSD uses Pro solutions, which are designed for English language arts, science, and social studies classrooms with a mix of student abilities or diverse student populations. MCSDs Pro Georgia Edition is further customized to support mastery of Georgias grade-level standards and give students regular and targeted practice for the Georgia Milestones assessments.

We are very excited to partner with a district as dedicated to 21st-century learning and student success as Muscogee County School District, said Saki Dodelson, CEO and founder of Achieve3000. We share their commitment to improving literacy achievement for all learners. By meeting kids at their precise reading level at 12 levels in English and 7 in Spanish, our blended, differentiated instruction solutions help all students accelerate their reading growth and get on track for college and career success. Its been proven that students who use our solutions regularly make double to triple the expected reading gains in a single school year. Were looking forward to collaborating with the innovative educators at Muscogee County Schools to meet and exceed their literacy goals for every student in the years to come.

The Muscogee County School District, which serves approximately 32,000 students, is located in Central Georgia Region. Under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. David Lewis, the district is in the middle of a five-year strategic plan to improve reading and literacy, numeracy, science and social studies skills while actively engaging students and teachers. The plan started in 2012, when the district began to develop a comprehensive academic model that prepares every student for the demands of the 21st-century work force.

An integral part of the districts plan is Achieve3000s Pro literacy solutions. By differentiating the same grade-appropriate content at 12 reading levels in English and seven in Spanish, and providing robust scaffolds for struggling students and English language learners, Pro extends teachers reach without increasing workloads or time demands. At the same time, Achieve3000s proprietary adaptive content system continually monitors each students reading performance and automatically increases the level of text complexity when it detects that an individual is ready for more challenge, steadily moving students up level by level. In addition, because Achieve3000s solutions are cloud-based, students can use their digital devices to access Pro anytime and anywhere  even without an Internet connection.

Pro offers a library of more than 10,000 nonfiction science and social studies lessons. Each lesson delivers students the grade-level disciplinary knowledge and academic vocabulary they need to succeed across the entire curriculum, tailored to each students precise reading level. Lessons give students unmatched access to content-area instruction by providing both a high-interest article on a contemporary topic and an academic background text to unlock understanding, all written at a students individual Lexile reading level. Students then stretch their skills by reading a version of the same lesson written with grade-level text complexity, building the stamina and strength they need for the Georgia Milestones assessments. Plus, with new lessons added weekly, the programs standards-aligned strategic curriculum gives educators both the content-area topics and literacy scaffolds needed to help students with reading strategy development, building the academic vocabulary, critical-thinking skills, and evidence-based writing abilities needed for college and career readiness.

We have a long-standing track record of accelerating reading gains for all students, said Dodelson. This marks our 15th school year in meeting kids one-on-one, at their individual reading levels, and preparing them for college and career success. Were thrilled that Muscogee County district leaders have expanded the use of Achieve3000 so we can continue to show the positive and dramatic impact our solutions have on student learning outcomes.

About Achieve3000, Inc.

Achieve3000 is the leader in online differentiated literacy instruction, serving over two million students worldwide. For nearly 15 years, the company has been reaching students at their individual reading levels to deliver significant learning gains, with many making double to triple the expected gains in a single school year. Based on decades of scientific research, Achieve3000s solutions  Smarty Ants (for grades PreK-1), KidBiz3000 (for grades 2-5), TeenBiz3000 (for grades 6-8), Empower3000 (for grades 9-12), Spark3000 (for adult learners), and eScience3000 (for grades 6-8)  support core curriculum, Response to Intervention, English language learner, and special education instructional models as well as 21st-century education initiatives. From learning how to read to workforce readiness, Achieve3000 empowers all learners to develop the college and career literacy skills needed for academic, professional, and personal success. The company is based in Lakewood, N.J. Learn more about Achieve3000 online at http://www.achieve3000.com or by calling 888-968-6822.

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Hot Dogs on the Grill Hot dogs taste great because of their ingredients and we want people to know what is used to make them and why.

Of the variety of ingredients in the food supply, few spark more rumor and speculation than the ingredients in a hot dog. But contrary to common beliefs that hot dogs include everything but the oink, todays wieners are made from exactly what is listed in the ingredients statement on the package. Ingredients combined with meat and poultry in a hot dog recipe can add flavor, keep hot dogs moist and juicy, delay spoilage, and perhaps most importantly, enhance food safety.

In an effort to provide more information and transparency, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) developed a new Hot Dog Ingredients Guide which details the role each ingredient may play in a hot dog. The guide is searchable to allow users to easily find ingredients they see listed on their favorite package of hot dogs.

Hot dogs taste great because of their ingredients and we want people to know what is used to make them and why, said NHDSC President Eric Mittenthal. Each manufacturer has its own recipes, but as consumers seek more information about their food, the guide will be a helpful tool to better understand hot dogs and how they are made.

The guide also includes descriptions of common terms consumers might find on packages such as uncured, natural casing, hormone free or organic.

The guide complements the NHDSCs resources on how hot dogs are made including a video showing the process from start to finish inside a meat plant. The guide is available at http://www.hot-dog.org along with many other resources about hot dogs and sausages including consumption statistics, history, fun facts and a restaurant guide.
The Chanticleer model home at The Orchards  a collection of single-family homes within the master-planned AURA community. With our roots here in southern New Jersey, it is a privilege to be part of the BLSJ and to continue to grow our presence in this expanding homebuilding market, said Michael Canuso of Canuso Homes.

Canuso Homes was recently honored at the 2016 MAME Awards dinner held at Luciens Manor in Berlin, NJ. The builder took home 10 MAME Awards, including 2016 Community of the Year for The Orchards at AURA located within the master-planned AURA community in Elk Township, NJ, as well as one MERIT Award.

The event, presented by the Sales and Marketing Council of the Builders League of South Jersey (BLSJ), recognizes the best of the best in over 150 categories among builders, remodelers and associates who have displayed excellent sales and marketing efforts in the previous year. With our roots here in southern New Jersey, it is a privilege to be part of the BLSJ and to continue to grow our presence in this expanding homebuilding market, said Michael Canuso of Canuso Homes.

In addition to Community of the Year, Canuso Homes also took home the following MAME Awards for The Orchards at Aura: Best Brochure, Best Sales Center, Best Design Center, Best Landscaping Design (The Chanticleer), Best Signage, Best Interior Merchandising (The Chanticleer), Best Architectural Product Design (The Chanticleer), Best Kitchen Design (The Chanticleer) and Best Master Bath Design (The Chanticleer). Canuso Homes also received a MERIT Award for Best Use of Social Media.

We are truly honored to receive recognition for these projects, said Canuso. We are thankful for our sales and marketing team, as well as the BLSJ for acknowledging our hard work and dedication to homebuilding. We would also like to extend our thanks to our dedicated staff, construction crews, Josephs Landscaping and supporters.

The Orchards at AURA is a new collection of single-family homes located within the master-planned AURA community by Canuso Homes. Building on the award-winning Canuso tradition, all homes at The Orchards at AURA are designed and built with vision, outstanding quality and with your family in mind, according to Canuso. Each home design can accommodate Canusos Home within a Home option, allowing additional private living quarters for those who want to be close just not that close! he said. We achieve a wow factor in our homes by providing spaces that are built to suit families of all lifestyles and smart designs that maximize the surrounding landscape. Were dedicated to living up to our self-proclaimed adage: WOW! is back.

Situated among Gloucester Countys farms and orchards, The Orchards at AURA is located within an easy commute of South Jersey commerce centers and only 14 miles to Center City Philadelphia. Rowan University offers cultural and intellectual opportunities nearby, and suburban conveniences are available minutes away along Delsea Drive.

Those interested are encouraged to visit the Orchards Sales Center, which is open daily from 11am to 6pm and located at 105 Cortland Boulevard in Glassboro, NJ. To learn more, visit OrchardsatAura.com.

About Canuso Communities

Canuso Communities is the Delaware Valleys premier master plan developer. Dedicated to the principles of family and community, Canuso has developed and produced over 100 residential neighborhoods and more than 750,000 sq. ft. of office and retail space.

About Canuso Homes

Canuso Homes, a family business for 50 years, is the premier home builder in South Jersey. Dedicated to the principles of family and community, Canuso Homes has developed and produced over 7,000 homes in over 100 communities. To learn more, visit http://www.canuso.net.

About AURA

AURA is a master planned community by Canuso Communities located in Elk Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey. Canuso Communities has attracted an appealing mix of national and regional builders to the community, offering everything from value-oriented first homes and luxury move-up designs to multi-generation homes, townhomes and apartment living opportunities. To learn more, visit http://www.auranj.com.
Brian Cushing Presents Stars in the Classroom Honor to Spring Branch ISD Teachers It's obviously their passion and for students to be that in tune with just writing in and letting us know that this means that much to them. It's a big deal

Tuesday, November 29th, Spring Branch ISD teachers Lorenza Garay and Danielle Potts were honored as Stars in the Classroom by First Community Credit Union, FCCU and the Houston Texans. Linebacker Brian Cushing visited their school, Ridgecrest Elementary, to present the teachers and nominating students with prizes and a $500 donation to their school district.

"It's obviously their passion and for students to be that in tune with just writing in and letting us know that this means that much to them. It's a big deal," Cushing said.

During the ceremony Brian had a Q&A session with the students. He stressed the importance of staying in school and shared his educational experience with them. The students were beyond excited to have a Houston Texans player in their school.

Stars in the Classroom is a partnership between FCCU and the Houston Texans that honors 10 teachers all over Houston for making a difference at their schools. Students nominate their teacher and talk about why they have been an important figure in their lives. This year, Stars in the Classroom received around 400 nominations. Nominations are currently closed, but will open again in August 2017.

Click2Houston Presentation Coverage: http://bit.ly/2gvhUb3

About the Stars in the Classroom Program

First Community Credit Union began as a credit union for teachers in1954 and has been an avid supporter of education ever since. Stars in the Classroom was founded in order to honor and say thanks to just some of the many teachers who have a positive impact on their students every day. Employees of FCCU are deeply rooted in many Houston-area school districts and volunteer on various committees in Spring Branch ISD and Alief ISD. For more information about Stars in the Classroom and First Community Credit Union, please visit FCCU.org or texanschecking.com.
This momentous occasion serves as a celebration of Avameres 21-year history of helping people achieve quality healthcare outcomes.

The Avamere Family of Companies will celebrate the grand opening of its latest transitional care facility  Avamere Transitional Care of Puget Sound; located at 630 S Pearl Street, Tacoma, WA 98465. The 39,936 square foot short-term, post-acute health care center will provide patients recovering from illness or injury with intensive skilled nursing and rehabilitation services. Much like other Avamere transitional care facilities, Avamere Transitional Care of Puget Sound will focus on returning the people they serve back to the community where they can continue enjoying the things they love most.

Avamere is focused on living out our mission to enhance the life of every person we serve, says Gary Wart, President of Avamere Health Services. Were very excited to offer residents of Pierce and King Counties a brand new post-acute facility that is designed to help them during some of lifes most physically and emotionally challenging times.

Avamere Transitional Care of Puget Sound features 60 private rooms and one of the largest therapy gyms Avamere has ever built. The building will add approximately 110 jobs to the community and serve an estimated 1,250 patients annually.

The Avamere Family of Companies currently operates several skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilitates throughout the Tacoma area. In 2014, construction on an extensive remodel for Avamere at Pacific Ridge was completed. The 102-bed healthcare center is designed to give some of Washingtons most vulnerable seniors with psychiatric conditions, dementia, and other forms of cognitive impairment a comfortable community where they have autonomy and access to specific healthcare services.

We are excited to open Avamere Transitional Care of Puget Sound to the public and begin admitting patients, says Patricia McDonald, Administrator. This momentous occasion serves as a celebration of Avameres 21-year history of helping people achieve quality healthcare outcomes through our advance care planning practices, data-driven therapy outcome measures and commitment to reducing unnecessary re-hospitalizations through working with our community healthcare partners."

The grand opening ceremony for Avamere Transitional Care at Puget will be held on December 7, 2016 from 11:00 AM  2:00 PM at 630 S Pearl Street, Tacoma, WA 98465.

About the Avamere Family of Companies

Founded in 1995 and based in Wilsonville, Oregon, the Avamere Family of Companies began as a single nursing facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. Today, the Avamere Family operates nearly 50 Independent Living, Assisted Living, Transitional Care and Skilled Nursing facilities, over 8,200 employees, and includes multiple ancillary healthcare companies that provide services including inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, home care, home health, hospice, palliative care, and primary care. For more information, please visit http://www.avamere.com.
ProMIS Neurosciences (ProMIS or the Company), a company focused on discovery and development of precision treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, today announced the validated monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapeutic candidates it is developing for Alzheimers disease (AD) inhibited the direct neurotoxic effect of prion-like forms of Amyloid beta (A) in vitro.

We previously demonstrated that the mAb therapeutic candidates ProMIS is developing display the optimal target profile of selectively binding prion-like forms of A and inhibiting their propagation (spreading), stated Dr. Neil Cashman, ProMIS Chief Scientific Officer. We have now achieved another important milestone by demonstrating that these mAb therapeutic candidates are also capable of inhibiting the direct neurotoxic effects of prion-like forms of A.

The neuroprotective effect of ProMIS mAb therapeutic candidates was investigated using cultures of mouse primary cortical neurons (nerve cells from brain cortex). Incubating the neurons with prion-like forms of A results in significant neuronal death, which was largely prevented by the addition of the ProMIS mAb therapeutic candidates to the cultures.

These results offer additional support to our approach in developing AD therapeutics, as inhibition of both neurotoxicity and propagation of prion-like forms of A are critical features of an effective AD therapeutic, commented Dr. Elliot Goldstein, ProMIS CEO. ProMIS is using its mAb candidates to evaluate the prevalence in cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, of the various targets the Company has identified on prion-like forms of A. Results of this cohort study of CSF samples from AD patients, expected in the first quarter of 2017, are expected to inform on the final selection of mAb therapeutic candidates to advance into development for clinical trials.

About ProMIS Neurosciences, Inc.

The mission of ProMIS Neurosciences is to discover and develop precision medicine therapeutics for effective treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimers disease and ALS.

ProMIS Neurosciences proprietary target discovery engine is based on the use of two, complementary techniques. The Company applies its thermodynamic, computational discovery platformProMIS and Collective Coordinates  to predict novel targets known as Disease Specific Epitopes (DSEs) on the molecular surface of misfolded proteins. Using this unique "precision medicine" approach, ProMIS Neurosciences aims to develop novel antibody therapeutics and specific companion diagnostics for Alzheimers disease and ALS. The company has also developed two proprietary technologies to specifically identify very low levels of misfolded proteins in a biological sample. In addition, ProMIS Neurosciences owns a portfolio of therapeutic and diagnostic patents relating to misfolded SOD1 in ALS,

and currently has a preclinical monoclonal antibody therapeutic against this target.

The TSX has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This information release may contain certain forward-looking information. Such information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by statements herein, and therefore these statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. All forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to it as well as other factors. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified by the Company in its public securities filings, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information please consult the Company's website at:

http://www.promisneurosciences.com

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NATIONAL Equicom

Michael Moore Abby Garfunkel

Tel. 858-886-7813 Tel. 403-218-2887

mmoore(at)national.ca agarfunkel(at)national.ca

or contact

Dr. Elliot Goldstein

President and Chief Executive Officer, ProMIS Neurosciences Inc.

Tel. 415 341-5783

Elliot.goldstein(at)promisneurosciences.com
Gorilla-Snot was applied to create a surface crust covering 320 acres of the problem area closest to the freeway. The success of the San Simon project is further proof of just how durable and weather resistant our products prove to be for our clients.

Six months after successfully treating one of Arizonas biggest dust mitigation problems in recent years, Soilworks, the worldwide leader in dust control and soil stabilization, says the environmentally safe Gorilla-Snot has successfully withstood months of harsh weather conditions along I-10 in San Simon, Ariz.

In May 2016, parts of a 60-mile section of I-10 near San Simon were repeatedly shut down because of dangerous traffic stopping dust storms from farmland adjacent to the highway. The dust storms caused numerous accidents and were deemed a major safety hazard by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ).

To solve the problem, ADEQ turned to Soilworks, purchasing its environmentally safe Gorilla-Snot to spray the 320 acres of farmland with dust suppressant. Soilworks guaranteed the dust control product would successfully hold for six months after application.

Gorilla-Snot stood up to the extreme monsoon and wind conditions. San Simon traditionally experiences high rain fall over the months of July and August and this year was no exception. According to theWeatherChannel.com, San Simon had an average rainfall of approximately two inches each month, significant since most dust control products are water soluble.

One of the hallmarks of our products is the ability to withstand tough weather conditions that other products just cant match, said Chad Falkenberg, the founder of Soilworks, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz. The success of the San Simon project is further proof of just how durable and weather resistant our products prove to be for our clients.

Prior to using Gorilla-Snot, ADEQ was spraying untreated water on the land, spending upwards of $30,000 per day to quell the dust during daylight hours.

Ultimately, the application of water did not succeed, due to the high evaporation rate experienced in the desert heat, requiring constant re-application.

By contrast, Gorilla-Snot is a synthetically produced co-polymer that forms a three-dimensional cap that suppresses the soil particulates and keeps dust from creating dust storms, Falkenberg said. Gorilla-Snot is water insoluble and doesnt evaporate in the heat or dissolve in the rain. Those characteristics are now keeping Arizona drivers safe when they travel through San Simon.

For more information about Soilworks, please visit http://www.soilworks.com.

About Soilworks

Soilworks provides engineered solutions to meet the broad needs of the dust control and soil stabilization industry. Whether the market is commercial, industrial or military, Soilworks has the innovative tools, unmatched technical support, and environmentally friendly technologies to fulfill specific requirements. Soilworks performance-driven portfolio of industry-leading products include the Patented U.S. Dept. of Defense Surtac, Soiltac, Powdered Soiltac, Gorilla-Snot and the newly patented Durasoil. Soilworks international sales network, global distribution centers and integrated customer service provide an ideal platform to satisfy all its customers needs. Get to know Soilworks better at http://www.soilworks.com or call 1-800-545-5420.
Our cloud-based option was created in response to marketplace demand by Higher Education and K12 customers needing software, infrastructure and managed services securely in the cloud - Softdocs' VP of Corporate Strategy Andrew Daniel

Giving education-focused customers increased access to content management, electronic forms and process automation solutions, Softdocs today announced the availability of its entire Etrieve platform via a cloud-based deployment model. Etrieve Cloud enables access to all Etrieve components including Etrieve Content, a robust content management solution, Etrieve Forms, web-based forms, and Etrieve Flow, its intuitive workflow engine.

Our cloud-based option was created in response to marketplace demand by Higher Education and K12 customers needing software, infrastructure and managed services securely in the cloud, said Andrew Daniel, VP of Corporate Strategy, Softdocs. With the full platform now available on-premise or in the cloud, institutions can pick the deployment option that works best for their budget, resource and operational needs.

Etrieve Cloud customers will benefit from seamless integration between leading ERP solutions, as well as other critical business and student information systems. Both Etrieve Cloud and on-premise solutions are fully browser-based and device agnostic.

The announcement of Etrieve Cloud follows the recent release of Softdocs Etrieve Forms Builder, an extension to the next generation, browser-based Etrieve Forms solution. Forms Builder allows institutions to easily create, modify and deploy mobile-ready, dynamic HTML forms for students and employees to access, track and complete from any device.

The Etrieve platform offers ERP-integrated applications that store and organize content, as well as redefine common business processes, reducing the need for paper and improving productivity across the entire organization. For more information, please visit softdocs.com.

About Softdocs:

Softdocs develops enterprise content management, e-forms and process automation solutions exclusively for the higher education and K-12 markets. The companys Etrieve platform redefines business processes, reducing the need for paper and improving student service and employee productivity by providing educational institutions complete control over how content is captured, processed and distributed. A privately held company founded in 1998, Softdocs is headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.softdocs.com.

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Create specialized groups based on the tasks at hand "We expect more IoT innovator projectswith excellent ideasthrough the HWTrek ecosystem. Softbank is helping IoT startups to enter the Japanese market through our +Style platform." Jack Akita, responsible for the +Style Partner Alliance at Softbank.

HWTrek (Hardware Trek), the global open innovation and collaboration platform for hardware creation, today announces a major update to its platform that adds cloud-based collaboration features to improve IoT manufacturing supply chain visibility and transparency  vertically, up and down the supply chain  and increase efficiency, enabling more effective communication between hardware developers and supply chain partners that constitute a multi-member project team on the platform.

The IoT market is expected to reach $1.7 trillion in 2020, up from $655.8 billion in 2014 according to IDC. Meanwhile, the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry including electronics original design services (ODM) should expect revenues of $505 billion in 2019. New Venture Research estimates that total electronics assembly value was $1.3 trillion in 2015 and will grow to approximately $1.6 trillion in 2020. The source of innovation is shifting to small and medium-sized businesses in these industries due to the barriers of communication and collaboration between hardware developers and the global manufacturing and supply chain.

With the integration of professional network (expert ecosystem community) and productivity software (collaboration tools) in the latest iteration of its enterprise, B2B platform, HWTrek is disrupting the traditional hardware design and development, and electronics supply chain model and rewiring the supply chain from centers of manufacturing such as China and Japan to the rest of the world.

"HWTrek bridges us to the right innovators based on our sales request and technical capabilities, facilitates our communication with various projects, and provides support from relevant supply chain partners, stated Hunter Huang, Senior Program Manager at Flex. Such collaboration with HWTrek leads to successful product deliveries."

HWTreks integrated enterprise B2B service platform and tools for hardware development assist hardware innovators to more effectively leverage HWTreks market-leading multi-billion dollar, global hardware community of 1,900+ design, manufacturing, and supply chain experts offering resources and services including more than 900 solutions and programs tailored to accelerate product development, project management, and go-to-market.

The HWTrek Project Development Hub (the Hub) platform and collaboration tools help to connect the dots virtually between hardware developers and the supply chain, other resources, and services for the entire lifecycle of a product from ideation to manufacturing, and retail to delighted customers.

"We expect more IoT innovator projectswith excellent ideasthrough the HWTrek ecosystem," said Jack Akita, responsible for the +Style Partner Alliance at Softbank. "Softbank is helping IoT startups to enter the Japanese market. Our goal is distributing their products to big scale businesses through the Softbank group. We are helping their distribution and marketing in the Japanese market through our +Style platform."

The new collaboration features include:



Group-based problem solving and task management - create groups to resolve issues, facilitate communications and task assignments within your internal and partner project team

To-do list - collects all messages in need of urgent attention

Exclusive, unique contact list - track partners and team members, frequent contacts, and potential collaborators

Work stored in a central location - all essential project documents, pictures, videos, presentations, and any other materials in single location

Document timestamping - ensures that your team is using the latest version

The HWTrek platform is very useful to find partners and experts from various fields. A very useful feature is to invite experts, like the HWTrek team, to join the group conversation and help to evaluate potential partners and companies, said Luka Mali, Co-founder & CTO at Ulla Labs. Were looking for an EMS/OEM partner as well as an ODM/JDM partner to help us redesign the product and help us on the new generation of products. Due to the high demand and production quantities over 100K units per year, our business model is not sustainable if we keep production in Europe. We found several experts that are interested in our product. These provide various sensors and connectivity modules. HWTrek helped to narrow the selection of partners from few hundred to just a couple of the most suitable ones. The final decision is left to the creators and HWTrek team doesn't influence this decision and this I think is the most important part to provide the long-term sustainability of the whole hardware ecosystem.

HWTreks cloud-based, collaborative Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is the first global, complete end-to-end hardware development ecosystema one-stop shopfor IoT hardware innovators collaboratively working to manage their product development, connect with manufacturing and supply chain industry experts, and bring their connected device projects to market.

HWTrek now connects more than 9,000 hardware creators that have created 2,500 projects on the platform to 1,900 trusted manufacturing and supply chain industry experts from Shenzhen, Taiwan, and Japan to rest of the worldfrom tier 1 ODMs to small, skilled design houseswho have developed unique programs and solutions to assist the creators at all stages of product development. More than 3,000 inquiries have been successfully bridged with manufacturers and other experts.

Through the new innovative collaboration channel that HWTrek provides, weve obtained lots of business opportunities and latest info on projects in the global market, said Kwok Tsun, Technical Sales at HQPCB. "HWTrek brings us closer to creators, and enable us to deliver better services.

Imagine the value for hardware developers, design, manufacturing supply chain experts working together on a specific project management task to simultaneously manage relationships with partners combined with a suggested feed of potential partners from the community that match the requirements of the project together with insights about who is connected to whom on a single integrated collaborative platform.

Learn more about using HWTreks collaboration tools for IoT hardware project development here: http://blog.hwtrek.com/how-to-shorten-iot-development-lead-time-with-hwtrek-online-collaboration-tools

Tweet this:

HWTrek Simplifies IoT Development and Manufacturing Supply Chain Collaboration with Seamless Online Tools http://blog.hwtrek.com/hwtrek-simplifies-iot-development-and-manufacturing-supply-chain-collaboration

About HWTrek (Hardware Trek)

HWTrek is a unique ecosystem where hardware Creators and industry Experts meet and create smart hardware for the future, based in Taiwan and Shenzhen. HWTrek simplifies the hardware creation process by providing online planning and team collaboration tools and direct access to quality manufacturers and industry experts. Learn more about HWTrek: http://www.hwtrek.com or follow @HWTrek.

Contact:

William Andrew Albano, HWTrek

Tel: +886-2-2769-1698 | +886-2-2742-3301

Email: william.albano@hwtrek.com

Skype: william.andrew.albano

WeChat: niubi_88
HealthyWatch Pro Makes Healthcare Enjoyable. The device looks both familiar and attractive. This watch is high-tech without being complicated, contains the latest sensors, including heart rate and EKGs and is connected to your care team through

GrekTek LLC, (http://www.grektek.com) an mHealth solutions provider, announced the launch of a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign (http://kck.st/2g3a1so) for the HealthyWatch, a new device to help patients manage their health by providing health active alerts and even taking an EKG from the watch while sharing these events with caregivers in real time.

One feature our patients love is medication management; its so important for patients to take their meds on time and not skip or take double dosages, said Greg Eoyang, GrekTek, LLC President, But often patients forget and caregivers dont know if the patient has already taken their medication or not. HealthyWatch reminds the patient when to take their medication and tracks when they take it so that caregivers and patients know what to do. This is especially valuble when there are multiple caregivers for a single patient!

The first 200 backers of the GrekTeks Kickstarter campaign can receive a beta version HealthyWatch as a perk in time for the holidays, for their parents and loved ones living with chronic health needs. The HealthyWatch beta program will generate critical feedback from patients and caregivers that will be incorporated into the production versions.

By packaging the solution into a friendly digital watch, the device looks both familiar and attractive. This watch is high-tech without being complicated, contains the latest sensors, including heart rate and EKGs and is connected to your care team through your mobile phone.

HealthyWatch is designed to fit into patients lives, helping patients address their chronic diseases while getting interactive support from their caregivers and doctors, said Tom Klaff, GrekTek CEO. It is a lifestyle device that helps you live with dignity and community, not a humiliating medical device that brands you as old and sick.

Created by Greg Eoyang, Tom Klaff, Matthew O. Jones, MD, and G. Stuart Mendenhal,l MD, a combination of experienced caregivers, entrepreneurs and visionary cardiologists, HeathyWatch is a revolutionary solution to help provide sustainable care for loved ones.

About GrekTek LLC

GrekTek was founded in May of 2016 with the hyper focus of bringing HealthyWatch to market.

President of GrekTek, Greg Eoyangs life changed when his wife was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. His frustration with the difficulties of providing essential care between and during doctors visits inspired him to focused on providing patient-centric, mobile health solutions for and designed by patients. Greg Eoyang grew up in Indiana, attended Carngie-Mellon University for Computer Engineering. He worked for DARPA from 1987-1992, at the dawn of the Internet. A self-described Forrest Gump of technology, he worked at FEMA during Katrina, and at TSA during the launch of Secure Flight providing boarding passes for all US and international flights.

Tom Klaff is a husband, father and entrepreneur who has firsthand experience in how challenging caregiving for loved ones can be while trying to take care of his family. A lifelong inventor, dreamer and entrepreneur, Tom enjoys building products and solutions that improve peoples lives. HealthyWatch combines his love for technology, medicine and family into a passion product that will save lives and offer peace of mind to caregivers who face huge obstacles in their daily lives. Tom is a graduate of Brown University and earned his MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carngie-Mellon University.

Disclaimer: HealthyWatch is not a medical device and should not be used for diagnosis or medical treatment. HealthyWatch is not currently FDA certified and should only be used for informational purposes. Any medical decisions or advice should be obtained by consulting your medical professional.

Media Contact: Brooke Greenwald, Cornerstone Communications, LTD

brooke(at)cornerstonepr(dot)net, Phone: 240-360-0866
Doug Ulman has deep and proven expertise in building mission-based businesses that focus on changing the world for the better, and thats precisely what were trying to do here at Root.

Root, the first insurance company founded on the principle of fundamental fairness, today announced that Doug Ulman has joined its board of directors. Ulman joins Chris Olsen, a partner at Drive Capital, and Alex Timm, chief executive officer (CEO) of Root, on the board of directors.

Doug Ulman is a leader in cause and grassroots marketing, dedicated to building successful, authentic brands. He currently serves as the president and CEO of Pelotonia, a three-day philanthropic experience in Ohio that has raised more than $130 million for cancer research. Prior to joining Pelotonia in 2014, Ulman was President and CEO of the LIVESTRONG foundation, which he built into a globally-recognized brand and a leader in cancer survivorship. Doug has been recognized nationally for his work and consults regularly with both Fortune 100 companies and fast-growing startups.

Doug Ulman has deep and proven expertise in building mission-based businesses that focus on changing the world for the better, and thats precisely what were trying to do here at Root, said Alex Timm, CEO, Root. Not only is he nationally recognized, but Doug is also a local fixture here in Columbus, and were excited to have him with us to help execute a vision to strip the insurance industry back to its original cause  to be there for you on your best and worst days. Hes an unstoppable innovator at heart, committed to fixing whats broken and laying foundations for true change.

This announcement follows the launch of Root in Ohio. Root is the nations first insurance company to fully leverage mobile technology and actual driving data to ensure that good drivers are rewarded with the savings and modern experience that they deserve. Roots data-driven approach ensures that good drivers get the best rates, rather than basing estimates almost exclusively on dated demographic information.

Root is rebuilding auto insurance from the ground up. Theyve developed a modern approach, and in the process made it far more fair and accessible for good drivers. Im proud to join the companys board of directors and play my part in the reinvention, said Doug Ulman, board member, Root. The implications of mobile technology are massive for this industry, and Root is building a community platform for people seeking transparency. Were on track to transform an industry ripe for disruption, and we all have a lot to gain from that.

To get a personalized quote, drivers simply download the Root app, sign up, and drive as normal for 2-3 weeks. During that time, the app learns about their driving behavior, using proprietary machine learning algorithms and smartphone sensor data to more accurately understand the drivers risk. At the end of the test drive, a personalized quote is generated, and the driver has the opportunity to buy a policy and cancel their current plan all from within the app. Good drivers receive the best rates, saving up to 50% over their current plan.

Root is currently only available to drivers in Ohio but is expanding rapidly to new states, starting with Illinois. Root is an official carrier licensed by Ohio Department of Insurance, a member of the Ohio Guarantee Fund, and backed by the largest reinsurance company in the world.

To get the rate you deserve, please visit: http://www.joinroot.com.

About Root:

Root is the first insurance company founded on the principle of fundamental fairness. We create personalized products that give good drivers the protection they deserve.

At Root we only insure good drivers, and that is why our rates are always fair. Unlike other insurance companies, we do not bundle good drivers with bad drivers. Instead, we use data science to find and reward good drivers with the best rates.

Root is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. The company is an official carrier licensed by the Ohio Department of Insurance, a member of the Ohio Guarantee Fund, and backed by the largest reinsurance company in the world.

Get the rate you deserve at http://www.joinroot.com.
Were pleased to build new partnerships and expand the ways in which we help students acquire critical thinking and problem solving skills through computer science.

Computer science (CS) is a necessary skill in our technology-based society, but unfortunately not all students are aware of the computer science options available to them, said Carol Ribeiro, President and CEO of The Virtual High School (VHS, Inc.). My high school computer science education helped me select my college major and define my career path. Now, through The Virtual High School and the White House Computer Science for All initiative (#CSForAll), all students can have opportunities that lead to exciting career choices in computing.

VHS is pleased to announce a new computing certificate program to celebrate Computer Science Education Week (#CSEdWeek). The Virtual High Schools new program was also announced in the White House Fact Sheet, released today, highlighting actions in support of #CSForAll.

The new VHS computing certificate program will encourage students across the US to become interested in computing and to better understand the career options available to them in CS and related fields. The program complements other recent VHS computer science initiatives. In fall 2016, the organization launched AP Computer Science Principles, an introductory college-level computer science course designed for all students in grades 10-12, not just those interested in STEM subjects. VHS was among the first online providers in the United States to offer this College Board-approved course.

The Virtual High School is also a member of the non-profit CSforAll Consortium whose goal is to expand access to computer science education for all students. The CSforAll Consortium provides a central location for access to computer science education providers, schools, funders and researchers.

Were pleased to build new partnerships and expand the ways in which we help students acquire critical thinking and problem solving skills through computer science, said Ribeiro. Through the White House #CSforAll initiative and the CSforAll Consortium VHS is privileged to work with a dedicated group of people and organizations helping ensure all students regardless of their geography, gender, or economic circumstance, have access to computer science education.

About The Virtual High School Inc.

The Virtual High School (VHS Inc.) is an online learning pioneer. Since 1996, the nonprofit organization has set the standard for quality online education. VHS provides courses taught in global online classrooms for secondary school students and online professional development for educators. The organization also meets the unique educational needs of schools through custom course development and individualized course offerings. VHS design and delivery standards are the model used by the National Education Association in their recommended standards for online learning. The organization has won numerous awards, including the Stockholm Challenge Award for Global Excellence in Information Technology, and is a three-time winner of the United States Distance Learning Associations (USDLA) award for Excellence in Programming and Excellence in Best Practices. For more information, visit http://www.VHSLearning.org or call (978) 897-1900.

# # #
Oil drops as OPEC joins Russia, increasing output head of production cuts. "We can see uncertainty in Oil will remain and stretch into 2017 commented Edward Fraser, Head of Corporate Trading at Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings.

Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings have commented that last weeks decision made by OPEC helped prices rally by about 15 percent has retracted due to data giving clear indications of rising production from its members and Russia.

We can clearly see the markets have been left exposed after the increase in production, with prices dipping its just profit taking until it reaches a support level. We still remain sceptical that this weeks meeting that non-OPEC producers will agree on reductions amid further output from OPEC. commented Edward Fraser, Head of Corporate Trading at Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings.

According to a recent survey OPECs oil output has broke through another record high earlier in November, 34.20 million barrels per day from October at 33.80 bpd.

Russia have also noted that the average oil production in November (11.21 million bpd) was its highest in over 30 years, this translates that combined with OPEC they alone produce half of the global oil demand sitting at just shy of 96 million bpd.

OPEC has stated that all of its major oil producers outside of the group would cut over half a million barrels per day of production on top of its own 1.2million bpd reduction forecast. The final terms are to be agreed on the 10th of November in Vienna.

Market Commentary has been providing by Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings.

Contact:

Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings | info(at)mnbholdings(dot)com | http://www.mnbholdings.com

Media Contact: Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings (MNBH) | press(at)mnbholdings(dot)com

SOURCE Manulife Norinchukin Bank Holdings (MNBH).
We always strive to debut products which will enhance the lives of our customers. Our BackOffice is the recipient of awards such as this one because we continue to update and add new, innovative features. - Dan Ravenstahl, President of VoIP Innovations

VoIP Innovations announced today that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named its Titanium III BackOffice as a 2016 Customer Experience Innovation Award winner, presented by TMCs CUSTOMER magazine.

The 2016 Customer Experience Innovation Award recognizes best-in-class companies setting the standard in delivering exceptional customer experiences through all channels, including social.

We always strive to debut products which will enhance the lives of our customers. One such product is our BackOffice. It is the recipient of awards such as this one because we continue to update and add new, innovative features, said Dan Ravenstahl, President of VoIP Innovations.

Titanium III, our advanced BackOffice, was designed to bridge the gap between the delivery of VoIP services and the operational processes needed to distribute these services. The BackOffice includes such highlights as their Brandable End User Portal, DID Wizard Management and Personal DID Inventory, Fraud Detection, Number Porting Features and more.

Congratulations to VoIP Innovations for receiving a 2016 Customer Experience Innovation Award. The Titanium III BackOffice has been selected for enhancing the customer experience and improving business relationships, said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. Were pleased to recognize this achievement.

About VoIP Innovations

VoIP Innovations is an Inc. 5000 company that specializes in providing the largest DID and termination VoIP footprints in North America. Their network includes over 500,000 DIDs in stock in over 8,500 rate centers in the US and Canada. Recently, VoIP Innovations expanded their footprint to include DIDs in over 60 countries and now offers A-Z termination. VoIP Innovations is owned by ABG Capital and is based in Pittsburgh, PA. To learn more, please visit the VoIP Innovations Blog.

About CUSTOMER

Since 1982, CUSTOMER magazine (formerly Customer Interaction Solutions) has been the voice of the customer experience, call/contact center, CRM and teleservices industries. CUSTOMER has helped the industry germinate, grow, mature and prosper, and has served as the leading publication in helping these industries that have had such a positive impact on the world economy to continue to thrive. Through a combination of outstanding and cutting-edge original editorial, industry voices, in-depth lab reviews and the recognition of the innovative leaders in management and technology through our highly valued awards, CUSTOMER strives to continue to be the publication that holds the quality bar high for the industry. Please visit http://www.customer.tmcnet.com.

About TMC

Global buyers rely on TMCs content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. This presents branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities for vendors/sellers.

TMCs Marketplaces:



Unique, turnkey Online Communities boost search results, establish market validation, elevate brands and thought leadership, while minimizing ad-blocking.

Custom Lead Programs uncover sales opportunities and build databases.

In-Person and Online Events boost brands, enhance thought leadership and generate leads.

Publications, Display Advertising and Newsletters bolster brand reputations.

Custom Content provides expertly ghost-crafted blogs, press releases, articles and marketing collateral to help with SEO, branding, and overall marketing efforts.

Comprehensive Event and Road Show Management Services help companies meet potential clients and generate leads face-to-face.

For more information about TMC and to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals, please visit tmcnet.com.

Company Contact:

VoIP Innovations

Cherie Steffen

PR & Social Media Specialist

(412) 406-5328

cheries(at)voipinnovations(dot)com

TMC Contact:

Jessica Seabrook

Marketing Director

203-852-6800, ext. 170

jseabrook(at)tmcnet(dot)com
Bertrand Daumalle, Managing Director of International Operations I look forward to expanding FreeConferenceCall.com business internationally and building on the existing strength of our team.  Bertrand Daumalle, Managing Director of International Operations, FreeConferenceCall.com

FreeConferenceCall.com, the most recognized conferencing and collaboration brand on the planet, today announces the appointment of a new managing director of international operations, Bertrand Daumalle. Daumalle brings a wealth of expertise and direction to the company with nearly 20 years of experience in the international operations arena.

In his new role, Daumalle is responsible for managing the FreeConferenceCall.com business globally, reporting to President Josh Lowenthal. His responsibilities include: executing long-term vision and strategy, developing partner relationships in new markets and remaining steadfast in advancing the FreeConferenceCall.com global footprint.

We continue to add amazing talent to our all-star leadership team, says Lowenthal. The breadth of Bertrands experience and ability to engage with teams and customers alike makes him the ideal person to lead our growth. He has already hit the ground running to spread the word about our strong value proposition to potential new carriers and users around the world.

"Its exciting to be a part of an organization with such a rich history and long-standing presence as a leader in the global telecommunications industry, says Daumalle. I look forward to expanding FreeConferenceCall.com business internationally and building on the existing strength of our team.

Prior to joining FreeConferenceCall.com, Daumalle served as group chief carrier of Liquid Telecom and held leadership positions at iBasis for nearly 15 years. Daumalle earned a bachelors degree from University of Abertay and attended the University of Paris-Dauphine, where he earned a masters degree in international economics and finance. He currently lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with his wife and three children.

For more information or to sign up for a free account, visit FreeConferenceCall.com/international-conferencing.

About FreeConferenceCall.com

FreeConferenceCall.com is the most recognized conferencing brand in the world with users in more than 800,000 businesses, including nearly all Fortune 500. Service offerings around the globe with unlimited use include: high-quality HD audio conferencing, screen sharing, video conferencing, audio and visual recordings, customized greetings, security features, desktop scheduling and mobile applications. Mid-market and enterprise customers can take advantage of FreeConferenceCall.com For Business: high-quality, reliable and secure conferencing and collaboration services complemented by 24/7 customer support, enterprise account management teams, consolidated billing, customized user analytic reports, employee rollout and training and white-label services.

FreeConferenceCall.com was founded by David Erickson in 2001 and is based in Long Beach, California.
Karen L. Gracey, P.E., and Jenna W. Rzasa, P.E., have been named co-presidents of Tata & Howard Tata & Howards strategic plan is centered on sustainable growth through innovation, efficiency, teamwork, and uncompromising integrity, and we have already assumed full ownership of the company's vision and values.

Tata & Howard, Inc., a leading innovator in water, wastewater, stormwater, and environmental engineering solutions, has named Karen L. Gracey, P.E., and Jenna W. Rzasa, P.E., current vice presidents, as co-presidents of the firm. Current president Donald J. Tata, P.E., was appointed Chief Executive Officer and will be working in a reduced capacity while he focuses on his battle with cancer, with which he was diagnosed this fall. Gracey and Rzasa will be working closely with the firms senior leadership team to successfully run Tata & Howard in Tatas absence. The appointments are effective immediately.

"Tata & Howards succession plan has been firmly in place since the company became a 100% ESOP in 2014, stated Mr. Tata. Karen and Jenna have taken on increasing responsibility in both operational and client-facing aspects of the company over the past few years, and I have absolute confidence in their combined ability to continue to successfully implement our strategic plan while adhering to our core values and furthering our shared mission of providing unsurpassed solutions in the water environment.

As part of the companys comprehensive leadership and transition planning, Gracey and Rzasa, who have been with the firm since 1998 and 1997 respectively, have been slated to assume leadership of the company for several years. They were named to the board of directors in 2013 and have headed up the firms business development and financial operations since that time. The company noted that while Tatas illness has expedited their appointments to co-president, Gracey and Rzasa are well positioned to seamlessly assume their new roles.

Tata & Howards strategic plan is centered on sustainable growth through innovation, efficiency, teamwork, and uncompromising integrity, and we  including not just Jenna and myself, but the whole Tata & Howard team  have already assumed full ownership of the companys vision and values, added Ms. Gracey. The firm will be in excellent hands while Don focuses on returning to full health.

Senior Vice President and firm co-founder Paul B. Howard, P.E., remains actively involved in managing all technical aspects of the firm, and Vice Presidents Patrick S. ONeale, P.E., and Steven J. Landry, P.E., will continue to provide strategic and operational support to Gracey and Rzasa.

Tata was diagnosed with cancer in August of 2016, and made the announcement to employee-owners in early September. Tata & Howard stated that while it is still too soon to know the timing of his return on a full-time basis, Tata is aggressively fighting the disease with the help of the world-renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA.

About Tata & Howard, Inc.

Founded in 1992, Tata & Howard, Inc. is a 100% employee-owned water, wastewater, stormwater, and environmental consulting engineering firm dedicated to consistently delivering cost-effective, innovative project solutions. Working with clients as a trusted partner, Tata & Howard provides a full range of environmental engineering services, from concept to completion, as well as sustainable solutions including low impact development and LEED certified building. Tata & Howard has gained a solid reputation as an industry leader in the Northeast by bringing knowledge, integrity, and dedicated service to all sized markets, both public and private. With offices in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Arizona, and Texas, Tata & Howards national expansion has included projects in Louisiana, New Mexico, New York, and Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit http://www.tataandhoward.com.
"I am driven by my faith to ensure that the Trump Administration and Congress protect the civil rights and human dignity of the LGBTQ community, said Rev. Fred Davie, Executive Vice President of Union Theological Seminary.

Rev. Fred Davie, Executive Vice President at Union Theological Seminary in New York, announced that the Seminary will convene a press conference with Evangelical and other faith leaders from around the country to promote a pro-LGBTQ public policy agenda for the Trump Administration and new Congress at 9:30 am, the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Conference rooms Murrow/White/Lisgor, Washington, DC on Friday, December 9, 2017. (Breakfast at 8:30 am.)

Presenters at the event will highlight why they support the LGBTQ community because of their faith, and not in spite of it. The policy agenda will focus on five key areas proposed by faith leaders: LGBTQ basic rights, LGBTQ homeless youth, LGBTQ senior citizens, the transgender community, and global anti-discrimination.

Over the past 12 months, Union has worked with a wide array of religious leaders from around the country to express support from the faith community for LGBTQ rights and equality. Many evangelical leaders have joined this effort, including Rev. Adam Phillips, Pastor, Christ Church Portland; Rev. Amy Butler, Senior Minister, The Riverside Church; Brandan Robertson, Founder and Executive Director, NOMAD Partnerships; Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister, Middle Collegiate Church; Alan Manning Chambers, Co-Founder of Speak. Love. and former President of Exodus International; Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, Senior Vice President for Innovation in Public Programs, Union Theological Seminary; Kathy Baldock, Board of Directors, The Reformation Project; Rod Snyder, Board Member, Evangelicals for Marriage Equality; Robert and Susan Cottrell, Founders, FreedHearts; Doug Pagitt, Pastor, Solomons Porch and National Director, OPEN Networks; Michael Kimpan, Organizer, OPEN Networks; and Josh Dickson, Co-Founder and Board Member, Evangelicals for Marriage Equality.

"It is vital that the Trump Administration and Congress continue to support policies and legislation that preserves and defends the rights of all citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation, said Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, President of Union Theological Seminary. We at Union are proud of the historic advances in LGBTQ rights and we remain committed to advocating for the equal protection of all people under the law.

"I am driven by my faith to ensure that the Trump Administration and Congress protect the civil rights and human dignity of the LGBTQ community, said Rev. Fred Davie, Executive Vice President of Union Theological Seminary, who organized the event. Faith leaders from around the country are determined to raise this critical public discussion to increase respect and tolerance, and tackle the festering and explosive underlying issues of hate, bigotry, and violence targeted at members of the LGBTQ community.

The press conference is co-sponsored by the Metropolitan Community of Churches, the Human Rights Campaign, the National LGBTQ Task Force, Auburn Seminary, SAGE, Cathedral of Hope, The Center for African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University, Covenant Baptist UCC and the Tyler Clementi Foundation.

Speakers include: Rev. Fred Davie, Union Theological Seminary; Rev. Adam Phillips, Pastor, Christ Church Portland; Lisbeth Melendez Rivera, Director of Latinx and Catholic Initiatives, Human Rights Campaign; Victoria Kirby York, National Campaigns Director, National LGBTQ Task Force; Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister, Middle Collegiate Church; Rev. Clayton Brooks, M.Div., Director of Advocacy, Covenant House; Bishop Tonyia Rawls, Pastor of Unity Fellowship Church; Barbara Satin, Assistant Faith Work Director, National LGBTQ Task Force; and Bishop Joseph Tolton, Executive Director, Believe Out Loud.

Support for LGBTQ rights and equality continues to grow among religious Americans  particularly Christians. According to the Pew Research Center, 58% of Catholics and 64% of White Mainline Protestants support marriage equality today, compared to 40% and 38% in 2001, respectively. Support for marriage equality among White Evangelical Christians has more than doubled since 2001, with Black Protestant support increasing by close to one-third during that time. As the culture wars of the past fade away, many faithful Americans - conservative Christians in particular - are increasingly seeing LGBTQ equality as integral to their religious values and their calling to love their neighbors as they do themselves.



"One of the most meaningful ways of living out ones faith is to bring the principles of justice and mercy to our work in the public square, said Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins. Micah reminds us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. We are at our best as a nation when justice and compassion are at the center of how we treat one another. The LGBTQ community is very much a part of the fabric of American society, and working to make sure that the policies of our government protect and ensure the fullest participation of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers is not in addition to, but an essential part of, our faith."

Following the press conference, Union leadership and faith leaders will meet with public officials to voice their support for the LGBTQ community and discuss how our policies as a nation can reflect the timeless concept at the core of our democracy that all people are created equal. They have secured meetings at the White House, and are seeking to meet with the Trump Administration and members of the new Congress. Moving forward and in keeping with its 180-year-old mission, Union will continue to work with religious voices across the country to support the full inclusion and equality for the LGBTQ community.

About Union Theological Seminary

Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a seminary and a graduate school of theology established in 1836 by founders deeply impressed by the claims of the world upon the church. Union prepares women and men for committed lives of service to the church, academy and society. A Union education develops practices of mind and body that foster intellectual and academic excellence, social justice, and compassionate wisdom. Grounded in the Christian tradition and responsive to the needs of Gods creation, Unions graduates make a difference wherever they serve.

Union believes that a new interreligious spiritualty of radical openness and love is the worlds best hope for peace, justice, and the care of Gods creation. Empowered by groundbreaking inquiry aligned with practical realism and a bias for action, Union is charting a profound new course for enduring social change. Our graduates make a difference wherever they serve, practicing their vocations with courage and perseverance, and speaking clearly and acting boldly on behalf of social justice in all of its forms.

###

Contact

Ian Rees

ian(at)gzandassociates(dot)com | 215.869.9064

Lisa Sherman-Cohen

lisa(at)gzandassociates(dot)com | 347.539.7382

Beatrix Maes

beatrix(at)gzandassociates(dot)com | 347.335.1792
The story of Mitsuo Fuchida and his transformation is one of the most gripping stories of WWII and the Pacific War, and it's a story that few have heard about.

Mitsuo Fuchida, the top Japanese pilot in the Imperial Japanese navy, was driven by a desire to gain respect for his nation. He would survive the Pearl Harbor attack and the rest of the war, but his life would be changed forever by an American bombardier who was a prisoner of Japan and by an American girl he never met.

Early on the morning of December 7, 1941, Fuchida peered out his airplane cockpit window at his target below. Pearl Harbor. The pilot had trained virtually his entire life for this moment, to lead the massive air attack on the United States.

History researcher and author, T. Martin Bennett (http://www.woundedtiger.com) spent three years researching this unbelievable true story before penning a screenplay (in development) and now the historical novel, Wounded Tiger, with todays nation-wide release of a second edition in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The new edition features more than 250 historical photos, maps and images, many never before seen or published, as well as 10,000 additional words of text.

"The story of Mitsuo Fuchida and his transformation is one of the most gripping stories of WWII and the Pacific War, and it's a story that few have heard about, said Donald M. Goldstein, Ph.D., and author of At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor and Miracle at Midway. Martin Bennett's new book, Wounded Tiger, brings this epic drama to life with new details on how a Doolittle raider, Jacob DeShazer, and a missionary's daughter, Peggy Covell, helped effect this change. This thrilling story of war and forgiveness is a must for all."

Fuchida had been taught to hate and despise Americans, and he felt duty calling on him to bring honor to his country. The culmination of his encounter with an American bombardier from Oregon imprisoned by Japan and his interaction with an American family living in Japan changed his view of America, led him toward Christian faith, and ultimately brought him to the Unites States. A remarkable story!

In the same way that Fuchida found himself a wounded tiger, all of us are like the majestic tiger, Bennett says. We have the potential for great beauty and power, yet we find the wounds weve received from others or by our own choices hold us back from reaching who we could be.

Bennett presents an inspirational story of hope, perseverance, encouragement and love against the historic backdrop of World War II.

The author brilliantly developed three separate storylines that ultimately intersect and deliver an unimaginable perspective of one of the most storied characters of World War IIs Pacific theater, says Brown Books publisher Milli Brown. Wounded Tiger is just the sort of historic non-fiction story Brown Books Publishing Group is eager to deliver to readers.

For more information, please go to http://www.woundedtiger.com.

Media Contact: Brian Briscoe, brian(dot)briscoe(at)theagencyatbb(dot)com, 972.248.9500.

About Brown Books Publishing Group (BBPG)

Founded in 1994 as an Entrepreneurial Publisher for Entrepreneurial Authors, Brown Books Publishing Group was established to fill a need in the publishing world by allowing authors to have a voice in the publishing process while retaining the rights to their intellectual property. Applying this innovative Relationship Publishing model, Brown Books has cultivated a prestigious stable of authors, from New York Times bestsellers to Pulitzer Prize winners and more. Boasting hundreds of high-quality books across genres, Brown Books is a fiercely independent publisher that encourages author empowerment. In 1994, Brown Books ushered in A New Era in Publishing, and more than two decades later, continues to be a successful innovative leader in the publishing industry. For more information, please visit http://www.BrownBooks.com.

About The Agency at Brown Books (ABB)

As a subsidiary of Brown Books Publishing Group, The Agency at Brown Books is backed by more than 20 years of publishing excellence, leveraged in the first full-service public relations, marketing, branding and distribution provider within a publishing house. The Agency provides high-level public relations, marketing and distribution services for not only Brown Books authors, but also non-affiliated authors, all within the same house. For more information, please visit http://www.TheAgencyatBB.com.
DynaMed Plus, the newest version of DynaMed, is built on the strong DynaMed foundation. Those who use it and those planning to upgrade to it laud its tighter integration with the EMR, updated look and feel, and deeper evidence-based content. Past News Releases RSS GOBI Library Solutions from...

Dr. Vito Iacoviello Named Deputy...

EBSCO Information Services and...

Two EBSCO Health clinical resources were the top performing point-of-care reference tools for disease/drug reference in the KLAS Clinical Decision Support 2016 (1) report. KLAS, a research firm that specializes in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors, found that DynaMed/DynaMed Plus and Nursing Reference Center were the top performing disease reference tools, leading in nearly every area KLAS asked healthcare providers about.

KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals and uses the responses to rate point-of-care Disease Reference and Diagnostic Support tools. Evaluation questions covered several areas, including Sales and Contracting, Implementation and Training, Functionality and Upgrades, and Service and Support.

DynaMed Plus, EBSCO Healths next-generation clinical information resource designed to decrease time to answer, along with the original DynaMed, received an overall score of 91.9 in the POC Disease/Drug Reference category. DynaMed/DynaMed Plus scored particularly well compared to competitors in questions about Overall Product Quality (See chart).

This is the third time that DynaMed has been rated as the top resource for the Point-of-care Disease Reference category in the KLAS Clinical Decision Support reports (2). While this is the first year that DynaMed Plus was considered, the report concluded that evaluation respondents were impressed with the enhancements. DynaMed Plus, the newest version of DynaMed, is built on the strong DynaMed foundation. Those who use it and those planning to upgrade to it laud its tighter integration with the EMR, updated look and feel, and deeper evidence-based content.

Nursing Reference Center is EBSCO Healths point-of-care resource for nurses, providing reference materials for research and for use with patients, continuing education for nurses and opportunities to strengthen nursing skills. It was the top-rated Nursing Reference tool, finishing nearly five points better than the second-best resource. In addition, it was second only to DynaMed/DynaMed Plus in the POC Disease/Drug Reference segment. Nursing Reference Center was also the top nursing reference resource in the last KLAS CDS report which came out in 2013.

EBSCO Health Senior Vice President of Medical Product Management Betsy Jones, says that the KLAS report indicates the EBSCO Health is taking the right steps to meet the needs of its users. Clinician need to access the most current evidence-based content as efficiently as possible in order to incorporate the information into their treatment decisions. While the systematically reviewed evidence is at the core of our resources, it is gratifying to see that users are satisfied with the overall experience, from implementation and functionality, to service and support.

More information about EBSCO Healths clinical decision support solutions is available at https://dynamed.ebscohost.com/ and http://www.ebscohost.com/nursing

.

1 Clinical Decision Support 2016: Providers Expect EMRs to Drive CDS Impact. 2016 KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. http://www.KLASresearch.com

2 Clinical Decision Support 2013: Sizing up the competition, December 2013.  KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved.

Clinical Decision Support 2011: Understanding the Impact, November 2011.  KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved.

About KLAS

KLAS is a research firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by enabling providers to be heard and counted. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals and clinicians, KLAS gathers data on software, services, medical equipment and infrastructure systems to deliver timely reports, trends and statistical overviews. The research directly represents the provider voice and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. Follow KLAS on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/KLASresearch.

About EBSCO Health

EBSCO Health, part of EBSCO Information Services, is a leading provider of clinical decision support solutions, healthcare business intelligence, and medical research information for the healthcare industry. EBSCO Health users include professionals in medicine, nursing, and allied health. Flagship products include CINAHL, DynaMed Plus, Nursing Reference Center, clinical e-books and e-journals, EBSCO Discovery Service, licensed databases (such as MEDLINE), plus EBSCONET. EBSCO databases are powered by EBSCOhost, the electronic resource favored by libraries around the world.
Promises New Jersey At Promises New Jersey, we emphasize a community atmosphere that allows everyone to feel connected while recognizing that not everyone gets to recovery in the same way.

Promises Treatment Centers welcomes a new member to its renowned family of addiction and mental health treatment programs  Promises New Jersey, formerly Park Bench Group Counseling  which specializes in treating young adults with drug and alcohol addiction.

The expansion highlights Promises commitment to help stem the nations opioid epidemic, which has hit the Northeast and the young particularly hard. Every day, 78 people in the U.S. die from overdosing on opioids like heroin or prescription painkillers, said Chris Karkenny, Chief Executive Officer of Elements Behavioral Health, the parent company of Promises. Its never been more important to make quality addiction treatment available where its needed most.

Located near the beautiful Jersey Shore, Promises New Jersey caters to young people and provides:



Highly personalized treatment that addresses substance abuse as well as trauma and other underlying mental health conditions

A variety of outpatient options that allow clients to maintain independent living while making their way to recovery, including day treatment/partial care and intensive outpatient treatment

A skilled treatment team with advanced experience in addiction treatment and evidence-based therapies

Psychiatric and medical monitoring

Relapse prevention that includes the management of medications such as Vivitrol where appropriate

Individual, group and family therapy

Weekly outings that bring the fun back to sobriety

At Promises New Jersey, we emphasize a community atmosphere that allows everyone to feel connected while recognizing that not everyone gets to recovery in the same way, explained Cassandra Loch, LCSW, President of Program Operations for Elements Behavioral Health. The goal is to provide addiction treatment as individual as the person receiving it.

Promises New Jersey is now the second young adult rehab program in the Promises family, joining Promises West Los Angeles in Southern California. Other treatment programs under the Promises umbrella include luxury rehab centers in Malibu and in Austin, Texas and Scottsdale, Arizona; a Santa Monica-based professionals treatment program; and a womens mental health treatment center.

About Promises Treatment Centers

Promises Treatment Centers are among the nations premier addiction treatment centers. Led by some of the countrys leading addiction specialists, Promises has built an international reputation for innovative addiction treatment and exceptional service. Whether an individual requires eating disorder treatment, drug or alcohol detox, residential drug rehab, outpatient treatment, extended care or a sober living environment, Promises has been a treatment center of choice for more than 25 years. For more information, visit http://www.promises.com or call (866) 285-9441.

Promises Treatment Centers is a member of Elements Behavioral Health, an owner of a nationwide platform of behavioral health programs with over 750 licensed beds throughout nine states. The Elements Behavioral Health family of programs offers comprehensive, innovative treatment for substance abuse, depression and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, trauma, sexual addiction, and other mental health disorders. Through its programs, the company is committed to delivering evidence-based, clinically sophisticated treatment that promotes permanent lifestyle change, not only for the patient but for the entire family network. For more information, visit elementsbehavioralhealth.com.
Rebalance IRA is a leading pro-consumer investment firm. Were proud to count Charley as an integral part of the Rebalance IRA investment team. We congratulate him on the well-deserved honor of being named a 'Money Magazine Champion of the Year.'"

Rebalance IRA, a leading pro-consumer investment firm that is at the forefront of providing Americans with a fundamentally different and better set of retirement investment options, today congratulates investing authority and Rebalance IRA Investment Committee Member Charles D. Ellis on being named one of Money Magazines Champions of the Year.

Every December, Money Magazine recognizes select individuals, products and services, organizations, and big ideas that have demonstrated a positive financial impact for consumers over the past year.

This year, Rebalance IRAs own Charles Ellis was awarded this honor as a result of his long-standing commitment to helping everyday consumers invest safer and more sensibly. Were proud to count Charley as an integral part of the Rebalance IRA investment team, said Scott Puritz, Managing Director at Rebalance IRA. We congratulate him on the well-deserved honor of being named a Money Magazine Champion of the Year.

In October, Charles published The Index Revolution, which emphasizes the case that to achieve above average investing results, consumers should index. This same philosophy for index investing informs Rebalance IRAs investment strategies and approach to helping everyday consumers retire with more.

About Charles Ellis

Dr. Charles D. Ellis is the founder and former managing partner of Greenwich Associates, an international consultancy where he advised large institutional investors, foundations, and government organizations in more than 130 financial markets across the globe. He taught investment management courses at the Yale School of Management and at Harvard Business School. Dr. Ellis sat on the Board of Directors of America's largest fund company, The Vanguard Group, which manages over $3.6 trillion dollars in assets. In addition, he was a successor trustee of Yale University, where he chaired the university's famed investment committee with David Swensen. Dr. Ellis also has served on the governing boards of both Harvard and Yale business schools, as well as New York University's Stern School of Business and Phillips Exeter Academy.

About Rebalance IRA

Rebalance IRA is one of America's leading investment firms that is at the forefront of providing consumers with a fundamentally different and better set of retirement investment options: lower costs, "endowment-quality" globally-diversified retirement investment portfolios, and systematic rebalancing. This investment approach is combined with a team of sophisticated and highly credentialed finance professionals who provide advice that is unbiased and focuses on the client's long-term retirement investment goals.

The Firm's Investment Committee is anchored by three of the most respected experts in the finance world: Princeton Economics Professor Burton Malkiel, author of the classic investment book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street; Dr. Charles Ellis, the former longtime chairman of the Yale University Endowment; and Jay Vivian, the former Managing Director of IBM's $100+ billion in retirement investment funds for more than 300,000 employees worldwide.

Rebalance IRA's innovative, pro-consumer approach to retirement investing has garnered high profile coverage. The Firm, and its leadership, regularly have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Fox, PBS, Forbes, USA Today, CNBC, Nightly Business Review, CBS, The Washington Post, The Economist, and a wide range of other national and local media. Managing Directors Scott Puritz and Mitchell Tuchman are acknowledged industry thought leaders, and Mr. Puritz recently testified before a U.S. Senate Committee evaluating the U.S. Department of Labor's new fiduciary rule.

Rebalance IRA is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. and Bethesda, MD., and currently manages more than $440 million of client assets. For more information, visit http://www.rebalance-ira.com.

For Media Inquiries:

Devonne Cusi

646 699 1414

devonne(at)fischtankpr(dot)com
The Umstead Hotel and Spa By integrating automated room controls from Evolve and easy-to-use guest services from Intelity, were able to provide luxury amenities and services conveniently through bedside tablets not typically found in traditional hotels.

The Umstead Hotel and Spa, a 5-star property located just outside Raleigh, North Carolina, has selected Evolve Controls and Intelity to deploy a fully integrated wireless room control and guest services solution through hotel tablets. This innovative approach is designed to enhance each guests stay at the property by combining the power of in-room control features with convenient access to hotel services and information through tablets provided to each guest room.

The Evolve Controls Connected Room Solution allows guests to manage their environment by wirelessly controlling in-room temperature and lighting through Intelitys intuitive ICE Bedside guest engagement platform.

In addition to Evolves automated room controls, ICE Bedside also provides a full dashboard of digital hotel services that allows guests to communicate with hotel staff, find information they need to enhance a hotel stay, and place requests through the hotel tablets. On the back-end, hotel staff can leverage operational features of the ICE platform with tools such as content control, direct guest messaging and business intelligence data.

At The Umstead, we are committed to creating memorable experiences for our guests. By integrating automated room controls from Evolve and easy-to-use guest services from Intelity, were able to provide luxury amenities and services conveniently through bedside tablets not typically found in traditional hotels, said Jason Seehafer, Executive Assistant Manager of Hotel Operations, The Umstead.

Beyond the benefits of an improved experience for the Umsteads guests, this cutting-edge in-room technology allows hotel staff to more effectively manage energy costs through Evolves occupancy-based energy management capabilities and strengthen their relationship with guests through Intelitys ICE system.

According to Kristin Miller, Chief Executive Officer of Evolve Controls, Intelitys ICE Bedside software for tablets has allowed us to expand our solutions beyond wireless room controls and energy management by presenting guests a customized interface for in-room dining, housekeeping requests, wake up calls, and a variety of other hotel services to improve engagement and further enhance the guest experience.

Collaborating with Evolve Controls enables us to meet the needs of hotel partners like The Umstead who want to provide guests with the ability to control the guestroom environment through automated controls, but also want to take full advantage of guest engagement technology to improve the in-room guest experience, said Intelity CEO & President David Adelson.

Founded in 2008, Evolve Controls LLC provides turn-key room automation, control and monitoring solutions to create memorable guest experiences while significantly reducing energy and operational costs. Evolves room automation systems are operating in most of the leading hotel flags including Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, Marriot, Radisson, IHG, Westin, and many upscale boutique hotels. More about Evolve Controls can be found at http://www.evolvecontrols.com.

Intelity, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, is the creator of the world's first and most widely used integrated guest services platform, ICE (Interactive Customer Experience). With certified integrations to all major hotel back-end management systems (POS, PMS, Ticketing, Spa and Room Controls), Intelity's ICE is a centralized property automation system that delivers concierge level services, guest request tracking and fulfillment, business intelligence analytics, marketing/messaging capabilities, and a full content management system. Since beginning operations in 2007, the Inc. 5000 company has gained a reputation as a leader in hospitality technology with installations across six continents, including most major brands and many celebrated independent properties. Intelity recently received Best Mobile App in Hospitality from Travel Weeklys Magellan Awards and Worlds Leading Hotel Brand App from the World Travel Awards. For more information, please call 1-888-RevPAR-1 (1-888-738-7271) or visit http://www.intelitycorp.com.
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A beloved Brooklyn bookstore will close next month; a new store preps for an opening in California, while one in Massachusetts opts to begin selling online first; an election-winner closes her bookstore to take office; and more.

BookCourt Will Close Next Month: The Cobble Hill, Brooklynbased BookCourt, a beloved neighborhood fixture, will close next month. Author Emma Straub has announced that she has secured initial funding for a new store in the neighborhood. "A neighborhood without an independent bookstore is a body without a heart," she wrote. "And so were building a new heart."

Third B&N Concept Store to Open Next Week: Barnes & Noble is moving forward with its concept stores and held a preview of its first one on the West Coast, which is slated to open in Sacramento, Calif., at Folsoms Palladio on December 13. When asked if the company is worried about customers spending hours there without buying anything, David Deason, v-p of development for B&N, replied, Were not fearful of it. We encourage it.

Albuquerque B&N Opens After November Fire: The bookstore in Coronado Mall reopened on December 4 after closing when a fire damaged the building on November 26. Some customers interviewed said that they could still smell smoke, but continued to shop.

Belmont Books Opens Online: At the suggestion of a stranger, Kathy Crowley and Chris Abouzeid opened an online bookstore while they continue to ready their bricks-and-mortar location in Belmont, Mass., for a March 1 opening.

Conspiracy Theory Threatens DCs Politics & Prose: A fake news story that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, DC, pizzeria near the bookstore, led 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch to fire warning shots there on Sunday. Bookstore owners Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine told Fox46 that it and other businesses on the block have received threats and menacing phone calls in recent weeks. Until the shooting, the police have been uninterested in investigating the businesses' concerns.

City Commissioner-Elect Will Close Reading Frenzy, For Now: Chloe Eudaly will close the bookstore she opened 21 years ago in order to take a seat on the Portland (Oregon) City Council. Commissioners are not allowed to own a business. Its been a good run, Portland, Eudaly wrote. And who knows what the future may hold for Reading Frenzy, but for the time being the shop is going on hiatus effective 1/1/17.

Binghamtons RiverRead Books to Close in January: Declining sales due to discounting by Amazon have forced Constance Barnes and Pat Day to close the bookstore next month. A holiday/going-out-of-business sale has begun with all hardcovers marked down 30% and merchandise discounted 20%. Barnes said that the store will hold a farewell reception after the holidays.
The presidential election of 2016 has given a book by Rebecca Solnit originally published in 2004 such a huge boost that print copies are currently out of stock. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities was originally published by Nation Books, which issued a second edition in 2006. Haymarket Books published a third edition in March 2016 with a new foreword and afterword that sold 6,000 print copies before November 8. Since then, the book has sold 2,800 more copies, with another 5,000 copies on back order. Haymarket has gone back to press for an additional 10,000 copies in paperback and expects them to hit stores by early next week.

In Hope in the Dark, which Solnit wrote while George W. Bush was serving the first of his two terms as U.S. president and waging a highly controversial war on Iraq, she argues that radical activists have a long history of transformative victories, and that often the positive consequences of peoples activism are not immediately perceived. Progressives should not lose hope when confronted with setbacks.

Two days after Donald Trump unexpectedly won the election, Haymarket and Solnit offered readers free downloads of digital copies of Hope in the Dark. In a Facebook post offering the free download, Solnit wrote, Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Its the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things you can know beforehand. And, she added,History is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.

30,500 e-books were downloaded for free after the election. Haymarket also has sold 1,500 digital copies, 670 of them after the election.

Haymarket publicity manager Jim Plank explained that in the aftermath of the election, the first reaction of many people who didn't vote for Trump was a sense of defeat, despair, fear, and hopelessness. Hope in the Dark is resonating with such people, he noted, because the message of the book [is] that hope can find root in an appreciation of our history, that ordinary people can and have changed the world.

Solnits next book with Haymarket, The Mother of All Questions, billed as a sequel to the 2014 bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, will be released in March 2017. It has to date sold 4,100 copies in pre-orders.
In March 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit pope and the first non-European to lead the Catholic Church since 741. Bergoglio, who took the pontifical name Francis, immediately differentiated himself from his predecessors. Whether asking the people gathered in St. Peters Square to pray for him, announcing that he was opting to live in the Vatican guesthouse instead of the Apostolic Palace, or washing the feet of juvenile prisoners, Francis has become a beloved figure in Catholicism.

Dozens of books have been written on Pope Francis since his election, but Pilgrimage: My Search for the Real Pope Francis by Mark Shriver (Random House, Nov.) provides a distinctly American and intimate perspective. As a member of the Kennedy and Shriver families, Shrivers very name is synonymous with American Catholicism, and his disillusionment with the Catholic Church following the sexual abuse scandals is in many ways paradigmatic of a generation.

The book is a blend of biography and memoir, and its title alludes both to the Popes journey toward the papacy and to Shrivers own quest to learn more about the man who has reinvigorated the faith of so many Catholics, including his own. Shriver said that learning more about Pope Francis has challenged me right to my core.

When he talks about mercy hes talking about more than just writing checks, said Shriver, a former Maryland state legislator. His idea of serving God is about relationships, understanding other people, and helping them on their lifes journey. He challenges us to get out of our comfort zones and really engage with others.

Researching the book, Shriver visited the places that shaped Francis life, learned about the political and economic contexts for his worldview, and collected personal stories from friends and colleagues. He also explores theological influences that have profoundly shaped the popes faith, including the uniquely Argentine teologia del pueblo (theology of the people), a theology that emphasized the role of faith in improving the lives of the poor. The result is a portrait of the popes life and spiritual development from boyhood through the papacy.

When you see how hes lived his life, you realize that he has always tried to help the poor and powerless, said Shriver. All the visiting hospitals, holding babies, eating dinners with the homelesstheyre not just photo ops or PR stunts. He was doing them long before anyone was paying attention.

This humility and authenticity, Shriver said, is what draws people to Francis. His message is that Gods mercy is for everyone, he said. Were all sinners. When Pope Francis talks about the poor, hes not just talking about the financially poor, hes talking about the psychologically poor, the spiritually poor, the physically poor. Thats what we all are, so people relate to his faith because its grounded in the idea of being inclusive, non-judgmental, and forgiving.

Will Murphy, executive editor at Random House, said the book is unique because Shriver is from one of the most important Catholic families in America and he and his family share in common with the pope a passion for building a more just society. I think its both a biography and a journey of discovery of self and other. Its fascinating to see the result of Shrivers encounter with Pope Francis on the page.
EAST ST. LOUIS (AP)  A state and federal corruption investigation in the troubled southwestern Illinois community of East St. Louis led to the arrests Monday of eight public officials and one private citizen, days after a township supervisor pleaded guilty to spending public money on personal trips and gifts.

The officials arrested included an East St. Louis city councilwoman, a Washington Park auxiliary police officer, an Alorton police officer and a former mayor of the same community, a township trustee, and a U.S. Postal Service worker, the (Belleville) News-Democrat reported.

Those named in criminal complaints issued by the St. Clair County State's Attorney's office included:

East St. Louis Councilwoman June Hamilton Dean was charged with creating a false letter of employment "with the intent to defraud."

East St. Louis Township Trustee Edith R. Moore was charged with forgery and voting violations in which she, according to the complaint, "knowingly prevented another person from lawfully voting."

Anthony Davis, an auxiliary Washington Park police officer, was charged with misconduct for allegedly providing false information to an Illinois State Police trooper who was investigating a crash involving Davis.

East. St. Louis Township Trustee Michael "Rump" Roberts was charged with official misconduct for allegedly accepting airline tickets for a trip to Las Vegas for him and his wife.

Jo Ann Reed, former mayor of Alorton, was charged with knowingly giving or promising to give money to another person to vote, or to influence that person to vote for or against any candidate or ballot question.

Alorton Police Officer Teanna A. Gillespie was charged with possession of a firearm without a state-issued Firearm Owner Identification Card.

St. Clair County Board of Review member Michael Crockett Jr. was charged with official misconduct and bribery.

Christopher Malone, a postal worker, was charged with theft of government property and official misconduct.

Raeshaunta S. Lacey, a private citizen, was arrested on a charge of receiving an altered document allegedly from councilwoman Hamilton Dean.

The arrests come just days after Hamilton Dean's husband, East St. Louis Township Supervisor Oliver Hamilton, pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges. His arrest followed an investigation by the News-Democrat showing the 63-year-old Hamilton spent $230,000 on a township credit card between Jan. 1, 2012, and June 2016 for various personal items, such as trips and gifts for his political allies.

East St. Louis, community of 27,000 residents across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, has a long history of budget shortfalls, corruption scandals and violent crime.

That history was not lost on St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly when he spoke to reporters on Monday about the joint state and federal probe, particularly when he said that June Hamilton Dean and Oliver Hamilton were paid, in part, from grants that the township received for an anti-violence program called 'Ceasefire.'

"While the people of East St. Louis continue to suffer from a disproportionate amount of violence, and while police officers are risking their lives to stop it, you have two public officials underwriting their phony-baloney jobs with a so-called Ceasefire grant," he said.

It was not immediately clear if any of those arrested were represented by attorneys who could speak on their behalf about the allegations.
The Democrat takes office halfway through the term of the late Judy Baar Topinka facing a $10.4 billion pile of overdue bills because Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic leaders of the General Assembly have been unable to agree on a state budget plan for two years.

Republican Topinka, whose red suit  a gift from Topinka's son  Mendoza wore for the inauguration, was re-elected comptroller in November 2014 but died suddenly a month later.

Mendoza beat the appointed successor, Leslie Munger, in a special election last month, after campaigning to continue Munger's practice of putting paychecks for lawmakers in the queue with other bills until the budget stalemate is settled.

"This is going to be tough," the 44-year-old former Chicago city clerk said after swearing fealty to the state Constitution on her friend Topinka's personal Bible. "Keep me in your prayers, even, as I take on the greatest challenge of my life. It includes nearly $11 billion in unpaid bills, and that $11 billion signifies people who need us. They're not numbers on a spreadsheet. They're real lives."

Mendoza, who served 10 years in the Illinois House after election at 28 in 2000, begged her former colleagues for understanding in her pledge to continue putting paychecks in line with all other bills, saying, "In times of fiscal crisis, we must share in the sacrifice."

Six Democratic House members filed a lawsuit on Munger's last day in office Friday for their $68,000 salary, contending a comptroller who doesn't pay is violating the Constitution's guarantee of separation of powers among government branches. Mendoza acknowledged a judge's order to pay would change her course.

Mendoza's $135,669 comptroller's salary will be put in line as well.

Rauner, a billionaire who takes a $1 token salary, demanded Mendoza fight the lawsuit, which he called "an insult to taxpayers." He said it's clear lawmakers timed it for right before her inauguration and that it's been "orchestrated" by Democratic party leaders such as his rival, House Speaker Michael Madigan. The attorney for the six representatives, Michael Kasper, has represented Madigan and the Democratic Party of Illinois, which Madigan leads.

"I would request that Comptroller Mendoza fight as hard as Comptroller Munger has," Rauner said following an unrelated event in Chicago. "I hope that she'll speak out against it every day."

Rauner also said Mendoza should hire a lawyer other than Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the House speaker's daughter.

Mendoza spokesman Abdon Pallasch said the comptroller appreciates Rauner's position but "we'll explore our best legal options on this case and any others."

Munger began holding back on paychecks last spring because the first-term governor, Madigan and other Democrats in the General Assembly have been unable to reach a budget agreement. Rauner insists on structural changes such as officeholder term limits, a property tax freeze, and business-friendly changes in law before agreeing to the tax increase or spending reduction Democrats say is necessary to balance the books.

Mendoza told reporters Rauner's demands should be debated separately from the budget but said both sides must meet, along with rank-and-file legislators, to determine what's necessary to reach a deal.

The new comptroller, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, praised not only her late friend Topinka but Democrat Dawn Clark Netsch, who was a leading writer of the 1970 Constitution that created the office of comptroller and who later became the first woman elected to statewide office when she served in the post from 1991 to 1995.

The comptroller's post has been significant historically. Netsch was preceded by the first black elected to statewide office, Roland Burris, who was comptroller from 1979 to 1991.
In a memo filed with the court late Monday, government lawyers said the former Pennsylvania congressman repeatedly abused his power as an elected official, attempted to corrupt the electoral process, and fleeced taxpayers and constituents throughout his career.

They recommended U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III sentence Fattah to a range between 17 years and just shy of 22 years in prison  within the federal sentencing guidelines for his crimes.

Fattah understood the power and trust given to elected officials and that corruption benefits the few at the expense of the many, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Gibson wrote. Despite the advantages of his career and education, Fattah chose to violate the trust of his constituents and the taxpayers to line his pockets and advance his personal and professional goals at their expense.

Fattahs lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. They are expected to file their recommendations for sentencing with the court Wednesday.

A federal jury convicted Fattah, 60, in June on counts including racketeering conspiracy, bribery money laundering, and fraud.

Prosecutors painted the Democratic congressman as an arrogant lawbreaker who repeatedly turned to the money of others  taxpayers, charities, wealthy fund-raisers  to cover his personal and political debts.

He was accused of accepting bribes and misusing charitable donations, campaign contributions, and federal grant funds under his control to pay off his personal and political debts.

Fattah resigned his seat in Congress shortly after the conviction.

His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Monday.
The shelling that targeted government-controlled western Aleppo was one of the most intense in recent days. It coincided with a crushing air and ground assault that has seen forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad recapture more than half of opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

Russia and militias allied with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah have been staunch supporters of Assad in his country's bitter civil war, now in its sixth year.

The shelling initially killed one female nurse and wounded two Russian medics working in a field hospital, a Russian officer told reporters in the northern city. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Moscow had sent hospital equipment to the government-controlled Furqan neighborhood on Sunday.

Another nurse who was wounded in the shelling later died, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"The Russian and Syrian doctors tried their best to save her," Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said in an emailed statement. Another Russian, a pediatrician, remains in critical condition.

He urged international organizations such as the Red Cross to condemn the attack on the health workers "who were doing their medical duty to help the civilians of Aleppo."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said talks would be held with the United States this week in Geneva on a rebel withdrawal from eastern Aleppo, Russian news agencies reported. The Russians have tried before to coax rebels into leaving the territory, setting up corridors out of the district, but the fighters have refused because they want to retain their control over parts of the city. Some fear the Russians and their Syrian allies would not ensure their safety.

Monday's fighting was the worst in days. Syrian government artillery, tanks and warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of the city for hours. The airstrikes were so intense that buildings on the western side of the city shook. Opposition activists and rescue workers said four people were killed in a barrel bomb attack on a rebel-held district, and three more were trapped in the rubble.

Insurgents also struck back in the government-held western parts of the city with dozens of mortar shells. At least eight civilians were killed in different neighborhoods, according to state news agency SANA. Among the dead were two children and four women, said the opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Thick smoke billowed from behind Aleppo's famous citadel where Syrian forces were advancing from the west and east to try to cut rebel-held districts in half.

On the city's southern edge, heavy machine gun fire could be heard.

An Associated Press team in government-controlled Aleppo said the attack on the Russian field hospital left the large tent charred and beds overturned. The shelling struck shortly before the inauguration of makeshift clinic. The AP crew was accompanied by representatives of the Syrian army.

Konashenkov said an unspecified number of residents at the field hospital were wounded, and he accused the U.S., Britain and France of telling the rebels the location of the hospital.

"The blood of our soldiers is on the hands of those who ordered this murder  those who created, nurtured and armed these beasts in human form and named them the 'opposition,'" he said.

Asked about the accusation, the British Defense Ministry declined to comment.

The Russian Defense Ministry also said the Su-33 fighter jet crashed in the Mediterranean as it returned to the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov after a sortie over Syria. "Because of the failure of the arrester system's cable, the Su-33 fighter rolled off the deck," the ministry said.

The pilot ejected successfully and was unharmed, the ministry said, adding that Russian military operations over Syria would not be affected by the incident.

This is the second loss of an aircraft from the Admiral Kuznetsov since it arrived off Syria last month. A MiG-29 crashed into the sea Nov. 15 while trying to land on the carrier.

In a ground offensive that began last week, Syrian government forces seized large parts of the Aleppo enclave that have been under rebel control since 2012. Monday's fighting was most intense near the dividing line between eastern and western Aleppo as government and allied troops pushed their way from the eastern flank, reaching less than 1 kilometer (half a mile) from the citadel in the center of the city.

Rebel fighters clashed with advancing troops and also lobbed mortars and shells into the government-controlled part of Aleppo to the west.

The opposition-run Thiqa News agency and the Syrian Civil Defense said four civilians were killed in the rebel-held Zabadiyeh district when barrel bombs were dropped there.

In nearby rebel-controlled Idlib province, Syrian opposition activists said Russian and Syrian aircraft stepped up assaults, a day after air raids killed more than 60 people.

The activist-run Local Coordination Committees said airstrikes on Monday hit the towns of Binnish, Maarat Nasaan and Saraqib, as well as the provincial capital, Idlib. The network said three children were killed, blaming the attacks on Russian aircraft.

Rebels also sent rockets into the predominantly Shiite towns of Foua and Kfarya, in Idlib province. Online video posted by activists showed clouds of smoke rising and wreckage sustained by the blasts.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 288 civilians have been killed in the province since Oct. 20, when Syrian government and Russian aircraft intensified airstrikes. The Syrian Civil Defense in Idlib said 65 civilians were killed in Sunday's airstrikes across the province, including attacks on two rural marketplaces that killed dozens.
Last Friday thousands of Quad Citizens woke up to the news that Exelons Quad Cities Generating Station will continue to provide power for the foreseeable future. Their careers are safe in the Quad-Cities, and our community will continue to be blessed with this extraordinary regional business.

The Illinois Legislature reached agreement on the Future Energy Jobs Bill. 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 like 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 Quad Cities 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 Sen. 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.
Any one of us could be hurt on the job. It doesnt matter if we work in an office, a factory or on a farm, accidents happen to people in every occupation. When someone is seriously injured, the question becomes whose responsibility is it to pay for their care and rehabilitation so they can get back to work?

For Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, his insurance industry allies, and many businesses the unfortunate answer is that the person who was hurt and the taxpayers should pay. Under the guise of reform they are seeking further changes to our workers compensation laws that shift the risk of needing to care for the injured away from insurers and that allow employers to more easily evade the responsibility for ensuring safe worksites and working conditions.

Governor Rauner and Republican legislators want to cut the number of injured workers eligible to receive benefits and many employees, especially older workers more likely to be hurt, would receive no compensation for serious work-related injuries.

That would leave taxpayers, through Medicaid and other publicly funded programs, to cover the resulting medical bills and income support payments that are rightfully the responsibility of the employer. The governor and his insurance industry friends claim that workers comp is too generous. In fact, its all thats standing between the families of injured men and women and a life of poverty.

Since lawmakers rewrote the states workers comp law in 2011, the insurance industrys cost of issuing policies has plummeted as a result of the reduced amount they have to pay in claims. That legislation curtailed longstanding workers rights in an effort to reduce the cost of premiums paid by employers. The National Council on Compensation Insurance, an insurance industry trade group, has since recommended workers comp rate cuts totaling nearly 30 percent. That guidance has been ignored.

In 2017 alone, the NCCI suggests that Illinois insurers lower workers comp insurance premiums by 12.9 percent. This would represent the third largest drop in the nation and total more than Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin combined. But, employers wont see a reduction in their premiums when the insurance industry refuses to pass the savings along.

A recent report by the Illinois Department of Insurance revealed that workers comp insurers here saw profit jump nearly 22 points between 2010 and 2014  from negative 11 percent to positive 11 percent  and, by the end of that period, nearly match the national average.

There are 332 insurance companies competing for and writing workers compensation insurance in Illinois, more than any other state in the nation. Were an attractive place to do business for them because of insufficient oversight and laws that put their interests ahead of regular Illinoisans. And yet they still want more  always more.

Insurance companies are taking advantage of both workers and employers. Any further changes to Illinois workers comp laws should focus on insurance reforms, not punishing injured workers to further pad insurers profits.
G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
The accident occurred on a signal-track line between Rosenheim and Holzkirchen and resulted in the death of 12 passengers and injury to another 85. It was discovered that, contrary to DB regulations, the signalman was playing an online computer game on his smart phone while on duty, which distracted him from his work and caused him to make fatal mistakes in dispatching the two trains onto the same section of track.

To make matters worse, when the signalman realised his mistake, he operated the wrong alarm button which meant he failed to intervene in time to avoid the head-on collision.

During the court trial, it became clear that DB should have already resignalled the line to provide a higher level of safety. However, DB was unable to explain why this has not taken place.

Some of the people affected by the train crash plan to start legal proceedings against DB Networks which, as network manager, is responsible for the infrastructure and train dispatching, in order to claim compensation.

Meridian, the train operator, is a brand of Bavarian Overland Railway (BOB), which is a subsidiary of Transdev.

For more information about railway projects around the world, subscribe to IRJ Pro.
The 115th Congress will soon be under way, and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) on Dec. 6 announced several senior staff changes.

These are the people that you need to know on Capitol Hill on the T&I Committee. In many ways, they are more important than even Shuster himself. They are his direct interface. They run interference. They set his schedule. And they play a big role in influencing policy and getting bills passed and signed by the President.

In summary:

 Chris Vieson: Deputy Staff Director, full Committee.

 Fred Miller: General Counsel, full Committee.

 Holly Woodruff Lyons: Deputy General Counsel, full Committee (and Aviation Subcommittee Staff Director).

 Mary Phillips: Staff Director, Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee.

 Geoff Gosselin: Senior Advisor to the Chairman, and Senior Professional Staff, Highways and Transit Subcommittee.

 Chris Brown: Oversight Counsel.

Additional background:

Chris Vieson joins the Committee from Public Strategies Washington, where he is a partner in the firms government affairs group. Previous to his stint with Public Strategies Washington, Chris held a number of positions on the Hill, most recently as the Director of Floor Operations for Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Before that, he served as a floor assistant and policy advisor on appropriations for Republican Whip Roy Blunt. He was also a legislative analyst for House Republican Conference Chairs Deborah Pryce and Adam Putnam.

Fred Miller has served as the Staff Director of the Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee since 2015, after first joining the Subcommittee staff in 2011 as Counsel. Fred has worked on a variety of oversight and legislative efforts involving Amtrak and passenger rail services, freight rail transportation, pipeline safety, and hazardous materials regulation, in addition to surface transportation and aviation reauthorization bills. He is a former attorney-advisor of both the Surface Transportation Board and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Holly Woodruff Lyonshas served as the Deputy General Counsel for the Committee since 2014. She has previously served as the Aviation Subcommittee Republican Staff Director, and first joined the Subcommittee staff in 2002. She has worked on multiple Federal Aviation Administration reauthorizations, and was the lead House negotiator on the 2012 reauthorization and the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016. Holly is also a former FAA attorney, and has worked in private legal practice. As Aviation Subcommittee Staff Director, Holly will also continue to serve as the Committees Deputy General Counsel.

Mary Phillips has served as Senior Professional Staff on the Committee for two years, a post she also held with the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, where she handled surface transportation issues for Senators McCain and Thune. During the George W. Bush Administration, Mary was the Associate Administrator for Policy and Governmental Affairs at the Federal Highway Administration. She also has prior experience in the freight transportation industry in marketing, sales, strategic planning, and governmental affairs.

Geoff Gosselin has served for 16 years as a staff member in the House or Representatives. He has served on the Committee staff for six years as Senior Professional Staff on the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, and as Professional Staff on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee. He also has a decade of experience working in the personal offices of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Members.

Chris Brown previously served as the Staff Director of the Aviation Subcommittee since 2014. Before joining the Committee, Chris worked in the private sector as well as in the executive branch, serving two years as the Assistant Administrator and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Government and Industry Affairs at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Brown also worked previously as counsel for the Aviation Subcommittee.
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BBC Worldwide has sealed a series of deals to take four natural history films to museum theatres in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2017.





The BBC Earth Giant Screen films  Tiny Giants, Wild Africa, Earthflight and Incredible Predators  have been acquired by Orient International Holding Shanghai Foreign Trade Company and Wuhan DDMC Culture Company and will be shown in over 20 science and technology museums from January.Tiny Giants is about a day in the life of a scorpion mouse and a chipmunk, both trying to survive in a sometimes hostile world; Earthflight takes a flight on the wings of birds across six continents and experiences some of the worlds greatest natural spectacles from a birds-eye view; Wild Africa, narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, transports audiences on a journey through Africa to discover how water shapes all life; and Incredible Predators delves into the interactions between predators and their prey, revealing some dramatic natural events.BBC Earth exists to inspire people with the natural world; we constantly push boundaries to excite our audiences with amazing stories, characters and discoveries that we go to the ends of the earth to find, said Kelvin Yau, GM, Greater China for BBC Worldwide We are very pleased that visitors to science and technology museums all over China will have access to the four BBC Earth films that will allow viewers to envelope themselves in the larger than life, immersive experience of the 2D Dome and 3D giant screen formats.Each of the films is 40 minutes long and, following these deals , will run between six months and a year in cities in Hong Kong, as well as the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenyang and Hefei.
The HbbTV association has announced the release of test suite version 9.0 which will support the HbbTV 2 specification.





The association says that the new release is an important step towards enhancing interoperability between HbbTV services and HbbTV devices. It adds that its new test suite expands the existing solution, making it 50% larger with an additional 350 new tests covering HbbTV 2 functionality, and that it will also improve test coverage of the widely adopted HbbTV 1.1 and 1.5 standards.HbbTV 2 has so far been adopted by Italy and the UK, providing additional new features that bring value to consumers, broadcasters, pay-TV operators and over-the-top (OTT) video providers . These are claimed to include features such as seamless viewing of video content across TVs and mobile devices, standardised delivery of Ultra HD content with HEVC, improved accessibility of services and enhanced support for dynamic ad insertion.We're extremely pleased to reach a new milestone with the release of test suite version 9.0, said president of the HbbTV Association Klaus Illgner. It's an important step towards enhancing interoperability of HbbTV products, enabling manufacturers and TV platforms to improve services and offer advanced interactive features to consumers.Version 9.1 of the test suite is due to be released before the end of 2016. It will include tests cases for the features that were added to address requirements from the UK and Italy, and will also expand the coverage for previous HbbTV versions.
MOSCOW, December 6 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova)  A judge of the Kirov regional court rejected a request to recuse himself from overseeing the case against Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, RAPSI learnt in the court on Tuesday.

The motion for recusal of the judge was filed by Navalnys defense. Earlier, the court had also dismissed a motion to close criminal case against the politician and a motion to return the case to prosecutors in order to make good the defects that prevented this case from being properly reviewed.

Navalny was given a five-year suspended sentence for embezzlement at the Kirovles timber company in July 2013. Ofitserov received a four-year suspended sentence.

According to investigators, while serving on a voluntary basis as an adviser to the Kirov Region governor Navalny organized the theft of over 10,000 cubic meters of timber from Kirovles company between May and September 2009.

Investigators claimed that Pyotr Ofitserov, then Director of Vyatka Timber Company, and Kirovles CEO Vyacheslav Opalyov were involved in the scheme.

The ECHR ruled in February that Russia had violated Navalny's and and Ofitserovs right to a fair trial.

In particular, according to ECHR, sentences against them were issued with numerous violations because a lot of references were made regarding another defendant Vyacheslav Opalyov. The proceedings against Opalyov were treated as a separated criminal case after he admitted his guilt.

Additionally, ECHR noted that Russian courts failed to review claims by the defense that Kirovles case might have a political motive behind it and did not provide adequate evaluations of such claims. ECHR itself did not find a political motive in the case. The court ruled to compensate Navalny with 48,000 euros of legal costs and Ofitserov with 22,000 euros. Additionally, Russia is to pay 8,000 euro to each applicant in damages.

Russias Justice Ministry filed a request seeking referral of the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, but the request was dismissed.

Russia's Supreme Court overturned in mid-November sentences against Navalny and Ofitserov in Kirovles embezzlement case and sent it for retrial.

Russia's Supreme Court delivered the ruling taking into consideration the judgement of the ECHR.

The case against Navalny was forwarded once again to the Oktyabrksy District Court of the city of Kirov.

Navalny refused to attend the new trial.
National Congress of Judges opens in Moscow

MOSCOW, December 6 (RAPSI)  Dmitry Krasnov, the Chairman of the Russias Council of Judges, has declared the IX Congress of Judges open, RAPSI reports from the House of Unions in central Moscow, located next door to the Kremlin, on Tuesday.

The Congress is to continue for three days, from December 6 through December 8. It is expected that more than 700 representatives of higher courts, general jurisdiction courts, commercial and military courts, as well as judges of the peace and Russias Constitutional Court will attend.

Guido Raimondi, the President of the European Court of Human Rights, addressed the Congress saying it was a mark of honor for ECHR to participate in the forum on the twentieth anniversary of Russia joined the Council of Europe thus entering the common legal space built with participation of Strasbourg. Noting the progress Russia made since 1998, the year it ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, Raimondi said that Russia was no longer the biggest source of applications to the Court as there were other states that now accounted for a greater number of cases sent to Strasbourg.

The National Congress of Judges is the supreme body of the national judiciary vested with the authority to regulate its activities. Justices of peace, district court judges, judges of the courts of the Russian Federation subjects, representatives of military and commercial courts, as well as of higher courts, among them the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, are eligible to be elected as delegates of Congresses of Judges. The Congresses are convened every four years by Russias Council of Judges. The first Congress took place in October of 1991.
Chairman of Russia's Supreme Court summarizes criminal justice trends

Context National Congress of Judges opens in Moscow

MOSCOW, December 6 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  Vyacheslav Lebedev, Chairman of Russias Supreme Court, summarized criminal justice trends addressing the Ninth National Congress of Judges which is held in Moscow.

Lebedev said that the number of suspects put in pre-trial detention in Russia dropped by 80 per cent in comparison with 2006,

The number of underage convicts is decreasing, according to Lebedev.

The number of individuals who were convicted and sentenced for business crimes also dropped from 8,000 in 2010 to 2,000 in 2016.

One fourth of suspects are exempted from criminal liability, Lebedev said.

Fraud remains the most frequent crime in Russia, he added.

The Congress was also addressed by President Putin, Chairman of Russias Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, and the President of the European Court of Human Rights Guido Raimondi.

The National Congress of Judges is the supreme body of the national judiciary vested with the authority to regulate its activities. Justices of peace, district court judges, judges of the courts of the Russian Federation subjects, representatives of military and commercial courts, as well as of higher courts, among them the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, are eligible to be elected as delegates of Congresses of Judges. The Congresses are convened every four years by Russias Council of Judges. The first Congress took place in October of 1991.
Among white voters without a college degree - the so-called white working class - Donald Trump won by 39 percentage points. Since this group of less educated whites represents about one third of the electorate, we need to understand why it went so heavily for Trump. Was it economics or culture?

The economic argument holds that decent paying jobs are disappearing as a result of trade, technology, and de-industrialization. With a scarcity of good jobs, many people - men in particular - have faced high rates of joblessness. Some have chosen not to work at all rather than accept very low paid jobs. Cut loose from the moorings that work and a sense of contributing provides, many of the working class have become discouraged or depressed and have turned to unhealthy behaviors, even suicide; causing a rise in mortality, as documented by Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Their health problems can be linked back to their poor economic prospects and the associated loss of meaning in their lives. Evidence for this story has been found in several economic studies. For example, a recent paper by Justin Pierce and Peter Schott shows that rising imports from China following the liberalization of trade in 2000 has led to both bad employment outcomes and rising suicide rates in the U.S. counties most affected even after carefully controlling for other possible explanations. Under these circumstances, Trump's promise to reduce competition from trade and immigrants was the right message - or so goes the economic side of the argument.

The cultural argument is more about identity politics and lack of trust in mainstream institutions. Trump's bigoted comments, his refusal to be deterred by elite opinion, his success in business, and his outsider status all appealed to small town and rural white Americans of modest means. They were more angry than poor. As Arthur Brooks has put it, they have lost dignity, not just income.

Evidence for the cultural side of the argument is also strong. First, there was Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?, arguing that the white working class is so concerned with guns, gays, and abortion that they vote Republican despite its very negative implications for their own economic prospects. (Frank has a new book called Listen Liberal arguing strongly that the fault lies with Democrats for not paying enough attention to this group.)

More recently, several new books and articles have elaborated on the theme. The two most important, I think, are Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance and Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild. Both are close-up portraits of two white working class communities, one in Appalachia and one in Louisiana. They portray a group of people in rural or small town America with middling jobs and a host of problems from broken families to drug addiction but also a fierce loyalty to family, community, and church. They resent upwardly mobile minorities, immigrants, and liberal elites. And even the women in these communities believe that women should not compete with men. They hate government in almost all of its manifestations even though they are often dependent on it themselves. They are especially critical of bureaucrats who have "cushy jobs" and of people who rely on "handouts" from the government.

Hochschild's masterful book makes clear that the conservative politics she finds in Lake Charles, Louisiana have no rational basis. It is delusional and self-defeating. As in Frank's Kansas, people are clearly voting against their own self interest. The terrible human and natural devastation wrought by toxic chemicals in the area goes hand in hand with hatred of the EPA and a ready acceptance of wrongdoing by corporate polluters (who do at least provide jobs). She calls this "the great paradox." What she finds is an emotional and irrational attachment to a set of conservative views, driven by Fox news and its equivalents, by resentment of elites, and by the fact that everyone else holds the same anti-government attitudes. These conservative beliefs are a comforting tribal imperative reinforced by friends, family, and neighbors.

Vance, who grew up in Appalachia, also talks about disdain for mainstream institutions and liberal elites. He emphasizes, in addition, the role of "learned helplessness," a kind of fatalism born of having too little control over one's life. Then there is the association of doing well in school with femininity and the breakdown of the family. A teacher he interviews says she is expected to shepherd the children in her community but complains that their parents are often wolves.

Trump spoke to these people in the heartland, not just because he was against trade and wanted to make America great again, but because in speech and attitude, he thumbed his nose at the elites. He may have been rich but his rhetoric was not polished and certainly not politically correct. Many who voted for him were clearly racist and misogynist, but perhaps less out of dislike for individual blacks or women, but because these groups and their liberal advocates are seen as asking for special privileges not available to the white working class.

There has been an outpouring of other commentary on these issues. Joan Williams talks about a class cultural gap (professionals especially are resented by the working class) and the loss of "manly dignity" in these communities. Others who have weighed in include Charles Murray, Jonathan Rothwell, Alan Krueger, Nick Eberstadt, Scott Winship, Richard Reeves, Carol Graham, and the Economist magazine. The Economist, for example, finds that markers of an unhealthy life style (obesity, heavy drinking, lack of exercise, diabetes) are a better predictor of Trump's margin over Romney than any other variable, including lack of education (although this is a close second).

I confess to being unsure about how to interpret all of this. Of course both economics and culture matter. Indeed, they interact. So, it's complicated. Perhaps Charles Murray is right when he argues in Coming Apart that the breakdown of the family has played a primary role. Perhaps Thomas Frank and E.J. Dionne are right that the Democratic party has fallen down on its historical commitment to the working class and that the solution is more and better jobs. (But whether the promise of better jobs would swing a lot more votes into the Democratic column, as many assume, remains unclear.) Perhaps David Brooks is right that people are lonely and sad. Probably everyone is partly right such that we shouldn't look for simple explanations, much less simple answers. But the recent election has been a wake-up call to dig a little deeper.
Summary

Sino-Taiwanese tensions are rising and the effects have begun to spread, so much so that they have started to complicate China's relationship with the United States. Over the past month, China has redoubled its efforts to weaken Taiwan's ties with diplomatic allies and defense partners while also tempering its own economic and diplomatic involvement with the newly elected Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei. Beijing's push to isolate Taiwan suggests that China thinks its approach toward Taipei over the past decade is becoming less effective, particularly in light of a potential shift in U.S. policy as Washington prepares to inaugurate a new president. This has moved Taiwan to the center of Beijing's foreign policy agenda, a shift that the Dec. 2 phone call between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has given added weight.

Analysis

On Nov. 23, Hong Kong authorities, apparently acting at Beijing's behest, interdicted a shipment of armored personnel carriers heading from Taiwan to Singapore  a city-state that has long maintained military ties with Taipei. A week later, reports surfaced that Beijing has been seeking to establish official ties with the Dominican Republic, a move that would invalidate the island's existing relationship with Taiwan. (Mainland China and Taiwan both adhere to the idea that there is only one China, so if a country forges ties with either Beijing or Taipei, it must sever ties with the other.) On Dec. 2, a Chinese business delegation arrived in Panama  another of the few countries that still recognizes Taiwan  scouting investment opportunities, particularly in energy and port infrastructure.

These moves are not motivated solely by China's concerns about Taiwan. Over the past few months, for example, China and Singapore have gotten into several diplomatic spats over how to manage territorial disputes in the South China Sea and over the city-state's increased defense cooperation with the United States. China's protests have been intended, in part, to discourage Singapore from undermining Beijing's attempts to adopt a more conciliatory approach toward South China Sea claimant states and to sow doubts about Washington's commitment to the region.

Meanwhile, Beijing has been building up its presence in Central American and Caribbean states for years as part of its outreach to Latin America. The region has significant markets, natural resources and investment opportunities. It also provides a space for China to expand its soft power on the United States' doorstep. Consequently, Chinese trade jumped to more than 12 percent of Latin America's total trade portfolio in 2014, up from 2 percent a decade ago. Its investment presence rose substantially as well, even in countries with which it has no diplomatic relations.

Isolating Taiwan

Nonetheless, the issue of Taiwan is becoming increasingly interwoven in Beijing's strategy across the globe, suggesting that China believes the island's status quo is growing less sustainable. The roots of Beijing's spat with Singapore, for example, date back to the normalization of Sino-Singaporean relations in the 1990s, when Beijing reluctantly agreed to allow Singaporean troops to train overseas in Taiwan. For the past two decades, Beijing has opted to tacitly accept the status quo while boosting its own military cooperation with Singapore. The interdiction of the Singaporean armored personnel carriers calls this strategy into question.

Beijing has grown more assertive in Taiwanese affairs elsewhere as well. In 2008, following the election of the comparatively China-friendly Kuomintang government in Taipei, Beijing reached a deal with Taipei to refrain from poaching its few diplomatic allies. The agreement came in spite of a change in the economic, diplomatic and political clout of the mainland and Taiwan, which drew some of Taipei's allies  including Gambia, Panama and El Salvador  closer to China. But as cross-strait relations progressively deteriorated under Taiwan's recently elected Democratic Progressive Party, so did the truce.

For the most part, the Tsai administration does not seem interested in a radical departure from the previous administration's cross-strait policies, nor in the pursuit of independence. But even an ostensibly pragmatic position is not enough to satisfy Beijing. Taiwan has openly sought economic independence and has reached out diplomatically to China's rival, Japan, on sensitive maritime matters. Beijing views such acts as an attempt to jettison the status quo. In response, it has largely suspended its official exchanges with Taipei and has attempted to block the island's inclusion in international organizations and events. China has also imposed indirect economic punishments, including limiting the flow of tourists from the mainland and perhaps even trade in areas with the strongest support for Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party.

By going after Singapore and courting Taipei's Central American allies, Beijing aims to diplomatically squeeze Taipei. Most of Taiwan's allies in Central America, Africa and Oceania are important simply because they legitimize Taiwan's "one China" claim. They are not a critical economic or political priority to Taiwan, nor are they powerful enough to give Taipei the strategic influence it so desires. Still, Beijing's overwhelming economic advantage and international heft could begin forcing some of Taipei's allies to rethink their strategies.

Looming Turbulence

Beijing's attempts to isolate Taipei are unlikely to hamper Taiwan's pursuit of political and economic autonomy. But the call from Trump  a significant breach of U.S. protocol and tradition  could trigger a reassessment by Beijing of the new U.S. administration's strategy toward China, as well as its own options regarding cross-strait relations.

Though many perceive the call from Trump to be a diplomatic victory for Taipei, uncertainty over U.S. military obligations in the region persists at a time when any miscalculation between Washington and Beijing could considerably degrade cross-strait relations, leaving Taiwan vulnerable. The United States' withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership also stifles Taipei's hopes for inclusion and protection from Beijing by diverting trade from the mainland market. Washington's commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act  an act that could require the United States to intervene if China attacks or invades Taiwan  has not been tested for many years, and a hawkish cross-strait policy could put Taipei squarely in Beijing's crosshairs.

But just as Taipei will struggle to manage the fallout of these strained relationships, Beijing will also suffer some consequences. Over the past decade, China has relied on its economic interdependence and cultural links with Taiwan to advocate their eventual reunification. This strategy is becoming less and less feasible, however, in large part because of a political shift in Taiwan: The island's younger generation is more nationalist than its elders. Along with Beijing's increased military capability, territorial assertiveness and diplomatic clout, a more unpredictable United States and a remilitarized Japan will continue to test the security of cross-strait relations, perhaps pushing even Beijing beyond peaceful means.
This piece was created in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center. Jack A. Goldstone is Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center. One of the worlds leading experts on revolutions, he is the author of "Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction, The Encyclopedia of Political Revolutions, and Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World". The views expressed here are the author's own.

One of the last great revolutionary leaders of the 20th century has passed away. One may hesitate to call Fidel Castro great -- but whether you admire or revile him, no one can deny that he exercised global influence over a generation of revolutionary leaders, from Latin America all the way to Africa, and managed to keep his small nation locked in defiant opposition to the United States for over half a century.

As an expert on revolutions, I can offer some perspective on Castro as a revolutionary leader. He was not a monster like Stalin or Mao, who blithely embarked on policies that slaughtered or starved tens of millions, and dismissed the costs. Rather, Castro came to power and ruled as an idealist who believed he was rescuing the Cuban people from the harsh exploitation of early 20th Century capitalism, in which American companies reaped much of the profit generated by Cubas economy while Cuban men labored like slaves on sugar plantations and women turned to prostitution to support themselves. Unlike the Russian and Chinese Communists, who fought their way to power in bloody civil wars that tore their countries apart for many years, Castro and his revolutionary guerillas were a small force that played cat-and-mouse with the army of the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Their achievement was to just survive and win popular admiration until Batistas own apparent disregard for his people and his nation, and his dependence on his U.S. patrons, led both his army and the Cuban people to abandon him, allowing Castros forces to take over the island.

Once in power, Castro was embraced as a nationalist hero. When Cuban refugees tried to persuade U.S. President John F. Kennedy to support their effort to take back the island, promising that Cubans would rally to their side and desert Castro, the result was one of the unmitigated disasters of U.S. diplomatic history. The promised defections never materialized, and the invasion forces at the Bay of Pigs were sent packing. But one of the results was to ensure that Castro would always see the United States as his dire enemy. Already leaning toward Communism as a way to bring equality and hoped-for economic betterment to ordinary Cubans, Castro forged strong ties with the Soviet Union and became a champion of communist and anti-American guerilla movements and governments around the world.

Of course, Castros imposition of a Communist system on Cuba strangled rather than strengthened the economy. Castros early policies provided some widely admired gains, as his barefoot teachers and investments in health care gave Cubans universal literacy and one of the highest levels of doctors per-capita in the world. Unfortunately, both gains were squandered as Cubas socialist economy provided no opportunities for the newly literate to become successful entrepreneurs and as Cubas medical personnel were sent around the world as a way to gain support and earn hard currency.

As the oppressiveness of Communist party rule and the stagnation of what had been Latin Americas most advanced economy became apparent, Castro had to deal with rising voices of opposition. He dealt with them harshly. Even old comrades were imprisoned, and thousands of opponents were executed. As in other communist regimes, there was no freedom of press, speech or assembly. But Castros rule was more frustrating than dangerous for ordinary Cubans. After the years of the murderous Batista regime, which sent death squads throughout the countryside and sold nearly half the economy to American interests, Castros regime was seen as a significant improvement. As one Cuban emigre put it to me  Castro is like changing a wife-beating husband for one that is kind but lazy and cannot keep a job. At first, you are grateful just not to be beaten every day. But eventually, you do start to wonder when your economic situation will ever improve.

The best hope for such improvement will come from the integration of Cuba into the global economy, with new opportunities for foreign investment, trade, travel, and migration. This is the path that President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raoul Castro, Fidels brother, have embarked upon, however hesitantly on the part of the latter. Some may hope that such actions will accelerate after Castros passing, but it is almost certain that insulting Fidels memory and attacking his legacy will have no positive effect on his brother. What we have learned from the last 50 years is that Cubas government will not be bullied into changing its ways; rather it may shift gradually if Cuban are treated with the respect and dignity that they believe Castros revolution  even if it did nothing else  earned for their country.
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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 12/05/2016



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

fans won't have to wait much longer for its return.CBS has announced the eighth season of will premiere Wednesday, December 21 at 8PM ET/PT with a special two-hour episode.follows high-level executives as they slip anonymously into the rank-and-file of their own organizations.Each week, a different leader or boss sacrifices the comfort of his or her corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of the operation he or she runs.Following its debut, will move to Wednesday nights at 8PM ET/PT for one-hour episodes beginning December 28. The show will continue in this timeslot until the time-period premiere of the network's new reality series Hunted on January 25, 2017.Hunted will challenge ordinary people to run as fugitives in attempt to evade capture by an elite team of investigators pursuing them. The show is based off the UK reality series with the same name.The January 25 episode of Hunted will be two hours, while subsequent broadcasts will only be one-hour long.In addition to ' premiere date, CBS also revealed the return of The Amazing Race as well as Survivor's 34th season premiere as part of unveiling its Winter 2016-Spring 2017 schedule.is produced by Studio Lambert/All3Media America and executive produced by Stephen Lambert, Chris Carlson and Greg Lipstone.
Most people consider the first commercially successful semi-auto pistol 1893 C93 Borchardt, but there are other standards by which to judge the First Automatic Pistol.

Ian McCollum has addressed the question, What was the first automatic pistol? using the following criterion:

1. Not necessarily commercially successful, but not one-off handmade prototypes. 2. Minimum of 5 or more in series, with serial numbers on them. 3. Does not have to have passed any military trials or acceptance. 4. Must function. 5. Will not consider manual ring-trigger activated repeating pistols. 6. Patent application date will be used rather than the date it was actually granted.

This leaves him, he says, with just two options: the Schonberger-Laumann and the Salvator-Dormus; except in the former case, he's talking about the actual Laumann pistol, which preceded the Schnoberger-Laumann by a couple of years.

What's the answer? It actually comes down to just a very small margin. Watch the video to learn more.

Says Ian,

Before there were self-loading pistols, there were manually operated repeating pistols with magazines  like the 1850s Volcanics. A surprising number of this type of pistol were developed in Austria in the 1880s, and they led directly to some of the first blowback automatic pistols.

You can find the book he references right here. It's only a few tens of thousands of Euro, so pick up an extra copy for me. The original Forgotten Weapons post can be found here.

Now we'll kick back and await the outraged comments from pedantic window-lickers declaiming the difference between automatic and semi-automatic pistols without wondering why someone with McCollum's background would use such terms as he didof if the distinction is important enough in this context to throw a fit about in the first place.

About Forgotten Weapons.

If you have an interest in militaria and historical weapons, you really ought to be following Forgotten Weapons. I don't read it every day, but I don't miss a post unless I have to. To call a resource like this just a blog is to damn it with faint praise. Ian McCollum is an extremely knowledgeable and affable man who is passionate about he does, and it shows. FR is a great resource, and one worth supporting. You can do that, if you are so inclined, right here on Patreon (which I do personally, and encourage you to do as well).

You can follow Forgotten Weapons on Facebook (/ForgottenWeapons/). They're online here.
The Red Zone, a time between the start of fall semester until Thanksgiving break, is traditionally when more sexual assaults are reported on college campuses than any other point in the school year. However, the numbers in Athens-Clarke County could be dropping compared to previous years, as education of rape culture rises.
A line of students was present all day at the Waffle House on Clayton Street Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014. Students came out in large numbers to enjoy free waffles, a reward for Georgia's 34-7 victory over Auburn the previous weekend. (Photo/Garrett Leffelman)
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Former Redding couple helps neighbors in new hometown

By Kimberly Ross

Helping handA

Jennifer and Cameron Gamble, formerly of Redding, launched the "Enterprise Tornado Ministry" in their new hometown of Enterprise, Ala. Last week's tornado missed their home. They hope to set up a bank account for donations today and list it on the Web site. For more:

On the Net:A

enterprisetornadoministry.blogspot.com

ASend e-mail to:

enterprisetornadoministry@yahoo.com

Just three months after moving from Redding to Enterprise, Ala., Cameron and Jennifer Gamble and their two young children heard the warning sirens, shut themselves in their home's walk-in closet and waited out last week's tornado.

"You could hear twigs breaking," Jennifer Gamble said. "It was like from the movie Twister'; it was so scary."

When the Gambles emerged, their neighborhood was intact. But just a quarter-mile away, the tornado had peeled away rooftops and tossed cars upside-down.

The tornado killed nine people, including eight students at a high school. It destroyed 211 homes and damaged at least 500 more, the American Red Cross reported.

But the three times the Gambles tried to volunteer at the Red Cross, it was closed.

"We felt so overwhelmed and helpless. There was so much damage that you didn't see on the news ... so many trees down, houses damaged, telephone poles at 45-degree angles," said Jennifer Gamble, a stay-at-home mom who attended Simpson University in Redding.

The couple prayed about what to do.

Then Jennifer created a Web site, www.enterprisetornadoministry.blogspot.com. Cameron grabbed a notebook and went door-to-door -- and to homes without doors -- asking neighbors what would help.

The Web site described needs like trash bags and cardboard boxes and requested money to rent a mini-excavator, which is like a small backhoe. Cameron Gamble is well experienced in operating one -- he previously owned Gamble Excavating in Redding.

The Gambles sent about 70 e-mails, telling friends about the Web site. An anonymous donor paid $850 to rent, deliver and fuel a mini-excavator for a



week. The figure quickly grew to about $2,000 in donations, with more on the way.

Before they knew it, they had started their own relief effort.

"We took a step of faith," Jennifer Gamble said. "We'll do it until it runs out of steam."

Every day since Monday, Cameron has operated the mini-excavator, helping pull cars, tree trunks and other debris away from homes.

Volunteers appear whenever they hear the engine, Jennifer Gamble said.

"It seemed like a lot of people just needed structure. Someone needed to say, OK, this is the plan.' And people just follow," she said.

Tuesday, Cameron and others pulled a car off of a house and took a half-ton truck crushed by a pine tree back to its driveway two doors away, Jennifer Gamble said.

Cameron Gamble's new employer, government survival-training contractor Tate Inc., has been very supportive and flexible with his schedule.

The Gambles moved to Alabama in December, when Cameron was hired as a code-of-conduct trainer, giving direction to Army and special forces pilots.

He laughed Wednesday about getting out of bed with the flu to warn his moving-in neighbors about the tornado, then joining his family in the closet.

"Yeah, our fallout shelter is the walk-in closet in our master bedroom," Cameron Gamble said.

After experiencing her first tornado, Jennifer Gamble said she doesn't regret the move from Redding.

"Out of all the places in the world we could have moved," she said, "I feel like we are here to help these people."

Reporter Kimberly Ross can be reached at 225-8339 or at kross@redding.com.


A Fat Rice takeover, a cava tasting and more things to do in Chicago on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

EAT

Fat Ramen

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Ramen-san

59 W. Hubbard St. 312-377-9950

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The River North restaurant hosts chef Abe Conlon for a dinner inspired by his new cookbook "The Adventures of Fat Rice: Recipes from the Chicago Restaurant Inspired by Macau" with dishes including chicken curry katsu with peas, turnips and mushrooms, and sauteed and marinated mackerel with lemon, green chile, red onion and dashi vinegar. 6-9 p.m. $55; $75 with a copy of the book. Tickets: ramensan.com



DRINK

Holiday Cava Class

The Spanish Square

1358 W. Belmont Ave. 773-717-7900

Try and learn about five varieties of the Spanish sparkling wine. The tasting also includes still varieties and appetizers. 7-9 p.m. $30.



Guest Bartenders for a Cause

The Bar on Buena

910 W. Buena Ave. 773-525-8665

Representatives from Allagash Brewing Co., Green Flash Brewing Co., Metropolitan Brewing and Avery Brewing Co. pour boilermakers with a 16-ounce craft beer and a spirit of their choice ($9-$13) and donate their tips to women's shelter Deborah's Place. 6-10 p.m. No cover.



DO

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Tuesday Funk (Free!)

Hopleaf

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5148 N. Clark St. 773-334-9851

The monthly reading series marks its 100th show with performances by all of the show's former and current hosts including Connor Coyne, Reinhardt Suarez and Hallie Palladino. 7:30 p.m.; doors open at 7 p.m. Free.



Oak Street After Hours (Free!)

Oak Street between Rush Street and Michigan Avenue

Stop at any of the nearly 20 participating businesses to pick up a passport, which gives you access to special discounts and complimentary champagne, snacks, cider and hot cocoa. Every store you visit gets you entry in a raffle for a $500 gift certificate. 5-8 p.m. Free. RSVP for extra raffle tickets: eventbrite.com



HAPPY HOUR OF THE DAY

Little Unicoco (1631 W. Howard St. 773-764-2626) offers dark and stormy cocktails, Stiegl Radler with a shot of tequila, goat sliders with fried yams, and meat pie with sauce for $5 from 4-7 p.m.

For more Eat & Drink news, click here.
Chinas biggest carmaker, which own brands like Maxus, MG, Roewe and Yuejin, plans to invest $1 billion in India manufacturing unit, reports Swaraj Baggonkar from Mumbai.



IMAGE: For SAIC, the maker of marquee MG (above) and Roewe cars, India is next on the agenda. Photograph: Reuters.

Chinas largest automaker SAIC Motor (formerly Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) is finalising plans to invest about $1billion in India by 2018. It would look to manufacture products that would suit local tastes and can also be exported.

The governments of three states -- Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu -- have already made presentations to the company, with proposals to host its manufacturing unit. Sources in the sector said the company was keen to finalise its plans and could make an announcement in the first or second quarter of the next financial year (2017-18). An email sent to SAIC Motor remained unanswered.

SAIC had earlier shown interest in the troubled General Motors plant in Halol, Gujarat, which manufactures the Chevrolet Tavera.

It wanted to buy it out completely, but now seems to have lost interest in it. If SAIC is keen to invest in India then it is only fair that it expects some state government incentives in return. The Halol plant is not new; there would be no incentives with it, said a source.

The Chinese carmaker had helped General Motors India unit by buying a stake in it a few years before. From the time the construction of a greenfield plant begins, it would take a maximum of 18 months to inaugurate the factory and launch the first product. This should happen by late 2018 or early 2019 for SAIC, said a source.

SAIC has products across categories and owns the brands Maxus, MG, Roewe and Yuejin. It also has a number of joint ventures with General Motors, Iveco, Skoda Auto and Volkswagen.

In 2010, it had entered the Indian market with the help of General Motors and had hoped to sell Chinese products here. But now, the carmakers plans have changed. It wants to create local products that will cater to local demands.

SAIC believes India needs its own product lines, and not those developed in foreign markets. There will be an India-focused product-development centre. This will also help SAIC keep the product costs down and operate with far greater agility, said a source.

India-focused and locally developed products have had a far greater acceptance in the country. For instance, the Brio hatchback, which was developed outside, has been a failure for Honda, but the Grand i10, which was developed mostly in the country, has been a hit for Hyundai.

SAIC has even given the mandates to research and consulting firms such as KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers to carry out studies on asset evaluation, component supplier set-up and product marketing. It will also bring its supplier partners to India.

At present, it has corporate offices in Gurgaon and is planning to hire a chief executive officer for its India operations.

Finding a foothold in the market, two-thirds of which is controlled by Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, will be difficult for SAIC. Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors and Fiat have been fringe players despite being in the country for decades.
T E Narasimhan/Business Standard reports from Chennai on how the Future group plans to shore up its small store network in the South.



IMAGE: Kishore Biyani has identified small format stores as the first of the five pillars of his groups long term retail strategy. Photograph: PTI Photo.



Across the world, big retailers are thinking small when it comes to expansion. So is home-grown big box retailer, Future Group.

The retail chain is expanding its brand presence and footprint through the acquisition of numerous small regional stores; the latest being the acquisition of South-based Heritage Retail business.

For the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group, Heritage, owned by the family of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, adds muscle to its brand in the South. Future Group also owns the Nilgiris chain (acquired in 2014) and the Big Apple chain of stores (acquired in 2012), which has been largely incorporated within the groups Easyday brand. All three acquisitions bolster the groups presence in the south and Heritage, in particular, its strength in the small store segment.

Kishore Biyani has identified small format stores as the first of the five pillars of his groups long term retail strategy. Two months ago, Biyani in an analyst call, said that the group was reinventing itself given the new challenges in the retail sector and small stores would be a core growth strategy.

He reiterated his intentions after the purchase of Heritage and said, The consolidation of Heritage small-format stores brings us closer to the homes of customers in the three key metros in southern India.

Heritage adds 124 stores to the Future network in the South. It also has 157 stores from the Nilgiris stable and a few Big Apple stores. The rest of the groups small store network is in North and West India. The company has said that it wants to take its retail network to 4,000 by 2021 and small format stores will be significant in this journey.

Going small is in fact a global phenomenon. American chain Target is walking down the same path and analysts, the world over, believe that smaller stores offer big box brick and mortar retail brands a chance at survival. Typically small store formats offer flexibility and allow retailers to go into areas where setting large spacious stores is a problem.

The global template for a small store is a space of around or less than 50,000 square feet with pick-up points for online orders. This is one way big retailers can fight the growing clout of online retailers such as Amazon more effectively.

For small store formats, getting absorbed by a large retailer is perhaps the only way to survive the onslaught of online marketplaces. N Brahmani, executive director of Heritage Foods said, Heritage stores are now part of a larger retail network and will benefit from economies of scale and supplier relationships that are critical in modern retailing.

Heritage Fresh has retail outlets in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. The stores sell a wide range of household items, consumer products, staples, and fresh fruits and vegetables. The company says that the brand has both trust and recall and serves over 24 million customers annually.

Biyani said the consolidation of Heritage small format stores forms part of companys strategy of aggressively expanding the small stores network nationally by 2021, including around 2,000 franchises, to service daily and weekly needs of customers. Big Bazaar, he has said in previous media interactions, will focus on delivering value and catering to the monthly consumption basket of urban India.

Analysts said the deal will be a win-win for both companies, but Heritage will be the immediate beneficiary. Its loss making retail business has been a drag on the companys financials for several years and is expected to improve after the sale.

However, it is not going to smooth sailing for the venture because trade analysts point out that going small requires retail brands to be agile with respect to the supply and distribution chain.

For big box retailers (Walmart, Ikea are examples and in India, Futures Big Bazaar), the focus is scale and customer footfall while small stores are more community focused and look at cost effective strategies for frequent replenishment and targeted stocking of goods. Also successful small format stores are technology driven and use big data to stay nimble.

Future Group has six retail brands including Big Bazaar, Easyday, fbb, Foodhall, ezone and Home Town. It is present in 234 cities and has around 743 stores and digital channels. The bulk of its small store network is in NCR, Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. The group was looking at increasing its presence in small format stores in the South, which is one of the biggest markets for the FMCG industry today.

Heritage also offers Future a chance to take in-house brands into the Southern market. Today its own brands account for nearly 95 per cent of its business. In general merchandise, the share is nearly 65 per cent and the group wants to have significant percentage in the food business also by2021, for which the South will be an important market. The deal will increase its foothold in Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore.



For Heritage, which has its own brands, the Future retail network offers a chance to foray into new regions. Nilgiris products are currently available in the East and will soon be launched in the North, starting with stores in Delhi. With this deal, Heritage hopes to leverage the strength of Future Retail to expand the market for its dairy products across India, Nara Lokesh, director Heritage Foods said.
The theory that all banned notes will come back into the system may not be true.

Anup Roy/Business Standard finds out.

With the government deciding to remain silent on the exact amount that banks have received in deposits through old currency notes by now, speculation is rife that the entire money scrapped could be coming back to the Reserve Bank of India by December 30.

Therefore, questions could be raised about the utility of the demonetisation exercise itself.

The government was expecting deposits worth Rs 10 lakh crore to Rs 11 lakh crore would come back to the banking system while the rest would not be declared.

The government was hoping the undeclared part of the currency liability could, then, be transferred by RBI to the government as dividend, which could, in turn, be used to recapitalise banks or be spent in other social sectors.

According to RBI estimates, till November 27, nearly Rs 8.45 lakh crore has come back in the banking system.

While there has been no update to that number, various media publications are quoting sources as saying that Rs 11 lah crore to Rs 13 lakh crore has already come back in banks.

At this rate, by December end, the entire money can be expected to be back in the system. This will upset government math.

Understandably, many commentators have turned critical of the government and started labelling the demonetisation exercise a failure. But some economists still expect the government to gain handsomely in monetary terms.

The gain may come via unreturned money, or through higher tax collection on money previously untaxed.

State Bank of India group Chief Economic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh expects Rs 2.5 lakh crore not to come back in the system.

The scrapping of high-value notes, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8.

The SBI research report said the market was estimating Rs 14.18 lakh crore of high-value denomination notes, while in reality, this figure was at Rs 15.44 lakh crore based on November 9 data.

Thus, Ghosh says, an increase of Rs 1.26 lakh crore, was being missed out by many. These figures do not include cash with banks, which is roughly Rs 75,000 crore to Rs 76,000 crore, Ghosh clarified.

The cash component with banks includes high value currency in automated teller machines that could not get out in the system and, therefore, got scrapped.

Similarly, money kept in the RBI's currency chests should not be included for the calculation as this money becomes the RBI's property and, therefore, gets out of circulation.

The RBI has more than 4,000 currency chests that banks use as vaults for their surplus money, as well as to maintain cash reserve ratio.

However, most of the CRR requirement is done electronically, so the amount in the currency chests might not be much even as the currency chest figure is not disclosed by the RBI.

Also, one important figure to be considered here is that banks do get regular deposits as part of their operations.

Before the demonetisation drive, the monthly deposit accretion was about Rs 60,000 crore. We need to exclude this figure, too, when we consider the total deposits in banks.

Economists and bankers also say there could be double counting.

Cooperative banks act as agents for commercial banks and the deposits they garner get into the banking channel and become part of the total deposit figure. They are also sending their deposit numbers to the government and the RBI.

Since there is no official declaration of the total deposits mobilised, the numbers floating around could include these deposits that are also counted by the banks.

But a worrying factor in this demonetisation drive is that a lot of money deposited in banks and in post offices could be fake.

Post offices and small cooperative banks are not fully equipped to distinguish between fake and original notes and banks, too, could be seeing large numbers of fake notes getting deposited considering the rush in the counters.

The fake notes, for now, could be getting counted in the deposit base, but will get sorted out by the time they reach the RBI.

For now, bankers say they are keeping the old notes in their office vaults itself and, therefore, the chances of eliminating fake notes are slim.

SBI's Ghosh estimates that around Rs 2.5 lakh crore 'on a conservative basis' will not be coming back into the system.

'Additionally, if a percentage of such unaccounted money is ultimately disclosed and taxed, this will be beneficial to the government as such taxes could be immediately factored in next year's Budget for welfare needs,' the SBI report said.

PwC India's economist Ranen Banerjee agrees with this assessment.

"Not only does the government get tax revenue, but the money so far kept out of banking system can also come back and get circulated in the economy, which will boost economic activity," said Banerjee, leader, public finance and economy at PwC India.

How much money remains undisclosed could be a matter of debate, but there would be some money that may not come back.

In the long run, that could be the tangible benefit for the government, if it manages to get the money back from the RBI to its coffers, economists say.

'Whatever be the outcome, the pie distribution will differ and we believe that taxes collected will be beneficial to the government rather than currency getting extinguished as such taxes could be immediately factored in next year's Budget for welfare needs,' SBI said.
Russia has lodged a strong protest over cash shortage affecting the functioning of its embassy in New Delhi and threatening retaliatory action.

Pressing the External Affairs Ministry to intervene to get restrictions on cash withdrawals by Russian diplomats lifted, its Ambassador Alexander Kadakin has written to it saying embassys normal functioning was getting impacted with the inadequate amount limit of Rs 50,000 per week.

State Bank of India has informed the embassy that the cash withdrawal limit available to the embassy is now Rs 50,000 per week under the government of India directives with no exceptions unless otherwise advised by the RBI (Reserve Bank of India), his letter said.

Such an amount is totally inadequate as regards the embassys salary and operational expenditure requirements, the letter added.

We are awaiting a reply from the MEA and hope that this is resolved quickly. Otherwise, we will be forced to explore other options which may include raising the issue in Moscow with your embassy by summoning Indian minister counsellor, a senior Russian embassy official said.

Other retaliatory options may include restriction on the cash withdrawals for Indian diplomats posted in Russia, the official indicated.

There are approximately 200 staffers in Russian diplomatic mission in the national capital.

There was no immediate reaction from the Indian side on the complaint.

Russia is not the first one to complain about the demonetization-induced restrictions.

Earlier, the Dean of Diplomatic Corps had also raised the issue with the External Affairs Ministry.

It is also understood that some other countries like Ukraine and Kazakhstan have also raised the issue with the ministry.

After the note ban last month, the MEA had said it has approached Department of Economic Affairs over issues including those related to maintaining sufficient flow of funds to diplomatic missions following demonetisation and was awaiting a decision by the finance ministry regarding it.
Between May 26, 2014, when Narendra Modi became the 14th prime minister of India, and December 5, 2016, 39 of the 137 mid-cap stocks from the BSE Midcap and Nifty Midcap indices have surged between 100% and 338%.

Of these, five stocks -- Havells, NCC, Suzlon, Blue Star and Crompton Greaves -- look the most attractive after the recent course correction.

Hamsini Karthik/Business Standard finds out the reason behind their success.





IMAGE: Ffocused effort to reduce debt and improve core competence are making these 5 mid-cap stocks stand out. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters.



It is not unusual to see mid-cap stocks running ahead of fundamentals and falling sharply when the trend reverses. It is then important to remove the wheat from the chaff.

Five companies have taken a course correction which in addition to improving their earnings prospects could lead to a further re-rating by the Street. Over the past two years, they have streamlined their business operations and increased their focus on core competencies. Havells, for example, sold its overseas business to concentrate on domestic operations.

Likewise, NCCs approach to operate as a pure engineering-procurement-construction player (EPC) is yielding desired results. Heres why these companies stand

out as unique and are expected to outperform.

Blue Star

Learning from past experience, it avoids low-margin businesses and is focusing on expanding share. Market share has risen from seven per cent in FY14 to over 10 per cent. Also, monetising its non-core assets, mainly land, has helped it to reduce debt. Its sustained investment in the cooling products business is a positive, feel analysts.

Renjith Sivaram of Antique Stock Broking feels it is well placed to capture higher share in room air-conditioners and its leadership position in domestic projects business will support its growth prospects versus peers. The order book of Rs 1,550 crore (Rs 15.5 billion) should help it weather any slowdown due to demonetisation.

Crompton Greaves

There was little hope for Crompton Greaves (demerged industrials business) at the start of 2016. But, management decisions such as sale of its ailing international power business and more recently its international automation business, helped it to win back lost faith.

Now, for the largely domestic-oriented, debt-free engineering company, analysts at Religare Capital believe the earnings trajectory for FY18 could surprise on the upside. The recent 11 per cent stock price correction offers a good entry point.

Havells India

Sale of its overseas business helped it regain focus on domestic operations. Leadership in the switchgear business and dominance in the switches and cables business are key reasons why analysts continue to like Havells despite its high valuations (38x FY17 earnings).

Naveen Trivedi of HDFC Securities highlights that high focus on dealer/distributor expansion, consistent new launches and healthy operating margin of 14 per cent support the investment rationale.

Havells has corrected 15 per cent since November 8 due to demonetisation concerns. However, analysts feel that given its leadership position, it could recover faster than its peers as the impact of demonetisation settles.

NCC

An example of successful business restructuring in infra space, while larger peers such as Gammon are still grappling with high debt. Consolidated debt as on September 30, stood at Rs 3,422 crore (Rs 34.22 billion), down from Rs 3,909 crore (Rs 39.09 billion) two years before with interest coverage improving to 1.7 times versus one earlier.

That apart, its asset-light working model and operations across all spheres, including urban infrastructure and metals and mining, supports an investment rationale. Parvez Akhtar Qazi of Edelweiss says a strong balance sheet and improving margins make it an attractive bet.

Suzlon

Despite, one of Indias richest investors, Dilip Shanghvi, putting money in Suzlon, investor sentiment around the stock continues to remain weak. That should change, as it posted a net profit for the first time in five years in the September quarter.

Whats interesting is that even as it has Rs 12,047 crore of debt, the order book of 1.2 gigawatt and 30 per cent market share (19 per cent in FY15) offers strong earnings visibility.

We forecast recurring profit of Rs 270 crore in FY17 after five years of losses and expect 74 per cent earnings growth in FY17-19, says Anubhav Gupta of Emkay Global.
India is estimated to spend $1.36 billion more a year for every one dollar a barrel increase in crude oil prices, says Subhayan Chakraborty.



IMAGE: Indian refiners imported 18.15 million tonnes of crude during October, just a tad below August's record high of 18.85 million tonnes. Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters.



Prices of global crude oil rising suddenly have prompted the domestic oil industry to go into a wait-and-watch mode.

With commodity expert and American investor Jim Rogers predicting that crude prices might reach $60 per barrel, amidst a fall in global supply and a return of demand, India would have to brace for a higher import bill.

Last Wednesday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) -- a group of 14 major oil exporters including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and accounting for one-third of global oil output -- announced they would significantly cut their production levels for the first time in two years since prices crashed.

Crude prices have soared as a result. Figures released by the petroleum ministry on Friday showed the international crude oil price of Indian basket was $50.27 per barrel on December 1. A day before, it was $45.83 per barrel.

The increase in price is an immediate reaction of the market as a result of production cuts by OPEC members. However, whether this will be sustained needs to be watched since Venezuela and Ecuador are facing severe revenue crisis and may not be able to hold out much longer, said R K Malhotra, director general, Petroleum Federation of India said.

The current level of price rise is not a concern in the present economic circumstances, Malhotra added.

However, industry insiders cautioned under conditions of anonymity that if prices breached the $54 ceiling, the repercussions would be serious for the country.

India, which meets 80 per cent of its oil requirements through imports, had to spend $65.92 billion on crude oil import in 2015-16, a fall of 43.38 per cent from the $116.44 billion outgo in the previous financial year and $143.63 billion in 2013-14.

However, import volumes grew to 202.31 million tonnes in 2015-16, a more than seven per cent increase over the $187.91 million tonnes imported in the year before. Volumes are expected to keep growing, a trade expert said.

Indian refiners imported 18.15 million tonnes of crude during October, according to the petroleum ministry. The figure is very close to record high of 18.85 million tonnes, back in August.

India is estimated to spend $1.36 billion more a year for every one dollar a barrel increase in crude oil.

The OPEC nations, which operate as a cartel, have been unable to agree on production cuts owing to most of them facing severe revenue crunch because of prices which fell from $100 a barrel to as low as $50 a barrel.
'Going by his political conduct over the past 15 years since first becoming chief minister, he has made enough enemies.'

'They could gang up and that could mean a lot for AIADMK politics to handle,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.

It might sound intemperate and inappropriate, but a quick rewind of Tamil Nadu politics in the last hours of Jayalalithaa in hospital could mean that All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam politics will never be the same again.

The AIADMK, its cadres and Tamil Nadu voters alike have lost the most charismatic leader of them all post-Independence.

To her was left, long after the mid-term exit of Dravidian political ideology as an electoral force, to keep the flag flying.

Her electoral outings as the head of the AIADMK's campaigns in the 2014 and 2016 elections showed that she had done better without any serious allies, which her political mentor MGR could not and would not risk in his time.

Choosing a possible successor to take over from 'acting chief minister' O Panneerselvam -- even as Jaya continued as the Constitutional head from her hospital bed -- revealed how riven the AIADMK is in her absence.

Twice on her last day, party MLAs met for long hours, trying to choose a successor, even if interim.

If nothing else, it was not unnatural for the AIADMK to let Panneerselvam continue as a full fledged chief minister for the third time in 15 years.

OPS was Jaya's choice twice in the past decade plus: First when the Supreme Court unseated her after she had obtained bail against the Tansi case verdict in 2001.

More recently, OPS became the natural choice after a trial court in Karnataka ordered her imprisonnment in the 'wealth case'.

The main state appeal is still pending a verdict in the Supreme Court after the Karnataka high court acquitted her.

This, and his position in the warrant of precedence as the senior-most ranking minister after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, meant that acting Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao asked him to chair cabinet meetings and attend to her ministerial responsibilities even as she lay unconscious in hospital.

Continuing with the status quo would have been the best thing the AIADMK's second leadership could have done in the circumstances, but the party's second-line would not do it.

Now that OPS has been sworn in as chief minister, he will have to prove his leadership qualities to the party cadres and second-line leadership before he can emerge as a leader in his right.

Whether the second-line, in Jayalaithaa's absence, would want to make one out of him is a question nonetheless.

Considering that the party has always functioned under a supremo, with caste and community-centric local leaders dancing to her tune, the best thing that could happen to the AIADMK is to form a presidium to fill the void, however partially.

Should it happen, and work successfully, the AIADMK's very style of functioning could change, and change for the better.

Considering that the rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has always had a system of limited/guided democracy, more than in the AIADMK, be it under MGR or Jayalalithaa, this in turn could change the democratic character of the Tamil Nadu polity as a whole after a long gap.

This does not mean that local satraps who are part of such a presidium would not assert themselves and share power vis-a-vis Panneerselvam on the one hand and local sub-divisional level party third and fourth liners.

It could be as disastrous as anything could be, especially in the absence of a charismatic leader, who won or lost elections for the party.

In the interim, the second-line leadership would find it difficult to adjust to life without Amma.

One other question remains. The midnight choice was confined to a new chief minister in OPS. No decision has been taken on a new general secretary in Jayalalithaa's place to head the party organisation.

Under the Election Commission rules, this process waited to be completed as Jayalalithaa lay in hospital. Now it is as much an opportunity or challenge as it was routine with Jayalalithaa around.

At this point, OPS is better placed to guide the AIADMK as general secretary, but working out power equations in the new environment could make him vulnerable without Amma's protection to guide him and corner the rest.

At the end of the day, the new formation/formulation, including the CM-GS combo, would have to provide for factions that lay low when Jaya was around. It may not be the case now.

On the party front, there are reservations about a member of Sasikala Natarajan's family heading it, owing also to the caste factor.

OPS also belongs to the larger Mukkulathor community in southern Tamil Nadu as does Sasikala Natarajan, Jayalalithaa's loyal aide of many years.

There are other 'loyal' caste groups and loyalist leaders like Vellalar-Gounders in western Tamil Nadu, who may then feel left out. There are other identifiable sub-regional caste groups whose interests need to be protected too.

It is a test that OPS and the AIADMK need to pass before becoming an electoral force, post-Jayalalithaa.

In this, apart from mutual accommodation and respect, good governance and corruption could become major issues.

Panneerselvam is as much an unknown quality as he was seen as loyal.

He may not be a Narendra Modi (despite both being chaiwallahs in their earlier avatars) in reaching out to the people over the party, as Jayalalithaa and MGR had done.

He could still prove to be another P V Narasimha Rao -- the weakest link that asserted itself with the kind of silence that hid a lot of cunning that his adversaries were unaccustomed to.

If nothing else, going by his political conduct and purported partisanship, depth and reach within the party outfit, at least over the past 15 years since first becoming chief minister, he has made enough enemies among equals as friends and followers.

They could gang up and that could mean a lot for AIADMK politics to handle.

The near complete wash-out of a third, fourth or fifth alternatives to the AIADMK and rival DMK, especially after the 2014 and 2016 elections, could give some cushion for a presidium of AIADMK leaders in the interim.

Overdoing it, however, could well mean that they would be over stretching themselves. That is when a a national outfit like the Bharatiya Janata Party could be tempted to take a swipe at Dravidian politics and try its electoral luck in Tamil Nadu all over again.

Alternatively, a party like the BJP could seek an alliance with the AIADMK sans Amma.

It could provide ministerial berths at a non-competing, higher, level at the Centre, for aspirants now sulking after losing out in the unannounced, unpronounced, race for the chief minister.

It could create another triangular party leadership, which could be divided in many forms and levels. These are all things in the future.

In the interim, the DMK will be waiting and watching what awaits the OPS leadership.

Soon after the assembly poll results in May, DMK supremo M Karunanidhi pointed out how 20 MLAs made a difference to victory and defeat.

It is not the kind of calculation any leader, least of all someone as experienced as Karunanidhi, would have mentioned, that too in public.

As if to nip rumours on this score in the bud, his son and heir apparent M K Stalin conceded the election long before the last results were out.

This conflict of concepts and interests in the DMK apart, there is no knowing if the AIADMK after Amma would fight their political fights to the extent that the DMK would feel invited and wanted to intervene in the name of providing political stability if nothing else.

In all this and more, the future role of the BJP leadership at the Centre would be watched with suspicion by Tamil Nadu political players. They all would want the BJP and the Centre on its side, but would not be willing to yield, politically or administratively what the Centre or the leading party at the national level would want in equal terms, and equitably so!

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is Director of the Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.
The Indo-United States relations will become an important part of President-elect Donald Trumps diplomacy to suppress China, but it will have limited impact on Beijing as New Delhi may not accept a quasi-alliance with Washington, DC to retain its independent foreign policy, the Chinese state media commented on Tuesday.

'US-Indian relations will become an important part of Trumps diplomacy. With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India, an article in the state-run Global Times said on Tuesday.

'However, due to its own domestic problems, India can only play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches, thus the Trump administration will not put US-Indian relations in a very important position, and its enthusiasm for building a quasi-alliance with India will decrease, it said.

'As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes, the article said, assessing policies options for Trump after he takes over the presidency next month said.

'Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and Indias concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China, the article titled Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi said.

'In other words, the US attempts of establishing a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China may not be accepted by India as the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition, it said.

When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said.

'This will reduce Indias trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to, it said.

'To sum up, US-Indian relations during Trumps term will have a limited impact on China. The intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trumps adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China, it said.

'Besides, the prospect of US-Indian cooperation in trade is not optimistic, and it will only exert a limited effect on Chinas influence on regional trade, it said.

Chinese official media began attacking Trump after his tweets on Monday questioning for the first time after his election, Chinas currency devaluation and the Beijings claims on South China Sea.

'Trumps reckless remarks against a major power (China) show his lack of experience in diplomacy. He may have overestimated the power of the US. He may have already been obsessed with the power he is about to have a grip on, and wishes the whole world should follow his lead, an editorial in the same newspaper said.

'He may also believe that if China, the biggest power after the US, is awed by Washington, it will solve all other problems. No matter what Trump thinks, China must be determined to upset his unreasonable requests at his early time in office, and fight back if his moves harm Chinas interests, regardless of the consequences to the dynamics of the Sino-US relationship, it said.

'If China behaves soft-heartedly for the greater good of the bilateral ties, it will only embolden Trump to be more aggressive, it said.

Trumps China-bashing tweet is just a cover for his real intent, which is to treat China as a fat lamb and cut a piece of meat off it. Trump wants to revive US economy, but he knows that his country is not as competitive as it used to be. He is trying to pillage other countries for the prosperity of the US, it said.

China should brace itself for the possible fluctuations of the Sino-US relationship after Trump is sworn in. We must confront Trumps provocations head-on, and make sure he wont take advantage of China at the beginning of his tenure. This initial period will set the foundation for the Sino-US relationship in the next four years, it said.
In a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'fakir' remark, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday said his note ban decision has turned a majority of the country's people into pauper but not him, and it will lead to Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in Uttar Pradesh.

"He (Modi) has not yet become a 'fakir', but has definitely turned 90 per cent of the country's population into 'fakir'.

"His demonetization decision has made the common people bankrupt," she said addressing workers in Lucknow to mark the 61st death anniversary of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar at Ambedkar Saamajik Parivartan Sthal, a memorial built during her regime as a tribute to the Dalit icon.

Addressing BJP's 'Parivartan Yatra' rally in Moradabad on Saturday where he had attacked Mayawati and others for opposing demonetization, Modi had said, "What can my opponents do to me? I am a fakir (hermit/pauper)... jhola ley kar chaley jayenge (I will exit with my little belongings)."

Taking potshots at the prime minister, Mayawati had reacted within hours, saying Modi is "bahut bade maldar" (very wealthy) and wondered how a "well-wisher of the affluent" can be a hermit.

The BSP supremo on Tuesday said that the note ban decision has caused so much hardship to the people that they will not only vote against BJP, but ensure that the party is relegated to the fourth spot in the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

"It is a travesty that people are being made to run from pillar to post to withdraw their own money," she said, accusing Modi of adopting a "dictatorial attitude".

Asserting that BSP was not against black money and corruption, Mayawati said her objection was to lack of proper planning before demonetisation.

Cautioning people against designs of BJP and RSS, Mayawati alleged that the saffron party together with RSS was trying to divide society on lines of Hindutva as they did not have faith in the secular Constitution framed by Ambedkar.

Seeking to woo backwards before the coming assembly polls, Mayawati took credit for implementation of Mandal commission recommendations by the then VP Singh government.

The BSP supremo said that after Singh, the then prime minister, implemented the report as per the conditions laid down by her party in return for its support, BJP withdrew its prop bringing down the government.

The BSP president also alleged that Prime Minister Modi belonged to higher caste in Gujarat but in the post-Mandal scenario in 1994, he got his caste included in the OBC list to get backward votes.

"OBC ki vote ki khatir Modi ne apna chola hi badal diya (to garner votes, he became a turncoat)," she said adding that he has encroached upon the rights of the backwards and also betrayed them.

Going all out to woo Muslims, Mayawati said they have got their rights because of Ambedkar who carved out a secular Constitution which was, however, not liked by BJP and RSS.

"Now BJP and RSS want to change the secular Constitution and establish the old order of Hindutvadi caste based system," she said.

She noted that the disputed Babri structure was also demolished on this day in 1992 by saffron forces to send a message that they do not believe in the Constitution framed by Ambedkar.

"It was because of a very petty mindset that the structure was demolished on this day to send a message that they do not believe in the secular Constitution of Ambedkar... BJP and RSS do not want anyone other than Hindus to lead a dignified life and their religious places to remain secure," she said.
Life virtually came to a grinding halt across Tamil Nadu as the state woke up to deserted streets with shops, including eateries, remaining shut in the wake of the demise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

In Chennai, public transport services, including autorickshaws, were off the roads while some private vehicles were seen plying in various parts of the city where police personnel kept a tight vigil at vantage points.

A near total shutdown like situation prevailed in the city and several other parts of the state since Monday evening itself.

The focus on Tuesday turned to Rajaji Hall where Jayalalithaa's body is lying in state to enable public pay their homage. With even tea stalls, which usually do a brisk business in the early hours, remaining closed, mobile tea vendors could be seen dispensing the brew at some places. Hotels are also closed.

Suburban train services, however, were being operated in the city, albeit with lower passenger rush. Long distance trains arriving at Chennai Central and Egmore

stations were on time.

The state government has declared a holiday today for its offices and three-days for educational institutions as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

A Government Order (GO) said the notified public holiday will apply to all state government offices, undertakings, corporations and boards.

"Under the Explanation to Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 read with Notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs No.20-25-26, Public-1, dated 8th June 1957 the Government of Tamil Nadu hereby declares that Tuesday, the 6th of December, 2016 as a public holiday as a mark of respect to the late Selvi J Jayalalithaa, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu," it said.

The day will be also treated as a paid holiday for all industrial employees on regular work charge and industrial establishments and the labour hired on daily wages, it said.

The government also issued another order declaring three days holidays for "all educational institutions" starting Tuesday.

The holidays were being declared "as a mark of respect" to the late leader, the GO said.

Meanwhile, the Tamil film industry announced cancellation of shootings scheduled for today. Theaters also cancelled shows.

A report from Madurai said the entire temple city mourned Jayalalithaa's death with all shops closed and transport facilities including buses and auto rickshaws off the roads.

"The entire city is calm...silent..," a police official said.

Officials said those who reached Madurai by train and flight this morning took private transport to reach home.

The main bus stands wore a deserted look. Inter-state and long distance government buses bound here from various destinations, including from Kerala and Karnataka did not arrive as they had been stopped at the borders.

Fishermen colonies mourned the death of Jayalalithaa in Tuticorin, Rameswaram and Kanyakumari.

Police said there was no untoward incident in the region.

In Coimbatore, all shops, commercial establishments, tourist spots remained closed in this and neighbouring Tirupur and Nilgiris districts as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Transport facilities like buses and auto rickshaws stayed off the roads in these districts, where a bandh like situation prevailed, police said.

In Nilgiris district, some tourists were badly hit due to closure of shops and hotels, they added.

Buses from neighbouring Kerala and Karnataka stopped plying to Tamil Nadu, fearing violence.

AIADMK workers were seen paying homage to the portraits of 'Amma' by erecting pandals at road sides across these districts, even as adequate police forces were deployed to meet any eventuality.

Much to the relief of police, various Muslim and Hindu outfits have cancelled their demonstrations over the Babri Masjid issue RPT demonstrations over the Babri Masjid issue.

In Puducherry, a bandh-like situation prevailed in the union territory with all shops and commercial establishments remaining closed as a mark of respect to the departed soul.

All inter-state and intra state government buses and autos were off the roads with the fleet operators deciding to suspend transport services.

Cinema houses also cancelled their morning shows.

The tricolour flew at half mast atop government buildings including the Assembly and Rajnivas in keeping with the order of the Puducherry Administration to observe a three-day mourning from Tuesday.

Banks were also closed following an order issued by the Chief Secretary of Puducherry Manoj Parida declaring public holiday today, under Negotiable Instruments Act.

Photograph: PTI Photo
Post-Jayalalithaa AIADMK cannot take on the Narendra Modi dispensation like its late charismatic leader did it on several occasions in the past, says R Ramasubramanian.

Tamil Nadu's most charismatic leader, J Jayalalithaa is no more. Her death has created a huge political vacuum in the state and for the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in particular.

But the interesting aspect to be seen is the shape that the politics of the ruling AIADMK is expected to undergo in the coming days.

The moot question is, will the AIADMK gravitate towards the Bharatiya Janata Party as has been reported by a section of seasoned political pundits in the state?

The AIADMK has 136 MLAs in the 234-member state assembly. But more than that, it is its strength in Parliament -- 37 Lok Sabha and 13 Rajya Sabha MPs -- that is an enviable one for any ruling dispensation at the Centre. These 50 MPs are going to be the most sought-after commodity by the Narendra Modi government in the coming days, especially for their voting value in the upcoming presidential and vice-presidential elections scheduled to take place in July 2017.

Besides, these MPs are expected to play a crucial role in the passage of important bills in both Houses of Parliament.

So Modis requirements are very clear.

But what about the AIADMKs requirements from the Centre? How will it manage the state, especially after the departure of its only charismatic leader?

Tamil Nadu is reeling under a debt of over Rs 4 lakh crore and thanks to an ever-growing freebie culture -- more than at any point of time in the state's history -- it desperately needs the Centre's help to tide over the deficit.

The impending GST and the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission to the state government employees are expected to take a huge toll on the states' exchequer.

This year's budget provisions were passed in March itself, so the government is in auto mode. The real challenge comes in for the financial year 2017-18 when the AIADMK government presents its next budget.

Interestingly, few developments in the state's politics and its administration since September 22, when Jayalalithaa was hospitalised, received little attention in the media.

These are Tamil Nadu's decision to join the UDAY Power Scheme, implementing the Food Security Act from November 1 and acceding to the NEET exams. These are schemes which were ferociously opposed by Jayalalithaa till she got admitted to the hospital.

Another interesting aspect behind these developments is the role played by a hitherto low-profile, state minister for school education, Ma Foi Pandiyarajan or Ma Foi as he has been affectionately called in political circles in Tamil Nadu. He joined the AIADMK jettisoning Vijayakanth's Desiya Murpokku Dravidar Kazhagam two years ago. Before joining the DMDK, he was with the BJP.

Interestingly, though Ma Foi is a school education minister, he attended a couple of meetings called by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to discuss GST.

Political circles say Ma Foi is the man to look out for in the coming months.

"Yes. Ma Fois role is to be watched. When he was in the DMDK he was considered an AIADMK man. Now he is considered a BJP man in the AIADMK. With his sharp acumen and grasping power on financial and economical issues, Ma Foi has already started playing a crucial role in shaping the Tamil Nadu government's attitude towards the important schemes of the Modi government. The BJP leadership is enjoying this because one of the important states in the country has started falling in line with Modi's pet projects," says a senior DMK leader from southern Tamil Nadu who has known Ma Foi personally for many years.

Politically speaking, the post-Jayalalithaa AIADMK cannot take on the Modi dispensation like their late charismatic leader did it on several occasions in the past. There are a few strong reasons for this.

To run a state government well, you need the support of the Centre.

With over 90 percent of its MPs just novices in politics, it is tough to keep the flock from being poached especially when "political wolves" are waiting in the wings both in the state and at the Centre.

The state government still has four-and-a-half years to rule and the BJP government has got two-and-a-half years to rule the country. So the gains are more if a conciliatory attitude is adopted by the regional party.

The impending Supreme Court judgment in the disproportionate assets case. The SC had reserved its orders in June this year. With Jayalalithaa gone, there are still three more accused in this case -- Sasikala, her relatives Ilavarasi and Jayalalithaa's jettisoned foster son V N Sudhagaran. In case of an adverse judgment, the fallout will be much more for the AIADMK, at a time when a powerful government is there at the Centre, so it is anyone's knowledge what attitude the post-Jayalalithaa AIADMK will adopt.

As for as the BJP, Jayalalithaas exit was indeed a political blessing.

The saffron party which commands just 2 percent of votes in the state has a platform of sorts to launch its political onslaught and thus expand its vote base to the extent possible.

Whether it succeeds or not is a different question, but there is going to be a full-fledged political assault to capture the maximum vote base in the state in the coming months and years.

The BJP has already been working as per well-devised plans and strategies, especially in areas like Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Kanyakumari. It is against this background that one has to understand the state RSS units decision to celebrate the late MGRs centenary which falls on January 2017.

The saffron outfits are clearly attempting to capture the late leader's legacy.

It may be an irony of sorts that the television coverage of Rajaji Hall in Chennai on Tuesday where Jayalaithaas coffin was kept for public to pay their respects showed two interesting visuals.

The morning visuals showed the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu sitting on a chair on the left bottom-edge of Jayalalithaa's coffin, silently for hours together. This may be a symbolic gesture of sorts.

The second visual, in the afternoon, was much more revealing. When Modi came to pay his respects, he put his right hand on Sasikala's head and blessed her. Simultaneously, Chief Minister O Panneerselvam hugged Modi and wept...

Could this be a political hug? Did these visuals show the fate awaiting Tamil Nadu?

Photograph: Press Information Bureau
Somalia closes newspaper, arrests editor

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 17 October 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Somalia closes newspaper, arrests editor, 17 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846874626.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.

Nairobi, October 17, 2016  Somali authorities should immediately release the editor of Xog Ogaal newspaper and allow the newspaper to resume publishing, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Officers from Somalia's National Intelligence Agency raided the newspaper's office and arrested its editor on October 15, according to press freedom advocates and press reports.

The newspaper ceased publishing after agents of Somalia's National Intelligence Agency raided the offices of Xog Ogaal, one of the country's oldest newspapers, and arrested the newspaper's editor, Abdi Aden Guled. They also confiscated equipment from staff, the paper's manager, Mohamed Mohamud, told the government-recognized National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ). Ahmed Mohamed, a reporter with the newspaper, also confirmed the arrest to the Associated Press.

"The arrest of Xog Ogaal's editor, Abdi Aden Guled, and the silencing of one of Somalia's oldest newspapers should be cause for serious international alarm," CPJ East Africa Representative Murithi Mutiga said. "Somali authorities must demonstrate that they continue to abide by their commitments to press freedom by releasing the journalist and allowing the newspaper to resume publication without delay."

Somali officials did not immediately disclose the reasons for the arrest raid or whether there was a formal order to the newspaper to stop publishing. Somalia's information minister, Mohamed Abdi, told CPJ that he was not immediately able to comment.

NUSOJ Secretary-General Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu told CPJ he had spoken to an official with the intelligence agency who said the agency had been ordered to arrest Abdi by a "senior government official," whom he did not name. He said the official had complained about Xog Ogaal's recent publication of what he called "graphic photos" of people said to have been killed by al-Shabaab militants after Ethiopian troops withdrew from the El Ali village in the Hiraan region.

Somalia is scheduled to hold presidential elections in November. Somali journalists in September told the press freedom group International Media Support that they feared increased pressure and danger as the election approached.

CPJ ranked Somalia as the worst offender in its 2015 Global Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are killed and killers go free.

In September, gunmen on motorbikes fatally shot radio journalist Abdiaziz Ali in Mogadishu, CPJ reported reported at the time. He was at least the second journalist to be killed in the city this year.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Award-winning Malaysian cartoonist banned from travel

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 18 October 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Award-winning Malaysian cartoonist banned from travel, 18 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846874d4.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.

Bangkok, October 18, 2016  Malaysian authorities should immediately lift all restrictions on cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque's freedom of movement, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. An officer at Kuala Lumpur International Airport yesterday prevented the cartoonist, better known as Zunar, from leaving the country, according to news reports.

An officer at the passport control desk at the airport told Zunar, who was traveling to Singapore to participate in a conference, that he was enforcing a June 24 order from Police Inspector General Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, and that the ban was imposed for unspecified "special reasons," according to press reports.

Zunar, a 2015 recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom Award, faces nine charges of sedition for critical tweets he published after a February 2015 court decision to jail the country's main opposition leader. The tweets included an embedded cartoon that depicted Prime Minister Najib Razak acting as a presiding judge in the case and others referring to judges as "lackeys" of Najib's ruling United Malays National Organization. If convicted on all charges, Zunar could face a maximum sentence of 43 years in prison under the Sedition Act. His trial is scheduled to begin on November 22.

"Malaysia's persistent harassment of cartoonist Zunar has made him a symbol of the worsening state of press freedom in the country," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative. "We call for an immediate and unconditional lift of the ban imposed on his international travel and for all charges against him to be dropped."

Zunar said in a public statement that he would challenge the legality of the travel ban. He told CPJ by email that the ban was likely imposed in response to critical cartoons he exhibited in Geneva in May this year after receiving the Swiss Foundation Cartooning for Peace Award. Zunar frequently travels overseas to exhibit his work, to speak at events, and to receive a growing list of awards for his editorial courage in the face of persecution.

Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was quoted saying in reports after Zunar was recognized with the Swiss Foundation's Cartooning for Peace Award that police should investigate the critical drawings he displayed. Communication Minister Salleh Said Keruak suggested in remarks cited by the press that criticizing Najib in a foreign country could be considered "economic sabotage." It was not immediately clear if Zunar is under formal investigation for the portraits he exhibited in Geneva.

Zunar has been temporarily detained twice, for two days in 2010 and for three days in February 2015, on sedition accusations related to his critical cartoons, CPJ reported at the time. Authorities have banned or confiscated at least five of his books of cartoons. Police have repeatedly raided his office in Kuala Lumpur and the offices of his printers. He is a frequent contributor to Malaysiakini, an independent news website.

'They can ban my books, they can ban my cartoon, they can ban me from traveling, but they cannot ban my mind," Zunar said in the statement announcing he would challenge the ban. "I will keep drawing until the last drop of my ink."

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
U.S. documentary filmmakers face prison for filming protest

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 20 October 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, U.S. documentary filmmakers face prison for filming protest, 20 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846874ea.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.

New York, October 20, 2016  Prosecutors in the U.S. states of North Dakota and Washington should drop all charges against three independent documentary filmmakers arrested while filming environmental activists interfering with oil pipelines, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

A March 14, 2014, file photo shows a warning sign outside facility of the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline in Steele City, Nebraska. (Reuters/Lane Hickenbottom)

Filmmakers Deia Schlosberg and Lindsey Goodwin-Grayzel, as well as Goodwin-Grayzel's cameraman, Carl Davis, were arrested with activists from the group Climate Direct Action on October 11, and subsequently charged with a range of felonies, including conspiracy and burglary, as participants in the coordinated, multistate protest, according to press reports.

"Recording civil disobedience and arrests is news-gathering, not conspiracy," said Robert Mahoney, CPJ's deputy executive director. "Prosecuting filmmakers for covering protests sends a chilling message. We call on authorities in North Dakota and Washington to drop these troubling charges and to stop interfering with journalists doing their jobs."

Schlosberg, the founder of the Pale Blue Dot Media Company, told CPJ that she faces a maximum sentence of 25 years on conspiracy charges for filming activist Michael Foster as he broke into a facility of the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline in North Dakota and closed a pipeline valve. Schlosberg said that she was arrested along with Foster and his fellow activist Samuel Jessup on October 11 and jailed for 53 hours before being released on bail.

According to the criminal complaint, which CPJ has reviewed, prosecutors claim that Schlosberg conspired with Foster and Jessup to damage the pipeline. The complaint says that Schlosberg was recruited to film the action and that she traveled in the same vehicle as the activists. If convicted either of the charge "conspiracy to theft of property" or "conspiracy to theft of service"  Schlosberg told CPJ that the court could convict her of one or the other felony, but not both  she could face 20 years in prison, in addition to a maximum sentence of five years in prison for "conspiracy to tampering with or damaging a public service."

Schlosberg, who recently produced the third film in an Emmy award-winning series about natural gas production in the United States, told CPJ that she was not involved in the protest but that she was recording it as part of her work as a documentary filmmaker who focuses on environmental issues. She said she traveled with the activists, filming interviews in the car. She told CPJ that she was on public property and that she identified herself as a journalist at the time of the arrest.

A spokesperson at the office of North Dakota Pembina County state's attorney, Ryan Bialas, told CPJ that the office had no comment on the case.

In Washington, filmmaker Lindsey Goodwin-Grayzel and her cameraman Carl Davis face felony charges for robbery and trespassing after filming activist Ken Ward as he broke into a Trans Mountain Pipeline facility in Skagit County and attempted to shut down a pipeline.

According to her website, Goodwin-Grayzel is working on a short documentary film following Ward. Her attorney, Neil Fox, told CPJ that she was filming in Skagit County as part of this project.

"She's doing a documentary. She's not an activist who is part of some concerted action or the film arm of Greenpeace. Her life's work is to make documentary films," Fox told CPJ in a telephone interview.

If convicted, Goodwin-Grayzel faces a maximum penalty of a total of 30 years in jail, fines of $46,000, or both, on charges of second-degree burglary, trespassing, criminal sabotage, and "assemblage of saboteurs," according to a statement the filmmaker emailed to CPJ.

The Skagit County Prosecuting Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to CPJ's request for comment.

Goodwin-Grayzel has previously worked on films about suicides, national parks, and electronic medical records, according to her website.

Cameraman Carl Davis's lawyer, Brit Mercer, told CPJ that her client faces the same charges as Goodwin-Grayzel. Davis has worked on documentaries for museums and aquariums, Mercer told CPJ. Davis had not coordinated or worked with the activists in any way, she said.

"This is a terrifying affront to the First Amendment. He was a journalist hired to do a job  no more, no less," Mercer told CPJ.

Activists shut down pipeline facilities in the U.S. states of Washington, Minnesota, Montana, and North Dakota on October 11 to protest global warming.

The arrest of the reporters filming the direct action comes shortly after broadcast journalist Amy Goodman was charged with trespassing for filming protests against a pipeline project in North Dakota. The charges were eventually dropped, and a court dismissed a second charge of rioting, Goodman reported on her show.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Iraqi journalist killed in Kirkuk fighting

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 21 October 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Iraqi journalist killed in Kirkuk fighting, 21 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5846874fa.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.

New York, October 21, 2016  An Iraqi journalist was killed today covering fighting between militants from the Islamic State group and Kurdish security forces, according to news reports. The killing came as at least seven journalists were injured in the past two days while covering the joint offensive to reclaim the city of Mosul from control of the Islamic State group.

Kurdish fighters attack a building where militants were believed to be hiding in Kirkuk, October 21, 2016. (Reuters/Ako Rasheed)

Ahmet Haceroglu of Turkmeneli TV was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest while covering fighting between Kurdish security forces and Islamic State militants in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, roughly 175 kilometers (108 miles) south of Mosul, a police colonel in Kirkuk told Agence-France Presse. The journalist's news outlet and police said the shot was fired by a sniper from the Islamic State group.

The station identified Haceroglu as a manager from the satellite channel's news division. A Turkmeneli TV employee, responding to CPJ's inquiries via the station's Facebook account, confirmed Haceroglu died while covering fighting that erupted this morning when Islamic State militants launched a series of attacks in Kirkuk. The employee did not identify himself or immediately respond to additional questions. The head of correspondents for the station, Sami Beirakdar, told the website Al-Sumaria News that Haceroglu was killed while attempting to return home from assignment.

"Ahmet Haceroglu's death covering fighting in Kirkuk is a signpost that the mortal danger journalists face in Iraq will be compounded as the long-running conflict intensifies," said Jason Stern, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa senior research associate. "We call on all sides to take all possible measures to protect journalists on the battlefield."

Turkmeneli TV is headquartered in Kirkuk, home to many of Iraq's Turkmen minority. Early this morning, the city came under attack by militants from the Islamic State group. Kurdish security forces continue to attempt to clear the city of the militants, The Associated Press reported.

At least seven journalists have been injured covering the Mosul offensive, according to their respective news outlets. Khaled Abdul Salam, an editor for the Kurdish-language Zakros TV, told CPJ today the station's correspondent Bashtiwan Hussein was hit in the left shoulder by sniper fire. He is in stable condition. Forat TV's Ahmed al-Zaidi was injured in the leg by mortar fire, the Iraqi station reported yesterday. He continued reporting after receiving treatment. The Kurdish-language Waar TV reported that its cameraman Rasti Khaled and correspondent Aryan Barwari were lightly injured by a makeshift bomb yesterday as well. New York Times photographer Bryan Denton suffered minor cuts and bruises after a vehicle bomb targeted Iraqi forces yesterday, the paper reported.

The Iraqi Observatory for Journalistic Freedoms reported that two journalists for the Kurdish-language Speda TV channel, correspondent Yasser Abdul Rahman and cameraman Hajr al-Barwari, were also injured yesterday. The station posted on its Facebook page yesterday a picture of the two journalists in the hospital with cuts and bruises. Neither the Iraqi Observatory for Journalistic Freedoms nor Speda TV specified how the journalists were injured.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.
Mounting press freedom crisis in Burundi

Publisher Committee to Protect Journalists Publication Date 25 October 2016 Cite as Committee to Protect Journalists, Mounting press freedom crisis in Burundi, 25 October 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58468750101.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.

Nairobi, October 25, 2016  The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed alarm about the deteriorating situation for the media in Burundi. In the past three days alone, the Interior Ministry closed the country's journalists' union and security forces detained reporters on assignment.

Burundian journalists mark World Press Freedom day, May 3, 2015, by taping their mouths shut to protest worsening conditions for the press in Bujumbura. (AP/Jerome Delay)

Interior Minister Pascal Barandagiye yesterday indefinitely suspended the operating permits of five organizations, including the Burundian Union of Journalists (UBJ, by its French acronym), and banned an additional five leading civil society groups outright, the independent Iwacu newspaper reported.

The Interior Ministry order came a day after Burundian security forces detained journalist Julia Steers, a fellow with the International Women's Media Foundation, her fixer Gildas Yihundimpundu, and driver Pascal Sinahagera while the three were reporting in the Mutakura suburb of Bujumbura, the site of days of protests in April 2015, according to media reports. Steers, an American citizen, was released to the U.S. Embassy soon after her arrest, but Yihundimpundu, who also freelances for the BBC, and Sinahagera, their driver, were held overnight at the headquarters of Burundi's National Intelligence Service (SNR, by its French acronym) and released yesterday evening.

"By suspending the permit of the country's journalists' union, Burundi's government has expanded from jailing journalists to trying to silence those who courageously stand up for their imprisoned colleagues," CPJ East Africa Representative Murithi Mutiga said. "We call on Burundian authorities to release all journalists behind bars for their work, and to allow the Burundian Union of Journalists to operate freely."

Burundian Information Minister Nestor Bankumukunzi did not immediately respond to CPJ's requests on the reasons for the ban or the recent detention of journalists.

UBJ Chairman Alexandre Niyungeko told CPJ that the Interior Ministry's decision had neither been officially communicated to the union nor had the union been given any reasons for the order.

"The union has consistently condemned the attacks against the media and the closing of the window for free expression, and we can only conclude that this is the reason for this action," he said.

Burundi, formerly home to a lively news media, has in the past year become so hostile to independent journalists that CPJ is aware of at least 100 Burundian journalists forced to flee the country since April 2015. Those who remain risk arrest, or worse. SNR officers on October 2 arrested Salvador Nahimana, a reporter for the Catholic station Radio Maria, without specifying a reason for his arrest, CPJ reported at the time. Nahimana remains in state custody.

Another journalist, Jean Bigirimana of the newspaper Iwacu, has been missing since July 22. CPJ reported at the time that Bigirimana left his house after receiving a call from the intelligence service and has not been seen since. Bigirimana's family have told reporters they believe he was arrested or killed.

Copyright notice:  Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved. Articles may be reproduced only with permission from CPJ.